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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/34427-8.txt b/34427-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0606c8b --- /dev/null +++ b/34427-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8570 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Dr. Lavendar's People, by Margaret Deland + +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: Dr. Lavendar's People + +Author: Margaret Deland + +Illustrator: Lucius Hitchcock + +Release Date: October 11, 2011 [EBook #34427] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DR. LAVENDAR'S PEOPLE *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: "'I HAVE A PRESENT FOR YOU--A SISTER'" See p. 45] + + + + + + +DR. LAVENDAR'S PEOPLE + + +BY + +MARGARET DELAND + + +AUTHOR OF "OLD CHESTER TALES" + + + +ILLUSTRATED BY + +LUCIUS HITCHCOCK + + + +NEW YORK AND LONDON + +HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS + +1903 + + + + +Copyright, 1903, by HARPER & BROTHERS. + +_All rights reserved._ + +Published October, 1903. + + + + +TO + +DR. FRANCIS B. HARRINGTON + +These Stories are + +Dedicated + + + + +CONTENTS + + +The Apotheosis of the Reverend Mr. Spangler + +The Note + +The Grasshopper and the Ant + +Amelia + +"An Exceeding High Mountain" + +At the Stuffed-Animal House + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +"I HAVE A PRESENT FOR YOU--A SISTER'" . . . . . . _Frontispiece_ + +"DAVID'S HEAD SWAM" + +"SHE ALWAYS CAME INTO THE LIBRARY TO SAY GOOD-NIGHT TO HIM" + +"LURCHED FORWARD INTO A CHAIR, BREATHING LOUDLY" + +"MRS. BARKLEY ROSE, TAPPING THE TABLE WITH ALARMING LOUDNESS" + +"MISS LYDIA, WATCHING HIM, GREW PALER AND PALER" + +"THERE SHE TURNED AND LOOKED BACK" + +"THOMAS DILWORTH GOT ON HIS FEET AND SWORE" + +"'WHAT IS THE NAME OF THE KIND PERSON?'" + +"SHE KNELT DOWN, AS USUAL, AT THE BIG CHINTZ-COVERED WINGED CHAIR" + +MISS HARRIET WAS LEANING FORWARD + +"'A HAPPY SLEEP,' MISS ANNIE REPEATED" + + + + +THE APOTHEOSIS + +OF THE + +REVEREND MR. SPANGLER + + +I + +Miss Ellen Baily kept school in the brick basement of her old frame +house on Main Street. + +The children used to come up a flagstone path to the side door, and +then step down two steps into an entry. Two rooms opened on this +entry; in one the children sat at small, battered desks and studied; in +the other Miss Baily heard their lessons, sitting at a table covered +with a red cloth, which had a white Grecian fret for a border and +smelled of crumbs. On the wall behind her was a faded print of +"Belshazzar's Feast"; in those days this was probably the only feasting +the room ever saw--although on a thin-legged sideboard there were two +decanters (empty) and a silver-wire cake-basket which held always three +apples. Both rooms looked out on the garden--the garden and, in fine +weather, _Mr. David Baily!_ ... Ah, me--what it was, in the dreary +stretches of mental arithmetic, to look across the flower-beds and see +Mr. David--tall and dark and melancholy--pacing up and down, sometimes +with a rake, oftener with empty hands; always with vague, beautiful +eyes fixed on some inner vision of heart-broken memory. Miss Ellen's +pupils were confident of this vision because of a tombstone in the +burial-ground which recorded the death of Maria Hastings, at the +romantic age of seventeen; and, as everybody in Old Chester knew, Mr. +Baily had been in love with this same seventeen-year-old Maria. To be +sure, it was thirty years ago; but that does not make any difference, +"_in real love_," as any school-girl can tell you. So, when David +Baily paced up and down the garden paths or sat in the sunshine under +the big larch we all knew that he was thinking of his bereavement. + +In the opinion of the older girls, grief had wrecked Mr. David's life; +he had intended to be a clergyman, but had left the theological school +because his eyes gave out. "He cried himself nearly blind," the girls +told each other with great satisfaction. After that he tried one +occupation after another, but somehow failed in each; which was proof +of a delicacy of constitution induced by sorrow. Furthermore, he +seemed pursued by a cruel fortune--"Fate," the girls called it. +Elderly, unromantic Old Chester did not use this fine word, but it +admitted pursuing disaster. + +For instance: there was the time that David undertook the charge of a +private library in Upper Chester, and three months afterwards the owner +sold it! Then Mr. Hays found a job for him, and just as he was going +to work he was laid up with rheumatism. And again Tom Dilworth got him +a place as assistant book-keeper; and David, after innumerable tangles +on his balance-sheet, was obliged to say, frankly, that he had no head +for figures. But he was willing to do anything else--"_any_ honest +work that is not menial," he said, earnestly. And Tom said, why, yes, +of course, only he'd be darned if he knew what to suggest. But he +added, in conjugal privacy, that David ought to be hided for not +turning his hand to something. "Why doesn't he try boot-blacking? +Only, I suppose, he'd say he couldn't make the change correctly. He +doesn't know whether two and two make five or three--like our Ned." + +"Why, they make four, Tom," said Mrs. Dilworth. And Thomas stared at +her, and said, "You don't say so!" + +There had been no end of such happenings; "and none of them my +brother's fault," Miss Ellen told the sympathetic older girls, who +glanced sideways at Mr. David and wished that they might die and be +mourned as Mr. David mourned Maria. + +The fact was, the habit of failure had fastened upon poor David; and in +the days when Miss Ellen's school was in its prime (before the new +people told our parents that her teaching was absurdly inadequate), he +was depending on his sister for his bread-and-butter. That Miss Ellen +supported him never troubled the romantic souls of Miss Ellen's pupils +any more than it troubled Miss Ellen--or Mr. David. "Why shouldn't +she?" the girls would have demanded if any such rudely practical +question had been asked; "he is so delicate, _and he has a broken +heart!_" So that was how it happened that the pupils were able to have +palpitating glimpses of him, walking listlessly about the garden, or +dozing in a sunny window over an old magazine, or doing some pottering +bit of carpentering for Miss Ellen, but never losing his good looks or +the grieved melancholy of his expression. + + +Miss Ellen had been teaching for twenty years. + +It is useless to deny that, unless one has a genius for imparting +knowledge, teaching is a drudgery. It was drudgery to Ellen Baily, but +she never slighted it on that account. She was conscientious about the +number of feet in the highest mountain in the world; she saw to it that +her pupils could repeat the sovereigns of England backward. Besides +these fundamentals, the older girls had Natural Philosophy every +Friday; it was not, perhaps, necessary that young ladies should know +that the air was composed of two gases (the girls who had travelled and +seen the lighted streets of towns knew what gas was), nor that rubbing +a cat's fur the wrong way in the dark would produce electric +sparks--such things were not necessary. But they were interesting, +and, as Mrs. Barkley said, if they did not go too far and lead to +scepticism, they would do no harm. However, Miss Ellen counteracted +any sceptical tendencies by reading aloud, every Saturday morning, +Bishop Cummings on the Revelation, so that even Dr. Lavendar was not +wiser than Miss Ellen's girls as to what St. John meant by "a time, and +a time, and a half of a time," or who the four beasts full of eyes +before and behind stood for. For accomplishments, there was fine +sewing every Wednesday afternoon; and on Mondays, with sharply pointed +pencils, we copied trees and houses from neat little prints; also, we +had lessons upon the piano-forte, so there was not one of us who, when +she left Miss Ellen's, could not play at least three pieces, viz., "The +Starlight Valse," "The Maiden's Prayer," and "The Last Rose of Summer." + +Ah, well, one may smile. Compared to what girls know nowadays, it is, +of course, very absurd. But, all the same, Miss Ellen's girls knew +some things of which our girls are ignorant: reverence was one; +humility was another; obedience was a third. And poor, uneducated folk +(compared with our daughters) that we of Old Chester may be, we are, if +I mistake not, glad that we were taught a certain respect for our own +language, which, though it makes the tongue of youth to-day almost +unintelligible, does give us a joy in the wells of English undefiled +which our children do not seem to know; and for this, in our dull Old +Chester way, we are not ungrateful. However, this may all be sour +grapes.... + +At any rate, for twenty painstaking years Miss Ellen's methods fed and +clothed Mr. David. Then came the winter of Dr. Lavendar's illness, and +the temporary instalment of the Reverend Mr. Spangler, and Ellen Baily +realized that there were other things in the world than David's food +and clothes. + +Dr. Lavendar, cross, unbelieving, protesting, was to be hustled down +South by Sam Wright; and the day before he started Mr. Spangler +appeared. That was early in February, and Dr. Lavendar was to come +back the first of May. + +"Not a day sooner," said Sam Wright. + +"I'll come when I see fit," said Dr. Lavendar. He didn't believe in +this going away, he said. "Home is the best place to be sick in. The +truth is, Willy King doesn't want me to die on his hands--it would hurt +his business," said Dr. Lavendar, wickedly; "I know him!" + +But to Mr. Spangler Dr. Lavendar said other things about Willy, and Sam +Wright, too; in fact, about all of them. And he pulled out his big, +red silk pocket-handkerchief with a trembling flourish and wiped his +eyes. "I don't deserve it," he said. "I'm a dogmatic old fogy, and I +won't let the new people have their jimcrackery; and I preach old +sermons, and I've had a cold in my head for three months. And yet, +look at 'em: A purse, if you please! And Sam Wright is going down with +me. Sam ought to be ashamed of himself to waste his time; he's a busy +man. No, sir; I don't deserve it. And, if you take my advice, you'll +pray the Lord that your people will treat you as you don't deserve." + +Mr. Spangler, a tall, lean man, very correctly dressed, who was +depended upon in the diocese as a supply, made notes solemnly while Dr. +Lavendar talked; but he sighed once or twice, patiently, for the old +man was not very helpful. Mr. Spangler wanted to know what +Sunday-school teachers could be relied upon, and whether the choir was +very thin-skinned, and which of the vestry had chips on their shoulders. + +"None of 'em. I knocked 'em all off, long ago," said Dr. Lavendar. +"Don't you worry about that. Speak your mind." + +"I have," said Mr. Spangler, coughing delicately, "an iron hand when I +once make up my mind in regard to methods; firmness is, I think, a +clergyman's duty, and duty, I hope, is my watchword; but I think it +best to canvass a matter thoroughly before making up my mind." + +"It is generally wise to do so," said Dr. Lavendar, very meekly. + +"Of course," Mr. Spangler said, kindly, "you belong to a somewhat older +period, and do not, perhaps, realize the value of our modern ways of +dealing with a parish--I mean in regard to firmly carrying out one's +own ideas. I suppose these good people do pretty much as they please, +so far as you are concerned?" + +"Perhaps they do," said Dr. Lavendar, very, very meekly. + +"So, not wishing to offend, I will ask a few questions: I have heard +that the parish is perhaps a little old-fashioned in regard to matters +of ritual? I have wondered whether my cassock would be misunderstood?" + +"Cassock?" said Dr. Lavendar. "Bless your heart, wear a pea-jacket if +it helps you to preach the Word. It will only be for ten Sundays," he +added, hopefully. + +The Reverend Mr. Spangler smiled at that; and when he smiled one saw +that his face, though timid, was kind. + +So Dr. Lavendar, growling and scolding, fussing about Danny and his +little blind horse Goliath, and Mr. Spangler's comfort, was bundled +off; and Mr. Spangler settled down in the shabby rectory. His iron +will led him to preach in his surplice, and it was observed that a +silver cross dangled from his black silk fob. "But it's only for ten +weeks," said Old Chester, and asked him to tea, and bore with him, and +did nothing more severe than smile when he bowed in the creed--smile, +and perhaps stand up a little straighter itself. + +This, of the real Old Chester. Of course the new people were pleased; +and one or two of the younger folk liked it. Miss Ellen Baily was not +young, but she liked the surplice better than Dr. Lavendar's black gown +and bands, and the sudden sparkle of the cross when Mr. Spangler knelt +gave her a pang of pleasure. David, too, was not displeased. To be +sure, David was rarely stirred to anything so positive as pleasure. +But at least he made no objections to the cross; and he certainly +brightened up when, on Saturday afternoon, Mr. Spangler called. He +even talked of Gambier, to which he had gone for a year, and of which, +it appeared, the clergyman was an alumnus. Miss Ellen had a pile of +compositions on the table beside her, and she glanced at one +occasionally so that she might not seem to expect any share in the +conversation. But, all the same, Mr. Spangler noticed her. He was not +drawn to the brother; still, he talked to him about their college, for +Mr. Spangler believed that being agreeable was just as much a +clergyman's duty as was changing the bookmarks for Advent or Lent; and +duty, as Mr. Spangler often said, was his watchword. Furthermore, he +was aware that his kindness pleased the silent, smiling woman seated +behind the pile of compositions. + +It pleased her so much that that night, after David had gone to bed, +she went over to Mrs. Barkley's to talk about her caller. + +"Well, Ellen Baily," Mrs. Barkley said, briskly, as Miss Baily came +into the circle of lamplight by the parlor-table, "so you had a visitor +to-day? I saw him, cross and all." + +"It was a very small one," Miss Baily protested, "and only silver." + +"Would you have had it diamonds?" demanded Mrs. Barkley, in a deep +bass. "Oh, well; it doesn't really matter; there are only nine more +Sundays. But Sam Wright says he shall mention it when he writes to Dr. +Lavendar." + +"I suppose Dr. Lavendar saw it before he went away," Ellen said, with +some spirit. + +"Well, if he doesn't take his religion out in crosses, I suppose it's +all right. But he's not a very active laborer in the vineyard. I +suppose you know about him?" + +"Why, no," Ellen said; "nothing except that he supplies a good deal." + +"Supplies? Yes, because his mother left him a house in Mercer, and +enough to live on in a small way; so he likes supplying better than +taking a charge where he'd have to work hard and couldn't have his +comforts." + +"Why doesn't he take a charge where he could have his comforts?" + +"Can't get the chance," Mrs. Barkley explained, briefly. "Not enough +of a preacher. And, besides, he likes his ease in Zion. Rachel +Spangler's old house, and her Mary Ann, and his father's library, +and--well, the flesh-pots of Mercer!--and supplying, just enough to buy +him his ridiculous buttoned-up coats. That's what he likes. I suppose +he uses the same old sermons over and over. Doesn't ever have to write +a new one. However, he's here, and maybe Old Chester will do him good. +Ellen Baily, did you know that we have a new-comer in Old Chester? A +widow. I don't like widows. Her name's Smily. Foolish name! She's +staying at the Stuffed Animal House. She's Harriet Hutchinson's +cousin, and she's come down on her for a visit." + +"Maybe she'll make her a present when she goes away," said Ellen, +hopefully. + +"Present! She needs to have presents made to her. She hasn't a cent +but what her husband's brother gives her. He's a school-teacher, I +understand; and you know yourself, Ellen Baily, how much a +school-teacher can do in that way?" + +Miss Ellen sighed. + +"Well," proceeded Mrs. Barkley, "I just thought I'd tell you about her, +because if we all invite her to tea, turn about, it will be a relief to +Harriet--(she isn't well, that girl; I'm really uneasy about her). And +I guess the Smily woman won't object to Old Chester food, either," said +Mrs. Barkley, complacently. "I've asked her for Tuesday evening, and I +thought I'd throw in Mr. Spangler and get him off my mind." + +"David likes him so much," Miss Ellen began. + +"Does he?" said Mrs. Barkley. "Well, tell him to come; he can talk to +Mr. Spangler. I'm afraid I might hurt the man's feelings if I had to +do all the talking. I seem to do that sometimes. Did you ever notice, +Ellen, that the truth always hurts people's feelings? But I knew his +mother, so I don't want to do anything to wound him. I won't ask you, +Ellen; I don't like five at table. But just tell David to come, will +you?" + +And Miss Baily promised, gratefully. David was not often asked out in +Old Chester. + + + + +II + +The supper at Mrs. Barkley's was a great occasion to David Baily. +Right after dinner he went up to the garret, and Ellen heard him +shuffling about overhead, moving trunks. After a while he came down, +holding something out to his sister. + +"Guess I'll wear this," he said, briefly. It was an old black velvet +waistcoat worked with small silk flowers, pink and blue and yellow. + +"I haven't seen gentlemen wear those waistcoats lately," Miss Ellen +said, doubtfully. + +Mr. David spread the strange old garment across his narrow breast, and +regarded himself in the mirror above the mantel. "Father wore it," he +said. + +Then he retired to his own room. When he reappeared he wore the +waistcoat. His old black frock-coat, shiny on the shoulders and with +very full skirts, hung so loose in front that the flowered velvet +beneath was not conspicuous; but Mr. David felt its moral support when, +at least ten minutes before the proper time, he started for Mrs. +Barkley's. + +His hostess, putting on her best cap before her mirror, glanced down +from her window as he came up the path. "Ellen ought not to have sent +him so early," she said, with some irritation. "Emily!" she called, in +her deep voice, "just go to the front door and tell Mr. Baily to go +home. I'm not ready for him. Or he can sit in the parlor and wait if +he wants to. But he can't talk to me." + +Emily, a mournful, elderly person, sought, out of regard for her own +feelings, to soften her mistress's message; but David instantly +retreated to walk up and down the street, keeping his eye on Mrs. +Barkley's house, so that he could time his return by the arrival of Mr. +Spangler. + +"He'll come at the right hour, I presume," he said to himself. Just +then he saw Mrs. Smily stepping delicately down the street, her head on +one side, and a soft, unchanging smile on her lips. As they met she +minced a little in her step, and said: + +"Dear me! I'm afraid I've made a mistake. I'm looking for Mrs. +Barkley's residence." + +"Mrs. Barkley resides here," said Mr. David, elegantly. + +She looked up into his sad, dark eyes with a flurried air. "Dear me," +she said, "I fear I am late." + +"Oh, not _late_," said poor David. "Perhaps we might walk up and down +for a minute longer?" + +Mrs. Smily, astonished but flattered, tossed her head, and said, Well, +she didn't know about _that_! But, all the same, she turned, and they +walked as far as the post-office. + +"I'm afraid you are very attentive to the ladies," Mrs. Smily said, +coquettishly, when David had introduced himself; and David, who had +never heard a flirtatious word (unless from Maria), felt a sudden +thrill and a desire to reply in kind. But from lack of experience he +could think of nothing but the truth. He had been too early, he said, +and had come out to wait for Mr. Spangler--"and you, ma'am," he added, +in a polite after-thought. But his hurried emphasis made Mrs. Smily +simper more than ever. She shook her finger at him and said: + +"Come, come, sir!" And David's head swam. + +[Illustration: "DAVID'S HEAD SWAM"] + +At that moment Mr. Spangler, buttoned to his chin in a black waistcoat, +came solemnly along, and, with his protection, David felt he could face +Mrs. Barkley. + +But, indeed, she met her three guests with condescension and kindness. +"They are all fools in their different ways," she said to herself, "but +one must be kind to them." So she made Mrs. Smily sit down in the most +comfortable chair, and pushed a footstool at her. Then she told Mr. +Spangler, good-naturedly, that she supposed he found Old Chester very +old-fashioned. "Don't you be trying any candles on us," she threatened +him, in a jocular bass. As for David, she paid no attention to him +except to remark that she supposed time didn't count with him. But her +bushy eyebrows twitched in a kindly smile when she said it. Then she +began to talk about Dr. Lavendar's health. "It is a great trial to +have him away," she said. "Dear me! I don't know what we will do when +the Lord takes him. I wish he might live forever. Clergymen are a +poor lot nowadays." + +"Why, I heard," said Mrs. Smily, "that he didn't give entire +satisfaction." + +"What!" cried Mrs. Barkley. "Who has been talking nonsense to you? +Some of the new people, I'll be bound." + +Mrs. Smily, very much frightened, murmured that no doubt she was +mistaken. Wild horses would not have drawn from her that she had heard +Annie Shields that was, say that Dr. Lavendar had deliberately advised +some one she knew to be bad; and that he had refused to help a very +worthy man to study for the ministry; and that the Ferrises said he +ought to be tried for heresy (or something) because he married Oscar +King to their runaway niece; and that he would not give a child back to +its repentant (and perfectly respectable) mother--"And a mother's claim +is the holiest thing on earth," Mrs. Smily said--and that he had +encouraged Miss Lydia Sampson in positively _wicked_ extravagance. +After hearing these things, Mrs. Smily had her opinion of Dr. Lavendar; +but that was no reason why she should let Mrs. Barkley snap her head +off. So she only murmured that no doubt she had made a mistake. + +"I think you have," said Mrs. Barkley, dryly; and rose and marshalled +her company in to supper. "She's a perfect fool," she told herself, +"but I hope the Lord will give me grace to hold my tongue." Perhaps +the Lord gave her too much grace, for, for the rest of the evening, she +hardly spoke to Mrs. Smily; she even conversed with David rather than +look in her direction. + +For the most part the conversation was a polite exchange of views upon +harmless topics between Mrs. Barkley and Mr. Spangler, during which +Mrs. Smily cheered up and murmured small ejaculations to David Baily. +She told him that she was scared nearly to death of the stuffed animals +at Miss Harriet's house. + +"They make me just scream!" she said. + +David protectingly assured her that they were harmless. + +"But they are so dreadful!" Mrs. Smily said. "Isn't it strange that my +cousin likes to--to do that to animals? It isn't quite ladylike, to my +mind." + +Mr. Baily thought to himself how ladylike it was in Mrs. Smily to +object to taxidermy. He noticed, too, that she ate almost nothing, +which also seemed very refined. It occurred to him that such a +delicate creature ought not to go home alone; the lane up to Miss +Harriet's house was dark with overhanging trees, and, furthermore, +half-way up the hill it passed the burial-ground. In a burst of fancy +David saw himself near the low wall of the cemetery, protecting Mrs. +Smily, who was shivering in her ladylike way at the old head-stones +over in the grass. He began (in his own mind) a reassuring +conversation: "There are no such things as spectres, ma'am. I assure +you there is no occasion for fear." And at these manly words she would +press closer to his side. (And this outside the burial-ground--oh, +Maria, Maria!) + +But this flight of imagination was not realized, for later Emily +announced that Miss Harriet's Augustine had come for Mrs. Smily. + +"Did she bring a lantern?" demanded Mrs. Barkley. "That lane is too +dark except for young folks." + +Augustine had a lantern, and was waiting with it at the front door for +her charge; so there was no reason for Mr. David to offer his +protection. He and Mr. Spangler went away together, and David twisted +his head around several times to watch the spark of light jolting up +the hill towards the burial-ground and the Stuffed-Animal House. When +the two men said good-night, Mr. Spangler had a glimpse of a quickly +opened door and heard an eager voice--"Come in, dear brother. Did you +have a delightful evening?" + +"How pleasing to be welcomed so affectionately!" said the Reverend Mr. +Spangler to himself. + + + + +III + +The gentle warmth of that welcome lingered persistently in Mr. +Spangler's mind. + +"I suspect that she _kissed_ him," he said to himself; and a little +dull red crept into his cheeks. + +Miss Ellen, dark-eyed, gentle, with soft lips, made Mr. Spangler +suddenly think of a spray of heliotrope warm in the sunshine. "That is +a very poetical thought," he said, with a sense of regret that it +probably could not be utilized in a sermon. But when he entered the +study he banished poetry, because he had a letter to write. It was in +answer to an offer of the secretaryship of a church publishing-house in +a Western city. + +Dr. Lavendar, it appeared, had mentioned Mr. Spangler's name to one Mr. +Horatius Brown, stating that in his opinion Mr. Spangler was just the +man for the place--"exact, painstaking, conscientious," Mr. Brown +quoted in his letter; but forbore to add Dr. Lavendar's further remark +that Mr. Spangler would never embarrass the management by an original +idea. "He'll pick up pins as faithfully as any man I know," said Dr. +Lavendar, "and that's what you religious newspapers want, I believe?" +Mr. Spangler was not without a solemn pride in being thus sought out by +the ecclesiastical business world, especially when he reflected upon +the salary which Mr. Brown was prepared to offer; but acceptance was +another matter. To leave his high calling for mere business! A +business, too, which would involve exact hours and steady +application;--Compared with that, and with the crude, smart bustle of +the Western city, the frugal leisure of his placid days in Mercer +assumed in his mind the sanctity of withdrawal from the world, and his +occasional preaching took on the glow of missionary zeal. "No," said +Mr. Spangler, "mercenary considerations do not move me a +hair's-breadth." Mr. Spangler did not call his tranquil life in +Mercer, his comfortable old house, his good cook, his old friends, his +freedom from sermon-writing, mercenary considerations. On the +contrary, he assured himself that his "circumstances were far from +affluent; but I must endure hardness!" he used to add cheerfully. And +very honestly his declination seemed to him something that Heaven would +place to his credit. So he wrote to the publishing-house that he had +given the proposition his most prayerful consideration, but that he +believed that it was his duty to still labor at the sacred desk--and +duty was, he hoped, the watchword of his life. And he was Mr. Brown's +"obedient servant and brother in Christ--Augustus Spangler." + +Then he settled down in Dr. Lavendar's armchair by the fire in the +study; but he did not read the ecclesiastical paper which every week +fed his narrow and sincere mind. Instead he wondered how often Dr. +Lavendar called upon his female parishioners. Would twice in a +fortnight be liable to be misunderstood? Mr. Spangler was terribly +afraid of being misunderstood. Then he had a flash of inspiration: he +ought, as rector, to visit the schools. That was only proper and could +not possibly be misunderstood. "For an interest in educational affairs +is part of a priest's duty," Mr. Spangler reflected. + +If he was right, it must be admitted that Dr. Lavendar was very remiss. +So far as we children could remember, he had never visited Miss Ellen's +school and listened to recitations and heard us speak our pieces. +Whether that was because he did not care enough about us to come, or +because he saw us at Collect class and Sunday-school and church, and in +the street and at the post-office and at home, until he knew us all by +heart, so to speak, may be decided one way or the other; but certainly +when Mr. Spangler came, and sat through one morning, and told us +stories, and said we made him think of a garden of rosebuds, and took +up so much of Miss Ellen's time that she could not hear the mental +arithmetic, it was impossible not to institute comparisons. Indeed, +some hearts were (for the moment) untrue to Mr. David. When Miss Ellen +called on us to speak our pieces, we were so excited and breathless +that, for my part, I could not remember the first line of "Bingen on +the Rhine," and had to look quickly into the Fourth Reader; but before +I could begin, Lydia Wright started in with "Excelsior," and she got +all the praise; though I'm sure I--well, never mind! But Dr. Lavendar +wouldn't have praised one girl so that all the others wanted to scratch +her! All that first half, the pupils, bending over their copy-books, +writing, "_Courtesy to inferiors is true gentility_," glanced at the +visitor sideways, and if they caught his eye, looked down, blushing to +the roots of their hair--which was not frizzled, if you please, or +hanging over their eyes like the locks of Skye-terriers, but parted and +tied with a neat ribbon bow on the tops of all the small heads. But +Mr. Spangler did not look often at the pupils; instead he conversed in +a low voice with Miss Ellen. Nobody could hear what he said, but it +must have been very interesting, for when Miss Ellen suddenly looked at +the clock she blushed, and brought her hand hurriedly down on the bell +on her desk. It was ten minutes after the hour for recess! + +For the rest of that day Miss Ellen Baily moved and looked as one in a +dream. Her brother, however, did not seem to notice her +absent-mindedness. Indeed, he was as talkative as she was silent. + +"Sister," he said, as they sat at tea, "I need a new hat. One with a +blue band about it might be--ah--becoming." + +"Blue is a sweet color," said Miss Ellen, vaguely. + +"Mrs. Smily remarked to me that before her affliction made it improper, +she was addicted to the color of blue." + +"Was she?" Ellen said, absently. + +"Don't you think," David said, after a pause, "that my coat is somewhat +shabby? You bought it, you may remember, the winter of the long frost." + +"Is it?" Miss Ellen said. + +"Yes; and the style is obsolete, I think. Not that I am a creature of +fashion, but I do not like to be conspicuous in dress." + +"You are not that, dear David," Miss Ellen protested. "On Sunday I +often think nobody looks as handsome as you." + +David blushed. "You are partial, Ellen." + +"No, I'm not," cried Miss Ellen, coming out of her reveries. "Only +yesterday I heard some one say that you were very fine-looking." + +"Who said it?" + +"Never mind," Ellen said, gayly. + +"Do tell me, sister," he entreated; "that's a good girl." + +"It was somebody whose opinion you care a great deal about." + +"I think you might tell me," said Mr. David, aggrieved. "Not that I +care, because it isn't true, and was only said to please you. People +know how to get round you, Ellen. But I'd just like to know." + +"Guess," said Miss Ellen. + +"Well, was it--Mrs. Smily?" + +"Oh, dear, no! It was somebody very important in Old Chester. It was +Mrs. Barkley." + +"Oh," said Mr. David. + +"A compliment from her means so much, you know," Miss Ellen reminded +him. + +David was silent. + +"But all the same," Ellen said, "you do need a coat, dear brother. I'm +afraid I've been selfish not to notice it." + +Mr. David made no reply. + +Miss Ellen beamed at him. "You always look well, in my eyes: but it +pleases me to have you well dressed, too." + +"Well, then, to please you, I'll dress up," said Mr. David, earnestly. + + + + +IV + +"Does not Mr. Baily take any part whatever in his sister's work?" Mr. +Spangler said. He was calling upon Mrs. Barkley, and the conversation +turned upon the guests whom he had met at the tea-party. + +"That is a very foolish question," said Mrs. Barkley; "but of course +you don't know poor David, or you wouldn't have asked it. David means +well, but he has no mind. Still, he has tried, poor fellow." Then she +recited the story of David's failures. "There is really nothing that +he is capable of doing," she ended, thoughtfully; "though I think, if +his eyes hadn't given out, he might have made a good minister. For +David is a pious man, and he likes to visit." + +A faint red came into Mr. Spangler's cheeks; although he had been in +Old Chester nearly a month, he had not yet become acclimated to Mrs. +Barkley. The watchword of duty made him call, but he closed her front +door behind him with an emphasis which was not dutiful. + +"That's done!" he said; and thought to himself how much pleasanter than +parochial visits were educational matters. + +Mr. Spangler felt their importance so deeply that he spent two more +mornings watching Miss Ellen's pupils work out examples on the +blackboard and hearing them read, turn about, in the Fourth Reader. In +fact, the next month was a pretty happy time for Miss Ellen's girls. + +"I skipped to the bottom of the page in 'Catiline's Reply,'" Lydia +Wright said, giggling, "and she never knew it!" + +The girls were tremendously interested but not very sympathetic, for +"she's so dreadfully old!" they told each other. Had Miss Ellen been +Maria's age and had a beau (by this time they called Mr. Spangler Miss +Ellen's beau, the impudent little creatures!), how different it would +have been! But Miss Ellen was forty. "Did you ever know anything so +perfectly absurd?" said the older girls. And the second-class girls +said they certainly never did. So when Mr. Spangler came and listened +to recitations we poked one another, and put out our tongues behind our +Readers, and made ourselves extremely obnoxious--if dear Miss Ellen had +had the eyes to see it, which, indeed, she had not. She was very +absent in those days; but she did her work faithfully, and saw to +David's new coat, and asked Mrs. Smily to tea, not only to help out +Miss Harriet at the Stuffed-Animal House, but because David told her a +piteous tale of Mrs. Smily's loneliness and general forlornness. David +had had it directly from Mrs. Smily herself, and had been greatly moved +by it; she had told him that this was a sad and unfriendly world. + +"But I am sure your brother-in-law's family is much attached to you?" +David said, comfortingly. + +Then poor Mrs. Smily suddenly began to cry. "Yes; but I am afraid I +can't live at my brother-in-law's any longer. His wife is--is tired of +me," said the poor little creature. + +David was thunderstruck. "Tired? Of you! Oh, impossible!" + +Then she opened her poor foolish heart to him. And David was so +touched and interested that he could hardly wait to get home to pour it +all into Ellen's ears. Ellen was very sympathetic, and made haste to +ask Mrs. Smily to tea; and when she came was as kind and pitiful as +only dear, kind Ellen could be. But perhaps she took Mrs. Smily's +griefs a little less to heart than she might have done had she heard +the tale a month before. Just then she was in the whirl of Old Chester +hospitality; she was asked out three times in one week to meet the +Supply!--and by that time the Supply had reached the point of hoping +that he was going to meet Miss Ellen. + +Yet, as Mr. Spangler reflected, this was hardly prudent on his part. +"For I might become interested," he said to himself, and frowned and +sighed. Now, as everybody knows, the outcome of "interest" is only +justified by a reasonable affluence. "And," Augustus Spangler reminded +himself, "my circumstances are not affluent." Indeed, that warm, +pleasant old house in Mercer, and Mary Ann, and his books, and those +buttoned-up coats needed every penny of his tiny income. "Therefore," +said Mr. Spangler, "it is my duty to put this out of my head with an +iron hand." But, all the same, Ellen Baily was like a spray of +heliotrope. + +For a week, the second week in April, while Old Chester softened into a +mist of green, and the crown-imperials shook their clean, bitter +fragrance over the bare beds in the gardens--for that week Mr. Spangler +thought often of his income, but oftener of Miss Ellen. Reason and +sentiment wrestled together in his lazy but affectionate heart; and +then, with a mighty effort, sentiment conquered.... + +"It seems," said Mr. Spangler, nervously, "a little premature, but my +sojourn in Old Chester is drawing to a close; I shall not tarry more +than another fortnight; so I felt, my dear friend, that I must, before +seeking other fields of usefulness, tell you what was in my mind--or +may I say heart?" + +"You are very kind," Ellen Baily said, breathlessly. + +.... Mr. Spangler had invited Miss Ellen to walk with him on Saturday +afternoon at four. Now, as everybody knows in Old Chester, when a +gentleman invites you to walk out with him, you had better make up your +mind whether it is to be "yes" or "no" before you start. As for poor +Ellen, she did not have to make up her mind; it was made up for her by +unconquerable circumstances. If she should "seek other fields of +usefulness," she could not take David with her. It was equally clear +that she could not leave him behind her. Where would he find his +occasional new coat, or even the hat with the blue band, if there were +no school in the basement? Compared to love-making and romance, how +sordid are questions about coats! Yet, before starting on that +Saturday-afternoon walk, poor, pretty Miss Ellen, tying the strings of +her many-times retrimmed bonnet under her quivering chin, asked them, +and could find no answer except that if he should "say anything," why, +then, she must say "no"; but, of course, he wasn't going to say +anything. So she tied her washed and ironed brown ribbons into a neat +bow, and started down the street with the Reverend Mr. Spangler. + +David Baily, watching them from the gate, ruminated over obvious +possibilities. Mrs. Barkley had opened his eyes to the fact that Mr. +Spangler "was taking notice," and David was not without a certain +family pride in a ministerial proposal. "He'll do it this afternoon," +said David; and went pottering back into the empty school-room to mend +a bench that Ellen told him needed a nail or two. But the room was +still and sunny, and Ellen's chair was comfortable; and sitting there +to think about the bench, he nodded once or twice, and then dozed for +an hour. When he awoke it seemed best to mend the bench the next day; +then, yawning, and staring vacantly out of the window, he saw Mrs. +Smily, and it seemed only friendly to go out and tell her +(confidentially) what was going to happen. + +"It will make quite a difference to you, won't it?" Mrs. Smily said. + +"Oh," David said, blankly, "that hadn't occurred to me. However," he +added, with a little sigh, "my sister's happiness is my first thought." + +Mrs. Smily clasped her hands. "Mr. Baily, I do think you are real +noble!" she said. + +Mr. David stood very erect. "Oh, you mustn't flatter me, ma'am." + +"Mr. Baily, I never flatter," Mrs. Smily said, gravely. "I don't think +it's right." + +And David thought to himself how noble Mrs. Smily was. Indeed, her +nobility was so much in his mind that, strangely enough, he quite +forgot Ellen's exciting afternoon. He remembered it the next morning, +but when he essayed a little joke and a delicate question, the asperity +with which the mild Ellen answered him left him gaping with +astonishment. Evidently Mr. Spangler had not spoken. David would have +been less (or more) than a human brother if he had not smiled a very +little at that. "Ellen expected it," he said to himself. "Well, I did +myself, and so did Mrs. Barkley." It never occurred to him that the +Reverend Mr. Spangler might also have had expectations which left him +disappointed and mortified. Yet when a gentleman of Mr. Spangler's +age--one, too, whose income barely suffices for his own comfort, and +who, added to this, has had his doubts whether the celibacy of the +clergy may not be a sacrament of grace--when such a gentleman does make +up his mind to offer himself--to offer himself, moreover, to a lady no +longer in her first youth, who is pleasing perhaps to the eye, but not, +certainly, excessively beautiful, and whose fortune is merely (and most +meritoriously, of course) in her character and understanding--it is a +blow to pride to be refused. Mr. Spangler found it hard to labor at +the sacred desk that morning; yet no one would have thought it, to see +the fervor with which, as Old Chester said, he "went through his +performances." + +But he read the service, hot at heart and hoping that Miss Baily +observed how intensely his attention was fixed on things above. When +he stood in the chancel waiting for the collection-plates, and saying, +in a curious sing-song, absolutely new to Old Chester, "_Zaccheus stood +forth, and said, Behold, Lord--_" his glance, roving over the +congregation, rested once on Ellen Baily, and was as carefully +impersonal as though she were only a part of the pew in which she sat. +Miss Ellen thrilled at that high indifference; it occurred to her that +even had David's circumstances been different, she could scarcely have +dared to accept the hand of this high creature. + +"_--the half of all my goods--_" said Mr. Spangler. Yes, it was +inconceivable, considering what he was offering her, that Ellen Baily +could let her brother stand in the way! + +All that long, pleasant spring Sunday, Augustus Spangler was very +bitter. All that week he was distinctly angry. He said to himself +that he was glad that Dr. Lavendar was soon to return; he would, after +making his report of the parish, shake the dust of Old Chester from off +his feet as witness against Miss Baily, and depart. By the next Sunday +he had ceased to be angry, but his pride was still deeply wounded. By +Wednesday he had softened to melancholy; he was able to say that it all +came from her sense of duty. Unreasonable, of course, but still duty. +Then, on Thursday, suddenly, he was startled by a question in his own +mind: Was it unreasonable? If she gave up her teaching--"what would +that fellow live on?" + +That was a very bad moment to the Reverend Mr. Spangler. Pride +vanished in honest unhappiness. He began to think again about his +income; he had known that to marry a wife meant greater economy; but +sacrifices had not seemed too difficult considering that that wife was +to be Miss Ellen Baily. But if the wife must be Miss Baily +_plus_--"that fellow"! + +"It is out of the question," said poor Mr. Spangler, and arose and +paced up and down the study. He was very miserable; and the more +miserable he became, the more in love he knew himself to be. "But it +is madness to think of the matter further," he told himself, +sternly--"madness!" + +Yet he kept on thinking of it--or of Miss Ellen's dark eyes, and her +smile, and the way her hair curled in little rings about her temples. +"But it's impossible--impossible!" he said. Then, absently, he made +some calculations: To meet the support of David Baily he would have to +have an increase of so much in his income or a decrease of so much in +his expenses. "Madness!" said Augustus Spangler, firmly. "But how her +eyes crinkle up when she smiles!" + +Yet it took another day before the real man conquered. His expenses +should be decreased, _and David should live with them_. + +Yes, it would mean undeniable pinching; he must give up this small +luxury and that; his Mary Ann could not broil his occasional +sweetbread; and the occasional new book must be borrowed from the +library, not purchased for his own shelves. He must push about to get +more supplying. He had meant to come down one step when he got +married; well, he would have to come down two--yes, or three. But he +would have Miss Baily. And warmed with this tender thought, he sat +down, then and there, at nearly midnight, and wrote Miss Ellen a +letter. It was a beautiful letter, full of most beautiful sentiments +expressed with great elegance and gentility. It appreciated Miss +Ellen's devotion to her family, and acknowledged that a sense of duty +was a part of the character of a Christian female. It protested that +it was far from the Reverend Mr. Spangler to interfere with that sense +of duty; on the contrary, he would share it; nay more, he would assist +it, for duty was, he hoped, the watchword of his life. If Miss Baily +would consent to become his wife, Mr. Baily, he trusted, would make his +home with his sister. + +Mr. Spangler may have been addicted to petticoats (in his own toilet) +and given to candles and other emblems of the Scarlet Woman, but his +letter, beneath its stilted phrase, was an honest, manly utterance, and +Ellen Baily read it, thrilling with happiness and love. + +That was Friday, and she had only time to read those thin, blue pages +and thrust them into the bosom of her dress, when it was time to go to +school and hear her girls declare that the Amazon was the largest river +in South America; but we might have said it was the largest river in +Pennsylvania, and Miss Ellen would have gone on smiling at us. At +recess we poured out into the garden, eager to say, "Goodness! do you +suppose he's popped?" The older girls were especially excited, but +they took their usual furtive look about the garden before sitting down +on the steps to eat their luncheons. Alas, He was not there! + +"Perhaps," said Lydia Wright, "he has gone to the tomb." + +This, for the moment, was deliciously saddening; but, after all, real +live love-making, even of very old people, is more fascinating than +dead romance. Through the open window we could see Miss Ellen sitting +at her desk, writing. There were some sheets of blue paper spread out +in front of her, and she would glance at them, and then write a little, +and then glance back again, and smile, and write. But she did not look +troubled, or "cross," as the girls called it; so we knew it could not +be an exercise that she was correcting. But when she came out to us, +and said, in a sweet, fluttered voice, "Children, will one of you take +this letter to the post-office?" we knew what it meant--for it was +addressed to the Reverend Mr. Spangler. How we all ran with it to the +post-office!--giggling and palpitating and sighing as our individual +temperaments might suggest. In fact, I know one girl who squeezed a +tear out of each eye, she was so moved. When we came back, there was +Miss Baily still sitting at her desk, her cheek on one hand, her +smiling eyes fastened on those sheets of blue paper. "Gracious," said +the girls, "what a long recess!" and told each other to be quiet and +not remind her to ring the bell. + +Then suddenly something happened.... + +An old carry-all came shambling along the road; there were two people +in it, and one of them leaned over from the back seat and said to the +driver: "This is my house. Stop here, please." The girls, clustering +like pigeons on the sunny doorstep, began to fold up their +luncheon-boxes, and look sidewise, with beating hearts, towards the +gate--for it was _He_! How graceful he was--how elegant in his +manners! Ah, if our mothers had bidden us have manners like Mr. +David!--but they never did. They used to say, "Try and behave as +politely as Miss Maria Welwood," or, "I hope you will be as modest in +your deportment as Miss Sally Smith." And there was this model before +our eyes. It makes my heart beat now to remember how He got out of +that rattling old carriage and turned and lifted his hat to a lady +inside, and gave her his hand (ah, me!) and held back her skirts as she +got out, and bowed again when she reached the ground. She was not much +to look at; she was only the lady who was visiting at the +Stuffed-Animal House, and she was dressed in black, and her bonnet was +on one side. They stood there together in the sunshine, and Mr. David +felt slowly in all his pockets; then he turned to us, sitting watching +him with beating hearts. + +"Little girls," he said--he was near-sighted, and, absorbed as he +always was with sorrow, we never expected him to know our +names--"little girls, one of you, go in and ask my sister for two coach +fares, if you please." + +We rose in a body and swarmed back into the school-room--just as Miss +Ellen with a start looked at the clock and put out her hand to ring the +bell. "Mr. David says, please, ma'am, will you give him money for two +coach fares?" + +Miss Ellen, rummaging in her pocket for her purse, said: "Yes, my love. +Will you take this to my brother?" Just why she followed us as we ran +out into the garden with her purse perhaps she hardly knew herself. +But as she stood in the doorway, a little uncertain and wondering, Mr. +David led the shabby, shrinking lady up to her. + +"My dear Ellen," he said, "I have a present for you--a _sister_." + +Then the little, shabby lady stepped forward and threw herself on Miss +Ellen's shoulder. + +"A sister?" Ellen Baily said, bewildered. + +"We were married this morning in Upper Chester," said Mr. David, "and I +have brought her home. Now we shall all be so happy!" + + + + +V + +That evening Dr. Lavendar came home. Of course all the real Old +Chester was on hand to welcome him. + +When the stage came creaking up to the tavern steps, the old white head +was bare, and the broad-brimmed shabby felt hat was waving tremulously +in the air. + +"Here I am," said Dr. Lavendar, clambering down stiffly from the +box-seat. "What mischief have you all been up to?" + +There was much laughing and hand-shaking, and Dr. Lavendar, blinking +very hard, and flourishing his red silk pocket-handkerchief, clapped +Mr. Spangler on the shoulder. + +"Didn't I tell you about 'em? Didn't I tell you they were the best +people going? But we mustn't let 'em know it; makes 'em vain," said +Dr. Lavendar, with great show of secrecy. "And look here, Sam Wright! +You fellows may congratulate yourselves. Spangler here has had a fine +business offer made him, haven't you, Mr. Spangler? and it's just your +luck that you got him to supply for you before he left this part of the +country. A little later he wouldn't have looked at Old Chester. Hey, +Spangler?" + +"Oh, that's settled," Mr. Spangler said. "I declined--" + +"Oh," said Dr. Lavendar, "have you? Well, I'm sorry for 'em." + +And Augustus Spangler smiled as heartily as anybody. He had a letter +crushed up in his hand; he had read it walking down from the +post-office to the tavern, and now he was ready to say that Old Chester +was the finest place in the world. He could hardly wait to get Dr. +Lavendar to himself in the rectory before telling him his great news +and giving him a little three-cornered note from Ellen Baily which had +been enclosed in his own letter. + +"Well, well, _well_," said Dr. Lavendar. + +He had put on a strange dressing-gown of flowered cashmere and his +worsted-work slippers, and made room for his shaggy old Danny in his +leather chair, and lighted his pipe. "Now tell us the news!" he said. +And was all ready to hear about the Sunday-school teachers, and the +choir, and Sam Wright's Protestantism, and many other important things. +But not at all:-- + +"_I'm engaged to be married._" + +"Well, well, well," said Dr. Lavendar, blinking and chuckling with +pleasure; then he read Ellen's little note. "I had to tell you +myself," Ellen wrote him, "because I am so happy." And then there were +a dozen lines in which her heart overflowed to this old friend. "Dear +child, dear child," he murmured to himself. To no one but Dr. +Lavendar--queer, grizzled, wrinkled old Dr. Lavendar, with never a +romance or a love-affair that anybody had ever heard of--could Miss +Ellen have showed her heart. Even Mr. Spangler did not know that heart +as Dr. Lavendar did when he finished Ellen's little letter.--And Dr. +Lavendar didn't tell. "I am so happy," said Miss Ellen. Dr. Lavendar +may have looked at Mr. Spangler and wondered at the happiness. But, +after all, wonder, on somebody's part, is a feature of every +engagement. And if the wonder is caused only by the man's coat, and +not by his character, why be distressed about it? Mr. Spangler was an +honest man; if his mind was narrow, it was at least sincere; if his +heart was timid, it was very kind; if his nature was lazy, it was clean +and harmless. So why shouldn't Ellen Baily love him? And why +shouldn't Dr. Lavendar bubble over with happiness in Ellen's happiness? + +"She's the best girl in the world," he told Mr. Spangler. "I +congratulate you. She's a good child--a good child." + +Mr. Spangler agreed, in a somewhat solemn manner. + +"But David--how about David?" + +"My house shall always be open to Mrs. Spangler's relatives," said Mr. +Spangler, with Christian pride. + +"You are a good fellow, Spangler," Dr. Lavendar said; and listened, +chuckling, to Mr. Spangler's awkward and correct expressions of bliss. +For indeed he was very happy, and talked about Miss Ellen's virtues +(which so eminently qualified her to become his wife), as fatuously as +any lover could. + +"Hi, you, Danny," said Dr. Lavendar, after half an hour of it, "stop +growling." + +"There's somebody at the door," said Augustus Spangler, and went into +the entry to see who it was. He came back with a letter, which he +read, standing by the table; then he sat down and looked white. Dr. +Lavendar, joyously, was singing to himself: + + "'Ten-cent Jimmy and his minions + Cannot down the Woolly Horse.' + + +"Spangler, we must drink to your very good health and prospects. Let's +have Mary bring the glasses." + +"I fear," said Mr. Spangler--he stopped, his voice unsteady. "I +regret--" + +"Hullo!" said Dr. Lavendar, looking at him over his spectacles; "what's +wrong?" + +"I'm extremely sorry to say," said poor Mr. Spangler, "that--it can't +be." + +"A good glass of wine," said Dr. Lavendar, "never hurt--" + +"I refer," said Mr. Spangler, sighing, "to my relations with Miss Ellen +Baily." + +Dr. Lavendar looked at him blankly. + +"I have just received a letter," the poor man went on, "in which she +informs me that it can never be." His lip trembled, but he held +himself very straight and placed the letter in his breast-pocket with +dignity. + +"Spangler, what are you talking about?" + +"It appears," said Mr. Spangler, "that her brother--" + +"Fiddlesticks!" said Dr. Lavendar. "Has Ellen started up some +fantastic conscientiousness? Spangler, women's consciences are +responsible for much unhappiness in this world. But I won't have it in +my parish! I'll manage Ellen; trust me." He pulled at his pipe, which +had gone out in these moments of agitation. "I tell you, sir," he +said, striking a match on the bottom of his chair, "these saintly, +self-sacrificing women do a fine work for the devil, if they only knew +it, bless their hearts." + +"You misapprehend," said Mr. Spangler, wretchedly; and then told Miss +Ellen's news. It was brief enough, this last letter; there was no +blame of David; indeed, he had displayed, Miss Baily said, "a true +chivalry; but of course--" "Of course," said Mr. Spangler. + +But Dr. Lavendar broke out so fiercely that Danny squeaked and jumped +down out of the chair. "Upon my word; upon my word, Spangler, what +were you thinking of to let it go on? If I had been at home, it would +never--upon my _word_!" This was one of the times that Dr. Lavendar +felt the limitations of his office in regard to language. Mr. +Spangler, his elbows on his knees, his chin on hands, was staring +miserably at the floor. + +"I shall, I trust, meet it in the proper spirit," he said. + +Dr. Lavendar nodded. "Of course," he said. "Fortunately, she is +dealing with a man who has backbone--perhaps." + +Mr. Spangler sighed. "I regret to say that her presence in her school +under the circumstances does seem imperative." + +Dr. Lavendar lighted his pipe. "Do you mean on account of money, +Spangler?" + +"The support of Mr. David Baily and this--this _female_, must be met, I +suppose, by Miss Baily's school." + +"You are not so situated that you--" began Dr. Lavendar, delicately. + +"My circumstances," said Augustus Spangler, "are not affluent. I have +my residence in Mercer; and I supply, as you know. But my income +barely suffices for one. Four--would be out of the question." + +Dr. Lavendar looked at Ellen's little, happy note, lying half open on +the table. "Poor old jack-donkey of a David!" he groaned. + +"His selfishness," said Augustus Spangler, between his teeth, his voice +suddenly trembling with anger, "is perfectly incomprehensible to +me--perfectly incomprehensible! I endeavor always to exercise charity +in judging any human creature; but--really, _really_!" + +"It isn't selfishness as much as silliness. David hasn't mind enough +to be deliberately selfish. The poor fellow never thought. He never +has thought. Ellen has always done the thinking for the family. Well, +the harm's done. But, Spangler--" the old man stopped and glanced +sharply at the forlorn and angry man opposite him. Yes, he certainly +seemed very unhappy;--and as for Ellen! Dr. Lavendar could not bear +that thought. "Spangler, I'll stand by you. I won't let her offer you +up as well as herself. There must be some way out." + +Mr. Spangler shook his head hopelessly. "The support of four persons +on my small stipend is impossible." + +"Spangler, my boy!" said Dr. Lavendar, suddenly, "there is a way out. +What an old fool I am not to have thought of it! My dear fellow"--Dr. +Lavendar leaned over and tapped Mr. Spangler's knee, chuckling +aloud--"_that secretaryship_!" + +"Secretaryship?" Mr. Spangler repeated, vaguely. + +"You declined it? I know. But I don't believe Brown's got a man yet. +I heard from him on another matter, yesterday, and he didn't say he +had. Anyway, it's worth trying for. We can telegraph him to-morrow," +said Dr. Lavendar, excitedly. + +Mr. Spangler stared at him in bewilderment. "But," he said, +breathlessly, "I--I don't think--I fear I am not fit." He felt as if +caught in a sudden wind; his face grew red with agitation. "I declined +it!" he ended, gasping. + +"Fit?" said Dr. Lavendar. "My dear man, what fitness is needed? +There's nothing to it, Spangler, I assure you." Dr. Lavendar was very +much in earnest; he sat forward on the edge of his chair and +gesticulated with his pipe. "Don't be too modest, my boy." + +"Business entails such responsibilities," Mr. Spangler began, in a +frightened voice. + +"Oh, but this is mere routine," Dr. Lavendar interrupted; "they want a +clergyman--somebody with tact. There's a good deal of church politics +in it, I suppose, and they've got to have somebody who would never step +on anybody's toes." + +"I would never do that," said Mr. Spangler, earnestly, "but--" + +"No," said Dr. Lavendar, abruptly, his voice changing--"no, Spangler, +you never would." Then he was silent for a moment, pulling on his +pipe, wondering perhaps, in spite of himself, at Ellen. "No, you never +would. You see, you are just the man for the place. Brown said they +wanted somebody who was presentable; he said they didn't need any +particular abil--I mean any particular business ability." + +"But," said Mr. Spangler, "to give up my sacred calling--" + +"Spangler, come now! you don't 'call' very loudly, do you? There, my +dear boy, let an old fellow have his joke. I merely mean you don't +preach as often as if you had a regular parish. And you can supply, +you know, there just as well as here." + +"The Master's service is my first consideration," said Augustus +Spangler. + +Dr. Lavendar looked at him over his spectacles. "Mr. Spangler, the +Christian business-man serves the Master just as well as we do." + +"I should wish to reflect," said Mr. Spangler. + +"Of course." + +"Miss Baily would, I fear, object to going so far away." + +"If the place is still open, I'll manage Ellen," said Dr. Lavendar; but +he looked at Mr. Spangler narrowly. "And your own entreaties will, of +course, weigh with her if you show determination. I think you told me +you were pretty determined?" + +"I have," said Mr. Spangler, "an iron will; but that would not justify +me in insisting if Miss Baily--" His voice trailed off; it rose before +him--the far-off, bustling city, the office, the regular hours, the +people whose toes must not be stepped upon, the letters to write and +read, the papers to file, all the exact minutiae the position involved. +And his comfortable old house? his leisure? his ease? And Mary Ann? +Mary Ann would never consent to go so far! "I--I really--" he began. + +Dr. Lavendar frowned. "Mr. Spangler, I would not seem to urge you. +Ellen is too dear to us for that. But if you appreciate her as I +suppose you do--" + +"I do indeed!" broke in poor Augustus Spangler, fervently. + +"The way is probably open to you." + +"But--" said Mr. Spangler, and then broke out, with marked agitation; +"I--I really don't see how I could possibly--" Yet even as he spoke he +thought of Ellen's sweet eyes. "Good Heavens!" said Mr. Spangler, +passionately; "what shall I do?" + +But Dr. Lavendar was silent. Mr. Spangler got up and began to walk +about. + +"My affection and esteem," he said, almost weeping, "are unquestioned. +But there are other considerations." + +Dr. Lavendar said nothing. + +"It is a cruel situation," said Mr. Spangler. + +Dr. Lavendar looked down at his pipe. + +There was a long silence. Augustus Spangler walked back and forth. +Dr. Lavendar said never a word. + +"A man must consider his own fitness for such a position," Mr. Spangler +said, pleadingly. + +"Perhaps," Dr. Lavendar observed, mildly, "Ellen's affections are not +very deeply engaged? It will be better so." + +"But they are!" cried Mr. Spangler. "I assure you that they are! And +I--I was so happy," said the poor man; and sniffed suddenly, and tried +to find the pocket in his coat-tails. + +Dr. Lavendar looked at him out of the corner of his eye. + +Mr. Spangler stood stock-still; he opened and shut his hands, his lips +were pressed hard together. He seemed almost in bodily pain, for a +slight moisture stood out on his forehead. He was certainly in +spiritual pain. The Ideal of Sacrifice was being born in Mr. +Spangler's soul. His mild, kind, empty face grew almost noble; +certainly it grew very solemn. + +"Dr. Lavendar," he said, in a low voice, "_I will do it._" + +Dr. Lavendar was instantly on his feet; there was a grip of the hand, +and, for a moment, no words. + +"I'll telegraph Mr. Brown," said Mr. Spangler, breathlessly. + +"So will I!" said Dr. Lavendar. + +Mr. Spangler was scarlet with heroism. "It means giving up my house +and my very congenial surroundings, and I fear Mary Ann will feel too +old to accompany me; but with--with Ellen!" + +"She's worth six Mary Anns, whoever Mary Ann may be," said Dr. Lavendar. + +"You may have thought me hesitant," said Mr. Spangler, "but I felt that +I must weigh the matter thoroughly." + +"Why, certainly, man. It was your duty to think what was best for +Ellen." + +"Exactly," Mr. Spangler said, getting his breath again, and beginning +to feel very happy. "And duty is, I hope, my watchword; but I had to +reflect," he ended, a little uncomfortably. + +But Dr. Lavendar would not let him be uncomfortable. They sat down +again, and Dr. Lavendar filled another pipe, and until long after +midnight they talked things over--the allowance to be made to David and +his bride, the leasing of the house in Mercer, the possible obduracy of +Mary Ann, and, most of all, the fine conduct of the Reverend Mr. +Spangler. + +But when they had said good-night, Dr. Lavendar sat awhile longer by +his fireside, his pipe out, his old white head on his breast. + +"The minute I get back," he said to himself after a while, +sheepishly--"the minute I get back I poke my finger into somebody +else's pie. But I think 'twas right: Ellen loves him; and he's not a +bad man.--And Brown don't want brains." + +Then he chuckled and got up, and blew out the lamp. + + + + +THE NOTE + + +I + +Of course everybody in Old Chester knew that there was something queer +about Mary Gordon's marriage--not the mere fact of the man, queer as he +was; for, to Old Chester's ideas, he was very queer.... A +"travelling-man," to begin with--and the Gordons had a line of scholars +and professional men behind them--a drummer, if you please. In theory, +Old Chester was religiously democratic; it plumed itself upon its +Christian humility, and every Sunday it publicly acknowledged that Old +Chesterians were like the rest of humanity to the extent of being +miserable sinners. But, all the same, that Mary Gordon should marry a +"person" of that sort-- + +"Dear me!" said Old Chester. + +However, travelling-men may be worthy; they need not necessarily use +perfumery or put pomade upon their shiny, curly, black hair. But Mr. +Algernon Keen was obviously not worthy, and he was saturated with +perfumery, and his black, curly hair was sleek with oil. Furthermore, +he was very handsome: his lips were weak and pouting and red; his eyes +liquid and beautiful; his plump cheeks slightly pink. One may believe +that such physical characteristics do not imply moral qualities; but +only youth has such a belief. When one has lived a little while in the +world, one comes to know that a human soul prisoned in such pretty +flesh is piteously hampered. Yet Mary Gordon, meeting this poor +creature by chance, fell deeply in love with him. Of course such +falling in love was queer--it was inexplainable; for Mary was a nice +girl--not, of course, of the caliber of some Old Chester girls; she had +not the mind of Alice Gray nor the conscience of Sally Smith; but she +was a quiet, biddable, good child--at least so far as anybody knew. +But nobody knew much about her. In the first place, the Gordons lived +just far enough out of Old Chester to miss its neighborliness. Mary +was not often seen in town, and in her own home her brother Alex's loud +personality crushed her into a colorless silence. Her father did not +crush her--he merely did not notice her; but he was fond of her--at +least he had the habit of indifferent affection. She always came into +the library to say good-night to him; and he, sitting by the fire in a +big, winged chair, a purple silk handkerchief spread over his white +locks, to keep off possible draughts, would turn his cheek up to her +mechanically; but the soft touch of her lips never made him lift his +eyes from his book. She never kissed Alex good-night; she was openly +afraid of him. Alex was rude to her and made her wait on him, throwing +her a curt "thank you" once in a while, generally coupled with some +sarcastic reference to her slowness or stupidity--for, indeed, the +child was both slow and stupid. Perhaps, had she been loved-- But no +one can tell now how that would have been. At any rate, there was a +pathetic explanation of loneliness to account for the fact that she was +drawn to this Algernon Keen, who had nothing to recommend him except a +cheap and easy kindliness that cost him no effort and was bestowed on +everybody. + +[Illustration: "SHE ALWAYS CAME INTO THE LIBRARY TO SAY GOOD-NIGHT TO +HIM"] + +Of course the two men, her father and brother, refused to consider Keen +as Mary's suitor at all. Alex nearly had a fit over it; in his rage +and mortification he took all Old Chester into his confidence. He went +to the Tavern--this was the day after Mary had, trembling and crying, +told her little love affair to her father and begged his consent--Alex +went to the Tavern and ordered the snickering, perfumed youth out of +town. + +"Well, I guess not," said Algy. "This town doesn't belong to you, does +it?" + +Alex stammered with passion: "If--if you dare to address Miss Gordon +again, I'll--I'll--I'll horsewhip you," he said, his pale eyes bulging +from his crimsoning face. + +"I guess Mary has a right to let me talk to her if she wants to; this +is a free country," the other blustered. And Alex, loudly, on the +Tavern steps, cursed him for a skunk, a-- Well, Old Chester was never +able to quote Alex. He came to his senses after this dreadful +exhibition of himself, and was horribly mortified. But +post-mortification cannot undo the deed, and before night everybody in +Old Chester knew that Mary Gordon had fallen in love with--"the person +who brings samples to Tommy Dove's apothecary shop." + +Old Chester was truly sorry for Mary; "for," as Mrs. Barkley said, +"love's love, whether it's suitable or not; and Mary has such a lonely +life, poor child! Well, it will take time for her to get over it." + +It seemed to take a good deal of time. That winter she grew pale and +was often ill. The poor little thing seemed to creep into her shell to +brood over her blighted hopes. Once she was downright sick for a week, +and Mr. Gordon sent for William King. Willy said at first that Mary +had something on her mind (which certainly Mary's family did not need +to be told). + +"I believe she's thinking about that scoundrel yet," said Alex. "But +she has just got to understand that we'll never allow it, Willy. You +may as well make that clear to her, and let her get over her moping." + +William King looked thoughtful and said he would call again. + +However, any of us Old Chester girls could have enlightened the doctor. +"Mary was pining away for her lover;" that was all there was to it. +But the lover never appeared, being engaged in offering samples of +pomade and perfumery to apothecary stores in other regions. And then, +suddenly, the queer thing happened.... + +The _Globe_ announced: "Married--by Dr. Lavendar, Mary Gordon to +Algernon Keen"--and the date, which was the night before. + +"_What!_" said Old Chester at the breakfast-table, and gaped out of its +windows to see Mary, crying very much, get into the stage, not at her +father's house, but at the Tavern door, if you please, and drive away +with the Person. What did it mean? "Was Alex at home? Did he +consent?" demanded Old Chester; for Alex had been away from home for a +week. By noon it was decided that Alex had consented; for it came out +that he had returned to Old Chester the previous afternoon, and with +him, shrinking into the corner of the stage, was Mr. Algy Keen. + +"Get out," Alex said to him when the stage drew up at the Gordon house. +The man got out, shambling and stumbling, with a furtive look over his +shoulder, for Alex Gordon walked behind him to the front door, his +right hand gripped upon his walking-stick, his left clinched at his +side. + +"He kep' just behind the feller," the stage-driver told Van Horn at the +Tavern afterwards--"just behind him, like as if he was afraid the +feller'd run away from him. But the feller, he stopped right at the +steps, and he turned around, and he says, 'Mind you,' he says (mad as a +hatter)--'mind you,' he says, 'I'm not _brought_, I've +_come_';--whatever that means," the stage-driver ruminated. + +So much Old Chester knew the day after Mary Gordon's wedding. And it +naturally sought to know a little more. + +"I suppose her father feels it very much?" ventured Mrs. Barkley to Dr. +Lavendar. + +"Any man feels the marriage of his only girl," said Dr. Lavendar, +briefly. And Mrs. Barkley held her tongue. But Mrs. Drayton, who was +just then anxious about her soul and found it necessary to consult Dr. +Lavendar as to the unpardonable sin--Mrs. Drayton was not so easily +squelched. "My Jean says that the Gordon's Rachel told her that Alex +brought the man into the house by the ear, and then sent her for you, +running, and--" + +"She didn't bring me into the house by the ear," said Dr. Lavendar. + +"But why, do you suppose, was it all so sudden?" said Mrs. Drayton; "it +almost looks--" + +"How do you know it was sudden?" said Dr. Lavendar. + +"Well, my Jean said--" + +"It may have been sudden to Jean," said the old man; "possibly Mary had +not taken Jean into her confidence. Some folks don't confide in +servants, you know." + +But Mrs. Drayton was proof against so delicate a thrust. "Well, I only +hope she won't repent at her leisure;--if there's nothing but haste to +repent of. If there's anything else--" + +"I'll say good-day, Mrs. Drayton," interrupted Dr. Lavendar; "and as +for your question about the unpardonable sin, ma'am, why, just be ready +to forgive other folks and you needn't be afraid of the unpardonable +sin for yourself." + +He took his hat and stick and went thumping down-stairs. In the hall +he met William King going up to see the invalid, and said, with a gasp: +"Willy, my boy, a good, honest murderer is easier to deal with than +some milder kinds of wrong-doing." + +"Dr. Lavendar," said William, "I'd rather have a patient with small-pox +than treat some lighter ills that I could name." + +As for Mrs. Drayton, she told her daughter that Dr. Lavendar was very +unspiritual, and did not understand the distress of a sensitive +temperament. "Even the slightest error fills me with remorse," said +Mrs. Drayton. "Dear me! I should think Mary Gordon would know what +remorse is--for, of course, there is only one thing to think." + + + + +II + +Old Chester thought the one thing. No evasions of Dr. Lavendar's, no +miserable silence on the part of the disgraced father and the +infuriated brother, could banish that one thought. But nothing +definite was known. "Although," as everybody said to everybody else, +"of course, Dr. Lavendar knows the whole thing, and probably Willy King +does, too." If they did, they kept their knowledge to themselves. But +Dr. Lavendar went often to the Gordon house that winter. "They're +pretty lonely, those two men," he told Willy once--perhaps six months +afterwards. + +"Would either of them have softened if the baby had lived, do you +think, sir?" William said. And Dr. Lavendar shook his head. + +"Perhaps her father might. But Alex will never forgive her, I'm +afraid." + +And Alex never did forgive her--not even when she died, as, happily, +she did six or seven years later. She died; and life closed over the +miserable little tragedy as water closes, rippling, over some poor, +broken thing flung into its depths. + +"_Thank God!_" Alex said, when he heard she was gone. + +"You may thank God for her," Dr. Lavendar said, turning upon him +sternly, "but ask mercy for yourself, because this door of opportunity +is shut upon you forever." + +Dr. Lavendar had brought them the news. They did not ask how it had +come to him; it was enough to hear it. The two men, Mary's father and +brother, listened while he told them, briefly: "She died yesterday. +The funeral will be to-morrow, at twelve." + +"Thank God!" Alex said, hoarsely, and lifted his hand and cursed the +man who had dishonored them. + +And Dr. Lavendar turned upon him in solemn anger. "Your opportunity is +gone--so far as she is concerned. There yet remains, however, the +poor, foolish sinner whom she loved--" + +"Damn him!" said Alex. + +"_--and who loved her._" + +Old Mr. Gordon dropped his face in his hands and groaned. + +"Who loved her," Dr. Lavendar repeated. + +"For that, at least, he cannot be indifferent to us, whatever he has +made us suffer." + +Neither of his listeners spoke. It was growing dark in the long room, +walled to the ceiling with books and lighted only by a fire sputtering +in the grate. Mr. Gordon, sitting in his big, winged chair close to +the hearth, said, after a long pause: "You said--to-morrow, Edward? +Where?" + +"In Mercer. I shall go up on the morning stage." + +Again the silence fell. Alex got up and walked to the window and +looked out. "Why didn't you bring Danny in, Dr. Lavendar?" he said, +carelessly; "the little brute will freeze out there in your buggy. +I'll call him in." He turned to leave the room, and then stopped. + +"Alexander, _sit down_," said Dr. Lavendar. + +Alex sat down with involuntary quickness; then he threw his legs out in +front of him and thrust his hands down into his pockets. "Dr. +Lavendar, this is our affair. I'm obliged to you for your kind +intentions; but this is our affair. You've told your news, and we have +listened respectfully--if I should say gladly you might be shocked. So +I only say respectfully. But you have spoken; we have listened. That +is all there is to it. The thing is finished. The book is closed. I +say thank God! I don't know what my father says. If he takes my +advice, for I've been a good son to him; I never gave him any cause to +be ashamed;--if he takes my advice, he'll forget the whole affair. +That's what I mean to do. The book is closed. I shall never think of +it again." He got up and walked about with affectation of vast +indifference. + +"Alex, you will probably never think of anything else," Dr. Lavendar +said, half pitifully; and then, sternly, again: "I can't make you +accept the opportunity that still is open to you; but I will point it +out to you: Come up to Mercer to-morrow with your father and me." + +"Mercer!" the younger man cried out, furiously; "you mean to see her +buried? To dance on her grave and pull the man out and spit in his +face and--" He stopped, his face suddenly purpling, his light eyes +staring and rolling; then he stumbled and jerked himself together, and +lurched forward into a chair, breathing loudly. The two old men, +trembling with horror, ran to him. "Oh, Edward," John Gordon +said--"oh, Edward, why did you rouse him? He can't speak of it, he +can't think of it. Alex--there!--we'll say no more about it." + +[Illustration: "LURCHED FORWARD INTO A CHAIR, BREATHING LOUDLY"] + +Alex stared at them with glassy eyes, in silence; his father kept +bemoaning himself and imploring his old friend to say no more. "You +won't speak of it again, Edward? He goes out of his head with rage. +Promise me not to speak of it any more." + +"No, John; no," Dr. Lavendar said, sadly; and as Alex's eyes cleared +into bewildered consciousness, the old minister stood a little aside +while the father helped the son to his feet and led him away. When he +came back, shuffling feebly down the long, darkening room, Dr. Lavendar +was still sitting by the fire. "He's quiet now; I--I think he's +ashamed. I hope so. But he won't come out of his room." + +Dr. Lavendar nodded. + +John Gordon spread his purple handkerchief over his white locks, with +shaking hands, and then sat down, tumbling back in his chair in a +forlorn heap. "Edward," he said, feebly, "tell me about it. It was on +Thursday? Had she been sick long?" Then, in a low voice, "She--didn't +lack for comforts?" + +"No; I think not. The man was as tender with her as--as you might have +been. She was sick--I mean in bed--two weeks. She had been ailing for +a long time; you remember I spoke to you about it about a month ago. +And again last week." + +"You--saw her?" + +"Yes." + +"More than once?" + +"Oh, many times," Dr. Lavendar said, simply; "many times, of course." + +John Gordon put out his hand; Dr. Lavendar shook it silently. Then +suddenly the old man broke out, in weak, complaining anger: "He +wouldn't let me write to her. I would have sent her some money. He +wouldn't hear of it. He was awful, Edward. I--I didn't dare." + +Dr. Lavendar was silent. It had grown so dark that he could not see +the father's face. Suddenly, from behind the leafless trees at the +foot of the garden, a smouldering yellow glow of sunset broke across +the gloom of the room, and touched the purple cowl and the veined hands +covering the aged face. Dr. Lavendar sighed. + +"What can I do, Edward? I can't go to-morrow. You see I can't." + +"Yes, you can, John." + +"He would die; he'd have another attack. His heart is bad, Edward." + +"Oh, I'm afraid it is, I'm afraid it is. But John, you do your duty. +Never mind Alex's heart. That isn't your affair." + +"Oh, I couldn't possibly go--not possibly," the father protested, +nervously. + +The glow died out. The room grew dusk and then dark. Mr. Gordon got +up and reached to the mantel-shelf for a spill. "Mary used to make the +spills for me," he said, vaguely. "Now our Rachel does it, and she +doesn't half bend the end over." He lighted the spill, the little +flame flickering upon his poor old face peering out from under his +purple handkerchief. "Oh, Alex ought not to be so hard. I would go +with you to-morrow, Edward, but I can't, you know. I can't." Then, +with a shaking hand, he took off the ground-glass globe and lighted the +tall lamp that stood among a litter of papers on the library-table. +"You see how it is, Edward, don't you? I can't possibly go." + +"You will be sorry if you don't, John." + +"I'll be sorry anyhow," he burst out. "I'm always sorry. I've been +sorry all my life. My children are my sorrow." + + + + +III + +Algy Keen, his face swollen with crying, his black hair limp and +uncurled, sat on the edge of the bed in the back room of a dingy Mercer +lodging-house. The windows had been left open after Mary had been +taken away, so that the room was cold; and there were still two chairs +facing each other,--a certain distance apart. The room was in dreary +order, and there was the scent of flowers in the chill air. The bed +was tumbled, for the forlorn man had dropped down upon it to rest. But +he was too tired to rest, and was sitting up again, dangling his +stockinged feet on the shabby carpet and talking to Dr. Lavendar. He +snuffled, and his poor, weak lips shook, and he rubbed the back of his +trembling hand across his nose. Algy had had broken nights for a +fortnight, and the last three days and nights of Mary's life he had +almost no sleep at all; these two days when she lay dead in their bare +room he had slept and wept and slept again; and now, when he and Dr. +Lavendar had come back from the funeral, he sat on the edge of the bed +and whimpered with weakness and grief. + +"Well, sir, she was a good girl," he said. "I don't care what anybody +says, she was a good girl. I ain't saying that things was just right, +to begin with. But that wasn't Mary's fault. No; she was a good girl. +And her folks treated her bad. They'd always treated her mean bad. My +goodness! if they'd 'a' let me come to see her respectable, as you +would any of your lady friends, 'stead of skulkin' 'round--... _I can't +stand the smell of those flowers_," he broke out, in a high, crying +voice; "I left them all out there at the cemetery, and I smell them +here--I smell them here," he moaned, trembling. + +"I like to smell them," Dr. Lavendar said. "They mean the old +friendship for Mary. Mrs. King sent them. She's our doctor's wife in +Old Chester. She always liked Mary." + +"I don't see how she could help it," Algy said, his face crumpling with +tears. "Well, she was a good girl. And she was a good wife, sir, too. +I tell you, you never saw a better wife. I used to come home tired, +and there'd be my slippers out for me. Yes, sir; she never missed it. +And she was always pleasant, too; you mayn't call just being pleasant, +religion, but I--" + +"I do," Dr. Lavendar interposed. + +"Well, so do I," Algy said, his face lightening a little. "I call it a +better religion than her folks showed. Well, now, sir, I loved +Mary"--he stopped and cried, openly--"I loved her (I didn't need that +hell-hound of a brother to come after me)--yes, I was just as fond of +her; and yet there was times when I come home at night--not--not +quite--well, maybe a little--you know?" + +"Yes," said Dr. Lavendar. + +"But, my God, sir, Mary was pleasant. It isn't every woman that would +be pleasant then, is it?" + +"No, it isn't, Algy." + +"Course, next day she'd tell me I done wrong. (She never told me so at +the time--Mary had sense.) And I always said: 'Well, yes, Mary, that's +so. And I'll never do it again.' But she was pleasant. Course I +don't mean she was lively. She used to remember--well, that we'd made +a mistake. _You_ know? And she used to kind a brood on it. She +talked to you considerably about it, I guess. She said you comforted +her. She said you said that maybe her--her mistake had brought her to +be kind o' more religious--saved her, as you might say." + +"I said that she had come to know her Saviour through His forgiveness." + +"I don't think Mary needed any forgiveness," the poor husband said, +with tearful resentment; "I think her folks needed it." + +"I'm sorry for them," Dr. Lavendar said. "They have got to remember +that they might have been kinder. That's a hard thing to have to +remember." + +The young man nodded. "I hope they'll remember it, hard!" + +"They will," said Dr. Lavendar, sighing. + +"I spent my last cent on Mary," Algernon rambled on. "I got her a good +coffin--a stylish coffin. The plate was solid silver. The man wanted +me to take a plated one. I says 'no,' I says; 'I don't get plated +things for my wife if it takes my last cent.' Well, it just about took +it. But I don't care. Her people threw her off, and I did for her. I +spent my last cent." + +"You took her from them in the first place, Algernon," the old minister +said. "Don't forget that you sinned." + +"Well, you said she was forgiven," the other broke out, angrily. "I +guess God's more easy than some people." + +"He is." + +"Well, then," Algy said, resentfully; "what's the use of talking?" + +Dr. Lavendar was silent. + +"I don't begrudge a cent I spent on her," Algy went on. "I had laid by +$1140 to set up a place of my own here in Mercer. At least, it wasn't +me; I'm not one to save much; it was Mary did it. But these last eight +months have taken it all, 'cause I 'ain't done hardly any work; +couldn't be away from her on the road, you know; so we had to live on +that money. I could 'a' got a cheaper coffin; but I wouldn't. As for +the doctor, I got the best in town. I don't believe in economizing on +your wife. And I paid him. I paid him $204 yesterday morning, though +it seems high, considering he didn't cure her. But I wasn't going to +let Mary get buried owing the doctor. And I paid for the coffin. +'Spot cash,' I says to the man, 'make it spot cash, and name your +figure.' He took off $17. Well, how much do you suppose I've got left +now, Dr. Lavendar, out of $1140? Just $23, sir. I don't care; I don't +begrudge Mary a cent. I thought the coffin looked handsome, didn't +you?--_Oh, I wish somebody had 'a' moved those chairs when we were +gone!_" he cried, his voice shrill and breaking. + +Dr. Lavendar got up and pushed one of the chairs back against the wall +and brought the other to Algy's side. The young man laid his hand on +it and began to cry. + + + + +IV + +"No, I suppose you don't care to hear about it, John. But I want to +tell you; so I guess you'll listen to please me?" + +John Gordon said nothing. + +"It isn't a long story," Dr. Lavendar said, and told him briefly of the +funeral. When he ended there was silence. Then, "John," Dr. Lavendar +said. + +"Yes, Edward." + +"The man is in need." + +"What's that to me?" the other burst out. + +"Much," said Dr. Lavendar; "it gives you a chance." + +"You mean a chance to give him some money?" said the other. "Good God! +To pay the scoundrel for what he did to us? Edward, you don't +understand human nature." + +"He spent his last cent making Mary comfortable, John. She told me so +herself." + +"I will never give that--creature one penny of my clean money." + +Dr. Lavendar said nothing. + +The older man bent forward, shivering, and stirred the fire. The coal +broke into sputtering fragments and the flames roared up into the soot. +"Alex would never listen to giving him any money." + +"Don't ask him to listen to it. Haven't you got your own check-book?" + +"Let him rot. That's what Alex says." + +"I don't believe it's what you say, John, because he was good to +Mary;--and you were not." + +Mr. Gordon groaned. + +"Well, I won't give him anything; I'll lend it, possibly." + +Dr. Lavendar frowned and got up. + +Mr. Gordon put out a trembling, detaining hand. + +"Edward, you don't understand.... How much do you want for him?" + +"He had saved about $1200 to go into some business. It's all gone." + +"Well, I won't give it to him," the other repeated, with feeble +sharpness; "I'll lend it--to please you." + +"I'm sorry you haven't a better motive." + +John Gordon got up and went over to his library-table and fumbled about +in one of the drawers for his check-book. "I'm a fool," he said, +fretfully; "I don't know but what I'm worse. Lending money to-- But +you say he was good to her? Poor Mary! Oh!" he ended, half to +himself, "I don't know why Alex is so hard." Then he took his quill +and began to scrawl his check. "I'd rather see him starve," he said. + +"No, you wouldn't," Dr. Lavendar said, calmly. + +"Well, there! Take it! Get a receipt." + +"Johnny, think better of it." + +"You needn't take it if you don't want to," the other said, sullenly. + +Dr. Lavendar took it, and John Gordon called after him, + +"You won't tell Alex?" + +Dr. Lavendar shook his head and sighed. As he drove home he said to +himself that a loan was better than nothing. "But, Danny, my boy," he +added, "what a chance he had! Well, he'll take it yet--he'll take it +yet. The trouble with me, Daniel, is, I'm in too much of a hurry to +make folks good. I must reform." + +Danny blinked a grave agreement, and Dr. Lavendar, dropping his +shortcomings joyfully from his mind, began to sing to himself: + + "Oh! what has caused this great commotion--motion--motion + Our country through?" + + +When, however, a day or two later, Dr. Lavendar went up to Mercer to +take the check to Algernon Keen, he found to his astonishment that it +was not so easy to secure to his old friend even the smaller and meaner +opportunity of lending, much less giving. + +At first, Algernon looked at him open-mouthed. "_Him_--offering to +lend money to--?" His astonishment robbed him of words. Then into his +poor, shallow face came the first keen touch of shame. But instantly +he was ashamed of his shame,--ashamed, like so many of us strange human +creatures, of the stirring of God within him. He didn't want their +dirty money, he said. They thought themselves so good, they couldn't +stomach Mary. Well, then, they were too good for him to touch their +money. His voice shook with angry grief. His bitterness was genuine, +even though he used it to hide that first regenerative pang of shame. +No; Dr. Lavendar could take their money back to them. "I spent my last +cent, just about, on Mary," he said; "and I didn't begrudge it, either." + +"I'm sure you didn't begrudge it." + +Algy's weak mouth shook and his eyes filled; he turned away and stared +out of the window. "He better have offered to lend her some money than +me," he said. "I bet he's glad she's dead." + +(Dr. Lavendar thought of Alex.) "He wants to help you now for her +sake," he said. + +"I don't want his money," the younger man insisted, brokenly; "he let +her die." + +"I think that it would please her to have you take it." + +"I don't want to be under obligations to those people," Algernon said, +doggedly. + +"If Mr. Gordon has your note, it's business." + +Algy hesitated. "I suppose he thinks I'd never pay it back?" + +"If he takes your note, it looks as if he expected to be repaid." + +"It's treating me white, I'll say that," Algernon said. And again his +face reddened slowly to his forehead and he would not meet Dr. +Lavendar's eye. "But I don't want their favors," he cried, +threateningly. + +"It's business, if you give your note," Dr. Lavendar repeated. "Come, +Algernon, let her father do something for her sake. And as for +you--it's a chance to play the man; don't you see that?" + +Algy caught his breath. "Damn!--if I borrowed his money I'd pay +it--I'd pay it, if it took the blood out of me." + +"I will make your feeling clear to him," Dr. Lavendar said. "Let's +make out the note now, Algy." + +The old man got up and hunted about for pen and paper. "Here's a +prescription blank," he said; "that will do." An ink-bottle stood on +the narrow mantel-shelf, a rusty pen corroding in its thickening +depths; but Dr. Lavendar, in a very small, shaky old hand, managed to +scrawl that "Algernon Keen, for value received, promised to pay to John +Gordon--" + +--"in a year," Algy broke in; "I ain't going to have it run but a +year--and put in the interest, sir. I'll have no favors from 'em. +I'll pay interest; I'll pay six per cent.--like anybody else would." + +--"and interest on same," Dr. Lavendar added. "Now, you sign here, +Algy. There! that will please Mary." + +"Oh, my!" said Algernon, his poor, red-rimmed eyes filling--"oh, my! +my! what will I do without her?" + + + + +V + +The next day Dr. Lavendar carried the note back to old John Gordon, who +took it, his mouth tightening, and glanced at it in silence. Then he +shuffled over to a safe in the corner of his library and pulled out a +japanned tin box. Dr. Lavendar watched him fumble with the combination +lock, holding the box up to catch the light, and shaking it a little +until the lid clicked open. "He'll never pay it," John Gordon said. + +"He'll try to," Dr. Lavendar said; "but it's doubtful, of course. He's +a sickly fellow, and he hasn't much gumption. But if there's any good +in him, your trusting him will bring it out." + +"There isn't any good in him," the other said, violently. + +And that was the last they said about it; for the time Algernon Keen +dropped out of their lives. + +He set up his little store in Mercer, and struggled along, advertising +his samples of perfumery and pomade upon his own person; trying to +drink a little less, for Mary's sake; whimpering with loneliness and +sick-headache in his grimy room in the hotel where Mary had died; and +never forgetting for a day that promise to pay on the back of the +prescription paper in John Gordon's possession. But when the year came +round, on the 2d of December, he had not a cent in hand to meet his +obligation. And that was why Dr. Lavendar heard of him again. Would +the doctor--this on perfumed paper, ruled, and with gilt edges--would +the doctor "ask him if he would extend?" Algernon could pay the +interest now; but that was all he could do. He wasn't in very good +shape, he said. He'd been in the hospital for a month, and had had to +hire a salesman. "I guess he cheated me; he was a kind of fancy +talker, and got me to let him buy some stock; he got off his slice, I +bet." That was the reason, Algy said, that he could not make any +payment on the principal. But he was going to introduce a new article +for the lips (no harmful drugs in it), called Rosebloom--first-class +thing; and he expected he'd do first rate with it. And in another year +he'd surely pay that note. It hung over him, he said, like a ton. "I +guess he don't want it paid any more than I want to pay it," Algy +ended, simply. + +Of course Dr. Lavendar asked for an extension, and got it, though John +Gordon's lip curled. "I never expected to hear from him or his note +again," he said. "Probably his honesty won't last over another year." + +Dr. Lavendar went up to Mercer to see Algy, and they talked things over +in the store between the calls of two customers. Algy's hair was sleek +and curly as before, for business is business; but he looked draggled +and forlorn; his color had gone and he was thinner, and there were +lines on his forehead, and his bright, hazel eyes, kind and shallow as +those of some friendly animal, had come into their human birthright of +worry. "It's this note that takes the spunk out of me," he said. "If +I could only get it paid! Then I'd hire a house and have the shop in +front. I've thought some I'd get married, too. It's hard on your +digestion living in one of these here cheap hotels. But I can't get +over thinking of Mary. I don't seem to relish other ladies. I suppose +they're all right; but Mary was so pleasant." And his eyes reddened. +"And, anyway, it would cost more to keep a wife, and I don't propose to +spend money that way. _He's_ treated me white, I'll say that for him; +and I propose to show him--Dr. Lavendar, I haven't drunk too much only +three times in the last year--honest, I haven't. I thought you'd think +that would please Mary?" + +"I'm sure it does," said Dr. Lavendar. + +"I suppose you think," the drummer said, sheepishly, "that it was +pretty darned foolish to drop three times?" + +"I think pretty soon it won't be even three times," Dr. Lavendar +declared; "but it's hard work; I know it is." + +Algernon looked at him eagerly. "You know how it is yourself, maybe?" + +"Well, I never happened to want to take too much," Dr. Lavendar said, +gently; "if I had, it would have been hard, I'm sure." + +"Well, you bet," Algy told him, knowingly. Then they talked the +business over, and Dr. Lavendar clapped Algy on the shoulder and said +he believed he'd have that house and shop yet. "Rosebloom may be a +gold-mine," said Dr. Lavendar. Then he gave Algy some advice about the +window display, and suggested a little gas-jet on the counter where +gentlemen might light their cigars; and he told Algy what brand he +smoked himself, and recommended it, in spite of its price. Algy +smacked his thigh at that, and said Dr. Lavendar had the making of a +smart business man in him. Indeed, Algy felt so cheered that he opened +his show-case and displayed a box of his new cosmetic. + +"Look here, doctor," he said, earnestly; "I'll give you a box. +Yes--yes! I will. I'd just as lief as not. You maybe wouldn't want +to use it yourself; gentlemen don't, often. But give it to one of your +lady friends. Do, now, doctor. It don't cost me much of anything--and +I'm sure you've been kind to me." + +And Dr. Lavendar accepted the lip-salve, and thanked Algy warmly; then +he said that the picture on the lid of the tight-waisted lady was very +striking. + +"That's so!" cried Algy. "She's a beauty. She makes me think of Mary." + +Algernon had presented Dr. Lavendar with a cigar, and the old minister +was smoking it in great comfort, his feet on the base of a rusty, +melon-shaped iron stove; Algy was leaning back against the counter, his +elbows on the show-case behind him. "Dr. Lavendar," he said, looking +at the toe of his boot, "I--got something on my mind." + +"Well, off with it, quick as you can." + +"I've been thinking about the Day of Judgment." + +"Ho!" said Dr. Lavendar. + +"Well, sir, I get to thinking: if everybody's sins are to be read out +loud before all the world--standing up, rows and rows and rows of 'em. +Can't see the end of 'em--so many. I kind a' hate to think that Mary +might hear--things about me." + +"Well, Keen," said Dr. Lavendar, slowly, "I don't believe it will be +that way." He hesitated a little. After all, it is a risk to take +away even a false belief, unless you can put a true one in its place. + +Algy stopped looking at the toe of his boot. "_What!_" said he. + +"Now just look at it," said Dr. Lavendar. "Who would be the better for +that kind of publicity? Good people wouldn't like it; it would pain +them. You say yourself that Mary wouldn't like to hear that you did +wrong three times." + +"No; she wouldn't," Algernon said. + +"Wicked people might enjoy it," Dr. Lavendar ruminated, "but--" + +--"but God don't cater to the wicked?" Algy finished, quickly. + +"That's just it," said Dr. Lavendar. "He doesn't. But I tell you what +it is, Algy, it is painful enough to just have your Saviour tell you +your sins when you're sitting all alone--or, maybe, lying awake in the +dark; that's a dreadful time to hear them. It's worse than having rows +of people listening." + +Algernon nodded. "Maybe you're right," he said, sighing. + +The birth of a soul is a painful process. But when he went away Dr. +Lavendar's eyes were full of hope. + +And he grew more hopeful when, as the next year came round and Algernon +again asked for extension, he was able to carry back, not only the note +and the interest to John Gordon, but a payment of $24. What that $24 +meant of self-denial and perseverance Dr. Lavendar knew almost as well +as Algy himself. + +"I don't know whether you meant it, John," he said, as the old man took +the note and locked it up in the japanned box--"I don't know that it +was your intention, but I believe the responsibility of debt is going +to make a man of Mary's husband." + +"Debt doesn't generally work that way," Mr. Gordon said. + +"No; it doesn't. But He maketh the wrath of man to praise Him, once in +a while, Johnny." + +"It's nothing to me. I'm done with him." + +"'If the court knows itself, which it think it do,'" said Dr. Lavendar, +chuckling, "you're just beginning with him." + +"I'd rather have him decent, if that's what you mean. But I despise +him." + +"I don't," said Dr. Lavendar. "I tell you, John, we're poor, limited +critters, you and I. We felt that no good could possibly come out of +Nazareth. I must confess that when I got you to send him that money I +was thinking more of the benefit to you than any effect it might have +on him. I thought he didn't amount to two cents. To my shame I say +it. But I was blind as a bat; the Lord had sent him a great +experience--_Mary's death_. Well, it was like a clap of thunder on a +dark night; the lightning showed up a whole landscape I didn't know. +There was honesty; and there was perseverance; and there was love, mind +you, most of all. Love! I tell you, Johnny, only the Lord knows what +is lying in the darkness of human nature. In fact," said Dr. Lavendar, +reflectively, "as I get older there is nothing more constantly +astonishing to me than the goodness of the Bad;--unless it is the +badness of the Good. But that's not so pleasant. No, sir; I don't +despise Mr. Keen." + +Nor did he despise Algy when the note had to be extended still again, +although again Algy was ready not only with the interest, but with +$37.50 of the principal. + + + + +VI + +As Algernon struggled along with Rosebloom and cheap cigars and bright +red and green perfumed soaps, the debt was lessened and lessened; and +the back of the note was almost covered with extensions, yet only $317 +had been paid off. In spite of himself John Gordon grew interested; he +would not have admitted it for the world, but he wanted to hear about +Dr. Lavendar's annual visits to Mercer; and Dr. Lavendar used to drive +out to smoke a pipe with him and tell him what Algy had said and done. +One day--it was seven years after the note had been drawn--a clear, +heartless winter day, with a cold, high wind that made the old minister +look so blue that John Gordon mixed a glass of whiskey-and-water and +made him drink it before they began to talk--that day Mr. Gordon went +so far as to ask a question about Algy. "Has he given you anything +more for your complexion, Edward?" he said, with a faint grin. + +"He gave me a smelling-bottle this time. I handed it over to Mary, and +told her not to let me get a sniff of it; and she said, 'Sakes! it's +beautiful!' But I'll tell you something he said, Johnny: he said that +his debt to you was a millstone round his neck. And yet the truth is, +it's a life-buoy!" + +John Gordon looked at the soiled, crumpled paper, with its dates of +extensions, and smiled grimly. "Well, I won't deprive him of his +life-buoy." + +"The store is doing pretty well," Dr. Lavendar went on--and stopped, +because Alex entered. + +"Whose store is doing pretty well," he asked, civilly enough--for Alex. + +"Algernon Keen's," said Dr. Lavendar. + +Alex's face changed; he looked from one to the other of the old men by +the fire, and he saw his father's hand open and close nervously. But +he restrained himself until their visitor had gone. He even went out +into the sharp, bright wind and unhitched Dr. Lavendar's little blind +horse Goliath, backing the buggy close to the steps and helping the old +man in with what politeness he could muster. Then he hurried back into +the library to his father. + +"I should like to know, sir," he said, standing up with his back to the +fire, his legs, in their big, mud-stained top-boots, wide apart, his +hands under his coat-tails--"I should like to know, sir, why Dr. +Lavendar sees fit to refer to a subject which is most offensive to us?" +He fixed his motionless, pale eyes on his father, shrinking back in the +winged chair. + +"I don't know--I don't know," said John Gordon. Then, suddenly, he put +out his hand and caught at the crumpled note on the table beside him +and put it in his pocket. Instantly suspicion flamed into Alex's eyes. +His face turned dully red, almost purple. He made a step forward as +though to interpose and grasp at the paper, restrained himself, and +said, with laborious politeness: + +"If that is a note, sir--I thought I saw indorsements of +interest--sha'n't I put it into the safe for you?" + +"I won't trouble you, Alex." + +Alex stood silent; then suddenly he struck the table with his fist: "My +God! I believe you've been lending money to that--to that--" + +Mr. Gordon began to shake very much. + +"Did Dr. Lavendar presume to ask you to lend money to--to--" + +Mr. Gordon passed his hand over his lips; then he said, faintly, "No; +he didn't." + +Alex, like a boat brought suddenly up into the wind, stammered +uncertainly. "Oh; I--I--thought--" And then suspicion broke out +again. "Has the creature asked you for a loan?" + +"No," Mr. Gordon said. + +And Alex gaped at him, silenced. Yet he was certain that that strip of +paper had some connection with Algernon Keen. "I beg your pardon," he +said; "I thought for an instant that you were dickering with the man +who seduced your daughter. I am sure I beg your pardon for the +thought," he ended, with elaborate and ironical courtesy, for his +father's obvious agitation assured him that he was right. "I only felt +that if it was his note, it must be kept carefully--carefully." He +smiled in a deadly way he had, and opened and shut his hand as though +he would close it on the hilt of a knife. "But, of course, I was +mistaken. You would press it if you had his note--although 'sue a +beggar.' And, besides, if we had got as far as lending him money, we +would be asking him to dinner next." + +Mr. Gordon cringed. + +"So I beg your pardon," Alex ended, sardonically. + +"Very well--very well," his father said; and got up and began to potter +about among his books, as much as to say that the subject was ended. + +"It _is_ a note," Alex said to himself, and smiled.... So far the +creature had gone scot-free. In these days of lawfully accepted +dishonor revenge is not talked about. But perhaps it would come to his +hand. Not the revenge of the instincts--not the shedding of blood, man +fashion; but the revenge of inflicting misery. Not much of a revenge, +of course, but the best that he could get. And so he smiled to +himself.... + +He said no more at the time; but months later his father realized that +the incident was not forgotten when Alex said, suddenly, sneering: "So +your son-in-law is prospering in his business? I saw his establishment +to-day in Mercer. If he owes you any money he will be able to pay +cash. I congratulate you, sir." + +Old Mr. Gordon made no reply. He was very feeble that autumn. Willy +King told Alex that another attack of bronchitis would be the end. "He +can't stand it," said Dr. King. "I'd take him South, Alex, if I were +you." + +Alex did not like to leave his mill in Upper Chester, but, as he told +Willy, he was a good son, and always did his duty to his father. "I +play dominoes with him every night," he said;--so he would take the old +man South, though to go and come would keep him from business almost a +week. + +It was then that John Gordon told Dr. Lavendar that Alex suspected him +of lending money to Mr. Keen. "And if I die," he said, "Alex will +squeeze the poor devil--he'll squeeze him till he ruins him. I--I +suppose I'm a great fool, but I almost thought maybe, sometime, I'd +destroy that note, Edward?" + +Dr. Lavendar chuckled: "I knew you'd come to it, Johnny; but--" he +stopped and ruminated. "You've come to it; so that's all right. But +do you know--I don't believe he can do without it quite yet awhile." + +"Poor devil!" John Gordon said again, kindly. "Well, I'll let him gnaw +on it awhile longer. I suppose he'll want another extension?" + +"Probably," said Dr. Lavendar. "He is just holding his own this year; +he will be able to pay the interest, he told me, but not very much +more." + +Extension was necessary, as Dr. Lavendar had foreseen; and when he +wrote to Mr. Gordon about it the old man replied in obvious fear of his +son. The note was in his safe, he said; Edward knew where it was; it +was in the japanned box. "But I don't care to ask Alex to get it," he +explained. "He doesn't know of its existence; so I'll give you power +of attorney to see to it. You'd better just have Ezra Barkley put it +in shape for you, because it will be necessary to go up to the house +and open the safe to get it and put it back again. Alex is never at +home until late in the afternoon, but Rachel is there and will let you +in. You'll find some very good Monongahela in the chimney closet." +Then he added the combinations of the locks on the safe and the +japanned box. + +"Stick that in, Ezra, will you, about going up to the house?" Dr. +Lavendar said. + +And Ezra stuck it in solemnly, and then held his pen between his teeth +and blotted his paper. "It is estimated," he observed, through his +shut teeth, "that the amount of ink used in the United States of +America, in signatures to wills, since the year when the independence +of the colonies was declared, would be sufficient in bulk to float a--" + +"Well, Ezra," said Dr. Lavendar, chuckling, "this paper seems rather +liberal. Suppose I take some cash out of the safe to repair the roof +of the vestry? It leaks like a sieve." + +"Your construction of liberality is at fault, sir," Mr. Ezra corrected +him, gently; "this paper defines just exactly what you may do, up to +the moment when the principal reclaims the paper--or dies." + +"Well, I hope he won't reclaim it, or die, either, till he gets an +affair we are both interested in patched up," Dr. Lavendar said; then +he listened politely while Mr. Ezra told him how many times the word +"ink" occurred in Holy Writ. + +Dr. Lavendar went away with his power of attorney in his pocket. And +when he sent it to John Gordon to sign, he seemed to take it for +granted that he and Mr. Gordon were equally interested in the +development and well-being of Mary's husband. He said in his letter +such things as, "You'll make a man of him yet;" and, "Your patience has +given the best elements in him time to come out." Dr. Lavendar had a +perfectly unreasonable way of imputing good motives to people; the +consequence was he was not very much astonished when they displayed +goodness. He was not astonished when, some two months later, another +letter came from old Mr. Gordon, saying that on the whole he thought +the note had better not run any longer. "I am going to forgive him his +debt," Mary's father wrote, in a feeble scrawl; "and I'll be obliged to +you if you will go up to my house and get that note and send it to me. +I'm pretty shaky on my pins, and I don't want to run risks, so I wish +you'd tear the signature out and burn it before you mail the note. +I'll send it along to Mr. Keen. I mean to write to him and tell him I +think he is honest, anyway. The fact is, I half respect the poor +fellow. It's been a long winter, and I can't say I'm much better. +Willy King doesn't know everything. These doctors are too confoundedly +ready to send a man away from home. I should have been just as well +off in Old Chester. _Be sure and destroy that signature_." + +Dr. Lavendar read this letter joyfully, but without surprise. "I'm +glad he didn't take my advice and let it go on any longer," he said to +himself; "I guess I'll risk the effect on Algy now." + +Then he wondered if there would be any danger of meeting Alex if he +went up to the house right after dinner. "I can't manage it this +morning," he said to himself. "I've got to go and see Mrs. Drayton. +Well, I wish the Lord would see fit to cure her--or something." + +So he went plodding out into a still, gray February day, and called on +Mrs. Drayton, and stopped at the post-office to hear the news, and then +went home to his dinner. "Ye're not going out _again_?" his Mary +cried, in shrill remonstrance, when in the afternoon she saw him muffle +himself up for the drive out into the country; "it's beginning to snow!" + +"I am," said Dr. Lavendar; "and see you have a good supper for me when +I get back." He got into his buggy, buttoning the apron up in front of +him, for it was a wet snow. He had on a shabby old fur cap, which he +pulled well down over his forehead, furrowed by other people's sins and +troubles; but his eyes peered from under it as bright and happy as a +squirrel's. + +His little blind horse pulled slowly and comfortably up the hill, +stopping to get his breath on a shaky bridge over a run. In the +silence of the snow Dr. Lavendar did not hear the stage coming down the +hill until it was almost on the bridge; then he had to pull over to let +it pass. As he did so the single passenger inside rapped on the +window, and then opened it and thrust his head out, calling to the +driver to stop. + +"Dr. Lavendar! you have heard, I suppose? Very sad. A great shock. +Of course I'm going on at once to bring the body back. It is difficult +to get off at this season, but a son has a sacred duty." Alex's pale +eyes were bulging from his red, excited face. + +"What news?" Dr. Lavendar said. "You don't mean--Alex! John +isn't--your father isn't--" + +"My father is dead," Alex said, with ponderous solemnity. "It is a +great grief, of course; but I trust I shall be properly resigned. His +age rendered such an event not altogether unexpected." + +Dr. Lavendar could not speak; but as the stage-driver began to gather +up his reins from the steaming backs of his horses, he said, brokenly: +"Wait--wait. Tell me about it, Alex; your father and I have been +friends all our lives." Alex told him briefly: He had just had a +despatch; his father had died that morning; he had been less well for a +fortnight. "I had a letter from him this morning," Alex said, "in +which he referred to his health--" + +"So had I--so had I." + +"I cannot get back with the body for six days--three to go, three to +come," Alex said, "but I will be obliged if you will arrange for the +obsequies next Thursday." + +"Yes, yes. I will make any arrangements for you," Dr. Lavendar said. +He took out his big red silk pocket-handkerchief and blew his nose with +a trembling flourish. "We were boys together; your father was the big +boy, you know; I was the youngster. But we were great friends. Alex, +I am afraid my own grief has made me forgetful of yours; but you have +had a loss, my boy--a great loss." + +"Very much so--very much so," Alex agreed, with a proper sigh, and +pulled up the window of the stage, then lowered it abruptly: "Oh, Dr. +Lavendar, are you going on as far up as--as _my_ house?" + +"As _your_ house?" Dr. Lavendar repeated. "Oh--oh yes; I didn't +understand. Yes, I am." + +"Would it inconvenience you," Alex said, "to stop there? I am going to +ask Mr. Ezra Barkley to come up at once and put seals on various +things. I am the sole executor, as well as the heir, of course; but I +sha'n't be able to attend to things for a week; and the forms of law +must be observed. If you could be on hand when Barkley is there--not +that I do not trust him." + +Dr. Lavendar stared at him blankly; for an intelligent man, Alex was +sometimes a great fool. But he only nodded gravely, and said he would +stop at the house and wait for Mr. Ezra; Alex signed to the driver, and +the stage went rolling noiselessly on into the storm. When, at the +foot of the hill, Alex glanced back through the little oblong of bubbly +glass in the leather curtain of the coach, he saw Dr. Lavendar's buggy +standing motionless where he had passed it on the bridge; then the snow +hid it. + +Under the bridge the creek ran swiftly between edges of ice that here +and there had caught a dipping branch and held it prisoner, or had +spread in agate curves--snow white, clear black, faint white +again--around a stone in mid-stream. On the black current, silent +except for a murmurous rush of bubbles under the ice, the snowflakes +melted instantly, myriads of them--hurrying, hurrying, hurrying; then, +as they touched the water, gone. Dr. Lavendar, in the buggy, sat +looking down at them: + +"_In an instant--in the twinkling of an eye, we shall be changed._" ... + +"He was my oldest friend." ("Was": with what an awful promptitude the +mind adjusts itself to "he _was_"!) Yet as he sat there, peering out +over the top of the apron and making, heavily, those plans familiar to +every clergyman, Dr. Lavendar did not really believe that the plans +were for Johnny. The snow fell with noiseless steadiness; the top of +the buggy was white; thimbles of down heaped themselves on the hubs, +tumbling off when the horse moved restlessly a step forward or backed a +little and stamped. Suddenly Goliath shook himself, for the snow was +cold upon his shaggy back, and the harness clattered and the shafts +rattled. Dr. Lavendar drew a long breath. "G'on!" he said. And +Goliath went on with evident relief. He knew the road well, and turned +in at the Gordon gateway, as a matter of course. When he stopped at +the front steps, the door opened and Rachel stood there, her eyes red. + +"Sam will take him round to the stable, sir," she said, as Sam shambled +out from the back of the house to stand at Goliath's head. "Oh, my! +sir; I suppose you've heard?" + +"Yes, Rachel; I've heard," the old man said, unbuttoning the apron and +climbing out. Rachel took his hand and wept audibly. "I knew he'd +never come back; he was marked for death. I've lived here eighteen +years, and I always said it was a privilege to work for a gentleman +like him." + +"Yes--yes," he said, kindly. He was plainly agitated, and Rachel saw +that he was trembling. + +"Course you feel it, sir, being about of an age," she said, +sympathetically. "Dr. Lavendar, sir, won't you have a glass of +something?" With the hospitality of an old servant, she would have +opened the little closet in the chimney-breast, but he checked her. + +"Not yet; not now, Rachel. Leave me here awhile by myself, my girl. +I'll come out to the kitchen and see you before I go. When Mr. Barkley +comes, ask him to step into the library." + +"Yes, sir," Rachel said, obediently; and went away sniffling and +sighing. + +Dr. Lavendar stood looking about him at the emptiness of the room: the +winged chair, with the purple silk handkerchief hanging over the back; +the table heaped with books; the fire drowsing in the grate; the old +safe in the corner by the window. Outside, the snow drove past, +blotting the landscape. Ezra would probably arrive within a half-hour; +he had better get the note before he came. Then there need be no +explanations. + +When Mr. Ezra came in he found the old minister sitting by the fire, +quite calm again, and even cheerful. "Yes," he said, in answer to the +lawyer's very genteel expressions of sympathy--"yes, I'll miss him. We +were boys together. He used to call me Bantam. I hadn't thought of it +for years." + +"Nicknames," said Mr. Ezra, "were used by the ancients as long ago as +300 B.C." + +"Well, I'm not as ancient as 300 B.C.," said Dr. Lavendar, "but I +called him Storkey; I can't imagine why, for he was only an inch and a +half taller; he always said it was two inches, but it wasn't. It was +an inch and a half." + +"We are here," said Mr. Ezra, pulling off his gloves and coughing +politely, "for indeed a solemn and an affecting task. It is my duty, +sir, to seal the effects of the deceased, so that they may be +delivered, intact, to the executor." + +Dr. Lavendar nodded. + +"In all my professional career I have never happened to be called upon +for this especial duty. It is quite unusual. But Alex seemed to think +it necessary. Alex is a good son." + +"So he says," said Dr. Lavendar. + +"Are you aware, sir," proceeded Mr. Ezra, producing from his bag the +paraphernalia of his office, "that such is the incredible celerity of +bees (belonging to the _Hymenoptera_) that they can within twenty-four +hours manufacture four thousand cells in the comb? This interesting +fact is suggested by the use of wax for sealing." + +Dr. Lavendar watched him in a silence so deep that he hardly heard the +harmless stream of statistics; but at last he was moved to say, with +his kind, old smile, "How _can_ you know so many things, Ezra?" + +"In my profession," Mr. Ezra explained, "it is necessary to keep the +mind up to the greatest agility; I, therefore, exercise it frequently +in matters of memory." He lit a candle and held his wax sputtering in +the flame. "I recall," he said, "with painful interest, that at one of +our recent meetings I had the honor of drawing the power of attorney +for you, from the deceased." + +"So you did," said Dr. Lavendar. + +"Did you ever reflect," said Mr. Barkley, "that should that power be +used after the death of the donor, to carry out a wish of said donor, +expressed an hour, nay, a moment, before the instant of +dissolution--such act would be an offence in the eye of the law?" + +"I've always thought the law ought to put on spectacles, Ezra," said +Dr. Lavendar; "it has mighty poor eyesight once in a while." + +Mr. Barkley was shocked. "The law, Lavendar, is the deepest expression +of the human sense of justice!" + +"But, Ezra," Dr. Lavendar said, suddenly attentive, "that is very +interesting. I remember you referred to the lapsing of the power of +attorney when you made out that paper for me; but I didn't quite +understand. Do you mean that carrying out, now, directions given +before the death of my old friend would be against the law? Suppose he +had asked me--last week, perhaps, to destroy--well, say that old +account-book there on the table, couldn't I do it to-day?" + +"Dr. Lavendar, you do not, I fear, apprehend the majesty of the law! +Why," said Mr. Ezra, standing up, very straight and solemn, "such a +deed--" + +"But suppose I didn't want--suppose Johnny didn't want, for reasons of +his own, to have anybody--say, even his executor--see that +account-book; suppose it might be put to some bad purpose--used to +injure some third person (of course that is an absurd supposition, but +it will do for an illustration); if he had asked me last week to +destroy it, do you mean to say, Ezra, I couldn't destroy it +to-day?--just because he happened to die this morning!" + +"My dear sir," said Mr. Ezra, "such conduct on your part would be +perilously near a criminal offence." + +Dr. Lavendar whistled. "Well, Ezra, I won't destroy it." + +"I hope not, sir--I hope not, indeed," cried Mr. Ezra. + +Dr. Lavendar laughed; he had the impulse to turn round and wink at +Johnny, to take him into the joke. But it was only for an instant, and +his face fell quickly into puzzled lines. + +"A moment's reflection," Mr. Ezra continued, "will convince you, Dr. +Lavendar, that the aforesaid account-book is now the property, not of +the deceased, but of the estate. Its destruction would be the +destruction of property belonging to the heirs. Furthermore, your +belief that the herein before mentioned account-book might be put to an +improper use, for the injury of a third person--such belief would no +more justify you in destroying it than would your belief in its +unfairness towards said third person justify you in destroying a will." + +Dr. Lavendar thrust out his lower lip and stared at him, frowning. +"Yes," he said, slowly--"yes; I see. I did not quite understand. But +I see." + +Mr. Ezra solemnly began to pour forth a stream of statistics; he +referred to the case of Buckley vs. Grant, and even mentioned chapter +and page of _Purdon's Digest_ where Dr. Lavendar could find further +enlightenment. Dr. Lavendar may have listened, but he made no comment; +he sat staring silently at the old purple handkerchief on the top of +John's chair. + +When Mr. Ezra had finished his work and his statistics, the two men +shook hands; then Dr. Lavendar said good-bye to Rachel and climbed into +his buggy, buttoning the apron high up in front of him; the lawyer +mounted his horse, and they plodded off into the snow, single file. +But Dr. Lavendar's eyes, under his old fur cap, had lost their +squirrel-like brightness.... + +So Algy's note belonged to the estate; and the estate belonged to Alex; +and Alex was the executor. And upon Alex Gordon his father's +intentions in regard to Algy's note would make no more impression than +the flakes of snow on running water. A vision of Alex's mean and cruel +mouth, his hard, light eyes, motionless as a snake's in his purpling +face, made Dr. Lavendar wince. The note--the poor, shabby, worn +note,--that stood for the best there was in Algy, that stood for +perseverance and honesty and courage; the note, which had weighed so +heavily that he had had to stand up in his pitiful best manhood to bear +it: the note that John had meant to "forgive"--Alex would use to +humiliate and torture and destroy. Under the pressure which he would +bring to bear that note would be poor Algy's financial, and perhaps his +moral, ruin. "And if I had not objected, John would have cancelled +it," Dr. Lavendar thought, frowning and blinking under his fur cap. He +saw the smoking flax quenched, the bruised reed broken; he saw Algy +turning venomously upon his enemy--for he knew him well enough to know +that his code of defence would not include any conventional delicacy; +he saw the new and hardly won integrity crumbling under the assault of +Alex's legal wickedness. Dr. Lavendar groaned to himself. Alex could, +lawfully, murder Algernon Keen's soul. + + +When Mary saw the old minister come into the house she was much +displeased. "There, now, look at him," she scolded; "white as a sheet. +What did I tell you? I'll bet ye he won't eat them corn dodgers, and I +never made 'em finer." + +It must be admitted that Mary was right. Dr. Lavendar did not eat much +supper. He went shuffling back to his study, Danny slinking at his +heels; but for once he did not notice his little, grizzled friend. +When he got into his flowered cashmere dressing-gown and put on his +slippers and stirred his fire, he sat a long time with his pipe in his +hand, forgetting to light it. When he did light it, it went out, +unnoticed. Once Danny tried to scramble into his chair, but, receiving +no encouragement, curled up on the rug. The fire burned low and +smouldered into ashes; just one sullen, red coal blinked in a corner of +the grate; Dr. Lavendar watched this red spot fixedly for a long time. +Indeed, it was well on towards twelve before he suddenly reached over +for the bellows and a couple of sticks, and, bending down, stirred and +blew until the sticks caught and the cinders began to sparkle under the +ashes. This disturbed Danny, who sat up, displeased and yawning. But +when at last the flames broke out, sputtering and snapping, and caught +a piece of paper--a shabby, creased piece of paper covered with +dates--caught it, ran over it, curling it into brittle blackness, and +then whirled it, a flimsy, crumbling ghost, up the chimney, Dr. +Lavendar's face shone with a light that was not only from the fire. + +"Ha, Danny, you scoundrel," he said, cheerfully, "I guess you are +_particeps criminis_!" + +Then he went over to his study-table and rooted about for a thin, +shabby, blue book, over which he pored for some time, stopping once or +twice to make some calculations on the back of an envelope, then +turning to the book again. He covered the envelope with his small, +neat figuring, and turned it over to begin on the other side--and +started: "Johnny's letter!" he said. But when the calculations were +made, the rest was easy enough: first, his check-book and his pen. (At +the check he looked with some pride. "Daniel," he said, "look at that, +sir. You never saw so much money in your life; and neither did I--over +my own signature.") Next, a letter to Alex Gordon: + + +"MY DEAR ALEXANDER,--I owe your father's estate to the amount of the +enclosed check. No papers exist in regard to it, as the matter was +between ourselves. I will ask you for a receipt. Yours truly, + +"EDWARD LAVENDAR." + + + + +THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE ANT + + +I + +When William Rives and Lydia Sampson quarrelled and broke their +engagement, Old Chester said that they were lucky to fall out two weeks +before their wedding-day instead of two weeks after it. Of course, Old +Chester said many other things: it said it had always known they could +never get along. William, who had very little money, was careful and +thrifty, as every young man ought to be; Lydia, who was fairly well +off, was lavish and no housekeeper. "What could you expect?" demanded +Old Chester. Old Chester never knew exactly what the trouble between +them had been, for they kept their own counsel; but it had its +suspicions: it had something to do with William's father's will. By +some legal quibble the Orphan's Court awarded to William a piece of +property which everybody knew old Mr. Rives supposed he had left to his +daughter Amanda. Lydia thought (at least Old Chester thought she +thought) that William would, as a matter of course, at once turn the +field over to his sister. But William did no such thing. And, after +all, why should he? The field was his; the law allowed it, the Court +awarded it. Why should he present a field to Amanda? Old Chester said +this thoughtfully, looking at William with a sort of respectful regret. +Very likely Lydia's regret was not respectful. Lydia was always so +outspoken. However, it was all surmise. About the time that Amanda +did not get the field the engagement was broken--and you can put two +and two together if you like. As for Old Chester, it said that it +pitied poor, dear Lydia; and it was no wonder William left town after +the rupture, because, naturally, he would be ashamed to show his face. +But then it also said it pitied poor, dear William, and it should think +Lydia would be ashamed to show her face; for, of course, her obstinacy +made the trouble--and a young female ought not to be obstinate, ought +not, in fact, to have opinions on such matters. Legal affairs, said +Old Chester, should be left to the gentlemen. In fact, Old Chester +said every possible thing for and against them both; but gradually, as +years passed, conflicting opinions settled down to the "poor Lydia" +belief. + +This was, probably, for two reasons: first, because William had never +seen fit to come back to Old Chester, and that, quite apart from his +conduct to his lady-love, was a reason for distrust; and, secondly, +Lydia had, somehow, become Old Chester's one really poor person--that +is, in a genteel walk of life. After the crumbling of the Sampson +fortune, Old Chester had to plan for Lydia, and take care of her, and +give her its "plain sewing"; so, naturally, William was reprobated. +Besides, she may have quarrelled and broken her engagement two weeks +before her wedding, but all these years afterwards she had been +faithful to the memory of Love! Old Chester knew this, for the simple +reason that Miss Lydia, during all these years, had kept in her +sitting-room a picture of William Rives, adorned with a sprig of box; +furthermore, it knew (Heaven knows how!) that she kissed this slender, +tight-waisted picture every night before she went to bed. Of course, +Old Chester softened! Lydia may have broken her engagement and all +that, but she kept his picture, and she kissed it every night. "But he +ought to be ashamed of himself," said Old Chester--"that is, if he is +alive." Then it added, reflectively, that he must be dead, for he had +never returned to Old Chester. Yet as time went on people forgot even +to disapprove of William; they had enough to do to take care of poor +Lydia, "for she is certainly very poor--and very peculiar," said Old +Chester, sighing. + +"Peculiar!" said Martha King; "I call it something worse than peculiar +to spend money that ought to go towards rent on a present for Rachel +King's Anna. She gave that child a picture-book. I'm sure _I_ can't +afford to go round giving children picture-books. I told her so flatly +and frankly. And then it was so trying, because, right on top of my +scolding, she gave me a present--a cup all painted with roses, and +marked 'Friendship's Gift,' in gilt. I didn't want it; I could have +shaken her," Mrs. King ended, helplessly. + +It was not only Martha whose patience was tried by Miss Lydia; the +experience was common to all Old Chester. Even Dr. Lavendar had felt +the human impulse to shake her. When he had, very delicately, asked +"as an old friend, the privilege of assisting her," it was exasperating +to have a lamp-shade made of six porcelain intaglios set in a tin frame +come to him the next day, with the "respectful compliments of L.S." +But somehow, when, beaming at him from under her shabby bonnet, Miss +Lydia had asked him if he liked that preposterous shade, he could not +speak his mind,--at least to her. He spoke it mildly to Mrs. Barkley. +"We must restrain her; she brought me $2 for Zenanna Missions +yesterday." + +"What did you do?" Mrs. Barkley said, sympathetically. + +"I made her take it back. I pointed out that her first duty was to her +landlord." + +"Her landlord has some duties to her," Mrs. Barkley said, angrily. +"The stairs are just crumbling to pieces, and that chimney is dreadful. +She says that Davis said the flue would have to be rebuilt, and maybe +the whole chimney. He couldn't be sure about that, but he thought it +probable. He said it would cost $100 to put all the things in +repair--floor and roof and everything. But he would do it for $85, +considering. He thinks the flue has broken down inside somehow. She +might burn up some night; and then," said Mrs. Barkley, in a deep bass, +"how would that Smith person feel?" + +"He says," Dr. Lavendar explained, "that by the terms of the lease the +tenant is to make repairs." + +Mrs. Barkley snorted. "And how is poor Lydia to make repairs? She +hasn't two cents to bless herself with. I told him so." + +Mrs. Barkley's face grew very red at the recollection of her interview +with Mr. Smith (he was one of the new Smiths, of course). "I don't mix +philanthropy and business," he had said; "the lease says the tenant +shall make repairs. And, besides, I do not wish to be more attractive +than I am. With that chimney, some other landlord may win her +affections. Without it, she will never desert Mr. Micawber." + +"I am not acquainted with your friend Mr. Micawber," said Mrs. Barkley, +"neither, I am sure, is Miss Sampson; and if you will allow me to say +so, sir, we do not in Old Chester consider it delicate to refer to the +affections of an unmarried female." + +Upon which Mr. Smith laughed immoderately. (None of the new people had +any manners.) + +"So there is no use asking him to do anything," Mrs. Barkley told Dr. +Lavendar. + +"The only thing I can think of," the old minister said, "is that we all +join together and give her the price Davis named, as a present." + +"Eighty-five dollars!" Mrs. Barkley exclaimed, startled; "that's a good +deal of money--" + +"Well, yes; it is. But something has got to be done." + +"And to take up a collection for Lydia! It's--charity." + +"It isn't taking up a collection," Dr. Lavendar protested, stoutly. +"And it isn't charity. Miss Lydia's friends have a right to make her a +present if they feel like it." + +Mrs. Barkley agreed, doubtfully. + +"Mrs. Dale would contribute, I'm sure," said Dr. Lavendar. "And +perhaps the Miss Ferises." + +"I wouldn't like to ask them." + +"Don't ask 'em. Offer them the chance." + +"No," Mrs. Barkley insisted; "they've no right. They are not really +her friends. Lydia doesn't call them by their first names." But she +went away very much encouraged and full of this project of a present +for poor Lydia, who, happily, had no idea that she was "poor" Lydia. +She was not poor to herself (except, of course, in purse, which is a +small matter). She lived in a shabby and dilapidated cottage at the +Smith gates, and every month squeezed out a few dollars rent to Mr. +Smith; she was sorry for the Smiths, for they were new people; but she +always spoke kindly to them, for she never looked down on anybody. So, +as far as position went, she was not "poor." She had no relations +living, but she called all Old Chester of her generation by its first +name; so, as to friendship, there was nothing "poor" about her. And, +most of all, she was not "poor," but very rich, in her capacity for +interest. + +Now, no one who has an interest is poor; and Miss Lydia had a hundred +interests. A hundred? She had as many interests as there were people +in the world or joys or sorrows in Old Chester; so she was really very +rich.... Of course, there are different degrees of this sort of +wealth: there are folk who have to manufacture their interests; with +deliberation they are philanthropic or artistic or intellectual, or +even, if hard put to it, they are amused. Such persons may be said to +be in fairly comfortable circumstances, although they live anxiously +and rather meagrely, because they know well that when interest gives +out they are practically without the means to support life. Below this +manufacturing class come the really destitute--the poor creatures who +do not care vitally for anything and who are without the spiritual +muscle to manufacture an interest. These pathetic folk are +occasionally made self-supporting by a catastrophe--grief or even +merely some uncomfortable surgery in regard to their bank account may +give them a poor kind of interest; but too often they exist +miserably--sometimes, with every wish gratified, helplessly poor. +Above the manufacturing class comes the aristocracy, to which Miss +Lydia Sampson belonged, the class which is positively rolling in +wealth. Every morning these favored creatures arise with a zest for +living. You hear them singing before breakfast; at the table they are +full of eager questions: Is it going to rain? No; it is a fair day; +delightful!--for it might have rained. And the sun will bring up the +crocuses. And this was the day a neighbor was to go to town. Will she +go? When will she come back? How pleasant that the day is pleasant! +And it will be good for the sick people, too. And the moment the +eager, simple mind turns to its fellows, sick or well, the field of +interest widens to the sky-line of souls. To sorrow in the sorrows of +Tom and Dick and Harry and their wives, to rejoice in their joys--what +is better than that? And then, all one's own affairs are so vital: the +record of the range of the thermometer, the question of turning or not +turning an alpaca skirt, the working out of a game of solitaire--these +things are absorbing experiences. + +No wonder we who are poor, or even we who work hard at philanthropy or +art or responsibility to manufacture our little interests--no wonder we +envy such sky-blue natures. Certainly there were persons in Old +Chester who envied Miss Lydia; at least, they envied her her unfailing +joyousness--but they never envied her her empty purse. Which was like +envying a rose its color, but despising the earth from which by some +divine chemistry the color came. + +Miss Lydia's eyes might smart from the smoke puffing out into her room, +but she was able to laugh at the sight of her bleared visage in the +narrow mirror over the mantel. Nor did the fact that the mirror was +mottled and misty with age, the frame tarnished almost to blackness, +cause her the slightest pang. What difference does it make in this +world of life and death and joy and sorrow, if things are shabby? The +fact is, the secret of happiness is the _sense of proportion_; +eliminate, by means of that sense, trouble about the unimportant, and +we would all be considerably happier than kings. Miss Lydia possessed +this heaven-born sense, as well as the boundless wealth of interest +(for to him that hath shall be given). "I don't want to brag," she +used to say, "but I've got my health and my friends; so what on earth +more do I want?" And one hesitated to point out a little thing like a +shabby mirror, or even a smoky chimney. When the chimney smoked, Miss +Lydia merely took her rocking-chair and her sewing out into a small +room that served as a kitchen--and then what difference did the smoking +make? + +And as it turned out, one shadowy April day, it was the best thing she +could have done, because, when Dr. Lavendar dropped in to see her, she +could make him a cup of tea at once, without having to leave him alone. +She was a little, bustling figure, rather dusty and moth-eaten, with a +black frizette, always a little to one side, and eager, gentle, blue +eyes. + +"What's the news?" she said. She had given Dr. Lavendar an apple, and +put on the kettle, and taken up her hemming. + +"I never saw anybody so fond of sewing," the old man ruminated, eating +his apple. "I believe you'd sew in your grave." + +"I believe I would. Dear me! I am so sorry for the poor women who +don't like to sew. Amelia Dilworth told me that Mrs. Neddy can't bear +to take a needle in her hand. So Milly does Ned's mending just as she +did before he was married." + +"Aren't you sorry for the poor men that don't like to sew?" Dr. +Lavendar said, looking about for a place to deposit his core--("Oh, +drop it on the floor; I'll sweep it up sometime," Miss Lydia told him; +but he disposed of it by eating it). + +"Well, as for sewing," said Miss Lydia, "it's my greatest pleasure. +Why, when I get settled down to sew, my mind roves over the whole +earth. I don't want to brag, but I don't believe anybody enjoys +herself more than I do when I'm sewing. If you won't tell, I'll tell +you something, Dr. Lavendar." + +"I won't tell." + +"Well, then: Sunday used to be an awful day to me. I couldn't sew, and +so I couldn't think. And I really couldn't go to church all day. So I +just bought some beautiful, fine nainsook and cut out my shroud. And I +work on that Sundays, because a shroud induces serious thoughts." + +"I should think it might," said Dr. Lavendar. + +"You don't think it's wrong, do you?" she asked, anxiously; and added, +joyously, "I'm embroidering the whole front. I declare I don't know +what I'll do when I get it done." + +"Embroider the whole back." + +"Well, yes. I can do that," Miss Lydia assented. "There! there's your +tea." + +Dr. Lavendar took his tea and stirred it thoughtfully. "Miss Lydia," +he said, and looked hard at the tea, "what do you suppose? Mr. William +Rives--" Dr. Lavendar stopped and drank some tea. "How many years ago +was it that he went away from Old Chester? I don't exactly remember." + +"It was thirty-one years ago," she said; she put down her own cup of +tea and stared at him. "What were you going to say about him, sir?" + +"Well, only," said Dr. Lavendar, scraping the sugar from the bottom of +his cup, "only that--" + +"There! my goodness! I'll give you another lump," cried Miss Lydia; +"don't wear my spoon out. What about him, sir?" + +Dr. Lavendar explained that he had come back on the stage from Mercer +the night before with a strange gentleman--"stout man," Dr. Lavendar +said, "with a black wig. I was rooting about in my pocket-book for a +stamp--I wanted to post a letter just as we were leaving Mercer; and +this gentleman very politely offered me one. I took it. Then I looked +at him, and there was something familiar about him. I asked him if we +had not met before, and he told me who he was. He has changed a good +deal." + +Miss Lydia drank her tea excitedly. "Where is he going to stay? Is he +well? Has he come back rich?" She hoped so. William was so +industrious, he deserved to be rich. She ran into the smoky front room +and brought out his picture, regarding it with affectionate interest. +"Did you know I was engaged to him, years ago, Dr. Lavendar? We +thought it best to part. But--" She stopped and looked at the +picture, and a little color came into her face. But in another moment +she was chattering her birdlike questions. + +"I declare," Dr. Lavendar said, at last, "you are the youngest person +of my acquaintance." + +Miss Lydia laughed. "I hope you don't think it's wrong to be young?" +she said. + +"Wrong?" said Dr. Lavendar; "it's wrong not to be young. I'd be +ashamed not to be young. My body's old, but that's not my fault. I'm +not to blame for an old body, but I would be to blame for an old soul. +An old soul is a shameful thing. Mind, now, don't let me catch you +getting old!" + +And then he said good-bye, and left her sitting by the stove. She +turned her skirt back over her knees to keep it from scorching and held +the picture in her left hand and warmed the palm of the right; then in +her right hand and warmed the left. Then she put it down on her knees +and warmed both hands and smiled. + + + + +II + +When Mrs. Barkley heard the news of the wanderer's return, she hurried +to Dr. Lavendar's study. "Do you suppose we need go on with the +present?" she demanded, excitedly. + +"Why not?" said Dr. Lavendar. + +Mrs. Barkley looked conscious. "I only thought, perhaps--maybe--Mr. +Rives--" + +"William Rives's presence in Old Chester won't improve draughts, will +it?" Dr. Lavendar said, crossly. And that was all she could get out of +him. + +Meantime, Old Chester began to kill the fatted calf. Mr. Rives liked +fatted calves; and, furthermore, he had prudently arranged with Van +Horne at the Tavern for a cash credit for each meal at which he was not +present. "For why," he had said, reasonably enough, "should I pay for +what I don't get?" So he went cheerfully wherever he was bidden. Old +Chester approved of him as a guest, for, though talkative, he was +respectful in his demeanor, and he did not, so Old Chester said, "put +on airs." He was very stout, and he wore a black wig that curled all +around the back of his neck; his eyes were somewhat dull, but +occasionally they glanced out keenly over his fat cheeks. He had a +very small mouth and a slight, perpetual smile that gave his face a +rather kindly look, and his voice was mild and soft. + +He had come back rich (his shabby clothes to the contrary); "and poor +Lydia is so poor," said Old Chester; "perhaps--" and then it paused and +smiled, and added that "it would be strange, after all these years, +_if_--" + +When somebody said something like this to Dr. Lavendar he grew very +cross. "Preposterous!" he said. "I should feel it my duty to prevent +anything so dreadful." + +And there were romantic hearts in Old Chester who were displeased with +him for this remark. Mrs. Drayton said it showed that he could not +understand love; "though he can't be blamed for that, as he never +married. Still," said Mrs. Drayton, "he ought to have married. I +don't want to make any accusations, _but I always look with suspicion +on an unmarried gentleman_." Mrs. Barkley did not go as far as that, +but she did say to herself that Dr. Lavendar was unromantic. "Dear +me!" she confided to Jane Jay--"if anything _should_ happen! Well, I'd +be glad to do anything I could to bring it about." + +And Mrs. Barkley, who had not only the courage but the audacity of her +convictions, invited the parted lovers to tea, so they met for the +first time at her house. Mrs. Barkley was the last person one would +accuse of being romantic, and yet Dr. Lavendar saw fit to stop at her +door that morning and say, "Matches are dangerous playthings, ma'am!" +and Mrs. Barkley grew very red, and said that she couldn't imagine what +he meant. + +However, the party went off well enough. Miss Jane Jay, who made a +conscious fourth, expected some quiverings and blushings; but that was +because she was young--comparatively. If she had been older she would +have known better. Age, with shamefaced relief, has learned the +solvent quality of Time. It is this quality which makes possible the +contemplation of certain embarrassing heavenly reunions--where +explanations of consolation must be made.... Thirty-one years of days, +days full of personal concerns and interests, had blurred and softened +and finally almost blotted out that one fierce day of angry parting; +those thirty-one years of days had made this man and woman able to meet +with a sort of calm, good-natured interest in each other. Miss +Lydia--her black frizette over one smiling eye, her hands encased in +white cotton gloves, a new ribbon at the throat of her very old +alpaca--called him "William," with the most commonplace friendliness. +He began with "Miss Sampson," but ended before supper was over with her +first name, and even, once, just as they were going home, with "Lydy," +at which she did start and blink for an instant, and Jane Jay thought a +faint color came into her cheek. However, he did not offer to walk +home with her, but bowed politely at Mrs. Barkley's gate, and would +have betaken himself to the Tavern had not Mrs. Barkley, when he was +half-way across the street, called after him. There was a flutter of +uncertainty in her voice, for those words of Dr. Lavendar's (which she +did not understand) "stuck," she said to herself, "in her crop." Mr. +Rives came back and paused in the moonlight, looking up at Mrs. Barkley +standing in the doorway. "I should be pleased, sir," she said, "to +have a few words with you." + +"Certainly, ma'am," said Mr. Rives, in his soft voice, and followed her +into the parlor. + +"Sit down," said Mrs. Barkley. + +William Rives sat down thoughtfully. A tall lamp on the heavy, +claw-footed table emitted a feeble light through its ground-glass +globe, and Mrs. Barkley stared at it a moment, as though for +inspiration; then she said, in a deep bass: "Mr. Rives, I thought you +might be interested in a certain little project. Some of us have +thought that we would collect--a--a small sum--" + +Mr. Rives bowed; his smiling lips suddenly shut tight. + +"Perhaps you have not heard that our old friend Lydia Sampson is in +reduced circumstances; and some of us thought that a small present of +money-- + +"Ah--" said Mr. Rives. + +Mrs. Barkley felt the color come up into her face at that small, cold +sound. "Lydia is very poor," she blurted out. + +"Really?" murmured Mr. Rives, with embarrassment; and fell to stroking +his beaver hat carefully. Then he added that he deeply regretted Mrs. +Barkley's information. + +"I knew you would," she said, in a relieved voice. "Lydia is a dear +girl. So kind and so uncomplaining! And--and faithful in her +affections, William." + +"Ah!" said Mr. Rives again; his smile never changed, but his eyes were +keen. + +"Yes," Mrs. Barkley said, boldly. "Why, William--I don't know that I +ought to tell you, but do you remember a sketch of yourself that you +gave her in--in other days? William, she has kept it ever since. It +hangs in her parlor, (horrid, smoky room!) And she keeps a sprig of +fresh box stuck in the frame." + +"Really?" said Mr. Rives; and his face grew a little redder. + +"That's all," Mrs. Barkley said, abruptly. "Now go. I just thought +I'd mention it." + +"Yes," said Mr. Rives; then added that it was a beautiful night, and +politely bowed himself out. + +"But he didn't say anything about giving anything," Mrs. Barkley told +Dr. Lavendar the next day. And whatever romantic hopes she may have +had withered under the blighting touch of such indifference. + + + + +III + +Mrs. Barkley's hopes withered and then revived; for as she climbed the +hill to the Stuffed-Animal House a day or two later whom should she see +wandering through the graveyard (of all places!) but Lydia and William. +"Of course, I pretended not to see them," she told Harriet Hutchinson, +"but I believe they've begun to take notice." + +They had not seen her; the graveyard was on the crest of the hill, and +the road lay below the bank and the stone wall, wherein were set two or +three iron doors streaked and eaten with rust, each with its name and +its big ring-bolt. There was a bleached fringe of dead grass along the +top of the wall, but the bank above was growing green in the April +sunshine. There were many trees in this older part of the cemetery, +and even now, when the foliage was hardly more than a mist, the tombs +and low mounds and old headstones were dappled with light shadows. +Miss Lydia and William had met here, by some chance; and Mrs. Barkley, +climbing the road before it dipped below the bank, had caught sight of +them just where the slope broke into sunshine beyond the trees. Behind +them, leaning sidewise over a sunken grave, was a slate headstone, its +base deep in a thatch of last year's grass; there were carved cherubs +on the corners, and the inscription was blurred with lichen. A still +older tomb, a slab of granite on four pedestals, made a seat for Miss +Lydia. She had been deciphering its crumbling inscription: + + "Mr. Amos Sm ... Sr. + Born ...... 1734 + Die ... May 7th, 1802 + Aged 68 + + "Base body, thou art faint and weak-- + (How the sweet moments roll!) + A mortal paleness on thy cheek, + But glory in thy soul!" + +William, reading it, had remarked that he thought people lived longer +nowadays. "Don't you?" he added, anxiously. + +"We live long enough," Miss Lydia said. "I don't want to live too +long." + +"You can't live too long," he told her, with his sharp smile. + +Miss Lydia laughed and looked down at the crumbling stone. "I think +sixty-eight was just about long enough. I'm like Dr. Lavendar; he says +he 'wants to get up from the banquet of life _still hungry_.' That's +the way I feel. I don't want to lose my appetite for life by getting +too much of it." + +"I couldn't get too much," Mr. Rives said, nervously. "Let us proceed. +This place is--is not cheerful. I like cheerfulness. You always seem +cheerful, Lydy?" + +"Course I am," she said, getting up. "Why shouldn't I be? I haven't a +care in the world." + +"You don't say so!" said William Rives. "I was under the impression +that your circumstances--" + +"My circumstances?" said Miss Lydia. "Bless you! I haven't any. +Father didn't leave much of anything. I had $2000, but Cousin Robinson +invested it and lost it. He felt so badly, I was just distressed about +him." + +"He should have been prosecuted!" Mr. Rives said, angrily. + +Miss Lydia shook her head in horrified protest, but she beamed at him +from under her black frizette, grateful for his sympathy. + +"I remember," he said, thoughtfully, "that you were always +light-hearted. I recall your once telling me that you began to sing as +soon as you got up in the morning." + +"Oh yes," Miss Lydia said, simply. "I always sing the morning hymn. +You know the morning hymn, William? + + "'Awake, my soul, and with the sun + Thy daily course of duty run--'" + + +William nodded. "Vocal exercises (if in tune and not too loud) are +always cheerful," he said. + +Gossiping thus of simple things, they walked back to Lydia's house and +sat down in her parlor. There William told her, with a sort of +whimper, that his health was bad. "I sent for Willy King--he is so +young, he ought not to charge the full fee. I remember him as a very +impudent boy," Mr. Rives said, growing red at some memory of William's +youth; "however, he seems a respectable young man." + +"Oh, indeed he is," said Miss Lydia; "he is a dear, good boy. I hope +he is doing you good?" she ended, with eager kindness. + +"Yes, I think so," he said, anxiously. And then he gave his symptoms +with a detail that made poor Miss Lydia get very red. "And I don't +sleep very well," he ended, sighing. "Willy told me to try repeating +the kings of England backward, but I couldn't remember them; so it +didn't do any good." + +"When I don't sleep," said Miss Lydia, "I just count my blessings. +That's a splendid thing to do, because you fall asleep before you get +to the end of 'em." + +William sighed. "The kings of England was a foolish prescription; yet +I paid Willy $1.50 for that call. Still, I must say I think he is +doing me good; but he recommends many expensive things--perhaps because +he is young. He wished me to hire a vehicle and drive every day. Now +just think of the expense of such a thing! I suggested to him that +instead of hiring a conveyance, I would go out with him in his buggy +whenever he calls. He is a very young man to treat an important case," +William ended, sighing. Then he asked Lydia about her health, with an +exactness which she thought very kind. + +"Yes, I'm always well; and _so_ sorry for the poor people who are +sick," she said. + +"You are a good nurse, aren't you, Lydy?" he asked. + +"I'm always glad when I can do anything for a sick person. I'm so +sorry for 'em," Miss Lydia said, kindly. + +"And you are economical, aren't you, Lydy?" Mr. Rives inquired, in his +mild voice, "and not fond of dress?" + +"Bless you!" said Lydia, "how can I be anything but economical? And as +for being fond of dress--I'm fond of my old dresses, William." + +"That is an excellent trait," said William Rives, solemnly. Then, +catching sight of his own portrait--the slim, anæmic young person in a +stock and tight-waisted coat, with very small feet and very large hat, +he got up to look at it. "I--have changed a little," he said, +doubtfully. + +"It's more becoming to be heavier," Miss Lydia said. And this remark +gave him such obvious satisfaction that when he went away his perpetual +smile had deepened into positive heartiness. + +It was after this talk that he finally added his offering to the +"Present" which just then was occupying Old Chester's attention. "And +how much do you suppose I got out of him?" Mrs. Barkley asked Dr. +Lavendar. "_$1.50!_" + +However, other friends were more liberal, and by the end of May the $85 +(grown now into the round sum of $100) was ready for Miss Lydia. A +little silk bag, with a scrap of paper twisted about its ribbon +drawing-string, was thrust one evening by an unknown hand into Miss +Lydia's door. In it were twenty five-dollar gold pieces. "From old +friends," Dr. Lavendar had written on the scrap of paper. + +"Sha'n't we say--'for repairs'?" Mrs. Barkley asked, doubtfully. + +"No," Dr. Lavendar declared; "I'd rather say 'to buy curl-papers.' Of +course she'll use it for repairs; but we mustn't dictate." + +Nobody saw Miss Lydia gasp when she opened the bag, and sit down, and +then cry and laugh, but probably every friendly heart in Old Chester +was busy imagining the scene, for every friend had contributed. They +had all done it in their different ways--and how character confesses +itself in this matter of giving! ... Mrs. Dale, who gave the largest +sum, did it with calm, impersonal kindness. Martha King said that she +had so many calls upon her charity that she couldn't give much, but was +glad to do what she could. Miss Harriet Hutchinson said it was a +first-rate idea, and she was obliged to Mrs. Barkley for letting her +have a hand in it; as for Mrs. Drayton, she said it was a great trial +not to contribute, but she could not do so conscientiously. "_I_ make +such things a matter of prayer," she said; "some do not. I do not +judge them. I never judge any one. But I take all such matters to the +Throne of Grace, and as a result I feel that such things are injurious +to a poor person, and so I must deny myself the pleasure of charity." + +William Rives said that he would be pleased to contribute, and Mrs. +Barkley had a moment of intense excitement when she read his +check--$150. But her emotion only lasted until she put on her +spectacles. + +And yet, when Lydia, sitting at the kitchen table, wiped her eyes and +counted her gold by the light of a candle in a hooded candlestick, she +felt, somehow, William's hand in it. For, by this time, William's +friendliness was beyond any question. He came to see her every other +day, and he told her all his symptoms and talked of his loneliness and +forlornness until they were both moved to tears. + +"Poor William!" she said, her eyes overflowing with sympathy. "Well, +I'm glad you have plenty of money, anyhow. It would be hard to be poor +and have bad health, too." + +"But I haven't plenty of money," William said, with agitation. "How +did you get such an idea? I haven't!" + +And then Miss Lydia was sorrier for him than ever. "Although," she +said, cheerfully, "poverty is the last thing to worry about. Look at +me. I don't want to brag, but I'm always contented, and I'll tell you +why: _I don't want things_. Don't want things, and then you're not +unhappy without 'em." + +"Oh, Lydy, that's so true," Mr. Rives said, earnestly. "I'm so glad +you feel that way." And he began to call every day. + +"It's plain to be seen what's going to happen," said Mrs. Barkley, +excitedly, and whispered her hopes (in secret) to almost everybody in +Old Chester--except Dr. Lavendar. He became very ill-tempered the +moment she approached the subject. But she was jocose, in a deep bass, +to Miss Lydia herself; and Miss Lydia did not pretend to misunderstand. +She reddened and laughed; but her eyes were not clear; there was a +puzzled look at the back of them. Still, when she sat and looked at +her gold the puzzle lightened, and her face, under her black +frizette--in her excitement fallen sidewise over one ear--softened +almost to tears. "William is kind," she said to herself. + +And, indeed, at that very moment William was referring to her in most +kindly terms. He was sitting in Mrs. Barkley's gloomy parlor, on the +edge of the horse-hair sofa, and Mrs. Barkley was regarding him with +romantic interest. "I have been much saddened, ma'am," he was saying, +"to observe the destitution of Miss Lydia Sampson." + +Mrs. Barkley beamed. Was he going to do something, after all? She +spoke in an amiable bass, twitching her heavy eyebrows. "Our little +gift, which has gone to her to-night, will make her more comfortable. +I could wish it had been larger," she ended, and looked sidewise at Mr. +Rives, who bowed and regretted that it was not larger. He then coughed +behind his hand. + +"Mrs. Barkley, I wish to approach a subject of some delicacy." + +("He _is_ going to do something," she thought, excitedly; "or perhaps +he means marriage!") + +"Mrs. Barkley, in past years there were passages of affection between +Miss Sampson and myself" (Mrs. Barkley bowed; her heart began to glow +with that warmth which stirs the oldest of us at the sight of a lover). + +"We were younger in those days, ma'am," William said, in his soft voice. + +"Oh no!" she protested, politely. "Why, you are very well preserved, +I'm sure." + +"Yes," said William, "I am. Yet I am not as young as I once was." + +This drifting away from Miss Lydia disturbed Mrs. Barkley. She lowered +her chin and glared at him over her spectacles, saying, in a rumbling +bass: "Neither is Lydia; and it's hard for her to be destitute in her +old age." + +"Just so," Mr. Rives said, eagerly--"exactly. She is not as young as +she once was, which, for many reasons, is desirable. But I think she +is healthy?" + +"Why, yes," Mrs. Barkley admitted; "but I don't know that that makes it +easier to be poor." + +"But I infer that poverty has taught her economy?" William Rives said. + +"Yes; but poverty is a hard teacher." + +"But thorough--thorough!" said Mr. Rives; "and some people will learn +of no other." + +Mrs. Barkley was growing impatient; she gave up marriage and thought of +a pension. + +"Yes," said William; "she is economical, and has good health, and is +fond of old clothes, and is kind-hearted, and doesn't have any wants. +Excellent traits--excellent. I have looked very carefully at the items +of expense in regard to a housekeeper or nurse." + +Mrs. Barkley stared at him in bewilderment. Was he going to offer +Lydia a position as housekeeper? She was fairly dizzy with this seesaw +of possibilities; and she was perplexed, too, for, after all, badly as +Lydia needed assistance, propriety must be considered, and certainly +this housekeeping project was of doubtful propriety. "Because you know +you are neither of you very old," she explained. + +Mr. Rives looked disturbed. "Yes, we are," he said, sharply. "Quite +old enough. I would not wish a youthful wife, for--many reasons. +There might be--results, which would interfere with my comfort. No, +Lydia is no longer young; yet she is sufficiently robust to make me +extremely comfortable." The light was breaking slowly on Mrs. Barkley. +Her face flushed; she sat up very straight and tapped the table with +her thimble. "The expense of an extra person is not very considerable, +is it?" Mr. Rives said, doubtfully. "It was in regard to this that I +wished to consult you." + +"Not more than the wages of a housekeeper or a nurse," Mrs. Barkley +said, in a restrained voice. + +"Exactly!" cried Mr. Rives--"granted that her health is good." + +Mrs. Barkley opened and closed her lips. Her impulse to show him the +door battled with her common-sense. After all, it would mean a home +for Lydia; it would mean comfort and ease and absence from worry--plus, +of course, Mr. Rives. But if Lydia liked him, that wouldn't make any +difference. And she must like him--her faithfulness to the picture +proved it--and he was an agreeable person; amiable, too, Mrs. Barkley +thought, for he always smiled when he spoke. + +"Would you live in Old Chester?" she managed to say, after a pause. + +"Yes." + +"You would build, I suppose?" Mrs. Barkley said, trying, in the +confusion of her thoughts, to make time. + +"No," Mr. Rives said; "we would reside in Lydia's present abode." + +"_In Lydia's house_? You couldn't!--why, it would be impossible!" + +Mrs. Barkley, her mouth open with astonishment, saw, suddenly, that +this project was not comfort plus William, but William minus comfort. +"You couldn't! The chimney in the parlor is dreadful; it smokes +whenever the wind is from the west." + +"But, as I understand, Lydia has been provided with the means of +mending the chimney?" William said, anxiously. + +At this the rein broke. Mrs. Barkley rose, tapping the table with +alarming loudness and glaring down at her guest. "William Rives, I +have been a perfect fool. But you are worse--you are a mean person. +I'd rather live with a murderer than a mean man!" + +[Illustration: "MRS. BARKLEY ROSE, TAPPING THE TABLE WITH ALARMING +LOUDNESS"] + +Mr. Rives was unmoved. His little, steely smile never wavered; he rose +also, bowed, and said: "Possibly Miss Sampson does not agree with you. +I will bid you good-night, ma'am." + +"I was a perfect fool," she said again, as the door closed softly +behind him. + +But William Rives was no fool.... He said to himself that it behooved +him to see Miss Lydia before Mrs. Barkley had a chance to impart to her +those impolite views regarding himself. And that was why, as she was +still sitting at her kitchen table, twinkling with happiness over the +kindness of her world and piling her gold pieces in a little leaning +tower, William knocked at the door. + +Miss Lydia threw an apron over the small, glittering heap and ran to +let her caller in. When she saw who it was she whipped off the apron +to display her wealth; the tears stood in her eyes, and her happy heart +burst into words: "How good people are! Just think--$100! Why, it +takes my breath away--" + +"It is a large sum of money," William said, solemnly, touching the gold +with respectful fingers. "I would suggest a bank until you pay for the +mending of your chimney. And you will get some interest if you defer +payment for ninety days." + +"Mending my chimney?" Miss Lydia said, thoughtfully. "Well--that +wouldn't take nearly all this." + +William's face brightened. "You are right to be prudent, Lydia," he +said. "I admire prudence in a female; but still, masons and +carpenters--in fact, all persons of that sort,--are--thieves!" Then he +coughed delicately. "Lydia," he said, "I--I have been thinking--" + +"Yes?" said Miss Lydia, calmly. + +"We are so situated--each alone, that perhaps we might--we might, +ah--marry--to our mutual advantage?" + +"_Marry?_" + +"Yes," William said, earnestly; "I should be pleased to marry, Lydy. I +need a home. My health is not very good, and I need a home. You need +a home, also." + +"Indeed I don't!" she said; "I've got a home, thank you." + +"I haven't," William said; and Lydia's blue eyes softened. "I am not +very strong," he said ("though I see no reason why I should not live to +old age); but I want a home. Won't you take me, Lydy?" + +Miss Lydia frowned and sighed. "I am very well satisfied as I am," she +said; "but perhaps that is a selfish way to look at it." + +"Yes, it is," he told her, earnestly; "and you didn't use to be +selfish, Lydia." + +Miss Lydia sighed again. "I suppose I could make you comfortable, +William." + +"Do take me, Lydy," he entreated. + +And somehow or other, before she quite knew it, she had consented. + +As soon as the word was spoken, William arose with alacrity. "I don't +like to be out in the night air," he said, "so I'll say good-night, +Lydy. And, Lydy--shall we, for the moment, keep this to ourselves?" + +"Oh yes," said Miss Lydia, getting very red, "I'd rather, for the +present." Then, smiling and friendly, she went out with him, +bare-headed, to the gate. There William hesitated, swallowed once, +rubbed his hands nervously, and then suddenly gave her a kiss. + +Miss Lydia Sampson jumped. "Oh!" she said; and again, "_Oh!_" + +And then she ran back into the house, her eyes wet and shining, her +face flushed to her forehead. She sat down by the table and put her +hands over her eyes; she laughed, in a sort of sob, and her breath came +quickly. + +"I hadn't thought of it--that way," she whispered to herself. And +somehow, as she sat there by her kitchen table, she began to think of +it that way--Miss Lydia was very young! ... Oh, she would try and make +him happy; she would try and be more orderly; she would try to be good, +since her Heavenly Father had given back to her the old happiness. + +And that night she did not bid the picture good-night. + +Mr. Rives was himself not without emotion. It was many years, he +reflected, since his lips had touched those of a female, and the +experience was agreeable--so agreeable that he wished to repeat it as +soon as possible; and, furthermore, he felt anxious to know that Lydia +had put the gold in a safe place. But when he called the next day he +was a little late, because, as he explained to Miss Lydia, he had had +to wait for the mail. She met him with a new look in her innocent, +eager eyes, and her face was shy and red. As she sat sewing, listening +vaguely, she would glance at him now and then, as if, until now, she +had not seen him since that day of parting, thirty-one years ago--the +thirty-one years which had blotted Amanda's field from her memory. The +old happiness, like a tide long withdrawn, was creeping back, rising +and rising, until it was overflowing in her eyes. This puffy +gentleman, with his tight, smiling mouth, was the William of her +youth--and she had never known it until last night! She had thought of +him during the last month or two only as an old friend who needed the +care which her kind heart prompted her to give; and lo! suddenly he was +the lover who would care for her. + +"I was sorry, my dear Lydia, to be late," said Mr. Rives, in his soft +voice; "I was detained by waiting for the mail." + +Miss Lydia said, brightly, that it didn't matter. + +"But it was worth waiting for," William assured her. "I have done a +good piece of business. (Not that it will make me richer; I have so +many obligations to meet!) But it was a fortunate stroke." + +"That is good," said Miss Lydia. + +"A female in a distant city, where I own a poor little bit of real +estate--nothing of any value, Lydia; I am a poor man--" + +"That's no difference," she told him, softly. + +"--this female, a widow, and foolish (as widows always are)," William +said, with a little giggle, "asked me to sell her a house I owned. She +wished, for some reason, to purchase in that locality. I named the +market price. I did so, by letter, a fortnight ago. I believe she +thought it high; but that was her affair. She would have to sell +certain securities to purchase it, she said. But as I wrote her--'my +dear madam, that's your business.'" Mr. Rives laughed a little. Miss +Lydia looked up, smiling and interested. "Yes," said Mr. Rives--"I +didn't urge it. I never urge, because then I can't be blamed if things +go wrong. But I held my price. That is always good policy--not to +drop a dollar on price. So she's bought it. She made a payment +yesterday to bind the sale. Not that I feel any richer, for I must +immediately apply the money to the purchase of other things." + +"That's nice," Miss Lydia said. + +"I guess it is," William agreed; "I happen to know that a boiler +factory is to be erected on the rear lot." + +"But will she like that--the poor widow?" Miss Lydia said. + +Mr. Rives laughed comfortably. "Ah, Lydy, my dear, in business we do +not ask such questions before making a sale. _I_ like it. In three +months that bit of property will have shrunk to an eighth of its +selling price to-day." Mr. Rives's eyes twinkled with satisfaction. + +"But--_William!_" said Miss Lydia. Suddenly she grew pale. "William," +she said, "it seems to me you ought to have told the poor widow." + +"Lydia, a lady cannot understand business," William said, with kindly +condescension, but with a slight impatience. "Don't you see, if I had +told her, she would not have made the purchase?" + +Miss Lydia was silent, stroking the gathers of her cambric with a +shaking needle. Then she said, in a low voice, "I suppose she +wouldn't." + +William nodded encouragingly. "You'll learn, Lydia. A married lady +learns much of business methods through her husband. Though they don't +profit by it, I notice; widows are always foolish. Not that--that you +will be likely to be--to be foolish," he ended, hastily, frowning very +much. + +Lydia went on sewing in silence. The color did not come back into her +face, which caused William to ask her anxiously how she was. + +"You are sure you are healthy, Lydia, aren't you?" he said. + +Miss Lydia, without looking at him, said she was. When he had gone, +she stopped sewing and glanced about her in a frightened way; then she +put her hands over her eyes and drew in her breath, and once she +shivered. She sat there for a long time. After a while she got up and +went over to the picture of Mr. William Rives and stood looking at it; +and as she looked her poor, terrified eyes quieted into tears and she +straightened the bit of box with a tender hand, and then she suddenly +bent down and kissed the slim gentleman behind the misty glass. + +The next day when she met her lover she was cheerful enough. It was at +the front door of the Tavern; Dr. Lavendar was there, too, waiting for +the morning stage for Mercer. + +"Well! well! So I am going to have company, am I?" he said, for Miss +Lydia was waiting for it, too. Her bonnet was on one side, her shabby +jacket, fading from black to green on the shoulders, was split at the +elbow seams, and the middle finger of each glove was worn through; but +her eyes were shining with pleasure. + +"Yes," she said, nodding; "I'm going." + +Her presence seemed to be a surprise to Mr. Rives, who had strayed +forth from the breakfast-room to see the stage start. + +"You are going to Mercer?" he said, his small smile fading into an +astonished question. + +"Yes," Miss Lydia said, laughing, and suddenly she gave a little jump +of happiness. "I haven't been to Mercer for nine years. Oh, dear! +isn't it just delightful!" + +"But, why?" William persisted, in an amazed aside. + +"Oh, that's the secret!" cried Miss Lydia, clambering into the stage; +"you'll know sometime." + +"I suppose you wish to arrange for the alterations of your house?" +William said; "but considering the stage fares back and forth-- Oh, +there is Dr. Lavendar." + +He came round to the other side of the stage, smiling very much. +"Well, sir, good-morning! good-morning, sir!" + +"Hello," Dr. Lavendar said. + +Mr. Rives rubbed his hands. "I--I was about to say, Dr. Lavendar--that +little matter between us--it's of no importance, of course; quite at +your convenience, sir; I don't mean to press you--but at your +convenience, sir." + +"What are you talking about?" Dr. Lavendar said, with a puzzled blink. + +"Well," William said, smiling, "there's no haste, only I thought I'd +just remind you. I'm always business-like myself; and that little +matter of accommodation--" + +Dr. Lavendar stared at him. "I am afraid I'm a stupid old fellow; I +don't understand." + +The stage-driver gathered up his reins; Miss Lydia nodded joyously on +the back seat, the two other passengers frowned at the delay; so +William Rives made haste to explain: "Merely, sir, the stamp I had the +pleasure of lending you. But pray don't incommode yourself; I merely +remind you; it's of no--" + +Dr. Lavendar pulled out his shabby leather pocket-book, his hands +fairly trembling with haste, and produced the stamp; then he pulled the +door to, and as the stage sagged forward and went tugging up the hill, +he turned his astonished eyes on Miss Lydia. She had grown very pale, +but she said nothing, only looking out of the window and rubbing her +little cotton gloves hard together. + +"Would you have asked him for a receipt?" Dr. Lavendar said, under his +breath, chuckling. But when she tried to answer him, there was +something in her face that turned Dr. Lavendar grave. + +The stage jolted on; the two other passengers chatted, then one fell +asleep and the other read an almanac. Suddenly Miss Lydia turned +sharply round. "It just kills me!" she said. + +"Nonsense!" Dr. Lavendar told her. "He is a man of business, and I'm a +forgetful old codger. I knew William, and I ought to have remembered." + +But Miss Lydia's face had fallen into such drawn and anxious lines that +Dr. Lavendar had to do his best to cheer her. He began to ask +questions: How long was it since she had been in Mercer? Was she going +to call on friends? Was she going to shop? "I believe you ladies +always want to shop?" said Dr. Lavendar, kindly. And somehow Miss +Lydia brightened up. Yes; she was going to shop! It was a secret: she +couldn't tell Dr. Lavendar yet, but he should know about it first of +all. She was so happy, so important, so excited, that her pain at +William's business-like ways seemed forgotten; and when in Mercer they +separated at the Stage House, she went bustling off into the sunshine, +waving a shabby cotton glove at him, and crying, "I haven't a minute to +lose!" + +Dr. Lavendar stood still and shook his head. "Pity," he said--"pity, +pity. But I suppose it can't be helped. There's no use telling +William about her; he must see it. And there's no use telling her +about William; she must see it. No--no use. But it's a pity--a pity." +Which shows that Dr. Lavendar had reached that degree of wisdom which +knows that successful interference in love affairs must come from the +inside, not from the outside. + +He did not see Miss Lydia again until they met in the afternoon at the +Stage House, and for a minute he did not recognize her. She came +running and panting, laden with bundles, to the coach door. Indeed, +she was so hurried that one of her innumerable packages, a long, slim +bundle, slipped from her happy, weary arms, and, hitting the iron +drop-step, crashed into fragments and splashed her dress with its +contents. "Oh! that's one of my bottles of Catawba," said Miss Lydia. +"Dear, dear! Well, never mind; I'll order another." + +The fragrance of the wine soaking her gloves and the front of her faded +dress, filled the stage (in which they were the only passengers), and +Miss Lydia joyously licked the two bare finger-tips. "Too bad!" she +said; "but accidents will happen." + +Dr. Lavendar helped her pile her bundles on the front seat, and then he +unhooked the swinging strap so that certain parcels could be put on the +middle bench. Miss Lydia leaned back with a happy sigh. "The rest +will come down to-morrow," she said. + +"The _rest_?" said Dr. Lavendar. + +"Oh, I've just got to tell somebody!" she said. "Promise you won't +tell?" + +"I won't tell," he assured her. + +"Well," said Miss Lydia, "look here--do you see that?" She tore a +little hole in a long, flat package, and Dr. Lavendar saw a gleam of +blue. "That's a dress. Yes, a blue silk dress--for myself. I'm +afraid it was selfish to get a thing just for myself, but that and a +pair of white kid gloves and some lace are all I did get; and I've +wanted a silk dress, a blue silk dress, ever since I got poor." + +Dr. Lavendar looked at her and at the hole in the package, and at her +again. "Lydia!" he said, "is it possible that you--? _Lydia!_" he +ended, speechless with consternation. + +"The other things are all for the party." + +"The--party?" + +"Presents!" she said, rubbing her hands. "Oh, dear! I'm so tired! +And I'm so happy! Oh, nobody was ever so happy. The party (that's the +secret) is to be next Thursday a week; that gives me time to make my +dress. I ordered the cake in Mercer. All pink-and-white +icing--perfectly lovely! And I have a present for everybody. Here's a +work-basket for Martha King. And I have a bird-cage and a canary for +dear Willy (that is to come down to-morrow; I really couldn't carry +everything). And I've got a knitted shawl for Maria Welwood, and a +cloak for her dear Rose--that was rather expensive, but it's always +cheap to get the best. And a cornelian breast-pin for Alice Gray. And +a Roman sash for poor little Mary Gordon; she seems to me such a +forlorn child--no mother, and that rough Alex for a brother. +And--well; oh, dear! I'm so excited I can hardly remember--a book for +Mr. Ezra; a book for Mrs. Dale. Books are safe presents, don't you +think?" + +Dr. Lavendar groaned. + +"And a picture for Rachel King--that's it; that square bundle. So +pretty!--a little girl saying her prayers; sweet!--it's like her Anna. +And a box of candy for Sally Smith's little brothers; and a pair of +agate cuff-buttons for Sally--" She was moving her packages about as +she checked them off, and she looked round at Dr. Lavendar with a sigh +of pure joy. He could not speak his distracted thought. + +"Oh, you mustn't see that," she cried, suddenly pushing a certain +package under the others with great show of secrecy; and Dr. Lavendar +groaned again. "I think a party with presents for everybody will be +very unusual, don't you?" she asked, heaping her bundles up carefully; +two more fingers had burst through her cotton gloves, and as she leaned +forward a button snapped off her jacket. "I don't want to brag," she +said, "but I think it will be as nice a party as we have ever had in +Old Chester." + +"But, Lydia, my dear," Dr. Lavendar said, gently, "I am afraid it is +extravagant, isn't it, to try to give us all so much pleasure? And is +a blue silk frock very--well, serviceable, I believe, you ladies call +it?" + +"No, indeed it isn't," she said, with sudden, pathetic passion. +"_That's why I got it_. I never, since I was a girl, have had anything +that wasn't serviceable." + +"But," Dr. Lavendar said, "I rather hoped you would see your way clear +to making your house a little more comfortable?" + +"Why, but I'm perfectly comfortable," she assured him; "and even if I +was not, I'd rather, just for once in my life, have my party and give +my presents. Oh, just once in a lifetime! I'd rather," she said, and +her eyes snapped with joy--"I'd rather have next Thursday night, and my +house as it is, than just comfort all the rest of my days. Comfort! +What's comfort?" + +"Well, Lydia, it's a good deal to some of us," Dr. Lavendar said. And +then his eyes narrowed. "Lydia, my dear--does Mr. Rives know about +this?" + +Miss Lydia, counting her packages over, said, absently, "No; it is to +be a surprise to William." + +"If I am not mistaken," said Dr. Lavendar, "it will be a very great +surprise to William." + +And then he fell into troubled thought; but as he thought his face +brightened. It brightened so much that by the time they reached Old +Chester he was as joyously excited about the party as was Miss Lydia +herself, who made him a thousand confidences about her dress and her +presents and the food which would be offered to her guests. His +joyousness had not abated when, the next morning, Mrs. Barkley +presented herself, breathless, at the Rectory. + +"I think," said she, in an awful bass, sitting up very straight and +glaring at Dr. Lavendar, "that this is the most terrible thing that +ever happened." + +"There are worse things," said Dr. Lavendar. + +"_I_ know of nothing worse," Mrs. Barkley said, with dreadful +composure. "You may. You know what the unregenerate human heart may +do. I do not. This is the worst. What will people say? What will +Mrs. Dale say? It must be stopped! She ran in this morning and told +me in confidence. She came, she said, to know if she could borrow my +teaspoons next Thursday week. I said she could, of course; but I +suppose I looked puzzled; I couldn't imagine--then she confessed. She +said you knew, but no one else. Then, before I came to my senses, she +ran out. I came here at once to say that you must stop it." + +"In the first place," said Dr. Lavendar, thrusting his hands down into +his dressing-gown pockets, "I couldn't stop it. In the second place, I +haven't the right to stop it. And in the third place, I wouldn't stop +it if I could." + +"Dr. Lavendar!" + +"I am delighted with the plan. We need gayety in Old Chester; _I think +we'll get it_. I hope she'll have Uncle Davy in, with his fiddle, and +we'll have a reel. Mrs. Barkley, will you do me the honor?" + +It came over Mrs. Barkley, with a sudden chill, that there was +something the matter with Dr. Lavendar. + +"I have calculated," said the old minister, chuckling, "that Miss Lydia +has in hand, at present, about $1.75 of our $100. This sum I trust she +will give to Foreign Missions. The need is great. I shall bring it to +her attention." + +"Dr. Lavendar," said Mrs. Barkley; and paused. + +"Ma'am?" + +"I don't understand you, sir." + +Dr. Lavendar looked at her and smiled. + + + + +IV + +And so the night of Old Chester's festivity approached. Miss Lydia's +invitations were delivered the morning of the day, but a rumor of the +party was already in the air. There had been some shakings of the head +and one or two frowns. "It will cost her at least $3," said Martha +King, "and she could get a new bonnet with that." + +"It's her way of thanking us for her present," said the doctor, "and a +mighty nice way, too. I'm going. I'll wear my white waistcoat." + +Mrs. Drayton said, calmly, that it was dishonest. "The money was given +to her for one purpose. To ask people to tea, and have even only cake +and lemonade, is spending it for another purpose. It will cost her at +least $4.50. Not a large sum, compared with the whole amount donated +in charity. But the principle is the same. I always look for the +principle--it is a Christian's duty. And I could not face my Maker if +I ever failed in duty." + +Then Mrs. Dale's comment ran from lip to lip: "Miss Lydia has a right +to do as she pleases with her own; if she invites me to tea, I shall go +with pleasure." + +When the rumor reached William Rives's ears he turned pale, but he made +no comment. "But I came to ask you about it, Lydy," he said. This was +Wednesday evening, and William stood at the front door; Miss Lydia was +on the step above him. "I won't ask you to come in, William," she +said, "I'm so busy--if you'll excuse me." + +"I am always gratified," said William, "when a female busies herself in +household affairs, so I will not interrupt you. I came for two +purposes: first, to inquire when you intend to begin the improvements +upon your house; and, secondly, to say that I hope I am in error in +regard to this project of a supper that I hear you are to give." + +"Why?" said Lydia. + +"Because," William said, with his sharp, neat smile, "a supper is not +given without expense. Though I approve of hospitality, and make a +point of accepting it, yet I am always conscious that it costs money. +I cannot but calculate, as I see persons eating and drinking, the +amount of money thus consumed, and I often wonder at my hosts. I say +to myself, as I observe a guest drink a cup of tea, 'Two cents.' Such +thoughts (which must present themselves to every practical man) are +painful. And such a supper as I hear you mean to give would involve +many cups of tea." + +"Twenty-seven," said Miss Lydia. + +"And is there to be cake also?" said William, breathlessly. + +"There is," said Miss Lydia; "a big one, with a castle in +pink-and-white icing on it--beautiful!" + +William was stricken into silence; then he said, shaking his head, "Do +you really mean it, Lydy?" + +"I do, William." + +Mr. Rives sighed. + +"Well," he said--"well, I regret it. But, Lydy, we might utilize the +occasion? Refreshment is always considered genteel at a marriage. Why +not combine your supper with our wedding? We can be married to-morrow +night. Dr. Lavendar is coming, I presume? I can get the license in +the morning." + +Miss Lydia was silent; the color came into her face, and she put her +hand up to her lips in a frightened way. "Oh, I--don't know," she +faltered. "I--I am not--not ready--" + +"Oh," William urged, "never mind about being ready; I should be the +last to wish you to go to any of the foolish expense of dress customary +on such occasions. Yes, Lydy, it is an opportunity. Do agree, my +dear; we will save money by it." + +Miss Lydia drew in her breath; she was very pale; then suddenly she +nodded. "Well, yes," she said. "I will, if you want to, William. +Yes, I will." + +"I will communicate with Dr. Lavendar," said Mr. Rives, joyfully, "and +ask him to hold himself in readiness, but not to speak of it outside." +Miss Lydia nodded, and, closing the door, went back to her engrossing +affairs. Presents and a party and a wedding--no wonder the poor little +soul was white and dizzy with excitement! + +Long will Old Chester remember that occasion: The little house, lighted +from garret to cellar; candles in every possible spot; flowers all +about; the mantel-piece heaped with bundles; William King's bird-cage +hanging in the window; Uncle Davy's fiddle twanging in the kitchen; and +Miss Lydia in front of the smoky fireplace, banked now with larkspurs +and peonies--Miss Lydia in a light, bright blue silk dress trimmed with +lace; Miss Lydia in white kid gloves, buttoned with one button at the +wrist, and so tight that the right glove split across the back when she +began to shake hands. Oh, it was a great moment.... No wonder she was +pale with excitement! ... She was very pale when William Rives +arrived--arrived, and stood dumfounded!--staring at Miss Lydia; staring +at the packages which were now finding their way into astonished hands; +staring at the refreshment-table between the windows, at the great, +frosted cake, at the bottles of Catawba, at Mrs. Barkley's spoons stuck +into tall glasses of wine jelly. Mr. Rives stood staring at these +things, his small eyes starting out upon his purpling cheeks, and as he +stared, Miss Lydia, watching him, grew paler and paler. + +[Illustration: "MISS LYDIA, WATCHING HIM, GREW PALER AND PALER"] + +Then, suddenly, William, stealthily, step by step, began to back out of +the room. In the doorway he shouldered Mrs. Barkley, and, wheeling, +turned upon her a ferocious face: + +"_And I contributed $1.50--_" + +But as he retreated and retreated, the color returned to Miss Lydia's +cheek. She had almost stopped breathing as he stood there; but when he +finally disappeared, she broke out into the full joyousness of the +occasion. The opening of each present was like a draught of wine to +her, the astounded or angry thanks went to her head; she rubbed her +hands until the left glove split also; and then Uncle Davy's fiddle +began in good earnest, and she bustled about, running and laughing, and +arranging partners for the reel. + +Yes, it was a great occasion. Old Chester talked of it for months; not +even William Rives's most unexpected and unexplainable departure the +next day on the morning stage could divert the appalled, excited, +disapproving interest that lasted the year out. Not even Miss Lydia's +continued faithfulness to the portrait, which had condoned so many +offences in the past, could soften Old Chester's very righteous +indignation. There were, it must be admitted, one or two who professed +that they did not share the disapproval of all right-thinking persons; +one was, if you please, Mr. Smith! (He was one of the new Smiths, so +one might expect anything from him.) He had not been invited to the +party, but when he heard of it he roared with most improper mirth. + +"Well done!" he said. "By Jove! what a game old party. Well done! +The money was champagne on an empty stomach; of course, she got drunk. +It would have been cheaper to have bought a bottle of the genuine +article and shut herself up for twenty-four hours. Well, it's worth +the cost of a new chimney. I'll put her repairs through, Dr. +Lavendar--unless you want to get up another present?" And then he +roared again. Very ill-bred man he was. + +Dr. Lavendar said that there would not be another present. He said +Miss Lydia had a right, in his opinion, to spend her money as she +chose; but there would not be another present. + +And then he walked home, blinking and smiling. "Smith's a good +fellow," he said to himself, "if he is one of the new folks. But what +I'd like to know is: _did Lydia think $100 a low price?_" + + + + +AMELIA + + +I + +The exception that proved Old Chester's rule as to the subjection of +Youth was found in the household of Mr. Thomas Dilworth. + +When the Dilworth children (at least the two girls) hung about their +father when he came home at night or teased and scolded and laughed at +him at their friendly breakfast-table, an observer might have thought +himself miles away from Old Chester and its well-brought-up Youth. The +way those girls talk to Thomas Dilworth! "Where will it end?" said Old +Chester, solemnly. For instance, the annual joke in the Dilworth +family was that father had been in love with mother for as many years +as she was old, less so many minutes. + +Now, imagine Old Chester children indulging in such familiarities! + +Yet on Mrs. Dilworth's birthday this family witticism was always in +order: + +"Father, how long have you been mother's beau?" + +And Thomas, rosy, handsome, looking at least ten years younger than his +Amelia, would say: "Well, let's see: forty-one years" (or two or three, +as the case might be), "eleven months, twenty-nine days, twenty-three +hours, and forty minutes; she was twenty minutes old when I first laid +eyes on her, and during those twenty minutes I was heart-whole." + +But Mrs. Dilworth, smiling vaguely behind her coffee-cups, would +protest: "I never heard anything about it, Tom, until you were sixteen." + +And then the girls would declare that they must be told just what +father said when he was sixteen and mother was twelve. But Thomas drew +the line at that. "Come! come! you mustn't talk about love-making. As +for marrying, I don't mean to let you girls get married at all. And +Ned here had better not let me catch him thinking of such nonsense +until he's twenty-five. He can get married (if I like the girl) when +he is twenty-eight." + +"You got married at twenty-two, sir," Edwin demurred. + +"If you can find a woman like your mother, you can get married at +twenty-two. But you can't. They don't make 'em any more. So you've +got to wait. And remember, I've decided not to let Mary and Nancy get +married, ever. I don't propose to bring up a brace of long-legged +girls, and clothe 'em and feed 'em and pay their doctors' bills, and +then, just as they get old enough to amount to anything and quit being +nuisances, hand 'em over to another fellow. No, sir! You've got to +stay at home with me. Do you understand?" + +The girls screamed at this, and flung themselves upon him to kiss him +and pull his hair. + +No wonder Old Chester was shocked. + +Yet, in spite of such happenings, Thomas and Amelia Dilworth were of +the real Old Chester. They were not tainted with _newness_--that sad +dispensation of Providence which had to be borne by such people as the +Macks or the Hayeses, or those very rich (but really worthy) Smiths. +The Dilworths were not new; yet their three children had the +training--or the lack of training--that made the Hayes children and +their kind a subject for Old Chester's prayers. + +"Who can say what the result of Milly Dilworth's negligence will be?" +Mrs. Drayton said, sighing, to Dr. Lavendar; who only reminded her that +folks didn't gather thistles of figs--generally speaking. + +But in spite of Dr. Lavendar's optimism, it was a queer household, +according to Old Chester lights.... In the first place, the father and +mother were more unlike than is generally considered to be +matrimonially safe. Amelia was a dear, good soul, but, as Miss Helen +Hayes said once, "with absolutely no mind"; while Thomas Dilworth was +eminently level-headed, although very fond (so Mrs. Drayton said) of +female society. And it must be admitted that Thomas had more than once +caused his Milly a slight pang by such fondness. But at least he was +never conscious that he had done so--and Milly never told him. (But +Mrs. Drayton said that that was something she could not forgive in a +married gentleman. "My dear husband," said Mrs. Drayton, "has never +wandered from me, even in imagination.") Added to conjugal incongruity +was this indifference on the part of Thomas and his wife to the +training of the children. The three young Dilworths were allowed to +grow up exactly as they pleased. It had worked well enough with Mary +and Nancy, who were good girls, affectionate and sensible--so sensible +that Nancy, when she was eighteen, had practically taken the +housekeeping out of her mother's hands; and Mary, at sixteen, looked +out for herself and her affairs most successfully. With Edwin the +Dilworth system had not been so satisfactory. He was conceited (though +that is only to be expected of the male creature at nineteen) and +rather selfish; and he had an unlovely reserve, in which he was +strikingly unlike his father, who overflowed with confidences. This, +and other unlikeness, was, no doubt, the reason that there were +constant small differences between them. And Mrs. Dilworth--vague, +gentle soul!--was somehow unable to smooth the differences over as +successfully as most mothers do. + +Now, smoothing things over is practically a profession to mothers of +families. But Milly Dilworth had never succeeded in it. In the first +place, she had no gift of words; the more she felt, the more +inexpressive she became; but, worst of all, she had, poor woman, not +the slightest sense of humor. Now, in dealing with husbands and +children (especially with husbands), though you have the tongues of +men--which are thought to be more restrained than those of women--and +though you have the gift of prophecy (a common gift of wives) and +understand all mysteries--say, of housekeeping--and though you give +your body to be used up and worn out for their sakes, yet all these +things profit you nothing if you have no sense of humor. And Milly +Dilworth had none. + +That was why she could not understand. + +She loved, in her tender, undemonstrative way, her shy, unpractical, +secretive Edwin and her two capable girls; she loved, with the single, +silent passion of her soul, her generous, selfish, light-hearted Tom, +who took her wordless worship as unconsciously and simply as he took +the air he breathed; she loved them all. But she did not pretend to +understand them. Thus she stood always a little aside, watching and +loving, and wondering sometimes in her simple way; but often suffering, +as people with no sense of humor are apt to suffer. Dear, dull, gentle +Milly! No one could remember a harsh word of hers, or mean deed, or a +little judgment. No wonder Dr. Lavendar felt confident that there +would be no thistles in her household. + +Thomas Dilworth had the same comfortable conviction, especially in +regard to his girls. "Now, Milly, honestly," he used to say, "apart +from the fact that they are ours, don't you really think they are the +nicest girls in Old Chester?" + +Milly would admit, in her brief way, that they were good children. + +"And Edwin means all right," the father would assure himself; and then +add that he couldn't understand their boy--"at least, I suppose he's +ours? Willy King says so. I have thought perhaps he was a changeling, +put into the cradle the first day." + +"But, Tom," Milly would protest, anxiously, "Neddy couldn't be a +changeling. He was never out of my sight for the first week--not even +to be taken out of the room to be shown to people. Besides, he has +your chin and my eyes." + +"Well, if you really think so?" Thomas would demur. And Mrs. Dilworth +always said, earnestly, that she was sure of it. + +Still, in spite of eyes and chin, Ned's unpracticalness was an anxiety +to his father, and his uncommunicativeness a constant irritation. +Thomas himself was ready to share anything he possessed, money or +opinions or hopes, with any friend, almost with any acquaintance. "I +don't want to know anybody's business," he used to say; "I'm not +inquisitive, Milly; you know I'm not. But I hate hiding things! Why +shouldn't he say where he's going when he goes out in the evening? +Sneaking off, as if he were ashamed." + +"He just doesn't think of it," the mother would say, trying to smooth +it over. + +"Well, he ought to think of it," the father would grumble, eager to be +smoothed. + +But Milly found it harder to reconcile her husband to their boy's +indifference to business than to his reserves. + +"He sees fit to look down on the hardware trade," Tom told his wife, +angrily. "'Well, sir,' I said to him the other day, 'it's given you +your bread-and-butter for nineteen years; yes--and your fiddle, too, +and your everlasting music lessons.' And I'll tell you what, Milly, a +man who looks down on his business will find his business looking down +on him. And it's a good business--it's a darned good business. If Ned +doesn't have the sense to see it, he had better go and play his fiddle +and hold out his hat for pennies." + +Milly looked anxiously sympathetic. + +"I don't know what is going to become of him," Thomas went on. "When +you come to provide for three out of the hardware business, nobody gets +very much." + +Mrs. Dilworth was silent. + +"I was talking about him to Dr. Lavendar yesterday, and he said: 'Oh, +he'll fall in love one of these days, and he'll see that fiddling won't +buy his wife her shoe-strings; then he'll take to the hardware +business,' Dr. Lavendar said. It's all very well to talk about his +falling in love and taking to business; but if he falls in love, I'll +have another mouth to fill. And maybe more," he added, grimly. + +"Not for a year, anyway," his wife said, hopefully. "And, besides, I +don't think Neddy's thinking of such a thing." + +"I hope not, at his age." + +"You were engaged when you were nineteen." + +"My dear, I wasn't Ned." + +Mrs. Dilworth was silent. + +"The Packards telegraphed to-day that they wouldn't take that reaper," +Tom Dilworth said. + +Milly seemed to search for words of sympathy, but before she found them +Tom began to talk of something else; he never waited for his wife's +replies, or, indeed, expected them. He was so constituted that he had +to have a listener; and during all their married life she had listened. +When she replied, she was a sounding-board, echoing back his own +opinions; when she was silent, he took her silence to mean agreement. +Tom used to say that his Milly wasn't one of the smart kind; he didn't +like smartness in a woman, anyway; but she had darned good sense;--for, +like the rest of us, Thomas Dilworth had a deep belief in the +intelligence of the people who agreed with him.... + +"I have a great mind," he rambled on, "to go up to the Hayeses'. You +know that note is due on the 15th, and I believe I'll have to ask him +to extend it. I hate to do it, but Packard has upset my calculations, +and I'll have to get an extension, or else sell something out; and just +now I don't like to do that." + +"Very well," she said. It was her birthday--the one day in the year +that her Thomas remembered that he had been in love with her for so +many years, months, days, hours, minutes--a fact she never for one day +in the year forgot. But she could no more have reminded him of the day +than she could have flown. She was constitutionally inexpressive. + +Tom began to whistle: + +[Illustration: music fragment] + +but broke off to say, "Well, since you advise it, I'll see Hayes"; then +he gave her a kiss, and immediately forgot her--as completely as he had +forgotten his supper or any other comfortable and absolutely necessary +thing. Then he lighted his cigar and started for the Hayeses'. + + + + +II + +"And who do you suppose I found there?" he said, when he got home, well +on towards eleven o'clock, an hour so dissipated for Old Chester that +Milly was broad awake in silent anxiety. "Why, Ned, if you please! He +was talking to Hayes's daughter Helen. She seems a mighty nice girl, +Milly. I packed young Edwin off at nine; he was boring Miss Helen to +death. Boys have no sense about such things. Can't you give him a +hint that women of twenty-five don't care for little boys' talk? +By-the-way, she talks mighty well herself. After I settled my business +with Hayes, we got to discussing the President's letter; she had just +read it." + +"Do you mean to say _that the President has written to Helen Hayes_?" +cried Mrs. Dilworth, sitting up in bed in her astonishment. + +Thomas roared, and began to pull his boots. "Why, they are regular +correspondents! Didn't you know it?" + +"No! I hadn't the slightest idea--Tom, you're joking?" + +"My dear, you can't think I am capable of joking? But, Milly, look +here, I'll tell you one thing: she was mighty sensible about Ned. She +thinks there's a good deal to him--" + +"I don't need Helen Hayes to tell me that," said Ned's mother. + +Tom, who never paused for his wife's reply, was whistling joyfully: + +[Illustration: music fragment] + + +Helen Hayes had been very comforting to him; he had protested, when Ned +reluctantly departed, that a boy never knew when to clear out; and Miss +Helen had pouted, and said Ned shouldn't be scolded; "I wouldn't let +him 'clear out'--so there!" Few women of thirty-two can be cunning +successfully, but Tom thought Miss Helen very cunning. "I just +perfectly love to hear him talk about his music," she said. + +"He can't talk about anything else," Ned's father said. "That's the +trouble with him." + +"The trouble with him? Why, that's the beauty of him," said Miss +Hayes, with enthusiasm; and Thomas said to himself that she was a +mighty good-looking girl. The rose-colored lamp-shade cast a soft +light on a face that was not quite so young as was the frock she +wore--rose-colored also, with much yellowish lace down the front. It +was very unlike Milly's dresses--dark, good woollens, made rather +tight, for Milly, short and stout and forty-three, aspired (for her +Thomas's sake) to a figure,--which is always a pity at forty-three. +Furthermore, Helen Hayes's hands, very white and heavy with shining +rings, lay in lovely idleness in her lap; and that is so much more +restful in a woman's hands than to be fussing with sewing "or +everlasting darning," Thomas thought. In fact, what with her lovely +idleness and her praise of his boy, Tom Dilworth thought he had rarely +seen so pleasing a young woman. "Though she's not so very young, after +all; she must be twenty-five," he told his wife. + +"She'll never see thirty again." + +"Well, she's a mighty nice girl," Thomas said. + +Except to look pretty, Miss Helen Hayes had done nothing to produce +this impression, for she had contradicted Mr. Dilworth up and down +about Ned. + +"He has genius, you know." + +"You mean his fiddle?" Tom said, incredulously. + +"I mean his music. We'll hear of him one of these days." + +"I don't care much whether we ever hear from his music," he said, "but +I wish I could hear that he was applying himself to business." + +"Business!" cried Helen Hayes. "What is business compared to Art?" + +Thomas looked over at Mr. Hayes in astonishment, for in those days, in +Old Chester, this particular sort of talk had not been heard; the older +man sneered and changed his cigar from one corner of his mouth to the +other. Miss Hayes did not get much sympathy from her family. But she +went on with pretty dogmatism: + +"You see, in a man like your son--" + +"A man! He's only twenty, my dear young lady." + +"In a _man_, sir! like your son--genius is the thing to consider; and +you owe it to the world to let genius have its fullest play. Don't +bring Pegasus down to plough Old Chester cornfields. Why, it seems to +me," said Helen Hayes, "that he ought to be allowed to just soar. We +common folk ought to do the ploughing." + +"Thunder an' guns!" said Tom Dilworth. + +"I don't care if he can't be sure that two and two make four," cried +Miss Helen (Thomas, bubbling into aggrieved confidence on this sore +subject, had alleged this against his son); "he can put four notes +together that open the gates of heaven. And he'll distinguish himself +in music, because his father's son is bound to have tremendous +perseverance and energy." + +Old Mr. Hayes snorted and spat into the fire; but Miss Helen's look +when she said "his father's son" made Mr. Thomas Dilworth simper. + +"That girl has sense," he said to himself as he walked home at a +quarter to eleven. But he only told Mrs. Dilworth that she had better +hint to Ned to be a little more backward in coming forward. "That +Hayes girl is nice to him on our account," said Tom, "but he needn't +bore her to death. Milly, why don't you have one of those pink +wrappers? She had one on to-night. Loose, you know, and trimmed down +the front." + +"A wrapper isn't very suitable for company," Mrs. Dilworth said, +briefly. "It didn't matter with you, because you're an old married +man; but she oughtn't to go round in wrappers when Neddy's there." + +"Why, it was a sort of party dress--all lace and stuff. I wish you had +one like it. As for Ned, he's a babe; and her wrapper thing was +perfectly proper, of course. Can't you ask her for the pattern?" + +And then Thomas went to sleep and dreamed of a large order for +galvanized buckets; but his Milly lay awake a long time, wondering how +she could get a pink dress; pleased, in her silent way, that Tom should +be thinking about her clothes; but with a slow resentment gathering in +her heart that Helen Hayes's clothes should have suggested his thought. + +"And pink isn't my color," she thought, a vision of her own mild, red +face rising in her mind. Still, a fresh pink lawn--"that's always +pretty," Milly Dilworth said to herself, earnestly. + + + + +III + +Tom Dilworth's boy was a curious _sport_ from the family stock. He +did, indeed, look down on the hardware business, but not much more than +on any business, although galvanized utensils were perhaps a little +more hideous than most things. Business in itself did not interest +him. Money-making was sordid folly, he said; because, "What do you +want money for? Isn't it to buy food and clothes and shelter? Well, +you can't eat more food than enough; you can only wear one suit of +clothes at a time; and an eight-foot cell is all the shelter that is +necessary." + +"Eight-foot--_grandmother!_" his father would retort; "you'll inventory +that lot of spades, young man, and dry up." + +And Ned, with shrinking hands and ears that shuddered at the hideous +screech of scraping shovels, would make out his inventory with +loathing. His mother was not impatient or contemptuous with him--she +could not have been that to any one; she simply could not understand +what he meant when he spouted upon the folly of wealth (for, like most +shy people, he occasionally burst into orations upon his theories), or +when he set off some fireworks of scepticism borrowed from Mr. Ezra +Barkley, or undertook (when Thomas was not present) to prove his +father's politics entirely wrong. On such occasions Nancy would say, +"Oh, Ned, _do_ be quiet!" and Mary would yawn openly. As for his +music, nobody cared about it, except, perhaps, his mother. "But I must +say, Neddy, I like a tune," she would say, mildly, after Edwin had +tucked his violin under his chin and poured out all his young soul in +what was a true and simple passion. + +"A tune!" poor Ned said, and groaned. "Mother, I wish you wouldn't +call me that ridiculous name." + +"I'll try not to, Neddy, dear," she would promise, anxiously; and Ned +would groan again. + +With such a family circle, one can fancy what it was to the lad when +quite by accident he found a friend. It was the summer that he was +twenty, that once, coming back in the stage with him from Mercer, Miss +Helen Hayes showed a keen interest in something he said; then she asked +a question or two; and when, hesitating, waiting for the laugh which +did not come, he began to talk, she listened. Oh, the joy of finding a +listener! She looked at him, as they sat on the slippery leather seat +of the old stage, with soft, intelligent eyes, her slightly faded +prettiness giving a touch of charm to the high and flattering gravity +of her manner. When she asked him to bring his violin sometime and +play to her, the boy could almost have wept with joy. He made haste to +work off several of his dearest and most shocking phrases, which she +took with deep seriousness: A whale's throat is not large enough to +swallow a man--therefore the Biblical account is false, etc., etc. "In +fact," said Ned, "if I could have a half-hour's straight conversation +with Dr. Lavendar, I could prove to him the falsity of most of the Old +Testament." + +Helen Hayes was shocked; she regretted Mr. Dilworth's scepticism with +almost tearful warmth; yet she realized that a powerful mind must +search for truth, above all. She wished, however, that he would read +such and such a book. "I can't argue with you myself," she said--"you +are far too clever for my poor little reasoning powers." + +It was in April that Edwin entered into this experience of feminine +sympathy; and by mid-summer, at the time when Mr. Thomas Dilworth also +found Miss Helen Hayes so remarkably intelligent, the boy was absorbed +in his new emotion of friendship. He never spoke of it at home, hence +his father's astonishment at finding him at the Hayeses'. And when, a +week later, he found him a second time, Tom Dilworth was much perplexed. + +"I dropped in on my way back from the store," he told his wife, "and +there was that boy. I said to Miss Helen that she really must not let +him bother her. I told her he was a blatherskite, and she must just +tell him to dry up if he talked too much." + +"Tom, I don't think you ought to talk that way about Neddy," Mrs. +Dilworth said. "He's a dear boy." + +"He may be a dear boy, but he is a great donkey," Ned's father said, +dryly; "and I think it is very good in Helen Hayes to put up with him. +I can see she does it on my account. Milly, why don't you ask her to +come to supper, sometime? I like to talk to her; she's got brains, +that girl. And she's good-looking, too. Ask her to tea, and have +waffles and fried chicken, and some of that fluffy pink stuff the +children are so fond of, for dessert." + +"She's not much of a child," said Mrs. Dilworth, her face growing +slowly red. "She's thirty-two if she's a day." + +"My dear, she has aged rapidly; you said thirty a month ago. I like +the pink stuff myself, and I'm nearly fifty. I bet the Hayeses don't +have anything better at their house." + +Milly softened at that. Where is the middle-aged housekeeper who does +not soften at being told that her pink stuff is better than anything +the Hayeses can produce? Yet Tom's talk of Miss Helen's brains pierced +through her vagueness and bit into her heart and mind; and she could +not forget that he had called the girl good-looking. "Girl!" said Mrs. +Dilworth. She was standing before the small swinging glass on her high +bureau, looking at herself critically; then she slipped back and locked +her door; then took a hand-glass and stood sidewise to look again. Her +hair was drawn tightly from her temples and twisted into a hard knot at +the back of her head; she remembered that the Hayes girl wore high +rats, which were very fashionable, and had a large curl at one side of +her waterfall. "But it's pinned on," Milly said to herself; "anyway, +mine's my own." Then she pulled her cap farther forward (in those days +mothers of families began to wear caps when they were thirty) and +looked in the glass again: Helen Hayes did not have a double chin. +"She's a skinny thing," Milly said to herself. Yet she knew, bitterly, +that she would rather be skinny than see those cruel lines, like +gathers on a drawing-string, puckering the once round neck below the +chin. And her forehead: she wondered whether if, every day, she +stroked it forty-two times, she could smooth out the wrinkles?--those +wrinkles that stood for the tender and anxious thought of all her +married life! She had heard of getting rid of wrinkles in that way. +"It would take a good deal of time," she thought, doubtfully. Still, +she might try it--with the door locked. These reflections did not, +however, interfere with the invitation which Thomas had suggested. + +Milly had her opinion of a middle-aged woman who wore wrappers in +public; but if Tom wanted her and her wrappers, he should have them. +He should have anything in the world he desired, if she could procure +it. Had he desired Miss Hayes hashed on toast, Milly would have done +her best to set the dainty dish before her king. And no doubt poor +Miss Helen in this form would have given Mrs. Dilworth more personal +satisfaction than did her presence at Tom's side (for the invitation +was promptly accepted) in some trailing white thing, her eyes fixed on +her host's face, intent, apparently, upon any word he might utter. +Watching that absorbed and flattering gaze, Milly grew more and more +silent. She heard their eager talk, and her mild eyes grew round and +full of pain with the sense of being left out; for Miss Hayes, though +patient with her hostess, and even kind in a condescending way, hardly +spoke to her. Once when, her heart up in her throat, Mrs. Dilworth +ventured a comment, it seemed only to amuse Thomas and his guest--and +she did not know why. + +"This morning," Tom said, "I was h'isting up a big bunch of galvanized +buckets to our loft with a fall and tackle, and all of a sudden the +strap slipped, and the whole caboodle just whanged down on the +pavement--" + +"O-o-o-o!" said Helen Hayes, putting her hands over her ears with +dramatic girlishness. + +"It was terrific, and just at that moment up came Dr. Lavendar. Well, +of course I couldn't express my feelings--" + +"Poor Mr. Dilworth!" + +"--he came up, and gave me a rap with his stick. 'Thomas,' he said +(you know how his eyes twinkle!)--'Thomas, this is the most profane +silence I ever heard.'" + +Everybody laughed, except Milly and Edwin, the latter remarking that he +didn't see anything funny in that. At which Miss Hayes said to him, +under her breath, "Oh, you superior people are so contemptuous of our +frivolity!" And Ned blushed with satisfaction, and murmured, "Why, no; +I'm not superior, I'm sure." + +As for Milly, with obvious effort and getting very red, she said that +she didn't see how silence could be profane. "As long as you didn't +say anything, you conquered your spirit," she added, faintly. + +And then they all (except Edwin) laughed again. After that she made no +attempt to be taken into the gayety about her, but her heart burned +within her. The next morning at breakfast some words struggled out: +"You'd think she was a young thing, she laughs so. And she's nearly +thirty-five." + +"How time flies!" said Tom, chuckling. And then, to everybody's +astonishment, the mute Edwin spoke up, and said that as for age it was +a matter of the soul and not of the body. "Some people are always +young," said Edwin. "Dr. Lavendar is, and you are, father--" + +"Thank you, grave and reverend seignior." + +"--and mother," continued the candid youth, "has always been old. +Haven't you, mother?" + +"True, for you, my boy," said the father; "your mother has the wisdom +of the family." + +Milly Dilworth's face grew dully red to the roots of her hair; a wave +of anger rose up in her inarticulate heart. They called her old, these +two. She could hardly see her plate for tears. + +Edwin, however, was so thrilled by the elegance of his sentiment that +he was eager to repeat it to Miss Hayes; but, somehow, he always had +difficulty in introducing the subject of age. When he did succeed in +getting in his little speech, she said that he impressed her very much +when he said things like that. "Your insight is wonderful," she +murmured, looking at him with something like awe in her eyes. (Miss +Helen was never cunning with Ned.) + +"I guess you're the only person that thinks so," Ned said; "at home +they're always making fun of me." + +"My friend," she said, gravely, "what else can you expect? You are an +eagle in a pigeon's nest. I don't mean to criticise your family, but +you know as well as I that you are--different. You are an inspiration +to me," she ended. And Ned blushed with joy. + +It certainly is inspiring to be told you are an inspiration.... Mr. +Thomas Dilworth did not blush when he learned that mentally he was the +most stimulating person that Miss Hayes had ever met; but he had an +agreeable consciousness of his superiority, which he made no effort to +conceal from his wife. He never made any effort to conceal anything +from Milly, not even that fondness for female society which Mrs. +Drayton had deplored. + +And by-and-by Milly's tears began to lie very near the surface. They +never gathered and fell, but perhaps they dropped one by one on her +heart, leaving their imprint of patiently accepted pain. At this time +she thought of her own mental deficiencies very constantly. Her mind +had no flexibility, and she reached conclusions only by toilsome +processes; but once reached, they were apt to be permanent. Her slow +reasoning at this time led her to conclude that her Thomas was not to +blame because he admired some one who was cleverer than she. "Why, +he'd be foolish not to," she thought, sadly. + +But this eminently reasonable conclusion did not save Mrs. Dilworth +from turning white and red with misery, when, for instance, her husband +observed that he had had to take down two bars of the Gordon fence, so +that Miss Hayes could go home across lots. Then Thomas chuckled, and +added that Helen Hayes was the brightest woman he knew. + +He did not go on to tell of his walk in the October dusk, and Miss +Helen's arch appeal to him for instruction on a certain political point +on which she was ignorant. Thomas had instructed her so fully and +volubly, while she looked at him with her reverent gaze, that it had +grown dark; and that was why he had to take her home across lots. +Thomas had not mentioned these details; he merely said he thought Miss +Helen Hayes a bright woman--the brightest, to be exact, that he knew. +And yet his Milly went into the kitchen pantry and hid her face in the +roller behind the door and sobbed. + +Well, of course! It's very absurd. A fat, wordless woman, who ought +to be darning her children's stockings, it's very absurd for her to be +weeping into a roller because her man, who has loved her for +forty-three years, eleven months, twenty-nine days, twenty-three hours, +and forty minutes--her man, to whom she is as absolutely necessary as +his old slippers or his shabby old easy-chair--because this man does +not think her the brightest woman he knows. But absurd as it is, it is +suffering. + +The woman of faithful heart who has been left behind mentally by her +husband is a tragic figure, even if she is at the same time a little +ridiculous--poor soul! Her futile, panting efforts to catch up; her +brave, pitiful blunders; her antics of imitation; her foolish pink lawn +frocks--of course they are funny; but the midnight tears are not funny, +nor the prinking (behind locked doors), nor the tightened dresses, nor +the stealthy reading to "improve the mind"--that poor, anxious, limited +mind which knows only its duty to its dearest and best. These things +mean the pain--a hopeless pain--of the recognition of limitations. +What did it matter that once a year Tom announced that he had loved his +Amelia for so many years, months, days, hours, and minutes?--He did not +talk to her about the President's letter! But he talked to Helen Hayes +about it. And yet she was a pale thing. "She never had my color," +poor Milly thought; "and they say she doesn't get along well at home. +And she's no housekeeper. Mrs. Hayes herself told me she was just real +useless about the house. I can't understand it." + +Of course she could not understand it. What feminine mind ever +understood why uselessness attracts a sensible man? It is so foolish +that even the most foolish woman cannot explain it. + +As the autumn closed in on Old Chester, nobody in the family noticed +Milly Dilworth's heavier look and deeper silence. Tom himself was more +talkative than usual; business had been good, and he was going to get +something handsome out of a deal he had gone into with Hayes. This +took him often to the Hayeses' house; and after the two men had had +their talk, Miss Helen was to be found at the parlor fireside, very +arch and eager with questions, but most of all so respectful of Tom's +opinions. His Amelia was respectful of his opinions, too, but in such +a different way. Perhaps just at this time Thomas Dilworth pitied +himself a little--the middle-aged husband does pity himself once in a +while. Perhaps he sighed--certainly he whistled. There is no doubt +that Mrs. Drayton would have felt he was wandering from his Amelia--at +least in imagination. And yet Tom was as settled and grounded in love +for his middle-aged wife as he ever had been. + +This, however, cannot be understood by those who do not know that the +male creature, good and honest and faithful as he may be, is at heart a +Mormon. + +"I declare," Tom said, coming home at twelve o'clock at night--"I +declare I feel younger." + +Milly was silent. + +Then Tom began to whistle: + +[Illustration: music fragment] + +Then he broke off to say that he didn't think that Helen Hayes was +over-happy at home. "The Hayeses are commonplace people, and she is +very superior. I guess they don't get along well." + +Milly thought to herself that when a girl didn't get along with her own +mother it didn't speak well for the girl; but she did not say so. + +But Thomas went on to declare that he didn't know what to make of Ned. +"Hanging round the Hayeses till I'm ashamed of him! Why doesn't he +know better? I never bored a woman to death when I was his age." And +his wife thought, in heavy silence, that there were other people who +hung round the Hayeses. + +However, Thomas made his feeling so clear to his son that during the +winter Ned was never seen at the Hayeses' on the same evening that his +father was there. But there was an hour in the afternoon, from five to +six, when the boy was free and Thomas was busy with his spades and +buckets;--but you can't look after a boy every minute. + + + + +IV + +Poor Amelia, in her bedroom, in the chilly December dusk, sopped her +eyes with cold water and looked in the glass. "I _mustn't_ cry any +more," she said to herself, despairingly--"they're so red now!" + +A door opened down-stairs, and there was a burst of laughter; and Mrs. +Dilworth, in the cold twilight, went on sopping her eyes. Tom and the +girls evidently didn't need her. "They could get along just as well +without me. And if the Lord would take me, Tom could--could--so he +could--" + +Her soul was dumb, even to itself; but she knew what it was that Tom +"could" do. + +And she knew it without bitterness. Like every other woman whose love +for her husband has in it the maternal element (and most good women's +love has this element), she had always felt that if she died Thomas +ought to marry again; but this simple creature went one ahead of that +rather elementary feeling, and specified: she was willing to have him +marry _her_. + +"If the Lord would only remove me," said poor Milly, looking miserably +in the glass at her plump figure, which showed no indications of +removal. Her eyes were hopelessly red; she didn't see how she could +possibly go down to supper. But of course she had to go down. The +mother of a family and the mistress of one servant must go down to +supper, no matter what the condition of her eyes may be. She slunk +into her seat behind her teacups, and scarcely dared to look about her +noisy, hungry circle, still less at her Thomas, who was smiling to +himself, but who did not share his amusement with his family. Still, +when he suddenly said something about the refreshment of talking to +intelligent people, it was not hard to guess the direction of his +thoughts. "It sharpens your brains up," said Thomas. "I was going to +suggest, Milly, that you should ask Helen Hayes to tea again; but she's +got company; and when they leave she's going off to make a visit to +some of her relations, she tells me." + +Amelia's mild lips tightened silently. So they had been together +again. Her hand shook as she poured out another cup of tea for her +Thomas, who took that moment to say, with all a husband's candor, that +she was getting fatter than ever. "I thought you were starving +yourself to get thin, Milly?" he said, smiling. Milly smiled, too, +faintly; but she was saying to herself: "What did they talk about? How +long were they together? Oh, if I could only be taken away!" + +It would be interesting to follow the processes of a mind like Mrs. +Dilworth's: how did a wife and mother of children reach the point of +feeling that her family would be better off without her? Anybody in +Old Chester could have told her such a belief was folly, and wicked +folly at that. But it seemed just plain reason to Milly Dilworth: "I'm +not necessary to anybody. Thomas likes somebody younger. He can't +marry her because I'm alive; he could marry her (and she would be good +to the children) if I were not here. But I _am_!" she would end, +hopelessly. + +Morning after morning, as she went about her household duties, or when +before tea she sat in her little, old rocking-chair, mending the family +stockings, she used to break herself against the hopelessness of the +situation: She was there; and unless the Lord would remove her (any +other sort of removal was impossible to her devout imagination) Tom +could not have what he wanted--yes, and needed, too. For it was at +this period that Mrs. Dilworth recognized, what most wives of men do +recognize at one time or another, that although being a wife and mother +is the only vocation of a married woman, being a husband and father is +only one of many vocations of a married man. Hence the companionship +of an eminently worthy wife is almost never enough for the male +creature. When this harsh truth burst upon Milly, she wiped her eyes +on the stocking she was mending and groaned aloud. But she did not +rail against the fact, nor did she attempt to deny it; wherein she +showed a superfeminine intelligence. She only said to herself that +Thomas could not have what he wanted while she was alive; yet she +couldn't, it seemed, die, although she was so miserable that she didn't +know how she lived! It was at this point that she began to make wild +schemes to relieve the situation: Suppose she asked that Hayes girl to +come and make them a visit? But no--a man wants more than to just look +at a pretty girl across the table. Suppose she went away herself and +made a visit, and asked Miss Helen Hayes to come and keep house for +her? (Like all good wives, Milly had no hesitation in offering up +another woman to the pleasure of her lord.) No; people would talk +about Tom if she did that.... The amount of it was, poor Milly, +although she did not know it, was really planning that Thomas should +have two wives at the same time--and, dear me! how that would simplify +things! There would be the old, sensible, matter-of-fact wife to mend +his stockings and order his good dinner and nurse him through the +indigestion consequent upon the dinner--the old, anxious wife, who has +had the children and reared them, who has planned and economized and +toiled with him, who has borne the burden and heat of the day at his +side--the prosaic wife, who gives, unasked, such good advice. Every +one will admit that this elderly person has been, and (to a limited +degree) still is, a necessity to every Thomas. But sometimes Thomas +thinks, in his simple way, that it would be pleasant to have the +luxuries as well as the necessities of life; to have, for instance, a +young wife--a pretty wife, clever and light-hearted and gayly +tyrannical; a wife who never knew enough to advise anybody, who should +be a relaxation and a refreshment, _and just a little bit of a fool_; +for, as every intelligent (unmarried) woman knows, men like fools; +feminine fools. Of course the trouble is that if you supply a wife for +two sides of a man's character--for utility, so to speak, and for +diversion--he may, not unreasonably, demand that every side and angle +and facet of his jewel-like nature have its own feminine setting. That +was probably Solomon's idea. Well, well! the time is not yet for this +reasonable arrangement; and it is possible that trade in galvanized +buckets will never warrant its extensive existence. + +But all this is very frivolous compared to the reality of this poor +woman's pain, a pain that finally evolved a plan which, although less +picturesque than the harem, was of the same grade in the eye of the +law, though, curiously enough, not in her own eye. She could not, as +she expressed it to herself, be dead, so that her Thomas might have his +wish; _but he could think she was dead_. + +When this extraordinary idea came into Milly Dilworth's head, she felt +as one imprisoned in darkness who sees, far off, the glimmer of +daylight. He "could think she was dead!" And if he thought so, of +course there could be nothing wrong in his marrying "_her_." (Miss +Hayes's moral status did not enter into Milly's calculations.) + +The light in her darkness dazzled poor Milly at first, and the way was +not clear. It took two weeks of further thought to decide upon the +step, and then to evolve its details; but one need not go into them as +Milly did.... As she sat at her work, day after day, she thought her +plan out slowly and toilsomely. At first she kept balking at the +enormity of it. Then some chance word would betray Tom's admiration +for brains, and she would beat and spur her mind up to her project +again.... And at last she accepted it.... Once accepted, the thing +was settled. Her mind had about as much flexibility as a bar of lead, +and there was no changing it. It only remained to decide upon the +details. This she did slowly and painfully. Each step was planned, +each contingency arranged for. + +And by-and-by the day came to act. + + +The night before, at supper, Mrs. Dilworth, her hands stumbling among +her teacups, said, faintly, "I'm going over to the other side of the +river to-morrow to order some chickens from Mrs. Kensy." + +"That Kensy house is right by the railroad station," Ned said, +scowling; "I don't believe she has any hens." + +"Yes, she has, Neddy," said Mrs. Dilworth. + +Edwin frowned blackly. "I do wish you wouldn't call me by that absurd +name, mother." + +"I keep forgetting, Neddy dear." + +Edwin held up his hands despairingly. + +"What are you two people talking about?" demanded Thomas. + +"I'm going to walk over, across the ice, to the Bend, to-morrow," said +Milly. + +"Walk!" her husband protested. "What do you walk for? It's cold as +Greenland on the ice, and, besides, they were cutting at the pool by +the Bend; you don't want to go that way, Milly. Take the stage round." + +Mrs. Dilworth crumbled a piece of bread with shaking fingers, and said +nothing. + +"What time are you going, mother?" inquired Edwin. + +"In the afternoon, about four." + +"Why, you went there only two days ago," Edwin said, irritably. "I saw +you on the back road carting a big bundle." + +"It would have been more to the point if you'd done the carting for +your mother," Tom Dilworth said, sharply. + +His wife paled suddenly at that word about a bundle, but the subject +was not pursued. Edwin said, grumbling, that he didn't see what +possessed his mother to choose such an hour. "It's too dark for a lady +to be out," Edwin protested. + +"Too dark for a--_grandmother_!" his father said. "Don't you criticise +your mother, young man." And then he added: "Look out for the places +where the men were cutting, Milly. It hasn't frozen over yet." + +And Mrs. Dilworth said, after a pause, "I know." + +That night was a misery of dreams that the deed was done, broken by +wakings desperate with the knowledge that it was yet to do. In the +morning she seemed to have lost all power of words; she bore her +husband's reproaches that Ned was late for breakfast; she went about +her household duties; she watched the girls start for school (she did +not kiss them; demonstrations of affection had never been possible to +this dumb breast; but she stared after them with haggard eyes); and +through it all she hardly uttered a word; when she did speak, it seemed +as though she had to break, by agonizing effort, some actual lock upon +her lips. When the girls had gone she looked about for her eldest; but +Ned was not to be found. "I never knew him to go to the store before +breakfast," she thought, miserably. His father, pulling on his coat in +the hall, said that Ned was getting industrious to go to his work so +early! His wife was silent. + +When he started, whistling cheerfully, + +[Illustration: music fragment] + +she watched him from the window, straining her eyes until he was out of +sight. Then she went up-stairs to her bedroom, and, opening his closet +door, leaned her head against one of his coats, trembling very much. + +Afterwards she wandered about the house in aimless, restless waiting +for Ned. + +In the course of the morning Tom sent over to inquire why the boy had +not come to the store. Milly told the messenger to tell Mr. Dilworth +that Mr. Edwin was not at home. "Say I thought he was at the store," +she said. "I'll give him his father's message when he comes in to +dinner." But he did not come in to dinner; and minute by minute the +afternoon ticked itself away. She had said to herself that she must +start about four, before Nancy and Mary got home from school. "It must +be so that it would be dark when I was coming back," she reminded +herself. "If I leave here at four, and get my bundle from Mrs. Kensy +at five, it would be pretty dark by the time I would be going home. +Mrs. Kensy will tell them that it was dark." + +At four Edwin had not appeared; Milly, having no imagination, had no +anxiety; she merely gave up, patiently, the hope of a wordless +good-bye. But she kept looking for him; and when she finally put on +her things, she paused and turned back to the window, to look once more +towards Old Chester; but there was no sign of Ned. It did not occur to +her to postpone her plan; her mind, run into the mould of sacrifice, +had hardened into rigidity. So at last, miserably, the tears running +down her face, she stepped out into the cold and went down through the +garden to the river. There she turned and looked back, with dumb +passion in her eyes; the firelight was winking from the parlor windows +and all the warm commonplace of life seemed to beckon her. She put her +muff up to wipe her eyes, but she made no prayer or farewell; her +silence had reached her soul by that time. + +[Illustration: "THERE SHE TURNED AND LOOKED BACK"] + +It was very cold; the ice was rough, and the wind had blown the dry +snow about in light drifts and ripples, so that walking was not +difficult. She trudged out, up towards the Bend, skirting the place +where the men had been cutting. They had gone home now, and the ice +about the black, open space of water was quite deserted. The wind came +keenly down the river, blowing an eddy of snow before it; the bleak sky +lay like lead over the woods along the shore. There was not a house in +sight. Amelia Dilworth looked furtively about her; then she bent down +and scraped at the snow on the edge of the ice, as one might do who, in +the water, was struggling for a hold upon it. After that, for a long +time, she stood there, looking dumbly at the current running, black and +silent, between the edges of the ice. At last, her hand over her mouth +to check some inarticulate lament, she stooped again, and put her +little black muff on the broken snow close to the water. + +When she reached Mrs. Kensy's she was quite calm. She said briefly +that she had come to order some chickens; "--and I'll take that bundle +I asked you to keep for me." + +The woman brought it, and Milly tucked her fingers through the stout +strings she had tied so carefully a few days before. When she would +open it in the woods, and put on the new dress and shawl and the heavy +veil that it held, and then, in the dark, take the half-past-five +train, no one would know that Thomas Dilworth's wife had fled away into +another State. They would find the muff, and they would think--there +would be only one thing to think. + +"I want the chickens for Sunday," she said; "please send them over on +Saturday." Then it came into her mind with a little gush of happiness +that she would pay for them on the spot, instead of having the bill +sent to Tom, as was her custom; she had drawn a sum of money from the +bank a fortnight ago--a small sum, but her own; now it was all in her +purse; she would buy Tom's Sunday dinner out of her little fund. +Except to leave him, it was the last thing she would ever do for him. + +She put her hand into her pocket--and chilled all over. Then stood +blankly looking at the woman; then plunged her hand down again into her +pocket; then exclaimed under her breath; then tore her bag open and +fumbled distractedly among brushes and night-gown and slippers; then +pulled her pocket wrong side out with trembling fingers. + +"_My purse!_" she said, breathlessly. Then she searched everything +again. + +"It ain't any difference," Mrs. Kensy protested. + +"I must have left it at home. I can't go back for it. It is too late." + +"What for?" said Mrs. Kensy. + +"The--the train." + +"Oh, you was going on, was you?" Mrs. Kensy said. "Well, I can let you +have the price of a ticket a little ways." + +But Mrs. Dilworth, with shaking hands, pulled everything out of her +bag, shook her skirts, fumbled in the bosom of her dress, ran out and +searched the garden-path, strained her eyes across the snow on the +river--all in vain. "Oh, my!" she said, faintly. + +"But I can lend you the price of a ticket, ma'am," Mrs. Kensy said +again. + +"No matter," Mrs. Dilworth said, dully. "I'll go home." + +Even as she spoke she heard the train tooting faintly far up the +valley. She sat down, feeling suddenly sick. + + + + +V + +There was nothing to do but to go home. She remembered now how in her +agitated watching for her son she had put her purse down on the corner +of her bureau--and left it there. Yes; there was nothing to do but go +back. "I can start to-morrow," she said to herself. But in the sick +reaction of the moment she knew that she could never start again; her +purpose had been shattered by the blow. She took her bundle--the +bundle that meant flight and disguise and self-sacrifice, and that +stood for the shrewdness which is so characteristic of the kind of +stupidity which forgets the purse--and went stumbling down in the +darkness to the river. She said to herself that she must get her muff; +and she thought heavily that it would be pretty hard to carry so many +things across the ice. She was numb with the shock of interrupted +ecstasy. She could not feel even mortification--only fatigue. She was +so tired that, seeing in the darkness a hurrying figure approaching +her, she did not recognize her husband until he was almost upon her. + +"_Milly_? My God! Milly!" + +He had her muff in his hand, and as he reached her he caught at her +shoulder and shook her roughly. "Milly--I thought--I thought--" He +stammered with agitation. "I found this muff, and I thought it was +yours; and Neddy's gone, too, and I thought--both of you--" + +"Neddy _gone_?" she repeated, dully. + +She stood still on the ice, trying to get her wits together. + +"He's disappeared. He isn't in town. He went out early this morning. +To skate, I suppose. Nora saw him from her window; at about six, she +says. And this open water"--she felt him quiver at her side--"and then +this muff--" + +"No!" she said. "I--I made a mistake." She did not take in the words +about Ned. + +"But where is he? Nobody's seen him. I suppose I'm a fool, but I'm +uneasy. I came to meet you because I thought you might know. But when +I saw this muff--it is yours, Milly, isn't it?--I got into a panic +about you, too." + +"Why," she said--"it's mine; yes. I--I left it--I suppose. Neddy +wasn't with me. Did you think he was with me? I don't understand," +she ended, bewildered. + +"He hasn't been at home all day," her husband said, "nor in town, +either." And then he repeated the story, while she looked at him, slow +understanding dawning in her eyes. + +"Neddy--gone! Where?" + +"But that's what I don't know," the father said. + +And his wife, dazed still, but awake to the trouble in his voice, began +to comfort him, alarm rising slowly in her own heart like an icy wave. + +"Maybe he went to see somebody in Upper Chester?" + +"But he doesn't know anybody at Upper Chester. Of course it's +possible. Only--you gave me such a fright, Milly!" Mrs. Dilworth put +her hand over her mouth and trembled. "However, I guess he's all +right, as you say. I guess we'll find him at home when we get back. +It's lucky I came to meet you, because I can lug your things for you. +How did you drop your muff, dear? Here, take it; your hands must be +cold. Oh, Milly, you gave me an awful fright--it was right on the very +edge of the ice; those confounded cutters hadn't put up any ropes. You +do really think there's no reason to be uneasy about Ned?" + +"No," she said. Her knees shook; she had to pause to swallow before +she spoke. Oh, what if he should find her out? As she trudged along +at his side in the cold darkness she said to herself, with a sickening +sense of apprehension, that if he found her out she should die. Then +as her mind cleared she tried in her brief way to encourage him about +their boy; yet, as they drew nearer home and she saw again the firelit +windows, she began to awaken to the situation: Neddy had gone out to +skate; at six, did Nora say? Of course he might have stopped to see +somebody in Upper Chester; only Neddy never went to see anybody +anywhere--except (Amelia Dilworth had forgotten her!)--except that +Hayes girl--and she wasn't at home. Yes, it was strange; and worrying, +perhaps. But she only repeated, as they went hurrying up to the back +door, that she was sure Neddy was all right. But she held her breath +to listen for his voice haranguing his sisters in the sitting-room. +Instead, the two girls came running out to meet them. + +"Oh, father, did you find Ned? Oh, here's mother; she'll know where he +is." + +"Mother, I'm sort of scared about him," Mary whispered. + +"He's gone to see some friend," the mother said, and her brevity, so +agonizing to her, seemed to reassure the others. + +"He hasn't any friend except Miss Helen Hayes," Nancy said, "and she +went away last week." + +"Maybe he's gone to hunt her up," Mary said, giggling, and her father +told her to be quiet. + +"It's thoughtless in him to be so late. But your mother isn't worried, +so I guess we needn't be. Your mother says there is not the slightest +cause for anxiety, and she knows." + +"Come to supper," Amelia said, her heart sinking; and the commonplace +suggestion cheered them all, although Tom Dilworth did not like to lose +the assurance of his wife's presence, even to have her go up-stairs to +take off her bonnet, and went with her, saying again, decidedly, that +there was, as she said, no possible reason for uneasiness, and that he +himself hadn't a particle of anxiety. "But I'll give that boy a piece +of my mind for worrying you so. Why, Milly, what a fat pocket-book! +Where did you get so much money, my dear? I didn't know the hardware +trade was so prosperous. Look here, Milly--it is pretty late, +honestly?" + +She took her purse out of his hands, her own trembling. For a moment +she could not speak, and leaned forward to look into the swinging glass +and make pretence of untying a knot in her bonnet-strings. "Oh, he'll +come home soon," she said. + +In spite of assurances, the tea-table was not very cheerful--the girls +stopped short in the middle of a sentence to listen for a step on the +porch. Tom got up twice to look out of the window. Mrs. Dilworth +thought she heard the gate slam, and held her breath; but no Ned +appeared. The evening was endlessly long. Tom pretended to read his +newspaper, and kept his eye on one spot for five minutes at a time. At +ten he packed the girls off to bed; at eleven he was walking up and +down the room; at twelve he told his wife to go to bed; but somehow or +other he went himself, while she sat up, "to let the boy in." + +You can make excuses for this sort of lateness up to a certain point; +but it is curious that at about 2.30 in the morning the excuses all +give out. Tom Dilworth got up and dressed. "Something has happened, +Milly," he said, brokenly. His wife put her arms around him, trying to +comfort him. + +"If Miss Hayes was only at home," she said, "maybe she would have some +idea of his plans. He might have told her. And she could tell us what +to do." + +"Who?" said Tom--"that Hayes girl? Maybe so. I hadn't thought of her. +No, I don't believe she'd be any help. She hasn't got much sense in +that kind of way." + +Such ages and ages was Milly away from her great experience of jealousy +that she felt no relief at this bald betrayal. Together they went out +onto the porch, listening, and straining their eyes. The moon was just +going down; it was very cold; far off a dog barked. But there was no +human sound. The two haggard people went shivering back into the hall, +where a candle burned dimly in the glass bell hanging at the foot of +the stairs. + +"Something has certainly happened," Tom said again. "Oh, Milly, you +are always so calm and I go all to pieces." He leaned his elbow +against the wall and hid his face in his arm. His wife heard him groan. + +"And--I've been hard on him sometimes," he said. + +She took his hand and kissed it silently. + +Poor Tom went to pieces more than once in the days that +followed--dreadful days of panic and despair. Old Chester, aroused at +daybreak by the terrified father, decided at once that the boy was +drowned; but everybody stood ready to help the stricken parents with +hopeful words to the contrary, words which rang as hollow to Thomas and +his wife as to the well-meaning liars. + +It was on Wednesday that he had disappeared. On Friday they dragged +the river through the open holes; on Saturday, blew up the ice and +dragged all the way down to the second bend. That night Nancy and Mary +crept away to cry in their own room; Tom sat with his head buried in +his arms; his wife knelt beside him, touching him sometimes with a +quiet hand, but never speaking. Dr. Lavendar came in and put his hand +on Tom's shoulder for a minute, and then went away. The firelight +slipped flickering about the room; sometimes the coal in the grate +snapped and chuckled, and a spurt of flame shone on the two suddenly +aged faces. And then into the silent room came, with hurried, +shamefaced triumph--Edwin. + +"I--I'm afraid you've been anxious--" + +"He ought to have written," said another voice, breathless and +uncertain, and breaking into nervous laughter. "It is naughty in him +to have forgotten. I--I told him so." + +Thomas Dilworth lifted his head and stared, silently; but his wife +broke out into wild laughter and streaming tears; she ran and threw +herself on Edwin's breast, her throat strangling with sobs. + +"Oh--she's found Neddy! She has brought him back to us!--she has found +him! Oh, Miss Hayes, God bless you--God bless you! Oh, where did you +find him?" + +Miss Hayes opened her lips--then bit the lower one, and stood, scarlet. + +"I meant to write," Edwin began to explain--"of course I meant to +write, but--" + +"Oh, dear Mrs. Dilworth," Helen's fluttering voice took up the excuse, +"you must forgive him"--she came as though to put her arms about Ned's +mother. "After all, a bridegroom, you know--" + +Milly lifted her head from Edwin's shoulder and gaped at her. + +"Bridegroom?" + +Thomas Dilworth got on his feet and swore. Miss Helen Hayes--or, no; +Mrs. Edwin Dilworth--came and hung upon his arm. + +[Illustration: "THOMAS DILWORTH GOT ON HIS FEET AND SWORE"] + +"You won't mind very much? You'll forgive him? We couldn't tell, +because--because papa would have interfered; but I knew your dear, kind +heart. Mrs. Dilworth, I have so revered Mr. Dilworth!--that was one +reason I said _yes_. You'll let me be your little girl, Mr. Dilworth?" + +"Little--_grandmother_!" said Tom Dilworth; and burst into a roar of +laughter; then stopped, and said through his set teeth to his son, "You +scoundrel!" + +"Thomas--don't!" the mother entreated. "He has come back." + +"He'd better have stayed away!" Thomas said, furiously, in all the +anger of suddenly relieved pain. + +"Oh, dear Mrs. Dilworth," Helen murmured, "forgive us! He ought to +have written--I ought to have reminded him. But--_you_ understand? I +know you do. Just these first beautiful days, one forgets everything." + +"Well, I tell you I meant to write," Ned persisted, doggedly. "But +mother put me all out by going over to the Bend in the afternoon. I +was going to take that train, and of course I couldn't; Kensy's house +is right there by the station. And I had to take the morning train +instead; and it put me all out. I had to get up so early I forgot to +take any clothes," he added, resentfully. "It wasn't my fault." + +"Not your fault?" his father said, and then turned to his wife, almost +with a sob. "Milly, can he be our boy, this sneak?" + +"Yes; yes, he is, Tom; indeed he is, dear. And he just forgot; he +didn't mean anything wrong." Milly was almost voluble, and she was +crying hard. And then she looked at the woman who had brought him +back--the faded, anxious, simpering woman, who for once had no words +ready. Milly looked at her, and suddenly opened her arms and took her +son's elderly wife to her heart. "Oh, you poor woman," she said, "how +unhappy you must have been at home!" + +Helen looked at her blankly, then dropped her head down on the kind +shoulder, and Milly felt her quiver. + +"She's fifty!" Tom said, trembling with anger. "How the devil a son of +mine can be such a jack--" + +"Tom, dear! there now, _don't_," the mother said; "he's at home. Just +think; he's at home! and we thought--we thought--" Her voice broke. +"We'll all love you, Miss Hayes--I mean Helen," she whispered to the +sobbing woman. + +Then, with a sort of gasp, she put her daughter-in-law's arms aside +gently, and went over and kissed her husband. + + +As for Thomas Dilworth, after the first shock of anger and +mortification had passed, and the young couple had finally settled +themselves upon the disgusted bounty of the respective fathers, he used +to whistle incessantly a certain song much in vogue at the time: + + "I hanker + To spank her, + Now I'm her papa!" + + + + +"AN EXCEEDING HIGH MOUNTAIN" + + +I + +Robert Gray's first wife, Alys (Old Chester had hard work to swallow +her name; "but it's better than any of your silly 'ie's,'" said Old +Chester)--this first Mrs. Gray was a good deal of a trial to everybody. +She was not only "new," but foreign; not only foreign, but indifferent +to Old Chester. Indeed, it took all Old Chester's politeness and +Christian forbearance to invite Mrs. Robert Gray to tea--with the +certainty that the invitation would be declined. She was an English +girl whom Robert met somewhere in Switzerland--a heavy-eyed, silent +creature, certainly a very beautiful woman, but most inefficient and +sickly; and there were so many nice, sensible girls in Old Chester! +(However, there is no use saying things like that: as if a man ever +married a girl because she was sensible!) + +Yet young Gray certainly needed a sensible wife; his wealth was limited +to character and good manners, plus a slender income as tutor in the +Female Academy in Upper Chester. Excellent things, all; but a wife +with sense (and money) would have been an agreeable addition to his +circumstances. Whereas, this very beautiful English girl was a +penniless governess, left stranded in Germany by an employer, who had, +apparently, got tired of her. Robert Gray had met the poor, frightened +creature, who was taking her wandering way back to England, and married +her, frantic with rage at the way she had been treated. When he +brought her home, he was so madly in love that he probably did not half +appreciate Old Chester's patience with her queer ways. But the fact +was, that for the few months she lived, she was so miserable that Old +Chester could not help being patient, and forgiving her her half-sullen +indifference, and her silence, and her distaste for life--even in Old +Chester! + +For in spite of Robert's adoration, in spite of all the ready +friendliness about her, in spite of the birth of a baby girl, she +seemed, as it were, to turn her face to the wall. She died when the +child was about a week old. Died, the doctor said, only because, so +far as he could see, she did not care to live. + +"You ought to try to get better for the baby's sake," said Miss Rebecca +Jones, who had come in to help nurse her. And the poor girl frowned +and shook her head, the heavy, white lids falling over her dark eyes. + +"I don't like it." + +And Rebecca (who had too much good sense to be shocked by the vagaries +of a sick woman) said, decidedly: "Oh, you'll learn to like her. Come, +now, just try!" + +But she did not seem to try; even though Robert, kneeling with his arm +under her pillow, holding her languid hand to his lips, said, sobbing, +"Oh, Alys, Alys--for God's sake--don't leave me--" + +Then she opened her beautiful eyes and looked at him solemnly. +"Robert," she said, "I am sorry. I am--sorry. I--am--" + +"What for, precious?" he entreated; "sorry for what? to leave me? Oh, +Alys, then live, live, dear!" + +"I--am--" she began; and then her voice trailed into eternity. + +Miss Rebecca Jones hung about the house for a few days, to make the +poor gentleman comfortable; then he was left alone with the child +(purchased at so dreadful a cost) and one servant, and his daily work +of teaching the polite languages at the Female Academy. Miss Rebecca's +hard face softened whenever she thought of him; but all she could do +for him was to go often to see the poor seven-months baby--which seemed +for a time inclined to follow its mother. + +Now it must be understood at once that Rebecca Jones was not a schemer, +or a mean or vulgar woman. She was merely a hard-headed, +honest-hearted product of years of public-school teaching, with a +passion for truth and no grace in telling it. She was sorry for Mr. +Gray, and sorry for the poor baby, who was being allowed, she said to +herself, to grow up every which way; and sorry for the comfortless +house left to the care of what she called "an uneducated servant-girl." +So, after school, and on Saturday mornings, she used to go over to Mr. +Gray's house and bustle about to the bettering of several things. +Indeed, old Mr. Jones told her more than once that he didn't know what +that there widower would do without her. And Rebecca said, truthfully +enough, that she didn't know, either. And when she said it her heart +warmed with something more than pity. + +As for Robert Gray, dazed and absent, trying to do his duty at the +Academy during the day, and coming home at night to look blankly at his +child, he, too, did not know what he would have done that first year +without Miss Rebecca's efficient kindness. He was so centred in his +grief, and also of so gentle a nature, that he took the kindness as +simply as a child might have done. Like many another sweet-minded man, +he had not the dimmest idea of the possible effect of his rather +courtly manner and his very delicate courtesy upon a woman of slightly +different class, whose life had been starved of everything romantic or +beautiful. He became to sharp-tongued Miss Rebecca Jones a vision of +romance; and, somehow, quite suddenly, about eighteen months after his +wife's death, he discovered that he was going to marry her. In his +startled astonishment, he realized that he had himself led up to her +avowal of willingness by some talk about her kindness. Perhaps she had +misunderstood his words; if she had, Robert Gray was not the man to +offer an explanation.... However, after the first shock of being +accepted, he was gently explicit: + +"I realize that the child ought to have the care of a good woman, and +therefore I--" + +"I'll do my duty by her," Rebecca said. + +"I want her brought up to love and reverence her mother. I want her +brought up to be like her. It is for the child's sake that I--I marry +again. I speak thus frankly, Miss Rebecca, because I so entirely +respect you that I could not be anything but frank." + +Rebecca's square face flushed over the high cheek-bones to the gaunt +forehead and the sparse hair; then her eyes looked passionately into +his. "I understand. Yes; I understand. And I will be good to your +child, Mr. Gray." + +And so he married her; and, when you come to think of it, it was a very +sensible thing to do. Even Old Chester said he was very sensible. A +man of thirty, with a baby--of course he ought to marry again! "But +why on earth," said Old Chester, "when there are so many girls of his +own class!--not but what Rebecca Jones is a very worthy person." + +Meanwhile, Rebecca, with hard conscientiousness, set herself to bring +the child up. She trained her, and disciplined her, and made a painful +point of talking to her about the first Mrs. Gray, according to her +promise to teach her to "love and reverence her mother." The +discipline sometimes made Robert Gray wince; but it was wise, and never +unkind; so he never interfered;--but he left the room when it was going +on. Once he said, nervously: + +"I scarcely think, Mrs. Gray, that it is necessary to be quite so +severe?" + +"She must be made a good child," Rebecca answered. + +"I am not afraid that she will not be a good child," Robert Gray said; +"she is her mother's daughter." + +"Well, she is her father's daughter, too," Rebecca declared, briefly. +And her husband, shrinking, said: + +"Light is stronger than darkness; Alice's mother was a creature of +light. I am not afraid of her inheritance of darkness." + +As for Rebecca, she went away and shut herself up in the garret. +"'Creature of light!'" she said, sitting on the floor under the +rafters, and leaning her head on an old horsehair-covered trunk wherein +were packed away Mr. Gray's winter flannels--"well, I am a good wife to +him, if I ain't a 'creature of light.'" + +Yes, she was a good wife.... How carefully she put his flannels away +in May; how prudently she planned his food; how she managed to make the +two ends of his little income meet--yes, and lap over, so that every +summer he could go away from her for a two months' vacation in the +woods! Not once did he find a button lacking; not once had he put on a +clean pair of stockings and then pulled them off because of a hole in +the heel. Can our lords say as much, my mistresses? I trow not! Yes, +a good wife: that lovely being who left the world with a faint, +unfinished regret upon her pitiful lips could never have made him so +comfortable. + +Indeed, the whole household revolved upon Robert's comfort. Every +domestic arrangement had reference to his well-being. That he did not +become intolerably selfish was not Rebecca's fault, for, like many good +wives, she was absolutely without conscience in the matter of +self-sacrifice; but Robert escaped spiritual corruption, thanks to his +own very gentle nature and his absolute unconsciousness of the +situation. Perhaps, too, Rebecca's tongue mitigated the spoiling +process. She never spared him what she considered to be the truth +about himself or Alice. But her truthfulness stopped here; she spared +the dead, perforce. For what could she say ill of that beautiful +creature whose only wrong-doing lay in dying? But she knew, with +shame, that she would have liked to speak ill of her--in which +reprehensible impulse to remove a fellow-being from a pedestal, Rebecca +showed herself singularly like the rest of us. + +In this bleak air of unselfishness and truth-telling, Robert Gray +became more and more aloof. Gradually he retreated quite into his +past, doing his daily work at the Academy--where successive classes of +young ladies adored him for his gentle manners and his mild, brown +eyes--and living very harmlessly with his memories, which he kept fresh +and fragrant by sharing them with Alys's daughter, who, it must be +admitted, being young and human, was not always intensely interested; +but Rebecca had trained her too well for Alice ever to show any +weariness. Robert kept his little collection of pictures and +photographs of his first wife shut behind the curtained doors of an old +secretary. If his second wife found him standing, his hands clasped +behind him, his eyes wandering from one lovely presentment to another, +he never displayed an embarrassed consciousness, but he shut the doors. +He accepted Rebecca's devotion respectfully; he was never impolite, +still less unkind; in fact, in all their married life he had never, she +used to tell herself, spoken unkindly save once; and then his words +were nothing more dreadful than, "We will not discuss it, if you +please, Mrs. Gray." At first he had, very gently, made some +grammatical suggestions; and she had profited by them, though, being a +true Pennsylvanian, she never mastered "shall" and "will," nor did she +lose the Pennsylvania love for the word 'just'; to the end of her days, +Rebecca was 'just tired out'; or 'just real glad'; or 'just as busy as +could be.' Grammar, however, was as far as Robert Gray went in any +personal relation. He addressed her, in his courteous voice (always a +little timidly), as "Mrs. Gray"; and he kept as much as possible out of +her way. Meantime, Rebecca (remembering why he had married her) did +her duty by the child, and never failed to mention, in her hard voice, +that Alice must try to grow up like her mother. + +"Make me a good girl," Alice used to say in her sleepy prayers every +night--"make me a good girl, like my dear mother." Once, of her own +accord, the child added, "And make me pretty like her, too." Rebecca, +listening to the little figure at her knee, said, sternly, when Alice +got up and began to climb into the big four-poster: + +"Don't be vain. Don't ask God for foolish things. Beauty is foolish +and favor is deceitful. Just ask Him to make you as good as your +mother was." + +And, indeed, it must be admitted that the child did not inherit her +mother's wonderful beauty. At first her father had expected it; he +used to take liberties with his Horace, and say: + + "O filia pulchra matre pulchriore." + + +But as Alice grew older, Robert Gray had to admit that the dead woman +had taken her beauty away with her. The child had just a pleasant +face; eyes that were gray or blue, as it happened; a commonplace nose, +and uncompromisingly red hair. In those days red hair was thought to +be a mortifying affliction, and poor, plain Alice shed many tears over +the rough, handsome shock of hair that broke into curls about her +forehead and all around the nape of her pretty, white neck. + + + + +II + +But in spite of red hair, and what Old Chester religiously believed to +be its accompanying temper, Alice Gray was a lovable girl, and at +twenty, behold, she had a lover; indeed, she had more than one (not +counting Dr. Lavendar); but Alice never gave a thought to anybody but +Luther Metcalf. Luther was a good boy, Old Chester said; but added +that he would never set the river on fire. + +Certainly he did not use his incendiary opportunity; he had a small +printing-office, and he owned and edited Old Chester's weekly +newspaper, the _Globe_; but neither the news nor the editorial page +ever startled or displeased the oldest or the youngest inhabitant. The +_Globe_ confined itself to carefully accredited cuttings from +exchanges; it had a Poet's Corner, and it gave, politely, any Old +Chester news that could be found; besides this, it devoted the inner +sheet to discreet advertisements, widely spaced to take up room. All +Old Chester subscribed for it, and spoke of it respectfully, because it +was a newspaper; and snubbed its editor, because he was one of its own +boys--and without snubbing boys are so apt to put on airs! Poor Luther +was never tempted to put on airs; he was too hard-worked and too +anxious about his prospects. He and Alice were to get married when he +and the _Globe_ were out of debt; for his father had left him a +mortgage on the office building, as well as an unpaid-for press. When +Luther was particularly low-spirited, he used to tell Alice it would +take him five years to pay his debts; and, to tell the truth, that was +an optimistic estimate, for the _Globe_ and the printing-office +together did very little more than pay the interest on the notes and +Luther's board. + +So, when they became engaged, waiting was what they looked forward to, +for, of course, Robert Gray could not help them; it was all Rebecca +could do to stretch his salary to cover the expenses of their own +household. But the two young people were happy enough, except when +Luther talked about five years of waiting. + +"We've been engaged two years already," he said, moodily; "I don't want +to be another case of Andrew Steele." + +"I'm not afraid," Alice said. "Why, if you get the new job press, and +get that Mercer work, think how much that will help!" + +"Well," Luther said, "yes; but if I get the press, there's another +debt. And if I don't get it, I can't get the work; so there it is. A +vicious circle." + +This question of the purchase of a new press, before the old press had +been paid for, was a very serious and anxious one. "I wish father +could help," Alice said--they were walking home from Wednesday-evening +lecture, loitering in the moonlight, and wishing the way were twice as +long. + +"Oh, I wouldn't think of such a thing," the young man declared; "we'll +pull out somehow. He's gone off to the woods, hasn't he?" + +"Yes, he went this morning; he's so pleased to get away! He won't be +back till the Academy opens." + +"I suppose he hates to leave you, though," Lute said. + +"Yes, but I can see that the getting away is a great relief. I keep +his pictures dusted, and take the flowers up to the cemetery for him; +so he knows things are not neglected." + +"But," Luther said, thoughtfully, "I think she's sorry to have him go?" + +"Oh yes; sorry, I suppose," Alice admitted. "She's fond of him--in her +way." + +"Then why--" Luther began. + +"My dear, she's _jealous_ of my mother." + +"Oh, Alice!" + +"Well, you know," Alice explained, "my mother was so beautiful--and +poor Mrs. Gray! But I must say, Lute, she's the justest person I know. +She's always told me that my mother was perfect. And of course she +was; but when you're jealous, it isn't so easy to acknowledge things +like that." + +"But I don't see how you can be jealous of the dead," Luther ruminated. + +"Oh, _I_ do! I could be jealous of some girl who was dead, if you'd +loved her, Lute." And then the boy put his arm round her, and they +kissed each other there in the shadows of the locust-trees overhanging +a garden wall. "I'm so glad there isn't anybody, dead or alive," Alice +said, happily; "though I'd rather have her alive than dead. If she +were alive, you'd have quarrelled with her, and stopped loving her. +But if she were dead, she would keep on being perfect. Yes; I'd rather +marry a man who had been--been _divorced_," said Alice, lowering her +voice, because the word was hardly considered proper in Old Chester, +"than a man whose wife was dead, because he would always be thinking +what an angel she was and what a sinner I was." + +"He would think you were an angel," the boy told her, blushing at his +own fervency. + +But the fervency died on his ardent young lips when they got into the +house and sat decorously in the parlor with Mrs. Gray. Rebecca was +sewing, her hard, square face a little harder than usual. Mr. Gray had +gone away on that annual fishing-trip--gone, with a look of relief +growing in his eyes even as he stepped into the stage and pulled the +door to behind him; pulled it hurriedly, as though he feared she would +follow. Then, baring his head politely, he had looked out of the +window and said: + +"Good-bye. You will send for me should you, by any chance, need me. I +trust you will be very well." + +"I don't know that I have ever had to interrupt your fishing-trip with +any of my needs," Rebecca had answered, briefly. She spoke only the +truth; she never had interfered with any pleasure of his; and yet +Robert Gray had winced, as if he had not liked her words. Now, alone, +in the parlor, darning his stockings, she wondered why. She never said +anything but the simple truth; but he looked at her sometimes as a dog +looks who expects a blow. He was truthful himself, but he never seemed +to care much to hear the truth, she thought, heavily. Once he told her +that truth was something more than a statement of fact. The statement +of a fact may be a lie, he had said, smiling whimsically; and Rebecca +used to wonder how a fact could be a lie? She recalled the time when, +with brief accuracy, she had mentioned to him in what condition of +ragged neglect she had found his wardrobe after the "creature of light" +had left him; and how he had seemed to shrink not from the shiftless +dead, but from her. And she remembered painfully that one unkindness: +She had told him that, to her mind, not even the weakness of death was +quite an excuse for saying you didn't like your own baby; and he had +said, with a terrible look, "We will not discuss it, if you please, +Mrs. Gray." She had never spoken of it again; but his look had burned +into her poor, narrow, sore mind; she thought of it now, moodily, as +she sat alone, her heart following him on his journey. If his first +wife had only not been so perfect, she said to herself, she could have +borne it better; if she had had a bad temper, even, it would have been +something. But she had often heard Robert tell Alice that her mother +had an "angelic temper." Rebecca wished humbly she herself could be +pleasanter. "I don't feel unpleasant inside; but I seem to talk so," +she thought, helplessly. She was thinking of this when the two young +people came in; and looking up over her spectacles, she said, coldly: + +"Did you remember to wipe your feet, Luther? You are careless about +that. Alice, I found a flower on my daphne; you can carry the pot up +to the cemetery when you go." + +"Yes, ma'am," Alice said. She took up her sewing (for Rebecca would +not have idle hands about); sometimes she glanced at Luther, sitting +primly in the corner of the sofa, and once caught his eye and smiled; +but there were no sheep's-eyes or sweet speeches. They were Old +Chester young people, and such things would have been considered +improper; just as sitting by themselves would have been thought not +only indecorous, but selfish. + +"Oh, Alice," Luther said, suddenly, "I meant to ask you; wasn't your +mother's name spelled 'Alys'?" + +"Yes. Why?" + +"Well, it's such an unusual name that it struck my attention when I saw +it in the paper." + +"What about it?" Alice asked. "Oh, dear, why didn't father spell me +'Alys' instead of 'Alice'? It's so much prettier!" + +"Prettiness isn't everything; and 'Alice' is a sensible name," Rebecca +said. "Don't criticise your father." + +"It was an advertisement in one of the _Globe's_ exchanges," Luther +explained. "I was scissoring things, and the name caught my eye. It +was information wanted. Of course it's just a coincidence, but it's +queer, because--here it is," said the editor of the _Globe_, fumbling +in his pocket. "I cut it out and meant to show it to you, but I +forgot." Then he read, slowly, "_Information wanted of one Alys +Winton--_" + +"Why, but Winton was my mother's name!" cried Alice. + +"_--one Alys Winton, who married sometime in 1845; husband thought to +be an American, name unknown. She (or a child of hers, born in 1846) +is requested to communicate with Amos Hughes, Attorney at Law,_" etc. + +Alice stared, open-mouthed. "Why, Lute!" she said--"why, but that must +be my mother!" + +Lute shook his head. "I don't think there's anything in it. Do you, +Mrs. Gray?" + +"Might be," she said, briefly. + +Alice took the crumpled cutting, and holding it under the lamp, read it +through to herself. "But, Lute, really and truly," she said, "it is +queer. Perhaps some of my mother's rich relations have left her a +fortune! Then we could pay off the mortgage. Only I'm afraid my +mother hadn't any rich relations--or poor ones, either. I never heard +of any. Did you, Mrs. Gray?" + +"No," Rebecca said. + +"She was a governess, you know, Lute, in some horrid English family; +the wife didn't like her, and she discharged my poor little mother; +then the family went off and left her all alone in Germany. Perfectly +abominable!" + +"Don't be unjust, Alice; you don't know anything about it," Mrs. Gray +said. "She was very young. Perhaps she couldn't teach the children to +suit their parents. Though it was unkind to leave her unprovided for," +she added, with painful fairness. + +"I guess it was!" cried Alice. "Oh, how angry father gets when he +talks about it! He says she was in such terror, poor little thing, +when he met her. And yet she was very forgiving, father says. He says +she wrote and told the gentleman that she was married. _I_ wouldn't +have. I'd have let him think I'd starved, so he would have suffered +remorse--the wretch!" + +"I hope you would not have been so foolish or so selfish," her +step-mother said. + +"You see, she had no relations to turn to," Alice explained to Luther; +"if father hadn't come, dear knows what would have become of her." + +"I suppose she could have earned an honest living, like anybody else," +Mrs. Gray said. + +"Well, anyway," Alice said, thoughtfully, "this advertisement is queer. +She had no relations that father ever heard of; but there might be some +one. What do you think, Mrs. Gray?" + +"There might be," Rebecca said. She thought to herself that it was +very probable; that first wife had brought Robert Gray beauty and love; +it only needed that she should bring him money to make it all perfect. +In her bleak mind a window of imagination suddenly opened, and she had +a vision of what wealth would mean to her husband, coming as a gift +from those dead hands. She set her lips, and said: "Better find out +about it, Luther. Write to the man and say that a person of that name +before her marriage, died here in Old Chester, leaving a child--and +don't keep your hands in your pockets; it's bad manners." + +"Do you really think it is worth while, ma'am?" Luther said, +incredulously. + +"Of course it is," said Alice. "Suppose it should be some inheritance? +Such things do happen." + +"In story-books," Lute said. + +"Well, then I'd like to be in a story-book," Alice said, sighing. +"Just think, Lute, we might pay for the press and pay off the mortgage!" + +"Golly!" said Lute. + +Then they fell to making all sorts of plans, gayly, each tripping the +other up with the prosaic reminder of improbability. + +"Or, if it _should_ be anything," Luther said, "it won't be more than +$100." + +"Well, that's something; it will meet two monthly payments on the +press." + +"It will pay for a diamond-ring for you," Lute said. + +"Nonsense! We'll buy father a horse." + +"And who will buy the oats?" Rebecca said. + +"I could give you a big oleander, Mrs. Gray," Alice told her, smiling. + +"You could put the money in the bank, like a sensible girl," Rebecca +said, severely. "Don't speak of this outside, either of you. Mr. Gray +wouldn't wish his wife's name talked about." + +"And don't let's write anything about it to him," Alice said; "let's +have it a surprise!--if there is anything in it; only, of course, there +isn't anything," she ended, sighing. "But you might write to the man, +Lute." + +"Of course there isn't anything," Lute agreed, sensibly. "I'll write +if you want me to; but I wouldn't build on it, Ally," he said, as he +got up to go. And when he paused a minute in the darkness on the +porch, he added, softly, "If you get rich, maybe you won't want a poor +printer?" + +And she laughed, and said, "Maybe I won't!" + +Then he kissed her just under her left ear, and said, "Money isn't +everything, Ally." + + + + +III + +Money isn't everything, but it has so much to do with most things that +even a dim, story-book vision of it stirred Alice's imagination. +Luther, having no imagination, dismissed the vision from his mind after +writing a letter to "Amos Hughes, Attorney at Law." Indeed, Luther had +more practical things to think of than possible legacies, poor fellow. +His balance-sheet for that month of June was very dark. More than +once, after the office was closed for the day, he sat at his desk in +his shirt-sleeves, hot and tired and grimy, poring over his ledger by +the light of a swinging lamp. Alice grew worried about his pallor and +the hollows in his cheeks; but there was nothing she could do, though +she chafed against her helplessness to help, and revolved all sorts of +schemes in her impractical girl-mind. Indeed, she went so far as to +pour out her heart to Dr. Lavendar, in the hope that he could make some +suggestion. She found the old man sitting in the wistaria arbor near +his beehives, smoking peacefully, and throwing sticks to Danny, who +needed exercise and scrambled after them into the tall grass, bringing +them back with fatiguing alacrity. + +"Look here, sir," said Dr. Lavendar, "don't find 'em so quick. I'm +worn out pitching them." + +Then Alice Gray came down between the box borders and said she wanted +his advice; and Dr. Lavendar, glancing up at her, saw an uncertain lip +and heard a catch in her voice; whereupon he told her to give Danny a +run. "The scoundrel has kept me working for the last half-hour," he +complained. + +When she came back, flushed and laughing, and sat down on the arbor +step, her voice was quite steady; so he listened placidly to her story. + +"You want to get some work to help Lute, do you, good-for-nothing?" + +"Yes," Alice said, eagerly. "Oh, Dr. Lavendar, _can_ you think of +anything? I wanted to go into the office and learn to set type, but +Mrs. Gray--" + +"Well?" + +"Mrs. Gray said I had better learn to keep house economically. She +said father wouldn't like it." + +"Mrs. Gray would always think first of what your father would like." + +Alice scratched lines in the gravel with one of Danny's sticks. "I +suppose she would," she admitted. + +"And what did Lute say?" + +"Oh, he wouldn't listen to it. But I thought maybe you could make him, +Dr. Lavendar?" + +"I?" said Dr. Lavendar. "No, thank you. Do you think I'd rob the boy?" + +"Rob him?" + +"Of his self-respect; a boy wants to stand on his own legs; he doesn't +want a girl propping him up. You let Lute alone. He'll manage. And +you're young yet, anyhow. It won't hurt ye to wait. Mrs. Gray is +right. You learn to be as good a housekeeper as she is; and though you +mayn't put money into Lute's pocket before you're married, you'll not +be taking it out after you're married." + +Alice sighed. "Oh, I wish I could help Lute; I wish I had a lot of +money." + +"A lot of sense is better," Dr. Lavendar said, chuckling. "Oh, you +women! You steal a man's unselfishness and self-respect, and you put +it down to love. Love? You're a pack of thieves, the lot of you. You +ought to be prosecuted. I'd do it, if I had time. Hey, Danny! bite +her; she's like all the rest of 'em." + +Alice hugged him, and defended herself. "You're just an old bachelor; +you don't appreciate us." + +"Appreciate ye? I appreciate you. Maybe that's why I'm an old +bachelor." + +But though he discouraged Alice's projects for assisting Luther, Dr. +Lavendar went plodding up the printing-office stairs the next morning. +Luther, emerging from behind a press, brightened at the sight of his +caller, and ushered him into a small closet which he called his private +office; and when Dr. Lavendar asked him to print some more +missionary-meeting notices, he said he would put them in at cost price. + +"Don't you do it!" said Dr. Lavendar, thumping the floor with his +umbrella. "Look here; I'll have to teach you the first principles of +business: make your profit--and don't go to 'pauperizing the Church,' +sir. There's too much of that sort of thing," he added, with +reminiscent crossness. "Some scalawag of a bookseller wrote and +offered to sell me books at thirty-three per cent. discount because I +was a parson. There's no more reason why a parson should get a +discount than a policeman. I told him so. I tell you so. Print those +slips, and _print 'em better than you did the last lot_! Do you hear +that? You forgot a comma on the second line. How's business, Lute?" + +Lute's face fell. Then they talked things over, to the boy's great +comfort; and at the end of the talk Lute straightened his shoulders and +drew a good breath. + +"By George! sir, if hanging on does it, I'll hang on--" he stopped, +and looked round, in answer to a knock. "Well?" he said, impatiently. +But the gentleman who stood in the doorway was not rebuffed. + +"Are you Mr. Metcalf, the editor of the _Globe_?" + +"Yes, sir," said Luther. + +"I called in relation to an advertisement"--Luther was instantly alert, +and Dr. Lavendar, scenting a customer, was about to withdraw--"an +advertisement in a New York paper, requesting information of a certain +person--" + +"What!" cried Luther. "I had forgotten all about it." + +"My name is Carter. I am from the office of Mr. Amos Hughes. Messrs. +Pritchett, Carver, and Pritchett, Solicitors at Law, of London, are our +principals. The advertisement was in relation to a person called Alys +Winton." + +Luther, stumbling in his astonishment over his words, began to explain. +"Mrs. Gray is dead," he ended. "And Alice is her daughter; isn't she, +Dr. Lavendar? She asked me to write to you." + +"Well, well; this is very interesting," said Dr. Lavendar. "I hope +your object in seeking to obtain information is to benefit this young +lady? She's one of my children." + +Mr. Carter, still standing in the doorway, smiled, and said, "Do I +understand that this Miss Alice is the daughter of the person named +Alys Winton?" + +"Yes," said Dr. Lavendar. "You can easily satisfy yourself on that +point by consulting my parish records." + +"And her mother is the lady you advertised for!" cried Luther. The boy +was red with excitement. It was just as Alice said--a story-book. And +they could get married right away! For it would be a lot of +money--perhaps $5000; people in England didn't advertise for +information of a person dead for twenty-two years for any small amount; +well, even if it were $4000, they could get married; even if it were +$3000. "How m--" he began, and stopped; of course that was not a +proper question. "Alice's mother is the lady you advertised about," he +said, lamely. + +"Well, that does not follow, young gentleman; but the coincidence of +the name was of sufficient interest for our firm to feel that I might, +perhaps, just look into it. There may be dozens of Alys Wintons, you +know." + +"Oh," said Luther, so blankly that Dr. Lavendar laughed. + +"Perhaps before beginning at the beginning you might save time by +looking at the end," he said to the lawyer. "If you will step over to +my church, you will see that our little Alice here is the daughter of +Mr. Robert Gray and a lady named Alys Winton." + +"A very good idea, sir. You, I infer, are a clergyman in this place? +Ah, yes; just so. Lavendar? Ah, yes. I shall be pleased to look at +the records, as you suggest, sir." + +Luther, rather abashed, longing to accompany them, stood waiting for an +invitation. But none came. Dr. Lavendar went pounding down the +stairs, followed by Mr. Carter, and Lute heard them talking about the +roughness of the road from Mercer over which Mr. Carter had come on the +morning stage. + +"Confound the road!" said Lute to himself. "Hi! Davidson! I'm going +out. The first page is all made up; you can close up the fourth." +Then he dashed down the creaking stairs and out into the hot sunshine. +He had a glimpse up the street of the church, and Dr. Lavendar bending +down fumbling with the key of the vestry door; it was evident that +Luther's presence was not considered necessary. "I don't care," the +boy said to himself, joyously, and started at a swinging pace out over +the hill. "I'll be the one to tell her, anyhow!" His face was all +aglow. As he hurried along he made calculations as to the rent of the +little house. To be sure, he was reckoning on Alice's money; but the +boy was so honest, and so in love, that he had no mean +self-consciousness of that kind. "_We can get married!_" He had no +room for any other thought. + +Mrs. Gray was sitting on the back porch shelling pease; there was a +grape trellis running out from the porch roof, and under it the shadows +lay cool and pleasant on the damp flagstones. Rebecca, absorbed in the +lulling snap of pods, looked up, frowning, at the noisy interruption, +for the young man burst in, breathless, swinging his cap, his eyes +shining. + +"Oh, Mrs. Gray, where's Alice? Oh, my, such news! I never was so +excited in my life!" + +"That is not saying much," Rebecca told him; "you've not had a very +exciting life. Alice is in the dining-room. Alice! come out here. +Here's Luther. He says he never was so excited in his life; and I hope +he won't be again, for he has upset my bucket of pods." + +Luther, full of apologies, began to pick them up. "I'm so sorry, but I +was so dreadfully excited--" + +"Dreadful is a large word," Rebecca said. "I doubt whether either you +or I have ever seen anything 'dreadful' in our lives. Don't +exaggerate, Luther." + +"Yes, ma'am," Lute said. "Oh, there's Alice! _Alice!_" He stood up, +his hands full of pods, his face red. "Oh, Alice, what do you suppose +has happened? You'll never guess!" + +"The advertisement man!" cried Alice. Luther's face fell a little, and +he laughed. + +"Well, you're pretty smart. Yes, it is--" + +"_What?_" said Rebecca Gray. As for Alice, she whirled out on the cool +flags and jumped up and down. + +"Oh, Lute, tell us--tell us! What does he say? Has he sent some +money? Oh, how much is it? Oh, Lute, we'll pay for the press. Lute, +is it--is it $1000? Tell us; hurry, hurry!" + +Upon which Lute began to subside. "Well, it isn't quite--I mean, he +didn't--he hasn't said just exactly how much. I mean, of course, I +suppose, it isn't certain; but I'm sure there isn't a particle of +doubt; only--" + +"Now, Lute, begin at the beginning and tell us." Alice sat down +breathlessly beside her step-mother, and began mechanically to shell +the pease. + +"Don't," Rebecca said; "I will do my own work. You'd better get your +table-cloth and finish that darning." Her face had grown quite pale; +she saw the fabric of her life crumbling at the base; if, through that +first wife, money should come into the family, what use for her patient +economies? What use for her existence? That first wife, yet more +perfect, would crowd her further from her husband's life. In her +heart, used to the long, dull ache of unloved years, rose up a +murderous hatred of the dead woman. At first she hardly heard Luther's +story, but as it went on she began to listen and the pain in her +tightened throat of unshed tears lessened. It might not be. As this +Mr. Carter said, there might be dozens of Alys Wintons. Her hands, +motionless after the first shock, went at their work again. + +"You're the daughter of a lady of that name," she said, coldly; "but +she may not be the lady they want. Better not count on it." Alice +looked rather blank for a moment; and then she burst into even more +than Luther's confidence. + +"Do you suppose it will be $2000? Oh, Lute, just think, we'll pay for +the new press right down!" + +"No, we won't, either," Lute said, stoutly. "I'm not going to let you +spend your money on printing-presses." + +"Nonsense!" Alice cried, laughing and stamping her foot. + +Rebecca frowned and looked at her over her glasses. "Don't be +unlady-like, Alice." + +"No, 'm," Alice said; and then she laughed at her own excitement; "it +may be only $100." + +"It may be nothing at all," Rebecca Gray said, and got up and took her +pan and bucket and went into the house. It seemed to her that if she +had to hear any more of Alys Winton she would speak out and say some +dreadful thing about her. But what could she say with any kind of +truth? What could she say ill of that poor creature, so beloved and so +harmless? For, after all, though a woman ought to see that a man's +buttons are sewed on, you can't say that mere shiftlessness is a sin. +Besides, she was sick for those few months. "Perhaps if my health +hadn't been good, I would have been careless myself," Rebecca thought, +with painful justice. But she went up-stairs to her own room and +locked the door. She felt sure that it was as Alice and Luther said: +there would be money, and she would be of still less consequence to her +husband; for what did Robert Gray, nervously polite, really care for +her economies and her good housekeeping? + +"Not _that_!" she said to herself, bitterly. + + + + +IV + +"You will stay and have dinner with me," Dr. Lavendar had told the +lawyer, hospitably, "and then Goliath and I will take you up the hill +to Mr. Gray's house." + +And so, in the early afternoon, Goliath brought Mr. Carter to the +Grays' door. Alice, who was on the porch, insisted that Dr. Lavendar +should come in, too; she leaned into the buggy to whisper, joyously, +"If it is anything nice, I want you to hear it." + +But for once Dr. Lavendar did not laugh and give her a kiss and call +her his good-for-nothing; he got out silently, and followed Mr. Carter +into the parlor, where Luther and Mrs. Gray were awaiting them. There +was a tense feeling of expectation in the air. The two young people +were together on the sofa, smiling and laughing, with small, whispered +jokes of presses and diamond-rings and mortgages. Rebecca sat by the +table, her worn hands in a trembling grip in her lap; she sat very +upright, and was briefer and curter than ever, and she looked most of +the time at the floor. + +"You have been informed of my errand, madam?" said Mr. Carter. "It is +unfortunate that Mr. Gray is not at home, but perhaps you may be able +to give us some information on certain points, which will at least +instruct me as to whether the facts in the case warrant further +reference to him for confirmation. I will ask a few questions, if you +please?" + +"Go on," Rebecca said. + +"The late Mrs. Gray, the mother of this young lady," said Mr. +Carter--"do you happen to know her nationality?" + +"English." + +"Ah, yes. Just so. And do you know the date of her marriage to Mr. +Gray?" + +Rebecca gave it. + +"If any facts in regard to her occur to you--" the lawyer began. + +"I've heard Mr. Gray say that she was a governess in the family of a +Mr. Urquhart," Rebecca said; and added, "They discharged her in Berlin." + +Mr. Carter, glancing at a memorandum, his face keen with interest, +said, eagerly, "Pray proceed, madam." + +"I don't know much more; Mr. Gray met her in Interlaken. They were +married three weeks afterwards." + +"Ah, Switzerland? That explains; there was no record of a marriage at +the Embassy. Can you tell me anything of the parentage of the lady?" + +"Her father's name was George Winton," Alice broke in, "and they lived +in a place called Medfield. He was a clergyman. Her mother's name was +Alys, too. Father has a prayer-book belonging to my grandmother; it +has her name in it, and my mother's. Would you like to see it, sir?", + +"Exceedingly," Mr. Carter said; and while Alice ran to get the book, he +studied his memorandum so closely that no one dared to ask him a +question, if, indeed, any one wanted to. Rebecca had answered him +dully, looking out of the window part of the time, part of the time at +the floor. Dr. Lavendar, on the other side of the room, his hands on +the head of his cane, sat silently staring down at the carpet, his face +heavy and rather stern. Lute, radiant, twirled his cap in his hands, +and resolutely held his tongue. + +Alice, as she handed the prayer-book to Mr. Carter, stopped on her way +back to Luther and squeezed Dr. Lavendar's hand. "Isn't it wonderful?" +she whispered; and he shook his head a little impatiently. + +"Go and sit down, my dear," he said. + +Mr. Carter, glancing at the name on the flyleaf, looked at his notes +again and then at Alice, "And this young lady--can she give me the date +of her birth?" + +There was a little laugh, and Luther and Alice gave it together, +eagerly. + +There were two or three more questions, and then Mr. Carter folded his +memorandum and slipped it within its rubber band with a snap; then he +smiled. Rebecca looked at him drearily. "Of course," he said, +addressing himself to her, "a question of identity cannot be decided +offhand; it is necessary to have certain affidavits which the surviving +husband of the deceased (who is asserted to be the person in question) +would be obliged, legally, to furnish. I think, however, that I am not +going beyond the line of discretion and propriety if I say that _if_ +Mr. Robert Gray can produce such proofs (which I think I am not +unwarranted in saying I believe he can)--_if_ he can, then this young +lady is the heir to a very considerable fortune. I think, in point of +fact, I have the right to say that, if (as I have said before) these +proofs are forthcoming, the amount to be paid to the daughter of Alys +Winton is £5000." + +Rebecca Gray put her hand to her mouth and stared blindly at the floor. +Dr. Lavendar thrust out his lower lip and frowned. As for Alice, she +laughed aloud, then burst out crying. + +"Oh, _Lute_!" she said, tremulously; and, somehow, the two children +found themselves holding hands. "It's--it's so much!" she faltered. + +"Five thousand pounds is--is $25,000!" the boy said, turning pale. +There was a pause; no one seemed to know just what to say. Then Lute, +suddenly: "Is it your mother's father that left it to you, Alice?" + +She turned to Mr. Carter, drawing in her breath like a child. "Is it?" + +"Ah--no," he answered, briefly. + +"But I didn't know my mother had any relations?" Alice said, in a dazed +way; "I thought father said--I'm sure he said--she hadn't any +relations? Perhaps--perhaps it is a mistake, after all?" + +"The testator was not a relative of the Alys Winton in question," Mr. +Carter said. He glanced uneasily at Dr. Lavendar, who lifted his head +and looked at him searchingly. "It will be best to make further +explanations to Mr. Gray," Mr. Carter said, hurriedly. + +"But who has left the money to me--if it is to me?" Alice said, +bewildered. "Can't I ask that? What is the name of the kind person? +I think I might ask that." + +[Illustration: "'WHAT IS THE NAME OF THE KIND PERSON?'"] + +"The name of the testator was Urquhart," Mr. Carter said, "but--but, +you know, my dear young lady, the identity is not yet legally +authenticated; so--therefore--perhaps--I think, Dr. Lavendar, I had +best go now? I think you mentioned that the stage leaves at four?" + +"Urquhart?" Alice said; "the man who was so unkind? Oh, Lute, I +suppose he repented. Oh, how astonished father will be! He'll have to +forgive him now." + +"It's a pretty late repentance," Luther said, with a chuckle; "and how +did he know about you, Alice? I don't see why he should leave you +money, even if he was a brute to your mother. Still," said the boy, +gayly, "I guess we won't complain?" + +"Gracious!" cried Alice, "that is queer. Well, he _was_ a kind person!" + +Rebecca Gray stared, frowning, at the lawyer. "He knew--this +Urquhart--that she had a child?" she said, slowly. + +Mr. Carter was gathering up his papers. "Yes," he said--"yes; he--knew +it." + +"What?" said Rebecca, in a very low voice--"_what?_" + +"In view of the fact that, legally, the matter is still undecided," Mr. +Carter said, hurriedly, "perhaps we need not take this point up? At +all events, not here." + +"Sir," said Rebecca, "why does Mr. Urquhart leave £5000 to Robert +Gray's daughter?" + +"He was sorry he was unkind to my mother," Alice said, her voice +quivering. ("Oh, Lute, $25,000!") + +"Alice," her step-mother said, in a loud, harsh voice, "you had better +leave the room. Luther, go with Alice, please." + +The two young people, bewildered, got up with blank faces, and with +obvious reluctance obeyed. "But why should I be sent out, Lute?" Alice +said, hotly, when they were in the hall. "It's my money--if I'm the +person." + +Luther stopped, and stood, frowning. On the boy's open, honest face +came a perplexed look. But Alice said again, in injured tones, that +she didn't know what Mrs. Gray meant. In the parlor the three elders +looked at each other in silence. Mrs. Gray had risen, and stood +leaning forward, her trembling hands flat on the table. + +"I don't--understand," she said. + +"Mr. Carter," said Dr. Lavendar, "certain remarks of yours on our way +up here made me apprehensive. I see that my friend, Mrs. Gray, is +also--apprehensive. I would suggest that you have a few words with her +alone. I will leave you." + +"No," Rebecca said; "hear the end of it." Her hard face was red and +hot. "Why does Mr. Urquhart leave the child of Robert Gray £5000? +Why?" + +"It is as I think you surmise, madam," John Carter said, gravely. + +Rebecca recoiled, with a broken exclamation of horror. + +Dr. Lavendar drew in his breath. "Oh, my poor Robert!" he said. + +"It is so stated in the will," the lawyer went on; "there is no +disguising it; nor, as far as I can see, can it be hidden from the +legatee. The directions for finding this heir make the thing explicit. +The testator states that he received information of the expected birth +of his child _after_ the marriage of the person in question, who did +not mention her married name--hence our difficulty in tracing her." + +Rebecca, her eyes narrowing into a cruel smile, sat down and rocked +backward and forward in her chair. + +"Dreadful--dreadful--dreadful!" she said, aloud, exultantly. + + + + +V. + +The last quarter of an hour, packed with tragic revelation, lost Mr. +Carter the stage. + +"I hope you will put up at the Rectory, sir," Dr. Lavendar said, as +they drove away from Robert Gray's door. + +"I thank you, sir," said Mr. Carter. + +Then they fell into silence--Mr. Carter from politeness, Dr. Lavendar +from horror. He was going back in his memory with painful effort; but +it was all very vague.... He had hardly known her; she had been ill +for those months that she had been in Old Chester, and she had made it +very clear that she did not care to see people. He thought of her +beautiful, sullen face; of Robert Gray's passionate devotion; of Old +Chester's silent disapproval.... He groaned to himself, and John +Carter looked at him sidewise. + +After supper at the Rectory, they sat down to smoke in heavy silence; +Mr. Carter respected the old man's distress, but wondered if he should +not have been more comfortable with Van Horn at the Tavern. The +glowing July day had darkened into rainy night, with a grumble of +thunder back among the hills; but in the midst of a sudden downpour +they heard footsteps on the path, and then some one pushed open the +hall door, and flapped a wet umbrella on the steps before entering. A +minute later Luther Metcalf stood, hesitating, on the study threshold. + +"Dr. Lavendar--" + +The old man got up hurriedly. "Yes, Lute. Come into the dining-room. +You will excuse me, sir?" he said to Mr. Carter. He put his hand on +Lute's arm, in a friendly grip, for there was a break in the boy's +voice. + +"I know about it," Lute said. They sat down at the dining-room table; +Lute swallowed hard, and pulled with trembling fingers at his hatband; +he did not lift his eyes. "And--and I want you to tell her not to take +it." + +"How is she, Lute?" + +"I haven't seen her. She wouldn't come down-stairs. She sent me a +little note," Luther said, taking it out of his breast-pocket, and then +putting it back again tenderly. "'Course I won't pay any attention to +it." + +"Saying she'd release you, I suppose?" + +"Yes; but that's nothing. I'll make her understand the minute I see +her. But, Dr. Lavendar, I don't want that--that money!" the boy ended, +almost with a sob. "I want you to tell her not to take it." + +Dr. Lavendar was silent. + +"At first I thought--I couldn't help thinking--we could get married +right off. We could get married and have a home of our own; you know, +we'd be rich people with all that money. And I suppose, honestly, that +as things are now, there's no chance of our getting married for a good +while. But I--I tell you what, sir. I'd rather never get married +than--than touch that money!" + +Dr. Lavendar nodded. + +"You won't let her, sir? You'll make her give it back?" + +"My dear boy, I can't 'make' Alice do anything. The money is hers." + +"Oh, but Dr. Lavendar, won't you go and talk to her? It may be a +temptation to her, just as it was to me, for a minute. We could just +make the office hum, sir. We could put it right on its feet; we could +have a real Daily. I know she'll think of that. _I_ just thought we +could get married. But Alice will think about helping the office, and +me." + +"Of course the money would bring ease to her father--" Dr. Lavendar +stopped abruptly. + +"Oh, my _God_!" Lute said, and dropped his head on his arms. + +"Bring ease to--to the family," Dr. Lavendar ended lamely. + +"You know Mr. Gray won't touch it," Lute burst out; "and I can't let +Alice, either. Dr. Lavendar, I thought maybe you'd let me hitch +Goliath up and drive you out to the house?" + +"Not to-night, Lute. Alice has got to be alone. Poor child, poor +child! Yes; we've all of us got to meet the devil alone. Temptation +is a lonely business, Lute. To-morrow I'll go, of course. Did you +answer her note?" + +"Oh yes; right off. I just said, 'Don't be foolish,' and--and some +other things. I didn't tell her we mustn't take the money, because I +hadn't thought of it then. Mrs. Gray said she wouldn't come out of her +room. Oh, just think of her, all by herself!" Luther bent over and +fumbled with his shoelace; when he looked up, Dr. Lavendar pretended +not to see his eyes. + +When the boy went away, Dr. Lavendar went back to the study and asked +John Carter some legal questions: Suppose he had not found this child, +what would have become of the money? Suppose the child should now +decline to take it, what then? + +"Well," said Mr. Carter, smiling, "as a remote contingency, I suppose I +might reply that it would revert to the residuary estate. But did you +ever know anybody decline £5000, Dr. Lavendar?" + +"Never knew anybody who had the chance," Dr. Lavendar said; "but +there's no telling what human critters will do." + +"They won't do that," said John Carter. + + +What a long night it was, of rain and wind and dreadful thought! ... +Rebecca had told Alice, with kindness, but with such a grip upon +herself lest exultation should tremble in her voice, that she seemed +harsher than ever. Then she told Lute. He pleaded that Alice would +speak to him, and Mrs. Gray had gone to the girl's room and bidden her +come down-stairs. + +"Come, Alice. You must control yourself. Come down and talk to +Luther." + +Alice shook her head. "I'll--write him a note." + +Mrs. Gray carried the note back to Lute, and brought up the answer, +which Alice read silently. Rebecca watched her; and then, with an +effort, she said: + +"Alice, remember we are not to judge. We don't understand. We must +not judge. Good-night." She opened the door, and then looked at the +child, seated, speechless, with blank eyes, on the edge of the bed. +"Good-night, Alice. I--I'm sorry for you, poor girl!" and she came +back hastily and kissed her. + +At that, even in her daze of horror, a glimmer of astonishment came +into Alice's face. But she did not look up or speak. When it grew +dark, she began mechanically to get ready for bed; she knelt down, as +usual, at the big chintz-covered winged chair and began to say her +prayers, her mind blind as to her own words: "Bless dear father--" +Then she cried out, suddenly and dreadfully, and covered her poor, +shamed head with her arms, and prayed no more. Then came a long fit of +crying, and then a dreary calm. Afterwards, as the night shut in with +rain and rumble of thunder, the shame lightened a little, for, though +she could not read it in the darkness, she held Lute's little note +against her lips and kissed it, and cried over it, and said his words +over to herself, and felt that at any rate there was one bright spot in +it all: Lute would never have any more anxieties. Of Robert Gray she +thought pitifully, but with not much understanding. Oh, dreadful, +dreadful! But he had loved his wife so much (so the child thought) he +would surely forgive her. Not knowing how little forgiveness counts +for when a star goes out. Sometimes, sitting there on the floor, +listening to the rain, she slept; then woke, with a numb wonder, which +darkened into cruel understanding. _Shame; shame_--but Lute wouldn't +be worried any more; Lute would be rich. + +[Illustration: "SHE KNELT DOWN, AS USUAL, AT THE BIG CHINTZ-COVERED +WINGED CHAIR"] + +So the night passed.... + +Rebecca Gray did not sleep. When the house was still she went +up-stairs, eager to be alone. She shut her bedroom door softly; then +she put her brass candlestick on the high bureau and looked about +her.... Everything seemed strange. Here was her old-fashioned bed +with its four mahogany posts like four slender obelisks; there was the +fine darn in the valance of the tester; the worn strip of carpet on +which she had knelt every night for all these twenty years; it was all +the same, but it was all different, all unfamiliar. The room was +suddenly the room where that woman had died; the old four-poster was +the bed of that heartbreaking night, with sheets rumpling under a +wandering hand and pillows piled beneath a beautiful, dying head; not +her own bed, smooth and decorous and neat, with her own fine darn in +the tester valance. She did not know the room as it was now; she did +not know herself; nor Robert; nor that--that--_that woman_. She sat +down, suddenly a little faint with the effort of readjusting a belief +of twenty-two years. "She was a wicked woman," she said, out loud; and +her astounded face stared back at her from the dim mirror over the +mantel-piece. After a while she got up and began to walk back and +forth; sometimes she drew a deep breath; once she laughed. "A wicked +woman!" ... Now he would know. Now he would see. And he would loathe +her. He would hate her. He would--her lip drooped suddenly from its +fierce, unconscious smile; he would--suffer. Yes; suffer, of course. +But that couldn't be helped. Just at first he would suffer. Then he +would hate her so much that he would not suffer. Not suffer? It came +over her with a pang that there is no suffering so dreadful as that +which comes with hating. However, she could not help that. Truth was +truth! All the years of her hungry wifehood rose up, eager for +revenge; her mind went hurriedly, with ecstasy, over the contrast; her +painful, patient, conscientious endeavor to do her best for him. Her +self-sacrifice, her actual deprivations--"I haven't had a new bonnet +for--for four years!" she thought; and her lip quivered at the +pitifulness of so slight a thing. But it was the whole tenor of her +life. _She_ had no vacations in the mountains; she would have liked +new valances, but she spent hours in darning her old ones to save his +money; she had turned her black silk twice; she had only had two black +silks in twenty years. All the great things she had done, all the +petty things she had suffered, rose up in a great wave of merit before +her; and against it--what? Hideous deceit! Oh, how he would despise +the creature! Then she winced; he would--suffer? Well, she couldn't +help that. It was the truth, and he had got to face it. She was +walking up and down, whispering to herself, a sobbing laugh on her +lips, when suddenly, as she passed the mirror, she had a dim, crazy +vision of herself that struck her motionless. A moment later she took +the candle, and with one hand clutching for support at the high +mantel-shelf--for her knees were shaking under her--held it close to +the glass and peered into the black depths. Her pale, quivering face, +ravaged with tears, stared back at her, like some poor ghost more ugly +even than in life. "_A wicked woman._" Yes--yes--yes; and he would +have to know it. But when he knew it, what then? If his eyes opened +to sin, would they open to-- + +"I have tried to make him comfortable," she said, faintly. + +Suddenly she put the candle down and sank into a chair, covering her +face with her poor, gaunt hands.... + +And so the night passed.... The dawn was dim and rainy. It was about +four o'clock that Alice, sitting on the floor, sleeping heavily, her +head on the cushion of the chair, started, bewildered, at the noise of +the opening door. Rebecca, in her gray dressing-gown, one hand +shielding the flare of her candle, came abruptly into the room. + +"Alice," she said, harshly, and stopped by the empty bed; then her eyes +found the figure on the floor ("you ought to be in bed"), she said, in +a brief aside; then: "Alice, I've been thinking it over. You can't +take that money." + +"I don't understand," Alice said, confused with sleep and tears. + +"You can't take that money. If you do, your father would have to know. +And he never must--he never must." + +Alice pulled herself up from the floor and sat down in her big chair. +"Not take the money?" she said, in a dazed way; "but it's mine." + +"That's why you needn't take it. Thank God it was left to you, not +just to 'her heirs.' Alice, I've gone all over it. I--I wanted you to +take it"--Rebecca's voice broke; "yes, I--did." + +"Well, it's mine," Alice repeated, bewildered. + +Rebecca struck her hands together. "Yours not to take! Don't you see? +You can save your father." + +Alice, cringing, dropped her head on her breast with a broken word. + +"Don't be a fool," the older woman said, trembling. "He's been your +father ever since you were born. And it would be a pretty return for +his love to tell him--" + +Alice burst out crying; her step-mother softened. + +"I am sorry for you, you poor girl. But, oh, Alice, think, _think_ of +your father!" She clasped her hands and stood, trembling; she took a +step forward, almost as if she would kneel. + +"If he would feel so dreadfully," Alice said, at last, "why--we needn't +tell him where the money comes from." + +"Now, Alice, that is absurd. Of course he would know. He would have +to know. A girl doesn't inherit £5000 without her father's knowing +where it comes from. And, anyway, Mr. Carter said that Mr. Gray would +have to make a statement and swear to it. Of course he would--know." + +"Do you mean you don't want me to have it at all?" Alice said, blankly. + +"I've just explained it to you," Rebecca said, her voice harsh with +anxiety. "You _can't_ have it." + +"But it's my money; I have a right to it. And it would make all the +difference in the world to Lute. If he is going to take a girl--like +me, he ought to have the money, anyhow." + +"And kill your father?" Rebecca said. "Alice! Don't you see, he must +go on believing that she is"--her voice grew suddenly tender--"that she +is 'a creature of light?'" + +"I want Lute to have the money," Alice said. + +"Alice!" the other exclaimed, with dismay, "don't you think of your +father at all? And--for your mother's sake." + +Alice was silent; then, in a hard voice, "I don't like her." + +"Oh!" Rebecca cried, and shivered. There was a pause; then she said, +faintly, "For your own sake?" + +Alice looked up sullenly. "Nobody need know; we would only say it had +been left to--her. Nobody would know." + +Suddenly, as she spoke, despite the plain face and the red hair, Alice +looked like her mother. Rebecca stepped back with a sort of shock. +Alice, crying a little, got up and began to pull down her hair and +braid it, with unsteady fingers. Her step-mother watched her silently; +then she turned to go away; then came back swiftly, the tears running +down her face. + +"Oh, Alice, it is my fault! I've had you twenty-two years, and yet you +are like-- See, Alice, child; give her a chance to be kind to him, in +you. Oh, I--I don't know how to say it; I mean, let her have a chance! +Oh--don't you see what I mean? She said she was sorry!" All the +harshness had melted out of Rebecca's face; she was nothing but +gentleness, the tears falling down her cheeks, her voice broken with +love. "Alice, be good, dear. Be good. Be good. And I--I _will_ be +pleasanter, Alice; I'll try, indeed; I'll try--" + + + + +VI + +"Well," said Mr. Amos Hughes, a week later, in the cool dusk of Dr. +Lavendar's study, just before tea, "this is a most extraordinary +situation, sir!" + +"Will ye have a pipe?" said Dr. Lavendar, hospitably. + +John Carter, his feet well apart, his back to the fireless grate, his +hands thrust down into his pockets, said, looking over at his partner: + +"Amos, Dr. Lavendar once remarked to me that there was no telling what +human critters would do." + +Dr. Lavendar chuckled. + +"Very true," Amos Hughes admitted, putting one fat knee over the other; +"but I must say that I never before knew a human critter throw away +£5000." + +"I'm sorry you haven't had better acquaintances," said Dr. Lavendar. +"I have. I'm not in the least surprised at this child's behavior. Mr. +Carter, are you looking for anything? You'll find a decanter on the +sideboard in the next room, sir. This is a pretty good world, Mr. Amos +Hughes; I've lived in it longer than you have, so you'll take my word +for it. It's a pretty good old world, and Miss Alice Gray has simply +decided to do the natural and proper thing. Why, what else could she +do?" + +"I could mention at least one other thing," said Mr. Carter. + +"Extraordinary situation! but I suppose the residuary legatees won't +make any objection," murmured Amos Hughes. + +Dr. Lavendar rapped on the table with the bowl of his pipe. "My dear +sir, would you have a girl, for a paltry £5000, break her father's +heart?" + +"Her father?" + +"Mr. Gray would not, in my judgment, survive such a revelation," said +Dr. Lavendar, stiffly. + +"May I ask one question?" John Carter said. + +"G'on," said Dr. Lavendar. + +"What I would like to know is: How did you bring Miss Gray to look at +the thing in this way?" + +"I didn't bring her," said Dr. Lavendar, indignantly; "her Heavenly +Father brought her. Look here, sir; this business of the law is all +very well, and necessary, I suppose, in its way, but let me tell you, +it's a dangerous business. You see so much of the sin of human nature +that you get to thinking human nature has got to sin. You are +mistaken, sir; it has got to be decent. We are the children of God, +sir. I beg that you'll remember that--and then you won't be surprised +when a child like our Alice does the right thing. Surprise is +confession, Mr. Carter." + +Mr. Carter laughed, and apologized as best he could for his view of +human nature; and Dr. Lavendar was instantly amicable and forgiving. +He took Mr. Amos Hughes's warning, that he should, as a matter of duty, +lay very clearly before the young lady the seriousness of what she +proposed to do, and not until he had exhausted every argument would he +permit her to sign the papers of release which (as a matter of +precaution) he had prepared. "She's of age," said Amos Hughes, "and +nobody can say that she has not a right to refuse to proceed further in +the matter. But I shall warn her." + +"'Course, man," said Dr. Lavendar; "that's your trade." + +And so the evening came, and the three men went up to Robert Gray's +house. + +It was a long evening. More than once Dr. Lavendar trembled as he saw +the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them spread before his +child's eyes. But he said no word, and once, sternly, he laid his hand +on Rebecca's arm to check some word of hers. + +"Let her alone," he said. + +It was eleven o'clock before there came a moment of solemn silence. +Alice bent over a paper, which John Carter had read aloud to her, and +signed her name. Luther and Rebecca and Dr. Lavendar witnessed the +signature. Then Rebecca Gray took the girl in her arms. + + +"That young man has got something to him," Mr. Amos Hughes said, as +they went back to the Rectory. + +"If you could put some printing in his way, it would be a favor to me," +said Dr. Lavendar. + +"I shouldn't wonder if I could," the lawyer said. + +"The girl is a fine creature, poor child," said Mr. Carter. + +"Gentlemen," said Dr. Lavendar, "they are both good children, and they +have behaved well; but there's somebody else, let me tell you!" + +However, he did not tell them. Perhaps he kept his opinion for Robert +Gray's ears, for once he said, smiling, in Rebecca's presence: + +"Robert, this wife of yours is a noble woman." + +Mr. Gray, a little surprised, said, politely, looking with kind eyes at +Rebecca, "Mrs. Gray is a very good wife, sir." + +And Rebecca went up and hid herself in the garret and cried with joy. + + + + +AT THE STUFFED-ANIMAL HOUSE + + +I + +Willy King's buggy, splashed to the top of the hood with mud and +sagging sidewise on its worn old springs, came pulling up the hill past +the burial-ground. The doctor himself, curled in one corner, rested a +leg on the dash-board and hung his reins on the hook over his head. He +was very sleepy, for he had been up until three with an old woman who +thought she was sick, and he had been routed out of bed again at five +because she told her family that she was going to die. William King +was not given to sarcasm, but he longed to say to the waiting +relatives, "There is no hope!--she'll live." Instead, he looked +seriously sympathetic and kept his thoughts to himself. When he got +home to breakfast, his wife told him how foolish he was to take so much +trouble. "There's nothing the matter with Mrs. Drayton," said Mrs. +King; "and I should tell her so, flatly and frankly. It would do her +good." + +William said that he would like another cup of coffee. + +"It wouldn't be good for you," said his Martha; "you are drinking too +much coffee. You can have shells if you want to. Shall I have some +shells warmed up?" + +William said "No," and went trudging off to his office; and then, at +ten, started on his round of calls, his old buggy still unwashed from +the morning jaunt to the hypochondriac's death-bed. The day was still +and sunny, the road quite deserted and full of pleasant shadows under +the May foliage. But the sleepy doctor saw it all through half-closed +eyes, and yawned, and rested one plump leg on the dash-board, and let +the reins hang swaying from the hook in the roof of the bug-pry. Then, +suddenly, his mare stopped and William opened his eyes. + +"Caught you napping, Willy!" said a loud, hearty voice. And the doctor +sat up and drew his leg in and laughed. + +"Well, Miss Harriet, how do you know but what I was worrying over a +case?" + +"Much worrying you do, young man!" She sat down on a log on the +road-bank and smiled at him. She was a big, vigorous woman with a +fresh, brown face and a keen, kind eye. She had a gun in her hand, and +a rabbit's white tail stuck out of the hunting-wallet slung over her +shoulder. She had broken through the underbrush on the hill-side just +as Willy's buggy jogged into the shadow of a sycamore that stretched +its mottled arms over the deserted road. + +"Willy," she went on, in her loud, cheerful voice, "do you doctor-men +smile at one another when you meet, like the Augurs, because you fool +us so easily with your big words? You call a scratched finger an +'abrasion of the epidermis'--and then you send a bill. And, bless me! +what a serious air you put on at a minute's notice!--I saw you pull +your leg in, Willy. Come, now; you were in my Sunday-school class--why +don't you just admit to me that that piercing look over your +eye-glasses is one of the tricks of the trade? I won't tell." + +William King chuckled. "You just get a touch of lumbago, Miss Harriet, +and you'll believe in my tricks." + +"Lumbago!" said his reviler. "Not I; a day's shooting would cure it +quicker than a barrel of your pills." + +"Been shooting this morning?" + +"No; I set a trap in Dawson's hollow." She pulled out the rabbit and +held it up. "Not a bone broken. Handsome, isn't he? Poor little +thing!" + +William looked at the soft, furry creature, limp in the big brown hand, +with critical appreciation. "Yes, beautiful. Miss Annie didn't find +him, to let him out?" + +The hunter's face changed to amused impatience. "Willy, she opened +three traps last week. And she was so shrewd about it; you would never +believe how clever she is. Of course it's no use to scold." + +"Of course not. What excuse does she make?" + +"Oh, just the same thing: 'Sister, it hurts me to think they can't get +out.'" + +"Poor thing!" said the doctor. + +"I have tried to make her promise not to interfere with the traps. You +know, if I could once get a promise out of her I would be all right; +Annie never broke a promise in her life. But she is too shrewd to be +led into it. She always says, 'I'm the oldest, and you mustn't order +me round.' It would be funny if it weren't so provoking." + +"Poor thing!" said the doctor again. + +"She follows me and takes the bait out of the traps once in a while; +but she prefers to let things go. And she is certainly wonderfully +bright about it," Miss Harriet said. "Now, why can't she be sensible +in other things?" + +"Well, you know she has always been about twelve; it's the young head +on old shoulders." + +"I must tell you her last performance," Miss Harriet said. "You know +that picture of Aunt Gordon that hung in the dining-room? Dreadful +thing! I never saw the poor woman, but I believe she wasn't quite as +ugly as that portrait, though Alex looks just like her, Dr. Lavendar +says; and Alex is dreadfully ugly, with those pale eyes of his. Well, +I happened to say--it was last Tuesday, at tea, and Matty Barkley was +there: 'That picture of Aunt Gordon is awful! I can't bear it.' Of +course I never thought of it again, until I came home the next day--and +what do you suppose?" + +Willy began to grin. + +"Yes! she had got up on a chair, if you please, and cut it out of the +frame and slashed it all to pieces." + +"Well done!" said Willy King, slapping his thigh. + +"No such thing. It was ugly, but it was a family portrait." + +"What did she say?" + +"Oh, she had her excuse.... Willy, I can't understand her mind; it is +so unreasonably reasonable: 'Sister, you said you couldn't bear it, so +what was the use of having it?' After all, that was sense, William." + +"So it was," said the doctor, and unhooked his reins and nodded. +"Well," he said-- + +But Miss Harriet laughed awkwardly. "Wait a minute, can't you? It +won't kill anybody to do without a pill for five minutes." + +"Well, no, I suppose it won't," William admitted; "but with a view to +getting home in time for dinner--" + +"Oh, let Martha wait. Willy, you are the meekest being--let her wait. +Tell her you'll have your dinner when you're good and ready." + +"Martha is only concerned on my own account," the loyal William +protested. + +"Well, I'm not going to keep you long," his old friend said, roughly; +"I--I just want to ask you a question." Her face grew suddenly a dull +red. "Not that I believe in your pills and potions--just please +remember that. But I suppose you do know a little something." + +"I could diagnose a scratched finger," said the doctor, meekly. + +"Well--" she said, and looked at the lock of her rifle; "there's +nothing in the world the matter with me, but--" + +"You don't look like a confirmed invalid," the doctor assured her. + +"No!--do I?" she said, eagerly. "I really am very well, William--very +well. Dear me, when I get home after a round of my traps (when Annie +hasn't teased me by letting things out) and eat a good dinner, and sit +down with a taxidermy magazine, I--I wouldn't thank King George to be +my uncle. Yes, I am _very_ well." + +Her emphasis had in it a certain agitation that caught the doctor's +eye. "Your out-of-door life is calculated to keep you well," he said. + +Miss Harriet got up and thrust the rabbit back into the pouch at her +side. "Of course; and, anyhow, I'm not the sick kind. Imagine me shut +up between four walls! I should be like Sterne's starling. Do you +remember?--'I want to get out, I want to get out.' No, there's nothing +the matter with me. Absolutely nothing." + +She did look very well, the big, brown woman, towering up at the +road-side, with her rifle in her hand and the good color in her cheeks +and lips. Yet her eyes had a worn look, William thought. "Pain +somewhere," said the doctor to himself. + +"You know, I don't believe in your pills and truck," she insisted, +frowning. + +"Of course not," he assured her easily. "Come, now, Miss Harriet, +what's wrong?" + +"Nothing, I tell you," she said, sharply; and then, with impatient +brevity, she spoke of some special discomfort which had annoyed her. +"It began about six months ago." + +"Probably you've taken cold," William King said, and then he asked a +question or two. She answered with irritable flippancy: + +"Now don't put on airs, Willy. There's no use trying to impress me; I +know you. Remember, you were in my Sunday-school class." + +"Why didn't you make a better boy of me, then? You had your chance. +Miss Harriet, would you mind coming into my office and just letting me +look you over? Come, now, why shouldn't I get a job out of you for +once? Here you tackle me on the road-side and get an opinion for +nothing." + +She chuckled, but retorted that she hated doctors and their offices. +"I'm not that Drayton cat," she said, "always wanting a doctor to fuss +over me. No, you can give me a pill right here--though I haven't a bit +of faith in it." + +"I wouldn't waste a good pill on you," the doctor defended himself. +"You've got to come and see me." + +But when she had promised to come, and William, slapping a rein down on +the mare's flank, was jogging along under the sycamore branches, he did +not fall into his pleasant drowse again. "She looks so well," he said +to himself, "she must be all right--" + + + + +II + +Miss Harriet's house, called by Old Chester children "The +Stuffed-Animal House," was on the hill-road a stone's-throw beyond the +burial-ground. It was of weather-worn brick, and its white lintels, +carved in thin festoons of fruit and flowers, were nearly hidden by ivy +that stretched dark figures over the marble, and, thickening with the +years across the tops of the windows, made the rooms within dim with +wavering leaf shadows. A brick path, damp and faintly green with moss, +ran down to a green gate set in a ragged privet hedge that was always +dusty and choked with dead twigs. The house itself was so shaded by +horse-chestnuts that grass refused to grow in the door-yard. A porch +shadowed the front door, which opened into a dark, square hall, full of +dim figures that hung from the ceiling and stood in cases against the +walls. A dusty crocodile stretched overhead, almost the width of the +hall; a shark, with varnished belly splitting a little under one fin +and showing a burst of cotton, lurked in a dim corner; over the parlor +door a great snake, coiled about a branch, looked down with glittering, +yellow eyes; and along the walls were cases of very beautiful birds, +their plumage dulled now, for it was forty years since Miss Harriet's +father had made his collection. But all around the hall were +glistening eyes that stared and stared, until sometimes an Old Chester +child, clinging to a mother's protecting hand, felt sure they moved, +and that in another moment the crocodile's jaws would snap together, or +the eagle's wings would flap horribly in the darkness. + +Yet there was an awful joy to Old Chester youth in being allowed to +accompany a mother when she made a polite call on Miss Harriet. This +hall, that was dark and still and full of the smell of dead fur and +feathers and some acrid preservative, had all the fascination of +horror. If we were very good we were allowed to walk from case to case +with old Miss Annie, while our mothers sat in the parlor and talked to +Miss Harriet. Miss Annie could not tell us much of the creatures in +the cases, and for all she used to laugh and giggle just as we did, she +never really knew how to play that the hall was a desert island and the +wild beasts were lurking in the forest to fall upon us. + +"It isn't a forest, it's our front hall," Miss Annie would say; "and +you must do what I tell you, because I'm the oldest, and I don't want +to play desert island. But I'll show you my chickens," she would add, +with eager politeness. + +Sometimes, if Miss Annie were not in the room, we would hear Miss +Harriet tell some story about her mischievousness, and our mothers +would sigh and smile and say, "Poor dear!" Our mothers never said +"poor dear!" about us when we did such things. If one of us Old +Chester children had spoken out in church as Miss Harriet said Miss +Annie did once, and told Dr. Lavendar that he was telling a story when +he read in the morning lesson that the serpent talked to +Eve--"because," said Miss Annie, "snakes can't talk"--if we had done +such a dreadful thing, we should have been taken home and whipped and +sent to bed without any supper, and probably the whole of the third +chapter of Genesis to learn by heart. We should not have been "poor +things!" This was very confusing to Old Chester youth until we grew +older and understood. Then, instead of being puzzled, we shrunk a +little and stayed close to our mothers, listening to Miss Harriet's +stories of Miss Annie with strange interest and repulsion, or staring +furtively at the little old woman, who laughed often and had a way of +running about like a girl, and of smoothing back her gray hair from her +temples with a fluttering gesture, and of putting up her lip and crying +when she was angry or frightened or when she saw anything being hurt. +Miss Annie could never bear to see anything hurt; she would not let us +kill spiders, and she made us walk in the grass instead of on the brick +path, because the ants came up between the bricks, and she was afraid +we would step on them. + +"Annie is very kind-hearted," Miss Harriet used to tell our mothers. +"She can't bear my traps." + +Miss Harriet's traps were her passion; her interest in taxidermy had +come to her from her father, and though she had not been able to add +anything of real value to Mr. Hutchinson's collection, her work was +thoroughly well done; and she even made a fair sum of money each year +by sending her squirrels and doves to town for the Christmas trade. + +But more important than the money was the wholesome out-of-door life +her little business entailed, which had given her her vigorous body and +sane mind. She needed both to live with this gray-haired woman, whose +mind was eleven or twelve years old. It was not a bad mind for eleven +or twelve, Willy King used to say. Old Miss Annie had a sort of crude +common-sense; she could reason and determine as well as any other +twelve-year-old child--indeed, with an added shrewdness of experience +that sixty years of bodily age made inevitable. She knew, innocently, +much of life that other children were guarded from knowing; she knew +death, too, but with no horror--perhaps as we were meant to know +it--something as natural as life itself, and most of all as a release +from pain. For old Annie knew pain and feared it as only the body in +which the soul is not awake can fear it. She wept at the sight of +blood and moaned when she heard a squirrel squeak in the trap; she +shivered with passionate expectation of relief when Miss Harriet's +kindly chloroform brought peace to fluttering wings or beating claws. +When some soft, furry creature, hurt in the trap, relaxed into happy +sleep in the thick, sweet smell that came out of Miss Harriet's big +bottle, Miss Annie would laugh for joy, the tears of misery still wet +upon her wrinkled cheeks. + +"Don't come into my shop," Miss Harriet used to say, laughing and +impatient, when Miss Annie would follow her into the room in the barn +where she did her work--"don't come in here, and then you won't see +things that hurt your feelings." + +But Annie, smoothing her hair back from her temples with a curious, +girlish gesture, would only shake her head and sidle closer to her +sister, the young, guileless eyes in the withered face full of protest +and appeal. Her horror of pain lost Miss Harriet many a fine specimen; +for, in her pity for the trapped creatures, Annie, noiselessly, like +some Indian hunter, used to follow on her sister's footsteps through +the woods, lifting the baits out of the traps, or if she found a snared +creature unhurt, letting it go, and then creeping home, frightened at +Miss Harriet's anger, which, if she discovered the old child's +naughtiness, fell like a thunderbolt, and then cleared into patient +amusement, as a black shower brightens into sunshine. The big, kind +woman with a man's mind could not be angry at this poor creature; so +she did her duty by her and tried not to think about her. She went her +way, and set her traps, and prepared her few specimens, brushing Annie +or any other annoyance aside with careless good-nature. + +"Don't think about unpleasant things," she used to say, in her loud, +cheerful voice. "The trouble with you doctors and ministers," she told +Dr. Lavendar, "is that you make people think about their insides. It's +stomachs with Willy and souls with you. Nobody ought to know that they +have a stomach or a soul. I don't. A tree don't. And there isn't an +oak in Old Chester that isn't pleasanter than Mrs. Drayton. Yet she's +always fussing about her insides--spiritual and material." + +"It's when you don't have 'em that you fuss," Dr. Lavendar said; "the +trouble isn't too much soul, it's too little. And I guess it's the +same with stomachs." + +"Then you say Mrs. Drayton has no soul?" Miss Harriet said, pleasantly. + +"I never said anything of the sort," said Dr. Lavendar. + +As for Miss Harriet, she went on to Willy King's office, prepared, as +usual, to make him as uncomfortable as she could. But she never put +Willy out. Her flings at his profession tickled him immensely, and if +now and then the good, honest William practised, as Miss Harriet said, +a few of the tricks of his trade, he was not averse to sharing their +humor with some one who could appreciate it. + +"So you have that Drayton cat on your hands again?" Miss Harriet said, +plumping herself down in William's own chair in front of his office +table so that she could pick up and examine what she called his +"riffraff." ("Do open your windows, William. I don't see how you can +be so shut up. Po-o-o! how can people live so much in-doors?") + +"Well," said William, doing as he was bid, "she enjoys my visits and I +enjoy her checks. I don't complain." + +"That's like the profession," said Miss Harriet; "you put your hands in +our pockets whenever you get a chance. Well, you'll get nothing out of +my pocket, William, for there's nothing in it." + +"Miss Harriet," said William, chuckling--"you won't tell anybody, will +you? But Mrs.--well, I won't name names; that's not professional--" + +"Call her a 'Female,'" said Miss Harriet. + +"Well, a Female sent for me on Tuesday, in a dreadful hurry; I must +come, 'right off! quick!' I was just sitting down to breakfast, but of +course I ran--" + +"Martha must have been pleased?" + +"I ran; and arrived, winded. There was--the Female, at _her_ +breakfast. 'Oh,' she said, 'doctor, the baby has slept right through +from six last night, and he hasn't wakened up yet. I am afraid there +is something the matter with his little brain.'" + +"William, if you didn't say that there was something the matter with +_her_ little brain--" + +"I didn't," William said, grimly, "because she hasn't any. Now, Miss +Harriet, let's talk about yourself; it's pleasanter." + +"Oh, there was not the slightest occasion to come to see you. But I +said I would, and here I am. I suppose you'll send me a bill as long +as my arm. Do you have a system of charges, Willy? So much for a look +over your glasses? So much for that solemn cough? I suppose you grade +all your tricks. Now work off the most expensive ones on me; I propose +to get the worth of my money, young man." + +"Thought you said you weren't going to pay any bills?" William reminded +her; and then refused to be side-tracked any longer, but asked question +after question, bringing her up once or twice with a sharp turn. +"Don't joke now, please, Miss Harriet. Be as exact as you can. Is +this condition thus, or so--?" And when he got through with his +questions, he took up the joking rather heavily. + +"You're so faithless about pills," he said, "that I'm not going to give +you any." + +"What! no pills?" said Miss Harriet. + +William King laughed awkwardly. "Not a pill! I don't see any +condition which warrants them: but--" + +"What did I tell you? There's nothing the matter, and you just dragged +me here to give your office a busy look." + +"I didn't suppose you'd see through it," said Willy King. "But, Miss +Harriet, I--I don't feel _quite_ satisfied. I--do you know I've a +great mind to get a man in Mercer to look you over? I want you to go +up with me to-morrow and see him." + +"Nonsense!" + +"No, truly," he said; "I am not satisfied, Miss Harriet." + +"But what do you mean?" she insisted, sharply. "There's nothing the +matter with me. You said yourself I didn't need any medicine. Give me +some opiate to stop this--this discomfort when it comes on, and I'll be +all right." + +"You can't bear opiates," he said, bluntly; "your heart won't stand +them. Don't you remember the time you broke your ankle and I tried +morphine--a baby dose--to give you some relief? You gave me a scare, I +can tell you." + +Miss Harriet was silent. Then: "I've known my heart wasn't right for +two years. But--" + +"Oh, your heart doesn't give me any concern--if you don't take +liberties with it. Perhaps it isn't quite as good as it was thirty +years ago, but--" + +"Ah, I lost it to you then, Willy. You were a sweet little fellow when +you came into my class. Do you remember once when--" + +"Miss Harriet, you've got to go to Mercer with me to-morrow," William +King interrupted, quietly. "I hope there's nothing much out of the +way. I hope not. I--I believe not. But I'm not sure. We'll go up +and see Greylord and find out. He'll give you some pills, maybe," he +ended, and laughed and got up. "Now I'm off to the cat, Miss Harriet." + +And Miss Harriet, to her astonishment, found herself dismissed before +she had made the boy tell her what he was afraid of. "He _is_ a boy," +she said to herself. "Of course he wouldn't be apt to know what was +the matter. I ought to have gone to see some Mercer man to begin with. +I remember when Willy was born." + + + + +III + +When they came out of the Mercer doctor's door William King's fresh +face had gone white, but Miss Harriet walked smiling. At the foot of +the steps the doctor paused and stood an instant leaning on the +hand-rail, as though for support and to get his breath. Miss Harriet +looked at him with concern. "Why, Willy!" she said. + +"Miss Harriet," William said, hoarsely, "he may be mistaken. It's +perfectly possible that he is mistaken." + +"I guess not, Willy," she said, simply. "Come, now, don't be such a +wet string." She struck him a friendly blow on the shoulder that made +the doctor take a quick step forward to keep his balance; but it gave +him the grip upon himself that for a single instant he had lost. + +"And, anyhow," he said, "even if he is right, it may not develop. I've +known a case where it was checked for two years; and then the patient +died of small-pox." + +"Pleasant alternative," said Miss Harriet; she was smiling, her face +full of color, her shoulders back, her head up. "Come, Willy, let's +have a spree. Here we are for a day, and Martha's at home. We'll have +a good dinner, and we'll do something interesting. _Hurrah!_" said +Harriet Hutchinson. + +And the doctor could do no less than fall into step at that martial +note and march at her side proudly. And by some spiritual contagion +his courage met hers like the clash of swords. They went to get their +good dinner, and Miss Harriet ate it with appetite. Afterwards she +declared they would go to the circus. "It's in town; I saw the tents. +I haven't been to a circus for forty years," she said; "but I know just +how the pink lemonade tastes. You've got to treat, Willy." + +"I'll throw in pea-nuts," said William King; and with that they left +the restaurant and went sauntering along the hot, grimy street in the +direction of the open lots beyond the blast-furnaces, where, under a +deep June sky, dazzling even though it was smudged by coils of smoke, +were stretched the circus tents, brave with flags and slapping and +billowing in a joyous wind. William King held on to his hat and looked +at the great, white clouds, domed and shining, piled all along the +west. "We'll get a shower, I'm afraid, Miss Harriet." + +"Well, take a pill, Willy, and then it won't hurt you," she told him, +with a laugh that belonged to the sun and wind, to the flags whipping +out on their halyards and the signs of the side-shows bellying from +their guy-ropes, to the blare of music and the eager circus crowd--that +crowd that never changes with changing generations. Still there is the +old man gaping with excited eyes; still the lanky female in spectacles; +the cross elder sister afraid of crushing her fresh skirts; the little +boy absorbed in thought; the little girl who would like to ride on the +Shetland pony when the clown offers any miss in the audience an +opportunity. We know them all, and doubtless they know us, the +patronizing, amused on-lookers, who suddenly become as eager and +absorbed as any graybeard or child in the crowd. We know the red +boxes, too, where men with hard faces and wearied eyes shout +mechanically the same words of vociferous invitation to the side-shows. +Children, pulled along by their elders, would stop, open-mouthed, +before these men; but somehow they never see the wild man or the fat +lady. Ah, the regret for the unseen side-shows!--the lady with the +snakes; the skeleton man; the duel between the educated hyena and his +trainer--that hyena of whom the man in the red box speaks with such +convincing enthusiasm. "_I have been_," cries the strident voice--"_I +have been connected with circuses all my life--all my life, ladies and +gentlemen!--and I give you my sacred word of honor that this is the +most magnificent specimen of the terrible grave-robbing hyena that I +have ever seen!_" Why did we never see that hyena? Why, why did we +always hurry on to the main tent? It is the pang that even paradise +must know, of the lost experience of earth--or perhaps of hell. + +"We ought to see the fat lady," said Dr. King. + +"I'm afraid we'll be late," Miss Harriet objected, eagerly. + +So they pushed on with the impatient, good-natured crowd. The smell of +tan-bark and matted pelts and stale pea-nut shells came in a gust as +they jostled under the flap of the outer tent and found themselves +inside the circle of gilded cages. "Shall we go right in and get our +seats?" William said. + +"What! and not look at the animals? Willy, you're crazy. I want to +feed the elephants. Why, there are a lot of them, six or seven." + +So they trudged around the ring, their feet sinking deep into the +loose, trampled earth. Miss Harriet poked the monkeys clinging to the +grating of their car, with her big umbrella, and examined the +elephant's hide with professional interest. "Imagine curing that +proboscis," she said. And then they stopped in front of a miserable, +magnificent lion, turning, turning, turning in a cage hardly more than +his own length. Miss Harriet drew in her breath. "It's being trapped +that is so awful, Willy. The consciousness that _you can't get out_. +It isn't the--the pain of it; it's being trapped." + +William King, looking at the poor tawny creature of the desert and free +winds and life that dealt death with passion, blinked suddenly behind +his glasses. "But you trap things yourself," he protested, a moment +afterwards. + +"Oh, but I don't keep 'em trapped; I kill 'em," she defended herself. +"I couldn't keep things shut up. I'd be as bad as Annie if I saw any +living creature that wasn't free to get out-of-doors." And then she +pushed on to the next cage, and the next; then suddenly feared that +they would not get good seats if they wasted any more time among the +animals. "For we won't have any reserved doings," she said. "I want +to sit on those boards that I sat on forty years ago." + +She was as excited as she might have been forty years ago; and pushed +ahead into the big tent, dragging William by the hand, and climbing up +tier after tier, to get a good view of the ring. When they sat down, +she made haste to spread open the flimsy pink sheet of the programme +with its pale type, and read to William, in a loud, ecstatic voice, +just what was going to happen: + +"_Display No. 1. Gigantic Pageantric Prelude--presenting Equitational +Exercises, Hippo-dramatical Revivals, Pachydermical Aggregations--the +only terpsichorean Pachyderms ever taught to tread the mazes of the +Quadrille._ + +"_Display No. 2. Claire St. Jeal and her company--the loveliest +daughters of Italy, and world-famous bareback equestriennes--_" + +"You are sure you are not getting tired?" William King interrupted. + +"Tired?" she repeated, scornfully. "William, as Matty Barkley would +say, you are a perfect fool. Why should I be tired? I feel first +rate--never better. I wouldn't thank King George to be my uncle! I've +wanted to come to the circus for years. Willy, what will your wife +say?" + +"Nothing," said William, significantly. + +At which Miss Harriet laughed until the tears stood in her eyes. +"William, you have more sense than I gave you credit for. But I am not +sure that, as your Sunday-school teacher, I ought not to tell you to +confess. Hullo! look what's coming." + +Flare of banners! Prancing horses! Roman soldiers in rumbling +gold-and-crimson chariots! Elephants bearing, throned upon their +backs, goddesses of liberty and queens of beauty! Miss Harriet was +leaning forward, her lips parted with excitement. William King looked +at her and drew in his breath. + +[Illustration: "MISS HARRIET WAS LEANING FORWARD"] + +"'Not more than six months;' God grant not!--I wish it might not be +more than two." + +"Willy, read what comes next," she said, shoving the programme at him; +"I can't stop looking." + +The canvas was darkening a little overhead, so that William had to put +on his glasses and hold the printed sheet at arm's-length to decipher +the blurred, smudged text sufficiently to say that "Mademoiselle +Orinda, Queen of the Flying Trapeze, would give her marv--" + +"William--what shall I do about Annie?" Miss Harriet said. + +"You know we will all take care of Miss Annie," he said, tenderly; +"and--" + +"Oh, Willy, there's the red lemonade," she interrupted, standing up and +beckoning with her crumpled programme. "Did you ever see so deadly a +drink? You forgot the pea-nuts," she reminded him, reproachfully. And +when William secured his hot, brown-paper bag, she ate the pea-nuts and +watched the changing wonders of the ring with intent eyes. She laughed +aloud at the clown's endeavors to ride a kicking donkey, and when the +educated dogs carried one another about in a wheelbarrow she applauded +generously. "They are wonderful!" she said. + +William King looked at her keenly; it was all real. Miss Harriet was +incapable of pretence. + +The brilliant day, that had showed between lacings of the tent like +strings of sapphires, had dimmed and dimmed; and by-and-by, unnoticed +at first, there was the drip of rain. Here and there an umbrella was +raised, and once or twice a bedraggled man or woman led out a reluctant +child--"For I ain't a-goin' to have you catch your death of cold for no +trained elephants," a mother said, decidedly, pulling a whining boy +from beside Miss Harriet. + +"Perhaps," ventured the doctor, "we really ought to go. I can't have +you 'catch your death of cold,' Miss Harriet." + +"I won't die of a cold, William," she said, her eyes narrowing. + +And William swore at himself under his breath, but said, with clumsy +jocularity: "Well, not if I can help it. But I don't know why you +should be so sure; it might give you bronchitis for a year." + +"I won't have bronchitis for a year," Miss Harriet said, gazing at the +clowns. + +And William King swore at himself again. + +The rain increased to a downpour; little streams at first dripped, then +poured, upon the thinning benches. The great centre pole was streaming +wet; the clown stood in a puddle, and the red triangle on his +chalk-white forehead melted into a pink smear. + +"Really, Miss Harriet," William said, anxiously, "I'm afraid--" + +"If you're afraid for yourself, I'll go," she said; "but we ought to +wait for the grand concert. (Ah! there's the man with the red +balloons. If you had a half-dozen children, Willy, as you ought to +have, I'd buy him out.) Well, are you sugar or salt, to be so scared +of a drop of rain?" + +She did not look afraid of rain herself when she got up and pushed past +the scattered spectators, her hair glistening with drops, her cheeks +red, her eyes clear. "William," she said, when they got outside and +were hurrying along to catch the stage for Old Chester--"William, that +has done me good. I feel superbly. Do you know, I haven't had an +instant's pain since I first spoke of the thing to you? That's three +days entirely free. Why, such a thing hasn't happened in--in three +months. Just think of that--entirely free. William, I'll cheat you +doctor-men yet." She looked at him with glowing courage. "I feel so +well," she said. + +She held out her hand, there in the rain on the black cinder-path, and +William King struck his into it with a sort of shout. + +"Hurrah!" he said, as she had said when they had come out from hearing +the sentence in the Mercer doctor's office. + +The long ride home in the stage, in which they were the only +passengers, was perhaps a descending scale.... At first they talked of +the circus. "I liked the man and the bear best," William said. + +"Oh, he wasn't as fine as that beautiful lady in pink petticoats who +rode the fat, white horse. Did you ever see a horse with so broad a +back, Willy? Why, I could have ridden him myself." + +"He would need a broad back," William said; and Miss Harriet told him +to hold his tongue and not be impudent. The rain was pattering on the +roof and streaming down the windows, and in the dark, damp cavern of +the stage they could not see each other's face very well; but the +stretches of tense silence in the circus talk made William King's heart +beat heavily, although he burst out gayly that the afternoon had +brought back his youth. "Miss Harriet, when you were a child, didn't +you always want to poke around under the seats when it was over and +find things? William Rives once found five cents. But William would +find five cents in the Desert of Sahara. I never had his luck, but I +was confident that watches were dropped freely by the spectators." + +"Of course," cried Miss Harriet. "Or diamond-rings. My fancy led me +towards diamond-rings. But I suppose you never knew the envy of the +ladies' clothes? Dear me--those petticoats!" + +"The ring-master's boots were very bitter to me; but my greatest desire +was--" + +"Willy," Miss Harriet said, hoarsely, "I don't want anybody to know." + +"Of course not," William King said. "Why should they? We may hold +this thing at bay for--" + +"We will hold it at bay," she said, with passion. "I will! I _will_! +Do you hear me?" + +Willy King murmured something inarticulately; his eyes suddenly smarted. + +The ride to Old Chester seemed to him interminable; and when, after +wandering snatches of talk about the circus, the stage at last drew up +at the green gate in Miss Harriet's privet hedge, his nerves were tense +and his face haggard with fatigue. + +At home, at his belated supper-table, his good Martha was very severe +with him. "You oughtn't to allow yourself to get so tired; it's wrong. +You could just as well as not have ordered your things by mail. I must +say, William, flatly and frankly, that a doctor ought to have more +sense. I hope there was nobody in the stage you knew to talk you to +death?" + +"Miss Harriet came down," William said, "but she hadn't much to say." + +"I suppose she went to buy some of her horrid supplies?" Martha said. +"I can't understand that woman--catching things in traps. How would +she like to be caught in a trap? I asked her once--because I am always +perfectly frank with people. 'How would you like to be caught in a +trap, Miss Harriet?' I said. And she said, 'Oh, Annie would let me +out.' You never can get a straight answer out of Harriet Hutchinson." + +"My dear, I'll take another cup of tea. Stronger, please." + +"My dear, strong tea isn't good for you," Martha said. + + + + +IV + +When Miss Harriet woke the next morning the blue June day was flooding +her room. At first she could not remember.... What was the something +behind her consciousness? It came in an instant. "_Trapped_," she +said, aloud, and turned her head to see Miss Annie at her bedside. + +"What is trapped, sister?" said Miss Annie, her little old face +crumpling with distress. + +"I am," Harriet said; and laughed at the absurdity of telling Annie in +such a fashion. But of course there was no use in telling Annie. She +couldn't understand, and all that there was for her to know, the +ultimate fact, she would find out soon enough. The younger sister felt +a sick distaste of dealing with this poor mind; she wanted to be kind +to Annie; she had always wanted to be kind to her--but she didn't want +her round, that was all. And so she sent her off, patiently and not +ungently: "Don't bother me, Annie, that's a good girl. No--I don't +want any roses; take them away. No--I don't want to look at pictures. +You go away now, that's a good girl." + +And the wrinkled child obeyed meekly. But she told the deaf Augustine +that Harriet was cross. "I'm the oldest, and she oughtn't to order me +round," she whimpered. + +Poor Miss Annie was constantly being told to be a good girl and go +away, in the days that followed--days, to Miss Harriet, of that +amazement and self-concentration which belong to such an experience as +hers. There had been no leading up to this knowledge that had come to +her--no gradual preparation of apprehension or suspicion. The full +speed of living had come, _crash!_ against the fact of dying. The +recoil, the pause, the terrible astonishment of that moment when Life, +surging ahead with all his banners flying, flings himself in an instant +against the immovable face of Death--leaves the soul dazed by the +shock--dazed, and unbelieving. "_It cannot be._" That is the first +clear thought. It is impossible; there is a mistake somewhere. A day +ago, an hour ago, Death was lying hidden far, far off in the years. +Sometime, of course, he would arrive--solemn, inevitable, but +beneficent, or at least serene. He would send soft warnings before +him--faint tollings of fatigue, vague mists of sunset shadows. The +soul will be ready for him when he comes then; will even welcome him, +for after a while Life grows a little tired and is ready to grasp that +cool hand and rest. We all know how to meet Death then, with dignity +and patience. But to meet him to-morrow--to-day, even, when we are +full of our own business, of our own urgent affairs--the mere +interruption of it is maddening. Across the solemnity of the thought +comes with grotesque incongruity an irritated consciousness of the +_inconvenience_ of dying. + +As for Harriet Hutchinson--"I don't believe it," she said to herself, +that first morning. And then, breathlessly, "Why, I can't--die!" + +She was not afraid, as one counts fear, but she was absorbed; for there +is a dreadful and curiously impersonal interest in the situation that +takes possession of the mind in moments like this. No wonder she could +not think about Annie. She could not think about anything except that +that man in Mercer had said that in a very short time-- + +"Why, but it's perfectly ridiculous!" she told herself; "it _can't_ be. +I'm not sick--" + +As she lay there in her bed that morning, after she had sent Miss Annie +away, she lifted her hand--a large hand, with strong, square fingers, +brown with weather and rough with her work, and looked at it curiously. +It was a little thin--she had not noticed that before; but there it +was, eager, vital, quick to grip and hold, life in every line. And it +would be--still? No; she did not believe it. And, besides, it +couldn't be, it mustn't be. She had a hundred things to do. She must +do them; she couldn't suddenly--_stop_. Life surged up in a great wave +of passionate determination. She got up, eager to go on living, and to +deny, deny, deny! It was the old human experience which is repeated +and repeated until Life can learn the fulfilment of Death. Poor Life, +beaten by the whips of pain, it takes so long sometimes to learn its +lesson! + +In those weeks that followed--weeks of refusal, and then struggle, and +then acceptance, and last of all adjustment--Miss Harriet found old +Annie's companionship almost intolerable. She was very unreasonable +with her, very harsh even; but all she asked was solitude, and solitude +Annie would not give. She ran at her sister's heels like a dog; sat +looking at her with frightened eyes in the bad hours that came with +relentlessly increasing frequency; came whimpering to her bedside on +those exhausted mornings when Harriet would scourge her poor body onto +its feet and announce that she was going out. "These four walls +smother me," she used to say; "I must get out-of-doors." + +Sometimes it seemed as if the big, kind nature that had borne the +pin-pricks so patiently all these years had reached the breaking-point, +and another day or another hour of poor old Annie's foolish love would +cause it to burst out in frantic anger: + +"It hurts, sister?" + +"Yes, Annie; but never mind. If I could only get out-of-doors I +wouldn't mind." + +"Oh, sister, don't let it hurt." + +"Can't help it, Annie. Now, don't think about it, that's a good girl. +Maybe I can get out to-morrow a little while." + +"But I can't bear it." + +"Got to, my dear. Come, now, run away. Go and see your chickens." + +"Sister, I can't bear it." + +"Annie, you drive me wild. Augustine--oh, she can't hear. +_Augustine!_ you must take Miss Annie away. Annie, if you say another +word--" + +"I'm the oldest and I have a right to talk. Why don't you smell your +big bottle? When the squirrels smell it they are not hurt." + +"Well, I'm not a squirrel. Annie, if you stay another minute, +I'll--I'll-- Oh, for Heaven's sake, let me alone!" + +She could stand it, she told herself, if she was alone. For though she +finally accepted the fact, her own weakness she could not accept. "I +am ashamed," she told William King, angrily. + +"But there's nothing to be ashamed of," Willy King protested, in his +kind way. "Dear Miss Harriet--" + +"Hold your tongue. Nothing to be ashamed of? I guess if your body had +put your soul in a corner, with its face to the wall--I guess you'd be +ashamed. Yesterday I--I-- Well, never mind. But my body got me down, +I tell you--got my soul down. Isn't that something to be ashamed of? +Don't be an ass, William. I'm ashamed." + +It was this consciousness of her own weakness that made her hold +herself aloof from her friends. + +In those days people did not have trained nurses; they nursed one +another. It was not skilful nursing; it frequently was not wise, as we +count wisdom to-day; but it was very tender and loving, and it was very +bracing. In these softer times, when we run so easily to relief from +pain, we do not feel the presence of the professional nurse a check +upon our weakness; if we suffer, we are willing that this skilful, +noiseless machine, who will know exactly how to relieve us, shall see +the suffering. We are neither mortified nor humiliated by our lack of +endurance or of courage. But in Old Chester, when we were ill, and +some friend or relative came to sit by our bedside, we had--for their +sakes--to make an effort to control ourselves. If the effort failed, +our souls blushed. Miss Harriet would not run the risk of failure; her +body, as she said, got the better of her soul when she was alone; it +should not have the chance to humiliate her publicly; so, roughly, she +refused the friendly assistance so eagerly offered: "Thank you; +Augustine can look after me. I don't want anybody. And besides, I'm +perfectly comfortable. (William, I won't have anybody. Do you +understand? It's bad enough to disgrace myself in my own eyes; I won't +have Matty Barkley sit and look on.)" + +And William King put people off as well as he could: "I go in two or +three times a day, just to say how do you do; and Miss Annie is about +and can bring her anything she needs. And Augustine is very faithful. +Of course, she is deaf as a post, but she seems to know what Miss +Harriet wants." + +So the situation was accepted. "Here I am," she told the doctor, +grimly, "dying like a rat in a hole. If I could only get +out-of-doors!--or if I had anything to do!--I think it's the having +nothing to do that is the worst. But I'll tell you one thing, Willy--I +won't be pitied. Don't have people mourning over me, or pretending +that I'm going to get well. They know better, and so do I." + +Those who dared to pity her or who ventured some futile friendly lie +about recovery were met by the fiercest impatience. "How do I feel? +Very well, thank you. And if I didn't, I hope I wouldn't say so. I +hope I'm well enough bred not to ask or answer questions about +feelings. There is nothing in the world so vulgar," she said, and +braced herself to one or another imprudence that grieved and worried +all the kind hearts that stood by, eager to show their love. + +"It breaks my heart to see her, and there's nothing anybody can do for +her," Mrs. Barkley told Dr. Lavendar, snuffling and wiping her eyes. +"She positively turned Rachel King out of the house; and Maria Welwood +cried her eyes out yesterday because she was so sharp with her when +Maria said she was sorry she had had a bad night and hoped she'd soon +feel better." + +The old man nodded silently. "Poor Miss Harriet!" he said. + +"Don't say 'poor Miss Harriet!' to her. Dr. Lavendar, Harriet and I +have been friends since we were put into short dresses--and she spoke +to me to-day in a way--! Well, of course, I shall go back; but I was +ready to say I wouldn't. And she treats poor old Annie outrageously." + +Dr. Lavendar nodded again. He himself had seen her several times, but +she had never let him be personal: "Was Mrs. Drayton still gossiping +about her soul?" "Wasn't it nearly time to get a new carpet for the +chancel?" etc., etc. It was her way of defending herself--and Dr. +Lavendar understood. So he only brought her his kindly gossip or his +church news, and he never looked at her mournfully; but neither did he +ever once refer to a possible recovery--that poor, friendly pretence +that so tries the soul absorbed in its own solemn knowledge! + +But in the afternoon, after his talk with Mrs. Barkley, the old man +went plodding up the hill to the Stuffed-Animal House, with tender and +relentless purpose in his face. It was a serene September day, full of +pulsing light and fragrant with the late mowing. William King's mare +was hitched to a post by the green gate in the hedge, and the doctor +was giving her a handful of grass as Dr. Lavendar came up. "How is +Miss Harriet, Willy?" the old man said. + +William climbed into the buggy and flicked with his whip at the +ironweed by the road-side. "Oh--about the same. Dr. Lavendar, it's +cruel--it's cruel!" + +"What's cruel, William?" + +"I can't give her any opiate--to amount to anything." + +"Why?" + +"Her heart." + +"But you can't let her suffer!" + +"If I stopped the suffering," the doctor said, laconically, "it would +be murder." + +"You mean--" + +"Depressants, to amount to anything, would kill her." + +Dr. Lavendar looked up into the sky silently. Willy King gathered up +the reins. "And Annie?" Dr. Lavendar said. + +"She is just a poor, frantic child. I can't make her understand why +Miss Harriet shouldn't have two powders, when one 'sugar,' as she calls +it, gives her a little comfort for a little while. She says, 'Harriet +wouldn't let a squirrel stay hurt.' Miss Harriet says she told her the +other day that she wasn't a squirrel; but it didn't seem to make any +difference to Miss Annie. She has a queer elemental reasonableness +about her, hasn't she? Well, I must go. Dr. Lavendar, I--I hope you +won't mind if I say that perhaps--I mean she doesn't want anybody to +refer to--to anything religious." + +"William," said the old man, mildly, "if you can mention anything which +is not religious to a woman who is going to die within a very few +weeks, I will consider it." + +And William King had the grace to blush and stammer something about +Miss Harriet's hating anything personal. Dr. Lavendar listened +silently; then he went on up the path to the Stuffed-Animal House. Old +Miss Annie let him into the darkened hall, a burst of western sunshine +flooding in behind him and making the grim, dead creatures dart out of +their shadows for a moment, and sink back into them again when the door +was shut. The old child had been crying, for Miss Harriet had turned +her out of her room, and so he had to sit there in the hall, under the +shark, and try to comfort her and bid her go out and see her chickens. +But for once Miss Annie would not be diverted: + +"Harriet wants to go out-of-doors, and she can't. And she is hurt; and +Willy King won't give her sugar in a paper to stop the hurting. He is +wicked." + +"By-and-by," said Dr. Lavendar, "Harriet will fall asleep and not be +hurt any more." + +"Not till she is dead," Miss Annie said; "Augustine told me so." + +"I meant that," Dr. Lavendar said, stroking the poor, gray head +grovelling against his knee. + +"Then why didn't you say so? It is a story to say sleep when you mean +dead." + +"I ought to have said dead," he acknowledged, gently, "so that you +could understand. But I want you to remember that death is a happy +sleep. Will you remember that?" + +"A happy sleep," Miss Annie repeated; "yes; I will remember. _A happy +sleep._" She lifted her head from his knee and smiled. "I'll go and +see my chickens," she said. + +[Illustration: "'A HAPPY SLEEP,' MISS ANNIE REPEATED"] + +And Dr. Lavendar took his way up-stairs, past the cases of birds, to +Miss Harriet's room. She received him with elaborate cheerfulness. + +As for Dr. Lavendar, he lost no time in pretence. "Miss Harriet," he +said, "I am not going to stay and talk and tire you. You've seen +people enough to-day--" + +"I'm not tired in the least." + +"But I have a word to say to you." + +She looked at him angrily. "I would rather not talk about myself, Dr. +Lavendar, please." + +"I don't want to talk about yourself," he said. + +Her face cleared a little. "That's a relief. I was afraid you were +going to talk to me about 'preparing,' and so forth." + +A sudden smile twinkled into Dr. Lavendar's old eyes. "My dear Miss +Harriet, you've been 'preparing' for fifty years--or is it fifty-one? +I've lost count, Harriet. No; you haven't got anything to do about +dying; dying is not your business. In fact, I sometimes think it never +is our business. Our business is living. Dying is God's affair." + +"I haven't any business, that's the worst of it," Miss Harriet said, +bitterly. "I've nothing to do--nothing to do but just lie here and +wait. I don't mind dying; but to be here in this trap, waiting. And +I've always been so busy, I don't know how to do nothing." + +"That's what I wanted to say to you. There is something you can do. +In fact, there's something you must do." + +"Something I must do?" Miss Harriet said, puzzled. + +"My dear friend, you must meet this affliction; you can't escape; we +can't save you from it. But there is one thing you can do: you can try +to spare the pain of it to other people. Set yourself, Miss Harriet, +to make it as easy as you can for those who stand by." + +Harriet Hutchinson looked at him in amazement. No pity? No +condolences? Nothing but the high charge to spare others. "You mean +my temper?" she said at last, slowly. + +"Yes," said Dr. Lavendar. + +Miss Harriet blushed hotly. "It is bad; I know it's bad. But--" + +"Mine would be worse," said Dr. Lavendar, thoughtfully. "But look out +for it, Harriet. It's getting ahead of you." + +Miss Harriet nodded. "You're right." + +"You see, when you are out of temper it shows you are suffering; and +that's hard for us to bear--not the temper, of course, but the +knowledge. So you've got to spare us, Harriet. Understand?" + +"I understand." + +"It will be hard work for you," he said, cheerfully; and somehow the +words meant, not pity, but "_Shoulder arms!_" + +For an instant they gazed, eye to eye--the woman devoured by pain, the +old man with his calm demand; and then the soul of her rose with a +shout. What! there was something left for her to do? She need not +merely sit still and die? She need not wait idly for the end? It was +a splendid summons to the mind--a challenge to the body that had dogged +and humiliated the soul, that had wrung from her good-humored courage +irritability and unjust anger, that had dragged her pride in the dust +of shame, yes, even--even (alone, and in the dark), but even of tears. + +"_Make it as easy as possible for those that stand by._" + +Some might say that that austere command was the lash of the whip; but +to Miss Harriet it was the rod and the staff. The Spartan old man had +suddenly revealed to her that as long as the body does not compel the +soul, there is no shame. As long as she could hold her tongue, she +said to herself, she need not be ashamed. Let the body whimper as it +may, if the soul is silent it is master. Miss Harriet saw before her, +not humiliation and idleness and waiting, but fierce struggle.... And +it was a struggle. It was no easy thing to be amiable when good Maria +Welwood wept over her; or when Martha King told her, flatly and +frankly, that she was doing very wrong not to make more effort to eat; +or even when Mrs. Dale hoped that she had made her peace with Heaven. + +"Heaven had better try to make its peace with me, considering," said +Miss Harriet, grimly; but when she saw how she had shocked Mrs. Dale, +she made haste to apologize. "I didn't mean it, of course. But I am +nervous, and say things to let off steam." Such an admission meant +much from Miss Harriet, and it certainly soothed Mrs. Dale. + +But most of all, Harriet Hutchinson forbade her body to dictate to her +soul when Miss Annie hung whimpering about her with frantic persistence +of pity. Never in all their years together had Miss Harriet shown such +tenderness to Annie as now, when the poor old child's mere presence was +maddening to her. For Annie could think of nothing but the pain which +could not be hidden, and her incessant entreaty was that it should be +stopped. "Wouldn't you rather be dead, sister?" + +"Yes, Annie." + +"Well, then, be dead." + +"I can't, Annie. Now let us talk of something else. Tell me what the +black hen did when the speckled hen stole her nest." + +Annie joyously told her story, as she had told it dozens of times +before; while Harriet Hutchinson turned her face to the wall. Annie +sat on her heels on the floor beside the bed, rocking back and forth, +and talking: "And so the speckled hen flew off. Sister, I'll get you +your big bottle?" + +No answer. + +"Sister, don't you want to smell the bottle?" + +"No, Annie. No--no--_no_! Oh, Annie, don't you want to go and see +your chickens?" + +"Why not?" + +"Because it wouldn't be right, Annie." + +"Why wouldn't it be right, sister?" + +"Because," said Harriet Hutchinson--"because I suppose that's one of +the things that would 'make it harder for those that stand by.'" + +"I don't understand," poor old Annie said, timidly. + +"Well, Annie, that's the only reason I know of. Oh, Annie, Annie! it +is the only reason there is; it is the root of its being wrong." ... +And then the long moan. When Miss Annie heard that sound she shivered +all over; it was the elemental protest of the flesh, which cannot +understand the regal and unconquered soul. + +Those were hard days for Willy King, what with his affection and his +sympathy and his daily struggles with Miss Annie; "for she is frantic," +he told Dr. Lavendar. They were walking up the hill together in the +late afternoon. Miss Harriet had sent for the old man, on whom now she +leaned even more than on William King, for Dr. Lavendar gave her +granite words instead of Willy's tenderer sympathy. "She insists that +I shall give Miss Harriet something--'stuff out of Harriet's bottle,' +she says. I suppose she means chloroform. I wish to God I could." + +"God will do His own work, William." + +"Yes, sir; but it's such a waste--this courage that fairly breaks our +hearts." + +"Waste! William, what are you talking about? We are every one of us +richer for it. I told her so yesterday." + +"Well," said William King, thoughtfully, "perhaps so; in this case we +are richer, I admit. But suppose it were a baby that was suffering--or +a dog? Only, we wouldn't let the dog suffer. Dr. Lavendar, one of +these days--you and I won't live to see it, but one of these days--" + +"There is Miss Annie now," said Dr. Lavendar. "Why--look at her!" + +The old woman came fluttering down the path towards the green gate in +the privet hedge; she was smoothing her hair back from her temples, +with her strange, girlish gesture, and she was smiling, but there was a +new and solemn age in her face that made the two men look at each +other, startled and wondering. + +"Dr. Lavendar! Willy!" she said, her voice breaking with joy, "Harriet +is dead--oh, Harriet is dead!" + +They stopped short in the pathway. "What--what?" stammered William +King. + +"Oh, Harriet is dead!" the old woman said; "and I'm so happy." She +came and leaned on the closed gate at the foot of the path, smiling up +into their faces. "She isn't hurt any more. Oh, I can breathe, I can +breathe, now," said Miss Annie, laying her withered hands upon her +throat and drawing a deep breath. + +"When?" said the doctor. + +"Oh, just a little while ago. As soon as she got dead I opened the +windows and let the air blow in; she likes the wind when she isn't +hurt." + +William King said, suddenly, "_My God!_" and turned and ran up the +path, into the house, into the room, where, indeed, there was no more +hurting. + +"Annie," Dr. Lavendar said, "were you with her?" + +"Yes," Miss Annie said. "Harriet was hurt very much. But when she +smelled her bottle she stopped being hurt." + +Dr. Lavendar leaned against the gate, his breath wavering; then he sat +down on the grass, and rested his forehead on his hands clasped on the +top of his stick. He was unable to speak. Miss Annie came out into +the road and looked at him curiously. After a while he said, feebly, +"Annie, tell me about it." + +"Willy wouldn't give Harriet sugar in a paper to stop the hurting. And +Harriet said she couldn't get her bottle. She said it would be wrong +for her to get it." + +Dr. Lavendar lifted his head with a quick gesture of relief. "What! +Harriet, didn't get it herself?" + +"Oh no," Miss Annie said. "I got it. And I went into Harriet's room. +Harriet's eyes were shut, and she was--was moaning," said Miss Annie, +shivering. "So I put some stuff out of the bottle on a towel and held +it for Harriet to smell. And Harriet opened her eyes and looked +frightened, and she said, 'No, no!' And I said, 'Yes; I'm the oldest +and you must do what I say.' And she said, 'Augustine! Augustine!' +But Augustine can't hear. And I held it down and I said, 'You won't be +hurt any more.' And Harriet pushed it away and said 'No.' And then +she shut her eyes. And after a while she didn't say anything more. +And I held it, oh, a long time. And then I looked, and Harriet's eyes +were shut. And now she's dead! And it doesn't hurt any more. You +come and look at her, and you'll see it doesn't hurt any more. Now she +wouldn't thank King George to be her uncle! Oh, she's dead," said Miss +Annie, nodding her head and laughing; "a happy sleep." She was +standing there in the dusty road in front of him, telling the story, +her hands behind her, rocking slightly backward and forward, like a +child repeating a lesson. The long afternoon shadows stretched from +the trees across the road, and, swaying lightly, flecked her gray head +with sunshine. + +"Annie," said Dr. Lavendar, "come here and sit beside me." + +She came, happily enough, and let him take her hand and hold it, +patting it softly for a moment before he spoke. + +"Annie, it was not right to give Harriet the stuff out of the bottle; +our Heavenly Father stops the hurting when He thinks best. So it does +not please Him for us to do it when we think best." + +"But Willy gave Harriet one sugar in a paper, and that stopped it a +little," Miss Annie said, puzzled; "and if he stopped it a little, why +shouldn't it all be stopped?" The obvious logic of the poor mind +admitted of no answer--certainly no argument. + +Dr. Lavendar said, gravely, stroking the hand, as wrinkled as his own: +"It was not right, my child. You will believe me when I say so? And I +do not want any one to know that you did a thing that was not right. +So I want you to promise me now that you will not tell any one that you +did it. Will you promise me?" + +"Willy knows it, I guess," Miss Annie said. + +Dr. Lavendar was silent. Just what had William heard her say? Only +that Miss Harriet was "dead." "I am pretty sure that Willy doesn't +know it," he said, slowly. "And I am quite sure he would prefer not to +know it; so you mustn't tell him. But you can't understand about that, +Annie. You'll just have to believe me. Will you promise me?" + +"Why, yes," Miss Annie said, indifferently, smiling up at the moving +leaves. "Oh, Harriet isn't hurt now!" + +Dr. Lavendar trembled with anxiety. "I want a solemn promise, Annie. +What do the children do when they make a solemn promise?" + +Miss Annie was instantly interested. "Why, they cross their breast and +say 'honest and true'; don't you know?" ... + +"Well, then," said Dr. Lavendar, slowly, "you will make a promise to me +in that way." He stood up and took her hand, his face very pale. +"Promise me that never, so long as you live, will you tell any one--any +one, Annie--that you made Harriet fall asleep by giving her the big +bottle to smell. Now, make the promise, Annie." + +Miss Annie slowly crossed her breast. "I promise," she said, in a low +voice; her eyes, widening with awe, were fixed on his face. "I promise: + + "Honest and true, + Black and black and blue, + Lay me down + And cut me in two-- + +if I do." + +"_Amen!_" said Dr. Lavendar; and took off his hat, and stood looking up +into the sky, his lip trembling. "Father," he said, "I don't even say +'forgive her!' She is Thy little child." And then they stood for a +moment hand in hand in the sunny silence. + + + + +THE END + + + + +BY ONOTO WATANNA + +A JAPANESE NIGHTINGALE. A love story of Japan. Full-page Drawings in +Color and unique Decorative Color Borders on every page, by the +well-known Japanese artist GENJIRO YETO. Crown 8vo, Ornamented Cloth, +Deckel Edges, Gilt Top (in a box), $2.00 net. + +There could not easily be a more charming volume to look at than this, +nor a more delightfully appealing romance to read.--_New York World_. + +An idyl of the author's homeland, delicate in fancy and dainty in +expression.--_Public Opinion_. + +The author and the artist together have produced a charming work of +art, as thoroughly imbued with the Japanese spirit as a bit of old +Satsuma.--_Buffalo Express_. + +"A Japanese Nightingale" is one of the daintiest and most exquisite of +love stories; ... indeed, so exquisite is her art, and so delightful +the humor of her pages, that more than one critic has spoken of the +story as "A Japanese Kentucky Cardinal."--_New York Journal_. + +It is full of poetry and charm.--_Current Literature_. + +A delicious vein of humor runs through the story, especially in the +love scenes, and the style is distinct with the lyrical delicacy of +Japanese thought.--_Brooklyn Eagle_. + + +HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS + +NEW YORK AND LONDON + +_The above work will be sent by mail to any part of the United States, +Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price_. (_Postage 15 cents._) + + + + +BY ROBERT W. CHAMBERS + +THE MAID-AT-ARMS. Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy. Post 8vo, +Ornamented Cloth, $1.50. + +Mr. Chambers has long since won a most enviable position among +contemporary novelists. The great popular success of "Cardigan" makes +this present novel of unusual interest to all readers of fiction. It +is a stirring novel of American life in days just after the Revolution. +It deals with the conspiracy of the great New York land-owners and the +subjugation of New York Province to the British. It is a story with a +fascinating love interest, and is alive with exciting incident and +adventure. Some of the characters of "Cardigan" reappear in this new +novel. + + +HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS + +NEW YORK AND LONDON + +_The above work will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of +the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price_. + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Dr. Lavendar's People, by Margaret Deland + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DR. LAVENDAR'S PEOPLE *** + +***** This file should be named 34427-8.txt or 34427-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/4/2/34427/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Dr. Lavendar's People + +Author: Margaret Deland + +Illustrator: Lucius Hitchcock + +Release Date: October 11, 2011 [EBook #34427] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DR. LAVENDAR'S PEOPLE *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<A NAME="img-front"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-front.jpg" ALT=""'I HAVE A PRESENT FOR YOU--A SISTER'" See p. 45" BORDER="2"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center"> +"'I HAVE A PRESENT FOR YOU—A SISTER'" <A HREF="#p45">See p. 45</A> +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t1"> +DR. LAVENDAR'S PEOPLE +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +BY +</P> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +MARGARET DELAND +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t4"> +AUTHOR OF "OLD CHESTER TALES" +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t4"> +ILLUSTRATED BY +<BR> +LUCIUS HITCHCOCK +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +NEW YORK AND LONDON +<BR> +HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS +<BR> +1903 +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t4"> +Copyright, 1903, by HARPER & BROTHERS. +<BR> +<I>All rights reserved.</I> +<BR> +Published October, 1903. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +TO +<BR> +DR. FRANCIS B. HARRINGTON +<BR> +These Stories are +<BR> +Dedicated +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +CONTENTS +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent" STYLE="margin-left: 10%"> +<A HREF="#chap0101"> +The Apotheosis of the Reverend Mr. Spangler</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent" STYLE="margin-left: 10%"> +<A HREF="#chap0201"> +The Note</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent" STYLE="margin-left: 10%"> +<A HREF="#chap0301"> +The Grasshopper and the Ant</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent" STYLE="margin-left: 10%"> +<A HREF="#chap0401"> +Amelia</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent" STYLE="margin-left: 10%"> +<A HREF="#chap0501"> +"An Exceeding High Mountain"</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent" STYLE="margin-left: 10%"> +<A HREF="#chap0601"> +At the Stuffed-Animal House</A> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +ILLUSTRATIONS +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent" STYLE="margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%"> +<A HREF="#img-front"> +"I HAVE A PRESENT FOR YOU—A SISTER'"</A> . . . <I>Frontispiece</I> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent" STYLE="margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%"> +<A HREF="#img-020"> +"DAVID'S HEAD SWAM"</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent" STYLE="margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%"> +<A HREF="#img-066"> +"SHE ALWAYS CAME INTO THE LIBRARY TO SAY GOOD-NIGHT TO HIM"</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent" STYLE="margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%"> +<A HREF="#img-074"> +"LURCHED FORWARD INTO A CHAIR, BREATHING LOUDLY"</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent" STYLE="margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%"> +<A HREF="#img-160"> +"MRS. BARKLEY ROSE, TAPPING THE TABLE WITH ALARMING LOUDNESS"</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent" STYLE="margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%"> +<A HREF="#img-182"> +"MISS LYDIA, WATCHING HIM, GREW PALER AND PALER"</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent" STYLE="margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%"> +<A HREF="#img-230"> +"THERE SHE TURNED AND LOOKED BACK"</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent" STYLE="margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%"> +<A HREF="#img-242"> +"THOMAS DILWORTH GOT ON HIS FEET AND SWORE"</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent" STYLE="margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%"> +<A HREF="#img-288"> +"'WHAT IS THE NAME OF THE KIND PERSON?'"</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent" STYLE="margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%"> +<A HREF="#img-296"> +"SHE KNELT DOWN, AS USUAL, AT THE BIG CHINTZ-COVERED WINGED CHAIR"</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent" STYLE="margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%"> +<A HREF="#img-340"> +MISS HARRIET WAS LEANING FORWARD</A> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent" STYLE="margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%"> +<A HREF="#img-358"> +"'A HAPPY SLEEP,' MISS ANNIE REPEATED"</A> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0101"></A> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +THE APOTHEOSIS +<BR> +OF THE +<BR> +REVEREND MR. SPANGLER +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +Miss Ellen Baily kept school in the brick basement of her old frame +house on Main Street. +</P> + +<P> +The children used to come up a flagstone path to the side door, and +then step down two steps into an entry. Two rooms opened on this +entry; in one the children sat at small, battered desks and studied; in +the other Miss Baily heard their lessons, sitting at a table covered +with a red cloth, which had a white Grecian fret for a border and +smelled of crumbs. On the wall behind her was a faded print of +"Belshazzar's Feast"; in those days this was probably the only feasting +the room ever saw—although on a thin-legged sideboard there were two +decanters (empty) and a silver-wire cake-basket which held always three +apples. Both rooms looked out on the garden—the garden and, in fine +weather, <I>Mr. David Baily!</I> ... Ah, me—what it was, in the dreary +stretches of mental arithmetic, to look across the flower-beds and see +Mr. David—tall and dark and melancholy—pacing up and down, sometimes +with a rake, oftener with empty hands; always with vague, beautiful +eyes fixed on some inner vision of heart-broken memory. Miss Ellen's +pupils were confident of this vision because of a tombstone in the +burial-ground which recorded the death of Maria Hastings, at the +romantic age of seventeen; and, as everybody in Old Chester knew, Mr. +Baily had been in love with this same seventeen-year-old Maria. To be +sure, it was thirty years ago; but that does not make any difference, +"<I>in real love</I>," as any school-girl can tell you. So, when David +Baily paced up and down the garden paths or sat in the sunshine under +the big larch we all knew that he was thinking of his bereavement. +</P> + +<P> +In the opinion of the older girls, grief had wrecked Mr. David's life; +he had intended to be a clergyman, but had left the theological school +because his eyes gave out. "He cried himself nearly blind," the girls +told each other with great satisfaction. After that he tried one +occupation after another, but somehow failed in each; which was proof +of a delicacy of constitution induced by sorrow. Furthermore, he +seemed pursued by a cruel fortune—"Fate," the girls called it. +Elderly, unromantic Old Chester did not use this fine word, but it +admitted pursuing disaster. +</P> + +<P> +For instance: there was the time that David undertook the charge of a +private library in Upper Chester, and three months afterwards the owner +sold it! Then Mr. Hays found a job for him, and just as he was going +to work he was laid up with rheumatism. And again Tom Dilworth got him +a place as assistant book-keeper; and David, after innumerable tangles +on his balance-sheet, was obliged to say, frankly, that he had no head +for figures. But he was willing to do anything else—"<I>any</I> honest +work that is not menial," he said, earnestly. And Tom said, why, yes, +of course, only he'd be darned if he knew what to suggest. But he +added, in conjugal privacy, that David ought to be hided for not +turning his hand to something. "Why doesn't he try boot-blacking? +Only, I suppose, he'd say he couldn't make the change correctly. He +doesn't know whether two and two make five or three—like our Ned." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, they make four, Tom," said Mrs. Dilworth. And Thomas stared at +her, and said, "You don't say so!" +</P> + +<P> +There had been no end of such happenings; "and none of them my +brother's fault," Miss Ellen told the sympathetic older girls, who +glanced sideways at Mr. David and wished that they might die and be +mourned as Mr. David mourned Maria. +</P> + +<P> +The fact was, the habit of failure had fastened upon poor David; and in +the days when Miss Ellen's school was in its prime (before the new +people told our parents that her teaching was absurdly inadequate), he +was depending on his sister for his bread-and-butter. That Miss Ellen +supported him never troubled the romantic souls of Miss Ellen's pupils +any more than it troubled Miss Ellen—or Mr. David. "Why shouldn't +she?" the girls would have demanded if any such rudely practical +question had been asked; "he is so delicate, <I>and he has a broken +heart!</I>" So that was how it happened that the pupils were able to have +palpitating glimpses of him, walking listlessly about the garden, or +dozing in a sunny window over an old magazine, or doing some pottering +bit of carpentering for Miss Ellen, but never losing his good looks or +the grieved melancholy of his expression. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Miss Ellen had been teaching for twenty years. +</P> + +<P> +It is useless to deny that, unless one has a genius for imparting +knowledge, teaching is a drudgery. It was drudgery to Ellen Baily, but +she never slighted it on that account. She was conscientious about the +number of feet in the highest mountain in the world; she saw to it that +her pupils could repeat the sovereigns of England backward. Besides +these fundamentals, the older girls had Natural Philosophy every +Friday; it was not, perhaps, necessary that young ladies should know +that the air was composed of two gases (the girls who had travelled and +seen the lighted streets of towns knew what gas was), nor that rubbing +a cat's fur the wrong way in the dark would produce electric +sparks—such things were not necessary. But they were interesting, +and, as Mrs. Barkley said, if they did not go too far and lead to +scepticism, they would do no harm. However, Miss Ellen counteracted +any sceptical tendencies by reading aloud, every Saturday morning, +Bishop Cummings on the Revelation, so that even Dr. Lavendar was not +wiser than Miss Ellen's girls as to what St. John meant by "a time, and +a time, and a half of a time," or who the four beasts full of eyes +before and behind stood for. For accomplishments, there was fine +sewing every Wednesday afternoon; and on Mondays, with sharply pointed +pencils, we copied trees and houses from neat little prints; also, we +had lessons upon the piano-forte, so there was not one of us who, when +she left Miss Ellen's, could not play at least three pieces, viz., "The +Starlight Valse," "The Maiden's Prayer," and "The Last Rose of Summer." +</P> + +<P> +Ah, well, one may smile. Compared to what girls know nowadays, it is, +of course, very absurd. But, all the same, Miss Ellen's girls knew +some things of which our girls are ignorant: reverence was one; +humility was another; obedience was a third. And poor, uneducated folk +(compared with our daughters) that we of Old Chester may be, we are, if +I mistake not, glad that we were taught a certain respect for our own +language, which, though it makes the tongue of youth to-day almost +unintelligible, does give us a joy in the wells of English undefiled +which our children do not seem to know; and for this, in our dull Old +Chester way, we are not ungrateful. However, this may all be sour +grapes.... +</P> + +<P> +At any rate, for twenty painstaking years Miss Ellen's methods fed and +clothed Mr. David. Then came the winter of Dr. Lavendar's illness, and +the temporary instalment of the Reverend Mr. Spangler, and Ellen Baily +realized that there were other things in the world than David's food +and clothes. +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar, cross, unbelieving, protesting, was to be hustled down +South by Sam Wright; and the day before he started Mr. Spangler +appeared. That was early in February, and Dr. Lavendar was to come +back the first of May. +</P> + +<P> +"Not a day sooner," said Sam Wright. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll come when I see fit," said Dr. Lavendar. He didn't believe in +this going away, he said. "Home is the best place to be sick in. The +truth is, Willy King doesn't want me to die on his hands—it would hurt +his business," said Dr. Lavendar, wickedly; "I know him!" +</P> + +<P> +But to Mr. Spangler Dr. Lavendar said other things about Willy, and Sam +Wright, too; in fact, about all of them. And he pulled out his big, +red silk pocket-handkerchief with a trembling flourish and wiped his +eyes. "I don't deserve it," he said. "I'm a dogmatic old fogy, and I +won't let the new people have their jimcrackery; and I preach old +sermons, and I've had a cold in my head for three months. And yet, +look at 'em: A purse, if you please! And Sam Wright is going down with +me. Sam ought to be ashamed of himself to waste his time; he's a busy +man. No, sir; I don't deserve it. And, if you take my advice, you'll +pray the Lord that your people will treat you as you don't deserve." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Spangler, a tall, lean man, very correctly dressed, who was +depended upon in the diocese as a supply, made notes solemnly while Dr. +Lavendar talked; but he sighed once or twice, patiently, for the old +man was not very helpful. Mr. Spangler wanted to know what +Sunday-school teachers could be relied upon, and whether the choir was +very thin-skinned, and which of the vestry had chips on their shoulders. +</P> + +<P> +"None of 'em. I knocked 'em all off, long ago," said Dr. Lavendar. +"Don't you worry about that. Speak your mind." +</P> + +<P> +"I have," said Mr. Spangler, coughing delicately, "an iron hand when I +once make up my mind in regard to methods; firmness is, I think, a +clergyman's duty, and duty, I hope, is my watchword; but I think it +best to canvass a matter thoroughly before making up my mind." +</P> + +<P> +"It is generally wise to do so," said Dr. Lavendar, very meekly. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course," Mr. Spangler said, kindly, "you belong to a somewhat older +period, and do not, perhaps, realize the value of our modern ways of +dealing with a parish—I mean in regard to firmly carrying out one's +own ideas. I suppose these good people do pretty much as they please, +so far as you are concerned?" +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps they do," said Dr. Lavendar, very, very meekly. +</P> + +<P> +"So, not wishing to offend, I will ask a few questions: I have heard +that the parish is perhaps a little old-fashioned in regard to matters +of ritual? I have wondered whether my cassock would be misunderstood?" +</P> + +<P> +"Cassock?" said Dr. Lavendar. "Bless your heart, wear a pea-jacket if +it helps you to preach the Word. It will only be for ten Sundays," he +added, hopefully. +</P> + +<P> +The Reverend Mr. Spangler smiled at that; and when he smiled one saw +that his face, though timid, was kind. +</P> + +<P> +So Dr. Lavendar, growling and scolding, fussing about Danny and his +little blind horse Goliath, and Mr. Spangler's comfort, was bundled +off; and Mr. Spangler settled down in the shabby rectory. His iron +will led him to preach in his surplice, and it was observed that a +silver cross dangled from his black silk fob. "But it's only for ten +weeks," said Old Chester, and asked him to tea, and bore with him, and +did nothing more severe than smile when he bowed in the creed—smile, +and perhaps stand up a little straighter itself. +</P> + +<P> +This, of the real Old Chester. Of course the new people were pleased; +and one or two of the younger folk liked it. Miss Ellen Baily was not +young, but she liked the surplice better than Dr. Lavendar's black gown +and bands, and the sudden sparkle of the cross when Mr. Spangler knelt +gave her a pang of pleasure. David, too, was not displeased. To be +sure, David was rarely stirred to anything so positive as pleasure. +But at least he made no objections to the cross; and he certainly +brightened up when, on Saturday afternoon, Mr. Spangler called. He +even talked of Gambier, to which he had gone for a year, and of which, +it appeared, the clergyman was an alumnus. Miss Ellen had a pile of +compositions on the table beside her, and she glanced at one +occasionally so that she might not seem to expect any share in the +conversation. But, all the same, Mr. Spangler noticed her. He was not +drawn to the brother; still, he talked to him about their college, for +Mr. Spangler believed that being agreeable was just as much a +clergyman's duty as was changing the bookmarks for Advent or Lent; and +duty, as Mr. Spangler often said, was his watchword. Furthermore, he +was aware that his kindness pleased the silent, smiling woman seated +behind the pile of compositions. +</P> + +<P> +It pleased her so much that that night, after David had gone to bed, +she went over to Mrs. Barkley's to talk about her caller. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Ellen Baily," Mrs. Barkley said, briskly, as Miss Baily came +into the circle of lamplight by the parlor-table, "so you had a visitor +to-day? I saw him, cross and all." +</P> + +<P> +"It was a very small one," Miss Baily protested, "and only silver." +</P> + +<P> +"Would you have had it diamonds?" demanded Mrs. Barkley, in a deep +bass. "Oh, well; it doesn't really matter; there are only nine more +Sundays. But Sam Wright says he shall mention it when he writes to Dr. +Lavendar." +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose Dr. Lavendar saw it before he went away," Ellen said, with +some spirit. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, if he doesn't take his religion out in crosses, I suppose it's +all right. But he's not a very active laborer in the vineyard. I +suppose you know about him?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, no," Ellen said; "nothing except that he supplies a good deal." +</P> + +<P> +"Supplies? Yes, because his mother left him a house in Mercer, and +enough to live on in a small way; so he likes supplying better than +taking a charge where he'd have to work hard and couldn't have his +comforts." +</P> + +<P> +"Why doesn't he take a charge where he could have his comforts?" +</P> + +<P> +"Can't get the chance," Mrs. Barkley explained, briefly. "Not enough +of a preacher. And, besides, he likes his ease in Zion. Rachel +Spangler's old house, and her Mary Ann, and his father's library, +and—well, the flesh-pots of Mercer!—and supplying, just enough to buy +him his ridiculous buttoned-up coats. That's what he likes. I suppose +he uses the same old sermons over and over. Doesn't ever have to write +a new one. However, he's here, and maybe Old Chester will do him good. +Ellen Baily, did you know that we have a new-comer in Old Chester? A +widow. I don't like widows. Her name's Smily. Foolish name! She's +staying at the Stuffed Animal House. She's Harriet Hutchinson's +cousin, and she's come down on her for a visit." +</P> + +<P> +"Maybe she'll make her a present when she goes away," said Ellen, +hopefully. +</P> + +<P> +"Present! She needs to have presents made to her. She hasn't a cent +but what her husband's brother gives her. He's a school-teacher, I +understand; and you know yourself, Ellen Baily, how much a +school-teacher can do in that way?" +</P> + +<P> +Miss Ellen sighed. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," proceeded Mrs. Barkley, "I just thought I'd tell you about her, +because if we all invite her to tea, turn about, it will be a relief to +Harriet—(she isn't well, that girl; I'm really uneasy about her). And +I guess the Smily woman won't object to Old Chester food, either," said +Mrs. Barkley, complacently. "I've asked her for Tuesday evening, and I +thought I'd throw in Mr. Spangler and get him off my mind." +</P> + +<P> +"David likes him so much," Miss Ellen began. +</P> + +<P> +"Does he?" said Mrs. Barkley. "Well, tell him to come; he can talk to +Mr. Spangler. I'm afraid I might hurt the man's feelings if I had to +do all the talking. I seem to do that sometimes. Did you ever notice, +Ellen, that the truth always hurts people's feelings? But I knew his +mother, so I don't want to do anything to wound him. I won't ask you, +Ellen; I don't like five at table. But just tell David to come, will +you?" +</P> + +<P> +And Miss Baily promised, gratefully. David was not often asked out in +Old Chester. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0102"></A> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +The supper at Mrs. Barkley's was a great occasion to David Baily. +Right after dinner he went up to the garret, and Ellen heard him +shuffling about overhead, moving trunks. After a while he came down, +holding something out to his sister. +</P> + +<P> +"Guess I'll wear this," he said, briefly. It was an old black velvet +waistcoat worked with small silk flowers, pink and blue and yellow. +</P> + +<P> +"I haven't seen gentlemen wear those waistcoats lately," Miss Ellen +said, doubtfully. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. David spread the strange old garment across his narrow breast, and +regarded himself in the mirror above the mantel. "Father wore it," he +said. +</P> + +<P> +Then he retired to his own room. When he reappeared he wore the +waistcoat. His old black frock-coat, shiny on the shoulders and with +very full skirts, hung so loose in front that the flowered velvet +beneath was not conspicuous; but Mr. David felt its moral support when, +at least ten minutes before the proper time, he started for Mrs. +Barkley's. +</P> + +<P> +His hostess, putting on her best cap before her mirror, glanced down +from her window as he came up the path. "Ellen ought not to have sent +him so early," she said, with some irritation. "Emily!" she called, in +her deep voice, "just go to the front door and tell Mr. Baily to go +home. I'm not ready for him. Or he can sit in the parlor and wait if +he wants to. But he can't talk to me." +</P> + +<P> +Emily, a mournful, elderly person, sought, out of regard for her own +feelings, to soften her mistress's message; but David instantly +retreated to walk up and down the street, keeping his eye on Mrs. +Barkley's house, so that he could time his return by the arrival of Mr. +Spangler. +</P> + +<P> +"He'll come at the right hour, I presume," he said to himself. Just +then he saw Mrs. Smily stepping delicately down the street, her head on +one side, and a soft, unchanging smile on her lips. As they met she +minced a little in her step, and said: +</P> + +<P> +"Dear me! I'm afraid I've made a mistake. I'm looking for Mrs. +Barkley's residence." +</P> + +<P> +"Mrs. Barkley resides here," said Mr. David, elegantly. +</P> + +<P> +She looked up into his sad, dark eyes with a flurried air. "Dear me," +she said, "I fear I am late." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, not <I>late</I>," said poor David. "Perhaps we might walk up and down +for a minute longer?" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Smily, astonished but flattered, tossed her head, and said, Well, +she didn't know about <I>that</I>! But, all the same, she turned, and they +walked as far as the post-office. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid you are very attentive to the ladies," Mrs. Smily said, +coquettishly, when David had introduced himself; and David, who had +never heard a flirtatious word (unless from Maria), felt a sudden +thrill and a desire to reply in kind. But from lack of experience he +could think of nothing but the truth. He had been too early, he said, +and had come out to wait for Mr. Spangler—"and you, ma'am," he added, +in a polite after-thought. But his hurried emphasis made Mrs. Smily +simper more than ever. She shook her finger at him and said: +</P> + +<P> +"Come, come, sir!" And David's head swam. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-020"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-020.jpg" ALT=""DAVID'S HEAD SWAM"" BORDER="2"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center"> +"DAVID'S HEAD SWAM" +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +At that moment Mr. Spangler, buttoned to his chin in a black waistcoat, +came solemnly along, and, with his protection, David felt he could face +Mrs. Barkley. +</P> + +<P> +But, indeed, she met her three guests with condescension and kindness. +"They are all fools in their different ways," she said to herself, "but +one must be kind to them." So she made Mrs. Smily sit down in the most +comfortable chair, and pushed a footstool at her. Then she told Mr. +Spangler, good-naturedly, that she supposed he found Old Chester very +old-fashioned. "Don't you be trying any candles on us," she threatened +him, in a jocular bass. As for David, she paid no attention to him +except to remark that she supposed time didn't count with him. But her +bushy eyebrows twitched in a kindly smile when she said it. Then she +began to talk about Dr. Lavendar's health. "It is a great trial to +have him away," she said. "Dear me! I don't know what we will do when +the Lord takes him. I wish he might live forever. Clergymen are a +poor lot nowadays." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, I heard," said Mrs. Smily, "that he didn't give entire +satisfaction." +</P> + +<P> +"What!" cried Mrs. Barkley. "Who has been talking nonsense to you? +Some of the new people, I'll be bound." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Smily, very much frightened, murmured that no doubt she was +mistaken. Wild horses would not have drawn from her that she had heard +Annie Shields that was, say that Dr. Lavendar had deliberately advised +some one she knew to be bad; and that he had refused to help a very +worthy man to study for the ministry; and that the Ferrises said he +ought to be tried for heresy (or something) because he married Oscar +King to their runaway niece; and that he would not give a child back to +its repentant (and perfectly respectable) mother—"And a mother's claim +is the holiest thing on earth," Mrs. Smily said—and that he had +encouraged Miss Lydia Sampson in positively <I>wicked</I> extravagance. +After hearing these things, Mrs. Smily had her opinion of Dr. Lavendar; +but that was no reason why she should let Mrs. Barkley snap her head +off. So she only murmured that no doubt she had made a mistake. +</P> + +<P> +"I think you have," said Mrs. Barkley, dryly; and rose and marshalled +her company in to supper. "She's a perfect fool," she told herself, +"but I hope the Lord will give me grace to hold my tongue." Perhaps +the Lord gave her too much grace, for, for the rest of the evening, she +hardly spoke to Mrs. Smily; she even conversed with David rather than +look in her direction. +</P> + +<P> +For the most part the conversation was a polite exchange of views upon +harmless topics between Mrs. Barkley and Mr. Spangler, during which +Mrs. Smily cheered up and murmured small ejaculations to David Baily. +She told him that she was scared nearly to death of the stuffed animals +at Miss Harriet's house. +</P> + +<P> +"They make me just scream!" she said. +</P> + +<P> +David protectingly assured her that they were harmless. +</P> + +<P> +"But they are so dreadful!" Mrs. Smily said. "Isn't it strange that my +cousin likes to—to do that to animals? It isn't quite ladylike, to my +mind." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Baily thought to himself how ladylike it was in Mrs. Smily to +object to taxidermy. He noticed, too, that she ate almost nothing, +which also seemed very refined. It occurred to him that such a +delicate creature ought not to go home alone; the lane up to Miss +Harriet's house was dark with overhanging trees, and, furthermore, +half-way up the hill it passed the burial-ground. In a burst of fancy +David saw himself near the low wall of the cemetery, protecting Mrs. +Smily, who was shivering in her ladylike way at the old head-stones +over in the grass. He began (in his own mind) a reassuring +conversation: "There are no such things as spectres, ma'am. I assure +you there is no occasion for fear." And at these manly words she would +press closer to his side. (And this outside the burial-ground—oh, +Maria, Maria!) +</P> + +<P> +But this flight of imagination was not realized, for later Emily +announced that Miss Harriet's Augustine had come for Mrs. Smily. +</P> + +<P> +"Did she bring a lantern?" demanded Mrs. Barkley. "That lane is too +dark except for young folks." +</P> + +<P> +Augustine had a lantern, and was waiting with it at the front door for +her charge; so there was no reason for Mr. David to offer his +protection. He and Mr. Spangler went away together, and David twisted +his head around several times to watch the spark of light jolting up +the hill towards the burial-ground and the Stuffed-Animal House. When +the two men said good-night, Mr. Spangler had a glimpse of a quickly +opened door and heard an eager voice—"Come in, dear brother. Did you +have a delightful evening?" +</P> + +<P> +"How pleasing to be welcomed so affectionately!" said the Reverend Mr. +Spangler to himself. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0103"></A> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +The gentle warmth of that welcome lingered persistently in Mr. +Spangler's mind. +</P> + +<P> +"I suspect that she <I>kissed</I> him," he said to himself; and a little +dull red crept into his cheeks. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Ellen, dark-eyed, gentle, with soft lips, made Mr. Spangler +suddenly think of a spray of heliotrope warm in the sunshine. "That is +a very poetical thought," he said, with a sense of regret that it +probably could not be utilized in a sermon. But when he entered the +study he banished poetry, because he had a letter to write. It was in +answer to an offer of the secretaryship of a church publishing-house in +a Western city. +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar, it appeared, had mentioned Mr. Spangler's name to one Mr. +Horatius Brown, stating that in his opinion Mr. Spangler was just the +man for the place—"exact, painstaking, conscientious," Mr. Brown +quoted in his letter; but forbore to add Dr. Lavendar's further remark +that Mr. Spangler would never embarrass the management by an original +idea. "He'll pick up pins as faithfully as any man I know," said Dr. +Lavendar, "and that's what you religious newspapers want, I believe?" +Mr. Spangler was not without a solemn pride in being thus sought out by +the ecclesiastical business world, especially when he reflected upon +the salary which Mr. Brown was prepared to offer; but acceptance was +another matter. To leave his high calling for mere business! A +business, too, which would involve exact hours and steady +application;—Compared with that, and with the crude, smart bustle of +the Western city, the frugal leisure of his placid days in Mercer +assumed in his mind the sanctity of withdrawal from the world, and his +occasional preaching took on the glow of missionary zeal. "No," said +Mr. Spangler, "mercenary considerations do not move me a +hair's-breadth." Mr. Spangler did not call his tranquil life in +Mercer, his comfortable old house, his good cook, his old friends, his +freedom from sermon-writing, mercenary considerations. On the +contrary, he assured himself that his "circumstances were far from +affluent; but I must endure hardness!" he used to add cheerfully. And +very honestly his declination seemed to him something that Heaven would +place to his credit. So he wrote to the publishing-house that he had +given the proposition his most prayerful consideration, but that he +believed that it was his duty to still labor at the sacred desk—and +duty was, he hoped, the watchword of his life. And he was Mr. Brown's +"obedient servant and brother in Christ—Augustus Spangler." +</P> + +<P> +Then he settled down in Dr. Lavendar's armchair by the fire in the +study; but he did not read the ecclesiastical paper which every week +fed his narrow and sincere mind. Instead he wondered how often Dr. +Lavendar called upon his female parishioners. Would twice in a +fortnight be liable to be misunderstood? Mr. Spangler was terribly +afraid of being misunderstood. Then he had a flash of inspiration: he +ought, as rector, to visit the schools. That was only proper and could +not possibly be misunderstood. "For an interest in educational affairs +is part of a priest's duty," Mr. Spangler reflected. +</P> + +<P> +If he was right, it must be admitted that Dr. Lavendar was very remiss. +So far as we children could remember, he had never visited Miss Ellen's +school and listened to recitations and heard us speak our pieces. +Whether that was because he did not care enough about us to come, or +because he saw us at Collect class and Sunday-school and church, and in +the street and at the post-office and at home, until he knew us all by +heart, so to speak, may be decided one way or the other; but certainly +when Mr. Spangler came, and sat through one morning, and told us +stories, and said we made him think of a garden of rosebuds, and took +up so much of Miss Ellen's time that she could not hear the mental +arithmetic, it was impossible not to institute comparisons. Indeed, +some hearts were (for the moment) untrue to Mr. David. When Miss Ellen +called on us to speak our pieces, we were so excited and breathless +that, for my part, I could not remember the first line of "Bingen on +the Rhine," and had to look quickly into the Fourth Reader; but before +I could begin, Lydia Wright started in with "Excelsior," and she got +all the praise; though I'm sure I—well, never mind! But Dr. Lavendar +wouldn't have praised one girl so that all the others wanted to scratch +her! All that first half, the pupils, bending over their copy-books, +writing, "<I>Courtesy to inferiors is true gentility</I>," glanced at the +visitor sideways, and if they caught his eye, looked down, blushing to +the roots of their hair—which was not frizzled, if you please, or +hanging over their eyes like the locks of Skye-terriers, but parted and +tied with a neat ribbon bow on the tops of all the small heads. But +Mr. Spangler did not look often at the pupils; instead he conversed in +a low voice with Miss Ellen. Nobody could hear what he said, but it +must have been very interesting, for when Miss Ellen suddenly looked at +the clock she blushed, and brought her hand hurriedly down on the bell +on her desk. It was ten minutes after the hour for recess! +</P> + +<P> +For the rest of that day Miss Ellen Baily moved and looked as one in a +dream. Her brother, however, did not seem to notice her +absent-mindedness. Indeed, he was as talkative as she was silent. +</P> + +<P> +"Sister," he said, as they sat at tea, "I need a new hat. One with a +blue band about it might be—ah—becoming." +</P> + +<P> +"Blue is a sweet color," said Miss Ellen, vaguely. +</P> + +<P> +"Mrs. Smily remarked to me that before her affliction made it improper, +she was addicted to the color of blue." +</P> + +<P> +"Was she?" Ellen said, absently. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you think," David said, after a pause, "that my coat is somewhat +shabby? You bought it, you may remember, the winter of the long frost." +</P> + +<P> +"Is it?" Miss Ellen said. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; and the style is obsolete, I think. Not that I am a creature of +fashion, but I do not like to be conspicuous in dress." +</P> + +<P> +"You are not that, dear David," Miss Ellen protested. "On Sunday I +often think nobody looks as handsome as you." +</P> + +<P> +David blushed. "You are partial, Ellen." +</P> + +<P> +"No, I'm not," cried Miss Ellen, coming out of her reveries. "Only +yesterday I heard some one say that you were very fine-looking." +</P> + +<P> +"Who said it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Never mind," Ellen said, gayly. +</P> + +<P> +"Do tell me, sister," he entreated; "that's a good girl." +</P> + +<P> +"It was somebody whose opinion you care a great deal about." +</P> + +<P> +"I think you might tell me," said Mr. David, aggrieved. "Not that I +care, because it isn't true, and was only said to please you. People +know how to get round you, Ellen. But I'd just like to know." +</P> + +<P> +"Guess," said Miss Ellen. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, was it—Mrs. Smily?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, dear, no! It was somebody very important in Old Chester. It was +Mrs. Barkley." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," said Mr. David. +</P> + +<P> +"A compliment from her means so much, you know," Miss Ellen reminded +him. +</P> + +<P> +David was silent. +</P> + +<P> +"But all the same," Ellen said, "you do need a coat, dear brother. I'm +afraid I've been selfish not to notice it." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. David made no reply. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Ellen beamed at him. "You always look well, in my eyes: but it +pleases me to have you well dressed, too." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then, to please you, I'll dress up," said Mr. David, earnestly. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0104"></A> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +IV +</P> + +<P> +"Does not Mr. Baily take any part whatever in his sister's work?" Mr. +Spangler said. He was calling upon Mrs. Barkley, and the conversation +turned upon the guests whom he had met at the tea-party. +</P> + +<P> +"That is a very foolish question," said Mrs. Barkley; "but of course +you don't know poor David, or you wouldn't have asked it. David means +well, but he has no mind. Still, he has tried, poor fellow." Then she +recited the story of David's failures. "There is really nothing that +he is capable of doing," she ended, thoughtfully; "though I think, if +his eyes hadn't given out, he might have made a good minister. For +David is a pious man, and he likes to visit." +</P> + +<P> +A faint red came into Mr. Spangler's cheeks; although he had been in +Old Chester nearly a month, he had not yet become acclimated to Mrs. +Barkley. The watchword of duty made him call, but he closed her front +door behind him with an emphasis which was not dutiful. +</P> + +<P> +"That's done!" he said; and thought to himself how much pleasanter than +parochial visits were educational matters. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Spangler felt their importance so deeply that he spent two more +mornings watching Miss Ellen's pupils work out examples on the +blackboard and hearing them read, turn about, in the Fourth Reader. In +fact, the next month was a pretty happy time for Miss Ellen's girls. +</P> + +<P> +"I skipped to the bottom of the page in 'Catiline's Reply,'" Lydia +Wright said, giggling, "and she never knew it!" +</P> + +<P> +The girls were tremendously interested but not very sympathetic, for +"she's so dreadfully old!" they told each other. Had Miss Ellen been +Maria's age and had a beau (by this time they called Mr. Spangler Miss +Ellen's beau, the impudent little creatures!), how different it would +have been! But Miss Ellen was forty. "Did you ever know anything so +perfectly absurd?" said the older girls. And the second-class girls +said they certainly never did. So when Mr. Spangler came and listened +to recitations we poked one another, and put out our tongues behind our +Readers, and made ourselves extremely obnoxious—if dear Miss Ellen had +had the eyes to see it, which, indeed, she had not. She was very +absent in those days; but she did her work faithfully, and saw to +David's new coat, and asked Mrs. Smily to tea, not only to help out +Miss Harriet at the Stuffed-Animal House, but because David told her a +piteous tale of Mrs. Smily's loneliness and general forlornness. David +had had it directly from Mrs. Smily herself, and had been greatly moved +by it; she had told him that this was a sad and unfriendly world. +</P> + +<P> +"But I am sure your brother-in-law's family is much attached to you?" +David said, comfortingly. +</P> + +<P> +Then poor Mrs. Smily suddenly began to cry. "Yes; but I am afraid I +can't live at my brother-in-law's any longer. His wife is—is tired of +me," said the poor little creature. +</P> + +<P> +David was thunderstruck. "Tired? Of you! Oh, impossible!" +</P> + +<P> +Then she opened her poor foolish heart to him. And David was so +touched and interested that he could hardly wait to get home to pour it +all into Ellen's ears. Ellen was very sympathetic, and made haste to +ask Mrs. Smily to tea; and when she came was as kind and pitiful as +only dear, kind Ellen could be. But perhaps she took Mrs. Smily's +griefs a little less to heart than she might have done had she heard +the tale a month before. Just then she was in the whirl of Old Chester +hospitality; she was asked out three times in one week to meet the +Supply!—and by that time the Supply had reached the point of hoping +that he was going to meet Miss Ellen. +</P> + +<P> +Yet, as Mr. Spangler reflected, this was hardly prudent on his part. +"For I might become interested," he said to himself, and frowned and +sighed. Now, as everybody knows, the outcome of "interest" is only +justified by a reasonable affluence. "And," Augustus Spangler reminded +himself, "my circumstances are not affluent." Indeed, that warm, +pleasant old house in Mercer, and Mary Ann, and his books, and those +buttoned-up coats needed every penny of his tiny income. "Therefore," +said Mr. Spangler, "it is my duty to put this out of my head with an +iron hand." But, all the same, Ellen Baily was like a spray of +heliotrope. +</P> + +<P> +For a week, the second week in April, while Old Chester softened into a +mist of green, and the crown-imperials shook their clean, bitter +fragrance over the bare beds in the gardens—for that week Mr. Spangler +thought often of his income, but oftener of Miss Ellen. Reason and +sentiment wrestled together in his lazy but affectionate heart; and +then, with a mighty effort, sentiment conquered.... +</P> + +<P> +"It seems," said Mr. Spangler, nervously, "a little premature, but my +sojourn in Old Chester is drawing to a close; I shall not tarry more +than another fortnight; so I felt, my dear friend, that I must, before +seeking other fields of usefulness, tell you what was in my mind—or +may I say heart?" +</P> + +<P> +"You are very kind," Ellen Baily said, breathlessly. +</P> + +<P> +.... Mr. Spangler had invited Miss Ellen to walk with him on Saturday +afternoon at four. Now, as everybody knows in Old Chester, when a +gentleman invites you to walk out with him, you had better make up your +mind whether it is to be "yes" or "no" before you start. As for poor +Ellen, she did not have to make up her mind; it was made up for her by +unconquerable circumstances. If she should "seek other fields of +usefulness," she could not take David with her. It was equally clear +that she could not leave him behind her. Where would he find his +occasional new coat, or even the hat with the blue band, if there were +no school in the basement? Compared to love-making and romance, how +sordid are questions about coats! Yet, before starting on that +Saturday-afternoon walk, poor, pretty Miss Ellen, tying the strings of +her many-times retrimmed bonnet under her quivering chin, asked them, +and could find no answer except that if he should "say anything," why, +then, she must say "no"; but, of course, he wasn't going to say +anything. So she tied her washed and ironed brown ribbons into a neat +bow, and started down the street with the Reverend Mr. Spangler. +</P> + +<P> +David Baily, watching them from the gate, ruminated over obvious +possibilities. Mrs. Barkley had opened his eyes to the fact that Mr. +Spangler "was taking notice," and David was not without a certain +family pride in a ministerial proposal. "He'll do it this afternoon," +said David; and went pottering back into the empty school-room to mend +a bench that Ellen told him needed a nail or two. But the room was +still and sunny, and Ellen's chair was comfortable; and sitting there +to think about the bench, he nodded once or twice, and then dozed for +an hour. When he awoke it seemed best to mend the bench the next day; +then, yawning, and staring vacantly out of the window, he saw Mrs. +Smily, and it seemed only friendly to go out and tell her +(confidentially) what was going to happen. +</P> + +<P> +"It will make quite a difference to you, won't it?" Mrs. Smily said. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," David said, blankly, "that hadn't occurred to me. However," he +added, with a little sigh, "my sister's happiness is my first thought." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Smily clasped her hands. "Mr. Baily, I do think you are real +noble!" she said. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. David stood very erect. "Oh, you mustn't flatter me, ma'am." +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Baily, I never flatter," Mrs. Smily said, gravely. "I don't think +it's right." +</P> + +<P> +And David thought to himself how noble Mrs. Smily was. Indeed, her +nobility was so much in his mind that, strangely enough, he quite +forgot Ellen's exciting afternoon. He remembered it the next morning, +but when he essayed a little joke and a delicate question, the asperity +with which the mild Ellen answered him left him gaping with +astonishment. Evidently Mr. Spangler had not spoken. David would have +been less (or more) than a human brother if he had not smiled a very +little at that. "Ellen expected it," he said to himself. "Well, I did +myself, and so did Mrs. Barkley." It never occurred to him that the +Reverend Mr. Spangler might also have had expectations which left him +disappointed and mortified. Yet when a gentleman of Mr. Spangler's +age—one, too, whose income barely suffices for his own comfort, and +who, added to this, has had his doubts whether the celibacy of the +clergy may not be a sacrament of grace—when such a gentleman does make +up his mind to offer himself—to offer himself, moreover, to a lady no +longer in her first youth, who is pleasing perhaps to the eye, but not, +certainly, excessively beautiful, and whose fortune is merely (and most +meritoriously, of course) in her character and understanding—it is a +blow to pride to be refused. Mr. Spangler found it hard to labor at +the sacred desk that morning; yet no one would have thought it, to see +the fervor with which, as Old Chester said, he "went through his +performances." +</P> + +<P> +But he read the service, hot at heart and hoping that Miss Baily +observed how intensely his attention was fixed on things above. When +he stood in the chancel waiting for the collection-plates, and saying, +in a curious sing-song, absolutely new to Old Chester, "<I>Zaccheus stood +forth, and said, Behold, Lord—</I>" his glance, roving over the +congregation, rested once on Ellen Baily, and was as carefully +impersonal as though she were only a part of the pew in which she sat. +Miss Ellen thrilled at that high indifference; it occurred to her that +even had David's circumstances been different, she could scarcely have +dared to accept the hand of this high creature. +</P> + +<P> +"<I>—the half of all my goods—</I>" said Mr. Spangler. Yes, it was +inconceivable, considering what he was offering her, that Ellen Baily +could let her brother stand in the way! +</P> + +<P> +All that long, pleasant spring Sunday, Augustus Spangler was very +bitter. All that week he was distinctly angry. He said to himself +that he was glad that Dr. Lavendar was soon to return; he would, after +making his report of the parish, shake the dust of Old Chester from off +his feet as witness against Miss Baily, and depart. By the next Sunday +he had ceased to be angry, but his pride was still deeply wounded. By +Wednesday he had softened to melancholy; he was able to say that it all +came from her sense of duty. Unreasonable, of course, but still duty. +Then, on Thursday, suddenly, he was startled by a question in his own +mind: Was it unreasonable? If she gave up her teaching—"what would +that fellow live on?" +</P> + +<P> +That was a very bad moment to the Reverend Mr. Spangler. Pride +vanished in honest unhappiness. He began to think again about his +income; he had known that to marry a wife meant greater economy; but +sacrifices had not seemed too difficult considering that that wife was +to be Miss Ellen Baily. But if the wife must be Miss Baily +<I>plus</I>—"that fellow"! +</P> + +<P> +"It is out of the question," said poor Mr. Spangler, and arose and +paced up and down the study. He was very miserable; and the more +miserable he became, the more in love he knew himself to be. "But it +is madness to think of the matter further," he told himself, +sternly—"madness!" +</P> + +<P> +Yet he kept on thinking of it—or of Miss Ellen's dark eyes, and her +smile, and the way her hair curled in little rings about her temples. +"But it's impossible—impossible!" he said. Then, absently, he made +some calculations: To meet the support of David Baily he would have to +have an increase of so much in his income or a decrease of so much in +his expenses. "Madness!" said Augustus Spangler, firmly. "But how her +eyes crinkle up when she smiles!" +</P> + +<P> +Yet it took another day before the real man conquered. His expenses +should be decreased, <I>and David should live with them</I>. +</P> + +<P> +Yes, it would mean undeniable pinching; he must give up this small +luxury and that; his Mary Ann could not broil his occasional +sweetbread; and the occasional new book must be borrowed from the +library, not purchased for his own shelves. He must push about to get +more supplying. He had meant to come down one step when he got +married; well, he would have to come down two—yes, or three. But he +would have Miss Baily. And warmed with this tender thought, he sat +down, then and there, at nearly midnight, and wrote Miss Ellen a +letter. It was a beautiful letter, full of most beautiful sentiments +expressed with great elegance and gentility. It appreciated Miss +Ellen's devotion to her family, and acknowledged that a sense of duty +was a part of the character of a Christian female. It protested that +it was far from the Reverend Mr. Spangler to interfere with that sense +of duty; on the contrary, he would share it; nay more, he would assist +it, for duty was, he hoped, the watchword of his life. If Miss Baily +would consent to become his wife, Mr. Baily, he trusted, would make his +home with his sister. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Spangler may have been addicted to petticoats (in his own toilet) +and given to candles and other emblems of the Scarlet Woman, but his +letter, beneath its stilted phrase, was an honest, manly utterance, and +Ellen Baily read it, thrilling with happiness and love. +</P> + +<P> +That was Friday, and she had only time to read those thin, blue pages +and thrust them into the bosom of her dress, when it was time to go to +school and hear her girls declare that the Amazon was the largest river +in South America; but we might have said it was the largest river in +Pennsylvania, and Miss Ellen would have gone on smiling at us. At +recess we poured out into the garden, eager to say, "Goodness! do you +suppose he's popped?" The older girls were especially excited, but +they took their usual furtive look about the garden before sitting down +on the steps to eat their luncheons. Alas, He was not there! +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps," said Lydia Wright, "he has gone to the tomb." +</P> + +<P> +This, for the moment, was deliciously saddening; but, after all, real +live love-making, even of very old people, is more fascinating than +dead romance. Through the open window we could see Miss Ellen sitting +at her desk, writing. There were some sheets of blue paper spread out +in front of her, and she would glance at them, and then write a little, +and then glance back again, and smile, and write. But she did not look +troubled, or "cross," as the girls called it; so we knew it could not +be an exercise that she was correcting. But when she came out to us, +and said, in a sweet, fluttered voice, "Children, will one of you take +this letter to the post-office?" we knew what it meant—for it was +addressed to the Reverend Mr. Spangler. How we all ran with it to the +post-office!—giggling and palpitating and sighing as our individual +temperaments might suggest. In fact, I know one girl who squeezed a +tear out of each eye, she was so moved. When we came back, there was +Miss Baily still sitting at her desk, her cheek on one hand, her +smiling eyes fastened on those sheets of blue paper. "Gracious," said +the girls, "what a long recess!" and told each other to be quiet and +not remind her to ring the bell. +</P> + +<P> +Then suddenly something happened.... +</P> + +<P> +An old carry-all came shambling along the road; there were two people +in it, and one of them leaned over from the back seat and said to the +driver: "This is my house. Stop here, please." The girls, clustering +like pigeons on the sunny doorstep, began to fold up their +luncheon-boxes, and look sidewise, with beating hearts, towards the +gate—for it was <I>He</I>! How graceful he was—how elegant in his +manners! Ah, if our mothers had bidden us have manners like Mr. +David!—but they never did. They used to say, "Try and behave as +politely as Miss Maria Welwood," or, "I hope you will be as modest in +your deportment as Miss Sally Smith." And there was this model before +our eyes. It makes my heart beat now to remember how He got out of +that rattling old carriage and turned and lifted his hat to a lady +inside, and gave her his hand (ah, me!) and held back her skirts as she +got out, and bowed again when she reached the ground. She was not much +to look at; she was only the lady who was visiting at the +Stuffed-Animal House, and she was dressed in black, and her bonnet was +on one side. They stood there together in the sunshine, and Mr. David +felt slowly in all his pockets; then he turned to us, sitting watching +him with beating hearts. +</P> + +<P> +"Little girls," he said—he was near-sighted, and, absorbed as he +always was with sorrow, we never expected him to know our +names—"little girls, one of you, go in and ask my sister for two coach +fares, if you please." +</P> + +<P> +We rose in a body and swarmed back into the school-room—just as Miss +Ellen with a start looked at the clock and put out her hand to ring the +bell. "Mr. David says, please, ma'am, will you give him money for two +coach fares?" +</P> + +<P> +Miss Ellen, rummaging in her pocket for her purse, said: "Yes, my love. +Will you take this to my brother?" Just why she followed us as we ran +out into the garden with her purse perhaps she hardly knew herself. +But as she stood in the doorway, a little uncertain and wondering, Mr. +David led the shabby, shrinking lady up to her. +</P> + +<A NAME="p45"></A> + +<P> +"My dear Ellen," he said, "I have a present for you—a <I>sister</I>." +</P> + +<P> +Then the little, shabby lady stepped forward and threw herself on Miss +Ellen's shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +"A sister?" Ellen Baily said, bewildered. +</P> + +<P> +"We were married this morning in Upper Chester," said Mr. David, "and I +have brought her home. Now we shall all be so happy!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0105"></A> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +V +</P> + +<P> +That evening Dr. Lavendar came home. Of course all the real Old +Chester was on hand to welcome him. +</P> + +<P> +When the stage came creaking up to the tavern steps, the old white head +was bare, and the broad-brimmed shabby felt hat was waving tremulously +in the air. +</P> + +<P> +"Here I am," said Dr. Lavendar, clambering down stiffly from the +box-seat. "What mischief have you all been up to?" +</P> + +<P> +There was much laughing and hand-shaking, and Dr. Lavendar, blinking +very hard, and flourishing his red silk pocket-handkerchief, clapped +Mr. Spangler on the shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +"Didn't I tell you about 'em? Didn't I tell you they were the best +people going? But we mustn't let 'em know it; makes 'em vain," said +Dr. Lavendar, with great show of secrecy. "And look here, Sam Wright! +You fellows may congratulate yourselves. Spangler here has had a fine +business offer made him, haven't you, Mr. Spangler? and it's just your +luck that you got him to supply for you before he left this part of the +country. A little later he wouldn't have looked at Old Chester. Hey, +Spangler?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, that's settled," Mr. Spangler said. "I declined—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," said Dr. Lavendar, "have you? Well, I'm sorry for 'em." +</P> + +<P> +And Augustus Spangler smiled as heartily as anybody. He had a letter +crushed up in his hand; he had read it walking down from the +post-office to the tavern, and now he was ready to say that Old Chester +was the finest place in the world. He could hardly wait to get Dr. +Lavendar to himself in the rectory before telling him his great news +and giving him a little three-cornered note from Ellen Baily which had +been enclosed in his own letter. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, well, <I>well</I>," said Dr. Lavendar. +</P> + +<P> +He had put on a strange dressing-gown of flowered cashmere and his +worsted-work slippers, and made room for his shaggy old Danny in his +leather chair, and lighted his pipe. "Now tell us the news!" he said. +And was all ready to hear about the Sunday-school teachers, and the +choir, and Sam Wright's Protestantism, and many other important things. +But not at all:— +</P> + +<P> +"<I>I'm engaged to be married.</I>" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, well, well," said Dr. Lavendar, blinking and chuckling with +pleasure; then he read Ellen's little note. "I had to tell you +myself," Ellen wrote him, "because I am so happy." And then there were +a dozen lines in which her heart overflowed to this old friend. "Dear +child, dear child," he murmured to himself. To no one but Dr. +Lavendar—queer, grizzled, wrinkled old Dr. Lavendar, with never a +romance or a love-affair that anybody had ever heard of—could Miss +Ellen have showed her heart. Even Mr. Spangler did not know that heart +as Dr. Lavendar did when he finished Ellen's little letter.—And Dr. +Lavendar didn't tell. "I am so happy," said Miss Ellen. Dr. Lavendar +may have looked at Mr. Spangler and wondered at the happiness. But, +after all, wonder, on somebody's part, is a feature of every +engagement. And if the wonder is caused only by the man's coat, and +not by his character, why be distressed about it? Mr. Spangler was an +honest man; if his mind was narrow, it was at least sincere; if his +heart was timid, it was very kind; if his nature was lazy, it was clean +and harmless. So why shouldn't Ellen Baily love him? And why +shouldn't Dr. Lavendar bubble over with happiness in Ellen's happiness? +</P> + +<P> +"She's the best girl in the world," he told Mr. Spangler. "I +congratulate you. She's a good child—a good child." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Spangler agreed, in a somewhat solemn manner. +</P> + +<P> +"But David—how about David?" +</P> + +<P> +"My house shall always be open to Mrs. Spangler's relatives," said Mr. +Spangler, with Christian pride. +</P> + +<P> +"You are a good fellow, Spangler," Dr. Lavendar said; and listened, +chuckling, to Mr. Spangler's awkward and correct expressions of bliss. +For indeed he was very happy, and talked about Miss Ellen's virtues +(which so eminently qualified her to become his wife), as fatuously as +any lover could. +</P> + +<P> +"Hi, you, Danny," said Dr. Lavendar, after half an hour of it, "stop +growling." +</P> + +<P> +"There's somebody at the door," said Augustus Spangler, and went into +the entry to see who it was. He came back with a letter, which he +read, standing by the table; then he sat down and looked white. Dr. +Lavendar, joyously, was singing to himself: +</P> + +<P> +"'Ten-cent Jimmy and his minions<BR> +Cannot down the Woolly Horse.'<BR> +</P> + +<P> +</P> + +<P> +"Spangler, we must drink to your very good health and prospects. Let's +have Mary bring the glasses." +</P> + +<P> +"I fear," said Mr. Spangler—he stopped, his voice unsteady. "I +regret—" +</P> + +<P> +"Hullo!" said Dr. Lavendar, looking at him over his spectacles; "what's +wrong?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm extremely sorry to say," said poor Mr. Spangler, "that—it can't +be." +</P> + +<P> +"A good glass of wine," said Dr. Lavendar, "never hurt—" +</P> + +<P> +"I refer," said Mr. Spangler, sighing, "to my relations with Miss Ellen +Baily." +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar looked at him blankly. +</P> + +<P> +"I have just received a letter," the poor man went on, "in which she +informs me that it can never be." His lip trembled, but he held +himself very straight and placed the letter in his breast-pocket with +dignity. +</P> + +<P> +"Spangler, what are you talking about?" +</P> + +<P> +"It appears," said Mr. Spangler, "that her brother—" +</P> + +<P> +"Fiddlesticks!" said Dr. Lavendar. "Has Ellen started up some +fantastic conscientiousness? Spangler, women's consciences are +responsible for much unhappiness in this world. But I won't have it in +my parish! I'll manage Ellen; trust me." He pulled at his pipe, which +had gone out in these moments of agitation. "I tell you, sir," he +said, striking a match on the bottom of his chair, "these saintly, +self-sacrificing women do a fine work for the devil, if they only knew +it, bless their hearts." +</P> + +<P> +"You misapprehend," said Mr. Spangler, wretchedly; and then told Miss +Ellen's news. It was brief enough, this last letter; there was no +blame of David; indeed, he had displayed, Miss Baily said, "a true +chivalry; but of course—" "Of course," said Mr. Spangler. +</P> + +<P> +But Dr. Lavendar broke out so fiercely that Danny squeaked and jumped +down out of the chair. "Upon my word; upon my word, Spangler, what +were you thinking of to let it go on? If I had been at home, it would +never—upon my <I>word</I>!" This was one of the times that Dr. Lavendar +felt the limitations of his office in regard to language. Mr. +Spangler, his elbows on his knees, his chin on hands, was staring +miserably at the floor. +</P> + +<P> +"I shall, I trust, meet it in the proper spirit," he said. +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar nodded. "Of course," he said. "Fortunately, she is +dealing with a man who has backbone—perhaps." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Spangler sighed. "I regret to say that her presence in her school +under the circumstances does seem imperative." +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar lighted his pipe. "Do you mean on account of money, +Spangler?" +</P> + +<P> +"The support of Mr. David Baily and this—this <I>female</I>, must be met, I +suppose, by Miss Baily's school." +</P> + +<P> +"You are not so situated that you—" began Dr. Lavendar, delicately. +</P> + +<P> +"My circumstances," said Augustus Spangler, "are not affluent. I have +my residence in Mercer; and I supply, as you know. But my income +barely suffices for one. Four—would be out of the question." +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar looked at Ellen's little, happy note, lying half open on +the table. "Poor old jack-donkey of a David!" he groaned. +</P> + +<P> +"His selfishness," said Augustus Spangler, between his teeth, his voice +suddenly trembling with anger, "is perfectly incomprehensible to +me—perfectly incomprehensible! I endeavor always to exercise charity +in judging any human creature; but—really, <I>really</I>!" +</P> + +<P> +"It isn't selfishness as much as silliness. David hasn't mind enough +to be deliberately selfish. The poor fellow never thought. He never +has thought. Ellen has always done the thinking for the family. Well, +the harm's done. But, Spangler—" the old man stopped and glanced +sharply at the forlorn and angry man opposite him. Yes, he certainly +seemed very unhappy;—and as for Ellen! Dr. Lavendar could not bear +that thought. "Spangler, I'll stand by you. I won't let her offer you +up as well as herself. There must be some way out." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Spangler shook his head hopelessly. "The support of four persons +on my small stipend is impossible." +</P> + +<P> +"Spangler, my boy!" said Dr. Lavendar, suddenly, "there is a way out. +What an old fool I am not to have thought of it! My dear fellow"—Dr. +Lavendar leaned over and tapped Mr. Spangler's knee, chuckling +aloud—"<I>that secretaryship</I>!" +</P> + +<P> +"Secretaryship?" Mr. Spangler repeated, vaguely. +</P> + +<P> +"You declined it? I know. But I don't believe Brown's got a man yet. +I heard from him on another matter, yesterday, and he didn't say he +had. Anyway, it's worth trying for. We can telegraph him to-morrow," +said Dr. Lavendar, excitedly. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Spangler stared at him in bewilderment. "But," he said, +breathlessly, "I—I don't think—I fear I am not fit." He felt as if +caught in a sudden wind; his face grew red with agitation. "I declined +it!" he ended, gasping. +</P> + +<P> +"Fit?" said Dr. Lavendar. "My dear man, what fitness is needed? +There's nothing to it, Spangler, I assure you." Dr. Lavendar was very +much in earnest; he sat forward on the edge of his chair and +gesticulated with his pipe. "Don't be too modest, my boy." +</P> + +<P> +"Business entails such responsibilities," Mr. Spangler began, in a +frightened voice. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, but this is mere routine," Dr. Lavendar interrupted; "they want a +clergyman—somebody with tact. There's a good deal of church politics +in it, I suppose, and they've got to have somebody who would never step +on anybody's toes." +</P> + +<P> +"I would never do that," said Mr. Spangler, earnestly, "but—" +</P> + +<P> +"No," said Dr. Lavendar, abruptly, his voice changing—"no, Spangler, +you never would." Then he was silent for a moment, pulling on his +pipe, wondering perhaps, in spite of himself, at Ellen. "No, you never +would. You see, you are just the man for the place. Brown said they +wanted somebody who was presentable; he said they didn't need any +particular abil—I mean any particular business ability." +</P> + +<P> +"But," said Mr. Spangler, "to give up my sacred calling—" +</P> + +<P> +"Spangler, come now! you don't 'call' very loudly, do you? There, my +dear boy, let an old fellow have his joke. I merely mean you don't +preach as often as if you had a regular parish. And you can supply, +you know, there just as well as here." +</P> + +<P> +"The Master's service is my first consideration," said Augustus +Spangler. +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar looked at him over his spectacles. "Mr. Spangler, the +Christian business-man serves the Master just as well as we do." +</P> + +<P> +"I should wish to reflect," said Mr. Spangler. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course." +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Baily would, I fear, object to going so far away." +</P> + +<P> +"If the place is still open, I'll manage Ellen," said Dr. Lavendar; but +he looked at Mr. Spangler narrowly. "And your own entreaties will, of +course, weigh with her if you show determination. I think you told me +you were pretty determined?" +</P> + +<P> +"I have," said Mr. Spangler, "an iron will; but that would not justify +me in insisting if Miss Baily—" His voice trailed off; it rose before +him—the far-off, bustling city, the office, the regular hours, the +people whose toes must not be stepped upon, the letters to write and +read, the papers to file, all the exact minutiae the position involved. +And his comfortable old house? his leisure? his ease? And Mary Ann? +Mary Ann would never consent to go so far! "I—I really—" he began. +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar frowned. "Mr. Spangler, I would not seem to urge you. +Ellen is too dear to us for that. But if you appreciate her as I +suppose you do—" +</P> + +<P> +"I do indeed!" broke in poor Augustus Spangler, fervently. +</P> + +<P> +"The way is probably open to you." +</P> + +<P> +"But—" said Mr. Spangler, and then broke out, with marked agitation; +"I—I really don't see how I could possibly—" Yet even as he spoke he +thought of Ellen's sweet eyes. "Good Heavens!" said Mr. Spangler, +passionately; "what shall I do?" +</P> + +<P> +But Dr. Lavendar was silent. Mr. Spangler got up and began to walk +about. +</P> + +<P> +"My affection and esteem," he said, almost weeping, "are unquestioned. +But there are other considerations." +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar said nothing. +</P> + +<P> +"It is a cruel situation," said Mr. Spangler. +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar looked down at his pipe. +</P> + +<P> +There was a long silence. Augustus Spangler walked back and forth. +Dr. Lavendar said never a word. +</P> + +<P> +"A man must consider his own fitness for such a position," Mr. Spangler +said, pleadingly. +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps," Dr. Lavendar observed, mildly, "Ellen's affections are not +very deeply engaged? It will be better so." +</P> + +<P> +"But they are!" cried Mr. Spangler. "I assure you that they are! And +I—I was so happy," said the poor man; and sniffed suddenly, and tried +to find the pocket in his coat-tails. +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar looked at him out of the corner of his eye. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Spangler stood stock-still; he opened and shut his hands, his lips +were pressed hard together. He seemed almost in bodily pain, for a +slight moisture stood out on his forehead. He was certainly in +spiritual pain. The Ideal of Sacrifice was being born in Mr. +Spangler's soul. His mild, kind, empty face grew almost noble; +certainly it grew very solemn. +</P> + +<P> +"Dr. Lavendar," he said, in a low voice, "<I>I will do it.</I>" +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar was instantly on his feet; there was a grip of the hand, +and, for a moment, no words. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll telegraph Mr. Brown," said Mr. Spangler, breathlessly. +</P> + +<P> +"So will I!" said Dr. Lavendar. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Spangler was scarlet with heroism. "It means giving up my house +and my very congenial surroundings, and I fear Mary Ann will feel too +old to accompany me; but with—with Ellen!" +</P> + +<P> +"She's worth six Mary Anns, whoever Mary Ann may be," said Dr. Lavendar. +</P> + +<P> +"You may have thought me hesitant," said Mr. Spangler, "but I felt that +I must weigh the matter thoroughly." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, certainly, man. It was your duty to think what was best for +Ellen." +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly," Mr. Spangler said, getting his breath again, and beginning +to feel very happy. "And duty is, I hope, my watchword; but I had to +reflect," he ended, a little uncomfortably. +</P> + +<P> +But Dr. Lavendar would not let him be uncomfortable. They sat down +again, and Dr. Lavendar filled another pipe, and until long after +midnight they talked things over—the allowance to be made to David and +his bride, the leasing of the house in Mercer, the possible obduracy of +Mary Ann, and, most of all, the fine conduct of the Reverend Mr. +Spangler. +</P> + +<P> +But when they had said good-night, Dr. Lavendar sat awhile longer by +his fireside, his pipe out, his old white head on his breast. +</P> + +<P> +"The minute I get back," he said to himself after a while, +sheepishly—"the minute I get back I poke my finger into somebody +else's pie. But I think 'twas right: Ellen loves him; and he's not a +bad man.—And Brown don't want brains." +</P> + +<P> +Then he chuckled and got up, and blew out the lamp. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0201"></A> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +THE NOTE +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +Of course everybody in Old Chester knew that there was something queer +about Mary Gordon's marriage—not the mere fact of the man, queer as he +was; for, to Old Chester's ideas, he was very queer.... A +"travelling-man," to begin with—and the Gordons had a line of scholars +and professional men behind them—a drummer, if you please. In theory, +Old Chester was religiously democratic; it plumed itself upon its +Christian humility, and every Sunday it publicly acknowledged that Old +Chesterians were like the rest of humanity to the extent of being +miserable sinners. But, all the same, that Mary Gordon should marry a +"person" of that sort— +</P> + +<P> +"Dear me!" said Old Chester. +</P> + +<P> +However, travelling-men may be worthy; they need not necessarily use +perfumery or put pomade upon their shiny, curly, black hair. But Mr. +Algernon Keen was obviously not worthy, and he was saturated with +perfumery, and his black, curly hair was sleek with oil. Furthermore, +he was very handsome: his lips were weak and pouting and red; his eyes +liquid and beautiful; his plump cheeks slightly pink. One may believe +that such physical characteristics do not imply moral qualities; but +only youth has such a belief. When one has lived a little while in the +world, one comes to know that a human soul prisoned in such pretty +flesh is piteously hampered. Yet Mary Gordon, meeting this poor +creature by chance, fell deeply in love with him. Of course such +falling in love was queer—it was inexplainable; for Mary was a nice +girl—not, of course, of the caliber of some Old Chester girls; she had +not the mind of Alice Gray nor the conscience of Sally Smith; but she +was a quiet, biddable, good child—at least so far as anybody knew. +But nobody knew much about her. In the first place, the Gordons lived +just far enough out of Old Chester to miss its neighborliness. Mary +was not often seen in town, and in her own home her brother Alex's loud +personality crushed her into a colorless silence. Her father did not +crush her—he merely did not notice her; but he was fond of her—at +least he had the habit of indifferent affection. She always came into +the library to say good-night to him; and he, sitting by the fire in a +big, winged chair, a purple silk handkerchief spread over his white +locks, to keep off possible draughts, would turn his cheek up to her +mechanically; but the soft touch of her lips never made him lift his +eyes from his book. She never kissed Alex good-night; she was openly +afraid of him. Alex was rude to her and made her wait on him, throwing +her a curt "thank you" once in a while, generally coupled with some +sarcastic reference to her slowness or stupidity—for, indeed, the +child was both slow and stupid. Perhaps, had she been loved— But no +one can tell now how that would have been. At any rate, there was a +pathetic explanation of loneliness to account for the fact that she was +drawn to this Algernon Keen, who had nothing to recommend him except a +cheap and easy kindliness that cost him no effort and was bestowed on +everybody. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-066"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-066.jpg" ALT=""SHE ALWAYS CAME INTO THE LIBRARY TO SAY GOOD-NIGHT TO HIM"" BORDER="2"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center"> +"SHE ALWAYS CAME INTO THE LIBRARY TO SAY <BR> +GOOD-NIGHT TO HIM" +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +Of course the two men, her father and brother, refused to consider Keen +as Mary's suitor at all. Alex nearly had a fit over it; in his rage +and mortification he took all Old Chester into his confidence. He went +to the Tavern—this was the day after Mary had, trembling and crying, +told her little love affair to her father and begged his consent—Alex +went to the Tavern and ordered the snickering, perfumed youth out of +town. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I guess not," said Algy. "This town doesn't belong to you, does +it?" +</P> + +<P> +Alex stammered with passion: "If—if you dare to address Miss Gordon +again, I'll—I'll—I'll horsewhip you," he said, his pale eyes bulging +from his crimsoning face. +</P> + +<P> +"I guess Mary has a right to let me talk to her if she wants to; this +is a free country," the other blustered. And Alex, loudly, on the +Tavern steps, cursed him for a skunk, a— Well, Old Chester was never +able to quote Alex. He came to his senses after this dreadful +exhibition of himself, and was horribly mortified. But +post-mortification cannot undo the deed, and before night everybody in +Old Chester knew that Mary Gordon had fallen in love with—"the person +who brings samples to Tommy Dove's apothecary shop." +</P> + +<P> +Old Chester was truly sorry for Mary; "for," as Mrs. Barkley said, +"love's love, whether it's suitable or not; and Mary has such a lonely +life, poor child! Well, it will take time for her to get over it." +</P> + +<P> +It seemed to take a good deal of time. That winter she grew pale and +was often ill. The poor little thing seemed to creep into her shell to +brood over her blighted hopes. Once she was downright sick for a week, +and Mr. Gordon sent for William King. Willy said at first that Mary +had something on her mind (which certainly Mary's family did not need +to be told). +</P> + +<P> +"I believe she's thinking about that scoundrel yet," said Alex. "But +she has just got to understand that we'll never allow it, Willy. You +may as well make that clear to her, and let her get over her moping." +</P> + +<P> +William King looked thoughtful and said he would call again. +</P> + +<P> +However, any of us Old Chester girls could have enlightened the doctor. +"Mary was pining away for her lover;" that was all there was to it. +But the lover never appeared, being engaged in offering samples of +pomade and perfumery to apothecary stores in other regions. And then, +suddenly, the queer thing happened.... +</P> + +<P> +The <I>Globe</I> announced: "Married—by Dr. Lavendar, Mary Gordon to +Algernon Keen"—and the date, which was the night before. +</P> + +<P> +"<I>What!</I>" said Old Chester at the breakfast-table, and gaped out of its +windows to see Mary, crying very much, get into the stage, not at her +father's house, but at the Tavern door, if you please, and drive away +with the Person. What did it mean? "Was Alex at home? Did he +consent?" demanded Old Chester; for Alex had been away from home for a +week. By noon it was decided that Alex had consented; for it came out +that he had returned to Old Chester the previous afternoon, and with +him, shrinking into the corner of the stage, was Mr. Algy Keen. +</P> + +<P> +"Get out," Alex said to him when the stage drew up at the Gordon house. +The man got out, shambling and stumbling, with a furtive look over his +shoulder, for Alex Gordon walked behind him to the front door, his +right hand gripped upon his walking-stick, his left clinched at his +side. +</P> + +<P> +"He kep' just behind the feller," the stage-driver told Van Horn at the +Tavern afterwards—"just behind him, like as if he was afraid the +feller'd run away from him. But the feller, he stopped right at the +steps, and he turned around, and he says, 'Mind you,' he says (mad as a +hatter)—'mind you,' he says, 'I'm not <I>brought</I>, I've +<I>come</I>';—whatever that means," the stage-driver ruminated. +</P> + +<P> +So much Old Chester knew the day after Mary Gordon's wedding. And it +naturally sought to know a little more. +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose her father feels it very much?" ventured Mrs. Barkley to Dr. +Lavendar. +</P> + +<P> +"Any man feels the marriage of his only girl," said Dr. Lavendar, +briefly. And Mrs. Barkley held her tongue. But Mrs. Drayton, who was +just then anxious about her soul and found it necessary to consult Dr. +Lavendar as to the unpardonable sin—Mrs. Drayton was not so easily +squelched. "My Jean says that the Gordon's Rachel told her that Alex +brought the man into the house by the ear, and then sent her for you, +running, and—" +</P> + +<P> +"She didn't bring me into the house by the ear," said Dr. Lavendar. +</P> + +<P> +"But why, do you suppose, was it all so sudden?" said Mrs. Drayton; "it +almost looks—" +</P> + +<P> +"How do you know it was sudden?" said Dr. Lavendar. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, my Jean said—" +</P> + +<P> +"It may have been sudden to Jean," said the old man; "possibly Mary had +not taken Jean into her confidence. Some folks don't confide in +servants, you know." +</P> + +<P> +But Mrs. Drayton was proof against so delicate a thrust. "Well, I only +hope she won't repent at her leisure;—if there's nothing but haste to +repent of. If there's anything else—" +</P> + +<P> +"I'll say good-day, Mrs. Drayton," interrupted Dr. Lavendar; "and as +for your question about the unpardonable sin, ma'am, why, just be ready +to forgive other folks and you needn't be afraid of the unpardonable +sin for yourself." +</P> + +<P> +He took his hat and stick and went thumping down-stairs. In the hall +he met William King going up to see the invalid, and said, with a gasp: +"Willy, my boy, a good, honest murderer is easier to deal with than +some milder kinds of wrong-doing." +</P> + +<P> +"Dr. Lavendar," said William, "I'd rather have a patient with small-pox +than treat some lighter ills that I could name." +</P> + +<P> +As for Mrs. Drayton, she told her daughter that Dr. Lavendar was very +unspiritual, and did not understand the distress of a sensitive +temperament. "Even the slightest error fills me with remorse," said +Mrs. Drayton. "Dear me! I should think Mary Gordon would know what +remorse is—for, of course, there is only one thing to think." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0202"></A> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +Old Chester thought the one thing. No evasions of Dr. Lavendar's, no +miserable silence on the part of the disgraced father and the +infuriated brother, could banish that one thought. But nothing +definite was known. "Although," as everybody said to everybody else, +"of course, Dr. Lavendar knows the whole thing, and probably Willy King +does, too." If they did, they kept their knowledge to themselves. But +Dr. Lavendar went often to the Gordon house that winter. "They're +pretty lonely, those two men," he told Willy once—perhaps six months +afterwards. +</P> + +<P> +"Would either of them have softened if the baby had lived, do you +think, sir?" William said. And Dr. Lavendar shook his head. +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps her father might. But Alex will never forgive her, I'm +afraid." +</P> + +<P> +And Alex never did forgive her—not even when she died, as, happily, +she did six or seven years later. She died; and life closed over the +miserable little tragedy as water closes, rippling, over some poor, +broken thing flung into its depths. +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Thank God!</I>" Alex said, when he heard she was gone. +</P> + +<P> +"You may thank God for her," Dr. Lavendar said, turning upon him +sternly, "but ask mercy for yourself, because this door of opportunity +is shut upon you forever." +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar had brought them the news. They did not ask how it had +come to him; it was enough to hear it. The two men, Mary's father and +brother, listened while he told them, briefly: "She died yesterday. +The funeral will be to-morrow, at twelve." +</P> + +<P> +"Thank God!" Alex said, hoarsely, and lifted his hand and cursed the +man who had dishonored them. +</P> + +<P> +And Dr. Lavendar turned upon him in solemn anger. "Your opportunity is +gone—so far as she is concerned. There yet remains, however, the +poor, foolish sinner whom she loved—" +</P> + +<P> +"Damn him!" said Alex. +</P> + +<P> +"<I>—and who loved her.</I>" +</P> + +<P> +Old Mr. Gordon dropped his face in his hands and groaned. +</P> + +<P> +"Who loved her," Dr. Lavendar repeated. +</P> + +<P> +"For that, at least, he cannot be indifferent to us, whatever he has +made us suffer." +</P> + +<P> +Neither of his listeners spoke. It was growing dark in the long room, +walled to the ceiling with books and lighted only by a fire sputtering +in the grate. Mr. Gordon, sitting in his big, winged chair close to +the hearth, said, after a long pause: "You said—to-morrow, Edward? +Where?" +</P> + +<P> +"In Mercer. I shall go up on the morning stage." +</P> + +<P> +Again the silence fell. Alex got up and walked to the window and +looked out. "Why didn't you bring Danny in, Dr. Lavendar?" he said, +carelessly; "the little brute will freeze out there in your buggy. +I'll call him in." He turned to leave the room, and then stopped. +</P> + +<P> +"Alexander, <I>sit down</I>," said Dr. Lavendar. +</P> + +<P> +Alex sat down with involuntary quickness; then he threw his legs out in +front of him and thrust his hands down into his pockets. "Dr. +Lavendar, this is our affair. I'm obliged to you for your kind +intentions; but this is our affair. You've told your news, and we have +listened respectfully—if I should say gladly you might be shocked. So +I only say respectfully. But you have spoken; we have listened. That +is all there is to it. The thing is finished. The book is closed. I +say thank God! I don't know what my father says. If he takes my +advice, for I've been a good son to him; I never gave him any cause to +be ashamed;—if he takes my advice, he'll forget the whole affair. +That's what I mean to do. The book is closed. I shall never think of +it again." He got up and walked about with affectation of vast +indifference. +</P> + +<P> +"Alex, you will probably never think of anything else," Dr. Lavendar +said, half pitifully; and then, sternly, again: "I can't make you +accept the opportunity that still is open to you; but I will point it +out to you: Come up to Mercer to-morrow with your father and me." +</P> + +<P> +"Mercer!" the younger man cried out, furiously; "you mean to see her +buried? To dance on her grave and pull the man out and spit in his +face and—" He stopped, his face suddenly purpling, his light eyes +staring and rolling; then he stumbled and jerked himself together, and +lurched forward into a chair, breathing loudly. The two old men, +trembling with horror, ran to him. "Oh, Edward," John Gordon +said—"oh, Edward, why did you rouse him? He can't speak of it, he +can't think of it. Alex—there!—we'll say no more about it." +</P> + +<A NAME="img-074"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-074.jpg" ALT=""LURCHED FORWARD INTO A CHAIR, BREATHING LOUDLY"" BORDER="2"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center"> +"LURCHED FORWARD INTO A CHAIR, BREATHING LOUDLY" +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +Alex stared at them with glassy eyes, in silence; his father kept +bemoaning himself and imploring his old friend to say no more. "You +won't speak of it again, Edward? He goes out of his head with rage. +Promise me not to speak of it any more." +</P> + +<P> +"No, John; no," Dr. Lavendar said, sadly; and as Alex's eyes cleared +into bewildered consciousness, the old minister stood a little aside +while the father helped the son to his feet and led him away. When he +came back, shuffling feebly down the long, darkening room, Dr. Lavendar +was still sitting by the fire. "He's quiet now; I—I think he's +ashamed. I hope so. But he won't come out of his room." +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar nodded. +</P> + +<P> +John Gordon spread his purple handkerchief over his white locks, with +shaking hands, and then sat down, tumbling back in his chair in a +forlorn heap. "Edward," he said, feebly, "tell me about it. It was on +Thursday? Had she been sick long?" Then, in a low voice, "She—didn't +lack for comforts?" +</P> + +<P> +"No; I think not. The man was as tender with her as—as you might have +been. She was sick—I mean in bed—two weeks. She had been ailing for +a long time; you remember I spoke to you about it about a month ago. +And again last week." +</P> + +<P> +"You—saw her?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"More than once?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, many times," Dr. Lavendar said, simply; "many times, of course." +</P> + +<P> +John Gordon put out his hand; Dr. Lavendar shook it silently. Then +suddenly the old man broke out, in weak, complaining anger: "He +wouldn't let me write to her. I would have sent her some money. He +wouldn't hear of it. He was awful, Edward. I—I didn't dare." +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar was silent. It had grown so dark that he could not see +the father's face. Suddenly, from behind the leafless trees at the +foot of the garden, a smouldering yellow glow of sunset broke across +the gloom of the room, and touched the purple cowl and the veined hands +covering the aged face. Dr. Lavendar sighed. +</P> + +<P> +"What can I do, Edward? I can't go to-morrow. You see I can't." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, you can, John." +</P> + +<P> +"He would die; he'd have another attack. His heart is bad, Edward." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I'm afraid it is, I'm afraid it is. But John, you do your duty. +Never mind Alex's heart. That isn't your affair." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I couldn't possibly go—not possibly," the father protested, +nervously. +</P> + +<P> +The glow died out. The room grew dusk and then dark. Mr. Gordon got +up and reached to the mantel-shelf for a spill. "Mary used to make the +spills for me," he said, vaguely. "Now our Rachel does it, and she +doesn't half bend the end over." He lighted the spill, the little +flame flickering upon his poor old face peering out from under his +purple handkerchief. "Oh, Alex ought not to be so hard. I would go +with you to-morrow, Edward, but I can't, you know. I can't." Then, +with a shaking hand, he took off the ground-glass globe and lighted the +tall lamp that stood among a litter of papers on the library-table. +"You see how it is, Edward, don't you? I can't possibly go." +</P> + +<P> +"You will be sorry if you don't, John." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll be sorry anyhow," he burst out. "I'm always sorry. I've been +sorry all my life. My children are my sorrow." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0203"></A> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +Algy Keen, his face swollen with crying, his black hair limp and +uncurled, sat on the edge of the bed in the back room of a dingy Mercer +lodging-house. The windows had been left open after Mary had been +taken away, so that the room was cold; and there were still two chairs +facing each other,—a certain distance apart. The room was in dreary +order, and there was the scent of flowers in the chill air. The bed +was tumbled, for the forlorn man had dropped down upon it to rest. But +he was too tired to rest, and was sitting up again, dangling his +stockinged feet on the shabby carpet and talking to Dr. Lavendar. He +snuffled, and his poor, weak lips shook, and he rubbed the back of his +trembling hand across his nose. Algy had had broken nights for a +fortnight, and the last three days and nights of Mary's life he had +almost no sleep at all; these two days when she lay dead in their bare +room he had slept and wept and slept again; and now, when he and Dr. +Lavendar had come back from the funeral, he sat on the edge of the bed +and whimpered with weakness and grief. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, sir, she was a good girl," he said. "I don't care what anybody +says, she was a good girl. I ain't saying that things was just right, +to begin with. But that wasn't Mary's fault. No; she was a good girl. +And her folks treated her bad. They'd always treated her mean bad. My +goodness! if they'd 'a' let me come to see her respectable, as you +would any of your lady friends, 'stead of skulkin' 'round—... <I>I can't +stand the smell of those flowers</I>," he broke out, in a high, crying +voice; "I left them all out there at the cemetery, and I smell them +here—I smell them here," he moaned, trembling. +</P> + +<P> +"I like to smell them," Dr. Lavendar said. "They mean the old +friendship for Mary. Mrs. King sent them. She's our doctor's wife in +Old Chester. She always liked Mary." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't see how she could help it," Algy said, his face crumpling with +tears. "Well, she was a good girl. And she was a good wife, sir, too. +I tell you, you never saw a better wife. I used to come home tired, +and there'd be my slippers out for me. Yes, sir; she never missed it. +And she was always pleasant, too; you mayn't call just being pleasant, +religion, but I—" +</P> + +<P> +"I do," Dr. Lavendar interposed. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, so do I," Algy said, his face lightening a little. "I call it a +better religion than her folks showed. Well, now, sir, I loved +Mary"—he stopped and cried, openly—"I loved her (I didn't need that +hell-hound of a brother to come after me)—yes, I was just as fond of +her; and yet there was times when I come home at night—not—not +quite—well, maybe a little—you know?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Dr. Lavendar. +</P> + +<P> +"But, my God, sir, Mary was pleasant. It isn't every woman that would +be pleasant then, is it?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, it isn't, Algy." +</P> + +<P> +"Course, next day she'd tell me I done wrong. (She never told me so at +the time—Mary had sense.) And I always said: 'Well, yes, Mary, that's +so. And I'll never do it again.' But she was pleasant. Course I +don't mean she was lively. She used to remember—well, that we'd made +a mistake. <I>You</I> know? And she used to kind a brood on it. She +talked to you considerably about it, I guess. She said you comforted +her. She said you said that maybe her—her mistake had brought her to +be kind o' more religious—saved her, as you might say." +</P> + +<P> +"I said that she had come to know her Saviour through His forgiveness." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't think Mary needed any forgiveness," the poor husband said, +with tearful resentment; "I think her folks needed it." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sorry for them," Dr. Lavendar said. "They have got to remember +that they might have been kinder. That's a hard thing to have to +remember." +</P> + +<P> +The young man nodded. "I hope they'll remember it, hard!" +</P> + +<P> +"They will," said Dr. Lavendar, sighing. +</P> + +<P> +"I spent my last cent on Mary," Algernon rambled on. "I got her a good +coffin—a stylish coffin. The plate was solid silver. The man wanted +me to take a plated one. I says 'no,' I says; 'I don't get plated +things for my wife if it takes my last cent.' Well, it just about took +it. But I don't care. Her people threw her off, and I did for her. I +spent my last cent." +</P> + +<P> +"You took her from them in the first place, Algernon," the old minister +said. "Don't forget that you sinned." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you said she was forgiven," the other broke out, angrily. "I +guess God's more easy than some people." +</P> + +<P> +"He is." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then," Algy said, resentfully; "what's the use of talking?" +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar was silent. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't begrudge a cent I spent on her," Algy went on. "I had laid by +$1140 to set up a place of my own here in Mercer. At least, it wasn't +me; I'm not one to save much; it was Mary did it. But these last eight +months have taken it all, 'cause I 'ain't done hardly any work; +couldn't be away from her on the road, you know; so we had to live on +that money. I could 'a' got a cheaper coffin; but I wouldn't. As for +the doctor, I got the best in town. I don't believe in economizing on +your wife. And I paid him. I paid him $204 yesterday morning, though +it seems high, considering he didn't cure her. But I wasn't going to +let Mary get buried owing the doctor. And I paid for the coffin. +'Spot cash,' I says to the man, 'make it spot cash, and name your +figure.' He took off $17. Well, how much do you suppose I've got left +now, Dr. Lavendar, out of $1140? Just $23, sir. I don't care; I don't +begrudge Mary a cent. I thought the coffin looked handsome, didn't +you?—<I>Oh, I wish somebody had 'a' moved those chairs when we were +gone!</I>" he cried, his voice shrill and breaking. +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar got up and pushed one of the chairs back against the wall +and brought the other to Algy's side. The young man laid his hand on +it and began to cry. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0204"></A> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +IV +</P> + +<P> +"No, I suppose you don't care to hear about it, John. But I want to +tell you; so I guess you'll listen to please me?" +</P> + +<P> +John Gordon said nothing. +</P> + +<P> +"It isn't a long story," Dr. Lavendar said, and told him briefly of the +funeral. When he ended there was silence. Then, "John," Dr. Lavendar +said. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, Edward." +</P> + +<P> +"The man is in need." +</P> + +<P> +"What's that to me?" the other burst out. +</P> + +<P> +"Much," said Dr. Lavendar; "it gives you a chance." +</P> + +<P> +"You mean a chance to give him some money?" said the other. "Good God! +To pay the scoundrel for what he did to us? Edward, you don't +understand human nature." +</P> + +<P> +"He spent his last cent making Mary comfortable, John. She told me so +herself." +</P> + +<P> +"I will never give that—creature one penny of my clean money." +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar said nothing. +</P> + +<P> +The older man bent forward, shivering, and stirred the fire. The coal +broke into sputtering fragments and the flames roared up into the soot. +"Alex would never listen to giving him any money." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't ask him to listen to it. Haven't you got your own check-book?" +</P> + +<P> +"Let him rot. That's what Alex says." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't believe it's what you say, John, because he was good to +Mary;—and you were not." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Gordon groaned. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I won't give him anything; I'll lend it, possibly." +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar frowned and got up. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Gordon put out a trembling, detaining hand. +</P> + +<P> +"Edward, you don't understand.... How much do you want for him?" +</P> + +<P> +"He had saved about $1200 to go into some business. It's all gone." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I won't give it to him," the other repeated, with feeble +sharpness; "I'll lend it—to please you." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sorry you haven't a better motive." +</P> + +<P> +John Gordon got up and went over to his library-table and fumbled about +in one of the drawers for his check-book. "I'm a fool," he said, +fretfully; "I don't know but what I'm worse. Lending money to— But +you say he was good to her? Poor Mary! Oh!" he ended, half to +himself, "I don't know why Alex is so hard." Then he took his quill +and began to scrawl his check. "I'd rather see him starve," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"No, you wouldn't," Dr. Lavendar said, calmly. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, there! Take it! Get a receipt." +</P> + +<P> +"Johnny, think better of it." +</P> + +<P> +"You needn't take it if you don't want to," the other said, sullenly. +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar took it, and John Gordon called after him, +</P> + +<P> +"You won't tell Alex?" +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar shook his head and sighed. As he drove home he said to +himself that a loan was better than nothing. "But, Danny, my boy," he +added, "what a chance he had! Well, he'll take it yet—he'll take it +yet. The trouble with me, Daniel, is, I'm in too much of a hurry to +make folks good. I must reform." +</P> + +<P> +Danny blinked a grave agreement, and Dr. Lavendar, dropping his +shortcomings joyfully from his mind, began to sing to himself: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Oh! what has caused this great commotion—motion—motion<BR> +Our country through?"<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +When, however, a day or two later, Dr. Lavendar went up to Mercer to +take the check to Algernon Keen, he found to his astonishment that it +was not so easy to secure to his old friend even the smaller and meaner +opportunity of lending, much less giving. +</P> + +<P> +At first, Algernon looked at him open-mouthed. "<I>Him</I>—offering to +lend money to—?" His astonishment robbed him of words. Then into his +poor, shallow face came the first keen touch of shame. But instantly +he was ashamed of his shame,—ashamed, like so many of us strange human +creatures, of the stirring of God within him. He didn't want their +dirty money, he said. They thought themselves so good, they couldn't +stomach Mary. Well, then, they were too good for him to touch their +money. His voice shook with angry grief. His bitterness was genuine, +even though he used it to hide that first regenerative pang of shame. +No; Dr. Lavendar could take their money back to them. "I spent my last +cent, just about, on Mary," he said; "and I didn't begrudge it, either." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sure you didn't begrudge it." +</P> + +<P> +Algy's weak mouth shook and his eyes filled; he turned away and stared +out of the window. "He better have offered to lend her some money than +me," he said. "I bet he's glad she's dead." +</P> + +<P> +(Dr. Lavendar thought of Alex.) "He wants to help you now for her +sake," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't want his money," the younger man insisted, brokenly; "he let +her die." +</P> + +<P> +"I think that it would please her to have you take it." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't want to be under obligations to those people," Algernon said, +doggedly. +</P> + +<P> +"If Mr. Gordon has your note, it's business." +</P> + +<P> +Algy hesitated. "I suppose he thinks I'd never pay it back?" +</P> + +<P> +"If he takes your note, it looks as if he expected to be repaid." +</P> + +<P> +"It's treating me white, I'll say that," Algernon said. And again his +face reddened slowly to his forehead and he would not meet Dr. +Lavendar's eye. "But I don't want their favors," he cried, +threateningly. +</P> + +<P> +"It's business, if you give your note," Dr. Lavendar repeated. "Come, +Algernon, let her father do something for her sake. And as for +you—it's a chance to play the man; don't you see that?" +</P> + +<P> +Algy caught his breath. "Damn!—if I borrowed his money I'd pay +it—I'd pay it, if it took the blood out of me." +</P> + +<P> +"I will make your feeling clear to him," Dr. Lavendar said. "Let's +make out the note now, Algy." +</P> + +<P> +The old man got up and hunted about for pen and paper. "Here's a +prescription blank," he said; "that will do." An ink-bottle stood on +the narrow mantel-shelf, a rusty pen corroding in its thickening +depths; but Dr. Lavendar, in a very small, shaky old hand, managed to +scrawl that "Algernon Keen, for value received, promised to pay to John +Gordon—" +</P> + +<P> +—"in a year," Algy broke in; "I ain't going to have it run but a +year—and put in the interest, sir. I'll have no favors from 'em. +I'll pay interest; I'll pay six per cent.—like anybody else would." +</P> + +<P> +—"and interest on same," Dr. Lavendar added. "Now, you sign here, +Algy. There! that will please Mary." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, my!" said Algernon, his poor, red-rimmed eyes filling—"oh, my! +my! what will I do without her?" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0205"></A> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +V +</P> + +<P> +The next day Dr. Lavendar carried the note back to old John Gordon, who +took it, his mouth tightening, and glanced at it in silence. Then he +shuffled over to a safe in the corner of his library and pulled out a +japanned tin box. Dr. Lavendar watched him fumble with the combination +lock, holding the box up to catch the light, and shaking it a little +until the lid clicked open. "He'll never pay it," John Gordon said. +</P> + +<P> +"He'll try to," Dr. Lavendar said; "but it's doubtful, of course. He's +a sickly fellow, and he hasn't much gumption. But if there's any good +in him, your trusting him will bring it out." +</P> + +<P> +"There isn't any good in him," the other said, violently. +</P> + +<P> +And that was the last they said about it; for the time Algernon Keen +dropped out of their lives. +</P> + +<P> +He set up his little store in Mercer, and struggled along, advertising +his samples of perfumery and pomade upon his own person; trying to +drink a little less, for Mary's sake; whimpering with loneliness and +sick-headache in his grimy room in the hotel where Mary had died; and +never forgetting for a day that promise to pay on the back of the +prescription paper in John Gordon's possession. But when the year came +round, on the 2d of December, he had not a cent in hand to meet his +obligation. And that was why Dr. Lavendar heard of him again. Would +the doctor—this on perfumed paper, ruled, and with gilt edges—would +the doctor "ask him if he would extend?" Algernon could pay the +interest now; but that was all he could do. He wasn't in very good +shape, he said. He'd been in the hospital for a month, and had had to +hire a salesman. "I guess he cheated me; he was a kind of fancy +talker, and got me to let him buy some stock; he got off his slice, I +bet." That was the reason, Algy said, that he could not make any +payment on the principal. But he was going to introduce a new article +for the lips (no harmful drugs in it), called Rosebloom—first-class +thing; and he expected he'd do first rate with it. And in another year +he'd surely pay that note. It hung over him, he said, like a ton. "I +guess he don't want it paid any more than I want to pay it," Algy +ended, simply. +</P> + +<P> +Of course Dr. Lavendar asked for an extension, and got it, though John +Gordon's lip curled. "I never expected to hear from him or his note +again," he said. "Probably his honesty won't last over another year." +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar went up to Mercer to see Algy, and they talked things over +in the store between the calls of two customers. Algy's hair was sleek +and curly as before, for business is business; but he looked draggled +and forlorn; his color had gone and he was thinner, and there were +lines on his forehead, and his bright, hazel eyes, kind and shallow as +those of some friendly animal, had come into their human birthright of +worry. "It's this note that takes the spunk out of me," he said. "If +I could only get it paid! Then I'd hire a house and have the shop in +front. I've thought some I'd get married, too. It's hard on your +digestion living in one of these here cheap hotels. But I can't get +over thinking of Mary. I don't seem to relish other ladies. I suppose +they're all right; but Mary was so pleasant." And his eyes reddened. +"And, anyway, it would cost more to keep a wife, and I don't propose to +spend money that way. <I>He's</I> treated me white, I'll say that for him; +and I propose to show him—Dr. Lavendar, I haven't drunk too much only +three times in the last year—honest, I haven't. I thought you'd think +that would please Mary?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sure it does," said Dr. Lavendar. +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose you think," the drummer said, sheepishly, "that it was +pretty darned foolish to drop three times?" +</P> + +<P> +"I think pretty soon it won't be even three times," Dr. Lavendar +declared; "but it's hard work; I know it is." +</P> + +<P> +Algernon looked at him eagerly. "You know how it is yourself, maybe?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I never happened to want to take too much," Dr. Lavendar said, +gently; "if I had, it would have been hard, I'm sure." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you bet," Algy told him, knowingly. Then they talked the +business over, and Dr. Lavendar clapped Algy on the shoulder and said +he believed he'd have that house and shop yet. "Rosebloom may be a +gold-mine," said Dr. Lavendar. Then he gave Algy some advice about the +window display, and suggested a little gas-jet on the counter where +gentlemen might light their cigars; and he told Algy what brand he +smoked himself, and recommended it, in spite of its price. Algy +smacked his thigh at that, and said Dr. Lavendar had the making of a +smart business man in him. Indeed, Algy felt so cheered that he opened +his show-case and displayed a box of his new cosmetic. +</P> + +<P> +"Look here, doctor," he said, earnestly; "I'll give you a box. +Yes—yes! I will. I'd just as lief as not. You maybe wouldn't want +to use it yourself; gentlemen don't, often. But give it to one of your +lady friends. Do, now, doctor. It don't cost me much of anything—and +I'm sure you've been kind to me." +</P> + +<P> +And Dr. Lavendar accepted the lip-salve, and thanked Algy warmly; then +he said that the picture on the lid of the tight-waisted lady was very +striking. +</P> + +<P> +"That's so!" cried Algy. "She's a beauty. She makes me think of Mary." +</P> + +<P> +Algernon had presented Dr. Lavendar with a cigar, and the old minister +was smoking it in great comfort, his feet on the base of a rusty, +melon-shaped iron stove; Algy was leaning back against the counter, his +elbows on the show-case behind him. "Dr. Lavendar," he said, looking +at the toe of his boot, "I—got something on my mind." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, off with it, quick as you can." +</P> + +<P> +"I've been thinking about the Day of Judgment." +</P> + +<P> +"Ho!" said Dr. Lavendar. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, sir, I get to thinking: if everybody's sins are to be read out +loud before all the world—standing up, rows and rows and rows of 'em. +Can't see the end of 'em—so many. I kind a' hate to think that Mary +might hear—things about me." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Keen," said Dr. Lavendar, slowly, "I don't believe it will be +that way." He hesitated a little. After all, it is a risk to take +away even a false belief, unless you can put a true one in its place. +</P> + +<P> +Algy stopped looking at the toe of his boot. "<I>What!</I>" said he. +</P> + +<P> +"Now just look at it," said Dr. Lavendar. "Who would be the better for +that kind of publicity? Good people wouldn't like it; it would pain +them. You say yourself that Mary wouldn't like to hear that you did +wrong three times." +</P> + +<P> +"No; she wouldn't," Algernon said. +</P> + +<P> +"Wicked people might enjoy it," Dr. Lavendar ruminated, "but—" +</P> + +<P> +—"but God don't cater to the wicked?" Algy finished, quickly. +</P> + +<P> +"That's just it," said Dr. Lavendar. "He doesn't. But I tell you what +it is, Algy, it is painful enough to just have your Saviour tell you +your sins when you're sitting all alone—or, maybe, lying awake in the +dark; that's a dreadful time to hear them. It's worse than having rows +of people listening." +</P> + +<P> +Algernon nodded. "Maybe you're right," he said, sighing. +</P> + +<P> +The birth of a soul is a painful process. But when he went away Dr. +Lavendar's eyes were full of hope. +</P> + +<P> +And he grew more hopeful when, as the next year came round and Algernon +again asked for extension, he was able to carry back, not only the note +and the interest to John Gordon, but a payment of $24. What that $24 +meant of self-denial and perseverance Dr. Lavendar knew almost as well +as Algy himself. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know whether you meant it, John," he said, as the old man took +the note and locked it up in the japanned box—"I don't know that it +was your intention, but I believe the responsibility of debt is going +to make a man of Mary's husband." +</P> + +<P> +"Debt doesn't generally work that way," Mr. Gordon said. +</P> + +<P> +"No; it doesn't. But He maketh the wrath of man to praise Him, once in +a while, Johnny." +</P> + +<P> +"It's nothing to me. I'm done with him." +</P> + +<P> +"'If the court knows itself, which it think it do,'" said Dr. Lavendar, +chuckling, "you're just beginning with him." +</P> + +<P> +"I'd rather have him decent, if that's what you mean. But I despise +him." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't," said Dr. Lavendar. "I tell you, John, we're poor, limited +critters, you and I. We felt that no good could possibly come out of +Nazareth. I must confess that when I got you to send him that money I +was thinking more of the benefit to you than any effect it might have +on him. I thought he didn't amount to two cents. To my shame I say +it. But I was blind as a bat; the Lord had sent him a great +experience—<I>Mary's death</I>. Well, it was like a clap of thunder on a +dark night; the lightning showed up a whole landscape I didn't know. +There was honesty; and there was perseverance; and there was love, mind +you, most of all. Love! I tell you, Johnny, only the Lord knows what +is lying in the darkness of human nature. In fact," said Dr. Lavendar, +reflectively, "as I get older there is nothing more constantly +astonishing to me than the goodness of the Bad;—unless it is the +badness of the Good. But that's not so pleasant. No, sir; I don't +despise Mr. Keen." +</P> + +<P> +Nor did he despise Algy when the note had to be extended still again, +although again Algy was ready not only with the interest, but with +$37.50 of the principal. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0206"></A> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +VI +</P> + +<P> +As Algernon struggled along with Rosebloom and cheap cigars and bright +red and green perfumed soaps, the debt was lessened and lessened; and +the back of the note was almost covered with extensions, yet only $317 +had been paid off. In spite of himself John Gordon grew interested; he +would not have admitted it for the world, but he wanted to hear about +Dr. Lavendar's annual visits to Mercer; and Dr. Lavendar used to drive +out to smoke a pipe with him and tell him what Algy had said and done. +One day—it was seven years after the note had been drawn—a clear, +heartless winter day, with a cold, high wind that made the old minister +look so blue that John Gordon mixed a glass of whiskey-and-water and +made him drink it before they began to talk—that day Mr. Gordon went +so far as to ask a question about Algy. "Has he given you anything +more for your complexion, Edward?" he said, with a faint grin. +</P> + +<P> +"He gave me a smelling-bottle this time. I handed it over to Mary, and +told her not to let me get a sniff of it; and she said, 'Sakes! it's +beautiful!' But I'll tell you something he said, Johnny: he said that +his debt to you was a millstone round his neck. And yet the truth is, +it's a life-buoy!" +</P> + +<P> +John Gordon looked at the soiled, crumpled paper, with its dates of +extensions, and smiled grimly. "Well, I won't deprive him of his +life-buoy." +</P> + +<P> +"The store is doing pretty well," Dr. Lavendar went on—and stopped, +because Alex entered. +</P> + +<P> +"Whose store is doing pretty well," he asked, civilly enough—for Alex. +</P> + +<P> +"Algernon Keen's," said Dr. Lavendar. +</P> + +<P> +Alex's face changed; he looked from one to the other of the old men by +the fire, and he saw his father's hand open and close nervously. But +he restrained himself until their visitor had gone. He even went out +into the sharp, bright wind and unhitched Dr. Lavendar's little blind +horse Goliath, backing the buggy close to the steps and helping the old +man in with what politeness he could muster. Then he hurried back into +the library to his father. +</P> + +<P> +"I should like to know, sir," he said, standing up with his back to the +fire, his legs, in their big, mud-stained top-boots, wide apart, his +hands under his coat-tails—"I should like to know, sir, why Dr. +Lavendar sees fit to refer to a subject which is most offensive to us?" +He fixed his motionless, pale eyes on his father, shrinking back in the +winged chair. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know—I don't know," said John Gordon. Then, suddenly, he put +out his hand and caught at the crumpled note on the table beside him +and put it in his pocket. Instantly suspicion flamed into Alex's eyes. +His face turned dully red, almost purple. He made a step forward as +though to interpose and grasp at the paper, restrained himself, and +said, with laborious politeness: +</P> + +<P> +"If that is a note, sir—I thought I saw indorsements of +interest—sha'n't I put it into the safe for you?" +</P> + +<P> +"I won't trouble you, Alex." +</P> + +<P> +Alex stood silent; then suddenly he struck the table with his fist: "My +God! I believe you've been lending money to that—to that—" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Gordon began to shake very much. +</P> + +<P> +"Did Dr. Lavendar presume to ask you to lend money to—to—" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Gordon passed his hand over his lips; then he said, faintly, "No; +he didn't." +</P> + +<P> +Alex, like a boat brought suddenly up into the wind, stammered +uncertainly. "Oh; I—I—thought—" And then suspicion broke out +again. "Has the creature asked you for a loan?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," Mr. Gordon said. +</P> + +<P> +And Alex gaped at him, silenced. Yet he was certain that that strip of +paper had some connection with Algernon Keen. "I beg your pardon," he +said; "I thought for an instant that you were dickering with the man +who seduced your daughter. I am sure I beg your pardon for the +thought," he ended, with elaborate and ironical courtesy, for his +father's obvious agitation assured him that he was right. "I only felt +that if it was his note, it must be kept carefully—carefully." He +smiled in a deadly way he had, and opened and shut his hand as though +he would close it on the hilt of a knife. "But, of course, I was +mistaken. You would press it if you had his note—although 'sue a +beggar.' And, besides, if we had got as far as lending him money, we +would be asking him to dinner next." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Gordon cringed. +</P> + +<P> +"So I beg your pardon," Alex ended, sardonically. +</P> + +<P> +"Very well—very well," his father said; and got up and began to potter +about among his books, as much as to say that the subject was ended. +</P> + +<P> +"It <I>is</I> a note," Alex said to himself, and smiled.... So far the +creature had gone scot-free. In these days of lawfully accepted +dishonor revenge is not talked about. But perhaps it would come to his +hand. Not the revenge of the instincts—not the shedding of blood, man +fashion; but the revenge of inflicting misery. Not much of a revenge, +of course, but the best that he could get. And so he smiled to +himself.... +</P> + +<P> +He said no more at the time; but months later his father realized that +the incident was not forgotten when Alex said, suddenly, sneering: "So +your son-in-law is prospering in his business? I saw his establishment +to-day in Mercer. If he owes you any money he will be able to pay +cash. I congratulate you, sir." +</P> + +<P> +Old Mr. Gordon made no reply. He was very feeble that autumn. Willy +King told Alex that another attack of bronchitis would be the end. "He +can't stand it," said Dr. King. "I'd take him South, Alex, if I were +you." +</P> + +<P> +Alex did not like to leave his mill in Upper Chester, but, as he told +Willy, he was a good son, and always did his duty to his father. "I +play dominoes with him every night," he said;—so he would take the old +man South, though to go and come would keep him from business almost a +week. +</P> + +<P> +It was then that John Gordon told Dr. Lavendar that Alex suspected him +of lending money to Mr. Keen. "And if I die," he said, "Alex will +squeeze the poor devil—he'll squeeze him till he ruins him. I—I +suppose I'm a great fool, but I almost thought maybe, sometime, I'd +destroy that note, Edward?" +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar chuckled: "I knew you'd come to it, Johnny; but—" he +stopped and ruminated. "You've come to it; so that's all right. But +do you know—I don't believe he can do without it quite yet awhile." +</P> + +<P> +"Poor devil!" John Gordon said again, kindly. "Well, I'll let him gnaw +on it awhile longer. I suppose he'll want another extension?" +</P> + +<P> +"Probably," said Dr. Lavendar. "He is just holding his own this year; +he will be able to pay the interest, he told me, but not very much +more." +</P> + +<P> +Extension was necessary, as Dr. Lavendar had foreseen; and when he +wrote to Mr. Gordon about it the old man replied in obvious fear of his +son. The note was in his safe, he said; Edward knew where it was; it +was in the japanned box. "But I don't care to ask Alex to get it," he +explained. "He doesn't know of its existence; so I'll give you power +of attorney to see to it. You'd better just have Ezra Barkley put it +in shape for you, because it will be necessary to go up to the house +and open the safe to get it and put it back again. Alex is never at +home until late in the afternoon, but Rachel is there and will let you +in. You'll find some very good Monongahela in the chimney closet." +Then he added the combinations of the locks on the safe and the +japanned box. +</P> + +<P> +"Stick that in, Ezra, will you, about going up to the house?" Dr. +Lavendar said. +</P> + +<P> +And Ezra stuck it in solemnly, and then held his pen between his teeth +and blotted his paper. "It is estimated," he observed, through his +shut teeth, "that the amount of ink used in the United States of +America, in signatures to wills, since the year when the independence +of the colonies was declared, would be sufficient in bulk to float a—" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Ezra," said Dr. Lavendar, chuckling, "this paper seems rather +liberal. Suppose I take some cash out of the safe to repair the roof +of the vestry? It leaks like a sieve." +</P> + +<P> +"Your construction of liberality is at fault, sir," Mr. Ezra corrected +him, gently; "this paper defines just exactly what you may do, up to +the moment when the principal reclaims the paper—or dies." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I hope he won't reclaim it, or die, either, till he gets an +affair we are both interested in patched up," Dr. Lavendar said; then +he listened politely while Mr. Ezra told him how many times the word +"ink" occurred in Holy Writ. +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar went away with his power of attorney in his pocket. And +when he sent it to John Gordon to sign, he seemed to take it for +granted that he and Mr. Gordon were equally interested in the +development and well-being of Mary's husband. He said in his letter +such things as, "You'll make a man of him yet;" and, "Your patience has +given the best elements in him time to come out." Dr. Lavendar had a +perfectly unreasonable way of imputing good motives to people; the +consequence was he was not very much astonished when they displayed +goodness. He was not astonished when, some two months later, another +letter came from old Mr. Gordon, saying that on the whole he thought +the note had better not run any longer. "I am going to forgive him his +debt," Mary's father wrote, in a feeble scrawl; "and I'll be obliged to +you if you will go up to my house and get that note and send it to me. +I'm pretty shaky on my pins, and I don't want to run risks, so I wish +you'd tear the signature out and burn it before you mail the note. +I'll send it along to Mr. Keen. I mean to write to him and tell him I +think he is honest, anyway. The fact is, I half respect the poor +fellow. It's been a long winter, and I can't say I'm much better. +Willy King doesn't know everything. These doctors are too confoundedly +ready to send a man away from home. I should have been just as well +off in Old Chester. <I>Be sure and destroy that signature</I>." +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar read this letter joyfully, but without surprise. "I'm +glad he didn't take my advice and let it go on any longer," he said to +himself; "I guess I'll risk the effect on Algy now." +</P> + +<P> +Then he wondered if there would be any danger of meeting Alex if he +went up to the house right after dinner. "I can't manage it this +morning," he said to himself. "I've got to go and see Mrs. Drayton. +Well, I wish the Lord would see fit to cure her—or something." +</P> + +<P> +So he went plodding out into a still, gray February day, and called on +Mrs. Drayton, and stopped at the post-office to hear the news, and then +went home to his dinner. "Ye're not going out <I>again</I>?" his Mary +cried, in shrill remonstrance, when in the afternoon she saw him muffle +himself up for the drive out into the country; "it's beginning to snow!" +</P> + +<P> +"I am," said Dr. Lavendar; "and see you have a good supper for me when +I get back." He got into his buggy, buttoning the apron up in front of +him, for it was a wet snow. He had on a shabby old fur cap, which he +pulled well down over his forehead, furrowed by other people's sins and +troubles; but his eyes peered from under it as bright and happy as a +squirrel's. +</P> + +<P> +His little blind horse pulled slowly and comfortably up the hill, +stopping to get his breath on a shaky bridge over a run. In the +silence of the snow Dr. Lavendar did not hear the stage coming down the +hill until it was almost on the bridge; then he had to pull over to let +it pass. As he did so the single passenger inside rapped on the +window, and then opened it and thrust his head out, calling to the +driver to stop. +</P> + +<P> +"Dr. Lavendar! you have heard, I suppose? Very sad. A great shock. +Of course I'm going on at once to bring the body back. It is difficult +to get off at this season, but a son has a sacred duty." Alex's pale +eyes were bulging from his red, excited face. +</P> + +<P> +"What news?" Dr. Lavendar said. "You don't mean—Alex! John +isn't—your father isn't—" +</P> + +<P> +"My father is dead," Alex said, with ponderous solemnity. "It is a +great grief, of course; but I trust I shall be properly resigned. His +age rendered such an event not altogether unexpected." +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar could not speak; but as the stage-driver began to gather +up his reins from the steaming backs of his horses, he said, brokenly: +"Wait—wait. Tell me about it, Alex; your father and I have been +friends all our lives." Alex told him briefly: He had just had a +despatch; his father had died that morning; he had been less well for a +fortnight. "I had a letter from him this morning," Alex said, "in +which he referred to his health—" +</P> + +<P> +"So had I—so had I." +</P> + +<P> +"I cannot get back with the body for six days—three to go, three to +come," Alex said, "but I will be obliged if you will arrange for the +obsequies next Thursday." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, yes. I will make any arrangements for you," Dr. Lavendar said. +He took out his big red silk pocket-handkerchief and blew his nose with +a trembling flourish. "We were boys together; your father was the big +boy, you know; I was the youngster. But we were great friends. Alex, +I am afraid my own grief has made me forgetful of yours; but you have +had a loss, my boy—a great loss." +</P> + +<P> +"Very much so—very much so," Alex agreed, with a proper sigh, and +pulled up the window of the stage, then lowered it abruptly: "Oh, Dr. +Lavendar, are you going on as far up as—as <I>my</I> house?" +</P> + +<P> +"As <I>your</I> house?" Dr. Lavendar repeated. "Oh—oh yes; I didn't +understand. Yes, I am." +</P> + +<P> +"Would it inconvenience you," Alex said, "to stop there? I am going to +ask Mr. Ezra Barkley to come up at once and put seals on various +things. I am the sole executor, as well as the heir, of course; but I +sha'n't be able to attend to things for a week; and the forms of law +must be observed. If you could be on hand when Barkley is there—not +that I do not trust him." +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar stared at him blankly; for an intelligent man, Alex was +sometimes a great fool. But he only nodded gravely, and said he would +stop at the house and wait for Mr. Ezra; Alex signed to the driver, and +the stage went rolling noiselessly on into the storm. When, at the +foot of the hill, Alex glanced back through the little oblong of bubbly +glass in the leather curtain of the coach, he saw Dr. Lavendar's buggy +standing motionless where he had passed it on the bridge; then the snow +hid it. +</P> + +<P> +Under the bridge the creek ran swiftly between edges of ice that here +and there had caught a dipping branch and held it prisoner, or had +spread in agate curves—snow white, clear black, faint white +again—around a stone in mid-stream. On the black current, silent +except for a murmurous rush of bubbles under the ice, the snowflakes +melted instantly, myriads of them—hurrying, hurrying, hurrying; then, +as they touched the water, gone. Dr. Lavendar, in the buggy, sat +looking down at them: +</P> + +<P> +"<I>In an instant—in the twinkling of an eye, we shall be changed.</I>" ... +</P> + +<P> +"He was my oldest friend." ("Was": with what an awful promptitude the +mind adjusts itself to "he <I>was</I>"!) Yet as he sat there, peering out +over the top of the apron and making, heavily, those plans familiar to +every clergyman, Dr. Lavendar did not really believe that the plans +were for Johnny. The snow fell with noiseless steadiness; the top of +the buggy was white; thimbles of down heaped themselves on the hubs, +tumbling off when the horse moved restlessly a step forward or backed a +little and stamped. Suddenly Goliath shook himself, for the snow was +cold upon his shaggy back, and the harness clattered and the shafts +rattled. Dr. Lavendar drew a long breath. "G'on!" he said. And +Goliath went on with evident relief. He knew the road well, and turned +in at the Gordon gateway, as a matter of course. When he stopped at +the front steps, the door opened and Rachel stood there, her eyes red. +</P> + +<P> +"Sam will take him round to the stable, sir," she said, as Sam shambled +out from the back of the house to stand at Goliath's head. "Oh, my! +sir; I suppose you've heard?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, Rachel; I've heard," the old man said, unbuttoning the apron and +climbing out. Rachel took his hand and wept audibly. "I knew he'd +never come back; he was marked for death. I've lived here eighteen +years, and I always said it was a privilege to work for a gentleman +like him." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—yes," he said, kindly. He was plainly agitated, and Rachel saw +that he was trembling. +</P> + +<P> +"Course you feel it, sir, being about of an age," she said, +sympathetically. "Dr. Lavendar, sir, won't you have a glass of +something?" With the hospitality of an old servant, she would have +opened the little closet in the chimney-breast, but he checked her. +</P> + +<P> +"Not yet; not now, Rachel. Leave me here awhile by myself, my girl. +I'll come out to the kitchen and see you before I go. When Mr. Barkley +comes, ask him to step into the library." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sir," Rachel said, obediently; and went away sniffling and +sighing. +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar stood looking about him at the emptiness of the room: the +winged chair, with the purple silk handkerchief hanging over the back; +the table heaped with books; the fire drowsing in the grate; the old +safe in the corner by the window. Outside, the snow drove past, +blotting the landscape. Ezra would probably arrive within a half-hour; +he had better get the note before he came. Then there need be no +explanations. +</P> + +<P> +When Mr. Ezra came in he found the old minister sitting by the fire, +quite calm again, and even cheerful. "Yes," he said, in answer to the +lawyer's very genteel expressions of sympathy—"yes, I'll miss him. We +were boys together. He used to call me Bantam. I hadn't thought of it +for years." +</P> + +<P> +"Nicknames," said Mr. Ezra, "were used by the ancients as long ago as +300 B.C." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I'm not as ancient as 300 B.C.," said Dr. Lavendar, "but I +called him Storkey; I can't imagine why, for he was only an inch and a +half taller; he always said it was two inches, but it wasn't. It was +an inch and a half." +</P> + +<P> +"We are here," said Mr. Ezra, pulling off his gloves and coughing +politely, "for indeed a solemn and an affecting task. It is my duty, +sir, to seal the effects of the deceased, so that they may be +delivered, intact, to the executor." +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar nodded. +</P> + +<P> +"In all my professional career I have never happened to be called upon +for this especial duty. It is quite unusual. But Alex seemed to think +it necessary. Alex is a good son." +</P> + +<P> +"So he says," said Dr. Lavendar. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you aware, sir," proceeded Mr. Ezra, producing from his bag the +paraphernalia of his office, "that such is the incredible celerity of +bees (belonging to the <I>Hymenoptera</I>) that they can within twenty-four +hours manufacture four thousand cells in the comb? This interesting +fact is suggested by the use of wax for sealing." +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar watched him in a silence so deep that he hardly heard the +harmless stream of statistics; but at last he was moved to say, with +his kind, old smile, "How <I>can</I> you know so many things, Ezra?" +</P> + +<P> +"In my profession," Mr. Ezra explained, "it is necessary to keep the +mind up to the greatest agility; I, therefore, exercise it frequently +in matters of memory." He lit a candle and held his wax sputtering in +the flame. "I recall," he said, "with painful interest, that at one of +our recent meetings I had the honor of drawing the power of attorney +for you, from the deceased." +</P> + +<P> +"So you did," said Dr. Lavendar. +</P> + +<P> +"Did you ever reflect," said Mr. Barkley, "that should that power be +used after the death of the donor, to carry out a wish of said donor, +expressed an hour, nay, a moment, before the instant of +dissolution—such act would be an offence in the eye of the law?" +</P> + +<P> +"I've always thought the law ought to put on spectacles, Ezra," said +Dr. Lavendar; "it has mighty poor eyesight once in a while." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Barkley was shocked. "The law, Lavendar, is the deepest expression +of the human sense of justice!" +</P> + +<P> +"But, Ezra," Dr. Lavendar said, suddenly attentive, "that is very +interesting. I remember you referred to the lapsing of the power of +attorney when you made out that paper for me; but I didn't quite +understand. Do you mean that carrying out, now, directions given +before the death of my old friend would be against the law? Suppose he +had asked me—last week, perhaps, to destroy—well, say that old +account-book there on the table, couldn't I do it to-day?" +</P> + +<P> +"Dr. Lavendar, you do not, I fear, apprehend the majesty of the law! +Why," said Mr. Ezra, standing up, very straight and solemn, "such a +deed—" +</P> + +<P> +"But suppose I didn't want—suppose Johnny didn't want, for reasons of +his own, to have anybody—say, even his executor—see that +account-book; suppose it might be put to some bad purpose—used to +injure some third person (of course that is an absurd supposition, but +it will do for an illustration); if he had asked me last week to +destroy it, do you mean to say, Ezra, I couldn't destroy it +to-day?—just because he happened to die this morning!" +</P> + +<P> +"My dear sir," said Mr. Ezra, "such conduct on your part would be +perilously near a criminal offence." +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar whistled. "Well, Ezra, I won't destroy it." +</P> + +<P> +"I hope not, sir—I hope not, indeed," cried Mr. Ezra. +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar laughed; he had the impulse to turn round and wink at +Johnny, to take him into the joke. But it was only for an instant, and +his face fell quickly into puzzled lines. +</P> + +<P> +"A moment's reflection," Mr. Ezra continued, "will convince you, Dr. +Lavendar, that the aforesaid account-book is now the property, not of +the deceased, but of the estate. Its destruction would be the +destruction of property belonging to the heirs. Furthermore, your +belief that the herein before mentioned account-book might be put to an +improper use, for the injury of a third person—such belief would no +more justify you in destroying it than would your belief in its +unfairness towards said third person justify you in destroying a will." +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar thrust out his lower lip and stared at him, frowning. +"Yes," he said, slowly—"yes; I see. I did not quite understand. But +I see." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Ezra solemnly began to pour forth a stream of statistics; he +referred to the case of Buckley vs. Grant, and even mentioned chapter +and page of <I>Purdon's Digest</I> where Dr. Lavendar could find further +enlightenment. Dr. Lavendar may have listened, but he made no comment; +he sat staring silently at the old purple handkerchief on the top of +John's chair. +</P> + +<P> +When Mr. Ezra had finished his work and his statistics, the two men +shook hands; then Dr. Lavendar said good-bye to Rachel and climbed into +his buggy, buttoning the apron high up in front of him; the lawyer +mounted his horse, and they plodded off into the snow, single file. +But Dr. Lavendar's eyes, under his old fur cap, had lost their +squirrel-like brightness.... +</P> + +<P> +So Algy's note belonged to the estate; and the estate belonged to Alex; +and Alex was the executor. And upon Alex Gordon his father's +intentions in regard to Algy's note would make no more impression than +the flakes of snow on running water. A vision of Alex's mean and cruel +mouth, his hard, light eyes, motionless as a snake's in his purpling +face, made Dr. Lavendar wince. The note—the poor, shabby, worn +note,—that stood for the best there was in Algy, that stood for +perseverance and honesty and courage; the note, which had weighed so +heavily that he had had to stand up in his pitiful best manhood to bear +it: the note that John had meant to "forgive"—Alex would use to +humiliate and torture and destroy. Under the pressure which he would +bring to bear that note would be poor Algy's financial, and perhaps his +moral, ruin. "And if I had not objected, John would have cancelled +it," Dr. Lavendar thought, frowning and blinking under his fur cap. He +saw the smoking flax quenched, the bruised reed broken; he saw Algy +turning venomously upon his enemy—for he knew him well enough to know +that his code of defence would not include any conventional delicacy; +he saw the new and hardly won integrity crumbling under the assault of +Alex's legal wickedness. Dr. Lavendar groaned to himself. Alex could, +lawfully, murder Algernon Keen's soul. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +When Mary saw the old minister come into the house she was much +displeased. "There, now, look at him," she scolded; "white as a sheet. +What did I tell you? I'll bet ye he won't eat them corn dodgers, and I +never made 'em finer." +</P> + +<P> +It must be admitted that Mary was right. Dr. Lavendar did not eat much +supper. He went shuffling back to his study, Danny slinking at his +heels; but for once he did not notice his little, grizzled friend. +When he got into his flowered cashmere dressing-gown and put on his +slippers and stirred his fire, he sat a long time with his pipe in his +hand, forgetting to light it. When he did light it, it went out, +unnoticed. Once Danny tried to scramble into his chair, but, receiving +no encouragement, curled up on the rug. The fire burned low and +smouldered into ashes; just one sullen, red coal blinked in a corner of +the grate; Dr. Lavendar watched this red spot fixedly for a long time. +Indeed, it was well on towards twelve before he suddenly reached over +for the bellows and a couple of sticks, and, bending down, stirred and +blew until the sticks caught and the cinders began to sparkle under the +ashes. This disturbed Danny, who sat up, displeased and yawning. But +when at last the flames broke out, sputtering and snapping, and caught +a piece of paper—a shabby, creased piece of paper covered with +dates—caught it, ran over it, curling it into brittle blackness, and +then whirled it, a flimsy, crumbling ghost, up the chimney, Dr. +Lavendar's face shone with a light that was not only from the fire. +</P> + +<P> +"Ha, Danny, you scoundrel," he said, cheerfully, "I guess you are +<I>particeps criminis</I>!" +</P> + +<P> +Then he went over to his study-table and rooted about for a thin, +shabby, blue book, over which he pored for some time, stopping once or +twice to make some calculations on the back of an envelope, then +turning to the book again. He covered the envelope with his small, +neat figuring, and turned it over to begin on the other side—and +started: "Johnny's letter!" he said. But when the calculations were +made, the rest was easy enough: first, his check-book and his pen. (At +the check he looked with some pride. "Daniel," he said, "look at that, +sir. You never saw so much money in your life; and neither did I—over +my own signature.") Next, a letter to Alex Gordon: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"MY DEAR ALEXANDER,—I owe your father's estate to the amount of the +enclosed check. No papers exist in regard to it, as the matter was +between ourselves. I will ask you for a receipt. Yours truly, +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +"EDWARD LAVENDAR." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0301"></A> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE ANT +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +When William Rives and Lydia Sampson quarrelled and broke their +engagement, Old Chester said that they were lucky to fall out two weeks +before their wedding-day instead of two weeks after it. Of course, Old +Chester said many other things: it said it had always known they could +never get along. William, who had very little money, was careful and +thrifty, as every young man ought to be; Lydia, who was fairly well +off, was lavish and no housekeeper. "What could you expect?" demanded +Old Chester. Old Chester never knew exactly what the trouble between +them had been, for they kept their own counsel; but it had its +suspicions: it had something to do with William's father's will. By +some legal quibble the Orphan's Court awarded to William a piece of +property which everybody knew old Mr. Rives supposed he had left to his +daughter Amanda. Lydia thought (at least Old Chester thought she +thought) that William would, as a matter of course, at once turn the +field over to his sister. But William did no such thing. And, after +all, why should he? The field was his; the law allowed it, the Court +awarded it. Why should he present a field to Amanda? Old Chester said +this thoughtfully, looking at William with a sort of respectful regret. +Very likely Lydia's regret was not respectful. Lydia was always so +outspoken. However, it was all surmise. About the time that Amanda +did not get the field the engagement was broken—and you can put two +and two together if you like. As for Old Chester, it said that it +pitied poor, dear Lydia; and it was no wonder William left town after +the rupture, because, naturally, he would be ashamed to show his face. +But then it also said it pitied poor, dear William, and it should think +Lydia would be ashamed to show her face; for, of course, her obstinacy +made the trouble—and a young female ought not to be obstinate, ought +not, in fact, to have opinions on such matters. Legal affairs, said +Old Chester, should be left to the gentlemen. In fact, Old Chester +said every possible thing for and against them both; but gradually, as +years passed, conflicting opinions settled down to the "poor Lydia" +belief. +</P> + +<P> +This was, probably, for two reasons: first, because William had never +seen fit to come back to Old Chester, and that, quite apart from his +conduct to his lady-love, was a reason for distrust; and, secondly, +Lydia had, somehow, become Old Chester's one really poor person—that +is, in a genteel walk of life. After the crumbling of the Sampson +fortune, Old Chester had to plan for Lydia, and take care of her, and +give her its "plain sewing"; so, naturally, William was reprobated. +Besides, she may have quarrelled and broken her engagement two weeks +before her wedding, but all these years afterwards she had been +faithful to the memory of Love! Old Chester knew this, for the simple +reason that Miss Lydia, during all these years, had kept in her +sitting-room a picture of William Rives, adorned with a sprig of box; +furthermore, it knew (Heaven knows how!) that she kissed this slender, +tight-waisted picture every night before she went to bed. Of course, +Old Chester softened! Lydia may have broken her engagement and all +that, but she kept his picture, and she kissed it every night. "But he +ought to be ashamed of himself," said Old Chester—"that is, if he is +alive." Then it added, reflectively, that he must be dead, for he had +never returned to Old Chester. Yet as time went on people forgot even +to disapprove of William; they had enough to do to take care of poor +Lydia, "for she is certainly very poor—and very peculiar," said Old +Chester, sighing. +</P> + +<P> +"Peculiar!" said Martha King; "I call it something worse than peculiar +to spend money that ought to go towards rent on a present for Rachel +King's Anna. She gave that child a picture-book. I'm sure <I>I</I> can't +afford to go round giving children picture-books. I told her so flatly +and frankly. And then it was so trying, because, right on top of my +scolding, she gave me a present—a cup all painted with roses, and +marked 'Friendship's Gift,' in gilt. I didn't want it; I could have +shaken her," Mrs. King ended, helplessly. +</P> + +<P> +It was not only Martha whose patience was tried by Miss Lydia; the +experience was common to all Old Chester. Even Dr. Lavendar had felt +the human impulse to shake her. When he had, very delicately, asked +"as an old friend, the privilege of assisting her," it was exasperating +to have a lamp-shade made of six porcelain intaglios set in a tin frame +come to him the next day, with the "respectful compliments of L.S." +But somehow, when, beaming at him from under her shabby bonnet, Miss +Lydia had asked him if he liked that preposterous shade, he could not +speak his mind,—at least to her. He spoke it mildly to Mrs. Barkley. +"We must restrain her; she brought me $2 for Zenanna Missions +yesterday." +</P> + +<P> +"What did you do?" Mrs. Barkley said, sympathetically. +</P> + +<P> +"I made her take it back. I pointed out that her first duty was to her +landlord." +</P> + +<P> +"Her landlord has some duties to her," Mrs. Barkley said, angrily. +"The stairs are just crumbling to pieces, and that chimney is dreadful. +She says that Davis said the flue would have to be rebuilt, and maybe +the whole chimney. He couldn't be sure about that, but he thought it +probable. He said it would cost $100 to put all the things in +repair—floor and roof and everything. But he would do it for $85, +considering. He thinks the flue has broken down inside somehow. She +might burn up some night; and then," said Mrs. Barkley, in a deep bass, +"how would that Smith person feel?" +</P> + +<P> +"He says," Dr. Lavendar explained, "that by the terms of the lease the +tenant is to make repairs." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Barkley snorted. "And how is poor Lydia to make repairs? She +hasn't two cents to bless herself with. I told him so." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Barkley's face grew very red at the recollection of her interview +with Mr. Smith (he was one of the new Smiths, of course). "I don't mix +philanthropy and business," he had said; "the lease says the tenant +shall make repairs. And, besides, I do not wish to be more attractive +than I am. With that chimney, some other landlord may win her +affections. Without it, she will never desert Mr. Micawber." +</P> + +<P> +"I am not acquainted with your friend Mr. Micawber," said Mrs. Barkley, +"neither, I am sure, is Miss Sampson; and if you will allow me to say +so, sir, we do not in Old Chester consider it delicate to refer to the +affections of an unmarried female." +</P> + +<P> +Upon which Mr. Smith laughed immoderately. (None of the new people had +any manners.) +</P> + +<P> +"So there is no use asking him to do anything," Mrs. Barkley told Dr. +Lavendar. +</P> + +<P> +"The only thing I can think of," the old minister said, "is that we all +join together and give her the price Davis named, as a present." +</P> + +<P> +"Eighty-five dollars!" Mrs. Barkley exclaimed, startled; "that's a good +deal of money—" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, yes; it is. But something has got to be done." +</P> + +<P> +"And to take up a collection for Lydia! It's—charity." +</P> + +<P> +"It isn't taking up a collection," Dr. Lavendar protested, stoutly. +"And it isn't charity. Miss Lydia's friends have a right to make her a +present if they feel like it." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Barkley agreed, doubtfully. +</P> + +<P> +"Mrs. Dale would contribute, I'm sure," said Dr. Lavendar. "And +perhaps the Miss Ferises." +</P> + +<P> +"I wouldn't like to ask them." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't ask 'em. Offer them the chance." +</P> + +<P> +"No," Mrs. Barkley insisted; "they've no right. They are not really +her friends. Lydia doesn't call them by their first names." But she +went away very much encouraged and full of this project of a present +for poor Lydia, who, happily, had no idea that she was "poor" Lydia. +She was not poor to herself (except, of course, in purse, which is a +small matter). She lived in a shabby and dilapidated cottage at the +Smith gates, and every month squeezed out a few dollars rent to Mr. +Smith; she was sorry for the Smiths, for they were new people; but she +always spoke kindly to them, for she never looked down on anybody. So, +as far as position went, she was not "poor." She had no relations +living, but she called all Old Chester of her generation by its first +name; so, as to friendship, there was nothing "poor" about her. And, +most of all, she was not "poor," but very rich, in her capacity for +interest. +</P> + +<P> +Now, no one who has an interest is poor; and Miss Lydia had a hundred +interests. A hundred? She had as many interests as there were people +in the world or joys or sorrows in Old Chester; so she was really very +rich.... Of course, there are different degrees of this sort of +wealth: there are folk who have to manufacture their interests; with +deliberation they are philanthropic or artistic or intellectual, or +even, if hard put to it, they are amused. Such persons may be said to +be in fairly comfortable circumstances, although they live anxiously +and rather meagrely, because they know well that when interest gives +out they are practically without the means to support life. Below this +manufacturing class come the really destitute—the poor creatures who +do not care vitally for anything and who are without the spiritual +muscle to manufacture an interest. These pathetic folk are +occasionally made self-supporting by a catastrophe—grief or even +merely some uncomfortable surgery in regard to their bank account may +give them a poor kind of interest; but too often they exist +miserably—sometimes, with every wish gratified, helplessly poor. +Above the manufacturing class comes the aristocracy, to which Miss +Lydia Sampson belonged, the class which is positively rolling in +wealth. Every morning these favored creatures arise with a zest for +living. You hear them singing before breakfast; at the table they are +full of eager questions: Is it going to rain? No; it is a fair day; +delightful!—for it might have rained. And the sun will bring up the +crocuses. And this was the day a neighbor was to go to town. Will she +go? When will she come back? How pleasant that the day is pleasant! +And it will be good for the sick people, too. And the moment the +eager, simple mind turns to its fellows, sick or well, the field of +interest widens to the sky-line of souls. To sorrow in the sorrows of +Tom and Dick and Harry and their wives, to rejoice in their joys—what +is better than that? And then, all one's own affairs are so vital: the +record of the range of the thermometer, the question of turning or not +turning an alpaca skirt, the working out of a game of solitaire—these +things are absorbing experiences. +</P> + +<P> +No wonder we who are poor, or even we who work hard at philanthropy or +art or responsibility to manufacture our little interests—no wonder we +envy such sky-blue natures. Certainly there were persons in Old +Chester who envied Miss Lydia; at least, they envied her her unfailing +joyousness—but they never envied her her empty purse. Which was like +envying a rose its color, but despising the earth from which by some +divine chemistry the color came. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Lydia's eyes might smart from the smoke puffing out into her room, +but she was able to laugh at the sight of her bleared visage in the +narrow mirror over the mantel. Nor did the fact that the mirror was +mottled and misty with age, the frame tarnished almost to blackness, +cause her the slightest pang. What difference does it make in this +world of life and death and joy and sorrow, if things are shabby? The +fact is, the secret of happiness is the <I>sense of proportion</I>; +eliminate, by means of that sense, trouble about the unimportant, and +we would all be considerably happier than kings. Miss Lydia possessed +this heaven-born sense, as well as the boundless wealth of interest +(for to him that hath shall be given). "I don't want to brag," she +used to say, "but I've got my health and my friends; so what on earth +more do I want?" And one hesitated to point out a little thing like a +shabby mirror, or even a smoky chimney. When the chimney smoked, Miss +Lydia merely took her rocking-chair and her sewing out into a small +room that served as a kitchen—and then what difference did the smoking +make? +</P> + +<P> +And as it turned out, one shadowy April day, it was the best thing she +could have done, because, when Dr. Lavendar dropped in to see her, she +could make him a cup of tea at once, without having to leave him alone. +She was a little, bustling figure, rather dusty and moth-eaten, with a +black frizette, always a little to one side, and eager, gentle, blue +eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"What's the news?" she said. She had given Dr. Lavendar an apple, and +put on the kettle, and taken up her hemming. +</P> + +<P> +"I never saw anybody so fond of sewing," the old man ruminated, eating +his apple. "I believe you'd sew in your grave." +</P> + +<P> +"I believe I would. Dear me! I am so sorry for the poor women who +don't like to sew. Amelia Dilworth told me that Mrs. Neddy can't bear +to take a needle in her hand. So Milly does Ned's mending just as she +did before he was married." +</P> + +<P> +"Aren't you sorry for the poor men that don't like to sew?" Dr. +Lavendar said, looking about for a place to deposit his core—("Oh, +drop it on the floor; I'll sweep it up sometime," Miss Lydia told him; +but he disposed of it by eating it). +</P> + +<P> +"Well, as for sewing," said Miss Lydia, "it's my greatest pleasure. +Why, when I get settled down to sew, my mind roves over the whole +earth. I don't want to brag, but I don't believe anybody enjoys +herself more than I do when I'm sewing. If you won't tell, I'll tell +you something, Dr. Lavendar." +</P> + +<P> +"I won't tell." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then: Sunday used to be an awful day to me. I couldn't sew, and +so I couldn't think. And I really couldn't go to church all day. So I +just bought some beautiful, fine nainsook and cut out my shroud. And I +work on that Sundays, because a shroud induces serious thoughts." +</P> + +<P> +"I should think it might," said Dr. Lavendar. +</P> + +<P> +"You don't think it's wrong, do you?" she asked, anxiously; and added, +joyously, "I'm embroidering the whole front. I declare I don't know +what I'll do when I get it done." +</P> + +<P> +"Embroider the whole back." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, yes. I can do that," Miss Lydia assented. "There! there's your +tea." +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar took his tea and stirred it thoughtfully. "Miss Lydia," +he said, and looked hard at the tea, "what do you suppose? Mr. William +Rives—" Dr. Lavendar stopped and drank some tea. "How many years ago +was it that he went away from Old Chester? I don't exactly remember." +</P> + +<P> +"It was thirty-one years ago," she said; she put down her own cup of +tea and stared at him. "What were you going to say about him, sir?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, only," said Dr. Lavendar, scraping the sugar from the bottom of +his cup, "only that—" +</P> + +<P> +"There! my goodness! I'll give you another lump," cried Miss Lydia; +"don't wear my spoon out. What about him, sir?" +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar explained that he had come back on the stage from Mercer +the night before with a strange gentleman—"stout man," Dr. Lavendar +said, "with a black wig. I was rooting about in my pocket-book for a +stamp—I wanted to post a letter just as we were leaving Mercer; and +this gentleman very politely offered me one. I took it. Then I looked +at him, and there was something familiar about him. I asked him if we +had not met before, and he told me who he was. He has changed a good +deal." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Lydia drank her tea excitedly. "Where is he going to stay? Is he +well? Has he come back rich?" She hoped so. William was so +industrious, he deserved to be rich. She ran into the smoky front room +and brought out his picture, regarding it with affectionate interest. +"Did you know I was engaged to him, years ago, Dr. Lavendar? We +thought it best to part. But—" She stopped and looked at the +picture, and a little color came into her face. But in another moment +she was chattering her birdlike questions. +</P> + +<P> +"I declare," Dr. Lavendar said, at last, "you are the youngest person +of my acquaintance." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Lydia laughed. "I hope you don't think it's wrong to be young?" +she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Wrong?" said Dr. Lavendar; "it's wrong not to be young. I'd be +ashamed not to be young. My body's old, but that's not my fault. I'm +not to blame for an old body, but I would be to blame for an old soul. +An old soul is a shameful thing. Mind, now, don't let me catch you +getting old!" +</P> + +<P> +And then he said good-bye, and left her sitting by the stove. She +turned her skirt back over her knees to keep it from scorching and held +the picture in her left hand and warmed the palm of the right; then in +her right hand and warmed the left. Then she put it down on her knees +and warmed both hands and smiled. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0302"></A> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +When Mrs. Barkley heard the news of the wanderer's return, she hurried +to Dr. Lavendar's study. "Do you suppose we need go on with the +present?" she demanded, excitedly. +</P> + +<P> +"Why not?" said Dr. Lavendar. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Barkley looked conscious. "I only thought, perhaps—maybe—Mr. +Rives—" +</P> + +<P> +"William Rives's presence in Old Chester won't improve draughts, will +it?" Dr. Lavendar said, crossly. And that was all she could get out of +him. +</P> + +<P> +Meantime, Old Chester began to kill the fatted calf. Mr. Rives liked +fatted calves; and, furthermore, he had prudently arranged with Van +Horne at the Tavern for a cash credit for each meal at which he was not +present. "For why," he had said, reasonably enough, "should I pay for +what I don't get?" So he went cheerfully wherever he was bidden. Old +Chester approved of him as a guest, for, though talkative, he was +respectful in his demeanor, and he did not, so Old Chester said, "put +on airs." He was very stout, and he wore a black wig that curled all +around the back of his neck; his eyes were somewhat dull, but +occasionally they glanced out keenly over his fat cheeks. He had a +very small mouth and a slight, perpetual smile that gave his face a +rather kindly look, and his voice was mild and soft. +</P> + +<P> +He had come back rich (his shabby clothes to the contrary); "and poor +Lydia is so poor," said Old Chester; "perhaps—" and then it paused and +smiled, and added that "it would be strange, after all these years, +<I>if</I>—" +</P> + +<P> +When somebody said something like this to Dr. Lavendar he grew very +cross. "Preposterous!" he said. "I should feel it my duty to prevent +anything so dreadful." +</P> + +<P> +And there were romantic hearts in Old Chester who were displeased with +him for this remark. Mrs. Drayton said it showed that he could not +understand love; "though he can't be blamed for that, as he never +married. Still," said Mrs. Drayton, "he ought to have married. I +don't want to make any accusations, <I>but I always look with suspicion +on an unmarried gentleman</I>." Mrs. Barkley did not go as far as that, +but she did say to herself that Dr. Lavendar was unromantic. "Dear +me!" she confided to Jane Jay—"if anything <I>should</I> happen! Well, I'd +be glad to do anything I could to bring it about." +</P> + +<P> +And Mrs. Barkley, who had not only the courage but the audacity of her +convictions, invited the parted lovers to tea, so they met for the +first time at her house. Mrs. Barkley was the last person one would +accuse of being romantic, and yet Dr. Lavendar saw fit to stop at her +door that morning and say, "Matches are dangerous playthings, ma'am!" +and Mrs. Barkley grew very red, and said that she couldn't imagine what +he meant. +</P> + +<P> +However, the party went off well enough. Miss Jane Jay, who made a +conscious fourth, expected some quiverings and blushings; but that was +because she was young—comparatively. If she had been older she would +have known better. Age, with shamefaced relief, has learned the +solvent quality of Time. It is this quality which makes possible the +contemplation of certain embarrassing heavenly reunions—where +explanations of consolation must be made.... Thirty-one years of days, +days full of personal concerns and interests, had blurred and softened +and finally almost blotted out that one fierce day of angry parting; +those thirty-one years of days had made this man and woman able to meet +with a sort of calm, good-natured interest in each other. Miss +Lydia—her black frizette over one smiling eye, her hands encased in +white cotton gloves, a new ribbon at the throat of her very old +alpaca—called him "William," with the most commonplace friendliness. +He began with "Miss Sampson," but ended before supper was over with her +first name, and even, once, just as they were going home, with "Lydy," +at which she did start and blink for an instant, and Jane Jay thought a +faint color came into her cheek. However, he did not offer to walk +home with her, but bowed politely at Mrs. Barkley's gate, and would +have betaken himself to the Tavern had not Mrs. Barkley, when he was +half-way across the street, called after him. There was a flutter of +uncertainty in her voice, for those words of Dr. Lavendar's (which she +did not understand) "stuck," she said to herself, "in her crop." Mr. +Rives came back and paused in the moonlight, looking up at Mrs. Barkley +standing in the doorway. "I should be pleased, sir," she said, "to +have a few words with you." +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly, ma'am," said Mr. Rives, in his soft voice, and followed her +into the parlor. +</P> + +<P> +"Sit down," said Mrs. Barkley. +</P> + +<P> +William Rives sat down thoughtfully. A tall lamp on the heavy, +claw-footed table emitted a feeble light through its ground-glass +globe, and Mrs. Barkley stared at it a moment, as though for +inspiration; then she said, in a deep bass: "Mr. Rives, I thought you +might be interested in a certain little project. Some of us have +thought that we would collect—a—a small sum—" +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Rives bowed; his smiling lips suddenly shut tight. +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps you have not heard that our old friend Lydia Sampson is in +reduced circumstances; and some of us thought that a small present of +money— +</P> + +<P> +"Ah—" said Mr. Rives. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Barkley felt the color come up into her face at that small, cold +sound. "Lydia is very poor," she blurted out. +</P> + +<P> +"Really?" murmured Mr. Rives, with embarrassment; and fell to stroking +his beaver hat carefully. Then he added that he deeply regretted Mrs. +Barkley's information. +</P> + +<P> +"I knew you would," she said, in a relieved voice. "Lydia is a dear +girl. So kind and so uncomplaining! And—and faithful in her +affections, William." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah!" said Mr. Rives again; his smile never changed, but his eyes were +keen. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," Mrs. Barkley said, boldly. "Why, William—I don't know that I +ought to tell you, but do you remember a sketch of yourself that you +gave her in—in other days? William, she has kept it ever since. It +hangs in her parlor, (horrid, smoky room!) And she keeps a sprig of +fresh box stuck in the frame." +</P> + +<P> +"Really?" said Mr. Rives; and his face grew a little redder. +</P> + +<P> +"That's all," Mrs. Barkley said, abruptly. "Now go. I just thought +I'd mention it." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Mr. Rives; then added that it was a beautiful night, and +politely bowed himself out. +</P> + +<P> +"But he didn't say anything about giving anything," Mrs. Barkley told +Dr. Lavendar the next day. And whatever romantic hopes she may have +had withered under the blighting touch of such indifference. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0303"></A> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Barkley's hopes withered and then revived; for as she climbed the +hill to the Stuffed-Animal House a day or two later whom should she see +wandering through the graveyard (of all places!) but Lydia and William. +"Of course, I pretended not to see them," she told Harriet Hutchinson, +"but I believe they've begun to take notice." +</P> + +<P> +They had not seen her; the graveyard was on the crest of the hill, and +the road lay below the bank and the stone wall, wherein were set two or +three iron doors streaked and eaten with rust, each with its name and +its big ring-bolt. There was a bleached fringe of dead grass along the +top of the wall, but the bank above was growing green in the April +sunshine. There were many trees in this older part of the cemetery, +and even now, when the foliage was hardly more than a mist, the tombs +and low mounds and old headstones were dappled with light shadows. +Miss Lydia and William had met here, by some chance; and Mrs. Barkley, +climbing the road before it dipped below the bank, had caught sight of +them just where the slope broke into sunshine beyond the trees. Behind +them, leaning sidewise over a sunken grave, was a slate headstone, its +base deep in a thatch of last year's grass; there were carved cherubs +on the corners, and the inscription was blurred with lichen. A still +older tomb, a slab of granite on four pedestals, made a seat for Miss +Lydia. She had been deciphering its crumbling inscription: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Mr. Amos Sm ... Sr.<BR> +Born ...... 1734<BR> +Die ... May 7th, 1802<BR> +Aged 68<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Base body, thou art faint and weak—<BR> + (How the sweet moments roll!)<BR> +A mortal paleness on thy cheek,<BR> + But glory in thy soul!"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +William, reading it, had remarked that he thought people lived longer +nowadays. "Don't you?" he added, anxiously. +</P> + +<P> +"We live long enough," Miss Lydia said. "I don't want to live too +long." +</P> + +<P> +"You can't live too long," he told her, with his sharp smile. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Lydia laughed and looked down at the crumbling stone. "I think +sixty-eight was just about long enough. I'm like Dr. Lavendar; he says +he 'wants to get up from the banquet of life <I>still hungry</I>.' That's +the way I feel. I don't want to lose my appetite for life by getting +too much of it." +</P> + +<P> +"I couldn't get too much," Mr. Rives said, nervously. "Let us proceed. +This place is—is not cheerful. I like cheerfulness. You always seem +cheerful, Lydy?" +</P> + +<P> +"Course I am," she said, getting up. "Why shouldn't I be? I haven't a +care in the world." +</P> + +<P> +"You don't say so!" said William Rives. "I was under the impression +that your circumstances—" +</P> + +<P> +"My circumstances?" said Miss Lydia. "Bless you! I haven't any. +Father didn't leave much of anything. I had $2000, but Cousin Robinson +invested it and lost it. He felt so badly, I was just distressed about +him." +</P> + +<P> +"He should have been prosecuted!" Mr. Rives said, angrily. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Lydia shook her head in horrified protest, but she beamed at him +from under her black frizette, grateful for his sympathy. +</P> + +<P> +"I remember," he said, thoughtfully, "that you were always +light-hearted. I recall your once telling me that you began to sing as +soon as you got up in the morning." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh yes," Miss Lydia said, simply. "I always sing the morning hymn. +You know the morning hymn, William? +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"'Awake, my soul, and with the sun<BR> +Thy daily course of duty run—'"<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +William nodded. "Vocal exercises (if in tune and not too loud) are +always cheerful," he said. +</P> + +<P> +Gossiping thus of simple things, they walked back to Lydia's house and +sat down in her parlor. There William told her, with a sort of +whimper, that his health was bad. "I sent for Willy King—he is so +young, he ought not to charge the full fee. I remember him as a very +impudent boy," Mr. Rives said, growing red at some memory of William's +youth; "however, he seems a respectable young man." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, indeed he is," said Miss Lydia; "he is a dear, good boy. I hope +he is doing you good?" she ended, with eager kindness. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I think so," he said, anxiously. And then he gave his symptoms +with a detail that made poor Miss Lydia get very red. "And I don't +sleep very well," he ended, sighing. "Willy told me to try repeating +the kings of England backward, but I couldn't remember them; so it +didn't do any good." +</P> + +<P> +"When I don't sleep," said Miss Lydia, "I just count my blessings. +That's a splendid thing to do, because you fall asleep before you get +to the end of 'em." +</P> + +<P> +William sighed. "The kings of England was a foolish prescription; yet +I paid Willy $1.50 for that call. Still, I must say I think he is +doing me good; but he recommends many expensive things—perhaps because +he is young. He wished me to hire a vehicle and drive every day. Now +just think of the expense of such a thing! I suggested to him that +instead of hiring a conveyance, I would go out with him in his buggy +whenever he calls. He is a very young man to treat an important case," +William ended, sighing. Then he asked Lydia about her health, with an +exactness which she thought very kind. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I'm always well; and <I>so</I> sorry for the poor people who are +sick," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"You are a good nurse, aren't you, Lydy?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm always glad when I can do anything for a sick person. I'm so +sorry for 'em," Miss Lydia said, kindly. +</P> + +<P> +"And you are economical, aren't you, Lydy?" Mr. Rives inquired, in his +mild voice, "and not fond of dress?" +</P> + +<P> +"Bless you!" said Lydia, "how can I be anything but economical? And as +for being fond of dress—I'm fond of my old dresses, William." +</P> + +<P> +"That is an excellent trait," said William Rives, solemnly. Then, +catching sight of his own portrait—the slim, anæmic young person in a +stock and tight-waisted coat, with very small feet and very large hat, +he got up to look at it. "I—have changed a little," he said, +doubtfully. +</P> + +<P> +"It's more becoming to be heavier," Miss Lydia said. And this remark +gave him such obvious satisfaction that when he went away his perpetual +smile had deepened into positive heartiness. +</P> + +<P> +It was after this talk that he finally added his offering to the +"Present" which just then was occupying Old Chester's attention. "And +how much do you suppose I got out of him?" Mrs. Barkley asked Dr. +Lavendar. "<I>$1.50!</I>" +</P> + +<P> +However, other friends were more liberal, and by the end of May the $85 +(grown now into the round sum of $100) was ready for Miss Lydia. A +little silk bag, with a scrap of paper twisted about its ribbon +drawing-string, was thrust one evening by an unknown hand into Miss +Lydia's door. In it were twenty five-dollar gold pieces. "From old +friends," Dr. Lavendar had written on the scrap of paper. +</P> + +<P> +"Sha'n't we say—'for repairs'?" Mrs. Barkley asked, doubtfully. +</P> + +<P> +"No," Dr. Lavendar declared; "I'd rather say 'to buy curl-papers.' Of +course she'll use it for repairs; but we mustn't dictate." +</P> + +<P> +Nobody saw Miss Lydia gasp when she opened the bag, and sit down, and +then cry and laugh, but probably every friendly heart in Old Chester +was busy imagining the scene, for every friend had contributed. They +had all done it in their different ways—and how character confesses +itself in this matter of giving! ... Mrs. Dale, who gave the largest +sum, did it with calm, impersonal kindness. Martha King said that she +had so many calls upon her charity that she couldn't give much, but was +glad to do what she could. Miss Harriet Hutchinson said it was a +first-rate idea, and she was obliged to Mrs. Barkley for letting her +have a hand in it; as for Mrs. Drayton, she said it was a great trial +not to contribute, but she could not do so conscientiously. "<I>I</I> make +such things a matter of prayer," she said; "some do not. I do not +judge them. I never judge any one. But I take all such matters to the +Throne of Grace, and as a result I feel that such things are injurious +to a poor person, and so I must deny myself the pleasure of charity." +</P> + +<P> +William Rives said that he would be pleased to contribute, and Mrs. +Barkley had a moment of intense excitement when she read his +check—$150. But her emotion only lasted until she put on her +spectacles. +</P> + +<P> +And yet, when Lydia, sitting at the kitchen table, wiped her eyes and +counted her gold by the light of a candle in a hooded candlestick, she +felt, somehow, William's hand in it. For, by this time, William's +friendliness was beyond any question. He came to see her every other +day, and he told her all his symptoms and talked of his loneliness and +forlornness until they were both moved to tears. +</P> + +<P> +"Poor William!" she said, her eyes overflowing with sympathy. "Well, +I'm glad you have plenty of money, anyhow. It would be hard to be poor +and have bad health, too." +</P> + +<P> +"But I haven't plenty of money," William said, with agitation. "How +did you get such an idea? I haven't!" +</P> + +<P> +And then Miss Lydia was sorrier for him than ever. "Although," she +said, cheerfully, "poverty is the last thing to worry about. Look at +me. I don't want to brag, but I'm always contented, and I'll tell you +why: <I>I don't want things</I>. Don't want things, and then you're not +unhappy without 'em." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Lydy, that's so true," Mr. Rives said, earnestly. "I'm so glad +you feel that way." And he began to call every day. +</P> + +<P> +"It's plain to be seen what's going to happen," said Mrs. Barkley, +excitedly, and whispered her hopes (in secret) to almost everybody in +Old Chester—except Dr. Lavendar. He became very ill-tempered the +moment she approached the subject. But she was jocose, in a deep bass, +to Miss Lydia herself; and Miss Lydia did not pretend to misunderstand. +She reddened and laughed; but her eyes were not clear; there was a +puzzled look at the back of them. Still, when she sat and looked at +her gold the puzzle lightened, and her face, under her black +frizette—in her excitement fallen sidewise over one ear—softened +almost to tears. "William is kind," she said to herself. +</P> + +<P> +And, indeed, at that very moment William was referring to her in most +kindly terms. He was sitting in Mrs. Barkley's gloomy parlor, on the +edge of the horse-hair sofa, and Mrs. Barkley was regarding him with +romantic interest. "I have been much saddened, ma'am," he was saying, +"to observe the destitution of Miss Lydia Sampson." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Barkley beamed. Was he going to do something, after all? She +spoke in an amiable bass, twitching her heavy eyebrows. "Our little +gift, which has gone to her to-night, will make her more comfortable. +I could wish it had been larger," she ended, and looked sidewise at Mr. +Rives, who bowed and regretted that it was not larger. He then coughed +behind his hand. +</P> + +<P> +"Mrs. Barkley, I wish to approach a subject of some delicacy." +</P> + +<P> +("He <I>is</I> going to do something," she thought, excitedly; "or perhaps +he means marriage!") +</P> + +<P> +"Mrs. Barkley, in past years there were passages of affection between +Miss Sampson and myself" (Mrs. Barkley bowed; her heart began to glow +with that warmth which stirs the oldest of us at the sight of a lover). +</P> + +<P> +"We were younger in those days, ma'am," William said, in his soft voice. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh no!" she protested, politely. "Why, you are very well preserved, +I'm sure." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said William, "I am. Yet I am not as young as I once was." +</P> + +<P> +This drifting away from Miss Lydia disturbed Mrs. Barkley. She lowered +her chin and glared at him over her spectacles, saying, in a rumbling +bass: "Neither is Lydia; and it's hard for her to be destitute in her +old age." +</P> + +<P> +"Just so," Mr. Rives said, eagerly—"exactly. She is not as young as +she once was, which, for many reasons, is desirable. But I think she +is healthy?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, yes," Mrs. Barkley admitted; "but I don't know that that makes it +easier to be poor." +</P> + +<P> +"But I infer that poverty has taught her economy?" William Rives said. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; but poverty is a hard teacher." +</P> + +<P> +"But thorough—thorough!" said Mr. Rives; "and some people will learn +of no other." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Barkley was growing impatient; she gave up marriage and thought of +a pension. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said William; "she is economical, and has good health, and is +fond of old clothes, and is kind-hearted, and doesn't have any wants. +Excellent traits—excellent. I have looked very carefully at the items +of expense in regard to a housekeeper or nurse." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Barkley stared at him in bewilderment. Was he going to offer +Lydia a position as housekeeper? She was fairly dizzy with this seesaw +of possibilities; and she was perplexed, too, for, after all, badly as +Lydia needed assistance, propriety must be considered, and certainly +this housekeeping project was of doubtful propriety. "Because you know +you are neither of you very old," she explained. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Rives looked disturbed. "Yes, we are," he said, sharply. "Quite +old enough. I would not wish a youthful wife, for—many reasons. +There might be—results, which would interfere with my comfort. No, +Lydia is no longer young; yet she is sufficiently robust to make me +extremely comfortable." The light was breaking slowly on Mrs. Barkley. +Her face flushed; she sat up very straight and tapped the table with +her thimble. "The expense of an extra person is not very considerable, +is it?" Mr. Rives said, doubtfully. "It was in regard to this that I +wished to consult you." +</P> + +<P> +"Not more than the wages of a housekeeper or a nurse," Mrs. Barkley +said, in a restrained voice. +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly!" cried Mr. Rives—"granted that her health is good." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Barkley opened and closed her lips. Her impulse to show him the +door battled with her common-sense. After all, it would mean a home +for Lydia; it would mean comfort and ease and absence from worry—plus, +of course, Mr. Rives. But if Lydia liked him, that wouldn't make any +difference. And she must like him—her faithfulness to the picture +proved it—and he was an agreeable person; amiable, too, Mrs. Barkley +thought, for he always smiled when he spoke. +</P> + +<P> +"Would you live in Old Chester?" she managed to say, after a pause. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"You would build, I suppose?" Mrs. Barkley said, trying, in the +confusion of her thoughts, to make time. +</P> + +<P> +"No," Mr. Rives said; "we would reside in Lydia's present abode." +</P> + +<P> +"<I>In Lydia's house</I>? You couldn't!—why, it would be impossible!" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Barkley, her mouth open with astonishment, saw, suddenly, that +this project was not comfort plus William, but William minus comfort. +"You couldn't! The chimney in the parlor is dreadful; it smokes +whenever the wind is from the west." +</P> + +<P> +"But, as I understand, Lydia has been provided with the means of +mending the chimney?" William said, anxiously. +</P> + +<P> +At this the rein broke. Mrs. Barkley rose, tapping the table with +alarming loudness and glaring down at her guest. "William Rives, I +have been a perfect fool. But you are worse—you are a mean person. +I'd rather live with a murderer than a mean man!" +</P> + +<A NAME="img-160"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-160.jpg" ALT=""MRS. BARKLEY ROSE, TAPPING THE TABLE WITH ALARMING LOUDNESS"" BORDER="2"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center"> +"MRS. BARKLEY ROSE, TAPPING THE TABLE WITH ALARMING LOUDNESS" +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +Mr. Rives was unmoved. His little, steely smile never wavered; he rose +also, bowed, and said: "Possibly Miss Sampson does not agree with you. +I will bid you good-night, ma'am." +</P> + +<P> +"I was a perfect fool," she said again, as the door closed softly +behind him. +</P> + +<P> +But William Rives was no fool.... He said to himself that it behooved +him to see Miss Lydia before Mrs. Barkley had a chance to impart to her +those impolite views regarding himself. And that was why, as she was +still sitting at her kitchen table, twinkling with happiness over the +kindness of her world and piling her gold pieces in a little leaning +tower, William knocked at the door. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Lydia threw an apron over the small, glittering heap and ran to +let her caller in. When she saw who it was she whipped off the apron +to display her wealth; the tears stood in her eyes, and her happy heart +burst into words: "How good people are! Just think—$100! Why, it +takes my breath away—" +</P> + +<P> +"It is a large sum of money," William said, solemnly, touching the gold +with respectful fingers. "I would suggest a bank until you pay for the +mending of your chimney. And you will get some interest if you defer +payment for ninety days." +</P> + +<P> +"Mending my chimney?" Miss Lydia said, thoughtfully. "Well—that +wouldn't take nearly all this." +</P> + +<P> +William's face brightened. "You are right to be prudent, Lydia," he +said. "I admire prudence in a female; but still, masons and +carpenters—in fact, all persons of that sort,—are—thieves!" Then he +coughed delicately. "Lydia," he said, "I—I have been thinking—" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes?" said Miss Lydia, calmly. +</P> + +<P> +"We are so situated—each alone, that perhaps we might—we might, +ah—marry—to our mutual advantage?" +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Marry?</I>" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," William said, earnestly; "I should be pleased to marry, Lydy. I +need a home. My health is not very good, and I need a home. You need +a home, also." +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed I don't!" she said; "I've got a home, thank you." +</P> + +<P> +"I haven't," William said; and Lydia's blue eyes softened. "I am not +very strong," he said ("though I see no reason why I should not live to +old age); but I want a home. Won't you take me, Lydy?" +</P> + +<P> +Miss Lydia frowned and sighed. "I am very well satisfied as I am," she +said; "but perhaps that is a selfish way to look at it." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, it is," he told her, earnestly; "and you didn't use to be +selfish, Lydia." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Lydia sighed again. "I suppose I could make you comfortable, +William." +</P> + +<P> +"Do take me, Lydy," he entreated. +</P> + +<P> +And somehow or other, before she quite knew it, she had consented. +</P> + +<P> +As soon as the word was spoken, William arose with alacrity. "I don't +like to be out in the night air," he said, "so I'll say good-night, +Lydy. And, Lydy—shall we, for the moment, keep this to ourselves?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh yes," said Miss Lydia, getting very red, "I'd rather, for the +present." Then, smiling and friendly, she went out with him, +bare-headed, to the gate. There William hesitated, swallowed once, +rubbed his hands nervously, and then suddenly gave her a kiss. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Lydia Sampson jumped. "Oh!" she said; and again, "<I>Oh!</I>" +</P> + +<P> +And then she ran back into the house, her eyes wet and shining, her +face flushed to her forehead. She sat down by the table and put her +hands over her eyes; she laughed, in a sort of sob, and her breath came +quickly. +</P> + +<P> +"I hadn't thought of it—that way," she whispered to herself. And +somehow, as she sat there by her kitchen table, she began to think of +it that way—Miss Lydia was very young! ... Oh, she would try and make +him happy; she would try and be more orderly; she would try to be good, +since her Heavenly Father had given back to her the old happiness. +</P> + +<P> +And that night she did not bid the picture good-night. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Rives was himself not without emotion. It was many years, he +reflected, since his lips had touched those of a female, and the +experience was agreeable—so agreeable that he wished to repeat it as +soon as possible; and, furthermore, he felt anxious to know that Lydia +had put the gold in a safe place. But when he called the next day he +was a little late, because, as he explained to Miss Lydia, he had had +to wait for the mail. She met him with a new look in her innocent, +eager eyes, and her face was shy and red. As she sat sewing, listening +vaguely, she would glance at him now and then, as if, until now, she +had not seen him since that day of parting, thirty-one years ago—the +thirty-one years which had blotted Amanda's field from her memory. The +old happiness, like a tide long withdrawn, was creeping back, rising +and rising, until it was overflowing in her eyes. This puffy +gentleman, with his tight, smiling mouth, was the William of her +youth—and she had never known it until last night! She had thought of +him during the last month or two only as an old friend who needed the +care which her kind heart prompted her to give; and lo! suddenly he was +the lover who would care for her. +</P> + +<P> +"I was sorry, my dear Lydia, to be late," said Mr. Rives, in his soft +voice; "I was detained by waiting for the mail." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Lydia said, brightly, that it didn't matter. +</P> + +<P> +"But it was worth waiting for," William assured her. "I have done a +good piece of business. (Not that it will make me richer; I have so +many obligations to meet!) But it was a fortunate stroke." +</P> + +<P> +"That is good," said Miss Lydia. +</P> + +<P> +"A female in a distant city, where I own a poor little bit of real +estate—nothing of any value, Lydia; I am a poor man—" +</P> + +<P> +"That's no difference," she told him, softly. +</P> + +<P> +"—this female, a widow, and foolish (as widows always are)," William +said, with a little giggle, "asked me to sell her a house I owned. She +wished, for some reason, to purchase in that locality. I named the +market price. I did so, by letter, a fortnight ago. I believe she +thought it high; but that was her affair. She would have to sell +certain securities to purchase it, she said. But as I wrote her—'my +dear madam, that's your business.'" Mr. Rives laughed a little. Miss +Lydia looked up, smiling and interested. "Yes," said Mr. Rives—"I +didn't urge it. I never urge, because then I can't be blamed if things +go wrong. But I held my price. That is always good policy—not to +drop a dollar on price. So she's bought it. She made a payment +yesterday to bind the sale. Not that I feel any richer, for I must +immediately apply the money to the purchase of other things." +</P> + +<P> +"That's nice," Miss Lydia said. +</P> + +<P> +"I guess it is," William agreed; "I happen to know that a boiler +factory is to be erected on the rear lot." +</P> + +<P> +"But will she like that—the poor widow?" Miss Lydia said. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Rives laughed comfortably. "Ah, Lydy, my dear, in business we do +not ask such questions before making a sale. <I>I</I> like it. In three +months that bit of property will have shrunk to an eighth of its +selling price to-day." Mr. Rives's eyes twinkled with satisfaction. +</P> + +<P> +"But—<I>William!</I>" said Miss Lydia. Suddenly she grew pale. "William," +she said, "it seems to me you ought to have told the poor widow." +</P> + +<P> +"Lydia, a lady cannot understand business," William said, with kindly +condescension, but with a slight impatience. "Don't you see, if I had +told her, she would not have made the purchase?" +</P> + +<P> +Miss Lydia was silent, stroking the gathers of her cambric with a +shaking needle. Then she said, in a low voice, "I suppose she +wouldn't." +</P> + +<P> +William nodded encouragingly. "You'll learn, Lydia. A married lady +learns much of business methods through her husband. Though they don't +profit by it, I notice; widows are always foolish. Not that—that you +will be likely to be—to be foolish," he ended, hastily, frowning very +much. +</P> + +<P> +Lydia went on sewing in silence. The color did not come back into her +face, which caused William to ask her anxiously how she was. +</P> + +<P> +"You are sure you are healthy, Lydia, aren't you?" he said. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Lydia, without looking at him, said she was. When he had gone, +she stopped sewing and glanced about her in a frightened way; then she +put her hands over her eyes and drew in her breath, and once she +shivered. She sat there for a long time. After a while she got up and +went over to the picture of Mr. William Rives and stood looking at it; +and as she looked her poor, terrified eyes quieted into tears and she +straightened the bit of box with a tender hand, and then she suddenly +bent down and kissed the slim gentleman behind the misty glass. +</P> + +<P> +The next day when she met her lover she was cheerful enough. It was at +the front door of the Tavern; Dr. Lavendar was there, too, waiting for +the morning stage for Mercer. +</P> + +<P> +"Well! well! So I am going to have company, am I?" he said, for Miss +Lydia was waiting for it, too. Her bonnet was on one side, her shabby +jacket, fading from black to green on the shoulders, was split at the +elbow seams, and the middle finger of each glove was worn through; but +her eyes were shining with pleasure. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she said, nodding; "I'm going." +</P> + +<P> +Her presence seemed to be a surprise to Mr. Rives, who had strayed +forth from the breakfast-room to see the stage start. +</P> + +<P> +"You are going to Mercer?" he said, his small smile fading into an +astonished question. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," Miss Lydia said, laughing, and suddenly she gave a little jump +of happiness. "I haven't been to Mercer for nine years. Oh, dear! +isn't it just delightful!" +</P> + +<P> +"But, why?" William persisted, in an amazed aside. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, that's the secret!" cried Miss Lydia, clambering into the stage; +"you'll know sometime." +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose you wish to arrange for the alterations of your house?" +William said; "but considering the stage fares back and forth— Oh, +there is Dr. Lavendar." +</P> + +<P> +He came round to the other side of the stage, smiling very much. +"Well, sir, good-morning! good-morning, sir!" +</P> + +<P> +"Hello," Dr. Lavendar said. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Rives rubbed his hands. "I—I was about to say, Dr. Lavendar—that +little matter between us—it's of no importance, of course; quite at +your convenience, sir; I don't mean to press you—but at your +convenience, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"What are you talking about?" Dr. Lavendar said, with a puzzled blink. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," William said, smiling, "there's no haste, only I thought I'd +just remind you. I'm always business-like myself; and that little +matter of accommodation—" +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar stared at him. "I am afraid I'm a stupid old fellow; I +don't understand." +</P> + +<P> +The stage-driver gathered up his reins; Miss Lydia nodded joyously on +the back seat, the two other passengers frowned at the delay; so +William Rives made haste to explain: "Merely, sir, the stamp I had the +pleasure of lending you. But pray don't incommode yourself; I merely +remind you; it's of no—" +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar pulled out his shabby leather pocket-book, his hands +fairly trembling with haste, and produced the stamp; then he pulled the +door to, and as the stage sagged forward and went tugging up the hill, +he turned his astonished eyes on Miss Lydia. She had grown very pale, +but she said nothing, only looking out of the window and rubbing her +little cotton gloves hard together. +</P> + +<P> +"Would you have asked him for a receipt?" Dr. Lavendar said, under his +breath, chuckling. But when she tried to answer him, there was +something in her face that turned Dr. Lavendar grave. +</P> + +<P> +The stage jolted on; the two other passengers chatted, then one fell +asleep and the other read an almanac. Suddenly Miss Lydia turned +sharply round. "It just kills me!" she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Nonsense!" Dr. Lavendar told her. "He is a man of business, and I'm a +forgetful old codger. I knew William, and I ought to have remembered." +</P> + +<P> +But Miss Lydia's face had fallen into such drawn and anxious lines that +Dr. Lavendar had to do his best to cheer her. He began to ask +questions: How long was it since she had been in Mercer? Was she going +to call on friends? Was she going to shop? "I believe you ladies +always want to shop?" said Dr. Lavendar, kindly. And somehow Miss +Lydia brightened up. Yes; she was going to shop! It was a secret: she +couldn't tell Dr. Lavendar yet, but he should know about it first of +all. She was so happy, so important, so excited, that her pain at +William's business-like ways seemed forgotten; and when in Mercer they +separated at the Stage House, she went bustling off into the sunshine, +waving a shabby cotton glove at him, and crying, "I haven't a minute to +lose!" +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar stood still and shook his head. "Pity," he said—"pity, +pity. But I suppose it can't be helped. There's no use telling +William about her; he must see it. And there's no use telling her +about William; she must see it. No—no use. But it's a pity—a pity." +Which shows that Dr. Lavendar had reached that degree of wisdom which +knows that successful interference in love affairs must come from the +inside, not from the outside. +</P> + +<P> +He did not see Miss Lydia again until they met in the afternoon at the +Stage House, and for a minute he did not recognize her. She came +running and panting, laden with bundles, to the coach door. Indeed, +she was so hurried that one of her innumerable packages, a long, slim +bundle, slipped from her happy, weary arms, and, hitting the iron +drop-step, crashed into fragments and splashed her dress with its +contents. "Oh! that's one of my bottles of Catawba," said Miss Lydia. +"Dear, dear! Well, never mind; I'll order another." +</P> + +<P> +The fragrance of the wine soaking her gloves and the front of her faded +dress, filled the stage (in which they were the only passengers), and +Miss Lydia joyously licked the two bare finger-tips. "Too bad!" she +said; "but accidents will happen." +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar helped her pile her bundles on the front seat, and then he +unhooked the swinging strap so that certain parcels could be put on the +middle bench. Miss Lydia leaned back with a happy sigh. "The rest +will come down to-morrow," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"The <I>rest</I>?" said Dr. Lavendar. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I've just got to tell somebody!" she said. "Promise you won't +tell?" +</P> + +<P> +"I won't tell," he assured her. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Miss Lydia, "look here—do you see that?" She tore a +little hole in a long, flat package, and Dr. Lavendar saw a gleam of +blue. "That's a dress. Yes, a blue silk dress—for myself. I'm +afraid it was selfish to get a thing just for myself, but that and a +pair of white kid gloves and some lace are all I did get; and I've +wanted a silk dress, a blue silk dress, ever since I got poor." +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar looked at her and at the hole in the package, and at her +again. "Lydia!" he said, "is it possible that you—? <I>Lydia!</I>" he +ended, speechless with consternation. +</P> + +<P> +"The other things are all for the party." +</P> + +<P> +"The—party?" +</P> + +<P> +"Presents!" she said, rubbing her hands. "Oh, dear! I'm so tired! +And I'm so happy! Oh, nobody was ever so happy. The party (that's the +secret) is to be next Thursday a week; that gives me time to make my +dress. I ordered the cake in Mercer. All pink-and-white +icing—perfectly lovely! And I have a present for everybody. Here's a +work-basket for Martha King. And I have a bird-cage and a canary for +dear Willy (that is to come down to-morrow; I really couldn't carry +everything). And I've got a knitted shawl for Maria Welwood, and a +cloak for her dear Rose—that was rather expensive, but it's always +cheap to get the best. And a cornelian breast-pin for Alice Gray. And +a Roman sash for poor little Mary Gordon; she seems to me such a +forlorn child—no mother, and that rough Alex for a brother. +And—well; oh, dear! I'm so excited I can hardly remember—a book for +Mr. Ezra; a book for Mrs. Dale. Books are safe presents, don't you +think?" +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar groaned. +</P> + +<P> +"And a picture for Rachel King—that's it; that square bundle. So +pretty!—a little girl saying her prayers; sweet!—it's like her Anna. +And a box of candy for Sally Smith's little brothers; and a pair of +agate cuff-buttons for Sally—" She was moving her packages about as +she checked them off, and she looked round at Dr. Lavendar with a sigh +of pure joy. He could not speak his distracted thought. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you mustn't see that," she cried, suddenly pushing a certain +package under the others with great show of secrecy; and Dr. Lavendar +groaned again. "I think a party with presents for everybody will be +very unusual, don't you?" she asked, heaping her bundles up carefully; +two more fingers had burst through her cotton gloves, and as she leaned +forward a button snapped off her jacket. "I don't want to brag," she +said, "but I think it will be as nice a party as we have ever had in +Old Chester." +</P> + +<P> +"But, Lydia, my dear," Dr. Lavendar said, gently, "I am afraid it is +extravagant, isn't it, to try to give us all so much pleasure? And is +a blue silk frock very—well, serviceable, I believe, you ladies call +it?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, indeed it isn't," she said, with sudden, pathetic passion. +"<I>That's why I got it</I>. I never, since I was a girl, have had anything +that wasn't serviceable." +</P> + +<P> +"But," Dr. Lavendar said, "I rather hoped you would see your way clear +to making your house a little more comfortable?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, but I'm perfectly comfortable," she assured him; "and even if I +was not, I'd rather, just for once in my life, have my party and give +my presents. Oh, just once in a lifetime! I'd rather," she said, and +her eyes snapped with joy—"I'd rather have next Thursday night, and my +house as it is, than just comfort all the rest of my days. Comfort! +What's comfort?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Lydia, it's a good deal to some of us," Dr. Lavendar said. And +then his eyes narrowed. "Lydia, my dear—does Mr. Rives know about +this?" +</P> + +<P> +Miss Lydia, counting her packages over, said, absently, "No; it is to +be a surprise to William." +</P> + +<P> +"If I am not mistaken," said Dr. Lavendar, "it will be a very great +surprise to William." +</P> + +<P> +And then he fell into troubled thought; but as he thought his face +brightened. It brightened so much that by the time they reached Old +Chester he was as joyously excited about the party as was Miss Lydia +herself, who made him a thousand confidences about her dress and her +presents and the food which would be offered to her guests. His +joyousness had not abated when, the next morning, Mrs. Barkley +presented herself, breathless, at the Rectory. +</P> + +<P> +"I think," said she, in an awful bass, sitting up very straight and +glaring at Dr. Lavendar, "that this is the most terrible thing that +ever happened." +</P> + +<P> +"There are worse things," said Dr. Lavendar. +</P> + +<P> +"<I>I</I> know of nothing worse," Mrs. Barkley said, with dreadful +composure. "You may. You know what the unregenerate human heart may +do. I do not. This is the worst. What will people say? What will +Mrs. Dale say? It must be stopped! She ran in this morning and told +me in confidence. She came, she said, to know if she could borrow my +teaspoons next Thursday week. I said she could, of course; but I +suppose I looked puzzled; I couldn't imagine—then she confessed. She +said you knew, but no one else. Then, before I came to my senses, she +ran out. I came here at once to say that you must stop it." +</P> + +<P> +"In the first place," said Dr. Lavendar, thrusting his hands down into +his dressing-gown pockets, "I couldn't stop it. In the second place, I +haven't the right to stop it. And in the third place, I wouldn't stop +it if I could." +</P> + +<P> +"Dr. Lavendar!" +</P> + +<P> +"I am delighted with the plan. We need gayety in Old Chester; <I>I think +we'll get it</I>. I hope she'll have Uncle Davy in, with his fiddle, and +we'll have a reel. Mrs. Barkley, will you do me the honor?" +</P> + +<P> +It came over Mrs. Barkley, with a sudden chill, that there was +something the matter with Dr. Lavendar. +</P> + +<P> +"I have calculated," said the old minister, chuckling, "that Miss Lydia +has in hand, at present, about $1.75 of our $100. This sum I trust she +will give to Foreign Missions. The need is great. I shall bring it to +her attention." +</P> + +<P> +"Dr. Lavendar," said Mrs. Barkley; and paused. +</P> + +<P> +"Ma'am?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't understand you, sir." +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar looked at her and smiled. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0304"></A> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +IV +</P> + +<P> +And so the night of Old Chester's festivity approached. Miss Lydia's +invitations were delivered the morning of the day, but a rumor of the +party was already in the air. There had been some shakings of the head +and one or two frowns. "It will cost her at least $3," said Martha +King, "and she could get a new bonnet with that." +</P> + +<P> +"It's her way of thanking us for her present," said the doctor, "and a +mighty nice way, too. I'm going. I'll wear my white waistcoat." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Drayton said, calmly, that it was dishonest. "The money was given +to her for one purpose. To ask people to tea, and have even only cake +and lemonade, is spending it for another purpose. It will cost her at +least $4.50. Not a large sum, compared with the whole amount donated +in charity. But the principle is the same. I always look for the +principle—it is a Christian's duty. And I could not face my Maker if +I ever failed in duty." +</P> + +<P> +Then Mrs. Dale's comment ran from lip to lip: "Miss Lydia has a right +to do as she pleases with her own; if she invites me to tea, I shall go +with pleasure." +</P> + +<P> +When the rumor reached William Rives's ears he turned pale, but he made +no comment. "But I came to ask you about it, Lydy," he said. This was +Wednesday evening, and William stood at the front door; Miss Lydia was +on the step above him. "I won't ask you to come in, William," she +said, "I'm so busy—if you'll excuse me." +</P> + +<P> +"I am always gratified," said William, "when a female busies herself in +household affairs, so I will not interrupt you. I came for two +purposes: first, to inquire when you intend to begin the improvements +upon your house; and, secondly, to say that I hope I am in error in +regard to this project of a supper that I hear you are to give." +</P> + +<P> +"Why?" said Lydia. +</P> + +<P> +"Because," William said, with his sharp, neat smile, "a supper is not +given without expense. Though I approve of hospitality, and make a +point of accepting it, yet I am always conscious that it costs money. +I cannot but calculate, as I see persons eating and drinking, the +amount of money thus consumed, and I often wonder at my hosts. I say +to myself, as I observe a guest drink a cup of tea, 'Two cents.' Such +thoughts (which must present themselves to every practical man) are +painful. And such a supper as I hear you mean to give would involve +many cups of tea." +</P> + +<P> +"Twenty-seven," said Miss Lydia. +</P> + +<P> +"And is there to be cake also?" said William, breathlessly. +</P> + +<P> +"There is," said Miss Lydia; "a big one, with a castle in +pink-and-white icing on it—beautiful!" +</P> + +<P> +William was stricken into silence; then he said, shaking his head, "Do +you really mean it, Lydy?" +</P> + +<P> +"I do, William." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Rives sighed. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he said—"well, I regret it. But, Lydy, we might utilize the +occasion? Refreshment is always considered genteel at a marriage. Why +not combine your supper with our wedding? We can be married to-morrow +night. Dr. Lavendar is coming, I presume? I can get the license in +the morning." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Lydia was silent; the color came into her face, and she put her +hand up to her lips in a frightened way. "Oh, I—don't know," she +faltered. "I—I am not—not ready—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," William urged, "never mind about being ready; I should be the +last to wish you to go to any of the foolish expense of dress customary +on such occasions. Yes, Lydy, it is an opportunity. Do agree, my +dear; we will save money by it." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Lydia drew in her breath; she was very pale; then suddenly she +nodded. "Well, yes," she said. "I will, if you want to, William. +Yes, I will." +</P> + +<P> +"I will communicate with Dr. Lavendar," said Mr. Rives, joyfully, "and +ask him to hold himself in readiness, but not to speak of it outside." +Miss Lydia nodded, and, closing the door, went back to her engrossing +affairs. Presents and a party and a wedding—no wonder the poor little +soul was white and dizzy with excitement! +</P> + +<P> +Long will Old Chester remember that occasion: The little house, lighted +from garret to cellar; candles in every possible spot; flowers all +about; the mantel-piece heaped with bundles; William King's bird-cage +hanging in the window; Uncle Davy's fiddle twanging in the kitchen; and +Miss Lydia in front of the smoky fireplace, banked now with larkspurs +and peonies—Miss Lydia in a light, bright blue silk dress trimmed with +lace; Miss Lydia in white kid gloves, buttoned with one button at the +wrist, and so tight that the right glove split across the back when she +began to shake hands. Oh, it was a great moment.... No wonder she was +pale with excitement! ... She was very pale when William Rives +arrived—arrived, and stood dumfounded!—staring at Miss Lydia; staring +at the packages which were now finding their way into astonished hands; +staring at the refreshment-table between the windows, at the great, +frosted cake, at the bottles of Catawba, at Mrs. Barkley's spoons stuck +into tall glasses of wine jelly. Mr. Rives stood staring at these +things, his small eyes starting out upon his purpling cheeks, and as he +stared, Miss Lydia, watching him, grew paler and paler. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-182"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-182.jpg" ALT=""MISS LYDIA, WATCHING HIM, GREW PALER AND PALER"" BORDER="2"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center"> +"MISS LYDIA, WATCHING HIM, GREW PALER AND PALER" +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +Then, suddenly, William, stealthily, step by step, began to back out of +the room. In the doorway he shouldered Mrs. Barkley, and, wheeling, +turned upon her a ferocious face: +</P> + +<P> +"<I>And I contributed $1.50—</I>" +</P> + +<P> +But as he retreated and retreated, the color returned to Miss Lydia's +cheek. She had almost stopped breathing as he stood there; but when he +finally disappeared, she broke out into the full joyousness of the +occasion. The opening of each present was like a draught of wine to +her, the astounded or angry thanks went to her head; she rubbed her +hands until the left glove split also; and then Uncle Davy's fiddle +began in good earnest, and she bustled about, running and laughing, and +arranging partners for the reel. +</P> + +<P> +Yes, it was a great occasion. Old Chester talked of it for months; not +even William Rives's most unexpected and unexplainable departure the +next day on the morning stage could divert the appalled, excited, +disapproving interest that lasted the year out. Not even Miss Lydia's +continued faithfulness to the portrait, which had condoned so many +offences in the past, could soften Old Chester's very righteous +indignation. There were, it must be admitted, one or two who professed +that they did not share the disapproval of all right-thinking persons; +one was, if you please, Mr. Smith! (He was one of the new Smiths, so +one might expect anything from him.) He had not been invited to the +party, but when he heard of it he roared with most improper mirth. +</P> + +<P> +"Well done!" he said. "By Jove! what a game old party. Well done! +The money was champagne on an empty stomach; of course, she got drunk. +It would have been cheaper to have bought a bottle of the genuine +article and shut herself up for twenty-four hours. Well, it's worth +the cost of a new chimney. I'll put her repairs through, Dr. +Lavendar—unless you want to get up another present?" And then he +roared again. Very ill-bred man he was. +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar said that there would not be another present. He said +Miss Lydia had a right, in his opinion, to spend her money as she +chose; but there would not be another present. +</P> + +<P> +And then he walked home, blinking and smiling. "Smith's a good +fellow," he said to himself, "if he is one of the new folks. But what +I'd like to know is: <I>did Lydia think $100 a low price?</I>" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0401"></A> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +AMELIA +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +The exception that proved Old Chester's rule as to the subjection of +Youth was found in the household of Mr. Thomas Dilworth. +</P> + +<P> +When the Dilworth children (at least the two girls) hung about their +father when he came home at night or teased and scolded and laughed at +him at their friendly breakfast-table, an observer might have thought +himself miles away from Old Chester and its well-brought-up Youth. The +way those girls talk to Thomas Dilworth! "Where will it end?" said Old +Chester, solemnly. For instance, the annual joke in the Dilworth +family was that father had been in love with mother for as many years +as she was old, less so many minutes. +</P> + +<P> +Now, imagine Old Chester children indulging in such familiarities! +</P> + +<P> +Yet on Mrs. Dilworth's birthday this family witticism was always in +order: +</P> + +<P> +"Father, how long have you been mother's beau?" +</P> + +<P> +And Thomas, rosy, handsome, looking at least ten years younger than his +Amelia, would say: "Well, let's see: forty-one years" (or two or three, +as the case might be), "eleven months, twenty-nine days, twenty-three +hours, and forty minutes; she was twenty minutes old when I first laid +eyes on her, and during those twenty minutes I was heart-whole." +</P> + +<P> +But Mrs. Dilworth, smiling vaguely behind her coffee-cups, would +protest: "I never heard anything about it, Tom, until you were sixteen." +</P> + +<P> +And then the girls would declare that they must be told just what +father said when he was sixteen and mother was twelve. But Thomas drew +the line at that. "Come! come! you mustn't talk about love-making. As +for marrying, I don't mean to let you girls get married at all. And +Ned here had better not let me catch him thinking of such nonsense +until he's twenty-five. He can get married (if I like the girl) when +he is twenty-eight." +</P> + +<P> +"You got married at twenty-two, sir," Edwin demurred. +</P> + +<P> +"If you can find a woman like your mother, you can get married at +twenty-two. But you can't. They don't make 'em any more. So you've +got to wait. And remember, I've decided not to let Mary and Nancy get +married, ever. I don't propose to bring up a brace of long-legged +girls, and clothe 'em and feed 'em and pay their doctors' bills, and +then, just as they get old enough to amount to anything and quit being +nuisances, hand 'em over to another fellow. No, sir! You've got to +stay at home with me. Do you understand?" +</P> + +<P> +The girls screamed at this, and flung themselves upon him to kiss him +and pull his hair. +</P> + +<P> +No wonder Old Chester was shocked. +</P> + +<P> +Yet, in spite of such happenings, Thomas and Amelia Dilworth were of +the real Old Chester. They were not tainted with <I>newness</I>—that sad +dispensation of Providence which had to be borne by such people as the +Macks or the Hayeses, or those very rich (but really worthy) Smiths. +The Dilworths were not new; yet their three children had the +training—or the lack of training—that made the Hayes children and +their kind a subject for Old Chester's prayers. +</P> + +<P> +"Who can say what the result of Milly Dilworth's negligence will be?" +Mrs. Drayton said, sighing, to Dr. Lavendar; who only reminded her that +folks didn't gather thistles of figs—generally speaking. +</P> + +<P> +But in spite of Dr. Lavendar's optimism, it was a queer household, +according to Old Chester lights.... In the first place, the father and +mother were more unlike than is generally considered to be +matrimonially safe. Amelia was a dear, good soul, but, as Miss Helen +Hayes said once, "with absolutely no mind"; while Thomas Dilworth was +eminently level-headed, although very fond (so Mrs. Drayton said) of +female society. And it must be admitted that Thomas had more than once +caused his Milly a slight pang by such fondness. But at least he was +never conscious that he had done so—and Milly never told him. (But +Mrs. Drayton said that that was something she could not forgive in a +married gentleman. "My dear husband," said Mrs. Drayton, "has never +wandered from me, even in imagination.") Added to conjugal incongruity +was this indifference on the part of Thomas and his wife to the +training of the children. The three young Dilworths were allowed to +grow up exactly as they pleased. It had worked well enough with Mary +and Nancy, who were good girls, affectionate and sensible—so sensible +that Nancy, when she was eighteen, had practically taken the +housekeeping out of her mother's hands; and Mary, at sixteen, looked +out for herself and her affairs most successfully. With Edwin the +Dilworth system had not been so satisfactory. He was conceited (though +that is only to be expected of the male creature at nineteen) and +rather selfish; and he had an unlovely reserve, in which he was +strikingly unlike his father, who overflowed with confidences. This, +and other unlikeness, was, no doubt, the reason that there were +constant small differences between them. And Mrs. Dilworth—vague, +gentle soul!—was somehow unable to smooth the differences over as +successfully as most mothers do. +</P> + +<P> +Now, smoothing things over is practically a profession to mothers of +families. But Milly Dilworth had never succeeded in it. In the first +place, she had no gift of words; the more she felt, the more +inexpressive she became; but, worst of all, she had, poor woman, not +the slightest sense of humor. Now, in dealing with husbands and +children (especially with husbands), though you have the tongues of +men—which are thought to be more restrained than those of women—and +though you have the gift of prophecy (a common gift of wives) and +understand all mysteries—say, of housekeeping—and though you give +your body to be used up and worn out for their sakes, yet all these +things profit you nothing if you have no sense of humor. And Milly +Dilworth had none. +</P> + +<P> +That was why she could not understand. +</P> + +<P> +She loved, in her tender, undemonstrative way, her shy, unpractical, +secretive Edwin and her two capable girls; she loved, with the single, +silent passion of her soul, her generous, selfish, light-hearted Tom, +who took her wordless worship as unconsciously and simply as he took +the air he breathed; she loved them all. But she did not pretend to +understand them. Thus she stood always a little aside, watching and +loving, and wondering sometimes in her simple way; but often suffering, +as people with no sense of humor are apt to suffer. Dear, dull, gentle +Milly! No one could remember a harsh word of hers, or mean deed, or a +little judgment. No wonder Dr. Lavendar felt confident that there +would be no thistles in her household. +</P> + +<P> +Thomas Dilworth had the same comfortable conviction, especially in +regard to his girls. "Now, Milly, honestly," he used to say, "apart +from the fact that they are ours, don't you really think they are the +nicest girls in Old Chester?" +</P> + +<P> +Milly would admit, in her brief way, that they were good children. +</P> + +<P> +"And Edwin means all right," the father would assure himself; and then +add that he couldn't understand their boy—"at least, I suppose he's +ours? Willy King says so. I have thought perhaps he was a changeling, +put into the cradle the first day." +</P> + +<P> +"But, Tom," Milly would protest, anxiously, "Neddy couldn't be a +changeling. He was never out of my sight for the first week—not even +to be taken out of the room to be shown to people. Besides, he has +your chin and my eyes." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, if you really think so?" Thomas would demur. And Mrs. Dilworth +always said, earnestly, that she was sure of it. +</P> + +<P> +Still, in spite of eyes and chin, Ned's unpracticalness was an anxiety +to his father, and his uncommunicativeness a constant irritation. +Thomas himself was ready to share anything he possessed, money or +opinions or hopes, with any friend, almost with any acquaintance. "I +don't want to know anybody's business," he used to say; "I'm not +inquisitive, Milly; you know I'm not. But I hate hiding things! Why +shouldn't he say where he's going when he goes out in the evening? +Sneaking off, as if he were ashamed." +</P> + +<P> +"He just doesn't think of it," the mother would say, trying to smooth +it over. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, he ought to think of it," the father would grumble, eager to be +smoothed. +</P> + +<P> +But Milly found it harder to reconcile her husband to their boy's +indifference to business than to his reserves. +</P> + +<P> +"He sees fit to look down on the hardware trade," Tom told his wife, +angrily. "'Well, sir,' I said to him the other day, 'it's given you +your bread-and-butter for nineteen years; yes—and your fiddle, too, +and your everlasting music lessons.' And I'll tell you what, Milly, a +man who looks down on his business will find his business looking down +on him. And it's a good business—it's a darned good business. If Ned +doesn't have the sense to see it, he had better go and play his fiddle +and hold out his hat for pennies." +</P> + +<P> +Milly looked anxiously sympathetic. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know what is going to become of him," Thomas went on. "When +you come to provide for three out of the hardware business, nobody gets +very much." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Dilworth was silent. +</P> + +<P> +"I was talking about him to Dr. Lavendar yesterday, and he said: 'Oh, +he'll fall in love one of these days, and he'll see that fiddling won't +buy his wife her shoe-strings; then he'll take to the hardware +business,' Dr. Lavendar said. It's all very well to talk about his +falling in love and taking to business; but if he falls in love, I'll +have another mouth to fill. And maybe more," he added, grimly. +</P> + +<P> +"Not for a year, anyway," his wife said, hopefully. "And, besides, I +don't think Neddy's thinking of such a thing." +</P> + +<P> +"I hope not, at his age." +</P> + +<P> +"You were engaged when you were nineteen." +</P> + +<P> +"My dear, I wasn't Ned." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Dilworth was silent. +</P> + +<P> +"The Packards telegraphed to-day that they wouldn't take that reaper," +Tom Dilworth said. +</P> + +<P> +Milly seemed to search for words of sympathy, but before she found them +Tom began to talk of something else; he never waited for his wife's +replies, or, indeed, expected them. He was so constituted that he had +to have a listener; and during all their married life she had listened. +When she replied, she was a sounding-board, echoing back his own +opinions; when she was silent, he took her silence to mean agreement. +Tom used to say that his Milly wasn't one of the smart kind; he didn't +like smartness in a woman, anyway; but she had darned good sense;—for, +like the rest of us, Thomas Dilworth had a deep belief in the +intelligence of the people who agreed with him.... +</P> + +<P> +"I have a great mind," he rambled on, "to go up to the Hayeses'. You +know that note is due on the 15th, and I believe I'll have to ask him +to extend it. I hate to do it, but Packard has upset my calculations, +and I'll have to get an extension, or else sell something out; and just +now I don't like to do that." +</P> + +<P> +"Very well," she said. It was her birthday—the one day in the year +that her Thomas remembered that he had been in love with her for so +many years, months, days, hours, minutes—a fact she never for one day +in the year forgot. But she could no more have reminded him of the day +than she could have flown. She was constitutionally inexpressive. +</P> + +<P> +Tom began to whistle: +</P> + +<A NAME="img-197"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-197.jpg" ALT="music fragment" BORDER=""> +</CENTER> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +but broke off to say, "Well, since you advise it, I'll see Hayes"; then +he gave her a kiss, and immediately forgot her—as completely as he had +forgotten his supper or any other comfortable and absolutely necessary +thing. Then he lighted his cigar and started for the Hayeses'. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0402"></A> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +"And who do you suppose I found there?" he said, when he got home, well +on towards eleven o'clock, an hour so dissipated for Old Chester that +Milly was broad awake in silent anxiety. "Why, Ned, if you please! He +was talking to Hayes's daughter Helen. She seems a mighty nice girl, +Milly. I packed young Edwin off at nine; he was boring Miss Helen to +death. Boys have no sense about such things. Can't you give him a +hint that women of twenty-five don't care for little boys' talk? +By-the-way, she talks mighty well herself. After I settled my business +with Hayes, we got to discussing the President's letter; she had just +read it." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you mean to say <I>that the President has written to Helen Hayes</I>?" +cried Mrs. Dilworth, sitting up in bed in her astonishment. +</P> + +<P> +Thomas roared, and began to pull his boots. "Why, they are regular +correspondents! Didn't you know it?" +</P> + +<P> +"No! I hadn't the slightest idea—Tom, you're joking?" +</P> + +<P> +"My dear, you can't think I am capable of joking? But, Milly, look +here, I'll tell you one thing: she was mighty sensible about Ned. She +thinks there's a good deal to him—" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't need Helen Hayes to tell me that," said Ned's mother. +</P> + +<P> +Tom, who never paused for his wife's reply, was whistling joyfully: +</P> + +<A NAME="img-199"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-199.jpg" ALT="music fragment" BORDER=""> +</CENTER> + +<P> +</P> + +<P> +Helen Hayes had been very comforting to him; he had protested, when Ned +reluctantly departed, that a boy never knew when to clear out; and Miss +Helen had pouted, and said Ned shouldn't be scolded; "I wouldn't let +him 'clear out'—so there!" Few women of thirty-two can be cunning +successfully, but Tom thought Miss Helen very cunning. "I just +perfectly love to hear him talk about his music," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"He can't talk about anything else," Ned's father said. "That's the +trouble with him." +</P> + +<P> +"The trouble with him? Why, that's the beauty of him," said Miss +Hayes, with enthusiasm; and Thomas said to himself that she was a +mighty good-looking girl. The rose-colored lamp-shade cast a soft +light on a face that was not quite so young as was the frock she +wore—rose-colored also, with much yellowish lace down the front. It +was very unlike Milly's dresses—dark, good woollens, made rather +tight, for Milly, short and stout and forty-three, aspired (for her +Thomas's sake) to a figure,—which is always a pity at forty-three. +Furthermore, Helen Hayes's hands, very white and heavy with shining +rings, lay in lovely idleness in her lap; and that is so much more +restful in a woman's hands than to be fussing with sewing "or +everlasting darning," Thomas thought. In fact, what with her lovely +idleness and her praise of his boy, Tom Dilworth thought he had rarely +seen so pleasing a young woman. "Though she's not so very young, after +all; she must be twenty-five," he told his wife. +</P> + +<P> +"She'll never see thirty again." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, she's a mighty nice girl," Thomas said. +</P> + +<P> +Except to look pretty, Miss Helen Hayes had done nothing to produce +this impression, for she had contradicted Mr. Dilworth up and down +about Ned. +</P> + +<P> +"He has genius, you know." +</P> + +<P> +"You mean his fiddle?" Tom said, incredulously. +</P> + +<P> +"I mean his music. We'll hear of him one of these days." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't care much whether we ever hear from his music," he said, "but +I wish I could hear that he was applying himself to business." +</P> + +<P> +"Business!" cried Helen Hayes. "What is business compared to Art?" +</P> + +<P> +Thomas looked over at Mr. Hayes in astonishment, for in those days, in +Old Chester, this particular sort of talk had not been heard; the older +man sneered and changed his cigar from one corner of his mouth to the +other. Miss Hayes did not get much sympathy from her family. But she +went on with pretty dogmatism: +</P> + +<P> +"You see, in a man like your son—" +</P> + +<P> +"A man! He's only twenty, my dear young lady." +</P> + +<P> +"In a <I>man</I>, sir! like your son—genius is the thing to consider; and +you owe it to the world to let genius have its fullest play. Don't +bring Pegasus down to plough Old Chester cornfields. Why, it seems to +me," said Helen Hayes, "that he ought to be allowed to just soar. We +common folk ought to do the ploughing." +</P> + +<P> +"Thunder an' guns!" said Tom Dilworth. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't care if he can't be sure that two and two make four," cried +Miss Helen (Thomas, bubbling into aggrieved confidence on this sore +subject, had alleged this against his son); "he can put four notes +together that open the gates of heaven. And he'll distinguish himself +in music, because his father's son is bound to have tremendous +perseverance and energy." +</P> + +<P> +Old Mr. Hayes snorted and spat into the fire; but Miss Helen's look +when she said "his father's son" made Mr. Thomas Dilworth simper. +</P> + +<P> +"That girl has sense," he said to himself as he walked home at a +quarter to eleven. But he only told Mrs. Dilworth that she had better +hint to Ned to be a little more backward in coming forward. "That +Hayes girl is nice to him on our account," said Tom, "but he needn't +bore her to death. Milly, why don't you have one of those pink +wrappers? She had one on to-night. Loose, you know, and trimmed down +the front." +</P> + +<P> +"A wrapper isn't very suitable for company," Mrs. Dilworth said, +briefly. "It didn't matter with you, because you're an old married +man; but she oughtn't to go round in wrappers when Neddy's there." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, it was a sort of party dress—all lace and stuff. I wish you had +one like it. As for Ned, he's a babe; and her wrapper thing was +perfectly proper, of course. Can't you ask her for the pattern?" +</P> + +<P> +And then Thomas went to sleep and dreamed of a large order for +galvanized buckets; but his Milly lay awake a long time, wondering how +she could get a pink dress; pleased, in her silent way, that Tom should +be thinking about her clothes; but with a slow resentment gathering in +her heart that Helen Hayes's clothes should have suggested his thought. +</P> + +<P> +"And pink isn't my color," she thought, a vision of her own mild, red +face rising in her mind. Still, a fresh pink lawn—"that's always +pretty," Milly Dilworth said to herself, earnestly. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0403"></A> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +Tom Dilworth's boy was a curious <I>sport</I> from the family stock. He +did, indeed, look down on the hardware business, but not much more than +on any business, although galvanized utensils were perhaps a little +more hideous than most things. Business in itself did not interest +him. Money-making was sordid folly, he said; because, "What do you +want money for? Isn't it to buy food and clothes and shelter? Well, +you can't eat more food than enough; you can only wear one suit of +clothes at a time; and an eight-foot cell is all the shelter that is +necessary." +</P> + +<P> +"Eight-foot—<I>grandmother!</I>" his father would retort; "you'll inventory +that lot of spades, young man, and dry up." +</P> + +<P> +And Ned, with shrinking hands and ears that shuddered at the hideous +screech of scraping shovels, would make out his inventory with +loathing. His mother was not impatient or contemptuous with him—she +could not have been that to any one; she simply could not understand +what he meant when he spouted upon the folly of wealth (for, like most +shy people, he occasionally burst into orations upon his theories), or +when he set off some fireworks of scepticism borrowed from Mr. Ezra +Barkley, or undertook (when Thomas was not present) to prove his +father's politics entirely wrong. On such occasions Nancy would say, +"Oh, Ned, <I>do</I> be quiet!" and Mary would yawn openly. As for his +music, nobody cared about it, except, perhaps, his mother. "But I must +say, Neddy, I like a tune," she would say, mildly, after Edwin had +tucked his violin under his chin and poured out all his young soul in +what was a true and simple passion. +</P> + +<P> +"A tune!" poor Ned said, and groaned. "Mother, I wish you wouldn't +call me that ridiculous name." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll try not to, Neddy, dear," she would promise, anxiously; and Ned +would groan again. +</P> + +<P> +With such a family circle, one can fancy what it was to the lad when +quite by accident he found a friend. It was the summer that he was +twenty, that once, coming back in the stage with him from Mercer, Miss +Helen Hayes showed a keen interest in something he said; then she asked +a question or two; and when, hesitating, waiting for the laugh which +did not come, he began to talk, she listened. Oh, the joy of finding a +listener! She looked at him, as they sat on the slippery leather seat +of the old stage, with soft, intelligent eyes, her slightly faded +prettiness giving a touch of charm to the high and flattering gravity +of her manner. When she asked him to bring his violin sometime and +play to her, the boy could almost have wept with joy. He made haste to +work off several of his dearest and most shocking phrases, which she +took with deep seriousness: A whale's throat is not large enough to +swallow a man—therefore the Biblical account is false, etc., etc. "In +fact," said Ned, "if I could have a half-hour's straight conversation +with Dr. Lavendar, I could prove to him the falsity of most of the Old +Testament." +</P> + +<P> +Helen Hayes was shocked; she regretted Mr. Dilworth's scepticism with +almost tearful warmth; yet she realized that a powerful mind must +search for truth, above all. She wished, however, that he would read +such and such a book. "I can't argue with you myself," she said—"you +are far too clever for my poor little reasoning powers." +</P> + +<P> +It was in April that Edwin entered into this experience of feminine +sympathy; and by mid-summer, at the time when Mr. Thomas Dilworth also +found Miss Helen Hayes so remarkably intelligent, the boy was absorbed +in his new emotion of friendship. He never spoke of it at home, hence +his father's astonishment at finding him at the Hayeses'. And when, a +week later, he found him a second time, Tom Dilworth was much perplexed. +</P> + +<P> +"I dropped in on my way back from the store," he told his wife, "and +there was that boy. I said to Miss Helen that she really must not let +him bother her. I told her he was a blatherskite, and she must just +tell him to dry up if he talked too much." +</P> + +<P> +"Tom, I don't think you ought to talk that way about Neddy," Mrs. +Dilworth said. "He's a dear boy." +</P> + +<P> +"He may be a dear boy, but he is a great donkey," Ned's father said, +dryly; "and I think it is very good in Helen Hayes to put up with him. +I can see she does it on my account. Milly, why don't you ask her to +come to supper, sometime? I like to talk to her; she's got brains, +that girl. And she's good-looking, too. Ask her to tea, and have +waffles and fried chicken, and some of that fluffy pink stuff the +children are so fond of, for dessert." +</P> + +<P> +"She's not much of a child," said Mrs. Dilworth, her face growing +slowly red. "She's thirty-two if she's a day." +</P> + +<P> +"My dear, she has aged rapidly; you said thirty a month ago. I like +the pink stuff myself, and I'm nearly fifty. I bet the Hayeses don't +have anything better at their house." +</P> + +<P> +Milly softened at that. Where is the middle-aged housekeeper who does +not soften at being told that her pink stuff is better than anything +the Hayeses can produce? Yet Tom's talk of Miss Helen's brains pierced +through her vagueness and bit into her heart and mind; and she could +not forget that he had called the girl good-looking. "Girl!" said Mrs. +Dilworth. She was standing before the small swinging glass on her high +bureau, looking at herself critically; then she slipped back and locked +her door; then took a hand-glass and stood sidewise to look again. Her +hair was drawn tightly from her temples and twisted into a hard knot at +the back of her head; she remembered that the Hayes girl wore high +rats, which were very fashionable, and had a large curl at one side of +her waterfall. "But it's pinned on," Milly said to herself; "anyway, +mine's my own." Then she pulled her cap farther forward (in those days +mothers of families began to wear caps when they were thirty) and +looked in the glass again: Helen Hayes did not have a double chin. +"She's a skinny thing," Milly said to herself. Yet she knew, bitterly, +that she would rather be skinny than see those cruel lines, like +gathers on a drawing-string, puckering the once round neck below the +chin. And her forehead: she wondered whether if, every day, she +stroked it forty-two times, she could smooth out the wrinkles?—those +wrinkles that stood for the tender and anxious thought of all her +married life! She had heard of getting rid of wrinkles in that way. +"It would take a good deal of time," she thought, doubtfully. Still, +she might try it—with the door locked. These reflections did not, +however, interfere with the invitation which Thomas had suggested. +</P> + +<P> +Milly had her opinion of a middle-aged woman who wore wrappers in +public; but if Tom wanted her and her wrappers, he should have them. +He should have anything in the world he desired, if she could procure +it. Had he desired Miss Hayes hashed on toast, Milly would have done +her best to set the dainty dish before her king. And no doubt poor +Miss Helen in this form would have given Mrs. Dilworth more personal +satisfaction than did her presence at Tom's side (for the invitation +was promptly accepted) in some trailing white thing, her eyes fixed on +her host's face, intent, apparently, upon any word he might utter. +Watching that absorbed and flattering gaze, Milly grew more and more +silent. She heard their eager talk, and her mild eyes grew round and +full of pain with the sense of being left out; for Miss Hayes, though +patient with her hostess, and even kind in a condescending way, hardly +spoke to her. Once when, her heart up in her throat, Mrs. Dilworth +ventured a comment, it seemed only to amuse Thomas and his guest—and +she did not know why. +</P> + +<P> +"This morning," Tom said, "I was h'isting up a big bunch of galvanized +buckets to our loft with a fall and tackle, and all of a sudden the +strap slipped, and the whole caboodle just whanged down on the +pavement—" +</P> + +<P> +"O-o-o-o!" said Helen Hayes, putting her hands over her ears with +dramatic girlishness. +</P> + +<P> +"It was terrific, and just at that moment up came Dr. Lavendar. Well, +of course I couldn't express my feelings—" +</P> + +<P> +"Poor Mr. Dilworth!" +</P> + +<P> +"—he came up, and gave me a rap with his stick. 'Thomas,' he said +(you know how his eyes twinkle!)—'Thomas, this is the most profane +silence I ever heard.'" +</P> + +<P> +Everybody laughed, except Milly and Edwin, the latter remarking that he +didn't see anything funny in that. At which Miss Hayes said to him, +under her breath, "Oh, you superior people are so contemptuous of our +frivolity!" And Ned blushed with satisfaction, and murmured, "Why, no; +I'm not superior, I'm sure." +</P> + +<P> +As for Milly, with obvious effort and getting very red, she said that +she didn't see how silence could be profane. "As long as you didn't +say anything, you conquered your spirit," she added, faintly. +</P> + +<P> +And then they all (except Edwin) laughed again. After that she made no +attempt to be taken into the gayety about her, but her heart burned +within her. The next morning at breakfast some words struggled out: +"You'd think she was a young thing, she laughs so. And she's nearly +thirty-five." +</P> + +<P> +"How time flies!" said Tom, chuckling. And then, to everybody's +astonishment, the mute Edwin spoke up, and said that as for age it was +a matter of the soul and not of the body. "Some people are always +young," said Edwin. "Dr. Lavendar is, and you are, father—" +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you, grave and reverend seignior." +</P> + +<P> +"—and mother," continued the candid youth, "has always been old. +Haven't you, mother?" +</P> + +<P> +"True, for you, my boy," said the father; "your mother has the wisdom +of the family." +</P> + +<P> +Milly Dilworth's face grew dully red to the roots of her hair; a wave +of anger rose up in her inarticulate heart. They called her old, these +two. She could hardly see her plate for tears. +</P> + +<P> +Edwin, however, was so thrilled by the elegance of his sentiment that +he was eager to repeat it to Miss Hayes; but, somehow, he always had +difficulty in introducing the subject of age. When he did succeed in +getting in his little speech, she said that he impressed her very much +when he said things like that. "Your insight is wonderful," she +murmured, looking at him with something like awe in her eyes. (Miss +Helen was never cunning with Ned.) +</P> + +<P> +"I guess you're the only person that thinks so," Ned said; "at home +they're always making fun of me." +</P> + +<P> +"My friend," she said, gravely, "what else can you expect? You are an +eagle in a pigeon's nest. I don't mean to criticise your family, but +you know as well as I that you are—different. You are an inspiration +to me," she ended. And Ned blushed with joy. +</P> + +<P> +It certainly is inspiring to be told you are an inspiration.... Mr. +Thomas Dilworth did not blush when he learned that mentally he was the +most stimulating person that Miss Hayes had ever met; but he had an +agreeable consciousness of his superiority, which he made no effort to +conceal from his wife. He never made any effort to conceal anything +from Milly, not even that fondness for female society which Mrs. +Drayton had deplored. +</P> + +<P> +And by-and-by Milly's tears began to lie very near the surface. They +never gathered and fell, but perhaps they dropped one by one on her +heart, leaving their imprint of patiently accepted pain. At this time +she thought of her own mental deficiencies very constantly. Her mind +had no flexibility, and she reached conclusions only by toilsome +processes; but once reached, they were apt to be permanent. Her slow +reasoning at this time led her to conclude that her Thomas was not to +blame because he admired some one who was cleverer than she. "Why, +he'd be foolish not to," she thought, sadly. +</P> + +<P> +But this eminently reasonable conclusion did not save Mrs. Dilworth +from turning white and red with misery, when, for instance, her husband +observed that he had had to take down two bars of the Gordon fence, so +that Miss Hayes could go home across lots. Then Thomas chuckled, and +added that Helen Hayes was the brightest woman he knew. +</P> + +<P> +He did not go on to tell of his walk in the October dusk, and Miss +Helen's arch appeal to him for instruction on a certain political point +on which she was ignorant. Thomas had instructed her so fully and +volubly, while she looked at him with her reverent gaze, that it had +grown dark; and that was why he had to take her home across lots. +Thomas had not mentioned these details; he merely said he thought Miss +Helen Hayes a bright woman—the brightest, to be exact, that he knew. +And yet his Milly went into the kitchen pantry and hid her face in the +roller behind the door and sobbed. +</P> + +<P> +Well, of course! It's very absurd. A fat, wordless woman, who ought +to be darning her children's stockings, it's very absurd for her to be +weeping into a roller because her man, who has loved her for +forty-three years, eleven months, twenty-nine days, twenty-three hours, +and forty minutes—her man, to whom she is as absolutely necessary as +his old slippers or his shabby old easy-chair—because this man does +not think her the brightest woman he knows. But absurd as it is, it is +suffering. +</P> + +<P> +The woman of faithful heart who has been left behind mentally by her +husband is a tragic figure, even if she is at the same time a little +ridiculous—poor soul! Her futile, panting efforts to catch up; her +brave, pitiful blunders; her antics of imitation; her foolish pink lawn +frocks—of course they are funny; but the midnight tears are not funny, +nor the prinking (behind locked doors), nor the tightened dresses, nor +the stealthy reading to "improve the mind"—that poor, anxious, limited +mind which knows only its duty to its dearest and best. These things +mean the pain—a hopeless pain—of the recognition of limitations. +What did it matter that once a year Tom announced that he had loved his +Amelia for so many years, months, days, hours, and minutes?—He did not +talk to her about the President's letter! But he talked to Helen Hayes +about it. And yet she was a pale thing. "She never had my color," +poor Milly thought; "and they say she doesn't get along well at home. +And she's no housekeeper. Mrs. Hayes herself told me she was just real +useless about the house. I can't understand it." +</P> + +<P> +Of course she could not understand it. What feminine mind ever +understood why uselessness attracts a sensible man? It is so foolish +that even the most foolish woman cannot explain it. +</P> + +<P> +As the autumn closed in on Old Chester, nobody in the family noticed +Milly Dilworth's heavier look and deeper silence. Tom himself was more +talkative than usual; business had been good, and he was going to get +something handsome out of a deal he had gone into with Hayes. This +took him often to the Hayeses' house; and after the two men had had +their talk, Miss Helen was to be found at the parlor fireside, very +arch and eager with questions, but most of all so respectful of Tom's +opinions. His Amelia was respectful of his opinions, too, but in such +a different way. Perhaps just at this time Thomas Dilworth pitied +himself a little—the middle-aged husband does pity himself once in a +while. Perhaps he sighed—certainly he whistled. There is no doubt +that Mrs. Drayton would have felt he was wandering from his Amelia—at +least in imagination. And yet Tom was as settled and grounded in love +for his middle-aged wife as he ever had been. +</P> + +<P> +This, however, cannot be understood by those who do not know that the +male creature, good and honest and faithful as he may be, is at heart a +Mormon. +</P> + +<P> +"I declare," Tom said, coming home at twelve o'clock at night—"I +declare I feel younger." +</P> + +<P> +Milly was silent. +</P> + +<P> +Then Tom began to whistle: +</P> + +<A NAME="img-217"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-217.jpg" ALT="music fragment" BORDER=""> +</CENTER> + +<P> +Then he broke off to say that he didn't think that Helen Hayes was +over-happy at home. "The Hayeses are commonplace people, and she is +very superior. I guess they don't get along well." +</P> + +<P> +Milly thought to herself that when a girl didn't get along with her own +mother it didn't speak well for the girl; but she did not say so. +</P> + +<P> +But Thomas went on to declare that he didn't know what to make of Ned. +"Hanging round the Hayeses till I'm ashamed of him! Why doesn't he +know better? I never bored a woman to death when I was his age." And +his wife thought, in heavy silence, that there were other people who +hung round the Hayeses. +</P> + +<P> +However, Thomas made his feeling so clear to his son that during the +winter Ned was never seen at the Hayeses' on the same evening that his +father was there. But there was an hour in the afternoon, from five to +six, when the boy was free and Thomas was busy with his spades and +buckets;—but you can't look after a boy every minute. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0404"></A> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +IV +</P> + +<P> +Poor Amelia, in her bedroom, in the chilly December dusk, sopped her +eyes with cold water and looked in the glass. "I <I>mustn't</I> cry any +more," she said to herself, despairingly—"they're so red now!" +</P> + +<P> +A door opened down-stairs, and there was a burst of laughter; and Mrs. +Dilworth, in the cold twilight, went on sopping her eyes. Tom and the +girls evidently didn't need her. "They could get along just as well +without me. And if the Lord would take me, Tom could—could—so he +could—" +</P> + +<P> +Her soul was dumb, even to itself; but she knew what it was that Tom +"could" do. +</P> + +<P> +And she knew it without bitterness. Like every other woman whose love +for her husband has in it the maternal element (and most good women's +love has this element), she had always felt that if she died Thomas +ought to marry again; but this simple creature went one ahead of that +rather elementary feeling, and specified: she was willing to have him +marry <I>her</I>. +</P> + +<P> +"If the Lord would only remove me," said poor Milly, looking miserably +in the glass at her plump figure, which showed no indications of +removal. Her eyes were hopelessly red; she didn't see how she could +possibly go down to supper. But of course she had to go down. The +mother of a family and the mistress of one servant must go down to +supper, no matter what the condition of her eyes may be. She slunk +into her seat behind her teacups, and scarcely dared to look about her +noisy, hungry circle, still less at her Thomas, who was smiling to +himself, but who did not share his amusement with his family. Still, +when he suddenly said something about the refreshment of talking to +intelligent people, it was not hard to guess the direction of his +thoughts. "It sharpens your brains up," said Thomas. "I was going to +suggest, Milly, that you should ask Helen Hayes to tea again; but she's +got company; and when they leave she's going off to make a visit to +some of her relations, she tells me." +</P> + +<P> +Amelia's mild lips tightened silently. So they had been together +again. Her hand shook as she poured out another cup of tea for her +Thomas, who took that moment to say, with all a husband's candor, that +she was getting fatter than ever. "I thought you were starving +yourself to get thin, Milly?" he said, smiling. Milly smiled, too, +faintly; but she was saying to herself: "What did they talk about? How +long were they together? Oh, if I could only be taken away!" +</P> + +<P> +It would be interesting to follow the processes of a mind like Mrs. +Dilworth's: how did a wife and mother of children reach the point of +feeling that her family would be better off without her? Anybody in +Old Chester could have told her such a belief was folly, and wicked +folly at that. But it seemed just plain reason to Milly Dilworth: "I'm +not necessary to anybody. Thomas likes somebody younger. He can't +marry her because I'm alive; he could marry her (and she would be good +to the children) if I were not here. But I <I>am</I>!" she would end, +hopelessly. +</P> + +<P> +Morning after morning, as she went about her household duties, or when +before tea she sat in her little, old rocking-chair, mending the family +stockings, she used to break herself against the hopelessness of the +situation: She was there; and unless the Lord would remove her (any +other sort of removal was impossible to her devout imagination) Tom +could not have what he wanted—yes, and needed, too. For it was at +this period that Mrs. Dilworth recognized, what most wives of men do +recognize at one time or another, that although being a wife and mother +is the only vocation of a married woman, being a husband and father is +only one of many vocations of a married man. Hence the companionship +of an eminently worthy wife is almost never enough for the male +creature. When this harsh truth burst upon Milly, she wiped her eyes +on the stocking she was mending and groaned aloud. But she did not +rail against the fact, nor did she attempt to deny it; wherein she +showed a superfeminine intelligence. She only said to herself that +Thomas could not have what he wanted while she was alive; yet she +couldn't, it seemed, die, although she was so miserable that she didn't +know how she lived! It was at this point that she began to make wild +schemes to relieve the situation: Suppose she asked that Hayes girl to +come and make them a visit? But no—a man wants more than to just look +at a pretty girl across the table. Suppose she went away herself and +made a visit, and asked Miss Helen Hayes to come and keep house for +her? (Like all good wives, Milly had no hesitation in offering up +another woman to the pleasure of her lord.) No; people would talk +about Tom if she did that.... The amount of it was, poor Milly, +although she did not know it, was really planning that Thomas should +have two wives at the same time—and, dear me! how that would simplify +things! There would be the old, sensible, matter-of-fact wife to mend +his stockings and order his good dinner and nurse him through the +indigestion consequent upon the dinner—the old, anxious wife, who has +had the children and reared them, who has planned and economized and +toiled with him, who has borne the burden and heat of the day at his +side—the prosaic wife, who gives, unasked, such good advice. Every +one will admit that this elderly person has been, and (to a limited +degree) still is, a necessity to every Thomas. But sometimes Thomas +thinks, in his simple way, that it would be pleasant to have the +luxuries as well as the necessities of life; to have, for instance, a +young wife—a pretty wife, clever and light-hearted and gayly +tyrannical; a wife who never knew enough to advise anybody, who should +be a relaxation and a refreshment, <I>and just a little bit of a fool</I>; +for, as every intelligent (unmarried) woman knows, men like fools; +feminine fools. Of course the trouble is that if you supply a wife for +two sides of a man's character—for utility, so to speak, and for +diversion—he may, not unreasonably, demand that every side and angle +and facet of his jewel-like nature have its own feminine setting. That +was probably Solomon's idea. Well, well! the time is not yet for this +reasonable arrangement; and it is possible that trade in galvanized +buckets will never warrant its extensive existence. +</P> + +<P> +But all this is very frivolous compared to the reality of this poor +woman's pain, a pain that finally evolved a plan which, although less +picturesque than the harem, was of the same grade in the eye of the +law, though, curiously enough, not in her own eye. She could not, as +she expressed it to herself, be dead, so that her Thomas might have his +wish; <I>but he could think she was dead</I>. +</P> + +<P> +When this extraordinary idea came into Milly Dilworth's head, she felt +as one imprisoned in darkness who sees, far off, the glimmer of +daylight. He "could think she was dead!" And if he thought so, of +course there could be nothing wrong in his marrying "<I>her</I>." (Miss +Hayes's moral status did not enter into Milly's calculations.) +</P> + +<P> +The light in her darkness dazzled poor Milly at first, and the way was +not clear. It took two weeks of further thought to decide upon the +step, and then to evolve its details; but one need not go into them as +Milly did.... As she sat at her work, day after day, she thought her +plan out slowly and toilsomely. At first she kept balking at the +enormity of it. Then some chance word would betray Tom's admiration +for brains, and she would beat and spur her mind up to her project +again.... And at last she accepted it.... Once accepted, the thing +was settled. Her mind had about as much flexibility as a bar of lead, +and there was no changing it. It only remained to decide upon the +details. This she did slowly and painfully. Each step was planned, +each contingency arranged for. +</P> + +<P> +And by-and-by the day came to act. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +The night before, at supper, Mrs. Dilworth, her hands stumbling among +her teacups, said, faintly, "I'm going over to the other side of the +river to-morrow to order some chickens from Mrs. Kensy." +</P> + +<P> +"That Kensy house is right by the railroad station," Ned said, +scowling; "I don't believe she has any hens." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, she has, Neddy," said Mrs. Dilworth. +</P> + +<P> +Edwin frowned blackly. "I do wish you wouldn't call me by that absurd +name, mother." +</P> + +<P> +"I keep forgetting, Neddy dear." +</P> + +<P> +Edwin held up his hands despairingly. +</P> + +<P> +"What are you two people talking about?" demanded Thomas. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm going to walk over, across the ice, to the Bend, to-morrow," said +Milly. +</P> + +<P> +"Walk!" her husband protested. "What do you walk for? It's cold as +Greenland on the ice, and, besides, they were cutting at the pool by +the Bend; you don't want to go that way, Milly. Take the stage round." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Dilworth crumbled a piece of bread with shaking fingers, and said +nothing. +</P> + +<P> +"What time are you going, mother?" inquired Edwin. +</P> + +<P> +"In the afternoon, about four." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, you went there only two days ago," Edwin said, irritably. "I saw +you on the back road carting a big bundle." +</P> + +<P> +"It would have been more to the point if you'd done the carting for +your mother," Tom Dilworth said, sharply. +</P> + +<P> +His wife paled suddenly at that word about a bundle, but the subject +was not pursued. Edwin said, grumbling, that he didn't see what +possessed his mother to choose such an hour. "It's too dark for a lady +to be out," Edwin protested. +</P> + +<P> +"Too dark for a—<I>grandmother</I>!" his father said. "Don't you criticise +your mother, young man." And then he added: "Look out for the places +where the men were cutting, Milly. It hasn't frozen over yet." +</P> + +<P> +And Mrs. Dilworth said, after a pause, "I know." +</P> + +<P> +That night was a misery of dreams that the deed was done, broken by +wakings desperate with the knowledge that it was yet to do. In the +morning she seemed to have lost all power of words; she bore her +husband's reproaches that Ned was late for breakfast; she went about +her household duties; she watched the girls start for school (she did +not kiss them; demonstrations of affection had never been possible to +this dumb breast; but she stared after them with haggard eyes); and +through it all she hardly uttered a word; when she did speak, it seemed +as though she had to break, by agonizing effort, some actual lock upon +her lips. When the girls had gone she looked about for her eldest; but +Ned was not to be found. "I never knew him to go to the store before +breakfast," she thought, miserably. His father, pulling on his coat in +the hall, said that Ned was getting industrious to go to his work so +early! His wife was silent. +</P> + +<P> +When he started, whistling cheerfully, +</P> + +<A NAME="img-228"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-228.jpg" ALT="music fragment" BORDER=""> +</CENTER> + +<P> +she watched him from the window, straining her eyes until he was out of +sight. Then she went up-stairs to her bedroom, and, opening his closet +door, leaned her head against one of his coats, trembling very much. +</P> + +<P> +Afterwards she wandered about the house in aimless, restless waiting +for Ned. +</P> + +<P> +In the course of the morning Tom sent over to inquire why the boy had +not come to the store. Milly told the messenger to tell Mr. Dilworth +that Mr. Edwin was not at home. "Say I thought he was at the store," +she said. "I'll give him his father's message when he comes in to +dinner." But he did not come in to dinner; and minute by minute the +afternoon ticked itself away. She had said to herself that she must +start about four, before Nancy and Mary got home from school. "It must +be so that it would be dark when I was coming back," she reminded +herself. "If I leave here at four, and get my bundle from Mrs. Kensy +at five, it would be pretty dark by the time I would be going home. +Mrs. Kensy will tell them that it was dark." +</P> + +<P> +At four Edwin had not appeared; Milly, having no imagination, had no +anxiety; she merely gave up, patiently, the hope of a wordless +good-bye. But she kept looking for him; and when she finally put on +her things, she paused and turned back to the window, to look once more +towards Old Chester; but there was no sign of Ned. It did not occur to +her to postpone her plan; her mind, run into the mould of sacrifice, +had hardened into rigidity. So at last, miserably, the tears running +down her face, she stepped out into the cold and went down through the +garden to the river. There she turned and looked back, with dumb +passion in her eyes; the firelight was winking from the parlor windows +and all the warm commonplace of life seemed to beckon her. She put her +muff up to wipe her eyes, but she made no prayer or farewell; her +silence had reached her soul by that time. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-230"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-230.jpg" ALT=""THERE SHE TURNED AND LOOKED BACK"" BORDER="2"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center"> +"THERE SHE TURNED AND LOOKED BACK" +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +It was very cold; the ice was rough, and the wind had blown the dry +snow about in light drifts and ripples, so that walking was not +difficult. She trudged out, up towards the Bend, skirting the place +where the men had been cutting. They had gone home now, and the ice +about the black, open space of water was quite deserted. The wind came +keenly down the river, blowing an eddy of snow before it; the bleak sky +lay like lead over the woods along the shore. There was not a house in +sight. Amelia Dilworth looked furtively about her; then she bent down +and scraped at the snow on the edge of the ice, as one might do who, in +the water, was struggling for a hold upon it. After that, for a long +time, she stood there, looking dumbly at the current running, black and +silent, between the edges of the ice. At last, her hand over her mouth +to check some inarticulate lament, she stooped again, and put her +little black muff on the broken snow close to the water. +</P> + +<P> +When she reached Mrs. Kensy's she was quite calm. She said briefly +that she had come to order some chickens; "—and I'll take that bundle +I asked you to keep for me." +</P> + +<P> +The woman brought it, and Milly tucked her fingers through the stout +strings she had tied so carefully a few days before. When she would +open it in the woods, and put on the new dress and shawl and the heavy +veil that it held, and then, in the dark, take the half-past-five +train, no one would know that Thomas Dilworth's wife had fled away into +another State. They would find the muff, and they would think—there +would be only one thing to think. +</P> + +<P> +"I want the chickens for Sunday," she said; "please send them over on +Saturday." Then it came into her mind with a little gush of happiness +that she would pay for them on the spot, instead of having the bill +sent to Tom, as was her custom; she had drawn a sum of money from the +bank a fortnight ago—a small sum, but her own; now it was all in her +purse; she would buy Tom's Sunday dinner out of her little fund. +Except to leave him, it was the last thing she would ever do for him. +</P> + +<P> +She put her hand into her pocket—and chilled all over. Then stood +blankly looking at the woman; then plunged her hand down again into her +pocket; then exclaimed under her breath; then tore her bag open and +fumbled distractedly among brushes and night-gown and slippers; then +pulled her pocket wrong side out with trembling fingers. +</P> + +<P> +"<I>My purse!</I>" she said, breathlessly. Then she searched everything +again. +</P> + +<P> +"It ain't any difference," Mrs. Kensy protested. +</P> + +<P> +"I must have left it at home. I can't go back for it. It is too late." +</P> + +<P> +"What for?" said Mrs. Kensy. +</P> + +<P> +"The—the train." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you was going on, was you?" Mrs. Kensy said. "Well, I can let you +have the price of a ticket a little ways." +</P> + +<P> +But Mrs. Dilworth, with shaking hands, pulled everything out of her +bag, shook her skirts, fumbled in the bosom of her dress, ran out and +searched the garden-path, strained her eyes across the snow on the +river—all in vain. "Oh, my!" she said, faintly. +</P> + +<P> +"But I can lend you the price of a ticket, ma'am," Mrs. Kensy said +again. +</P> + +<P> +"No matter," Mrs. Dilworth said, dully. "I'll go home." +</P> + +<P> +Even as she spoke she heard the train tooting faintly far up the +valley. She sat down, feeling suddenly sick. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0405"></A> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +V +</P> + +<P> +There was nothing to do but to go home. She remembered now how in her +agitated watching for her son she had put her purse down on the corner +of her bureau—and left it there. Yes; there was nothing to do but go +back. "I can start to-morrow," she said to herself. But in the sick +reaction of the moment she knew that she could never start again; her +purpose had been shattered by the blow. She took her bundle—the +bundle that meant flight and disguise and self-sacrifice, and that +stood for the shrewdness which is so characteristic of the kind of +stupidity which forgets the purse—and went stumbling down in the +darkness to the river. She said to herself that she must get her muff; +and she thought heavily that it would be pretty hard to carry so many +things across the ice. She was numb with the shock of interrupted +ecstasy. She could not feel even mortification—only fatigue. She was +so tired that, seeing in the darkness a hurrying figure approaching +her, she did not recognize her husband until he was almost upon her. +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Milly</I>? My God! Milly!" +</P> + +<P> +He had her muff in his hand, and as he reached her he caught at her +shoulder and shook her roughly. "Milly—I thought—I thought—" He +stammered with agitation. "I found this muff, and I thought it was +yours; and Neddy's gone, too, and I thought—both of you—" +</P> + +<P> +"Neddy <I>gone</I>?" she repeated, dully. +</P> + +<P> +She stood still on the ice, trying to get her wits together. +</P> + +<P> +"He's disappeared. He isn't in town. He went out early this morning. +To skate, I suppose. Nora saw him from her window; at about six, she +says. And this open water"—she felt him quiver at her side—"and then +this muff—" +</P> + +<P> +"No!" she said. "I—I made a mistake." She did not take in the words +about Ned. +</P> + +<P> +"But where is he? Nobody's seen him. I suppose I'm a fool, but I'm +uneasy. I came to meet you because I thought you might know. But when +I saw this muff—it is yours, Milly, isn't it?—I got into a panic +about you, too." +</P> + +<P> +"Why," she said—"it's mine; yes. I—I left it—I suppose. Neddy +wasn't with me. Did you think he was with me? I don't understand," +she ended, bewildered. +</P> + +<P> +"He hasn't been at home all day," her husband said, "nor in town, +either." And then he repeated the story, while she looked at him, slow +understanding dawning in her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Neddy—gone! Where?" +</P> + +<P> +"But that's what I don't know," the father said. +</P> + +<P> +And his wife, dazed still, but awake to the trouble in his voice, began +to comfort him, alarm rising slowly in her own heart like an icy wave. +</P> + +<P> +"Maybe he went to see somebody in Upper Chester?" +</P> + +<P> +"But he doesn't know anybody at Upper Chester. Of course it's +possible. Only—you gave me such a fright, Milly!" Mrs. Dilworth put +her hand over her mouth and trembled. "However, I guess he's all +right, as you say. I guess we'll find him at home when we get back. +It's lucky I came to meet you, because I can lug your things for you. +How did you drop your muff, dear? Here, take it; your hands must be +cold. Oh, Milly, you gave me an awful fright—it was right on the very +edge of the ice; those confounded cutters hadn't put up any ropes. You +do really think there's no reason to be uneasy about Ned?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," she said. Her knees shook; she had to pause to swallow before +she spoke. Oh, what if he should find her out? As she trudged along +at his side in the cold darkness she said to herself, with a sickening +sense of apprehension, that if he found her out she should die. Then +as her mind cleared she tried in her brief way to encourage him about +their boy; yet, as they drew nearer home and she saw again the firelit +windows, she began to awaken to the situation: Neddy had gone out to +skate; at six, did Nora say? Of course he might have stopped to see +somebody in Upper Chester; only Neddy never went to see anybody +anywhere—except (Amelia Dilworth had forgotten her!)—except that +Hayes girl—and she wasn't at home. Yes, it was strange; and worrying, +perhaps. But she only repeated, as they went hurrying up to the back +door, that she was sure Neddy was all right. But she held her breath +to listen for his voice haranguing his sisters in the sitting-room. +Instead, the two girls came running out to meet them. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, father, did you find Ned? Oh, here's mother; she'll know where he +is." +</P> + +<P> +"Mother, I'm sort of scared about him," Mary whispered. +</P> + +<P> +"He's gone to see some friend," the mother said, and her brevity, so +agonizing to her, seemed to reassure the others. +</P> + +<P> +"He hasn't any friend except Miss Helen Hayes," Nancy said, "and she +went away last week." +</P> + +<P> +"Maybe he's gone to hunt her up," Mary said, giggling, and her father +told her to be quiet. +</P> + +<P> +"It's thoughtless in him to be so late. But your mother isn't worried, +so I guess we needn't be. Your mother says there is not the slightest +cause for anxiety, and she knows." +</P> + +<P> +"Come to supper," Amelia said, her heart sinking; and the commonplace +suggestion cheered them all, although Tom Dilworth did not like to lose +the assurance of his wife's presence, even to have her go up-stairs to +take off her bonnet, and went with her, saying again, decidedly, that +there was, as she said, no possible reason for uneasiness, and that he +himself hadn't a particle of anxiety. "But I'll give that boy a piece +of my mind for worrying you so. Why, Milly, what a fat pocket-book! +Where did you get so much money, my dear? I didn't know the hardware +trade was so prosperous. Look here, Milly—it is pretty late, +honestly?" +</P> + +<P> +She took her purse out of his hands, her own trembling. For a moment +she could not speak, and leaned forward to look into the swinging glass +and make pretence of untying a knot in her bonnet-strings. "Oh, he'll +come home soon," she said. +</P> + +<P> +In spite of assurances, the tea-table was not very cheerful—the girls +stopped short in the middle of a sentence to listen for a step on the +porch. Tom got up twice to look out of the window. Mrs. Dilworth +thought she heard the gate slam, and held her breath; but no Ned +appeared. The evening was endlessly long. Tom pretended to read his +newspaper, and kept his eye on one spot for five minutes at a time. At +ten he packed the girls off to bed; at eleven he was walking up and +down the room; at twelve he told his wife to go to bed; but somehow or +other he went himself, while she sat up, "to let the boy in." +</P> + +<P> +You can make excuses for this sort of lateness up to a certain point; +but it is curious that at about 2.30 in the morning the excuses all +give out. Tom Dilworth got up and dressed. "Something has happened, +Milly," he said, brokenly. His wife put her arms around him, trying to +comfort him. +</P> + +<P> +"If Miss Hayes was only at home," she said, "maybe she would have some +idea of his plans. He might have told her. And she could tell us what +to do." +</P> + +<P> +"Who?" said Tom—"that Hayes girl? Maybe so. I hadn't thought of her. +No, I don't believe she'd be any help. She hasn't got much sense in +that kind of way." +</P> + +<P> +Such ages and ages was Milly away from her great experience of jealousy +that she felt no relief at this bald betrayal. Together they went out +onto the porch, listening, and straining their eyes. The moon was just +going down; it was very cold; far off a dog barked. But there was no +human sound. The two haggard people went shivering back into the hall, +where a candle burned dimly in the glass bell hanging at the foot of +the stairs. +</P> + +<P> +"Something has certainly happened," Tom said again. "Oh, Milly, you +are always so calm and I go all to pieces." He leaned his elbow +against the wall and hid his face in his arm. His wife heard him groan. +</P> + +<P> +"And—I've been hard on him sometimes," he said. +</P> + +<P> +She took his hand and kissed it silently. +</P> + +<P> +Poor Tom went to pieces more than once in the days that +followed—dreadful days of panic and despair. Old Chester, aroused at +daybreak by the terrified father, decided at once that the boy was +drowned; but everybody stood ready to help the stricken parents with +hopeful words to the contrary, words which rang as hollow to Thomas and +his wife as to the well-meaning liars. +</P> + +<P> +It was on Wednesday that he had disappeared. On Friday they dragged +the river through the open holes; on Saturday, blew up the ice and +dragged all the way down to the second bend. That night Nancy and Mary +crept away to cry in their own room; Tom sat with his head buried in +his arms; his wife knelt beside him, touching him sometimes with a +quiet hand, but never speaking. Dr. Lavendar came in and put his hand +on Tom's shoulder for a minute, and then went away. The firelight +slipped flickering about the room; sometimes the coal in the grate +snapped and chuckled, and a spurt of flame shone on the two suddenly +aged faces. And then into the silent room came, with hurried, +shamefaced triumph—Edwin. +</P> + +<P> +"I—I'm afraid you've been anxious—" +</P> + +<P> +"He ought to have written," said another voice, breathless and +uncertain, and breaking into nervous laughter. "It is naughty in him +to have forgotten. I—I told him so." +</P> + +<P> +Thomas Dilworth lifted his head and stared, silently; but his wife +broke out into wild laughter and streaming tears; she ran and threw +herself on Edwin's breast, her throat strangling with sobs. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh—she's found Neddy! She has brought him back to us!—she has found +him! Oh, Miss Hayes, God bless you—God bless you! Oh, where did you +find him?" +</P> + +<P> +Miss Hayes opened her lips—then bit the lower one, and stood, scarlet. +</P> + +<P> +"I meant to write," Edwin began to explain—"of course I meant to +write, but—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, dear Mrs. Dilworth," Helen's fluttering voice took up the excuse, +"you must forgive him"—she came as though to put her arms about Ned's +mother. "After all, a bridegroom, you know—" +</P> + +<P> +Milly lifted her head from Edwin's shoulder and gaped at her. +</P> + +<P> +"Bridegroom?" +</P> + +<P> +Thomas Dilworth got on his feet and swore. Miss Helen Hayes—or, no; +Mrs. Edwin Dilworth—came and hung upon his arm. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-242"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-242.jpg" ALT=""THOMAS DILWORTH GOT ON HIS FEET AND SWORE"" BORDER="2"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center"> +"THOMAS DILWORTH GOT ON HIS FEET AND SWORE" +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +"You won't mind very much? You'll forgive him? We couldn't tell, +because—because papa would have interfered; but I knew your dear, kind +heart. Mrs. Dilworth, I have so revered Mr. Dilworth!—that was one +reason I said <I>yes</I>. You'll let me be your little girl, Mr. Dilworth?" +</P> + +<P> +"Little—<I>grandmother</I>!" said Tom Dilworth; and burst into a roar of +laughter; then stopped, and said through his set teeth to his son, "You +scoundrel!" +</P> + +<P> +"Thomas—don't!" the mother entreated. "He has come back." +</P> + +<P> +"He'd better have stayed away!" Thomas said, furiously, in all the +anger of suddenly relieved pain. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, dear Mrs. Dilworth," Helen murmured, "forgive us! He ought to +have written—I ought to have reminded him. But—<I>you</I> understand? I +know you do. Just these first beautiful days, one forgets everything." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I tell you I meant to write," Ned persisted, doggedly. "But +mother put me all out by going over to the Bend in the afternoon. I +was going to take that train, and of course I couldn't; Kensy's house +is right there by the station. And I had to take the morning train +instead; and it put me all out. I had to get up so early I forgot to +take any clothes," he added, resentfully. "It wasn't my fault." +</P> + +<P> +"Not your fault?" his father said, and then turned to his wife, almost +with a sob. "Milly, can he be our boy, this sneak?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; yes, he is, Tom; indeed he is, dear. And he just forgot; he +didn't mean anything wrong." Milly was almost voluble, and she was +crying hard. And then she looked at the woman who had brought him +back—the faded, anxious, simpering woman, who for once had no words +ready. Milly looked at her, and suddenly opened her arms and took her +son's elderly wife to her heart. "Oh, you poor woman," she said, "how +unhappy you must have been at home!" +</P> + +<P> +Helen looked at her blankly, then dropped her head down on the kind +shoulder, and Milly felt her quiver. +</P> + +<P> +"She's fifty!" Tom said, trembling with anger. "How the devil a son of +mine can be such a jack—" +</P> + +<P> +"Tom, dear! there now, <I>don't</I>," the mother said; "he's at home. Just +think; he's at home! and we thought—we thought—" Her voice broke. +"We'll all love you, Miss Hayes—I mean Helen," she whispered to the +sobbing woman. +</P> + +<P> +Then, with a sort of gasp, she put her daughter-in-law's arms aside +gently, and went over and kissed her husband. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +As for Thomas Dilworth, after the first shock of anger and +mortification had passed, and the young couple had finally settled +themselves upon the disgusted bounty of the respective fathers, he used +to whistle incessantly a certain song much in vogue at the time: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"I hanker<BR> +To spank her,<BR> +Now I'm her papa!"<BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0501"></A> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +"AN EXCEEDING HIGH MOUNTAIN" +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +Robert Gray's first wife, Alys (Old Chester had hard work to swallow +her name; "but it's better than any of your silly 'ie's,'" said Old +Chester)—this first Mrs. Gray was a good deal of a trial to everybody. +She was not only "new," but foreign; not only foreign, but indifferent +to Old Chester. Indeed, it took all Old Chester's politeness and +Christian forbearance to invite Mrs. Robert Gray to tea—with the +certainty that the invitation would be declined. She was an English +girl whom Robert met somewhere in Switzerland—a heavy-eyed, silent +creature, certainly a very beautiful woman, but most inefficient and +sickly; and there were so many nice, sensible girls in Old Chester! +(However, there is no use saying things like that: as if a man ever +married a girl because she was sensible!) +</P> + +<P> +Yet young Gray certainly needed a sensible wife; his wealth was limited +to character and good manners, plus a slender income as tutor in the +Female Academy in Upper Chester. Excellent things, all; but a wife +with sense (and money) would have been an agreeable addition to his +circumstances. Whereas, this very beautiful English girl was a +penniless governess, left stranded in Germany by an employer, who had, +apparently, got tired of her. Robert Gray had met the poor, frightened +creature, who was taking her wandering way back to England, and married +her, frantic with rage at the way she had been treated. When he +brought her home, he was so madly in love that he probably did not half +appreciate Old Chester's patience with her queer ways. But the fact +was, that for the few months she lived, she was so miserable that Old +Chester could not help being patient, and forgiving her her half-sullen +indifference, and her silence, and her distaste for life—even in Old +Chester! +</P> + +<P> +For in spite of Robert's adoration, in spite of all the ready +friendliness about her, in spite of the birth of a baby girl, she +seemed, as it were, to turn her face to the wall. She died when the +child was about a week old. Died, the doctor said, only because, so +far as he could see, she did not care to live. +</P> + +<P> +"You ought to try to get better for the baby's sake," said Miss Rebecca +Jones, who had come in to help nurse her. And the poor girl frowned +and shook her head, the heavy, white lids falling over her dark eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't like it." +</P> + +<P> +And Rebecca (who had too much good sense to be shocked by the vagaries +of a sick woman) said, decidedly: "Oh, you'll learn to like her. Come, +now, just try!" +</P> + +<P> +But she did not seem to try; even though Robert, kneeling with his arm +under her pillow, holding her languid hand to his lips, said, sobbing, +"Oh, Alys, Alys—for God's sake—don't leave me—" +</P> + +<P> +Then she opened her beautiful eyes and looked at him solemnly. +"Robert," she said, "I am sorry. I am—sorry. I—am—" +</P> + +<P> +"What for, precious?" he entreated; "sorry for what? to leave me? Oh, +Alys, then live, live, dear!" +</P> + +<P> +"I—am—" she began; and then her voice trailed into eternity. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Rebecca Jones hung about the house for a few days, to make the +poor gentleman comfortable; then he was left alone with the child +(purchased at so dreadful a cost) and one servant, and his daily work +of teaching the polite languages at the Female Academy. Miss Rebecca's +hard face softened whenever she thought of him; but all she could do +for him was to go often to see the poor seven-months baby—which seemed +for a time inclined to follow its mother. +</P> + +<P> +Now it must be understood at once that Rebecca Jones was not a schemer, +or a mean or vulgar woman. She was merely a hard-headed, +honest-hearted product of years of public-school teaching, with a +passion for truth and no grace in telling it. She was sorry for Mr. +Gray, and sorry for the poor baby, who was being allowed, she said to +herself, to grow up every which way; and sorry for the comfortless +house left to the care of what she called "an uneducated servant-girl." +So, after school, and on Saturday mornings, she used to go over to Mr. +Gray's house and bustle about to the bettering of several things. +Indeed, old Mr. Jones told her more than once that he didn't know what +that there widower would do without her. And Rebecca said, truthfully +enough, that she didn't know, either. And when she said it her heart +warmed with something more than pity. +</P> + +<P> +As for Robert Gray, dazed and absent, trying to do his duty at the +Academy during the day, and coming home at night to look blankly at his +child, he, too, did not know what he would have done that first year +without Miss Rebecca's efficient kindness. He was so centred in his +grief, and also of so gentle a nature, that he took the kindness as +simply as a child might have done. Like many another sweet-minded man, +he had not the dimmest idea of the possible effect of his rather +courtly manner and his very delicate courtesy upon a woman of slightly +different class, whose life had been starved of everything romantic or +beautiful. He became to sharp-tongued Miss Rebecca Jones a vision of +romance; and, somehow, quite suddenly, about eighteen months after his +wife's death, he discovered that he was going to marry her. In his +startled astonishment, he realized that he had himself led up to her +avowal of willingness by some talk about her kindness. Perhaps she had +misunderstood his words; if she had, Robert Gray was not the man to +offer an explanation.... However, after the first shock of being +accepted, he was gently explicit: +</P> + +<P> +"I realize that the child ought to have the care of a good woman, and +therefore I—" +</P> + +<P> +"I'll do my duty by her," Rebecca said. +</P> + +<P> +"I want her brought up to love and reverence her mother. I want her +brought up to be like her. It is for the child's sake that I—I marry +again. I speak thus frankly, Miss Rebecca, because I so entirely +respect you that I could not be anything but frank." +</P> + +<P> +Rebecca's square face flushed over the high cheek-bones to the gaunt +forehead and the sparse hair; then her eyes looked passionately into +his. "I understand. Yes; I understand. And I will be good to your +child, Mr. Gray." +</P> + +<P> +And so he married her; and, when you come to think of it, it was a very +sensible thing to do. Even Old Chester said he was very sensible. A +man of thirty, with a baby—of course he ought to marry again! "But +why on earth," said Old Chester, "when there are so many girls of his +own class!—not but what Rebecca Jones is a very worthy person." +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile, Rebecca, with hard conscientiousness, set herself to bring +the child up. She trained her, and disciplined her, and made a painful +point of talking to her about the first Mrs. Gray, according to her +promise to teach her to "love and reverence her mother." The +discipline sometimes made Robert Gray wince; but it was wise, and never +unkind; so he never interfered;—but he left the room when it was going +on. Once he said, nervously: +</P> + +<P> +"I scarcely think, Mrs. Gray, that it is necessary to be quite so +severe?" +</P> + +<P> +"She must be made a good child," Rebecca answered. +</P> + +<P> +"I am not afraid that she will not be a good child," Robert Gray said; +"she is her mother's daughter." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, she is her father's daughter, too," Rebecca declared, briefly. +And her husband, shrinking, said: +</P> + +<P> +"Light is stronger than darkness; Alice's mother was a creature of +light. I am not afraid of her inheritance of darkness." +</P> + +<P> +As for Rebecca, she went away and shut herself up in the garret. +"'Creature of light!'" she said, sitting on the floor under the +rafters, and leaning her head on an old horsehair-covered trunk wherein +were packed away Mr. Gray's winter flannels—"well, I am a good wife to +him, if I ain't a 'creature of light.'" +</P> + +<P> +Yes, she was a good wife.... How carefully she put his flannels away +in May; how prudently she planned his food; how she managed to make the +two ends of his little income meet—yes, and lap over, so that every +summer he could go away from her for a two months' vacation in the +woods! Not once did he find a button lacking; not once had he put on a +clean pair of stockings and then pulled them off because of a hole in +the heel. Can our lords say as much, my mistresses? I trow not! Yes, +a good wife: that lovely being who left the world with a faint, +unfinished regret upon her pitiful lips could never have made him so +comfortable. +</P> + +<P> +Indeed, the whole household revolved upon Robert's comfort. Every +domestic arrangement had reference to his well-being. That he did not +become intolerably selfish was not Rebecca's fault, for, like many good +wives, she was absolutely without conscience in the matter of +self-sacrifice; but Robert escaped spiritual corruption, thanks to his +own very gentle nature and his absolute unconsciousness of the +situation. Perhaps, too, Rebecca's tongue mitigated the spoiling +process. She never spared him what she considered to be the truth +about himself or Alice. But her truthfulness stopped here; she spared +the dead, perforce. For what could she say ill of that beautiful +creature whose only wrong-doing lay in dying? But she knew, with +shame, that she would have liked to speak ill of her—in which +reprehensible impulse to remove a fellow-being from a pedestal, Rebecca +showed herself singularly like the rest of us. +</P> + +<P> +In this bleak air of unselfishness and truth-telling, Robert Gray +became more and more aloof. Gradually he retreated quite into his +past, doing his daily work at the Academy—where successive classes of +young ladies adored him for his gentle manners and his mild, brown +eyes—and living very harmlessly with his memories, which he kept fresh +and fragrant by sharing them with Alys's daughter, who, it must be +admitted, being young and human, was not always intensely interested; +but Rebecca had trained her too well for Alice ever to show any +weariness. Robert kept his little collection of pictures and +photographs of his first wife shut behind the curtained doors of an old +secretary. If his second wife found him standing, his hands clasped +behind him, his eyes wandering from one lovely presentment to another, +he never displayed an embarrassed consciousness, but he shut the doors. +He accepted Rebecca's devotion respectfully; he was never impolite, +still less unkind; in fact, in all their married life he had never, she +used to tell herself, spoken unkindly save once; and then his words +were nothing more dreadful than, "We will not discuss it, if you +please, Mrs. Gray." At first he had, very gently, made some +grammatical suggestions; and she had profited by them, though, being a +true Pennsylvanian, she never mastered "shall" and "will," nor did she +lose the Pennsylvania love for the word 'just'; to the end of her days, +Rebecca was 'just tired out'; or 'just real glad'; or 'just as busy as +could be.' Grammar, however, was as far as Robert Gray went in any +personal relation. He addressed her, in his courteous voice (always a +little timidly), as "Mrs. Gray"; and he kept as much as possible out of +her way. Meantime, Rebecca (remembering why he had married her) did +her duty by the child, and never failed to mention, in her hard voice, +that Alice must try to grow up like her mother. +</P> + +<P> +"Make me a good girl," Alice used to say in her sleepy prayers every +night—"make me a good girl, like my dear mother." Once, of her own +accord, the child added, "And make me pretty like her, too." Rebecca, +listening to the little figure at her knee, said, sternly, when Alice +got up and began to climb into the big four-poster: +</P> + +<P> +"Don't be vain. Don't ask God for foolish things. Beauty is foolish +and favor is deceitful. Just ask Him to make you as good as your +mother was." +</P> + +<P> +And, indeed, it must be admitted that the child did not inherit her +mother's wonderful beauty. At first her father had expected it; he +used to take liberties with his Horace, and say: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"O filia pulchra matre pulchriore."<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +But as Alice grew older, Robert Gray had to admit that the dead woman +had taken her beauty away with her. The child had just a pleasant +face; eyes that were gray or blue, as it happened; a commonplace nose, +and uncompromisingly red hair. In those days red hair was thought to +be a mortifying affliction, and poor, plain Alice shed many tears over +the rough, handsome shock of hair that broke into curls about her +forehead and all around the nape of her pretty, white neck. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0502"></A> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +But in spite of red hair, and what Old Chester religiously believed to +be its accompanying temper, Alice Gray was a lovable girl, and at +twenty, behold, she had a lover; indeed, she had more than one (not +counting Dr. Lavendar); but Alice never gave a thought to anybody but +Luther Metcalf. Luther was a good boy, Old Chester said; but added +that he would never set the river on fire. +</P> + +<P> +Certainly he did not use his incendiary opportunity; he had a small +printing-office, and he owned and edited Old Chester's weekly +newspaper, the <I>Globe</I>; but neither the news nor the editorial page +ever startled or displeased the oldest or the youngest inhabitant. The +<I>Globe</I> confined itself to carefully accredited cuttings from +exchanges; it had a Poet's Corner, and it gave, politely, any Old +Chester news that could be found; besides this, it devoted the inner +sheet to discreet advertisements, widely spaced to take up room. All +Old Chester subscribed for it, and spoke of it respectfully, because it +was a newspaper; and snubbed its editor, because he was one of its own +boys—and without snubbing boys are so apt to put on airs! Poor Luther +was never tempted to put on airs; he was too hard-worked and too +anxious about his prospects. He and Alice were to get married when he +and the <I>Globe</I> were out of debt; for his father had left him a +mortgage on the office building, as well as an unpaid-for press. When +Luther was particularly low-spirited, he used to tell Alice it would +take him five years to pay his debts; and, to tell the truth, that was +an optimistic estimate, for the <I>Globe</I> and the printing-office +together did very little more than pay the interest on the notes and +Luther's board. +</P> + +<P> +So, when they became engaged, waiting was what they looked forward to, +for, of course, Robert Gray could not help them; it was all Rebecca +could do to stretch his salary to cover the expenses of their own +household. But the two young people were happy enough, except when +Luther talked about five years of waiting. +</P> + +<P> +"We've been engaged two years already," he said, moodily; "I don't want +to be another case of Andrew Steele." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not afraid," Alice said. "Why, if you get the new job press, and +get that Mercer work, think how much that will help!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well," Luther said, "yes; but if I get the press, there's another +debt. And if I don't get it, I can't get the work; so there it is. A +vicious circle." +</P> + +<P> +This question of the purchase of a new press, before the old press had +been paid for, was a very serious and anxious one. "I wish father +could help," Alice said—they were walking home from Wednesday-evening +lecture, loitering in the moonlight, and wishing the way were twice as +long. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I wouldn't think of such a thing," the young man declared; "we'll +pull out somehow. He's gone off to the woods, hasn't he?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, he went this morning; he's so pleased to get away! He won't be +back till the Academy opens." +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose he hates to leave you, though," Lute said. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, but I can see that the getting away is a great relief. I keep +his pictures dusted, and take the flowers up to the cemetery for him; +so he knows things are not neglected." +</P> + +<P> +"But," Luther said, thoughtfully, "I think she's sorry to have him go?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh yes; sorry, I suppose," Alice admitted. "She's fond of him—in her +way." +</P> + +<P> +"Then why—" Luther began. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear, she's <I>jealous</I> of my mother." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Alice!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you know," Alice explained, "my mother was so beautiful—and +poor Mrs. Gray! But I must say, Lute, she's the justest person I know. +She's always told me that my mother was perfect. And of course she +was; but when you're jealous, it isn't so easy to acknowledge things +like that." +</P> + +<P> +"But I don't see how you can be jealous of the dead," Luther ruminated. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, <I>I</I> do! I could be jealous of some girl who was dead, if you'd +loved her, Lute." And then the boy put his arm round her, and they +kissed each other there in the shadows of the locust-trees overhanging +a garden wall. "I'm so glad there isn't anybody, dead or alive," Alice +said, happily; "though I'd rather have her alive than dead. If she +were alive, you'd have quarrelled with her, and stopped loving her. +But if she were dead, she would keep on being perfect. Yes; I'd rather +marry a man who had been—been <I>divorced</I>," said Alice, lowering her +voice, because the word was hardly considered proper in Old Chester, +"than a man whose wife was dead, because he would always be thinking +what an angel she was and what a sinner I was." +</P> + +<P> +"He would think you were an angel," the boy told her, blushing at his +own fervency. +</P> + +<P> +But the fervency died on his ardent young lips when they got into the +house and sat decorously in the parlor with Mrs. Gray. Rebecca was +sewing, her hard, square face a little harder than usual. Mr. Gray had +gone away on that annual fishing-trip—gone, with a look of relief +growing in his eyes even as he stepped into the stage and pulled the +door to behind him; pulled it hurriedly, as though he feared she would +follow. Then, baring his head politely, he had looked out of the +window and said: +</P> + +<P> +"Good-bye. You will send for me should you, by any chance, need me. I +trust you will be very well." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know that I have ever had to interrupt your fishing-trip with +any of my needs," Rebecca had answered, briefly. She spoke only the +truth; she never had interfered with any pleasure of his; and yet +Robert Gray had winced, as if he had not liked her words. Now, alone, +in the parlor, darning his stockings, she wondered why. She never said +anything but the simple truth; but he looked at her sometimes as a dog +looks who expects a blow. He was truthful himself, but he never seemed +to care much to hear the truth, she thought, heavily. Once he told her +that truth was something more than a statement of fact. The statement +of a fact may be a lie, he had said, smiling whimsically; and Rebecca +used to wonder how a fact could be a lie? She recalled the time when, +with brief accuracy, she had mentioned to him in what condition of +ragged neglect she had found his wardrobe after the "creature of light" +had left him; and how he had seemed to shrink not from the shiftless +dead, but from her. And she remembered painfully that one unkindness: +She had told him that, to her mind, not even the weakness of death was +quite an excuse for saying you didn't like your own baby; and he had +said, with a terrible look, "We will not discuss it, if you please, +Mrs. Gray." She had never spoken of it again; but his look had burned +into her poor, narrow, sore mind; she thought of it now, moodily, as +she sat alone, her heart following him on his journey. If his first +wife had only not been so perfect, she said to herself, she could have +borne it better; if she had had a bad temper, even, it would have been +something. But she had often heard Robert tell Alice that her mother +had an "angelic temper." Rebecca wished humbly she herself could be +pleasanter. "I don't feel unpleasant inside; but I seem to talk so," +she thought, helplessly. She was thinking of this when the two young +people came in; and looking up over her spectacles, she said, coldly: +</P> + +<P> +"Did you remember to wipe your feet, Luther? You are careless about +that. Alice, I found a flower on my daphne; you can carry the pot up +to the cemetery when you go." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, ma'am," Alice said. She took up her sewing (for Rebecca would +not have idle hands about); sometimes she glanced at Luther, sitting +primly in the corner of the sofa, and once caught his eye and smiled; +but there were no sheep's-eyes or sweet speeches. They were Old +Chester young people, and such things would have been considered +improper; just as sitting by themselves would have been thought not +only indecorous, but selfish. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Alice," Luther said, suddenly, "I meant to ask you; wasn't your +mother's name spelled 'Alys'?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. Why?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it's such an unusual name that it struck my attention when I saw +it in the paper." +</P> + +<P> +"What about it?" Alice asked. "Oh, dear, why didn't father spell me +'Alys' instead of 'Alice'? It's so much prettier!" +</P> + +<P> +"Prettiness isn't everything; and 'Alice' is a sensible name," Rebecca +said. "Don't criticise your father." +</P> + +<P> +"It was an advertisement in one of the <I>Globe's</I> exchanges," Luther +explained. "I was scissoring things, and the name caught my eye. It +was information wanted. Of course it's just a coincidence, but it's +queer, because—here it is," said the editor of the <I>Globe</I>, fumbling +in his pocket. "I cut it out and meant to show it to you, but I +forgot." Then he read, slowly, "<I>Information wanted of one Alys +Winton—</I>" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, but Winton was my mother's name!" cried Alice. +</P> + +<P> +"<I>—one Alys Winton, who married sometime in 1845; husband thought to +be an American, name unknown. She (or a child of hers, born in 1846) +is requested to communicate with Amos Hughes, Attorney at Law,</I>" etc. +</P> + +<P> +Alice stared, open-mouthed. "Why, Lute!" she said—"why, but that must +be my mother!" +</P> + +<P> +Lute shook his head. "I don't think there's anything in it. Do you, +Mrs. Gray?" +</P> + +<P> +"Might be," she said, briefly. +</P> + +<P> +Alice took the crumpled cutting, and holding it under the lamp, read it +through to herself. "But, Lute, really and truly," she said, "it is +queer. Perhaps some of my mother's rich relations have left her a +fortune! Then we could pay off the mortgage. Only I'm afraid my +mother hadn't any rich relations—or poor ones, either. I never heard +of any. Did you, Mrs. Gray?" +</P> + +<P> +"No," Rebecca said. +</P> + +<P> +"She was a governess, you know, Lute, in some horrid English family; +the wife didn't like her, and she discharged my poor little mother; +then the family went off and left her all alone in Germany. Perfectly +abominable!" +</P> + +<P> +"Don't be unjust, Alice; you don't know anything about it," Mrs. Gray +said. "She was very young. Perhaps she couldn't teach the children to +suit their parents. Though it was unkind to leave her unprovided for," +she added, with painful fairness. +</P> + +<P> +"I guess it was!" cried Alice. "Oh, how angry father gets when he +talks about it! He says she was in such terror, poor little thing, +when he met her. And yet she was very forgiving, father says. He says +she wrote and told the gentleman that she was married. <I>I</I> wouldn't +have. I'd have let him think I'd starved, so he would have suffered +remorse—the wretch!" +</P> + +<P> +"I hope you would not have been so foolish or so selfish," her +step-mother said. +</P> + +<P> +"You see, she had no relations to turn to," Alice explained to Luther; +"if father hadn't come, dear knows what would have become of her." +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose she could have earned an honest living, like anybody else," +Mrs. Gray said. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, anyway," Alice said, thoughtfully, "this advertisement is queer. +She had no relations that father ever heard of; but there might be some +one. What do you think, Mrs. Gray?" +</P> + +<P> +"There might be," Rebecca said. She thought to herself that it was +very probable; that first wife had brought Robert Gray beauty and love; +it only needed that she should bring him money to make it all perfect. +In her bleak mind a window of imagination suddenly opened, and she had +a vision of what wealth would mean to her husband, coming as a gift +from those dead hands. She set her lips, and said: "Better find out +about it, Luther. Write to the man and say that a person of that name +before her marriage, died here in Old Chester, leaving a child—and +don't keep your hands in your pockets; it's bad manners." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you really think it is worth while, ma'am?" Luther said, +incredulously. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course it is," said Alice. "Suppose it should be some inheritance? +Such things do happen." +</P> + +<P> +"In story-books," Lute said. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then I'd like to be in a story-book," Alice said, sighing. +"Just think, Lute, we might pay for the press and pay off the mortgage!" +</P> + +<P> +"Golly!" said Lute. +</P> + +<P> +Then they fell to making all sorts of plans, gayly, each tripping the +other up with the prosaic reminder of improbability. +</P> + +<P> +"Or, if it <I>should</I> be anything," Luther said, "it won't be more than +$100." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, that's something; it will meet two monthly payments on the +press." +</P> + +<P> +"It will pay for a diamond-ring for you," Lute said. +</P> + +<P> +"Nonsense! We'll buy father a horse." +</P> + +<P> +"And who will buy the oats?" Rebecca said. +</P> + +<P> +"I could give you a big oleander, Mrs. Gray," Alice told her, smiling. +</P> + +<P> +"You could put the money in the bank, like a sensible girl," Rebecca +said, severely. "Don't speak of this outside, either of you. Mr. Gray +wouldn't wish his wife's name talked about." +</P> + +<P> +"And don't let's write anything about it to him," Alice said; "let's +have it a surprise!—if there is anything in it; only, of course, there +isn't anything," she ended, sighing. "But you might write to the man, +Lute." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course there isn't anything," Lute agreed, sensibly. "I'll write +if you want me to; but I wouldn't build on it, Ally," he said, as he +got up to go. And when he paused a minute in the darkness on the +porch, he added, softly, "If you get rich, maybe you won't want a poor +printer?" +</P> + +<P> +And she laughed, and said, "Maybe I won't!" +</P> + +<P> +Then he kissed her just under her left ear, and said, "Money isn't +everything, Ally." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0503"></A> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +Money isn't everything, but it has so much to do with most things that +even a dim, story-book vision of it stirred Alice's imagination. +Luther, having no imagination, dismissed the vision from his mind after +writing a letter to "Amos Hughes, Attorney at Law." Indeed, Luther had +more practical things to think of than possible legacies, poor fellow. +His balance-sheet for that month of June was very dark. More than +once, after the office was closed for the day, he sat at his desk in +his shirt-sleeves, hot and tired and grimy, poring over his ledger by +the light of a swinging lamp. Alice grew worried about his pallor and +the hollows in his cheeks; but there was nothing she could do, though +she chafed against her helplessness to help, and revolved all sorts of +schemes in her impractical girl-mind. Indeed, she went so far as to +pour out her heart to Dr. Lavendar, in the hope that he could make some +suggestion. She found the old man sitting in the wistaria arbor near +his beehives, smoking peacefully, and throwing sticks to Danny, who +needed exercise and scrambled after them into the tall grass, bringing +them back with fatiguing alacrity. +</P> + +<P> +"Look here, sir," said Dr. Lavendar, "don't find 'em so quick. I'm +worn out pitching them." +</P> + +<P> +Then Alice Gray came down between the box borders and said she wanted +his advice; and Dr. Lavendar, glancing up at her, saw an uncertain lip +and heard a catch in her voice; whereupon he told her to give Danny a +run. "The scoundrel has kept me working for the last half-hour," he +complained. +</P> + +<P> +When she came back, flushed and laughing, and sat down on the arbor +step, her voice was quite steady; so he listened placidly to her story. +</P> + +<P> +"You want to get some work to help Lute, do you, good-for-nothing?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," Alice said, eagerly. "Oh, Dr. Lavendar, <I>can</I> you think of +anything? I wanted to go into the office and learn to set type, but +Mrs. Gray—" +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" +</P> + +<P> +"Mrs. Gray said I had better learn to keep house economically. She +said father wouldn't like it." +</P> + +<P> +"Mrs. Gray would always think first of what your father would like." +</P> + +<P> +Alice scratched lines in the gravel with one of Danny's sticks. "I +suppose she would," she admitted. +</P> + +<P> +"And what did Lute say?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, he wouldn't listen to it. But I thought maybe you could make him, +Dr. Lavendar?" +</P> + +<P> +"I?" said Dr. Lavendar. "No, thank you. Do you think I'd rob the boy?" +</P> + +<P> +"Rob him?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of his self-respect; a boy wants to stand on his own legs; he doesn't +want a girl propping him up. You let Lute alone. He'll manage. And +you're young yet, anyhow. It won't hurt ye to wait. Mrs. Gray is +right. You learn to be as good a housekeeper as she is; and though you +mayn't put money into Lute's pocket before you're married, you'll not +be taking it out after you're married." +</P> + +<P> +Alice sighed. "Oh, I wish I could help Lute; I wish I had a lot of +money." +</P> + +<P> +"A lot of sense is better," Dr. Lavendar said, chuckling. "Oh, you +women! You steal a man's unselfishness and self-respect, and you put +it down to love. Love? You're a pack of thieves, the lot of you. You +ought to be prosecuted. I'd do it, if I had time. Hey, Danny! bite +her; she's like all the rest of 'em." +</P> + +<P> +Alice hugged him, and defended herself. "You're just an old bachelor; +you don't appreciate us." +</P> + +<P> +"Appreciate ye? I appreciate you. Maybe that's why I'm an old +bachelor." +</P> + +<P> +But though he discouraged Alice's projects for assisting Luther, Dr. +Lavendar went plodding up the printing-office stairs the next morning. +Luther, emerging from behind a press, brightened at the sight of his +caller, and ushered him into a small closet which he called his private +office; and when Dr. Lavendar asked him to print some more +missionary-meeting notices, he said he would put them in at cost price. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't you do it!" said Dr. Lavendar, thumping the floor with his +umbrella. "Look here; I'll have to teach you the first principles of +business: make your profit—and don't go to 'pauperizing the Church,' +sir. There's too much of that sort of thing," he added, with +reminiscent crossness. "Some scalawag of a bookseller wrote and +offered to sell me books at thirty-three per cent. discount because I +was a parson. There's no more reason why a parson should get a +discount than a policeman. I told him so. I tell you so. Print those +slips, and <I>print 'em better than you did the last lot</I>! Do you hear +that? You forgot a comma on the second line. How's business, Lute?" +</P> + +<P> +Lute's face fell. Then they talked things over, to the boy's great +comfort; and at the end of the talk Lute straightened his shoulders and +drew a good breath. +</P> + +<P> +"By George! sir, if hanging on does it, I'll hang on—" he stopped, +and looked round, in answer to a knock. "Well?" he said, impatiently. +But the gentleman who stood in the doorway was not rebuffed. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you Mr. Metcalf, the editor of the <I>Globe</I>?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sir," said Luther. +</P> + +<P> +"I called in relation to an advertisement"—Luther was instantly alert, +and Dr. Lavendar, scenting a customer, was about to withdraw—"an +advertisement in a New York paper, requesting information of a certain +person—" +</P> + +<P> +"What!" cried Luther. "I had forgotten all about it." +</P> + +<P> +"My name is Carter. I am from the office of Mr. Amos Hughes. Messrs. +Pritchett, Carver, and Pritchett, Solicitors at Law, of London, are our +principals. The advertisement was in relation to a person called Alys +Winton." +</P> + +<P> +Luther, stumbling in his astonishment over his words, began to explain. +"Mrs. Gray is dead," he ended. "And Alice is her daughter; isn't she, +Dr. Lavendar? She asked me to write to you." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, well; this is very interesting," said Dr. Lavendar. "I hope +your object in seeking to obtain information is to benefit this young +lady? She's one of my children." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Carter, still standing in the doorway, smiled, and said, "Do I +understand that this Miss Alice is the daughter of the person named +Alys Winton?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Dr. Lavendar. "You can easily satisfy yourself on that +point by consulting my parish records." +</P> + +<P> +"And her mother is the lady you advertised for!" cried Luther. The boy +was red with excitement. It was just as Alice said—a story-book. And +they could get married right away! For it would be a lot of +money—perhaps $5000; people in England didn't advertise for +information of a person dead for twenty-two years for any small amount; +well, even if it were $4000, they could get married; even if it were +$3000. "How m—" he began, and stopped; of course that was not a +proper question. "Alice's mother is the lady you advertised about," he +said, lamely. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, that does not follow, young gentleman; but the coincidence of +the name was of sufficient interest for our firm to feel that I might, +perhaps, just look into it. There may be dozens of Alys Wintons, you +know." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh," said Luther, so blankly that Dr. Lavendar laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps before beginning at the beginning you might save time by +looking at the end," he said to the lawyer. "If you will step over to +my church, you will see that our little Alice here is the daughter of +Mr. Robert Gray and a lady named Alys Winton." +</P> + +<P> +"A very good idea, sir. You, I infer, are a clergyman in this place? +Ah, yes; just so. Lavendar? Ah, yes. I shall be pleased to look at +the records, as you suggest, sir." +</P> + +<P> +Luther, rather abashed, longing to accompany them, stood waiting for an +invitation. But none came. Dr. Lavendar went pounding down the +stairs, followed by Mr. Carter, and Lute heard them talking about the +roughness of the road from Mercer over which Mr. Carter had come on the +morning stage. +</P> + +<P> +"Confound the road!" said Lute to himself. "Hi! Davidson! I'm going +out. The first page is all made up; you can close up the fourth." +Then he dashed down the creaking stairs and out into the hot sunshine. +He had a glimpse up the street of the church, and Dr. Lavendar bending +down fumbling with the key of the vestry door; it was evident that +Luther's presence was not considered necessary. "I don't care," the +boy said to himself, joyously, and started at a swinging pace out over +the hill. "I'll be the one to tell her, anyhow!" His face was all +aglow. As he hurried along he made calculations as to the rent of the +little house. To be sure, he was reckoning on Alice's money; but the +boy was so honest, and so in love, that he had no mean +self-consciousness of that kind. "<I>We can get married!</I>" He had no +room for any other thought. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Gray was sitting on the back porch shelling pease; there was a +grape trellis running out from the porch roof, and under it the shadows +lay cool and pleasant on the damp flagstones. Rebecca, absorbed in the +lulling snap of pods, looked up, frowning, at the noisy interruption, +for the young man burst in, breathless, swinging his cap, his eyes +shining. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Mrs. Gray, where's Alice? Oh, my, such news! I never was so +excited in my life!" +</P> + +<P> +"That is not saying much," Rebecca told him; "you've not had a very +exciting life. Alice is in the dining-room. Alice! come out here. +Here's Luther. He says he never was so excited in his life; and I hope +he won't be again, for he has upset my bucket of pods." +</P> + +<P> +Luther, full of apologies, began to pick them up. "I'm so sorry, but I +was so dreadfully excited—" +</P> + +<P> +"Dreadful is a large word," Rebecca said. "I doubt whether either you +or I have ever seen anything 'dreadful' in our lives. Don't +exaggerate, Luther." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, ma'am," Lute said. "Oh, there's Alice! <I>Alice!</I>" He stood up, +his hands full of pods, his face red. "Oh, Alice, what do you suppose +has happened? You'll never guess!" +</P> + +<P> +"The advertisement man!" cried Alice. Luther's face fell a little, and +he laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you're pretty smart. Yes, it is—" +</P> + +<P> +"<I>What?</I>" said Rebecca Gray. As for Alice, she whirled out on the cool +flags and jumped up and down. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Lute, tell us—tell us! What does he say? Has he sent some +money? Oh, how much is it? Oh, Lute, we'll pay for the press. Lute, +is it—is it $1000? Tell us; hurry, hurry!" +</P> + +<P> +Upon which Lute began to subside. "Well, it isn't quite—I mean, he +didn't—he hasn't said just exactly how much. I mean, of course, I +suppose, it isn't certain; but I'm sure there isn't a particle of +doubt; only—" +</P> + +<P> +"Now, Lute, begin at the beginning and tell us." Alice sat down +breathlessly beside her step-mother, and began mechanically to shell +the pease. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't," Rebecca said; "I will do my own work. You'd better get your +table-cloth and finish that darning." Her face had grown quite pale; +she saw the fabric of her life crumbling at the base; if, through that +first wife, money should come into the family, what use for her patient +economies? What use for her existence? That first wife, yet more +perfect, would crowd her further from her husband's life. In her +heart, used to the long, dull ache of unloved years, rose up a +murderous hatred of the dead woman. At first she hardly heard Luther's +story, but as it went on she began to listen and the pain in her +tightened throat of unshed tears lessened. It might not be. As this +Mr. Carter said, there might be dozens of Alys Wintons. Her hands, +motionless after the first shock, went at their work again. +</P> + +<P> +"You're the daughter of a lady of that name," she said, coldly; "but +she may not be the lady they want. Better not count on it." Alice +looked rather blank for a moment; and then she burst into even more +than Luther's confidence. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you suppose it will be $2000? Oh, Lute, just think, we'll pay for +the new press right down!" +</P> + +<P> +"No, we won't, either," Lute said, stoutly. "I'm not going to let you +spend your money on printing-presses." +</P> + +<P> +"Nonsense!" Alice cried, laughing and stamping her foot. +</P> + +<P> +Rebecca frowned and looked at her over her glasses. "Don't be +unlady-like, Alice." +</P> + +<P> +"No, 'm," Alice said; and then she laughed at her own excitement; "it +may be only $100." +</P> + +<P> +"It may be nothing at all," Rebecca Gray said, and got up and took her +pan and bucket and went into the house. It seemed to her that if she +had to hear any more of Alys Winton she would speak out and say some +dreadful thing about her. But what could she say with any kind of +truth? What could she say ill of that poor creature, so beloved and so +harmless? For, after all, though a woman ought to see that a man's +buttons are sewed on, you can't say that mere shiftlessness is a sin. +Besides, she was sick for those few months. "Perhaps if my health +hadn't been good, I would have been careless myself," Rebecca thought, +with painful justice. But she went up-stairs to her own room and +locked the door. She felt sure that it was as Alice and Luther said: +there would be money, and she would be of still less consequence to her +husband; for what did Robert Gray, nervously polite, really care for +her economies and her good housekeeping? +</P> + +<P> +"Not <I>that</I>!" she said to herself, bitterly. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0504"></A> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +IV +</P> + +<P> +"You will stay and have dinner with me," Dr. Lavendar had told the +lawyer, hospitably, "and then Goliath and I will take you up the hill +to Mr. Gray's house." +</P> + +<P> +And so, in the early afternoon, Goliath brought Mr. Carter to the +Grays' door. Alice, who was on the porch, insisted that Dr. Lavendar +should come in, too; she leaned into the buggy to whisper, joyously, +"If it is anything nice, I want you to hear it." +</P> + +<P> +But for once Dr. Lavendar did not laugh and give her a kiss and call +her his good-for-nothing; he got out silently, and followed Mr. Carter +into the parlor, where Luther and Mrs. Gray were awaiting them. There +was a tense feeling of expectation in the air. The two young people +were together on the sofa, smiling and laughing, with small, whispered +jokes of presses and diamond-rings and mortgages. Rebecca sat by the +table, her worn hands in a trembling grip in her lap; she sat very +upright, and was briefer and curter than ever, and she looked most of +the time at the floor. +</P> + +<P> +"You have been informed of my errand, madam?" said Mr. Carter. "It is +unfortunate that Mr. Gray is not at home, but perhaps you may be able +to give us some information on certain points, which will at least +instruct me as to whether the facts in the case warrant further +reference to him for confirmation. I will ask a few questions, if you +please?" +</P> + +<P> +"Go on," Rebecca said. +</P> + +<P> +"The late Mrs. Gray, the mother of this young lady," said Mr. +Carter—"do you happen to know her nationality?" +</P> + +<P> +"English." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, yes. Just so. And do you know the date of her marriage to Mr. +Gray?" +</P> + +<P> +Rebecca gave it. +</P> + +<P> +"If any facts in regard to her occur to you—" the lawyer began. +</P> + +<P> +"I've heard Mr. Gray say that she was a governess in the family of a +Mr. Urquhart," Rebecca said; and added, "They discharged her in Berlin." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Carter, glancing at a memorandum, his face keen with interest, +said, eagerly, "Pray proceed, madam." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't know much more; Mr. Gray met her in Interlaken. They were +married three weeks afterwards." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, Switzerland? That explains; there was no record of a marriage at +the Embassy. Can you tell me anything of the parentage of the lady?" +</P> + +<P> +"Her father's name was George Winton," Alice broke in, "and they lived +in a place called Medfield. He was a clergyman. Her mother's name was +Alys, too. Father has a prayer-book belonging to my grandmother; it +has her name in it, and my mother's. Would you like to see it, sir?", +</P> + +<P> +"Exceedingly," Mr. Carter said; and while Alice ran to get the book, he +studied his memorandum so closely that no one dared to ask him a +question, if, indeed, any one wanted to. Rebecca had answered him +dully, looking out of the window part of the time, part of the time at +the floor. Dr. Lavendar, on the other side of the room, his hands on +the head of his cane, sat silently staring down at the carpet, his face +heavy and rather stern. Lute, radiant, twirled his cap in his hands, +and resolutely held his tongue. +</P> + +<P> +Alice, as she handed the prayer-book to Mr. Carter, stopped on her way +back to Luther and squeezed Dr. Lavendar's hand. "Isn't it wonderful?" +she whispered; and he shook his head a little impatiently. +</P> + +<P> +"Go and sit down, my dear," he said. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Carter, glancing at the name on the flyleaf, looked at his notes +again and then at Alice, "And this young lady—can she give me the date +of her birth?" +</P> + +<P> +There was a little laugh, and Luther and Alice gave it together, +eagerly. +</P> + +<P> +There were two or three more questions, and then Mr. Carter folded his +memorandum and slipped it within its rubber band with a snap; then he +smiled. Rebecca looked at him drearily. "Of course," he said, +addressing himself to her, "a question of identity cannot be decided +offhand; it is necessary to have certain affidavits which the surviving +husband of the deceased (who is asserted to be the person in question) +would be obliged, legally, to furnish. I think, however, that I am not +going beyond the line of discretion and propriety if I say that <I>if</I> +Mr. Robert Gray can produce such proofs (which I think I am not +unwarranted in saying I believe he can)—<I>if</I> he can, then this young +lady is the heir to a very considerable fortune. I think, in point of +fact, I have the right to say that, if (as I have said before) these +proofs are forthcoming, the amount to be paid to the daughter of Alys +Winton is £5000." +</P> + +<P> +Rebecca Gray put her hand to her mouth and stared blindly at the floor. +Dr. Lavendar thrust out his lower lip and frowned. As for Alice, she +laughed aloud, then burst out crying. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, <I>Lute</I>!" she said, tremulously; and, somehow, the two children +found themselves holding hands. "It's—it's so much!" she faltered. +</P> + +<P> +"Five thousand pounds is—is $25,000!" the boy said, turning pale. +There was a pause; no one seemed to know just what to say. Then Lute, +suddenly: "Is it your mother's father that left it to you, Alice?" +</P> + +<P> +She turned to Mr. Carter, drawing in her breath like a child. "Is it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah—no," he answered, briefly. +</P> + +<P> +"But I didn't know my mother had any relations?" Alice said, in a dazed +way; "I thought father said—I'm sure he said—she hadn't any +relations? Perhaps—perhaps it is a mistake, after all?" +</P> + +<P> +"The testator was not a relative of the Alys Winton in question," Mr. +Carter said. He glanced uneasily at Dr. Lavendar, who lifted his head +and looked at him searchingly. "It will be best to make further +explanations to Mr. Gray," Mr. Carter said, hurriedly. +</P> + +<P> +"But who has left the money to me—if it is to me?" Alice said, +bewildered. "Can't I ask that? What is the name of the kind person? +I think I might ask that." +</P> + +<A NAME="img-288"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-288.jpg" ALT=""'WHAT IS THE NAME OF THE KIND PERSON?'"" BORDER="2"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center"> +"'WHAT IS THE NAME OF THE KIND PERSON?'" +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +"The name of the testator was Urquhart," Mr. Carter said, "but—but, +you know, my dear young lady, the identity is not yet legally +authenticated; so—therefore—perhaps—I think, Dr. Lavendar, I had +best go now? I think you mentioned that the stage leaves at four?" +</P> + +<P> +"Urquhart?" Alice said; "the man who was so unkind? Oh, Lute, I +suppose he repented. Oh, how astonished father will be! He'll have to +forgive him now." +</P> + +<P> +"It's a pretty late repentance," Luther said, with a chuckle; "and how +did he know about you, Alice? I don't see why he should leave you +money, even if he was a brute to your mother. Still," said the boy, +gayly, "I guess we won't complain?" +</P> + +<P> +"Gracious!" cried Alice, "that is queer. Well, he <I>was</I> a kind person!" +</P> + +<P> +Rebecca Gray stared, frowning, at the lawyer. "He knew—this +Urquhart—that she had a child?" she said, slowly. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Carter was gathering up his papers. "Yes," he said—"yes; he—knew +it." +</P> + +<P> +"What?" said Rebecca, in a very low voice—"<I>what?</I>" +</P> + +<P> +"In view of the fact that, legally, the matter is still undecided," Mr. +Carter said, hurriedly, "perhaps we need not take this point up? At +all events, not here." +</P> + +<P> +"Sir," said Rebecca, "why does Mr. Urquhart leave £5000 to Robert +Gray's daughter?" +</P> + +<P> +"He was sorry he was unkind to my mother," Alice said, her voice +quivering. ("Oh, Lute, $25,000!") +</P> + +<P> +"Alice," her step-mother said, in a loud, harsh voice, "you had better +leave the room. Luther, go with Alice, please." +</P> + +<P> +The two young people, bewildered, got up with blank faces, and with +obvious reluctance obeyed. "But why should I be sent out, Lute?" Alice +said, hotly, when they were in the hall. "It's my money—if I'm the +person." +</P> + +<P> +Luther stopped, and stood, frowning. On the boy's open, honest face +came a perplexed look. But Alice said again, in injured tones, that +she didn't know what Mrs. Gray meant. In the parlor the three elders +looked at each other in silence. Mrs. Gray had risen, and stood +leaning forward, her trembling hands flat on the table. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't—understand," she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Carter," said Dr. Lavendar, "certain remarks of yours on our way +up here made me apprehensive. I see that my friend, Mrs. Gray, is +also—apprehensive. I would suggest that you have a few words with her +alone. I will leave you." +</P> + +<P> +"No," Rebecca said; "hear the end of it." Her hard face was red and +hot. "Why does Mr. Urquhart leave the child of Robert Gray £5000? +Why?" +</P> + +<P> +"It is as I think you surmise, madam," John Carter said, gravely. +</P> + +<P> +Rebecca recoiled, with a broken exclamation of horror. +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar drew in his breath. "Oh, my poor Robert!" he said. +</P> + +<P> +"It is so stated in the will," the lawyer went on; "there is no +disguising it; nor, as far as I can see, can it be hidden from the +legatee. The directions for finding this heir make the thing explicit. +The testator states that he received information of the expected birth +of his child <I>after</I> the marriage of the person in question, who did +not mention her married name—hence our difficulty in tracing her." +</P> + +<P> +Rebecca, her eyes narrowing into a cruel smile, sat down and rocked +backward and forward in her chair. +</P> + +<P> +"Dreadful—dreadful—dreadful!" she said, aloud, exultantly. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0505"></A> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +V. +</p> + +<P> +The last quarter of an hour, packed with tragic revelation, lost Mr. +Carter the stage. +</P> + +<P> +"I hope you will put up at the Rectory, sir," Dr. Lavendar said, as +they drove away from Robert Gray's door. +</P> + +<P> +"I thank you, sir," said Mr. Carter. +</P> + +<P> +Then they fell into silence—Mr. Carter from politeness, Dr. Lavendar +from horror. He was going back in his memory with painful effort; but +it was all very vague.... He had hardly known her; she had been ill +for those months that she had been in Old Chester, and she had made it +very clear that she did not care to see people. He thought of her +beautiful, sullen face; of Robert Gray's passionate devotion; of Old +Chester's silent disapproval.... He groaned to himself, and John +Carter looked at him sidewise. +</P> + +<P> +After supper at the Rectory, they sat down to smoke in heavy silence; +Mr. Carter respected the old man's distress, but wondered if he should +not have been more comfortable with Van Horn at the Tavern. The +glowing July day had darkened into rainy night, with a grumble of +thunder back among the hills; but in the midst of a sudden downpour +they heard footsteps on the path, and then some one pushed open the +hall door, and flapped a wet umbrella on the steps before entering. A +minute later Luther Metcalf stood, hesitating, on the study threshold. +</P> + +<P> +"Dr. Lavendar—" +</P> + +<P> +The old man got up hurriedly. "Yes, Lute. Come into the dining-room. +You will excuse me, sir?" he said to Mr. Carter. He put his hand on +Lute's arm, in a friendly grip, for there was a break in the boy's +voice. +</P> + +<P> +"I know about it," Lute said. They sat down at the dining-room table; +Lute swallowed hard, and pulled with trembling fingers at his hatband; +he did not lift his eyes. "And—and I want you to tell her not to take +it." +</P> + +<P> +"How is she, Lute?" +</P> + +<P> +"I haven't seen her. She wouldn't come down-stairs. She sent me a +little note," Luther said, taking it out of his breast-pocket, and then +putting it back again tenderly. "'Course I won't pay any attention to +it." +</P> + +<P> +"Saying she'd release you, I suppose?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes; but that's nothing. I'll make her understand the minute I see +her. But, Dr. Lavendar, I don't want that—that money!" the boy ended, +almost with a sob. "I want you to tell her not to take it." +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar was silent. +</P> + +<P> +"At first I thought—I couldn't help thinking—we could get married +right off. We could get married and have a home of our own; you know, +we'd be rich people with all that money. And I suppose, honestly, that +as things are now, there's no chance of our getting married for a good +while. But I—I tell you what, sir. I'd rather never get married +than—than touch that money!" +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar nodded. +</P> + +<P> +"You won't let her, sir? You'll make her give it back?" +</P> + +<P> +"My dear boy, I can't 'make' Alice do anything. The money is hers." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, but Dr. Lavendar, won't you go and talk to her? It may be a +temptation to her, just as it was to me, for a minute. We could just +make the office hum, sir. We could put it right on its feet; we could +have a real Daily. I know she'll think of that. <I>I</I> just thought we +could get married. But Alice will think about helping the office, and +me." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course the money would bring ease to her father—" Dr. Lavendar +stopped abruptly. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, my <I>God</I>!" Lute said, and dropped his head on his arms. +</P> + +<P> +"Bring ease to—to the family," Dr. Lavendar ended lamely. +</P> + +<P> +"You know Mr. Gray won't touch it," Lute burst out; "and I can't let +Alice, either. Dr. Lavendar, I thought maybe you'd let me hitch +Goliath up and drive you out to the house?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not to-night, Lute. Alice has got to be alone. Poor child, poor +child! Yes; we've all of us got to meet the devil alone. Temptation +is a lonely business, Lute. To-morrow I'll go, of course. Did you +answer her note?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh yes; right off. I just said, 'Don't be foolish,' and—and some +other things. I didn't tell her we mustn't take the money, because I +hadn't thought of it then. Mrs. Gray said she wouldn't come out of her +room. Oh, just think of her, all by herself!" Luther bent over and +fumbled with his shoelace; when he looked up, Dr. Lavendar pretended +not to see his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +When the boy went away, Dr. Lavendar went back to the study and asked +John Carter some legal questions: Suppose he had not found this child, +what would have become of the money? Suppose the child should now +decline to take it, what then? +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Mr. Carter, smiling, "as a remote contingency, I suppose I +might reply that it would revert to the residuary estate. But did you +ever know anybody decline £5000, Dr. Lavendar?" +</P> + +<P> +"Never knew anybody who had the chance," Dr. Lavendar said; "but +there's no telling what human critters will do." +</P> + +<P> +"They won't do that," said John Carter. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +What a long night it was, of rain and wind and dreadful thought! ... +Rebecca had told Alice, with kindness, but with such a grip upon +herself lest exultation should tremble in her voice, that she seemed +harsher than ever. Then she told Lute. He pleaded that Alice would +speak to him, and Mrs. Gray had gone to the girl's room and bidden her +come down-stairs. +</P> + +<P> +"Come, Alice. You must control yourself. Come down and talk to +Luther." +</P> + +<P> +Alice shook her head. "I'll—write him a note." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Gray carried the note back to Lute, and brought up the answer, +which Alice read silently. Rebecca watched her; and then, with an +effort, she said: +</P> + +<P> +"Alice, remember we are not to judge. We don't understand. We must +not judge. Good-night." She opened the door, and then looked at the +child, seated, speechless, with blank eyes, on the edge of the bed. +"Good-night, Alice. I—I'm sorry for you, poor girl!" and she came +back hastily and kissed her. +</P> + +<P> +At that, even in her daze of horror, a glimmer of astonishment came +into Alice's face. But she did not look up or speak. When it grew +dark, she began mechanically to get ready for bed; she knelt down, as +usual, at the big chintz-covered winged chair and began to say her +prayers, her mind blind as to her own words: "Bless dear father—" +Then she cried out, suddenly and dreadfully, and covered her poor, +shamed head with her arms, and prayed no more. Then came a long fit of +crying, and then a dreary calm. Afterwards, as the night shut in with +rain and rumble of thunder, the shame lightened a little, for, though +she could not read it in the darkness, she held Lute's little note +against her lips and kissed it, and cried over it, and said his words +over to herself, and felt that at any rate there was one bright spot in +it all: Lute would never have any more anxieties. Of Robert Gray she +thought pitifully, but with not much understanding. Oh, dreadful, +dreadful! But he had loved his wife so much (so the child thought) he +would surely forgive her. Not knowing how little forgiveness counts +for when a star goes out. Sometimes, sitting there on the floor, +listening to the rain, she slept; then woke, with a numb wonder, which +darkened into cruel understanding. <I>Shame; shame</I>—but Lute wouldn't +be worried any more; Lute would be rich. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-296"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-296.jpg" ALT=""SHE KNELT DOWN, AS USUAL, AT THE BIG CHINTZ-COVERED WINGED CHAIR"" BORDER="2"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center"> +"SHE KNELT DOWN, AS USUAL, AT THE BIG <BR> +CHINTZ-COVERED WINGED CHAIR" +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +So the night passed.... +</P> + +<P> +Rebecca Gray did not sleep. When the house was still she went +up-stairs, eager to be alone. She shut her bedroom door softly; then +she put her brass candlestick on the high bureau and looked about +her.... Everything seemed strange. Here was her old-fashioned bed +with its four mahogany posts like four slender obelisks; there was the +fine darn in the valance of the tester; the worn strip of carpet on +which she had knelt every night for all these twenty years; it was all +the same, but it was all different, all unfamiliar. The room was +suddenly the room where that woman had died; the old four-poster was +the bed of that heartbreaking night, with sheets rumpling under a +wandering hand and pillows piled beneath a beautiful, dying head; not +her own bed, smooth and decorous and neat, with her own fine darn in +the tester valance. She did not know the room as it was now; she did +not know herself; nor Robert; nor that—that—<I>that woman</I>. She sat +down, suddenly a little faint with the effort of readjusting a belief +of twenty-two years. "She was a wicked woman," she said, out loud; and +her astounded face stared back at her from the dim mirror over the +mantel-piece. After a while she got up and began to walk back and +forth; sometimes she drew a deep breath; once she laughed. "A wicked +woman!" ... Now he would know. Now he would see. And he would loathe +her. He would hate her. He would—her lip drooped suddenly from its +fierce, unconscious smile; he would—suffer. Yes; suffer, of course. +But that couldn't be helped. Just at first he would suffer. Then he +would hate her so much that he would not suffer. Not suffer? It came +over her with a pang that there is no suffering so dreadful as that +which comes with hating. However, she could not help that. Truth was +truth! All the years of her hungry wifehood rose up, eager for +revenge; her mind went hurriedly, with ecstasy, over the contrast; her +painful, patient, conscientious endeavor to do her best for him. Her +self-sacrifice, her actual deprivations—"I haven't had a new bonnet +for—for four years!" she thought; and her lip quivered at the +pitifulness of so slight a thing. But it was the whole tenor of her +life. <I>She</I> had no vacations in the mountains; she would have liked +new valances, but she spent hours in darning her old ones to save his +money; she had turned her black silk twice; she had only had two black +silks in twenty years. All the great things she had done, all the +petty things she had suffered, rose up in a great wave of merit before +her; and against it—what? Hideous deceit! Oh, how he would despise +the creature! Then she winced; he would—suffer? Well, she couldn't +help that. It was the truth, and he had got to face it. She was +walking up and down, whispering to herself, a sobbing laugh on her +lips, when suddenly, as she passed the mirror, she had a dim, crazy +vision of herself that struck her motionless. A moment later she took +the candle, and with one hand clutching for support at the high +mantel-shelf—for her knees were shaking under her—held it close to +the glass and peered into the black depths. Her pale, quivering face, +ravaged with tears, stared back at her, like some poor ghost more ugly +even than in life. "<I>A wicked woman.</I>" Yes—yes—yes; and he would +have to know it. But when he knew it, what then? If his eyes opened +to sin, would they open to— +</P> + +<P> +"I have tried to make him comfortable," she said, faintly. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly she put the candle down and sank into a chair, covering her +face with her poor, gaunt hands.... +</P> + +<P> +And so the night passed.... The dawn was dim and rainy. It was about +four o'clock that Alice, sitting on the floor, sleeping heavily, her +head on the cushion of the chair, started, bewildered, at the noise of +the opening door. Rebecca, in her gray dressing-gown, one hand +shielding the flare of her candle, came abruptly into the room. +</P> + +<P> +"Alice," she said, harshly, and stopped by the empty bed; then her eyes +found the figure on the floor ("you ought to be in bed"), she said, in +a brief aside; then: "Alice, I've been thinking it over. You can't +take that money." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't understand," Alice said, confused with sleep and tears. +</P> + +<P> +"You can't take that money. If you do, your father would have to know. +And he never must—he never must." +</P> + +<P> +Alice pulled herself up from the floor and sat down in her big chair. +"Not take the money?" she said, in a dazed way; "but it's mine." +</P> + +<P> +"That's why you needn't take it. Thank God it was left to you, not +just to 'her heirs.' Alice, I've gone all over it. I—I wanted you to +take it"—Rebecca's voice broke; "yes, I—did." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it's mine," Alice repeated, bewildered. +</P> + +<P> +Rebecca struck her hands together. "Yours not to take! Don't you see? +You can save your father." +</P> + +<P> +Alice, cringing, dropped her head on her breast with a broken word. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't be a fool," the older woman said, trembling. "He's been your +father ever since you were born. And it would be a pretty return for +his love to tell him—" +</P> + +<P> +Alice burst out crying; her step-mother softened. +</P> + +<P> +"I am sorry for you, you poor girl. But, oh, Alice, think, <I>think</I> of +your father!" She clasped her hands and stood, trembling; she took a +step forward, almost as if she would kneel. +</P> + +<P> +"If he would feel so dreadfully," Alice said, at last, "why—we needn't +tell him where the money comes from." +</P> + +<P> +"Now, Alice, that is absurd. Of course he would know. He would have +to know. A girl doesn't inherit £5000 without her father's knowing +where it comes from. And, anyway, Mr. Carter said that Mr. Gray would +have to make a statement and swear to it. Of course he would—know." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you mean you don't want me to have it at all?" Alice said, blankly. +</P> + +<P> +"I've just explained it to you," Rebecca said, her voice harsh with +anxiety. "You <I>can't</I> have it." +</P> + +<P> +"But it's my money; I have a right to it. And it would make all the +difference in the world to Lute. If he is going to take a girl—like +me, he ought to have the money, anyhow." +</P> + +<P> +"And kill your father?" Rebecca said. "Alice! Don't you see, he must +go on believing that she is"—her voice grew suddenly tender—"that she +is 'a creature of light?'" +</P> + +<P> +"I want Lute to have the money," Alice said. +</P> + +<P> +"Alice!" the other exclaimed, with dismay, "don't you think of your +father at all? And—for your mother's sake." +</P> + +<P> +Alice was silent; then, in a hard voice, "I don't like her." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" Rebecca cried, and shivered. There was a pause; then she said, +faintly, "For your own sake?" +</P> + +<P> +Alice looked up sullenly. "Nobody need know; we would only say it had +been left to—her. Nobody would know." +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly, as she spoke, despite the plain face and the red hair, Alice +looked like her mother. Rebecca stepped back with a sort of shock. +Alice, crying a little, got up and began to pull down her hair and +braid it, with unsteady fingers. Her step-mother watched her silently; +then she turned to go away; then came back swiftly, the tears running +down her face. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Alice, it is my fault! I've had you twenty-two years, and yet you +are like— See, Alice, child; give her a chance to be kind to him, in +you. Oh, I—I don't know how to say it; I mean, let her have a chance! +Oh—don't you see what I mean? She said she was sorry!" All the +harshness had melted out of Rebecca's face; she was nothing but +gentleness, the tears falling down her cheeks, her voice broken with +love. "Alice, be good, dear. Be good. Be good. And I—I <I>will</I> be +pleasanter, Alice; I'll try, indeed; I'll try—" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0506"></A> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +VI +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said Mr. Amos Hughes, a week later, in the cool dusk of Dr. +Lavendar's study, just before tea, "this is a most extraordinary +situation, sir!" +</P> + +<P> +"Will ye have a pipe?" said Dr. Lavendar, hospitably. +</P> + +<P> +John Carter, his feet well apart, his back to the fireless grate, his +hands thrust down into his pockets, said, looking over at his partner: +</P> + +<P> +"Amos, Dr. Lavendar once remarked to me that there was no telling what +human critters would do." +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar chuckled. +</P> + +<P> +"Very true," Amos Hughes admitted, putting one fat knee over the other; +"but I must say that I never before knew a human critter throw away +£5000." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm sorry you haven't had better acquaintances," said Dr. Lavendar. +"I have. I'm not in the least surprised at this child's behavior. Mr. +Carter, are you looking for anything? You'll find a decanter on the +sideboard in the next room, sir. This is a pretty good world, Mr. Amos +Hughes; I've lived in it longer than you have, so you'll take my word +for it. It's a pretty good old world, and Miss Alice Gray has simply +decided to do the natural and proper thing. Why, what else could she +do?" +</P> + +<P> +"I could mention at least one other thing," said Mr. Carter. +</P> + +<P> +"Extraordinary situation! but I suppose the residuary legatees won't +make any objection," murmured Amos Hughes. +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar rapped on the table with the bowl of his pipe. "My dear +sir, would you have a girl, for a paltry £5000, break her father's +heart?" +</P> + +<P> +"Her father?" +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Gray would not, in my judgment, survive such a revelation," said +Dr. Lavendar, stiffly. +</P> + +<P> +"May I ask one question?" John Carter said. +</P> + +<P> +"G'on," said Dr. Lavendar. +</P> + +<P> +"What I would like to know is: How did you bring Miss Gray to look at +the thing in this way?" +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't bring her," said Dr. Lavendar, indignantly; "her Heavenly +Father brought her. Look here, sir; this business of the law is all +very well, and necessary, I suppose, in its way, but let me tell you, +it's a dangerous business. You see so much of the sin of human nature +that you get to thinking human nature has got to sin. You are +mistaken, sir; it has got to be decent. We are the children of God, +sir. I beg that you'll remember that—and then you won't be surprised +when a child like our Alice does the right thing. Surprise is +confession, Mr. Carter." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Carter laughed, and apologized as best he could for his view of +human nature; and Dr. Lavendar was instantly amicable and forgiving. +He took Mr. Amos Hughes's warning, that he should, as a matter of duty, +lay very clearly before the young lady the seriousness of what she +proposed to do, and not until he had exhausted every argument would he +permit her to sign the papers of release which (as a matter of +precaution) he had prepared. "She's of age," said Amos Hughes, "and +nobody can say that she has not a right to refuse to proceed further in +the matter. But I shall warn her." +</P> + +<P> +"'Course, man," said Dr. Lavendar; "that's your trade." +</P> + +<P> +And so the evening came, and the three men went up to Robert Gray's +house. +</P> + +<P> +It was a long evening. More than once Dr. Lavendar trembled as he saw +the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them spread before his +child's eyes. But he said no word, and once, sternly, he laid his hand +on Rebecca's arm to check some word of hers. +</P> + +<P> +"Let her alone," he said. +</P> + +<P> +It was eleven o'clock before there came a moment of solemn silence. +Alice bent over a paper, which John Carter had read aloud to her, and +signed her name. Luther and Rebecca and Dr. Lavendar witnessed the +signature. Then Rebecca Gray took the girl in her arms. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"That young man has got something to him," Mr. Amos Hughes said, as +they went back to the Rectory. +</P> + +<P> +"If you could put some printing in his way, it would be a favor to me," +said Dr. Lavendar. +</P> + +<P> +"I shouldn't wonder if I could," the lawyer said. +</P> + +<P> +"The girl is a fine creature, poor child," said Mr. Carter. +</P> + +<P> +"Gentlemen," said Dr. Lavendar, "they are both good children, and they +have behaved well; but there's somebody else, let me tell you!" +</P> + +<P> +However, he did not tell them. Perhaps he kept his opinion for Robert +Gray's ears, for once he said, smiling, in Rebecca's presence: +</P> + +<P> +"Robert, this wife of yours is a noble woman." +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Gray, a little surprised, said, politely, looking with kind eyes at +Rebecca, "Mrs. Gray is a very good wife, sir." +</P> + +<P> +And Rebecca went up and hid herself in the garret and cried with joy. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0601"></A> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +AT THE STUFFED-ANIMAL HOUSE +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +I +</P> + +<P> +Willy King's buggy, splashed to the top of the hood with mud and +sagging sidewise on its worn old springs, came pulling up the hill past +the burial-ground. The doctor himself, curled in one corner, rested a +leg on the dash-board and hung his reins on the hook over his head. He +was very sleepy, for he had been up until three with an old woman who +thought she was sick, and he had been routed out of bed again at five +because she told her family that she was going to die. William King +was not given to sarcasm, but he longed to say to the waiting +relatives, "There is no hope!—she'll live." Instead, he looked +seriously sympathetic and kept his thoughts to himself. When he got +home to breakfast, his wife told him how foolish he was to take so much +trouble. "There's nothing the matter with Mrs. Drayton," said Mrs. +King; "and I should tell her so, flatly and frankly. It would do her +good." +</P> + +<P> +William said that he would like another cup of coffee. +</P> + +<P> +"It wouldn't be good for you," said his Martha; "you are drinking too +much coffee. You can have shells if you want to. Shall I have some +shells warmed up?" +</P> + +<P> +William said "No," and went trudging off to his office; and then, at +ten, started on his round of calls, his old buggy still unwashed from +the morning jaunt to the hypochondriac's death-bed. The day was still +and sunny, the road quite deserted and full of pleasant shadows under +the May foliage. But the sleepy doctor saw it all through half-closed +eyes, and yawned, and rested one plump leg on the dash-board, and let +the reins hang swaying from the hook in the roof of the bug-pry. Then, +suddenly, his mare stopped and William opened his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Caught you napping, Willy!" said a loud, hearty voice. And the doctor +sat up and drew his leg in and laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Miss Harriet, how do you know but what I was worrying over a +case?" +</P> + +<P> +"Much worrying you do, young man!" She sat down on a log on the +road-bank and smiled at him. She was a big, vigorous woman with a +fresh, brown face and a keen, kind eye. She had a gun in her hand, and +a rabbit's white tail stuck out of the hunting-wallet slung over her +shoulder. She had broken through the underbrush on the hill-side just +as Willy's buggy jogged into the shadow of a sycamore that stretched +its mottled arms over the deserted road. +</P> + +<P> +"Willy," she went on, in her loud, cheerful voice, "do you doctor-men +smile at one another when you meet, like the Augurs, because you fool +us so easily with your big words? You call a scratched finger an +'abrasion of the epidermis'—and then you send a bill. And, bless me! +what a serious air you put on at a minute's notice!—I saw you pull +your leg in, Willy. Come, now; you were in my Sunday-school class—why +don't you just admit to me that that piercing look over your +eye-glasses is one of the tricks of the trade? I won't tell." +</P> + +<P> +William King chuckled. "You just get a touch of lumbago, Miss Harriet, +and you'll believe in my tricks." +</P> + +<P> +"Lumbago!" said his reviler. "Not I; a day's shooting would cure it +quicker than a barrel of your pills." +</P> + +<P> +"Been shooting this morning?" +</P> + +<P> +"No; I set a trap in Dawson's hollow." She pulled out the rabbit and +held it up. "Not a bone broken. Handsome, isn't he? Poor little +thing!" +</P> + +<P> +William looked at the soft, furry creature, limp in the big brown hand, +with critical appreciation. "Yes, beautiful. Miss Annie didn't find +him, to let him out?" +</P> + +<P> +The hunter's face changed to amused impatience. "Willy, she opened +three traps last week. And she was so shrewd about it; you would never +believe how clever she is. Of course it's no use to scold." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course not. What excuse does she make?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, just the same thing: 'Sister, it hurts me to think they can't get +out.'" +</P> + +<P> +"Poor thing!" said the doctor. +</P> + +<P> +"I have tried to make her promise not to interfere with the traps. You +know, if I could once get a promise out of her I would be all right; +Annie never broke a promise in her life. But she is too shrewd to be +led into it. She always says, 'I'm the oldest, and you mustn't order +me round.' It would be funny if it weren't so provoking." +</P> + +<P> +"Poor thing!" said the doctor again. +</P> + +<P> +"She follows me and takes the bait out of the traps once in a while; +but she prefers to let things go. And she is certainly wonderfully +bright about it," Miss Harriet said. "Now, why can't she be sensible +in other things?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, you know she has always been about twelve; it's the young head +on old shoulders." +</P> + +<P> +"I must tell you her last performance," Miss Harriet said. "You know +that picture of Aunt Gordon that hung in the dining-room? Dreadful +thing! I never saw the poor woman, but I believe she wasn't quite as +ugly as that portrait, though Alex looks just like her, Dr. Lavendar +says; and Alex is dreadfully ugly, with those pale eyes of his. Well, +I happened to say—it was last Tuesday, at tea, and Matty Barkley was +there: 'That picture of Aunt Gordon is awful! I can't bear it.' Of +course I never thought of it again, until I came home the next day—and +what do you suppose?" +</P> + +<P> +Willy began to grin. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes! she had got up on a chair, if you please, and cut it out of the +frame and slashed it all to pieces." +</P> + +<P> +"Well done!" said Willy King, slapping his thigh. +</P> + +<P> +"No such thing. It was ugly, but it was a family portrait." +</P> + +<P> +"What did she say?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, she had her excuse.... Willy, I can't understand her mind; it is +so unreasonably reasonable: 'Sister, you said you couldn't bear it, so +what was the use of having it?' After all, that was sense, William." +</P> + +<P> +"So it was," said the doctor, and unhooked his reins and nodded. +"Well," he said— +</P> + +<P> +But Miss Harriet laughed awkwardly. "Wait a minute, can't you? It +won't kill anybody to do without a pill for five minutes." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, no, I suppose it won't," William admitted; "but with a view to +getting home in time for dinner—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, let Martha wait. Willy, you are the meekest being—let her wait. +Tell her you'll have your dinner when you're good and ready." +</P> + +<P> +"Martha is only concerned on my own account," the loyal William +protested. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I'm not going to keep you long," his old friend said, roughly; +"I—I just want to ask you a question." Her face grew suddenly a dull +red. "Not that I believe in your pills and potions—just please +remember that. But I suppose you do know a little something." +</P> + +<P> +"I could diagnose a scratched finger," said the doctor, meekly. +</P> + +<P> +"Well—" she said, and looked at the lock of her rifle; "there's +nothing in the world the matter with me, but—" +</P> + +<P> +"You don't look like a confirmed invalid," the doctor assured her. +</P> + +<P> +"No!—do I?" she said, eagerly. "I really am very well, William—very +well. Dear me, when I get home after a round of my traps (when Annie +hasn't teased me by letting things out) and eat a good dinner, and sit +down with a taxidermy magazine, I—I wouldn't thank King George to be +my uncle. Yes, I am <I>very</I> well." +</P> + +<P> +Her emphasis had in it a certain agitation that caught the doctor's +eye. "Your out-of-door life is calculated to keep you well," he said. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Harriet got up and thrust the rabbit back into the pouch at her +side. "Of course; and, anyhow, I'm not the sick kind. Imagine me shut +up between four walls! I should be like Sterne's starling. Do you +remember?—'I want to get out, I want to get out.' No, there's nothing +the matter with me. Absolutely nothing." +</P> + +<P> +She did look very well, the big, brown woman, towering up at the +road-side, with her rifle in her hand and the good color in her cheeks +and lips. Yet her eyes had a worn look, William thought. "Pain +somewhere," said the doctor to himself. +</P> + +<P> +"You know, I don't believe in your pills and truck," she insisted, +frowning. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course not," he assured her easily. "Come, now, Miss Harriet, +what's wrong?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing, I tell you," she said, sharply; and then, with impatient +brevity, she spoke of some special discomfort which had annoyed her. +"It began about six months ago." +</P> + +<P> +"Probably you've taken cold," William King said, and then he asked a +question or two. She answered with irritable flippancy: +</P> + +<P> +"Now don't put on airs, Willy. There's no use trying to impress me; I +know you. Remember, you were in my Sunday-school class." +</P> + +<P> +"Why didn't you make a better boy of me, then? You had your chance. +Miss Harriet, would you mind coming into my office and just letting me +look you over? Come, now, why shouldn't I get a job out of you for +once? Here you tackle me on the road-side and get an opinion for +nothing." +</P> + +<P> +She chuckled, but retorted that she hated doctors and their offices. +"I'm not that Drayton cat," she said, "always wanting a doctor to fuss +over me. No, you can give me a pill right here—though I haven't a bit +of faith in it." +</P> + +<P> +"I wouldn't waste a good pill on you," the doctor defended himself. +"You've got to come and see me." +</P> + +<P> +But when she had promised to come, and William, slapping a rein down on +the mare's flank, was jogging along under the sycamore branches, he did +not fall into his pleasant drowse again. "She looks so well," he said +to himself, "she must be all right—" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0602"></A> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +II +</P> + +<P> +Miss Harriet's house, called by Old Chester children "The +Stuffed-Animal House," was on the hill-road a stone's-throw beyond the +burial-ground. It was of weather-worn brick, and its white lintels, +carved in thin festoons of fruit and flowers, were nearly hidden by ivy +that stretched dark figures over the marble, and, thickening with the +years across the tops of the windows, made the rooms within dim with +wavering leaf shadows. A brick path, damp and faintly green with moss, +ran down to a green gate set in a ragged privet hedge that was always +dusty and choked with dead twigs. The house itself was so shaded by +horse-chestnuts that grass refused to grow in the door-yard. A porch +shadowed the front door, which opened into a dark, square hall, full of +dim figures that hung from the ceiling and stood in cases against the +walls. A dusty crocodile stretched overhead, almost the width of the +hall; a shark, with varnished belly splitting a little under one fin +and showing a burst of cotton, lurked in a dim corner; over the parlor +door a great snake, coiled about a branch, looked down with glittering, +yellow eyes; and along the walls were cases of very beautiful birds, +their plumage dulled now, for it was forty years since Miss Harriet's +father had made his collection. But all around the hall were +glistening eyes that stared and stared, until sometimes an Old Chester +child, clinging to a mother's protecting hand, felt sure they moved, +and that in another moment the crocodile's jaws would snap together, or +the eagle's wings would flap horribly in the darkness. +</P> + +<P> +Yet there was an awful joy to Old Chester youth in being allowed to +accompany a mother when she made a polite call on Miss Harriet. This +hall, that was dark and still and full of the smell of dead fur and +feathers and some acrid preservative, had all the fascination of +horror. If we were very good we were allowed to walk from case to case +with old Miss Annie, while our mothers sat in the parlor and talked to +Miss Harriet. Miss Annie could not tell us much of the creatures in +the cases, and for all she used to laugh and giggle just as we did, she +never really knew how to play that the hall was a desert island and the +wild beasts were lurking in the forest to fall upon us. +</P> + +<P> +"It isn't a forest, it's our front hall," Miss Annie would say; "and +you must do what I tell you, because I'm the oldest, and I don't want +to play desert island. But I'll show you my chickens," she would add, +with eager politeness. +</P> + +<P> +Sometimes, if Miss Annie were not in the room, we would hear Miss +Harriet tell some story about her mischievousness, and our mothers +would sigh and smile and say, "Poor dear!" Our mothers never said +"poor dear!" about us when we did such things. If one of us Old +Chester children had spoken out in church as Miss Harriet said Miss +Annie did once, and told Dr. Lavendar that he was telling a story when +he read in the morning lesson that the serpent talked to +Eve—"because," said Miss Annie, "snakes can't talk"—if we had done +such a dreadful thing, we should have been taken home and whipped and +sent to bed without any supper, and probably the whole of the third +chapter of Genesis to learn by heart. We should not have been "poor +things!" This was very confusing to Old Chester youth until we grew +older and understood. Then, instead of being puzzled, we shrunk a +little and stayed close to our mothers, listening to Miss Harriet's +stories of Miss Annie with strange interest and repulsion, or staring +furtively at the little old woman, who laughed often and had a way of +running about like a girl, and of smoothing back her gray hair from her +temples with a fluttering gesture, and of putting up her lip and crying +when she was angry or frightened or when she saw anything being hurt. +Miss Annie could never bear to see anything hurt; she would not let us +kill spiders, and she made us walk in the grass instead of on the brick +path, because the ants came up between the bricks, and she was afraid +we would step on them. +</P> + +<P> +"Annie is very kind-hearted," Miss Harriet used to tell our mothers. +"She can't bear my traps." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Harriet's traps were her passion; her interest in taxidermy had +come to her from her father, and though she had not been able to add +anything of real value to Mr. Hutchinson's collection, her work was +thoroughly well done; and she even made a fair sum of money each year +by sending her squirrels and doves to town for the Christmas trade. +</P> + +<P> +But more important than the money was the wholesome out-of-door life +her little business entailed, which had given her her vigorous body and +sane mind. She needed both to live with this gray-haired woman, whose +mind was eleven or twelve years old. It was not a bad mind for eleven +or twelve, Willy King used to say. Old Miss Annie had a sort of crude +common-sense; she could reason and determine as well as any other +twelve-year-old child—indeed, with an added shrewdness of experience +that sixty years of bodily age made inevitable. She knew, innocently, +much of life that other children were guarded from knowing; she knew +death, too, but with no horror—perhaps as we were meant to know +it—something as natural as life itself, and most of all as a release +from pain. For old Annie knew pain and feared it as only the body in +which the soul is not awake can fear it. She wept at the sight of +blood and moaned when she heard a squirrel squeak in the trap; she +shivered with passionate expectation of relief when Miss Harriet's +kindly chloroform brought peace to fluttering wings or beating claws. +When some soft, furry creature, hurt in the trap, relaxed into happy +sleep in the thick, sweet smell that came out of Miss Harriet's big +bottle, Miss Annie would laugh for joy, the tears of misery still wet +upon her wrinkled cheeks. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't come into my shop," Miss Harriet used to say, laughing and +impatient, when Miss Annie would follow her into the room in the barn +where she did her work—"don't come in here, and then you won't see +things that hurt your feelings." +</P> + +<P> +But Annie, smoothing her hair back from her temples with a curious, +girlish gesture, would only shake her head and sidle closer to her +sister, the young, guileless eyes in the withered face full of protest +and appeal. Her horror of pain lost Miss Harriet many a fine specimen; +for, in her pity for the trapped creatures, Annie, noiselessly, like +some Indian hunter, used to follow on her sister's footsteps through +the woods, lifting the baits out of the traps, or if she found a snared +creature unhurt, letting it go, and then creeping home, frightened at +Miss Harriet's anger, which, if she discovered the old child's +naughtiness, fell like a thunderbolt, and then cleared into patient +amusement, as a black shower brightens into sunshine. The big, kind +woman with a man's mind could not be angry at this poor creature; so +she did her duty by her and tried not to think about her. She went her +way, and set her traps, and prepared her few specimens, brushing Annie +or any other annoyance aside with careless good-nature. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't think about unpleasant things," she used to say, in her loud, +cheerful voice. "The trouble with you doctors and ministers," she told +Dr. Lavendar, "is that you make people think about their insides. It's +stomachs with Willy and souls with you. Nobody ought to know that they +have a stomach or a soul. I don't. A tree don't. And there isn't an +oak in Old Chester that isn't pleasanter than Mrs. Drayton. Yet she's +always fussing about her insides—spiritual and material." +</P> + +<P> +"It's when you don't have 'em that you fuss," Dr. Lavendar said; "the +trouble isn't too much soul, it's too little. And I guess it's the +same with stomachs." +</P> + +<P> +"Then you say Mrs. Drayton has no soul?" Miss Harriet said, pleasantly. +</P> + +<P> +"I never said anything of the sort," said Dr. Lavendar. +</P> + +<P> +As for Miss Harriet, she went on to Willy King's office, prepared, as +usual, to make him as uncomfortable as she could. But she never put +Willy out. Her flings at his profession tickled him immensely, and if +now and then the good, honest William practised, as Miss Harriet said, +a few of the tricks of his trade, he was not averse to sharing their +humor with some one who could appreciate it. +</P> + +<P> +"So you have that Drayton cat on your hands again?" Miss Harriet said, +plumping herself down in William's own chair in front of his office +table so that she could pick up and examine what she called his +"riffraff." ("Do open your windows, William. I don't see how you can +be so shut up. Po-o-o! how can people live so much in-doors?") +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said William, doing as he was bid, "she enjoys my visits and I +enjoy her checks. I don't complain." +</P> + +<P> +"That's like the profession," said Miss Harriet; "you put your hands in +our pockets whenever you get a chance. Well, you'll get nothing out of +my pocket, William, for there's nothing in it." +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Harriet," said William, chuckling—"you won't tell anybody, will +you? But Mrs.—well, I won't name names; that's not professional—" +</P> + +<P> +"Call her a 'Female,'" said Miss Harriet. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, a Female sent for me on Tuesday, in a dreadful hurry; I must +come, 'right off! quick!' I was just sitting down to breakfast, but of +course I ran—" +</P> + +<P> +"Martha must have been pleased?" +</P> + +<P> +"I ran; and arrived, winded. There was—the Female, at <I>her</I> +breakfast. 'Oh,' she said, 'doctor, the baby has slept right through +from six last night, and he hasn't wakened up yet. I am afraid there +is something the matter with his little brain.'" +</P> + +<P> +"William, if you didn't say that there was something the matter with +<I>her</I> little brain—" +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't," William said, grimly, "because she hasn't any. Now, Miss +Harriet, let's talk about yourself; it's pleasanter." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, there was not the slightest occasion to come to see you. But I +said I would, and here I am. I suppose you'll send me a bill as long +as my arm. Do you have a system of charges, Willy? So much for a look +over your glasses? So much for that solemn cough? I suppose you grade +all your tricks. Now work off the most expensive ones on me; I propose +to get the worth of my money, young man." +</P> + +<P> +"Thought you said you weren't going to pay any bills?" William reminded +her; and then refused to be side-tracked any longer, but asked question +after question, bringing her up once or twice with a sharp turn. +"Don't joke now, please, Miss Harriet. Be as exact as you can. Is +this condition thus, or so—?" And when he got through with his +questions, he took up the joking rather heavily. +</P> + +<P> +"You're so faithless about pills," he said, "that I'm not going to give +you any." +</P> + +<P> +"What! no pills?" said Miss Harriet. +</P> + +<P> +William King laughed awkwardly. "Not a pill! I don't see any +condition which warrants them: but—" +</P> + +<P> +"What did I tell you? There's nothing the matter, and you just dragged +me here to give your office a busy look." +</P> + +<P> +"I didn't suppose you'd see through it," said Willy King. "But, Miss +Harriet, I—I don't feel <I>quite</I> satisfied. I—do you know I've a +great mind to get a man in Mercer to look you over? I want you to go +up with me to-morrow and see him." +</P> + +<P> +"Nonsense!" +</P> + +<P> +"No, truly," he said; "I am not satisfied, Miss Harriet." +</P> + +<P> +"But what do you mean?" she insisted, sharply. "There's nothing the +matter with me. You said yourself I didn't need any medicine. Give me +some opiate to stop this—this discomfort when it comes on, and I'll be +all right." +</P> + +<P> +"You can't bear opiates," he said, bluntly; "your heart won't stand +them. Don't you remember the time you broke your ankle and I tried +morphine—a baby dose—to give you some relief? You gave me a scare, I +can tell you." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Harriet was silent. Then: "I've known my heart wasn't right for +two years. But—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, your heart doesn't give me any concern—if you don't take +liberties with it. Perhaps it isn't quite as good as it was thirty +years ago, but—" +</P> + +<P> +"Ah, I lost it to you then, Willy. You were a sweet little fellow when +you came into my class. Do you remember once when—" +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Harriet, you've got to go to Mercer with me to-morrow," William +King interrupted, quietly. "I hope there's nothing much out of the +way. I hope not. I—I believe not. But I'm not sure. We'll go up +and see Greylord and find out. He'll give you some pills, maybe," he +ended, and laughed and got up. "Now I'm off to the cat, Miss Harriet." +</P> + +<P> +And Miss Harriet, to her astonishment, found herself dismissed before +she had made the boy tell her what he was afraid of. "He <I>is</I> a boy," +she said to herself. "Of course he wouldn't be apt to know what was +the matter. I ought to have gone to see some Mercer man to begin with. +I remember when Willy was born." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0603"></A> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +III +</P> + +<P> +When they came out of the Mercer doctor's door William King's fresh +face had gone white, but Miss Harriet walked smiling. At the foot of +the steps the doctor paused and stood an instant leaning on the +hand-rail, as though for support and to get his breath. Miss Harriet +looked at him with concern. "Why, Willy!" she said. +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Harriet," William said, hoarsely, "he may be mistaken. It's +perfectly possible that he is mistaken." +</P> + +<P> +"I guess not, Willy," she said, simply. "Come, now, don't be such a +wet string." She struck him a friendly blow on the shoulder that made +the doctor take a quick step forward to keep his balance; but it gave +him the grip upon himself that for a single instant he had lost. +</P> + +<P> +"And, anyhow," he said, "even if he is right, it may not develop. I've +known a case where it was checked for two years; and then the patient +died of small-pox." +</P> + +<P> +"Pleasant alternative," said Miss Harriet; she was smiling, her face +full of color, her shoulders back, her head up. "Come, Willy, let's +have a spree. Here we are for a day, and Martha's at home. We'll have +a good dinner, and we'll do something interesting. <I>Hurrah!</I>" said +Harriet Hutchinson. +</P> + +<P> +And the doctor could do no less than fall into step at that martial +note and march at her side proudly. And by some spiritual contagion +his courage met hers like the clash of swords. They went to get their +good dinner, and Miss Harriet ate it with appetite. Afterwards she +declared they would go to the circus. "It's in town; I saw the tents. +I haven't been to a circus for forty years," she said; "but I know just +how the pink lemonade tastes. You've got to treat, Willy." +</P> + +<P> +"I'll throw in pea-nuts," said William King; and with that they left +the restaurant and went sauntering along the hot, grimy street in the +direction of the open lots beyond the blast-furnaces, where, under a +deep June sky, dazzling even though it was smudged by coils of smoke, +were stretched the circus tents, brave with flags and slapping and +billowing in a joyous wind. William King held on to his hat and looked +at the great, white clouds, domed and shining, piled all along the +west. "We'll get a shower, I'm afraid, Miss Harriet." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, take a pill, Willy, and then it won't hurt you," she told him, +with a laugh that belonged to the sun and wind, to the flags whipping +out on their halyards and the signs of the side-shows bellying from +their guy-ropes, to the blare of music and the eager circus crowd—that +crowd that never changes with changing generations. Still there is the +old man gaping with excited eyes; still the lanky female in spectacles; +the cross elder sister afraid of crushing her fresh skirts; the little +boy absorbed in thought; the little girl who would like to ride on the +Shetland pony when the clown offers any miss in the audience an +opportunity. We know them all, and doubtless they know us, the +patronizing, amused on-lookers, who suddenly become as eager and +absorbed as any graybeard or child in the crowd. We know the red +boxes, too, where men with hard faces and wearied eyes shout +mechanically the same words of vociferous invitation to the side-shows. +Children, pulled along by their elders, would stop, open-mouthed, +before these men; but somehow they never see the wild man or the fat +lady. Ah, the regret for the unseen side-shows!—the lady with the +snakes; the skeleton man; the duel between the educated hyena and his +trainer—that hyena of whom the man in the red box speaks with such +convincing enthusiasm. "<I>I have been</I>," cries the strident voice—"<I>I +have been connected with circuses all my life—all my life, ladies and +gentlemen!—and I give you my sacred word of honor that this is the +most magnificent specimen of the terrible grave-robbing hyena that I +have ever seen!</I>" Why did we never see that hyena? Why, why did we +always hurry on to the main tent? It is the pang that even paradise +must know, of the lost experience of earth—or perhaps of hell. +</P> + +<P> +"We ought to see the fat lady," said Dr. King. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm afraid we'll be late," Miss Harriet objected, eagerly. +</P> + +<P> +So they pushed on with the impatient, good-natured crowd. The smell of +tan-bark and matted pelts and stale pea-nut shells came in a gust as +they jostled under the flap of the outer tent and found themselves +inside the circle of gilded cages. "Shall we go right in and get our +seats?" William said. +</P> + +<P> +"What! and not look at the animals? Willy, you're crazy. I want to +feed the elephants. Why, there are a lot of them, six or seven." +</P> + +<P> +So they trudged around the ring, their feet sinking deep into the +loose, trampled earth. Miss Harriet poked the monkeys clinging to the +grating of their car, with her big umbrella, and examined the +elephant's hide with professional interest. "Imagine curing that +proboscis," she said. And then they stopped in front of a miserable, +magnificent lion, turning, turning, turning in a cage hardly more than +his own length. Miss Harriet drew in her breath. "It's being trapped +that is so awful, Willy. The consciousness that <I>you can't get out</I>. +It isn't the—the pain of it; it's being trapped." +</P> + +<P> +William King, looking at the poor tawny creature of the desert and free +winds and life that dealt death with passion, blinked suddenly behind +his glasses. "But you trap things yourself," he protested, a moment +afterwards. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, but I don't keep 'em trapped; I kill 'em," she defended herself. +"I couldn't keep things shut up. I'd be as bad as Annie if I saw any +living creature that wasn't free to get out-of-doors." And then she +pushed on to the next cage, and the next; then suddenly feared that +they would not get good seats if they wasted any more time among the +animals. "For we won't have any reserved doings," she said. "I want +to sit on those boards that I sat on forty years ago." +</P> + +<P> +She was as excited as she might have been forty years ago; and pushed +ahead into the big tent, dragging William by the hand, and climbing up +tier after tier, to get a good view of the ring. When they sat down, +she made haste to spread open the flimsy pink sheet of the programme +with its pale type, and read to William, in a loud, ecstatic voice, +just what was going to happen: +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Display No. 1. Gigantic Pageantric Prelude—presenting Equitational +Exercises, Hippo-dramatical Revivals, Pachydermical Aggregations—the +only terpsichorean Pachyderms ever taught to tread the mazes of the +Quadrille.</I> +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Display No. 2. Claire St. Jeal and her company—the loveliest +daughters of Italy, and world-famous bareback equestriennes—</I>" +</P> + +<P> +"You are sure you are not getting tired?" William King interrupted. +</P> + +<P> +"Tired?" she repeated, scornfully. "William, as Matty Barkley would +say, you are a perfect fool. Why should I be tired? I feel first +rate—never better. I wouldn't thank King George to be my uncle! I've +wanted to come to the circus for years. Willy, what will your wife +say?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing," said William, significantly. +</P> + +<P> +At which Miss Harriet laughed until the tears stood in her eyes. +"William, you have more sense than I gave you credit for. But I am not +sure that, as your Sunday-school teacher, I ought not to tell you to +confess. Hullo! look what's coming." +</P> + +<P> +Flare of banners! Prancing horses! Roman soldiers in rumbling +gold-and-crimson chariots! Elephants bearing, throned upon their +backs, goddesses of liberty and queens of beauty! Miss Harriet was +leaning forward, her lips parted with excitement. William King looked +at her and drew in his breath. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-340"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-340.jpg" ALT=""MISS HARRIET WAS LEANING FORWARD"" BORDER="2"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center"> +"MISS HARRIET WAS LEANING FORWARD" +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +"'Not more than six months;' God grant not!—I wish it might not be +more than two." +</P> + +<P> +"Willy, read what comes next," she said, shoving the programme at him; +"I can't stop looking." +</P> + +<P> +The canvas was darkening a little overhead, so that William had to put +on his glasses and hold the printed sheet at arm's-length to decipher +the blurred, smudged text sufficiently to say that "Mademoiselle +Orinda, Queen of the Flying Trapeze, would give her marv—" +</P> + +<P> +"William—what shall I do about Annie?" Miss Harriet said. +</P> + +<P> +"You know we will all take care of Miss Annie," he said, tenderly; +"and—" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Willy, there's the red lemonade," she interrupted, standing up and +beckoning with her crumpled programme. "Did you ever see so deadly a +drink? You forgot the pea-nuts," she reminded him, reproachfully. And +when William secured his hot, brown-paper bag, she ate the pea-nuts and +watched the changing wonders of the ring with intent eyes. She laughed +aloud at the clown's endeavors to ride a kicking donkey, and when the +educated dogs carried one another about in a wheelbarrow she applauded +generously. "They are wonderful!" she said. +</P> + +<P> +William King looked at her keenly; it was all real. Miss Harriet was +incapable of pretence. +</P> + +<P> +The brilliant day, that had showed between lacings of the tent like +strings of sapphires, had dimmed and dimmed; and by-and-by, unnoticed +at first, there was the drip of rain. Here and there an umbrella was +raised, and once or twice a bedraggled man or woman led out a reluctant +child—"For I ain't a-goin' to have you catch your death of cold for no +trained elephants," a mother said, decidedly, pulling a whining boy +from beside Miss Harriet. +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps," ventured the doctor, "we really ought to go. I can't have +you 'catch your death of cold,' Miss Harriet." +</P> + +<P> +"I won't die of a cold, William," she said, her eyes narrowing. +</P> + +<P> +And William swore at himself under his breath, but said, with clumsy +jocularity: "Well, not if I can help it. But I don't know why you +should be so sure; it might give you bronchitis for a year." +</P> + +<P> +"I won't have bronchitis for a year," Miss Harriet said, gazing at the +clowns. +</P> + +<P> +And William King swore at himself again. +</P> + +<P> +The rain increased to a downpour; little streams at first dripped, then +poured, upon the thinning benches. The great centre pole was streaming +wet; the clown stood in a puddle, and the red triangle on his +chalk-white forehead melted into a pink smear. +</P> + +<P> +"Really, Miss Harriet," William said, anxiously, "I'm afraid—" +</P> + +<P> +"If you're afraid for yourself, I'll go," she said; "but we ought to +wait for the grand concert. (Ah! there's the man with the red +balloons. If you had a half-dozen children, Willy, as you ought to +have, I'd buy him out.) Well, are you sugar or salt, to be so scared +of a drop of rain?" +</P> + +<P> +She did not look afraid of rain herself when she got up and pushed past +the scattered spectators, her hair glistening with drops, her cheeks +red, her eyes clear. "William," she said, when they got outside and +were hurrying along to catch the stage for Old Chester—"William, that +has done me good. I feel superbly. Do you know, I haven't had an +instant's pain since I first spoke of the thing to you? That's three +days entirely free. Why, such a thing hasn't happened in—in three +months. Just think of that—entirely free. William, I'll cheat you +doctor-men yet." She looked at him with glowing courage. "I feel so +well," she said. +</P> + +<P> +She held out her hand, there in the rain on the black cinder-path, and +William King struck his into it with a sort of shout. +</P> + +<P> +"Hurrah!" he said, as she had said when they had come out from hearing +the sentence in the Mercer doctor's office. +</P> + +<P> +The long ride home in the stage, in which they were the only +passengers, was perhaps a descending scale.... At first they talked of +the circus. "I liked the man and the bear best," William said. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, he wasn't as fine as that beautiful lady in pink petticoats who +rode the fat, white horse. Did you ever see a horse with so broad a +back, Willy? Why, I could have ridden him myself." +</P> + +<P> +"He would need a broad back," William said; and Miss Harriet told him +to hold his tongue and not be impudent. The rain was pattering on the +roof and streaming down the windows, and in the dark, damp cavern of +the stage they could not see each other's face very well; but the +stretches of tense silence in the circus talk made William King's heart +beat heavily, although he burst out gayly that the afternoon had +brought back his youth. "Miss Harriet, when you were a child, didn't +you always want to poke around under the seats when it was over and +find things? William Rives once found five cents. But William would +find five cents in the Desert of Sahara. I never had his luck, but I +was confident that watches were dropped freely by the spectators." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course," cried Miss Harriet. "Or diamond-rings. My fancy led me +towards diamond-rings. But I suppose you never knew the envy of the +ladies' clothes? Dear me—those petticoats!" +</P> + +<P> +"The ring-master's boots were very bitter to me; but my greatest desire +was—" +</P> + +<P> +"Willy," Miss Harriet said, hoarsely, "I don't want anybody to know." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course not," William King said. "Why should they? We may hold +this thing at bay for—" +</P> + +<P> +"We will hold it at bay," she said, with passion. "I will! I <I>will</I>! +Do you hear me?" +</P> + +<P> +Willy King murmured something inarticulately; his eyes suddenly smarted. +</P> + +<P> +The ride to Old Chester seemed to him interminable; and when, after +wandering snatches of talk about the circus, the stage at last drew up +at the green gate in Miss Harriet's privet hedge, his nerves were tense +and his face haggard with fatigue. +</P> + +<P> +At home, at his belated supper-table, his good Martha was very severe +with him. "You oughtn't to allow yourself to get so tired; it's wrong. +You could just as well as not have ordered your things by mail. I must +say, William, flatly and frankly, that a doctor ought to have more +sense. I hope there was nobody in the stage you knew to talk you to +death?" +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Harriet came down," William said, "but she hadn't much to say." +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose she went to buy some of her horrid supplies?" Martha said. +"I can't understand that woman—catching things in traps. How would +she like to be caught in a trap? I asked her once—because I am always +perfectly frank with people. 'How would you like to be caught in a +trap, Miss Harriet?' I said. And she said, 'Oh, Annie would let me +out.' You never can get a straight answer out of Harriet Hutchinson." +</P> + +<P> +"My dear, I'll take another cup of tea. Stronger, please." +</P> + +<P> +"My dear, strong tea isn't good for you," Martha said. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap0604"></A> + +<P CLASS="t3b"> +IV +</P> + +<P> +When Miss Harriet woke the next morning the blue June day was flooding +her room. At first she could not remember.... What was the something +behind her consciousness? It came in an instant. "<I>Trapped</I>," she +said, aloud, and turned her head to see Miss Annie at her bedside. +</P> + +<P> +"What is trapped, sister?" said Miss Annie, her little old face +crumpling with distress. +</P> + +<P> +"I am," Harriet said; and laughed at the absurdity of telling Annie in +such a fashion. But of course there was no use in telling Annie. She +couldn't understand, and all that there was for her to know, the +ultimate fact, she would find out soon enough. The younger sister felt +a sick distaste of dealing with this poor mind; she wanted to be kind +to Annie; she had always wanted to be kind to her—but she didn't want +her round, that was all. And so she sent her off, patiently and not +ungently: "Don't bother me, Annie, that's a good girl. No—I don't +want any roses; take them away. No—I don't want to look at pictures. +You go away now, that's a good girl." +</P> + +<P> +And the wrinkled child obeyed meekly. But she told the deaf Augustine +that Harriet was cross. "I'm the oldest, and she oughtn't to order me +round," she whimpered. +</P> + +<P> +Poor Miss Annie was constantly being told to be a good girl and go +away, in the days that followed—days, to Miss Harriet, of that +amazement and self-concentration which belong to such an experience as +hers. There had been no leading up to this knowledge that had come to +her—no gradual preparation of apprehension or suspicion. The full +speed of living had come, <I>crash!</I> against the fact of dying. The +recoil, the pause, the terrible astonishment of that moment when Life, +surging ahead with all his banners flying, flings himself in an instant +against the immovable face of Death—leaves the soul dazed by the +shock—dazed, and unbelieving. "<I>It cannot be.</I>" That is the first +clear thought. It is impossible; there is a mistake somewhere. A day +ago, an hour ago, Death was lying hidden far, far off in the years. +Sometime, of course, he would arrive—solemn, inevitable, but +beneficent, or at least serene. He would send soft warnings before +him—faint tollings of fatigue, vague mists of sunset shadows. The +soul will be ready for him when he comes then; will even welcome him, +for after a while Life grows a little tired and is ready to grasp that +cool hand and rest. We all know how to meet Death then, with dignity +and patience. But to meet him to-morrow—to-day, even, when we are +full of our own business, of our own urgent affairs—the mere +interruption of it is maddening. Across the solemnity of the thought +comes with grotesque incongruity an irritated consciousness of the +<I>inconvenience</I> of dying. +</P> + +<P> +As for Harriet Hutchinson—"I don't believe it," she said to herself, +that first morning. And then, breathlessly, "Why, I can't—die!" +</P> + +<P> +She was not afraid, as one counts fear, but she was absorbed; for there +is a dreadful and curiously impersonal interest in the situation that +takes possession of the mind in moments like this. No wonder she could +not think about Annie. She could not think about anything except that +that man in Mercer had said that in a very short time— +</P> + +<P> +"Why, but it's perfectly ridiculous!" she told herself; "it <I>can't</I> be. +I'm not sick—" +</P> + +<P> +As she lay there in her bed that morning, after she had sent Miss Annie +away, she lifted her hand—a large hand, with strong, square fingers, +brown with weather and rough with her work, and looked at it curiously. +It was a little thin—she had not noticed that before; but there it +was, eager, vital, quick to grip and hold, life in every line. And it +would be—still? No; she did not believe it. And, besides, it +couldn't be, it mustn't be. She had a hundred things to do. She must +do them; she couldn't suddenly—<I>stop</I>. Life surged up in a great wave +of passionate determination. She got up, eager to go on living, and to +deny, deny, deny! It was the old human experience which is repeated +and repeated until Life can learn the fulfilment of Death. Poor Life, +beaten by the whips of pain, it takes so long sometimes to learn its +lesson! +</P> + +<P> +In those weeks that followed—weeks of refusal, and then struggle, and +then acceptance, and last of all adjustment—Miss Harriet found old +Annie's companionship almost intolerable. She was very unreasonable +with her, very harsh even; but all she asked was solitude, and solitude +Annie would not give. She ran at her sister's heels like a dog; sat +looking at her with frightened eyes in the bad hours that came with +relentlessly increasing frequency; came whimpering to her bedside on +those exhausted mornings when Harriet would scourge her poor body onto +its feet and announce that she was going out. "These four walls +smother me," she used to say; "I must get out-of-doors." +</P> + +<P> +Sometimes it seemed as if the big, kind nature that had borne the +pin-pricks so patiently all these years had reached the breaking-point, +and another day or another hour of poor old Annie's foolish love would +cause it to burst out in frantic anger: +</P> + +<P> +"It hurts, sister?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, Annie; but never mind. If I could only get out-of-doors I +wouldn't mind." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, sister, don't let it hurt." +</P> + +<P> +"Can't help it, Annie. Now, don't think about it, that's a good girl. +Maybe I can get out to-morrow a little while." +</P> + +<P> +"But I can't bear it." +</P> + +<P> +"Got to, my dear. Come, now, run away. Go and see your chickens." +</P> + +<P> +"Sister, I can't bear it." +</P> + +<P> +"Annie, you drive me wild. Augustine—oh, she can't hear. +<I>Augustine!</I> you must take Miss Annie away. Annie, if you say another +word—" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm the oldest and I have a right to talk. Why don't you smell your +big bottle? When the squirrels smell it they are not hurt." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I'm not a squirrel. Annie, if you stay another minute, +I'll—I'll— Oh, for Heaven's sake, let me alone!" +</P> + +<P> +She could stand it, she told herself, if she was alone. For though she +finally accepted the fact, her own weakness she could not accept. "I +am ashamed," she told William King, angrily. +</P> + +<P> +"But there's nothing to be ashamed of," Willy King protested, in his +kind way. "Dear Miss Harriet—" +</P> + +<P> +"Hold your tongue. Nothing to be ashamed of? I guess if your body had +put your soul in a corner, with its face to the wall—I guess you'd be +ashamed. Yesterday I—I— Well, never mind. But my body got me down, +I tell you—got my soul down. Isn't that something to be ashamed of? +Don't be an ass, William. I'm ashamed." +</P> + +<P> +It was this consciousness of her own weakness that made her hold +herself aloof from her friends. +</P> + +<P> +In those days people did not have trained nurses; they nursed one +another. It was not skilful nursing; it frequently was not wise, as we +count wisdom to-day; but it was very tender and loving, and it was very +bracing. In these softer times, when we run so easily to relief from +pain, we do not feel the presence of the professional nurse a check +upon our weakness; if we suffer, we are willing that this skilful, +noiseless machine, who will know exactly how to relieve us, shall see +the suffering. We are neither mortified nor humiliated by our lack of +endurance or of courage. But in Old Chester, when we were ill, and +some friend or relative came to sit by our bedside, we had—for their +sakes—to make an effort to control ourselves. If the effort failed, +our souls blushed. Miss Harriet would not run the risk of failure; her +body, as she said, got the better of her soul when she was alone; it +should not have the chance to humiliate her publicly; so, roughly, she +refused the friendly assistance so eagerly offered: "Thank you; +Augustine can look after me. I don't want anybody. And besides, I'm +perfectly comfortable. (William, I won't have anybody. Do you +understand? It's bad enough to disgrace myself in my own eyes; I won't +have Matty Barkley sit and look on.)" +</P> + +<P> +And William King put people off as well as he could: "I go in two or +three times a day, just to say how do you do; and Miss Annie is about +and can bring her anything she needs. And Augustine is very faithful. +Of course, she is deaf as a post, but she seems to know what Miss +Harriet wants." +</P> + +<P> +So the situation was accepted. "Here I am," she told the doctor, +grimly, "dying like a rat in a hole. If I could only get +out-of-doors!—or if I had anything to do!—I think it's the having +nothing to do that is the worst. But I'll tell you one thing, Willy—I +won't be pitied. Don't have people mourning over me, or pretending +that I'm going to get well. They know better, and so do I." +</P> + +<P> +Those who dared to pity her or who ventured some futile friendly lie +about recovery were met by the fiercest impatience. "How do I feel? +Very well, thank you. And if I didn't, I hope I wouldn't say so. I +hope I'm well enough bred not to ask or answer questions about +feelings. There is nothing in the world so vulgar," she said, and +braced herself to one or another imprudence that grieved and worried +all the kind hearts that stood by, eager to show their love. +</P> + +<P> +"It breaks my heart to see her, and there's nothing anybody can do for +her," Mrs. Barkley told Dr. Lavendar, snuffling and wiping her eyes. +"She positively turned Rachel King out of the house; and Maria Welwood +cried her eyes out yesterday because she was so sharp with her when +Maria said she was sorry she had had a bad night and hoped she'd soon +feel better." +</P> + +<P> +The old man nodded silently. "Poor Miss Harriet!" he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't say 'poor Miss Harriet!' to her. Dr. Lavendar, Harriet and I +have been friends since we were put into short dresses—and she spoke +to me to-day in a way—! Well, of course, I shall go back; but I was +ready to say I wouldn't. And she treats poor old Annie outrageously." +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar nodded again. He himself had seen her several times, but +she had never let him be personal: "Was Mrs. Drayton still gossiping +about her soul?" "Wasn't it nearly time to get a new carpet for the +chancel?" etc., etc. It was her way of defending herself—and Dr. +Lavendar understood. So he only brought her his kindly gossip or his +church news, and he never looked at her mournfully; but neither did he +ever once refer to a possible recovery—that poor, friendly pretence +that so tries the soul absorbed in its own solemn knowledge! +</P> + +<P> +But in the afternoon, after his talk with Mrs. Barkley, the old man +went plodding up the hill to the Stuffed-Animal House, with tender and +relentless purpose in his face. It was a serene September day, full of +pulsing light and fragrant with the late mowing. William King's mare +was hitched to a post by the green gate in the hedge, and the doctor +was giving her a handful of grass as Dr. Lavendar came up. "How is +Miss Harriet, Willy?" the old man said. +</P> + +<P> +William climbed into the buggy and flicked with his whip at the +ironweed by the road-side. "Oh—about the same. Dr. Lavendar, it's +cruel—it's cruel!" +</P> + +<P> +"What's cruel, William?" +</P> + +<P> +"I can't give her any opiate—to amount to anything." +</P> + +<P> +"Why?" +</P> + +<P> +"Her heart." +</P> + +<P> +"But you can't let her suffer!" +</P> + +<P> +"If I stopped the suffering," the doctor said, laconically, "it would +be murder." +</P> + +<P> +"You mean—" +</P> + +<P> +"Depressants, to amount to anything, would kill her." +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar looked up into the sky silently. Willy King gathered up +the reins. "And Annie?" Dr. Lavendar said. +</P> + +<P> +"She is just a poor, frantic child. I can't make her understand why +Miss Harriet shouldn't have two powders, when one 'sugar,' as she calls +it, gives her a little comfort for a little while. She says, 'Harriet +wouldn't let a squirrel stay hurt.' Miss Harriet says she told her the +other day that she wasn't a squirrel; but it didn't seem to make any +difference to Miss Annie. She has a queer elemental reasonableness +about her, hasn't she? Well, I must go. Dr. Lavendar, I—I hope you +won't mind if I say that perhaps—I mean she doesn't want anybody to +refer to—to anything religious." +</P> + +<P> +"William," said the old man, mildly, "if you can mention anything which +is not religious to a woman who is going to die within a very few +weeks, I will consider it." +</P> + +<P> +And William King had the grace to blush and stammer something about +Miss Harriet's hating anything personal. Dr. Lavendar listened +silently; then he went on up the path to the Stuffed-Animal House. Old +Miss Annie let him into the darkened hall, a burst of western sunshine +flooding in behind him and making the grim, dead creatures dart out of +their shadows for a moment, and sink back into them again when the door +was shut. The old child had been crying, for Miss Harriet had turned +her out of her room, and so he had to sit there in the hall, under the +shark, and try to comfort her and bid her go out and see her chickens. +But for once Miss Annie would not be diverted: +</P> + +<P> +"Harriet wants to go out-of-doors, and she can't. And she is hurt; and +Willy King won't give her sugar in a paper to stop the hurting. He is +wicked." +</P> + +<P> +"By-and-by," said Dr. Lavendar, "Harriet will fall asleep and not be +hurt any more." +</P> + +<P> +"Not till she is dead," Miss Annie said; "Augustine told me so." +</P> + +<P> +"I meant that," Dr. Lavendar said, stroking the poor, gray head +grovelling against his knee. +</P> + +<P> +"Then why didn't you say so? It is a story to say sleep when you mean +dead." +</P> + +<P> +"I ought to have said dead," he acknowledged, gently, "so that you +could understand. But I want you to remember that death is a happy +sleep. Will you remember that?" +</P> + +<P> +"A happy sleep," Miss Annie repeated; "yes; I will remember. <I>A happy +sleep.</I>" She lifted her head from his knee and smiled. "I'll go and +see my chickens," she said. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-358"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-358.jpg" ALT=""'A HAPPY SLEEP,' MISS ANNIE REPEATED"" BORDER="2"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center"> +"'A HAPPY SLEEP,' MISS ANNIE REPEATED" +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +And Dr. Lavendar took his way up-stairs, past the cases of birds, to +Miss Harriet's room. She received him with elaborate cheerfulness. +</P> + +<P> +As for Dr. Lavendar, he lost no time in pretence. "Miss Harriet," he +said, "I am not going to stay and talk and tire you. You've seen +people enough to-day—" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not tired in the least." +</P> + +<P> +"But I have a word to say to you." +</P> + +<P> +She looked at him angrily. "I would rather not talk about myself, Dr. +Lavendar, please." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't want to talk about yourself," he said. +</P> + +<P> +Her face cleared a little. "That's a relief. I was afraid you were +going to talk to me about 'preparing,' and so forth." +</P> + +<P> +A sudden smile twinkled into Dr. Lavendar's old eyes. "My dear Miss +Harriet, you've been 'preparing' for fifty years—or is it fifty-one? +I've lost count, Harriet. No; you haven't got anything to do about +dying; dying is not your business. In fact, I sometimes think it never +is our business. Our business is living. Dying is God's affair." +</P> + +<P> +"I haven't any business, that's the worst of it," Miss Harriet said, +bitterly. "I've nothing to do—nothing to do but just lie here and +wait. I don't mind dying; but to be here in this trap, waiting. And +I've always been so busy, I don't know how to do nothing." +</P> + +<P> +"That's what I wanted to say to you. There is something you can do. +In fact, there's something you must do." +</P> + +<P> +"Something I must do?" Miss Harriet said, puzzled. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear friend, you must meet this affliction; you can't escape; we +can't save you from it. But there is one thing you can do: you can try +to spare the pain of it to other people. Set yourself, Miss Harriet, +to make it as easy as you can for those who stand by." +</P> + +<P> +Harriet Hutchinson looked at him in amazement. No pity? No +condolences? Nothing but the high charge to spare others. "You mean +my temper?" she said at last, slowly. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," said Dr. Lavendar. +</P> + +<P> +Miss Harriet blushed hotly. "It is bad; I know it's bad. But—" +</P> + +<P> +"Mine would be worse," said Dr. Lavendar, thoughtfully. "But look out +for it, Harriet. It's getting ahead of you." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Harriet nodded. "You're right." +</P> + +<P> +"You see, when you are out of temper it shows you are suffering; and +that's hard for us to bear—not the temper, of course, but the +knowledge. So you've got to spare us, Harriet. Understand?" +</P> + +<P> +"I understand." +</P> + +<P> +"It will be hard work for you," he said, cheerfully; and somehow the +words meant, not pity, but "<I>Shoulder arms!</I>" +</P> + +<P> +For an instant they gazed, eye to eye—the woman devoured by pain, the +old man with his calm demand; and then the soul of her rose with a +shout. What! there was something left for her to do? She need not +merely sit still and die? She need not wait idly for the end? It was +a splendid summons to the mind—a challenge to the body that had dogged +and humiliated the soul, that had wrung from her good-humored courage +irritability and unjust anger, that had dragged her pride in the dust +of shame, yes, even—even (alone, and in the dark), but even of tears. +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Make it as easy as possible for those that stand by.</I>" +</P> + +<P> +Some might say that that austere command was the lash of the whip; but +to Miss Harriet it was the rod and the staff. The Spartan old man had +suddenly revealed to her that as long as the body does not compel the +soul, there is no shame. As long as she could hold her tongue, she +said to herself, she need not be ashamed. Let the body whimper as it +may, if the soul is silent it is master. Miss Harriet saw before her, +not humiliation and idleness and waiting, but fierce struggle.... And +it was a struggle. It was no easy thing to be amiable when good Maria +Welwood wept over her; or when Martha King told her, flatly and +frankly, that she was doing very wrong not to make more effort to eat; +or even when Mrs. Dale hoped that she had made her peace with Heaven. +</P> + +<P> +"Heaven had better try to make its peace with me, considering," said +Miss Harriet, grimly; but when she saw how she had shocked Mrs. Dale, +she made haste to apologize. "I didn't mean it, of course. But I am +nervous, and say things to let off steam." Such an admission meant +much from Miss Harriet, and it certainly soothed Mrs. Dale. +</P> + +<P> +But most of all, Harriet Hutchinson forbade her body to dictate to her +soul when Miss Annie hung whimpering about her with frantic persistence +of pity. Never in all their years together had Miss Harriet shown such +tenderness to Annie as now, when the poor old child's mere presence was +maddening to her. For Annie could think of nothing but the pain which +could not be hidden, and her incessant entreaty was that it should be +stopped. "Wouldn't you rather be dead, sister?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, Annie." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then, be dead." +</P> + +<P> +"I can't, Annie. Now let us talk of something else. Tell me what the +black hen did when the speckled hen stole her nest." +</P> + +<P> +Annie joyously told her story, as she had told it dozens of times +before; while Harriet Hutchinson turned her face to the wall. Annie +sat on her heels on the floor beside the bed, rocking back and forth, +and talking: "And so the speckled hen flew off. Sister, I'll get you +your big bottle?" +</P> + +<P> +No answer. +</P> + +<P> +"Sister, don't you want to smell the bottle?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, Annie. No—no—<I>no</I>! Oh, Annie, don't you want to go and see +your chickens?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why not?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because it wouldn't be right, Annie." +</P> + +<P> +"Why wouldn't it be right, sister?" +</P> + +<P> +"Because," said Harriet Hutchinson—"because I suppose that's one of +the things that would 'make it harder for those that stand by.'" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't understand," poor old Annie said, timidly. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Annie, that's the only reason I know of. Oh, Annie, Annie! it +is the only reason there is; it is the root of its being wrong." ... +And then the long moan. When Miss Annie heard that sound she shivered +all over; it was the elemental protest of the flesh, which cannot +understand the regal and unconquered soul. +</P> + +<P> +Those were hard days for Willy King, what with his affection and his +sympathy and his daily struggles with Miss Annie; "for she is frantic," +he told Dr. Lavendar. They were walking up the hill together in the +late afternoon. Miss Harriet had sent for the old man, on whom now she +leaned even more than on William King, for Dr. Lavendar gave her +granite words instead of Willy's tenderer sympathy. "She insists that +I shall give Miss Harriet something—'stuff out of Harriet's bottle,' +she says. I suppose she means chloroform. I wish to God I could." +</P> + +<P> +"God will do His own work, William." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sir; but it's such a waste—this courage that fairly breaks our +hearts." +</P> + +<P> +"Waste! William, what are you talking about? We are every one of us +richer for it. I told her so yesterday." +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said William King, thoughtfully, "perhaps so; in this case we +are richer, I admit. But suppose it were a baby that was suffering—or +a dog? Only, we wouldn't let the dog suffer. Dr. Lavendar, one of +these days—you and I won't live to see it, but one of these days—" +</P> + +<P> +"There is Miss Annie now," said Dr. Lavendar. "Why—look at her!" +</P> + +<P> +The old woman came fluttering down the path towards the green gate in +the privet hedge; she was smoothing her hair back from her temples, +with her strange, girlish gesture, and she was smiling, but there was a +new and solemn age in her face that made the two men look at each +other, startled and wondering. +</P> + +<P> +"Dr. Lavendar! Willy!" she said, her voice breaking with joy, "Harriet +is dead—oh, Harriet is dead!" +</P> + +<P> +They stopped short in the pathway. "What—what?" stammered William +King. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Harriet is dead!" the old woman said; "and I'm so happy." She +came and leaned on the closed gate at the foot of the path, smiling up +into their faces. "She isn't hurt any more. Oh, I can breathe, I can +breathe, now," said Miss Annie, laying her withered hands upon her +throat and drawing a deep breath. +</P> + +<P> +"When?" said the doctor. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, just a little while ago. As soon as she got dead I opened the +windows and let the air blow in; she likes the wind when she isn't +hurt." +</P> + +<P> +William King said, suddenly, "<I>My God!</I>" and turned and ran up the +path, into the house, into the room, where, indeed, there was no more +hurting. +</P> + +<P> +"Annie," Dr. Lavendar said, "were you with her?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," Miss Annie said. "Harriet was hurt very much. But when she +smelled her bottle she stopped being hurt." +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar leaned against the gate, his breath wavering; then he sat +down on the grass, and rested his forehead on his hands clasped on the +top of his stick. He was unable to speak. Miss Annie came out into +the road and looked at him curiously. After a while he said, feebly, +"Annie, tell me about it." +</P> + +<P> +"Willy wouldn't give Harriet sugar in a paper to stop the hurting. And +Harriet said she couldn't get her bottle. She said it would be wrong +for her to get it." +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar lifted his head with a quick gesture of relief. "What! +Harriet, didn't get it herself?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh no," Miss Annie said. "I got it. And I went into Harriet's room. +Harriet's eyes were shut, and she was—was moaning," said Miss Annie, +shivering. "So I put some stuff out of the bottle on a towel and held +it for Harriet to smell. And Harriet opened her eyes and looked +frightened, and she said, 'No, no!' And I said, 'Yes; I'm the oldest +and you must do what I say.' And she said, 'Augustine! Augustine!' +But Augustine can't hear. And I held it down and I said, 'You won't be +hurt any more.' And Harriet pushed it away and said 'No.' And then +she shut her eyes. And after a while she didn't say anything more. +And I held it, oh, a long time. And then I looked, and Harriet's eyes +were shut. And now she's dead! And it doesn't hurt any more. You +come and look at her, and you'll see it doesn't hurt any more. Now she +wouldn't thank King George to be her uncle! Oh, she's dead," said Miss +Annie, nodding her head and laughing; "a happy sleep." She was +standing there in the dusty road in front of him, telling the story, +her hands behind her, rocking slightly backward and forward, like a +child repeating a lesson. The long afternoon shadows stretched from +the trees across the road, and, swaying lightly, flecked her gray head +with sunshine. +</P> + +<P> +"Annie," said Dr. Lavendar, "come here and sit beside me." +</P> + +<P> +She came, happily enough, and let him take her hand and hold it, +patting it softly for a moment before he spoke. +</P> + +<P> +"Annie, it was not right to give Harriet the stuff out of the bottle; +our Heavenly Father stops the hurting when He thinks best. So it does +not please Him for us to do it when we think best." +</P> + +<P> +"But Willy gave Harriet one sugar in a paper, and that stopped it a +little," Miss Annie said, puzzled; "and if he stopped it a little, why +shouldn't it all be stopped?" The obvious logic of the poor mind +admitted of no answer—certainly no argument. +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar said, gravely, stroking the hand, as wrinkled as his own: +"It was not right, my child. You will believe me when I say so? And I +do not want any one to know that you did a thing that was not right. +So I want you to promise me now that you will not tell any one that you +did it. Will you promise me?" +</P> + +<P> +"Willy knows it, I guess," Miss Annie said. +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar was silent. Just what had William heard her say? Only +that Miss Harriet was "dead." "I am pretty sure that Willy doesn't +know it," he said, slowly. "And I am quite sure he would prefer not to +know it; so you mustn't tell him. But you can't understand about that, +Annie. You'll just have to believe me. Will you promise me?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, yes," Miss Annie said, indifferently, smiling up at the moving +leaves. "Oh, Harriet isn't hurt now!" +</P> + +<P> +Dr. Lavendar trembled with anxiety. "I want a solemn promise, Annie. +What do the children do when they make a solemn promise?" +</P> + +<P> +Miss Annie was instantly interested. "Why, they cross their breast and +say 'honest and true'; don't you know?" ... +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then," said Dr. Lavendar, slowly, "you will make a promise to me +in that way." He stood up and took her hand, his face very pale. +"Promise me that never, so long as you live, will you tell any one—any +one, Annie—that you made Harriet fall asleep by giving her the big +bottle to smell. Now, make the promise, Annie." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Annie slowly crossed her breast. "I promise," she said, in a low +voice; her eyes, widening with awe, were fixed on his face. "I promise: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Honest and true,<BR> +Black and black and blue,<BR> +Lay me down<BR> +And cut me in two—<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +if I do." +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Amen!</I>" said Dr. Lavendar; and took off his hat, and stood looking up +into the sky, his lip trembling. "Father," he said, "I don't even say +'forgive her!' She is Thy little child." And then they stood for a +moment hand in hand in the sunny silence. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="finis"> +THE END +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<HR> + +<BR><BR><BR> + + +<A NAME="chap07"></A> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +BY ONOTO WATANNA +</P> + +<P> +A JAPANESE NIGHTINGALE. A love story of Japan. Full-page Drawings in +Color and unique Decorative Color Borders on every page, by the +well-known Japanese artist GENJIRO YETO. Crown 8vo, Ornamented Cloth, +Deckel Edges, Gilt Top (in a box), $2.00 net. +</P> + +<P> +There could not easily be a more charming volume to look at than this, +nor a more delightfully appealing romance to read.—<I>New York World</I>. +</P> + +<P> +An idyl of the author's homeland, delicate in fancy and dainty in +expression.—<I>Public Opinion</I>. +</P> + +<P> +The author and the artist together have produced a charming work of +art, as thoroughly imbued with the Japanese spirit as a bit of old +Satsuma.—<I>Buffalo Express</I>. +</P> + +<P> +"A Japanese Nightingale" is one of the daintiest and most exquisite of +love stories; ... indeed, so exquisite is her art, and so delightful +the humor of her pages, that more than one critic has spoken of the +story as "A Japanese Kentucky Cardinal."—<I>New York Journal</I>. +</P> + +<P> +It is full of poetry and charm.—<I>Current Literature</I>. +</P> + +<P> +A delicious vein of humor runs through the story, especially in the +love scenes, and the style is distinct with the lyrical delicacy of +Japanese thought.—<I>Brooklyn Eagle</I>. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS +<BR> +NEW YORK AND LONDON +</P> + +<P> +<I>The above work will be sent by mail to any part of the United States, +Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price</I>. (<I>Postage 15 cents.</I>) +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +BY ROBERT W. CHAMBERS +</P> + +<P> +THE MAID-AT-ARMS. Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy. Post 8vo, +Ornamented Cloth, $1.50. +</P> + +<P> +Mr. Chambers has long since won a most enviable position among +contemporary novelists. The great popular success of "Cardigan" makes +this present novel of unusual interest to all readers of fiction. It +is a stirring novel of American life in days just after the Revolution. +It deals with the conspiracy of the great New York land-owners and the +subjugation of New York Province to the British. It is a story with a +fascinating love interest, and is alive with exciting incident and +adventure. Some of the characters of "Cardigan" reappear in this new +novel. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS<BR> +NEW YORK AND LONDON +</P> + +<P> +<I>The above work will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of +the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price</I>. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Dr. Lavendar's People, by Margaret Deland + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DR. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Dr. Lavendar's People + +Author: Margaret Deland + +Illustrator: Lucius Hitchcock + +Release Date: October 11, 2011 [EBook #34427] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DR. LAVENDAR'S PEOPLE *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: "'I HAVE A PRESENT FOR YOU--A SISTER'" See p. 45] + + + + + + +DR. LAVENDAR'S PEOPLE + + +BY + +MARGARET DELAND + + +AUTHOR OF "OLD CHESTER TALES" + + + +ILLUSTRATED BY + +LUCIUS HITCHCOCK + + + +NEW YORK AND LONDON + +HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS + +1903 + + + + +Copyright, 1903, by HARPER & BROTHERS. + +_All rights reserved._ + +Published October, 1903. + + + + +TO + +DR. FRANCIS B. HARRINGTON + +These Stories are + +Dedicated + + + + +CONTENTS + + +The Apotheosis of the Reverend Mr. Spangler + +The Note + +The Grasshopper and the Ant + +Amelia + +"An Exceeding High Mountain" + +At the Stuffed-Animal House + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +"I HAVE A PRESENT FOR YOU--A SISTER'" . . . . . . _Frontispiece_ + +"DAVID'S HEAD SWAM" + +"SHE ALWAYS CAME INTO THE LIBRARY TO SAY GOOD-NIGHT TO HIM" + +"LURCHED FORWARD INTO A CHAIR, BREATHING LOUDLY" + +"MRS. BARKLEY ROSE, TAPPING THE TABLE WITH ALARMING LOUDNESS" + +"MISS LYDIA, WATCHING HIM, GREW PALER AND PALER" + +"THERE SHE TURNED AND LOOKED BACK" + +"THOMAS DILWORTH GOT ON HIS FEET AND SWORE" + +"'WHAT IS THE NAME OF THE KIND PERSON?'" + +"SHE KNELT DOWN, AS USUAL, AT THE BIG CHINTZ-COVERED WINGED CHAIR" + +MISS HARRIET WAS LEANING FORWARD + +"'A HAPPY SLEEP,' MISS ANNIE REPEATED" + + + + +THE APOTHEOSIS + +OF THE + +REVEREND MR. SPANGLER + + +I + +Miss Ellen Baily kept school in the brick basement of her old frame +house on Main Street. + +The children used to come up a flagstone path to the side door, and +then step down two steps into an entry. Two rooms opened on this +entry; in one the children sat at small, battered desks and studied; in +the other Miss Baily heard their lessons, sitting at a table covered +with a red cloth, which had a white Grecian fret for a border and +smelled of crumbs. On the wall behind her was a faded print of +"Belshazzar's Feast"; in those days this was probably the only feasting +the room ever saw--although on a thin-legged sideboard there were two +decanters (empty) and a silver-wire cake-basket which held always three +apples. Both rooms looked out on the garden--the garden and, in fine +weather, _Mr. David Baily!_ ... Ah, me--what it was, in the dreary +stretches of mental arithmetic, to look across the flower-beds and see +Mr. David--tall and dark and melancholy--pacing up and down, sometimes +with a rake, oftener with empty hands; always with vague, beautiful +eyes fixed on some inner vision of heart-broken memory. Miss Ellen's +pupils were confident of this vision because of a tombstone in the +burial-ground which recorded the death of Maria Hastings, at the +romantic age of seventeen; and, as everybody in Old Chester knew, Mr. +Baily had been in love with this same seventeen-year-old Maria. To be +sure, it was thirty years ago; but that does not make any difference, +"_in real love_," as any school-girl can tell you. So, when David +Baily paced up and down the garden paths or sat in the sunshine under +the big larch we all knew that he was thinking of his bereavement. + +In the opinion of the older girls, grief had wrecked Mr. David's life; +he had intended to be a clergyman, but had left the theological school +because his eyes gave out. "He cried himself nearly blind," the girls +told each other with great satisfaction. After that he tried one +occupation after another, but somehow failed in each; which was proof +of a delicacy of constitution induced by sorrow. Furthermore, he +seemed pursued by a cruel fortune--"Fate," the girls called it. +Elderly, unromantic Old Chester did not use this fine word, but it +admitted pursuing disaster. + +For instance: there was the time that David undertook the charge of a +private library in Upper Chester, and three months afterwards the owner +sold it! Then Mr. Hays found a job for him, and just as he was going +to work he was laid up with rheumatism. And again Tom Dilworth got him +a place as assistant book-keeper; and David, after innumerable tangles +on his balance-sheet, was obliged to say, frankly, that he had no head +for figures. But he was willing to do anything else--"_any_ honest +work that is not menial," he said, earnestly. And Tom said, why, yes, +of course, only he'd be darned if he knew what to suggest. But he +added, in conjugal privacy, that David ought to be hided for not +turning his hand to something. "Why doesn't he try boot-blacking? +Only, I suppose, he'd say he couldn't make the change correctly. He +doesn't know whether two and two make five or three--like our Ned." + +"Why, they make four, Tom," said Mrs. Dilworth. And Thomas stared at +her, and said, "You don't say so!" + +There had been no end of such happenings; "and none of them my +brother's fault," Miss Ellen told the sympathetic older girls, who +glanced sideways at Mr. David and wished that they might die and be +mourned as Mr. David mourned Maria. + +The fact was, the habit of failure had fastened upon poor David; and in +the days when Miss Ellen's school was in its prime (before the new +people told our parents that her teaching was absurdly inadequate), he +was depending on his sister for his bread-and-butter. That Miss Ellen +supported him never troubled the romantic souls of Miss Ellen's pupils +any more than it troubled Miss Ellen--or Mr. David. "Why shouldn't +she?" the girls would have demanded if any such rudely practical +question had been asked; "he is so delicate, _and he has a broken +heart!_" So that was how it happened that the pupils were able to have +palpitating glimpses of him, walking listlessly about the garden, or +dozing in a sunny window over an old magazine, or doing some pottering +bit of carpentering for Miss Ellen, but never losing his good looks or +the grieved melancholy of his expression. + + +Miss Ellen had been teaching for twenty years. + +It is useless to deny that, unless one has a genius for imparting +knowledge, teaching is a drudgery. It was drudgery to Ellen Baily, but +she never slighted it on that account. She was conscientious about the +number of feet in the highest mountain in the world; she saw to it that +her pupils could repeat the sovereigns of England backward. Besides +these fundamentals, the older girls had Natural Philosophy every +Friday; it was not, perhaps, necessary that young ladies should know +that the air was composed of two gases (the girls who had travelled and +seen the lighted streets of towns knew what gas was), nor that rubbing +a cat's fur the wrong way in the dark would produce electric +sparks--such things were not necessary. But they were interesting, +and, as Mrs. Barkley said, if they did not go too far and lead to +scepticism, they would do no harm. However, Miss Ellen counteracted +any sceptical tendencies by reading aloud, every Saturday morning, +Bishop Cummings on the Revelation, so that even Dr. Lavendar was not +wiser than Miss Ellen's girls as to what St. John meant by "a time, and +a time, and a half of a time," or who the four beasts full of eyes +before and behind stood for. For accomplishments, there was fine +sewing every Wednesday afternoon; and on Mondays, with sharply pointed +pencils, we copied trees and houses from neat little prints; also, we +had lessons upon the piano-forte, so there was not one of us who, when +she left Miss Ellen's, could not play at least three pieces, viz., "The +Starlight Valse," "The Maiden's Prayer," and "The Last Rose of Summer." + +Ah, well, one may smile. Compared to what girls know nowadays, it is, +of course, very absurd. But, all the same, Miss Ellen's girls knew +some things of which our girls are ignorant: reverence was one; +humility was another; obedience was a third. And poor, uneducated folk +(compared with our daughters) that we of Old Chester may be, we are, if +I mistake not, glad that we were taught a certain respect for our own +language, which, though it makes the tongue of youth to-day almost +unintelligible, does give us a joy in the wells of English undefiled +which our children do not seem to know; and for this, in our dull Old +Chester way, we are not ungrateful. However, this may all be sour +grapes.... + +At any rate, for twenty painstaking years Miss Ellen's methods fed and +clothed Mr. David. Then came the winter of Dr. Lavendar's illness, and +the temporary instalment of the Reverend Mr. Spangler, and Ellen Baily +realized that there were other things in the world than David's food +and clothes. + +Dr. Lavendar, cross, unbelieving, protesting, was to be hustled down +South by Sam Wright; and the day before he started Mr. Spangler +appeared. That was early in February, and Dr. Lavendar was to come +back the first of May. + +"Not a day sooner," said Sam Wright. + +"I'll come when I see fit," said Dr. Lavendar. He didn't believe in +this going away, he said. "Home is the best place to be sick in. The +truth is, Willy King doesn't want me to die on his hands--it would hurt +his business," said Dr. Lavendar, wickedly; "I know him!" + +But to Mr. Spangler Dr. Lavendar said other things about Willy, and Sam +Wright, too; in fact, about all of them. And he pulled out his big, +red silk pocket-handkerchief with a trembling flourish and wiped his +eyes. "I don't deserve it," he said. "I'm a dogmatic old fogy, and I +won't let the new people have their jimcrackery; and I preach old +sermons, and I've had a cold in my head for three months. And yet, +look at 'em: A purse, if you please! And Sam Wright is going down with +me. Sam ought to be ashamed of himself to waste his time; he's a busy +man. No, sir; I don't deserve it. And, if you take my advice, you'll +pray the Lord that your people will treat you as you don't deserve." + +Mr. Spangler, a tall, lean man, very correctly dressed, who was +depended upon in the diocese as a supply, made notes solemnly while Dr. +Lavendar talked; but he sighed once or twice, patiently, for the old +man was not very helpful. Mr. Spangler wanted to know what +Sunday-school teachers could be relied upon, and whether the choir was +very thin-skinned, and which of the vestry had chips on their shoulders. + +"None of 'em. I knocked 'em all off, long ago," said Dr. Lavendar. +"Don't you worry about that. Speak your mind." + +"I have," said Mr. Spangler, coughing delicately, "an iron hand when I +once make up my mind in regard to methods; firmness is, I think, a +clergyman's duty, and duty, I hope, is my watchword; but I think it +best to canvass a matter thoroughly before making up my mind." + +"It is generally wise to do so," said Dr. Lavendar, very meekly. + +"Of course," Mr. Spangler said, kindly, "you belong to a somewhat older +period, and do not, perhaps, realize the value of our modern ways of +dealing with a parish--I mean in regard to firmly carrying out one's +own ideas. I suppose these good people do pretty much as they please, +so far as you are concerned?" + +"Perhaps they do," said Dr. Lavendar, very, very meekly. + +"So, not wishing to offend, I will ask a few questions: I have heard +that the parish is perhaps a little old-fashioned in regard to matters +of ritual? I have wondered whether my cassock would be misunderstood?" + +"Cassock?" said Dr. Lavendar. "Bless your heart, wear a pea-jacket if +it helps you to preach the Word. It will only be for ten Sundays," he +added, hopefully. + +The Reverend Mr. Spangler smiled at that; and when he smiled one saw +that his face, though timid, was kind. + +So Dr. Lavendar, growling and scolding, fussing about Danny and his +little blind horse Goliath, and Mr. Spangler's comfort, was bundled +off; and Mr. Spangler settled down in the shabby rectory. His iron +will led him to preach in his surplice, and it was observed that a +silver cross dangled from his black silk fob. "But it's only for ten +weeks," said Old Chester, and asked him to tea, and bore with him, and +did nothing more severe than smile when he bowed in the creed--smile, +and perhaps stand up a little straighter itself. + +This, of the real Old Chester. Of course the new people were pleased; +and one or two of the younger folk liked it. Miss Ellen Baily was not +young, but she liked the surplice better than Dr. Lavendar's black gown +and bands, and the sudden sparkle of the cross when Mr. Spangler knelt +gave her a pang of pleasure. David, too, was not displeased. To be +sure, David was rarely stirred to anything so positive as pleasure. +But at least he made no objections to the cross; and he certainly +brightened up when, on Saturday afternoon, Mr. Spangler called. He +even talked of Gambier, to which he had gone for a year, and of which, +it appeared, the clergyman was an alumnus. Miss Ellen had a pile of +compositions on the table beside her, and she glanced at one +occasionally so that she might not seem to expect any share in the +conversation. But, all the same, Mr. Spangler noticed her. He was not +drawn to the brother; still, he talked to him about their college, for +Mr. Spangler believed that being agreeable was just as much a +clergyman's duty as was changing the bookmarks for Advent or Lent; and +duty, as Mr. Spangler often said, was his watchword. Furthermore, he +was aware that his kindness pleased the silent, smiling woman seated +behind the pile of compositions. + +It pleased her so much that that night, after David had gone to bed, +she went over to Mrs. Barkley's to talk about her caller. + +"Well, Ellen Baily," Mrs. Barkley said, briskly, as Miss Baily came +into the circle of lamplight by the parlor-table, "so you had a visitor +to-day? I saw him, cross and all." + +"It was a very small one," Miss Baily protested, "and only silver." + +"Would you have had it diamonds?" demanded Mrs. Barkley, in a deep +bass. "Oh, well; it doesn't really matter; there are only nine more +Sundays. But Sam Wright says he shall mention it when he writes to Dr. +Lavendar." + +"I suppose Dr. Lavendar saw it before he went away," Ellen said, with +some spirit. + +"Well, if he doesn't take his religion out in crosses, I suppose it's +all right. But he's not a very active laborer in the vineyard. I +suppose you know about him?" + +"Why, no," Ellen said; "nothing except that he supplies a good deal." + +"Supplies? Yes, because his mother left him a house in Mercer, and +enough to live on in a small way; so he likes supplying better than +taking a charge where he'd have to work hard and couldn't have his +comforts." + +"Why doesn't he take a charge where he could have his comforts?" + +"Can't get the chance," Mrs. Barkley explained, briefly. "Not enough +of a preacher. And, besides, he likes his ease in Zion. Rachel +Spangler's old house, and her Mary Ann, and his father's library, +and--well, the flesh-pots of Mercer!--and supplying, just enough to buy +him his ridiculous buttoned-up coats. That's what he likes. I suppose +he uses the same old sermons over and over. Doesn't ever have to write +a new one. However, he's here, and maybe Old Chester will do him good. +Ellen Baily, did you know that we have a new-comer in Old Chester? A +widow. I don't like widows. Her name's Smily. Foolish name! She's +staying at the Stuffed Animal House. She's Harriet Hutchinson's +cousin, and she's come down on her for a visit." + +"Maybe she'll make her a present when she goes away," said Ellen, +hopefully. + +"Present! She needs to have presents made to her. She hasn't a cent +but what her husband's brother gives her. He's a school-teacher, I +understand; and you know yourself, Ellen Baily, how much a +school-teacher can do in that way?" + +Miss Ellen sighed. + +"Well," proceeded Mrs. Barkley, "I just thought I'd tell you about her, +because if we all invite her to tea, turn about, it will be a relief to +Harriet--(she isn't well, that girl; I'm really uneasy about her). And +I guess the Smily woman won't object to Old Chester food, either," said +Mrs. Barkley, complacently. "I've asked her for Tuesday evening, and I +thought I'd throw in Mr. Spangler and get him off my mind." + +"David likes him so much," Miss Ellen began. + +"Does he?" said Mrs. Barkley. "Well, tell him to come; he can talk to +Mr. Spangler. I'm afraid I might hurt the man's feelings if I had to +do all the talking. I seem to do that sometimes. Did you ever notice, +Ellen, that the truth always hurts people's feelings? But I knew his +mother, so I don't want to do anything to wound him. I won't ask you, +Ellen; I don't like five at table. But just tell David to come, will +you?" + +And Miss Baily promised, gratefully. David was not often asked out in +Old Chester. + + + + +II + +The supper at Mrs. Barkley's was a great occasion to David Baily. +Right after dinner he went up to the garret, and Ellen heard him +shuffling about overhead, moving trunks. After a while he came down, +holding something out to his sister. + +"Guess I'll wear this," he said, briefly. It was an old black velvet +waistcoat worked with small silk flowers, pink and blue and yellow. + +"I haven't seen gentlemen wear those waistcoats lately," Miss Ellen +said, doubtfully. + +Mr. David spread the strange old garment across his narrow breast, and +regarded himself in the mirror above the mantel. "Father wore it," he +said. + +Then he retired to his own room. When he reappeared he wore the +waistcoat. His old black frock-coat, shiny on the shoulders and with +very full skirts, hung so loose in front that the flowered velvet +beneath was not conspicuous; but Mr. David felt its moral support when, +at least ten minutes before the proper time, he started for Mrs. +Barkley's. + +His hostess, putting on her best cap before her mirror, glanced down +from her window as he came up the path. "Ellen ought not to have sent +him so early," she said, with some irritation. "Emily!" she called, in +her deep voice, "just go to the front door and tell Mr. Baily to go +home. I'm not ready for him. Or he can sit in the parlor and wait if +he wants to. But he can't talk to me." + +Emily, a mournful, elderly person, sought, out of regard for her own +feelings, to soften her mistress's message; but David instantly +retreated to walk up and down the street, keeping his eye on Mrs. +Barkley's house, so that he could time his return by the arrival of Mr. +Spangler. + +"He'll come at the right hour, I presume," he said to himself. Just +then he saw Mrs. Smily stepping delicately down the street, her head on +one side, and a soft, unchanging smile on her lips. As they met she +minced a little in her step, and said: + +"Dear me! I'm afraid I've made a mistake. I'm looking for Mrs. +Barkley's residence." + +"Mrs. Barkley resides here," said Mr. David, elegantly. + +She looked up into his sad, dark eyes with a flurried air. "Dear me," +she said, "I fear I am late." + +"Oh, not _late_," said poor David. "Perhaps we might walk up and down +for a minute longer?" + +Mrs. Smily, astonished but flattered, tossed her head, and said, Well, +she didn't know about _that_! But, all the same, she turned, and they +walked as far as the post-office. + +"I'm afraid you are very attentive to the ladies," Mrs. Smily said, +coquettishly, when David had introduced himself; and David, who had +never heard a flirtatious word (unless from Maria), felt a sudden +thrill and a desire to reply in kind. But from lack of experience he +could think of nothing but the truth. He had been too early, he said, +and had come out to wait for Mr. Spangler--"and you, ma'am," he added, +in a polite after-thought. But his hurried emphasis made Mrs. Smily +simper more than ever. She shook her finger at him and said: + +"Come, come, sir!" And David's head swam. + +[Illustration: "DAVID'S HEAD SWAM"] + +At that moment Mr. Spangler, buttoned to his chin in a black waistcoat, +came solemnly along, and, with his protection, David felt he could face +Mrs. Barkley. + +But, indeed, she met her three guests with condescension and kindness. +"They are all fools in their different ways," she said to herself, "but +one must be kind to them." So she made Mrs. Smily sit down in the most +comfortable chair, and pushed a footstool at her. Then she told Mr. +Spangler, good-naturedly, that she supposed he found Old Chester very +old-fashioned. "Don't you be trying any candles on us," she threatened +him, in a jocular bass. As for David, she paid no attention to him +except to remark that she supposed time didn't count with him. But her +bushy eyebrows twitched in a kindly smile when she said it. Then she +began to talk about Dr. Lavendar's health. "It is a great trial to +have him away," she said. "Dear me! I don't know what we will do when +the Lord takes him. I wish he might live forever. Clergymen are a +poor lot nowadays." + +"Why, I heard," said Mrs. Smily, "that he didn't give entire +satisfaction." + +"What!" cried Mrs. Barkley. "Who has been talking nonsense to you? +Some of the new people, I'll be bound." + +Mrs. Smily, very much frightened, murmured that no doubt she was +mistaken. Wild horses would not have drawn from her that she had heard +Annie Shields that was, say that Dr. Lavendar had deliberately advised +some one she knew to be bad; and that he had refused to help a very +worthy man to study for the ministry; and that the Ferrises said he +ought to be tried for heresy (or something) because he married Oscar +King to their runaway niece; and that he would not give a child back to +its repentant (and perfectly respectable) mother--"And a mother's claim +is the holiest thing on earth," Mrs. Smily said--and that he had +encouraged Miss Lydia Sampson in positively _wicked_ extravagance. +After hearing these things, Mrs. Smily had her opinion of Dr. Lavendar; +but that was no reason why she should let Mrs. Barkley snap her head +off. So she only murmured that no doubt she had made a mistake. + +"I think you have," said Mrs. Barkley, dryly; and rose and marshalled +her company in to supper. "She's a perfect fool," she told herself, +"but I hope the Lord will give me grace to hold my tongue." Perhaps +the Lord gave her too much grace, for, for the rest of the evening, she +hardly spoke to Mrs. Smily; she even conversed with David rather than +look in her direction. + +For the most part the conversation was a polite exchange of views upon +harmless topics between Mrs. Barkley and Mr. Spangler, during which +Mrs. Smily cheered up and murmured small ejaculations to David Baily. +She told him that she was scared nearly to death of the stuffed animals +at Miss Harriet's house. + +"They make me just scream!" she said. + +David protectingly assured her that they were harmless. + +"But they are so dreadful!" Mrs. Smily said. "Isn't it strange that my +cousin likes to--to do that to animals? It isn't quite ladylike, to my +mind." + +Mr. Baily thought to himself how ladylike it was in Mrs. Smily to +object to taxidermy. He noticed, too, that she ate almost nothing, +which also seemed very refined. It occurred to him that such a +delicate creature ought not to go home alone; the lane up to Miss +Harriet's house was dark with overhanging trees, and, furthermore, +half-way up the hill it passed the burial-ground. In a burst of fancy +David saw himself near the low wall of the cemetery, protecting Mrs. +Smily, who was shivering in her ladylike way at the old head-stones +over in the grass. He began (in his own mind) a reassuring +conversation: "There are no such things as spectres, ma'am. I assure +you there is no occasion for fear." And at these manly words she would +press closer to his side. (And this outside the burial-ground--oh, +Maria, Maria!) + +But this flight of imagination was not realized, for later Emily +announced that Miss Harriet's Augustine had come for Mrs. Smily. + +"Did she bring a lantern?" demanded Mrs. Barkley. "That lane is too +dark except for young folks." + +Augustine had a lantern, and was waiting with it at the front door for +her charge; so there was no reason for Mr. David to offer his +protection. He and Mr. Spangler went away together, and David twisted +his head around several times to watch the spark of light jolting up +the hill towards the burial-ground and the Stuffed-Animal House. When +the two men said good-night, Mr. Spangler had a glimpse of a quickly +opened door and heard an eager voice--"Come in, dear brother. Did you +have a delightful evening?" + +"How pleasing to be welcomed so affectionately!" said the Reverend Mr. +Spangler to himself. + + + + +III + +The gentle warmth of that welcome lingered persistently in Mr. +Spangler's mind. + +"I suspect that she _kissed_ him," he said to himself; and a little +dull red crept into his cheeks. + +Miss Ellen, dark-eyed, gentle, with soft lips, made Mr. Spangler +suddenly think of a spray of heliotrope warm in the sunshine. "That is +a very poetical thought," he said, with a sense of regret that it +probably could not be utilized in a sermon. But when he entered the +study he banished poetry, because he had a letter to write. It was in +answer to an offer of the secretaryship of a church publishing-house in +a Western city. + +Dr. Lavendar, it appeared, had mentioned Mr. Spangler's name to one Mr. +Horatius Brown, stating that in his opinion Mr. Spangler was just the +man for the place--"exact, painstaking, conscientious," Mr. Brown +quoted in his letter; but forbore to add Dr. Lavendar's further remark +that Mr. Spangler would never embarrass the management by an original +idea. "He'll pick up pins as faithfully as any man I know," said Dr. +Lavendar, "and that's what you religious newspapers want, I believe?" +Mr. Spangler was not without a solemn pride in being thus sought out by +the ecclesiastical business world, especially when he reflected upon +the salary which Mr. Brown was prepared to offer; but acceptance was +another matter. To leave his high calling for mere business! A +business, too, which would involve exact hours and steady +application;--Compared with that, and with the crude, smart bustle of +the Western city, the frugal leisure of his placid days in Mercer +assumed in his mind the sanctity of withdrawal from the world, and his +occasional preaching took on the glow of missionary zeal. "No," said +Mr. Spangler, "mercenary considerations do not move me a +hair's-breadth." Mr. Spangler did not call his tranquil life in +Mercer, his comfortable old house, his good cook, his old friends, his +freedom from sermon-writing, mercenary considerations. On the +contrary, he assured himself that his "circumstances were far from +affluent; but I must endure hardness!" he used to add cheerfully. And +very honestly his declination seemed to him something that Heaven would +place to his credit. So he wrote to the publishing-house that he had +given the proposition his most prayerful consideration, but that he +believed that it was his duty to still labor at the sacred desk--and +duty was, he hoped, the watchword of his life. And he was Mr. Brown's +"obedient servant and brother in Christ--Augustus Spangler." + +Then he settled down in Dr. Lavendar's armchair by the fire in the +study; but he did not read the ecclesiastical paper which every week +fed his narrow and sincere mind. Instead he wondered how often Dr. +Lavendar called upon his female parishioners. Would twice in a +fortnight be liable to be misunderstood? Mr. Spangler was terribly +afraid of being misunderstood. Then he had a flash of inspiration: he +ought, as rector, to visit the schools. That was only proper and could +not possibly be misunderstood. "For an interest in educational affairs +is part of a priest's duty," Mr. Spangler reflected. + +If he was right, it must be admitted that Dr. Lavendar was very remiss. +So far as we children could remember, he had never visited Miss Ellen's +school and listened to recitations and heard us speak our pieces. +Whether that was because he did not care enough about us to come, or +because he saw us at Collect class and Sunday-school and church, and in +the street and at the post-office and at home, until he knew us all by +heart, so to speak, may be decided one way or the other; but certainly +when Mr. Spangler came, and sat through one morning, and told us +stories, and said we made him think of a garden of rosebuds, and took +up so much of Miss Ellen's time that she could not hear the mental +arithmetic, it was impossible not to institute comparisons. Indeed, +some hearts were (for the moment) untrue to Mr. David. When Miss Ellen +called on us to speak our pieces, we were so excited and breathless +that, for my part, I could not remember the first line of "Bingen on +the Rhine," and had to look quickly into the Fourth Reader; but before +I could begin, Lydia Wright started in with "Excelsior," and she got +all the praise; though I'm sure I--well, never mind! But Dr. Lavendar +wouldn't have praised one girl so that all the others wanted to scratch +her! All that first half, the pupils, bending over their copy-books, +writing, "_Courtesy to inferiors is true gentility_," glanced at the +visitor sideways, and if they caught his eye, looked down, blushing to +the roots of their hair--which was not frizzled, if you please, or +hanging over their eyes like the locks of Skye-terriers, but parted and +tied with a neat ribbon bow on the tops of all the small heads. But +Mr. Spangler did not look often at the pupils; instead he conversed in +a low voice with Miss Ellen. Nobody could hear what he said, but it +must have been very interesting, for when Miss Ellen suddenly looked at +the clock she blushed, and brought her hand hurriedly down on the bell +on her desk. It was ten minutes after the hour for recess! + +For the rest of that day Miss Ellen Baily moved and looked as one in a +dream. Her brother, however, did not seem to notice her +absent-mindedness. Indeed, he was as talkative as she was silent. + +"Sister," he said, as they sat at tea, "I need a new hat. One with a +blue band about it might be--ah--becoming." + +"Blue is a sweet color," said Miss Ellen, vaguely. + +"Mrs. Smily remarked to me that before her affliction made it improper, +she was addicted to the color of blue." + +"Was she?" Ellen said, absently. + +"Don't you think," David said, after a pause, "that my coat is somewhat +shabby? You bought it, you may remember, the winter of the long frost." + +"Is it?" Miss Ellen said. + +"Yes; and the style is obsolete, I think. Not that I am a creature of +fashion, but I do not like to be conspicuous in dress." + +"You are not that, dear David," Miss Ellen protested. "On Sunday I +often think nobody looks as handsome as you." + +David blushed. "You are partial, Ellen." + +"No, I'm not," cried Miss Ellen, coming out of her reveries. "Only +yesterday I heard some one say that you were very fine-looking." + +"Who said it?" + +"Never mind," Ellen said, gayly. + +"Do tell me, sister," he entreated; "that's a good girl." + +"It was somebody whose opinion you care a great deal about." + +"I think you might tell me," said Mr. David, aggrieved. "Not that I +care, because it isn't true, and was only said to please you. People +know how to get round you, Ellen. But I'd just like to know." + +"Guess," said Miss Ellen. + +"Well, was it--Mrs. Smily?" + +"Oh, dear, no! It was somebody very important in Old Chester. It was +Mrs. Barkley." + +"Oh," said Mr. David. + +"A compliment from her means so much, you know," Miss Ellen reminded +him. + +David was silent. + +"But all the same," Ellen said, "you do need a coat, dear brother. I'm +afraid I've been selfish not to notice it." + +Mr. David made no reply. + +Miss Ellen beamed at him. "You always look well, in my eyes: but it +pleases me to have you well dressed, too." + +"Well, then, to please you, I'll dress up," said Mr. David, earnestly. + + + + +IV + +"Does not Mr. Baily take any part whatever in his sister's work?" Mr. +Spangler said. He was calling upon Mrs. Barkley, and the conversation +turned upon the guests whom he had met at the tea-party. + +"That is a very foolish question," said Mrs. Barkley; "but of course +you don't know poor David, or you wouldn't have asked it. David means +well, but he has no mind. Still, he has tried, poor fellow." Then she +recited the story of David's failures. "There is really nothing that +he is capable of doing," she ended, thoughtfully; "though I think, if +his eyes hadn't given out, he might have made a good minister. For +David is a pious man, and he likes to visit." + +A faint red came into Mr. Spangler's cheeks; although he had been in +Old Chester nearly a month, he had not yet become acclimated to Mrs. +Barkley. The watchword of duty made him call, but he closed her front +door behind him with an emphasis which was not dutiful. + +"That's done!" he said; and thought to himself how much pleasanter than +parochial visits were educational matters. + +Mr. Spangler felt their importance so deeply that he spent two more +mornings watching Miss Ellen's pupils work out examples on the +blackboard and hearing them read, turn about, in the Fourth Reader. In +fact, the next month was a pretty happy time for Miss Ellen's girls. + +"I skipped to the bottom of the page in 'Catiline's Reply,'" Lydia +Wright said, giggling, "and she never knew it!" + +The girls were tremendously interested but not very sympathetic, for +"she's so dreadfully old!" they told each other. Had Miss Ellen been +Maria's age and had a beau (by this time they called Mr. Spangler Miss +Ellen's beau, the impudent little creatures!), how different it would +have been! But Miss Ellen was forty. "Did you ever know anything so +perfectly absurd?" said the older girls. And the second-class girls +said they certainly never did. So when Mr. Spangler came and listened +to recitations we poked one another, and put out our tongues behind our +Readers, and made ourselves extremely obnoxious--if dear Miss Ellen had +had the eyes to see it, which, indeed, she had not. She was very +absent in those days; but she did her work faithfully, and saw to +David's new coat, and asked Mrs. Smily to tea, not only to help out +Miss Harriet at the Stuffed-Animal House, but because David told her a +piteous tale of Mrs. Smily's loneliness and general forlornness. David +had had it directly from Mrs. Smily herself, and had been greatly moved +by it; she had told him that this was a sad and unfriendly world. + +"But I am sure your brother-in-law's family is much attached to you?" +David said, comfortingly. + +Then poor Mrs. Smily suddenly began to cry. "Yes; but I am afraid I +can't live at my brother-in-law's any longer. His wife is--is tired of +me," said the poor little creature. + +David was thunderstruck. "Tired? Of you! Oh, impossible!" + +Then she opened her poor foolish heart to him. And David was so +touched and interested that he could hardly wait to get home to pour it +all into Ellen's ears. Ellen was very sympathetic, and made haste to +ask Mrs. Smily to tea; and when she came was as kind and pitiful as +only dear, kind Ellen could be. But perhaps she took Mrs. Smily's +griefs a little less to heart than she might have done had she heard +the tale a month before. Just then she was in the whirl of Old Chester +hospitality; she was asked out three times in one week to meet the +Supply!--and by that time the Supply had reached the point of hoping +that he was going to meet Miss Ellen. + +Yet, as Mr. Spangler reflected, this was hardly prudent on his part. +"For I might become interested," he said to himself, and frowned and +sighed. Now, as everybody knows, the outcome of "interest" is only +justified by a reasonable affluence. "And," Augustus Spangler reminded +himself, "my circumstances are not affluent." Indeed, that warm, +pleasant old house in Mercer, and Mary Ann, and his books, and those +buttoned-up coats needed every penny of his tiny income. "Therefore," +said Mr. Spangler, "it is my duty to put this out of my head with an +iron hand." But, all the same, Ellen Baily was like a spray of +heliotrope. + +For a week, the second week in April, while Old Chester softened into a +mist of green, and the crown-imperials shook their clean, bitter +fragrance over the bare beds in the gardens--for that week Mr. Spangler +thought often of his income, but oftener of Miss Ellen. Reason and +sentiment wrestled together in his lazy but affectionate heart; and +then, with a mighty effort, sentiment conquered.... + +"It seems," said Mr. Spangler, nervously, "a little premature, but my +sojourn in Old Chester is drawing to a close; I shall not tarry more +than another fortnight; so I felt, my dear friend, that I must, before +seeking other fields of usefulness, tell you what was in my mind--or +may I say heart?" + +"You are very kind," Ellen Baily said, breathlessly. + +.... Mr. Spangler had invited Miss Ellen to walk with him on Saturday +afternoon at four. Now, as everybody knows in Old Chester, when a +gentleman invites you to walk out with him, you had better make up your +mind whether it is to be "yes" or "no" before you start. As for poor +Ellen, she did not have to make up her mind; it was made up for her by +unconquerable circumstances. If she should "seek other fields of +usefulness," she could not take David with her. It was equally clear +that she could not leave him behind her. Where would he find his +occasional new coat, or even the hat with the blue band, if there were +no school in the basement? Compared to love-making and romance, how +sordid are questions about coats! Yet, before starting on that +Saturday-afternoon walk, poor, pretty Miss Ellen, tying the strings of +her many-times retrimmed bonnet under her quivering chin, asked them, +and could find no answer except that if he should "say anything," why, +then, she must say "no"; but, of course, he wasn't going to say +anything. So she tied her washed and ironed brown ribbons into a neat +bow, and started down the street with the Reverend Mr. Spangler. + +David Baily, watching them from the gate, ruminated over obvious +possibilities. Mrs. Barkley had opened his eyes to the fact that Mr. +Spangler "was taking notice," and David was not without a certain +family pride in a ministerial proposal. "He'll do it this afternoon," +said David; and went pottering back into the empty school-room to mend +a bench that Ellen told him needed a nail or two. But the room was +still and sunny, and Ellen's chair was comfortable; and sitting there +to think about the bench, he nodded once or twice, and then dozed for +an hour. When he awoke it seemed best to mend the bench the next day; +then, yawning, and staring vacantly out of the window, he saw Mrs. +Smily, and it seemed only friendly to go out and tell her +(confidentially) what was going to happen. + +"It will make quite a difference to you, won't it?" Mrs. Smily said. + +"Oh," David said, blankly, "that hadn't occurred to me. However," he +added, with a little sigh, "my sister's happiness is my first thought." + +Mrs. Smily clasped her hands. "Mr. Baily, I do think you are real +noble!" she said. + +Mr. David stood very erect. "Oh, you mustn't flatter me, ma'am." + +"Mr. Baily, I never flatter," Mrs. Smily said, gravely. "I don't think +it's right." + +And David thought to himself how noble Mrs. Smily was. Indeed, her +nobility was so much in his mind that, strangely enough, he quite +forgot Ellen's exciting afternoon. He remembered it the next morning, +but when he essayed a little joke and a delicate question, the asperity +with which the mild Ellen answered him left him gaping with +astonishment. Evidently Mr. Spangler had not spoken. David would have +been less (or more) than a human brother if he had not smiled a very +little at that. "Ellen expected it," he said to himself. "Well, I did +myself, and so did Mrs. Barkley." It never occurred to him that the +Reverend Mr. Spangler might also have had expectations which left him +disappointed and mortified. Yet when a gentleman of Mr. Spangler's +age--one, too, whose income barely suffices for his own comfort, and +who, added to this, has had his doubts whether the celibacy of the +clergy may not be a sacrament of grace--when such a gentleman does make +up his mind to offer himself--to offer himself, moreover, to a lady no +longer in her first youth, who is pleasing perhaps to the eye, but not, +certainly, excessively beautiful, and whose fortune is merely (and most +meritoriously, of course) in her character and understanding--it is a +blow to pride to be refused. Mr. Spangler found it hard to labor at +the sacred desk that morning; yet no one would have thought it, to see +the fervor with which, as Old Chester said, he "went through his +performances." + +But he read the service, hot at heart and hoping that Miss Baily +observed how intensely his attention was fixed on things above. When +he stood in the chancel waiting for the collection-plates, and saying, +in a curious sing-song, absolutely new to Old Chester, "_Zaccheus stood +forth, and said, Behold, Lord--_" his glance, roving over the +congregation, rested once on Ellen Baily, and was as carefully +impersonal as though she were only a part of the pew in which she sat. +Miss Ellen thrilled at that high indifference; it occurred to her that +even had David's circumstances been different, she could scarcely have +dared to accept the hand of this high creature. + +"_--the half of all my goods--_" said Mr. Spangler. Yes, it was +inconceivable, considering what he was offering her, that Ellen Baily +could let her brother stand in the way! + +All that long, pleasant spring Sunday, Augustus Spangler was very +bitter. All that week he was distinctly angry. He said to himself +that he was glad that Dr. Lavendar was soon to return; he would, after +making his report of the parish, shake the dust of Old Chester from off +his feet as witness against Miss Baily, and depart. By the next Sunday +he had ceased to be angry, but his pride was still deeply wounded. By +Wednesday he had softened to melancholy; he was able to say that it all +came from her sense of duty. Unreasonable, of course, but still duty. +Then, on Thursday, suddenly, he was startled by a question in his own +mind: Was it unreasonable? If she gave up her teaching--"what would +that fellow live on?" + +That was a very bad moment to the Reverend Mr. Spangler. Pride +vanished in honest unhappiness. He began to think again about his +income; he had known that to marry a wife meant greater economy; but +sacrifices had not seemed too difficult considering that that wife was +to be Miss Ellen Baily. But if the wife must be Miss Baily +_plus_--"that fellow"! + +"It is out of the question," said poor Mr. Spangler, and arose and +paced up and down the study. He was very miserable; and the more +miserable he became, the more in love he knew himself to be. "But it +is madness to think of the matter further," he told himself, +sternly--"madness!" + +Yet he kept on thinking of it--or of Miss Ellen's dark eyes, and her +smile, and the way her hair curled in little rings about her temples. +"But it's impossible--impossible!" he said. Then, absently, he made +some calculations: To meet the support of David Baily he would have to +have an increase of so much in his income or a decrease of so much in +his expenses. "Madness!" said Augustus Spangler, firmly. "But how her +eyes crinkle up when she smiles!" + +Yet it took another day before the real man conquered. His expenses +should be decreased, _and David should live with them_. + +Yes, it would mean undeniable pinching; he must give up this small +luxury and that; his Mary Ann could not broil his occasional +sweetbread; and the occasional new book must be borrowed from the +library, not purchased for his own shelves. He must push about to get +more supplying. He had meant to come down one step when he got +married; well, he would have to come down two--yes, or three. But he +would have Miss Baily. And warmed with this tender thought, he sat +down, then and there, at nearly midnight, and wrote Miss Ellen a +letter. It was a beautiful letter, full of most beautiful sentiments +expressed with great elegance and gentility. It appreciated Miss +Ellen's devotion to her family, and acknowledged that a sense of duty +was a part of the character of a Christian female. It protested that +it was far from the Reverend Mr. Spangler to interfere with that sense +of duty; on the contrary, he would share it; nay more, he would assist +it, for duty was, he hoped, the watchword of his life. If Miss Baily +would consent to become his wife, Mr. Baily, he trusted, would make his +home with his sister. + +Mr. Spangler may have been addicted to petticoats (in his own toilet) +and given to candles and other emblems of the Scarlet Woman, but his +letter, beneath its stilted phrase, was an honest, manly utterance, and +Ellen Baily read it, thrilling with happiness and love. + +That was Friday, and she had only time to read those thin, blue pages +and thrust them into the bosom of her dress, when it was time to go to +school and hear her girls declare that the Amazon was the largest river +in South America; but we might have said it was the largest river in +Pennsylvania, and Miss Ellen would have gone on smiling at us. At +recess we poured out into the garden, eager to say, "Goodness! do you +suppose he's popped?" The older girls were especially excited, but +they took their usual furtive look about the garden before sitting down +on the steps to eat their luncheons. Alas, He was not there! + +"Perhaps," said Lydia Wright, "he has gone to the tomb." + +This, for the moment, was deliciously saddening; but, after all, real +live love-making, even of very old people, is more fascinating than +dead romance. Through the open window we could see Miss Ellen sitting +at her desk, writing. There were some sheets of blue paper spread out +in front of her, and she would glance at them, and then write a little, +and then glance back again, and smile, and write. But she did not look +troubled, or "cross," as the girls called it; so we knew it could not +be an exercise that she was correcting. But when she came out to us, +and said, in a sweet, fluttered voice, "Children, will one of you take +this letter to the post-office?" we knew what it meant--for it was +addressed to the Reverend Mr. Spangler. How we all ran with it to the +post-office!--giggling and palpitating and sighing as our individual +temperaments might suggest. In fact, I know one girl who squeezed a +tear out of each eye, she was so moved. When we came back, there was +Miss Baily still sitting at her desk, her cheek on one hand, her +smiling eyes fastened on those sheets of blue paper. "Gracious," said +the girls, "what a long recess!" and told each other to be quiet and +not remind her to ring the bell. + +Then suddenly something happened.... + +An old carry-all came shambling along the road; there were two people +in it, and one of them leaned over from the back seat and said to the +driver: "This is my house. Stop here, please." The girls, clustering +like pigeons on the sunny doorstep, began to fold up their +luncheon-boxes, and look sidewise, with beating hearts, towards the +gate--for it was _He_! How graceful he was--how elegant in his +manners! Ah, if our mothers had bidden us have manners like Mr. +David!--but they never did. They used to say, "Try and behave as +politely as Miss Maria Welwood," or, "I hope you will be as modest in +your deportment as Miss Sally Smith." And there was this model before +our eyes. It makes my heart beat now to remember how He got out of +that rattling old carriage and turned and lifted his hat to a lady +inside, and gave her his hand (ah, me!) and held back her skirts as she +got out, and bowed again when she reached the ground. She was not much +to look at; she was only the lady who was visiting at the +Stuffed-Animal House, and she was dressed in black, and her bonnet was +on one side. They stood there together in the sunshine, and Mr. David +felt slowly in all his pockets; then he turned to us, sitting watching +him with beating hearts. + +"Little girls," he said--he was near-sighted, and, absorbed as he +always was with sorrow, we never expected him to know our +names--"little girls, one of you, go in and ask my sister for two coach +fares, if you please." + +We rose in a body and swarmed back into the school-room--just as Miss +Ellen with a start looked at the clock and put out her hand to ring the +bell. "Mr. David says, please, ma'am, will you give him money for two +coach fares?" + +Miss Ellen, rummaging in her pocket for her purse, said: "Yes, my love. +Will you take this to my brother?" Just why she followed us as we ran +out into the garden with her purse perhaps she hardly knew herself. +But as she stood in the doorway, a little uncertain and wondering, Mr. +David led the shabby, shrinking lady up to her. + +"My dear Ellen," he said, "I have a present for you--a _sister_." + +Then the little, shabby lady stepped forward and threw herself on Miss +Ellen's shoulder. + +"A sister?" Ellen Baily said, bewildered. + +"We were married this morning in Upper Chester," said Mr. David, "and I +have brought her home. Now we shall all be so happy!" + + + + +V + +That evening Dr. Lavendar came home. Of course all the real Old +Chester was on hand to welcome him. + +When the stage came creaking up to the tavern steps, the old white head +was bare, and the broad-brimmed shabby felt hat was waving tremulously +in the air. + +"Here I am," said Dr. Lavendar, clambering down stiffly from the +box-seat. "What mischief have you all been up to?" + +There was much laughing and hand-shaking, and Dr. Lavendar, blinking +very hard, and flourishing his red silk pocket-handkerchief, clapped +Mr. Spangler on the shoulder. + +"Didn't I tell you about 'em? Didn't I tell you they were the best +people going? But we mustn't let 'em know it; makes 'em vain," said +Dr. Lavendar, with great show of secrecy. "And look here, Sam Wright! +You fellows may congratulate yourselves. Spangler here has had a fine +business offer made him, haven't you, Mr. Spangler? and it's just your +luck that you got him to supply for you before he left this part of the +country. A little later he wouldn't have looked at Old Chester. Hey, +Spangler?" + +"Oh, that's settled," Mr. Spangler said. "I declined--" + +"Oh," said Dr. Lavendar, "have you? Well, I'm sorry for 'em." + +And Augustus Spangler smiled as heartily as anybody. He had a letter +crushed up in his hand; he had read it walking down from the +post-office to the tavern, and now he was ready to say that Old Chester +was the finest place in the world. He could hardly wait to get Dr. +Lavendar to himself in the rectory before telling him his great news +and giving him a little three-cornered note from Ellen Baily which had +been enclosed in his own letter. + +"Well, well, _well_," said Dr. Lavendar. + +He had put on a strange dressing-gown of flowered cashmere and his +worsted-work slippers, and made room for his shaggy old Danny in his +leather chair, and lighted his pipe. "Now tell us the news!" he said. +And was all ready to hear about the Sunday-school teachers, and the +choir, and Sam Wright's Protestantism, and many other important things. +But not at all:-- + +"_I'm engaged to be married._" + +"Well, well, well," said Dr. Lavendar, blinking and chuckling with +pleasure; then he read Ellen's little note. "I had to tell you +myself," Ellen wrote him, "because I am so happy." And then there were +a dozen lines in which her heart overflowed to this old friend. "Dear +child, dear child," he murmured to himself. To no one but Dr. +Lavendar--queer, grizzled, wrinkled old Dr. Lavendar, with never a +romance or a love-affair that anybody had ever heard of--could Miss +Ellen have showed her heart. Even Mr. Spangler did not know that heart +as Dr. Lavendar did when he finished Ellen's little letter.--And Dr. +Lavendar didn't tell. "I am so happy," said Miss Ellen. Dr. Lavendar +may have looked at Mr. Spangler and wondered at the happiness. But, +after all, wonder, on somebody's part, is a feature of every +engagement. And if the wonder is caused only by the man's coat, and +not by his character, why be distressed about it? Mr. Spangler was an +honest man; if his mind was narrow, it was at least sincere; if his +heart was timid, it was very kind; if his nature was lazy, it was clean +and harmless. So why shouldn't Ellen Baily love him? And why +shouldn't Dr. Lavendar bubble over with happiness in Ellen's happiness? + +"She's the best girl in the world," he told Mr. Spangler. "I +congratulate you. She's a good child--a good child." + +Mr. Spangler agreed, in a somewhat solemn manner. + +"But David--how about David?" + +"My house shall always be open to Mrs. Spangler's relatives," said Mr. +Spangler, with Christian pride. + +"You are a good fellow, Spangler," Dr. Lavendar said; and listened, +chuckling, to Mr. Spangler's awkward and correct expressions of bliss. +For indeed he was very happy, and talked about Miss Ellen's virtues +(which so eminently qualified her to become his wife), as fatuously as +any lover could. + +"Hi, you, Danny," said Dr. Lavendar, after half an hour of it, "stop +growling." + +"There's somebody at the door," said Augustus Spangler, and went into +the entry to see who it was. He came back with a letter, which he +read, standing by the table; then he sat down and looked white. Dr. +Lavendar, joyously, was singing to himself: + + "'Ten-cent Jimmy and his minions + Cannot down the Woolly Horse.' + + +"Spangler, we must drink to your very good health and prospects. Let's +have Mary bring the glasses." + +"I fear," said Mr. Spangler--he stopped, his voice unsteady. "I +regret--" + +"Hullo!" said Dr. Lavendar, looking at him over his spectacles; "what's +wrong?" + +"I'm extremely sorry to say," said poor Mr. Spangler, "that--it can't +be." + +"A good glass of wine," said Dr. Lavendar, "never hurt--" + +"I refer," said Mr. Spangler, sighing, "to my relations with Miss Ellen +Baily." + +Dr. Lavendar looked at him blankly. + +"I have just received a letter," the poor man went on, "in which she +informs me that it can never be." His lip trembled, but he held +himself very straight and placed the letter in his breast-pocket with +dignity. + +"Spangler, what are you talking about?" + +"It appears," said Mr. Spangler, "that her brother--" + +"Fiddlesticks!" said Dr. Lavendar. "Has Ellen started up some +fantastic conscientiousness? Spangler, women's consciences are +responsible for much unhappiness in this world. But I won't have it in +my parish! I'll manage Ellen; trust me." He pulled at his pipe, which +had gone out in these moments of agitation. "I tell you, sir," he +said, striking a match on the bottom of his chair, "these saintly, +self-sacrificing women do a fine work for the devil, if they only knew +it, bless their hearts." + +"You misapprehend," said Mr. Spangler, wretchedly; and then told Miss +Ellen's news. It was brief enough, this last letter; there was no +blame of David; indeed, he had displayed, Miss Baily said, "a true +chivalry; but of course--" "Of course," said Mr. Spangler. + +But Dr. Lavendar broke out so fiercely that Danny squeaked and jumped +down out of the chair. "Upon my word; upon my word, Spangler, what +were you thinking of to let it go on? If I had been at home, it would +never--upon my _word_!" This was one of the times that Dr. Lavendar +felt the limitations of his office in regard to language. Mr. +Spangler, his elbows on his knees, his chin on hands, was staring +miserably at the floor. + +"I shall, I trust, meet it in the proper spirit," he said. + +Dr. Lavendar nodded. "Of course," he said. "Fortunately, she is +dealing with a man who has backbone--perhaps." + +Mr. Spangler sighed. "I regret to say that her presence in her school +under the circumstances does seem imperative." + +Dr. Lavendar lighted his pipe. "Do you mean on account of money, +Spangler?" + +"The support of Mr. David Baily and this--this _female_, must be met, I +suppose, by Miss Baily's school." + +"You are not so situated that you--" began Dr. Lavendar, delicately. + +"My circumstances," said Augustus Spangler, "are not affluent. I have +my residence in Mercer; and I supply, as you know. But my income +barely suffices for one. Four--would be out of the question." + +Dr. Lavendar looked at Ellen's little, happy note, lying half open on +the table. "Poor old jack-donkey of a David!" he groaned. + +"His selfishness," said Augustus Spangler, between his teeth, his voice +suddenly trembling with anger, "is perfectly incomprehensible to +me--perfectly incomprehensible! I endeavor always to exercise charity +in judging any human creature; but--really, _really_!" + +"It isn't selfishness as much as silliness. David hasn't mind enough +to be deliberately selfish. The poor fellow never thought. He never +has thought. Ellen has always done the thinking for the family. Well, +the harm's done. But, Spangler--" the old man stopped and glanced +sharply at the forlorn and angry man opposite him. Yes, he certainly +seemed very unhappy;--and as for Ellen! Dr. Lavendar could not bear +that thought. "Spangler, I'll stand by you. I won't let her offer you +up as well as herself. There must be some way out." + +Mr. Spangler shook his head hopelessly. "The support of four persons +on my small stipend is impossible." + +"Spangler, my boy!" said Dr. Lavendar, suddenly, "there is a way out. +What an old fool I am not to have thought of it! My dear fellow"--Dr. +Lavendar leaned over and tapped Mr. Spangler's knee, chuckling +aloud--"_that secretaryship_!" + +"Secretaryship?" Mr. Spangler repeated, vaguely. + +"You declined it? I know. But I don't believe Brown's got a man yet. +I heard from him on another matter, yesterday, and he didn't say he +had. Anyway, it's worth trying for. We can telegraph him to-morrow," +said Dr. Lavendar, excitedly. + +Mr. Spangler stared at him in bewilderment. "But," he said, +breathlessly, "I--I don't think--I fear I am not fit." He felt as if +caught in a sudden wind; his face grew red with agitation. "I declined +it!" he ended, gasping. + +"Fit?" said Dr. Lavendar. "My dear man, what fitness is needed? +There's nothing to it, Spangler, I assure you." Dr. Lavendar was very +much in earnest; he sat forward on the edge of his chair and +gesticulated with his pipe. "Don't be too modest, my boy." + +"Business entails such responsibilities," Mr. Spangler began, in a +frightened voice. + +"Oh, but this is mere routine," Dr. Lavendar interrupted; "they want a +clergyman--somebody with tact. There's a good deal of church politics +in it, I suppose, and they've got to have somebody who would never step +on anybody's toes." + +"I would never do that," said Mr. Spangler, earnestly, "but--" + +"No," said Dr. Lavendar, abruptly, his voice changing--"no, Spangler, +you never would." Then he was silent for a moment, pulling on his +pipe, wondering perhaps, in spite of himself, at Ellen. "No, you never +would. You see, you are just the man for the place. Brown said they +wanted somebody who was presentable; he said they didn't need any +particular abil--I mean any particular business ability." + +"But," said Mr. Spangler, "to give up my sacred calling--" + +"Spangler, come now! you don't 'call' very loudly, do you? There, my +dear boy, let an old fellow have his joke. I merely mean you don't +preach as often as if you had a regular parish. And you can supply, +you know, there just as well as here." + +"The Master's service is my first consideration," said Augustus +Spangler. + +Dr. Lavendar looked at him over his spectacles. "Mr. Spangler, the +Christian business-man serves the Master just as well as we do." + +"I should wish to reflect," said Mr. Spangler. + +"Of course." + +"Miss Baily would, I fear, object to going so far away." + +"If the place is still open, I'll manage Ellen," said Dr. Lavendar; but +he looked at Mr. Spangler narrowly. "And your own entreaties will, of +course, weigh with her if you show determination. I think you told me +you were pretty determined?" + +"I have," said Mr. Spangler, "an iron will; but that would not justify +me in insisting if Miss Baily--" His voice trailed off; it rose before +him--the far-off, bustling city, the office, the regular hours, the +people whose toes must not be stepped upon, the letters to write and +read, the papers to file, all the exact minutiae the position involved. +And his comfortable old house? his leisure? his ease? And Mary Ann? +Mary Ann would never consent to go so far! "I--I really--" he began. + +Dr. Lavendar frowned. "Mr. Spangler, I would not seem to urge you. +Ellen is too dear to us for that. But if you appreciate her as I +suppose you do--" + +"I do indeed!" broke in poor Augustus Spangler, fervently. + +"The way is probably open to you." + +"But--" said Mr. Spangler, and then broke out, with marked agitation; +"I--I really don't see how I could possibly--" Yet even as he spoke he +thought of Ellen's sweet eyes. "Good Heavens!" said Mr. Spangler, +passionately; "what shall I do?" + +But Dr. Lavendar was silent. Mr. Spangler got up and began to walk +about. + +"My affection and esteem," he said, almost weeping, "are unquestioned. +But there are other considerations." + +Dr. Lavendar said nothing. + +"It is a cruel situation," said Mr. Spangler. + +Dr. Lavendar looked down at his pipe. + +There was a long silence. Augustus Spangler walked back and forth. +Dr. Lavendar said never a word. + +"A man must consider his own fitness for such a position," Mr. Spangler +said, pleadingly. + +"Perhaps," Dr. Lavendar observed, mildly, "Ellen's affections are not +very deeply engaged? It will be better so." + +"But they are!" cried Mr. Spangler. "I assure you that they are! And +I--I was so happy," said the poor man; and sniffed suddenly, and tried +to find the pocket in his coat-tails. + +Dr. Lavendar looked at him out of the corner of his eye. + +Mr. Spangler stood stock-still; he opened and shut his hands, his lips +were pressed hard together. He seemed almost in bodily pain, for a +slight moisture stood out on his forehead. He was certainly in +spiritual pain. The Ideal of Sacrifice was being born in Mr. +Spangler's soul. His mild, kind, empty face grew almost noble; +certainly it grew very solemn. + +"Dr. Lavendar," he said, in a low voice, "_I will do it._" + +Dr. Lavendar was instantly on his feet; there was a grip of the hand, +and, for a moment, no words. + +"I'll telegraph Mr. Brown," said Mr. Spangler, breathlessly. + +"So will I!" said Dr. Lavendar. + +Mr. Spangler was scarlet with heroism. "It means giving up my house +and my very congenial surroundings, and I fear Mary Ann will feel too +old to accompany me; but with--with Ellen!" + +"She's worth six Mary Anns, whoever Mary Ann may be," said Dr. Lavendar. + +"You may have thought me hesitant," said Mr. Spangler, "but I felt that +I must weigh the matter thoroughly." + +"Why, certainly, man. It was your duty to think what was best for +Ellen." + +"Exactly," Mr. Spangler said, getting his breath again, and beginning +to feel very happy. "And duty is, I hope, my watchword; but I had to +reflect," he ended, a little uncomfortably. + +But Dr. Lavendar would not let him be uncomfortable. They sat down +again, and Dr. Lavendar filled another pipe, and until long after +midnight they talked things over--the allowance to be made to David and +his bride, the leasing of the house in Mercer, the possible obduracy of +Mary Ann, and, most of all, the fine conduct of the Reverend Mr. +Spangler. + +But when they had said good-night, Dr. Lavendar sat awhile longer by +his fireside, his pipe out, his old white head on his breast. + +"The minute I get back," he said to himself after a while, +sheepishly--"the minute I get back I poke my finger into somebody +else's pie. But I think 'twas right: Ellen loves him; and he's not a +bad man.--And Brown don't want brains." + +Then he chuckled and got up, and blew out the lamp. + + + + +THE NOTE + + +I + +Of course everybody in Old Chester knew that there was something queer +about Mary Gordon's marriage--not the mere fact of the man, queer as he +was; for, to Old Chester's ideas, he was very queer.... A +"travelling-man," to begin with--and the Gordons had a line of scholars +and professional men behind them--a drummer, if you please. In theory, +Old Chester was religiously democratic; it plumed itself upon its +Christian humility, and every Sunday it publicly acknowledged that Old +Chesterians were like the rest of humanity to the extent of being +miserable sinners. But, all the same, that Mary Gordon should marry a +"person" of that sort-- + +"Dear me!" said Old Chester. + +However, travelling-men may be worthy; they need not necessarily use +perfumery or put pomade upon their shiny, curly, black hair. But Mr. +Algernon Keen was obviously not worthy, and he was saturated with +perfumery, and his black, curly hair was sleek with oil. Furthermore, +he was very handsome: his lips were weak and pouting and red; his eyes +liquid and beautiful; his plump cheeks slightly pink. One may believe +that such physical characteristics do not imply moral qualities; but +only youth has such a belief. When one has lived a little while in the +world, one comes to know that a human soul prisoned in such pretty +flesh is piteously hampered. Yet Mary Gordon, meeting this poor +creature by chance, fell deeply in love with him. Of course such +falling in love was queer--it was inexplainable; for Mary was a nice +girl--not, of course, of the caliber of some Old Chester girls; she had +not the mind of Alice Gray nor the conscience of Sally Smith; but she +was a quiet, biddable, good child--at least so far as anybody knew. +But nobody knew much about her. In the first place, the Gordons lived +just far enough out of Old Chester to miss its neighborliness. Mary +was not often seen in town, and in her own home her brother Alex's loud +personality crushed her into a colorless silence. Her father did not +crush her--he merely did not notice her; but he was fond of her--at +least he had the habit of indifferent affection. She always came into +the library to say good-night to him; and he, sitting by the fire in a +big, winged chair, a purple silk handkerchief spread over his white +locks, to keep off possible draughts, would turn his cheek up to her +mechanically; but the soft touch of her lips never made him lift his +eyes from his book. She never kissed Alex good-night; she was openly +afraid of him. Alex was rude to her and made her wait on him, throwing +her a curt "thank you" once in a while, generally coupled with some +sarcastic reference to her slowness or stupidity--for, indeed, the +child was both slow and stupid. Perhaps, had she been loved-- But no +one can tell now how that would have been. At any rate, there was a +pathetic explanation of loneliness to account for the fact that she was +drawn to this Algernon Keen, who had nothing to recommend him except a +cheap and easy kindliness that cost him no effort and was bestowed on +everybody. + +[Illustration: "SHE ALWAYS CAME INTO THE LIBRARY TO SAY GOOD-NIGHT TO +HIM"] + +Of course the two men, her father and brother, refused to consider Keen +as Mary's suitor at all. Alex nearly had a fit over it; in his rage +and mortification he took all Old Chester into his confidence. He went +to the Tavern--this was the day after Mary had, trembling and crying, +told her little love affair to her father and begged his consent--Alex +went to the Tavern and ordered the snickering, perfumed youth out of +town. + +"Well, I guess not," said Algy. "This town doesn't belong to you, does +it?" + +Alex stammered with passion: "If--if you dare to address Miss Gordon +again, I'll--I'll--I'll horsewhip you," he said, his pale eyes bulging +from his crimsoning face. + +"I guess Mary has a right to let me talk to her if she wants to; this +is a free country," the other blustered. And Alex, loudly, on the +Tavern steps, cursed him for a skunk, a-- Well, Old Chester was never +able to quote Alex. He came to his senses after this dreadful +exhibition of himself, and was horribly mortified. But +post-mortification cannot undo the deed, and before night everybody in +Old Chester knew that Mary Gordon had fallen in love with--"the person +who brings samples to Tommy Dove's apothecary shop." + +Old Chester was truly sorry for Mary; "for," as Mrs. Barkley said, +"love's love, whether it's suitable or not; and Mary has such a lonely +life, poor child! Well, it will take time for her to get over it." + +It seemed to take a good deal of time. That winter she grew pale and +was often ill. The poor little thing seemed to creep into her shell to +brood over her blighted hopes. Once she was downright sick for a week, +and Mr. Gordon sent for William King. Willy said at first that Mary +had something on her mind (which certainly Mary's family did not need +to be told). + +"I believe she's thinking about that scoundrel yet," said Alex. "But +she has just got to understand that we'll never allow it, Willy. You +may as well make that clear to her, and let her get over her moping." + +William King looked thoughtful and said he would call again. + +However, any of us Old Chester girls could have enlightened the doctor. +"Mary was pining away for her lover;" that was all there was to it. +But the lover never appeared, being engaged in offering samples of +pomade and perfumery to apothecary stores in other regions. And then, +suddenly, the queer thing happened.... + +The _Globe_ announced: "Married--by Dr. Lavendar, Mary Gordon to +Algernon Keen"--and the date, which was the night before. + +"_What!_" said Old Chester at the breakfast-table, and gaped out of its +windows to see Mary, crying very much, get into the stage, not at her +father's house, but at the Tavern door, if you please, and drive away +with the Person. What did it mean? "Was Alex at home? Did he +consent?" demanded Old Chester; for Alex had been away from home for a +week. By noon it was decided that Alex had consented; for it came out +that he had returned to Old Chester the previous afternoon, and with +him, shrinking into the corner of the stage, was Mr. Algy Keen. + +"Get out," Alex said to him when the stage drew up at the Gordon house. +The man got out, shambling and stumbling, with a furtive look over his +shoulder, for Alex Gordon walked behind him to the front door, his +right hand gripped upon his walking-stick, his left clinched at his +side. + +"He kep' just behind the feller," the stage-driver told Van Horn at the +Tavern afterwards--"just behind him, like as if he was afraid the +feller'd run away from him. But the feller, he stopped right at the +steps, and he turned around, and he says, 'Mind you,' he says (mad as a +hatter)--'mind you,' he says, 'I'm not _brought_, I've +_come_';--whatever that means," the stage-driver ruminated. + +So much Old Chester knew the day after Mary Gordon's wedding. And it +naturally sought to know a little more. + +"I suppose her father feels it very much?" ventured Mrs. Barkley to Dr. +Lavendar. + +"Any man feels the marriage of his only girl," said Dr. Lavendar, +briefly. And Mrs. Barkley held her tongue. But Mrs. Drayton, who was +just then anxious about her soul and found it necessary to consult Dr. +Lavendar as to the unpardonable sin--Mrs. Drayton was not so easily +squelched. "My Jean says that the Gordon's Rachel told her that Alex +brought the man into the house by the ear, and then sent her for you, +running, and--" + +"She didn't bring me into the house by the ear," said Dr. Lavendar. + +"But why, do you suppose, was it all so sudden?" said Mrs. Drayton; "it +almost looks--" + +"How do you know it was sudden?" said Dr. Lavendar. + +"Well, my Jean said--" + +"It may have been sudden to Jean," said the old man; "possibly Mary had +not taken Jean into her confidence. Some folks don't confide in +servants, you know." + +But Mrs. Drayton was proof against so delicate a thrust. "Well, I only +hope she won't repent at her leisure;--if there's nothing but haste to +repent of. If there's anything else--" + +"I'll say good-day, Mrs. Drayton," interrupted Dr. Lavendar; "and as +for your question about the unpardonable sin, ma'am, why, just be ready +to forgive other folks and you needn't be afraid of the unpardonable +sin for yourself." + +He took his hat and stick and went thumping down-stairs. In the hall +he met William King going up to see the invalid, and said, with a gasp: +"Willy, my boy, a good, honest murderer is easier to deal with than +some milder kinds of wrong-doing." + +"Dr. Lavendar," said William, "I'd rather have a patient with small-pox +than treat some lighter ills that I could name." + +As for Mrs. Drayton, she told her daughter that Dr. Lavendar was very +unspiritual, and did not understand the distress of a sensitive +temperament. "Even the slightest error fills me with remorse," said +Mrs. Drayton. "Dear me! I should think Mary Gordon would know what +remorse is--for, of course, there is only one thing to think." + + + + +II + +Old Chester thought the one thing. No evasions of Dr. Lavendar's, no +miserable silence on the part of the disgraced father and the +infuriated brother, could banish that one thought. But nothing +definite was known. "Although," as everybody said to everybody else, +"of course, Dr. Lavendar knows the whole thing, and probably Willy King +does, too." If they did, they kept their knowledge to themselves. But +Dr. Lavendar went often to the Gordon house that winter. "They're +pretty lonely, those two men," he told Willy once--perhaps six months +afterwards. + +"Would either of them have softened if the baby had lived, do you +think, sir?" William said. And Dr. Lavendar shook his head. + +"Perhaps her father might. But Alex will never forgive her, I'm +afraid." + +And Alex never did forgive her--not even when she died, as, happily, +she did six or seven years later. She died; and life closed over the +miserable little tragedy as water closes, rippling, over some poor, +broken thing flung into its depths. + +"_Thank God!_" Alex said, when he heard she was gone. + +"You may thank God for her," Dr. Lavendar said, turning upon him +sternly, "but ask mercy for yourself, because this door of opportunity +is shut upon you forever." + +Dr. Lavendar had brought them the news. They did not ask how it had +come to him; it was enough to hear it. The two men, Mary's father and +brother, listened while he told them, briefly: "She died yesterday. +The funeral will be to-morrow, at twelve." + +"Thank God!" Alex said, hoarsely, and lifted his hand and cursed the +man who had dishonored them. + +And Dr. Lavendar turned upon him in solemn anger. "Your opportunity is +gone--so far as she is concerned. There yet remains, however, the +poor, foolish sinner whom she loved--" + +"Damn him!" said Alex. + +"_--and who loved her._" + +Old Mr. Gordon dropped his face in his hands and groaned. + +"Who loved her," Dr. Lavendar repeated. + +"For that, at least, he cannot be indifferent to us, whatever he has +made us suffer." + +Neither of his listeners spoke. It was growing dark in the long room, +walled to the ceiling with books and lighted only by a fire sputtering +in the grate. Mr. Gordon, sitting in his big, winged chair close to +the hearth, said, after a long pause: "You said--to-morrow, Edward? +Where?" + +"In Mercer. I shall go up on the morning stage." + +Again the silence fell. Alex got up and walked to the window and +looked out. "Why didn't you bring Danny in, Dr. Lavendar?" he said, +carelessly; "the little brute will freeze out there in your buggy. +I'll call him in." He turned to leave the room, and then stopped. + +"Alexander, _sit down_," said Dr. Lavendar. + +Alex sat down with involuntary quickness; then he threw his legs out in +front of him and thrust his hands down into his pockets. "Dr. +Lavendar, this is our affair. I'm obliged to you for your kind +intentions; but this is our affair. You've told your news, and we have +listened respectfully--if I should say gladly you might be shocked. So +I only say respectfully. But you have spoken; we have listened. That +is all there is to it. The thing is finished. The book is closed. I +say thank God! I don't know what my father says. If he takes my +advice, for I've been a good son to him; I never gave him any cause to +be ashamed;--if he takes my advice, he'll forget the whole affair. +That's what I mean to do. The book is closed. I shall never think of +it again." He got up and walked about with affectation of vast +indifference. + +"Alex, you will probably never think of anything else," Dr. Lavendar +said, half pitifully; and then, sternly, again: "I can't make you +accept the opportunity that still is open to you; but I will point it +out to you: Come up to Mercer to-morrow with your father and me." + +"Mercer!" the younger man cried out, furiously; "you mean to see her +buried? To dance on her grave and pull the man out and spit in his +face and--" He stopped, his face suddenly purpling, his light eyes +staring and rolling; then he stumbled and jerked himself together, and +lurched forward into a chair, breathing loudly. The two old men, +trembling with horror, ran to him. "Oh, Edward," John Gordon +said--"oh, Edward, why did you rouse him? He can't speak of it, he +can't think of it. Alex--there!--we'll say no more about it." + +[Illustration: "LURCHED FORWARD INTO A CHAIR, BREATHING LOUDLY"] + +Alex stared at them with glassy eyes, in silence; his father kept +bemoaning himself and imploring his old friend to say no more. "You +won't speak of it again, Edward? He goes out of his head with rage. +Promise me not to speak of it any more." + +"No, John; no," Dr. Lavendar said, sadly; and as Alex's eyes cleared +into bewildered consciousness, the old minister stood a little aside +while the father helped the son to his feet and led him away. When he +came back, shuffling feebly down the long, darkening room, Dr. Lavendar +was still sitting by the fire. "He's quiet now; I--I think he's +ashamed. I hope so. But he won't come out of his room." + +Dr. Lavendar nodded. + +John Gordon spread his purple handkerchief over his white locks, with +shaking hands, and then sat down, tumbling back in his chair in a +forlorn heap. "Edward," he said, feebly, "tell me about it. It was on +Thursday? Had she been sick long?" Then, in a low voice, "She--didn't +lack for comforts?" + +"No; I think not. The man was as tender with her as--as you might have +been. She was sick--I mean in bed--two weeks. She had been ailing for +a long time; you remember I spoke to you about it about a month ago. +And again last week." + +"You--saw her?" + +"Yes." + +"More than once?" + +"Oh, many times," Dr. Lavendar said, simply; "many times, of course." + +John Gordon put out his hand; Dr. Lavendar shook it silently. Then +suddenly the old man broke out, in weak, complaining anger: "He +wouldn't let me write to her. I would have sent her some money. He +wouldn't hear of it. He was awful, Edward. I--I didn't dare." + +Dr. Lavendar was silent. It had grown so dark that he could not see +the father's face. Suddenly, from behind the leafless trees at the +foot of the garden, a smouldering yellow glow of sunset broke across +the gloom of the room, and touched the purple cowl and the veined hands +covering the aged face. Dr. Lavendar sighed. + +"What can I do, Edward? I can't go to-morrow. You see I can't." + +"Yes, you can, John." + +"He would die; he'd have another attack. His heart is bad, Edward." + +"Oh, I'm afraid it is, I'm afraid it is. But John, you do your duty. +Never mind Alex's heart. That isn't your affair." + +"Oh, I couldn't possibly go--not possibly," the father protested, +nervously. + +The glow died out. The room grew dusk and then dark. Mr. Gordon got +up and reached to the mantel-shelf for a spill. "Mary used to make the +spills for me," he said, vaguely. "Now our Rachel does it, and she +doesn't half bend the end over." He lighted the spill, the little +flame flickering upon his poor old face peering out from under his +purple handkerchief. "Oh, Alex ought not to be so hard. I would go +with you to-morrow, Edward, but I can't, you know. I can't." Then, +with a shaking hand, he took off the ground-glass globe and lighted the +tall lamp that stood among a litter of papers on the library-table. +"You see how it is, Edward, don't you? I can't possibly go." + +"You will be sorry if you don't, John." + +"I'll be sorry anyhow," he burst out. "I'm always sorry. I've been +sorry all my life. My children are my sorrow." + + + + +III + +Algy Keen, his face swollen with crying, his black hair limp and +uncurled, sat on the edge of the bed in the back room of a dingy Mercer +lodging-house. The windows had been left open after Mary had been +taken away, so that the room was cold; and there were still two chairs +facing each other,--a certain distance apart. The room was in dreary +order, and there was the scent of flowers in the chill air. The bed +was tumbled, for the forlorn man had dropped down upon it to rest. But +he was too tired to rest, and was sitting up again, dangling his +stockinged feet on the shabby carpet and talking to Dr. Lavendar. He +snuffled, and his poor, weak lips shook, and he rubbed the back of his +trembling hand across his nose. Algy had had broken nights for a +fortnight, and the last three days and nights of Mary's life he had +almost no sleep at all; these two days when she lay dead in their bare +room he had slept and wept and slept again; and now, when he and Dr. +Lavendar had come back from the funeral, he sat on the edge of the bed +and whimpered with weakness and grief. + +"Well, sir, she was a good girl," he said. "I don't care what anybody +says, she was a good girl. I ain't saying that things was just right, +to begin with. But that wasn't Mary's fault. No; she was a good girl. +And her folks treated her bad. They'd always treated her mean bad. My +goodness! if they'd 'a' let me come to see her respectable, as you +would any of your lady friends, 'stead of skulkin' 'round--... _I can't +stand the smell of those flowers_," he broke out, in a high, crying +voice; "I left them all out there at the cemetery, and I smell them +here--I smell them here," he moaned, trembling. + +"I like to smell them," Dr. Lavendar said. "They mean the old +friendship for Mary. Mrs. King sent them. She's our doctor's wife in +Old Chester. She always liked Mary." + +"I don't see how she could help it," Algy said, his face crumpling with +tears. "Well, she was a good girl. And she was a good wife, sir, too. +I tell you, you never saw a better wife. I used to come home tired, +and there'd be my slippers out for me. Yes, sir; she never missed it. +And she was always pleasant, too; you mayn't call just being pleasant, +religion, but I--" + +"I do," Dr. Lavendar interposed. + +"Well, so do I," Algy said, his face lightening a little. "I call it a +better religion than her folks showed. Well, now, sir, I loved +Mary"--he stopped and cried, openly--"I loved her (I didn't need that +hell-hound of a brother to come after me)--yes, I was just as fond of +her; and yet there was times when I come home at night--not--not +quite--well, maybe a little--you know?" + +"Yes," said Dr. Lavendar. + +"But, my God, sir, Mary was pleasant. It isn't every woman that would +be pleasant then, is it?" + +"No, it isn't, Algy." + +"Course, next day she'd tell me I done wrong. (She never told me so at +the time--Mary had sense.) And I always said: 'Well, yes, Mary, that's +so. And I'll never do it again.' But she was pleasant. Course I +don't mean she was lively. She used to remember--well, that we'd made +a mistake. _You_ know? And she used to kind a brood on it. She +talked to you considerably about it, I guess. She said you comforted +her. She said you said that maybe her--her mistake had brought her to +be kind o' more religious--saved her, as you might say." + +"I said that she had come to know her Saviour through His forgiveness." + +"I don't think Mary needed any forgiveness," the poor husband said, +with tearful resentment; "I think her folks needed it." + +"I'm sorry for them," Dr. Lavendar said. "They have got to remember +that they might have been kinder. That's a hard thing to have to +remember." + +The young man nodded. "I hope they'll remember it, hard!" + +"They will," said Dr. Lavendar, sighing. + +"I spent my last cent on Mary," Algernon rambled on. "I got her a good +coffin--a stylish coffin. The plate was solid silver. The man wanted +me to take a plated one. I says 'no,' I says; 'I don't get plated +things for my wife if it takes my last cent.' Well, it just about took +it. But I don't care. Her people threw her off, and I did for her. I +spent my last cent." + +"You took her from them in the first place, Algernon," the old minister +said. "Don't forget that you sinned." + +"Well, you said she was forgiven," the other broke out, angrily. "I +guess God's more easy than some people." + +"He is." + +"Well, then," Algy said, resentfully; "what's the use of talking?" + +Dr. Lavendar was silent. + +"I don't begrudge a cent I spent on her," Algy went on. "I had laid by +$1140 to set up a place of my own here in Mercer. At least, it wasn't +me; I'm not one to save much; it was Mary did it. But these last eight +months have taken it all, 'cause I 'ain't done hardly any work; +couldn't be away from her on the road, you know; so we had to live on +that money. I could 'a' got a cheaper coffin; but I wouldn't. As for +the doctor, I got the best in town. I don't believe in economizing on +your wife. And I paid him. I paid him $204 yesterday morning, though +it seems high, considering he didn't cure her. But I wasn't going to +let Mary get buried owing the doctor. And I paid for the coffin. +'Spot cash,' I says to the man, 'make it spot cash, and name your +figure.' He took off $17. Well, how much do you suppose I've got left +now, Dr. Lavendar, out of $1140? Just $23, sir. I don't care; I don't +begrudge Mary a cent. I thought the coffin looked handsome, didn't +you?--_Oh, I wish somebody had 'a' moved those chairs when we were +gone!_" he cried, his voice shrill and breaking. + +Dr. Lavendar got up and pushed one of the chairs back against the wall +and brought the other to Algy's side. The young man laid his hand on +it and began to cry. + + + + +IV + +"No, I suppose you don't care to hear about it, John. But I want to +tell you; so I guess you'll listen to please me?" + +John Gordon said nothing. + +"It isn't a long story," Dr. Lavendar said, and told him briefly of the +funeral. When he ended there was silence. Then, "John," Dr. Lavendar +said. + +"Yes, Edward." + +"The man is in need." + +"What's that to me?" the other burst out. + +"Much," said Dr. Lavendar; "it gives you a chance." + +"You mean a chance to give him some money?" said the other. "Good God! +To pay the scoundrel for what he did to us? Edward, you don't +understand human nature." + +"He spent his last cent making Mary comfortable, John. She told me so +herself." + +"I will never give that--creature one penny of my clean money." + +Dr. Lavendar said nothing. + +The older man bent forward, shivering, and stirred the fire. The coal +broke into sputtering fragments and the flames roared up into the soot. +"Alex would never listen to giving him any money." + +"Don't ask him to listen to it. Haven't you got your own check-book?" + +"Let him rot. That's what Alex says." + +"I don't believe it's what you say, John, because he was good to +Mary;--and you were not." + +Mr. Gordon groaned. + +"Well, I won't give him anything; I'll lend it, possibly." + +Dr. Lavendar frowned and got up. + +Mr. Gordon put out a trembling, detaining hand. + +"Edward, you don't understand.... How much do you want for him?" + +"He had saved about $1200 to go into some business. It's all gone." + +"Well, I won't give it to him," the other repeated, with feeble +sharpness; "I'll lend it--to please you." + +"I'm sorry you haven't a better motive." + +John Gordon got up and went over to his library-table and fumbled about +in one of the drawers for his check-book. "I'm a fool," he said, +fretfully; "I don't know but what I'm worse. Lending money to-- But +you say he was good to her? Poor Mary! Oh!" he ended, half to +himself, "I don't know why Alex is so hard." Then he took his quill +and began to scrawl his check. "I'd rather see him starve," he said. + +"No, you wouldn't," Dr. Lavendar said, calmly. + +"Well, there! Take it! Get a receipt." + +"Johnny, think better of it." + +"You needn't take it if you don't want to," the other said, sullenly. + +Dr. Lavendar took it, and John Gordon called after him, + +"You won't tell Alex?" + +Dr. Lavendar shook his head and sighed. As he drove home he said to +himself that a loan was better than nothing. "But, Danny, my boy," he +added, "what a chance he had! Well, he'll take it yet--he'll take it +yet. The trouble with me, Daniel, is, I'm in too much of a hurry to +make folks good. I must reform." + +Danny blinked a grave agreement, and Dr. Lavendar, dropping his +shortcomings joyfully from his mind, began to sing to himself: + + "Oh! what has caused this great commotion--motion--motion + Our country through?" + + +When, however, a day or two later, Dr. Lavendar went up to Mercer to +take the check to Algernon Keen, he found to his astonishment that it +was not so easy to secure to his old friend even the smaller and meaner +opportunity of lending, much less giving. + +At first, Algernon looked at him open-mouthed. "_Him_--offering to +lend money to--?" His astonishment robbed him of words. Then into his +poor, shallow face came the first keen touch of shame. But instantly +he was ashamed of his shame,--ashamed, like so many of us strange human +creatures, of the stirring of God within him. He didn't want their +dirty money, he said. They thought themselves so good, they couldn't +stomach Mary. Well, then, they were too good for him to touch their +money. His voice shook with angry grief. His bitterness was genuine, +even though he used it to hide that first regenerative pang of shame. +No; Dr. Lavendar could take their money back to them. "I spent my last +cent, just about, on Mary," he said; "and I didn't begrudge it, either." + +"I'm sure you didn't begrudge it." + +Algy's weak mouth shook and his eyes filled; he turned away and stared +out of the window. "He better have offered to lend her some money than +me," he said. "I bet he's glad she's dead." + +(Dr. Lavendar thought of Alex.) "He wants to help you now for her +sake," he said. + +"I don't want his money," the younger man insisted, brokenly; "he let +her die." + +"I think that it would please her to have you take it." + +"I don't want to be under obligations to those people," Algernon said, +doggedly. + +"If Mr. Gordon has your note, it's business." + +Algy hesitated. "I suppose he thinks I'd never pay it back?" + +"If he takes your note, it looks as if he expected to be repaid." + +"It's treating me white, I'll say that," Algernon said. And again his +face reddened slowly to his forehead and he would not meet Dr. +Lavendar's eye. "But I don't want their favors," he cried, +threateningly. + +"It's business, if you give your note," Dr. Lavendar repeated. "Come, +Algernon, let her father do something for her sake. And as for +you--it's a chance to play the man; don't you see that?" + +Algy caught his breath. "Damn!--if I borrowed his money I'd pay +it--I'd pay it, if it took the blood out of me." + +"I will make your feeling clear to him," Dr. Lavendar said. "Let's +make out the note now, Algy." + +The old man got up and hunted about for pen and paper. "Here's a +prescription blank," he said; "that will do." An ink-bottle stood on +the narrow mantel-shelf, a rusty pen corroding in its thickening +depths; but Dr. Lavendar, in a very small, shaky old hand, managed to +scrawl that "Algernon Keen, for value received, promised to pay to John +Gordon--" + +--"in a year," Algy broke in; "I ain't going to have it run but a +year--and put in the interest, sir. I'll have no favors from 'em. +I'll pay interest; I'll pay six per cent.--like anybody else would." + +--"and interest on same," Dr. Lavendar added. "Now, you sign here, +Algy. There! that will please Mary." + +"Oh, my!" said Algernon, his poor, red-rimmed eyes filling--"oh, my! +my! what will I do without her?" + + + + +V + +The next day Dr. Lavendar carried the note back to old John Gordon, who +took it, his mouth tightening, and glanced at it in silence. Then he +shuffled over to a safe in the corner of his library and pulled out a +japanned tin box. Dr. Lavendar watched him fumble with the combination +lock, holding the box up to catch the light, and shaking it a little +until the lid clicked open. "He'll never pay it," John Gordon said. + +"He'll try to," Dr. Lavendar said; "but it's doubtful, of course. He's +a sickly fellow, and he hasn't much gumption. But if there's any good +in him, your trusting him will bring it out." + +"There isn't any good in him," the other said, violently. + +And that was the last they said about it; for the time Algernon Keen +dropped out of their lives. + +He set up his little store in Mercer, and struggled along, advertising +his samples of perfumery and pomade upon his own person; trying to +drink a little less, for Mary's sake; whimpering with loneliness and +sick-headache in his grimy room in the hotel where Mary had died; and +never forgetting for a day that promise to pay on the back of the +prescription paper in John Gordon's possession. But when the year came +round, on the 2d of December, he had not a cent in hand to meet his +obligation. And that was why Dr. Lavendar heard of him again. Would +the doctor--this on perfumed paper, ruled, and with gilt edges--would +the doctor "ask him if he would extend?" Algernon could pay the +interest now; but that was all he could do. He wasn't in very good +shape, he said. He'd been in the hospital for a month, and had had to +hire a salesman. "I guess he cheated me; he was a kind of fancy +talker, and got me to let him buy some stock; he got off his slice, I +bet." That was the reason, Algy said, that he could not make any +payment on the principal. But he was going to introduce a new article +for the lips (no harmful drugs in it), called Rosebloom--first-class +thing; and he expected he'd do first rate with it. And in another year +he'd surely pay that note. It hung over him, he said, like a ton. "I +guess he don't want it paid any more than I want to pay it," Algy +ended, simply. + +Of course Dr. Lavendar asked for an extension, and got it, though John +Gordon's lip curled. "I never expected to hear from him or his note +again," he said. "Probably his honesty won't last over another year." + +Dr. Lavendar went up to Mercer to see Algy, and they talked things over +in the store between the calls of two customers. Algy's hair was sleek +and curly as before, for business is business; but he looked draggled +and forlorn; his color had gone and he was thinner, and there were +lines on his forehead, and his bright, hazel eyes, kind and shallow as +those of some friendly animal, had come into their human birthright of +worry. "It's this note that takes the spunk out of me," he said. "If +I could only get it paid! Then I'd hire a house and have the shop in +front. I've thought some I'd get married, too. It's hard on your +digestion living in one of these here cheap hotels. But I can't get +over thinking of Mary. I don't seem to relish other ladies. I suppose +they're all right; but Mary was so pleasant." And his eyes reddened. +"And, anyway, it would cost more to keep a wife, and I don't propose to +spend money that way. _He's_ treated me white, I'll say that for him; +and I propose to show him--Dr. Lavendar, I haven't drunk too much only +three times in the last year--honest, I haven't. I thought you'd think +that would please Mary?" + +"I'm sure it does," said Dr. Lavendar. + +"I suppose you think," the drummer said, sheepishly, "that it was +pretty darned foolish to drop three times?" + +"I think pretty soon it won't be even three times," Dr. Lavendar +declared; "but it's hard work; I know it is." + +Algernon looked at him eagerly. "You know how it is yourself, maybe?" + +"Well, I never happened to want to take too much," Dr. Lavendar said, +gently; "if I had, it would have been hard, I'm sure." + +"Well, you bet," Algy told him, knowingly. Then they talked the +business over, and Dr. Lavendar clapped Algy on the shoulder and said +he believed he'd have that house and shop yet. "Rosebloom may be a +gold-mine," said Dr. Lavendar. Then he gave Algy some advice about the +window display, and suggested a little gas-jet on the counter where +gentlemen might light their cigars; and he told Algy what brand he +smoked himself, and recommended it, in spite of its price. Algy +smacked his thigh at that, and said Dr. Lavendar had the making of a +smart business man in him. Indeed, Algy felt so cheered that he opened +his show-case and displayed a box of his new cosmetic. + +"Look here, doctor," he said, earnestly; "I'll give you a box. +Yes--yes! I will. I'd just as lief as not. You maybe wouldn't want +to use it yourself; gentlemen don't, often. But give it to one of your +lady friends. Do, now, doctor. It don't cost me much of anything--and +I'm sure you've been kind to me." + +And Dr. Lavendar accepted the lip-salve, and thanked Algy warmly; then +he said that the picture on the lid of the tight-waisted lady was very +striking. + +"That's so!" cried Algy. "She's a beauty. She makes me think of Mary." + +Algernon had presented Dr. Lavendar with a cigar, and the old minister +was smoking it in great comfort, his feet on the base of a rusty, +melon-shaped iron stove; Algy was leaning back against the counter, his +elbows on the show-case behind him. "Dr. Lavendar," he said, looking +at the toe of his boot, "I--got something on my mind." + +"Well, off with it, quick as you can." + +"I've been thinking about the Day of Judgment." + +"Ho!" said Dr. Lavendar. + +"Well, sir, I get to thinking: if everybody's sins are to be read out +loud before all the world--standing up, rows and rows and rows of 'em. +Can't see the end of 'em--so many. I kind a' hate to think that Mary +might hear--things about me." + +"Well, Keen," said Dr. Lavendar, slowly, "I don't believe it will be +that way." He hesitated a little. After all, it is a risk to take +away even a false belief, unless you can put a true one in its place. + +Algy stopped looking at the toe of his boot. "_What!_" said he. + +"Now just look at it," said Dr. Lavendar. "Who would be the better for +that kind of publicity? Good people wouldn't like it; it would pain +them. You say yourself that Mary wouldn't like to hear that you did +wrong three times." + +"No; she wouldn't," Algernon said. + +"Wicked people might enjoy it," Dr. Lavendar ruminated, "but--" + +--"but God don't cater to the wicked?" Algy finished, quickly. + +"That's just it," said Dr. Lavendar. "He doesn't. But I tell you what +it is, Algy, it is painful enough to just have your Saviour tell you +your sins when you're sitting all alone--or, maybe, lying awake in the +dark; that's a dreadful time to hear them. It's worse than having rows +of people listening." + +Algernon nodded. "Maybe you're right," he said, sighing. + +The birth of a soul is a painful process. But when he went away Dr. +Lavendar's eyes were full of hope. + +And he grew more hopeful when, as the next year came round and Algernon +again asked for extension, he was able to carry back, not only the note +and the interest to John Gordon, but a payment of $24. What that $24 +meant of self-denial and perseverance Dr. Lavendar knew almost as well +as Algy himself. + +"I don't know whether you meant it, John," he said, as the old man took +the note and locked it up in the japanned box--"I don't know that it +was your intention, but I believe the responsibility of debt is going +to make a man of Mary's husband." + +"Debt doesn't generally work that way," Mr. Gordon said. + +"No; it doesn't. But He maketh the wrath of man to praise Him, once in +a while, Johnny." + +"It's nothing to me. I'm done with him." + +"'If the court knows itself, which it think it do,'" said Dr. Lavendar, +chuckling, "you're just beginning with him." + +"I'd rather have him decent, if that's what you mean. But I despise +him." + +"I don't," said Dr. Lavendar. "I tell you, John, we're poor, limited +critters, you and I. We felt that no good could possibly come out of +Nazareth. I must confess that when I got you to send him that money I +was thinking more of the benefit to you than any effect it might have +on him. I thought he didn't amount to two cents. To my shame I say +it. But I was blind as a bat; the Lord had sent him a great +experience--_Mary's death_. Well, it was like a clap of thunder on a +dark night; the lightning showed up a whole landscape I didn't know. +There was honesty; and there was perseverance; and there was love, mind +you, most of all. Love! I tell you, Johnny, only the Lord knows what +is lying in the darkness of human nature. In fact," said Dr. Lavendar, +reflectively, "as I get older there is nothing more constantly +astonishing to me than the goodness of the Bad;--unless it is the +badness of the Good. But that's not so pleasant. No, sir; I don't +despise Mr. Keen." + +Nor did he despise Algy when the note had to be extended still again, +although again Algy was ready not only with the interest, but with +$37.50 of the principal. + + + + +VI + +As Algernon struggled along with Rosebloom and cheap cigars and bright +red and green perfumed soaps, the debt was lessened and lessened; and +the back of the note was almost covered with extensions, yet only $317 +had been paid off. In spite of himself John Gordon grew interested; he +would not have admitted it for the world, but he wanted to hear about +Dr. Lavendar's annual visits to Mercer; and Dr. Lavendar used to drive +out to smoke a pipe with him and tell him what Algy had said and done. +One day--it was seven years after the note had been drawn--a clear, +heartless winter day, with a cold, high wind that made the old minister +look so blue that John Gordon mixed a glass of whiskey-and-water and +made him drink it before they began to talk--that day Mr. Gordon went +so far as to ask a question about Algy. "Has he given you anything +more for your complexion, Edward?" he said, with a faint grin. + +"He gave me a smelling-bottle this time. I handed it over to Mary, and +told her not to let me get a sniff of it; and she said, 'Sakes! it's +beautiful!' But I'll tell you something he said, Johnny: he said that +his debt to you was a millstone round his neck. And yet the truth is, +it's a life-buoy!" + +John Gordon looked at the soiled, crumpled paper, with its dates of +extensions, and smiled grimly. "Well, I won't deprive him of his +life-buoy." + +"The store is doing pretty well," Dr. Lavendar went on--and stopped, +because Alex entered. + +"Whose store is doing pretty well," he asked, civilly enough--for Alex. + +"Algernon Keen's," said Dr. Lavendar. + +Alex's face changed; he looked from one to the other of the old men by +the fire, and he saw his father's hand open and close nervously. But +he restrained himself until their visitor had gone. He even went out +into the sharp, bright wind and unhitched Dr. Lavendar's little blind +horse Goliath, backing the buggy close to the steps and helping the old +man in with what politeness he could muster. Then he hurried back into +the library to his father. + +"I should like to know, sir," he said, standing up with his back to the +fire, his legs, in their big, mud-stained top-boots, wide apart, his +hands under his coat-tails--"I should like to know, sir, why Dr. +Lavendar sees fit to refer to a subject which is most offensive to us?" +He fixed his motionless, pale eyes on his father, shrinking back in the +winged chair. + +"I don't know--I don't know," said John Gordon. Then, suddenly, he put +out his hand and caught at the crumpled note on the table beside him +and put it in his pocket. Instantly suspicion flamed into Alex's eyes. +His face turned dully red, almost purple. He made a step forward as +though to interpose and grasp at the paper, restrained himself, and +said, with laborious politeness: + +"If that is a note, sir--I thought I saw indorsements of +interest--sha'n't I put it into the safe for you?" + +"I won't trouble you, Alex." + +Alex stood silent; then suddenly he struck the table with his fist: "My +God! I believe you've been lending money to that--to that--" + +Mr. Gordon began to shake very much. + +"Did Dr. Lavendar presume to ask you to lend money to--to--" + +Mr. Gordon passed his hand over his lips; then he said, faintly, "No; +he didn't." + +Alex, like a boat brought suddenly up into the wind, stammered +uncertainly. "Oh; I--I--thought--" And then suspicion broke out +again. "Has the creature asked you for a loan?" + +"No," Mr. Gordon said. + +And Alex gaped at him, silenced. Yet he was certain that that strip of +paper had some connection with Algernon Keen. "I beg your pardon," he +said; "I thought for an instant that you were dickering with the man +who seduced your daughter. I am sure I beg your pardon for the +thought," he ended, with elaborate and ironical courtesy, for his +father's obvious agitation assured him that he was right. "I only felt +that if it was his note, it must be kept carefully--carefully." He +smiled in a deadly way he had, and opened and shut his hand as though +he would close it on the hilt of a knife. "But, of course, I was +mistaken. You would press it if you had his note--although 'sue a +beggar.' And, besides, if we had got as far as lending him money, we +would be asking him to dinner next." + +Mr. Gordon cringed. + +"So I beg your pardon," Alex ended, sardonically. + +"Very well--very well," his father said; and got up and began to potter +about among his books, as much as to say that the subject was ended. + +"It _is_ a note," Alex said to himself, and smiled.... So far the +creature had gone scot-free. In these days of lawfully accepted +dishonor revenge is not talked about. But perhaps it would come to his +hand. Not the revenge of the instincts--not the shedding of blood, man +fashion; but the revenge of inflicting misery. Not much of a revenge, +of course, but the best that he could get. And so he smiled to +himself.... + +He said no more at the time; but months later his father realized that +the incident was not forgotten when Alex said, suddenly, sneering: "So +your son-in-law is prospering in his business? I saw his establishment +to-day in Mercer. If he owes you any money he will be able to pay +cash. I congratulate you, sir." + +Old Mr. Gordon made no reply. He was very feeble that autumn. Willy +King told Alex that another attack of bronchitis would be the end. "He +can't stand it," said Dr. King. "I'd take him South, Alex, if I were +you." + +Alex did not like to leave his mill in Upper Chester, but, as he told +Willy, he was a good son, and always did his duty to his father. "I +play dominoes with him every night," he said;--so he would take the old +man South, though to go and come would keep him from business almost a +week. + +It was then that John Gordon told Dr. Lavendar that Alex suspected him +of lending money to Mr. Keen. "And if I die," he said, "Alex will +squeeze the poor devil--he'll squeeze him till he ruins him. I--I +suppose I'm a great fool, but I almost thought maybe, sometime, I'd +destroy that note, Edward?" + +Dr. Lavendar chuckled: "I knew you'd come to it, Johnny; but--" he +stopped and ruminated. "You've come to it; so that's all right. But +do you know--I don't believe he can do without it quite yet awhile." + +"Poor devil!" John Gordon said again, kindly. "Well, I'll let him gnaw +on it awhile longer. I suppose he'll want another extension?" + +"Probably," said Dr. Lavendar. "He is just holding his own this year; +he will be able to pay the interest, he told me, but not very much +more." + +Extension was necessary, as Dr. Lavendar had foreseen; and when he +wrote to Mr. Gordon about it the old man replied in obvious fear of his +son. The note was in his safe, he said; Edward knew where it was; it +was in the japanned box. "But I don't care to ask Alex to get it," he +explained. "He doesn't know of its existence; so I'll give you power +of attorney to see to it. You'd better just have Ezra Barkley put it +in shape for you, because it will be necessary to go up to the house +and open the safe to get it and put it back again. Alex is never at +home until late in the afternoon, but Rachel is there and will let you +in. You'll find some very good Monongahela in the chimney closet." +Then he added the combinations of the locks on the safe and the +japanned box. + +"Stick that in, Ezra, will you, about going up to the house?" Dr. +Lavendar said. + +And Ezra stuck it in solemnly, and then held his pen between his teeth +and blotted his paper. "It is estimated," he observed, through his +shut teeth, "that the amount of ink used in the United States of +America, in signatures to wills, since the year when the independence +of the colonies was declared, would be sufficient in bulk to float a--" + +"Well, Ezra," said Dr. Lavendar, chuckling, "this paper seems rather +liberal. Suppose I take some cash out of the safe to repair the roof +of the vestry? It leaks like a sieve." + +"Your construction of liberality is at fault, sir," Mr. Ezra corrected +him, gently; "this paper defines just exactly what you may do, up to +the moment when the principal reclaims the paper--or dies." + +"Well, I hope he won't reclaim it, or die, either, till he gets an +affair we are both interested in patched up," Dr. Lavendar said; then +he listened politely while Mr. Ezra told him how many times the word +"ink" occurred in Holy Writ. + +Dr. Lavendar went away with his power of attorney in his pocket. And +when he sent it to John Gordon to sign, he seemed to take it for +granted that he and Mr. Gordon were equally interested in the +development and well-being of Mary's husband. He said in his letter +such things as, "You'll make a man of him yet;" and, "Your patience has +given the best elements in him time to come out." Dr. Lavendar had a +perfectly unreasonable way of imputing good motives to people; the +consequence was he was not very much astonished when they displayed +goodness. He was not astonished when, some two months later, another +letter came from old Mr. Gordon, saying that on the whole he thought +the note had better not run any longer. "I am going to forgive him his +debt," Mary's father wrote, in a feeble scrawl; "and I'll be obliged to +you if you will go up to my house and get that note and send it to me. +I'm pretty shaky on my pins, and I don't want to run risks, so I wish +you'd tear the signature out and burn it before you mail the note. +I'll send it along to Mr. Keen. I mean to write to him and tell him I +think he is honest, anyway. The fact is, I half respect the poor +fellow. It's been a long winter, and I can't say I'm much better. +Willy King doesn't know everything. These doctors are too confoundedly +ready to send a man away from home. I should have been just as well +off in Old Chester. _Be sure and destroy that signature_." + +Dr. Lavendar read this letter joyfully, but without surprise. "I'm +glad he didn't take my advice and let it go on any longer," he said to +himself; "I guess I'll risk the effect on Algy now." + +Then he wondered if there would be any danger of meeting Alex if he +went up to the house right after dinner. "I can't manage it this +morning," he said to himself. "I've got to go and see Mrs. Drayton. +Well, I wish the Lord would see fit to cure her--or something." + +So he went plodding out into a still, gray February day, and called on +Mrs. Drayton, and stopped at the post-office to hear the news, and then +went home to his dinner. "Ye're not going out _again_?" his Mary +cried, in shrill remonstrance, when in the afternoon she saw him muffle +himself up for the drive out into the country; "it's beginning to snow!" + +"I am," said Dr. Lavendar; "and see you have a good supper for me when +I get back." He got into his buggy, buttoning the apron up in front of +him, for it was a wet snow. He had on a shabby old fur cap, which he +pulled well down over his forehead, furrowed by other people's sins and +troubles; but his eyes peered from under it as bright and happy as a +squirrel's. + +His little blind horse pulled slowly and comfortably up the hill, +stopping to get his breath on a shaky bridge over a run. In the +silence of the snow Dr. Lavendar did not hear the stage coming down the +hill until it was almost on the bridge; then he had to pull over to let +it pass. As he did so the single passenger inside rapped on the +window, and then opened it and thrust his head out, calling to the +driver to stop. + +"Dr. Lavendar! you have heard, I suppose? Very sad. A great shock. +Of course I'm going on at once to bring the body back. It is difficult +to get off at this season, but a son has a sacred duty." Alex's pale +eyes were bulging from his red, excited face. + +"What news?" Dr. Lavendar said. "You don't mean--Alex! John +isn't--your father isn't--" + +"My father is dead," Alex said, with ponderous solemnity. "It is a +great grief, of course; but I trust I shall be properly resigned. His +age rendered such an event not altogether unexpected." + +Dr. Lavendar could not speak; but as the stage-driver began to gather +up his reins from the steaming backs of his horses, he said, brokenly: +"Wait--wait. Tell me about it, Alex; your father and I have been +friends all our lives." Alex told him briefly: He had just had a +despatch; his father had died that morning; he had been less well for a +fortnight. "I had a letter from him this morning," Alex said, "in +which he referred to his health--" + +"So had I--so had I." + +"I cannot get back with the body for six days--three to go, three to +come," Alex said, "but I will be obliged if you will arrange for the +obsequies next Thursday." + +"Yes, yes. I will make any arrangements for you," Dr. Lavendar said. +He took out his big red silk pocket-handkerchief and blew his nose with +a trembling flourish. "We were boys together; your father was the big +boy, you know; I was the youngster. But we were great friends. Alex, +I am afraid my own grief has made me forgetful of yours; but you have +had a loss, my boy--a great loss." + +"Very much so--very much so," Alex agreed, with a proper sigh, and +pulled up the window of the stage, then lowered it abruptly: "Oh, Dr. +Lavendar, are you going on as far up as--as _my_ house?" + +"As _your_ house?" Dr. Lavendar repeated. "Oh--oh yes; I didn't +understand. Yes, I am." + +"Would it inconvenience you," Alex said, "to stop there? I am going to +ask Mr. Ezra Barkley to come up at once and put seals on various +things. I am the sole executor, as well as the heir, of course; but I +sha'n't be able to attend to things for a week; and the forms of law +must be observed. If you could be on hand when Barkley is there--not +that I do not trust him." + +Dr. Lavendar stared at him blankly; for an intelligent man, Alex was +sometimes a great fool. But he only nodded gravely, and said he would +stop at the house and wait for Mr. Ezra; Alex signed to the driver, and +the stage went rolling noiselessly on into the storm. When, at the +foot of the hill, Alex glanced back through the little oblong of bubbly +glass in the leather curtain of the coach, he saw Dr. Lavendar's buggy +standing motionless where he had passed it on the bridge; then the snow +hid it. + +Under the bridge the creek ran swiftly between edges of ice that here +and there had caught a dipping branch and held it prisoner, or had +spread in agate curves--snow white, clear black, faint white +again--around a stone in mid-stream. On the black current, silent +except for a murmurous rush of bubbles under the ice, the snowflakes +melted instantly, myriads of them--hurrying, hurrying, hurrying; then, +as they touched the water, gone. Dr. Lavendar, in the buggy, sat +looking down at them: + +"_In an instant--in the twinkling of an eye, we shall be changed._" ... + +"He was my oldest friend." ("Was": with what an awful promptitude the +mind adjusts itself to "he _was_"!) Yet as he sat there, peering out +over the top of the apron and making, heavily, those plans familiar to +every clergyman, Dr. Lavendar did not really believe that the plans +were for Johnny. The snow fell with noiseless steadiness; the top of +the buggy was white; thimbles of down heaped themselves on the hubs, +tumbling off when the horse moved restlessly a step forward or backed a +little and stamped. Suddenly Goliath shook himself, for the snow was +cold upon his shaggy back, and the harness clattered and the shafts +rattled. Dr. Lavendar drew a long breath. "G'on!" he said. And +Goliath went on with evident relief. He knew the road well, and turned +in at the Gordon gateway, as a matter of course. When he stopped at +the front steps, the door opened and Rachel stood there, her eyes red. + +"Sam will take him round to the stable, sir," she said, as Sam shambled +out from the back of the house to stand at Goliath's head. "Oh, my! +sir; I suppose you've heard?" + +"Yes, Rachel; I've heard," the old man said, unbuttoning the apron and +climbing out. Rachel took his hand and wept audibly. "I knew he'd +never come back; he was marked for death. I've lived here eighteen +years, and I always said it was a privilege to work for a gentleman +like him." + +"Yes--yes," he said, kindly. He was plainly agitated, and Rachel saw +that he was trembling. + +"Course you feel it, sir, being about of an age," she said, +sympathetically. "Dr. Lavendar, sir, won't you have a glass of +something?" With the hospitality of an old servant, she would have +opened the little closet in the chimney-breast, but he checked her. + +"Not yet; not now, Rachel. Leave me here awhile by myself, my girl. +I'll come out to the kitchen and see you before I go. When Mr. Barkley +comes, ask him to step into the library." + +"Yes, sir," Rachel said, obediently; and went away sniffling and +sighing. + +Dr. Lavendar stood looking about him at the emptiness of the room: the +winged chair, with the purple silk handkerchief hanging over the back; +the table heaped with books; the fire drowsing in the grate; the old +safe in the corner by the window. Outside, the snow drove past, +blotting the landscape. Ezra would probably arrive within a half-hour; +he had better get the note before he came. Then there need be no +explanations. + +When Mr. Ezra came in he found the old minister sitting by the fire, +quite calm again, and even cheerful. "Yes," he said, in answer to the +lawyer's very genteel expressions of sympathy--"yes, I'll miss him. We +were boys together. He used to call me Bantam. I hadn't thought of it +for years." + +"Nicknames," said Mr. Ezra, "were used by the ancients as long ago as +300 B.C." + +"Well, I'm not as ancient as 300 B.C.," said Dr. Lavendar, "but I +called him Storkey; I can't imagine why, for he was only an inch and a +half taller; he always said it was two inches, but it wasn't. It was +an inch and a half." + +"We are here," said Mr. Ezra, pulling off his gloves and coughing +politely, "for indeed a solemn and an affecting task. It is my duty, +sir, to seal the effects of the deceased, so that they may be +delivered, intact, to the executor." + +Dr. Lavendar nodded. + +"In all my professional career I have never happened to be called upon +for this especial duty. It is quite unusual. But Alex seemed to think +it necessary. Alex is a good son." + +"So he says," said Dr. Lavendar. + +"Are you aware, sir," proceeded Mr. Ezra, producing from his bag the +paraphernalia of his office, "that such is the incredible celerity of +bees (belonging to the _Hymenoptera_) that they can within twenty-four +hours manufacture four thousand cells in the comb? This interesting +fact is suggested by the use of wax for sealing." + +Dr. Lavendar watched him in a silence so deep that he hardly heard the +harmless stream of statistics; but at last he was moved to say, with +his kind, old smile, "How _can_ you know so many things, Ezra?" + +"In my profession," Mr. Ezra explained, "it is necessary to keep the +mind up to the greatest agility; I, therefore, exercise it frequently +in matters of memory." He lit a candle and held his wax sputtering in +the flame. "I recall," he said, "with painful interest, that at one of +our recent meetings I had the honor of drawing the power of attorney +for you, from the deceased." + +"So you did," said Dr. Lavendar. + +"Did you ever reflect," said Mr. Barkley, "that should that power be +used after the death of the donor, to carry out a wish of said donor, +expressed an hour, nay, a moment, before the instant of +dissolution--such act would be an offence in the eye of the law?" + +"I've always thought the law ought to put on spectacles, Ezra," said +Dr. Lavendar; "it has mighty poor eyesight once in a while." + +Mr. Barkley was shocked. "The law, Lavendar, is the deepest expression +of the human sense of justice!" + +"But, Ezra," Dr. Lavendar said, suddenly attentive, "that is very +interesting. I remember you referred to the lapsing of the power of +attorney when you made out that paper for me; but I didn't quite +understand. Do you mean that carrying out, now, directions given +before the death of my old friend would be against the law? Suppose he +had asked me--last week, perhaps, to destroy--well, say that old +account-book there on the table, couldn't I do it to-day?" + +"Dr. Lavendar, you do not, I fear, apprehend the majesty of the law! +Why," said Mr. Ezra, standing up, very straight and solemn, "such a +deed--" + +"But suppose I didn't want--suppose Johnny didn't want, for reasons of +his own, to have anybody--say, even his executor--see that +account-book; suppose it might be put to some bad purpose--used to +injure some third person (of course that is an absurd supposition, but +it will do for an illustration); if he had asked me last week to +destroy it, do you mean to say, Ezra, I couldn't destroy it +to-day?--just because he happened to die this morning!" + +"My dear sir," said Mr. Ezra, "such conduct on your part would be +perilously near a criminal offence." + +Dr. Lavendar whistled. "Well, Ezra, I won't destroy it." + +"I hope not, sir--I hope not, indeed," cried Mr. Ezra. + +Dr. Lavendar laughed; he had the impulse to turn round and wink at +Johnny, to take him into the joke. But it was only for an instant, and +his face fell quickly into puzzled lines. + +"A moment's reflection," Mr. Ezra continued, "will convince you, Dr. +Lavendar, that the aforesaid account-book is now the property, not of +the deceased, but of the estate. Its destruction would be the +destruction of property belonging to the heirs. Furthermore, your +belief that the herein before mentioned account-book might be put to an +improper use, for the injury of a third person--such belief would no +more justify you in destroying it than would your belief in its +unfairness towards said third person justify you in destroying a will." + +Dr. Lavendar thrust out his lower lip and stared at him, frowning. +"Yes," he said, slowly--"yes; I see. I did not quite understand. But +I see." + +Mr. Ezra solemnly began to pour forth a stream of statistics; he +referred to the case of Buckley vs. Grant, and even mentioned chapter +and page of _Purdon's Digest_ where Dr. Lavendar could find further +enlightenment. Dr. Lavendar may have listened, but he made no comment; +he sat staring silently at the old purple handkerchief on the top of +John's chair. + +When Mr. Ezra had finished his work and his statistics, the two men +shook hands; then Dr. Lavendar said good-bye to Rachel and climbed into +his buggy, buttoning the apron high up in front of him; the lawyer +mounted his horse, and they plodded off into the snow, single file. +But Dr. Lavendar's eyes, under his old fur cap, had lost their +squirrel-like brightness.... + +So Algy's note belonged to the estate; and the estate belonged to Alex; +and Alex was the executor. And upon Alex Gordon his father's +intentions in regard to Algy's note would make no more impression than +the flakes of snow on running water. A vision of Alex's mean and cruel +mouth, his hard, light eyes, motionless as a snake's in his purpling +face, made Dr. Lavendar wince. The note--the poor, shabby, worn +note,--that stood for the best there was in Algy, that stood for +perseverance and honesty and courage; the note, which had weighed so +heavily that he had had to stand up in his pitiful best manhood to bear +it: the note that John had meant to "forgive"--Alex would use to +humiliate and torture and destroy. Under the pressure which he would +bring to bear that note would be poor Algy's financial, and perhaps his +moral, ruin. "And if I had not objected, John would have cancelled +it," Dr. Lavendar thought, frowning and blinking under his fur cap. He +saw the smoking flax quenched, the bruised reed broken; he saw Algy +turning venomously upon his enemy--for he knew him well enough to know +that his code of defence would not include any conventional delicacy; +he saw the new and hardly won integrity crumbling under the assault of +Alex's legal wickedness. Dr. Lavendar groaned to himself. Alex could, +lawfully, murder Algernon Keen's soul. + + +When Mary saw the old minister come into the house she was much +displeased. "There, now, look at him," she scolded; "white as a sheet. +What did I tell you? I'll bet ye he won't eat them corn dodgers, and I +never made 'em finer." + +It must be admitted that Mary was right. Dr. Lavendar did not eat much +supper. He went shuffling back to his study, Danny slinking at his +heels; but for once he did not notice his little, grizzled friend. +When he got into his flowered cashmere dressing-gown and put on his +slippers and stirred his fire, he sat a long time with his pipe in his +hand, forgetting to light it. When he did light it, it went out, +unnoticed. Once Danny tried to scramble into his chair, but, receiving +no encouragement, curled up on the rug. The fire burned low and +smouldered into ashes; just one sullen, red coal blinked in a corner of +the grate; Dr. Lavendar watched this red spot fixedly for a long time. +Indeed, it was well on towards twelve before he suddenly reached over +for the bellows and a couple of sticks, and, bending down, stirred and +blew until the sticks caught and the cinders began to sparkle under the +ashes. This disturbed Danny, who sat up, displeased and yawning. But +when at last the flames broke out, sputtering and snapping, and caught +a piece of paper--a shabby, creased piece of paper covered with +dates--caught it, ran over it, curling it into brittle blackness, and +then whirled it, a flimsy, crumbling ghost, up the chimney, Dr. +Lavendar's face shone with a light that was not only from the fire. + +"Ha, Danny, you scoundrel," he said, cheerfully, "I guess you are +_particeps criminis_!" + +Then he went over to his study-table and rooted about for a thin, +shabby, blue book, over which he pored for some time, stopping once or +twice to make some calculations on the back of an envelope, then +turning to the book again. He covered the envelope with his small, +neat figuring, and turned it over to begin on the other side--and +started: "Johnny's letter!" he said. But when the calculations were +made, the rest was easy enough: first, his check-book and his pen. (At +the check he looked with some pride. "Daniel," he said, "look at that, +sir. You never saw so much money in your life; and neither did I--over +my own signature.") Next, a letter to Alex Gordon: + + +"MY DEAR ALEXANDER,--I owe your father's estate to the amount of the +enclosed check. No papers exist in regard to it, as the matter was +between ourselves. I will ask you for a receipt. Yours truly, + +"EDWARD LAVENDAR." + + + + +THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE ANT + + +I + +When William Rives and Lydia Sampson quarrelled and broke their +engagement, Old Chester said that they were lucky to fall out two weeks +before their wedding-day instead of two weeks after it. Of course, Old +Chester said many other things: it said it had always known they could +never get along. William, who had very little money, was careful and +thrifty, as every young man ought to be; Lydia, who was fairly well +off, was lavish and no housekeeper. "What could you expect?" demanded +Old Chester. Old Chester never knew exactly what the trouble between +them had been, for they kept their own counsel; but it had its +suspicions: it had something to do with William's father's will. By +some legal quibble the Orphan's Court awarded to William a piece of +property which everybody knew old Mr. Rives supposed he had left to his +daughter Amanda. Lydia thought (at least Old Chester thought she +thought) that William would, as a matter of course, at once turn the +field over to his sister. But William did no such thing. And, after +all, why should he? The field was his; the law allowed it, the Court +awarded it. Why should he present a field to Amanda? Old Chester said +this thoughtfully, looking at William with a sort of respectful regret. +Very likely Lydia's regret was not respectful. Lydia was always so +outspoken. However, it was all surmise. About the time that Amanda +did not get the field the engagement was broken--and you can put two +and two together if you like. As for Old Chester, it said that it +pitied poor, dear Lydia; and it was no wonder William left town after +the rupture, because, naturally, he would be ashamed to show his face. +But then it also said it pitied poor, dear William, and it should think +Lydia would be ashamed to show her face; for, of course, her obstinacy +made the trouble--and a young female ought not to be obstinate, ought +not, in fact, to have opinions on such matters. Legal affairs, said +Old Chester, should be left to the gentlemen. In fact, Old Chester +said every possible thing for and against them both; but gradually, as +years passed, conflicting opinions settled down to the "poor Lydia" +belief. + +This was, probably, for two reasons: first, because William had never +seen fit to come back to Old Chester, and that, quite apart from his +conduct to his lady-love, was a reason for distrust; and, secondly, +Lydia had, somehow, become Old Chester's one really poor person--that +is, in a genteel walk of life. After the crumbling of the Sampson +fortune, Old Chester had to plan for Lydia, and take care of her, and +give her its "plain sewing"; so, naturally, William was reprobated. +Besides, she may have quarrelled and broken her engagement two weeks +before her wedding, but all these years afterwards she had been +faithful to the memory of Love! Old Chester knew this, for the simple +reason that Miss Lydia, during all these years, had kept in her +sitting-room a picture of William Rives, adorned with a sprig of box; +furthermore, it knew (Heaven knows how!) that she kissed this slender, +tight-waisted picture every night before she went to bed. Of course, +Old Chester softened! Lydia may have broken her engagement and all +that, but she kept his picture, and she kissed it every night. "But he +ought to be ashamed of himself," said Old Chester--"that is, if he is +alive." Then it added, reflectively, that he must be dead, for he had +never returned to Old Chester. Yet as time went on people forgot even +to disapprove of William; they had enough to do to take care of poor +Lydia, "for she is certainly very poor--and very peculiar," said Old +Chester, sighing. + +"Peculiar!" said Martha King; "I call it something worse than peculiar +to spend money that ought to go towards rent on a present for Rachel +King's Anna. She gave that child a picture-book. I'm sure _I_ can't +afford to go round giving children picture-books. I told her so flatly +and frankly. And then it was so trying, because, right on top of my +scolding, she gave me a present--a cup all painted with roses, and +marked 'Friendship's Gift,' in gilt. I didn't want it; I could have +shaken her," Mrs. King ended, helplessly. + +It was not only Martha whose patience was tried by Miss Lydia; the +experience was common to all Old Chester. Even Dr. Lavendar had felt +the human impulse to shake her. When he had, very delicately, asked +"as an old friend, the privilege of assisting her," it was exasperating +to have a lamp-shade made of six porcelain intaglios set in a tin frame +come to him the next day, with the "respectful compliments of L.S." +But somehow, when, beaming at him from under her shabby bonnet, Miss +Lydia had asked him if he liked that preposterous shade, he could not +speak his mind,--at least to her. He spoke it mildly to Mrs. Barkley. +"We must restrain her; she brought me $2 for Zenanna Missions +yesterday." + +"What did you do?" Mrs. Barkley said, sympathetically. + +"I made her take it back. I pointed out that her first duty was to her +landlord." + +"Her landlord has some duties to her," Mrs. Barkley said, angrily. +"The stairs are just crumbling to pieces, and that chimney is dreadful. +She says that Davis said the flue would have to be rebuilt, and maybe +the whole chimney. He couldn't be sure about that, but he thought it +probable. He said it would cost $100 to put all the things in +repair--floor and roof and everything. But he would do it for $85, +considering. He thinks the flue has broken down inside somehow. She +might burn up some night; and then," said Mrs. Barkley, in a deep bass, +"how would that Smith person feel?" + +"He says," Dr. Lavendar explained, "that by the terms of the lease the +tenant is to make repairs." + +Mrs. Barkley snorted. "And how is poor Lydia to make repairs? She +hasn't two cents to bless herself with. I told him so." + +Mrs. Barkley's face grew very red at the recollection of her interview +with Mr. Smith (he was one of the new Smiths, of course). "I don't mix +philanthropy and business," he had said; "the lease says the tenant +shall make repairs. And, besides, I do not wish to be more attractive +than I am. With that chimney, some other landlord may win her +affections. Without it, she will never desert Mr. Micawber." + +"I am not acquainted with your friend Mr. Micawber," said Mrs. Barkley, +"neither, I am sure, is Miss Sampson; and if you will allow me to say +so, sir, we do not in Old Chester consider it delicate to refer to the +affections of an unmarried female." + +Upon which Mr. Smith laughed immoderately. (None of the new people had +any manners.) + +"So there is no use asking him to do anything," Mrs. Barkley told Dr. +Lavendar. + +"The only thing I can think of," the old minister said, "is that we all +join together and give her the price Davis named, as a present." + +"Eighty-five dollars!" Mrs. Barkley exclaimed, startled; "that's a good +deal of money--" + +"Well, yes; it is. But something has got to be done." + +"And to take up a collection for Lydia! It's--charity." + +"It isn't taking up a collection," Dr. Lavendar protested, stoutly. +"And it isn't charity. Miss Lydia's friends have a right to make her a +present if they feel like it." + +Mrs. Barkley agreed, doubtfully. + +"Mrs. Dale would contribute, I'm sure," said Dr. Lavendar. "And +perhaps the Miss Ferises." + +"I wouldn't like to ask them." + +"Don't ask 'em. Offer them the chance." + +"No," Mrs. Barkley insisted; "they've no right. They are not really +her friends. Lydia doesn't call them by their first names." But she +went away very much encouraged and full of this project of a present +for poor Lydia, who, happily, had no idea that she was "poor" Lydia. +She was not poor to herself (except, of course, in purse, which is a +small matter). She lived in a shabby and dilapidated cottage at the +Smith gates, and every month squeezed out a few dollars rent to Mr. +Smith; she was sorry for the Smiths, for they were new people; but she +always spoke kindly to them, for she never looked down on anybody. So, +as far as position went, she was not "poor." She had no relations +living, but she called all Old Chester of her generation by its first +name; so, as to friendship, there was nothing "poor" about her. And, +most of all, she was not "poor," but very rich, in her capacity for +interest. + +Now, no one who has an interest is poor; and Miss Lydia had a hundred +interests. A hundred? She had as many interests as there were people +in the world or joys or sorrows in Old Chester; so she was really very +rich.... Of course, there are different degrees of this sort of +wealth: there are folk who have to manufacture their interests; with +deliberation they are philanthropic or artistic or intellectual, or +even, if hard put to it, they are amused. Such persons may be said to +be in fairly comfortable circumstances, although they live anxiously +and rather meagrely, because they know well that when interest gives +out they are practically without the means to support life. Below this +manufacturing class come the really destitute--the poor creatures who +do not care vitally for anything and who are without the spiritual +muscle to manufacture an interest. These pathetic folk are +occasionally made self-supporting by a catastrophe--grief or even +merely some uncomfortable surgery in regard to their bank account may +give them a poor kind of interest; but too often they exist +miserably--sometimes, with every wish gratified, helplessly poor. +Above the manufacturing class comes the aristocracy, to which Miss +Lydia Sampson belonged, the class which is positively rolling in +wealth. Every morning these favored creatures arise with a zest for +living. You hear them singing before breakfast; at the table they are +full of eager questions: Is it going to rain? No; it is a fair day; +delightful!--for it might have rained. And the sun will bring up the +crocuses. And this was the day a neighbor was to go to town. Will she +go? When will she come back? How pleasant that the day is pleasant! +And it will be good for the sick people, too. And the moment the +eager, simple mind turns to its fellows, sick or well, the field of +interest widens to the sky-line of souls. To sorrow in the sorrows of +Tom and Dick and Harry and their wives, to rejoice in their joys--what +is better than that? And then, all one's own affairs are so vital: the +record of the range of the thermometer, the question of turning or not +turning an alpaca skirt, the working out of a game of solitaire--these +things are absorbing experiences. + +No wonder we who are poor, or even we who work hard at philanthropy or +art or responsibility to manufacture our little interests--no wonder we +envy such sky-blue natures. Certainly there were persons in Old +Chester who envied Miss Lydia; at least, they envied her her unfailing +joyousness--but they never envied her her empty purse. Which was like +envying a rose its color, but despising the earth from which by some +divine chemistry the color came. + +Miss Lydia's eyes might smart from the smoke puffing out into her room, +but she was able to laugh at the sight of her bleared visage in the +narrow mirror over the mantel. Nor did the fact that the mirror was +mottled and misty with age, the frame tarnished almost to blackness, +cause her the slightest pang. What difference does it make in this +world of life and death and joy and sorrow, if things are shabby? The +fact is, the secret of happiness is the _sense of proportion_; +eliminate, by means of that sense, trouble about the unimportant, and +we would all be considerably happier than kings. Miss Lydia possessed +this heaven-born sense, as well as the boundless wealth of interest +(for to him that hath shall be given). "I don't want to brag," she +used to say, "but I've got my health and my friends; so what on earth +more do I want?" And one hesitated to point out a little thing like a +shabby mirror, or even a smoky chimney. When the chimney smoked, Miss +Lydia merely took her rocking-chair and her sewing out into a small +room that served as a kitchen--and then what difference did the smoking +make? + +And as it turned out, one shadowy April day, it was the best thing she +could have done, because, when Dr. Lavendar dropped in to see her, she +could make him a cup of tea at once, without having to leave him alone. +She was a little, bustling figure, rather dusty and moth-eaten, with a +black frizette, always a little to one side, and eager, gentle, blue +eyes. + +"What's the news?" she said. She had given Dr. Lavendar an apple, and +put on the kettle, and taken up her hemming. + +"I never saw anybody so fond of sewing," the old man ruminated, eating +his apple. "I believe you'd sew in your grave." + +"I believe I would. Dear me! I am so sorry for the poor women who +don't like to sew. Amelia Dilworth told me that Mrs. Neddy can't bear +to take a needle in her hand. So Milly does Ned's mending just as she +did before he was married." + +"Aren't you sorry for the poor men that don't like to sew?" Dr. +Lavendar said, looking about for a place to deposit his core--("Oh, +drop it on the floor; I'll sweep it up sometime," Miss Lydia told him; +but he disposed of it by eating it). + +"Well, as for sewing," said Miss Lydia, "it's my greatest pleasure. +Why, when I get settled down to sew, my mind roves over the whole +earth. I don't want to brag, but I don't believe anybody enjoys +herself more than I do when I'm sewing. If you won't tell, I'll tell +you something, Dr. Lavendar." + +"I won't tell." + +"Well, then: Sunday used to be an awful day to me. I couldn't sew, and +so I couldn't think. And I really couldn't go to church all day. So I +just bought some beautiful, fine nainsook and cut out my shroud. And I +work on that Sundays, because a shroud induces serious thoughts." + +"I should think it might," said Dr. Lavendar. + +"You don't think it's wrong, do you?" she asked, anxiously; and added, +joyously, "I'm embroidering the whole front. I declare I don't know +what I'll do when I get it done." + +"Embroider the whole back." + +"Well, yes. I can do that," Miss Lydia assented. "There! there's your +tea." + +Dr. Lavendar took his tea and stirred it thoughtfully. "Miss Lydia," +he said, and looked hard at the tea, "what do you suppose? Mr. William +Rives--" Dr. Lavendar stopped and drank some tea. "How many years ago +was it that he went away from Old Chester? I don't exactly remember." + +"It was thirty-one years ago," she said; she put down her own cup of +tea and stared at him. "What were you going to say about him, sir?" + +"Well, only," said Dr. Lavendar, scraping the sugar from the bottom of +his cup, "only that--" + +"There! my goodness! I'll give you another lump," cried Miss Lydia; +"don't wear my spoon out. What about him, sir?" + +Dr. Lavendar explained that he had come back on the stage from Mercer +the night before with a strange gentleman--"stout man," Dr. Lavendar +said, "with a black wig. I was rooting about in my pocket-book for a +stamp--I wanted to post a letter just as we were leaving Mercer; and +this gentleman very politely offered me one. I took it. Then I looked +at him, and there was something familiar about him. I asked him if we +had not met before, and he told me who he was. He has changed a good +deal." + +Miss Lydia drank her tea excitedly. "Where is he going to stay? Is he +well? Has he come back rich?" She hoped so. William was so +industrious, he deserved to be rich. She ran into the smoky front room +and brought out his picture, regarding it with affectionate interest. +"Did you know I was engaged to him, years ago, Dr. Lavendar? We +thought it best to part. But--" She stopped and looked at the +picture, and a little color came into her face. But in another moment +she was chattering her birdlike questions. + +"I declare," Dr. Lavendar said, at last, "you are the youngest person +of my acquaintance." + +Miss Lydia laughed. "I hope you don't think it's wrong to be young?" +she said. + +"Wrong?" said Dr. Lavendar; "it's wrong not to be young. I'd be +ashamed not to be young. My body's old, but that's not my fault. I'm +not to blame for an old body, but I would be to blame for an old soul. +An old soul is a shameful thing. Mind, now, don't let me catch you +getting old!" + +And then he said good-bye, and left her sitting by the stove. She +turned her skirt back over her knees to keep it from scorching and held +the picture in her left hand and warmed the palm of the right; then in +her right hand and warmed the left. Then she put it down on her knees +and warmed both hands and smiled. + + + + +II + +When Mrs. Barkley heard the news of the wanderer's return, she hurried +to Dr. Lavendar's study. "Do you suppose we need go on with the +present?" she demanded, excitedly. + +"Why not?" said Dr. Lavendar. + +Mrs. Barkley looked conscious. "I only thought, perhaps--maybe--Mr. +Rives--" + +"William Rives's presence in Old Chester won't improve draughts, will +it?" Dr. Lavendar said, crossly. And that was all she could get out of +him. + +Meantime, Old Chester began to kill the fatted calf. Mr. Rives liked +fatted calves; and, furthermore, he had prudently arranged with Van +Horne at the Tavern for a cash credit for each meal at which he was not +present. "For why," he had said, reasonably enough, "should I pay for +what I don't get?" So he went cheerfully wherever he was bidden. Old +Chester approved of him as a guest, for, though talkative, he was +respectful in his demeanor, and he did not, so Old Chester said, "put +on airs." He was very stout, and he wore a black wig that curled all +around the back of his neck; his eyes were somewhat dull, but +occasionally they glanced out keenly over his fat cheeks. He had a +very small mouth and a slight, perpetual smile that gave his face a +rather kindly look, and his voice was mild and soft. + +He had come back rich (his shabby clothes to the contrary); "and poor +Lydia is so poor," said Old Chester; "perhaps--" and then it paused and +smiled, and added that "it would be strange, after all these years, +_if_--" + +When somebody said something like this to Dr. Lavendar he grew very +cross. "Preposterous!" he said. "I should feel it my duty to prevent +anything so dreadful." + +And there were romantic hearts in Old Chester who were displeased with +him for this remark. Mrs. Drayton said it showed that he could not +understand love; "though he can't be blamed for that, as he never +married. Still," said Mrs. Drayton, "he ought to have married. I +don't want to make any accusations, _but I always look with suspicion +on an unmarried gentleman_." Mrs. Barkley did not go as far as that, +but she did say to herself that Dr. Lavendar was unromantic. "Dear +me!" she confided to Jane Jay--"if anything _should_ happen! Well, I'd +be glad to do anything I could to bring it about." + +And Mrs. Barkley, who had not only the courage but the audacity of her +convictions, invited the parted lovers to tea, so they met for the +first time at her house. Mrs. Barkley was the last person one would +accuse of being romantic, and yet Dr. Lavendar saw fit to stop at her +door that morning and say, "Matches are dangerous playthings, ma'am!" +and Mrs. Barkley grew very red, and said that she couldn't imagine what +he meant. + +However, the party went off well enough. Miss Jane Jay, who made a +conscious fourth, expected some quiverings and blushings; but that was +because she was young--comparatively. If she had been older she would +have known better. Age, with shamefaced relief, has learned the +solvent quality of Time. It is this quality which makes possible the +contemplation of certain embarrassing heavenly reunions--where +explanations of consolation must be made.... Thirty-one years of days, +days full of personal concerns and interests, had blurred and softened +and finally almost blotted out that one fierce day of angry parting; +those thirty-one years of days had made this man and woman able to meet +with a sort of calm, good-natured interest in each other. Miss +Lydia--her black frizette over one smiling eye, her hands encased in +white cotton gloves, a new ribbon at the throat of her very old +alpaca--called him "William," with the most commonplace friendliness. +He began with "Miss Sampson," but ended before supper was over with her +first name, and even, once, just as they were going home, with "Lydy," +at which she did start and blink for an instant, and Jane Jay thought a +faint color came into her cheek. However, he did not offer to walk +home with her, but bowed politely at Mrs. Barkley's gate, and would +have betaken himself to the Tavern had not Mrs. Barkley, when he was +half-way across the street, called after him. There was a flutter of +uncertainty in her voice, for those words of Dr. Lavendar's (which she +did not understand) "stuck," she said to herself, "in her crop." Mr. +Rives came back and paused in the moonlight, looking up at Mrs. Barkley +standing in the doorway. "I should be pleased, sir," she said, "to +have a few words with you." + +"Certainly, ma'am," said Mr. Rives, in his soft voice, and followed her +into the parlor. + +"Sit down," said Mrs. Barkley. + +William Rives sat down thoughtfully. A tall lamp on the heavy, +claw-footed table emitted a feeble light through its ground-glass +globe, and Mrs. Barkley stared at it a moment, as though for +inspiration; then she said, in a deep bass: "Mr. Rives, I thought you +might be interested in a certain little project. Some of us have +thought that we would collect--a--a small sum--" + +Mr. Rives bowed; his smiling lips suddenly shut tight. + +"Perhaps you have not heard that our old friend Lydia Sampson is in +reduced circumstances; and some of us thought that a small present of +money-- + +"Ah--" said Mr. Rives. + +Mrs. Barkley felt the color come up into her face at that small, cold +sound. "Lydia is very poor," she blurted out. + +"Really?" murmured Mr. Rives, with embarrassment; and fell to stroking +his beaver hat carefully. Then he added that he deeply regretted Mrs. +Barkley's information. + +"I knew you would," she said, in a relieved voice. "Lydia is a dear +girl. So kind and so uncomplaining! And--and faithful in her +affections, William." + +"Ah!" said Mr. Rives again; his smile never changed, but his eyes were +keen. + +"Yes," Mrs. Barkley said, boldly. "Why, William--I don't know that I +ought to tell you, but do you remember a sketch of yourself that you +gave her in--in other days? William, she has kept it ever since. It +hangs in her parlor, (horrid, smoky room!) And she keeps a sprig of +fresh box stuck in the frame." + +"Really?" said Mr. Rives; and his face grew a little redder. + +"That's all," Mrs. Barkley said, abruptly. "Now go. I just thought +I'd mention it." + +"Yes," said Mr. Rives; then added that it was a beautiful night, and +politely bowed himself out. + +"But he didn't say anything about giving anything," Mrs. Barkley told +Dr. Lavendar the next day. And whatever romantic hopes she may have +had withered under the blighting touch of such indifference. + + + + +III + +Mrs. Barkley's hopes withered and then revived; for as she climbed the +hill to the Stuffed-Animal House a day or two later whom should she see +wandering through the graveyard (of all places!) but Lydia and William. +"Of course, I pretended not to see them," she told Harriet Hutchinson, +"but I believe they've begun to take notice." + +They had not seen her; the graveyard was on the crest of the hill, and +the road lay below the bank and the stone wall, wherein were set two or +three iron doors streaked and eaten with rust, each with its name and +its big ring-bolt. There was a bleached fringe of dead grass along the +top of the wall, but the bank above was growing green in the April +sunshine. There were many trees in this older part of the cemetery, +and even now, when the foliage was hardly more than a mist, the tombs +and low mounds and old headstones were dappled with light shadows. +Miss Lydia and William had met here, by some chance; and Mrs. Barkley, +climbing the road before it dipped below the bank, had caught sight of +them just where the slope broke into sunshine beyond the trees. Behind +them, leaning sidewise over a sunken grave, was a slate headstone, its +base deep in a thatch of last year's grass; there were carved cherubs +on the corners, and the inscription was blurred with lichen. A still +older tomb, a slab of granite on four pedestals, made a seat for Miss +Lydia. She had been deciphering its crumbling inscription: + + "Mr. Amos Sm ... Sr. + Born ...... 1734 + Die ... May 7th, 1802 + Aged 68 + + "Base body, thou art faint and weak-- + (How the sweet moments roll!) + A mortal paleness on thy cheek, + But glory in thy soul!" + +William, reading it, had remarked that he thought people lived longer +nowadays. "Don't you?" he added, anxiously. + +"We live long enough," Miss Lydia said. "I don't want to live too +long." + +"You can't live too long," he told her, with his sharp smile. + +Miss Lydia laughed and looked down at the crumbling stone. "I think +sixty-eight was just about long enough. I'm like Dr. Lavendar; he says +he 'wants to get up from the banquet of life _still hungry_.' That's +the way I feel. I don't want to lose my appetite for life by getting +too much of it." + +"I couldn't get too much," Mr. Rives said, nervously. "Let us proceed. +This place is--is not cheerful. I like cheerfulness. You always seem +cheerful, Lydy?" + +"Course I am," she said, getting up. "Why shouldn't I be? I haven't a +care in the world." + +"You don't say so!" said William Rives. "I was under the impression +that your circumstances--" + +"My circumstances?" said Miss Lydia. "Bless you! I haven't any. +Father didn't leave much of anything. I had $2000, but Cousin Robinson +invested it and lost it. He felt so badly, I was just distressed about +him." + +"He should have been prosecuted!" Mr. Rives said, angrily. + +Miss Lydia shook her head in horrified protest, but she beamed at him +from under her black frizette, grateful for his sympathy. + +"I remember," he said, thoughtfully, "that you were always +light-hearted. I recall your once telling me that you began to sing as +soon as you got up in the morning." + +"Oh yes," Miss Lydia said, simply. "I always sing the morning hymn. +You know the morning hymn, William? + + "'Awake, my soul, and with the sun + Thy daily course of duty run--'" + + +William nodded. "Vocal exercises (if in tune and not too loud) are +always cheerful," he said. + +Gossiping thus of simple things, they walked back to Lydia's house and +sat down in her parlor. There William told her, with a sort of +whimper, that his health was bad. "I sent for Willy King--he is so +young, he ought not to charge the full fee. I remember him as a very +impudent boy," Mr. Rives said, growing red at some memory of William's +youth; "however, he seems a respectable young man." + +"Oh, indeed he is," said Miss Lydia; "he is a dear, good boy. I hope +he is doing you good?" she ended, with eager kindness. + +"Yes, I think so," he said, anxiously. And then he gave his symptoms +with a detail that made poor Miss Lydia get very red. "And I don't +sleep very well," he ended, sighing. "Willy told me to try repeating +the kings of England backward, but I couldn't remember them; so it +didn't do any good." + +"When I don't sleep," said Miss Lydia, "I just count my blessings. +That's a splendid thing to do, because you fall asleep before you get +to the end of 'em." + +William sighed. "The kings of England was a foolish prescription; yet +I paid Willy $1.50 for that call. Still, I must say I think he is +doing me good; but he recommends many expensive things--perhaps because +he is young. He wished me to hire a vehicle and drive every day. Now +just think of the expense of such a thing! I suggested to him that +instead of hiring a conveyance, I would go out with him in his buggy +whenever he calls. He is a very young man to treat an important case," +William ended, sighing. Then he asked Lydia about her health, with an +exactness which she thought very kind. + +"Yes, I'm always well; and _so_ sorry for the poor people who are +sick," she said. + +"You are a good nurse, aren't you, Lydy?" he asked. + +"I'm always glad when I can do anything for a sick person. I'm so +sorry for 'em," Miss Lydia said, kindly. + +"And you are economical, aren't you, Lydy?" Mr. Rives inquired, in his +mild voice, "and not fond of dress?" + +"Bless you!" said Lydia, "how can I be anything but economical? And as +for being fond of dress--I'm fond of my old dresses, William." + +"That is an excellent trait," said William Rives, solemnly. Then, +catching sight of his own portrait--the slim, anaemic young person in a +stock and tight-waisted coat, with very small feet and very large hat, +he got up to look at it. "I--have changed a little," he said, +doubtfully. + +"It's more becoming to be heavier," Miss Lydia said. And this remark +gave him such obvious satisfaction that when he went away his perpetual +smile had deepened into positive heartiness. + +It was after this talk that he finally added his offering to the +"Present" which just then was occupying Old Chester's attention. "And +how much do you suppose I got out of him?" Mrs. Barkley asked Dr. +Lavendar. "_$1.50!_" + +However, other friends were more liberal, and by the end of May the $85 +(grown now into the round sum of $100) was ready for Miss Lydia. A +little silk bag, with a scrap of paper twisted about its ribbon +drawing-string, was thrust one evening by an unknown hand into Miss +Lydia's door. In it were twenty five-dollar gold pieces. "From old +friends," Dr. Lavendar had written on the scrap of paper. + +"Sha'n't we say--'for repairs'?" Mrs. Barkley asked, doubtfully. + +"No," Dr. Lavendar declared; "I'd rather say 'to buy curl-papers.' Of +course she'll use it for repairs; but we mustn't dictate." + +Nobody saw Miss Lydia gasp when she opened the bag, and sit down, and +then cry and laugh, but probably every friendly heart in Old Chester +was busy imagining the scene, for every friend had contributed. They +had all done it in their different ways--and how character confesses +itself in this matter of giving! ... Mrs. Dale, who gave the largest +sum, did it with calm, impersonal kindness. Martha King said that she +had so many calls upon her charity that she couldn't give much, but was +glad to do what she could. Miss Harriet Hutchinson said it was a +first-rate idea, and she was obliged to Mrs. Barkley for letting her +have a hand in it; as for Mrs. Drayton, she said it was a great trial +not to contribute, but she could not do so conscientiously. "_I_ make +such things a matter of prayer," she said; "some do not. I do not +judge them. I never judge any one. But I take all such matters to the +Throne of Grace, and as a result I feel that such things are injurious +to a poor person, and so I must deny myself the pleasure of charity." + +William Rives said that he would be pleased to contribute, and Mrs. +Barkley had a moment of intense excitement when she read his +check--$150. But her emotion only lasted until she put on her +spectacles. + +And yet, when Lydia, sitting at the kitchen table, wiped her eyes and +counted her gold by the light of a candle in a hooded candlestick, she +felt, somehow, William's hand in it. For, by this time, William's +friendliness was beyond any question. He came to see her every other +day, and he told her all his symptoms and talked of his loneliness and +forlornness until they were both moved to tears. + +"Poor William!" she said, her eyes overflowing with sympathy. "Well, +I'm glad you have plenty of money, anyhow. It would be hard to be poor +and have bad health, too." + +"But I haven't plenty of money," William said, with agitation. "How +did you get such an idea? I haven't!" + +And then Miss Lydia was sorrier for him than ever. "Although," she +said, cheerfully, "poverty is the last thing to worry about. Look at +me. I don't want to brag, but I'm always contented, and I'll tell you +why: _I don't want things_. Don't want things, and then you're not +unhappy without 'em." + +"Oh, Lydy, that's so true," Mr. Rives said, earnestly. "I'm so glad +you feel that way." And he began to call every day. + +"It's plain to be seen what's going to happen," said Mrs. Barkley, +excitedly, and whispered her hopes (in secret) to almost everybody in +Old Chester--except Dr. Lavendar. He became very ill-tempered the +moment she approached the subject. But she was jocose, in a deep bass, +to Miss Lydia herself; and Miss Lydia did not pretend to misunderstand. +She reddened and laughed; but her eyes were not clear; there was a +puzzled look at the back of them. Still, when she sat and looked at +her gold the puzzle lightened, and her face, under her black +frizette--in her excitement fallen sidewise over one ear--softened +almost to tears. "William is kind," she said to herself. + +And, indeed, at that very moment William was referring to her in most +kindly terms. He was sitting in Mrs. Barkley's gloomy parlor, on the +edge of the horse-hair sofa, and Mrs. Barkley was regarding him with +romantic interest. "I have been much saddened, ma'am," he was saying, +"to observe the destitution of Miss Lydia Sampson." + +Mrs. Barkley beamed. Was he going to do something, after all? She +spoke in an amiable bass, twitching her heavy eyebrows. "Our little +gift, which has gone to her to-night, will make her more comfortable. +I could wish it had been larger," she ended, and looked sidewise at Mr. +Rives, who bowed and regretted that it was not larger. He then coughed +behind his hand. + +"Mrs. Barkley, I wish to approach a subject of some delicacy." + +("He _is_ going to do something," she thought, excitedly; "or perhaps +he means marriage!") + +"Mrs. Barkley, in past years there were passages of affection between +Miss Sampson and myself" (Mrs. Barkley bowed; her heart began to glow +with that warmth which stirs the oldest of us at the sight of a lover). + +"We were younger in those days, ma'am," William said, in his soft voice. + +"Oh no!" she protested, politely. "Why, you are very well preserved, +I'm sure." + +"Yes," said William, "I am. Yet I am not as young as I once was." + +This drifting away from Miss Lydia disturbed Mrs. Barkley. She lowered +her chin and glared at him over her spectacles, saying, in a rumbling +bass: "Neither is Lydia; and it's hard for her to be destitute in her +old age." + +"Just so," Mr. Rives said, eagerly--"exactly. She is not as young as +she once was, which, for many reasons, is desirable. But I think she +is healthy?" + +"Why, yes," Mrs. Barkley admitted; "but I don't know that that makes it +easier to be poor." + +"But I infer that poverty has taught her economy?" William Rives said. + +"Yes; but poverty is a hard teacher." + +"But thorough--thorough!" said Mr. Rives; "and some people will learn +of no other." + +Mrs. Barkley was growing impatient; she gave up marriage and thought of +a pension. + +"Yes," said William; "she is economical, and has good health, and is +fond of old clothes, and is kind-hearted, and doesn't have any wants. +Excellent traits--excellent. I have looked very carefully at the items +of expense in regard to a housekeeper or nurse." + +Mrs. Barkley stared at him in bewilderment. Was he going to offer +Lydia a position as housekeeper? She was fairly dizzy with this seesaw +of possibilities; and she was perplexed, too, for, after all, badly as +Lydia needed assistance, propriety must be considered, and certainly +this housekeeping project was of doubtful propriety. "Because you know +you are neither of you very old," she explained. + +Mr. Rives looked disturbed. "Yes, we are," he said, sharply. "Quite +old enough. I would not wish a youthful wife, for--many reasons. +There might be--results, which would interfere with my comfort. No, +Lydia is no longer young; yet she is sufficiently robust to make me +extremely comfortable." The light was breaking slowly on Mrs. Barkley. +Her face flushed; she sat up very straight and tapped the table with +her thimble. "The expense of an extra person is not very considerable, +is it?" Mr. Rives said, doubtfully. "It was in regard to this that I +wished to consult you." + +"Not more than the wages of a housekeeper or a nurse," Mrs. Barkley +said, in a restrained voice. + +"Exactly!" cried Mr. Rives--"granted that her health is good." + +Mrs. Barkley opened and closed her lips. Her impulse to show him the +door battled with her common-sense. After all, it would mean a home +for Lydia; it would mean comfort and ease and absence from worry--plus, +of course, Mr. Rives. But if Lydia liked him, that wouldn't make any +difference. And she must like him--her faithfulness to the picture +proved it--and he was an agreeable person; amiable, too, Mrs. Barkley +thought, for he always smiled when he spoke. + +"Would you live in Old Chester?" she managed to say, after a pause. + +"Yes." + +"You would build, I suppose?" Mrs. Barkley said, trying, in the +confusion of her thoughts, to make time. + +"No," Mr. Rives said; "we would reside in Lydia's present abode." + +"_In Lydia's house_? You couldn't!--why, it would be impossible!" + +Mrs. Barkley, her mouth open with astonishment, saw, suddenly, that +this project was not comfort plus William, but William minus comfort. +"You couldn't! The chimney in the parlor is dreadful; it smokes +whenever the wind is from the west." + +"But, as I understand, Lydia has been provided with the means of +mending the chimney?" William said, anxiously. + +At this the rein broke. Mrs. Barkley rose, tapping the table with +alarming loudness and glaring down at her guest. "William Rives, I +have been a perfect fool. But you are worse--you are a mean person. +I'd rather live with a murderer than a mean man!" + +[Illustration: "MRS. BARKLEY ROSE, TAPPING THE TABLE WITH ALARMING +LOUDNESS"] + +Mr. Rives was unmoved. His little, steely smile never wavered; he rose +also, bowed, and said: "Possibly Miss Sampson does not agree with you. +I will bid you good-night, ma'am." + +"I was a perfect fool," she said again, as the door closed softly +behind him. + +But William Rives was no fool.... He said to himself that it behooved +him to see Miss Lydia before Mrs. Barkley had a chance to impart to her +those impolite views regarding himself. And that was why, as she was +still sitting at her kitchen table, twinkling with happiness over the +kindness of her world and piling her gold pieces in a little leaning +tower, William knocked at the door. + +Miss Lydia threw an apron over the small, glittering heap and ran to +let her caller in. When she saw who it was she whipped off the apron +to display her wealth; the tears stood in her eyes, and her happy heart +burst into words: "How good people are! Just think--$100! Why, it +takes my breath away--" + +"It is a large sum of money," William said, solemnly, touching the gold +with respectful fingers. "I would suggest a bank until you pay for the +mending of your chimney. And you will get some interest if you defer +payment for ninety days." + +"Mending my chimney?" Miss Lydia said, thoughtfully. "Well--that +wouldn't take nearly all this." + +William's face brightened. "You are right to be prudent, Lydia," he +said. "I admire prudence in a female; but still, masons and +carpenters--in fact, all persons of that sort,--are--thieves!" Then he +coughed delicately. "Lydia," he said, "I--I have been thinking--" + +"Yes?" said Miss Lydia, calmly. + +"We are so situated--each alone, that perhaps we might--we might, +ah--marry--to our mutual advantage?" + +"_Marry?_" + +"Yes," William said, earnestly; "I should be pleased to marry, Lydy. I +need a home. My health is not very good, and I need a home. You need +a home, also." + +"Indeed I don't!" she said; "I've got a home, thank you." + +"I haven't," William said; and Lydia's blue eyes softened. "I am not +very strong," he said ("though I see no reason why I should not live to +old age); but I want a home. Won't you take me, Lydy?" + +Miss Lydia frowned and sighed. "I am very well satisfied as I am," she +said; "but perhaps that is a selfish way to look at it." + +"Yes, it is," he told her, earnestly; "and you didn't use to be +selfish, Lydia." + +Miss Lydia sighed again. "I suppose I could make you comfortable, +William." + +"Do take me, Lydy," he entreated. + +And somehow or other, before she quite knew it, she had consented. + +As soon as the word was spoken, William arose with alacrity. "I don't +like to be out in the night air," he said, "so I'll say good-night, +Lydy. And, Lydy--shall we, for the moment, keep this to ourselves?" + +"Oh yes," said Miss Lydia, getting very red, "I'd rather, for the +present." Then, smiling and friendly, she went out with him, +bare-headed, to the gate. There William hesitated, swallowed once, +rubbed his hands nervously, and then suddenly gave her a kiss. + +Miss Lydia Sampson jumped. "Oh!" she said; and again, "_Oh!_" + +And then she ran back into the house, her eyes wet and shining, her +face flushed to her forehead. She sat down by the table and put her +hands over her eyes; she laughed, in a sort of sob, and her breath came +quickly. + +"I hadn't thought of it--that way," she whispered to herself. And +somehow, as she sat there by her kitchen table, she began to think of +it that way--Miss Lydia was very young! ... Oh, she would try and make +him happy; she would try and be more orderly; she would try to be good, +since her Heavenly Father had given back to her the old happiness. + +And that night she did not bid the picture good-night. + +Mr. Rives was himself not without emotion. It was many years, he +reflected, since his lips had touched those of a female, and the +experience was agreeable--so agreeable that he wished to repeat it as +soon as possible; and, furthermore, he felt anxious to know that Lydia +had put the gold in a safe place. But when he called the next day he +was a little late, because, as he explained to Miss Lydia, he had had +to wait for the mail. She met him with a new look in her innocent, +eager eyes, and her face was shy and red. As she sat sewing, listening +vaguely, she would glance at him now and then, as if, until now, she +had not seen him since that day of parting, thirty-one years ago--the +thirty-one years which had blotted Amanda's field from her memory. The +old happiness, like a tide long withdrawn, was creeping back, rising +and rising, until it was overflowing in her eyes. This puffy +gentleman, with his tight, smiling mouth, was the William of her +youth--and she had never known it until last night! She had thought of +him during the last month or two only as an old friend who needed the +care which her kind heart prompted her to give; and lo! suddenly he was +the lover who would care for her. + +"I was sorry, my dear Lydia, to be late," said Mr. Rives, in his soft +voice; "I was detained by waiting for the mail." + +Miss Lydia said, brightly, that it didn't matter. + +"But it was worth waiting for," William assured her. "I have done a +good piece of business. (Not that it will make me richer; I have so +many obligations to meet!) But it was a fortunate stroke." + +"That is good," said Miss Lydia. + +"A female in a distant city, where I own a poor little bit of real +estate--nothing of any value, Lydia; I am a poor man--" + +"That's no difference," she told him, softly. + +"--this female, a widow, and foolish (as widows always are)," William +said, with a little giggle, "asked me to sell her a house I owned. She +wished, for some reason, to purchase in that locality. I named the +market price. I did so, by letter, a fortnight ago. I believe she +thought it high; but that was her affair. She would have to sell +certain securities to purchase it, she said. But as I wrote her--'my +dear madam, that's your business.'" Mr. Rives laughed a little. Miss +Lydia looked up, smiling and interested. "Yes," said Mr. Rives--"I +didn't urge it. I never urge, because then I can't be blamed if things +go wrong. But I held my price. That is always good policy--not to +drop a dollar on price. So she's bought it. She made a payment +yesterday to bind the sale. Not that I feel any richer, for I must +immediately apply the money to the purchase of other things." + +"That's nice," Miss Lydia said. + +"I guess it is," William agreed; "I happen to know that a boiler +factory is to be erected on the rear lot." + +"But will she like that--the poor widow?" Miss Lydia said. + +Mr. Rives laughed comfortably. "Ah, Lydy, my dear, in business we do +not ask such questions before making a sale. _I_ like it. In three +months that bit of property will have shrunk to an eighth of its +selling price to-day." Mr. Rives's eyes twinkled with satisfaction. + +"But--_William!_" said Miss Lydia. Suddenly she grew pale. "William," +she said, "it seems to me you ought to have told the poor widow." + +"Lydia, a lady cannot understand business," William said, with kindly +condescension, but with a slight impatience. "Don't you see, if I had +told her, she would not have made the purchase?" + +Miss Lydia was silent, stroking the gathers of her cambric with a +shaking needle. Then she said, in a low voice, "I suppose she +wouldn't." + +William nodded encouragingly. "You'll learn, Lydia. A married lady +learns much of business methods through her husband. Though they don't +profit by it, I notice; widows are always foolish. Not that--that you +will be likely to be--to be foolish," he ended, hastily, frowning very +much. + +Lydia went on sewing in silence. The color did not come back into her +face, which caused William to ask her anxiously how she was. + +"You are sure you are healthy, Lydia, aren't you?" he said. + +Miss Lydia, without looking at him, said she was. When he had gone, +she stopped sewing and glanced about her in a frightened way; then she +put her hands over her eyes and drew in her breath, and once she +shivered. She sat there for a long time. After a while she got up and +went over to the picture of Mr. William Rives and stood looking at it; +and as she looked her poor, terrified eyes quieted into tears and she +straightened the bit of box with a tender hand, and then she suddenly +bent down and kissed the slim gentleman behind the misty glass. + +The next day when she met her lover she was cheerful enough. It was at +the front door of the Tavern; Dr. Lavendar was there, too, waiting for +the morning stage for Mercer. + +"Well! well! So I am going to have company, am I?" he said, for Miss +Lydia was waiting for it, too. Her bonnet was on one side, her shabby +jacket, fading from black to green on the shoulders, was split at the +elbow seams, and the middle finger of each glove was worn through; but +her eyes were shining with pleasure. + +"Yes," she said, nodding; "I'm going." + +Her presence seemed to be a surprise to Mr. Rives, who had strayed +forth from the breakfast-room to see the stage start. + +"You are going to Mercer?" he said, his small smile fading into an +astonished question. + +"Yes," Miss Lydia said, laughing, and suddenly she gave a little jump +of happiness. "I haven't been to Mercer for nine years. Oh, dear! +isn't it just delightful!" + +"But, why?" William persisted, in an amazed aside. + +"Oh, that's the secret!" cried Miss Lydia, clambering into the stage; +"you'll know sometime." + +"I suppose you wish to arrange for the alterations of your house?" +William said; "but considering the stage fares back and forth-- Oh, +there is Dr. Lavendar." + +He came round to the other side of the stage, smiling very much. +"Well, sir, good-morning! good-morning, sir!" + +"Hello," Dr. Lavendar said. + +Mr. Rives rubbed his hands. "I--I was about to say, Dr. Lavendar--that +little matter between us--it's of no importance, of course; quite at +your convenience, sir; I don't mean to press you--but at your +convenience, sir." + +"What are you talking about?" Dr. Lavendar said, with a puzzled blink. + +"Well," William said, smiling, "there's no haste, only I thought I'd +just remind you. I'm always business-like myself; and that little +matter of accommodation--" + +Dr. Lavendar stared at him. "I am afraid I'm a stupid old fellow; I +don't understand." + +The stage-driver gathered up his reins; Miss Lydia nodded joyously on +the back seat, the two other passengers frowned at the delay; so +William Rives made haste to explain: "Merely, sir, the stamp I had the +pleasure of lending you. But pray don't incommode yourself; I merely +remind you; it's of no--" + +Dr. Lavendar pulled out his shabby leather pocket-book, his hands +fairly trembling with haste, and produced the stamp; then he pulled the +door to, and as the stage sagged forward and went tugging up the hill, +he turned his astonished eyes on Miss Lydia. She had grown very pale, +but she said nothing, only looking out of the window and rubbing her +little cotton gloves hard together. + +"Would you have asked him for a receipt?" Dr. Lavendar said, under his +breath, chuckling. But when she tried to answer him, there was +something in her face that turned Dr. Lavendar grave. + +The stage jolted on; the two other passengers chatted, then one fell +asleep and the other read an almanac. Suddenly Miss Lydia turned +sharply round. "It just kills me!" she said. + +"Nonsense!" Dr. Lavendar told her. "He is a man of business, and I'm a +forgetful old codger. I knew William, and I ought to have remembered." + +But Miss Lydia's face had fallen into such drawn and anxious lines that +Dr. Lavendar had to do his best to cheer her. He began to ask +questions: How long was it since she had been in Mercer? Was she going +to call on friends? Was she going to shop? "I believe you ladies +always want to shop?" said Dr. Lavendar, kindly. And somehow Miss +Lydia brightened up. Yes; she was going to shop! It was a secret: she +couldn't tell Dr. Lavendar yet, but he should know about it first of +all. She was so happy, so important, so excited, that her pain at +William's business-like ways seemed forgotten; and when in Mercer they +separated at the Stage House, she went bustling off into the sunshine, +waving a shabby cotton glove at him, and crying, "I haven't a minute to +lose!" + +Dr. Lavendar stood still and shook his head. "Pity," he said--"pity, +pity. But I suppose it can't be helped. There's no use telling +William about her; he must see it. And there's no use telling her +about William; she must see it. No--no use. But it's a pity--a pity." +Which shows that Dr. Lavendar had reached that degree of wisdom which +knows that successful interference in love affairs must come from the +inside, not from the outside. + +He did not see Miss Lydia again until they met in the afternoon at the +Stage House, and for a minute he did not recognize her. She came +running and panting, laden with bundles, to the coach door. Indeed, +she was so hurried that one of her innumerable packages, a long, slim +bundle, slipped from her happy, weary arms, and, hitting the iron +drop-step, crashed into fragments and splashed her dress with its +contents. "Oh! that's one of my bottles of Catawba," said Miss Lydia. +"Dear, dear! Well, never mind; I'll order another." + +The fragrance of the wine soaking her gloves and the front of her faded +dress, filled the stage (in which they were the only passengers), and +Miss Lydia joyously licked the two bare finger-tips. "Too bad!" she +said; "but accidents will happen." + +Dr. Lavendar helped her pile her bundles on the front seat, and then he +unhooked the swinging strap so that certain parcels could be put on the +middle bench. Miss Lydia leaned back with a happy sigh. "The rest +will come down to-morrow," she said. + +"The _rest_?" said Dr. Lavendar. + +"Oh, I've just got to tell somebody!" she said. "Promise you won't +tell?" + +"I won't tell," he assured her. + +"Well," said Miss Lydia, "look here--do you see that?" She tore a +little hole in a long, flat package, and Dr. Lavendar saw a gleam of +blue. "That's a dress. Yes, a blue silk dress--for myself. I'm +afraid it was selfish to get a thing just for myself, but that and a +pair of white kid gloves and some lace are all I did get; and I've +wanted a silk dress, a blue silk dress, ever since I got poor." + +Dr. Lavendar looked at her and at the hole in the package, and at her +again. "Lydia!" he said, "is it possible that you--? _Lydia!_" he +ended, speechless with consternation. + +"The other things are all for the party." + +"The--party?" + +"Presents!" she said, rubbing her hands. "Oh, dear! I'm so tired! +And I'm so happy! Oh, nobody was ever so happy. The party (that's the +secret) is to be next Thursday a week; that gives me time to make my +dress. I ordered the cake in Mercer. All pink-and-white +icing--perfectly lovely! And I have a present for everybody. Here's a +work-basket for Martha King. And I have a bird-cage and a canary for +dear Willy (that is to come down to-morrow; I really couldn't carry +everything). And I've got a knitted shawl for Maria Welwood, and a +cloak for her dear Rose--that was rather expensive, but it's always +cheap to get the best. And a cornelian breast-pin for Alice Gray. And +a Roman sash for poor little Mary Gordon; she seems to me such a +forlorn child--no mother, and that rough Alex for a brother. +And--well; oh, dear! I'm so excited I can hardly remember--a book for +Mr. Ezra; a book for Mrs. Dale. Books are safe presents, don't you +think?" + +Dr. Lavendar groaned. + +"And a picture for Rachel King--that's it; that square bundle. So +pretty!--a little girl saying her prayers; sweet!--it's like her Anna. +And a box of candy for Sally Smith's little brothers; and a pair of +agate cuff-buttons for Sally--" She was moving her packages about as +she checked them off, and she looked round at Dr. Lavendar with a sigh +of pure joy. He could not speak his distracted thought. + +"Oh, you mustn't see that," she cried, suddenly pushing a certain +package under the others with great show of secrecy; and Dr. Lavendar +groaned again. "I think a party with presents for everybody will be +very unusual, don't you?" she asked, heaping her bundles up carefully; +two more fingers had burst through her cotton gloves, and as she leaned +forward a button snapped off her jacket. "I don't want to brag," she +said, "but I think it will be as nice a party as we have ever had in +Old Chester." + +"But, Lydia, my dear," Dr. Lavendar said, gently, "I am afraid it is +extravagant, isn't it, to try to give us all so much pleasure? And is +a blue silk frock very--well, serviceable, I believe, you ladies call +it?" + +"No, indeed it isn't," she said, with sudden, pathetic passion. +"_That's why I got it_. I never, since I was a girl, have had anything +that wasn't serviceable." + +"But," Dr. Lavendar said, "I rather hoped you would see your way clear +to making your house a little more comfortable?" + +"Why, but I'm perfectly comfortable," she assured him; "and even if I +was not, I'd rather, just for once in my life, have my party and give +my presents. Oh, just once in a lifetime! I'd rather," she said, and +her eyes snapped with joy--"I'd rather have next Thursday night, and my +house as it is, than just comfort all the rest of my days. Comfort! +What's comfort?" + +"Well, Lydia, it's a good deal to some of us," Dr. Lavendar said. And +then his eyes narrowed. "Lydia, my dear--does Mr. Rives know about +this?" + +Miss Lydia, counting her packages over, said, absently, "No; it is to +be a surprise to William." + +"If I am not mistaken," said Dr. Lavendar, "it will be a very great +surprise to William." + +And then he fell into troubled thought; but as he thought his face +brightened. It brightened so much that by the time they reached Old +Chester he was as joyously excited about the party as was Miss Lydia +herself, who made him a thousand confidences about her dress and her +presents and the food which would be offered to her guests. His +joyousness had not abated when, the next morning, Mrs. Barkley +presented herself, breathless, at the Rectory. + +"I think," said she, in an awful bass, sitting up very straight and +glaring at Dr. Lavendar, "that this is the most terrible thing that +ever happened." + +"There are worse things," said Dr. Lavendar. + +"_I_ know of nothing worse," Mrs. Barkley said, with dreadful +composure. "You may. You know what the unregenerate human heart may +do. I do not. This is the worst. What will people say? What will +Mrs. Dale say? It must be stopped! She ran in this morning and told +me in confidence. She came, she said, to know if she could borrow my +teaspoons next Thursday week. I said she could, of course; but I +suppose I looked puzzled; I couldn't imagine--then she confessed. She +said you knew, but no one else. Then, before I came to my senses, she +ran out. I came here at once to say that you must stop it." + +"In the first place," said Dr. Lavendar, thrusting his hands down into +his dressing-gown pockets, "I couldn't stop it. In the second place, I +haven't the right to stop it. And in the third place, I wouldn't stop +it if I could." + +"Dr. Lavendar!" + +"I am delighted with the plan. We need gayety in Old Chester; _I think +we'll get it_. I hope she'll have Uncle Davy in, with his fiddle, and +we'll have a reel. Mrs. Barkley, will you do me the honor?" + +It came over Mrs. Barkley, with a sudden chill, that there was +something the matter with Dr. Lavendar. + +"I have calculated," said the old minister, chuckling, "that Miss Lydia +has in hand, at present, about $1.75 of our $100. This sum I trust she +will give to Foreign Missions. The need is great. I shall bring it to +her attention." + +"Dr. Lavendar," said Mrs. Barkley; and paused. + +"Ma'am?" + +"I don't understand you, sir." + +Dr. Lavendar looked at her and smiled. + + + + +IV + +And so the night of Old Chester's festivity approached. Miss Lydia's +invitations were delivered the morning of the day, but a rumor of the +party was already in the air. There had been some shakings of the head +and one or two frowns. "It will cost her at least $3," said Martha +King, "and she could get a new bonnet with that." + +"It's her way of thanking us for her present," said the doctor, "and a +mighty nice way, too. I'm going. I'll wear my white waistcoat." + +Mrs. Drayton said, calmly, that it was dishonest. "The money was given +to her for one purpose. To ask people to tea, and have even only cake +and lemonade, is spending it for another purpose. It will cost her at +least $4.50. Not a large sum, compared with the whole amount donated +in charity. But the principle is the same. I always look for the +principle--it is a Christian's duty. And I could not face my Maker if +I ever failed in duty." + +Then Mrs. Dale's comment ran from lip to lip: "Miss Lydia has a right +to do as she pleases with her own; if she invites me to tea, I shall go +with pleasure." + +When the rumor reached William Rives's ears he turned pale, but he made +no comment. "But I came to ask you about it, Lydy," he said. This was +Wednesday evening, and William stood at the front door; Miss Lydia was +on the step above him. "I won't ask you to come in, William," she +said, "I'm so busy--if you'll excuse me." + +"I am always gratified," said William, "when a female busies herself in +household affairs, so I will not interrupt you. I came for two +purposes: first, to inquire when you intend to begin the improvements +upon your house; and, secondly, to say that I hope I am in error in +regard to this project of a supper that I hear you are to give." + +"Why?" said Lydia. + +"Because," William said, with his sharp, neat smile, "a supper is not +given without expense. Though I approve of hospitality, and make a +point of accepting it, yet I am always conscious that it costs money. +I cannot but calculate, as I see persons eating and drinking, the +amount of money thus consumed, and I often wonder at my hosts. I say +to myself, as I observe a guest drink a cup of tea, 'Two cents.' Such +thoughts (which must present themselves to every practical man) are +painful. And such a supper as I hear you mean to give would involve +many cups of tea." + +"Twenty-seven," said Miss Lydia. + +"And is there to be cake also?" said William, breathlessly. + +"There is," said Miss Lydia; "a big one, with a castle in +pink-and-white icing on it--beautiful!" + +William was stricken into silence; then he said, shaking his head, "Do +you really mean it, Lydy?" + +"I do, William." + +Mr. Rives sighed. + +"Well," he said--"well, I regret it. But, Lydy, we might utilize the +occasion? Refreshment is always considered genteel at a marriage. Why +not combine your supper with our wedding? We can be married to-morrow +night. Dr. Lavendar is coming, I presume? I can get the license in +the morning." + +Miss Lydia was silent; the color came into her face, and she put her +hand up to her lips in a frightened way. "Oh, I--don't know," she +faltered. "I--I am not--not ready--" + +"Oh," William urged, "never mind about being ready; I should be the +last to wish you to go to any of the foolish expense of dress customary +on such occasions. Yes, Lydy, it is an opportunity. Do agree, my +dear; we will save money by it." + +Miss Lydia drew in her breath; she was very pale; then suddenly she +nodded. "Well, yes," she said. "I will, if you want to, William. +Yes, I will." + +"I will communicate with Dr. Lavendar," said Mr. Rives, joyfully, "and +ask him to hold himself in readiness, but not to speak of it outside." +Miss Lydia nodded, and, closing the door, went back to her engrossing +affairs. Presents and a party and a wedding--no wonder the poor little +soul was white and dizzy with excitement! + +Long will Old Chester remember that occasion: The little house, lighted +from garret to cellar; candles in every possible spot; flowers all +about; the mantel-piece heaped with bundles; William King's bird-cage +hanging in the window; Uncle Davy's fiddle twanging in the kitchen; and +Miss Lydia in front of the smoky fireplace, banked now with larkspurs +and peonies--Miss Lydia in a light, bright blue silk dress trimmed with +lace; Miss Lydia in white kid gloves, buttoned with one button at the +wrist, and so tight that the right glove split across the back when she +began to shake hands. Oh, it was a great moment.... No wonder she was +pale with excitement! ... She was very pale when William Rives +arrived--arrived, and stood dumfounded!--staring at Miss Lydia; staring +at the packages which were now finding their way into astonished hands; +staring at the refreshment-table between the windows, at the great, +frosted cake, at the bottles of Catawba, at Mrs. Barkley's spoons stuck +into tall glasses of wine jelly. Mr. Rives stood staring at these +things, his small eyes starting out upon his purpling cheeks, and as he +stared, Miss Lydia, watching him, grew paler and paler. + +[Illustration: "MISS LYDIA, WATCHING HIM, GREW PALER AND PALER"] + +Then, suddenly, William, stealthily, step by step, began to back out of +the room. In the doorway he shouldered Mrs. Barkley, and, wheeling, +turned upon her a ferocious face: + +"_And I contributed $1.50--_" + +But as he retreated and retreated, the color returned to Miss Lydia's +cheek. She had almost stopped breathing as he stood there; but when he +finally disappeared, she broke out into the full joyousness of the +occasion. The opening of each present was like a draught of wine to +her, the astounded or angry thanks went to her head; she rubbed her +hands until the left glove split also; and then Uncle Davy's fiddle +began in good earnest, and she bustled about, running and laughing, and +arranging partners for the reel. + +Yes, it was a great occasion. Old Chester talked of it for months; not +even William Rives's most unexpected and unexplainable departure the +next day on the morning stage could divert the appalled, excited, +disapproving interest that lasted the year out. Not even Miss Lydia's +continued faithfulness to the portrait, which had condoned so many +offences in the past, could soften Old Chester's very righteous +indignation. There were, it must be admitted, one or two who professed +that they did not share the disapproval of all right-thinking persons; +one was, if you please, Mr. Smith! (He was one of the new Smiths, so +one might expect anything from him.) He had not been invited to the +party, but when he heard of it he roared with most improper mirth. + +"Well done!" he said. "By Jove! what a game old party. Well done! +The money was champagne on an empty stomach; of course, she got drunk. +It would have been cheaper to have bought a bottle of the genuine +article and shut herself up for twenty-four hours. Well, it's worth +the cost of a new chimney. I'll put her repairs through, Dr. +Lavendar--unless you want to get up another present?" And then he +roared again. Very ill-bred man he was. + +Dr. Lavendar said that there would not be another present. He said +Miss Lydia had a right, in his opinion, to spend her money as she +chose; but there would not be another present. + +And then he walked home, blinking and smiling. "Smith's a good +fellow," he said to himself, "if he is one of the new folks. But what +I'd like to know is: _did Lydia think $100 a low price?_" + + + + +AMELIA + + +I + +The exception that proved Old Chester's rule as to the subjection of +Youth was found in the household of Mr. Thomas Dilworth. + +When the Dilworth children (at least the two girls) hung about their +father when he came home at night or teased and scolded and laughed at +him at their friendly breakfast-table, an observer might have thought +himself miles away from Old Chester and its well-brought-up Youth. The +way those girls talk to Thomas Dilworth! "Where will it end?" said Old +Chester, solemnly. For instance, the annual joke in the Dilworth +family was that father had been in love with mother for as many years +as she was old, less so many minutes. + +Now, imagine Old Chester children indulging in such familiarities! + +Yet on Mrs. Dilworth's birthday this family witticism was always in +order: + +"Father, how long have you been mother's beau?" + +And Thomas, rosy, handsome, looking at least ten years younger than his +Amelia, would say: "Well, let's see: forty-one years" (or two or three, +as the case might be), "eleven months, twenty-nine days, twenty-three +hours, and forty minutes; she was twenty minutes old when I first laid +eyes on her, and during those twenty minutes I was heart-whole." + +But Mrs. Dilworth, smiling vaguely behind her coffee-cups, would +protest: "I never heard anything about it, Tom, until you were sixteen." + +And then the girls would declare that they must be told just what +father said when he was sixteen and mother was twelve. But Thomas drew +the line at that. "Come! come! you mustn't talk about love-making. As +for marrying, I don't mean to let you girls get married at all. And +Ned here had better not let me catch him thinking of such nonsense +until he's twenty-five. He can get married (if I like the girl) when +he is twenty-eight." + +"You got married at twenty-two, sir," Edwin demurred. + +"If you can find a woman like your mother, you can get married at +twenty-two. But you can't. They don't make 'em any more. So you've +got to wait. And remember, I've decided not to let Mary and Nancy get +married, ever. I don't propose to bring up a brace of long-legged +girls, and clothe 'em and feed 'em and pay their doctors' bills, and +then, just as they get old enough to amount to anything and quit being +nuisances, hand 'em over to another fellow. No, sir! You've got to +stay at home with me. Do you understand?" + +The girls screamed at this, and flung themselves upon him to kiss him +and pull his hair. + +No wonder Old Chester was shocked. + +Yet, in spite of such happenings, Thomas and Amelia Dilworth were of +the real Old Chester. They were not tainted with _newness_--that sad +dispensation of Providence which had to be borne by such people as the +Macks or the Hayeses, or those very rich (but really worthy) Smiths. +The Dilworths were not new; yet their three children had the +training--or the lack of training--that made the Hayes children and +their kind a subject for Old Chester's prayers. + +"Who can say what the result of Milly Dilworth's negligence will be?" +Mrs. Drayton said, sighing, to Dr. Lavendar; who only reminded her that +folks didn't gather thistles of figs--generally speaking. + +But in spite of Dr. Lavendar's optimism, it was a queer household, +according to Old Chester lights.... In the first place, the father and +mother were more unlike than is generally considered to be +matrimonially safe. Amelia was a dear, good soul, but, as Miss Helen +Hayes said once, "with absolutely no mind"; while Thomas Dilworth was +eminently level-headed, although very fond (so Mrs. Drayton said) of +female society. And it must be admitted that Thomas had more than once +caused his Milly a slight pang by such fondness. But at least he was +never conscious that he had done so--and Milly never told him. (But +Mrs. Drayton said that that was something she could not forgive in a +married gentleman. "My dear husband," said Mrs. Drayton, "has never +wandered from me, even in imagination.") Added to conjugal incongruity +was this indifference on the part of Thomas and his wife to the +training of the children. The three young Dilworths were allowed to +grow up exactly as they pleased. It had worked well enough with Mary +and Nancy, who were good girls, affectionate and sensible--so sensible +that Nancy, when she was eighteen, had practically taken the +housekeeping out of her mother's hands; and Mary, at sixteen, looked +out for herself and her affairs most successfully. With Edwin the +Dilworth system had not been so satisfactory. He was conceited (though +that is only to be expected of the male creature at nineteen) and +rather selfish; and he had an unlovely reserve, in which he was +strikingly unlike his father, who overflowed with confidences. This, +and other unlikeness, was, no doubt, the reason that there were +constant small differences between them. And Mrs. Dilworth--vague, +gentle soul!--was somehow unable to smooth the differences over as +successfully as most mothers do. + +Now, smoothing things over is practically a profession to mothers of +families. But Milly Dilworth had never succeeded in it. In the first +place, she had no gift of words; the more she felt, the more +inexpressive she became; but, worst of all, she had, poor woman, not +the slightest sense of humor. Now, in dealing with husbands and +children (especially with husbands), though you have the tongues of +men--which are thought to be more restrained than those of women--and +though you have the gift of prophecy (a common gift of wives) and +understand all mysteries--say, of housekeeping--and though you give +your body to be used up and worn out for their sakes, yet all these +things profit you nothing if you have no sense of humor. And Milly +Dilworth had none. + +That was why she could not understand. + +She loved, in her tender, undemonstrative way, her shy, unpractical, +secretive Edwin and her two capable girls; she loved, with the single, +silent passion of her soul, her generous, selfish, light-hearted Tom, +who took her wordless worship as unconsciously and simply as he took +the air he breathed; she loved them all. But she did not pretend to +understand them. Thus she stood always a little aside, watching and +loving, and wondering sometimes in her simple way; but often suffering, +as people with no sense of humor are apt to suffer. Dear, dull, gentle +Milly! No one could remember a harsh word of hers, or mean deed, or a +little judgment. No wonder Dr. Lavendar felt confident that there +would be no thistles in her household. + +Thomas Dilworth had the same comfortable conviction, especially in +regard to his girls. "Now, Milly, honestly," he used to say, "apart +from the fact that they are ours, don't you really think they are the +nicest girls in Old Chester?" + +Milly would admit, in her brief way, that they were good children. + +"And Edwin means all right," the father would assure himself; and then +add that he couldn't understand their boy--"at least, I suppose he's +ours? Willy King says so. I have thought perhaps he was a changeling, +put into the cradle the first day." + +"But, Tom," Milly would protest, anxiously, "Neddy couldn't be a +changeling. He was never out of my sight for the first week--not even +to be taken out of the room to be shown to people. Besides, he has +your chin and my eyes." + +"Well, if you really think so?" Thomas would demur. And Mrs. Dilworth +always said, earnestly, that she was sure of it. + +Still, in spite of eyes and chin, Ned's unpracticalness was an anxiety +to his father, and his uncommunicativeness a constant irritation. +Thomas himself was ready to share anything he possessed, money or +opinions or hopes, with any friend, almost with any acquaintance. "I +don't want to know anybody's business," he used to say; "I'm not +inquisitive, Milly; you know I'm not. But I hate hiding things! Why +shouldn't he say where he's going when he goes out in the evening? +Sneaking off, as if he were ashamed." + +"He just doesn't think of it," the mother would say, trying to smooth +it over. + +"Well, he ought to think of it," the father would grumble, eager to be +smoothed. + +But Milly found it harder to reconcile her husband to their boy's +indifference to business than to his reserves. + +"He sees fit to look down on the hardware trade," Tom told his wife, +angrily. "'Well, sir,' I said to him the other day, 'it's given you +your bread-and-butter for nineteen years; yes--and your fiddle, too, +and your everlasting music lessons.' And I'll tell you what, Milly, a +man who looks down on his business will find his business looking down +on him. And it's a good business--it's a darned good business. If Ned +doesn't have the sense to see it, he had better go and play his fiddle +and hold out his hat for pennies." + +Milly looked anxiously sympathetic. + +"I don't know what is going to become of him," Thomas went on. "When +you come to provide for three out of the hardware business, nobody gets +very much." + +Mrs. Dilworth was silent. + +"I was talking about him to Dr. Lavendar yesterday, and he said: 'Oh, +he'll fall in love one of these days, and he'll see that fiddling won't +buy his wife her shoe-strings; then he'll take to the hardware +business,' Dr. Lavendar said. It's all very well to talk about his +falling in love and taking to business; but if he falls in love, I'll +have another mouth to fill. And maybe more," he added, grimly. + +"Not for a year, anyway," his wife said, hopefully. "And, besides, I +don't think Neddy's thinking of such a thing." + +"I hope not, at his age." + +"You were engaged when you were nineteen." + +"My dear, I wasn't Ned." + +Mrs. Dilworth was silent. + +"The Packards telegraphed to-day that they wouldn't take that reaper," +Tom Dilworth said. + +Milly seemed to search for words of sympathy, but before she found them +Tom began to talk of something else; he never waited for his wife's +replies, or, indeed, expected them. He was so constituted that he had +to have a listener; and during all their married life she had listened. +When she replied, she was a sounding-board, echoing back his own +opinions; when she was silent, he took her silence to mean agreement. +Tom used to say that his Milly wasn't one of the smart kind; he didn't +like smartness in a woman, anyway; but she had darned good sense;--for, +like the rest of us, Thomas Dilworth had a deep belief in the +intelligence of the people who agreed with him.... + +"I have a great mind," he rambled on, "to go up to the Hayeses'. You +know that note is due on the 15th, and I believe I'll have to ask him +to extend it. I hate to do it, but Packard has upset my calculations, +and I'll have to get an extension, or else sell something out; and just +now I don't like to do that." + +"Very well," she said. It was her birthday--the one day in the year +that her Thomas remembered that he had been in love with her for so +many years, months, days, hours, minutes--a fact she never for one day +in the year forgot. But she could no more have reminded him of the day +than she could have flown. She was constitutionally inexpressive. + +Tom began to whistle: + +[Illustration: music fragment] + +but broke off to say, "Well, since you advise it, I'll see Hayes"; then +he gave her a kiss, and immediately forgot her--as completely as he had +forgotten his supper or any other comfortable and absolutely necessary +thing. Then he lighted his cigar and started for the Hayeses'. + + + + +II + +"And who do you suppose I found there?" he said, when he got home, well +on towards eleven o'clock, an hour so dissipated for Old Chester that +Milly was broad awake in silent anxiety. "Why, Ned, if you please! He +was talking to Hayes's daughter Helen. She seems a mighty nice girl, +Milly. I packed young Edwin off at nine; he was boring Miss Helen to +death. Boys have no sense about such things. Can't you give him a +hint that women of twenty-five don't care for little boys' talk? +By-the-way, she talks mighty well herself. After I settled my business +with Hayes, we got to discussing the President's letter; she had just +read it." + +"Do you mean to say _that the President has written to Helen Hayes_?" +cried Mrs. Dilworth, sitting up in bed in her astonishment. + +Thomas roared, and began to pull his boots. "Why, they are regular +correspondents! Didn't you know it?" + +"No! I hadn't the slightest idea--Tom, you're joking?" + +"My dear, you can't think I am capable of joking? But, Milly, look +here, I'll tell you one thing: she was mighty sensible about Ned. She +thinks there's a good deal to him--" + +"I don't need Helen Hayes to tell me that," said Ned's mother. + +Tom, who never paused for his wife's reply, was whistling joyfully: + +[Illustration: music fragment] + + +Helen Hayes had been very comforting to him; he had protested, when Ned +reluctantly departed, that a boy never knew when to clear out; and Miss +Helen had pouted, and said Ned shouldn't be scolded; "I wouldn't let +him 'clear out'--so there!" Few women of thirty-two can be cunning +successfully, but Tom thought Miss Helen very cunning. "I just +perfectly love to hear him talk about his music," she said. + +"He can't talk about anything else," Ned's father said. "That's the +trouble with him." + +"The trouble with him? Why, that's the beauty of him," said Miss +Hayes, with enthusiasm; and Thomas said to himself that she was a +mighty good-looking girl. The rose-colored lamp-shade cast a soft +light on a face that was not quite so young as was the frock she +wore--rose-colored also, with much yellowish lace down the front. It +was very unlike Milly's dresses--dark, good woollens, made rather +tight, for Milly, short and stout and forty-three, aspired (for her +Thomas's sake) to a figure,--which is always a pity at forty-three. +Furthermore, Helen Hayes's hands, very white and heavy with shining +rings, lay in lovely idleness in her lap; and that is so much more +restful in a woman's hands than to be fussing with sewing "or +everlasting darning," Thomas thought. In fact, what with her lovely +idleness and her praise of his boy, Tom Dilworth thought he had rarely +seen so pleasing a young woman. "Though she's not so very young, after +all; she must be twenty-five," he told his wife. + +"She'll never see thirty again." + +"Well, she's a mighty nice girl," Thomas said. + +Except to look pretty, Miss Helen Hayes had done nothing to produce +this impression, for she had contradicted Mr. Dilworth up and down +about Ned. + +"He has genius, you know." + +"You mean his fiddle?" Tom said, incredulously. + +"I mean his music. We'll hear of him one of these days." + +"I don't care much whether we ever hear from his music," he said, "but +I wish I could hear that he was applying himself to business." + +"Business!" cried Helen Hayes. "What is business compared to Art?" + +Thomas looked over at Mr. Hayes in astonishment, for in those days, in +Old Chester, this particular sort of talk had not been heard; the older +man sneered and changed his cigar from one corner of his mouth to the +other. Miss Hayes did not get much sympathy from her family. But she +went on with pretty dogmatism: + +"You see, in a man like your son--" + +"A man! He's only twenty, my dear young lady." + +"In a _man_, sir! like your son--genius is the thing to consider; and +you owe it to the world to let genius have its fullest play. Don't +bring Pegasus down to plough Old Chester cornfields. Why, it seems to +me," said Helen Hayes, "that he ought to be allowed to just soar. We +common folk ought to do the ploughing." + +"Thunder an' guns!" said Tom Dilworth. + +"I don't care if he can't be sure that two and two make four," cried +Miss Helen (Thomas, bubbling into aggrieved confidence on this sore +subject, had alleged this against his son); "he can put four notes +together that open the gates of heaven. And he'll distinguish himself +in music, because his father's son is bound to have tremendous +perseverance and energy." + +Old Mr. Hayes snorted and spat into the fire; but Miss Helen's look +when she said "his father's son" made Mr. Thomas Dilworth simper. + +"That girl has sense," he said to himself as he walked home at a +quarter to eleven. But he only told Mrs. Dilworth that she had better +hint to Ned to be a little more backward in coming forward. "That +Hayes girl is nice to him on our account," said Tom, "but he needn't +bore her to death. Milly, why don't you have one of those pink +wrappers? She had one on to-night. Loose, you know, and trimmed down +the front." + +"A wrapper isn't very suitable for company," Mrs. Dilworth said, +briefly. "It didn't matter with you, because you're an old married +man; but she oughtn't to go round in wrappers when Neddy's there." + +"Why, it was a sort of party dress--all lace and stuff. I wish you had +one like it. As for Ned, he's a babe; and her wrapper thing was +perfectly proper, of course. Can't you ask her for the pattern?" + +And then Thomas went to sleep and dreamed of a large order for +galvanized buckets; but his Milly lay awake a long time, wondering how +she could get a pink dress; pleased, in her silent way, that Tom should +be thinking about her clothes; but with a slow resentment gathering in +her heart that Helen Hayes's clothes should have suggested his thought. + +"And pink isn't my color," she thought, a vision of her own mild, red +face rising in her mind. Still, a fresh pink lawn--"that's always +pretty," Milly Dilworth said to herself, earnestly. + + + + +III + +Tom Dilworth's boy was a curious _sport_ from the family stock. He +did, indeed, look down on the hardware business, but not much more than +on any business, although galvanized utensils were perhaps a little +more hideous than most things. Business in itself did not interest +him. Money-making was sordid folly, he said; because, "What do you +want money for? Isn't it to buy food and clothes and shelter? Well, +you can't eat more food than enough; you can only wear one suit of +clothes at a time; and an eight-foot cell is all the shelter that is +necessary." + +"Eight-foot--_grandmother!_" his father would retort; "you'll inventory +that lot of spades, young man, and dry up." + +And Ned, with shrinking hands and ears that shuddered at the hideous +screech of scraping shovels, would make out his inventory with +loathing. His mother was not impatient or contemptuous with him--she +could not have been that to any one; she simply could not understand +what he meant when he spouted upon the folly of wealth (for, like most +shy people, he occasionally burst into orations upon his theories), or +when he set off some fireworks of scepticism borrowed from Mr. Ezra +Barkley, or undertook (when Thomas was not present) to prove his +father's politics entirely wrong. On such occasions Nancy would say, +"Oh, Ned, _do_ be quiet!" and Mary would yawn openly. As for his +music, nobody cared about it, except, perhaps, his mother. "But I must +say, Neddy, I like a tune," she would say, mildly, after Edwin had +tucked his violin under his chin and poured out all his young soul in +what was a true and simple passion. + +"A tune!" poor Ned said, and groaned. "Mother, I wish you wouldn't +call me that ridiculous name." + +"I'll try not to, Neddy, dear," she would promise, anxiously; and Ned +would groan again. + +With such a family circle, one can fancy what it was to the lad when +quite by accident he found a friend. It was the summer that he was +twenty, that once, coming back in the stage with him from Mercer, Miss +Helen Hayes showed a keen interest in something he said; then she asked +a question or two; and when, hesitating, waiting for the laugh which +did not come, he began to talk, she listened. Oh, the joy of finding a +listener! She looked at him, as they sat on the slippery leather seat +of the old stage, with soft, intelligent eyes, her slightly faded +prettiness giving a touch of charm to the high and flattering gravity +of her manner. When she asked him to bring his violin sometime and +play to her, the boy could almost have wept with joy. He made haste to +work off several of his dearest and most shocking phrases, which she +took with deep seriousness: A whale's throat is not large enough to +swallow a man--therefore the Biblical account is false, etc., etc. "In +fact," said Ned, "if I could have a half-hour's straight conversation +with Dr. Lavendar, I could prove to him the falsity of most of the Old +Testament." + +Helen Hayes was shocked; she regretted Mr. Dilworth's scepticism with +almost tearful warmth; yet she realized that a powerful mind must +search for truth, above all. She wished, however, that he would read +such and such a book. "I can't argue with you myself," she said--"you +are far too clever for my poor little reasoning powers." + +It was in April that Edwin entered into this experience of feminine +sympathy; and by mid-summer, at the time when Mr. Thomas Dilworth also +found Miss Helen Hayes so remarkably intelligent, the boy was absorbed +in his new emotion of friendship. He never spoke of it at home, hence +his father's astonishment at finding him at the Hayeses'. And when, a +week later, he found him a second time, Tom Dilworth was much perplexed. + +"I dropped in on my way back from the store," he told his wife, "and +there was that boy. I said to Miss Helen that she really must not let +him bother her. I told her he was a blatherskite, and she must just +tell him to dry up if he talked too much." + +"Tom, I don't think you ought to talk that way about Neddy," Mrs. +Dilworth said. "He's a dear boy." + +"He may be a dear boy, but he is a great donkey," Ned's father said, +dryly; "and I think it is very good in Helen Hayes to put up with him. +I can see she does it on my account. Milly, why don't you ask her to +come to supper, sometime? I like to talk to her; she's got brains, +that girl. And she's good-looking, too. Ask her to tea, and have +waffles and fried chicken, and some of that fluffy pink stuff the +children are so fond of, for dessert." + +"She's not much of a child," said Mrs. Dilworth, her face growing +slowly red. "She's thirty-two if she's a day." + +"My dear, she has aged rapidly; you said thirty a month ago. I like +the pink stuff myself, and I'm nearly fifty. I bet the Hayeses don't +have anything better at their house." + +Milly softened at that. Where is the middle-aged housekeeper who does +not soften at being told that her pink stuff is better than anything +the Hayeses can produce? Yet Tom's talk of Miss Helen's brains pierced +through her vagueness and bit into her heart and mind; and she could +not forget that he had called the girl good-looking. "Girl!" said Mrs. +Dilworth. She was standing before the small swinging glass on her high +bureau, looking at herself critically; then she slipped back and locked +her door; then took a hand-glass and stood sidewise to look again. Her +hair was drawn tightly from her temples and twisted into a hard knot at +the back of her head; she remembered that the Hayes girl wore high +rats, which were very fashionable, and had a large curl at one side of +her waterfall. "But it's pinned on," Milly said to herself; "anyway, +mine's my own." Then she pulled her cap farther forward (in those days +mothers of families began to wear caps when they were thirty) and +looked in the glass again: Helen Hayes did not have a double chin. +"She's a skinny thing," Milly said to herself. Yet she knew, bitterly, +that she would rather be skinny than see those cruel lines, like +gathers on a drawing-string, puckering the once round neck below the +chin. And her forehead: she wondered whether if, every day, she +stroked it forty-two times, she could smooth out the wrinkles?--those +wrinkles that stood for the tender and anxious thought of all her +married life! She had heard of getting rid of wrinkles in that way. +"It would take a good deal of time," she thought, doubtfully. Still, +she might try it--with the door locked. These reflections did not, +however, interfere with the invitation which Thomas had suggested. + +Milly had her opinion of a middle-aged woman who wore wrappers in +public; but if Tom wanted her and her wrappers, he should have them. +He should have anything in the world he desired, if she could procure +it. Had he desired Miss Hayes hashed on toast, Milly would have done +her best to set the dainty dish before her king. And no doubt poor +Miss Helen in this form would have given Mrs. Dilworth more personal +satisfaction than did her presence at Tom's side (for the invitation +was promptly accepted) in some trailing white thing, her eyes fixed on +her host's face, intent, apparently, upon any word he might utter. +Watching that absorbed and flattering gaze, Milly grew more and more +silent. She heard their eager talk, and her mild eyes grew round and +full of pain with the sense of being left out; for Miss Hayes, though +patient with her hostess, and even kind in a condescending way, hardly +spoke to her. Once when, her heart up in her throat, Mrs. Dilworth +ventured a comment, it seemed only to amuse Thomas and his guest--and +she did not know why. + +"This morning," Tom said, "I was h'isting up a big bunch of galvanized +buckets to our loft with a fall and tackle, and all of a sudden the +strap slipped, and the whole caboodle just whanged down on the +pavement--" + +"O-o-o-o!" said Helen Hayes, putting her hands over her ears with +dramatic girlishness. + +"It was terrific, and just at that moment up came Dr. Lavendar. Well, +of course I couldn't express my feelings--" + +"Poor Mr. Dilworth!" + +"--he came up, and gave me a rap with his stick. 'Thomas,' he said +(you know how his eyes twinkle!)--'Thomas, this is the most profane +silence I ever heard.'" + +Everybody laughed, except Milly and Edwin, the latter remarking that he +didn't see anything funny in that. At which Miss Hayes said to him, +under her breath, "Oh, you superior people are so contemptuous of our +frivolity!" And Ned blushed with satisfaction, and murmured, "Why, no; +I'm not superior, I'm sure." + +As for Milly, with obvious effort and getting very red, she said that +she didn't see how silence could be profane. "As long as you didn't +say anything, you conquered your spirit," she added, faintly. + +And then they all (except Edwin) laughed again. After that she made no +attempt to be taken into the gayety about her, but her heart burned +within her. The next morning at breakfast some words struggled out: +"You'd think she was a young thing, she laughs so. And she's nearly +thirty-five." + +"How time flies!" said Tom, chuckling. And then, to everybody's +astonishment, the mute Edwin spoke up, and said that as for age it was +a matter of the soul and not of the body. "Some people are always +young," said Edwin. "Dr. Lavendar is, and you are, father--" + +"Thank you, grave and reverend seignior." + +"--and mother," continued the candid youth, "has always been old. +Haven't you, mother?" + +"True, for you, my boy," said the father; "your mother has the wisdom +of the family." + +Milly Dilworth's face grew dully red to the roots of her hair; a wave +of anger rose up in her inarticulate heart. They called her old, these +two. She could hardly see her plate for tears. + +Edwin, however, was so thrilled by the elegance of his sentiment that +he was eager to repeat it to Miss Hayes; but, somehow, he always had +difficulty in introducing the subject of age. When he did succeed in +getting in his little speech, she said that he impressed her very much +when he said things like that. "Your insight is wonderful," she +murmured, looking at him with something like awe in her eyes. (Miss +Helen was never cunning with Ned.) + +"I guess you're the only person that thinks so," Ned said; "at home +they're always making fun of me." + +"My friend," she said, gravely, "what else can you expect? You are an +eagle in a pigeon's nest. I don't mean to criticise your family, but +you know as well as I that you are--different. You are an inspiration +to me," she ended. And Ned blushed with joy. + +It certainly is inspiring to be told you are an inspiration.... Mr. +Thomas Dilworth did not blush when he learned that mentally he was the +most stimulating person that Miss Hayes had ever met; but he had an +agreeable consciousness of his superiority, which he made no effort to +conceal from his wife. He never made any effort to conceal anything +from Milly, not even that fondness for female society which Mrs. +Drayton had deplored. + +And by-and-by Milly's tears began to lie very near the surface. They +never gathered and fell, but perhaps they dropped one by one on her +heart, leaving their imprint of patiently accepted pain. At this time +she thought of her own mental deficiencies very constantly. Her mind +had no flexibility, and she reached conclusions only by toilsome +processes; but once reached, they were apt to be permanent. Her slow +reasoning at this time led her to conclude that her Thomas was not to +blame because he admired some one who was cleverer than she. "Why, +he'd be foolish not to," she thought, sadly. + +But this eminently reasonable conclusion did not save Mrs. Dilworth +from turning white and red with misery, when, for instance, her husband +observed that he had had to take down two bars of the Gordon fence, so +that Miss Hayes could go home across lots. Then Thomas chuckled, and +added that Helen Hayes was the brightest woman he knew. + +He did not go on to tell of his walk in the October dusk, and Miss +Helen's arch appeal to him for instruction on a certain political point +on which she was ignorant. Thomas had instructed her so fully and +volubly, while she looked at him with her reverent gaze, that it had +grown dark; and that was why he had to take her home across lots. +Thomas had not mentioned these details; he merely said he thought Miss +Helen Hayes a bright woman--the brightest, to be exact, that he knew. +And yet his Milly went into the kitchen pantry and hid her face in the +roller behind the door and sobbed. + +Well, of course! It's very absurd. A fat, wordless woman, who ought +to be darning her children's stockings, it's very absurd for her to be +weeping into a roller because her man, who has loved her for +forty-three years, eleven months, twenty-nine days, twenty-three hours, +and forty minutes--her man, to whom she is as absolutely necessary as +his old slippers or his shabby old easy-chair--because this man does +not think her the brightest woman he knows. But absurd as it is, it is +suffering. + +The woman of faithful heart who has been left behind mentally by her +husband is a tragic figure, even if she is at the same time a little +ridiculous--poor soul! Her futile, panting efforts to catch up; her +brave, pitiful blunders; her antics of imitation; her foolish pink lawn +frocks--of course they are funny; but the midnight tears are not funny, +nor the prinking (behind locked doors), nor the tightened dresses, nor +the stealthy reading to "improve the mind"--that poor, anxious, limited +mind which knows only its duty to its dearest and best. These things +mean the pain--a hopeless pain--of the recognition of limitations. +What did it matter that once a year Tom announced that he had loved his +Amelia for so many years, months, days, hours, and minutes?--He did not +talk to her about the President's letter! But he talked to Helen Hayes +about it. And yet she was a pale thing. "She never had my color," +poor Milly thought; "and they say she doesn't get along well at home. +And she's no housekeeper. Mrs. Hayes herself told me she was just real +useless about the house. I can't understand it." + +Of course she could not understand it. What feminine mind ever +understood why uselessness attracts a sensible man? It is so foolish +that even the most foolish woman cannot explain it. + +As the autumn closed in on Old Chester, nobody in the family noticed +Milly Dilworth's heavier look and deeper silence. Tom himself was more +talkative than usual; business had been good, and he was going to get +something handsome out of a deal he had gone into with Hayes. This +took him often to the Hayeses' house; and after the two men had had +their talk, Miss Helen was to be found at the parlor fireside, very +arch and eager with questions, but most of all so respectful of Tom's +opinions. His Amelia was respectful of his opinions, too, but in such +a different way. Perhaps just at this time Thomas Dilworth pitied +himself a little--the middle-aged husband does pity himself once in a +while. Perhaps he sighed--certainly he whistled. There is no doubt +that Mrs. Drayton would have felt he was wandering from his Amelia--at +least in imagination. And yet Tom was as settled and grounded in love +for his middle-aged wife as he ever had been. + +This, however, cannot be understood by those who do not know that the +male creature, good and honest and faithful as he may be, is at heart a +Mormon. + +"I declare," Tom said, coming home at twelve o'clock at night--"I +declare I feel younger." + +Milly was silent. + +Then Tom began to whistle: + +[Illustration: music fragment] + +Then he broke off to say that he didn't think that Helen Hayes was +over-happy at home. "The Hayeses are commonplace people, and she is +very superior. I guess they don't get along well." + +Milly thought to herself that when a girl didn't get along with her own +mother it didn't speak well for the girl; but she did not say so. + +But Thomas went on to declare that he didn't know what to make of Ned. +"Hanging round the Hayeses till I'm ashamed of him! Why doesn't he +know better? I never bored a woman to death when I was his age." And +his wife thought, in heavy silence, that there were other people who +hung round the Hayeses. + +However, Thomas made his feeling so clear to his son that during the +winter Ned was never seen at the Hayeses' on the same evening that his +father was there. But there was an hour in the afternoon, from five to +six, when the boy was free and Thomas was busy with his spades and +buckets;--but you can't look after a boy every minute. + + + + +IV + +Poor Amelia, in her bedroom, in the chilly December dusk, sopped her +eyes with cold water and looked in the glass. "I _mustn't_ cry any +more," she said to herself, despairingly--"they're so red now!" + +A door opened down-stairs, and there was a burst of laughter; and Mrs. +Dilworth, in the cold twilight, went on sopping her eyes. Tom and the +girls evidently didn't need her. "They could get along just as well +without me. And if the Lord would take me, Tom could--could--so he +could--" + +Her soul was dumb, even to itself; but she knew what it was that Tom +"could" do. + +And she knew it without bitterness. Like every other woman whose love +for her husband has in it the maternal element (and most good women's +love has this element), she had always felt that if she died Thomas +ought to marry again; but this simple creature went one ahead of that +rather elementary feeling, and specified: she was willing to have him +marry _her_. + +"If the Lord would only remove me," said poor Milly, looking miserably +in the glass at her plump figure, which showed no indications of +removal. Her eyes were hopelessly red; she didn't see how she could +possibly go down to supper. But of course she had to go down. The +mother of a family and the mistress of one servant must go down to +supper, no matter what the condition of her eyes may be. She slunk +into her seat behind her teacups, and scarcely dared to look about her +noisy, hungry circle, still less at her Thomas, who was smiling to +himself, but who did not share his amusement with his family. Still, +when he suddenly said something about the refreshment of talking to +intelligent people, it was not hard to guess the direction of his +thoughts. "It sharpens your brains up," said Thomas. "I was going to +suggest, Milly, that you should ask Helen Hayes to tea again; but she's +got company; and when they leave she's going off to make a visit to +some of her relations, she tells me." + +Amelia's mild lips tightened silently. So they had been together +again. Her hand shook as she poured out another cup of tea for her +Thomas, who took that moment to say, with all a husband's candor, that +she was getting fatter than ever. "I thought you were starving +yourself to get thin, Milly?" he said, smiling. Milly smiled, too, +faintly; but she was saying to herself: "What did they talk about? How +long were they together? Oh, if I could only be taken away!" + +It would be interesting to follow the processes of a mind like Mrs. +Dilworth's: how did a wife and mother of children reach the point of +feeling that her family would be better off without her? Anybody in +Old Chester could have told her such a belief was folly, and wicked +folly at that. But it seemed just plain reason to Milly Dilworth: "I'm +not necessary to anybody. Thomas likes somebody younger. He can't +marry her because I'm alive; he could marry her (and she would be good +to the children) if I were not here. But I _am_!" she would end, +hopelessly. + +Morning after morning, as she went about her household duties, or when +before tea she sat in her little, old rocking-chair, mending the family +stockings, she used to break herself against the hopelessness of the +situation: She was there; and unless the Lord would remove her (any +other sort of removal was impossible to her devout imagination) Tom +could not have what he wanted--yes, and needed, too. For it was at +this period that Mrs. Dilworth recognized, what most wives of men do +recognize at one time or another, that although being a wife and mother +is the only vocation of a married woman, being a husband and father is +only one of many vocations of a married man. Hence the companionship +of an eminently worthy wife is almost never enough for the male +creature. When this harsh truth burst upon Milly, she wiped her eyes +on the stocking she was mending and groaned aloud. But she did not +rail against the fact, nor did she attempt to deny it; wherein she +showed a superfeminine intelligence. She only said to herself that +Thomas could not have what he wanted while she was alive; yet she +couldn't, it seemed, die, although she was so miserable that she didn't +know how she lived! It was at this point that she began to make wild +schemes to relieve the situation: Suppose she asked that Hayes girl to +come and make them a visit? But no--a man wants more than to just look +at a pretty girl across the table. Suppose she went away herself and +made a visit, and asked Miss Helen Hayes to come and keep house for +her? (Like all good wives, Milly had no hesitation in offering up +another woman to the pleasure of her lord.) No; people would talk +about Tom if she did that.... The amount of it was, poor Milly, +although she did not know it, was really planning that Thomas should +have two wives at the same time--and, dear me! how that would simplify +things! There would be the old, sensible, matter-of-fact wife to mend +his stockings and order his good dinner and nurse him through the +indigestion consequent upon the dinner--the old, anxious wife, who has +had the children and reared them, who has planned and economized and +toiled with him, who has borne the burden and heat of the day at his +side--the prosaic wife, who gives, unasked, such good advice. Every +one will admit that this elderly person has been, and (to a limited +degree) still is, a necessity to every Thomas. But sometimes Thomas +thinks, in his simple way, that it would be pleasant to have the +luxuries as well as the necessities of life; to have, for instance, a +young wife--a pretty wife, clever and light-hearted and gayly +tyrannical; a wife who never knew enough to advise anybody, who should +be a relaxation and a refreshment, _and just a little bit of a fool_; +for, as every intelligent (unmarried) woman knows, men like fools; +feminine fools. Of course the trouble is that if you supply a wife for +two sides of a man's character--for utility, so to speak, and for +diversion--he may, not unreasonably, demand that every side and angle +and facet of his jewel-like nature have its own feminine setting. That +was probably Solomon's idea. Well, well! the time is not yet for this +reasonable arrangement; and it is possible that trade in galvanized +buckets will never warrant its extensive existence. + +But all this is very frivolous compared to the reality of this poor +woman's pain, a pain that finally evolved a plan which, although less +picturesque than the harem, was of the same grade in the eye of the +law, though, curiously enough, not in her own eye. She could not, as +she expressed it to herself, be dead, so that her Thomas might have his +wish; _but he could think she was dead_. + +When this extraordinary idea came into Milly Dilworth's head, she felt +as one imprisoned in darkness who sees, far off, the glimmer of +daylight. He "could think she was dead!" And if he thought so, of +course there could be nothing wrong in his marrying "_her_." (Miss +Hayes's moral status did not enter into Milly's calculations.) + +The light in her darkness dazzled poor Milly at first, and the way was +not clear. It took two weeks of further thought to decide upon the +step, and then to evolve its details; but one need not go into them as +Milly did.... As she sat at her work, day after day, she thought her +plan out slowly and toilsomely. At first she kept balking at the +enormity of it. Then some chance word would betray Tom's admiration +for brains, and she would beat and spur her mind up to her project +again.... And at last she accepted it.... Once accepted, the thing +was settled. Her mind had about as much flexibility as a bar of lead, +and there was no changing it. It only remained to decide upon the +details. This she did slowly and painfully. Each step was planned, +each contingency arranged for. + +And by-and-by the day came to act. + + +The night before, at supper, Mrs. Dilworth, her hands stumbling among +her teacups, said, faintly, "I'm going over to the other side of the +river to-morrow to order some chickens from Mrs. Kensy." + +"That Kensy house is right by the railroad station," Ned said, +scowling; "I don't believe she has any hens." + +"Yes, she has, Neddy," said Mrs. Dilworth. + +Edwin frowned blackly. "I do wish you wouldn't call me by that absurd +name, mother." + +"I keep forgetting, Neddy dear." + +Edwin held up his hands despairingly. + +"What are you two people talking about?" demanded Thomas. + +"I'm going to walk over, across the ice, to the Bend, to-morrow," said +Milly. + +"Walk!" her husband protested. "What do you walk for? It's cold as +Greenland on the ice, and, besides, they were cutting at the pool by +the Bend; you don't want to go that way, Milly. Take the stage round." + +Mrs. Dilworth crumbled a piece of bread with shaking fingers, and said +nothing. + +"What time are you going, mother?" inquired Edwin. + +"In the afternoon, about four." + +"Why, you went there only two days ago," Edwin said, irritably. "I saw +you on the back road carting a big bundle." + +"It would have been more to the point if you'd done the carting for +your mother," Tom Dilworth said, sharply. + +His wife paled suddenly at that word about a bundle, but the subject +was not pursued. Edwin said, grumbling, that he didn't see what +possessed his mother to choose such an hour. "It's too dark for a lady +to be out," Edwin protested. + +"Too dark for a--_grandmother_!" his father said. "Don't you criticise +your mother, young man." And then he added: "Look out for the places +where the men were cutting, Milly. It hasn't frozen over yet." + +And Mrs. Dilworth said, after a pause, "I know." + +That night was a misery of dreams that the deed was done, broken by +wakings desperate with the knowledge that it was yet to do. In the +morning she seemed to have lost all power of words; she bore her +husband's reproaches that Ned was late for breakfast; she went about +her household duties; she watched the girls start for school (she did +not kiss them; demonstrations of affection had never been possible to +this dumb breast; but she stared after them with haggard eyes); and +through it all she hardly uttered a word; when she did speak, it seemed +as though she had to break, by agonizing effort, some actual lock upon +her lips. When the girls had gone she looked about for her eldest; but +Ned was not to be found. "I never knew him to go to the store before +breakfast," she thought, miserably. His father, pulling on his coat in +the hall, said that Ned was getting industrious to go to his work so +early! His wife was silent. + +When he started, whistling cheerfully, + +[Illustration: music fragment] + +she watched him from the window, straining her eyes until he was out of +sight. Then she went up-stairs to her bedroom, and, opening his closet +door, leaned her head against one of his coats, trembling very much. + +Afterwards she wandered about the house in aimless, restless waiting +for Ned. + +In the course of the morning Tom sent over to inquire why the boy had +not come to the store. Milly told the messenger to tell Mr. Dilworth +that Mr. Edwin was not at home. "Say I thought he was at the store," +she said. "I'll give him his father's message when he comes in to +dinner." But he did not come in to dinner; and minute by minute the +afternoon ticked itself away. She had said to herself that she must +start about four, before Nancy and Mary got home from school. "It must +be so that it would be dark when I was coming back," she reminded +herself. "If I leave here at four, and get my bundle from Mrs. Kensy +at five, it would be pretty dark by the time I would be going home. +Mrs. Kensy will tell them that it was dark." + +At four Edwin had not appeared; Milly, having no imagination, had no +anxiety; she merely gave up, patiently, the hope of a wordless +good-bye. But she kept looking for him; and when she finally put on +her things, she paused and turned back to the window, to look once more +towards Old Chester; but there was no sign of Ned. It did not occur to +her to postpone her plan; her mind, run into the mould of sacrifice, +had hardened into rigidity. So at last, miserably, the tears running +down her face, she stepped out into the cold and went down through the +garden to the river. There she turned and looked back, with dumb +passion in her eyes; the firelight was winking from the parlor windows +and all the warm commonplace of life seemed to beckon her. She put her +muff up to wipe her eyes, but she made no prayer or farewell; her +silence had reached her soul by that time. + +[Illustration: "THERE SHE TURNED AND LOOKED BACK"] + +It was very cold; the ice was rough, and the wind had blown the dry +snow about in light drifts and ripples, so that walking was not +difficult. She trudged out, up towards the Bend, skirting the place +where the men had been cutting. They had gone home now, and the ice +about the black, open space of water was quite deserted. The wind came +keenly down the river, blowing an eddy of snow before it; the bleak sky +lay like lead over the woods along the shore. There was not a house in +sight. Amelia Dilworth looked furtively about her; then she bent down +and scraped at the snow on the edge of the ice, as one might do who, in +the water, was struggling for a hold upon it. After that, for a long +time, she stood there, looking dumbly at the current running, black and +silent, between the edges of the ice. At last, her hand over her mouth +to check some inarticulate lament, she stooped again, and put her +little black muff on the broken snow close to the water. + +When she reached Mrs. Kensy's she was quite calm. She said briefly +that she had come to order some chickens; "--and I'll take that bundle +I asked you to keep for me." + +The woman brought it, and Milly tucked her fingers through the stout +strings she had tied so carefully a few days before. When she would +open it in the woods, and put on the new dress and shawl and the heavy +veil that it held, and then, in the dark, take the half-past-five +train, no one would know that Thomas Dilworth's wife had fled away into +another State. They would find the muff, and they would think--there +would be only one thing to think. + +"I want the chickens for Sunday," she said; "please send them over on +Saturday." Then it came into her mind with a little gush of happiness +that she would pay for them on the spot, instead of having the bill +sent to Tom, as was her custom; she had drawn a sum of money from the +bank a fortnight ago--a small sum, but her own; now it was all in her +purse; she would buy Tom's Sunday dinner out of her little fund. +Except to leave him, it was the last thing she would ever do for him. + +She put her hand into her pocket--and chilled all over. Then stood +blankly looking at the woman; then plunged her hand down again into her +pocket; then exclaimed under her breath; then tore her bag open and +fumbled distractedly among brushes and night-gown and slippers; then +pulled her pocket wrong side out with trembling fingers. + +"_My purse!_" she said, breathlessly. Then she searched everything +again. + +"It ain't any difference," Mrs. Kensy protested. + +"I must have left it at home. I can't go back for it. It is too late." + +"What for?" said Mrs. Kensy. + +"The--the train." + +"Oh, you was going on, was you?" Mrs. Kensy said. "Well, I can let you +have the price of a ticket a little ways." + +But Mrs. Dilworth, with shaking hands, pulled everything out of her +bag, shook her skirts, fumbled in the bosom of her dress, ran out and +searched the garden-path, strained her eyes across the snow on the +river--all in vain. "Oh, my!" she said, faintly. + +"But I can lend you the price of a ticket, ma'am," Mrs. Kensy said +again. + +"No matter," Mrs. Dilworth said, dully. "I'll go home." + +Even as she spoke she heard the train tooting faintly far up the +valley. She sat down, feeling suddenly sick. + + + + +V + +There was nothing to do but to go home. She remembered now how in her +agitated watching for her son she had put her purse down on the corner +of her bureau--and left it there. Yes; there was nothing to do but go +back. "I can start to-morrow," she said to herself. But in the sick +reaction of the moment she knew that she could never start again; her +purpose had been shattered by the blow. She took her bundle--the +bundle that meant flight and disguise and self-sacrifice, and that +stood for the shrewdness which is so characteristic of the kind of +stupidity which forgets the purse--and went stumbling down in the +darkness to the river. She said to herself that she must get her muff; +and she thought heavily that it would be pretty hard to carry so many +things across the ice. She was numb with the shock of interrupted +ecstasy. She could not feel even mortification--only fatigue. She was +so tired that, seeing in the darkness a hurrying figure approaching +her, she did not recognize her husband until he was almost upon her. + +"_Milly_? My God! Milly!" + +He had her muff in his hand, and as he reached her he caught at her +shoulder and shook her roughly. "Milly--I thought--I thought--" He +stammered with agitation. "I found this muff, and I thought it was +yours; and Neddy's gone, too, and I thought--both of you--" + +"Neddy _gone_?" she repeated, dully. + +She stood still on the ice, trying to get her wits together. + +"He's disappeared. He isn't in town. He went out early this morning. +To skate, I suppose. Nora saw him from her window; at about six, she +says. And this open water"--she felt him quiver at her side--"and then +this muff--" + +"No!" she said. "I--I made a mistake." She did not take in the words +about Ned. + +"But where is he? Nobody's seen him. I suppose I'm a fool, but I'm +uneasy. I came to meet you because I thought you might know. But when +I saw this muff--it is yours, Milly, isn't it?--I got into a panic +about you, too." + +"Why," she said--"it's mine; yes. I--I left it--I suppose. Neddy +wasn't with me. Did you think he was with me? I don't understand," +she ended, bewildered. + +"He hasn't been at home all day," her husband said, "nor in town, +either." And then he repeated the story, while she looked at him, slow +understanding dawning in her eyes. + +"Neddy--gone! Where?" + +"But that's what I don't know," the father said. + +And his wife, dazed still, but awake to the trouble in his voice, began +to comfort him, alarm rising slowly in her own heart like an icy wave. + +"Maybe he went to see somebody in Upper Chester?" + +"But he doesn't know anybody at Upper Chester. Of course it's +possible. Only--you gave me such a fright, Milly!" Mrs. Dilworth put +her hand over her mouth and trembled. "However, I guess he's all +right, as you say. I guess we'll find him at home when we get back. +It's lucky I came to meet you, because I can lug your things for you. +How did you drop your muff, dear? Here, take it; your hands must be +cold. Oh, Milly, you gave me an awful fright--it was right on the very +edge of the ice; those confounded cutters hadn't put up any ropes. You +do really think there's no reason to be uneasy about Ned?" + +"No," she said. Her knees shook; she had to pause to swallow before +she spoke. Oh, what if he should find her out? As she trudged along +at his side in the cold darkness she said to herself, with a sickening +sense of apprehension, that if he found her out she should die. Then +as her mind cleared she tried in her brief way to encourage him about +their boy; yet, as they drew nearer home and she saw again the firelit +windows, she began to awaken to the situation: Neddy had gone out to +skate; at six, did Nora say? Of course he might have stopped to see +somebody in Upper Chester; only Neddy never went to see anybody +anywhere--except (Amelia Dilworth had forgotten her!)--except that +Hayes girl--and she wasn't at home. Yes, it was strange; and worrying, +perhaps. But she only repeated, as they went hurrying up to the back +door, that she was sure Neddy was all right. But she held her breath +to listen for his voice haranguing his sisters in the sitting-room. +Instead, the two girls came running out to meet them. + +"Oh, father, did you find Ned? Oh, here's mother; she'll know where he +is." + +"Mother, I'm sort of scared about him," Mary whispered. + +"He's gone to see some friend," the mother said, and her brevity, so +agonizing to her, seemed to reassure the others. + +"He hasn't any friend except Miss Helen Hayes," Nancy said, "and she +went away last week." + +"Maybe he's gone to hunt her up," Mary said, giggling, and her father +told her to be quiet. + +"It's thoughtless in him to be so late. But your mother isn't worried, +so I guess we needn't be. Your mother says there is not the slightest +cause for anxiety, and she knows." + +"Come to supper," Amelia said, her heart sinking; and the commonplace +suggestion cheered them all, although Tom Dilworth did not like to lose +the assurance of his wife's presence, even to have her go up-stairs to +take off her bonnet, and went with her, saying again, decidedly, that +there was, as she said, no possible reason for uneasiness, and that he +himself hadn't a particle of anxiety. "But I'll give that boy a piece +of my mind for worrying you so. Why, Milly, what a fat pocket-book! +Where did you get so much money, my dear? I didn't know the hardware +trade was so prosperous. Look here, Milly--it is pretty late, +honestly?" + +She took her purse out of his hands, her own trembling. For a moment +she could not speak, and leaned forward to look into the swinging glass +and make pretence of untying a knot in her bonnet-strings. "Oh, he'll +come home soon," she said. + +In spite of assurances, the tea-table was not very cheerful--the girls +stopped short in the middle of a sentence to listen for a step on the +porch. Tom got up twice to look out of the window. Mrs. Dilworth +thought she heard the gate slam, and held her breath; but no Ned +appeared. The evening was endlessly long. Tom pretended to read his +newspaper, and kept his eye on one spot for five minutes at a time. At +ten he packed the girls off to bed; at eleven he was walking up and +down the room; at twelve he told his wife to go to bed; but somehow or +other he went himself, while she sat up, "to let the boy in." + +You can make excuses for this sort of lateness up to a certain point; +but it is curious that at about 2.30 in the morning the excuses all +give out. Tom Dilworth got up and dressed. "Something has happened, +Milly," he said, brokenly. His wife put her arms around him, trying to +comfort him. + +"If Miss Hayes was only at home," she said, "maybe she would have some +idea of his plans. He might have told her. And she could tell us what +to do." + +"Who?" said Tom--"that Hayes girl? Maybe so. I hadn't thought of her. +No, I don't believe she'd be any help. She hasn't got much sense in +that kind of way." + +Such ages and ages was Milly away from her great experience of jealousy +that she felt no relief at this bald betrayal. Together they went out +onto the porch, listening, and straining their eyes. The moon was just +going down; it was very cold; far off a dog barked. But there was no +human sound. The two haggard people went shivering back into the hall, +where a candle burned dimly in the glass bell hanging at the foot of +the stairs. + +"Something has certainly happened," Tom said again. "Oh, Milly, you +are always so calm and I go all to pieces." He leaned his elbow +against the wall and hid his face in his arm. His wife heard him groan. + +"And--I've been hard on him sometimes," he said. + +She took his hand and kissed it silently. + +Poor Tom went to pieces more than once in the days that +followed--dreadful days of panic and despair. Old Chester, aroused at +daybreak by the terrified father, decided at once that the boy was +drowned; but everybody stood ready to help the stricken parents with +hopeful words to the contrary, words which rang as hollow to Thomas and +his wife as to the well-meaning liars. + +It was on Wednesday that he had disappeared. On Friday they dragged +the river through the open holes; on Saturday, blew up the ice and +dragged all the way down to the second bend. That night Nancy and Mary +crept away to cry in their own room; Tom sat with his head buried in +his arms; his wife knelt beside him, touching him sometimes with a +quiet hand, but never speaking. Dr. Lavendar came in and put his hand +on Tom's shoulder for a minute, and then went away. The firelight +slipped flickering about the room; sometimes the coal in the grate +snapped and chuckled, and a spurt of flame shone on the two suddenly +aged faces. And then into the silent room came, with hurried, +shamefaced triumph--Edwin. + +"I--I'm afraid you've been anxious--" + +"He ought to have written," said another voice, breathless and +uncertain, and breaking into nervous laughter. "It is naughty in him +to have forgotten. I--I told him so." + +Thomas Dilworth lifted his head and stared, silently; but his wife +broke out into wild laughter and streaming tears; she ran and threw +herself on Edwin's breast, her throat strangling with sobs. + +"Oh--she's found Neddy! She has brought him back to us!--she has found +him! Oh, Miss Hayes, God bless you--God bless you! Oh, where did you +find him?" + +Miss Hayes opened her lips--then bit the lower one, and stood, scarlet. + +"I meant to write," Edwin began to explain--"of course I meant to +write, but--" + +"Oh, dear Mrs. Dilworth," Helen's fluttering voice took up the excuse, +"you must forgive him"--she came as though to put her arms about Ned's +mother. "After all, a bridegroom, you know--" + +Milly lifted her head from Edwin's shoulder and gaped at her. + +"Bridegroom?" + +Thomas Dilworth got on his feet and swore. Miss Helen Hayes--or, no; +Mrs. Edwin Dilworth--came and hung upon his arm. + +[Illustration: "THOMAS DILWORTH GOT ON HIS FEET AND SWORE"] + +"You won't mind very much? You'll forgive him? We couldn't tell, +because--because papa would have interfered; but I knew your dear, kind +heart. Mrs. Dilworth, I have so revered Mr. Dilworth!--that was one +reason I said _yes_. You'll let me be your little girl, Mr. Dilworth?" + +"Little--_grandmother_!" said Tom Dilworth; and burst into a roar of +laughter; then stopped, and said through his set teeth to his son, "You +scoundrel!" + +"Thomas--don't!" the mother entreated. "He has come back." + +"He'd better have stayed away!" Thomas said, furiously, in all the +anger of suddenly relieved pain. + +"Oh, dear Mrs. Dilworth," Helen murmured, "forgive us! He ought to +have written--I ought to have reminded him. But--_you_ understand? I +know you do. Just these first beautiful days, one forgets everything." + +"Well, I tell you I meant to write," Ned persisted, doggedly. "But +mother put me all out by going over to the Bend in the afternoon. I +was going to take that train, and of course I couldn't; Kensy's house +is right there by the station. And I had to take the morning train +instead; and it put me all out. I had to get up so early I forgot to +take any clothes," he added, resentfully. "It wasn't my fault." + +"Not your fault?" his father said, and then turned to his wife, almost +with a sob. "Milly, can he be our boy, this sneak?" + +"Yes; yes, he is, Tom; indeed he is, dear. And he just forgot; he +didn't mean anything wrong." Milly was almost voluble, and she was +crying hard. And then she looked at the woman who had brought him +back--the faded, anxious, simpering woman, who for once had no words +ready. Milly looked at her, and suddenly opened her arms and took her +son's elderly wife to her heart. "Oh, you poor woman," she said, "how +unhappy you must have been at home!" + +Helen looked at her blankly, then dropped her head down on the kind +shoulder, and Milly felt her quiver. + +"She's fifty!" Tom said, trembling with anger. "How the devil a son of +mine can be such a jack--" + +"Tom, dear! there now, _don't_," the mother said; "he's at home. Just +think; he's at home! and we thought--we thought--" Her voice broke. +"We'll all love you, Miss Hayes--I mean Helen," she whispered to the +sobbing woman. + +Then, with a sort of gasp, she put her daughter-in-law's arms aside +gently, and went over and kissed her husband. + + +As for Thomas Dilworth, after the first shock of anger and +mortification had passed, and the young couple had finally settled +themselves upon the disgusted bounty of the respective fathers, he used +to whistle incessantly a certain song much in vogue at the time: + + "I hanker + To spank her, + Now I'm her papa!" + + + + +"AN EXCEEDING HIGH MOUNTAIN" + + +I + +Robert Gray's first wife, Alys (Old Chester had hard work to swallow +her name; "but it's better than any of your silly 'ie's,'" said Old +Chester)--this first Mrs. Gray was a good deal of a trial to everybody. +She was not only "new," but foreign; not only foreign, but indifferent +to Old Chester. Indeed, it took all Old Chester's politeness and +Christian forbearance to invite Mrs. Robert Gray to tea--with the +certainty that the invitation would be declined. She was an English +girl whom Robert met somewhere in Switzerland--a heavy-eyed, silent +creature, certainly a very beautiful woman, but most inefficient and +sickly; and there were so many nice, sensible girls in Old Chester! +(However, there is no use saying things like that: as if a man ever +married a girl because she was sensible!) + +Yet young Gray certainly needed a sensible wife; his wealth was limited +to character and good manners, plus a slender income as tutor in the +Female Academy in Upper Chester. Excellent things, all; but a wife +with sense (and money) would have been an agreeable addition to his +circumstances. Whereas, this very beautiful English girl was a +penniless governess, left stranded in Germany by an employer, who had, +apparently, got tired of her. Robert Gray had met the poor, frightened +creature, who was taking her wandering way back to England, and married +her, frantic with rage at the way she had been treated. When he +brought her home, he was so madly in love that he probably did not half +appreciate Old Chester's patience with her queer ways. But the fact +was, that for the few months she lived, she was so miserable that Old +Chester could not help being patient, and forgiving her her half-sullen +indifference, and her silence, and her distaste for life--even in Old +Chester! + +For in spite of Robert's adoration, in spite of all the ready +friendliness about her, in spite of the birth of a baby girl, she +seemed, as it were, to turn her face to the wall. She died when the +child was about a week old. Died, the doctor said, only because, so +far as he could see, she did not care to live. + +"You ought to try to get better for the baby's sake," said Miss Rebecca +Jones, who had come in to help nurse her. And the poor girl frowned +and shook her head, the heavy, white lids falling over her dark eyes. + +"I don't like it." + +And Rebecca (who had too much good sense to be shocked by the vagaries +of a sick woman) said, decidedly: "Oh, you'll learn to like her. Come, +now, just try!" + +But she did not seem to try; even though Robert, kneeling with his arm +under her pillow, holding her languid hand to his lips, said, sobbing, +"Oh, Alys, Alys--for God's sake--don't leave me--" + +Then she opened her beautiful eyes and looked at him solemnly. +"Robert," she said, "I am sorry. I am--sorry. I--am--" + +"What for, precious?" he entreated; "sorry for what? to leave me? Oh, +Alys, then live, live, dear!" + +"I--am--" she began; and then her voice trailed into eternity. + +Miss Rebecca Jones hung about the house for a few days, to make the +poor gentleman comfortable; then he was left alone with the child +(purchased at so dreadful a cost) and one servant, and his daily work +of teaching the polite languages at the Female Academy. Miss Rebecca's +hard face softened whenever she thought of him; but all she could do +for him was to go often to see the poor seven-months baby--which seemed +for a time inclined to follow its mother. + +Now it must be understood at once that Rebecca Jones was not a schemer, +or a mean or vulgar woman. She was merely a hard-headed, +honest-hearted product of years of public-school teaching, with a +passion for truth and no grace in telling it. She was sorry for Mr. +Gray, and sorry for the poor baby, who was being allowed, she said to +herself, to grow up every which way; and sorry for the comfortless +house left to the care of what she called "an uneducated servant-girl." +So, after school, and on Saturday mornings, she used to go over to Mr. +Gray's house and bustle about to the bettering of several things. +Indeed, old Mr. Jones told her more than once that he didn't know what +that there widower would do without her. And Rebecca said, truthfully +enough, that she didn't know, either. And when she said it her heart +warmed with something more than pity. + +As for Robert Gray, dazed and absent, trying to do his duty at the +Academy during the day, and coming home at night to look blankly at his +child, he, too, did not know what he would have done that first year +without Miss Rebecca's efficient kindness. He was so centred in his +grief, and also of so gentle a nature, that he took the kindness as +simply as a child might have done. Like many another sweet-minded man, +he had not the dimmest idea of the possible effect of his rather +courtly manner and his very delicate courtesy upon a woman of slightly +different class, whose life had been starved of everything romantic or +beautiful. He became to sharp-tongued Miss Rebecca Jones a vision of +romance; and, somehow, quite suddenly, about eighteen months after his +wife's death, he discovered that he was going to marry her. In his +startled astonishment, he realized that he had himself led up to her +avowal of willingness by some talk about her kindness. Perhaps she had +misunderstood his words; if she had, Robert Gray was not the man to +offer an explanation.... However, after the first shock of being +accepted, he was gently explicit: + +"I realize that the child ought to have the care of a good woman, and +therefore I--" + +"I'll do my duty by her," Rebecca said. + +"I want her brought up to love and reverence her mother. I want her +brought up to be like her. It is for the child's sake that I--I marry +again. I speak thus frankly, Miss Rebecca, because I so entirely +respect you that I could not be anything but frank." + +Rebecca's square face flushed over the high cheek-bones to the gaunt +forehead and the sparse hair; then her eyes looked passionately into +his. "I understand. Yes; I understand. And I will be good to your +child, Mr. Gray." + +And so he married her; and, when you come to think of it, it was a very +sensible thing to do. Even Old Chester said he was very sensible. A +man of thirty, with a baby--of course he ought to marry again! "But +why on earth," said Old Chester, "when there are so many girls of his +own class!--not but what Rebecca Jones is a very worthy person." + +Meanwhile, Rebecca, with hard conscientiousness, set herself to bring +the child up. She trained her, and disciplined her, and made a painful +point of talking to her about the first Mrs. Gray, according to her +promise to teach her to "love and reverence her mother." The +discipline sometimes made Robert Gray wince; but it was wise, and never +unkind; so he never interfered;--but he left the room when it was going +on. Once he said, nervously: + +"I scarcely think, Mrs. Gray, that it is necessary to be quite so +severe?" + +"She must be made a good child," Rebecca answered. + +"I am not afraid that she will not be a good child," Robert Gray said; +"she is her mother's daughter." + +"Well, she is her father's daughter, too," Rebecca declared, briefly. +And her husband, shrinking, said: + +"Light is stronger than darkness; Alice's mother was a creature of +light. I am not afraid of her inheritance of darkness." + +As for Rebecca, she went away and shut herself up in the garret. +"'Creature of light!'" she said, sitting on the floor under the +rafters, and leaning her head on an old horsehair-covered trunk wherein +were packed away Mr. Gray's winter flannels--"well, I am a good wife to +him, if I ain't a 'creature of light.'" + +Yes, she was a good wife.... How carefully she put his flannels away +in May; how prudently she planned his food; how she managed to make the +two ends of his little income meet--yes, and lap over, so that every +summer he could go away from her for a two months' vacation in the +woods! Not once did he find a button lacking; not once had he put on a +clean pair of stockings and then pulled them off because of a hole in +the heel. Can our lords say as much, my mistresses? I trow not! Yes, +a good wife: that lovely being who left the world with a faint, +unfinished regret upon her pitiful lips could never have made him so +comfortable. + +Indeed, the whole household revolved upon Robert's comfort. Every +domestic arrangement had reference to his well-being. That he did not +become intolerably selfish was not Rebecca's fault, for, like many good +wives, she was absolutely without conscience in the matter of +self-sacrifice; but Robert escaped spiritual corruption, thanks to his +own very gentle nature and his absolute unconsciousness of the +situation. Perhaps, too, Rebecca's tongue mitigated the spoiling +process. She never spared him what she considered to be the truth +about himself or Alice. But her truthfulness stopped here; she spared +the dead, perforce. For what could she say ill of that beautiful +creature whose only wrong-doing lay in dying? But she knew, with +shame, that she would have liked to speak ill of her--in which +reprehensible impulse to remove a fellow-being from a pedestal, Rebecca +showed herself singularly like the rest of us. + +In this bleak air of unselfishness and truth-telling, Robert Gray +became more and more aloof. Gradually he retreated quite into his +past, doing his daily work at the Academy--where successive classes of +young ladies adored him for his gentle manners and his mild, brown +eyes--and living very harmlessly with his memories, which he kept fresh +and fragrant by sharing them with Alys's daughter, who, it must be +admitted, being young and human, was not always intensely interested; +but Rebecca had trained her too well for Alice ever to show any +weariness. Robert kept his little collection of pictures and +photographs of his first wife shut behind the curtained doors of an old +secretary. If his second wife found him standing, his hands clasped +behind him, his eyes wandering from one lovely presentment to another, +he never displayed an embarrassed consciousness, but he shut the doors. +He accepted Rebecca's devotion respectfully; he was never impolite, +still less unkind; in fact, in all their married life he had never, she +used to tell herself, spoken unkindly save once; and then his words +were nothing more dreadful than, "We will not discuss it, if you +please, Mrs. Gray." At first he had, very gently, made some +grammatical suggestions; and she had profited by them, though, being a +true Pennsylvanian, she never mastered "shall" and "will," nor did she +lose the Pennsylvania love for the word 'just'; to the end of her days, +Rebecca was 'just tired out'; or 'just real glad'; or 'just as busy as +could be.' Grammar, however, was as far as Robert Gray went in any +personal relation. He addressed her, in his courteous voice (always a +little timidly), as "Mrs. Gray"; and he kept as much as possible out of +her way. Meantime, Rebecca (remembering why he had married her) did +her duty by the child, and never failed to mention, in her hard voice, +that Alice must try to grow up like her mother. + +"Make me a good girl," Alice used to say in her sleepy prayers every +night--"make me a good girl, like my dear mother." Once, of her own +accord, the child added, "And make me pretty like her, too." Rebecca, +listening to the little figure at her knee, said, sternly, when Alice +got up and began to climb into the big four-poster: + +"Don't be vain. Don't ask God for foolish things. Beauty is foolish +and favor is deceitful. Just ask Him to make you as good as your +mother was." + +And, indeed, it must be admitted that the child did not inherit her +mother's wonderful beauty. At first her father had expected it; he +used to take liberties with his Horace, and say: + + "O filia pulchra matre pulchriore." + + +But as Alice grew older, Robert Gray had to admit that the dead woman +had taken her beauty away with her. The child had just a pleasant +face; eyes that were gray or blue, as it happened; a commonplace nose, +and uncompromisingly red hair. In those days red hair was thought to +be a mortifying affliction, and poor, plain Alice shed many tears over +the rough, handsome shock of hair that broke into curls about her +forehead and all around the nape of her pretty, white neck. + + + + +II + +But in spite of red hair, and what Old Chester religiously believed to +be its accompanying temper, Alice Gray was a lovable girl, and at +twenty, behold, she had a lover; indeed, she had more than one (not +counting Dr. Lavendar); but Alice never gave a thought to anybody but +Luther Metcalf. Luther was a good boy, Old Chester said; but added +that he would never set the river on fire. + +Certainly he did not use his incendiary opportunity; he had a small +printing-office, and he owned and edited Old Chester's weekly +newspaper, the _Globe_; but neither the news nor the editorial page +ever startled or displeased the oldest or the youngest inhabitant. The +_Globe_ confined itself to carefully accredited cuttings from +exchanges; it had a Poet's Corner, and it gave, politely, any Old +Chester news that could be found; besides this, it devoted the inner +sheet to discreet advertisements, widely spaced to take up room. All +Old Chester subscribed for it, and spoke of it respectfully, because it +was a newspaper; and snubbed its editor, because he was one of its own +boys--and without snubbing boys are so apt to put on airs! Poor Luther +was never tempted to put on airs; he was too hard-worked and too +anxious about his prospects. He and Alice were to get married when he +and the _Globe_ were out of debt; for his father had left him a +mortgage on the office building, as well as an unpaid-for press. When +Luther was particularly low-spirited, he used to tell Alice it would +take him five years to pay his debts; and, to tell the truth, that was +an optimistic estimate, for the _Globe_ and the printing-office +together did very little more than pay the interest on the notes and +Luther's board. + +So, when they became engaged, waiting was what they looked forward to, +for, of course, Robert Gray could not help them; it was all Rebecca +could do to stretch his salary to cover the expenses of their own +household. But the two young people were happy enough, except when +Luther talked about five years of waiting. + +"We've been engaged two years already," he said, moodily; "I don't want +to be another case of Andrew Steele." + +"I'm not afraid," Alice said. "Why, if you get the new job press, and +get that Mercer work, think how much that will help!" + +"Well," Luther said, "yes; but if I get the press, there's another +debt. And if I don't get it, I can't get the work; so there it is. A +vicious circle." + +This question of the purchase of a new press, before the old press had +been paid for, was a very serious and anxious one. "I wish father +could help," Alice said--they were walking home from Wednesday-evening +lecture, loitering in the moonlight, and wishing the way were twice as +long. + +"Oh, I wouldn't think of such a thing," the young man declared; "we'll +pull out somehow. He's gone off to the woods, hasn't he?" + +"Yes, he went this morning; he's so pleased to get away! He won't be +back till the Academy opens." + +"I suppose he hates to leave you, though," Lute said. + +"Yes, but I can see that the getting away is a great relief. I keep +his pictures dusted, and take the flowers up to the cemetery for him; +so he knows things are not neglected." + +"But," Luther said, thoughtfully, "I think she's sorry to have him go?" + +"Oh yes; sorry, I suppose," Alice admitted. "She's fond of him--in her +way." + +"Then why--" Luther began. + +"My dear, she's _jealous_ of my mother." + +"Oh, Alice!" + +"Well, you know," Alice explained, "my mother was so beautiful--and +poor Mrs. Gray! But I must say, Lute, she's the justest person I know. +She's always told me that my mother was perfect. And of course she +was; but when you're jealous, it isn't so easy to acknowledge things +like that." + +"But I don't see how you can be jealous of the dead," Luther ruminated. + +"Oh, _I_ do! I could be jealous of some girl who was dead, if you'd +loved her, Lute." And then the boy put his arm round her, and they +kissed each other there in the shadows of the locust-trees overhanging +a garden wall. "I'm so glad there isn't anybody, dead or alive," Alice +said, happily; "though I'd rather have her alive than dead. If she +were alive, you'd have quarrelled with her, and stopped loving her. +But if she were dead, she would keep on being perfect. Yes; I'd rather +marry a man who had been--been _divorced_," said Alice, lowering her +voice, because the word was hardly considered proper in Old Chester, +"than a man whose wife was dead, because he would always be thinking +what an angel she was and what a sinner I was." + +"He would think you were an angel," the boy told her, blushing at his +own fervency. + +But the fervency died on his ardent young lips when they got into the +house and sat decorously in the parlor with Mrs. Gray. Rebecca was +sewing, her hard, square face a little harder than usual. Mr. Gray had +gone away on that annual fishing-trip--gone, with a look of relief +growing in his eyes even as he stepped into the stage and pulled the +door to behind him; pulled it hurriedly, as though he feared she would +follow. Then, baring his head politely, he had looked out of the +window and said: + +"Good-bye. You will send for me should you, by any chance, need me. I +trust you will be very well." + +"I don't know that I have ever had to interrupt your fishing-trip with +any of my needs," Rebecca had answered, briefly. She spoke only the +truth; she never had interfered with any pleasure of his; and yet +Robert Gray had winced, as if he had not liked her words. Now, alone, +in the parlor, darning his stockings, she wondered why. She never said +anything but the simple truth; but he looked at her sometimes as a dog +looks who expects a blow. He was truthful himself, but he never seemed +to care much to hear the truth, she thought, heavily. Once he told her +that truth was something more than a statement of fact. The statement +of a fact may be a lie, he had said, smiling whimsically; and Rebecca +used to wonder how a fact could be a lie? She recalled the time when, +with brief accuracy, she had mentioned to him in what condition of +ragged neglect she had found his wardrobe after the "creature of light" +had left him; and how he had seemed to shrink not from the shiftless +dead, but from her. And she remembered painfully that one unkindness: +She had told him that, to her mind, not even the weakness of death was +quite an excuse for saying you didn't like your own baby; and he had +said, with a terrible look, "We will not discuss it, if you please, +Mrs. Gray." She had never spoken of it again; but his look had burned +into her poor, narrow, sore mind; she thought of it now, moodily, as +she sat alone, her heart following him on his journey. If his first +wife had only not been so perfect, she said to herself, she could have +borne it better; if she had had a bad temper, even, it would have been +something. But she had often heard Robert tell Alice that her mother +had an "angelic temper." Rebecca wished humbly she herself could be +pleasanter. "I don't feel unpleasant inside; but I seem to talk so," +she thought, helplessly. She was thinking of this when the two young +people came in; and looking up over her spectacles, she said, coldly: + +"Did you remember to wipe your feet, Luther? You are careless about +that. Alice, I found a flower on my daphne; you can carry the pot up +to the cemetery when you go." + +"Yes, ma'am," Alice said. She took up her sewing (for Rebecca would +not have idle hands about); sometimes she glanced at Luther, sitting +primly in the corner of the sofa, and once caught his eye and smiled; +but there were no sheep's-eyes or sweet speeches. They were Old +Chester young people, and such things would have been considered +improper; just as sitting by themselves would have been thought not +only indecorous, but selfish. + +"Oh, Alice," Luther said, suddenly, "I meant to ask you; wasn't your +mother's name spelled 'Alys'?" + +"Yes. Why?" + +"Well, it's such an unusual name that it struck my attention when I saw +it in the paper." + +"What about it?" Alice asked. "Oh, dear, why didn't father spell me +'Alys' instead of 'Alice'? It's so much prettier!" + +"Prettiness isn't everything; and 'Alice' is a sensible name," Rebecca +said. "Don't criticise your father." + +"It was an advertisement in one of the _Globe's_ exchanges," Luther +explained. "I was scissoring things, and the name caught my eye. It +was information wanted. Of course it's just a coincidence, but it's +queer, because--here it is," said the editor of the _Globe_, fumbling +in his pocket. "I cut it out and meant to show it to you, but I +forgot." Then he read, slowly, "_Information wanted of one Alys +Winton--_" + +"Why, but Winton was my mother's name!" cried Alice. + +"_--one Alys Winton, who married sometime in 1845; husband thought to +be an American, name unknown. She (or a child of hers, born in 1846) +is requested to communicate with Amos Hughes, Attorney at Law,_" etc. + +Alice stared, open-mouthed. "Why, Lute!" she said--"why, but that must +be my mother!" + +Lute shook his head. "I don't think there's anything in it. Do you, +Mrs. Gray?" + +"Might be," she said, briefly. + +Alice took the crumpled cutting, and holding it under the lamp, read it +through to herself. "But, Lute, really and truly," she said, "it is +queer. Perhaps some of my mother's rich relations have left her a +fortune! Then we could pay off the mortgage. Only I'm afraid my +mother hadn't any rich relations--or poor ones, either. I never heard +of any. Did you, Mrs. Gray?" + +"No," Rebecca said. + +"She was a governess, you know, Lute, in some horrid English family; +the wife didn't like her, and she discharged my poor little mother; +then the family went off and left her all alone in Germany. Perfectly +abominable!" + +"Don't be unjust, Alice; you don't know anything about it," Mrs. Gray +said. "She was very young. Perhaps she couldn't teach the children to +suit their parents. Though it was unkind to leave her unprovided for," +she added, with painful fairness. + +"I guess it was!" cried Alice. "Oh, how angry father gets when he +talks about it! He says she was in such terror, poor little thing, +when he met her. And yet she was very forgiving, father says. He says +she wrote and told the gentleman that she was married. _I_ wouldn't +have. I'd have let him think I'd starved, so he would have suffered +remorse--the wretch!" + +"I hope you would not have been so foolish or so selfish," her +step-mother said. + +"You see, she had no relations to turn to," Alice explained to Luther; +"if father hadn't come, dear knows what would have become of her." + +"I suppose she could have earned an honest living, like anybody else," +Mrs. Gray said. + +"Well, anyway," Alice said, thoughtfully, "this advertisement is queer. +She had no relations that father ever heard of; but there might be some +one. What do you think, Mrs. Gray?" + +"There might be," Rebecca said. She thought to herself that it was +very probable; that first wife had brought Robert Gray beauty and love; +it only needed that she should bring him money to make it all perfect. +In her bleak mind a window of imagination suddenly opened, and she had +a vision of what wealth would mean to her husband, coming as a gift +from those dead hands. She set her lips, and said: "Better find out +about it, Luther. Write to the man and say that a person of that name +before her marriage, died here in Old Chester, leaving a child--and +don't keep your hands in your pockets; it's bad manners." + +"Do you really think it is worth while, ma'am?" Luther said, +incredulously. + +"Of course it is," said Alice. "Suppose it should be some inheritance? +Such things do happen." + +"In story-books," Lute said. + +"Well, then I'd like to be in a story-book," Alice said, sighing. +"Just think, Lute, we might pay for the press and pay off the mortgage!" + +"Golly!" said Lute. + +Then they fell to making all sorts of plans, gayly, each tripping the +other up with the prosaic reminder of improbability. + +"Or, if it _should_ be anything," Luther said, "it won't be more than +$100." + +"Well, that's something; it will meet two monthly payments on the +press." + +"It will pay for a diamond-ring for you," Lute said. + +"Nonsense! We'll buy father a horse." + +"And who will buy the oats?" Rebecca said. + +"I could give you a big oleander, Mrs. Gray," Alice told her, smiling. + +"You could put the money in the bank, like a sensible girl," Rebecca +said, severely. "Don't speak of this outside, either of you. Mr. Gray +wouldn't wish his wife's name talked about." + +"And don't let's write anything about it to him," Alice said; "let's +have it a surprise!--if there is anything in it; only, of course, there +isn't anything," she ended, sighing. "But you might write to the man, +Lute." + +"Of course there isn't anything," Lute agreed, sensibly. "I'll write +if you want me to; but I wouldn't build on it, Ally," he said, as he +got up to go. And when he paused a minute in the darkness on the +porch, he added, softly, "If you get rich, maybe you won't want a poor +printer?" + +And she laughed, and said, "Maybe I won't!" + +Then he kissed her just under her left ear, and said, "Money isn't +everything, Ally." + + + + +III + +Money isn't everything, but it has so much to do with most things that +even a dim, story-book vision of it stirred Alice's imagination. +Luther, having no imagination, dismissed the vision from his mind after +writing a letter to "Amos Hughes, Attorney at Law." Indeed, Luther had +more practical things to think of than possible legacies, poor fellow. +His balance-sheet for that month of June was very dark. More than +once, after the office was closed for the day, he sat at his desk in +his shirt-sleeves, hot and tired and grimy, poring over his ledger by +the light of a swinging lamp. Alice grew worried about his pallor and +the hollows in his cheeks; but there was nothing she could do, though +she chafed against her helplessness to help, and revolved all sorts of +schemes in her impractical girl-mind. Indeed, she went so far as to +pour out her heart to Dr. Lavendar, in the hope that he could make some +suggestion. She found the old man sitting in the wistaria arbor near +his beehives, smoking peacefully, and throwing sticks to Danny, who +needed exercise and scrambled after them into the tall grass, bringing +them back with fatiguing alacrity. + +"Look here, sir," said Dr. Lavendar, "don't find 'em so quick. I'm +worn out pitching them." + +Then Alice Gray came down between the box borders and said she wanted +his advice; and Dr. Lavendar, glancing up at her, saw an uncertain lip +and heard a catch in her voice; whereupon he told her to give Danny a +run. "The scoundrel has kept me working for the last half-hour," he +complained. + +When she came back, flushed and laughing, and sat down on the arbor +step, her voice was quite steady; so he listened placidly to her story. + +"You want to get some work to help Lute, do you, good-for-nothing?" + +"Yes," Alice said, eagerly. "Oh, Dr. Lavendar, _can_ you think of +anything? I wanted to go into the office and learn to set type, but +Mrs. Gray--" + +"Well?" + +"Mrs. Gray said I had better learn to keep house economically. She +said father wouldn't like it." + +"Mrs. Gray would always think first of what your father would like." + +Alice scratched lines in the gravel with one of Danny's sticks. "I +suppose she would," she admitted. + +"And what did Lute say?" + +"Oh, he wouldn't listen to it. But I thought maybe you could make him, +Dr. Lavendar?" + +"I?" said Dr. Lavendar. "No, thank you. Do you think I'd rob the boy?" + +"Rob him?" + +"Of his self-respect; a boy wants to stand on his own legs; he doesn't +want a girl propping him up. You let Lute alone. He'll manage. And +you're young yet, anyhow. It won't hurt ye to wait. Mrs. Gray is +right. You learn to be as good a housekeeper as she is; and though you +mayn't put money into Lute's pocket before you're married, you'll not +be taking it out after you're married." + +Alice sighed. "Oh, I wish I could help Lute; I wish I had a lot of +money." + +"A lot of sense is better," Dr. Lavendar said, chuckling. "Oh, you +women! You steal a man's unselfishness and self-respect, and you put +it down to love. Love? You're a pack of thieves, the lot of you. You +ought to be prosecuted. I'd do it, if I had time. Hey, Danny! bite +her; she's like all the rest of 'em." + +Alice hugged him, and defended herself. "You're just an old bachelor; +you don't appreciate us." + +"Appreciate ye? I appreciate you. Maybe that's why I'm an old +bachelor." + +But though he discouraged Alice's projects for assisting Luther, Dr. +Lavendar went plodding up the printing-office stairs the next morning. +Luther, emerging from behind a press, brightened at the sight of his +caller, and ushered him into a small closet which he called his private +office; and when Dr. Lavendar asked him to print some more +missionary-meeting notices, he said he would put them in at cost price. + +"Don't you do it!" said Dr. Lavendar, thumping the floor with his +umbrella. "Look here; I'll have to teach you the first principles of +business: make your profit--and don't go to 'pauperizing the Church,' +sir. There's too much of that sort of thing," he added, with +reminiscent crossness. "Some scalawag of a bookseller wrote and +offered to sell me books at thirty-three per cent. discount because I +was a parson. There's no more reason why a parson should get a +discount than a policeman. I told him so. I tell you so. Print those +slips, and _print 'em better than you did the last lot_! Do you hear +that? You forgot a comma on the second line. How's business, Lute?" + +Lute's face fell. Then they talked things over, to the boy's great +comfort; and at the end of the talk Lute straightened his shoulders and +drew a good breath. + +"By George! sir, if hanging on does it, I'll hang on--" he stopped, +and looked round, in answer to a knock. "Well?" he said, impatiently. +But the gentleman who stood in the doorway was not rebuffed. + +"Are you Mr. Metcalf, the editor of the _Globe_?" + +"Yes, sir," said Luther. + +"I called in relation to an advertisement"--Luther was instantly alert, +and Dr. Lavendar, scenting a customer, was about to withdraw--"an +advertisement in a New York paper, requesting information of a certain +person--" + +"What!" cried Luther. "I had forgotten all about it." + +"My name is Carter. I am from the office of Mr. Amos Hughes. Messrs. +Pritchett, Carver, and Pritchett, Solicitors at Law, of London, are our +principals. The advertisement was in relation to a person called Alys +Winton." + +Luther, stumbling in his astonishment over his words, began to explain. +"Mrs. Gray is dead," he ended. "And Alice is her daughter; isn't she, +Dr. Lavendar? She asked me to write to you." + +"Well, well; this is very interesting," said Dr. Lavendar. "I hope +your object in seeking to obtain information is to benefit this young +lady? She's one of my children." + +Mr. Carter, still standing in the doorway, smiled, and said, "Do I +understand that this Miss Alice is the daughter of the person named +Alys Winton?" + +"Yes," said Dr. Lavendar. "You can easily satisfy yourself on that +point by consulting my parish records." + +"And her mother is the lady you advertised for!" cried Luther. The boy +was red with excitement. It was just as Alice said--a story-book. And +they could get married right away! For it would be a lot of +money--perhaps $5000; people in England didn't advertise for +information of a person dead for twenty-two years for any small amount; +well, even if it were $4000, they could get married; even if it were +$3000. "How m--" he began, and stopped; of course that was not a +proper question. "Alice's mother is the lady you advertised about," he +said, lamely. + +"Well, that does not follow, young gentleman; but the coincidence of +the name was of sufficient interest for our firm to feel that I might, +perhaps, just look into it. There may be dozens of Alys Wintons, you +know." + +"Oh," said Luther, so blankly that Dr. Lavendar laughed. + +"Perhaps before beginning at the beginning you might save time by +looking at the end," he said to the lawyer. "If you will step over to +my church, you will see that our little Alice here is the daughter of +Mr. Robert Gray and a lady named Alys Winton." + +"A very good idea, sir. You, I infer, are a clergyman in this place? +Ah, yes; just so. Lavendar? Ah, yes. I shall be pleased to look at +the records, as you suggest, sir." + +Luther, rather abashed, longing to accompany them, stood waiting for an +invitation. But none came. Dr. Lavendar went pounding down the +stairs, followed by Mr. Carter, and Lute heard them talking about the +roughness of the road from Mercer over which Mr. Carter had come on the +morning stage. + +"Confound the road!" said Lute to himself. "Hi! Davidson! I'm going +out. The first page is all made up; you can close up the fourth." +Then he dashed down the creaking stairs and out into the hot sunshine. +He had a glimpse up the street of the church, and Dr. Lavendar bending +down fumbling with the key of the vestry door; it was evident that +Luther's presence was not considered necessary. "I don't care," the +boy said to himself, joyously, and started at a swinging pace out over +the hill. "I'll be the one to tell her, anyhow!" His face was all +aglow. As he hurried along he made calculations as to the rent of the +little house. To be sure, he was reckoning on Alice's money; but the +boy was so honest, and so in love, that he had no mean +self-consciousness of that kind. "_We can get married!_" He had no +room for any other thought. + +Mrs. Gray was sitting on the back porch shelling pease; there was a +grape trellis running out from the porch roof, and under it the shadows +lay cool and pleasant on the damp flagstones. Rebecca, absorbed in the +lulling snap of pods, looked up, frowning, at the noisy interruption, +for the young man burst in, breathless, swinging his cap, his eyes +shining. + +"Oh, Mrs. Gray, where's Alice? Oh, my, such news! I never was so +excited in my life!" + +"That is not saying much," Rebecca told him; "you've not had a very +exciting life. Alice is in the dining-room. Alice! come out here. +Here's Luther. He says he never was so excited in his life; and I hope +he won't be again, for he has upset my bucket of pods." + +Luther, full of apologies, began to pick them up. "I'm so sorry, but I +was so dreadfully excited--" + +"Dreadful is a large word," Rebecca said. "I doubt whether either you +or I have ever seen anything 'dreadful' in our lives. Don't +exaggerate, Luther." + +"Yes, ma'am," Lute said. "Oh, there's Alice! _Alice!_" He stood up, +his hands full of pods, his face red. "Oh, Alice, what do you suppose +has happened? You'll never guess!" + +"The advertisement man!" cried Alice. Luther's face fell a little, and +he laughed. + +"Well, you're pretty smart. Yes, it is--" + +"_What?_" said Rebecca Gray. As for Alice, she whirled out on the cool +flags and jumped up and down. + +"Oh, Lute, tell us--tell us! What does he say? Has he sent some +money? Oh, how much is it? Oh, Lute, we'll pay for the press. Lute, +is it--is it $1000? Tell us; hurry, hurry!" + +Upon which Lute began to subside. "Well, it isn't quite--I mean, he +didn't--he hasn't said just exactly how much. I mean, of course, I +suppose, it isn't certain; but I'm sure there isn't a particle of +doubt; only--" + +"Now, Lute, begin at the beginning and tell us." Alice sat down +breathlessly beside her step-mother, and began mechanically to shell +the pease. + +"Don't," Rebecca said; "I will do my own work. You'd better get your +table-cloth and finish that darning." Her face had grown quite pale; +she saw the fabric of her life crumbling at the base; if, through that +first wife, money should come into the family, what use for her patient +economies? What use for her existence? That first wife, yet more +perfect, would crowd her further from her husband's life. In her +heart, used to the long, dull ache of unloved years, rose up a +murderous hatred of the dead woman. At first she hardly heard Luther's +story, but as it went on she began to listen and the pain in her +tightened throat of unshed tears lessened. It might not be. As this +Mr. Carter said, there might be dozens of Alys Wintons. Her hands, +motionless after the first shock, went at their work again. + +"You're the daughter of a lady of that name," she said, coldly; "but +she may not be the lady they want. Better not count on it." Alice +looked rather blank for a moment; and then she burst into even more +than Luther's confidence. + +"Do you suppose it will be $2000? Oh, Lute, just think, we'll pay for +the new press right down!" + +"No, we won't, either," Lute said, stoutly. "I'm not going to let you +spend your money on printing-presses." + +"Nonsense!" Alice cried, laughing and stamping her foot. + +Rebecca frowned and looked at her over her glasses. "Don't be +unlady-like, Alice." + +"No, 'm," Alice said; and then she laughed at her own excitement; "it +may be only $100." + +"It may be nothing at all," Rebecca Gray said, and got up and took her +pan and bucket and went into the house. It seemed to her that if she +had to hear any more of Alys Winton she would speak out and say some +dreadful thing about her. But what could she say with any kind of +truth? What could she say ill of that poor creature, so beloved and so +harmless? For, after all, though a woman ought to see that a man's +buttons are sewed on, you can't say that mere shiftlessness is a sin. +Besides, she was sick for those few months. "Perhaps if my health +hadn't been good, I would have been careless myself," Rebecca thought, +with painful justice. But she went up-stairs to her own room and +locked the door. She felt sure that it was as Alice and Luther said: +there would be money, and she would be of still less consequence to her +husband; for what did Robert Gray, nervously polite, really care for +her economies and her good housekeeping? + +"Not _that_!" she said to herself, bitterly. + + + + +IV + +"You will stay and have dinner with me," Dr. Lavendar had told the +lawyer, hospitably, "and then Goliath and I will take you up the hill +to Mr. Gray's house." + +And so, in the early afternoon, Goliath brought Mr. Carter to the +Grays' door. Alice, who was on the porch, insisted that Dr. Lavendar +should come in, too; she leaned into the buggy to whisper, joyously, +"If it is anything nice, I want you to hear it." + +But for once Dr. Lavendar did not laugh and give her a kiss and call +her his good-for-nothing; he got out silently, and followed Mr. Carter +into the parlor, where Luther and Mrs. Gray were awaiting them. There +was a tense feeling of expectation in the air. The two young people +were together on the sofa, smiling and laughing, with small, whispered +jokes of presses and diamond-rings and mortgages. Rebecca sat by the +table, her worn hands in a trembling grip in her lap; she sat very +upright, and was briefer and curter than ever, and she looked most of +the time at the floor. + +"You have been informed of my errand, madam?" said Mr. Carter. "It is +unfortunate that Mr. Gray is not at home, but perhaps you may be able +to give us some information on certain points, which will at least +instruct me as to whether the facts in the case warrant further +reference to him for confirmation. I will ask a few questions, if you +please?" + +"Go on," Rebecca said. + +"The late Mrs. Gray, the mother of this young lady," said Mr. +Carter--"do you happen to know her nationality?" + +"English." + +"Ah, yes. Just so. And do you know the date of her marriage to Mr. +Gray?" + +Rebecca gave it. + +"If any facts in regard to her occur to you--" the lawyer began. + +"I've heard Mr. Gray say that she was a governess in the family of a +Mr. Urquhart," Rebecca said; and added, "They discharged her in Berlin." + +Mr. Carter, glancing at a memorandum, his face keen with interest, +said, eagerly, "Pray proceed, madam." + +"I don't know much more; Mr. Gray met her in Interlaken. They were +married three weeks afterwards." + +"Ah, Switzerland? That explains; there was no record of a marriage at +the Embassy. Can you tell me anything of the parentage of the lady?" + +"Her father's name was George Winton," Alice broke in, "and they lived +in a place called Medfield. He was a clergyman. Her mother's name was +Alys, too. Father has a prayer-book belonging to my grandmother; it +has her name in it, and my mother's. Would you like to see it, sir?", + +"Exceedingly," Mr. Carter said; and while Alice ran to get the book, he +studied his memorandum so closely that no one dared to ask him a +question, if, indeed, any one wanted to. Rebecca had answered him +dully, looking out of the window part of the time, part of the time at +the floor. Dr. Lavendar, on the other side of the room, his hands on +the head of his cane, sat silently staring down at the carpet, his face +heavy and rather stern. Lute, radiant, twirled his cap in his hands, +and resolutely held his tongue. + +Alice, as she handed the prayer-book to Mr. Carter, stopped on her way +back to Luther and squeezed Dr. Lavendar's hand. "Isn't it wonderful?" +she whispered; and he shook his head a little impatiently. + +"Go and sit down, my dear," he said. + +Mr. Carter, glancing at the name on the flyleaf, looked at his notes +again and then at Alice, "And this young lady--can she give me the date +of her birth?" + +There was a little laugh, and Luther and Alice gave it together, +eagerly. + +There were two or three more questions, and then Mr. Carter folded his +memorandum and slipped it within its rubber band with a snap; then he +smiled. Rebecca looked at him drearily. "Of course," he said, +addressing himself to her, "a question of identity cannot be decided +offhand; it is necessary to have certain affidavits which the surviving +husband of the deceased (who is asserted to be the person in question) +would be obliged, legally, to furnish. I think, however, that I am not +going beyond the line of discretion and propriety if I say that _if_ +Mr. Robert Gray can produce such proofs (which I think I am not +unwarranted in saying I believe he can)--_if_ he can, then this young +lady is the heir to a very considerable fortune. I think, in point of +fact, I have the right to say that, if (as I have said before) these +proofs are forthcoming, the amount to be paid to the daughter of Alys +Winton is L5000." + +Rebecca Gray put her hand to her mouth and stared blindly at the floor. +Dr. Lavendar thrust out his lower lip and frowned. As for Alice, she +laughed aloud, then burst out crying. + +"Oh, _Lute_!" she said, tremulously; and, somehow, the two children +found themselves holding hands. "It's--it's so much!" she faltered. + +"Five thousand pounds is--is $25,000!" the boy said, turning pale. +There was a pause; no one seemed to know just what to say. Then Lute, +suddenly: "Is it your mother's father that left it to you, Alice?" + +She turned to Mr. Carter, drawing in her breath like a child. "Is it?" + +"Ah--no," he answered, briefly. + +"But I didn't know my mother had any relations?" Alice said, in a dazed +way; "I thought father said--I'm sure he said--she hadn't any +relations? Perhaps--perhaps it is a mistake, after all?" + +"The testator was not a relative of the Alys Winton in question," Mr. +Carter said. He glanced uneasily at Dr. Lavendar, who lifted his head +and looked at him searchingly. "It will be best to make further +explanations to Mr. Gray," Mr. Carter said, hurriedly. + +"But who has left the money to me--if it is to me?" Alice said, +bewildered. "Can't I ask that? What is the name of the kind person? +I think I might ask that." + +[Illustration: "'WHAT IS THE NAME OF THE KIND PERSON?'"] + +"The name of the testator was Urquhart," Mr. Carter said, "but--but, +you know, my dear young lady, the identity is not yet legally +authenticated; so--therefore--perhaps--I think, Dr. Lavendar, I had +best go now? I think you mentioned that the stage leaves at four?" + +"Urquhart?" Alice said; "the man who was so unkind? Oh, Lute, I +suppose he repented. Oh, how astonished father will be! He'll have to +forgive him now." + +"It's a pretty late repentance," Luther said, with a chuckle; "and how +did he know about you, Alice? I don't see why he should leave you +money, even if he was a brute to your mother. Still," said the boy, +gayly, "I guess we won't complain?" + +"Gracious!" cried Alice, "that is queer. Well, he _was_ a kind person!" + +Rebecca Gray stared, frowning, at the lawyer. "He knew--this +Urquhart--that she had a child?" she said, slowly. + +Mr. Carter was gathering up his papers. "Yes," he said--"yes; he--knew +it." + +"What?" said Rebecca, in a very low voice--"_what?_" + +"In view of the fact that, legally, the matter is still undecided," Mr. +Carter said, hurriedly, "perhaps we need not take this point up? At +all events, not here." + +"Sir," said Rebecca, "why does Mr. Urquhart leave L5000 to Robert +Gray's daughter?" + +"He was sorry he was unkind to my mother," Alice said, her voice +quivering. ("Oh, Lute, $25,000!") + +"Alice," her step-mother said, in a loud, harsh voice, "you had better +leave the room. Luther, go with Alice, please." + +The two young people, bewildered, got up with blank faces, and with +obvious reluctance obeyed. "But why should I be sent out, Lute?" Alice +said, hotly, when they were in the hall. "It's my money--if I'm the +person." + +Luther stopped, and stood, frowning. On the boy's open, honest face +came a perplexed look. But Alice said again, in injured tones, that +she didn't know what Mrs. Gray meant. In the parlor the three elders +looked at each other in silence. Mrs. Gray had risen, and stood +leaning forward, her trembling hands flat on the table. + +"I don't--understand," she said. + +"Mr. Carter," said Dr. Lavendar, "certain remarks of yours on our way +up here made me apprehensive. I see that my friend, Mrs. Gray, is +also--apprehensive. I would suggest that you have a few words with her +alone. I will leave you." + +"No," Rebecca said; "hear the end of it." Her hard face was red and +hot. "Why does Mr. Urquhart leave the child of Robert Gray L5000? +Why?" + +"It is as I think you surmise, madam," John Carter said, gravely. + +Rebecca recoiled, with a broken exclamation of horror. + +Dr. Lavendar drew in his breath. "Oh, my poor Robert!" he said. + +"It is so stated in the will," the lawyer went on; "there is no +disguising it; nor, as far as I can see, can it be hidden from the +legatee. The directions for finding this heir make the thing explicit. +The testator states that he received information of the expected birth +of his child _after_ the marriage of the person in question, who did +not mention her married name--hence our difficulty in tracing her." + +Rebecca, her eyes narrowing into a cruel smile, sat down and rocked +backward and forward in her chair. + +"Dreadful--dreadful--dreadful!" she said, aloud, exultantly. + + + + +V. + +The last quarter of an hour, packed with tragic revelation, lost Mr. +Carter the stage. + +"I hope you will put up at the Rectory, sir," Dr. Lavendar said, as +they drove away from Robert Gray's door. + +"I thank you, sir," said Mr. Carter. + +Then they fell into silence--Mr. Carter from politeness, Dr. Lavendar +from horror. He was going back in his memory with painful effort; but +it was all very vague.... He had hardly known her; she had been ill +for those months that she had been in Old Chester, and she had made it +very clear that she did not care to see people. He thought of her +beautiful, sullen face; of Robert Gray's passionate devotion; of Old +Chester's silent disapproval.... He groaned to himself, and John +Carter looked at him sidewise. + +After supper at the Rectory, they sat down to smoke in heavy silence; +Mr. Carter respected the old man's distress, but wondered if he should +not have been more comfortable with Van Horn at the Tavern. The +glowing July day had darkened into rainy night, with a grumble of +thunder back among the hills; but in the midst of a sudden downpour +they heard footsteps on the path, and then some one pushed open the +hall door, and flapped a wet umbrella on the steps before entering. A +minute later Luther Metcalf stood, hesitating, on the study threshold. + +"Dr. Lavendar--" + +The old man got up hurriedly. "Yes, Lute. Come into the dining-room. +You will excuse me, sir?" he said to Mr. Carter. He put his hand on +Lute's arm, in a friendly grip, for there was a break in the boy's +voice. + +"I know about it," Lute said. They sat down at the dining-room table; +Lute swallowed hard, and pulled with trembling fingers at his hatband; +he did not lift his eyes. "And--and I want you to tell her not to take +it." + +"How is she, Lute?" + +"I haven't seen her. She wouldn't come down-stairs. She sent me a +little note," Luther said, taking it out of his breast-pocket, and then +putting it back again tenderly. "'Course I won't pay any attention to +it." + +"Saying she'd release you, I suppose?" + +"Yes; but that's nothing. I'll make her understand the minute I see +her. But, Dr. Lavendar, I don't want that--that money!" the boy ended, +almost with a sob. "I want you to tell her not to take it." + +Dr. Lavendar was silent. + +"At first I thought--I couldn't help thinking--we could get married +right off. We could get married and have a home of our own; you know, +we'd be rich people with all that money. And I suppose, honestly, that +as things are now, there's no chance of our getting married for a good +while. But I--I tell you what, sir. I'd rather never get married +than--than touch that money!" + +Dr. Lavendar nodded. + +"You won't let her, sir? You'll make her give it back?" + +"My dear boy, I can't 'make' Alice do anything. The money is hers." + +"Oh, but Dr. Lavendar, won't you go and talk to her? It may be a +temptation to her, just as it was to me, for a minute. We could just +make the office hum, sir. We could put it right on its feet; we could +have a real Daily. I know she'll think of that. _I_ just thought we +could get married. But Alice will think about helping the office, and +me." + +"Of course the money would bring ease to her father--" Dr. Lavendar +stopped abruptly. + +"Oh, my _God_!" Lute said, and dropped his head on his arms. + +"Bring ease to--to the family," Dr. Lavendar ended lamely. + +"You know Mr. Gray won't touch it," Lute burst out; "and I can't let +Alice, either. Dr. Lavendar, I thought maybe you'd let me hitch +Goliath up and drive you out to the house?" + +"Not to-night, Lute. Alice has got to be alone. Poor child, poor +child! Yes; we've all of us got to meet the devil alone. Temptation +is a lonely business, Lute. To-morrow I'll go, of course. Did you +answer her note?" + +"Oh yes; right off. I just said, 'Don't be foolish,' and--and some +other things. I didn't tell her we mustn't take the money, because I +hadn't thought of it then. Mrs. Gray said she wouldn't come out of her +room. Oh, just think of her, all by herself!" Luther bent over and +fumbled with his shoelace; when he looked up, Dr. Lavendar pretended +not to see his eyes. + +When the boy went away, Dr. Lavendar went back to the study and asked +John Carter some legal questions: Suppose he had not found this child, +what would have become of the money? Suppose the child should now +decline to take it, what then? + +"Well," said Mr. Carter, smiling, "as a remote contingency, I suppose I +might reply that it would revert to the residuary estate. But did you +ever know anybody decline L5000, Dr. Lavendar?" + +"Never knew anybody who had the chance," Dr. Lavendar said; "but +there's no telling what human critters will do." + +"They won't do that," said John Carter. + + +What a long night it was, of rain and wind and dreadful thought! ... +Rebecca had told Alice, with kindness, but with such a grip upon +herself lest exultation should tremble in her voice, that she seemed +harsher than ever. Then she told Lute. He pleaded that Alice would +speak to him, and Mrs. Gray had gone to the girl's room and bidden her +come down-stairs. + +"Come, Alice. You must control yourself. Come down and talk to +Luther." + +Alice shook her head. "I'll--write him a note." + +Mrs. Gray carried the note back to Lute, and brought up the answer, +which Alice read silently. Rebecca watched her; and then, with an +effort, she said: + +"Alice, remember we are not to judge. We don't understand. We must +not judge. Good-night." She opened the door, and then looked at the +child, seated, speechless, with blank eyes, on the edge of the bed. +"Good-night, Alice. I--I'm sorry for you, poor girl!" and she came +back hastily and kissed her. + +At that, even in her daze of horror, a glimmer of astonishment came +into Alice's face. But she did not look up or speak. When it grew +dark, she began mechanically to get ready for bed; she knelt down, as +usual, at the big chintz-covered winged chair and began to say her +prayers, her mind blind as to her own words: "Bless dear father--" +Then she cried out, suddenly and dreadfully, and covered her poor, +shamed head with her arms, and prayed no more. Then came a long fit of +crying, and then a dreary calm. Afterwards, as the night shut in with +rain and rumble of thunder, the shame lightened a little, for, though +she could not read it in the darkness, she held Lute's little note +against her lips and kissed it, and cried over it, and said his words +over to herself, and felt that at any rate there was one bright spot in +it all: Lute would never have any more anxieties. Of Robert Gray she +thought pitifully, but with not much understanding. Oh, dreadful, +dreadful! But he had loved his wife so much (so the child thought) he +would surely forgive her. Not knowing how little forgiveness counts +for when a star goes out. Sometimes, sitting there on the floor, +listening to the rain, she slept; then woke, with a numb wonder, which +darkened into cruel understanding. _Shame; shame_--but Lute wouldn't +be worried any more; Lute would be rich. + +[Illustration: "SHE KNELT DOWN, AS USUAL, AT THE BIG CHINTZ-COVERED +WINGED CHAIR"] + +So the night passed.... + +Rebecca Gray did not sleep. When the house was still she went +up-stairs, eager to be alone. She shut her bedroom door softly; then +she put her brass candlestick on the high bureau and looked about +her.... Everything seemed strange. Here was her old-fashioned bed +with its four mahogany posts like four slender obelisks; there was the +fine darn in the valance of the tester; the worn strip of carpet on +which she had knelt every night for all these twenty years; it was all +the same, but it was all different, all unfamiliar. The room was +suddenly the room where that woman had died; the old four-poster was +the bed of that heartbreaking night, with sheets rumpling under a +wandering hand and pillows piled beneath a beautiful, dying head; not +her own bed, smooth and decorous and neat, with her own fine darn in +the tester valance. She did not know the room as it was now; she did +not know herself; nor Robert; nor that--that--_that woman_. She sat +down, suddenly a little faint with the effort of readjusting a belief +of twenty-two years. "She was a wicked woman," she said, out loud; and +her astounded face stared back at her from the dim mirror over the +mantel-piece. After a while she got up and began to walk back and +forth; sometimes she drew a deep breath; once she laughed. "A wicked +woman!" ... Now he would know. Now he would see. And he would loathe +her. He would hate her. He would--her lip drooped suddenly from its +fierce, unconscious smile; he would--suffer. Yes; suffer, of course. +But that couldn't be helped. Just at first he would suffer. Then he +would hate her so much that he would not suffer. Not suffer? It came +over her with a pang that there is no suffering so dreadful as that +which comes with hating. However, she could not help that. Truth was +truth! All the years of her hungry wifehood rose up, eager for +revenge; her mind went hurriedly, with ecstasy, over the contrast; her +painful, patient, conscientious endeavor to do her best for him. Her +self-sacrifice, her actual deprivations--"I haven't had a new bonnet +for--for four years!" she thought; and her lip quivered at the +pitifulness of so slight a thing. But it was the whole tenor of her +life. _She_ had no vacations in the mountains; she would have liked +new valances, but she spent hours in darning her old ones to save his +money; she had turned her black silk twice; she had only had two black +silks in twenty years. All the great things she had done, all the +petty things she had suffered, rose up in a great wave of merit before +her; and against it--what? Hideous deceit! Oh, how he would despise +the creature! Then she winced; he would--suffer? Well, she couldn't +help that. It was the truth, and he had got to face it. She was +walking up and down, whispering to herself, a sobbing laugh on her +lips, when suddenly, as she passed the mirror, she had a dim, crazy +vision of herself that struck her motionless. A moment later she took +the candle, and with one hand clutching for support at the high +mantel-shelf--for her knees were shaking under her--held it close to +the glass and peered into the black depths. Her pale, quivering face, +ravaged with tears, stared back at her, like some poor ghost more ugly +even than in life. "_A wicked woman._" Yes--yes--yes; and he would +have to know it. But when he knew it, what then? If his eyes opened +to sin, would they open to-- + +"I have tried to make him comfortable," she said, faintly. + +Suddenly she put the candle down and sank into a chair, covering her +face with her poor, gaunt hands.... + +And so the night passed.... The dawn was dim and rainy. It was about +four o'clock that Alice, sitting on the floor, sleeping heavily, her +head on the cushion of the chair, started, bewildered, at the noise of +the opening door. Rebecca, in her gray dressing-gown, one hand +shielding the flare of her candle, came abruptly into the room. + +"Alice," she said, harshly, and stopped by the empty bed; then her eyes +found the figure on the floor ("you ought to be in bed"), she said, in +a brief aside; then: "Alice, I've been thinking it over. You can't +take that money." + +"I don't understand," Alice said, confused with sleep and tears. + +"You can't take that money. If you do, your father would have to know. +And he never must--he never must." + +Alice pulled herself up from the floor and sat down in her big chair. +"Not take the money?" she said, in a dazed way; "but it's mine." + +"That's why you needn't take it. Thank God it was left to you, not +just to 'her heirs.' Alice, I've gone all over it. I--I wanted you to +take it"--Rebecca's voice broke; "yes, I--did." + +"Well, it's mine," Alice repeated, bewildered. + +Rebecca struck her hands together. "Yours not to take! Don't you see? +You can save your father." + +Alice, cringing, dropped her head on her breast with a broken word. + +"Don't be a fool," the older woman said, trembling. "He's been your +father ever since you were born. And it would be a pretty return for +his love to tell him--" + +Alice burst out crying; her step-mother softened. + +"I am sorry for you, you poor girl. But, oh, Alice, think, _think_ of +your father!" She clasped her hands and stood, trembling; she took a +step forward, almost as if she would kneel. + +"If he would feel so dreadfully," Alice said, at last, "why--we needn't +tell him where the money comes from." + +"Now, Alice, that is absurd. Of course he would know. He would have +to know. A girl doesn't inherit L5000 without her father's knowing +where it comes from. And, anyway, Mr. Carter said that Mr. Gray would +have to make a statement and swear to it. Of course he would--know." + +"Do you mean you don't want me to have it at all?" Alice said, blankly. + +"I've just explained it to you," Rebecca said, her voice harsh with +anxiety. "You _can't_ have it." + +"But it's my money; I have a right to it. And it would make all the +difference in the world to Lute. If he is going to take a girl--like +me, he ought to have the money, anyhow." + +"And kill your father?" Rebecca said. "Alice! Don't you see, he must +go on believing that she is"--her voice grew suddenly tender--"that she +is 'a creature of light?'" + +"I want Lute to have the money," Alice said. + +"Alice!" the other exclaimed, with dismay, "don't you think of your +father at all? And--for your mother's sake." + +Alice was silent; then, in a hard voice, "I don't like her." + +"Oh!" Rebecca cried, and shivered. There was a pause; then she said, +faintly, "For your own sake?" + +Alice looked up sullenly. "Nobody need know; we would only say it had +been left to--her. Nobody would know." + +Suddenly, as she spoke, despite the plain face and the red hair, Alice +looked like her mother. Rebecca stepped back with a sort of shock. +Alice, crying a little, got up and began to pull down her hair and +braid it, with unsteady fingers. Her step-mother watched her silently; +then she turned to go away; then came back swiftly, the tears running +down her face. + +"Oh, Alice, it is my fault! I've had you twenty-two years, and yet you +are like-- See, Alice, child; give her a chance to be kind to him, in +you. Oh, I--I don't know how to say it; I mean, let her have a chance! +Oh--don't you see what I mean? She said she was sorry!" All the +harshness had melted out of Rebecca's face; she was nothing but +gentleness, the tears falling down her cheeks, her voice broken with +love. "Alice, be good, dear. Be good. Be good. And I--I _will_ be +pleasanter, Alice; I'll try, indeed; I'll try--" + + + + +VI + +"Well," said Mr. Amos Hughes, a week later, in the cool dusk of Dr. +Lavendar's study, just before tea, "this is a most extraordinary +situation, sir!" + +"Will ye have a pipe?" said Dr. Lavendar, hospitably. + +John Carter, his feet well apart, his back to the fireless grate, his +hands thrust down into his pockets, said, looking over at his partner: + +"Amos, Dr. Lavendar once remarked to me that there was no telling what +human critters would do." + +Dr. Lavendar chuckled. + +"Very true," Amos Hughes admitted, putting one fat knee over the other; +"but I must say that I never before knew a human critter throw away +L5000." + +"I'm sorry you haven't had better acquaintances," said Dr. Lavendar. +"I have. I'm not in the least surprised at this child's behavior. Mr. +Carter, are you looking for anything? You'll find a decanter on the +sideboard in the next room, sir. This is a pretty good world, Mr. Amos +Hughes; I've lived in it longer than you have, so you'll take my word +for it. It's a pretty good old world, and Miss Alice Gray has simply +decided to do the natural and proper thing. Why, what else could she +do?" + +"I could mention at least one other thing," said Mr. Carter. + +"Extraordinary situation! but I suppose the residuary legatees won't +make any objection," murmured Amos Hughes. + +Dr. Lavendar rapped on the table with the bowl of his pipe. "My dear +sir, would you have a girl, for a paltry L5000, break her father's +heart?" + +"Her father?" + +"Mr. Gray would not, in my judgment, survive such a revelation," said +Dr. Lavendar, stiffly. + +"May I ask one question?" John Carter said. + +"G'on," said Dr. Lavendar. + +"What I would like to know is: How did you bring Miss Gray to look at +the thing in this way?" + +"I didn't bring her," said Dr. Lavendar, indignantly; "her Heavenly +Father brought her. Look here, sir; this business of the law is all +very well, and necessary, I suppose, in its way, but let me tell you, +it's a dangerous business. You see so much of the sin of human nature +that you get to thinking human nature has got to sin. You are +mistaken, sir; it has got to be decent. We are the children of God, +sir. I beg that you'll remember that--and then you won't be surprised +when a child like our Alice does the right thing. Surprise is +confession, Mr. Carter." + +Mr. Carter laughed, and apologized as best he could for his view of +human nature; and Dr. Lavendar was instantly amicable and forgiving. +He took Mr. Amos Hughes's warning, that he should, as a matter of duty, +lay very clearly before the young lady the seriousness of what she +proposed to do, and not until he had exhausted every argument would he +permit her to sign the papers of release which (as a matter of +precaution) he had prepared. "She's of age," said Amos Hughes, "and +nobody can say that she has not a right to refuse to proceed further in +the matter. But I shall warn her." + +"'Course, man," said Dr. Lavendar; "that's your trade." + +And so the evening came, and the three men went up to Robert Gray's +house. + +It was a long evening. More than once Dr. Lavendar trembled as he saw +the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them spread before his +child's eyes. But he said no word, and once, sternly, he laid his hand +on Rebecca's arm to check some word of hers. + +"Let her alone," he said. + +It was eleven o'clock before there came a moment of solemn silence. +Alice bent over a paper, which John Carter had read aloud to her, and +signed her name. Luther and Rebecca and Dr. Lavendar witnessed the +signature. Then Rebecca Gray took the girl in her arms. + + +"That young man has got something to him," Mr. Amos Hughes said, as +they went back to the Rectory. + +"If you could put some printing in his way, it would be a favor to me," +said Dr. Lavendar. + +"I shouldn't wonder if I could," the lawyer said. + +"The girl is a fine creature, poor child," said Mr. Carter. + +"Gentlemen," said Dr. Lavendar, "they are both good children, and they +have behaved well; but there's somebody else, let me tell you!" + +However, he did not tell them. Perhaps he kept his opinion for Robert +Gray's ears, for once he said, smiling, in Rebecca's presence: + +"Robert, this wife of yours is a noble woman." + +Mr. Gray, a little surprised, said, politely, looking with kind eyes at +Rebecca, "Mrs. Gray is a very good wife, sir." + +And Rebecca went up and hid herself in the garret and cried with joy. + + + + +AT THE STUFFED-ANIMAL HOUSE + + +I + +Willy King's buggy, splashed to the top of the hood with mud and +sagging sidewise on its worn old springs, came pulling up the hill past +the burial-ground. The doctor himself, curled in one corner, rested a +leg on the dash-board and hung his reins on the hook over his head. He +was very sleepy, for he had been up until three with an old woman who +thought she was sick, and he had been routed out of bed again at five +because she told her family that she was going to die. William King +was not given to sarcasm, but he longed to say to the waiting +relatives, "There is no hope!--she'll live." Instead, he looked +seriously sympathetic and kept his thoughts to himself. When he got +home to breakfast, his wife told him how foolish he was to take so much +trouble. "There's nothing the matter with Mrs. Drayton," said Mrs. +King; "and I should tell her so, flatly and frankly. It would do her +good." + +William said that he would like another cup of coffee. + +"It wouldn't be good for you," said his Martha; "you are drinking too +much coffee. You can have shells if you want to. Shall I have some +shells warmed up?" + +William said "No," and went trudging off to his office; and then, at +ten, started on his round of calls, his old buggy still unwashed from +the morning jaunt to the hypochondriac's death-bed. The day was still +and sunny, the road quite deserted and full of pleasant shadows under +the May foliage. But the sleepy doctor saw it all through half-closed +eyes, and yawned, and rested one plump leg on the dash-board, and let +the reins hang swaying from the hook in the roof of the bug-pry. Then, +suddenly, his mare stopped and William opened his eyes. + +"Caught you napping, Willy!" said a loud, hearty voice. And the doctor +sat up and drew his leg in and laughed. + +"Well, Miss Harriet, how do you know but what I was worrying over a +case?" + +"Much worrying you do, young man!" She sat down on a log on the +road-bank and smiled at him. She was a big, vigorous woman with a +fresh, brown face and a keen, kind eye. She had a gun in her hand, and +a rabbit's white tail stuck out of the hunting-wallet slung over her +shoulder. She had broken through the underbrush on the hill-side just +as Willy's buggy jogged into the shadow of a sycamore that stretched +its mottled arms over the deserted road. + +"Willy," she went on, in her loud, cheerful voice, "do you doctor-men +smile at one another when you meet, like the Augurs, because you fool +us so easily with your big words? You call a scratched finger an +'abrasion of the epidermis'--and then you send a bill. And, bless me! +what a serious air you put on at a minute's notice!--I saw you pull +your leg in, Willy. Come, now; you were in my Sunday-school class--why +don't you just admit to me that that piercing look over your +eye-glasses is one of the tricks of the trade? I won't tell." + +William King chuckled. "You just get a touch of lumbago, Miss Harriet, +and you'll believe in my tricks." + +"Lumbago!" said his reviler. "Not I; a day's shooting would cure it +quicker than a barrel of your pills." + +"Been shooting this morning?" + +"No; I set a trap in Dawson's hollow." She pulled out the rabbit and +held it up. "Not a bone broken. Handsome, isn't he? Poor little +thing!" + +William looked at the soft, furry creature, limp in the big brown hand, +with critical appreciation. "Yes, beautiful. Miss Annie didn't find +him, to let him out?" + +The hunter's face changed to amused impatience. "Willy, she opened +three traps last week. And she was so shrewd about it; you would never +believe how clever she is. Of course it's no use to scold." + +"Of course not. What excuse does she make?" + +"Oh, just the same thing: 'Sister, it hurts me to think they can't get +out.'" + +"Poor thing!" said the doctor. + +"I have tried to make her promise not to interfere with the traps. You +know, if I could once get a promise out of her I would be all right; +Annie never broke a promise in her life. But she is too shrewd to be +led into it. She always says, 'I'm the oldest, and you mustn't order +me round.' It would be funny if it weren't so provoking." + +"Poor thing!" said the doctor again. + +"She follows me and takes the bait out of the traps once in a while; +but she prefers to let things go. And she is certainly wonderfully +bright about it," Miss Harriet said. "Now, why can't she be sensible +in other things?" + +"Well, you know she has always been about twelve; it's the young head +on old shoulders." + +"I must tell you her last performance," Miss Harriet said. "You know +that picture of Aunt Gordon that hung in the dining-room? Dreadful +thing! I never saw the poor woman, but I believe she wasn't quite as +ugly as that portrait, though Alex looks just like her, Dr. Lavendar +says; and Alex is dreadfully ugly, with those pale eyes of his. Well, +I happened to say--it was last Tuesday, at tea, and Matty Barkley was +there: 'That picture of Aunt Gordon is awful! I can't bear it.' Of +course I never thought of it again, until I came home the next day--and +what do you suppose?" + +Willy began to grin. + +"Yes! she had got up on a chair, if you please, and cut it out of the +frame and slashed it all to pieces." + +"Well done!" said Willy King, slapping his thigh. + +"No such thing. It was ugly, but it was a family portrait." + +"What did she say?" + +"Oh, she had her excuse.... Willy, I can't understand her mind; it is +so unreasonably reasonable: 'Sister, you said you couldn't bear it, so +what was the use of having it?' After all, that was sense, William." + +"So it was," said the doctor, and unhooked his reins and nodded. +"Well," he said-- + +But Miss Harriet laughed awkwardly. "Wait a minute, can't you? It +won't kill anybody to do without a pill for five minutes." + +"Well, no, I suppose it won't," William admitted; "but with a view to +getting home in time for dinner--" + +"Oh, let Martha wait. Willy, you are the meekest being--let her wait. +Tell her you'll have your dinner when you're good and ready." + +"Martha is only concerned on my own account," the loyal William +protested. + +"Well, I'm not going to keep you long," his old friend said, roughly; +"I--I just want to ask you a question." Her face grew suddenly a dull +red. "Not that I believe in your pills and potions--just please +remember that. But I suppose you do know a little something." + +"I could diagnose a scratched finger," said the doctor, meekly. + +"Well--" she said, and looked at the lock of her rifle; "there's +nothing in the world the matter with me, but--" + +"You don't look like a confirmed invalid," the doctor assured her. + +"No!--do I?" she said, eagerly. "I really am very well, William--very +well. Dear me, when I get home after a round of my traps (when Annie +hasn't teased me by letting things out) and eat a good dinner, and sit +down with a taxidermy magazine, I--I wouldn't thank King George to be +my uncle. Yes, I am _very_ well." + +Her emphasis had in it a certain agitation that caught the doctor's +eye. "Your out-of-door life is calculated to keep you well," he said. + +Miss Harriet got up and thrust the rabbit back into the pouch at her +side. "Of course; and, anyhow, I'm not the sick kind. Imagine me shut +up between four walls! I should be like Sterne's starling. Do you +remember?--'I want to get out, I want to get out.' No, there's nothing +the matter with me. Absolutely nothing." + +She did look very well, the big, brown woman, towering up at the +road-side, with her rifle in her hand and the good color in her cheeks +and lips. Yet her eyes had a worn look, William thought. "Pain +somewhere," said the doctor to himself. + +"You know, I don't believe in your pills and truck," she insisted, +frowning. + +"Of course not," he assured her easily. "Come, now, Miss Harriet, +what's wrong?" + +"Nothing, I tell you," she said, sharply; and then, with impatient +brevity, she spoke of some special discomfort which had annoyed her. +"It began about six months ago." + +"Probably you've taken cold," William King said, and then he asked a +question or two. She answered with irritable flippancy: + +"Now don't put on airs, Willy. There's no use trying to impress me; I +know you. Remember, you were in my Sunday-school class." + +"Why didn't you make a better boy of me, then? You had your chance. +Miss Harriet, would you mind coming into my office and just letting me +look you over? Come, now, why shouldn't I get a job out of you for +once? Here you tackle me on the road-side and get an opinion for +nothing." + +She chuckled, but retorted that she hated doctors and their offices. +"I'm not that Drayton cat," she said, "always wanting a doctor to fuss +over me. No, you can give me a pill right here--though I haven't a bit +of faith in it." + +"I wouldn't waste a good pill on you," the doctor defended himself. +"You've got to come and see me." + +But when she had promised to come, and William, slapping a rein down on +the mare's flank, was jogging along under the sycamore branches, he did +not fall into his pleasant drowse again. "She looks so well," he said +to himself, "she must be all right--" + + + + +II + +Miss Harriet's house, called by Old Chester children "The +Stuffed-Animal House," was on the hill-road a stone's-throw beyond the +burial-ground. It was of weather-worn brick, and its white lintels, +carved in thin festoons of fruit and flowers, were nearly hidden by ivy +that stretched dark figures over the marble, and, thickening with the +years across the tops of the windows, made the rooms within dim with +wavering leaf shadows. A brick path, damp and faintly green with moss, +ran down to a green gate set in a ragged privet hedge that was always +dusty and choked with dead twigs. The house itself was so shaded by +horse-chestnuts that grass refused to grow in the door-yard. A porch +shadowed the front door, which opened into a dark, square hall, full of +dim figures that hung from the ceiling and stood in cases against the +walls. A dusty crocodile stretched overhead, almost the width of the +hall; a shark, with varnished belly splitting a little under one fin +and showing a burst of cotton, lurked in a dim corner; over the parlor +door a great snake, coiled about a branch, looked down with glittering, +yellow eyes; and along the walls were cases of very beautiful birds, +their plumage dulled now, for it was forty years since Miss Harriet's +father had made his collection. But all around the hall were +glistening eyes that stared and stared, until sometimes an Old Chester +child, clinging to a mother's protecting hand, felt sure they moved, +and that in another moment the crocodile's jaws would snap together, or +the eagle's wings would flap horribly in the darkness. + +Yet there was an awful joy to Old Chester youth in being allowed to +accompany a mother when she made a polite call on Miss Harriet. This +hall, that was dark and still and full of the smell of dead fur and +feathers and some acrid preservative, had all the fascination of +horror. If we were very good we were allowed to walk from case to case +with old Miss Annie, while our mothers sat in the parlor and talked to +Miss Harriet. Miss Annie could not tell us much of the creatures in +the cases, and for all she used to laugh and giggle just as we did, she +never really knew how to play that the hall was a desert island and the +wild beasts were lurking in the forest to fall upon us. + +"It isn't a forest, it's our front hall," Miss Annie would say; "and +you must do what I tell you, because I'm the oldest, and I don't want +to play desert island. But I'll show you my chickens," she would add, +with eager politeness. + +Sometimes, if Miss Annie were not in the room, we would hear Miss +Harriet tell some story about her mischievousness, and our mothers +would sigh and smile and say, "Poor dear!" Our mothers never said +"poor dear!" about us when we did such things. If one of us Old +Chester children had spoken out in church as Miss Harriet said Miss +Annie did once, and told Dr. Lavendar that he was telling a story when +he read in the morning lesson that the serpent talked to +Eve--"because," said Miss Annie, "snakes can't talk"--if we had done +such a dreadful thing, we should have been taken home and whipped and +sent to bed without any supper, and probably the whole of the third +chapter of Genesis to learn by heart. We should not have been "poor +things!" This was very confusing to Old Chester youth until we grew +older and understood. Then, instead of being puzzled, we shrunk a +little and stayed close to our mothers, listening to Miss Harriet's +stories of Miss Annie with strange interest and repulsion, or staring +furtively at the little old woman, who laughed often and had a way of +running about like a girl, and of smoothing back her gray hair from her +temples with a fluttering gesture, and of putting up her lip and crying +when she was angry or frightened or when she saw anything being hurt. +Miss Annie could never bear to see anything hurt; she would not let us +kill spiders, and she made us walk in the grass instead of on the brick +path, because the ants came up between the bricks, and she was afraid +we would step on them. + +"Annie is very kind-hearted," Miss Harriet used to tell our mothers. +"She can't bear my traps." + +Miss Harriet's traps were her passion; her interest in taxidermy had +come to her from her father, and though she had not been able to add +anything of real value to Mr. Hutchinson's collection, her work was +thoroughly well done; and she even made a fair sum of money each year +by sending her squirrels and doves to town for the Christmas trade. + +But more important than the money was the wholesome out-of-door life +her little business entailed, which had given her her vigorous body and +sane mind. She needed both to live with this gray-haired woman, whose +mind was eleven or twelve years old. It was not a bad mind for eleven +or twelve, Willy King used to say. Old Miss Annie had a sort of crude +common-sense; she could reason and determine as well as any other +twelve-year-old child--indeed, with an added shrewdness of experience +that sixty years of bodily age made inevitable. She knew, innocently, +much of life that other children were guarded from knowing; she knew +death, too, but with no horror--perhaps as we were meant to know +it--something as natural as life itself, and most of all as a release +from pain. For old Annie knew pain and feared it as only the body in +which the soul is not awake can fear it. She wept at the sight of +blood and moaned when she heard a squirrel squeak in the trap; she +shivered with passionate expectation of relief when Miss Harriet's +kindly chloroform brought peace to fluttering wings or beating claws. +When some soft, furry creature, hurt in the trap, relaxed into happy +sleep in the thick, sweet smell that came out of Miss Harriet's big +bottle, Miss Annie would laugh for joy, the tears of misery still wet +upon her wrinkled cheeks. + +"Don't come into my shop," Miss Harriet used to say, laughing and +impatient, when Miss Annie would follow her into the room in the barn +where she did her work--"don't come in here, and then you won't see +things that hurt your feelings." + +But Annie, smoothing her hair back from her temples with a curious, +girlish gesture, would only shake her head and sidle closer to her +sister, the young, guileless eyes in the withered face full of protest +and appeal. Her horror of pain lost Miss Harriet many a fine specimen; +for, in her pity for the trapped creatures, Annie, noiselessly, like +some Indian hunter, used to follow on her sister's footsteps through +the woods, lifting the baits out of the traps, or if she found a snared +creature unhurt, letting it go, and then creeping home, frightened at +Miss Harriet's anger, which, if she discovered the old child's +naughtiness, fell like a thunderbolt, and then cleared into patient +amusement, as a black shower brightens into sunshine. The big, kind +woman with a man's mind could not be angry at this poor creature; so +she did her duty by her and tried not to think about her. She went her +way, and set her traps, and prepared her few specimens, brushing Annie +or any other annoyance aside with careless good-nature. + +"Don't think about unpleasant things," she used to say, in her loud, +cheerful voice. "The trouble with you doctors and ministers," she told +Dr. Lavendar, "is that you make people think about their insides. It's +stomachs with Willy and souls with you. Nobody ought to know that they +have a stomach or a soul. I don't. A tree don't. And there isn't an +oak in Old Chester that isn't pleasanter than Mrs. Drayton. Yet she's +always fussing about her insides--spiritual and material." + +"It's when you don't have 'em that you fuss," Dr. Lavendar said; "the +trouble isn't too much soul, it's too little. And I guess it's the +same with stomachs." + +"Then you say Mrs. Drayton has no soul?" Miss Harriet said, pleasantly. + +"I never said anything of the sort," said Dr. Lavendar. + +As for Miss Harriet, she went on to Willy King's office, prepared, as +usual, to make him as uncomfortable as she could. But she never put +Willy out. Her flings at his profession tickled him immensely, and if +now and then the good, honest William practised, as Miss Harriet said, +a few of the tricks of his trade, he was not averse to sharing their +humor with some one who could appreciate it. + +"So you have that Drayton cat on your hands again?" Miss Harriet said, +plumping herself down in William's own chair in front of his office +table so that she could pick up and examine what she called his +"riffraff." ("Do open your windows, William. I don't see how you can +be so shut up. Po-o-o! how can people live so much in-doors?") + +"Well," said William, doing as he was bid, "she enjoys my visits and I +enjoy her checks. I don't complain." + +"That's like the profession," said Miss Harriet; "you put your hands in +our pockets whenever you get a chance. Well, you'll get nothing out of +my pocket, William, for there's nothing in it." + +"Miss Harriet," said William, chuckling--"you won't tell anybody, will +you? But Mrs.--well, I won't name names; that's not professional--" + +"Call her a 'Female,'" said Miss Harriet. + +"Well, a Female sent for me on Tuesday, in a dreadful hurry; I must +come, 'right off! quick!' I was just sitting down to breakfast, but of +course I ran--" + +"Martha must have been pleased?" + +"I ran; and arrived, winded. There was--the Female, at _her_ +breakfast. 'Oh,' she said, 'doctor, the baby has slept right through +from six last night, and he hasn't wakened up yet. I am afraid there +is something the matter with his little brain.'" + +"William, if you didn't say that there was something the matter with +_her_ little brain--" + +"I didn't," William said, grimly, "because she hasn't any. Now, Miss +Harriet, let's talk about yourself; it's pleasanter." + +"Oh, there was not the slightest occasion to come to see you. But I +said I would, and here I am. I suppose you'll send me a bill as long +as my arm. Do you have a system of charges, Willy? So much for a look +over your glasses? So much for that solemn cough? I suppose you grade +all your tricks. Now work off the most expensive ones on me; I propose +to get the worth of my money, young man." + +"Thought you said you weren't going to pay any bills?" William reminded +her; and then refused to be side-tracked any longer, but asked question +after question, bringing her up once or twice with a sharp turn. +"Don't joke now, please, Miss Harriet. Be as exact as you can. Is +this condition thus, or so--?" And when he got through with his +questions, he took up the joking rather heavily. + +"You're so faithless about pills," he said, "that I'm not going to give +you any." + +"What! no pills?" said Miss Harriet. + +William King laughed awkwardly. "Not a pill! I don't see any +condition which warrants them: but--" + +"What did I tell you? There's nothing the matter, and you just dragged +me here to give your office a busy look." + +"I didn't suppose you'd see through it," said Willy King. "But, Miss +Harriet, I--I don't feel _quite_ satisfied. I--do you know I've a +great mind to get a man in Mercer to look you over? I want you to go +up with me to-morrow and see him." + +"Nonsense!" + +"No, truly," he said; "I am not satisfied, Miss Harriet." + +"But what do you mean?" she insisted, sharply. "There's nothing the +matter with me. You said yourself I didn't need any medicine. Give me +some opiate to stop this--this discomfort when it comes on, and I'll be +all right." + +"You can't bear opiates," he said, bluntly; "your heart won't stand +them. Don't you remember the time you broke your ankle and I tried +morphine--a baby dose--to give you some relief? You gave me a scare, I +can tell you." + +Miss Harriet was silent. Then: "I've known my heart wasn't right for +two years. But--" + +"Oh, your heart doesn't give me any concern--if you don't take +liberties with it. Perhaps it isn't quite as good as it was thirty +years ago, but--" + +"Ah, I lost it to you then, Willy. You were a sweet little fellow when +you came into my class. Do you remember once when--" + +"Miss Harriet, you've got to go to Mercer with me to-morrow," William +King interrupted, quietly. "I hope there's nothing much out of the +way. I hope not. I--I believe not. But I'm not sure. We'll go up +and see Greylord and find out. He'll give you some pills, maybe," he +ended, and laughed and got up. "Now I'm off to the cat, Miss Harriet." + +And Miss Harriet, to her astonishment, found herself dismissed before +she had made the boy tell her what he was afraid of. "He _is_ a boy," +she said to herself. "Of course he wouldn't be apt to know what was +the matter. I ought to have gone to see some Mercer man to begin with. +I remember when Willy was born." + + + + +III + +When they came out of the Mercer doctor's door William King's fresh +face had gone white, but Miss Harriet walked smiling. At the foot of +the steps the doctor paused and stood an instant leaning on the +hand-rail, as though for support and to get his breath. Miss Harriet +looked at him with concern. "Why, Willy!" she said. + +"Miss Harriet," William said, hoarsely, "he may be mistaken. It's +perfectly possible that he is mistaken." + +"I guess not, Willy," she said, simply. "Come, now, don't be such a +wet string." She struck him a friendly blow on the shoulder that made +the doctor take a quick step forward to keep his balance; but it gave +him the grip upon himself that for a single instant he had lost. + +"And, anyhow," he said, "even if he is right, it may not develop. I've +known a case where it was checked for two years; and then the patient +died of small-pox." + +"Pleasant alternative," said Miss Harriet; she was smiling, her face +full of color, her shoulders back, her head up. "Come, Willy, let's +have a spree. Here we are for a day, and Martha's at home. We'll have +a good dinner, and we'll do something interesting. _Hurrah!_" said +Harriet Hutchinson. + +And the doctor could do no less than fall into step at that martial +note and march at her side proudly. And by some spiritual contagion +his courage met hers like the clash of swords. They went to get their +good dinner, and Miss Harriet ate it with appetite. Afterwards she +declared they would go to the circus. "It's in town; I saw the tents. +I haven't been to a circus for forty years," she said; "but I know just +how the pink lemonade tastes. You've got to treat, Willy." + +"I'll throw in pea-nuts," said William King; and with that they left +the restaurant and went sauntering along the hot, grimy street in the +direction of the open lots beyond the blast-furnaces, where, under a +deep June sky, dazzling even though it was smudged by coils of smoke, +were stretched the circus tents, brave with flags and slapping and +billowing in a joyous wind. William King held on to his hat and looked +at the great, white clouds, domed and shining, piled all along the +west. "We'll get a shower, I'm afraid, Miss Harriet." + +"Well, take a pill, Willy, and then it won't hurt you," she told him, +with a laugh that belonged to the sun and wind, to the flags whipping +out on their halyards and the signs of the side-shows bellying from +their guy-ropes, to the blare of music and the eager circus crowd--that +crowd that never changes with changing generations. Still there is the +old man gaping with excited eyes; still the lanky female in spectacles; +the cross elder sister afraid of crushing her fresh skirts; the little +boy absorbed in thought; the little girl who would like to ride on the +Shetland pony when the clown offers any miss in the audience an +opportunity. We know them all, and doubtless they know us, the +patronizing, amused on-lookers, who suddenly become as eager and +absorbed as any graybeard or child in the crowd. We know the red +boxes, too, where men with hard faces and wearied eyes shout +mechanically the same words of vociferous invitation to the side-shows. +Children, pulled along by their elders, would stop, open-mouthed, +before these men; but somehow they never see the wild man or the fat +lady. Ah, the regret for the unseen side-shows!--the lady with the +snakes; the skeleton man; the duel between the educated hyena and his +trainer--that hyena of whom the man in the red box speaks with such +convincing enthusiasm. "_I have been_," cries the strident voice--"_I +have been connected with circuses all my life--all my life, ladies and +gentlemen!--and I give you my sacred word of honor that this is the +most magnificent specimen of the terrible grave-robbing hyena that I +have ever seen!_" Why did we never see that hyena? Why, why did we +always hurry on to the main tent? It is the pang that even paradise +must know, of the lost experience of earth--or perhaps of hell. + +"We ought to see the fat lady," said Dr. King. + +"I'm afraid we'll be late," Miss Harriet objected, eagerly. + +So they pushed on with the impatient, good-natured crowd. The smell of +tan-bark and matted pelts and stale pea-nut shells came in a gust as +they jostled under the flap of the outer tent and found themselves +inside the circle of gilded cages. "Shall we go right in and get our +seats?" William said. + +"What! and not look at the animals? Willy, you're crazy. I want to +feed the elephants. Why, there are a lot of them, six or seven." + +So they trudged around the ring, their feet sinking deep into the +loose, trampled earth. Miss Harriet poked the monkeys clinging to the +grating of their car, with her big umbrella, and examined the +elephant's hide with professional interest. "Imagine curing that +proboscis," she said. And then they stopped in front of a miserable, +magnificent lion, turning, turning, turning in a cage hardly more than +his own length. Miss Harriet drew in her breath. "It's being trapped +that is so awful, Willy. The consciousness that _you can't get out_. +It isn't the--the pain of it; it's being trapped." + +William King, looking at the poor tawny creature of the desert and free +winds and life that dealt death with passion, blinked suddenly behind +his glasses. "But you trap things yourself," he protested, a moment +afterwards. + +"Oh, but I don't keep 'em trapped; I kill 'em," she defended herself. +"I couldn't keep things shut up. I'd be as bad as Annie if I saw any +living creature that wasn't free to get out-of-doors." And then she +pushed on to the next cage, and the next; then suddenly feared that +they would not get good seats if they wasted any more time among the +animals. "For we won't have any reserved doings," she said. "I want +to sit on those boards that I sat on forty years ago." + +She was as excited as she might have been forty years ago; and pushed +ahead into the big tent, dragging William by the hand, and climbing up +tier after tier, to get a good view of the ring. When they sat down, +she made haste to spread open the flimsy pink sheet of the programme +with its pale type, and read to William, in a loud, ecstatic voice, +just what was going to happen: + +"_Display No. 1. Gigantic Pageantric Prelude--presenting Equitational +Exercises, Hippo-dramatical Revivals, Pachydermical Aggregations--the +only terpsichorean Pachyderms ever taught to tread the mazes of the +Quadrille._ + +"_Display No. 2. Claire St. Jeal and her company--the loveliest +daughters of Italy, and world-famous bareback equestriennes--_" + +"You are sure you are not getting tired?" William King interrupted. + +"Tired?" she repeated, scornfully. "William, as Matty Barkley would +say, you are a perfect fool. Why should I be tired? I feel first +rate--never better. I wouldn't thank King George to be my uncle! I've +wanted to come to the circus for years. Willy, what will your wife +say?" + +"Nothing," said William, significantly. + +At which Miss Harriet laughed until the tears stood in her eyes. +"William, you have more sense than I gave you credit for. But I am not +sure that, as your Sunday-school teacher, I ought not to tell you to +confess. Hullo! look what's coming." + +Flare of banners! Prancing horses! Roman soldiers in rumbling +gold-and-crimson chariots! Elephants bearing, throned upon their +backs, goddesses of liberty and queens of beauty! Miss Harriet was +leaning forward, her lips parted with excitement. William King looked +at her and drew in his breath. + +[Illustration: "MISS HARRIET WAS LEANING FORWARD"] + +"'Not more than six months;' God grant not!--I wish it might not be +more than two." + +"Willy, read what comes next," she said, shoving the programme at him; +"I can't stop looking." + +The canvas was darkening a little overhead, so that William had to put +on his glasses and hold the printed sheet at arm's-length to decipher +the blurred, smudged text sufficiently to say that "Mademoiselle +Orinda, Queen of the Flying Trapeze, would give her marv--" + +"William--what shall I do about Annie?" Miss Harriet said. + +"You know we will all take care of Miss Annie," he said, tenderly; +"and--" + +"Oh, Willy, there's the red lemonade," she interrupted, standing up and +beckoning with her crumpled programme. "Did you ever see so deadly a +drink? You forgot the pea-nuts," she reminded him, reproachfully. And +when William secured his hot, brown-paper bag, she ate the pea-nuts and +watched the changing wonders of the ring with intent eyes. She laughed +aloud at the clown's endeavors to ride a kicking donkey, and when the +educated dogs carried one another about in a wheelbarrow she applauded +generously. "They are wonderful!" she said. + +William King looked at her keenly; it was all real. Miss Harriet was +incapable of pretence. + +The brilliant day, that had showed between lacings of the tent like +strings of sapphires, had dimmed and dimmed; and by-and-by, unnoticed +at first, there was the drip of rain. Here and there an umbrella was +raised, and once or twice a bedraggled man or woman led out a reluctant +child--"For I ain't a-goin' to have you catch your death of cold for no +trained elephants," a mother said, decidedly, pulling a whining boy +from beside Miss Harriet. + +"Perhaps," ventured the doctor, "we really ought to go. I can't have +you 'catch your death of cold,' Miss Harriet." + +"I won't die of a cold, William," she said, her eyes narrowing. + +And William swore at himself under his breath, but said, with clumsy +jocularity: "Well, not if I can help it. But I don't know why you +should be so sure; it might give you bronchitis for a year." + +"I won't have bronchitis for a year," Miss Harriet said, gazing at the +clowns. + +And William King swore at himself again. + +The rain increased to a downpour; little streams at first dripped, then +poured, upon the thinning benches. The great centre pole was streaming +wet; the clown stood in a puddle, and the red triangle on his +chalk-white forehead melted into a pink smear. + +"Really, Miss Harriet," William said, anxiously, "I'm afraid--" + +"If you're afraid for yourself, I'll go," she said; "but we ought to +wait for the grand concert. (Ah! there's the man with the red +balloons. If you had a half-dozen children, Willy, as you ought to +have, I'd buy him out.) Well, are you sugar or salt, to be so scared +of a drop of rain?" + +She did not look afraid of rain herself when she got up and pushed past +the scattered spectators, her hair glistening with drops, her cheeks +red, her eyes clear. "William," she said, when they got outside and +were hurrying along to catch the stage for Old Chester--"William, that +has done me good. I feel superbly. Do you know, I haven't had an +instant's pain since I first spoke of the thing to you? That's three +days entirely free. Why, such a thing hasn't happened in--in three +months. Just think of that--entirely free. William, I'll cheat you +doctor-men yet." She looked at him with glowing courage. "I feel so +well," she said. + +She held out her hand, there in the rain on the black cinder-path, and +William King struck his into it with a sort of shout. + +"Hurrah!" he said, as she had said when they had come out from hearing +the sentence in the Mercer doctor's office. + +The long ride home in the stage, in which they were the only +passengers, was perhaps a descending scale.... At first they talked of +the circus. "I liked the man and the bear best," William said. + +"Oh, he wasn't as fine as that beautiful lady in pink petticoats who +rode the fat, white horse. Did you ever see a horse with so broad a +back, Willy? Why, I could have ridden him myself." + +"He would need a broad back," William said; and Miss Harriet told him +to hold his tongue and not be impudent. The rain was pattering on the +roof and streaming down the windows, and in the dark, damp cavern of +the stage they could not see each other's face very well; but the +stretches of tense silence in the circus talk made William King's heart +beat heavily, although he burst out gayly that the afternoon had +brought back his youth. "Miss Harriet, when you were a child, didn't +you always want to poke around under the seats when it was over and +find things? William Rives once found five cents. But William would +find five cents in the Desert of Sahara. I never had his luck, but I +was confident that watches were dropped freely by the spectators." + +"Of course," cried Miss Harriet. "Or diamond-rings. My fancy led me +towards diamond-rings. But I suppose you never knew the envy of the +ladies' clothes? Dear me--those petticoats!" + +"The ring-master's boots were very bitter to me; but my greatest desire +was--" + +"Willy," Miss Harriet said, hoarsely, "I don't want anybody to know." + +"Of course not," William King said. "Why should they? We may hold +this thing at bay for--" + +"We will hold it at bay," she said, with passion. "I will! I _will_! +Do you hear me?" + +Willy King murmured something inarticulately; his eyes suddenly smarted. + +The ride to Old Chester seemed to him interminable; and when, after +wandering snatches of talk about the circus, the stage at last drew up +at the green gate in Miss Harriet's privet hedge, his nerves were tense +and his face haggard with fatigue. + +At home, at his belated supper-table, his good Martha was very severe +with him. "You oughtn't to allow yourself to get so tired; it's wrong. +You could just as well as not have ordered your things by mail. I must +say, William, flatly and frankly, that a doctor ought to have more +sense. I hope there was nobody in the stage you knew to talk you to +death?" + +"Miss Harriet came down," William said, "but she hadn't much to say." + +"I suppose she went to buy some of her horrid supplies?" Martha said. +"I can't understand that woman--catching things in traps. How would +she like to be caught in a trap? I asked her once--because I am always +perfectly frank with people. 'How would you like to be caught in a +trap, Miss Harriet?' I said. And she said, 'Oh, Annie would let me +out.' You never can get a straight answer out of Harriet Hutchinson." + +"My dear, I'll take another cup of tea. Stronger, please." + +"My dear, strong tea isn't good for you," Martha said. + + + + +IV + +When Miss Harriet woke the next morning the blue June day was flooding +her room. At first she could not remember.... What was the something +behind her consciousness? It came in an instant. "_Trapped_," she +said, aloud, and turned her head to see Miss Annie at her bedside. + +"What is trapped, sister?" said Miss Annie, her little old face +crumpling with distress. + +"I am," Harriet said; and laughed at the absurdity of telling Annie in +such a fashion. But of course there was no use in telling Annie. She +couldn't understand, and all that there was for her to know, the +ultimate fact, she would find out soon enough. The younger sister felt +a sick distaste of dealing with this poor mind; she wanted to be kind +to Annie; she had always wanted to be kind to her--but she didn't want +her round, that was all. And so she sent her off, patiently and not +ungently: "Don't bother me, Annie, that's a good girl. No--I don't +want any roses; take them away. No--I don't want to look at pictures. +You go away now, that's a good girl." + +And the wrinkled child obeyed meekly. But she told the deaf Augustine +that Harriet was cross. "I'm the oldest, and she oughtn't to order me +round," she whimpered. + +Poor Miss Annie was constantly being told to be a good girl and go +away, in the days that followed--days, to Miss Harriet, of that +amazement and self-concentration which belong to such an experience as +hers. There had been no leading up to this knowledge that had come to +her--no gradual preparation of apprehension or suspicion. The full +speed of living had come, _crash!_ against the fact of dying. The +recoil, the pause, the terrible astonishment of that moment when Life, +surging ahead with all his banners flying, flings himself in an instant +against the immovable face of Death--leaves the soul dazed by the +shock--dazed, and unbelieving. "_It cannot be._" That is the first +clear thought. It is impossible; there is a mistake somewhere. A day +ago, an hour ago, Death was lying hidden far, far off in the years. +Sometime, of course, he would arrive--solemn, inevitable, but +beneficent, or at least serene. He would send soft warnings before +him--faint tollings of fatigue, vague mists of sunset shadows. The +soul will be ready for him when he comes then; will even welcome him, +for after a while Life grows a little tired and is ready to grasp that +cool hand and rest. We all know how to meet Death then, with dignity +and patience. But to meet him to-morrow--to-day, even, when we are +full of our own business, of our own urgent affairs--the mere +interruption of it is maddening. Across the solemnity of the thought +comes with grotesque incongruity an irritated consciousness of the +_inconvenience_ of dying. + +As for Harriet Hutchinson--"I don't believe it," she said to herself, +that first morning. And then, breathlessly, "Why, I can't--die!" + +She was not afraid, as one counts fear, but she was absorbed; for there +is a dreadful and curiously impersonal interest in the situation that +takes possession of the mind in moments like this. No wonder she could +not think about Annie. She could not think about anything except that +that man in Mercer had said that in a very short time-- + +"Why, but it's perfectly ridiculous!" she told herself; "it _can't_ be. +I'm not sick--" + +As she lay there in her bed that morning, after she had sent Miss Annie +away, she lifted her hand--a large hand, with strong, square fingers, +brown with weather and rough with her work, and looked at it curiously. +It was a little thin--she had not noticed that before; but there it +was, eager, vital, quick to grip and hold, life in every line. And it +would be--still? No; she did not believe it. And, besides, it +couldn't be, it mustn't be. She had a hundred things to do. She must +do them; she couldn't suddenly--_stop_. Life surged up in a great wave +of passionate determination. She got up, eager to go on living, and to +deny, deny, deny! It was the old human experience which is repeated +and repeated until Life can learn the fulfilment of Death. Poor Life, +beaten by the whips of pain, it takes so long sometimes to learn its +lesson! + +In those weeks that followed--weeks of refusal, and then struggle, and +then acceptance, and last of all adjustment--Miss Harriet found old +Annie's companionship almost intolerable. She was very unreasonable +with her, very harsh even; but all she asked was solitude, and solitude +Annie would not give. She ran at her sister's heels like a dog; sat +looking at her with frightened eyes in the bad hours that came with +relentlessly increasing frequency; came whimpering to her bedside on +those exhausted mornings when Harriet would scourge her poor body onto +its feet and announce that she was going out. "These four walls +smother me," she used to say; "I must get out-of-doors." + +Sometimes it seemed as if the big, kind nature that had borne the +pin-pricks so patiently all these years had reached the breaking-point, +and another day or another hour of poor old Annie's foolish love would +cause it to burst out in frantic anger: + +"It hurts, sister?" + +"Yes, Annie; but never mind. If I could only get out-of-doors I +wouldn't mind." + +"Oh, sister, don't let it hurt." + +"Can't help it, Annie. Now, don't think about it, that's a good girl. +Maybe I can get out to-morrow a little while." + +"But I can't bear it." + +"Got to, my dear. Come, now, run away. Go and see your chickens." + +"Sister, I can't bear it." + +"Annie, you drive me wild. Augustine--oh, she can't hear. +_Augustine!_ you must take Miss Annie away. Annie, if you say another +word--" + +"I'm the oldest and I have a right to talk. Why don't you smell your +big bottle? When the squirrels smell it they are not hurt." + +"Well, I'm not a squirrel. Annie, if you stay another minute, +I'll--I'll-- Oh, for Heaven's sake, let me alone!" + +She could stand it, she told herself, if she was alone. For though she +finally accepted the fact, her own weakness she could not accept. "I +am ashamed," she told William King, angrily. + +"But there's nothing to be ashamed of," Willy King protested, in his +kind way. "Dear Miss Harriet--" + +"Hold your tongue. Nothing to be ashamed of? I guess if your body had +put your soul in a corner, with its face to the wall--I guess you'd be +ashamed. Yesterday I--I-- Well, never mind. But my body got me down, +I tell you--got my soul down. Isn't that something to be ashamed of? +Don't be an ass, William. I'm ashamed." + +It was this consciousness of her own weakness that made her hold +herself aloof from her friends. + +In those days people did not have trained nurses; they nursed one +another. It was not skilful nursing; it frequently was not wise, as we +count wisdom to-day; but it was very tender and loving, and it was very +bracing. In these softer times, when we run so easily to relief from +pain, we do not feel the presence of the professional nurse a check +upon our weakness; if we suffer, we are willing that this skilful, +noiseless machine, who will know exactly how to relieve us, shall see +the suffering. We are neither mortified nor humiliated by our lack of +endurance or of courage. But in Old Chester, when we were ill, and +some friend or relative came to sit by our bedside, we had--for their +sakes--to make an effort to control ourselves. If the effort failed, +our souls blushed. Miss Harriet would not run the risk of failure; her +body, as she said, got the better of her soul when she was alone; it +should not have the chance to humiliate her publicly; so, roughly, she +refused the friendly assistance so eagerly offered: "Thank you; +Augustine can look after me. I don't want anybody. And besides, I'm +perfectly comfortable. (William, I won't have anybody. Do you +understand? It's bad enough to disgrace myself in my own eyes; I won't +have Matty Barkley sit and look on.)" + +And William King put people off as well as he could: "I go in two or +three times a day, just to say how do you do; and Miss Annie is about +and can bring her anything she needs. And Augustine is very faithful. +Of course, she is deaf as a post, but she seems to know what Miss +Harriet wants." + +So the situation was accepted. "Here I am," she told the doctor, +grimly, "dying like a rat in a hole. If I could only get +out-of-doors!--or if I had anything to do!--I think it's the having +nothing to do that is the worst. But I'll tell you one thing, Willy--I +won't be pitied. Don't have people mourning over me, or pretending +that I'm going to get well. They know better, and so do I." + +Those who dared to pity her or who ventured some futile friendly lie +about recovery were met by the fiercest impatience. "How do I feel? +Very well, thank you. And if I didn't, I hope I wouldn't say so. I +hope I'm well enough bred not to ask or answer questions about +feelings. There is nothing in the world so vulgar," she said, and +braced herself to one or another imprudence that grieved and worried +all the kind hearts that stood by, eager to show their love. + +"It breaks my heart to see her, and there's nothing anybody can do for +her," Mrs. Barkley told Dr. Lavendar, snuffling and wiping her eyes. +"She positively turned Rachel King out of the house; and Maria Welwood +cried her eyes out yesterday because she was so sharp with her when +Maria said she was sorry she had had a bad night and hoped she'd soon +feel better." + +The old man nodded silently. "Poor Miss Harriet!" he said. + +"Don't say 'poor Miss Harriet!' to her. Dr. Lavendar, Harriet and I +have been friends since we were put into short dresses--and she spoke +to me to-day in a way--! Well, of course, I shall go back; but I was +ready to say I wouldn't. And she treats poor old Annie outrageously." + +Dr. Lavendar nodded again. He himself had seen her several times, but +she had never let him be personal: "Was Mrs. Drayton still gossiping +about her soul?" "Wasn't it nearly time to get a new carpet for the +chancel?" etc., etc. It was her way of defending herself--and Dr. +Lavendar understood. So he only brought her his kindly gossip or his +church news, and he never looked at her mournfully; but neither did he +ever once refer to a possible recovery--that poor, friendly pretence +that so tries the soul absorbed in its own solemn knowledge! + +But in the afternoon, after his talk with Mrs. Barkley, the old man +went plodding up the hill to the Stuffed-Animal House, with tender and +relentless purpose in his face. It was a serene September day, full of +pulsing light and fragrant with the late mowing. William King's mare +was hitched to a post by the green gate in the hedge, and the doctor +was giving her a handful of grass as Dr. Lavendar came up. "How is +Miss Harriet, Willy?" the old man said. + +William climbed into the buggy and flicked with his whip at the +ironweed by the road-side. "Oh--about the same. Dr. Lavendar, it's +cruel--it's cruel!" + +"What's cruel, William?" + +"I can't give her any opiate--to amount to anything." + +"Why?" + +"Her heart." + +"But you can't let her suffer!" + +"If I stopped the suffering," the doctor said, laconically, "it would +be murder." + +"You mean--" + +"Depressants, to amount to anything, would kill her." + +Dr. Lavendar looked up into the sky silently. Willy King gathered up +the reins. "And Annie?" Dr. Lavendar said. + +"She is just a poor, frantic child. I can't make her understand why +Miss Harriet shouldn't have two powders, when one 'sugar,' as she calls +it, gives her a little comfort for a little while. She says, 'Harriet +wouldn't let a squirrel stay hurt.' Miss Harriet says she told her the +other day that she wasn't a squirrel; but it didn't seem to make any +difference to Miss Annie. She has a queer elemental reasonableness +about her, hasn't she? Well, I must go. Dr. Lavendar, I--I hope you +won't mind if I say that perhaps--I mean she doesn't want anybody to +refer to--to anything religious." + +"William," said the old man, mildly, "if you can mention anything which +is not religious to a woman who is going to die within a very few +weeks, I will consider it." + +And William King had the grace to blush and stammer something about +Miss Harriet's hating anything personal. Dr. Lavendar listened +silently; then he went on up the path to the Stuffed-Animal House. Old +Miss Annie let him into the darkened hall, a burst of western sunshine +flooding in behind him and making the grim, dead creatures dart out of +their shadows for a moment, and sink back into them again when the door +was shut. The old child had been crying, for Miss Harriet had turned +her out of her room, and so he had to sit there in the hall, under the +shark, and try to comfort her and bid her go out and see her chickens. +But for once Miss Annie would not be diverted: + +"Harriet wants to go out-of-doors, and she can't. And she is hurt; and +Willy King won't give her sugar in a paper to stop the hurting. He is +wicked." + +"By-and-by," said Dr. Lavendar, "Harriet will fall asleep and not be +hurt any more." + +"Not till she is dead," Miss Annie said; "Augustine told me so." + +"I meant that," Dr. Lavendar said, stroking the poor, gray head +grovelling against his knee. + +"Then why didn't you say so? It is a story to say sleep when you mean +dead." + +"I ought to have said dead," he acknowledged, gently, "so that you +could understand. But I want you to remember that death is a happy +sleep. Will you remember that?" + +"A happy sleep," Miss Annie repeated; "yes; I will remember. _A happy +sleep._" She lifted her head from his knee and smiled. "I'll go and +see my chickens," she said. + +[Illustration: "'A HAPPY SLEEP,' MISS ANNIE REPEATED"] + +And Dr. Lavendar took his way up-stairs, past the cases of birds, to +Miss Harriet's room. She received him with elaborate cheerfulness. + +As for Dr. Lavendar, he lost no time in pretence. "Miss Harriet," he +said, "I am not going to stay and talk and tire you. You've seen +people enough to-day--" + +"I'm not tired in the least." + +"But I have a word to say to you." + +She looked at him angrily. "I would rather not talk about myself, Dr. +Lavendar, please." + +"I don't want to talk about yourself," he said. + +Her face cleared a little. "That's a relief. I was afraid you were +going to talk to me about 'preparing,' and so forth." + +A sudden smile twinkled into Dr. Lavendar's old eyes. "My dear Miss +Harriet, you've been 'preparing' for fifty years--or is it fifty-one? +I've lost count, Harriet. No; you haven't got anything to do about +dying; dying is not your business. In fact, I sometimes think it never +is our business. Our business is living. Dying is God's affair." + +"I haven't any business, that's the worst of it," Miss Harriet said, +bitterly. "I've nothing to do--nothing to do but just lie here and +wait. I don't mind dying; but to be here in this trap, waiting. And +I've always been so busy, I don't know how to do nothing." + +"That's what I wanted to say to you. There is something you can do. +In fact, there's something you must do." + +"Something I must do?" Miss Harriet said, puzzled. + +"My dear friend, you must meet this affliction; you can't escape; we +can't save you from it. But there is one thing you can do: you can try +to spare the pain of it to other people. Set yourself, Miss Harriet, +to make it as easy as you can for those who stand by." + +Harriet Hutchinson looked at him in amazement. No pity? No +condolences? Nothing but the high charge to spare others. "You mean +my temper?" she said at last, slowly. + +"Yes," said Dr. Lavendar. + +Miss Harriet blushed hotly. "It is bad; I know it's bad. But--" + +"Mine would be worse," said Dr. Lavendar, thoughtfully. "But look out +for it, Harriet. It's getting ahead of you." + +Miss Harriet nodded. "You're right." + +"You see, when you are out of temper it shows you are suffering; and +that's hard for us to bear--not the temper, of course, but the +knowledge. So you've got to spare us, Harriet. Understand?" + +"I understand." + +"It will be hard work for you," he said, cheerfully; and somehow the +words meant, not pity, but "_Shoulder arms!_" + +For an instant they gazed, eye to eye--the woman devoured by pain, the +old man with his calm demand; and then the soul of her rose with a +shout. What! there was something left for her to do? She need not +merely sit still and die? She need not wait idly for the end? It was +a splendid summons to the mind--a challenge to the body that had dogged +and humiliated the soul, that had wrung from her good-humored courage +irritability and unjust anger, that had dragged her pride in the dust +of shame, yes, even--even (alone, and in the dark), but even of tears. + +"_Make it as easy as possible for those that stand by._" + +Some might say that that austere command was the lash of the whip; but +to Miss Harriet it was the rod and the staff. The Spartan old man had +suddenly revealed to her that as long as the body does not compel the +soul, there is no shame. As long as she could hold her tongue, she +said to herself, she need not be ashamed. Let the body whimper as it +may, if the soul is silent it is master. Miss Harriet saw before her, +not humiliation and idleness and waiting, but fierce struggle.... And +it was a struggle. It was no easy thing to be amiable when good Maria +Welwood wept over her; or when Martha King told her, flatly and +frankly, that she was doing very wrong not to make more effort to eat; +or even when Mrs. Dale hoped that she had made her peace with Heaven. + +"Heaven had better try to make its peace with me, considering," said +Miss Harriet, grimly; but when she saw how she had shocked Mrs. Dale, +she made haste to apologize. "I didn't mean it, of course. But I am +nervous, and say things to let off steam." Such an admission meant +much from Miss Harriet, and it certainly soothed Mrs. Dale. + +But most of all, Harriet Hutchinson forbade her body to dictate to her +soul when Miss Annie hung whimpering about her with frantic persistence +of pity. Never in all their years together had Miss Harriet shown such +tenderness to Annie as now, when the poor old child's mere presence was +maddening to her. For Annie could think of nothing but the pain which +could not be hidden, and her incessant entreaty was that it should be +stopped. "Wouldn't you rather be dead, sister?" + +"Yes, Annie." + +"Well, then, be dead." + +"I can't, Annie. Now let us talk of something else. Tell me what the +black hen did when the speckled hen stole her nest." + +Annie joyously told her story, as she had told it dozens of times +before; while Harriet Hutchinson turned her face to the wall. Annie +sat on her heels on the floor beside the bed, rocking back and forth, +and talking: "And so the speckled hen flew off. Sister, I'll get you +your big bottle?" + +No answer. + +"Sister, don't you want to smell the bottle?" + +"No, Annie. No--no--_no_! Oh, Annie, don't you want to go and see +your chickens?" + +"Why not?" + +"Because it wouldn't be right, Annie." + +"Why wouldn't it be right, sister?" + +"Because," said Harriet Hutchinson--"because I suppose that's one of +the things that would 'make it harder for those that stand by.'" + +"I don't understand," poor old Annie said, timidly. + +"Well, Annie, that's the only reason I know of. Oh, Annie, Annie! it +is the only reason there is; it is the root of its being wrong." ... +And then the long moan. When Miss Annie heard that sound she shivered +all over; it was the elemental protest of the flesh, which cannot +understand the regal and unconquered soul. + +Those were hard days for Willy King, what with his affection and his +sympathy and his daily struggles with Miss Annie; "for she is frantic," +he told Dr. Lavendar. They were walking up the hill together in the +late afternoon. Miss Harriet had sent for the old man, on whom now she +leaned even more than on William King, for Dr. Lavendar gave her +granite words instead of Willy's tenderer sympathy. "She insists that +I shall give Miss Harriet something--'stuff out of Harriet's bottle,' +she says. I suppose she means chloroform. I wish to God I could." + +"God will do His own work, William." + +"Yes, sir; but it's such a waste--this courage that fairly breaks our +hearts." + +"Waste! William, what are you talking about? We are every one of us +richer for it. I told her so yesterday." + +"Well," said William King, thoughtfully, "perhaps so; in this case we +are richer, I admit. But suppose it were a baby that was suffering--or +a dog? Only, we wouldn't let the dog suffer. Dr. Lavendar, one of +these days--you and I won't live to see it, but one of these days--" + +"There is Miss Annie now," said Dr. Lavendar. "Why--look at her!" + +The old woman came fluttering down the path towards the green gate in +the privet hedge; she was smoothing her hair back from her temples, +with her strange, girlish gesture, and she was smiling, but there was a +new and solemn age in her face that made the two men look at each +other, startled and wondering. + +"Dr. Lavendar! Willy!" she said, her voice breaking with joy, "Harriet +is dead--oh, Harriet is dead!" + +They stopped short in the pathway. "What--what?" stammered William +King. + +"Oh, Harriet is dead!" the old woman said; "and I'm so happy." She +came and leaned on the closed gate at the foot of the path, smiling up +into their faces. "She isn't hurt any more. Oh, I can breathe, I can +breathe, now," said Miss Annie, laying her withered hands upon her +throat and drawing a deep breath. + +"When?" said the doctor. + +"Oh, just a little while ago. As soon as she got dead I opened the +windows and let the air blow in; she likes the wind when she isn't +hurt." + +William King said, suddenly, "_My God!_" and turned and ran up the +path, into the house, into the room, where, indeed, there was no more +hurting. + +"Annie," Dr. Lavendar said, "were you with her?" + +"Yes," Miss Annie said. "Harriet was hurt very much. But when she +smelled her bottle she stopped being hurt." + +Dr. Lavendar leaned against the gate, his breath wavering; then he sat +down on the grass, and rested his forehead on his hands clasped on the +top of his stick. He was unable to speak. Miss Annie came out into +the road and looked at him curiously. After a while he said, feebly, +"Annie, tell me about it." + +"Willy wouldn't give Harriet sugar in a paper to stop the hurting. And +Harriet said she couldn't get her bottle. She said it would be wrong +for her to get it." + +Dr. Lavendar lifted his head with a quick gesture of relief. "What! +Harriet, didn't get it herself?" + +"Oh no," Miss Annie said. "I got it. And I went into Harriet's room. +Harriet's eyes were shut, and she was--was moaning," said Miss Annie, +shivering. "So I put some stuff out of the bottle on a towel and held +it for Harriet to smell. And Harriet opened her eyes and looked +frightened, and she said, 'No, no!' And I said, 'Yes; I'm the oldest +and you must do what I say.' And she said, 'Augustine! Augustine!' +But Augustine can't hear. And I held it down and I said, 'You won't be +hurt any more.' And Harriet pushed it away and said 'No.' And then +she shut her eyes. And after a while she didn't say anything more. +And I held it, oh, a long time. And then I looked, and Harriet's eyes +were shut. And now she's dead! And it doesn't hurt any more. You +come and look at her, and you'll see it doesn't hurt any more. Now she +wouldn't thank King George to be her uncle! Oh, she's dead," said Miss +Annie, nodding her head and laughing; "a happy sleep." She was +standing there in the dusty road in front of him, telling the story, +her hands behind her, rocking slightly backward and forward, like a +child repeating a lesson. The long afternoon shadows stretched from +the trees across the road, and, swaying lightly, flecked her gray head +with sunshine. + +"Annie," said Dr. Lavendar, "come here and sit beside me." + +She came, happily enough, and let him take her hand and hold it, +patting it softly for a moment before he spoke. + +"Annie, it was not right to give Harriet the stuff out of the bottle; +our Heavenly Father stops the hurting when He thinks best. So it does +not please Him for us to do it when we think best." + +"But Willy gave Harriet one sugar in a paper, and that stopped it a +little," Miss Annie said, puzzled; "and if he stopped it a little, why +shouldn't it all be stopped?" The obvious logic of the poor mind +admitted of no answer--certainly no argument. + +Dr. Lavendar said, gravely, stroking the hand, as wrinkled as his own: +"It was not right, my child. You will believe me when I say so? And I +do not want any one to know that you did a thing that was not right. +So I want you to promise me now that you will not tell any one that you +did it. Will you promise me?" + +"Willy knows it, I guess," Miss Annie said. + +Dr. Lavendar was silent. Just what had William heard her say? Only +that Miss Harriet was "dead." "I am pretty sure that Willy doesn't +know it," he said, slowly. "And I am quite sure he would prefer not to +know it; so you mustn't tell him. But you can't understand about that, +Annie. You'll just have to believe me. Will you promise me?" + +"Why, yes," Miss Annie said, indifferently, smiling up at the moving +leaves. "Oh, Harriet isn't hurt now!" + +Dr. Lavendar trembled with anxiety. "I want a solemn promise, Annie. +What do the children do when they make a solemn promise?" + +Miss Annie was instantly interested. "Why, they cross their breast and +say 'honest and true'; don't you know?" ... + +"Well, then," said Dr. Lavendar, slowly, "you will make a promise to me +in that way." He stood up and took her hand, his face very pale. +"Promise me that never, so long as you live, will you tell any one--any +one, Annie--that you made Harriet fall asleep by giving her the big +bottle to smell. Now, make the promise, Annie." + +Miss Annie slowly crossed her breast. "I promise," she said, in a low +voice; her eyes, widening with awe, were fixed on his face. "I promise: + + "Honest and true, + Black and black and blue, + Lay me down + And cut me in two-- + +if I do." + +"_Amen!_" said Dr. Lavendar; and took off his hat, and stood looking up +into the sky, his lip trembling. "Father," he said, "I don't even say +'forgive her!' She is Thy little child." And then they stood for a +moment hand in hand in the sunny silence. + + + + +THE END + + + + +BY ONOTO WATANNA + +A JAPANESE NIGHTINGALE. A love story of Japan. Full-page Drawings in +Color and unique Decorative Color Borders on every page, by the +well-known Japanese artist GENJIRO YETO. Crown 8vo, Ornamented Cloth, +Deckel Edges, Gilt Top (in a box), $2.00 net. + +There could not easily be a more charming volume to look at than this, +nor a more delightfully appealing romance to read.--_New York World_. + +An idyl of the author's homeland, delicate in fancy and dainty in +expression.--_Public Opinion_. + +The author and the artist together have produced a charming work of +art, as thoroughly imbued with the Japanese spirit as a bit of old +Satsuma.--_Buffalo Express_. + +"A Japanese Nightingale" is one of the daintiest and most exquisite of +love stories; ... indeed, so exquisite is her art, and so delightful +the humor of her pages, that more than one critic has spoken of the +story as "A Japanese Kentucky Cardinal."--_New York Journal_. + +It is full of poetry and charm.--_Current Literature_. + +A delicious vein of humor runs through the story, especially in the +love scenes, and the style is distinct with the lyrical delicacy of +Japanese thought.--_Brooklyn Eagle_. + + +HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS + +NEW YORK AND LONDON + +_The above work will be sent by mail to any part of the United States, +Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price_. (_Postage 15 cents._) + + + + +BY ROBERT W. CHAMBERS + +THE MAID-AT-ARMS. Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy. Post 8vo, +Ornamented Cloth, $1.50. + +Mr. Chambers has long since won a most enviable position among +contemporary novelists. The great popular success of "Cardigan" makes +this present novel of unusual interest to all readers of fiction. It +is a stirring novel of American life in days just after the Revolution. +It deals with the conspiracy of the great New York land-owners and the +subjugation of New York Province to the British. It is a story with a +fascinating love interest, and is alive with exciting incident and +adventure. Some of the characters of "Cardigan" reappear in this new +novel. + + +HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS + +NEW YORK AND LONDON + +_The above work will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of +the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price_. + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Dr. Lavendar's People, by Margaret Deland + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DR. LAVENDAR'S PEOPLE *** + +***** This file should be named 34427.txt or 34427.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/4/2/34427/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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