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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Barbara Ladd, by Charles G. D. Roberts
+
+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: Barbara Ladd
+
+Author: Charles G. D. Roberts
+
+Illustrator: Frank Verbeck
+
+Release Date: November 10, 2010 [EBook #34270]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BARBARA LADD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Cover art]
+
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: _Leaning over the edge of the porch she dropped the
+bundle soundlessly into a bed of marigolds_. (_Page_ 13)]
+
+
+
+
+
+BARBARA LADD
+
+
+BY
+
+CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS
+
+
+
+  AUTHOR OF
+
+  THE KINDRED OF THE WILD, THE HEART OF THE
+  ANCIENT WOOD, A SISTER TO EVANGELINE,
+  POEMS, ETC.
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATED BY
+
+FRANK VERBECK
+
+
+
+
+NEW YORK
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP
+
+PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1902,
+
+BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
+  (Incorporated).
+
+All Rights Reserved.
+
+
+
+Published October, 1902
+
+
+Eighth Impression, April, 1908.
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+"LEANING OVER THE EDGE OF THE PORCH SHE DROPPED THE BUNDLE
+  SOUNDLESSLY INTO A BED OF MARIGOLDS" (_See page 13_) . . . _Frontispiece_
+
+"'WHAT A NICE-LOOKING BOY YOU ARE!' SHE SAID"
+
+"'O MEHITABLE--DEMORALISED--BY BARBARA!' VOWED DOCTOR JOHN"
+
+"HE SANK OFF AGAIN, FALLING BACK INTO BARBARA'S SUPPORTING ARMS"
+
+
+
+
+BARBARA LADD
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+She knew very well that she should have started earlier; but if there
+was one thing that could daunt her wayward and daring little spirit, it
+was the dark.  Now, as she stood, wide-eyed and breathless with
+suspense, beside her open window, the face of the dark began to change.
+A gray pallor came over it, and on a sudden she was aware of a black
+horizon line, ghostly, lonely beyond words, far to the eastward over
+the yet invisible tree-tops.  With this pallor came a chill which
+Barbara felt on her little, trembling hands, on her eyes, and in her
+heart: as if the night, in going, had laid aside its benignity and
+touched the world in farewell with a cold hand of warning and menace.
+Then, here and there a leaf stood out, palely distinct, upon the thick
+frondage of the apple-tree whose nearest branches crowded the roof of
+the porch below her window.  There was a faint chirping from the heart
+of the syringa thicket; and Barbara's ears were so attentive that she
+caught the drowsy, awakening flutter of small wings down below in the
+dewy gloom.  With the sound came a cool and delicate pungency from the
+wet currant bushes, puffed upward to her as if the garden world beneath
+the leaves had drawn a long breath in getting ready to awake.  This
+tonic scent, which nostrils less keen than Barbara's would scarcely
+have discerned, came to the child as a signal for action.  Peculiarly
+sensitive to the message and influence of odours, she felt this sudden
+fragrance in her nerves as a summons, a promise, and a challenge, all
+in one.  Noiselessly she pushed the two diamond-paned leaves of her
+window open to their widest.  How the grayness was spreading!  A pang
+of apprehension seized her, lest she had delayed too long.  She turned
+impulsively, and stepped into the darkness of her room.
+
+In a moment her slim little figure reappeared at the window, this time
+heavily encumbered.  In one hand was a round, soft bundle, in the other
+a square wicker basket with a white cloth tied over the top.  The white
+cloth glimmered conspicuously, but the light was not yet strong enough
+to reveal the colour of the bundle.  Setting both the burdens out upon
+the roof of the porch, she turned, glanced in at the window, and said,
+softly:
+
+"Good-bye, little room!  I haven't been happy with you.  But I hope you
+won't be lonely when I'm gone!"
+
+Leaning over the edge of the porch, she dropped the bundle soundlessly
+into a bed of marigolds.  The basket, on the other hand, she took up
+with care.  Thrusting her left arm through the handle, she swung
+herself nimbly into the apple-tree, and thence to the ground; while the
+basket tipped and slewed as if it were alive.
+
+"Be still, my babies!" she whispered; and then, picking up the bundle
+from the crushed marigolds, and never turning her head to look up at
+the stately old house which she was leaving, she fled down the walk
+between the currant and gooseberry bushes, the thyme, the sage, and
+summer savoury beds,--through a narrow wicket gate half-hidden in
+larkspur and honeysuckle,--along the foot-path through the rank and
+dripping burdocks back of the barn, where she felt a little qualm of
+homesickness at the sound of her dear horses breathing deeply and
+contentedly in the stalls,--and thence, letting down one of the bars
+and crawling through with her burdens, out into the graying, hillocky
+open of the cow-pasture.
+
+By this time a cool and luminous wave of pink, changing to pale saffron
+at its northeastern edges, had crept up over the far-off hilltops.
+Faint tinges of colour, of a strange and unusual transparency, began to
+reveal themselves all over the expanse of pasture.  As the miracle of
+dawn thus overtook her, a sense of unreality came upon Barbara's soul.
+She felt as if this were not she, this little girl so adventurously
+running away--but rather some impossible child in a story-book, who had
+so engaged her sympathies for the moment that she could not be sure
+which was make-believe and which herself.  With a chill of lonesome
+dread she slipped a hand under the cloth and into the basket.  The
+touch of warm, live, cuddling fur reassured her, and brought her back
+to her own identity.  But stranger and stranger grew the mystical
+transparency, only made the more startling by a fleece of vapour here
+and there curling up from between the hillocks.  Stumps, weed-tops,
+patches of juniper, tufts of blueberry bush, wisps of coarse grass left
+uncropped, seemed to detach themselves, lift, and float in the solvent
+clarity of that new-born air, that new-born light.  Surely, this was
+not her old, familiar world!  Barbara stood still, her great eyes
+dilating, her lips parted in a kind of ecstasy, as sense and spirit
+alike drank in the marvel of the dawn.  It seemed to her as if she
+discovered, in that moment, that the world was made anew with every
+morning,--and with the discovery she became aware, dimly but securely,
+that she was herself a part of the imperishable, ever-renewing life.
+
+She was brought back to more instant considerations by the sudden
+appearance of a red-and-white cow, which got up with a great, windy,
+grunting breath, and came toward her out of a misty hollow.  With all
+the cows of the herd Barbara was in high favour, but just now the sight
+alarmed her.
+
+"Gracious!" she exclaimed to herself, "Abby will be out to milk in
+another minute!"--and she broke into a run at the best speed that her
+burdens would permit, making for the maple woods which lay to the north
+of the pasture.  The cow looked and mooed after her wistfully,
+wondering at her flight, and aching for the relief of the milker's
+hand.  But Barbara paid no heed to her, nor to the others of the herd,
+who now came into view from corners of the pasture as the enchanted
+light grew and spread.  She darted on, vanishing in the hollows,
+flitting over the hillocks, fleetly threading the crooked and slender
+path,--a wisp-like, dark little figure.  Her bundle, now seen to be
+tied up in a silk shawl of flamelike scarlet, and the snow-white
+covering of her basket, flickered across the mystical transparency of
+the landscape like bubbles of intense light blown far in advance of the
+morning.
+
+Not till she came to the other side of the pasture and plunged into the
+obscurity of the woods did Barbara check her speed.  Here the dawn was
+but beginning to penetrate, thrusting thin shafts of pink-amber light
+here and there through the leafage, and touching the eastward sides of
+trunk and branch with elusive glories.  Breathing quickly, Barbara set
+down the bundle and the precious basket; but she snatched them up again
+as she caught a sound of panting and running behind her.  On the
+instant, however, the alarm faded from her face.
+
+"Down, Keep!" she commanded, sharply, as the gaunt gray form of a
+mastiff leaped upon her, almost carrying her off her feet.  Fawning,
+and giving little yelps of joy, the huge animal crouched before her,
+pounding the sward with ecstatic tail, and implored to lick her hands.
+She threw both arms about the dog's head, murmuring to him, poignantly
+impetuous, her voice tearful with self-reproach:
+
+"Was his best friend going away, without ever saying good-bye to him?
+Well, she was bad, she was very, very bad!"  And she wiped away several
+large, surreptitious tears upon the furry folds of his neck.  Then she
+sprang up and renewed her journey resolutely; while the mastiff,
+bounding in front of her, showed his plain conviction that some fine,
+audacious adventure was afoot, and that it would be his great luck to
+have a part in it.
+
+For more than a mile Barbara followed the wood-path, the fresh, wet
+gloom lightening about her as she went.  Where the maples thinned away,
+and the slenderer ash and birch took their place, she got glimpses of a
+pale sky overhead, dappled with streamers of a fiery violet.  Here and
+there a dripping leaf had caught the colours from above and flashed
+elusive jewels upon her vision.  Here and there the dewy thickets of
+witch-hazel and viburnum crowded so close about the path that her
+skirts and shoulders were drenched with their scented largess.  Here
+and there in her path rose suddenly a cluster of night-born
+toadstools--squat, yellow, and fat-fleshed, or tall, shadowy-hooded,
+and whitely venomous--over which she stepped with wary aversion.  And
+once, eager as was her haste, she stopped to pick a great, lucent,
+yellow orchid, which seemed to beam like a sacred lamp in its dark
+green shrine beneath the alders.
+
+At length the path dipped sharply between rocks overgrown with poison
+ivy.  Then the trees thinned away before her, and the day grew at once
+full of light; and the mirror-surface of a little lake, shining with
+palest crocus-tint and violet and silvery rose, obscured with patches
+of dissolving mist, flashed upon her eyes.  She ran down to the very
+edge, where the water seemed to breathe among its fringing pebbles, and
+there set down the bundle and the basket; while the dog, yelping
+joyously, bounded and splashed in the shallows.
+
+When, however, Barbara stepped up the bank to a thicket of Indian
+willow, and proceeded, by dint of carefully calculated lifting and
+pulling, to drag forth from its hiding-place a ruddy canoe of
+birch-bark, the dog's spirits and his flaunting tail fell together.  If
+Barbara's venture was to be in the canoe, he knew he should have no
+part in it; and his big, doggish heart was dejected.  With his tongue
+hanging from his jaws, he sat up on his brindled haunches and looked
+on, while slowly and laboriously Barbara worked the frail craft down to
+the water.  When it was afloat, and the resined prow pulled up into a
+tuft of weeds to keep it from drifting away, Barbara fetched two
+paddles from the same hiding-place.  In the bow of the canoe she stowed
+her bundle and her basket.  In the stern she arranged a pile of ferns
+as a cushion for her knees.  Once more she flung her arms around Keep's
+massive neck, kissed his silky ears, wept violently for the smallest
+fraction of a minute; and then, stepping into the canoe with the light
+precision of one skilled with the birch-bark, she pushed off, and with
+quick, vigorous strokes headed straight across the lake.  The dog ran
+uneasily up and down the water's edge, whining and fretting after her.
+When she was a little way out he made a sudden resolution, plunged into
+the water, and swam eagerly after the fugitive.  But Barbara heard the
+splash, and understood.  She realised that he would surely upset the
+canoe in trying to get into it, and this was the time when she must
+seem hard, however her heart was melting.  She looked back over her
+shoulder.
+
+"Go home, Keep!  Go home!" she commanded.
+
+The dog turned obediently and made for shore.  And Barbara, her lips
+set and the big tears rolling down her cheeks, continued her journey
+out across the lake.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+It was now clear day.  The ample spaces of blue between the thin clouds
+overhead grew pure, as if new bathed.  The sun was not yet visible over
+the woods, but sent level shafts of radiance through the sparser
+leafage.  Barbara's face was westward, and her prow, as the nervous
+cunning of her paddle urged it forward, threw off the water on either
+side in long, polished, fluted furrows, dazzlingly bright at the top of
+the curve and steel-dark in the depression.  Child as she was, and of a
+fairy slightness, Barbara's wrists were strong and she was master of
+her paddle.  Her tears presently dried themselves as she noted with
+exultation, by the growing depth and abruptness of these furrows from
+her prow, that she was making a speed that did credit to her
+canoe-craft.  In a few minutes her parting pangs were all forgotten,
+and she was absorbed in racing, as it were, against herself.  She knelt
+low, working her shoulders freely like a squaw, and bent every energy
+to making the passage of the open before a wind out of the morning
+should awake to hinder her progress.
+
+A low, green point, deep-plumed with sedge, thrust out from the nearing
+shore to meet her.  At its tip, motionless, and eloquent of ancient
+mystery, poised the dream-like shape of a blue heron.  Nearer and
+nearer slipped the canoe, till Barbara could discern the round,
+unwinking jewel of the great bird's eye, watching her inscrutably.
+Then, with leisurely spread of spacious wings, it rose and flapped
+away, to renew its not wholly disinterested contemplations in a further
+reed-bed.
+
+Behind the point of sedges Barbara swept the canoe on a fine curve, and
+into the channel of a little river, the quiet outlet of the lake.
+Alders, osiers, and thick-starred draperies of clematis came down over
+either bank.  The stream was not twenty paces wide, and its deep
+current was so gentle that the long weeds on the bottom were hardly
+under compulsion to show which way it flowed.
+
+The ancient wood at this place gave back several hundred yards from the
+lake, save for scattered outposts and thickets.  Rounding the first
+curve of the stream,--which, indeed, seemed all curves in its
+reluctance to forsake the parent water,--the canoe ran into a flock of
+gray-and-white geese dabbling along the weedy margin.  The birds were
+not alarmed, but they lifted their heads and clamoured a sonorous
+warning; and straightway from behind the screen of leafage came a
+quacking of ducks, a cackling of hens, and the excited barking of a
+puppy.  Then a cock crowed shrilly.  The stream rounded to a wider
+stretch, and its western bank, flooded with sunshine, showed a grassy
+clearing of perhaps two acres in extent, at the back of which, close
+against the primeval trees, huddled a low, gray cabin, with wide eaves
+and a red door.  A hop-vine covered one end of the cabin and sprawled
+over the roof.  Along the base ran a "banking" about two feet high, of
+rough boards with the bark on, supported by stakes and filled in with
+earth--a protection to the cellar against winter frosts.  Leaned up to
+the sun, along the banking, stood wooden tubs and an iron pot; and on a
+bench beside the door another tub.  In front of the door was a space of
+chips, littered with axe, buck-saw, feed-troughs, parts of a broken
+hand-sled, a large wicker basket with the bottom gone, and
+indeterminate waifs and strays of human use.  From this space of débris
+a foot-path ran down through short grass to the waterside, where a
+clumsy punt was hauled up.  The place was alive with ducks and
+chickens; and as Barbara came in view a stately turkey-cock swelled,
+strutted, and gobbled defiance to her intrusion.
+
+Sitting on the door-step in the sun was a sturdy old woman in greenish
+homespun petticoat and bodice, with a dull red kerchief crossed upon
+her shoulders and a cap of greenish-yellow linen on her head,--the soft
+dye of the "yaller-weed" juice.  She was busy cutting coloured rags
+into strips for mat-hooking.  At her side sat a small yellow puppy,
+with head cocked and one ear alertly lifted, curious but doubtful as to
+the visitor.
+
+Barbara turned her birchen prow to the landing-place, and ran it gently
+ashore in the soft mud beside the punt.  At the same moment Mrs.
+Deborah Blue--known to Barbara and to all the village of Second
+Westings as 'old Debby'--dropped her knitting on the stoop, snatched up
+a stout stick that leaned against the door-post, and hobbled with a
+heavy briskness down the path to meet the visitor.  The yellow pup
+frisked interestedly at her heels.
+
+Barbara had indeed run her prow ashore, but that was for the sake of
+stability merely.  She was in haste, and had no idea of stopping now to
+indulge her inclination for a gossip with old Debby.  She rested in
+silence, one brown hand on the gunwale of the punt, her full, young,
+wilful lips very scarlet, her gray-green eyes asparkle with mystery and
+excitement, as the old woman hobbled down to greet her.
+
+"Ain't ye comin' in to set awhile, an' eat a cooky, Miss Barby?"
+inquired Mrs. Blue, wondering at the child's inscrutable look.  The old
+dame's face was red and harsh and strongly lined.  Her chin was square
+and thrust forward aggressively, with a gray-bristled wart at one side
+of its obtrusive vigour.  A lean and iron-gray wisp of hair, escaped
+from under her hat, straggled down upon her red neck.  But her shrewd,
+hard, pale-blue, dauntless old eyes beamed upon the child with
+unfeigned welcome.  She spoke a little wheezingly, being out of breath
+from haste; and Barbara was the only soul in all the township of Second
+Westings for whom old Debby would condescend to hasten.
+
+"No, Debby dear, I can't stop one minute.  I'm not coming ashore.  I'm
+running away from Aunt Hitty, and I'm going down the river to Uncle
+Bob.  I just stopped to say good-bye to you, you old dear, and to ask
+you to take this letter for me to Aunt Hitty.  I didn't dare to leave
+it in my room, for fear she'd find it and know where I'd gone, and send
+after me before I'd got a good start.  I don't like Aunt Hitty, you
+know, Debby, but she's been good to me in her way, and I don't want her
+to be worrying!"  She held out a folded paper for the old dame to take;
+but she held it tentatively, as if she did not want to surrender it at
+once.
+
+Knowing Barbara as no one else in the township of Second Westings knew
+her, old Debby betrayed neither surprise nor disapproval.  She nodded
+several times, as if running away were the most reasonable, and indeed
+the most ordinary, thing in the world for a little girl of fourteen
+years to do when she found aunts and environments uncongenial.  Old
+Debby's smile, at this moment, had just the right degree of sympathy.
+Had ever so little of amusement glimmered through its weather-beaten
+creases, she knew that the sensitive and wilful girl before her would
+have been off in a second with her venture all unexplained.
+
+"I'd take it fer ye, my sweeting, ef I'd got to crawl on my knees all
+the way 'round the lake," the old dame answered promptly; but at the
+same time, scheming to prolong the interview, and knowing that if once
+Barbara started off again there would be no such thing as luring her
+back, she kept both hands clasped on top of her stick and made no move
+to accept the missive.
+
+"Ain't ye goin' to read it to me?" she went on, coaxingly.  "I'd give a
+sight to hear what ye're sayin' to yer Aunt Hitty."
+
+Now this was just what Barbara wanted, in spite of her haste.  She
+wanted to hear how her letter would sound.  She wanted to try it on old
+Debby, in whom she felt sure of a eulogistic critic.  Without a word
+she untied the yellow ribbon, opened the packet, and began to read,
+with a weighty impressiveness in her childish voice:
+
+
+"MY DEAR AUNT HITTY:--This is to say farewell for ever, for I have run
+away.  I do not think it would be good for me to live with you any
+longer, so I am going to Uncle Bob.  He loves me, and does not think I
+am bad.  And I think he needs me, too, because I understand him.  I
+know I have often been bad, and have made you unhappy very often, Aunt
+Hitty.  But I don't think you ever understand me--and I don't
+understand you--and so we cannot be happy together.  But don't be
+worried about me, for I will be all right.  And I thank you for all the
+trouble you have taken about me.  I don't want any of my old clothes
+except what I have brought with me, so please give them to Mercy
+Chapman, because she is poor and just about my size, and always kind to
+animals, and I like her.  I have taken your nice basket you got from
+the squaw last Saturday, to carry my kittens in; but I know you won't
+mind, because you offered to give it to me when I did not know I was
+going to need it.  I have taken the canoe, too, but I want to pay for
+it, of course, Aunt Hitty.  Please keep enough to get a new one, and
+paddles, out of the money you are taking care of for me, and send the
+rest right away to Uncle Bob, because I'll need some new frocks when I
+get to the city, and I don't know whether Uncle Bob has any money or
+not.  Good-bye, Aunt Hitty, and I am so sorry that we could not
+understand each other.
+
+"Your niece,
+  "BARBARA LADD."
+
+
+She looked up, proud, but a little anxious, and eager for commendation.
+Old Debby rose to the circumstances.
+
+"Law, how you kin write, Miss Barby," she said, with a nod and chuckle.
+"The parson nor Doctor Jim couldn't 'a' done no better.  I reckon Aunt
+Hitty'll understand ye now, a sight better'n she's given to understand
+folks as don't jest think as she do.  Give me the letter!"
+
+Barbara's face flashed radiantly.  With a sudden impulse she sprang up,
+skipped ashore, thrust the letter into the old woman's hand, and cried
+in a high key:
+
+"Oh, I'm so hungry, Debby!  I can't stop a minute, but do give me some
+breakfast, there's a dear.  I was too excited to eat before I left.
+And do give my kittens a drop of milk.  I've got nothing but cold meat
+for them to eat on the journey, poor babies!"
+
+Without waiting for a reply, she skipped back to the canoe, grabbed up
+the covered basket, and flew up the path to the cottage; while the old
+woman limped after her with astonishing speed, chuckling and wheezing
+out a disjointed invitation.  She followed Barbara into the cabin,
+shutting the door to keep out the puppy, who whined in an injured voice
+upon the stoop.  Then, thinking of the kittens first,--and thereby
+showing her deep knowledge of the kittens' mistress,--she set down a
+bowl of milk in the middle of the floor; and Barbara, uncovering the
+basket, lovingly lifted out three plump, moon-faced little cats, a
+yellow-and-white, a black-and-white, and a gray-and-white.  While the
+three, with happy tails erect, lapped at the milk, Barbara made haste
+to devour thick slices of brown bread and butter, spread to a luscious
+depth with moist, sweet-scented maple sugar.  She had no time to talk.
+She sat on the edge of the big four-post bed, swinging her slim legs,
+and kicking her heels against the dingy, gay patchwork quilt whose
+ample folds hung to the floor.  The hidden space under the bed was a
+place of piquant mystery to Barbara, containing, as it did, boxes on
+boxes of many-coloured rags, out of which, earlier in the season, old
+Debby would bring forth precious goose-eggs, duck-eggs, turkey-eggs,
+and the specially prized eggs of certain pet and prolific hens,
+gathered against the time of setting.  While Barbara broke her fast,
+old Debby refrained from questions, having shrewdly grasped the whole
+situation.  She knew that Mr. Robert Glenowen, Barbara's uncle, had
+lately come north on an errand which nobody seemed to understand, and
+had taken a house at Stratford.  Of a nomadic spirit in her younger
+days, Debby had moved much here and there throughout her native
+Connecticut, and over the bordering counties of New York and
+Massachusetts; and she had not only a rough idea of the distance from
+Second Westings to Stratford, but a very vivid realisation of the
+perils of the journey which Barbara, in her innocence, had so
+confidently undertaken.  Till she saw that the appetites of Barbara and
+the kittens were nearing satisfaction, she talked with a sort of casual
+enthusiasm of her luck with the chickens, the goslings, the young
+turkeys, and depicted the prowess of an old speckled hen which had
+engaged and defeated a marauding hawk.  Then, when at last Barbara
+sprang up, bundled the satiated kittens into the basket, and turned to
+her for a fond and final good-bye, the crafty old dame broke into
+passionate farewells.  She kissed the child, and even wept over her,
+till Barbara's self-centred exaltation was very near collapse.
+
+"_You_ love me, don't you, Debby dear?" she exclaimed, with a
+wistfulness in her voice, searching the old woman's face with her
+great, eager, strangely alien eyes.  Barbara was one of those who
+colour the moods of others by their own, and who are therefore apt to
+be at fault in their interpretation of another's motives.  This gave
+her, even in childhood, a strangeness, an aloneness of personality,
+which she, as well as those who loved her, could seldom break down.  It
+was with a kind of heart-break that she now and again, for an instant,
+became dimly aware of this alien fibre in her temperament.  It made her
+both misunderstanding and misunderstood.
+
+"I can trust you, can't I?" she went on, leaning childishly for a
+moment upon the old woman's comfortable breast.
+
+"Trust old Debby, my sweeting!" cried the old dame, in tones which
+carried conviction.  "Ye hain't got no lovinger nor faithfuller friend
+alive than me.  Don't ye never forgit that, Miss Barby."
+
+For answer Barbara clutched her fiercely around the neck, sobbed and
+clung to her for a moment, cried extravagantly, "Yes, you are the best
+friend I've got in all the world!" then gathered up her basket of
+kittens and fled wildly down the path to the canoe.  Impetuously she
+pushed off, the world a golden blur before her eyes; and without once
+looking back, she disappeared around the next winding of the stream.
+Old Debby stood for some minutes gazing after this meteor-like--and
+very Barbara-like--exit.  There was amusement now, unhindered, on her
+hard old face, but a kind of fierce devotion withal.  When the stern of
+the canoe had vanished behind the leafage, she muttered to herself:
+"Well!  Well!  Well! was ever sech a child!  When ye set yer finger
+onto her, she ain't there!  I reckon that mincing-mouthed Aunt Kitty's
+hed her bad times, too.  But the sooner I git 'round to see Doctor Jim
+the better it's goin' to be fer the little wild witch.  Land's sakes
+alive!  But 'twon't be 'Debby dear' to me agin fer awhile.  How them
+eyes'll blaze!  I'll not go nigh her till she's hed time to git over it
+an' to know who's really her friends.  No, Pippin, ye can't come with
+me!  Go 'way!"
+
+Turning into the long lean-to of a shed which stretched behind the
+cabin, she brought out two stumpy oars.  These under her left arm, her
+stalwart stick in her right hand, she limped with massive alertness
+down to the waterside, shoved off the punt, climbed into it with a
+nicety of balance remarkable in one of her weight, clicked the oars
+into the rowlocks, and pulled up-stream toward the lake whence Barbara
+had come.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+The child who set forth so fearlessly, on so audacious and
+ill-regulated a venture, that midsummer morning of the year 1769,--in a
+time when audacity on the part of small girls was apt to meet the
+discouragement of a peculiarly strenuous discipline,--was an accident
+in her period, an irreconcilable alien to her environment.  In her
+intense individuality, and in the confident freedom with which she
+claimed the right to express that individuality, she belonged to an
+earlier or a later day, but not to a New England of the eighteenth
+century.  Two years before, at the age of twelve, an age when other
+children's personalities were colourless to the eyes of their elders,
+she had been projected into the tranquil routine of the little world of
+Second Westings.  It was an established, crystallised, unchanging life
+there in the back country of Connecticut, where hours, seasons,
+actions, habits, revolved in so orderly a fashion as to have worn
+themselves grooves out of which they could hardly even look, still less
+achieve to deviate.  Into this rigid placidity the dark child came like
+a grain of ferment; and presently, no one could tell just how, the mass
+began to work.  Barbara was everywhere discussed.  She was rather
+unanimously disapproved of.  And, nevertheless, as it were in the teeth
+of all probability, she won to herself here and there a friend.
+
+At the time of Barbara's transplanting from the cordial soil of
+Maryland to the austere uplands of Connecticut, her father, the
+Reverend Winthrop Hopkins Ladd, clergyman of the Established Church,
+had been dead over two years, and the child's hurt, as such things
+will, had outwardly healed; though the hidden wounds would agonise in
+her heart at unexpected times, set vibrating to some poignant touch of
+scent or sound or colour.  The child had adored her father with a
+tempestuous and jealous devotion, which, however, had not prevented her
+waywardness from diversifying his repose with many a wakeful night.
+Her mother, who had died when Barbara was scarce out of arms, had been
+a bewildering birth from the kiss of North Wales on the warm south of
+Spanish passion.  The son of an old Welsh family, adventuring to the
+New World to capture himself a fortune, had captured himself also a
+wife to beggar envy.  Where or how he got the fortune, no man knew and
+few presumed to wonder; but where and how he got the wife was matter of
+noonday knowledge.  He saw her at church in New Orleans.  There were
+looks that burn and live.  Through that emotional spring Glenowen
+sniffed the incense of more masses than he had thought to attend in a
+lifetime.  Once there was a stolen word behind a pillar, eyes warily
+averted.  Twice notes passed from hand to hand.  Then a girl, the
+daughter of one of the haughtiest houses of Colonial Spain, was
+audaciously carried off by night from a convent school in the safe
+heart of the city.  When next seen of the world, she was Glenowen's
+wife, most radiantly and graciously dispensing an accepted hospitality
+in Baltimore.
+
+The result that in particular pertains to this history was a small,
+flame-like, imperious girl, one Mistress Mercedes Glenowen, who, from
+the night of ceremony when she first made her bow to the governor and
+joyously turned her disastrous eyes upon the society of Baltimore, for
+the space of some three years dispersed vain heartache throughout the
+colony.  Into the remotest plantations went the name of her and the
+fame of her--and too often, also, the sickness of a hopeless desire of
+her.  There were duels, too, discreetly laid to other cause; and old
+friendships changed to hate; and wild oaths made perjury.  But the
+heart of Mistress Mercedes went free.  A quiet young clergyman, a
+kinsman to the governor, came to Baltimore from Boston, on his way to a
+country parish on the Pawtuxet, to which he had just been appointed.
+Dining at Government House, he met Mistress Mercedes, but his eyes,
+being at that moment immersed in dreams, looked not upon but through
+and beyond her.  Mercedes could not rest an instant until those
+far-wandering, Northern eyes were ensnared, imprisoned, and denied a
+range beyond the boundaries of her heart.  But the capture was not a
+quick one, and in the interest of it she had the accident to become
+herself entangled, to such a degree that she had no longer any use for
+freedom.  And so it came about, to the wrathful amaze of her retinue,
+but the unspeakable content of the Reverend Winthrop Ladd, that the
+dark rose of Maryland was on a sudden removed from Baltimore to bloom
+on a churchly plantation by the pale waters of the Pawtuxet.
+
+Mr. Ladd, though a dreamer so far as consisted with outdoor life and
+sanity of brain and muscle, was a strong man, one of those who have the
+force to rule when they must, and the gentleness to yield when they
+may.  In the passionate completeness of her love, Mercedes sloughed the
+caprices that would have pained and puzzled him, forgot the very echoes
+of the acclamations of her court, and lived in the sanctuary of her
+husband's devotion.  For nearly three years the strangely assorted
+lovers dwelt in their dream, while the world passed by them like a
+pageant viewed through a glory of coloured glass.  Then a sudden
+sickness tore them apart; and when the dazed man came slowly back to
+the realisation that he had been left to live, all his love, with all
+the illusion of it, centred itself fixedly upon the little one,
+Barbara, whom Mercedes had left to him.
+
+As Barbara grew more and more like her mother, her ascendency over her
+father grew more and more complete.  Tenderly but firmly he ruled his
+parish and his plantation.  But he gradually forgot to rule Barbara.
+Too nearly did she represent to him all that he had lost in his
+worshipped Mercedes; and he could not bring himself to see anything but
+freshness of character and vigour of personality in the child's very
+faults.  Hence he evolved, to suit her particular case, a theory very
+much out of harmony with his time, to the effect that a child--or
+rather, perhaps, such a child as this of Mercedes--should not be
+governed or disciplined, but guided merely, and fostered in the finding
+of her own untrammelled individuality.  This plan worked, for the time,
+to Barbara's unqualified approval, but she was destined to pay for it,
+in later years, a heavy price in tears, and misunderstandings, and
+repentance.  With the growth of her intense and confident personality
+there grew no balancing strength of self-control.  Unacquainted with
+discipline, she was without the safeguard of self-discipline.  Before
+she was eight years old she held sway over every one on the plantation
+but herself,--and her rule, though pretty and bewitching, was not
+invariably gentle.  As for her father, though ostensively her comrade
+and mentor, he was by this time in reality her slave.  He rode with
+her; he read with her; he taught her,--but such studies only as
+ensnared her wayward inclination, and with such regularity only as fell
+in with her variable mood.  The hour for a lesson on the spinet would
+go by unheeded, if Barbara chanced to be interested in the more
+absorbing occupation of climbing a tree; and the time for reciting
+Latin syntax was lightly forgotten if berries were a-ripening in the
+pasture.  Under such auspices, however, Barbara did assuredly grow
+straight-limbed and active, slight and small indeed, by heritage from
+her mother, but strong and of marvellous endurance, with the clear
+blood red under her dark skin, her great gray-green eyes luminous with
+health.  Her father devoted to her every hour of the day that he could
+spare from the claims of his parish.  In a sunny and sandy cove near
+the house he taught her to swim.  Rowing and canoeing on the Pawtuxet
+were mysteries of outdoor craft into which he initiated her as soon as
+her little hands could pull an oar or swing a paddle.  A certain strain
+of wildness in her temperament attuned her to a peculiar sympathy with
+the canoe, and won her a swift mastery of its furtive spirit.  In the
+woods, and in the seclusion of remote creeks and backwaters, her
+waywardness would vanish till she became silent and elusive as the wild
+things whose confidence she was for ever striving to gain.  Her
+advances being suspiciously repelled by the squirrels, the 'coons, and
+the chipmunks, her passion was fain to expend itself upon the domestic
+animals of the plantation.  The horses, cattle, dogs, and cats, all
+loved her, and she understood them as she never understood the nearest
+and best-beloved of her own kind.  With the animals her patience was
+untiring, her gentleness unfailing, while her thoughtless selfishness
+melted into a devotion for which no sacrifice seemed too great.
+
+The negroes of the plantation, who seemed to Barbara akin to the
+animals, came next to these in her regard, and indeed were treated with
+an indulgence which made them almost literally lay their black necks in
+the dust for her little feet to step on.  But with people of her own
+class she was apt to be hasty and ungracious.  _Their_ feelings were of
+small account in her eyes--certainly not to be weighed for a moment
+against those of a colt or a kitten.  There was one sweet-eyed and
+lumbering half-grown puppy which Barbara's father--not for an instant,
+indeed, believing anything of the sort--used to declare was more
+precious to her than himself.  But her old black "Mammy" 'Lize used to
+vow there was more truth than he guessed in "Marse Ladd's foolin'."
+
+However, when a fever snatched the gentle priest away from the scene of
+his love and kindly ministrations, the child's true self emerged
+through its crust of whim and extravagance.  Stricken beyond a child's
+usual capacity to feel or realise such a blow, she was herself seized
+with a serious illness, after which she fell into a dejection which
+lasted for the better part of a year.  In her desolation she turned to
+her animals rather than to her human companions, and found the more of
+healing in their wordless sympathy.
+
+At last, youth and health asserted themselves, and once more Barbara
+rode, paddled, swam, tyrannised, and ran wild over the plantation,
+while relatives from Maine to Maryland wrangled over her future.
+
+There was one young uncle, her mother's only brother, whom Barbara
+decided to adopt as her sole guardian.  But other guardians came to
+another decision.  Uncle Bob Glenowen was an uncle after Barbara's own
+heart, but a little more disciplined and reasonable than herself.  The
+two would have got on delightfully together--together careering over
+the country on high-mettled horses, together swimming and canoeing at
+the most irregular hours, together lauding and loving their four-foot
+kindred and laughing to scorn the general stupidity of mankind.  But
+Uncle Glenowen had little of gold or gear, and his local habitation was
+mutable.  He loved Barbara too well not to recognise that she should
+grow up under the guidance of steadier hands than his.  It was finally
+settled--Barbara's fiery indignation being quite disregarded--that she
+should go to her father's younger sister, Mistress Mehitable Ladd, in
+Second Westings.
+
+Mistress Ladd was a self-possessed, fair-faced, aristocratic little
+lady, with large blue eyes and a very firm, small mouth.  She was
+conscientious to a point that was wont to bring her kindness, at times,
+into painful conflict with her sense of duty.  The Puritan fibre ran in
+unimpaired vitality through the texture of her being, with the result
+that whenever her heart was so rash as to join issue with her
+conscience, then prompt and disastrous overthrow was the least her
+heart could expect for such presumption.  In the matter of Barbara's
+future, however, Distress Mehitable felt that duty and inclination ran
+together.  She had loved her brother Winthrop with unselfish and
+admiring devotion, and had grieved in secret for years over his
+defection from the austere fold of the Congregationalists to what she
+regarded as the perilously carnal form and ceremony of the Church of
+England.  Her hampered spirit, her uncompleted womanhood, yearned
+toward Barbara, and she shuddered at the idea of Winthrop's child
+growing up untaught, unmothered, uncontrolled.  She made up her mind
+that Barbara should come to Second Westings, become a daughter to her,
+and be reared in the purity of unsullied Congregationalism.  With a
+sigh of concordant relief it was recognised by the other relatives that
+Mehitable was right.  They washed their hands of the child, and forgot
+her, and were thankful--all but Uncle Bob.  And so Barbara went to
+Second Westings.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+Little enough, indeed, would Second Westings ever have seen of the
+heartsore and rebellious child, but for this Uncle Bob.  Searching his
+own spirit, he understood hers; and maintaining a discreet silence as
+to the chief points of his discovery, he set himself the duty of
+accompanying Barbara on the long, complicated journey to Connecticut.
+Not content with delivering his charge into the hands of Mistress
+Mehitable,--whom he liked despite her uneasy half-disapproval of
+himself,--he stayed long summer weeks at Second Westings, thus bridging
+over for Barbara the terrible chasm between the old life and the new,
+and by his tactful conciliation on every side making the new life look
+a little less hatefully alien to her.  He took her riding all over the
+township; he took her canoeing on the lake, and down the outlet to its
+junction with the river; and so not only won her a freedom of movement
+hitherto unheard-of among the maidens of Second Westings, but also
+showed her that the solace of wild woods and sweet waters was to be
+found no less in Connecticut than in her longed-for Maryland.
+Moreover, Uncle Bob had "a presence."  Second Westings scrutinised him
+severely, all ready to condemn the stranger folk to whom Winthrop Ladd
+had turned in his marrying.  But Second Westings felt constrained to
+acknowledge at once that Winthrop Ladd had married within his class.
+To high and low alike--and the line between high and low was sharply
+drawn at Second Westings--it was obvious that the sister of Mr. Robert
+Glenowen must have been gently born.  Those who would not let
+themselves be warmed by Uncle Bob's bright heartsomeness were unable to
+withhold acknowledgment of his good breeding.  Mistress Mehitable,
+though antagonised by vague gossip as to his "wildness," nevertheless
+recognised with serious relief that no common blood had been suffered
+to obscure the clear blue stream whose purity the Ladds held precious.
+"Light, I fear--if not, in other surroundings, ungodly; but beyond all
+cavil a gentleman!" pronounced the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer, flicking
+snuff from his sleeve with white, scholarly fingers.  He was not so
+innocent as to attach too much importance to Uncle Bob's devout
+attitude through those interminable services which made a weekly
+nightmare of the Connecticut Sabbath; but he had found a reserved
+satisfaction in the young man's company over a seemly glass and a pipe
+of bright Virginia.  He had a feeling that the visitor's charm was more
+or less subversive of discipline, and that it would be, on the whole,
+for the spiritual welfare of Second Westings if the visit should be
+brief; but meanwhile he took what he could of Uncle Bob's society.
+Class against creed, and a fair field, and it's long odds on class.
+
+But in the minds of Doctor John and Doctor Jim Pigeon--physicians,
+brothers, comrades, fierce professional rivals, justices of the peace,
+and divinely self-appointed guardians of the sanctity of caste for all
+the neighbourhood--there were no misgivings.  Their instincts accepted
+Bob Glenowen at first glance.  Their great, rugged faces and mighty
+shoulders towering over him,--and Uncle Bob himself was nowise scant of
+stature,--they looked at him and then into each other's eyes; and
+agreed, as they did on most subjects outside the theory and practice of
+medicine.
+
+"You are right welcome to Second Westings, Mr. Glenowen!" exclaimed
+Doctor Jim, in a big, impetuous voice, grasping his hand heartily.
+
+"And we trust that you may be slow to leave us, Mr. Glenowen!" added
+Doctor John, in a voice which any competent jury, blindfolded, would
+have pronounced identical.
+
+Recognising the true fibre and the fineness of these two big, gentle
+autocrats, Uncle Bob made a special point of commending Barbara to
+their hearts--in which commending he so well sped, and indeed was so
+well seconded by Barbara herself, who loved them from the moment when
+her eyes first fell upon them, that they presently constituted
+themselves special guardians to the little maid, and indulgent
+mitigators of Mistress Mehitable's conscience.  The manner in which
+they fulfilled the sometimes conflicting duties of these offices will
+appear pretty persistently in the sequel.
+
+It was to Uncle Bob, also, that Barbara owed the somewhat disreputable
+friendship of old Debby.  The very first day that he and Barbara went
+canoeing on the lake, they explored the outlet, discovered old Debby's
+cabin, paid an uninvited call, and captivated the old dame's crusty
+heart.  Glenowen knew human nature.  He had the knack of going straight
+to the quintessential core of it, and pinning his faith to that in
+spite of all unpromising externals.  He decided at once that Debby
+would be a good diversion for Barbara after he was gone; and when,
+later in the day, he learned that the old woman was universally but
+vaguely reprobated by the prim folk of Second Westings, he was more
+than ever assured that she would be a comfort to Barbara through many a
+dark hour of strangerhood and virtuous misunderstanding.
+
+But Uncle Bob's visit had to end.  He went away with misgivings,
+leaving Barbara to pit her careless candour, her thoughtless
+self-absorption, her scorn of all opinions that differed from her own,
+her caprices, her passionate enthusiasms, her fierce intolerance of
+criticism or control, against the granitic conventions of an old New
+England village.  The half guilty, half amused support of Doctor John
+and Doctor Jim gave importance to her revolt, and so lightened the rod
+of Aunt Kitty's discipline as to save Barbara from the more ignominious
+of the penalties which her impetuous wilfulness would otherwise have
+incurred.  The complete, though forbidden, sympathy of old Debby,
+affording the one safe outlet to her tumultuous resentments and
+passionate despairs, saved the child from brain-sickness; and once,
+indeed, on a particularly black day of humiliation, from suicide.
+Barbara had shaken the very foundations of law, order, and religion, by
+riding at a wild gallop, one Sunday afternoon, down the wide main
+street of Second Westings just as the good folk were coming out of
+meeting.  Her rebellious waves of dark hair streamed out behind her
+little head.  Her white teeth flashed wickedly between her parted
+scarlet lips, her big eyes flamed with the intoxication of liberty and
+protest--to these good folk it seemed an unholy light.  Barbara ought
+to have been at meeting, but had been left at home, reluctantly, by
+Aunt Hitty, because she had seemed too sick to get out of bed.  In very
+truth she had been sick beyond all feigning.  Then one of those violent
+reactions of recovery which sometimes cause the nervous temperament to
+be miserably misunderstood had seized her at an inauspicious moment.
+As the tide of young vitality surged back to brain and vein and nerve,
+she had felt that she must let herself loose in wild action, or die.
+All unrealising the enormity of the offence, she had flung down her mad
+defiance to the sanctified and iron-bound repose of the New England
+Sabbath.
+
+Such a sacrilege could not be overlooked or condoned.  The congregation
+was appalled.  Long upper lips were drawn down ominously, as austere
+eyes followed the vision of the fleeing child on the great black horse.
+Could it be that she was possessed of a devil?  Pitying eyes were
+turned upon Aunt Hitty; and triumphant eyes of gratified grudge,
+moreover, for Aunt Hitty was proud, and had virtuous ill-wishers in the
+village.  But Mistress Mehitable Ladd was equal to the occasion.  With
+a level stare of her blue eyes, a cold tranquillity upon her small,
+fine mouth, she froze comment and forestalled suggestion.  The feeling
+went abroad, in a subtle way, that the case would be dealt with and the
+piety of Second Westings vindicated in the eyes of Heaven.  Doctor John
+and Doctor Jim looked grave, and said not a word.  This was a time when
+Mistress Mehitable, they well knew, would brook no interference.
+
+Of course there could be no question of such correction as would have
+fallen to the lot of any ordinary offender.  There could be no such
+thing as putting a _Ladd_ in the stocks.  The regular machinery of
+village law rested quiescent.  Equally of course, Mistress Mehitable
+would do nothing in anger.  She was humiliated before the whole
+village, in a manner that could never be forgotten or wiped out.  But
+her first feeling and her last feeling were alike of sorrow only.  She
+would do her duty because Winthrop's child must be saved.  But she had
+no proud consciousness of virtue in doing it.  First, she attempted to
+explain to Barbara the depth, quality, and significance of her sin, its
+possible influence upon the ethics of Second Westings if allowed to go
+unpunished, the special variety of inherited evil which it revealed in
+her nature, and her stupendous need of having this evil eradicated by
+devotedly merciless correction.  After the first few words of this
+exhortation, Barbara heard no more.  She was at all times fiercely
+impatient of criticism, and now, being determined not to fly into a
+fury and further complicate her predicament, she shut her eyes,
+inwardly closed her ears, and concentrated her imagination on memories
+of the longed-for plantation by the Pawtuxet.  This concentration gave
+her vivid little face an air of quietude, subjection, and voiceless
+sorrow, which Aunt Hitty was glad to construe as repentance.  But it
+earned no mitigation of punishment.  For one whole week Barbara was a
+prisoner in her room, eating her heart out in hatred of the stupidity
+and injustice of life.  Then came around, at last, another Sabbath.
+Barbara was taken to church.  There her proud soul was affronted by a
+public rebuke from the pastor, who exhorted her from the pulpit,
+contented the congregation by a rehearsal of her punishment, and held
+her up as an example to the other children of the village.  Barbara
+listened with shut eyes and white lips, her heart bursting with rage.
+She ached to kill him, to kill her aunt, to annihilate Second
+Westings--saving only the animals, old Debby, Mercy Chapman, Doctor
+John and Doctor Jim.  But when the good divine went on to say that her
+discipline would be concluded with a wholesome chastisement on the
+morrow, in the privacy of the house to which her sinful conduct had
+brought grief,--then, indeed, her heart stood still.  She felt a great
+calmness come over her.  She made up her mind to escape by her window
+that very evening and drown herself in the lake.  If life contained
+such horrors she would have done with it.
+
+She did not go that night, however, because she feared the dark.  It
+was gray dawn when she climbed from her window.  Blind, resolved,
+swift-footed, she fled through the woods.  Old Debby, resting in her
+punt by the lake's edge, not far from the Ladd landing-place, was
+pulling some sweet-rooted water-plants of a virtue known only to
+herself, when she was startled by a heavy splash and a little gasping
+cry which came from the other side of a steep point some four or five
+rods distant.  Her vigorous old arms drove the punt through the water
+in mad haste--for there was something in the cry that wrenched at her
+heart.  Rounding the point, she stood close in to the foot of a rock
+which jutted out into five or six feet of water.  Peering down over the
+side of the punt, she saw lying on the bottom a slim, small body.  A
+groan burst from her lips, for Barbara's face was half visible; and the
+old woman understood at once.  She had heard the village gossip, and
+she had feared a tragedy.  She knew that Barbara could swim,--but there
+was her long scarf of red silk twisted about the little arms lest
+resolution should falter in the face of the last great demand.
+
+For a second old Debby was at fault.  She could not swim.  Then her
+brain worked.  Reaching down with one of the oars, she twisted the
+blade tightly into the skirt of the child's gown, pulled her up, and
+snatched her into the boat.  Experienced and ready in emergency, the
+old woman thrust ashore, laid the moveless little figure down upon a
+mossy hillock, and in a very few minutes succeeded in bringing it back
+to conscious life.  She asked no questions, while Barbara clung to her,
+sobbing spasmodically at long intervals.  She murmured pet names to
+her, caressed and soothed her, told her she was safe and no one should
+abuse her, and finally, lifting her into the punt and laying her gently
+on an armful of sweet bracken in the stern, rowed over the lake to her
+cabin.  Throughout the journey Barbara lay with closed eyes, while the
+young life, slowly but obstinately reasserting itself, brought back the
+colour to cheeks and lips.  Only once did she speak.  Lifting her lids,
+she gazed fixedly at the hard-lined old face that bent over the swaying
+oars.
+
+"Oh, why did you do it, Debby dear?" she asked, weakly.  "If you knew
+how I hate to live!"
+
+"Tut! tut! honey!" answered the old woman, with a cheerful positiveness
+that made her despair suddenly seem to Barbara unreasonable and unreal.
+"Ye don't want to die yet awhile.  An' whatever ye want, ye cain't die
+yet awhile, fer I've seen it in yer blessed little hands that ye've got
+a long life afore ye.  Moresoever, I read it that life's got a heap of
+happiness in store fer ye.  So you be brave, Miss Barby, an' think how
+Uncle Bob would 'a' broke his poor heart if ye'd got yer own way an'
+drownded yerself."
+
+"Yes," murmured Barbara, drowsily, sinking away into peace after her
+long pain, "Uncle Bob would have been sorry!"  Then, after a pause, she
+added softly under her breath: "I'll run away and go to Uncle Bob some
+day!"
+
+Old Debby heard the words, but made no comment.  She stored them in her
+memory, and afterward kept crafty watch whenever she saw, by Barbara's
+mood, that a crisis was on at Aunt Kitty's.  For the time, however, she
+felt no great anxiety, it being very plain to her that this present
+crisis was past, and that Barbara was no longer strung up to the pitch
+of violent action or any course that would require initiative.  Nerve
+and will alike relaxed, the child was submissive through exhaustion.
+At the cabin Debby first made her eat some breakfast, and then got her
+interested in a brood of chickens just one day out of the shell.  The
+mother hen ruffled her feathers, scolded in shrill protest, and pecked
+angrily, but Barbara reached under the brooding wings and drew out a
+bead-eyed, golden-yellow, downy ball.  Her face lightened tenderly as
+she felt the tiny bill and fragile baby claws snuggling against her
+enclosing palms.
+
+"She's all right now!" said old Debby to herself, nodding her head in
+satisfaction.  Aloud she said,--as she got a clean white sunbonnet out
+of the chest, adjusted it on her sparse locks, and tied its strings
+beneath her grim chin,--"I'm goin' to leave ye a bit, honey, to mind
+the chickens fer me an' look after the place while I go in to Second
+Westings to hev a bit o' talk with Doctor Jim.  Promise me not to quit
+the place while I'm gone?"
+
+"I'll take good care of everything till you get back, Debby," answered
+Barbara, abstractedly, without turning her head.  She had relinquished
+the downy chicken, and was busy conciliating the ruffled hen with
+crumbs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+It was without misgiving that old Debby left the child to the healing
+of the solitude and the sun, the little wholesome responsibility, the
+unexacting companionship of the cat and the fowls.  (This was before
+the day of the yellow pup, which did not come upon the scene until the
+following summer.)  She had already learned that Barbara's promise was
+a thing to depend upon; and she felt that Barbara's heart would now be
+medicined more sweetly by silence than by words.
+
+The problem to whose solution the dauntless old woman had set herself
+was that of getting Barbara back to her aunt's house on terms that
+should ward off any further discipline.  With this end in view she
+turned, as a matter of course, to Doctor Jim Pigeon.  Debby's position
+in Second Westings was theoretically that of an outlaw.  She had a
+mysterious past.  She was obstinately refractory about going to
+meeting.  Without actually defying the authorities, she would quietly
+and unobtrusively go her own way in regard to many matters which Second
+Westings accounted momentous.  Moreover, she was lamentably lacking in
+that subservience to her betters which the aristocracy of Second
+Westings held becoming.  And she had knowledge that savoured of
+witchcraft.  She would certainly have felt the heavy hand of correction
+more than once, and probably have been driven to seek a more humane
+environment, but for the staunch befriending of Doctor Jim.  Something
+in the old woman's fearless independence appealed to both the big,
+loud-voiced, soft-hearted brothers--but to Doctor Jim in particular.
+He in particular came to perceive her clear common sense, to appreciate
+the loyal and humane heart that lurked within her acrid personality.
+He openly showed his favour, and stood between her and persecution,
+till Second Westings taught itself to regard her offences as
+privileged.  So, though an outlaw, she became a useful and tolerated
+one.  She served surpassingly to point a moral in family admonitions.
+She was much in favour as a bogy to frighten crying children into
+silence.  And furthermore, when deadly sickness chanced to fall upon a
+household, and skilled help was lacking, and self-righteous prejudice
+melted away in the crucible of anguish, then old Debby was wont to
+appear unsummoned and work marvels by the magic of her nursing.  Doctor
+Jim had been known to declare defiantly that Debby Blue's nursing had
+saved patients whom all his medicines could not cure,--whereto Doctor
+John had retorted, with brotherly sarcasm, "In spite of your medicines,
+Jim--in spite of them!  Debby is the shield and buckler of your medical
+reputation."
+
+So it was of course that the old woman turned to Doctor Jim in her
+difficulty.  She knew that both brothers loved Barbara, and that both,
+individually and collectively, had more influence with Mistress
+Mehitable Ladd than any other living mortal could boast.  She would
+talk to Doctor Jim.  Doctor Jim would talk to Doctor John.  Doctor John
+and Doctor Jim would together talk to Mistress Mehitable.  And Barbara
+would be taken back without penalty of further exhortation or
+discipline.  If not--well, old Debby's mind was made up as to what she
+would do in such a distressing contingency.  She would herself run away
+with Barbara that same night, in cunning disguise and by devious ways,
+and travel to find Uncle Bob.
+
+But there was to be no need of such audacious adventuring.  When Doctor
+Jim heard what Barbara had done, he was sorely wrought up.  He glared
+fiercely and wonderingly; his shaggy eyebrows knitted and knotted as he
+listened; he dashed his hands through his hair till the well dressed
+locks were sadly disarranged.  When Debby ceased speaking he sprang up
+with an inarticulate roar, knocking over two chairs and one of the
+andirons.
+
+"They have gone too far with the child," he cried out at last,
+mastering his ebullient emotions.  "She is too high-strung for our rude
+handling.  I swear she shall not be persecuted any longer--not if I
+have to take her away myself.  No--not a word, not a word, Debby!  Not
+another word!  I'll just step across the yard and speak to Doctor John.
+Be good enough to wait here till I return."
+
+Without hat or stick he ramped tempestuously across to his brother's
+office, in the opposite wing of the big, white-porticoed, red-doored
+house which they occupied together.  He left old Debby well content
+with the first step in her undertaking.  She had but a little to wait
+ere he returned, noisy, hurried, and decisive.
+
+"Now, my good Debby," he shouted, "I'm ready to accompany you.  I will
+fetch Barbara myself.  Doctor John is going over to lay our views
+before Mistress Ladd, and I'll warrant that wise and gentle lady will
+see the matter clearly, just as we do.  Yes, yes, my good Debby, we
+have all been forgetting that the little wild rose of Maryland cannot
+be at once inured to the rigours of our New England air.  Eh, what?"
+
+When Doctor Jim and the old woman reached the cabin they found Barbara
+sound asleep, curled up in the sun beside the stoop, one arm around the
+gray-and-white cat, which lay, fast asleep also, against her breast.
+There was a darkness about her eyes, a hurt droop at the corners of her
+full red mouth, but the colour came wholesomely under the transparent
+tan of her cheeks.  The picture stirred a great ache in Doctor Jim's
+childless heart, and with a tender growl he strode forward to snatch
+her up from her hard couch.
+
+"S't!  Don't ye frighten the poor baby!" said old Debby.  Whereupon
+Doctor Jim went softly, mincing his big steps, and knelt down, and
+gathered the little figure in his arms.  Waking slowly, Barbara slipped
+her arms around his neck, thrust her face under his chin, drew a long
+sigh of satisfaction; and so, the revolt and cruel indignation for the
+time all quenched in her wild spirit, she was carried down to the punt.
+Everything seemed settled without explanation or argument or promise.
+The trouble was all shifted to Doctor Jim's broad shoulders.
+
+"Good-bye, Debby dear!" she murmured to the old woman, reaching down a
+caressing hand; "I'll come to see you in a few days, as soon as Aunt
+Hitty will let me!"
+
+During the journey homeward Barbara threw off her languor, and became
+animated as the punt surged ahead under Doctor Jim's huge strokes.  The
+conversation grew brisk, touching briefly such diverse topics as the
+new bay mare which the doctor had just purchased from Squire Hopgood of
+Westings Centre, and the latest point of exasperation between the
+merchants of Boston and the officers of the king's customs at that
+unruly port.  This latter subject was one on which Doctor Jim and
+Barbara had already learned to disagree with a kind of affectionate
+ferocity.  The child was a rebel in every fibre, while Doctor Jim had a
+vigorous Tory prejudice which kept his power of polemic well occupied
+in Second Westings.  The two were presently so absorbed in controversy
+that the rocky point of the morning's attempted tragedy was passed
+without the tribute of a shudder or even a recognition.  At last, with
+a mighty, half wrathful surge upon the oars, Doctor Jim beached the
+punt at the landing-place.  As the distracted wave of his violence
+seethed hissing up the gravel and set the neighbour sedges a-swinging,
+he leaned forward and fixed the eager girl with a glare from under the
+penthouse of his eyebrows.  Open-mouthed and intent, Barbara waited for
+his pronouncement.
+
+"Child!" said he, waving a large, but white and fine forefinger for
+emphasis, "Don't you let that amiable and disreputable old vagabond,
+Debby Blue, or that pestilent rebel, Doctor John Pigeon, stuff your
+little head with notions.  It's _your_ place to stand by the _Crown_,
+right or wrong.  Remember your blood.  You know right well which side
+your father would have stood upon!  Eh, what?"
+
+The disputatious confidence died out of Barbara's face.  For a moment
+her head drooped, for she knew in her heart how thoroughly that
+worshipped father would have identified himself with the king's party
+as soon as occasion arose.  Then she looked up, and a mocking light
+danced in her gray eyes, while her mouth drew itself into lines of
+solemnity.
+
+"I promise," she exclaimed, leaning forward and laying a thin little
+gipsy hand on Doctor Jim's knee, as if registering a vow, "that I won't
+harm your dear King George!"
+
+"Baggage!" shouted Doctor Jim, snatching her from her seat and stalking
+up the beach with her.
+
+Arriving at the Ladd place from the rear, by way of the pasture and the
+barnyard, they found Doctor John awaiting them.  He was leaning over
+the little wicket gate at the back of the garden, eating a handful of
+plump gooseberries.  With affected sternness he eyed their approach,
+not uttering a word till Barbara violently pushed the gate open and
+rushed at him.  Then, straightening himself to his full height,--he had
+a half-head to the good of even the towering Doctor Jim,--he extended
+his hand to her, and said, civilly:
+
+"Do have a gooseberry!"
+
+At this Barbara shrieked with laughter.  Doctor John always seemed to
+her the very funniest thing in the world, and his humour, in season and
+out of season, quite irresistible.  At the same time she pounded him
+impatiently with her fists, and tried to pull him down to her.
+
+"I don't want a gooseberry," she cried.  "I want you to kiss me.  I
+haven't seen you for more than a week, and you go and act just as if I
+had seen you every day!"
+
+Doctor John stooped, but held her at arm's length, and gazed at her
+with preternatural gravity.
+
+"Tell me one thing," he said.
+
+"What?" whispered Barbara, impressed.
+
+"Have you been taking any of Jim Pigeon's physic since I saw you?"
+
+"No!" shrieked Barbara, with another wild peal of laughter.  "Doctor
+Jim's a Tory.  He might poison me!"
+
+"Then you shall have one kiss--no, two!" said Doctor John, picking her
+up.
+
+"Ten--twenty--a hundred!" insisted the child, hugging him violently.
+
+"There! there!  Enough is as good as a feast!" interrupted Doctor John,
+presently, untwining her arms and setting her down.  Then, Doctor Jim
+holding one of her hands and Doctor John the other, she skipped gaily
+up the path toward the house, like a wisp of light dancing between
+their giant bulks.
+
+At this moment the figure of Mistress Mehitable appeared on the porch;
+and Barbara felt suddenly abashed.  A realisation of all that had
+occurred, all she had done, all she had suffered, rushed over her.  Her
+little fingers shut like steel upon the great, comforting hands that
+held them, and the colour for a moment faded out of her cheeks.  Doctor
+John and Doctor Jim both felt the pang of emotion that darted through
+her.  She felt, rather than saw, that their big faces leaned above her
+tenderly.  But she did not want them to speak.  She was afraid they
+might not say the right thing.  She felt that _she_ must say something
+at once, to divert their attention from her plight.  She looked around
+desperately and caught sight, in the barnyard behind her, of the hired
+man milking the vicious red 'mooley' cow that would not let Abby milk
+her.
+
+"Why!" she exclaimed, with a vast show of interest and surprise,
+"there's Amos milking Mooley!"
+
+On the instant she recognised the bald irrelevancy of the remark, and
+wished she had not spoken.  But Doctor John turned his head, eyed Amos
+with critical consideration, and said:
+
+"Goodness gracious! why, so it is!  Now, do you know, _I_ should have
+expected to see the parson, or Squire Gillig, milking Mooley.  Dear me,
+dear me!"
+
+At this, though the deeper half of her heart was sick with apprehensive
+emotion, the other half was irresistibly titillated, and she laughed
+hysterically; while Doctor Jim emitted a vast, appreciative guffaw.
+Before anything more could be said, the voice of Mistress Mehitable
+came from the porch, kindly sweet, familiar, and cadenced as if no
+cataclysms whatever had lately shaken the world.
+
+"Supper is waiting," she said, and smiled upon them gently as they
+approached.
+
+"We come, fair mistress!" responded Doctor Jim, modulating his voice to
+a deferential softness.
+
+"We come--and here we are," broke out Doctor John, snatching up
+Barbara, dashing forward, and thrusting her into her aunt's not
+unwilling arms.
+
+It was a wise device to surmount the difficulty of the meeting.
+
+"I am truly most glad to see you, my dear child," said Mistress
+Mehitable, earnestly, pressing Barbara to her heart and kissing her on
+the forehead.  Barbara looked up, searched her aunt's face piercingly
+for a second, saw that the gentle blue eyes were something red and
+swollen with weeping, and impulsively lifted her lips to be kissed.
+
+"I am sorry I grieved you, Aunt Hitty," she whispered, "I'll try hard
+not to."
+
+Mistress Mehitable kissed her again, almost impetuously, gave her a
+squeeze of understanding, and with her arm over the child's shoulder
+led the way in to supper.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+After this upheaval there was better understanding for a time between
+Barbara and Mistress Mehitable.  The lady made an honest effort to
+allow for some of the differences in the point of view of a child
+brought up on a Maryland plantation, under another creed, and spoiled
+from the cradle.  She tried, also, to allow for the volcanic and alien
+strain which mingled in Barbara's veins with the well-ordered blood of
+the Ladds.  But this alien strain was something she instinctively
+resented and instinctively longed to subdue.  Moreover, she lacked
+imagination; and therefore, with the most sincere good purpose on both
+sides, the peace between herself and Barbara was but superficial,
+demanding the price of ceaseless vigilance.  Barbara, on her part,
+strove to be more diligent with her tasks, and greatly conciliated
+Mistress Mehitable by her swift progress in plain sewing, penmanship,
+and playing on the harpsichord; and she quickly learned to read aloud
+with a charm and a justness of emphasis which her aunt never wearied of
+commending.  But with the elaborate Dresden embroidery and intricate
+lace-making, and the flummery art of "papyrotamia"--a cutting of paper
+flowers--which then occupied the leisure of young maids of gentle
+breeding, Barbara had no patience at all.  She scorned and hated
+them--and she purchased her release from them by electing rather the
+rigid and exacting pursuit of Latin grammar, which only masculine
+intellects were considered competent to acquire.  In this she had had
+some grounding from her father; and now, under the sympathetic tuition
+of Doctor John, she found its strenuous intricacies a satisfaction to
+her restless brain, and made such progress as to compel the reluctant
+commendation of the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer himself.
+
+Meanwhile, seeing the restraint under which the child was holding
+herself, Mistress Mehitable tried to moderate to some degree her
+disapproval of Barbara's vagaries and impetuosities, so that sometimes
+her wild rides, her canoeings at unseemly hours, her consortings with
+old Debby, her incorrigible absences from the noonday board, were
+suffered to go almost unrebuked.  But it was a perennial vexation to
+Mistress Mehitable to observe Barbara's haughty indifference to the
+other young girls of her own class in the township, who were her
+fitting associates and might have redeemed her from her wildness;
+while, on the other hand, she insisted on making an intimate of Mercy
+Chapman, the daughter of Doctor John's hired man.  Barbara found all
+the girls whom her aunt approved hopelessly uninteresting--prim,
+docile, pious, uninformed, addicted to tatting, excited over
+feather-work.  But Mercy Chapman was fearless, adventurous within her
+limits, protectingly acquainted with all the birds' nests in the
+neighbourhood, and passionately fond of animals, especially horses and
+cats.  Mercy Chapman, therefore, was admitted very cordially to certain
+outer chambers of Barbara's heart; while the daughters of Squire
+Grannis and Lawyer Perley were treated to a blank indifference which
+amounted to incivility, and excited the excoriating comment of their
+mammas.
+
+Another severe trial to Mistress Mehitable's patience was Barbara's
+unhousewifely aversion to the kitchen.  She vowed she could not abide
+the smell of cooking in her hair, averring that all cooks carried the
+savour of the frying-pan.  When her aunt pointed out how humiliated she
+would be when she came to have a house of her own, she declared there
+would be time enough to learn when that day threatened; and she stoutly
+asseverated, moreover, that she could cook without learning.  Upon this
+rash claim Mistress Mehitable pinned her to a test, being minded to
+abase her for her soul's good; but she emerged from the trial with vast
+accession of prestige, doing up sundry tasty desserts with a readiness
+born of past interest in the arcana of her father's kitchen by the
+Pawtuxet.  But for all her aunt's exhortations she would explore no
+further in the domain of bake-pan and skillet.  There was antagonism,
+moreover, between Barbara and Abby, to the point that if Mistress
+Mehitable had prevailed with her niece in this matter, she would have
+found herself obliged to change her cook.
+
+There was one department of the household economy, however, in which
+Barbara was ever ready to meet her aunt half-way.  It furnished a
+common ground, whereon many a threatened rupture was averted, or at
+least postponed.  This was the still-room.
+
+Barbara adored cleanliness and sweet smells.  The clean, fragrant
+place, wherein bundles of herbs whose odours spoke to her of the South,
+and of strange lands, and of longed-for, half-forgotten dreams, and of
+desires which she could not understand, was to her a temple of
+enchanting mysteries.
+
+Now Mistress Mehitable was a cunning distiller of the waters of
+bergamot, rosemary, mint, thyme, and egrimony; but Barbara developed a
+subtlety in the combining of herbs and simples which resulted in
+perfumes hitherto unknown.  One essence, indeed, which she compounded,
+proved so penetrating, lasting, and exquisite, that her aunt, in a
+burst of staid enthusiasm, suggested that she should name it and write
+down the formula for security.  This was done, to Barbara's great
+pride; and thereafter the "Water of Maryland Memories" became the
+proper thing to use in Second Westings.  Nothing, perhaps, did more to
+make Barbara a personage in the township than this highly approved
+"Water of Maryland Memories."
+
+In this way the days passed, so that at times Mistress Mehitable had
+hopes that the child was going to assimilate herself, and cease to pine
+for her plantation in the South.  In reality, the rebellion in
+Barbara's soul but grew the stronger as her nature deepened and
+matured.  Throughout her second spring at Second Westings,--when the
+mounting sap set her veins athrill in unison, and she saw the violets
+come back to the greening meadows, the quaker-ladies and the
+windflowers to the little glades of the wood; and the wild ducks
+returned from the south to nest by the lake, and the blackbirds chirred
+again in the swaying tops of the pine-trees,--her spirit chafed more
+fiercely at every bar.  The maddest rides over upland field and pasture
+lot at dawn, the fiercest paddlings up and down the lake when the wind
+was driving and the chop sea tried her skill, were insufficient vent to
+her restlessness.  Her thoughts kept reverting, in spite of herself, to
+the idea of seeking her uncle.  Misunderstandings with Mistress
+Mehitable grew more frequent and more perilous.  But just as she was
+beginning to feel that something desperate must happen at once, there
+came to her a responsibility which for a time diverted her thoughts.
+
+The kitchen cat presented the household with four kittens.  Having a
+well-grounded suspicion that kittens were a superfluity in Second
+Westings, the mother hid her furry miracles in the recesses of a loft
+in the barn.  Not until their eyes were well open were they discovered;
+and it was Barbara who discovered them.  With joyous indiscretion, all
+undreaming of the consequences, she proclaimed her discovery in the
+house.  Then the customary stern decree went forth--but in this case
+tempered with fractional mercy, seeing that Mistress Mehitable was a
+just woman.  One was spared to console the mother, and three were
+doomed to death.
+
+Barbara, all undreaming of the decree, chanced to come upon Amos in the
+cow-shed, standing over a tub of water.  She saw him drop a kitten into
+the tub, and pick up the next.  She heard the faint mewing of the
+victims.  For one instant her heart stood still with pain and fury.
+Then, speechless, but with face and eyes ablaze, she swooped down and
+sprang upon him with such impetuous violence that, bending over as he
+was, he lost his balance and sprawled headlong, upsetting the tub as he
+fell.  As the flood went all abroad, sousing Amos effectually, Barbara
+snatched up the dripping and struggling mewer, clutched it to her
+bosom, seized the basket containing the other two, burst into wild
+tears, fled to the house, and shut herself into her room with her
+treasures.  Straightway realising, however, that they would not be safe
+even there, she darted forth again, defying her aunt's efforts to stop
+her, ran to the woods, and hid them in the secret hollow of an old
+tree.  Knowing that Amos would never have committed the enormity at his
+own instance, she hastened to make her peace with him,--which was easy,
+Amos being at heart her slave,--with a view to getting plenty of milk
+for the tiny prisoners; but against Mistress Mehitable her wrath burned
+hotly.  She stayed out till long past supper, and crept to bed without
+speaking to any one--hungry save for warm milk supplied by Amos.
+
+This was an open subversion of authority, and Mistress Mehitable was
+moved.  In the morning she demanded the surrender of the kittens.
+Barbara fiercely refused.  Then discipline was threatened--a whipping,
+perhaps, since duty must be done, however hard--or imprisonment in her
+room for a week.  Barbara had a vision of the kittens slowly starving
+in their hollow tree, and her face set itself in a way that gave
+Mistress Mehitable pause, suggesting tragedies.  The next moment
+Barbara rushed from the room, flew bareheaded down the street, burst
+into Doctor Jim's office, and announced that she would kill herself
+rather than go back to her Aunt Hitty.  Past events precluding the
+possibility of this being disregarded as an idle threat, it was
+perforce taken seriously.  Doctor John was summoned.  The situation was
+thrashed out in all its bearings; and finally, while Barbara curled
+herself up in a tired heap on the lounge and went to sleep, her two
+champions went to confer with Mistress Mehitable.  Hard in this case
+was the task, for the little lady considered a principle at stake; but
+they came back at last triumphant.  Barbara was to be allowed to retain
+the kittens, on the pledge that she would keep them from becoming in
+any way a nuisance to the rest of the house, and that she would, as
+soon as possible, find homes elsewhere for at least two of them.  This
+last condition might have troubled her, but that Doctor John and Doctor
+Jim both winked as they announced it, which she properly interpreted to
+mean that they, being catless and mouse-ridden, would help her.
+
+So Barbara went back to Aunt Hitty--who received her gravely; and the
+kittens came back from their hollow tree; and the shock of clashing
+spheres was averted.  But the peace was a hollow and precarious one--an
+armistice, rather than a peace.  For about a week Barbara's heart and
+hands were pretty well occupied by her little charges, and Mistress
+Mehitable found her conciliatory.  But one day there came a letter from
+Uncle Bob, accompanied by a box which contained macaroons and
+marchpanes, candied angelica, a brooch of garnets, and a piece of
+watchet-blue paduasoy sufficient to make Barbara a dress.  The letter
+announced that Uncle Bob was at Bridgeport, and about to sojourn for a
+time at the adjoining village of Stratford.  Why, Stratford was in
+Connecticut--it could not be very far from Second Westings!  Barbara's
+heart throbbed with excitement.  The very next day she made excuse to
+visit Lawyer Perley, and consult a map of the Connecticut colony which
+she had once observed in his office.  She noted the way the rivers
+ran--and her heart beat more wildly than ever.  Just at this point
+conscience awoke.  She put the dangerous thought away vehemently, and
+for a whole week was most studious to please.  But Mistress Mehitable
+was still austere, still troubled in her heart as to whether she had
+done right about the kittens.  One morning just after breakfast Barbara
+was set to hemming a fine linen napkin, at a time when she was in haste
+to be at something else more interesting.  She scamped the uncongenial
+task--in very truth, the stitches were shocking.  Hence came an
+unpleasantness.  Barbara was sent to her room to meditate for an hour.
+She was now all on fire with revolt.  Escape seemed within reach.  She
+meditated to such purpose that when her hour was past she came forth
+smiling, and went about her affairs with gay diligence.
+
+It was on the following morning that, when the first pallor of dawn
+touched the tree-tops, she climbed out of the window, down the
+apple-tree, and fled with her bundle and her kittens.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+After her breakfast at old Debby's, Barbara urged forward her canoe
+with keen exhilaration.  Now was she really free, really advanced in
+her great adventure.  A load of anxiety was lifted from her mind.  She
+had succeeded in arranging so that the letter would be delivered to her
+aunt--a matter which had been fretting at her conscience.  Moreover,
+old Debby had shown no surprise or disapproval on hearing of her rash
+venture.  It nettled Barbara, indeed, to have so heroic an enterprise
+taken so lightly; but she augured therefrom that it was more feasible
+than she had dared to hope, and already she saw herself installed as
+mistress of Uncle Bob's home in Stratford.
+
+"He'll love us, my babies!" she cried to the kittens in the basket, and
+forthwith plied her paddle so feverishly that in a few minutes she had
+to stop and take breath.
+
+The river at this point wound through low meadows, sparsely treed with
+the towering, majestic water poplar, sycamore, and arching elm, with
+here and there a graceful river birch leaning pensively to contemplate
+its reflection in the stream.  The trees and flowers were personal to
+Barbara, her quick senses differentiating them unerringly.  The low
+meadow, swampy in spots, was a mass of herbs, shrubs, and rank grasses,
+for the most part now in full flower; and the sun was busy distilling
+from them all their perfumes, which came to Barbara's nostrils in warm,
+fitful, varying puffs.  She noted the tenderly flushing feathery masses
+of meadowsweet, which she could never quite forgive for its lack of the
+perfume promised by its name.  From the dry knolls came the heavy scent
+of the tall, bold umbels of the wild parsnip, at which she sniffed with
+passing resentment.  Another breath of wind, and a turn of the stream
+into a somewhat less open neighbourhood, brought her a sweet and
+well-loved savour, and she half rose in her place to greet the presence
+of a thicket of swamp honeysuckle.  She noted, as she went, pale
+crimson colonies of the swamp rose, hummed over softly by the bees and
+flies.  Purple Jacob's-ladder draped the bushes luxuriantly, with wild
+clematis in lavish banks, and aerial stretches of the roseate
+monkey-flower on its almost invisible stems.  Her heart went out to a
+cluster of scented snakemouth under the rim of the bank.  She was about
+to turn her prow shoreward and gather the modest pinkish blossoms for
+their enchanting fragrance, when she observed leaning above them her
+mortal enemy among the tree-folk, the virulent poison sumac.  She
+swerved sharply to the other side of the stream to avoid its hostile
+exhalations.
+
+The little river now widened out and became still more sluggish.  A
+narrow meadow island in mid-stream intoxicated Barbara's eyes with
+colour, being fringed with rank on rank of purple flag-flower, and its
+grassy heart flame-spotted with the blooms of the wild lily.  The still
+water along the shores was crowded with floating-heart, and
+pale-blossomed arrowhead, and blue, rank pickerel-weed; and Barbara,
+who did not mind the heat, but revelled in the carnival of colour, drew
+a deep breath and declared to herself (giving the flat lie to ten
+thousand former assertions of the like intimacy) that the world was a
+beautiful place to live in.  No sooner had she said it than her heart
+sank under a flood of bitter memories.  She seemed once more to feel
+the water singing in her ears, to see its golden blur filling her eyes,
+as on that morning when she lay drowning in the lake.  The glory of the
+summer day lost something of its brightness, and she paddled on
+doggedly, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left.
+
+But this was a mood that could not long hold dominion over Barbara's
+spirit on this day of days, when she was journeying to freedom.  It
+took no more than the scarlet flash of a tanager across her bow, the
+flapping of a startled brood of ducks from their covert in the sedge,
+to lure her back to gladness and the seeing eye.  At last the river
+carried her into quite different surroundings.  Still slow, and smooth,
+and deep, it entered the neighbourhood of great trees growing close,
+the ancient and unviolated forest.  The day grew cool and solemn, the
+diffused light floating hushed under the great arches of brown and gray
+and green.  By contrast it seemed dark, but the air was of a wonderful
+transparency, and Barbara's eyes, opening wide in delicious awe, saw
+everything more distinctly than in the open.  She whispered to the
+yellow birch, the paper birch, the beech, the maple, and the chestnut,
+each by name lovingly, as she slipped past their soaring trunks,
+knowing them by the texture and the features of their bark though their
+leaves hung far overhead.  Her paddle dipped without noise, lest the
+mysteries of the forest conclave should be disturbed by her intrusion.
+So keen and so initiated were her young eyes that she discerned the
+sleeping nighthawk on his branch, where his likeness to a knotted
+excrescence of the bark made him feel secure from the most
+discriminating vision.  Passing a dead pine with a small, neatly
+rounded hole about ten feet up the trunk, she heard, or thought she
+heard, the safe conferring of the nest full of young woodpeckers in its
+hollow depth--which, indeed, was probably but the stirring of her own
+blood-currents within her over-attentive little ears.  Suddenly the
+vast stillness appeared to close down upon her, not with oppression,
+but with a calm that was half fearful, half delicious; and it seemed as
+if the fever of her veins was being slowly drawn away.  The mystic
+shores slipped by with speed, though she hardly knew she was paddling.
+And when, suddenly, a great brown owl dropped from a beech limb and
+went winnowing soundlessly down the stream ahead of her, she caught her
+breath, feeling as if the soul of the silence had taken palpable shape
+before her eyes.
+
+Now, as it seemed to Barbara, life and movement began to appear, at the
+summons of those shadowy wings.  A little troop of pale-winged moths
+drifted, circling lightly, over the stream; and a fly-catcher, with
+thin, cheeping cries, dropped some twenty feet straight downward from
+an overhanging limb, fluttered and zigzagged for a moment in mid-air,
+capturing some small insect darters which Barbara could not see, then
+shot back into the leafage.  Then upon a massive, sloping maple-branch
+close to the bank, she saw a stocky black-and-white shape slowly
+crawling.  The head was small and flattened, the bright little eyes
+glittered upon her in defiance, and a formidable ridge of pointed
+quills erected itself angrily along the back.  The animal uttered a
+low, squeaking grunt, and Barbara, with prompt discretion, steered as
+close as possible to the opposite bank, glancing apprehensively over
+her shoulder as she passed.  She was strongly inclined to like the
+porcupine; but his ill-temper was manifest, and she had faith in the
+superstition that he could shoot his needle-like quills to a distance
+and pierce the object of his dislike.  Barbara could not contemplate
+the possibility of appearing before her uncle like a pin-cushion, stuck
+full of porcupine quills.
+
+Barely had she left the resentful porcupine behind, safely out of
+quill-flinging distance, when she observed a small, ruddy head cleaving
+the water in mid-channel.  A pair of prominent eyes met hers
+apprehensively.  Two smooth ripples curved away from the throat of the
+small swimmer.  It was a red squirrel whom unwonted affairs had
+summoned to the other side of the river.  Whatever the affairs, Barbara
+was determined to expedite them as far as she could.  Overtaking the
+swimmer with a couple of smart strokes, she politely held out to him
+the blade of the paddle.  The invitation was not to be resisted.  With
+a scramble and a leap he came aboard, skipped along the gunwale, and
+perched himself, jaunty and chipper for all his bedragglement of tail,
+on the extreme tip of the bow.  There he twitched and chattered
+eagerly, while Barbara headed toward the shore where he would be.
+While he was yet a wide space distant from it, he sprang into the air.
+Barbara held her breath--but the little traveller knew his powers.  He
+landed safely on a projecting root, flicked off behind a tree, and was
+gone.  In a few seconds there came echoing from a tree-top far back in
+the shadows a loud, shrill chattering, which Barbara took for an
+expression of either gratitude or impudence.  Caring not which it was,
+she smiled indulgently and paddled on.
+
+And now to her sensitive nostrils there came suddenly an elusive
+wafture of wintergreen, and she looked around for the gray birch whose
+message she recognised.  The homely, familiar smell reclaimed her from
+her mood of exaltation, and she realised that she was hungry.  Just
+ahead was a grassy glade, whereinto the sun streamed broadly.  She saw
+that it was far past noon.  With a leap of the heart she realised that
+she must be nearing the point where the stream would join the great
+river which was to bear her, her kittens, and her fortunes, down to the
+sea and Uncle Bob.  Yes, she recognised this same open glade, with the
+giant willow projecting over the water at its farther end.  She and
+Uncle Bob had both remarked upon its fairy beauty as they passed it
+going and coming, when they had explored the stream.  She had but two
+or three miles farther to go, and her paddle would greet the waters of
+the great river.  This was fitting place to halt and renew her strength.
+
+Pulling up the prow of the canoe upon a tuft of sedge, she took out the
+basket and the bundle.  From the heart of the bundle she drew a small
+leather bag, containing barley cakes, gingerbread, a tiny parcel of
+cold meat done up in oiled paper, a wooden saucer, and a little wooden
+bottle which she had filled with fresh milk at old Debby's.  Having
+poured some of the milk into the saucer, and laid three or four shreds
+of the meat around its edges, she released the kittens from their
+basket.  For two or three minutes, glad of freedom, the fat, furry
+things frisked and stretched and tumbled hither and thither, while
+Barbara kept watch upon them with solicitous eyes.  But soon they grew
+afraid of the great spaces and the woods, being accustomed to an
+environment more straitened.  They came back mewing to Barbara's feet,
+and she turned their attention to their dinner.  While they lapped the
+milk, and daintily chewed the unaccustomed meat, she dined heartily but
+abstractedly on the barley cakes and gingerbread.  Then, having
+satisfied her thirst by lying flat on the wet, grassy brink of the
+stream and lowering her lips to the water, she decided to rest a few
+minutes before resuming her voyage.  Close by was a beech-tree, around
+whose trunk the moss looked tempting.  Seating herself with her back
+against the tree, and the kittens curled up in her lap, she looked out
+dreamily over the hot grasses--and presently fell asleep.
+
+She had slept perhaps half an hour when a crow, alighting on a low
+branch some half score paces distant, peered into the shade of the
+beech-tree and discovered the sweet picture.  To him it was not sweet
+in the least, but indubitably interesting.  "Cah--ah!" he exclaimed
+loudly, hopping up and down in his astonishment.  The sharp voice awoke
+Barbara, and she rubbed her eyes.
+
+"Gracious!" she exclaimed to the kittens, "what sleepyheads we are!
+Come, come, we must hurry up, or we'll never get to Uncle Bob!"
+
+Before she was really well awake, the kittens were in the basket, the
+canoe was loaded and shoved off, and the adventurers were once more
+afloat upon their quest.  Then only did Barbara give herself time to
+stretch and rub her eyes.  After a few strokes she let the canoe drift
+with the current, while she laid down the paddle, and cooled her wrists
+and refreshed her face with handfuls of water.
+
+As she straightened her brave little shoulders again to her labour, she
+was arrested by a strange sound as of the ripping of bark.  It was an
+ominous kind of noise in the lonely stillness, and apprehensively she
+peered in the direction whence it came.  Then she grew afraid.  On the
+other shore, about a couple of rods back from the water, she saw a
+large black bear sitting upon its haunches beside a fallen and rotten
+tree.  As she stared, wide-eyed and trembling, he lifted his great paw
+and laid hold of the dead bark.  Again came the ripping, tearing noise,
+and off peeled a huge brown slab.  To the exposed surface he applied a
+nimble tongue--and Barbara's terror subsided.  She saw that he was
+quite too absorbed in the delights of an ant-log to pay any attention
+to a mere girl; and she remembered, too, that the black bear was a
+rather inoffensive soul so long as he was not treated contumeliously.
+For all this, however, she made as much haste from the spot as was
+consistent with a noiseless paddle--and kept furtive watch over her
+shoulder until she had put a good half-mile between the canoe and the
+ant-log.
+
+By the time her concern about the bear had begun to flag she found that
+the current was quickening its pace.  The trees slipped by more
+swiftly, and the shores grew bolder.  A mellow, roaring clamour came to
+her ears, and with delicious trepidation she remembered a little rapid
+through which she must pass.  Around a turn of the stream it came into
+view, its small waves sparkling where the forest gave back and admitted
+the afternoon sun.  Her experience in running rapids had been slight,
+but she remembered the course which Uncle Bob had taken, between two
+large rocks where the water ran deep and smooth; and she called to
+mind, the further to brace her confidence, that Uncle Bob had
+stigmatised this particular rapid as mere child's play.  Her heart beat
+rather wildly as she entered the broken water, and the currents gripped
+her, and the banks began to flee upward past her view.  But her eye
+held true and her wrist firm.  The clamour filled her ears, but she
+laid her course with precision and fetched the very centre of the
+channel between the big rocks.  From that point all was clear.  The
+canoe went racing through the last ripple, which splashed her lightly
+as she passed; and in a reach of quiet water, foam-flecked and shining,
+she drew a deep breath of triumph.  This, indeed, was to live.  Never
+had she experienced a keener consciousness of power.  She felt her
+enterprise already successful.  The ancient woods, with their bears,
+their porcupines, their wide-winged brown owls, lay behind her.  Second
+Westings was incalculably far away.  There in plain view, rising over
+its comfortable orchard trees, not half a mile distant, were the roofs
+and chimneys of Gault House, overlooking, as she had heard, the waters
+of the great river.  And beyond the next turn, as she thought with a
+thrill, she would see the great river itself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+Barbara rounded the next turn.  There before her, widely gleaming,
+spread the waters of the great river itself.  She cried out in her joy,
+and paddled madly--then paused, abashed, perceiving that she was the
+object of a critical but frankly admiring scrutiny.  Her attention was
+diverted from the great river.  Here was a tall boy--of her own caste
+unmistakably--poling himself out on a precarious little raft to meet
+her.  Her flush of confusion passed as quickly as it had come, and
+laying her paddle across the gunwale, she waited with interest to
+discover what he might have to say.
+
+Barbara had met but few boys of her own class, and those few had
+seemed, under her merciless analysis, uniformly uninteresting.  Their
+salient characteristics, to her mind, were freckles, rudeness,
+ignorance, and a disposition to tease cats.  But this youth was
+obviously different.  Apparently about seventeen years of age, he was
+tall and graceful, and the way the clumsy log-raft on which he stood
+surged forward under the thrusts of his pole revealed his strength.
+Barbara loved strength, so long as delicacy saved it from coarseness.
+The boy was in his shirt sleeves, which were of spotless cambric, and
+Barbara noted, with approbation, the ample ruffles turned back, for
+convenience, from his sinewy brown hands.  She observed that his brown,
+long-fronted, flowered vest was of silk, and his lighter brown
+small-clothes of a fine cloth worn only by the gentry; that his
+stockings were of black silk, and his shoes, drenched most of the time
+in the water that lapped over the raft, were adorned with large buckles
+of silver.  She admired the formal fashion in which his black hair was
+tied back in a small and very precise queue.  But most of all she liked
+his face, which was even darker than her own--lean, somewhat square in
+the jaw, with a broad forehead, and gray-blue, thoughtful eyes, set
+wide apart.
+
+Now, Barbara's fearless scorn of conventions was equalled only by her
+ignorance of them.  This boy pleased her, so why should she hesitate to
+show it?  When the raft ranged up alongside the canoe, she laid hold
+upon it for anchorage and the greater convenience in conversation, and
+flashed upon the stranger the full dazzle of her scarlet lips, white
+teeth, and bewildering radiance of green eyes.  The boy straightened
+himself from the pole in order to bow with the more ceremony--which he
+accomplished to Barbara's complete satisfaction in spite of the
+unsteadiness of the raft.
+
+"What a nice-looking boy you are!" she said, frankly condescending.
+"What is your name?"
+
+[Illustration: "_What a nice-looking boy you are!" she said._]
+
+"Robert Gault, your very humble servant!" he replied, bowing again, and
+smiling.  The smile was altogether to Barbara's fancy, and showed even,
+strong, white teeth, another most uncommon merit in a boy.  "And I am
+sure," he went on, "that this is Mistress Barbara Ladd whom I have the
+honour to address."
+
+"Why, how do you know me?" exclaimed Barbara, highly pleased.  Then,
+quickly apprehensive, she added, "What makes you think I am Barbara
+Ladd?"
+
+The boy noted the change in her countenance, and wondered at it.  But
+he replied at once:
+
+"Of course the name of Mistress Barbara Ladd, and her daring, and her
+canoe-craft, and her beauty" (this he added out of his own instant
+conviction), "have spread far down the river.  When I came up here the
+other day to visit my grandmother" (he indicated slightly the distant
+roofs of Gault House), "I came with a great hope of being permitted to
+meet you!"
+
+Evidently he knew nothing of her flight.  Her uneasiness vanished.  But
+she had never had a compliment before--a personal compliment, such as
+is dear to every wise feminine heart--and that word "beauty" was most
+melodious to her ears.  As a matter of fact, she did not herself admire
+her own appearance at all, and even had an aversion to the mirror--but
+it occurred to her now, for the first time, that this was a point upon
+which it was not needful that every one should agree with her.  It was
+practically her first real lesson in tolerance toward an opinion that
+differed from her own.
+
+"I'll warrant you heard no good of that same Barbara Ladd, more's the
+pity!" she answered, coquettishly tossing her dark little head and
+shooting at him a distracting sidelong glance from narrowed lids.
+"Anyhow, if you are Lady Gault's grandson, I am most happy to meet you."
+
+She stretched out to him her brown little hand, just now none too
+immaculate, indeed, but with breeding stamped on every slim line of it,
+and eloquent from the polished, well-trimmed, long, oval nails.
+Instantly, careless of the water and his fine cloth breeches, Robert
+went down upon one knee and gallantly kissed the proffered hand.
+
+Barbara was just at an age when, for girls with Southern blood in their
+veins, womanhood and childhood lie so close entwined in their
+personalities that it is impossible to disentangle the golden and the
+silver threads.  Never before had any one kissed her hand.  She was
+surprised at the pleasant thrill it gave her; and she was surprised,
+too, at her sudden, inexplicable impulse to draw the hand away.  It was
+a silly impulse, she told herself; so she controlled it, and accepted
+the kiss with the composure of a damsel well used to such ceremonious
+homage.  But she did not like such a nice boy to be kneeling in the
+water.
+
+"Why did you come out on that rickety thing?" she asked.  "Why haven't
+you a boat or a canoe?"
+
+"This was the only thing within reach," he explained, respectfully
+relinquishing her hand.  "I saw you coming; and I knew it must be you,
+because no other girl could handle a canoe so beautifully; and I was
+afraid of losing you if I waited."
+
+"That was civil of you.  But aren't you getting very wet there?  Won't
+you come into the canoe?"
+
+"Really?" he exclaimed, lifting his chin with a quick gesture of
+eagerness.  "Are you going to be so good to me?  Then I must push this
+old raft ashore first and secure it.  I don't know whom it belongs to."
+
+As he poled to land in too much haste for any further conversation,
+Barbara paddled silently alongside and admired his skill.  When the
+raft was tied up, and the pole tossed into the bushes, he took his
+place in the bow and knelt so as to face her.
+
+"You must turn the other way," laughed Barbara.
+
+"No, I was proposing, by your leave, to make this the stern, and ask
+you to let me paddle," he answered.  "Won't you let me?  You really
+look a little bit tired, and I want you to talk to me, if you will be
+so condescending.  How can I turn my back to you?"
+
+"I am not the least, leastest bit tired," protested Barbara, a little
+doubtfully.  "But I don't mind letting you paddle for awhile, if you'll
+paddle hard and go the way I want you to."  And with that she seated
+herself flat on the bottom of the canoe, with an air of relief that
+rather contradicted her protestation.
+
+The boy laughed, as he turned the canoe with powerful, sweeping strokes.
+
+"Surely I will paddle hard, and in whatsoever direction you command me.
+Am I not the most obedient of your slaves?"
+
+This pleased Barbara.  She loved slaves.  She accepted his servitude at
+once and fully.
+
+"Paddle straight out into the river, and then down!" she commanded.
+
+At the imperious note in her voice, the boy looked both amused and
+pleased.  Obeying without a word of question, he sent the canoe leaping
+forward under his deep, rhythmical strokes at a speed that filled
+Barbara with admiration.
+
+"Oh, _how_ strong you are and _how_ well you paddle!" she cried, her
+eyes wide and sparkling, her lips parted, the crisp, rebellious curls
+blowing about her face.  Never had Robert seen so bewitching a picture
+as this small figure curled up happily in the bow of the canoe, her
+little shoes of red leather and her black-stockinged ankles sticking
+out demurely from under her short blue striped skirt, her nut-brown,
+slender, finely modelled arms emerging from short loose sleeves.  He
+was proud of her praise.  He was partly engrossed in displaying his
+skill and strength to the very best advantage.  But above all he was
+thinking of this picture, which was destined to flash back into his
+memory many a time in after days, with a poignancy of vividness that
+affected his action like a summons or an appeal.
+
+In a few minutes the canoe was fairly out upon the bosom of the main
+stream, and headed downward with the strongly flowing current.  Barbara
+clasped her hands with a movement which expressed such rapture and
+relief that the boy's curiosity was excited.  He began to feel that
+there was some mystery in the affair.  Slackening his pace ever so
+slightly, he remarked:
+
+"I suppose you are staying with friends somewhere in this
+neighbourhood.  How fortunate I am--that is, if you will graciously
+permit me to go canoeing with you often while you are here."
+
+But even as he spoke, his eyes took in, for the first time, the
+significance of the bundle and the basket, which he had been so far too
+occupied to notice.  His wonder came forward and spoke plainly from his
+frank eyes, and Barbara was at a loss to explain.
+
+"No," she said, "I am not staying anywhere in this neighbourhood.  I
+don't know a soul in this neighbourhood but you."
+
+"Then--you've come right from Second Westings!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Right from Second Westings."
+
+"All that distance since this morning?" he persisted.
+
+She nodded impatiently.
+
+"Through those woods--through the rapids--all alone?"
+
+"Yes, all alone!" she answered, a little crisply.  She was annoyed.
+
+In his astonishment he laid down his paddle and leaned forward,
+scanning her face.
+
+"But--" said he, embarrassed, "forgive me!  I know it is none of my
+business,--but what does it mean?"
+
+"Go on paddling," commanded Barbara.  "Did you not promise you would
+obey me?  _I_ know what it means!"  And she laughed, half maliciously.
+The boy looked worried,--and it was great fun to bring that worried
+look to his face.
+
+He resumed his paddling, though much less vigorously, while she evaded
+his gaze, and a wilful smile clung about her lips.  The current was
+swift, and they had soon left the imposing white columns of Gault House
+far behind.  A tremendous sense of responsibility came over the boy,
+and again he stopped paddling.
+
+"Oh, perhaps you are tired!" suggested Barbara, coolly.  "Give me the
+paddle, and I'll set you ashore right here."
+
+"I said just now it was none of my business," said he, gravely,
+appealingly, "but, do you know, I think perhaps it ought to be my
+business!  I ought to ask!"
+
+He retained the paddle, but turned the canoe's head up-stream and held
+it steady.
+
+"What do you mean?" demanded Barbara, angrily.  "Give me the paddle at
+once!"
+
+Still he made no motion to obey.
+
+"Do you realise," he asked, "that it's now near sundown,--that it will
+take till dark to work back against the current to where I met
+you,--that there's no place near here where a lady can rest for the
+night--"
+
+"I don't care," interrupted Barbara hotly, ready to cry with anger and
+anxiety; "I'm going to travel all night.  I'm going to the sea--to my
+uncle at Stratford!  I just don't want you to interfere.  Let me put
+you ashore at once!"
+
+Robert was struck dumb with amazement.  To the sea!  This small girl,
+all alone!  And evidently quite unacquainted with the perils of the
+river.  It was superb pluck,--but it was wild, impossible folly.  He
+did not know what to do.  He turned the canoe toward shore, and
+presently found himself in quieter water, out of the current.
+
+Observing his ready obedience, Barbara was mollified; but at the same
+time she was conscious of a sinking of the heart because he was going
+to leave her alone, when it would soon be dark.  She had not
+considered, hitherto, this necessity of travelling in the dark.  She
+made up her mind to tell the nice boy everything, and get him to advise
+her as to where she could stay for the night.
+
+"I'm running away, you know, Master Gault," she said, sweetly, as if it
+were the most ordinary thing in the world.
+
+"Are you at all acquainted with the river?" he asked, gently, without a
+trace of resentment for the way she had spoken to him a moment before.
+
+"No!" confessed Barbara, in a very small voice, deprecatingly.
+
+"A few miles farther down there is a stretch of very bad water," said
+the boy.  "Clever canoeist as you are, you would find it hard enough
+work going through in broad daylight.  At night you would just be
+dashed to pieces in a minute."
+
+"Oh, what shall I do?" cried Barbara, the perils of her adventure just
+beginning to touch her imagination.
+
+"Let me take you to my grandmother's," he pleaded.  "And we will paddle
+back to Second Westings to-morrow."
+
+Barbara burst into a storm of tears.
+
+"Never! never! never!" she sobbed.  "I'll die in the rapids before I'll
+ever go back to Aunt Hitty!  Oh, why did I like you?  Why did I trust
+you?  Oh, I don't know what to do!"
+
+The boy's heart came into his throat and ached at the sight of her
+trouble.  He longed desperately to help her.  He had a wild impulse to
+swear that he would follow her and protect her, wherever she wanted to
+go, however impossible her undertaking.  Instead of that, however, he
+kept silence and paddled forward resolutely for two or three minutes,
+while Barbara, her face buried in her hands, shook with sobs.  At last
+he ran the canoe into a shadowy cove, where lily leaves floated on the
+unruffled water.  Then he laid down his paddle.
+
+"Tell me all about it, won't you, please?" he petitioned.  "I do want
+so much to help you.  And perhaps I can.  And you _shall not_ be sorry
+for trusting me!"
+
+How very comforting his voice was!  So tender, and kind, and with a
+faithful ring in its tenderness.  Barbara suffered it to comfort her.
+Surely he would understand, if old Debby could!  In a few moments she
+lifted her wet little face, flashed a smile at him through her tears,
+and said:
+
+"How good and kind you are!  Forgive me if I was bad to you.  Yes, I'll
+tell you all about it, and then you can see for yourself why I had to
+come away."
+
+Barbara's exposition was vivid and convincing.  Her emotion, her utter
+sincerity, fused everything, and she had the gift of the telling
+phrase.  What wonder if the serious, idealistic, chivalrous boy, upon
+whose nerves her fire and her alien, elusive beauty thrilled like
+wizard music, saw all the situation through her eyes.  Her faults were
+invisible to him ere he had listened a minute to her narrative.  She
+was right to run away.  The venture, of course, was a mad one, but with
+his help it might well be carried through to success.  As she talked
+on, an intoxication of enthusiasm and sympathy tingled along his blood
+and rose to his brain.  Difficulties vanished, or displayed themselves
+to his deluded imagination only as obstacles which it would be splendid
+to overcome.  In the ordinary affairs of life the boy was cool,
+judicious, reasonable, to a degree immeasurably beyond his years; but
+Barbara's strange magnetism had called forth the dreamer and the poet
+lurking at the foundations of his character; and his judgment, for the
+time, was overwhelmed.  When Barbara's piercing eloquence ceased, and
+she paused breathless, eyes wide and lips parted in expectation, he
+said, solemnly:
+
+"I will help you!  To the utmost of my power I will help you!"
+
+The words had the weight and significance of a consecration.
+
+Barbara clapped her hands.
+
+"Oh!" she cried, "How can I ever thank you for being so lovely to me?
+But I knew you were nice the moment I looked at you!"  And a load
+rolled off her mind.  With such a helper, already was her enterprise
+accomplished.
+
+"I will try hard to be worthy of your favour," said Robert, with deep
+gravity, feeling that now indeed was boyhood put away and full manhood
+descended upon his shoulders.  His brain was racked with the terrific
+problem of finding Barbara fit lodging for the night; but meantime he
+turned the canoe and paddled swiftly out into the current.  Hardly had
+he changed his course when he noticed a light rowboat creeping up along
+the shore.  But boats were no unusual sight on the river, and he paid
+no heed to it.  As for Barbara, she was so absorbed in watching his
+great strokes, and in thinking how delightful it was to have found such
+an ally, that the sound of the oars passed her ears unheeded, and she
+did not turn her head.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+At length, however, the boy noticed with a tinge of surprise that the
+boat was steering as if to intercept his course.  He was about to pass
+greeting to its occupants when something in the face of the big man
+sitting in the stern arrested his words.  At the same moment the sound
+of the oars caught Barbara's attention, and she turned her head.
+
+"Oh!" she cried, shrilly.  "Doctor Jim!--and Doctor John!" she added,
+as one of the two rowers looked around and grinned at her in humourous
+triumph.  Then, her visions of life at Stratford with Uncle Bob falling
+to ruin about her, she wept aloud in her disappointment.
+
+Robert understood, and quick as thought swerved in his course, making a
+dart for the swifter water of mid-channel.  His heart swelled with
+exultation.
+
+"They can't catch us!" he declared to Barbara.
+
+"Stop! you young rascal!" thundered the mighty voice of Doctor Jim.  "I
+know you, Bobby Gault.  Don't I know your father's son?  Stop this
+instant!"
+
+"Quit this tomfoolery, Bobby!" roared Doctor John, albeit a little
+breathless from his labour.  Barbara lifted her face and stared through
+her tears.  But the boy paid no heed, paddling mightily, and the
+distance between boat and canoe was surely widening.
+
+But Doctor Jim knew Barbara.
+
+"Very well!" he said, grimly, in a loud voice.  "I'm sorry to do bodily
+hurt to the son of my old friend Richard, but it can't be helped."
+
+He drew a long-barrelled pistol from under the flap of his green coat.
+
+"I'll have to wing you, my boy!" he said, taking careful aim, while one
+eyelid quivered in the direction of Doctor John.
+
+The boy's face paled a little, but his jaw set firmly, and he kept
+right on.
+
+"Stop! stop! stop!" screamed Barbara, but with no result.  She half
+arose in the canoe, glancing with horror from the boy's resolute face
+to the muzzle of the pistol.
+
+"If you don't stop, Robert, I will throw myself overboard this minute!"
+she vowed.
+
+The terror in her face convinced him.  He sullenly drew in his paddle,
+laid it down in the canoe, folded his arms, and looked off over the
+western hills, as if scornful of all that might take place.
+
+In a few seconds the boat came up alongside of the drifting canoe, the
+oars were drawn in, and strong hands laid hold upon the gunwale.  There
+were some awful moments of silence, broken only by Barbara's sobbing
+and the splashing of waves on the boat and the canoe.  The owner of the
+boat, a gaunt farmer from Westings Landing, a few miles down the river,
+who had not been initiated into the mystery, looked on in discreet
+astonishment.  This was indeed a strange situation in which to see the
+grandson of Lady Gault.  At last Barbara, to whom suspense was hideous,
+broke out.
+
+"Oh, do say something!" she wailed.  Indeed, neither Doctor John nor
+Doctor Jim knew just what to say.  They were embarrassed.  But the
+child was right.  Somebody had to say something.  By interchange of
+quick glances the lot fell to Doctor John.
+
+"Well, this is pretty gallivanting, running away with a young
+man,--carrying him off in your aunt's canoe!" said Doctor John.
+
+Barbara's eyes opened very wide.
+
+"I never!" she cried, indignantly.
+
+"As for you, Bobby Gault," interposed Doctor Jim, severely, and in a
+tone that made Robert feel himself hatefully young, "I cannot
+comprehend how _you_ should come to be mixed up in this affair.  I know
+well what my friend, Richard Gault, your lamented father, with his nice
+notions of honour, would have thought of such an escapade."  (Robert's
+father and mother had died within a few days of each other, by an
+epidemic of typhus, when the boy was only five years old.)  "But I
+shall lay the matter before your good grandmother, and your uncle, who
+will doubtless deal with you as you deserve."
+
+Robert shut his lips tight and eyed the speaker proudly; but Barbara
+made reply in her vehement way.
+
+"It is not Robert's fault at all, I tell you, Doctor Jim!" she cried,
+forgetting that she had said nothing whatever on the subject.  "I just
+met him, an hour or two ago, on an old raft; and he knew who I was; and
+because he was getting his feet wet on the raft, I invited him to get
+into the canoe; and I made him promise to paddle me just wherever I
+wanted to go.  So there!  And it is not his fault one bit!  And you may
+do what you like to me, but I won't have him punished when he has not
+done anything at all!"
+
+Doctor John tried to look quite grave; and Doctor Jim, who was really
+annoyed, succeeded.
+
+"Oh, ho! young man!" he remarked, sarcastically, "it appears that you
+have a champion.  Now, what have you to say for yourself?"
+
+"Mistress Barbara has neglected to add," said he, with all the dignity
+that he could assume, "that I insisted upon her narrating to me all the
+unhappy circumstances of her life in Second Westings.  The story
+commanded my fullest sympathy, and I had just given her my word that I
+would aid her in escaping to her uncle, Mr. Glenowen, where she would
+be happy, when you came and violently interfered with her purpose.  I
+ask you, sir, to consider.  Are you not ashamed to be instrumental in
+restoring a young lady to conditions where she has been made to suffer
+so cruelly?"
+
+In spite of his indignation, Robert could not help feeling proud of
+this effort.  In his own ears it sounded imposing, unanswerable, and
+altogether grown up.  Barbara thought it was a miracle of eloquence,
+and cast him a grateful look.  But Doctor John could not conceal his
+delight in the stilted periods.  He burst into a huge guffaw, at which
+Barbara's eyes snapped and Robert's dark skin reddened angrily.  But
+Doctor Jim exclaimed, hotly:
+
+"Hoity-toity!  How big we do feel!  To think how often I dandled you on
+my knee when you were a mewling baby.  If I had but known enough to
+spank you once in awhile, you might not have grown up to be such a
+priggish young coxcomb.  Richard's son!  Who would have thought it?
+Eh, what?"
+
+Meanwhile the boat and canoe were drifting rapidly down-stream.  Doctor
+John looked at the sun, now touching the horizon.
+
+"Don't you think, Master Gault," said he, drily, "that unless you
+propose to honour us with your company to Second Westings, we had
+better set you ashore hereabouts, that you may stretch your legs in the
+direction of Gault House?"
+
+"Thank you!" said Robert, stiffly, his heart bursting with humiliation
+and the longing to strangle his huge, supercilious antagonist.  But
+Barbara interrupted.
+
+"I'm not going back to Second Westings!" she declared obstinately,
+trying hard to set her full red lips together in the resolute way that
+Robert's had.  "I will never go back to live with Aunt Hitty.  I'll
+drown myself first.  I'm going to Uncle Bob, at Stratford."
+
+The threat, once so effective, seemed now to have lost its potency.  No
+one appeared impressed but Robert,--and perhaps the stranger-man who
+owned the boat.
+
+"My dear child," said Doctor John, eying her indulgently, "among the
+more or less serious obstacles to your plan is one of which I believe
+that even you will see the magnitude.  Mr. Glenowen is no longer at
+Stratford."
+
+"Uncle Bob not at Stratford?" wailed Barbara, overwhelmed, subjugated
+in an instant.  Robert started aghast.
+
+Doctor John paused dramatically, while the full effect of the news
+worked upon his victims in the canoe.  Then he said, coolly:
+
+"Mr. Glenowen is just now at Hartford, or has lately left that town.
+Mistress Ladd had a letter from him to-day, saying he expected to
+arrive at Second Westings not later than the end of next week, I think,
+moreover, that I saw a packet on the mantel-shelf addressed to Mistress
+Barbara Ladd!"
+
+With one bound Barbara's heart passed from despair to ecstasy.
+Everything else was forgotten.  She was as eager now to get back to
+Second Westings as she had been to escape from it.  All she knew or
+cared for was that Uncle Bob would be there.  He would make everything
+right.  Her face was all radiance, as it turned to Doctor John, then to
+Doctor Jim, then to Robert,--who eyed her gloomily, feeling himself now
+cast out into the cold.  But in her joy Barbara did not forget him
+after all.
+
+"Just think, Robert," she cried, "Uncle Bob so near, and we would have
+missed him if Doctor John and Doctor Jim, the dears, had not come and
+caught us.  They are always _angels_ to me, you know.  Now we will put
+you ashore right here.  And you must be sure to come over to Second
+Westings and see me,--won't you?--while Uncle Bob is there.  Come next
+week."
+
+"I thank you for the gracious invitation," answered the boy, bowing a
+little stiffly.  "But I think I had better wait for Mr. Glenowen's
+permission, as these gentlemen are not likely to present me to him in a
+very favourable light."
+
+"Don't be silly and disagreeable, Robert," said Barbara, impatiently.
+"Uncle Bob will think of you just as I do.  We always agree about
+people.  Now you must hurry!"
+
+"I think, however," persisted Robert, "I ought to wait for Mr.
+Glenowen's invitation."
+
+"Right, my lad!" exclaimed Doctor Jim, much mollified by this attitude.
+"That's my old friend Richard's son speaking now.  And I doubt not that
+our little mistress here will see to it that the invitation is
+forthcoming in good season,--eh, what?"
+
+There was a doubtful expression on Barbara's face, over the lack of
+instantaneous obedience to her will on the part of her champion; but
+Robert, encouraged by Doctor Jim's commendation, now made a bold
+proposal.
+
+"If you would be so kind, sir," he suggested, diffidently, "I should
+like to go down with you to the Landing, where I can lodge very well
+for the night at the house of an old servant of my grandmother's.  It
+will be a long and difficult tramp for me up the shore now, in the
+dark, and with no road through the woods.  By going with you to the
+Landing I might be of some service, to paddle the canoe.  She will be
+an awkward craft to tow; and Mistress Barbara is very tired, I
+perceive."
+
+"Sly young dog!" growled Doctor John.  "But, seeing that he is
+Richard's son, we'll have to take him along with us as far as the
+Landing, eh, Jim?"
+
+"Let him work his passage, then!" roared Doctor Jim.  "Let him paddle
+the canoe, and Barbara, and her kittens, and all her contraptions,--and
+we'll see about not being too hard on him when we come to tell his
+grandmother!"
+
+This arrangement was highly satisfactory to all concerned.  The gloom
+fell from Robert's face, and his mouth grew boyish and happy as he
+paddled on in musing silence.  He kept the canoe alongside of the boat,
+just out of reach of the oars, so that Barbara could talk conveniently
+with Doctor John and Doctor Jim, which she did in the most usual manner
+in the world, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.  But
+presently, upon a lull in the conversation came the voice of Robert,
+who had been thinking about Barbara's life at Second Westings.
+
+"Is not Mistress Ladd a very harsh, tyrannical sort of woman?" he
+inquired, solicitously.
+
+There was a huge roar from Doctor Jim, which made even Barbara jump,
+inured though she was to these explosions.
+
+"I'd have you remember, young sir, that you are speaking of the
+gentlest, sweetest, truest, most gracious lady that ever lived, for
+whose little shoes you are not worthy to sweep the ground!"
+
+Robert stared in confusion, too astonished to be at once ready with an
+apology.  Before he could gather his wits, Doctor John spoke up, more
+gently.  He was no less loyal a champion to Mistress Mehitable than was
+Doctor Jim, but with him his humour was ever at hand to assuage his
+wrath.  Subduing his great tones to a quizzical and confidential
+half-whisper, that feigned itself not meant for Barbara's ears, he
+said, amiably:
+
+"My son, when you come to know well this little firebrand of ours, whom
+we have just plucked from a watery burning, this sower of dissension in
+our good village of Second Westings, I doubt not that you will spare a
+moiety of your sympathies for that very noble lady, Mistress Ladd.  In
+truth, for all her tears and anxiety on this mad little maid's account,
+I have a misgiving that we are doing the sweet lady no great kindness
+in taking Mistress Barbara back to her.  A pretty gallant you are, to
+undertake to carry a lady off, and then make a mess of it, and leave
+her embarrassed friends to straighten out the snarl!"
+
+Under this daunting blend of rebuke and raillery, Robert fell into a
+deeper confusion.  He floundered through a few awkward phrases of
+deprecation and apology, but Barbara cut in upon his struggles without
+mercy.  The gibes of Doctor John troubled her not a whit, but one thing
+which he had said captured her interest.
+
+"_Did_ Aunt Hitty _really_ cry when she found I had gone away?  Did she
+really feel so badly about it?  I thought she would be rather glad!"
+
+"She was in great grief, bitter grief, Barbara.  Do you think no one
+has feelings but yourself?" answered Doctor Jim, with some severity.
+
+This pertinent question Barbara ignored.  She turned to Robert.
+
+"You must understand, Robert," she explained with care, "that Aunt
+Hitty is not really cruel to me,--at least she never intends to be.
+But she and I do not understand each other, and so we can't get on!"
+
+"You will simply have to learn some of the rudiments of obedience and
+self-control, Barbara," said Doctor Jim.  Never had he spoken to her so
+severely before, and she was amazed.  But she saw that this time she
+had gone very near to forfeiting the sympathy of her most faithful
+allies.  Perhaps, after all, she _was_ in the wrong to run away.  The
+suspicion only made her the more obstinate.
+
+"I don't think one ought to obey any one, except one's father and
+mother," she proclaimed rebelliously.  "One's father and mother, if
+they are good, and wise, and kind," she added, still further enlarging
+her freedom.
+
+"And the king!" added Robert, sententiously.  He flung out the word as
+a shibboleth.
+
+There was a moment of silence.  Barbara darted upon him a glance of
+petulant disappointment.  Doctor John laughed hugely.  But as for
+Doctor Jim, his face underwent a swift change, as he scanned the boy
+with new interest.
+
+"Well said, well said; spoken as Richard's boy should speak, as a Gault
+should ever speak!" he thundered, in high approval.  "I am sorry if I
+seemed abrupt a moment ago, Robert.  Pardon my quick temper.  I see
+your heart is in the right place, and you have not let them stuff your
+head with pestilent and plebeian heresies.  Yes, yes, you must
+certainly come to Second Westings.  I shall be honoured if my old
+friend's son will be my guest!"
+
+From that moment dated a friendship between Robert and Doctor Jim which
+no after vicissitude was ever able to disturb.
+
+But Barbara was of another mind.
+
+"King George is just a stupid old tyrant, and I hate him!" she
+exclaimed.  "I'm sorry, Robert, you have not quite so much sense as I
+thought you had.  I'm really disappointed in you.  But there are _some_
+nice Tories!  You know even dear Doctor Jim is a Tory, though we can't
+see why, and he's just as lovely as if he were on the right side.  So
+you may come to Second Westings,--though you must promise not to argue
+with me.  But I know, Robert, I sha'n't like you now so well as I
+thought I was going to!"
+
+"Let the young people fight it out, eh, Jim?" said Doctor John, greatly
+amused.  "Let them fight it out between them!"  Then, suddenly grave,
+he added, "God grant the differences now distracting our colonies grow
+not beyond the point of children's quarrels!"
+
+Doctor Jim shook his head sorrowfully.
+
+"There's trouble ahead, John.  I feel it coming.  This is a
+stiff-necked and disloyal people, and I have a foreboding.  There's a
+sword in the air, John!"
+
+"It's surely a stiff-necked king, Jim," muttered Doctor John.
+
+"The sword of a Gault will ever leap from its scabbard to serve the
+king!" said Robert, loftily, his grave eyes aglow with exaltation.
+
+As he made this proclamation of his faith, devoting himself to a cause
+of which she disapproved, and quite ignoring her feelings in the
+matter, Barbara felt a sudden pang of loneliness.  She seemed
+forgotten, or, at least, grown secondary and trivial.
+
+"Do let us hurry home to Uncle Bob!" she pleaded, her voice pathetic,
+her eyes tired and dissatisfied.
+
+Then silence, with the twilight, descended upon the voyaging company;
+and in a little while, coming noiselessly to the landing-place, they
+stepped ashore into the dewy, sweet-smelling weeds and the evening
+peace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+A green lane, little used, but deeply rutted, led up from the wharf to
+the main street of Westings Landing.  The village was silent, with no
+sign of life, except here and there a glimmer from a candle-lit window.
+From the pale sky overhead came the strange twang of swooping
+night-hawks, as of harp-strings suddenly but firmly plucked.  In the
+intervals between these irregular and always unexpected notes was heard
+the persistent rhythm of a whippoorwill, softly threshing the dusk with
+his phantom song.  Barbara felt the whole scene to be unreal, her
+companions unreal, herself most unreal of all.  Could it be that she
+was the girl who had that same morning run away, that same morning made
+so brave and triumphant a start upon so splendid a venture?  Now,
+somehow, she felt rather than understood the folly of it.  The fact
+that she would have missed her Uncle Bob if she had succeeded in her
+plan took out of it all the zest, and it became to her a very
+ridiculous plan indeed.  But her change of attitude was emotional
+rather than intellectual.  She was convinced in mood, not in mind.
+Only she felt herself on the sudden a very small, tired girl, who
+deserved to be punished, and wanted to go to bed.  Her conviction of
+childishness was heightened by the fact that Robert, who was walking
+just ahead with Doctor Jim, in grave discussion, seemed not only to
+have suddenly grown up, but to have quite forgotten her once imperious
+but now discredited existence.  Her exhaustion, her reaction, her
+defeat, her disappointment in Robert, these all at once translated
+themselves into a sense of hopeless loneliness.  She seized the large,
+kind hand of Doctor John, who walked in silence by her side, and clung
+to him.
+
+Presently Doctor John felt hot tears streaming copiously down his
+fingers.  Without a word, he snatched her up into his arms, carrying
+her as if she were a baby; and shaking with voiceless sobs, she buried
+her small, wet face in his comforting neck.  She felt as if she wanted
+to cry wildly, deliciously, for hours and hours.  But she managed to
+remember that even a very small girl may be heavy to carry over a rough
+road in the dusk, when the man who carries her has had a hard day's
+work chasing her.  And, furthermore, she thought how very, very little,
+how poor and pitiful a heroine she would seem in Robert's eyes if he
+should chance to remember her existence and look back!  She pulled
+herself together with a fierce effort, and choked down her sobs.
+
+"Thank you so much, dear Doctor John!" she whispered in his ear.  "I'm
+better now, and you must put me down.  I'm too heavy."
+
+"Tut, tut, sweetheart!" growled Doctor John, softly; "you bide where
+you are, and rest.  _You_ heavy!"
+
+"But,"--she persisted, with a little earthward wriggle to show she
+meant it,--"I want to get down now, please!  I don't want to look like
+quite such a baby.  Doctor John!"
+
+"Tut, tut!" but he set her down, nevertheless, and kept comforting hold
+of one cold little hand.  Doctor John was quick in his sympathetic
+comprehension of women and children, and tolerant of what most men
+would account mere whim.  In a moment he leaned down close to her ear,
+and whispered:
+
+"What are you but a baby, after all,--a tired out, bad baby,
+sweetheart?  But we'll just keep that a secret between you and me, and
+not let Jim Pigeon or Master Robert even guess at it!"  And Barbara
+squeezed his hand violently in both of hers by way of answer.
+
+At this moment, Doctor Jim and Robert, reaching the corner of the
+street, turned and waited for them to come up.  Doctor Jim had
+Barbara's precious basket of kittens on his arm, while Robert was
+carrying her little red bundle, which he now handed over to Doctor
+John.  A certain reluctance with which he gave it up was quite lost
+upon Barbara in her unwonted humility and depression; and it was a very
+white, wistful little face which she turned glimmeringly upon him as he
+bowed over her hand.
+
+"Why are you leaving us here, Robert?" she asked, in a small voice,
+most unlike the wilful tone with which she had talked to him in the
+canoe.
+
+"My way lies down the street, sweet mistress," said the boy.  "Your
+horses, Doctor Jim tells me, are waiting for you at the Blue Boar
+yonder.  This has been a wonderful day for me.  When you think of it,
+will you try to remember me kindly as one who would ever be your most
+devoted, humble servant?"
+
+Delighted by this elaborate courtesy, so rehabilitating to her
+self-esteem, Barbara began to feel herself almost herself again.  She
+thought, with a sudden prickling heat of shame, of how childish she had
+been during all the past year,--and she almost fifteen!  And here was
+Robert, who was certainly very grown-up, treating her with a deference
+which he would never dream of paying to a mere little girl!  She
+resolved to justify his deference, to conceal her pet childishnesses
+till time should mature them away; yet even as she registered this
+resolve, she registered a vague but deeper one, that she would cling
+for ever to every childish taste and pleasure in spite of the very
+utmost that time could do.  But the feeling that came uppermost and
+found expression was a sharp little pang at something in his words
+which sounded as if he were bidding farewell for a long, indefinite
+time.
+
+"But I shall see you again soon, sha'n't I, Robert?" she exclaimed,
+impulsively.  "You'll come over to Second Westings right away, won't
+you, and meet Uncle Bob?"
+
+"Yes," said the boy, bowing low again, and speaking with a mixture of
+hesitation and triumph, "I am promising myself that pleasure, Mistress
+Barbara, within a very few days.  You see--Doctor Jim--he has been so
+kind--"
+
+"To be sure," broke in Doctor Jim, with an emphasis to preclude any
+discussion of consistency,--"I've asked the lad over to visit us, John.
+Richard's son!--  And his heart's in the right place,--and his head,
+too,--eh, what?  We'll see that Mistress Mehitable is not too hard on
+him,--eh, what?  You know you're not going to be too hard on the boy
+yourself, John Pigeon, for all you've been so uncommonly unpleasant to
+him!"
+
+Doctor John chuckled softly, and squeezed Barbara's left hand, which he
+had retained while she was receiving Robert's adieux.
+
+"Tut, tut, Jim!  You know well enough we've got to pardon anything in
+breeches, young or old, that gets led into mischief by this little limb
+o' darkness here.  It's a peck of trouble she's been getting you and me
+into, time and time again.  You needn't make excuses for Robert to me,
+Jim Pigeon.  At least, not yet!"
+
+"Thank you, sir," said Robert, a little stiffly, not relishing a
+pleasantry at Barbara's expense, though Barbara herself had broken into
+a peal of gay laughter, flattered at Doctor John's implications, and
+comforted to know that Robert was not slipping beyond her reach.
+"Thank you, indeed, sir; but I have no excuse; I was fully committed to
+Mistress Barbara's venture, and I'm just as much to blame as she is!"
+
+Barbara's heart glowed.  This was the kind of unreasonable championship
+she adored.  But truth compelled her to protest.
+
+"Oh, no, no, Robert, not at all!  It wasn't you that ran away from Aunt
+Hitty, and took the canoe, and persuaded a nice, civil gentleman whom
+you'd never seen before in your life to do a perfectly crazy thing like
+you read of in story-books--"  But, as she paused for breath, Doctor
+Jim, too impatient to be amused, interrupted her:
+
+"Well, well, Robert, you and Barbara can settle all that between you
+some other time.  We must get away.  Good night--good night.  My best
+compliments to your honoured grandmother!  And ride over the first day
+you can, lad!"
+
+And Doctor John, shaking his head sorrowfully, exclaimed:
+
+"Tut, tut, tut!  How small a petticoat can turn how great a brain!  I
+see trouble ahead for you, Bobby!"
+
+"I shall be so glad to see you at my aunt's, Robert!" cried Barbara,
+over her shoulder, as they moved up the street toward the Blue Boar and
+the waiting horses.  Robert, standing hat in hand, gazed after them
+till they were swallowed up in the shadows.  Still he waited, till a
+pulse of light across the gloom and the sound of the inn door closing
+told him that he was alone under the night.  Then, suddenly, he became
+conscious of the lonely, wonderful night sounds, and suddenly the night
+perfumes sank into his heart.  The spicy breaths from the clover field
+and blossoming thicket, cooled with dew, gave him a strange
+intoxication as he drew them into the depths of his lungs.  The pulsing
+rhythm of the whippoorwill seemed to time itself to the pulsing of his
+heart and translate it to the terms of an impassioned, inarticulate
+chant.  The plucked harp-strings sounding from time to time in the
+hidden heights of the sky set all his nerves vibrating mystically.
+Walking as if in a dream, he came to the door of the cottage where he
+had planned to stay the night.  Then he turned on a swift impulse,
+hurried back to the landing, launched Barbara's canoe, and, without
+consciousness of weariness or hunger, paddled all the way back to Gault
+House against the current.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+From Second Westings that morning, after old Debby's alarm, Doctor John
+and Doctor Jim had came posthaste on horseback to Westings Landing.
+Now, however, it was found that Barbara was quite too worn out by the
+fatigues of her long, strenuous day to sit a horse for a ten mile's
+ride over rough roads in the dark.  Priding herself not less on her
+endurance than on her horsemanship, she vehemently repudiated the
+charge that she was done up, and was determined to ride back on the
+liveliest of the Blue Boar's horses.  But Doctor John and Doctor Jim,
+scanning critically her white face and the dark rims coming about her
+eyes, for once agreed in a professional judgment.  They ordered the
+horses hitched to the roomy old chaise, which was one of the landlord's
+most cherished possessions; and Barbara had to accept, rebelliously
+enough, the supineness of a cushioned seat for the free lift and swing
+of the saddle.  Before the lighted doorway of the inn was out of sight,
+however, she was glad of the decision.  Her overwrought nerves began to
+relax under the soothing of the wood scents and the tender summer dark.
+In a little while she was asleep in the strong curve of Doctor Jim's
+right arm,--so deep asleep that all the ruts and jolts and corduroy
+bridges of an old Connecticut back-country road were powerless to
+disturb her peace.  When they woke her up, at her aunt's door, she was
+so drenched with sleep that she forgot to dread the reckoning.  With
+drowsy, dark eyes, and red mouth softly trustful as a baby's, she
+bewildered Mistress Ladd by a warm kiss and "I'm sorry, Aunt Hitty!"
+and went stumbling off to bed with her basket of sleeping kittens,
+oblivious and irresponsible as they.
+
+Mistress Mehitable looked after her with small, stern mouth, but
+troubled eyes.  Then she turned half helplessly to her friends, as if
+to say, "What can I--what ought I to do?"
+
+Doctor John threw up both big, white hands in mock despair, and his
+sympathetic laugh said, "What do you expect?"  But Doctor Jim, more
+direct and positive, said, "Best leave her alone till to-morrow,
+Mehitable; and then talk to her with no talk of punishing.  She's not
+the breed that punishing's good for."
+
+Mistress Mehitable looked sorrowful, but resolute.
+
+"I fear that would not be right, Jim!" she said.  But there was a note
+of deep anxiety in her voice.  "People who do wrong ought to be
+punished.  Barbara has done very, very wrong!"
+
+Doctor Jim was as near feeling impatient as he could dare to imagine
+himself with Mistress Mehitable.
+
+"Nonsense--I mean, dear lady, punishment's not in itself one of our
+numerous unpleasant duties.  It's a means to an end, that's all.  In
+this case, it just defeats your end.  It's the wrong means altogether.
+Therefore--pardon me for saying it to you, Mehitable--it's wrong.  It's
+hard enough to manage Barbara, I know, but to punish her, or talk to
+her of punishing, makes it harder still, eh, what?"
+
+"Don't let your conscience trouble you, Mehitable," said Doctor John.
+"I'm thinking the little maid will manage to get for herself, full
+measure and running over, all the punishment that's coming to her.
+She's not the kind that punishment overlooks."
+
+Was there a suspicion of criticism in all this?  Could it be that John
+Pigeon and Jim Pigeon, her lifelong cavaliers, in whose sight all she
+did was wont to seem perfection, whose unswerving homage had been her
+stay through many an hour of faintness and misgiving, were now, at
+last, beginning to admit doubts?  Two large tears gathered slowly in
+the corners of Mistress Mehitable's blue eyes, the resolution fled from
+her mouth, and her fine lips quivered girlishly.  She twisted her
+shapely little hands in her apron, then regained her self-control with
+an effort.
+
+"Dear friends," said she, "I fear I have made a sad failure of the duty
+which I so confidently undertook.  I thought I could surely do so much
+for her,--could so thoroughly understand Winthrop's child.  But that
+foreign woman--that strange blood!  There is the trouble.  That is what
+baffles all my efforts.  Oh, perhaps it is partly my fault, too.
+Perhaps the child was right in the very singular letter she left for
+me, saying--just as if she were a grown woman and had the same rights
+as I had--that the trouble was that we could not understand each other!
+Oh, I fear I am not the right woman to have the care of Barbara!"
+
+"You are the rightest woman in the world, Mehitable!" thundered Doctor
+Jim, in explosive protest against this self-accusation.  "The rightest
+woman in the world to have the care of any man, woman, or child that
+ever lived."
+
+"Jim Pigeon's right, Mehitable, as he usually is, outside of medicine
+and politics," declared Doctor John.  "The little maid will be ready
+enough some day, I'll warrant, to acknowledge how lucky she was in
+having her Aunt Hitty to care for her.  But here in Second Westings we
+are not just at the centre of things exactly, and it may be we get into
+ruts, thinking our ways are the only ways.  Shall we try new ways with
+this very difficult little maid, Hitty?"
+
+Mistress Mehitable brushed off the tears which had overflowed, and held
+out a hand to each of the big brothers.
+
+"You are the best friends a woman ever had," she averred with
+conviction; "and if you both disagree with me, I must be wrong.  It
+shall be your way to the best of my power.  After you've had the horses
+put up, come back here and I'll have a hot bite ready for you.
+But--oh, I do wish Winthrop had married among his own people!"
+
+"It is late, dear lady, and you are tired after your anxieties," said
+Doctor Jim.  "But, nevertheless, since you are so gracious, we will
+soon return,--eh, what, John?--for a bowl of that hot sangaree which
+Mehitable's fair hands know how to brew so delicately."
+
+"Don't misunderstand Jim, Mehitable," said Doctor John, as the two
+withdrew.  "The comfort of your punch is nothing to us as the comfort
+of your presence.  Had you ever consented to make one man happy, how
+miserable would you have made others, Mehitable!"
+
+There was deep meaning and an old reproach under Doctor John's tender
+raillery; and Mistress Ladd's cheeks flushed as she stood a few moments
+motionless, alone in her low-ceiled, wide parlour.  She was convicted
+of failure at every point.  Well she knew how happy she might have made
+either one of the big-limbed, big-hearted brothers, had she not shrunk
+from making the other miserable.  And she had never been able to decide
+which was the dearer to her heart; for, though she was apt to turn
+first to Jim in any need, or any joy, the thought of pain for John was
+ever hard for her to endure.  Her heart was very full as she set about
+preparing the brew which they both loved: and before they came she
+stole noiselessly up-stairs to the room over the porch, and softly
+kissed the dark, unrepentant waves of the sleeping Barbara's hair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+It was late morning when Barbara awoke--so late that she saw, by the
+position of the square of sunshine on the wall beyond her bed, that the
+hour for breakfast was over.  Her first vague waking sense was one of
+joy to come, which she presently caught and fixed as the knowledge that
+her Uncle Bob would soon be with her.  Then a great flood of depression
+rolled over her, blotting out the joy, as she remembered that she had
+Aunt Hitty yet to reckon with.  To make matters worse, she had slept
+past breakfast time,--which was almost an immorality in that punctual
+household.  A lump came up in her throat, and tears ached behind her
+eyes, for she had meant to try so hard to make up,--and now she had
+gone and sinned again.  She shut her eyes tight, and made a determined
+effort to regain hold of the sleepiness which still drenched and
+clouded her brain.  This effort was too much, and on the instant the
+last vestige of her drowsiness cleared away, and her brain grew keen as
+flame.  She sat up, determined to face the conflict and get it over.
+
+As she sat up, her eyes fell upon the little table by her bedside,
+whereon she was wont to keep her candle, her filagreed bottle of
+lavender water, her much marked copy of Sir Philip Sidney's sonnets,
+and her Bible, which was thumbed chiefly at Isaiah, Ecclesiastes, and
+the Song of Solomon.  Her eyes opened very wide as she saw there
+now,--event unprecedented and unbelievable,--a little tray with white
+linen napkin.  On the tray were a glass and a jug of milk, a plate of
+the seed-cakes which she particularly loved, a big slice of barley
+bread, and a bowl of yellow raspberries.  She stared for half a minute,
+and rubbed her eyes, and thought.  Abby, certainly, could not have done
+it.  She would neither have dared nor cared to.  Then--it was Aunt
+Hitty,--and after the way she had treated her,--and after that cold,
+hateful letter!  She reached out a doubtful hand and touched the bread
+and berries.  She started to eat a seed-cake, but it stuck in her
+throat, quite unable to get past a certain strange, aching obstruction,
+which had gathered there all at once.  Tears suddenly streamed down her
+face; and springing impulsively out of bed, she ran, barefooted and in
+her white nightgown, straight to the little bow-windowed sewing-room,
+where she knew that at this hour her aunt would be busy with the needle.
+
+Mistress Mehitable had just time to thrust aside her needle and the
+fine fabric she was fashioning before Barbara flung herself into her
+arms, sobbing passionately.  The good lady's heart warmed in response
+to this outburst, and she held Barbara close to her breast, whispering,
+"There, there, dearie, we just won't talk about it at all!  We'll just
+try hard to understand each other better in the future!"
+
+At the same moment, while her eyes were filling with tears, she could
+not help a whimsical thought of what Doctor John would say.  "He would
+say,"--she said to herself at the back of her brain,--"'Seed-cakes may
+save a soul quicker than switchings, Mehitable!'"  Mistress Mehitable's
+earnest mind had no apprehension of humour save as it reached her by
+reflection from Doctor John or Doctor Jim.
+
+Presently Barbara found her voice.
+
+"Forgive me, Aunt Hitty, forgive me!" she sobbed.
+
+Mistress Mehitable held her a little closer by way of reply.
+
+"I'm not worth your while, Aunt Hitty--I'm not one bit worth all the
+trouble you take for me--I'm nothing but a wretched little reptile,
+Aunt Hitty,--and I just wonder you don't hate and despise me!"
+
+"There, there, dear," murmured Mistress Mehitable, patting her hair.
+She was sure of her feelings, but could not be quite sure that words
+would rightly express them at this crisis.  If she talked, she knew she
+might say the wrong thing.  She'd leave it all to Barbara, and be safe
+at least for the moment.
+
+"I knew how bad I was," continued Barbara, justifying the statement by
+remembrance of some brief and scattered moments of self-questioning.
+"I knew how bad I was, but I couldn't say so, and I never, never knew
+how lovely you could be, Aunt Hitty!  I was so dreading to see you this
+morning,--and then, oh, you just brought me the seed-cakes, and the
+yellow raspberries, and never said one word!"
+
+As she dwelt on this magnanimity, Barbara's sobs broke forth afresh.
+
+"There, there, dear," murmured Mistress Mehitable again, and kissed her
+tenderly, still refusing to be drawn from her intrenchments, but deeply
+rejoicing in the triumph of her new strategy.
+
+"To think--why, I never really knew you till now, Aunt Hitty!" and
+Barbara hugged her with swift vehemence.  "When I saw the things by my
+bed, and thought of you stealing in and putting them there, and
+stealing out without waking me,--oh, Aunt Hitty, I thought such a lot
+all in one instant, and I knew you couldn't have done that, after me
+being so bad, unless you loved me,--could you?"
+
+"Indeed I couldn't!" answered Mistress Ladd, with conviction.
+
+"And you will really and truly forgive me?" persisted Barbara.
+
+This was a direct challenge, and Mistress Mehitable was too honest not
+to come forth and meet it.  She gently pushed Barbara off, and held her
+so she could look straight into her fearless young eyes.
+
+"I really and truly forgive you--and love you, Barbara!" she said.
+"And"--she continued, with a slight hesitancy, in an instant's resolve
+achieving a resolution,--"I ask you to forgive me for my
+misunderstandings of you, and all my many mistakes."
+
+"Why, Aunt Hitty!" exclaimed Barbara, too tender in her mood to agree
+with these self-accusations, but too honest to contradict.
+
+"I have failed to realise how, being so different from other girls, you
+required different treatment from other girls," went on Mistress
+Mehitable, firmly abasing herself.  "I thought there was only one right
+mould, and I must try to force you into it, however much the effort
+should hurt us both, dear.  I have been blind, very blind, and wrong.
+In this remote little world of ours, Barbara, we get into ruts, and
+come to think that the only way is our way."
+
+Barbara's eyes were glowing with enthusiasm.  She had discovered Aunt
+Kitty's heart,--and now she was discovering a breadth and insight which
+she could never have believed possible in that competent but seemingly
+restricted brain.  If Aunt Hitty could thus lift herself to look beyond
+the atmosphere of Second Westings, and to understand people different
+from those she had always been used to, she must be a very great woman.
+Barbara's eyes flamed with the ardour of her appreciation.  She did not
+know what to say, but her expression was eloquent.
+
+"That's a quotation from Doctor John," said the conscientious Mistress
+Mehitable, suddenly afraid from Barbara's glowing look that she was
+getting more credit than her due.  "But I have become convinced of its
+truth."
+
+"How wise and good you are, Aunt Hitty!  I'll never, never
+misunderstand you again!" cried Barbara, rashly, breaking down Mistress
+Mehitable's guard, and once more hugging her with vehemence.
+
+Mistress Mehitable smiled, gratified but doubtful.  She was surprised
+at her own unexpected appreciation of Barbara's demonstrativeness and
+warmth, so unlike anything that had ever before invaded the cool sphere
+of her experience.  She felt it her duty, however, to qualify Barbara's
+extravagant expectations, not realising that what the impetuous girl
+intended to express was rather a hope than a conviction.
+
+"We hardly dare expect quite that, dear," she said, gently.  "But at
+least we can agree to trust each other's good intentions.  We can
+promise that, can't we?"
+
+"Of course, I'll always trust you now, Aunt Hitty, since I've seen your
+lovely heart!" exclaimed Barbara, with flattering fervour.
+
+"I have failed to realise," continued Mistress Mehitable, "that you are
+no longer a little girl, but very nearly a grown woman.  Many girls are
+grown women at your age, Barbara, so that I have decided on something
+that will surprise you.  From this time forward, I shift my
+responsibility for you largely to your own shoulders, and shall hope to
+be more your friend than your guardian.  I hand you over to yourself,
+Barbara.  You must learn to discipline yourself!"
+
+Barbara slipped down to the floor, and leaned against her aunt's knee,
+her dark, small face grown very thoughtful.
+
+"All I dare say, Aunt Hitty," she said, slowly, weighing her words with
+unwonted care, "is that I'll try with all my might.  But I warn you
+that you are leaving me in very bad hands.  I want to be good, but
+sometimes I can't help being bad!"
+
+"Well," said Mistress Mehitable, with a curious reflex of Doctor John's
+humour, "you'll have to punish yourself after this.  I warn you that
+you must not look to me for punishment after this!"
+
+Barbara's eyes got very wide, and danced; and she gave a little shriek
+of delight, such as that with which she was wont to greet Doctor John's
+whimsical sallies.
+
+"Why, Aunt Hitty," she cried, clapping her hands, "you said that just
+like Doctor John!"
+
+Mistress Mehitable flushed faintly, and laughed like a girl.  She
+stooped over and kissed Barbara fairly on the mouth.  Then she arose
+rather hurriedly.
+
+"I have often wished I could make myself in many ways more like those
+two great-hearted gentlemen!" she said.
+
+Barbara remained sitting upon the floor.  Her eyes narrowed
+thoughtfully as she stared out of the window.
+
+"They are perfectly dear," she agreed, without reservation, "Isn't it
+splendid that they love us so, Aunt Hitty?"
+
+"I'm going to the still-room now," said Mistress Mehitable, moving
+toward the door.  "I put in the bergamot just before breakfast."
+
+"I'll come and help you in a little while,--dear!" said Barbara,
+suddenly realising the changed relations, and suddenly making practical
+application of it.  That caressing, equal, half-protecting "dear"
+sounded strange to Mistress Mehitable.  It gave her something of a
+shock, yet she was not sure she didn't like it.  It made her feel less
+alone than of old.  She appeared not to notice it, however, merely
+saying before she vanished:
+
+"If I'm not in the still-room, I'll be down the back garden, gathering
+herbs.  The lemon-thyme's in flower, if you're going to distill any
+more of your 'Maryland Memories.'  Uncle Robert might like a flask of
+it."
+
+"Lovely," said Barbara, dreamily.  "We will make him some.  I'll hurry."
+
+But for a few minutes she did not hurry at all.  Her rich, rebellious
+hair all down about her vivid face, her thin little shapely feet
+peeping out from under the frills of her white nightgown, she sat in
+the square of sunshine and pondered.  Since she fled away yesterday
+morning, what a change had come about!  She felt as if that wild and
+foolish adventure was years behind her.  A certain vague sense of
+responsibility oppressed her, a responsibility to herself hitherto
+unacknowledged.  She made the momentous resolve that she would learn to
+know herself a little, as a step to enabling other people, Robert Gault
+and Aunt Hitty in particular, to understand her.  She got up and
+scrutinised herself keenly in the glass.
+
+"You didn't know you were getting so grown up, did you, you ugly,
+skinny, little black thing!" she muttered.
+
+Then she flitted back to her own room, poured out a dish of milk for
+the hungry kittens, and snatched at her breakfast by mouthfuls, while
+she made her toilet and dressed.  Last of all, before going to join
+Mistress Mehitable, she sat down on the edge of her bed, and took the
+kittens into her lap.  One by one she held up their round, pinky-nosed
+faces, and gazed seriously into their enigmatic young eyes.
+
+"I want you to remember, now, my babies," said she, insisting upon
+their unwilling attention, "that your missis is now most grow'd
+up--she's grow'd up in one night, like old Mr. Jonah's gourd.  I want
+you to remember that we mustn't be silly and childish any more, except
+just in private, and where we can't help it.  And I want you to
+remember that you mustn't try to coax your missis into mischief any
+more like you did yesterday, going and helping her run off with the
+canoe, and such foolishnesses.  And I want you to remember that after
+this, if we can think of it, it isn't going to be 'Aunt Hitty' this,
+and 'Aunt Hitty' that, all the time,--but 'dear,' and 'honey' (as we
+used to say in Maryland), and 'blue-eyed lady,' and 'small person,'
+because we're just as tall as she is,--and we're too big to be punished
+any more, if we are bad,--and Uncle Bob's coming next week,--and Robert
+Gault may come any day, if he's impatient!"
+
+With a face of unwonted sobriety, but dancing lights in her eyes, she
+went to the door.  With her hand on the latch she changed her mind.
+Rushing to her glass, with a few deft touches she changed the
+arrangement of her hair, heaping it over her ears, and leaving just one
+crinkly curl to hang down over her left shoulder.
+
+The change added years to her appearance.  Then, snatching up a pair of
+scissors, she swiftly ripped out a deep tuck in her frock, letting the
+skirt down a good three inches.  With vigorous brushings and assiduous
+pattings she smoothed out the crease so that it was not obtrusive; and
+severely checking her wonted rush and skip, she went to join Aunt Hitty
+in the fragrant mysteries of the still-room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+To both Mistress Mehitable and Barbara the new order of things proved
+itself, all through that first day, supremely satisfactory; and each
+vowed most solemnly in her heart that she, at least, would not be the
+one to blame if it did not last.  During the afternoon, when Doctor
+John and Doctor Jim were drinking a pot of tea with them, and wondering
+delightedly at the unexpected atmosphere of peace, Barbara asked,
+suddenly:
+
+"How did you ever manage, Aunt Hitty, to get Doctor John and Doctor Jim
+off after me so quickly.  I thought I had _such_ a good start!  And how
+_did_ you know which way I was going?"
+
+Both men looked meaningly at Mistress Mehitable, but failed to catch
+her eye.  Doctor Jim began to shake his head violently, but stopped in
+confusion under Barbara's look of questioning astonishment.  But
+Mistress Mehitable, serenely unconscious, answered at once:
+
+"Old Debby Blue," said she, "with whom you breakfasted, rode over as
+fast as she could to Doctor Jim with the news.  The poor old woman was
+nearly dead from her exertions, I think you told me, Jim.  She has a
+good heart, and truly loves you, Barbara.  I am sorry if I have seemed
+harsh to her at times."
+
+Barbara's eyes grew wide, her face darkened ominously, and her full,
+bowed lips drew together to a straight line of scarlet.  Doctor John
+sat up straight, with twinkling eyes, expecting the outbreak of a
+characteristic Barbara storm, such as he always enjoyed in his big, dry
+way.  But Doctor Jim made haste to interpose.
+
+"You mustn't be too hard on Debby, Barbara, because she told what she
+had promised not to tell.  What else _could_ she do?  You know well
+enough she couldn't stop you herself, you headstrong baggage.  I won't
+have you unfair to Debby.  She loves you, and nearly killed herself to
+save you!"
+
+Barbara's look of anger changed to a sort of obstinate sullenness for
+an instant.  Then with an effort she forced herself to smile, while
+tears sprang into her eyes.
+
+"Of course, Debby was right," she acknowledged.  "But I wish she'd done
+it some other way.  She shouldn't have let me trust her.  She _fooled_
+me when I trusted her.  Oh, I'll _forgive_ her, of course," she
+continued, bitterly, "but never, never, will I _trust_ her again!"
+Then she sprang up impetuously, and ran and flung both arms around
+Mistress Mehitable.  "_Of course_ I'd forgive her, anyway, because if
+she hadn't fooled me I might have never found out how lovely you
+were,--honey!"
+
+Both Doctor John and Doctor Jim were breathless with amazement for a
+moment.  What was this miracle?  Whence came this understanding and
+this sympathy, all in a night?  They saw a new glad warmth in Mistress
+Mehitable's eyes.  They exchanged significant glances.
+
+"All I can say, Barbara," growled Doctor Jim, at length, "is that
+you've been a long while finding out what ought to have been as plain
+as the nose on your face,--eh, what?"
+
+"For a young lady who was able to discern at first glance the
+fascinations of Jim Pigeon," chimed in Doctor John, "I think you have
+been rather undiscriminating, Barbara!"
+
+"She could see two battered old tallow dips, when she couldn't see the
+moon!" added Doctor Jim, solemnly.
+
+There was always a relish of peril in rallying Barbara, whose audacity
+in retort was one of the scandals of Second Westings.  She flashed her
+white teeth upon them in a naughty smile, and her eyes danced as she
+kissed Mistress Mehitable on both cheeks.
+
+"Of _course_," she cried.  "Nobody knows better than you two great big
+dears what a perfect little fool I've been, not to be in love with Aunt
+Hitty all this time."
+
+"Barbara!" protested Mistress Mehitable, in a tone of rebuke,--and then
+again, bethinking herself, "Barbara, child!" in a tone of appeal.
+
+"But now, you can tell a hawk from a handsaw, eh, baggage?" chuckled
+Doctor John; while Doctor Jim exploded noisily, and then, checking
+himself, cast upon Mistress Mehitable a glance of apprehension.
+
+But Barbara had heeded neither the rebuke nor the appeal.
+
+"I know, I know," she went on, clapping her hands with delight.  "You
+didn't _want_ me to find her out,--you didn't want me to know how
+lovely she is!  Conspirators!  I won't love you any more, either of
+you.  And I'm going to keep Aunt Hitty all to myself here; and not let
+you even _see_ her; and make you both so jealous you'll wish you had
+let me run away in the canoe and get drowned in the rapids."
+
+"Barbara, Barbara," murmured Mehitable.
+
+Doctor Jim wagged his great head, and growled inarticulately.
+
+"It's we who are the victims of conspiracy, John," said he.  "If
+Mehitable and Barbara have discovered each other, what becomes of us,
+I'd like to know!  But it sha'n't last.  We'll sow seeds of dissension
+presently,--eh, what?"
+
+"Just let us wait till Bobby Gault comes!" suggested Doctor John, with
+gentle malice.
+
+Barbara's face grew grave on the instant.
+
+"Of course, Aunt Hitty, they have told you all about Robert," she said,
+earnestly, "but all they know about his reasons is what he told them
+himself, you know.  And he was determined to shield me, of course.  But
+it was _all_ my fault.  How could he know how bad and foolish I was?  I
+just mixed him all up; and it makes me ashamed to think how horrid I
+was; and I will never forgive myself.  But you mustn't let them
+prejudice you against Robert, honey,--but just wait and see what you
+think of him yourself, won't you, please?"
+
+Mistress Mehitable smiled, and exchanged looks with Doctor John and
+Doctor Jim.
+
+"Really, dear," said she, "they have not given me any very bad
+impressions of Robert.  I think both Doctor John and Doctor Jim knew
+where to put the blame.  And _I_ know, too!"
+
+Barbara looked at her doubtfully.  Such complete acceptance of her
+position almost seemed unkind and critical.  But her aunt's smile
+reassured her.  This was not criticism, but something as near raillery
+as Mistress Mehitable would permit herself.
+
+"I believe they have been abusing me behind my back,--and they
+pretending to love me!" cried Barbara, tossing her head in saucy
+challenge.
+
+"Never, child; we hug our delusions, Jim Pigeon and I," said Doctor
+John.
+
+"No, hug me," laughed Barbara, darting around the tea-table and seating
+herself on his lap.
+
+"You are our worst delusion, baggage!" said Doctor Jim, shaking a large
+finger at her.  "And now I see you're setting out to delude your poor
+aunt, after making life a burden to her for two years.  And poor Bobby
+Gault,--he'll find you a delusion and a snare!"
+
+"I think you are unkind, even if you are just in fun," protested
+Barbara, half offended, half amused.  But at this moment both men rose
+to go.  Doctor John, as he raised his towering bulk from the chair,
+lifted Barbara with him as if she had been a baby, held her in his arms
+for a moment while he peered lovingly and quizzically into her swiftly
+clearing face, gave her a resounding kiss, and set her on her feet.
+
+"Bless the child!" said Doctor Jim, noticing now for the first time the
+change in appearance.  "What's become of our little Barbara?  How she's
+grown up over night!"
+
+"And how her petticoats have grown down!" added Doctor John, backing
+off to survey her critically.  "Tut, tut, the wanton hussy!  How did
+she dare to kiss me!  Goodness gracious!  To think I had a young woman
+like that sitting on my lap!"
+
+"You had better be careful what you say, Doctor John," retorted
+Barbara, firmly, "or I _will_ be grown up, and never kiss you or let
+you hold me on your lap any more!"
+
+"I humbly crave your pardon, gracious fair.  I am your most devoted,
+humble servant!" said Doctor John, setting his heels together at a
+precise right angle, and bowing profoundly over her hand till his
+brocaded coat-tails stuck out stiffly behind him.
+
+Barbara rather liked this hand-kissing, after Robert's initiation, and
+took it with composure as her due.  Why should she not have her hand
+kissed, as well as Aunt Hitty?  But Doctor Jim made his farewell in
+different fashion.
+
+"I won't have her grow up this way!" he growled, snatching her up and
+holding her as if he feared she would be taken away from him.  "She's
+just our little Barby, our little, thorny brier-rose!  Eh--what?"
+
+"Our _barby_ brier-rose, you mean!" interjected Doctor John, with a
+chuckle.
+
+But every one ignored this poor witticism, and Doctor Jim continued,
+while Barbara softly kicked her toes against his waistcoat.  "It would
+break my heart to have her grown up, and young missish, and prim.  What
+have you done to her, Mehitable?"
+
+Mistress Mehitable gave a clear little ripple of laughter, flute-like
+and fresh.  She was feeling younger and gayer than she had felt for
+years.
+
+"I have just tried to carry out your own suggestion, Jim!" said she,
+cheerfully.  "I must say, I think it was a very wise suggestion.  I
+have handed Barbara over to her own care, that's all.  I am sorry you
+don't like the results!"
+
+"Don't worry, Doctor Jim!" cried Barbara, purchasing her release by
+kissing him hard on both cheeks.  "Don't worry about me being changed.
+I was _born_ bad, you know.  And I'm afraid I'll be just as bad as ever
+by to-morrow--except to Aunt Hitty!  If I'm bad to you any more,
+dear,"--and she turned impetuously to Mistress Mehitable,
+"I'll--I'll--" and feeling a sudden imperious threat of tears, she fled
+away to her own room.  It had been a wonderful, wonderful day for her,
+and she felt that she must have a little cry at once.  On her white bed
+she wept deliciously.  Then she thought, and thought, and thought, and
+made resolves, in sympathetic communion with her pillow.
+
+In the parlour below, Doctor Jim had said, before leaving:
+
+"I think you are going to get a lot of comfort out of her now,
+Mehitable, eh, what?"
+
+And Doctor John, troubled by a maudlin kind of moisture about his eyes,
+had said nothing.
+
+And Mistress Mehitable had said, fervently:
+
+"I hope she is going to get a lot of comfort out of me, Jim.  I see
+that I have been greatly in the wrong!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+All the next morning Mistress Mehitable and Barbara were busy
+overhauling Barbara's frocks.  Such as would admit of it were let down
+some three or four inches.  Of the others, two of rich material were
+laid away in Mistress Mehitable's huge carved oak chest lined with
+cedar, a repository of varied treasures of the loom.  The rest, three
+in number and plain of weave, were set aside to be given to Mercy
+Chapman.  There was much important planning, much interesting
+consultation; and in this feminine intimacy they grew ever closer to
+each other, throwing off the watchful self-consciousness, the sense of
+admiring and reciprocal discovery, which made them more happy than at
+ease in each other's company.
+
+Early in the afternoon Barbara decided she would go out to her
+favourite apple-tree in the back garden and read.  She openly took down
+the second volume of "Clarissa Harlowe,"--having already got through
+the first volume in surreptitious moments.  Mistress Mehitable
+discreetly, but with difficulty and some soul-questioning, refrained
+from admonition.  Barbara felt in her heart a faint quaver of
+trepidation, as she thus frankly assumed her independence; but she had
+the full courage of her convictions, and outwardly she was calm.
+
+"Mr. Richardson does not seem to me a very strong writer," she remarked
+at the door,--"especially after one has read those wonderful plays of
+Mr. Shakespeare and Mr. Ben Jonson, as I did at home in Maryland!  But
+every one should know 'Clarissa,' shouldn't they, dear?"
+
+Mistress Mehitable gasped.  She, too, had read those wonderful plays of
+Mr. Shakespeare and Mr. Ben Jonson.  But she was thoroughbred, and gave
+no sign of her dismay.
+
+"I never liked the lady, myself, dear," she answered, casually.  "She
+always seemed to me rather silly."
+
+This was Barbara's own judgment, and confirmed her new appreciation of
+her aunt's intelligence.  At the same time, this apparently easy
+acceptance, on Mistress Mehitable's part, of Barbara's emancipation,
+seemed almost too good to be true.  Her heart swelled passionately
+toward this blue-eyed, calm, patrician little woman, whom she had so
+long misunderstood.  She came back, put a caressing arm around Mistress
+Mehitable's waist, kissed her fervently, and looked deep into her eyes.
+Mistress Mehitable actually trembled in the recesses of her soul lest
+that searching gaze should discover what she had nearly said about
+young girls and novel-reading!  But she kept the blue deeps of her eyes
+clear and tranquil, and her lips smiled frank response.
+
+"Oh, you are so good and wonderful and wise, honey," Barbara said, at
+length.  "What a foolish, foolish child I've been,--and you, my dear,
+dear father's sister!  Why, just to look at you ought to have brought
+me to my senses.  So _many_ ways you look like him!"
+
+Then a thing very remarkable indeed took place.  Mistress Mehitable's
+fine poise wavered and vanished.  She almost clutched Barbara to her
+breast, then buried her head on the firm young shoulders and cried a
+little quite unrestrainedly, feeling a great ache in her heart for her
+dead brother Winthrop, and a great love in her heart for her dead
+brother's child.  Barbara was surprised, but greatly touched by this
+outburst.  She held her close, and patted her hair, and called her soft
+names suddenly remembered from the soft-voiced endearments of
+plantation days; till presently Mistress Mehitable recovered, and
+laughed gently through her tears.
+
+"Don't think me silly, dear," she pleaded, "but I've just realised for
+the first time that you have your dear father's wonderful eyes.  Your
+colouring, and your hair, and your mouth, are all very different from
+his.  But your eyes,--they are his _exactly_.  Such wonderful, deep,
+clear, _true_ eyes, Barbara, sometimes sea-gray, sometimes sea-green.
+Where have my eyes been all this time?"
+
+Barbara sighed happily.  "Isn't it lovely we have found each other at
+last, Aunt Hitty?  I don't think it will be so hard now for me to be
+good!"
+
+Then she picked up "Clarissa" again, and ran gaily out to the garden.
+
+Barbara's apple-tree had three great limbs branching out at about five
+feet from the ground, forming a most luxurious crotch in which to sit
+and read.  Smaller apple-trees, interspersed with tangled shrubbery and
+some trellised vines, almost surrounded it, so that on three sides it
+afforded perfect seclusion.  Sweet airs breathed through it, from the
+neighbouring thyme and mint beds; and sunshine sifted down through its
+leaves in an intricate and exquisite pattern; and a pair of catbirds,
+nesting in the shrubs close by, made it their haunt without regard to
+Barbara's presence.  As she looked at this dear nook, with all its
+memories of intimate hours and dreams, Barbara thought to herself how
+glad she was that she had not succeeded in running away from Second
+Westings.  She clambered cleverly into the tree, settled herself with a
+long breath of satisfaction, swung her little scarlet-shod feet idly
+too and fro, and made a long, absorbing survey of her green realm.
+Then, locking her ankles lithely as only a slim girl can, she opened
+her book, and was soon engrossed in the fortunes of Lovelace and
+Clarissa.
+
+About the time that Barbara was settling herself in the apple-tree,
+Robert Gault was triumphantly pushing Barbara's canoe to land through
+the gold-green sedges on the Second Westings shore of the little lake.
+With pole and paddle he had made the ascent of the stream from Gault
+House, having been seized that morning with a violent conviction that
+it was his duty to return the canoe without delay.  He had poled
+through the rapids, and paddled eagerly through the silent solemnities
+of the woods, too intent upon his purpose to be alive to their mystic
+influences.  The furtive eyes that watched him from pine-tree boll and
+ironwood bush, from skyey branch or moss-veiled root, touched not his
+consciousness.  To his self-centred mood the peopled stillness was
+empty as a desert.  His eyes, at other times alert and not uninitiated,
+were turned inward upon his own dreams.  He emerged from the great
+shadows, paddled through the meadowy windings with their iris-beds and
+lilies, and passed at length old Debby's clamorous dooryard, giving
+hardly a glance to the green slope with its ducks and fowls, the little
+red-doored cabin against its trees, or old Debby herself, with the
+cock-eared yellow pup beside her, sitting on the stoop.  He was in a
+hurry, and had caught glimpses of the open waters of the lake beyond;
+and he knew from Barbara's description that Mistress Mehitable's
+landing-place was straight across the lake.
+
+But old Debby, sitting knitting in the sun with the cock-eared yellow
+pup beside her, saw him, and chuckled at his haste.  She had been over
+to Second Westings the day before, and had got the whole story from
+Doctor Jim.  She had made up her mind to keep well out of the way, till
+Barbara's indignation should have time to cool; but she was mightily
+interested in the youth who had been so readily persuaded to the
+backing of Barbara's mad venture.  A moment later she made up her mind
+that she must have a good look at him, a word with him if possible.
+She got up and hobbled actively down to the shore; but Robert's haste
+had carried him already beyond earshot.
+
+Following the path up from the lake-shore, Robert crossed the
+cow-pasture and climbed the bars back of the barn.  Here he was met and
+challenged by Keep, the mastiff, who, with the discernment of a
+well-bred dog, appreciated Robert's good clothes, nosed his hand
+cordially, and let him pass without protest.  Keep knew a gentleman at
+a glance, and was convinced that good manners meant good morals.  He
+had no fear of Robert setting fire to the barn.
+
+Seeking a way to the front of the house, Robert passed through the
+wicket leading into the back garden.  Suddenly, between the tall clumps
+of hollyhocks, he stopped short, and his heart gave a queer little
+sliding leap.  His breath came quick and light, in a way that greatly
+perplexed him.  What he saw to so disturb him was a pair of little
+scarlet shoes, two small ankles, and a few inches of slim, shapely silk
+stockings, lithely intertwined, and vividly in evidence beneath a
+screen of apple-leaves.
+
+Robert did not need any one to tell him that the rest of the
+bewildering picture, hidden behind the screen of apple-leaves, was the
+small, inspiring lady, Mistress Barbara Ladd.  He hesitated, and was
+almost on the point of slipping away,--he knew not why, for the life of
+him.  Then, recovering a part of his composure, he stepped forward in
+trepidation, hat in hand, forgot the graceful speeches on which he was
+wont to pride himself, and stammered--"Mistress Barbara!--I beg your
+pardon!"
+
+The slim ankles unlocked, "Clarissa" fell upon the grass, and lightly
+as a bird Barbara sprang down from her perch, unconscious,
+unembarrassed, gracious in her greetings.  She smiled him radiant
+welcome, frankly pleased, and held out her hand to be kissed.
+
+"Why, how did you come?" she cried, gaily, "stealing in this way
+through the back premises?"
+
+"By water, dear lady," he answered, still stammering.  "I brought back
+the canoe, you know!"
+
+"By my dear river, and through the great, still woods!" she exclaimed,
+looking him over with clear eyes of approval.  "How lovely!  I wish I'd
+been with you!"
+
+"I wish you had!" said Robert, with devout conviction.
+
+"But how tired you must be, all that journey against the current.
+Really, Robert, it was _very_ nice of you to come so soon!"
+
+Now Robert was in a sad state of bewilderment, dazzled by eyes and lips
+and scarlet shoes.  And he was further shaken from his customary poise
+by his perception of Barbara's change in the arrangement of her hair,
+and by what seemed a sudden increase in her stature through the
+lengthening of her frocks.  Otherwise he would not have been so stupid
+as to imagine that the promptitude of his coming called for any apology
+in Barbara's eyes, whatever might be the opinion of Doctor John, or
+Doctor Jim, or Mistress Mehitable Ladd!
+
+"I thought I ought to come at once, you know," he explained, "to bring
+back the canoe!  Otherwise I should have waited, as I ought, for Mr.
+Glenowen's coming, and an invitation from him."
+
+"Oh!" said Barbara, her face changing slightly, her voice growing a
+little cooler.  "That was very thoughtful of you.  I couldn't sleep for
+thinking of the canoe!"
+
+Robert looked at her doubtfully, wondering if that were sarcasm in her
+voice.
+
+"It's a dear canoe.  I love it!" said he.
+
+"I wonder you did not want to keep it a little longer, then,--at least,
+till Uncle Bob could come and send you a proper, formal invitation to
+bring it back!" said Barbara.
+
+"But I wanted to bring it back now,--I thought it was such a good
+excuse for coming at once, though I knew I _ought_ to have waited for
+the invitation, of course," persisted Robert, vaguely worried.
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Barbara, again, allowing herself to be mollified in
+part, but still feeling a shade of disappointment.  She was too
+inexperienced to appreciate the tribute of Robert's confusion and
+unexpected awkwardness.  She liked him so much better in his grand,
+elaborate, self-possessed manner, paying stately compliments, making
+her feel important and grown-up by formal homage.  However, he
+certainly was very nice, and he certainly looked very distinguished;
+and she realised that, for all his apparent solicitude about returning
+the canoe, the canoe was not his reason for coming so soon.  She would
+forgive him,--but she would punish him!  In fact, she was making
+progress in the arts of the imperishable feminine.
+
+"Well, we shall _all_ be glad to see you, Robert," she said.  "And now
+you must go straight to Doctor Jim, who did invite you, as you seem to
+have forgotten!  You go through that white gate, over there, and turn
+to the left, and then the first turn to the right puts you right on the
+main street.  You're almost at Doctor Jim's then,--any one will point
+it out to you."
+
+"But,--I didn't come to see Doctor Jim," protested Robert, much taken
+aback.  "I came to bring back the canoe, you know!"
+
+"Of course, I understand!" said Barbara, sweetly.  "Tell Doctor Jim and
+Doctor John that I want them to bring you back here presently, in an
+hour or two, to present you to Aunt Hitty, and have tea with us!"
+
+"But can't I stay a _little_ while _now_,--while no one knows I am here
+at all?" pleaded Robert.
+
+Ordinarily, this was just what would have seemed reasonable and
+delightful to Barbara.  But just now it pleased her to discipline the
+boy.
+
+"Decidedly _not_, Robert!" said she.  "You know how careful you are
+about etiquette,--so troubled over the idea of coming here at all on
+the mere invitation of mere me!  You shall not talk to me any more till
+you have been properly presented to Aunt Hitty!  Besides, I am just at
+a _most_ interesting place in this lovely book,"--and she snatched
+'Clarissa' up from the grass, where it had lain forgotten since
+Robert's appearance,--"and I can't really take my mind off it till I
+find out what is going to happen.  I will see you in the house, with
+Aunt Hitty, in--let me see--about an hour and a half!  Now go right
+away!"
+
+Robert looked very miserable, but bowed submission, and backed off.
+
+"How will Mistress Ladd receive me?" he asked, doubtfully.
+
+"Oh," replied Barbara, one small brown hand on the apple-tree as she
+waited for Robert to depart ere she climbed back to her nook, "Aunt
+Hitty is just perfect.  She will be very nice to you, and will quite
+approve of you, I know.  Since everything has turned out for the best,
+she has already forgiven you for leading her young niece into mischief
+the way you did!"
+
+Robert stared at her in speechless amazement.  But Barbara would not
+let him ask any more questions.  With a mocking little grimace at his
+confusion, she pointed to the white gate.
+
+"Go away immediately!" she commanded.  "And be sure you come back in an
+hour and a half!"
+
+Robert turned and strode off with an aggrieved air, between the
+hollyhock rows.  When he was half way to the gate, Barbara, who had
+stood looking after him with a smile on her lips, called imperiously:
+
+"Robert!"
+
+He turned quickly, and snatched off his hat.
+
+"What is it, my lady?"
+
+"You forgot to help me into my tree!" said Barbara.
+
+He was beside her in an instant, his face brightening.  He knelt on one
+knee, and held out his two hands firmly locked, to form a sort of
+stirrup.  Setting one light foot into this support, Barbara sprang up
+and in a flash was perched gracefully in her niche.  It was done with
+such swiftness that Robert had hardly time to realise her foot had
+touched him.  She laughed down upon him with gay commendation.
+
+"That was very handsomely done, indeed, Robert!" she declared.  "Now
+hurry right away to Doctor Jim, or you'll never manage to get back in
+one hour and a half!"  And she buried her eyes in the first page at
+which "Clarissa" chanced to open.
+
+Robert hesitated, opened his lips as if to speak, and went without a
+word.  Barbara, watching him from the corner of her eye, was puzzled at
+the look upon his face, but felt satisfied that it was not displeasure.
+About half-way up the walk toward the gate, when he believed himself
+unobserved, Robert gazed curiously at the palms wherein the little foot
+had rested for that fraction of a heart-beat.  Light as was the touch,
+it had left a subtle tingling behind it.  He pressed the place to his
+lips.  This action astonished Barbara, but greatly interested her, and
+gave her, at the same time, an inexplicable thrill.  Her heart
+understood it, indeed, while it remained an enigma to her brain.  And
+purposeless, profitless, absurd though it seemed to her, that Robert
+should kiss his own hand, she decided nevertheless that in some way the
+action had expressed a more fervent homage to her than when the hand
+that he kissed was hers.  She forgot to go on reading the excellent Mr.
+Richardson's romance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+Mistress Mehitable liked Robert, whose bearing and breeding were in all
+ways much to her taste.  She had seen him when a babe in arms, just
+before his father and mother had taken him away from Gault House to New
+York.  So gracious was she, that Robert was filled with wonder as he
+thought of the piteous story which Barbara had told him in the canoe.
+But this wonder was as nothing, compared to the amazement with which he
+viewed the warm affection between Barbara and her aunt.  What could it
+all mean?  It was plain that they two understood each other, trusted
+each other, admired each other, loved each other.  He had an uneasy
+feeling that Barbara had made a fool of him.  Then, as his dignity was
+beginning to feel ruffled, and his grave young face to darken, he would
+remember other details of that eventful afternoon which forbade him to
+question the girl's sincerity.  At this the cloud would lift.  There
+was a mystery behind it all, of course, which he would doubtless, in
+his determined fashion, succeed in penetrating.  Meanwhile, every one
+seemed extremely happy,--Barbara gaily, whimsically gracious, Mistress
+Mehitable composedly glad, Doctor Jim as boisterous in his joy as good
+manners would permit, Doctor John quizzically approving, and filled
+with mellow mirth.  Robert was made to feel himself an honoured guest,
+for his own sake as well as for the sake of his parents; and in this
+cordial atmosphere he soon justified all good opinions.  Barbara was
+intensely gratified with him.  She audaciously claimed credit for
+having discovered him, and rescued him from the barbaric wilderness
+that lay beyond Second Westings.  She began to plan expeditions and
+amusements to make his visit memorable; and when he announced his
+intention of returning to Gault House on the morrow, there was a
+unanimous protest.  Mistress Mehitable said it was not to be heard of,
+for one moment.  Doctor Jim growled that his hospitality was not to be
+flouted in any such fashion.  Doctor John levelled bushy eyebrows at
+him, and suggested that no true Gault would run away in the hour of
+triumph.
+
+"You will do nothing of the kind, Robert," decreed Barbara, with
+finality.  "We want you here.  I wonder you are not ashamed, after all
+the trouble you made for us so lately, when you were old enough and big
+enough to know better!"
+
+Robert's face flushed with pleasure at all this warmth; and he hugely
+wanted to stay.  But with astonishing discretion he refused to be
+persuaded.  Some intuition taught him the wisdom of timely reserve.
+Without at all formulating any theory on the subject, which would have
+been impossible to such inexperience as his, he felt instinctively that
+at this moment, when she was most gracious to him, a judicious absence
+would best fix him in Barbara's interest.  He said there were matters
+to be attended to for his grandmother which would not well bear delay.
+At this unexpected firmness on the part of her cavalier, Barbara was so
+annoyed that for nearly an hour she seemed to forget his existence; but
+Robert hid his discomfort under an easy cheerfulness, and no one else
+seemed to notice the passing shadow.  Mistress Mehitable insisted that
+the guests should stay to sup with her and Barbara; and the boy's
+coming was made a little festival.  Mistress Mehitable was one of those
+notable housekeepers who seem to accomplish great things with little
+effort by being craftily forehanded.  Before anything was said of
+supper she had vanished for a few minutes to the kitchen; and in those
+few minutes she had planned with Abby for a repast worthy the event.
+The larder of the Ladd homestead was kept victualled beyond peril of
+any surprise; and Mistress Mehitable, for all her ethereal mould and
+mien, believed in the efficacy of good eating and good drinking.  Well
+regulated lives, she held, should also be well nourished, and her
+Puritan conscience was not illiberal in regard to the seemly pleasures
+of the board.
+
+Both Doctor John and Doctor Jim, as befitted their stature, were
+valiant trenchermen; and Robert was a boy; and the lavish delicacies of
+Abby's serving met with that reception which was the best tribute to
+their worth.  Gaiety made herself handmaid to appetite; and the ale was
+nutty-mellow from last October; and Mistress Mehitable's old Madeira
+wine, of which herself partook but sparingly, was fiery-pungent on the
+tongue.  As she toasted him, and her blue eyes sparkled upon him over
+the glass, Robert wondered anew how Barbara could have wanted to run
+away from so admirable an aunt.  As for Barbara, reduced for a little
+to silence by supreme content, she sipped at her Angelica cordial,
+surveyed Mistress Mehitable with grateful ardour, and took it all as
+largess to herself.
+
+At last, with a happy sigh, she cried, "Oh, if only Uncle Bob could
+have come in time for this!"  And so electric with sympathy was the air
+that on the word every eye turned and glanced at the door, as if
+expecting that a wish so well-timed might bring fruition on the
+instant.  There was silence for some seconds.
+
+Then Mistress Mehitable said, "He will be here in a very few days,
+dear!  And then you, Robert, must come to us again without delay.  I
+agree with Barbara that nothing I can think of except Mr. Glenowen's
+presence could add to our happiness to-night!"
+
+After supper there was music in the candle-lit drawing-room, Mistress
+Mehitable having a rare gift for the harpsichord, and Doctor Jim a nice
+art in the rendering of certain old English ballads of the robuster
+sort.  Where they might have seemed to the ladies' ears a trifle more
+robust than nice, Doctor Jim had fined them down to a fitting delicacy.
+But they suited his rolling bass, and he loved them because, being
+Cavalier-born, they appealed to his king-loving sympathies.  Doctor Jim
+was an exemplary Congregationalist, but solely by force of environment,
+Congregationalism being the creed of all the gentry of that region.
+Episcopalianism he looked upon with a distrust mingled with affection;
+but in all other respects he was a king's man, through and through, an
+aristocrat, and a good-natured scorner of the masses.  It was a
+stupendous triumph for accident and atmosphere to have succeeded in
+fitting Doctor Jim to his inherited environment of Second Westings.
+His Congregationalism was a thing that might conceivably be changed to
+meet changed conditions; while his Toryism was bred in the bone.  With
+Mistress Mehitable, on the other hand, her Congregationalism was
+deep-rooted, a matter of conscience.  It was by conscience, too, no
+less than by blood, that she was an aristocrat.  She was a royalist, a
+Tory, no less unquestioning than Doctor Jim, but this by a chance
+election of that strenuous conscience which, by a different chance
+twist, would have made her an equally sincere Whig.
+
+When Doctor Jim had sung till Doctor John told him he was getting
+hoarse and spoiling his voice, Barbara, in a burst of daring, started
+up a wild plantation song, patting her accompaniment.  To Mistress
+Mehitable, as to Robert, this was an undreamed novelty, and their eyes
+opened wide in wonder.  At first they thought it barbarous, but in a
+few minutes the piquing rhythms and irresponsible cadences caught them,
+and they listened in rapture.  Barbara's store of these songs was a
+rich one, and she had perfected the rendering in many a secret
+performance to the audience of Doctor John and Doctor Jim.  When she
+was quite sure of the effect she was producing, she sprang to her feet,
+flung her hair loose by a quick movement of both hands, and began to
+dance as she sang.  And now, to the ever-growing amazement of Mistress
+Mehitable, Doctor Jim took up the patting, while Doctor John, seating
+himself at the harpsichord, began a strange staccato picking of the
+keys.  Then Barbara stopped singing, and gave herself up wholly to the
+dance.  She danced with arms and hands and head and feet, and every
+slender curve of her young body.  She moved like flames.  Her eyes and
+lips and teeth were a radiance through the live, streaming darknesses
+of her hair.  Light, swift, unerring, ecstatic, it was like the most
+impassioned of bird-songs translated into terms of pure motion.  Doctor
+John played faster and faster his wild, monotonous melody.  Doctor Jim
+patted harder and harder.  Barbara's dance grew madder and stranger,
+till at last, with a little breathless cry that was half a sob, she
+stopped, darted across the room, flung herself down, and buried her
+dishevelled head in Mistress Mehitable's lap.
+
+On ordinary occasions Mistress Mehitable would have felt inclined to
+hold that anything so extraordinary, so utterly outside the range of
+all conceptions, and at the same time so very beautiful, must be wrong.
+Now, however, she was under the spell of Barbara and under the spell of
+the whole situation.  "I cannot see any possible harm in it!" she said
+to herself.  And to Barbara she said, tenderly and deftly arranging the
+disordered locks:
+
+"Most beautiful, and most singular, dear.  I suppose that is your
+_dance_ of 'Maryland Memories,' is it not?  It seems to me not only
+amazingly beautiful, but as if it might be the most wholesome and
+desirable of exercises."
+
+Barbara gurgled a gasping laugh from the depths of Mistress Mehitable's
+taffeta.  It had never occurred to her that these mad negro dances, in
+which she found expression for so much in herself which she did not
+understand, could be regarded in the light of exercise.  But she was
+glad indeed if they could be so regarded by Aunt Hitty.
+
+"Oh, yes, honey," she agreed, in haste.  "I'm _sure_ it's wholesome;
+and I _know_ it's _desirable_,--isn't it?"
+
+This appeal was to every one, but it was Robert, at last awaking from
+his rapture and finding breath, who answered:
+
+"There was never anything else so wonderful in all the world," he said,
+solemnly.
+
+Doctor John and Doctor Jim, with one impulse, jumped up, each seized
+one of Barbara's hands, and plucked her to her feet.  They then stood
+hand in hand in a row before Mistress Mehitable and Robert, bowing
+their thanks for such appreciation of their poor efforts to please.
+
+"We are going to London to perform before the king!" declared Doctor
+Jim.
+
+Mistress Mehitable gravely took a shilling from her purse, and bestowed
+it upon Doctor John because he was the tallest.  He pretended to spit
+on it, for luck, but kissed it instead, and slipped it into the bosom
+of his ruffled shirt.  When the approving laughter had subsided,
+Mistress Mehitable said, musingly:
+
+"I see now how you have been teaching Barbara her Latin.  It was that
+peculiar dialect of Latin that prevails in Maryland!"
+
+After this a sack posset was mixed by Mistress Mehitable, with the
+eager assistance of every one but Robert, who was still too much
+possessed by Barbara's dancing to do more than stand about and get in
+the way, and smile a gravely fatuous smile whenever spoken to.
+
+When the posset began to go around, calling forth encomiums at every
+sip, Doctor Jim demanded the cards.  There was silence.  To Robert,
+just from the Tory circles of New York, it seemed the most natural
+thing in the world.  To Barbara it seemed natural, but foreign to
+Mistress Mehitable and Second Westings.  To Doctor John it seemed right
+and desirable, but he chuckled and said nothing, being aware of
+Mistress Mehitable's views.  And this time Mistress Mehitable was firm.
+
+"No, Jim," said she, "we won't play.  I know good people do
+play,--people who know just as well as I do what is right and what is
+wrong.  But for some reason card-playing does not seem right to me.
+You know Doctor Sawyer would strongly disapprove!"
+
+"Officially, that's all, dear lady!" corrected Doctor John.
+
+"But you have them in the house,--yonder in that very drawer, most
+gracious mistress!" persisted Doctor Jim.
+
+"My dear father used them," confessed Mistress Mehitable.  "Therefore I
+would not for a moment think of refusing to have them in my house.  But
+I think it is better not to play, Jim."
+
+And though Mistress Mehitable spoke with appeal and apology rather than
+with decision, the matter was plainly settled.  There was nothing to do
+but tell riddles and drink up the rest of the posset.  The pervading
+satisfaction was in no way checked by Doctor Jim's failure, for all
+agreed that cards were stupid anyway.  Barbara, in spite of her
+excitement, and to her intense self-disgust, began to grow sleepy.  She
+was horribly afraid she might show it, which, for one but forty-eight
+hours grown-up, would have been humiliating beyond words.  She felt
+herself divided between a fear lest so perfect an evening should end
+too soon, and an equally harassing fear lest it should end not soon
+enough.  At length the keen and loving eyes of Doctor John discerned
+her trouble; and at the dissolute hour of half-past ten he broke up the
+party.  Adieux were made with a warmth, an abandon of homage held in
+fetters of elaborate courtliness, which might have seemed excessive at
+a less propitious conjunction of time and sentiment.  At last the
+three, Doctor John, Doctor Jim, and Robert, found themselves arm-in-arm
+on the street, and all talking at once, overbrimming with happiness and
+reciprocal congratulations, as they took their discreet way homeward.
+
+Barbara and Mistress Mehitable, left alone, silently put out the
+lights.  Then, each lighting her candle, they paused at the head of the
+stairs to say good night.  Each set down her candle on the little
+mahogany table under the clock, and looked into the other's eyes.
+Barbara was first to break the sweet but too searching scrutiny.  She
+flung both arms around Mistress Mehitable's neck, and kissed her with a
+tremulous fervour that told much.  Mistress Mehitable, whose eyes were
+brighter than Barbara had ever guessed that they could be, pressed her
+in a close embrace which concealed much, even from Mistress Mehitable
+herself.  Then Barbara, after whispering something to the kittens, went
+straight to bed, and straight to sleep.  But Mistress Mehitable sat
+looking out of her window.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+It had been arranged that Robert should borrow a horse from Doctor
+John's stables, ride it over to Gault House, and keep it there till his
+return to Second Westings.  But as he was strolling down the village
+street before breakfast, he saw, in a paddock beside an unpretentious
+cottage, a splendid Narragansett pacer, a dark sorrel, one of the
+handsomest of the breed that he had ever seen.  He had long coveted one
+of these horses, famous in all the thirteen colonies for their easy
+gait, speed over rough country, and unparalleled endurance.  With
+characteristic promptness in getting to his point, he went in,
+interviewed the owner, tried the horse, loved it, and asked the price.
+The owner was not anxious to sell; but when he found out who the
+would-be purchaser was, and the liberal price he was ready to pay, the
+prospect of an immediate draft on the bank at Hartford proved
+irresistible, and Robert rode off with his prize.  He knew horse-flesh,
+and did not grudge the price; and both Doctor John and Doctor Jim, who
+knew this sorrel pacer well, were constrained to commend the purchase,
+though to them it seemed that so weighty an action demanded, if but for
+form's sake, the tribute of delay and pondering.
+
+"Buy a horse like that, Robert, in three shakes of a ram's tail?  It's
+undignified!" roared Doctor Jim, eyeing the beast with unmixed
+approbation.  "It's an insult to the horse.  And it's a slight upon the
+value of our assistance, you cock-sure young rascal.  But it's just the
+mulish way your father would have gone and done it, so I suppose we
+must forgive you."
+
+Doctor John, meanwhile, had been handling the beast critically, and
+looking at its teeth.
+
+"Worth all you gave for him, Bobby; and not a day over five years old!"
+was the verdict.  "I see you're old enough to go about alone.  Don't
+you mind what Jim Pigeon says.  He'd have had you run to him and ask if
+you might have a horse of your own, and then get him and me to go down
+and look at the beast, and come back here and talk it all over in
+council, and then go back and bully Enoch Barnes some more about the
+price, and then all three of us ride the beast up to Mistress
+Mehitable's, to ask the opinion of her and Barbara on the subject, and
+then--"
+
+But Robert interrupted at this point in the tirade.
+
+"That _would_ have been a good idea," he asserted, regretfully.  "I
+wish I had thought to consult the ladies.  But, you know, I _knew_ that
+horse was just the one I'd so long been wanting the moment I set eyes
+on him.  So I didn't dare wait, lest some one else should come along
+and snap him up.  Of course you both know a thousand times more about
+horses than I do,--but I knew enough to know I wanted this one!"
+
+"You _generally_ seem to know what you want, Master Gault!" said Doctor
+Jim.  "And you seem like to get it, generally, if I don't mistake the
+cut of you,--eh, what?"
+
+"Tut, tut," said Doctor John, scowling upon him quizzically.  "That's
+all very well as far as horses are concerned, and men!  But wait till
+it comes to women, Robert.  You've a lot to learn, my son.  If I'm not
+much mistaken, you'll be taught a lot, and not spared in the teaching!"
+
+"I'm always anxious to learn," answered Robert, modestly.
+
+"You will!  You will!" said Doctor John.
+
+Breakfast was a substantial meal of boiled "Yokeag" with molasses, and
+broiled salmon, and venison cutlets, and fried ham, and rich guava
+jelly from the West Indies.  Robert was surprised to see each of his
+friends preface the repast with a quart mug of the hardest and headiest
+old cider, he himself being accustomed to a small cup of light ale
+merely, or a sip of claret, at this hour.  Both Doctor John and Doctor
+Jim assured him that there was nothing like sound cider to tone up the
+stomach for its day's adventures; and on their advice he tried it,
+though sparingly, and therefore with no tragic results.
+
+After breakfast, he was so obviously restless that the big-hearted
+brothers made no effort to detain him.  With heavy hands upon his
+shoulders, they told him to make the least possible delay in his
+return, and to bear in mind how warm the welcome ever awaiting him at
+Second Westings.
+
+"How like to Richard in the saddle!" exclaimed Doctor John, when Robert
+had mounted the sorrel pacer.
+
+"And that's a compliment not many a lad of your age could win, my son!"
+said Doctor John.
+
+Robert's dark face flushed with pleasure.
+
+"I try hard to be as like my father as possible," said he.  "Don't you
+think I might properly ride around and pay my respects to the ladies
+before I leave?"
+
+"Unquestionably you might!  'Pon my word a capital idea!" laughed
+Doctor Jim, with huge derision.
+
+"Unquestionably, my boy, you would find yourself in hot water if you
+didn't!" said Doctor John.
+
+So Robert, without more ado, turned the head of his Narragansett pacer
+toward Westings House, whose wide white gables were partly visible
+through the trees.
+
+A very erect, graceful, and masterful young figure he made, as he
+reined in his tall sorrel before Mistress Mehitable's porch.  Mistress
+Mehitable from her window above had seen him coming, and was on the
+steps to greet him.  He flung himself from the saddle, kissed her hand
+deferentially, thanked her with fervour for her delightful
+hospitality,--and at the same time cast a solicitous eye about the
+walks and windows, wondering where Barbara could be.  Mistress
+Mehitable had an amused smile, but would not help him.  She said polite
+things, and assured him of the pleasure with which she would look
+forward to his next visit,--and even added that he had better not
+postpone that next visit beyond five or six days, or a week at most, as
+Mr. Glenowen was expected at once, and might not be able to stay long
+at Second Westings.  But of Barbara she said not a word.  Robert showed
+her, with pride, his sorrel pacer, related with an abstracted air the
+circumstances of its purchase, and enlarged upon the special merits of
+the breed, while Mistress Mehitable patted the silky white nose, and
+murmured boundless admiration.  But still no sign, no word, of Barbara.
+
+At last Robert could contain himself no longer.
+
+"I ought to be on the road," he stammered, "but I should be sorry to
+leave without making my adieux to Mistress Barbara.  Is she within?"
+
+"She went out about half an hour ago!" said Mistress Mehitable, "and
+did not say where she was going!"
+
+Robert's face fell so pathetically that Mistress Mehitable felt a
+little flush of resentment against Barbara for her cruelty.
+
+"She left kindest messages for you," she continued, hastily.  "She told
+me to say how sorry she was not to see you this morning, and that she
+would never forgive you if you did not come again to Second Westings
+very soon.  And I was to say good-bye to you for her!"
+
+"I thank you," said Robert, heavily.  "Pray you give her my devotions,
+and tell her how grieved I am to be denied the privilege of paying them
+in person.  I kiss your hand again, dear Mistress Ladd!"  And with that
+he rode off musingly, through a morning whose sunlight had on the
+sudden lost its sparkle, whose spicy airs had all at once lost their
+zest.  His pride in the new pacer, which he had hoped to show off to
+Barbara, was all fallen flat.  He forced the restive beast to walk
+soberly for some moments.  Then a swift heat of anger, a sense of
+undeserved injury, went over him.  He swore he would come no more to
+Second Westings all that summer; and setting spurs to the willing
+sorrel, he tore away down the road at a pounding gallop.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+The road toward Westings Landing, which was the shortest way to Gault
+House, was joined about a mile out by another, equally rough and
+unfriendly to travel, coming from Westings Centre.  Robert had passed
+this junction at full gallop, but a few rods beyond a stretch of mire
+compelled him to rein in and pick his way.  As he did so he caught a
+sound of beating hoofs behind him, and turned in the saddle to see who
+came.
+
+Careering recklessly down the road from Westings Centre, her black
+curls flying from beneath the rim of her little white beaver, came a
+slim figure in a black habit on a great black horse.  She burst into a
+peal of laughter as Robert turned, and cried, gaily:
+
+"I'm coming.  Wait for me, Robert!"
+
+Robert wheeled his horse as if on a pivot, fairly lifted him with voice
+and spur, and was with her in a few great strides.
+
+"You!" was all his voice could say; but his face said so much more that
+the greeting did not seem curt to Barbara.  Her small face was radiant
+with excitement, audacity, and delight.  At the beginning of the miry
+ground she reined in, patted her beast's wet neck, and said,
+breathlessly:
+
+"I thought you might like me to ride a little way with you, Robert, to
+make sure of your getting the right road.  Wasn't it very nice of
+me,--when you don't one bit deserve any such attention?"
+
+"You are an angel!" cried Robert, in an ecstasy.
+
+Barbara laughed clear and high at this.
+
+"_Oh!_" she shrilled, melodiously derisive, "that's what _I_ think I
+am, of course.  But no one has ever agreed with me after knowing me
+more than three days.  This is your third day, Robert.  It's well for
+me you're going while you labour under this flattering delusion."
+
+"It's no delusion," averred Robert, stoutly, far past wit, and with no
+weapon left but bluntness.  "You are the loveliest thing in the world."
+
+This, in Barbara's own opinion, was nonsense.  But she liked to hear
+him say it, nonsense or not.  She pondered for a moment, her face
+turned away indifferently, that he might not see she was pleased.
+
+"You contradict yourself," she retorted.  "You know angels are not in
+the world!"
+
+"One is!" said Robert.
+
+"I like you so much better, Robert, when you're saying clever things
+like that," said Barbara, patronisingly, "than when you are just
+stupid, and don't do anything but just look at me, as you do sometimes!"
+
+She was too young to know that when a man can be witty with a woman he
+is not, at the moment, so engrossed in her but that he is able to think
+of himself.
+
+Before Robert could reply they were past the miry ground, and Barbara
+had once more set her black horse at the gallop.  The sorrel needed no
+urging to follow,--and indeed, for a few minutes both riders were fully
+occupied in preventing the ride from degenerating into a headlong race,
+so emulous were the two horses.  The road was still very bad, broken
+with ruts, holes, and boulders, and the pace was therefore full of
+peril.  The black just escaped plunging his fore legs into a bog-hole,
+and the narrowness of the escape seemed to make him lose nerve.  Robert
+saw with anxiety that Barbara, though her horsemanship equalled her
+canoeing, was just now in a far too reckless mood.
+
+"Wait, please, my dear lady," he begged.  "This is no road for fast
+riding.  That good beast of yours just escaped a bad fall, and he's a
+bit nervous.  Let's walk them till we get to better ground."
+
+But Barbara had not noticed her escape, and she was thrilling with
+exhilaration.  She did not know how beside herself she was.
+
+"If you're afraid, follow at your own pace!" she cried, mockingly.
+"_I_ came out to _ride_!"  And with a wild word of encouragement to the
+black, and a throwing forward of the reins upon his neck, she shot on
+at full speed.
+
+"I _beg_ you don't be so reckless!" cried Robert.  "You will get a bad
+fall riding this way on such a road!"  There was intensest anxiety in
+his voice, but the faintest tinge of reproof went with it, as Barbara's
+sensitive pride was quick to discern.
+
+"I shall ride as recklessly as I please," said she.  "But don't let
+that trouble you.  Be careful if you like.  Ride like an old woman if
+you like!"
+
+This taunt did not touch Robert, as he knew the quality of his own
+horsemanship,--which, indeed, Barbara's attentive eyes had been quick
+to note.  But the mood it betrayed alarmed and half angered him.  He
+saw in fancy that fleeing, daring, wayward little figure stretched
+lifeless on the roadside, the radiant face white and still.  His own
+face paled and his jaw set obstinately as he urged forward his big
+sorrel in silence.
+
+The new horse proved worthy of Narragansett fame.  Over the worst
+ground his peculiar pace carried him with an ease which the big black's
+heavy tread could not match.  And when the ground was firmer, and he
+could stretch out at full run, he soon closed up the gap between
+himself and his rival.  This nettled Barbara, who thought her Black
+Prince a record-breaker; and she even went so far as to wave her
+riding-crop, as if she might be inclined to use it on this beast, which
+had never felt the whip.  Nevertheless, the heavy hoof-beats behind
+crept closer; and soon the sorrel's nose was at her stirrup; and then
+Robert's stirrup and his knee were level with her own,--and with a
+quick sidelong glance she caught the grim resolve on his dark face.
+She was feeling by this time the least bit ashamed of herself, and
+awaking to the risks of the road, so she said, sweetly:
+
+"That's a _splendid_ horse of yours, Robert.  And you can ride!"
+
+"Thank you, Mistress Barbara!" said Robert, unmollified.  And just then
+the road straightened out, a stretch of hard, dry level, inviting to
+the loose rein and the unchecked run.
+
+"There's no danger _here_, Master Careful!" cried Barbara.
+
+"No, not here,--except branches!" acknowledged Robert, drawing a deep
+breath of relief.
+
+And now for more than a mile the road was good.  It wound in slow
+curves, the high-branched ash and white maple meeting over it in
+stately arches.  Under foot it was hard and fairly even, with a thin
+turf between the shallow ruts.  Sunlight and shadow flecked it in vivid
+patches; and the summer winds, which were blowing briskly in the open,
+breathed down this sheltered corridor only as half-stirred exhalations
+of faint perfume.  Neck by neck the horses galloped, their riders
+silent, looking straight ahead, but thrillingly conscious of each
+other's nearness.  And the strong rhythm of the hoof-beats beneath them
+seemed to time itself to the rushing of their blood.  It was now no
+longer with vexation, but with a sort of half pride, that Barbara
+realised the superiority of the sorrel over her own mount.  She saw
+that only Robert's firm hand on the rein kept his beast from forging
+ahead.  Thus they rushed along through the vast solitudes,--really
+alone together, although those solitudes were populous with the furtive
+kindreds of fur and feather.  For the sound of their coming travelled
+far before them, and gave the shy folk time to withdraw from such
+unwelcome intrusion.  Even the big black bear,--he whom Barbara had
+seen tearing the ant-log,--now withdrew as noiselessly and shyly as the
+wood-mouse, not delaying for even a glance at the two wild riders.
+Only the red squirrel, inquisitive, daring, and impudent, stuck to his
+vantage-post on a high-arched limb and jabbered shrill derision at them
+as they raced by.
+
+At length, just as the intoxication of the ride and the companionship
+were beginning to bewilder his brain, a turn of the road showed Robert
+a stretch of very bad ground right ahead.  The careless roadmakers had
+tried, in a half-hearted way, to fill up a long bog with brush and
+poles.  Had the attempt been fully carried out, the result would have
+been a rough but thoroughly passable piece of "corduroy road."  As it
+was, however, the brush and poles together had in spots sunk a foot
+below the surface, at one side or the other, and in other spots had
+been quite engulfed by the hungry black mire, making that stretch the
+curse of wheel-travellers, and perilous enough to any but the most
+cautious horsemen.
+
+The sight cooled Robert's nerves.  Instead of reining in, however, he
+let his beast push a half-length to the front, that he might the better
+control the situation if need should arise.  Then he said, resolutely:
+
+"If you have no care for your own life, dear lady, I beg you to think
+of that good beast of yours.  He will break a leg in yon bog-holes, and
+then he will have to be shot!"
+
+Barbara had been fully prepared, by now, to listen to reason and check
+the pace.  She knew she had been unreasoning in her excitement.  But
+the fact that Robert knew she had been unreasonable, and dared to show,
+by his tone as well as by his argument, that he knew it, stirred a hot
+resentment in her heart.  In a flash she forgot that she had ever been
+unreasonable at all.  Her first impulse was to spur on with added
+speed.  Had it been her own neck, merely, that she would risk, she
+would not have hesitated.  But Robert had hit on the one compelling
+plea.  She could not face the risk of hurt to her horse, or to any
+kindly beast whatever.  She reined in sharply, therefore, without a
+word; and at a walk the two horses began to pick their wary way over
+the corduroy.
+
+"There's danger to the good beasts, even at this pace," remarked
+Robert, with more truthfulness than tact.
+
+"Did you suppose," retorted Barbara, in a voice of withering scorn,
+"that I was going to ride my Black Prince at a gallop over such a piece
+of road as this?"
+
+This was exactly what Robert had supposed, of course.  But a sudden ray
+of insight entering his candid brain in time, he refrained from saying
+so.  He was on the point of saying, however, by way of explanation,
+that the ground which Barbara had already insisted upon traversing at
+full speed was but little better than this; but here, too, a sharpening
+perception checked him.  He kept silence, seemingly absorbed in guiding
+his horse between the miry pitfalls, until they found themselves once
+again on firm ground,--firm but rough.  The horses, still apprehensive,
+showed no disposition to resume their vehement gait.
+
+"It's an outrage," cried Robert, "that the township should permit such
+a piece of road as this.  I shall have a voice in affairs here in three
+or four years, and then I'll see that the road-work is properly done.
+I'll have no traps in this township to break good horses' legs!"
+
+This sentiment was so much to Barbara's taste that she found it an
+excuse for being mollified.
+
+"That's right, Robert!" she answered, very graciously.  "Now, be sure
+you remember that when the time comes!"
+
+"I'll remember it," cried Robert, with cheerful confidence.
+
+By this time, when the leisurely walking of the horses offered no
+affront to the forest quiet, the birds were resuming their busy calls
+and the bustle of their intimate affairs; and the less shy members of
+the furry fellowship went once more about their business in the busy
+precincts of the road.  Barbara's sympathetic and unerring vision
+singled them out, differentiating them from their harmonious
+surroundings, when Robert's eye, as a rule, could not without help see
+anything but lichened stumps and stones, or bunches of brown weed, or
+odd-shaped excrescences on the trees.  Yet Robert's eye was the eye of
+the hunter, skilled in the ruses of all quarry.  Barbara's woodcraft
+went immeasurably beyond his,--and perceiving this, her last resentment
+faded out and she began to initiate him.  She named and distinguished
+for him birds of which he had never even heard, and corrected him with
+gleeful pride when he innocently mistook the cry of a woodpecker for
+that of a jay.  As for Robert, his delight in this initiation was
+second only to his delight in his wilful initiator, who was now all
+earnestness and to him a marvel of abstruse erudition.  He learned very
+quickly, however, and so Barbara was pleased not less by his
+comparative ignorance than by his superlative aptitude, which was an
+incense of flattery to his instructress.  Only on the subject of deer
+and grouse Barbara could teach him nothing.
+
+"You know all about those," she cried, reproachfully, "because you have
+taken the trouble to learn about them, so you can kill them!"
+
+"It does seem a pity to kill such lovely, interesting creatures,"
+acknowledged the lad, thoughtfully.  "But what can we do?  Surely they
+were given to us for our use.  Providence intended them for our food.
+It must be right for us to kill them!"
+
+"Of course," assented Barbara, unequipped with any philosophy which
+might have enabled her to combat this argument.  "Of course, it is
+right for us to _eat_ them.  But you, Robert, you _take pleasure_ in
+_killing_ them.  I don't quite like you for that!"
+
+Robert's face grew more and more thoughtful, for this was to him a hard
+saying, indeed, and he had no answer ready.  He was a skilled shot and
+a keen huntsman.
+
+"I could not understand a man not taking pleasure in the chase," said
+he, "but I suppose if he got to know the wild things intimately, and
+love them, as you do, he could no longer bear to kill them, sweet lady!"
+
+"I'm going to teach you to love them all, Robert," said Barbara, easily
+confident in her powers.
+
+"I am taught already," he began, with the little elaborate air which
+Barbara liked.  Then he changed his mind quickly.  "No, I don't mean
+that at all!  I shall need a great many lessons; but I shall learn at
+last, if you teach me faithfully!"
+
+Barbara laughed, a clear, ringing laugh, that astonished the lurking
+weasel and made the red squirrel highly indignant.
+
+"You don't mean anything at all you say, Robert.  You just like to say
+pretty things!"
+
+Which was wantonly unjust, as Barbara knew, and as her very gracious
+glance acknowledged.
+
+A few rods farther on, Barbara suddenly drew rein, wheeled her horse
+about, and held out her hand.
+
+"Now I must go home, Robert.  I think I can trust you to find the rest
+of the way alone!  Don't forget what I've told you.  And don't forget
+to come and see Uncle Bob, the very first of next week.  And thank you
+so much for bringing back the canoe."
+
+Robert had promptly taken the little brown hand, and kissed it with
+somewhat more fervour than form required, till Barbara, without any
+sign of displeasure, snatched it away.  Then, instead of saying
+good-bye, he wheeled his big sorrel.  "You must allow me the honour of
+riding back with you, Mistress Barbara," said he.
+
+"No, indeed!" cried the girl.  "I cannot think of letting you do any
+such thing.  It will be late enough as it is when you get to Gault
+House!"
+
+Robert's mind was quite made up, but he scanned her face anxiously to
+see if she really meant her inhibition.  Her dancing eyes and laughing
+mouth convinced him that she did not mean it with any serious
+conviction, so his obstinate jaw relaxed.
+
+"Allow you to ride back through these woods alone, my lady?" he
+protested, gaily.  "Do you think the wood spirits would let slip such
+an opportunity to carry off their queen?  You are theirs, by rights, I
+know.  But I must see you back safely into the hands of Mistress
+Mehitable."
+
+So it came about that, in spite of his exigencies, Robert dined at
+Mistress Mehitable's, and did not start for Gault House till long past
+noon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+Two days later Mr. Robert Glenowen arrived at Second Westings by the
+Hartford coach, alighting to be publicly kissed and embraced with a
+heedless fervour which would have been a scandal to the community, had
+not the community by this time grown accustomed to Barbara's joyous
+flouting of its conventions.  Barbara had established for herself a
+general privilege, and Second Westings had ceased to do more than lift
+its eyebrows.
+
+"It's the same Barbara, the same naughty little baggage of mine I left
+two years ago, for all that her petticoats are longer, and her
+lovelocks shorter, and she takes the trouble to powder her saucy little
+nose!" said Mr. Glenowen, presently, holding her at arms' length, and
+eyeing her with critical approval.
+
+Barbara endured the scrutiny for a moment or two, then her dark cheeks
+flushed, her lips pouted, and she impetuously thrust herself again into
+his arms.
+
+"I have grown up since you saw me, Uncle Bob!" she cried, kissing him
+on both cheeks.
+
+"Whose fault is that?" he asked, again pushing her away that he might
+search her eyes.
+
+"Aunt Kitty's!" answered Barbara, innocently, her eyes as clear as a
+child's.
+
+Mr. Glenowen laughed, held her with his left arm about her slim waist,
+and stepped up toward the inn door to greet Doctor John and Doctor Jim,
+who had held themselves in the background that Barbara might have the
+first greetings uninterrupted.
+
+A few minutes later the four were on the way to Mistress Mehitable's,
+walking up the middle of the street.  Barbara and her uncle, arm in
+arm, walked between, with the great bulks of Doctor John and Doctor Jim
+on either side, seeming to overshadow them; while a little way behind
+trudged Amos, in his blue duffle shirt and leather breeches, carrying
+the baggage.
+
+In this position, framed as it were and set off by Doctor John and
+Doctor Jim, the likeness between Barbara and her uncle came out as
+never before, so that both the brothers exclaimed at it together.
+Glenowen was a shade above middle height, with square, athletic
+shoulders, and no suggestion of leanness; but he had the same
+indescribable lightness, swiftness, fineness of bearing, which
+characterised Barbara.  Under his very smart three-cornered hat of
+black beaver with its fashionable rosette, his thick, bronze-black,
+vigorous hair, which was worn in a queue and tied with an ample ribbon,
+had the same rebellious wave in it that Barbara's had.  His face, like
+Barbara's, was short, with slightly rounded forehead, rounded chin,
+firm jaw, cheeks somewhat thin, lips full and passionate.  But
+Barbara's mouth was sad, while Glenowen's was laughing, daring, tender;
+and Barbara's eyes were of a transparent, fathomless, gray-green,
+sometimes flaming, sometimes darkly inscrutable, while Glenowen's were
+of a sunny, merry brown, darkening and growing keen as steel when he
+was intent.  As he was carrying his gauntlet gloves of light,
+American-made goat-leather, the further likeness to Barbara came out in
+his bare hands, which were dark and slender and fine like hers, with
+long-oval, polished, aristocratic nails.  Barbara herself would never
+wear gloves about Second Westings in summer, save at meeting, or when
+riding, or in pulling herbs or cutting flowers.  She loved nice gloves,
+as a dainty and suggestive article of toilet; but she loved the freedom
+of her little, sensitive fingers, and felt that Second Westings had no
+atmosphere to fit the suggestion of gloved hands.  It was manifest that
+Barbara was chiefly a Glenowen,--but it was equally manifest that her
+eyes were the eyes of the Ladds; for they were profoundly different
+from those of her Uncle Bob, and so far as enigmatic gray-green could
+resemble untroubled sky-blue, they were like to the deep, transparent
+eyes of Mistress Mehitable.
+
+Mr. Glenowen brought to Second Westings a lot of presents for Barbara,
+a whiff of freshness from the outside world, and an indefinable sense
+of ferment and change.  It was as if the far-off tales of strife
+between king and colonies ceased on the sudden to be like the affairs
+of story-books, and became crystallised, by the visitor's mere
+presence, into matters of vital import.  A premonition of vast events
+flashed through the quiet heart of the village; and from the day of the
+arrival of Mr. Robert Glenowen by the Hartford coach, the repose of
+Second Westings was never again quite the same.
+
+Yet Glenowen at this time was no partisan.  He was merely in active
+touch with the troubles of the time, and vexatiously divided within
+himself.  By sentiment, taste, and tradition a Tory, and by
+intellectual conviction a Whig, he shunned rather than courted argument
+in which he could heartily support neither side.  Nevertheless, before
+dinner was over, all the company, save Barbara, were at him,--Mistress
+Mehitable and Doctor Jim on the one side, and Doctor John, with
+whimsical insinuations and Parthian shafts, on the other.  As for
+Barbara, she was too happy to care whether kings thwarted colonies or
+colonies thwarted kings, so long as she might sit in unwonted and
+radiant silence and beam upon her Uncle Bob.
+
+But Mr. Glenowen was not to be entrapped into any serious discussions
+so soon after his journey.  He showed an unmistakable and determined
+desire to play.  Barbara's one curl, where he had been wont to see
+many, was of concern to him.  Her one kitten--now admitted to the
+dignified precincts of the dining-room since the other two had been
+given away, the day before, to Doctor Jim and Mercy Chapman
+respectively--appeared to him of more concern than Mr. Adams or Lord
+North.  He was brimful of appreciative merriment over the story of
+Barbara's adventurous voyage, and troublesomely interrogative as to the
+various attributes of Robert.  He had attentive inquiries for old
+Debby, and Mercy Chapman, and Keep, and the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer,
+and Black Prince, and many others whom none would have dreamed he could
+remember after two years of well-occupied absence.  By the time dinner
+was over none had achieved to know whether Uncle Bob would call himself
+Tory or Whig.  Barbara, of course, felt confident that he was a
+joyously established rebel; while Doctor Jim was equally sure he was a
+king's man through and through.  The others were in doubt.
+
+Nor was Mr. Glenowen more communicative when the meal was done.  He was
+then too impatient even to smoke his pipe, for haste to get at his
+travelling-bags and show Barbara what he had brought for her.  As he
+pulled out these treasures one by one, Barbara forgot all the dignity
+of her lengthened frocks, and screamed with delight, and kissed him
+spasmodically, and exhausted her rich vocabulary of endearments in the
+vain effort to give her rapture words; till Doctor John and Doctor Jim
+vowed they would have to go a journey themselves ere long, if only to
+bring Barbara presents and find out in person how sweet she could be.
+While Mistress Mehitable remarked demurely that "such knowledge of what
+would please a woman could only have been attained by more assiduity in
+effort than was quite becoming, surely, in a bachelor!"
+
+"I hope, dear mistress," retorted Uncle Bob, with laughing eyes, "that
+the discernment with which you so generously credit me did not fail
+when I was selecting this little gift, unmeet as it is to adorn your
+charms."  And on one knee he presented to her a bundle in green tissue,
+tied delicately with gilt cord.
+
+All crowded about Mistress Mehitable while she undid the cord, and
+unfolded, with blushes, and with little breathless exclamations not
+unworthy of Barbara herself, an elaborately ruffled and laced French
+night-rail, embroidered heavily with silk, and lettered in gold thread
+with her initials.
+
+It was such a gown as often served to make bedroom receptions popular.
+And Mistress Mehitable, though she held those customs in scorn as
+indolent and frivolous, had a healthy feminine delight in such sweet
+fripperies of apparel as this creation of French art.  Amid the clamour
+of applause it was some moments before she could word her
+acknowledgments.  At last she said:
+
+"I shall perhaps thank you less fervently than I do now, Mr. Glenowen,
+for this delightful present, when its fascinations keep me from
+sleeping.  I'm afraid I shall lie awake just to appreciate it!"
+
+"Sleep, rather, I beg you, fair mistress, and honour me with some small
+place in your dreams!" cried Uncle Bob, gallantly.
+
+"Fie!  Fie!  Fie!" said Mistress Mehitable, shaking at him a slim,
+reproving finger.  "You must not put such gallantries into these young
+people's heads.  Doctor Jim is steady enough, but such notions are very
+upsetting to John and Barbara!"
+
+"Glenowen, you young scoundrel, sir!" roared Doctor Jim, "what do you
+mean by coming in here and turning our girls' heads with your bold
+compliments and French night-rails?  I marvel at your devilish
+audacity, sir!  You'll have trouble on your hands before you know what
+you're about,--eh, what?"
+
+Uncle Bob was darting around the room like a pleased boy, delighted
+with the effect he had produced, delighted with his success in pleasing
+Mistress Mehitable, and in bringing out the gayer, brighter side of her
+conscience-burdened spirit.
+
+"Pistols, Pigeon!  Pistols let it be, this very night after moonset,
+under Mistress Mehitable's window!" he cried, slapping Doctor Jim's
+great shoulders.  "I give you fair warning I shall bring the dear lady
+a far handsomer one the next time I come!"
+
+Barbara, meanwhile, and Mistress Mehitable, and Doctor John, had their
+heads close together over the intricate and beautiful embroidery,
+admiring each fine detail in careful succession.
+
+"It is _perfectly beautiful_!" pronounced Barbara, at length, with a
+deep breath of satisfaction and a consciousness of duty loyally done.
+There were several of her own presents which she admired more
+fervently, and she already had five, with the possibility of more yet
+to come from Uncle Bob's wonderful bag.  But she felt it would not be
+playing fair if she failed to give full measure of time and fervour to
+sympathising with Aunt Hitty in her good fortune.  At the same time,
+she felt that in her aunt's frank delight in such a frivolous and quite
+unnecessarily beautiful garment she had found a new bond of
+understanding with that long-misunderstood lady.
+
+But Mistress Mehitable had yet one more word to say before she was
+ready, in turn, to give undivided attention to Barbara's fortunes.
+
+"I am going to confess, Mr. Glenowen," said she, with a smiling,
+half-shamefaced glance, as she held up the dainty creation of lawn and
+lace and silk, caressing her smooth pink and white cheek with it, "I am
+going to confess that this lovely garment is just such a thing as I
+have longed to have, yet should have considered it wicked
+self-indulgence to purchase.  Even so sober and prosy a dame as I may
+dearly love the uselessly beautiful.  I'm beginning to doubt whether I
+really want to be quite so useful and competent as I am thought to be.
+You, Mr. Glenowen, a comparative stranger, and with but a casual,
+courteous regard for me, have read my heart as these my dearest and
+lifelong friends, who would, I believe, give their right hands to serve
+me, could not do."
+
+"Glenowen, you die to-night!" roared Doctor Jim, knitting his great
+brows.
+
+But Doctor John was on one knee at Mistress Mehitable's
+black-satin-shod small feet, one hand upon his breast.
+
+"Nothing more utilitarian than silk stockings, most dear and
+unexpectedly frivolous lady," he vowed, "shall be my tributes of
+devotion to you henceforth!"
+
+"And mine shall be garters, fickle Mehitable!" cried Doctor Jim,
+dropping on his knee beside Doctor John, and swearing with like
+solemnity.  "Silk garters,--and such buckles for silk garters!"
+
+"And little silk shoes, and such big buckles for little silk shoes!"
+said Doctor John.
+
+"And silk petticoats!" went on Doctor Jim, antiphonally.  "Brocaded
+silk, flowered silk, watered silk, painted silk, corded silk, tabby
+silk, paduasoy silk, alamode silk, taffety silk, charrydarry--" till
+Mistress Mehitable put her hand over his mouth and stopped the stream
+of his eruditions.
+
+"And silk--and silk--" broke in Doctor John, once more, but
+stammeringly, because his knowledge of the feminine wardrobe was
+failing him.  "Tut, tut, silk night-rails, indeed!  The scoundrel!  The
+vagabond Welshman!  May I die of Jim Pigeon's physic if I don't make
+shift--make silk shift--"
+
+"John!" cried Mistress Mehitable, in tone of rebuke, and pushing them
+both away from her.  "Get up at once, both of you, and don't be so
+silly!"
+
+Her eyes shone, and her cheeks were flushed with mingled pleasure and
+embarrassment, and Glenowen realised that she was much younger and
+prettier than he had been wont to think.
+
+"O Mehitable-demoralised-by-Barbara!" vowed Doctor John, towering over
+her.  "Your sweet and now perverted soul shall be satisfied with
+gewgaws!  I, John Pigeon, swear it!"
+
+[Illustration: "_O Mehitable-demoralised-by-Barbara!" vowed Doctor
+John._]
+
+"Then I want a bosom-bottle, of Venice glass and gold filigree, to keep
+my nosegays from withering!" retorted Mistress Mehitable, flashing up
+at him a look of her blue eyes.  "I've never had such a chance as this
+in all my life!"
+
+"There now, hussy!" growled Doctor Jim, turning upon Barbara.  "See
+what you have done.  In three days you have demoralised her completely.
+And I see the ruin of John and Jim Pigeon, buying her things!"
+
+But Barbara was by this time too absorbed in her own things to heed the
+catastrophe thus impending.  It was plain that Uncle Bob had been
+prosperous these past two years,--and equally plain that he was in full
+sympathy with Barbara's tastes.  First of all, there were books,--a
+handsomely bound copy of Sir Philip Sidney's "Arcadia," an old,
+time-stained copy of "England's Helicon," a copy in boards of the
+admired "Odes" of Mr. Gray, and a copy of Mr. Thompson's "The Castle of
+Indolence."  With these, in strange companionship, a white silk
+mask,--a black velvet mask with silver buttons on silver cord behind
+the mouth, to enable the wearer to hold it in place with her lips, when
+both hands might chance to be occupied,--and a small pistol, inlaid
+with silver and mother-of-pearl.  This seductive little weapon Barbara
+hugged rapturously to her breast.  Though she would not kill anything
+for the world, she loved to feel she could be slaughterous an she
+wished!
+
+Then came wonders of the wardrobe.  Barbara hungered to try them on all
+at once, and in truth made marvellous efforts toward that unachievable
+end.  There were kerchiefs of sheerest lawn and lace, and of
+embroidered silk.  There were two pairs of silk garters, three pairs of
+silk stockings, and six pairs of fine thread stockings.  She loved the
+silk stockings as she did the pistol and Sir Philip Sidney.  There were
+shoes, low, shapely, thin-soled shoes of red morocco, and black
+chamois, and black satin, and a pair of daintiest slippers of white
+satin, all with buckles satisfyingly resplendent.
+
+"I knew your feet would never be any larger than they are now,"
+explained Uncle Bob, "so having the opportunity to get some uncommon
+fine shoes at a price uncommon reasonable, I thought it just as well to
+embrace occasion boldly!"
+
+"But how _did_ you _ever_ guess the right size, Uncle Bob?" cried
+Barbara, in ecstasy, trying on a black satin one with supreme
+forgetfulness of company manners, and poking out ingenuously the most
+bewitching foot in the thirteen colonies.  "Do just look.  It fits like
+a glove!"
+
+Stooping quickly as if to examine it, Doctor Jim engulfed it in one
+large, white hand; and kissed it just above the glittering buckle.
+
+"There, Bob Glenowen," he growled, as he straightened himself, "is that
+the proper civility to show a lady when she pokes out her foot at you?
+I suppose you would pocket the shoe and carry off the lady!  Eh, what?"
+
+"How dare you kiss my niece without my leave?" demanded Mr. Glenowen.
+
+"He shall kiss me just whenever he likes, and no one in the world shall
+interfere!" declared Barbara, springing up, and pulling Doctor Jim's
+neck down to be swiftly hugged.  "But--how _did_ you know the right
+size, Uncle Bob?"
+
+A look passed between Mistress Mehitable and Glenowen; and Barbara,
+intercepting it, understood in a flash.
+
+"Oh!  Oh!  Aunt Hitty!  _You_ did it!" she shrieked, clapping her
+hands.  "You sent him my green silk slipper for a pattern!  And I've
+been thinking I had lost it!  And I was ashamed to tell you!  Oh, how
+dear, and deceitful of you, honey!"
+
+"Here, indeed, is the delinquent slipper!" acknowledged Uncle Bob,
+drawing the green silk toy from his bag.  He handed it over to Mistress
+Mehitable, for Barbara was again absorbed, her glowing face, with one
+massive black curl hanging straight past her cheek, bent low over her
+spoils, among which were lengths of silk,--a rich brocade, a taffeta,
+and a silk Damascus, out of which her quick fancy conjured up a dream
+of petticoats, panniers, and bodices that should appear most
+sumptuously grown-up.  There were gloves, too, and mitts; and a mighty
+handsome little "equipage" of silver-gilt, containing scissors,
+thimble, nail-trimmer, tweezers, and such small needments, to hang at
+the left side of her bodice.  There was a flimsy affair of a
+"lovehood," silk and gauze and mystery, from which Barbara's vivid,
+petulant, dark little face flashed forth with indescribable
+bewitchment.  This love-hood, swore Doctor John, should never be worn
+by Barbara on the streets of Second Westings, for reasons affecting the
+public weal, as it would bedevil the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer himself
+in the very sanctuary of his pulpit.  Barbara suddenly looked forward
+with interest to going to meeting on the following Sunday, bedecked in
+the disastrous love-hood.
+
+Last, but not least in Barbara's eyes, there was an exceedingly
+delicate frivolity in the shape of a carven gilt patch-box, about an
+inch and a half in length.  In the top was set a painted china
+medallion, representing a richly dressed shepherdess enwreathed in
+roses, with the appropriate posy:
+
+  "My love in her attire doth show her wit,
+  It doth so well become her!"
+
+On the inside of the cover was a tiny mirror.  When Barbara, silent
+with delight, peered into this mirror, she caught a vision of herself
+in a gay ballroom, patched and powdered and furbelowed, shattering the
+hearts of a host of cavaliers, who every one of them looked like a
+relative of Robert Gault.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+That night, when she was going to bed, came Barbara's really deep
+reaction from the exaltation and excitement which had possessed her
+since the morning with Mistress Mehitable.  The joy of her uncle's
+coming, the whirl of childish delight over the presents he had brought
+her, had swept her spirits to a pinnacle which could not be maintained.
+She slipped, and fell down on the other side.
+
+First she lighted the four candles that stood, two on each side of the
+mirror, on her shining mahogany dressing-table.  Then she undressed,
+put on her long, white nightgown, and said her prayers with a troubled
+alternation of fervour and forgetfulness.  She was slipping.  Then, one
+by one, she looked her presents well over again, noted that each was
+just as perfect as it had seemed to her every other one of the dozen
+times she had examined it, and wondered with a pang what had become of
+all their magic.  Her scintillant delight in them had faded to a mere
+dull drab perception of their merits.  Her eyes filled, and a lump rose
+in her throat.  She was far over the crest of the pinnacle, on the
+cold, enshadowed side of the steep.
+
+The one kitten, whom she had named "Mr. Grim,"--a round-faced,
+round-eyed gray and white furred baby, not yet accustomed to the loss
+of his two saucer mates,--crept snuggling against her bare ankles and
+mewed mildly, begging to be noticed.  Barbara picked it up, fondled it
+in her bosom, threw herself down on the bed with it, and burst into a
+passion of tears.  She felt as if she had been long, long away.  She
+was poignantly homesick for her old self, her old childishness.  The
+burden of being grown-up suddenly arose, thrust itself upon her, and
+grew great and terrifying and not to be borne.  She was oppressed, too,
+with self-reproach.  Absorbed in vivid and novel sensations, during the
+past few eventful days she had not thought as much as usual about her
+old comrades,--the kittens, Keep, Black Prince, and Mercy Chapman.  And
+now in her weakness she thought they had suffered from her neglect.  As
+a matter of fact, the difference had been purely in her own mind.  The
+kittens, who were quite dependent upon her, had been as tenderly cared
+for as ever, but while caring for them she had thought of other things
+more novel and significant.  In giving away two of them she had done
+just what she had planned and promised from the first.  But now she
+scourged herself for heartlessness and inconstancy, pretending she had
+sent them away just because she was tired of taking care of them and
+wanted to be free for new interests.
+
+"Did its missis forget all about the poor little lonely baby, and send
+away her other babies, and get cruel and hard-hearted, just because she
+thought she was grown-up, and a new friend came along?" she murmured,
+after the first tempest was over, to the gray and white kitten now
+purring comfortably against her soft throat.  She sat up in bed with it
+to caress it more effectively.
+
+"She is a bad missis, and perfectly horrid!" she went on, between sobs;
+and the kitten, who did not mind damp, was highly pleased.  "She has
+been perfectly horrid.  But to-morrow she's going to be just her old
+self again, and take up the tuck in her petticoats, and fix her hair
+like it was before we ran away.  And we'll go to Doctor Jim and Mercy
+Chapman and just _snatch_ back those other poor babies; and we'll all
+go off together down into the back garden, by our apple-tree, and have
+a lovely time.  And--and--yes, we _will_ forgive old Debby, and go and
+see her to-morrow.  We'll take Uncle Bob, and then there won't be any
+bother about explanations."
+
+Then her tears flowed forth anew, till the kitten was quite
+uncomfortably wet; and, with fresh resolves to be all child again on
+the morrow, she sobbed herself to sleep, with the thick hair tangled
+over her eyes and grieving lips.
+
+But the long, sweet sleep brought complete renewal to Barbara's spent
+forces, and waking found her composedly happy, with a blessed sense of
+problems solved and desired things coming to pass.  Her heart was
+a-brim with sunshine, but the only sunshine in the room was that she
+held in her heart, for the light that came through the diamond panes
+was gray, and the sky behind the leafy branch was gray, and, as she
+looked, the first of the rain came, blown in streaming gusts against
+the glass, and shedding a narrow line of drops across the polished
+floor.  One leaf of the window was open, and Barbara sprang from bed to
+shut it, laughing as the cold drops spattered her feet.  She had no
+quarrel with the rain that day, there being enough pleasures indoors to
+keep any maid's mind busy.
+
+After breakfast, however, when she found that Uncle Bob was going down
+into the village to call on the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer, to drink a
+glass with Squire Gillig in his snug office behind the store, and to
+pay his respects to Doctor John and Doctor Jim, then Barbara felt the
+lure of the rain, and said she would go with him.
+
+"I _love_ the rain," she explained,--"and it's so nice for the
+complexion, too!  I'll go and tell Mercy Chapman about my presents, and
+take some jellies to her poor sick mother, while you are talking
+politics in the squire's back office, Uncle Bob.  Then I'll meet you at
+Doctor John's office, and we'll step into Doctor Jim's, and bring both
+of them up to dinner with us, so we'll all be together as much as
+possible.  Won't we, dear?"  And she paused in the task of strapping on
+her goloshes, to appeal to Mistress Mehitable.
+
+"You are proposing to make a lot of trouble for your aunt!" protested
+Glenowen.
+
+"Indeed she is not," began Mistress Mehitable, warm to second Barbara's
+proposal.  But before she could say more, there was a wilder gust among
+the trees outside, a fiercer burst of rain against the windows, and,
+with a huge stamping in the vestibule, came Doctor Jim, as if blown in
+by storm.  All hurried to meet him, where he stood dripping in the hall
+door, and the expedition to the village was postponed.  An hour later
+came Doctor John, even wetter and more dishevelled than his brother,
+from the bedside of a patient at the opposite end of the village.  The
+two had planned that theirs should be the hospitality of that day, but
+the storm and Mistress Mehitable together triumphed.  The old house was
+merry all day long with gay voices, its maiden fragrances of lavender
+and rose touched genially with breaths of the mild Virginia weed.  And
+Barbara forgot, completely and for ever, how near she had been to
+drowning the furry "Mr. Grim" in the tears of her regret for her lost
+childishness.
+
+Toward sunset the rain stopped, and a copper flame was reflected up
+from the windows of a cottage visible to the eastward through the
+trees; and the western sky, opening along the horizon under great
+smoky-purple battlements of cloud, revealed unspeakable glories of
+clear gold.  Throughout the rare hour, till dusk fell, the thrushes
+sang ecstatically, so unusual an outburst that Barbara dragged every
+one out upon the wet porch to listen to the thrilling, cloistral-pure
+cadences, the infinite tranquillities of tone.  So inspiring was that
+hour in the front of twilight that even the catbird down in the back
+garden forgot that he had been for days too busy to sing, and mounted
+the topmost bough of a tall cherry, and eased his soul in a chaos of
+golden phrases.
+
+Very early the next morning,--the kind of morning when the sunlight
+itself seems as if it were just sparkling from a bath in cold
+fountains,--Barbara and Glenowen started out for a paddle across the
+lake to visit old Debby.  They went through the barn-yard, through the
+bars, through the pasture, and through the wood; and in response to his
+bounding and wagging appeals, they took Keep, the mastiff, with them.
+They went early, in order to be back in time for the dinner with Doctor
+John and Doctor Jim.  And Barbara insisted on letting Keep go in the
+canoe, that she might erase from his generous heart the memory of her
+harshness on the morning of her great adventure.  At her command, the
+dog stepped in so circumspectly, and lay down with so nice a balance,
+that Uncle Bob was impressed.
+
+"The dog's a born canoeist, Barb," he declared, as he headed up the
+shore instead of straight out across the lake.  "I wonder you ever had
+the heart to leave him behind,--and to take those kittens, who couldn't
+tell a canoe from a horse-trough."
+
+Barbara would have answered that the kittens needed her more than Keep
+did, who had all the world for his friend; but her thoughts were
+diverted by the direction in which her uncle was steering.
+
+"Why do you go this way, Uncle Bob?" she demanded, looking at him over
+her shoulder while her dripping paddle-blade rested on the gunwale.
+
+"I want to examine a certain big rock, where a certain small girl did
+certain strange things!" replied Glenowen, gravely.
+
+Barbara flushed, and drooped her head.
+
+"I didn't know you knew about that, Uncle Bob!" she said, in a low
+voice.  "Don't let's go there!"
+
+"All right!" assented Glenowen, cheerfully.  He had recalled the old
+tragedy of deliberate purpose, because, being of Welsh blood, and
+superstitious, he was afraid Barbara's unparalleled high spirits might
+bring her some keen disappointment.  He had purposed to discipline her
+with a dash of bitter memories, that he might avert the envy of the
+gods; and when her head drooped he had accomplished his purpose.  But
+Barbara had changed her mind.
+
+"No!" she said.  "Let's go close to the rock, and look right down into
+the water, just where I was lying when old Debby pulled me out!"
+
+And they did so.  The sand was clear gold down there, but as they
+looked a huge eel wriggled over it.  Barbara shuddered, and seized her
+paddle once more to get away.
+
+"It's good for me to be reminded, Uncle Bob," she said.  "I forget,
+when I am happy, how wicked and foolish I can be when things go wrong!
+But oh, you can never know how unhappy I used to be!  You'd have come
+to me if you had known, Uncle Bob!"
+
+"Poor little girlie!" murmured Glenowen, his kind brown eyes moistening
+at the corners.
+
+"But I was crazy, both naughty and crazy, and it was all my fault!"
+went on Barbara, resting her paddle again as the canoe skimmed fleetly
+out across the water, away from the sorrowful spot.  "It's all so
+different now!  And it's always going to be different!"
+
+Glenowen smiled to himself, as he was apt to do when confronted with
+any of the pathetic ironies of life.  Barbara would not have liked him
+to smile, for to her a smile meant amusement or mirth, and she could
+never learn to appreciate the depth of tenderness that might lurk
+beneath a ripple of laughter.  But she was looking straight ahead.  In
+his heart and behind his smile, Glenowen said, "Child, dear child, is
+it all so securely different now, and just eight days gone since you
+climbed out of your window before daybreak?"  But aloud he said, after
+a silence:
+
+"It is indeed most different, Barb, old girl?  Some of your troubles
+are really done now, thrown into the dark corner with the discarded
+dollies.  The others will keep bobbing up now and then, claiming old
+acquaintance.  But just you cut them dead.  They are in sober truth not
+the same, now that you are older and more responsible.  Well I know,
+what so many forget, that childish sorrows, while they last, are the
+most bitter and hopeless of sorrows.  The wall that a man steps over
+blots out a child's view of heaven."
+
+"How wonderfully you understand, Uncle Bob!" cried Barbara, with ardent
+appreciation.
+
+As they neared the other side of the lake, a kingfisher dropped like an
+azure wedge into the ripples, missed his prey, and flew off down to the
+outlet clattering harshly in his throat.  From the deep reeds of the
+point above the outlet a wide-winged bird got up heavily as the canoe
+drew near.
+
+"There goes my old blue heron!" shouted Barbara, gleefully.  "You
+should have seen the way he fixed me with his glassy eyes as I passed,
+the morning I ran away!"
+
+"He is very old, and very wise, and thinks of lots of things besides
+frogs!" said Glenowen.
+
+They entered the outlet, and met old Debby's geese.  The big gray and
+white gander, in the pride of many goslings, hissed fiercely at them as
+they paddled past, so that Keep raised his head and gave him a look of
+admonition over the gunwale.  The next turn brought them out in full
+view of Debby's cabin, and straightway rose a clamorous outcry from
+watchful drakes and challenging chanticleers.  The yellow pup ran
+barking down from the steps, and Keep cocked a sympathetic ear.
+
+"Lie down, sir!" commanded Barbara, and Keep meekly suppressed his
+budding interest.
+
+Mrs. Debby Blue was spinning flax, on the hard-beaten clean earth some
+paces in front of her threshold, when she saw and recognised her
+approaching visitors.  In the presence of Mr. Glenowen she read peace,
+for her shrewd perception of Barbara's character told her that the girl
+would never have permitted her a glimpse of the cherished uncle except
+as a sign of favour.  Nevertheless the grim old woman was conscious of
+a sinking qualm at thought of the first straight look of Barbara's
+eyes.  She knew she had betrayed her; and that knowledge was not wholly
+mended by the fact that she knew she had done right to betray.  Her
+lonely old heart so yearned to the child that she feared her reproach
+as she feared no other thing in life.  She stopped her wheel, dropped
+her roll of flax, picked up her stick, and limped sturdily down toward
+the landing.
+
+Before she had got half-way the canoe came to land, and Barbara
+unceremoniously skipped ashore.
+
+"Lie down, Keep!" she ordered again, and then, leaving Glenowen to land
+and follow at leisure, she ran up the path to greet old Debby.
+
+"This does my old eyes good, Miss Barby!" exclaimed the old woman, her
+voice a trifle unsteady.
+
+Barbara seized her, and kissed her heartily on both cheeks.
+
+"You were very bad to me, Debby," she cried, cheerfully, "but you'd
+have been worse to me if you hadn't been bad to me!  So I forgive you,
+and love you just the same, you old dear.  The most _dreadful_ things
+might have happened to me if it hadn't been for you!"
+
+Mrs. Blue heaved a huge sigh of relief; but the subject was too
+difficult and delicate a one for her to expand upon.  She gave Barbara
+a vehement squeeze, looked her up and down, and exclaimed:
+
+"Land sakes alive, Miss Barby, why, if you hain't been an' growed up
+over night.  What've they been doin' to you over there?"
+
+"It was _you_ did it, Debby, much as anybody!"  And Barbara flicked her
+petticoats audaciously before the old woman's eyes, to emphasise their
+added length.  "Such lovely things have happened; and Aunt Hitty and I
+have made up; and I've so much to tell you, that I must come over some
+day and spend the whole day with you, after Uncle Bob goes away.  And
+here's Uncle Bob himself, who only came day before yesterday, and has
+come to see you, Debby dear, before any one else in Second Westings."
+
+As Barbara stopped breathless, Glenowen came up and grasped the old
+dame warmly by the hand.
+
+"You're looking ten years younger than when I saw you two years ago,
+Debby!" he declared, sweetly and transparently mendacious.
+
+"'Tain't so much my youth, as my beauty, that I set store by, Mr.
+Glenowen, thankin' you jest the same!" retorted the old woman, as she
+led them into her cabin for refreshment.  She was a cunning cook, if
+somewhat unconventional in her recipes, and she remembered with
+satisfaction that Barbara's uncle had seemed to share Barbara's
+weakness for her concoctions.  Eight days ago she would have offered
+Barbara milk to drink; but now she brought out only a strong root wine
+for which she was famous, a beverage which was extolled throughout the
+township as a most efficacious preventative of all disorders.
+
+"It's a wonder how letting down one's petticoats seems to destroy one's
+fondness for milk!" said Barbara.
+
+Instead of sitting on the edge of the high bed and swinging her legs,
+as she would have done eight days ago, she sat on a bench and kept her
+feet on the floor.  And from this old Debby realised, with a pang, that
+the child had truly grown to womanhood.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+Returning about noon to Westings House, early that they might have time
+to dress for dinner, Glenowen started to let down the pasture bars.
+But Barbara, in high spirits, went over them like a cat, forgetful of
+her new dignity.  So Glenowen vaulted after her.  As they rounded the
+end of the barn, Amos came leading a tall sorrel across the yard; and
+straightway Barbara assumed a more stately air, while a quick radiance
+went over her face.
+
+"That's Robert Gault's horse!" she explained.  "I want you to be very
+lovely to him, Uncle Bob, for he's such a nice boy, and was so very
+civil to me when I made him help me run away.  I gave him a terrible
+lot of anxiety, you know!"
+
+Glenowen laughed uproariously.
+
+"I don't doubt you did, dear heart!" he agreed.  "But Lord, oh, Lord,
+what a way of commending a young man to a young lady's doting uncle, to
+say he mighty civilly helped her to run away!"
+
+"Now, Uncle Bob, I won't like you if you talk nonsense!  You know very
+well what I mean.  And you are to be nice to Robert!" retorted Barbara,
+crisply.
+
+As they went up the long, box-bordered path, Mistress Mehitable and
+Robert came strolling down to meet them; and the warmth of Glenowen's
+greetings to Robert fulfilled Barbara's utmost demands.  For her own
+part, however, under the sway of a sudden whim, she chose to be by no
+means extraordinarily civil.  And Robert's contentment was dashed by a
+chilly doubt as to whether or no he had chosen the right day for his
+visit.  Before they went to their rooms to dress, however, Barbara
+relented.
+
+"You should have come last night, Robert," she said, turning to him
+graciously at the foot of the stairs.  "Then Uncle Bob and I would have
+taken you over the lake with us this morning, in _the_ canoe, to see
+old Debby!"
+
+She threw an intimate emphasis on the "the,"--and watched with a
+curious sense of triumph the swift fading of the cloud from Robert's
+face.
+
+For this dinner Barbara dressed with unwonted care.  Her plain white
+silk petticoat, duly lengthened, worn under her cream brocaded satin
+panniers, with buff satin bodice, and white lace short sleeves, gave
+her, as she could not but think, a most genteel appearance.  With her
+new white silk stockings and white satin shoes, two large red roses in
+her bosom, and one in the dark mass of her hair just where the curl
+hung down, a tiny patch from the adorable new patch-box discreetly
+fixed near the corner of her mouth, and the new love-hood to be thrown
+carelessly over her head in due time, she felt herself equipped to be
+as imperious and unpleasant to Robert as the caprice of the moment
+might suggest.  When she went down-stairs she found Mistress Mehitable
+waiting in the hall, in a gayer gown than she had ever before seen her
+wear.  It was a silk polonaise, of a tender, gris-de-lin shade, which
+became her fair colouring to a marvel; and Barbara was astonished to
+see how young and pretty she looked.
+
+"How _perfectly lovely_ you look, dear!" she cried, turning Mistress
+Mehitable twice around, and putting a deft touch to the light,
+abundant, simply coiffured hair.  "No one will give one look at me
+to-day!"
+
+Her aunt flung an arm about her, smiling, then tripped away girlishly,
+flushed a pretty pink, lifted the edge of her petticoat, and displayed
+a slender ankle encased in embroidered sky-blue silk.  Barbara clapped
+her hands with approval.
+
+"It is five years since I have worn them," said Mistress Mehitable.
+"Seeing that I failed so, child, in my efforts to lead you along the
+paths of gravity, I have concluded to try and let you lead me along the
+paths of frivolity--a little!  So I got out my blue silk stockings!"
+And spreading her skirts, she was in the act of making Barbara an
+elaborate curtsey, when Glenowen, coming up quickly behind her, caught
+her and kissed her lightly on the cheek.
+
+Mistress Mehitable, startled and taken aback, blushed furiously, and
+stood for a second or two in confusion.  Then she recovered herself.
+She made another stately curtsey, and saying, demurely, "Let me turn
+the other cheek also, Mr. Glenowen," presented her face again for a
+more formal and less hasty salute.
+
+Barbara clapped her hands with gleeful approbation, but her comment
+brought a new rose to Mistress Mehitable's face.
+
+"If I didn't love you so much, Uncle Bob," said she, "I'd tell Doctor
+John and Doctor Jim."  And from the fact that she felt embarrassed by
+this raillery, the conscientious Mistress Mehitable was almost ready to
+believe she had done wrong.
+
+The dinner was at two o'clock--an extremely formal hour for Second
+Westings; and a further element of formality was added by the presence
+of the Reverend Jonathan and Mrs. Sawyer, which effectually removed it
+from the category of family affairs.  These outsiders, however, were a
+kindly pair, and cast no serious shadow upon the gathering.  The
+Reverend Jonathan kept his austerity pretty strictly for the Sabbath;
+and being both well-bred and well educated, knew how on occasion to lay
+aside his cloth without sacrifice of dignity or prestige.  He was
+something of a _bon vivant_, too, in his scholarly way, and among folk
+who were unimpeachably of his own class.  And his judgment on a butt of
+Madeira or a hogshead of old West India rum was accounted second to
+none in Second Westings.  His hands were long and white, and he used
+them with impressive pulpit-gestures to point his carefully constructed
+witticisms.  His presence was favourably regarded even by Barbara, who
+appreciated his brains and breeding in spite of certain disastrous
+associations which she could never quite erase from her memory.  His
+wife was a non-significant, abundant, gently acquiescent pudding of a
+woman, not without her utility as a background; and no one but Barbara
+had the slightest objection to her presence.  But Barbara, having a
+fierce impatience of nonentities in general unless they chanced to be
+animals instead of human beings, felt critical when her eyes fell upon
+the good lady's expansive red bosom.  She could not refrain from a
+private grimace at Doctor John, and from whispering in his ear an acrid
+comment on the inviting of a feather-bed to dinner.  She was greatly
+disconcerted, however, when Doctor John roared aloud; and, crediting
+the good lady with an intuition quite foreign to her placid substance,
+her conscience smote her smartly for the unkind comment.  By calculated
+chance she managed to let herself drift into the scant, unoccupied
+corner of the sofa on which Mrs. Sawyer was sitting; and for the long
+half-hour before dinner was served she beguiled the good lady most
+successfully with thrilling descriptions of the presents which Glenowen
+had brought.  Mistress Sawyer was dearly fond of dining; but so
+enthralled did she become in the description of Mistress Mehitable's
+French night-rail that she did not hear when dinner was announced.
+Then Barbara escaped, with an appetite and a proud conscience; and
+proceeded to deal Robert a cruel blow by seating herself as far away
+from him as possible, between Glenowen and Doctor Jim, who wisely
+avoided trouble by avoiding interference on the dejected youth's behalf.
+
+Doctor John and Doctor Jim being both tenacious of old Connecticut
+customs, the dinner began with a pudding of boiled Yokeag, or maize
+meal, stuffed with raisins and suet, and eaten with a rich sauce.  Then
+came fish and meats in lavish variety, with ripe old ale, followed by
+elaborate confections, nuts and fruits, and a fiery, high-flavoured
+Madeira.  With the Madeira came eloquence in conversation, and the
+elaborate interchange of repartee and compliment deepened into a
+discussion of the great matters which at that hour filled men's minds.
+Barbara tried by daring gaieties to stem the tide of seriousness, which
+seemed to her incongruous with the nuts and wine.  But she was swept
+away, at first reluctantly, then willingly; for, during the past two
+years, in the intervals of fighting her aunt and loving her cats, dogs,
+and horses, she had studied history, both colonial and English, with a
+characteristic, avid zeal, and now had a pretty foundation of theory
+under her seemingly reckless conclusions.
+
+In response to many interrogations, Glenowen had given at some length
+and with temperate fairness an account of the latest difference in
+Virginia between the royal governor and the stiff-necked House of
+Burgesses.  As the result of this lamentable clash of authorities, the
+House had been dissolved, the Old Dominion was being governed in a
+fashion contrary to the terms of her long-cherished charter, and the
+trade of the colony was disastrously shrunken, because her people were
+refusing to import goods subject to duties which they had not
+themselves imposed.  "When men and women begin to deny themselves
+voluntarily for the sake of a principle, whether it be right or wrong,"
+continued Glenowen, "it is time for those at the helm to consider
+clearly the course on which they are steering the ship of state!"
+
+"When kings lay hands on charters, free men rise up armed," said the
+Reverend Jonathan Sawyer, rolling the polished phrase with a relish.
+The sentiment sounded so at variance with those which he was commonly
+held to cherish, that every one looked at him for a moment in silent
+question.
+
+"I speak but in the abstract," he explained, waving a white hand
+airily.  "In the concrete the question baffles me, and I wait for
+light!"
+
+"I confess I am astounded at Virginia," said Doctor Jim, in a great
+voice, solemn with reprobation.  "Virginia, colony of gentlemen, siding
+with the rabble against the king!  Where are Virginia's aristocrats?"
+
+"Would you impugn the gentility of Mr. Washington?" inquired Doctor
+John, mildly.
+
+"Yes, I would, John Pigeon," snapped Doctor Jim, "or of any one else
+who did not show his gentility by his deeds.  And so would you, if you
+were not a bit tarred with the same dirty brush as Mr. Washington."
+
+"Don't you think," ventured Robert, with diffidence, "that our
+grievance--for, of course, there is a grievance, Doctor Jim--is against
+the English Parliament?  What is Parliament to us, that we should bow
+down to it, when we have always had parliaments of our own?  What's
+sacred in Parliament?  But the king,--that's a question of loyalty.
+What's a gentleman without loyalty?  Surely the gentry must stand or
+fall with the king!  Surely--"
+
+"What nonsense, Robert!" interrupted Barbara, severely scornful,
+indignant at him for his views, but grateful to him for the opportunity
+to express her own with point.  "Who was it that whipped King John into
+submission, and made him sign Magna Charta?  Was it the riffraff or the
+gentry, I'd like to know?  Where there is a real aristocracy, Robert,
+there is no need of kings!"
+
+"Barbara, dear!" cried Mistress Mehitable, appalled at this sweeping
+heterodoxy.  But the others laughed, with varying degrees of sympathy
+or dissent.  Doctor Jim wagged his head.
+
+"That's right, Robert, my boy," said he, sympathetically.  "You draw
+her fire, and let me skirmish around.  That's the kind of thing I get
+continually!"
+
+"Is it true," inquired Doctor John, "that that clear and capacious
+intellect, James Otis, is permanently clouded since the wound he got in
+the affair with the king's officers?"
+
+"''Tis true, 'tis pity; and pity 'tis, 'tis true!'" quoted Glenowen.
+"A fine brain wasted in a smuggler's brawl.  I take it there's no
+wisdom to waste, among either Tories or Whigs, these days,--for these
+days are big with Fate!"
+
+"Uncle Bob!" said Barbara, fixing him with a wide, level look, "what
+are you, Whig or Tory?  You seem so careful!"
+
+Glenowen laughed.
+
+"You insist on pinning me down to it, do you, saucy hussy?  Well, I
+wish I knew!  I think there are some hundred thousand or more of honest
+men in these colonies who are trying to find out which they really are,
+right to the bone.  But I can tell you in part.  For one thing, I am an
+Englishman, just as much an Englishman here as if I lived in England!
+Do you know what that means?"
+
+"No!" said Barbara, bluntly, dissatisfied at this caution when she
+counted on a hot partisanship.
+
+"It means that I will not be taxed save by my own consent!  I am too
+good an Englishman to let Englishmen in England treat me as less than
+an Englishman because I am a colonist.  But I am no leveller.  I have
+no patience with the doctrine of those sentimental Frenchmen who
+promulgate the palpable folly that all men are born equal.  I am loyal
+to the king,--or, perhaps, rather, I should say, to the throne, which
+seems to me just now unfortunate in its occupant.  But I will not pay a
+tax imposed by those who have no right to tax me!  I would fight first.
+I stand on Magna Charta."
+
+"Then you are a patriot now, Uncle Bob," said Barbara, fairly
+satisfied, "and before long you will be a rebel!  You wait and see!
+You're all afraid to say it, but before long the colonies will be
+fighting King George!"
+
+There were exclamations of protest from every one, even Doctor John,
+the avowed and consistent Whig,--every one but Glenowen, who smiled
+thoughtfully at Barbara's rashness.
+
+"Tut!  Tut!  You little fire-eater!" exclaimed Doctor John.  "You
+mustn't bring discredit on your party!  We will fight with
+constitutional weapons for our just rights, and bring that pig-headed
+George to his senses.  We must teach him to reign properly, and not to
+meddle, that's all.  No throat-cuttings in the English family!"
+
+"It would break my heart to fight against my countrymen," said Robert,
+earnestly.  "But if they should be so misguided as to take up arms
+against the king, I should have no doubt as to my duty.  The king may
+be unjust; but if so, the injustice will doubtless be remedied by and
+by.  But better, surely, suffer some injustice than be traitor to your
+king."  This speech took courage on Robert's part, with Barbara's eyes
+blazing scorn upon him.  But he looked into vacancy, and made his
+confession of faith regardless of consequence.
+
+"You fatigue me, Robert!" said Barbara.  "Would you rather betray your
+country than your king?  Was the country made for the king?  What's a
+king?  Greece and Rome did pretty well without them!"
+
+"What's this stuff and nonsense about fighting?" broke in Doctor Jim,
+ignoring Barbara's argument as the chatter of a child.  "Stuff and
+nonsense!  The notion of our clodhoppers standing up to the king's
+soldiers, who have whipped the armies of the world!  It is easy for
+demagogues to rant, but they'd find it still easier to run!"
+
+"I fear you all underrate the peril--except this sauce-box here!" said
+Glenowen, soberly.  "And you, Pigeon, are like the king's purblind
+advisers in underrating the spirit of the people.  It is not a noisy,
+but a sullen temper that seems to be spreading.  And clodhoppers are
+not all cowards!  And those who call themselves patriots are not all
+clodhoppers."
+
+"But who among our people can be so suicidal as to think of war?" asked
+the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer, taking a contemplative pinch of snuff.
+"To fight a hopeless battle, and in inevitable defeat lose all!"
+
+"It is not the people who think of war as yet!" said Glenowen.  "But
+the arrogant soldiery, the blindly self-confident officials, the
+insolent English officers, who seem chosen not to conciliate but to
+enrage.  So many of the officers sent out here do dishonour to the
+repute of English gentlemen.  They seem to look on colonists as a
+subject race.  I have seen them, in New York and in Boston, treat our
+ladies with an insufferable condescension, such as they would never
+have dared to show toward the same ladies in England.  And I have seen
+them studiously insolent to colonial gentlemen of birth and breeding
+far above their own, as if the accident of being born in the mother
+country instead of in America made them another race.  Such conduct,
+while unimportant in itself, rankles deeply, and sets the two branches
+of the race in antagonism.  Personal affront is mightier than argument,
+and men cannot overlook a slight to their women."
+
+"I should think not!" cried Robert, loftily.  "I would shed the last
+drop of my blood for the king, but I should not let the king himself
+put slight upon one of our ladies!  I wonder you could endure to see
+such things, Mr. Glenowen!"
+
+"I did not!" confessed Glenowen.  "I have had several differences of
+late!"
+
+Barbara's eyes sparkled, and her lips parted eagerly over her white
+teeth.
+
+"You fought them, Uncle Bob!  You fought them!" she cried.  "Real
+duels!  How many did you fight?  Oh, how lovely!"
+
+"Two, sweetheart, I'm sorry to say!" replied Glenowen, modestly.  "It
+was very inconvenient and annoying, because I have so many
+responsibilities and could not afford to be skewered."
+
+"And how did you come off?" asked Doctor John, leaning far over the
+table in his eagerness.
+
+"Nothing but a scratch or two, thanks to the righteousness of my
+cause!" said Glenowen.
+
+"And the other chaps?" inquired Doctor Jim.  "Doubtless they were
+low-bred scoundrels, whom London would have none of!  I hope you
+pricked 'em!"
+
+"I wish I could feel sure that their manners had mended as well as
+their wounds!" laughed Glenowen, gaily.
+
+Then, to Barbara's ill-concealed disgust, Mistress Mehitable led the
+way into the drawing-room, leaving the men to smoke long pipes and
+thrash out problems of constitutional law to the accompaniment of the
+fiery old Madeira.  In the drawing-room she was moody and silent,
+grudging all the arguments that were going on without her.  And when
+Robert, who felt himself too unseasoned to stay with his elders beyond
+one pipe and an extra glass, followed the ladies at a decent interval,
+Barbara received him far from graciously.  His last speech, in comment
+on the insolence of the officers, had mollified her a little, but she
+felt a smart resentment at his presumption in maintaining views so
+opposite to hers.
+
+"I should think you would stay with the other men," she said, tartly.
+
+"I couldn't stay a moment longer," said Robert, gallantly, "for longing
+to be with the most fair if _not_ the most gracious of ladies!"
+
+"You had better go back and learn something about your duty to your
+country, by listening to Doctor John and Uncle Bob!" she counselled,
+rudely.
+
+Robert bowed low, having himself just now well in hand, though his
+heart was sore.
+
+"I take great pleasure in listening to them, as well as to Doctor Jim,
+who also seems intelligent!" said he.
+
+"Oh," exclaimed Barbara, much nettled.  "Doctor Jim talks a lot of
+nonsense just to tease me; but he doesn't mean it,--at least, not all
+of it.  Besides, he is always interesting.  But you, with your pedantic
+stuff about loyalty and kings and treason, I don't find you interesting
+at all!  Please go and talk to Aunt Hitty and Mrs. Sawyer, and let me
+read.  Perhaps I'll be able to forget what you said at dinner!"
+
+"It is my pleasure to obey your lightest wish, fair mistress!" said
+Robert, inwardly indignant, but outwardly amused at her ill-humour.  He
+went at once to the other side of the room, and exerted himself to such
+good purpose that soon Mistress Mehitable's rare and silvery laughter
+grew frequent, against an almost ceaseless gurgle of content from Mrs.
+Sawyer.  Robert was completely absorbed, while Barbara's interest in
+her book was vexatiously divided.  After half an hour she got up and
+left the room, but he never noticed her going.  Fifteen minutes later
+she came back, with the gray and white "Mr. Grim" on her shoulder; and
+he never noticed her coming, so intent he was, and so successful, in
+his task of amusing Aunt Hitty and Mrs. Sawyer.  This was carrying
+obedience a little too far, and it fretted Barbara.  Then the men came
+in from the dining-room, smoky, and a little more fluent than ordinary,
+and Robert was ousted from his post by Glenowen and Doctor John.  But
+instead of returning now to Barbara, he attached himself with an
+engrossed air to Doctor Jim; and Barbara found herself established in
+her nook with the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer.  To be sure, his Reverence
+made himself most agreeable, flattering her by the attention he would
+have paid to a grown woman whom he considered intelligent.  He
+appreciated her brains, and acknowledged the lengthening of her
+petticoats; and his attitude was a gratifying proof to her that she
+really had grown to be a personage, rather than a child, within the
+past few days.  But she found herself unable to concentrate her wits on
+what he was saying, and passed a rather grievous hour trying to look
+the attention which her brain was not giving.  When, at last, Doctor
+Sawyer arose to go, she felt that he must think her the most stupid
+girl in the world.  Doctor Sawyer, on the contrary, enchanted by the
+rapt silence and appreciation with which apparently she had hung upon
+his words, went away with the conviction that she was a young woman of
+astonishing intellect, whom they had, indeed, wronged greatly in
+striving to force her into the narrow Second Westings mould.  From that
+hour, when she had watched him with glowing eyes, but hearing scarce a
+word of all his wit, the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer was one of Barbara's
+staunchest champions.
+
+When she turned from saying good-bye to Mrs. Sawyer, Barbara found
+Robert standing close beside her in the hall door, apparently absorbed
+in contemplation of Mrs. Sawyer's billowy, retreating figure.  Barbara
+touched him on the arm, and he turned to her with a quick apologetic
+courtesy, as if his thoughts had been far off.
+
+"What were you thinking of, so far, far away?" she asked, feeling
+somewhat left out and forlorn.
+
+"Why--why--I was thinking--" he stammered, as if unwilling to say, yet
+unready with an evasion.
+
+"Oh, you needn't tell me, if it is so embarrassing as all that!" said
+Barbara, tossing her head.  "I was going to say, that after all the
+talk and the excitement, I think the loveliest thing would be some
+fresh, sweet air, and the smell of the woods!"
+
+"It would be, indeed--with you!" said Robert.
+
+"Then we will ride till supper-time.  No,--there is a moon.  We will
+ride after supper.  You may escort me if you want to!  Do you?"
+
+Robert drew a long breath before he answered--and to Barbara the answer
+was sufficient.
+
+"Yes, I want to!" he said, simply.  "I was afraid I was to go away
+without really seeing you at all!"
+
+"Go away!" exclaimed Barbara, lifting her brows in sharp displeasure.
+"What do you mean, Robert?"
+
+"I must go back to Gault House to-morrow morning, without fail, for I
+start for New York the day following, to be gone all winter."
+
+"Oh!" said Barbara; and turned and led the way back into the
+drawing-room, leaving Robert completely mystified as to the meaning of
+that noncommittal interjection.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+After supper, when Barbara came down dressed for riding and calmly told
+Robert she was ready, Mistress Mehitable gasped, and looked at
+Glenowen, expecting that he would meet the emergency by making a third.
+As he seemed unconscious of the need of action, she shot an appealing
+glance at Doctor Jim and Doctor John in turn.  But they only grinned
+inscrutably.  Then she lifted her hands slightly and let them drop into
+her lap, as if to say, "Bear witness, Heaven, that I am helpless!" and
+thus she stifled the voice of protest in her bosom.  She had given
+Barbara freedom, and the responsibility that goes with freedom; and she
+would not take back the gift.  But it was one of the notable victories
+of Mistress Mehitable's career, when she forced herself to sit in
+smiling acquiescence while Barbara flew full in the face of all
+convention.  Amos, meanwhile, had brought the horses to the door; and
+when the two young riders were gone, the hoof-beats sounding in slow
+cadence down the drive, Glenowen said to her, with an understanding
+smile, "You did right, sweet lady.  'Tis a filly, that, to be ridden
+without the curb.  Give her her head, and you'll have no great trouble!"
+
+"I feel sure you are right, Mr. Glenowen," said Mistress Mehitable,
+sweetly.  "But you may well believe it was a hard lesson for me, a Ladd
+of Connecticut, to learn.  And I fear I have not more than half learned
+it yet!"
+
+"You can learn anything you have a mind to, Mehitable," said Doctor
+Jim, with emphasis, "in the time it would take another woman to learn
+the A, B, C of it!"
+
+
+Neither Barbara nor Robert spoke till the horses emerged upon the
+highway.  Then Barbara cried:
+
+"Quick!  Quick!  I want the wind in my face!"
+
+With two miles of good road before them, they set their faces to the
+night breeze and their horses to the run, and raced madly down the
+moonlight, their shadows dancing long and black before them.  The
+saddle-leathers creaked a low, exhilarating music, and the galloping
+swung like a pulse, and the roadside fence and shrubs fled by, and the
+world was white in the moonlight.  And still there was no speech, save
+a soft word now and then to the rejoicing horses, whose ears turned
+back for it sympathetically from time to time.
+
+At length they came to rougher ground, and slowed to a gentle canter.
+Then Robert noticed a narrow wood-road turning off to the right,
+vaulted over with lofty trees, and mystical with moon-shadows.
+
+"Where does that road go, my lady?" he inquired.
+
+"Where we are going!" answered Barbara, turning into it at a walk.
+Then, as if she thought the answer too whimsical, she continued, "It
+will take us back to the village by a longer and more beautiful way!"
+
+"Any longer way would be the more beautiful way!" said Robert.
+
+The reply interested Barbara, and in musing over it she forgot to say
+anything more.
+
+The wood-road, thick-carpeted with turf and moss, muffled the horses'
+hoofs, and an enchanted silence sank into the hearts of the young
+riders.  Here and there the woods gave back for a little clearing with
+a lonely cabin; and the moonlight flooded in; and around the edges of
+the clearing the thick-leaved branches seemed afloat, bubbles of glass
+and silver on a sea of dream.  Then, again, the fairy-lit glooms,
+haunted but unterrifying!  And Barbara began to think repentantly of
+her harshness toward Robert.  Soon the road dipped sharply, and crossed
+a wide, shallow brook, upon whose pebbles the horses' hoofs splashed a
+light music.  Here they let the horses drink a mouthful, because
+Barbara said the waters of that brook were especially sweet.  When they
+emerged on the other side, Barbara discovered she wanted a drink of it
+herself, so sovereign were the virtues of that water.
+
+"How shall I bring it to you?" asked Robert, instantly dismounting, and
+casting a hasty glance about him in quest of a birch-tree, from whose
+bark to make a cup.
+
+"Make me a cup of your hands, of course!" said Barbara.  "Give me your
+reins.  I must have the water, at once!"
+
+Robert removed his leather gloves, rinsed his hands in the sliding
+sand, and then, with mighty painstaking care, got at least two
+mouthfuls of the crystal uplifted to Barbara's lips.  As she sipped,
+and light as a moth her lips touched his hands, his heart seemed to
+turn over in his breast, and he could not find voice for a word.
+Silently he remounted, and in silence they ascended the slope from the
+brook.  His apparent unresponsiveness puzzled Barbara; but an awakening
+intuition suggested to her that it was perhaps not so uncomplimentary
+as it might seem; and she was not displeased.
+
+For half an hour they walked their horses thus, Robert sometimes laying
+a light hand on Black Prince's shoulder or satiny flank, but never
+daring to touch so much as Barbara's skirt.  Then they saw the highway
+opening ahead of them, a ribbon of moonlit road.  Barbara reined up.
+
+"I think my saddle is slipping a little," said she.  "I don't believe
+Amos can have girt it tight enough!"
+
+"Why, I--" began Robert, about to remind her that, like a good
+horseman, he had himself looked well to the girth before letting her
+mount.  But he cut the words short on his tongue, sprang from his
+saddle, and busied himself intently with Black Prince's straps.  When
+he raised his head, Barbara smiled down upon him, and reached him her
+left hand, saying sweetly:
+
+"Thank you, Robert.  You are really very nice, you know!"
+
+Whereupon Robert bent abruptly, kissed the instep of the little
+riding-boot which stuck out from under her skirt, and swung into his
+saddle.
+
+The action thrilled Barbara somewhat, but at the same time piqued her
+interest; and the interest dominated.
+
+"Why did you do that, Robert?" she asked, curiously, looking at him
+with wide, frank eyes.  "I didn't mind it a bit, you know!  But it's
+funny, to kiss my old shoe!"
+
+Robert gave a little unsteady laugh.
+
+"It was homage, my lady," said he.  "Just my pledge of fealty, before I
+go.  You forget--I have the misfortune to displease you by being a
+monarchist!"
+
+Barbara was silent a moment.  She was sorry he had reminded her of
+their differences of opinion.  But, on the other hand, homage was not
+unpleasant; and her scorn of kings did not of necessity extend to
+queens.
+
+"_Why_ do you go?" she asked.
+
+"My grandmother is sending me at a moment's notice, to represent her in
+a law-scrape which some property of hers--of ours--in New York has
+suddenly got into.  You know that, now that I am through college, I
+have to get down to work at once in New York, and fit myself to look
+after our estates.  But I didn't dream I should have to go so soon!"
+
+"I am sorry!" said Barbara, simply.  "We were having such a pleasant
+time together!"
+
+"Were we, dear lady?" asked Robert.
+
+"_Weren't_ we?" demanded Barbara.
+
+"I am broken-hearted at going.  I dare not tell you how
+broken-hearted!" replied Robert, gravely.  "But until this ride I have
+been rather unhappy to-day, for you have several times made me feel
+that you were displeased at my coming!"
+
+Now Barbara hated explanations, and she hated still more to be accused
+justly.  Urging Black Prince to a canter, she retorted:
+
+"I have no patience with you, Robert.  I have been an angel to you.
+Didn't I ride almost half-way home with you, when you were here before?
+And now, haven't I let you come this _perfect_ ride with me,--when I
+know Aunt Hitty thought I oughtn't?  And you don't _deserve_ that I
+should even let you talk to me one minute, when you are such a stupid,
+bigoted Tory."
+
+Robert thought of many things to say in answer to this dashing flank
+attack; but each answer seemed to carry unknown perils, so he kept a
+prudent silence.  After some time Barbara spoke again, mistaking his
+silence for contrition.
+
+"Robert," she began, in a voice of thrilling persuasion, "won't you do
+something I very much want you to do?"
+
+"I can think of no other pleasure to compare with the pleasure of
+pleasing you, my lady!" he answered, ardently.
+
+"Then, will you not _really study_, without prejudice, the things that
+are at the bottom of the trouble between us and King George?  You have
+such a good brain, Robert, I cannot think you will be on the side of a
+king against your own country, when you have fully informed yourself!"
+
+Robert looked troubled.
+
+"I can honestly promise," said he, "to study the question still more
+carefully than I have already.  But I fear you will still consider me
+obstinate, even then.  If I could imagine myself disloyal to the king,
+I should not consider myself worthy to profess myself your ever loyal
+and devoted servant, fair mistress!"
+
+"To serve me, Robert, you must serve your country!"
+
+"And to serve my country, most dear lady, I must serve the king!"
+persisted Robert.
+
+Barbara set her lips tight together, and galloped on.
+
+"I wish you better wisdom as you grow older!" she said, coldly, after
+some minutes.
+
+"The best wisdom I may ever hope to attain will be all too little to
+serve you with, my lady!" answered Robert, half gallantly, yet all in
+earnest.  And Barbara could not but vouchsafe a reluctant smile in
+acknowledgment of so handsome a compliment.  Thereafter there was
+little more said.  They rode through the village, past the lighted inn,
+up the dim moonlit road to the porch of Westings House.  But when
+Robert, with a sort of bold deference, lifted her from her saddle,
+holding her, perhaps, just a shade more closely than was requisite, she
+felt in a forgiving mood.  She knew that she liked him, she knew she
+had been unpleasant to him, she was most sorry he was going away; and
+what were old kings anyway that friends should be at loggerheads about
+them?  Answering her own thought, she impulsively pulled off her glove,
+and gave Robert her bare hand.
+
+"We will be friends, won't we, king or no king?"
+
+And the radiance of the smile she lifted to him, as he held her thin
+little hand in both his own, nearly turned the poor boy's head.  He
+bent over her--and just saved himself, with a gasp, from kissing the
+ignorantly provocative mouth so rashly upraised.  But he recovered his
+balance, in part, and compensated himself by kissing the hand
+passionately,--fingers and soft palm, and rosy oval nails, and
+wrist,--in a fashion that seemed to Barbara very singular.  At length
+she withdrew the hand with a soft laugh, saying, composedly:
+
+"There, don't you think that will do, Robert?  You did not kiss Mrs.
+Sawyer's hand like that, did you?"
+
+"Of course I did!" declared Robert.  "There was more of it to kiss, so
+I kissed it more!"
+
+"Now you are horrid!" she cried, and ran past him into the house.
+
+But when he said good-bye to them all on the porch the next morning,
+and set forth on his long ride back to Gault House, Robert carried with
+him in the pocket over his heart what Barbara considered the highest
+token of her favour, her well-studied, intimately marked,
+oft-slept-with copy of Sir Philip Sidney's sonnets.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+The life of the individual, within its limits, is apt to present a sort
+of microcosmic image of the life of the nation.  There comes a period
+of stress, when the germs of change and growth are sown.  Then,
+apparently without reason, time drags.  The seasons roll apathetically
+in their rut, and all is done as it was done last year.  But in the
+deeps the great impulses are maturing, the great forces are gathering.
+The hour comes that looses them.  Then in an instant, it seems almost
+without warning, the quiet heart is in an insurrection, the people of
+ploughshares is become a people of swords.  With a life, or with a
+nation, the events of a day may crowd ten volumes, or the annals of ten
+years leave a page but meanly filled.  Significance is all.  We live in
+our great moments.  The rest is a making ready.
+
+That blue and yellow morning of sweet winds, when Robert rode away from
+Second Westings, and Barbara, looking after him, felt three-fourths
+regretful for his going and one-fourth for her dear copy of Sir Philip
+Sidney's sonnets, was a morning in the late summer of 1769.  He was to
+have returned the following June.  But neither that June nor the next,
+nor the next following nor the one thereafter, did he return to the
+quiet villages of Connecticut and the banks of the great river that had
+given him birth.  From year's end to year's end he found himself tied
+to the desk in his mother's brother's office, the office with the coat
+of arms over the door, and the diamond windows looking out on Bowling
+Green.  He worked faithfully; but, being of the king's party yet
+sturdily American, a loyalist yet alive to the grievances of the
+people, a Tory yet not intolerant of views hostile to his own, an
+aristocrat, yet unfettered by the traditions of his clique and clan, he
+had all the social diversion that the gay, extravagant, rich, and
+foppish little city in the toe of Manhattan Island could afford.
+Wealthy, well-born, courtly, and kindly, the garlanded snares of the
+mammas of Manhattan were laid thickly but vainly for his feet.  He was
+squire to all the fair; but not one, unless by some of those thrilling
+fictions with which maids triumph over their rivals, could claim aught
+of him that was exclusive or committal.  And he knew Sir Philip
+Sidney's sonnets by heart.
+
+About once in two months, or thereabouts, went a letter to Second
+Westings, full of coloured comment on the doings of the city,--of
+remarks sometimes stilted and sometimes illuminating on the latest
+books from London,--of elaborate compliments that concealed rather than
+revealed the emotion glowing behind them,--but of the questions of the
+day, of Penal Acts, Port Bills, Tea Duties, Coercion, and Continental
+Congresses, no word.  Robert had fulfilled to the letter and the spirit
+Barbara's demand that he study minutely the points at issue between the
+colonies and the king.  He had realised the blindness and folly of the
+king, he had acknowledged that the colonies were right to resist, by
+every constitutional means, taxation by a parliament in which they were
+not represented.  But his loyalty to the throne was unshaken by his
+regret that the king should be unjust.  He tried to believe that the
+counsels of the great Englishmen whom he adored,--Pitt and Burke, the
+friends of America,--would open the eyes of George III. in time to
+prevent the cruel arbitrament of war.  But--should it be war,--well,
+his ancestors had bled cheerfully for Charles Stuart when they knew he
+was in the wrong, and Robert felt that he would maintain, at whatever
+cost, the tradition of his ancestors.  To be loyal to a good king, a
+king in the right, where was the distinguishing merit of that?  But to
+be loyal to king in the wrong, and at great cost,--that, to Robert,
+seemed loyalty worth the name.
+
+Meanwhile to Barbara, in her green world of Second Westings, life
+seemed to have got caught in a drowsy eddy.  The months went by in
+uneventful circuit, for all the echoes of great doings that came up
+from time to time and stirred the tranquil air.  She rode, canoed,
+read, studied spasmodically, bullied Amos, loved the animals, distilled
+strange essences, repudiated the needle and the crochet-hook, as of
+old.  As of old, she had wild whims, repentances, indignations, dreams,
+and ardours born of dreams.  But all these things had grown paler, in a
+way, had lost something of their bite and vividness.  It was as if Fate
+had turned a screw and changed the focus.  Moreover, she could no
+longer, as before, believe each mood eternal and all-important.  She
+had a consciousness that there were other interests lurking in life,
+and this kept her in an attitude of waiting.  But the love between her
+and Doctor John and Doctor Jim lost nothing in this waiting time, but
+grew as Barbara grew in stature and self-knowledge; and she lost
+nothing of her delight in the friendship of Mrs. Debby Blue, to whose
+cabin she would flee about once a month, when the vagrant blood,
+growing riotous in her breast, would make her tolerant of no company
+but that of the shrewd old outlaw dame.  As for her aunt, Barbara's
+love for the blue-eyed little Puritan spinster, born that crucial
+morning of Mistress Mehitable's unexpected forbearance and seed-cakes,
+flourished and ripened with not one serious setback.  Of course, a
+complete understanding between two such opposite tempers could not
+spring up in a day; but Mistress Mehitable was nothing less than heroic
+in the consistency with which she held herself to her new policy; and
+Barbara, having been astonished into an incongruous devotion, was ready
+enough to make sacrifices on the new altar.  Whenever the atmosphere
+began to feel overcharged between them, they would say the nicest
+things they could think of to each other, and then, with much ingenuity
+of chance, keep apart for two or three days.  In this way new
+misunderstandings were avoided; till gradually the natural love between
+them set deep root into their hearts, and grew strong enough to dare
+such tempestuous flurries of the mood as cannot but blow up once in
+awhile when two women are living alone together.
+
+But while her own life had seemed to have grown so tranquil that she
+wondered if things had forgotten to happen, Barbara knew that in the
+outside world it was different, so different as to make her stillness
+seem like sleep.  In the outside world she knew events were crowding
+and clamouring upon one another's heels, under a sky of strange
+portent.  She kept herself informed.  She wrangled lovingly with Doctor
+Jim; she argued tactfully, though hopelessly, with Mistress Mehitable;
+she debated academically with the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer; she ranted
+joyously with Doctor John, and Squire Gillig, and Lawyer Perley, and
+old Debby, all four patriots, and the last two frank rebels.  For the
+sake of finding out the drift of Second Westings sentiment, she once in
+awhile emerged from her prickly exclusiveness to smile upon her fellows
+of quality, and was surprised to find them mostly patriots in their
+way, with souls that strove to rise above embroidery and tatting.  As
+for the common people, the workmen and apprentices and their kind, she
+got at their hearts easily in her impulsive fashion, and found the
+majority of them slowly heating to rebellion.  In Amos, her devoted
+Amos, however, she unearthed a fiery royalist, ready to out-thunder
+Doctor Jim himself; so she ceased to do Amos the favour of bullying
+him, and Amos grew at times too dejected to care much about King
+George.  The results of these observations she conveyed minutely in
+frequent letters to her Uncle Bob, who was now committed to the
+so-called 'Continental' side.  To Robert Gault, also, in his office
+looking out on Bowling Green, Barbara would write about once in three
+months.  But in these letters she wrote of the woods and the winds, of
+what blooms were out in the river-meadows, of what birds were nesting
+or winging,--and never a word of what was in all men's mouths.  She was
+waiting for Robert to declare himself converted to her views, after
+digesting the course of study to which she had set him.  And she
+refused to admit the possibility of a clear-headed gentleman, as she
+knew him to be, being so misguided as to cling to opinions different
+from her own.  To her mind Truth was a crystal of which but one facet
+could be lighted at a time.  One side of a question was apt to present
+itself to her with such brilliancy that all the other sides were thrown
+into obscurity together.  As for the flamboyant Toryism of Doctor Jim,
+she regarded it with an invincible indulgence, as one of those things
+preordained from the first,--a thing which she could not even regret,
+because without it Doctor Jim, who was in every way adorable, would be
+so much the less himself.  Who cared for an eccentricity or two in a
+being so big of body and soul as Doctor Jim?  But she could not help
+being glad that Doctor John's eccentricity, to which she would have
+been equally indulgent in case of need, took a different form from
+Doctor Jim's.  The Toryism of her Aunt Hitty she regarded as a part of
+the lady's religion, and with that Barbara would never dream of
+meddling.  By an unspoken understanding, she and Mistress Mehitable had
+agreed to leave each other's sanctuaries unprofaned.
+
+By the time of the "Boston Tea-Party," a little before Christmas in
+1773, Second Westings was so established in its stiff-necked, though
+indolent, Whiggery, that Doctor Jim and Mistress Mehitable sat
+enthroned, as it were, in the lonely isolation of their Toryism, with
+Amos proudly humble at their feet.  The Reverend Jonathan Sawyer, whose
+interest in the controversy had been almost wholly academic from the
+first, and who cultivated on all matters outside his creed a breadth of
+mind to compensate for his narrowness within it, had judged it right to
+follow his flock where he could not lead it, and had amused himself by
+letting Barbara--of whose conquest he was genuinely proud--convert him
+to her doctrines.  He was now a constitutional patriot, a temperate and
+conservative champion of colonial privilege, as opposed to kingly
+prerogative.  When came the soul-stirring news of how the valiant men
+of Boston Town had confronted the dread tea-chests in their harbour,
+and torn them piecemeal, and cast their fragrant contents into the
+tide, then no soul in Second Westings but Doctor Jim, Mistress
+Mehitable, and Amos, would drink a drop of tea--except in private.
+Certain compromising spirits, anxious to be both patriotic and
+comfortable, had laid in a supply betimes, and so without public
+scandal could dally in secret with the uninebriating cup.  But Barbara
+despised the alien leaf at all times; and Doctor John preferred hard
+cider or New England rum; and old Debby had a potent concoction of
+"yarbs" which made the Chinese visitor insipid; so Mistress Mehitable
+and Doctor Jim were free to victual their strongholds with nearly all
+the tea in Second Westings.  Over the achievement of the Boston heroes
+Mistress Mehitable was gently sarcastic and Doctor Jim boisterously
+derisive; while Doctor John exclaimed, "Tut!  Tut! such child's play
+does no good!  Such mummery!  Tut!  Tut!" and Squire Gillig, ardent
+"Continental" but cautious merchant, said, "Such wicked waste!  There's
+a lot of good money gone!  They should have confiscated the stuff, an'
+hid it, an' sold it by an' by cheap, along through the back townships!"
+
+But to Barbara it seemed that the act was one shrewdly devised and
+likely to bring matters to a head.  Her reading of it seemed justified
+a few months later, when the port of Boston was closed, as a punishment
+for rebellious contumacy,--and the charter of Massachusetts
+abrogated,---and a military governor, with four English regiments,
+established in the haughty city by the Charles,--and the capital of the
+province removed to its ancient rival, Salem.
+
+The news of the billeting of the troops on Boston, and the removal of
+the capital to Salem, came with a shock to Westings House.  It came in
+a copy of the _Connecticut Gazette_, delivered at Mistress Mehitable's
+dinner-table while she and Barbara were entertaining Doctor John and
+Doctor Jim, Squire Gillig, and the Reverend Jonathan and Mrs. Sawyer.
+It had been a gay repast, but when Mistress Mehitable, craving
+indulgence by reason of the times, read out the Boston news, a cloud
+descended upon the company.  Squire Gillig began to say something
+bitter, forgetful of Mistress Mehitable's sentiments, but was stopped
+by a level stare from the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer's authoritative
+eyes.  Then Doctor John spoke--no longer droll and jibing, but with the
+gravity of prescience, and turning by instinct to his brother.
+
+"Jim!  Jim!" said he, "this is going to mean _war_.  I see it!  I see
+it!  The people will not stand much more,--and more is coming, as sure
+as my name's John Pigeon.  Your precious king's gone mad.  He's going
+to force it on us!"
+
+Doctor Jim shook his great head sorrowfully.  "I am sorry for this,
+John.  I think the king is not well advised in this--on my word I do.
+It is too harsh, too sudden.  But the people won't fight.  They may
+riot, and talk,--but they won't fight.  We are too strong for you,
+John.  There will be no war.  That would be absurd!"
+
+"There will be war!" repeated Doctor John, still looking into his
+brother's eyes.  The two men had forgotten every one else.  "There will
+be war, if not this year, the next.  The people will fight,--and that
+soon!"
+
+"Then the people will be beaten, and that soon, John!" retorted Doctor
+Jim, firmly, but in a low voice.
+
+"The king's armies will be beaten, Jim!  You mark my words!  But it is
+going to be a terrible thing!  A horrible and unrighteous thing!  There
+will be dividing of houses, Jim!"
+
+There were several seconds of silence, a heavy, momentous silence, and
+Barbara held her breath, a strange ache at her throat.  Then Doctor Jim
+brought down his fist upon the table, and cried in his full voice:
+
+"A dividing of houses, maybe,--but not a dividing of hearts, John
+Pigeon, never a dividing of hearts, eh, what? eh, what?"
+
+He reached out his hand across the table, and Doctor John seized it in
+a mighty grip.  The long years of love and trust between them spoke
+suddenly in their strong, large faces.
+
+"No, never a dividing of hearts, Jim, in the days that are to come,
+when our swords go different ways, and we see each other not for a
+time!"
+
+Then their hands dropped apart, and both laughed uneasily, as they
+glanced with a shamefaced air about the table.
+
+"Tut!  Tut!" said Doctor John.  "That precious king of yours bids fair
+to make life damnably serious, Jim.  Send him away from the table at
+once!"
+
+But the diversion came too late; for Barbara was weeping heedlessly,
+and Mistress Mehitable, with her white chin quivering, was dabbing her
+handkerchief to her eyes with an air of vexation at her own weakness;
+while good Mrs. Sawyer gazed at them both in wide-eyed, uncomprehending
+wonder.
+
+"If there's a war," sobbed Barbara, "_you sha'nt_ go to it, either of
+you!  We need you, _here_.  And--and--you'd both get killed, I know!
+You're both so splendid and big and tall,--and you wouldn't--take care
+of yourselves, and the bullets _couldn't_ miss you!"
+
+At this picture Mistress Mehitable grew pale, where she had been red,
+and cast a frightened look at Doctor Jim, then at Doctor John,--then
+back at Doctor Jim.
+
+"Barbara's right, I think," she said, with an air of having weighed the
+question quite dispassionately.  "You should not leave your patients,
+on any account.  There are so many men who can destroy life, so few who
+can save it.  Physicians have no right to go soldiering."
+
+"That's just it, honey!" cried Barbara, flashing radiant eyes through
+her tears.  "Oh, what a wise little Aunt Hitty you are!  What would we
+ever do without you!"  And her apprehensions laid themselves obediently
+to rest.
+
+"Well, well!" cried Doctor Jim.  "What are two graceless old dogs like
+us, that the dear eyes of the fairest of their sex should shed tears on
+our account?  We should go and kick each other up and down the length
+of Second Westings for the rest of the afternoon, for causing such
+precious tears,--eh, what, John Pigeon?"
+
+"'Tis the least we can do, Jim!" said Doctor John.  "But now I come to
+think of it, we needn't arrange to go to the war before there's a war
+to go to, after all."
+
+"And when the war does come, you'll both stay right here, where you
+belong!" decreed Barbara, holding the question well settled.
+
+"Who knows what may happen?" cried Doctor Jim.  "You stiff-necked
+rebels may experience a change of heart, and then where's your war?"
+
+"Barbara, sweet baggage," said Doctor John, wagging his forefinger at
+her in the way that even now, at her nineteen years, seemed to her as
+irresistibly funny as she had thought it when a child, "I cannot let
+this anxiety oppress your tender young spirit.  Set your heart at rest.
+If there be war, Jim Pigeon may go a-soldiering and get shot as full of
+holes as a colander, and I'll do my duty by staying at home and looking
+after his patients.  There'll be a chance of some of them getting well,
+then!  I've never yet had a fair chance to save Jim Pigeon's patients.
+_I_ won't desert a lovely maiden in distress, to seek the bubble
+reputation at the cannon's mouth!"
+
+"How can you lie so shamelessly, John Pigeon?" demanded Doctor Jim.
+"I'll lay you a barrel of Madeira you'll be leaning against the butt of
+a musket before I am!"
+
+"Done!" said Doctor John.
+
+"I think you are both perfectly horrid!" cried Barbara.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+That day of the news was a boundary day.  It set sharp limit to
+Barbara's years of calm.  From that day events came quickly, change
+pressed hard on change, and no day, for her, was quite like its
+predecessor.  A veering of the current had snatched her from her
+shining eddy, and swept her forth into the tide of life.
+
+On the morning following the dinner, while still alive to a sense of
+menace in the air, Barbara received a letter from her uncle.  As she
+read it, her eyes sparkled, her heart bounded.  Then, as she passed it
+to Mistress Mehitable, and Mistress Mehitable took it with cheerful
+interest, her heart sank.  She felt a pang of self-reproach, because
+she found herself willing to go away and leave her aunt uncompanioned
+in the solitude of Westings House.  Glenowen had undertaken certain
+business, in the way of searching records and examining titles, which
+was driving him at once to New York, and bade fair, he said, to keep
+him there for upwards of a year.  He wanted Barbara to go with him.
+And Barbara's pulses bounded.  There, she thought, were the lights and
+the dances, the maskings and the music, the crossing of swords and
+wits, the gallants and the compliments and the triumphs, which she was
+longing to taste.  Mistress Mehitable's face grew grave as she read the
+letter.  It grew pale as she looked up and saw by Barbara's face the
+hunger in her heart.  Mistress Mehitable had a vision of what Westings
+House would be, emptied of the wilful, flashing, vivid, restless spirit
+which for the past few years had been its life.  But she was unselfish.
+She would not say a word to lessen Barbara's delight.
+
+"It will be lovely for you, dear!" said she, with hearty sympathy.
+"You are just at the age, too, when it will mean most to you, and be of
+most value to you.  I am so glad, dear!"
+
+But Barbara had seen the look in her face, and gave no heed to her
+brave words.
+
+"I _can't_ go, honey, and leave you here alone!" she cried,
+impetuously, jumping up and hugging the little lady with a vehemence
+born of the effort to convince herself that what she said was true.
+She felt that she could and must go; but that the joy of going would be
+more than damped--drenched, indeed, with tears--at the thought of how
+much Mistress Mehitable would miss her, of how empty Westings House
+would be without her, of the scar her absence would leave in their
+little world.  With her intense individuality, her lively
+self-concentration, it almost seemed to her as if their little world
+could not even attempt to go on without her, but must sleep dully
+through her absence.
+
+"Of course you will go, Barbara dear!" said Mistress Mehitable,
+decidedly.  "It is only natural and right you should want to go, and
+go.  I cannot pretend that it makes me very happy to think of doing
+without you for a whole year.  No words can tell you how I shall miss
+you, dear child.  But I should be a thousand times more unhappy if I
+were to feel myself standing in the way of your happiness.  No, no,
+indeed, don't talk any nonsense about not going.  Besides, your Uncle
+Bob has the right to have you with him for a while."
+
+"Oh, I wish you could go, too!" sighed Barbara.  "_Can't_ you?  _Then_
+it _would_ be lovely!"
+
+Mistress Mehitable laughed softly.  "Not very well just now, child!"
+she answered, assuming a gaiety.  "Perhaps some other time it might be
+managed.  Now, we'll have to plan about getting you ready,--and your
+uncle has only left us a wretched little week to do it in!"
+
+So it was settled, without any stress or argument whatever, that
+Barbara should go to New York with Uncle Bob just eight days from that
+day; and so was decreed, with such effort as it might take to order a
+breakfast, nothing less than a revolution in Barbara's life.
+
+While the two women were discussing weighty problems of dressmaking,
+lingerie, and equipment various,--what should be made at Second
+Westings, and what should be left to New York shops and the tried taste
+of Uncle Bob,--Doctor Jim came in, less robustious and breezy than his
+wont, his eyes big with momentous tidings.  He kissed the ladies'
+hands, and sat down thoughtfully opposite, scanning their faces from
+under bushy, drawn brows.  They both looked at him with expectant
+inquiry.
+
+"You were most intent on whatever you were talking about!" said he,
+presently.  "I hope I don't interrupt!  May I hear all about it?  Or
+should I run away, eh, what?"
+
+"You never interrupt,--or if you do, you are forgiven beforehand, Jim!"
+said Mistress Mehitable.
+
+"What we were talking about will interest _you_, Doctor Jim, you
+naughty old thing!" cried Barbara, saucily.  "It was petticoats,
+bodices, and silk stockings, and such like feminine frivolities!  But
+what have _you_ got to tell _us_?  You are just _bursting_, you know
+you are.  Tell us, and we'll tell you something!"
+
+"John Pigeon's going away to-morrow!" said Doctor Jim, and then shut
+his mouth hard.
+
+"What?  Going away?" cried both women at once, scarce crediting their
+ears.
+
+"Going away to Hartford, to-morrow, to take a hand in organising some
+of their rebellious militia!" continued Doctor Jim.  "I'm ashamed to
+tell you.  But he was ashamed to tell you himself, thinking you would
+not like it, so he sent me ahead to make his peace for him.  It doesn't
+mean anything, you know.  Just a sort of bragging counterblast to those
+four regiments of ours at Boston.  I wouldn't be down on John for it,
+eh, what, Mehitable?"
+
+"When will he return?" asked Mehitable, feeling that her world was
+being emptied.
+
+"Down on him!" exclaimed Barbara.  "Why, it's _noble_ of him.  Think
+how it will encourage all the patriots of our township!"  Since she was
+going away herself, Doctor John's going was easy enough to bear.
+
+"I wasn't talking to you, you saucy rebel!" retorted Doctor Jim.
+"We'll have that crazy little black head of yours chopped off for high
+treason, one of these days, if you don't mend your naughty manners.
+'Patriots,' indeed!  Addle-pated bumpkins!  But"--and he turned to
+Mistress Mehitable, "you asked me, dear lady, when John Pigeon would
+return.  Within a month, I think.  He will tell you more precisely for
+himself!"
+
+"Jim," said Mistress Mehitable, gravely, "we are going to be lonely for
+awhile, you and I."
+
+"Lonely!" exclaimed Doctor Jim.  "That's not what bothers me.  It's the
+pestilent, low, vulgar business that's taking him!"
+
+"Yes, of course," assented Mistress Mehitable, "but 'tis not Doctor
+John only that purposes to forsake us, Jim.  Barbara is going to New
+York, to stay a year."
+
+Doctor Jim's face fell.  He glared at Barbara for half a minute, his
+shaggy eyebrows working.
+
+"Nonsense, child!" he cried, wilfully incredulous.  "What cock-and-bull
+story's this?  I won't have my feelings worked upon!"
+
+"It's true, Doctor Jim.  I'm to go with Uncle Bob, next week!" said
+Barbara, very soberly.
+
+"But you sha'n't go!  We can't spare our bad little girl.  You're too
+young, Barby, for that wicked city down there.  We _need_ you here, to
+keep us from getting too _good_.  You sha'n't go, that's all!  You see
+what John Pigeon'll have to say about it, eh, what?"
+
+"I must, Doctor Jim!" answered Barbara.  "Aunt Hitty and Uncle Bob have
+both decided on that.  I feel homesick, sort of, already, at the
+thought of it.  And I know I shall miss you all just horribly.  But,
+oh, I do want to go, after all.  It's all so gay and mysterious to me,
+and I know I'll have such fun.  And it will be so lovely, when I'm
+tired of it, to come back and tell you all about it!  Won't it?"
+
+"Well!  Well!  I suppose we'll have to let her go," sighed Doctor Jim.
+"Thank Heaven, _you're_ not going, Mehitable, dear lady!"
+
+"I'm glad _you're_ not going, Jim,--either to New York or to Hartford!"
+said Mistress Mehitable, with a little laugh.  Then she held out her
+hand to him, flushing softly.
+
+"It would be hard indeed for me to go anywhere, Mehitable, were you to
+bid me stay!" said Doctor Jim, kissing very reverently the hand she had
+held out.  Then, without waiting for an answer to this, he hastily
+turned again to Barbara, saying:
+
+"By the way, sweetheart, Bobby Gault is in New York, is he not,--eh,
+what?  He will be glad to see you again, perhaps!  It is possible he
+may help make things pleasant for you, eh, you baggage?"
+
+But Barbara was not in a mood to repay his raillery in kind.
+
+"I don't know that I'll make things pleasant for Robert," she answered,
+thoughtfully, "if he still clings to his ridiculous views about kings
+and things!"
+
+"Tell that to the marines, you sly hussy!" exclaimed Doctor Jim,
+regaining mysteriously his wonted large good humour.  "Don't tell me
+this isn't all made up between you and Robert!"
+
+Barbara looked at him soberly for a moment.  Then the old audacious
+light laughed over her face, her eyes danced perilously,--and Mistress
+Mehitable felt a tremor of apprehension.  She always felt nervous when
+Doctor Jim had the hardihood to draw Barbara's fire.
+
+"Do you know, Doctor Jim, I don't feel quite so badly as I did about
+leaving you and Aunt Hitty!  I think, you know, you will be quite a
+comfort to each other, won't you, even if Doctor John should have to
+stay longer than he expects in Hartford!"
+
+At this moment Doctor John himself came in, to Mistress Mehitable's
+infinite relief.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+When Glenowen came to Second Westings he was in such haste that Barbara
+concluded he had other duties in New York than the searching of records
+and verification of titles; but with unwonted discretion she asked no
+questions.  Affairs of state, it seemed to her, were the more
+mysterious and important the less she knew about them; and it pleased
+her to feel that the fate of commonwealths, perchance, was carried
+secretly within the ruffled cambric of her debonair and brown-eyed
+uncle.  From Second Westings they journeyed by coach to New Haven, and
+from that city voyaged by packet down the Sound to New York.  Arrived
+in New York, they went straight into lodgings which Glenowen had
+already engaged, in an old, high-stooped Dutch house on State Street.
+
+From the moment of her landing on the wharf, Barbara was in a state of
+high exhilaration.  The thronging wharves, the high, black,
+far-travelled hulls, the foreign-smelling freights, all thrilled her
+imagination, and made her feel that now at last unexpected things might
+happen to her and story-books come true.  Then the busy, bustling
+streets, where men jostled each other abstractedly, intent each on his
+own affairs, how different from Second Westings, where three passers-by
+and a man on horseback would serve to bring faces to the windows, and
+where the grass on each side of the street was an item of no small
+consequence to the village cows!  And then the houses--huddled
+together, as if there was not space a-plenty in the world for houses!
+It was all very stirring.  She felt that it was what she wanted, at the
+moment,--a piquant sauce to the plain wholesomeness of her past.  But
+she felt, too, that it would never be able to hold her long from the
+woods and fields and wild waters.
+
+Of her arrival Barbara sent no word to Robert, though she knew by
+somewhat careful calculation that his office was but a stone's throw
+away from her lodging.  She looked forward to some kind of a dramatic
+meeting, and would not let her impatience--which she scarcely
+acknowledged--risk the marring of a picturesque adventure.  When
+Glenowen, the morning after their arrival, gave her the superfluous
+information that Robert's office was close by, right among the
+fashionable houses of Bowling Green, and proposed that they should
+begin their exploration of the city by strolling past his window,
+Barbara demurred with emphasis.
+
+"Well," said Glenowen, thinking he understood what no man ever has a
+right to think he understands, "just as you like, mistress mine.  I'll
+drop in on him myself, and let him know where we are, so he can call
+with all due and fitting ceremony!"
+
+"Oh, Uncle Bob!" she cried, laughing at his density, "don't you know
+yet how little _I_ care for ceremony?  'Tis not that--by any manner of
+means.  But I want to surprise Robert,--I want to meet him at some fine
+function, in all my fine feathers, and see if he'll know me!  You know,
+it is five years, nearly, since we saw him.  Have I changed much, Uncle
+Bob?"
+
+"Precious little have you changed, sweet minx!" answered Glenowen.
+"You're just the same small, peppery, saucy, unmanageable, thin brown
+witch that you were then, only a _little_ taller, a _little_ more
+good-looking, a little--a very little--more dignified.  No fear but
+he'd know you, though he saw you not for a score of years.  'Twere as
+easy perhaps for a man to hate you as love you, my Barbe!  But forget
+you!  Oh, no!"
+
+So it was that in the walks which they took about the point of
+Manhattan Island, during the first three or four days after their
+coming, they avoided Bowling Green, save in the dim hours of twilight;
+and Glenowen, prone to humour Barbara in everything, had a care to shun
+the resorts which Robert Gault affected.  He learned, by no means to
+his surprise, that Robert was uncompromisingly committed to the Tory
+party, but this he did not feel called upon to tell Barbara.
+
+"Time enough!  Time enough!" said he to himself, half whimsical, half
+sorrowful.  "Let the child have her little play with all the mirth
+that's in it!  Let hearts not bleed until they must!  She won't forgive
+him,--and he won't yield,--or I'm not Bob Glenowen!"
+
+In New York, where most of his life had been spent, Glenowen knew
+everybody; and he was _persona grata_ to almost everybody of
+consequence.  His standing was so impregnable, his antecedents so
+unimpeachable, his social talents so in demand, that even the most
+arrogant of the old Tory aristocrats--the Delanceys, the Philipses, the
+Beverley Robinsons--were not disposed to let their hostility to his
+views hamper their hospitality to his person.
+
+It followed, therefore, as a matter of course, that almost before she
+had gathered her wits after the excitement of the journey and the
+changed surroundings, Barbara found herself afloat upon the whirl of
+New York gaieties.  Every night, in the solitude of her bedroom in the
+old Dutch house, in the discreet confidence of her pillow, she was
+homesick, very homesick, and a child again.  She would sob for Aunt
+Hitty, and Doctor John, and Doctor Jim,--and for big, round-faced,
+furry "Mr. Grim," whom she had so tearfully left behind,--and for Black
+Prince, who, she felt sure, would let no one else ride him in her
+absence,--and for dear old Debby in her lonely cabin.  She would think
+very tenderly of Amos,--and then, with a very passion of tenderness, of
+her own little room over the porch, now silent and deserted.  With
+great surges of pathos she would picture Mistress Mehitable going into
+the little room every day, and dusting it a bit, and then sitting down
+by the bed and wishing Barbara would come back.  In such a melting mood
+Barbara would resolve not to be horrid any more, but to send for Robert
+the first thing in the morning, and tell him just how glad she was to
+see him.
+
+But when morning came, she would be no more the homesick child, but a
+very gay, petulant, spoiled, and sparkling young woman, her head full
+of excitements and conquests to come.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+To her first ball Barbara went in a chair, just five days after her
+arrival in New York.  The method of locomotion appealed greatly to her
+mood; and as the bearers jogged her gently along, she kept her piquant
+face at the window and felt as if she were playing one of the pictures
+of court ladies on their way to St. James's,--ladies such as she had
+often dreamed over in the London prints.  For this ball, given at the
+Van Griff house, just a few blocks from her own lodgings, she was
+dressed in the very height of the mode, as to all save her hair.  She
+was obstinate in her aversion to the high, elaborate coiffure,--in her
+adherence to the simple fashion and the single massive curl which she
+had decided upon, after many experiments, as best becoming her face.
+She liked her hair, accounting it her only beauty, and rather than
+disguise it she would let the mode go hang.  For the rest, her attire
+met the severest demands of Uncle Bob, who was even won, at the last,
+to approve what he called her eccentricity in the matter of hair.  He
+decided that her very precise modishness in other respects would prove
+her title to independence in the one respect; and it was with
+unqualified satisfaction that he contemplated the effect she would
+produce on the New York fashionables.
+
+"Are you sure I look fit to be seen with you, Uncle Bob?" she had
+inquired, anxiously, the last thing before they set out.  "You are such
+a beau, you dear; and so distinguished-looking!"
+
+"I shall take no discredit by reason of you, I think!" answered
+Glenowen, dryly.  "Unless, indeed, by reason of the slayings of your
+eyes!  But slay the gallants, slay them, sweetheart!  They be king's
+men, mostly,--and there'll be so many the less to fight, by and by, for
+the king!"
+
+"I'll do what such a homely little brown thing can!" laughed Barbara,
+blithely, an excited thrill in her voice.  But even at the moment her
+heart misgave her, at the thought that, more than likely, Robert was
+one of these same "king's men!"
+
+This first ball, at the Van Griffs', was to Barbara a whirl of lights,
+and colours, and flowers, and bowing, promenading, pirouetting forms.
+The spacious rooms and shining floors and smiling faces and stirring
+music intoxicated her.  The variety and brightness of the costumes
+astonished her, the women's dresses being fairly outshone by the strong
+colours of the uniforms worn by the English officers, and by the even
+more dazzling garb affected by the civilians.  Yet if all this
+bewildered her heart, outwardly she was at ease, composed, and ready;
+and Glenowen, across the room, watching her the centre of a group of
+eager gallants,--fop, officer, and functionary alike clamouring for her
+hand in the dance,--wondered if this could be the headlong, hard-riding
+little hussy whom he had brought from the wilds of Second Westings.
+The stately belles of Manhattan, beauties serene or beauties gay,
+sisters to the lily or sisters to the poppy and the tulip, eyed with
+critical half-disfavour this wilding rose from the backwoods, agreed
+that she was queer-looking if not ugly, and resented her independence
+in wearing her hair so as to display its beauties to full advantage.
+That she was well gowned and danced well, they were in general fair
+enough to acknowledge; but they could not see why so many men found her
+interesting to talk to.  In a word, she was a success from the start.
+She went home at last, very wide-eyed, tired, triumphant, excited--and
+disappointed.  She had not seen Robert.  She had just once heard his
+name, spoken casually, as that of one whose absence seemed a thing
+unusual, whose presence seemed a thing to be desired.  She knew that
+she had made an impression.  She knew, even, that she had made herself
+popular, at least with the men.  With her accustomed candour she had
+proclaimed herself a rebel, in response to some jest at the expense of
+Boston, and had settled the score thrice over by her witty jibes at
+King George.  But even in that royalist circle her audacity had done
+her no harm.  The English officers themselves, carried away by her
+brilliance and amused by her daring, were loudest in their applause.
+They not unreasonably agreed in their hearts that it could do the king
+no harm, while it undoubtedly would be a great satisfaction to
+themselves, if they could win some favour in the eyes of this most
+bewildering and provocative little rebel.  Perceiving this, Barbara had
+not spared her shafts; and the most deeply wounded of her victims had
+been the most assiduous of her admirers.  But of all the men who had
+been presented to her, danced with her, paid court to her, of all the
+women whom she had met, favoured, or in clash of glances subtly defied,
+she retained but a bright jumble of unassorted names and faces.  One
+only had gained a foothold in her remembrance.  A certain young officer
+in the colonial militia, one Cary Patten by name, had been presented to
+her by her uncle with particular commendation, as being altogether of
+his own way of thought; and him, for his laughing blue eyes, his frank
+mouth, his broad shoulders, and his boyish swagger, she had liked so
+well that he stood out among her impressions, and she felt it would be
+pleasant to meet him again.  In fact, to his open and immense elation,
+she had told him so.
+
+"Well, mistress mine, how did you like it?" asked Glenowen, as, candle
+in one hand and skirts in the other, she held up her face to be kissed
+good-night.
+
+"Oh, I loved it, Uncle Bob!" she answered, with conviction.
+
+"Well, it loved you!" said Uncle Bob.
+
+But as he turned away to his own room, he wondered if Barbara was
+really quite as satisfied as she professed, or whether her failure to
+meet Robert, and include him among the numbers of her slain, had
+clouded at all the splendour of her triumph.
+
+Two evenings later there was another ball, an altogether bigger and
+more imposing function, at the house of the Surveyor-General half a
+mile out of town.  At this, as she was told, every one would be
+present, and therefore, she agreed, Robert would certainly appear.
+With a view to circumstances which might conceivably arise in the event
+of Robert's appearance, she had with great difficulty kept a number of
+dances free, when her admiring cavaliers at the Van Griffs' were
+striving to fill her cards in advance.  If he should fail to
+come,--well, she had reason to think that she would not be left to
+languish unattended.
+
+Meanwhile, however, she little knew how violently her pretty scheme was
+being brought to nought, she little knew how emphatically Robert was
+being enlightened as to her presence in New York.  She should, indeed,
+have thought that the story of her triumphs at the Van Griffs' would
+reach his ears, for on the day following that event, her maid, a
+garrulous West Indian mulatto whom Glenowen had engaged immediately on
+their arrival, had told her over her toilet that her name was already
+the toast of the finest gentlemen in town.  But somehow it never
+occurred to her that Robert would hear anything.  She thought of him
+only as riding, or paddling a canoe, or sitting at his desk, or going
+to balls and wandering about alone, thinking of her, gravely smiling
+now and then, courteous, and silent.  As a vital factor in this
+glittering life he had never presented himself to her imagination,--or
+it is possible she might have written to him from Second Westings more
+often than twice or thrice in the year!
+
+The house of the Surveyor-General stood behind its trees far back from
+the road, on a series of terraces set with walks, parterres, trimmed
+hedges, statuary, and secret arbours.  The house was a blaze of light.
+The terraces were lighted with a gay discretion, here shining, there
+enshadowed.  As she drove up with her uncle in the coach, a little
+late, and heard the music and the musical babble of voices, Barbara
+thrilled deliciously, with a prescience that this was to be an eventful
+night.  She was no longer dazzled,--only strung to the highest tension.
+She realised that all this was her birthright, to be used, played with,
+thrown aside when tired of, but meanwhile enjoyed to the topmost pitch
+of relish,--hers just as much as the buttercup fields, the thrush-sweet
+orchards, the ancient woods of Connecticut.  She felt herself mistress
+of the situation.
+
+"Oh, Uncle Bob," she whispered, drawing a quick breath of anticipation,
+as she gave him her hand and stepped daintily from the coach, her
+high-buckled, high-heeled white satin slippers and little white silken
+ankles glimmering for an instant to the ensnaring of the favoured
+eye,--"oh, Uncle Bob, isn't it lovely?"
+
+"You are, my Barbe!" he answered, peering down with high content upon
+the small disastrous face half-hidden in the hood of her scarlet
+cardinal.
+
+"Let me tell you, Uncle Bob, you look extremely nice yourself!" she
+responded, squeezing his hand hard.  "I didn't see one other man at Mr.
+Van Griff's so handsome and distinguished-looking as you!"
+
+"Dear me!" retorted Glenowen, musingly, "what is the baggage going to
+ask me for to-morrow?  Whatever it be, she must have it!"
+
+Barbara reached her hostess with difficulty, and was given small time
+for her greetings.  All through her first dance she was so absorbed in
+looking for Robert that she paid scant attention to her partner's
+compliments, though she realised that they contained imcomprehensible
+veiled reference to something which she was supposed to know all about.
+To her partner, one Jerry Waite by name, her ignorance seemed assumed,
+and vastly well assumed; and presently with his growing admiration for
+her cleverness came a dread lest he should transgress, so he
+diplomatically shifted to new ground.  But had she not been quite
+absorbed in her quest, Barbara's most lively curiosity would have been
+awakened by his meaning words.
+
+At last she sat down by a curtained doorway and sent Mr. Waite to get
+her fan, that she might make up her mind as to the advisability of
+inquiring frankly about Robert.  Her scheme was working too slowly for
+her impatient spirit; and, moreover, it was beginning to dawn upon her
+that Robert might not unnaturally feel aggrieved, and perhaps even
+prove difficult and exasperating, if she did not see him soon.  She had
+about concluded to invoke the aid of Uncle Bob,--with whom she was by
+and by to dance the minuet,--when a word behind the curtain caught her
+ear.
+
+"La!  Mr. Gault!" cried a pretty, affected, high-pitched voice.  "Who
+thought we should be so favoured as to see you here to-night!  Not
+dancing, surely!  But 'twere less cruel to us poor maids to stay away
+entirely, than to come and let us look and pine in vain.  But you are
+very white,--sit down by me and tell me all about it.  La, there's
+nothing I so love!"
+
+It was Robert's voice that answered,--Robert's voice, but grown deeper,
+stronger, more assured, than as Barbara thought she remembered it.
+
+"It was nothing at all, dear Miss Betty,--a mere scratch!" he answered.
+"'Tis but the loss of a little blood makes me paler than ordinary, I
+suppose.  But the doctor said there was no reason in the world I should
+not look in on the gaieties for a minute or two,--and see what new
+wonder of a gown Miss Betty was wearing,--provided I gave my word not
+to dance."
+
+Barbara was conscious of the rustle of Miss Betty's flirtatious fan.
+
+"La, sir!" cried the pretty, high voice again, "you make light, of it;
+but they tell me it was very handsome done.  And is it true that poor
+Carberry is in a bad way?  Fie upon you, Mr. Gault, to spit an officer
+of the king and so strengthen the hands of the enemy."
+
+Barbara's heart was beating very fast.  So Robert had been fighting a
+duel, had he!  And been wounded,--but slightly!  And the quarrel with
+an officer of the king!  This looked as if her anxieties were
+unfounded.  But on the other hand, this loquacious girl--whom Barbara
+despised instantly and honestly--seemed to claim him as belonging to
+the king's party.  Barbara trembled with excitement, and with fear lest
+her absent escort should come back too soon.  He did come back, at that
+moment; but with a ravishing look that turned his brain she sent off
+again for an ice and a glass of punch.  Meanwhile her alert ears had
+heard Robert replying cheerfully to Miss Betty.
+
+"Oh, Carberry will be all right in a week or two," said he.  "'Twould
+much hasten his recovery were one to send him word of Miss Betty's
+solicitude.  A three weeks at most will take him off my conscience and
+the doctor's hands!"
+
+Here another voice intervened.
+
+"Traitress!" it exclaimed, "I have been seeking you this half-hour!"
+
+"Let me talk to Mr. Gault one moment more, Jack!" pleaded Miss Betty.
+"He was just going to tell me all about it,--weren't you, Mr. Gault?"
+
+"Not if I know Bob Gault," retorted the voice.  "Nay, nay, dear lady, I
+will yield you not one minute more to Gault, on any pretext.  Shall I
+court disaster by leaving the most fickle as the fairest of her sex to
+the wiles of this pale hero, this wounded champion of dames!"
+
+"You're right, Jack!" cried Miss Betty.  "I see he's dying with
+impatience to go and find her, and claim a champion's reward!  She's
+here, Mr. Gault.  I saw her but a moment back.  Go wherever you see the
+men a-crowding fiercest!"
+
+So Robert had fought for some woman, had he?  He had a tie, then!
+Barbara felt a tightening about her heart, an impulse to rush from the
+room.  Then she said to herself, "What more natural?  What are we but
+the best of friends?  And have I ever been really nice to him?"
+Promptly anger took the place of the unreasonable hurt; and the anger
+made her cool upon the surface, so that she had herself well gathered
+in hand when the curtain was pushed aside, and Robert came
+through--just at the same moment that her partner came up with the
+punch.
+
+Robert sprang forward with face transfigured.  But to Barbara's chagrin
+he did not seem at all surprised.
+
+"I am glad to see you, Robert!" she said, gravely, holding out her hand.
+
+Robert bent over it and kissed it in silence, unable, for the moment,
+to find his voice.
+
+"Are you not glad to see me--to see an old friend out of the old days?"
+asked Barbara.
+
+"I have no words to tell you how glad I am, my dear lady!" he answered,
+in a low voice, wishing that Jerry Waite would have sense enough to go
+away, instead of standing there in that idiotic fashion with the punch.
+
+"But aren't you _surprised_ to see me, Robert?" Barbara went on,
+forgetful of Mr. Waite and the punch.
+
+"I suppose I ought to be surprised, my lady," answered Robert, with
+some bitterness in his tone, "surprised that you have condescended to
+see me at all, in view of the length of time you have been here without
+letting me know!  I learned yesterday of your coming--after every one
+in town apparently knew of it!"
+
+To Jerry Waite the scene was utterly incomprehensible.  Oblivious to
+all good manners, he was staring open-mouthed.  Barbara saw the
+astonishment in his face, quite naturally misunderstood it, and flushed
+angrily.  The pain and wrath which she had by such an effort of will
+crushed down in her heart crept up again stealthily, and began to
+mingle unrecognised with this superficial annoyance.
+
+"I had thought to surprise you,--a harmless little play, Robert, to see
+if you would recognise an old, old friend grown up!" she said, in a
+cool voice.  "But since you are so dissatisfied, we had better not talk
+about it.  You may call and see me some day soon, if you like.  I am
+just around the corner, on State Street.  Uncle Bob will give you the
+address.  Will you take me back to my seat, Mr. Waite?  Thank you so
+much for the punch."
+
+Robert could not believe his ears.  Was he dismissed for the evening?
+The blood began to beat fiercely in his head.
+
+"But, Barbara," he exclaimed, "aren't you going to give me at least
+_one_ dance?--  Hold on, Waite, just a minute, will you!--  You can't
+be engaged for all so early in the evening.  I came at the very first,
+in hopes of catching you and getting several."
+
+Barbara paused.  By this time the thought of that other woman, for whom
+he had fought,--for whom he was wounded,--for whom he carried now this
+pallor,--for whom he had been too impatient to talk to Miss Betty
+behind the curtain,--the thought of that other woman was gnawing at her
+brain in a way to confuse her judgment.  She was not exactly in love
+with Robert, but she was intensely interested, and in the course of the
+years a sense of proprietorship had grown up.  The idea of another
+woman, with a prior claim, outraged her pride at the same time that it
+wrenched her heart with a sense of irremediable loss.
+
+"You are not dancing, I understand, Robert," she said, looking coldly
+into his eyes.
+
+Robert's heart gave an exultant leap.  She knew about the duel, then!
+
+"I had thought, my lady," said he, softly, "that you might, under the
+circumstances, consent to forego a dance or two, and talk with me about
+old times."
+
+The circumstances, indeed!  Barbara's eyes blazed in spite of all her
+efforts at self-control.  This was insolence.  Yet she could in no way
+show she recognised it.  For a second or two she held her tongue.
+
+"I hear you have been greatly distinguishing yourself, Robert," she
+answered, in a voice of somewhat artificial sweetness, "and have taken
+some hurt in the affair, and really should not be here at all!"  She
+looked at her tablets with hypocritical care.  "You should have found
+me earlier.  I shall not be free to give you a dance for _hours_
+yet,--not till quite near the last.  You will probably not be able to
+stay so long!"
+
+Robert grew tenfold whiter than before, and his mouth set itself like
+iron.  She knew,--it was clear she knew,--and yet she could act in this
+hopelessly light, cruel, merciless way.  It was inhuman.  Had she no
+spark of womanly tenderness?  He would trouble her no more.
+
+"No, I shall not stay," he said, quietly.  "Good-night, Mistress Ladd!
+Good-night, Waite!"  He took her outstretched hand so lightly that she
+saw rather than felt that he had taken it; bowed over it, so low that
+he seemed to kiss it, yet did not actually touch it with his lips; then
+nodded civilly to Waite, strode off down the side of the room, through
+the door, and was gone.  Barbara little guessed the many eyes that had
+watched and wondered at the episode.  She imagined that all were quite
+engrossed in the dancing.
+
+"Now please take me to the other room, Mr. Waite!" she commanded.  "I
+fear I was engaged for this very dance, and my partner will think me
+rude!"
+
+Waite was in hopeless bewilderment.  He particularly liked and admired
+Robert Gault.  He was silent for a few moments, and then exclaimed with
+seeming irrelevance: "Women do beat me!"
+
+Barbara looked up at him quickly, as she took her seat.
+
+"What do you mean?" she asked.
+
+"I beg your pardon, most fair and inexplicable Mistress Ladd," replied
+Waite, who had been puzzled almost out of his manners, "but,--if you
+will permit me to say it,--if this be the fate of your friends, what,
+oh, what must be the fate of your enemies!"
+
+"I don't understand you!" said Barbara, haughtily.  "Pray explain
+yourself!"  But just then a young scarlet-coated officer, Nevil Paget,
+came up, claiming the hand of Mistress Ladd; and Jerry Waite, who had
+begun to realise that he was in deep water, hailed the rescue gladly.
+
+"I shall have the honour to claim you again, gracious mistress," said
+he, "and I shall explain myself then, if you bid me.  Meanwhile, I make
+way for those more fortunate than I."
+
+And now, in her bitterness and disappointment, Barbara flung herself
+heart and soul into the folly.  When the young Englishman started to
+speak of a duel, she shut him up so mercilessly that for five minutes
+he durst not open his mouth.  But she proceeded to flirt and bedazzle
+him, half flouting, half flattering, till in five minutes more he was
+nigh ready to fling all the pedigree of all the Pagets at her small,
+light-dancing feet and beg her to dance upon it her whole life long.
+She danced everything, and between the dances held a court more crowded
+and more devoted than that which had paid her homage at the Van
+Griffs'.  She was deaf to all attempts to lure her out upon the fairy
+terraces, because when she first saw them she had decided that Robert
+should take her out there to tell her what a wonderful surprise she had
+given him.  But the men whom she refused were not driven away by her
+denial.  She mixed bitter and sweet for them all so cunningly that none
+could tell in which of the twain lay the magic that held them thrall.
+And all the while her heart smouldered in her breast like a hot coal in
+the ash.
+
+At length came her minuet with Glenowen; and after it her uncle, who
+thought he detected something feverish in her gaiety, and felt moved to
+cool it a little if he might without damage, asked her if she had seen
+Robert.
+
+"For a moment or two," she answered, with an indifference beyond reason.
+
+Glenowen had heard all the story of the duel, and wondered what had
+gone wrong.
+
+"Why did he go home, sweetheart, so soon after our coming?" he inquired.
+
+"Did he go home?" she queried, casually.  "You know he was hardly fit
+to be out.  Even heroes can't stand the loss of blood!"
+
+"What did you do to him, child?" persisted Glenowen.
+
+This questioning chafed on Barbara's raw and bleeding nerves.
+
+"Robert made himself very disagreeable," she replied, crisply.  "I
+showed that I was disappointed in him, and he seems to have got angry
+and gone home!"
+
+"Disappointed in him!" exclaimed Glenowen.  Then he hesitated, and went
+on: "Really, Barbara, are you quite human?  Forgive me if I--"
+
+Barbara faced him squarely, and he felt, though he could not see, the
+flood of tears pent up behind her shining eyes.
+
+"Uncle Bob!" she whispered, in a tense voice, "if you are going to
+criticise, take me home _right away_.  I can't stand one thing more!"
+
+Glenowen knew her better than any one else ever could, and his
+displeasure melted as he caught signal of a distress which he did not
+understand.  Yet he knew better than to be too sympathetic, having more
+than once experienced the perilous relaxing powers of sympathy.
+
+"Well, well, sweetheart," he laughed, lightly, "forgive me.  I've no
+doubt it would seem all right if I knew.  And what does it matter to me
+about Bobby Gault, anyhow, so long as my little girl is happy?"
+
+"She isn't happy, Uncle Bob!  But that isn't _your_ fault, you dear,
+not ever in the world!"
+
+As they moved apart from the promenading throng, and paused at an open
+window overlooking the terraces, Barbara's ears, acute as those of the
+furtive kindred in Westings forest, again caught a word that was not
+intended for them.  She saw two painted and tower-headed dames, sitting
+not far from the window, point her out to another who had just taken a
+seat beside them; and she heard the newcomer remark, behind her fan:
+
+"That ugly little rebel!  Insult an officer of the king's troops for
+her!"
+
+Barbara's face flushed scarlet, and she looked at her uncle.  But he
+had heard nothing,--and she remembered that her ears were keener than
+those of other people.  The remark, however, puzzled her, and started a
+vague, troublesome misgiving.  Thereafter she found it difficult to
+resume the spontaneous fervour of her gaiety.  Fits of abstraction
+would take her unawares; but her courtiers thought them merely another
+touch of art, effective as they were unexpected.  She was now looking
+forward to the dance with Jerry Waite, and the explanation which he had
+so rashly promised.  She had intended to snub him severely, but when he
+came for her at last he found her altogether gracious.
+
+"Would you mind very much if we sat somewhere and talked, instead of
+dancing?" she asked.  And Waite, nothing loth, led her to a seat just
+beyond the long windows,--nearer to the terrace than any other man had
+succeeded in getting her to go.  This filled him with elation, and he
+was glad, rather than otherwise, that she had refused to go out among
+the walks and arbours.  Here his triumph was visible every moment to
+his disappointed rivals.  He was, of course, like the rest, half
+infatuated with Barbara; but being a sane youth, with a sense of
+humour, he knew the difference between infatuation and half
+infatuation.  He imagined there was more between Barbara and Robert
+than there really was; and he did not hold himself any match for Robert
+in a race for hearts.  Therefore, he was capable of thinking of his own
+prestige.  And to heighten that he had an inspiration.  When, after
+waiting till she could wait no longer, for him to bring up the subject,
+Barbara asked him to give her the promised explanation of his remark,
+he fenced cleverly till the time was close at hand when he knew she
+would be claimed by another partner.  He saw this prospective partner,
+Cary Patten, eyeing her hungrily, ready to swoop down and take
+possession at the first permissible moment.  Then he said: "In very
+truth, fair mistress, the explanation necessitates a long story.  To
+tell you a little would leave me in a worse light than I could endure
+you to behold me in.  The story comes first,--and then the explanation
+follows with ease!"
+
+"When will you explain?  My curiosity has been most artistically
+aroused!" said Barbara, maintaining with an effort her tone of
+sprightly merriment.
+
+"If I might have the honour of waiting upon you to-morrow, I am bold to
+hope I might succeed in interesting you!" suggested Waite.
+
+"You may come in the morning," answered Barbara, promptly.  "Say about
+eleven o'clock."
+
+The delighted Jerry was ceremoniously bowing his gratitude for this
+command, conscious that it would make him the envied of all the
+gallants of Manhattan, when Cary Patten came up and carried Barbara off
+with rather more eagerness than ceremony.  He had been most hard hit of
+all her victims at the Van Griffs' ball, and had experienced deep
+dejection over the rumour which had that day associated her name with
+Robert Gault's.  Robert's early departure from the ball had somewhat
+cheered him, however; and now, with that simplicity, not unlike
+Barbara's own, born of secure family position and careless disregard of
+convention, he determined to find out if the field were open.  He saw
+that Barbara was distinctly friendly to him,--whether for his own sake
+or for what Glenowen had told her of his sympathies,--and he trusted to
+his directness to disarm her possible resentment of his questioning.
+
+"If you will pardon me, gracious lady," he began, after the customary
+interchange of compliment, "I am going to ask you something about our
+friend Gault.  Carberry was accounted till to-day the best sword in the
+colony.  Now he stands second best!  It took uncommon high courage or
+uncommon deep interest in the quarrel, to cross swords with such a
+master,--but, of course--"
+
+Barbara's face changed, and she interrupted him crisply.  His first
+phrases had been interesting enough, but at the words "uncommon deep
+interest in the quarrel," the vision of that unknown woman floated up
+and laughed in her face.
+
+"I am weary of the subject, Captain Patten.  It seems to me it should
+be possible to talk of something else.  If not, let us listen to the
+music, please!"
+
+Never before had Cary Patten been so snubbed.  The experience was novel
+to him, and he did not like it.  But he found more than ample
+compensation in the thought that Barbara's words showed no impassioned
+interest in Robert Gault!  If such a fight, and in such a cause, left
+her indifferent, then surely he need have no great fear of Robert as a
+rival.  To be sure, he thought Barbara's indifference a little cruel, a
+little heartless,--but so much the greater the reward if he could
+awaken heart in this flashing, audacious, irresistible little witch.
+Cary Patten had small knowledge of the feminine heart, being much
+absorbed in his boyish ambitions, his dreams of splendid daring; and he
+had a healthy, well-founded faith in his own powers.  His bright,
+handsome face looked glum for a moment or two; then he laughed frankly
+and cried:
+
+"Served me just right, for being so bold, sweet mistress.  I implore
+you forgive me, and be friends!  On bended knee I sue--to speak
+figuratively.  I dare not do it in fact, you know, else all the men in
+the room would be on their knees about you, which would look singular!"
+
+Yes, he was a nice boy, and Barbara not only forgave him, but tried to
+resume her old gaiety for his pleasure.  So far as his pleasure was
+concerned, she succeeded; though older and keener eyes than Cary
+Patten's would have seen that her mirth was forced.  He left her
+feeling that he had made no small progress; and he trod on air in his
+elation because she had promised him no less than three dances at the
+very next ball at which they should meet.  His succeeding partners
+found him tender but absent-minded,--a combination which they
+interpreted to their advantage or otherwise, according to their
+knowledge of men's hearts.
+
+But as for Barbara's heart, it was now yielding to the strain, and she
+felt that she could keep up the play no longer.  Her anger had given
+out before the need of it, as a stimulant to flirtation, was past.
+Only pain, humiliation, disappointment, remained to her, and she felt
+that if she did not get away at once something would happen.  With all
+the obstinate force of her will she kept a hold upon her imperious
+vivacity, and would hear no appeals when her next partner was bidden to
+fetch her uncle and call her coach.
+
+"Take me home, _please_, Uncle Bob!" she pleaded; and he, after a
+glance into her eyes, yielded comprehendingly.  Her reason for going,
+indeed, he did not comprehend; but her need of going he comprehended
+instantly.  Till the very last moment she kept herself at pitch,
+laughing, sweetly jibing, taunting, provoking, inviting, so that the
+men who insisted on helping Glenowen escort her to her coach felt that
+the glitter had gone from the dance with her departure.  But once safe
+inside the coach, and beyond the lights, she flung herself upon Uncle
+Bob's neck and broke into a storm of sobbing.  She vouchsafed no
+explanation, and the sagacious Glenowen asked no questions; and she
+wept, intermittently, all the way to the high-stooped old Dutch house
+on State Street.  To such a bitter end had come the evening, the
+wondrous evening, of which she had hoped, expected, claimed so much!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+Barbara slept little, but lay late, and Glenowen was away about
+business ere she appeared.  By the time her caller arrived she was
+fairly herself, only subdued in spirit, sorrowful, and homesick.  She
+had taken pains, however, that her morning toilet should be becoming;
+and Jerry Waite thought her pallor, the shadows about her great grave
+eyes, the wistfulness of her scarlet mouth, even more enchanting than
+her radiance and sparkle of the night before.
+
+"This is most gracious of you, fair lady, to let me come so soon!" he
+murmured ecstatically, over the rosy brown tips of her slim fingers.
+"Did the other men but know of it, I should have feared for my life to
+come without a guard!"
+
+Barbara smiled faintly, willing to appreciate his flatteries, but in no
+mood for badinage and quip.
+
+"Nay, sir!" she answered, "do not lay it to my graciousness, which is
+scant to even so charming a gentleman as Mr. Waite, but to my
+curiosity, which I acknowledge to be great and insistent.  Tell me this
+wonderful thing you promised to tell me!"
+
+Jerry Waite assumed an air of mock supplication.
+
+"I implore you, dear lady, suffer me for one moment to delude myself
+with the ravishing dream that 'twas for my company, no less than for my
+story, that you permitted me to come.--  What, no, not for one moment
+the sweet delusion?"
+
+Barbara shook her head resolutely.
+
+"No, first deserve favour, before you presume to claim it, sir!" she
+retorted.  "Earn my grace by a story as interesting as you have led me
+to expect.  Then, perhaps, I may like you well enough to let you stay
+awhile, for the sake of your company!"
+
+"So be it, if so the queen decrees!" said Waite.  "My little story is
+about a duel, of which, as I gathered last night, the fairest
+but--pardon me--not always the most gracious of her sex knows a little,
+but not the most interesting details!"
+
+"I have heard too much already of this duel!" interrupted Barbara.  "I
+do not understand how it concerns me!"
+
+"Oh, lady, this impatience of yours!" said Waite, watching her keenly.
+"How can you expect to understand the manner in which it concerns you,
+if you will not let any one tell you the story?  I stand pledged to
+make the story interesting on pain of forfeiting your good will!"
+
+"Well," agreed Barbara, with seeming reluctance.  In very truth she was
+trembling with eagerness for him to go on.  "But, I pray you, be as
+brief as is consistent with justice to your claim as a narrator!"
+
+"I will be most brief!" said Waite.  "For the merit lies in the story
+itself, not in the fashion of the telling.  Yesterday, a little after
+the noon hour, some half-score gentlemen were gathered by chance in
+Pym's Ordinary, where many of us frequent for the latest bit of gossip.
+There was talk of this, that, and the other, but most of the charms of
+a lady whom we know and reverence--"
+
+"Who was she?" asked Barbara.
+
+But Waite, intent upon his story, paid no heed.
+
+"The praises, the compliments, the eulogiums," he went on, "that were
+heaped upon this magical name seemed to show that every man was at her
+feet.  All but Carberry.  Captain Carberry is a chill-souled, carping,
+sarcastical fellow, and arrogant withal, by reason of the unmatched
+agility of his blade.  It had pleased him to be displeased by certain
+sweet, if a trifle pungent, sprightlinesses of the lady in question;
+and now his comments ran sharply counter to those of the rest of the
+company.  He did not admire her at all,--which was, of course, within
+his undoubted rights, however it discredited his taste.  But presently
+his criticisms became a trifle harsher than was fitting; and there was
+a moment of uneasy silence.  Then, clear upon the silence, Gault
+spoke,--Gault, who had hitherto been listening without a word.
+
+"'Carberry,' said he, quietly, 'you have said just enough.  One word
+more will be too much!'
+
+"Every one held his breath.  There was an ugly look about Gault's
+mouth, and we trembled for him.  He is liked, you know; while Carberry,
+a man ten years older, is feared.  Carberry looked Bob over, with a
+supercilious smile, which meant mischief, as we knew, and then drawled
+slowly:
+
+"'I shall say whatever it may please me to say about that damned
+little--'  But no one was to hear the sentence finished.  We can never
+have our curiosity certainly satisfied as to that word, which just then
+got smashed beyond recognition behind Carberry's teeth.  It was
+probably not so very bad a word, if the truth were known.  Bob was
+taking no risks on that score.  His blow was straight as a bullet; and
+Carberry went sprawling over two chairs and a table.
+
+"When he picked himself up he was quite cool,--collected and
+businesslike.  That we knew to be his deadly way, and we trembled for
+Bob.  Bob, however, seemed as easy in his mind as Carberry.  The two of
+them, indeed, were so deuced civil you might have thought they were
+arranging to marry each other's sisters.  There was no time lost, you
+may be sure.  Seconds were chosen, terms agreed upon, a doctor sent
+for, and we promptly made up a little pleasure party to the woods.
+
+"As for the fight, dear lady, I spare your gentle soul the details.  It
+lacked just one element of interest to the connoisseur,--both
+combatants fought in one fashion.  There was no contrast, such as one
+might have expected between a boy of twenty-three and a veteran of
+thirty-six.  At the very first Carberry had attacked with fury,--but
+when he felt the quality of Bob's wrist he saw it was not a case for
+bluster, and settled down to business.  Both fought smiling, alike
+cool, wary, dangerous, sure of the result.  Where and when Bob learned
+it, we none of us knew.  He is a queer, reticent chap in some ways.
+But learned it he had,--and I, who like to study faces, saw the tinge
+of surprise in Carberry's face pass to admiration.  His rage was
+forgotten in the exhilaration of his favourite game.  I never again
+expect to see two blades so nicely matched.  The excitement to us
+watchers grew intense, till our knees felt weak.  But they two seemed
+as fresh as when they started.
+
+"At last--'a touch!" said Carberry,--and then, by the slight hissing of
+the words between his teeth I realised the strain.
+
+"'Not at all!' answered Robert,--and his words, too, came hissingly,
+for all the easy smile upon his lips.  Then both grew white.  And for a
+few minutes there was no change.  And it seemed to us that our eyes
+could follow the blades no longer.  And then--for the life of me I
+could not see how it happened--a red stain came on the shoulder of
+Bob's shirt; and in the next second Carberry, letting his sword fall,
+dropped in a heap.
+
+"Before we could recover our astonishment, Robert and the doctor
+together were bending over the wounded man, and had his shirt ripped
+open.  'I've got it, eh?' said Carberry, faintly.  'A fair, clean
+thrust, an' served me damn well right!'  And he held out his hand to
+Bob,--who grasped it with both his, and looked now, all of a sudden,
+like a boy ready to cry.
+
+"'Stuff and nonsense, Captain!' exclaimed the doctor.  'You've not got
+your quietus with _this_ bare bodkin.  You'll be all right, sound as
+ever, in a month, a fortnight maybe!'
+
+"'Thank God!' cried Robert.
+
+"'My sentiments exactly!' said Carberry, his voice stronger with the
+knowledge that he was not dying.  'Gault, my compliments, with my best
+apologies!  Great sword, my boy, great--' and with that he swooned from
+the pain and loss of blood.  And we, very happy that all had ended so
+happily, got him to the coach, and so home.  And the rest, dear
+Mistress Ladd, you know!"
+
+"A mighty interesting story, I admit!" said Barbara.  "But still I ask,
+of what especial, immediate interest to me?"
+
+Waite looked at her curiously.  Was it possible she could be so blind?
+But her wide eyes were innocent of all comprehension.  It suddenly
+occurred to him that, new come to town as she was, she found it
+impossible to imagine _her_ name the theme of tongues.  He began to
+understand.
+
+"You know the lady," said he, and paused.
+
+"Well, sir, 'tis possible.  I have met many in the few days that I have
+been in New York.  What is her name--since you seem to hold it an
+important matter."
+
+"Her name, dear lady--her name is one that stirs a thrill of admiring
+homage in all our hearts.  It is--_Mistress Barbara Ladd_!"
+
+Barbara caught her breath, and her eyes dilated.
+
+"What?" she cried, though she had heard quite clearly.
+
+"Her name is Mistress Barbara Ladd!" repeated Jerry Waite.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Waite.  No!  No!  Don't tell me it was on my account that
+Robert fought.  Impossible!  He might have been killed!  And I
+thought--" but she stopped herself in time, without saying what it was
+she had thought.
+
+Jerry Waite became serious.
+
+"It seems to me, dear lady, that your thought, whatever it was, did
+Gault an injustice," said he, gently.  "And that is my explanation.  Am
+I forgiven?"
+
+Barbara conquered her distress.  This was the easier--after the first
+pang of remorse--because the fact that Robert had not failed her soon
+overtopped in her mind the fact that she had failed Robert.  That
+unknown woman--the hateful vision vanished in a burst of light.  The
+ache of loss was healed in her heart.  She was reinstated, too, in her
+self-esteem.  New York grew bright again.  Her conquests were once more
+worth while.  Robert should behold them all,--and be one of them,--the
+most subjugated of them all.  At last her face grew radiant,--her eyes
+dancing, her teeth flashing, her mouth the reddest rose, her clear
+brown cheeks softly aflush.
+
+"Yes, indeed, Mr. Waite," she cried, holding out her hand.  "It is a
+beautiful story, and wins you a very high place in my regard.  You may
+stay and talk to me till dinner-time, if you like; and then my uncle
+will be glad to have you dine with us!"
+
+The first part of the invitation Waite accepted with alacrity, and
+cursed himself bitterly that he had an engagement to prevent him
+staying for dinner.  In the conversation that followed Barbara gained
+him and chained him fast, not as a mad, intoxicated lover, but as one
+of the best and most loyal of her friends.  But the moment he was gone
+she rushed to her scrutoir and in fierce haste scribbled a note.  It
+ran:
+
+
+"DEAR ROBERT:--I did not understand at all.  I thought something quite
+different from the truth.  I have just found out about things.  Please
+come and talk to me till dinner-time, if you like; and then let me tell
+you how perfectly horrid I think myself.
+
+"BARBARA."
+
+
+This she sealed with a care that contrasted curiously with the haste
+with which she had written it.  Then she called her maid and sent it
+around to the stately-doorwayed office on Bowling Green.
+
+The answer that came was merely a bunch of dark red roses, with never a
+written word; but Barbara found it quite satisfactory.  To Robert it
+would have seemed superfluous to have said he would come.  Barbara made
+her toilet with especial care, selecting everything with a view to
+making herself look as nearly as possible like the Barbara of the old
+Second Westings days.  As she surveyed herself in the glass, she was
+astonished at the result.  Had she really put the hands of time back
+five years?  As she remembered, she had looked just so on the afternoon
+when Robert came, and found her in the apple-tree reading "Clarissa."
+It was three o'clock already,--and Robert had been waiting already half
+an hour in the drawing-room below,--but she took yet a few minutes more
+for a finishing touch.  She basted up a deep tuck in her
+petticoat,--about half an inch off for each year blotted from her
+calendar,--and then, with flaming eyes and mouth wreathed in laughter,
+she ran down to receive her guest.  It was the direct obverse of the
+meeting she had planned.
+
+"Did you ride over, Robert?  Or did you come in the canoe?" she asked,
+as if she had but that moment jumped down out of the apple-tree.
+
+"Barbara!" he cried, and seized and kissed both hands.
+
+"I was beginning to fear that you had forgotten the way to Second
+Westings!" she went on, in gay reproach.  "Why, it is _weeks_ since you
+were over; and the young catbirds in the currant bush have grown their
+wings and flown; and the goldenrod's in flower; and the 'Early
+Harvests' are beginning to turn red on the old apple-tree over by the
+gate; and how will you explain your long absence, sir, to Aunt Hitty,
+and Doctor John, and Doctor Jim, I'd like to know!"
+
+Robert was devouring her with his eyes as she spoke.  "Oh, you do
+indeed look just as you did that day I found you in the apple-tree!" he
+cried, at last.  "So weary long ago,--yet now, sweet lady, it seems but
+now!"
+
+"Let us play it is but now," laughed Barbara.
+
+"Yes," said Robert,--"but _please_ don't send me right away to Doctor
+Jim, as you did that morning!  I will try not to incur your
+displeasure.  And don't be in such a hurry to get back to 'Clarissa' as
+you were then!"
+
+So all the afternoon they talked the language and the themes of Second
+Westings, with the difference that Barbara was all graciousness,
+instead of her old mixture of acid and sweet.  And when Glenowen came
+in to supper he was admitted to the game, and played it with a relish.
+And when, after supper, the three went riding, they took what they
+swore to be the Westings Landing Road,--though certain of the
+landmarks, as they could not but agree, looked unfamiliar.  Almost they
+persuaded themselves that on their return they might entreat Mistress
+Mehitable to brew them a sack posset.
+
+It was not till three days later, when Robert was begging more than his
+share of dances for a ball to be given that night at Government House,
+that Barbara explained--lightly and laughingly, but in a way that
+suffered Robert to understand--her quite inadequate reasons for having
+treated him so cavalierly on the evening after his duel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+For the next few weeks Barbara enjoyed herself without stint, and found
+New York quite all that she had painted it.  To Robert she now
+vouchsafed sufficient favour to keep him fairly happy and good
+company,--or, at least, to enable him to make himself good company by
+an effort of will.  Yet she held him on the chilly side of that
+frontier which separates the lover from the comrade.  He was her
+favoured escort, but not so favoured that other admirers could fancy
+themselves warned from the field.  And he was kept restless, tormented,
+jealous.  He was made to feel--as others were allowed to think--that
+his primacy in privilege was based solely upon old friendship and
+familiar memories.  But the moment he attempted to crowd aside the new
+friends,--among whom Cary Patten, Jerry Waite, and young Paget caused
+him especial worry,--Barbara would seem to forget all their intimacy
+and relegate him to a position somewhat more remote than that of the
+merest acquaintance.  The utmost that he durst claim at any time was a
+certain slight precedence in her train of devoted cavaliers.  She
+danced, rode, flirted, with something so near approaching impartiality
+that she let no moth quite feel itself a fool in scorching its wings at
+her eyes.  Yet no one could presume upon her graciousness; and no one
+but Cary Patten had the temerity to push his suit to the point where
+she was put on the defensive.  Cary Patten was promptly dismissed.  But
+when he as promptly came back on the very first occasion, she had
+forgotten the matter, and remembered only how she liked his honest
+boyishness, his sanguine boldness.  Cary, applying one of those general
+rules which were apt to be so inapplicable in the special case of
+Barbara, decided that not one, nor indeed a dozen, refusals need reduce
+him to despair!  And Barbara, when afterward she came to think of it,
+liked Cary Patten the better because he had not sulked over his defeat.
+
+Meanwhile Barbara was exercising a restraint upon one point, which was
+in flat contradiction to her wonted directness.  She was carefully
+avoiding, in Robert's presence, a discussion of those political
+questions with which the whole country, from Maine to Georgia, was then
+seething.  This was easier than it would have been even a few weeks
+before, for the reason that as the differences grew more deadly society
+grew more cautious about letting them intrude themselves among its
+smooth observances.  Barbara, in fact, had come to fear the inevitable
+discussion with Robert.  She knew he was identified with the Tory
+party, but she did not know how far.  And she feared her own heat of
+partisanship not less than his resolution--which she called obstinacy.
+So, by tacit consent, she and Robert gave wide berth to the perilous
+theme; till at length their avoidance of it, when it was thrilling on
+the very air they breathed, made it begin to loom all the larger and
+darker between them.  Presently the apprehension that it was an
+impending peril to their relation drove Robert to speak, precipitately,
+on the subject that was bursting his heart night and day.
+
+They had just come in from an afternoon ride, and were alone in the
+drawing-room.  Barbara was in high good humour; and Robert seized the
+moment to ask leave to return that same evening.
+
+"I'm sorry, Robert!  I'd love to have you come," she replied.  "But
+I've promised the evening to Cary Patten.  He wants to bring his fiddle
+and try over some new music with me."
+
+Robert's face darkened.
+
+"Cary Patten seems to be here all the time!" he exclaimed, with natural
+exaggeration.
+
+"What nonsense!  You know that's not true, Robert.  He's not here
+_half_ as much as you are.  But if he were, what of it?  He's very
+good-looking, and Uncle Bob and I both like him, and, indeed, he's
+_much_ more _entertaining_ than you, Robert!"
+
+Robert walked quickly across the room and back, then seized both her
+slim brown wrists in a grip whose severity she rather liked.  She felt
+that something disturbing was at hand, however, and she braced her wits
+to manage it.
+
+"Barbara,--my lady,--my lady,--I love you!" he said, very quietly.
+
+"Of course, Robert!  I know that," she answered, with composure,
+smiling up at him, and making no effort to free her wrists.  Yet in
+some way her smile checked him, as he was about to crush her in his
+arms.  His breast ached fiercely so to crush her, yet it was impossible.
+
+"With all my heart and soul, my lady," he went on, his voice on the
+dead level of intense emotion, "with every drop of blood in my body, I
+love you, I have loved you, ever since the old child days in Second
+Westings!"
+
+"That is very dear of you, Robert," she responded, her voice and eyes
+showing nothing but frank pleasure at his words.  "But, of course, I
+have always known that," which was not quite true, though it seemed
+true to her at the moment.
+
+He could not tell what there was in this answer to hold him back, or if
+it was the frankness of her eyes that daunted him, but he began to feel
+that, so far from clasping her to his heart and satisfying his lips
+upon her eyes, her hair, her mouth, he had no right even to be holding
+her wrists as he was.  He flung them from him, drew back a step, and
+searched her face with a desperate look.
+
+"And you--you do not love me at all!"
+
+Barbara looked thoughtful, regretful.
+
+"No, Robert, I don't _love_ you--not in the way you mean.  I'm not in
+love with you, you know.  But I do care a lot for you, more than for
+_almost_ any one else!"
+
+They had both forgotten--for it was weeks away--how Barbara had felt
+about the imaginary unknown lady.
+
+That "almost" was, to Robert, the end of all things.  He thought at
+once of Cary Patten.  Pain and jealous madness struggled together in
+his breast, strangling him.
+
+"Good-bye!" he said at last, finding his voice, and turning to the
+door.  "I shall leave to-night!"
+
+"Robert!" cried Barbara, sharply.  "Come back at once!"
+
+He paused near the door, half turned, as if compelled by mere civility,
+but showed no sign of obeying.
+
+"Come back to me!" she commanded.  And he, being a courteous gentleman,
+obeyed.
+
+"What is it, lady?"
+
+"What on earth do you mean by being so crazy?" she demanded.
+
+No answer occurred to him as necessary.  He looked at her inquiringly,
+his face very white, his eyes deep sunken, his lips straight and hard.
+Barbara began to regret that she had not managed in some other way.
+She certainly could not let him go.  Yet she certainly did not love him
+enough to give up her freedom for him,--to sacrifice all the enchanting
+experience of which she had not yet begun to tire, to dismiss all the
+interesting men, whose homage was so sweet to her young, unsatiated
+vanity.
+
+"Don't you know, Robert," she went on, beguilingly, "that I _couldn't
+possibly_ get along without you?  I don't love you, but I do love you
+to love me, you know.  I couldn't bear to have you go away and forget
+me, and love some other woman,--some kind, sweet, beautiful woman who
+could love you and make you happy.  I need you to love me.  Though I
+know there is no earthly reason why you should, and I think you are a
+crazy goose to do it, and I believe you only think you do, anyhow!"
+
+Robert stood motionless.  The storm raging up and down within him
+turned him to steel on the surface.  From a dry throat he tried to
+speak clearly and with moderation.
+
+"You said--'almost!'  Who is it--you care more for?--Cary Patten?"
+
+Barbara broke into a clear peal of laughter, and clapped her hands with
+a fine assumption of glee.
+
+"Oh, you silly, silly child!" she exclaimed.  "It was Uncle Bob, of
+course, that I was thinking of when I said that.  I love Uncle Bob
+better than any one else in the world,--_far_ better than I love you,
+Robert, I can tell you that.  But I care for you almost as much as for
+Aunt Hitty.  Cary Patten!  Why, he and these other nice men who are
+making things so pleasant for me, they are just _new_ friends.  I
+_like_ them, that's all.  You are altogether different, you know.  But
+I'm just not in love with you,--and so you talk of going away and
+spoiling everything for me.  I don't call that loving me, Robert,--not
+as _I_ would love a girl if I were a man.  But it's not my fault if I'm
+not in love myself, is it?  I'm sorry,--but I don't believe I _can_
+love, really, the way you mean!  Cary Patten, indeed!  Why, he's just a
+boy,--a nice, good-looking, saucy, conceited boy!"
+
+"Can't you try to love me, Barbara?" pleaded Robert, his wrath all
+gone.  He flung himself down at her feet, and wildly kissed them.  All
+this she permitted smilingly, but the request seemed to her, as it was,
+a very foolish one.
+
+"No, I can't!" she answered, with decision.  "Trying wouldn't make me.
+And I don't think I want to, anyhow.  I want to enjoy myself here while
+I can.  And I want you to be nice, and help me enjoy myself, and not
+bother me.  Love me just as much as you like, Robert, but don't tell me
+so--too often!  And don't ask me to love you.  And _don't_ go and be
+lovely to the other girls, and make believe you are not in love with
+me, for that would displease me very much, though I should know it was
+making believe because you were cross at me.  So, don't be horrid!"
+
+This seemed to Robert a somewhat one-sided arrangement.  He knew he
+would accept it, yet his honesty compelled him to express his sense of
+its injustice.
+
+"I certainly would be lovely to the other girls if I wanted to, my
+lady," said he, doggedly.  "The trouble is, I _don't_ want to.  And I
+sha'n't bore myself just for the sake of trying to make you think I
+don't care.  I love you, that's all--better than anything else in
+heaven or earth.  And I shall make you love me, my lady!"
+
+This threat amused Barbara, but did not displease her.
+
+"Very well, Robert," she answered, with a teasing, alluring look that
+made his heart jump.  "I sha'n't try to prevent you.  I'll even like
+you a little better now, at once, if you will go right away this minute
+and let me dress."
+
+"Dress for Cary Patten!" muttered Robert, kissing her hand without
+enthusiasm, and retiring with sombre brow.  That he should go in this
+temper did not please her ladyship at all.
+
+"And, Robert!" she cried, when he had just reached the door.
+
+"Yes, my lady!" and he came back once more.
+
+"You said good-bye as if you were still in a nasty, black temper!"  She
+held out her hand to him again.  This time he kissed it with what she
+considered a more fitting warmth.
+
+"And, Robert, don't forget that I am _very, very_ good to you, far more
+so than you deserve.  I don't think of telling Cary Patten, or any of
+the others, not to flirt with the other girls.  Cary Patten may be as
+lovely to them as he likes, and I sha'n't mind one bit, so long as it
+does not interfere with his being as attentive as he ought to be to me!
+Now, it is a great honour I do you, Robert, in not letting you flirt."
+
+"I appreciate it, my lady," he answered, permitting himself to smile.
+"A great honour, indeed,--though a superfluous one!"
+
+"I have no objection to that word, 'superfluous,' in that connection,"
+said Barbara, thoughtfully, to herself, as Robert disappeared.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+After this Robert was careful, and so was permitted to be fairly happy
+when he could keep the fires of jealousy banked down in his heart.
+Once in awhile they would begin to get the better of him; and then,
+after letting Barbara see just a glimpse of the flame, that she might
+not forget it was there, he would leave before she could find him
+troublesome and work it under by hours of furious riding.  He skilfully
+avoided giving her any further excuse for discipline; and was even so
+cunning, at times, as to pique her by his show of self-control.  In
+this way he scored continually over the too confident Cary Patten, who,
+after a week or two of almost daily calls at the old Dutch house on
+State Street, would disappear and not be seen near Barbara for days.
+At such times Robert concluded that Cary had been tempting Providence
+and suffering the usual disaster of those who so presume.  As for Jerry
+Waite, and young Paget, and the rest of the infatuated train, Robert
+thought that Barbara was quite too infernally nice to them all, and
+cursed them all hotly in his heart; but he could not refrain from
+admiring the neat manner in which she held them all in hand.
+
+Early in the autumn, however, it became still more difficult for
+Barbara and Robert to keep silent on the great questions which they so
+dreaded to discuss.  The First Continental Congress was in session at
+Philadelphia, and its deliberations formed a theme to blister men's
+tongues.  Made up of Tories, Radical Patriots or potential rebels, and
+Moderates, in fairly even proportion, it satisfied neither Barbara nor
+Robert.  The latter, in spite of the fact that its New York delegates
+were of his own party, viewed it with singularly clear eyes, and saw in
+it not merely an instrument for the constitutional redress of just
+grievances,--wherein it had his sympathy,--but a forerunner of
+revolt,--wherein it called forth his passionate reprobation.  To
+Barbara, on the other hand, this Continental Congress, of which she had
+hoped so much, seemed a mean-spirited, paltering, blear-eyed thing,
+incapable of seeing what destiny had written large across the
+continent, or too timorous to acknowledge what it saw.  The strain was
+further increased by matters which touched them both personally.  With
+the news that Connecticut, stirred up by false rumours of a struggle
+with the royal troops in Boston, had thousands of her militia under
+arms, came a letter from Mistress Mehitable, saying that Doctor John
+was among them, in command of a regiment, and that Doctor Jim was
+looking after his patients.  At this tidings Barbara's heart swelled
+with mingled pride and anxiety.  She pictured the heroic figure Doctor
+John would make, in his uniform, about to fight for the cause which she
+held so splendid and so righteous.  At the same time she saw him
+already in the fight, waving his sword amid the smoke and slaughter,
+and she shook with terror for him.  Both Robert and Glenowen were with
+her when the letter came, and as she read it out her voice broke and
+the tears rolled down her cheeks.
+
+"Good for John Pigeon!" cried Glenowen, his eyes aglow.
+
+Then there was a heavy stillness on the air, such as that which
+sometimes portends an earthquake, and neither looked at Robert.
+Robert's face was very grave, but inspiration came to him, and he said
+exactly the right thing.
+
+"How lonely Doctor Jim and Mistress Mehitable must be!  Second Westings
+must be perfectly desolate!"
+
+The danger was averted.  He had dwelt, not upon the point of
+difference, but the point of sympathy; and the difference sank again
+out of sight.
+
+"Oh," murmured Barbara, "I almost feel as if I ought to go back to Aunt
+Hitty!"
+
+"I know!  But you can't, very well, sweetheart!  For which I am most
+thankful!" said Glenowen, promptly.
+
+"And Mistress Mehitable has Doctor Jim," said Robert.  "We need you
+more than she does, dearest lady!"
+
+With all the country seething as it was, nowhere else, perhaps, save in
+New York, would it have been possible to keep up so long the pretence
+of harmony between opposing factions.  New York was full of
+"Moderates," men no less determined to resist the tyranny of Parliament
+than to retain the supremacy of the Crown.  Extremes were thus held in
+check; and men met in apparent social harmony whose opinions, once put
+in practice, would have hurled them at one another's throats.  But to
+the little company resorting at the old Dutch house on State Street
+there entered now a new element of disruption.
+
+At a dance Barbara had met a slender, dark youth, a student at King's
+College, who had made himself prominent by his radical eloquence at a
+great mass-meeting of the Continental party.  His scholarly breadth of
+thought, combined with almost fanatical zeal, delighted her.  And he
+had the uncommon merit of expressing unforgettably the very views she
+herself had long maintained.  They became too interested in
+conversation to dance; and from that evening Mr. Alexander Hamilton
+came often to Glenowen's lodgings.  He was a mere boy in years, but
+Glenowen felt his power at once,--and even Robert, who was not
+unnaturally prejudiced, was too honest not to admit that Barbara's
+young Mr. Hamilton was a very remarkable and accomplished youth.
+
+Understanding the sharp divergence of opinion in the little circle,
+Hamilton kept a curb upon his tongue save at convenient seasons.  But
+to his eager and convicted spirit this soon became too difficult.  One
+evening, when there were none to hear him but Barbara, Robert, and
+Glenowen, the torrent of his boyish ardour overflowed.  He depicted the
+momentous changes toward which each fateful hour was hurrying them.  He
+declared it was no more than a matter of days ere all America would be
+in the throes of a righteous revolution.  He prophesied the birth of a
+great republic, that should establish Liberty in her New World home,
+and scourge kings, thrones, and tyrannies into the sea.  Glenowen had
+looked at him warningly, but in vain.  Barbara, troubled at first, grew
+suddenly hot and resentful at the thought that Robert should be blind
+to the splendid dream.  She applauded aggressively.
+
+Robert's brows were knit, but he had no emotion save distress.
+
+"I pray you pardon me, dear lady, and you, Mr. Glenowen, if I take my
+departure at once," said he, at the first pause.  "Knowing my
+sentiments as you both do, fully, you will understand that I could not
+in honour stay and listen to such doctrines as these of Mr. Hamilton's
+and not oppose them with all my force."
+
+He bent over Barbara's hand, but she petulantly snatched it away
+without letting him kiss it.  Then, having shaken hands heartily with
+Glenowen, and bowed stiffly to Hamilton, he withdrew in great trouble
+of mind, feeling that now, in truth, had come to an end the truce
+between his honour and his love.  He walked the streets half the night,
+and in the morning, white and dejected, but determined to know the
+worst at once, he went around to State Street at the earliest moment
+permissible after breakfast.  Barbara received him coldly.  But he made
+haste to face the issue.
+
+"Surely, dearest lady, you see that I had no alternative but to go!" he
+pleaded.  "I could not quarrel with him, seeing that he was your guest.
+Yet I could not sit and listen to his treason!"
+
+"I think the same treason as he uttered, if treason it be!  And utter
+it, too, when I see fit!" said Barbara.
+
+"That's different!" said Robert, and paused.
+
+It was on Barbara's lips to ask, "How?--Why?" but she refrained, lest
+she should complicate the discussion.
+
+"That's different," he repeated, "because you are a woman, and because
+I love you.  But indeed, my lady, I intended no discourtesy to Mr.
+Hamilton.  If discourtesy there were, surely it was his.  I would not
+have attacked what he holds sacred.  Yet my sentiments are not less
+well known than his.  He knew that I was pledged to the king's side."
+
+Barbara bit her lips hard.  This was just what she had taken such pains
+not to know.  Her heart was bitter enough against him for his views
+themselves; it was still more bitter against him now for forcing her to
+confess knowledge of those views.
+
+"A little discourtesy, one way or the other, what would that matter?"
+she asked, scornfully.  "There's just one thing that matters to me now,
+Robert.  War is coming.  Have you chosen your side?"
+
+"My side has chosen me, dear lady!" he answered, sorrowfully.
+
+"Listen, Robert," she went on, "I have tried not to know that you hold
+opinions which I hate, and loathe, and despise.  It means everything to
+me, when I say I love my country and hate the enemies of my country.  I
+believe in patriotism."
+
+"And I believe, also, in honour and loyalty, oh, my dearest lady!"
+
+"Your own stupid ideas of honour and loyalty!" cried Barbara, with
+fierce impatience.  "I tell you, Robert, the enemy of my country cannot
+be my friend."
+
+"But if I am the enemy of your country, so is Doctor Jim!" protested
+Robert.
+
+Barbara flushed with annoyance.  She did not like an unanswerable
+argument.
+
+"I love Doctor Jim!" she shot back at him, with cruel implication.
+
+"And I love you, Barbara!" answered Robert, also with meaning.  She
+tossed her head scornfully.
+
+"A fig for such love!" she cried.  "Years ago, when you were just a
+boy, and could not have your opinions fixed" ("About the age of your
+Mr. Hamilton!" he interjected, rashly), "I remember asking you, for my
+sake, to teach yourself the right things, Robert, and join our side,
+and be faithful to your own country.  What do you do?  It's not as if
+it were a mere difference of opinion,--but _I_ am _right_!  I am with
+all the great and wise of old, who have taught that patriotism is a
+man's highest duty.  Yet what have you done, Robert?  You vow you love
+me!  Indeed!  And you prefer a stupid, far-off, half-crazy tyrant, whom
+you call your king, and whom you have never seen, to your country,
+which has borne and cherished you--and to me!"
+
+"Oh, Barbara!" cried Robert, desperately.  "What are king or country,
+what are heaven and earth, to me, compared with you?  But what would my
+love be worth to you if, for the sake of my own happiness, I could be a
+rebel and a traitor?  Should I be worthy to love you, despising myself?
+What would you think of me, if I could sell my honour at your bidding!"
+
+"I think our ideas of honour are different, Robert!" retorted Barbara.
+"But I am not going to quarrel with you now.  I am disappointed in you,
+that's all.  And you need not expect that after this we are going to be
+such friends as we have been.  Remember that.  But--you may come and
+see us sometimes, of course; and I will dance with you sometimes, of
+course--if you ask me!  Only--it is all so different!" and she could
+not choke down a little weary sigh.
+
+Robert was on his knees in an instant, kissing her hands; but she
+repulsed him resolutely.
+
+"No, you have chosen for yourself," she said, not unkindly.  "It hurts
+me, truly.  But I mean what I say!  Now, you must go, for I have much
+to do before dinner.  Good-bye!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+Barbara was as good as her word.  From this time forward through that
+portentous fall and disastrous winter, she never let Robert forget that
+the old footing of familiar friendship was no longer his.  She began to
+make a difference, too,--slight but appreciable,--toward all the
+declared Tories among her followers.  She was bound to show some
+consistency toward Robert.  And moreover, her fiery and dissatisfied
+heart was growing restless for the breach that all saw coming but all
+strove to postpone.  Oh, she thought, let the cruel line be drawn,--let
+the make-believe end,--let us know our friends and enemies apart,--let
+the suspense be done, be done!  And--let me get back home to Second
+Westings!
+
+Meanwhile the half-mad king went on fashioning the hooks that were to
+rend the race in twain,--and an insensate Parliament lent power to his
+fatal hands,--and men like Chatham and Burke, Shelburne and Rockingham,
+poured out impassioned eloquence in vain, pleading for justice to the
+colonies.  By mid-winter (the winter of 1775) it was plain to every one
+that the king meant war, if that were the only way to bring the
+colonies to their knees.  Ten thousand troops were ordered to Boston,
+and plans were laid for organising the Indians on the frontiers.  In
+the colonies, though few dared say it, all were making ready for the
+struggle.  On every hand there was drilling of militia and gathering of
+the munitions of war.  Only in New York, as it seemed, things moved as
+usual, and the royal government remained in full force.  As a matter of
+fact, there were practically two governments going on side by side; for
+the various "committees of safety" went about their ominous
+preparations, and the governor well knew it would be unsafe to
+interfere.  The air became so tense with impending storm that people
+seemed to hold their breath, and when they met their eyes questioned,
+"Has it come?"
+
+Then it came!  And those who had longest and most preparedly waited
+were most shocked.  The bolt that fell was the news of Lexington and
+Concord, of the king's troops,--disciplined, war-toughened, the bravest
+in the world,--driven in wild rout before the sharp-shooting colonial
+farmers.  For five days of amazement men waited, expecting the bloody
+vengeance that would come.  But, instead of vengeance, came the word
+that Boston was beleaguered, that Gage with his veteran regiments was
+shut up tight in the city by ill-armed and unorganised countryside
+militia.  Straightway men drew breath again; and the undecided chose
+their side; and masks were thrown away.  Even New York, the prudent,
+the divided, the long politic, proclaimed herself at last, threw off
+the last empty forms of royal authority, and seized all military
+supplies within her borders.
+
+The glittering life, which had been to Barbara so gay an intoxication
+all these months, now burst like a bubble, leaving her to realise how
+hollow it had been.  She had no regret for it, save as a help to
+forgetting regrets.  She was dissatisfied, and wanted Second Westings.
+When, therefore, her uncle came to her, a few days after the news of
+Bunker Hill, with word that he had accepted a commission under General
+Washington, the newly appointed commander-in-chief of the Continental
+forces, she was not greatly surprised or shocked.  She had known all
+along that Glenowen would be at the front.  She had faced all the fear
+of it, and taught herself to think only of the honour.  Now, she turned
+very pale, tried to smile encouragement, but sobbed instead, ran to him
+and held him and kissed him.
+
+"Of course, Uncle Bob!  You must, I know.  I will be brave about it, I
+promise I will, and not worry you with any silliness!" she murmured at
+last, finding her voice.  "I wish _I_ were a man, so I could go with
+you!"
+
+"And a fiery little fighter you would make, sweetheart!" said Glenowen,
+cheerfully.  "But the immediate point is, since you can't go
+a-soldiering with your old uncle, what shall we do with you?  I leave
+within a week for the general's headquarters at Cambridge."
+
+"You will take me with you, and leave me at Second Westings, Uncle Bob,
+with Aunt Hitty and Doctor Jim to keep me cheered up while you are
+fighting!"
+
+"That's the best plan, decidedly, Barbe, for more reasons than one," he
+answered, suddenly grave.  "But I don't think you can depend on Doctor
+Jim for very long!"
+
+"Why, where is he going?" queried Barbara, anxiously.
+
+"Well, you know, he'll _choose_ to go wherever the Royalist volunteers
+may be organising their forces; but if he did not choose, he'd probably
+have no choice.  Our Connecticut folk left many dead on Breed's Hill,
+dear, and the Royalists are beginning to find their homes too hot for
+them.  I'm afraid Doctor Jim will be in peril of rough handling, with
+his hot temper and his fearless tongue!"
+
+"No one in Second Westings would _dare_ to be rude to Doctor Jim!"
+cried Barbara, indignantly.
+
+"You don't know what they will do, sweetheart, when they are stirred
+out of their accustomed frame of mind.  Besides, even if the Second
+Westings lads should be mindful of their manners, there are the rougher
+sort from the neighbouring villages to be thought of.  _They_ owe no
+allegiance to a Pigeon, or a Ladd either!  It may be you will find
+yourself a very necessary shield to Mistress Mehitable, even!"
+
+"I should like to see them try to interfere with Aunt Hitty!" flamed
+Barbara, setting her white teeth and flushing.  "I'd shoot them, if
+they _are_ patriots!"
+
+Glenowen nodded approval, but counselled caution.
+
+"You may need to be firm, girlie, but you'll need to be careful and
+tactful too, or you may find yourself fighting on the wrong side!" he
+laughed.
+
+"Do you really mean to say that our people are beginning to attack the
+Tories, just because they think they ought to stick to old King
+George?" queried Barbara, her thought turning to Robert, whom she had
+not seen or heard of for more than a week.
+
+"That's inevitable," said Glenowen.  "If we are to fight England, we
+fight the Tories,--and the Tories with the more bitterness because we
+feel that they ought to be with us.  I've heard ugly talk already of
+tar and feathers for some of our important men here.  And they have
+heard it themselves, and found that business called them urgently
+elsewhere!  Other of our Tory friends are getting up volunteer
+companies,--a sort of counterblast to our militia battalions.  I hear
+talk, too, of forcibly disarming all our Tories,--especially on Long
+Island, where they are as thick as hornets!"
+
+"I suppose that's what Robert is doing--getting up a company to fight
+against us!  We've not seen him for a week!" said Barbara, with a
+bitterness which her affected indifference failed to disguise.
+
+"Exactly that!  He is one of our most dangerous antagonists here!"
+answered Glenowen, sadly.  "He would have been seized days ago, to
+prevent him doing more mischief; but he's so liked, and respected for
+his fairness, by all of our party, that no one cares to take the
+necessary action.  He's the sort of man we want on our side!"
+
+"He's as pig-headed as King George himself!" cried Barbara, hotly.
+
+"No, he's true to his colours!" said Glenowen.  "Only he can't see that
+he has nailed them to the mast of the wrong ship!"
+
+"I have no patience with him!" muttered Barbara, bitterly, after a
+moment's silence.
+
+"Did you ever have, dearie?" inquired Glenowen.
+
+"What do you mean, Uncle Bob?"
+
+"Forgive me, Barbe, if I speak plainly, these being times for plain
+speaking!" said Glenowen.  "Truly, I can't understand a man who loves
+you being other than wax in your hands, you witch,--if you took the
+trouble to manage him.  That may sound cynical, but I hope not.  It's
+true.  You owe Robert to our cause!  We want him!"
+
+Barbara looked down, her face scarlet and her lips quivering.  Then she
+faced her uncle bravely.
+
+"I begin to fear I want him for myself, as much as for the cause, Uncle
+Bob!" she confessed.
+
+"It's not Cary Patten, then?" asked Glenowen.
+
+Barbara smiled enigmatically.  "Cary Patten is extremely charming!" she
+answered.  "But do you know, Uncle Bob, if Robert is still in town?"
+
+"I think," said Glenowen, "I can say with confidence that he will get
+away from the city to-morrow or next day,---for friends who love him,
+in our party, will let him know the danger of remaining!  One must make
+such compromises sometimes, if one is a red-blooded human being and not
+a bloodless saint!"
+
+"Uncle Bob, I'm afraid you will never be a Lucius Junius Brutus!" said
+Barbara.
+
+"No, thank God!" cried Glenowen, with conviction.
+
+"I'm so glad!" said Barbara, who was very human when she was not all
+woman.  "Brutus was right, I think!  But I've always hated him!"
+
+Then she turned to her scrutoir and wrote a cool little note to Robert,
+asking him to come in and speak to her a moment the next morning.
+
+At an hour almost unseemly Robert came, of course.  And Barbara was
+gracious to him.  As if there had been no estrangement, she talked
+frankly of Second Westings matters,--of Doctor John's service in the
+siege of Boston, of Doctor Jim's danger because of his opinions, of
+Mistress Mehitable's need of her presence at Westings House,--just as
+if they were Robert's concern as well as hers.  The gladness came back
+to Robert's dark face, and for a moment he was forgetting the barrier
+between them.
+
+"And what are you doing, Robert?  Is it not becoming a little dangerous
+for you in New York now?" she asked, with gentle frankness.
+
+"I am going away to-morrow, dearest lady," he answered, "lest your
+fiery Continentals tie me up!"
+
+"And I go back to Second Westings next week!  And you were going away
+without seeing me for good-bye?" asked Barbara, reproachfully.  "Is
+this the Robert that used to say he loved me a little?"
+
+Robert looked at her in silence.  "I adore the very ground that your
+foot treads upon!" he said, presently, in a quiet voice.
+
+"You love me just as much as you used to?" she inquired, almost
+wistfully.
+
+"As much!" he exclaimed, with scorn.  "More and more, every day I
+breathe.  These months that you have treated me so cruelly have been
+hell on earth.  I don't see how I have lived through them."
+
+"I, too, have not been very happy, Robert!" she acknowledged, softly.
+"I believe I have needed you more than I thought.  Do you know, I
+almost think I might learn to care a great deal--perhaps all that a
+woman can--if only, if _only_, dear Robert, there were not this
+dreadful barrier between us?  Oh, if you knew how I long to have you in
+sympathy with the cause that all my heart is given to,--to talk it all
+over with you, to hope and plan and look forward with you, in
+comradeship and understanding!  If you knew--but there, I see by your
+obstinate mouth it is no use.  I might as well pour out my heart
+against a stone wall.  _Nothing_ will soften you!  _Nothing_ will
+convince you!  Love me?  _You_ love me?  You have no heart at all in
+your breast!  Nothing but a priggish theory!"
+
+She burst into passionate, disappointed tears, flung herself down on
+the sofa, and buried her face in the cushions.
+
+Robert was in an anguish.  His mouth was drawn and white.  Why should
+_he_ be called upon to face so hideous an alternative?  Why must _he_
+pay so appalling a price for loyalty, for fidelity, for honour?  What
+was this bourgeois tyrant in England, that the price of loyalty to him
+should be the love of the woman who was dearer than heaven?  Robert
+felt a fierce hatred of the man George of England, who was so unworthy
+of his kingship!  He was mad to throw himself at Barbara's feet, and
+tell her all his life was hers to do as she would with, to offer his
+faith, loyalty, honour, a living sacrifice to her love, and bid her
+send him to fight under whatever flag she called hers!  But--he held
+the madness in leash.  The tough fibre of his will gave a little, but
+would not break.  The drops stood out on his forehead.  But all he said
+was:
+
+"Beloved, beloved, I worship you.  You are all I can dream of
+womanhood.  You are all of life, all of love, all of wonder and beauty
+that the world can show.  There is nothing my soul can ever desire but
+you, you, you, wonderful one!"  And he tried to take her hands from
+under her wet face.
+
+Through her sobs, Barbara had listened eagerly for one word that might
+show a yielding.  But there was no such word,--no sign that he even
+realised that she had been offering her love as the incalculable price
+that should purchase him to the service of his country.  This
+infinitely precious price,--he spurned it, then!  Angry mortification
+surged over her, mixed with a pain that clutched at her heart.  The
+humiliation of it--and the loss!  She sat up suddenly.
+
+"Go, go, go!" she cried, pointing to the door.  "I don't want to ever
+see you again.  I hate you.  I hate you.  Go--at _once_!"
+
+And then, as Robert made no move, and strove to plead once more, she
+sprang to her feet, darted from the room, and fled up-stairs.  He heard
+her door close sharply,--like the cutting off of life, it seemed to
+him.  And he went away, walking rather blindly, and fumbling for some
+moments at the hall door before he could find the latch.  That same
+evening he left New York.
+
+It was hours before Barbara was herself again, so Glenowen had to dine
+alone.  Late in the afternoon, after having bathed her face back to
+presentability, she dressed to go out for a sharp walk.  When her
+toilet was almost complete, word came up that Cary Patten was in the
+drawing-room.
+
+Now it was at least six weeks since Cary had last attempted to make
+love to her, and in the meantime he had been altogether
+charming,--attentive, deferential, full of enthusiastic ambition, and
+vastly interesting in his large forecasts of what the thirteen colonies
+would do with independence when they got it.  Barbara, therefore, had
+practically forgotten that he was ever in disgrace, and was unwilling
+to refuse him admittance, little though it suited her mood to see him.
+She went down at once and received him cordially.
+
+Cary was in a mood of triumphant excitement, dashed with romantic
+melancholy.  He looked even straighter, taller, more broad-shouldered
+and high-mettled than usual.  His goldy-brown short hair had a crisper
+curl, his candid blue eyes sparkled with joy and importance.
+
+"Oh, I know!  You needn't tell me!" cried Barbara, with hearty
+sympathy.  "Only one thing in the world could make your face shine as
+it does now, Cary!  You are ordered to the front!"
+
+"You've guessed it, sweet mistress!" he cried, in a voice whose boyish
+exultation would not be kept down.  "My company is one of those chosen
+by the Committee of Safety to go north.  We march _to-morrow_!  In a
+few days we will be in the field--we shall be in the thick of it!"
+
+"Oh, you are so fortunate, Cary!" responded Barbara.  "Think what it
+must be to be just a woman, and have to stay at home gnawing one's
+heart, while others have the glorious joy of fighting for freedom!"
+
+"Only one thing I need to make me happy as I go, sweet lady!" said he,
+his voice tender, passionate, caressing.  "It is bitter to leave you.
+But I should go thrilling with happiness, to win fame that would make
+you proud, or to die willingly for my country,--if I might go wearing
+your favour, if I might go as--" but here he paused.  Barbara's face
+was cold and discouraging.
+
+There was a moment of strained silence.  Barbara felt a harsh
+resentment at his persistence, and an added anger that it should be
+thrust upon her on this day when her heart was so bitter sore.  "Yet,"
+she was arguing with herself, "the poor boy does love me.  And, unlike
+some others, he is going to fight on the right side, to shed his blood,
+perhaps, for the land of his birth.  Why should I not be a little kind
+to him,--if he does not ask too much!"  On a sudden generous and
+pitying, if misleading, impulse, she took a ribbon from her throat and
+gave it to him.
+
+"There, boy," she said, gently, "take that, and don't ever say I was
+not good to you!  May it be a charm to ward off the bullet and the
+steel!"
+
+A glad light flashed into the lad's face.  He went down on one knee and
+kissed the hem of her skirt, crying something inarticulately.  Then he
+sprang up and seized her in his arms, and would have kissed her but
+that she wrenched herself free with some violence.
+
+"How dare you!" she cried, stamping her foot.
+
+Cary looked crestfallen and bewildered.
+
+"But, Barbara," he protested, blundering in his confusion, "don't you
+love me?  I thought--why--this dear ribbon--" and he held it out to her
+appealingly.
+
+Barbara's anger faded on the instant.  She saw that in desiring to be
+kind she had misled him.  She held out her hand to him, and smiled, as
+she said:
+
+"Oh, truly, I'm sorry if I seemed rude, Cary.  Forgive me.  But, you
+know, I _had_ to be rather hasty, or you would have kissed me.  And I
+couldn't let you kiss me, Cary, even though you are going to the war!"
+
+"Why not, dear heart?" persisted he.  "Am I not going as your chosen
+cavalier?  Have you not given me your favour?"
+
+"Why, no--at least, not exactly that--" she stammered.  "I thought you
+_knew_, Cary, that I don't love you one bit!  I've told you so over and
+over again; and I've sent you away over and over again for bothering me
+about it when I had told you not to!  But I do like you, ever so much.
+And I shall think of you, away fighting bravely--as I know you
+will--for our sacred cause.  And so, I gave you the
+ribbon--because--because--you said it would make you a little happier
+if you had something of the sort to take with you!  Oh, please do try
+to understand, Cary!"  And she twisted her hands in distress.
+
+Cary Patten was too much of a boy not to show all the bitterness of his
+overthrow.  He had been lifted up to the crest of triumph, and hurled
+down disastrously.  He had believed, when Barbara gave him her token,
+that the victory, which his confident spirit had never doubted would be
+his at last, had come at this high moment of his career.  He was not
+only desperately hurt, but sorely humbled.  His mind worked rapidly,
+seeking explanations.  One passion after another chased itself over his
+transparent face; till at length Barbara saw his features grow harder
+and more mature than she had ever before seen them, and the poor little
+ribbon was crumpled ruthlessly in his grip.
+
+"I understand!" he exclaimed, fiercely, a strident tone in his voice
+which was quite new to her.  "It is that runaway Tory hound, that
+traitor Gault, that--" and here he choked.  "If he has not already run
+away I shall settle the scoundrel to-night.  I shall--"
+
+"Silence, sir!" cut in Barbara.  The tone, the look in her face,
+brought the mad boy to his senses like a drenching in cold water.  He
+could have bitten off his tongue for the outburst.
+
+"Mr. Gault _was_ my friend, and his name is entitled to respect in my
+presence!" she went on. "And he _is_ a _gentleman_!  Of you I should
+have said the same thing--a few moments ago!  Give me back my
+ribbon--what you have left of it, Mr. Patten!"
+
+"Oh, no! no!  Forgive me!"  Cary was crying, in abject penitence, even
+while she spoke, at the same time thrusting the ribbon into his breast,
+as if he feared that Barbara would take it by force.  "I was crazy mad,
+dear heart.  I didn't know what I was saying.  I take it all back.  It
+was not so.  I know he is a gentleman and a brave man, if he _is_ a
+traitor Tory.  Surely you will forgive me, when you have broken my
+heart--Barbara."
+
+While he was speaking Barbara had moved away to the other side of the
+table; but now, so dejected did he look, so humble, so repentant, and
+withal so wholesomely boyish, that her heart softened once more, and
+she came back.
+
+"Yes, Cary, I will overlook it, and make allowance, because I see you
+are sorry.  And I am still truly your friend, and will think about you
+when you are away.  And I am sorry I did anything to make you
+misunderstand me, so you _must_ give me back the poor little ribbon
+that did the mischief."
+
+"No, you surely can't be so cruel as that!" he pleaded.  "I feel it
+would be unlucky to give it back.  Don't kill me, dear.  Let me keep
+the dear ribbon!"
+
+Barbara hesitated.  She wanted the ribbon back.  The giving had been
+spoiled for her.  Her impulse was to insist.  But events of late had
+softened her, had given her more comprehension of feelings other than
+her own,--had made her, indeed, a little less self-centred.  She
+crushed down her vexation.
+
+"Well, keep it then, Cary,--and my friendship with it," she said,
+gravely.  "And to the blessing with which I blessed it for you, I add
+many more,--that fame may come your way, and danger turn aside.
+Good-bye!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+Barbara felt as if a strange great wind had blown upon New York,
+scattering and changing everything.  Robert was gone,--when she was
+seeing little of him, and not desiring to see more, she had,
+nevertheless, had a satisfaction in knowing he was within reach.  Now
+Cary Patten was gone, and Jerry Waite was gone, and young Paget was
+gone, and the student enthusiast, young Mr. Hamilton, came no more to
+the old Dutch house on State Street, being engrossed in matters of
+secrecy and import.  And now she herself and Uncle Bob were going.  She
+felt as if that separating wind would inexorably have lifted and borne
+her somewhere, even if the haven of Second Westings had not been open.
+Fate drove indifferently, but left her free to shape her course for
+Westings House and Aunt Hitty, and her own apple-tree down in the back
+garden.
+
+A few days later she was at home.  Glenowen, resting but an hour or
+two, had hastened on to his duties.  Everything seemed to Barbara just
+as when she went away, save that Doctor Jim was graver than of old,
+seeming weighed down with care; and Doctor John's absence left a void
+that ached all the time.  But her little room was just as she had left
+it,--fresh dusted, and with a few things lying about out of place, as
+she loved to have it.  The dust upon the coverlet where "Mr. Grim"
+slept was there as of old.  "He did not, in fact, sleep there once
+during all your absence, dear," declared Mistress Mehitable, "till the
+very night before your return, when he forsook me and stalked back to
+his old place.  Then I knew that you'd be here the next day, and we
+were very happy together; and I gave him clear cream for his breakfast,
+and made him very sick!"
+
+Within three days the old life had taken Barbara back at every point,
+and she felt as if she had awakened from a brilliant but oppressive
+dream.  Of course it was interesting telling it all--or not quite
+all--to every one; to every one the truth, yet not to each the same
+story.  There was one emphasis for Aunt Hitty and Doctor Jim, one for
+the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer, one for Mercy Chapman, and one much more
+vivid and enlightening for old Debby.  But even as she told it, it
+began to seem unreal to herself.  And soon she grew unwilling to talk
+of it at all.
+
+As the bright Connecticut summer slipped by, Barbara could not but
+notice a change of temper among the villagers of Second Westings.  To
+herself they were as civil, as deferential as ever, but, she thought,
+with a little difference.  Half a dozen families had representatives in
+the army besieging Boston, and two of the village homes were in
+mourning.  When she was walking with Doctor Jim she noticed the
+sullenness with which his hearty, kindly greetings were returned,--a
+sullenness which Doctor Jim never allowed himself to observe.  Then
+there was difficulty in getting extra help when special needs arose at
+Westings House.  The people were unwilling to work for Mistress
+Mehitable.  They positively refused to work with Amos, who had to give
+up his innocently convivial evenings at the tavern and remain sulking
+in the kitchen, abused and scorned by Abby because he was always in her
+way.  In September, when Congress despatched the army of the north to
+conquer Canada, seven more men went from Second Westings, and
+enthusiasm grew.  With news of the capture of Montreal came word also
+that two of the Second Westings men had fallen in the battle.  Then
+feelings grew hot.
+
+One morning, when Barbara was visiting Mercy Chapman's mother,--now a
+bedridden invalid,--she looked out of the window and saw Mistress
+Mehitable coming down the street.  As she passed his office, she was
+joined by Doctor Jim, and the two strolled together toward Squire
+Gillig's store.  Suddenly she saw Doctor Jim leave Mistress Mehitable's
+side, and stride angrily toward the tavern.  She ran out at once to see
+what was the matter.  What she saw set her speeding after Doctor Jim in
+breathless indignation.
+
+Amos, his arms tied behind him, was struggling and kicking in the hands
+of a dozen men and youths, several of whom had bloody noses to prove
+that Amos had stood to his colours.  Now they were hurrying him to the
+cooper shop.--where they knew there was a barrel of pitch,--amid cries
+of "Ride the sneaking Tory on a rail," "Tar and feather him," "Duck
+him," "Hang him."  All at once they were confronted by the tall bulk of
+Doctor Jim; and they stopped short.  The old habit of deference was
+strong upon them, and several drew away, while others, though they
+doggedly maintained their grip on the furious and unterrified Amos,
+dropped their eyes and hung their heads when Doctor Jim's angry gaze
+fell upon them.
+
+"Hands off!  Drop that man!  You cowardly bullies, a dozen against one!
+Drop him, do you hear?"  And without waiting for the effect of his
+words he strode into the mob, flung the fringes of it to this side and
+that with no gentle hand, and reached those who had actual hold upon
+the prisoner.
+
+When he found that they were standing their ground, daring to disobey
+his orders, his wrath was tremendous.
+
+"You scoundrels!  You dirty scum of the earth!" he roared.  And with
+that he plucked the nearest fellow by the scruff of the neck and the
+seat of his breeches and flung him into the gutter.  To the next he
+gave an open-handed buffet that sent him reeling from the męlée.
+Ignoring the rest, he was proceeding to unpinion Amos, when the leader
+of the mob, a big blacksmith from Westings Centre, who was a famous
+demagogue, confronted him.
+
+"Look a-here, Doctor Pigeon," he said, defiantly, "we're lettin' _you_
+be, leastways for the present!  You let us be, an' jest mind yer own
+business.  Hands off yerself!"
+
+Doctor Jim, apparently, never heard him.
+
+The blacksmith therefore seized Amos by the waist and jerked him from
+Doctor Jim's grasp.
+
+"Look a-here, you!" he shouted, squaring off.  "You've got to fight me
+afore you untie that man!"
+
+Fight him!  Doctor Jim gave an inarticulate roar of scorn and fury at
+the idea.  Then his great white hands shot out like lightning.  One
+seized the champion's throat; the other laid terrible hold upon his
+waistband, with just so much of clothing and skin and flesh as those
+iron fingers could compass.  One huge, dislocating shake and the
+champion had no more fight in him.  Doctor Jim lifted his demoralised
+opponent bodily, carried him several paces, and dropped him over the
+horse trough into the dirty, deep-trodden mud.  Then, seeing that Amos
+had got himself free, he strode back to where Mistress Mehitable was
+waiting, his heavy eyebrows still working with indignation.
+
+Barbara, whom he had not seen, now had a word to say to the discomfited
+rabble, who one and all knew her views and admired her prodigiously.
+She eyed them for half a minute with slow, eviscerating scorn.  Then
+she said: "_You_ call yourselves patriots!  You make me ashamed of the
+name.  If all Americans were like you they'd deserve freedom, wouldn't
+they?  And what is that ruffian doing here?" pointing to the
+bedraggled, discredited, foaming blacksmith.  "Must you go to Westings
+Centre for a leader?  You had better send him back where he belongs!"
+
+"You'd better shet your mouth, miss," sputtered the champion, "or you
+may git--" but at this moment the men of Second Westings, recovering
+their manhood, fell upon him with great unanimity and completed the
+discipline which Doctor Jim had left unfinished.  And Barbara walked
+away with her head in the air.
+
+After this Mistress Mehitable, who was herself, and for herself,
+absolutely fearless behind her quiet blue eyes, yielded to Doctor Jim's
+persuasions and let it be known that Barbara, being her heir, was
+partly in authority at Westings House.  Whenever extra help was needed,
+therefore, Amos was sent down to Doctor Jim's and Barbara hired her
+helpers in her own name.  To her employ the Second Westings men came
+willingly enough, and showed themselves humourously tolerant of Abby's
+caustic tongue, which was given full run whenever they entered the
+kitchen.  And the village settled back gradually into a hollow
+imitation of its ancient somnolence.
+
+In the winter, however, not long after Christmas, there was another
+stirring of the hot embers.  Word came of Montgomery's death and
+Arnold's repulse before the walls of Quebec.  There were men of
+Connecticut among those who fell that night in the northern snow.
+Those at home required an outlet for their feelings.  What were the
+Tories for, if not to afford them a chance of evening matters up?  A
+rabble of the worser elements from the up-river villages, led by some
+noisy fanatics, descended upon Gault House by night, and set it on fire.
+
+Finding old Lady Gault ill in bed, they somewhat regretted their haste,
+and carried her, bed and all, with as much of her clothing as they
+could conveniently save, to the house of one of the tenants on the
+grounds.  The leaders apologised to her, indeed, assuring her that, had
+they known it would so inconvenience her to have her house burnt down
+just then, they would have turned their avenging attention elsewhere
+for that night and awaited her recovery.  The fiery and arrogant old
+lady was so overwhelmed with helpless rage, less at the destruction of
+the home of the Gaults with all its treasures than at the desecration
+she had suffered, that she was seized next morning with an apoplexy and
+died in an hour.
+
+This news brought consternation to Westings House.  Doctor Jim came up
+to talk it over.  He was too much enraged to find relief in one of his
+customary large ebullitions.  It reduced him to a black silence, which
+Barbara found much more impressive than his wrath.
+
+"I feel that you ought to go away, Jim," said Mistress Mehitable, with
+a tenderness that made Barbara eye them both sharply, and think of
+Doctor John.  "These townships are no place for a reckless partisan
+like you!"
+
+"There is just one reason why you might urge me to go, sweet mistress!"
+said he.  "Lest I be prisoned here, and so lose the chance to fight for
+the king!  But my place is here till John comes back.  You and Barbara
+cannot be left alone.  And the sick folks,--I cannot desert them.  But
+when John comes--"
+
+"If it be not then too late!  Oh, think, Jim!  Every hour now that you
+stay here carries the menace of some ignominious violence!  How can I
+stand it?"
+
+"My place is here, at present, most dear lady!" answered Doctor Jim,
+with a positiveness that left no room for argument.  "But I think the
+men of Second Westings would not quite fail Jim Pigeon, even though
+they do curse him behind his back for a Tory!"
+
+The destruction of Gault House and the death of Lady Gault filled
+Barbara's heart with pity and tenderness toward Robert.  It oppressed
+her with a feeling that he was left desolate, a homeless and wandering
+outcast.  She wondered where and when the news would reach him,--being
+such evil news she felt sure it would journey fast.  No word or rumour
+had she heard of him since that day of their harsh parting in the old
+Dutch house on State Street.
+
+A few days later she heard from Glenowen, who was now in command of one
+of the regiments besieging Boston, that Cary Patten, after covering
+himself with glory by his wild daring and desperate exploits, had
+fallen with Montgomery before the walls of Quebec.  This news sent
+Barbara to her room for the afternoon.  Besides her many tears for the
+gallant boy, who had loved her gallantly and truly, she could not for
+the moment rid herself of a vague remorse.  Had she been quite fair to
+him?  Had she encouraged him even while repelling him?  At first she
+called herself guilty.  But after some hours of this self-reproach she
+came to a clearer view, and saw that it was sentimental weakness to
+accuse herself.  Her grief on his account, however, was deep and
+sincere.  "Poor, beautiful, brave boy!" she sighed, at last.  "How
+little good to him were my token and my blessings!  I fear I am a
+curse, and not a blessing, to any one who greatly cares for me!"  Then
+the thought flashed across her--"If it were Robert, instead of poor
+Cary!  How do I know that Robert, too, has not been--" and at the
+thought her heart stood still.  A sort of numbness came over her, and
+she found herself shaking violently.  She had been lying with her face
+in the pillow, but now she sat up sharply, brushed the thick, dark
+locks back from her eyes, went over to the dressing-table, lit two
+candles, and looked at her white, frightened face in the glass.
+
+"I didn't know I cared--like that!" she said to herself, at last.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+In the spring, a little before the fall of Boston, Doctor John came
+home.  Second Westings learned then for the first time what he had so
+studiously and considerately kept concealed,--the fact that he had been
+wounded in a skirmish two months before.  As soon as he was well enough
+for the journey, he had been ordered home.  He looked gaunt, and walked
+with some difficulty, but otherwise seemed fairly well; and he made
+haste to take back his old patients, with many expressions of amazement
+that they had not died off under Jim Pigeon's treatment.
+
+His coming brought new cheer to Westings House; and to Barbara,
+reassured by his explicit accounts of her uncle's abounding health, it
+meant such stimulus and diversion as was to be had of endless,
+sympathetic talks.  The little group of four were as close to one
+another as of old,--yet with a difference.  The love and trust were as
+of old, but the dividing of hopes and aims threw Barbara more and more
+with Doctor John, Mistress Mehitable more and more with Doctor Jim.
+This seemed perfectly natural,--yet it soon began to cause a certain
+heaviness on Doctor John's part, which made his whimsical sallies grow
+infrequent.  It caused, at the same time, a certain uneasiness on the
+part of Doctor Jim; and Mistress Mehitable was seen more than once with
+tears in her eyes, when, as it seemed to Barbara, there was no very
+definite reason for the phenomenon.  And all these symptoms troubled
+Barbara.  She grew more than commonly tender of Doctor John.
+
+One day when she and Doctor John and Doctor Jim had strolled down to
+the tavern to see the Hartford coach come in, they found a knot of
+eager listeners gathered about two horsemen who were drinking a pot of
+ale.  As the little party approached, its members were pointed out, and
+the horsemen turned to look at them with sharp interest.  The two came
+from up the river, in the next county, and were on their way to join
+the Connecticut battalions under Putnam.  They were bitter partisans,
+and one of them had lost a brother in the fighting at Quebec.  To them
+it was of little account that Doctor John was a good rebel,--such, in
+their eyes, all good men were bound to be.  And they did not appreciate
+the fact that he was an officer in the army they were about to join.
+What they saw was simply Doctor Jim, the declared Tory, shameless and
+unafraid.  They eyed him with growing menace, uncertain, by reason of
+the fact that he was walking between Barbara and Doctor John, just what
+they wanted to do.
+
+Presently Doctor Jim swung away by himself to speak to a lad whose
+mother he was treating.  He was giving some little order, when the two
+horsemen, riding up to him, thrust him against the icy watering-trough
+so unexpectedly that he fell over it.  Bewildered, and not
+understanding that he had been deliberately attacked, he was picking
+himself up in a sputter of vexation, when one of the riders, a
+fierce-eyed, burly fanatic, reached over the trough and cut at him
+viciously with his riding-whip, exclaiming, "Take that, you damned Tory
+dog!"
+
+The blow missed Doctor Jim's head, but fell smartly across his
+shoulders.  The next moment a great hand seized the rider, tore him
+from his seat, jammed him furiously against his horse's rump, and
+dashed him down upon the dirty snow.  Then Doctor John turned to deal
+likewise with the second culprit.  But he had forgotten his wound.  He
+grew white, reeled, and would have fallen, but that two of the Second
+Westings men sprang to his aid and held him up.
+
+When the stroke of the whip fell on his shoulders, Doctor Jim had
+understood.  With one of his wordless explosive roars he had sprung
+right over the trough to take Homeric vengeance.  But when he saw
+Doctor John he forgot all about vengeance, he forgot all about the
+attack.
+
+"What is it, John?" he cried, picking him up as if the huge frame were
+a feather, and carrying him to the settee outside the inn door.
+
+"Nothing, Jim, nothing!  The old wound, you know, and the heart not yet
+just right," muttered Doctor John, recovering quickly, but leaning on
+his brother's shoulder.  Barbara, meanwhile, had run to fetch brandy,
+which she now brought, along with the landlord.
+
+The two horsemen had had their wrath for the moment diverted by the
+sudden turn of events.  But now--the fellow who had been so mauled in
+Doctor John's grip having remounted, bursting with rage--they thought
+it time to return to the attack, and made an effort to push through the
+little crowd.  Failing in this, they cursed Doctor Jim with varied
+vigour, and told him what they intended to do when they could get at
+him.  In their righteous wrath they failed to notice that they were not
+making themselves popular with the crowd.  Neither Doctor Jim nor
+Barbara paid the slightest attention to their curses, not seeming to
+hear them; but Doctor John attended.
+
+"Lads!" he said, lifting his head with difficulty.  "Lads of Second
+Westings!  Shall we let these insolent scoundrels talk to us that way?"
+
+"No, sir!  No, sir!  No, sir!" shouted a dozen voices,--whereupon
+Barbara turned and beamed upon them unutterable favour.  The landlord,
+with several other stout fellows, seized the strangers' bridles and
+forced the horses back toward the road.
+
+"Ye'd better be gettin' on!" admonished mine host, grinning but
+decisive.  "Ye don't rightly understand us here, I calculate!  Better
+get on now, for convenience!"
+
+The horsemen seemed to have forgotten their wrath in their astonishment.
+
+"Are you all Tories, too?" they found voice to demand.
+
+"We're as good patriots as ever you be!" rejoined mine host, crisply.
+"But if we've got any Tories among us they're our own, and we'll see
+about 'em ourselves, our own way.  Now clear out!"  And he hit the nigh
+horse a smart slap on the rump, making him bound forward.
+
+By this time the leader and spokesman of the twain had recovered his
+full head of anger.  He had no quixotic notion of undertaking to
+discipline Second Westings village.  But he conceived a very clear
+purpose.  Reining his excited horse down violently, he shook his fist
+at the crowd, and shouted:
+
+"If you choose to harbour a dirty Tory, there be men and patriots in
+the other townships who'll come right soon an' teach you yer duty!"
+
+"Oh, you clear out!" jeered the Second Westings men.
+
+That evening, at Westings House, while the beginnings of a bleak March
+wind storm blustered and whimpered outside, Mistress Mehitable brewed a
+hot posset of uncommonly cheering quality.  The cheer was needed; for
+all felt that a crisis of some sort, or some grave change, was at hand.
+Doctor John, who had quite recovered, tried in vain to make his fooling
+sound spontaneous.  The grave eyes of Destiny would persist in looking
+out through the jester's-mask.  At length Doctor Jim exclaimed,
+abruptly:
+
+"I must go, now!  I must take Amos and slip away in the night, and go
+wherever men are gathering to fight for the king.  I'm not needed here
+now, John, since you are back to take care of Mehitable and Barbara!"
+
+It was what all had been waiting for, but it came with a shock--the
+shock of conviction, not of surprise--to all.  Mistress Mehitable
+turned ghost pale, and unconsciously her hand went to her heart.
+Doctor John noticed the action, with sad eyes that belied the humour of
+his mouth.  Barbara sprang up, rushed over to Doctor Jim, and flung her
+arms around his neck.
+
+"_Please_ don't go, Doctor Jim!" she pleaded.  "This is the place for
+you.  And here we all love you so we don't care _what_ side you're on.
+And as for going to fight for your side,--of course, you want to, we
+all know that,--but you _never_ can get through to the coast.  You can
+never get through our people.  No, you can't, Doctor Jim!  You must
+stay here with us.  Help me hold him, Aunt Hitty!"
+
+"Jim," said Doctor John, his voice trembling with earnestness, "I
+appeal to you to stay.  Don't break our hearts by going.  Stay for our
+sakes.  I know, brother, how you feel,--and believing as you do, I
+don't blame you,--I'll never blame you.  But _Barbara is right_.  _You
+can't get through_.  You can stay with a clear conscience!"
+
+Mistress Mehitable, since becoming assured of the attitude of the
+Second Westings men, had lost all her dread of having him stay, and
+gained a quivering fear of having him go.  Forgetful of all else, she
+now laid her slim hand on his, looked at him with her whole soul in her
+eyes, and said:
+
+"_Must_ you?  Oh, Jim, are you so sure you ought to go?"
+
+A faint spasm passed over Doctor John's face--Barbara alone observing
+it--and seemed to leave it older and sterner.  He opened his mouth to
+speak, but Doctor Jim was ahead of him.
+
+"Yes, I know my duty.  If a man sees it, he's got to do it,--eh, what,
+dearest lady in the world?  I wish I didn't see it so plain.  Then I
+might stay here with you all, you whom I love.  But I see my duty, to
+fight for the king, just as plain as you saw yours, John, to fight for
+your damned old Congress!"
+
+"I'm not going to fight any more!" interrupted Doctor John, speciously.
+
+Doctor Jim laughed, tenderly derisive.
+
+"No, but you're sending, and equipping, and supporting two able-bodied
+substitutes, aren't you?  But another point is, my Barbara,--by staying
+I should bring disaster on you all.  The good folk of Second
+Westings--and they _are_ good folk, though rebels, alas!--will never
+stand by and see the Ladds and Pigeons, whatever their views, molested
+by an outside world.  When your fiery patriots from up the river come
+to ride me on a rail, Second Westings will stand in the way and get its
+honest head broken.  _You_ wouldn't do it, John Pigeon!  You'd cut off
+your head, before you'd let the poor souls get their heads broken for
+you in a cause that they believe all wrong.  I'd be a coward to let
+them, John.  Would you ask me to be a coward?"
+
+"Wouldn't be much use asking," growled Doctor John.  "But you're all
+wrong, as usual, Jim!"  Then he turned suddenly to Mistress Mehitable,
+with a meaning look.
+
+"You speak, Mehitable!  You _make_ him stay.  Demand it of him--as your
+right!  Keep him!"
+
+Doctor Jim searched his brother's face, first with terrible question,
+then with the growing light of a great joy.  Barbara watched
+breathless, forgetful of the fate of dynasties.  Here, she felt, were
+problems that had held long lives in doubt, now working to instant
+solution.  Mistress Mehitable turned scarlet, and she, too, questioned
+the sombre, tender eyes of Doctor John.  But she said, quite simply:
+
+"I'm afraid, John, if he thinks he ought to go he'll go.  But I do ask
+you to stay, Jim."
+
+"_Don't_, Mehitable!" groaned Doctor Jim.
+
+"There, what did I tell you, John?" she said.
+
+But now certain things, uncertain all his life till now, were quite
+clear to Doctor John.  Slowly, as if it hurt him, he got up.  He went
+over to where Mehitable was sitting, quite close to Doctor Jim.  He
+laid a hand on each, caressingly,--and to Mehitable that touch,
+suddenly grown bold and firm, was a renunciation.  He had never touched
+her that way before.
+
+"It is all right, Jim!  It is all right, Mehitable!" said he, in a very
+low but quite steady voice.  "I never was sure till now,--but I ought
+to have understood,--for I see now it was always _yours_, Jim.  Forgive
+me, brother.  I ought not to have stood in the way."
+
+"John!" cried Doctor Jim, catching the caressing hand in a fervent
+clasp.  "God bless you!  But--on my honour I have never said a word!"
+
+"I know, Jim, I know.  We've always played fair to each other.  But now
+you can speak.  And now,--you don't need to speak, either of you.  Your
+faces speak plain enough, to the eyes of one who loves you both!"
+
+"Is it true, Mehitable?  After all these years that I've kept
+silence,--oh, is it true?" asked Doctor Jim, scarcely above a whisper,
+reaching out his hands to her longingly.
+
+For one instant she laid hers in his.  Then she withdrew them quickly,
+seized Doctor John's hand in both of hers, laid her cheek against it,
+and burst into tears.
+
+"Oh, John, dear John," she sobbed.  "How can I bear that you should be
+unhappy?"
+
+Doctor John blinked, and made a little noise in his throat.  Then, with
+a brave levity, he exclaimed:
+
+"Tut!  Tut!  Don't you worry about me, either of you, now.  As for you,
+Jim Pigeon, you Tory scoundrel, I'm getting the best of you, after all.
+For I stay right here and take care of her, Lord knows how long, while
+you go off, Lord knows where, and get yourself poked full of holes for
+your old King George--  Eh, what, baggage? as Jim would say!"  And he
+turned unexpectedly toward Barbara, who had been standing by the
+window, and peering diligently out into the blackness for the past ten
+minutes,--and surreptitiously wiping her eyes as well as her nose.
+
+"Yes, indeed you _do_ get the best of the bargain," she cheerfully and
+mendaciously agreed.
+
+Two days later, in the dark before moonrise, Doctor Jim and Amos
+slipped away on horseback by the road to Westings Landing.  And Doctor
+John went with them as far as the Landing, to put them into trusty
+hands for their night voyage down the river.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+A few days after Doctor Jim's going, came the news that Washington had
+entered Boston, the troops of the king having given up the defence and
+sailed away to Halifax.  Soon afterward there was bustle in Second
+Westings, and camp talk, and military swagger; for a portion of the
+army was moving down to New York, and many men had leave to visit their
+homes in passing; and some, who had enlisted for a short service, had
+come home to get in the crops before reënlisting; and some, grudging
+souls, had come home to stay, saying that it was now the time for
+others to sweat and bleed for their country.
+
+Amid all this excitement, which had some effect even upon Mistress
+Mehitable, antagonistic though she was to it, the palely brilliant
+Connecticut spring rushed over the land with promise.  Never before, it
+seemed, did the vanguards of the song-sparrows and thrushes so crowd
+the blowing thickets with melody; never before the bright hordes of the
+dandelions so suddenly and so goldenly over-flood the meadows.  But to
+Barbara the iridescent glory was somehow more sad than gloom.  The fact
+that her cause was everywhere prospering, that success had fallen to
+the Continental arms beyond anything that she had dared to hope,
+brought her no elation.  She felt the sorrow that had come into Doctor
+John's life in spite of the big, whimsical gaiety with which he kept it
+covered up.  She felt the fierce tugging at Mistress Mehitable's
+heart-strings, though that thoroughbred little lady never revealed,
+save by the dark eye-shadows of sleepless nights, the pangs it cost her
+to be deprived in a day of the lover whom she had been half a lifetime
+in finding out.  Barbara felt, too, the absence of Doctor Jim, who
+seemed to her so big and boyish and reckless and unfit to take care of
+himself that he could not fail to get into trouble if not kept at home
+and mothered by small women like herself and Aunt Hitty.  And most of
+all she felt the crushing uncertainty as to Robert.
+
+When summer was approaching high tide, Second Westings grew quiet
+again, the soldiers being all called back to their colours to make
+ready the defences of New York.  Then, by hard-riding express
+messengers, the tidings flew over the country that Congress at
+Philadelphia, on the fourth day of July, had declared independence, and
+set up a republic to be known as the "United States of America."
+Second Westings went wild with enthusiasm, and that night there was a
+terrific consumption of old tar barrels and dry brush.  And there was a
+select little dinner at Squire Gillig's, to which Barbara and Doctor
+John felt in duty bound to go,--and from which Mistress Mehitable, with
+an equal devotion to duty, stayed away.  She had taken the news
+gracefully enough, however, merely suggesting to Barbara and Doctor
+John that possibly all the rejoicing might turn out to be a little
+premature.
+
+Thereafter it seemed to Barbara that events moved furiously, one piece
+of vital news following close upon the heels of its predecessor.  Early
+in August came word that a great English army for the capture of New
+York was landing at Staten Island.  Then, the first tidings of
+Robert,--reaching Barbara in a letter from her uncle, whose regiment
+was holding Brooklyn.  Glenowen wrote that from certain neutrals,
+country-folk of Long Island, who had no party but their cabbage-patch,
+he had learned of both Robert Gault and Doctor Jim.  Doctor Jim, as
+representing one of the oldest and most distinguished families of
+Connecticut, and himself widely known, had been attached to the staff
+of the English general, Sir William Howe, while Robert Gault, with the
+rank of captain, was in command of a troop of irregular Loyalist Horse.
+With the unspeakable relief that these tidings brought her, Barbara
+regained for a few days her old vivacity, imperiousness, and daring.
+She tore about the country wildly as of old, on horseback,--no longer,
+as a rule, on Black Prince, who had grown too sedate to fully fall in
+with her caprices, but on a fiery young sorrel which she had bought for
+herself, choosing it partly for its own qualities, and partly for its
+resemblance to Robert's old Narragansett pacer.  She resumed her
+canoeing on the lake.  She sang again her old plantation songs, to
+Doctor John's accompaniment and Mistress Mehitable's diversion.  She
+put a new and gayer ribbon on the neck of the furry "Mr. Grim."  She
+even remembered that the bergamot was in flower, and set herself with
+interest to the distilling of her half-forgotten "Water of Maryland
+Memories," laughing indulgently the while at the girlishly sentimental
+name of it.  Meantime she was conscious of a curiously divided interest
+in the war,--conscious that her interest was divided in a fashion that
+would, a year ago, have seemed to her wicked and impossible.  Just as
+passionately as ever was her heart set upon the triumph of her cause.
+But she felt an irrational desire that Robert and Doctor Jim should win
+each a splendid victory on his own account.  She was full of pity that
+they should be on what she held the surely losing side, and she wanted
+some measure of glory to be theirs.
+
+But the next news that came dashed her spirits.  It told of the battle
+of Long Island, and the defeat of the Continentals by the ordered
+British lines.  It told of the panic flight of patriot regiments.  It
+told of General Washington's retreat from Long Island and entrenching
+of the army at New York.  A few days later came a letter to Barbara
+from Glenowen,--whose regiment had stood firm and suffered heavily,--in
+which he said that he did not think it would be possible to hold New
+York with the troops at Washington's command, and that there would
+doubtless soon be a further retreat to some position beyond the Harlem.
+The letter made no mention of Doctor Jim,--which caused Barbara to
+remind Mistress Mehitable that no news was good news,--but it spoke
+with somewhat bitter praise of Robert Gault.  It said that Robert's
+little squadron of mad Tories had gone through the Continental ranks
+like flame, irresistible and deadly, and had done more than anything
+else to cause the breaking of Putnam's lines.  Robert had had his horse
+shot under him, and his hat shot off, but had himself, as report said,
+escaped without a scratch, though with a much diminished troop.  As she
+was reading this out to Mistress Mehitable, all at once and to her deep
+mortification her scrupulously matter-of-fact voice thrilled and broke.
+Mistress Mehitable shot her a glance of swift understanding and
+sympathy, and then pretended that she had noticed nothing unusual.
+Barbara coughed, and went on.  But her voice had become unmanageable.
+With an impatient gesture and a toss of her head she handed over the
+letter.
+
+"You'll have to read it yourself, honey!  It upsets me to hear of our
+poor fellows beaten like this!" she cried, hypocritically.
+
+"Of course, dear, I quite understand!" replied Mistress Mehitable,
+keeping her eyes strictly upon the letter, that she might the more
+easily seem deceived.
+
+A few days later, Glenowen's prediction was fulfilled, and the news
+that came to Second Westings was of Washington's hasty retreat from New
+York to the Harlem Heights, leaving his artillery and heavy baggage
+behind.  Then for a month there was expectancy, and to Barbara in her
+quiet green land it seemed marvellous that the two armies could lie
+facing each other in this way, day after day, and not be stirred to
+decisive action.  She wondered how their nerves could bear the strain
+of such waiting.
+
+The bright September dragged by in drowsy fashion, and October ran on
+in its blue and golden-brown; and then the word that came was of yet
+another retreat.  The British had enlarged their narrow borders, and
+Washington had drawn back to the line of the Bronx, where he fortified
+himself strongly so as to hold the roads leading inland.  Would he
+never stop retreating, questioned Barbara, anxiously, echoing the cry
+that went up all over the infant Union.  "I think not, dear!" responded
+Mistress Mehitable, cheerfully.  But Doctor John, who understood the
+conditions, declared that this Fabian policy was the only sound one,
+while the Continental troops were getting seasoned and learning the
+arts of war.  Even while this teaching was being digested, came word of
+the fierce battle of White Plains, where the two armies, in numbers
+closely matched, long held each other by the throat without decisive
+advantage.  When, two days later, the Continentals again withdrew, this
+time to hasty entrenchments at New Castle, Doctor John had hard work to
+convince Barbara that this long-drawn-out and bloody struggle was not
+an American defeat.  For days thereafter word kept coming in, telling
+of the losses on both sides, and supplying vivid details; and the
+blinds of mourning were drawn down in more than one modest Second
+Westings home.  A brief message came from Glenowen, saying that he was
+safe and well.  But of Doctor Jim no word; of Robert not a word.  And
+Barbara and Mistress Mehitable durst not meet each other's eyes lest
+either should read therein, and cry aloud, the fear in the other's
+heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+With the coming in of this tumultuous November, there came to Second
+Westings a few days of Indian summer magic.  The moveless air seemed a
+distillation of dreams.  The faint azure haze hung everywhere, soft yet
+cool, with an elusive fragrance as of clean smoke and fading roses and
+fresh earth-mould and lofts of grain.  And on one of these consecrated
+days Barbara set out early in the morning to paddle across the lake and
+see old Debby.
+
+As on a morning long ago, but not so early, she ran down the back
+garden path, and behind the barn, and climbed the pasture bars.  This
+time she called to Keep; and the big mastiff, who now slept later than
+of old, came somewhat stiffly gamboling from his manger bed in the
+horse stable.  She tripped along the pasture path, between the
+hillocks.  She trod rapidly the black earth of the old wood-road, where
+the shadows were lighter now, and no sound broke the stillness save the
+eerie sigh and footfall of the dropping leaves.  She launched the canoe
+with easy vigour, motioned Keep to his place in the bow, and pushed out
+with strong, leisurely strokes across the enchanted mirror.  That
+far-off morning of her flight came back to her with strange poignancy,
+and she wondered if the blue heron would be standing at the outlet to
+admonish her with his enigmatic gaze.
+
+As she approached the outlet, the point was vacant.  But suddenly a
+strange, dishevelled figure, hatless, and in a blood-stained British
+uniform, emerged from the trees near by, came down amid the tall yellow
+grasses, and stood staring across the lake.  He stood thus with blank
+eyes for a moment, apparently not seeing the canoe, then pitched
+forward, and lay on his face close to the water's edge.
+
+With one sharp cry of his name, Barbara surged upon the paddle and shot
+the canoe toward land, wasting no mare breath on words.  She sprang
+ashore, turned the still form over, loosened the low vest and the
+throat of the shirt, and dashed water in the white, stained, deathlike
+face.  At first she thought he was dead, and she felt things growing
+black before her eyes.  Then she caught herself, and held herself
+steady for the need.  If she could not be strong now, what right had
+she to call herself a woman, or to love a man.  She felt at his heart
+and found that he was alive.  She saw that he was sorely wounded.  She
+told herself that he had swooned from loss of blood, weariness,
+hunger,--but that he had lived, would live, must live.  Then she
+dragged him further back into the grass, where he was hidden.
+
+Calling Keep from the canoe, she sat down for a moment with Robert's
+head in her lap, and planned what should be done.  He must not be found
+in Second Westings, that she knew.  For an English prisoner of war it
+would be all very well,--but for a Tory it might be different.  She
+could take no risks.  In a moment or two her mind was made up.  She
+bent over, and kissed the unresponding mouth.  Then she rose, and
+turned to Keep, who had stood sniffing at Robert's clothes with
+sympathetic interest.  They were shocking clothes, but Keep dimly
+remembered the man within them.  Barbara pointed to the helpless
+figure, saying:
+
+"Lie down, Keep!"
+
+And Keep lay down, with his muzzle on Robert's arm.
+
+"Guard, sir!" commanded Barbara.  And Keep rolled upon her a
+comprehending and obedient eye.  Then she pushed off the canoe, and
+paddled hastily down the river to fetch old Debby.
+
+During all these years since Barbara's interrupted flight, no one had
+really read her heart, or been the unacknowledged recipient of her
+confidences, so fully as Mrs. Debby Blue.  Now, when Barbara arrived,
+breathless, with great, strained eyes, tears in her voice, but her red
+mouth sternly set, the old woman understood with few words.  At another
+time, Barbara would have been amazed at this swift understanding.  Now,
+she was only grateful for it.  While she was explaining, Debby was
+rummaging on shelves and in boxes, looking for sundry simples of her
+cunning extraction.  At last she said:
+
+"Don't you be worried, my sweeting.  If Mr. Robert kin be cured up, old
+Debby's the one that kin cure him up, well as any doctor in the land,
+not even exceptin' Doctor Jim.  An' I've got the place where we kin
+hide him, too, an' keep him safe till he gits well.  An' now, I'm after
+you, Miss Barby, sweetheart!"
+
+"God bless your dear, true heart, Debby," cried Barbara, leading the
+way in hot haste to the canoe.
+
+When they arrived at the point, Robert was just recovering
+consciousness, in a dazed fashion.  They saw him make an effort to sit
+up; and they saw Keep, who was nothing if not literal in his
+interpretation of Barbara's commands, put his two huge fore paws on
+Robert's breast and firmly push him down again.  The tears jumped to
+Barbara's eyes at this, and she gave a little hysterical laugh,
+exclaiming:
+
+"Just look at that, Debby!  Good _dear_ old Keep!  Even he knows that
+Robert must be kept hidden!"
+
+When they got to him, he sat up determinedly, and recognised Barbara
+with a look of utter content.
+
+"You, my lady!  I have come a very long way to look--" and then he sank
+off again, falling back into Barbara's supporting arms.
+
+[Illustration: _He sank off again, falling back into Barbara's
+supporting arms_.]
+
+"Why, he's _starved_, that's what he is!" exclaimed Debby, examining
+him critically and feeling his pulse.  "An' he's lost pretty nigh all
+the blood was ever in him.  An' he's got two wounds here, either one
+enough to do for a man!"
+
+She forced some fiery liquor down his throat, and then, as a faint
+colour came back to his lips, she gave him to drink from a bottle of
+milk.  He drank eagerly, but automatically, without opening his eyes.
+
+"He's been wounded at White Plains, poor dear!" murmured Barbara,
+leaning over him a face of brooding tenderness.
+
+"An' he's wandered all the way up here, a-lookin' for you, Miss Barby!"
+responded the old woman.
+
+"Do you really think so?" murmured Barbara.
+
+"No manner of doubt!" said old Debby, positively, as she set about
+dressing and binding Robert's wounds.
+
+In a little while Robert was able to sit up again; and then to be
+helped to his feet; and then to be half guided, half carried to the
+canoe.  There he was placed on a bed of heaped armfuls of dry grass.
+Old Debby squatted precariously in the bow,--she was more at home in a
+punt than in a canoe,--and Barbara thrust out from shore, heading down
+the little river.
+
+Robert was still too far gone in exhaustion to explain his strange
+appearance at Second Westings, or to ask any questions, or to care
+where he was going, so long as he was able to open his eyes every once
+in awhile and look at Barbara.  When he did so, Barbara would smile
+back reassuringly, and lay a slim brown finger on her lips, as a sign
+that he was not to talk.  And happily he would close his eyes again.
+
+Barbara paddled down past Debby's landing, past the ducks and hens and
+turkeys, now too lazy to make more than casual comment.  Keep,
+meanwhile, followed anxiously along the shore, close to the edge, and
+now and then splashing in belly deep.
+
+"How far is it, Debby dear?" asked Barbara, presently.
+
+"Jest a little mite furder," answered the old woman, who relished the
+situation immensely.  "A matter of half a mile, maybe!"
+
+And so they slipped noiselessly on, in that enchanted light, over that
+enchanted water with its reflections of amber and blue.  Some crows,
+grown suddenly garrulous over private matters, cawed pleasantly in the
+pine-tops a little way off against the sky, and then subsided again
+into silence.
+
+On both banks of the stream the trees held out their leaves, russet and
+gold, amethyst and bronze and scarlet, like so many little elfin hands
+attesting that all fair dreams come true at last for those who have the
+key to the inner mysteries.
+
+Barbara was paddling in a dream herself, when suddenly old Debby said,
+"Turn in here, my sweeting!  Here to your right!"
+
+"But where?" asked Barbara, puzzled.  "I don't see any place to turn
+in!"
+
+"Straight through them dripping branches yonder by the water-logged
+stump!" directed the old woman.  "Straight on through!"
+
+As the prow of the canoe came up to what was seemingly the shore, old
+Debby parted the branches.  As the canoe pushed onward, she continued
+this process,--and a few feet in from the main stream they entered a
+long, narrow deadwater, deep and clear, and perfectly hidden from the
+world.  It was perhaps a hundred yards in length, slightly winding; and
+at its head, on a gentle rise, stood a little deserted log cabin.
+
+"Oh, _Debby_!" cried Barbara.  "How did you ever find such a place?"
+
+"It's been empty this ten year!" answered Debby.  "An' folks has
+forgotten, that ever knowed.  An' I've been keepin' it to myself, when
+I wanted to get away from the ducks an' hens a mite.  An' I've kep' it
+from fallin' to pieces.  I'll nurse Master Robert here till he's able
+to get away, if it takes a year.  An' I'll come back and forward in my
+punt.  There's a bunk ready now, full of pine-needles; an' when we get
+him into it we'll go back to make it all right with Aunt Hitty.
+_Ain't_ I got a head on my old shoulders, now, Miss Barby?"
+
+Even as Debby had so swiftly and fully planned, it was done.  Robert
+was still so far gone in exhaustion, and so wandering in his mind, that
+Barbara would not let him talk; and before they left him--with Keep an
+incorruptible sentry at the door--he had fallen into a deep sleep.
+When they returned a couple hours later, he was awake and quite clear,
+and so determined to talk that Barbara could not but let him.  He sat
+up in the bunk, but Barbara, bending shining eyes down close to his,
+laid him back upon the pillow.
+
+"Debby says you must not sit up at all, Robert!" she said.
+
+"And what do you say, my lady?" he asked, devouring her radiant dark
+face with his eyes.
+
+"I say so, too!" she answered, laughing softly.
+
+"Why, my lady?" he persisted.
+
+"Because it will hinder you getting well, Silly!" she replied, touching
+his hair with cool fingers.
+
+"What matter about a 'damned Tory' getting well?" he began, being very
+weak and foolish.  But the slim hand sweetly closed his mouth.
+
+"How did you get here--to me?" Barbara asked, changing the subject.
+
+He smiled up at her.
+
+"We charged through the rebels!" he explained, frankly.  "We cut them
+down, and scattered them, and chased them till we were within the
+enemy's lines.  Then we could not get back.  They surrounded us.  They
+overwhelmed us.  We were annihilated.  I escaped, I shall never know
+how, hatless and horseless, as you found me, my lady, I tried to get
+back to my regiment.  It was no use.  Then, somehow, a spirit in my
+feet led me back here, to you.  I just escaped capture a score of
+times.  I had nothing to eat for days, save roots and leaves.  I
+remember coming to the shore of the dear lake, and straining my eyes
+across it, to see the chimneys of the house where my love lay.  Then I
+saw no more, knew no more, till I saw my love herself in very truth,
+leaning her face over mine.  And I thought I was in heaven, my lady."
+
+"You still love me, Robert, after the hideous way I treated you?"
+questioned Barbara, her voice a little tremulous.
+
+He started again to sit up; but being again suppressed, was fain to
+content himself with clutching both her hands to his lips.
+
+"There is nothing in the world but you, Barbara," he said.  "There is
+nothing I want but you, wonderful one!"
+
+"Then--you may take me, Robert, I think!" she whispered, dropping her
+face, and brushing his lips with her hair.
+
+"Me?" he cried, in a voice suddenly strong, glad, and incredulous.
+"Me?  Sick near to death, hunted near to death, a beaten and fleeing
+enemy, a Tory?  I may take you, my queen, my beloved?"
+
+"Whatever you are, dear, I have found that you are my love," she
+answered.  "I don't care much what you are, so long as you are mine.  I
+find I am just a woman, Robert--and in my conceit I thought myself
+something more.  I love my country, truly.  But I love my lover more.
+I shall not ask you whether you bow to King or to Congress,--but only
+ask you to get well!"
+
+He reached up both arms, and slowly pulled down her still averted face
+till it was close to his.  Then she turned her face suddenly to him,
+and her lips met his.  A moment later she untwined his arms, went to
+the door, and glanced unheeding down at old Debby, gathering wood.
+Then, her face and eyes still glowing, she came back, smoothed his
+hair, kissed him lightly on the forehead, and said, "Now you must be
+quiet, dear.  Debby will scold me if I let you talk any more!"
+
+But Robert was excited, drunk with new joy after long despair.
+
+"Just one word, and I will obey, dear heart!  Listen, my lady.  I will
+draw sword no more in this quarrel.  I have given my blood, my
+lands,--I have given, as I thought, my love,--for a cause already lost,
+for a cause that I felt to be wrong from the day of Lexington, But
+whichever side wins, I will stay in my own country, if my country, when
+it is all over, will let me stay.  When I am well enough to go
+away--love, love, will you go with me, to return, when the fighting and
+the fury cease, to our own dear river and our own dear woods?"
+
+"Yes, you know I will, Robert," answered Barbara, kneeling down and
+looking into his eyes.  "You know that is what I am planning, dear one.
+Now go to sleep, and get well, and take me away when you will!"  And
+holding her hand against his neck he forthwith went to sleep, like a
+child, tired and contented.
+
+Barbara knelt for a long time unmoving, her hand warm in his weak
+clasp, and was grateful to old Debby for staying so long away.  As she
+knelt, the side of her face to the door, she heard a soft _thud, thud_
+on the threshold, and looked around out of the corners of her eyes
+without turning her head.  She saw two wild rabbits, filled with
+curiosity at finding the cabin door open.  They hopped in warily, and
+went bounding all about the room, sniffing with their sensitive, cleft
+nostrils; waving their ears back and forth at every faint whisper; and
+from time to time sitting up to ponder their discovery.  One of them
+bounded over Barbara's little foot, turned to examine it, and nibbled
+tentatively at the heel of her shoe till she had to make the muscles
+tense to keep him from pulling it off.  Then, standing up together for
+a moment, they seemed to take counsel and conclude that they had
+business elsewhere.  As they hopped lazily away from the door, Barbara
+got up and followed to look after them.  The wonderful day was drawing
+to its close; and long, straight beams of rosy gold, enmeshed with the
+haze, were streaming through the trees to her very feet.  She laughed a
+little happy laugh under her breath.  Those bright paths leading to the
+sun seemed a fair omen.
+
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+A FEW OF GROSSET & DUNLAP'S
+
+Great Books at Little Prices
+
+NEW, CLEVER, ENTERTAINING.
+
+
+GRET: The Story of a Pagan.  By Beatrice Mantle.  Illustrated by C. M.
+Relyea.
+
+The wild free life of an Oregon lumber camp furnishes the setting for
+this strong original story.  Gret is the daughter of the camp and is
+utterly content with the wild life--until love comes.  A fine book,
+unmarred by convention.
+
+
+OLD CHESTER TALES.  By Margaret Deland.  Illustrated by Howard Pyle.
+
+A vivid yet delicate portrayal of characters in an old New England town.
+
+Dr. Lavendar's fine, kindly wisdom is brought to bear upon the lives of
+all, permeating the whole volume like the pungent odor of pine,
+healthful and life giving.  "Old Chester Tales" will surely be among
+the books that abide.
+
+
+THE MEMOIRS OF A BABY.  By Josephine Daskam.  Illustrated by F. Y. Cory.
+
+The dawning intelligence of the baby was grappled with by its great
+aunt, an elderly maiden, whose book knowledge of babies was something
+at which even the infant himself winked.  A delicious bit of humor.
+
+
+REBECCA MARY.  By Annie Hamilton Donnell.  Illustrated by Elizabeth
+Shippen Green.
+
+The heart tragedies of this little girl with no one near to share them,
+are told with a delicate art, a keen appreciation of the needs of the
+childish heart and a humorous knowledge of the workings of the childish
+mind.
+
+
+THE FLY ON THE WHEEL.  By Katherine Cecil Thurston.  Frontispiece by
+Harrison Fisher.
+
+An Irish story of real power, perfect in development and showing a true
+conception of the spirited Hibernian character as displayed in the
+tragic as well as the tender phases of life.
+
+
+THE MAN FROM BRODNEY'S.  By George Barr McCutcheon.  Illustrated by
+Harrison Fisher.
+
+An island in the South Sea is the setting for this entertaining tale,
+and an all-conquering hero and a beautiful princess figure in a most
+complicated plot.  One of Mr. McCutcheon's best books.
+
+
+TOLD BY UNCLE REMUS.  By Joel Chandler Harris.  Illustrated by A. B.
+Frost, J. M. Conde and Frank Verbeck.
+
+Again Uncle Remus enters the fields of childhood, and leads another
+little boy to that non-locatable land called "Brer Rabbit's Laughing
+Place," and again the quaint animals spring into active life and play
+their parts, for the edification of a small but appreciative audience.
+
+
+THE CLIMBER.  By E. F. Benson.  With frontispiece.
+
+An unsparing analysis of an ambitious woman's soul--a woman who
+believed that in social supremacy she would find happiness, and who
+finds instead the utter despair of one who has chosen the things that
+pass away.
+
+
+LYNCH'S DAUGHTER.  By Leonard Merrick.  Illustrated by Geo. Brehm.
+
+A story of to-day, telling how a rich girl acquires ideals of beautiful
+and simple living, and of men and love, quite apart from the teachings
+of her father, "Old Man Lynch" of Wall St.  True to life, clever in
+treatment.
+
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP'S
+
+DRAMATIZED NOVELS
+
+A Few that are Making Theatrical History
+
+
+MARY JANE'S PA, By Norman Way Illustrated with scenes from the play.
+
+Delightful, irresponsible "Mary Jane's Pa" awakes one morning to find
+himself famous, and, genius being ill adapted to domestic joys, he
+wanders from home to work out his own unique destiny.  One of the most
+numerous bits of recent fiction.
+
+
+CHERUB DEVINE.  By Sewell Ford.
+
+"Cherub," a good hearted but not over refined young man is brought in
+touch with the aristocracy.  Of sprightly wit, he is sometimes a
+merciless analyst, but he proves in the end that manhood counts for
+more than and?  cut lineage by winning the love of the fairest girl in
+the flock.
+
+
+A WOMAN'S WAY.  By Charles Somerville.  Illustrated with scenes from
+the play.
+
+A story in which a woman's wit and self-sacrificing love save her
+husband from the toils of an adventuress, and change an apparently
+tragic situation into one of delicious comedy.
+
+
+THE CLIMAX.  By George C. Jenks.
+
+With ambition luring her on, a young choir soprano leaves the little
+village where she was born and the limited audience of St. Jude's to
+train for the opera in New York.  She leaves love behind her and meets
+love more ardent but not more sincere in her new environment.  How she
+works, how she studies, how she suffers, are vividly portrayed.
+
+
+A FOOL THERE WAS.  By Porter Emerson Browne, Illustrated by Edmund
+Magrath and W. W. Fawcett.
+
+A relentless portrayal of the career of a man who comes under the
+influence of a beautiful but evil woman; how she lures him on and on,
+how he struggles, falls and rises, only to fall again into her net,
+make a story of unflinching realism.
+
+
+THE SQUAW MAN.  By Julie Opp Faversham and Edwin Milton Royle.
+Illustrated with scenes from the play.
+
+A glowing story, rapid in action, bright in dialogue with a fine
+courageous hero and a Beautiful English heroine.
+
+
+THE GIRL IN WAITING.  By Archibald Eyre.  Illustrated with scenes from
+the play.
+
+A droll little comedy of misunderstandings, told with a light touch, a
+venturesome spirit and an eye for human oddities.
+
+
+THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL.  By Baroness Orczy.  Illustrated with scenes
+from the play.
+
+A realistic story of the days of the French Revolution, abounding in
+dramatic incident, with a young English soldier of fortune, daring,
+mysterious as the hero.
+
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+A FEW OF
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP'S
+
+Great Books at Little Prices
+
+
+CY WHITTAKER'S PLACE.  By Joseph C. Lincoln.  Illustrated by Wallace
+Morgan.
+
+A Cape Cod story describing the amusing efforts of an elderly bachelor
+and his two cronies to rear and educate a little girl.  Full of honest
+fun--a rural drama.
+
+
+THE FORGE IN THE FOREST.  By Charles G. D. Roberts.  Illustrated by H.
+Sandham.
+
+A story of the conflict in Acadia after its conquest by the British.  A
+dramatic picture that lives and shines with the indefinable charm of
+poetic romance.
+
+
+A SISTER TO EVANGELINE.  By Charles G. D. Roberts.  Illustrated by E.
+McConnell.
+
+Being the story of Yvonne de Lamourie, and how she went into exile with
+the villagers of Grand Pré.  Swift action, fresh atmosphere, wholesome
+purity, deep passion and searching analysis characterize this strong
+novel.
+
+
+THE OPENED SHUTTERS.  By Clara Louise Burnham.  Frontispiece by
+Harrison Fisher.
+
+A summer haunt on an island in Casco Bay is the background for this
+romance.  A beautiful woman, at discord with life, is brought to
+realize, by her new friends, that she may open the shutters of her soul
+to the blessed sunlight of joy by casting aside vanity and self love.
+A delicately humorous work with a lofty motive underlying it all.
+
+
+THE RIGHT PRINCESS.  By Clara Louise Burnham.
+
+An amusing story, opening at a fashionable Long Island resort, where a
+stately Englishwoman employs a forcible New England housekeeper to
+serve in her interesting home.  How types so widely apart react on each
+others' lives, all to ultimate good, makes a story both humorous and
+rich in sentiment.
+
+
+THE LEAVEN OF LOVE.  By Clara Louise Burnham.  Frontispiece by Harrison
+Fisher.
+
+At a Southern California resort a world-weary woman, young and
+beautiful but disillusioned, meets a girl who has learned the art of
+living--of tasting life in all its richness, opulence and joy.  The
+story hinges upon the change wrought in the soul of the blasé woman by
+this glimpse into a cheery life.
+
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+A FEW OF
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP'S
+
+Great Books at Little Prices
+
+
+THE MUSIC MASTER.  By Charles Klein.  Illustrated by John Rae.
+
+This marvelously vivid narrative turns upon the search of a German
+musician in New York for his little daughter.  Mr. Klein has well
+portrayed his pathetic struggle with poverty, his varied experiences in
+endeavoring to meet the demands of a public not trained to an
+appreciation of the classic, and his final great hour when, in the
+rapidly shifting events of a big city, his little daughter, now a
+beautiful young woman, is brought to his very door.  A superb bit of
+fiction, palpitating with the life or the great metropolis.  The play
+in which David Warfield scored his highest success.
+
+
+DR. LAVENDAR'S PEOPLE.  By Margaret Deland.  Illustrated by Lucius
+Hitchcock.
+
+Mrs. Deland won so many friends through Old Chester Tales that this
+volume needs no introduction beyond its title.  The lovable doctor is
+more ripened in this later book, and the simple comedies and tragedies
+of the old village are told with dramatic charm.
+
+
+OLD CHESTER TALES.  By Margaret Deland.  Illustrated by Howard Pyle.
+
+Stories portraying with delightful humor and pathos a quaint people in
+a sleepy old town.  Dr. Lavendar, a very human and lovable "preacher,"
+is the connecting link between these dramatic stories from life.
+
+
+HE FELL IN LOVE WITH HIS WIFE.  By E. P. Roe.  With frontispiece.
+
+The hero is a farmer--a man with honest, sincere views of life.  Bereft
+of his wife, his home is cared for by a succession of domestics of
+varying degrees of inefficiency until, from a most unpromising source,
+comes a young woman who not only becomes his wife but commands his
+respect and eventually wins his love.  A bright and delicate romance,
+revealing on both sides a love that surmounts all difficulties and
+survives the censure of friends as well as the bitterness of enemies.
+
+
+THE YOKE.  By Elizabeth Miller.
+
+Against the historical background of the days when the children of
+Israel were delivered from the bondage of Egypt, the author has
+sketched a romance of compelling charm.  A biblical novel as great as
+any since "Ben Hur."
+
+
+SAUL OF TARSUS.  By Elizabeth Miller.  Illustrated by André Castaigne.
+
+The scenes of this story are laid in Jerusalem, Alexandria, Rome and
+Damascus.  The Apostle Paul, the Martyr Stephen, Herod Agrippa and the
+Emperors Tiberius and Caligula are among the mighty figures that move
+through the pages.  Wonderful descriptions, and a love story of the
+purest and noblest type mark this most remarkable religious romance.
+
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+A FEW OF
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP'S
+
+Great Books at Little Prices
+
+
+QUINCY ADAMS SAWYER.  A Picture of New England Home Life.  With
+illustrations by C. W. Reed, and Scenes Reproduced from the Play.
+
+One of the best New England stories ever written.  It is full of homely
+human interest * * * there is a wealth of New England village
+character, scenes and incidents * * * forcibly, vividly and truthfully
+drawn.  Few books have enjoyed a greater sale and popularity.
+Dramatized, it made the greatest rural play of recent times.
+
+
+THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF QUINCY ADAMS SAWYER.  By Charles Felton
+Pidgin.  Illustrated by Henry Roth.
+
+All who love honest sentiment, quaint and sunny humor, and homespun
+philosophy will find these "Further Adventures" a book after their own
+heart.
+
+
+HALF A CHANCE.  By Frederic S. Isham.  Illustrated by Herman Pfeifer.
+
+The thrill of excitement will keep the reader in a state of suspense,
+and he will become personally concerned from the start, as to the
+central character, a very real man who suffers, dares--and achieves!
+
+
+VIRGINIA OF THE AIR LANES.  By Herbert Quick.  Illustrated by William
+R. Leigh.
+
+The author has seized the romantic moment for the airship novel, and
+created the pretty story of "a lover and his lass" contending with an
+elderly relative for the monopoly of the skies.  An exciting tale of
+adventure in midair.
+
+
+THE GAME AND THE CANDLE.  By Eleanor M. Ingram.  Illustrated by P. D.
+Johnson.
+
+The hero is a young American, who, to save his family from poverty,
+deliberately commits a felony.  Then follow his capture and
+imprisonment, and his rescue by a Russian Grand Duke.  A stirring
+story, rich in sentiment.
+
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+A FEW OF
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP'S
+
+Great Books at Little Prices
+
+
+BRUVVER JIM'S BABY.   By Philip Verrill Mighels.
+
+An uproariously funny story of a tiny mining settlement in the West,
+which is shaken to the very roots by the sudden possession of a baby,
+found on the plains by one of its residents.  The town is as
+disreputable a spot as the gold fever was ever responsible for, and the
+coming of that baby causes the upheaval of every rooted tradition of
+the place.  Its christening, the problems of its toys and its illness
+supersede in the minds of the miners all thought of earthy treasure.
+
+
+THE FURNACE OF GOLD.  By Philip Verrill Mighels, author of "Bruvver
+Jim's Baby."  Illustrations by J. N. Marchand.
+
+An accurate and informing portrayal of scenes, types, and conditions of
+the mining districts in modern Nevada.
+
+The book is an out-door story, clean, exciting, exemplifying nobility
+and courage of character, and bravery, and heroism in the sort of men
+and women we all admire and wish to know.
+
+
+THE MESSAGE.  By Louis Tracy.  Illustrations by Joseph C. Chase.
+
+A breezy tale of how a bit of old parchment, concealed in a figurehead
+from a sunken vessel, comes into the possession of a pretty girl and an
+army man during regatta week in the Isle of Wight.  This is the message
+and it enfolds a mystery, the development of which the reader will
+follow with breathless interest.
+
+
+THE SCARLET EMPIRE.  By David M. Parry.  Illustrations by Hermann C.
+Wall.
+
+A young socialist, weary of life, plunges into the sea and awakes in
+the lost island of Atlantis, known as the Scarlet Empire, where a
+social democracy is in full operation, granting every man a living but
+limiting food, conversation, education and marriage.
+
+The hero passes through an enthralling love affair and other adventures
+but finally returns to his own New York world.
+
+
+THE THIRD DEGREE.  By Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow.  Illustrations
+by Clarence Rowe.
+
+A novel which exposes the abuses in this country of the police system.
+
+The son of an aristocratic New York family marries a woman socially
+beneath him, but of strong, womanly qualities that, later on, save the
+man from the tragic consequences of a dissipated life.
+
+The wife believes in his innocence and her wit and good sense help her
+to win against the tremendous odds imposed by law.
+
+
+THE THIRTEENTH DISTRICT.  By Brand Whitlock.
+
+A realistic western story of love and politics and a searching study of
+their influence on character.  The author shows with extraordinary
+vitality of treatment the tricks, the heat, the passion, the tumult of
+the political arena, the triumph and strength of love.
+
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+A FEW OF
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP'S
+
+Great Books at Little Prices
+
+
+HAPPY HAWKINS.  By Robert Alexander Wason.  Illustrated by Howard Giles.
+
+A ranch and cowboy novel.  Happy Hawkins tells his own story with such
+a fine capacity for knowing how to do it and with so much humor that
+the reader's interest is held in surprise, then admiration and at last
+in positive affection.
+
+
+COMRADES.  By Thomas Dixon, Jr.  Illustrated by C. D. Williams.
+
+The locale of this story is in California, where a few socialists
+establish a little community.
+
+The author leads the little band along the path of disillusionment, and
+gives some brilliant flashes of light on one side of an important
+question.
+
+
+TONO-BUNGAY.  By Herbert George Wells.
+
+The hero of this novel is a young man who, through hard work, earns a
+scholarship and goes to London.
+
+Written with a frankness verging on Rousseau's, Mr. Wells still uses
+rare discrimination and the border line of propriety is never crossed.
+An entertaining book with both a story and a moral, and without a dull
+page--Mr.  Wells's most notable achievement.
+
+
+A HUSBAND BY PROXY.  By Jack Steele.
+
+A young criminologist, but recently arrived in New York city, is drawn
+into a mystery, partly through financial need and partly through his
+interest in a beautiful woman, who seems at times the simplest child
+and again a perfect mistress of intrigue.  A baffling detective story.
+
+
+LIKE ANOTHER HELEN.  By George Horton.  Illustrated by C. M. Relyea.
+
+Mr. Horton's powerful romance stands in a new field and brings an
+almost unknown world in reality before the reader--the world of
+conflict between Greek and Turk on the Island of Crete.  The "Helen" of
+the story is a Greek, beautiful, desolate, defiant--pure as snow.
+
+There is a certain new force about the story, a kind of
+master-craftsmanship and mental dominance that holds the reader.
+
+
+THE MASTER OF APPLEBY.  By Francis Lynde.  Illustrated by T. de
+Thulstrup.
+
+A novel tale concerning itself in part with the great struggle in the
+two Carolinas, but chiefly with the adventures therein of two gentlemen
+who loved one and the same lady.
+
+A strong, masculine and persuasive story.
+
+
+A MODERN MADONNA.  By Caroline Abbot Stanley.
+
+A story of American life, founded on facts as they existed some years
+ago in the District of Columbia.  The theme is the maternal love and
+splendid courage of a woman.
+
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+A FEW OF
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP'S
+
+Great Books at Little Prices
+
+
+WHEN A MAN MARRIES.  By Mary Roberts Rinehart.  Illustrated by Harrison
+Fisher and Mayo Bunker.
+
+A young artist, whose wife had recently divorced him, finds that a
+visit is due from his Aunt Selina, an elderly lady having ideas about
+things quite apart from the Bohemian set in which her nephew is a
+shining light.  The way in which matters are temporarily adjusted forms
+the motif of the story.
+
+A farcical extravaganza, dramatized under the title of "Seven Days."
+
+
+THE FASHIONABLE ADVENTURES OF JOSHUA CRAIG.  By David Graham Phillips.
+Illustrated.
+
+A young westerner, uncouth and unconventional, appears in political and
+social life in Washington.  He attains power in politics, and a young
+woman of the exclusive set becomes his wife, undertaking his education
+in social amenities.
+
+
+"DOC." GORDON.  By Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman.  Illustrated by Frank T.
+Merrill.
+
+Against the familiar background of American town life, the author
+portrays a group of people strangely involved in a mystery.  "Doc."
+Gordon, the one physician of the place, Dr. Elliot, his assistant, a
+beautiful woman and her altogether charming daughter are all involved
+in the plot.  A novel of great interest.
+
+
+HOLY ORDERS.  By Marie Corelli.
+
+A dramatic story, in which is pictured a clergyman in touch with
+society people, stage favorites, simple village folk, powerful
+financiers and others, each presenting vital problems to this man "in
+holy orders"--problems that we are now struggling with in America.
+
+
+KATRINE.  By Elinor Macartney Lane.  With frontispiece.
+
+Katrine, the heroine of this story, is a lovely Irish girl, of lowly
+birth, but gifted with a beautiful voice.
+
+The narrative is based on the facts of an actual singer's career, and
+the viewpoint throughout is a most exalted one.
+
+
+THE FORTUNES OF FIFI.  By Molly Elliot Seawell.  Illustrated by T. de
+Thulstrup.
+
+A story of life in France at the time of the first Napoleon.  Fifi, a
+glad, mad little actress of eighteen, is the star performer in a third
+rate Parisian theatre.  A story as dainty as a Watteau painting.
+
+
+SHE THAT HESITATES.  By Harris Dickson.  Illustrated by C. W. Relyea.
+
+The scene of this dashing romance shifts from Dresden to St. Petersburg
+in the reign of Peter the Great, and then to New Orleans.
+
+The hero is a French Soldier of Fortune, and the princess, who
+hesitates--but you must read the story to know how she that hesitates
+may be lost and yet saved.
+
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+BRILLIANT AND SPIRITED NOVELS
+
+AGNES AND EGERTON CASTLE
+
+Handsomely bound in cloth.  Price, 75 cents per volume, postpaid.
+
+
+THE PRIDE OF JENNICO.  Being a Memoir of Captain Basil Jennico.
+
+"What separates it from most books of its class is its distinction of
+manner, its unusual grace of diction, its delicacy of touch, and the
+fervent charm of its love passages.  It is a very attractive piece of
+romantic fiction relying for its effect upon character rather than
+incident, and upon vivid dramatic presentation."--_The Dial_.  "A
+stirring, brilliant and dashing story."--_The Outlook_.
+
+
+THE SECRET ORCHARD.  Illustrated by Charles D. Williams.
+
+The "Secret Orchard" is set in the midst of the ultra modern society.
+The scene is in Paris, but most of the characters are English speaking.
+The story was dramatized in London, and in it the Kendalls scored a
+great theatrical success.
+
+"Artfully contrived and full of romantic charm * * * it possesses
+ingenuity of incident, a figurative designation of the unhallowed
+scenes in which unlicensed love accomplishes and wrecks faith and
+happiness."--_Athenaeum_.
+
+
+YOUNG APRIL.  With illustrations by A. B. Wenzell.
+
+"It is everything that a good romance should be, and it carries about
+it an air of distinction both rare and delightful."--_Chicago Tribune_.
+"With regret one turns to the last page of this delightful novel, so
+delicate in its romance, so brilliant in its episodes, so sparkling in
+its art, and so exquisite in its diction."--_Worcester Spy_.
+
+
+FLOWER O' THE ORANGE.  With frontispiece.
+
+We have learned to expect from these fertile authors novels graceful in
+form, brisk in movement, and romantic in conception.  This carries the
+reader back to the days of the bewigged and beruffled gallants of the
+seventeenth century and tells him of feats of arms and adventures in
+love as thrilling and picturesque, yet delicate, as the utmost seeker
+of romance may ask.
+
+
+MY MERRY ROCKHURST.  Illustrated by Arthur E. Becher.
+
+In the eight stories of a courtier of King Charles Second, which are
+here gathered together, the Castles are at their best, reviving all the
+fragrant charm of those books, like _The Pride of Jennico_, in which
+they first showed an instinct, amounting to genius, for sunny romances.
+"The book is absorbing * * * and is as spontaneous in feeling as it is
+artistic in execution."--_New York Tribune_.
+
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers,--New York
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+THE MASTERLY AND REALISTIC NOVELS OF
+
+FRANK NORRIS
+
+Handsomely bound in cloth.  Price, 75 cents per volume, postpaid.
+
+
+THE OCTOPUS.  A Story of California.
+
+Mr. Norris conceived the ambitious idea of writing a trilogy of novels
+which, taken together, shall symbolize American life as a whole, with
+all its hopes and aspirations and its tendencies, throughout the length
+and breadth of the continent.  And for the central symbol he has taken
+wheat, as being quite literally the ultimate source of American power
+and prosperity.  _The Octopus_ is a story of wheat raising and railroad
+greed in California.  It immediately made a place for itself.
+
+It is full of enthusiasm and poetry and conscious strength.  One cannot
+read it without a responsive thrill of sympathy for the earnestness,
+the breadth of purpose, the verbal power of the man.
+
+
+THE PIT.  A Story of Chicago.
+
+This powerful novel is the fictitious narrative of a deal in the
+Chicago wheat pit and holds the reader from the beginning.  In a
+masterly way the author has grasped the essential spirit of the great
+city by the lakes.  The social existence, the gambling in stocks and
+produce, the characteristic life in Chicago, form a background for an
+exceedingly vigorous and human tale of modern life and love.
+
+
+A MAN'S WOMAN.
+
+A story which has for a heroine a girl decidedly out of the ordinary
+run of fiction.  It is most dramatic, containing some tremendous
+pictures of the daring of the men who are trying to reach the Pole * *
+* but it is at the same time essentially a _woman's_ book, and the
+story works itself out in the solution of a difficulty that is
+continually presented in real life--the wife's attitude in relation to
+her husband when both have well-defined careers.
+
+
+McTEAGUE.  A Story of San Francisco.
+
+"Since Bret Harte and the Forty-niner no one has written of California
+life with the vigor and accuracy of Mr. Norris.  His 'McTeague' settled
+his right to a place in American literature; and he has now presented a
+third novel, 'Blix,' which is in some respects the finest and likely to
+be the most popular of the three."--_Washington Times_.
+
+
+BLIX.
+
+"Frank Norris has written in 'Blix' just what such a woman's name would
+imply--a story of a frank, fearless girl comrade to all men who are
+true and honest because she is true and honest.  How she saved the man
+she fishes and picnics with in a spirit of outdoor platonic friendship,
+makes a pleasant story, and a perfect contrast to the author's
+McTeague.'  A splendid and successful story."--_Washington Times_.
+
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers,--New York
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Barbara Ladd, by Charles G. D. Roberts
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BARBARA LADD ***
+
+***** This file should be named 34270-8.txt or 34270-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
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+<HTML>
+<HEAD>
+
+<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
+
+<TITLE>
+The Project Gutenberg E-text of Barbara Ladd, by Charles G. D. Roberts
+</TITLE>
+
+<STYLE TYPE="text/css">
+BODY { color: Black;
+       background: White;
+       margin-right: 10%;
+       margin-left: 10%;
+       font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;
+       text-align: justify }
+
+P {text-indent: 4% }
+
+P.noindent {text-indent: 0% }
+
+P.poem {text-indent: 0%;
+        margin-left: 10%; }
+
+P.letter {text-indent: 0%;
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+          margin-right: 10% }
+
+P.finis { font-size: larger ;
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+
+H4.h4center { margin-left: 0;
+              margin-right: 0 ;
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+              float: none ;
+              clear: both ;
+              text-align: center  }
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+<BODY>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Barbara Ladd, by Charles G. D. Roberts
+
+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: Barbara Ladd
+
+Author: Charles G. D. Roberts
+
+Illustrator: Frank Verbeck
+
+Release Date: November 10, 2010 [EBook #34270]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BARBARA LADD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="img-cover"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-cover.jpg" ALT="Cover art" BORDER="2" WIDTH="362" HEIGHT="567">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="img-front"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-front.jpg" ALT="<I>Leaning over the edge of the porch she dropped the bundle soundlessly into a bed of marigolds</I>. (<I>Page</I> 13)" BORDER="2" WIDTH="457" HEIGHT="722">
+<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 457px">
+<I>Leaning over the edge of the porch she dropped the bundle soundlessly into a bed of marigolds</I>. (<A HREF="#p13"><I>Page</I> 13</A>)
+</H4>
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H1 ALIGN="center">
+BARBARA LADD
+</H1>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+BY
+</H4>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS
+</H3>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H5 ALIGN="center">
+AUTHOR OF<BR>
+<BR>
+THE KINDRED OF THE WILD, THE HEART OF THE<BR>
+ANCIENT WOOD, A SISTER TO EVANGELINE,<BR>
+POEMS, ETC.<BR>
+</H5>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+ILLUSTRATED BY
+<BR>
+FRANK VERBECK
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+NEW YORK
+<BR>
+GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP
+<BR>
+PUBLISHERS
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H5 ALIGN="center">
+Copyright, 1902,
+<BR>
+BY L. C. PAGE &amp; COMPANY<BR>
+(Incorporated).<BR>
+<BR>
+All Rights Reserved.
+<BR><BR><BR>
+Published October, 1902
+<BR><BR>
+Eighth Impression, April, 1908.
+</H5>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+</H2>
+
+<H4>
+<A HREF="#img-front">
+"LEANING OVER THE EDGE OF THE PORCH SHE DROPPED THE BUNDLE<BR>
+  SOUNDLESSLY INTO A BED OF MARIGOLDS" (<I>See page 13</I>) . . . <I>Frontispiece</I>
+</A>
+</H4>
+
+<H4>
+<A HREF="#img-087">
+"'WHAT A NICE-LOOKING BOY YOU ARE!' SHE SAID"
+</A>
+</H4>
+
+<H4>
+<A HREF="#img-196">
+"'O MEHITABLE&mdash;DEMORALISED&mdash;BY BARBARA!' VOWED DOCTOR JOHN"
+</A>
+</H4>
+
+<H4>
+<A HREF="#img-370">
+"HE SANK OFF AGAIN, FALLING BACK INTO BARBARA'S SUPPORTING ARMS"
+</A>
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap01"></A>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+BARBARA LADD
+</H2>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER I.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+She knew very well that she should have started earlier; but if there
+was one thing that could daunt her wayward and daring little spirit, it
+was the dark.  Now, as she stood, wide-eyed and breathless with
+suspense, beside her open window, the face of the dark began to change.
+A gray pallor came over it, and on a sudden she was aware of a black
+horizon line, ghostly, lonely beyond words, far to the eastward over
+the yet invisible tree-tops.  With this pallor came a chill which
+Barbara felt on her little, trembling hands, on her eyes, and in her
+heart: as if the night, in going, had laid aside its benignity and
+touched the world in farewell with a cold hand of warning and menace.
+Then, here and there a leaf stood out, palely distinct, upon the thick
+frondage of the apple-tree whose nearest branches crowded the roof of
+the porch below her window.  There was a faint chirping from the heart
+of the syringa thicket; and Barbara's ears were so attentive that she
+caught the drowsy, awakening flutter of small wings down below in the
+dewy gloom.  With the sound came a cool and delicate pungency from the
+wet currant bushes, puffed upward to her as if the garden world beneath
+the leaves had drawn a long breath in getting ready to awake.  This
+tonic scent, which nostrils less keen than Barbara's would scarcely
+have discerned, came to the child as a signal for action.  Peculiarly
+sensitive to the message and influence of odours, she felt this sudden
+fragrance in her nerves as a summons, a promise, and a challenge, all
+in one.  Noiselessly she pushed the two diamond-paned leaves of her
+window open to their widest.  How the grayness was spreading!  A pang
+of apprehension seized her, lest she had delayed too long.  She turned
+impulsively, and stepped into the darkness of her room.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In a moment her slim little figure reappeared at the window, this time
+heavily encumbered.  In one hand was a round, soft bundle, in the other
+a square wicker basket with a white cloth tied over the top.  The white
+cloth glimmered conspicuously, but the light was not yet strong enough
+to reveal the colour of the bundle.  Setting both the burdens out upon
+the roof of the porch, she turned, glanced in at the window, and said,
+softly:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Good-bye, little room!  I haven't been happy with you.  But I hope you
+won't be lonely when I'm gone!"
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="p13"></A>
+
+<P>
+Leaning over the edge of the porch, she dropped the bundle soundlessly
+into a bed of marigolds.  The basket, on the other hand, she took up
+with care.  Thrusting her left arm through the handle, she swung
+herself nimbly into the apple-tree, and thence to the ground; while the
+basket tipped and slewed as if it were alive.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Be still, my babies!" she whispered; and then, picking up the bundle
+from the crushed marigolds, and never turning her head to look up at
+the stately old house which she was leaving, she fled down the walk
+between the currant and gooseberry bushes, the thyme, the sage, and
+summer savoury beds,&mdash;through a narrow wicket gate half-hidden in
+larkspur and honeysuckle,&mdash;along the foot-path through the rank and
+dripping burdocks back of the barn, where she felt a little qualm of
+homesickness at the sound of her dear horses breathing deeply and
+contentedly in the stalls,&mdash;and thence, letting down one of the bars
+and crawling through with her burdens, out into the graying, hillocky
+open of the cow-pasture.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+By this time a cool and luminous wave of pink, changing to pale saffron
+at its northeastern edges, had crept up over the far-off hilltops.
+Faint tinges of colour, of a strange and unusual transparency, began to
+reveal themselves all over the expanse of pasture.  As the miracle of
+dawn thus overtook her, a sense of unreality came upon Barbara's soul.
+She felt as if this were not she, this little girl so adventurously
+running away&mdash;but rather some impossible child in a story-book, who had
+so engaged her sympathies for the moment that she could not be sure
+which was make-believe and which herself.  With a chill of lonesome
+dread she slipped a hand under the cloth and into the basket.  The
+touch of warm, live, cuddling fur reassured her, and brought her back
+to her own identity.  But stranger and stranger grew the mystical
+transparency, only made the more startling by a fleece of vapour here
+and there curling up from between the hillocks.  Stumps, weed-tops,
+patches of juniper, tufts of blueberry bush, wisps of coarse grass left
+uncropped, seemed to detach themselves, lift, and float in the solvent
+clarity of that new-born air, that new-born light.  Surely, this was
+not her old, familiar world!  Barbara stood still, her great eyes
+dilating, her lips parted in a kind of ecstasy, as sense and spirit
+alike drank in the marvel of the dawn.  It seemed to her as if she
+discovered, in that moment, that the world was made anew with every
+morning,&mdash;and with the discovery she became aware, dimly but securely,
+that she was herself a part of the imperishable, ever-renewing life.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was brought back to more instant considerations by the sudden
+appearance of a red-and-white cow, which got up with a great, windy,
+grunting breath, and came toward her out of a misty hollow.  With all
+the cows of the herd Barbara was in high favour, but just now the sight
+alarmed her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Gracious!" she exclaimed to herself, "Abby will be out to milk in
+another minute!"&mdash;and she broke into a run at the best speed that her
+burdens would permit, making for the maple woods which lay to the north
+of the pasture.  The cow looked and mooed after her wistfully,
+wondering at her flight, and aching for the relief of the milker's
+hand.  But Barbara paid no heed to her, nor to the others of the herd,
+who now came into view from corners of the pasture as the enchanted
+light grew and spread.  She darted on, vanishing in the hollows,
+flitting over the hillocks, fleetly threading the crooked and slender
+path,&mdash;a wisp-like, dark little figure.  Her bundle, now seen to be
+tied up in a silk shawl of flamelike scarlet, and the snow-white
+covering of her basket, flickered across the mystical transparency of
+the landscape like bubbles of intense light blown far in advance of the
+morning.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Not till she came to the other side of the pasture and plunged into the
+obscurity of the woods did Barbara check her speed.  Here the dawn was
+but beginning to penetrate, thrusting thin shafts of pink-amber light
+here and there through the leafage, and touching the eastward sides of
+trunk and branch with elusive glories.  Breathing quickly, Barbara set
+down the bundle and the precious basket; but she snatched them up again
+as she caught a sound of panting and running behind her.  On the
+instant, however, the alarm faded from her face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Down, Keep!" she commanded, sharply, as the gaunt gray form of a
+mastiff leaped upon her, almost carrying her off her feet.  Fawning,
+and giving little yelps of joy, the huge animal crouched before her,
+pounding the sward with ecstatic tail, and implored to lick her hands.
+She threw both arms about the dog's head, murmuring to him, poignantly
+impetuous, her voice tearful with self-reproach:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Was his best friend going away, without ever saying good-bye to him?
+Well, she was bad, she was very, very bad!"  And she wiped away several
+large, surreptitious tears upon the furry folds of his neck.  Then she
+sprang up and renewed her journey resolutely; while the mastiff,
+bounding in front of her, showed his plain conviction that some fine,
+audacious adventure was afoot, and that it would be his great luck to
+have a part in it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For more than a mile Barbara followed the wood-path, the fresh, wet
+gloom lightening about her as she went.  Where the maples thinned away,
+and the slenderer ash and birch took their place, she got glimpses of a
+pale sky overhead, dappled with streamers of a fiery violet.  Here and
+there a dripping leaf had caught the colours from above and flashed
+elusive jewels upon her vision.  Here and there the dewy thickets of
+witch-hazel and viburnum crowded so close about the path that her
+skirts and shoulders were drenched with their scented largess.  Here
+and there in her path rose suddenly a cluster of night-born
+toadstools&mdash;squat, yellow, and fat-fleshed, or tall, shadowy-hooded,
+and whitely venomous&mdash;over which she stepped with wary aversion.  And
+once, eager as was her haste, she stopped to pick a great, lucent,
+yellow orchid, which seemed to beam like a sacred lamp in its dark
+green shrine beneath the alders.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At length the path dipped sharply between rocks overgrown with poison
+ivy.  Then the trees thinned away before her, and the day grew at once
+full of light; and the mirror-surface of a little lake, shining with
+palest crocus-tint and violet and silvery rose, obscured with patches
+of dissolving mist, flashed upon her eyes.  She ran down to the very
+edge, where the water seemed to breathe among its fringing pebbles, and
+there set down the bundle and the basket; while the dog, yelping
+joyously, bounded and splashed in the shallows.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When, however, Barbara stepped up the bank to a thicket of Indian
+willow, and proceeded, by dint of carefully calculated lifting and
+pulling, to drag forth from its hiding-place a ruddy canoe of
+birch-bark, the dog's spirits and his flaunting tail fell together.  If
+Barbara's venture was to be in the canoe, he knew he should have no
+part in it; and his big, doggish heart was dejected.  With his tongue
+hanging from his jaws, he sat up on his brindled haunches and looked
+on, while slowly and laboriously Barbara worked the frail craft down to
+the water.  When it was afloat, and the resined prow pulled up into a
+tuft of weeds to keep it from drifting away, Barbara fetched two
+paddles from the same hiding-place.  In the bow of the canoe she stowed
+her bundle and her basket.  In the stern she arranged a pile of ferns
+as a cushion for her knees.  Once more she flung her arms around Keep's
+massive neck, kissed his silky ears, wept violently for the smallest
+fraction of a minute; and then, stepping into the canoe with the light
+precision of one skilled with the birch-bark, she pushed off, and with
+quick, vigorous strokes headed straight across the lake.  The dog ran
+uneasily up and down the water's edge, whining and fretting after her.
+When she was a little way out he made a sudden resolution, plunged into
+the water, and swam eagerly after the fugitive.  But Barbara heard the
+splash, and understood.  She realised that he would surely upset the
+canoe in trying to get into it, and this was the time when she must
+seem hard, however her heart was melting.  She looked back over her
+shoulder.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Go home, Keep!  Go home!" she commanded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The dog turned obediently and made for shore.  And Barbara, her lips
+set and the big tears rolling down her cheeks, continued her journey
+out across the lake.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap02"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER II.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+It was now clear day.  The ample spaces of blue between the thin clouds
+overhead grew pure, as if new bathed.  The sun was not yet visible over
+the woods, but sent level shafts of radiance through the sparser
+leafage.  Barbara's face was westward, and her prow, as the nervous
+cunning of her paddle urged it forward, threw off the water on either
+side in long, polished, fluted furrows, dazzlingly bright at the top of
+the curve and steel-dark in the depression.  Child as she was, and of a
+fairy slightness, Barbara's wrists were strong and she was master of
+her paddle.  Her tears presently dried themselves as she noted with
+exultation, by the growing depth and abruptness of these furrows from
+her prow, that she was making a speed that did credit to her
+canoe-craft.  In a few minutes her parting pangs were all forgotten,
+and she was absorbed in racing, as it were, against herself.  She knelt
+low, working her shoulders freely like a squaw, and bent every energy
+to making the passage of the open before a wind out of the morning
+should awake to hinder her progress.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A low, green point, deep-plumed with sedge, thrust out from the nearing
+shore to meet her.  At its tip, motionless, and eloquent of ancient
+mystery, poised the dream-like shape of a blue heron.  Nearer and
+nearer slipped the canoe, till Barbara could discern the round,
+unwinking jewel of the great bird's eye, watching her inscrutably.
+Then, with leisurely spread of spacious wings, it rose and flapped
+away, to renew its not wholly disinterested contemplations in a further
+reed-bed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Behind the point of sedges Barbara swept the canoe on a fine curve, and
+into the channel of a little river, the quiet outlet of the lake.
+Alders, osiers, and thick-starred draperies of clematis came down over
+either bank.  The stream was not twenty paces wide, and its deep
+current was so gentle that the long weeds on the bottom were hardly
+under compulsion to show which way it flowed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The ancient wood at this place gave back several hundred yards from the
+lake, save for scattered outposts and thickets.  Rounding the first
+curve of the stream,&mdash;which, indeed, seemed all curves in its
+reluctance to forsake the parent water,&mdash;the canoe ran into a flock of
+gray-and-white geese dabbling along the weedy margin.  The birds were
+not alarmed, but they lifted their heads and clamoured a sonorous
+warning; and straightway from behind the screen of leafage came a
+quacking of ducks, a cackling of hens, and the excited barking of a
+puppy.  Then a cock crowed shrilly.  The stream rounded to a wider
+stretch, and its western bank, flooded with sunshine, showed a grassy
+clearing of perhaps two acres in extent, at the back of which, close
+against the primeval trees, huddled a low, gray cabin, with wide eaves
+and a red door.  A hop-vine covered one end of the cabin and sprawled
+over the roof.  Along the base ran a "banking" about two feet high, of
+rough boards with the bark on, supported by stakes and filled in with
+earth&mdash;a protection to the cellar against winter frosts.  Leaned up to
+the sun, along the banking, stood wooden tubs and an iron pot; and on a
+bench beside the door another tub.  In front of the door was a space of
+chips, littered with axe, buck-saw, feed-troughs, parts of a broken
+hand-sled, a large wicker basket with the bottom gone, and
+indeterminate waifs and strays of human use.  From this space of débris
+a foot-path ran down through short grass to the waterside, where a
+clumsy punt was hauled up.  The place was alive with ducks and
+chickens; and as Barbara came in view a stately turkey-cock swelled,
+strutted, and gobbled defiance to her intrusion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Sitting on the door-step in the sun was a sturdy old woman in greenish
+homespun petticoat and bodice, with a dull red kerchief crossed upon
+her shoulders and a cap of greenish-yellow linen on her head,&mdash;the soft
+dye of the "yaller-weed" juice.  She was busy cutting coloured rags
+into strips for mat-hooking.  At her side sat a small yellow puppy,
+with head cocked and one ear alertly lifted, curious but doubtful as to
+the visitor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara turned her birchen prow to the landing-place, and ran it gently
+ashore in the soft mud beside the punt.  At the same moment Mrs.
+Deborah Blue&mdash;known to Barbara and to all the village of Second
+Westings as 'old Debby'&mdash;dropped her knitting on the stoop, snatched up
+a stout stick that leaned against the door-post, and hobbled with a
+heavy briskness down the path to meet the visitor.  The yellow pup
+frisked interestedly at her heels.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara had indeed run her prow ashore, but that was for the sake of
+stability merely.  She was in haste, and had no idea of stopping now to
+indulge her inclination for a gossip with old Debby.  She rested in
+silence, one brown hand on the gunwale of the punt, her full, young,
+wilful lips very scarlet, her gray-green eyes asparkle with mystery and
+excitement, as the old woman hobbled down to greet her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ain't ye comin' in to set awhile, an' eat a cooky, Miss Barby?"
+inquired Mrs. Blue, wondering at the child's inscrutable look.  The old
+dame's face was red and harsh and strongly lined.  Her chin was square
+and thrust forward aggressively, with a gray-bristled wart at one side
+of its obtrusive vigour.  A lean and iron-gray wisp of hair, escaped
+from under her hat, straggled down upon her red neck.  But her shrewd,
+hard, pale-blue, dauntless old eyes beamed upon the child with
+unfeigned welcome.  She spoke a little wheezingly, being out of breath
+from haste; and Barbara was the only soul in all the township of Second
+Westings for whom old Debby would condescend to hasten.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, Debby dear, I can't stop one minute.  I'm not coming ashore.  I'm
+running away from Aunt Hitty, and I'm going down the river to Uncle
+Bob.  I just stopped to say good-bye to you, you old dear, and to ask
+you to take this letter for me to Aunt Hitty.  I didn't dare to leave
+it in my room, for fear she'd find it and know where I'd gone, and send
+after me before I'd got a good start.  I don't like Aunt Hitty, you
+know, Debby, but she's been good to me in her way, and I don't want her
+to be worrying!"  She held out a folded paper for the old dame to take;
+but she held it tentatively, as if she did not want to surrender it at
+once.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Knowing Barbara as no one else in the township of Second Westings knew
+her, old Debby betrayed neither surprise nor disapproval.  She nodded
+several times, as if running away were the most reasonable, and indeed
+the most ordinary, thing in the world for a little girl of fourteen
+years to do when she found aunts and environments uncongenial.  Old
+Debby's smile, at this moment, had just the right degree of sympathy.
+Had ever so little of amusement glimmered through its weather-beaten
+creases, she knew that the sensitive and wilful girl before her would
+have been off in a second with her venture all unexplained.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'd take it fer ye, my sweeting, ef I'd got to crawl on my knees all
+the way 'round the lake," the old dame answered promptly; but at the
+same time, scheming to prolong the interview, and knowing that if once
+Barbara started off again there would be no such thing as luring her
+back, she kept both hands clasped on top of her stick and made no move
+to accept the missive.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ain't ye goin' to read it to me?" she went on, coaxingly.  "I'd give a
+sight to hear what ye're sayin' to yer Aunt Hitty."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now this was just what Barbara wanted, in spite of her haste.  She
+wanted to hear how her letter would sound.  She wanted to try it on old
+Debby, in whom she felt sure of a eulogistic critic.  Without a word
+she untied the yellow ribbon, opened the packet, and began to read,
+with a weighty impressiveness in her childish voice:
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"MY DEAR AUNT HITTY:&mdash;This is to say farewell for ever, for I have run
+away.  I do not think it would be good for me to live with you any
+longer, so I am going to Uncle Bob.  He loves me, and does not think I
+am bad.  And I think he needs me, too, because I understand him.  I
+know I have often been bad, and have made you unhappy very often, Aunt
+Hitty.  But I don't think you ever understand me&mdash;and I don't
+understand you&mdash;and so we cannot be happy together.  But don't be
+worried about me, for I will be all right.  And I thank you for all the
+trouble you have taken about me.  I don't want any of my old clothes
+except what I have brought with me, so please give them to Mercy
+Chapman, because she is poor and just about my size, and always kind to
+animals, and I like her.  I have taken your nice basket you got from
+the squaw last Saturday, to carry my kittens in; but I know you won't
+mind, because you offered to give it to me when I did not know I was
+going to need it.  I have taken the canoe, too, but I want to pay for
+it, of course, Aunt Hitty.  Please keep enough to get a new one, and
+paddles, out of the money you are taking care of for me, and send the
+rest right away to Uncle Bob, because I'll need some new frocks when I
+get to the city, and I don't know whether Uncle Bob has any money or
+not.  Good-bye, Aunt Hitty, and I am so sorry that we could not
+understand each other.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+"Your niece,<BR>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"BARBARA LADD."<BR>
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+She looked up, proud, but a little anxious, and eager for commendation.
+Old Debby rose to the circumstances.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Law, how you kin write, Miss Barby," she said, with a nod and chuckle.
+"The parson nor Doctor Jim couldn't 'a' done no better.  I reckon Aunt
+Hitty'll understand ye now, a sight better'n she's given to understand
+folks as don't jest think as she do.  Give me the letter!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara's face flashed radiantly.  With a sudden impulse she sprang up,
+skipped ashore, thrust the letter into the old woman's hand, and cried
+in a high key:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, I'm so hungry, Debby!  I can't stop a minute, but do give me some
+breakfast, there's a dear.  I was too excited to eat before I left.
+And do give my kittens a drop of milk.  I've got nothing but cold meat
+for them to eat on the journey, poor babies!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Without waiting for a reply, she skipped back to the canoe, grabbed up
+the covered basket, and flew up the path to the cottage; while the old
+woman limped after her with astonishing speed, chuckling and wheezing
+out a disjointed invitation.  She followed Barbara into the cabin,
+shutting the door to keep out the puppy, who whined in an injured voice
+upon the stoop.  Then, thinking of the kittens first,&mdash;and thereby
+showing her deep knowledge of the kittens' mistress,&mdash;she set down a
+bowl of milk in the middle of the floor; and Barbara, uncovering the
+basket, lovingly lifted out three plump, moon-faced little cats, a
+yellow-and-white, a black-and-white, and a gray-and-white.  While the
+three, with happy tails erect, lapped at the milk, Barbara made haste
+to devour thick slices of brown bread and butter, spread to a luscious
+depth with moist, sweet-scented maple sugar.  She had no time to talk.
+She sat on the edge of the big four-post bed, swinging her slim legs,
+and kicking her heels against the dingy, gay patchwork quilt whose
+ample folds hung to the floor.  The hidden space under the bed was a
+place of piquant mystery to Barbara, containing, as it did, boxes on
+boxes of many-coloured rags, out of which, earlier in the season, old
+Debby would bring forth precious goose-eggs, duck-eggs, turkey-eggs,
+and the specially prized eggs of certain pet and prolific hens,
+gathered against the time of setting.  While Barbara broke her fast,
+old Debby refrained from questions, having shrewdly grasped the whole
+situation.  She knew that Mr. Robert Glenowen, Barbara's uncle, had
+lately come north on an errand which nobody seemed to understand, and
+had taken a house at Stratford.  Of a nomadic spirit in her younger
+days, Debby had moved much here and there throughout her native
+Connecticut, and over the bordering counties of New York and
+Massachusetts; and she had not only a rough idea of the distance from
+Second Westings to Stratford, but a very vivid realisation of the
+perils of the journey which Barbara, in her innocence, had so
+confidently undertaken.  Till she saw that the appetites of Barbara and
+the kittens were nearing satisfaction, she talked with a sort of casual
+enthusiasm of her luck with the chickens, the goslings, the young
+turkeys, and depicted the prowess of an old speckled hen which had
+engaged and defeated a marauding hawk.  Then, when at last Barbara
+sprang up, bundled the satiated kittens into the basket, and turned to
+her for a fond and final good-bye, the crafty old dame broke into
+passionate farewells.  She kissed the child, and even wept over her,
+till Barbara's self-centred exaltation was very near collapse.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>You</I> love me, don't you, Debby dear?" she exclaimed, with a
+wistfulness in her voice, searching the old woman's face with her
+great, eager, strangely alien eyes.  Barbara was one of those who
+colour the moods of others by their own, and who are therefore apt to
+be at fault in their interpretation of another's motives.  This gave
+her, even in childhood, a strangeness, an aloneness of personality,
+which she, as well as those who loved her, could seldom break down.  It
+was with a kind of heart-break that she now and again, for an instant,
+became dimly aware of this alien fibre in her temperament.  It made her
+both misunderstanding and misunderstood.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I can trust you, can't I?" she went on, leaning childishly for a
+moment upon the old woman's comfortable breast.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Trust old Debby, my sweeting!" cried the old dame, in tones which
+carried conviction.  "Ye hain't got no lovinger nor faithfuller friend
+alive than me.  Don't ye never forgit that, Miss Barby."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For answer Barbara clutched her fiercely around the neck, sobbed and
+clung to her for a moment, cried extravagantly, "Yes, you are the best
+friend I've got in all the world!" then gathered up her basket of
+kittens and fled wildly down the path to the canoe.  Impetuously she
+pushed off, the world a golden blur before her eyes; and without once
+looking back, she disappeared around the next winding of the stream.
+Old Debby stood for some minutes gazing after this meteor-like&mdash;and
+very Barbara-like&mdash;exit.  There was amusement now, unhindered, on her
+hard old face, but a kind of fierce devotion withal.  When the stern of
+the canoe had vanished behind the leafage, she muttered to herself:
+"Well!  Well!  Well! was ever sech a child!  When ye set yer finger
+onto her, she ain't there!  I reckon that mincing-mouthed Aunt Kitty's
+hed her bad times, too.  But the sooner I git 'round to see Doctor Jim
+the better it's goin' to be fer the little wild witch.  Land's sakes
+alive!  But 'twon't be 'Debby dear' to me agin fer awhile.  How them
+eyes'll blaze!  I'll not go nigh her till she's hed time to git over it
+an' to know who's really her friends.  No, Pippin, ye can't come with
+me!  Go 'way!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Turning into the long lean-to of a shed which stretched behind the
+cabin, she brought out two stumpy oars.  These under her left arm, her
+stalwart stick in her right hand, she limped with massive alertness
+down to the waterside, shoved off the punt, climbed into it with a
+nicety of balance remarkable in one of her weight, clicked the oars
+into the rowlocks, and pulled up-stream toward the lake whence Barbara
+had come.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap03"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER III.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The child who set forth so fearlessly, on so audacious and
+ill-regulated a venture, that midsummer morning of the year 1769,&mdash;in a
+time when audacity on the part of small girls was apt to meet the
+discouragement of a peculiarly strenuous discipline,&mdash;was an accident
+in her period, an irreconcilable alien to her environment.  In her
+intense individuality, and in the confident freedom with which she
+claimed the right to express that individuality, she belonged to an
+earlier or a later day, but not to a New England of the eighteenth
+century.  Two years before, at the age of twelve, an age when other
+children's personalities were colourless to the eyes of their elders,
+she had been projected into the tranquil routine of the little world of
+Second Westings.  It was an established, crystallised, unchanging life
+there in the back country of Connecticut, where hours, seasons,
+actions, habits, revolved in so orderly a fashion as to have worn
+themselves grooves out of which they could hardly even look, still less
+achieve to deviate.  Into this rigid placidity the dark child came like
+a grain of ferment; and presently, no one could tell just how, the mass
+began to work.  Barbara was everywhere discussed.  She was rather
+unanimously disapproved of.  And, nevertheless, as it were in the teeth
+of all probability, she won to herself here and there a friend.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At the time of Barbara's transplanting from the cordial soil of
+Maryland to the austere uplands of Connecticut, her father, the
+Reverend Winthrop Hopkins Ladd, clergyman of the Established Church,
+had been dead over two years, and the child's hurt, as such things
+will, had outwardly healed; though the hidden wounds would agonise in
+her heart at unexpected times, set vibrating to some poignant touch of
+scent or sound or colour.  The child had adored her father with a
+tempestuous and jealous devotion, which, however, had not prevented her
+waywardness from diversifying his repose with many a wakeful night.
+Her mother, who had died when Barbara was scarce out of arms, had been
+a bewildering birth from the kiss of North Wales on the warm south of
+Spanish passion.  The son of an old Welsh family, adventuring to the
+New World to capture himself a fortune, had captured himself also a
+wife to beggar envy.  Where or how he got the fortune, no man knew and
+few presumed to wonder; but where and how he got the wife was matter of
+noonday knowledge.  He saw her at church in New Orleans.  There were
+looks that burn and live.  Through that emotional spring Glenowen
+sniffed the incense of more masses than he had thought to attend in a
+lifetime.  Once there was a stolen word behind a pillar, eyes warily
+averted.  Twice notes passed from hand to hand.  Then a girl, the
+daughter of one of the haughtiest houses of Colonial Spain, was
+audaciously carried off by night from a convent school in the safe
+heart of the city.  When next seen of the world, she was Glenowen's
+wife, most radiantly and graciously dispensing an accepted hospitality
+in Baltimore.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The result that in particular pertains to this history was a small,
+flame-like, imperious girl, one Mistress Mercedes Glenowen, who, from
+the night of ceremony when she first made her bow to the governor and
+joyously turned her disastrous eyes upon the society of Baltimore, for
+the space of some three years dispersed vain heartache throughout the
+colony.  Into the remotest plantations went the name of her and the
+fame of her&mdash;and too often, also, the sickness of a hopeless desire of
+her.  There were duels, too, discreetly laid to other cause; and old
+friendships changed to hate; and wild oaths made perjury.  But the
+heart of Mistress Mercedes went free.  A quiet young clergyman, a
+kinsman to the governor, came to Baltimore from Boston, on his way to a
+country parish on the Pawtuxet, to which he had just been appointed.
+Dining at Government House, he met Mistress Mercedes, but his eyes,
+being at that moment immersed in dreams, looked not upon but through
+and beyond her.  Mercedes could not rest an instant until those
+far-wandering, Northern eyes were ensnared, imprisoned, and denied a
+range beyond the boundaries of her heart.  But the capture was not a
+quick one, and in the interest of it she had the accident to become
+herself entangled, to such a degree that she had no longer any use for
+freedom.  And so it came about, to the wrathful amaze of her retinue,
+but the unspeakable content of the Reverend Winthrop Ladd, that the
+dark rose of Maryland was on a sudden removed from Baltimore to bloom
+on a churchly plantation by the pale waters of the Pawtuxet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Ladd, though a dreamer so far as consisted with outdoor life and
+sanity of brain and muscle, was a strong man, one of those who have the
+force to rule when they must, and the gentleness to yield when they
+may.  In the passionate completeness of her love, Mercedes sloughed the
+caprices that would have pained and puzzled him, forgot the very echoes
+of the acclamations of her court, and lived in the sanctuary of her
+husband's devotion.  For nearly three years the strangely assorted
+lovers dwelt in their dream, while the world passed by them like a
+pageant viewed through a glory of coloured glass.  Then a sudden
+sickness tore them apart; and when the dazed man came slowly back to
+the realisation that he had been left to live, all his love, with all
+the illusion of it, centred itself fixedly upon the little one,
+Barbara, whom Mercedes had left to him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As Barbara grew more and more like her mother, her ascendency over her
+father grew more and more complete.  Tenderly but firmly he ruled his
+parish and his plantation.  But he gradually forgot to rule Barbara.
+Too nearly did she represent to him all that he had lost in his
+worshipped Mercedes; and he could not bring himself to see anything but
+freshness of character and vigour of personality in the child's very
+faults.  Hence he evolved, to suit her particular case, a theory very
+much out of harmony with his time, to the effect that a child&mdash;or
+rather, perhaps, such a child as this of Mercedes&mdash;should not be
+governed or disciplined, but guided merely, and fostered in the finding
+of her own untrammelled individuality.  This plan worked, for the time,
+to Barbara's unqualified approval, but she was destined to pay for it,
+in later years, a heavy price in tears, and misunderstandings, and
+repentance.  With the growth of her intense and confident personality
+there grew no balancing strength of self-control.  Unacquainted with
+discipline, she was without the safeguard of self-discipline.  Before
+she was eight years old she held sway over every one on the plantation
+but herself,&mdash;and her rule, though pretty and bewitching, was not
+invariably gentle.  As for her father, though ostensively her comrade
+and mentor, he was by this time in reality her slave.  He rode with
+her; he read with her; he taught her,&mdash;but such studies only as
+ensnared her wayward inclination, and with such regularity only as fell
+in with her variable mood.  The hour for a lesson on the spinet would
+go by unheeded, if Barbara chanced to be interested in the more
+absorbing occupation of climbing a tree; and the time for reciting
+Latin syntax was lightly forgotten if berries were a-ripening in the
+pasture.  Under such auspices, however, Barbara did assuredly grow
+straight-limbed and active, slight and small indeed, by heritage from
+her mother, but strong and of marvellous endurance, with the clear
+blood red under her dark skin, her great gray-green eyes luminous with
+health.  Her father devoted to her every hour of the day that he could
+spare from the claims of his parish.  In a sunny and sandy cove near
+the house he taught her to swim.  Rowing and canoeing on the Pawtuxet
+were mysteries of outdoor craft into which he initiated her as soon as
+her little hands could pull an oar or swing a paddle.  A certain strain
+of wildness in her temperament attuned her to a peculiar sympathy with
+the canoe, and won her a swift mastery of its furtive spirit.  In the
+woods, and in the seclusion of remote creeks and backwaters, her
+waywardness would vanish till she became silent and elusive as the wild
+things whose confidence she was for ever striving to gain.  Her
+advances being suspiciously repelled by the squirrels, the 'coons, and
+the chipmunks, her passion was fain to expend itself upon the domestic
+animals of the plantation.  The horses, cattle, dogs, and cats, all
+loved her, and she understood them as she never understood the nearest
+and best-beloved of her own kind.  With the animals her patience was
+untiring, her gentleness unfailing, while her thoughtless selfishness
+melted into a devotion for which no sacrifice seemed too great.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The negroes of the plantation, who seemed to Barbara akin to the
+animals, came next to these in her regard, and indeed were treated with
+an indulgence which made them almost literally lay their black necks in
+the dust for her little feet to step on.  But with people of her own
+class she was apt to be hasty and ungracious.  <I>Their</I> feelings were of
+small account in her eyes&mdash;certainly not to be weighed for a moment
+against those of a colt or a kitten.  There was one sweet-eyed and
+lumbering half-grown puppy which Barbara's father&mdash;not for an instant,
+indeed, believing anything of the sort&mdash;used to declare was more
+precious to her than himself.  But her old black "Mammy" 'Lize used to
+vow there was more truth than he guessed in "Marse Ladd's foolin'."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+However, when a fever snatched the gentle priest away from the scene of
+his love and kindly ministrations, the child's true self emerged
+through its crust of whim and extravagance.  Stricken beyond a child's
+usual capacity to feel or realise such a blow, she was herself seized
+with a serious illness, after which she fell into a dejection which
+lasted for the better part of a year.  In her desolation she turned to
+her animals rather than to her human companions, and found the more of
+healing in their wordless sympathy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At last, youth and health asserted themselves, and once more Barbara
+rode, paddled, swam, tyrannised, and ran wild over the plantation,
+while relatives from Maine to Maryland wrangled over her future.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was one young uncle, her mother's only brother, whom Barbara
+decided to adopt as her sole guardian.  But other guardians came to
+another decision.  Uncle Bob Glenowen was an uncle after Barbara's own
+heart, but a little more disciplined and reasonable than herself.  The
+two would have got on delightfully together&mdash;together careering over
+the country on high-mettled horses, together swimming and canoeing at
+the most irregular hours, together lauding and loving their four-foot
+kindred and laughing to scorn the general stupidity of mankind.  But
+Uncle Glenowen had little of gold or gear, and his local habitation was
+mutable.  He loved Barbara too well not to recognise that she should
+grow up under the guidance of steadier hands than his.  It was finally
+settled&mdash;Barbara's fiery indignation being quite disregarded&mdash;that she
+should go to her father's younger sister, Mistress Mehitable Ladd, in
+Second Westings.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mistress Ladd was a self-possessed, fair-faced, aristocratic little
+lady, with large blue eyes and a very firm, small mouth.  She was
+conscientious to a point that was wont to bring her kindness, at times,
+into painful conflict with her sense of duty.  The Puritan fibre ran in
+unimpaired vitality through the texture of her being, with the result
+that whenever her heart was so rash as to join issue with her
+conscience, then prompt and disastrous overthrow was the least her
+heart could expect for such presumption.  In the matter of Barbara's
+future, however, Distress Mehitable felt that duty and inclination ran
+together.  She had loved her brother Winthrop with unselfish and
+admiring devotion, and had grieved in secret for years over his
+defection from the austere fold of the Congregationalists to what she
+regarded as the perilously carnal form and ceremony of the Church of
+England.  Her hampered spirit, her uncompleted womanhood, yearned
+toward Barbara, and she shuddered at the idea of Winthrop's child
+growing up untaught, unmothered, uncontrolled.  She made up her mind
+that Barbara should come to Second Westings, become a daughter to her,
+and be reared in the purity of unsullied Congregationalism.  With a
+sigh of concordant relief it was recognised by the other relatives that
+Mehitable was right.  They washed their hands of the child, and forgot
+her, and were thankful&mdash;all but Uncle Bob.  And so Barbara went to
+Second Westings.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap04"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER IV.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Little enough, indeed, would Second Westings ever have seen of the
+heartsore and rebellious child, but for this Uncle Bob.  Searching his
+own spirit, he understood hers; and maintaining a discreet silence as
+to the chief points of his discovery, he set himself the duty of
+accompanying Barbara on the long, complicated journey to Connecticut.
+Not content with delivering his charge into the hands of Mistress
+Mehitable,&mdash;whom he liked despite her uneasy half-disapproval of
+himself,&mdash;he stayed long summer weeks at Second Westings, thus bridging
+over for Barbara the terrible chasm between the old life and the new,
+and by his tactful conciliation on every side making the new life look
+a little less hatefully alien to her.  He took her riding all over the
+township; he took her canoeing on the lake, and down the outlet to its
+junction with the river; and so not only won her a freedom of movement
+hitherto unheard-of among the maidens of Second Westings, but also
+showed her that the solace of wild woods and sweet waters was to be
+found no less in Connecticut than in her longed-for Maryland.
+Moreover, Uncle Bob had "a presence."  Second Westings scrutinised him
+severely, all ready to condemn the stranger folk to whom Winthrop Ladd
+had turned in his marrying.  But Second Westings felt constrained to
+acknowledge at once that Winthrop Ladd had married within his class.
+To high and low alike&mdash;and the line between high and low was sharply
+drawn at Second Westings&mdash;it was obvious that the sister of Mr. Robert
+Glenowen must have been gently born.  Those who would not let
+themselves be warmed by Uncle Bob's bright heartsomeness were unable to
+withhold acknowledgment of his good breeding.  Mistress Mehitable,
+though antagonised by vague gossip as to his "wildness," nevertheless
+recognised with serious relief that no common blood had been suffered
+to obscure the clear blue stream whose purity the Ladds held precious.
+"Light, I fear&mdash;if not, in other surroundings, ungodly; but beyond all
+cavil a gentleman!" pronounced the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer, flicking
+snuff from his sleeve with white, scholarly fingers.  He was not so
+innocent as to attach too much importance to Uncle Bob's devout
+attitude through those interminable services which made a weekly
+nightmare of the Connecticut Sabbath; but he had found a reserved
+satisfaction in the young man's company over a seemly glass and a pipe
+of bright Virginia.  He had a feeling that the visitor's charm was more
+or less subversive of discipline, and that it would be, on the whole,
+for the spiritual welfare of Second Westings if the visit should be
+brief; but meanwhile he took what he could of Uncle Bob's society.
+Class against creed, and a fair field, and it's long odds on class.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But in the minds of Doctor John and Doctor Jim Pigeon&mdash;physicians,
+brothers, comrades, fierce professional rivals, justices of the peace,
+and divinely self-appointed guardians of the sanctity of caste for all
+the neighbourhood&mdash;there were no misgivings.  Their instincts accepted
+Bob Glenowen at first glance.  Their great, rugged faces and mighty
+shoulders towering over him,&mdash;and Uncle Bob himself was nowise scant of
+stature,&mdash;they looked at him and then into each other's eyes; and
+agreed, as they did on most subjects outside the theory and practice of
+medicine.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are right welcome to Second Westings, Mr. Glenowen!" exclaimed
+Doctor Jim, in a big, impetuous voice, grasping his hand heartily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And we trust that you may be slow to leave us, Mr. Glenowen!" added
+Doctor John, in a voice which any competent jury, blindfolded, would
+have pronounced identical.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Recognising the true fibre and the fineness of these two big, gentle
+autocrats, Uncle Bob made a special point of commending Barbara to
+their hearts&mdash;in which commending he so well sped, and indeed was so
+well seconded by Barbara herself, who loved them from the moment when
+her eyes first fell upon them, that they presently constituted
+themselves special guardians to the little maid, and indulgent
+mitigators of Mistress Mehitable's conscience.  The manner in which
+they fulfilled the sometimes conflicting duties of these offices will
+appear pretty persistently in the sequel.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was to Uncle Bob, also, that Barbara owed the somewhat disreputable
+friendship of old Debby.  The very first day that he and Barbara went
+canoeing on the lake, they explored the outlet, discovered old Debby's
+cabin, paid an uninvited call, and captivated the old dame's crusty
+heart.  Glenowen knew human nature.  He had the knack of going straight
+to the quintessential core of it, and pinning his faith to that in
+spite of all unpromising externals.  He decided at once that Debby
+would be a good diversion for Barbara after he was gone; and when,
+later in the day, he learned that the old woman was universally but
+vaguely reprobated by the prim folk of Second Westings, he was more
+than ever assured that she would be a comfort to Barbara through many a
+dark hour of strangerhood and virtuous misunderstanding.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Uncle Bob's visit had to end.  He went away with misgivings,
+leaving Barbara to pit her careless candour, her thoughtless
+self-absorption, her scorn of all opinions that differed from her own,
+her caprices, her passionate enthusiasms, her fierce intolerance of
+criticism or control, against the granitic conventions of an old New
+England village.  The half guilty, half amused support of Doctor John
+and Doctor Jim gave importance to her revolt, and so lightened the rod
+of Aunt Kitty's discipline as to save Barbara from the more ignominious
+of the penalties which her impetuous wilfulness would otherwise have
+incurred.  The complete, though forbidden, sympathy of old Debby,
+affording the one safe outlet to her tumultuous resentments and
+passionate despairs, saved the child from brain-sickness; and once,
+indeed, on a particularly black day of humiliation, from suicide.
+Barbara had shaken the very foundations of law, order, and religion, by
+riding at a wild gallop, one Sunday afternoon, down the wide main
+street of Second Westings just as the good folk were coming out of
+meeting.  Her rebellious waves of dark hair streamed out behind her
+little head.  Her white teeth flashed wickedly between her parted
+scarlet lips, her big eyes flamed with the intoxication of liberty and
+protest&mdash;to these good folk it seemed an unholy light.  Barbara ought
+to have been at meeting, but had been left at home, reluctantly, by
+Aunt Hitty, because she had seemed too sick to get out of bed.  In very
+truth she had been sick beyond all feigning.  Then one of those violent
+reactions of recovery which sometimes cause the nervous temperament to
+be miserably misunderstood had seized her at an inauspicious moment.
+As the tide of young vitality surged back to brain and vein and nerve,
+she had felt that she must let herself loose in wild action, or die.
+All unrealising the enormity of the offence, she had flung down her mad
+defiance to the sanctified and iron-bound repose of the New England
+Sabbath.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Such a sacrilege could not be overlooked or condoned.  The congregation
+was appalled.  Long upper lips were drawn down ominously, as austere
+eyes followed the vision of the fleeing child on the great black horse.
+Could it be that she was possessed of a devil?  Pitying eyes were
+turned upon Aunt Hitty; and triumphant eyes of gratified grudge,
+moreover, for Aunt Hitty was proud, and had virtuous ill-wishers in the
+village.  But Mistress Mehitable Ladd was equal to the occasion.  With
+a level stare of her blue eyes, a cold tranquillity upon her small,
+fine mouth, she froze comment and forestalled suggestion.  The feeling
+went abroad, in a subtle way, that the case would be dealt with and the
+piety of Second Westings vindicated in the eyes of Heaven.  Doctor John
+and Doctor Jim looked grave, and said not a word.  This was a time when
+Mistress Mehitable, they well knew, would brook no interference.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Of course there could be no question of such correction as would have
+fallen to the lot of any ordinary offender.  There could be no such
+thing as putting a <I>Ladd</I> in the stocks.  The regular machinery of
+village law rested quiescent.  Equally of course, Mistress Mehitable
+would do nothing in anger.  She was humiliated before the whole
+village, in a manner that could never be forgotten or wiped out.  But
+her first feeling and her last feeling were alike of sorrow only.  She
+would do her duty because Winthrop's child must be saved.  But she had
+no proud consciousness of virtue in doing it.  First, she attempted to
+explain to Barbara the depth, quality, and significance of her sin, its
+possible influence upon the ethics of Second Westings if allowed to go
+unpunished, the special variety of inherited evil which it revealed in
+her nature, and her stupendous need of having this evil eradicated by
+devotedly merciless correction.  After the first few words of this
+exhortation, Barbara heard no more.  She was at all times fiercely
+impatient of criticism, and now, being determined not to fly into a
+fury and further complicate her predicament, she shut her eyes,
+inwardly closed her ears, and concentrated her imagination on memories
+of the longed-for plantation by the Pawtuxet.  This concentration gave
+her vivid little face an air of quietude, subjection, and voiceless
+sorrow, which Aunt Hitty was glad to construe as repentance.  But it
+earned no mitigation of punishment.  For one whole week Barbara was a
+prisoner in her room, eating her heart out in hatred of the stupidity
+and injustice of life.  Then came around, at last, another Sabbath.
+Barbara was taken to church.  There her proud soul was affronted by a
+public rebuke from the pastor, who exhorted her from the pulpit,
+contented the congregation by a rehearsal of her punishment, and held
+her up as an example to the other children of the village.  Barbara
+listened with shut eyes and white lips, her heart bursting with rage.
+She ached to kill him, to kill her aunt, to annihilate Second
+Westings&mdash;saving only the animals, old Debby, Mercy Chapman, Doctor
+John and Doctor Jim.  But when the good divine went on to say that her
+discipline would be concluded with a wholesome chastisement on the
+morrow, in the privacy of the house to which her sinful conduct had
+brought grief,&mdash;then, indeed, her heart stood still.  She felt a great
+calmness come over her.  She made up her mind to escape by her window
+that very evening and drown herself in the lake.  If life contained
+such horrors she would have done with it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She did not go that night, however, because she feared the dark.  It
+was gray dawn when she climbed from her window.  Blind, resolved,
+swift-footed, she fled through the woods.  Old Debby, resting in her
+punt by the lake's edge, not far from the Ladd landing-place, was
+pulling some sweet-rooted water-plants of a virtue known only to
+herself, when she was startled by a heavy splash and a little gasping
+cry which came from the other side of a steep point some four or five
+rods distant.  Her vigorous old arms drove the punt through the water
+in mad haste&mdash;for there was something in the cry that wrenched at her
+heart.  Rounding the point, she stood close in to the foot of a rock
+which jutted out into five or six feet of water.  Peering down over the
+side of the punt, she saw lying on the bottom a slim, small body.  A
+groan burst from her lips, for Barbara's face was half visible; and the
+old woman understood at once.  She had heard the village gossip, and
+she had feared a tragedy.  She knew that Barbara could swim,&mdash;but there
+was her long scarf of red silk twisted about the little arms lest
+resolution should falter in the face of the last great demand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For a second old Debby was at fault.  She could not swim.  Then her
+brain worked.  Reaching down with one of the oars, she twisted the
+blade tightly into the skirt of the child's gown, pulled her up, and
+snatched her into the boat.  Experienced and ready in emergency, the
+old woman thrust ashore, laid the moveless little figure down upon a
+mossy hillock, and in a very few minutes succeeded in bringing it back
+to conscious life.  She asked no questions, while Barbara clung to her,
+sobbing spasmodically at long intervals.  She murmured pet names to
+her, caressed and soothed her, told her she was safe and no one should
+abuse her, and finally, lifting her into the punt and laying her gently
+on an armful of sweet bracken in the stern, rowed over the lake to her
+cabin.  Throughout the journey Barbara lay with closed eyes, while the
+young life, slowly but obstinately reasserting itself, brought back the
+colour to cheeks and lips.  Only once did she speak.  Lifting her lids,
+she gazed fixedly at the hard-lined old face that bent over the swaying
+oars.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, why did you do it, Debby dear?" she asked, weakly.  "If you knew
+how I hate to live!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Tut! tut! honey!" answered the old woman, with a cheerful positiveness
+that made her despair suddenly seem to Barbara unreasonable and unreal.
+"Ye don't want to die yet awhile.  An' whatever ye want, ye cain't die
+yet awhile, fer I've seen it in yer blessed little hands that ye've got
+a long life afore ye.  Moresoever, I read it that life's got a heap of
+happiness in store fer ye.  So you be brave, Miss Barby, an' think how
+Uncle Bob would 'a' broke his poor heart if ye'd got yer own way an'
+drownded yerself."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," murmured Barbara, drowsily, sinking away into peace after her
+long pain, "Uncle Bob would have been sorry!"  Then, after a pause, she
+added softly under her breath: "I'll run away and go to Uncle Bob some
+day!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Old Debby heard the words, but made no comment.  She stored them in her
+memory, and afterward kept crafty watch whenever she saw, by Barbara's
+mood, that a crisis was on at Aunt Kitty's.  For the time, however, she
+felt no great anxiety, it being very plain to her that this present
+crisis was past, and that Barbara was no longer strung up to the pitch
+of violent action or any course that would require initiative.  Nerve
+and will alike relaxed, the child was submissive through exhaustion.
+At the cabin Debby first made her eat some breakfast, and then got her
+interested in a brood of chickens just one day out of the shell.  The
+mother hen ruffled her feathers, scolded in shrill protest, and pecked
+angrily, but Barbara reached under the brooding wings and drew out a
+bead-eyed, golden-yellow, downy ball.  Her face lightened tenderly as
+she felt the tiny bill and fragile baby claws snuggling against her
+enclosing palms.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She's all right now!" said old Debby to herself, nodding her head in
+satisfaction.  Aloud she said,&mdash;as she got a clean white sunbonnet out
+of the chest, adjusted it on her sparse locks, and tied its strings
+beneath her grim chin,&mdash;"I'm goin' to leave ye a bit, honey, to mind
+the chickens fer me an' look after the place while I go in to Second
+Westings to hev a bit o' talk with Doctor Jim.  Promise me not to quit
+the place while I'm gone?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll take good care of everything till you get back, Debby," answered
+Barbara, abstractedly, without turning her head.  She had relinquished
+the downy chicken, and was busy conciliating the ruffled hen with
+crumbs.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap05"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER V.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+It was without misgiving that old Debby left the child to the healing
+of the solitude and the sun, the little wholesome responsibility, the
+unexacting companionship of the cat and the fowls.  (This was before
+the day of the yellow pup, which did not come upon the scene until the
+following summer.)  She had already learned that Barbara's promise was
+a thing to depend upon; and she felt that Barbara's heart would now be
+medicined more sweetly by silence than by words.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The problem to whose solution the dauntless old woman had set herself
+was that of getting Barbara back to her aunt's house on terms that
+should ward off any further discipline.  With this end in view she
+turned, as a matter of course, to Doctor Jim Pigeon.  Debby's position
+in Second Westings was theoretically that of an outlaw.  She had a
+mysterious past.  She was obstinately refractory about going to
+meeting.  Without actually defying the authorities, she would quietly
+and unobtrusively go her own way in regard to many matters which Second
+Westings accounted momentous.  Moreover, she was lamentably lacking in
+that subservience to her betters which the aristocracy of Second
+Westings held becoming.  And she had knowledge that savoured of
+witchcraft.  She would certainly have felt the heavy hand of correction
+more than once, and probably have been driven to seek a more humane
+environment, but for the staunch befriending of Doctor Jim.  Something
+in the old woman's fearless independence appealed to both the big,
+loud-voiced, soft-hearted brothers&mdash;but to Doctor Jim in particular.
+He in particular came to perceive her clear common sense, to appreciate
+the loyal and humane heart that lurked within her acrid personality.
+He openly showed his favour, and stood between her and persecution,
+till Second Westings taught itself to regard her offences as
+privileged.  So, though an outlaw, she became a useful and tolerated
+one.  She served surpassingly to point a moral in family admonitions.
+She was much in favour as a bogy to frighten crying children into
+silence.  And furthermore, when deadly sickness chanced to fall upon a
+household, and skilled help was lacking, and self-righteous prejudice
+melted away in the crucible of anguish, then old Debby was wont to
+appear unsummoned and work marvels by the magic of her nursing.  Doctor
+Jim had been known to declare defiantly that Debby Blue's nursing had
+saved patients whom all his medicines could not cure,&mdash;whereto Doctor
+John had retorted, with brotherly sarcasm, "In spite of your medicines,
+Jim&mdash;in spite of them!  Debby is the shield and buckler of your medical
+reputation."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So it was of course that the old woman turned to Doctor Jim in her
+difficulty.  She knew that both brothers loved Barbara, and that both,
+individually and collectively, had more influence with Mistress
+Mehitable Ladd than any other living mortal could boast.  She would
+talk to Doctor Jim.  Doctor Jim would talk to Doctor John.  Doctor John
+and Doctor Jim would together talk to Mistress Mehitable.  And Barbara
+would be taken back without penalty of further exhortation or
+discipline.  If not&mdash;well, old Debby's mind was made up as to what she
+would do in such a distressing contingency.  She would herself run away
+with Barbara that same night, in cunning disguise and by devious ways,
+and travel to find Uncle Bob.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But there was to be no need of such audacious adventuring.  When Doctor
+Jim heard what Barbara had done, he was sorely wrought up.  He glared
+fiercely and wonderingly; his shaggy eyebrows knitted and knotted as he
+listened; he dashed his hands through his hair till the well dressed
+locks were sadly disarranged.  When Debby ceased speaking he sprang up
+with an inarticulate roar, knocking over two chairs and one of the
+andirons.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They have gone too far with the child," he cried out at last,
+mastering his ebullient emotions.  "She is too high-strung for our rude
+handling.  I swear she shall not be persecuted any longer&mdash;not if I
+have to take her away myself.  No&mdash;not a word, not a word, Debby!  Not
+another word!  I'll just step across the yard and speak to Doctor John.
+Be good enough to wait here till I return."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Without hat or stick he ramped tempestuously across to his brother's
+office, in the opposite wing of the big, white-porticoed, red-doored
+house which they occupied together.  He left old Debby well content
+with the first step in her undertaking.  She had but a little to wait
+ere he returned, noisy, hurried, and decisive.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now, my good Debby," he shouted, "I'm ready to accompany you.  I will
+fetch Barbara myself.  Doctor John is going over to lay our views
+before Mistress Ladd, and I'll warrant that wise and gentle lady will
+see the matter clearly, just as we do.  Yes, yes, my good Debby, we
+have all been forgetting that the little wild rose of Maryland cannot
+be at once inured to the rigours of our New England air.  Eh, what?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When Doctor Jim and the old woman reached the cabin they found Barbara
+sound asleep, curled up in the sun beside the stoop, one arm around the
+gray-and-white cat, which lay, fast asleep also, against her breast.
+There was a darkness about her eyes, a hurt droop at the corners of her
+full red mouth, but the colour came wholesomely under the transparent
+tan of her cheeks.  The picture stirred a great ache in Doctor Jim's
+childless heart, and with a tender growl he strode forward to snatch
+her up from her hard couch.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"S't!  Don't ye frighten the poor baby!" said old Debby.  Whereupon
+Doctor Jim went softly, mincing his big steps, and knelt down, and
+gathered the little figure in his arms.  Waking slowly, Barbara slipped
+her arms around his neck, thrust her face under his chin, drew a long
+sigh of satisfaction; and so, the revolt and cruel indignation for the
+time all quenched in her wild spirit, she was carried down to the punt.
+Everything seemed settled without explanation or argument or promise.
+The trouble was all shifted to Doctor Jim's broad shoulders.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Good-bye, Debby dear!" she murmured to the old woman, reaching down a
+caressing hand; "I'll come to see you in a few days, as soon as Aunt
+Hitty will let me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+During the journey homeward Barbara threw off her languor, and became
+animated as the punt surged ahead under Doctor Jim's huge strokes.  The
+conversation grew brisk, touching briefly such diverse topics as the
+new bay mare which the doctor had just purchased from Squire Hopgood of
+Westings Centre, and the latest point of exasperation between the
+merchants of Boston and the officers of the king's customs at that
+unruly port.  This latter subject was one on which Doctor Jim and
+Barbara had already learned to disagree with a kind of affectionate
+ferocity.  The child was a rebel in every fibre, while Doctor Jim had a
+vigorous Tory prejudice which kept his power of polemic well occupied
+in Second Westings.  The two were presently so absorbed in controversy
+that the rocky point of the morning's attempted tragedy was passed
+without the tribute of a shudder or even a recognition.  At last, with
+a mighty, half wrathful surge upon the oars, Doctor Jim beached the
+punt at the landing-place.  As the distracted wave of his violence
+seethed hissing up the gravel and set the neighbour sedges a-swinging,
+he leaned forward and fixed the eager girl with a glare from under the
+penthouse of his eyebrows.  Open-mouthed and intent, Barbara waited for
+his pronouncement.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Child!" said he, waving a large, but white and fine forefinger for
+emphasis, "Don't you let that amiable and disreputable old vagabond,
+Debby Blue, or that pestilent rebel, Doctor John Pigeon, stuff your
+little head with notions.  It's <I>your</I> place to stand by the <I>Crown</I>,
+right or wrong.  Remember your blood.  You know right well which side
+your father would have stood upon!  Eh, what?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The disputatious confidence died out of Barbara's face.  For a moment
+her head drooped, for she knew in her heart how thoroughly that
+worshipped father would have identified himself with the king's party
+as soon as occasion arose.  Then she looked up, and a mocking light
+danced in her gray eyes, while her mouth drew itself into lines of
+solemnity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I promise," she exclaimed, leaning forward and laying a thin little
+gipsy hand on Doctor Jim's knee, as if registering a vow, "that I won't
+harm your dear King George!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Baggage!" shouted Doctor Jim, snatching her from her seat and stalking
+up the beach with her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Arriving at the Ladd place from the rear, by way of the pasture and the
+barnyard, they found Doctor John awaiting them.  He was leaning over
+the little wicket gate at the back of the garden, eating a handful of
+plump gooseberries.  With affected sternness he eyed their approach,
+not uttering a word till Barbara violently pushed the gate open and
+rushed at him.  Then, straightening himself to his full height,&mdash;he had
+a half-head to the good of even the towering Doctor Jim,&mdash;he extended
+his hand to her, and said, civilly:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do have a gooseberry!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At this Barbara shrieked with laughter.  Doctor John always seemed to
+her the very funniest thing in the world, and his humour, in season and
+out of season, quite irresistible.  At the same time she pounded him
+impatiently with her fists, and tried to pull him down to her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't want a gooseberry," she cried.  "I want you to kiss me.  I
+haven't seen you for more than a week, and you go and act just as if I
+had seen you every day!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Doctor John stooped, but held her at arm's length, and gazed at her
+with preternatural gravity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Tell me one thing," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What?" whispered Barbara, impressed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Have you been taking any of Jim Pigeon's physic since I saw you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No!" shrieked Barbara, with another wild peal of laughter.  "Doctor
+Jim's a Tory.  He might poison me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then you shall have one kiss&mdash;no, two!" said Doctor John, picking her
+up.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ten&mdash;twenty&mdash;a hundred!" insisted the child, hugging him violently.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There! there!  Enough is as good as a feast!" interrupted Doctor John,
+presently, untwining her arms and setting her down.  Then, Doctor Jim
+holding one of her hands and Doctor John the other, she skipped gaily
+up the path toward the house, like a wisp of light dancing between
+their giant bulks.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At this moment the figure of Mistress Mehitable appeared on the porch;
+and Barbara felt suddenly abashed.  A realisation of all that had
+occurred, all she had done, all she had suffered, rushed over her.  Her
+little fingers shut like steel upon the great, comforting hands that
+held them, and the colour for a moment faded out of her cheeks.  Doctor
+John and Doctor Jim both felt the pang of emotion that darted through
+her.  She felt, rather than saw, that their big faces leaned above her
+tenderly.  But she did not want them to speak.  She was afraid they
+might not say the right thing.  She felt that <I>she</I> must say something
+at once, to divert their attention from her plight.  She looked around
+desperately and caught sight, in the barnyard behind her, of the hired
+man milking the vicious red 'mooley' cow that would not let Abby milk
+her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why!" she exclaimed, with a vast show of interest and surprise,
+"there's Amos milking Mooley!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On the instant she recognised the bald irrelevancy of the remark, and
+wished she had not spoken.  But Doctor John turned his head, eyed Amos
+with critical consideration, and said:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Goodness gracious! why, so it is!  Now, do you know, <I>I</I> should have
+expected to see the parson, or Squire Gillig, milking Mooley.  Dear me,
+dear me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At this, though the deeper half of her heart was sick with apprehensive
+emotion, the other half was irresistibly titillated, and she laughed
+hysterically; while Doctor Jim emitted a vast, appreciative guffaw.
+Before anything more could be said, the voice of Mistress Mehitable
+came from the porch, kindly sweet, familiar, and cadenced as if no
+cataclysms whatever had lately shaken the world.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Supper is waiting," she said, and smiled upon them gently as they
+approached.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We come, fair mistress!" responded Doctor Jim, modulating his voice to
+a deferential softness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We come&mdash;and here we are," broke out Doctor John, snatching up
+Barbara, dashing forward, and thrusting her into her aunt's not
+unwilling arms.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a wise device to surmount the difficulty of the meeting.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am truly most glad to see you, my dear child," said Mistress
+Mehitable, earnestly, pressing Barbara to her heart and kissing her on
+the forehead.  Barbara looked up, searched her aunt's face piercingly
+for a second, saw that the gentle blue eyes were something red and
+swollen with weeping, and impulsively lifted her lips to be kissed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am sorry I grieved you, Aunt Hitty," she whispered, "I'll try hard
+not to."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mistress Mehitable kissed her again, almost impetuously, gave her a
+squeeze of understanding, and with her arm over the child's shoulder
+led the way in to supper.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap06"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER VI.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+After this upheaval there was better understanding for a time between
+Barbara and Mistress Mehitable.  The lady made an honest effort to
+allow for some of the differences in the point of view of a child
+brought up on a Maryland plantation, under another creed, and spoiled
+from the cradle.  She tried, also, to allow for the volcanic and alien
+strain which mingled in Barbara's veins with the well-ordered blood of
+the Ladds.  But this alien strain was something she instinctively
+resented and instinctively longed to subdue.  Moreover, she lacked
+imagination; and therefore, with the most sincere good purpose on both
+sides, the peace between herself and Barbara was but superficial,
+demanding the price of ceaseless vigilance.  Barbara, on her part,
+strove to be more diligent with her tasks, and greatly conciliated
+Mistress Mehitable by her swift progress in plain sewing, penmanship,
+and playing on the harpsichord; and she quickly learned to read aloud
+with a charm and a justness of emphasis which her aunt never wearied of
+commending.  But with the elaborate Dresden embroidery and intricate
+lace-making, and the flummery art of "papyrotamia"&mdash;a cutting of paper
+flowers&mdash;which then occupied the leisure of young maids of gentle
+breeding, Barbara had no patience at all.  She scorned and hated
+them&mdash;and she purchased her release from them by electing rather the
+rigid and exacting pursuit of Latin grammar, which only masculine
+intellects were considered competent to acquire.  In this she had had
+some grounding from her father; and now, under the sympathetic tuition
+of Doctor John, she found its strenuous intricacies a satisfaction to
+her restless brain, and made such progress as to compel the reluctant
+commendation of the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer himself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Meanwhile, seeing the restraint under which the child was holding
+herself, Mistress Mehitable tried to moderate to some degree her
+disapproval of Barbara's vagaries and impetuosities, so that sometimes
+her wild rides, her canoeings at unseemly hours, her consortings with
+old Debby, her incorrigible absences from the noonday board, were
+suffered to go almost unrebuked.  But it was a perennial vexation to
+Mistress Mehitable to observe Barbara's haughty indifference to the
+other young girls of her own class in the township, who were her
+fitting associates and might have redeemed her from her wildness;
+while, on the other hand, she insisted on making an intimate of Mercy
+Chapman, the daughter of Doctor John's hired man.  Barbara found all
+the girls whom her aunt approved hopelessly uninteresting&mdash;prim,
+docile, pious, uninformed, addicted to tatting, excited over
+feather-work.  But Mercy Chapman was fearless, adventurous within her
+limits, protectingly acquainted with all the birds' nests in the
+neighbourhood, and passionately fond of animals, especially horses and
+cats.  Mercy Chapman, therefore, was admitted very cordially to certain
+outer chambers of Barbara's heart; while the daughters of Squire
+Grannis and Lawyer Perley were treated to a blank indifference which
+amounted to incivility, and excited the excoriating comment of their
+mammas.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Another severe trial to Mistress Mehitable's patience was Barbara's
+unhousewifely aversion to the kitchen.  She vowed she could not abide
+the smell of cooking in her hair, averring that all cooks carried the
+savour of the frying-pan.  When her aunt pointed out how humiliated she
+would be when she came to have a house of her own, she declared there
+would be time enough to learn when that day threatened; and she stoutly
+asseverated, moreover, that she could cook without learning.  Upon this
+rash claim Mistress Mehitable pinned her to a test, being minded to
+abase her for her soul's good; but she emerged from the trial with vast
+accession of prestige, doing up sundry tasty desserts with a readiness
+born of past interest in the arcana of her father's kitchen by the
+Pawtuxet.  But for all her aunt's exhortations she would explore no
+further in the domain of bake-pan and skillet.  There was antagonism,
+moreover, between Barbara and Abby, to the point that if Mistress
+Mehitable had prevailed with her niece in this matter, she would have
+found herself obliged to change her cook.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was one department of the household economy, however, in which
+Barbara was ever ready to meet her aunt half-way.  It furnished a
+common ground, whereon many a threatened rupture was averted, or at
+least postponed.  This was the still-room.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara adored cleanliness and sweet smells.  The clean, fragrant
+place, wherein bundles of herbs whose odours spoke to her of the South,
+and of strange lands, and of longed-for, half-forgotten dreams, and of
+desires which she could not understand, was to her a temple of
+enchanting mysteries.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now Mistress Mehitable was a cunning distiller of the waters of
+bergamot, rosemary, mint, thyme, and egrimony; but Barbara developed a
+subtlety in the combining of herbs and simples which resulted in
+perfumes hitherto unknown.  One essence, indeed, which she compounded,
+proved so penetrating, lasting, and exquisite, that her aunt, in a
+burst of staid enthusiasm, suggested that she should name it and write
+down the formula for security.  This was done, to Barbara's great
+pride; and thereafter the "Water of Maryland Memories" became the
+proper thing to use in Second Westings.  Nothing, perhaps, did more to
+make Barbara a personage in the township than this highly approved
+"Water of Maryland Memories."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In this way the days passed, so that at times Mistress Mehitable had
+hopes that the child was going to assimilate herself, and cease to pine
+for her plantation in the South.  In reality, the rebellion in
+Barbara's soul but grew the stronger as her nature deepened and
+matured.  Throughout her second spring at Second Westings,&mdash;when the
+mounting sap set her veins athrill in unison, and she saw the violets
+come back to the greening meadows, the quaker-ladies and the
+windflowers to the little glades of the wood; and the wild ducks
+returned from the south to nest by the lake, and the blackbirds chirred
+again in the swaying tops of the pine-trees,&mdash;her spirit chafed more
+fiercely at every bar.  The maddest rides over upland field and pasture
+lot at dawn, the fiercest paddlings up and down the lake when the wind
+was driving and the chop sea tried her skill, were insufficient vent to
+her restlessness.  Her thoughts kept reverting, in spite of herself, to
+the idea of seeking her uncle.  Misunderstandings with Mistress
+Mehitable grew more frequent and more perilous.  But just as she was
+beginning to feel that something desperate must happen at once, there
+came to her a responsibility which for a time diverted her thoughts.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The kitchen cat presented the household with four kittens.  Having a
+well-grounded suspicion that kittens were a superfluity in Second
+Westings, the mother hid her furry miracles in the recesses of a loft
+in the barn.  Not until their eyes were well open were they discovered;
+and it was Barbara who discovered them.  With joyous indiscretion, all
+undreaming of the consequences, she proclaimed her discovery in the
+house.  Then the customary stern decree went forth&mdash;but in this case
+tempered with fractional mercy, seeing that Mistress Mehitable was a
+just woman.  One was spared to console the mother, and three were
+doomed to death.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara, all undreaming of the decree, chanced to come upon Amos in the
+cow-shed, standing over a tub of water.  She saw him drop a kitten into
+the tub, and pick up the next.  She heard the faint mewing of the
+victims.  For one instant her heart stood still with pain and fury.
+Then, speechless, but with face and eyes ablaze, she swooped down and
+sprang upon him with such impetuous violence that, bending over as he
+was, he lost his balance and sprawled headlong, upsetting the tub as he
+fell.  As the flood went all abroad, sousing Amos effectually, Barbara
+snatched up the dripping and struggling mewer, clutched it to her
+bosom, seized the basket containing the other two, burst into wild
+tears, fled to the house, and shut herself into her room with her
+treasures.  Straightway realising, however, that they would not be safe
+even there, she darted forth again, defying her aunt's efforts to stop
+her, ran to the woods, and hid them in the secret hollow of an old
+tree.  Knowing that Amos would never have committed the enormity at his
+own instance, she hastened to make her peace with him,&mdash;which was easy,
+Amos being at heart her slave,&mdash;with a view to getting plenty of milk
+for the tiny prisoners; but against Mistress Mehitable her wrath burned
+hotly.  She stayed out till long past supper, and crept to bed without
+speaking to any one&mdash;hungry save for warm milk supplied by Amos.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This was an open subversion of authority, and Mistress Mehitable was
+moved.  In the morning she demanded the surrender of the kittens.
+Barbara fiercely refused.  Then discipline was threatened&mdash;a whipping,
+perhaps, since duty must be done, however hard&mdash;or imprisonment in her
+room for a week.  Barbara had a vision of the kittens slowly starving
+in their hollow tree, and her face set itself in a way that gave
+Mistress Mehitable pause, suggesting tragedies.  The next moment
+Barbara rushed from the room, flew bareheaded down the street, burst
+into Doctor Jim's office, and announced that she would kill herself
+rather than go back to her Aunt Hitty.  Past events precluding the
+possibility of this being disregarded as an idle threat, it was
+perforce taken seriously.  Doctor John was summoned.  The situation was
+thrashed out in all its bearings; and finally, while Barbara curled
+herself up in a tired heap on the lounge and went to sleep, her two
+champions went to confer with Mistress Mehitable.  Hard in this case
+was the task, for the little lady considered a principle at stake; but
+they came back at last triumphant.  Barbara was to be allowed to retain
+the kittens, on the pledge that she would keep them from becoming in
+any way a nuisance to the rest of the house, and that she would, as
+soon as possible, find homes elsewhere for at least two of them.  This
+last condition might have troubled her, but that Doctor John and Doctor
+Jim both winked as they announced it, which she properly interpreted to
+mean that they, being catless and mouse-ridden, would help her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So Barbara went back to Aunt Hitty&mdash;who received her gravely; and the
+kittens came back from their hollow tree; and the shock of clashing
+spheres was averted.  But the peace was a hollow and precarious one&mdash;an
+armistice, rather than a peace.  For about a week Barbara's heart and
+hands were pretty well occupied by her little charges, and Mistress
+Mehitable found her conciliatory.  But one day there came a letter from
+Uncle Bob, accompanied by a box which contained macaroons and
+marchpanes, candied angelica, a brooch of garnets, and a piece of
+watchet-blue paduasoy sufficient to make Barbara a dress.  The letter
+announced that Uncle Bob was at Bridgeport, and about to sojourn for a
+time at the adjoining village of Stratford.  Why, Stratford was in
+Connecticut&mdash;it could not be very far from Second Westings!  Barbara's
+heart throbbed with excitement.  The very next day she made excuse to
+visit Lawyer Perley, and consult a map of the Connecticut colony which
+she had once observed in his office.  She noted the way the rivers
+ran&mdash;and her heart beat more wildly than ever.  Just at this point
+conscience awoke.  She put the dangerous thought away vehemently, and
+for a whole week was most studious to please.  But Mistress Mehitable
+was still austere, still troubled in her heart as to whether she had
+done right about the kittens.  One morning just after breakfast Barbara
+was set to hemming a fine linen napkin, at a time when she was in haste
+to be at something else more interesting.  She scamped the uncongenial
+task&mdash;in very truth, the stitches were shocking.  Hence came an
+unpleasantness.  Barbara was sent to her room to meditate for an hour.
+She was now all on fire with revolt.  Escape seemed within reach.  She
+meditated to such purpose that when her hour was past she came forth
+smiling, and went about her affairs with gay diligence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was on the following morning that, when the first pallor of dawn
+touched the tree-tops, she climbed out of the window, down the
+apple-tree, and fled with her bundle and her kittens.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap07"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER VII.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+After her breakfast at old Debby's, Barbara urged forward her canoe
+with keen exhilaration.  Now was she really free, really advanced in
+her great adventure.  A load of anxiety was lifted from her mind.  She
+had succeeded in arranging so that the letter would be delivered to her
+aunt&mdash;a matter which had been fretting at her conscience.  Moreover,
+old Debby had shown no surprise or disapproval on hearing of her rash
+venture.  It nettled Barbara, indeed, to have so heroic an enterprise
+taken so lightly; but she augured therefrom that it was more feasible
+than she had dared to hope, and already she saw herself installed as
+mistress of Uncle Bob's home in Stratford.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He'll love us, my babies!" she cried to the kittens in the basket, and
+forthwith plied her paddle so feverishly that in a few minutes she had
+to stop and take breath.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The river at this point wound through low meadows, sparsely treed with
+the towering, majestic water poplar, sycamore, and arching elm, with
+here and there a graceful river birch leaning pensively to contemplate
+its reflection in the stream.  The trees and flowers were personal to
+Barbara, her quick senses differentiating them unerringly.  The low
+meadow, swampy in spots, was a mass of herbs, shrubs, and rank grasses,
+for the most part now in full flower; and the sun was busy distilling
+from them all their perfumes, which came to Barbara's nostrils in warm,
+fitful, varying puffs.  She noted the tenderly flushing feathery masses
+of meadowsweet, which she could never quite forgive for its lack of the
+perfume promised by its name.  From the dry knolls came the heavy scent
+of the tall, bold umbels of the wild parsnip, at which she sniffed with
+passing resentment.  Another breath of wind, and a turn of the stream
+into a somewhat less open neighbourhood, brought her a sweet and
+well-loved savour, and she half rose in her place to greet the presence
+of a thicket of swamp honeysuckle.  She noted, as she went, pale
+crimson colonies of the swamp rose, hummed over softly by the bees and
+flies.  Purple Jacob's-ladder draped the bushes luxuriantly, with wild
+clematis in lavish banks, and aerial stretches of the roseate
+monkey-flower on its almost invisible stems.  Her heart went out to a
+cluster of scented snakemouth under the rim of the bank.  She was about
+to turn her prow shoreward and gather the modest pinkish blossoms for
+their enchanting fragrance, when she observed leaning above them her
+mortal enemy among the tree-folk, the virulent poison sumac.  She
+swerved sharply to the other side of the stream to avoid its hostile
+exhalations.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The little river now widened out and became still more sluggish.  A
+narrow meadow island in mid-stream intoxicated Barbara's eyes with
+colour, being fringed with rank on rank of purple flag-flower, and its
+grassy heart flame-spotted with the blooms of the wild lily.  The still
+water along the shores was crowded with floating-heart, and
+pale-blossomed arrowhead, and blue, rank pickerel-weed; and Barbara,
+who did not mind the heat, but revelled in the carnival of colour, drew
+a deep breath and declared to herself (giving the flat lie to ten
+thousand former assertions of the like intimacy) that the world was a
+beautiful place to live in.  No sooner had she said it than her heart
+sank under a flood of bitter memories.  She seemed once more to feel
+the water singing in her ears, to see its golden blur filling her eyes,
+as on that morning when she lay drowning in the lake.  The glory of the
+summer day lost something of its brightness, and she paddled on
+doggedly, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But this was a mood that could not long hold dominion over Barbara's
+spirit on this day of days, when she was journeying to freedom.  It
+took no more than the scarlet flash of a tanager across her bow, the
+flapping of a startled brood of ducks from their covert in the sedge,
+to lure her back to gladness and the seeing eye.  At last the river
+carried her into quite different surroundings.  Still slow, and smooth,
+and deep, it entered the neighbourhood of great trees growing close,
+the ancient and unviolated forest.  The day grew cool and solemn, the
+diffused light floating hushed under the great arches of brown and gray
+and green.  By contrast it seemed dark, but the air was of a wonderful
+transparency, and Barbara's eyes, opening wide in delicious awe, saw
+everything more distinctly than in the open.  She whispered to the
+yellow birch, the paper birch, the beech, the maple, and the chestnut,
+each by name lovingly, as she slipped past their soaring trunks,
+knowing them by the texture and the features of their bark though their
+leaves hung far overhead.  Her paddle dipped without noise, lest the
+mysteries of the forest conclave should be disturbed by her intrusion.
+So keen and so initiated were her young eyes that she discerned the
+sleeping nighthawk on his branch, where his likeness to a knotted
+excrescence of the bark made him feel secure from the most
+discriminating vision.  Passing a dead pine with a small, neatly
+rounded hole about ten feet up the trunk, she heard, or thought she
+heard, the safe conferring of the nest full of young woodpeckers in its
+hollow depth&mdash;which, indeed, was probably but the stirring of her own
+blood-currents within her over-attentive little ears.  Suddenly the
+vast stillness appeared to close down upon her, not with oppression,
+but with a calm that was half fearful, half delicious; and it seemed as
+if the fever of her veins was being slowly drawn away.  The mystic
+shores slipped by with speed, though she hardly knew she was paddling.
+And when, suddenly, a great brown owl dropped from a beech limb and
+went winnowing soundlessly down the stream ahead of her, she caught her
+breath, feeling as if the soul of the silence had taken palpable shape
+before her eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now, as it seemed to Barbara, life and movement began to appear, at the
+summons of those shadowy wings.  A little troop of pale-winged moths
+drifted, circling lightly, over the stream; and a fly-catcher, with
+thin, cheeping cries, dropped some twenty feet straight downward from
+an overhanging limb, fluttered and zigzagged for a moment in mid-air,
+capturing some small insect darters which Barbara could not see, then
+shot back into the leafage.  Then upon a massive, sloping maple-branch
+close to the bank, she saw a stocky black-and-white shape slowly
+crawling.  The head was small and flattened, the bright little eyes
+glittered upon her in defiance, and a formidable ridge of pointed
+quills erected itself angrily along the back.  The animal uttered a
+low, squeaking grunt, and Barbara, with prompt discretion, steered as
+close as possible to the opposite bank, glancing apprehensively over
+her shoulder as she passed.  She was strongly inclined to like the
+porcupine; but his ill-temper was manifest, and she had faith in the
+superstition that he could shoot his needle-like quills to a distance
+and pierce the object of his dislike.  Barbara could not contemplate
+the possibility of appearing before her uncle like a pin-cushion, stuck
+full of porcupine quills.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barely had she left the resentful porcupine behind, safely out of
+quill-flinging distance, when she observed a small, ruddy head cleaving
+the water in mid-channel.  A pair of prominent eyes met hers
+apprehensively.  Two smooth ripples curved away from the throat of the
+small swimmer.  It was a red squirrel whom unwonted affairs had
+summoned to the other side of the river.  Whatever the affairs, Barbara
+was determined to expedite them as far as she could.  Overtaking the
+swimmer with a couple of smart strokes, she politely held out to him
+the blade of the paddle.  The invitation was not to be resisted.  With
+a scramble and a leap he came aboard, skipped along the gunwale, and
+perched himself, jaunty and chipper for all his bedragglement of tail,
+on the extreme tip of the bow.  There he twitched and chattered
+eagerly, while Barbara headed toward the shore where he would be.
+While he was yet a wide space distant from it, he sprang into the air.
+Barbara held her breath&mdash;but the little traveller knew his powers.  He
+landed safely on a projecting root, flicked off behind a tree, and was
+gone.  In a few seconds there came echoing from a tree-top far back in
+the shadows a loud, shrill chattering, which Barbara took for an
+expression of either gratitude or impudence.  Caring not which it was,
+she smiled indulgently and paddled on.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And now to her sensitive nostrils there came suddenly an elusive
+wafture of wintergreen, and she looked around for the gray birch whose
+message she recognised.  The homely, familiar smell reclaimed her from
+her mood of exaltation, and she realised that she was hungry.  Just
+ahead was a grassy glade, whereinto the sun streamed broadly.  She saw
+that it was far past noon.  With a leap of the heart she realised that
+she must be nearing the point where the stream would join the great
+river which was to bear her, her kittens, and her fortunes, down to the
+sea and Uncle Bob.  Yes, she recognised this same open glade, with the
+giant willow projecting over the water at its farther end.  She and
+Uncle Bob had both remarked upon its fairy beauty as they passed it
+going and coming, when they had explored the stream.  She had but two
+or three miles farther to go, and her paddle would greet the waters of
+the great river.  This was fitting place to halt and renew her strength.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Pulling up the prow of the canoe upon a tuft of sedge, she took out the
+basket and the bundle.  From the heart of the bundle she drew a small
+leather bag, containing barley cakes, gingerbread, a tiny parcel of
+cold meat done up in oiled paper, a wooden saucer, and a little wooden
+bottle which she had filled with fresh milk at old Debby's.  Having
+poured some of the milk into the saucer, and laid three or four shreds
+of the meat around its edges, she released the kittens from their
+basket.  For two or three minutes, glad of freedom, the fat, furry
+things frisked and stretched and tumbled hither and thither, while
+Barbara kept watch upon them with solicitous eyes.  But soon they grew
+afraid of the great spaces and the woods, being accustomed to an
+environment more straitened.  They came back mewing to Barbara's feet,
+and she turned their attention to their dinner.  While they lapped the
+milk, and daintily chewed the unaccustomed meat, she dined heartily but
+abstractedly on the barley cakes and gingerbread.  Then, having
+satisfied her thirst by lying flat on the wet, grassy brink of the
+stream and lowering her lips to the water, she decided to rest a few
+minutes before resuming her voyage.  Close by was a beech-tree, around
+whose trunk the moss looked tempting.  Seating herself with her back
+against the tree, and the kittens curled up in her lap, she looked out
+dreamily over the hot grasses&mdash;and presently fell asleep.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She had slept perhaps half an hour when a crow, alighting on a low
+branch some half score paces distant, peered into the shade of the
+beech-tree and discovered the sweet picture.  To him it was not sweet
+in the least, but indubitably interesting.  "Cah&mdash;ah!" he exclaimed
+loudly, hopping up and down in his astonishment.  The sharp voice awoke
+Barbara, and she rubbed her eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Gracious!" she exclaimed to the kittens, "what sleepyheads we are!
+Come, come, we must hurry up, or we'll never get to Uncle Bob!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Before she was really well awake, the kittens were in the basket, the
+canoe was loaded and shoved off, and the adventurers were once more
+afloat upon their quest.  Then only did Barbara give herself time to
+stretch and rub her eyes.  After a few strokes she let the canoe drift
+with the current, while she laid down the paddle, and cooled her wrists
+and refreshed her face with handfuls of water.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As she straightened her brave little shoulders again to her labour, she
+was arrested by a strange sound as of the ripping of bark.  It was an
+ominous kind of noise in the lonely stillness, and apprehensively she
+peered in the direction whence it came.  Then she grew afraid.  On the
+other shore, about a couple of rods back from the water, she saw a
+large black bear sitting upon its haunches beside a fallen and rotten
+tree.  As she stared, wide-eyed and trembling, he lifted his great paw
+and laid hold of the dead bark.  Again came the ripping, tearing noise,
+and off peeled a huge brown slab.  To the exposed surface he applied a
+nimble tongue&mdash;and Barbara's terror subsided.  She saw that he was
+quite too absorbed in the delights of an ant-log to pay any attention
+to a mere girl; and she remembered, too, that the black bear was a
+rather inoffensive soul so long as he was not treated contumeliously.
+For all this, however, she made as much haste from the spot as was
+consistent with a noiseless paddle&mdash;and kept furtive watch over her
+shoulder until she had put a good half-mile between the canoe and the
+ant-log.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+By the time her concern about the bear had begun to flag she found that
+the current was quickening its pace.  The trees slipped by more
+swiftly, and the shores grew bolder.  A mellow, roaring clamour came to
+her ears, and with delicious trepidation she remembered a little rapid
+through which she must pass.  Around a turn of the stream it came into
+view, its small waves sparkling where the forest gave back and admitted
+the afternoon sun.  Her experience in running rapids had been slight,
+but she remembered the course which Uncle Bob had taken, between two
+large rocks where the water ran deep and smooth; and she called to
+mind, the further to brace her confidence, that Uncle Bob had
+stigmatised this particular rapid as mere child's play.  Her heart beat
+rather wildly as she entered the broken water, and the currents gripped
+her, and the banks began to flee upward past her view.  But her eye
+held true and her wrist firm.  The clamour filled her ears, but she
+laid her course with precision and fetched the very centre of the
+channel between the big rocks.  From that point all was clear.  The
+canoe went racing through the last ripple, which splashed her lightly
+as she passed; and in a reach of quiet water, foam-flecked and shining,
+she drew a deep breath of triumph.  This, indeed, was to live.  Never
+had she experienced a keener consciousness of power.  She felt her
+enterprise already successful.  The ancient woods, with their bears,
+their porcupines, their wide-winged brown owls, lay behind her.  Second
+Westings was incalculably far away.  There in plain view, rising over
+its comfortable orchard trees, not half a mile distant, were the roofs
+and chimneys of Gault House, overlooking, as she had heard, the waters
+of the great river.  And beyond the next turn, as she thought with a
+thrill, she would see the great river itself.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap08"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER VIII.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Barbara rounded the next turn.  There before her, widely gleaming,
+spread the waters of the great river itself.  She cried out in her joy,
+and paddled madly&mdash;then paused, abashed, perceiving that she was the
+object of a critical but frankly admiring scrutiny.  Her attention was
+diverted from the great river.  Here was a tall boy&mdash;of her own caste
+unmistakably&mdash;poling himself out on a precarious little raft to meet
+her.  Her flush of confusion passed as quickly as it had come, and
+laying her paddle across the gunwale, she waited with interest to
+discover what he might have to say.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara had met but few boys of her own class, and those few had
+seemed, under her merciless analysis, uniformly uninteresting.  Their
+salient characteristics, to her mind, were freckles, rudeness,
+ignorance, and a disposition to tease cats.  But this youth was
+obviously different.  Apparently about seventeen years of age, he was
+tall and graceful, and the way the clumsy log-raft on which he stood
+surged forward under the thrusts of his pole revealed his strength.
+Barbara loved strength, so long as delicacy saved it from coarseness.
+The boy was in his shirt sleeves, which were of spotless cambric, and
+Barbara noted, with approbation, the ample ruffles turned back, for
+convenience, from his sinewy brown hands.  She observed that his brown,
+long-fronted, flowered vest was of silk, and his lighter brown
+small-clothes of a fine cloth worn only by the gentry; that his
+stockings were of black silk, and his shoes, drenched most of the time
+in the water that lapped over the raft, were adorned with large buckles
+of silver.  She admired the formal fashion in which his black hair was
+tied back in a small and very precise queue.  But most of all she liked
+his face, which was even darker than her own&mdash;lean, somewhat square in
+the jaw, with a broad forehead, and gray-blue, thoughtful eyes, set
+wide apart.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now, Barbara's fearless scorn of conventions was equalled only by her
+ignorance of them.  This boy pleased her, so why should she hesitate to
+show it?  When the raft ranged up alongside the canoe, she laid hold
+upon it for anchorage and the greater convenience in conversation, and
+flashed upon the stranger the full dazzle of her scarlet lips, white
+teeth, and bewildering radiance of green eyes.  The boy straightened
+himself from the pole in order to bow with the more ceremony&mdash;which he
+accomplished to Barbara's complete satisfaction in spite of the
+unsteadiness of the raft.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What a nice-looking boy you are!" she said, frankly condescending.
+"What is your name?"
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="img-087"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-087.jpg" ALT="&quot;<I>What a nice-looking boy you are!&quot; she said.</I>" BORDER="2" WIDTH="448" HEIGHT="665">
+<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 448px">
+&quot;<I>What a nice-looking boy you are!&quot; she said.</I>
+</H4>
+</CENTER>
+
+<P>
+"Robert Gault, your very humble servant!" he replied, bowing again, and
+smiling.  The smile was altogether to Barbara's fancy, and showed even,
+strong, white teeth, another most uncommon merit in a boy.  "And I am
+sure," he went on, "that this is Mistress Barbara Ladd whom I have the
+honour to address."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, how do you know me?" exclaimed Barbara, highly pleased.  Then,
+quickly apprehensive, she added, "What makes you think I am Barbara
+Ladd?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy noted the change in her countenance, and wondered at it.  But
+he replied at once:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course the name of Mistress Barbara Ladd, and her daring, and her
+canoe-craft, and her beauty" (this he added out of his own instant
+conviction), "have spread far down the river.  When I came up here the
+other day to visit my grandmother" (he indicated slightly the distant
+roofs of Gault House), "I came with a great hope of being permitted to
+meet you!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Evidently he knew nothing of her flight.  Her uneasiness vanished.  But
+she had never had a compliment before&mdash;a personal compliment, such as
+is dear to every wise feminine heart&mdash;and that word "beauty" was most
+melodious to her ears.  As a matter of fact, she did not herself admire
+her own appearance at all, and even had an aversion to the mirror&mdash;but
+it occurred to her now, for the first time, that this was a point upon
+which it was not needful that every one should agree with her.  It was
+practically her first real lesson in tolerance toward an opinion that
+differed from her own.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll warrant you heard no good of that same Barbara Ladd, more's the
+pity!" she answered, coquettishly tossing her dark little head and
+shooting at him a distracting sidelong glance from narrowed lids.
+"Anyhow, if you are Lady Gault's grandson, I am most happy to meet you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She stretched out to him her brown little hand, just now none too
+immaculate, indeed, but with breeding stamped on every slim line of it,
+and eloquent from the polished, well-trimmed, long, oval nails.
+Instantly, careless of the water and his fine cloth breeches, Robert
+went down upon one knee and gallantly kissed the proffered hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara was just at an age when, for girls with Southern blood in their
+veins, womanhood and childhood lie so close entwined in their
+personalities that it is impossible to disentangle the golden and the
+silver threads.  Never before had any one kissed her hand.  She was
+surprised at the pleasant thrill it gave her; and she was surprised,
+too, at her sudden, inexplicable impulse to draw the hand away.  It was
+a silly impulse, she told herself; so she controlled it, and accepted
+the kiss with the composure of a damsel well used to such ceremonious
+homage.  But she did not like such a nice boy to be kneeling in the
+water.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why did you come out on that rickety thing?" she asked.  "Why haven't
+you a boat or a canoe?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This was the only thing within reach," he explained, respectfully
+relinquishing her hand.  "I saw you coming; and I knew it must be you,
+because no other girl could handle a canoe so beautifully; and I was
+afraid of losing you if I waited."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That was civil of you.  But aren't you getting very wet there?  Won't
+you come into the canoe?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Really?" he exclaimed, lifting his chin with a quick gesture of
+eagerness.  "Are you going to be so good to me?  Then I must push this
+old raft ashore first and secure it.  I don't know whom it belongs to."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As he poled to land in too much haste for any further conversation,
+Barbara paddled silently alongside and admired his skill.  When the
+raft was tied up, and the pole tossed into the bushes, he took his
+place in the bow and knelt so as to face her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You must turn the other way," laughed Barbara.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, I was proposing, by your leave, to make this the stern, and ask
+you to let me paddle," he answered.  "Won't you let me?  You really
+look a little bit tired, and I want you to talk to me, if you will be
+so condescending.  How can I turn my back to you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am not the least, leastest bit tired," protested Barbara, a little
+doubtfully.  "But I don't mind letting you paddle for awhile, if you'll
+paddle hard and go the way I want you to."  And with that she seated
+herself flat on the bottom of the canoe, with an air of relief that
+rather contradicted her protestation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy laughed, as he turned the canoe with powerful, sweeping strokes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Surely I will paddle hard, and in whatsoever direction you command me.
+Am I not the most obedient of your slaves?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This pleased Barbara.  She loved slaves.  She accepted his servitude at
+once and fully.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Paddle straight out into the river, and then down!" she commanded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At the imperious note in her voice, the boy looked both amused and
+pleased.  Obeying without a word of question, he sent the canoe leaping
+forward under his deep, rhythmical strokes at a speed that filled
+Barbara with admiration.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, <I>how</I> strong you are and <I>how</I> well you paddle!" she cried, her
+eyes wide and sparkling, her lips parted, the crisp, rebellious curls
+blowing about her face.  Never had Robert seen so bewitching a picture
+as this small figure curled up happily in the bow of the canoe, her
+little shoes of red leather and her black-stockinged ankles sticking
+out demurely from under her short blue striped skirt, her nut-brown,
+slender, finely modelled arms emerging from short loose sleeves.  He
+was proud of her praise.  He was partly engrossed in displaying his
+skill and strength to the very best advantage.  But above all he was
+thinking of this picture, which was destined to flash back into his
+memory many a time in after days, with a poignancy of vividness that
+affected his action like a summons or an appeal.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In a few minutes the canoe was fairly out upon the bosom of the main
+stream, and headed downward with the strongly flowing current.  Barbara
+clasped her hands with a movement which expressed such rapture and
+relief that the boy's curiosity was excited.  He began to feel that
+there was some mystery in the affair.  Slackening his pace ever so
+slightly, he remarked:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I suppose you are staying with friends somewhere in this
+neighbourhood.  How fortunate I am&mdash;that is, if you will graciously
+permit me to go canoeing with you often while you are here."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But even as he spoke, his eyes took in, for the first time, the
+significance of the bundle and the basket, which he had been so far too
+occupied to notice.  His wonder came forward and spoke plainly from his
+frank eyes, and Barbara was at a loss to explain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," she said, "I am not staying anywhere in this neighbourhood.  I
+don't know a soul in this neighbourhood but you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then&mdash;you've come right from Second Westings!" he exclaimed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Right from Second Westings."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"All that distance since this morning?" he persisted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She nodded impatiently.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Through those woods&mdash;through the rapids&mdash;all alone?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, all alone!" she answered, a little crisply.  She was annoyed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In his astonishment he laid down his paddle and leaned forward,
+scanning her face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But&mdash;" said he, embarrassed, "forgive me!  I know it is none of my
+business,&mdash;but what does it mean?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Go on paddling," commanded Barbara.  "Did you not promise you would
+obey me?  <I>I</I> know what it means!"  And she laughed, half maliciously.
+The boy looked worried,&mdash;and it was great fun to bring that worried
+look to his face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He resumed his paddling, though much less vigorously, while she evaded
+his gaze, and a wilful smile clung about her lips.  The current was
+swift, and they had soon left the imposing white columns of Gault House
+far behind.  A tremendous sense of responsibility came over the boy,
+and again he stopped paddling.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, perhaps you are tired!" suggested Barbara, coolly.  "Give me the
+paddle, and I'll set you ashore right here."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I said just now it was none of my business," said he, gravely,
+appealingly, "but, do you know, I think perhaps it ought to be my
+business!  I ought to ask!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He retained the paddle, but turned the canoe's head up-stream and held
+it steady.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What do you mean?" demanded Barbara, angrily.  "Give me the paddle at
+once!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Still he made no motion to obey.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you realise," he asked, "that it's now near sundown,&mdash;that it will
+take till dark to work back against the current to where I met
+you,&mdash;that there's no place near here where a lady can rest for the
+night&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't care," interrupted Barbara hotly, ready to cry with anger and
+anxiety; "I'm going to travel all night.  I'm going to the sea&mdash;to my
+uncle at Stratford!  I just don't want you to interfere.  Let me put
+you ashore at once!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert was struck dumb with amazement.  To the sea!  This small girl,
+all alone!  And evidently quite unacquainted with the perils of the
+river.  It was superb pluck,&mdash;but it was wild, impossible folly.  He
+did not know what to do.  He turned the canoe toward shore, and
+presently found himself in quieter water, out of the current.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Observing his ready obedience, Barbara was mollified; but at the same
+time she was conscious of a sinking of the heart because he was going
+to leave her alone, when it would soon be dark.  She had not
+considered, hitherto, this necessity of travelling in the dark.  She
+made up her mind to tell the nice boy everything, and get him to advise
+her as to where she could stay for the night.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm running away, you know, Master Gault," she said, sweetly, as if it
+were the most ordinary thing in the world.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Are you at all acquainted with the river?" he asked, gently, without a
+trace of resentment for the way she had spoken to him a moment before.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No!" confessed Barbara, in a very small voice, deprecatingly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A few miles farther down there is a stretch of very bad water," said
+the boy.  "Clever canoeist as you are, you would find it hard enough
+work going through in broad daylight.  At night you would just be
+dashed to pieces in a minute."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, what shall I do?" cried Barbara, the perils of her adventure just
+beginning to touch her imagination.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let me take you to my grandmother's," he pleaded.  "And we will paddle
+back to Second Westings to-morrow."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara burst into a storm of tears.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Never! never! never!" she sobbed.  "I'll die in the rapids before I'll
+ever go back to Aunt Hitty!  Oh, why did I like you?  Why did I trust
+you?  Oh, I don't know what to do!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy's heart came into his throat and ached at the sight of her
+trouble.  He longed desperately to help her.  He had a wild impulse to
+swear that he would follow her and protect her, wherever she wanted to
+go, however impossible her undertaking.  Instead of that, however, he
+kept silence and paddled forward resolutely for two or three minutes,
+while Barbara, her face buried in her hands, shook with sobs.  At last
+he ran the canoe into a shadowy cove, where lily leaves floated on the
+unruffled water.  Then he laid down his paddle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Tell me all about it, won't you, please?" he petitioned.  "I do want
+so much to help you.  And perhaps I can.  And you <I>shall not</I> be sorry
+for trusting me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+How very comforting his voice was!  So tender, and kind, and with a
+faithful ring in its tenderness.  Barbara suffered it to comfort her.
+Surely he would understand, if old Debby could!  In a few moments she
+lifted her wet little face, flashed a smile at him through her tears,
+and said:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How good and kind you are!  Forgive me if I was bad to you.  Yes, I'll
+tell you all about it, and then you can see for yourself why I had to
+come away."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara's exposition was vivid and convincing.  Her emotion, her utter
+sincerity, fused everything, and she had the gift of the telling
+phrase.  What wonder if the serious, idealistic, chivalrous boy, upon
+whose nerves her fire and her alien, elusive beauty thrilled like
+wizard music, saw all the situation through her eyes.  Her faults were
+invisible to him ere he had listened a minute to her narrative.  She
+was right to run away.  The venture, of course, was a mad one, but with
+his help it might well be carried through to success.  As she talked
+on, an intoxication of enthusiasm and sympathy tingled along his blood
+and rose to his brain.  Difficulties vanished, or displayed themselves
+to his deluded imagination only as obstacles which it would be splendid
+to overcome.  In the ordinary affairs of life the boy was cool,
+judicious, reasonable, to a degree immeasurably beyond his years; but
+Barbara's strange magnetism had called forth the dreamer and the poet
+lurking at the foundations of his character; and his judgment, for the
+time, was overwhelmed.  When Barbara's piercing eloquence ceased, and
+she paused breathless, eyes wide and lips parted in expectation, he
+said, solemnly:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I will help you!  To the utmost of my power I will help you!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The words had the weight and significance of a consecration.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara clapped her hands.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh!" she cried, "How can I ever thank you for being so lovely to me?
+But I knew you were nice the moment I looked at you!"  And a load
+rolled off her mind.  With such a helper, already was her enterprise
+accomplished.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I will try hard to be worthy of your favour," said Robert, with deep
+gravity, feeling that now indeed was boyhood put away and full manhood
+descended upon his shoulders.  His brain was racked with the terrific
+problem of finding Barbara fit lodging for the night; but meantime he
+turned the canoe and paddled swiftly out into the current.  Hardly had
+he changed his course when he noticed a light rowboat creeping up along
+the shore.  But boats were no unusual sight on the river, and he paid
+no heed to it.  As for Barbara, she was so absorbed in watching his
+great strokes, and in thinking how delightful it was to have found such
+an ally, that the sound of the oars passed her ears unheeded, and she
+did not turn her head.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap09"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER IX.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+At length, however, the boy noticed with a tinge of surprise that the
+boat was steering as if to intercept his course.  He was about to pass
+greeting to its occupants when something in the face of the big man
+sitting in the stern arrested his words.  At the same moment the sound
+of the oars caught Barbara's attention, and she turned her head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh!" she cried, shrilly.  "Doctor Jim!&mdash;and Doctor John!" she added,
+as one of the two rowers looked around and grinned at her in humourous
+triumph.  Then, her visions of life at Stratford with Uncle Bob falling
+to ruin about her, she wept aloud in her disappointment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert understood, and quick as thought swerved in his course, making a
+dart for the swifter water of mid-channel.  His heart swelled with
+exultation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They can't catch us!" he declared to Barbara.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Stop! you young rascal!" thundered the mighty voice of Doctor Jim.  "I
+know you, Bobby Gault.  Don't I know your father's son?  Stop this
+instant!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Quit this tomfoolery, Bobby!" roared Doctor John, albeit a little
+breathless from his labour.  Barbara lifted her face and stared through
+her tears.  But the boy paid no heed, paddling mightily, and the
+distance between boat and canoe was surely widening.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Doctor Jim knew Barbara.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Very well!" he said, grimly, in a loud voice.  "I'm sorry to do bodily
+hurt to the son of my old friend Richard, but it can't be helped."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He drew a long-barrelled pistol from under the flap of his green coat.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll have to wing you, my boy!" he said, taking careful aim, while one
+eyelid quivered in the direction of Doctor John.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy's face paled a little, but his jaw set firmly, and he kept
+right on.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Stop! stop! stop!" screamed Barbara, but with no result.  She half
+arose in the canoe, glancing with horror from the boy's resolute face
+to the muzzle of the pistol.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you don't stop, Robert, I will throw myself overboard this minute!"
+she vowed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The terror in her face convinced him.  He sullenly drew in his paddle,
+laid it down in the canoe, folded his arms, and looked off over the
+western hills, as if scornful of all that might take place.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In a few seconds the boat came up alongside of the drifting canoe, the
+oars were drawn in, and strong hands laid hold upon the gunwale.  There
+were some awful moments of silence, broken only by Barbara's sobbing
+and the splashing of waves on the boat and the canoe.  The owner of the
+boat, a gaunt farmer from Westings Landing, a few miles down the river,
+who had not been initiated into the mystery, looked on in discreet
+astonishment.  This was indeed a strange situation in which to see the
+grandson of Lady Gault.  At last Barbara, to whom suspense was hideous,
+broke out.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, do say something!" she wailed.  Indeed, neither Doctor John nor
+Doctor Jim knew just what to say.  They were embarrassed.  But the
+child was right.  Somebody had to say something.  By interchange of
+quick glances the lot fell to Doctor John.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, this is pretty gallivanting, running away with a young
+man,&mdash;carrying him off in your aunt's canoe!" said Doctor John.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara's eyes opened very wide.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I never!" she cried, indignantly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"As for you, Bobby Gault," interposed Doctor Jim, severely, and in a
+tone that made Robert feel himself hatefully young, "I cannot
+comprehend how <I>you</I> should come to be mixed up in this affair.  I know
+well what my friend, Richard Gault, your lamented father, with his nice
+notions of honour, would have thought of such an escapade."  (Robert's
+father and mother had died within a few days of each other, by an
+epidemic of typhus, when the boy was only five years old.)  "But I
+shall lay the matter before your good grandmother, and your uncle, who
+will doubtless deal with you as you deserve."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert shut his lips tight and eyed the speaker proudly; but Barbara
+made reply in her vehement way.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is not Robert's fault at all, I tell you, Doctor Jim!" she cried,
+forgetting that she had said nothing whatever on the subject.  "I just
+met him, an hour or two ago, on an old raft; and he knew who I was; and
+because he was getting his feet wet on the raft, I invited him to get
+into the canoe; and I made him promise to paddle me just wherever I
+wanted to go.  So there!  And it is not his fault one bit!  And you may
+do what you like to me, but I won't have him punished when he has not
+done anything at all!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Doctor John tried to look quite grave; and Doctor Jim, who was really
+annoyed, succeeded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, ho! young man!" he remarked, sarcastically, "it appears that you
+have a champion.  Now, what have you to say for yourself?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mistress Barbara has neglected to add," said he, with all the dignity
+that he could assume, "that I insisted upon her narrating to me all the
+unhappy circumstances of her life in Second Westings.  The story
+commanded my fullest sympathy, and I had just given her my word that I
+would aid her in escaping to her uncle, Mr. Glenowen, where she would
+be happy, when you came and violently interfered with her purpose.  I
+ask you, sir, to consider.  Are you not ashamed to be instrumental in
+restoring a young lady to conditions where she has been made to suffer
+so cruelly?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In spite of his indignation, Robert could not help feeling proud of
+this effort.  In his own ears it sounded imposing, unanswerable, and
+altogether grown up.  Barbara thought it was a miracle of eloquence,
+and cast him a grateful look.  But Doctor John could not conceal his
+delight in the stilted periods.  He burst into a huge guffaw, at which
+Barbara's eyes snapped and Robert's dark skin reddened angrily.  But
+Doctor Jim exclaimed, hotly:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hoity-toity!  How big we do feel!  To think how often I dandled you on
+my knee when you were a mewling baby.  If I had but known enough to
+spank you once in awhile, you might not have grown up to be such a
+priggish young coxcomb.  Richard's son!  Who would have thought it?
+Eh, what?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Meanwhile the boat and canoe were drifting rapidly down-stream.  Doctor
+John looked at the sun, now touching the horizon.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't you think, Master Gault," said he, drily, "that unless you
+propose to honour us with your company to Second Westings, we had
+better set you ashore hereabouts, that you may stretch your legs in the
+direction of Gault House?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thank you!" said Robert, stiffly, his heart bursting with humiliation
+and the longing to strangle his huge, supercilious antagonist.  But
+Barbara interrupted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm not going back to Second Westings!" she declared obstinately,
+trying hard to set her full red lips together in the resolute way that
+Robert's had.  "I will never go back to live with Aunt Hitty.  I'll
+drown myself first.  I'm going to Uncle Bob, at Stratford."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The threat, once so effective, seemed now to have lost its potency.  No
+one appeared impressed but Robert,&mdash;and perhaps the stranger-man who
+owned the boat.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My dear child," said Doctor John, eying her indulgently, "among the
+more or less serious obstacles to your plan is one of which I believe
+that even you will see the magnitude.  Mr. Glenowen is no longer at
+Stratford."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Uncle Bob not at Stratford?" wailed Barbara, overwhelmed, subjugated
+in an instant.  Robert started aghast.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Doctor John paused dramatically, while the full effect of the news
+worked upon his victims in the canoe.  Then he said, coolly:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mr. Glenowen is just now at Hartford, or has lately left that town.
+Mistress Ladd had a letter from him to-day, saying he expected to
+arrive at Second Westings not later than the end of next week, I think,
+moreover, that I saw a packet on the mantel-shelf addressed to Mistress
+Barbara Ladd!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With one bound Barbara's heart passed from despair to ecstasy.
+Everything else was forgotten.  She was as eager now to get back to
+Second Westings as she had been to escape from it.  All she knew or
+cared for was that Uncle Bob would be there.  He would make everything
+right.  Her face was all radiance, as it turned to Doctor John, then to
+Doctor Jim, then to Robert,&mdash;who eyed her gloomily, feeling himself now
+cast out into the cold.  But in her joy Barbara did not forget him
+after all.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Just think, Robert," she cried, "Uncle Bob so near, and we would have
+missed him if Doctor John and Doctor Jim, the dears, had not come and
+caught us.  They are always <I>angels</I> to me, you know.  Now we will put
+you ashore right here.  And you must be sure to come over to Second
+Westings and see me,&mdash;won't you?&mdash;while Uncle Bob is there.  Come next
+week."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I thank you for the gracious invitation," answered the boy, bowing a
+little stiffly.  "But I think I had better wait for Mr. Glenowen's
+permission, as these gentlemen are not likely to present me to him in a
+very favourable light."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't be silly and disagreeable, Robert," said Barbara, impatiently.
+"Uncle Bob will think of you just as I do.  We always agree about
+people.  Now you must hurry!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think, however," persisted Robert, "I ought to wait for Mr.
+Glenowen's invitation."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Right, my lad!" exclaimed Doctor Jim, much mollified by this attitude.
+"That's my old friend Richard's son speaking now.  And I doubt not that
+our little mistress here will see to it that the invitation is
+forthcoming in good season,&mdash;eh, what?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a doubtful expression on Barbara's face, over the lack of
+instantaneous obedience to her will on the part of her champion; but
+Robert, encouraged by Doctor Jim's commendation, now made a bold
+proposal.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you would be so kind, sir," he suggested, diffidently, "I should
+like to go down with you to the Landing, where I can lodge very well
+for the night at the house of an old servant of my grandmother's.  It
+will be a long and difficult tramp for me up the shore now, in the
+dark, and with no road through the woods.  By going with you to the
+Landing I might be of some service, to paddle the canoe.  She will be
+an awkward craft to tow; and Mistress Barbara is very tired, I
+perceive."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sly young dog!" growled Doctor John.  "But, seeing that he is
+Richard's son, we'll have to take him along with us as far as the
+Landing, eh, Jim?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let him work his passage, then!" roared Doctor Jim.  "Let him paddle
+the canoe, and Barbara, and her kittens, and all her contraptions,&mdash;and
+we'll see about not being too hard on him when we come to tell his
+grandmother!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This arrangement was highly satisfactory to all concerned.  The gloom
+fell from Robert's face, and his mouth grew boyish and happy as he
+paddled on in musing silence.  He kept the canoe alongside of the boat,
+just out of reach of the oars, so that Barbara could talk conveniently
+with Doctor John and Doctor Jim, which she did in the most usual manner
+in the world, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.  But
+presently, upon a lull in the conversation came the voice of Robert,
+who had been thinking about Barbara's life at Second Westings.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is not Mistress Ladd a very harsh, tyrannical sort of woman?" he
+inquired, solicitously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a huge roar from Doctor Jim, which made even Barbara jump,
+inured though she was to these explosions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'd have you remember, young sir, that you are speaking of the
+gentlest, sweetest, truest, most gracious lady that ever lived, for
+whose little shoes you are not worthy to sweep the ground!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert stared in confusion, too astonished to be at once ready with an
+apology.  Before he could gather his wits, Doctor John spoke up, more
+gently.  He was no less loyal a champion to Mistress Mehitable than was
+Doctor Jim, but with him his humour was ever at hand to assuage his
+wrath.  Subduing his great tones to a quizzical and confidential
+half-whisper, that feigned itself not meant for Barbara's ears, he
+said, amiably:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My son, when you come to know well this little firebrand of ours, whom
+we have just plucked from a watery burning, this sower of dissension in
+our good village of Second Westings, I doubt not that you will spare a
+moiety of your sympathies for that very noble lady, Mistress Ladd.  In
+truth, for all her tears and anxiety on this mad little maid's account,
+I have a misgiving that we are doing the sweet lady no great kindness
+in taking Mistress Barbara back to her.  A pretty gallant you are, to
+undertake to carry a lady off, and then make a mess of it, and leave
+her embarrassed friends to straighten out the snarl!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Under this daunting blend of rebuke and raillery, Robert fell into a
+deeper confusion.  He floundered through a few awkward phrases of
+deprecation and apology, but Barbara cut in upon his struggles without
+mercy.  The gibes of Doctor John troubled her not a whit, but one thing
+which he had said captured her interest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Did</I> Aunt Hitty <I>really</I> cry when she found I had gone away?  Did she
+really feel so badly about it?  I thought she would be rather glad!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She was in great grief, bitter grief, Barbara.  Do you think no one
+has feelings but yourself?" answered Doctor Jim, with some severity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This pertinent question Barbara ignored.  She turned to Robert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You must understand, Robert," she explained with care, "that Aunt
+Hitty is not really cruel to me,&mdash;at least she never intends to be.
+But she and I do not understand each other, and so we can't get on!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You will simply have to learn some of the rudiments of obedience and
+self-control, Barbara," said Doctor Jim.  Never had he spoken to her so
+severely before, and she was amazed.  But she saw that this time she
+had gone very near to forfeiting the sympathy of her most faithful
+allies.  Perhaps, after all, she <I>was</I> in the wrong to run away.  The
+suspicion only made her the more obstinate.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't think one ought to obey any one, except one's father and
+mother," she proclaimed rebelliously.  "One's father and mother, if
+they are good, and wise, and kind," she added, still further enlarging
+her freedom.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And the king!" added Robert, sententiously.  He flung out the word as
+a shibboleth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a moment of silence.  Barbara darted upon him a glance of
+petulant disappointment.  Doctor John laughed hugely.  But as for
+Doctor Jim, his face underwent a swift change, as he scanned the boy
+with new interest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well said, well said; spoken as Richard's boy should speak, as a Gault
+should ever speak!" he thundered, in high approval.  "I am sorry if I
+seemed abrupt a moment ago, Robert.  Pardon my quick temper.  I see
+your heart is in the right place, and you have not let them stuff your
+head with pestilent and plebeian heresies.  Yes, yes, you must
+certainly come to Second Westings.  I shall be honoured if my old
+friend's son will be my guest!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+From that moment dated a friendship between Robert and Doctor Jim which
+no after vicissitude was ever able to disturb.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Barbara was of another mind.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"King George is just a stupid old tyrant, and I hate him!" she
+exclaimed.  "I'm sorry, Robert, you have not quite so much sense as I
+thought you had.  I'm really disappointed in you.  But there are <I>some</I>
+nice Tories!  You know even dear Doctor Jim is a Tory, though we can't
+see why, and he's just as lovely as if he were on the right side.  So
+you may come to Second Westings,&mdash;though you must promise not to argue
+with me.  But I know, Robert, I sha'n't like you now so well as I
+thought I was going to!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let the young people fight it out, eh, Jim?" said Doctor John, greatly
+amused.  "Let them fight it out between them!"  Then, suddenly grave,
+he added, "God grant the differences now distracting our colonies grow
+not beyond the point of children's quarrels!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Doctor Jim shook his head sorrowfully.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There's trouble ahead, John.  I feel it coming.  This is a
+stiff-necked and disloyal people, and I have a foreboding.  There's a
+sword in the air, John!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's surely a stiff-necked king, Jim," muttered Doctor John.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The sword of a Gault will ever leap from its scabbard to serve the
+king!" said Robert, loftily, his grave eyes aglow with exaltation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As he made this proclamation of his faith, devoting himself to a cause
+of which she disapproved, and quite ignoring her feelings in the
+matter, Barbara felt a sudden pang of loneliness.  She seemed
+forgotten, or, at least, grown secondary and trivial.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do let us hurry home to Uncle Bob!" she pleaded, her voice pathetic,
+her eyes tired and dissatisfied.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then silence, with the twilight, descended upon the voyaging company;
+and in a little while, coming noiselessly to the landing-place, they
+stepped ashore into the dewy, sweet-smelling weeds and the evening
+peace.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap10"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER X.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+A green lane, little used, but deeply rutted, led up from the wharf to
+the main street of Westings Landing.  The village was silent, with no
+sign of life, except here and there a glimmer from a candle-lit window.
+From the pale sky overhead came the strange twang of swooping
+night-hawks, as of harp-strings suddenly but firmly plucked.  In the
+intervals between these irregular and always unexpected notes was heard
+the persistent rhythm of a whippoorwill, softly threshing the dusk with
+his phantom song.  Barbara felt the whole scene to be unreal, her
+companions unreal, herself most unreal of all.  Could it be that she
+was the girl who had that same morning run away, that same morning made
+so brave and triumphant a start upon so splendid a venture?  Now,
+somehow, she felt rather than understood the folly of it.  The fact
+that she would have missed her Uncle Bob if she had succeeded in her
+plan took out of it all the zest, and it became to her a very
+ridiculous plan indeed.  But her change of attitude was emotional
+rather than intellectual.  She was convinced in mood, not in mind.
+Only she felt herself on the sudden a very small, tired girl, who
+deserved to be punished, and wanted to go to bed.  Her conviction of
+childishness was heightened by the fact that Robert, who was walking
+just ahead with Doctor Jim, in grave discussion, seemed not only to
+have suddenly grown up, but to have quite forgotten her once imperious
+but now discredited existence.  Her exhaustion, her reaction, her
+defeat, her disappointment in Robert, these all at once translated
+themselves into a sense of hopeless loneliness.  She seized the large,
+kind hand of Doctor John, who walked in silence by her side, and clung
+to him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Presently Doctor John felt hot tears streaming copiously down his
+fingers.  Without a word, he snatched her up into his arms, carrying
+her as if she were a baby; and shaking with voiceless sobs, she buried
+her small, wet face in his comforting neck.  She felt as if she wanted
+to cry wildly, deliciously, for hours and hours.  But she managed to
+remember that even a very small girl may be heavy to carry over a rough
+road in the dusk, when the man who carries her has had a hard day's
+work chasing her.  And, furthermore, she thought how very, very little,
+how poor and pitiful a heroine she would seem in Robert's eyes if he
+should chance to remember her existence and look back!  She pulled
+herself together with a fierce effort, and choked down her sobs.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thank you so much, dear Doctor John!" she whispered in his ear.  "I'm
+better now, and you must put me down.  I'm too heavy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Tut, tut, sweetheart!" growled Doctor John, softly; "you bide where
+you are, and rest.  <I>You</I> heavy!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But,"&mdash;she persisted, with a little earthward wriggle to show she
+meant it,&mdash;"I want to get down now, please!  I don't want to look like
+quite such a baby.  Doctor John!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Tut, tut!" but he set her down, nevertheless, and kept comforting hold
+of one cold little hand.  Doctor John was quick in his sympathetic
+comprehension of women and children, and tolerant of what most men
+would account mere whim.  In a moment he leaned down close to her ear,
+and whispered:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What are you but a baby, after all,&mdash;a tired out, bad baby,
+sweetheart?  But we'll just keep that a secret between you and me, and
+not let Jim Pigeon or Master Robert even guess at it!"  And Barbara
+squeezed his hand violently in both of hers by way of answer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At this moment, Doctor Jim and Robert, reaching the corner of the
+street, turned and waited for them to come up.  Doctor Jim had
+Barbara's precious basket of kittens on his arm, while Robert was
+carrying her little red bundle, which he now handed over to Doctor
+John.  A certain reluctance with which he gave it up was quite lost
+upon Barbara in her unwonted humility and depression; and it was a very
+white, wistful little face which she turned glimmeringly upon him as he
+bowed over her hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why are you leaving us here, Robert?" she asked, in a small voice,
+most unlike the wilful tone with which she had talked to him in the
+canoe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My way lies down the street, sweet mistress," said the boy.  "Your
+horses, Doctor Jim tells me, are waiting for you at the Blue Boar
+yonder.  This has been a wonderful day for me.  When you think of it,
+will you try to remember me kindly as one who would ever be your most
+devoted, humble servant?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Delighted by this elaborate courtesy, so rehabilitating to her
+self-esteem, Barbara began to feel herself almost herself again.  She
+thought, with a sudden prickling heat of shame, of how childish she had
+been during all the past year,&mdash;and she almost fifteen!  And here was
+Robert, who was certainly very grown-up, treating her with a deference
+which he would never dream of paying to a mere little girl!  She
+resolved to justify his deference, to conceal her pet childishnesses
+till time should mature them away; yet even as she registered this
+resolve, she registered a vague but deeper one, that she would cling
+for ever to every childish taste and pleasure in spite of the very
+utmost that time could do.  But the feeling that came uppermost and
+found expression was a sharp little pang at something in his words
+which sounded as if he were bidding farewell for a long, indefinite
+time.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But I shall see you again soon, sha'n't I, Robert?" she exclaimed,
+impulsively.  "You'll come over to Second Westings right away, won't
+you, and meet Uncle Bob?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," said the boy, bowing low again, and speaking with a mixture of
+hesitation and triumph, "I am promising myself that pleasure, Mistress
+Barbara, within a very few days.  You see&mdash;Doctor Jim&mdash;he has been so
+kind&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"To be sure," broke in Doctor Jim, with an emphasis to preclude any
+discussion of consistency,&mdash;"I've asked the lad over to visit us, John.
+Richard's son!&mdash;  And his heart's in the right place,&mdash;and his head,
+too,&mdash;eh, what?  We'll see that Mistress Mehitable is not too hard on
+him,&mdash;eh, what?  You know you're not going to be too hard on the boy
+yourself, John Pigeon, for all you've been so uncommonly unpleasant to
+him!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Doctor John chuckled softly, and squeezed Barbara's left hand, which he
+had retained while she was receiving Robert's adieux.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Tut, tut, Jim!  You know well enough we've got to pardon anything in
+breeches, young or old, that gets led into mischief by this little limb
+o' darkness here.  It's a peck of trouble she's been getting you and me
+into, time and time again.  You needn't make excuses for Robert to me,
+Jim Pigeon.  At least, not yet!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thank you, sir," said Robert, a little stiffly, not relishing a
+pleasantry at Barbara's expense, though Barbara herself had broken into
+a peal of gay laughter, flattered at Doctor John's implications, and
+comforted to know that Robert was not slipping beyond her reach.
+"Thank you, indeed, sir; but I have no excuse; I was fully committed to
+Mistress Barbara's venture, and I'm just as much to blame as she is!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara's heart glowed.  This was the kind of unreasonable championship
+she adored.  But truth compelled her to protest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, no, no, Robert, not at all!  It wasn't you that ran away from Aunt
+Hitty, and took the canoe, and persuaded a nice, civil gentleman whom
+you'd never seen before in your life to do a perfectly crazy thing like
+you read of in story-books&mdash;"  But, as she paused for breath, Doctor
+Jim, too impatient to be amused, interrupted her:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, well, Robert, you and Barbara can settle all that between you
+some other time.  We must get away.  Good night&mdash;good night.  My best
+compliments to your honoured grandmother!  And ride over the first day
+you can, lad!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And Doctor John, shaking his head sorrowfully, exclaimed:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Tut, tut, tut!  How small a petticoat can turn how great a brain!  I
+see trouble ahead for you, Bobby!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I shall be so glad to see you at my aunt's, Robert!" cried Barbara,
+over her shoulder, as they moved up the street toward the Blue Boar and
+the waiting horses.  Robert, standing hat in hand, gazed after them
+till they were swallowed up in the shadows.  Still he waited, till a
+pulse of light across the gloom and the sound of the inn door closing
+told him that he was alone under the night.  Then, suddenly, he became
+conscious of the lonely, wonderful night sounds, and suddenly the night
+perfumes sank into his heart.  The spicy breaths from the clover field
+and blossoming thicket, cooled with dew, gave him a strange
+intoxication as he drew them into the depths of his lungs.  The pulsing
+rhythm of the whippoorwill seemed to time itself to the pulsing of his
+heart and translate it to the terms of an impassioned, inarticulate
+chant.  The plucked harp-strings sounding from time to time in the
+hidden heights of the sky set all his nerves vibrating mystically.
+Walking as if in a dream, he came to the door of the cottage where he
+had planned to stay the night.  Then he turned on a swift impulse,
+hurried back to the landing, launched Barbara's canoe, and, without
+consciousness of weariness or hunger, paddled all the way back to Gault
+House against the current.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap11"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XI.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+From Second Westings that morning, after old Debby's alarm, Doctor John
+and Doctor Jim had came posthaste on horseback to Westings Landing.
+Now, however, it was found that Barbara was quite too worn out by the
+fatigues of her long, strenuous day to sit a horse for a ten mile's
+ride over rough roads in the dark.  Priding herself not less on her
+endurance than on her horsemanship, she vehemently repudiated the
+charge that she was done up, and was determined to ride back on the
+liveliest of the Blue Boar's horses.  But Doctor John and Doctor Jim,
+scanning critically her white face and the dark rims coming about her
+eyes, for once agreed in a professional judgment.  They ordered the
+horses hitched to the roomy old chaise, which was one of the landlord's
+most cherished possessions; and Barbara had to accept, rebelliously
+enough, the supineness of a cushioned seat for the free lift and swing
+of the saddle.  Before the lighted doorway of the inn was out of sight,
+however, she was glad of the decision.  Her overwrought nerves began to
+relax under the soothing of the wood scents and the tender summer dark.
+In a little while she was asleep in the strong curve of Doctor Jim's
+right arm,&mdash;so deep asleep that all the ruts and jolts and corduroy
+bridges of an old Connecticut back-country road were powerless to
+disturb her peace.  When they woke her up, at her aunt's door, she was
+so drenched with sleep that she forgot to dread the reckoning.  With
+drowsy, dark eyes, and red mouth softly trustful as a baby's, she
+bewildered Mistress Ladd by a warm kiss and "I'm sorry, Aunt Hitty!"
+and went stumbling off to bed with her basket of sleeping kittens,
+oblivious and irresponsible as they.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mistress Mehitable looked after her with small, stern mouth, but
+troubled eyes.  Then she turned half helplessly to her friends, as if
+to say, "What can I&mdash;what ought I to do?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Doctor John threw up both big, white hands in mock despair, and his
+sympathetic laugh said, "What do you expect?"  But Doctor Jim, more
+direct and positive, said, "Best leave her alone till to-morrow,
+Mehitable; and then talk to her with no talk of punishing.  She's not
+the breed that punishing's good for."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mistress Mehitable looked sorrowful, but resolute.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I fear that would not be right, Jim!" she said.  But there was a note
+of deep anxiety in her voice.  "People who do wrong ought to be
+punished.  Barbara has done very, very wrong!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Doctor Jim was as near feeling impatient as he could dare to imagine
+himself with Mistress Mehitable.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nonsense&mdash;I mean, dear lady, punishment's not in itself one of our
+numerous unpleasant duties.  It's a means to an end, that's all.  In
+this case, it just defeats your end.  It's the wrong means altogether.
+Therefore&mdash;pardon me for saying it to you, Mehitable&mdash;it's wrong.  It's
+hard enough to manage Barbara, I know, but to punish her, or talk to
+her of punishing, makes it harder still, eh, what?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't let your conscience trouble you, Mehitable," said Doctor John.
+"I'm thinking the little maid will manage to get for herself, full
+measure and running over, all the punishment that's coming to her.
+She's not the kind that punishment overlooks."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Was there a suspicion of criticism in all this?  Could it be that John
+Pigeon and Jim Pigeon, her lifelong cavaliers, in whose sight all she
+did was wont to seem perfection, whose unswerving homage had been her
+stay through many an hour of faintness and misgiving, were now, at
+last, beginning to admit doubts?  Two large tears gathered slowly in
+the corners of Mistress Mehitable's blue eyes, the resolution fled from
+her mouth, and her fine lips quivered girlishly.  She twisted her
+shapely little hands in her apron, then regained her self-control with
+an effort.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Dear friends," said she, "I fear I have made a sad failure of the duty
+which I so confidently undertook.  I thought I could surely do so much
+for her,&mdash;could so thoroughly understand Winthrop's child.  But that
+foreign woman&mdash;that strange blood!  There is the trouble.  That is what
+baffles all my efforts.  Oh, perhaps it is partly my fault, too.
+Perhaps the child was right in the very singular letter she left for
+me, saying&mdash;just as if she were a grown woman and had the same rights
+as I had&mdash;that the trouble was that we could not understand each other!
+Oh, I fear I am not the right woman to have the care of Barbara!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are the rightest woman in the world, Mehitable!" thundered Doctor
+Jim, in explosive protest against this self-accusation.  "The rightest
+woman in the world to have the care of any man, woman, or child that
+ever lived."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Jim Pigeon's right, Mehitable, as he usually is, outside of medicine
+and politics," declared Doctor John.  "The little maid will be ready
+enough some day, I'll warrant, to acknowledge how lucky she was in
+having her Aunt Hitty to care for her.  But here in Second Westings we
+are not just at the centre of things exactly, and it may be we get into
+ruts, thinking our ways are the only ways.  Shall we try new ways with
+this very difficult little maid, Hitty?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mistress Mehitable brushed off the tears which had overflowed, and held
+out a hand to each of the big brothers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are the best friends a woman ever had," she averred with
+conviction; "and if you both disagree with me, I must be wrong.  It
+shall be your way to the best of my power.  After you've had the horses
+put up, come back here and I'll have a hot bite ready for you.
+But&mdash;oh, I do wish Winthrop had married among his own people!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is late, dear lady, and you are tired after your anxieties," said
+Doctor Jim.  "But, nevertheless, since you are so gracious, we will
+soon return,&mdash;eh, what, John?&mdash;for a bowl of that hot sangaree which
+Mehitable's fair hands know how to brew so delicately."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't misunderstand Jim, Mehitable," said Doctor John, as the two
+withdrew.  "The comfort of your punch is nothing to us as the comfort
+of your presence.  Had you ever consented to make one man happy, how
+miserable would you have made others, Mehitable!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was deep meaning and an old reproach under Doctor John's tender
+raillery; and Mistress Ladd's cheeks flushed as she stood a few moments
+motionless, alone in her low-ceiled, wide parlour.  She was convicted
+of failure at every point.  Well she knew how happy she might have made
+either one of the big-limbed, big-hearted brothers, had she not shrunk
+from making the other miserable.  And she had never been able to decide
+which was the dearer to her heart; for, though she was apt to turn
+first to Jim in any need, or any joy, the thought of pain for John was
+ever hard for her to endure.  Her heart was very full as she set about
+preparing the brew which they both loved: and before they came she
+stole noiselessly up-stairs to the room over the porch, and softly
+kissed the dark, unrepentant waves of the sleeping Barbara's hair.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap12"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XII.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+It was late morning when Barbara awoke&mdash;so late that she saw, by the
+position of the square of sunshine on the wall beyond her bed, that the
+hour for breakfast was over.  Her first vague waking sense was one of
+joy to come, which she presently caught and fixed as the knowledge that
+her Uncle Bob would soon be with her.  Then a great flood of depression
+rolled over her, blotting out the joy, as she remembered that she had
+Aunt Hitty yet to reckon with.  To make matters worse, she had slept
+past breakfast time,&mdash;which was almost an immorality in that punctual
+household.  A lump came up in her throat, and tears ached behind her
+eyes, for she had meant to try so hard to make up,&mdash;and now she had
+gone and sinned again.  She shut her eyes tight, and made a determined
+effort to regain hold of the sleepiness which still drenched and
+clouded her brain.  This effort was too much, and on the instant the
+last vestige of her drowsiness cleared away, and her brain grew keen as
+flame.  She sat up, determined to face the conflict and get it over.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As she sat up, her eyes fell upon the little table by her bedside,
+whereon she was wont to keep her candle, her filagreed bottle of
+lavender water, her much marked copy of Sir Philip Sidney's sonnets,
+and her Bible, which was thumbed chiefly at Isaiah, Ecclesiastes, and
+the Song of Solomon.  Her eyes opened very wide as she saw there
+now,&mdash;event unprecedented and unbelievable,&mdash;a little tray with white
+linen napkin.  On the tray were a glass and a jug of milk, a plate of
+the seed-cakes which she particularly loved, a big slice of barley
+bread, and a bowl of yellow raspberries.  She stared for half a minute,
+and rubbed her eyes, and thought.  Abby, certainly, could not have done
+it.  She would neither have dared nor cared to.  Then&mdash;it was Aunt
+Hitty,&mdash;and after the way she had treated her,&mdash;and after that cold,
+hateful letter!  She reached out a doubtful hand and touched the bread
+and berries.  She started to eat a seed-cake, but it stuck in her
+throat, quite unable to get past a certain strange, aching obstruction,
+which had gathered there all at once.  Tears suddenly streamed down her
+face; and springing impulsively out of bed, she ran, barefooted and in
+her white nightgown, straight to the little bow-windowed sewing-room,
+where she knew that at this hour her aunt would be busy with the needle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mistress Mehitable had just time to thrust aside her needle and the
+fine fabric she was fashioning before Barbara flung herself into her
+arms, sobbing passionately.  The good lady's heart warmed in response
+to this outburst, and she held Barbara close to her breast, whispering,
+"There, there, dearie, we just won't talk about it at all!  We'll just
+try hard to understand each other better in the future!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At the same moment, while her eyes were filling with tears, she could
+not help a whimsical thought of what Doctor John would say.  "He would
+say,"&mdash;she said to herself at the back of her brain,&mdash;"'Seed-cakes may
+save a soul quicker than switchings, Mehitable!'"  Mistress Mehitable's
+earnest mind had no apprehension of humour save as it reached her by
+reflection from Doctor John or Doctor Jim.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Presently Barbara found her voice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Forgive me, Aunt Hitty, forgive me!" she sobbed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mistress Mehitable held her a little closer by way of reply.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm not worth your while, Aunt Hitty&mdash;I'm not one bit worth all the
+trouble you take for me&mdash;I'm nothing but a wretched little reptile,
+Aunt Hitty,&mdash;and I just wonder you don't hate and despise me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There, there, dear," murmured Mistress Mehitable, patting her hair.
+She was sure of her feelings, but could not be quite sure that words
+would rightly express them at this crisis.  If she talked, she knew she
+might say the wrong thing.  She'd leave it all to Barbara, and be safe
+at least for the moment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I knew how bad I was," continued Barbara, justifying the statement by
+remembrance of some brief and scattered moments of self-questioning.
+"I knew how bad I was, but I couldn't say so, and I never, never knew
+how lovely you could be, Aunt Hitty!  I was so dreading to see you this
+morning,&mdash;and then, oh, you just brought me the seed-cakes, and the
+yellow raspberries, and never said one word!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As she dwelt on this magnanimity, Barbara's sobs broke forth afresh.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There, there, dear," murmured Mistress Mehitable again, and kissed her
+tenderly, still refusing to be drawn from her intrenchments, but deeply
+rejoicing in the triumph of her new strategy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"To think&mdash;why, I never really knew you till now, Aunt Hitty!" and
+Barbara hugged her with swift vehemence.  "When I saw the things by my
+bed, and thought of you stealing in and putting them there, and
+stealing out without waking me,&mdash;oh, Aunt Hitty, I thought such a lot
+all in one instant, and I knew you couldn't have done that, after me
+being so bad, unless you loved me,&mdash;could you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Indeed I couldn't!" answered Mistress Ladd, with conviction.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And you will really and truly forgive me?" persisted Barbara.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This was a direct challenge, and Mistress Mehitable was too honest not
+to come forth and meet it.  She gently pushed Barbara off, and held her
+so she could look straight into her fearless young eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I really and truly forgive you&mdash;and love you, Barbara!" she said.
+"And"&mdash;she continued, with a slight hesitancy, in an instant's resolve
+achieving a resolution,&mdash;"I ask you to forgive me for my
+misunderstandings of you, and all my many mistakes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, Aunt Hitty!" exclaimed Barbara, too tender in her mood to agree
+with these self-accusations, but too honest to contradict.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have failed to realise how, being so different from other girls, you
+required different treatment from other girls," went on Mistress
+Mehitable, firmly abasing herself.  "I thought there was only one right
+mould, and I must try to force you into it, however much the effort
+should hurt us both, dear.  I have been blind, very blind, and wrong.
+In this remote little world of ours, Barbara, we get into ruts, and
+come to think that the only way is our way."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara's eyes were glowing with enthusiasm.  She had discovered Aunt
+Kitty's heart,&mdash;and now she was discovering a breadth and insight which
+she could never have believed possible in that competent but seemingly
+restricted brain.  If Aunt Hitty could thus lift herself to look beyond
+the atmosphere of Second Westings, and to understand people different
+from those she had always been used to, she must be a very great woman.
+Barbara's eyes flamed with the ardour of her appreciation.  She did not
+know what to say, but her expression was eloquent.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's a quotation from Doctor John," said the conscientious Mistress
+Mehitable, suddenly afraid from Barbara's glowing look that she was
+getting more credit than her due.  "But I have become convinced of its
+truth."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How wise and good you are, Aunt Hitty!  I'll never, never
+misunderstand you again!" cried Barbara, rashly, breaking down Mistress
+Mehitable's guard, and once more hugging her with vehemence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mistress Mehitable smiled, gratified but doubtful.  She was surprised
+at her own unexpected appreciation of Barbara's demonstrativeness and
+warmth, so unlike anything that had ever before invaded the cool sphere
+of her experience.  She felt it her duty, however, to qualify Barbara's
+extravagant expectations, not realising that what the impetuous girl
+intended to express was rather a hope than a conviction.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We hardly dare expect quite that, dear," she said, gently.  "But at
+least we can agree to trust each other's good intentions.  We can
+promise that, can't we?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course, I'll always trust you now, Aunt Hitty, since I've seen your
+lovely heart!" exclaimed Barbara, with flattering fervour.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have failed to realise," continued Mistress Mehitable, "that you are
+no longer a little girl, but very nearly a grown woman.  Many girls are
+grown women at your age, Barbara, so that I have decided on something
+that will surprise you.  From this time forward, I shift my
+responsibility for you largely to your own shoulders, and shall hope to
+be more your friend than your guardian.  I hand you over to yourself,
+Barbara.  You must learn to discipline yourself!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara slipped down to the floor, and leaned against her aunt's knee,
+her dark, small face grown very thoughtful.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"All I dare say, Aunt Hitty," she said, slowly, weighing her words with
+unwonted care, "is that I'll try with all my might.  But I warn you
+that you are leaving me in very bad hands.  I want to be good, but
+sometimes I can't help being bad!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well," said Mistress Mehitable, with a curious reflex of Doctor John's
+humour, "you'll have to punish yourself after this.  I warn you that
+you must not look to me for punishment after this!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara's eyes got very wide, and danced; and she gave a little shriek
+of delight, such as that with which she was wont to greet Doctor John's
+whimsical sallies.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, Aunt Hitty," she cried, clapping her hands, "you said that just
+like Doctor John!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mistress Mehitable flushed faintly, and laughed like a girl.  She
+stooped over and kissed Barbara fairly on the mouth.  Then she arose
+rather hurriedly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have often wished I could make myself in many ways more like those
+two great-hearted gentlemen!" she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara remained sitting upon the floor.  Her eyes narrowed
+thoughtfully as she stared out of the window.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They are perfectly dear," she agreed, without reservation, "Isn't it
+splendid that they love us so, Aunt Hitty?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm going to the still-room now," said Mistress Mehitable, moving
+toward the door.  "I put in the bergamot just before breakfast."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll come and help you in a little while,&mdash;dear!" said Barbara,
+suddenly realising the changed relations, and suddenly making practical
+application of it.  That caressing, equal, half-protecting "dear"
+sounded strange to Mistress Mehitable.  It gave her something of a
+shock, yet she was not sure she didn't like it.  It made her feel less
+alone than of old.  She appeared not to notice it, however, merely
+saying before she vanished:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If I'm not in the still-room, I'll be down the back garden, gathering
+herbs.  The lemon-thyme's in flower, if you're going to distill any
+more of your 'Maryland Memories.'  Uncle Robert might like a flask of
+it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lovely," said Barbara, dreamily.  "We will make him some.  I'll hurry."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But for a few minutes she did not hurry at all.  Her rich, rebellious
+hair all down about her vivid face, her thin little shapely feet
+peeping out from under the frills of her white nightgown, she sat in
+the square of sunshine and pondered.  Since she fled away yesterday
+morning, what a change had come about!  She felt as if that wild and
+foolish adventure was years behind her.  A certain vague sense of
+responsibility oppressed her, a responsibility to herself hitherto
+unacknowledged.  She made the momentous resolve that she would learn to
+know herself a little, as a step to enabling other people, Robert Gault
+and Aunt Hitty in particular, to understand her.  She got up and
+scrutinised herself keenly in the glass.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You didn't know you were getting so grown up, did you, you ugly,
+skinny, little black thing!" she muttered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then she flitted back to her own room, poured out a dish of milk for
+the hungry kittens, and snatched at her breakfast by mouthfuls, while
+she made her toilet and dressed.  Last of all, before going to join
+Mistress Mehitable, she sat down on the edge of her bed, and took the
+kittens into her lap.  One by one she held up their round, pinky-nosed
+faces, and gazed seriously into their enigmatic young eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I want you to remember, now, my babies," said she, insisting upon
+their unwilling attention, "that your missis is now most grow'd
+up&mdash;she's grow'd up in one night, like old Mr. Jonah's gourd.  I want
+you to remember that we mustn't be silly and childish any more, except
+just in private, and where we can't help it.  And I want you to
+remember that you mustn't try to coax your missis into mischief any
+more like you did yesterday, going and helping her run off with the
+canoe, and such foolishnesses.  And I want you to remember that after
+this, if we can think of it, it isn't going to be 'Aunt Hitty' this,
+and 'Aunt Hitty' that, all the time,&mdash;but 'dear,' and 'honey' (as we
+used to say in Maryland), and 'blue-eyed lady,' and 'small person,'
+because we're just as tall as she is,&mdash;and we're too big to be punished
+any more, if we are bad,&mdash;and Uncle Bob's coming next week,&mdash;and Robert
+Gault may come any day, if he's impatient!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With a face of unwonted sobriety, but dancing lights in her eyes, she
+went to the door.  With her hand on the latch she changed her mind.
+Rushing to her glass, with a few deft touches she changed the
+arrangement of her hair, heaping it over her ears, and leaving just one
+crinkly curl to hang down over her left shoulder.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The change added years to her appearance.  Then, snatching up a pair of
+scissors, she swiftly ripped out a deep tuck in her frock, letting the
+skirt down a good three inches.  With vigorous brushings and assiduous
+pattings she smoothed out the crease so that it was not obtrusive; and
+severely checking her wonted rush and skip, she went to join Aunt Hitty
+in the fragrant mysteries of the still-room.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap13"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XIII.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+To both Mistress Mehitable and Barbara the new order of things proved
+itself, all through that first day, supremely satisfactory; and each
+vowed most solemnly in her heart that she, at least, would not be the
+one to blame if it did not last.  During the afternoon, when Doctor
+John and Doctor Jim were drinking a pot of tea with them, and wondering
+delightedly at the unexpected atmosphere of peace, Barbara asked,
+suddenly:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How did you ever manage, Aunt Hitty, to get Doctor John and Doctor Jim
+off after me so quickly.  I thought I had <I>such</I> a good start!  And how
+<I>did</I> you know which way I was going?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Both men looked meaningly at Mistress Mehitable, but failed to catch
+her eye.  Doctor Jim began to shake his head violently, but stopped in
+confusion under Barbara's look of questioning astonishment.  But
+Mistress Mehitable, serenely unconscious, answered at once:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Old Debby Blue," said she, "with whom you breakfasted, rode over as
+fast as she could to Doctor Jim with the news.  The poor old woman was
+nearly dead from her exertions, I think you told me, Jim.  She has a
+good heart, and truly loves you, Barbara.  I am sorry if I have seemed
+harsh to her at times."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara's eyes grew wide, her face darkened ominously, and her full,
+bowed lips drew together to a straight line of scarlet.  Doctor John
+sat up straight, with twinkling eyes, expecting the outbreak of a
+characteristic Barbara storm, such as he always enjoyed in his big, dry
+way.  But Doctor Jim made haste to interpose.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You mustn't be too hard on Debby, Barbara, because she told what she
+had promised not to tell.  What else <I>could</I> she do?  You know well
+enough she couldn't stop you herself, you headstrong baggage.  I won't
+have you unfair to Debby.  She loves you, and nearly killed herself to
+save you!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara's look of anger changed to a sort of obstinate sullenness for
+an instant.  Then with an effort she forced herself to smile, while
+tears sprang into her eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course, Debby was right," she acknowledged.  "But I wish she'd done
+it some other way.  She shouldn't have let me trust her.  She <I>fooled</I>
+me when I trusted her.  Oh, I'll <I>forgive</I> her, of course," she
+continued, bitterly, "but never, never, will I <I>trust</I> her again!"
+Then she sprang up impetuously, and ran and flung both arms around
+Mistress Mehitable.  "<I>Of course</I> I'd forgive her, anyway, because if
+she hadn't fooled me I might have never found out how lovely you
+were,&mdash;honey!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Both Doctor John and Doctor Jim were breathless with amazement for a
+moment.  What was this miracle?  Whence came this understanding and
+this sympathy, all in a night?  They saw a new glad warmth in Mistress
+Mehitable's eyes.  They exchanged significant glances.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"All I can say, Barbara," growled Doctor Jim, at length, "is that
+you've been a long while finding out what ought to have been as plain
+as the nose on your face,&mdash;eh, what?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"For a young lady who was able to discern at first glance the
+fascinations of Jim Pigeon," chimed in Doctor John, "I think you have
+been rather undiscriminating, Barbara!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She could see two battered old tallow dips, when she couldn't see the
+moon!" added Doctor Jim, solemnly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was always a relish of peril in rallying Barbara, whose audacity
+in retort was one of the scandals of Second Westings.  She flashed her
+white teeth upon them in a naughty smile, and her eyes danced as she
+kissed Mistress Mehitable on both cheeks.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of <I>course</I>," she cried.  "Nobody knows better than you two great big
+dears what a perfect little fool I've been, not to be in love with Aunt
+Hitty all this time."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Barbara!" protested Mistress Mehitable, in a tone of rebuke,&mdash;and then
+again, bethinking herself, "Barbara, child!" in a tone of appeal.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But now, you can tell a hawk from a handsaw, eh, baggage?" chuckled
+Doctor John; while Doctor Jim exploded noisily, and then, checking
+himself, cast upon Mistress Mehitable a glance of apprehension.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Barbara had heeded neither the rebuke nor the appeal.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I know, I know," she went on, clapping her hands with delight.  "You
+didn't <I>want</I> me to find her out,&mdash;you didn't want me to know how
+lovely she is!  Conspirators!  I won't love you any more, either of
+you.  And I'm going to keep Aunt Hitty all to myself here; and not let
+you even <I>see</I> her; and make you both so jealous you'll wish you had
+let me run away in the canoe and get drowned in the rapids."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Barbara, Barbara," murmured Mehitable.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Doctor Jim wagged his great head, and growled inarticulately.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's we who are the victims of conspiracy, John," said he.  "If
+Mehitable and Barbara have discovered each other, what becomes of us,
+I'd like to know!  But it sha'n't last.  We'll sow seeds of dissension
+presently,&mdash;eh, what?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Just let us wait till Bobby Gault comes!" suggested Doctor John, with
+gentle malice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara's face grew grave on the instant.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course, Aunt Hitty, they have told you all about Robert," she said,
+earnestly, "but all they know about his reasons is what he told them
+himself, you know.  And he was determined to shield me, of course.  But
+it was <I>all</I> my fault.  How could he know how bad and foolish I was?  I
+just mixed him all up; and it makes me ashamed to think how horrid I
+was; and I will never forgive myself.  But you mustn't let them
+prejudice you against Robert, honey,&mdash;but just wait and see what you
+think of him yourself, won't you, please?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mistress Mehitable smiled, and exchanged looks with Doctor John and
+Doctor Jim.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Really, dear," said she, "they have not given me any very bad
+impressions of Robert.  I think both Doctor John and Doctor Jim knew
+where to put the blame.  And <I>I</I> know, too!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara looked at her doubtfully.  Such complete acceptance of her
+position almost seemed unkind and critical.  But her aunt's smile
+reassured her.  This was not criticism, but something as near raillery
+as Mistress Mehitable would permit herself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I believe they have been abusing me behind my back,&mdash;and they
+pretending to love me!" cried Barbara, tossing her head in saucy
+challenge.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Never, child; we hug our delusions, Jim Pigeon and I," said Doctor
+John.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, hug me," laughed Barbara, darting around the tea-table and seating
+herself on his lap.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are our worst delusion, baggage!" said Doctor Jim, shaking a large
+finger at her.  "And now I see you're setting out to delude your poor
+aunt, after making life a burden to her for two years.  And poor Bobby
+Gault,&mdash;he'll find you a delusion and a snare!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think you are unkind, even if you are just in fun," protested
+Barbara, half offended, half amused.  But at this moment both men rose
+to go.  Doctor John, as he raised his towering bulk from the chair,
+lifted Barbara with him as if she had been a baby, held her in his arms
+for a moment while he peered lovingly and quizzically into her swiftly
+clearing face, gave her a resounding kiss, and set her on her feet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Bless the child!" said Doctor Jim, noticing now for the first time the
+change in appearance.  "What's become of our little Barbara?  How she's
+grown up over night!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And how her petticoats have grown down!" added Doctor John, backing
+off to survey her critically.  "Tut, tut, the wanton hussy!  How did
+she dare to kiss me!  Goodness gracious!  To think I had a young woman
+like that sitting on my lap!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You had better be careful what you say, Doctor John," retorted
+Barbara, firmly, "or I <I>will</I> be grown up, and never kiss you or let
+you hold me on your lap any more!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I humbly crave your pardon, gracious fair.  I am your most devoted,
+humble servant!" said Doctor John, setting his heels together at a
+precise right angle, and bowing profoundly over her hand till his
+brocaded coat-tails stuck out stiffly behind him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara rather liked this hand-kissing, after Robert's initiation, and
+took it with composure as her due.  Why should she not have her hand
+kissed, as well as Aunt Hitty?  But Doctor Jim made his farewell in
+different fashion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I won't have her grow up this way!" he growled, snatching her up and
+holding her as if he feared she would be taken away from him.  "She's
+just our little Barby, our little, thorny brier-rose!  Eh&mdash;what?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Our <I>barby</I> brier-rose, you mean!" interjected Doctor John, with a
+chuckle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But every one ignored this poor witticism, and Doctor Jim continued,
+while Barbara softly kicked her toes against his waistcoat.  "It would
+break my heart to have her grown up, and young missish, and prim.  What
+have you done to her, Mehitable?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mistress Mehitable gave a clear little ripple of laughter, flute-like
+and fresh.  She was feeling younger and gayer than she had felt for
+years.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have just tried to carry out your own suggestion, Jim!" said she,
+cheerfully.  "I must say, I think it was a very wise suggestion.  I
+have handed Barbara over to her own care, that's all.  I am sorry you
+don't like the results!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't worry, Doctor Jim!" cried Barbara, purchasing her release by
+kissing him hard on both cheeks.  "Don't worry about me being changed.
+I was <I>born</I> bad, you know.  And I'm afraid I'll be just as bad as ever
+by to-morrow&mdash;except to Aunt Hitty!  If I'm bad to you any more,
+dear,"&mdash;and she turned impetuously to Mistress Mehitable,
+"I'll&mdash;I'll&mdash;" and feeling a sudden imperious threat of tears, she fled
+away to her own room.  It had been a wonderful, wonderful day for her,
+and she felt that she must have a little cry at once.  On her white bed
+she wept deliciously.  Then she thought, and thought, and thought, and
+made resolves, in sympathetic communion with her pillow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the parlour below, Doctor Jim had said, before leaving:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think you are going to get a lot of comfort out of her now,
+Mehitable, eh, what?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And Doctor John, troubled by a maudlin kind of moisture about his eyes,
+had said nothing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And Mistress Mehitable had said, fervently:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I hope she is going to get a lot of comfort out of me, Jim.  I see
+that I have been greatly in the wrong!"
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap14"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XIV.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+All the next morning Mistress Mehitable and Barbara were busy
+overhauling Barbara's frocks.  Such as would admit of it were let down
+some three or four inches.  Of the others, two of rich material were
+laid away in Mistress Mehitable's huge carved oak chest lined with
+cedar, a repository of varied treasures of the loom.  The rest, three
+in number and plain of weave, were set aside to be given to Mercy
+Chapman.  There was much important planning, much interesting
+consultation; and in this feminine intimacy they grew ever closer to
+each other, throwing off the watchful self-consciousness, the sense of
+admiring and reciprocal discovery, which made them more happy than at
+ease in each other's company.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Early in the afternoon Barbara decided she would go out to her
+favourite apple-tree in the back garden and read.  She openly took down
+the second volume of "Clarissa Harlowe,"&mdash;having already got through
+the first volume in surreptitious moments.  Mistress Mehitable
+discreetly, but with difficulty and some soul-questioning, refrained
+from admonition.  Barbara felt in her heart a faint quaver of
+trepidation, as she thus frankly assumed her independence; but she had
+the full courage of her convictions, and outwardly she was calm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mr. Richardson does not seem to me a very strong writer," she remarked
+at the door,&mdash;"especially after one has read those wonderful plays of
+Mr. Shakespeare and Mr. Ben Jonson, as I did at home in Maryland!  But
+every one should know 'Clarissa,' shouldn't they, dear?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mistress Mehitable gasped.  She, too, had read those wonderful plays of
+Mr. Shakespeare and Mr. Ben Jonson.  But she was thoroughbred, and gave
+no sign of her dismay.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I never liked the lady, myself, dear," she answered, casually.  "She
+always seemed to me rather silly."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This was Barbara's own judgment, and confirmed her new appreciation of
+her aunt's intelligence.  At the same time, this apparently easy
+acceptance, on Mistress Mehitable's part, of Barbara's emancipation,
+seemed almost too good to be true.  Her heart swelled passionately
+toward this blue-eyed, calm, patrician little woman, whom she had so
+long misunderstood.  She came back, put a caressing arm around Mistress
+Mehitable's waist, kissed her fervently, and looked deep into her eyes.
+Mistress Mehitable actually trembled in the recesses of her soul lest
+that searching gaze should discover what she had nearly said about
+young girls and novel-reading!  But she kept the blue deeps of her eyes
+clear and tranquil, and her lips smiled frank response.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, you are so good and wonderful and wise, honey," Barbara said, at
+length.  "What a foolish, foolish child I've been,&mdash;and you, my dear,
+dear father's sister!  Why, just to look at you ought to have brought
+me to my senses.  So <I>many</I> ways you look like him!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then a thing very remarkable indeed took place.  Mistress Mehitable's
+fine poise wavered and vanished.  She almost clutched Barbara to her
+breast, then buried her head on the firm young shoulders and cried a
+little quite unrestrainedly, feeling a great ache in her heart for her
+dead brother Winthrop, and a great love in her heart for her dead
+brother's child.  Barbara was surprised, but greatly touched by this
+outburst.  She held her close, and patted her hair, and called her soft
+names suddenly remembered from the soft-voiced endearments of
+plantation days; till presently Mistress Mehitable recovered, and
+laughed gently through her tears.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't think me silly, dear," she pleaded, "but I've just realised for
+the first time that you have your dear father's wonderful eyes.  Your
+colouring, and your hair, and your mouth, are all very different from
+his.  But your eyes,&mdash;they are his <I>exactly</I>.  Such wonderful, deep,
+clear, <I>true</I> eyes, Barbara, sometimes sea-gray, sometimes sea-green.
+Where have my eyes been all this time?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara sighed happily.  "Isn't it lovely we have found each other at
+last, Aunt Hitty?  I don't think it will be so hard now for me to be
+good!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then she picked up "Clarissa" again, and ran gaily out to the garden.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara's apple-tree had three great limbs branching out at about five
+feet from the ground, forming a most luxurious crotch in which to sit
+and read.  Smaller apple-trees, interspersed with tangled shrubbery and
+some trellised vines, almost surrounded it, so that on three sides it
+afforded perfect seclusion.  Sweet airs breathed through it, from the
+neighbouring thyme and mint beds; and sunshine sifted down through its
+leaves in an intricate and exquisite pattern; and a pair of catbirds,
+nesting in the shrubs close by, made it their haunt without regard to
+Barbara's presence.  As she looked at this dear nook, with all its
+memories of intimate hours and dreams, Barbara thought to herself how
+glad she was that she had not succeeded in running away from Second
+Westings.  She clambered cleverly into the tree, settled herself with a
+long breath of satisfaction, swung her little scarlet-shod feet idly
+too and fro, and made a long, absorbing survey of her green realm.
+Then, locking her ankles lithely as only a slim girl can, she opened
+her book, and was soon engrossed in the fortunes of Lovelace and
+Clarissa.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+About the time that Barbara was settling herself in the apple-tree,
+Robert Gault was triumphantly pushing Barbara's canoe to land through
+the gold-green sedges on the Second Westings shore of the little lake.
+With pole and paddle he had made the ascent of the stream from Gault
+House, having been seized that morning with a violent conviction that
+it was his duty to return the canoe without delay.  He had poled
+through the rapids, and paddled eagerly through the silent solemnities
+of the woods, too intent upon his purpose to be alive to their mystic
+influences.  The furtive eyes that watched him from pine-tree boll and
+ironwood bush, from skyey branch or moss-veiled root, touched not his
+consciousness.  To his self-centred mood the peopled stillness was
+empty as a desert.  His eyes, at other times alert and not uninitiated,
+were turned inward upon his own dreams.  He emerged from the great
+shadows, paddled through the meadowy windings with their iris-beds and
+lilies, and passed at length old Debby's clamorous dooryard, giving
+hardly a glance to the green slope with its ducks and fowls, the little
+red-doored cabin against its trees, or old Debby herself, with the
+cock-eared yellow pup beside her, sitting on the stoop.  He was in a
+hurry, and had caught glimpses of the open waters of the lake beyond;
+and he knew from Barbara's description that Mistress Mehitable's
+landing-place was straight across the lake.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But old Debby, sitting knitting in the sun with the cock-eared yellow
+pup beside her, saw him, and chuckled at his haste.  She had been over
+to Second Westings the day before, and had got the whole story from
+Doctor Jim.  She had made up her mind to keep well out of the way, till
+Barbara's indignation should have time to cool; but she was mightily
+interested in the youth who had been so readily persuaded to the
+backing of Barbara's mad venture.  A moment later she made up her mind
+that she must have a good look at him, a word with him if possible.
+She got up and hobbled actively down to the shore; but Robert's haste
+had carried him already beyond earshot.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Following the path up from the lake-shore, Robert crossed the
+cow-pasture and climbed the bars back of the barn.  Here he was met and
+challenged by Keep, the mastiff, who, with the discernment of a
+well-bred dog, appreciated Robert's good clothes, nosed his hand
+cordially, and let him pass without protest.  Keep knew a gentleman at
+a glance, and was convinced that good manners meant good morals.  He
+had no fear of Robert setting fire to the barn.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Seeking a way to the front of the house, Robert passed through the
+wicket leading into the back garden.  Suddenly, between the tall clumps
+of hollyhocks, he stopped short, and his heart gave a queer little
+sliding leap.  His breath came quick and light, in a way that greatly
+perplexed him.  What he saw to so disturb him was a pair of little
+scarlet shoes, two small ankles, and a few inches of slim, shapely silk
+stockings, lithely intertwined, and vividly in evidence beneath a
+screen of apple-leaves.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert did not need any one to tell him that the rest of the
+bewildering picture, hidden behind the screen of apple-leaves, was the
+small, inspiring lady, Mistress Barbara Ladd.  He hesitated, and was
+almost on the point of slipping away,&mdash;he knew not why, for the life of
+him.  Then, recovering a part of his composure, he stepped forward in
+trepidation, hat in hand, forgot the graceful speeches on which he was
+wont to pride himself, and stammered&mdash;"Mistress Barbara!&mdash;I beg your
+pardon!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The slim ankles unlocked, "Clarissa" fell upon the grass, and lightly
+as a bird Barbara sprang down from her perch, unconscious,
+unembarrassed, gracious in her greetings.  She smiled him radiant
+welcome, frankly pleased, and held out her hand to be kissed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, how did you come?" she cried, gaily, "stealing in this way
+through the back premises?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"By water, dear lady," he answered, still stammering.  "I brought back
+the canoe, you know!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"By my dear river, and through the great, still woods!" she exclaimed,
+looking him over with clear eyes of approval.  "How lovely!  I wish I'd
+been with you!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I wish you had!" said Robert, with devout conviction.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But how tired you must be, all that journey against the current.
+Really, Robert, it was <I>very</I> nice of you to come so soon!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now Robert was in a sad state of bewilderment, dazzled by eyes and lips
+and scarlet shoes.  And he was further shaken from his customary poise
+by his perception of Barbara's change in the arrangement of her hair,
+and by what seemed a sudden increase in her stature through the
+lengthening of her frocks.  Otherwise he would not have been so stupid
+as to imagine that the promptitude of his coming called for any apology
+in Barbara's eyes, whatever might be the opinion of Doctor John, or
+Doctor Jim, or Mistress Mehitable Ladd!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I thought I ought to come at once, you know," he explained, "to bring
+back the canoe!  Otherwise I should have waited, as I ought, for Mr.
+Glenowen's coming, and an invitation from him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh!" said Barbara, her face changing slightly, her voice growing a
+little cooler.  "That was very thoughtful of you.  I couldn't sleep for
+thinking of the canoe!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert looked at her doubtfully, wondering if that were sarcasm in her
+voice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's a dear canoe.  I love it!" said he.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I wonder you did not want to keep it a little longer, then,&mdash;at least,
+till Uncle Bob could come and send you a proper, formal invitation to
+bring it back!" said Barbara.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But I wanted to bring it back now,&mdash;I thought it was such a good
+excuse for coming at once, though I knew I <I>ought</I> to have waited for
+the invitation, of course," persisted Robert, vaguely worried.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh!" exclaimed Barbara, again, allowing herself to be mollified in
+part, but still feeling a shade of disappointment.  She was too
+inexperienced to appreciate the tribute of Robert's confusion and
+unexpected awkwardness.  She liked him so much better in his grand,
+elaborate, self-possessed manner, paying stately compliments, making
+her feel important and grown-up by formal homage.  However, he
+certainly was very nice, and he certainly looked very distinguished;
+and she realised that, for all his apparent solicitude about returning
+the canoe, the canoe was not his reason for coming so soon.  She would
+forgive him,&mdash;but she would punish him!  In fact, she was making
+progress in the arts of the imperishable feminine.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, we shall <I>all</I> be glad to see you, Robert," she said.  "And now
+you must go straight to Doctor Jim, who did invite you, as you seem to
+have forgotten!  You go through that white gate, over there, and turn
+to the left, and then the first turn to the right puts you right on the
+main street.  You're almost at Doctor Jim's then,&mdash;any one will point
+it out to you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But,&mdash;I didn't come to see Doctor Jim," protested Robert, much taken
+aback.  "I came to bring back the canoe, you know!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course, I understand!" said Barbara, sweetly.  "Tell Doctor Jim and
+Doctor John that I want them to bring you back here presently, in an
+hour or two, to present you to Aunt Hitty, and have tea with us!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But can't I stay a <I>little</I> while <I>now</I>,&mdash;while no one knows I am here
+at all?" pleaded Robert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Ordinarily, this was just what would have seemed reasonable and
+delightful to Barbara.  But just now it pleased her to discipline the
+boy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Decidedly <I>not</I>, Robert!" said she.  "You know how careful you are
+about etiquette,&mdash;so troubled over the idea of coming here at all on
+the mere invitation of mere me!  You shall not talk to me any more till
+you have been properly presented to Aunt Hitty!  Besides, I am just at
+a <I>most</I> interesting place in this lovely book,"&mdash;and she snatched
+'Clarissa' up from the grass, where it had lain forgotten since
+Robert's appearance,&mdash;"and I can't really take my mind off it till I
+find out what is going to happen.  I will see you in the house, with
+Aunt Hitty, in&mdash;let me see&mdash;about an hour and a half!  Now go right
+away!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert looked very miserable, but bowed submission, and backed off.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How will Mistress Ladd receive me?" he asked, doubtfully.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh," replied Barbara, one small brown hand on the apple-tree as she
+waited for Robert to depart ere she climbed back to her nook, "Aunt
+Hitty is just perfect.  She will be very nice to you, and will quite
+approve of you, I know.  Since everything has turned out for the best,
+she has already forgiven you for leading her young niece into mischief
+the way you did!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert stared at her in speechless amazement.  But Barbara would not
+let him ask any more questions.  With a mocking little grimace at his
+confusion, she pointed to the white gate.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Go away immediately!" she commanded.  "And be sure you come back in an
+hour and a half!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert turned and strode off with an aggrieved air, between the
+hollyhock rows.  When he was half way to the gate, Barbara, who had
+stood looking after him with a smile on her lips, called imperiously:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Robert!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He turned quickly, and snatched off his hat.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What is it, my lady?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You forgot to help me into my tree!" said Barbara.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He was beside her in an instant, his face brightening.  He knelt on one
+knee, and held out his two hands firmly locked, to form a sort of
+stirrup.  Setting one light foot into this support, Barbara sprang up
+and in a flash was perched gracefully in her niche.  It was done with
+such swiftness that Robert had hardly time to realise her foot had
+touched him.  She laughed down upon him with gay commendation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That was very handsomely done, indeed, Robert!" she declared.  "Now
+hurry right away to Doctor Jim, or you'll never manage to get back in
+one hour and a half!"  And she buried her eyes in the first page at
+which "Clarissa" chanced to open.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert hesitated, opened his lips as if to speak, and went without a
+word.  Barbara, watching him from the corner of her eye, was puzzled at
+the look upon his face, but felt satisfied that it was not displeasure.
+About half-way up the walk toward the gate, when he believed himself
+unobserved, Robert gazed curiously at the palms wherein the little foot
+had rested for that fraction of a heart-beat.  Light as was the touch,
+it had left a subtle tingling behind it.  He pressed the place to his
+lips.  This action astonished Barbara, but greatly interested her, and
+gave her, at the same time, an inexplicable thrill.  Her heart
+understood it, indeed, while it remained an enigma to her brain.  And
+purposeless, profitless, absurd though it seemed to her, that Robert
+should kiss his own hand, she decided nevertheless that in some way the
+action had expressed a more fervent homage to her than when the hand
+that he kissed was hers.  She forgot to go on reading the excellent Mr.
+Richardson's romance.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap15"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XV.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Mistress Mehitable liked Robert, whose bearing and breeding were in all
+ways much to her taste.  She had seen him when a babe in arms, just
+before his father and mother had taken him away from Gault House to New
+York.  So gracious was she, that Robert was filled with wonder as he
+thought of the piteous story which Barbara had told him in the canoe.
+But this wonder was as nothing, compared to the amazement with which he
+viewed the warm affection between Barbara and her aunt.  What could it
+all mean?  It was plain that they two understood each other, trusted
+each other, admired each other, loved each other.  He had an uneasy
+feeling that Barbara had made a fool of him.  Then, as his dignity was
+beginning to feel ruffled, and his grave young face to darken, he would
+remember other details of that eventful afternoon which forbade him to
+question the girl's sincerity.  At this the cloud would lift.  There
+was a mystery behind it all, of course, which he would doubtless, in
+his determined fashion, succeed in penetrating.  Meanwhile, every one
+seemed extremely happy,&mdash;Barbara gaily, whimsically gracious, Mistress
+Mehitable composedly glad, Doctor Jim as boisterous in his joy as good
+manners would permit, Doctor John quizzically approving, and filled
+with mellow mirth.  Robert was made to feel himself an honoured guest,
+for his own sake as well as for the sake of his parents; and in this
+cordial atmosphere he soon justified all good opinions.  Barbara was
+intensely gratified with him.  She audaciously claimed credit for
+having discovered him, and rescued him from the barbaric wilderness
+that lay beyond Second Westings.  She began to plan expeditions and
+amusements to make his visit memorable; and when he announced his
+intention of returning to Gault House on the morrow, there was a
+unanimous protest.  Mistress Mehitable said it was not to be heard of,
+for one moment.  Doctor Jim growled that his hospitality was not to be
+flouted in any such fashion.  Doctor John levelled bushy eyebrows at
+him, and suggested that no true Gault would run away in the hour of
+triumph.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You will do nothing of the kind, Robert," decreed Barbara, with
+finality.  "We want you here.  I wonder you are not ashamed, after all
+the trouble you made for us so lately, when you were old enough and big
+enough to know better!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert's face flushed with pleasure at all this warmth; and he hugely
+wanted to stay.  But with astonishing discretion he refused to be
+persuaded.  Some intuition taught him the wisdom of timely reserve.
+Without at all formulating any theory on the subject, which would have
+been impossible to such inexperience as his, he felt instinctively that
+at this moment, when she was most gracious to him, a judicious absence
+would best fix him in Barbara's interest.  He said there were matters
+to be attended to for his grandmother which would not well bear delay.
+At this unexpected firmness on the part of her cavalier, Barbara was so
+annoyed that for nearly an hour she seemed to forget his existence; but
+Robert hid his discomfort under an easy cheerfulness, and no one else
+seemed to notice the passing shadow.  Mistress Mehitable insisted that
+the guests should stay to sup with her and Barbara; and the boy's
+coming was made a little festival.  Mistress Mehitable was one of those
+notable housekeepers who seem to accomplish great things with little
+effort by being craftily forehanded.  Before anything was said of
+supper she had vanished for a few minutes to the kitchen; and in those
+few minutes she had planned with Abby for a repast worthy the event.
+The larder of the Ladd homestead was kept victualled beyond peril of
+any surprise; and Mistress Mehitable, for all her ethereal mould and
+mien, believed in the efficacy of good eating and good drinking.  Well
+regulated lives, she held, should also be well nourished, and her
+Puritan conscience was not illiberal in regard to the seemly pleasures
+of the board.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Both Doctor John and Doctor Jim, as befitted their stature, were
+valiant trenchermen; and Robert was a boy; and the lavish delicacies of
+Abby's serving met with that reception which was the best tribute to
+their worth.  Gaiety made herself handmaid to appetite; and the ale was
+nutty-mellow from last October; and Mistress Mehitable's old Madeira
+wine, of which herself partook but sparingly, was fiery-pungent on the
+tongue.  As she toasted him, and her blue eyes sparkled upon him over
+the glass, Robert wondered anew how Barbara could have wanted to run
+away from so admirable an aunt.  As for Barbara, reduced for a little
+to silence by supreme content, she sipped at her Angelica cordial,
+surveyed Mistress Mehitable with grateful ardour, and took it all as
+largess to herself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At last, with a happy sigh, she cried, "Oh, if only Uncle Bob could
+have come in time for this!"  And so electric with sympathy was the air
+that on the word every eye turned and glanced at the door, as if
+expecting that a wish so well-timed might bring fruition on the
+instant.  There was silence for some seconds.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then Mistress Mehitable said, "He will be here in a very few days,
+dear!  And then you, Robert, must come to us again without delay.  I
+agree with Barbara that nothing I can think of except Mr. Glenowen's
+presence could add to our happiness to-night!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After supper there was music in the candle-lit drawing-room, Mistress
+Mehitable having a rare gift for the harpsichord, and Doctor Jim a nice
+art in the rendering of certain old English ballads of the robuster
+sort.  Where they might have seemed to the ladies' ears a trifle more
+robust than nice, Doctor Jim had fined them down to a fitting delicacy.
+But they suited his rolling bass, and he loved them because, being
+Cavalier-born, they appealed to his king-loving sympathies.  Doctor Jim
+was an exemplary Congregationalist, but solely by force of environment,
+Congregationalism being the creed of all the gentry of that region.
+Episcopalianism he looked upon with a distrust mingled with affection;
+but in all other respects he was a king's man, through and through, an
+aristocrat, and a good-natured scorner of the masses.  It was a
+stupendous triumph for accident and atmosphere to have succeeded in
+fitting Doctor Jim to his inherited environment of Second Westings.
+His Congregationalism was a thing that might conceivably be changed to
+meet changed conditions; while his Toryism was bred in the bone.  With
+Mistress Mehitable, on the other hand, her Congregationalism was
+deep-rooted, a matter of conscience.  It was by conscience, too, no
+less than by blood, that she was an aristocrat.  She was a royalist, a
+Tory, no less unquestioning than Doctor Jim, but this by a chance
+election of that strenuous conscience which, by a different chance
+twist, would have made her an equally sincere Whig.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When Doctor Jim had sung till Doctor John told him he was getting
+hoarse and spoiling his voice, Barbara, in a burst of daring, started
+up a wild plantation song, patting her accompaniment.  To Mistress
+Mehitable, as to Robert, this was an undreamed novelty, and their eyes
+opened wide in wonder.  At first they thought it barbarous, but in a
+few minutes the piquing rhythms and irresponsible cadences caught them,
+and they listened in rapture.  Barbara's store of these songs was a
+rich one, and she had perfected the rendering in many a secret
+performance to the audience of Doctor John and Doctor Jim.  When she
+was quite sure of the effect she was producing, she sprang to her feet,
+flung her hair loose by a quick movement of both hands, and began to
+dance as she sang.  And now, to the ever-growing amazement of Mistress
+Mehitable, Doctor Jim took up the patting, while Doctor John, seating
+himself at the harpsichord, began a strange staccato picking of the
+keys.  Then Barbara stopped singing, and gave herself up wholly to the
+dance.  She danced with arms and hands and head and feet, and every
+slender curve of her young body.  She moved like flames.  Her eyes and
+lips and teeth were a radiance through the live, streaming darknesses
+of her hair.  Light, swift, unerring, ecstatic, it was like the most
+impassioned of bird-songs translated into terms of pure motion.  Doctor
+John played faster and faster his wild, monotonous melody.  Doctor Jim
+patted harder and harder.  Barbara's dance grew madder and stranger,
+till at last, with a little breathless cry that was half a sob, she
+stopped, darted across the room, flung herself down, and buried her
+dishevelled head in Mistress Mehitable's lap.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On ordinary occasions Mistress Mehitable would have felt inclined to
+hold that anything so extraordinary, so utterly outside the range of
+all conceptions, and at the same time so very beautiful, must be wrong.
+Now, however, she was under the spell of Barbara and under the spell of
+the whole situation.  "I cannot see any possible harm in it!" she said
+to herself.  And to Barbara she said, tenderly and deftly arranging the
+disordered locks:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Most beautiful, and most singular, dear.  I suppose that is your
+<I>dance</I> of 'Maryland Memories,' is it not?  It seems to me not only
+amazingly beautiful, but as if it might be the most wholesome and
+desirable of exercises."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara gurgled a gasping laugh from the depths of Mistress Mehitable's
+taffeta.  It had never occurred to her that these mad negro dances, in
+which she found expression for so much in herself which she did not
+understand, could be regarded in the light of exercise.  But she was
+glad indeed if they could be so regarded by Aunt Hitty.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, yes, honey," she agreed, in haste.  "I'm <I>sure</I> it's wholesome;
+and I <I>know</I> it's <I>desirable</I>,&mdash;isn't it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This appeal was to every one, but it was Robert, at last awaking from
+his rapture and finding breath, who answered:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There was never anything else so wonderful in all the world," he said,
+solemnly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Doctor John and Doctor Jim, with one impulse, jumped up, each seized
+one of Barbara's hands, and plucked her to her feet.  They then stood
+hand in hand in a row before Mistress Mehitable and Robert, bowing
+their thanks for such appreciation of their poor efforts to please.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We are going to London to perform before the king!" declared Doctor
+Jim.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mistress Mehitable gravely took a shilling from her purse, and bestowed
+it upon Doctor John because he was the tallest.  He pretended to spit
+on it, for luck, but kissed it instead, and slipped it into the bosom
+of his ruffled shirt.  When the approving laughter had subsided,
+Mistress Mehitable said, musingly:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I see now how you have been teaching Barbara her Latin.  It was that
+peculiar dialect of Latin that prevails in Maryland!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After this a sack posset was mixed by Mistress Mehitable, with the
+eager assistance of every one but Robert, who was still too much
+possessed by Barbara's dancing to do more than stand about and get in
+the way, and smile a gravely fatuous smile whenever spoken to.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the posset began to go around, calling forth encomiums at every
+sip, Doctor Jim demanded the cards.  There was silence.  To Robert,
+just from the Tory circles of New York, it seemed the most natural
+thing in the world.  To Barbara it seemed natural, but foreign to
+Mistress Mehitable and Second Westings.  To Doctor John it seemed right
+and desirable, but he chuckled and said nothing, being aware of
+Mistress Mehitable's views.  And this time Mistress Mehitable was firm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, Jim," said she, "we won't play.  I know good people do
+play,&mdash;people who know just as well as I do what is right and what is
+wrong.  But for some reason card-playing does not seem right to me.
+You know Doctor Sawyer would strongly disapprove!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Officially, that's all, dear lady!" corrected Doctor John.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But you have them in the house,&mdash;yonder in that very drawer, most
+gracious mistress!" persisted Doctor Jim.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My dear father used them," confessed Mistress Mehitable.  "Therefore I
+would not for a moment think of refusing to have them in my house.  But
+I think it is better not to play, Jim."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And though Mistress Mehitable spoke with appeal and apology rather than
+with decision, the matter was plainly settled.  There was nothing to do
+but tell riddles and drink up the rest of the posset.  The pervading
+satisfaction was in no way checked by Doctor Jim's failure, for all
+agreed that cards were stupid anyway.  Barbara, in spite of her
+excitement, and to her intense self-disgust, began to grow sleepy.  She
+was horribly afraid she might show it, which, for one but forty-eight
+hours grown-up, would have been humiliating beyond words.  She felt
+herself divided between a fear lest so perfect an evening should end
+too soon, and an equally harassing fear lest it should end not soon
+enough.  At length the keen and loving eyes of Doctor John discerned
+her trouble; and at the dissolute hour of half-past ten he broke up the
+party.  Adieux were made with a warmth, an abandon of homage held in
+fetters of elaborate courtliness, which might have seemed excessive at
+a less propitious conjunction of time and sentiment.  At last the
+three, Doctor John, Doctor Jim, and Robert, found themselves arm-in-arm
+on the street, and all talking at once, overbrimming with happiness and
+reciprocal congratulations, as they took their discreet way homeward.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara and Mistress Mehitable, left alone, silently put out the
+lights.  Then, each lighting her candle, they paused at the head of the
+stairs to say good night.  Each set down her candle on the little
+mahogany table under the clock, and looked into the other's eyes.
+Barbara was first to break the sweet but too searching scrutiny.  She
+flung both arms around Mistress Mehitable's neck, and kissed her with a
+tremulous fervour that told much.  Mistress Mehitable, whose eyes were
+brighter than Barbara had ever guessed that they could be, pressed her
+in a close embrace which concealed much, even from Mistress Mehitable
+herself.  Then Barbara, after whispering something to the kittens, went
+straight to bed, and straight to sleep.  But Mistress Mehitable sat
+looking out of her window.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap16"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XVI.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+It had been arranged that Robert should borrow a horse from Doctor
+John's stables, ride it over to Gault House, and keep it there till his
+return to Second Westings.  But as he was strolling down the village
+street before breakfast, he saw, in a paddock beside an unpretentious
+cottage, a splendid Narragansett pacer, a dark sorrel, one of the
+handsomest of the breed that he had ever seen.  He had long coveted one
+of these horses, famous in all the thirteen colonies for their easy
+gait, speed over rough country, and unparalleled endurance.  With
+characteristic promptness in getting to his point, he went in,
+interviewed the owner, tried the horse, loved it, and asked the price.
+The owner was not anxious to sell; but when he found out who the
+would-be purchaser was, and the liberal price he was ready to pay, the
+prospect of an immediate draft on the bank at Hartford proved
+irresistible, and Robert rode off with his prize.  He knew horse-flesh,
+and did not grudge the price; and both Doctor John and Doctor Jim, who
+knew this sorrel pacer well, were constrained to commend the purchase,
+though to them it seemed that so weighty an action demanded, if but for
+form's sake, the tribute of delay and pondering.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Buy a horse like that, Robert, in three shakes of a ram's tail?  It's
+undignified!" roared Doctor Jim, eyeing the beast with unmixed
+approbation.  "It's an insult to the horse.  And it's a slight upon the
+value of our assistance, you cock-sure young rascal.  But it's just the
+mulish way your father would have gone and done it, so I suppose we
+must forgive you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Doctor John, meanwhile, had been handling the beast critically, and
+looking at its teeth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Worth all you gave for him, Bobby; and not a day over five years old!"
+was the verdict.  "I see you're old enough to go about alone.  Don't
+you mind what Jim Pigeon says.  He'd have had you run to him and ask if
+you might have a horse of your own, and then get him and me to go down
+and look at the beast, and come back here and talk it all over in
+council, and then go back and bully Enoch Barnes some more about the
+price, and then all three of us ride the beast up to Mistress
+Mehitable's, to ask the opinion of her and Barbara on the subject, and
+then&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Robert interrupted at this point in the tirade.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That <I>would</I> have been a good idea," he asserted, regretfully.  "I
+wish I had thought to consult the ladies.  But, you know, I <I>knew</I> that
+horse was just the one I'd so long been wanting the moment I set eyes
+on him.  So I didn't dare wait, lest some one else should come along
+and snap him up.  Of course you both know a thousand times more about
+horses than I do,&mdash;but I knew enough to know I wanted this one!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You <I>generally</I> seem to know what you want, Master Gault!" said Doctor
+Jim.  "And you seem like to get it, generally, if I don't mistake the
+cut of you,&mdash;eh, what?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Tut, tut," said Doctor John, scowling upon him quizzically.  "That's
+all very well as far as horses are concerned, and men!  But wait till
+it comes to women, Robert.  You've a lot to learn, my son.  If I'm not
+much mistaken, you'll be taught a lot, and not spared in the teaching!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm always anxious to learn," answered Robert, modestly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You will!  You will!" said Doctor John.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Breakfast was a substantial meal of boiled "Yokeag" with molasses, and
+broiled salmon, and venison cutlets, and fried ham, and rich guava
+jelly from the West Indies.  Robert was surprised to see each of his
+friends preface the repast with a quart mug of the hardest and headiest
+old cider, he himself being accustomed to a small cup of light ale
+merely, or a sip of claret, at this hour.  Both Doctor John and Doctor
+Jim assured him that there was nothing like sound cider to tone up the
+stomach for its day's adventures; and on their advice he tried it,
+though sparingly, and therefore with no tragic results.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After breakfast, he was so obviously restless that the big-hearted
+brothers made no effort to detain him.  With heavy hands upon his
+shoulders, they told him to make the least possible delay in his
+return, and to bear in mind how warm the welcome ever awaiting him at
+Second Westings.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How like to Richard in the saddle!" exclaimed Doctor John, when Robert
+had mounted the sorrel pacer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And that's a compliment not many a lad of your age could win, my son!"
+said Doctor John.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert's dark face flushed with pleasure.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I try hard to be as like my father as possible," said he.  "Don't you
+think I might properly ride around and pay my respects to the ladies
+before I leave?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Unquestionably you might!  'Pon my word a capital idea!" laughed
+Doctor Jim, with huge derision.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Unquestionably, my boy, you would find yourself in hot water if you
+didn't!" said Doctor John.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So Robert, without more ado, turned the head of his Narragansett pacer
+toward Westings House, whose wide white gables were partly visible
+through the trees.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A very erect, graceful, and masterful young figure he made, as he
+reined in his tall sorrel before Mistress Mehitable's porch.  Mistress
+Mehitable from her window above had seen him coming, and was on the
+steps to greet him.  He flung himself from the saddle, kissed her hand
+deferentially, thanked her with fervour for her delightful
+hospitality,&mdash;and at the same time cast a solicitous eye about the
+walks and windows, wondering where Barbara could be.  Mistress
+Mehitable had an amused smile, but would not help him.  She said polite
+things, and assured him of the pleasure with which she would look
+forward to his next visit,&mdash;and even added that he had better not
+postpone that next visit beyond five or six days, or a week at most, as
+Mr. Glenowen was expected at once, and might not be able to stay long
+at Second Westings.  But of Barbara she said not a word.  Robert showed
+her, with pride, his sorrel pacer, related with an abstracted air the
+circumstances of its purchase, and enlarged upon the special merits of
+the breed, while Mistress Mehitable patted the silky white nose, and
+murmured boundless admiration.  But still no sign, no word, of Barbara.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At last Robert could contain himself no longer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I ought to be on the road," he stammered, "but I should be sorry to
+leave without making my adieux to Mistress Barbara.  Is she within?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She went out about half an hour ago!" said Mistress Mehitable, "and
+did not say where she was going!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert's face fell so pathetically that Mistress Mehitable felt a
+little flush of resentment against Barbara for her cruelty.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She left kindest messages for you," she continued, hastily.  "She told
+me to say how sorry she was not to see you this morning, and that she
+would never forgive you if you did not come again to Second Westings
+very soon.  And I was to say good-bye to you for her!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I thank you," said Robert, heavily.  "Pray you give her my devotions,
+and tell her how grieved I am to be denied the privilege of paying them
+in person.  I kiss your hand again, dear Mistress Ladd!"  And with that
+he rode off musingly, through a morning whose sunlight had on the
+sudden lost its sparkle, whose spicy airs had all at once lost their
+zest.  His pride in the new pacer, which he had hoped to show off to
+Barbara, was all fallen flat.  He forced the restive beast to walk
+soberly for some moments.  Then a swift heat of anger, a sense of
+undeserved injury, went over him.  He swore he would come no more to
+Second Westings all that summer; and setting spurs to the willing
+sorrel, he tore away down the road at a pounding gallop.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap17"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XVII.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The road toward Westings Landing, which was the shortest way to Gault
+House, was joined about a mile out by another, equally rough and
+unfriendly to travel, coming from Westings Centre.  Robert had passed
+this junction at full gallop, but a few rods beyond a stretch of mire
+compelled him to rein in and pick his way.  As he did so he caught a
+sound of beating hoofs behind him, and turned in the saddle to see who
+came.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Careering recklessly down the road from Westings Centre, her black
+curls flying from beneath the rim of her little white beaver, came a
+slim figure in a black habit on a great black horse.  She burst into a
+peal of laughter as Robert turned, and cried, gaily:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm coming.  Wait for me, Robert!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert wheeled his horse as if on a pivot, fairly lifted him with voice
+and spur, and was with her in a few great strides.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You!" was all his voice could say; but his face said so much more that
+the greeting did not seem curt to Barbara.  Her small face was radiant
+with excitement, audacity, and delight.  At the beginning of the miry
+ground she reined in, patted her beast's wet neck, and said,
+breathlessly:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I thought you might like me to ride a little way with you, Robert, to
+make sure of your getting the right road.  Wasn't it very nice of
+me,&mdash;when you don't one bit deserve any such attention?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are an angel!" cried Robert, in an ecstasy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara laughed clear and high at this.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Oh!</I>" she shrilled, melodiously derisive, "that's what <I>I</I> think I
+am, of course.  But no one has ever agreed with me after knowing me
+more than three days.  This is your third day, Robert.  It's well for
+me you're going while you labour under this flattering delusion."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's no delusion," averred Robert, stoutly, far past wit, and with no
+weapon left but bluntness.  "You are the loveliest thing in the world."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This, in Barbara's own opinion, was nonsense.  But she liked to hear
+him say it, nonsense or not.  She pondered for a moment, her face
+turned away indifferently, that he might not see she was pleased.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You contradict yourself," she retorted.  "You know angels are not in
+the world!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"One is!" said Robert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I like you so much better, Robert, when you're saying clever things
+like that," said Barbara, patronisingly, "than when you are just
+stupid, and don't do anything but just look at me, as you do sometimes!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was too young to know that when a man can be witty with a woman he
+is not, at the moment, so engrossed in her but that he is able to think
+of himself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Before Robert could reply they were past the miry ground, and Barbara
+had once more set her black horse at the gallop.  The sorrel needed no
+urging to follow,&mdash;and indeed, for a few minutes both riders were fully
+occupied in preventing the ride from degenerating into a headlong race,
+so emulous were the two horses.  The road was still very bad, broken
+with ruts, holes, and boulders, and the pace was therefore full of
+peril.  The black just escaped plunging his fore legs into a bog-hole,
+and the narrowness of the escape seemed to make him lose nerve.  Robert
+saw with anxiety that Barbara, though her horsemanship equalled her
+canoeing, was just now in a far too reckless mood.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wait, please, my dear lady," he begged.  "This is no road for fast
+riding.  That good beast of yours just escaped a bad fall, and he's a
+bit nervous.  Let's walk them till we get to better ground."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Barbara had not noticed her escape, and she was thrilling with
+exhilaration.  She did not know how beside herself she was.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you're afraid, follow at your own pace!" she cried, mockingly.
+"<I>I</I> came out to <I>ride</I>!"  And with a wild word of encouragement to the
+black, and a throwing forward of the reins upon his neck, she shot on
+at full speed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I <I>beg</I> you don't be so reckless!" cried Robert.  "You will get a bad
+fall riding this way on such a road!"  There was intensest anxiety in
+his voice, but the faintest tinge of reproof went with it, as Barbara's
+sensitive pride was quick to discern.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I shall ride as recklessly as I please," said she.  "But don't let
+that trouble you.  Be careful if you like.  Ride like an old woman if
+you like!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This taunt did not touch Robert, as he knew the quality of his own
+horsemanship,&mdash;which, indeed, Barbara's attentive eyes had been quick
+to note.  But the mood it betrayed alarmed and half angered him.  He
+saw in fancy that fleeing, daring, wayward little figure stretched
+lifeless on the roadside, the radiant face white and still.  His own
+face paled and his jaw set obstinately as he urged forward his big
+sorrel in silence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The new horse proved worthy of Narragansett fame.  Over the worst
+ground his peculiar pace carried him with an ease which the big black's
+heavy tread could not match.  And when the ground was firmer, and he
+could stretch out at full run, he soon closed up the gap between
+himself and his rival.  This nettled Barbara, who thought her Black
+Prince a record-breaker; and she even went so far as to wave her
+riding-crop, as if she might be inclined to use it on this beast, which
+had never felt the whip.  Nevertheless, the heavy hoof-beats behind
+crept closer; and soon the sorrel's nose was at her stirrup; and then
+Robert's stirrup and his knee were level with her own,&mdash;and with a
+quick sidelong glance she caught the grim resolve on his dark face.
+She was feeling by this time the least bit ashamed of herself, and
+awaking to the risks of the road, so she said, sweetly:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's a <I>splendid</I> horse of yours, Robert.  And you can ride!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thank you, Mistress Barbara!" said Robert, unmollified.  And just then
+the road straightened out, a stretch of hard, dry level, inviting to
+the loose rein and the unchecked run.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There's no danger <I>here</I>, Master Careful!" cried Barbara.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, not here,&mdash;except branches!" acknowledged Robert, drawing a deep
+breath of relief.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And now for more than a mile the road was good.  It wound in slow
+curves, the high-branched ash and white maple meeting over it in
+stately arches.  Under foot it was hard and fairly even, with a thin
+turf between the shallow ruts.  Sunlight and shadow flecked it in vivid
+patches; and the summer winds, which were blowing briskly in the open,
+breathed down this sheltered corridor only as half-stirred exhalations
+of faint perfume.  Neck by neck the horses galloped, their riders
+silent, looking straight ahead, but thrillingly conscious of each
+other's nearness.  And the strong rhythm of the hoof-beats beneath them
+seemed to time itself to the rushing of their blood.  It was now no
+longer with vexation, but with a sort of half pride, that Barbara
+realised the superiority of the sorrel over her own mount.  She saw
+that only Robert's firm hand on the rein kept his beast from forging
+ahead.  Thus they rushed along through the vast solitudes,&mdash;really
+alone together, although those solitudes were populous with the furtive
+kindreds of fur and feather.  For the sound of their coming travelled
+far before them, and gave the shy folk time to withdraw from such
+unwelcome intrusion.  Even the big black bear,&mdash;he whom Barbara had
+seen tearing the ant-log,&mdash;now withdrew as noiselessly and shyly as the
+wood-mouse, not delaying for even a glance at the two wild riders.
+Only the red squirrel, inquisitive, daring, and impudent, stuck to his
+vantage-post on a high-arched limb and jabbered shrill derision at them
+as they raced by.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At length, just as the intoxication of the ride and the companionship
+were beginning to bewilder his brain, a turn of the road showed Robert
+a stretch of very bad ground right ahead.  The careless roadmakers had
+tried, in a half-hearted way, to fill up a long bog with brush and
+poles.  Had the attempt been fully carried out, the result would have
+been a rough but thoroughly passable piece of "corduroy road."  As it
+was, however, the brush and poles together had in spots sunk a foot
+below the surface, at one side or the other, and in other spots had
+been quite engulfed by the hungry black mire, making that stretch the
+curse of wheel-travellers, and perilous enough to any but the most
+cautious horsemen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The sight cooled Robert's nerves.  Instead of reining in, however, he
+let his beast push a half-length to the front, that he might the better
+control the situation if need should arise.  Then he said, resolutely:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you have no care for your own life, dear lady, I beg you to think
+of that good beast of yours.  He will break a leg in yon bog-holes, and
+then he will have to be shot!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara had been fully prepared, by now, to listen to reason and check
+the pace.  She knew she had been unreasoning in her excitement.  But
+the fact that Robert knew she had been unreasonable, and dared to show,
+by his tone as well as by his argument, that he knew it, stirred a hot
+resentment in her heart.  In a flash she forgot that she had ever been
+unreasonable at all.  Her first impulse was to spur on with added
+speed.  Had it been her own neck, merely, that she would risk, she
+would not have hesitated.  But Robert had hit on the one compelling
+plea.  She could not face the risk of hurt to her horse, or to any
+kindly beast whatever.  She reined in sharply, therefore, without a
+word; and at a walk the two horses began to pick their wary way over
+the corduroy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There's danger to the good beasts, even at this pace," remarked
+Robert, with more truthfulness than tact.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did you suppose," retorted Barbara, in a voice of withering scorn,
+"that I was going to ride my Black Prince at a gallop over such a piece
+of road as this?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This was exactly what Robert had supposed, of course.  But a sudden ray
+of insight entering his candid brain in time, he refrained from saying
+so.  He was on the point of saying, however, by way of explanation,
+that the ground which Barbara had already insisted upon traversing at
+full speed was but little better than this; but here, too, a sharpening
+perception checked him.  He kept silence, seemingly absorbed in guiding
+his horse between the miry pitfalls, until they found themselves once
+again on firm ground,&mdash;firm but rough.  The horses, still apprehensive,
+showed no disposition to resume their vehement gait.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's an outrage," cried Robert, "that the township should permit such
+a piece of road as this.  I shall have a voice in affairs here in three
+or four years, and then I'll see that the road-work is properly done.
+I'll have no traps in this township to break good horses' legs!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This sentiment was so much to Barbara's taste that she found it an
+excuse for being mollified.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's right, Robert!" she answered, very graciously.  "Now, be sure
+you remember that when the time comes!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll remember it," cried Robert, with cheerful confidence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+By this time, when the leisurely walking of the horses offered no
+affront to the forest quiet, the birds were resuming their busy calls
+and the bustle of their intimate affairs; and the less shy members of
+the furry fellowship went once more about their business in the busy
+precincts of the road.  Barbara's sympathetic and unerring vision
+singled them out, differentiating them from their harmonious
+surroundings, when Robert's eye, as a rule, could not without help see
+anything but lichened stumps and stones, or bunches of brown weed, or
+odd-shaped excrescences on the trees.  Yet Robert's eye was the eye of
+the hunter, skilled in the ruses of all quarry.  Barbara's woodcraft
+went immeasurably beyond his,&mdash;and perceiving this, her last resentment
+faded out and she began to initiate him.  She named and distinguished
+for him birds of which he had never even heard, and corrected him with
+gleeful pride when he innocently mistook the cry of a woodpecker for
+that of a jay.  As for Robert, his delight in this initiation was
+second only to his delight in his wilful initiator, who was now all
+earnestness and to him a marvel of abstruse erudition.  He learned very
+quickly, however, and so Barbara was pleased not less by his
+comparative ignorance than by his superlative aptitude, which was an
+incense of flattery to his instructress.  Only on the subject of deer
+and grouse Barbara could teach him nothing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You know all about those," she cried, reproachfully, "because you have
+taken the trouble to learn about them, so you can kill them!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It does seem a pity to kill such lovely, interesting creatures,"
+acknowledged the lad, thoughtfully.  "But what can we do?  Surely they
+were given to us for our use.  Providence intended them for our food.
+It must be right for us to kill them!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course," assented Barbara, unequipped with any philosophy which
+might have enabled her to combat this argument.  "Of course, it is
+right for us to <I>eat</I> them.  But you, Robert, you <I>take pleasure</I> in
+<I>killing</I> them.  I don't quite like you for that!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert's face grew more and more thoughtful, for this was to him a hard
+saying, indeed, and he had no answer ready.  He was a skilled shot and
+a keen huntsman.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I could not understand a man not taking pleasure in the chase," said
+he, "but I suppose if he got to know the wild things intimately, and
+love them, as you do, he could no longer bear to kill them, sweet lady!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm going to teach you to love them all, Robert," said Barbara, easily
+confident in her powers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am taught already," he began, with the little elaborate air which
+Barbara liked.  Then he changed his mind quickly.  "No, I don't mean
+that at all!  I shall need a great many lessons; but I shall learn at
+last, if you teach me faithfully!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara laughed, a clear, ringing laugh, that astonished the lurking
+weasel and made the red squirrel highly indignant.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You don't mean anything at all you say, Robert.  You just like to say
+pretty things!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Which was wantonly unjust, as Barbara knew, and as her very gracious
+glance acknowledged.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A few rods farther on, Barbara suddenly drew rein, wheeled her horse
+about, and held out her hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now I must go home, Robert.  I think I can trust you to find the rest
+of the way alone!  Don't forget what I've told you.  And don't forget
+to come and see Uncle Bob, the very first of next week.  And thank you
+so much for bringing back the canoe."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert had promptly taken the little brown hand, and kissed it with
+somewhat more fervour than form required, till Barbara, without any
+sign of displeasure, snatched it away.  Then, instead of saying
+good-bye, he wheeled his big sorrel.  "You must allow me the honour of
+riding back with you, Mistress Barbara," said he.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, indeed!" cried the girl.  "I cannot think of letting you do any
+such thing.  It will be late enough as it is when you get to Gault
+House!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert's mind was quite made up, but he scanned her face anxiously to
+see if she really meant her inhibition.  Her dancing eyes and laughing
+mouth convinced him that she did not mean it with any serious
+conviction, so his obstinate jaw relaxed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Allow you to ride back through these woods alone, my lady?" he
+protested, gaily.  "Do you think the wood spirits would let slip such
+an opportunity to carry off their queen?  You are theirs, by rights, I
+know.  But I must see you back safely into the hands of Mistress
+Mehitable."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So it came about that, in spite of his exigencies, Robert dined at
+Mistress Mehitable's, and did not start for Gault House till long past
+noon.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap18"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Two days later Mr. Robert Glenowen arrived at Second Westings by the
+Hartford coach, alighting to be publicly kissed and embraced with a
+heedless fervour which would have been a scandal to the community, had
+not the community by this time grown accustomed to Barbara's joyous
+flouting of its conventions.  Barbara had established for herself a
+general privilege, and Second Westings had ceased to do more than lift
+its eyebrows.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's the same Barbara, the same naughty little baggage of mine I left
+two years ago, for all that her petticoats are longer, and her
+lovelocks shorter, and she takes the trouble to powder her saucy little
+nose!" said Mr. Glenowen, presently, holding her at arms' length, and
+eyeing her with critical approval.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara endured the scrutiny for a moment or two, then her dark cheeks
+flushed, her lips pouted, and she impetuously thrust herself again into
+his arms.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have grown up since you saw me, Uncle Bob!" she cried, kissing him
+on both cheeks.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Whose fault is that?" he asked, again pushing her away that he might
+search her eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Aunt Kitty's!" answered Barbara, innocently, her eyes as clear as a
+child's.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Glenowen laughed, held her with his left arm about her slim waist,
+and stepped up toward the inn door to greet Doctor John and Doctor Jim,
+who had held themselves in the background that Barbara might have the
+first greetings uninterrupted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A few minutes later the four were on the way to Mistress Mehitable's,
+walking up the middle of the street.  Barbara and her uncle, arm in
+arm, walked between, with the great bulks of Doctor John and Doctor Jim
+on either side, seeming to overshadow them; while a little way behind
+trudged Amos, in his blue duffle shirt and leather breeches, carrying
+the baggage.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In this position, framed as it were and set off by Doctor John and
+Doctor Jim, the likeness between Barbara and her uncle came out as
+never before, so that both the brothers exclaimed at it together.
+Glenowen was a shade above middle height, with square, athletic
+shoulders, and no suggestion of leanness; but he had the same
+indescribable lightness, swiftness, fineness of bearing, which
+characterised Barbara.  Under his very smart three-cornered hat of
+black beaver with its fashionable rosette, his thick, bronze-black,
+vigorous hair, which was worn in a queue and tied with an ample ribbon,
+had the same rebellious wave in it that Barbara's had.  His face, like
+Barbara's, was short, with slightly rounded forehead, rounded chin,
+firm jaw, cheeks somewhat thin, lips full and passionate.  But
+Barbara's mouth was sad, while Glenowen's was laughing, daring, tender;
+and Barbara's eyes were of a transparent, fathomless, gray-green,
+sometimes flaming, sometimes darkly inscrutable, while Glenowen's were
+of a sunny, merry brown, darkening and growing keen as steel when he
+was intent.  As he was carrying his gauntlet gloves of light,
+American-made goat-leather, the further likeness to Barbara came out in
+his bare hands, which were dark and slender and fine like hers, with
+long-oval, polished, aristocratic nails.  Barbara herself would never
+wear gloves about Second Westings in summer, save at meeting, or when
+riding, or in pulling herbs or cutting flowers.  She loved nice gloves,
+as a dainty and suggestive article of toilet; but she loved the freedom
+of her little, sensitive fingers, and felt that Second Westings had no
+atmosphere to fit the suggestion of gloved hands.  It was manifest that
+Barbara was chiefly a Glenowen,&mdash;but it was equally manifest that her
+eyes were the eyes of the Ladds; for they were profoundly different
+from those of her Uncle Bob, and so far as enigmatic gray-green could
+resemble untroubled sky-blue, they were like to the deep, transparent
+eyes of Mistress Mehitable.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Glenowen brought to Second Westings a lot of presents for Barbara,
+a whiff of freshness from the outside world, and an indefinable sense
+of ferment and change.  It was as if the far-off tales of strife
+between king and colonies ceased on the sudden to be like the affairs
+of story-books, and became crystallised, by the visitor's mere
+presence, into matters of vital import.  A premonition of vast events
+flashed through the quiet heart of the village; and from the day of the
+arrival of Mr. Robert Glenowen by the Hartford coach, the repose of
+Second Westings was never again quite the same.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yet Glenowen at this time was no partisan.  He was merely in active
+touch with the troubles of the time, and vexatiously divided within
+himself.  By sentiment, taste, and tradition a Tory, and by
+intellectual conviction a Whig, he shunned rather than courted argument
+in which he could heartily support neither side.  Nevertheless, before
+dinner was over, all the company, save Barbara, were at him,&mdash;Mistress
+Mehitable and Doctor Jim on the one side, and Doctor John, with
+whimsical insinuations and Parthian shafts, on the other.  As for
+Barbara, she was too happy to care whether kings thwarted colonies or
+colonies thwarted kings, so long as she might sit in unwonted and
+radiant silence and beam upon her Uncle Bob.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Mr. Glenowen was not to be entrapped into any serious discussions
+so soon after his journey.  He showed an unmistakable and determined
+desire to play.  Barbara's one curl, where he had been wont to see
+many, was of concern to him.  Her one kitten&mdash;now admitted to the
+dignified precincts of the dining-room since the other two had been
+given away, the day before, to Doctor Jim and Mercy Chapman
+respectively&mdash;appeared to him of more concern than Mr. Adams or Lord
+North.  He was brimful of appreciative merriment over the story of
+Barbara's adventurous voyage, and troublesomely interrogative as to the
+various attributes of Robert.  He had attentive inquiries for old
+Debby, and Mercy Chapman, and Keep, and the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer,
+and Black Prince, and many others whom none would have dreamed he could
+remember after two years of well-occupied absence.  By the time dinner
+was over none had achieved to know whether Uncle Bob would call himself
+Tory or Whig.  Barbara, of course, felt confident that he was a
+joyously established rebel; while Doctor Jim was equally sure he was a
+king's man through and through.  The others were in doubt.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Nor was Mr. Glenowen more communicative when the meal was done.  He was
+then too impatient even to smoke his pipe, for haste to get at his
+travelling-bags and show Barbara what he had brought for her.  As he
+pulled out these treasures one by one, Barbara forgot all the dignity
+of her lengthened frocks, and screamed with delight, and kissed him
+spasmodically, and exhausted her rich vocabulary of endearments in the
+vain effort to give her rapture words; till Doctor John and Doctor Jim
+vowed they would have to go a journey themselves ere long, if only to
+bring Barbara presents and find out in person how sweet she could be.
+While Mistress Mehitable remarked demurely that "such knowledge of what
+would please a woman could only have been attained by more assiduity in
+effort than was quite becoming, surely, in a bachelor!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I hope, dear mistress," retorted Uncle Bob, with laughing eyes, "that
+the discernment with which you so generously credit me did not fail
+when I was selecting this little gift, unmeet as it is to adorn your
+charms."  And on one knee he presented to her a bundle in green tissue,
+tied delicately with gilt cord.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+All crowded about Mistress Mehitable while she undid the cord, and
+unfolded, with blushes, and with little breathless exclamations not
+unworthy of Barbara herself, an elaborately ruffled and laced French
+night-rail, embroidered heavily with silk, and lettered in gold thread
+with her initials.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was such a gown as often served to make bedroom receptions popular.
+And Mistress Mehitable, though she held those customs in scorn as
+indolent and frivolous, had a healthy feminine delight in such sweet
+fripperies of apparel as this creation of French art.  Amid the clamour
+of applause it was some moments before she could word her
+acknowledgments.  At last she said:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I shall perhaps thank you less fervently than I do now, Mr. Glenowen,
+for this delightful present, when its fascinations keep me from
+sleeping.  I'm afraid I shall lie awake just to appreciate it!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sleep, rather, I beg you, fair mistress, and honour me with some small
+place in your dreams!" cried Uncle Bob, gallantly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Fie!  Fie!  Fie!" said Mistress Mehitable, shaking at him a slim,
+reproving finger.  "You must not put such gallantries into these young
+people's heads.  Doctor Jim is steady enough, but such notions are very
+upsetting to John and Barbara!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Glenowen, you young scoundrel, sir!" roared Doctor Jim, "what do you
+mean by coming in here and turning our girls' heads with your bold
+compliments and French night-rails?  I marvel at your devilish
+audacity, sir!  You'll have trouble on your hands before you know what
+you're about,&mdash;eh, what?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Uncle Bob was darting around the room like a pleased boy, delighted
+with the effect he had produced, delighted with his success in pleasing
+Mistress Mehitable, and in bringing out the gayer, brighter side of her
+conscience-burdened spirit.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Pistols, Pigeon!  Pistols let it be, this very night after moonset,
+under Mistress Mehitable's window!" he cried, slapping Doctor Jim's
+great shoulders.  "I give you fair warning I shall bring the dear lady
+a far handsomer one the next time I come!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara, meanwhile, and Mistress Mehitable, and Doctor John, had their
+heads close together over the intricate and beautiful embroidery,
+admiring each fine detail in careful succession.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is <I>perfectly beautiful</I>!" pronounced Barbara, at length, with a
+deep breath of satisfaction and a consciousness of duty loyally done.
+There were several of her own presents which she admired more
+fervently, and she already had five, with the possibility of more yet
+to come from Uncle Bob's wonderful bag.  But she felt it would not be
+playing fair if she failed to give full measure of time and fervour to
+sympathising with Aunt Hitty in her good fortune.  At the same time,
+she felt that in her aunt's frank delight in such a frivolous and quite
+unnecessarily beautiful garment she had found a new bond of
+understanding with that long-misunderstood lady.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Mistress Mehitable had yet one more word to say before she was
+ready, in turn, to give undivided attention to Barbara's fortunes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am going to confess, Mr. Glenowen," said she, with a smiling,
+half-shamefaced glance, as she held up the dainty creation of lawn and
+lace and silk, caressing her smooth pink and white cheek with it, "I am
+going to confess that this lovely garment is just such a thing as I
+have longed to have, yet should have considered it wicked
+self-indulgence to purchase.  Even so sober and prosy a dame as I may
+dearly love the uselessly beautiful.  I'm beginning to doubt whether I
+really want to be quite so useful and competent as I am thought to be.
+You, Mr. Glenowen, a comparative stranger, and with but a casual,
+courteous regard for me, have read my heart as these my dearest and
+lifelong friends, who would, I believe, give their right hands to serve
+me, could not do."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Glenowen, you die to-night!" roared Doctor Jim, knitting his great
+brows.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Doctor John was on one knee at Mistress Mehitable's
+black-satin-shod small feet, one hand upon his breast.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nothing more utilitarian than silk stockings, most dear and
+unexpectedly frivolous lady," he vowed, "shall be my tributes of
+devotion to you henceforth!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And mine shall be garters, fickle Mehitable!" cried Doctor Jim,
+dropping on his knee beside Doctor John, and swearing with like
+solemnity.  "Silk garters,&mdash;and such buckles for silk garters!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And little silk shoes, and such big buckles for little silk shoes!"
+said Doctor John.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And silk petticoats!" went on Doctor Jim, antiphonally.  "Brocaded
+silk, flowered silk, watered silk, painted silk, corded silk, tabby
+silk, paduasoy silk, alamode silk, taffety silk, charrydarry&mdash;" till
+Mistress Mehitable put her hand over his mouth and stopped the stream
+of his eruditions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And silk&mdash;and silk&mdash;" broke in Doctor John, once more, but
+stammeringly, because his knowledge of the feminine wardrobe was
+failing him.  "Tut, tut, silk night-rails, indeed!  The scoundrel!  The
+vagabond Welshman!  May I die of Jim Pigeon's physic if I don't make
+shift&mdash;make silk shift&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"John!" cried Mistress Mehitable, in tone of rebuke, and pushing them
+both away from her.  "Get up at once, both of you, and don't be so
+silly!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Her eyes shone, and her cheeks were flushed with mingled pleasure and
+embarrassment, and Glenowen realised that she was much younger and
+prettier than he had been wont to think.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"O Mehitable-demoralised-by-Barbara!" vowed Doctor John, towering over
+her.  "Your sweet and now perverted soul shall be satisfied with
+gewgaws!  I, John Pigeon, swear it!"
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="img-196"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-196.jpg" ALT="&quot;<I>O Mehitable-demoralised-by-Barbara!&quot; vowed Doctor John.</I>" BORDER="2" WIDTH="488" HEIGHT="604">
+<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 488px">
+&quot;<I>O Mehitable-demoralised-by-Barbara!&quot; vowed Doctor John.</I>
+</H4>
+</CENTER>
+
+<P>
+"Then I want a bosom-bottle, of Venice glass and gold filigree, to keep
+my nosegays from withering!" retorted Mistress Mehitable, flashing up
+at him a look of her blue eyes.  "I've never had such a chance as this
+in all my life!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There now, hussy!" growled Doctor Jim, turning upon Barbara.  "See
+what you have done.  In three days you have demoralised her completely.
+And I see the ruin of John and Jim Pigeon, buying her things!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Barbara was by this time too absorbed in her own things to heed the
+catastrophe thus impending.  It was plain that Uncle Bob had been
+prosperous these past two years,&mdash;and equally plain that he was in full
+sympathy with Barbara's tastes.  First of all, there were books,&mdash;a
+handsomely bound copy of Sir Philip Sidney's "Arcadia," an old,
+time-stained copy of "England's Helicon," a copy in boards of the
+admired "Odes" of Mr. Gray, and a copy of Mr. Thompson's "The Castle of
+Indolence."  With these, in strange companionship, a white silk
+mask,&mdash;a black velvet mask with silver buttons on silver cord behind
+the mouth, to enable the wearer to hold it in place with her lips, when
+both hands might chance to be occupied,&mdash;and a small pistol, inlaid
+with silver and mother-of-pearl.  This seductive little weapon Barbara
+hugged rapturously to her breast.  Though she would not kill anything
+for the world, she loved to feel she could be slaughterous an she
+wished!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then came wonders of the wardrobe.  Barbara hungered to try them on all
+at once, and in truth made marvellous efforts toward that unachievable
+end.  There were kerchiefs of sheerest lawn and lace, and of
+embroidered silk.  There were two pairs of silk garters, three pairs of
+silk stockings, and six pairs of fine thread stockings.  She loved the
+silk stockings as she did the pistol and Sir Philip Sidney.  There were
+shoes, low, shapely, thin-soled shoes of red morocco, and black
+chamois, and black satin, and a pair of daintiest slippers of white
+satin, all with buckles satisfyingly resplendent.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I knew your feet would never be any larger than they are now,"
+explained Uncle Bob, "so having the opportunity to get some uncommon
+fine shoes at a price uncommon reasonable, I thought it just as well to
+embrace occasion boldly!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But how <I>did</I> you <I>ever</I> guess the right size, Uncle Bob?" cried
+Barbara, in ecstasy, trying on a black satin one with supreme
+forgetfulness of company manners, and poking out ingenuously the most
+bewitching foot in the thirteen colonies.  "Do just look.  It fits like
+a glove!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Stooping quickly as if to examine it, Doctor Jim engulfed it in one
+large, white hand; and kissed it just above the glittering buckle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There, Bob Glenowen," he growled, as he straightened himself, "is that
+the proper civility to show a lady when she pokes out her foot at you?
+I suppose you would pocket the shoe and carry off the lady!  Eh, what?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How dare you kiss my niece without my leave?" demanded Mr. Glenowen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He shall kiss me just whenever he likes, and no one in the world shall
+interfere!" declared Barbara, springing up, and pulling Doctor Jim's
+neck down to be swiftly hugged.  "But&mdash;how <I>did</I> you know the right
+size, Uncle Bob?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A look passed between Mistress Mehitable and Glenowen; and Barbara,
+intercepting it, understood in a flash.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh!  Oh!  Aunt Hitty!  <I>You</I> did it!" she shrieked, clapping her
+hands.  "You sent him my green silk slipper for a pattern!  And I've
+been thinking I had lost it!  And I was ashamed to tell you!  Oh, how
+dear, and deceitful of you, honey!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Here, indeed, is the delinquent slipper!" acknowledged Uncle Bob,
+drawing the green silk toy from his bag.  He handed it over to Mistress
+Mehitable, for Barbara was again absorbed, her glowing face, with one
+massive black curl hanging straight past her cheek, bent low over her
+spoils, among which were lengths of silk,&mdash;a rich brocade, a taffeta,
+and a silk Damascus, out of which her quick fancy conjured up a dream
+of petticoats, panniers, and bodices that should appear most
+sumptuously grown-up.  There were gloves, too, and mitts; and a mighty
+handsome little "equipage" of silver-gilt, containing scissors,
+thimble, nail-trimmer, tweezers, and such small needments, to hang at
+the left side of her bodice.  There was a flimsy affair of a
+"lovehood," silk and gauze and mystery, from which Barbara's vivid,
+petulant, dark little face flashed forth with indescribable
+bewitchment.  This love-hood, swore Doctor John, should never be worn
+by Barbara on the streets of Second Westings, for reasons affecting the
+public weal, as it would bedevil the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer himself
+in the very sanctuary of his pulpit.  Barbara suddenly looked forward
+with interest to going to meeting on the following Sunday, bedecked in
+the disastrous love-hood.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Last, but not least in Barbara's eyes, there was an exceedingly
+delicate frivolity in the shape of a carven gilt patch-box, about an
+inch and a half in length.  In the top was set a painted china
+medallion, representing a richly dressed shepherdess enwreathed in
+roses, with the appropriate posy:
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="poem">
+"My love in her attire doth show her wit,<BR>
+It doth so well become her!"<BR>
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+On the inside of the cover was a tiny mirror.  When Barbara, silent
+with delight, peered into this mirror, she caught a vision of herself
+in a gay ballroom, patched and powdered and furbelowed, shattering the
+hearts of a host of cavaliers, who every one of them looked like a
+relative of Robert Gault.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap19"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XIX.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+That night, when she was going to bed, came Barbara's really deep
+reaction from the exaltation and excitement which had possessed her
+since the morning with Mistress Mehitable.  The joy of her uncle's
+coming, the whirl of childish delight over the presents he had brought
+her, had swept her spirits to a pinnacle which could not be maintained.
+She slipped, and fell down on the other side.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+First she lighted the four candles that stood, two on each side of the
+mirror, on her shining mahogany dressing-table.  Then she undressed,
+put on her long, white nightgown, and said her prayers with a troubled
+alternation of fervour and forgetfulness.  She was slipping.  Then, one
+by one, she looked her presents well over again, noted that each was
+just as perfect as it had seemed to her every other one of the dozen
+times she had examined it, and wondered with a pang what had become of
+all their magic.  Her scintillant delight in them had faded to a mere
+dull drab perception of their merits.  Her eyes filled, and a lump rose
+in her throat.  She was far over the crest of the pinnacle, on the
+cold, enshadowed side of the steep.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The one kitten, whom she had named "Mr. Grim,"&mdash;a round-faced,
+round-eyed gray and white furred baby, not yet accustomed to the loss
+of his two saucer mates,&mdash;crept snuggling against her bare ankles and
+mewed mildly, begging to be noticed.  Barbara picked it up, fondled it
+in her bosom, threw herself down on the bed with it, and burst into a
+passion of tears.  She felt as if she had been long, long away.  She
+was poignantly homesick for her old self, her old childishness.  The
+burden of being grown-up suddenly arose, thrust itself upon her, and
+grew great and terrifying and not to be borne.  She was oppressed, too,
+with self-reproach.  Absorbed in vivid and novel sensations, during the
+past few eventful days she had not thought as much as usual about her
+old comrades,&mdash;the kittens, Keep, Black Prince, and Mercy Chapman.  And
+now in her weakness she thought they had suffered from her neglect.  As
+a matter of fact, the difference had been purely in her own mind.  The
+kittens, who were quite dependent upon her, had been as tenderly cared
+for as ever, but while caring for them she had thought of other things
+more novel and significant.  In giving away two of them she had done
+just what she had planned and promised from the first.  But now she
+scourged herself for heartlessness and inconstancy, pretending she had
+sent them away just because she was tired of taking care of them and
+wanted to be free for new interests.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did its missis forget all about the poor little lonely baby, and send
+away her other babies, and get cruel and hard-hearted, just because she
+thought she was grown-up, and a new friend came along?" she murmured,
+after the first tempest was over, to the gray and white kitten now
+purring comfortably against her soft throat.  She sat up in bed with it
+to caress it more effectively.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She is a bad missis, and perfectly horrid!" she went on, between sobs;
+and the kitten, who did not mind damp, was highly pleased.  "She has
+been perfectly horrid.  But to-morrow she's going to be just her old
+self again, and take up the tuck in her petticoats, and fix her hair
+like it was before we ran away.  And we'll go to Doctor Jim and Mercy
+Chapman and just <I>snatch</I> back those other poor babies; and we'll all
+go off together down into the back garden, by our apple-tree, and have
+a lovely time.  And&mdash;and&mdash;yes, we <I>will</I> forgive old Debby, and go and
+see her to-morrow.  We'll take Uncle Bob, and then there won't be any
+bother about explanations."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then her tears flowed forth anew, till the kitten was quite
+uncomfortably wet; and, with fresh resolves to be all child again on
+the morrow, she sobbed herself to sleep, with the thick hair tangled
+over her eyes and grieving lips.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the long, sweet sleep brought complete renewal to Barbara's spent
+forces, and waking found her composedly happy, with a blessed sense of
+problems solved and desired things coming to pass.  Her heart was
+a-brim with sunshine, but the only sunshine in the room was that she
+held in her heart, for the light that came through the diamond panes
+was gray, and the sky behind the leafy branch was gray, and, as she
+looked, the first of the rain came, blown in streaming gusts against
+the glass, and shedding a narrow line of drops across the polished
+floor.  One leaf of the window was open, and Barbara sprang from bed to
+shut it, laughing as the cold drops spattered her feet.  She had no
+quarrel with the rain that day, there being enough pleasures indoors to
+keep any maid's mind busy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After breakfast, however, when she found that Uncle Bob was going down
+into the village to call on the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer, to drink a
+glass with Squire Gillig in his snug office behind the store, and to
+pay his respects to Doctor John and Doctor Jim, then Barbara felt the
+lure of the rain, and said she would go with him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I <I>love</I> the rain," she explained,&mdash;"and it's so nice for the
+complexion, too!  I'll go and tell Mercy Chapman about my presents, and
+take some jellies to her poor sick mother, while you are talking
+politics in the squire's back office, Uncle Bob.  Then I'll meet you at
+Doctor John's office, and we'll step into Doctor Jim's, and bring both
+of them up to dinner with us, so we'll all be together as much as
+possible.  Won't we, dear?"  And she paused in the task of strapping on
+her goloshes, to appeal to Mistress Mehitable.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are proposing to make a lot of trouble for your aunt!" protested
+Glenowen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Indeed she is not," began Mistress Mehitable, warm to second Barbara's
+proposal.  But before she could say more, there was a wilder gust among
+the trees outside, a fiercer burst of rain against the windows, and,
+with a huge stamping in the vestibule, came Doctor Jim, as if blown in
+by storm.  All hurried to meet him, where he stood dripping in the hall
+door, and the expedition to the village was postponed.  An hour later
+came Doctor John, even wetter and more dishevelled than his brother,
+from the bedside of a patient at the opposite end of the village.  The
+two had planned that theirs should be the hospitality of that day, but
+the storm and Mistress Mehitable together triumphed.  The old house was
+merry all day long with gay voices, its maiden fragrances of lavender
+and rose touched genially with breaths of the mild Virginia weed.  And
+Barbara forgot, completely and for ever, how near she had been to
+drowning the furry "Mr. Grim" in the tears of her regret for her lost
+childishness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Toward sunset the rain stopped, and a copper flame was reflected up
+from the windows of a cottage visible to the eastward through the
+trees; and the western sky, opening along the horizon under great
+smoky-purple battlements of cloud, revealed unspeakable glories of
+clear gold.  Throughout the rare hour, till dusk fell, the thrushes
+sang ecstatically, so unusual an outburst that Barbara dragged every
+one out upon the wet porch to listen to the thrilling, cloistral-pure
+cadences, the infinite tranquillities of tone.  So inspiring was that
+hour in the front of twilight that even the catbird down in the back
+garden forgot that he had been for days too busy to sing, and mounted
+the topmost bough of a tall cherry, and eased his soul in a chaos of
+golden phrases.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Very early the next morning,&mdash;the kind of morning when the sunlight
+itself seems as if it were just sparkling from a bath in cold
+fountains,&mdash;Barbara and Glenowen started out for a paddle across the
+lake to visit old Debby.  They went through the barn-yard, through the
+bars, through the pasture, and through the wood; and in response to his
+bounding and wagging appeals, they took Keep, the mastiff, with them.
+They went early, in order to be back in time for the dinner with Doctor
+John and Doctor Jim.  And Barbara insisted on letting Keep go in the
+canoe, that she might erase from his generous heart the memory of her
+harshness on the morning of her great adventure.  At her command, the
+dog stepped in so circumspectly, and lay down with so nice a balance,
+that Uncle Bob was impressed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The dog's a born canoeist, Barb," he declared, as he headed up the
+shore instead of straight out across the lake.  "I wonder you ever had
+the heart to leave him behind,&mdash;and to take those kittens, who couldn't
+tell a canoe from a horse-trough."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara would have answered that the kittens needed her more than Keep
+did, who had all the world for his friend; but her thoughts were
+diverted by the direction in which her uncle was steering.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why do you go this way, Uncle Bob?" she demanded, looking at him over
+her shoulder while her dripping paddle-blade rested on the gunwale.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I want to examine a certain big rock, where a certain small girl did
+certain strange things!" replied Glenowen, gravely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara flushed, and drooped her head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I didn't know you knew about that, Uncle Bob!" she said, in a low
+voice.  "Don't let's go there!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"All right!" assented Glenowen, cheerfully.  He had recalled the old
+tragedy of deliberate purpose, because, being of Welsh blood, and
+superstitious, he was afraid Barbara's unparalleled high spirits might
+bring her some keen disappointment.  He had purposed to discipline her
+with a dash of bitter memories, that he might avert the envy of the
+gods; and when her head drooped he had accomplished his purpose.  But
+Barbara had changed her mind.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No!" she said.  "Let's go close to the rock, and look right down into
+the water, just where I was lying when old Debby pulled me out!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And they did so.  The sand was clear gold down there, but as they
+looked a huge eel wriggled over it.  Barbara shuddered, and seized her
+paddle once more to get away.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's good for me to be reminded, Uncle Bob," she said.  "I forget,
+when I am happy, how wicked and foolish I can be when things go wrong!
+But oh, you can never know how unhappy I used to be!  You'd have come
+to me if you had known, Uncle Bob!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Poor little girlie!" murmured Glenowen, his kind brown eyes moistening
+at the corners.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But I was crazy, both naughty and crazy, and it was all my fault!"
+went on Barbara, resting her paddle again as the canoe skimmed fleetly
+out across the water, away from the sorrowful spot.  "It's all so
+different now!  And it's always going to be different!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Glenowen smiled to himself, as he was apt to do when confronted with
+any of the pathetic ironies of life.  Barbara would not have liked him
+to smile, for to her a smile meant amusement or mirth, and she could
+never learn to appreciate the depth of tenderness that might lurk
+beneath a ripple of laughter.  But she was looking straight ahead.  In
+his heart and behind his smile, Glenowen said, "Child, dear child, is
+it all so securely different now, and just eight days gone since you
+climbed out of your window before daybreak?"  But aloud he said, after
+a silence:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is indeed most different, Barb, old girl?  Some of your troubles
+are really done now, thrown into the dark corner with the discarded
+dollies.  The others will keep bobbing up now and then, claiming old
+acquaintance.  But just you cut them dead.  They are in sober truth not
+the same, now that you are older and more responsible.  Well I know,
+what so many forget, that childish sorrows, while they last, are the
+most bitter and hopeless of sorrows.  The wall that a man steps over
+blots out a child's view of heaven."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How wonderfully you understand, Uncle Bob!" cried Barbara, with ardent
+appreciation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As they neared the other side of the lake, a kingfisher dropped like an
+azure wedge into the ripples, missed his prey, and flew off down to the
+outlet clattering harshly in his throat.  From the deep reeds of the
+point above the outlet a wide-winged bird got up heavily as the canoe
+drew near.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There goes my old blue heron!" shouted Barbara, gleefully.  "You
+should have seen the way he fixed me with his glassy eyes as I passed,
+the morning I ran away!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He is very old, and very wise, and thinks of lots of things besides
+frogs!" said Glenowen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They entered the outlet, and met old Debby's geese.  The big gray and
+white gander, in the pride of many goslings, hissed fiercely at them as
+they paddled past, so that Keep raised his head and gave him a look of
+admonition over the gunwale.  The next turn brought them out in full
+view of Debby's cabin, and straightway rose a clamorous outcry from
+watchful drakes and challenging chanticleers.  The yellow pup ran
+barking down from the steps, and Keep cocked a sympathetic ear.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lie down, sir!" commanded Barbara, and Keep meekly suppressed his
+budding interest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Debby Blue was spinning flax, on the hard-beaten clean earth some
+paces in front of her threshold, when she saw and recognised her
+approaching visitors.  In the presence of Mr. Glenowen she read peace,
+for her shrewd perception of Barbara's character told her that the girl
+would never have permitted her a glimpse of the cherished uncle except
+as a sign of favour.  Nevertheless the grim old woman was conscious of
+a sinking qualm at thought of the first straight look of Barbara's
+eyes.  She knew she had betrayed her; and that knowledge was not wholly
+mended by the fact that she knew she had done right to betray.  Her
+lonely old heart so yearned to the child that she feared her reproach
+as she feared no other thing in life.  She stopped her wheel, dropped
+her roll of flax, picked up her stick, and limped sturdily down toward
+the landing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Before she had got half-way the canoe came to land, and Barbara
+unceremoniously skipped ashore.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lie down, Keep!" she ordered again, and then, leaving Glenowen to land
+and follow at leisure, she ran up the path to greet old Debby.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This does my old eyes good, Miss Barby!" exclaimed the old woman, her
+voice a trifle unsteady.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara seized her, and kissed her heartily on both cheeks.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You were very bad to me, Debby," she cried, cheerfully, "but you'd
+have been worse to me if you hadn't been bad to me!  So I forgive you,
+and love you just the same, you old dear.  The most <I>dreadful</I> things
+might have happened to me if it hadn't been for you!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Blue heaved a huge sigh of relief; but the subject was too
+difficult and delicate a one for her to expand upon.  She gave Barbara
+a vehement squeeze, looked her up and down, and exclaimed:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Land sakes alive, Miss Barby, why, if you hain't been an' growed up
+over night.  What've they been doin' to you over there?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It was <I>you</I> did it, Debby, much as anybody!"  And Barbara flicked her
+petticoats audaciously before the old woman's eyes, to emphasise their
+added length.  "Such lovely things have happened; and Aunt Hitty and I
+have made up; and I've so much to tell you, that I must come over some
+day and spend the whole day with you, after Uncle Bob goes away.  And
+here's Uncle Bob himself, who only came day before yesterday, and has
+come to see you, Debby dear, before any one else in Second Westings."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As Barbara stopped breathless, Glenowen came up and grasped the old
+dame warmly by the hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You're looking ten years younger than when I saw you two years ago,
+Debby!" he declared, sweetly and transparently mendacious.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Tain't so much my youth, as my beauty, that I set store by, Mr.
+Glenowen, thankin' you jest the same!" retorted the old woman, as she
+led them into her cabin for refreshment.  She was a cunning cook, if
+somewhat unconventional in her recipes, and she remembered with
+satisfaction that Barbara's uncle had seemed to share Barbara's
+weakness for her concoctions.  Eight days ago she would have offered
+Barbara milk to drink; but now she brought out only a strong root wine
+for which she was famous, a beverage which was extolled throughout the
+township as a most efficacious preventative of all disorders.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's a wonder how letting down one's petticoats seems to destroy one's
+fondness for milk!" said Barbara.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Instead of sitting on the edge of the high bed and swinging her legs,
+as she would have done eight days ago, she sat on a bench and kept her
+feet on the floor.  And from this old Debby realised, with a pang, that
+the child had truly grown to womanhood.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap20"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XX.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Returning about noon to Westings House, early that they might have time
+to dress for dinner, Glenowen started to let down the pasture bars.
+But Barbara, in high spirits, went over them like a cat, forgetful of
+her new dignity.  So Glenowen vaulted after her.  As they rounded the
+end of the barn, Amos came leading a tall sorrel across the yard; and
+straightway Barbara assumed a more stately air, while a quick radiance
+went over her face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's Robert Gault's horse!" she explained.  "I want you to be very
+lovely to him, Uncle Bob, for he's such a nice boy, and was so very
+civil to me when I made him help me run away.  I gave him a terrible
+lot of anxiety, you know!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Glenowen laughed uproariously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't doubt you did, dear heart!" he agreed.  "But Lord, oh, Lord,
+what a way of commending a young man to a young lady's doting uncle, to
+say he mighty civilly helped her to run away!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now, Uncle Bob, I won't like you if you talk nonsense!  You know very
+well what I mean.  And you are to be nice to Robert!" retorted Barbara,
+crisply.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As they went up the long, box-bordered path, Mistress Mehitable and
+Robert came strolling down to meet them; and the warmth of Glenowen's
+greetings to Robert fulfilled Barbara's utmost demands.  For her own
+part, however, under the sway of a sudden whim, she chose to be by no
+means extraordinarily civil.  And Robert's contentment was dashed by a
+chilly doubt as to whether or no he had chosen the right day for his
+visit.  Before they went to their rooms to dress, however, Barbara
+relented.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You should have come last night, Robert," she said, turning to him
+graciously at the foot of the stairs.  "Then Uncle Bob and I would have
+taken you over the lake with us this morning, in <I>the</I> canoe, to see
+old Debby!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She threw an intimate emphasis on the "the,"&mdash;and watched with a
+curious sense of triumph the swift fading of the cloud from Robert's
+face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For this dinner Barbara dressed with unwonted care.  Her plain white
+silk petticoat, duly lengthened, worn under her cream brocaded satin
+panniers, with buff satin bodice, and white lace short sleeves, gave
+her, as she could not but think, a most genteel appearance.  With her
+new white silk stockings and white satin shoes, two large red roses in
+her bosom, and one in the dark mass of her hair just where the curl
+hung down, a tiny patch from the adorable new patch-box discreetly
+fixed near the corner of her mouth, and the new love-hood to be thrown
+carelessly over her head in due time, she felt herself equipped to be
+as imperious and unpleasant to Robert as the caprice of the moment
+might suggest.  When she went down-stairs she found Mistress Mehitable
+waiting in the hall, in a gayer gown than she had ever before seen her
+wear.  It was a silk polonaise, of a tender, gris-de-lin shade, which
+became her fair colouring to a marvel; and Barbara was astonished to
+see how young and pretty she looked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How <I>perfectly lovely</I> you look, dear!" she cried, turning Mistress
+Mehitable twice around, and putting a deft touch to the light,
+abundant, simply coiffured hair.  "No one will give one look at me
+to-day!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Her aunt flung an arm about her, smiling, then tripped away girlishly,
+flushed a pretty pink, lifted the edge of her petticoat, and displayed
+a slender ankle encased in embroidered sky-blue silk.  Barbara clapped
+her hands with approval.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is five years since I have worn them," said Mistress Mehitable.
+"Seeing that I failed so, child, in my efforts to lead you along the
+paths of gravity, I have concluded to try and let you lead me along the
+paths of frivolity&mdash;a little!  So I got out my blue silk stockings!"
+And spreading her skirts, she was in the act of making Barbara an
+elaborate curtsey, when Glenowen, coming up quickly behind her, caught
+her and kissed her lightly on the cheek.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mistress Mehitable, startled and taken aback, blushed furiously, and
+stood for a second or two in confusion.  Then she recovered herself.
+She made another stately curtsey, and saying, demurely, "Let me turn
+the other cheek also, Mr. Glenowen," presented her face again for a
+more formal and less hasty salute.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara clapped her hands with gleeful approbation, but her comment
+brought a new rose to Mistress Mehitable's face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If I didn't love you so much, Uncle Bob," said she, "I'd tell Doctor
+John and Doctor Jim."  And from the fact that she felt embarrassed by
+this raillery, the conscientious Mistress Mehitable was almost ready to
+believe she had done wrong.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The dinner was at two o'clock&mdash;an extremely formal hour for Second
+Westings; and a further element of formality was added by the presence
+of the Reverend Jonathan and Mrs. Sawyer, which effectually removed it
+from the category of family affairs.  These outsiders, however, were a
+kindly pair, and cast no serious shadow upon the gathering.  The
+Reverend Jonathan kept his austerity pretty strictly for the Sabbath;
+and being both well-bred and well educated, knew how on occasion to lay
+aside his cloth without sacrifice of dignity or prestige.  He was
+something of a <I>bon vivant</I>, too, in his scholarly way, and among folk
+who were unimpeachably of his own class.  And his judgment on a butt of
+Madeira or a hogshead of old West India rum was accounted second to
+none in Second Westings.  His hands were long and white, and he used
+them with impressive pulpit-gestures to point his carefully constructed
+witticisms.  His presence was favourably regarded even by Barbara, who
+appreciated his brains and breeding in spite of certain disastrous
+associations which she could never quite erase from her memory.  His
+wife was a non-significant, abundant, gently acquiescent pudding of a
+woman, not without her utility as a background; and no one but Barbara
+had the slightest objection to her presence.  But Barbara, having a
+fierce impatience of nonentities in general unless they chanced to be
+animals instead of human beings, felt critical when her eyes fell upon
+the good lady's expansive red bosom.  She could not refrain from a
+private grimace at Doctor John, and from whispering in his ear an acrid
+comment on the inviting of a feather-bed to dinner.  She was greatly
+disconcerted, however, when Doctor John roared aloud; and, crediting
+the good lady with an intuition quite foreign to her placid substance,
+her conscience smote her smartly for the unkind comment.  By calculated
+chance she managed to let herself drift into the scant, unoccupied
+corner of the sofa on which Mrs. Sawyer was sitting; and for the long
+half-hour before dinner was served she beguiled the good lady most
+successfully with thrilling descriptions of the presents which Glenowen
+had brought.  Mistress Sawyer was dearly fond of dining; but so
+enthralled did she become in the description of Mistress Mehitable's
+French night-rail that she did not hear when dinner was announced.
+Then Barbara escaped, with an appetite and a proud conscience; and
+proceeded to deal Robert a cruel blow by seating herself as far away
+from him as possible, between Glenowen and Doctor Jim, who wisely
+avoided trouble by avoiding interference on the dejected youth's behalf.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Doctor John and Doctor Jim being both tenacious of old Connecticut
+customs, the dinner began with a pudding of boiled Yokeag, or maize
+meal, stuffed with raisins and suet, and eaten with a rich sauce.  Then
+came fish and meats in lavish variety, with ripe old ale, followed by
+elaborate confections, nuts and fruits, and a fiery, high-flavoured
+Madeira.  With the Madeira came eloquence in conversation, and the
+elaborate interchange of repartee and compliment deepened into a
+discussion of the great matters which at that hour filled men's minds.
+Barbara tried by daring gaieties to stem the tide of seriousness, which
+seemed to her incongruous with the nuts and wine.  But she was swept
+away, at first reluctantly, then willingly; for, during the past two
+years, in the intervals of fighting her aunt and loving her cats, dogs,
+and horses, she had studied history, both colonial and English, with a
+characteristic, avid zeal, and now had a pretty foundation of theory
+under her seemingly reckless conclusions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In response to many interrogations, Glenowen had given at some length
+and with temperate fairness an account of the latest difference in
+Virginia between the royal governor and the stiff-necked House of
+Burgesses.  As the result of this lamentable clash of authorities, the
+House had been dissolved, the Old Dominion was being governed in a
+fashion contrary to the terms of her long-cherished charter, and the
+trade of the colony was disastrously shrunken, because her people were
+refusing to import goods subject to duties which they had not
+themselves imposed.  "When men and women begin to deny themselves
+voluntarily for the sake of a principle, whether it be right or wrong,"
+continued Glenowen, "it is time for those at the helm to consider
+clearly the course on which they are steering the ship of state!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"When kings lay hands on charters, free men rise up armed," said the
+Reverend Jonathan Sawyer, rolling the polished phrase with a relish.
+The sentiment sounded so at variance with those which he was commonly
+held to cherish, that every one looked at him for a moment in silent
+question.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I speak but in the abstract," he explained, waving a white hand
+airily.  "In the concrete the question baffles me, and I wait for
+light!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I confess I am astounded at Virginia," said Doctor Jim, in a great
+voice, solemn with reprobation.  "Virginia, colony of gentlemen, siding
+with the rabble against the king!  Where are Virginia's aristocrats?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Would you impugn the gentility of Mr. Washington?" inquired Doctor
+John, mildly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, I would, John Pigeon," snapped Doctor Jim, "or of any one else
+who did not show his gentility by his deeds.  And so would you, if you
+were not a bit tarred with the same dirty brush as Mr. Washington."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't you think," ventured Robert, with diffidence, "that our
+grievance&mdash;for, of course, there is a grievance, Doctor Jim&mdash;is against
+the English Parliament?  What is Parliament to us, that we should bow
+down to it, when we have always had parliaments of our own?  What's
+sacred in Parliament?  But the king,&mdash;that's a question of loyalty.
+What's a gentleman without loyalty?  Surely the gentry must stand or
+fall with the king!  Surely&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What nonsense, Robert!" interrupted Barbara, severely scornful,
+indignant at him for his views, but grateful to him for the opportunity
+to express her own with point.  "Who was it that whipped King John into
+submission, and made him sign Magna Charta?  Was it the riffraff or the
+gentry, I'd like to know?  Where there is a real aristocracy, Robert,
+there is no need of kings!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Barbara, dear!" cried Mistress Mehitable, appalled at this sweeping
+heterodoxy.  But the others laughed, with varying degrees of sympathy
+or dissent.  Doctor Jim wagged his head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's right, Robert, my boy," said he, sympathetically.  "You draw
+her fire, and let me skirmish around.  That's the kind of thing I get
+continually!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is it true," inquired Doctor John, "that that clear and capacious
+intellect, James Otis, is permanently clouded since the wound he got in
+the affair with the king's officers?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"''Tis true, 'tis pity; and pity 'tis, 'tis true!'" quoted Glenowen.
+"A fine brain wasted in a smuggler's brawl.  I take it there's no
+wisdom to waste, among either Tories or Whigs, these days,&mdash;for these
+days are big with Fate!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Uncle Bob!" said Barbara, fixing him with a wide, level look, "what
+are you, Whig or Tory?  You seem so careful!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Glenowen laughed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You insist on pinning me down to it, do you, saucy hussy?  Well, I
+wish I knew!  I think there are some hundred thousand or more of honest
+men in these colonies who are trying to find out which they really are,
+right to the bone.  But I can tell you in part.  For one thing, I am an
+Englishman, just as much an Englishman here as if I lived in England!
+Do you know what that means?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No!" said Barbara, bluntly, dissatisfied at this caution when she
+counted on a hot partisanship.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It means that I will not be taxed save by my own consent!  I am too
+good an Englishman to let Englishmen in England treat me as less than
+an Englishman because I am a colonist.  But I am no leveller.  I have
+no patience with the doctrine of those sentimental Frenchmen who
+promulgate the palpable folly that all men are born equal.  I am loyal
+to the king,&mdash;or, perhaps, rather, I should say, to the throne, which
+seems to me just now unfortunate in its occupant.  But I will not pay a
+tax imposed by those who have no right to tax me!  I would fight first.
+I stand on Magna Charta."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then you are a patriot now, Uncle Bob," said Barbara, fairly
+satisfied, "and before long you will be a rebel!  You wait and see!
+You're all afraid to say it, but before long the colonies will be
+fighting King George!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There were exclamations of protest from every one, even Doctor John,
+the avowed and consistent Whig,&mdash;every one but Glenowen, who smiled
+thoughtfully at Barbara's rashness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Tut!  Tut!  You little fire-eater!" exclaimed Doctor John.  "You
+mustn't bring discredit on your party!  We will fight with
+constitutional weapons for our just rights, and bring that pig-headed
+George to his senses.  We must teach him to reign properly, and not to
+meddle, that's all.  No throat-cuttings in the English family!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It would break my heart to fight against my countrymen," said Robert,
+earnestly.  "But if they should be so misguided as to take up arms
+against the king, I should have no doubt as to my duty.  The king may
+be unjust; but if so, the injustice will doubtless be remedied by and
+by.  But better, surely, suffer some injustice than be traitor to your
+king."  This speech took courage on Robert's part, with Barbara's eyes
+blazing scorn upon him.  But he looked into vacancy, and made his
+confession of faith regardless of consequence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You fatigue me, Robert!" said Barbara.  "Would you rather betray your
+country than your king?  Was the country made for the king?  What's a
+king?  Greece and Rome did pretty well without them!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What's this stuff and nonsense about fighting?" broke in Doctor Jim,
+ignoring Barbara's argument as the chatter of a child.  "Stuff and
+nonsense!  The notion of our clodhoppers standing up to the king's
+soldiers, who have whipped the armies of the world!  It is easy for
+demagogues to rant, but they'd find it still easier to run!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I fear you all underrate the peril&mdash;except this sauce-box here!" said
+Glenowen, soberly.  "And you, Pigeon, are like the king's purblind
+advisers in underrating the spirit of the people.  It is not a noisy,
+but a sullen temper that seems to be spreading.  And clodhoppers are
+not all cowards!  And those who call themselves patriots are not all
+clodhoppers."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But who among our people can be so suicidal as to think of war?" asked
+the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer, taking a contemplative pinch of snuff.
+"To fight a hopeless battle, and in inevitable defeat lose all!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is not the people who think of war as yet!" said Glenowen.  "But
+the arrogant soldiery, the blindly self-confident officials, the
+insolent English officers, who seem chosen not to conciliate but to
+enrage.  So many of the officers sent out here do dishonour to the
+repute of English gentlemen.  They seem to look on colonists as a
+subject race.  I have seen them, in New York and in Boston, treat our
+ladies with an insufferable condescension, such as they would never
+have dared to show toward the same ladies in England.  And I have seen
+them studiously insolent to colonial gentlemen of birth and breeding
+far above their own, as if the accident of being born in the mother
+country instead of in America made them another race.  Such conduct,
+while unimportant in itself, rankles deeply, and sets the two branches
+of the race in antagonism.  Personal affront is mightier than argument,
+and men cannot overlook a slight to their women."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I should think not!" cried Robert, loftily.  "I would shed the last
+drop of my blood for the king, but I should not let the king himself
+put slight upon one of our ladies!  I wonder you could endure to see
+such things, Mr. Glenowen!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I did not!" confessed Glenowen.  "I have had several differences of
+late!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara's eyes sparkled, and her lips parted eagerly over her white
+teeth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You fought them, Uncle Bob!  You fought them!" she cried.  "Real
+duels!  How many did you fight?  Oh, how lovely!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Two, sweetheart, I'm sorry to say!" replied Glenowen, modestly.  "It
+was very inconvenient and annoying, because I have so many
+responsibilities and could not afford to be skewered."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And how did you come off?" asked Doctor John, leaning far over the
+table in his eagerness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nothing but a scratch or two, thanks to the righteousness of my
+cause!" said Glenowen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And the other chaps?" inquired Doctor Jim.  "Doubtless they were
+low-bred scoundrels, whom London would have none of!  I hope you
+pricked 'em!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I wish I could feel sure that their manners had mended as well as
+their wounds!" laughed Glenowen, gaily.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then, to Barbara's ill-concealed disgust, Mistress Mehitable led the
+way into the drawing-room, leaving the men to smoke long pipes and
+thrash out problems of constitutional law to the accompaniment of the
+fiery old Madeira.  In the drawing-room she was moody and silent,
+grudging all the arguments that were going on without her.  And when
+Robert, who felt himself too unseasoned to stay with his elders beyond
+one pipe and an extra glass, followed the ladies at a decent interval,
+Barbara received him far from graciously.  His last speech, in comment
+on the insolence of the officers, had mollified her a little, but she
+felt a smart resentment at his presumption in maintaining views so
+opposite to hers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I should think you would stay with the other men," she said, tartly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I couldn't stay a moment longer," said Robert, gallantly, "for longing
+to be with the most fair if <I>not</I> the most gracious of ladies!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You had better go back and learn something about your duty to your
+country, by listening to Doctor John and Uncle Bob!" she counselled,
+rudely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert bowed low, having himself just now well in hand, though his
+heart was sore.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I take great pleasure in listening to them, as well as to Doctor Jim,
+who also seems intelligent!" said he.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh," exclaimed Barbara, much nettled.  "Doctor Jim talks a lot of
+nonsense just to tease me; but he doesn't mean it,&mdash;at least, not all
+of it.  Besides, he is always interesting.  But you, with your pedantic
+stuff about loyalty and kings and treason, I don't find you interesting
+at all!  Please go and talk to Aunt Hitty and Mrs. Sawyer, and let me
+read.  Perhaps I'll be able to forget what you said at dinner!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is my pleasure to obey your lightest wish, fair mistress!" said
+Robert, inwardly indignant, but outwardly amused at her ill-humour.  He
+went at once to the other side of the room, and exerted himself to such
+good purpose that soon Mistress Mehitable's rare and silvery laughter
+grew frequent, against an almost ceaseless gurgle of content from Mrs.
+Sawyer.  Robert was completely absorbed, while Barbara's interest in
+her book was vexatiously divided.  After half an hour she got up and
+left the room, but he never noticed her going.  Fifteen minutes later
+she came back, with the gray and white "Mr. Grim" on her shoulder; and
+he never noticed her coming, so intent he was, and so successful, in
+his task of amusing Aunt Hitty and Mrs. Sawyer.  This was carrying
+obedience a little too far, and it fretted Barbara.  Then the men came
+in from the dining-room, smoky, and a little more fluent than ordinary,
+and Robert was ousted from his post by Glenowen and Doctor John.  But
+instead of returning now to Barbara, he attached himself with an
+engrossed air to Doctor Jim; and Barbara found herself established in
+her nook with the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer.  To be sure, his Reverence
+made himself most agreeable, flattering her by the attention he would
+have paid to a grown woman whom he considered intelligent.  He
+appreciated her brains, and acknowledged the lengthening of her
+petticoats; and his attitude was a gratifying proof to her that she
+really had grown to be a personage, rather than a child, within the
+past few days.  But she found herself unable to concentrate her wits on
+what he was saying, and passed a rather grievous hour trying to look
+the attention which her brain was not giving.  When, at last, Doctor
+Sawyer arose to go, she felt that he must think her the most stupid
+girl in the world.  Doctor Sawyer, on the contrary, enchanted by the
+rapt silence and appreciation with which apparently she had hung upon
+his words, went away with the conviction that she was a young woman of
+astonishing intellect, whom they had, indeed, wronged greatly in
+striving to force her into the narrow Second Westings mould.  From that
+hour, when she had watched him with glowing eyes, but hearing scarce a
+word of all his wit, the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer was one of Barbara's
+staunchest champions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When she turned from saying good-bye to Mrs. Sawyer, Barbara found
+Robert standing close beside her in the hall door, apparently absorbed
+in contemplation of Mrs. Sawyer's billowy, retreating figure.  Barbara
+touched him on the arm, and he turned to her with a quick apologetic
+courtesy, as if his thoughts had been far off.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What were you thinking of, so far, far away?" she asked, feeling
+somewhat left out and forlorn.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why&mdash;why&mdash;I was thinking&mdash;" he stammered, as if unwilling to say, yet
+unready with an evasion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, you needn't tell me, if it is so embarrassing as all that!" said
+Barbara, tossing her head.  "I was going to say, that after all the
+talk and the excitement, I think the loveliest thing would be some
+fresh, sweet air, and the smell of the woods!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It would be, indeed&mdash;with you!" said Robert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then we will ride till supper-time.  No,&mdash;there is a moon.  We will
+ride after supper.  You may escort me if you want to!  Do you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert drew a long breath before he answered&mdash;and to Barbara the answer
+was sufficient.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, I want to!" he said, simply.  "I was afraid I was to go away
+without really seeing you at all!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Go away!" exclaimed Barbara, lifting her brows in sharp displeasure.
+"What do you mean, Robert?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I must go back to Gault House to-morrow morning, without fail, for I
+start for New York the day following, to be gone all winter."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh!" said Barbara; and turned and led the way back into the
+drawing-room, leaving Robert completely mystified as to the meaning of
+that noncommittal interjection.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap21"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXI.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+After supper, when Barbara came down dressed for riding and calmly told
+Robert she was ready, Mistress Mehitable gasped, and looked at
+Glenowen, expecting that he would meet the emergency by making a third.
+As he seemed unconscious of the need of action, she shot an appealing
+glance at Doctor Jim and Doctor John in turn.  But they only grinned
+inscrutably.  Then she lifted her hands slightly and let them drop into
+her lap, as if to say, "Bear witness, Heaven, that I am helpless!" and
+thus she stifled the voice of protest in her bosom.  She had given
+Barbara freedom, and the responsibility that goes with freedom; and she
+would not take back the gift.  But it was one of the notable victories
+of Mistress Mehitable's career, when she forced herself to sit in
+smiling acquiescence while Barbara flew full in the face of all
+convention.  Amos, meanwhile, had brought the horses to the door; and
+when the two young riders were gone, the hoof-beats sounding in slow
+cadence down the drive, Glenowen said to her, with an understanding
+smile, "You did right, sweet lady.  'Tis a filly, that, to be ridden
+without the curb.  Give her her head, and you'll have no great trouble!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I feel sure you are right, Mr. Glenowen," said Mistress Mehitable,
+sweetly.  "But you may well believe it was a hard lesson for me, a Ladd
+of Connecticut, to learn.  And I fear I have not more than half learned
+it yet!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You can learn anything you have a mind to, Mehitable," said Doctor
+Jim, with emphasis, "in the time it would take another woman to learn
+the A, B, C of it!"
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Neither Barbara nor Robert spoke till the horses emerged upon the
+highway.  Then Barbara cried:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Quick!  Quick!  I want the wind in my face!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With two miles of good road before them, they set their faces to the
+night breeze and their horses to the run, and raced madly down the
+moonlight, their shadows dancing long and black before them.  The
+saddle-leathers creaked a low, exhilarating music, and the galloping
+swung like a pulse, and the roadside fence and shrubs fled by, and the
+world was white in the moonlight.  And still there was no speech, save
+a soft word now and then to the rejoicing horses, whose ears turned
+back for it sympathetically from time to time.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At length they came to rougher ground, and slowed to a gentle canter.
+Then Robert noticed a narrow wood-road turning off to the right,
+vaulted over with lofty trees, and mystical with moon-shadows.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Where does that road go, my lady?" he inquired.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Where we are going!" answered Barbara, turning into it at a walk.
+Then, as if she thought the answer too whimsical, she continued, "It
+will take us back to the village by a longer and more beautiful way!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Any longer way would be the more beautiful way!" said Robert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The reply interested Barbara, and in musing over it she forgot to say
+anything more.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The wood-road, thick-carpeted with turf and moss, muffled the horses'
+hoofs, and an enchanted silence sank into the hearts of the young
+riders.  Here and there the woods gave back for a little clearing with
+a lonely cabin; and the moonlight flooded in; and around the edges of
+the clearing the thick-leaved branches seemed afloat, bubbles of glass
+and silver on a sea of dream.  Then, again, the fairy-lit glooms,
+haunted but unterrifying!  And Barbara began to think repentantly of
+her harshness toward Robert.  Soon the road dipped sharply, and crossed
+a wide, shallow brook, upon whose pebbles the horses' hoofs splashed a
+light music.  Here they let the horses drink a mouthful, because
+Barbara said the waters of that brook were especially sweet.  When they
+emerged on the other side, Barbara discovered she wanted a drink of it
+herself, so sovereign were the virtues of that water.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How shall I bring it to you?" asked Robert, instantly dismounting, and
+casting a hasty glance about him in quest of a birch-tree, from whose
+bark to make a cup.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Make me a cup of your hands, of course!" said Barbara.  "Give me your
+reins.  I must have the water, at once!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert removed his leather gloves, rinsed his hands in the sliding
+sand, and then, with mighty painstaking care, got at least two
+mouthfuls of the crystal uplifted to Barbara's lips.  As she sipped,
+and light as a moth her lips touched his hands, his heart seemed to
+turn over in his breast, and he could not find voice for a word.
+Silently he remounted, and in silence they ascended the slope from the
+brook.  His apparent unresponsiveness puzzled Barbara; but an awakening
+intuition suggested to her that it was perhaps not so uncomplimentary
+as it might seem; and she was not displeased.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For half an hour they walked their horses thus, Robert sometimes laying
+a light hand on Black Prince's shoulder or satiny flank, but never
+daring to touch so much as Barbara's skirt.  Then they saw the highway
+opening ahead of them, a ribbon of moonlit road.  Barbara reined up.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think my saddle is slipping a little," said she.  "I don't believe
+Amos can have girt it tight enough!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, I&mdash;" began Robert, about to remind her that, like a good
+horseman, he had himself looked well to the girth before letting her
+mount.  But he cut the words short on his tongue, sprang from his
+saddle, and busied himself intently with Black Prince's straps.  When
+he raised his head, Barbara smiled down upon him, and reached him her
+left hand, saying sweetly:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thank you, Robert.  You are really very nice, you know!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Whereupon Robert bent abruptly, kissed the instep of the little
+riding-boot which stuck out from under her skirt, and swung into his
+saddle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The action thrilled Barbara somewhat, but at the same time piqued her
+interest; and the interest dominated.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why did you do that, Robert?" she asked, curiously, looking at him
+with wide, frank eyes.  "I didn't mind it a bit, you know!  But it's
+funny, to kiss my old shoe!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert gave a little unsteady laugh.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It was homage, my lady," said he.  "Just my pledge of fealty, before I
+go.  You forget&mdash;I have the misfortune to displease you by being a
+monarchist!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara was silent a moment.  She was sorry he had reminded her of
+their differences of opinion.  But, on the other hand, homage was not
+unpleasant; and her scorn of kings did not of necessity extend to
+queens.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Why</I> do you go?" she asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My grandmother is sending me at a moment's notice, to represent her in
+a law-scrape which some property of hers&mdash;of ours&mdash;in New York has
+suddenly got into.  You know that, now that I am through college, I
+have to get down to work at once in New York, and fit myself to look
+after our estates.  But I didn't dream I should have to go so soon!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am sorry!" said Barbara, simply.  "We were having such a pleasant
+time together!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Were we, dear lady?" asked Robert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Weren't</I> we?" demanded Barbara.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am broken-hearted at going.  I dare not tell you how
+broken-hearted!" replied Robert, gravely.  "But until this ride I have
+been rather unhappy to-day, for you have several times made me feel
+that you were displeased at my coming!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now Barbara hated explanations, and she hated still more to be accused
+justly.  Urging Black Prince to a canter, she retorted:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have no patience with you, Robert.  I have been an angel to you.
+Didn't I ride almost half-way home with you, when you were here before?
+And now, haven't I let you come this <I>perfect</I> ride with me,&mdash;when I
+know Aunt Hitty thought I oughtn't?  And you don't <I>deserve</I> that I
+should even let you talk to me one minute, when you are such a stupid,
+bigoted Tory."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert thought of many things to say in answer to this dashing flank
+attack; but each answer seemed to carry unknown perils, so he kept a
+prudent silence.  After some time Barbara spoke again, mistaking his
+silence for contrition.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Robert," she began, in a voice of thrilling persuasion, "won't you do
+something I very much want you to do?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I can think of no other pleasure to compare with the pleasure of
+pleasing you, my lady!" he answered, ardently.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then, will you not <I>really study</I>, without prejudice, the things that
+are at the bottom of the trouble between us and King George?  You have
+such a good brain, Robert, I cannot think you will be on the side of a
+king against your own country, when you have fully informed yourself!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert looked troubled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I can honestly promise," said he, "to study the question still more
+carefully than I have already.  But I fear you will still consider me
+obstinate, even then.  If I could imagine myself disloyal to the king,
+I should not consider myself worthy to profess myself your ever loyal
+and devoted servant, fair mistress!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"To serve me, Robert, you must serve your country!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And to serve my country, most dear lady, I must serve the king!"
+persisted Robert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara set her lips tight together, and galloped on.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I wish you better wisdom as you grow older!" she said, coldly, after
+some minutes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The best wisdom I may ever hope to attain will be all too little to
+serve you with, my lady!" answered Robert, half gallantly, yet all in
+earnest.  And Barbara could not but vouchsafe a reluctant smile in
+acknowledgment of so handsome a compliment.  Thereafter there was
+little more said.  They rode through the village, past the lighted inn,
+up the dim moonlit road to the porch of Westings House.  But when
+Robert, with a sort of bold deference, lifted her from her saddle,
+holding her, perhaps, just a shade more closely than was requisite, she
+felt in a forgiving mood.  She knew that she liked him, she knew she
+had been unpleasant to him, she was most sorry he was going away; and
+what were old kings anyway that friends should be at loggerheads about
+them?  Answering her own thought, she impulsively pulled off her glove,
+and gave Robert her bare hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We will be friends, won't we, king or no king?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And the radiance of the smile she lifted to him, as he held her thin
+little hand in both his own, nearly turned the poor boy's head.  He
+bent over her&mdash;and just saved himself, with a gasp, from kissing the
+ignorantly provocative mouth so rashly upraised.  But he recovered his
+balance, in part, and compensated himself by kissing the hand
+passionately,&mdash;fingers and soft palm, and rosy oval nails, and
+wrist,&mdash;in a fashion that seemed to Barbara very singular.  At length
+she withdrew the hand with a soft laugh, saying, composedly:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There, don't you think that will do, Robert?  You did not kiss Mrs.
+Sawyer's hand like that, did you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course I did!" declared Robert.  "There was more of it to kiss, so
+I kissed it more!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now you are horrid!" she cried, and ran past him into the house.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But when he said good-bye to them all on the porch the next morning,
+and set forth on his long ride back to Gault House, Robert carried with
+him in the pocket over his heart what Barbara considered the highest
+token of her favour, her well-studied, intimately marked,
+oft-slept-with copy of Sir Philip Sidney's sonnets.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap22"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXII.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The life of the individual, within its limits, is apt to present a sort
+of microcosmic image of the life of the nation.  There comes a period
+of stress, when the germs of change and growth are sown.  Then,
+apparently without reason, time drags.  The seasons roll apathetically
+in their rut, and all is done as it was done last year.  But in the
+deeps the great impulses are maturing, the great forces are gathering.
+The hour comes that looses them.  Then in an instant, it seems almost
+without warning, the quiet heart is in an insurrection, the people of
+ploughshares is become a people of swords.  With a life, or with a
+nation, the events of a day may crowd ten volumes, or the annals of ten
+years leave a page but meanly filled.  Significance is all.  We live in
+our great moments.  The rest is a making ready.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That blue and yellow morning of sweet winds, when Robert rode away from
+Second Westings, and Barbara, looking after him, felt three-fourths
+regretful for his going and one-fourth for her dear copy of Sir Philip
+Sidney's sonnets, was a morning in the late summer of 1769.  He was to
+have returned the following June.  But neither that June nor the next,
+nor the next following nor the one thereafter, did he return to the
+quiet villages of Connecticut and the banks of the great river that had
+given him birth.  From year's end to year's end he found himself tied
+to the desk in his mother's brother's office, the office with the coat
+of arms over the door, and the diamond windows looking out on Bowling
+Green.  He worked faithfully; but, being of the king's party yet
+sturdily American, a loyalist yet alive to the grievances of the
+people, a Tory yet not intolerant of views hostile to his own, an
+aristocrat, yet unfettered by the traditions of his clique and clan, he
+had all the social diversion that the gay, extravagant, rich, and
+foppish little city in the toe of Manhattan Island could afford.
+Wealthy, well-born, courtly, and kindly, the garlanded snares of the
+mammas of Manhattan were laid thickly but vainly for his feet.  He was
+squire to all the fair; but not one, unless by some of those thrilling
+fictions with which maids triumph over their rivals, could claim aught
+of him that was exclusive or committal.  And he knew Sir Philip
+Sidney's sonnets by heart.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+About once in two months, or thereabouts, went a letter to Second
+Westings, full of coloured comment on the doings of the city,&mdash;of
+remarks sometimes stilted and sometimes illuminating on the latest
+books from London,&mdash;of elaborate compliments that concealed rather than
+revealed the emotion glowing behind them,&mdash;but of the questions of the
+day, of Penal Acts, Port Bills, Tea Duties, Coercion, and Continental
+Congresses, no word.  Robert had fulfilled to the letter and the spirit
+Barbara's demand that he study minutely the points at issue between the
+colonies and the king.  He had realised the blindness and folly of the
+king, he had acknowledged that the colonies were right to resist, by
+every constitutional means, taxation by a parliament in which they were
+not represented.  But his loyalty to the throne was unshaken by his
+regret that the king should be unjust.  He tried to believe that the
+counsels of the great Englishmen whom he adored,&mdash;Pitt and Burke, the
+friends of America,&mdash;would open the eyes of George III. in time to
+prevent the cruel arbitrament of war.  But&mdash;should it be war,&mdash;well,
+his ancestors had bled cheerfully for Charles Stuart when they knew he
+was in the wrong, and Robert felt that he would maintain, at whatever
+cost, the tradition of his ancestors.  To be loyal to a good king, a
+king in the right, where was the distinguishing merit of that?  But to
+be loyal to king in the wrong, and at great cost,&mdash;that, to Robert,
+seemed loyalty worth the name.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Meanwhile to Barbara, in her green world of Second Westings, life
+seemed to have got caught in a drowsy eddy.  The months went by in
+uneventful circuit, for all the echoes of great doings that came up
+from time to time and stirred the tranquil air.  She rode, canoed,
+read, studied spasmodically, bullied Amos, loved the animals, distilled
+strange essences, repudiated the needle and the crochet-hook, as of
+old.  As of old, she had wild whims, repentances, indignations, dreams,
+and ardours born of dreams.  But all these things had grown paler, in a
+way, had lost something of their bite and vividness.  It was as if Fate
+had turned a screw and changed the focus.  Moreover, she could no
+longer, as before, believe each mood eternal and all-important.  She
+had a consciousness that there were other interests lurking in life,
+and this kept her in an attitude of waiting.  But the love between her
+and Doctor John and Doctor Jim lost nothing in this waiting time, but
+grew as Barbara grew in stature and self-knowledge; and she lost
+nothing of her delight in the friendship of Mrs. Debby Blue, to whose
+cabin she would flee about once a month, when the vagrant blood,
+growing riotous in her breast, would make her tolerant of no company
+but that of the shrewd old outlaw dame.  As for her aunt, Barbara's
+love for the blue-eyed little Puritan spinster, born that crucial
+morning of Mistress Mehitable's unexpected forbearance and seed-cakes,
+flourished and ripened with not one serious setback.  Of course, a
+complete understanding between two such opposite tempers could not
+spring up in a day; but Mistress Mehitable was nothing less than heroic
+in the consistency with which she held herself to her new policy; and
+Barbara, having been astonished into an incongruous devotion, was ready
+enough to make sacrifices on the new altar.  Whenever the atmosphere
+began to feel overcharged between them, they would say the nicest
+things they could think of to each other, and then, with much ingenuity
+of chance, keep apart for two or three days.  In this way new
+misunderstandings were avoided; till gradually the natural love between
+them set deep root into their hearts, and grew strong enough to dare
+such tempestuous flurries of the mood as cannot but blow up once in
+awhile when two women are living alone together.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But while her own life had seemed to have grown so tranquil that she
+wondered if things had forgotten to happen, Barbara knew that in the
+outside world it was different, so different as to make her stillness
+seem like sleep.  In the outside world she knew events were crowding
+and clamouring upon one another's heels, under a sky of strange
+portent.  She kept herself informed.  She wrangled lovingly with Doctor
+Jim; she argued tactfully, though hopelessly, with Mistress Mehitable;
+she debated academically with the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer; she ranted
+joyously with Doctor John, and Squire Gillig, and Lawyer Perley, and
+old Debby, all four patriots, and the last two frank rebels.  For the
+sake of finding out the drift of Second Westings sentiment, she once in
+awhile emerged from her prickly exclusiveness to smile upon her fellows
+of quality, and was surprised to find them mostly patriots in their
+way, with souls that strove to rise above embroidery and tatting.  As
+for the common people, the workmen and apprentices and their kind, she
+got at their hearts easily in her impulsive fashion, and found the
+majority of them slowly heating to rebellion.  In Amos, her devoted
+Amos, however, she unearthed a fiery royalist, ready to out-thunder
+Doctor Jim himself; so she ceased to do Amos the favour of bullying
+him, and Amos grew at times too dejected to care much about King
+George.  The results of these observations she conveyed minutely in
+frequent letters to her Uncle Bob, who was now committed to the
+so-called 'Continental' side.  To Robert Gault, also, in his office
+looking out on Bowling Green, Barbara would write about once in three
+months.  But in these letters she wrote of the woods and the winds, of
+what blooms were out in the river-meadows, of what birds were nesting
+or winging,&mdash;and never a word of what was in all men's mouths.  She was
+waiting for Robert to declare himself converted to her views, after
+digesting the course of study to which she had set him.  And she
+refused to admit the possibility of a clear-headed gentleman, as she
+knew him to be, being so misguided as to cling to opinions different
+from her own.  To her mind Truth was a crystal of which but one facet
+could be lighted at a time.  One side of a question was apt to present
+itself to her with such brilliancy that all the other sides were thrown
+into obscurity together.  As for the flamboyant Toryism of Doctor Jim,
+she regarded it with an invincible indulgence, as one of those things
+preordained from the first,&mdash;a thing which she could not even regret,
+because without it Doctor Jim, who was in every way adorable, would be
+so much the less himself.  Who cared for an eccentricity or two in a
+being so big of body and soul as Doctor Jim?  But she could not help
+being glad that Doctor John's eccentricity, to which she would have
+been equally indulgent in case of need, took a different form from
+Doctor Jim's.  The Toryism of her Aunt Hitty she regarded as a part of
+the lady's religion, and with that Barbara would never dream of
+meddling.  By an unspoken understanding, she and Mistress Mehitable had
+agreed to leave each other's sanctuaries unprofaned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+By the time of the "Boston Tea-Party," a little before Christmas in
+1773, Second Westings was so established in its stiff-necked, though
+indolent, Whiggery, that Doctor Jim and Mistress Mehitable sat
+enthroned, as it were, in the lonely isolation of their Toryism, with
+Amos proudly humble at their feet.  The Reverend Jonathan Sawyer, whose
+interest in the controversy had been almost wholly academic from the
+first, and who cultivated on all matters outside his creed a breadth of
+mind to compensate for his narrowness within it, had judged it right to
+follow his flock where he could not lead it, and had amused himself by
+letting Barbara&mdash;of whose conquest he was genuinely proud&mdash;convert him
+to her doctrines.  He was now a constitutional patriot, a temperate and
+conservative champion of colonial privilege, as opposed to kingly
+prerogative.  When came the soul-stirring news of how the valiant men
+of Boston Town had confronted the dread tea-chests in their harbour,
+and torn them piecemeal, and cast their fragrant contents into the
+tide, then no soul in Second Westings but Doctor Jim, Mistress
+Mehitable, and Amos, would drink a drop of tea&mdash;except in private.
+Certain compromising spirits, anxious to be both patriotic and
+comfortable, had laid in a supply betimes, and so without public
+scandal could dally in secret with the uninebriating cup.  But Barbara
+despised the alien leaf at all times; and Doctor John preferred hard
+cider or New England rum; and old Debby had a potent concoction of
+"yarbs" which made the Chinese visitor insipid; so Mistress Mehitable
+and Doctor Jim were free to victual their strongholds with nearly all
+the tea in Second Westings.  Over the achievement of the Boston heroes
+Mistress Mehitable was gently sarcastic and Doctor Jim boisterously
+derisive; while Doctor John exclaimed, "Tut!  Tut! such child's play
+does no good!  Such mummery!  Tut!  Tut!" and Squire Gillig, ardent
+"Continental" but cautious merchant, said, "Such wicked waste!  There's
+a lot of good money gone!  They should have confiscated the stuff, an'
+hid it, an' sold it by an' by cheap, along through the back townships!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But to Barbara it seemed that the act was one shrewdly devised and
+likely to bring matters to a head.  Her reading of it seemed justified
+a few months later, when the port of Boston was closed, as a punishment
+for rebellious contumacy,&mdash;and the charter of Massachusetts
+abrogated,&mdash;-and a military governor, with four English regiments,
+established in the haughty city by the Charles,&mdash;and the capital of the
+province removed to its ancient rival, Salem.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The news of the billeting of the troops on Boston, and the removal of
+the capital to Salem, came with a shock to Westings House.  It came in
+a copy of the <I>Connecticut Gazette</I>, delivered at Mistress Mehitable's
+dinner-table while she and Barbara were entertaining Doctor John and
+Doctor Jim, Squire Gillig, and the Reverend Jonathan and Mrs. Sawyer.
+It had been a gay repast, but when Mistress Mehitable, craving
+indulgence by reason of the times, read out the Boston news, a cloud
+descended upon the company.  Squire Gillig began to say something
+bitter, forgetful of Mistress Mehitable's sentiments, but was stopped
+by a level stare from the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer's authoritative
+eyes.  Then Doctor John spoke&mdash;no longer droll and jibing, but with the
+gravity of prescience, and turning by instinct to his brother.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Jim!  Jim!" said he, "this is going to mean <I>war</I>.  I see it!  I see
+it!  The people will not stand much more,&mdash;and more is coming, as sure
+as my name's John Pigeon.  Your precious king's gone mad.  He's going
+to force it on us!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Doctor Jim shook his great head sorrowfully.  "I am sorry for this,
+John.  I think the king is not well advised in this&mdash;on my word I do.
+It is too harsh, too sudden.  But the people won't fight.  They may
+riot, and talk,&mdash;but they won't fight.  We are too strong for you,
+John.  There will be no war.  That would be absurd!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There will be war!" repeated Doctor John, still looking into his
+brother's eyes.  The two men had forgotten every one else.  "There will
+be war, if not this year, the next.  The people will fight,&mdash;and that
+soon!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then the people will be beaten, and that soon, John!" retorted Doctor
+Jim, firmly, but in a low voice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The king's armies will be beaten, Jim!  You mark my words!  But it is
+going to be a terrible thing!  A horrible and unrighteous thing!  There
+will be dividing of houses, Jim!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There were several seconds of silence, a heavy, momentous silence, and
+Barbara held her breath, a strange ache at her throat.  Then Doctor Jim
+brought down his fist upon the table, and cried in his full voice:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A dividing of houses, maybe,&mdash;but not a dividing of hearts, John
+Pigeon, never a dividing of hearts, eh, what? eh, what?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He reached out his hand across the table, and Doctor John seized it in
+a mighty grip.  The long years of love and trust between them spoke
+suddenly in their strong, large faces.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, never a dividing of hearts, Jim, in the days that are to come,
+when our swords go different ways, and we see each other not for a
+time!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then their hands dropped apart, and both laughed uneasily, as they
+glanced with a shamefaced air about the table.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Tut!  Tut!" said Doctor John.  "That precious king of yours bids fair
+to make life damnably serious, Jim.  Send him away from the table at
+once!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the diversion came too late; for Barbara was weeping heedlessly,
+and Mistress Mehitable, with her white chin quivering, was dabbing her
+handkerchief to her eyes with an air of vexation at her own weakness;
+while good Mrs. Sawyer gazed at them both in wide-eyed, uncomprehending
+wonder.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If there's a war," sobbed Barbara, "<I>you sha'nt</I> go to it, either of
+you!  We need you, <I>here</I>.  And&mdash;and&mdash;you'd both get killed, I know!
+You're both so splendid and big and tall,&mdash;and you wouldn't&mdash;take care
+of yourselves, and the bullets <I>couldn't</I> miss you!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At this picture Mistress Mehitable grew pale, where she had been red,
+and cast a frightened look at Doctor Jim, then at Doctor John,&mdash;then
+back at Doctor Jim.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Barbara's right, I think," she said, with an air of having weighed the
+question quite dispassionately.  "You should not leave your patients,
+on any account.  There are so many men who can destroy life, so few who
+can save it.  Physicians have no right to go soldiering."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's just it, honey!" cried Barbara, flashing radiant eyes through
+her tears.  "Oh, what a wise little Aunt Hitty you are!  What would we
+ever do without you!"  And her apprehensions laid themselves obediently
+to rest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, well!" cried Doctor Jim.  "What are two graceless old dogs like
+us, that the dear eyes of the fairest of their sex should shed tears on
+our account?  We should go and kick each other up and down the length
+of Second Westings for the rest of the afternoon, for causing such
+precious tears,&mdash;eh, what, John Pigeon?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Tis the least we can do, Jim!" said Doctor John.  "But now I come to
+think of it, we needn't arrange to go to the war before there's a war
+to go to, after all."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And when the war does come, you'll both stay right here, where you
+belong!" decreed Barbara, holding the question well settled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Who knows what may happen?" cried Doctor Jim.  "You stiff-necked
+rebels may experience a change of heart, and then where's your war?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Barbara, sweet baggage," said Doctor John, wagging his forefinger at
+her in the way that even now, at her nineteen years, seemed to her as
+irresistibly funny as she had thought it when a child, "I cannot let
+this anxiety oppress your tender young spirit.  Set your heart at rest.
+If there be war, Jim Pigeon may go a-soldiering and get shot as full of
+holes as a colander, and I'll do my duty by staying at home and looking
+after his patients.  There'll be a chance of some of them getting well,
+then!  I've never yet had a fair chance to save Jim Pigeon's patients.
+<I>I</I> won't desert a lovely maiden in distress, to seek the bubble
+reputation at the cannon's mouth!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How can you lie so shamelessly, John Pigeon?" demanded Doctor Jim.
+"I'll lay you a barrel of Madeira you'll be leaning against the butt of
+a musket before I am!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Done!" said Doctor John.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think you are both perfectly horrid!" cried Barbara.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap23"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+That day of the news was a boundary day.  It set sharp limit to
+Barbara's years of calm.  From that day events came quickly, change
+pressed hard on change, and no day, for her, was quite like its
+predecessor.  A veering of the current had snatched her from her
+shining eddy, and swept her forth into the tide of life.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On the morning following the dinner, while still alive to a sense of
+menace in the air, Barbara received a letter from her uncle.  As she
+read it, her eyes sparkled, her heart bounded.  Then, as she passed it
+to Mistress Mehitable, and Mistress Mehitable took it with cheerful
+interest, her heart sank.  She felt a pang of self-reproach, because
+she found herself willing to go away and leave her aunt uncompanioned
+in the solitude of Westings House.  Glenowen had undertaken certain
+business, in the way of searching records and examining titles, which
+was driving him at once to New York, and bade fair, he said, to keep
+him there for upwards of a year.  He wanted Barbara to go with him.
+And Barbara's pulses bounded.  There, she thought, were the lights and
+the dances, the maskings and the music, the crossing of swords and
+wits, the gallants and the compliments and the triumphs, which she was
+longing to taste.  Mistress Mehitable's face grew grave as she read the
+letter.  It grew pale as she looked up and saw by Barbara's face the
+hunger in her heart.  Mistress Mehitable had a vision of what Westings
+House would be, emptied of the wilful, flashing, vivid, restless spirit
+which for the past few years had been its life.  But she was unselfish.
+She would not say a word to lessen Barbara's delight.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It will be lovely for you, dear!" said she, with hearty sympathy.
+"You are just at the age, too, when it will mean most to you, and be of
+most value to you.  I am so glad, dear!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Barbara had seen the look in her face, and gave no heed to her
+brave words.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I <I>can't</I> go, honey, and leave you here alone!" she cried,
+impetuously, jumping up and hugging the little lady with a vehemence
+born of the effort to convince herself that what she said was true.
+She felt that she could and must go; but that the joy of going would be
+more than damped&mdash;drenched, indeed, with tears&mdash;at the thought of how
+much Mistress Mehitable would miss her, of how empty Westings House
+would be without her, of the scar her absence would leave in their
+little world.  With her intense individuality, her lively
+self-concentration, it almost seemed to her as if their little world
+could not even attempt to go on without her, but must sleep dully
+through her absence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course you will go, Barbara dear!" said Mistress Mehitable,
+decidedly.  "It is only natural and right you should want to go, and
+go.  I cannot pretend that it makes me very happy to think of doing
+without you for a whole year.  No words can tell you how I shall miss
+you, dear child.  But I should be a thousand times more unhappy if I
+were to feel myself standing in the way of your happiness.  No, no,
+indeed, don't talk any nonsense about not going.  Besides, your Uncle
+Bob has the right to have you with him for a while."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, I wish you could go, too!" sighed Barbara.  "<I>Can't</I> you?  <I>Then</I>
+it <I>would</I> be lovely!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mistress Mehitable laughed softly.  "Not very well just now, child!"
+she answered, assuming a gaiety.  "Perhaps some other time it might be
+managed.  Now, we'll have to plan about getting you ready,&mdash;and your
+uncle has only left us a wretched little week to do it in!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So it was settled, without any stress or argument whatever, that
+Barbara should go to New York with Uncle Bob just eight days from that
+day; and so was decreed, with such effort as it might take to order a
+breakfast, nothing less than a revolution in Barbara's life.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+While the two women were discussing weighty problems of dressmaking,
+lingerie, and equipment various,&mdash;what should be made at Second
+Westings, and what should be left to New York shops and the tried taste
+of Uncle Bob,&mdash;Doctor Jim came in, less robustious and breezy than his
+wont, his eyes big with momentous tidings.  He kissed the ladies'
+hands, and sat down thoughtfully opposite, scanning their faces from
+under bushy, drawn brows.  They both looked at him with expectant
+inquiry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You were most intent on whatever you were talking about!" said he,
+presently.  "I hope I don't interrupt!  May I hear all about it?  Or
+should I run away, eh, what?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You never interrupt,&mdash;or if you do, you are forgiven beforehand, Jim!"
+said Mistress Mehitable.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What we were talking about will interest <I>you</I>, Doctor Jim, you
+naughty old thing!" cried Barbara, saucily.  "It was petticoats,
+bodices, and silk stockings, and such like feminine frivolities!  But
+what have <I>you</I> got to tell <I>us</I>?  You are just <I>bursting</I>, you know
+you are.  Tell us, and we'll tell you something!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"John Pigeon's going away to-morrow!" said Doctor Jim, and then shut
+his mouth hard.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What?  Going away?" cried both women at once, scarce crediting their
+ears.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Going away to Hartford, to-morrow, to take a hand in organising some
+of their rebellious militia!" continued Doctor Jim.  "I'm ashamed to
+tell you.  But he was ashamed to tell you himself, thinking you would
+not like it, so he sent me ahead to make his peace for him.  It doesn't
+mean anything, you know.  Just a sort of bragging counterblast to those
+four regiments of ours at Boston.  I wouldn't be down on John for it,
+eh, what, Mehitable?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"When will he return?" asked Mehitable, feeling that her world was
+being emptied.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Down on him!" exclaimed Barbara.  "Why, it's <I>noble</I> of him.  Think
+how it will encourage all the patriots of our township!"  Since she was
+going away herself, Doctor John's going was easy enough to bear.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I wasn't talking to you, you saucy rebel!" retorted Doctor Jim.
+"We'll have that crazy little black head of yours chopped off for high
+treason, one of these days, if you don't mend your naughty manners.
+'Patriots,' indeed!  Addle-pated bumpkins!  But"&mdash;and he turned to
+Mistress Mehitable, "you asked me, dear lady, when John Pigeon would
+return.  Within a month, I think.  He will tell you more precisely for
+himself!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Jim," said Mistress Mehitable, gravely, "we are going to be lonely for
+awhile, you and I."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lonely!" exclaimed Doctor Jim.  "That's not what bothers me.  It's the
+pestilent, low, vulgar business that's taking him!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, of course," assented Mistress Mehitable, "but 'tis not Doctor
+John only that purposes to forsake us, Jim.  Barbara is going to New
+York, to stay a year."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Doctor Jim's face fell.  He glared at Barbara for half a minute, his
+shaggy eyebrows working.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nonsense, child!" he cried, wilfully incredulous.  "What cock-and-bull
+story's this?  I won't have my feelings worked upon!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's true, Doctor Jim.  I'm to go with Uncle Bob, next week!" said
+Barbara, very soberly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But you sha'n't go!  We can't spare our bad little girl.  You're too
+young, Barby, for that wicked city down there.  We <I>need</I> you here, to
+keep us from getting too <I>good</I>.  You sha'n't go, that's all!  You see
+what John Pigeon'll have to say about it, eh, what?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I must, Doctor Jim!" answered Barbara.  "Aunt Hitty and Uncle Bob have
+both decided on that.  I feel homesick, sort of, already, at the
+thought of it.  And I know I shall miss you all just horribly.  But,
+oh, I do want to go, after all.  It's all so gay and mysterious to me,
+and I know I'll have such fun.  And it will be so lovely, when I'm
+tired of it, to come back and tell you all about it!  Won't it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well!  Well!  I suppose we'll have to let her go," sighed Doctor Jim.
+"Thank Heaven, <I>you're</I> not going, Mehitable, dear lady!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm glad <I>you're</I> not going, Jim,&mdash;either to New York or to Hartford!"
+said Mistress Mehitable, with a little laugh.  Then she held out her
+hand to him, flushing softly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It would be hard indeed for me to go anywhere, Mehitable, were you to
+bid me stay!" said Doctor Jim, kissing very reverently the hand she had
+held out.  Then, without waiting for an answer to this, he hastily
+turned again to Barbara, saying:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"By the way, sweetheart, Bobby Gault is in New York, is he not,&mdash;eh,
+what?  He will be glad to see you again, perhaps!  It is possible he
+may help make things pleasant for you, eh, you baggage?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Barbara was not in a mood to repay his raillery in kind.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't know that I'll make things pleasant for Robert," she answered,
+thoughtfully, "if he still clings to his ridiculous views about kings
+and things!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Tell that to the marines, you sly hussy!" exclaimed Doctor Jim,
+regaining mysteriously his wonted large good humour.  "Don't tell me
+this isn't all made up between you and Robert!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara looked at him soberly for a moment.  Then the old audacious
+light laughed over her face, her eyes danced perilously,&mdash;and Mistress
+Mehitable felt a tremor of apprehension.  She always felt nervous when
+Doctor Jim had the hardihood to draw Barbara's fire.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you know, Doctor Jim, I don't feel quite so badly as I did about
+leaving you and Aunt Hitty!  I think, you know, you will be quite a
+comfort to each other, won't you, even if Doctor John should have to
+stay longer than he expects in Hartford!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At this moment Doctor John himself came in, to Mistress Mehitable's
+infinite relief.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap24"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+When Glenowen came to Second Westings he was in such haste that Barbara
+concluded he had other duties in New York than the searching of records
+and verification of titles; but with unwonted discretion she asked no
+questions.  Affairs of state, it seemed to her, were the more
+mysterious and important the less she knew about them; and it pleased
+her to feel that the fate of commonwealths, perchance, was carried
+secretly within the ruffled cambric of her debonair and brown-eyed
+uncle.  From Second Westings they journeyed by coach to New Haven, and
+from that city voyaged by packet down the Sound to New York.  Arrived
+in New York, they went straight into lodgings which Glenowen had
+already engaged, in an old, high-stooped Dutch house on State Street.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+From the moment of her landing on the wharf, Barbara was in a state of
+high exhilaration.  The thronging wharves, the high, black,
+far-travelled hulls, the foreign-smelling freights, all thrilled her
+imagination, and made her feel that now at last unexpected things might
+happen to her and story-books come true.  Then the busy, bustling
+streets, where men jostled each other abstractedly, intent each on his
+own affairs, how different from Second Westings, where three passers-by
+and a man on horseback would serve to bring faces to the windows, and
+where the grass on each side of the street was an item of no small
+consequence to the village cows!  And then the houses&mdash;huddled
+together, as if there was not space a-plenty in the world for houses!
+It was all very stirring.  She felt that it was what she wanted, at the
+moment,&mdash;a piquant sauce to the plain wholesomeness of her past.  But
+she felt, too, that it would never be able to hold her long from the
+woods and fields and wild waters.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Of her arrival Barbara sent no word to Robert, though she knew by
+somewhat careful calculation that his office was but a stone's throw
+away from her lodging.  She looked forward to some kind of a dramatic
+meeting, and would not let her impatience&mdash;which she scarcely
+acknowledged&mdash;risk the marring of a picturesque adventure.  When
+Glenowen, the morning after their arrival, gave her the superfluous
+information that Robert's office was close by, right among the
+fashionable houses of Bowling Green, and proposed that they should
+begin their exploration of the city by strolling past his window,
+Barbara demurred with emphasis.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well," said Glenowen, thinking he understood what no man ever has a
+right to think he understands, "just as you like, mistress mine.  I'll
+drop in on him myself, and let him know where we are, so he can call
+with all due and fitting ceremony!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, Uncle Bob!" she cried, laughing at his density, "don't you know
+yet how little <I>I</I> care for ceremony?  'Tis not that&mdash;by any manner of
+means.  But I want to surprise Robert,&mdash;I want to meet him at some fine
+function, in all my fine feathers, and see if he'll know me!  You know,
+it is five years, nearly, since we saw him.  Have I changed much, Uncle
+Bob?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Precious little have you changed, sweet minx!" answered Glenowen.
+"You're just the same small, peppery, saucy, unmanageable, thin brown
+witch that you were then, only a <I>little</I> taller, a <I>little</I> more
+good-looking, a little&mdash;a very little&mdash;more dignified.  No fear but
+he'd know you, though he saw you not for a score of years.  'Twere as
+easy perhaps for a man to hate you as love you, my Barbe!  But forget
+you!  Oh, no!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So it was that in the walks which they took about the point of
+Manhattan Island, during the first three or four days after their
+coming, they avoided Bowling Green, save in the dim hours of twilight;
+and Glenowen, prone to humour Barbara in everything, had a care to shun
+the resorts which Robert Gault affected.  He learned, by no means to
+his surprise, that Robert was uncompromisingly committed to the Tory
+party, but this he did not feel called upon to tell Barbara.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Time enough!  Time enough!" said he to himself, half whimsical, half
+sorrowful.  "Let the child have her little play with all the mirth
+that's in it!  Let hearts not bleed until they must!  She won't forgive
+him,&mdash;and he won't yield,&mdash;or I'm not Bob Glenowen!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In New York, where most of his life had been spent, Glenowen knew
+everybody; and he was <I>persona grata</I> to almost everybody of
+consequence.  His standing was so impregnable, his antecedents so
+unimpeachable, his social talents so in demand, that even the most
+arrogant of the old Tory aristocrats&mdash;the Delanceys, the Philipses, the
+Beverley Robinsons&mdash;were not disposed to let their hostility to his
+views hamper their hospitality to his person.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It followed, therefore, as a matter of course, that almost before she
+had gathered her wits after the excitement of the journey and the
+changed surroundings, Barbara found herself afloat upon the whirl of
+New York gaieties.  Every night, in the solitude of her bedroom in the
+old Dutch house, in the discreet confidence of her pillow, she was
+homesick, very homesick, and a child again.  She would sob for Aunt
+Hitty, and Doctor John, and Doctor Jim,&mdash;and for big, round-faced,
+furry "Mr. Grim," whom she had so tearfully left behind,&mdash;and for Black
+Prince, who, she felt sure, would let no one else ride him in her
+absence,&mdash;and for dear old Debby in her lonely cabin.  She would think
+very tenderly of Amos,&mdash;and then, with a very passion of tenderness, of
+her own little room over the porch, now silent and deserted.  With
+great surges of pathos she would picture Mistress Mehitable going into
+the little room every day, and dusting it a bit, and then sitting down
+by the bed and wishing Barbara would come back.  In such a melting mood
+Barbara would resolve not to be horrid any more, but to send for Robert
+the first thing in the morning, and tell him just how glad she was to
+see him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But when morning came, she would be no more the homesick child, but a
+very gay, petulant, spoiled, and sparkling young woman, her head full
+of excitements and conquests to come.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap25"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXV.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+To her first ball Barbara went in a chair, just five days after her
+arrival in New York.  The method of locomotion appealed greatly to her
+mood; and as the bearers jogged her gently along, she kept her piquant
+face at the window and felt as if she were playing one of the pictures
+of court ladies on their way to St. James's,&mdash;ladies such as she had
+often dreamed over in the London prints.  For this ball, given at the
+Van Griff house, just a few blocks from her own lodgings, she was
+dressed in the very height of the mode, as to all save her hair.  She
+was obstinate in her aversion to the high, elaborate coiffure,&mdash;in her
+adherence to the simple fashion and the single massive curl which she
+had decided upon, after many experiments, as best becoming her face.
+She liked her hair, accounting it her only beauty, and rather than
+disguise it she would let the mode go hang.  For the rest, her attire
+met the severest demands of Uncle Bob, who was even won, at the last,
+to approve what he called her eccentricity in the matter of hair.  He
+decided that her very precise modishness in other respects would prove
+her title to independence in the one respect; and it was with
+unqualified satisfaction that he contemplated the effect she would
+produce on the New York fashionables.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Are you sure I look fit to be seen with you, Uncle Bob?" she had
+inquired, anxiously, the last thing before they set out.  "You are such
+a beau, you dear; and so distinguished-looking!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I shall take no discredit by reason of you, I think!" answered
+Glenowen, dryly.  "Unless, indeed, by reason of the slayings of your
+eyes!  But slay the gallants, slay them, sweetheart!  They be king's
+men, mostly,&mdash;and there'll be so many the less to fight, by and by, for
+the king!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll do what such a homely little brown thing can!" laughed Barbara,
+blithely, an excited thrill in her voice.  But even at the moment her
+heart misgave her, at the thought that, more than likely, Robert was
+one of these same "king's men!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This first ball, at the Van Griffs', was to Barbara a whirl of lights,
+and colours, and flowers, and bowing, promenading, pirouetting forms.
+The spacious rooms and shining floors and smiling faces and stirring
+music intoxicated her.  The variety and brightness of the costumes
+astonished her, the women's dresses being fairly outshone by the strong
+colours of the uniforms worn by the English officers, and by the even
+more dazzling garb affected by the civilians.  Yet if all this
+bewildered her heart, outwardly she was at ease, composed, and ready;
+and Glenowen, across the room, watching her the centre of a group of
+eager gallants,&mdash;fop, officer, and functionary alike clamouring for her
+hand in the dance,&mdash;wondered if this could be the headlong, hard-riding
+little hussy whom he had brought from the wilds of Second Westings.
+The stately belles of Manhattan, beauties serene or beauties gay,
+sisters to the lily or sisters to the poppy and the tulip, eyed with
+critical half-disfavour this wilding rose from the backwoods, agreed
+that she was queer-looking if not ugly, and resented her independence
+in wearing her hair so as to display its beauties to full advantage.
+That she was well gowned and danced well, they were in general fair
+enough to acknowledge; but they could not see why so many men found her
+interesting to talk to.  In a word, she was a success from the start.
+She went home at last, very wide-eyed, tired, triumphant, excited&mdash;and
+disappointed.  She had not seen Robert.  She had just once heard his
+name, spoken casually, as that of one whose absence seemed a thing
+unusual, whose presence seemed a thing to be desired.  She knew that
+she had made an impression.  She knew, even, that she had made herself
+popular, at least with the men.  With her accustomed candour she had
+proclaimed herself a rebel, in response to some jest at the expense of
+Boston, and had settled the score thrice over by her witty jibes at
+King George.  But even in that royalist circle her audacity had done
+her no harm.  The English officers themselves, carried away by her
+brilliance and amused by her daring, were loudest in their applause.
+They not unreasonably agreed in their hearts that it could do the king
+no harm, while it undoubtedly would be a great satisfaction to
+themselves, if they could win some favour in the eyes of this most
+bewildering and provocative little rebel.  Perceiving this, Barbara had
+not spared her shafts; and the most deeply wounded of her victims had
+been the most assiduous of her admirers.  But of all the men who had
+been presented to her, danced with her, paid court to her, of all the
+women whom she had met, favoured, or in clash of glances subtly defied,
+she retained but a bright jumble of unassorted names and faces.  One
+only had gained a foothold in her remembrance.  A certain young officer
+in the colonial militia, one Cary Patten by name, had been presented to
+her by her uncle with particular commendation, as being altogether of
+his own way of thought; and him, for his laughing blue eyes, his frank
+mouth, his broad shoulders, and his boyish swagger, she had liked so
+well that he stood out among her impressions, and she felt it would be
+pleasant to meet him again.  In fact, to his open and immense elation,
+she had told him so.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, mistress mine, how did you like it?" asked Glenowen, as, candle
+in one hand and skirts in the other, she held up her face to be kissed
+good-night.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, I loved it, Uncle Bob!" she answered, with conviction.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, it loved you!" said Uncle Bob.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But as he turned away to his own room, he wondered if Barbara was
+really quite as satisfied as she professed, or whether her failure to
+meet Robert, and include him among the numbers of her slain, had
+clouded at all the splendour of her triumph.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Two evenings later there was another ball, an altogether bigger and
+more imposing function, at the house of the Surveyor-General half a
+mile out of town.  At this, as she was told, every one would be
+present, and therefore, she agreed, Robert would certainly appear.
+With a view to circumstances which might conceivably arise in the event
+of Robert's appearance, she had with great difficulty kept a number of
+dances free, when her admiring cavaliers at the Van Griffs' were
+striving to fill her cards in advance.  If he should fail to
+come,&mdash;well, she had reason to think that she would not be left to
+languish unattended.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Meanwhile, however, she little knew how violently her pretty scheme was
+being brought to nought, she little knew how emphatically Robert was
+being enlightened as to her presence in New York.  She should, indeed,
+have thought that the story of her triumphs at the Van Griffs' would
+reach his ears, for on the day following that event, her maid, a
+garrulous West Indian mulatto whom Glenowen had engaged immediately on
+their arrival, had told her over her toilet that her name was already
+the toast of the finest gentlemen in town.  But somehow it never
+occurred to her that Robert would hear anything.  She thought of him
+only as riding, or paddling a canoe, or sitting at his desk, or going
+to balls and wandering about alone, thinking of her, gravely smiling
+now and then, courteous, and silent.  As a vital factor in this
+glittering life he had never presented himself to her imagination,&mdash;or
+it is possible she might have written to him from Second Westings more
+often than twice or thrice in the year!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The house of the Surveyor-General stood behind its trees far back from
+the road, on a series of terraces set with walks, parterres, trimmed
+hedges, statuary, and secret arbours.  The house was a blaze of light.
+The terraces were lighted with a gay discretion, here shining, there
+enshadowed.  As she drove up with her uncle in the coach, a little
+late, and heard the music and the musical babble of voices, Barbara
+thrilled deliciously, with a prescience that this was to be an eventful
+night.  She was no longer dazzled,&mdash;only strung to the highest tension.
+She realised that all this was her birthright, to be used, played with,
+thrown aside when tired of, but meanwhile enjoyed to the topmost pitch
+of relish,&mdash;hers just as much as the buttercup fields, the thrush-sweet
+orchards, the ancient woods of Connecticut.  She felt herself mistress
+of the situation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, Uncle Bob," she whispered, drawing a quick breath of anticipation,
+as she gave him her hand and stepped daintily from the coach, her
+high-buckled, high-heeled white satin slippers and little white silken
+ankles glimmering for an instant to the ensnaring of the favoured
+eye,&mdash;"oh, Uncle Bob, isn't it lovely?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are, my Barbe!" he answered, peering down with high content upon
+the small disastrous face half-hidden in the hood of her scarlet
+cardinal.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let me tell you, Uncle Bob, you look extremely nice yourself!" she
+responded, squeezing his hand hard.  "I didn't see one other man at Mr.
+Van Griff's so handsome and distinguished-looking as you!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Dear me!" retorted Glenowen, musingly, "what is the baggage going to
+ask me for to-morrow?  Whatever it be, she must have it!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara reached her hostess with difficulty, and was given small time
+for her greetings.  All through her first dance she was so absorbed in
+looking for Robert that she paid scant attention to her partner's
+compliments, though she realised that they contained imcomprehensible
+veiled reference to something which she was supposed to know all about.
+To her partner, one Jerry Waite by name, her ignorance seemed assumed,
+and vastly well assumed; and presently with his growing admiration for
+her cleverness came a dread lest he should transgress, so he
+diplomatically shifted to new ground.  But had she not been quite
+absorbed in her quest, Barbara's most lively curiosity would have been
+awakened by his meaning words.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At last she sat down by a curtained doorway and sent Mr. Waite to get
+her fan, that she might make up her mind as to the advisability of
+inquiring frankly about Robert.  Her scheme was working too slowly for
+her impatient spirit; and, moreover, it was beginning to dawn upon her
+that Robert might not unnaturally feel aggrieved, and perhaps even
+prove difficult and exasperating, if she did not see him soon.  She had
+about concluded to invoke the aid of Uncle Bob,&mdash;with whom she was by
+and by to dance the minuet,&mdash;when a word behind the curtain caught her
+ear.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"La!  Mr. Gault!" cried a pretty, affected, high-pitched voice.  "Who
+thought we should be so favoured as to see you here to-night!  Not
+dancing, surely!  But 'twere less cruel to us poor maids to stay away
+entirely, than to come and let us look and pine in vain.  But you are
+very white,&mdash;sit down by me and tell me all about it.  La, there's
+nothing I so love!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was Robert's voice that answered,&mdash;Robert's voice, but grown deeper,
+stronger, more assured, than as Barbara thought she remembered it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It was nothing at all, dear Miss Betty,&mdash;a mere scratch!" he answered.
+"'Tis but the loss of a little blood makes me paler than ordinary, I
+suppose.  But the doctor said there was no reason in the world I should
+not look in on the gaieties for a minute or two,&mdash;and see what new
+wonder of a gown Miss Betty was wearing,&mdash;provided I gave my word not
+to dance."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara was conscious of the rustle of Miss Betty's flirtatious fan.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"La, sir!" cried the pretty, high voice again, "you make light, of it;
+but they tell me it was very handsome done.  And is it true that poor
+Carberry is in a bad way?  Fie upon you, Mr. Gault, to spit an officer
+of the king and so strengthen the hands of the enemy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara's heart was beating very fast.  So Robert had been fighting a
+duel, had he!  And been wounded,&mdash;but slightly!  And the quarrel with
+an officer of the king!  This looked as if her anxieties were
+unfounded.  But on the other hand, this loquacious girl&mdash;whom Barbara
+despised instantly and honestly&mdash;seemed to claim him as belonging to
+the king's party.  Barbara trembled with excitement, and with fear lest
+her absent escort should come back too soon.  He did come back, at that
+moment; but with a ravishing look that turned his brain she sent off
+again for an ice and a glass of punch.  Meanwhile her alert ears had
+heard Robert replying cheerfully to Miss Betty.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, Carberry will be all right in a week or two," said he.  "'Twould
+much hasten his recovery were one to send him word of Miss Betty's
+solicitude.  A three weeks at most will take him off my conscience and
+the doctor's hands!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Here another voice intervened.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Traitress!" it exclaimed, "I have been seeking you this half-hour!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let me talk to Mr. Gault one moment more, Jack!" pleaded Miss Betty.
+"He was just going to tell me all about it,&mdash;weren't you, Mr. Gault?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not if I know Bob Gault," retorted the voice.  "Nay, nay, dear lady, I
+will yield you not one minute more to Gault, on any pretext.  Shall I
+court disaster by leaving the most fickle as the fairest of her sex to
+the wiles of this pale hero, this wounded champion of dames!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You're right, Jack!" cried Miss Betty.  "I see he's dying with
+impatience to go and find her, and claim a champion's reward!  She's
+here, Mr. Gault.  I saw her but a moment back.  Go wherever you see the
+men a-crowding fiercest!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So Robert had fought for some woman, had he?  He had a tie, then!
+Barbara felt a tightening about her heart, an impulse to rush from the
+room.  Then she said to herself, "What more natural?  What are we but
+the best of friends?  And have I ever been really nice to him?"
+Promptly anger took the place of the unreasonable hurt; and the anger
+made her cool upon the surface, so that she had herself well gathered
+in hand when the curtain was pushed aside, and Robert came
+through&mdash;just at the same moment that her partner came up with the
+punch.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert sprang forward with face transfigured.  But to Barbara's chagrin
+he did not seem at all surprised.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am glad to see you, Robert!" she said, gravely, holding out her hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert bent over it and kissed it in silence, unable, for the moment,
+to find his voice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Are you not glad to see me&mdash;to see an old friend out of the old days?"
+asked Barbara.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have no words to tell you how glad I am, my dear lady!" he answered,
+in a low voice, wishing that Jerry Waite would have sense enough to go
+away, instead of standing there in that idiotic fashion with the punch.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But aren't you <I>surprised</I> to see me, Robert?" Barbara went on,
+forgetful of Mr. Waite and the punch.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I suppose I ought to be surprised, my lady," answered Robert, with
+some bitterness in his tone, "surprised that you have condescended to
+see me at all, in view of the length of time you have been here without
+letting me know!  I learned yesterday of your coming&mdash;after every one
+in town apparently knew of it!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To Jerry Waite the scene was utterly incomprehensible.  Oblivious to
+all good manners, he was staring open-mouthed.  Barbara saw the
+astonishment in his face, quite naturally misunderstood it, and flushed
+angrily.  The pain and wrath which she had by such an effort of will
+crushed down in her heart crept up again stealthily, and began to
+mingle unrecognised with this superficial annoyance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I had thought to surprise you,&mdash;a harmless little play, Robert, to see
+if you would recognise an old, old friend grown up!" she said, in a
+cool voice.  "But since you are so dissatisfied, we had better not talk
+about it.  You may call and see me some day soon, if you like.  I am
+just around the corner, on State Street.  Uncle Bob will give you the
+address.  Will you take me back to my seat, Mr. Waite?  Thank you so
+much for the punch."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert could not believe his ears.  Was he dismissed for the evening?
+The blood began to beat fiercely in his head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But, Barbara," he exclaimed, "aren't you going to give me at least
+<I>one</I> dance?&mdash;  Hold on, Waite, just a minute, will you!&mdash;  You can't
+be engaged for all so early in the evening.  I came at the very first,
+in hopes of catching you and getting several."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara paused.  By this time the thought of that other woman, for whom
+he had fought,&mdash;for whom he was wounded,&mdash;for whom he carried now this
+pallor,&mdash;for whom he had been too impatient to talk to Miss Betty
+behind the curtain,&mdash;the thought of that other woman was gnawing at her
+brain in a way to confuse her judgment.  She was not exactly in love
+with Robert, but she was intensely interested, and in the course of the
+years a sense of proprietorship had grown up.  The idea of another
+woman, with a prior claim, outraged her pride at the same time that it
+wrenched her heart with a sense of irremediable loss.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are not dancing, I understand, Robert," she said, looking coldly
+into his eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert's heart gave an exultant leap.  She knew about the duel, then!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I had thought, my lady," said he, softly, "that you might, under the
+circumstances, consent to forego a dance or two, and talk with me about
+old times."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The circumstances, indeed!  Barbara's eyes blazed in spite of all her
+efforts at self-control.  This was insolence.  Yet she could in no way
+show she recognised it.  For a second or two she held her tongue.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I hear you have been greatly distinguishing yourself, Robert," she
+answered, in a voice of somewhat artificial sweetness, "and have taken
+some hurt in the affair, and really should not be here at all!"  She
+looked at her tablets with hypocritical care.  "You should have found
+me earlier.  I shall not be free to give you a dance for <I>hours</I>
+yet,&mdash;not till quite near the last.  You will probably not be able to
+stay so long!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert grew tenfold whiter than before, and his mouth set itself like
+iron.  She knew,&mdash;it was clear she knew,&mdash;and yet she could act in this
+hopelessly light, cruel, merciless way.  It was inhuman.  Had she no
+spark of womanly tenderness?  He would trouble her no more.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, I shall not stay," he said, quietly.  "Good-night, Mistress Ladd!
+Good-night, Waite!"  He took her outstretched hand so lightly that she
+saw rather than felt that he had taken it; bowed over it, so low that
+he seemed to kiss it, yet did not actually touch it with his lips; then
+nodded civilly to Waite, strode off down the side of the room, through
+the door, and was gone.  Barbara little guessed the many eyes that had
+watched and wondered at the episode.  She imagined that all were quite
+engrossed in the dancing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now please take me to the other room, Mr. Waite!" she commanded.  "I
+fear I was engaged for this very dance, and my partner will think me
+rude!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Waite was in hopeless bewilderment.  He particularly liked and admired
+Robert Gault.  He was silent for a few moments, and then exclaimed with
+seeming irrelevance: "Women do beat me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara looked up at him quickly, as she took her seat.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What do you mean?" she asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I beg your pardon, most fair and inexplicable Mistress Ladd," replied
+Waite, who had been puzzled almost out of his manners, "but,&mdash;if you
+will permit me to say it,&mdash;if this be the fate of your friends, what,
+oh, what must be the fate of your enemies!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't understand you!" said Barbara, haughtily.  "Pray explain
+yourself!"  But just then a young scarlet-coated officer, Nevil Paget,
+came up, claiming the hand of Mistress Ladd; and Jerry Waite, who had
+begun to realise that he was in deep water, hailed the rescue gladly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I shall have the honour to claim you again, gracious mistress," said
+he, "and I shall explain myself then, if you bid me.  Meanwhile, I make
+way for those more fortunate than I."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And now, in her bitterness and disappointment, Barbara flung herself
+heart and soul into the folly.  When the young Englishman started to
+speak of a duel, she shut him up so mercilessly that for five minutes
+he durst not open his mouth.  But she proceeded to flirt and bedazzle
+him, half flouting, half flattering, till in five minutes more he was
+nigh ready to fling all the pedigree of all the Pagets at her small,
+light-dancing feet and beg her to dance upon it her whole life long.
+She danced everything, and between the dances held a court more crowded
+and more devoted than that which had paid her homage at the Van
+Griffs'.  She was deaf to all attempts to lure her out upon the fairy
+terraces, because when she first saw them she had decided that Robert
+should take her out there to tell her what a wonderful surprise she had
+given him.  But the men whom she refused were not driven away by her
+denial.  She mixed bitter and sweet for them all so cunningly that none
+could tell in which of the twain lay the magic that held them thrall.
+And all the while her heart smouldered in her breast like a hot coal in
+the ash.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At length came her minuet with Glenowen; and after it her uncle, who
+thought he detected something feverish in her gaiety, and felt moved to
+cool it a little if he might without damage, asked her if she had seen
+Robert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"For a moment or two," she answered, with an indifference beyond reason.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Glenowen had heard all the story of the duel, and wondered what had
+gone wrong.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why did he go home, sweetheart, so soon after our coming?" he inquired.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did he go home?" she queried, casually.  "You know he was hardly fit
+to be out.  Even heroes can't stand the loss of blood!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What did you do to him, child?" persisted Glenowen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This questioning chafed on Barbara's raw and bleeding nerves.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Robert made himself very disagreeable," she replied, crisply.  "I
+showed that I was disappointed in him, and he seems to have got angry
+and gone home!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Disappointed in him!" exclaimed Glenowen.  Then he hesitated, and went
+on: "Really, Barbara, are you quite human?  Forgive me if I&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara faced him squarely, and he felt, though he could not see, the
+flood of tears pent up behind her shining eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Uncle Bob!" she whispered, in a tense voice, "if you are going to
+criticise, take me home <I>right away</I>.  I can't stand one thing more!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Glenowen knew her better than any one else ever could, and his
+displeasure melted as he caught signal of a distress which he did not
+understand.  Yet he knew better than to be too sympathetic, having more
+than once experienced the perilous relaxing powers of sympathy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, well, sweetheart," he laughed, lightly, "forgive me.  I've no
+doubt it would seem all right if I knew.  And what does it matter to me
+about Bobby Gault, anyhow, so long as my little girl is happy?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She isn't happy, Uncle Bob!  But that isn't <I>your</I> fault, you dear,
+not ever in the world!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As they moved apart from the promenading throng, and paused at an open
+window overlooking the terraces, Barbara's ears, acute as those of the
+furtive kindred in Westings forest, again caught a word that was not
+intended for them.  She saw two painted and tower-headed dames, sitting
+not far from the window, point her out to another who had just taken a
+seat beside them; and she heard the newcomer remark, behind her fan:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That ugly little rebel!  Insult an officer of the king's troops for
+her!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara's face flushed scarlet, and she looked at her uncle.  But he
+had heard nothing,&mdash;and she remembered that her ears were keener than
+those of other people.  The remark, however, puzzled her, and started a
+vague, troublesome misgiving.  Thereafter she found it difficult to
+resume the spontaneous fervour of her gaiety.  Fits of abstraction
+would take her unawares; but her courtiers thought them merely another
+touch of art, effective as they were unexpected.  She was now looking
+forward to the dance with Jerry Waite, and the explanation which he had
+so rashly promised.  She had intended to snub him severely, but when he
+came for her at last he found her altogether gracious.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Would you mind very much if we sat somewhere and talked, instead of
+dancing?" she asked.  And Waite, nothing loth, led her to a seat just
+beyond the long windows,&mdash;nearer to the terrace than any other man had
+succeeded in getting her to go.  This filled him with elation, and he
+was glad, rather than otherwise, that she had refused to go out among
+the walks and arbours.  Here his triumph was visible every moment to
+his disappointed rivals.  He was, of course, like the rest, half
+infatuated with Barbara; but being a sane youth, with a sense of
+humour, he knew the difference between infatuation and half
+infatuation.  He imagined there was more between Barbara and Robert
+than there really was; and he did not hold himself any match for Robert
+in a race for hearts.  Therefore, he was capable of thinking of his own
+prestige.  And to heighten that he had an inspiration.  When, after
+waiting till she could wait no longer, for him to bring up the subject,
+Barbara asked him to give her the promised explanation of his remark,
+he fenced cleverly till the time was close at hand when he knew she
+would be claimed by another partner.  He saw this prospective partner,
+Cary Patten, eyeing her hungrily, ready to swoop down and take
+possession at the first permissible moment.  Then he said: "In very
+truth, fair mistress, the explanation necessitates a long story.  To
+tell you a little would leave me in a worse light than I could endure
+you to behold me in.  The story comes first,&mdash;and then the explanation
+follows with ease!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"When will you explain?  My curiosity has been most artistically
+aroused!" said Barbara, maintaining with an effort her tone of
+sprightly merriment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If I might have the honour of waiting upon you to-morrow, I am bold to
+hope I might succeed in interesting you!" suggested Waite.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You may come in the morning," answered Barbara, promptly.  "Say about
+eleven o'clock."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The delighted Jerry was ceremoniously bowing his gratitude for this
+command, conscious that it would make him the envied of all the
+gallants of Manhattan, when Cary Patten came up and carried Barbara off
+with rather more eagerness than ceremony.  He had been most hard hit of
+all her victims at the Van Griffs' ball, and had experienced deep
+dejection over the rumour which had that day associated her name with
+Robert Gault's.  Robert's early departure from the ball had somewhat
+cheered him, however; and now, with that simplicity, not unlike
+Barbara's own, born of secure family position and careless disregard of
+convention, he determined to find out if the field were open.  He saw
+that Barbara was distinctly friendly to him,&mdash;whether for his own sake
+or for what Glenowen had told her of his sympathies,&mdash;and he trusted to
+his directness to disarm her possible resentment of his questioning.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you will pardon me, gracious lady," he began, after the customary
+interchange of compliment, "I am going to ask you something about our
+friend Gault.  Carberry was accounted till to-day the best sword in the
+colony.  Now he stands second best!  It took uncommon high courage or
+uncommon deep interest in the quarrel, to cross swords with such a
+master,&mdash;but, of course&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara's face changed, and she interrupted him crisply.  His first
+phrases had been interesting enough, but at the words "uncommon deep
+interest in the quarrel," the vision of that unknown woman floated up
+and laughed in her face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am weary of the subject, Captain Patten.  It seems to me it should
+be possible to talk of something else.  If not, let us listen to the
+music, please!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Never before had Cary Patten been so snubbed.  The experience was novel
+to him, and he did not like it.  But he found more than ample
+compensation in the thought that Barbara's words showed no impassioned
+interest in Robert Gault!  If such a fight, and in such a cause, left
+her indifferent, then surely he need have no great fear of Robert as a
+rival.  To be sure, he thought Barbara's indifference a little cruel, a
+little heartless,&mdash;but so much the greater the reward if he could
+awaken heart in this flashing, audacious, irresistible little witch.
+Cary Patten had small knowledge of the feminine heart, being much
+absorbed in his boyish ambitions, his dreams of splendid daring; and he
+had a healthy, well-founded faith in his own powers.  His bright,
+handsome face looked glum for a moment or two; then he laughed frankly
+and cried:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Served me just right, for being so bold, sweet mistress.  I implore
+you forgive me, and be friends!  On bended knee I sue&mdash;to speak
+figuratively.  I dare not do it in fact, you know, else all the men in
+the room would be on their knees about you, which would look singular!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Yes, he was a nice boy, and Barbara not only forgave him, but tried to
+resume her old gaiety for his pleasure.  So far as his pleasure was
+concerned, she succeeded; though older and keener eyes than Cary
+Patten's would have seen that her mirth was forced.  He left her
+feeling that he had made no small progress; and he trod on air in his
+elation because she had promised him no less than three dances at the
+very next ball at which they should meet.  His succeeding partners
+found him tender but absent-minded,&mdash;a combination which they
+interpreted to their advantage or otherwise, according to their
+knowledge of men's hearts.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But as for Barbara's heart, it was now yielding to the strain, and she
+felt that she could keep up the play no longer.  Her anger had given
+out before the need of it, as a stimulant to flirtation, was past.
+Only pain, humiliation, disappointment, remained to her, and she felt
+that if she did not get away at once something would happen.  With all
+the obstinate force of her will she kept a hold upon her imperious
+vivacity, and would hear no appeals when her next partner was bidden to
+fetch her uncle and call her coach.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Take me home, <I>please</I>, Uncle Bob!" she pleaded; and he, after a
+glance into her eyes, yielded comprehendingly.  Her reason for going,
+indeed, he did not comprehend; but her need of going he comprehended
+instantly.  Till the very last moment she kept herself at pitch,
+laughing, sweetly jibing, taunting, provoking, inviting, so that the
+men who insisted on helping Glenowen escort her to her coach felt that
+the glitter had gone from the dance with her departure.  But once safe
+inside the coach, and beyond the lights, she flung herself upon Uncle
+Bob's neck and broke into a storm of sobbing.  She vouchsafed no
+explanation, and the sagacious Glenowen asked no questions; and she
+wept, intermittently, all the way to the high-stooped old Dutch house
+on State Street.  To such a bitter end had come the evening, the
+wondrous evening, of which she had hoped, expected, claimed so much!
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap26"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Barbara slept little, but lay late, and Glenowen was away about
+business ere she appeared.  By the time her caller arrived she was
+fairly herself, only subdued in spirit, sorrowful, and homesick.  She
+had taken pains, however, that her morning toilet should be becoming;
+and Jerry Waite thought her pallor, the shadows about her great grave
+eyes, the wistfulness of her scarlet mouth, even more enchanting than
+her radiance and sparkle of the night before.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This is most gracious of you, fair lady, to let me come so soon!" he
+murmured ecstatically, over the rosy brown tips of her slim fingers.
+"Did the other men but know of it, I should have feared for my life to
+come without a guard!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara smiled faintly, willing to appreciate his flatteries, but in no
+mood for badinage and quip.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nay, sir!" she answered, "do not lay it to my graciousness, which is
+scant to even so charming a gentleman as Mr. Waite, but to my
+curiosity, which I acknowledge to be great and insistent.  Tell me this
+wonderful thing you promised to tell me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jerry Waite assumed an air of mock supplication.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I implore you, dear lady, suffer me for one moment to delude myself
+with the ravishing dream that 'twas for my company, no less than for my
+story, that you permitted me to come.&mdash;  What, no, not for one moment
+the sweet delusion?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara shook her head resolutely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, first deserve favour, before you presume to claim it, sir!" she
+retorted.  "Earn my grace by a story as interesting as you have led me
+to expect.  Then, perhaps, I may like you well enough to let you stay
+awhile, for the sake of your company!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So be it, if so the queen decrees!" said Waite.  "My little story is
+about a duel, of which, as I gathered last night, the fairest
+but&mdash;pardon me&mdash;not always the most gracious of her sex knows a little,
+but not the most interesting details!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have heard too much already of this duel!" interrupted Barbara.  "I
+do not understand how it concerns me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, lady, this impatience of yours!" said Waite, watching her keenly.
+"How can you expect to understand the manner in which it concerns you,
+if you will not let any one tell you the story?  I stand pledged to
+make the story interesting on pain of forfeiting your good will!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well," agreed Barbara, with seeming reluctance.  In very truth she was
+trembling with eagerness for him to go on.  "But, I pray you, be as
+brief as is consistent with justice to your claim as a narrator!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I will be most brief!" said Waite.  "For the merit lies in the story
+itself, not in the fashion of the telling.  Yesterday, a little after
+the noon hour, some half-score gentlemen were gathered by chance in
+Pym's Ordinary, where many of us frequent for the latest bit of gossip.
+There was talk of this, that, and the other, but most of the charms of
+a lady whom we know and reverence&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Who was she?" asked Barbara.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Waite, intent upon his story, paid no heed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The praises, the compliments, the eulogiums," he went on, "that were
+heaped upon this magical name seemed to show that every man was at her
+feet.  All but Carberry.  Captain Carberry is a chill-souled, carping,
+sarcastical fellow, and arrogant withal, by reason of the unmatched
+agility of his blade.  It had pleased him to be displeased by certain
+sweet, if a trifle pungent, sprightlinesses of the lady in question;
+and now his comments ran sharply counter to those of the rest of the
+company.  He did not admire her at all,&mdash;which was, of course, within
+his undoubted rights, however it discredited his taste.  But presently
+his criticisms became a trifle harsher than was fitting; and there was
+a moment of uneasy silence.  Then, clear upon the silence, Gault
+spoke,&mdash;Gault, who had hitherto been listening without a word.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Carberry,' said he, quietly, 'you have said just enough.  One word
+more will be too much!'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Every one held his breath.  There was an ugly look about Gault's
+mouth, and we trembled for him.  He is liked, you know; while Carberry,
+a man ten years older, is feared.  Carberry looked Bob over, with a
+supercilious smile, which meant mischief, as we knew, and then drawled
+slowly:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'I shall say whatever it may please me to say about that damned
+little&mdash;'  But no one was to hear the sentence finished.  We can never
+have our curiosity certainly satisfied as to that word, which just then
+got smashed beyond recognition behind Carberry's teeth.  It was
+probably not so very bad a word, if the truth were known.  Bob was
+taking no risks on that score.  His blow was straight as a bullet; and
+Carberry went sprawling over two chairs and a table.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"When he picked himself up he was quite cool,&mdash;collected and
+businesslike.  That we knew to be his deadly way, and we trembled for
+Bob.  Bob, however, seemed as easy in his mind as Carberry.  The two of
+them, indeed, were so deuced civil you might have thought they were
+arranging to marry each other's sisters.  There was no time lost, you
+may be sure.  Seconds were chosen, terms agreed upon, a doctor sent
+for, and we promptly made up a little pleasure party to the woods.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"As for the fight, dear lady, I spare your gentle soul the details.  It
+lacked just one element of interest to the connoisseur,&mdash;both
+combatants fought in one fashion.  There was no contrast, such as one
+might have expected between a boy of twenty-three and a veteran of
+thirty-six.  At the very first Carberry had attacked with fury,&mdash;but
+when he felt the quality of Bob's wrist he saw it was not a case for
+bluster, and settled down to business.  Both fought smiling, alike
+cool, wary, dangerous, sure of the result.  Where and when Bob learned
+it, we none of us knew.  He is a queer, reticent chap in some ways.
+But learned it he had,&mdash;and I, who like to study faces, saw the tinge
+of surprise in Carberry's face pass to admiration.  His rage was
+forgotten in the exhilaration of his favourite game.  I never again
+expect to see two blades so nicely matched.  The excitement to us
+watchers grew intense, till our knees felt weak.  But they two seemed
+as fresh as when they started.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"At last&mdash;'a touch!" said Carberry,&mdash;and then, by the slight hissing of
+the words between his teeth I realised the strain.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Not at all!' answered Robert,&mdash;and his words, too, came hissingly,
+for all the easy smile upon his lips.  Then both grew white.  And for a
+few minutes there was no change.  And it seemed to us that our eyes
+could follow the blades no longer.  And then&mdash;for the life of me I
+could not see how it happened&mdash;a red stain came on the shoulder of
+Bob's shirt; and in the next second Carberry, letting his sword fall,
+dropped in a heap.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Before we could recover our astonishment, Robert and the doctor
+together were bending over the wounded man, and had his shirt ripped
+open.  'I've got it, eh?' said Carberry, faintly.  'A fair, clean
+thrust, an' served me damn well right!'  And he held out his hand to
+Bob,&mdash;who grasped it with both his, and looked now, all of a sudden,
+like a boy ready to cry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Stuff and nonsense, Captain!' exclaimed the doctor.  'You've not got
+your quietus with <I>this</I> bare bodkin.  You'll be all right, sound as
+ever, in a month, a fortnight maybe!'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Thank God!' cried Robert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'My sentiments exactly!' said Carberry, his voice stronger with the
+knowledge that he was not dying.  'Gault, my compliments, with my best
+apologies!  Great sword, my boy, great&mdash;' and with that he swooned from
+the pain and loss of blood.  And we, very happy that all had ended so
+happily, got him to the coach, and so home.  And the rest, dear
+Mistress Ladd, you know!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A mighty interesting story, I admit!" said Barbara.  "But still I ask,
+of what especial, immediate interest to me?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Waite looked at her curiously.  Was it possible she could be so blind?
+But her wide eyes were innocent of all comprehension.  It suddenly
+occurred to him that, new come to town as she was, she found it
+impossible to imagine <I>her</I> name the theme of tongues.  He began to
+understand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You know the lady," said he, and paused.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, sir, 'tis possible.  I have met many in the few days that I have
+been in New York.  What is her name&mdash;since you seem to hold it an
+important matter."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Her name, dear lady&mdash;her name is one that stirs a thrill of admiring
+homage in all our hearts.  It is&mdash;<I>Mistress Barbara Ladd</I>!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara caught her breath, and her eyes dilated.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What?" she cried, though she had heard quite clearly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Her name is Mistress Barbara Ladd!" repeated Jerry Waite.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, Mr. Waite.  No!  No!  Don't tell me it was on my account that
+Robert fought.  Impossible!  He might have been killed!  And I
+thought&mdash;" but she stopped herself in time, without saying what it was
+she had thought.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Jerry Waite became serious.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It seems to me, dear lady, that your thought, whatever it was, did
+Gault an injustice," said he, gently.  "And that is my explanation.  Am
+I forgiven?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara conquered her distress.  This was the easier&mdash;after the first
+pang of remorse&mdash;because the fact that Robert had not failed her soon
+overtopped in her mind the fact that she had failed Robert.  That
+unknown woman&mdash;the hateful vision vanished in a burst of light.  The
+ache of loss was healed in her heart.  She was reinstated, too, in her
+self-esteem.  New York grew bright again.  Her conquests were once more
+worth while.  Robert should behold them all,&mdash;and be one of them,&mdash;the
+most subjugated of them all.  At last her face grew radiant,&mdash;her eyes
+dancing, her teeth flashing, her mouth the reddest rose, her clear
+brown cheeks softly aflush.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, indeed, Mr. Waite," she cried, holding out her hand.  "It is a
+beautiful story, and wins you a very high place in my regard.  You may
+stay and talk to me till dinner-time, if you like; and then my uncle
+will be glad to have you dine with us!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The first part of the invitation Waite accepted with alacrity, and
+cursed himself bitterly that he had an engagement to prevent him
+staying for dinner.  In the conversation that followed Barbara gained
+him and chained him fast, not as a mad, intoxicated lover, but as one
+of the best and most loyal of her friends.  But the moment he was gone
+she rushed to her scrutoir and in fierce haste scribbled a note.  It
+ran:
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"DEAR ROBERT:&mdash;I did not understand at all.  I thought something quite
+different from the truth.  I have just found out about things.  Please
+come and talk to me till dinner-time, if you like; and then let me tell
+you how perfectly horrid I think myself.
+</P>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+"BARBARA."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+This she sealed with a care that contrasted curiously with the haste
+with which she had written it.  Then she called her maid and sent it
+around to the stately-doorwayed office on Bowling Green.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The answer that came was merely a bunch of dark red roses, with never a
+written word; but Barbara found it quite satisfactory.  To Robert it
+would have seemed superfluous to have said he would come.  Barbara made
+her toilet with especial care, selecting everything with a view to
+making herself look as nearly as possible like the Barbara of the old
+Second Westings days.  As she surveyed herself in the glass, she was
+astonished at the result.  Had she really put the hands of time back
+five years?  As she remembered, she had looked just so on the afternoon
+when Robert came, and found her in the apple-tree reading "Clarissa."
+It was three o'clock already,&mdash;and Robert had been waiting already half
+an hour in the drawing-room below,&mdash;but she took yet a few minutes more
+for a finishing touch.  She basted up a deep tuck in her
+petticoat,&mdash;about half an inch off for each year blotted from her
+calendar,&mdash;and then, with flaming eyes and mouth wreathed in laughter,
+she ran down to receive her guest.  It was the direct obverse of the
+meeting she had planned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did you ride over, Robert?  Or did you come in the canoe?" she asked,
+as if she had but that moment jumped down out of the apple-tree.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Barbara!" he cried, and seized and kissed both hands.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I was beginning to fear that you had forgotten the way to Second
+Westings!" she went on, in gay reproach.  "Why, it is <I>weeks</I> since you
+were over; and the young catbirds in the currant bush have grown their
+wings and flown; and the goldenrod's in flower; and the 'Early
+Harvests' are beginning to turn red on the old apple-tree over by the
+gate; and how will you explain your long absence, sir, to Aunt Hitty,
+and Doctor John, and Doctor Jim, I'd like to know!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert was devouring her with his eyes as she spoke.  "Oh, you do
+indeed look just as you did that day I found you in the apple-tree!" he
+cried, at last.  "So weary long ago,&mdash;yet now, sweet lady, it seems but
+now!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let us play it is but now," laughed Barbara.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," said Robert,&mdash;"but <I>please</I> don't send me right away to Doctor
+Jim, as you did that morning!  I will try not to incur your
+displeasure.  And don't be in such a hurry to get back to 'Clarissa' as
+you were then!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So all the afternoon they talked the language and the themes of Second
+Westings, with the difference that Barbara was all graciousness,
+instead of her old mixture of acid and sweet.  And when Glenowen came
+in to supper he was admitted to the game, and played it with a relish.
+And when, after supper, the three went riding, they took what they
+swore to be the Westings Landing Road,&mdash;though certain of the
+landmarks, as they could not but agree, looked unfamiliar.  Almost they
+persuaded themselves that on their return they might entreat Mistress
+Mehitable to brew them a sack posset.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was not till three days later, when Robert was begging more than his
+share of dances for a ball to be given that night at Government House,
+that Barbara explained&mdash;lightly and laughingly, but in a way that
+suffered Robert to understand&mdash;her quite inadequate reasons for having
+treated him so cavalierly on the evening after his duel.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap27"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+For the next few weeks Barbara enjoyed herself without stint, and found
+New York quite all that she had painted it.  To Robert she now
+vouchsafed sufficient favour to keep him fairly happy and good
+company,&mdash;or, at least, to enable him to make himself good company by
+an effort of will.  Yet she held him on the chilly side of that
+frontier which separates the lover from the comrade.  He was her
+favoured escort, but not so favoured that other admirers could fancy
+themselves warned from the field.  And he was kept restless, tormented,
+jealous.  He was made to feel&mdash;as others were allowed to think&mdash;that
+his primacy in privilege was based solely upon old friendship and
+familiar memories.  But the moment he attempted to crowd aside the new
+friends,&mdash;among whom Cary Patten, Jerry Waite, and young Paget caused
+him especial worry,&mdash;Barbara would seem to forget all their intimacy
+and relegate him to a position somewhat more remote than that of the
+merest acquaintance.  The utmost that he durst claim at any time was a
+certain slight precedence in her train of devoted cavaliers.  She
+danced, rode, flirted, with something so near approaching impartiality
+that she let no moth quite feel itself a fool in scorching its wings at
+her eyes.  Yet no one could presume upon her graciousness; and no one
+but Cary Patten had the temerity to push his suit to the point where
+she was put on the defensive.  Cary Patten was promptly dismissed.  But
+when he as promptly came back on the very first occasion, she had
+forgotten the matter, and remembered only how she liked his honest
+boyishness, his sanguine boldness.  Cary, applying one of those general
+rules which were apt to be so inapplicable in the special case of
+Barbara, decided that not one, nor indeed a dozen, refusals need reduce
+him to despair!  And Barbara, when afterward she came to think of it,
+liked Cary Patten the better because he had not sulked over his defeat.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Meanwhile Barbara was exercising a restraint upon one point, which was
+in flat contradiction to her wonted directness.  She was carefully
+avoiding, in Robert's presence, a discussion of those political
+questions with which the whole country, from Maine to Georgia, was then
+seething.  This was easier than it would have been even a few weeks
+before, for the reason that as the differences grew more deadly society
+grew more cautious about letting them intrude themselves among its
+smooth observances.  Barbara, in fact, had come to fear the inevitable
+discussion with Robert.  She knew he was identified with the Tory
+party, but she did not know how far.  And she feared her own heat of
+partisanship not less than his resolution&mdash;which she called obstinacy.
+So, by tacit consent, she and Robert gave wide berth to the perilous
+theme; till at length their avoidance of it, when it was thrilling on
+the very air they breathed, made it begin to loom all the larger and
+darker between them.  Presently the apprehension that it was an
+impending peril to their relation drove Robert to speak, precipitately,
+on the subject that was bursting his heart night and day.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They had just come in from an afternoon ride, and were alone in the
+drawing-room.  Barbara was in high good humour; and Robert seized the
+moment to ask leave to return that same evening.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm sorry, Robert!  I'd love to have you come," she replied.  "But
+I've promised the evening to Cary Patten.  He wants to bring his fiddle
+and try over some new music with me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert's face darkened.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Cary Patten seems to be here all the time!" he exclaimed, with natural
+exaggeration.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What nonsense!  You know that's not true, Robert.  He's not here
+<I>half</I> as much as you are.  But if he were, what of it?  He's very
+good-looking, and Uncle Bob and I both like him, and, indeed, he's
+<I>much</I> more <I>entertaining</I> than you, Robert!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert walked quickly across the room and back, then seized both her
+slim brown wrists in a grip whose severity she rather liked.  She felt
+that something disturbing was at hand, however, and she braced her wits
+to manage it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Barbara,&mdash;my lady,&mdash;my lady,&mdash;I love you!" he said, very quietly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course, Robert!  I know that," she answered, with composure,
+smiling up at him, and making no effort to free her wrists.  Yet in
+some way her smile checked him, as he was about to crush her in his
+arms.  His breast ached fiercely so to crush her, yet it was impossible.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"With all my heart and soul, my lady," he went on, his voice on the
+dead level of intense emotion, "with every drop of blood in my body, I
+love you, I have loved you, ever since the old child days in Second
+Westings!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That is very dear of you, Robert," she responded, her voice and eyes
+showing nothing but frank pleasure at his words.  "But, of course, I
+have always known that," which was not quite true, though it seemed
+true to her at the moment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He could not tell what there was in this answer to hold him back, or if
+it was the frankness of her eyes that daunted him, but he began to feel
+that, so far from clasping her to his heart and satisfying his lips
+upon her eyes, her hair, her mouth, he had no right even to be holding
+her wrists as he was.  He flung them from him, drew back a step, and
+searched her face with a desperate look.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And you&mdash;you do not love me at all!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara looked thoughtful, regretful.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, Robert, I don't <I>love</I> you&mdash;not in the way you mean.  I'm not in
+love with you, you know.  But I do care a lot for you, more than for
+<I>almost</I> any one else!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They had both forgotten&mdash;for it was weeks away&mdash;how Barbara had felt
+about the imaginary unknown lady.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That "almost" was, to Robert, the end of all things.  He thought at
+once of Cary Patten.  Pain and jealous madness struggled together in
+his breast, strangling him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Good-bye!" he said at last, finding his voice, and turning to the
+door.  "I shall leave to-night!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Robert!" cried Barbara, sharply.  "Come back at once!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He paused near the door, half turned, as if compelled by mere civility,
+but showed no sign of obeying.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come back to me!" she commanded.  And he, being a courteous gentleman,
+obeyed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What is it, lady?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What on earth do you mean by being so crazy?" she demanded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+No answer occurred to him as necessary.  He looked at her inquiringly,
+his face very white, his eyes deep sunken, his lips straight and hard.
+Barbara began to regret that she had not managed in some other way.
+She certainly could not let him go.  Yet she certainly did not love him
+enough to give up her freedom for him,&mdash;to sacrifice all the enchanting
+experience of which she had not yet begun to tire, to dismiss all the
+interesting men, whose homage was so sweet to her young, unsatiated
+vanity.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't you know, Robert," she went on, beguilingly, "that I <I>couldn't
+possibly</I> get along without you?  I don't love you, but I do love you
+to love me, you know.  I couldn't bear to have you go away and forget
+me, and love some other woman,&mdash;some kind, sweet, beautiful woman who
+could love you and make you happy.  I need you to love me.  Though I
+know there is no earthly reason why you should, and I think you are a
+crazy goose to do it, and I believe you only think you do, anyhow!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert stood motionless.  The storm raging up and down within him
+turned him to steel on the surface.  From a dry throat he tried to
+speak clearly and with moderation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You said&mdash;'almost!'  Who is it&mdash;you care more for?&mdash;Cary Patten?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara broke into a clear peal of laughter, and clapped her hands with
+a fine assumption of glee.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, you silly, silly child!" she exclaimed.  "It was Uncle Bob, of
+course, that I was thinking of when I said that.  I love Uncle Bob
+better than any one else in the world,&mdash;<I>far</I> better than I love you,
+Robert, I can tell you that.  But I care for you almost as much as for
+Aunt Hitty.  Cary Patten!  Why, he and these other nice men who are
+making things so pleasant for me, they are just <I>new</I> friends.  I
+<I>like</I> them, that's all.  You are altogether different, you know.  But
+I'm just not in love with you,&mdash;and so you talk of going away and
+spoiling everything for me.  I don't call that loving me, Robert,&mdash;not
+as <I>I</I> would love a girl if I were a man.  But it's not my fault if I'm
+not in love myself, is it?  I'm sorry,&mdash;but I don't believe I <I>can</I>
+love, really, the way you mean!  Cary Patten, indeed!  Why, he's just a
+boy,&mdash;a nice, good-looking, saucy, conceited boy!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Can't you try to love me, Barbara?" pleaded Robert, his wrath all
+gone.  He flung himself down at her feet, and wildly kissed them.  All
+this she permitted smilingly, but the request seemed to her, as it was,
+a very foolish one.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, I can't!" she answered, with decision.  "Trying wouldn't make me.
+And I don't think I want to, anyhow.  I want to enjoy myself here while
+I can.  And I want you to be nice, and help me enjoy myself, and not
+bother me.  Love me just as much as you like, Robert, but don't tell me
+so&mdash;too often!  And don't ask me to love you.  And <I>don't</I> go and be
+lovely to the other girls, and make believe you are not in love with
+me, for that would displease me very much, though I should know it was
+making believe because you were cross at me.  So, don't be horrid!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This seemed to Robert a somewhat one-sided arrangement.  He knew he
+would accept it, yet his honesty compelled him to express his sense of
+its injustice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I certainly would be lovely to the other girls if I wanted to, my
+lady," said he, doggedly.  "The trouble is, I <I>don't</I> want to.  And I
+sha'n't bore myself just for the sake of trying to make you think I
+don't care.  I love you, that's all&mdash;better than anything else in
+heaven or earth.  And I shall make you love me, my lady!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This threat amused Barbara, but did not displease her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Very well, Robert," she answered, with a teasing, alluring look that
+made his heart jump.  "I sha'n't try to prevent you.  I'll even like
+you a little better now, at once, if you will go right away this minute
+and let me dress."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Dress for Cary Patten!" muttered Robert, kissing her hand without
+enthusiasm, and retiring with sombre brow.  That he should go in this
+temper did not please her ladyship at all.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And, Robert!" she cried, when he had just reached the door.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, my lady!" and he came back once more.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You said good-bye as if you were still in a nasty, black temper!"  She
+held out her hand to him again.  This time he kissed it with what she
+considered a more fitting warmth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And, Robert, don't forget that I am <I>very, very</I> good to you, far more
+so than you deserve.  I don't think of telling Cary Patten, or any of
+the others, not to flirt with the other girls.  Cary Patten may be as
+lovely to them as he likes, and I sha'n't mind one bit, so long as it
+does not interfere with his being as attentive as he ought to be to me!
+Now, it is a great honour I do you, Robert, in not letting you flirt."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I appreciate it, my lady," he answered, permitting himself to smile.
+"A great honour, indeed,&mdash;though a superfluous one!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have no objection to that word, 'superfluous,' in that connection,"
+said Barbara, thoughtfully, to herself, as Robert disappeared.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap28"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+After this Robert was careful, and so was permitted to be fairly happy
+when he could keep the fires of jealousy banked down in his heart.
+Once in awhile they would begin to get the better of him; and then,
+after letting Barbara see just a glimpse of the flame, that she might
+not forget it was there, he would leave before she could find him
+troublesome and work it under by hours of furious riding.  He skilfully
+avoided giving her any further excuse for discipline; and was even so
+cunning, at times, as to pique her by his show of self-control.  In
+this way he scored continually over the too confident Cary Patten, who,
+after a week or two of almost daily calls at the old Dutch house on
+State Street, would disappear and not be seen near Barbara for days.
+At such times Robert concluded that Cary had been tempting Providence
+and suffering the usual disaster of those who so presume.  As for Jerry
+Waite, and young Paget, and the rest of the infatuated train, Robert
+thought that Barbara was quite too infernally nice to them all, and
+cursed them all hotly in his heart; but he could not refrain from
+admiring the neat manner in which she held them all in hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Early in the autumn, however, it became still more difficult for
+Barbara and Robert to keep silent on the great questions which they so
+dreaded to discuss.  The First Continental Congress was in session at
+Philadelphia, and its deliberations formed a theme to blister men's
+tongues.  Made up of Tories, Radical Patriots or potential rebels, and
+Moderates, in fairly even proportion, it satisfied neither Barbara nor
+Robert.  The latter, in spite of the fact that its New York delegates
+were of his own party, viewed it with singularly clear eyes, and saw in
+it not merely an instrument for the constitutional redress of just
+grievances,&mdash;wherein it had his sympathy,&mdash;but a forerunner of
+revolt,&mdash;wherein it called forth his passionate reprobation.  To
+Barbara, on the other hand, this Continental Congress, of which she had
+hoped so much, seemed a mean-spirited, paltering, blear-eyed thing,
+incapable of seeing what destiny had written large across the
+continent, or too timorous to acknowledge what it saw.  The strain was
+further increased by matters which touched them both personally.  With
+the news that Connecticut, stirred up by false rumours of a struggle
+with the royal troops in Boston, had thousands of her militia under
+arms, came a letter from Mistress Mehitable, saying that Doctor John
+was among them, in command of a regiment, and that Doctor Jim was
+looking after his patients.  At this tidings Barbara's heart swelled
+with mingled pride and anxiety.  She pictured the heroic figure Doctor
+John would make, in his uniform, about to fight for the cause which she
+held so splendid and so righteous.  At the same time she saw him
+already in the fight, waving his sword amid the smoke and slaughter,
+and she shook with terror for him.  Both Robert and Glenowen were with
+her when the letter came, and as she read it out her voice broke and
+the tears rolled down her cheeks.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Good for John Pigeon!" cried Glenowen, his eyes aglow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then there was a heavy stillness on the air, such as that which
+sometimes portends an earthquake, and neither looked at Robert.
+Robert's face was very grave, but inspiration came to him, and he said
+exactly the right thing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How lonely Doctor Jim and Mistress Mehitable must be!  Second Westings
+must be perfectly desolate!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The danger was averted.  He had dwelt, not upon the point of
+difference, but the point of sympathy; and the difference sank again
+out of sight.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh," murmured Barbara, "I almost feel as if I ought to go back to Aunt
+Hitty!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I know!  But you can't, very well, sweetheart!  For which I am most
+thankful!" said Glenowen, promptly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And Mistress Mehitable has Doctor Jim," said Robert.  "We need you
+more than she does, dearest lady!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With all the country seething as it was, nowhere else, perhaps, save in
+New York, would it have been possible to keep up so long the pretence
+of harmony between opposing factions.  New York was full of
+"Moderates," men no less determined to resist the tyranny of Parliament
+than to retain the supremacy of the Crown.  Extremes were thus held in
+check; and men met in apparent social harmony whose opinions, once put
+in practice, would have hurled them at one another's throats.  But to
+the little company resorting at the old Dutch house on State Street
+there entered now a new element of disruption.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At a dance Barbara had met a slender, dark youth, a student at King's
+College, who had made himself prominent by his radical eloquence at a
+great mass-meeting of the Continental party.  His scholarly breadth of
+thought, combined with almost fanatical zeal, delighted her.  And he
+had the uncommon merit of expressing unforgettably the very views she
+herself had long maintained.  They became too interested in
+conversation to dance; and from that evening Mr. Alexander Hamilton
+came often to Glenowen's lodgings.  He was a mere boy in years, but
+Glenowen felt his power at once,&mdash;and even Robert, who was not
+unnaturally prejudiced, was too honest not to admit that Barbara's
+young Mr. Hamilton was a very remarkable and accomplished youth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Understanding the sharp divergence of opinion in the little circle,
+Hamilton kept a curb upon his tongue save at convenient seasons.  But
+to his eager and convicted spirit this soon became too difficult.  One
+evening, when there were none to hear him but Barbara, Robert, and
+Glenowen, the torrent of his boyish ardour overflowed.  He depicted the
+momentous changes toward which each fateful hour was hurrying them.  He
+declared it was no more than a matter of days ere all America would be
+in the throes of a righteous revolution.  He prophesied the birth of a
+great republic, that should establish Liberty in her New World home,
+and scourge kings, thrones, and tyrannies into the sea.  Glenowen had
+looked at him warningly, but in vain.  Barbara, troubled at first, grew
+suddenly hot and resentful at the thought that Robert should be blind
+to the splendid dream.  She applauded aggressively.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert's brows were knit, but he had no emotion save distress.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I pray you pardon me, dear lady, and you, Mr. Glenowen, if I take my
+departure at once," said he, at the first pause.  "Knowing my
+sentiments as you both do, fully, you will understand that I could not
+in honour stay and listen to such doctrines as these of Mr. Hamilton's
+and not oppose them with all my force."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He bent over Barbara's hand, but she petulantly snatched it away
+without letting him kiss it.  Then, having shaken hands heartily with
+Glenowen, and bowed stiffly to Hamilton, he withdrew in great trouble
+of mind, feeling that now, in truth, had come to an end the truce
+between his honour and his love.  He walked the streets half the night,
+and in the morning, white and dejected, but determined to know the
+worst at once, he went around to State Street at the earliest moment
+permissible after breakfast.  Barbara received him coldly.  But he made
+haste to face the issue.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Surely, dearest lady, you see that I had no alternative but to go!" he
+pleaded.  "I could not quarrel with him, seeing that he was your guest.
+Yet I could not sit and listen to his treason!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think the same treason as he uttered, if treason it be!  And utter
+it, too, when I see fit!" said Barbara.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's different!" said Robert, and paused.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was on Barbara's lips to ask, "How?&mdash;Why?" but she refrained, lest
+she should complicate the discussion.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's different," he repeated, "because you are a woman, and because
+I love you.  But indeed, my lady, I intended no discourtesy to Mr.
+Hamilton.  If discourtesy there were, surely it was his.  I would not
+have attacked what he holds sacred.  Yet my sentiments are not less
+well known than his.  He knew that I was pledged to the king's side."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara bit her lips hard.  This was just what she had taken such pains
+not to know.  Her heart was bitter enough against him for his views
+themselves; it was still more bitter against him now for forcing her to
+confess knowledge of those views.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A little discourtesy, one way or the other, what would that matter?"
+she asked, scornfully.  "There's just one thing that matters to me now,
+Robert.  War is coming.  Have you chosen your side?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My side has chosen me, dear lady!" he answered, sorrowfully.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Listen, Robert," she went on, "I have tried not to know that you hold
+opinions which I hate, and loathe, and despise.  It means everything to
+me, when I say I love my country and hate the enemies of my country.  I
+believe in patriotism."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And I believe, also, in honour and loyalty, oh, my dearest lady!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Your own stupid ideas of honour and loyalty!" cried Barbara, with
+fierce impatience.  "I tell you, Robert, the enemy of my country cannot
+be my friend."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But if I am the enemy of your country, so is Doctor Jim!" protested
+Robert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara flushed with annoyance.  She did not like an unanswerable
+argument.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I love Doctor Jim!" she shot back at him, with cruel implication.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And I love you, Barbara!" answered Robert, also with meaning.  She
+tossed her head scornfully.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"A fig for such love!" she cried.  "Years ago, when you were just a
+boy, and could not have your opinions fixed" ("About the age of your
+Mr. Hamilton!" he interjected, rashly), "I remember asking you, for my
+sake, to teach yourself the right things, Robert, and join our side,
+and be faithful to your own country.  What do you do?  It's not as if
+it were a mere difference of opinion,&mdash;but <I>I</I> am <I>right</I>!  I am with
+all the great and wise of old, who have taught that patriotism is a
+man's highest duty.  Yet what have you done, Robert?  You vow you love
+me!  Indeed!  And you prefer a stupid, far-off, half-crazy tyrant, whom
+you call your king, and whom you have never seen, to your country,
+which has borne and cherished you&mdash;and to me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, Barbara!" cried Robert, desperately.  "What are king or country,
+what are heaven and earth, to me, compared with you?  But what would my
+love be worth to you if, for the sake of my own happiness, I could be a
+rebel and a traitor?  Should I be worthy to love you, despising myself?
+What would you think of me, if I could sell my honour at your bidding!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think our ideas of honour are different, Robert!" retorted Barbara.
+"But I am not going to quarrel with you now.  I am disappointed in you,
+that's all.  And you need not expect that after this we are going to be
+such friends as we have been.  Remember that.  But&mdash;you may come and
+see us sometimes, of course; and I will dance with you sometimes, of
+course&mdash;if you ask me!  Only&mdash;it is all so different!" and she could
+not choke down a little weary sigh.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert was on his knees in an instant, kissing her hands; but she
+repulsed him resolutely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, you have chosen for yourself," she said, not unkindly.  "It hurts
+me, truly.  But I mean what I say!  Now, you must go, for I have much
+to do before dinner.  Good-bye!"
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap29"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Barbara was as good as her word.  From this time forward through that
+portentous fall and disastrous winter, she never let Robert forget that
+the old footing of familiar friendship was no longer his.  She began to
+make a difference, too,&mdash;slight but appreciable,&mdash;toward all the
+declared Tories among her followers.  She was bound to show some
+consistency toward Robert.  And moreover, her fiery and dissatisfied
+heart was growing restless for the breach that all saw coming but all
+strove to postpone.  Oh, she thought, let the cruel line be drawn,&mdash;let
+the make-believe end,&mdash;let us know our friends and enemies apart,&mdash;let
+the suspense be done, be done!  And&mdash;let me get back home to Second
+Westings!
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Meanwhile the half-mad king went on fashioning the hooks that were to
+rend the race in twain,&mdash;and an insensate Parliament lent power to his
+fatal hands,&mdash;and men like Chatham and Burke, Shelburne and Rockingham,
+poured out impassioned eloquence in vain, pleading for justice to the
+colonies.  By mid-winter (the winter of 1775) it was plain to every one
+that the king meant war, if that were the only way to bring the
+colonies to their knees.  Ten thousand troops were ordered to Boston,
+and plans were laid for organising the Indians on the frontiers.  In
+the colonies, though few dared say it, all were making ready for the
+struggle.  On every hand there was drilling of militia and gathering of
+the munitions of war.  Only in New York, as it seemed, things moved as
+usual, and the royal government remained in full force.  As a matter of
+fact, there were practically two governments going on side by side; for
+the various "committees of safety" went about their ominous
+preparations, and the governor well knew it would be unsafe to
+interfere.  The air became so tense with impending storm that people
+seemed to hold their breath, and when they met their eyes questioned,
+"Has it come?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then it came!  And those who had longest and most preparedly waited
+were most shocked.  The bolt that fell was the news of Lexington and
+Concord, of the king's troops,&mdash;disciplined, war-toughened, the bravest
+in the world,&mdash;driven in wild rout before the sharp-shooting colonial
+farmers.  For five days of amazement men waited, expecting the bloody
+vengeance that would come.  But, instead of vengeance, came the word
+that Boston was beleaguered, that Gage with his veteran regiments was
+shut up tight in the city by ill-armed and unorganised countryside
+militia.  Straightway men drew breath again; and the undecided chose
+their side; and masks were thrown away.  Even New York, the prudent,
+the divided, the long politic, proclaimed herself at last, threw off
+the last empty forms of royal authority, and seized all military
+supplies within her borders.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The glittering life, which had been to Barbara so gay an intoxication
+all these months, now burst like a bubble, leaving her to realise how
+hollow it had been.  She had no regret for it, save as a help to
+forgetting regrets.  She was dissatisfied, and wanted Second Westings.
+When, therefore, her uncle came to her, a few days after the news of
+Bunker Hill, with word that he had accepted a commission under General
+Washington, the newly appointed commander-in-chief of the Continental
+forces, she was not greatly surprised or shocked.  She had known all
+along that Glenowen would be at the front.  She had faced all the fear
+of it, and taught herself to think only of the honour.  Now, she turned
+very pale, tried to smile encouragement, but sobbed instead, ran to him
+and held him and kissed him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course, Uncle Bob!  You must, I know.  I will be brave about it, I
+promise I will, and not worry you with any silliness!" she murmured at
+last, finding her voice.  "I wish <I>I</I> were a man, so I could go with
+you!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And a fiery little fighter you would make, sweetheart!" said Glenowen,
+cheerfully.  "But the immediate point is, since you can't go
+a-soldiering with your old uncle, what shall we do with you?  I leave
+within a week for the general's headquarters at Cambridge."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You will take me with you, and leave me at Second Westings, Uncle Bob,
+with Aunt Hitty and Doctor Jim to keep me cheered up while you are
+fighting!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's the best plan, decidedly, Barbe, for more reasons than one," he
+answered, suddenly grave.  "But I don't think you can depend on Doctor
+Jim for very long!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, where is he going?" queried Barbara, anxiously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, you know, he'll <I>choose</I> to go wherever the Royalist volunteers
+may be organising their forces; but if he did not choose, he'd probably
+have no choice.  Our Connecticut folk left many dead on Breed's Hill,
+dear, and the Royalists are beginning to find their homes too hot for
+them.  I'm afraid Doctor Jim will be in peril of rough handling, with
+his hot temper and his fearless tongue!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No one in Second Westings would <I>dare</I> to be rude to Doctor Jim!"
+cried Barbara, indignantly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You don't know what they will do, sweetheart, when they are stirred
+out of their accustomed frame of mind.  Besides, even if the Second
+Westings lads should be mindful of their manners, there are the rougher
+sort from the neighbouring villages to be thought of.  <I>They</I> owe no
+allegiance to a Pigeon, or a Ladd either!  It may be you will find
+yourself a very necessary shield to Mistress Mehitable, even!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I should like to see them try to interfere with Aunt Hitty!" flamed
+Barbara, setting her white teeth and flushing.  "I'd shoot them, if
+they <I>are</I> patriots!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Glenowen nodded approval, but counselled caution.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You may need to be firm, girlie, but you'll need to be careful and
+tactful too, or you may find yourself fighting on the wrong side!" he
+laughed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you really mean to say that our people are beginning to attack the
+Tories, just because they think they ought to stick to old King
+George?" queried Barbara, her thought turning to Robert, whom she had
+not seen or heard of for more than a week.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's inevitable," said Glenowen.  "If we are to fight England, we
+fight the Tories,&mdash;and the Tories with the more bitterness because we
+feel that they ought to be with us.  I've heard ugly talk already of
+tar and feathers for some of our important men here.  And they have
+heard it themselves, and found that business called them urgently
+elsewhere!  Other of our Tory friends are getting up volunteer
+companies,&mdash;a sort of counterblast to our militia battalions.  I hear
+talk, too, of forcibly disarming all our Tories,&mdash;especially on Long
+Island, where they are as thick as hornets!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I suppose that's what Robert is doing&mdash;getting up a company to fight
+against us!  We've not seen him for a week!" said Barbara, with a
+bitterness which her affected indifference failed to disguise.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Exactly that!  He is one of our most dangerous antagonists here!"
+answered Glenowen, sadly.  "He would have been seized days ago, to
+prevent him doing more mischief; but he's so liked, and respected for
+his fairness, by all of our party, that no one cares to take the
+necessary action.  He's the sort of man we want on our side!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He's as pig-headed as King George himself!" cried Barbara, hotly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, he's true to his colours!" said Glenowen.  "Only he can't see that
+he has nailed them to the mast of the wrong ship!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have no patience with him!" muttered Barbara, bitterly, after a
+moment's silence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did you ever have, dearie?" inquired Glenowen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What do you mean, Uncle Bob?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Forgive me, Barbe, if I speak plainly, these being times for plain
+speaking!" said Glenowen.  "Truly, I can't understand a man who loves
+you being other than wax in your hands, you witch,&mdash;if you took the
+trouble to manage him.  That may sound cynical, but I hope not.  It's
+true.  You owe Robert to our cause!  We want him!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara looked down, her face scarlet and her lips quivering.  Then she
+faced her uncle bravely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I begin to fear I want him for myself, as much as for the cause, Uncle
+Bob!" she confessed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's not Cary Patten, then?" asked Glenowen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara smiled enigmatically.  "Cary Patten is extremely charming!" she
+answered.  "But do you know, Uncle Bob, if Robert is still in town?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think," said Glenowen, "I can say with confidence that he will get
+away from the city to-morrow or next day,&mdash;-for friends who love him,
+in our party, will let him know the danger of remaining!  One must make
+such compromises sometimes, if one is a red-blooded human being and not
+a bloodless saint!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Uncle Bob, I'm afraid you will never be a Lucius Junius Brutus!" said
+Barbara.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, thank God!" cried Glenowen, with conviction.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm so glad!" said Barbara, who was very human when she was not all
+woman.  "Brutus was right, I think!  But I've always hated him!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then she turned to her scrutoir and wrote a cool little note to Robert,
+asking him to come in and speak to her a moment the next morning.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At an hour almost unseemly Robert came, of course.  And Barbara was
+gracious to him.  As if there had been no estrangement, she talked
+frankly of Second Westings matters,&mdash;of Doctor John's service in the
+siege of Boston, of Doctor Jim's danger because of his opinions, of
+Mistress Mehitable's need of her presence at Westings House,&mdash;just as
+if they were Robert's concern as well as hers.  The gladness came back
+to Robert's dark face, and for a moment he was forgetting the barrier
+between them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And what are you doing, Robert?  Is it not becoming a little dangerous
+for you in New York now?" she asked, with gentle frankness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am going away to-morrow, dearest lady," he answered, "lest your
+fiery Continentals tie me up!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And I go back to Second Westings next week!  And you were going away
+without seeing me for good-bye?" asked Barbara, reproachfully.  "Is
+this the Robert that used to say he loved me a little?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert looked at her in silence.  "I adore the very ground that your
+foot treads upon!" he said, presently, in a quiet voice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You love me just as much as you used to?" she inquired, almost
+wistfully.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"As much!" he exclaimed, with scorn.  "More and more, every day I
+breathe.  These months that you have treated me so cruelly have been
+hell on earth.  I don't see how I have lived through them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I, too, have not been very happy, Robert!" she acknowledged, softly.
+"I believe I have needed you more than I thought.  Do you know, I
+almost think I might learn to care a great deal&mdash;perhaps all that a
+woman can&mdash;if only, if <I>only</I>, dear Robert, there were not this
+dreadful barrier between us?  Oh, if you knew how I long to have you in
+sympathy with the cause that all my heart is given to,&mdash;to talk it all
+over with you, to hope and plan and look forward with you, in
+comradeship and understanding!  If you knew&mdash;but there, I see by your
+obstinate mouth it is no use.  I might as well pour out my heart
+against a stone wall.  <I>Nothing</I> will soften you!  <I>Nothing</I> will
+convince you!  Love me?  <I>You</I> love me?  You have no heart at all in
+your breast!  Nothing but a priggish theory!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She burst into passionate, disappointed tears, flung herself down on
+the sofa, and buried her face in the cushions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert was in an anguish.  His mouth was drawn and white.  Why should
+<I>he</I> be called upon to face so hideous an alternative?  Why must <I>he</I>
+pay so appalling a price for loyalty, for fidelity, for honour?  What
+was this bourgeois tyrant in England, that the price of loyalty to him
+should be the love of the woman who was dearer than heaven?  Robert
+felt a fierce hatred of the man George of England, who was so unworthy
+of his kingship!  He was mad to throw himself at Barbara's feet, and
+tell her all his life was hers to do as she would with, to offer his
+faith, loyalty, honour, a living sacrifice to her love, and bid her
+send him to fight under whatever flag she called hers!  But&mdash;he held
+the madness in leash.  The tough fibre of his will gave a little, but
+would not break.  The drops stood out on his forehead.  But all he said
+was:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Beloved, beloved, I worship you.  You are all I can dream of
+womanhood.  You are all of life, all of love, all of wonder and beauty
+that the world can show.  There is nothing my soul can ever desire but
+you, you, you, wonderful one!"  And he tried to take her hands from
+under her wet face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Through her sobs, Barbara had listened eagerly for one word that might
+show a yielding.  But there was no such word,&mdash;no sign that he even
+realised that she had been offering her love as the incalculable price
+that should purchase him to the service of his country.  This
+infinitely precious price,&mdash;he spurned it, then!  Angry mortification
+surged over her, mixed with a pain that clutched at her heart.  The
+humiliation of it&mdash;and the loss!  She sat up suddenly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Go, go, go!" she cried, pointing to the door.  "I don't want to ever
+see you again.  I hate you.  I hate you.  Go&mdash;at <I>once</I>!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And then, as Robert made no move, and strove to plead once more, she
+sprang to her feet, darted from the room, and fled up-stairs.  He heard
+her door close sharply,&mdash;like the cutting off of life, it seemed to
+him.  And he went away, walking rather blindly, and fumbling for some
+moments at the hall door before he could find the latch.  That same
+evening he left New York.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was hours before Barbara was herself again, so Glenowen had to dine
+alone.  Late in the afternoon, after having bathed her face back to
+presentability, she dressed to go out for a sharp walk.  When her
+toilet was almost complete, word came up that Cary Patten was in the
+drawing-room.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Now it was at least six weeks since Cary had last attempted to make
+love to her, and in the meantime he had been altogether
+charming,&mdash;attentive, deferential, full of enthusiastic ambition, and
+vastly interesting in his large forecasts of what the thirteen colonies
+would do with independence when they got it.  Barbara, therefore, had
+practically forgotten that he was ever in disgrace, and was unwilling
+to refuse him admittance, little though it suited her mood to see him.
+She went down at once and received him cordially.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Cary was in a mood of triumphant excitement, dashed with romantic
+melancholy.  He looked even straighter, taller, more broad-shouldered
+and high-mettled than usual.  His goldy-brown short hair had a crisper
+curl, his candid blue eyes sparkled with joy and importance.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, I know!  You needn't tell me!" cried Barbara, with hearty
+sympathy.  "Only one thing in the world could make your face shine as
+it does now, Cary!  You are ordered to the front!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You've guessed it, sweet mistress!" he cried, in a voice whose boyish
+exultation would not be kept down.  "My company is one of those chosen
+by the Committee of Safety to go north.  We march <I>to-morrow</I>!  In a
+few days we will be in the field&mdash;we shall be in the thick of it!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, you are so fortunate, Cary!" responded Barbara.  "Think what it
+must be to be just a woman, and have to stay at home gnawing one's
+heart, while others have the glorious joy of fighting for freedom!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Only one thing I need to make me happy as I go, sweet lady!" said he,
+his voice tender, passionate, caressing.  "It is bitter to leave you.
+But I should go thrilling with happiness, to win fame that would make
+you proud, or to die willingly for my country,&mdash;if I might go wearing
+your favour, if I might go as&mdash;" but here he paused.  Barbara's face
+was cold and discouraging.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a moment of strained silence.  Barbara felt a harsh
+resentment at his persistence, and an added anger that it should be
+thrust upon her on this day when her heart was so bitter sore.  "Yet,"
+she was arguing with herself, "the poor boy does love me.  And, unlike
+some others, he is going to fight on the right side, to shed his blood,
+perhaps, for the land of his birth.  Why should I not be a little kind
+to him,&mdash;if he does not ask too much!"  On a sudden generous and
+pitying, if misleading, impulse, she took a ribbon from her throat and
+gave it to him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There, boy," she said, gently, "take that, and don't ever say I was
+not good to you!  May it be a charm to ward off the bullet and the
+steel!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A glad light flashed into the lad's face.  He went down on one knee and
+kissed the hem of her skirt, crying something inarticulately.  Then he
+sprang up and seized her in his arms, and would have kissed her but
+that she wrenched herself free with some violence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How dare you!" she cried, stamping her foot.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Cary looked crestfallen and bewildered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But, Barbara," he protested, blundering in his confusion, "don't you
+love me?  I thought&mdash;why&mdash;this dear ribbon&mdash;" and he held it out to her
+appealingly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara's anger faded on the instant.  She saw that in desiring to be
+kind she had misled him.  She held out her hand to him, and smiled, as
+she said:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, truly, I'm sorry if I seemed rude, Cary.  Forgive me.  But, you
+know, I <I>had</I> to be rather hasty, or you would have kissed me.  And I
+couldn't let you kiss me, Cary, even though you are going to the war!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why not, dear heart?" persisted he.  "Am I not going as your chosen
+cavalier?  Have you not given me your favour?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, no&mdash;at least, not exactly that&mdash;" she stammered.  "I thought you
+<I>knew</I>, Cary, that I don't love you one bit!  I've told you so over and
+over again; and I've sent you away over and over again for bothering me
+about it when I had told you not to!  But I do like you, ever so much.
+And I shall think of you, away fighting bravely&mdash;as I know you
+will&mdash;for our sacred cause.  And so, I gave you the
+ribbon&mdash;because&mdash;because&mdash;you said it would make you a little happier
+if you had something of the sort to take with you!  Oh, please do try
+to understand, Cary!"  And she twisted her hands in distress.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Cary Patten was too much of a boy not to show all the bitterness of his
+overthrow.  He had been lifted up to the crest of triumph, and hurled
+down disastrously.  He had believed, when Barbara gave him her token,
+that the victory, which his confident spirit had never doubted would be
+his at last, had come at this high moment of his career.  He was not
+only desperately hurt, but sorely humbled.  His mind worked rapidly,
+seeking explanations.  One passion after another chased itself over his
+transparent face; till at length Barbara saw his features grow harder
+and more mature than she had ever before seen them, and the poor little
+ribbon was crumpled ruthlessly in his grip.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I understand!" he exclaimed, fiercely, a strident tone in his voice
+which was quite new to her.  "It is that runaway Tory hound, that
+traitor Gault, that&mdash;" and here he choked.  "If he has not already run
+away I shall settle the scoundrel to-night.  I shall&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Silence, sir!" cut in Barbara.  The tone, the look in her face,
+brought the mad boy to his senses like a drenching in cold water.  He
+could have bitten off his tongue for the outburst.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mr. Gault <I>was</I> my friend, and his name is entitled to respect in my
+presence!" she went on. "And he <I>is</I> a <I>gentleman</I>!  Of you I should
+have said the same thing&mdash;a few moments ago!  Give me back my
+ribbon&mdash;what you have left of it, Mr. Patten!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, no! no!  Forgive me!"  Cary was crying, in abject penitence, even
+while she spoke, at the same time thrusting the ribbon into his breast,
+as if he feared that Barbara would take it by force.  "I was crazy mad,
+dear heart.  I didn't know what I was saying.  I take it all back.  It
+was not so.  I know he is a gentleman and a brave man, if he <I>is</I> a
+traitor Tory.  Surely you will forgive me, when you have broken my
+heart&mdash;Barbara."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+While he was speaking Barbara had moved away to the other side of the
+table; but now, so dejected did he look, so humble, so repentant, and
+withal so wholesomely boyish, that her heart softened once more, and
+she came back.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, Cary, I will overlook it, and make allowance, because I see you
+are sorry.  And I am still truly your friend, and will think about you
+when you are away.  And I am sorry I did anything to make you
+misunderstand me, so you <I>must</I> give me back the poor little ribbon
+that did the mischief."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, you surely can't be so cruel as that!" he pleaded.  "I feel it
+would be unlucky to give it back.  Don't kill me, dear.  Let me keep
+the dear ribbon!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara hesitated.  She wanted the ribbon back.  The giving had been
+spoiled for her.  Her impulse was to insist.  But events of late had
+softened her, had given her more comprehension of feelings other than
+her own,&mdash;had made her, indeed, a little less self-centred.  She
+crushed down her vexation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, keep it then, Cary,&mdash;and my friendship with it," she said,
+gravely.  "And to the blessing with which I blessed it for you, I add
+many more,&mdash;that fame may come your way, and danger turn aside.
+Good-bye!"
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap30"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXX.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Barbara felt as if a strange great wind had blown upon New York,
+scattering and changing everything.  Robert was gone,&mdash;when she was
+seeing little of him, and not desiring to see more, she had,
+nevertheless, had a satisfaction in knowing he was within reach.  Now
+Cary Patten was gone, and Jerry Waite was gone, and young Paget was
+gone, and the student enthusiast, young Mr. Hamilton, came no more to
+the old Dutch house on State Street, being engrossed in matters of
+secrecy and import.  And now she herself and Uncle Bob were going.  She
+felt as if that separating wind would inexorably have lifted and borne
+her somewhere, even if the haven of Second Westings had not been open.
+Fate drove indifferently, but left her free to shape her course for
+Westings House and Aunt Hitty, and her own apple-tree down in the back
+garden.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A few days later she was at home.  Glenowen, resting but an hour or
+two, had hastened on to his duties.  Everything seemed to Barbara just
+as when she went away, save that Doctor Jim was graver than of old,
+seeming weighed down with care; and Doctor John's absence left a void
+that ached all the time.  But her little room was just as she had left
+it,&mdash;fresh dusted, and with a few things lying about out of place, as
+she loved to have it.  The dust upon the coverlet where "Mr. Grim"
+slept was there as of old.  "He did not, in fact, sleep there once
+during all your absence, dear," declared Mistress Mehitable, "till the
+very night before your return, when he forsook me and stalked back to
+his old place.  Then I knew that you'd be here the next day, and we
+were very happy together; and I gave him clear cream for his breakfast,
+and made him very sick!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Within three days the old life had taken Barbara back at every point,
+and she felt as if she had awakened from a brilliant but oppressive
+dream.  Of course it was interesting telling it all&mdash;or not quite
+all&mdash;to every one; to every one the truth, yet not to each the same
+story.  There was one emphasis for Aunt Hitty and Doctor Jim, one for
+the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer, one for Mercy Chapman, and one much more
+vivid and enlightening for old Debby.  But even as she told it, it
+began to seem unreal to herself.  And soon she grew unwilling to talk
+of it at all.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As the bright Connecticut summer slipped by, Barbara could not but
+notice a change of temper among the villagers of Second Westings.  To
+herself they were as civil, as deferential as ever, but, she thought,
+with a little difference.  Half a dozen families had representatives in
+the army besieging Boston, and two of the village homes were in
+mourning.  When she was walking with Doctor Jim she noticed the
+sullenness with which his hearty, kindly greetings were returned,&mdash;a
+sullenness which Doctor Jim never allowed himself to observe.  Then
+there was difficulty in getting extra help when special needs arose at
+Westings House.  The people were unwilling to work for Mistress
+Mehitable.  They positively refused to work with Amos, who had to give
+up his innocently convivial evenings at the tavern and remain sulking
+in the kitchen, abused and scorned by Abby because he was always in her
+way.  In September, when Congress despatched the army of the north to
+conquer Canada, seven more men went from Second Westings, and
+enthusiasm grew.  With news of the capture of Montreal came word also
+that two of the Second Westings men had fallen in the battle.  Then
+feelings grew hot.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One morning, when Barbara was visiting Mercy Chapman's mother,&mdash;now a
+bedridden invalid,&mdash;she looked out of the window and saw Mistress
+Mehitable coming down the street.  As she passed his office, she was
+joined by Doctor Jim, and the two strolled together toward Squire
+Gillig's store.  Suddenly she saw Doctor Jim leave Mistress Mehitable's
+side, and stride angrily toward the tavern.  She ran out at once to see
+what was the matter.  What she saw set her speeding after Doctor Jim in
+breathless indignation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Amos, his arms tied behind him, was struggling and kicking in the hands
+of a dozen men and youths, several of whom had bloody noses to prove
+that Amos had stood to his colours.  Now they were hurrying him to the
+cooper shop.&mdash;where they knew there was a barrel of pitch,&mdash;amid cries
+of "Ride the sneaking Tory on a rail," "Tar and feather him," "Duck
+him," "Hang him."  All at once they were confronted by the tall bulk of
+Doctor Jim; and they stopped short.  The old habit of deference was
+strong upon them, and several drew away, while others, though they
+doggedly maintained their grip on the furious and unterrified Amos,
+dropped their eyes and hung their heads when Doctor Jim's angry gaze
+fell upon them.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hands off!  Drop that man!  You cowardly bullies, a dozen against one!
+Drop him, do you hear?"  And without waiting for the effect of his
+words he strode into the mob, flung the fringes of it to this side and
+that with no gentle hand, and reached those who had actual hold upon
+the prisoner.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When he found that they were standing their ground, daring to disobey
+his orders, his wrath was tremendous.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You scoundrels!  You dirty scum of the earth!" he roared.  And with
+that he plucked the nearest fellow by the scruff of the neck and the
+seat of his breeches and flung him into the gutter.  To the next he
+gave an open-handed buffet that sent him reeling from the męlée.
+Ignoring the rest, he was proceeding to unpinion Amos, when the leader
+of the mob, a big blacksmith from Westings Centre, who was a famous
+demagogue, confronted him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Look a-here, Doctor Pigeon," he said, defiantly, "we're lettin' <I>you</I>
+be, leastways for the present!  You let us be, an' jest mind yer own
+business.  Hands off yerself!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Doctor Jim, apparently, never heard him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The blacksmith therefore seized Amos by the waist and jerked him from
+Doctor Jim's grasp.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Look a-here, you!" he shouted, squaring off.  "You've got to fight me
+afore you untie that man!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Fight him!  Doctor Jim gave an inarticulate roar of scorn and fury at
+the idea.  Then his great white hands shot out like lightning.  One
+seized the champion's throat; the other laid terrible hold upon his
+waistband, with just so much of clothing and skin and flesh as those
+iron fingers could compass.  One huge, dislocating shake and the
+champion had no more fight in him.  Doctor Jim lifted his demoralised
+opponent bodily, carried him several paces, and dropped him over the
+horse trough into the dirty, deep-trodden mud.  Then, seeing that Amos
+had got himself free, he strode back to where Mistress Mehitable was
+waiting, his heavy eyebrows still working with indignation.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara, whom he had not seen, now had a word to say to the discomfited
+rabble, who one and all knew her views and admired her prodigiously.
+She eyed them for half a minute with slow, eviscerating scorn.  Then
+she said: "<I>You</I> call yourselves patriots!  You make me ashamed of the
+name.  If all Americans were like you they'd deserve freedom, wouldn't
+they?  And what is that ruffian doing here?" pointing to the
+bedraggled, discredited, foaming blacksmith.  "Must you go to Westings
+Centre for a leader?  You had better send him back where he belongs!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You'd better shet your mouth, miss," sputtered the champion, "or you
+may git&mdash;" but at this moment the men of Second Westings, recovering
+their manhood, fell upon him with great unanimity and completed the
+discipline which Doctor Jim had left unfinished.  And Barbara walked
+away with her head in the air.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After this Mistress Mehitable, who was herself, and for herself,
+absolutely fearless behind her quiet blue eyes, yielded to Doctor Jim's
+persuasions and let it be known that Barbara, being her heir, was
+partly in authority at Westings House.  Whenever extra help was needed,
+therefore, Amos was sent down to Doctor Jim's and Barbara hired her
+helpers in her own name.  To her employ the Second Westings men came
+willingly enough, and showed themselves humourously tolerant of Abby's
+caustic tongue, which was given full run whenever they entered the
+kitchen.  And the village settled back gradually into a hollow
+imitation of its ancient somnolence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the winter, however, not long after Christmas, there was another
+stirring of the hot embers.  Word came of Montgomery's death and
+Arnold's repulse before the walls of Quebec.  There were men of
+Connecticut among those who fell that night in the northern snow.
+Those at home required an outlet for their feelings.  What were the
+Tories for, if not to afford them a chance of evening matters up?  A
+rabble of the worser elements from the up-river villages, led by some
+noisy fanatics, descended upon Gault House by night, and set it on fire.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Finding old Lady Gault ill in bed, they somewhat regretted their haste,
+and carried her, bed and all, with as much of her clothing as they
+could conveniently save, to the house of one of the tenants on the
+grounds.  The leaders apologised to her, indeed, assuring her that, had
+they known it would so inconvenience her to have her house burnt down
+just then, they would have turned their avenging attention elsewhere
+for that night and awaited her recovery.  The fiery and arrogant old
+lady was so overwhelmed with helpless rage, less at the destruction of
+the home of the Gaults with all its treasures than at the desecration
+she had suffered, that she was seized next morning with an apoplexy and
+died in an hour.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This news brought consternation to Westings House.  Doctor Jim came up
+to talk it over.  He was too much enraged to find relief in one of his
+customary large ebullitions.  It reduced him to a black silence, which
+Barbara found much more impressive than his wrath.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I feel that you ought to go away, Jim," said Mistress Mehitable, with
+a tenderness that made Barbara eye them both sharply, and think of
+Doctor John.  "These townships are no place for a reckless partisan
+like you!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There is just one reason why you might urge me to go, sweet mistress!"
+said he.  "Lest I be prisoned here, and so lose the chance to fight for
+the king!  But my place is here till John comes back.  You and Barbara
+cannot be left alone.  And the sick folks,&mdash;I cannot desert them.  But
+when John comes&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If it be not then too late!  Oh, think, Jim!  Every hour now that you
+stay here carries the menace of some ignominious violence!  How can I
+stand it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My place is here, at present, most dear lady!" answered Doctor Jim,
+with a positiveness that left no room for argument.  "But I think the
+men of Second Westings would not quite fail Jim Pigeon, even though
+they do curse him behind his back for a Tory!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The destruction of Gault House and the death of Lady Gault filled
+Barbara's heart with pity and tenderness toward Robert.  It oppressed
+her with a feeling that he was left desolate, a homeless and wandering
+outcast.  She wondered where and when the news would reach him,&mdash;being
+such evil news she felt sure it would journey fast.  No word or rumour
+had she heard of him since that day of their harsh parting in the old
+Dutch house on State Street.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A few days later she heard from Glenowen, who was now in command of one
+of the regiments besieging Boston, that Cary Patten, after covering
+himself with glory by his wild daring and desperate exploits, had
+fallen with Montgomery before the walls of Quebec.  This news sent
+Barbara to her room for the afternoon.  Besides her many tears for the
+gallant boy, who had loved her gallantly and truly, she could not for
+the moment rid herself of a vague remorse.  Had she been quite fair to
+him?  Had she encouraged him even while repelling him?  At first she
+called herself guilty.  But after some hours of this self-reproach she
+came to a clearer view, and saw that it was sentimental weakness to
+accuse herself.  Her grief on his account, however, was deep and
+sincere.  "Poor, beautiful, brave boy!" she sighed, at last.  "How
+little good to him were my token and my blessings!  I fear I am a
+curse, and not a blessing, to any one who greatly cares for me!"  Then
+the thought flashed across her&mdash;"If it were Robert, instead of poor
+Cary!  How do I know that Robert, too, has not been&mdash;" and at the
+thought her heart stood still.  A sort of numbness came over her, and
+she found herself shaking violently.  She had been lying with her face
+in the pillow, but now she sat up sharply, brushed the thick, dark
+locks back from her eyes, went over to the dressing-table, lit two
+candles, and looked at her white, frightened face in the glass.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I didn't know I cared&mdash;like that!" she said to herself, at last.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap31"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+In the spring, a little before the fall of Boston, Doctor John came
+home.  Second Westings learned then for the first time what he had so
+studiously and considerately kept concealed,&mdash;the fact that he had been
+wounded in a skirmish two months before.  As soon as he was well enough
+for the journey, he had been ordered home.  He looked gaunt, and walked
+with some difficulty, but otherwise seemed fairly well; and he made
+haste to take back his old patients, with many expressions of amazement
+that they had not died off under Jim Pigeon's treatment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His coming brought new cheer to Westings House; and to Barbara,
+reassured by his explicit accounts of her uncle's abounding health, it
+meant such stimulus and diversion as was to be had of endless,
+sympathetic talks.  The little group of four were as close to one
+another as of old,&mdash;yet with a difference.  The love and trust were as
+of old, but the dividing of hopes and aims threw Barbara more and more
+with Doctor John, Mistress Mehitable more and more with Doctor Jim.
+This seemed perfectly natural,&mdash;yet it soon began to cause a certain
+heaviness on Doctor John's part, which made his whimsical sallies grow
+infrequent.  It caused, at the same time, a certain uneasiness on the
+part of Doctor Jim; and Mistress Mehitable was seen more than once with
+tears in her eyes, when, as it seemed to Barbara, there was no very
+definite reason for the phenomenon.  And all these symptoms troubled
+Barbara.  She grew more than commonly tender of Doctor John.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One day when she and Doctor John and Doctor Jim had strolled down to
+the tavern to see the Hartford coach come in, they found a knot of
+eager listeners gathered about two horsemen who were drinking a pot of
+ale.  As the little party approached, its members were pointed out, and
+the horsemen turned to look at them with sharp interest.  The two came
+from up the river, in the next county, and were on their way to join
+the Connecticut battalions under Putnam.  They were bitter partisans,
+and one of them had lost a brother in the fighting at Quebec.  To them
+it was of little account that Doctor John was a good rebel,&mdash;such, in
+their eyes, all good men were bound to be.  And they did not appreciate
+the fact that he was an officer in the army they were about to join.
+What they saw was simply Doctor Jim, the declared Tory, shameless and
+unafraid.  They eyed him with growing menace, uncertain, by reason of
+the fact that he was walking between Barbara and Doctor John, just what
+they wanted to do.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Presently Doctor Jim swung away by himself to speak to a lad whose
+mother he was treating.  He was giving some little order, when the two
+horsemen, riding up to him, thrust him against the icy watering-trough
+so unexpectedly that he fell over it.  Bewildered, and not
+understanding that he had been deliberately attacked, he was picking
+himself up in a sputter of vexation, when one of the riders, a
+fierce-eyed, burly fanatic, reached over the trough and cut at him
+viciously with his riding-whip, exclaiming, "Take that, you damned Tory
+dog!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The blow missed Doctor Jim's head, but fell smartly across his
+shoulders.  The next moment a great hand seized the rider, tore him
+from his seat, jammed him furiously against his horse's rump, and
+dashed him down upon the dirty snow.  Then Doctor John turned to deal
+likewise with the second culprit.  But he had forgotten his wound.  He
+grew white, reeled, and would have fallen, but that two of the Second
+Westings men sprang to his aid and held him up.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the stroke of the whip fell on his shoulders, Doctor Jim had
+understood.  With one of his wordless explosive roars he had sprung
+right over the trough to take Homeric vengeance.  But when he saw
+Doctor John he forgot all about vengeance, he forgot all about the
+attack.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What is it, John?" he cried, picking him up as if the huge frame were
+a feather, and carrying him to the settee outside the inn door.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nothing, Jim, nothing!  The old wound, you know, and the heart not yet
+just right," muttered Doctor John, recovering quickly, but leaning on
+his brother's shoulder.  Barbara, meanwhile, had run to fetch brandy,
+which she now brought, along with the landlord.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The two horsemen had had their wrath for the moment diverted by the
+sudden turn of events.  But now&mdash;the fellow who had been so mauled in
+Doctor John's grip having remounted, bursting with rage&mdash;they thought
+it time to return to the attack, and made an effort to push through the
+little crowd.  Failing in this, they cursed Doctor Jim with varied
+vigour, and told him what they intended to do when they could get at
+him.  In their righteous wrath they failed to notice that they were not
+making themselves popular with the crowd.  Neither Doctor Jim nor
+Barbara paid the slightest attention to their curses, not seeming to
+hear them; but Doctor John attended.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lads!" he said, lifting his head with difficulty.  "Lads of Second
+Westings!  Shall we let these insolent scoundrels talk to us that way?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, sir!  No, sir!  No, sir!" shouted a dozen voices,&mdash;whereupon
+Barbara turned and beamed upon them unutterable favour.  The landlord,
+with several other stout fellows, seized the strangers' bridles and
+forced the horses back toward the road.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ye'd better be gettin' on!" admonished mine host, grinning but
+decisive.  "Ye don't rightly understand us here, I calculate!  Better
+get on now, for convenience!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The horsemen seemed to have forgotten their wrath in their astonishment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Are you all Tories, too?" they found voice to demand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We're as good patriots as ever you be!" rejoined mine host, crisply.
+"But if we've got any Tories among us they're our own, and we'll see
+about 'em ourselves, our own way.  Now clear out!"  And he hit the nigh
+horse a smart slap on the rump, making him bound forward.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+By this time the leader and spokesman of the twain had recovered his
+full head of anger.  He had no quixotic notion of undertaking to
+discipline Second Westings village.  But he conceived a very clear
+purpose.  Reining his excited horse down violently, he shook his fist
+at the crowd, and shouted:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you choose to harbour a dirty Tory, there be men and patriots in
+the other townships who'll come right soon an' teach you yer duty!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, you clear out!" jeered the Second Westings men.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+That evening, at Westings House, while the beginnings of a bleak March
+wind storm blustered and whimpered outside, Mistress Mehitable brewed a
+hot posset of uncommonly cheering quality.  The cheer was needed; for
+all felt that a crisis of some sort, or some grave change, was at hand.
+Doctor John, who had quite recovered, tried in vain to make his fooling
+sound spontaneous.  The grave eyes of Destiny would persist in looking
+out through the jester's-mask.  At length Doctor Jim exclaimed,
+abruptly:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I must go, now!  I must take Amos and slip away in the night, and go
+wherever men are gathering to fight for the king.  I'm not needed here
+now, John, since you are back to take care of Mehitable and Barbara!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was what all had been waiting for, but it came with a shock&mdash;the
+shock of conviction, not of surprise&mdash;to all.  Mistress Mehitable
+turned ghost pale, and unconsciously her hand went to her heart.
+Doctor John noticed the action, with sad eyes that belied the humour of
+his mouth.  Barbara sprang up, rushed over to Doctor Jim, and flung her
+arms around his neck.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Please</I> don't go, Doctor Jim!" she pleaded.  "This is the place for
+you.  And here we all love you so we don't care <I>what</I> side you're on.
+And as for going to fight for your side,&mdash;of course, you want to, we
+all know that,&mdash;but you <I>never</I> can get through to the coast.  You can
+never get through our people.  No, you can't, Doctor Jim!  You must
+stay here with us.  Help me hold him, Aunt Hitty!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Jim," said Doctor John, his voice trembling with earnestness, "I
+appeal to you to stay.  Don't break our hearts by going.  Stay for our
+sakes.  I know, brother, how you feel,&mdash;and believing as you do, I
+don't blame you,&mdash;I'll never blame you.  But <I>Barbara is right</I>.  <I>You
+can't get through</I>.  You can stay with a clear conscience!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mistress Mehitable, since becoming assured of the attitude of the
+Second Westings men, had lost all her dread of having him stay, and
+gained a quivering fear of having him go.  Forgetful of all else, she
+now laid her slim hand on his, looked at him with her whole soul in her
+eyes, and said:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Must</I> you?  Oh, Jim, are you so sure you ought to go?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A faint spasm passed over Doctor John's face&mdash;Barbara alone observing
+it&mdash;and seemed to leave it older and sterner.  He opened his mouth to
+speak, but Doctor Jim was ahead of him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, I know my duty.  If a man sees it, he's got to do it,&mdash;eh, what,
+dearest lady in the world?  I wish I didn't see it so plain.  Then I
+might stay here with you all, you whom I love.  But I see my duty, to
+fight for the king, just as plain as you saw yours, John, to fight for
+your damned old Congress!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm not going to fight any more!" interrupted Doctor John, speciously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Doctor Jim laughed, tenderly derisive.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, but you're sending, and equipping, and supporting two able-bodied
+substitutes, aren't you?  But another point is, my Barbara,&mdash;by staying
+I should bring disaster on you all.  The good folk of Second
+Westings&mdash;and they <I>are</I> good folk, though rebels, alas!&mdash;will never
+stand by and see the Ladds and Pigeons, whatever their views, molested
+by an outside world.  When your fiery patriots from up the river come
+to ride me on a rail, Second Westings will stand in the way and get its
+honest head broken.  <I>You</I> wouldn't do it, John Pigeon!  You'd cut off
+your head, before you'd let the poor souls get their heads broken for
+you in a cause that they believe all wrong.  I'd be a coward to let
+them, John.  Would you ask me to be a coward?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wouldn't be much use asking," growled Doctor John.  "But you're all
+wrong, as usual, Jim!"  Then he turned suddenly to Mistress Mehitable,
+with a meaning look.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You speak, Mehitable!  You <I>make</I> him stay.  Demand it of him&mdash;as your
+right!  Keep him!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Doctor Jim searched his brother's face, first with terrible question,
+then with the growing light of a great joy.  Barbara watched
+breathless, forgetful of the fate of dynasties.  Here, she felt, were
+problems that had held long lives in doubt, now working to instant
+solution.  Mistress Mehitable turned scarlet, and she, too, questioned
+the sombre, tender eyes of Doctor John.  But she said, quite simply:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm afraid, John, if he thinks he ought to go he'll go.  But I do ask
+you to stay, Jim."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"<I>Don't</I>, Mehitable!" groaned Doctor Jim.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There, what did I tell you, John?" she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But now certain things, uncertain all his life till now, were quite
+clear to Doctor John.  Slowly, as if it hurt him, he got up.  He went
+over to where Mehitable was sitting, quite close to Doctor Jim.  He
+laid a hand on each, caressingly,&mdash;and to Mehitable that touch,
+suddenly grown bold and firm, was a renunciation.  He had never touched
+her that way before.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is all right, Jim!  It is all right, Mehitable!" said he, in a very
+low but quite steady voice.  "I never was sure till now,&mdash;but I ought
+to have understood,&mdash;for I see now it was always <I>yours</I>, Jim.  Forgive
+me, brother.  I ought not to have stood in the way."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"John!" cried Doctor Jim, catching the caressing hand in a fervent
+clasp.  "God bless you!  But&mdash;on my honour I have never said a word!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I know, Jim, I know.  We've always played fair to each other.  But now
+you can speak.  And now,&mdash;you don't need to speak, either of you.  Your
+faces speak plain enough, to the eyes of one who loves you both!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is it true, Mehitable?  After all these years that I've kept
+silence,&mdash;oh, is it true?" asked Doctor Jim, scarcely above a whisper,
+reaching out his hands to her longingly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For one instant she laid hers in his.  Then she withdrew them quickly,
+seized Doctor John's hand in both of hers, laid her cheek against it,
+and burst into tears.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, John, dear John," she sobbed.  "How can I bear that you should be
+unhappy?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Doctor John blinked, and made a little noise in his throat.  Then, with
+a brave levity, he exclaimed:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Tut!  Tut!  Don't you worry about me, either of you, now.  As for you,
+Jim Pigeon, you Tory scoundrel, I'm getting the best of you, after all.
+For I stay right here and take care of her, Lord knows how long, while
+you go off, Lord knows where, and get yourself poked full of holes for
+your old King George&mdash;  Eh, what, baggage? as Jim would say!"  And he
+turned unexpectedly toward Barbara, who had been standing by the
+window, and peering diligently out into the blackness for the past ten
+minutes,&mdash;and surreptitiously wiping her eyes as well as her nose.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, indeed you <I>do</I> get the best of the bargain," she cheerfully and
+mendaciously agreed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Two days later, in the dark before moonrise, Doctor Jim and Amos
+slipped away on horseback by the road to Westings Landing.  And Doctor
+John went with them as far as the Landing, to put them into trusty
+hands for their night voyage down the river.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap32"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+A few days after Doctor Jim's going, came the news that Washington had
+entered Boston, the troops of the king having given up the defence and
+sailed away to Halifax.  Soon afterward there was bustle in Second
+Westings, and camp talk, and military swagger; for a portion of the
+army was moving down to New York, and many men had leave to visit their
+homes in passing; and some, who had enlisted for a short service, had
+come home to get in the crops before reënlisting; and some, grudging
+souls, had come home to stay, saying that it was now the time for
+others to sweat and bleed for their country.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Amid all this excitement, which had some effect even upon Mistress
+Mehitable, antagonistic though she was to it, the palely brilliant
+Connecticut spring rushed over the land with promise.  Never before, it
+seemed, did the vanguards of the song-sparrows and thrushes so crowd
+the blowing thickets with melody; never before the bright hordes of the
+dandelions so suddenly and so goldenly over-flood the meadows.  But to
+Barbara the iridescent glory was somehow more sad than gloom.  The fact
+that her cause was everywhere prospering, that success had fallen to
+the Continental arms beyond anything that she had dared to hope,
+brought her no elation.  She felt the sorrow that had come into Doctor
+John's life in spite of the big, whimsical gaiety with which he kept it
+covered up.  She felt the fierce tugging at Mistress Mehitable's
+heart-strings, though that thoroughbred little lady never revealed,
+save by the dark eye-shadows of sleepless nights, the pangs it cost her
+to be deprived in a day of the lover whom she had been half a lifetime
+in finding out.  Barbara felt, too, the absence of Doctor Jim, who
+seemed to her so big and boyish and reckless and unfit to take care of
+himself that he could not fail to get into trouble if not kept at home
+and mothered by small women like herself and Aunt Hitty.  And most of
+all she felt the crushing uncertainty as to Robert.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When summer was approaching high tide, Second Westings grew quiet
+again, the soldiers being all called back to their colours to make
+ready the defences of New York.  Then, by hard-riding express
+messengers, the tidings flew over the country that Congress at
+Philadelphia, on the fourth day of July, had declared independence, and
+set up a republic to be known as the "United States of America."
+Second Westings went wild with enthusiasm, and that night there was a
+terrific consumption of old tar barrels and dry brush.  And there was a
+select little dinner at Squire Gillig's, to which Barbara and Doctor
+John felt in duty bound to go,&mdash;and from which Mistress Mehitable, with
+an equal devotion to duty, stayed away.  She had taken the news
+gracefully enough, however, merely suggesting to Barbara and Doctor
+John that possibly all the rejoicing might turn out to be a little
+premature.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thereafter it seemed to Barbara that events moved furiously, one piece
+of vital news following close upon the heels of its predecessor.  Early
+in August came word that a great English army for the capture of New
+York was landing at Staten Island.  Then, the first tidings of
+Robert,&mdash;reaching Barbara in a letter from her uncle, whose regiment
+was holding Brooklyn.  Glenowen wrote that from certain neutrals,
+country-folk of Long Island, who had no party but their cabbage-patch,
+he had learned of both Robert Gault and Doctor Jim.  Doctor Jim, as
+representing one of the oldest and most distinguished families of
+Connecticut, and himself widely known, had been attached to the staff
+of the English general, Sir William Howe, while Robert Gault, with the
+rank of captain, was in command of a troop of irregular Loyalist Horse.
+With the unspeakable relief that these tidings brought her, Barbara
+regained for a few days her old vivacity, imperiousness, and daring.
+She tore about the country wildly as of old, on horseback,&mdash;no longer,
+as a rule, on Black Prince, who had grown too sedate to fully fall in
+with her caprices, but on a fiery young sorrel which she had bought for
+herself, choosing it partly for its own qualities, and partly for its
+resemblance to Robert's old Narragansett pacer.  She resumed her
+canoeing on the lake.  She sang again her old plantation songs, to
+Doctor John's accompaniment and Mistress Mehitable's diversion.  She
+put a new and gayer ribbon on the neck of the furry "Mr. Grim."  She
+even remembered that the bergamot was in flower, and set herself with
+interest to the distilling of her half-forgotten "Water of Maryland
+Memories," laughing indulgently the while at the girlishly sentimental
+name of it.  Meantime she was conscious of a curiously divided interest
+in the war,&mdash;conscious that her interest was divided in a fashion that
+would, a year ago, have seemed to her wicked and impossible.  Just as
+passionately as ever was her heart set upon the triumph of her cause.
+But she felt an irrational desire that Robert and Doctor Jim should win
+each a splendid victory on his own account.  She was full of pity that
+they should be on what she held the surely losing side, and she wanted
+some measure of glory to be theirs.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But the next news that came dashed her spirits.  It told of the battle
+of Long Island, and the defeat of the Continentals by the ordered
+British lines.  It told of the panic flight of patriot regiments.  It
+told of General Washington's retreat from Long Island and entrenching
+of the army at New York.  A few days later came a letter to Barbara
+from Glenowen,&mdash;whose regiment had stood firm and suffered heavily,&mdash;in
+which he said that he did not think it would be possible to hold New
+York with the troops at Washington's command, and that there would
+doubtless soon be a further retreat to some position beyond the Harlem.
+The letter made no mention of Doctor Jim,&mdash;which caused Barbara to
+remind Mistress Mehitable that no news was good news,&mdash;but it spoke
+with somewhat bitter praise of Robert Gault.  It said that Robert's
+little squadron of mad Tories had gone through the Continental ranks
+like flame, irresistible and deadly, and had done more than anything
+else to cause the breaking of Putnam's lines.  Robert had had his horse
+shot under him, and his hat shot off, but had himself, as report said,
+escaped without a scratch, though with a much diminished troop.  As she
+was reading this out to Mistress Mehitable, all at once and to her deep
+mortification her scrupulously matter-of-fact voice thrilled and broke.
+Mistress Mehitable shot her a glance of swift understanding and
+sympathy, and then pretended that she had noticed nothing unusual.
+Barbara coughed, and went on.  But her voice had become unmanageable.
+With an impatient gesture and a toss of her head she handed over the
+letter.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You'll have to read it yourself, honey!  It upsets me to hear of our
+poor fellows beaten like this!" she cried, hypocritically.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course, dear, I quite understand!" replied Mistress Mehitable,
+keeping her eyes strictly upon the letter, that she might the more
+easily seem deceived.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A few days later, Glenowen's prediction was fulfilled, and the news
+that came to Second Westings was of Washington's hasty retreat from New
+York to the Harlem Heights, leaving his artillery and heavy baggage
+behind.  Then for a month there was expectancy, and to Barbara in her
+quiet green land it seemed marvellous that the two armies could lie
+facing each other in this way, day after day, and not be stirred to
+decisive action.  She wondered how their nerves could bear the strain
+of such waiting.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The bright September dragged by in drowsy fashion, and October ran on
+in its blue and golden-brown; and then the word that came was of yet
+another retreat.  The British had enlarged their narrow borders, and
+Washington had drawn back to the line of the Bronx, where he fortified
+himself strongly so as to hold the roads leading inland.  Would he
+never stop retreating, questioned Barbara, anxiously, echoing the cry
+that went up all over the infant Union.  "I think not, dear!" responded
+Mistress Mehitable, cheerfully.  But Doctor John, who understood the
+conditions, declared that this Fabian policy was the only sound one,
+while the Continental troops were getting seasoned and learning the
+arts of war.  Even while this teaching was being digested, came word of
+the fierce battle of White Plains, where the two armies, in numbers
+closely matched, long held each other by the throat without decisive
+advantage.  When, two days later, the Continentals again withdrew, this
+time to hasty entrenchments at New Castle, Doctor John had hard work to
+convince Barbara that this long-drawn-out and bloody struggle was not
+an American defeat.  For days thereafter word kept coming in, telling
+of the losses on both sides, and supplying vivid details; and the
+blinds of mourning were drawn down in more than one modest Second
+Westings home.  A brief message came from Glenowen, saying that he was
+safe and well.  But of Doctor Jim no word; of Robert not a word.  And
+Barbara and Mistress Mehitable durst not meet each other's eyes lest
+either should read therein, and cry aloud, the fear in the other's
+heart.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap33"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+With the coming in of this tumultuous November, there came to Second
+Westings a few days of Indian summer magic.  The moveless air seemed a
+distillation of dreams.  The faint azure haze hung everywhere, soft yet
+cool, with an elusive fragrance as of clean smoke and fading roses and
+fresh earth-mould and lofts of grain.  And on one of these consecrated
+days Barbara set out early in the morning to paddle across the lake and
+see old Debby.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As on a morning long ago, but not so early, she ran down the back
+garden path, and behind the barn, and climbed the pasture bars.  This
+time she called to Keep; and the big mastiff, who now slept later than
+of old, came somewhat stiffly gamboling from his manger bed in the
+horse stable.  She tripped along the pasture path, between the
+hillocks.  She trod rapidly the black earth of the old wood-road, where
+the shadows were lighter now, and no sound broke the stillness save the
+eerie sigh and footfall of the dropping leaves.  She launched the canoe
+with easy vigour, motioned Keep to his place in the bow, and pushed out
+with strong, leisurely strokes across the enchanted mirror.  That
+far-off morning of her flight came back to her with strange poignancy,
+and she wondered if the blue heron would be standing at the outlet to
+admonish her with his enigmatic gaze.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As she approached the outlet, the point was vacant.  But suddenly a
+strange, dishevelled figure, hatless, and in a blood-stained British
+uniform, emerged from the trees near by, came down amid the tall yellow
+grasses, and stood staring across the lake.  He stood thus with blank
+eyes for a moment, apparently not seeing the canoe, then pitched
+forward, and lay on his face close to the water's edge.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With one sharp cry of his name, Barbara surged upon the paddle and shot
+the canoe toward land, wasting no mare breath on words.  She sprang
+ashore, turned the still form over, loosened the low vest and the
+throat of the shirt, and dashed water in the white, stained, deathlike
+face.  At first she thought he was dead, and she felt things growing
+black before her eyes.  Then she caught herself, and held herself
+steady for the need.  If she could not be strong now, what right had
+she to call herself a woman, or to love a man.  She felt at his heart
+and found that he was alive.  She saw that he was sorely wounded.  She
+told herself that he had swooned from loss of blood, weariness,
+hunger,&mdash;but that he had lived, would live, must live.  Then she
+dragged him further back into the grass, where he was hidden.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Calling Keep from the canoe, she sat down for a moment with Robert's
+head in her lap, and planned what should be done.  He must not be found
+in Second Westings, that she knew.  For an English prisoner of war it
+would be all very well,&mdash;but for a Tory it might be different.  She
+could take no risks.  In a moment or two her mind was made up.  She
+bent over, and kissed the unresponding mouth.  Then she rose, and
+turned to Keep, who had stood sniffing at Robert's clothes with
+sympathetic interest.  They were shocking clothes, but Keep dimly
+remembered the man within them.  Barbara pointed to the helpless
+figure, saying:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lie down, Keep!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And Keep lay down, with his muzzle on Robert's arm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Guard, sir!" commanded Barbara.  And Keep rolled upon her a
+comprehending and obedient eye.  Then she pushed off the canoe, and
+paddled hastily down the river to fetch old Debby.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+During all these years since Barbara's interrupted flight, no one had
+really read her heart, or been the unacknowledged recipient of her
+confidences, so fully as Mrs. Debby Blue.  Now, when Barbara arrived,
+breathless, with great, strained eyes, tears in her voice, but her red
+mouth sternly set, the old woman understood with few words.  At another
+time, Barbara would have been amazed at this swift understanding.  Now,
+she was only grateful for it.  While she was explaining, Debby was
+rummaging on shelves and in boxes, looking for sundry simples of her
+cunning extraction.  At last she said:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't you be worried, my sweeting.  If Mr. Robert kin be cured up, old
+Debby's the one that kin cure him up, well as any doctor in the land,
+not even exceptin' Doctor Jim.  An' I've got the place where we kin
+hide him, too, an' keep him safe till he gits well.  An' now, I'm after
+you, Miss Barby, sweetheart!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"God bless your dear, true heart, Debby," cried Barbara, leading the
+way in hot haste to the canoe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When they arrived at the point, Robert was just recovering
+consciousness, in a dazed fashion.  They saw him make an effort to sit
+up; and they saw Keep, who was nothing if not literal in his
+interpretation of Barbara's commands, put his two huge fore paws on
+Robert's breast and firmly push him down again.  The tears jumped to
+Barbara's eyes at this, and she gave a little hysterical laugh,
+exclaiming:
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Just look at that, Debby!  Good <I>dear</I> old Keep!  Even he knows that
+Robert must be kept hidden!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When they got to him, he sat up determinedly, and recognised Barbara
+with a look of utter content.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You, my lady!  I have come a very long way to look&mdash;" and then he sank
+off again, falling back into Barbara's supporting arms.
+</P>
+
+<A NAME="img-370"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-370.jpg" ALT="<I>He sank off again, falling back into Barbara's supporting arms</I>." BORDER="2" WIDTH="451" HEIGHT="668">
+<H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 451px">
+<I>He sank off again, falling back into Barbara's supporting arms</I>.
+</H4>
+</CENTER>
+
+<P>
+"Why, he's <I>starved</I>, that's what he is!" exclaimed Debby, examining
+him critically and feeling his pulse.  "An' he's lost pretty nigh all
+the blood was ever in him.  An' he's got two wounds here, either one
+enough to do for a man!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She forced some fiery liquor down his throat, and then, as a faint
+colour came back to his lips, she gave him to drink from a bottle of
+milk.  He drank eagerly, but automatically, without opening his eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He's been wounded at White Plains, poor dear!" murmured Barbara,
+leaning over him a face of brooding tenderness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"An' he's wandered all the way up here, a-lookin' for you, Miss Barby!"
+responded the old woman.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you really think so?" murmured Barbara.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No manner of doubt!" said old Debby, positively, as she set about
+dressing and binding Robert's wounds.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In a little while Robert was able to sit up again; and then to be
+helped to his feet; and then to be half guided, half carried to the
+canoe.  There he was placed on a bed of heaped armfuls of dry grass.
+Old Debby squatted precariously in the bow,&mdash;she was more at home in a
+punt than in a canoe,&mdash;and Barbara thrust out from shore, heading down
+the little river.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Robert was still too far gone in exhaustion to explain his strange
+appearance at Second Westings, or to ask any questions, or to care
+where he was going, so long as he was able to open his eyes every once
+in awhile and look at Barbara.  When he did so, Barbara would smile
+back reassuringly, and lay a slim brown finger on her lips, as a sign
+that he was not to talk.  And happily he would close his eyes again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara paddled down past Debby's landing, past the ducks and hens and
+turkeys, now too lazy to make more than casual comment.  Keep,
+meanwhile, followed anxiously along the shore, close to the edge, and
+now and then splashing in belly deep.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How far is it, Debby dear?" asked Barbara, presently.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Jest a little mite furder," answered the old woman, who relished the
+situation immensely.  "A matter of half a mile, maybe!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+And so they slipped noiselessly on, in that enchanted light, over that
+enchanted water with its reflections of amber and blue.  Some crows,
+grown suddenly garrulous over private matters, cawed pleasantly in the
+pine-tops a little way off against the sky, and then subsided again
+into silence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+On both banks of the stream the trees held out their leaves, russet and
+gold, amethyst and bronze and scarlet, like so many little elfin hands
+attesting that all fair dreams come true at last for those who have the
+key to the inner mysteries.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara was paddling in a dream herself, when suddenly old Debby said,
+"Turn in here, my sweeting!  Here to your right!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But where?" asked Barbara, puzzled.  "I don't see any place to turn
+in!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Straight through them dripping branches yonder by the water-logged
+stump!" directed the old woman.  "Straight on through!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+As the prow of the canoe came up to what was seemingly the shore, old
+Debby parted the branches.  As the canoe pushed onward, she continued
+this process,&mdash;and a few feet in from the main stream they entered a
+long, narrow deadwater, deep and clear, and perfectly hidden from the
+world.  It was perhaps a hundred yards in length, slightly winding; and
+at its head, on a gentle rise, stood a little deserted log cabin.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, <I>Debby</I>!" cried Barbara.  "How did you ever find such a place?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's been empty this ten year!" answered Debby.  "An' folks has
+forgotten, that ever knowed.  An' I've been keepin' it to myself, when
+I wanted to get away from the ducks an' hens a mite.  An' I've kep' it
+from fallin' to pieces.  I'll nurse Master Robert here till he's able
+to get away, if it takes a year.  An' I'll come back and forward in my
+punt.  There's a bunk ready now, full of pine-needles; an' when we get
+him into it we'll go back to make it all right with Aunt Hitty.
+<I>Ain't</I> I got a head on my old shoulders, now, Miss Barby?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Even as Debby had so swiftly and fully planned, it was done.  Robert
+was still so far gone in exhaustion, and so wandering in his mind, that
+Barbara would not let him talk; and before they left him&mdash;with Keep an
+incorruptible sentry at the door&mdash;he had fallen into a deep sleep.
+When they returned a couple hours later, he was awake and quite clear,
+and so determined to talk that Barbara could not but let him.  He sat
+up in the bunk, but Barbara, bending shining eyes down close to his,
+laid him back upon the pillow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Debby says you must not sit up at all, Robert!" she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And what do you say, my lady?" he asked, devouring her radiant dark
+face with his eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I say so, too!" she answered, laughing softly.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, my lady?" he persisted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Because it will hinder you getting well, Silly!" she replied, touching
+his hair with cool fingers.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What matter about a 'damned Tory' getting well?" he began, being very
+weak and foolish.  But the slim hand sweetly closed his mouth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How did you get here&mdash;to me?" Barbara asked, changing the subject.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He smiled up at her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We charged through the rebels!" he explained, frankly.  "We cut them
+down, and scattered them, and chased them till we were within the
+enemy's lines.  Then we could not get back.  They surrounded us.  They
+overwhelmed us.  We were annihilated.  I escaped, I shall never know
+how, hatless and horseless, as you found me, my lady, I tried to get
+back to my regiment.  It was no use.  Then, somehow, a spirit in my
+feet led me back here, to you.  I just escaped capture a score of
+times.  I had nothing to eat for days, save roots and leaves.  I
+remember coming to the shore of the dear lake, and straining my eyes
+across it, to see the chimneys of the house where my love lay.  Then I
+saw no more, knew no more, till I saw my love herself in very truth,
+leaning her face over mine.  And I thought I was in heaven, my lady."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You still love me, Robert, after the hideous way I treated you?"
+questioned Barbara, her voice a little tremulous.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He started again to sit up; but being again suppressed, was fain to
+content himself with clutching both her hands to his lips.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There is nothing in the world but you, Barbara," he said.  "There is
+nothing I want but you, wonderful one!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then&mdash;you may take me, Robert, I think!" she whispered, dropping her
+face, and brushing his lips with her hair.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Me?" he cried, in a voice suddenly strong, glad, and incredulous.
+"Me?  Sick near to death, hunted near to death, a beaten and fleeing
+enemy, a Tory?  I may take you, my queen, my beloved?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Whatever you are, dear, I have found that you are my love," she
+answered.  "I don't care much what you are, so long as you are mine.  I
+find I am just a woman, Robert&mdash;and in my conceit I thought myself
+something more.  I love my country, truly.  But I love my lover more.
+I shall not ask you whether you bow to King or to Congress,&mdash;but only
+ask you to get well!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He reached up both arms, and slowly pulled down her still averted face
+till it was close to his.  Then she turned her face suddenly to him,
+and her lips met his.  A moment later she untwined his arms, went to
+the door, and glanced unheeding down at old Debby, gathering wood.
+Then, her face and eyes still glowing, she came back, smoothed his
+hair, kissed him lightly on the forehead, and said, "Now you must be
+quiet, dear.  Debby will scold me if I let you talk any more!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But Robert was excited, drunk with new joy after long despair.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Just one word, and I will obey, dear heart!  Listen, my lady.  I will
+draw sword no more in this quarrel.  I have given my blood, my
+lands,&mdash;I have given, as I thought, my love,&mdash;for a cause already lost,
+for a cause that I felt to be wrong from the day of Lexington, But
+whichever side wins, I will stay in my own country, if my country, when
+it is all over, will let me stay.  When I am well enough to go
+away&mdash;love, love, will you go with me, to return, when the fighting and
+the fury cease, to our own dear river and our own dear woods?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, you know I will, Robert," answered Barbara, kneeling down and
+looking into his eyes.  "You know that is what I am planning, dear one.
+Now go to sleep, and get well, and take me away when you will!"  And
+holding her hand against his neck he forthwith went to sleep, like a
+child, tired and contented.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Barbara knelt for a long time unmoving, her hand warm in his weak
+clasp, and was grateful to old Debby for staying so long away.  As she
+knelt, the side of her face to the door, she heard a soft <I>thud, thud</I>
+on the threshold, and looked around out of the corners of her eyes
+without turning her head.  She saw two wild rabbits, filled with
+curiosity at finding the cabin door open.  They hopped in warily, and
+went bounding all about the room, sniffing with their sensitive, cleft
+nostrils; waving their ears back and forth at every faint whisper; and
+from time to time sitting up to ponder their discovery.  One of them
+bounded over Barbara's little foot, turned to examine it, and nibbled
+tentatively at the heel of her shoe till she had to make the muscles
+tense to keep him from pulling it off.  Then, standing up together for
+a moment, they seemed to take counsel and conclude that they had
+business elsewhere.  As they hopped lazily away from the door, Barbara
+got up and followed to look after them.  The wonderful day was drawing
+to its close; and long, straight beams of rosy gold, enmeshed with the
+haze, were streaming through the trees to her very feet.  She laughed a
+little happy laugh under her breath.  Those bright paths leading to the
+sun seemed a fair omen.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="finis">
+THE END.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<HR>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap34"></A>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+A FEW OF GROSSET & DUNLAP'S
+</H3>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+Great Books at Little Prices
+</H2>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+NEW, CLEVER, ENTERTAINING.
+</H4>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+GRET: The Story of a Pagan.  By Beatrice Mantle.  Illustrated by C. M.
+Relyea.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The wild free life of an Oregon lumber camp furnishes the setting for
+this strong original story.  Gret is the daughter of the camp and is
+utterly content with the wild life&mdash;until love comes.  A fine book,
+unmarred by convention.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+OLD CHESTER TALES.  By Margaret Deland.  Illustrated by Howard Pyle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A vivid yet delicate portrayal of characters in an old New England town.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Dr. Lavendar's fine, kindly wisdom is brought to bear upon the lives of
+all, permeating the whole volume like the pungent odor of pine,
+healthful and life giving.  "Old Chester Tales" will surely be among
+the books that abide.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+THE MEMOIRS OF A BABY.  By Josephine Daskam.  Illustrated by F. Y. Cory.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The dawning intelligence of the baby was grappled with by its great
+aunt, an elderly maiden, whose book knowledge of babies was something
+at which even the infant himself winked.  A delicious bit of humor.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+REBECCA MARY.  By Annie Hamilton Donnell.  Illustrated by Elizabeth
+Shippen Green.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The heart tragedies of this little girl with no one near to share them,
+are told with a delicate art, a keen appreciation of the needs of the
+childish heart and a humorous knowledge of the workings of the childish
+mind.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+THE FLY ON THE WHEEL.  By Katherine Cecil Thurston.  Frontispiece by
+Harrison Fisher.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+An Irish story of real power, perfect in development and showing a true
+conception of the spirited Hibernian character as displayed in the
+tragic as well as the tender phases of life.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+THE MAN FROM BRODNEY'S.  By George Barr McCutcheon.  Illustrated by
+Harrison Fisher.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+An island in the South Sea is the setting for this entertaining tale,
+and an all-conquering hero and a beautiful princess figure in a most
+complicated plot.  One of Mr. McCutcheon's best books.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+TOLD BY UNCLE REMUS.  By Joel Chandler Harris.  Illustrated by A. B.
+Frost, J. M. Conde and Frank Verbeck.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Again Uncle Remus enters the fields of childhood, and leads another
+little boy to that non-locatable land called "Brer Rabbit's Laughing
+Place," and again the quaint animals spring into active life and play
+their parts, for the edification of a small but appreciative audience.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+THE CLIMBER.  By E. F. Benson.  With frontispiece.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+An unsparing analysis of an ambitious woman's soul&mdash;a woman who
+believed that in social supremacy she would find happiness, and who
+finds instead the utter despair of one who has chosen the things that
+pass away.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+LYNCH'S DAUGHTER.  By Leonard Merrick.  Illustrated by Geo. Brehm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A story of to-day, telling how a rich girl acquires ideals of beautiful
+and simple living, and of men and love, quite apart from the teachings
+of her father, "Old Man Lynch" of Wall St.  True to life, clever in
+treatment.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK
+</H4>
+
+<BR>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP'S
+</H3>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+DRAMATIZED NOVELS
+</H2>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+A Few that are Making Theatrical History
+</H4>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+MARY JANE'S PA, By Norman Way Illustrated with scenes from the play.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Delightful, irresponsible "Mary Jane's Pa" awakes one morning to find
+himself famous, and, genius being ill adapted to domestic joys, he
+wanders from home to work out his own unique destiny.  One of the most
+numerous bits of recent fiction.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+CHERUB DEVINE.  By Sewell Ford.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Cherub," a good hearted but not over refined young man is brought in
+touch with the aristocracy.  Of sprightly wit, he is sometimes a
+merciless analyst, but he proves in the end that manhood counts for
+more than and?  cut lineage by winning the love of the fairest girl in
+the flock.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+A WOMAN'S WAY.  By Charles Somerville.  Illustrated with scenes from
+the play.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A story in which a woman's wit and self-sacrificing love save her
+husband from the toils of an adventuress, and change an apparently
+tragic situation into one of delicious comedy.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+THE CLIMAX.  By George C. Jenks.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With ambition luring her on, a young choir soprano leaves the little
+village where she was born and the limited audience of St. Jude's to
+train for the opera in New York.  She leaves love behind her and meets
+love more ardent but not more sincere in her new environment.  How she
+works, how she studies, how she suffers, are vividly portrayed.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+A FOOL THERE WAS.  By Porter Emerson Browne, Illustrated by Edmund
+Magrath and W. W. Fawcett.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A relentless portrayal of the career of a man who comes under the
+influence of a beautiful but evil woman; how she lures him on and on,
+how he struggles, falls and rises, only to fall again into her net,
+make a story of unflinching realism.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+THE SQUAW MAN.  By Julie Opp Faversham and Edwin Milton Royle.
+Illustrated with scenes from the play.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A glowing story, rapid in action, bright in dialogue with a fine
+courageous hero and a Beautiful English heroine.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+THE GIRL IN WAITING.  By Archibald Eyre.  Illustrated with scenes from
+the play.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A droll little comedy of misunderstandings, told with a light touch, a
+venturesome spirit and an eye for human oddities.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL.  By Baroness Orczy.  Illustrated with scenes
+from the play.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A realistic story of the days of the French Revolution, abounding in
+dramatic incident, with a young English soldier of fortune, daring,
+mysterious as the hero.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK
+</H4>
+
+<BR>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+A FEW OF
+</H4>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP'S
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+Great Books at Little Prices
+</H3>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+CY WHITTAKER'S PLACE.  By Joseph C. Lincoln.  Illustrated by Wallace
+Morgan.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A Cape Cod story describing the amusing efforts of an elderly bachelor
+and his two cronies to rear and educate a little girl.  Full of honest
+fun&mdash;a rural drama.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+THE FORGE IN THE FOREST.  By Charles G. D. Roberts.  Illustrated by H.
+Sandham.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A story of the conflict in Acadia after its conquest by the British.  A
+dramatic picture that lives and shines with the indefinable charm of
+poetic romance.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+A SISTER TO EVANGELINE.  By Charles G. D. Roberts.  Illustrated by E.
+McConnell.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Being the story of Yvonne de Lamourie, and how she went into exile with
+the villagers of Grand Pré.  Swift action, fresh atmosphere, wholesome
+purity, deep passion and searching analysis characterize this strong
+novel.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+THE OPENED SHUTTERS.  By Clara Louise Burnham.  Frontispiece by
+Harrison Fisher.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A summer haunt on an island in Casco Bay is the background for this
+romance.  A beautiful woman, at discord with life, is brought to
+realize, by her new friends, that she may open the shutters of her soul
+to the blessed sunlight of joy by casting aside vanity and self love.
+A delicately humorous work with a lofty motive underlying it all.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+THE RIGHT PRINCESS.  By Clara Louise Burnham.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+An amusing story, opening at a fashionable Long Island resort, where a
+stately Englishwoman employs a forcible New England housekeeper to
+serve in her interesting home.  How types so widely apart react on each
+others' lives, all to ultimate good, makes a story both humorous and
+rich in sentiment.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+THE LEAVEN OF LOVE.  By Clara Louise Burnham.  Frontispiece by Harrison
+Fisher.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+At a Southern California resort a world-weary woman, young and
+beautiful but disillusioned, meets a girl who has learned the art of
+living&mdash;of tasting life in all its richness, opulence and joy.  The
+story hinges upon the change wrought in the soul of the blasé woman by
+this glimpse into a cheery life.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK
+</H4>
+
+<BR>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+A FEW OF
+</H4>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP'S
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+Great Books at Little Prices
+</H3>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+THE MUSIC MASTER.  By Charles Klein.  Illustrated by John Rae.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This marvelously vivid narrative turns upon the search of a German
+musician in New York for his little daughter.  Mr. Klein has well
+portrayed his pathetic struggle with poverty, his varied experiences in
+endeavoring to meet the demands of a public not trained to an
+appreciation of the classic, and his final great hour when, in the
+rapidly shifting events of a big city, his little daughter, now a
+beautiful young woman, is brought to his very door.  A superb bit of
+fiction, palpitating with the life or the great metropolis.  The play
+in which David Warfield scored his highest success.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+DR. LAVENDAR'S PEOPLE.  By Margaret Deland.  Illustrated by Lucius
+Hitchcock.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mrs. Deland won so many friends through Old Chester Tales that this
+volume needs no introduction beyond its title.  The lovable doctor is
+more ripened in this later book, and the simple comedies and tragedies
+of the old village are told with dramatic charm.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+OLD CHESTER TALES.  By Margaret Deland.  Illustrated by Howard Pyle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Stories portraying with delightful humor and pathos a quaint people in
+a sleepy old town.  Dr. Lavendar, a very human and lovable "preacher,"
+is the connecting link between these dramatic stories from life.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+HE FELL IN LOVE WITH HIS WIFE.  By E. P. Roe.  With frontispiece.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The hero is a farmer&mdash;a man with honest, sincere views of life.  Bereft
+of his wife, his home is cared for by a succession of domestics of
+varying degrees of inefficiency until, from a most unpromising source,
+comes a young woman who not only becomes his wife but commands his
+respect and eventually wins his love.  A bright and delicate romance,
+revealing on both sides a love that surmounts all difficulties and
+survives the censure of friends as well as the bitterness of enemies.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+THE YOKE.  By Elizabeth Miller.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Against the historical background of the days when the children of
+Israel were delivered from the bondage of Egypt, the author has
+sketched a romance of compelling charm.  A biblical novel as great as
+any since "Ben Hur."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+SAUL OF TARSUS.  By Elizabeth Miller.  Illustrated by André Castaigne.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The scenes of this story are laid in Jerusalem, Alexandria, Rome and
+Damascus.  The Apostle Paul, the Martyr Stephen, Herod Agrippa and the
+Emperors Tiberius and Caligula are among the mighty figures that move
+through the pages.  Wonderful descriptions, and a love story of the
+purest and noblest type mark this most remarkable religious romance.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK
+</H4>
+
+<BR>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+A FEW OF
+</H4>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP'S
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+Great Books at Little Prices
+</H3>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+QUINCY ADAMS SAWYER.  A Picture of New England Home Life.  With
+illustrations by C. W. Reed, and Scenes Reproduced from the Play.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One of the best New England stories ever written.  It is full of homely
+human interest * * * there is a wealth of New England village
+character, scenes and incidents * * * forcibly, vividly and truthfully
+drawn.  Few books have enjoyed a greater sale and popularity.
+Dramatized, it made the greatest rural play of recent times.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF QUINCY ADAMS SAWYER.  By Charles Felton
+Pidgin.  Illustrated by Henry Roth.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+All who love honest sentiment, quaint and sunny humor, and homespun
+philosophy will find these "Further Adventures" a book after their own
+heart.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+HALF A CHANCE.  By Frederic S. Isham.  Illustrated by Herman Pfeifer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The thrill of excitement will keep the reader in a state of suspense,
+and he will become personally concerned from the start, as to the
+central character, a very real man who suffers, dares&mdash;and achieves!
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+VIRGINIA OF THE AIR LANES.  By Herbert Quick.  Illustrated by William
+R. Leigh.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The author has seized the romantic moment for the airship novel, and
+created the pretty story of "a lover and his lass" contending with an
+elderly relative for the monopoly of the skies.  An exciting tale of
+adventure in midair.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+THE GAME AND THE CANDLE.  By Eleanor M. Ingram.  Illustrated by P. D.
+Johnson.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The hero is a young American, who, to save his family from poverty,
+deliberately commits a felony.  Then follow his capture and
+imprisonment, and his rescue by a Russian Grand Duke.  A stirring
+story, rich in sentiment.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK
+</H4>
+
+<BR>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+A FEW OF
+</H4>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP'S
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+Great Books at Little Prices
+</H3>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+BRUVVER JIM'S BABY.   By Philip Verrill Mighels.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+An uproariously funny story of a tiny mining settlement in the West,
+which is shaken to the very roots by the sudden possession of a baby,
+found on the plains by one of its residents.  The town is as
+disreputable a spot as the gold fever was ever responsible for, and the
+coming of that baby causes the upheaval of every rooted tradition of
+the place.  Its christening, the problems of its toys and its illness
+supersede in the minds of the miners all thought of earthy treasure.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+THE FURNACE OF GOLD.  By Philip Verrill Mighels, author of "Bruvver
+Jim's Baby."  Illustrations by J. N. Marchand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+An accurate and informing portrayal of scenes, types, and conditions of
+the mining districts in modern Nevada.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The book is an out-door story, clean, exciting, exemplifying nobility
+and courage of character, and bravery, and heroism in the sort of men
+and women we all admire and wish to know.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+THE MESSAGE.  By Louis Tracy.  Illustrations by Joseph C. Chase.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A breezy tale of how a bit of old parchment, concealed in a figurehead
+from a sunken vessel, comes into the possession of a pretty girl and an
+army man during regatta week in the Isle of Wight.  This is the message
+and it enfolds a mystery, the development of which the reader will
+follow with breathless interest.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+THE SCARLET EMPIRE.  By David M. Parry.  Illustrations by Hermann C.
+Wall.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A young socialist, weary of life, plunges into the sea and awakes in
+the lost island of Atlantis, known as the Scarlet Empire, where a
+social democracy is in full operation, granting every man a living but
+limiting food, conversation, education and marriage.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The hero passes through an enthralling love affair and other adventures
+but finally returns to his own New York world.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+THE THIRD DEGREE.  By Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow.  Illustrations
+by Clarence Rowe.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A novel which exposes the abuses in this country of the police system.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The son of an aristocratic New York family marries a woman socially
+beneath him, but of strong, womanly qualities that, later on, save the
+man from the tragic consequences of a dissipated life.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The wife believes in his innocence and her wit and good sense help her
+to win against the tremendous odds imposed by law.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+THE THIRTEENTH DISTRICT.  By Brand Whitlock.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A realistic western story of love and politics and a searching study of
+their influence on character.  The author shows with extraordinary
+vitality of treatment the tricks, the heat, the passion, the tumult of
+the political arena, the triumph and strength of love.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK
+</H4>
+
+<BR>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+A FEW OF
+</H4>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP'S
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+Great Books at Little Prices
+</H3>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+HAPPY HAWKINS.  By Robert Alexander Wason.  Illustrated by Howard Giles.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A ranch and cowboy novel.  Happy Hawkins tells his own story with such
+a fine capacity for knowing how to do it and with so much humor that
+the reader's interest is held in surprise, then admiration and at last
+in positive affection.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+COMRADES.  By Thomas Dixon, Jr.  Illustrated by C. D. Williams.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The locale of this story is in California, where a few socialists
+establish a little community.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The author leads the little band along the path of disillusionment, and
+gives some brilliant flashes of light on one side of an important
+question.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+TONO-BUNGAY.  By Herbert George Wells.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The hero of this novel is a young man who, through hard work, earns a
+scholarship and goes to London.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Written with a frankness verging on Rousseau's, Mr. Wells still uses
+rare discrimination and the border line of propriety is never crossed.
+An entertaining book with both a story and a moral, and without a dull
+page&mdash;Mr.  Wells's most notable achievement.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+A HUSBAND BY PROXY.  By Jack Steele.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A young criminologist, but recently arrived in New York city, is drawn
+into a mystery, partly through financial need and partly through his
+interest in a beautiful woman, who seems at times the simplest child
+and again a perfect mistress of intrigue.  A baffling detective story.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+LIKE ANOTHER HELEN.  By George Horton.  Illustrated by C. M. Relyea.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Horton's powerful romance stands in a new field and brings an
+almost unknown world in reality before the reader&mdash;the world of
+conflict between Greek and Turk on the Island of Crete.  The "Helen" of
+the story is a Greek, beautiful, desolate, defiant&mdash;pure as snow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There is a certain new force about the story, a kind of
+master-craftsmanship and mental dominance that holds the reader.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+THE MASTER OF APPLEBY.  By Francis Lynde.  Illustrated by T. de
+Thulstrup.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A novel tale concerning itself in part with the great struggle in the
+two Carolinas, but chiefly with the adventures therein of two gentlemen
+who loved one and the same lady.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A strong, masculine and persuasive story.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+A MODERN MADONNA.  By Caroline Abbot Stanley.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A story of American life, founded on facts as they existed some years
+ago in the District of Columbia.  The theme is the maternal love and
+splendid courage of a woman.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK
+</H4>
+
+<BR>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+A FEW OF
+</H4>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP'S
+</H3>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+Great Books at Little Prices
+</H3>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+WHEN A MAN MARRIES.  By Mary Roberts Rinehart.  Illustrated by Harrison
+Fisher and Mayo Bunker.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A young artist, whose wife had recently divorced him, finds that a
+visit is due from his Aunt Selina, an elderly lady having ideas about
+things quite apart from the Bohemian set in which her nephew is a
+shining light.  The way in which matters are temporarily adjusted forms
+the motif of the story.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A farcical extravaganza, dramatized under the title of "Seven Days."
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+THE FASHIONABLE ADVENTURES OF JOSHUA CRAIG.  By David Graham Phillips.
+Illustrated.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A young westerner, uncouth and unconventional, appears in political and
+social life in Washington.  He attains power in politics, and a young
+woman of the exclusive set becomes his wife, undertaking his education
+in social amenities.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+"DOC." GORDON.  By Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman.  Illustrated by Frank T.
+Merrill.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Against the familiar background of American town life, the author
+portrays a group of people strangely involved in a mystery.  "Doc."
+Gordon, the one physician of the place, Dr. Elliot, his assistant, a
+beautiful woman and her altogether charming daughter are all involved
+in the plot.  A novel of great interest.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+HOLY ORDERS.  By Marie Corelli.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A dramatic story, in which is pictured a clergyman in touch with
+society people, stage favorites, simple village folk, powerful
+financiers and others, each presenting vital problems to this man "in
+holy orders"&mdash;problems that we are now struggling with in America.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+KATRINE.  By Elinor Macartney Lane.  With frontispiece.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Katrine, the heroine of this story, is a lovely Irish girl, of lowly
+birth, but gifted with a beautiful voice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The narrative is based on the facts of an actual singer's career, and
+the viewpoint throughout is a most exalted one.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+THE FORTUNES OF FIFI.  By Molly Elliot Seawell.  Illustrated by T. de
+Thulstrup.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A story of life in France at the time of the first Napoleon.  Fifi, a
+glad, mad little actress of eighteen, is the star performer in a third
+rate Parisian theatre.  A story as dainty as a Watteau painting.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+SHE THAT HESITATES.  By Harris Dickson.  Illustrated by C. W. Relyea.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The scene of this dashing romance shifts from Dresden to St. Petersburg
+in the reign of Peter the Great, and then to New Orleans.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The hero is a French Soldier of Fortune, and the princess, who
+hesitates&mdash;but you must read the story to know how she that hesitates
+may be lost and yet saved.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK
+</H4>
+
+<BR>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+BRILLIANT AND SPIRITED NOVELS
+</H3>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+AGNES AND EGERTON CASTLE
+</H2>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Handsomely bound in cloth.  Price, 75 cents per volume, postpaid.
+</H4>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+THE PRIDE OF JENNICO.  Being a Memoir of Captain Basil Jennico.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What separates it from most books of its class is its distinction of
+manner, its unusual grace of diction, its delicacy of touch, and the
+fervent charm of its love passages.  It is a very attractive piece of
+romantic fiction relying for its effect upon character rather than
+incident, and upon vivid dramatic presentation."&mdash;<I>The Dial</I>.  "A
+stirring, brilliant and dashing story."&mdash;<I>The Outlook</I>.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+THE SECRET ORCHARD.  Illustrated by Charles D. Williams.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The "Secret Orchard" is set in the midst of the ultra modern society.
+The scene is in Paris, but most of the characters are English speaking.
+The story was dramatized in London, and in it the Kendalls scored a
+great theatrical success.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Artfully contrived and full of romantic charm * * * it possesses
+ingenuity of incident, a figurative designation of the unhallowed
+scenes in which unlicensed love accomplishes and wrecks faith and
+happiness."&mdash;<I>Athenaeum</I>.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+YOUNG APRIL.  With illustrations by A. B. Wenzell.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is everything that a good romance should be, and it carries about
+it an air of distinction both rare and delightful."&mdash;<I>Chicago Tribune</I>.
+"With regret one turns to the last page of this delightful novel, so
+delicate in its romance, so brilliant in its episodes, so sparkling in
+its art, and so exquisite in its diction."&mdash;<I>Worcester Spy</I>.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+FLOWER O' THE ORANGE.  With frontispiece.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+We have learned to expect from these fertile authors novels graceful in
+form, brisk in movement, and romantic in conception.  This carries the
+reader back to the days of the bewigged and beruffled gallants of the
+seventeenth century and tells him of feats of arms and adventures in
+love as thrilling and picturesque, yet delicate, as the utmost seeker
+of romance may ask.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+MY MERRY ROCKHURST.  Illustrated by Arthur E. Becher.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the eight stories of a courtier of King Charles Second, which are
+here gathered together, the Castles are at their best, reviving all the
+fragrant charm of those books, like <I>The Pride of Jennico</I>, in which
+they first showed an instinct, amounting to genius, for sunny romances.
+"The book is absorbing * * * and is as spontaneous in feeling as it is
+artistic in execution."&mdash;<I>New York Tribune</I>.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP, Publishers,&mdash;New York
+</H4>
+
+<BR>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+THE MASTERLY AND REALISTIC NOVELS OF
+</H3>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+FRANK NORRIS
+</H2>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Handsomely bound in cloth.  Price, 75 cents per volume, postpaid.
+</H4>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+THE OCTOPUS.  A Story of California.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Norris conceived the ambitious idea of writing a trilogy of novels
+which, taken together, shall symbolize American life as a whole, with
+all its hopes and aspirations and its tendencies, throughout the length
+and breadth of the continent.  And for the central symbol he has taken
+wheat, as being quite literally the ultimate source of American power
+and prosperity.  <I>The Octopus</I> is a story of wheat raising and railroad
+greed in California.  It immediately made a place for itself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It is full of enthusiasm and poetry and conscious strength.  One cannot
+read it without a responsive thrill of sympathy for the earnestness,
+the breadth of purpose, the verbal power of the man.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+THE PIT.  A Story of Chicago.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This powerful novel is the fictitious narrative of a deal in the
+Chicago wheat pit and holds the reader from the beginning.  In a
+masterly way the author has grasped the essential spirit of the great
+city by the lakes.  The social existence, the gambling in stocks and
+produce, the characteristic life in Chicago, form a background for an
+exceedingly vigorous and human tale of modern life and love.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+A MAN'S WOMAN.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A story which has for a heroine a girl decidedly out of the ordinary
+run of fiction.  It is most dramatic, containing some tremendous
+pictures of the daring of the men who are trying to reach the Pole * *
+* but it is at the same time essentially a <I>woman's</I> book, and the
+story works itself out in the solution of a difficulty that is
+continually presented in real life&mdash;the wife's attitude in relation to
+her husband when both have well-defined careers.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+McTEAGUE.  A Story of San Francisco.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Since Bret Harte and the Forty-niner no one has written of California
+life with the vigor and accuracy of Mr. Norris.  His 'McTeague' settled
+his right to a place in American literature; and he has now presented a
+third novel, 'Blix,' which is in some respects the finest and likely to
+be the most popular of the three."&mdash;<I>Washington Times</I>.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P CLASS="noindent">
+BLIX.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Frank Norris has written in 'Blix' just what such a woman's name would
+imply&mdash;a story of a frank, fearless girl comrade to all men who are
+true and honest because she is true and honest.  How she saved the man
+she fishes and picnics with in a spirit of outdoor platonic friendship,
+makes a pleasant story, and a perfect contrast to the author's
+McTeague.'  A splendid and successful story."&mdash;<I>Washington Times</I>.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP, Publishers,&mdash;New York
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR><BR>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Barbara Ladd, by Charles G. D. Roberts
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BARBARA LADD ***
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+</BODY>
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+</HTML>
+
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@@ -0,0 +1,9853 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Barbara Ladd, by Charles G. D. Roberts
+
+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: Barbara Ladd
+
+Author: Charles G. D. Roberts
+
+Illustrator: Frank Verbeck
+
+Release Date: November 10, 2010 [EBook #34270]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BARBARA LADD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Cover art]
+
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: _Leaning over the edge of the porch she dropped the
+bundle soundlessly into a bed of marigolds_. (_Page_ 13)]
+
+
+
+
+
+BARBARA LADD
+
+
+BY
+
+CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS
+
+
+
+  AUTHOR OF
+
+  THE KINDRED OF THE WILD, THE HEART OF THE
+  ANCIENT WOOD, A SISTER TO EVANGELINE,
+  POEMS, ETC.
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATED BY
+
+FRANK VERBECK
+
+
+
+
+NEW YORK
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP
+
+PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1902,
+
+BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
+  (Incorporated).
+
+All Rights Reserved.
+
+
+
+Published October, 1902
+
+
+Eighth Impression, April, 1908.
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+"LEANING OVER THE EDGE OF THE PORCH SHE DROPPED THE BUNDLE
+  SOUNDLESSLY INTO A BED OF MARIGOLDS" (_See page 13_) . . . _Frontispiece_
+
+"'WHAT A NICE-LOOKING BOY YOU ARE!' SHE SAID"
+
+"'O MEHITABLE--DEMORALISED--BY BARBARA!' VOWED DOCTOR JOHN"
+
+"HE SANK OFF AGAIN, FALLING BACK INTO BARBARA'S SUPPORTING ARMS"
+
+
+
+
+BARBARA LADD
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+She knew very well that she should have started earlier; but if there
+was one thing that could daunt her wayward and daring little spirit, it
+was the dark.  Now, as she stood, wide-eyed and breathless with
+suspense, beside her open window, the face of the dark began to change.
+A gray pallor came over it, and on a sudden she was aware of a black
+horizon line, ghostly, lonely beyond words, far to the eastward over
+the yet invisible tree-tops.  With this pallor came a chill which
+Barbara felt on her little, trembling hands, on her eyes, and in her
+heart: as if the night, in going, had laid aside its benignity and
+touched the world in farewell with a cold hand of warning and menace.
+Then, here and there a leaf stood out, palely distinct, upon the thick
+frondage of the apple-tree whose nearest branches crowded the roof of
+the porch below her window.  There was a faint chirping from the heart
+of the syringa thicket; and Barbara's ears were so attentive that she
+caught the drowsy, awakening flutter of small wings down below in the
+dewy gloom.  With the sound came a cool and delicate pungency from the
+wet currant bushes, puffed upward to her as if the garden world beneath
+the leaves had drawn a long breath in getting ready to awake.  This
+tonic scent, which nostrils less keen than Barbara's would scarcely
+have discerned, came to the child as a signal for action.  Peculiarly
+sensitive to the message and influence of odours, she felt this sudden
+fragrance in her nerves as a summons, a promise, and a challenge, all
+in one.  Noiselessly she pushed the two diamond-paned leaves of her
+window open to their widest.  How the grayness was spreading!  A pang
+of apprehension seized her, lest she had delayed too long.  She turned
+impulsively, and stepped into the darkness of her room.
+
+In a moment her slim little figure reappeared at the window, this time
+heavily encumbered.  In one hand was a round, soft bundle, in the other
+a square wicker basket with a white cloth tied over the top.  The white
+cloth glimmered conspicuously, but the light was not yet strong enough
+to reveal the colour of the bundle.  Setting both the burdens out upon
+the roof of the porch, she turned, glanced in at the window, and said,
+softly:
+
+"Good-bye, little room!  I haven't been happy with you.  But I hope you
+won't be lonely when I'm gone!"
+
+Leaning over the edge of the porch, she dropped the bundle soundlessly
+into a bed of marigolds.  The basket, on the other hand, she took up
+with care.  Thrusting her left arm through the handle, she swung
+herself nimbly into the apple-tree, and thence to the ground; while the
+basket tipped and slewed as if it were alive.
+
+"Be still, my babies!" she whispered; and then, picking up the bundle
+from the crushed marigolds, and never turning her head to look up at
+the stately old house which she was leaving, she fled down the walk
+between the currant and gooseberry bushes, the thyme, the sage, and
+summer savoury beds,--through a narrow wicket gate half-hidden in
+larkspur and honeysuckle,--along the foot-path through the rank and
+dripping burdocks back of the barn, where she felt a little qualm of
+homesickness at the sound of her dear horses breathing deeply and
+contentedly in the stalls,--and thence, letting down one of the bars
+and crawling through with her burdens, out into the graying, hillocky
+open of the cow-pasture.
+
+By this time a cool and luminous wave of pink, changing to pale saffron
+at its northeastern edges, had crept up over the far-off hilltops.
+Faint tinges of colour, of a strange and unusual transparency, began to
+reveal themselves all over the expanse of pasture.  As the miracle of
+dawn thus overtook her, a sense of unreality came upon Barbara's soul.
+She felt as if this were not she, this little girl so adventurously
+running away--but rather some impossible child in a story-book, who had
+so engaged her sympathies for the moment that she could not be sure
+which was make-believe and which herself.  With a chill of lonesome
+dread she slipped a hand under the cloth and into the basket.  The
+touch of warm, live, cuddling fur reassured her, and brought her back
+to her own identity.  But stranger and stranger grew the mystical
+transparency, only made the more startling by a fleece of vapour here
+and there curling up from between the hillocks.  Stumps, weed-tops,
+patches of juniper, tufts of blueberry bush, wisps of coarse grass left
+uncropped, seemed to detach themselves, lift, and float in the solvent
+clarity of that new-born air, that new-born light.  Surely, this was
+not her old, familiar world!  Barbara stood still, her great eyes
+dilating, her lips parted in a kind of ecstasy, as sense and spirit
+alike drank in the marvel of the dawn.  It seemed to her as if she
+discovered, in that moment, that the world was made anew with every
+morning,--and with the discovery she became aware, dimly but securely,
+that she was herself a part of the imperishable, ever-renewing life.
+
+She was brought back to more instant considerations by the sudden
+appearance of a red-and-white cow, which got up with a great, windy,
+grunting breath, and came toward her out of a misty hollow.  With all
+the cows of the herd Barbara was in high favour, but just now the sight
+alarmed her.
+
+"Gracious!" she exclaimed to herself, "Abby will be out to milk in
+another minute!"--and she broke into a run at the best speed that her
+burdens would permit, making for the maple woods which lay to the north
+of the pasture.  The cow looked and mooed after her wistfully,
+wondering at her flight, and aching for the relief of the milker's
+hand.  But Barbara paid no heed to her, nor to the others of the herd,
+who now came into view from corners of the pasture as the enchanted
+light grew and spread.  She darted on, vanishing in the hollows,
+flitting over the hillocks, fleetly threading the crooked and slender
+path,--a wisp-like, dark little figure.  Her bundle, now seen to be
+tied up in a silk shawl of flamelike scarlet, and the snow-white
+covering of her basket, flickered across the mystical transparency of
+the landscape like bubbles of intense light blown far in advance of the
+morning.
+
+Not till she came to the other side of the pasture and plunged into the
+obscurity of the woods did Barbara check her speed.  Here the dawn was
+but beginning to penetrate, thrusting thin shafts of pink-amber light
+here and there through the leafage, and touching the eastward sides of
+trunk and branch with elusive glories.  Breathing quickly, Barbara set
+down the bundle and the precious basket; but she snatched them up again
+as she caught a sound of panting and running behind her.  On the
+instant, however, the alarm faded from her face.
+
+"Down, Keep!" she commanded, sharply, as the gaunt gray form of a
+mastiff leaped upon her, almost carrying her off her feet.  Fawning,
+and giving little yelps of joy, the huge animal crouched before her,
+pounding the sward with ecstatic tail, and implored to lick her hands.
+She threw both arms about the dog's head, murmuring to him, poignantly
+impetuous, her voice tearful with self-reproach:
+
+"Was his best friend going away, without ever saying good-bye to him?
+Well, she was bad, she was very, very bad!"  And she wiped away several
+large, surreptitious tears upon the furry folds of his neck.  Then she
+sprang up and renewed her journey resolutely; while the mastiff,
+bounding in front of her, showed his plain conviction that some fine,
+audacious adventure was afoot, and that it would be his great luck to
+have a part in it.
+
+For more than a mile Barbara followed the wood-path, the fresh, wet
+gloom lightening about her as she went.  Where the maples thinned away,
+and the slenderer ash and birch took their place, she got glimpses of a
+pale sky overhead, dappled with streamers of a fiery violet.  Here and
+there a dripping leaf had caught the colours from above and flashed
+elusive jewels upon her vision.  Here and there the dewy thickets of
+witch-hazel and viburnum crowded so close about the path that her
+skirts and shoulders were drenched with their scented largess.  Here
+and there in her path rose suddenly a cluster of night-born
+toadstools--squat, yellow, and fat-fleshed, or tall, shadowy-hooded,
+and whitely venomous--over which she stepped with wary aversion.  And
+once, eager as was her haste, she stopped to pick a great, lucent,
+yellow orchid, which seemed to beam like a sacred lamp in its dark
+green shrine beneath the alders.
+
+At length the path dipped sharply between rocks overgrown with poison
+ivy.  Then the trees thinned away before her, and the day grew at once
+full of light; and the mirror-surface of a little lake, shining with
+palest crocus-tint and violet and silvery rose, obscured with patches
+of dissolving mist, flashed upon her eyes.  She ran down to the very
+edge, where the water seemed to breathe among its fringing pebbles, and
+there set down the bundle and the basket; while the dog, yelping
+joyously, bounded and splashed in the shallows.
+
+When, however, Barbara stepped up the bank to a thicket of Indian
+willow, and proceeded, by dint of carefully calculated lifting and
+pulling, to drag forth from its hiding-place a ruddy canoe of
+birch-bark, the dog's spirits and his flaunting tail fell together.  If
+Barbara's venture was to be in the canoe, he knew he should have no
+part in it; and his big, doggish heart was dejected.  With his tongue
+hanging from his jaws, he sat up on his brindled haunches and looked
+on, while slowly and laboriously Barbara worked the frail craft down to
+the water.  When it was afloat, and the resined prow pulled up into a
+tuft of weeds to keep it from drifting away, Barbara fetched two
+paddles from the same hiding-place.  In the bow of the canoe she stowed
+her bundle and her basket.  In the stern she arranged a pile of ferns
+as a cushion for her knees.  Once more she flung her arms around Keep's
+massive neck, kissed his silky ears, wept violently for the smallest
+fraction of a minute; and then, stepping into the canoe with the light
+precision of one skilled with the birch-bark, she pushed off, and with
+quick, vigorous strokes headed straight across the lake.  The dog ran
+uneasily up and down the water's edge, whining and fretting after her.
+When she was a little way out he made a sudden resolution, plunged into
+the water, and swam eagerly after the fugitive.  But Barbara heard the
+splash, and understood.  She realised that he would surely upset the
+canoe in trying to get into it, and this was the time when she must
+seem hard, however her heart was melting.  She looked back over her
+shoulder.
+
+"Go home, Keep!  Go home!" she commanded.
+
+The dog turned obediently and made for shore.  And Barbara, her lips
+set and the big tears rolling down her cheeks, continued her journey
+out across the lake.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+It was now clear day.  The ample spaces of blue between the thin clouds
+overhead grew pure, as if new bathed.  The sun was not yet visible over
+the woods, but sent level shafts of radiance through the sparser
+leafage.  Barbara's face was westward, and her prow, as the nervous
+cunning of her paddle urged it forward, threw off the water on either
+side in long, polished, fluted furrows, dazzlingly bright at the top of
+the curve and steel-dark in the depression.  Child as she was, and of a
+fairy slightness, Barbara's wrists were strong and she was master of
+her paddle.  Her tears presently dried themselves as she noted with
+exultation, by the growing depth and abruptness of these furrows from
+her prow, that she was making a speed that did credit to her
+canoe-craft.  In a few minutes her parting pangs were all forgotten,
+and she was absorbed in racing, as it were, against herself.  She knelt
+low, working her shoulders freely like a squaw, and bent every energy
+to making the passage of the open before a wind out of the morning
+should awake to hinder her progress.
+
+A low, green point, deep-plumed with sedge, thrust out from the nearing
+shore to meet her.  At its tip, motionless, and eloquent of ancient
+mystery, poised the dream-like shape of a blue heron.  Nearer and
+nearer slipped the canoe, till Barbara could discern the round,
+unwinking jewel of the great bird's eye, watching her inscrutably.
+Then, with leisurely spread of spacious wings, it rose and flapped
+away, to renew its not wholly disinterested contemplations in a further
+reed-bed.
+
+Behind the point of sedges Barbara swept the canoe on a fine curve, and
+into the channel of a little river, the quiet outlet of the lake.
+Alders, osiers, and thick-starred draperies of clematis came down over
+either bank.  The stream was not twenty paces wide, and its deep
+current was so gentle that the long weeds on the bottom were hardly
+under compulsion to show which way it flowed.
+
+The ancient wood at this place gave back several hundred yards from the
+lake, save for scattered outposts and thickets.  Rounding the first
+curve of the stream,--which, indeed, seemed all curves in its
+reluctance to forsake the parent water,--the canoe ran into a flock of
+gray-and-white geese dabbling along the weedy margin.  The birds were
+not alarmed, but they lifted their heads and clamoured a sonorous
+warning; and straightway from behind the screen of leafage came a
+quacking of ducks, a cackling of hens, and the excited barking of a
+puppy.  Then a cock crowed shrilly.  The stream rounded to a wider
+stretch, and its western bank, flooded with sunshine, showed a grassy
+clearing of perhaps two acres in extent, at the back of which, close
+against the primeval trees, huddled a low, gray cabin, with wide eaves
+and a red door.  A hop-vine covered one end of the cabin and sprawled
+over the roof.  Along the base ran a "banking" about two feet high, of
+rough boards with the bark on, supported by stakes and filled in with
+earth--a protection to the cellar against winter frosts.  Leaned up to
+the sun, along the banking, stood wooden tubs and an iron pot; and on a
+bench beside the door another tub.  In front of the door was a space of
+chips, littered with axe, buck-saw, feed-troughs, parts of a broken
+hand-sled, a large wicker basket with the bottom gone, and
+indeterminate waifs and strays of human use.  From this space of debris
+a foot-path ran down through short grass to the waterside, where a
+clumsy punt was hauled up.  The place was alive with ducks and
+chickens; and as Barbara came in view a stately turkey-cock swelled,
+strutted, and gobbled defiance to her intrusion.
+
+Sitting on the door-step in the sun was a sturdy old woman in greenish
+homespun petticoat and bodice, with a dull red kerchief crossed upon
+her shoulders and a cap of greenish-yellow linen on her head,--the soft
+dye of the "yaller-weed" juice.  She was busy cutting coloured rags
+into strips for mat-hooking.  At her side sat a small yellow puppy,
+with head cocked and one ear alertly lifted, curious but doubtful as to
+the visitor.
+
+Barbara turned her birchen prow to the landing-place, and ran it gently
+ashore in the soft mud beside the punt.  At the same moment Mrs.
+Deborah Blue--known to Barbara and to all the village of Second
+Westings as 'old Debby'--dropped her knitting on the stoop, snatched up
+a stout stick that leaned against the door-post, and hobbled with a
+heavy briskness down the path to meet the visitor.  The yellow pup
+frisked interestedly at her heels.
+
+Barbara had indeed run her prow ashore, but that was for the sake of
+stability merely.  She was in haste, and had no idea of stopping now to
+indulge her inclination for a gossip with old Debby.  She rested in
+silence, one brown hand on the gunwale of the punt, her full, young,
+wilful lips very scarlet, her gray-green eyes asparkle with mystery and
+excitement, as the old woman hobbled down to greet her.
+
+"Ain't ye comin' in to set awhile, an' eat a cooky, Miss Barby?"
+inquired Mrs. Blue, wondering at the child's inscrutable look.  The old
+dame's face was red and harsh and strongly lined.  Her chin was square
+and thrust forward aggressively, with a gray-bristled wart at one side
+of its obtrusive vigour.  A lean and iron-gray wisp of hair, escaped
+from under her hat, straggled down upon her red neck.  But her shrewd,
+hard, pale-blue, dauntless old eyes beamed upon the child with
+unfeigned welcome.  She spoke a little wheezingly, being out of breath
+from haste; and Barbara was the only soul in all the township of Second
+Westings for whom old Debby would condescend to hasten.
+
+"No, Debby dear, I can't stop one minute.  I'm not coming ashore.  I'm
+running away from Aunt Hitty, and I'm going down the river to Uncle
+Bob.  I just stopped to say good-bye to you, you old dear, and to ask
+you to take this letter for me to Aunt Hitty.  I didn't dare to leave
+it in my room, for fear she'd find it and know where I'd gone, and send
+after me before I'd got a good start.  I don't like Aunt Hitty, you
+know, Debby, but she's been good to me in her way, and I don't want her
+to be worrying!"  She held out a folded paper for the old dame to take;
+but she held it tentatively, as if she did not want to surrender it at
+once.
+
+Knowing Barbara as no one else in the township of Second Westings knew
+her, old Debby betrayed neither surprise nor disapproval.  She nodded
+several times, as if running away were the most reasonable, and indeed
+the most ordinary, thing in the world for a little girl of fourteen
+years to do when she found aunts and environments uncongenial.  Old
+Debby's smile, at this moment, had just the right degree of sympathy.
+Had ever so little of amusement glimmered through its weather-beaten
+creases, she knew that the sensitive and wilful girl before her would
+have been off in a second with her venture all unexplained.
+
+"I'd take it fer ye, my sweeting, ef I'd got to crawl on my knees all
+the way 'round the lake," the old dame answered promptly; but at the
+same time, scheming to prolong the interview, and knowing that if once
+Barbara started off again there would be no such thing as luring her
+back, she kept both hands clasped on top of her stick and made no move
+to accept the missive.
+
+"Ain't ye goin' to read it to me?" she went on, coaxingly.  "I'd give a
+sight to hear what ye're sayin' to yer Aunt Hitty."
+
+Now this was just what Barbara wanted, in spite of her haste.  She
+wanted to hear how her letter would sound.  She wanted to try it on old
+Debby, in whom she felt sure of a eulogistic critic.  Without a word
+she untied the yellow ribbon, opened the packet, and began to read,
+with a weighty impressiveness in her childish voice:
+
+
+"MY DEAR AUNT HITTY:--This is to say farewell for ever, for I have run
+away.  I do not think it would be good for me to live with you any
+longer, so I am going to Uncle Bob.  He loves me, and does not think I
+am bad.  And I think he needs me, too, because I understand him.  I
+know I have often been bad, and have made you unhappy very often, Aunt
+Hitty.  But I don't think you ever understand me--and I don't
+understand you--and so we cannot be happy together.  But don't be
+worried about me, for I will be all right.  And I thank you for all the
+trouble you have taken about me.  I don't want any of my old clothes
+except what I have brought with me, so please give them to Mercy
+Chapman, because she is poor and just about my size, and always kind to
+animals, and I like her.  I have taken your nice basket you got from
+the squaw last Saturday, to carry my kittens in; but I know you won't
+mind, because you offered to give it to me when I did not know I was
+going to need it.  I have taken the canoe, too, but I want to pay for
+it, of course, Aunt Hitty.  Please keep enough to get a new one, and
+paddles, out of the money you are taking care of for me, and send the
+rest right away to Uncle Bob, because I'll need some new frocks when I
+get to the city, and I don't know whether Uncle Bob has any money or
+not.  Good-bye, Aunt Hitty, and I am so sorry that we could not
+understand each other.
+
+"Your niece,
+  "BARBARA LADD."
+
+
+She looked up, proud, but a little anxious, and eager for commendation.
+Old Debby rose to the circumstances.
+
+"Law, how you kin write, Miss Barby," she said, with a nod and chuckle.
+"The parson nor Doctor Jim couldn't 'a' done no better.  I reckon Aunt
+Hitty'll understand ye now, a sight better'n she's given to understand
+folks as don't jest think as she do.  Give me the letter!"
+
+Barbara's face flashed radiantly.  With a sudden impulse she sprang up,
+skipped ashore, thrust the letter into the old woman's hand, and cried
+in a high key:
+
+"Oh, I'm so hungry, Debby!  I can't stop a minute, but do give me some
+breakfast, there's a dear.  I was too excited to eat before I left.
+And do give my kittens a drop of milk.  I've got nothing but cold meat
+for them to eat on the journey, poor babies!"
+
+Without waiting for a reply, she skipped back to the canoe, grabbed up
+the covered basket, and flew up the path to the cottage; while the old
+woman limped after her with astonishing speed, chuckling and wheezing
+out a disjointed invitation.  She followed Barbara into the cabin,
+shutting the door to keep out the puppy, who whined in an injured voice
+upon the stoop.  Then, thinking of the kittens first,--and thereby
+showing her deep knowledge of the kittens' mistress,--she set down a
+bowl of milk in the middle of the floor; and Barbara, uncovering the
+basket, lovingly lifted out three plump, moon-faced little cats, a
+yellow-and-white, a black-and-white, and a gray-and-white.  While the
+three, with happy tails erect, lapped at the milk, Barbara made haste
+to devour thick slices of brown bread and butter, spread to a luscious
+depth with moist, sweet-scented maple sugar.  She had no time to talk.
+She sat on the edge of the big four-post bed, swinging her slim legs,
+and kicking her heels against the dingy, gay patchwork quilt whose
+ample folds hung to the floor.  The hidden space under the bed was a
+place of piquant mystery to Barbara, containing, as it did, boxes on
+boxes of many-coloured rags, out of which, earlier in the season, old
+Debby would bring forth precious goose-eggs, duck-eggs, turkey-eggs,
+and the specially prized eggs of certain pet and prolific hens,
+gathered against the time of setting.  While Barbara broke her fast,
+old Debby refrained from questions, having shrewdly grasped the whole
+situation.  She knew that Mr. Robert Glenowen, Barbara's uncle, had
+lately come north on an errand which nobody seemed to understand, and
+had taken a house at Stratford.  Of a nomadic spirit in her younger
+days, Debby had moved much here and there throughout her native
+Connecticut, and over the bordering counties of New York and
+Massachusetts; and she had not only a rough idea of the distance from
+Second Westings to Stratford, but a very vivid realisation of the
+perils of the journey which Barbara, in her innocence, had so
+confidently undertaken.  Till she saw that the appetites of Barbara and
+the kittens were nearing satisfaction, she talked with a sort of casual
+enthusiasm of her luck with the chickens, the goslings, the young
+turkeys, and depicted the prowess of an old speckled hen which had
+engaged and defeated a marauding hawk.  Then, when at last Barbara
+sprang up, bundled the satiated kittens into the basket, and turned to
+her for a fond and final good-bye, the crafty old dame broke into
+passionate farewells.  She kissed the child, and even wept over her,
+till Barbara's self-centred exaltation was very near collapse.
+
+"_You_ love me, don't you, Debby dear?" she exclaimed, with a
+wistfulness in her voice, searching the old woman's face with her
+great, eager, strangely alien eyes.  Barbara was one of those who
+colour the moods of others by their own, and who are therefore apt to
+be at fault in their interpretation of another's motives.  This gave
+her, even in childhood, a strangeness, an aloneness of personality,
+which she, as well as those who loved her, could seldom break down.  It
+was with a kind of heart-break that she now and again, for an instant,
+became dimly aware of this alien fibre in her temperament.  It made her
+both misunderstanding and misunderstood.
+
+"I can trust you, can't I?" she went on, leaning childishly for a
+moment upon the old woman's comfortable breast.
+
+"Trust old Debby, my sweeting!" cried the old dame, in tones which
+carried conviction.  "Ye hain't got no lovinger nor faithfuller friend
+alive than me.  Don't ye never forgit that, Miss Barby."
+
+For answer Barbara clutched her fiercely around the neck, sobbed and
+clung to her for a moment, cried extravagantly, "Yes, you are the best
+friend I've got in all the world!" then gathered up her basket of
+kittens and fled wildly down the path to the canoe.  Impetuously she
+pushed off, the world a golden blur before her eyes; and without once
+looking back, she disappeared around the next winding of the stream.
+Old Debby stood for some minutes gazing after this meteor-like--and
+very Barbara-like--exit.  There was amusement now, unhindered, on her
+hard old face, but a kind of fierce devotion withal.  When the stern of
+the canoe had vanished behind the leafage, she muttered to herself:
+"Well!  Well!  Well! was ever sech a child!  When ye set yer finger
+onto her, she ain't there!  I reckon that mincing-mouthed Aunt Kitty's
+hed her bad times, too.  But the sooner I git 'round to see Doctor Jim
+the better it's goin' to be fer the little wild witch.  Land's sakes
+alive!  But 'twon't be 'Debby dear' to me agin fer awhile.  How them
+eyes'll blaze!  I'll not go nigh her till she's hed time to git over it
+an' to know who's really her friends.  No, Pippin, ye can't come with
+me!  Go 'way!"
+
+Turning into the long lean-to of a shed which stretched behind the
+cabin, she brought out two stumpy oars.  These under her left arm, her
+stalwart stick in her right hand, she limped with massive alertness
+down to the waterside, shoved off the punt, climbed into it with a
+nicety of balance remarkable in one of her weight, clicked the oars
+into the rowlocks, and pulled up-stream toward the lake whence Barbara
+had come.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+The child who set forth so fearlessly, on so audacious and
+ill-regulated a venture, that midsummer morning of the year 1769,--in a
+time when audacity on the part of small girls was apt to meet the
+discouragement of a peculiarly strenuous discipline,--was an accident
+in her period, an irreconcilable alien to her environment.  In her
+intense individuality, and in the confident freedom with which she
+claimed the right to express that individuality, she belonged to an
+earlier or a later day, but not to a New England of the eighteenth
+century.  Two years before, at the age of twelve, an age when other
+children's personalities were colourless to the eyes of their elders,
+she had been projected into the tranquil routine of the little world of
+Second Westings.  It was an established, crystallised, unchanging life
+there in the back country of Connecticut, where hours, seasons,
+actions, habits, revolved in so orderly a fashion as to have worn
+themselves grooves out of which they could hardly even look, still less
+achieve to deviate.  Into this rigid placidity the dark child came like
+a grain of ferment; and presently, no one could tell just how, the mass
+began to work.  Barbara was everywhere discussed.  She was rather
+unanimously disapproved of.  And, nevertheless, as it were in the teeth
+of all probability, she won to herself here and there a friend.
+
+At the time of Barbara's transplanting from the cordial soil of
+Maryland to the austere uplands of Connecticut, her father, the
+Reverend Winthrop Hopkins Ladd, clergyman of the Established Church,
+had been dead over two years, and the child's hurt, as such things
+will, had outwardly healed; though the hidden wounds would agonise in
+her heart at unexpected times, set vibrating to some poignant touch of
+scent or sound or colour.  The child had adored her father with a
+tempestuous and jealous devotion, which, however, had not prevented her
+waywardness from diversifying his repose with many a wakeful night.
+Her mother, who had died when Barbara was scarce out of arms, had been
+a bewildering birth from the kiss of North Wales on the warm south of
+Spanish passion.  The son of an old Welsh family, adventuring to the
+New World to capture himself a fortune, had captured himself also a
+wife to beggar envy.  Where or how he got the fortune, no man knew and
+few presumed to wonder; but where and how he got the wife was matter of
+noonday knowledge.  He saw her at church in New Orleans.  There were
+looks that burn and live.  Through that emotional spring Glenowen
+sniffed the incense of more masses than he had thought to attend in a
+lifetime.  Once there was a stolen word behind a pillar, eyes warily
+averted.  Twice notes passed from hand to hand.  Then a girl, the
+daughter of one of the haughtiest houses of Colonial Spain, was
+audaciously carried off by night from a convent school in the safe
+heart of the city.  When next seen of the world, she was Glenowen's
+wife, most radiantly and graciously dispensing an accepted hospitality
+in Baltimore.
+
+The result that in particular pertains to this history was a small,
+flame-like, imperious girl, one Mistress Mercedes Glenowen, who, from
+the night of ceremony when she first made her bow to the governor and
+joyously turned her disastrous eyes upon the society of Baltimore, for
+the space of some three years dispersed vain heartache throughout the
+colony.  Into the remotest plantations went the name of her and the
+fame of her--and too often, also, the sickness of a hopeless desire of
+her.  There were duels, too, discreetly laid to other cause; and old
+friendships changed to hate; and wild oaths made perjury.  But the
+heart of Mistress Mercedes went free.  A quiet young clergyman, a
+kinsman to the governor, came to Baltimore from Boston, on his way to a
+country parish on the Pawtuxet, to which he had just been appointed.
+Dining at Government House, he met Mistress Mercedes, but his eyes,
+being at that moment immersed in dreams, looked not upon but through
+and beyond her.  Mercedes could not rest an instant until those
+far-wandering, Northern eyes were ensnared, imprisoned, and denied a
+range beyond the boundaries of her heart.  But the capture was not a
+quick one, and in the interest of it she had the accident to become
+herself entangled, to such a degree that she had no longer any use for
+freedom.  And so it came about, to the wrathful amaze of her retinue,
+but the unspeakable content of the Reverend Winthrop Ladd, that the
+dark rose of Maryland was on a sudden removed from Baltimore to bloom
+on a churchly plantation by the pale waters of the Pawtuxet.
+
+Mr. Ladd, though a dreamer so far as consisted with outdoor life and
+sanity of brain and muscle, was a strong man, one of those who have the
+force to rule when they must, and the gentleness to yield when they
+may.  In the passionate completeness of her love, Mercedes sloughed the
+caprices that would have pained and puzzled him, forgot the very echoes
+of the acclamations of her court, and lived in the sanctuary of her
+husband's devotion.  For nearly three years the strangely assorted
+lovers dwelt in their dream, while the world passed by them like a
+pageant viewed through a glory of coloured glass.  Then a sudden
+sickness tore them apart; and when the dazed man came slowly back to
+the realisation that he had been left to live, all his love, with all
+the illusion of it, centred itself fixedly upon the little one,
+Barbara, whom Mercedes had left to him.
+
+As Barbara grew more and more like her mother, her ascendency over her
+father grew more and more complete.  Tenderly but firmly he ruled his
+parish and his plantation.  But he gradually forgot to rule Barbara.
+Too nearly did she represent to him all that he had lost in his
+worshipped Mercedes; and he could not bring himself to see anything but
+freshness of character and vigour of personality in the child's very
+faults.  Hence he evolved, to suit her particular case, a theory very
+much out of harmony with his time, to the effect that a child--or
+rather, perhaps, such a child as this of Mercedes--should not be
+governed or disciplined, but guided merely, and fostered in the finding
+of her own untrammelled individuality.  This plan worked, for the time,
+to Barbara's unqualified approval, but she was destined to pay for it,
+in later years, a heavy price in tears, and misunderstandings, and
+repentance.  With the growth of her intense and confident personality
+there grew no balancing strength of self-control.  Unacquainted with
+discipline, she was without the safeguard of self-discipline.  Before
+she was eight years old she held sway over every one on the plantation
+but herself,--and her rule, though pretty and bewitching, was not
+invariably gentle.  As for her father, though ostensively her comrade
+and mentor, he was by this time in reality her slave.  He rode with
+her; he read with her; he taught her,--but such studies only as
+ensnared her wayward inclination, and with such regularity only as fell
+in with her variable mood.  The hour for a lesson on the spinet would
+go by unheeded, if Barbara chanced to be interested in the more
+absorbing occupation of climbing a tree; and the time for reciting
+Latin syntax was lightly forgotten if berries were a-ripening in the
+pasture.  Under such auspices, however, Barbara did assuredly grow
+straight-limbed and active, slight and small indeed, by heritage from
+her mother, but strong and of marvellous endurance, with the clear
+blood red under her dark skin, her great gray-green eyes luminous with
+health.  Her father devoted to her every hour of the day that he could
+spare from the claims of his parish.  In a sunny and sandy cove near
+the house he taught her to swim.  Rowing and canoeing on the Pawtuxet
+were mysteries of outdoor craft into which he initiated her as soon as
+her little hands could pull an oar or swing a paddle.  A certain strain
+of wildness in her temperament attuned her to a peculiar sympathy with
+the canoe, and won her a swift mastery of its furtive spirit.  In the
+woods, and in the seclusion of remote creeks and backwaters, her
+waywardness would vanish till she became silent and elusive as the wild
+things whose confidence she was for ever striving to gain.  Her
+advances being suspiciously repelled by the squirrels, the 'coons, and
+the chipmunks, her passion was fain to expend itself upon the domestic
+animals of the plantation.  The horses, cattle, dogs, and cats, all
+loved her, and she understood them as she never understood the nearest
+and best-beloved of her own kind.  With the animals her patience was
+untiring, her gentleness unfailing, while her thoughtless selfishness
+melted into a devotion for which no sacrifice seemed too great.
+
+The negroes of the plantation, who seemed to Barbara akin to the
+animals, came next to these in her regard, and indeed were treated with
+an indulgence which made them almost literally lay their black necks in
+the dust for her little feet to step on.  But with people of her own
+class she was apt to be hasty and ungracious.  _Their_ feelings were of
+small account in her eyes--certainly not to be weighed for a moment
+against those of a colt or a kitten.  There was one sweet-eyed and
+lumbering half-grown puppy which Barbara's father--not for an instant,
+indeed, believing anything of the sort--used to declare was more
+precious to her than himself.  But her old black "Mammy" 'Lize used to
+vow there was more truth than he guessed in "Marse Ladd's foolin'."
+
+However, when a fever snatched the gentle priest away from the scene of
+his love and kindly ministrations, the child's true self emerged
+through its crust of whim and extravagance.  Stricken beyond a child's
+usual capacity to feel or realise such a blow, she was herself seized
+with a serious illness, after which she fell into a dejection which
+lasted for the better part of a year.  In her desolation she turned to
+her animals rather than to her human companions, and found the more of
+healing in their wordless sympathy.
+
+At last, youth and health asserted themselves, and once more Barbara
+rode, paddled, swam, tyrannised, and ran wild over the plantation,
+while relatives from Maine to Maryland wrangled over her future.
+
+There was one young uncle, her mother's only brother, whom Barbara
+decided to adopt as her sole guardian.  But other guardians came to
+another decision.  Uncle Bob Glenowen was an uncle after Barbara's own
+heart, but a little more disciplined and reasonable than herself.  The
+two would have got on delightfully together--together careering over
+the country on high-mettled horses, together swimming and canoeing at
+the most irregular hours, together lauding and loving their four-foot
+kindred and laughing to scorn the general stupidity of mankind.  But
+Uncle Glenowen had little of gold or gear, and his local habitation was
+mutable.  He loved Barbara too well not to recognise that she should
+grow up under the guidance of steadier hands than his.  It was finally
+settled--Barbara's fiery indignation being quite disregarded--that she
+should go to her father's younger sister, Mistress Mehitable Ladd, in
+Second Westings.
+
+Mistress Ladd was a self-possessed, fair-faced, aristocratic little
+lady, with large blue eyes and a very firm, small mouth.  She was
+conscientious to a point that was wont to bring her kindness, at times,
+into painful conflict with her sense of duty.  The Puritan fibre ran in
+unimpaired vitality through the texture of her being, with the result
+that whenever her heart was so rash as to join issue with her
+conscience, then prompt and disastrous overthrow was the least her
+heart could expect for such presumption.  In the matter of Barbara's
+future, however, Distress Mehitable felt that duty and inclination ran
+together.  She had loved her brother Winthrop with unselfish and
+admiring devotion, and had grieved in secret for years over his
+defection from the austere fold of the Congregationalists to what she
+regarded as the perilously carnal form and ceremony of the Church of
+England.  Her hampered spirit, her uncompleted womanhood, yearned
+toward Barbara, and she shuddered at the idea of Winthrop's child
+growing up untaught, unmothered, uncontrolled.  She made up her mind
+that Barbara should come to Second Westings, become a daughter to her,
+and be reared in the purity of unsullied Congregationalism.  With a
+sigh of concordant relief it was recognised by the other relatives that
+Mehitable was right.  They washed their hands of the child, and forgot
+her, and were thankful--all but Uncle Bob.  And so Barbara went to
+Second Westings.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+Little enough, indeed, would Second Westings ever have seen of the
+heartsore and rebellious child, but for this Uncle Bob.  Searching his
+own spirit, he understood hers; and maintaining a discreet silence as
+to the chief points of his discovery, he set himself the duty of
+accompanying Barbara on the long, complicated journey to Connecticut.
+Not content with delivering his charge into the hands of Mistress
+Mehitable,--whom he liked despite her uneasy half-disapproval of
+himself,--he stayed long summer weeks at Second Westings, thus bridging
+over for Barbara the terrible chasm between the old life and the new,
+and by his tactful conciliation on every side making the new life look
+a little less hatefully alien to her.  He took her riding all over the
+township; he took her canoeing on the lake, and down the outlet to its
+junction with the river; and so not only won her a freedom of movement
+hitherto unheard-of among the maidens of Second Westings, but also
+showed her that the solace of wild woods and sweet waters was to be
+found no less in Connecticut than in her longed-for Maryland.
+Moreover, Uncle Bob had "a presence."  Second Westings scrutinised him
+severely, all ready to condemn the stranger folk to whom Winthrop Ladd
+had turned in his marrying.  But Second Westings felt constrained to
+acknowledge at once that Winthrop Ladd had married within his class.
+To high and low alike--and the line between high and low was sharply
+drawn at Second Westings--it was obvious that the sister of Mr. Robert
+Glenowen must have been gently born.  Those who would not let
+themselves be warmed by Uncle Bob's bright heartsomeness were unable to
+withhold acknowledgment of his good breeding.  Mistress Mehitable,
+though antagonised by vague gossip as to his "wildness," nevertheless
+recognised with serious relief that no common blood had been suffered
+to obscure the clear blue stream whose purity the Ladds held precious.
+"Light, I fear--if not, in other surroundings, ungodly; but beyond all
+cavil a gentleman!" pronounced the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer, flicking
+snuff from his sleeve with white, scholarly fingers.  He was not so
+innocent as to attach too much importance to Uncle Bob's devout
+attitude through those interminable services which made a weekly
+nightmare of the Connecticut Sabbath; but he had found a reserved
+satisfaction in the young man's company over a seemly glass and a pipe
+of bright Virginia.  He had a feeling that the visitor's charm was more
+or less subversive of discipline, and that it would be, on the whole,
+for the spiritual welfare of Second Westings if the visit should be
+brief; but meanwhile he took what he could of Uncle Bob's society.
+Class against creed, and a fair field, and it's long odds on class.
+
+But in the minds of Doctor John and Doctor Jim Pigeon--physicians,
+brothers, comrades, fierce professional rivals, justices of the peace,
+and divinely self-appointed guardians of the sanctity of caste for all
+the neighbourhood--there were no misgivings.  Their instincts accepted
+Bob Glenowen at first glance.  Their great, rugged faces and mighty
+shoulders towering over him,--and Uncle Bob himself was nowise scant of
+stature,--they looked at him and then into each other's eyes; and
+agreed, as they did on most subjects outside the theory and practice of
+medicine.
+
+"You are right welcome to Second Westings, Mr. Glenowen!" exclaimed
+Doctor Jim, in a big, impetuous voice, grasping his hand heartily.
+
+"And we trust that you may be slow to leave us, Mr. Glenowen!" added
+Doctor John, in a voice which any competent jury, blindfolded, would
+have pronounced identical.
+
+Recognising the true fibre and the fineness of these two big, gentle
+autocrats, Uncle Bob made a special point of commending Barbara to
+their hearts--in which commending he so well sped, and indeed was so
+well seconded by Barbara herself, who loved them from the moment when
+her eyes first fell upon them, that they presently constituted
+themselves special guardians to the little maid, and indulgent
+mitigators of Mistress Mehitable's conscience.  The manner in which
+they fulfilled the sometimes conflicting duties of these offices will
+appear pretty persistently in the sequel.
+
+It was to Uncle Bob, also, that Barbara owed the somewhat disreputable
+friendship of old Debby.  The very first day that he and Barbara went
+canoeing on the lake, they explored the outlet, discovered old Debby's
+cabin, paid an uninvited call, and captivated the old dame's crusty
+heart.  Glenowen knew human nature.  He had the knack of going straight
+to the quintessential core of it, and pinning his faith to that in
+spite of all unpromising externals.  He decided at once that Debby
+would be a good diversion for Barbara after he was gone; and when,
+later in the day, he learned that the old woman was universally but
+vaguely reprobated by the prim folk of Second Westings, he was more
+than ever assured that she would be a comfort to Barbara through many a
+dark hour of strangerhood and virtuous misunderstanding.
+
+But Uncle Bob's visit had to end.  He went away with misgivings,
+leaving Barbara to pit her careless candour, her thoughtless
+self-absorption, her scorn of all opinions that differed from her own,
+her caprices, her passionate enthusiasms, her fierce intolerance of
+criticism or control, against the granitic conventions of an old New
+England village.  The half guilty, half amused support of Doctor John
+and Doctor Jim gave importance to her revolt, and so lightened the rod
+of Aunt Kitty's discipline as to save Barbara from the more ignominious
+of the penalties which her impetuous wilfulness would otherwise have
+incurred.  The complete, though forbidden, sympathy of old Debby,
+affording the one safe outlet to her tumultuous resentments and
+passionate despairs, saved the child from brain-sickness; and once,
+indeed, on a particularly black day of humiliation, from suicide.
+Barbara had shaken the very foundations of law, order, and religion, by
+riding at a wild gallop, one Sunday afternoon, down the wide main
+street of Second Westings just as the good folk were coming out of
+meeting.  Her rebellious waves of dark hair streamed out behind her
+little head.  Her white teeth flashed wickedly between her parted
+scarlet lips, her big eyes flamed with the intoxication of liberty and
+protest--to these good folk it seemed an unholy light.  Barbara ought
+to have been at meeting, but had been left at home, reluctantly, by
+Aunt Hitty, because she had seemed too sick to get out of bed.  In very
+truth she had been sick beyond all feigning.  Then one of those violent
+reactions of recovery which sometimes cause the nervous temperament to
+be miserably misunderstood had seized her at an inauspicious moment.
+As the tide of young vitality surged back to brain and vein and nerve,
+she had felt that she must let herself loose in wild action, or die.
+All unrealising the enormity of the offence, she had flung down her mad
+defiance to the sanctified and iron-bound repose of the New England
+Sabbath.
+
+Such a sacrilege could not be overlooked or condoned.  The congregation
+was appalled.  Long upper lips were drawn down ominously, as austere
+eyes followed the vision of the fleeing child on the great black horse.
+Could it be that she was possessed of a devil?  Pitying eyes were
+turned upon Aunt Hitty; and triumphant eyes of gratified grudge,
+moreover, for Aunt Hitty was proud, and had virtuous ill-wishers in the
+village.  But Mistress Mehitable Ladd was equal to the occasion.  With
+a level stare of her blue eyes, a cold tranquillity upon her small,
+fine mouth, she froze comment and forestalled suggestion.  The feeling
+went abroad, in a subtle way, that the case would be dealt with and the
+piety of Second Westings vindicated in the eyes of Heaven.  Doctor John
+and Doctor Jim looked grave, and said not a word.  This was a time when
+Mistress Mehitable, they well knew, would brook no interference.
+
+Of course there could be no question of such correction as would have
+fallen to the lot of any ordinary offender.  There could be no such
+thing as putting a _Ladd_ in the stocks.  The regular machinery of
+village law rested quiescent.  Equally of course, Mistress Mehitable
+would do nothing in anger.  She was humiliated before the whole
+village, in a manner that could never be forgotten or wiped out.  But
+her first feeling and her last feeling were alike of sorrow only.  She
+would do her duty because Winthrop's child must be saved.  But she had
+no proud consciousness of virtue in doing it.  First, she attempted to
+explain to Barbara the depth, quality, and significance of her sin, its
+possible influence upon the ethics of Second Westings if allowed to go
+unpunished, the special variety of inherited evil which it revealed in
+her nature, and her stupendous need of having this evil eradicated by
+devotedly merciless correction.  After the first few words of this
+exhortation, Barbara heard no more.  She was at all times fiercely
+impatient of criticism, and now, being determined not to fly into a
+fury and further complicate her predicament, she shut her eyes,
+inwardly closed her ears, and concentrated her imagination on memories
+of the longed-for plantation by the Pawtuxet.  This concentration gave
+her vivid little face an air of quietude, subjection, and voiceless
+sorrow, which Aunt Hitty was glad to construe as repentance.  But it
+earned no mitigation of punishment.  For one whole week Barbara was a
+prisoner in her room, eating her heart out in hatred of the stupidity
+and injustice of life.  Then came around, at last, another Sabbath.
+Barbara was taken to church.  There her proud soul was affronted by a
+public rebuke from the pastor, who exhorted her from the pulpit,
+contented the congregation by a rehearsal of her punishment, and held
+her up as an example to the other children of the village.  Barbara
+listened with shut eyes and white lips, her heart bursting with rage.
+She ached to kill him, to kill her aunt, to annihilate Second
+Westings--saving only the animals, old Debby, Mercy Chapman, Doctor
+John and Doctor Jim.  But when the good divine went on to say that her
+discipline would be concluded with a wholesome chastisement on the
+morrow, in the privacy of the house to which her sinful conduct had
+brought grief,--then, indeed, her heart stood still.  She felt a great
+calmness come over her.  She made up her mind to escape by her window
+that very evening and drown herself in the lake.  If life contained
+such horrors she would have done with it.
+
+She did not go that night, however, because she feared the dark.  It
+was gray dawn when she climbed from her window.  Blind, resolved,
+swift-footed, she fled through the woods.  Old Debby, resting in her
+punt by the lake's edge, not far from the Ladd landing-place, was
+pulling some sweet-rooted water-plants of a virtue known only to
+herself, when she was startled by a heavy splash and a little gasping
+cry which came from the other side of a steep point some four or five
+rods distant.  Her vigorous old arms drove the punt through the water
+in mad haste--for there was something in the cry that wrenched at her
+heart.  Rounding the point, she stood close in to the foot of a rock
+which jutted out into five or six feet of water.  Peering down over the
+side of the punt, she saw lying on the bottom a slim, small body.  A
+groan burst from her lips, for Barbara's face was half visible; and the
+old woman understood at once.  She had heard the village gossip, and
+she had feared a tragedy.  She knew that Barbara could swim,--but there
+was her long scarf of red silk twisted about the little arms lest
+resolution should falter in the face of the last great demand.
+
+For a second old Debby was at fault.  She could not swim.  Then her
+brain worked.  Reaching down with one of the oars, she twisted the
+blade tightly into the skirt of the child's gown, pulled her up, and
+snatched her into the boat.  Experienced and ready in emergency, the
+old woman thrust ashore, laid the moveless little figure down upon a
+mossy hillock, and in a very few minutes succeeded in bringing it back
+to conscious life.  She asked no questions, while Barbara clung to her,
+sobbing spasmodically at long intervals.  She murmured pet names to
+her, caressed and soothed her, told her she was safe and no one should
+abuse her, and finally, lifting her into the punt and laying her gently
+on an armful of sweet bracken in the stern, rowed over the lake to her
+cabin.  Throughout the journey Barbara lay with closed eyes, while the
+young life, slowly but obstinately reasserting itself, brought back the
+colour to cheeks and lips.  Only once did she speak.  Lifting her lids,
+she gazed fixedly at the hard-lined old face that bent over the swaying
+oars.
+
+"Oh, why did you do it, Debby dear?" she asked, weakly.  "If you knew
+how I hate to live!"
+
+"Tut! tut! honey!" answered the old woman, with a cheerful positiveness
+that made her despair suddenly seem to Barbara unreasonable and unreal.
+"Ye don't want to die yet awhile.  An' whatever ye want, ye cain't die
+yet awhile, fer I've seen it in yer blessed little hands that ye've got
+a long life afore ye.  Moresoever, I read it that life's got a heap of
+happiness in store fer ye.  So you be brave, Miss Barby, an' think how
+Uncle Bob would 'a' broke his poor heart if ye'd got yer own way an'
+drownded yerself."
+
+"Yes," murmured Barbara, drowsily, sinking away into peace after her
+long pain, "Uncle Bob would have been sorry!"  Then, after a pause, she
+added softly under her breath: "I'll run away and go to Uncle Bob some
+day!"
+
+Old Debby heard the words, but made no comment.  She stored them in her
+memory, and afterward kept crafty watch whenever she saw, by Barbara's
+mood, that a crisis was on at Aunt Kitty's.  For the time, however, she
+felt no great anxiety, it being very plain to her that this present
+crisis was past, and that Barbara was no longer strung up to the pitch
+of violent action or any course that would require initiative.  Nerve
+and will alike relaxed, the child was submissive through exhaustion.
+At the cabin Debby first made her eat some breakfast, and then got her
+interested in a brood of chickens just one day out of the shell.  The
+mother hen ruffled her feathers, scolded in shrill protest, and pecked
+angrily, but Barbara reached under the brooding wings and drew out a
+bead-eyed, golden-yellow, downy ball.  Her face lightened tenderly as
+she felt the tiny bill and fragile baby claws snuggling against her
+enclosing palms.
+
+"She's all right now!" said old Debby to herself, nodding her head in
+satisfaction.  Aloud she said,--as she got a clean white sunbonnet out
+of the chest, adjusted it on her sparse locks, and tied its strings
+beneath her grim chin,--"I'm goin' to leave ye a bit, honey, to mind
+the chickens fer me an' look after the place while I go in to Second
+Westings to hev a bit o' talk with Doctor Jim.  Promise me not to quit
+the place while I'm gone?"
+
+"I'll take good care of everything till you get back, Debby," answered
+Barbara, abstractedly, without turning her head.  She had relinquished
+the downy chicken, and was busy conciliating the ruffled hen with
+crumbs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+It was without misgiving that old Debby left the child to the healing
+of the solitude and the sun, the little wholesome responsibility, the
+unexacting companionship of the cat and the fowls.  (This was before
+the day of the yellow pup, which did not come upon the scene until the
+following summer.)  She had already learned that Barbara's promise was
+a thing to depend upon; and she felt that Barbara's heart would now be
+medicined more sweetly by silence than by words.
+
+The problem to whose solution the dauntless old woman had set herself
+was that of getting Barbara back to her aunt's house on terms that
+should ward off any further discipline.  With this end in view she
+turned, as a matter of course, to Doctor Jim Pigeon.  Debby's position
+in Second Westings was theoretically that of an outlaw.  She had a
+mysterious past.  She was obstinately refractory about going to
+meeting.  Without actually defying the authorities, she would quietly
+and unobtrusively go her own way in regard to many matters which Second
+Westings accounted momentous.  Moreover, she was lamentably lacking in
+that subservience to her betters which the aristocracy of Second
+Westings held becoming.  And she had knowledge that savoured of
+witchcraft.  She would certainly have felt the heavy hand of correction
+more than once, and probably have been driven to seek a more humane
+environment, but for the staunch befriending of Doctor Jim.  Something
+in the old woman's fearless independence appealed to both the big,
+loud-voiced, soft-hearted brothers--but to Doctor Jim in particular.
+He in particular came to perceive her clear common sense, to appreciate
+the loyal and humane heart that lurked within her acrid personality.
+He openly showed his favour, and stood between her and persecution,
+till Second Westings taught itself to regard her offences as
+privileged.  So, though an outlaw, she became a useful and tolerated
+one.  She served surpassingly to point a moral in family admonitions.
+She was much in favour as a bogy to frighten crying children into
+silence.  And furthermore, when deadly sickness chanced to fall upon a
+household, and skilled help was lacking, and self-righteous prejudice
+melted away in the crucible of anguish, then old Debby was wont to
+appear unsummoned and work marvels by the magic of her nursing.  Doctor
+Jim had been known to declare defiantly that Debby Blue's nursing had
+saved patients whom all his medicines could not cure,--whereto Doctor
+John had retorted, with brotherly sarcasm, "In spite of your medicines,
+Jim--in spite of them!  Debby is the shield and buckler of your medical
+reputation."
+
+So it was of course that the old woman turned to Doctor Jim in her
+difficulty.  She knew that both brothers loved Barbara, and that both,
+individually and collectively, had more influence with Mistress
+Mehitable Ladd than any other living mortal could boast.  She would
+talk to Doctor Jim.  Doctor Jim would talk to Doctor John.  Doctor John
+and Doctor Jim would together talk to Mistress Mehitable.  And Barbara
+would be taken back without penalty of further exhortation or
+discipline.  If not--well, old Debby's mind was made up as to what she
+would do in such a distressing contingency.  She would herself run away
+with Barbara that same night, in cunning disguise and by devious ways,
+and travel to find Uncle Bob.
+
+But there was to be no need of such audacious adventuring.  When Doctor
+Jim heard what Barbara had done, he was sorely wrought up.  He glared
+fiercely and wonderingly; his shaggy eyebrows knitted and knotted as he
+listened; he dashed his hands through his hair till the well dressed
+locks were sadly disarranged.  When Debby ceased speaking he sprang up
+with an inarticulate roar, knocking over two chairs and one of the
+andirons.
+
+"They have gone too far with the child," he cried out at last,
+mastering his ebullient emotions.  "She is too high-strung for our rude
+handling.  I swear she shall not be persecuted any longer--not if I
+have to take her away myself.  No--not a word, not a word, Debby!  Not
+another word!  I'll just step across the yard and speak to Doctor John.
+Be good enough to wait here till I return."
+
+Without hat or stick he ramped tempestuously across to his brother's
+office, in the opposite wing of the big, white-porticoed, red-doored
+house which they occupied together.  He left old Debby well content
+with the first step in her undertaking.  She had but a little to wait
+ere he returned, noisy, hurried, and decisive.
+
+"Now, my good Debby," he shouted, "I'm ready to accompany you.  I will
+fetch Barbara myself.  Doctor John is going over to lay our views
+before Mistress Ladd, and I'll warrant that wise and gentle lady will
+see the matter clearly, just as we do.  Yes, yes, my good Debby, we
+have all been forgetting that the little wild rose of Maryland cannot
+be at once inured to the rigours of our New England air.  Eh, what?"
+
+When Doctor Jim and the old woman reached the cabin they found Barbara
+sound asleep, curled up in the sun beside the stoop, one arm around the
+gray-and-white cat, which lay, fast asleep also, against her breast.
+There was a darkness about her eyes, a hurt droop at the corners of her
+full red mouth, but the colour came wholesomely under the transparent
+tan of her cheeks.  The picture stirred a great ache in Doctor Jim's
+childless heart, and with a tender growl he strode forward to snatch
+her up from her hard couch.
+
+"S't!  Don't ye frighten the poor baby!" said old Debby.  Whereupon
+Doctor Jim went softly, mincing his big steps, and knelt down, and
+gathered the little figure in his arms.  Waking slowly, Barbara slipped
+her arms around his neck, thrust her face under his chin, drew a long
+sigh of satisfaction; and so, the revolt and cruel indignation for the
+time all quenched in her wild spirit, she was carried down to the punt.
+Everything seemed settled without explanation or argument or promise.
+The trouble was all shifted to Doctor Jim's broad shoulders.
+
+"Good-bye, Debby dear!" she murmured to the old woman, reaching down a
+caressing hand; "I'll come to see you in a few days, as soon as Aunt
+Hitty will let me!"
+
+During the journey homeward Barbara threw off her languor, and became
+animated as the punt surged ahead under Doctor Jim's huge strokes.  The
+conversation grew brisk, touching briefly such diverse topics as the
+new bay mare which the doctor had just purchased from Squire Hopgood of
+Westings Centre, and the latest point of exasperation between the
+merchants of Boston and the officers of the king's customs at that
+unruly port.  This latter subject was one on which Doctor Jim and
+Barbara had already learned to disagree with a kind of affectionate
+ferocity.  The child was a rebel in every fibre, while Doctor Jim had a
+vigorous Tory prejudice which kept his power of polemic well occupied
+in Second Westings.  The two were presently so absorbed in controversy
+that the rocky point of the morning's attempted tragedy was passed
+without the tribute of a shudder or even a recognition.  At last, with
+a mighty, half wrathful surge upon the oars, Doctor Jim beached the
+punt at the landing-place.  As the distracted wave of his violence
+seethed hissing up the gravel and set the neighbour sedges a-swinging,
+he leaned forward and fixed the eager girl with a glare from under the
+penthouse of his eyebrows.  Open-mouthed and intent, Barbara waited for
+his pronouncement.
+
+"Child!" said he, waving a large, but white and fine forefinger for
+emphasis, "Don't you let that amiable and disreputable old vagabond,
+Debby Blue, or that pestilent rebel, Doctor John Pigeon, stuff your
+little head with notions.  It's _your_ place to stand by the _Crown_,
+right or wrong.  Remember your blood.  You know right well which side
+your father would have stood upon!  Eh, what?"
+
+The disputatious confidence died out of Barbara's face.  For a moment
+her head drooped, for she knew in her heart how thoroughly that
+worshipped father would have identified himself with the king's party
+as soon as occasion arose.  Then she looked up, and a mocking light
+danced in her gray eyes, while her mouth drew itself into lines of
+solemnity.
+
+"I promise," she exclaimed, leaning forward and laying a thin little
+gipsy hand on Doctor Jim's knee, as if registering a vow, "that I won't
+harm your dear King George!"
+
+"Baggage!" shouted Doctor Jim, snatching her from her seat and stalking
+up the beach with her.
+
+Arriving at the Ladd place from the rear, by way of the pasture and the
+barnyard, they found Doctor John awaiting them.  He was leaning over
+the little wicket gate at the back of the garden, eating a handful of
+plump gooseberries.  With affected sternness he eyed their approach,
+not uttering a word till Barbara violently pushed the gate open and
+rushed at him.  Then, straightening himself to his full height,--he had
+a half-head to the good of even the towering Doctor Jim,--he extended
+his hand to her, and said, civilly:
+
+"Do have a gooseberry!"
+
+At this Barbara shrieked with laughter.  Doctor John always seemed to
+her the very funniest thing in the world, and his humour, in season and
+out of season, quite irresistible.  At the same time she pounded him
+impatiently with her fists, and tried to pull him down to her.
+
+"I don't want a gooseberry," she cried.  "I want you to kiss me.  I
+haven't seen you for more than a week, and you go and act just as if I
+had seen you every day!"
+
+Doctor John stooped, but held her at arm's length, and gazed at her
+with preternatural gravity.
+
+"Tell me one thing," he said.
+
+"What?" whispered Barbara, impressed.
+
+"Have you been taking any of Jim Pigeon's physic since I saw you?"
+
+"No!" shrieked Barbara, with another wild peal of laughter.  "Doctor
+Jim's a Tory.  He might poison me!"
+
+"Then you shall have one kiss--no, two!" said Doctor John, picking her
+up.
+
+"Ten--twenty--a hundred!" insisted the child, hugging him violently.
+
+"There! there!  Enough is as good as a feast!" interrupted Doctor John,
+presently, untwining her arms and setting her down.  Then, Doctor Jim
+holding one of her hands and Doctor John the other, she skipped gaily
+up the path toward the house, like a wisp of light dancing between
+their giant bulks.
+
+At this moment the figure of Mistress Mehitable appeared on the porch;
+and Barbara felt suddenly abashed.  A realisation of all that had
+occurred, all she had done, all she had suffered, rushed over her.  Her
+little fingers shut like steel upon the great, comforting hands that
+held them, and the colour for a moment faded out of her cheeks.  Doctor
+John and Doctor Jim both felt the pang of emotion that darted through
+her.  She felt, rather than saw, that their big faces leaned above her
+tenderly.  But she did not want them to speak.  She was afraid they
+might not say the right thing.  She felt that _she_ must say something
+at once, to divert their attention from her plight.  She looked around
+desperately and caught sight, in the barnyard behind her, of the hired
+man milking the vicious red 'mooley' cow that would not let Abby milk
+her.
+
+"Why!" she exclaimed, with a vast show of interest and surprise,
+"there's Amos milking Mooley!"
+
+On the instant she recognised the bald irrelevancy of the remark, and
+wished she had not spoken.  But Doctor John turned his head, eyed Amos
+with critical consideration, and said:
+
+"Goodness gracious! why, so it is!  Now, do you know, _I_ should have
+expected to see the parson, or Squire Gillig, milking Mooley.  Dear me,
+dear me!"
+
+At this, though the deeper half of her heart was sick with apprehensive
+emotion, the other half was irresistibly titillated, and she laughed
+hysterically; while Doctor Jim emitted a vast, appreciative guffaw.
+Before anything more could be said, the voice of Mistress Mehitable
+came from the porch, kindly sweet, familiar, and cadenced as if no
+cataclysms whatever had lately shaken the world.
+
+"Supper is waiting," she said, and smiled upon them gently as they
+approached.
+
+"We come, fair mistress!" responded Doctor Jim, modulating his voice to
+a deferential softness.
+
+"We come--and here we are," broke out Doctor John, snatching up
+Barbara, dashing forward, and thrusting her into her aunt's not
+unwilling arms.
+
+It was a wise device to surmount the difficulty of the meeting.
+
+"I am truly most glad to see you, my dear child," said Mistress
+Mehitable, earnestly, pressing Barbara to her heart and kissing her on
+the forehead.  Barbara looked up, searched her aunt's face piercingly
+for a second, saw that the gentle blue eyes were something red and
+swollen with weeping, and impulsively lifted her lips to be kissed.
+
+"I am sorry I grieved you, Aunt Hitty," she whispered, "I'll try hard
+not to."
+
+Mistress Mehitable kissed her again, almost impetuously, gave her a
+squeeze of understanding, and with her arm over the child's shoulder
+led the way in to supper.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+After this upheaval there was better understanding for a time between
+Barbara and Mistress Mehitable.  The lady made an honest effort to
+allow for some of the differences in the point of view of a child
+brought up on a Maryland plantation, under another creed, and spoiled
+from the cradle.  She tried, also, to allow for the volcanic and alien
+strain which mingled in Barbara's veins with the well-ordered blood of
+the Ladds.  But this alien strain was something she instinctively
+resented and instinctively longed to subdue.  Moreover, she lacked
+imagination; and therefore, with the most sincere good purpose on both
+sides, the peace between herself and Barbara was but superficial,
+demanding the price of ceaseless vigilance.  Barbara, on her part,
+strove to be more diligent with her tasks, and greatly conciliated
+Mistress Mehitable by her swift progress in plain sewing, penmanship,
+and playing on the harpsichord; and she quickly learned to read aloud
+with a charm and a justness of emphasis which her aunt never wearied of
+commending.  But with the elaborate Dresden embroidery and intricate
+lace-making, and the flummery art of "papyrotamia"--a cutting of paper
+flowers--which then occupied the leisure of young maids of gentle
+breeding, Barbara had no patience at all.  She scorned and hated
+them--and she purchased her release from them by electing rather the
+rigid and exacting pursuit of Latin grammar, which only masculine
+intellects were considered competent to acquire.  In this she had had
+some grounding from her father; and now, under the sympathetic tuition
+of Doctor John, she found its strenuous intricacies a satisfaction to
+her restless brain, and made such progress as to compel the reluctant
+commendation of the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer himself.
+
+Meanwhile, seeing the restraint under which the child was holding
+herself, Mistress Mehitable tried to moderate to some degree her
+disapproval of Barbara's vagaries and impetuosities, so that sometimes
+her wild rides, her canoeings at unseemly hours, her consortings with
+old Debby, her incorrigible absences from the noonday board, were
+suffered to go almost unrebuked.  But it was a perennial vexation to
+Mistress Mehitable to observe Barbara's haughty indifference to the
+other young girls of her own class in the township, who were her
+fitting associates and might have redeemed her from her wildness;
+while, on the other hand, she insisted on making an intimate of Mercy
+Chapman, the daughter of Doctor John's hired man.  Barbara found all
+the girls whom her aunt approved hopelessly uninteresting--prim,
+docile, pious, uninformed, addicted to tatting, excited over
+feather-work.  But Mercy Chapman was fearless, adventurous within her
+limits, protectingly acquainted with all the birds' nests in the
+neighbourhood, and passionately fond of animals, especially horses and
+cats.  Mercy Chapman, therefore, was admitted very cordially to certain
+outer chambers of Barbara's heart; while the daughters of Squire
+Grannis and Lawyer Perley were treated to a blank indifference which
+amounted to incivility, and excited the excoriating comment of their
+mammas.
+
+Another severe trial to Mistress Mehitable's patience was Barbara's
+unhousewifely aversion to the kitchen.  She vowed she could not abide
+the smell of cooking in her hair, averring that all cooks carried the
+savour of the frying-pan.  When her aunt pointed out how humiliated she
+would be when she came to have a house of her own, she declared there
+would be time enough to learn when that day threatened; and she stoutly
+asseverated, moreover, that she could cook without learning.  Upon this
+rash claim Mistress Mehitable pinned her to a test, being minded to
+abase her for her soul's good; but she emerged from the trial with vast
+accession of prestige, doing up sundry tasty desserts with a readiness
+born of past interest in the arcana of her father's kitchen by the
+Pawtuxet.  But for all her aunt's exhortations she would explore no
+further in the domain of bake-pan and skillet.  There was antagonism,
+moreover, between Barbara and Abby, to the point that if Mistress
+Mehitable had prevailed with her niece in this matter, she would have
+found herself obliged to change her cook.
+
+There was one department of the household economy, however, in which
+Barbara was ever ready to meet her aunt half-way.  It furnished a
+common ground, whereon many a threatened rupture was averted, or at
+least postponed.  This was the still-room.
+
+Barbara adored cleanliness and sweet smells.  The clean, fragrant
+place, wherein bundles of herbs whose odours spoke to her of the South,
+and of strange lands, and of longed-for, half-forgotten dreams, and of
+desires which she could not understand, was to her a temple of
+enchanting mysteries.
+
+Now Mistress Mehitable was a cunning distiller of the waters of
+bergamot, rosemary, mint, thyme, and egrimony; but Barbara developed a
+subtlety in the combining of herbs and simples which resulted in
+perfumes hitherto unknown.  One essence, indeed, which she compounded,
+proved so penetrating, lasting, and exquisite, that her aunt, in a
+burst of staid enthusiasm, suggested that she should name it and write
+down the formula for security.  This was done, to Barbara's great
+pride; and thereafter the "Water of Maryland Memories" became the
+proper thing to use in Second Westings.  Nothing, perhaps, did more to
+make Barbara a personage in the township than this highly approved
+"Water of Maryland Memories."
+
+In this way the days passed, so that at times Mistress Mehitable had
+hopes that the child was going to assimilate herself, and cease to pine
+for her plantation in the South.  In reality, the rebellion in
+Barbara's soul but grew the stronger as her nature deepened and
+matured.  Throughout her second spring at Second Westings,--when the
+mounting sap set her veins athrill in unison, and she saw the violets
+come back to the greening meadows, the quaker-ladies and the
+windflowers to the little glades of the wood; and the wild ducks
+returned from the south to nest by the lake, and the blackbirds chirred
+again in the swaying tops of the pine-trees,--her spirit chafed more
+fiercely at every bar.  The maddest rides over upland field and pasture
+lot at dawn, the fiercest paddlings up and down the lake when the wind
+was driving and the chop sea tried her skill, were insufficient vent to
+her restlessness.  Her thoughts kept reverting, in spite of herself, to
+the idea of seeking her uncle.  Misunderstandings with Mistress
+Mehitable grew more frequent and more perilous.  But just as she was
+beginning to feel that something desperate must happen at once, there
+came to her a responsibility which for a time diverted her thoughts.
+
+The kitchen cat presented the household with four kittens.  Having a
+well-grounded suspicion that kittens were a superfluity in Second
+Westings, the mother hid her furry miracles in the recesses of a loft
+in the barn.  Not until their eyes were well open were they discovered;
+and it was Barbara who discovered them.  With joyous indiscretion, all
+undreaming of the consequences, she proclaimed her discovery in the
+house.  Then the customary stern decree went forth--but in this case
+tempered with fractional mercy, seeing that Mistress Mehitable was a
+just woman.  One was spared to console the mother, and three were
+doomed to death.
+
+Barbara, all undreaming of the decree, chanced to come upon Amos in the
+cow-shed, standing over a tub of water.  She saw him drop a kitten into
+the tub, and pick up the next.  She heard the faint mewing of the
+victims.  For one instant her heart stood still with pain and fury.
+Then, speechless, but with face and eyes ablaze, she swooped down and
+sprang upon him with such impetuous violence that, bending over as he
+was, he lost his balance and sprawled headlong, upsetting the tub as he
+fell.  As the flood went all abroad, sousing Amos effectually, Barbara
+snatched up the dripping and struggling mewer, clutched it to her
+bosom, seized the basket containing the other two, burst into wild
+tears, fled to the house, and shut herself into her room with her
+treasures.  Straightway realising, however, that they would not be safe
+even there, she darted forth again, defying her aunt's efforts to stop
+her, ran to the woods, and hid them in the secret hollow of an old
+tree.  Knowing that Amos would never have committed the enormity at his
+own instance, she hastened to make her peace with him,--which was easy,
+Amos being at heart her slave,--with a view to getting plenty of milk
+for the tiny prisoners; but against Mistress Mehitable her wrath burned
+hotly.  She stayed out till long past supper, and crept to bed without
+speaking to any one--hungry save for warm milk supplied by Amos.
+
+This was an open subversion of authority, and Mistress Mehitable was
+moved.  In the morning she demanded the surrender of the kittens.
+Barbara fiercely refused.  Then discipline was threatened--a whipping,
+perhaps, since duty must be done, however hard--or imprisonment in her
+room for a week.  Barbara had a vision of the kittens slowly starving
+in their hollow tree, and her face set itself in a way that gave
+Mistress Mehitable pause, suggesting tragedies.  The next moment
+Barbara rushed from the room, flew bareheaded down the street, burst
+into Doctor Jim's office, and announced that she would kill herself
+rather than go back to her Aunt Hitty.  Past events precluding the
+possibility of this being disregarded as an idle threat, it was
+perforce taken seriously.  Doctor John was summoned.  The situation was
+thrashed out in all its bearings; and finally, while Barbara curled
+herself up in a tired heap on the lounge and went to sleep, her two
+champions went to confer with Mistress Mehitable.  Hard in this case
+was the task, for the little lady considered a principle at stake; but
+they came back at last triumphant.  Barbara was to be allowed to retain
+the kittens, on the pledge that she would keep them from becoming in
+any way a nuisance to the rest of the house, and that she would, as
+soon as possible, find homes elsewhere for at least two of them.  This
+last condition might have troubled her, but that Doctor John and Doctor
+Jim both winked as they announced it, which she properly interpreted to
+mean that they, being catless and mouse-ridden, would help her.
+
+So Barbara went back to Aunt Hitty--who received her gravely; and the
+kittens came back from their hollow tree; and the shock of clashing
+spheres was averted.  But the peace was a hollow and precarious one--an
+armistice, rather than a peace.  For about a week Barbara's heart and
+hands were pretty well occupied by her little charges, and Mistress
+Mehitable found her conciliatory.  But one day there came a letter from
+Uncle Bob, accompanied by a box which contained macaroons and
+marchpanes, candied angelica, a brooch of garnets, and a piece of
+watchet-blue paduasoy sufficient to make Barbara a dress.  The letter
+announced that Uncle Bob was at Bridgeport, and about to sojourn for a
+time at the adjoining village of Stratford.  Why, Stratford was in
+Connecticut--it could not be very far from Second Westings!  Barbara's
+heart throbbed with excitement.  The very next day she made excuse to
+visit Lawyer Perley, and consult a map of the Connecticut colony which
+she had once observed in his office.  She noted the way the rivers
+ran--and her heart beat more wildly than ever.  Just at this point
+conscience awoke.  She put the dangerous thought away vehemently, and
+for a whole week was most studious to please.  But Mistress Mehitable
+was still austere, still troubled in her heart as to whether she had
+done right about the kittens.  One morning just after breakfast Barbara
+was set to hemming a fine linen napkin, at a time when she was in haste
+to be at something else more interesting.  She scamped the uncongenial
+task--in very truth, the stitches were shocking.  Hence came an
+unpleasantness.  Barbara was sent to her room to meditate for an hour.
+She was now all on fire with revolt.  Escape seemed within reach.  She
+meditated to such purpose that when her hour was past she came forth
+smiling, and went about her affairs with gay diligence.
+
+It was on the following morning that, when the first pallor of dawn
+touched the tree-tops, she climbed out of the window, down the
+apple-tree, and fled with her bundle and her kittens.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+After her breakfast at old Debby's, Barbara urged forward her canoe
+with keen exhilaration.  Now was she really free, really advanced in
+her great adventure.  A load of anxiety was lifted from her mind.  She
+had succeeded in arranging so that the letter would be delivered to her
+aunt--a matter which had been fretting at her conscience.  Moreover,
+old Debby had shown no surprise or disapproval on hearing of her rash
+venture.  It nettled Barbara, indeed, to have so heroic an enterprise
+taken so lightly; but she augured therefrom that it was more feasible
+than she had dared to hope, and already she saw herself installed as
+mistress of Uncle Bob's home in Stratford.
+
+"He'll love us, my babies!" she cried to the kittens in the basket, and
+forthwith plied her paddle so feverishly that in a few minutes she had
+to stop and take breath.
+
+The river at this point wound through low meadows, sparsely treed with
+the towering, majestic water poplar, sycamore, and arching elm, with
+here and there a graceful river birch leaning pensively to contemplate
+its reflection in the stream.  The trees and flowers were personal to
+Barbara, her quick senses differentiating them unerringly.  The low
+meadow, swampy in spots, was a mass of herbs, shrubs, and rank grasses,
+for the most part now in full flower; and the sun was busy distilling
+from them all their perfumes, which came to Barbara's nostrils in warm,
+fitful, varying puffs.  She noted the tenderly flushing feathery masses
+of meadowsweet, which she could never quite forgive for its lack of the
+perfume promised by its name.  From the dry knolls came the heavy scent
+of the tall, bold umbels of the wild parsnip, at which she sniffed with
+passing resentment.  Another breath of wind, and a turn of the stream
+into a somewhat less open neighbourhood, brought her a sweet and
+well-loved savour, and she half rose in her place to greet the presence
+of a thicket of swamp honeysuckle.  She noted, as she went, pale
+crimson colonies of the swamp rose, hummed over softly by the bees and
+flies.  Purple Jacob's-ladder draped the bushes luxuriantly, with wild
+clematis in lavish banks, and aerial stretches of the roseate
+monkey-flower on its almost invisible stems.  Her heart went out to a
+cluster of scented snakemouth under the rim of the bank.  She was about
+to turn her prow shoreward and gather the modest pinkish blossoms for
+their enchanting fragrance, when she observed leaning above them her
+mortal enemy among the tree-folk, the virulent poison sumac.  She
+swerved sharply to the other side of the stream to avoid its hostile
+exhalations.
+
+The little river now widened out and became still more sluggish.  A
+narrow meadow island in mid-stream intoxicated Barbara's eyes with
+colour, being fringed with rank on rank of purple flag-flower, and its
+grassy heart flame-spotted with the blooms of the wild lily.  The still
+water along the shores was crowded with floating-heart, and
+pale-blossomed arrowhead, and blue, rank pickerel-weed; and Barbara,
+who did not mind the heat, but revelled in the carnival of colour, drew
+a deep breath and declared to herself (giving the flat lie to ten
+thousand former assertions of the like intimacy) that the world was a
+beautiful place to live in.  No sooner had she said it than her heart
+sank under a flood of bitter memories.  She seemed once more to feel
+the water singing in her ears, to see its golden blur filling her eyes,
+as on that morning when she lay drowning in the lake.  The glory of the
+summer day lost something of its brightness, and she paddled on
+doggedly, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left.
+
+But this was a mood that could not long hold dominion over Barbara's
+spirit on this day of days, when she was journeying to freedom.  It
+took no more than the scarlet flash of a tanager across her bow, the
+flapping of a startled brood of ducks from their covert in the sedge,
+to lure her back to gladness and the seeing eye.  At last the river
+carried her into quite different surroundings.  Still slow, and smooth,
+and deep, it entered the neighbourhood of great trees growing close,
+the ancient and unviolated forest.  The day grew cool and solemn, the
+diffused light floating hushed under the great arches of brown and gray
+and green.  By contrast it seemed dark, but the air was of a wonderful
+transparency, and Barbara's eyes, opening wide in delicious awe, saw
+everything more distinctly than in the open.  She whispered to the
+yellow birch, the paper birch, the beech, the maple, and the chestnut,
+each by name lovingly, as she slipped past their soaring trunks,
+knowing them by the texture and the features of their bark though their
+leaves hung far overhead.  Her paddle dipped without noise, lest the
+mysteries of the forest conclave should be disturbed by her intrusion.
+So keen and so initiated were her young eyes that she discerned the
+sleeping nighthawk on his branch, where his likeness to a knotted
+excrescence of the bark made him feel secure from the most
+discriminating vision.  Passing a dead pine with a small, neatly
+rounded hole about ten feet up the trunk, she heard, or thought she
+heard, the safe conferring of the nest full of young woodpeckers in its
+hollow depth--which, indeed, was probably but the stirring of her own
+blood-currents within her over-attentive little ears.  Suddenly the
+vast stillness appeared to close down upon her, not with oppression,
+but with a calm that was half fearful, half delicious; and it seemed as
+if the fever of her veins was being slowly drawn away.  The mystic
+shores slipped by with speed, though she hardly knew she was paddling.
+And when, suddenly, a great brown owl dropped from a beech limb and
+went winnowing soundlessly down the stream ahead of her, she caught her
+breath, feeling as if the soul of the silence had taken palpable shape
+before her eyes.
+
+Now, as it seemed to Barbara, life and movement began to appear, at the
+summons of those shadowy wings.  A little troop of pale-winged moths
+drifted, circling lightly, over the stream; and a fly-catcher, with
+thin, cheeping cries, dropped some twenty feet straight downward from
+an overhanging limb, fluttered and zigzagged for a moment in mid-air,
+capturing some small insect darters which Barbara could not see, then
+shot back into the leafage.  Then upon a massive, sloping maple-branch
+close to the bank, she saw a stocky black-and-white shape slowly
+crawling.  The head was small and flattened, the bright little eyes
+glittered upon her in defiance, and a formidable ridge of pointed
+quills erected itself angrily along the back.  The animal uttered a
+low, squeaking grunt, and Barbara, with prompt discretion, steered as
+close as possible to the opposite bank, glancing apprehensively over
+her shoulder as she passed.  She was strongly inclined to like the
+porcupine; but his ill-temper was manifest, and she had faith in the
+superstition that he could shoot his needle-like quills to a distance
+and pierce the object of his dislike.  Barbara could not contemplate
+the possibility of appearing before her uncle like a pin-cushion, stuck
+full of porcupine quills.
+
+Barely had she left the resentful porcupine behind, safely out of
+quill-flinging distance, when she observed a small, ruddy head cleaving
+the water in mid-channel.  A pair of prominent eyes met hers
+apprehensively.  Two smooth ripples curved away from the throat of the
+small swimmer.  It was a red squirrel whom unwonted affairs had
+summoned to the other side of the river.  Whatever the affairs, Barbara
+was determined to expedite them as far as she could.  Overtaking the
+swimmer with a couple of smart strokes, she politely held out to him
+the blade of the paddle.  The invitation was not to be resisted.  With
+a scramble and a leap he came aboard, skipped along the gunwale, and
+perched himself, jaunty and chipper for all his bedragglement of tail,
+on the extreme tip of the bow.  There he twitched and chattered
+eagerly, while Barbara headed toward the shore where he would be.
+While he was yet a wide space distant from it, he sprang into the air.
+Barbara held her breath--but the little traveller knew his powers.  He
+landed safely on a projecting root, flicked off behind a tree, and was
+gone.  In a few seconds there came echoing from a tree-top far back in
+the shadows a loud, shrill chattering, which Barbara took for an
+expression of either gratitude or impudence.  Caring not which it was,
+she smiled indulgently and paddled on.
+
+And now to her sensitive nostrils there came suddenly an elusive
+wafture of wintergreen, and she looked around for the gray birch whose
+message she recognised.  The homely, familiar smell reclaimed her from
+her mood of exaltation, and she realised that she was hungry.  Just
+ahead was a grassy glade, whereinto the sun streamed broadly.  She saw
+that it was far past noon.  With a leap of the heart she realised that
+she must be nearing the point where the stream would join the great
+river which was to bear her, her kittens, and her fortunes, down to the
+sea and Uncle Bob.  Yes, she recognised this same open glade, with the
+giant willow projecting over the water at its farther end.  She and
+Uncle Bob had both remarked upon its fairy beauty as they passed it
+going and coming, when they had explored the stream.  She had but two
+or three miles farther to go, and her paddle would greet the waters of
+the great river.  This was fitting place to halt and renew her strength.
+
+Pulling up the prow of the canoe upon a tuft of sedge, she took out the
+basket and the bundle.  From the heart of the bundle she drew a small
+leather bag, containing barley cakes, gingerbread, a tiny parcel of
+cold meat done up in oiled paper, a wooden saucer, and a little wooden
+bottle which she had filled with fresh milk at old Debby's.  Having
+poured some of the milk into the saucer, and laid three or four shreds
+of the meat around its edges, she released the kittens from their
+basket.  For two or three minutes, glad of freedom, the fat, furry
+things frisked and stretched and tumbled hither and thither, while
+Barbara kept watch upon them with solicitous eyes.  But soon they grew
+afraid of the great spaces and the woods, being accustomed to an
+environment more straitened.  They came back mewing to Barbara's feet,
+and she turned their attention to their dinner.  While they lapped the
+milk, and daintily chewed the unaccustomed meat, she dined heartily but
+abstractedly on the barley cakes and gingerbread.  Then, having
+satisfied her thirst by lying flat on the wet, grassy brink of the
+stream and lowering her lips to the water, she decided to rest a few
+minutes before resuming her voyage.  Close by was a beech-tree, around
+whose trunk the moss looked tempting.  Seating herself with her back
+against the tree, and the kittens curled up in her lap, she looked out
+dreamily over the hot grasses--and presently fell asleep.
+
+She had slept perhaps half an hour when a crow, alighting on a low
+branch some half score paces distant, peered into the shade of the
+beech-tree and discovered the sweet picture.  To him it was not sweet
+in the least, but indubitably interesting.  "Cah--ah!" he exclaimed
+loudly, hopping up and down in his astonishment.  The sharp voice awoke
+Barbara, and she rubbed her eyes.
+
+"Gracious!" she exclaimed to the kittens, "what sleepyheads we are!
+Come, come, we must hurry up, or we'll never get to Uncle Bob!"
+
+Before she was really well awake, the kittens were in the basket, the
+canoe was loaded and shoved off, and the adventurers were once more
+afloat upon their quest.  Then only did Barbara give herself time to
+stretch and rub her eyes.  After a few strokes she let the canoe drift
+with the current, while she laid down the paddle, and cooled her wrists
+and refreshed her face with handfuls of water.
+
+As she straightened her brave little shoulders again to her labour, she
+was arrested by a strange sound as of the ripping of bark.  It was an
+ominous kind of noise in the lonely stillness, and apprehensively she
+peered in the direction whence it came.  Then she grew afraid.  On the
+other shore, about a couple of rods back from the water, she saw a
+large black bear sitting upon its haunches beside a fallen and rotten
+tree.  As she stared, wide-eyed and trembling, he lifted his great paw
+and laid hold of the dead bark.  Again came the ripping, tearing noise,
+and off peeled a huge brown slab.  To the exposed surface he applied a
+nimble tongue--and Barbara's terror subsided.  She saw that he was
+quite too absorbed in the delights of an ant-log to pay any attention
+to a mere girl; and she remembered, too, that the black bear was a
+rather inoffensive soul so long as he was not treated contumeliously.
+For all this, however, she made as much haste from the spot as was
+consistent with a noiseless paddle--and kept furtive watch over her
+shoulder until she had put a good half-mile between the canoe and the
+ant-log.
+
+By the time her concern about the bear had begun to flag she found that
+the current was quickening its pace.  The trees slipped by more
+swiftly, and the shores grew bolder.  A mellow, roaring clamour came to
+her ears, and with delicious trepidation she remembered a little rapid
+through which she must pass.  Around a turn of the stream it came into
+view, its small waves sparkling where the forest gave back and admitted
+the afternoon sun.  Her experience in running rapids had been slight,
+but she remembered the course which Uncle Bob had taken, between two
+large rocks where the water ran deep and smooth; and she called to
+mind, the further to brace her confidence, that Uncle Bob had
+stigmatised this particular rapid as mere child's play.  Her heart beat
+rather wildly as she entered the broken water, and the currents gripped
+her, and the banks began to flee upward past her view.  But her eye
+held true and her wrist firm.  The clamour filled her ears, but she
+laid her course with precision and fetched the very centre of the
+channel between the big rocks.  From that point all was clear.  The
+canoe went racing through the last ripple, which splashed her lightly
+as she passed; and in a reach of quiet water, foam-flecked and shining,
+she drew a deep breath of triumph.  This, indeed, was to live.  Never
+had she experienced a keener consciousness of power.  She felt her
+enterprise already successful.  The ancient woods, with their bears,
+their porcupines, their wide-winged brown owls, lay behind her.  Second
+Westings was incalculably far away.  There in plain view, rising over
+its comfortable orchard trees, not half a mile distant, were the roofs
+and chimneys of Gault House, overlooking, as she had heard, the waters
+of the great river.  And beyond the next turn, as she thought with a
+thrill, she would see the great river itself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+Barbara rounded the next turn.  There before her, widely gleaming,
+spread the waters of the great river itself.  She cried out in her joy,
+and paddled madly--then paused, abashed, perceiving that she was the
+object of a critical but frankly admiring scrutiny.  Her attention was
+diverted from the great river.  Here was a tall boy--of her own caste
+unmistakably--poling himself out on a precarious little raft to meet
+her.  Her flush of confusion passed as quickly as it had come, and
+laying her paddle across the gunwale, she waited with interest to
+discover what he might have to say.
+
+Barbara had met but few boys of her own class, and those few had
+seemed, under her merciless analysis, uniformly uninteresting.  Their
+salient characteristics, to her mind, were freckles, rudeness,
+ignorance, and a disposition to tease cats.  But this youth was
+obviously different.  Apparently about seventeen years of age, he was
+tall and graceful, and the way the clumsy log-raft on which he stood
+surged forward under the thrusts of his pole revealed his strength.
+Barbara loved strength, so long as delicacy saved it from coarseness.
+The boy was in his shirt sleeves, which were of spotless cambric, and
+Barbara noted, with approbation, the ample ruffles turned back, for
+convenience, from his sinewy brown hands.  She observed that his brown,
+long-fronted, flowered vest was of silk, and his lighter brown
+small-clothes of a fine cloth worn only by the gentry; that his
+stockings were of black silk, and his shoes, drenched most of the time
+in the water that lapped over the raft, were adorned with large buckles
+of silver.  She admired the formal fashion in which his black hair was
+tied back in a small and very precise queue.  But most of all she liked
+his face, which was even darker than her own--lean, somewhat square in
+the jaw, with a broad forehead, and gray-blue, thoughtful eyes, set
+wide apart.
+
+Now, Barbara's fearless scorn of conventions was equalled only by her
+ignorance of them.  This boy pleased her, so why should she hesitate to
+show it?  When the raft ranged up alongside the canoe, she laid hold
+upon it for anchorage and the greater convenience in conversation, and
+flashed upon the stranger the full dazzle of her scarlet lips, white
+teeth, and bewildering radiance of green eyes.  The boy straightened
+himself from the pole in order to bow with the more ceremony--which he
+accomplished to Barbara's complete satisfaction in spite of the
+unsteadiness of the raft.
+
+"What a nice-looking boy you are!" she said, frankly condescending.
+"What is your name?"
+
+[Illustration: "_What a nice-looking boy you are!" she said._]
+
+"Robert Gault, your very humble servant!" he replied, bowing again, and
+smiling.  The smile was altogether to Barbara's fancy, and showed even,
+strong, white teeth, another most uncommon merit in a boy.  "And I am
+sure," he went on, "that this is Mistress Barbara Ladd whom I have the
+honour to address."
+
+"Why, how do you know me?" exclaimed Barbara, highly pleased.  Then,
+quickly apprehensive, she added, "What makes you think I am Barbara
+Ladd?"
+
+The boy noted the change in her countenance, and wondered at it.  But
+he replied at once:
+
+"Of course the name of Mistress Barbara Ladd, and her daring, and her
+canoe-craft, and her beauty" (this he added out of his own instant
+conviction), "have spread far down the river.  When I came up here the
+other day to visit my grandmother" (he indicated slightly the distant
+roofs of Gault House), "I came with a great hope of being permitted to
+meet you!"
+
+Evidently he knew nothing of her flight.  Her uneasiness vanished.  But
+she had never had a compliment before--a personal compliment, such as
+is dear to every wise feminine heart--and that word "beauty" was most
+melodious to her ears.  As a matter of fact, she did not herself admire
+her own appearance at all, and even had an aversion to the mirror--but
+it occurred to her now, for the first time, that this was a point upon
+which it was not needful that every one should agree with her.  It was
+practically her first real lesson in tolerance toward an opinion that
+differed from her own.
+
+"I'll warrant you heard no good of that same Barbara Ladd, more's the
+pity!" she answered, coquettishly tossing her dark little head and
+shooting at him a distracting sidelong glance from narrowed lids.
+"Anyhow, if you are Lady Gault's grandson, I am most happy to meet you."
+
+She stretched out to him her brown little hand, just now none too
+immaculate, indeed, but with breeding stamped on every slim line of it,
+and eloquent from the polished, well-trimmed, long, oval nails.
+Instantly, careless of the water and his fine cloth breeches, Robert
+went down upon one knee and gallantly kissed the proffered hand.
+
+Barbara was just at an age when, for girls with Southern blood in their
+veins, womanhood and childhood lie so close entwined in their
+personalities that it is impossible to disentangle the golden and the
+silver threads.  Never before had any one kissed her hand.  She was
+surprised at the pleasant thrill it gave her; and she was surprised,
+too, at her sudden, inexplicable impulse to draw the hand away.  It was
+a silly impulse, she told herself; so she controlled it, and accepted
+the kiss with the composure of a damsel well used to such ceremonious
+homage.  But she did not like such a nice boy to be kneeling in the
+water.
+
+"Why did you come out on that rickety thing?" she asked.  "Why haven't
+you a boat or a canoe?"
+
+"This was the only thing within reach," he explained, respectfully
+relinquishing her hand.  "I saw you coming; and I knew it must be you,
+because no other girl could handle a canoe so beautifully; and I was
+afraid of losing you if I waited."
+
+"That was civil of you.  But aren't you getting very wet there?  Won't
+you come into the canoe?"
+
+"Really?" he exclaimed, lifting his chin with a quick gesture of
+eagerness.  "Are you going to be so good to me?  Then I must push this
+old raft ashore first and secure it.  I don't know whom it belongs to."
+
+As he poled to land in too much haste for any further conversation,
+Barbara paddled silently alongside and admired his skill.  When the
+raft was tied up, and the pole tossed into the bushes, he took his
+place in the bow and knelt so as to face her.
+
+"You must turn the other way," laughed Barbara.
+
+"No, I was proposing, by your leave, to make this the stern, and ask
+you to let me paddle," he answered.  "Won't you let me?  You really
+look a little bit tired, and I want you to talk to me, if you will be
+so condescending.  How can I turn my back to you?"
+
+"I am not the least, leastest bit tired," protested Barbara, a little
+doubtfully.  "But I don't mind letting you paddle for awhile, if you'll
+paddle hard and go the way I want you to."  And with that she seated
+herself flat on the bottom of the canoe, with an air of relief that
+rather contradicted her protestation.
+
+The boy laughed, as he turned the canoe with powerful, sweeping strokes.
+
+"Surely I will paddle hard, and in whatsoever direction you command me.
+Am I not the most obedient of your slaves?"
+
+This pleased Barbara.  She loved slaves.  She accepted his servitude at
+once and fully.
+
+"Paddle straight out into the river, and then down!" she commanded.
+
+At the imperious note in her voice, the boy looked both amused and
+pleased.  Obeying without a word of question, he sent the canoe leaping
+forward under his deep, rhythmical strokes at a speed that filled
+Barbara with admiration.
+
+"Oh, _how_ strong you are and _how_ well you paddle!" she cried, her
+eyes wide and sparkling, her lips parted, the crisp, rebellious curls
+blowing about her face.  Never had Robert seen so bewitching a picture
+as this small figure curled up happily in the bow of the canoe, her
+little shoes of red leather and her black-stockinged ankles sticking
+out demurely from under her short blue striped skirt, her nut-brown,
+slender, finely modelled arms emerging from short loose sleeves.  He
+was proud of her praise.  He was partly engrossed in displaying his
+skill and strength to the very best advantage.  But above all he was
+thinking of this picture, which was destined to flash back into his
+memory many a time in after days, with a poignancy of vividness that
+affected his action like a summons or an appeal.
+
+In a few minutes the canoe was fairly out upon the bosom of the main
+stream, and headed downward with the strongly flowing current.  Barbara
+clasped her hands with a movement which expressed such rapture and
+relief that the boy's curiosity was excited.  He began to feel that
+there was some mystery in the affair.  Slackening his pace ever so
+slightly, he remarked:
+
+"I suppose you are staying with friends somewhere in this
+neighbourhood.  How fortunate I am--that is, if you will graciously
+permit me to go canoeing with you often while you are here."
+
+But even as he spoke, his eyes took in, for the first time, the
+significance of the bundle and the basket, which he had been so far too
+occupied to notice.  His wonder came forward and spoke plainly from his
+frank eyes, and Barbara was at a loss to explain.
+
+"No," she said, "I am not staying anywhere in this neighbourhood.  I
+don't know a soul in this neighbourhood but you."
+
+"Then--you've come right from Second Westings!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Right from Second Westings."
+
+"All that distance since this morning?" he persisted.
+
+She nodded impatiently.
+
+"Through those woods--through the rapids--all alone?"
+
+"Yes, all alone!" she answered, a little crisply.  She was annoyed.
+
+In his astonishment he laid down his paddle and leaned forward,
+scanning her face.
+
+"But--" said he, embarrassed, "forgive me!  I know it is none of my
+business,--but what does it mean?"
+
+"Go on paddling," commanded Barbara.  "Did you not promise you would
+obey me?  _I_ know what it means!"  And she laughed, half maliciously.
+The boy looked worried,--and it was great fun to bring that worried
+look to his face.
+
+He resumed his paddling, though much less vigorously, while she evaded
+his gaze, and a wilful smile clung about her lips.  The current was
+swift, and they had soon left the imposing white columns of Gault House
+far behind.  A tremendous sense of responsibility came over the boy,
+and again he stopped paddling.
+
+"Oh, perhaps you are tired!" suggested Barbara, coolly.  "Give me the
+paddle, and I'll set you ashore right here."
+
+"I said just now it was none of my business," said he, gravely,
+appealingly, "but, do you know, I think perhaps it ought to be my
+business!  I ought to ask!"
+
+He retained the paddle, but turned the canoe's head up-stream and held
+it steady.
+
+"What do you mean?" demanded Barbara, angrily.  "Give me the paddle at
+once!"
+
+Still he made no motion to obey.
+
+"Do you realise," he asked, "that it's now near sundown,--that it will
+take till dark to work back against the current to where I met
+you,--that there's no place near here where a lady can rest for the
+night--"
+
+"I don't care," interrupted Barbara hotly, ready to cry with anger and
+anxiety; "I'm going to travel all night.  I'm going to the sea--to my
+uncle at Stratford!  I just don't want you to interfere.  Let me put
+you ashore at once!"
+
+Robert was struck dumb with amazement.  To the sea!  This small girl,
+all alone!  And evidently quite unacquainted with the perils of the
+river.  It was superb pluck,--but it was wild, impossible folly.  He
+did not know what to do.  He turned the canoe toward shore, and
+presently found himself in quieter water, out of the current.
+
+Observing his ready obedience, Barbara was mollified; but at the same
+time she was conscious of a sinking of the heart because he was going
+to leave her alone, when it would soon be dark.  She had not
+considered, hitherto, this necessity of travelling in the dark.  She
+made up her mind to tell the nice boy everything, and get him to advise
+her as to where she could stay for the night.
+
+"I'm running away, you know, Master Gault," she said, sweetly, as if it
+were the most ordinary thing in the world.
+
+"Are you at all acquainted with the river?" he asked, gently, without a
+trace of resentment for the way she had spoken to him a moment before.
+
+"No!" confessed Barbara, in a very small voice, deprecatingly.
+
+"A few miles farther down there is a stretch of very bad water," said
+the boy.  "Clever canoeist as you are, you would find it hard enough
+work going through in broad daylight.  At night you would just be
+dashed to pieces in a minute."
+
+"Oh, what shall I do?" cried Barbara, the perils of her adventure just
+beginning to touch her imagination.
+
+"Let me take you to my grandmother's," he pleaded.  "And we will paddle
+back to Second Westings to-morrow."
+
+Barbara burst into a storm of tears.
+
+"Never! never! never!" she sobbed.  "I'll die in the rapids before I'll
+ever go back to Aunt Hitty!  Oh, why did I like you?  Why did I trust
+you?  Oh, I don't know what to do!"
+
+The boy's heart came into his throat and ached at the sight of her
+trouble.  He longed desperately to help her.  He had a wild impulse to
+swear that he would follow her and protect her, wherever she wanted to
+go, however impossible her undertaking.  Instead of that, however, he
+kept silence and paddled forward resolutely for two or three minutes,
+while Barbara, her face buried in her hands, shook with sobs.  At last
+he ran the canoe into a shadowy cove, where lily leaves floated on the
+unruffled water.  Then he laid down his paddle.
+
+"Tell me all about it, won't you, please?" he petitioned.  "I do want
+so much to help you.  And perhaps I can.  And you _shall not_ be sorry
+for trusting me!"
+
+How very comforting his voice was!  So tender, and kind, and with a
+faithful ring in its tenderness.  Barbara suffered it to comfort her.
+Surely he would understand, if old Debby could!  In a few moments she
+lifted her wet little face, flashed a smile at him through her tears,
+and said:
+
+"How good and kind you are!  Forgive me if I was bad to you.  Yes, I'll
+tell you all about it, and then you can see for yourself why I had to
+come away."
+
+Barbara's exposition was vivid and convincing.  Her emotion, her utter
+sincerity, fused everything, and she had the gift of the telling
+phrase.  What wonder if the serious, idealistic, chivalrous boy, upon
+whose nerves her fire and her alien, elusive beauty thrilled like
+wizard music, saw all the situation through her eyes.  Her faults were
+invisible to him ere he had listened a minute to her narrative.  She
+was right to run away.  The venture, of course, was a mad one, but with
+his help it might well be carried through to success.  As she talked
+on, an intoxication of enthusiasm and sympathy tingled along his blood
+and rose to his brain.  Difficulties vanished, or displayed themselves
+to his deluded imagination only as obstacles which it would be splendid
+to overcome.  In the ordinary affairs of life the boy was cool,
+judicious, reasonable, to a degree immeasurably beyond his years; but
+Barbara's strange magnetism had called forth the dreamer and the poet
+lurking at the foundations of his character; and his judgment, for the
+time, was overwhelmed.  When Barbara's piercing eloquence ceased, and
+she paused breathless, eyes wide and lips parted in expectation, he
+said, solemnly:
+
+"I will help you!  To the utmost of my power I will help you!"
+
+The words had the weight and significance of a consecration.
+
+Barbara clapped her hands.
+
+"Oh!" she cried, "How can I ever thank you for being so lovely to me?
+But I knew you were nice the moment I looked at you!"  And a load
+rolled off her mind.  With such a helper, already was her enterprise
+accomplished.
+
+"I will try hard to be worthy of your favour," said Robert, with deep
+gravity, feeling that now indeed was boyhood put away and full manhood
+descended upon his shoulders.  His brain was racked with the terrific
+problem of finding Barbara fit lodging for the night; but meantime he
+turned the canoe and paddled swiftly out into the current.  Hardly had
+he changed his course when he noticed a light rowboat creeping up along
+the shore.  But boats were no unusual sight on the river, and he paid
+no heed to it.  As for Barbara, she was so absorbed in watching his
+great strokes, and in thinking how delightful it was to have found such
+an ally, that the sound of the oars passed her ears unheeded, and she
+did not turn her head.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+At length, however, the boy noticed with a tinge of surprise that the
+boat was steering as if to intercept his course.  He was about to pass
+greeting to its occupants when something in the face of the big man
+sitting in the stern arrested his words.  At the same moment the sound
+of the oars caught Barbara's attention, and she turned her head.
+
+"Oh!" she cried, shrilly.  "Doctor Jim!--and Doctor John!" she added,
+as one of the two rowers looked around and grinned at her in humourous
+triumph.  Then, her visions of life at Stratford with Uncle Bob falling
+to ruin about her, she wept aloud in her disappointment.
+
+Robert understood, and quick as thought swerved in his course, making a
+dart for the swifter water of mid-channel.  His heart swelled with
+exultation.
+
+"They can't catch us!" he declared to Barbara.
+
+"Stop! you young rascal!" thundered the mighty voice of Doctor Jim.  "I
+know you, Bobby Gault.  Don't I know your father's son?  Stop this
+instant!"
+
+"Quit this tomfoolery, Bobby!" roared Doctor John, albeit a little
+breathless from his labour.  Barbara lifted her face and stared through
+her tears.  But the boy paid no heed, paddling mightily, and the
+distance between boat and canoe was surely widening.
+
+But Doctor Jim knew Barbara.
+
+"Very well!" he said, grimly, in a loud voice.  "I'm sorry to do bodily
+hurt to the son of my old friend Richard, but it can't be helped."
+
+He drew a long-barrelled pistol from under the flap of his green coat.
+
+"I'll have to wing you, my boy!" he said, taking careful aim, while one
+eyelid quivered in the direction of Doctor John.
+
+The boy's face paled a little, but his jaw set firmly, and he kept
+right on.
+
+"Stop! stop! stop!" screamed Barbara, but with no result.  She half
+arose in the canoe, glancing with horror from the boy's resolute face
+to the muzzle of the pistol.
+
+"If you don't stop, Robert, I will throw myself overboard this minute!"
+she vowed.
+
+The terror in her face convinced him.  He sullenly drew in his paddle,
+laid it down in the canoe, folded his arms, and looked off over the
+western hills, as if scornful of all that might take place.
+
+In a few seconds the boat came up alongside of the drifting canoe, the
+oars were drawn in, and strong hands laid hold upon the gunwale.  There
+were some awful moments of silence, broken only by Barbara's sobbing
+and the splashing of waves on the boat and the canoe.  The owner of the
+boat, a gaunt farmer from Westings Landing, a few miles down the river,
+who had not been initiated into the mystery, looked on in discreet
+astonishment.  This was indeed a strange situation in which to see the
+grandson of Lady Gault.  At last Barbara, to whom suspense was hideous,
+broke out.
+
+"Oh, do say something!" she wailed.  Indeed, neither Doctor John nor
+Doctor Jim knew just what to say.  They were embarrassed.  But the
+child was right.  Somebody had to say something.  By interchange of
+quick glances the lot fell to Doctor John.
+
+"Well, this is pretty gallivanting, running away with a young
+man,--carrying him off in your aunt's canoe!" said Doctor John.
+
+Barbara's eyes opened very wide.
+
+"I never!" she cried, indignantly.
+
+"As for you, Bobby Gault," interposed Doctor Jim, severely, and in a
+tone that made Robert feel himself hatefully young, "I cannot
+comprehend how _you_ should come to be mixed up in this affair.  I know
+well what my friend, Richard Gault, your lamented father, with his nice
+notions of honour, would have thought of such an escapade."  (Robert's
+father and mother had died within a few days of each other, by an
+epidemic of typhus, when the boy was only five years old.)  "But I
+shall lay the matter before your good grandmother, and your uncle, who
+will doubtless deal with you as you deserve."
+
+Robert shut his lips tight and eyed the speaker proudly; but Barbara
+made reply in her vehement way.
+
+"It is not Robert's fault at all, I tell you, Doctor Jim!" she cried,
+forgetting that she had said nothing whatever on the subject.  "I just
+met him, an hour or two ago, on an old raft; and he knew who I was; and
+because he was getting his feet wet on the raft, I invited him to get
+into the canoe; and I made him promise to paddle me just wherever I
+wanted to go.  So there!  And it is not his fault one bit!  And you may
+do what you like to me, but I won't have him punished when he has not
+done anything at all!"
+
+Doctor John tried to look quite grave; and Doctor Jim, who was really
+annoyed, succeeded.
+
+"Oh, ho! young man!" he remarked, sarcastically, "it appears that you
+have a champion.  Now, what have you to say for yourself?"
+
+"Mistress Barbara has neglected to add," said he, with all the dignity
+that he could assume, "that I insisted upon her narrating to me all the
+unhappy circumstances of her life in Second Westings.  The story
+commanded my fullest sympathy, and I had just given her my word that I
+would aid her in escaping to her uncle, Mr. Glenowen, where she would
+be happy, when you came and violently interfered with her purpose.  I
+ask you, sir, to consider.  Are you not ashamed to be instrumental in
+restoring a young lady to conditions where she has been made to suffer
+so cruelly?"
+
+In spite of his indignation, Robert could not help feeling proud of
+this effort.  In his own ears it sounded imposing, unanswerable, and
+altogether grown up.  Barbara thought it was a miracle of eloquence,
+and cast him a grateful look.  But Doctor John could not conceal his
+delight in the stilted periods.  He burst into a huge guffaw, at which
+Barbara's eyes snapped and Robert's dark skin reddened angrily.  But
+Doctor Jim exclaimed, hotly:
+
+"Hoity-toity!  How big we do feel!  To think how often I dandled you on
+my knee when you were a mewling baby.  If I had but known enough to
+spank you once in awhile, you might not have grown up to be such a
+priggish young coxcomb.  Richard's son!  Who would have thought it?
+Eh, what?"
+
+Meanwhile the boat and canoe were drifting rapidly down-stream.  Doctor
+John looked at the sun, now touching the horizon.
+
+"Don't you think, Master Gault," said he, drily, "that unless you
+propose to honour us with your company to Second Westings, we had
+better set you ashore hereabouts, that you may stretch your legs in the
+direction of Gault House?"
+
+"Thank you!" said Robert, stiffly, his heart bursting with humiliation
+and the longing to strangle his huge, supercilious antagonist.  But
+Barbara interrupted.
+
+"I'm not going back to Second Westings!" she declared obstinately,
+trying hard to set her full red lips together in the resolute way that
+Robert's had.  "I will never go back to live with Aunt Hitty.  I'll
+drown myself first.  I'm going to Uncle Bob, at Stratford."
+
+The threat, once so effective, seemed now to have lost its potency.  No
+one appeared impressed but Robert,--and perhaps the stranger-man who
+owned the boat.
+
+"My dear child," said Doctor John, eying her indulgently, "among the
+more or less serious obstacles to your plan is one of which I believe
+that even you will see the magnitude.  Mr. Glenowen is no longer at
+Stratford."
+
+"Uncle Bob not at Stratford?" wailed Barbara, overwhelmed, subjugated
+in an instant.  Robert started aghast.
+
+Doctor John paused dramatically, while the full effect of the news
+worked upon his victims in the canoe.  Then he said, coolly:
+
+"Mr. Glenowen is just now at Hartford, or has lately left that town.
+Mistress Ladd had a letter from him to-day, saying he expected to
+arrive at Second Westings not later than the end of next week, I think,
+moreover, that I saw a packet on the mantel-shelf addressed to Mistress
+Barbara Ladd!"
+
+With one bound Barbara's heart passed from despair to ecstasy.
+Everything else was forgotten.  She was as eager now to get back to
+Second Westings as she had been to escape from it.  All she knew or
+cared for was that Uncle Bob would be there.  He would make everything
+right.  Her face was all radiance, as it turned to Doctor John, then to
+Doctor Jim, then to Robert,--who eyed her gloomily, feeling himself now
+cast out into the cold.  But in her joy Barbara did not forget him
+after all.
+
+"Just think, Robert," she cried, "Uncle Bob so near, and we would have
+missed him if Doctor John and Doctor Jim, the dears, had not come and
+caught us.  They are always _angels_ to me, you know.  Now we will put
+you ashore right here.  And you must be sure to come over to Second
+Westings and see me,--won't you?--while Uncle Bob is there.  Come next
+week."
+
+"I thank you for the gracious invitation," answered the boy, bowing a
+little stiffly.  "But I think I had better wait for Mr. Glenowen's
+permission, as these gentlemen are not likely to present me to him in a
+very favourable light."
+
+"Don't be silly and disagreeable, Robert," said Barbara, impatiently.
+"Uncle Bob will think of you just as I do.  We always agree about
+people.  Now you must hurry!"
+
+"I think, however," persisted Robert, "I ought to wait for Mr.
+Glenowen's invitation."
+
+"Right, my lad!" exclaimed Doctor Jim, much mollified by this attitude.
+"That's my old friend Richard's son speaking now.  And I doubt not that
+our little mistress here will see to it that the invitation is
+forthcoming in good season,--eh, what?"
+
+There was a doubtful expression on Barbara's face, over the lack of
+instantaneous obedience to her will on the part of her champion; but
+Robert, encouraged by Doctor Jim's commendation, now made a bold
+proposal.
+
+"If you would be so kind, sir," he suggested, diffidently, "I should
+like to go down with you to the Landing, where I can lodge very well
+for the night at the house of an old servant of my grandmother's.  It
+will be a long and difficult tramp for me up the shore now, in the
+dark, and with no road through the woods.  By going with you to the
+Landing I might be of some service, to paddle the canoe.  She will be
+an awkward craft to tow; and Mistress Barbara is very tired, I
+perceive."
+
+"Sly young dog!" growled Doctor John.  "But, seeing that he is
+Richard's son, we'll have to take him along with us as far as the
+Landing, eh, Jim?"
+
+"Let him work his passage, then!" roared Doctor Jim.  "Let him paddle
+the canoe, and Barbara, and her kittens, and all her contraptions,--and
+we'll see about not being too hard on him when we come to tell his
+grandmother!"
+
+This arrangement was highly satisfactory to all concerned.  The gloom
+fell from Robert's face, and his mouth grew boyish and happy as he
+paddled on in musing silence.  He kept the canoe alongside of the boat,
+just out of reach of the oars, so that Barbara could talk conveniently
+with Doctor John and Doctor Jim, which she did in the most usual manner
+in the world, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.  But
+presently, upon a lull in the conversation came the voice of Robert,
+who had been thinking about Barbara's life at Second Westings.
+
+"Is not Mistress Ladd a very harsh, tyrannical sort of woman?" he
+inquired, solicitously.
+
+There was a huge roar from Doctor Jim, which made even Barbara jump,
+inured though she was to these explosions.
+
+"I'd have you remember, young sir, that you are speaking of the
+gentlest, sweetest, truest, most gracious lady that ever lived, for
+whose little shoes you are not worthy to sweep the ground!"
+
+Robert stared in confusion, too astonished to be at once ready with an
+apology.  Before he could gather his wits, Doctor John spoke up, more
+gently.  He was no less loyal a champion to Mistress Mehitable than was
+Doctor Jim, but with him his humour was ever at hand to assuage his
+wrath.  Subduing his great tones to a quizzical and confidential
+half-whisper, that feigned itself not meant for Barbara's ears, he
+said, amiably:
+
+"My son, when you come to know well this little firebrand of ours, whom
+we have just plucked from a watery burning, this sower of dissension in
+our good village of Second Westings, I doubt not that you will spare a
+moiety of your sympathies for that very noble lady, Mistress Ladd.  In
+truth, for all her tears and anxiety on this mad little maid's account,
+I have a misgiving that we are doing the sweet lady no great kindness
+in taking Mistress Barbara back to her.  A pretty gallant you are, to
+undertake to carry a lady off, and then make a mess of it, and leave
+her embarrassed friends to straighten out the snarl!"
+
+Under this daunting blend of rebuke and raillery, Robert fell into a
+deeper confusion.  He floundered through a few awkward phrases of
+deprecation and apology, but Barbara cut in upon his struggles without
+mercy.  The gibes of Doctor John troubled her not a whit, but one thing
+which he had said captured her interest.
+
+"_Did_ Aunt Hitty _really_ cry when she found I had gone away?  Did she
+really feel so badly about it?  I thought she would be rather glad!"
+
+"She was in great grief, bitter grief, Barbara.  Do you think no one
+has feelings but yourself?" answered Doctor Jim, with some severity.
+
+This pertinent question Barbara ignored.  She turned to Robert.
+
+"You must understand, Robert," she explained with care, "that Aunt
+Hitty is not really cruel to me,--at least she never intends to be.
+But she and I do not understand each other, and so we can't get on!"
+
+"You will simply have to learn some of the rudiments of obedience and
+self-control, Barbara," said Doctor Jim.  Never had he spoken to her so
+severely before, and she was amazed.  But she saw that this time she
+had gone very near to forfeiting the sympathy of her most faithful
+allies.  Perhaps, after all, she _was_ in the wrong to run away.  The
+suspicion only made her the more obstinate.
+
+"I don't think one ought to obey any one, except one's father and
+mother," she proclaimed rebelliously.  "One's father and mother, if
+they are good, and wise, and kind," she added, still further enlarging
+her freedom.
+
+"And the king!" added Robert, sententiously.  He flung out the word as
+a shibboleth.
+
+There was a moment of silence.  Barbara darted upon him a glance of
+petulant disappointment.  Doctor John laughed hugely.  But as for
+Doctor Jim, his face underwent a swift change, as he scanned the boy
+with new interest.
+
+"Well said, well said; spoken as Richard's boy should speak, as a Gault
+should ever speak!" he thundered, in high approval.  "I am sorry if I
+seemed abrupt a moment ago, Robert.  Pardon my quick temper.  I see
+your heart is in the right place, and you have not let them stuff your
+head with pestilent and plebeian heresies.  Yes, yes, you must
+certainly come to Second Westings.  I shall be honoured if my old
+friend's son will be my guest!"
+
+From that moment dated a friendship between Robert and Doctor Jim which
+no after vicissitude was ever able to disturb.
+
+But Barbara was of another mind.
+
+"King George is just a stupid old tyrant, and I hate him!" she
+exclaimed.  "I'm sorry, Robert, you have not quite so much sense as I
+thought you had.  I'm really disappointed in you.  But there are _some_
+nice Tories!  You know even dear Doctor Jim is a Tory, though we can't
+see why, and he's just as lovely as if he were on the right side.  So
+you may come to Second Westings,--though you must promise not to argue
+with me.  But I know, Robert, I sha'n't like you now so well as I
+thought I was going to!"
+
+"Let the young people fight it out, eh, Jim?" said Doctor John, greatly
+amused.  "Let them fight it out between them!"  Then, suddenly grave,
+he added, "God grant the differences now distracting our colonies grow
+not beyond the point of children's quarrels!"
+
+Doctor Jim shook his head sorrowfully.
+
+"There's trouble ahead, John.  I feel it coming.  This is a
+stiff-necked and disloyal people, and I have a foreboding.  There's a
+sword in the air, John!"
+
+"It's surely a stiff-necked king, Jim," muttered Doctor John.
+
+"The sword of a Gault will ever leap from its scabbard to serve the
+king!" said Robert, loftily, his grave eyes aglow with exaltation.
+
+As he made this proclamation of his faith, devoting himself to a cause
+of which she disapproved, and quite ignoring her feelings in the
+matter, Barbara felt a sudden pang of loneliness.  She seemed
+forgotten, or, at least, grown secondary and trivial.
+
+"Do let us hurry home to Uncle Bob!" she pleaded, her voice pathetic,
+her eyes tired and dissatisfied.
+
+Then silence, with the twilight, descended upon the voyaging company;
+and in a little while, coming noiselessly to the landing-place, they
+stepped ashore into the dewy, sweet-smelling weeds and the evening
+peace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+A green lane, little used, but deeply rutted, led up from the wharf to
+the main street of Westings Landing.  The village was silent, with no
+sign of life, except here and there a glimmer from a candle-lit window.
+From the pale sky overhead came the strange twang of swooping
+night-hawks, as of harp-strings suddenly but firmly plucked.  In the
+intervals between these irregular and always unexpected notes was heard
+the persistent rhythm of a whippoorwill, softly threshing the dusk with
+his phantom song.  Barbara felt the whole scene to be unreal, her
+companions unreal, herself most unreal of all.  Could it be that she
+was the girl who had that same morning run away, that same morning made
+so brave and triumphant a start upon so splendid a venture?  Now,
+somehow, she felt rather than understood the folly of it.  The fact
+that she would have missed her Uncle Bob if she had succeeded in her
+plan took out of it all the zest, and it became to her a very
+ridiculous plan indeed.  But her change of attitude was emotional
+rather than intellectual.  She was convinced in mood, not in mind.
+Only she felt herself on the sudden a very small, tired girl, who
+deserved to be punished, and wanted to go to bed.  Her conviction of
+childishness was heightened by the fact that Robert, who was walking
+just ahead with Doctor Jim, in grave discussion, seemed not only to
+have suddenly grown up, but to have quite forgotten her once imperious
+but now discredited existence.  Her exhaustion, her reaction, her
+defeat, her disappointment in Robert, these all at once translated
+themselves into a sense of hopeless loneliness.  She seized the large,
+kind hand of Doctor John, who walked in silence by her side, and clung
+to him.
+
+Presently Doctor John felt hot tears streaming copiously down his
+fingers.  Without a word, he snatched her up into his arms, carrying
+her as if she were a baby; and shaking with voiceless sobs, she buried
+her small, wet face in his comforting neck.  She felt as if she wanted
+to cry wildly, deliciously, for hours and hours.  But she managed to
+remember that even a very small girl may be heavy to carry over a rough
+road in the dusk, when the man who carries her has had a hard day's
+work chasing her.  And, furthermore, she thought how very, very little,
+how poor and pitiful a heroine she would seem in Robert's eyes if he
+should chance to remember her existence and look back!  She pulled
+herself together with a fierce effort, and choked down her sobs.
+
+"Thank you so much, dear Doctor John!" she whispered in his ear.  "I'm
+better now, and you must put me down.  I'm too heavy."
+
+"Tut, tut, sweetheart!" growled Doctor John, softly; "you bide where
+you are, and rest.  _You_ heavy!"
+
+"But,"--she persisted, with a little earthward wriggle to show she
+meant it,--"I want to get down now, please!  I don't want to look like
+quite such a baby.  Doctor John!"
+
+"Tut, tut!" but he set her down, nevertheless, and kept comforting hold
+of one cold little hand.  Doctor John was quick in his sympathetic
+comprehension of women and children, and tolerant of what most men
+would account mere whim.  In a moment he leaned down close to her ear,
+and whispered:
+
+"What are you but a baby, after all,--a tired out, bad baby,
+sweetheart?  But we'll just keep that a secret between you and me, and
+not let Jim Pigeon or Master Robert even guess at it!"  And Barbara
+squeezed his hand violently in both of hers by way of answer.
+
+At this moment, Doctor Jim and Robert, reaching the corner of the
+street, turned and waited for them to come up.  Doctor Jim had
+Barbara's precious basket of kittens on his arm, while Robert was
+carrying her little red bundle, which he now handed over to Doctor
+John.  A certain reluctance with which he gave it up was quite lost
+upon Barbara in her unwonted humility and depression; and it was a very
+white, wistful little face which she turned glimmeringly upon him as he
+bowed over her hand.
+
+"Why are you leaving us here, Robert?" she asked, in a small voice,
+most unlike the wilful tone with which she had talked to him in the
+canoe.
+
+"My way lies down the street, sweet mistress," said the boy.  "Your
+horses, Doctor Jim tells me, are waiting for you at the Blue Boar
+yonder.  This has been a wonderful day for me.  When you think of it,
+will you try to remember me kindly as one who would ever be your most
+devoted, humble servant?"
+
+Delighted by this elaborate courtesy, so rehabilitating to her
+self-esteem, Barbara began to feel herself almost herself again.  She
+thought, with a sudden prickling heat of shame, of how childish she had
+been during all the past year,--and she almost fifteen!  And here was
+Robert, who was certainly very grown-up, treating her with a deference
+which he would never dream of paying to a mere little girl!  She
+resolved to justify his deference, to conceal her pet childishnesses
+till time should mature them away; yet even as she registered this
+resolve, she registered a vague but deeper one, that she would cling
+for ever to every childish taste and pleasure in spite of the very
+utmost that time could do.  But the feeling that came uppermost and
+found expression was a sharp little pang at something in his words
+which sounded as if he were bidding farewell for a long, indefinite
+time.
+
+"But I shall see you again soon, sha'n't I, Robert?" she exclaimed,
+impulsively.  "You'll come over to Second Westings right away, won't
+you, and meet Uncle Bob?"
+
+"Yes," said the boy, bowing low again, and speaking with a mixture of
+hesitation and triumph, "I am promising myself that pleasure, Mistress
+Barbara, within a very few days.  You see--Doctor Jim--he has been so
+kind--"
+
+"To be sure," broke in Doctor Jim, with an emphasis to preclude any
+discussion of consistency,--"I've asked the lad over to visit us, John.
+Richard's son!--  And his heart's in the right place,--and his head,
+too,--eh, what?  We'll see that Mistress Mehitable is not too hard on
+him,--eh, what?  You know you're not going to be too hard on the boy
+yourself, John Pigeon, for all you've been so uncommonly unpleasant to
+him!"
+
+Doctor John chuckled softly, and squeezed Barbara's left hand, which he
+had retained while she was receiving Robert's adieux.
+
+"Tut, tut, Jim!  You know well enough we've got to pardon anything in
+breeches, young or old, that gets led into mischief by this little limb
+o' darkness here.  It's a peck of trouble she's been getting you and me
+into, time and time again.  You needn't make excuses for Robert to me,
+Jim Pigeon.  At least, not yet!"
+
+"Thank you, sir," said Robert, a little stiffly, not relishing a
+pleasantry at Barbara's expense, though Barbara herself had broken into
+a peal of gay laughter, flattered at Doctor John's implications, and
+comforted to know that Robert was not slipping beyond her reach.
+"Thank you, indeed, sir; but I have no excuse; I was fully committed to
+Mistress Barbara's venture, and I'm just as much to blame as she is!"
+
+Barbara's heart glowed.  This was the kind of unreasonable championship
+she adored.  But truth compelled her to protest.
+
+"Oh, no, no, Robert, not at all!  It wasn't you that ran away from Aunt
+Hitty, and took the canoe, and persuaded a nice, civil gentleman whom
+you'd never seen before in your life to do a perfectly crazy thing like
+you read of in story-books--"  But, as she paused for breath, Doctor
+Jim, too impatient to be amused, interrupted her:
+
+"Well, well, Robert, you and Barbara can settle all that between you
+some other time.  We must get away.  Good night--good night.  My best
+compliments to your honoured grandmother!  And ride over the first day
+you can, lad!"
+
+And Doctor John, shaking his head sorrowfully, exclaimed:
+
+"Tut, tut, tut!  How small a petticoat can turn how great a brain!  I
+see trouble ahead for you, Bobby!"
+
+"I shall be so glad to see you at my aunt's, Robert!" cried Barbara,
+over her shoulder, as they moved up the street toward the Blue Boar and
+the waiting horses.  Robert, standing hat in hand, gazed after them
+till they were swallowed up in the shadows.  Still he waited, till a
+pulse of light across the gloom and the sound of the inn door closing
+told him that he was alone under the night.  Then, suddenly, he became
+conscious of the lonely, wonderful night sounds, and suddenly the night
+perfumes sank into his heart.  The spicy breaths from the clover field
+and blossoming thicket, cooled with dew, gave him a strange
+intoxication as he drew them into the depths of his lungs.  The pulsing
+rhythm of the whippoorwill seemed to time itself to the pulsing of his
+heart and translate it to the terms of an impassioned, inarticulate
+chant.  The plucked harp-strings sounding from time to time in the
+hidden heights of the sky set all his nerves vibrating mystically.
+Walking as if in a dream, he came to the door of the cottage where he
+had planned to stay the night.  Then he turned on a swift impulse,
+hurried back to the landing, launched Barbara's canoe, and, without
+consciousness of weariness or hunger, paddled all the way back to Gault
+House against the current.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+From Second Westings that morning, after old Debby's alarm, Doctor John
+and Doctor Jim had came posthaste on horseback to Westings Landing.
+Now, however, it was found that Barbara was quite too worn out by the
+fatigues of her long, strenuous day to sit a horse for a ten mile's
+ride over rough roads in the dark.  Priding herself not less on her
+endurance than on her horsemanship, she vehemently repudiated the
+charge that she was done up, and was determined to ride back on the
+liveliest of the Blue Boar's horses.  But Doctor John and Doctor Jim,
+scanning critically her white face and the dark rims coming about her
+eyes, for once agreed in a professional judgment.  They ordered the
+horses hitched to the roomy old chaise, which was one of the landlord's
+most cherished possessions; and Barbara had to accept, rebelliously
+enough, the supineness of a cushioned seat for the free lift and swing
+of the saddle.  Before the lighted doorway of the inn was out of sight,
+however, she was glad of the decision.  Her overwrought nerves began to
+relax under the soothing of the wood scents and the tender summer dark.
+In a little while she was asleep in the strong curve of Doctor Jim's
+right arm,--so deep asleep that all the ruts and jolts and corduroy
+bridges of an old Connecticut back-country road were powerless to
+disturb her peace.  When they woke her up, at her aunt's door, she was
+so drenched with sleep that she forgot to dread the reckoning.  With
+drowsy, dark eyes, and red mouth softly trustful as a baby's, she
+bewildered Mistress Ladd by a warm kiss and "I'm sorry, Aunt Hitty!"
+and went stumbling off to bed with her basket of sleeping kittens,
+oblivious and irresponsible as they.
+
+Mistress Mehitable looked after her with small, stern mouth, but
+troubled eyes.  Then she turned half helplessly to her friends, as if
+to say, "What can I--what ought I to do?"
+
+Doctor John threw up both big, white hands in mock despair, and his
+sympathetic laugh said, "What do you expect?"  But Doctor Jim, more
+direct and positive, said, "Best leave her alone till to-morrow,
+Mehitable; and then talk to her with no talk of punishing.  She's not
+the breed that punishing's good for."
+
+Mistress Mehitable looked sorrowful, but resolute.
+
+"I fear that would not be right, Jim!" she said.  But there was a note
+of deep anxiety in her voice.  "People who do wrong ought to be
+punished.  Barbara has done very, very wrong!"
+
+Doctor Jim was as near feeling impatient as he could dare to imagine
+himself with Mistress Mehitable.
+
+"Nonsense--I mean, dear lady, punishment's not in itself one of our
+numerous unpleasant duties.  It's a means to an end, that's all.  In
+this case, it just defeats your end.  It's the wrong means altogether.
+Therefore--pardon me for saying it to you, Mehitable--it's wrong.  It's
+hard enough to manage Barbara, I know, but to punish her, or talk to
+her of punishing, makes it harder still, eh, what?"
+
+"Don't let your conscience trouble you, Mehitable," said Doctor John.
+"I'm thinking the little maid will manage to get for herself, full
+measure and running over, all the punishment that's coming to her.
+She's not the kind that punishment overlooks."
+
+Was there a suspicion of criticism in all this?  Could it be that John
+Pigeon and Jim Pigeon, her lifelong cavaliers, in whose sight all she
+did was wont to seem perfection, whose unswerving homage had been her
+stay through many an hour of faintness and misgiving, were now, at
+last, beginning to admit doubts?  Two large tears gathered slowly in
+the corners of Mistress Mehitable's blue eyes, the resolution fled from
+her mouth, and her fine lips quivered girlishly.  She twisted her
+shapely little hands in her apron, then regained her self-control with
+an effort.
+
+"Dear friends," said she, "I fear I have made a sad failure of the duty
+which I so confidently undertook.  I thought I could surely do so much
+for her,--could so thoroughly understand Winthrop's child.  But that
+foreign woman--that strange blood!  There is the trouble.  That is what
+baffles all my efforts.  Oh, perhaps it is partly my fault, too.
+Perhaps the child was right in the very singular letter she left for
+me, saying--just as if she were a grown woman and had the same rights
+as I had--that the trouble was that we could not understand each other!
+Oh, I fear I am not the right woman to have the care of Barbara!"
+
+"You are the rightest woman in the world, Mehitable!" thundered Doctor
+Jim, in explosive protest against this self-accusation.  "The rightest
+woman in the world to have the care of any man, woman, or child that
+ever lived."
+
+"Jim Pigeon's right, Mehitable, as he usually is, outside of medicine
+and politics," declared Doctor John.  "The little maid will be ready
+enough some day, I'll warrant, to acknowledge how lucky she was in
+having her Aunt Hitty to care for her.  But here in Second Westings we
+are not just at the centre of things exactly, and it may be we get into
+ruts, thinking our ways are the only ways.  Shall we try new ways with
+this very difficult little maid, Hitty?"
+
+Mistress Mehitable brushed off the tears which had overflowed, and held
+out a hand to each of the big brothers.
+
+"You are the best friends a woman ever had," she averred with
+conviction; "and if you both disagree with me, I must be wrong.  It
+shall be your way to the best of my power.  After you've had the horses
+put up, come back here and I'll have a hot bite ready for you.
+But--oh, I do wish Winthrop had married among his own people!"
+
+"It is late, dear lady, and you are tired after your anxieties," said
+Doctor Jim.  "But, nevertheless, since you are so gracious, we will
+soon return,--eh, what, John?--for a bowl of that hot sangaree which
+Mehitable's fair hands know how to brew so delicately."
+
+"Don't misunderstand Jim, Mehitable," said Doctor John, as the two
+withdrew.  "The comfort of your punch is nothing to us as the comfort
+of your presence.  Had you ever consented to make one man happy, how
+miserable would you have made others, Mehitable!"
+
+There was deep meaning and an old reproach under Doctor John's tender
+raillery; and Mistress Ladd's cheeks flushed as she stood a few moments
+motionless, alone in her low-ceiled, wide parlour.  She was convicted
+of failure at every point.  Well she knew how happy she might have made
+either one of the big-limbed, big-hearted brothers, had she not shrunk
+from making the other miserable.  And she had never been able to decide
+which was the dearer to her heart; for, though she was apt to turn
+first to Jim in any need, or any joy, the thought of pain for John was
+ever hard for her to endure.  Her heart was very full as she set about
+preparing the brew which they both loved: and before they came she
+stole noiselessly up-stairs to the room over the porch, and softly
+kissed the dark, unrepentant waves of the sleeping Barbara's hair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+It was late morning when Barbara awoke--so late that she saw, by the
+position of the square of sunshine on the wall beyond her bed, that the
+hour for breakfast was over.  Her first vague waking sense was one of
+joy to come, which she presently caught and fixed as the knowledge that
+her Uncle Bob would soon be with her.  Then a great flood of depression
+rolled over her, blotting out the joy, as she remembered that she had
+Aunt Hitty yet to reckon with.  To make matters worse, she had slept
+past breakfast time,--which was almost an immorality in that punctual
+household.  A lump came up in her throat, and tears ached behind her
+eyes, for she had meant to try so hard to make up,--and now she had
+gone and sinned again.  She shut her eyes tight, and made a determined
+effort to regain hold of the sleepiness which still drenched and
+clouded her brain.  This effort was too much, and on the instant the
+last vestige of her drowsiness cleared away, and her brain grew keen as
+flame.  She sat up, determined to face the conflict and get it over.
+
+As she sat up, her eyes fell upon the little table by her bedside,
+whereon she was wont to keep her candle, her filagreed bottle of
+lavender water, her much marked copy of Sir Philip Sidney's sonnets,
+and her Bible, which was thumbed chiefly at Isaiah, Ecclesiastes, and
+the Song of Solomon.  Her eyes opened very wide as she saw there
+now,--event unprecedented and unbelievable,--a little tray with white
+linen napkin.  On the tray were a glass and a jug of milk, a plate of
+the seed-cakes which she particularly loved, a big slice of barley
+bread, and a bowl of yellow raspberries.  She stared for half a minute,
+and rubbed her eyes, and thought.  Abby, certainly, could not have done
+it.  She would neither have dared nor cared to.  Then--it was Aunt
+Hitty,--and after the way she had treated her,--and after that cold,
+hateful letter!  She reached out a doubtful hand and touched the bread
+and berries.  She started to eat a seed-cake, but it stuck in her
+throat, quite unable to get past a certain strange, aching obstruction,
+which had gathered there all at once.  Tears suddenly streamed down her
+face; and springing impulsively out of bed, she ran, barefooted and in
+her white nightgown, straight to the little bow-windowed sewing-room,
+where she knew that at this hour her aunt would be busy with the needle.
+
+Mistress Mehitable had just time to thrust aside her needle and the
+fine fabric she was fashioning before Barbara flung herself into her
+arms, sobbing passionately.  The good lady's heart warmed in response
+to this outburst, and she held Barbara close to her breast, whispering,
+"There, there, dearie, we just won't talk about it at all!  We'll just
+try hard to understand each other better in the future!"
+
+At the same moment, while her eyes were filling with tears, she could
+not help a whimsical thought of what Doctor John would say.  "He would
+say,"--she said to herself at the back of her brain,--"'Seed-cakes may
+save a soul quicker than switchings, Mehitable!'"  Mistress Mehitable's
+earnest mind had no apprehension of humour save as it reached her by
+reflection from Doctor John or Doctor Jim.
+
+Presently Barbara found her voice.
+
+"Forgive me, Aunt Hitty, forgive me!" she sobbed.
+
+Mistress Mehitable held her a little closer by way of reply.
+
+"I'm not worth your while, Aunt Hitty--I'm not one bit worth all the
+trouble you take for me--I'm nothing but a wretched little reptile,
+Aunt Hitty,--and I just wonder you don't hate and despise me!"
+
+"There, there, dear," murmured Mistress Mehitable, patting her hair.
+She was sure of her feelings, but could not be quite sure that words
+would rightly express them at this crisis.  If she talked, she knew she
+might say the wrong thing.  She'd leave it all to Barbara, and be safe
+at least for the moment.
+
+"I knew how bad I was," continued Barbara, justifying the statement by
+remembrance of some brief and scattered moments of self-questioning.
+"I knew how bad I was, but I couldn't say so, and I never, never knew
+how lovely you could be, Aunt Hitty!  I was so dreading to see you this
+morning,--and then, oh, you just brought me the seed-cakes, and the
+yellow raspberries, and never said one word!"
+
+As she dwelt on this magnanimity, Barbara's sobs broke forth afresh.
+
+"There, there, dear," murmured Mistress Mehitable again, and kissed her
+tenderly, still refusing to be drawn from her intrenchments, but deeply
+rejoicing in the triumph of her new strategy.
+
+"To think--why, I never really knew you till now, Aunt Hitty!" and
+Barbara hugged her with swift vehemence.  "When I saw the things by my
+bed, and thought of you stealing in and putting them there, and
+stealing out without waking me,--oh, Aunt Hitty, I thought such a lot
+all in one instant, and I knew you couldn't have done that, after me
+being so bad, unless you loved me,--could you?"
+
+"Indeed I couldn't!" answered Mistress Ladd, with conviction.
+
+"And you will really and truly forgive me?" persisted Barbara.
+
+This was a direct challenge, and Mistress Mehitable was too honest not
+to come forth and meet it.  She gently pushed Barbara off, and held her
+so she could look straight into her fearless young eyes.
+
+"I really and truly forgive you--and love you, Barbara!" she said.
+"And"--she continued, with a slight hesitancy, in an instant's resolve
+achieving a resolution,--"I ask you to forgive me for my
+misunderstandings of you, and all my many mistakes."
+
+"Why, Aunt Hitty!" exclaimed Barbara, too tender in her mood to agree
+with these self-accusations, but too honest to contradict.
+
+"I have failed to realise how, being so different from other girls, you
+required different treatment from other girls," went on Mistress
+Mehitable, firmly abasing herself.  "I thought there was only one right
+mould, and I must try to force you into it, however much the effort
+should hurt us both, dear.  I have been blind, very blind, and wrong.
+In this remote little world of ours, Barbara, we get into ruts, and
+come to think that the only way is our way."
+
+Barbara's eyes were glowing with enthusiasm.  She had discovered Aunt
+Kitty's heart,--and now she was discovering a breadth and insight which
+she could never have believed possible in that competent but seemingly
+restricted brain.  If Aunt Hitty could thus lift herself to look beyond
+the atmosphere of Second Westings, and to understand people different
+from those she had always been used to, she must be a very great woman.
+Barbara's eyes flamed with the ardour of her appreciation.  She did not
+know what to say, but her expression was eloquent.
+
+"That's a quotation from Doctor John," said the conscientious Mistress
+Mehitable, suddenly afraid from Barbara's glowing look that she was
+getting more credit than her due.  "But I have become convinced of its
+truth."
+
+"How wise and good you are, Aunt Hitty!  I'll never, never
+misunderstand you again!" cried Barbara, rashly, breaking down Mistress
+Mehitable's guard, and once more hugging her with vehemence.
+
+Mistress Mehitable smiled, gratified but doubtful.  She was surprised
+at her own unexpected appreciation of Barbara's demonstrativeness and
+warmth, so unlike anything that had ever before invaded the cool sphere
+of her experience.  She felt it her duty, however, to qualify Barbara's
+extravagant expectations, not realising that what the impetuous girl
+intended to express was rather a hope than a conviction.
+
+"We hardly dare expect quite that, dear," she said, gently.  "But at
+least we can agree to trust each other's good intentions.  We can
+promise that, can't we?"
+
+"Of course, I'll always trust you now, Aunt Hitty, since I've seen your
+lovely heart!" exclaimed Barbara, with flattering fervour.
+
+"I have failed to realise," continued Mistress Mehitable, "that you are
+no longer a little girl, but very nearly a grown woman.  Many girls are
+grown women at your age, Barbara, so that I have decided on something
+that will surprise you.  From this time forward, I shift my
+responsibility for you largely to your own shoulders, and shall hope to
+be more your friend than your guardian.  I hand you over to yourself,
+Barbara.  You must learn to discipline yourself!"
+
+Barbara slipped down to the floor, and leaned against her aunt's knee,
+her dark, small face grown very thoughtful.
+
+"All I dare say, Aunt Hitty," she said, slowly, weighing her words with
+unwonted care, "is that I'll try with all my might.  But I warn you
+that you are leaving me in very bad hands.  I want to be good, but
+sometimes I can't help being bad!"
+
+"Well," said Mistress Mehitable, with a curious reflex of Doctor John's
+humour, "you'll have to punish yourself after this.  I warn you that
+you must not look to me for punishment after this!"
+
+Barbara's eyes got very wide, and danced; and she gave a little shriek
+of delight, such as that with which she was wont to greet Doctor John's
+whimsical sallies.
+
+"Why, Aunt Hitty," she cried, clapping her hands, "you said that just
+like Doctor John!"
+
+Mistress Mehitable flushed faintly, and laughed like a girl.  She
+stooped over and kissed Barbara fairly on the mouth.  Then she arose
+rather hurriedly.
+
+"I have often wished I could make myself in many ways more like those
+two great-hearted gentlemen!" she said.
+
+Barbara remained sitting upon the floor.  Her eyes narrowed
+thoughtfully as she stared out of the window.
+
+"They are perfectly dear," she agreed, without reservation, "Isn't it
+splendid that they love us so, Aunt Hitty?"
+
+"I'm going to the still-room now," said Mistress Mehitable, moving
+toward the door.  "I put in the bergamot just before breakfast."
+
+"I'll come and help you in a little while,--dear!" said Barbara,
+suddenly realising the changed relations, and suddenly making practical
+application of it.  That caressing, equal, half-protecting "dear"
+sounded strange to Mistress Mehitable.  It gave her something of a
+shock, yet she was not sure she didn't like it.  It made her feel less
+alone than of old.  She appeared not to notice it, however, merely
+saying before she vanished:
+
+"If I'm not in the still-room, I'll be down the back garden, gathering
+herbs.  The lemon-thyme's in flower, if you're going to distill any
+more of your 'Maryland Memories.'  Uncle Robert might like a flask of
+it."
+
+"Lovely," said Barbara, dreamily.  "We will make him some.  I'll hurry."
+
+But for a few minutes she did not hurry at all.  Her rich, rebellious
+hair all down about her vivid face, her thin little shapely feet
+peeping out from under the frills of her white nightgown, she sat in
+the square of sunshine and pondered.  Since she fled away yesterday
+morning, what a change had come about!  She felt as if that wild and
+foolish adventure was years behind her.  A certain vague sense of
+responsibility oppressed her, a responsibility to herself hitherto
+unacknowledged.  She made the momentous resolve that she would learn to
+know herself a little, as a step to enabling other people, Robert Gault
+and Aunt Hitty in particular, to understand her.  She got up and
+scrutinised herself keenly in the glass.
+
+"You didn't know you were getting so grown up, did you, you ugly,
+skinny, little black thing!" she muttered.
+
+Then she flitted back to her own room, poured out a dish of milk for
+the hungry kittens, and snatched at her breakfast by mouthfuls, while
+she made her toilet and dressed.  Last of all, before going to join
+Mistress Mehitable, she sat down on the edge of her bed, and took the
+kittens into her lap.  One by one she held up their round, pinky-nosed
+faces, and gazed seriously into their enigmatic young eyes.
+
+"I want you to remember, now, my babies," said she, insisting upon
+their unwilling attention, "that your missis is now most grow'd
+up--she's grow'd up in one night, like old Mr. Jonah's gourd.  I want
+you to remember that we mustn't be silly and childish any more, except
+just in private, and where we can't help it.  And I want you to
+remember that you mustn't try to coax your missis into mischief any
+more like you did yesterday, going and helping her run off with the
+canoe, and such foolishnesses.  And I want you to remember that after
+this, if we can think of it, it isn't going to be 'Aunt Hitty' this,
+and 'Aunt Hitty' that, all the time,--but 'dear,' and 'honey' (as we
+used to say in Maryland), and 'blue-eyed lady,' and 'small person,'
+because we're just as tall as she is,--and we're too big to be punished
+any more, if we are bad,--and Uncle Bob's coming next week,--and Robert
+Gault may come any day, if he's impatient!"
+
+With a face of unwonted sobriety, but dancing lights in her eyes, she
+went to the door.  With her hand on the latch she changed her mind.
+Rushing to her glass, with a few deft touches she changed the
+arrangement of her hair, heaping it over her ears, and leaving just one
+crinkly curl to hang down over her left shoulder.
+
+The change added years to her appearance.  Then, snatching up a pair of
+scissors, she swiftly ripped out a deep tuck in her frock, letting the
+skirt down a good three inches.  With vigorous brushings and assiduous
+pattings she smoothed out the crease so that it was not obtrusive; and
+severely checking her wonted rush and skip, she went to join Aunt Hitty
+in the fragrant mysteries of the still-room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+To both Mistress Mehitable and Barbara the new order of things proved
+itself, all through that first day, supremely satisfactory; and each
+vowed most solemnly in her heart that she, at least, would not be the
+one to blame if it did not last.  During the afternoon, when Doctor
+John and Doctor Jim were drinking a pot of tea with them, and wondering
+delightedly at the unexpected atmosphere of peace, Barbara asked,
+suddenly:
+
+"How did you ever manage, Aunt Hitty, to get Doctor John and Doctor Jim
+off after me so quickly.  I thought I had _such_ a good start!  And how
+_did_ you know which way I was going?"
+
+Both men looked meaningly at Mistress Mehitable, but failed to catch
+her eye.  Doctor Jim began to shake his head violently, but stopped in
+confusion under Barbara's look of questioning astonishment.  But
+Mistress Mehitable, serenely unconscious, answered at once:
+
+"Old Debby Blue," said she, "with whom you breakfasted, rode over as
+fast as she could to Doctor Jim with the news.  The poor old woman was
+nearly dead from her exertions, I think you told me, Jim.  She has a
+good heart, and truly loves you, Barbara.  I am sorry if I have seemed
+harsh to her at times."
+
+Barbara's eyes grew wide, her face darkened ominously, and her full,
+bowed lips drew together to a straight line of scarlet.  Doctor John
+sat up straight, with twinkling eyes, expecting the outbreak of a
+characteristic Barbara storm, such as he always enjoyed in his big, dry
+way.  But Doctor Jim made haste to interpose.
+
+"You mustn't be too hard on Debby, Barbara, because she told what she
+had promised not to tell.  What else _could_ she do?  You know well
+enough she couldn't stop you herself, you headstrong baggage.  I won't
+have you unfair to Debby.  She loves you, and nearly killed herself to
+save you!"
+
+Barbara's look of anger changed to a sort of obstinate sullenness for
+an instant.  Then with an effort she forced herself to smile, while
+tears sprang into her eyes.
+
+"Of course, Debby was right," she acknowledged.  "But I wish she'd done
+it some other way.  She shouldn't have let me trust her.  She _fooled_
+me when I trusted her.  Oh, I'll _forgive_ her, of course," she
+continued, bitterly, "but never, never, will I _trust_ her again!"
+Then she sprang up impetuously, and ran and flung both arms around
+Mistress Mehitable.  "_Of course_ I'd forgive her, anyway, because if
+she hadn't fooled me I might have never found out how lovely you
+were,--honey!"
+
+Both Doctor John and Doctor Jim were breathless with amazement for a
+moment.  What was this miracle?  Whence came this understanding and
+this sympathy, all in a night?  They saw a new glad warmth in Mistress
+Mehitable's eyes.  They exchanged significant glances.
+
+"All I can say, Barbara," growled Doctor Jim, at length, "is that
+you've been a long while finding out what ought to have been as plain
+as the nose on your face,--eh, what?"
+
+"For a young lady who was able to discern at first glance the
+fascinations of Jim Pigeon," chimed in Doctor John, "I think you have
+been rather undiscriminating, Barbara!"
+
+"She could see two battered old tallow dips, when she couldn't see the
+moon!" added Doctor Jim, solemnly.
+
+There was always a relish of peril in rallying Barbara, whose audacity
+in retort was one of the scandals of Second Westings.  She flashed her
+white teeth upon them in a naughty smile, and her eyes danced as she
+kissed Mistress Mehitable on both cheeks.
+
+"Of _course_," she cried.  "Nobody knows better than you two great big
+dears what a perfect little fool I've been, not to be in love with Aunt
+Hitty all this time."
+
+"Barbara!" protested Mistress Mehitable, in a tone of rebuke,--and then
+again, bethinking herself, "Barbara, child!" in a tone of appeal.
+
+"But now, you can tell a hawk from a handsaw, eh, baggage?" chuckled
+Doctor John; while Doctor Jim exploded noisily, and then, checking
+himself, cast upon Mistress Mehitable a glance of apprehension.
+
+But Barbara had heeded neither the rebuke nor the appeal.
+
+"I know, I know," she went on, clapping her hands with delight.  "You
+didn't _want_ me to find her out,--you didn't want me to know how
+lovely she is!  Conspirators!  I won't love you any more, either of
+you.  And I'm going to keep Aunt Hitty all to myself here; and not let
+you even _see_ her; and make you both so jealous you'll wish you had
+let me run away in the canoe and get drowned in the rapids."
+
+"Barbara, Barbara," murmured Mehitable.
+
+Doctor Jim wagged his great head, and growled inarticulately.
+
+"It's we who are the victims of conspiracy, John," said he.  "If
+Mehitable and Barbara have discovered each other, what becomes of us,
+I'd like to know!  But it sha'n't last.  We'll sow seeds of dissension
+presently,--eh, what?"
+
+"Just let us wait till Bobby Gault comes!" suggested Doctor John, with
+gentle malice.
+
+Barbara's face grew grave on the instant.
+
+"Of course, Aunt Hitty, they have told you all about Robert," she said,
+earnestly, "but all they know about his reasons is what he told them
+himself, you know.  And he was determined to shield me, of course.  But
+it was _all_ my fault.  How could he know how bad and foolish I was?  I
+just mixed him all up; and it makes me ashamed to think how horrid I
+was; and I will never forgive myself.  But you mustn't let them
+prejudice you against Robert, honey,--but just wait and see what you
+think of him yourself, won't you, please?"
+
+Mistress Mehitable smiled, and exchanged looks with Doctor John and
+Doctor Jim.
+
+"Really, dear," said she, "they have not given me any very bad
+impressions of Robert.  I think both Doctor John and Doctor Jim knew
+where to put the blame.  And _I_ know, too!"
+
+Barbara looked at her doubtfully.  Such complete acceptance of her
+position almost seemed unkind and critical.  But her aunt's smile
+reassured her.  This was not criticism, but something as near raillery
+as Mistress Mehitable would permit herself.
+
+"I believe they have been abusing me behind my back,--and they
+pretending to love me!" cried Barbara, tossing her head in saucy
+challenge.
+
+"Never, child; we hug our delusions, Jim Pigeon and I," said Doctor
+John.
+
+"No, hug me," laughed Barbara, darting around the tea-table and seating
+herself on his lap.
+
+"You are our worst delusion, baggage!" said Doctor Jim, shaking a large
+finger at her.  "And now I see you're setting out to delude your poor
+aunt, after making life a burden to her for two years.  And poor Bobby
+Gault,--he'll find you a delusion and a snare!"
+
+"I think you are unkind, even if you are just in fun," protested
+Barbara, half offended, half amused.  But at this moment both men rose
+to go.  Doctor John, as he raised his towering bulk from the chair,
+lifted Barbara with him as if she had been a baby, held her in his arms
+for a moment while he peered lovingly and quizzically into her swiftly
+clearing face, gave her a resounding kiss, and set her on her feet.
+
+"Bless the child!" said Doctor Jim, noticing now for the first time the
+change in appearance.  "What's become of our little Barbara?  How she's
+grown up over night!"
+
+"And how her petticoats have grown down!" added Doctor John, backing
+off to survey her critically.  "Tut, tut, the wanton hussy!  How did
+she dare to kiss me!  Goodness gracious!  To think I had a young woman
+like that sitting on my lap!"
+
+"You had better be careful what you say, Doctor John," retorted
+Barbara, firmly, "or I _will_ be grown up, and never kiss you or let
+you hold me on your lap any more!"
+
+"I humbly crave your pardon, gracious fair.  I am your most devoted,
+humble servant!" said Doctor John, setting his heels together at a
+precise right angle, and bowing profoundly over her hand till his
+brocaded coat-tails stuck out stiffly behind him.
+
+Barbara rather liked this hand-kissing, after Robert's initiation, and
+took it with composure as her due.  Why should she not have her hand
+kissed, as well as Aunt Hitty?  But Doctor Jim made his farewell in
+different fashion.
+
+"I won't have her grow up this way!" he growled, snatching her up and
+holding her as if he feared she would be taken away from him.  "She's
+just our little Barby, our little, thorny brier-rose!  Eh--what?"
+
+"Our _barby_ brier-rose, you mean!" interjected Doctor John, with a
+chuckle.
+
+But every one ignored this poor witticism, and Doctor Jim continued,
+while Barbara softly kicked her toes against his waistcoat.  "It would
+break my heart to have her grown up, and young missish, and prim.  What
+have you done to her, Mehitable?"
+
+Mistress Mehitable gave a clear little ripple of laughter, flute-like
+and fresh.  She was feeling younger and gayer than she had felt for
+years.
+
+"I have just tried to carry out your own suggestion, Jim!" said she,
+cheerfully.  "I must say, I think it was a very wise suggestion.  I
+have handed Barbara over to her own care, that's all.  I am sorry you
+don't like the results!"
+
+"Don't worry, Doctor Jim!" cried Barbara, purchasing her release by
+kissing him hard on both cheeks.  "Don't worry about me being changed.
+I was _born_ bad, you know.  And I'm afraid I'll be just as bad as ever
+by to-morrow--except to Aunt Hitty!  If I'm bad to you any more,
+dear,"--and she turned impetuously to Mistress Mehitable,
+"I'll--I'll--" and feeling a sudden imperious threat of tears, she fled
+away to her own room.  It had been a wonderful, wonderful day for her,
+and she felt that she must have a little cry at once.  On her white bed
+she wept deliciously.  Then she thought, and thought, and thought, and
+made resolves, in sympathetic communion with her pillow.
+
+In the parlour below, Doctor Jim had said, before leaving:
+
+"I think you are going to get a lot of comfort out of her now,
+Mehitable, eh, what?"
+
+And Doctor John, troubled by a maudlin kind of moisture about his eyes,
+had said nothing.
+
+And Mistress Mehitable had said, fervently:
+
+"I hope she is going to get a lot of comfort out of me, Jim.  I see
+that I have been greatly in the wrong!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+All the next morning Mistress Mehitable and Barbara were busy
+overhauling Barbara's frocks.  Such as would admit of it were let down
+some three or four inches.  Of the others, two of rich material were
+laid away in Mistress Mehitable's huge carved oak chest lined with
+cedar, a repository of varied treasures of the loom.  The rest, three
+in number and plain of weave, were set aside to be given to Mercy
+Chapman.  There was much important planning, much interesting
+consultation; and in this feminine intimacy they grew ever closer to
+each other, throwing off the watchful self-consciousness, the sense of
+admiring and reciprocal discovery, which made them more happy than at
+ease in each other's company.
+
+Early in the afternoon Barbara decided she would go out to her
+favourite apple-tree in the back garden and read.  She openly took down
+the second volume of "Clarissa Harlowe,"--having already got through
+the first volume in surreptitious moments.  Mistress Mehitable
+discreetly, but with difficulty and some soul-questioning, refrained
+from admonition.  Barbara felt in her heart a faint quaver of
+trepidation, as she thus frankly assumed her independence; but she had
+the full courage of her convictions, and outwardly she was calm.
+
+"Mr. Richardson does not seem to me a very strong writer," she remarked
+at the door,--"especially after one has read those wonderful plays of
+Mr. Shakespeare and Mr. Ben Jonson, as I did at home in Maryland!  But
+every one should know 'Clarissa,' shouldn't they, dear?"
+
+Mistress Mehitable gasped.  She, too, had read those wonderful plays of
+Mr. Shakespeare and Mr. Ben Jonson.  But she was thoroughbred, and gave
+no sign of her dismay.
+
+"I never liked the lady, myself, dear," she answered, casually.  "She
+always seemed to me rather silly."
+
+This was Barbara's own judgment, and confirmed her new appreciation of
+her aunt's intelligence.  At the same time, this apparently easy
+acceptance, on Mistress Mehitable's part, of Barbara's emancipation,
+seemed almost too good to be true.  Her heart swelled passionately
+toward this blue-eyed, calm, patrician little woman, whom she had so
+long misunderstood.  She came back, put a caressing arm around Mistress
+Mehitable's waist, kissed her fervently, and looked deep into her eyes.
+Mistress Mehitable actually trembled in the recesses of her soul lest
+that searching gaze should discover what she had nearly said about
+young girls and novel-reading!  But she kept the blue deeps of her eyes
+clear and tranquil, and her lips smiled frank response.
+
+"Oh, you are so good and wonderful and wise, honey," Barbara said, at
+length.  "What a foolish, foolish child I've been,--and you, my dear,
+dear father's sister!  Why, just to look at you ought to have brought
+me to my senses.  So _many_ ways you look like him!"
+
+Then a thing very remarkable indeed took place.  Mistress Mehitable's
+fine poise wavered and vanished.  She almost clutched Barbara to her
+breast, then buried her head on the firm young shoulders and cried a
+little quite unrestrainedly, feeling a great ache in her heart for her
+dead brother Winthrop, and a great love in her heart for her dead
+brother's child.  Barbara was surprised, but greatly touched by this
+outburst.  She held her close, and patted her hair, and called her soft
+names suddenly remembered from the soft-voiced endearments of
+plantation days; till presently Mistress Mehitable recovered, and
+laughed gently through her tears.
+
+"Don't think me silly, dear," she pleaded, "but I've just realised for
+the first time that you have your dear father's wonderful eyes.  Your
+colouring, and your hair, and your mouth, are all very different from
+his.  But your eyes,--they are his _exactly_.  Such wonderful, deep,
+clear, _true_ eyes, Barbara, sometimes sea-gray, sometimes sea-green.
+Where have my eyes been all this time?"
+
+Barbara sighed happily.  "Isn't it lovely we have found each other at
+last, Aunt Hitty?  I don't think it will be so hard now for me to be
+good!"
+
+Then she picked up "Clarissa" again, and ran gaily out to the garden.
+
+Barbara's apple-tree had three great limbs branching out at about five
+feet from the ground, forming a most luxurious crotch in which to sit
+and read.  Smaller apple-trees, interspersed with tangled shrubbery and
+some trellised vines, almost surrounded it, so that on three sides it
+afforded perfect seclusion.  Sweet airs breathed through it, from the
+neighbouring thyme and mint beds; and sunshine sifted down through its
+leaves in an intricate and exquisite pattern; and a pair of catbirds,
+nesting in the shrubs close by, made it their haunt without regard to
+Barbara's presence.  As she looked at this dear nook, with all its
+memories of intimate hours and dreams, Barbara thought to herself how
+glad she was that she had not succeeded in running away from Second
+Westings.  She clambered cleverly into the tree, settled herself with a
+long breath of satisfaction, swung her little scarlet-shod feet idly
+too and fro, and made a long, absorbing survey of her green realm.
+Then, locking her ankles lithely as only a slim girl can, she opened
+her book, and was soon engrossed in the fortunes of Lovelace and
+Clarissa.
+
+About the time that Barbara was settling herself in the apple-tree,
+Robert Gault was triumphantly pushing Barbara's canoe to land through
+the gold-green sedges on the Second Westings shore of the little lake.
+With pole and paddle he had made the ascent of the stream from Gault
+House, having been seized that morning with a violent conviction that
+it was his duty to return the canoe without delay.  He had poled
+through the rapids, and paddled eagerly through the silent solemnities
+of the woods, too intent upon his purpose to be alive to their mystic
+influences.  The furtive eyes that watched him from pine-tree boll and
+ironwood bush, from skyey branch or moss-veiled root, touched not his
+consciousness.  To his self-centred mood the peopled stillness was
+empty as a desert.  His eyes, at other times alert and not uninitiated,
+were turned inward upon his own dreams.  He emerged from the great
+shadows, paddled through the meadowy windings with their iris-beds and
+lilies, and passed at length old Debby's clamorous dooryard, giving
+hardly a glance to the green slope with its ducks and fowls, the little
+red-doored cabin against its trees, or old Debby herself, with the
+cock-eared yellow pup beside her, sitting on the stoop.  He was in a
+hurry, and had caught glimpses of the open waters of the lake beyond;
+and he knew from Barbara's description that Mistress Mehitable's
+landing-place was straight across the lake.
+
+But old Debby, sitting knitting in the sun with the cock-eared yellow
+pup beside her, saw him, and chuckled at his haste.  She had been over
+to Second Westings the day before, and had got the whole story from
+Doctor Jim.  She had made up her mind to keep well out of the way, till
+Barbara's indignation should have time to cool; but she was mightily
+interested in the youth who had been so readily persuaded to the
+backing of Barbara's mad venture.  A moment later she made up her mind
+that she must have a good look at him, a word with him if possible.
+She got up and hobbled actively down to the shore; but Robert's haste
+had carried him already beyond earshot.
+
+Following the path up from the lake-shore, Robert crossed the
+cow-pasture and climbed the bars back of the barn.  Here he was met and
+challenged by Keep, the mastiff, who, with the discernment of a
+well-bred dog, appreciated Robert's good clothes, nosed his hand
+cordially, and let him pass without protest.  Keep knew a gentleman at
+a glance, and was convinced that good manners meant good morals.  He
+had no fear of Robert setting fire to the barn.
+
+Seeking a way to the front of the house, Robert passed through the
+wicket leading into the back garden.  Suddenly, between the tall clumps
+of hollyhocks, he stopped short, and his heart gave a queer little
+sliding leap.  His breath came quick and light, in a way that greatly
+perplexed him.  What he saw to so disturb him was a pair of little
+scarlet shoes, two small ankles, and a few inches of slim, shapely silk
+stockings, lithely intertwined, and vividly in evidence beneath a
+screen of apple-leaves.
+
+Robert did not need any one to tell him that the rest of the
+bewildering picture, hidden behind the screen of apple-leaves, was the
+small, inspiring lady, Mistress Barbara Ladd.  He hesitated, and was
+almost on the point of slipping away,--he knew not why, for the life of
+him.  Then, recovering a part of his composure, he stepped forward in
+trepidation, hat in hand, forgot the graceful speeches on which he was
+wont to pride himself, and stammered--"Mistress Barbara!--I beg your
+pardon!"
+
+The slim ankles unlocked, "Clarissa" fell upon the grass, and lightly
+as a bird Barbara sprang down from her perch, unconscious,
+unembarrassed, gracious in her greetings.  She smiled him radiant
+welcome, frankly pleased, and held out her hand to be kissed.
+
+"Why, how did you come?" she cried, gaily, "stealing in this way
+through the back premises?"
+
+"By water, dear lady," he answered, still stammering.  "I brought back
+the canoe, you know!"
+
+"By my dear river, and through the great, still woods!" she exclaimed,
+looking him over with clear eyes of approval.  "How lovely!  I wish I'd
+been with you!"
+
+"I wish you had!" said Robert, with devout conviction.
+
+"But how tired you must be, all that journey against the current.
+Really, Robert, it was _very_ nice of you to come so soon!"
+
+Now Robert was in a sad state of bewilderment, dazzled by eyes and lips
+and scarlet shoes.  And he was further shaken from his customary poise
+by his perception of Barbara's change in the arrangement of her hair,
+and by what seemed a sudden increase in her stature through the
+lengthening of her frocks.  Otherwise he would not have been so stupid
+as to imagine that the promptitude of his coming called for any apology
+in Barbara's eyes, whatever might be the opinion of Doctor John, or
+Doctor Jim, or Mistress Mehitable Ladd!
+
+"I thought I ought to come at once, you know," he explained, "to bring
+back the canoe!  Otherwise I should have waited, as I ought, for Mr.
+Glenowen's coming, and an invitation from him."
+
+"Oh!" said Barbara, her face changing slightly, her voice growing a
+little cooler.  "That was very thoughtful of you.  I couldn't sleep for
+thinking of the canoe!"
+
+Robert looked at her doubtfully, wondering if that were sarcasm in her
+voice.
+
+"It's a dear canoe.  I love it!" said he.
+
+"I wonder you did not want to keep it a little longer, then,--at least,
+till Uncle Bob could come and send you a proper, formal invitation to
+bring it back!" said Barbara.
+
+"But I wanted to bring it back now,--I thought it was such a good
+excuse for coming at once, though I knew I _ought_ to have waited for
+the invitation, of course," persisted Robert, vaguely worried.
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Barbara, again, allowing herself to be mollified in
+part, but still feeling a shade of disappointment.  She was too
+inexperienced to appreciate the tribute of Robert's confusion and
+unexpected awkwardness.  She liked him so much better in his grand,
+elaborate, self-possessed manner, paying stately compliments, making
+her feel important and grown-up by formal homage.  However, he
+certainly was very nice, and he certainly looked very distinguished;
+and she realised that, for all his apparent solicitude about returning
+the canoe, the canoe was not his reason for coming so soon.  She would
+forgive him,--but she would punish him!  In fact, she was making
+progress in the arts of the imperishable feminine.
+
+"Well, we shall _all_ be glad to see you, Robert," she said.  "And now
+you must go straight to Doctor Jim, who did invite you, as you seem to
+have forgotten!  You go through that white gate, over there, and turn
+to the left, and then the first turn to the right puts you right on the
+main street.  You're almost at Doctor Jim's then,--any one will point
+it out to you."
+
+"But,--I didn't come to see Doctor Jim," protested Robert, much taken
+aback.  "I came to bring back the canoe, you know!"
+
+"Of course, I understand!" said Barbara, sweetly.  "Tell Doctor Jim and
+Doctor John that I want them to bring you back here presently, in an
+hour or two, to present you to Aunt Hitty, and have tea with us!"
+
+"But can't I stay a _little_ while _now_,--while no one knows I am here
+at all?" pleaded Robert.
+
+Ordinarily, this was just what would have seemed reasonable and
+delightful to Barbara.  But just now it pleased her to discipline the
+boy.
+
+"Decidedly _not_, Robert!" said she.  "You know how careful you are
+about etiquette,--so troubled over the idea of coming here at all on
+the mere invitation of mere me!  You shall not talk to me any more till
+you have been properly presented to Aunt Hitty!  Besides, I am just at
+a _most_ interesting place in this lovely book,"--and she snatched
+'Clarissa' up from the grass, where it had lain forgotten since
+Robert's appearance,--"and I can't really take my mind off it till I
+find out what is going to happen.  I will see you in the house, with
+Aunt Hitty, in--let me see--about an hour and a half!  Now go right
+away!"
+
+Robert looked very miserable, but bowed submission, and backed off.
+
+"How will Mistress Ladd receive me?" he asked, doubtfully.
+
+"Oh," replied Barbara, one small brown hand on the apple-tree as she
+waited for Robert to depart ere she climbed back to her nook, "Aunt
+Hitty is just perfect.  She will be very nice to you, and will quite
+approve of you, I know.  Since everything has turned out for the best,
+she has already forgiven you for leading her young niece into mischief
+the way you did!"
+
+Robert stared at her in speechless amazement.  But Barbara would not
+let him ask any more questions.  With a mocking little grimace at his
+confusion, she pointed to the white gate.
+
+"Go away immediately!" she commanded.  "And be sure you come back in an
+hour and a half!"
+
+Robert turned and strode off with an aggrieved air, between the
+hollyhock rows.  When he was half way to the gate, Barbara, who had
+stood looking after him with a smile on her lips, called imperiously:
+
+"Robert!"
+
+He turned quickly, and snatched off his hat.
+
+"What is it, my lady?"
+
+"You forgot to help me into my tree!" said Barbara.
+
+He was beside her in an instant, his face brightening.  He knelt on one
+knee, and held out his two hands firmly locked, to form a sort of
+stirrup.  Setting one light foot into this support, Barbara sprang up
+and in a flash was perched gracefully in her niche.  It was done with
+such swiftness that Robert had hardly time to realise her foot had
+touched him.  She laughed down upon him with gay commendation.
+
+"That was very handsomely done, indeed, Robert!" she declared.  "Now
+hurry right away to Doctor Jim, or you'll never manage to get back in
+one hour and a half!"  And she buried her eyes in the first page at
+which "Clarissa" chanced to open.
+
+Robert hesitated, opened his lips as if to speak, and went without a
+word.  Barbara, watching him from the corner of her eye, was puzzled at
+the look upon his face, but felt satisfied that it was not displeasure.
+About half-way up the walk toward the gate, when he believed himself
+unobserved, Robert gazed curiously at the palms wherein the little foot
+had rested for that fraction of a heart-beat.  Light as was the touch,
+it had left a subtle tingling behind it.  He pressed the place to his
+lips.  This action astonished Barbara, but greatly interested her, and
+gave her, at the same time, an inexplicable thrill.  Her heart
+understood it, indeed, while it remained an enigma to her brain.  And
+purposeless, profitless, absurd though it seemed to her, that Robert
+should kiss his own hand, she decided nevertheless that in some way the
+action had expressed a more fervent homage to her than when the hand
+that he kissed was hers.  She forgot to go on reading the excellent Mr.
+Richardson's romance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+Mistress Mehitable liked Robert, whose bearing and breeding were in all
+ways much to her taste.  She had seen him when a babe in arms, just
+before his father and mother had taken him away from Gault House to New
+York.  So gracious was she, that Robert was filled with wonder as he
+thought of the piteous story which Barbara had told him in the canoe.
+But this wonder was as nothing, compared to the amazement with which he
+viewed the warm affection between Barbara and her aunt.  What could it
+all mean?  It was plain that they two understood each other, trusted
+each other, admired each other, loved each other.  He had an uneasy
+feeling that Barbara had made a fool of him.  Then, as his dignity was
+beginning to feel ruffled, and his grave young face to darken, he would
+remember other details of that eventful afternoon which forbade him to
+question the girl's sincerity.  At this the cloud would lift.  There
+was a mystery behind it all, of course, which he would doubtless, in
+his determined fashion, succeed in penetrating.  Meanwhile, every one
+seemed extremely happy,--Barbara gaily, whimsically gracious, Mistress
+Mehitable composedly glad, Doctor Jim as boisterous in his joy as good
+manners would permit, Doctor John quizzically approving, and filled
+with mellow mirth.  Robert was made to feel himself an honoured guest,
+for his own sake as well as for the sake of his parents; and in this
+cordial atmosphere he soon justified all good opinions.  Barbara was
+intensely gratified with him.  She audaciously claimed credit for
+having discovered him, and rescued him from the barbaric wilderness
+that lay beyond Second Westings.  She began to plan expeditions and
+amusements to make his visit memorable; and when he announced his
+intention of returning to Gault House on the morrow, there was a
+unanimous protest.  Mistress Mehitable said it was not to be heard of,
+for one moment.  Doctor Jim growled that his hospitality was not to be
+flouted in any such fashion.  Doctor John levelled bushy eyebrows at
+him, and suggested that no true Gault would run away in the hour of
+triumph.
+
+"You will do nothing of the kind, Robert," decreed Barbara, with
+finality.  "We want you here.  I wonder you are not ashamed, after all
+the trouble you made for us so lately, when you were old enough and big
+enough to know better!"
+
+Robert's face flushed with pleasure at all this warmth; and he hugely
+wanted to stay.  But with astonishing discretion he refused to be
+persuaded.  Some intuition taught him the wisdom of timely reserve.
+Without at all formulating any theory on the subject, which would have
+been impossible to such inexperience as his, he felt instinctively that
+at this moment, when she was most gracious to him, a judicious absence
+would best fix him in Barbara's interest.  He said there were matters
+to be attended to for his grandmother which would not well bear delay.
+At this unexpected firmness on the part of her cavalier, Barbara was so
+annoyed that for nearly an hour she seemed to forget his existence; but
+Robert hid his discomfort under an easy cheerfulness, and no one else
+seemed to notice the passing shadow.  Mistress Mehitable insisted that
+the guests should stay to sup with her and Barbara; and the boy's
+coming was made a little festival.  Mistress Mehitable was one of those
+notable housekeepers who seem to accomplish great things with little
+effort by being craftily forehanded.  Before anything was said of
+supper she had vanished for a few minutes to the kitchen; and in those
+few minutes she had planned with Abby for a repast worthy the event.
+The larder of the Ladd homestead was kept victualled beyond peril of
+any surprise; and Mistress Mehitable, for all her ethereal mould and
+mien, believed in the efficacy of good eating and good drinking.  Well
+regulated lives, she held, should also be well nourished, and her
+Puritan conscience was not illiberal in regard to the seemly pleasures
+of the board.
+
+Both Doctor John and Doctor Jim, as befitted their stature, were
+valiant trenchermen; and Robert was a boy; and the lavish delicacies of
+Abby's serving met with that reception which was the best tribute to
+their worth.  Gaiety made herself handmaid to appetite; and the ale was
+nutty-mellow from last October; and Mistress Mehitable's old Madeira
+wine, of which herself partook but sparingly, was fiery-pungent on the
+tongue.  As she toasted him, and her blue eyes sparkled upon him over
+the glass, Robert wondered anew how Barbara could have wanted to run
+away from so admirable an aunt.  As for Barbara, reduced for a little
+to silence by supreme content, she sipped at her Angelica cordial,
+surveyed Mistress Mehitable with grateful ardour, and took it all as
+largess to herself.
+
+At last, with a happy sigh, she cried, "Oh, if only Uncle Bob could
+have come in time for this!"  And so electric with sympathy was the air
+that on the word every eye turned and glanced at the door, as if
+expecting that a wish so well-timed might bring fruition on the
+instant.  There was silence for some seconds.
+
+Then Mistress Mehitable said, "He will be here in a very few days,
+dear!  And then you, Robert, must come to us again without delay.  I
+agree with Barbara that nothing I can think of except Mr. Glenowen's
+presence could add to our happiness to-night!"
+
+After supper there was music in the candle-lit drawing-room, Mistress
+Mehitable having a rare gift for the harpsichord, and Doctor Jim a nice
+art in the rendering of certain old English ballads of the robuster
+sort.  Where they might have seemed to the ladies' ears a trifle more
+robust than nice, Doctor Jim had fined them down to a fitting delicacy.
+But they suited his rolling bass, and he loved them because, being
+Cavalier-born, they appealed to his king-loving sympathies.  Doctor Jim
+was an exemplary Congregationalist, but solely by force of environment,
+Congregationalism being the creed of all the gentry of that region.
+Episcopalianism he looked upon with a distrust mingled with affection;
+but in all other respects he was a king's man, through and through, an
+aristocrat, and a good-natured scorner of the masses.  It was a
+stupendous triumph for accident and atmosphere to have succeeded in
+fitting Doctor Jim to his inherited environment of Second Westings.
+His Congregationalism was a thing that might conceivably be changed to
+meet changed conditions; while his Toryism was bred in the bone.  With
+Mistress Mehitable, on the other hand, her Congregationalism was
+deep-rooted, a matter of conscience.  It was by conscience, too, no
+less than by blood, that she was an aristocrat.  She was a royalist, a
+Tory, no less unquestioning than Doctor Jim, but this by a chance
+election of that strenuous conscience which, by a different chance
+twist, would have made her an equally sincere Whig.
+
+When Doctor Jim had sung till Doctor John told him he was getting
+hoarse and spoiling his voice, Barbara, in a burst of daring, started
+up a wild plantation song, patting her accompaniment.  To Mistress
+Mehitable, as to Robert, this was an undreamed novelty, and their eyes
+opened wide in wonder.  At first they thought it barbarous, but in a
+few minutes the piquing rhythms and irresponsible cadences caught them,
+and they listened in rapture.  Barbara's store of these songs was a
+rich one, and she had perfected the rendering in many a secret
+performance to the audience of Doctor John and Doctor Jim.  When she
+was quite sure of the effect she was producing, she sprang to her feet,
+flung her hair loose by a quick movement of both hands, and began to
+dance as she sang.  And now, to the ever-growing amazement of Mistress
+Mehitable, Doctor Jim took up the patting, while Doctor John, seating
+himself at the harpsichord, began a strange staccato picking of the
+keys.  Then Barbara stopped singing, and gave herself up wholly to the
+dance.  She danced with arms and hands and head and feet, and every
+slender curve of her young body.  She moved like flames.  Her eyes and
+lips and teeth were a radiance through the live, streaming darknesses
+of her hair.  Light, swift, unerring, ecstatic, it was like the most
+impassioned of bird-songs translated into terms of pure motion.  Doctor
+John played faster and faster his wild, monotonous melody.  Doctor Jim
+patted harder and harder.  Barbara's dance grew madder and stranger,
+till at last, with a little breathless cry that was half a sob, she
+stopped, darted across the room, flung herself down, and buried her
+dishevelled head in Mistress Mehitable's lap.
+
+On ordinary occasions Mistress Mehitable would have felt inclined to
+hold that anything so extraordinary, so utterly outside the range of
+all conceptions, and at the same time so very beautiful, must be wrong.
+Now, however, she was under the spell of Barbara and under the spell of
+the whole situation.  "I cannot see any possible harm in it!" she said
+to herself.  And to Barbara she said, tenderly and deftly arranging the
+disordered locks:
+
+"Most beautiful, and most singular, dear.  I suppose that is your
+_dance_ of 'Maryland Memories,' is it not?  It seems to me not only
+amazingly beautiful, but as if it might be the most wholesome and
+desirable of exercises."
+
+Barbara gurgled a gasping laugh from the depths of Mistress Mehitable's
+taffeta.  It had never occurred to her that these mad negro dances, in
+which she found expression for so much in herself which she did not
+understand, could be regarded in the light of exercise.  But she was
+glad indeed if they could be so regarded by Aunt Hitty.
+
+"Oh, yes, honey," she agreed, in haste.  "I'm _sure_ it's wholesome;
+and I _know_ it's _desirable_,--isn't it?"
+
+This appeal was to every one, but it was Robert, at last awaking from
+his rapture and finding breath, who answered:
+
+"There was never anything else so wonderful in all the world," he said,
+solemnly.
+
+Doctor John and Doctor Jim, with one impulse, jumped up, each seized
+one of Barbara's hands, and plucked her to her feet.  They then stood
+hand in hand in a row before Mistress Mehitable and Robert, bowing
+their thanks for such appreciation of their poor efforts to please.
+
+"We are going to London to perform before the king!" declared Doctor
+Jim.
+
+Mistress Mehitable gravely took a shilling from her purse, and bestowed
+it upon Doctor John because he was the tallest.  He pretended to spit
+on it, for luck, but kissed it instead, and slipped it into the bosom
+of his ruffled shirt.  When the approving laughter had subsided,
+Mistress Mehitable said, musingly:
+
+"I see now how you have been teaching Barbara her Latin.  It was that
+peculiar dialect of Latin that prevails in Maryland!"
+
+After this a sack posset was mixed by Mistress Mehitable, with the
+eager assistance of every one but Robert, who was still too much
+possessed by Barbara's dancing to do more than stand about and get in
+the way, and smile a gravely fatuous smile whenever spoken to.
+
+When the posset began to go around, calling forth encomiums at every
+sip, Doctor Jim demanded the cards.  There was silence.  To Robert,
+just from the Tory circles of New York, it seemed the most natural
+thing in the world.  To Barbara it seemed natural, but foreign to
+Mistress Mehitable and Second Westings.  To Doctor John it seemed right
+and desirable, but he chuckled and said nothing, being aware of
+Mistress Mehitable's views.  And this time Mistress Mehitable was firm.
+
+"No, Jim," said she, "we won't play.  I know good people do
+play,--people who know just as well as I do what is right and what is
+wrong.  But for some reason card-playing does not seem right to me.
+You know Doctor Sawyer would strongly disapprove!"
+
+"Officially, that's all, dear lady!" corrected Doctor John.
+
+"But you have them in the house,--yonder in that very drawer, most
+gracious mistress!" persisted Doctor Jim.
+
+"My dear father used them," confessed Mistress Mehitable.  "Therefore I
+would not for a moment think of refusing to have them in my house.  But
+I think it is better not to play, Jim."
+
+And though Mistress Mehitable spoke with appeal and apology rather than
+with decision, the matter was plainly settled.  There was nothing to do
+but tell riddles and drink up the rest of the posset.  The pervading
+satisfaction was in no way checked by Doctor Jim's failure, for all
+agreed that cards were stupid anyway.  Barbara, in spite of her
+excitement, and to her intense self-disgust, began to grow sleepy.  She
+was horribly afraid she might show it, which, for one but forty-eight
+hours grown-up, would have been humiliating beyond words.  She felt
+herself divided between a fear lest so perfect an evening should end
+too soon, and an equally harassing fear lest it should end not soon
+enough.  At length the keen and loving eyes of Doctor John discerned
+her trouble; and at the dissolute hour of half-past ten he broke up the
+party.  Adieux were made with a warmth, an abandon of homage held in
+fetters of elaborate courtliness, which might have seemed excessive at
+a less propitious conjunction of time and sentiment.  At last the
+three, Doctor John, Doctor Jim, and Robert, found themselves arm-in-arm
+on the street, and all talking at once, overbrimming with happiness and
+reciprocal congratulations, as they took their discreet way homeward.
+
+Barbara and Mistress Mehitable, left alone, silently put out the
+lights.  Then, each lighting her candle, they paused at the head of the
+stairs to say good night.  Each set down her candle on the little
+mahogany table under the clock, and looked into the other's eyes.
+Barbara was first to break the sweet but too searching scrutiny.  She
+flung both arms around Mistress Mehitable's neck, and kissed her with a
+tremulous fervour that told much.  Mistress Mehitable, whose eyes were
+brighter than Barbara had ever guessed that they could be, pressed her
+in a close embrace which concealed much, even from Mistress Mehitable
+herself.  Then Barbara, after whispering something to the kittens, went
+straight to bed, and straight to sleep.  But Mistress Mehitable sat
+looking out of her window.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+It had been arranged that Robert should borrow a horse from Doctor
+John's stables, ride it over to Gault House, and keep it there till his
+return to Second Westings.  But as he was strolling down the village
+street before breakfast, he saw, in a paddock beside an unpretentious
+cottage, a splendid Narragansett pacer, a dark sorrel, one of the
+handsomest of the breed that he had ever seen.  He had long coveted one
+of these horses, famous in all the thirteen colonies for their easy
+gait, speed over rough country, and unparalleled endurance.  With
+characteristic promptness in getting to his point, he went in,
+interviewed the owner, tried the horse, loved it, and asked the price.
+The owner was not anxious to sell; but when he found out who the
+would-be purchaser was, and the liberal price he was ready to pay, the
+prospect of an immediate draft on the bank at Hartford proved
+irresistible, and Robert rode off with his prize.  He knew horse-flesh,
+and did not grudge the price; and both Doctor John and Doctor Jim, who
+knew this sorrel pacer well, were constrained to commend the purchase,
+though to them it seemed that so weighty an action demanded, if but for
+form's sake, the tribute of delay and pondering.
+
+"Buy a horse like that, Robert, in three shakes of a ram's tail?  It's
+undignified!" roared Doctor Jim, eyeing the beast with unmixed
+approbation.  "It's an insult to the horse.  And it's a slight upon the
+value of our assistance, you cock-sure young rascal.  But it's just the
+mulish way your father would have gone and done it, so I suppose we
+must forgive you."
+
+Doctor John, meanwhile, had been handling the beast critically, and
+looking at its teeth.
+
+"Worth all you gave for him, Bobby; and not a day over five years old!"
+was the verdict.  "I see you're old enough to go about alone.  Don't
+you mind what Jim Pigeon says.  He'd have had you run to him and ask if
+you might have a horse of your own, and then get him and me to go down
+and look at the beast, and come back here and talk it all over in
+council, and then go back and bully Enoch Barnes some more about the
+price, and then all three of us ride the beast up to Mistress
+Mehitable's, to ask the opinion of her and Barbara on the subject, and
+then--"
+
+But Robert interrupted at this point in the tirade.
+
+"That _would_ have been a good idea," he asserted, regretfully.  "I
+wish I had thought to consult the ladies.  But, you know, I _knew_ that
+horse was just the one I'd so long been wanting the moment I set eyes
+on him.  So I didn't dare wait, lest some one else should come along
+and snap him up.  Of course you both know a thousand times more about
+horses than I do,--but I knew enough to know I wanted this one!"
+
+"You _generally_ seem to know what you want, Master Gault!" said Doctor
+Jim.  "And you seem like to get it, generally, if I don't mistake the
+cut of you,--eh, what?"
+
+"Tut, tut," said Doctor John, scowling upon him quizzically.  "That's
+all very well as far as horses are concerned, and men!  But wait till
+it comes to women, Robert.  You've a lot to learn, my son.  If I'm not
+much mistaken, you'll be taught a lot, and not spared in the teaching!"
+
+"I'm always anxious to learn," answered Robert, modestly.
+
+"You will!  You will!" said Doctor John.
+
+Breakfast was a substantial meal of boiled "Yokeag" with molasses, and
+broiled salmon, and venison cutlets, and fried ham, and rich guava
+jelly from the West Indies.  Robert was surprised to see each of his
+friends preface the repast with a quart mug of the hardest and headiest
+old cider, he himself being accustomed to a small cup of light ale
+merely, or a sip of claret, at this hour.  Both Doctor John and Doctor
+Jim assured him that there was nothing like sound cider to tone up the
+stomach for its day's adventures; and on their advice he tried it,
+though sparingly, and therefore with no tragic results.
+
+After breakfast, he was so obviously restless that the big-hearted
+brothers made no effort to detain him.  With heavy hands upon his
+shoulders, they told him to make the least possible delay in his
+return, and to bear in mind how warm the welcome ever awaiting him at
+Second Westings.
+
+"How like to Richard in the saddle!" exclaimed Doctor John, when Robert
+had mounted the sorrel pacer.
+
+"And that's a compliment not many a lad of your age could win, my son!"
+said Doctor John.
+
+Robert's dark face flushed with pleasure.
+
+"I try hard to be as like my father as possible," said he.  "Don't you
+think I might properly ride around and pay my respects to the ladies
+before I leave?"
+
+"Unquestionably you might!  'Pon my word a capital idea!" laughed
+Doctor Jim, with huge derision.
+
+"Unquestionably, my boy, you would find yourself in hot water if you
+didn't!" said Doctor John.
+
+So Robert, without more ado, turned the head of his Narragansett pacer
+toward Westings House, whose wide white gables were partly visible
+through the trees.
+
+A very erect, graceful, and masterful young figure he made, as he
+reined in his tall sorrel before Mistress Mehitable's porch.  Mistress
+Mehitable from her window above had seen him coming, and was on the
+steps to greet him.  He flung himself from the saddle, kissed her hand
+deferentially, thanked her with fervour for her delightful
+hospitality,--and at the same time cast a solicitous eye about the
+walks and windows, wondering where Barbara could be.  Mistress
+Mehitable had an amused smile, but would not help him.  She said polite
+things, and assured him of the pleasure with which she would look
+forward to his next visit,--and even added that he had better not
+postpone that next visit beyond five or six days, or a week at most, as
+Mr. Glenowen was expected at once, and might not be able to stay long
+at Second Westings.  But of Barbara she said not a word.  Robert showed
+her, with pride, his sorrel pacer, related with an abstracted air the
+circumstances of its purchase, and enlarged upon the special merits of
+the breed, while Mistress Mehitable patted the silky white nose, and
+murmured boundless admiration.  But still no sign, no word, of Barbara.
+
+At last Robert could contain himself no longer.
+
+"I ought to be on the road," he stammered, "but I should be sorry to
+leave without making my adieux to Mistress Barbara.  Is she within?"
+
+"She went out about half an hour ago!" said Mistress Mehitable, "and
+did not say where she was going!"
+
+Robert's face fell so pathetically that Mistress Mehitable felt a
+little flush of resentment against Barbara for her cruelty.
+
+"She left kindest messages for you," she continued, hastily.  "She told
+me to say how sorry she was not to see you this morning, and that she
+would never forgive you if you did not come again to Second Westings
+very soon.  And I was to say good-bye to you for her!"
+
+"I thank you," said Robert, heavily.  "Pray you give her my devotions,
+and tell her how grieved I am to be denied the privilege of paying them
+in person.  I kiss your hand again, dear Mistress Ladd!"  And with that
+he rode off musingly, through a morning whose sunlight had on the
+sudden lost its sparkle, whose spicy airs had all at once lost their
+zest.  His pride in the new pacer, which he had hoped to show off to
+Barbara, was all fallen flat.  He forced the restive beast to walk
+soberly for some moments.  Then a swift heat of anger, a sense of
+undeserved injury, went over him.  He swore he would come no more to
+Second Westings all that summer; and setting spurs to the willing
+sorrel, he tore away down the road at a pounding gallop.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+The road toward Westings Landing, which was the shortest way to Gault
+House, was joined about a mile out by another, equally rough and
+unfriendly to travel, coming from Westings Centre.  Robert had passed
+this junction at full gallop, but a few rods beyond a stretch of mire
+compelled him to rein in and pick his way.  As he did so he caught a
+sound of beating hoofs behind him, and turned in the saddle to see who
+came.
+
+Careering recklessly down the road from Westings Centre, her black
+curls flying from beneath the rim of her little white beaver, came a
+slim figure in a black habit on a great black horse.  She burst into a
+peal of laughter as Robert turned, and cried, gaily:
+
+"I'm coming.  Wait for me, Robert!"
+
+Robert wheeled his horse as if on a pivot, fairly lifted him with voice
+and spur, and was with her in a few great strides.
+
+"You!" was all his voice could say; but his face said so much more that
+the greeting did not seem curt to Barbara.  Her small face was radiant
+with excitement, audacity, and delight.  At the beginning of the miry
+ground she reined in, patted her beast's wet neck, and said,
+breathlessly:
+
+"I thought you might like me to ride a little way with you, Robert, to
+make sure of your getting the right road.  Wasn't it very nice of
+me,--when you don't one bit deserve any such attention?"
+
+"You are an angel!" cried Robert, in an ecstasy.
+
+Barbara laughed clear and high at this.
+
+"_Oh!_" she shrilled, melodiously derisive, "that's what _I_ think I
+am, of course.  But no one has ever agreed with me after knowing me
+more than three days.  This is your third day, Robert.  It's well for
+me you're going while you labour under this flattering delusion."
+
+"It's no delusion," averred Robert, stoutly, far past wit, and with no
+weapon left but bluntness.  "You are the loveliest thing in the world."
+
+This, in Barbara's own opinion, was nonsense.  But she liked to hear
+him say it, nonsense or not.  She pondered for a moment, her face
+turned away indifferently, that he might not see she was pleased.
+
+"You contradict yourself," she retorted.  "You know angels are not in
+the world!"
+
+"One is!" said Robert.
+
+"I like you so much better, Robert, when you're saying clever things
+like that," said Barbara, patronisingly, "than when you are just
+stupid, and don't do anything but just look at me, as you do sometimes!"
+
+She was too young to know that when a man can be witty with a woman he
+is not, at the moment, so engrossed in her but that he is able to think
+of himself.
+
+Before Robert could reply they were past the miry ground, and Barbara
+had once more set her black horse at the gallop.  The sorrel needed no
+urging to follow,--and indeed, for a few minutes both riders were fully
+occupied in preventing the ride from degenerating into a headlong race,
+so emulous were the two horses.  The road was still very bad, broken
+with ruts, holes, and boulders, and the pace was therefore full of
+peril.  The black just escaped plunging his fore legs into a bog-hole,
+and the narrowness of the escape seemed to make him lose nerve.  Robert
+saw with anxiety that Barbara, though her horsemanship equalled her
+canoeing, was just now in a far too reckless mood.
+
+"Wait, please, my dear lady," he begged.  "This is no road for fast
+riding.  That good beast of yours just escaped a bad fall, and he's a
+bit nervous.  Let's walk them till we get to better ground."
+
+But Barbara had not noticed her escape, and she was thrilling with
+exhilaration.  She did not know how beside herself she was.
+
+"If you're afraid, follow at your own pace!" she cried, mockingly.
+"_I_ came out to _ride_!"  And with a wild word of encouragement to the
+black, and a throwing forward of the reins upon his neck, she shot on
+at full speed.
+
+"I _beg_ you don't be so reckless!" cried Robert.  "You will get a bad
+fall riding this way on such a road!"  There was intensest anxiety in
+his voice, but the faintest tinge of reproof went with it, as Barbara's
+sensitive pride was quick to discern.
+
+"I shall ride as recklessly as I please," said she.  "But don't let
+that trouble you.  Be careful if you like.  Ride like an old woman if
+you like!"
+
+This taunt did not touch Robert, as he knew the quality of his own
+horsemanship,--which, indeed, Barbara's attentive eyes had been quick
+to note.  But the mood it betrayed alarmed and half angered him.  He
+saw in fancy that fleeing, daring, wayward little figure stretched
+lifeless on the roadside, the radiant face white and still.  His own
+face paled and his jaw set obstinately as he urged forward his big
+sorrel in silence.
+
+The new horse proved worthy of Narragansett fame.  Over the worst
+ground his peculiar pace carried him with an ease which the big black's
+heavy tread could not match.  And when the ground was firmer, and he
+could stretch out at full run, he soon closed up the gap between
+himself and his rival.  This nettled Barbara, who thought her Black
+Prince a record-breaker; and she even went so far as to wave her
+riding-crop, as if she might be inclined to use it on this beast, which
+had never felt the whip.  Nevertheless, the heavy hoof-beats behind
+crept closer; and soon the sorrel's nose was at her stirrup; and then
+Robert's stirrup and his knee were level with her own,--and with a
+quick sidelong glance she caught the grim resolve on his dark face.
+She was feeling by this time the least bit ashamed of herself, and
+awaking to the risks of the road, so she said, sweetly:
+
+"That's a _splendid_ horse of yours, Robert.  And you can ride!"
+
+"Thank you, Mistress Barbara!" said Robert, unmollified.  And just then
+the road straightened out, a stretch of hard, dry level, inviting to
+the loose rein and the unchecked run.
+
+"There's no danger _here_, Master Careful!" cried Barbara.
+
+"No, not here,--except branches!" acknowledged Robert, drawing a deep
+breath of relief.
+
+And now for more than a mile the road was good.  It wound in slow
+curves, the high-branched ash and white maple meeting over it in
+stately arches.  Under foot it was hard and fairly even, with a thin
+turf between the shallow ruts.  Sunlight and shadow flecked it in vivid
+patches; and the summer winds, which were blowing briskly in the open,
+breathed down this sheltered corridor only as half-stirred exhalations
+of faint perfume.  Neck by neck the horses galloped, their riders
+silent, looking straight ahead, but thrillingly conscious of each
+other's nearness.  And the strong rhythm of the hoof-beats beneath them
+seemed to time itself to the rushing of their blood.  It was now no
+longer with vexation, but with a sort of half pride, that Barbara
+realised the superiority of the sorrel over her own mount.  She saw
+that only Robert's firm hand on the rein kept his beast from forging
+ahead.  Thus they rushed along through the vast solitudes,--really
+alone together, although those solitudes were populous with the furtive
+kindreds of fur and feather.  For the sound of their coming travelled
+far before them, and gave the shy folk time to withdraw from such
+unwelcome intrusion.  Even the big black bear,--he whom Barbara had
+seen tearing the ant-log,--now withdrew as noiselessly and shyly as the
+wood-mouse, not delaying for even a glance at the two wild riders.
+Only the red squirrel, inquisitive, daring, and impudent, stuck to his
+vantage-post on a high-arched limb and jabbered shrill derision at them
+as they raced by.
+
+At length, just as the intoxication of the ride and the companionship
+were beginning to bewilder his brain, a turn of the road showed Robert
+a stretch of very bad ground right ahead.  The careless roadmakers had
+tried, in a half-hearted way, to fill up a long bog with brush and
+poles.  Had the attempt been fully carried out, the result would have
+been a rough but thoroughly passable piece of "corduroy road."  As it
+was, however, the brush and poles together had in spots sunk a foot
+below the surface, at one side or the other, and in other spots had
+been quite engulfed by the hungry black mire, making that stretch the
+curse of wheel-travellers, and perilous enough to any but the most
+cautious horsemen.
+
+The sight cooled Robert's nerves.  Instead of reining in, however, he
+let his beast push a half-length to the front, that he might the better
+control the situation if need should arise.  Then he said, resolutely:
+
+"If you have no care for your own life, dear lady, I beg you to think
+of that good beast of yours.  He will break a leg in yon bog-holes, and
+then he will have to be shot!"
+
+Barbara had been fully prepared, by now, to listen to reason and check
+the pace.  She knew she had been unreasoning in her excitement.  But
+the fact that Robert knew she had been unreasonable, and dared to show,
+by his tone as well as by his argument, that he knew it, stirred a hot
+resentment in her heart.  In a flash she forgot that she had ever been
+unreasonable at all.  Her first impulse was to spur on with added
+speed.  Had it been her own neck, merely, that she would risk, she
+would not have hesitated.  But Robert had hit on the one compelling
+plea.  She could not face the risk of hurt to her horse, or to any
+kindly beast whatever.  She reined in sharply, therefore, without a
+word; and at a walk the two horses began to pick their wary way over
+the corduroy.
+
+"There's danger to the good beasts, even at this pace," remarked
+Robert, with more truthfulness than tact.
+
+"Did you suppose," retorted Barbara, in a voice of withering scorn,
+"that I was going to ride my Black Prince at a gallop over such a piece
+of road as this?"
+
+This was exactly what Robert had supposed, of course.  But a sudden ray
+of insight entering his candid brain in time, he refrained from saying
+so.  He was on the point of saying, however, by way of explanation,
+that the ground which Barbara had already insisted upon traversing at
+full speed was but little better than this; but here, too, a sharpening
+perception checked him.  He kept silence, seemingly absorbed in guiding
+his horse between the miry pitfalls, until they found themselves once
+again on firm ground,--firm but rough.  The horses, still apprehensive,
+showed no disposition to resume their vehement gait.
+
+"It's an outrage," cried Robert, "that the township should permit such
+a piece of road as this.  I shall have a voice in affairs here in three
+or four years, and then I'll see that the road-work is properly done.
+I'll have no traps in this township to break good horses' legs!"
+
+This sentiment was so much to Barbara's taste that she found it an
+excuse for being mollified.
+
+"That's right, Robert!" she answered, very graciously.  "Now, be sure
+you remember that when the time comes!"
+
+"I'll remember it," cried Robert, with cheerful confidence.
+
+By this time, when the leisurely walking of the horses offered no
+affront to the forest quiet, the birds were resuming their busy calls
+and the bustle of their intimate affairs; and the less shy members of
+the furry fellowship went once more about their business in the busy
+precincts of the road.  Barbara's sympathetic and unerring vision
+singled them out, differentiating them from their harmonious
+surroundings, when Robert's eye, as a rule, could not without help see
+anything but lichened stumps and stones, or bunches of brown weed, or
+odd-shaped excrescences on the trees.  Yet Robert's eye was the eye of
+the hunter, skilled in the ruses of all quarry.  Barbara's woodcraft
+went immeasurably beyond his,--and perceiving this, her last resentment
+faded out and she began to initiate him.  She named and distinguished
+for him birds of which he had never even heard, and corrected him with
+gleeful pride when he innocently mistook the cry of a woodpecker for
+that of a jay.  As for Robert, his delight in this initiation was
+second only to his delight in his wilful initiator, who was now all
+earnestness and to him a marvel of abstruse erudition.  He learned very
+quickly, however, and so Barbara was pleased not less by his
+comparative ignorance than by his superlative aptitude, which was an
+incense of flattery to his instructress.  Only on the subject of deer
+and grouse Barbara could teach him nothing.
+
+"You know all about those," she cried, reproachfully, "because you have
+taken the trouble to learn about them, so you can kill them!"
+
+"It does seem a pity to kill such lovely, interesting creatures,"
+acknowledged the lad, thoughtfully.  "But what can we do?  Surely they
+were given to us for our use.  Providence intended them for our food.
+It must be right for us to kill them!"
+
+"Of course," assented Barbara, unequipped with any philosophy which
+might have enabled her to combat this argument.  "Of course, it is
+right for us to _eat_ them.  But you, Robert, you _take pleasure_ in
+_killing_ them.  I don't quite like you for that!"
+
+Robert's face grew more and more thoughtful, for this was to him a hard
+saying, indeed, and he had no answer ready.  He was a skilled shot and
+a keen huntsman.
+
+"I could not understand a man not taking pleasure in the chase," said
+he, "but I suppose if he got to know the wild things intimately, and
+love them, as you do, he could no longer bear to kill them, sweet lady!"
+
+"I'm going to teach you to love them all, Robert," said Barbara, easily
+confident in her powers.
+
+"I am taught already," he began, with the little elaborate air which
+Barbara liked.  Then he changed his mind quickly.  "No, I don't mean
+that at all!  I shall need a great many lessons; but I shall learn at
+last, if you teach me faithfully!"
+
+Barbara laughed, a clear, ringing laugh, that astonished the lurking
+weasel and made the red squirrel highly indignant.
+
+"You don't mean anything at all you say, Robert.  You just like to say
+pretty things!"
+
+Which was wantonly unjust, as Barbara knew, and as her very gracious
+glance acknowledged.
+
+A few rods farther on, Barbara suddenly drew rein, wheeled her horse
+about, and held out her hand.
+
+"Now I must go home, Robert.  I think I can trust you to find the rest
+of the way alone!  Don't forget what I've told you.  And don't forget
+to come and see Uncle Bob, the very first of next week.  And thank you
+so much for bringing back the canoe."
+
+Robert had promptly taken the little brown hand, and kissed it with
+somewhat more fervour than form required, till Barbara, without any
+sign of displeasure, snatched it away.  Then, instead of saying
+good-bye, he wheeled his big sorrel.  "You must allow me the honour of
+riding back with you, Mistress Barbara," said he.
+
+"No, indeed!" cried the girl.  "I cannot think of letting you do any
+such thing.  It will be late enough as it is when you get to Gault
+House!"
+
+Robert's mind was quite made up, but he scanned her face anxiously to
+see if she really meant her inhibition.  Her dancing eyes and laughing
+mouth convinced him that she did not mean it with any serious
+conviction, so his obstinate jaw relaxed.
+
+"Allow you to ride back through these woods alone, my lady?" he
+protested, gaily.  "Do you think the wood spirits would let slip such
+an opportunity to carry off their queen?  You are theirs, by rights, I
+know.  But I must see you back safely into the hands of Mistress
+Mehitable."
+
+So it came about that, in spite of his exigencies, Robert dined at
+Mistress Mehitable's, and did not start for Gault House till long past
+noon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+Two days later Mr. Robert Glenowen arrived at Second Westings by the
+Hartford coach, alighting to be publicly kissed and embraced with a
+heedless fervour which would have been a scandal to the community, had
+not the community by this time grown accustomed to Barbara's joyous
+flouting of its conventions.  Barbara had established for herself a
+general privilege, and Second Westings had ceased to do more than lift
+its eyebrows.
+
+"It's the same Barbara, the same naughty little baggage of mine I left
+two years ago, for all that her petticoats are longer, and her
+lovelocks shorter, and she takes the trouble to powder her saucy little
+nose!" said Mr. Glenowen, presently, holding her at arms' length, and
+eyeing her with critical approval.
+
+Barbara endured the scrutiny for a moment or two, then her dark cheeks
+flushed, her lips pouted, and she impetuously thrust herself again into
+his arms.
+
+"I have grown up since you saw me, Uncle Bob!" she cried, kissing him
+on both cheeks.
+
+"Whose fault is that?" he asked, again pushing her away that he might
+search her eyes.
+
+"Aunt Kitty's!" answered Barbara, innocently, her eyes as clear as a
+child's.
+
+Mr. Glenowen laughed, held her with his left arm about her slim waist,
+and stepped up toward the inn door to greet Doctor John and Doctor Jim,
+who had held themselves in the background that Barbara might have the
+first greetings uninterrupted.
+
+A few minutes later the four were on the way to Mistress Mehitable's,
+walking up the middle of the street.  Barbara and her uncle, arm in
+arm, walked between, with the great bulks of Doctor John and Doctor Jim
+on either side, seeming to overshadow them; while a little way behind
+trudged Amos, in his blue duffle shirt and leather breeches, carrying
+the baggage.
+
+In this position, framed as it were and set off by Doctor John and
+Doctor Jim, the likeness between Barbara and her uncle came out as
+never before, so that both the brothers exclaimed at it together.
+Glenowen was a shade above middle height, with square, athletic
+shoulders, and no suggestion of leanness; but he had the same
+indescribable lightness, swiftness, fineness of bearing, which
+characterised Barbara.  Under his very smart three-cornered hat of
+black beaver with its fashionable rosette, his thick, bronze-black,
+vigorous hair, which was worn in a queue and tied with an ample ribbon,
+had the same rebellious wave in it that Barbara's had.  His face, like
+Barbara's, was short, with slightly rounded forehead, rounded chin,
+firm jaw, cheeks somewhat thin, lips full and passionate.  But
+Barbara's mouth was sad, while Glenowen's was laughing, daring, tender;
+and Barbara's eyes were of a transparent, fathomless, gray-green,
+sometimes flaming, sometimes darkly inscrutable, while Glenowen's were
+of a sunny, merry brown, darkening and growing keen as steel when he
+was intent.  As he was carrying his gauntlet gloves of light,
+American-made goat-leather, the further likeness to Barbara came out in
+his bare hands, which were dark and slender and fine like hers, with
+long-oval, polished, aristocratic nails.  Barbara herself would never
+wear gloves about Second Westings in summer, save at meeting, or when
+riding, or in pulling herbs or cutting flowers.  She loved nice gloves,
+as a dainty and suggestive article of toilet; but she loved the freedom
+of her little, sensitive fingers, and felt that Second Westings had no
+atmosphere to fit the suggestion of gloved hands.  It was manifest that
+Barbara was chiefly a Glenowen,--but it was equally manifest that her
+eyes were the eyes of the Ladds; for they were profoundly different
+from those of her Uncle Bob, and so far as enigmatic gray-green could
+resemble untroubled sky-blue, they were like to the deep, transparent
+eyes of Mistress Mehitable.
+
+Mr. Glenowen brought to Second Westings a lot of presents for Barbara,
+a whiff of freshness from the outside world, and an indefinable sense
+of ferment and change.  It was as if the far-off tales of strife
+between king and colonies ceased on the sudden to be like the affairs
+of story-books, and became crystallised, by the visitor's mere
+presence, into matters of vital import.  A premonition of vast events
+flashed through the quiet heart of the village; and from the day of the
+arrival of Mr. Robert Glenowen by the Hartford coach, the repose of
+Second Westings was never again quite the same.
+
+Yet Glenowen at this time was no partisan.  He was merely in active
+touch with the troubles of the time, and vexatiously divided within
+himself.  By sentiment, taste, and tradition a Tory, and by
+intellectual conviction a Whig, he shunned rather than courted argument
+in which he could heartily support neither side.  Nevertheless, before
+dinner was over, all the company, save Barbara, were at him,--Mistress
+Mehitable and Doctor Jim on the one side, and Doctor John, with
+whimsical insinuations and Parthian shafts, on the other.  As for
+Barbara, she was too happy to care whether kings thwarted colonies or
+colonies thwarted kings, so long as she might sit in unwonted and
+radiant silence and beam upon her Uncle Bob.
+
+But Mr. Glenowen was not to be entrapped into any serious discussions
+so soon after his journey.  He showed an unmistakable and determined
+desire to play.  Barbara's one curl, where he had been wont to see
+many, was of concern to him.  Her one kitten--now admitted to the
+dignified precincts of the dining-room since the other two had been
+given away, the day before, to Doctor Jim and Mercy Chapman
+respectively--appeared to him of more concern than Mr. Adams or Lord
+North.  He was brimful of appreciative merriment over the story of
+Barbara's adventurous voyage, and troublesomely interrogative as to the
+various attributes of Robert.  He had attentive inquiries for old
+Debby, and Mercy Chapman, and Keep, and the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer,
+and Black Prince, and many others whom none would have dreamed he could
+remember after two years of well-occupied absence.  By the time dinner
+was over none had achieved to know whether Uncle Bob would call himself
+Tory or Whig.  Barbara, of course, felt confident that he was a
+joyously established rebel; while Doctor Jim was equally sure he was a
+king's man through and through.  The others were in doubt.
+
+Nor was Mr. Glenowen more communicative when the meal was done.  He was
+then too impatient even to smoke his pipe, for haste to get at his
+travelling-bags and show Barbara what he had brought for her.  As he
+pulled out these treasures one by one, Barbara forgot all the dignity
+of her lengthened frocks, and screamed with delight, and kissed him
+spasmodically, and exhausted her rich vocabulary of endearments in the
+vain effort to give her rapture words; till Doctor John and Doctor Jim
+vowed they would have to go a journey themselves ere long, if only to
+bring Barbara presents and find out in person how sweet she could be.
+While Mistress Mehitable remarked demurely that "such knowledge of what
+would please a woman could only have been attained by more assiduity in
+effort than was quite becoming, surely, in a bachelor!"
+
+"I hope, dear mistress," retorted Uncle Bob, with laughing eyes, "that
+the discernment with which you so generously credit me did not fail
+when I was selecting this little gift, unmeet as it is to adorn your
+charms."  And on one knee he presented to her a bundle in green tissue,
+tied delicately with gilt cord.
+
+All crowded about Mistress Mehitable while she undid the cord, and
+unfolded, with blushes, and with little breathless exclamations not
+unworthy of Barbara herself, an elaborately ruffled and laced French
+night-rail, embroidered heavily with silk, and lettered in gold thread
+with her initials.
+
+It was such a gown as often served to make bedroom receptions popular.
+And Mistress Mehitable, though she held those customs in scorn as
+indolent and frivolous, had a healthy feminine delight in such sweet
+fripperies of apparel as this creation of French art.  Amid the clamour
+of applause it was some moments before she could word her
+acknowledgments.  At last she said:
+
+"I shall perhaps thank you less fervently than I do now, Mr. Glenowen,
+for this delightful present, when its fascinations keep me from
+sleeping.  I'm afraid I shall lie awake just to appreciate it!"
+
+"Sleep, rather, I beg you, fair mistress, and honour me with some small
+place in your dreams!" cried Uncle Bob, gallantly.
+
+"Fie!  Fie!  Fie!" said Mistress Mehitable, shaking at him a slim,
+reproving finger.  "You must not put such gallantries into these young
+people's heads.  Doctor Jim is steady enough, but such notions are very
+upsetting to John and Barbara!"
+
+"Glenowen, you young scoundrel, sir!" roared Doctor Jim, "what do you
+mean by coming in here and turning our girls' heads with your bold
+compliments and French night-rails?  I marvel at your devilish
+audacity, sir!  You'll have trouble on your hands before you know what
+you're about,--eh, what?"
+
+Uncle Bob was darting around the room like a pleased boy, delighted
+with the effect he had produced, delighted with his success in pleasing
+Mistress Mehitable, and in bringing out the gayer, brighter side of her
+conscience-burdened spirit.
+
+"Pistols, Pigeon!  Pistols let it be, this very night after moonset,
+under Mistress Mehitable's window!" he cried, slapping Doctor Jim's
+great shoulders.  "I give you fair warning I shall bring the dear lady
+a far handsomer one the next time I come!"
+
+Barbara, meanwhile, and Mistress Mehitable, and Doctor John, had their
+heads close together over the intricate and beautiful embroidery,
+admiring each fine detail in careful succession.
+
+"It is _perfectly beautiful_!" pronounced Barbara, at length, with a
+deep breath of satisfaction and a consciousness of duty loyally done.
+There were several of her own presents which she admired more
+fervently, and she already had five, with the possibility of more yet
+to come from Uncle Bob's wonderful bag.  But she felt it would not be
+playing fair if she failed to give full measure of time and fervour to
+sympathising with Aunt Hitty in her good fortune.  At the same time,
+she felt that in her aunt's frank delight in such a frivolous and quite
+unnecessarily beautiful garment she had found a new bond of
+understanding with that long-misunderstood lady.
+
+But Mistress Mehitable had yet one more word to say before she was
+ready, in turn, to give undivided attention to Barbara's fortunes.
+
+"I am going to confess, Mr. Glenowen," said she, with a smiling,
+half-shamefaced glance, as she held up the dainty creation of lawn and
+lace and silk, caressing her smooth pink and white cheek with it, "I am
+going to confess that this lovely garment is just such a thing as I
+have longed to have, yet should have considered it wicked
+self-indulgence to purchase.  Even so sober and prosy a dame as I may
+dearly love the uselessly beautiful.  I'm beginning to doubt whether I
+really want to be quite so useful and competent as I am thought to be.
+You, Mr. Glenowen, a comparative stranger, and with but a casual,
+courteous regard for me, have read my heart as these my dearest and
+lifelong friends, who would, I believe, give their right hands to serve
+me, could not do."
+
+"Glenowen, you die to-night!" roared Doctor Jim, knitting his great
+brows.
+
+But Doctor John was on one knee at Mistress Mehitable's
+black-satin-shod small feet, one hand upon his breast.
+
+"Nothing more utilitarian than silk stockings, most dear and
+unexpectedly frivolous lady," he vowed, "shall be my tributes of
+devotion to you henceforth!"
+
+"And mine shall be garters, fickle Mehitable!" cried Doctor Jim,
+dropping on his knee beside Doctor John, and swearing with like
+solemnity.  "Silk garters,--and such buckles for silk garters!"
+
+"And little silk shoes, and such big buckles for little silk shoes!"
+said Doctor John.
+
+"And silk petticoats!" went on Doctor Jim, antiphonally.  "Brocaded
+silk, flowered silk, watered silk, painted silk, corded silk, tabby
+silk, paduasoy silk, alamode silk, taffety silk, charrydarry--" till
+Mistress Mehitable put her hand over his mouth and stopped the stream
+of his eruditions.
+
+"And silk--and silk--" broke in Doctor John, once more, but
+stammeringly, because his knowledge of the feminine wardrobe was
+failing him.  "Tut, tut, silk night-rails, indeed!  The scoundrel!  The
+vagabond Welshman!  May I die of Jim Pigeon's physic if I don't make
+shift--make silk shift--"
+
+"John!" cried Mistress Mehitable, in tone of rebuke, and pushing them
+both away from her.  "Get up at once, both of you, and don't be so
+silly!"
+
+Her eyes shone, and her cheeks were flushed with mingled pleasure and
+embarrassment, and Glenowen realised that she was much younger and
+prettier than he had been wont to think.
+
+"O Mehitable-demoralised-by-Barbara!" vowed Doctor John, towering over
+her.  "Your sweet and now perverted soul shall be satisfied with
+gewgaws!  I, John Pigeon, swear it!"
+
+[Illustration: "_O Mehitable-demoralised-by-Barbara!" vowed Doctor
+John._]
+
+"Then I want a bosom-bottle, of Venice glass and gold filigree, to keep
+my nosegays from withering!" retorted Mistress Mehitable, flashing up
+at him a look of her blue eyes.  "I've never had such a chance as this
+in all my life!"
+
+"There now, hussy!" growled Doctor Jim, turning upon Barbara.  "See
+what you have done.  In three days you have demoralised her completely.
+And I see the ruin of John and Jim Pigeon, buying her things!"
+
+But Barbara was by this time too absorbed in her own things to heed the
+catastrophe thus impending.  It was plain that Uncle Bob had been
+prosperous these past two years,--and equally plain that he was in full
+sympathy with Barbara's tastes.  First of all, there were books,--a
+handsomely bound copy of Sir Philip Sidney's "Arcadia," an old,
+time-stained copy of "England's Helicon," a copy in boards of the
+admired "Odes" of Mr. Gray, and a copy of Mr. Thompson's "The Castle of
+Indolence."  With these, in strange companionship, a white silk
+mask,--a black velvet mask with silver buttons on silver cord behind
+the mouth, to enable the wearer to hold it in place with her lips, when
+both hands might chance to be occupied,--and a small pistol, inlaid
+with silver and mother-of-pearl.  This seductive little weapon Barbara
+hugged rapturously to her breast.  Though she would not kill anything
+for the world, she loved to feel she could be slaughterous an she
+wished!
+
+Then came wonders of the wardrobe.  Barbara hungered to try them on all
+at once, and in truth made marvellous efforts toward that unachievable
+end.  There were kerchiefs of sheerest lawn and lace, and of
+embroidered silk.  There were two pairs of silk garters, three pairs of
+silk stockings, and six pairs of fine thread stockings.  She loved the
+silk stockings as she did the pistol and Sir Philip Sidney.  There were
+shoes, low, shapely, thin-soled shoes of red morocco, and black
+chamois, and black satin, and a pair of daintiest slippers of white
+satin, all with buckles satisfyingly resplendent.
+
+"I knew your feet would never be any larger than they are now,"
+explained Uncle Bob, "so having the opportunity to get some uncommon
+fine shoes at a price uncommon reasonable, I thought it just as well to
+embrace occasion boldly!"
+
+"But how _did_ you _ever_ guess the right size, Uncle Bob?" cried
+Barbara, in ecstasy, trying on a black satin one with supreme
+forgetfulness of company manners, and poking out ingenuously the most
+bewitching foot in the thirteen colonies.  "Do just look.  It fits like
+a glove!"
+
+Stooping quickly as if to examine it, Doctor Jim engulfed it in one
+large, white hand; and kissed it just above the glittering buckle.
+
+"There, Bob Glenowen," he growled, as he straightened himself, "is that
+the proper civility to show a lady when she pokes out her foot at you?
+I suppose you would pocket the shoe and carry off the lady!  Eh, what?"
+
+"How dare you kiss my niece without my leave?" demanded Mr. Glenowen.
+
+"He shall kiss me just whenever he likes, and no one in the world shall
+interfere!" declared Barbara, springing up, and pulling Doctor Jim's
+neck down to be swiftly hugged.  "But--how _did_ you know the right
+size, Uncle Bob?"
+
+A look passed between Mistress Mehitable and Glenowen; and Barbara,
+intercepting it, understood in a flash.
+
+"Oh!  Oh!  Aunt Hitty!  _You_ did it!" she shrieked, clapping her
+hands.  "You sent him my green silk slipper for a pattern!  And I've
+been thinking I had lost it!  And I was ashamed to tell you!  Oh, how
+dear, and deceitful of you, honey!"
+
+"Here, indeed, is the delinquent slipper!" acknowledged Uncle Bob,
+drawing the green silk toy from his bag.  He handed it over to Mistress
+Mehitable, for Barbara was again absorbed, her glowing face, with one
+massive black curl hanging straight past her cheek, bent low over her
+spoils, among which were lengths of silk,--a rich brocade, a taffeta,
+and a silk Damascus, out of which her quick fancy conjured up a dream
+of petticoats, panniers, and bodices that should appear most
+sumptuously grown-up.  There were gloves, too, and mitts; and a mighty
+handsome little "equipage" of silver-gilt, containing scissors,
+thimble, nail-trimmer, tweezers, and such small needments, to hang at
+the left side of her bodice.  There was a flimsy affair of a
+"lovehood," silk and gauze and mystery, from which Barbara's vivid,
+petulant, dark little face flashed forth with indescribable
+bewitchment.  This love-hood, swore Doctor John, should never be worn
+by Barbara on the streets of Second Westings, for reasons affecting the
+public weal, as it would bedevil the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer himself
+in the very sanctuary of his pulpit.  Barbara suddenly looked forward
+with interest to going to meeting on the following Sunday, bedecked in
+the disastrous love-hood.
+
+Last, but not least in Barbara's eyes, there was an exceedingly
+delicate frivolity in the shape of a carven gilt patch-box, about an
+inch and a half in length.  In the top was set a painted china
+medallion, representing a richly dressed shepherdess enwreathed in
+roses, with the appropriate posy:
+
+  "My love in her attire doth show her wit,
+  It doth so well become her!"
+
+On the inside of the cover was a tiny mirror.  When Barbara, silent
+with delight, peered into this mirror, she caught a vision of herself
+in a gay ballroom, patched and powdered and furbelowed, shattering the
+hearts of a host of cavaliers, who every one of them looked like a
+relative of Robert Gault.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+That night, when she was going to bed, came Barbara's really deep
+reaction from the exaltation and excitement which had possessed her
+since the morning with Mistress Mehitable.  The joy of her uncle's
+coming, the whirl of childish delight over the presents he had brought
+her, had swept her spirits to a pinnacle which could not be maintained.
+She slipped, and fell down on the other side.
+
+First she lighted the four candles that stood, two on each side of the
+mirror, on her shining mahogany dressing-table.  Then she undressed,
+put on her long, white nightgown, and said her prayers with a troubled
+alternation of fervour and forgetfulness.  She was slipping.  Then, one
+by one, she looked her presents well over again, noted that each was
+just as perfect as it had seemed to her every other one of the dozen
+times she had examined it, and wondered with a pang what had become of
+all their magic.  Her scintillant delight in them had faded to a mere
+dull drab perception of their merits.  Her eyes filled, and a lump rose
+in her throat.  She was far over the crest of the pinnacle, on the
+cold, enshadowed side of the steep.
+
+The one kitten, whom she had named "Mr. Grim,"--a round-faced,
+round-eyed gray and white furred baby, not yet accustomed to the loss
+of his two saucer mates,--crept snuggling against her bare ankles and
+mewed mildly, begging to be noticed.  Barbara picked it up, fondled it
+in her bosom, threw herself down on the bed with it, and burst into a
+passion of tears.  She felt as if she had been long, long away.  She
+was poignantly homesick for her old self, her old childishness.  The
+burden of being grown-up suddenly arose, thrust itself upon her, and
+grew great and terrifying and not to be borne.  She was oppressed, too,
+with self-reproach.  Absorbed in vivid and novel sensations, during the
+past few eventful days she had not thought as much as usual about her
+old comrades,--the kittens, Keep, Black Prince, and Mercy Chapman.  And
+now in her weakness she thought they had suffered from her neglect.  As
+a matter of fact, the difference had been purely in her own mind.  The
+kittens, who were quite dependent upon her, had been as tenderly cared
+for as ever, but while caring for them she had thought of other things
+more novel and significant.  In giving away two of them she had done
+just what she had planned and promised from the first.  But now she
+scourged herself for heartlessness and inconstancy, pretending she had
+sent them away just because she was tired of taking care of them and
+wanted to be free for new interests.
+
+"Did its missis forget all about the poor little lonely baby, and send
+away her other babies, and get cruel and hard-hearted, just because she
+thought she was grown-up, and a new friend came along?" she murmured,
+after the first tempest was over, to the gray and white kitten now
+purring comfortably against her soft throat.  She sat up in bed with it
+to caress it more effectively.
+
+"She is a bad missis, and perfectly horrid!" she went on, between sobs;
+and the kitten, who did not mind damp, was highly pleased.  "She has
+been perfectly horrid.  But to-morrow she's going to be just her old
+self again, and take up the tuck in her petticoats, and fix her hair
+like it was before we ran away.  And we'll go to Doctor Jim and Mercy
+Chapman and just _snatch_ back those other poor babies; and we'll all
+go off together down into the back garden, by our apple-tree, and have
+a lovely time.  And--and--yes, we _will_ forgive old Debby, and go and
+see her to-morrow.  We'll take Uncle Bob, and then there won't be any
+bother about explanations."
+
+Then her tears flowed forth anew, till the kitten was quite
+uncomfortably wet; and, with fresh resolves to be all child again on
+the morrow, she sobbed herself to sleep, with the thick hair tangled
+over her eyes and grieving lips.
+
+But the long, sweet sleep brought complete renewal to Barbara's spent
+forces, and waking found her composedly happy, with a blessed sense of
+problems solved and desired things coming to pass.  Her heart was
+a-brim with sunshine, but the only sunshine in the room was that she
+held in her heart, for the light that came through the diamond panes
+was gray, and the sky behind the leafy branch was gray, and, as she
+looked, the first of the rain came, blown in streaming gusts against
+the glass, and shedding a narrow line of drops across the polished
+floor.  One leaf of the window was open, and Barbara sprang from bed to
+shut it, laughing as the cold drops spattered her feet.  She had no
+quarrel with the rain that day, there being enough pleasures indoors to
+keep any maid's mind busy.
+
+After breakfast, however, when she found that Uncle Bob was going down
+into the village to call on the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer, to drink a
+glass with Squire Gillig in his snug office behind the store, and to
+pay his respects to Doctor John and Doctor Jim, then Barbara felt the
+lure of the rain, and said she would go with him.
+
+"I _love_ the rain," she explained,--"and it's so nice for the
+complexion, too!  I'll go and tell Mercy Chapman about my presents, and
+take some jellies to her poor sick mother, while you are talking
+politics in the squire's back office, Uncle Bob.  Then I'll meet you at
+Doctor John's office, and we'll step into Doctor Jim's, and bring both
+of them up to dinner with us, so we'll all be together as much as
+possible.  Won't we, dear?"  And she paused in the task of strapping on
+her goloshes, to appeal to Mistress Mehitable.
+
+"You are proposing to make a lot of trouble for your aunt!" protested
+Glenowen.
+
+"Indeed she is not," began Mistress Mehitable, warm to second Barbara's
+proposal.  But before she could say more, there was a wilder gust among
+the trees outside, a fiercer burst of rain against the windows, and,
+with a huge stamping in the vestibule, came Doctor Jim, as if blown in
+by storm.  All hurried to meet him, where he stood dripping in the hall
+door, and the expedition to the village was postponed.  An hour later
+came Doctor John, even wetter and more dishevelled than his brother,
+from the bedside of a patient at the opposite end of the village.  The
+two had planned that theirs should be the hospitality of that day, but
+the storm and Mistress Mehitable together triumphed.  The old house was
+merry all day long with gay voices, its maiden fragrances of lavender
+and rose touched genially with breaths of the mild Virginia weed.  And
+Barbara forgot, completely and for ever, how near she had been to
+drowning the furry "Mr. Grim" in the tears of her regret for her lost
+childishness.
+
+Toward sunset the rain stopped, and a copper flame was reflected up
+from the windows of a cottage visible to the eastward through the
+trees; and the western sky, opening along the horizon under great
+smoky-purple battlements of cloud, revealed unspeakable glories of
+clear gold.  Throughout the rare hour, till dusk fell, the thrushes
+sang ecstatically, so unusual an outburst that Barbara dragged every
+one out upon the wet porch to listen to the thrilling, cloistral-pure
+cadences, the infinite tranquillities of tone.  So inspiring was that
+hour in the front of twilight that even the catbird down in the back
+garden forgot that he had been for days too busy to sing, and mounted
+the topmost bough of a tall cherry, and eased his soul in a chaos of
+golden phrases.
+
+Very early the next morning,--the kind of morning when the sunlight
+itself seems as if it were just sparkling from a bath in cold
+fountains,--Barbara and Glenowen started out for a paddle across the
+lake to visit old Debby.  They went through the barn-yard, through the
+bars, through the pasture, and through the wood; and in response to his
+bounding and wagging appeals, they took Keep, the mastiff, with them.
+They went early, in order to be back in time for the dinner with Doctor
+John and Doctor Jim.  And Barbara insisted on letting Keep go in the
+canoe, that she might erase from his generous heart the memory of her
+harshness on the morning of her great adventure.  At her command, the
+dog stepped in so circumspectly, and lay down with so nice a balance,
+that Uncle Bob was impressed.
+
+"The dog's a born canoeist, Barb," he declared, as he headed up the
+shore instead of straight out across the lake.  "I wonder you ever had
+the heart to leave him behind,--and to take those kittens, who couldn't
+tell a canoe from a horse-trough."
+
+Barbara would have answered that the kittens needed her more than Keep
+did, who had all the world for his friend; but her thoughts were
+diverted by the direction in which her uncle was steering.
+
+"Why do you go this way, Uncle Bob?" she demanded, looking at him over
+her shoulder while her dripping paddle-blade rested on the gunwale.
+
+"I want to examine a certain big rock, where a certain small girl did
+certain strange things!" replied Glenowen, gravely.
+
+Barbara flushed, and drooped her head.
+
+"I didn't know you knew about that, Uncle Bob!" she said, in a low
+voice.  "Don't let's go there!"
+
+"All right!" assented Glenowen, cheerfully.  He had recalled the old
+tragedy of deliberate purpose, because, being of Welsh blood, and
+superstitious, he was afraid Barbara's unparalleled high spirits might
+bring her some keen disappointment.  He had purposed to discipline her
+with a dash of bitter memories, that he might avert the envy of the
+gods; and when her head drooped he had accomplished his purpose.  But
+Barbara had changed her mind.
+
+"No!" she said.  "Let's go close to the rock, and look right down into
+the water, just where I was lying when old Debby pulled me out!"
+
+And they did so.  The sand was clear gold down there, but as they
+looked a huge eel wriggled over it.  Barbara shuddered, and seized her
+paddle once more to get away.
+
+"It's good for me to be reminded, Uncle Bob," she said.  "I forget,
+when I am happy, how wicked and foolish I can be when things go wrong!
+But oh, you can never know how unhappy I used to be!  You'd have come
+to me if you had known, Uncle Bob!"
+
+"Poor little girlie!" murmured Glenowen, his kind brown eyes moistening
+at the corners.
+
+"But I was crazy, both naughty and crazy, and it was all my fault!"
+went on Barbara, resting her paddle again as the canoe skimmed fleetly
+out across the water, away from the sorrowful spot.  "It's all so
+different now!  And it's always going to be different!"
+
+Glenowen smiled to himself, as he was apt to do when confronted with
+any of the pathetic ironies of life.  Barbara would not have liked him
+to smile, for to her a smile meant amusement or mirth, and she could
+never learn to appreciate the depth of tenderness that might lurk
+beneath a ripple of laughter.  But she was looking straight ahead.  In
+his heart and behind his smile, Glenowen said, "Child, dear child, is
+it all so securely different now, and just eight days gone since you
+climbed out of your window before daybreak?"  But aloud he said, after
+a silence:
+
+"It is indeed most different, Barb, old girl?  Some of your troubles
+are really done now, thrown into the dark corner with the discarded
+dollies.  The others will keep bobbing up now and then, claiming old
+acquaintance.  But just you cut them dead.  They are in sober truth not
+the same, now that you are older and more responsible.  Well I know,
+what so many forget, that childish sorrows, while they last, are the
+most bitter and hopeless of sorrows.  The wall that a man steps over
+blots out a child's view of heaven."
+
+"How wonderfully you understand, Uncle Bob!" cried Barbara, with ardent
+appreciation.
+
+As they neared the other side of the lake, a kingfisher dropped like an
+azure wedge into the ripples, missed his prey, and flew off down to the
+outlet clattering harshly in his throat.  From the deep reeds of the
+point above the outlet a wide-winged bird got up heavily as the canoe
+drew near.
+
+"There goes my old blue heron!" shouted Barbara, gleefully.  "You
+should have seen the way he fixed me with his glassy eyes as I passed,
+the morning I ran away!"
+
+"He is very old, and very wise, and thinks of lots of things besides
+frogs!" said Glenowen.
+
+They entered the outlet, and met old Debby's geese.  The big gray and
+white gander, in the pride of many goslings, hissed fiercely at them as
+they paddled past, so that Keep raised his head and gave him a look of
+admonition over the gunwale.  The next turn brought them out in full
+view of Debby's cabin, and straightway rose a clamorous outcry from
+watchful drakes and challenging chanticleers.  The yellow pup ran
+barking down from the steps, and Keep cocked a sympathetic ear.
+
+"Lie down, sir!" commanded Barbara, and Keep meekly suppressed his
+budding interest.
+
+Mrs. Debby Blue was spinning flax, on the hard-beaten clean earth some
+paces in front of her threshold, when she saw and recognised her
+approaching visitors.  In the presence of Mr. Glenowen she read peace,
+for her shrewd perception of Barbara's character told her that the girl
+would never have permitted her a glimpse of the cherished uncle except
+as a sign of favour.  Nevertheless the grim old woman was conscious of
+a sinking qualm at thought of the first straight look of Barbara's
+eyes.  She knew she had betrayed her; and that knowledge was not wholly
+mended by the fact that she knew she had done right to betray.  Her
+lonely old heart so yearned to the child that she feared her reproach
+as she feared no other thing in life.  She stopped her wheel, dropped
+her roll of flax, picked up her stick, and limped sturdily down toward
+the landing.
+
+Before she had got half-way the canoe came to land, and Barbara
+unceremoniously skipped ashore.
+
+"Lie down, Keep!" she ordered again, and then, leaving Glenowen to land
+and follow at leisure, she ran up the path to greet old Debby.
+
+"This does my old eyes good, Miss Barby!" exclaimed the old woman, her
+voice a trifle unsteady.
+
+Barbara seized her, and kissed her heartily on both cheeks.
+
+"You were very bad to me, Debby," she cried, cheerfully, "but you'd
+have been worse to me if you hadn't been bad to me!  So I forgive you,
+and love you just the same, you old dear.  The most _dreadful_ things
+might have happened to me if it hadn't been for you!"
+
+Mrs. Blue heaved a huge sigh of relief; but the subject was too
+difficult and delicate a one for her to expand upon.  She gave Barbara
+a vehement squeeze, looked her up and down, and exclaimed:
+
+"Land sakes alive, Miss Barby, why, if you hain't been an' growed up
+over night.  What've they been doin' to you over there?"
+
+"It was _you_ did it, Debby, much as anybody!"  And Barbara flicked her
+petticoats audaciously before the old woman's eyes, to emphasise their
+added length.  "Such lovely things have happened; and Aunt Hitty and I
+have made up; and I've so much to tell you, that I must come over some
+day and spend the whole day with you, after Uncle Bob goes away.  And
+here's Uncle Bob himself, who only came day before yesterday, and has
+come to see you, Debby dear, before any one else in Second Westings."
+
+As Barbara stopped breathless, Glenowen came up and grasped the old
+dame warmly by the hand.
+
+"You're looking ten years younger than when I saw you two years ago,
+Debby!" he declared, sweetly and transparently mendacious.
+
+"'Tain't so much my youth, as my beauty, that I set store by, Mr.
+Glenowen, thankin' you jest the same!" retorted the old woman, as she
+led them into her cabin for refreshment.  She was a cunning cook, if
+somewhat unconventional in her recipes, and she remembered with
+satisfaction that Barbara's uncle had seemed to share Barbara's
+weakness for her concoctions.  Eight days ago she would have offered
+Barbara milk to drink; but now she brought out only a strong root wine
+for which she was famous, a beverage which was extolled throughout the
+township as a most efficacious preventative of all disorders.
+
+"It's a wonder how letting down one's petticoats seems to destroy one's
+fondness for milk!" said Barbara.
+
+Instead of sitting on the edge of the high bed and swinging her legs,
+as she would have done eight days ago, she sat on a bench and kept her
+feet on the floor.  And from this old Debby realised, with a pang, that
+the child had truly grown to womanhood.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+Returning about noon to Westings House, early that they might have time
+to dress for dinner, Glenowen started to let down the pasture bars.
+But Barbara, in high spirits, went over them like a cat, forgetful of
+her new dignity.  So Glenowen vaulted after her.  As they rounded the
+end of the barn, Amos came leading a tall sorrel across the yard; and
+straightway Barbara assumed a more stately air, while a quick radiance
+went over her face.
+
+"That's Robert Gault's horse!" she explained.  "I want you to be very
+lovely to him, Uncle Bob, for he's such a nice boy, and was so very
+civil to me when I made him help me run away.  I gave him a terrible
+lot of anxiety, you know!"
+
+Glenowen laughed uproariously.
+
+"I don't doubt you did, dear heart!" he agreed.  "But Lord, oh, Lord,
+what a way of commending a young man to a young lady's doting uncle, to
+say he mighty civilly helped her to run away!"
+
+"Now, Uncle Bob, I won't like you if you talk nonsense!  You know very
+well what I mean.  And you are to be nice to Robert!" retorted Barbara,
+crisply.
+
+As they went up the long, box-bordered path, Mistress Mehitable and
+Robert came strolling down to meet them; and the warmth of Glenowen's
+greetings to Robert fulfilled Barbara's utmost demands.  For her own
+part, however, under the sway of a sudden whim, she chose to be by no
+means extraordinarily civil.  And Robert's contentment was dashed by a
+chilly doubt as to whether or no he had chosen the right day for his
+visit.  Before they went to their rooms to dress, however, Barbara
+relented.
+
+"You should have come last night, Robert," she said, turning to him
+graciously at the foot of the stairs.  "Then Uncle Bob and I would have
+taken you over the lake with us this morning, in _the_ canoe, to see
+old Debby!"
+
+She threw an intimate emphasis on the "the,"--and watched with a
+curious sense of triumph the swift fading of the cloud from Robert's
+face.
+
+For this dinner Barbara dressed with unwonted care.  Her plain white
+silk petticoat, duly lengthened, worn under her cream brocaded satin
+panniers, with buff satin bodice, and white lace short sleeves, gave
+her, as she could not but think, a most genteel appearance.  With her
+new white silk stockings and white satin shoes, two large red roses in
+her bosom, and one in the dark mass of her hair just where the curl
+hung down, a tiny patch from the adorable new patch-box discreetly
+fixed near the corner of her mouth, and the new love-hood to be thrown
+carelessly over her head in due time, she felt herself equipped to be
+as imperious and unpleasant to Robert as the caprice of the moment
+might suggest.  When she went down-stairs she found Mistress Mehitable
+waiting in the hall, in a gayer gown than she had ever before seen her
+wear.  It was a silk polonaise, of a tender, gris-de-lin shade, which
+became her fair colouring to a marvel; and Barbara was astonished to
+see how young and pretty she looked.
+
+"How _perfectly lovely_ you look, dear!" she cried, turning Mistress
+Mehitable twice around, and putting a deft touch to the light,
+abundant, simply coiffured hair.  "No one will give one look at me
+to-day!"
+
+Her aunt flung an arm about her, smiling, then tripped away girlishly,
+flushed a pretty pink, lifted the edge of her petticoat, and displayed
+a slender ankle encased in embroidered sky-blue silk.  Barbara clapped
+her hands with approval.
+
+"It is five years since I have worn them," said Mistress Mehitable.
+"Seeing that I failed so, child, in my efforts to lead you along the
+paths of gravity, I have concluded to try and let you lead me along the
+paths of frivolity--a little!  So I got out my blue silk stockings!"
+And spreading her skirts, she was in the act of making Barbara an
+elaborate curtsey, when Glenowen, coming up quickly behind her, caught
+her and kissed her lightly on the cheek.
+
+Mistress Mehitable, startled and taken aback, blushed furiously, and
+stood for a second or two in confusion.  Then she recovered herself.
+She made another stately curtsey, and saying, demurely, "Let me turn
+the other cheek also, Mr. Glenowen," presented her face again for a
+more formal and less hasty salute.
+
+Barbara clapped her hands with gleeful approbation, but her comment
+brought a new rose to Mistress Mehitable's face.
+
+"If I didn't love you so much, Uncle Bob," said she, "I'd tell Doctor
+John and Doctor Jim."  And from the fact that she felt embarrassed by
+this raillery, the conscientious Mistress Mehitable was almost ready to
+believe she had done wrong.
+
+The dinner was at two o'clock--an extremely formal hour for Second
+Westings; and a further element of formality was added by the presence
+of the Reverend Jonathan and Mrs. Sawyer, which effectually removed it
+from the category of family affairs.  These outsiders, however, were a
+kindly pair, and cast no serious shadow upon the gathering.  The
+Reverend Jonathan kept his austerity pretty strictly for the Sabbath;
+and being both well-bred and well educated, knew how on occasion to lay
+aside his cloth without sacrifice of dignity or prestige.  He was
+something of a _bon vivant_, too, in his scholarly way, and among folk
+who were unimpeachably of his own class.  And his judgment on a butt of
+Madeira or a hogshead of old West India rum was accounted second to
+none in Second Westings.  His hands were long and white, and he used
+them with impressive pulpit-gestures to point his carefully constructed
+witticisms.  His presence was favourably regarded even by Barbara, who
+appreciated his brains and breeding in spite of certain disastrous
+associations which she could never quite erase from her memory.  His
+wife was a non-significant, abundant, gently acquiescent pudding of a
+woman, not without her utility as a background; and no one but Barbara
+had the slightest objection to her presence.  But Barbara, having a
+fierce impatience of nonentities in general unless they chanced to be
+animals instead of human beings, felt critical when her eyes fell upon
+the good lady's expansive red bosom.  She could not refrain from a
+private grimace at Doctor John, and from whispering in his ear an acrid
+comment on the inviting of a feather-bed to dinner.  She was greatly
+disconcerted, however, when Doctor John roared aloud; and, crediting
+the good lady with an intuition quite foreign to her placid substance,
+her conscience smote her smartly for the unkind comment.  By calculated
+chance she managed to let herself drift into the scant, unoccupied
+corner of the sofa on which Mrs. Sawyer was sitting; and for the long
+half-hour before dinner was served she beguiled the good lady most
+successfully with thrilling descriptions of the presents which Glenowen
+had brought.  Mistress Sawyer was dearly fond of dining; but so
+enthralled did she become in the description of Mistress Mehitable's
+French night-rail that she did not hear when dinner was announced.
+Then Barbara escaped, with an appetite and a proud conscience; and
+proceeded to deal Robert a cruel blow by seating herself as far away
+from him as possible, between Glenowen and Doctor Jim, who wisely
+avoided trouble by avoiding interference on the dejected youth's behalf.
+
+Doctor John and Doctor Jim being both tenacious of old Connecticut
+customs, the dinner began with a pudding of boiled Yokeag, or maize
+meal, stuffed with raisins and suet, and eaten with a rich sauce.  Then
+came fish and meats in lavish variety, with ripe old ale, followed by
+elaborate confections, nuts and fruits, and a fiery, high-flavoured
+Madeira.  With the Madeira came eloquence in conversation, and the
+elaborate interchange of repartee and compliment deepened into a
+discussion of the great matters which at that hour filled men's minds.
+Barbara tried by daring gaieties to stem the tide of seriousness, which
+seemed to her incongruous with the nuts and wine.  But she was swept
+away, at first reluctantly, then willingly; for, during the past two
+years, in the intervals of fighting her aunt and loving her cats, dogs,
+and horses, she had studied history, both colonial and English, with a
+characteristic, avid zeal, and now had a pretty foundation of theory
+under her seemingly reckless conclusions.
+
+In response to many interrogations, Glenowen had given at some length
+and with temperate fairness an account of the latest difference in
+Virginia between the royal governor and the stiff-necked House of
+Burgesses.  As the result of this lamentable clash of authorities, the
+House had been dissolved, the Old Dominion was being governed in a
+fashion contrary to the terms of her long-cherished charter, and the
+trade of the colony was disastrously shrunken, because her people were
+refusing to import goods subject to duties which they had not
+themselves imposed.  "When men and women begin to deny themselves
+voluntarily for the sake of a principle, whether it be right or wrong,"
+continued Glenowen, "it is time for those at the helm to consider
+clearly the course on which they are steering the ship of state!"
+
+"When kings lay hands on charters, free men rise up armed," said the
+Reverend Jonathan Sawyer, rolling the polished phrase with a relish.
+The sentiment sounded so at variance with those which he was commonly
+held to cherish, that every one looked at him for a moment in silent
+question.
+
+"I speak but in the abstract," he explained, waving a white hand
+airily.  "In the concrete the question baffles me, and I wait for
+light!"
+
+"I confess I am astounded at Virginia," said Doctor Jim, in a great
+voice, solemn with reprobation.  "Virginia, colony of gentlemen, siding
+with the rabble against the king!  Where are Virginia's aristocrats?"
+
+"Would you impugn the gentility of Mr. Washington?" inquired Doctor
+John, mildly.
+
+"Yes, I would, John Pigeon," snapped Doctor Jim, "or of any one else
+who did not show his gentility by his deeds.  And so would you, if you
+were not a bit tarred with the same dirty brush as Mr. Washington."
+
+"Don't you think," ventured Robert, with diffidence, "that our
+grievance--for, of course, there is a grievance, Doctor Jim--is against
+the English Parliament?  What is Parliament to us, that we should bow
+down to it, when we have always had parliaments of our own?  What's
+sacred in Parliament?  But the king,--that's a question of loyalty.
+What's a gentleman without loyalty?  Surely the gentry must stand or
+fall with the king!  Surely--"
+
+"What nonsense, Robert!" interrupted Barbara, severely scornful,
+indignant at him for his views, but grateful to him for the opportunity
+to express her own with point.  "Who was it that whipped King John into
+submission, and made him sign Magna Charta?  Was it the riffraff or the
+gentry, I'd like to know?  Where there is a real aristocracy, Robert,
+there is no need of kings!"
+
+"Barbara, dear!" cried Mistress Mehitable, appalled at this sweeping
+heterodoxy.  But the others laughed, with varying degrees of sympathy
+or dissent.  Doctor Jim wagged his head.
+
+"That's right, Robert, my boy," said he, sympathetically.  "You draw
+her fire, and let me skirmish around.  That's the kind of thing I get
+continually!"
+
+"Is it true," inquired Doctor John, "that that clear and capacious
+intellect, James Otis, is permanently clouded since the wound he got in
+the affair with the king's officers?"
+
+"''Tis true, 'tis pity; and pity 'tis, 'tis true!'" quoted Glenowen.
+"A fine brain wasted in a smuggler's brawl.  I take it there's no
+wisdom to waste, among either Tories or Whigs, these days,--for these
+days are big with Fate!"
+
+"Uncle Bob!" said Barbara, fixing him with a wide, level look, "what
+are you, Whig or Tory?  You seem so careful!"
+
+Glenowen laughed.
+
+"You insist on pinning me down to it, do you, saucy hussy?  Well, I
+wish I knew!  I think there are some hundred thousand or more of honest
+men in these colonies who are trying to find out which they really are,
+right to the bone.  But I can tell you in part.  For one thing, I am an
+Englishman, just as much an Englishman here as if I lived in England!
+Do you know what that means?"
+
+"No!" said Barbara, bluntly, dissatisfied at this caution when she
+counted on a hot partisanship.
+
+"It means that I will not be taxed save by my own consent!  I am too
+good an Englishman to let Englishmen in England treat me as less than
+an Englishman because I am a colonist.  But I am no leveller.  I have
+no patience with the doctrine of those sentimental Frenchmen who
+promulgate the palpable folly that all men are born equal.  I am loyal
+to the king,--or, perhaps, rather, I should say, to the throne, which
+seems to me just now unfortunate in its occupant.  But I will not pay a
+tax imposed by those who have no right to tax me!  I would fight first.
+I stand on Magna Charta."
+
+"Then you are a patriot now, Uncle Bob," said Barbara, fairly
+satisfied, "and before long you will be a rebel!  You wait and see!
+You're all afraid to say it, but before long the colonies will be
+fighting King George!"
+
+There were exclamations of protest from every one, even Doctor John,
+the avowed and consistent Whig,--every one but Glenowen, who smiled
+thoughtfully at Barbara's rashness.
+
+"Tut!  Tut!  You little fire-eater!" exclaimed Doctor John.  "You
+mustn't bring discredit on your party!  We will fight with
+constitutional weapons for our just rights, and bring that pig-headed
+George to his senses.  We must teach him to reign properly, and not to
+meddle, that's all.  No throat-cuttings in the English family!"
+
+"It would break my heart to fight against my countrymen," said Robert,
+earnestly.  "But if they should be so misguided as to take up arms
+against the king, I should have no doubt as to my duty.  The king may
+be unjust; but if so, the injustice will doubtless be remedied by and
+by.  But better, surely, suffer some injustice than be traitor to your
+king."  This speech took courage on Robert's part, with Barbara's eyes
+blazing scorn upon him.  But he looked into vacancy, and made his
+confession of faith regardless of consequence.
+
+"You fatigue me, Robert!" said Barbara.  "Would you rather betray your
+country than your king?  Was the country made for the king?  What's a
+king?  Greece and Rome did pretty well without them!"
+
+"What's this stuff and nonsense about fighting?" broke in Doctor Jim,
+ignoring Barbara's argument as the chatter of a child.  "Stuff and
+nonsense!  The notion of our clodhoppers standing up to the king's
+soldiers, who have whipped the armies of the world!  It is easy for
+demagogues to rant, but they'd find it still easier to run!"
+
+"I fear you all underrate the peril--except this sauce-box here!" said
+Glenowen, soberly.  "And you, Pigeon, are like the king's purblind
+advisers in underrating the spirit of the people.  It is not a noisy,
+but a sullen temper that seems to be spreading.  And clodhoppers are
+not all cowards!  And those who call themselves patriots are not all
+clodhoppers."
+
+"But who among our people can be so suicidal as to think of war?" asked
+the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer, taking a contemplative pinch of snuff.
+"To fight a hopeless battle, and in inevitable defeat lose all!"
+
+"It is not the people who think of war as yet!" said Glenowen.  "But
+the arrogant soldiery, the blindly self-confident officials, the
+insolent English officers, who seem chosen not to conciliate but to
+enrage.  So many of the officers sent out here do dishonour to the
+repute of English gentlemen.  They seem to look on colonists as a
+subject race.  I have seen them, in New York and in Boston, treat our
+ladies with an insufferable condescension, such as they would never
+have dared to show toward the same ladies in England.  And I have seen
+them studiously insolent to colonial gentlemen of birth and breeding
+far above their own, as if the accident of being born in the mother
+country instead of in America made them another race.  Such conduct,
+while unimportant in itself, rankles deeply, and sets the two branches
+of the race in antagonism.  Personal affront is mightier than argument,
+and men cannot overlook a slight to their women."
+
+"I should think not!" cried Robert, loftily.  "I would shed the last
+drop of my blood for the king, but I should not let the king himself
+put slight upon one of our ladies!  I wonder you could endure to see
+such things, Mr. Glenowen!"
+
+"I did not!" confessed Glenowen.  "I have had several differences of
+late!"
+
+Barbara's eyes sparkled, and her lips parted eagerly over her white
+teeth.
+
+"You fought them, Uncle Bob!  You fought them!" she cried.  "Real
+duels!  How many did you fight?  Oh, how lovely!"
+
+"Two, sweetheart, I'm sorry to say!" replied Glenowen, modestly.  "It
+was very inconvenient and annoying, because I have so many
+responsibilities and could not afford to be skewered."
+
+"And how did you come off?" asked Doctor John, leaning far over the
+table in his eagerness.
+
+"Nothing but a scratch or two, thanks to the righteousness of my
+cause!" said Glenowen.
+
+"And the other chaps?" inquired Doctor Jim.  "Doubtless they were
+low-bred scoundrels, whom London would have none of!  I hope you
+pricked 'em!"
+
+"I wish I could feel sure that their manners had mended as well as
+their wounds!" laughed Glenowen, gaily.
+
+Then, to Barbara's ill-concealed disgust, Mistress Mehitable led the
+way into the drawing-room, leaving the men to smoke long pipes and
+thrash out problems of constitutional law to the accompaniment of the
+fiery old Madeira.  In the drawing-room she was moody and silent,
+grudging all the arguments that were going on without her.  And when
+Robert, who felt himself too unseasoned to stay with his elders beyond
+one pipe and an extra glass, followed the ladies at a decent interval,
+Barbara received him far from graciously.  His last speech, in comment
+on the insolence of the officers, had mollified her a little, but she
+felt a smart resentment at his presumption in maintaining views so
+opposite to hers.
+
+"I should think you would stay with the other men," she said, tartly.
+
+"I couldn't stay a moment longer," said Robert, gallantly, "for longing
+to be with the most fair if _not_ the most gracious of ladies!"
+
+"You had better go back and learn something about your duty to your
+country, by listening to Doctor John and Uncle Bob!" she counselled,
+rudely.
+
+Robert bowed low, having himself just now well in hand, though his
+heart was sore.
+
+"I take great pleasure in listening to them, as well as to Doctor Jim,
+who also seems intelligent!" said he.
+
+"Oh," exclaimed Barbara, much nettled.  "Doctor Jim talks a lot of
+nonsense just to tease me; but he doesn't mean it,--at least, not all
+of it.  Besides, he is always interesting.  But you, with your pedantic
+stuff about loyalty and kings and treason, I don't find you interesting
+at all!  Please go and talk to Aunt Hitty and Mrs. Sawyer, and let me
+read.  Perhaps I'll be able to forget what you said at dinner!"
+
+"It is my pleasure to obey your lightest wish, fair mistress!" said
+Robert, inwardly indignant, but outwardly amused at her ill-humour.  He
+went at once to the other side of the room, and exerted himself to such
+good purpose that soon Mistress Mehitable's rare and silvery laughter
+grew frequent, against an almost ceaseless gurgle of content from Mrs.
+Sawyer.  Robert was completely absorbed, while Barbara's interest in
+her book was vexatiously divided.  After half an hour she got up and
+left the room, but he never noticed her going.  Fifteen minutes later
+she came back, with the gray and white "Mr. Grim" on her shoulder; and
+he never noticed her coming, so intent he was, and so successful, in
+his task of amusing Aunt Hitty and Mrs. Sawyer.  This was carrying
+obedience a little too far, and it fretted Barbara.  Then the men came
+in from the dining-room, smoky, and a little more fluent than ordinary,
+and Robert was ousted from his post by Glenowen and Doctor John.  But
+instead of returning now to Barbara, he attached himself with an
+engrossed air to Doctor Jim; and Barbara found herself established in
+her nook with the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer.  To be sure, his Reverence
+made himself most agreeable, flattering her by the attention he would
+have paid to a grown woman whom he considered intelligent.  He
+appreciated her brains, and acknowledged the lengthening of her
+petticoats; and his attitude was a gratifying proof to her that she
+really had grown to be a personage, rather than a child, within the
+past few days.  But she found herself unable to concentrate her wits on
+what he was saying, and passed a rather grievous hour trying to look
+the attention which her brain was not giving.  When, at last, Doctor
+Sawyer arose to go, she felt that he must think her the most stupid
+girl in the world.  Doctor Sawyer, on the contrary, enchanted by the
+rapt silence and appreciation with which apparently she had hung upon
+his words, went away with the conviction that she was a young woman of
+astonishing intellect, whom they had, indeed, wronged greatly in
+striving to force her into the narrow Second Westings mould.  From that
+hour, when she had watched him with glowing eyes, but hearing scarce a
+word of all his wit, the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer was one of Barbara's
+staunchest champions.
+
+When she turned from saying good-bye to Mrs. Sawyer, Barbara found
+Robert standing close beside her in the hall door, apparently absorbed
+in contemplation of Mrs. Sawyer's billowy, retreating figure.  Barbara
+touched him on the arm, and he turned to her with a quick apologetic
+courtesy, as if his thoughts had been far off.
+
+"What were you thinking of, so far, far away?" she asked, feeling
+somewhat left out and forlorn.
+
+"Why--why--I was thinking--" he stammered, as if unwilling to say, yet
+unready with an evasion.
+
+"Oh, you needn't tell me, if it is so embarrassing as all that!" said
+Barbara, tossing her head.  "I was going to say, that after all the
+talk and the excitement, I think the loveliest thing would be some
+fresh, sweet air, and the smell of the woods!"
+
+"It would be, indeed--with you!" said Robert.
+
+"Then we will ride till supper-time.  No,--there is a moon.  We will
+ride after supper.  You may escort me if you want to!  Do you?"
+
+Robert drew a long breath before he answered--and to Barbara the answer
+was sufficient.
+
+"Yes, I want to!" he said, simply.  "I was afraid I was to go away
+without really seeing you at all!"
+
+"Go away!" exclaimed Barbara, lifting her brows in sharp displeasure.
+"What do you mean, Robert?"
+
+"I must go back to Gault House to-morrow morning, without fail, for I
+start for New York the day following, to be gone all winter."
+
+"Oh!" said Barbara; and turned and led the way back into the
+drawing-room, leaving Robert completely mystified as to the meaning of
+that noncommittal interjection.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+After supper, when Barbara came down dressed for riding and calmly told
+Robert she was ready, Mistress Mehitable gasped, and looked at
+Glenowen, expecting that he would meet the emergency by making a third.
+As he seemed unconscious of the need of action, she shot an appealing
+glance at Doctor Jim and Doctor John in turn.  But they only grinned
+inscrutably.  Then she lifted her hands slightly and let them drop into
+her lap, as if to say, "Bear witness, Heaven, that I am helpless!" and
+thus she stifled the voice of protest in her bosom.  She had given
+Barbara freedom, and the responsibility that goes with freedom; and she
+would not take back the gift.  But it was one of the notable victories
+of Mistress Mehitable's career, when she forced herself to sit in
+smiling acquiescence while Barbara flew full in the face of all
+convention.  Amos, meanwhile, had brought the horses to the door; and
+when the two young riders were gone, the hoof-beats sounding in slow
+cadence down the drive, Glenowen said to her, with an understanding
+smile, "You did right, sweet lady.  'Tis a filly, that, to be ridden
+without the curb.  Give her her head, and you'll have no great trouble!"
+
+"I feel sure you are right, Mr. Glenowen," said Mistress Mehitable,
+sweetly.  "But you may well believe it was a hard lesson for me, a Ladd
+of Connecticut, to learn.  And I fear I have not more than half learned
+it yet!"
+
+"You can learn anything you have a mind to, Mehitable," said Doctor
+Jim, with emphasis, "in the time it would take another woman to learn
+the A, B, C of it!"
+
+
+Neither Barbara nor Robert spoke till the horses emerged upon the
+highway.  Then Barbara cried:
+
+"Quick!  Quick!  I want the wind in my face!"
+
+With two miles of good road before them, they set their faces to the
+night breeze and their horses to the run, and raced madly down the
+moonlight, their shadows dancing long and black before them.  The
+saddle-leathers creaked a low, exhilarating music, and the galloping
+swung like a pulse, and the roadside fence and shrubs fled by, and the
+world was white in the moonlight.  And still there was no speech, save
+a soft word now and then to the rejoicing horses, whose ears turned
+back for it sympathetically from time to time.
+
+At length they came to rougher ground, and slowed to a gentle canter.
+Then Robert noticed a narrow wood-road turning off to the right,
+vaulted over with lofty trees, and mystical with moon-shadows.
+
+"Where does that road go, my lady?" he inquired.
+
+"Where we are going!" answered Barbara, turning into it at a walk.
+Then, as if she thought the answer too whimsical, she continued, "It
+will take us back to the village by a longer and more beautiful way!"
+
+"Any longer way would be the more beautiful way!" said Robert.
+
+The reply interested Barbara, and in musing over it she forgot to say
+anything more.
+
+The wood-road, thick-carpeted with turf and moss, muffled the horses'
+hoofs, and an enchanted silence sank into the hearts of the young
+riders.  Here and there the woods gave back for a little clearing with
+a lonely cabin; and the moonlight flooded in; and around the edges of
+the clearing the thick-leaved branches seemed afloat, bubbles of glass
+and silver on a sea of dream.  Then, again, the fairy-lit glooms,
+haunted but unterrifying!  And Barbara began to think repentantly of
+her harshness toward Robert.  Soon the road dipped sharply, and crossed
+a wide, shallow brook, upon whose pebbles the horses' hoofs splashed a
+light music.  Here they let the horses drink a mouthful, because
+Barbara said the waters of that brook were especially sweet.  When they
+emerged on the other side, Barbara discovered she wanted a drink of it
+herself, so sovereign were the virtues of that water.
+
+"How shall I bring it to you?" asked Robert, instantly dismounting, and
+casting a hasty glance about him in quest of a birch-tree, from whose
+bark to make a cup.
+
+"Make me a cup of your hands, of course!" said Barbara.  "Give me your
+reins.  I must have the water, at once!"
+
+Robert removed his leather gloves, rinsed his hands in the sliding
+sand, and then, with mighty painstaking care, got at least two
+mouthfuls of the crystal uplifted to Barbara's lips.  As she sipped,
+and light as a moth her lips touched his hands, his heart seemed to
+turn over in his breast, and he could not find voice for a word.
+Silently he remounted, and in silence they ascended the slope from the
+brook.  His apparent unresponsiveness puzzled Barbara; but an awakening
+intuition suggested to her that it was perhaps not so uncomplimentary
+as it might seem; and she was not displeased.
+
+For half an hour they walked their horses thus, Robert sometimes laying
+a light hand on Black Prince's shoulder or satiny flank, but never
+daring to touch so much as Barbara's skirt.  Then they saw the highway
+opening ahead of them, a ribbon of moonlit road.  Barbara reined up.
+
+"I think my saddle is slipping a little," said she.  "I don't believe
+Amos can have girt it tight enough!"
+
+"Why, I--" began Robert, about to remind her that, like a good
+horseman, he had himself looked well to the girth before letting her
+mount.  But he cut the words short on his tongue, sprang from his
+saddle, and busied himself intently with Black Prince's straps.  When
+he raised his head, Barbara smiled down upon him, and reached him her
+left hand, saying sweetly:
+
+"Thank you, Robert.  You are really very nice, you know!"
+
+Whereupon Robert bent abruptly, kissed the instep of the little
+riding-boot which stuck out from under her skirt, and swung into his
+saddle.
+
+The action thrilled Barbara somewhat, but at the same time piqued her
+interest; and the interest dominated.
+
+"Why did you do that, Robert?" she asked, curiously, looking at him
+with wide, frank eyes.  "I didn't mind it a bit, you know!  But it's
+funny, to kiss my old shoe!"
+
+Robert gave a little unsteady laugh.
+
+"It was homage, my lady," said he.  "Just my pledge of fealty, before I
+go.  You forget--I have the misfortune to displease you by being a
+monarchist!"
+
+Barbara was silent a moment.  She was sorry he had reminded her of
+their differences of opinion.  But, on the other hand, homage was not
+unpleasant; and her scorn of kings did not of necessity extend to
+queens.
+
+"_Why_ do you go?" she asked.
+
+"My grandmother is sending me at a moment's notice, to represent her in
+a law-scrape which some property of hers--of ours--in New York has
+suddenly got into.  You know that, now that I am through college, I
+have to get down to work at once in New York, and fit myself to look
+after our estates.  But I didn't dream I should have to go so soon!"
+
+"I am sorry!" said Barbara, simply.  "We were having such a pleasant
+time together!"
+
+"Were we, dear lady?" asked Robert.
+
+"_Weren't_ we?" demanded Barbara.
+
+"I am broken-hearted at going.  I dare not tell you how
+broken-hearted!" replied Robert, gravely.  "But until this ride I have
+been rather unhappy to-day, for you have several times made me feel
+that you were displeased at my coming!"
+
+Now Barbara hated explanations, and she hated still more to be accused
+justly.  Urging Black Prince to a canter, she retorted:
+
+"I have no patience with you, Robert.  I have been an angel to you.
+Didn't I ride almost half-way home with you, when you were here before?
+And now, haven't I let you come this _perfect_ ride with me,--when I
+know Aunt Hitty thought I oughtn't?  And you don't _deserve_ that I
+should even let you talk to me one minute, when you are such a stupid,
+bigoted Tory."
+
+Robert thought of many things to say in answer to this dashing flank
+attack; but each answer seemed to carry unknown perils, so he kept a
+prudent silence.  After some time Barbara spoke again, mistaking his
+silence for contrition.
+
+"Robert," she began, in a voice of thrilling persuasion, "won't you do
+something I very much want you to do?"
+
+"I can think of no other pleasure to compare with the pleasure of
+pleasing you, my lady!" he answered, ardently.
+
+"Then, will you not _really study_, without prejudice, the things that
+are at the bottom of the trouble between us and King George?  You have
+such a good brain, Robert, I cannot think you will be on the side of a
+king against your own country, when you have fully informed yourself!"
+
+Robert looked troubled.
+
+"I can honestly promise," said he, "to study the question still more
+carefully than I have already.  But I fear you will still consider me
+obstinate, even then.  If I could imagine myself disloyal to the king,
+I should not consider myself worthy to profess myself your ever loyal
+and devoted servant, fair mistress!"
+
+"To serve me, Robert, you must serve your country!"
+
+"And to serve my country, most dear lady, I must serve the king!"
+persisted Robert.
+
+Barbara set her lips tight together, and galloped on.
+
+"I wish you better wisdom as you grow older!" she said, coldly, after
+some minutes.
+
+"The best wisdom I may ever hope to attain will be all too little to
+serve you with, my lady!" answered Robert, half gallantly, yet all in
+earnest.  And Barbara could not but vouchsafe a reluctant smile in
+acknowledgment of so handsome a compliment.  Thereafter there was
+little more said.  They rode through the village, past the lighted inn,
+up the dim moonlit road to the porch of Westings House.  But when
+Robert, with a sort of bold deference, lifted her from her saddle,
+holding her, perhaps, just a shade more closely than was requisite, she
+felt in a forgiving mood.  She knew that she liked him, she knew she
+had been unpleasant to him, she was most sorry he was going away; and
+what were old kings anyway that friends should be at loggerheads about
+them?  Answering her own thought, she impulsively pulled off her glove,
+and gave Robert her bare hand.
+
+"We will be friends, won't we, king or no king?"
+
+And the radiance of the smile she lifted to him, as he held her thin
+little hand in both his own, nearly turned the poor boy's head.  He
+bent over her--and just saved himself, with a gasp, from kissing the
+ignorantly provocative mouth so rashly upraised.  But he recovered his
+balance, in part, and compensated himself by kissing the hand
+passionately,--fingers and soft palm, and rosy oval nails, and
+wrist,--in a fashion that seemed to Barbara very singular.  At length
+she withdrew the hand with a soft laugh, saying, composedly:
+
+"There, don't you think that will do, Robert?  You did not kiss Mrs.
+Sawyer's hand like that, did you?"
+
+"Of course I did!" declared Robert.  "There was more of it to kiss, so
+I kissed it more!"
+
+"Now you are horrid!" she cried, and ran past him into the house.
+
+But when he said good-bye to them all on the porch the next morning,
+and set forth on his long ride back to Gault House, Robert carried with
+him in the pocket over his heart what Barbara considered the highest
+token of her favour, her well-studied, intimately marked,
+oft-slept-with copy of Sir Philip Sidney's sonnets.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+The life of the individual, within its limits, is apt to present a sort
+of microcosmic image of the life of the nation.  There comes a period
+of stress, when the germs of change and growth are sown.  Then,
+apparently without reason, time drags.  The seasons roll apathetically
+in their rut, and all is done as it was done last year.  But in the
+deeps the great impulses are maturing, the great forces are gathering.
+The hour comes that looses them.  Then in an instant, it seems almost
+without warning, the quiet heart is in an insurrection, the people of
+ploughshares is become a people of swords.  With a life, or with a
+nation, the events of a day may crowd ten volumes, or the annals of ten
+years leave a page but meanly filled.  Significance is all.  We live in
+our great moments.  The rest is a making ready.
+
+That blue and yellow morning of sweet winds, when Robert rode away from
+Second Westings, and Barbara, looking after him, felt three-fourths
+regretful for his going and one-fourth for her dear copy of Sir Philip
+Sidney's sonnets, was a morning in the late summer of 1769.  He was to
+have returned the following June.  But neither that June nor the next,
+nor the next following nor the one thereafter, did he return to the
+quiet villages of Connecticut and the banks of the great river that had
+given him birth.  From year's end to year's end he found himself tied
+to the desk in his mother's brother's office, the office with the coat
+of arms over the door, and the diamond windows looking out on Bowling
+Green.  He worked faithfully; but, being of the king's party yet
+sturdily American, a loyalist yet alive to the grievances of the
+people, a Tory yet not intolerant of views hostile to his own, an
+aristocrat, yet unfettered by the traditions of his clique and clan, he
+had all the social diversion that the gay, extravagant, rich, and
+foppish little city in the toe of Manhattan Island could afford.
+Wealthy, well-born, courtly, and kindly, the garlanded snares of the
+mammas of Manhattan were laid thickly but vainly for his feet.  He was
+squire to all the fair; but not one, unless by some of those thrilling
+fictions with which maids triumph over their rivals, could claim aught
+of him that was exclusive or committal.  And he knew Sir Philip
+Sidney's sonnets by heart.
+
+About once in two months, or thereabouts, went a letter to Second
+Westings, full of coloured comment on the doings of the city,--of
+remarks sometimes stilted and sometimes illuminating on the latest
+books from London,--of elaborate compliments that concealed rather than
+revealed the emotion glowing behind them,--but of the questions of the
+day, of Penal Acts, Port Bills, Tea Duties, Coercion, and Continental
+Congresses, no word.  Robert had fulfilled to the letter and the spirit
+Barbara's demand that he study minutely the points at issue between the
+colonies and the king.  He had realised the blindness and folly of the
+king, he had acknowledged that the colonies were right to resist, by
+every constitutional means, taxation by a parliament in which they were
+not represented.  But his loyalty to the throne was unshaken by his
+regret that the king should be unjust.  He tried to believe that the
+counsels of the great Englishmen whom he adored,--Pitt and Burke, the
+friends of America,--would open the eyes of George III. in time to
+prevent the cruel arbitrament of war.  But--should it be war,--well,
+his ancestors had bled cheerfully for Charles Stuart when they knew he
+was in the wrong, and Robert felt that he would maintain, at whatever
+cost, the tradition of his ancestors.  To be loyal to a good king, a
+king in the right, where was the distinguishing merit of that?  But to
+be loyal to king in the wrong, and at great cost,--that, to Robert,
+seemed loyalty worth the name.
+
+Meanwhile to Barbara, in her green world of Second Westings, life
+seemed to have got caught in a drowsy eddy.  The months went by in
+uneventful circuit, for all the echoes of great doings that came up
+from time to time and stirred the tranquil air.  She rode, canoed,
+read, studied spasmodically, bullied Amos, loved the animals, distilled
+strange essences, repudiated the needle and the crochet-hook, as of
+old.  As of old, she had wild whims, repentances, indignations, dreams,
+and ardours born of dreams.  But all these things had grown paler, in a
+way, had lost something of their bite and vividness.  It was as if Fate
+had turned a screw and changed the focus.  Moreover, she could no
+longer, as before, believe each mood eternal and all-important.  She
+had a consciousness that there were other interests lurking in life,
+and this kept her in an attitude of waiting.  But the love between her
+and Doctor John and Doctor Jim lost nothing in this waiting time, but
+grew as Barbara grew in stature and self-knowledge; and she lost
+nothing of her delight in the friendship of Mrs. Debby Blue, to whose
+cabin she would flee about once a month, when the vagrant blood,
+growing riotous in her breast, would make her tolerant of no company
+but that of the shrewd old outlaw dame.  As for her aunt, Barbara's
+love for the blue-eyed little Puritan spinster, born that crucial
+morning of Mistress Mehitable's unexpected forbearance and seed-cakes,
+flourished and ripened with not one serious setback.  Of course, a
+complete understanding between two such opposite tempers could not
+spring up in a day; but Mistress Mehitable was nothing less than heroic
+in the consistency with which she held herself to her new policy; and
+Barbara, having been astonished into an incongruous devotion, was ready
+enough to make sacrifices on the new altar.  Whenever the atmosphere
+began to feel overcharged between them, they would say the nicest
+things they could think of to each other, and then, with much ingenuity
+of chance, keep apart for two or three days.  In this way new
+misunderstandings were avoided; till gradually the natural love between
+them set deep root into their hearts, and grew strong enough to dare
+such tempestuous flurries of the mood as cannot but blow up once in
+awhile when two women are living alone together.
+
+But while her own life had seemed to have grown so tranquil that she
+wondered if things had forgotten to happen, Barbara knew that in the
+outside world it was different, so different as to make her stillness
+seem like sleep.  In the outside world she knew events were crowding
+and clamouring upon one another's heels, under a sky of strange
+portent.  She kept herself informed.  She wrangled lovingly with Doctor
+Jim; she argued tactfully, though hopelessly, with Mistress Mehitable;
+she debated academically with the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer; she ranted
+joyously with Doctor John, and Squire Gillig, and Lawyer Perley, and
+old Debby, all four patriots, and the last two frank rebels.  For the
+sake of finding out the drift of Second Westings sentiment, she once in
+awhile emerged from her prickly exclusiveness to smile upon her fellows
+of quality, and was surprised to find them mostly patriots in their
+way, with souls that strove to rise above embroidery and tatting.  As
+for the common people, the workmen and apprentices and their kind, she
+got at their hearts easily in her impulsive fashion, and found the
+majority of them slowly heating to rebellion.  In Amos, her devoted
+Amos, however, she unearthed a fiery royalist, ready to out-thunder
+Doctor Jim himself; so she ceased to do Amos the favour of bullying
+him, and Amos grew at times too dejected to care much about King
+George.  The results of these observations she conveyed minutely in
+frequent letters to her Uncle Bob, who was now committed to the
+so-called 'Continental' side.  To Robert Gault, also, in his office
+looking out on Bowling Green, Barbara would write about once in three
+months.  But in these letters she wrote of the woods and the winds, of
+what blooms were out in the river-meadows, of what birds were nesting
+or winging,--and never a word of what was in all men's mouths.  She was
+waiting for Robert to declare himself converted to her views, after
+digesting the course of study to which she had set him.  And she
+refused to admit the possibility of a clear-headed gentleman, as she
+knew him to be, being so misguided as to cling to opinions different
+from her own.  To her mind Truth was a crystal of which but one facet
+could be lighted at a time.  One side of a question was apt to present
+itself to her with such brilliancy that all the other sides were thrown
+into obscurity together.  As for the flamboyant Toryism of Doctor Jim,
+she regarded it with an invincible indulgence, as one of those things
+preordained from the first,--a thing which she could not even regret,
+because without it Doctor Jim, who was in every way adorable, would be
+so much the less himself.  Who cared for an eccentricity or two in a
+being so big of body and soul as Doctor Jim?  But she could not help
+being glad that Doctor John's eccentricity, to which she would have
+been equally indulgent in case of need, took a different form from
+Doctor Jim's.  The Toryism of her Aunt Hitty she regarded as a part of
+the lady's religion, and with that Barbara would never dream of
+meddling.  By an unspoken understanding, she and Mistress Mehitable had
+agreed to leave each other's sanctuaries unprofaned.
+
+By the time of the "Boston Tea-Party," a little before Christmas in
+1773, Second Westings was so established in its stiff-necked, though
+indolent, Whiggery, that Doctor Jim and Mistress Mehitable sat
+enthroned, as it were, in the lonely isolation of their Toryism, with
+Amos proudly humble at their feet.  The Reverend Jonathan Sawyer, whose
+interest in the controversy had been almost wholly academic from the
+first, and who cultivated on all matters outside his creed a breadth of
+mind to compensate for his narrowness within it, had judged it right to
+follow his flock where he could not lead it, and had amused himself by
+letting Barbara--of whose conquest he was genuinely proud--convert him
+to her doctrines.  He was now a constitutional patriot, a temperate and
+conservative champion of colonial privilege, as opposed to kingly
+prerogative.  When came the soul-stirring news of how the valiant men
+of Boston Town had confronted the dread tea-chests in their harbour,
+and torn them piecemeal, and cast their fragrant contents into the
+tide, then no soul in Second Westings but Doctor Jim, Mistress
+Mehitable, and Amos, would drink a drop of tea--except in private.
+Certain compromising spirits, anxious to be both patriotic and
+comfortable, had laid in a supply betimes, and so without public
+scandal could dally in secret with the uninebriating cup.  But Barbara
+despised the alien leaf at all times; and Doctor John preferred hard
+cider or New England rum; and old Debby had a potent concoction of
+"yarbs" which made the Chinese visitor insipid; so Mistress Mehitable
+and Doctor Jim were free to victual their strongholds with nearly all
+the tea in Second Westings.  Over the achievement of the Boston heroes
+Mistress Mehitable was gently sarcastic and Doctor Jim boisterously
+derisive; while Doctor John exclaimed, "Tut!  Tut! such child's play
+does no good!  Such mummery!  Tut!  Tut!" and Squire Gillig, ardent
+"Continental" but cautious merchant, said, "Such wicked waste!  There's
+a lot of good money gone!  They should have confiscated the stuff, an'
+hid it, an' sold it by an' by cheap, along through the back townships!"
+
+But to Barbara it seemed that the act was one shrewdly devised and
+likely to bring matters to a head.  Her reading of it seemed justified
+a few months later, when the port of Boston was closed, as a punishment
+for rebellious contumacy,--and the charter of Massachusetts
+abrogated,---and a military governor, with four English regiments,
+established in the haughty city by the Charles,--and the capital of the
+province removed to its ancient rival, Salem.
+
+The news of the billeting of the troops on Boston, and the removal of
+the capital to Salem, came with a shock to Westings House.  It came in
+a copy of the _Connecticut Gazette_, delivered at Mistress Mehitable's
+dinner-table while she and Barbara were entertaining Doctor John and
+Doctor Jim, Squire Gillig, and the Reverend Jonathan and Mrs. Sawyer.
+It had been a gay repast, but when Mistress Mehitable, craving
+indulgence by reason of the times, read out the Boston news, a cloud
+descended upon the company.  Squire Gillig began to say something
+bitter, forgetful of Mistress Mehitable's sentiments, but was stopped
+by a level stare from the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer's authoritative
+eyes.  Then Doctor John spoke--no longer droll and jibing, but with the
+gravity of prescience, and turning by instinct to his brother.
+
+"Jim!  Jim!" said he, "this is going to mean _war_.  I see it!  I see
+it!  The people will not stand much more,--and more is coming, as sure
+as my name's John Pigeon.  Your precious king's gone mad.  He's going
+to force it on us!"
+
+Doctor Jim shook his great head sorrowfully.  "I am sorry for this,
+John.  I think the king is not well advised in this--on my word I do.
+It is too harsh, too sudden.  But the people won't fight.  They may
+riot, and talk,--but they won't fight.  We are too strong for you,
+John.  There will be no war.  That would be absurd!"
+
+"There will be war!" repeated Doctor John, still looking into his
+brother's eyes.  The two men had forgotten every one else.  "There will
+be war, if not this year, the next.  The people will fight,--and that
+soon!"
+
+"Then the people will be beaten, and that soon, John!" retorted Doctor
+Jim, firmly, but in a low voice.
+
+"The king's armies will be beaten, Jim!  You mark my words!  But it is
+going to be a terrible thing!  A horrible and unrighteous thing!  There
+will be dividing of houses, Jim!"
+
+There were several seconds of silence, a heavy, momentous silence, and
+Barbara held her breath, a strange ache at her throat.  Then Doctor Jim
+brought down his fist upon the table, and cried in his full voice:
+
+"A dividing of houses, maybe,--but not a dividing of hearts, John
+Pigeon, never a dividing of hearts, eh, what? eh, what?"
+
+He reached out his hand across the table, and Doctor John seized it in
+a mighty grip.  The long years of love and trust between them spoke
+suddenly in their strong, large faces.
+
+"No, never a dividing of hearts, Jim, in the days that are to come,
+when our swords go different ways, and we see each other not for a
+time!"
+
+Then their hands dropped apart, and both laughed uneasily, as they
+glanced with a shamefaced air about the table.
+
+"Tut!  Tut!" said Doctor John.  "That precious king of yours bids fair
+to make life damnably serious, Jim.  Send him away from the table at
+once!"
+
+But the diversion came too late; for Barbara was weeping heedlessly,
+and Mistress Mehitable, with her white chin quivering, was dabbing her
+handkerchief to her eyes with an air of vexation at her own weakness;
+while good Mrs. Sawyer gazed at them both in wide-eyed, uncomprehending
+wonder.
+
+"If there's a war," sobbed Barbara, "_you sha'nt_ go to it, either of
+you!  We need you, _here_.  And--and--you'd both get killed, I know!
+You're both so splendid and big and tall,--and you wouldn't--take care
+of yourselves, and the bullets _couldn't_ miss you!"
+
+At this picture Mistress Mehitable grew pale, where she had been red,
+and cast a frightened look at Doctor Jim, then at Doctor John,--then
+back at Doctor Jim.
+
+"Barbara's right, I think," she said, with an air of having weighed the
+question quite dispassionately.  "You should not leave your patients,
+on any account.  There are so many men who can destroy life, so few who
+can save it.  Physicians have no right to go soldiering."
+
+"That's just it, honey!" cried Barbara, flashing radiant eyes through
+her tears.  "Oh, what a wise little Aunt Hitty you are!  What would we
+ever do without you!"  And her apprehensions laid themselves obediently
+to rest.
+
+"Well, well!" cried Doctor Jim.  "What are two graceless old dogs like
+us, that the dear eyes of the fairest of their sex should shed tears on
+our account?  We should go and kick each other up and down the length
+of Second Westings for the rest of the afternoon, for causing such
+precious tears,--eh, what, John Pigeon?"
+
+"'Tis the least we can do, Jim!" said Doctor John.  "But now I come to
+think of it, we needn't arrange to go to the war before there's a war
+to go to, after all."
+
+"And when the war does come, you'll both stay right here, where you
+belong!" decreed Barbara, holding the question well settled.
+
+"Who knows what may happen?" cried Doctor Jim.  "You stiff-necked
+rebels may experience a change of heart, and then where's your war?"
+
+"Barbara, sweet baggage," said Doctor John, wagging his forefinger at
+her in the way that even now, at her nineteen years, seemed to her as
+irresistibly funny as she had thought it when a child, "I cannot let
+this anxiety oppress your tender young spirit.  Set your heart at rest.
+If there be war, Jim Pigeon may go a-soldiering and get shot as full of
+holes as a colander, and I'll do my duty by staying at home and looking
+after his patients.  There'll be a chance of some of them getting well,
+then!  I've never yet had a fair chance to save Jim Pigeon's patients.
+_I_ won't desert a lovely maiden in distress, to seek the bubble
+reputation at the cannon's mouth!"
+
+"How can you lie so shamelessly, John Pigeon?" demanded Doctor Jim.
+"I'll lay you a barrel of Madeira you'll be leaning against the butt of
+a musket before I am!"
+
+"Done!" said Doctor John.
+
+"I think you are both perfectly horrid!" cried Barbara.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+That day of the news was a boundary day.  It set sharp limit to
+Barbara's years of calm.  From that day events came quickly, change
+pressed hard on change, and no day, for her, was quite like its
+predecessor.  A veering of the current had snatched her from her
+shining eddy, and swept her forth into the tide of life.
+
+On the morning following the dinner, while still alive to a sense of
+menace in the air, Barbara received a letter from her uncle.  As she
+read it, her eyes sparkled, her heart bounded.  Then, as she passed it
+to Mistress Mehitable, and Mistress Mehitable took it with cheerful
+interest, her heart sank.  She felt a pang of self-reproach, because
+she found herself willing to go away and leave her aunt uncompanioned
+in the solitude of Westings House.  Glenowen had undertaken certain
+business, in the way of searching records and examining titles, which
+was driving him at once to New York, and bade fair, he said, to keep
+him there for upwards of a year.  He wanted Barbara to go with him.
+And Barbara's pulses bounded.  There, she thought, were the lights and
+the dances, the maskings and the music, the crossing of swords and
+wits, the gallants and the compliments and the triumphs, which she was
+longing to taste.  Mistress Mehitable's face grew grave as she read the
+letter.  It grew pale as she looked up and saw by Barbara's face the
+hunger in her heart.  Mistress Mehitable had a vision of what Westings
+House would be, emptied of the wilful, flashing, vivid, restless spirit
+which for the past few years had been its life.  But she was unselfish.
+She would not say a word to lessen Barbara's delight.
+
+"It will be lovely for you, dear!" said she, with hearty sympathy.
+"You are just at the age, too, when it will mean most to you, and be of
+most value to you.  I am so glad, dear!"
+
+But Barbara had seen the look in her face, and gave no heed to her
+brave words.
+
+"I _can't_ go, honey, and leave you here alone!" she cried,
+impetuously, jumping up and hugging the little lady with a vehemence
+born of the effort to convince herself that what she said was true.
+She felt that she could and must go; but that the joy of going would be
+more than damped--drenched, indeed, with tears--at the thought of how
+much Mistress Mehitable would miss her, of how empty Westings House
+would be without her, of the scar her absence would leave in their
+little world.  With her intense individuality, her lively
+self-concentration, it almost seemed to her as if their little world
+could not even attempt to go on without her, but must sleep dully
+through her absence.
+
+"Of course you will go, Barbara dear!" said Mistress Mehitable,
+decidedly.  "It is only natural and right you should want to go, and
+go.  I cannot pretend that it makes me very happy to think of doing
+without you for a whole year.  No words can tell you how I shall miss
+you, dear child.  But I should be a thousand times more unhappy if I
+were to feel myself standing in the way of your happiness.  No, no,
+indeed, don't talk any nonsense about not going.  Besides, your Uncle
+Bob has the right to have you with him for a while."
+
+"Oh, I wish you could go, too!" sighed Barbara.  "_Can't_ you?  _Then_
+it _would_ be lovely!"
+
+Mistress Mehitable laughed softly.  "Not very well just now, child!"
+she answered, assuming a gaiety.  "Perhaps some other time it might be
+managed.  Now, we'll have to plan about getting you ready,--and your
+uncle has only left us a wretched little week to do it in!"
+
+So it was settled, without any stress or argument whatever, that
+Barbara should go to New York with Uncle Bob just eight days from that
+day; and so was decreed, with such effort as it might take to order a
+breakfast, nothing less than a revolution in Barbara's life.
+
+While the two women were discussing weighty problems of dressmaking,
+lingerie, and equipment various,--what should be made at Second
+Westings, and what should be left to New York shops and the tried taste
+of Uncle Bob,--Doctor Jim came in, less robustious and breezy than his
+wont, his eyes big with momentous tidings.  He kissed the ladies'
+hands, and sat down thoughtfully opposite, scanning their faces from
+under bushy, drawn brows.  They both looked at him with expectant
+inquiry.
+
+"You were most intent on whatever you were talking about!" said he,
+presently.  "I hope I don't interrupt!  May I hear all about it?  Or
+should I run away, eh, what?"
+
+"You never interrupt,--or if you do, you are forgiven beforehand, Jim!"
+said Mistress Mehitable.
+
+"What we were talking about will interest _you_, Doctor Jim, you
+naughty old thing!" cried Barbara, saucily.  "It was petticoats,
+bodices, and silk stockings, and such like feminine frivolities!  But
+what have _you_ got to tell _us_?  You are just _bursting_, you know
+you are.  Tell us, and we'll tell you something!"
+
+"John Pigeon's going away to-morrow!" said Doctor Jim, and then shut
+his mouth hard.
+
+"What?  Going away?" cried both women at once, scarce crediting their
+ears.
+
+"Going away to Hartford, to-morrow, to take a hand in organising some
+of their rebellious militia!" continued Doctor Jim.  "I'm ashamed to
+tell you.  But he was ashamed to tell you himself, thinking you would
+not like it, so he sent me ahead to make his peace for him.  It doesn't
+mean anything, you know.  Just a sort of bragging counterblast to those
+four regiments of ours at Boston.  I wouldn't be down on John for it,
+eh, what, Mehitable?"
+
+"When will he return?" asked Mehitable, feeling that her world was
+being emptied.
+
+"Down on him!" exclaimed Barbara.  "Why, it's _noble_ of him.  Think
+how it will encourage all the patriots of our township!"  Since she was
+going away herself, Doctor John's going was easy enough to bear.
+
+"I wasn't talking to you, you saucy rebel!" retorted Doctor Jim.
+"We'll have that crazy little black head of yours chopped off for high
+treason, one of these days, if you don't mend your naughty manners.
+'Patriots,' indeed!  Addle-pated bumpkins!  But"--and he turned to
+Mistress Mehitable, "you asked me, dear lady, when John Pigeon would
+return.  Within a month, I think.  He will tell you more precisely for
+himself!"
+
+"Jim," said Mistress Mehitable, gravely, "we are going to be lonely for
+awhile, you and I."
+
+"Lonely!" exclaimed Doctor Jim.  "That's not what bothers me.  It's the
+pestilent, low, vulgar business that's taking him!"
+
+"Yes, of course," assented Mistress Mehitable, "but 'tis not Doctor
+John only that purposes to forsake us, Jim.  Barbara is going to New
+York, to stay a year."
+
+Doctor Jim's face fell.  He glared at Barbara for half a minute, his
+shaggy eyebrows working.
+
+"Nonsense, child!" he cried, wilfully incredulous.  "What cock-and-bull
+story's this?  I won't have my feelings worked upon!"
+
+"It's true, Doctor Jim.  I'm to go with Uncle Bob, next week!" said
+Barbara, very soberly.
+
+"But you sha'n't go!  We can't spare our bad little girl.  You're too
+young, Barby, for that wicked city down there.  We _need_ you here, to
+keep us from getting too _good_.  You sha'n't go, that's all!  You see
+what John Pigeon'll have to say about it, eh, what?"
+
+"I must, Doctor Jim!" answered Barbara.  "Aunt Hitty and Uncle Bob have
+both decided on that.  I feel homesick, sort of, already, at the
+thought of it.  And I know I shall miss you all just horribly.  But,
+oh, I do want to go, after all.  It's all so gay and mysterious to me,
+and I know I'll have such fun.  And it will be so lovely, when I'm
+tired of it, to come back and tell you all about it!  Won't it?"
+
+"Well!  Well!  I suppose we'll have to let her go," sighed Doctor Jim.
+"Thank Heaven, _you're_ not going, Mehitable, dear lady!"
+
+"I'm glad _you're_ not going, Jim,--either to New York or to Hartford!"
+said Mistress Mehitable, with a little laugh.  Then she held out her
+hand to him, flushing softly.
+
+"It would be hard indeed for me to go anywhere, Mehitable, were you to
+bid me stay!" said Doctor Jim, kissing very reverently the hand she had
+held out.  Then, without waiting for an answer to this, he hastily
+turned again to Barbara, saying:
+
+"By the way, sweetheart, Bobby Gault is in New York, is he not,--eh,
+what?  He will be glad to see you again, perhaps!  It is possible he
+may help make things pleasant for you, eh, you baggage?"
+
+But Barbara was not in a mood to repay his raillery in kind.
+
+"I don't know that I'll make things pleasant for Robert," she answered,
+thoughtfully, "if he still clings to his ridiculous views about kings
+and things!"
+
+"Tell that to the marines, you sly hussy!" exclaimed Doctor Jim,
+regaining mysteriously his wonted large good humour.  "Don't tell me
+this isn't all made up between you and Robert!"
+
+Barbara looked at him soberly for a moment.  Then the old audacious
+light laughed over her face, her eyes danced perilously,--and Mistress
+Mehitable felt a tremor of apprehension.  She always felt nervous when
+Doctor Jim had the hardihood to draw Barbara's fire.
+
+"Do you know, Doctor Jim, I don't feel quite so badly as I did about
+leaving you and Aunt Hitty!  I think, you know, you will be quite a
+comfort to each other, won't you, even if Doctor John should have to
+stay longer than he expects in Hartford!"
+
+At this moment Doctor John himself came in, to Mistress Mehitable's
+infinite relief.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+When Glenowen came to Second Westings he was in such haste that Barbara
+concluded he had other duties in New York than the searching of records
+and verification of titles; but with unwonted discretion she asked no
+questions.  Affairs of state, it seemed to her, were the more
+mysterious and important the less she knew about them; and it pleased
+her to feel that the fate of commonwealths, perchance, was carried
+secretly within the ruffled cambric of her debonair and brown-eyed
+uncle.  From Second Westings they journeyed by coach to New Haven, and
+from that city voyaged by packet down the Sound to New York.  Arrived
+in New York, they went straight into lodgings which Glenowen had
+already engaged, in an old, high-stooped Dutch house on State Street.
+
+From the moment of her landing on the wharf, Barbara was in a state of
+high exhilaration.  The thronging wharves, the high, black,
+far-travelled hulls, the foreign-smelling freights, all thrilled her
+imagination, and made her feel that now at last unexpected things might
+happen to her and story-books come true.  Then the busy, bustling
+streets, where men jostled each other abstractedly, intent each on his
+own affairs, how different from Second Westings, where three passers-by
+and a man on horseback would serve to bring faces to the windows, and
+where the grass on each side of the street was an item of no small
+consequence to the village cows!  And then the houses--huddled
+together, as if there was not space a-plenty in the world for houses!
+It was all very stirring.  She felt that it was what she wanted, at the
+moment,--a piquant sauce to the plain wholesomeness of her past.  But
+she felt, too, that it would never be able to hold her long from the
+woods and fields and wild waters.
+
+Of her arrival Barbara sent no word to Robert, though she knew by
+somewhat careful calculation that his office was but a stone's throw
+away from her lodging.  She looked forward to some kind of a dramatic
+meeting, and would not let her impatience--which she scarcely
+acknowledged--risk the marring of a picturesque adventure.  When
+Glenowen, the morning after their arrival, gave her the superfluous
+information that Robert's office was close by, right among the
+fashionable houses of Bowling Green, and proposed that they should
+begin their exploration of the city by strolling past his window,
+Barbara demurred with emphasis.
+
+"Well," said Glenowen, thinking he understood what no man ever has a
+right to think he understands, "just as you like, mistress mine.  I'll
+drop in on him myself, and let him know where we are, so he can call
+with all due and fitting ceremony!"
+
+"Oh, Uncle Bob!" she cried, laughing at his density, "don't you know
+yet how little _I_ care for ceremony?  'Tis not that--by any manner of
+means.  But I want to surprise Robert,--I want to meet him at some fine
+function, in all my fine feathers, and see if he'll know me!  You know,
+it is five years, nearly, since we saw him.  Have I changed much, Uncle
+Bob?"
+
+"Precious little have you changed, sweet minx!" answered Glenowen.
+"You're just the same small, peppery, saucy, unmanageable, thin brown
+witch that you were then, only a _little_ taller, a _little_ more
+good-looking, a little--a very little--more dignified.  No fear but
+he'd know you, though he saw you not for a score of years.  'Twere as
+easy perhaps for a man to hate you as love you, my Barbe!  But forget
+you!  Oh, no!"
+
+So it was that in the walks which they took about the point of
+Manhattan Island, during the first three or four days after their
+coming, they avoided Bowling Green, save in the dim hours of twilight;
+and Glenowen, prone to humour Barbara in everything, had a care to shun
+the resorts which Robert Gault affected.  He learned, by no means to
+his surprise, that Robert was uncompromisingly committed to the Tory
+party, but this he did not feel called upon to tell Barbara.
+
+"Time enough!  Time enough!" said he to himself, half whimsical, half
+sorrowful.  "Let the child have her little play with all the mirth
+that's in it!  Let hearts not bleed until they must!  She won't forgive
+him,--and he won't yield,--or I'm not Bob Glenowen!"
+
+In New York, where most of his life had been spent, Glenowen knew
+everybody; and he was _persona grata_ to almost everybody of
+consequence.  His standing was so impregnable, his antecedents so
+unimpeachable, his social talents so in demand, that even the most
+arrogant of the old Tory aristocrats--the Delanceys, the Philipses, the
+Beverley Robinsons--were not disposed to let their hostility to his
+views hamper their hospitality to his person.
+
+It followed, therefore, as a matter of course, that almost before she
+had gathered her wits after the excitement of the journey and the
+changed surroundings, Barbara found herself afloat upon the whirl of
+New York gaieties.  Every night, in the solitude of her bedroom in the
+old Dutch house, in the discreet confidence of her pillow, she was
+homesick, very homesick, and a child again.  She would sob for Aunt
+Hitty, and Doctor John, and Doctor Jim,--and for big, round-faced,
+furry "Mr. Grim," whom she had so tearfully left behind,--and for Black
+Prince, who, she felt sure, would let no one else ride him in her
+absence,--and for dear old Debby in her lonely cabin.  She would think
+very tenderly of Amos,--and then, with a very passion of tenderness, of
+her own little room over the porch, now silent and deserted.  With
+great surges of pathos she would picture Mistress Mehitable going into
+the little room every day, and dusting it a bit, and then sitting down
+by the bed and wishing Barbara would come back.  In such a melting mood
+Barbara would resolve not to be horrid any more, but to send for Robert
+the first thing in the morning, and tell him just how glad she was to
+see him.
+
+But when morning came, she would be no more the homesick child, but a
+very gay, petulant, spoiled, and sparkling young woman, her head full
+of excitements and conquests to come.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+To her first ball Barbara went in a chair, just five days after her
+arrival in New York.  The method of locomotion appealed greatly to her
+mood; and as the bearers jogged her gently along, she kept her piquant
+face at the window and felt as if she were playing one of the pictures
+of court ladies on their way to St. James's,--ladies such as she had
+often dreamed over in the London prints.  For this ball, given at the
+Van Griff house, just a few blocks from her own lodgings, she was
+dressed in the very height of the mode, as to all save her hair.  She
+was obstinate in her aversion to the high, elaborate coiffure,--in her
+adherence to the simple fashion and the single massive curl which she
+had decided upon, after many experiments, as best becoming her face.
+She liked her hair, accounting it her only beauty, and rather than
+disguise it she would let the mode go hang.  For the rest, her attire
+met the severest demands of Uncle Bob, who was even won, at the last,
+to approve what he called her eccentricity in the matter of hair.  He
+decided that her very precise modishness in other respects would prove
+her title to independence in the one respect; and it was with
+unqualified satisfaction that he contemplated the effect she would
+produce on the New York fashionables.
+
+"Are you sure I look fit to be seen with you, Uncle Bob?" she had
+inquired, anxiously, the last thing before they set out.  "You are such
+a beau, you dear; and so distinguished-looking!"
+
+"I shall take no discredit by reason of you, I think!" answered
+Glenowen, dryly.  "Unless, indeed, by reason of the slayings of your
+eyes!  But slay the gallants, slay them, sweetheart!  They be king's
+men, mostly,--and there'll be so many the less to fight, by and by, for
+the king!"
+
+"I'll do what such a homely little brown thing can!" laughed Barbara,
+blithely, an excited thrill in her voice.  But even at the moment her
+heart misgave her, at the thought that, more than likely, Robert was
+one of these same "king's men!"
+
+This first ball, at the Van Griffs', was to Barbara a whirl of lights,
+and colours, and flowers, and bowing, promenading, pirouetting forms.
+The spacious rooms and shining floors and smiling faces and stirring
+music intoxicated her.  The variety and brightness of the costumes
+astonished her, the women's dresses being fairly outshone by the strong
+colours of the uniforms worn by the English officers, and by the even
+more dazzling garb affected by the civilians.  Yet if all this
+bewildered her heart, outwardly she was at ease, composed, and ready;
+and Glenowen, across the room, watching her the centre of a group of
+eager gallants,--fop, officer, and functionary alike clamouring for her
+hand in the dance,--wondered if this could be the headlong, hard-riding
+little hussy whom he had brought from the wilds of Second Westings.
+The stately belles of Manhattan, beauties serene or beauties gay,
+sisters to the lily or sisters to the poppy and the tulip, eyed with
+critical half-disfavour this wilding rose from the backwoods, agreed
+that she was queer-looking if not ugly, and resented her independence
+in wearing her hair so as to display its beauties to full advantage.
+That she was well gowned and danced well, they were in general fair
+enough to acknowledge; but they could not see why so many men found her
+interesting to talk to.  In a word, she was a success from the start.
+She went home at last, very wide-eyed, tired, triumphant, excited--and
+disappointed.  She had not seen Robert.  She had just once heard his
+name, spoken casually, as that of one whose absence seemed a thing
+unusual, whose presence seemed a thing to be desired.  She knew that
+she had made an impression.  She knew, even, that she had made herself
+popular, at least with the men.  With her accustomed candour she had
+proclaimed herself a rebel, in response to some jest at the expense of
+Boston, and had settled the score thrice over by her witty jibes at
+King George.  But even in that royalist circle her audacity had done
+her no harm.  The English officers themselves, carried away by her
+brilliance and amused by her daring, were loudest in their applause.
+They not unreasonably agreed in their hearts that it could do the king
+no harm, while it undoubtedly would be a great satisfaction to
+themselves, if they could win some favour in the eyes of this most
+bewildering and provocative little rebel.  Perceiving this, Barbara had
+not spared her shafts; and the most deeply wounded of her victims had
+been the most assiduous of her admirers.  But of all the men who had
+been presented to her, danced with her, paid court to her, of all the
+women whom she had met, favoured, or in clash of glances subtly defied,
+she retained but a bright jumble of unassorted names and faces.  One
+only had gained a foothold in her remembrance.  A certain young officer
+in the colonial militia, one Cary Patten by name, had been presented to
+her by her uncle with particular commendation, as being altogether of
+his own way of thought; and him, for his laughing blue eyes, his frank
+mouth, his broad shoulders, and his boyish swagger, she had liked so
+well that he stood out among her impressions, and she felt it would be
+pleasant to meet him again.  In fact, to his open and immense elation,
+she had told him so.
+
+"Well, mistress mine, how did you like it?" asked Glenowen, as, candle
+in one hand and skirts in the other, she held up her face to be kissed
+good-night.
+
+"Oh, I loved it, Uncle Bob!" she answered, with conviction.
+
+"Well, it loved you!" said Uncle Bob.
+
+But as he turned away to his own room, he wondered if Barbara was
+really quite as satisfied as she professed, or whether her failure to
+meet Robert, and include him among the numbers of her slain, had
+clouded at all the splendour of her triumph.
+
+Two evenings later there was another ball, an altogether bigger and
+more imposing function, at the house of the Surveyor-General half a
+mile out of town.  At this, as she was told, every one would be
+present, and therefore, she agreed, Robert would certainly appear.
+With a view to circumstances which might conceivably arise in the event
+of Robert's appearance, she had with great difficulty kept a number of
+dances free, when her admiring cavaliers at the Van Griffs' were
+striving to fill her cards in advance.  If he should fail to
+come,--well, she had reason to think that she would not be left to
+languish unattended.
+
+Meanwhile, however, she little knew how violently her pretty scheme was
+being brought to nought, she little knew how emphatically Robert was
+being enlightened as to her presence in New York.  She should, indeed,
+have thought that the story of her triumphs at the Van Griffs' would
+reach his ears, for on the day following that event, her maid, a
+garrulous West Indian mulatto whom Glenowen had engaged immediately on
+their arrival, had told her over her toilet that her name was already
+the toast of the finest gentlemen in town.  But somehow it never
+occurred to her that Robert would hear anything.  She thought of him
+only as riding, or paddling a canoe, or sitting at his desk, or going
+to balls and wandering about alone, thinking of her, gravely smiling
+now and then, courteous, and silent.  As a vital factor in this
+glittering life he had never presented himself to her imagination,--or
+it is possible she might have written to him from Second Westings more
+often than twice or thrice in the year!
+
+The house of the Surveyor-General stood behind its trees far back from
+the road, on a series of terraces set with walks, parterres, trimmed
+hedges, statuary, and secret arbours.  The house was a blaze of light.
+The terraces were lighted with a gay discretion, here shining, there
+enshadowed.  As she drove up with her uncle in the coach, a little
+late, and heard the music and the musical babble of voices, Barbara
+thrilled deliciously, with a prescience that this was to be an eventful
+night.  She was no longer dazzled,--only strung to the highest tension.
+She realised that all this was her birthright, to be used, played with,
+thrown aside when tired of, but meanwhile enjoyed to the topmost pitch
+of relish,--hers just as much as the buttercup fields, the thrush-sweet
+orchards, the ancient woods of Connecticut.  She felt herself mistress
+of the situation.
+
+"Oh, Uncle Bob," she whispered, drawing a quick breath of anticipation,
+as she gave him her hand and stepped daintily from the coach, her
+high-buckled, high-heeled white satin slippers and little white silken
+ankles glimmering for an instant to the ensnaring of the favoured
+eye,--"oh, Uncle Bob, isn't it lovely?"
+
+"You are, my Barbe!" he answered, peering down with high content upon
+the small disastrous face half-hidden in the hood of her scarlet
+cardinal.
+
+"Let me tell you, Uncle Bob, you look extremely nice yourself!" she
+responded, squeezing his hand hard.  "I didn't see one other man at Mr.
+Van Griff's so handsome and distinguished-looking as you!"
+
+"Dear me!" retorted Glenowen, musingly, "what is the baggage going to
+ask me for to-morrow?  Whatever it be, she must have it!"
+
+Barbara reached her hostess with difficulty, and was given small time
+for her greetings.  All through her first dance she was so absorbed in
+looking for Robert that she paid scant attention to her partner's
+compliments, though she realised that they contained imcomprehensible
+veiled reference to something which she was supposed to know all about.
+To her partner, one Jerry Waite by name, her ignorance seemed assumed,
+and vastly well assumed; and presently with his growing admiration for
+her cleverness came a dread lest he should transgress, so he
+diplomatically shifted to new ground.  But had she not been quite
+absorbed in her quest, Barbara's most lively curiosity would have been
+awakened by his meaning words.
+
+At last she sat down by a curtained doorway and sent Mr. Waite to get
+her fan, that she might make up her mind as to the advisability of
+inquiring frankly about Robert.  Her scheme was working too slowly for
+her impatient spirit; and, moreover, it was beginning to dawn upon her
+that Robert might not unnaturally feel aggrieved, and perhaps even
+prove difficult and exasperating, if she did not see him soon.  She had
+about concluded to invoke the aid of Uncle Bob,--with whom she was by
+and by to dance the minuet,--when a word behind the curtain caught her
+ear.
+
+"La!  Mr. Gault!" cried a pretty, affected, high-pitched voice.  "Who
+thought we should be so favoured as to see you here to-night!  Not
+dancing, surely!  But 'twere less cruel to us poor maids to stay away
+entirely, than to come and let us look and pine in vain.  But you are
+very white,--sit down by me and tell me all about it.  La, there's
+nothing I so love!"
+
+It was Robert's voice that answered,--Robert's voice, but grown deeper,
+stronger, more assured, than as Barbara thought she remembered it.
+
+"It was nothing at all, dear Miss Betty,--a mere scratch!" he answered.
+"'Tis but the loss of a little blood makes me paler than ordinary, I
+suppose.  But the doctor said there was no reason in the world I should
+not look in on the gaieties for a minute or two,--and see what new
+wonder of a gown Miss Betty was wearing,--provided I gave my word not
+to dance."
+
+Barbara was conscious of the rustle of Miss Betty's flirtatious fan.
+
+"La, sir!" cried the pretty, high voice again, "you make light, of it;
+but they tell me it was very handsome done.  And is it true that poor
+Carberry is in a bad way?  Fie upon you, Mr. Gault, to spit an officer
+of the king and so strengthen the hands of the enemy."
+
+Barbara's heart was beating very fast.  So Robert had been fighting a
+duel, had he!  And been wounded,--but slightly!  And the quarrel with
+an officer of the king!  This looked as if her anxieties were
+unfounded.  But on the other hand, this loquacious girl--whom Barbara
+despised instantly and honestly--seemed to claim him as belonging to
+the king's party.  Barbara trembled with excitement, and with fear lest
+her absent escort should come back too soon.  He did come back, at that
+moment; but with a ravishing look that turned his brain she sent off
+again for an ice and a glass of punch.  Meanwhile her alert ears had
+heard Robert replying cheerfully to Miss Betty.
+
+"Oh, Carberry will be all right in a week or two," said he.  "'Twould
+much hasten his recovery were one to send him word of Miss Betty's
+solicitude.  A three weeks at most will take him off my conscience and
+the doctor's hands!"
+
+Here another voice intervened.
+
+"Traitress!" it exclaimed, "I have been seeking you this half-hour!"
+
+"Let me talk to Mr. Gault one moment more, Jack!" pleaded Miss Betty.
+"He was just going to tell me all about it,--weren't you, Mr. Gault?"
+
+"Not if I know Bob Gault," retorted the voice.  "Nay, nay, dear lady, I
+will yield you not one minute more to Gault, on any pretext.  Shall I
+court disaster by leaving the most fickle as the fairest of her sex to
+the wiles of this pale hero, this wounded champion of dames!"
+
+"You're right, Jack!" cried Miss Betty.  "I see he's dying with
+impatience to go and find her, and claim a champion's reward!  She's
+here, Mr. Gault.  I saw her but a moment back.  Go wherever you see the
+men a-crowding fiercest!"
+
+So Robert had fought for some woman, had he?  He had a tie, then!
+Barbara felt a tightening about her heart, an impulse to rush from the
+room.  Then she said to herself, "What more natural?  What are we but
+the best of friends?  And have I ever been really nice to him?"
+Promptly anger took the place of the unreasonable hurt; and the anger
+made her cool upon the surface, so that she had herself well gathered
+in hand when the curtain was pushed aside, and Robert came
+through--just at the same moment that her partner came up with the
+punch.
+
+Robert sprang forward with face transfigured.  But to Barbara's chagrin
+he did not seem at all surprised.
+
+"I am glad to see you, Robert!" she said, gravely, holding out her hand.
+
+Robert bent over it and kissed it in silence, unable, for the moment,
+to find his voice.
+
+"Are you not glad to see me--to see an old friend out of the old days?"
+asked Barbara.
+
+"I have no words to tell you how glad I am, my dear lady!" he answered,
+in a low voice, wishing that Jerry Waite would have sense enough to go
+away, instead of standing there in that idiotic fashion with the punch.
+
+"But aren't you _surprised_ to see me, Robert?" Barbara went on,
+forgetful of Mr. Waite and the punch.
+
+"I suppose I ought to be surprised, my lady," answered Robert, with
+some bitterness in his tone, "surprised that you have condescended to
+see me at all, in view of the length of time you have been here without
+letting me know!  I learned yesterday of your coming--after every one
+in town apparently knew of it!"
+
+To Jerry Waite the scene was utterly incomprehensible.  Oblivious to
+all good manners, he was staring open-mouthed.  Barbara saw the
+astonishment in his face, quite naturally misunderstood it, and flushed
+angrily.  The pain and wrath which she had by such an effort of will
+crushed down in her heart crept up again stealthily, and began to
+mingle unrecognised with this superficial annoyance.
+
+"I had thought to surprise you,--a harmless little play, Robert, to see
+if you would recognise an old, old friend grown up!" she said, in a
+cool voice.  "But since you are so dissatisfied, we had better not talk
+about it.  You may call and see me some day soon, if you like.  I am
+just around the corner, on State Street.  Uncle Bob will give you the
+address.  Will you take me back to my seat, Mr. Waite?  Thank you so
+much for the punch."
+
+Robert could not believe his ears.  Was he dismissed for the evening?
+The blood began to beat fiercely in his head.
+
+"But, Barbara," he exclaimed, "aren't you going to give me at least
+_one_ dance?--  Hold on, Waite, just a minute, will you!--  You can't
+be engaged for all so early in the evening.  I came at the very first,
+in hopes of catching you and getting several."
+
+Barbara paused.  By this time the thought of that other woman, for whom
+he had fought,--for whom he was wounded,--for whom he carried now this
+pallor,--for whom he had been too impatient to talk to Miss Betty
+behind the curtain,--the thought of that other woman was gnawing at her
+brain in a way to confuse her judgment.  She was not exactly in love
+with Robert, but she was intensely interested, and in the course of the
+years a sense of proprietorship had grown up.  The idea of another
+woman, with a prior claim, outraged her pride at the same time that it
+wrenched her heart with a sense of irremediable loss.
+
+"You are not dancing, I understand, Robert," she said, looking coldly
+into his eyes.
+
+Robert's heart gave an exultant leap.  She knew about the duel, then!
+
+"I had thought, my lady," said he, softly, "that you might, under the
+circumstances, consent to forego a dance or two, and talk with me about
+old times."
+
+The circumstances, indeed!  Barbara's eyes blazed in spite of all her
+efforts at self-control.  This was insolence.  Yet she could in no way
+show she recognised it.  For a second or two she held her tongue.
+
+"I hear you have been greatly distinguishing yourself, Robert," she
+answered, in a voice of somewhat artificial sweetness, "and have taken
+some hurt in the affair, and really should not be here at all!"  She
+looked at her tablets with hypocritical care.  "You should have found
+me earlier.  I shall not be free to give you a dance for _hours_
+yet,--not till quite near the last.  You will probably not be able to
+stay so long!"
+
+Robert grew tenfold whiter than before, and his mouth set itself like
+iron.  She knew,--it was clear she knew,--and yet she could act in this
+hopelessly light, cruel, merciless way.  It was inhuman.  Had she no
+spark of womanly tenderness?  He would trouble her no more.
+
+"No, I shall not stay," he said, quietly.  "Good-night, Mistress Ladd!
+Good-night, Waite!"  He took her outstretched hand so lightly that she
+saw rather than felt that he had taken it; bowed over it, so low that
+he seemed to kiss it, yet did not actually touch it with his lips; then
+nodded civilly to Waite, strode off down the side of the room, through
+the door, and was gone.  Barbara little guessed the many eyes that had
+watched and wondered at the episode.  She imagined that all were quite
+engrossed in the dancing.
+
+"Now please take me to the other room, Mr. Waite!" she commanded.  "I
+fear I was engaged for this very dance, and my partner will think me
+rude!"
+
+Waite was in hopeless bewilderment.  He particularly liked and admired
+Robert Gault.  He was silent for a few moments, and then exclaimed with
+seeming irrelevance: "Women do beat me!"
+
+Barbara looked up at him quickly, as she took her seat.
+
+"What do you mean?" she asked.
+
+"I beg your pardon, most fair and inexplicable Mistress Ladd," replied
+Waite, who had been puzzled almost out of his manners, "but,--if you
+will permit me to say it,--if this be the fate of your friends, what,
+oh, what must be the fate of your enemies!"
+
+"I don't understand you!" said Barbara, haughtily.  "Pray explain
+yourself!"  But just then a young scarlet-coated officer, Nevil Paget,
+came up, claiming the hand of Mistress Ladd; and Jerry Waite, who had
+begun to realise that he was in deep water, hailed the rescue gladly.
+
+"I shall have the honour to claim you again, gracious mistress," said
+he, "and I shall explain myself then, if you bid me.  Meanwhile, I make
+way for those more fortunate than I."
+
+And now, in her bitterness and disappointment, Barbara flung herself
+heart and soul into the folly.  When the young Englishman started to
+speak of a duel, she shut him up so mercilessly that for five minutes
+he durst not open his mouth.  But she proceeded to flirt and bedazzle
+him, half flouting, half flattering, till in five minutes more he was
+nigh ready to fling all the pedigree of all the Pagets at her small,
+light-dancing feet and beg her to dance upon it her whole life long.
+She danced everything, and between the dances held a court more crowded
+and more devoted than that which had paid her homage at the Van
+Griffs'.  She was deaf to all attempts to lure her out upon the fairy
+terraces, because when she first saw them she had decided that Robert
+should take her out there to tell her what a wonderful surprise she had
+given him.  But the men whom she refused were not driven away by her
+denial.  She mixed bitter and sweet for them all so cunningly that none
+could tell in which of the twain lay the magic that held them thrall.
+And all the while her heart smouldered in her breast like a hot coal in
+the ash.
+
+At length came her minuet with Glenowen; and after it her uncle, who
+thought he detected something feverish in her gaiety, and felt moved to
+cool it a little if he might without damage, asked her if she had seen
+Robert.
+
+"For a moment or two," she answered, with an indifference beyond reason.
+
+Glenowen had heard all the story of the duel, and wondered what had
+gone wrong.
+
+"Why did he go home, sweetheart, so soon after our coming?" he inquired.
+
+"Did he go home?" she queried, casually.  "You know he was hardly fit
+to be out.  Even heroes can't stand the loss of blood!"
+
+"What did you do to him, child?" persisted Glenowen.
+
+This questioning chafed on Barbara's raw and bleeding nerves.
+
+"Robert made himself very disagreeable," she replied, crisply.  "I
+showed that I was disappointed in him, and he seems to have got angry
+and gone home!"
+
+"Disappointed in him!" exclaimed Glenowen.  Then he hesitated, and went
+on: "Really, Barbara, are you quite human?  Forgive me if I--"
+
+Barbara faced him squarely, and he felt, though he could not see, the
+flood of tears pent up behind her shining eyes.
+
+"Uncle Bob!" she whispered, in a tense voice, "if you are going to
+criticise, take me home _right away_.  I can't stand one thing more!"
+
+Glenowen knew her better than any one else ever could, and his
+displeasure melted as he caught signal of a distress which he did not
+understand.  Yet he knew better than to be too sympathetic, having more
+than once experienced the perilous relaxing powers of sympathy.
+
+"Well, well, sweetheart," he laughed, lightly, "forgive me.  I've no
+doubt it would seem all right if I knew.  And what does it matter to me
+about Bobby Gault, anyhow, so long as my little girl is happy?"
+
+"She isn't happy, Uncle Bob!  But that isn't _your_ fault, you dear,
+not ever in the world!"
+
+As they moved apart from the promenading throng, and paused at an open
+window overlooking the terraces, Barbara's ears, acute as those of the
+furtive kindred in Westings forest, again caught a word that was not
+intended for them.  She saw two painted and tower-headed dames, sitting
+not far from the window, point her out to another who had just taken a
+seat beside them; and she heard the newcomer remark, behind her fan:
+
+"That ugly little rebel!  Insult an officer of the king's troops for
+her!"
+
+Barbara's face flushed scarlet, and she looked at her uncle.  But he
+had heard nothing,--and she remembered that her ears were keener than
+those of other people.  The remark, however, puzzled her, and started a
+vague, troublesome misgiving.  Thereafter she found it difficult to
+resume the spontaneous fervour of her gaiety.  Fits of abstraction
+would take her unawares; but her courtiers thought them merely another
+touch of art, effective as they were unexpected.  She was now looking
+forward to the dance with Jerry Waite, and the explanation which he had
+so rashly promised.  She had intended to snub him severely, but when he
+came for her at last he found her altogether gracious.
+
+"Would you mind very much if we sat somewhere and talked, instead of
+dancing?" she asked.  And Waite, nothing loth, led her to a seat just
+beyond the long windows,--nearer to the terrace than any other man had
+succeeded in getting her to go.  This filled him with elation, and he
+was glad, rather than otherwise, that she had refused to go out among
+the walks and arbours.  Here his triumph was visible every moment to
+his disappointed rivals.  He was, of course, like the rest, half
+infatuated with Barbara; but being a sane youth, with a sense of
+humour, he knew the difference between infatuation and half
+infatuation.  He imagined there was more between Barbara and Robert
+than there really was; and he did not hold himself any match for Robert
+in a race for hearts.  Therefore, he was capable of thinking of his own
+prestige.  And to heighten that he had an inspiration.  When, after
+waiting till she could wait no longer, for him to bring up the subject,
+Barbara asked him to give her the promised explanation of his remark,
+he fenced cleverly till the time was close at hand when he knew she
+would be claimed by another partner.  He saw this prospective partner,
+Cary Patten, eyeing her hungrily, ready to swoop down and take
+possession at the first permissible moment.  Then he said: "In very
+truth, fair mistress, the explanation necessitates a long story.  To
+tell you a little would leave me in a worse light than I could endure
+you to behold me in.  The story comes first,--and then the explanation
+follows with ease!"
+
+"When will you explain?  My curiosity has been most artistically
+aroused!" said Barbara, maintaining with an effort her tone of
+sprightly merriment.
+
+"If I might have the honour of waiting upon you to-morrow, I am bold to
+hope I might succeed in interesting you!" suggested Waite.
+
+"You may come in the morning," answered Barbara, promptly.  "Say about
+eleven o'clock."
+
+The delighted Jerry was ceremoniously bowing his gratitude for this
+command, conscious that it would make him the envied of all the
+gallants of Manhattan, when Cary Patten came up and carried Barbara off
+with rather more eagerness than ceremony.  He had been most hard hit of
+all her victims at the Van Griffs' ball, and had experienced deep
+dejection over the rumour which had that day associated her name with
+Robert Gault's.  Robert's early departure from the ball had somewhat
+cheered him, however; and now, with that simplicity, not unlike
+Barbara's own, born of secure family position and careless disregard of
+convention, he determined to find out if the field were open.  He saw
+that Barbara was distinctly friendly to him,--whether for his own sake
+or for what Glenowen had told her of his sympathies,--and he trusted to
+his directness to disarm her possible resentment of his questioning.
+
+"If you will pardon me, gracious lady," he began, after the customary
+interchange of compliment, "I am going to ask you something about our
+friend Gault.  Carberry was accounted till to-day the best sword in the
+colony.  Now he stands second best!  It took uncommon high courage or
+uncommon deep interest in the quarrel, to cross swords with such a
+master,--but, of course--"
+
+Barbara's face changed, and she interrupted him crisply.  His first
+phrases had been interesting enough, but at the words "uncommon deep
+interest in the quarrel," the vision of that unknown woman floated up
+and laughed in her face.
+
+"I am weary of the subject, Captain Patten.  It seems to me it should
+be possible to talk of something else.  If not, let us listen to the
+music, please!"
+
+Never before had Cary Patten been so snubbed.  The experience was novel
+to him, and he did not like it.  But he found more than ample
+compensation in the thought that Barbara's words showed no impassioned
+interest in Robert Gault!  If such a fight, and in such a cause, left
+her indifferent, then surely he need have no great fear of Robert as a
+rival.  To be sure, he thought Barbara's indifference a little cruel, a
+little heartless,--but so much the greater the reward if he could
+awaken heart in this flashing, audacious, irresistible little witch.
+Cary Patten had small knowledge of the feminine heart, being much
+absorbed in his boyish ambitions, his dreams of splendid daring; and he
+had a healthy, well-founded faith in his own powers.  His bright,
+handsome face looked glum for a moment or two; then he laughed frankly
+and cried:
+
+"Served me just right, for being so bold, sweet mistress.  I implore
+you forgive me, and be friends!  On bended knee I sue--to speak
+figuratively.  I dare not do it in fact, you know, else all the men in
+the room would be on their knees about you, which would look singular!"
+
+Yes, he was a nice boy, and Barbara not only forgave him, but tried to
+resume her old gaiety for his pleasure.  So far as his pleasure was
+concerned, she succeeded; though older and keener eyes than Cary
+Patten's would have seen that her mirth was forced.  He left her
+feeling that he had made no small progress; and he trod on air in his
+elation because she had promised him no less than three dances at the
+very next ball at which they should meet.  His succeeding partners
+found him tender but absent-minded,--a combination which they
+interpreted to their advantage or otherwise, according to their
+knowledge of men's hearts.
+
+But as for Barbara's heart, it was now yielding to the strain, and she
+felt that she could keep up the play no longer.  Her anger had given
+out before the need of it, as a stimulant to flirtation, was past.
+Only pain, humiliation, disappointment, remained to her, and she felt
+that if she did not get away at once something would happen.  With all
+the obstinate force of her will she kept a hold upon her imperious
+vivacity, and would hear no appeals when her next partner was bidden to
+fetch her uncle and call her coach.
+
+"Take me home, _please_, Uncle Bob!" she pleaded; and he, after a
+glance into her eyes, yielded comprehendingly.  Her reason for going,
+indeed, he did not comprehend; but her need of going he comprehended
+instantly.  Till the very last moment she kept herself at pitch,
+laughing, sweetly jibing, taunting, provoking, inviting, so that the
+men who insisted on helping Glenowen escort her to her coach felt that
+the glitter had gone from the dance with her departure.  But once safe
+inside the coach, and beyond the lights, she flung herself upon Uncle
+Bob's neck and broke into a storm of sobbing.  She vouchsafed no
+explanation, and the sagacious Glenowen asked no questions; and she
+wept, intermittently, all the way to the high-stooped old Dutch house
+on State Street.  To such a bitter end had come the evening, the
+wondrous evening, of which she had hoped, expected, claimed so much!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+Barbara slept little, but lay late, and Glenowen was away about
+business ere she appeared.  By the time her caller arrived she was
+fairly herself, only subdued in spirit, sorrowful, and homesick.  She
+had taken pains, however, that her morning toilet should be becoming;
+and Jerry Waite thought her pallor, the shadows about her great grave
+eyes, the wistfulness of her scarlet mouth, even more enchanting than
+her radiance and sparkle of the night before.
+
+"This is most gracious of you, fair lady, to let me come so soon!" he
+murmured ecstatically, over the rosy brown tips of her slim fingers.
+"Did the other men but know of it, I should have feared for my life to
+come without a guard!"
+
+Barbara smiled faintly, willing to appreciate his flatteries, but in no
+mood for badinage and quip.
+
+"Nay, sir!" she answered, "do not lay it to my graciousness, which is
+scant to even so charming a gentleman as Mr. Waite, but to my
+curiosity, which I acknowledge to be great and insistent.  Tell me this
+wonderful thing you promised to tell me!"
+
+Jerry Waite assumed an air of mock supplication.
+
+"I implore you, dear lady, suffer me for one moment to delude myself
+with the ravishing dream that 'twas for my company, no less than for my
+story, that you permitted me to come.--  What, no, not for one moment
+the sweet delusion?"
+
+Barbara shook her head resolutely.
+
+"No, first deserve favour, before you presume to claim it, sir!" she
+retorted.  "Earn my grace by a story as interesting as you have led me
+to expect.  Then, perhaps, I may like you well enough to let you stay
+awhile, for the sake of your company!"
+
+"So be it, if so the queen decrees!" said Waite.  "My little story is
+about a duel, of which, as I gathered last night, the fairest
+but--pardon me--not always the most gracious of her sex knows a little,
+but not the most interesting details!"
+
+"I have heard too much already of this duel!" interrupted Barbara.  "I
+do not understand how it concerns me!"
+
+"Oh, lady, this impatience of yours!" said Waite, watching her keenly.
+"How can you expect to understand the manner in which it concerns you,
+if you will not let any one tell you the story?  I stand pledged to
+make the story interesting on pain of forfeiting your good will!"
+
+"Well," agreed Barbara, with seeming reluctance.  In very truth she was
+trembling with eagerness for him to go on.  "But, I pray you, be as
+brief as is consistent with justice to your claim as a narrator!"
+
+"I will be most brief!" said Waite.  "For the merit lies in the story
+itself, not in the fashion of the telling.  Yesterday, a little after
+the noon hour, some half-score gentlemen were gathered by chance in
+Pym's Ordinary, where many of us frequent for the latest bit of gossip.
+There was talk of this, that, and the other, but most of the charms of
+a lady whom we know and reverence--"
+
+"Who was she?" asked Barbara.
+
+But Waite, intent upon his story, paid no heed.
+
+"The praises, the compliments, the eulogiums," he went on, "that were
+heaped upon this magical name seemed to show that every man was at her
+feet.  All but Carberry.  Captain Carberry is a chill-souled, carping,
+sarcastical fellow, and arrogant withal, by reason of the unmatched
+agility of his blade.  It had pleased him to be displeased by certain
+sweet, if a trifle pungent, sprightlinesses of the lady in question;
+and now his comments ran sharply counter to those of the rest of the
+company.  He did not admire her at all,--which was, of course, within
+his undoubted rights, however it discredited his taste.  But presently
+his criticisms became a trifle harsher than was fitting; and there was
+a moment of uneasy silence.  Then, clear upon the silence, Gault
+spoke,--Gault, who had hitherto been listening without a word.
+
+"'Carberry,' said he, quietly, 'you have said just enough.  One word
+more will be too much!'
+
+"Every one held his breath.  There was an ugly look about Gault's
+mouth, and we trembled for him.  He is liked, you know; while Carberry,
+a man ten years older, is feared.  Carberry looked Bob over, with a
+supercilious smile, which meant mischief, as we knew, and then drawled
+slowly:
+
+"'I shall say whatever it may please me to say about that damned
+little--'  But no one was to hear the sentence finished.  We can never
+have our curiosity certainly satisfied as to that word, which just then
+got smashed beyond recognition behind Carberry's teeth.  It was
+probably not so very bad a word, if the truth were known.  Bob was
+taking no risks on that score.  His blow was straight as a bullet; and
+Carberry went sprawling over two chairs and a table.
+
+"When he picked himself up he was quite cool,--collected and
+businesslike.  That we knew to be his deadly way, and we trembled for
+Bob.  Bob, however, seemed as easy in his mind as Carberry.  The two of
+them, indeed, were so deuced civil you might have thought they were
+arranging to marry each other's sisters.  There was no time lost, you
+may be sure.  Seconds were chosen, terms agreed upon, a doctor sent
+for, and we promptly made up a little pleasure party to the woods.
+
+"As for the fight, dear lady, I spare your gentle soul the details.  It
+lacked just one element of interest to the connoisseur,--both
+combatants fought in one fashion.  There was no contrast, such as one
+might have expected between a boy of twenty-three and a veteran of
+thirty-six.  At the very first Carberry had attacked with fury,--but
+when he felt the quality of Bob's wrist he saw it was not a case for
+bluster, and settled down to business.  Both fought smiling, alike
+cool, wary, dangerous, sure of the result.  Where and when Bob learned
+it, we none of us knew.  He is a queer, reticent chap in some ways.
+But learned it he had,--and I, who like to study faces, saw the tinge
+of surprise in Carberry's face pass to admiration.  His rage was
+forgotten in the exhilaration of his favourite game.  I never again
+expect to see two blades so nicely matched.  The excitement to us
+watchers grew intense, till our knees felt weak.  But they two seemed
+as fresh as when they started.
+
+"At last--'a touch!" said Carberry,--and then, by the slight hissing of
+the words between his teeth I realised the strain.
+
+"'Not at all!' answered Robert,--and his words, too, came hissingly,
+for all the easy smile upon his lips.  Then both grew white.  And for a
+few minutes there was no change.  And it seemed to us that our eyes
+could follow the blades no longer.  And then--for the life of me I
+could not see how it happened--a red stain came on the shoulder of
+Bob's shirt; and in the next second Carberry, letting his sword fall,
+dropped in a heap.
+
+"Before we could recover our astonishment, Robert and the doctor
+together were bending over the wounded man, and had his shirt ripped
+open.  'I've got it, eh?' said Carberry, faintly.  'A fair, clean
+thrust, an' served me damn well right!'  And he held out his hand to
+Bob,--who grasped it with both his, and looked now, all of a sudden,
+like a boy ready to cry.
+
+"'Stuff and nonsense, Captain!' exclaimed the doctor.  'You've not got
+your quietus with _this_ bare bodkin.  You'll be all right, sound as
+ever, in a month, a fortnight maybe!'
+
+"'Thank God!' cried Robert.
+
+"'My sentiments exactly!' said Carberry, his voice stronger with the
+knowledge that he was not dying.  'Gault, my compliments, with my best
+apologies!  Great sword, my boy, great--' and with that he swooned from
+the pain and loss of blood.  And we, very happy that all had ended so
+happily, got him to the coach, and so home.  And the rest, dear
+Mistress Ladd, you know!"
+
+"A mighty interesting story, I admit!" said Barbara.  "But still I ask,
+of what especial, immediate interest to me?"
+
+Waite looked at her curiously.  Was it possible she could be so blind?
+But her wide eyes were innocent of all comprehension.  It suddenly
+occurred to him that, new come to town as she was, she found it
+impossible to imagine _her_ name the theme of tongues.  He began to
+understand.
+
+"You know the lady," said he, and paused.
+
+"Well, sir, 'tis possible.  I have met many in the few days that I have
+been in New York.  What is her name--since you seem to hold it an
+important matter."
+
+"Her name, dear lady--her name is one that stirs a thrill of admiring
+homage in all our hearts.  It is--_Mistress Barbara Ladd_!"
+
+Barbara caught her breath, and her eyes dilated.
+
+"What?" she cried, though she had heard quite clearly.
+
+"Her name is Mistress Barbara Ladd!" repeated Jerry Waite.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Waite.  No!  No!  Don't tell me it was on my account that
+Robert fought.  Impossible!  He might have been killed!  And I
+thought--" but she stopped herself in time, without saying what it was
+she had thought.
+
+Jerry Waite became serious.
+
+"It seems to me, dear lady, that your thought, whatever it was, did
+Gault an injustice," said he, gently.  "And that is my explanation.  Am
+I forgiven?"
+
+Barbara conquered her distress.  This was the easier--after the first
+pang of remorse--because the fact that Robert had not failed her soon
+overtopped in her mind the fact that she had failed Robert.  That
+unknown woman--the hateful vision vanished in a burst of light.  The
+ache of loss was healed in her heart.  She was reinstated, too, in her
+self-esteem.  New York grew bright again.  Her conquests were once more
+worth while.  Robert should behold them all,--and be one of them,--the
+most subjugated of them all.  At last her face grew radiant,--her eyes
+dancing, her teeth flashing, her mouth the reddest rose, her clear
+brown cheeks softly aflush.
+
+"Yes, indeed, Mr. Waite," she cried, holding out her hand.  "It is a
+beautiful story, and wins you a very high place in my regard.  You may
+stay and talk to me till dinner-time, if you like; and then my uncle
+will be glad to have you dine with us!"
+
+The first part of the invitation Waite accepted with alacrity, and
+cursed himself bitterly that he had an engagement to prevent him
+staying for dinner.  In the conversation that followed Barbara gained
+him and chained him fast, not as a mad, intoxicated lover, but as one
+of the best and most loyal of her friends.  But the moment he was gone
+she rushed to her scrutoir and in fierce haste scribbled a note.  It
+ran:
+
+
+"DEAR ROBERT:--I did not understand at all.  I thought something quite
+different from the truth.  I have just found out about things.  Please
+come and talk to me till dinner-time, if you like; and then let me tell
+you how perfectly horrid I think myself.
+
+"BARBARA."
+
+
+This she sealed with a care that contrasted curiously with the haste
+with which she had written it.  Then she called her maid and sent it
+around to the stately-doorwayed office on Bowling Green.
+
+The answer that came was merely a bunch of dark red roses, with never a
+written word; but Barbara found it quite satisfactory.  To Robert it
+would have seemed superfluous to have said he would come.  Barbara made
+her toilet with especial care, selecting everything with a view to
+making herself look as nearly as possible like the Barbara of the old
+Second Westings days.  As she surveyed herself in the glass, she was
+astonished at the result.  Had she really put the hands of time back
+five years?  As she remembered, she had looked just so on the afternoon
+when Robert came, and found her in the apple-tree reading "Clarissa."
+It was three o'clock already,--and Robert had been waiting already half
+an hour in the drawing-room below,--but she took yet a few minutes more
+for a finishing touch.  She basted up a deep tuck in her
+petticoat,--about half an inch off for each year blotted from her
+calendar,--and then, with flaming eyes and mouth wreathed in laughter,
+she ran down to receive her guest.  It was the direct obverse of the
+meeting she had planned.
+
+"Did you ride over, Robert?  Or did you come in the canoe?" she asked,
+as if she had but that moment jumped down out of the apple-tree.
+
+"Barbara!" he cried, and seized and kissed both hands.
+
+"I was beginning to fear that you had forgotten the way to Second
+Westings!" she went on, in gay reproach.  "Why, it is _weeks_ since you
+were over; and the young catbirds in the currant bush have grown their
+wings and flown; and the goldenrod's in flower; and the 'Early
+Harvests' are beginning to turn red on the old apple-tree over by the
+gate; and how will you explain your long absence, sir, to Aunt Hitty,
+and Doctor John, and Doctor Jim, I'd like to know!"
+
+Robert was devouring her with his eyes as she spoke.  "Oh, you do
+indeed look just as you did that day I found you in the apple-tree!" he
+cried, at last.  "So weary long ago,--yet now, sweet lady, it seems but
+now!"
+
+"Let us play it is but now," laughed Barbara.
+
+"Yes," said Robert,--"but _please_ don't send me right away to Doctor
+Jim, as you did that morning!  I will try not to incur your
+displeasure.  And don't be in such a hurry to get back to 'Clarissa' as
+you were then!"
+
+So all the afternoon they talked the language and the themes of Second
+Westings, with the difference that Barbara was all graciousness,
+instead of her old mixture of acid and sweet.  And when Glenowen came
+in to supper he was admitted to the game, and played it with a relish.
+And when, after supper, the three went riding, they took what they
+swore to be the Westings Landing Road,--though certain of the
+landmarks, as they could not but agree, looked unfamiliar.  Almost they
+persuaded themselves that on their return they might entreat Mistress
+Mehitable to brew them a sack posset.
+
+It was not till three days later, when Robert was begging more than his
+share of dances for a ball to be given that night at Government House,
+that Barbara explained--lightly and laughingly, but in a way that
+suffered Robert to understand--her quite inadequate reasons for having
+treated him so cavalierly on the evening after his duel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+For the next few weeks Barbara enjoyed herself without stint, and found
+New York quite all that she had painted it.  To Robert she now
+vouchsafed sufficient favour to keep him fairly happy and good
+company,--or, at least, to enable him to make himself good company by
+an effort of will.  Yet she held him on the chilly side of that
+frontier which separates the lover from the comrade.  He was her
+favoured escort, but not so favoured that other admirers could fancy
+themselves warned from the field.  And he was kept restless, tormented,
+jealous.  He was made to feel--as others were allowed to think--that
+his primacy in privilege was based solely upon old friendship and
+familiar memories.  But the moment he attempted to crowd aside the new
+friends,--among whom Cary Patten, Jerry Waite, and young Paget caused
+him especial worry,--Barbara would seem to forget all their intimacy
+and relegate him to a position somewhat more remote than that of the
+merest acquaintance.  The utmost that he durst claim at any time was a
+certain slight precedence in her train of devoted cavaliers.  She
+danced, rode, flirted, with something so near approaching impartiality
+that she let no moth quite feel itself a fool in scorching its wings at
+her eyes.  Yet no one could presume upon her graciousness; and no one
+but Cary Patten had the temerity to push his suit to the point where
+she was put on the defensive.  Cary Patten was promptly dismissed.  But
+when he as promptly came back on the very first occasion, she had
+forgotten the matter, and remembered only how she liked his honest
+boyishness, his sanguine boldness.  Cary, applying one of those general
+rules which were apt to be so inapplicable in the special case of
+Barbara, decided that not one, nor indeed a dozen, refusals need reduce
+him to despair!  And Barbara, when afterward she came to think of it,
+liked Cary Patten the better because he had not sulked over his defeat.
+
+Meanwhile Barbara was exercising a restraint upon one point, which was
+in flat contradiction to her wonted directness.  She was carefully
+avoiding, in Robert's presence, a discussion of those political
+questions with which the whole country, from Maine to Georgia, was then
+seething.  This was easier than it would have been even a few weeks
+before, for the reason that as the differences grew more deadly society
+grew more cautious about letting them intrude themselves among its
+smooth observances.  Barbara, in fact, had come to fear the inevitable
+discussion with Robert.  She knew he was identified with the Tory
+party, but she did not know how far.  And she feared her own heat of
+partisanship not less than his resolution--which she called obstinacy.
+So, by tacit consent, she and Robert gave wide berth to the perilous
+theme; till at length their avoidance of it, when it was thrilling on
+the very air they breathed, made it begin to loom all the larger and
+darker between them.  Presently the apprehension that it was an
+impending peril to their relation drove Robert to speak, precipitately,
+on the subject that was bursting his heart night and day.
+
+They had just come in from an afternoon ride, and were alone in the
+drawing-room.  Barbara was in high good humour; and Robert seized the
+moment to ask leave to return that same evening.
+
+"I'm sorry, Robert!  I'd love to have you come," she replied.  "But
+I've promised the evening to Cary Patten.  He wants to bring his fiddle
+and try over some new music with me."
+
+Robert's face darkened.
+
+"Cary Patten seems to be here all the time!" he exclaimed, with natural
+exaggeration.
+
+"What nonsense!  You know that's not true, Robert.  He's not here
+_half_ as much as you are.  But if he were, what of it?  He's very
+good-looking, and Uncle Bob and I both like him, and, indeed, he's
+_much_ more _entertaining_ than you, Robert!"
+
+Robert walked quickly across the room and back, then seized both her
+slim brown wrists in a grip whose severity she rather liked.  She felt
+that something disturbing was at hand, however, and she braced her wits
+to manage it.
+
+"Barbara,--my lady,--my lady,--I love you!" he said, very quietly.
+
+"Of course, Robert!  I know that," she answered, with composure,
+smiling up at him, and making no effort to free her wrists.  Yet in
+some way her smile checked him, as he was about to crush her in his
+arms.  His breast ached fiercely so to crush her, yet it was impossible.
+
+"With all my heart and soul, my lady," he went on, his voice on the
+dead level of intense emotion, "with every drop of blood in my body, I
+love you, I have loved you, ever since the old child days in Second
+Westings!"
+
+"That is very dear of you, Robert," she responded, her voice and eyes
+showing nothing but frank pleasure at his words.  "But, of course, I
+have always known that," which was not quite true, though it seemed
+true to her at the moment.
+
+He could not tell what there was in this answer to hold him back, or if
+it was the frankness of her eyes that daunted him, but he began to feel
+that, so far from clasping her to his heart and satisfying his lips
+upon her eyes, her hair, her mouth, he had no right even to be holding
+her wrists as he was.  He flung them from him, drew back a step, and
+searched her face with a desperate look.
+
+"And you--you do not love me at all!"
+
+Barbara looked thoughtful, regretful.
+
+"No, Robert, I don't _love_ you--not in the way you mean.  I'm not in
+love with you, you know.  But I do care a lot for you, more than for
+_almost_ any one else!"
+
+They had both forgotten--for it was weeks away--how Barbara had felt
+about the imaginary unknown lady.
+
+That "almost" was, to Robert, the end of all things.  He thought at
+once of Cary Patten.  Pain and jealous madness struggled together in
+his breast, strangling him.
+
+"Good-bye!" he said at last, finding his voice, and turning to the
+door.  "I shall leave to-night!"
+
+"Robert!" cried Barbara, sharply.  "Come back at once!"
+
+He paused near the door, half turned, as if compelled by mere civility,
+but showed no sign of obeying.
+
+"Come back to me!" she commanded.  And he, being a courteous gentleman,
+obeyed.
+
+"What is it, lady?"
+
+"What on earth do you mean by being so crazy?" she demanded.
+
+No answer occurred to him as necessary.  He looked at her inquiringly,
+his face very white, his eyes deep sunken, his lips straight and hard.
+Barbara began to regret that she had not managed in some other way.
+She certainly could not let him go.  Yet she certainly did not love him
+enough to give up her freedom for him,--to sacrifice all the enchanting
+experience of which she had not yet begun to tire, to dismiss all the
+interesting men, whose homage was so sweet to her young, unsatiated
+vanity.
+
+"Don't you know, Robert," she went on, beguilingly, "that I _couldn't
+possibly_ get along without you?  I don't love you, but I do love you
+to love me, you know.  I couldn't bear to have you go away and forget
+me, and love some other woman,--some kind, sweet, beautiful woman who
+could love you and make you happy.  I need you to love me.  Though I
+know there is no earthly reason why you should, and I think you are a
+crazy goose to do it, and I believe you only think you do, anyhow!"
+
+Robert stood motionless.  The storm raging up and down within him
+turned him to steel on the surface.  From a dry throat he tried to
+speak clearly and with moderation.
+
+"You said--'almost!'  Who is it--you care more for?--Cary Patten?"
+
+Barbara broke into a clear peal of laughter, and clapped her hands with
+a fine assumption of glee.
+
+"Oh, you silly, silly child!" she exclaimed.  "It was Uncle Bob, of
+course, that I was thinking of when I said that.  I love Uncle Bob
+better than any one else in the world,--_far_ better than I love you,
+Robert, I can tell you that.  But I care for you almost as much as for
+Aunt Hitty.  Cary Patten!  Why, he and these other nice men who are
+making things so pleasant for me, they are just _new_ friends.  I
+_like_ them, that's all.  You are altogether different, you know.  But
+I'm just not in love with you,--and so you talk of going away and
+spoiling everything for me.  I don't call that loving me, Robert,--not
+as _I_ would love a girl if I were a man.  But it's not my fault if I'm
+not in love myself, is it?  I'm sorry,--but I don't believe I _can_
+love, really, the way you mean!  Cary Patten, indeed!  Why, he's just a
+boy,--a nice, good-looking, saucy, conceited boy!"
+
+"Can't you try to love me, Barbara?" pleaded Robert, his wrath all
+gone.  He flung himself down at her feet, and wildly kissed them.  All
+this she permitted smilingly, but the request seemed to her, as it was,
+a very foolish one.
+
+"No, I can't!" she answered, with decision.  "Trying wouldn't make me.
+And I don't think I want to, anyhow.  I want to enjoy myself here while
+I can.  And I want you to be nice, and help me enjoy myself, and not
+bother me.  Love me just as much as you like, Robert, but don't tell me
+so--too often!  And don't ask me to love you.  And _don't_ go and be
+lovely to the other girls, and make believe you are not in love with
+me, for that would displease me very much, though I should know it was
+making believe because you were cross at me.  So, don't be horrid!"
+
+This seemed to Robert a somewhat one-sided arrangement.  He knew he
+would accept it, yet his honesty compelled him to express his sense of
+its injustice.
+
+"I certainly would be lovely to the other girls if I wanted to, my
+lady," said he, doggedly.  "The trouble is, I _don't_ want to.  And I
+sha'n't bore myself just for the sake of trying to make you think I
+don't care.  I love you, that's all--better than anything else in
+heaven or earth.  And I shall make you love me, my lady!"
+
+This threat amused Barbara, but did not displease her.
+
+"Very well, Robert," she answered, with a teasing, alluring look that
+made his heart jump.  "I sha'n't try to prevent you.  I'll even like
+you a little better now, at once, if you will go right away this minute
+and let me dress."
+
+"Dress for Cary Patten!" muttered Robert, kissing her hand without
+enthusiasm, and retiring with sombre brow.  That he should go in this
+temper did not please her ladyship at all.
+
+"And, Robert!" she cried, when he had just reached the door.
+
+"Yes, my lady!" and he came back once more.
+
+"You said good-bye as if you were still in a nasty, black temper!"  She
+held out her hand to him again.  This time he kissed it with what she
+considered a more fitting warmth.
+
+"And, Robert, don't forget that I am _very, very_ good to you, far more
+so than you deserve.  I don't think of telling Cary Patten, or any of
+the others, not to flirt with the other girls.  Cary Patten may be as
+lovely to them as he likes, and I sha'n't mind one bit, so long as it
+does not interfere with his being as attentive as he ought to be to me!
+Now, it is a great honour I do you, Robert, in not letting you flirt."
+
+"I appreciate it, my lady," he answered, permitting himself to smile.
+"A great honour, indeed,--though a superfluous one!"
+
+"I have no objection to that word, 'superfluous,' in that connection,"
+said Barbara, thoughtfully, to herself, as Robert disappeared.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+After this Robert was careful, and so was permitted to be fairly happy
+when he could keep the fires of jealousy banked down in his heart.
+Once in awhile they would begin to get the better of him; and then,
+after letting Barbara see just a glimpse of the flame, that she might
+not forget it was there, he would leave before she could find him
+troublesome and work it under by hours of furious riding.  He skilfully
+avoided giving her any further excuse for discipline; and was even so
+cunning, at times, as to pique her by his show of self-control.  In
+this way he scored continually over the too confident Cary Patten, who,
+after a week or two of almost daily calls at the old Dutch house on
+State Street, would disappear and not be seen near Barbara for days.
+At such times Robert concluded that Cary had been tempting Providence
+and suffering the usual disaster of those who so presume.  As for Jerry
+Waite, and young Paget, and the rest of the infatuated train, Robert
+thought that Barbara was quite too infernally nice to them all, and
+cursed them all hotly in his heart; but he could not refrain from
+admiring the neat manner in which she held them all in hand.
+
+Early in the autumn, however, it became still more difficult for
+Barbara and Robert to keep silent on the great questions which they so
+dreaded to discuss.  The First Continental Congress was in session at
+Philadelphia, and its deliberations formed a theme to blister men's
+tongues.  Made up of Tories, Radical Patriots or potential rebels, and
+Moderates, in fairly even proportion, it satisfied neither Barbara nor
+Robert.  The latter, in spite of the fact that its New York delegates
+were of his own party, viewed it with singularly clear eyes, and saw in
+it not merely an instrument for the constitutional redress of just
+grievances,--wherein it had his sympathy,--but a forerunner of
+revolt,--wherein it called forth his passionate reprobation.  To
+Barbara, on the other hand, this Continental Congress, of which she had
+hoped so much, seemed a mean-spirited, paltering, blear-eyed thing,
+incapable of seeing what destiny had written large across the
+continent, or too timorous to acknowledge what it saw.  The strain was
+further increased by matters which touched them both personally.  With
+the news that Connecticut, stirred up by false rumours of a struggle
+with the royal troops in Boston, had thousands of her militia under
+arms, came a letter from Mistress Mehitable, saying that Doctor John
+was among them, in command of a regiment, and that Doctor Jim was
+looking after his patients.  At this tidings Barbara's heart swelled
+with mingled pride and anxiety.  She pictured the heroic figure Doctor
+John would make, in his uniform, about to fight for the cause which she
+held so splendid and so righteous.  At the same time she saw him
+already in the fight, waving his sword amid the smoke and slaughter,
+and she shook with terror for him.  Both Robert and Glenowen were with
+her when the letter came, and as she read it out her voice broke and
+the tears rolled down her cheeks.
+
+"Good for John Pigeon!" cried Glenowen, his eyes aglow.
+
+Then there was a heavy stillness on the air, such as that which
+sometimes portends an earthquake, and neither looked at Robert.
+Robert's face was very grave, but inspiration came to him, and he said
+exactly the right thing.
+
+"How lonely Doctor Jim and Mistress Mehitable must be!  Second Westings
+must be perfectly desolate!"
+
+The danger was averted.  He had dwelt, not upon the point of
+difference, but the point of sympathy; and the difference sank again
+out of sight.
+
+"Oh," murmured Barbara, "I almost feel as if I ought to go back to Aunt
+Hitty!"
+
+"I know!  But you can't, very well, sweetheart!  For which I am most
+thankful!" said Glenowen, promptly.
+
+"And Mistress Mehitable has Doctor Jim," said Robert.  "We need you
+more than she does, dearest lady!"
+
+With all the country seething as it was, nowhere else, perhaps, save in
+New York, would it have been possible to keep up so long the pretence
+of harmony between opposing factions.  New York was full of
+"Moderates," men no less determined to resist the tyranny of Parliament
+than to retain the supremacy of the Crown.  Extremes were thus held in
+check; and men met in apparent social harmony whose opinions, once put
+in practice, would have hurled them at one another's throats.  But to
+the little company resorting at the old Dutch house on State Street
+there entered now a new element of disruption.
+
+At a dance Barbara had met a slender, dark youth, a student at King's
+College, who had made himself prominent by his radical eloquence at a
+great mass-meeting of the Continental party.  His scholarly breadth of
+thought, combined with almost fanatical zeal, delighted her.  And he
+had the uncommon merit of expressing unforgettably the very views she
+herself had long maintained.  They became too interested in
+conversation to dance; and from that evening Mr. Alexander Hamilton
+came often to Glenowen's lodgings.  He was a mere boy in years, but
+Glenowen felt his power at once,--and even Robert, who was not
+unnaturally prejudiced, was too honest not to admit that Barbara's
+young Mr. Hamilton was a very remarkable and accomplished youth.
+
+Understanding the sharp divergence of opinion in the little circle,
+Hamilton kept a curb upon his tongue save at convenient seasons.  But
+to his eager and convicted spirit this soon became too difficult.  One
+evening, when there were none to hear him but Barbara, Robert, and
+Glenowen, the torrent of his boyish ardour overflowed.  He depicted the
+momentous changes toward which each fateful hour was hurrying them.  He
+declared it was no more than a matter of days ere all America would be
+in the throes of a righteous revolution.  He prophesied the birth of a
+great republic, that should establish Liberty in her New World home,
+and scourge kings, thrones, and tyrannies into the sea.  Glenowen had
+looked at him warningly, but in vain.  Barbara, troubled at first, grew
+suddenly hot and resentful at the thought that Robert should be blind
+to the splendid dream.  She applauded aggressively.
+
+Robert's brows were knit, but he had no emotion save distress.
+
+"I pray you pardon me, dear lady, and you, Mr. Glenowen, if I take my
+departure at once," said he, at the first pause.  "Knowing my
+sentiments as you both do, fully, you will understand that I could not
+in honour stay and listen to such doctrines as these of Mr. Hamilton's
+and not oppose them with all my force."
+
+He bent over Barbara's hand, but she petulantly snatched it away
+without letting him kiss it.  Then, having shaken hands heartily with
+Glenowen, and bowed stiffly to Hamilton, he withdrew in great trouble
+of mind, feeling that now, in truth, had come to an end the truce
+between his honour and his love.  He walked the streets half the night,
+and in the morning, white and dejected, but determined to know the
+worst at once, he went around to State Street at the earliest moment
+permissible after breakfast.  Barbara received him coldly.  But he made
+haste to face the issue.
+
+"Surely, dearest lady, you see that I had no alternative but to go!" he
+pleaded.  "I could not quarrel with him, seeing that he was your guest.
+Yet I could not sit and listen to his treason!"
+
+"I think the same treason as he uttered, if treason it be!  And utter
+it, too, when I see fit!" said Barbara.
+
+"That's different!" said Robert, and paused.
+
+It was on Barbara's lips to ask, "How?--Why?" but she refrained, lest
+she should complicate the discussion.
+
+"That's different," he repeated, "because you are a woman, and because
+I love you.  But indeed, my lady, I intended no discourtesy to Mr.
+Hamilton.  If discourtesy there were, surely it was his.  I would not
+have attacked what he holds sacred.  Yet my sentiments are not less
+well known than his.  He knew that I was pledged to the king's side."
+
+Barbara bit her lips hard.  This was just what she had taken such pains
+not to know.  Her heart was bitter enough against him for his views
+themselves; it was still more bitter against him now for forcing her to
+confess knowledge of those views.
+
+"A little discourtesy, one way or the other, what would that matter?"
+she asked, scornfully.  "There's just one thing that matters to me now,
+Robert.  War is coming.  Have you chosen your side?"
+
+"My side has chosen me, dear lady!" he answered, sorrowfully.
+
+"Listen, Robert," she went on, "I have tried not to know that you hold
+opinions which I hate, and loathe, and despise.  It means everything to
+me, when I say I love my country and hate the enemies of my country.  I
+believe in patriotism."
+
+"And I believe, also, in honour and loyalty, oh, my dearest lady!"
+
+"Your own stupid ideas of honour and loyalty!" cried Barbara, with
+fierce impatience.  "I tell you, Robert, the enemy of my country cannot
+be my friend."
+
+"But if I am the enemy of your country, so is Doctor Jim!" protested
+Robert.
+
+Barbara flushed with annoyance.  She did not like an unanswerable
+argument.
+
+"I love Doctor Jim!" she shot back at him, with cruel implication.
+
+"And I love you, Barbara!" answered Robert, also with meaning.  She
+tossed her head scornfully.
+
+"A fig for such love!" she cried.  "Years ago, when you were just a
+boy, and could not have your opinions fixed" ("About the age of your
+Mr. Hamilton!" he interjected, rashly), "I remember asking you, for my
+sake, to teach yourself the right things, Robert, and join our side,
+and be faithful to your own country.  What do you do?  It's not as if
+it were a mere difference of opinion,--but _I_ am _right_!  I am with
+all the great and wise of old, who have taught that patriotism is a
+man's highest duty.  Yet what have you done, Robert?  You vow you love
+me!  Indeed!  And you prefer a stupid, far-off, half-crazy tyrant, whom
+you call your king, and whom you have never seen, to your country,
+which has borne and cherished you--and to me!"
+
+"Oh, Barbara!" cried Robert, desperately.  "What are king or country,
+what are heaven and earth, to me, compared with you?  But what would my
+love be worth to you if, for the sake of my own happiness, I could be a
+rebel and a traitor?  Should I be worthy to love you, despising myself?
+What would you think of me, if I could sell my honour at your bidding!"
+
+"I think our ideas of honour are different, Robert!" retorted Barbara.
+"But I am not going to quarrel with you now.  I am disappointed in you,
+that's all.  And you need not expect that after this we are going to be
+such friends as we have been.  Remember that.  But--you may come and
+see us sometimes, of course; and I will dance with you sometimes, of
+course--if you ask me!  Only--it is all so different!" and she could
+not choke down a little weary sigh.
+
+Robert was on his knees in an instant, kissing her hands; but she
+repulsed him resolutely.
+
+"No, you have chosen for yourself," she said, not unkindly.  "It hurts
+me, truly.  But I mean what I say!  Now, you must go, for I have much
+to do before dinner.  Good-bye!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+Barbara was as good as her word.  From this time forward through that
+portentous fall and disastrous winter, she never let Robert forget that
+the old footing of familiar friendship was no longer his.  She began to
+make a difference, too,--slight but appreciable,--toward all the
+declared Tories among her followers.  She was bound to show some
+consistency toward Robert.  And moreover, her fiery and dissatisfied
+heart was growing restless for the breach that all saw coming but all
+strove to postpone.  Oh, she thought, let the cruel line be drawn,--let
+the make-believe end,--let us know our friends and enemies apart,--let
+the suspense be done, be done!  And--let me get back home to Second
+Westings!
+
+Meanwhile the half-mad king went on fashioning the hooks that were to
+rend the race in twain,--and an insensate Parliament lent power to his
+fatal hands,--and men like Chatham and Burke, Shelburne and Rockingham,
+poured out impassioned eloquence in vain, pleading for justice to the
+colonies.  By mid-winter (the winter of 1775) it was plain to every one
+that the king meant war, if that were the only way to bring the
+colonies to their knees.  Ten thousand troops were ordered to Boston,
+and plans were laid for organising the Indians on the frontiers.  In
+the colonies, though few dared say it, all were making ready for the
+struggle.  On every hand there was drilling of militia and gathering of
+the munitions of war.  Only in New York, as it seemed, things moved as
+usual, and the royal government remained in full force.  As a matter of
+fact, there were practically two governments going on side by side; for
+the various "committees of safety" went about their ominous
+preparations, and the governor well knew it would be unsafe to
+interfere.  The air became so tense with impending storm that people
+seemed to hold their breath, and when they met their eyes questioned,
+"Has it come?"
+
+Then it came!  And those who had longest and most preparedly waited
+were most shocked.  The bolt that fell was the news of Lexington and
+Concord, of the king's troops,--disciplined, war-toughened, the bravest
+in the world,--driven in wild rout before the sharp-shooting colonial
+farmers.  For five days of amazement men waited, expecting the bloody
+vengeance that would come.  But, instead of vengeance, came the word
+that Boston was beleaguered, that Gage with his veteran regiments was
+shut up tight in the city by ill-armed and unorganised countryside
+militia.  Straightway men drew breath again; and the undecided chose
+their side; and masks were thrown away.  Even New York, the prudent,
+the divided, the long politic, proclaimed herself at last, threw off
+the last empty forms of royal authority, and seized all military
+supplies within her borders.
+
+The glittering life, which had been to Barbara so gay an intoxication
+all these months, now burst like a bubble, leaving her to realise how
+hollow it had been.  She had no regret for it, save as a help to
+forgetting regrets.  She was dissatisfied, and wanted Second Westings.
+When, therefore, her uncle came to her, a few days after the news of
+Bunker Hill, with word that he had accepted a commission under General
+Washington, the newly appointed commander-in-chief of the Continental
+forces, she was not greatly surprised or shocked.  She had known all
+along that Glenowen would be at the front.  She had faced all the fear
+of it, and taught herself to think only of the honour.  Now, she turned
+very pale, tried to smile encouragement, but sobbed instead, ran to him
+and held him and kissed him.
+
+"Of course, Uncle Bob!  You must, I know.  I will be brave about it, I
+promise I will, and not worry you with any silliness!" she murmured at
+last, finding her voice.  "I wish _I_ were a man, so I could go with
+you!"
+
+"And a fiery little fighter you would make, sweetheart!" said Glenowen,
+cheerfully.  "But the immediate point is, since you can't go
+a-soldiering with your old uncle, what shall we do with you?  I leave
+within a week for the general's headquarters at Cambridge."
+
+"You will take me with you, and leave me at Second Westings, Uncle Bob,
+with Aunt Hitty and Doctor Jim to keep me cheered up while you are
+fighting!"
+
+"That's the best plan, decidedly, Barbe, for more reasons than one," he
+answered, suddenly grave.  "But I don't think you can depend on Doctor
+Jim for very long!"
+
+"Why, where is he going?" queried Barbara, anxiously.
+
+"Well, you know, he'll _choose_ to go wherever the Royalist volunteers
+may be organising their forces; but if he did not choose, he'd probably
+have no choice.  Our Connecticut folk left many dead on Breed's Hill,
+dear, and the Royalists are beginning to find their homes too hot for
+them.  I'm afraid Doctor Jim will be in peril of rough handling, with
+his hot temper and his fearless tongue!"
+
+"No one in Second Westings would _dare_ to be rude to Doctor Jim!"
+cried Barbara, indignantly.
+
+"You don't know what they will do, sweetheart, when they are stirred
+out of their accustomed frame of mind.  Besides, even if the Second
+Westings lads should be mindful of their manners, there are the rougher
+sort from the neighbouring villages to be thought of.  _They_ owe no
+allegiance to a Pigeon, or a Ladd either!  It may be you will find
+yourself a very necessary shield to Mistress Mehitable, even!"
+
+"I should like to see them try to interfere with Aunt Hitty!" flamed
+Barbara, setting her white teeth and flushing.  "I'd shoot them, if
+they _are_ patriots!"
+
+Glenowen nodded approval, but counselled caution.
+
+"You may need to be firm, girlie, but you'll need to be careful and
+tactful too, or you may find yourself fighting on the wrong side!" he
+laughed.
+
+"Do you really mean to say that our people are beginning to attack the
+Tories, just because they think they ought to stick to old King
+George?" queried Barbara, her thought turning to Robert, whom she had
+not seen or heard of for more than a week.
+
+"That's inevitable," said Glenowen.  "If we are to fight England, we
+fight the Tories,--and the Tories with the more bitterness because we
+feel that they ought to be with us.  I've heard ugly talk already of
+tar and feathers for some of our important men here.  And they have
+heard it themselves, and found that business called them urgently
+elsewhere!  Other of our Tory friends are getting up volunteer
+companies,--a sort of counterblast to our militia battalions.  I hear
+talk, too, of forcibly disarming all our Tories,--especially on Long
+Island, where they are as thick as hornets!"
+
+"I suppose that's what Robert is doing--getting up a company to fight
+against us!  We've not seen him for a week!" said Barbara, with a
+bitterness which her affected indifference failed to disguise.
+
+"Exactly that!  He is one of our most dangerous antagonists here!"
+answered Glenowen, sadly.  "He would have been seized days ago, to
+prevent him doing more mischief; but he's so liked, and respected for
+his fairness, by all of our party, that no one cares to take the
+necessary action.  He's the sort of man we want on our side!"
+
+"He's as pig-headed as King George himself!" cried Barbara, hotly.
+
+"No, he's true to his colours!" said Glenowen.  "Only he can't see that
+he has nailed them to the mast of the wrong ship!"
+
+"I have no patience with him!" muttered Barbara, bitterly, after a
+moment's silence.
+
+"Did you ever have, dearie?" inquired Glenowen.
+
+"What do you mean, Uncle Bob?"
+
+"Forgive me, Barbe, if I speak plainly, these being times for plain
+speaking!" said Glenowen.  "Truly, I can't understand a man who loves
+you being other than wax in your hands, you witch,--if you took the
+trouble to manage him.  That may sound cynical, but I hope not.  It's
+true.  You owe Robert to our cause!  We want him!"
+
+Barbara looked down, her face scarlet and her lips quivering.  Then she
+faced her uncle bravely.
+
+"I begin to fear I want him for myself, as much as for the cause, Uncle
+Bob!" she confessed.
+
+"It's not Cary Patten, then?" asked Glenowen.
+
+Barbara smiled enigmatically.  "Cary Patten is extremely charming!" she
+answered.  "But do you know, Uncle Bob, if Robert is still in town?"
+
+"I think," said Glenowen, "I can say with confidence that he will get
+away from the city to-morrow or next day,---for friends who love him,
+in our party, will let him know the danger of remaining!  One must make
+such compromises sometimes, if one is a red-blooded human being and not
+a bloodless saint!"
+
+"Uncle Bob, I'm afraid you will never be a Lucius Junius Brutus!" said
+Barbara.
+
+"No, thank God!" cried Glenowen, with conviction.
+
+"I'm so glad!" said Barbara, who was very human when she was not all
+woman.  "Brutus was right, I think!  But I've always hated him!"
+
+Then she turned to her scrutoir and wrote a cool little note to Robert,
+asking him to come in and speak to her a moment the next morning.
+
+At an hour almost unseemly Robert came, of course.  And Barbara was
+gracious to him.  As if there had been no estrangement, she talked
+frankly of Second Westings matters,--of Doctor John's service in the
+siege of Boston, of Doctor Jim's danger because of his opinions, of
+Mistress Mehitable's need of her presence at Westings House,--just as
+if they were Robert's concern as well as hers.  The gladness came back
+to Robert's dark face, and for a moment he was forgetting the barrier
+between them.
+
+"And what are you doing, Robert?  Is it not becoming a little dangerous
+for you in New York now?" she asked, with gentle frankness.
+
+"I am going away to-morrow, dearest lady," he answered, "lest your
+fiery Continentals tie me up!"
+
+"And I go back to Second Westings next week!  And you were going away
+without seeing me for good-bye?" asked Barbara, reproachfully.  "Is
+this the Robert that used to say he loved me a little?"
+
+Robert looked at her in silence.  "I adore the very ground that your
+foot treads upon!" he said, presently, in a quiet voice.
+
+"You love me just as much as you used to?" she inquired, almost
+wistfully.
+
+"As much!" he exclaimed, with scorn.  "More and more, every day I
+breathe.  These months that you have treated me so cruelly have been
+hell on earth.  I don't see how I have lived through them."
+
+"I, too, have not been very happy, Robert!" she acknowledged, softly.
+"I believe I have needed you more than I thought.  Do you know, I
+almost think I might learn to care a great deal--perhaps all that a
+woman can--if only, if _only_, dear Robert, there were not this
+dreadful barrier between us?  Oh, if you knew how I long to have you in
+sympathy with the cause that all my heart is given to,--to talk it all
+over with you, to hope and plan and look forward with you, in
+comradeship and understanding!  If you knew--but there, I see by your
+obstinate mouth it is no use.  I might as well pour out my heart
+against a stone wall.  _Nothing_ will soften you!  _Nothing_ will
+convince you!  Love me?  _You_ love me?  You have no heart at all in
+your breast!  Nothing but a priggish theory!"
+
+She burst into passionate, disappointed tears, flung herself down on
+the sofa, and buried her face in the cushions.
+
+Robert was in an anguish.  His mouth was drawn and white.  Why should
+_he_ be called upon to face so hideous an alternative?  Why must _he_
+pay so appalling a price for loyalty, for fidelity, for honour?  What
+was this bourgeois tyrant in England, that the price of loyalty to him
+should be the love of the woman who was dearer than heaven?  Robert
+felt a fierce hatred of the man George of England, who was so unworthy
+of his kingship!  He was mad to throw himself at Barbara's feet, and
+tell her all his life was hers to do as she would with, to offer his
+faith, loyalty, honour, a living sacrifice to her love, and bid her
+send him to fight under whatever flag she called hers!  But--he held
+the madness in leash.  The tough fibre of his will gave a little, but
+would not break.  The drops stood out on his forehead.  But all he said
+was:
+
+"Beloved, beloved, I worship you.  You are all I can dream of
+womanhood.  You are all of life, all of love, all of wonder and beauty
+that the world can show.  There is nothing my soul can ever desire but
+you, you, you, wonderful one!"  And he tried to take her hands from
+under her wet face.
+
+Through her sobs, Barbara had listened eagerly for one word that might
+show a yielding.  But there was no such word,--no sign that he even
+realised that she had been offering her love as the incalculable price
+that should purchase him to the service of his country.  This
+infinitely precious price,--he spurned it, then!  Angry mortification
+surged over her, mixed with a pain that clutched at her heart.  The
+humiliation of it--and the loss!  She sat up suddenly.
+
+"Go, go, go!" she cried, pointing to the door.  "I don't want to ever
+see you again.  I hate you.  I hate you.  Go--at _once_!"
+
+And then, as Robert made no move, and strove to plead once more, she
+sprang to her feet, darted from the room, and fled up-stairs.  He heard
+her door close sharply,--like the cutting off of life, it seemed to
+him.  And he went away, walking rather blindly, and fumbling for some
+moments at the hall door before he could find the latch.  That same
+evening he left New York.
+
+It was hours before Barbara was herself again, so Glenowen had to dine
+alone.  Late in the afternoon, after having bathed her face back to
+presentability, she dressed to go out for a sharp walk.  When her
+toilet was almost complete, word came up that Cary Patten was in the
+drawing-room.
+
+Now it was at least six weeks since Cary had last attempted to make
+love to her, and in the meantime he had been altogether
+charming,--attentive, deferential, full of enthusiastic ambition, and
+vastly interesting in his large forecasts of what the thirteen colonies
+would do with independence when they got it.  Barbara, therefore, had
+practically forgotten that he was ever in disgrace, and was unwilling
+to refuse him admittance, little though it suited her mood to see him.
+She went down at once and received him cordially.
+
+Cary was in a mood of triumphant excitement, dashed with romantic
+melancholy.  He looked even straighter, taller, more broad-shouldered
+and high-mettled than usual.  His goldy-brown short hair had a crisper
+curl, his candid blue eyes sparkled with joy and importance.
+
+"Oh, I know!  You needn't tell me!" cried Barbara, with hearty
+sympathy.  "Only one thing in the world could make your face shine as
+it does now, Cary!  You are ordered to the front!"
+
+"You've guessed it, sweet mistress!" he cried, in a voice whose boyish
+exultation would not be kept down.  "My company is one of those chosen
+by the Committee of Safety to go north.  We march _to-morrow_!  In a
+few days we will be in the field--we shall be in the thick of it!"
+
+"Oh, you are so fortunate, Cary!" responded Barbara.  "Think what it
+must be to be just a woman, and have to stay at home gnawing one's
+heart, while others have the glorious joy of fighting for freedom!"
+
+"Only one thing I need to make me happy as I go, sweet lady!" said he,
+his voice tender, passionate, caressing.  "It is bitter to leave you.
+But I should go thrilling with happiness, to win fame that would make
+you proud, or to die willingly for my country,--if I might go wearing
+your favour, if I might go as--" but here he paused.  Barbara's face
+was cold and discouraging.
+
+There was a moment of strained silence.  Barbara felt a harsh
+resentment at his persistence, and an added anger that it should be
+thrust upon her on this day when her heart was so bitter sore.  "Yet,"
+she was arguing with herself, "the poor boy does love me.  And, unlike
+some others, he is going to fight on the right side, to shed his blood,
+perhaps, for the land of his birth.  Why should I not be a little kind
+to him,--if he does not ask too much!"  On a sudden generous and
+pitying, if misleading, impulse, she took a ribbon from her throat and
+gave it to him.
+
+"There, boy," she said, gently, "take that, and don't ever say I was
+not good to you!  May it be a charm to ward off the bullet and the
+steel!"
+
+A glad light flashed into the lad's face.  He went down on one knee and
+kissed the hem of her skirt, crying something inarticulately.  Then he
+sprang up and seized her in his arms, and would have kissed her but
+that she wrenched herself free with some violence.
+
+"How dare you!" she cried, stamping her foot.
+
+Cary looked crestfallen and bewildered.
+
+"But, Barbara," he protested, blundering in his confusion, "don't you
+love me?  I thought--why--this dear ribbon--" and he held it out to her
+appealingly.
+
+Barbara's anger faded on the instant.  She saw that in desiring to be
+kind she had misled him.  She held out her hand to him, and smiled, as
+she said:
+
+"Oh, truly, I'm sorry if I seemed rude, Cary.  Forgive me.  But, you
+know, I _had_ to be rather hasty, or you would have kissed me.  And I
+couldn't let you kiss me, Cary, even though you are going to the war!"
+
+"Why not, dear heart?" persisted he.  "Am I not going as your chosen
+cavalier?  Have you not given me your favour?"
+
+"Why, no--at least, not exactly that--" she stammered.  "I thought you
+_knew_, Cary, that I don't love you one bit!  I've told you so over and
+over again; and I've sent you away over and over again for bothering me
+about it when I had told you not to!  But I do like you, ever so much.
+And I shall think of you, away fighting bravely--as I know you
+will--for our sacred cause.  And so, I gave you the
+ribbon--because--because--you said it would make you a little happier
+if you had something of the sort to take with you!  Oh, please do try
+to understand, Cary!"  And she twisted her hands in distress.
+
+Cary Patten was too much of a boy not to show all the bitterness of his
+overthrow.  He had been lifted up to the crest of triumph, and hurled
+down disastrously.  He had believed, when Barbara gave him her token,
+that the victory, which his confident spirit had never doubted would be
+his at last, had come at this high moment of his career.  He was not
+only desperately hurt, but sorely humbled.  His mind worked rapidly,
+seeking explanations.  One passion after another chased itself over his
+transparent face; till at length Barbara saw his features grow harder
+and more mature than she had ever before seen them, and the poor little
+ribbon was crumpled ruthlessly in his grip.
+
+"I understand!" he exclaimed, fiercely, a strident tone in his voice
+which was quite new to her.  "It is that runaway Tory hound, that
+traitor Gault, that--" and here he choked.  "If he has not already run
+away I shall settle the scoundrel to-night.  I shall--"
+
+"Silence, sir!" cut in Barbara.  The tone, the look in her face,
+brought the mad boy to his senses like a drenching in cold water.  He
+could have bitten off his tongue for the outburst.
+
+"Mr. Gault _was_ my friend, and his name is entitled to respect in my
+presence!" she went on. "And he _is_ a _gentleman_!  Of you I should
+have said the same thing--a few moments ago!  Give me back my
+ribbon--what you have left of it, Mr. Patten!"
+
+"Oh, no! no!  Forgive me!"  Cary was crying, in abject penitence, even
+while she spoke, at the same time thrusting the ribbon into his breast,
+as if he feared that Barbara would take it by force.  "I was crazy mad,
+dear heart.  I didn't know what I was saying.  I take it all back.  It
+was not so.  I know he is a gentleman and a brave man, if he _is_ a
+traitor Tory.  Surely you will forgive me, when you have broken my
+heart--Barbara."
+
+While he was speaking Barbara had moved away to the other side of the
+table; but now, so dejected did he look, so humble, so repentant, and
+withal so wholesomely boyish, that her heart softened once more, and
+she came back.
+
+"Yes, Cary, I will overlook it, and make allowance, because I see you
+are sorry.  And I am still truly your friend, and will think about you
+when you are away.  And I am sorry I did anything to make you
+misunderstand me, so you _must_ give me back the poor little ribbon
+that did the mischief."
+
+"No, you surely can't be so cruel as that!" he pleaded.  "I feel it
+would be unlucky to give it back.  Don't kill me, dear.  Let me keep
+the dear ribbon!"
+
+Barbara hesitated.  She wanted the ribbon back.  The giving had been
+spoiled for her.  Her impulse was to insist.  But events of late had
+softened her, had given her more comprehension of feelings other than
+her own,--had made her, indeed, a little less self-centred.  She
+crushed down her vexation.
+
+"Well, keep it then, Cary,--and my friendship with it," she said,
+gravely.  "And to the blessing with which I blessed it for you, I add
+many more,--that fame may come your way, and danger turn aside.
+Good-bye!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+Barbara felt as if a strange great wind had blown upon New York,
+scattering and changing everything.  Robert was gone,--when she was
+seeing little of him, and not desiring to see more, she had,
+nevertheless, had a satisfaction in knowing he was within reach.  Now
+Cary Patten was gone, and Jerry Waite was gone, and young Paget was
+gone, and the student enthusiast, young Mr. Hamilton, came no more to
+the old Dutch house on State Street, being engrossed in matters of
+secrecy and import.  And now she herself and Uncle Bob were going.  She
+felt as if that separating wind would inexorably have lifted and borne
+her somewhere, even if the haven of Second Westings had not been open.
+Fate drove indifferently, but left her free to shape her course for
+Westings House and Aunt Hitty, and her own apple-tree down in the back
+garden.
+
+A few days later she was at home.  Glenowen, resting but an hour or
+two, had hastened on to his duties.  Everything seemed to Barbara just
+as when she went away, save that Doctor Jim was graver than of old,
+seeming weighed down with care; and Doctor John's absence left a void
+that ached all the time.  But her little room was just as she had left
+it,--fresh dusted, and with a few things lying about out of place, as
+she loved to have it.  The dust upon the coverlet where "Mr. Grim"
+slept was there as of old.  "He did not, in fact, sleep there once
+during all your absence, dear," declared Mistress Mehitable, "till the
+very night before your return, when he forsook me and stalked back to
+his old place.  Then I knew that you'd be here the next day, and we
+were very happy together; and I gave him clear cream for his breakfast,
+and made him very sick!"
+
+Within three days the old life had taken Barbara back at every point,
+and she felt as if she had awakened from a brilliant but oppressive
+dream.  Of course it was interesting telling it all--or not quite
+all--to every one; to every one the truth, yet not to each the same
+story.  There was one emphasis for Aunt Hitty and Doctor Jim, one for
+the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer, one for Mercy Chapman, and one much more
+vivid and enlightening for old Debby.  But even as she told it, it
+began to seem unreal to herself.  And soon she grew unwilling to talk
+of it at all.
+
+As the bright Connecticut summer slipped by, Barbara could not but
+notice a change of temper among the villagers of Second Westings.  To
+herself they were as civil, as deferential as ever, but, she thought,
+with a little difference.  Half a dozen families had representatives in
+the army besieging Boston, and two of the village homes were in
+mourning.  When she was walking with Doctor Jim she noticed the
+sullenness with which his hearty, kindly greetings were returned,--a
+sullenness which Doctor Jim never allowed himself to observe.  Then
+there was difficulty in getting extra help when special needs arose at
+Westings House.  The people were unwilling to work for Mistress
+Mehitable.  They positively refused to work with Amos, who had to give
+up his innocently convivial evenings at the tavern and remain sulking
+in the kitchen, abused and scorned by Abby because he was always in her
+way.  In September, when Congress despatched the army of the north to
+conquer Canada, seven more men went from Second Westings, and
+enthusiasm grew.  With news of the capture of Montreal came word also
+that two of the Second Westings men had fallen in the battle.  Then
+feelings grew hot.
+
+One morning, when Barbara was visiting Mercy Chapman's mother,--now a
+bedridden invalid,--she looked out of the window and saw Mistress
+Mehitable coming down the street.  As she passed his office, she was
+joined by Doctor Jim, and the two strolled together toward Squire
+Gillig's store.  Suddenly she saw Doctor Jim leave Mistress Mehitable's
+side, and stride angrily toward the tavern.  She ran out at once to see
+what was the matter.  What she saw set her speeding after Doctor Jim in
+breathless indignation.
+
+Amos, his arms tied behind him, was struggling and kicking in the hands
+of a dozen men and youths, several of whom had bloody noses to prove
+that Amos had stood to his colours.  Now they were hurrying him to the
+cooper shop.--where they knew there was a barrel of pitch,--amid cries
+of "Ride the sneaking Tory on a rail," "Tar and feather him," "Duck
+him," "Hang him."  All at once they were confronted by the tall bulk of
+Doctor Jim; and they stopped short.  The old habit of deference was
+strong upon them, and several drew away, while others, though they
+doggedly maintained their grip on the furious and unterrified Amos,
+dropped their eyes and hung their heads when Doctor Jim's angry gaze
+fell upon them.
+
+"Hands off!  Drop that man!  You cowardly bullies, a dozen against one!
+Drop him, do you hear?"  And without waiting for the effect of his
+words he strode into the mob, flung the fringes of it to this side and
+that with no gentle hand, and reached those who had actual hold upon
+the prisoner.
+
+When he found that they were standing their ground, daring to disobey
+his orders, his wrath was tremendous.
+
+"You scoundrels!  You dirty scum of the earth!" he roared.  And with
+that he plucked the nearest fellow by the scruff of the neck and the
+seat of his breeches and flung him into the gutter.  To the next he
+gave an open-handed buffet that sent him reeling from the melee.
+Ignoring the rest, he was proceeding to unpinion Amos, when the leader
+of the mob, a big blacksmith from Westings Centre, who was a famous
+demagogue, confronted him.
+
+"Look a-here, Doctor Pigeon," he said, defiantly, "we're lettin' _you_
+be, leastways for the present!  You let us be, an' jest mind yer own
+business.  Hands off yerself!"
+
+Doctor Jim, apparently, never heard him.
+
+The blacksmith therefore seized Amos by the waist and jerked him from
+Doctor Jim's grasp.
+
+"Look a-here, you!" he shouted, squaring off.  "You've got to fight me
+afore you untie that man!"
+
+Fight him!  Doctor Jim gave an inarticulate roar of scorn and fury at
+the idea.  Then his great white hands shot out like lightning.  One
+seized the champion's throat; the other laid terrible hold upon his
+waistband, with just so much of clothing and skin and flesh as those
+iron fingers could compass.  One huge, dislocating shake and the
+champion had no more fight in him.  Doctor Jim lifted his demoralised
+opponent bodily, carried him several paces, and dropped him over the
+horse trough into the dirty, deep-trodden mud.  Then, seeing that Amos
+had got himself free, he strode back to where Mistress Mehitable was
+waiting, his heavy eyebrows still working with indignation.
+
+Barbara, whom he had not seen, now had a word to say to the discomfited
+rabble, who one and all knew her views and admired her prodigiously.
+She eyed them for half a minute with slow, eviscerating scorn.  Then
+she said: "_You_ call yourselves patriots!  You make me ashamed of the
+name.  If all Americans were like you they'd deserve freedom, wouldn't
+they?  And what is that ruffian doing here?" pointing to the
+bedraggled, discredited, foaming blacksmith.  "Must you go to Westings
+Centre for a leader?  You had better send him back where he belongs!"
+
+"You'd better shet your mouth, miss," sputtered the champion, "or you
+may git--" but at this moment the men of Second Westings, recovering
+their manhood, fell upon him with great unanimity and completed the
+discipline which Doctor Jim had left unfinished.  And Barbara walked
+away with her head in the air.
+
+After this Mistress Mehitable, who was herself, and for herself,
+absolutely fearless behind her quiet blue eyes, yielded to Doctor Jim's
+persuasions and let it be known that Barbara, being her heir, was
+partly in authority at Westings House.  Whenever extra help was needed,
+therefore, Amos was sent down to Doctor Jim's and Barbara hired her
+helpers in her own name.  To her employ the Second Westings men came
+willingly enough, and showed themselves humourously tolerant of Abby's
+caustic tongue, which was given full run whenever they entered the
+kitchen.  And the village settled back gradually into a hollow
+imitation of its ancient somnolence.
+
+In the winter, however, not long after Christmas, there was another
+stirring of the hot embers.  Word came of Montgomery's death and
+Arnold's repulse before the walls of Quebec.  There were men of
+Connecticut among those who fell that night in the northern snow.
+Those at home required an outlet for their feelings.  What were the
+Tories for, if not to afford them a chance of evening matters up?  A
+rabble of the worser elements from the up-river villages, led by some
+noisy fanatics, descended upon Gault House by night, and set it on fire.
+
+Finding old Lady Gault ill in bed, they somewhat regretted their haste,
+and carried her, bed and all, with as much of her clothing as they
+could conveniently save, to the house of one of the tenants on the
+grounds.  The leaders apologised to her, indeed, assuring her that, had
+they known it would so inconvenience her to have her house burnt down
+just then, they would have turned their avenging attention elsewhere
+for that night and awaited her recovery.  The fiery and arrogant old
+lady was so overwhelmed with helpless rage, less at the destruction of
+the home of the Gaults with all its treasures than at the desecration
+she had suffered, that she was seized next morning with an apoplexy and
+died in an hour.
+
+This news brought consternation to Westings House.  Doctor Jim came up
+to talk it over.  He was too much enraged to find relief in one of his
+customary large ebullitions.  It reduced him to a black silence, which
+Barbara found much more impressive than his wrath.
+
+"I feel that you ought to go away, Jim," said Mistress Mehitable, with
+a tenderness that made Barbara eye them both sharply, and think of
+Doctor John.  "These townships are no place for a reckless partisan
+like you!"
+
+"There is just one reason why you might urge me to go, sweet mistress!"
+said he.  "Lest I be prisoned here, and so lose the chance to fight for
+the king!  But my place is here till John comes back.  You and Barbara
+cannot be left alone.  And the sick folks,--I cannot desert them.  But
+when John comes--"
+
+"If it be not then too late!  Oh, think, Jim!  Every hour now that you
+stay here carries the menace of some ignominious violence!  How can I
+stand it?"
+
+"My place is here, at present, most dear lady!" answered Doctor Jim,
+with a positiveness that left no room for argument.  "But I think the
+men of Second Westings would not quite fail Jim Pigeon, even though
+they do curse him behind his back for a Tory!"
+
+The destruction of Gault House and the death of Lady Gault filled
+Barbara's heart with pity and tenderness toward Robert.  It oppressed
+her with a feeling that he was left desolate, a homeless and wandering
+outcast.  She wondered where and when the news would reach him,--being
+such evil news she felt sure it would journey fast.  No word or rumour
+had she heard of him since that day of their harsh parting in the old
+Dutch house on State Street.
+
+A few days later she heard from Glenowen, who was now in command of one
+of the regiments besieging Boston, that Cary Patten, after covering
+himself with glory by his wild daring and desperate exploits, had
+fallen with Montgomery before the walls of Quebec.  This news sent
+Barbara to her room for the afternoon.  Besides her many tears for the
+gallant boy, who had loved her gallantly and truly, she could not for
+the moment rid herself of a vague remorse.  Had she been quite fair to
+him?  Had she encouraged him even while repelling him?  At first she
+called herself guilty.  But after some hours of this self-reproach she
+came to a clearer view, and saw that it was sentimental weakness to
+accuse herself.  Her grief on his account, however, was deep and
+sincere.  "Poor, beautiful, brave boy!" she sighed, at last.  "How
+little good to him were my token and my blessings!  I fear I am a
+curse, and not a blessing, to any one who greatly cares for me!"  Then
+the thought flashed across her--"If it were Robert, instead of poor
+Cary!  How do I know that Robert, too, has not been--" and at the
+thought her heart stood still.  A sort of numbness came over her, and
+she found herself shaking violently.  She had been lying with her face
+in the pillow, but now she sat up sharply, brushed the thick, dark
+locks back from her eyes, went over to the dressing-table, lit two
+candles, and looked at her white, frightened face in the glass.
+
+"I didn't know I cared--like that!" she said to herself, at last.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+In the spring, a little before the fall of Boston, Doctor John came
+home.  Second Westings learned then for the first time what he had so
+studiously and considerately kept concealed,--the fact that he had been
+wounded in a skirmish two months before.  As soon as he was well enough
+for the journey, he had been ordered home.  He looked gaunt, and walked
+with some difficulty, but otherwise seemed fairly well; and he made
+haste to take back his old patients, with many expressions of amazement
+that they had not died off under Jim Pigeon's treatment.
+
+His coming brought new cheer to Westings House; and to Barbara,
+reassured by his explicit accounts of her uncle's abounding health, it
+meant such stimulus and diversion as was to be had of endless,
+sympathetic talks.  The little group of four were as close to one
+another as of old,--yet with a difference.  The love and trust were as
+of old, but the dividing of hopes and aims threw Barbara more and more
+with Doctor John, Mistress Mehitable more and more with Doctor Jim.
+This seemed perfectly natural,--yet it soon began to cause a certain
+heaviness on Doctor John's part, which made his whimsical sallies grow
+infrequent.  It caused, at the same time, a certain uneasiness on the
+part of Doctor Jim; and Mistress Mehitable was seen more than once with
+tears in her eyes, when, as it seemed to Barbara, there was no very
+definite reason for the phenomenon.  And all these symptoms troubled
+Barbara.  She grew more than commonly tender of Doctor John.
+
+One day when she and Doctor John and Doctor Jim had strolled down to
+the tavern to see the Hartford coach come in, they found a knot of
+eager listeners gathered about two horsemen who were drinking a pot of
+ale.  As the little party approached, its members were pointed out, and
+the horsemen turned to look at them with sharp interest.  The two came
+from up the river, in the next county, and were on their way to join
+the Connecticut battalions under Putnam.  They were bitter partisans,
+and one of them had lost a brother in the fighting at Quebec.  To them
+it was of little account that Doctor John was a good rebel,--such, in
+their eyes, all good men were bound to be.  And they did not appreciate
+the fact that he was an officer in the army they were about to join.
+What they saw was simply Doctor Jim, the declared Tory, shameless and
+unafraid.  They eyed him with growing menace, uncertain, by reason of
+the fact that he was walking between Barbara and Doctor John, just what
+they wanted to do.
+
+Presently Doctor Jim swung away by himself to speak to a lad whose
+mother he was treating.  He was giving some little order, when the two
+horsemen, riding up to him, thrust him against the icy watering-trough
+so unexpectedly that he fell over it.  Bewildered, and not
+understanding that he had been deliberately attacked, he was picking
+himself up in a sputter of vexation, when one of the riders, a
+fierce-eyed, burly fanatic, reached over the trough and cut at him
+viciously with his riding-whip, exclaiming, "Take that, you damned Tory
+dog!"
+
+The blow missed Doctor Jim's head, but fell smartly across his
+shoulders.  The next moment a great hand seized the rider, tore him
+from his seat, jammed him furiously against his horse's rump, and
+dashed him down upon the dirty snow.  Then Doctor John turned to deal
+likewise with the second culprit.  But he had forgotten his wound.  He
+grew white, reeled, and would have fallen, but that two of the Second
+Westings men sprang to his aid and held him up.
+
+When the stroke of the whip fell on his shoulders, Doctor Jim had
+understood.  With one of his wordless explosive roars he had sprung
+right over the trough to take Homeric vengeance.  But when he saw
+Doctor John he forgot all about vengeance, he forgot all about the
+attack.
+
+"What is it, John?" he cried, picking him up as if the huge frame were
+a feather, and carrying him to the settee outside the inn door.
+
+"Nothing, Jim, nothing!  The old wound, you know, and the heart not yet
+just right," muttered Doctor John, recovering quickly, but leaning on
+his brother's shoulder.  Barbara, meanwhile, had run to fetch brandy,
+which she now brought, along with the landlord.
+
+The two horsemen had had their wrath for the moment diverted by the
+sudden turn of events.  But now--the fellow who had been so mauled in
+Doctor John's grip having remounted, bursting with rage--they thought
+it time to return to the attack, and made an effort to push through the
+little crowd.  Failing in this, they cursed Doctor Jim with varied
+vigour, and told him what they intended to do when they could get at
+him.  In their righteous wrath they failed to notice that they were not
+making themselves popular with the crowd.  Neither Doctor Jim nor
+Barbara paid the slightest attention to their curses, not seeming to
+hear them; but Doctor John attended.
+
+"Lads!" he said, lifting his head with difficulty.  "Lads of Second
+Westings!  Shall we let these insolent scoundrels talk to us that way?"
+
+"No, sir!  No, sir!  No, sir!" shouted a dozen voices,--whereupon
+Barbara turned and beamed upon them unutterable favour.  The landlord,
+with several other stout fellows, seized the strangers' bridles and
+forced the horses back toward the road.
+
+"Ye'd better be gettin' on!" admonished mine host, grinning but
+decisive.  "Ye don't rightly understand us here, I calculate!  Better
+get on now, for convenience!"
+
+The horsemen seemed to have forgotten their wrath in their astonishment.
+
+"Are you all Tories, too?" they found voice to demand.
+
+"We're as good patriots as ever you be!" rejoined mine host, crisply.
+"But if we've got any Tories among us they're our own, and we'll see
+about 'em ourselves, our own way.  Now clear out!"  And he hit the nigh
+horse a smart slap on the rump, making him bound forward.
+
+By this time the leader and spokesman of the twain had recovered his
+full head of anger.  He had no quixotic notion of undertaking to
+discipline Second Westings village.  But he conceived a very clear
+purpose.  Reining his excited horse down violently, he shook his fist
+at the crowd, and shouted:
+
+"If you choose to harbour a dirty Tory, there be men and patriots in
+the other townships who'll come right soon an' teach you yer duty!"
+
+"Oh, you clear out!" jeered the Second Westings men.
+
+That evening, at Westings House, while the beginnings of a bleak March
+wind storm blustered and whimpered outside, Mistress Mehitable brewed a
+hot posset of uncommonly cheering quality.  The cheer was needed; for
+all felt that a crisis of some sort, or some grave change, was at hand.
+Doctor John, who had quite recovered, tried in vain to make his fooling
+sound spontaneous.  The grave eyes of Destiny would persist in looking
+out through the jester's-mask.  At length Doctor Jim exclaimed,
+abruptly:
+
+"I must go, now!  I must take Amos and slip away in the night, and go
+wherever men are gathering to fight for the king.  I'm not needed here
+now, John, since you are back to take care of Mehitable and Barbara!"
+
+It was what all had been waiting for, but it came with a shock--the
+shock of conviction, not of surprise--to all.  Mistress Mehitable
+turned ghost pale, and unconsciously her hand went to her heart.
+Doctor John noticed the action, with sad eyes that belied the humour of
+his mouth.  Barbara sprang up, rushed over to Doctor Jim, and flung her
+arms around his neck.
+
+"_Please_ don't go, Doctor Jim!" she pleaded.  "This is the place for
+you.  And here we all love you so we don't care _what_ side you're on.
+And as for going to fight for your side,--of course, you want to, we
+all know that,--but you _never_ can get through to the coast.  You can
+never get through our people.  No, you can't, Doctor Jim!  You must
+stay here with us.  Help me hold him, Aunt Hitty!"
+
+"Jim," said Doctor John, his voice trembling with earnestness, "I
+appeal to you to stay.  Don't break our hearts by going.  Stay for our
+sakes.  I know, brother, how you feel,--and believing as you do, I
+don't blame you,--I'll never blame you.  But _Barbara is right_.  _You
+can't get through_.  You can stay with a clear conscience!"
+
+Mistress Mehitable, since becoming assured of the attitude of the
+Second Westings men, had lost all her dread of having him stay, and
+gained a quivering fear of having him go.  Forgetful of all else, she
+now laid her slim hand on his, looked at him with her whole soul in her
+eyes, and said:
+
+"_Must_ you?  Oh, Jim, are you so sure you ought to go?"
+
+A faint spasm passed over Doctor John's face--Barbara alone observing
+it--and seemed to leave it older and sterner.  He opened his mouth to
+speak, but Doctor Jim was ahead of him.
+
+"Yes, I know my duty.  If a man sees it, he's got to do it,--eh, what,
+dearest lady in the world?  I wish I didn't see it so plain.  Then I
+might stay here with you all, you whom I love.  But I see my duty, to
+fight for the king, just as plain as you saw yours, John, to fight for
+your damned old Congress!"
+
+"I'm not going to fight any more!" interrupted Doctor John, speciously.
+
+Doctor Jim laughed, tenderly derisive.
+
+"No, but you're sending, and equipping, and supporting two able-bodied
+substitutes, aren't you?  But another point is, my Barbara,--by staying
+I should bring disaster on you all.  The good folk of Second
+Westings--and they _are_ good folk, though rebels, alas!--will never
+stand by and see the Ladds and Pigeons, whatever their views, molested
+by an outside world.  When your fiery patriots from up the river come
+to ride me on a rail, Second Westings will stand in the way and get its
+honest head broken.  _You_ wouldn't do it, John Pigeon!  You'd cut off
+your head, before you'd let the poor souls get their heads broken for
+you in a cause that they believe all wrong.  I'd be a coward to let
+them, John.  Would you ask me to be a coward?"
+
+"Wouldn't be much use asking," growled Doctor John.  "But you're all
+wrong, as usual, Jim!"  Then he turned suddenly to Mistress Mehitable,
+with a meaning look.
+
+"You speak, Mehitable!  You _make_ him stay.  Demand it of him--as your
+right!  Keep him!"
+
+Doctor Jim searched his brother's face, first with terrible question,
+then with the growing light of a great joy.  Barbara watched
+breathless, forgetful of the fate of dynasties.  Here, she felt, were
+problems that had held long lives in doubt, now working to instant
+solution.  Mistress Mehitable turned scarlet, and she, too, questioned
+the sombre, tender eyes of Doctor John.  But she said, quite simply:
+
+"I'm afraid, John, if he thinks he ought to go he'll go.  But I do ask
+you to stay, Jim."
+
+"_Don't_, Mehitable!" groaned Doctor Jim.
+
+"There, what did I tell you, John?" she said.
+
+But now certain things, uncertain all his life till now, were quite
+clear to Doctor John.  Slowly, as if it hurt him, he got up.  He went
+over to where Mehitable was sitting, quite close to Doctor Jim.  He
+laid a hand on each, caressingly,--and to Mehitable that touch,
+suddenly grown bold and firm, was a renunciation.  He had never touched
+her that way before.
+
+"It is all right, Jim!  It is all right, Mehitable!" said he, in a very
+low but quite steady voice.  "I never was sure till now,--but I ought
+to have understood,--for I see now it was always _yours_, Jim.  Forgive
+me, brother.  I ought not to have stood in the way."
+
+"John!" cried Doctor Jim, catching the caressing hand in a fervent
+clasp.  "God bless you!  But--on my honour I have never said a word!"
+
+"I know, Jim, I know.  We've always played fair to each other.  But now
+you can speak.  And now,--you don't need to speak, either of you.  Your
+faces speak plain enough, to the eyes of one who loves you both!"
+
+"Is it true, Mehitable?  After all these years that I've kept
+silence,--oh, is it true?" asked Doctor Jim, scarcely above a whisper,
+reaching out his hands to her longingly.
+
+For one instant she laid hers in his.  Then she withdrew them quickly,
+seized Doctor John's hand in both of hers, laid her cheek against it,
+and burst into tears.
+
+"Oh, John, dear John," she sobbed.  "How can I bear that you should be
+unhappy?"
+
+Doctor John blinked, and made a little noise in his throat.  Then, with
+a brave levity, he exclaimed:
+
+"Tut!  Tut!  Don't you worry about me, either of you, now.  As for you,
+Jim Pigeon, you Tory scoundrel, I'm getting the best of you, after all.
+For I stay right here and take care of her, Lord knows how long, while
+you go off, Lord knows where, and get yourself poked full of holes for
+your old King George--  Eh, what, baggage? as Jim would say!"  And he
+turned unexpectedly toward Barbara, who had been standing by the
+window, and peering diligently out into the blackness for the past ten
+minutes,--and surreptitiously wiping her eyes as well as her nose.
+
+"Yes, indeed you _do_ get the best of the bargain," she cheerfully and
+mendaciously agreed.
+
+Two days later, in the dark before moonrise, Doctor Jim and Amos
+slipped away on horseback by the road to Westings Landing.  And Doctor
+John went with them as far as the Landing, to put them into trusty
+hands for their night voyage down the river.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+A few days after Doctor Jim's going, came the news that Washington had
+entered Boston, the troops of the king having given up the defence and
+sailed away to Halifax.  Soon afterward there was bustle in Second
+Westings, and camp talk, and military swagger; for a portion of the
+army was moving down to New York, and many men had leave to visit their
+homes in passing; and some, who had enlisted for a short service, had
+come home to get in the crops before reenlisting; and some, grudging
+souls, had come home to stay, saying that it was now the time for
+others to sweat and bleed for their country.
+
+Amid all this excitement, which had some effect even upon Mistress
+Mehitable, antagonistic though she was to it, the palely brilliant
+Connecticut spring rushed over the land with promise.  Never before, it
+seemed, did the vanguards of the song-sparrows and thrushes so crowd
+the blowing thickets with melody; never before the bright hordes of the
+dandelions so suddenly and so goldenly over-flood the meadows.  But to
+Barbara the iridescent glory was somehow more sad than gloom.  The fact
+that her cause was everywhere prospering, that success had fallen to
+the Continental arms beyond anything that she had dared to hope,
+brought her no elation.  She felt the sorrow that had come into Doctor
+John's life in spite of the big, whimsical gaiety with which he kept it
+covered up.  She felt the fierce tugging at Mistress Mehitable's
+heart-strings, though that thoroughbred little lady never revealed,
+save by the dark eye-shadows of sleepless nights, the pangs it cost her
+to be deprived in a day of the lover whom she had been half a lifetime
+in finding out.  Barbara felt, too, the absence of Doctor Jim, who
+seemed to her so big and boyish and reckless and unfit to take care of
+himself that he could not fail to get into trouble if not kept at home
+and mothered by small women like herself and Aunt Hitty.  And most of
+all she felt the crushing uncertainty as to Robert.
+
+When summer was approaching high tide, Second Westings grew quiet
+again, the soldiers being all called back to their colours to make
+ready the defences of New York.  Then, by hard-riding express
+messengers, the tidings flew over the country that Congress at
+Philadelphia, on the fourth day of July, had declared independence, and
+set up a republic to be known as the "United States of America."
+Second Westings went wild with enthusiasm, and that night there was a
+terrific consumption of old tar barrels and dry brush.  And there was a
+select little dinner at Squire Gillig's, to which Barbara and Doctor
+John felt in duty bound to go,--and from which Mistress Mehitable, with
+an equal devotion to duty, stayed away.  She had taken the news
+gracefully enough, however, merely suggesting to Barbara and Doctor
+John that possibly all the rejoicing might turn out to be a little
+premature.
+
+Thereafter it seemed to Barbara that events moved furiously, one piece
+of vital news following close upon the heels of its predecessor.  Early
+in August came word that a great English army for the capture of New
+York was landing at Staten Island.  Then, the first tidings of
+Robert,--reaching Barbara in a letter from her uncle, whose regiment
+was holding Brooklyn.  Glenowen wrote that from certain neutrals,
+country-folk of Long Island, who had no party but their cabbage-patch,
+he had learned of both Robert Gault and Doctor Jim.  Doctor Jim, as
+representing one of the oldest and most distinguished families of
+Connecticut, and himself widely known, had been attached to the staff
+of the English general, Sir William Howe, while Robert Gault, with the
+rank of captain, was in command of a troop of irregular Loyalist Horse.
+With the unspeakable relief that these tidings brought her, Barbara
+regained for a few days her old vivacity, imperiousness, and daring.
+She tore about the country wildly as of old, on horseback,--no longer,
+as a rule, on Black Prince, who had grown too sedate to fully fall in
+with her caprices, but on a fiery young sorrel which she had bought for
+herself, choosing it partly for its own qualities, and partly for its
+resemblance to Robert's old Narragansett pacer.  She resumed her
+canoeing on the lake.  She sang again her old plantation songs, to
+Doctor John's accompaniment and Mistress Mehitable's diversion.  She
+put a new and gayer ribbon on the neck of the furry "Mr. Grim."  She
+even remembered that the bergamot was in flower, and set herself with
+interest to the distilling of her half-forgotten "Water of Maryland
+Memories," laughing indulgently the while at the girlishly sentimental
+name of it.  Meantime she was conscious of a curiously divided interest
+in the war,--conscious that her interest was divided in a fashion that
+would, a year ago, have seemed to her wicked and impossible.  Just as
+passionately as ever was her heart set upon the triumph of her cause.
+But she felt an irrational desire that Robert and Doctor Jim should win
+each a splendid victory on his own account.  She was full of pity that
+they should be on what she held the surely losing side, and she wanted
+some measure of glory to be theirs.
+
+But the next news that came dashed her spirits.  It told of the battle
+of Long Island, and the defeat of the Continentals by the ordered
+British lines.  It told of the panic flight of patriot regiments.  It
+told of General Washington's retreat from Long Island and entrenching
+of the army at New York.  A few days later came a letter to Barbara
+from Glenowen,--whose regiment had stood firm and suffered heavily,--in
+which he said that he did not think it would be possible to hold New
+York with the troops at Washington's command, and that there would
+doubtless soon be a further retreat to some position beyond the Harlem.
+The letter made no mention of Doctor Jim,--which caused Barbara to
+remind Mistress Mehitable that no news was good news,--but it spoke
+with somewhat bitter praise of Robert Gault.  It said that Robert's
+little squadron of mad Tories had gone through the Continental ranks
+like flame, irresistible and deadly, and had done more than anything
+else to cause the breaking of Putnam's lines.  Robert had had his horse
+shot under him, and his hat shot off, but had himself, as report said,
+escaped without a scratch, though with a much diminished troop.  As she
+was reading this out to Mistress Mehitable, all at once and to her deep
+mortification her scrupulously matter-of-fact voice thrilled and broke.
+Mistress Mehitable shot her a glance of swift understanding and
+sympathy, and then pretended that she had noticed nothing unusual.
+Barbara coughed, and went on.  But her voice had become unmanageable.
+With an impatient gesture and a toss of her head she handed over the
+letter.
+
+"You'll have to read it yourself, honey!  It upsets me to hear of our
+poor fellows beaten like this!" she cried, hypocritically.
+
+"Of course, dear, I quite understand!" replied Mistress Mehitable,
+keeping her eyes strictly upon the letter, that she might the more
+easily seem deceived.
+
+A few days later, Glenowen's prediction was fulfilled, and the news
+that came to Second Westings was of Washington's hasty retreat from New
+York to the Harlem Heights, leaving his artillery and heavy baggage
+behind.  Then for a month there was expectancy, and to Barbara in her
+quiet green land it seemed marvellous that the two armies could lie
+facing each other in this way, day after day, and not be stirred to
+decisive action.  She wondered how their nerves could bear the strain
+of such waiting.
+
+The bright September dragged by in drowsy fashion, and October ran on
+in its blue and golden-brown; and then the word that came was of yet
+another retreat.  The British had enlarged their narrow borders, and
+Washington had drawn back to the line of the Bronx, where he fortified
+himself strongly so as to hold the roads leading inland.  Would he
+never stop retreating, questioned Barbara, anxiously, echoing the cry
+that went up all over the infant Union.  "I think not, dear!" responded
+Mistress Mehitable, cheerfully.  But Doctor John, who understood the
+conditions, declared that this Fabian policy was the only sound one,
+while the Continental troops were getting seasoned and learning the
+arts of war.  Even while this teaching was being digested, came word of
+the fierce battle of White Plains, where the two armies, in numbers
+closely matched, long held each other by the throat without decisive
+advantage.  When, two days later, the Continentals again withdrew, this
+time to hasty entrenchments at New Castle, Doctor John had hard work to
+convince Barbara that this long-drawn-out and bloody struggle was not
+an American defeat.  For days thereafter word kept coming in, telling
+of the losses on both sides, and supplying vivid details; and the
+blinds of mourning were drawn down in more than one modest Second
+Westings home.  A brief message came from Glenowen, saying that he was
+safe and well.  But of Doctor Jim no word; of Robert not a word.  And
+Barbara and Mistress Mehitable durst not meet each other's eyes lest
+either should read therein, and cry aloud, the fear in the other's
+heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+With the coming in of this tumultuous November, there came to Second
+Westings a few days of Indian summer magic.  The moveless air seemed a
+distillation of dreams.  The faint azure haze hung everywhere, soft yet
+cool, with an elusive fragrance as of clean smoke and fading roses and
+fresh earth-mould and lofts of grain.  And on one of these consecrated
+days Barbara set out early in the morning to paddle across the lake and
+see old Debby.
+
+As on a morning long ago, but not so early, she ran down the back
+garden path, and behind the barn, and climbed the pasture bars.  This
+time she called to Keep; and the big mastiff, who now slept later than
+of old, came somewhat stiffly gamboling from his manger bed in the
+horse stable.  She tripped along the pasture path, between the
+hillocks.  She trod rapidly the black earth of the old wood-road, where
+the shadows were lighter now, and no sound broke the stillness save the
+eerie sigh and footfall of the dropping leaves.  She launched the canoe
+with easy vigour, motioned Keep to his place in the bow, and pushed out
+with strong, leisurely strokes across the enchanted mirror.  That
+far-off morning of her flight came back to her with strange poignancy,
+and she wondered if the blue heron would be standing at the outlet to
+admonish her with his enigmatic gaze.
+
+As she approached the outlet, the point was vacant.  But suddenly a
+strange, dishevelled figure, hatless, and in a blood-stained British
+uniform, emerged from the trees near by, came down amid the tall yellow
+grasses, and stood staring across the lake.  He stood thus with blank
+eyes for a moment, apparently not seeing the canoe, then pitched
+forward, and lay on his face close to the water's edge.
+
+With one sharp cry of his name, Barbara surged upon the paddle and shot
+the canoe toward land, wasting no mare breath on words.  She sprang
+ashore, turned the still form over, loosened the low vest and the
+throat of the shirt, and dashed water in the white, stained, deathlike
+face.  At first she thought he was dead, and she felt things growing
+black before her eyes.  Then she caught herself, and held herself
+steady for the need.  If she could not be strong now, what right had
+she to call herself a woman, or to love a man.  She felt at his heart
+and found that he was alive.  She saw that he was sorely wounded.  She
+told herself that he had swooned from loss of blood, weariness,
+hunger,--but that he had lived, would live, must live.  Then she
+dragged him further back into the grass, where he was hidden.
+
+Calling Keep from the canoe, she sat down for a moment with Robert's
+head in her lap, and planned what should be done.  He must not be found
+in Second Westings, that she knew.  For an English prisoner of war it
+would be all very well,--but for a Tory it might be different.  She
+could take no risks.  In a moment or two her mind was made up.  She
+bent over, and kissed the unresponding mouth.  Then she rose, and
+turned to Keep, who had stood sniffing at Robert's clothes with
+sympathetic interest.  They were shocking clothes, but Keep dimly
+remembered the man within them.  Barbara pointed to the helpless
+figure, saying:
+
+"Lie down, Keep!"
+
+And Keep lay down, with his muzzle on Robert's arm.
+
+"Guard, sir!" commanded Barbara.  And Keep rolled upon her a
+comprehending and obedient eye.  Then she pushed off the canoe, and
+paddled hastily down the river to fetch old Debby.
+
+During all these years since Barbara's interrupted flight, no one had
+really read her heart, or been the unacknowledged recipient of her
+confidences, so fully as Mrs. Debby Blue.  Now, when Barbara arrived,
+breathless, with great, strained eyes, tears in her voice, but her red
+mouth sternly set, the old woman understood with few words.  At another
+time, Barbara would have been amazed at this swift understanding.  Now,
+she was only grateful for it.  While she was explaining, Debby was
+rummaging on shelves and in boxes, looking for sundry simples of her
+cunning extraction.  At last she said:
+
+"Don't you be worried, my sweeting.  If Mr. Robert kin be cured up, old
+Debby's the one that kin cure him up, well as any doctor in the land,
+not even exceptin' Doctor Jim.  An' I've got the place where we kin
+hide him, too, an' keep him safe till he gits well.  An' now, I'm after
+you, Miss Barby, sweetheart!"
+
+"God bless your dear, true heart, Debby," cried Barbara, leading the
+way in hot haste to the canoe.
+
+When they arrived at the point, Robert was just recovering
+consciousness, in a dazed fashion.  They saw him make an effort to sit
+up; and they saw Keep, who was nothing if not literal in his
+interpretation of Barbara's commands, put his two huge fore paws on
+Robert's breast and firmly push him down again.  The tears jumped to
+Barbara's eyes at this, and she gave a little hysterical laugh,
+exclaiming:
+
+"Just look at that, Debby!  Good _dear_ old Keep!  Even he knows that
+Robert must be kept hidden!"
+
+When they got to him, he sat up determinedly, and recognised Barbara
+with a look of utter content.
+
+"You, my lady!  I have come a very long way to look--" and then he sank
+off again, falling back into Barbara's supporting arms.
+
+[Illustration: _He sank off again, falling back into Barbara's
+supporting arms_.]
+
+"Why, he's _starved_, that's what he is!" exclaimed Debby, examining
+him critically and feeling his pulse.  "An' he's lost pretty nigh all
+the blood was ever in him.  An' he's got two wounds here, either one
+enough to do for a man!"
+
+She forced some fiery liquor down his throat, and then, as a faint
+colour came back to his lips, she gave him to drink from a bottle of
+milk.  He drank eagerly, but automatically, without opening his eyes.
+
+"He's been wounded at White Plains, poor dear!" murmured Barbara,
+leaning over him a face of brooding tenderness.
+
+"An' he's wandered all the way up here, a-lookin' for you, Miss Barby!"
+responded the old woman.
+
+"Do you really think so?" murmured Barbara.
+
+"No manner of doubt!" said old Debby, positively, as she set about
+dressing and binding Robert's wounds.
+
+In a little while Robert was able to sit up again; and then to be
+helped to his feet; and then to be half guided, half carried to the
+canoe.  There he was placed on a bed of heaped armfuls of dry grass.
+Old Debby squatted precariously in the bow,--she was more at home in a
+punt than in a canoe,--and Barbara thrust out from shore, heading down
+the little river.
+
+Robert was still too far gone in exhaustion to explain his strange
+appearance at Second Westings, or to ask any questions, or to care
+where he was going, so long as he was able to open his eyes every once
+in awhile and look at Barbara.  When he did so, Barbara would smile
+back reassuringly, and lay a slim brown finger on her lips, as a sign
+that he was not to talk.  And happily he would close his eyes again.
+
+Barbara paddled down past Debby's landing, past the ducks and hens and
+turkeys, now too lazy to make more than casual comment.  Keep,
+meanwhile, followed anxiously along the shore, close to the edge, and
+now and then splashing in belly deep.
+
+"How far is it, Debby dear?" asked Barbara, presently.
+
+"Jest a little mite furder," answered the old woman, who relished the
+situation immensely.  "A matter of half a mile, maybe!"
+
+And so they slipped noiselessly on, in that enchanted light, over that
+enchanted water with its reflections of amber and blue.  Some crows,
+grown suddenly garrulous over private matters, cawed pleasantly in the
+pine-tops a little way off against the sky, and then subsided again
+into silence.
+
+On both banks of the stream the trees held out their leaves, russet and
+gold, amethyst and bronze and scarlet, like so many little elfin hands
+attesting that all fair dreams come true at last for those who have the
+key to the inner mysteries.
+
+Barbara was paddling in a dream herself, when suddenly old Debby said,
+"Turn in here, my sweeting!  Here to your right!"
+
+"But where?" asked Barbara, puzzled.  "I don't see any place to turn
+in!"
+
+"Straight through them dripping branches yonder by the water-logged
+stump!" directed the old woman.  "Straight on through!"
+
+As the prow of the canoe came up to what was seemingly the shore, old
+Debby parted the branches.  As the canoe pushed onward, she continued
+this process,--and a few feet in from the main stream they entered a
+long, narrow deadwater, deep and clear, and perfectly hidden from the
+world.  It was perhaps a hundred yards in length, slightly winding; and
+at its head, on a gentle rise, stood a little deserted log cabin.
+
+"Oh, _Debby_!" cried Barbara.  "How did you ever find such a place?"
+
+"It's been empty this ten year!" answered Debby.  "An' folks has
+forgotten, that ever knowed.  An' I've been keepin' it to myself, when
+I wanted to get away from the ducks an' hens a mite.  An' I've kep' it
+from fallin' to pieces.  I'll nurse Master Robert here till he's able
+to get away, if it takes a year.  An' I'll come back and forward in my
+punt.  There's a bunk ready now, full of pine-needles; an' when we get
+him into it we'll go back to make it all right with Aunt Hitty.
+_Ain't_ I got a head on my old shoulders, now, Miss Barby?"
+
+Even as Debby had so swiftly and fully planned, it was done.  Robert
+was still so far gone in exhaustion, and so wandering in his mind, that
+Barbara would not let him talk; and before they left him--with Keep an
+incorruptible sentry at the door--he had fallen into a deep sleep.
+When they returned a couple hours later, he was awake and quite clear,
+and so determined to talk that Barbara could not but let him.  He sat
+up in the bunk, but Barbara, bending shining eyes down close to his,
+laid him back upon the pillow.
+
+"Debby says you must not sit up at all, Robert!" she said.
+
+"And what do you say, my lady?" he asked, devouring her radiant dark
+face with his eyes.
+
+"I say so, too!" she answered, laughing softly.
+
+"Why, my lady?" he persisted.
+
+"Because it will hinder you getting well, Silly!" she replied, touching
+his hair with cool fingers.
+
+"What matter about a 'damned Tory' getting well?" he began, being very
+weak and foolish.  But the slim hand sweetly closed his mouth.
+
+"How did you get here--to me?" Barbara asked, changing the subject.
+
+He smiled up at her.
+
+"We charged through the rebels!" he explained, frankly.  "We cut them
+down, and scattered them, and chased them till we were within the
+enemy's lines.  Then we could not get back.  They surrounded us.  They
+overwhelmed us.  We were annihilated.  I escaped, I shall never know
+how, hatless and horseless, as you found me, my lady, I tried to get
+back to my regiment.  It was no use.  Then, somehow, a spirit in my
+feet led me back here, to you.  I just escaped capture a score of
+times.  I had nothing to eat for days, save roots and leaves.  I
+remember coming to the shore of the dear lake, and straining my eyes
+across it, to see the chimneys of the house where my love lay.  Then I
+saw no more, knew no more, till I saw my love herself in very truth,
+leaning her face over mine.  And I thought I was in heaven, my lady."
+
+"You still love me, Robert, after the hideous way I treated you?"
+questioned Barbara, her voice a little tremulous.
+
+He started again to sit up; but being again suppressed, was fain to
+content himself with clutching both her hands to his lips.
+
+"There is nothing in the world but you, Barbara," he said.  "There is
+nothing I want but you, wonderful one!"
+
+"Then--you may take me, Robert, I think!" she whispered, dropping her
+face, and brushing his lips with her hair.
+
+"Me?" he cried, in a voice suddenly strong, glad, and incredulous.
+"Me?  Sick near to death, hunted near to death, a beaten and fleeing
+enemy, a Tory?  I may take you, my queen, my beloved?"
+
+"Whatever you are, dear, I have found that you are my love," she
+answered.  "I don't care much what you are, so long as you are mine.  I
+find I am just a woman, Robert--and in my conceit I thought myself
+something more.  I love my country, truly.  But I love my lover more.
+I shall not ask you whether you bow to King or to Congress,--but only
+ask you to get well!"
+
+He reached up both arms, and slowly pulled down her still averted face
+till it was close to his.  Then she turned her face suddenly to him,
+and her lips met his.  A moment later she untwined his arms, went to
+the door, and glanced unheeding down at old Debby, gathering wood.
+Then, her face and eyes still glowing, she came back, smoothed his
+hair, kissed him lightly on the forehead, and said, "Now you must be
+quiet, dear.  Debby will scold me if I let you talk any more!"
+
+But Robert was excited, drunk with new joy after long despair.
+
+"Just one word, and I will obey, dear heart!  Listen, my lady.  I will
+draw sword no more in this quarrel.  I have given my blood, my
+lands,--I have given, as I thought, my love,--for a cause already lost,
+for a cause that I felt to be wrong from the day of Lexington, But
+whichever side wins, I will stay in my own country, if my country, when
+it is all over, will let me stay.  When I am well enough to go
+away--love, love, will you go with me, to return, when the fighting and
+the fury cease, to our own dear river and our own dear woods?"
+
+"Yes, you know I will, Robert," answered Barbara, kneeling down and
+looking into his eyes.  "You know that is what I am planning, dear one.
+Now go to sleep, and get well, and take me away when you will!"  And
+holding her hand against his neck he forthwith went to sleep, like a
+child, tired and contented.
+
+Barbara knelt for a long time unmoving, her hand warm in his weak
+clasp, and was grateful to old Debby for staying so long away.  As she
+knelt, the side of her face to the door, she heard a soft _thud, thud_
+on the threshold, and looked around out of the corners of her eyes
+without turning her head.  She saw two wild rabbits, filled with
+curiosity at finding the cabin door open.  They hopped in warily, and
+went bounding all about the room, sniffing with their sensitive, cleft
+nostrils; waving their ears back and forth at every faint whisper; and
+from time to time sitting up to ponder their discovery.  One of them
+bounded over Barbara's little foot, turned to examine it, and nibbled
+tentatively at the heel of her shoe till she had to make the muscles
+tense to keep him from pulling it off.  Then, standing up together for
+a moment, they seemed to take counsel and conclude that they had
+business elsewhere.  As they hopped lazily away from the door, Barbara
+got up and followed to look after them.  The wonderful day was drawing
+to its close; and long, straight beams of rosy gold, enmeshed with the
+haze, were streaming through the trees to her very feet.  She laughed a
+little happy laugh under her breath.  Those bright paths leading to the
+sun seemed a fair omen.
+
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+A FEW OF GROSSET & DUNLAP'S
+
+Great Books at Little Prices
+
+NEW, CLEVER, ENTERTAINING.
+
+
+GRET: The Story of a Pagan.  By Beatrice Mantle.  Illustrated by C. M.
+Relyea.
+
+The wild free life of an Oregon lumber camp furnishes the setting for
+this strong original story.  Gret is the daughter of the camp and is
+utterly content with the wild life--until love comes.  A fine book,
+unmarred by convention.
+
+
+OLD CHESTER TALES.  By Margaret Deland.  Illustrated by Howard Pyle.
+
+A vivid yet delicate portrayal of characters in an old New England town.
+
+Dr. Lavendar's fine, kindly wisdom is brought to bear upon the lives of
+all, permeating the whole volume like the pungent odor of pine,
+healthful and life giving.  "Old Chester Tales" will surely be among
+the books that abide.
+
+
+THE MEMOIRS OF A BABY.  By Josephine Daskam.  Illustrated by F. Y. Cory.
+
+The dawning intelligence of the baby was grappled with by its great
+aunt, an elderly maiden, whose book knowledge of babies was something
+at which even the infant himself winked.  A delicious bit of humor.
+
+
+REBECCA MARY.  By Annie Hamilton Donnell.  Illustrated by Elizabeth
+Shippen Green.
+
+The heart tragedies of this little girl with no one near to share them,
+are told with a delicate art, a keen appreciation of the needs of the
+childish heart and a humorous knowledge of the workings of the childish
+mind.
+
+
+THE FLY ON THE WHEEL.  By Katherine Cecil Thurston.  Frontispiece by
+Harrison Fisher.
+
+An Irish story of real power, perfect in development and showing a true
+conception of the spirited Hibernian character as displayed in the
+tragic as well as the tender phases of life.
+
+
+THE MAN FROM BRODNEY'S.  By George Barr McCutcheon.  Illustrated by
+Harrison Fisher.
+
+An island in the South Sea is the setting for this entertaining tale,
+and an all-conquering hero and a beautiful princess figure in a most
+complicated plot.  One of Mr. McCutcheon's best books.
+
+
+TOLD BY UNCLE REMUS.  By Joel Chandler Harris.  Illustrated by A. B.
+Frost, J. M. Conde and Frank Verbeck.
+
+Again Uncle Remus enters the fields of childhood, and leads another
+little boy to that non-locatable land called "Brer Rabbit's Laughing
+Place," and again the quaint animals spring into active life and play
+their parts, for the edification of a small but appreciative audience.
+
+
+THE CLIMBER.  By E. F. Benson.  With frontispiece.
+
+An unsparing analysis of an ambitious woman's soul--a woman who
+believed that in social supremacy she would find happiness, and who
+finds instead the utter despair of one who has chosen the things that
+pass away.
+
+
+LYNCH'S DAUGHTER.  By Leonard Merrick.  Illustrated by Geo. Brehm.
+
+A story of to-day, telling how a rich girl acquires ideals of beautiful
+and simple living, and of men and love, quite apart from the teachings
+of her father, "Old Man Lynch" of Wall St.  True to life, clever in
+treatment.
+
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP'S
+
+DRAMATIZED NOVELS
+
+A Few that are Making Theatrical History
+
+
+MARY JANE'S PA, By Norman Way Illustrated with scenes from the play.
+
+Delightful, irresponsible "Mary Jane's Pa" awakes one morning to find
+himself famous, and, genius being ill adapted to domestic joys, he
+wanders from home to work out his own unique destiny.  One of the most
+numerous bits of recent fiction.
+
+
+CHERUB DEVINE.  By Sewell Ford.
+
+"Cherub," a good hearted but not over refined young man is brought in
+touch with the aristocracy.  Of sprightly wit, he is sometimes a
+merciless analyst, but he proves in the end that manhood counts for
+more than and?  cut lineage by winning the love of the fairest girl in
+the flock.
+
+
+A WOMAN'S WAY.  By Charles Somerville.  Illustrated with scenes from
+the play.
+
+A story in which a woman's wit and self-sacrificing love save her
+husband from the toils of an adventuress, and change an apparently
+tragic situation into one of delicious comedy.
+
+
+THE CLIMAX.  By George C. Jenks.
+
+With ambition luring her on, a young choir soprano leaves the little
+village where she was born and the limited audience of St. Jude's to
+train for the opera in New York.  She leaves love behind her and meets
+love more ardent but not more sincere in her new environment.  How she
+works, how she studies, how she suffers, are vividly portrayed.
+
+
+A FOOL THERE WAS.  By Porter Emerson Browne, Illustrated by Edmund
+Magrath and W. W. Fawcett.
+
+A relentless portrayal of the career of a man who comes under the
+influence of a beautiful but evil woman; how she lures him on and on,
+how he struggles, falls and rises, only to fall again into her net,
+make a story of unflinching realism.
+
+
+THE SQUAW MAN.  By Julie Opp Faversham and Edwin Milton Royle.
+Illustrated with scenes from the play.
+
+A glowing story, rapid in action, bright in dialogue with a fine
+courageous hero and a Beautiful English heroine.
+
+
+THE GIRL IN WAITING.  By Archibald Eyre.  Illustrated with scenes from
+the play.
+
+A droll little comedy of misunderstandings, told with a light touch, a
+venturesome spirit and an eye for human oddities.
+
+
+THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL.  By Baroness Orczy.  Illustrated with scenes
+from the play.
+
+A realistic story of the days of the French Revolution, abounding in
+dramatic incident, with a young English soldier of fortune, daring,
+mysterious as the hero.
+
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+A FEW OF
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP'S
+
+Great Books at Little Prices
+
+
+CY WHITTAKER'S PLACE.  By Joseph C. Lincoln.  Illustrated by Wallace
+Morgan.
+
+A Cape Cod story describing the amusing efforts of an elderly bachelor
+and his two cronies to rear and educate a little girl.  Full of honest
+fun--a rural drama.
+
+
+THE FORGE IN THE FOREST.  By Charles G. D. Roberts.  Illustrated by H.
+Sandham.
+
+A story of the conflict in Acadia after its conquest by the British.  A
+dramatic picture that lives and shines with the indefinable charm of
+poetic romance.
+
+
+A SISTER TO EVANGELINE.  By Charles G. D. Roberts.  Illustrated by E.
+McConnell.
+
+Being the story of Yvonne de Lamourie, and how she went into exile with
+the villagers of Grand Pre.  Swift action, fresh atmosphere, wholesome
+purity, deep passion and searching analysis characterize this strong
+novel.
+
+
+THE OPENED SHUTTERS.  By Clara Louise Burnham.  Frontispiece by
+Harrison Fisher.
+
+A summer haunt on an island in Casco Bay is the background for this
+romance.  A beautiful woman, at discord with life, is brought to
+realize, by her new friends, that she may open the shutters of her soul
+to the blessed sunlight of joy by casting aside vanity and self love.
+A delicately humorous work with a lofty motive underlying it all.
+
+
+THE RIGHT PRINCESS.  By Clara Louise Burnham.
+
+An amusing story, opening at a fashionable Long Island resort, where a
+stately Englishwoman employs a forcible New England housekeeper to
+serve in her interesting home.  How types so widely apart react on each
+others' lives, all to ultimate good, makes a story both humorous and
+rich in sentiment.
+
+
+THE LEAVEN OF LOVE.  By Clara Louise Burnham.  Frontispiece by Harrison
+Fisher.
+
+At a Southern California resort a world-weary woman, young and
+beautiful but disillusioned, meets a girl who has learned the art of
+living--of tasting life in all its richness, opulence and joy.  The
+story hinges upon the change wrought in the soul of the blase woman by
+this glimpse into a cheery life.
+
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+A FEW OF
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP'S
+
+Great Books at Little Prices
+
+
+THE MUSIC MASTER.  By Charles Klein.  Illustrated by John Rae.
+
+This marvelously vivid narrative turns upon the search of a German
+musician in New York for his little daughter.  Mr. Klein has well
+portrayed his pathetic struggle with poverty, his varied experiences in
+endeavoring to meet the demands of a public not trained to an
+appreciation of the classic, and his final great hour when, in the
+rapidly shifting events of a big city, his little daughter, now a
+beautiful young woman, is brought to his very door.  A superb bit of
+fiction, palpitating with the life or the great metropolis.  The play
+in which David Warfield scored his highest success.
+
+
+DR. LAVENDAR'S PEOPLE.  By Margaret Deland.  Illustrated by Lucius
+Hitchcock.
+
+Mrs. Deland won so many friends through Old Chester Tales that this
+volume needs no introduction beyond its title.  The lovable doctor is
+more ripened in this later book, and the simple comedies and tragedies
+of the old village are told with dramatic charm.
+
+
+OLD CHESTER TALES.  By Margaret Deland.  Illustrated by Howard Pyle.
+
+Stories portraying with delightful humor and pathos a quaint people in
+a sleepy old town.  Dr. Lavendar, a very human and lovable "preacher,"
+is the connecting link between these dramatic stories from life.
+
+
+HE FELL IN LOVE WITH HIS WIFE.  By E. P. Roe.  With frontispiece.
+
+The hero is a farmer--a man with honest, sincere views of life.  Bereft
+of his wife, his home is cared for by a succession of domestics of
+varying degrees of inefficiency until, from a most unpromising source,
+comes a young woman who not only becomes his wife but commands his
+respect and eventually wins his love.  A bright and delicate romance,
+revealing on both sides a love that surmounts all difficulties and
+survives the censure of friends as well as the bitterness of enemies.
+
+
+THE YOKE.  By Elizabeth Miller.
+
+Against the historical background of the days when the children of
+Israel were delivered from the bondage of Egypt, the author has
+sketched a romance of compelling charm.  A biblical novel as great as
+any since "Ben Hur."
+
+
+SAUL OF TARSUS.  By Elizabeth Miller.  Illustrated by Andre Castaigne.
+
+The scenes of this story are laid in Jerusalem, Alexandria, Rome and
+Damascus.  The Apostle Paul, the Martyr Stephen, Herod Agrippa and the
+Emperors Tiberius and Caligula are among the mighty figures that move
+through the pages.  Wonderful descriptions, and a love story of the
+purest and noblest type mark this most remarkable religious romance.
+
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+A FEW OF
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP'S
+
+Great Books at Little Prices
+
+
+QUINCY ADAMS SAWYER.  A Picture of New England Home Life.  With
+illustrations by C. W. Reed, and Scenes Reproduced from the Play.
+
+One of the best New England stories ever written.  It is full of homely
+human interest * * * there is a wealth of New England village
+character, scenes and incidents * * * forcibly, vividly and truthfully
+drawn.  Few books have enjoyed a greater sale and popularity.
+Dramatized, it made the greatest rural play of recent times.
+
+
+THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF QUINCY ADAMS SAWYER.  By Charles Felton
+Pidgin.  Illustrated by Henry Roth.
+
+All who love honest sentiment, quaint and sunny humor, and homespun
+philosophy will find these "Further Adventures" a book after their own
+heart.
+
+
+HALF A CHANCE.  By Frederic S. Isham.  Illustrated by Herman Pfeifer.
+
+The thrill of excitement will keep the reader in a state of suspense,
+and he will become personally concerned from the start, as to the
+central character, a very real man who suffers, dares--and achieves!
+
+
+VIRGINIA OF THE AIR LANES.  By Herbert Quick.  Illustrated by William
+R. Leigh.
+
+The author has seized the romantic moment for the airship novel, and
+created the pretty story of "a lover and his lass" contending with an
+elderly relative for the monopoly of the skies.  An exciting tale of
+adventure in midair.
+
+
+THE GAME AND THE CANDLE.  By Eleanor M. Ingram.  Illustrated by P. D.
+Johnson.
+
+The hero is a young American, who, to save his family from poverty,
+deliberately commits a felony.  Then follow his capture and
+imprisonment, and his rescue by a Russian Grand Duke.  A stirring
+story, rich in sentiment.
+
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+A FEW OF
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP'S
+
+Great Books at Little Prices
+
+
+BRUVVER JIM'S BABY.   By Philip Verrill Mighels.
+
+An uproariously funny story of a tiny mining settlement in the West,
+which is shaken to the very roots by the sudden possession of a baby,
+found on the plains by one of its residents.  The town is as
+disreputable a spot as the gold fever was ever responsible for, and the
+coming of that baby causes the upheaval of every rooted tradition of
+the place.  Its christening, the problems of its toys and its illness
+supersede in the minds of the miners all thought of earthy treasure.
+
+
+THE FURNACE OF GOLD.  By Philip Verrill Mighels, author of "Bruvver
+Jim's Baby."  Illustrations by J. N. Marchand.
+
+An accurate and informing portrayal of scenes, types, and conditions of
+the mining districts in modern Nevada.
+
+The book is an out-door story, clean, exciting, exemplifying nobility
+and courage of character, and bravery, and heroism in the sort of men
+and women we all admire and wish to know.
+
+
+THE MESSAGE.  By Louis Tracy.  Illustrations by Joseph C. Chase.
+
+A breezy tale of how a bit of old parchment, concealed in a figurehead
+from a sunken vessel, comes into the possession of a pretty girl and an
+army man during regatta week in the Isle of Wight.  This is the message
+and it enfolds a mystery, the development of which the reader will
+follow with breathless interest.
+
+
+THE SCARLET EMPIRE.  By David M. Parry.  Illustrations by Hermann C.
+Wall.
+
+A young socialist, weary of life, plunges into the sea and awakes in
+the lost island of Atlantis, known as the Scarlet Empire, where a
+social democracy is in full operation, granting every man a living but
+limiting food, conversation, education and marriage.
+
+The hero passes through an enthralling love affair and other adventures
+but finally returns to his own New York world.
+
+
+THE THIRD DEGREE.  By Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow.  Illustrations
+by Clarence Rowe.
+
+A novel which exposes the abuses in this country of the police system.
+
+The son of an aristocratic New York family marries a woman socially
+beneath him, but of strong, womanly qualities that, later on, save the
+man from the tragic consequences of a dissipated life.
+
+The wife believes in his innocence and her wit and good sense help her
+to win against the tremendous odds imposed by law.
+
+
+THE THIRTEENTH DISTRICT.  By Brand Whitlock.
+
+A realistic western story of love and politics and a searching study of
+their influence on character.  The author shows with extraordinary
+vitality of treatment the tricks, the heat, the passion, the tumult of
+the political arena, the triumph and strength of love.
+
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+A FEW OF
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP'S
+
+Great Books at Little Prices
+
+
+HAPPY HAWKINS.  By Robert Alexander Wason.  Illustrated by Howard Giles.
+
+A ranch and cowboy novel.  Happy Hawkins tells his own story with such
+a fine capacity for knowing how to do it and with so much humor that
+the reader's interest is held in surprise, then admiration and at last
+in positive affection.
+
+
+COMRADES.  By Thomas Dixon, Jr.  Illustrated by C. D. Williams.
+
+The locale of this story is in California, where a few socialists
+establish a little community.
+
+The author leads the little band along the path of disillusionment, and
+gives some brilliant flashes of light on one side of an important
+question.
+
+
+TONO-BUNGAY.  By Herbert George Wells.
+
+The hero of this novel is a young man who, through hard work, earns a
+scholarship and goes to London.
+
+Written with a frankness verging on Rousseau's, Mr. Wells still uses
+rare discrimination and the border line of propriety is never crossed.
+An entertaining book with both a story and a moral, and without a dull
+page--Mr.  Wells's most notable achievement.
+
+
+A HUSBAND BY PROXY.  By Jack Steele.
+
+A young criminologist, but recently arrived in New York city, is drawn
+into a mystery, partly through financial need and partly through his
+interest in a beautiful woman, who seems at times the simplest child
+and again a perfect mistress of intrigue.  A baffling detective story.
+
+
+LIKE ANOTHER HELEN.  By George Horton.  Illustrated by C. M. Relyea.
+
+Mr. Horton's powerful romance stands in a new field and brings an
+almost unknown world in reality before the reader--the world of
+conflict between Greek and Turk on the Island of Crete.  The "Helen" of
+the story is a Greek, beautiful, desolate, defiant--pure as snow.
+
+There is a certain new force about the story, a kind of
+master-craftsmanship and mental dominance that holds the reader.
+
+
+THE MASTER OF APPLEBY.  By Francis Lynde.  Illustrated by T. de
+Thulstrup.
+
+A novel tale concerning itself in part with the great struggle in the
+two Carolinas, but chiefly with the adventures therein of two gentlemen
+who loved one and the same lady.
+
+A strong, masculine and persuasive story.
+
+
+A MODERN MADONNA.  By Caroline Abbot Stanley.
+
+A story of American life, founded on facts as they existed some years
+ago in the District of Columbia.  The theme is the maternal love and
+splendid courage of a woman.
+
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+A FEW OF
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP'S
+
+Great Books at Little Prices
+
+
+WHEN A MAN MARRIES.  By Mary Roberts Rinehart.  Illustrated by Harrison
+Fisher and Mayo Bunker.
+
+A young artist, whose wife had recently divorced him, finds that a
+visit is due from his Aunt Selina, an elderly lady having ideas about
+things quite apart from the Bohemian set in which her nephew is a
+shining light.  The way in which matters are temporarily adjusted forms
+the motif of the story.
+
+A farcical extravaganza, dramatized under the title of "Seven Days."
+
+
+THE FASHIONABLE ADVENTURES OF JOSHUA CRAIG.  By David Graham Phillips.
+Illustrated.
+
+A young westerner, uncouth and unconventional, appears in political and
+social life in Washington.  He attains power in politics, and a young
+woman of the exclusive set becomes his wife, undertaking his education
+in social amenities.
+
+
+"DOC." GORDON.  By Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman.  Illustrated by Frank T.
+Merrill.
+
+Against the familiar background of American town life, the author
+portrays a group of people strangely involved in a mystery.  "Doc."
+Gordon, the one physician of the place, Dr. Elliot, his assistant, a
+beautiful woman and her altogether charming daughter are all involved
+in the plot.  A novel of great interest.
+
+
+HOLY ORDERS.  By Marie Corelli.
+
+A dramatic story, in which is pictured a clergyman in touch with
+society people, stage favorites, simple village folk, powerful
+financiers and others, each presenting vital problems to this man "in
+holy orders"--problems that we are now struggling with in America.
+
+
+KATRINE.  By Elinor Macartney Lane.  With frontispiece.
+
+Katrine, the heroine of this story, is a lovely Irish girl, of lowly
+birth, but gifted with a beautiful voice.
+
+The narrative is based on the facts of an actual singer's career, and
+the viewpoint throughout is a most exalted one.
+
+
+THE FORTUNES OF FIFI.  By Molly Elliot Seawell.  Illustrated by T. de
+Thulstrup.
+
+A story of life in France at the time of the first Napoleon.  Fifi, a
+glad, mad little actress of eighteen, is the star performer in a third
+rate Parisian theatre.  A story as dainty as a Watteau painting.
+
+
+SHE THAT HESITATES.  By Harris Dickson.  Illustrated by C. W. Relyea.
+
+The scene of this dashing romance shifts from Dresden to St. Petersburg
+in the reign of Peter the Great, and then to New Orleans.
+
+The hero is a French Soldier of Fortune, and the princess, who
+hesitates--but you must read the story to know how she that hesitates
+may be lost and yet saved.
+
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+BRILLIANT AND SPIRITED NOVELS
+
+AGNES AND EGERTON CASTLE
+
+Handsomely bound in cloth.  Price, 75 cents per volume, postpaid.
+
+
+THE PRIDE OF JENNICO.  Being a Memoir of Captain Basil Jennico.
+
+"What separates it from most books of its class is its distinction of
+manner, its unusual grace of diction, its delicacy of touch, and the
+fervent charm of its love passages.  It is a very attractive piece of
+romantic fiction relying for its effect upon character rather than
+incident, and upon vivid dramatic presentation."--_The Dial_.  "A
+stirring, brilliant and dashing story."--_The Outlook_.
+
+
+THE SECRET ORCHARD.  Illustrated by Charles D. Williams.
+
+The "Secret Orchard" is set in the midst of the ultra modern society.
+The scene is in Paris, but most of the characters are English speaking.
+The story was dramatized in London, and in it the Kendalls scored a
+great theatrical success.
+
+"Artfully contrived and full of romantic charm * * * it possesses
+ingenuity of incident, a figurative designation of the unhallowed
+scenes in which unlicensed love accomplishes and wrecks faith and
+happiness."--_Athenaeum_.
+
+
+YOUNG APRIL.  With illustrations by A. B. Wenzell.
+
+"It is everything that a good romance should be, and it carries about
+it an air of distinction both rare and delightful."--_Chicago Tribune_.
+"With regret one turns to the last page of this delightful novel, so
+delicate in its romance, so brilliant in its episodes, so sparkling in
+its art, and so exquisite in its diction."--_Worcester Spy_.
+
+
+FLOWER O' THE ORANGE.  With frontispiece.
+
+We have learned to expect from these fertile authors novels graceful in
+form, brisk in movement, and romantic in conception.  This carries the
+reader back to the days of the bewigged and beruffled gallants of the
+seventeenth century and tells him of feats of arms and adventures in
+love as thrilling and picturesque, yet delicate, as the utmost seeker
+of romance may ask.
+
+
+MY MERRY ROCKHURST.  Illustrated by Arthur E. Becher.
+
+In the eight stories of a courtier of King Charles Second, which are
+here gathered together, the Castles are at their best, reviving all the
+fragrant charm of those books, like _The Pride of Jennico_, in which
+they first showed an instinct, amounting to genius, for sunny romances.
+"The book is absorbing * * * and is as spontaneous in feeling as it is
+artistic in execution."--_New York Tribune_.
+
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers,--New York
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+THE MASTERLY AND REALISTIC NOVELS OF
+
+FRANK NORRIS
+
+Handsomely bound in cloth.  Price, 75 cents per volume, postpaid.
+
+
+THE OCTOPUS.  A Story of California.
+
+Mr. Norris conceived the ambitious idea of writing a trilogy of novels
+which, taken together, shall symbolize American life as a whole, with
+all its hopes and aspirations and its tendencies, throughout the length
+and breadth of the continent.  And for the central symbol he has taken
+wheat, as being quite literally the ultimate source of American power
+and prosperity.  _The Octopus_ is a story of wheat raising and railroad
+greed in California.  It immediately made a place for itself.
+
+It is full of enthusiasm and poetry and conscious strength.  One cannot
+read it without a responsive thrill of sympathy for the earnestness,
+the breadth of purpose, the verbal power of the man.
+
+
+THE PIT.  A Story of Chicago.
+
+This powerful novel is the fictitious narrative of a deal in the
+Chicago wheat pit and holds the reader from the beginning.  In a
+masterly way the author has grasped the essential spirit of the great
+city by the lakes.  The social existence, the gambling in stocks and
+produce, the characteristic life in Chicago, form a background for an
+exceedingly vigorous and human tale of modern life and love.
+
+
+A MAN'S WOMAN.
+
+A story which has for a heroine a girl decidedly out of the ordinary
+run of fiction.  It is most dramatic, containing some tremendous
+pictures of the daring of the men who are trying to reach the Pole * *
+* but it is at the same time essentially a _woman's_ book, and the
+story works itself out in the solution of a difficulty that is
+continually presented in real life--the wife's attitude in relation to
+her husband when both have well-defined careers.
+
+
+McTEAGUE.  A Story of San Francisco.
+
+"Since Bret Harte and the Forty-niner no one has written of California
+life with the vigor and accuracy of Mr. Norris.  His 'McTeague' settled
+his right to a place in American literature; and he has now presented a
+third novel, 'Blix,' which is in some respects the finest and likely to
+be the most popular of the three."--_Washington Times_.
+
+
+BLIX.
+
+"Frank Norris has written in 'Blix' just what such a woman's name would
+imply--a story of a frank, fearless girl comrade to all men who are
+true and honest because she is true and honest.  How she saved the man
+she fishes and picnics with in a spirit of outdoor platonic friendship,
+makes a pleasant story, and a perfect contrast to the author's
+McTeague.'  A splendid and successful story."--_Washington Times_.
+
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers,--New York
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Barbara Ladd, by Charles G. D. Roberts
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BARBARA LADD ***
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