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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Kent Knowles: Quahaug, by Joseph C. Lincoln
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: Kent Knowles: Quahaug
+
+Author: Joseph C. Lincoln
+
+Release Date: June 6, 2006 [eBook #5980]
+[Most recently updated: January 7, 2023]
+
+Language: English
+
+Produced by: Don Lainson; David Widger
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KENT KNOWLES: QUAHAUG ***
+
+
+
+
+KENT KNOWLES: QUAHAUG
+
+
+By Joseph C. Lincoln
+
+
+
+1914
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+I.     Which is not a chapter at all
+
+II.    Which repeats, for the most part, what Jim Campbell said to me and
+       what I said to him
+
+III.   Which, although it is largely family history, should not be skipped
+       by the reader
+
+IV.    In which Hephzy and I and the Plutonia sail together
+
+V.     In which we view, and even mingle slightly with, the upper classes
+
+VI.    In which we are received at Bancroft's Hotel and I receive a letter
+
+VII.   In which a dream becomes a reality
+
+VIII.  In which the pilgrims become tenants
+
+IX.    In which we make the acquaintance of Mayberry and a portion of
+       Burgleston Bogs
+
+X.     In which I break all previous resolutions and make a new one
+
+XI.    In which complications become more complicated
+
+XII.   In which the truth is told at last
+
+XIII.  In which Hephzy and I agree to live for each other
+
+XIV.   In which I play golf and cross the channel
+
+XV.    In which I learn that all abbeys are not churches
+
+XVI.   In which I take my turn at playing the invalid
+
+XVII.  In which I, as well as Mr. Solomon Cripps, am surprised
+
+XVIII. In which the pilgrimage ends where it began
+
+XIX.   Which treats of quahaugs in general
+
+
+
+
+
+KENT KNOWLES: QUAHAUG
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Which is Not a Chapter at All
+
+
+It was Asaph Tidditt who told me how to begin this history. Perhaps I
+should be very much obliged to Asaph; perhaps I shouldn't. He has gotten
+me out of a difficulty--or into one; I am far from certain which.
+
+Ordinarily--I am speaking now of the writing of swashbuckling
+romances, which is, or was, my trade--I swear I never have called it
+a profession--the beginning of a story is the least of the troubles
+connected with its manufacture. Given a character or two and a
+situation, the beginning of one of those romances is, or was, pretty
+likely to be something like this:
+
+“It was a black night. Heavy clouds had obscured the setting sun and
+now, as the clock in the great stone tower boomed twelve, the darkness
+was pitchy.”
+
+That is a good safe beginning. Midnight, a stone tower, a booming clock,
+and darkness make an appeal to the imagination. On a night like that
+almost anything may happen. A reader of one of my romances--and
+readers there must be, for the things did, and still do, sell to some
+extent--might be fairly certain that something WOULD happen before the
+end of the second page. After that the somethings continued to happen as
+fast as I could invent them.
+
+But this story was different. The weather or the time had nothing to do
+with its beginning. There were no solitary horsemen or strange wayfarers
+on lonely roads, no unexpected knocks at the doors of taverns, no
+cloaked personages landing from boats rowed by black-browed seamen with
+red handkerchiefs knotted about their heads and knives in their
+belts. The hero was not addressed as “My Lord”; he was not “Sir
+Somebody-or-other” in disguise. He was not young and handsome; there was
+not even “a certain something in his manner and bearing which hinted of
+an eventful past.” Indeed there was not. For, if this particular yarn or
+history or chronicle which I had made up my mind to write, and which I
+am writing now, had or has a hero, I am he. And I am Hosea Kent Knowles,
+of Bayport, Massachusetts, the latter the village in which I was born
+and in which I have lived most of the time since I was twenty-seven
+years old. Nobody calls me “My Lord.” Hephzy has always called me
+“Hosy”--a name which I despise--and the others, most of them, “Kent” to
+my face and “The Quahaug” behind my back, a quahaug being a very common
+form of clam which is supposed to lead a solitary existence and to
+keep its shell tightly shut. If anything in my manner had hinted at a
+mysterious past no one in Bayport would have taken the hint. Bayporters
+know my past and that of my ancestors only too well.
+
+As for being young and handsome--well, I was thirty-eight years old last
+March. Which is quite enough on THAT subject.
+
+But I had determined to write the story, so I sat down to begin it. And
+immediately I got into difficulties. How should I begin? I might begin
+at any one of a dozen places--with Hephzy's receiving the Raymond and
+Whitcomb circular; with our arrival in London; with Jim Campbell's visit
+to me here in Bayport; with the curious way in which the letter reached
+us, after crossing the ocean twice. Any one of these might serve as a
+beginning--but which? I made I don't know how many attempts, but not
+one was satisfactory. I, who had begun I am ashamed to tell you how many
+stories--yes, and had finished them and seen them in print as well--was
+stumped at the very beginning of this one. Like Sim Phinney I had
+worked at my job “a long spell” and “cal'lated” I knew it, but here
+was something I didn't know. As Sim said, when he faced his problem, “I
+couldn't seem to get steerage way on her.”
+
+Simeon, you see--He is Angeline Phinney's second cousin and lives in
+the third house beyond the Holiness Bethel on the right-hand side of the
+road--Simeon has “done carpentering” here in Bayport all his life. He
+built practically every henhouse now gracing or disgracing the backyards
+of our village. He is our “henhouse specialist,” so to speak. He has
+even been known to boast of his skill. “Henhouses!” snorted Sim; “land
+of love! I can build a henhouse with my eyes shut. Nowadays when another
+one of them foolheads that's been readin' 'How to Make a Million Poultry
+Raisin'' in the Farm Gazette comes to me and says 'Henhouse,' I say,
+'Yes sir. Fifteen dollars if you pay me cash now and a hundred and
+fifteen if you want to wait and pay me out of your egg profits. That's
+all there is to it.'”
+
+And yet, when Captain Darius Nickerson, who made the most of his money
+selling fifty-foot lots of sand, beachgrass and ticks to summer
+people for bungalow sites--when Captain Darius, grown purse-proud and
+vainglorious, expressed a desire for a henhouse with a mansard roof and
+a cupola, the latter embellishments to match those surmounting his own
+dwelling, Simeon was set aback with his canvas flapping. At the end of
+a week he had not driven a nail. “Godfrey's mighty!” he is reported to
+have exclaimed. “I don't know whether to build the average cupola and
+trust to a hen's fittin' it, or take an average hen and build a cupola
+round her. Maybe I'll be all right after I get started, but it's where
+to start that beats me.”
+
+Where to start beat me, also, and it might be beating me yet, if I
+hadn't dropped in at the post-office and heard Asaph Tidditt telling
+a story to the group around the stove. After he had finished, and,
+the mail being sorted, we were walking homeward together, I asked a
+question.
+
+“Asaph,” said I, “when you start to spin a yarn how do you begin?”
+
+“Hey?” he exclaimed. “How do I begin? Why, I just heave to and go to
+work and begin, that's all.”
+
+“Yes, I know, but where do you begin?”
+
+“At the beginnin', naturally. If you was cal'latin' to sail a boat race
+you wouldn't commence at t'other end of the course, would you?”
+
+“_I_ might; practical people wouldn't, I suppose. But--what IS the
+beginning? Suppose there were a lot of beginnings and you didn't know
+which to choose.”
+
+“Oh, we-ll, in that case I'd just sort of--of edge around till I found
+one that--that was a beginnin' of SOMETHIN' and I'd start there. You
+understand, don't you? Take that yarn I was spinnin' just now--that one
+about Josiah Dimick's great uncle's pig on his mother's side. I mean
+his uncle on his mother's side, not the pig, of course. Now I hadn't no
+intention of tellin' about that hog; hadn't thought of it for a thousand
+year, as you might say. I just commenced to tell about Angie Phinney,
+about how fast she could talk, and that reminded me of a parrot
+that belonged to Sylvanus Cahoon's sister--Violet, the sister's name
+was--loony name, too, if you ask ME, 'cause she was a plaguey sight
+nigher bein' a sunflower than she was a violet--weighed two hundred and
+ten and had a face on her as red as--”
+
+“Just a minute, Ase. About that pig?”
+
+“Oh, yes! Well, the pig reminded me of Violet's parrot and the parrot
+reminded me of a Plymouth Rock rooster I had that used to roost in the
+pigpen nights--wouldn't use the henhouse no more'n you nor I would--and
+that, naturally, made me think of pigs, and pigs fetched Josiah's
+uncle's pig to mind and there I was all ready to start on the yarn. It
+pretty often works out that way. When you want to start a yarn and you
+can't start--you've forgot it, or somethin'--just begin somewhere, get
+goin' somehow. Edge around and keep edgin' around and pretty soon you'll
+fetch up at the right place TO start. See, don't you, Kent?”
+
+I saw--that is, I saw enough. I came home and this morning I began the
+“edging around” process. I don't seem to have “fetched up” anywhere in
+particular, but I shall keep on with the edging until I do. As Asaph
+says, I must begin somewhere, so I shall begin with the Saturday morning
+of last April when Jim Campbell, my publisher and my friend--which is
+by no means such an unusual combination as many people think--sat on the
+veranda of my boathouse overlooking Cape Cod Bay and discussed my past,
+present and, more particularly, my future.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Which Repeats, for the Most Part, What Jim Campbell Said to Me and What
+I Said to Him
+
+
+“Jim,” said I, “what is the matter with me?”
+
+Jim, who was seated in the ancient and dilapidated arm-chair which
+was the finest piece of furniture in the boathouse and which I always
+offered to visitors, looked at me over the collar of my sweater. I used
+the sweater as I did the arm-chair when I did not have visitors. He was
+using it then because, like an idiot, he had come to Cape Cod in April
+with nothing warmer than a very natty suit and a light overcoat. Of
+course one may go clamming and fishing in a light overcoat, but--one
+doesn't.
+
+Jim looked at me over the collar of my sweater. Then he crossed
+his oilskinned and rubber-booted legs--they were my oilskins and my
+boots--and answered promptly.
+
+“Indigestion,” he said. “You ate nine of those biscuits this morning; I
+saw you.”
+
+“I did not,” I retorted, “because you saw them first. MY interior is in
+its normal condition. As for yours--”
+
+“Mine,” he interrupted, filling his pipe from my tobacco pouch, “being
+accustomed to a breakfast, not a gorge, is abnormal but satisfactory,
+thank you--quite satisfactory.”
+
+“That,” said I, “we will discuss later, when I have you out back of the
+bar in my catboat. Judging from present indications there will be some
+sea-running. The 'Hephzy' is a good, capable craft, but a bit cranky,
+like the lady she is named for. I imagine she will roll.”
+
+He didn't like that. You see, I had sailed with him before and I
+remembered.
+
+“Ho-se-a,” he drawled, “you have a vivid imagination. It is a pity you
+don't use more of it in those stories of yours.”
+
+“Humph! I am obliged to use the most of it on the royalty statements you
+send me. If you call me 'Hosea' again I will take the 'Hephzy' across
+the Point Rip. The waves there are fifteen feet high at low tide. See
+here, I asked you a serious question and I should like a serious answer.
+Jim, what IS the matter with me? Have I written out or what is the
+trouble?”
+
+He looked at me again.
+
+“Are you in earnest?” he asked.
+
+“I am, very much in earnest.”
+
+“And you really want to talk shop after a breakfast like that and on a
+morning like this?”
+
+“I do.”
+
+“Was that why you asked me to come to Bayport and spend the week-end?”
+
+“No-o. No, of course not.”
+
+“You're another; it was. When you met me at the railroad station
+yesterday I could see there was something wrong with you. All this
+morning you've had something on your chest. I thought it was the
+biscuits, of course; but it wasn't, eh?”
+
+“It was not.”
+
+“Then what was it? Aren't we paying you a large enough royalty?”
+
+“You are paying me a good deal larger one than I deserve. I don't see
+why you do it.”
+
+“Oh,” with a wave of the hand, “that's all right. The publishing of
+books is a pure philanthropy. We are in business for our health, and--”
+
+“Shut up. You know as well as I do that the last two yarns of mine which
+your house published have not done as well as the others.”
+
+I had caught him now. Anything remotely approaching a reflection upon
+the business house of which he was the head was sufficient to stir
+up Jim Campbell. That business, its methods and its success, were his
+idols.
+
+“I don't know any such thing,” he protested, hotly. “We sold--”
+
+“Hang the sale! You sold quite enough. It is an everlasting miracle
+to me that you are able to sell a single copy. Why a self-respecting
+person, possessed of any intelligence whatever, should wish to read the
+stuff I write, to say nothing of paying money for the privilege, I can't
+understand.”
+
+“You don't have to understand. No one expects an author to understand
+anything. All you are expected to do is to write; we'll attend to the
+rest of it. And as for sales--why, 'The Black Brig'--that was the last
+one, wasn't it?--beat the 'Omelet' by eight thousand or more.”
+
+“The Omelet” was our pet name for “The Queen's Amulet,” my first offence
+in the literary line. It was a highly seasoned concoction of revolution
+and adventure in a mythical kingdom where life was not dull, to say the
+least. The humblest character in it was a viscount. Living in Bayport
+had, naturally, made me familiar with the doings of viscounts.
+
+“Eight thousand more than the last isn't so bad, is it?” demanded Jim
+Campbell combatively.
+
+“It isn't. It is astonishingly good. It is the books themselves that
+are bad. The 'Omelet' was bad enough, but I wrote it more as a joke than
+anything else. I didn't take it seriously at all. Every time I called
+a duke by his Christian name I grinned. But nowadays I don't grin--I
+swear. I hate the things, Jim. They're no good. And the reviewers are
+beginning to tumble to the fact that they're no good, too. You saw the
+press notices yourself. 'Another Thriller by the Indefatigable Knowles'
+'Barnacles, Buccaneers and Blood, not to Mention Beauty and the
+Bourbons.' That's the way two writers headed their articles about 'The
+Black Brig.' And a third said that I must be getting tired; I wrote as
+if I was. THAT fellow was right. I am tired, Jim. I'm tired and sick
+of writing slush. I can't write any more of it. And yet I can't write
+anything else.”
+
+Jim's pipe had gone out. Now he relit it and tossed the match over the
+veranda rail.
+
+“How do you know you can't?” he demanded.
+
+“Can't what?”
+
+“Can't write anything but slush?”
+
+“Ah ha! Then it is slush. You admit it.”
+
+“I don't admit anything of the kind. You may not be a William
+Shakespeare or even a George Meredith, but you have written some mighty
+interesting stories. Why, I know a chap who sits up till morning to
+finish a book of yours. Can't sleep until he has finished it.”
+
+“What's the matter with him; insomnia?”
+
+“No; he's a night watchman. Does that satisfy you, you crossgrained
+old shellfish? Come on, let's dig clams--some of your own blood
+relations--and forget it.”
+
+“I don't want to forget it and there is plenty of time for clamming. The
+tide won't cover the flats for two hours yet. I tell you I'm serious,
+Jim. I can't write any more. I know it. The stuff I've been writing
+makes me sick. I hate it, I tell you. What the devil I'm going to do for
+a living I can't see--but I can't write another story.”
+
+Jim put his pipe in his pocket. I think at last he was convinced that I
+meant what I said, which I certainly did. The last year had been a year
+of torment to me. I had finished the 'Brig,' as a matter of duty, but if
+that piratical craft had sunk with all hands, including its creator, I
+should not have cared. I drove myself to my desk each day, as a horse
+might be driven to a treadmill, but the animal could have taken no less
+interest in his work than I had taken in mine. It was bad--bad--bad;
+worthless and hateful. There wasn't a new idea in it and I hadn't one
+in my head. I, who had taken up writing as a last resort, a gamble which
+might, on a hundred-to-one chance, win where everything else had failed,
+had now reached the point where that had failed, too. Campbell's surmise
+was correct; with the pretence of asking him to the Cape for a
+week-end of fishing and sailing I had lured him there to tell him of my
+discouragement and my determination to quit.
+
+He took his feet from the rail and hitched his chair about until he
+faced me.
+
+“So you're not going to write any more,” he said.
+
+“I'm not. I can't.”
+
+“What are you going to do; live on back royalties and clams?”
+
+“I may have to live on the clams; my back royalties won't keep me very
+long.”
+
+“Humph! I should think they might keep you a good while down here. You
+must have something in the stocking. You can't have wasted very much in
+riotous living on this sand-heap. What have you done with your money,
+for the last ten years; been leading a double life?”
+
+“I've found leading a single one hard enough. I have saved something, of
+course. It isn't the money that worries me, Jim; I told you that. It's
+myself; I'm no good. Every author, sometime or other, reaches the point
+where he knows perfectly well he has done all the real work he can
+ever do, that he has written himself out. That's what's the matter with
+me--I'm written out.”
+
+Jim snorted. “For Heaven's sake, Kent Knowles,” he demanded, “how old
+are you?”
+
+“I'm thirty-eight, according to the almanac, but--”
+
+“Thirty-eight! Why, Thackeray wrote--”
+
+“Drop it! I know when Thackeray wrote 'Vanity Fair' as well as you do.
+I'm no Thackeray to begin with, and, besides, I am older at thirty-eight
+than he was when he died--yes, older than he would have been if he had
+lived twice as long. So far as feeling and all the rest of it go, I'm a
+second Methusaleh.”
+
+“My soul! hear the man! And I'm forty-two myself. Well, Grandpa, what do
+you expect me to do; get you admitted to the Old Man's Home?”
+
+“I expect--” I began, “I expect--” and I concluded with the lame
+admission that I didn't expect him to do anything. It was up to me to do
+whatever must be done, I imagined.
+
+He smiled grimly.
+
+“Glad your senility has not affected that remnant of your common-sense,”
+ he declared. “You're dead right, my boy; it IS up to you. You ought to
+be ashamed of yourself.”
+
+“I am, but that doesn't help me a whole lot.”
+
+“Nothing will help you as long as you think and speak as you have this
+morning. See here, Kent! answer me a question or two, will you? They may
+be personal questions, but will you answer them?”
+
+“I guess so. There has been what a disinterested listener might call
+a slightly personal flavor to your remarks so far. Do your worst. Fire
+away.”
+
+“All right. You've lived in Bayport ten years or so, I know that. What
+have you done in all that time--besides write?”
+
+“Well, I've continued to live.”
+
+“Doubted. You've continued to exist; but how? I've been here before.
+This isn't my first visit, by a good deal. Each time I have been
+here your daily routine--leaving out the exciting clam hunts and the
+excursions in quest of the ferocious flounder, like the one we're
+supposed--mind, I say supposed--to be on at the present moment--you
+have put in the day about like this: Get up, bathe, eat, walk to the
+post-office, walk home, sit about, talk a little, read some, walk some
+more, eat again, smoke, talk, read, eat for the third time, smoke, talk,
+read and go to bed. That's the program, isn't it?”
+
+“Not exactly. I play tennis in summer--when there is anyone to play with
+me--and golf, after a fashion. I used to play both a good deal, when I
+was younger. I swim, and I shoot a little, and--and--”
+
+“How about society? Have any, do you?”
+
+“In the summer, when the city people are here, there is a good deal
+going on, if you care for it--picnics and clam bakes and teas and lawn
+parties and such.”
+
+“Heavens! what reckless dissipation! Do you indulge?”
+
+“Why, no--not very much. Hang it all, Jim! you know I'm no society man.
+I used to do the usual round of fool stunts when I was younger, but--”
+
+“But now you're too antique, I suppose. Wonder that someone hasn't
+collected you as a genuine Chippendale or something. So you don't 'tea'
+much?”
+
+“Not much. I'm not often invited, to tell you the truth. The summer
+crowd doesn't take kindly to me, I'm afraid.”
+
+“Astonishing! You're such a chatty, entertaining, communicative cuss on
+first acquaintance, too. So captivatingly loquacious to strangers. I can
+imagine how you'd shine at a 'tea.' Every summer girl that tried to talk
+to you would be frost-bitten. Do you accept invitations when they do
+come?”
+
+“Not often nowadays. You see, I know they don't really want me.”
+
+“How do you know it?”
+
+“Why--well, why should they? Everybody else calls me--”
+
+“They call you a clam and so you try to live up to your reputation. I
+know you, Kent. You think yourself a tough old bivalve, but the most
+serious complaint you suffer from is ingrowing sensitiveness. They do
+want you. They'd invite you if you gave them half a chance. Oh, I know
+you won't, of course; but if I had my way I'd have you dragged by main
+strength to every picnic and tea and feminine talk-fest within twenty
+miles. You might meet some persevering female who would propose
+marriage. YOU never would, but SHE might.”
+
+I rose to my feet in disgust.
+
+“We'll go clamming,” said I.
+
+He did not move.
+
+“We will--later on,” he answered. “We haven't got to the last page
+of the catechism yet. I mentioned matrimony because a good, capable,
+managing wife would be my first prescription in your case. I have one
+or two more up my sleeve. Tell me this: How often do you get away from
+Bayport? How often do you get to--well, to Boston, we'll say? How many
+times have you been there in the last year?”
+
+“I don't know. A dozen, perhaps.”
+
+“What did you do when you went?”
+
+“Various things. Shopped some, went to the theater occasionally, if
+there happened to be anything on that I cared to see. Bought a good many
+books. Saw the new Sargent pictures at the library. And--and--”
+
+“And shook hands with your brother fossils at the museum, I suppose.
+Wild life you lead, Kent. Did you visit anybody? Meet any friends or
+acquaintances--any live ones?”
+
+“Not many. I haven't many friends, Jim; you know that. As for the wild
+life--well, I made two visits to New York this year.”
+
+“Yes,” drily; “and we saw Sothern and Marlowe and had dinner at the
+Holland. The rest of the time we talked shop. That was the first visit.
+The second was more exciting still; we talked shop ALL the time and you
+took the six o'clock train home again.”
+
+“You're wrong there. I saw the new loan collections at the Metropolitan
+and heard Ysaye play at Carnegie Hall. I didn't start for home until the
+next day.”
+
+“Is that so. That's news to me. You said you were going that afternoon.
+That was to put the kibosh on my intention of taking you home to my wife
+and her bridge party, I suppose. Was it?”
+
+“Well--well, you see, Jim, I--I don't play bridge and I AM such a
+stick in a crowd like that. I wanted to stay and you were mighty kind,
+but--but--”
+
+“All right. All right, my boy. Next time it will be Bustanoby's, the
+Winter Garden and a three A. M. cabaret for yours. My time is coming.
+Now--Well, now we'll go clamming.”
+
+He swung out of the arm-chair and walked to the top of the steps leading
+down to the beach. I was surprised, of course; I have known Jim Campbell
+a long time, but he can surprise me even yet.
+
+“Here! hold on!” I protested. “How about the rest of that catechism?”
+
+“You've had it.”
+
+“Were those all the questions you wanted to ask?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Humph! And that is all the advice and encouragement I'm to get from
+you! How about those prescriptions you had up your sleeve?”
+
+“You'll get those by and by. Before I leave this gay and festive scene
+to-morrow I'm going to talk to you, Ho-se-a. And you're going to listen.
+You'll listen to old Doctor Campbell; HE'LL prescribe for you, don't
+you worry. And now,” beginning to descend the steps, “now for clams and
+flounders.”
+
+“And the Point Rip,” I added, maliciously, for his frivolous treatment
+of what was to me a very serious matter, was disappointing and
+provoking. “Don't forget the Point Rip.”
+
+We dug the clams--they were for bait--we boarded the “Hephzy,” sailed
+out to the fishing grounds, and caught flounders. I caught the most of
+them; Jim was not interested in fishing during the greater part of the
+time. Then we sailed home again and walked up to the house. Hephzibah,
+for whom my boat is named, met us at the back door. As usual her
+greeting was not to the point and practical.
+
+“Leave your rubber boots right outside on the porch,” she said. “Here,
+give me those flatfish; I'll take care of 'em. Hosy, you'll find dry
+things ready in your room. Here's your shoes; I've been warmin' 'em. Mr.
+Campbell I've put a suit of Hosy's and some flannels on your bed. They
+may not fit you, but they'll be lots better than the damp ones you've
+got on. You needn't hurry; dinner won't be ready till you are.”
+
+I did not say anything; I knew Hephzy--had known her all my life. Jim,
+who, naturally enough, didn't know her as well, protested.
+
+“We're not wet, Miss Cahoon,” he declared. “At least, I'm not, and I
+don't see how Kent can be. We both wore oilskins.”
+
+“That doesn't make any difference. You ought to change your clothes
+anyhow. Been out in that boat, haven't you?”
+
+“Yes, but--”
+
+“Well, then! Don't say another word. I'll have a fire in the
+sittin'-room and somethin' hot ready when you come down. Hosy, be
+sure and put on BOTH the socks I darned for you. Don't get thinkin' of
+somethin' else and come down with one whole and one holey, same as you
+did last time. You must excuse me, Mr. Campbell. I've got saleratus
+biscuits in the oven.”
+
+She hastened into the kitchen. When Jim and I, having obeyed orders
+to the extent of leaving our boots on the porch, passed through that
+kitchen she was busy with the tea-kettle. I led the way through the
+dining-room and up the front stairs. My visitor did not speak until we
+reached the second story. Then he expressed his feelings.
+
+“Say, Kent” he demanded, “are you going to change your clothes?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Why? You're no wetter than I am, are you?”
+
+“Not a bit, but I'm going to change, just the same. It's the easier
+way.”
+
+“It is, is it! What's the other way?”
+
+“The other way is to keep on those you're wearing and take the
+consequences.”
+
+“What consequences?”
+
+“Jamaica ginger, hot water bottles and an afternoon's roast in front of
+the sitting-room fire. Hephzibah went out sailing with me last October
+and caught cold. That was enough; no one else shall have the experience
+if she can help it.”
+
+“But--but good heavens! Kent, do you mean to say you always have to
+change when you come in from sailing?”
+
+“Except in summer, yes.”
+
+“But why?”
+
+“Because Hephzy tells me to.”
+
+“Do you always do what she tells you?”
+
+“Generally. It's the easiest way, as I said before.”
+
+“Good--heavens! And she darns your socks and tells you what--er lingerie
+to wear and--does she wash your face and wipe your nose and scrub behind
+your ears?”
+
+“Not exactly, but she probably would if I didn't do it.”
+
+“Well, I'll be hanged! And she extends the same treatment to all your
+guests?”
+
+“I don't have any guests but you. No doubt she would if I did. She
+mothers every stray cat and sick chicken in the neighborhood. There,
+Jim, you trot along and do as you're told like a nice little boy. I'll
+join you in the sitting-room.”
+
+“Humph! perhaps I'd better. I may be spanked and put to bed if I don't.
+Well, well! and you are the author of 'The Black Brig!' 'Buccaneers and
+Blood!' 'Bibs and Butterscotch' it should be! Don't stand out here in
+the cold hall, Hosy darling; you may get the croup if you do.”
+
+I was waiting in the sitting-room when he came down. There was a roaring
+fire in the big, old-fashioned fireplace. That fireplace had been
+bricked up in the days when people used those abominations, stoves. As a
+boy I was well acquainted with the old “gas burner” with the iron urn
+on top and the nickeled ornaments and handles which Mother polished so
+assiduously. But the gas burner had long since gone to the junk dealer.
+Among the improvements which my first royalty checks made possible were
+steam heat and the restoration of the fireplace.
+
+Jim found me sitting before the fire in one of the two big “wing” chairs
+which I had purchased when Darius Barlay's household effects were sold
+at auction. I should not have acquired them as cheaply if Captain Cyrus
+Whittaker had been at home when the auction took place. Captain Cy loves
+old-fashioned things as much as I do and, as he has often told me since,
+he meant to land those chairs some day if he had to run his bank account
+high and dry in consequence. But the Captain and his wife--who used to
+be Phoebe Dawes, our school-teacher here in Bayport--were away visiting
+their adopted daughter, Emily, who is married and living in Boston, and
+I got the chairs.
+
+At the Barclay auction I bought also the oil painting of the bark
+“Freedom”--a command of Captain Elkanah Barclay, uncle of the late
+Darius--and the set--two volumes missing--of The Spectator, bound in
+sheepskin. The “Freedom” is depicted “Entering the Port of Genoa, July
+10th, 1848,” and if the port is somewhat wavy and uncertain, the
+bark's canvas and rigging are definite and rigid enough to make up.
+The Spectator set is chiefly remarkable for its marginal notes; Captain
+Elkanah bought the books in London and read and annotated at spare
+intervals during subsequent voyages. His opinions were decided and his
+notes nautical and emphatic. Hephzibah read a few pages of the
+notes when the books first came into the house and then went to
+prayer-meeting. As she had announced her intention of remaining at home
+that evening I was surprised--until I read them myself.
+
+Jim came downstairs, arrayed in the suit which Hephzy had laid out for
+him. I made no comment upon his appearance. To do so would have been
+superfluous; he looked all the comments necessary.
+
+I waved my hand towards the unoccupied wing chair and he sat down. Two
+glasses, one empty and the other half full of a steaming mixture, were
+on the little table beside us.
+
+“Help yourself, Jim,” I said, indicating the glasses. He took up the one
+containing the mixture and regarded it hopefully.
+
+“What?” he asked.
+
+“A Cahoon toddy,” said I. “Warranted to keep off chills, rheumatism,
+lumbago and kindred miseries. Good for what ails you. Don't wait; I've
+had mine.”
+
+He took a sniff and then a very small sip. His face expressed genuine
+emotion.
+
+“Whew!” he gasped, choking. “What in blazes--?”
+
+“Jamaica ginger, sugar and hot water,” I explained blandly. “It
+won't hurt you--longer than five minutes. It is Hephzy's invariable
+prescription.”
+
+“Good Lord! Did you drink yours?”
+
+“No--I never do, unless she watches me.”
+
+“But your glass is empty. What did you do with it?”
+
+“Emptied it behind the back log. Of course, if you prefer to drink it--”
+
+“Drink it!” His “toddy” splashed the back log, causing a tremendous
+sizzle.
+
+Before he could relieve his mind further, Hephzy appeared to announce
+that dinner was ready if we were. We were, most emphatically, so we went
+into the dining-room.
+
+Hephzy and Jim did most of the talking during the meal. I had talked
+more that forenoon than I had for a week--I am not a chatty person,
+ordinarily, which, in part, explains my nickname--and I was very willing
+to eat and listen. Hephzy, who was garbed in her best gown--best weekday
+gown, that is; she kept her black silk for Sundays--talked a good deal,
+mostly about dreams and presentiments. Susanna Wixon, Tobias Wixon's
+oldest daughter, waited on table, when she happened to think of it, and
+listened when she did not. Susanna had been hired to do the waiting and
+the dish-washing during Campbell's brief visit. It was I who hired
+her. If I had had my way she would have been a permanent fixture in the
+household, but Hephzy scoffed at the idea. “Pity if I can't do housework
+for two folks,” she declared. “I don't care if you can afford it.
+Keepin' hired help in a family no bigger than this, is a sinful
+extravagance.” As Susanna's services had been already engaged for the
+weekend she could not discharge her, but she insisted on doing all the
+cooking herself.
+
+Her conversation, as I said, dealt mainly with dreams and presentiments.
+Hephzibah is not what I should call a superstitious person. She doesn't
+believe in “signs,” although she might feel uncomfortable if she broke a
+looking-glass or saw the new moon over her left shoulder. She has a most
+amazing fund of common-sense and is “down” on Spiritualism to a degree.
+It is one of Bayport's pet yarns, that at the Harniss Spiritualist
+camp-meeting when the “test medium” announced from the platform that he
+had a message for a lady named Hephzibah C--he “seemed to get the name
+Hephzibah C”--Hephzy got up and walked out. “Any dead relations I've
+got,” she declared, “who send messages through a longhaired idiot like
+that one up there”--meaning the medium,--“can't have much to say that's
+worth listenin' to. They can talk to themselves if they want to, but
+they shan't waste MY time.”
+
+In but one particular was Hephzy superstitious. Whenever she dreamed of
+“Little Frank” she was certain something was going to happen. She had
+dreamed of “Little Frank” the night before and, if she had not been
+headed off, she would have talked of nothing else.
+
+“I saw him just as plain as I see you this minute, Hosy,” she said to
+me. “I was somewhere, in a strange place--a foreign place, I should say
+'twas--and there I saw him. He didn't know me; at least I don't think he
+did.”
+
+“Considering that he never saw you that isn't so surprising,” I
+interrupted. “I think Mr. Campbell would have another cup of coffee if
+you urged him. Susanna, take Mr. Campbell's cup.”
+
+Jim declined the coffee; said he hadn't finished his first cup yet. I
+knew that, of course, but I was trying to head off Hephzy. She refused
+to be headed, just then.
+
+“But I knew HIM,” she went on. “He looked just the same as he has when
+I've seen him before--in the other dreams, you know. The very image of
+his mother. Isn't it wonderful, Hosy!”
+
+“Yes; but don't resurrect the family skeletons, Hephzy. Mr. Campbell
+isn't interested in anatomy.”
+
+“Skeletons! I don't know what you're talkin' about. He wasn't a
+skeleton. I saw him just as plain! And I said to myself, 'It's little
+Frank!' Now what do you suppose he came to me for? What do you suppose
+it means? It means somethin', I know that.”
+
+“Means that you weren't sleeping well, probably,” I answered. “Jim,
+here, will dream of cross-seas and the Point Rip to-night, I have no
+doubt.”
+
+Jim promptly declared that if he thought that likely he shouldn't mind
+so much. What he feared most was a nightmare session with an author.
+
+Hephzibah was interested at once. “Oh, do you dream about authors, Mr.
+Campbell?” she demanded. “I presume likely you do, they're so mixed up
+with your business. Do your dreams ever come true?”
+
+“Not often,” was the solemn reply. “Most of my dream-authors are
+rational and almost human.”
+
+Hephzy, of course, did not understand this, but it did have the effect
+for which I had been striving, that of driving “Little Frank” from her
+mind for the time.
+
+“I don't care,” she declared, “I s'pose it's awful foolish and silly of
+me, but it does seem sometimes as if there was somethin' in dreams, some
+kind of dreams. Hosy laughs at me and maybe I ought to laugh at myself,
+but some dreams come true, or awfully near to true; now don't they.
+Angeline Phinney was in here the other day and she was tellin' about her
+second cousin that was--he's dead now--Abednego Small. He was constable
+here in Bayport for years; everybody called him 'Uncle Bedny.' Uncle
+Bedny had been keepin' company with a woman named Dimick--Josiah
+Dimick's niece--lots younger than he, she was. He'd been thinkin' of
+marryin' her, so Angie said, but his folks had been talkin' to him,
+tellin' him he was too old to take such a young woman for his third
+wife, so he had made up his mind to throw her over, to write a letter
+sayin' it was all off between 'em. Well, he'd begun the letter but
+he never finished it, for three nights runnin' he dreamed that awful
+trouble was hangin' over him. That dream made such an impression on him
+that he tore the letter up and married the Dimick woman after all. And
+then--I didn't know this until Angie told me--it turned out that she
+had heard he was goin' to give her the go-by and had made all her
+arrangements to sue him for breach of promise if he did. That was the
+awful trouble, you see, and the dream saved him from it.”
+
+I smiled. “The fault there was in the interpretation of the dream,” I
+said. “The 'awful trouble' of the breach of promise suit wouldn't have
+been a circumstance to the trouble poor Uncle Bedny got into by marrying
+Ann Dimick. THAT trouble lasted till he died.”
+
+Hephzibah laughed and said she guessed that was so, she hadn't thought
+of it in that way.
+
+“Probably dreams are all nonsense,” she admitted. “Usually, I don't pay
+much attention to 'em. But when I dream of poor 'Little Frank,' away off
+there, I--”
+
+“Come into the sitting-room, Jim,” I put in hastily. “I have a cigar or
+two there. I don't buy them in Bayport, either.”
+
+“And who,” asked Jim, as we sat smoking by the fire, “is Little Frank?”
+
+“He is a mythical relative of ours,” I explained, shortly. “He was born
+twenty years ago or so--at least we heard that he was; and we haven't
+heard anything of him since, except by the dream route, which is not
+entirely convincing. He is Hephzy's pet obsession. Kindly forget him, to
+oblige me.”
+
+He looked puzzled, but he did not mention “Little Frank” again, for
+which I was thankful.
+
+That afternoon we walked up to the village, stopping in at Simmons's
+store, which is also the post-office, for the mail. Captain Cyrus
+Whittaker happened to be there, also Asaph Tidditt and Bailey Bangs and
+Sylvanus Cahoon and several others. I introduced Campbell to the crowd
+and he seemed to be enjoying himself. When we came out and were walking
+home again, he observed:
+
+“That Whittaker is an interesting chap, isn't he?”
+
+“Yes,” I said. “He is all right. Been everywhere and seen everything.”
+
+“And that,” with an odd significance in his tone, “may possibly help to
+make him interesting, don't you think?”
+
+“I suppose so. He lives here in Bayport now, though.”
+
+“So I gathered. Popular, is he?”
+
+“Very.”
+
+“Satisfied with life?”
+
+“Seems to be.”
+
+“Hum! No one calls HIM a--what is it--quahaug?”
+
+“No, I'm the only human clam in this neighborhood.”
+
+He did not say any more, nor did I. My fit of the blues was on again
+and his silence on the subject in which I was interested, my work and my
+future, troubled me and made me more despondent. I began to lose faith
+in the “prescription” which he had promised so emphatically. How could
+he, or anyone else, help me? No one could write my stories but myself,
+and I knew, only too well, that I could not write them.
+
+The only mail matter in our box was a letter addressed to Hephzibah.
+I forgot it until after supper and then I gave it to her. Jim retired
+early; the salt air made him sleepy, so he said, and he went upstairs
+shortly after nine. He had not mentioned our talk of the morning, nor
+did he until I left him at the door of his room. Then he said:
+
+“Kent, I've got one of the answers to your conundrum. I've diagnosed one
+of your troubles. You're blind.”
+
+“Blind?”
+
+“Yes, blind. Or, if not blind altogether you're suffering from the worse
+case of far-sightedness I ever saw. All your literary--we'll call it
+that for compliment's sake--all your literary life you've spent writing
+about people and things so far off you don't know anything about them.
+You and your dukes and your earls and your titled ladies! What do you
+know of that crowd? You never saw a lord in your life. Why don't you
+write of something near by, something or somebody you are acquainted
+with?”
+
+“Acquainted with! You're crazy, man. What am I acquainted with, except
+this house, and myself and my books and--and Bayport?”
+
+“That's enough. Why, there is material in that gang at the post-office
+to make a dozen books. Write about them.”
+
+“Tut! tut! tut! You ARE crazy. What shall I write; the life of Ase
+Tidditt in four volumes, beginning with 'I swan to man' and ending with
+'By godfrey'?”
+
+“You might do worse. If the book were as funny as its hero I'd undertake
+to sell a few copies.”
+
+“Funny! _I_ couldn't write a funny book.”
+
+“Not an intentionally funny one, you mean. But there! There's no use to
+talk to you.”
+
+“There is not, if you talk like an imbecile. Is this your brilliant
+'prescription'?”
+
+“No. It might be; it would be, if you would take it, but you won't--not
+now. You need something else first and I'll give it to you. But I'll
+tell you this, and I mean it: Downstairs, in that dining-room of yours,
+there's one mighty good story, at least.”
+
+“The dining-room? A story in the dining-room?”
+
+“Yes. Or it was there when we passed the door just now.”
+
+I looked at him. He seemed to be serious, but I knew he was not. I hate
+riddles.
+
+“Oh, go to blazes!” I retorted, and turned away.
+
+I looked into the dining-room as I went by. There was no story in sight
+there, so far as I could see. Hephzy was seated by the table, mending
+something, something of mine, of course. She looked up.
+
+“Oh, Hosy,” she said, “that letter you brought was a travel book from
+the Raymond and Whitcomb folks. I sent a stamp for it. It's awfully
+interesting! All about tours through England and France and Switzerland
+and everywhere. So cheap they are! I'm pickin' out the ones I'm goin' on
+some day. The pictures are lovely. Don't you want to see 'em?”
+
+“Not now,” I replied. Another obsession of Hephzy's was travel. She,
+who had never been further from Bayport than Hartford, Connecticut, was
+forever dreaming of globe-trotting. It was not a new disease with her,
+by any means; she had been dreaming the same things ever since I had
+known her, and that is since I knew anything. Some day, SOME day she
+was going to this, that and the other place. She knew all about these
+places, because she had read about them over and over again. Her
+knowledge, derived as it was from so many sources, was curiously mixed,
+but it was comprehensive, of its kind. She was continually sending
+for Cook's circulars and booklets advertising personally conducted
+excursions. And, with the arrival of each new circular or booklet, she
+picked out, as she had just done, the particular tours she would go on
+when her “some day” came. It was funny, this queer habit of hers, but
+not half as funny as the thought of her really going would have been. I
+would have as soon thought of our front door leaving home and starting
+on its travels as of Hephzy's doing it. The door was no more a part and
+fixture of that home than she was.
+
+I went into my study, which adjoins the sitting-room, and sat down at my
+desk. Not with the intention of writing anything, or even of considering
+something to write about. That I made up my mind to forget for this
+night, at least. My desk chair was my usual seat in that room and I took
+that seat as a matter of habit.
+
+As a matter of habit also I looked about for a book. I did not have to
+look far. Books were my extravagance--almost my only one. They filled
+the shelves to the ceiling on three sides of the study and overflowed in
+untidy heaps on the floor. They were Hephzy's bugbear, for I refused to
+permit their being “straightened out” or arranged.
+
+I looked about for a book and selected several, but, although they were
+old favorites, I could not interest myself in any of them. I tried and
+tried, but even Mr. Pepys, that dependable solace of a lonely hour,
+failed to interest me with his chatter. Perhaps Campbell's pointed
+remarks concerning lords and ladies had its effect here. Old Samuel
+loved to write of such people, having a wide acquaintance with them, and
+perhaps that very acquaintance made me jealous. At any rate I threw the
+volume back upon its pile and began to think of myself, and of my work,
+the very thing I had expressly determined not to do when I came into the
+room.
+
+Jim's foolish and impossible advice to write of places and people I knew
+haunted and irritated me. I did know Bayport--yes, and it might be true
+that the group at the post-office contained possible material for many
+books; but, if so, it was material for the other man, not for me. “Write
+of what you know,” said Jim. And I knew so little. There was at least
+one good yarn in the dining-room at that moment, he had declared. He
+must have meant Hephzibah, but, if he did, what was there in Hephzibah's
+dull, gray life-story to interest an outside reader? Her story and mine
+were interwoven and neither contained anything worth writing about. His
+fancy had been caught, probably, by her odd combination of the romantic
+and the practical, and in her dream of “Little Frank” he had scented a
+mystery. There was no mystery there, nothing but the most commonplace
+record of misplaced trust and ingratitude. Similar things happen in so
+many families.
+
+However, I began to think of Hephzy and, as I said, of myself, and to
+review my life since Ardelia Cahoon and Strickland Morley changed its
+course so completely. And now it seems to me that, in the course of
+my “edging around” for the beginning of this present chronicle--so
+different from anything I have ever written before or ever expected to
+write--the time has come when the reader--provided, of course, the
+said chronicle is ever finished or ever reaches a reader--should know
+something of that life; should know a little of the family history of
+the Knowles and the Cahoons and the Morleys.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+Which, Although It Is Largely Family History, Should Not Be Skipped by
+the Reader
+
+
+Let us take the Knowleses first. My name is Hosea Kent Knowles--I said
+that before--and my father was Captain Philander Kent Knowles. He was
+lost in the wreck of the steamer “Monarch of the Sea,” off Hatteras. The
+steamer caught fire in the middle of the night, a howling gale blowing
+and the thermometer a few degrees above zero. The passengers and crew
+took to the boats and were saved. My father stuck by his ship and went
+down with her, as did also her first mate, another Cape-Codder. I was
+a baby at the time, and was at Bayport with my mother, Emily Knowles,
+formerly Emily Cahoon, Captain Barnabas Cahoon's niece. Mother had a
+little money of her own and Father's life was insured for a moderate
+sum. Her small fortune was invested for her by her uncle, Captain
+Barnabas, who was the Bayport magnate and man of affairs in those days.
+Mother and I continued to live in the old house in Bayport and I went
+to school in the village until I was fourteen, when I went away to a
+preparatory school near Boston. Mother died a year later. I was an only
+child, but Hephzibah, who had always seemed like an older sister to me,
+now began to “mother” me, the process which she has kept up ever since.
+
+Hephzibah was the daughter of Captain Barnabas by his first wife. Hephzy
+was born in 1859, so she is well over fifty now, although no one would
+guess it. Her mother died when she was a little girl and ten years later
+Captain Barnabas married again. His second wife was Susan Hammond, of
+Ostable, and by her he had one daughter, Ardelia. Hephzy has always
+declared “Ardelia” to be a pretty name. I have my own opinion on that
+subject, but I keep it to myself.
+
+At any rate, Ardelia herself was pretty enough. She was pretty when a
+baby and prettier still as a schoolgirl. Her mother--while she lived,
+which was not long--spoiled her, and her half-sister, Hephzy, assisted
+in the petting and spoiling. Ardelia grew up with the idea that most
+things in this world were hers for the asking. Whatever took her fancy
+she asked for and, if Captain Barnabas did not give it to her, she
+considered herself ill-used. She was the young lady of the family and
+Hephzibah was the housekeeper and drudge, an uncomplaining one, be
+it understood. For her, as for the Captain, the business of life was
+keeping Ardelia contented and happy, and they gloried in the task.
+Hephzy might have married well at least twice, but she wouldn't think
+of such a thing. “Pa and Ardelia need me,” she said; that was reason
+sufficient.
+
+In 1888 Captain Barnabas went to Philadelphia on business. He had
+retired from active sea-going years before, but he retained an interest
+in a certain line of coasting schooners. The Captain, as I said, went to
+Philadelphia on business connected with these schooners and Ardelia
+went with him. Hephzibah stayed at home, of course; she always stayed
+at home, never expected to do anything else, although even then her
+favorite reading were books of travel, and pictures of the Alps, and of
+St. Peter's at Rome, and the Tower of London were tacked up about her
+room. She, too, might have gone to Philadelphia, doubtless, if she had
+asked, but she did not ask. Her father did not think of inviting her.
+He loved his oldest daughter, although he did not worship her as he did
+Ardelia, but it never occurred to him that she, too, might enjoy the
+trip. Hephzy was always at home, she WAS home; so at home she remained.
+
+In Philadelphia Ardelia met Strickland Morley.
+
+I give that statement a line all by itself, for it is by far the most
+important I have set down so far. The whole story of the Cahoons and the
+Knowleses--that is, all of their story which is the foundation of this
+history of mine--hinges on just that. If those two had not met I should
+not be writing this to-day, I might not be writing at all; instead of
+having become a Bayport “quahaug” I might have been the Lord knows what.
+
+However, they did meet, at the home of a wealthy shipping merchant named
+Osgood who was a lifelong friend of Captain Barnabas. This shipping
+merchant had a daughter and that daughter was giving a party at her
+father's home. Barnabas and Ardelia were invited. Strickland Morley was
+invited also.
+
+Morley, at that time--I saw a good deal of him afterward, when he was
+at Bayport and when I was at the Cahoon house on holidays and
+vacations--was a handsome, aristocratic young Englishman. He was
+twenty-eight, but he looked younger. He was the second son in a
+Leicestershire family which had once been wealthy and influential but
+which had, in its later generations, gone to seed. He was educated, in
+a general sort of way, was a good dancer, played the violin fairly well,
+sang fairly well, had an attractive presence, and was one of the most
+plausible and fascinating talkers I ever listened to. He had studied
+medicine--studied it after a fashion, that is; he never applied himself
+to anything--and was then, in '88, “ship's doctor” aboard a British
+steamer, which ran between Philadelphia and Glasgow. Miss Osgood had met
+him at the home of a friend of hers who had traveled on that steamer.
+
+Hephzy and I do not agree as to whether or not he actually fell in love
+with Ardelia Cahoon. Hephzy, of course, to whom Ardelia was the most
+wonderfully beautiful creature on earth, is certain that he did--he
+could not help it, she says. I am not so sure. It is very hard for me to
+believe that Strickland Morley was ever in love with anyone but himself.
+Captain Barnabas was well-to-do and had the reputation of being much
+richer than he really was. And Ardelia WAS beautiful, there is no doubt
+of that. At all events, Ardelia fell in love, with him, violently,
+desperately, head over heels in love, the very moment the two were
+introduced. They danced practically every dance together that evening,
+met surreptitiously the next day and for five days thereafter, and
+on the sixth day Captain Barnabas received a letter from his daughter
+announcing that she and Morley were married and had gone to New York
+together. “We will meet you there, Pa,” wrote Ardelia. “I know you will
+forgive me for marrying Strickland. He is the most wonderful man in the
+wide world. You will love him, Pa, as I do.”
+
+There was very little love expressed by the Captain when he read the
+note. According to Mr. Osgood's account, Barnabas's language was a
+throwback from the days when he was first mate on a Liverpool packet.
+That his idolized daughter had married without asking his consent
+was bad enough; that she had married an Englishman was worse. Captain
+Barnabas hated all Englishmen. A ship of his had been captured and
+burned, in the war time, by the “Alabama,” a British built privateer,
+and the very mildest of the terms he applied to a “John Bull” will not
+bear repetition in respectable society. He would not forgive Ardelia.
+She and her “Cockney husband” might sail together to the most tropical
+of tropics, or words to that effect.
+
+But he did forgive her, of course. Likewise he forgave his son-in-law.
+When the Captain returned to Bayport he brought the newly wedded pair
+with him. I was not present at that homecoming. I was away at prep
+school, digging at my examinations, trying hard to forget that I was
+an orphan, but with the dull ache caused by my mother's death always
+grinding at my heart. Many years ago she died, but the ache comes back
+now, as I think of her. There is more self-reproach in it than
+there used to be, more vain regrets for impatient words and wasted
+opportunities. Ah, if some of us--boys grown older--might have our
+mothers back again, would we be as impatient and selfish now? Would we
+neglect the opportunities? I think not; I hope not.
+
+Hephzibah, after she got over the shock of the surprise and the pain
+of sharing her beloved sister with another, welcomed that other for
+Ardelia's sake. She determined to like him very much indeed. This wasn't
+so hard, at first. Everyone liked and trusted Strickland Morley at first
+sight. Afterward, when they came to know him better, they were not--if
+they were as wise and discerning as Hephzy--so sure of the trust. The
+wise and discerning were not, I say; Captain Barnabas, though wise and
+shrewd enough in other things, trusted him to the end.
+
+Morley made it a point to win the affection and goodwill of his
+father-in-law. For the first month or two after the return to Bayport
+the new member of the family was always speaking of his plans for the
+future, of his profession and how he intended soon, very soon, to look
+up a good location and settle down to practice. Whenever he spoke
+thus, Captain Barnabas and Ardelia begged him not to do it yet, to wait
+awhile. “I am so happy with you and Pa and Hephzy,” declared Ardelia.
+“I can't bear to go away yet, Strickland. And Pa doesn't want us to; do
+you, Pa?”
+
+Of course Captain Barnabas agreed with her, he always did, and so the
+Morleys remained at Bayport in the old house. Then came the first of the
+paralytic shocks--a very slight one--which rendered Captain Barnabas,
+the hitherto hale, active old seaman, unfit for exertion or the cares of
+business. He was not bedridden by any means; he could still take short
+walks, attend town meetings and those of the parish committee, but he
+must not, so Dr. Parker said, be allowed to worry about anything.
+
+And Morley took it upon himself to prevent that worry. He spoke no more
+of leaving Bayport and settling down to practice his profession. Instead
+he settled down in Bayport and took the Captain's business cares upon
+his own shoulders. Little by little he increased his influence over the
+old man. He attended to the latter's investments, took charge of
+his bank account, collected his dividends, became, so to speak, his
+financial guardian. Captain Barnabas, at first rebellious--“I've always
+bossed my own ship,” he declared, “and I ain't so darned feeble-headed
+that I can't do it yet”--gradually grew reconciled and then contented.
+He, too, began to worship his daughter's husband as the daughter herself
+did.
+
+“He's a wonder,” said the Captain. “I never saw such a fellow for money
+matters. He's handled my stocks and things a whole lot better'n I ever
+did. I used to cal'late if I got six per cent. interest I was doin'
+well. He ain't satisfied with anything short of eight, and he gets it,
+too. Whatever that boy wants and I own he can have. Sometimes I think
+this consarned palsy of mine is a judgment on me for bein' so sot
+against him in the beginnin'. Why, just look at how he runs this house,
+to say nothing of the rest of it! He's a skipper here; the rest of us
+ain't anything but fo'most hands.”
+
+Which was not the exact truth. Morley was skipper of the Cahoon house,
+Ardelia first mate, her father a passenger, and the foremast hand
+was Hephzy. And yet, so far as “running” that house was concerned the
+foremast hand ran it, as she always had done. The Captain and Ardelia
+were Morley's willing slaves; Hephzy was, and continued to be, a free
+woman. She worked from morning until night, but she obeyed only such
+orders as she saw fit.
+
+She alone did not take the new skipper at his face value.
+
+“I don't know what there was about him that made me uneasy,” she has
+told me since. “Maybe there wasn't anything; perhaps that was just the
+reason. When a person is SO good and SO smart and SO polite--maybe the
+average sinful common mortal like me gets jealous; I don't know. But
+I do know that, to save my life, I couldn't swallow him whole the way
+Ardelia and Father did. I wanted to look him over first; and the more I
+looked him over, and the smoother and smoother he looked, the more sure
+I felt he'd give us all dyspepsy before he got through. Unreasonable,
+wasn't it?”
+
+For Ardelia's sake she concealed her distrust and did her best to get
+on with the new head of the family. Only one thing she did, and that
+against Motley's and her father's protest. She withdrew her own little
+fortune, left her by her mother, from Captain Barnabas's care and
+deposited it in the Ostable savings bank and in equally secure places.
+Of course she told the Captain of her determination to do this before
+she did it and the telling was the cause of the only disagreement,
+almost a quarrel, which she and her father ever had. The Captain was
+very angry and demanded reasons. Hephzibah declared she didn't know that
+she had any reasons, but she was going to do it, nevertheless. And
+she did do it. For months thereafter relations between the two were
+strained; Barnabas scarcely spoke to his older daughter and Hephzy shed
+tears in the solitude of her bedroom. They were hard months for her.
+
+At the end of them came the crash. Morley had developed a habit
+of running up to Boston on business trips connected with his
+father-in-law's investments. Of late these little trips had become more
+frequent. Also, so it seemed to Hephzy, he was losing something of
+his genial sweetness and suavity, and becoming more moody and less
+entertaining. Telegrams and letters came frequently and these he read
+and destroyed at once. He seldom played the violin now unless Captain
+Barnabas--who was fond of music of the simpler sort--requested him to do
+so and he seemed uneasy and, for him, surprisingly disinclined to talk.
+
+Hephzy was not the only one who noticed the change in him. Ardelia
+noticed it also and, as she always did when troubled or perplexed,
+sought her sister's advice.
+
+“I sha'n't ever forget that night when she came to me for the last
+time,” Hephzy has told me over and over again. “She came up to my room,
+poor thing, and set down on the side of my bed and told me how worried
+she was about her husband. Father had turned in and HE was out, gone
+to the post-office or somewheres. I had Ardelia all to myself, for a
+wonder, and we sat and talked just the same as we used to before she was
+married. I'm glad it happened so. I shall always have that to remember,
+anyhow.
+
+“Of course, all her worry was about Strickland. She was afraid he was
+makin' himself sick. He worked so hard; didn't I think so? Well, so far
+as that was concerned, I had come to believe that almost any kind of
+work was liable to make HIM sick, but of course I didn't say that to
+her. That somethin' was troublin' him was plain, though I was far enough
+from guessin' what that somethin' was.
+
+“We set and talked, about Strickland and about Father and about
+ourselves. Mainly Ardelia's talk was a praise service with her husband
+for the subject of worship; she was so happy with him and idolized
+him so that she couldn't spare time for much else. But she did speak a
+little about herself and, before she went away, she whispered somethin'
+in my ear which was a dead secret. Even Father didn't know it yet,
+she said. Of course I was as pleased as she was, almost--and a little
+frightened too, although I didn't say so to her. She was always a frail
+little thing, delicate as she was pretty; not a strapping, rugged,
+homely body like me. We wasn't a bit alike.
+
+“So we talked and when she went away to bed she gave me an extra hug and
+kiss; came back to give 'em to me, just as she used to when she was a
+little girl. I wondered since if she had any inklin' of what was goin'
+to happen. I'm sure she didn't; I'm sure of it as I am that it did
+happen. She couldn't have kept it from me if she had known--not that
+night. She went away to bed and I went to bed, too. I was a long while
+gettin' to sleep and after I did I dreamed my first dream about 'Little
+Frank.' I didn't call him 'Little Frank' then, though. I don't seem to
+remember what I did call him or just how he looked except that he looked
+like Ardelia. And the next afternoon she and Strickland went away--to
+Boston, he told us.”
+
+From that trip they never returned. Morley's influence over his wife
+must have been greater even than any of us thought to induce her to
+desert her father and Hephzy without even a written word of explanation
+or farewell. It is possible that she did write and that her husband
+destroyed the letter. I am as sure as Hephzy is that Ardelia did not
+know what Morley had done. But, at all events, they never came back
+to Bayport and within the week the truth became known. Morley had
+speculated, had lost and lost again and again. All of Captain Barnabas's
+own money and all intrusted to his care, including my little nest-egg,
+had gone as margins to the brokers who had bought for Morley his
+worthless eight per cent. wildcats. Hephzy's few thousands in the
+savings bank and elsewhere were all that was left.
+
+I shall condense the rest of the miserable business as much as I can.
+Captain Barnabas traced his daughter and her husband as far as the
+steamer which sailed for England. Farther he would not trace them,
+although he might easily have cabled and caused his son-in-law's arrest.
+For a month he went about in a sort of daze, speaking to almost no
+one and sitting for hours alone in his room. The doctor feared for
+his sanity, but when the breakdown came it was in the form of a second
+paralytic stroke which left him a helpless, crippled dependent, weak and
+shattered in body and mind.
+
+He lived nine years longer. Meanwhile various things happened. I managed
+to finish my preparatory school term and, then, instead of entering
+college as Mother and I had planned, I went into business--save the
+mark--taking the exalted position of entry clerk in a wholesale drygoods
+house in Boston. As entry clerk I did not shine, but I continued to keep
+the place until the firm failed--whether or not because of my connection
+with it I am not sure, though I doubt if my services were sufficiently
+important to contribute toward even this result. A month later I
+obtained another position and, after that, another. I was never
+discharged; I declare that with a sort of negative pride; but when I
+announced to my second employer my intention of resigning he bore the
+shock with--to say the least--philosophic fortitude.
+
+“We shall miss you, Knowles,” he observed.
+
+“Thank you, sir,” said I.
+
+“I doubt if we ever have another bookkeeper just like you.”
+
+I thanked him again, fighting down my blushes with heroic modesty.
+
+“Oh, I guess you can find one if you try,” I said, lightly, wishing to
+comfort him.
+
+He shook his head. “I sha'n't try,” he declared. “I am not as young and
+as strong as I was and--well, there is always the chance that we might
+succeed.”
+
+It was a mean thing to say--to a boy, for I was scarcely more than that.
+And yet, looking back at it now, I am much more disposed to smile and
+forgive than I was then. My bookkeeping must have been a trial to his
+orderly, pigeon-holed soul. Why in the world he and his partner put up
+with it so long is a miracle. When, after my first novel appeared,
+he wrote me to say that the consciousness of having had a part, small
+though it might be, in training my young mind upward toward the success
+it had achieved would always be a great gratification to him, I did not
+send the letter I wrote in answer. Instead I tore up my letter and his
+and grinned. I WAS a bad bookkeeper; I was, and still am, a bad business
+man. Now I don't care so much; that is the difference.
+
+Then I cared a great deal, but I kept on at my hated task. What else was
+there for me to do? My salary was so small that, as Charlie Burns, one
+of my fellow-clerks, said of his, I was afraid to count it over a bare
+floor for fear that it might drop in a crack and be lost. It was my only
+revenue, however, and I continued to live upon it somehow. I had a
+small room in a boarding-house on Shawmut Avenue and I spent most of my
+evenings there or in the reading-room at the public library. I was not
+popular at the boarding-house. Most of the young fellows there went
+out a good deal, to call upon young ladies or to dance or to go to the
+theater. I had learned to dance when I was at school and I was fond of
+the theater, but I did not dance well and on the rare occasions when
+I did accompany the other fellows to the play and they laughed and
+applauded and tried to flirt with the chorus girls, I fidgeted in my
+seat and was uncomfortable. Not that I disapproved of their conduct; I
+rather envied them, in fact. But if I laughed too heartily I was sure
+that everyone was looking at me, and though I should have liked to
+flirt, I didn't know how.
+
+The few attempts I made were not encouraging. One evening--I was
+nineteen then, or thereabouts--Charlie Burns, the clerk whom I have
+mentioned, suggested that we get dinner downtown at a restaurant and “go
+somewhere” afterward. I agreed--it happened to be Saturday night and I
+had my pay in my pocket--so we feasted on oyster stew and ice cream and
+then started for what my companion called a “variety show.” Burns, who
+cherished the fond hope that he was a true sport, ordered beer with his
+oyster stew and insisted that I should do the same. My acquaintance with
+beer was limited and I never did like the stuff, but I drank it with
+reckless abandon, following each sip with a mouthful of something else
+to get rid of the taste. On the way to the “show” we met two young
+women of Burns' acquaintance and stopped to converse with them. Charlie
+offered his arm to one, the best looking; I offered mine to the discard,
+and we proceeded to stroll two by two along the Tremont Street mall of
+the Common. We had strolled for perhaps ten minutes, most of which
+time I had spent trying to think of something to say, when Burns'
+charmer--she was a waitress in one of Mr. Wyman's celebrated “sandwich
+depots,” I believe--turned and, looking back at my fair one and myself,
+observed with some sarcasm: “What's the matter with your silent partner,
+Mame? Got the lock-jaw, has he?”
+
+I left them soon after that. There was no “variety show” for me that
+night. Humiliated and disgusted with myself I returned to my room at the
+boarding-house, realizing in bitterness of spirit that the gentlemanly
+dissipations of a true sport were never to be mine.
+
+As I grew older I kept more and more to myself. My work at the office
+must have been a little better done, I fancy, for my salary was raised
+twice in four years, but I detested the work and the office and all
+connected with it. I read more and more at the public library and began
+to spend the few dollars I could spare for luxuries on books. Among my
+acquaintances at the boarding-house and elsewhere I had the reputation
+of being “queer.”
+
+My only periods of real pleasure were my annual vacations in summer.
+These glorious fortnights were spent at Bayport. There, at our old home,
+for Hephzibah had sold the big Cahoon house and she and her father were
+living in mine, for which they paid a very small rent, I was happy.
+I spent the two weeks in sailing and fishing, and tramping along the
+waved-washed beaches and over the pine-sprinkled hills. Even in Bayport
+I had few associates of my own age. Even then they began to call me “The
+Quahaug.” Hephzy hugged me when I came and wept over me when I went away
+and mended my clothes and cooked my favorite dishes in the interval.
+Captain Barnabas sat in the big arm-chair by the sitting-room window,
+looking out or sleeping. He took little interest in me or anyone
+else and spoke but seldom. Occasionally I spent the Fourth of July or
+Christmas at Bayport; not often, but as often as I could.
+
+One morning--I was twenty-five at the time, and the day was Sunday--I
+read a story in one of the low-priced magazines. It was not much of a
+story, and, as I read it, I kept thinking that I could write as good
+a one. I had had such ideas before, but nothing had come of them. This
+time, however, I determined to try. In half an hour I had evolved a
+plot, such as it was, and at a quarter to twelve that night the story
+was finished. A highwayman was its hero and its scene the great North
+Road in England. My conceptions of highwaymen and the North Road--of
+England, too, for that matter--were derived from something I had read
+at some time or other, I suppose; they must have been. At any rate,
+I finished that story, addressed the envelope to the editor of the
+magazine and dropped the envelope and its inclosure in the corner
+mail-box before I went to bed. Next morning I went to the office as
+usual. I had not the faintest hope that the story would be accepted. The
+writing of it had been fun and the sending it to the magazine a joke.
+
+But the story was accepted and the check which I received--forty
+dollars--was far from a joke to a man whose weekly wage was half that
+amount. The encouraging letter which accompanied the check was best of
+all. Before the week ended I had written another thriller and this, too,
+was accepted.
+
+Thereafter, for a year or more, my Sundays and the most of my evenings
+were riots of ink and blood. The ink was real enough and the blood
+purely imaginary. My heroes spilled the latter and I the former.
+Sometimes my yarns were refused, but the most of them were accepted and
+paid for. Editors of other periodicals began to write to me requesting
+contributions. My price rose. For one particularly harrowing and
+romantic tale I was paid seventy-five dollars. I dressed in my best that
+evening, dined at the Adams House, gave the waiter a quarter, and saw
+Joseph Jefferson from an orchestra seat.
+
+Then came the letter from Jim Campbell requesting me to come to New York
+and see him concerning a possible book, a romance, to be written by me
+and published by the firm of which he was the head. I saw my employer,
+obtained a Saturday off, and spent that Saturday and Sunday in New York,
+my first visit.
+
+As a result of that visit began my friendship with Campbell and my first
+long story, “The Queen's Amulet.” The “Amulet,” or the “Omelet,” just as
+you like, was a financial success. It sold a good many thousand copies.
+Six months later I broke to my employers the distressing news that their
+business must henceforth worry on as best it could without my aid; I was
+going to devote my valuable time and effort to literature.
+
+My fellow-clerks were surprised. Charlie Burns, head bookkeeper now, and
+a married man and a father, was much concerned.
+
+“But, great Scott, Kent!” he protested, “you're going to do something
+besides write books, ain't you? You ain't going to make your whole
+living that way?”
+
+“I am going to try,” I said.
+
+“Great Scott! Why, you'll starve! All those fellows live in garrets and
+starve to death, don't they?”
+
+“Not all,” I told him. “Only real geniuses do that.”
+
+He shook his head and his good-by was anything but cheerful.
+
+My plans were made and I put them into execution at once. I shipped my
+goods and chattels, the latter for the most part books, to Bayport and
+went there to live and write in the old house where I was born. Hephzy
+was engaged as my housekeeper. She was alone now; Captain Barnabas had
+died nearly two years before.
+
+Among the Captain's papers and discovered by his daughter after his
+death was a letter from Strickland Morley. It was written from a town in
+France and was dated six years after Morley's flight and the disclosure
+of his crookedness. Captain Barnabas had never, apparently, answered the
+letter; certainly he had never told anyone of its receipt by him. The
+old man never mentioned Morley's name and only spoke of Ardelia during
+his last hours, when his mind was wandering. Then he spoke of and asked
+for her continually, driving poor Hephzibah to distraction, for her love
+for her lost sister was as great as his.
+
+The letter was the complaining whine of a thoroughly selfish man. I can
+scarcely refer to it without losing patience, even now when I understand
+more completely the circumstances under which it was written. It was not
+too plainly written or coherent and seemed to imply that other letters
+had preceded it. Morley begged for money. He was in “pitiful straits,”
+ he declared, compelled to live as no gentleman of birth and breeding
+should live. As a matter of fact, the remnant of his resources, the
+little cash left from the Captain's fortune which he had taken with him
+had gone and he was earning a precarious living by playing the violin in
+a second-rate orchestra. “For poor dead Ardelia's sake,” he wrote, “and
+for the sake of little Francis, your grandchild, I ask you to extend
+the financial help which I, as your heir-in-law, might demand. You may
+consider that I have wronged you, but, as you should know and must know,
+the wrong was unintentional and due solely to the sudden collapse of
+the worthless American investments which the scoundrelly Yankee brokers
+inveigled me into making.”
+
+If the money was sent at once, he added, it might reach him in time to
+prevent his yielding to despondency and committing suicide.
+
+“Suicide! HE commit suicide!” sniffed Hephzy when she read me the
+letter. “He thinks too much of his miserable self ever to hurt it. But,
+oh dear! I wish Pa had told me of this letter instead of hidin' it away.
+I might have sent somethin', not to him, but to poor, motherless Little
+Frank.”
+
+She had tried; that is, she had written to the French address, but
+her letter had been returned. Morley and the child of whom this letter
+furnished the only information were no longer in that locality. Hephzy
+had talked of “Little Frank” and dreamed about him at intervals ever
+since. He had come to be a reality to her, and she even cut a child's
+picture from a magazine and fastened it to the wall of her room beneath
+the engraving of Westminster Abbey, because there was something about
+the child in the picture which reminded her of “Little Frank” as he
+looked in her dreams.
+
+She and I had lived together ever since, I continuing to turn out, each
+with less enthusiasm and more labor, my stories of persons and places of
+which, as Campbell said but too truly, I knew nothing whatever. Finally
+I had reached my determination to write no more “slush,” profitable
+though it might be. I invited Jim to visit me; he had come and the
+conversation at the boathouse and his remarks at the bedroom door were
+all the satisfaction that visit had brought me so far.
+
+I sat there in my study, going over all this, not so fully as I have
+set it down here, but fully nevertheless, and the possibility of
+finding even a glimmer of interest or a hint of fictional foundation in
+Hephzibah or her life or mine was as remote at the end of my thinking as
+it had been at the beginning. There might be a story there, or a part of
+a story, but I could not write it. The real trouble was that I could not
+write anything. With which, conclusion, exactly what I started with, I
+blew out the lamp and went upstairs to bed.
+
+Next morning Jim and I went for another sail from which we did not
+return until nearly dinner-time. During that whole forenoon he did not
+mention the promised “prescription,” although I offered him plenty of
+opportunities and threw out various hints by way of bait.
+
+He ignored the bait altogether and, though he talked a great deal and
+asked a good many questions, both talk and questions had no bearing on
+the all-important problem which had been my real reason for inviting
+him to Bayport. He questioned me again concerning my way of spending my
+time, about my savings, how much money I had put by, and the like, but
+I was not particularly interested in these matters and they were not his
+business, to put it plainly. At least, I could not see that they were.
+
+I answered him as briefly as possible and, I am afraid, behaved rather
+boorishly to one, who next to Hephzy, was perhaps the best friend I had
+in the world. His apparent lack of interest hurt and disappointed me
+and I did not care if he knew it. My impatience must have been apparent
+enough, but if so it did not trouble him; he chatted and laughed and
+told stories all the way from the landing to the house and announced to
+Hephzy, who had stayed at home from church in order to prepare and
+cook clam chowder and chicken pie and a “Queen pudding,” that he had an
+appetite like a starved shark.
+
+When, at last, that appetite was satisfied, he and I adjourned to the
+sitting-room for a farewell smoke. His train left at three-thirty and
+it lacked but an hour of that time. He had worn my suit, the one which
+Hephzibah had laid out for him the day before, but had changed to his
+own again and packed his bag before dinner.
+
+We camped in the wing chairs and he lighted his cigar. Then, to my
+astonishment, he rose and shut the door.
+
+“What did you do that for?” I asked.
+
+He came back to his chair.
+
+“Because I'm going to talk to you like a Dutch uncle,” he replied, “and
+I don't want anyone, not even a Cape Cod cousin, butting in. Kent, I
+told you that before I went I was going to prescribe for you, didn't I?
+Well, I'm going to do it now. Are you ready for the prescription?”
+
+“I have been ready for it for some time,” I retorted. “I began to think
+you had forgotten it altogether.”
+
+“I hadn't. But I wanted it to be the last word you should hear from me
+and I didn't want to give you time to think up a lot of fool objections
+to spring on me before I left. Look here, I'm your doctor now; do you
+understand? You called me in as a specialist and what I say goes. Is
+that understood?”
+
+“I hear you.”
+
+“You've got to do more than hear me. You've got to do what I tell you.
+I know what ails you. You've buried yourself in the mud down here. Wake
+up, you clam! Come out of your shell. Stir around. Stop thinking about
+yourself and think of something worth while.”
+
+“Dear! dear! hark to the voice of the oracle. And what is the something
+worth while I am to think about; you?”
+
+“Yes, by George! me! Me and the dear public! Here are thirty-five
+thousand seekers after the--the higher literature, panting open-mouthed
+for another Knowles classic. And you sit back here and cover yourself
+with sand and seaweed and say you won't give it to them.”
+
+“You're wrong. I say I can't.”
+
+“You will, though.”
+
+“I won't. You can bet high on that.”
+
+“You will, and I'll bet higher. YOU write no more stories! You! Why,
+confound you, you couldn't help it if you tried. You needn't write
+another 'Black Brig' unless you want to. You needn't--you mustn't write
+anything UNTIL you want to. But, by George! you'll get up and open your
+eyes and stir around, and keep stirring until the time comes when you've
+found something or someone you DO want to write about. THEN you'll
+write; you will, for I know you. It may turn out to be what you call
+'slush,' or it may not, but you'll write it, mark my words.”
+
+He was serious now, serious enough even to suit me. But what he had said
+did not suit me.
+
+“Don't talk nonsense, Jim,” I said. “Don't you suppose I have thought--”
+
+“Thought! that's just it; you do nothing but think. Stop thinking.
+Stop being a quahaug--a dead one, anyway. Drop the whole business, drop
+Bayport, drop America, if you like. Get up, clear out, go to China, go
+to Europe, go to--Well, never mind, but go somewhere. Go somewhere and
+forget it. Travel, take a long trip, start for one place and, if you
+change your mind before you get there, go somewhere else. It doesn't
+make much difference where, so that you go, and see different things.
+I'm talking now, Kent Knowles, and it isn't altogether because it pays
+us to publish your books, either. You drop Bayport and drop writing. Go
+out and pick up and go. Stay six months, stay a year, stay two years,
+but keep alive and meet people and give what you flatter yourself is
+a brain house-cleaning. Confound you, you've kept it shut like one of
+these best front parlors down here. Open the windows and air out. Let
+the outside light in. An idea may come with it; it is barely possible,
+even to you!”
+
+He was out of breath by this time. I was in a somewhat similar condition
+for his tirade had taken mine away. However, I managed to express my
+feelings.
+
+“Humph!” I grunted. “And so this is your wonderful prescription. I am to
+travel, am I?”
+
+“You are. You can afford it, and I'll see that you do.”
+
+“And just what port would you recommend?”
+
+“I don't care, I tell you, except that it ought to be a long way off.
+I'm not joking, Kent; this is straight. A good long jaunt around the
+world would do you a barrel of good. Don't stop to think about it, just
+start, that's all. Will you?”
+
+I laughed. The idea of my starting on a pleasure trip was ridiculous. If
+ever there was a home-loving and home-staying person it was I. The bare
+thought of leaving my comfort and my books and Hephzy made me shudder. I
+hadn't the least desire to see other countries and meet other people. I
+hated sleeping cars and railway trains and traveling acquaintances. So I
+laughed.
+
+“Sorry, Jim,” I said, “but I'm afraid I can't take your prescription.”
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“For one reason because I don't want to.”
+
+“That's no reason at all. It doesn't make any difference what you want.
+Anything else?”
+
+“Yes. I would no more wander about creation all alone than--”
+
+“Take someone with you.”
+
+“Who? Will you go, yourself?”
+
+He shook his head.
+
+“I wish I could,” he said, and I think he meant it. “I'd like nothing
+better. I'D keep you alive, you can bet on that. But I can't leave the
+literature works just now. I'll do my best to find someone who will,
+though. I know a lot of good fellows who travel--”
+
+I held up my hand. “That's enough,” I interrupted. “They can't travel
+with me. They wouldn't be good fellows long if they did.”
+
+He struck the chair arm with his fist.
+
+“You're as near impossible as you can be, aren't you,” he exclaimed.
+“Never mind; you're going to do as I tell you. I never gave you bad
+advice yet, now did I?”
+
+“No--o. No, but--”
+
+“I'm not giving it to you now. You'll go and you'll go in a hurry. I'll
+give you a week to think the idea over. At the end of that time if I
+don't hear from you I'll be down here again, and I'll worry you every
+minute until you'll go anywhere to get rid of me. Kent, you must do it.
+You aren't written out, as you call it, but you are rusting out, fast.
+If you don't get away and polish up you'll never do a thing worth while.
+You'll be another what's-his-name--Ase Tidditt; that's what you'll be. I
+can see it coming on. You're ossifying; you're narrowing; you're--”
+
+I broke in here. I didn't like to be called narrow and I did not like
+to be paired with Asaph Tidditt, although our venerable town clerk is a
+good citizen and all right, in his way. But I had flattered myself that
+way was not mine.
+
+“Stop it, Jim!” I ordered. “Don't blow off any more steam in this
+ridiculous fashion. If this is all you have to say to me, you may as
+well stop.”
+
+“Stop! I've only begun. I'll stop when you start, and not before. Will
+you go?”
+
+“I can't, Jim. You know I can't.”
+
+“I know you can and I know you're going to. There!” rising and laying a
+hand on my shoulder, “it is time for ME to be starting. Kent, old man, I
+want you to promise me that you will do as I tell you. Will you?”
+
+“I can't, Jim. I would if I could, but--”
+
+“Will you promise me to think the idea over? Think it over carefully;
+don't think of anything else for the rest of the week? Will you promise
+me to do that?”
+
+I hesitated. I was perfectly sure that all my thinking would but
+strengthen my determination to remain at home, but I did not like to
+appear too stubborn.
+
+“Why, yes, Jim,” I said, doubtfully, “I promise so much, if that is any
+satisfaction to you.”
+
+“All right. I'll give you until Friday to make up your mind. If I don't
+hear from you by that time I shall take it for granted that you have
+made it up in the wrong way and I'll be here on Saturday. I'll keep the
+process up week in and week out until you give in. That's MY promise.
+Come on. We must be moving.”
+
+He said good-by to Hephzy and we walked together to the station. His
+last words as we shook hands by the car steps were: “Remember--think.
+But don't you dare think of anything else.” My answer was a dubious
+shake of the head. Then the train pulled out.
+
+I believe that afternoon and evening to have been the “bluest” of all my
+blue periods, and I had had some blue ones prior to Jim's visit. I was
+dreadfully disappointed. Of course I should have realized that no advice
+or “prescription” could help me. As Campbell had said, “It was up to
+me;” I must help myself; but I had been trying to help myself for months
+and I had not succeeded. I had--foolishly, I admit--relied upon him to
+give me a new idea, a fresh inspiration, and he had not done it. I was
+disappointed and more discouraged than ever.
+
+My state of mind may seem ridiculous. Perhaps it was. I was in good
+health, not very old--except in my feelings--and my stories, even the
+“Black Brig,” had not been failures, by any means. But I am sure that
+every man or woman who writes, or paints, or does creative work of any
+kind, will understand and sympathize with me. I had “gone stale,” that
+is the technical name for my disease, and to “go stale” is no joke. If
+you doubt it ask the writer or painter of your acquaintance. Ask him if
+he ever has felt that he could write or paint no more, and then ask
+him how he liked the feeling. The fact that he has written or painted a
+great deal since has no bearing on the matter. “Staleness” is purely a
+mental ailment, and the confident assurance of would-be doctors that its
+attacks are seldom fatal doesn't help the sufferer at the time. He knows
+he is dead, and that is no better, then, than being dead in earnest.
+
+I knew I was dead, so far as my writing was concerned, and the advice
+to go away and bury myself in a strange country did not appeal to me. It
+might be true that I was already buried in Bayport, but that was my
+home cemetery, at all events. The more I thought of Jim Campbell's
+prescription the less I felt like taking it.
+
+However, I kept on with the thinking; I had promised to do that. On
+Wednesday came a postcard from Jim, himself, demanding information.
+“When and where are you going?” he wrote. “Wire answer.” I did not wire
+answer. I was not going anywhere.
+
+I thrust the card into my pocket and, turning away from the frame of
+letter boxes, faced Captain Cyrus Whittaker, who, like myself, had come
+to Simmons's for his mail. He greeted me cordially.
+
+“Hello, Kent,” he hailed. “How are you?”
+
+“About the same as usual, Captain,” I answered, shortly.
+
+“That's pretty fair, by the looks. You don't look too happy, though,
+come to notice it. What's the matter; got bad news?”
+
+“No. I haven't any news, good or bad.”
+
+“That so? Then I'll give you some. Phoebe and I are going to start for
+California to-morrow.”
+
+“You are? To California? Why?”
+
+“Oh, just for instance, that's all. Time's come when I have to go
+somewhere, and the Yosemite and the big trees look good to me. It's this
+way, Kent; I like Bayport, you know that. Nobody's more in love with
+this old town than I am; it's my home and I mean to live and die here,
+if I have luck. But it don't do for me to stay here all the time. If I
+do I begin to be no good, like a strawberry plant that's been kept in
+one place too long and has quit bearin.' The only thing to do with that
+plant is to transplant it and let it get nourishment in a new spot. Then
+you can move it back by and by and it's all right. Same way with me.
+Every once in a while I have to be transplanted so's to freshen up. My
+brains need somethin' besides post-office talk and sewin'-circle gossip
+to keep them from shrivelin'. I was commencin' to feel the shrivel,
+so it's California for Phoebe and me. Better come along, Kent. You're
+beginnin' to shrivel a little, ain't you?”
+
+Was it as apparent as all that? I was indignant.
+
+“Do I look it?” I demanded.
+
+“No--o, but I ain't sure that you don't act it. No offence, you
+understand. Just a little ground bait to coax you to come on the
+California cruise along with Phoebe and me, that's all.”
+
+It was not likely that I should accept. Two are company and three a
+crowd, and if ever two were company Captain Cy and his wife were those
+two. I thanked him and declined, but I asked a question.
+
+“You believe in travel as a restorative, you do?” I asked.
+
+“Hey? I sartin do. Change your course once in awhile, same as you change
+your clothes. Wearin' the same suit and cruisin' in the same puddle all
+the time ain't healthy. You're too apt to get sick of the clothes and
+puddle both.”
+
+“But you don't believe in traveling alone, do you?”
+
+“No,” emphatically, “I don't, generally speakin.' If you go off by
+yourself you're too likely to keep thinkin' ABOUT yourself. Take
+somebody with you; somebody you're used to and know well and like,
+though. Travelin' with strangers is a little mite worse than travelin'
+alone. You want to be mighty sure of your shipmate.”
+
+I walked home. Hephzibah was in the sitting-room, reading and knitting
+a stocking, a stocking for me. She did not need to use her eyes for the
+knitting; I am quite sure she could have knit in her sleep.
+
+“Hello, Hosy,” she said, “been up to the office, have you? Any mail?”
+
+“Nothing much. Humph! Still reading that Raymond and Whitcomb circular?”
+
+“No, not that one. This is one I got last year. I've been sittin' here
+plannin' out just where I'd go and what I'd see if I could. It's the
+next best thing to really goin'.”
+
+I looked at her. All at once a new idea began to crystallize in my mind.
+It was a curious idea, a ridiculous idea, and yet--and yet it seemed--
+
+“Hephzy,” said I, suddenly, “would you really like to go abroad?”
+
+“WOULD I? Hosy, how you talk! You know I've been crazy to go ever since
+I was a little girl. I don't know what makes me so. Perhaps it's the
+salt water in my blood. All our folks were sailors and ship captains.
+They went everywhere. I presume likely it takes more than one generation
+to kill off that sort of thing.”
+
+“And you really want to go?”
+
+“Of course I do.”
+
+“Then why haven't you gone? You could afford to take a moderate-priced
+tour.”
+
+Hephzy laughed over her knitting.
+
+“I guess,” she said, “I haven't gone for the reason you haven't, Hosy.
+You could afford, it, too--you know you could. But how could I go and
+leave you? Why, I shouldn't sleep a minute wonderin' if you were wearin'
+clothes without holes in 'em and if you changed your flannels when the
+weather changed and ate what you ought to, and all that. You've been
+so--so sort of dependent on me and I've been so used to takin' care of
+you that I don't believe either of us would be happy anywhere without
+the other. I know certain sure _I_ shouldn't.”
+
+I did not answer immediately. The idea, the amazing, ridiculous
+idea which had burst upon me suddenly began to lose something of its
+absurdity. Somehow it began to look like the answer to my riddle. I
+realized that my main objection to the Campbell prescription had been
+that I must take it alone or with strangers. And now--
+
+“Hephzy,” I demanded, “would you go away--on a trip abroad--with me?”
+
+She put down the knitting.
+
+“Hosy Knowles!” she exclaimed. “WHAT are you talkin' about?”
+
+“But would you?”
+
+“I presume likely I would, if I had the chance; but it isn't likely
+that--where are you goin'?”
+
+I did not answer. I hurried out of the sitting-room and out of the
+house.
+
+When I returned I found her still knitting. The circular lay on the
+floor at her feet. She regarded me anxiously.
+
+“Hosy,” she demanded, “where--”
+
+I interrupted. “Hephzy,” said I, “I have been to the station to send a
+telegram.”
+
+“A telegram? A TELEGRAM! For mercy sakes, who's dead?”
+
+Telegrams in Bayport usually mean death or desperate illness. I laughed.
+
+“No one is dead, Hephzy,” I replied. “In fact it is barely possible that
+someone is coming to life. I telegraphed Mr. Campbell to engage passage
+for you and me on some steamer leaving for Europe next week.”
+
+Hephzibah turned pale. The partially knitted sock dropped beside the
+circular.
+
+“Why--why--what--?” she gasped.
+
+“On a steamer leaving next week,” I repeated. “You want to travel,
+Hephzy. Jim says I must. So we'll travel together.”
+
+She did not believe I meant it, of course, and it took a long time to
+convince her. But when at last she began to believe--at least to the
+extent of believing that I had sent the telegram--her next remark was
+characteristic.
+
+“But I--I can't go, Hosy,” declared Hephzibah. “I CAN'T. Who--who would
+take care of the cat and the hens?”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+In Which Hephzy and I and the Plutonia Sail Together
+
+
+The week which began that Wednesday afternoon seems, as I look back to
+it now, a bit of the remote past, instead of seven days of a year ago.
+Its happenings, important and wonderful as they were, seem trivial and
+tame compared with those which came afterward. And yet, at the time,
+that week was a season of wild excitement and delightful anticipation
+for Hephzibah, and of excitement not unmingled with doubts and
+misgivings for me. For us both it was a busy week, to put it mildly.
+
+Once convinced that I meant what I said and that I was not “raving
+distracted,” which I think was her first diagnosis of my case, Hephzy's
+practical mind began to unearth objections, first to her going at all
+and, second, to going on such short notice.
+
+“I don't think I'd better, Hosy,” she said. “You're awful good to ask me
+and I know you think you mean it, but I don't believe I ought to do it,
+even if I felt as if I could leave the house and everything alone. You
+see, I've lived here in Bayport so long that I'm old-fashioned and funny
+and countrified, I guess. You'd be ashamed of me.”
+
+I smiled. “When I am ashamed of you, Hephzy,” I replied, “I shall be on
+my way to the insane asylum, not to Europe. You are much more likely to
+be ashamed of me.”
+
+“The idea! And you the pride of this town! The only author that ever
+lived in it--unless you call Joshua Snow an author, and he lived in the
+poorhouse and nobody but himself was proud of HIM.”
+
+Josh Snow was Bayport's Homer, its only native poet. He wrote the
+immortal ballad of the scallop industry, which begins:
+
+
+     “On a fine morning at break of day,
+      When the ice has all gone out of the bay,
+      And the sun is shining nice and it is like spring,
+      Then all hands start to go scallop-ING.”
+
+
+In order to get the fullest measure of music from this lyric gem you
+should put a strong emphasis on the final “ing.” Joshua always did and
+the summer people never seemed to tire of hearing him recite it. There
+are eighteen more verses.
+
+“I shall not be ashamed of you, Hephzy,” I repeated. “You know it
+perfectly well. And I shall not go unless you go.”
+
+“But I can't go, Hosy. I couldn't leave the hens and the cat. They'd
+starve; you know they would.”
+
+“Susanna will look after them. I'll leave money for their provender. And
+I will pay Susanna for taking care of them. She has fallen in love with
+the cat; she'll be only too glad to adopt it.”
+
+“And I haven't got a single thing fit to wear.”
+
+“Neither have I. We will buy complete fit-outs in Boston or New York.”
+
+“But--”
+
+There were innumerable “buts.” I answered them as best I could. Also
+I reiterated my determination not to go unless she did. I told of
+Campbell's advice and laid strong emphasis on the fact that he had said
+travel was my only hope. Unless she wished me to die of despair she must
+agree to travel with me.
+
+“And you have said over and over again that your one desire was to go
+abroad,” I added, as a final clincher.
+
+“I know it. I know I have. But--but now when it comes to really
+goin' I'm not so sure. Uncle Bedny Small was always declarin' in
+prayer-meetin' that he wanted to die so as to get to Heaven, but when he
+was taken down with influenza he made his folks call both doctors here
+in town and one from Harniss. I don't know whether I want to go or not,
+Hosy. I--I'm frightened, I guess.”
+
+Jim's answer to my telegram arrived the very next day.
+
+“Have engaged two staterooms for ship sailing Wednesday the tenth,” it
+read. “Hearty congratulations on your good sense. Who is your companion?
+Write particulars.”
+
+The telegram quashed the last of Hephzy's objections. The fares had been
+paid and she was certain they must be “dreadful expensive.” All that
+money could not be wasted, so she accepted the inevitable and began
+preparations.
+
+I did not write the “particulars” requested. I had a feeling that
+Campbell might consider my choice of a traveling companion a queer one
+and, although my mind was made up and his opinion could not change it,
+I thought it just as well to wait until our arrival in New York before
+telling him. So I wrote a brief note stating that my friend and I would
+reach New York on the morning of the tenth and that I would see him
+there. Also I asked, for my part, the name of the steamer he had
+selected.
+
+His answer was as vague as mine. He congratulated me once more upon my
+decision, prophesied great things as the result of what he called my
+“foreign junket,” and gave some valuable advice concerning the necessary
+outfit, clothes, trunks and the like. “Travel light,” he wrote. “You can
+buy whatever else you may need on the other side. 'Phone as soon as you
+reach New York.” But he did not tell me the name of the ship, nor for
+what port she was to sail.
+
+So Hephzy and I were obliged to turn to the newspapers for information
+upon those more or less important subjects, and we speculated and
+guessed not a little. The New York dailies were not obtainable in
+Bayport except during the summer months and the Boston publications did
+not give the New York sailings. I wrote to a friend in Boston and he
+sent me the leading journals of the former city and, as soon as they
+arrived, Hephzy sat down upon the sitting-room carpet--which she had
+insisted upon having taken up to be packed away in moth balls--to look
+at the maritime advertisements. I am quite certain it was the only time
+she sat down, except at meals, that day.
+
+I selected one of the papers and she another. We reached the same
+conclusion simultaneously.
+
+“Why, it must be--” she began.
+
+“The Princess Eulalie,” I finished.
+
+“It is the only one that sails on the tenth. There is one on the
+eleventh, though.”
+
+“Yes, but that one is the 'Plutonia,' one of the fastest and most
+expensive liners afloat. It isn't likely that Jim had booked us for the
+'Plutonia.' She would scarcely be in our--in my class.”
+
+“Humph! I guess she isn't any too good for a famous man like you, Hosy.
+But I would look funny on her, I give in. I've read about her. She's
+always full of lords and ladies and millionaires and things. Just the
+sort of folks you write about. She'd be just the one for you.”
+
+I shook my head. “My lords and ladies are only paper dolls, Hephzy,” I
+said, ruefully. “I should be as lost as you among the flesh and blood
+variety. No, the 'Princess Eulalie' must be ours. She runs to Amsterdam,
+though. Odd that Jim should send me to Holland.”
+
+Hephzy nodded and then offered a solution.
+
+“I don't doubt he did it on purpose,” she declared. “He knew neither you
+nor I was anxious to go to England. He knows we don't think much of the
+English, after our experience with that Morley brute.”
+
+“No, he doesn't know any such thing. I've never told him a word about
+Morley. And he doesn't know you're going, Hephzy. I've kept that as
+a--as a surprise for him.”
+
+“Well, never mind. I'd rather go to Amsterdam than England. It's nearer
+to France.”
+
+I was surprised. “Nearer to France?” I repeated. “What difference does
+that make? We don't know anyone in France.”
+
+Hephzibah was plainly shocked. “Why, Hosy!” she protested. “Have you
+forgotten Little Frank? He is in France somewhere, or he was at last
+accounts.”
+
+“Good Lord!” I groaned. Then I got up and went out. I had forgotten
+“Little Frank” and hoped that she had. If she was to flit about Europe
+seeing “Little Frank” on every corner I foresaw trouble. “Little Frank”
+ was likely to be the bane of my existence.
+
+We left Bayport on Monday morning. The house was cleaned and swept
+and scoured and moth-proofed from top to bottom. Every door was
+double-locked and every window nailed. Burglars are unknown in Bayport,
+but that didn't make any difference. “You can't be too careful,” said
+Hephzy. I was of the opinion that you could.
+
+The cat had been “farmed out” with Susanna's people and Susanna herself
+was to feed the hens twice a day, lock them in each night and let them
+out each morning. Their keeper had a carefully prepared schedule as to
+quantity and quality of food; Hephzy had prepared and furnished it.
+
+“And don't you give 'em any fish,” ordered Hephzy. “I ate a chicken once
+that had been fed on fish, and--my soul!”
+
+There was quite an assemblage at the station to see us off. Captain
+Whittaker and his wife were not there, of course; they were near
+California by this time. But Mr. Partridge, the minister, was there and
+so was his wife; and Asaph Tidditt and Mr. and Mrs. Bailey Bangs and
+Captain Josiah Dimick and HIS wife, and several others. Oh, yes! and
+Angeline Phinney. Angeline was there, of course. If anything happened in
+Bayport and Angeline was not there to help it happen, then--I don't know
+what then; the experiment had never been tried in my lifetime.
+
+Everyone said pleasant things to us. They really seemed sorry to have us
+leave Bayport, but for our sakes they expressed themselves as glad. It
+would be such a glorious trip; we would have so much to tell when we got
+back. Mr. Partridge said he should plan for me to give a little talk to
+the Sunday school upon my return. It would be a wonderful thing for the
+children. To my mind the most wonderful part of the idea was that he
+should take my consent for granted. _I_ talk to the Sunday school! I,
+the Quahaug! My knees shook even at the thought.
+
+Keturah Bangs hoped we would have a “lovely time.” She declared that it
+had been the one ambition of her life to go sight-seeing. But she should
+never do it--no, no! Such things wasn't for her. If she had a husband
+like some women it might be, but not as 'twas. She had long ago given up
+hopin' to do anything but keep boarders, and she had to do that all by
+herself.
+
+Bailey, her husband, grinned sheepishly but, for a wonder, he did not
+attempt defence. I gathered that Bailey was learning wisdom. It was
+time; he had attended his wife's academy a long while.
+
+Captain Dimick brought a bag of apples, greenings, some he had kept in
+the cellar over winter. “Nice to eat on the cars,” he told us. Everyone
+asked us to send postcards. Miss Phinney was especially solicitous.
+
+“It'll be just lovely to know where you be and what you're doin,” she
+declared.
+
+When the train had started and we had waved the last good-bys from the
+window Hephzibah expressed her opinion concerning Angeline's request.
+
+“I send HER postcards!” she snapped. “I think I see myself doin' it! All
+she cares about 'em is so she can run from Dan to Beersheba showin' 'em
+to everybody and talkin' about how extravagant we are and wonderin' if
+we borrowed the money. But there! it won't make any difference. If I
+don't send 'em to her she'll read all I send to other folks. She
+and Rebecca Simmons are close as two peas in a pod and Becky reads
+everything that comes through her husband's post-office. All that aren't
+sealed, that is--yes, and some that are, I shouldn't wonder, if they're
+not sealed tight.”
+
+Her next remark was a surprising one.
+
+“Hosy,” she said, “how much they all think of you, don't they. Isn't it
+nice to know you're so popular.”
+
+I turned in the seat to stare at her.
+
+“Popular!” I repeated. “Hephzy, I have a good deal of respect for your
+brain, generally speaking, but there are times when I think it shows
+signs of softening.”
+
+She did not resent my candor; she paid absolutely no attention to it.
+
+“I don't mean popular with everybody, rag, tag and bobtail and all,
+like--well, Eben Salters,” she went on. “But the folks that count all
+respect and like you, Hosy. I know they do.”
+
+Mr. Salters is our leading local statesman--since the departure of the
+Honorable Heman Atkins. He has filled every office in his native village
+and he has served one term as representative in the State House at
+Boston. He IS popular.
+
+“It is marvelous how affection can be concealed,” I observed, with
+sarcasm. Hephzy was back at me like a flash.
+
+“Of course they don't tell you of it,” she said. “If they did you'd
+probably tell 'em to their faces that they were fibbin' and not speak to
+'em again. But they do like you, and I know it.”
+
+It was useless to carry the argument further. When Hephzy begins
+chanting my praises I find it easier to surrender--and change the
+subject.
+
+In Boston we shopped. It seems to me that we did nothing else. I
+bought what I needed the very first day, clothes, hat, steamer coat and
+traveling cap included. It did not take me long; fortunately I am of the
+average height and shape and the salesmen found me easy to please. My
+shopping tour was ended by three o'clock and I spent the remainder
+of the afternoon at a bookseller's. There was a set of “Early English
+Poets” there, nineteen little, fat, chunky volumes, not new and shiny
+and grand, but middle-aged and shabby and comfortable, which appealed to
+me. The price, however, was high; I had the uneasy feeling that I ought
+not to afford it. Then the bookseller himself, who also was fat and
+comfortably shabby, and who had beguiled from me the information that I
+was about to travel, suggested that the “Poets” would make very pleasant
+reading en route.
+
+“I have found,” he said, beaming over his spectacles, “that a little
+book of this kind,” patting one of the volumes, “which may be carried in
+the pocket, is a rare traveling companion. When you wish his society
+he is there, and when you tire of him you can shut him up. You can't do
+that with all traveling companions, you know. Ha! ha!”
+
+He chuckled over his joke and I chuckled with him. Humor of that kind is
+expensive, for I bought the “English Poets” and ordered them sent to my
+hotel. It was not until they were delivered, an hour later, that I
+began to wonder what I should do with them. Our trunks were likely to be
+crowded and I could not carry all of the nineteen volumes in my pockets.
+
+Hephzibah, who had been shopping on her own hook, did not return until
+nearly seven. She returned weary and almost empty-handed.
+
+“But didn't you buy ANYTHING?” I asked. “Where in the world have you
+been?”
+
+She had been everywhere, so she said. This wasn't entirely true, but I
+gathered that she had visited about every department store in the city.
+She had found ever so many things she liked, but oh dear! they did cost
+so much.
+
+“There was one traveling coat that I did want dreadfully,” she said.
+“It was a dark brown, not too dark, but just light enough so it wouldn't
+show water spots. I've been out sailing enough times to know how your
+things get water-spotted. It fitted me real nice; there wouldn't have to
+be a thing done to it. But it cost thirty-one dollars! 'My soul!' says
+I, 'I can't afford THAT!' But they didn't have anything cheaper that
+wouldn't have made me look like one of those awful play-actin' girls
+that came to Bayport with the Uncle Tom's Cabin show. And I tried
+everywhere and nothin' pleased me so well.”
+
+“So you didn't buy the coat?”
+
+“BUY it? My soul Hosy, didn't I tell you it cost--”
+
+“I know. What else did you see that you didn't buy?”
+
+“Hey? Oh, I saw a suit, a nice lady-like suit, and I tried it on. That
+fitted me, too, only the sleeves would have to be shortened. And it
+would have gone SO well with that coat. But the suit cost FORTY dollars.
+'Good land!' I said, 'haven't you got ANYTHING for poor folks?' And you
+ought to have seen the look that girl gave me! And a hat--oh, yes, I saw
+a hat! It was--”
+
+There was a great deal more. Summed up it amounted to something like
+this: All that suited her had been too high-priced and all that she
+considered within her means hadn't suited her at all. So she had bought
+practically nothing but a few non-essentials. And we were to leave for
+New York the following night and sail for Europe the day after.
+
+“Hephzy,” said I, “you will go shopping again to-morrow morning and I'll
+go with you.”
+
+Go we did, and we bought the coat and the hat and the suit and various
+other things. With each purchase Hephzy's groans and protests at my
+reckless extravagance grew louder. At last I had an inspiration.
+
+“Hephzy,” said I, “when we meet Little Frank over there in France, or
+wherever he may be, you will want him to be favorably impressed with
+your appearance, won't you? These things cost money of course, but we
+must think of Little Frank. He has never seen his American relatives and
+so much depends on a first impression.”
+
+Hephzy regarded me with suspicion. “Humph!” she sniffed, “that's the
+first time I ever knew you to give in that there WAS a Little Frank.
+All right, I sha'n't say any more, but I hope the foreign poorhouses are
+more comfortable than ours, that's all. If you make me keep on this way,
+I'll fetch up in one before the first month's over.”
+
+We left for New York on the five o'clock train. Packing those “Early
+English Poets” was a confounded nuisance. They had to be stuffed here,
+there and everywhere amid my wearing apparel and Hephzibah prophesied
+evil to come.
+
+“Books are the worse things goin' to make creases,” she declared.
+“They're all sharp edges.”
+
+I had to carry two of the volumes in my pockets, even then, at the very
+start. They might prove delightful traveling companions, as the bookman
+had said, but they were most uncomfortable things to sit on.
+
+We reached the Grand Central station on time and went to a nearby hotel.
+I should have sent the heavier baggage directly to the steamer, but I
+was not sure--absolutely sure--which steamer it was to be. The “Princess
+Eulalie” almost certainly, but I did not dare take the risk.
+
+Hephzy called to me from the room adjoining mine at twelve that night.
+
+“Just think, Hosy!” she cried, “this is the last night either of us will
+spend on dry land.”
+
+“Heavens! I hope it won't be as bad as that,” I retorted. “Holland is
+pretty wet, so they say, but we should be able to find some dry spots.”
+
+She did not laugh. “You know what I mean,” she observed. “To-morrow
+night at twelve o'clock we shall be far out on the vasty deep.”
+
+“We shall be on the 'Princess Eulalie,'” I answered. “Go to sleep.”
+
+Neither of us spoke the truth. At twelve the following night we were
+neither “far out on the vasty deep” nor on the “Princess Eulalie.”
+
+My first move after breakfast was to telephone Campbell at his city
+home. He hailed me joyfully and ordered me to stay where I was, that is,
+at the hotel. He would be there in an hour, he said.
+
+He was five minutes ahead of his promise. We shook hands heartily.
+
+“You are going to take my prescription, after all,” he crowed. “Didn't
+I tell you I was the only real doctor for sick authors? Bully for you!
+Wish I was going with you. Who is?”
+
+“Come to my room and I'll show you,” said I. “You may be surprised.”
+
+“See here! you haven't gone and dug up another fossilized bookworm like
+yourself, have you? If you have, I refuse--”
+
+“Come and see.”
+
+We took the elevator to the fourth floor and walked to my room. I opened
+the door.
+
+“Hephzy,” said I, “here is someone you know.”
+
+Hephzy, who had been looking out of the window of her room, hurried in.
+
+“Well, Mr. Campbell!” she exclaimed, holding out her hand, “how do you
+do? We got here all right, you see. But the way Hosy has been wastin'
+money, his and mine, buyin' things we didn't need, I began to think one
+spell we'd never get any further. Is it time to start for the steamer
+yet?”
+
+Jim's face was worth looking at. He shook Hephzibah's hand mechanically,
+but he did not speak. Instead he looked at her and at me. I didn't speak
+either; I was having a thoroughly good time.
+
+“Had we ought to start now?” repeated Hephzibah. “I'm all ready but
+puttin' on my things.”
+
+Jim came out of his trance. He dropped the hand and came to me.
+
+“Are you--is she--” he stammered.
+
+“Yes,” said I. “Miss Cahoon is going with me. I wrote you I had selected
+a good traveling companion. I have, haven't I?”
+
+“He would have it so, Mr. Campbell,” put in Hephzy. “I said no and kept
+on sayin' it, but he vowed and declared he wouldn't go unless I did.
+I know you must think it's queer my taggin' along, but it isn't any
+queerer to you than it is to me.”
+
+Jim behaved very well, considering. He did not laugh. For a moment I
+thought he was going to; if he had I don't know what I should have done,
+said things for which I might have been sorry later on, probably. But he
+did not laugh. He didn't even express the tremendous surprise which he
+must have felt. Instead he shook hands again with both of us and said it
+was fine, bully, just the thing.
+
+“To tell the truth, Miss Cahoon,” he declared, “I have been rather
+fearful of this pet infant of ours. I didn't know what sort of helpless
+creature he might have coaxed into roaming loose with him in the wilds
+of Europe. I expected another babe in the woods and I was contemplating
+cabling the police to look out for them and shoo away the wolves. But
+he'll be all right now. Yes, indeed! he'll be looked out for now.”
+
+“Then you approve?” I asked.
+
+He shot a side-long glance at me. “Approve!” he repeated. “I'm crazy
+about the whole business.”
+
+I judged he considered me crazy, hopelessly so. I did not care. I agreed
+with him in this--the whole business was insane and Hephzibah's going
+was the only sensible thing about it, so far.
+
+His next question was concerning our baggage. I told him I had left it
+at the railway station because I was not sure where it should be sent.
+
+“What time does the 'Princess Eulalie' sail?” I asked.
+
+He looked at me oddly. “What?” he queried. “The 'Princess Eulalie'?
+Twelve o'clock, I believe, I'm not sure.”
+
+“You're not sure! And it is after nine now. It strikes me that--”
+
+“Never mind what strikes you. So long as it isn't lightning you
+shouldn't complain. Have you the baggage checks? Give them to me.”
+
+I handed him the checks, obediently, and he stepped to the telephone
+and gave a number. A short conversation followed. Then he hung up the
+receiver.
+
+“One of the men from the office will be here soon,” he said. “He will
+attend to all your baggage, get it aboard the ship and see that it is
+put in your staterooms. Now, then, tell me all about it. What have you
+been doing since I saw you? When did you arrive? How did you happen to
+think of taking--er--Miss Cahoon with you? Tell me the whole.”
+
+I told him. Hephzy assisted, sitting on the edge of a rocking chair
+and asking me what time it was at intervals of ten minutes. She was
+decidedly fidgety. When she went to Boston she usually reached the
+station half an hour before train time, and to sit calmly in a hotel
+room, when the ship that was to take us to the ends of the earth was to
+sail in two hours, was a reckless gamble with Fate, to her mind.
+
+The man from the office came and the baggage checks were turned over to
+him. So also were our bags and our umbrellas. Campbell stepped into
+the hall and the pair held a whispered conversation. Hephzy seized the
+opportunity to express to me her perturbation.
+
+“My soul, Hosy!” she whispered. “Mr. Campbell's out of his head, ain't
+he? Here we are a sittin' and sittin' and time's goin' by. We'll be too
+late. Can't you make him hurry?”
+
+I was almost as nervous as she was, but I would not have let our
+guardian know it for the world. If we lost a dozen steamers I shouldn't
+call his attention to the fact. I might be a “Babe in the Wood,” but he
+should not have the satisfaction of hearing me whimper.
+
+He came back to the room a moment later and began asking more questions.
+Our answers, particularly Hephzy's, seemed to please him a great deal.
+At some of them he laughed uproariously. At last he looked at his watch.
+
+“Almost eleven,” he observed. “I must be getting around to the office.
+Miss Cahoon will you excuse Kent and me for an hour or so? I have his
+letters of credit and the tickets in our safe and he had better come
+around with me and get them. If you have any last bits of shopping to
+do, now is your opportunity. Or you might wait here if you prefer. We
+will be back at half-past twelve and lunch together.”
+
+I started. Hephzy sprang from the chair.
+
+“Half-past twelve!” I cried.
+
+“Lunch together!” gasped Hephzy. “Why, Mr. Campbell! the 'Princess
+Eulalie' sails at noon. You said so yourself!”
+
+Jim smiled. “I know I did,” he replied, “but that is immaterial. You are
+not concerned with the 'Princess Eulalie.' Your passages are booked
+on the 'Plutonia' and she doesn't leave her dock until one o'clock
+to-morrow morning. We will meet here for lunch at twelve-thirty. Come,
+Kent.”
+
+I didn't attempt an answer. I am not exactly sure what I did. A few
+minutes later I walked out of that room with Campbell and I have a hazy
+recollection of leaving Hephzy seated in the rocker and of hearing her
+voice, as the door closed, repeating over and over:
+
+“The 'Plutonia'! My soul and body! The 'Plutonia'! Me--ME on the
+'Plutonia'!”
+
+What I said and did afterwards doesn't make much difference. I know I
+called my publisher a number of disrespectful names not one of which he
+deserved.
+
+“Confound you!” I cried. “You know I wouldn't have dreamed of taking a
+passage on a ship like that. She's a floating Waldorf, everyone says so.
+Dress and swagger society and--Oh, you idiot! I wanted quiet! I wanted
+to be alone! I wanted--”
+
+Jim interrupted me.
+
+“I know you did,” he said. “But you're not going to have them. You've
+been alone too much. You need a change. If I know the 'Plutonia'--and
+I've crossed on her four times--you're going to have it.”
+
+He burst into a roar of laughter. We were in a cab, fortunately, or his
+behavior would have attracted attention. I could have choked him.
+
+“You imbecile!” I cried. “I have a good mind to throw the whole thing up
+and go home to Bayport. By George, I will!”
+
+He continued to chuckle.
+
+“I see you doing it!” he observed. “How about your--what's her
+name?--Hephzibah? Going to tell her that it's all off, are you? Going
+to tell her that you will forfeit your passage money and hers? Why, man,
+haven't you a heart? If she was booked for Paradise instead of Paris
+she couldn't be any happier. Don't be foolish! Your trunks are on the
+'Plutonia' and on the 'Plutonia' you'll be to-night. It's the best thing
+that can happen to you. I did it on purpose. You'll thank me come day.”
+
+I didn't thank him then.
+
+We returned to the hotel at twelve-thirty, my pocket-book loaded with
+tickets and letters of credit and unfamiliar white paper notes bearing
+the name of the Bank of England. Hephzibah was still in the rocking
+chair. I am sure she had not left it.
+
+We lunched in the hotel dining-room. Campbell ordered the luncheon and
+paid for it while Hephzibah exclaimed at his extravagance. She was
+too excited to eat much and too worried concerning the extent of her
+wardrobe to talk of less important matters.
+
+“Oh dear, Hosy!” she wailed, “WHY didn't I buy another best dress. DO
+you suppose my black one will be good enough? All those lords and
+ladies and millionaires on the 'Plutonia'! Won't they think I'm dreadful
+poverty-stricken. I saw a dress I wanted awfully--in one of those Boston
+stores it was; but I didn't buy it because it was so dear. And I didn't
+tell you I wanted it because I knew if I did you'd buy it. You're so
+reckless with money. But now I wish I'd bought it myself. What WILL all
+those rich people think of me?”
+
+“About what they think of me, Hephzy, I imagine,” I answered, ruefully.
+“Jim here has put up a joke on us. He is the only one who is getting any
+fun out of it.”
+
+Jim, for a wonder, was serious. “Miss Cahoon,” he declared, earnestly,
+“don't worry. I'm sure the black silk is all right; but if it wasn't
+it wouldn't make any difference. On the 'Plutonia' nobody notices other
+people's clothes. Most of them are too busy noticing their own. If Kent
+has his evening togs and you have the black silk you'll pass muster.
+You'll have a gorgeous time. I only wish I was going with you.”
+
+He repeated the wish several times during the afternoon. He insisted on
+taking us to a matinee and Hephzy's comments on the performance seemed
+to amuse him hugely. It had been eleven years, so she said, since she
+went to the theater.
+
+“Unless you count 'Uncle Tom' or 'Ten Nights in a Barroom,' or some
+of those other plays that come to Bayport,” she added. “I suppose I'm
+making a perfect fool of myself laughin' and cryin' over what's nothin'
+but make-believe, but I can't help it. Isn't it splendid, Hosy! I wonder
+what Father would say if he could know that his daughter was really
+travelin'--just goin' to Europe! He used to worry a good deal, in his
+last years, about me. Seemed to feel that he hadn't taken me around and
+done as much for me as he ought to in the days when he could. 'Twas just
+nonsense, his feelin' that way, and I told him so. But I wonder if he
+knows now how happy I am. I hope he does. My goodness! I can't realize
+it myself. Oh, there goes the curtain up again! Oh, ain't that pretty! I
+AM actin' ridiculous, I know, Mr. Campbell,' but you mustn't mind. Laugh
+at me all you want to; I sha'n't care a bit.”
+
+Jim didn't laugh--then. Neither did I. He and I looked at each other
+and I think the same thought was in both our minds. Good, kind,
+whole-souled, self-sacrificing Hephzibah! The last misgiving, the last
+doubt as to the wisdom of my choice of a traveling companion vanished
+from my thoughts. For the first time I was actually glad I was going,
+glad because of the happiness it would mean to her.
+
+When we came out of the theater Campbell reached down in the crowd to
+shake my hand.
+
+“Congratulations, old man,” he whispered; “you did exactly the right
+thing. You surprised me, I admit, but you were dead right. She's a
+brick. But don't I wish I was going along! Oh my! oh my! to think of you
+two wandering about Europe together! If only I might be there to see and
+hear! Kent, keep a diary; for my sake, promise me you'll keep a diary.
+Put down everything she says and read it to me when you get home.”
+
+He left us soon afterward. He had given up the entire day to me and
+would, I know, have cheerfully given the evening as well, but I would
+not hear of it. A messenger from the office had brought him word of the
+presence in New York of a distinguished scientist who was preparing a
+manuscript for publication and the scientist had requested an interview
+that night. Campbell was very anxious to obtain that manuscript and I
+knew it. Therefore I insisted that he leave us. He was loathe to do so.
+
+“I hate to, Kent,” he declared. “I had set my heart on seeing you on
+board and seeing you safely started. But I do want to nail Scheinfeldt,
+I must admit. The book is one that he has been at work on for years and
+two other publishing houses are as anxious as ours to get it. To-night
+is my chance, and to-morrow may be too late.”
+
+“Then you must not miss the chance. You must go, and go now.”
+
+“I don't like to. Sure you've got everything you need? Your tickets and
+your letters of credit and all? Sure you have money enough to carry you
+across comfortably?”
+
+“Yes, and more than enough, even on the 'Plutonia.'”
+
+“Well, all right, then. When you reach London go to our English
+branch--you have the address, Camford Street, just off the Strand--and
+whatever help you may need they'll give you. I've cabled them
+instructions. Think you can get down to the ship all right?”
+
+I laughed. “I think it fairly possible,” I said. “If I lose my way, or
+Hephzy is kidnapped, I'll speak to the police or telephone you.”
+
+“The latter would be safer and much less expensive. Well, good-by,
+Kent. Remember now, you're going for a good time and you're to forget
+literature. Write often and keep in touch with me. Good-by, Miss Cahoon.
+Take care of this--er--clam of ours, won't you. Don't let anyone eat him
+on the half-shell, or anything like that.”
+
+Hephzy smiled. “They'd have to eat me first,” she said, “and I'm pretty
+old and tough. I'll look after him, Mr. Campbell, don't you worry.”
+
+“I don't. Good luck to you both--and good-by.”
+
+A final handshake and he was gone. Hephzy looked after him.
+
+“There!” she exclaimed; “I really begin to believe I'm goin'. Somehow
+I feel as if the last rope had been cast off. We've got to depend on
+ourselves now, Hosy, dear. Mercy! how silly I am talkin'. A body would
+think I was homesick before I started.”
+
+I did not answer, for I WAS homesick. We dined together at the hotel.
+There remained three long hours before it would be time for us to take
+the cab for the 'Plutonia's' wharf. I suggested another theater, but
+Hephzy, to my surprise, declined the invitation.
+
+“If you don't mind, Hosy,” she said, “I guess I'd rather stay right here
+in the room. I--I feel sort of solemn and as if I wanted to sit still
+and think. Perhaps it's just as well. After waitin' eleven years to go
+to one theater, maybe two in the same day would be more than I could
+stand.”
+
+So we sat together in the room at the hotel--sat and thought. The
+minutes dragged by. Outside beneath the windows, New York blazed and
+roared. I looked down at the hurrying little black manikins on the
+sidewalks, each, apparently, bound somewhere on business or pleasure of
+its own, and I wondered vaguely what that business or pleasure might
+be and why they hurried so. There were many single ones, of course,
+and occasionally groups of three or four, but couples were the most
+numerous. Husbands and wives, lovers and sweethearts, each with his or
+her life and interests bound up in the life and interests of the other.
+I envied them. Mine had been a solitary life, an unusual, abnormal kind
+of life. No one had shared its interests and ambitions with me, no one
+had spurred me on to higher endeavor, had loved with me and suffered
+with me, helping me through the shadows and laughing with me in the
+sunshine. No one, since Mother's death, except Hephzy and Hephzy's love
+and care and sacrifice, fine as they were, were different. I had missed
+something, I had missed a great deal, and now it was too late. Youth and
+high endeavor and ambition had gone by; I had left them behind. I was
+a solitary, queer, self-centered old bachelor, a “quahaug,” as my
+fellow-Bayporters called me. And to ship a quahaug around the world is
+not likely to do the creature a great deal of good. If he lives through
+it he is likely to be shipped home again tougher and drier and more
+useless to the rest of creation than ever.
+
+Hephzibah, too, had evidently been thinking, for she interrupted my
+dismal meditations with a long sigh. I started and turned toward her.
+
+“What's the matter?” I asked.
+
+“Oh, nothin',” was the solemn answer. “I was wonderin', that's all. Just
+wonderin' if he would talk English. It would be a terrible thing if
+he could speak nothin' but French or a foreign language and I couldn't
+understand him. But Ardelia was American and that brute of a Morley
+spoke plain enough, so I suppose--”
+
+I judged it high time to interrupt.
+
+“Come, Hephzy,” said I. “It is half-past ten. We may as well start at
+once.”
+
+Broadway, seen through the cab windows, was bright enough, a blaze of
+flashing signs and illuminated shop windows. But --th street, at the
+foot of which the wharves of the Trans-Atlantic Steamship Company were
+located, was black and dismal. It was by no means deserted, however.
+Before and behind and beside us were other cabs and automobiles bound in
+the same direction. Hephzy peered out at them in amazement.
+
+“Mercy on us, Hosy!” she exclaimed. “I never saw such a procession of
+carriages. They're as far ahead and as far back of us as you can see. It
+is like the biggest funeral that ever was, except that they don't crawl
+along the way a funeral does. I'm glad of that, anyhow. I wish I didn't
+FEEL so much as if I was goin' to be buried. I don't know why I do. I
+hope it isn't a presentiment.”
+
+If it was she forgot it a few minutes later. The cab stopped before a
+mammoth doorway in a long, low building and a person in uniform opened
+the door. The wide street was crowded with vehicles and from them were
+descending people attired as if for a party rather than an ocean voyage.
+I helped Hephzy to alight and, while I was paying the cab driver, she
+looked about her.
+
+“Hosy! Hosy!” she whispered, seizing my arm tight, “we've made a
+mistake. This isn't the steamboat; this is--is a weddin' or somethin'.
+Look! look!”
+
+I looked, looked at the silk hats, the opera cloaks, the jewels and
+those who wore them. For a moment I, too, was certain there must be a
+mistake. Then I looked upward and saw above the big doorway the flashing
+electric sign of the “Trans-Atlantic Navigation Company.”
+
+“No, Hephzy,” said I; “I guess it is the right place. Come.”
+
+I gave her my arm--that is, she continued to clutch it with both
+hands--and we moved forward with the crowd, through the doorway, past
+a long, moving inclined plane up which bags, valises, bundles of golf
+sticks and all sorts of lighter baggage were gliding, and faced another
+and smaller door.
+
+“Lift this way! This way to the lift!” bawled a voice.
+
+“What's a lift?” whispered Hephzy, tremulously, “Hosy, what's a lift?”
+
+“An elevator,” I whispered in reply.
+
+“But we can't go on board a steamboat in an elevator, can we? I never
+heard--”
+
+I don't know what she never heard. The sentence was not finished. Into
+the lift we went. On either side of us were men in evening dress and
+directly in front was a large woman, hatless and opera-cloaked, with
+diamonds in her ears and a rustle of silk at every point of her persons.
+The car reeked with perfume.
+
+The large woman wriggled uneasily.
+
+“George,” she said, in a loud whisper, “why do they crowd these lifts
+in this disgusting way? And WHY,” with another wriggle, “do they permit
+PERSONS with packages to use them?”
+
+As we emerged from the elevator Hephzy whispered again.
+
+“She meant us, Hosy,” she said. “I've got three of those books of yours
+in this bundle under my arm. I COULDN'T squeeze 'em into either of the
+valises. But she needn't have been so disagreeable about it, need she.”
+
+Still following the crowd, we passed through more wide doorways and into
+a huge loft where, through mammoth openings at our left, the cool air
+from the river blew upon our faces. Beyond these openings loomed an
+enormous something with rows of railed walks leading up its sides.
+Hephzibah and I, moving in a sort of bewildered dream, found ourselves
+ascending one of these walks. At its end was another doorway and,
+beyond, a great room, with more elevators and a mosaic floor, and
+mahogany and gilt and gorgeousness, and silk and broadcloth and satin.
+
+Hephzy gasped and stopped short.
+
+“It IS a mistake, Hosy!” she cried. “Where is the steamer?”
+
+I smiled. I felt almost as “green” and bewildered as she, but I tried
+not to show my feelings.
+
+“It is all right, Hephzy,” I answered. “This is the steamer. I know it
+doesn't look like one, but it is. This is the 'Plutonia' and we are on
+board at last.”
+
+Two hours later we leaned together over the rail and watched the lights
+of New York grow fainter behind us.
+
+Hephzibah drew a deep breath.
+
+“It is so,” she said. “It is really so. We ARE, aren't we, Hosy.”
+
+“We are,” said I. “There is no doubt of it.”
+
+“I wonder what will happen to us before we see those lights again.”
+
+“I wonder.”
+
+“Do you think HE--Do you think Little Frank--”
+
+“Hephzy,” I interrupted, “if we are going to bed at all before morning,
+we had better start now.”
+
+“All right, Hosy. But you mustn't say 'go to bed.' Say 'turn in.'
+Everyone calls going to bed 'turning in' aboard a vessel.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+In Which We View, and Even Mingle Slightly with, the Upper Classes
+
+
+It is astonishing--the ease with which the human mind can accustom
+itself to the unfamiliar and hitherto strange. Nothing could have been
+more unfamiliar or strange to Hephzibah and me than an ocean voyage and
+the “Plutonia.” And yet before three days of that voyage were at an end
+we were accustomed to both--to a degree. We had learned to do certain
+things and not to do others. Some pet illusions had been shattered,
+and new and, at first, surprising items of information had lost their
+newness and come to be accepted as everyday facts.
+
+For example, we learned that people in real life actually wore monocles,
+something, which I, of course, had known to be true but which had seemed
+nevertheless an unreality, part of a stage play, a “dress-up” game for
+children and amateur actors. The “English swell” in the performances of
+the Bayport Dramatic Society always wore a single eyeglass, but he also
+wore Dundreary whiskers and clothes which would have won him admittance
+to the Home for Feeble-Minded Youth without the formality of an
+examination. His “English accent” was a combination of the East Bayport
+twang and an Irish brogue and he was a blithering idiot in appearance
+and behavior. No one in his senses could have accepted him as anything
+human and the eyeglass had been but a part of his unreal absurdity.
+
+And yet, here on the “Plutonia,” were at least a dozen men, men of
+dignity and manner, who sported monocles and acted as if they were
+used to them. The first evening before we left port, one or two were in
+evidence; the next afternoon, in the Lounge, there were more. The
+fact that they were on an English ship, bound for England, brought the
+monocles out of their concealment, as Hephzy said, “like hoptoads after
+the first spring thaw.” Her amazed comments were unique.
+
+“But what good are they, Hosy?” she demanded. “Can they see with 'em?”
+
+“I suppose they can,” I answered. “You can see better with your
+spectacles than you can without them.”
+
+“Humph! I can see better with two eyes than I can with one, as far as
+that goes. I don't believe they wear 'em for seein' at all. Take that
+man there,” pointing to a long, lank Canadian in a yellow ulster,
+whom the irreverent smoking-room had already christened “The Duke
+of Labrador.” “Look at him! He didn't wear a sign of one until this
+mornin'. If he needed it to see with he'd have worn it before, wouldn't
+he? Don't tell me! He wears it because he wants people to think he's a
+regular boarder at Windsor Castle. And he isn't; he comes from Toronto,
+and that's only a few miles from the United States. Ugh! You foolish
+thing!” as the “Duke of Labrador” strutted by our deck-chairs; “I
+suppose you think you're pretty, don't you? Well, you're not. You look
+for all the world like a lighthouse with one window in it and the lamp
+out.”
+
+I laughed. “Hephzy,” said I, “every nation has its peculiarities and the
+monocle is an English national institution, like--well, like tea, for
+instance.”
+
+“Institution! Don't talk to me about institutions! I know the
+institution I'd put HIM in.”
+
+She didn't fancy the “Duke of Labrador.” Neither did she fancy tea at
+breakfast and coffee at dinner. But she learned to accept the first. Two
+sessions with the “Plutonia's” breakfast coffee completed her education.
+
+“Bring me tea,” she said to our table steward on the third morning.
+“I've tried most every kind of coffee and lived through it, but I'm
+gettin' too old to keep on experimentin' with my health. Bring me tea
+and I'll try to forget what time it is.”
+
+We had tea at breakfast, therefore, and tea at four in the afternoon.
+Hephzibah and I learned to take it with the rest. She watched her
+fellow-passengers, however, and as usual had something to say concerning
+their behavior.
+
+“Did you hear that, Hosy?” she whispered, as we sat together in the
+“Lounge,” sipping tea and nibbling thin bread and butter and the
+inevitable plum cake. “Did you hear what that woman said about her
+husband?”
+
+I had not heard, and said so.
+
+“Well, judgin' by her actions, I thought her husband was lost and she
+was sure he had been washed overboard. 'Where is Edward?' she kept
+askin'. 'Poor Edward! What WILL he do? Where is he?' I was gettin' real
+anxious, and then it turned out that she was afraid that, if he didn't
+come soon, he'd miss his tea. My soul! Hosy, I've been thinkin' and do
+you know the conclusion I've come to?”
+
+“No,” I replied. “What is it?”
+
+“Well, it sounds awfully irreverent, but I've come to the conclusion
+that the first part of the Genesis in the English scriptures must be
+different than ours. I'm sure they think that the earth was created in
+six days and, on the seventh, Adam and Eve had tea. I believe it for an
+absolute fact.”
+
+The pet illusion, the loss of which caused her the most severe shock,
+was that concerning the nobility. On the morning of our first day afloat
+the passenger lists were distributed. Hephzibah was early on deck.
+Fortunately neither she nor I were in the least discomfited by the
+motion of the ship, then or at any time. We proved to be good sailors;
+Hephzibah declared it was in the blood.
+
+“For a Knowles or a Cahoon to be seasick,” she announced, “would be a
+disgrace. Our men folks for four generations would turn over in their
+graves.”
+
+She was early on deck that first morning and, at breakfast she and I had
+the table to ourselves. She had the passenger list propped against the
+sugar bowl and was reading the names.
+
+“My gracious, Hosy!” she exclaimed. “What, do you think! There are five
+'Sirs' on board and one 'Lord'! Just think of it! Where do you suppose
+they are?”
+
+“In their berths, probably, at this hour,” I answered.
+
+“Then I'm goin' to stay right here till they come out. I'm goin' to see
+'em and know what they look like if I sit at this table all day.”
+
+I smiled. “I wouldn't do that, Hephzy,” said I. “We can see them at
+lunch.”
+
+“Oh! O--Oh! And there's a Princess here! Princess
+B-e-r-g-e-n-s-t-e-i-n--Bergenstein. Princess Bergenstein. What do you
+suppose she's Princess of?”
+
+“Princess of Jerusalem, I should imagine,” I answered. “Oh, I see!
+You've skipped a line, Hephzy. Bergenstein belongs to another person.
+The Princess's name is Berkovitchky. Russian or Polish, perhaps.”
+
+“I don't care if she's Chinese; I mean to see her. I never expected to
+look at a live Princess in MY life.”
+
+We stopped in the hall at the entrance to the dining-saloon to examine
+the table chart. Hephzibah made careful notes of the tables at which the
+knights and the lord and the Princess were seated and their locations.
+At lunch she consulted the notes.
+
+“The lord sits right behind us at that little table there,” she said,
+excitedly. “That table for two is marked 'Lord and Lady Erkskine.' Now
+we must watch when they come in.”
+
+A few minutes later a gray-haired little man, accompanied by a
+middle-aged woman entered the saloon and were seated at the small table
+by an obsequious steward. Hephzy gasped.
+
+“Why--why, Hosy!” she exclaimed. “That isn't the lord, is it? THAT?”
+
+“I suppose it must be,” I answered. When our own Steward came I asked
+him.
+
+“Yes, sir,” he answered, with unction. “Yes, sir, that is Lord and Lady
+Erkskine, sir, thank you, sir.”
+
+Hephzy stared at Lord and Lady Erkskine. I gave our luncheon order,
+and the steward departed. Then her indignant disgust and disappointment
+burst forth.
+
+“Well! well!” she exclaimed. “And that is a real live lord! That is!
+Why, Hosy, he's the livin' image of Asaph Tidditt back in Bayport. If
+Ase could afford clothes like that he might be his twin brother. Well! I
+guess that's enough. I don't want to see that Princess any more. Just as
+like as not she'd look like Susanna Wixon.”
+
+Her criticisms were not confined to passengers of other nationalities.
+Some of our own came in for comment quite as severe.
+
+“Look at those girls at that table over there,” she whispered. “The two
+in red, I mean. One of 'em has got a little flag pinned on her dress.
+What do you suppose that is for?”
+
+I looked at the young ladies in red. They were vivacious damsels and
+their conversation and laughter were by no means subdued. A middle-aged
+man and woman and two young fellows were their table-mates and the group
+attracted a great deal of attention.
+
+“What has she got that flag pinned on her for?” repeated Hephzy.
+
+“She wishes everyone to know she's an American exportation, I suppose,”
+ I answered. “She is evidently proud of her country.”
+
+“Humph! Her country wouldn't be proud of her, if it had to listen to
+her the way we do. There's some exports it doesn't pay to advertise, I
+guess, and she and her sister are that kind. Every time they laugh I
+can see that Lady Erkskine shrivel up like a sensitive plant. I hope she
+don't think all American girls are like those two.”
+
+“She probably does.”
+
+“Well, IF she does she's makin' a big mistake. I might as well believe
+all Englishmen were like this specimen comin' now, and I don't believe
+that, even if I do hail from Bayport.”
+
+The specimen was the “Duke of Labrador,” who sauntered by, monocle in
+eye, hands in pockets and an elaborate affection of the “Oxford stoop”
+ which he must have spent time and effort in acquiring. Hephzibah shook
+her head.
+
+“I wish Toronto was further from home than it is,” she declared. “But
+there! I shan't worry about him. I'll leave him for Lord Erkskine and
+his wife to be ashamed of. He's their countryman, or he hopes he is.
+I've got enough to do bein' ashamed of those two American girls.”
+
+It may be gathered from these conversations that Hephzy and I had been
+so fortunate as to obtain a table by ourselves. This was not the case.
+There were four seats at our table and, according to the chart of the
+dining-saloon, one of them should be occupied by a “Miss Rutledge of New
+York” and the other by “A. Carleton Heathcroft of London.” Miss Rutledge
+we had not seen at all. Our table steward informed us that the lady was
+“hindisposed” and confined to her room. She was an actress, he added.
+Hephzy, whose New England training had imbued her with the conviction
+that all people connected with the stage must be highly undesirable
+as acquaintances, was quite satisfied. “Of course I'm sorry she isn't
+well,” she confided to me “but I'm awfully glad she won't be at our
+table. I shouldn't want to hurt her feelin's, but I couldn't talk to her
+as I would to an ordinary person. I COULDN'T! All I should be able to
+think of was what she wore, or didn't wear, when she was actin' her
+parts. I expect I'm old-fashioned, but when I think of those girls
+in the pictures outside that theater--the one we didn't go
+to--I--well--mercy!”
+
+The “pictures” were the posters advertising a popular musical comedy
+which Campbell had at first suggested our witnessing the afternoon of
+our stay in New York. Hephzibah's shocked expression and my whispered
+advice had brought about a change of plans. We saw a perfectly
+respectable, though thrilling, melodrama instead. I might have
+relieved my relative's mind by assuring her that all actresses were not
+necessarily attired as “merry villagers,” but the probable result of my
+assurance seemed scarcely worth the effort.
+
+A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire, was not acquainted with the stage, in
+a professional way, at any rate. He was a slim and elegant gentleman,
+dressed with elaborate care, who appeared profoundly bored with life
+in general and our society in particular. He sported one of Hephzibah's
+detestations, a monocle, and spoke, when he spoke at all, with a languid
+drawl and what I learned later was a Piccadilly accent. He favored us
+with his company during our first day afloat; after that we saw him
+amid the select group at that much sought--by some--center of shipboard
+prominence, “the Captain's table.”
+
+Oddly enough Hephzibah did not resent the Heathcroft condescension and
+single eyeglass as much as I had expected. She explained her feeling in
+this way.
+
+“I know he's dreadfully high and mighty and all that,” she said. “And
+the way he said 'Really?' when you and I spoke to him was enough to
+squelch even an Angelina Phinney. But I didn't care so much. Anybody,
+even a body as green as I am, can see that he actually IS somebody when
+he's at home, not a make-believe, like that Toronto man. And I'm glad
+for our waiter's sake that he's gone somewhere else. The poor thing
+bowed so low when he came in and was so terribly humble every time Mr.
+Heathcroft spoke to him. I should hate to feel I must say 'Thank you'
+when I was told that the food was 'rotten bad.' I never thought 'rotten'
+was a nice word, but all these English folks say it. I heard that pretty
+English girl over there tell her father that it was a 'jolly rotten
+mornin',' and she's as nice and sweet as she can be. Well, I'm
+learnin' fast, Hosy. I can see a woman smoke a cigarette now and not
+shiver--much. Old Bridget Doyle up in West Bayport, used to smoke a
+pipe and the whole town talked about it. She'd be right at home in that
+sittin'-room they call a 'Lounge' after dinner, wouldn't she?”
+
+My acquaintance with A. Carleton Heathcroft, which appeared to have
+ended almost as soon as it began, was renewed in an odd way. I was in
+the “Smoke-Room” after dinner the third evening out, enjoying a cigar
+and idly listening to the bidding for pools on the ship's run, that
+time-honored custom which helps the traveling gentleman of sporting
+proclivities to kill time and lose money. On board the “Plutonia,” with
+its unusually large quota of millionaires and personages, the bidding
+was lively and the prices paid for favored numbers high. Needless to say
+I was not one of the bidders. My interest was merely casual.
+
+The auctioneer that evening was a famous comedian with an international
+reputation and his chatter, as he urged his hearers to higher bids, was
+clever and amusing. I was listening to it and smiling at the jokes when
+a voice at my elbow said:
+
+“Five pounds.”
+
+I turned and saw that the speaker was Heathcroft. His monocle was in his
+eye, a cigarette was between his fingers and he looked as if he had
+been newly washed and ironed and pressed from head to foot. He nodded
+carelessly and I bowed in return.
+
+“Five pounds,” repeated Mr. Heathcroft.
+
+The auctioneer acknowledged the bid and proceeded to urge his audience
+on to higher flights. The flights were made and my companion capped each
+with one more lofty. Eight, nine, ten pounds were bid. Heathcroft bid
+eleven. Someone at the opposite side of the room bid twelve. It seemed
+ridiculous to me. Possibly my face expressed my feeling; at any rate
+something caused the immaculate gentleman in the next chair to address
+me instead of the auctioneer.
+
+“I say,” he said, “that's running a bit high, isn't it?”
+
+“It seems so to me,” I replied. “The number is five hundred and
+eighty-six and I think we shall do better than that.”
+
+“Oh, do you! Really! And why do you think so, may I ask?”
+
+“Because we are having a remarkably smooth sea and a favorable wind.”
+
+“Oh, but you forget the fog. There's quite a bit of fog about us now,
+isn't there.”
+
+I wish I could describe the Heathcroft manner of saying “Isn't there.” I
+can't, however; there is no use trying.
+
+“It will amount to nothing,” I answered. “The glass is high and there
+is no indication of bad weather. Our run this noon was five hundred and
+ninety-one, you remember.”
+
+“Yes. But we did have extraordinarily good weather for that.”
+
+“Why, not particularly good. We slowed down about midnight. There was
+a real fog then and the glass was low. The second officer told me it
+dropped very suddenly and there was a heavy sea running. For an hour
+between twelve and one we were making not much more than half our usual
+speed.”
+
+“Really! That's interesting. May I ask if you and the second officer are
+friends?”
+
+“Scarcely that. He and I exchanged a few words on deck this morning,
+that's all.”
+
+“But he told you about the fog and the--what is it--the glass, and all
+that. Fancy! that's extremely odd. I'm acquainted with the captain in
+a trifling sort of way; I sit at his table, I mean to say. And I assure
+you he doesn't tell us a word. And, by Jove, we cross-question him, too!
+Rather!”
+
+I smiled. I could imagine the cross-questioning.
+
+“I suppose the captain is obliged to be non-committal,” I observed.
+“That's part of his job. The second officer meant to be, I have no
+doubt, but perhaps my remarks showed that I was really interested in
+ships and the sea. My father and grandfather, too, for that matter were
+seafaring men, both captains. That may have made the second officer more
+communicative. Not that he said anything of importance, of course.”
+
+Mr. Heathcroft seemed very interested. He actually removed his eyeglass.
+
+“Oh!” he exclaimed. “You know something about it, then. I thought it was
+extraordinary, but now I see. And you think our run will be better than
+five hundred and eighty?”
+
+“It should be, unless there is a remarkable change. This ship makes over
+six hundred, day after day, in good weather. She should do at least six
+hundred by to-morrow noon, unless there is a sudden change, as I said.”
+
+“But six hundred would be--it would be the high field, by Jove!”
+
+“Anything over five hundred and ninety-four would be that. The numbers
+are very low to-night. Far too low, I should say.”
+
+Heathcroft was silent. The auctioneer, having forced the bid on number
+five hundred and eighty-six up to thirteen pounds ten, was imploring his
+hearers not to permit a certain winner to be sacrificed at this absurd
+figure.
+
+“Fourteen pounds, gentlemen,” he begged. “For the sake of the wife
+and children, for the honor of the star spangled banner and the union
+jack,--DON'T hesitate--don't even stammer--below fourteen pounds.”
+
+He looked in our direction as he said it. Mr. Heathcroft made no sign.
+He produced a gold cigarette box and extended it in my direction.
+
+“Will you?” he inquired.
+
+“No, thank you,” I replied. “I will smoke a cigar, if you don't mind.”
+
+He did not appear to mind. He lighted his cigarette, readjusted his
+monocle, and stared stonily at the gesticulating auctioneer.
+
+The bidding went on. One by one the numbers were sold until all were
+gone. Then the auctioneer announced that bids for the “high field,” that
+is, any number above five hundred and ninety-four, were in order. My
+companion suddenly came to life.
+
+“Ten pounds,” he called.
+
+I started. “For mercy sake, Mr. Heathcroft,” I protested, “don't let
+anything I have said influence your bidding. I may be entirely wrong.”
+
+He turned and surveyed me through the eyeglass.
+
+“You may wish to bid yourself,” he drawled. “Careless of me. So sorry.
+Shall I withdraw the bid?”
+
+“No, no. I'm not going to bid. I only--”
+
+“Eleven pounds I am offered, gentlemen,” shouted the auctioneer. “Eleven
+pounds! It would be like robbing an orphan asylum. Do I hear twelve?”
+
+He heard twelve immediately--from Mr. Heathcroft.
+
+Thirteen pounds were bid. Evidently others shared my opinion concerning
+the value of the “high field.” Heathcroft promptly raised it to
+fourteen. I ventured another protest. So far as effect was concerned I
+might as well have been talking to one of the smoke-stacks. The bidding
+was lively and lengthy. At last the “high field” went to Mr. A. Carleton
+Heathcroft for twenty-one pounds, approximately one hundred and five
+dollars. I thought it time for me to make my escape. I was wondering
+where I should hide next day, when the run was announced.
+
+“Greatly obliged to you, I'm sure,” drawled the fortunate bidder. “Won't
+you join me in a whisky and soda or something?”
+
+I declined the whisky and soda.
+
+“Sorry,” said Mr. Heathcroft. “Jolly grateful for putting me right,
+Mr.--er--”
+
+“Knowles is my name,” I said. He might have remembered it; I remembered
+his perfectly.
+
+“Of course--Knowles. Thank you so much, Knowles. Thank you and the
+second officer. Nothing like having professional information--eh, what?
+Rather!”
+
+There seemed to be no doubt in his mind that he was going to win. There
+was more than a doubt in mine. I told Hephzy of my experience when I
+joined her in the Lounge. My attempts to say “Really” and “Isn't it” and
+“Rather” in the Heathcroft manner and with the Heathcroft accent pleased
+her very much. As to the result of my unpremeditated “tip” she was quite
+indifferent.
+
+“If he loses it will serve him good and right,” she declared. “Gamblin's
+poor business and I sha'n't care if he does lose.”
+
+“I shall,” I observed. “I feel responsible in a way and I shall be
+sorry.”
+
+“'SO sorry,' you mean, Hosy. That's what that blunderin' steward said
+when he stepped on my skirt and tore the gatherin' all loose. I told him
+he wasn't half as sorry as I was.”
+
+But at noon next day, when the observation was taken and the run posted
+on the bulletin board the figure was six hundred and two. My “tip”
+ had been a good one after all and A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire,
+was richer by some seven hundred dollars, even after the expenses of
+treating the “smoke-room” and feeing the smoke-room steward had been
+deducted. I did not visit the smoke-room to share in the treat. I feared
+I might be expected to furnish more professional information. But that
+evening a bottle of vintage champagne was produced by our obsequious
+table steward. “With Mr. 'Eathcroft's compliments, sir, thank you, sir,”
+ announced the latter.
+
+Hephzibah looked at the gilt-topped bottle.
+
+“WHAT in the world will we do with it, Hosy?” she demanded.
+
+“Why, drink it, I suppose,” I answered. “It is the only thing we can do.
+We can't send it back.”
+
+“But you can't drink the whole of it, and I'm sure I sha'n't start in to
+be a drunkard at my age. I'll take the least little bit of a drop, just
+to see what it tastes like. I've read about champagne, just as I've read
+about lords and ladies, all my life, but I never expected to see either
+of 'em. Well there!” after a very small sip from the glass, “there's
+another pet idea gone to smash. A lord looks like Ase Tidditt, and
+champagne tastes like vinegar and soda. Tut! tut! tut! if I had to drink
+that sour stuff all my life I'd probably look like Asaph, too. No wonder
+that Erkskine man is such a shriveled-up thing.”
+
+I glanced toward the captain's table. Mr. Heathcroft raised his glass.
+I bowed and raised mine. The group at that table, the captain included,
+were looking in my direction. I judged that my smoke-room acquaintance
+had told them of my wonderful “tip.” I imagined I could see the
+sarcastic smile upon the captain's face. I did not care for that kind of
+celebrity.
+
+But the affair had one quite unexpected result. The next forenoon as
+Hephzibah and I were reclining in our deck-chairs the captain himself,
+florid-faced, gray-bearded, gold-laced and grand, halted before us.
+
+“I believe your name is Knowles, sir,” he said, raising his cap.
+
+“It is,” I replied. I wondered what in the world was coming next. Was he
+going to take me to task for talking with his second officer?
+
+“Your home is in Bayport, Massachusetts, I see by the passenger list,”
+ he went on. “Is that Bayport on Cape Cod, may I ask?”
+
+“Yes,” I replied, more puzzled than ever.
+
+“I once knew a Knowles from your town, sir. He was a seafaring man
+like myself. His name was Philander Knowles, and when I knew him he was
+commander of the bark 'Ranger.'”
+
+“He was my father,” I said.
+
+Captain Stone extended his hand.
+
+“Mr. Knowles,” he declared, “this is a great pleasure, sir. I knew
+your father years ago when I was a young man, mate of one of our ships
+engaged in the Italian fruit trade. He was very kind to me at that time.
+I have never forgotten it. May I sit down?”
+
+The chair next to ours happened to be unoccupied at the moment and
+he took it. I introduced Hephzibah and we chatted for some time. The
+captain appeared delighted to meet the son of his old acquaintance.
+Father and he had met in Messina--Father's ship was in the fruit trade
+also at that time--and something or other he had done to help young
+Stone had made a great impression on the latter. I don't know what the
+something was, whether it was monetary help or assistance in getting out
+of a serious scrape; Stone did not tell me and I didn't ask. But, at any
+rate, the pair had become very friendly there and at subsequent meetings
+in the Mediterranean ports. The captain asked all sorts of questions
+about Father, his life, his family and his death aboard the sinking
+“Monarch of the Seas.” Hephzibah furnished most of the particulars. She
+remembered them well.
+
+Captain Stone nodded solemnly.
+
+“That is the way the master of a ship should die,” he declared. “Your
+father, Mr. Knowles, was a man and he died like one. He was my first
+American acquaintance and he gave me a new idea of Yankees--if you'll
+excuse my calling them that, sir.”
+
+Hephzy had a comment to make.
+
+“There are SOME pretty fair Yankees,” she observed, drily. “ALL the good
+folks haven't moved back to England yet.”
+
+The captain solemnly assured her that he was certain of it.
+
+“Though two of the best are on their way,” I added, with a wink at
+Hephzy. This attempt at humor was entirely lost. Our companion said he
+presumed I referred to Mr. and Mrs. Van Hook, who sat next him at table.
+
+“And that leads me to ask if Miss Cahoon and yourself will not join us,”
+ he went on. “I could easily arrange for two places.”
+
+I looked at Hephzy. Her face expressed decided disapproval and she shook
+her head.
+
+“Thank you, Captain Stone,” I said; “but we have a table to ourselves
+and are very comfortable. We should not think of troubling you to that
+extent.”
+
+He assured us it would not be a trouble, but a pleasure. We were firm in
+our refusal, however, and he ceased to urge. He declared his intention
+of seeing that our quarters were adequate, offered to accompany us
+through the engine-rooms and the working portions of the ship whenever
+we wished, ordered the deck steward, who was all but standing on his
+head in obsequious desire to oblige, to take good care of us, shook
+hands once more, and went away. Hephzibah drew a long breath.
+
+“My goodness!” she exclaimed; “sit at HIS table! I guess not! There's
+another lord and his wife there, to say nothin' of the Van Hooks. I'd
+look pretty, in my Cape Cod clothes, perched up there, wouldn't I! A hen
+is all right in her place, but she don't belong in a peacock cage. And
+they drink champagne ALL the time there; I've watched 'em. No thank you,
+I'll stay in the henyard along with the everyday fowls.”
+
+“Odd that he should have known Father,” I observed. “Well, I suppose the
+proper remark to make, under the circumstances, is that this is a small
+world. That is what nine-tenths of Bayport would say.”
+
+“It's what I say, too,” declared Hephzy, with emphasis. “Well, it's
+awful encouraging for us, isn't it.”
+
+“Encouraging? What do you mean?”
+
+“Why, I mean about Little Frank. It makes me feel surer than ever that
+we shall run across him.”
+
+I suppressed a groan. “Hephzy,” said I, “why on earth should the fact
+that Captain Stone knew my father encourage you to believe that we shall
+meet a person we never knew at all?”
+
+“Hosy, how you do talk! If you and I, just cruisin' this way across
+the broadside of creation, run across a man that knew Cousin Philander
+thirty-nine years ago, isn't it just as reasonable to suppose we'll meet
+a child who was born twenty-one years ago? I should say 'twas! Hosy,
+I've had a presentiment about this cruise of ours: We're SENT on it;
+that's what I think--we're sent. Oh, you can laugh! You'll see by and
+by. THEN you won't laugh.”
+
+“No, Hephzy,” I admitted, resignedly, “I won't laugh then, I promise
+you. If _I_ ever reach the stage where I see a Little Frank I promise
+you I sha'n't laugh. I'll believe diseases of the brain are contagious,
+like the measles, and I'll send for a doctor.”
+
+The captain met us again in the dining-room that evening. He came
+over to our table and chatted for some time. His visit caused quite a
+sensation. Shipboard society is a little world by itself and the ship's
+captain is the head of it. Persons who would, very likely, have passed
+Captain Stone on Fifth Avenue or Piccadilly without recognizing him now
+toadied to him as if he were a Czar, which, in a way, I suppose he is
+when afloat. His familiarity with us shed a sort of reflected glory upon
+Hephzy and me. Several of our fellow-passengers spoke to us that evening
+for the first time.
+
+A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire, was not among the Lounge habitues; the
+smoke-room was his accustomed haunt. But the next forenoon as I leaned
+over the rail of the after promenade deck watching the antics of the
+“Stokers' Band” which was performing for the benefit of the second-class
+with an eye toward pennies and small silver from all classes, Heathcroft
+sauntered up and leaned beside me. We exchanged good-mornings. I thanked
+him for the wine.
+
+“Quite unnecessary, Knowles,” he said. “Least I could do, it seems to
+me. I pulled quite a tidy bit from that inside information of yours;
+I did really. Awfully obliged, and all that. You seem to have a wide
+acquaintance among the officers. That captain chap tells us he knew your
+father--the sailor one you told me of, you understand.”
+
+Having had but one father I understood perfectly. We chatted in a
+inconsequential way for a short time. In the course of our conversation
+I happened to mention that I wrote, professionally. To my surprise
+Heathcroft was impressed.
+
+“Do you, really!” he exclaimed. “That's interesting, isn't it now! I
+have a cousin who writes. Don't know why she does it; she doesn't get
+her writings printed, but she keeps on. It is a habit of hers. Curious
+dissipation--eh, what? Does that--er--Miss--that companion of yours,
+write also?”
+
+I laughed and informed him that writing was not one of Hephzibah's bad
+habits.
+
+“Extraordinary woman, isn't she,” he said. “I met her just now, walking
+about, and I happened to mention that I was taking the air. She said she
+wouldn't quarrel with me because of that. The more I took the better
+she would like it; she could spare about a gale and a quarter and not
+feel--What did she call it? Oh yes, 'scrimped.' What is 'scrimped,' may
+I ask?”
+
+I explained the meaning of “scrimped.” Heathcroft was much amused.
+
+“It WAS blowing a bit strong up forward there,” he declared. “That was a
+clever way of putting it, wasn't it?”
+
+“She is a clever woman,” I said, shortly.
+
+Heathcroft did not enthuse.
+
+“Oh,” he said dubiously. “A relative of yours, I suppose.”
+
+“A cousin, that's all.”
+
+“One's relatives, particularly the feminine relatives, incline toward
+eccentricity as they grow older, don't you think. I have an aunt down in
+Sussex, who is queer. A good sort, too, no end of money, a big place
+and all that, but odd. She and I get on well together--I am her pet, I
+suppose I may say--but, by Jove, she has quarreled with everyone else in
+the family. I let her have her own way and it has convinced her that I
+am the only rational Heathcroft in existence. Do you golf, Knowles?”
+
+“I attempt something in that line. I doubt if my efforts should be
+called golf.”
+
+“It is a rotten game when one is off form, isn't it. If you are down
+in Sussex and I chance to be there I should be glad to have you play an
+eighteen with me. Burglestone Bogs is the village. Anyone will direct
+you to the Manor. If I'm not there, introduce yourself to my aunt. Lady
+Kent Carey is the name. She'll be jolly glad to welcome you if you
+tell her you know me. I'm her sole interest in life, the greenhouses
+excepted, of course. Cultivating roses and rearing me are her hobbies.”
+
+I thought it improbable that the golfers of Burglestone Bogs would ever
+be put to shame by the brilliancy of my game. I thanked him, however.
+I was surprised at the invitation. I had been under the impression,
+derived from my reading, that the average Englishman required an
+acquaintance of several months before proffering hospitality. No doubt
+Mr. Heathcroft was not an average Englishman.
+
+“Will you be in London long?” he asked. “I suppose not. You're probably
+off on a hurricane jaunt from one end of the Continent to the other. Two
+hours at Stratford, bowing before Shakespeare's tomb, a Derby through
+the cathedral towns, and then the Channel boat, eh? That's the American
+way, isn't it?”
+
+“It is not our way,” I replied. “We have no itinerary. I don't know
+where we may go or how long we shall stay.”
+
+Evidently I rose again in his estimation.
+
+“Have you picked your hotel in London?” he inquired.
+
+“No. I shall be glad of any help you may be kind enough to give along
+that line.”
+
+He reflected. “There's a decent little hotel in Mayfair,” he said, after
+a moment. “A private sort of shop. I don't use it myself; generally put
+up at the club, I mean to say. But my aunt and my sisters do. They're
+quite mad about it. It is--Ah--Bancroft's--that's it, Bancroft's Hotel.
+I'll give you the address before I leave.”
+
+I thanked him again. He was certainly trying to be kind. No doubt the
+kindness was due to his sense of obligation engendered by what he called
+my “professional information,” but it was kindness all the same.
+
+The first bugle for luncheon sounded. Mr. Heathcroft turned to go.
+
+“I'll see you again, Knowles,” he said, “and give you the hotel street
+and number and all that. Hope you'll like it. If you shouldn't the
+Langham is not bad--quiet and old-fashioned, but really very fair.
+And if you care for something more public and--Ah--American, there are
+always the Savoy and the Cecil. Here is my card. If I can be of any
+service to you while you are in town drop me a line at my clubs, either
+of them. I must be toddling. By, by.”
+
+He “toddled” and I sought my room to prepare for luncheon.
+
+Two days more and our voyage was at an end. We saw more of our friend
+the captain during those days and of Heathcroft as well. The former
+fulfilled his promise of showing us through the ship, and Hephzy and I,
+descending greasy iron stairways and twisting through narrow passages,
+saw great rooms full of mighty machinery, and a cavern where perspiring,
+grimy men, looking but half-human in the red light from the furnace
+mouths, toiled ceaselessly with pokers and shovels.
+
+We stood at the forward end of the promenade deck at night, looking out
+into the blackness, and heard the clang of four bells from the shadows
+at the bow, the answering clang from the crow's-nest on the foremast,
+and the weird cry of “All's well” from the lookouts. This experience
+made a great impression on us both. Hephzy expressed my feeling exactly
+when she said in a hushed whisper:
+
+“There, Hosy! for the first time I feel as if I really was on board a
+ship at sea. My father and your father and all our men-folks for ever
+so far back have heard that 'All's well'--yes, and called it, too,
+when they first went as sailors. Just think of it! Why Father was only
+sixteen when he shipped; just a boy, that's all. I've heard him say
+'All's well' over and over again; 'twas a kind of byword with him. This
+whole thing seems like somethin' callin' to me out of the past and gone.
+Don't you feel it?”
+
+I felt it, as she did. The black night, the quiet, the loneliness, the
+salt spray on our faces and the wash of the waves alongside, the high
+singsong wail from lookout to lookout--it WAS a voice from the past, the
+call of generations of sea-beaten, weather-worn, brave old Cape Codders
+to their descendants, reminding the latter of a dead and gone profession
+and of thousands of fine, old ships which had plowed the ocean in the
+days when “Plutonias” were unknown.
+
+We attended the concert in the Lounge, and the ball on the promenade
+deck which followed. Mr. Heathcroft, who seemed to have made the
+acquaintance of most of the pretty girls on board, informed us in the
+intervals between a two-step and a tango, that he had been “dancing
+madly.”
+
+“You Americans are extraordinary people,” he added. “Your dances are
+as extraordinary as your food. That Mrs. Van Hook, who sits near me
+at table, was indulging in--what do you call them?--oh, yes, griddle
+cakes--this morning. Begged me to try them. I declined. Horrid things
+they were. Round, like a--like a washing-flannel, and swimming in
+treacle. Frightful!”
+
+“And that man,” commented Hephzy, “eats cold toast and strawberry
+preserves for breakfast and washes 'em down with three cups of tea. And
+he calls nice hot pancakes frightful!”
+
+At ten o'clock in the morning of the sixth day we sighted the Irish
+coast through the dripping haze which shrouded it and at four we dropped
+anchor abreast the breakwater of the little Welsh village which was to
+be our landing place. The sun was shining dimly by this time and the
+rounded hills and the mountains beyond them, the green slopes dotted
+with farms and checkered with hedges and stone walls, the gray stone
+fort with its white-washed barrack buildings, the spires and chimneys
+of the village in the hollow--all these combined to make a picture which
+was homelike and yet not like home, foreign and yet strangely familiar.
+
+We leaned over the rail and watched the trunks and boxes and bags and
+bundles shoot down the slide into the baggage and mail-boat which lay
+alongside. Hephzy was nervous.
+
+“They'll smash everything to pieces--they surely will!” she declared.
+“Either that or smash themselves, I don't know which is liable to happen
+first. Mercy on us! Did you see that? That box hit the man right in the
+back!”
+
+“It didn't hurt him,” I said, reassuringly. “It was nothing but a
+hat-box.”
+
+“Hurt HIM--no! But I guess likely it didn't do the hat much good. I
+thought baggage smashin' was an American institution, but they've got
+some experts over here. Oh, my soul and body! there goes MY trunk--end
+over end, of course. Well, I'm glad there's no eggs in it, anyway.
+Josiah Dimick always used to carry two dozen eggs to his daughter-in-law
+every time he went to Boston. He had 'em in a box once and put the box
+on the seat alongside of him and a big fat woman came and sat--Oh! that
+was your trunk, Hosy! Did you hear it hit? I expect every one of those
+'English Poets' went from top to bottom then, right through all your
+clothes. Never mind, I suppose it's all part of travelin'.”
+
+Mr. Heathcroft, looking more English than ever in his natty top coat,
+and hat at the back of his head, sauntered up. He was, for him, almost
+enthusiastic.
+
+“Looking at the water, were you?” he queried. “Glorious color, isn't it.
+One never sees a sea like that or a sky like that anywhere but here at
+home.”
+
+Hephzy looked at the sea and sky. It was plain that she wished to
+admire, for his sake, but her admiration was qualified.
+
+“Don't you think if they were a little brighter and bluer they'd be
+prettier?” she asked.
+
+Heathcroft stared at her through his monocle.
+
+“Bluer?” he repeated. “My dear woman, there are no skies as blue as the
+English skies. They are quite celebrated--really.”
+
+He sauntered on again, evidently disgusted at our lack of appreciation.
+
+“He must be color-blind,” I observed. Hephzy was more charitable.
+
+“I guess likely everybody's home things are best,” she said. “I suppose
+this green-streaked water and those gray clouds do look bright and blue
+to him. We must make allowances, Hosy. He never saw an August mornin' at
+Bayport, with a northwest wind blowin' and the bay white and blue to the
+edge of all creation. That's been denied him. He means well, poor thing;
+he don't know any better.”
+
+An hour later we landed from the passenger tender at a stone pier
+covered with substantial stone buildings. Uniformed custom officers and
+uniformed policemen stood in line as we came up the gang-plank. Behind
+them, funny little locomotives attached to queer cars which appeared to
+be all doors, puffed and panted.
+
+Hephzibah looked about her.
+
+“Yes,” she said, with conviction. “I'm believin' it more and more all
+the time. It is England, just like the pictures. How many times I've
+seen engines like that in pictures, and cars like that, too. I never
+thought I'd ride in 'em. My goodness me? Hephzibah Jane Cahoon, you're
+in England--YOU are! You needn't be afraid to turn over for fear of
+wakin' up, either. You're awake and alive and in England! Hosy,” with a
+sudden burst of exuberance, “hold on to me tight. I'm just as likely to
+wave my hat and hurrah as I am to do anything. Hold on to me--tight.”
+
+We got through the perfunctory customs examination without trouble. Our
+tickets provided by Campbell, included those for the railway journey to
+London. I secured a first-class compartment at the booking-office and
+a guard conducted us to it and closed the door. Another short delay and
+then, with a whistle as queer and unfamiliar as its own appearance, the
+little locomotive began to pull our train out of the station.
+
+Hephzy leaned back against the cushions with a sigh of supreme content.
+
+“And now,” said I, “for London. London! think of it, Hephzy!”
+
+Hephzy shook her head.
+
+“I'm thinkin' of it,” she said. “London--the biggest city in the world!
+Who knows, Hosy? France is such a little ways off; probably Little Frank
+has been to London a hundred times. He may even be there now. Who knows?
+I shouldn't be surprised if we met him right in London. I sha'n't be
+surprised at anything anymore. I'm in England and on my way to London;
+that's surprise enough. NOTHIN' could be more wonderful than that.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+In Which We Are Received at Bancroft's Hotel and I Receive a Letter
+
+
+It was late when we reached London, nearly eleven o'clock. The long
+train journey was a delight. During the few hours of daylight and dusk
+we peered through the car windows at the scenery flying past; at the
+villages, the green fields, the hedges, the neat, trim farms.
+
+“Everything looks as if it has been swept and dusted,” declared Hephzy.
+“There aren't any waste places at all. What do they do with their spare
+land?”
+
+“They haven't any,” I answered. “Land is too valuable to waste. There's
+another thatched roof. It looks like those in the pictures, doesn't it.”
+
+Hephzy nodded. “Just exactly,” she said. “Everything looks like the
+pictures. I feel as if I'd seen it all before. If that engine didn't
+toot so much like a tin whistle I should almost think it was a picture.
+But it isn't--it isn't; it's real, and you and I are part of it.”
+
+We dined on the train. Night came and our window-pictures changed
+to glimpses of flashing lights interspersed with shadowy blotches of
+darkness. At length the lights became more and more frequent and began
+to string out in long lines marking suburban streets. Then the little
+locomotive tooted its tin whistle frantically and we rolled slowly under
+a great train shed--Paddington Station and London itself.
+
+Amid the crowd on the platform Hephzy and I stood, two lone wanderers
+not exactly sure what we should do next. About us the busy crowd jostled
+and pushed. Relatives met relatives and fathers and mothers met sons and
+daughters returning home after long separations. No one met us, no
+one was interested in us at all, except the porters and the cabmen.
+I selected a red-faced chunky porter who was a decidedly able person,
+apparently capable of managing anything except the letter h. The
+acrobatics which he performed with that defenceless consonant were
+marvelous. I have said that I selected him; that he selected me would be
+nearer the truth.
+
+“Cab, sir. Yes, sir, thank you, sir,” he said. “Leave that to me, sir.
+Will you 'ave a fourwheeler or a hordinary cab, sir?”
+
+I wasn't exactly certain what a fourwheeler might be. I had read about
+them often enough, but I had never seen one pictured and properly
+labeled. For the matter of that, all the vehicles in sight appeared to
+have four wheels. So I said, at a venture, that I thought an ordinary
+cab would do.
+
+“Yes, sir; 'ere you are, sir. Your boxes are in the luggage van, I
+suppose, sir.”
+
+I took it for granted he meant my trunks and those were in what I, in my
+ignorance, would have called a baggage car:
+
+“Yes, sir,” said the porter. “If the lidy will be good enough to wait
+'ere, sir, you and I will go hafter the boxes, sir.”
+
+Cautioning Hephzy not to stir from her moorings on any account I
+followed my guide to the “luggage van.” This crowded car disgorged
+our two steamer trunks and, my particular porter having corraled a
+fellow-craftsman to help him, the trunks were dragged to the waiting
+cab.
+
+I found Hephzy waiting, outwardly calm, but inwardly excited.
+
+“I saw one at last,” she declared. “I'd about come to believe there
+wasn't such a thing, but there is; I just saw one.”
+
+“One--what?” I asked, puzzled.
+
+“An Englishman with side-whiskers. They wasn't as big and long as those
+in the pictures, but they were side-whiskers. I feel better. When you've
+been brought up to believe every Englishman wore 'em, it was kind of
+humiliatin' not to see one single set.”
+
+I paid my porters--I learned afterward that, like most Americans, I had
+given them altogether too much--and we climbed into the cab with our
+bags. The “boxes,” or trunks, were on the driver's seat and on the roof.
+
+“Where to, sir?” asked the driver.
+
+I hesitated. Even at this late date I had not made up my mind exactly
+“where to.” My decision was a hasty one.
+
+“Why--er--to--to Bancroft's Hotel,” I said. “Blithe Street, just off
+Piccadilly.”
+
+I think the driver was somewhat astonished. Very few of his American
+passengers selected Bancroft's as a stopping place, I imagine. However,
+his answer was prompt.
+
+“Yes, sir, thank you, sir,” he said. The cab rolled out of the station.
+
+“I suppose,” said Hephzy, reflectively, “if you had told him or that
+porter man that they were everlastin' idiots they'd have thanked you
+just the same and called you 'sir' four times besides.”
+
+“No doubt they would.”
+
+“Yes, sir, I'm perfectly sure they would--thank you, sir. So this is
+London. It doesn't look such an awful lot different from Boston or New
+York so far.”
+
+But Bancroft's, when we reached it, was as unlike a Boston or New
+York hotel as anything could be. A short, quiet, eminently respectable
+street, leading from Piccadilly; a street fenced in, on both sides, by
+three-story, solid, eminently respectable houses of brick and stone. No
+signs, no street cars, no crowds, no glaring lights. Merely a gas
+lamp burning over the fanlight of a spotless white door, and the words
+“Bancroft's Hotel” in mosaic lettering set in a white stone slab in the
+pavement.
+
+The cab pulled up before the white door and Hephzy and I looked out of
+the window. The same thought was in both our minds.
+
+“This can't be the place,” said I.
+
+“This isn't a hotel, is it, Hosy?” asked Hephzy.
+
+The white door opened and a brisk, red-cheeked English boy in uniform
+hastened to the cab. Before he reached it I had seen the lettering in
+the pavement and knew that, in spite of appearances, we had reached our
+destination.
+
+“This is it, Hephzy,” I said. “Come.”
+
+The boy opened the cab door and we alighted. Then in the doorway of
+“Bancroft's” appeared a stout, red-faced and very dignified person, also
+in uniform. This person wore short “mutton-chop” whiskers and had the
+air of a member of the Royal Family; that is to say, the air which a
+member of the Royal Family might be expected to have.
+
+“Good evening, sir,” said the personage, bowing respectfully. The bow
+was a triumph in itself; not too low, not abject in the least, not
+familiar; a bow which implied much, but promised nothing; a bow which
+seemed to demand references, but was far from repellant or bullying.
+Altogether a wonderful bow.
+
+“Good evening,” said I. “This is Bancroft's Hotel, is it not?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“I wish to secure rooms for this lady and myself, if possible.”
+
+“Yes, sir. This way, sir, if you please. Richard,” this to the boy and
+in a tone entirely different--the tone of a commanding officer to a
+private--“see to the gentleman's luggage. This way, sir; thank you,
+sir.”
+
+I hesitated. “The cabman has not been paid,” I stammered. I was a trifle
+overawed by the grandeur of the mutton-chops and the “sir.”
+
+“I will attend to that, sir. If you will be good enough to come in,
+sir.”
+
+We entered and found ourselves in a narrow hall, old-fashioned, homelike
+and as spotless as the white door. Two more uniforms bowed before us.
+
+“Thank you, sir,” said the member of the Royal Family. It was with
+difficulty that I repressed the desire to tell him he was quite welcome.
+His manner of thanking me seemed to imply that we had conferred a favor.
+
+“I will speak to Mr. Jameson,” he went on, with another bow. Then he
+left us.
+
+“Is--is that Mr. Bancroft?” whispered Hephzy.
+
+I shook my head. “It must be the Prince of Wales, at least,” I whispered
+in return. “I infer that there is no Mr. Bancroft.”
+
+It developed that I was right. Mr. Jameson was the proprietor of the
+hotel, and Mr. Jameson was a pleasant, refined, quiet man of middle age.
+He appeared from somewhere or other, ascertained our wants, stated that
+he had a few vacant rooms and could accommodate us.
+
+“Do you wish a sitting-room?” he asked.
+
+I was not sure. I wanted comfort, that I knew, and I said so. I
+mentioned, as an afterthought, that Mr. Heathcroft had recommended
+Bancroft's to me.
+
+The Heathcroft name seemed to settle everything. Mr. Jameson summoned
+the representative of royalty and spoke to him in a low tone. The
+representative--his name, I learned later, was Henry and he was butler
+and major-domo at Bancroft's--bowed once more. A few minutes later we
+were shown to an apartment on the second floor front, a room large,
+old-fashioned, furnished with easy-chairs, tables and a big, comfortable
+sofa. Sofa and easy-chairs were covered with figured, glazed chintz.
+
+“Your sitting-room, sir,” said Henry. “Your bedrooms open hoff it, sir.
+The chambermaid will 'ave them ready in a moment, sir. Richard and the
+porter will bring up your luggage and the boxes. Will you and the lady
+wish supper, sir? Thank you, sir. Very good, sir. Will you require a
+fire, sir?”
+
+The room was a trifle chilly. There was a small iron grate at its
+end, and a coal fire ready to kindle. I answered that a fire might be
+enjoyable.
+
+“Yes, sir,” said Henry. “Himmediately, sir.”
+
+Soon Hephzy and I were drinking hot tea and eating bread and butter and
+plum cake before a snapping fire. George, the waiter, had brought us the
+tea and accessories and set the table; the chambermaid had prepared the
+bedrooms; Henry had supervised everything.
+
+“Well,” observed Hephzy, with a sigh of content, “I feel better
+satisfied every minute. When we were in the hack--cab, I mean--I
+couldn't realize we weren't ridin' through an American city. The houses
+and sidewalks and everything--what I could see of 'em--looked so much
+like Boston that I was sort of disappointed. I wanted it to be more
+different, some way. But this IS different. This may be a hotel--I
+suppose likely 'tis--but it don't seem like one, does it? If it wasn't
+for the Henry and that Richard and that--what's his name? George--and
+all the rest, I should think I was in Cap'n Cyrus Whittaker's
+settin-room back home. The furniture looks like Cap'n Cy's and the
+pictures look like those he has, and--and everything looks as stiff and
+starched and old-fashioned as can be. But the Cap'n never had a Henry.
+No, sirree, Henry don't belong on Cape Cod! Hosy,” with a sudden burst
+of confidence, “it's a good thing I saw that Lord Erskine first. If I
+hadn't found out what a live lord looked like I'd have thought Henry
+was one sure. Do you really think it's right for me to call him by his
+Christian name? It seems sort of--sort of irreverent, somehow.”
+
+I wish it were possible for me to describe in detail our first days at
+Bancroft's. If it were not for the fact that so many really important
+events and happenings remain to be described--if it were not that the
+most momentous event of my life, the event that was the beginning of the
+great change in that life--if that event were not so close at hand, I
+should be tempted to linger upon those first few days. They were strange
+and wonderful and funny to Hephzibah and me. The strangeness and the
+wonder wore off gradually; the fun still sticks in my memory.
+
+To have one's bedroom invaded at an early hour by a chambermaid who,
+apparently quite oblivious of the fact that the bed was still occupied
+by a male, proceeded to draw the curtains, bring the hot water and fill
+the tin tub for my bath, was astonishing and funny enough, Hephzibah's
+comments on the proceeding were funnier still.
+
+“Do you mean to tell me,” she demanded, “that that hussy was brazen
+enough to march right in here before you got up?”
+
+“Yes,” I said. “I am only thankful that I HADN'T got up.”
+
+“Well! I must say! Did she fetch the water in a garden waterin'-pot,
+same as she did to me?”
+
+“Just the same.”
+
+“And did she pour it into that--that flat dishpan on the floor and tell
+you your 'bawth' was ready?”
+
+“She did.”
+
+“Humph! Of all the--I hope she cleared out THEN?”
+
+“She did.”
+
+“That's a mercy, anyhow. Did you take a bath in that dishpan?”
+
+“I tried.”
+
+“Well, I didn't. I'd as soon try to bathe in a saucer. I'd have felt as
+if I'd needed a teaspoon to dip up the half pint of water and pour
+it over me. Don't these English folks have real bathtubs for grown-up
+people?”
+
+I did not know, then. Later I learned that Bancroft's Hotel possessed
+several bathrooms, and that I might use one if I preferred. Being an
+American I did so prefer. Most of the guests, being English, preferred
+the “dishpans.”
+
+We learned to accept the early morning visits of the chambermaid as
+matters of course. We learned to order breakfast the night before and
+to eat it in our sitting-room. We tasted a “grilled sole” for the
+first time, and although Hephzy persisted in referring to it as “fried
+flatfish” we liked the taste. We became accustomed to being waited upon,
+to do next to nothing for ourselves, and I found that a valet who
+laid out my evening clothes, put the studs in my shirts, selected my
+neckties, and saw that my shoes were polished, was a rather convenient
+person to have about. Hephzy fumed a good deal at first; she declared
+that she felt ashamed, an able-bodied woman like her, to sit around
+with her hands folded and do nothing. She asked her maid a great many
+questions, and the answers she received explained some of her puzzles.
+
+“Do you know what that poor thing gets a week?” she observed, referring
+to the maid. “Eight shillin's--two dollars a week, that's what she gets.
+And your valet man doesn't get any more. I can see now how Mr. Jameson
+can afford to keep so much help at the board he charges. I pay that
+Susanna Wixon thing at Bayport three dollars and she doesn't know enough
+to boil water without burnin' it on, scarcely. And Peters--why in the
+world do they call women by their last names?--Peters, she's the maid,
+says it's a real nice place and she's quite satisfied. Well, where
+ignorance is bliss it's foolish to be sensible, I suppose; but _I_
+wouldn't fetch and carry for the President's wife, to say nothin' of an
+everyday body like me, for two dollars a week.”
+
+We learned that the hotel dining-room was a “Coffee Room.”
+
+“Nobody with sense would take coffee there--not more'n once, they
+wouldn't,” declared Hephzy. “I asked Peters why they didn't call it the
+'Tea Room' and be done with it. She said because it was the Coffee Room.
+I suppose likely that was an answer, but I felt a good deal as if I'd
+come out of the same hole I went in at. She thanked me for askin' her,
+though; she never forgets that.”
+
+We became accustomed to addressing the lordly Henry by his Christian
+name and found him a most obliging person. He, like everyone else,
+had instantly recognized us as Americans, and, consequently, was
+condescendingly kind to strangers from a distant and barbarous country.
+
+“What SORT of place do they think the States are?” asked Hephzy. “That's
+what they always call home--'the States'--and they seem to think it's
+about as big as a pocket handkerchief. That Henry asked me if the red
+Indians were numerous where we lived. I said no--as soon as I could say
+anything; I told him there was only one tribe of Red Men in town and
+they were white. I guess he thought I was crazy, but it don't make any
+difference. And Peters said she had a cousin in a place called Chicago
+and did I know him. What do you think of that?”
+
+“What did you tell her?” I inquired.
+
+“Hey? Oh, I told her that, bein' as Chicago was a thousand miles from
+Bayport, I hadn't had time to do much visitin' there. I told her the
+truth, but she didn't believe it. I could see she didn't. She thinks
+Chicago and San Francisco and New York and Boston are nests of wigwams
+in the same patch of woods and all hands that live there have been
+scalped at least once. SUCH ignorance!”
+
+Henry, at my request, procured seats for us at one of the London
+theaters. There we saw a good play, splendidly acted, and Hephzy laughed
+and wept at the performance. As usual, however, she had a characteristic
+comment to make.
+
+“Why do they call the front seats the 'stalls'?” she whispered to me
+between the acts. “Stalls! The idea! I'm no horse. Perhaps they call 'em
+that because folks are donkeys enough to pay two dollars and a half
+for the privilege of sittin' in 'em. Don't YOU be so extravagant again,
+Hosy.”
+
+One of the characters in the play was supposed to be an American
+gentleman, and his behavior and dress and speech stirred me to
+indignation. I asked the question which every American asks under
+similar circumstances.
+
+“Why on earth,” I demanded, “do they permit that fellow to make such
+a fool of himself? He yells and drawls and whines through his nose and
+wears clothes which would make an American cry. That last scene was
+supposed to be a reception and he wore an outing suit and no waistcoat.
+Do they suppose such a fellow would be tolerated in respectable society
+in the United States?”
+
+And now it was Hephzy's turn to be philosophical.
+
+“I guess likely the answer to that is simple enough,” she said. “He's
+what they think an American ought to be, even if he isn't. If he behaved
+like a human bein' he wouldn't be the kind of American they expect on
+the stage. After all, he isn't any worse than the Englishmen we have in
+the Dramatic Society's plays at home. I haven't seen one of that kind
+since I got here; and I've given up expectin' to--unless you and I go to
+some crazy asylum--which isn't likely.”
+
+We rode on the tops of busses, we visited the Tower, and Westminster
+Abbey, and Saint Paul's. We saw the Horse Guard sentinels on duty in
+Whitehall, and watched the ceremony of guard changing at St. James's.
+Hephzy was impressed, in her own way, by the uniforms of the “Cold
+Streams.”
+
+“There!” she exclaimed, “I've seen 'em walk. Now I feel better. When
+they stood there, with those red jackets and with the fur hats on their
+heads, I couldn't make myself believe they hadn't been taken out of a
+box for children to play with. I wanted to get up close so as to see if
+their feet were glued to round pieces of wood like Noah's and Ham's and
+Japhet's in the Ark. But they aren't wood, they're alive. They're men,
+not toys. I'm glad I've seen 'em. THEY are satisfyin'. They make me more
+reconciled to a King with a Derby hat on.”
+
+She and I had stood in the crowd fringing the park mall and seen King
+George trot by on horseback. His Majesty's lack of crown and robes and
+scepter had been a great disappointment to Hephzy; I think she expected
+the crown at least.
+
+I had, of course, visited the London office of my publishers, in Camford
+Street and had found Mr. Matthews, the manager, expecting me. Jim
+Campbell had cabled and written of my coming and Matthews' welcome was a
+warm one. He was kindness itself. All my financial responsibilities were
+to be shifted to his shoulders. I was to use the office as a bank, as a
+tourist agency, even as a guide's headquarters. He put his clerks at my
+disposal; they would conduct us on sight-seeing expeditions whenever
+and wherever we wished. He even made out a list of places in and about
+London which we, as strangers, should see.
+
+His cordiality and thoughtfulness were appreciated. They made me feel
+less alone and less dependent upon my own resources. Campbell had
+arranged that all letters addressed to me in America should be forwarded
+to the Camford Street office, and Matthews insisted that I should write
+my own letters there. I began to make it a practice to drop in at
+the office almost every morning before starting on the day's round of
+sight-seeing.
+
+Bancroft's Hotel also began to seem less strange and more homelike.
+Mr. Jameson, the proprietor, was a fine fellow--quiet, refined, and
+pleasant. He, too, tried to help us in every possible way. His wife, a
+sweet-faced Englishwoman, made Hephzy's acquaintance and Hephzy liked
+her extremely.
+
+“She's as nice as she can be,” declared Hephzy. “If it wasn't that she
+says 'Fancy!' and 'Really!' instead of 'My gracious!' and 'I want to
+know!' I should think I was talking to a Cape Codder, the best kind
+of one. She's got sense, too. SHE don't ask about 'red Indians' in
+Bayport.”
+
+Among the multitude of our new experiences we learned the value of
+a judicious “tip.” We had learned something concerning tips on the
+“Plutonia”; Campbell had coached us concerning those, and we were
+provided with a schedule of rates--so much to the bedroom steward, so
+much to the stewardess, to the deck steward, to the “boots,” and all the
+rest. But tipping in London we were obliged to adjust for ourselves, and
+the result of our education was surprising.
+
+At Saint Paul's an elderly and impressively haughty person in a black
+robe showed us through the Crypt and delivered learned lectures before
+the tombs of Nelson and Wellington. His appearance and manner were
+somewhat awe-inspiring, especially to Hephzy, who asked me, in a
+whisper, if I thought likely he was a bishop or a canon or something.
+When the round was ended and we were leaving the Crypt she saw me put a
+hand in my pocket.
+
+“Mercy sakes, Hosy,” she whispered. “You aren't goin' to offer him
+money, are you? He'll be insulted. I'd as soon think of givin' Mr.
+Partridge, our minister, money for takin' us to the cemetery to see the
+first settlers' gravestones. Don't you do it. He'll throw it back at
+you. I'll be so ashamed.”
+
+But I had been watching our fellow-sight-seers as they filed out,
+and when our time came I dropped two shillings in the hand of the
+black-robed dignitary. The hand did not spurn the coins, which I--rather
+timidly, I confess--dropped into it. Instead it closed upon them tightly
+and the haughty lips thanked me, not profusely, not even smilingly, but
+thanked me, nevertheless.
+
+At our visit to the Law Courts a similar experience awaited us. Another
+dignified and elderly person, who, judging by his appearance, should
+have been a judge at least, not only accepted the shilling I gave him,
+but bowed, smiled and offered to conduct us to the divorce court.
+
+“A very interesting case there, sir, just now,” he murmured,
+confidingly. “Very interesting and sensational indeed, sir. You and the
+lady will enjoy it, I'm sure, sir. All Americans do.”
+
+Hephzy was indignant.
+
+“Well!” she exclaimed, as we emerged upon the Strand. “Well! I must say!
+What sort of folks does he think we are, I'd like to know. Divorce
+case! I'd be ashamed to hear one. And that old man bein' so wicked and
+ridiculous for twenty-five cents! Hosy, I do believe if you'd given him
+another shillin' he'd have introduced us to that man in the red robe and
+cotton wool wig--What did he call him?--Oh, yes, the Lord Chief Justice.
+And I suppose you'd have had to tip HIM, too.”
+
+The first two weeks of our stay in London came to an end. Our plans were
+still as indefinite as ever. How long we should stay, where we should go
+next, what we should do when we decided where that “next” was to be--all
+these questions we had not considered at all. I, for my part, was
+curiously uninterested in the future. I was enjoying myself in an idle,
+irresponsible way, and I could not seem to concentrate my thoughts upon
+a definite course of action. If I did permit myself to think I found my
+thoughts straying to my work and there they faced the same impassable
+wall. I felt no inclination to write; I was just as certain as ever that
+I should never write again. Thinking along this line only brought back
+the old feeling of despondency. So I refused to think and, taking Jim's
+advice, put work and responsibility from my mind. We would remain in
+London as long as we were contented there. When the spirit moved we
+would move with it--somewhere--either about England or to the Continent.
+I did not know which and I did not care; I did not seem to care much
+about anything.
+
+Hephzy was perfectly happy. London to her was as wonderful as ever. She
+never tired of sight-seeing, and on occasions when I felt disinclined
+to leave the hotel she went out alone, shopping or wandering about the
+streets.
+
+She scarcely mentioned “Little Frank” and I took care not to remind her
+of that mythical youth. I had expected her to see him on every street
+corner, to be brought face to face with unsuspecting young Englishmen
+and made to ask ridiculous questions which might lead to our being taken
+in charge as a pair of demented foreigners. But my forebodings were not
+realized. London was so huge and the crowds so great that even Hephzy's
+courage faltered. To select Little Frank from the multitude was a task
+too great, even for her, I imagine. At any rate, she did not make the
+attempt, and the belief that we were “sent” upon our pilgrimage for that
+express purpose she had not expressed since our evening on the train.
+
+The third week passed. I was growing tired of trotting about. Not tired
+of London in particular. The gray, dingy, historic, wonderful old city
+was still fascinating. It is hard to conceive of an intelligent person's
+ever growing weary of the narrow streets with the familiar names--Fleet
+Street, Fetter Lane, Pudding Lane and all the rest--names as familiar
+to a reader of history or English fiction as that of his own town. To
+wander into an unknown street and to learn that it is Shoreditch, or to
+look up at an ancient building and discover it to be the Charterhouse,
+were ever fresh miracles to me, as I am sure they must be to every
+book-loving American. No, I was not tired of London. Had I come there
+under other circumstances I should have been as happy and content
+as Hephzy herself. But, now that the novelty was wearing off, I was
+beginning to think again, to think of myself--the very thing I had
+determined, and still meant, not to do.
+
+One afternoon I drifted into the Camford Street office. Hephzy had left
+me at Piccadilly Circus and was now, it was safe to presume, enjoying a
+delightful sojourn amid the shops of Regent and Oxford Streets. When she
+returned she would have a half-dozen purchases to display, a two-and-six
+glove bargain from Robinson's, a bit of lace from Selfridge's, a
+knick-knack from Liberty's--“All so MUCH cheaper than you can get 'em in
+Boston, Hosy.” She would have had a glorious time.
+
+Matthews, the manager at Camford Street, was out, but Holton, the head
+clerk--I was learning to speak of him as a “clark”--was in.
+
+“There are some American letters for you, sir,” he said. “I was about to
+send them to your hotel.”
+
+He gave me the letters--four of them altogether--and I went into the
+private office to look them over. My first batch of mail from home;
+it gave me a small thrill to see two-cent stamps in the corners of the
+envelopes.
+
+One of the letters was from Campbell. I opened it first of all. Jim
+wrote a rambling, good-humored letter, a mixture of business, news,
+advice and nonsense. “The Black Brig” had gone into another edition.
+Considering my opinion of such “slush” I should be ashamed to accept
+the royalties, but he would continue to give my account credit for them
+until I cabled to the contrary. He trusted we were behaving ourselves in
+a manner which would reflect credit upon our country. I was to be sure
+not to let Hephzy marry a title. And so on, for six pages. The letter
+was almost like a chat with Jim himself, and I read it with chuckles and
+a pang of homesickness.
+
+One of the envelopes bore Hephzy's name and I, of course, did not
+open it. It was postmarked “Bayport” and I thought I recognized the
+handwriting as Susanna Wixon's. The third letter turned out to be not
+a letter at all, but a bill from Sylvanus Cahoon, who took care of our
+“lots” in the Bayport cemetery. It had been my intention to pay all
+bills before leaving home, but, somehow or other, Sylvanus's had been
+overlooked. I must send him a check at once.
+
+The fourth and last envelope was stained and crumpled. It had traveled
+a long way. To my surprise I noticed that the stamp in the corner was
+English and the postmark “London.” The address, moreover, was “Captain
+Barnabas Cahoon, Bayport, Massachusetts, U. S. A.” The letter had
+obviously been mailed in London, had journeyed to Bayport, from there
+to New York, and had then been forwarded to London again. Someone,
+presumably Simmons, the postmaster, had written “Care Hosea Knowles”
+ and my publisher's New York address in the lower corner. This had been
+scratched out and “28 Camford Street, London, England,” added.
+
+I looked at the envelope. Who in the world, or in England, could have
+written Captain Barnabas--Captain Barnabas Cahoon, my great-uncle, dead
+so many years? At first I was inclined to hand the letter, unopened, to
+Hephzy. She was Captain Barnabas's daughter and it belonged to her
+by right. But I knew Hephzy had no secrets from me and, besides,
+my curiosity was great. At length I yielded to it and tore open the
+envelope.
+
+Inside was a sheet of thin foreign paper, both sides covered with
+writing. I read the first line.
+
+
+“Captain Barnabas Cahoon.
+
+“Sir:
+
+“You are my nearest relative, my mother's father, and I--”
+
+“I uttered an exclamation. Then I stepped to the door of the private
+office, made sure that it was shut, came back, sat down in the chair
+before the desk which Mr. Matthews had put at my disposal, and read the
+letter from beginning to end. This is what I read:
+
+
+“Captain Barnabas Cahoon.
+
+“Sir:
+
+“You are my nearest relative, my mother's father, and I, therefore,
+address this letter to you. I know little concerning you. I do not know
+even that you are still living in Bayport, or that you are living at
+all. (N.B. In case Captain Cahoon is not living this letter is to be
+read and acted upon by his heirs, upon whose estate I have an equal
+claim.) My mother, Ardelia Cahoon Morley, died in Liverpool in 1896. My
+father, Strickland Morley, died in Paris in December, 1908. I, as their
+only child, am their heir, and I am writing to you asking what I might
+demand--that is, a portion of the money which was my mother's and which
+you kept from her and from my father all these years. My father told me
+the whole story before he died, and he also told me that he had written
+you several times, but that his letters had been ignored. My father was
+an English gentleman and he was proud; that is why he did not take legal
+steps against you for the recovery of what was his by law in England
+OR ANY CIVILISED COUNTRY, one may presume. He would not STOOP to
+such measures even against those who, as you know well, so meanly and
+fraudulently deprived him and his of their inheritance. He is dead
+now. He died lacking the comforts and luxuries with which you might
+and SHOULD have provided him. His forbearance was wonderful and
+characteristic, but had I known of it sooner I should have insisted
+upon demanding from you the money which was his. I am now demanding it
+myself. Not BEGGING; that I wish THOROUGHLY understood. I am giving you
+the opportunity to make a partial restitution, that is all. It is what
+he would have wished, and his wish ALONE prevents my putting the whole
+matter in my solicitor's hands. If I do not hear from you within a
+reasonable time I shall know what to do. You may address me care Mrs.
+Briggs, 218 ---- Street, London, England.
+
+“Awaiting your reply, I am, sir,
+
+“Yours,
+
+“FRANCIS STRICKLAND MORLEY.
+
+“P. S.
+
+“I am not to be considered under ANY circumstances a subject for
+charity. I am NOT begging. You, I am given to understand, are a wealthy
+man. I demand my share of that wealth--that is all.”
+
+
+I read this amazing epistle through once. Then, after rising and walking
+about the office to make sure that I was thoroughly awake, I sat down
+and read it again. There was no mistake. I had read it correctly. The
+writing was somewhat illegible in spots and the signature was blotted,
+but it was from Francis Strickland Morley. From “Little Frank!” I think
+my first and greatest sensation was of tremendous surprise that there
+really was a “Little Frank.” Hephzy had been right. Once more I should
+have to take off my hat to Hephzy.
+
+The surprise remained, but other sensations came to keep it company. The
+extraordinary fact of the letter's reaching me when and where it did,
+in London, the city from which it was written and where, doubtless, the
+writer still was. If I chose I might, perhaps, that very afternoon, meet
+and talk with Ardelia Cahoon's son, with “Little Frank” himself. I could
+scarcely realize it. Hephzy had declared that our coming to London was
+the result of a special dispensation--we had been “sent” there. In the
+face of this miracle I was not disposed to contradict her.
+
+The letter itself was more extraordinary than all else. It was that of
+a young person, of a hot-headed boy. But WHAT a boy he must be! What an
+unlicked, impudent, arrogant young cub! The boyishness was evident in
+every line, in the underscored words, the pitiful attempt at dignity and
+the silly veiled threats. He was so insistent upon the statement that he
+was not a beggar. And yet he could write a begging letter like this. He
+did not ask for charity, not he, he demanded it. Demanded it--he, the
+son of a thief, demanded, from those whom his father had robbed, his
+“rights.” He should have his rights; I would see to that.
+
+I was angry enough but, as I read the letter for the third time, the
+pitifulness of it became more apparent. I imagined Francis Strickland
+Morley to be the replica of the Strickland Morley whom I remembered, the
+useless, incompetent, inadequate son of a good-for-nothing father. No
+doubt the father was responsible for such a letter as this having been
+written. Doubtless he HAD told the boy all sorts of tales; perhaps he
+HAD declared himself to be the defrauded instead of the defrauder; he
+was quite capable of it. Possibly the youngster did believe he had a
+claim upon the wealthy relatives in that “uncivilized” country, America.
+The wealthy relatives! I thought of Captain Barnabas's last years, of
+Hephzibah's plucky fight against poverty, of my own lost opportunities,
+of the college course which I had been obliged to forego. My indignation
+returned. I would not go back at once to Hephzy with the letter. I
+would, myself, seek out the writer of that letter, and, if I found him,
+he and I would have a heart to heart talk which should disabuse his mind
+of a few illusions. We would have a full and complete understanding.
+
+I hastily made a memorandum of the address, “Care Mrs. Briggs,” thrust
+the letter back into the envelope, put it and my other mail into my
+pocket, and walked out into the main office. Holton, the clerk, looked
+up from his desk. Probably my feelings showed in my face, for he said:
+
+“What is it, Mr. Knowles? No bad news, I trust, sir.”
+
+“No,” I answered, shortly. “Where is ---- Street? Is it far from here?”
+
+It was rather far from there, in Camberwell, on the Surrey side of the
+river. I might take a bus at such a corner and change again at so and
+so. It sounded like a journey and I was impatient. I suggested that I
+might take a cab. Certainly I could do that. William, the boy, would
+call a cab at once.
+
+William did so and I gave the driver the address from my memoranda.
+Through the Strand I was whirled, across Blackfriars Bridge and on
+through the intricate web of avenues and streets on the Surrey side. The
+locality did not impress me favorably. There was an abundance of “pubs”
+ and of fried-fish shops where “jellied eels” seemed to be a viand much
+in demand.
+
+---- Street, when I reached it, was dingy and third rate. Three-storied
+old brick houses, with shops on their first floors, predominated. Number
+218 was one of these. The signs “Lodgings” over the tarnished bell-pull
+and the name “Briggs” on the plate beside it proved that I had located
+the house from which the letter had been sent.
+
+I paid my cabman, dismissed him, and rang the bell. A slouchy
+maid-servant answered the ring.
+
+“Is Mr. Francis Morley in?” I asked.
+
+The maid looked at me.
+
+“Wat, sir?” she said.
+
+“Does Mr. Francis Morley live here?” I asked, raising my voice. “Is he
+in?”
+
+The maid's face was as wooden as the door-post. Her mouth, already open,
+opened still wider and she continued to stare. A step sounded in the
+dark hall behind her and another voice said, sharply:
+
+“'Oo is it, 'Arriet? And w'at does 'e want?”
+
+The maid grinned. “'E wants to see MISTER Morley, ma'am,” she said, with
+a giggle.
+
+She was pushed aside and a red-faced woman, with thin lips and scowl,
+took her place.
+
+“'OO do you want to see?” she demanded.
+
+“Francis Morley. Does he live here?”
+
+“'OO?”
+
+“Francis Morley.” My answer was sharp enough this time. I began to think
+I had invaded a colony of imbeciles--or owls; their conversation seemed
+limited to “oos.”
+
+“W'at do you want to see--to see Morley for?” demanded the red-faced
+female.
+
+“On business. Is Mrs. Briggs in?”
+
+“I'm Mrs. Briggs.”
+
+“Good! I'm glad of that. Now will you tell me if Mr. Morley is in?”
+
+“There ain't no Mr. Morley. There's a--”
+
+She was interrupted. From the hall, apparently from the top of the
+flight of stairs, another was heard, a feminine voice like the others,
+but unlike them--decidedly unlike.
+
+“Who is it, Mrs. Briggs?” said this voice. “Does the gentleman wish to
+see me?”
+
+“No, 'e don't,” declared Mrs. Briggs, with emphasis. “'E wants to see
+Mister Morley and I'm telling 'im there ain't none such.”
+
+“But are you sure he doesn't mean Miss Morley? Ask him, please.”
+
+Before the Briggs woman could reply I spoke again.
+
+“I want to see a Francis Morley,” I repeated, loudly. “I have come here
+in answer to a letter. The letter gave this as his address. If he isn't
+here, will you be good enough to tell me where he is? I--”
+
+There was another interruption, an exclamation from the darkness behind
+Mrs. Briggs and the maid.
+
+“Oh!” said the third voice, with a little catch in it. “Who is it,
+please? Who is it? What is the person's name?”
+
+Mrs. Briggs scowled at me.
+
+“Wat's your name?” she snapped.
+
+“My name is Knowles. I am an American relative of Mr. Morley's and I'm
+here in answer to a letter written by Mr. Morley himself.”
+
+There was a moment's silence. Then the third voice said:
+
+“Ask--ask him to come up. Show him up, Mrs. Briggs, if you please.”
+
+Mrs. Briggs grunted and stepped aside. I entered the hall.
+
+“First floor back,” mumbled the landlady. “Straight as you go. You won't
+need any showin'.”
+
+I mounted the stairs. The landing at the top was dark, but the door
+at the rear was ajar. I knocked. A voice, the same voice I had heard
+before, bade me come in. I entered the room.
+
+It was a dingy little room, sparely furnished, with a bed and two
+chairs, a dilapidated washstand and a battered bureau. I noticed these
+afterwards. Just then my attention was centered upon the occupant of the
+room, a young woman, scarcely more than a girl, dark-haired, dark-eyed,
+slender and graceful. She was standing by the bureau, resting one hand
+upon it, and gazing at me, with a strange expression, a curious compound
+of fright, surprise and defiance. She did not speak. I was embarrassed.
+
+“I beg your pardon,” I stammered. “I am afraid there is some mistake.
+I came here in answer to a letter written by a Francis Morley, who
+is--well, I suppose he is a distant relative of mine.”
+
+She stepped forward and closed the door by which I had entered. Then she
+turned and faced me.
+
+“You are an American,” she said.
+
+“Yes, I am an American. I--”
+
+She interrupted me.
+
+“Do you--do you come from--from Bayport, Massachusetts?” she faltered.
+
+I stared at her. “Why, yes,” I admitted. “I do come from Bayport. How in
+the world did you--”
+
+“Was the letter you speak of addressed to Captain Barnabas Cahoon?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Then--then there isn't any mistake. I wrote it.”
+
+I imagine that my mouth opened as wide as the maid's had done.
+
+“You!” I exclaimed. “Why--why--it was written by Francis Morley--Francis
+Strickland Morley.”
+
+“I am Frances Strickland Morley.”
+
+I heard this, of course, but I did not comprehend it. I had been working
+along the lines of a fixed idea. Now that idea had been knocked into a
+cocked hat, and my intellect had been knocked with it.
+
+“Why--why, no,” I repeated, stupidly. “Francis Morley is the son of
+Strickland Morley.”
+
+“There was no son,” impatiently. “I am Frances Morley, I tell you. I am
+Strickland Morley's daughter. I wrote that letter.”
+
+I sat down upon the nearest of the two chairs. I was obliged to sit.
+I could not stand and face the fact which, at least, even my benumbed
+brain was beginning to comprehend. The mistake was a simple one, merely
+the difference between an “i” and an “e” in a name, that was all.
+And yet that mistake--that slight difference between “Francis” and
+“Frances”--explained the amazing difference between the Little Frank of
+Hephzibah's fancy and the reality before me.
+
+The real Little Frank was a girl.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+In Which a Dream Becomes a Reality
+
+
+I said nothing immediately. I could not. It was “Little Frank” who
+resumed the conversation. “Who are you?” she asked.
+
+“Who--I beg your pardon? I am rather upset, I'm afraid. I didn't
+expect--that is, I expected.... Well, I didn't expect THIS! What was it
+you asked me?”
+
+“I asked you who you were.”
+
+“My name is Knowles--Kent Knowles. I am Captain Cahoon's grand-nephew.”
+
+“His grand-nephew. Then--Did Captain Cahoon send you to me?”
+
+“Send me! I beg your pardon once more. No.... No. Captain Cahoon is
+dead. He has been dead nearly ten years. No one sent me.”
+
+“Then why did you come? You have my letter; you said so.”
+
+“Yes; I--I have your letter. I received it about an hour ago. It was
+forwarded to me--to my cousin and me--here in London.”
+
+“Here in London! Then you did not come to London in answer to that
+letter?”
+
+“No. My cousin and I--”
+
+“What cousin? What is his name?”
+
+“His name? It isn't a--That is, the cousin is a woman. She is Miss
+Hephzibah Cahoon, your--your mother's half-sister. She is--Why, she is
+your aunt!”
+
+It was a fact; Hephzibah was this young lady's aunt. I don't know why
+that seemed so impossible and ridiculous, but it did. The young lady
+herself seemed to find it so.
+
+“My aunt?” she repeated. “I didn't know--But--but, why is my--my aunt
+here with you?”
+
+“We are on a pleasure trip. We--I beg your pardon. What have I been
+thinking of? Don't stand. Please sit down.”
+
+She accepted the invitation. As she walked toward the chair it seemed to
+me that she staggered a little. I noticed then for the first time, how
+very slender she was, almost emaciated. There were dark hollows beneath
+her eyes and her face was as white as the bed-linen--No, I am wrong; it
+was whiter than Mrs. Briggs' bed-linen.
+
+“Are you ill?” I asked involuntarily.
+
+She did not answer. She seated herself in the chair and fixed her dark
+eyes upon me. They were large eyes and very dark. Hephzy said, when
+she first saw them, that they looked like “burnt holes in a blanket.”
+ Perhaps they did; that simile did not occur to me.
+
+“You have read my letter?” she asked.
+
+It was evident that I must have read the letter or I should not have
+learned where to find her, but I did not call attention to this. I said
+simply that I had read the letter.
+
+“Then what do you propose?” she asked.
+
+“Propose?”
+
+“Yes,” impatiently. “What proposition do you make me? If you have read
+the letter you must know what I mean. You must have come here for the
+purpose of saying something, of making some offer. What is it?”
+
+I was speechless. I had come there to find an impudent young blackguard
+and tell him what I thought of him. That was as near a definite reason
+for my coming as any. If I had not acted upon impulse, if I had stopped
+to consider, it is quite likely that I should not have come at all. But
+the blackguard was--was--well, he was not and never had been. In his
+place was this white-faced, frail girl. I couldn't tell her what I
+thought of her. I didn't know what to think.
+
+She waited for me to answer and, as I continued to play the dumb idiot,
+her impatience grew. Her brows--very dark brown they were, almost black
+against the pallor of her face--drew together and her foot began to pat
+the faded carpet. “I am waiting,” she said.
+
+I realized that I must say something, so I said the only thing which
+occurred to me. It was a question.
+
+“Your father is dead?” I asked.
+
+She nodded. “My letter told you that,” she answered. “He died in Paris
+three years ago.”
+
+“And--and had he no relatives here in England?”
+
+She hesitated before replying. “No near relatives whom he cared to
+recognize,” she answered haughtily. “My father, Mr. Knowles was a
+gentleman and, having been most unjustly treated by his own family,
+as well as by OTHERS”--with a marked emphasis on the word--“he did not
+stoop, even in his illness and distress, to beg where he should have
+commanded.”
+
+“Oh! Oh, I see,” I said, feebly.
+
+“There is no reason why you should see. My father was the second son
+and--But this is quite irrelevant. You, an American, can scarcely be
+expected to understand English family customs. It is sufficient that,
+for reasons of his own, my father had for years been estranged from his
+own people.”
+
+The air with which this was delivered was quite overwhelming. If I had
+not known Strickland Morley, and a little of his history, I should have
+been crushed.
+
+“Then you have been quite alone since his death?” I asked.
+
+Again she hesitated. “For a time,” she said, after a moment. “I lived
+with a married cousin of his in one of the London suburbs. Then I--But
+really, Mr. Knowles, I cannot see that my private affairs need interest
+you. As I understand it, this interview of ours is quite impersonal, in
+a sense. You understand, of course--you must understand--that in writing
+as I did I was not seeking the acquaintance of my mother's relatives. I
+do not desire their friendship. I am not asking them for anything. I am
+giving them the opportunity to do justice, to give me what is my own--my
+OWN. If you don't understand this I--I--Oh, you MUST understand it!”
+
+She rose from the chair. Her eyes were flashing and she was trembling
+from head to foot. Again I realized how weak and frail she was.
+
+“You must understand,” she repeated. “You MUST!”
+
+“Yes, yes,” I said hastily. “I think I--I suppose I understand your
+feelings. But--”
+
+“There are no buts. Don't pretend there are. Do you think for one
+instant that I am begging, asking you for HELP? YOU--of all the world!”
+
+This seemed personal enough, in spite of her protestations.
+
+“But you never met me before,” I said, involuntarily.
+
+“You never knew of my existence.”
+
+She stamped her foot. “I knew of my American relatives,” she cried,
+scornfully. “I knew of them and their--Oh, I cannot say the word!”
+
+“Your father told you--” I began. She burst out at me like a flame.
+
+“My father,” she declared, “was a brave, kind, noble man. Don't mention
+his name to me. I won't have you speak of him. If it were not for his
+forbearance and self-sacrifice you--all of you--would be--would be--Oh,
+don't speak of my father! Don't!”
+
+To my amazement and utter discomfort she sank into the chair and burst
+into tears. I was completely demoralized.
+
+“Don't, Miss Morley,” I begged. “Please don't.”
+
+She continued to sob hysterically. To make matters worse sounds from
+behind the closed door led me to think that someone--presumably that
+confounded Mrs. Briggs--was listening at the keyhole.
+
+“Don't, Miss Morley,” I pleaded. “Don't!”
+
+My pleas were unavailing. The young lady sobbed and sobbed. I fidgeted
+on the edge of my chair in an agony of mortified embarrassment. “Don'ts”
+ were quite useless and I could think of nothing else to say except
+“Compose yourself” and that, somehow or other, was too ridiculously
+reminiscent of Mr. Pickwick and Mrs. Bardell. It was an idiotic
+situation for me to be in. Some men--men of experience with
+woman-kind--might have known how to handle it, but I had had no such
+experience. It was all my fault, of course; I should not have mentioned
+her father. But how was I to know that Strickland Morley was a
+persecuted saint? I should have called him everything but that.
+
+At last I had an inspiration.
+
+“You are ill,” I said, rising. “I will call someone.”
+
+That had the desired effect. My newly found third--or was it fourth or
+fifth--cousin made a move in protest. She fought down her emotion, her
+sobs ceased, and she leaned back in her chair looking paler and weaker
+than ever. I should have pitied her if she had not been so superior and
+insultingly scornful in her manner toward me. I--Well, yes, I did pity
+her, even as it was.
+
+“Don't,” she said, in her turn. “Don't call anyone. I am not ill--not
+now.”
+
+“But you have been,” I put in, I don't know why.
+
+“I have not been well for some time. But I am not ill. I am quite strong
+enough to hear what you have to say.”
+
+This might have been satisfactory if I had had anything to say. I had
+not. She evidently expected me to express repentance for something or
+other and make some sort of proposition. I was not repentant and I had
+no proposition to make. But how was I to tell her that without bringing
+on another storm? Oh, if I had had time to consider. If I had not come
+alone. If Hephzy,--cool-headed, sensible Hephzy--were only with me.
+
+“I--I--” I began. Then desperately: “I scarcely know what to say, Miss
+Morley,” I faltered. “I came here, as I told you, expecting to find
+a--a--”
+
+“What, pray?” with a haughty lift of the dark eyebrows. “What did you
+expect to find, may I ask?”
+
+“Nothing--that is, I--Well, never mind that. I came on the spur of the
+moment, immediately after receiving your letter. I have had no time to
+think, to consult my--your aunt--”
+
+“What has my--AUNT” with withering emphasis, “to do with it? Why should
+you consult her?”
+
+“Well, she is your mother's nearest relative, I suppose. She is Captain
+Cahoon's daughter and at least as much interested as I. I must consult
+her, of course. But, frankly, Miss Morley, I think I ought to tell you
+that you are under a misapprehension. There are matters which you don't
+understand.”
+
+“I understand everything. I understand only too well. What do you mean
+by a misapprehension? Do you mean--do you dare to insinuate that my
+father did not tell me the truth?”
+
+“Oh, no, no,” I interrupted. That was exactly what I did mean, but I was
+not going to let the shade of the departed Strickland appear again until
+I was out of that room and house. “I am not insinuating anything.”
+
+“I am very glad to hear it. I wish you to know that I perfectly
+understand EVERYTHING.”
+
+That seemed to settle it; at any rate it settled me for the time. I took
+up my hat.
+
+“Miss Morley,” I said, “I can't discuss this matter further just now. I
+must consult my cousin first. She and I will call upon you to-morrow at
+any hour you may name.”
+
+She was disappointed; that was plain. I thought for the moment that
+she was going to break down again. But she did not; she controlled her
+feelings and faced me firmly and pluckily.
+
+“At nine--no, at ten to-morrow, then,” she said. “I shall expect your
+final answer then.”
+
+“Very well.”
+
+“You will come? Of course; I am forgetting. You said you would.”
+
+“We will be here at ten. Here is my address.”
+
+I gave her my card, scribbling the street and number of Bancroft's in
+pencil in the corner. She took the card.
+
+“Thank you. Good afternoon,” she said.
+
+I said “Good afternoon” and opened the door. The hall outside was empty,
+but someone was descending the stairs in a great hurry. I descended
+also. At the top step I glanced once more into the room I had just left.
+Frances Strickland Morley--Little Frank--was seated in the chair, one
+hand before her eyes. Her attitude expressed complete weariness and
+utter collapse. She had said she was not sick, but she looked sick--she
+did indeed.
+
+Harriet, the slouchy maid, was not in evidence, so I opened the street
+door for myself. As I reached the sidewalk--I suppose, as this was
+England, I should call it the “pavement”--I was accosted by Mrs. Briggs.
+She was out of breath; I am quite sure she had reached that pavement but
+the moment before.
+
+“'Ow is she?” demanded Mrs. Briggs.
+
+“Who?” I asked, not too politely.
+
+“That Morley one. Is she goin' to be hill again?”
+
+“How do I know? Has she been sick--ill, I mean?”
+
+“Huh! Hill! 'Er? Now, now, sir! I give you my word she's been hill
+hever since she came 'ere. I thought one time she was goin' to die on my
+'ands. And 'oo was to pay for 'er buryin', I'd like to know? That's w'at
+it is! 'Oo's goin' to pay for 'er buryin' and the food she eats; to
+say nothin' of 'er room money, and that's been owin' me for a matter of
+three weeks?”
+
+“How should I know who is going to pay for it? She will, I suppose.”
+
+“She! W'at with? She ain't got a bob to bless 'erself with, she ain't.
+She's broke, stony broke. Honly for my kind 'eart she'd a been out on
+the street afore this. That and 'er tellin' me she was expectin' money
+from 'er rich friends in the States. You're from the States, ain't you,
+sir?”
+
+“Yes. But do you mean to tell me that Miss Morley has no money of her
+own?”
+
+“Of course I mean it. W'en she come 'ere she told me she was on the
+stage. A hopera singer, she said she was. She 'ad money then, enough to
+pay 'er way, she 'ad. She was expectin' to go with some troupe or other,
+but she never 'as. Oh, them stage people! Don't I know 'em? Ain't I
+'ad experience of 'em? A woman as 'as let lodgin's as long as me? If it
+wasn't for them rich friends in the States I 'ave never put up with 'er
+the way I 'ave. You're from the States, ain't you, sir?”
+
+“Yes, yes, I'm from the States. Now, see here, Mrs. Briggs; I'm coming
+back here to-morrow. If--Well, if Miss Morley needs anything, food or
+medicines or anything, in the meantime, you see that she has them. I'll
+pay you when I come.”
+
+Mrs. Briggs actually smiled. She would have patted my arm if I had not
+jerked it out of the way.
+
+“You trust me, sir,” she whispered, confidingly. “You trust my kind
+'eart. I'll look after 'er like she was my own daughter.”
+
+I should have hated to trust even my worst enemy--if I had one--to Mrs.
+Briggs' “kind heart.” I walked off in disgust. I found a cab at the next
+corner and, bidding the driver take me to Bancroft's, threw myself back
+on the cushions. This was a lovely mess! This was a beautiful climax to
+the first act--no, merely the prologue--of the drama of Hephzy's and my
+pilgrimage. What would Jim Campbell say to this? I was to be absolutely
+care-free; I was not to worry about myself or anyone else. That was the
+essential part of his famous “prescription.” And now, here I was, with
+this impossible situation and more impossible young woman on my hands.
+If Little Frank had been a boy, a healthy boy, it would be bad enough.
+But Little Frank was a girl--a sick girl, without a penny. And a girl
+thoroughly convinced that she was the rightful heir to goodness knows
+how much wealth--wealth of which we, the uncivilized, unprincipled
+natives of an unprincipled, uncivilized country, had robbed her parents
+and herself. Little Frank had been a dream before; now he--she, I
+mean--was a nightmare; worse than that, for one wakes from a nightmare.
+And I was on my way to tell Hephzy!
+
+Well, I told her. She was in our sitting-room when I reached the hotel
+and I told her the whole story. I began by reading the letter. Before
+she had recovered from the shock of the reading, I told her that I had
+actually met and talked with Little Frank; and while this astounding bit
+of news was, so to speak, soaking into her bewildered brain, I went on
+to impart the crowning item of information--namely, that Little Frank
+was Miss Frances. Then I sat back and awaited what might follow.
+
+Her first coherent remark was one which I had not expected--and I had
+expected almost anything.
+
+“Oh, Hosy,” gasped Hephzy, “tell me--tell me before you say anything
+else. Does he--she, I mean--look like Ardelia?”
+
+“Eh? What?” I stammered. “Look like--look like what?”
+
+“Not what--who. Does she look like Ardelia? Like her mother? Oh, I HOPE
+she doesn't favor her father's side! I did so want our Little Frank to
+look like his--her--I CAN'T get used to it--like my poor Ardelia. Does
+she?”
+
+“Goodness knows! I don't know who she looks like. I didn't notice.”
+
+“You didn't! I should have noticed that before anything else. What kind
+of a girl is she? Is she pretty?”
+
+“I don't know. She isn't ugly, I should say. I wasn't particularly
+interested in her looks. The fact that she was at all was enough; I
+haven't gotten over that yet. What are we going to do with her? Or are
+we going to do anything? Those are the questions I should like to have
+answered. For heaven's sake, Hephzy, don't talk about her personal
+appearance. There she is and here are we. What are we going to do?”
+
+Hephzy shook her head. “I don't know, Hosy,” she admitted. “I don't
+know, I'm sure. This is--this is--Oh, didn't I tell you we were
+SENT--sent by Providence!”
+
+I was silent. If we had been “sent,” as she called it, I was far from
+certain that Providence was responsible. I was more inclined to place
+the responsibility in a totally different quarter.
+
+“I think,” she continued, “I think you'd better tell me the whole thing
+all over again, Hosy. Tell it slow and don't leave out a word. Tell me
+what sort of place she was in and what she said and how she looked, as
+near as you can remember. I'll try and pay attention; I'll try as hard
+as I can. It'll be a job. All I can think of now is that
+to-morrow mornin'--only to-morrow mornin'--I'm going to see Little
+Frank--Ardelia's Little Frank.”
+
+I complied with her request, giving every detail of my afternoon's
+experience. I reread the letter, and handed it to her, that she might
+read it herself. I described Mrs. Briggs and what I had seen of Mrs.
+Briggs' lodging-house. I described Miss Morley as best I could, dark
+eyes, dark hair and the look of weakness and frailty. I repeated our
+conversation word for word; I had forgotten nothing of that. Hephzy
+listened in silence. When I had finished she sighed.
+
+“The poor thing,” she said. “I do pity her so.”
+
+“Pity her!” I exclaimed. “Well, perhaps I pity her, too, in a way. But
+my pity and yours don't alter the situation. She doesn't want pity. She
+doesn't want help. She flew at me like a wildcat when I asked if she was
+ill. Her personal affairs, she says, are not ours; she doesn't want our
+acquaintance or our friendship. She has gotten some crazy notion in
+her head that you and I and Uncle Barnabas have cheated her out of
+an inheritance, and she wants that! Inheritance! Good Lord! A fine
+inheritance hers is! Daughter of the man who robbed us of everything we
+had.”
+
+“I know--I know. But SHE doesn't know, does she, Hosy. Her father must
+have told her--”
+
+“He told her a barrel of lies, of course. What they were I can't
+imagine, but that fellow was capable of anything. Know! No, she doesn't
+know now, but she will have to know.”
+
+“Are you goin' to tell her, Hosy?”
+
+I stared in amazement.
+
+“Tell her!” I repeated. “What do you mean? You don't intend letting her
+think that WE are the thieves, do you? That's what she thinks now. Of
+course I shall tell her.”
+
+“It will be awful hard to tell. She worshipped her father, I guess. He
+was a dreadful fascinatin' man, when he wanted to be. He could make a
+body believe black was white. Poor Ardelia thought he was--”
+
+“I can't help that. I'm not Ardelia.”
+
+“I know, but she is Ardelia's child. Hosy, if you are so set on tellin'
+her why didn't you tell her this afternoon? It would have been just as
+easy then as to-morrow.”
+
+This was a staggerer. A truthful answer would be so humiliating. I had
+not told Frances Morley that her father was a thief and a liar because I
+couldn't muster courage to do it. She had seemed so alone and friendless
+and ill. I lacked the pluck to face the situation. But I could not tell
+Hephzy this.
+
+“Why didn't you tell her?” she repeated.
+
+“Oh, bosh!” I exclaimed, impatiently. “This is nonsense and you know it,
+Hephzy. She'll have to be told and you and I must tell her. DON'T look
+at me like that. What else are we to do?”
+
+Another shake of the head.
+
+“I don't know. I can't decide any more than you can, Hosy. What do YOU
+think we should do?”
+
+“I don't know.”
+
+With which unsatisfactory remark this particular conversation ended. I
+went to my room to dress for dinner. I had no appetite and dinner was
+not appealing; but I did not want to discuss Little Frank any longer. I
+mentally cursed Jim Campbell a good many times that evening and during
+the better part of a sleepless night. If it were not for him I should be
+in Bayport instead of London. From a distance of three thousand miles I
+could, without the least hesitancy, have told Strickland Morley's “heir”
+ what to do.
+
+Hephzy did not come down to dinner at all. From behind the door of her
+room she told me, in a peculiar tone, that she could not eat. I could
+not eat, either, but I made the pretence of doing so. The next morning,
+at breakfast in the sitting-room, we were a silent pair. I don't know
+what George, the waiter, thought of us.
+
+At a quarter after nine I turned away from the window through which I
+had been moodily regarding the donkey cart of a flower huckster in the
+street below.
+
+“You'd better get on your things,” I said. “It is time for us to go.”
+
+Hephzy donned her hat and wrap. Then she came over to me.
+
+“Don't be cross, Hosy,” she pleaded. “I've been thinkin' it over all
+night long and I've come to the conclusion that you are probably right.
+She hasn't any real claim on us, of course; it's the other way around,
+if anything. You do just as you think best and I'll back you up.”
+
+“Then you agree that we should tell her the truth.”
+
+“Yes, if you think so. I'm goin' to leave it all in your hands. Whatever
+you do will be right. I'll trust you as I always have.”
+
+It was a big responsibility, it seemed to me. I did wish she had been
+more emphatic. However, I set my teeth and resolved upon a course of
+action. Pity and charity and all the rest of it I would not consider.
+Right was right, and justice was justice. I would end a disagreeable
+business as quickly as I could.
+
+Mrs. Briggs' lodging-house, viewed from the outside, was no more
+inviting at ten in the morning than it had been at four in the
+afternoon. I expected Hephzy to make some comment upon the dirty steps
+and the still dirtier front door. She did neither. We stood together
+upon the steps and I rang the bell.
+
+Mrs. Briggs herself opened the door. I think she had been watching from
+behind the curtains and had seen our cab draw up at the curb. She was
+in a state of great agitation, a combination of relieved anxiety,
+excitement and overdone politeness.
+
+“Good mornin', sir,” she said; “and good mornin', lady. I've been
+expectin' you, and so 'as she, poor dear. I thought one w'ile she was
+that hill she couldn't see you, but Lor' bless you, I've nursed 'er same
+as if she was my own daughter. I told you I would sir, now didn't I.”
+
+One word in this harangue caught my attention.
+
+“Ill?” I repeated. “What do you mean? Is she worse than she was
+yesterday?”
+
+Mrs. Briggs held up her hands. “Worse!” she cried. “Why, bless your
+'art, sir, she was quite well yesterday. Quite 'erself, she was, when
+you come. But after you went away she seemed to go all to pieces like.
+W'en I went hup to 'er, to carry 'er 'er tea--She always 'as 'er tea;
+I've been a mother to 'er, I 'ave--she'll tell you so. W'en I went hup
+with the tea there she was in a faint. W'ite as if she was dead. My
+word, sir, I was frightened. And all night she's been tossin' about,
+a-cryin' out and--”
+
+“Where is she now?” put in Hephzy, sharply.
+
+“She's in 'er room ma'am. Dressed she is; she would dress, knowin' of
+your comin', though I told 'er she shouldn't. She's dressed, but she's
+lyin' down. She would 'ave tried to sit hup, but THAT I wouldn't 'ave,
+ma'am. 'Now, dearie,' I told 'er--”
+
+But I would not hear any more. As for Hephzy she was in the dingy front
+hall already.
+
+“Shall we go up?” I asked, impatiently.
+
+“Of COURSE you're to go hup. She's a-waitin' for you. But sir--sir,” she
+caught my sleeve; “if you think she's goin' to be ill and needin' the
+doctor, just pass the word to me. A doctor she shall 'ave, the best
+there is in London. All I ask you is to pay--”
+
+I heard no more. Hephzy was on her way up the stairs and I followed. The
+door of the first floor back was closed. I rapped upon it.
+
+“Come in,” said the voice I remembered, but now it sounded weaker than
+before.
+
+Hephzy looked at me. I nodded.
+
+“You go first,” I whispered. “You can call me when you are ready.”
+
+Hephzy opened the door and entered the room. I closed the door behind
+her.
+
+Silence for what seemed a long, long time. Then the door opened again
+and Hephzy appeared. Her cheeks were wet with tears. She put her arms
+about my neck.
+
+“Oh, Hosy,” she whispered, “she's real sick. And--and--Oh, Hosy, how
+COULD you see her and not see! She's the very image of Ardelia. The very
+image! Come.”
+
+I followed her into the room. It was no brighter now, in the middle of
+a--for London--bright forenoon, than it had been on my previous visit.
+Just as dingy and forbidding and forlorn as ever. But now there was no
+defiant figure erect to meet me. The figure was lying upon the bed, and
+the pale cheeks of yesterday were flushed with fever. Miss Morley had
+looked far from well when I first saw her; now she looked very ill
+indeed.
+
+She acknowledged my good-morning with a distant bow. Her illness had not
+quenched her spirit, that was plain. She attempted to rise, but Hephzy
+gently pushed her back upon the pillow.
+
+“You stay right there,” she urged. “Stay right there. We can talk just
+as well, and Mr. Knowles won't mind; will you, Hosy.”
+
+I stammered something or other. My errand, difficult as it had been
+from the first, now seemed impossible. I had come there to say certain
+things--I had made up my mind to say them; but how was I to say such
+things to a girl as ill as this one was. I would not have said them to
+Strickland Morley himself, under such circumstances.
+
+“I--I am very sorry you are not well, Miss Morley,” I faltered.
+
+She thanked me, but there was no warmth in the thanks.
+
+“I am not well,” she said; “but that need make no difference. I presume
+you and this--this lady are prepared to make a definite proposition to
+me. I am well enough to hear it.”
+
+Hephzy and I looked at each other. I looked for help, but Hephzy's
+expression was not helpful at all. It might have meant anything--or
+nothing.
+
+“Miss Morley,” I began. “Miss Morley, I--I--”
+
+“Well, sir?”
+
+“Miss Morley, I--I don't know what to say to you.”
+
+She rose to a sitting posture. Hephzy again tried to restrain her, but
+this time she would not be restrained.
+
+“Don't know what to say?” she repeated. “Don't know what to say? Then
+why did you come here?”
+
+“I came--we came because--because I promised we would come.”
+
+“But WHY did you come?”
+
+Hephzy leaned toward her.
+
+“Please, please,” she begged. “Don't get all excited like this. You
+mustn't. You'll make yourself sicker, you know. You must lie down and be
+quiet. Hosy--oh, please, Hosy, be careful.”
+
+Miss Morley paid no attention. She was regarding me with eyes which
+looked me through and through. Her thin hands clutched the bedclothes.
+
+“WHY did you come?” she demanded. “My letter was plain enough,
+certainly. What I said yesterday was perfectly plain. I told you I did
+not wish your acquaintance or your friendship. Friendship--” with a
+blaze of scorn, “from YOU! I--I told you--I--”
+
+“Hush! hush! please don't,” begged Hephzy. “You mustn't. You're too weak
+and sick. Oh, Hosy, do be careful.”
+
+I was quite willing to be careful--if I had known how.
+
+“I think,” I said, “that this interview had better be postponed. Really,
+Miss Morley, you are not in a condition to--”
+
+She sprang to her feet and stood there trembling.
+
+“My condition has nothing to do with it,” she cried. “Oh, CAN'T I make
+you understand! I am trying to be lenient, to be--to be--And you come
+here, you and this woman, and try to--to--You MUST understand! I don't
+want to know you. I don't want your pity! After your treatment of my
+mother and my father, I--I--I... Oh!”
+
+She staggered, put her hands to her head, sank upon the bed, and then
+collapsed in a dead faint.
+
+Hephzy was at her side in a moment. She knew what to do if I did not.
+
+“Quick!” she cried, turning to me. “Send for the doctor; she has
+fainted. Hurry! And send that--that Briggs woman to me. Don't stand
+there like that. HURRY!”
+
+I found the Briggs woman in the lower hall. From her I learned the name
+and address of the nearest physician, also the nearest public telephone.
+Mrs. Briggs went up to Hephzy and I hastened out to telephone.
+
+Oh, those London telephones! After innumerable rings and “Hellos” from
+me, and “Are you theres” from Central, I, at last, was connected with
+the doctor's office and, by great good luck, with the doctor himself.
+He promised to come at once. In ten minutes I met him at the door and
+conducted him to the room above.
+
+He was in that room a long time. Meanwhile, I waited in the hall, pacing
+up and down, trying to think my way through this maze. I had succeeded
+in thinking myself still deeper into it when the physician reappeared.
+
+“How is she?” I asked.
+
+“She is conscious again, but weak, of course. If she can be kept quiet
+and have proper care and nourishment and freedom from worry she will,
+probably, gain strength and health. There is nothing seriously wrong
+physically, so far as I can see.”
+
+I was glad to hear that and said so.
+
+“Of course,” he went on, “her nerves are completely unstrung. She seems
+to have been under a great mental strain and her surroundings are not--”
+ He paused, and then added, “Is the young lady a relative of yours?”
+
+“Ye--es, I suppose--She is a distant relative, yes.”
+
+“Humph! Has she no near relatives? Here in England, I mean. You and the
+lady with you are Americans, I judge.”
+
+I ignored the last sentence. I could not see that our being Americans
+concerned him.
+
+“She has no near relatives in England, so far as I know,” I answered.
+“Why do you ask?”
+
+“Merely because--Well, to be frank, because if she had such relatives I
+should strongly recommend their taking charge of her. She is very weak
+and in a condition where she knight become seriously ill.”
+
+“I see. You mean that she should not remain here.”
+
+“I do mean that, decidedly. This,” with a wave of the hand and a glance
+about the bare, dirty, dark hall, “is not--Well, she seems to be a young
+person of some refinement and--”
+
+He did not finish the sentence, but I understood.
+
+“I see,” I interrupted. “And yet she is not seriously ill.”
+
+“Not now--no. Her weakness is due to mental strain and--well, to a lack
+of nutrition as much as anything.”
+
+“Lack of nutrition? You mean she hasn't had enough to eat!”
+
+“Yes. Of course I can't be certain, but that would be my opinion if I
+were forced to give one. At all events, she should be taken from here as
+soon as possible.”
+
+I reflected. “A hospital?” I suggested.
+
+“She might be taken to a hospital, of course. But she is scarcely ill
+enough for that. A good, comfortable home would be better. Somewhere
+where she might have quiet and rest. If she had relatives I should
+strongly urge her going to them. She should not be left to herself; I
+would not be responsible for the consequences if she were. A person in
+her condition might--might be capable of any rash act.”
+
+This was plain enough, but it did not make my course of action plainer
+to me.
+
+“Is she well enough to be moved--now?” I asked.
+
+“Yes. If she is not moved she is likely to be less well.”
+
+I paid him for the visit; he gave me a prescription--“To quiet the
+nerves,” he explained--and went away. I was to send for him whenever his
+services were needed. Then I entered the room.
+
+Hephzy and Mrs. Briggs were sitting beside the bed. The face upon the
+pillow looked whiter and more pitiful than ever. The dark eyes were
+closed.
+
+Hephzy signaled me to silence. She rose and tiptoed over to me. I led
+her out into the hall.
+
+“She's sort of dozin' now,” she whispered. “The poor thing is worn out.
+What did the doctor say?”
+
+I told her what the doctor had said.
+
+“He's just right,” she declared. “She's half starved, that's what's the
+matter with her. That and frettin' and worryin' have just about killed
+her. What are you goin' to do, Hosy?”
+
+“How do I know!” I answered, impatiently. “I don't see exactly why we
+are called upon to do anything. Do you?”
+
+“No--o, I--I don't know as we are called on. No--o. I--”
+
+“Well, do you?”
+
+“No. I know how you feel, Hosy. Considerin' how her father treated us, I
+won't blame you no matter what you do.”
+
+“Confound her father! I only wish it were he we had to deal with.”
+
+Hephzy was silent. I took a turn up and down the hall.
+
+“The doctor says she should be taken away from here at once,” I
+observed.
+
+Hephzy nodded. “There's no doubt about that,” she declared with
+emphasis. “I wouldn't trust a sick cat to that Briggs woman. She's
+a--well, she's what she is.”
+
+“I suggested a hospital, but he didn't approve,” I went on. “He
+recommended some comfortable home with care and quiet and all the rest
+of it. Her relatives should look after her, he said. She hasn't any
+relatives that we know of, or any home to go to.”
+
+Again Hephzy was silent. I waited, growing momentarily more nervous and
+fretful. Of all impossible situations this was the most impossible. And
+to make it worse, Hephzy, the usually prompt, reliable Hephzy, was of no
+use at all.
+
+“Do say something,” I snapped. “What shall we do?”
+
+“I don't know, Hosy, dear. Why!... Where are you going?”
+
+“I'm going to the drug-store to get this prescription filled. I'll be
+back soon.”
+
+The drug-store--it was a “chemist's shop” of course--was at the corner.
+It was the chemist's telephone that I had used when I called the doctor.
+I gave the clerk the prescription and, while he was busy with it, I
+paced up and down the floor of the shop. At length I sat down before the
+telephone and demanded a number.
+
+When I returned to the lodging-house I gave Hephzy the powders which the
+chemist's clerk had prepared.
+
+“Is she any better?” I asked.
+
+“She's just about the same.”
+
+“What does she say?”
+
+“She's too weak and sick to say anything. I don't imagine she knows or
+cares what is happening to her.”
+
+“Is she strong enough to get downstairs to a cab, or to ride in one
+afterward?”
+
+“I guess so. We could help her, you know. But, Hosy, what cab? What do
+you mean? What are you going to do?”
+
+“I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm going to take her away from this
+hole. I must. I don't want to; there's no reason why I should and every
+reason why I shouldn't; but--Oh, well, confound it! I've got to. We
+CAN'T let her starve and die here.”
+
+“But where are you going to take her?”
+
+“There's only one place to take her; that's to Bancroft's. I've 'phoned
+and engaged a room next to ours. She'll have to stay with us for the
+present. Oh, I don't like it any better than you do.”
+
+To my intense surprise, Hephzy threw her arms about my neck and hugged
+me.
+
+“I knew you would, Hosy!” she sobbed. “I knew you would. I was dyin' to
+have you, but I wouldn't have asked for the world. You're the best man
+that ever lived. I knew you wouldn't leave poor Ardelia's little girl
+to--to--Oh, I'm so grateful. You're the best man in the world.”
+
+I freed myself from the embrace as soon as I could. I didn't feel like
+the best man in the world. I felt like a Quixotic fool.
+
+Fortunately I was too busy for the next hour to think of my feelings.
+Hephzy went in to arrange for the transfer of the invalid to the cab and
+to collect and pack her most necessary belongings. I spent my time in a
+financial wrangle with Mrs. Briggs. The number of items which that woman
+wished included in her bill was surprising. Candles and soap--the bill
+itself was the sole evidence of soap's ever having made its appearance
+in that house--and washing and tea and food and goodness knows what. The
+total was amazing. I verified the addition, or, rather, corrected it,
+and then offered half of the sum demanded. This offer was received with
+protestations, tears and voluble demands to know if I 'ad the 'art to
+rob a lone widow who couldn't protect herself. Finally we compromised on
+a three-quarter basis and Mrs. Briggs receipted the bill. She said her
+kind disposition would be the undoing of her and she knew it. She was
+too silly and soft-'arted to let lodgings.
+
+We had very little trouble in carrying or leading Little Frank to the
+cab. The effect of the doctor's powders--they must have contained some
+sort of opiate--was to render the girl only partially conscious of what
+was going on and we got her to and into the vehicle without difficulty.
+During the drive to Bancroft's she dozed on Hephzy's shoulder.
+
+Her room--it was next to Hephzy's, with a connecting door--was ready
+and we led her up the stairs. Mr. and Mrs. Jameson were very kind and
+sympathetic. They asked surprisingly few questions.
+
+“Poor young lady,” said Mr. Jameson, when he and I were together in our
+sitting-room. “She is quite ill, isn't she.”
+
+“Yes,” I admitted. “It is not a serious illness, however. She needs
+quiet and care more than anything else.”
+
+“Yes, sir. We will do our best to see that she has both. A relative of
+yours, sir, I think you said.”
+
+“A--a--my niece,” I answered, on the spur of the moment. She was
+Hephzy's niece, of course. As a matter of fact, she was scarcely related
+to me. However, it seemed useless to explain.
+
+“I didn't know you had English relatives, Mr. Knowles. I had been under
+the impression that you and Miss Cahoon were strangers here.”
+
+So had I, but I did not explain that, either. Mrs. Jameson joined us.
+
+“She will sleep now, I think,” she said. “She is quite quiet and
+peaceful. A near relative of yours, Mr. Knowles?”
+
+“She is Mr. Knowles's niece,” explained her husband.
+
+“Oh, yes. A sweet girl she seems. And very pretty, isn't she.”
+
+I did not answer. Mr. Jameson and his wife turned to go.
+
+“I presume you will wish to communicate with her people,” said the
+former. “Shall I send you telegram forms?”
+
+“Not now,” I stammered. Telegrams! Her people! She had no people. We
+were her people. We had taken her in charge and were responsible. And
+how and when would that responsibility be shifted!
+
+What on earth should we do with her?
+
+Hephzy tiptoed in. Her expression was a curious one. She was very
+solemn, but not sad; the solemnity was not that of sorrow, but appeared
+to be a sort of spiritual uplift, a kind of reverent joy.
+
+“She's asleep,” she said, gravely; “she's asleep, Hosy.”
+
+There was precious little comfort in that.
+
+“She'll wake up by and by,” I said. “And then--what?”
+
+“I don't know.”
+
+“Neither do I--now. But we shall have to know pretty soon.”
+
+“I suppose we shall, but I can't--I can't seem to think of anything
+that's ahead of us. All I can think is that my Little Frank--my
+Ardelia's Little Frank--is here, here with us, at last.”
+
+“And TO last, so far as I can see. Hephzy, for heaven's sake, do try
+to be sensible. Do you realize what this means? As soon as she is
+well enough to understand what has happened she will want to know what
+'proposition' we have to make. And when we tell her we have none to
+make, she'll probably collapse again. And then--and then--what shall we
+do?”
+
+“I don't know, Hosy. I declare I don't know.”
+
+I strode into my own room and slammed the door.
+
+“Damn!” said I, with enthusiasm.
+
+“What?” queried Hephzy, from the sitting-room. “What did you say, Hosy?”
+
+I did not tell her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+In Which the Pilgrims Become Tenants
+
+
+Two weeks later we left Bancroft's and went to Mayberry. Two weeks only,
+and yet in that two weeks all our plans--if our indefinite visions of
+irresponsible flitting about Great Britain and the continent might
+be called plans--had changed utterly. Our pilgrimage was, apparently,
+ended--it had become an indefinite stay. We were no longer pilgrims, but
+tenants, tenants in an English rectory, of all places in the world.
+I, the Cape Cod quahaug, had become an English country gentleman--or a
+country gentleman in England--for the summer, at least.
+
+Little Frank--Miss Frances Morley--was responsible for the change, of
+course. Her sudden materialization and the freak of fortune which
+had thrown her, weak and ill, upon our hands, were responsible for
+everything. For how much more, how many other changes, she would be
+responsible the future only could answer. And the future would answer in
+its own good, or bad, time. My conundrum “What are we going to do
+with her?” was as much of a puzzle as ever. For my part I gave it up.
+Sufficient unto the day was the evil thereof--much more than sufficient.
+
+For the first twenty-four hours following the arrival of “my niece” at
+Bancroft's Hotel the situation regarding that niece remained as it
+was. Miss Morley--or Frances--or Frank as Hephzy persisted in calling
+her--was too ill to care what had happened, or, at least, to speak of
+it. She spoke very little, was confined to her room and bed and slept
+the greater part of the time. The doctor whom I called, on Mr. Jameson's
+recommendation, confirmed his fellow practitioner's diagnosis; the young
+lady, he said, was suffering from general weakness and the effect of
+nervous strain. She needed absolute rest, care and quiet. There was no
+organic disease.
+
+But on the morning of the second day she was much better and willing,
+even anxious to talk. She assailed Hephzy with questions and Hephzy,
+although she tried to avoid answering most, was obliged to answer some
+of them. She reported the interview to me during luncheon.
+
+“She didn't seem to remember much about comin' here, or what happened
+before or afterward,” said Hephzy. “But she wanted to know it all. I
+told her the best I could. 'You couldn't stay there,' I said. 'That
+Briggs hyena wasn't fit to take care of any human bein' and neither Hosy
+nor I could leave you in her hands. So we brought you here to the hotel
+where we're stoppin'.' She thought this over a spell and then she wanted
+to know whose idea bringin' her here was, yours or mine. I said 'twas
+yours, and just like you, too; you were the kindest-hearted man in the
+world, I said. Oh, you needn't look at me like that, Hosy. It's the
+plain truth, and you know it.”
+
+“Humph!” I grunted. “If the young lady were a mind-reader she
+might--well, never mind. What else did she say?”
+
+“Oh, a good many things. Wanted to know if her bill at Mrs. Briggs' was
+paid. I said it was. She thought about that and then she gave me orders
+that you and I were to keep account of every cent--no, penny--we spent
+for her. She should insist upon that. If we had the idea that she was a
+subject of charity we were mistaken. She fairly withered me with a look
+from those big eyes of hers. Ardelia's eyes all over again! Or they
+would be if they were blue instead of brown. I remember--”
+
+I cut short the reminiscence. I was in no mood to listen to the praises
+of any Morley.
+
+“What answer did you make to that?” I asked.
+
+“What could I say? I didn't want any more faintin' spells or hysterics,
+either. I said we weren't thinkin' of offerin' charity and if it would
+please her to have us run an expense book we'd do it, of course. She
+asked what the doctor said about her condition. I told her he said she
+must keep absolutely quiet and not fret about anything or she'd have an
+awful relapse. That was pretty strong but I meant it that way. Answerin'
+questions that haven't got any answer to 'em is too much of a strain for
+ME. You try it some time yourself and see.”
+
+“I have tried it, thank you. Well, is that all? Did she tell you
+anything about herself; where she has been or what she has been or what
+she has been doing since her precious father died?”
+
+“No, not a word. I was dyin' to ask her, but I didn't. She says she
+wants to talk with the doctor next time he comes, that's all.”
+
+She did talk with the doctor, although not during his next call. Several
+days passed before he would permit her to talk with him. Meanwhile he
+and I had several talks. What he told me brought my conundrum no nearer
+its answer.
+
+She was recovering rapidly, he said, but for weeks at least her delicate
+nervous organism must be handled with care. The slightest set-back
+would be disastrous. He asked if we intended remaining at Bancroft's
+indefinitely. I had no intentions--those I had had were wiped off my
+mental slate--so I said I did not know, our future plans were vague. He
+suggested a sojourn in the country, in some pleasant retired spot in the
+rural districts.
+
+“An out-of-door life, walks, rides and sports of all sorts would do your
+niece a world of good, Mr. Knowles,” he declared. “She needs just that.
+A very attractive young lady, sir, if you'll pardon my saying so,” he
+went on. “Were her people Londoners, may I ask?”
+
+He might ask but I had no intention of telling him. What I knew
+concerning my “niece's” people were things not usually told to
+strangers. I evaded the question.
+
+“Has she had a recent bereavement?” he queried. “I hope you'll not
+think me merely idly inquisitive. I cannot understand how a young woman,
+normally healthy and well, should have been brought to such a strait.
+Our English girls, Mr. Knowles, do not suffer from nerves, as I am told
+your American young women so frequently do. Has your niece been in the
+States with you?”
+
+I said she had not. Incidentally I informed him that American young
+women did NOT frequently suffer from nerves. He said “Really,” but he
+did not believe me, I'm certain. He was a good fellow, and intelligent,
+but his ideas of “the States” had been gathered, largely, I think,
+from newspapers and novels. He was convinced that most Americans were
+confirmed neurotics and dyspeptics, just as Hephzy had believed all
+Englishmen wore side-whiskers.
+
+I changed the conversation as soon as I could. I could tell him
+so little concerning my newly found “niece.” I knew about as much
+concerning her life as he did. It is distinctly unpleasant to be uncle
+to someone you know nothing at all about. I devoutly wished I had not
+said she was my niece. I repeated that wish many times afterward.
+
+Miss Morley's talk with the physician had definite results, surprising
+results. Following that talk she sent word by the doctor that she wished
+to see Hephzy and me. We went into her room. She was sitting in a chair
+by the window, and was wearing a rather pretty wrapper, or kimono, or
+whatever that sort of garment is called. At any rate, it was becoming. I
+was obliged to admit that the general opinion expressed by the Jamesons
+and Hephzy and the doctor--that she was pretty, was correct enough. She
+was pretty, but that did not help matters any.
+
+She asked us--no, she commanded us to sit down. Her manner was decidedly
+business-like. She wasted no time in preliminaries, but came straight to
+the point, and that point was the one which I had dreaded. She asked us
+what decision we had reached concerning her.
+
+“Have you decided what your offer is to be?” she asked.
+
+I looked at Hephzy and she at me. Neither of us derived comfort from
+the exchange of looks. However, something must be done, or said, and I
+braced myself to say it.
+
+“Miss Morley,” I began, “before I answer that question I should like to
+ask you one. What do you expect us to do?”
+
+She regarded me coldly. “I expect,” she said, “that you and this--that
+you and Miss Cahoon will arrange to pay me the money which was my
+mother's and which my grandfather should have turned over to her while
+he lived.”
+
+Again I looked at Hephzy and again I braced myself for the scene which I
+was certain would follow.
+
+“It is your impression then,” I said, “that your mother had money of her
+own and that Captain Barnabas, your grandfather, kept that money for his
+own use.”
+
+“It is not an impression,” haughtily; “I know it to be a fact.”
+
+“How do you know it?”
+
+“My father told me so, during his last illness.”
+
+“Was--pardon me--was your father himself at the time? Was
+he--er--rational?”
+
+“Rational! My father?”
+
+“I mean--I mean was he himself--mentally? He was not delirious when he
+told you?”
+
+“Delirious! Mr. Knowles, I am trying to be patient, but for the last
+time I warn you that I will not listen to insinuations against my
+father.”
+
+“I am not insinuating anything. I am seeking information. Were you and
+your father together a great deal? Did you know him well? Just what did
+he tell you?”
+
+She hesitated before replying. When she spoke it was with an exaggerated
+air of patient toleration, as if she were addressing an unreasonable
+child.
+
+“I will answer you,” she said. “I will answer you because, so far, I
+have no fault to find with your behavior toward me. You and my--and my
+aunt have been as reasonable as I, perhaps, should expect, everything
+considered. Your bringing me here and providing for me was even kind,
+I suppose. So I will answer your questions. My father and I were not
+together a great deal. I attended a convent school in France and saw
+Father only at intervals. I supposed him to possess an independent
+income. It was only when he was--was unable to work,” with a quiver in
+her voice, “that I learned how he lived. He had been obliged to depend
+upon his music, upon his violin playing, to earn money enough to keep us
+both alive. Then he told me of--of his life in America and how my mother
+and he had been--been cheated and defrauded by those who--who--Oh, DON'T
+ask me any more! Don't!”
+
+“I must ask you. I must ask you to tell me this: How was he defrauded,
+as you call it?”
+
+“I have told you, already. My mother's fortune--”
+
+“But your mother had no fortune.”
+
+The anticipated scene was imminent. She sprang to her feet, but being
+too weak to stand, sank back again. Hephzy looked appealingly at me.
+
+“Hosy,” she cautioned; “Oh, Hosy, be careful! Think how sick she has
+been.”
+
+“I am thinking, Hephzy. I mean to be careful. But what I said is the
+truth, and you know it.”
+
+Hephzy would have replied, but Little Frank motioned her to be silent.
+
+“Hush!” she commanded. “Mr. Knowles, what do you mean? My mother had
+money, a great deal of money. I don't know the exact sum, but my father
+said--You know it! You MUST know it. It was in my grandfather's care
+and--”
+
+“Your grandfather had no money. He--well, he lost every dollar he had.
+He died as poor as a church rat.”
+
+Another interval of silence, during which I endured a piercing scrutiny
+from the dark eyes. Then Miss Morley's tone changed.
+
+“Indeed!” she said, sarcastically. “You surprise me, Mr. Knowles. What
+became of the money, may I ask? I understand that my grandfather was a
+wealthy man.”
+
+“He was fairly well-to-do at one time, but he lost his money and died
+poor.”
+
+“How did he lose it?”
+
+The question was a plain one and demanded a plain and satisfying answer.
+But how could I give that answer--then? Hephzy was shaking her head
+violently. I stammered and faltered and looked guilty, I have no doubt.
+
+“Well?” said Miss Morley.
+
+“He--he lost it, that is sufficient. You must take my word for it.
+Captain Cahoon died without a dollar of his own.”
+
+“When did he LOSE his wealth?” with sarcastic emphasis.
+
+“Years ago. About the time your parents left the United States. There,
+there, Hephzy! I know. I'm doing my best.”
+
+“Indeed! When did he die?”
+
+“Long ago--more than ten years ago.”
+
+“But my parents left America long before that. If my grandfather was
+penniless how did he manage to live all those years? What supported
+him?”
+
+“Your aunt--Miss Cahoon here--had money in her own right.”
+
+“SHE had money and my mother had not. Yet both were Captain Cahoon's
+daughters. How did that happen?”
+
+It seemed to me that it was Hephzy's time to play the target. I turned
+to her.
+
+“Miss Cahoon will probably answer that herself,” I observed,
+maliciously.
+
+Hephzibah appeared more embarrassed than I.
+
+“I--I--Oh, what difference does all this make?” she faltered. “Hosy has
+told you the truth, Frances. Really and truly he has. Father was poor
+as poverty when he died and all his last years, too. All his money had
+gone.”
+
+“Yes, so I have heard Mr. Knowles say. But how did it go?”
+
+“In--in--well, it was invested in stocks and things and--and--”
+
+“Do you mean that he speculated in shares?”
+
+“Well, not--not--”
+
+“I see. Oh, I see. Father told me a little concerning those
+speculations. He warned Captain Cahoon before he left the States, but
+his warnings were not heeded, I presume. And you wish me to believe that
+ALL the money was lost--my mother's and all. Is that what you mean?”
+
+“Your mother HAD no money,” I put in, desperately, “I have told you--”
+
+“You have told me many things, Mr. Knowles. Even admitting that my
+grandfather lost his money, as you say, why should I suffer because of
+his folly? I am not asking for HIS money. I am demanding money that was
+my mother's and is now mine. That I expected from him and now I expect
+it from you, his heirs.”
+
+“But your mother had no--”
+
+“I do not care to hear that again. I know she had money.”
+
+“But how do you know?”
+
+“Because my father told me she had, and my father did not lie.”
+
+There we were again--just where we started. The doctor re-entered the
+room and insisted upon his patient's being left to herself. She must lie
+down and rest, he said. His manner was one of distinct disapproval. It
+was evident that he considered Hephzy and me disturbers of the peace; in
+fact he intimated as much when he joined us in the sitting-room in a few
+minutes.
+
+“I am afraid I made a mistake in permitting the conference,” he said.
+“The young lady seems much agitated, Mr. Knowles. If she is, complete
+nervous prostration may follow. She may be an invalid for months or even
+years. I strongly recommend her being taken into the country as soon as
+possible.”
+
+This speech and the manner in which it was made were impressive and
+alarming. The possibilities at which it hinted were more alarming still.
+We made no attempt to discuss family matters with Little Frank that day
+nor the next.
+
+But on the day following, when I returned from my morning visit to
+Camford Street, I found Hephzy awaiting me in the sitting-room. She was
+very solemn.
+
+“Hosy,” she said, “sit down. I've got somethin' to tell you.”
+
+“About her?” I asked, apprehensively.
+
+“Yes. She's just been talkin' to me.”
+
+“She has! I thought we agreed not to talk with her at all.”
+
+“We did, and I tried not to. But when I went in to see her just now she
+was waitin' for me. She had somethin' to say, she said, and she said
+it--Oh, my goodness, yes! she said it.”
+
+“What did she say? Has she sent for her lawyer--her solicitor, or
+whatever he is?”
+
+“No, she hasn't done that. I don't know but I 'most wish she had. He
+wouldn't be any harder to talk to than she is. Hosy, she's made up her
+mind.”
+
+“Made up her mind! I thought HER mind was already made up.”
+
+“It was, but she's made it up again. That doctor has been talkin' to her
+and she's really frightened about her health, I think. Anyhow, she has
+decided that her principal business just now is to get well. She told
+me she had decided not to press her claim upon us for the present. If we
+wished to make an offer of what she calls restitution, she'll listen to
+it; but she judges we are not ready to make one.”
+
+“Humph! her judgment is correct so far.”
+
+“Yes, but that isn't all. While she is waitin' for that offer she
+expects us to take care of her. She has been thinkin', she says, and she
+has come to the conclusion that our providin' for her as we have done
+isn't charity--or needn't be considered as charity--at all. She is
+willin' to consider it a part of that precious restitution she's forever
+talkin' about. We are to take care of her, and pay her doctor's bills,
+and take her into the country as he recommends, and--”
+
+I interrupted. “Great Scott!” I cried, “does she expect us to ADOPT
+her?”
+
+“I don't know what she expects; I'm tryin' to tell you what she said.
+We're to do all this and keep a strict account of all it costs, and
+then when we are ready to make a--a proposition, as she calls it, this
+account can be subtracted from the money she thinks we've got that
+belongs to her.”
+
+“But there isn't any money belonging to her. I told her so, and so did
+you.”
+
+“I know, but we might tell her a thousand times and it wouldn't affect
+her father's tellin' her once. Oh, that Strickland Morley! If only--”
+
+“Hush! hush, Hephzy... Well, by George! of all the--this thing has gone
+far enough. It has gone too far. We made a great mistake in bringing
+her here, in having anything to do with her at all--but we shan't go on
+making mistakes. We must stop where we are. She must be told the truth
+now--to-day.”
+
+“I know--I know, Hosy; but who'll tell her?”
+
+“I will.”
+
+“She won't believe you.”
+
+“Then she must disbelieve. She can call in her solicitor and I'll make
+him believe.”
+
+Hephzy was silent. Her silence annoyed me.
+
+“Why don't you say something?” I demanded. “You know what I say is plain
+common-sense.”
+
+“I suppose it is--I suppose 'tis. But, Hosy, if you start in tellin' her
+again you know what'll happen. The doctor said the least little thing
+would bring on nervous prostration. And if she has that, WHAT will
+become of her?”
+
+It was my turn to hesitate.
+
+“You couldn't--we couldn't turn her out into the street if she was
+nervous prostrated, could we,” pleaded Hephzy. “After all, she's
+Ardelia's daughter and--”
+
+“She's Strickland Morley's daughter. There is no doubt of that.
+Hereditary influence is plain enough in her case.”
+
+“I know, but she is Ardelia's daughter, too. I don't see how we can tell
+her, Hosy; not until she's well and strong again.”
+
+I was never more thoroughly angry in my life. My patience was exhausted.
+
+“Look here, Hephzy,” I cried: “what is it you are leading up to? You're
+not proposing--actually proposing that we adopt this girl, are you?”
+
+“No--no--o. Not exactly that, of course. But we might take her into the
+country somewhere and--”
+
+“Oh, DO be sensible! Do you realize what that would mean? We should have
+to give up our trip, stop sightseeing, stop everything we had planned to
+do, and turn ourselves into nurses running a sanitarium for the benefit
+of a girl whose father's rascality made your father a pauper. And, not
+only do this, but be treated by her as if--as if--”
+
+“There, there, Hosy! I know what it will mean. I know what it would mean
+to you and I don't mean for you to do it. You've done enough and more
+than enough. But with me it's different. _I_ could do it.”
+
+“You?”
+
+“Yes. I've got some money of my own. I could find a nice, cheap, quiet
+boardin'-house in the country round here somewhere and she and I could
+go there and stay until she got well. You needn't go at all; you could
+go off travelin' by yourself and--”
+
+“Hephzy, what are you talking about?”
+
+“I mean it. I've thought it all out, Hosy. Ever since Ardelia and I
+had that last talk together and she whispered to me that--that--well,
+especially ever since I knew there was a Little Frank I've been thinkin'
+and plannin' about that Little Frank; you know I have. He--she isn't
+the kind of Little Frank I expected, but she's, my sister's baby and
+I can't--I CAN'T, turn her away to be sick and die. I can't do it. I
+shouldn't dare face Ardelia in--on the other side if I did. No, I
+guess it's my duty and I'm goin' to go on with it. But with you it's
+different. She isn't any real relation to you. You've done enough--and
+more than enough--as it is.”
+
+This was the climax. Of course I might have expected it, but of course
+I didn't. As soon as I recovered, or partially recovered, from my
+stupefaction I expostulated and scolded and argued. Hephzy was quiet but
+firm. She hated to part from me--she couldn't bear to think of it; but
+on the other hand she couldn't abandon her Ardelia's little girl. The
+interview ended by my walking out of the room and out of Bancroft's in
+disgust.
+
+I did not return until late in the afternoon. I was in better humor
+then. Hephzy was still in the sitting-room; she looked as if she had
+been crying.
+
+“Hosy,” she said, as I entered, “I--I hope you don't think I'm too
+ungrateful. I'm not. Really I'm not. And I care as much for you as if
+you was my own boy. I can't leave you; I sha'n't. If you say for us
+to--”
+
+I interrupted.
+
+“Hephzy,” I said, “I shan't say anything. I know perfectly well that you
+couldn't leave me any more than I could leave you. I have arranged with
+Matthews to set about house-hunting at once. As soon as rural England is
+ready for us, we shall be ready for it. After all, what difference does
+it make? I was ordered to get fresh experience. I might as well get it
+by becoming keeper of a sanitarium as any other way.”
+
+Hephzy looked at me. She rose from her chair.
+
+“Hosy,” she cried, “what--a sanitarium?”
+
+“We'll keep it together,” I said, smiling. “You and I and Little Frank.
+And it is likely to be a wonderful establishment.”
+
+Hephzy said--she said a great deal, principally concerning my generosity
+and goodness and kindness and self-sacrifice. I tried to shut off the
+flow, but it was not until I began to laugh that it ceased.
+
+“Why!” cried Hephzy. “You're laughin'! What in the world? I don't see
+anything to laugh at.”
+
+“Don't you? I do. Oh, dear me! I--I, the Bayport quahaug to--Ho! ho!
+Hephzy, let me laugh. If there is any fun in this perfectly devilish
+situation let me enjoy it while I can.”
+
+And that is how and why I decided to become a country gentleman
+instead of a traveler. When I told Matthews of my intention he had been
+petrified with astonishment. I had written Campbell of that intention. I
+devoutly wished I might see his face when he read my letter.
+
+For days and days Hephzy and I “house-hunted.” We engaged a nurse to
+look after the future patient of the “sanitarium” while we did our best
+to look for the sanitarium itself. Mr. Matthews gave us the addresses
+of real estate agents and we journeyed from suburb to suburb and from
+seashore to hills. We saw several “semi-detached villas.” The name
+“semi-detached villa” had an appealing sound, especially to Hephzy, but
+the villas themselves did not appeal. They turned out to be what we, in
+America, would have called “two-family houses.”
+
+“And I never did like the idea of livin' in a two-family house,”
+ declared Hephzy. “I've known plenty of real nice folks who did live in
+'em, or one-half of one of 'em, but it usually happened that the folks
+in the other half was a dreadful mean set. They let their dog chase your
+cat and if your hens scratched up their flower garden they were real
+unlikely about it. I've heard Father tell about Cap'n Noah Doane and
+Cap'n Elkanah Howes who used to live in Bayport. They'd been chums all
+their lives and when they retired from the sea they thought 'twould be
+lovely to build a double house so's they would be right close together
+all the time. Well, they did it and they hadn't been settled more'n a
+month when they began quarrelin'. Cap'n Noah's wife wanted the house
+painted yellow and Mrs. Cap'n Elkanah, she wanted it green. They
+started the fuss and it ended by one-half bein' yellow and t'other half
+green--such an outrage you never saw--and a big fence down the middle
+of the front yard, and the two families not speakin', and law-suits and
+land knows what all. They wouldn't even go to the same church nor be
+buried in the same graveyard. No sir-ee! no two-family house for us if
+I can help it. We've got troubles enough inside the family without
+fightin' the neighbors.”
+
+“But think of the beautiful names,” I observed. “Those names ought to
+appeal to your poetic soul, Hephzy. We haven't seen a villa yet, no
+matter how dingy, or small, that wasn't christened 'Rosemary Terrace'
+or 'Sunnylawn' or something. That last one--the shack with the broken
+windows--was labeled 'Broadview' and it faced an alley ending at a brick
+stable.”
+
+“I know it,” she said. “If they'd called it 'Narrowview' or 'Cow
+Prospect' 'twould have been more fittin', I should say. But I think
+givin' names to homes is sort of pretty, just the same. We might call
+our house at home 'Writer's Rest.' A writer lives in it, you know.”
+
+“And he has rested more than he has written of late,” I observed.
+“'Quahaug Stew' or 'The Tureen' would be better, I should say.”
+
+When we expressed disapproval of the semi-detached villas our real
+estate brokers flew to the other extremity and proceeded to show
+us “estates.” These estates comprised acres of ground, mansions,
+game-keepers' and lodge-keepers' houses, and goodness knows what. Some,
+so the brokers were particular to inform us, were celebrated for their
+“shooting.”
+
+The villas were not good enough; the estates were altogether too good.
+We inspected but one and then declined to see more.
+
+“Shootin'!” sniffed Hephzy. “I should feel like shootin' myself every
+time I paid the rent. I'd HAVE to do it the second time. 'Twould be a
+quicker end than starvin', 'and the first month would bring us to that.”
+
+We found one pleasant cottage in a suburb bearing the euphonious name of
+“Leatherhead”--that is, the village was named “Leatherhead”; the cottage
+was “Ash Clump.” I teased Hephzy by referring to it as “Ash Dump,” but
+it really was a pretty, roomy house, with gardens and flowers. For the
+matter of that, every cottage we visited, even the smallest, was bowered
+in flowers.
+
+Hephzy's romantic spirit objected strongly to “Leatherhead,” but I told
+her nothing could be more appropriate.
+
+“This whole proposition--Beg pardon; I didn't mean to use that word;
+we've heard enough concerning 'propositions'--but really, Hephzy,
+'Leatherhead' is very appropriate for us. If we weren't leather-headed
+and deserving of leather medals we should not be hunting houses at all.
+We should have left Little Frank and her affairs in a lawyer's hands and
+be enjoying ourselves as we intended. Leatherhead for the leather-heads;
+it's another dispensation of Providence.”
+
+“Ash Dump”--“Clump,” I mean--was owned by a person named Cripps, Solomon
+Cripps. Mr. Cripps was a stout, mutton-chopped individual, strongly
+suggestive of Bancroft's “Henry.” He was rather pompous and surly when I
+first knocked at the door of his residence, but when he learned we were
+house-hunting and had our eyes upon the “Clump,” he became very
+polite indeed. “A 'eavenly spot,” he declared it to be. “A beautiful
+neighborhood. Near the shops and not far from the Primitive Wesleyan
+chapel.” He and Mrs. Cripps attended the chapel, he informed us.
+
+I did not fancy Mr. Cripps; he was too--too something, I was not sure
+what. And Mrs. Cripps, whom we met later, was of a similar type. They,
+like everyone else, recognized us as Americans at once and they spoke
+highly of the “States.”
+
+“A very fine country, I am informed,” said Mr. Cripps. “New, of course,
+but very fine indeed. Young men make money there. Much money--yes.”
+
+Mrs. Cripps wished to know if Americans were a religious people, as a
+rule. Religion, true spiritual religion was on the wane in England.
+
+I gathered that she and her husband were doing their best to keep it up
+to the standard. I had read, in books by English writers, of the British
+middle-class Pharisee. I judged the Crippses to be Pharisees.
+
+Hephzy's opinion was like mine.
+
+“If ever there was a sanctimonious hypocrite it's that Mrs. Cripps,” she
+declared. “And her husband ain't any better. They remind me of Deacon
+Hardy and his wife back home. He always passed the plate in church and
+she was head of the sewin' circle, but when it came to lettin' go of
+an extry cent for the minister's salary they had glue on their fingers.
+Father used to say that the Deacon passed the plate himself so nobody
+could see how little he put in it. They were the ones that always
+brought a stick of salt herrin' to the donation parties.”
+
+We didn't like the Crippses, but we did like “Ash Clump.” We had almost
+decided to take it when our plans were quashed by the member of our
+party on whose account we had planned solely. Miss Morley flatly refused
+to go to Leatherhead.
+
+“Don't ask ME why,” said Hephzy, to whom the refusal had been made. “I
+don't know. All I know is that the very name 'Leatherhead' turned her
+whiter than she has been for a week. She just put that little foot of
+hers down and said no. I said 'Why not?' and she said 'Never mind.' So I
+guess we sha'n't be Leatherheaded--in that way--this summer.”
+
+I was angry and impatient, but when I tried to reason with the young
+lady I met a crushing refusal and a decided snub.
+
+“I do not care,” said Little Frank, calmly and coldly, “to explain my
+reasons. I have them, and that is sufficient. I shall not go to--that
+town or that place.”
+
+“But why?” I begged, restraining my desire to shake her.
+
+“I have my reasons. You may go there, if you wish. That is your right.
+But I shall not. And before you go I shall insist upon a settlement of
+my claim.”
+
+The “claim” could neither be settled nor discussed; the doctor's warning
+was no less insistent although his patient was steadily improving. I
+faced the alternative of my compliance or her nervous prostration and I
+chose the former. My desire to shake her remained.
+
+So “Ash Clump” was given up. Hephzy and I speculated much concerning
+Little Frank's aversion to Leatherhead.
+
+“It must be,” said Hephzy, “that she knows somebody there, or somethin'
+like that. That's likely, I suppose. You know we don't know much about
+her or what she's done since her father died, Hosy. I've tried to ask
+her but she won't tell. I wish we did know.”
+
+“I don't,” I snarled. “I wish to heaven we had never known her at all.”
+
+Hephzy sighed. “It IS awful hard for you,” she said. “And yet, if we had
+come to know her in another way you--we might have been glad. I--I think
+she could be as sweet as she is pretty to folks she didn't consider
+thieves--and Americans. She does hate Americans. That's her precious
+pa's doin's, I suppose likely.”
+
+The next afternoon we saw the advertisement in the Standard. George,
+the waiter, brought two of the London dailies to our room each day. The
+advertisement read as follows:
+
+
+“To Let for the Summer Months--Furnished. A Rectory in Mayberry, Sussex.
+Ten rooms, servants' quarters, vegetable gardens, small fruit, tennis
+court, etc., etc. Water and gas laid on. Golf near by. Terms low.
+Rector--Mayberry, Sussex.”
+
+
+“I answered it, Hosy,” said Hephzy.
+
+“You did!”
+
+“Yes. It sounded so nice I couldn't help it. It would be lovely to live
+in a rectory, wouldn't it.”
+
+“Lovely--and expensive,” I answered. “I'm afraid a rectory with tennis
+courts and servants' quarters and all the rest of it will prove too
+grand for a pair of Bayporters like you and me. However, your answering
+the ad does no harm; it doesn't commit us to anything.”
+
+But when the answer to the answer came it was even more appealing than
+the advertisement itself. And the terms, although a trifle higher
+than we had planned to pay, were not entirely beyond our means. The
+rector--his name was Cole--urged us to visit Mayberry and see the place
+for ourselves. We were to take the train for Haddington on Hill where
+the trap would meet us. Mayberry was two miles from Haddington on Hill,
+it appeared.
+
+We decided to go, but before writing of our intention, Hephzy consulted
+the most particular member of our party.
+
+“It's no use doing anything until we ask her,” she said. “She may be as
+down on Mayberry as she was on Leatherhead.”
+
+But she was not. She had no objections to Mayberry. So, after writing
+and making the necessary arrangements, we took the train one bright,
+sunny morning, and after a ride of an hour or more, alighted at
+Haddington on Hill.
+
+Haddington on Hill was not on a hill at all, unless a knoll in the
+middle of a wide flat meadow be called that. There were no houses near
+the railway station, either rectories or any other sort. We were the
+only passengers to leave the train there.
+
+The trap, however, was waiting. The horse which drew it was a black,
+plump little animal, and the driver was a neat English lad who touched
+his hat and assisted Hephzy to the back seat of the vehicle. I climbed
+up beside her.
+
+The road wound over the knoll and away across the meadow. On either side
+were farm lands, fields of young grain, or pastures with flocks of sheep
+grazing contentedly. In the distance, in every direction, one caught
+glimpses of little villages with gray church towers rising amid the
+foliage. Each field and pasture was bordered with a hedge instead of
+a fence, and over all hung the soft, light blue haze which is so
+characteristic of good weather in England.
+
+Birds which we took to be crows, but which we learned afterward were
+rooks, whirled and circled. As we turned a corner a smaller bird rose
+from the grass beside the road and soared upward, singing with all its
+little might until it was a fluttering speck against the sky. Hephzy
+watched it, her eyes shining.
+
+“I believe,” she cried, excitedly, “I do believe that is a skylark. Do
+you suppose it is?”
+
+“A lark, yes, lady,” said our driver.
+
+“A lark, a real skylark! Just think of it, Hosy. I've heard a real lark.
+Well, Hephzibah Cahoon, you may never get into a book, but you're livin'
+among book things every day of your life. 'And singin' ever soars and
+soarin' ever singest.' I'd sing, too, if I knew how. You needn't be
+frightened--I sha'n't try.”
+
+The meadows ended at the foot of another hill, a real one this time.
+At our left, crowning the hill, a big house, a mansion with towers and
+turrets, rose above the trees. Hephzy whispered to me.
+
+“You don't suppose THAT is the rectory, do you, Hosy?” she asked, in an
+awestricken tone.
+
+“If it is we may as well go back to London,” I answered. “But it
+isn't. Nothing lower in churchly rank than a bishop could keep up that
+establishment.”
+
+The driver settled our doubts for us.
+
+“The Manor House, sir,” he said, pointing with his whip. “The estate
+begins here, sir.”
+
+The “estate” was bordered by a high iron fence, stretching as far as
+we could see. Beside that fence we rode for some distance. Then another
+turn in the road and we entered the street of a little village, a
+village of picturesque little houses, brick or stone always--not a frame
+house among them. Many of the roofs were thatched. Flowers and climbing
+vines and little gardens everywhere. The village looked as if it had
+been there, just as it was, for centuries.
+
+“This is Mayberry, sir,” said our driver. “That is the rectory, next the
+church.”
+
+We could see the church tower and the roof, but the rectory was not yet
+visible to our eyes. We turned in between two of the houses, larger and
+more pretentious than the rest. The driver alighted and opened a big
+wooden gate. Before us was a driveway, shaded by great elms and bordered
+by rose hedges. At the end of the driveway was an old-fashioned,
+comfortable looking, brick house. Vines hid the most of the bricks.
+Flower beds covered its foundations. A gray-haired old gentleman stood
+in the doorway.
+
+This was the rectory we had come to see and the gray-haired gentleman
+was the Reverend Mr. Cole, the rector.
+
+“My soul!” whispered Hephzy, looking aghast at the spacious grounds, “we
+can never hire THIS. This is too expensive and grand for us, Hosy. Look
+at the grass to cut and the flowers to attend to, and the house to run.
+No wonder the servants have 'quarters.' My soul and body! I thought a
+rector was a kind of minister, and a rectory was a sort of parsonage,
+but I guess I'm off my course, as Father used to say. Either that or
+ministers' wages are higher than they are in Bayport. No, this place
+isn't for you and me, Hosy.”
+
+But it was. Before we left that rectory in the afternoon I had agreed
+to lease it until the middle of September, servants--there were five
+of them, groom and gardener included--horse and trap, tennis court,
+vegetable garden, fruit, flowers and all. It developed that the terms,
+which I had considered rather too high for my purse, included the
+servants' wages, vegetables from the garden, strawberries and other
+“small fruit”--everything. Even food for the horse was included in that
+all-embracing rent.
+
+As Hephzy said, everything considered, the rent of Mayberry Rectory was
+lower than that of a fair-sized summer cottage at Bayport.
+
+The Reverend Mr. Cole was a delightful gentleman. His wife was equally
+kind and agreeable. I think they were, at first, rather unpleasantly
+surprised to find that their prospective tenants were from the “States”;
+but Hephzy and I managed to behave as unlike savages as we could, and
+the Cole manner grew less and less reserved. Mr. Cole and his wife were
+planning to spend a long vacation in Switzerland and his “living,” or
+parish, was to be left in charge of his two curates. There was a son at
+Oxford who was to join them on their vacation.
+
+Mr. Cole and I walked about the grounds and visited the church, the
+yard of which, with its weather-beaten gravestones and fine old trees,
+adjoined the rectory on the western side, behind the tall hedge.
+
+The church was built of stone, of course, and a portion of it was
+older than the Norman conquest. Before the altar steps were two ancient
+effigies of knights in armor, with crossed gauntlets and their feet
+supported by crouching lions. These old fellows were scratched and
+scarred and initialed. Upon one noble nose were the letters “A. H. N.
+1694.” I decided that vandalism was not a modern innovation.
+
+While the rector and I were inspecting the church, Mrs. Cole and Hephzy
+were making a tour of the house. They met us at the door. Mrs. Cole's
+eyes were twinkling; I judged that she had found Hephzy amusing. If this
+was true it had not warped her judgment, however, for, a moment later
+when she and I were alone, she said:
+
+“Your cousin, Miss Cahoon, is a good housekeeper, I imagine.”
+
+“She is all of that,” I said, decidedly.
+
+“Yes, she was very particular concerning the kitchen and scullery and
+the maids' rooms. Are all American housekeepers as particular?”
+
+“Not all. Miss Cahoon is unique in many ways; but she is a remarkable
+woman in all.”
+
+“Yes. I am sure of it. And she has such a typical American accent,
+hasn't she.”
+
+We were to take possession on the following Monday. We lunched at the
+“Red Cow,” the village inn, where the meal was served in the parlor and
+the landlord's daughter waited upon us. The plump black horse drew us to
+the railway station, and we took the train for London.
+
+We have learned, by this time, that second, or even third-class travel
+was quite good enough for short journeys and that very few English
+people paid for first-class compartments. We were fortunate enough to
+have a second-class compartment to ourselves this time, and, when we
+were seated, Hephzy asked a question.
+
+“Did you think to speak about the golf, Hosy?” she said. “You will want
+to play some, won't you?”
+
+“Yes,” said I. “I did ask about it. It seems that the golf course is a
+private one, on the big estate we passed on the way from the station.
+Permission is always given the rectory tenants.”
+
+“Oh! my gracious, isn't that grand! That estate isn't in Mayberry. The
+Mayberry bounds--that's what Mrs. Cole called them--and just this
+side. The estate is in the village of--of Burgleston Bogs. Burgleston
+Bogs--it's a funny name. Seem's if I'd heard it before.”
+
+“You have,” said I, in surprise. “Burgleston Bogs is where that
+Heathcroft chap whom we met on the steamer visits occasionally. His aunt
+has a big place there. By George! you don't suppose that estate belongs
+to his aunt, do you?”
+
+Hephzy gasped. “I wouldn't wonder,” she cried. “I wouldn't wonder if it
+did. And his aunt was Lady Somebody, wasn't she. Maybe you'll meet him
+there. Goodness sakes! just think of your playin' golf with a Lady's
+nephew.”
+
+“I doubt if we need to think of it,” I observed. “Mr. Carleton
+Heathcroft on board ship may be friendly with American plebeians, but on
+shore, and when visiting his aunt, he may be quite different. I fancy he
+and I will not play many holes together.”
+
+Hephzy laughed. “You 'fancy,'” she repeated. “You'll be sayin' 'My word'
+next. My! Hosy, you ARE gettin' English.”
+
+“Indeed I'm not!” I declared, with emphasis. “My experience with an
+English relative is sufficient of itself to prevent that. Miss Frances
+Morley and I are compatriots for the summer only.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+In Which We Make the Acquaintance of Mayberry and a Portion of
+Burgleston Bogs
+
+
+We migrated to Mayberry the following Monday, as we had agreed to do.
+Miss Morley went with us, of course. I secured a first-class apartment
+for our party and the journey was a comfortable and quiet one. Our
+invalid was too weak to talk a great deal even if she had wished, which
+she apparently did not. Johnson, the groom, met us at Haddington on Hill
+and we drove to the rectory. There Miss Morley, very tired and worn out,
+was escorted to her room by Hephzy and Charlotte, the housemaid. She was
+perfectly willing to remain in that room, in fact she did not leave it
+for several days.
+
+Meanwhile Hephzy and I were doing our best to become acquainted with our
+new and novel mode of life. Hephzy took charge of the household and was,
+in a way, quite in her element; in another way she was distinctly out of
+it.
+
+“I did think I was gettin' used to bein' waited on, Hosy,” she confided,
+“but it looks as if I'll have to begin all over again. Managin' one
+hired girl like Susanna was a job and I tell you I thought managin'
+three, same as we've got here, would be a staggerer. But it isn't.
+Somehow the kind of help over here don't seem to need managin'. They
+manage me more than I do them. There's Mrs. Wigham, the cook. Mrs. Cole
+told me she was a 'superior' person and I guess she is--at any rate,
+she's superior to me in some things. She knows what a 'gooseberry fool'
+is and I'm sure I don't. I felt like another kind of fool when she told
+me she was goin' to make one, as a 'sweet,' for dinner to-night. As nigh
+as I can make out it's a sort of gooseberry pie, but _I_ should never
+have called a gooseberry pie a 'sweet'; a 'sour' would have been better,
+accordin' to my reckonin'. However, all desserts over here are 'sweets'
+and fruit is dessert. Then there's Charlotte, the housemaid, and Baker,
+the 'between-maid'--between upstairs and down, I suppose that means--and
+Grimmer, the gardener, and Johnson, the boy that takes care of the
+horse. Each one of 'em seems to know exactly what their own job is and
+just as exactly where it leaves off and t'other's job begins. I never
+saw such obligin' but independent folks in my life. As for my own job,
+that seems to be settin' still with my hands folded. Well, it's a brand
+new one and it's goin' to take me one spell to get used to it.”
+
+It seemed likely to be a “spell” before I became accustomed to my own
+“job,” that of being a country gentleman with nothing to do but play the
+part. When I went out to walk about the rectory garden, Grimmer touched
+his hat. When, however, I ventured to pick a few flowers in that garden,
+his expression of shocked disapproval was so marked that I felt I must
+have made a dreadful mistake. I had, of course. Grimmer was in charge of
+those flowers and if I wished any picked I was expected to tell him to
+pick them. Picking them myself was equivalent to admitting that I was
+not accustomed to having a gardener in my employ, in other words that
+I was not a real gentleman at all. I might wait an hour for Johnson to
+return from some errand or other and harness the horse; but I must on
+no account save time by harnessing the animal myself. That sort of labor
+was not done by the “gentry.” I should have lost caste with the servants
+a dozen times during my first few days in the rectory were it not for
+one saving grace; I was an American, and almost any peculiar thing was
+expected of an American.
+
+When I strolled along the village street the male villagers, especially
+the older ones, touched their hats to me. The old women bowed or
+courtesied. Also they invariably paused, when I had passed, to stare
+after me. The group at the blacksmith shop--where the stone coping of
+the low wall was worn in hollows by the generations of idlers who had
+sat upon it, just as their descendants were sitting upon it
+now--turned, after I had passed, to stare. There would be a pause in the
+conversation, then an outburst of talk and laughter. They were talking
+about the “foreigner” of course, and laughing at him. At the
+tailor's, where I sent my clothes to be pressed, the tailor himself, a
+gray-haired, round-shouldered antique, ventured an opinion concerning
+those clothes. “That coat was not made in England, sir,” he said. “We
+don't make 'em that way 'ere, sir. That's a bit foreign, that coat,
+sir.”
+
+Yes, I was a foreigner. It was hard to realize. In a way everything was
+so homelike; the people looked like people I had known at home, their
+faces were New England faces quite as much as they were old England.
+But their clothes were just a little different, and their ways were
+different, and a dry-goods store was a “draper's shop,” and a drug-store
+was a “chemist's,” and candies were “sweeties” and a public school was a
+“board school” and a boarding-school was a “public school.” And I might
+be polite and pleasant to these people--persons out of my “class”--but I
+must not be too cordial, for if I did, in the eyes of these very people,
+I lost caste and they would despise me.
+
+Yes, I was a foreigner; it was a queer feeling.
+
+Coming from America and particularly from democratic Bayport, where
+everyone is as good as anyone else provided he behaves himself, the
+class distinction in Mayberry was strange at first. I do not mean that
+there was not independence there; there was, among the poorest as well
+as the richer element. Every male Mayberryite voted as he thought, I am
+sure; and was self-respecting and independent. He would have resented
+any infringement of his rights just as Englishmen have resented such
+infringements and fought against them since history began. But what I am
+trying to make plain is that political equality and social equality were
+by no means synonymous. A man was a man for 'a' that, but when he was
+a gentleman he was 'a' that' and more. And when he was possessed of
+a title he was revered because of that title, or the title itself was
+revered. The hatter in London where I purchased a new “bowler,” had
+a row of shelves upon which were boxes containing, so I was told, the
+spare titles of eminent customers. And those hat-boxes were lettered
+like this: “The Right Hon. Col. Wainwright, V.C.,” “His Grace the Duke
+of Leicester,” “Sir George Tupman, K.C.B.,” etc., etc. It was my first
+impression that the hatter was responsible for thus proclaiming his
+customers' titles, but one day I saw Richard, convoyed by Henry,
+reverently bearing a suitcase into Bancroft's Hotel. And that suitcase
+bore upon its side the inscription, in very large letters, “Lord Eustace
+Stairs.” Then I realized that Lord Eustace, like the owners of the
+hat-boxes, recognizing the value of a title, advertised it accordingly.
+
+I laughed when I saw the suitcase and the hat-boxes. When I told Hephzy
+about the latter she laughed, too.
+
+“That's funny, isn't it,” she said. “Suppose the folks that have their
+names on the mugs in the barber shop back home had 'em lettered 'Cap'n
+Elkanah Crowell,' 'Judge the Hon. Ezra Salters,' 'The Grand Exalted
+Sachem Order of Red Men George Kendrick.' How everybody would laugh,
+wouldn't they. Why they'd laugh Cap'n Elkanah and Ezra and Kendrick out
+of town.”
+
+So they would have done--in Bayport--but not in Mayberry or London.
+Titles and rank and class in England are established and accepted
+institutions, and are not laughed at, for where institutions of that
+kind are laughed at they soon cease to be. Hephzy summed it up pretty
+well when she said:
+
+“After all, it all depends on what you've been brought up to, doesn't
+it, Hosy. Your coat don't look funny to you because you've always worn
+that kind of coat, but that tailor man thought 'twas funny because he
+never saw one made like it. And a lord takin' his lordship seriously
+seems funny to us, but it doesn't seem so to him or to the tailor.
+They've been brought up to it, same as you have to the coat.”
+
+On one point she and I had agreed before coming to Mayberry, that was
+that we must not expect calls from the neighbors or social intercourse
+with the people of Mayberry.
+
+“They don't know anything about us,” said I, “except that we are
+Americans, and that may or may not be a recommendation, according to the
+kind of Americans they have previously met. The Englishman, so all the
+books tell us, is reserved and distant at first. He requires a long
+acquaintance before admitting strangers to his home life and we shall
+probably have no opportunity to make that acquaintance. If we were to
+stay in Mayberry a year, and behaved ourselves, we might in time be
+accepted as desirable, but not during the first summer. So if they leave
+us to ourselves we must make the best of it.”
+
+Hephzy agreed thoroughly. “You're right,” she said. “And, after all,
+it's just what would happen anywhere. You remember when that Portygee
+family came to Bayport and lived in the Solon Blodgett house. Nobody
+would have anything to do with 'em for a long time because they were
+foreigners, but they turned out to be real nice folks after all. We're
+foreigners here and you can't blame the Mayberry people for not takin'
+chances; it looks as if nobody in it ever had taken a chance, as if it
+had been just the way it is since Noah came out of the Ark. I never felt
+so new and shiny in my life as I do around this old rectory and this old
+town.”
+
+Which was all perfectly true and yet the fact remains that, “new and
+shiny” as we were, the Mayberry people--those of our “class”--began to
+call upon us almost immediately, to invite us to their homes, to show us
+little kindnesses, and to be whole-souled and hospitable and friendly as
+if we had known them and they us for years. It was one of the greatest
+surprises, and remains one of the most pleasant recollections, of my
+brief career as a resident in England, the kindly cordiality of these
+neighbors in Mayberry.
+
+The first caller was Dr. Bayliss, who occupied “Jasmine Gables,” the
+pretty house next door. He dropped in one morning, introduced himself,
+shook hands and chatted for an hour. That afternoon his wife called upon
+Hephzy. The next day I played a round of golf upon the private course
+on the Manor House grounds, the Burgleston Bogs grounds--with the doctor
+and his son, young Herbert Bayliss, just through Cambridge and the
+medical college at London. Young Bayliss was a pleasant, good-looking
+young chap and I liked him as I did his father. He was at present
+acting as his father's assistant in caring for the former's practice, a
+practice which embraced three or four villages and a ten-mile stretch of
+country.
+
+Naturally I was interested in the Manor estate and its owner. The
+grounds were beautiful, three square miles in extent and cared for, so
+Bayliss, Senior, told me, by some hundred and fifty men, seventy of
+whom were gardeners. Of the Manor House itself I caught a glimpse,
+gray-turreted and huge, set at the end of lawns and flower beds, with
+fountains playing and statues gleaming white amid the foliage. I asked
+some questions concerning its owner. Yes, she was Lady Kent Carey and
+she had a nephew named Heathcroft. So there was a chance, after all,
+that I might again meet my ship acquaintance who abhorred “griddle
+cakes.” I imagined he would be somewhat surprised at that meeting. It
+was an odd coincidence.
+
+As for the game of golf, my part of it, the least said the better.
+Doctor Bayliss, who, it developed, was an enthusiast at the game, was
+kind enough to tell me I had a “topping” drive. I thanked him, but there
+was altogether too much “topping” connected with my play that forenoon
+to make my thanks enthusiastic. I determined to practice assiduously
+before attempting another match. Somehow I felt responsible for the
+golfing honor of my country.
+
+Other callers came to the rectory. The two curates, their names were
+Judson and Worcester, visited us; young men, both of them, and good
+fellows, Worcester particularly. Although they wore clerical garb
+they were not in the least “preachy.” Hephzy, although she liked them,
+expressed surprise.
+
+“They didn't act a bit like ministers,” she said. “They didn't ask us
+to come to meetin' nor hint at prayin' with the family or anything, yet
+they looked for all the while like two Methodist parsons, young ones. A
+curate is a kind of new-hatched rector, isn't he?”
+
+“Not exactly,” I answered. “He is only partially hatched. But, whatever
+you do, don't tell them they look like Methodists; they wouldn't
+consider it a compliment.”
+
+Hephzy was a Methodist herself and she resented the slur. “Well, I guess
+a Methodist is as good as an Episcopalian,” she declared. “And they
+don't ACT like Methodists. Why, one of 'em smoked a pipe. Just imagine
+Mr. Partridge smokin' a pipe!”
+
+Mr. Judson and I played eighteen holes of golf together. He played a
+little worse than I did and I felt better. The honor of Bayport's golf
+had been partially vindicated.
+
+While all this was going on our patient remained, for the greater part
+of the time, in her room. She was improving steadily. Doctor Bayliss,
+whom I had asked to attend her, declared, as his London associates had
+done, that all she needed was rest, quiet and the good air and food
+which she was certain to get in Mayberry. He, too, like the physician at
+Bancroft's, seemed impressed by her appearance and manner. And he also
+asked similar embarrassing questions.
+
+“Delightful young lady, Miss Morley,” he observed. “One of our English
+girls, Knowles. She informs me that she IS English.”
+
+“Partly English,” I could not help saying. “Her mother was an American.”
+
+“Oh, indeed! You know she didn't tell me that, now did she.”
+
+“Perhaps not.”
+
+“No, by Jove, she didn't. But she has lived all her life in England?”
+
+“Yes--in England and France.”
+
+“Your niece, I think you said.”
+
+I had said it, unfortunately, and it could not be unsaid now without
+many explanations. So I nodded.
+
+“She doesn't--er--behave like an American. She hasn't the American
+manner, I mean to say. Now Miss Cahoon has--er--she has--”
+
+“Miss Cahoon's manner is American. So is mine; we ARE Americans, you
+see.”
+
+“Yes, yes, of course,” hastily. “When are you and I to have the nine
+holes you promised, Knowles?”
+
+One fine afternoon the invalid came downstairs. The “between-maid” had
+arranged chairs and the table on the lawn. We were to have tea there; we
+had tea every day, of course--were getting quite accustomed to it.
+
+Frances--I may as well begin calling her that--looked in better health
+then than at any time since our meeting. She was becomingly, although
+simply gowned, and there was a dash of color in her cheeks. Hephzibah
+escorted her to the tea table. I rose to meet them.
+
+“Frank--Frances, I mean--is goin' to join us to-day,” said Hephzy.
+“She's beginnin' to look real well again, isn't she.”
+
+I said she was. Frances nodded to me and took one of the chairs, the
+most comfortable one. She appeared perfectly self-possessed, which I was
+sure I did not. I was embarrassed, of course. Each time I met the
+girl the impossible situation in which she had placed us became more
+impossible, to my mind. And the question, “What on earth shall we do
+with her?” more insistent.
+
+Hephzy poured the tea. Frances, cup in hand, looked about her.
+
+“This is rather a nice place, after all,” she observed, “isn't it.”
+
+“It's a real lovely place,” declared Hephzy with enthusiasm.
+
+The young lady cast another appraising glance at our surroundings.
+
+“Yes,” she repeated, “it's a jolly old house and the grounds are not bad
+at all.”
+
+Her tone nettled me. Everything considered I thought she might have
+shown a little more enthusiasm.
+
+“I infer that you expected something much worse,” I observed.
+
+“Oh, of course I didn't know what to expect. How should I? I had no hand
+in selecting it, you know.”
+
+“She's hardly seen it,” put in Hephzy. “She was too sick when she came
+to notice much, I guess, and this is the first time she has been out
+doors.”
+
+“I am glad you approve,” I observed, drily.
+
+My sarcasm was wasted. Miss Morley said again that she did approve, of
+what she had seen, and added that we seemed to have chosen very well.
+
+“I don't suppose,” said Hephzy, complacently, “that there are many much
+prettier places in England than this one.”
+
+“Oh, indeed there are. But all England is beautiful, of course.”
+
+I thought of Mrs. Briggs' lodging-house, but I did not refer to it. Our
+guest--or my “niece”--or our ward--it was hard to classify her--changed
+the subject.
+
+“Have you met any of the people about here?” she asked.
+
+Hephzy burst into enthusiastic praise of the Baylisses and the curates
+and the Coles.
+
+“They're all just as nice as they can be,” she declared. “I never met
+nicer folks, at home or anywhere.”
+
+Frances nodded. “All English people are nice,” she said.
+
+Again I thought of Mrs. Briggs and again I kept my thoughts to myself.
+Hephzy went on rhapsodizing. I paid little attention until I heard her
+speak my name.
+
+“And Hosy thinks so, too. Don't you, Hosy?” she said.
+
+I answered yes, on the chance. Frances regarded me oddly.
+
+“I thought--I understood that your name was Kent, Mr. Knowles,” she
+said.
+
+“It is.”
+
+“Then why does Miss Cahoon always--”
+
+Hephzy interrupted. “Oh, I always call him Hosy,” she explained. “It's a
+kind of pet name of mine. It's short for Hosea. His whole name is Hosea
+Kent Knowles, but 'most everybody but me does call him Kent. I don't
+think he likes Hosea very well.”
+
+Our companion looked very much as if she did not wonder at my dislike.
+Her eyes twinkled.
+
+“Hosea,” she repeated. “That is an odd name. The original Hosea was a
+prophet, wasn't he? Are you a prophet, Mr. Knowles?”
+
+“Far from it,” I answered, with decision. If I had been a prophet I
+should have been forewarned and, consequently, forearmed.
+
+She smiled and against my will I was forced to admit that her smile was
+attractive; she was prettier than ever when she smiled.
+
+“I remember now,” she said; “all Americans have Scriptural names. I have
+read about them in books.”
+
+“Hosy writes books,” said Hephzy, proudly. “That's his profession; he's
+an author.”
+
+“Oh, really, is he! How interesting!”
+
+“Yes, he is. He has written ever so many books; haven't you, Hosy.”
+
+I didn't answer. My self and my “profession” were the last subjects I
+cared to discuss. The young lady's smile broadened.
+
+“And where do you write your books, Mr. Knowles?” she asked.
+“In--er--Bayport?”
+
+“Yes,” I answered, shortly. “Hephzy, Miss Morley will have another cup
+of tea, I think.”
+
+“Oh, no, thank you. But tell me about your books, Mr. Knowles. Are they
+stories of Bayport?”
+
+“No indeed!” Hephzy would do my talking for me, and I could not order
+her to be quiet. “No indeed!” she declared. “He writes about lords and
+ladies and counts and such. He hardly ever writes about everyday people
+like the ones in Bayport. You would like his books, Frances. You would
+enjoy readin' 'em, I know.”
+
+“I am sure I should. They must be delightful. I do hope you brought some
+with you, Mr. Knowles.”
+
+“He didn't, but I did. I'll lend you some, Frances. I'll lend you 'The
+Queen's Amulet.' That's a splendid story.”
+
+“I am sure it must be. So you write about queens, too, Mr. Knowles. I
+thought Americans scorned royalty. And what is his queen's name, Miss
+Cahoon? Is it Scriptural?”
+
+“Oh, no indeed! Besides, all Americans' names aren't out of the Bible,
+any more than the names in England are. That man who wanted to let us
+his house in Copperhead--no, Leatherhead--funny I should forget THAT
+awful name--he was named Solomon--Solomon Cripps... Why, what is it?”
+
+Miss Morley's smile and the mischievous twinkle had vanished. She looked
+startled, and even frightened, it seemed to me.
+
+“What is it, Frances?” repeated Hephzy, anxiously.
+
+“Nothing--nothing. Solomon--what was it? Solomon Cripps. That is an odd
+name. And you met this Mr.--er--Cripps?”
+
+“Yes, we met him. He had a house he wanted to let us, and I guess we'd
+have taken it, too, only you seemed to hate the name of Leatherhead so.
+Don't you remember you did? I don't blame you. Of the things to call a
+pretty town that's about the worst.”
+
+“Yes, it is rather frightful. But this, Mr.--er--Cripps; was he as bad
+as his name? Did you talk with him?”
+
+“Only about the house. Hosy and I didn't like him well enough to
+talk about anything else, except religion. He and his wife gave us
+to understand they were awful pious. I'm afraid we wouldn't have been
+churchy enough to suit them, anyway. Hosy, here, doesn't go to meetin'
+as often as he ought to.”
+
+“I am glad of it.” The young lady's tone was emphatic and she looked as
+if she meant it. We were surprised.
+
+“You're glad of it!” repeated Hephzy, in amazement. “Why?”
+
+“Because I hate persons who go to church all the time and boast of it,
+who do all sorts of mean things, but preach, preach, preach continually.
+They are hypocritical and false and cruel. I HATE them.”
+
+She looked now as she had in the room at Mrs. Briggs's when I had
+questioned her concerning her father. I could not imagine the reason for
+this sudden squall from a clear sky. Hephzy drew a long breath.
+
+“Well,” she said, after a moment, “then Hosy and you ought to get along
+first-rate together. He's down on hypocrites and make-believe piety
+as bad as you are. The only time he and Mr. Partridge, our minister
+in Bayport, ever quarreled--'twasn't a real quarrel, but more of a
+disagreement--was over what sort of a place Heaven was. Mr. Partridge
+was certain sure that nobody but church members would be there, and Hosy
+said if some of the church members in Bayport were sure of a ticket, the
+other place had strong recommendations. 'Twas an awful thing to say, and
+I was almost as shocked as the minister was; that is I should have been
+if I hadn't known he didn't mean it.”
+
+Miss Morley regarded me with a new interest, or at least I thought she
+did.
+
+“Did you mean it?” she asked.
+
+I smiled. “Yes,” I answered.
+
+“Now, Hosy,” cried Hephzy. “What a way that is to talk! What do you know
+about the hereafter?”
+
+“Not much, but,” remembering the old story, “I know Bayport. Humph!
+speaking of ministers, here is one now.”
+
+Judson, the curate, was approaching across the lawn. Hephzy hastily
+removed the lid of the teapot. “Yes,” she said, with a sigh of relief,
+“there's enough tea left, though you mustn't have any more, Hosy. Mr.
+Judson always takes three cups.”
+
+Judson was introduced and, the “between-maid” having brought another
+chair, he joined our party. He accepted the first of the three cups and
+observed.
+
+“I hope I haven't interrupted an important conversation. You appeared to
+be talking very earnestly.”
+
+I should have answered, but Hephzy's look of horrified expostulation
+warned me to be silent. Frances, although she must have seen the look,
+answered instead.
+
+“We were discussing Heaven,” she said, calmly. “Mr. Knowles doesn't
+approve of it.”
+
+Hephzy bounced on her chair. “Why!” she cried; “why, what a--why, WHAT
+will Mr. Judson think! Now, Frances, you know--”
+
+“That was what you said, Mr. Knowles, wasn't it. You said if Paradise
+was exclusively for church members you preferred--well, another
+locality. That was what I understood you to say.”
+
+Mr. Judson looked at me. He was a very good and very orthodox and a very
+young man and his feelings showed in his face.
+
+“I--I can scarcely think Mr. Knowles said that, Miss Morley,” he
+protested. “You must have misunderstood him.”
+
+“Oh, but I didn't misunderstand. That was what he said.”
+
+Again Mr. Judson looked at me. It seemed time for me to say something.
+
+“What I said, or meant to say, was that I doubted if the future life,
+the--er--pleasant part of it, was confined exclusively to--er--professed
+church members,” I explained.
+
+The curate's ruffled feelings were evidently not soothed by this
+explanation.
+
+“But--but, Mr. Knowles,” he stammered, “really, I--I am at a loss to
+understand your meaning. Surely you do not mean that--that--”
+
+“Of course he didn't mean that,” put in Hephzy. “What he said was that
+some of the ones who talk the loudest and oftenest in prayer-meetin' at
+our Methodist church in Bayport weren't as good as they pretended to be.
+And that's so, too.”
+
+Mr. Judson seemed relieved. “Oh,” he exclaimed. “Oh, yes, I quite
+comprehend. Methodists--er--dissenters--that is quite different--quite.”
+
+“Mr. Judson knows that no one except communicants in the Church of
+England are certain of happiness,” observed Frances, very gravely.
+
+Our caller turned his attention to her. He was not a joker, but I think
+he was a trifle suspicious. The young lady met his gaze with one of
+serene simplicity and, although he reddened, he returned to the charge.
+
+“I should--I should scarcely go as far as that, Miss Morley,” he
+said. “But I understand Mr. Knowles to refer to--er--church members;
+and--er--dissenters--Methodists and others--are not--are not--”
+
+“Well,” broke in Hephzibah, with decision, “I'm a Methodist, myself, and
+_I_ don't expect to go to perdition.”
+
+Judson's guns were spiked. He turned redder than ever and changed the
+subject to the weather.
+
+The remainder of the conversation was confined for the most part to
+Frances and the curate. They discussed the village and the people in it
+and the church and its activities. At length Judson mentioned golf.
+
+“Mr. Knowles and I are to have another round shortly, I trust,” he said.
+“You owe me a revenge, you know, Mr. Knowles.”
+
+“Oh,” exclaimed the young lady, in apparent surprise, “does Mr. Knowles
+play golf?”
+
+“Not real golf,” I observed.
+
+“Oh, but he does,” protested Mr. Judson, “he does. Rather! He plays a
+very good game indeed. He beat me quite badly the other day.”
+
+Which, according to my reckoning, was by no means a proof of
+extraordinary ability. Frances seemed amused, for some unexplained
+reason.
+
+“I should never have thought it,” she observed.
+
+“Why not?” asked Judson.
+
+“Oh, I don't know. Golf is a game, and Mr. Knowles doesn't look as if he
+played games. I should have expected nothing so frivolous from him.”
+
+“My golf is anything but frivolous,” I said. “It's too seriously bad.”
+
+“Do you golf, Miss Morley, may I ask?” inquired the curate.
+
+“I have occasionally, after a fashion. I am sure I should like to
+learn.”
+
+“I shall be delighted to teach you. It would be a great pleasure,
+really.”
+
+He looked as if it would be a pleasure. Frances smiled.
+
+“Thank you so much,” she said. “You and I and Mr. Knowles will have a
+threesome.”
+
+Judson's joy at her acceptance was tempered, it seemed to me.
+
+“Oh, of course,” he said. “It will be a great pleasure to have your
+uncle with us. A great pleasure, of course.”
+
+“My--uncle?”
+
+“Why, yes--Mr. Knowles, you know. By the way, Miss Morley--excuse
+my mentioning it, but I notice you always address your uncle as Mr.
+Knowles. That seems a bit curious, if you'll pardon my saying so. A bit
+distant and--er--formal to our English habit. Do all nieces and nephews
+in your country do that? Is it an American custom?”
+
+Hephzy and I looked at each other and my “niece” looked at both of us. I
+could feel the blood tingling in my cheeks and forehead.
+
+“Is it an American custom?” repeated Mr. Judson.
+
+“I don't know,” with chilling deliberation. “I am NOT an American.”
+
+The curate said “Indeed!” and had the astonishing good sense not to say
+any more. Shortly afterward he said good-by.
+
+“But I shall look forward to our threesome, Miss Morley,” he declared.
+“I shall count upon it in the near future.”
+
+After his departure there was a most embarrassing interval of silence.
+Hephzy spoke first.
+
+“Don't you think you had better go in now, Frances,” she said. “Seems to
+me you had. It's the first time you've been out at all, you know.”
+
+The young lady rose. “I am going,” she said. “I am going, if you and--my
+uncle--will excuse me.”
+
+That evening, after dinner, Hephzy joined me in the drawing-room. It was
+a beautiful summer evening, but every shade was drawn and every shutter
+tightly closed. We had, on our second evening in the rectory, suggested
+leaving them open, but the housemaid had shown such shocked surprise
+and disapproval that we had not pressed the point. By this time we had
+learned that “privacy” was another sacred and inviolable English custom.
+The rectory sat in its own ground, surrounded by high hedges; no
+one, without extraordinary pains, could spy upon its inmates, but,
+nevertheless, the privacy of those inmates must be guaranteed. So the
+shutters were closed and the shades drawn.
+
+“Well?” said I to Hephzy.
+
+“Well,” said Hephzy, “it's better than I was afraid it was goin' to be.
+I explained that you told the folks at Bancroft's she was your niece
+because 'twas the handiest thing to tell 'em, and you HAD to tell 'em
+somethin'. And down here in Mayberry the same way. She understood, I
+guess; at any rate she didn't make any great objection. I thought at the
+last that she was laughin', but I guess she wasn't. Only what she said
+sounded funny.”
+
+“What did she say?”
+
+“Why, she wanted to know if she should call you 'Uncle Hosea.' She
+supposed it should be that--'Uncle Hosy' sounded a little irreverent.”
+
+I did not answer. “Uncle Hosea!” a beautiful title, truly.
+
+“She acted so different to-day, didn't she,” observed Hephzy. “It's
+because she's gettin' well, I suppose. She was real full of fun, wasn't
+she.”
+
+“Confound her--yes,” I snarled. “All the fun is on her side. Well, she
+should make the best of it while it lasts. When she learns the truth she
+may not find it so amusing.”
+
+Hephzy sighed. “Yes,” she said, slowly, “I'm afraid that's so, poor
+thing. When--when are you goin' to tell her?”
+
+“I don't know,” I answered. “But pretty soon, that's certain.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+In Which I Break All Previous Resolutions and Make a New One
+
+
+That afternoon tea on the lawn was the beginning of the great change
+in our life at the rectory. Prior to that Hephzy and I had, golfly
+speaking, been playing it as a twosome. Now it became a threesome, with
+other players added at frequent intervals. At luncheon next day our
+invalid, a real invalid no longer, joined us at table in the pleasant
+dining-room, the broad window of which opened upon the formal garden
+with the sundial in the center. She was in good spirits, and, as Hephzy
+confided to me afterward, was “gettin' a real nice appetite.” In gaining
+this appetite she appeared to have lost some of her dignity and chilling
+condescension; at all events, she treated her American relatives as if
+she considered them human beings. She addressed most of her conversation
+to Hephzy, always speaking of and to her as “Miss Cahoon.” She still
+addressed me as “Mr. Knowles,” and I was duly thankful; I had feared
+being hailed as “Uncle Hosy.”
+
+After lunch Mr. Judson called again. He was passing, he explained, on
+his round of parish calls, and had dropped in casually. Mr. Worcester
+also came; his really was a casual stop, I think. He and his brother
+curate were very brotherly indeed, but I noticed an apparent reluctance
+on the part of each to leave before the other. They left together, but
+Mr. Judson again hinted at the promised golf game, and Mr. Worcester,
+having learned from Miss Morley that she played and sang, expressed
+great interest in music and begged permission to bring some “favorite
+songs,” which he felt sure Miss Morley might like to run over.
+
+Miss Morley herself was impartially gracious and affable to both the
+clerical gentlemen; she was looking forward to the golf, she said, and
+the songs she was certain would be jolly. Hephzy and I had very little
+to say, and no one seemed particularly anxious to hear that little.
+
+The curates had scarcely disappeared down the driveway when Doctor
+Bayliss and his son strolled in from next door. Doctor Bayliss, Senior,
+was much pleased to find his patient up and about, and Herbert, the
+son, even more pleased to find her at all, I judge. Young Bayliss was
+evidently very favorably impressed with his new neighbor. He was a big,
+healthy, broad-shouldered fellow, a grown-up boy, whose laugh was a
+pleasure to hear, and who possessed the faculty, envied by me, the
+quahaug, of chatting entertainingly on all subjects from tennis and
+the new American dances to Lloyd-George and old-age pensions. Frances
+declared a strong aversion to the dances, principally because they were
+American, I suspected.
+
+Doctor Bayliss, the old gentleman, then turned to me.
+
+“What is the American opinion of the Liberal measures?” he asked.
+
+“I should say,” I answered, “that, so far as they are understood in
+America, opinion concerning them is divided, much as it is here.”
+
+“Really! But you haven't the Liberal and Conservative parties as we
+have, you know.”
+
+“We have liberals and conservatives, however, although our political
+parties are not so named.”
+
+“We call 'em Republicans and Democrats,” explained Hephzy. “Hosy is a
+Republican,” she added, proudly.
+
+“I am not certain what I am,” I observed. “I have voted a split ticket
+of late.”
+
+Young Bayliss asked a question.
+
+“Are you a--what is it--Republican, Miss Morley?” he inquired.
+
+Miss Morley's eyes dropped disdainfully.
+
+“I am neither,” she said. “My father was a Conservative, of course.”
+
+“Oh, I say! That's odd, isn't it. Your uncle here is--”
+
+“Uncle Hosea, you mean?” sweetly. “Oh, Uncle Hosea is an American. I am
+English.”
+
+She did not add “Thank heaven,” but she might as well. “Uncle Hosea”
+ shuddered at the name. Young Bayliss grinned behind his blonde mustache.
+When he left, in company with his father, Hephzy invited him to “run in
+any time.”
+
+“We're next-door neighbors,” she said, “so we mustn't be formal.”
+
+I was fairly certain that the invitation was superfluous. If I knew
+human nature at all I knew that Bayliss, Junior, did not intend to let
+formality stand in the way of frequent calls at the rectory.
+
+My intuition was correct. The following afternoon he called again.
+So did Mr. Judson. Both calls were casual, of course. So was Mr.
+Worcester's that evening. He came to bring the “favorite songs” and was
+much surprised to find Miss Morley in the drawing-room. He said so.
+
+Hephzy and I knew little of our relative's history. She had volunteered
+no particulars other than those given on the occasion of our first
+meeting, but we did know, because Mrs. Briggs had told us, that she had
+been a member of an opera troupe. This evening we heard her sing for the
+first time. She sang well; her voice was not a strong one, but it was
+clear and sweet and she knew how to use it. Worcester sang well also,
+and the little concert was very enjoyable.
+
+It was the first of many. Almost every evening after dinner Frances sat
+down at the old-fashioned piano, with the candle brackets at each side
+of the music rack, and sang. Occasionally we were her only auditors,
+but more often one or both of the curates or Doctor and Mrs. Bayliss or
+Bayliss, Junior, dropped in. We made other acquaintances--Mrs. Griggson,
+the widow in “reduced circumstances,” whose husband had been killed in
+the Boer war, and who occupied the little cottage next to the draper's
+shop; Mr. and Mrs. Samson, of Burgleston Bogs, friends of the Baylisses,
+and others. They were pleasant, kindly, unaffected people and we enjoyed
+their society.
+
+Each day Frances gained in health and strength. The care-free,
+wholesome, out-of-door life at Mayberry seemed to suit her. She seemed
+to consider herself a member of the family now; at all events she
+did not speak of leaving nor hint at the prompt settlement of her
+preposterous “claim.” Hephzy and I did not mention it, even to each
+other. Hephzy, I think, was quite satisfied with things as they were,
+and I, in spite of my threats and repeated declarations that the present
+state of affairs was ridiculous and could not last, put off telling
+“my niece” the truth. I, too, was growing more accustomed to the
+“threesome.”
+
+The cloud was always there, hanging over our heads and threatening a
+storm at any moment, but I was learning to forget it. The situation
+had its pleasant side; it was not all bad. For instance, meals in the
+pleasant dining-room, with Hephzy at one end of the table, I at the
+other, and Frances between us, were more social and chatty than they had
+been. To have the young lady come down to breakfast, her hair prettily
+arranged, her cheeks rosy with health, and her eyes shining with youth
+and the joy of life, was almost a tonic. I found myself taking more
+pains with my morning toilet, choosing my tie with greater care and
+being more careful concerning the condition of my boots. I even began to
+dress for dinner, a concession to English custom which was odd enough
+in one of my easy-going habits and Bayport rearing. I imagine that
+the immaculate appearance of young Bayliss, when he dropped in for the
+“sing” in the drawing-room, was responsible for the resurrection of my
+dinner coat. He did look so disgustingly young and handsome and at ease.
+I was conscious of each one of my thirty-eight years whenever I looked
+at him.
+
+I was rejuvenating in other ways. It had been my custom at Bayport to
+retire to my study and my books each evening. Here, where callers
+were so frequent, I found it difficult to do this and, although the
+temptation was to sit quietly in a corner and let the others do the
+talking, I was not allowed to yield. The younger callers, particularly
+the masculine portion, would not have objected to my silence, I am
+sure, but “my niece” seemed to take mischievous pleasure in drawing the
+quahaug out of his shell. She had a disconcerting habit of asking me
+unexpected questions at times when my attention was wandering, and, if
+I happened to state a definite opinion, taking the opposite side with
+promptness. After a time I decided not to express opinions, but to agree
+with whatever was said as the simplest way of avoiding controversy and
+being left to myself.
+
+This procedure should, it seemed to me, have satisfied her, but
+apparently it did not. On one occasion, Judson and Herbert Bayliss being
+present, the conversation turned to the subject of American athletic
+sports. The curate and Bayliss took the ground, the prevailing thought
+in England apparently, that all American games were not games, but
+fights in which the true sporting spirit was sacrificed to the desire
+to win at any cost. I had said nothing, keeping silent for two reasons.
+First, that I had given my views on the subject before, and, second,
+because argument from me was, in that company, fruitless effort. The
+simplest way to end discussion of a disagreeable topic was to pay no
+attention to it.
+
+But I was not allowed to escape so easily. Bayliss asked me a question.
+
+“Isn't it true, Mr. Knowles,” he asked, “that the American football
+player wears a sort of armor to prevent his being killed?”
+
+My thoughts had been drifting anywhere and everywhere. Just then they
+were centered about “my niece's” hands. She had very pretty hands and
+a most graceful way of using them. At the moment they were idly turning
+some sheets of music, but the way the slim fingers moved in and out
+between the pages was pretty and fascinating. Her foot, glimpsed beneath
+her skirt, was slender and graceful, too. She had an attractive trick of
+swinging it as she sat upon the piano stool.
+
+Recalled from these and other pleasing observations by Bayliss's mention
+of my name, I looked up.
+
+“I beg pardon?” said I.
+
+Bayliss repeated his question.
+
+“Oh, yes,” said I, and looked down again at the foot.
+
+“So I have been told,” said the questioner, triumphantly. “And without
+that--er--armor many of the players would be killed, would they not?”
+
+“What? Oh, yes; yes, of course.”
+
+“And many are killed or badly injured as it is?”
+
+“Oh, yes.”
+
+“How many during a season, may I ask?”
+
+“Eh? Oh--I don't know.”
+
+“A hundred?”
+
+The foot was swinging more rapidly now. It was such a small foot. My own
+looked so enormous and clumsy and uncouth by comparison.
+
+“A--oh, thousands,” said I, at random. If the number were large enough
+to satisfy him he might cease to worry me.
+
+“A beastly game,” declared Judson, with conviction. “How can a civilized
+country countenance such brutality! Do you countenance it, Mr. Knowles?”
+
+“Yes--er--that is, no.”
+
+“You agree, then, that it is brutal?”
+
+“Certainly, certainly.” Would the fellow never stop?
+
+“Then--”
+
+“Nonsense!” It was Frances who spoke and her tone was emphatic and
+impatient. We all looked at her; her cheeks were flushed and she
+appeared highly indignant. “Nonsense!” she said again. “He doesn't agree
+to any such thing. I've heard him say that American football was not as
+brutal as our fox-hunting and that fewer people were killed or injured.
+We play polo and we ride in steeplechases and the papers are full of
+accidents. I don't believe Americans are more brutal or less civilized
+in their sports than we are, not in the least.”
+
+Considering that she had at the beginning of the conversation apparently
+agreed with all that had been said, and, moreover, had often, in
+speaking to Hephzy and me, referred to the “States” as an uncivilized
+country, this declaration was astonishing. I was astonished for one.
+Hephzy clapped her hands.
+
+“Of course they aren't,” she declared. “Hosy--Mr. Knowles--didn't mean
+that they were, either.”
+
+Our callers looked at each other and Herbert Bayliss hastily changed the
+subject. After they had gone I ventured to thank my champion for coming
+to the rescue of my sporting countrymen. She flashed an indignant glance
+at me.
+
+“Why do you say such things?” she demanded. “You know they weren't
+true.”
+
+“What was the use of saying anything else? They have read the accounts
+of football games which American penny-a-line correspondents send to the
+London papers and nothing I could say would change their convictions.”
+
+“It doesn't make any difference. You should say what you think. To sit
+there and let them--Oh, it is ridiculous!”
+
+“My feelings were not hurt. Their ideas will broaden by and by, when
+they are as old as I am. They're young now.”
+
+This charitable remark seemed to have the effect of making her more
+indignant than ever.
+
+“Nonsense!” she cried. “You speak as if you were an Old Testament
+patriarch.”
+
+Hephzy put in a word.
+
+“Why, Frances,” she said, “I thought you didn't like America.”
+
+“I don't. Of course I don't. But it makes me lose patience to have him
+sit there and agree to everything those boys say. Why didn't he answer
+them as he should? If I were an American no one--NO one should rag me
+about my country without getting as good as they gave.”
+
+I was amused. “What would you have me do?” I asked. “Rise and sing the
+'Star Spangled Banner'?”
+
+“I would have you speak your mind like a man. Not sit there like a--like
+a rabbit. And I wouldn't act and think like a Methusaleh until I was
+one.”
+
+It was quite evident that “my niece” was a young person of whims. The
+next time the “States” were mentioned and I ventured to speak in their
+defence, she calmly espoused the other side and “ragged” as mercilessly
+as the rest. I found myself continually on the defensive, and this state
+of affairs had one good effect at least--that of waking me up.
+
+Toward Hephzy her manner was quite different. She now, especially when
+we three were alone, occasionally addressed her as “Auntie.” And she
+would not permit “Auntie” to be made fun of. At the least hint of such a
+thing she snubbed the would-be humorist thoroughly. She and Hephzy
+were becoming really friendly. I felt certain she was beginning to like
+her--to discern the real woman beneath the odd exterior. But when I
+expressed this thought to Hephzy herself she shook her head doubtfully.
+
+“Sometimes I've almost thought so, Hosy,” she said, “but only this
+mornin' when I said somethin' about her mother and how much she looked
+like her, she almost took my head off. And she's got her pa's picture
+right in the middle of her bureau. No, Hosy, she's nicer to us than she
+was at first because it's her nature to be nice. So long as she forgets
+who and what we are, or what her scamp of a father told her we were, she
+treats us like her own folks. But when she remembers we're receivers of
+stolen goods, livin' on money that belongs to her, then it's different.
+You can't blame her for that, I suppose. But--but how is it all goin' to
+end? _I_ don't know.”
+
+I didn't know either.
+
+“I had hoped,” I said, “that, living with us as she does, she might come
+to know and understand us--to learn that we couldn't be the sort she has
+believed us to be. Then it seems to me we might tell her and she would
+listen to reason.”
+
+“I--I'm afraid we can't wait long. You see, there's another thing, Hosy.
+She needs clothes and--and lots of things. She realizes it. Yesterday
+she told me she must go up to London, shopping, pretty soon. She asked
+me to go with her. I put her off; said I was awful busy around the
+house just now, but she'll ask me again, and if I don't go she'll go by
+herself.”
+
+“Humph! I don't see how she can do much shopping. She hasn't a penny, so
+far as I know.”
+
+“You don't understand. She thinks she has got a good many pennies, or
+we've got 'em for her. She's just as liable to buy all creation and send
+us the bills.”
+
+I whistled. “Well,” I said, decidedly, “when that happens we must put
+our foot down. Neither you nor I are millionaires, Hephzy, and she must
+understand that regardless of consequences.”
+
+“You mean you'll tell her--everything?”
+
+“I shall have to. Why do you look at me like that? Are we to use
+common-sense or aren't we? Are we in a position to adopt a young woman
+of expensive tastes--actually adopt her? And not only that, but give her
+carte blanche--let her buy whatever she pleases and charge it to us?”
+
+“I suppose not. But--”
+
+“But what?”
+
+“Well, I--I don't see how we can stop her buying whatever she pleases
+with what she thinks is her own money.”
+
+“I do. We can tell her she has no money. I shall do it. My mind is made
+up.”
+
+Hephzy said nothing, but her expression was one of doubt. I stalked off
+in a bad temper. Discussions of the kind always ended in just this way.
+However, I swore a solemn oath to keep my word this time. There were
+limits and they had been reached. Besides, as I had said, the situation
+was changed in one way; we no longer had an invalid to deal with. No, my
+mind was made up. True, this was at least the tenth time I had made it
+up, but this time I meant it.
+
+The test came two days later and was the result of a call on the
+Samsons. The Samsons lived at Burgleston Bogs, and we drove to their
+house in the trap behind “Pet,” the plump black horse. Mrs. Samson
+seemed very glad to see us, urged us to remain for tea, and invited
+us to attend a tennis tournament on their lawn the following week. She
+asked if Miss Morley played tennis. Frances said she had played, but not
+recently. She intended to practice, however, and would be delighted to
+witness the tournament, although, of course, she could not take part in
+it.
+
+“Hosy--Mr. Knowles, I mean--plays tennis,” observed Hephzy, seizing the
+opportunity, as usual, to speak a good word for me. “He used to play
+real well.”
+
+“Really!” exclaimed Mrs. Samson, “how interesting. If we had only known.
+No doubt Mr. Knowles would have liked to enter. I'm so sorry.”
+
+I hastened to protest. “My tennis is decidedly rusty,” I said. “I
+shouldn't think of displaying it in public. In fact, I don't play at all
+now.”
+
+On the way home Frances was rather quiet. The next morning she announced
+that she intended going to Wrayton that afternoon. “Johnson will drive
+me over,” she said. “I shall be glad if Auntie will go with me.”
+
+Wrayton was the county-seat, a good-sized town five miles from Mayberry.
+Hephzy declined the invitation. She had promised to “tea” with Mrs.
+Griggson that afternoon.
+
+“Then I must go alone,” said Frances. “That is unless--er--Uncle Hosea
+cares to go.”
+
+“Uncle Hosea” declined. The name of itself was sufficient to make him
+decline; besides Worcester and I were scheduled for golf.
+
+“I shall go alone then,” said “my niece,” with decision. “Johnson will
+look after me.”
+
+But after luncheon, when I visited the stable to order Johnson to
+harness “Pet,” I met with an unexpected difficulty. Johnson, it
+appeared, was ill, had been indisposed the day before and was now at
+home in bed. I hesitated. If this were Bayport I should have bade
+the gardener harness “Pet” or have harnessed him myself. But this was
+Mayberry, not Bayport.
+
+The gardener, deprived of his assistant's help--Johnson worked about the
+garden when not driving--was not in good humor. I decided not to ask
+him to harness, but to risk a fall in the estimation of the servants by
+doing it myself.
+
+The gardener watched me for a moment in shocked disapproval. Then he
+interfered.
+
+“If you please, Mr. Knowles, sir,” he said, “I'll 'arness, but I can't
+drive, sir. I am netting the gooseberries. Perhaps you might get a man
+from the Inn stables, unless you or the young lady might wish to drive
+yourselves.”
+
+I did not wish to drive, having the golf engagement; but when I walked
+to the Inn I found no driver available. So, rather than be disagreeable,
+I sent word to the curate that our match was postponed, and accepted the
+alternative.
+
+Frances, rather to my surprise, seemed more pleased than otherwise to
+find that I was to be her coachman. Instead of occupying the rear seat
+she climbed to that beside me.
+
+“Good-by, Auntie,” she called to Hephzy, who was standing in
+the doorway. “Sorry you're not going. I'll take good care of Mr.
+Knowles--Uncle Hosea, I mean. I'll see that he behaves himself and,”
+ with a glance at my, I fear, not too radiant visage, “doesn't break any
+of his venerable bones.”
+
+The road, like all English roads which I traveled, was as firm and
+smooth as a table, the day was fine, the hedges were green and fragrant,
+the larks sang, and the flocks of sheep in the wayside pastures were
+picturesque as always. “Pet,” who had led an easy life since we came to
+the rectory, was in high spirits and stepped along in lively fashion. My
+companion, too, was in good spirits and chatted and laughed as she had
+not done with me since I knew her.
+
+Altogether it was a delightful ride. I found myself emerging from my
+shell and chatting and joking quite unlike the elderly quahaug I was
+supposed to be. We passed a party of young fellows on a walking tour,
+knapsacked and knickerbockered, and the admiring glances they passed
+at my passenger were flattering. They envied me, that was plain. Well,
+under different circumstances, I could conceive myself an object of
+envy. A dozen years younger, with the heart of youth and the comeliness
+of youth, I might have thought myself lucky to be driving along such a
+road with such a vision by my side. And, the best of it was, the vision
+treated me as if I really were her own age. I squared my shoulders and
+as Hephzy would have said, “perked up” amazingly.
+
+We entered Wrayton and moved along the main street between the rows of
+ancient buildings, past the old stone church with its inevitable and
+always welcome gray, ivy-draped tower, to the quaint old square with the
+statue of William Pitt in its center. My companion, all at once, seemed
+to become aware of her surroundings.
+
+“Why!” she exclaimed, “we are here, aren't we? Fancy! I expected a
+longer drive.”
+
+“So did I,” I agreed. “We haven't hurried, either. Where has the time
+gone.”
+
+“I don't know. We have been so busy talking that I have thought of
+nothing else. Really, I didn't know you could be so entertaining--Uncle
+Hosea.”
+
+The detested title brought me to myself.
+
+“We are here,” I said, shortly. “And now where shall we go? Have you any
+stopping place in particular?”
+
+She nodded.
+
+“Yes,” she said, “I want to stop now. Please pull up over there, in
+front of that shop with the cricket bats in the window.”
+
+The shop was what we, in America, would have called a “sporting-goods
+store.” I piloted “Pet” to the curb and pulled up.
+
+“I am going in,” said Miss Morley. “Oh, don't trouble to help me. I can
+get down quite well.”
+
+She was down, springing from the step as lightly as a dandelion fluff
+before I could scramble down on the other side.
+
+“I won't be long,” she said, and went into the shop. I, not being
+invited, remained on the pavement. Two or three small boys appeared from
+somewhere and, scenting possible pennies, volunteered to hold the horse.
+I declined their services.
+
+Five minutes passed, then ten. My passenger was still in the shop. I
+could not imagine what she was doing there. If it had been a shop of a
+different kind, and in view of Hephzy's recent statement concerning the
+buying of clothes, I might have been suspicious. But no clothes were on
+sale at that shop and, besides, it never occurred to me that she would
+buy anything of importance without mentioning her intention to me
+beforehand. I had taken it for granted that she would mention the
+subject and, when she did, I intended to be firm. But as the
+minutes went by my suspicions grew. She must be buying something--or
+contemplating buying, at least. But she had said nothing to me
+concerning money; HAD she money of her own after all? It might be
+possible that she had a very little, and was making some trifling
+purchase.
+
+She reappeared in the doorway of the shop, followed by a very polite
+young man with a blonde mustache. The young man was bowing and smiling.
+
+“Yes, miss,” he said, “I'll have them wrapped immediately. They shall be
+ready when you return, miss. Thank you, miss.”
+
+Frances nodded acknowledgment of the thanks. Then she favored me with
+another nod and a most bewitching smile.
+
+“That's over,” she announced, “and now I'm going to the draper's for a
+moment. It is near here, you say?”
+
+The young man bowed again.
+
+“Yes, miss, on the next corner, next the chemist's.”
+
+She turned to me. “You may wait here, Mr. Knowles,” she said. “I shall
+be back very soon.”
+
+She hurried away. I looked after her, and then, with all sorts of
+forebodings surging in my brain, strode into that “sporting-goods
+store.”
+
+The blond young man was at my elbow.
+
+“Yes, sir,” he said, ingratiatingly.
+
+“Did--did that young lady make some purchases here?” I asked.
+
+“Yes, sir. Here they are, sir.”
+
+There on the counter lay a tennis racket, a racket press and waterproof
+case, a pair of canvas tennis shoes and a jaunty white felt hat. I
+stared at the collection. The clerk took up the racket.
+
+“Not a Slazenger,” he observed, regretfully. “I did my best to persuade
+her to buy a Slazenger; that is the best racket we have. But she decided
+the Slazenger was a bit high in price, sir. However, sir, this one is
+not bad. A very fine racket for lady's use; very light and strong, sir,
+considering the cost--only sixteen and six, sir.”
+
+“Sixteen and six. Four dollars and--Did she pay for it?”
+
+“Oh no, sir. She said you would do that, sir. The total is two pound
+eight and thruppence, sir. Shall I give you a bill, sir? Thank you,
+sir.”
+
+His thanks were wasted. I pushed him to one side and walked out of
+that shop. I could not answer; if I answered as I felt I might be sorry
+later. After all, it wasn't his fault. My business was not with him, but
+with her.
+
+It was not the amount of the purchase that angered and alarmed me. Two
+pounds eight--twelve dollars--was not so much. If she had asked me, if
+she had said she desired the racket and the rest of it during the drive
+over, I think, feeling as I did during that drive, I should have bought
+them for her. But she had not asked; she had calmly bought them without
+consulting me at all. She had come to Wrayton for that very purpose. And
+then had told the clerk that I would pay.
+
+The brazen presumption of it! I was merely a convenience, a sort of
+walking bank account, to be drawn upon as she saw fit, at her imperial
+will, if you please. It made no difference, to her mind, whether I liked
+it or not--whether I could afford it or not. I could, of course, afford
+this trifling sum, but this was only the beginning. If I permitted this
+there was no telling to what extent she might go on, buying and buying
+and buying. This was a precedent--that was what it was, a precedent;
+and a precedent once established... It should not be established. I had
+vowed to Hephzy that it should not. I would prove to this girl that I
+had a will of my own. The time had come.
+
+One of the boys who had been so anxious to hold the horse was performing
+that entirely unnecessary duty.
+
+“Stay here until I come back,” I ordered and hurried to the draper's.
+
+She was there standing before the counter, and an elderly man was
+displaying cloths--white flannels and serges they appeared to be. She
+was not in the least perturbed at my entrance.
+
+“So you came, after all,” she said. “I wondered if you would. Now you
+must help me. I don't know what your taste in tennis flannels may
+be, but I hope it is good. I shall have these made up at Mayberry, of
+course. My other frocks--and I need so many of them--I shall buy in
+London. Do you fancy this, now?”
+
+I don't know whether I fancied it or not. I am quite sure I could not
+remember what it was if I were asked.
+
+“Well?” she asked, after an instant. “Do you?”
+
+“I--I don't know,” I said. “May I ask you to step outside one moment.
+I--I have something I wish to say.”
+
+She regarded me curiously.
+
+“Something you wish to say?” she repeated. “What is it?”
+
+“I--I can't tell you here.”
+
+“Why not, pray?”
+
+“Because I can't.”
+
+She looked at me still more intently. I was conscious of the salesman's
+regard also. My tone, I am sure, was anything but gracious, and I
+imagine I appeared as disgusted and embarrassed as I felt. She turned
+away.
+
+“I think I will choose this one,” she said, addressing the clerk. “You
+may give me five yards. Oh, yes; and I may as well take the same amount
+of the other. You may wrap it for me.”
+
+“Yes, miss, yes. Thank you, miss. Is there anything else?”
+
+She hesitated. Then, after another sidelong glance at me, she said:
+“Yes, I believe there is. I wish to see some buttons, some braid,
+and--oh, ever so many things. Please show them to me.”
+
+“Yes, miss, certainly. This way, if you please.”
+
+She turned to me.
+
+“Will you assist in the selection, Uncle Hosea?” she inquired, with
+suspicious sweetness. “I am sure your opinion will be invaluable. No?
+Then I must ask you to wait.”
+
+And wait I did, for I could do nothing else. That draper's shop was not
+the place for a scene, with a half-dozen clerks to enjoy it. I waited,
+fuming, while she wandered about, taking a great deal of time, and
+lingering over each purchase in a maddening manner. At last she seemed
+able to think of no more possibilities and strolled to where I was
+standing, followed by the salesman, whose hands were full.
+
+“You may wrap these with the others,” she said. “I have my trap here and
+will take them with me. The trap is here, isn't it--er--Uncle Hosea?”
+
+“It is just above here,” I answered, sulkily. “But--”
+
+“But you will get it. Thank you so much.”
+
+The salesman noticed my hesitation, put his own interpretation upon it
+and hastened to oblige.
+
+“I shall be glad to have the purchases carried there,” he said. “Our boy
+will do it, miss. It will be no trouble.”
+
+Miss Morley thanked him so much. I was hoping she might leave the shop
+then, but she did not. The various packages were wrapped, handed to
+the boy, and she accompanied the latter to the door and showed him our
+equipage standing before the sporting-goods dealer's. Then she sauntered
+back.
+
+“Thank you,” she said, addressing the clerk. “That is all, I believe.”
+
+The clerk looked at her and at me.
+
+“Yes, miss, thank you,” he said, in return. “I--I--would you be wishing
+to pay at once, miss, or shall I--”
+
+“Oh, this gentleman will pay. Do you wish to pay now--Uncle Hosea?”
+
+Again I was stumped. The salesman was regarding me expectantly; the
+other clerks were near by; if I made a scene there--No, I could not do
+it. I would pay this time. But this should be the end.
+
+Fortunately, I had money in my pocket--two five-pound notes and some
+silver. I paid the bill. Then, and at last, my niece led the way to the
+pavement. We walked together a few steps in silence. The sporting-goods
+shop was just ahead, and if ever I was determined not to do a thing that
+thing was to pay for the tennis racket and the rest.
+
+“Frances,” I began.
+
+“Well--Mr. Knowles?” calmly.
+
+“Frances, I have decided to speak with you frankly. You appear to take
+certain things for granted in your--your dealings with Miss Cahoon and
+myself, things which--which I cannot countenance or permit.”
+
+She had been walking slowly. Now she stopped short. I stopped, too,
+because she did.
+
+“What do you mean?” she asked. “What things?”
+
+She was looking me through and through. Again I hesitated, and my
+hesitation did not help matters.
+
+“What do you mean?” she repeated. “What is it you cannot countenance
+or”--scornfully--“permit concerning me?”
+
+“I--well, I cannot permit you to do as you have done to-day. You did not
+tell your aunt or me your purpose in coming to Wrayton. You did not tell
+us you were coming here to buy--to buy various things for yourself.”
+
+“Why should I tell you? They were for myself. Is it your idea that I
+should ask YOUR permission before buying what I choose?”
+
+“Considering that you ask me to pay, I--”
+
+“I most distinctly did NOT ask you. I TOLD you to pay. Certainly you
+will pay. Why not?”
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“Yes, why not. So this was what you wished to speak to me about. This
+was why you were so--so boorish and disagreeable in that shop. Tell
+me--was that the reason? Was that why you followed me there? Did you
+think--did you presume to think of preventing my buying what I pleased
+with my money?”
+
+“If it had been your money I should not have presumed, certainly. If you
+had mentioned your intention to me beforehand I might even have paid for
+your purchases and said nothing. I should--I should have been glad to do
+so. I am not unreasonable.”
+
+“Indeed! Indeed! Do you mean that you would have condescended to make
+me a present of them? And was it your idea that I would accept presents
+from you?”
+
+It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that she had already accepted
+a good deal; but somehow the place, a public sidewalk, seemed hardly
+fitting for the discussion of weighty personal matters. Passers-by were
+regarding us curiously, and in the door of the draper's shop which we
+had just left I noticed the elderly clerk standing and looking in our
+direction. I temporized.
+
+“You don't understand, Miss Morley,” I said. “Neither your aunt nor
+I are wealthy. Surely, it is not too much to ask that you consult us
+before--before--”
+
+She interrupted me. “I shall not consult you at all,” she declared,
+fiercely. “Wealthy! Am _I_ wealthy? Was my father wealthy? He should
+have been and so should I. Oh, WHAT do you mean? Are you trying to tell
+me that you cannot afford to pay for the few trifles I have bought this
+afternoon?”
+
+“I can afford those, of course. But you don't understand.”
+
+“Understand? YOU do not understand. The agreement under which I came
+to Mayberry was that you were to provide for me. I consented to forego
+pressing my claim against you until--until you were ready to--to--Oh,
+but why should we go into this again? I thought--I thought you
+understood. I thought you understood and appreciated my forbearance. You
+seemed to understand and to be grateful and kind. I am all alone in the
+world. I haven't a friend. I have been almost happy for a little while.
+I was beginning to--”
+
+She stopped. The dark eyes which had been flashing lightnings in my
+direction suddenly filled with tears. My heart smote me. After all, she
+did not understand. Another plea of that kind and I should have--Well,
+I'm not sure what I should have done. But the plea was not spoken.
+
+“Oh, what a fool I am!” she cried, fiercely. “Mr. Knowles,” pointing to
+the sporting-goods store, “I have made some purchases in that shop also.
+I expect you to pay for those as well. Will you or will you not?”
+
+I was hesitating, weakly. She did not wait for me to reply.
+
+“You WILL pay for them,” she declared, “and you will pay for others that
+I may make. I shall buy what I please and do what I please with my money
+which you are keeping from me. You will pay or take the consequences.”
+
+That was enough. “I will not pay,” I said, firmly, “under any such
+arrangement.”
+
+“You will NOT?”
+
+“No, I will not.”
+
+She looked as if--Well, if she had been a man I should have expected a
+blow. Her breast heaved and her fingers clenched. Then she turned and
+walked toward the shop with the cricket bats in the window.
+
+“Where are you going?” I asked.
+
+“I am going to tell the man to send the things I have bought to Mayberry
+by carrier and I shall tell him to send the bill to you.”
+
+“If you do I shall tell him to do nothing of the kind. Miss Morley, I
+don't mean to be ungenerous or unreasonable, but--”
+
+“Stop! Stop! Oh!” with a sobbing breath, “how I hate you!”
+
+“I'm sorry. When I explain, as I mean to, you will understand, I think.
+If you will go back to the rectory with me now--”
+
+“I shall not go back with you. I shall never speak to you again.”
+
+“Miss Morley, be reasonable. You must go back with me. There is no other
+way.”
+
+“I will not.”
+
+Here was more cheer in an already cheerful situation. She could not get
+to Mayberry that night unless she rode with me. She had no money to take
+her there or anywhere else. I could hardly carry her to the trap by main
+strength. And the curiosity of the passers-by was more marked than ever;
+two or three of them had stopped to watch us.
+
+I don't know how it might have ended, but the end came in an unexpected
+manner.
+
+“Why, Miss Morley,” cried a voice from the street behind me. “Oh, I say,
+it IS you, isn't it. How do you do?”
+
+I turned. A trim little motor car was standing there and Herbert Bayliss
+was at the wheel.
+
+“Ah, Knowles, how do you do?” said Bayliss.
+
+I acknowledged the greeting in an embarrassed fashion. I wondered how
+long he had been there and what he had heard. He alighted from the car
+and shook hands with us.
+
+“Didn't see you, Knowles, at first,” he said. “Saw Miss Morley here and
+thought she was alone. Was going to beg the privilege of taking her home
+in my car.”
+
+Miss Morley answered promptly. “You may have the privilege, Doctor
+Bayliss,” she said. “I accept with pleasure.”
+
+Young Bayliss looked pleased, but rather puzzled.
+
+“Thanks, awfully,” he said. “But my car holds but two and your uncle--”
+
+“Oh, he has the dogcart. It is quite all right, really. I should love
+the motor ride. May I get in?”
+
+He helped her into the car. “Sure you don't mind, Knowles,” he asked.
+“Sorry there's not more room; but you couldn't leave the horse, though,
+could you? Quite comfy, Miss Morley? Then we're off.”
+
+The car turned from the curb. I caught Miss Morley's eye for an instant;
+there was withering contempt in its look--also triumph.
+
+Left alone, I walked to the trap, gave the horse-holding boy sixpence,
+climbed to the seat and took up the reins. “Pet” jogged lazily up the
+street. The ride over had been very, very pleasant; the homeward journey
+was likely to be anything but that.
+
+To begin with, I was thoroughly dissatisfied with myself. I had bungled
+the affair dreadfully. This was not the time for explanations; I should
+not have attempted them. It would have been better, much better, to have
+accepted the inevitable as gracefully as I could, paid the bills, and
+then, after we reached home, have made the situation plain and “have put
+my foot down” once and for all. But I had not done that. I had lost my
+temper and acted like an eighteen-year-old boy instead of a middle-aged
+man.
+
+She did not understand, of course. In her eyes I must have appeared
+stingy and mean and--and goodness knows what. The money I had refused to
+pay she did consider hers, of course. It was not hers, and some day she
+would know that it was not, but the town square at Wrayton was not the
+place in which to impart knowledge of that kind.
+
+She was so young, too, and so charming--that is, she could be when she
+chose. And she had chosen to be so during our drive together. And I
+had enjoyed that drive; I had enjoyed nothing as thoroughly since our
+arrival in England. She had enjoyed it, too; she had said so.
+
+Well, there would be no more enjoyment of that kind. This was the end,
+of course. And all because I had refused to pay for a tennis racket and
+a few other things. They were things she wanted--yes, needed, if she
+were to remain at the rectory. And, expecting to remain as she did, it
+was but natural that she should wish to play tennis and dress as did
+other young players of her sex. Her life had not been a pleasant one;
+after all, a little happiness added, even though it did cost me some
+money, was not much. And it must end soon. It seemed a pity to end it in
+order to save two pounds eight and threepence.
+
+There is no use cataloguing all my thoughts. Some I have catalogued and
+the others were similar. The memory of her face and of the choke in her
+voice as she said she had been almost happy haunted me. My reason told
+me that, so far as principle and precedent went, I had acted rightly;
+but my conscience, which was quite unreasonable, told me I had acted
+like a boor. I stood it as long as I could, then I shouted at “Pet,” who
+was jogging on, apparently half asleep.
+
+“Whoa!” I shouted.
+
+“Pet” stopped short in the middle of the road. I hesitated. The
+principle of the thing--
+
+“Hang the principle!” said I, aloud. Then I turned the trap around and
+drove back to Wrayton. The blond young man in the sporting-goods store
+was evidently glad to see me. He must have seen me drive away and have
+judged that his sale was canceled. His judgment had been very near to
+right, but now I proved it wrong.
+
+I paid for the racket and the press and the shoes and the rest. They
+were wrapped and ready.
+
+“Thank you, sir,” said the clerk. “I trust everything will be quite
+satisfactory. I'm sorry the young lady did not take the Slazenger, but
+the one she chose is not at all bad.”
+
+I was on my way to the door. I stopped and turned.
+
+“Is the--the what is it--'Slazenger' so much better?” I asked.
+
+“Oh, very much so, sir. Infinitely better, sir. Here it is; judge for
+yourself. The very best racket made. And only thirty-two shillings,
+sir.”
+
+It was a better racket, much better. And, after all, when one is hanging
+principle the execution may as well be complete.
+
+“You may give me that one instead of the other,” I said, and paid the
+difference.
+
+On my arrival at the rectory Hephzy met me at the door. The between-maid
+took the packages from the trap. I entered the drawing-room and Hephzy
+followed me. She looked very grave.
+
+“Frances is here, I suppose,” I said.
+
+“Yes, she came an hour ago. Doctor Bayliss, the younger one, brought
+her in his auto. She hardly spoke to me, Hosy, and went straight to her
+room. Hosy, what happened? What is the matter?”
+
+“Nothing,” said I, curtly. “Nothing unusual, that is. I made a fool of
+myself once more, that's all.”
+
+The between-maid knocked and entered. “Where would you wish the parcels,
+sir?” she asked.
+
+“These are Miss Morley's. Take them to her room.”
+
+The maid retired to obey orders. Hephzy again turned to me.
+
+“Now, Hosy, what is it?” she asked.
+
+I told her the whole story. When I had finished Hephzy nodded
+understandingly. She did not say “I told you so,” but if she had it
+would have been quite excusable.
+
+“I think--I think, perhaps, I had better go up and see her,” she said.
+
+“All right. I have no objection.”
+
+“But she'll ask questions, of course. What shall I tell her?”
+
+“Tell her I changed my mind. Tell her--oh, tell her anything you like.
+Don't bother me. I'm sick of the whole business.”
+
+She left me and I went into the Reverend Cole's study and closed the
+door. There were books enough there, but the majority of them were
+theological works or bulky volumes dealing with questions of religion.
+Most of my own books were in my room. These did not appeal to me; I was
+not religiously inclined just then.
+
+So I sat dumbly in the rector's desk chair and looked out of the window.
+After a time there was a knock at the door.
+
+“Come in,” said I, expecting Hephzy. It was not Hephzy who came,
+however, but Miss Morley herself. And she closed the door behind her.
+
+I did not speak. She walked over and stood beside me. I did not know
+what she was going to say and the expression did not help me to guess.
+
+For a moment she did not say anything. Then:
+
+“So you changed your mind,” she said.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“I don't know.”
+
+“You don't know. Yet you changed it.”
+
+“Yes. Oh yes, I changed it.”
+
+“But why? Was it--was it because you were ashamed of yourself?”
+
+“I guess so. As much that as anything.”
+
+“You realize that you treated me shamefully. You realize that?”
+
+“Yes,” wearily. “Yes, I realize everything.”
+
+“And you felt sorry, after I had gone, and so you changed your mind. Was
+that it?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+There was no use in attempting justification. For the absolute surrender
+I had made there was no justification. I might as well agree to
+everything.
+
+“And you will never, never treat me in that way again?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“And you realize that I was right and understand that I am to do as I
+please with my money?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And you beg my pardon?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Very well. Then I beg yours. I'm sorry, too.”
+
+Now I WAS surprised. I turned in my chair and looked at her.
+
+“You beg my pardon?” I repeated. “For what?”
+
+“Oh, for everything. I suppose I should have spoken to you before buying
+those things. You might not have been prepared to pay then and--and that
+would have been unpleasant for you. But--well, you see, I didn't think,
+and you were so queer and cross when you followed me to the draper's
+shop, that--that I--well, I was disagreeable, too. I am sorry.”
+
+“That's all right.”
+
+“Thank you. Is there anything else you wish to say?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“You're sure?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Why did you buy the Slazenger racket instead of the other one?”
+
+I had forgotten the “Slazenger” for the moment. She had caught me
+unawares.
+
+“Oh--oh,” I stammered, “well, it was a much better racket and--and, as
+you were buying one, it seemed foolish not to get the best.”
+
+“I know. I wanted the better one very much, but I thought it too
+expensive. I did not feel that I should spend so much money.”
+
+“That's all right. The difference wasn't so much and I made the change
+on my own responsibility. I--well, just consider that I bought the
+racket and you bought none.”
+
+She regarded me intently. “You mean that you bought it as a present for
+me?” she said slowly.
+
+“Yes; yes, if you will accept it as such.”
+
+She was silent. I remembered perfectly well what she had said concerning
+presents from me and I wondered what I should do with that racket when
+she threw it back on my hands.
+
+“Thank you,” she said. “I will accept it. Thank you very much.”
+
+I was staggered, but I recovered sufficiently to tell her she was quite
+welcome.
+
+She turned to go. Then she turned back.
+
+“Doctor Bayliss asked me to play tennis with him tomorrow morning,” she
+said. “May I?”
+
+“May you? Why, of course you may, if you wish, I suppose. Why in the
+world do you ask my permission?”
+
+“Oh, don't you wish me to ask? I inferred from what you said at Wrayton
+that you did wish me to ask permission concerning many things.”
+
+“I wished--I said--oh, don't be silly, please! Haven't we had silliness
+enough for one afternoon, Miss Morley.”
+
+“My Christian name is Frances. May I play tennis with Doctor Bayliss
+to-morrow morning, Uncle Hosea?”
+
+“Of course you may. How could I prevent it, even if I wished, which I
+don't.”
+
+“Thank you, Uncle Hosea. Mr. Worcester is going to play also. We need
+a fourth. I can borrow another racket. Will you be my partner, Uncle
+Hosea?”
+
+“_I_? Your partner?”
+
+“Yes. You play tennis; Auntie says so. Will you play to-morrow morning
+as my partner?”
+
+“But I play an atrocious game and--”
+
+“So do I. We shall match beautifully. Thank you, Uncle Hosea.”
+
+Once more she turned to go, and again she turned.
+
+“Is there anything else you wish me to do, Uncle Hosea?” she asked.
+
+The repetition repeated was too much.
+
+“Yes,” I declared. “Stop calling me Uncle Hosea. I'm not your uncle.”
+
+“Oh, I know that; but you have told everyone that you were, haven't
+you?”
+
+I had, unfortunately, so I could make no better reply than to state
+emphatically that I didn't like the title.
+
+“Oh, very well,” she said. “But 'Mr. Knowles' sounds so formal, don't
+you think. What shall I call you? Never mind, perhaps I can think while
+I am dressing for dinner. I will see you at dinner, won't I. Au revoir,
+and thank you again for the racket--Cousin Hosy.”
+
+“I'm not your cousin, either--at least not more than a nineteenth
+cousin. And if you begin calling me 'Hosy' I shall--I don't know what I
+shall do.”
+
+“Dear me, how particular you are! Well then, au revoir--Kent.”
+
+When Hephzy came to the study I was still seated in the rector's chair.
+She was brimful full of curiosity, I know, and ready to ask a dozen
+questions at once. But I headed off the first of the dozen.
+
+“Hephzy,” I observed, “I have made no less than fifty solemn resolutions
+since we met that girl--that Little Frank of yours. You've heard me make
+them, haven't you.”
+
+“Why, yes, I suppose I have. If you mean resolutions to tell her the
+truth about her father and put an end to the scrape we're in, I have,
+certain.”
+
+“Yes; well, I've made another one now. Never, no matter what happens,
+will I attempt to tell her a word concerning Strickland Morley or
+her 'inheritance' or anything else. Every time I've tried I've made
+a blessed idiot of myself and now I'm through. She can stay with us
+forever and run us into debt to her heart's desire--I don't care. If
+she ever learns the truth she sha'n't learn it from me. I'm incapable
+of telling it. I haven't the sand of a yellow dog and I'm not going to
+worry about it. I'm through, do you hear--through.”
+
+That was my newest resolution. It was a comfort to realize that THIS
+resolution I should probably stick to.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+In Which Complications Become More Complicated
+
+
+And stick to it I did. From that day--the day of our drive to
+Wrayton--on through those wonderful summer days in which she and
+Hephzy and I were together at the rectory, not once did I attempt to
+remonstrate with my “niece” concerning her presumption in inflicting her
+presence upon us or in spending her money, as she thought it--our money
+as I knew it to be--as she saw fit. Having learned and relearned my
+lesson--namely, that I lacked the courage to tell her the truth I had
+so often declared must be told, having shifted the responsibility to
+Hephzy's shoulders, having admitted and proclaimed myself, in that
+respect at least, a yellow dog, I proceeded to take life as I found it,
+as yellow dogs are supposed to do.
+
+And, having thus weakly rid myself of care and responsibility, I began
+to enjoy that life. To enjoy the freedom of it, and the novelty of
+the surroundings, and the friendship of the good people who were our
+neighbors. Yes, and to enjoy the home life, the afternoons on the tennis
+court or the golf course, the evenings in the drawing-room, the “teas”
+ on the lawn--either our lawn or someone else's--the chats together
+across the dinner-table; to enjoy it all; and, more astonishing still,
+to accept the companionship of the young person who was responsible for
+our living in that way as a regular and understood part of that life.
+
+Not that I understood the young person herself; no Bayport quahaug, who
+had shunned female companionship as I had for so long, could be expected
+to understand the whims and changing moods of a girl like Frances
+Morley. At times she charmed and attracted me, at others she tormented
+and irritated me. She argued with me one moment and disagreed the next.
+She laughed at Hephzy's and my American accent and idioms, but when
+Bayliss, Junior, or one of the curates ventured to criticize an
+“Americanism” she was quite as likely to declare that she thought it
+“jolly” and “so expressive.” Against my will I was obliged to join in
+conversations, to take sides in arguments, to be present when callers
+came, to make calls. I, who had avoided the society of young people
+because, being no longer young, I felt out of place among them, was now
+dragged into such society every day and almost every evening. I did
+not want to be, but Little Frank seemed to find mischievous pleasure in
+keeping me there.
+
+“It is good for you,” she said, on one occasion, when I had sneaked
+off to my room and the company of the “British Poets.” “Auntie says you
+started on your travels in order to find something new to write about.
+You'll never find it in those musty books; every poem in them is at
+least seventy years old. If you are going to write of England and my
+people you must know something about those that are alive.”
+
+“But, my dear young lady,” I said, “I have no intention of writing of
+your people, as you call them.”
+
+“You write of knights and lords and ladies and queens. You do--or you
+did--and you certainly know nothing about THEM.”
+
+I was quite a bit ruffled. “Indeed!” said I. “You are quite sure of
+that, are you?”
+
+“I am,” decidedly. “I have read 'The Queen's Amulet' and no queen
+on earth--in England, surely--ever acted or spoke like that one. An
+American queen might, if there was such a thing.”
+
+She laughed and, provoked as I was, I could not help laughing with her.
+She had a most infectious laugh.
+
+“My dear young lady--” I began again, but she interrupted me.
+
+“Don't call me that,” she protested. “You're not the Archbishop of
+Canterbury visiting a girl's school and making a speech. You asked me
+not to call you 'Uncle Hosea.' If you say 'dear young lady' to me again
+I shall address you publicly as 'dear old Nunky.' Don't be silly.”
+
+I laughed again. “But you ARE young,” I said.
+
+“Well, what of it. Perhaps neither of us likes to be reminded of our
+age. I'm sure you don't; I never saw anyone more sensitive on the
+subject. There! there! put away those silly old books and come down to
+the drawing-room. I'm going to sing. Mr. Worcester has brought in a lot
+of new music.”
+
+Reluctantly I closed the volume I had in my hand.
+
+“Very well,” I said; “I'll come if you wish. But I shall only be in the
+way, as I always am. Mr. Worcester didn't plead for my company, did he?
+Do you know I think he will bear up manfully if I don't appear.”
+
+She regarded me with disapproval.
+
+“Don't be childish in your old age,” she snapped, “Are you coming?”
+
+I went, of course, and--it may have been by way of reward--she sang
+several old-fashioned, simple ballads which I had found in a dog's-eared
+portfolio in the music cabinet and which I liked because my mother used
+to sing them when I was a little chap. I had asked for them before and
+she had ignored the request.
+
+This time she sang them and Hephzy, sitting beside me in the darkest
+corner reached over and laid a hand on mine.
+
+“Her mother all over again,” she whispered. “Ardelia used to sing
+those.”
+
+Next day, on the tennis court, she played with Herbert Bayliss against
+Worcester and me, and seemed to enjoy beating us six to one. The only
+regret she expressed was that she and her partner had not made it a
+“love set.”
+
+Altogether she was a decidedly vitalizing influence, an influence that
+was, I began to admit to myself, a good one for me. I needed to be kept
+alive and active, and here, in this wide-awake household, I couldn't be
+anything else. The future did not look as dull and hopeless as it had
+when I left Bayport. I even began to consider the possibilities
+of another novel, to hope that I might write one. Jim Campbell's
+“prescription,” although working in quite a different way from that
+which he and I had planned, was working nevertheless.
+
+Matthews, at the Camford Street office, was forwarding my letters and
+honoring my drafts with promptness. I received a note each week from
+Campbell. I had written him all particulars concerning Little Frank and
+our move to the rectory, and he professed to see in it only a huge joke.
+
+“Tell your Miss Cahoon,” he wrote, “that I am going to turn Spiritualist
+right away. I believe in dreams now, and presentiments and all sorts
+of things. I am trying to dream out a plot for a novel by you. Had a
+roof-garden supper the other night and that gave me a fine start, but
+I'll have to tackle another one before I get sufficient thrills to
+furnish forth one of your gems. Seriously though, old man, this whole
+thing will do you a world of good. Nothing short of an earthquake would
+have shaken you out of your Cape Cod dumps and it looks to me as if you
+and--what's her name--Hephzibah, had had the quake. What are you going
+to do with the Little Frank person in the end? Can't you marry her off
+to a wealthy Englishman? Or, if not that, why not marry her yourself?
+She'd turn a dead quahaug into a live lobster, I should imagine, if
+anyone could. Great idea! What?”
+
+His “great idea” was received with the contempt it deserved. I tore up
+the letter and threw it into the waste basket.
+
+But Hephzy herself spoke of matrimony and Little Frank soon after
+this. We were alone together; Frances had gone on a horseback ride with
+Herbert Bayliss and a female cousin who was spending the day at “Jasmine
+Gables.”
+
+“Hosy,” said Hephzy, “do you realize the summer is half over? It's the
+middle of July now.”
+
+So it was, although it seemed scarcely possible.
+
+“Yes,” she went on. “Our lease of this place is up the first of October.
+We shall be startin' for home then, I presume likely, sha'n't we.”
+
+“I suppose so. We can't stay over here indefinitely. Life isn't all
+skittles and--and tea.”
+
+“That's so. I don't know what skittles are, but I know what tea is. Land
+sakes! I should say I did. They tell me the English national flower is
+a rose. It ought to be a tea-plant blossom, if there is such a thing.
+Hosy,” with a sudden return to seriousness, “what are we goin' to do
+with--with HER when the time comes for us to go?”
+
+“I don't know,” I answered.
+
+“Are you going to take her to America with us?”
+
+“I don't know.”
+
+“Humph! Well, we'll have to know then.”
+
+“I suppose we shall; but,” defiantly, “I'm not going to worry about it
+till the time comes.”
+
+“Humph! Well, you've changed, that's all I've got to say. 'Twan't so
+long ago that you did nothin' BUT worry. I never saw anybody change the
+way you have anyway.”
+
+“In what way?”
+
+“In every way. You aren't like the same person you used to be. Why,
+through that last year of ours in Bayport I used to think sometimes you
+were older than I was--older in the way you thought and acted, I mean.
+Now you act as if you were twenty-one. Cavortin' around, playin' tennis
+and golf and everything! What has got into you?”
+
+“I don't know. Jim Campbell's prescription is taking effect, I guess.
+He said the change of air and environment would do me good. I tell you,
+Hephzy, I have made up my mind to enjoy life while I can. I realize as
+well as you do that the trouble is bound to come, but I'm not going to
+let it trouble me beforehand. And I advise you to do the same.”
+
+“Well, I've been tryin' to, but sometimes I can't help wonderin' and
+dreadin'. Perhaps I'm havin' my dread for nothin'. It may be that, by
+the time we're ready to start for Bayport, Little Frank will be provided
+for.”
+
+“Provided for? What do you mean?”
+
+“I mean provided for by somebody else. There's at least two candidates
+for the job: Don't you think so?”
+
+“You mean--”
+
+“I mean Mr. Worcester and Herbert Bayliss. That Worcester man is a gone
+case, or I'm no judge. He's keepin' company with Frances, or would, if
+she'd let him. 'Twould be funny if she married a curate, wouldn't it.”
+
+“Not very,” I answered. “Married life on a curate's salary is not my
+idea of humor.”
+
+“I suppose likely that's so. And I can't imagine her a minister's wife,
+can you?”
+
+I could not; nor, unless I was greatly mistaken, could the young lady
+herself. In fact, anything as serious as marriage was far from her
+thoughts at present, I judged. But Hephzy did not seem so sure.
+
+“No,” she went on, “I don't think the curate's got much chance. But
+young Doctor Bayliss is different. He's good-lookin' and smart and he's
+got prospects. I like him first-rate and I think Frances likes him,
+too. I shouldn't wonder if THAT affair came to somethin'. Wouldn't it be
+splendid if it did!”
+
+I said that it would. And yet, even as I said it, I was conscious of a
+peculiar feeling of insincerity. I liked young Bayliss. He was all that
+Hephzy had said, and more. He would, doubtless, make a good husband for
+any girl. And his engagement to Frances Morley might make easier the
+explanation which was bound to come. I believed I could tell Herbert
+Bayliss the truth concerning the ridiculous “claim.” A man would be
+susceptible to reason and proof; I could convince him. I should have
+welcomed the possibility, but, somehow or other, I did not. Somehow or
+other, the idea of her marrying anyone was repugnant to me. I did not
+like to think of it.
+
+“Oh dear!” sighed Hephzy; “if only things were different. If only she
+knew all about her father and his rascality and was livin' with us
+because she wanted to--if that was the way of it, it would be so
+different. If you and I had really adopted her! If she only was your
+niece.”
+
+“Nonsense!” I snapped. “She isn't my niece.”
+
+“I know it. That's what makes your goodness to her seem so wonderful
+to me. You treat her as if you cared as much as I do. And of course you
+don't. It isn't natural you should. She's my sister's child, and she's
+hardly any relation to you at all. You're awful good, Hosy. She's
+noticed it, too. I think she likes you now a lot better than she did;
+she as much as said so. She's beginning to understand you.”
+
+“Nonsense!” I said again. Understand me! I didn't understand myself.
+Nevertheless I was foolishly pleased to hear that she liked me. It was
+pleasant to be liked even by one who was destined to hate me later on.
+
+“I hope she won't feel too hard against us,” continued Hephzy. “I can't
+bear to think of her doin' that. She--she seems so near and dear to me
+now. We--I shall miss her dreadfully when it's all over.”
+
+I think she hoped that I might say that I should miss her, also. But I
+did not say anything of the kind.
+
+I was resolved not to permit myself to miss her. Hadn't I been scheming
+and planning to get rid of her ever since she thrust herself upon us? To
+be sorry when she, at last, was gotten rid of would be too idiotic.
+
+“Well,” observed Hephzy, in conclusion, “perhaps she and Doctor Bayliss
+will make a match after all. We ought to help it all we can, I suppose.”
+
+This conversation had various effects upon me. One was to make me
+unaccountably “blue” for the rest of that day. Another was that I
+regarded the visits of Worcester and Herbert Bayliss with a different
+eye. I speculated foolishly concerning those visits and watched both
+young gentlemen more closely.
+
+I did not have to watch the curate long. Suddenly he ceased calling at
+the rectory. Not altogether, of course, but he called only occasionally
+and his manner toward my “niece” was oddly formal and constrained. She
+was very kind to him, kinder than before, I thought, but there was a
+difference in their manner. Hephzy, of course, had an explanation ready.
+
+“She's given him his clearance papers,” was her way of expressing it.
+“She's told him that it's no use so far as he's concerned. Well, I never
+did think she cared for him. And that leaves the course clear for the
+doctor, doesn't it.”
+
+The doctor took advantage of the clear course. His calls and invitations
+for rides and tennis and golf were more frequent than ever. She must
+have understood; but, being a normal young woman, as well as a very,
+very pretty one, she was a bit of a coquette and kept the boy--for,
+after all, he was scarcely more than that--at arm's length and in a
+state of alternate hope and despair. I shared his varying moods. If he
+could not be sure of her feelings toward him, neither could I, and I
+found myself wondering, wondering constantly. It was foolish for me
+to wonder, of course. Why should I waste time in speculation on that
+subject? Why should I care whether she married or not? What difference
+did it make to me whom she married? I resolved not to think of her at
+all. And that resolution, like so many I had made, amounted to nothing,
+for I did think of her constantly.
+
+And then to add a new complication to the already over-complicated
+situation, came A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire.
+
+Frances and Herbert Bayliss were scheduled for nine holes of golf on the
+Manor House course that morning. I had had no intention of playing. My
+projected novel had reached the stage where, plot building completed, I
+had really begun the writing. The first chapter was finished and I had
+intended beginning the second one that day. But, just as I seated myself
+at the desk in the Reverend Cole's study, the young lady appeared and
+insisted that the twosome become a threesome, that I leave my “stupid
+old papers and pencils” and come for a round on the links. I protested,
+of course, but she was in one of her wilful moods that morning and
+declared that she would not play unless I did.
+
+“It will do you good,” she said. “You'll write all the better this
+afternoon. Now, come along.”
+
+“Is Doctor Bayliss as anxious for my company as you seem to be?” I asked
+maliciously.
+
+She tossed her head. “Of course he is,” she retorted. “Besides it
+doesn't make any difference whether he is or not. _I_ want you to play,
+and that is enough.”
+
+“Humph! he may not agree with you.”
+
+“Then he can play by himself. It will do him good, too. He takes
+altogether too much for granted. Come! I am waiting.”
+
+So, after a few more fruitless protests, I reluctantly laid aside the
+paper and pencils, changed to golfing regalia and, with my bag of clubs
+on my shoulder, joined the two young people on the lawn.
+
+Frances greeted me very cordially indeed. Her clubs--I had bought them
+myself on one of my trips to London: having once yielded, in the matter
+of the tennis outfit, I now bought various little things which I thought
+would please her--were carried by Herbert Bayliss, who, of course, also
+carried his own. His greeting was not as enthusiastic. He seemed rather
+glum and out of sorts. Frances addressed most of her conversation to me
+and I was inclined to think the pair had had some sort of disagreement,
+what Hephzy would have called a “lover's quarrel,” perhaps.
+
+We walked across the main street of Mayberry, through the lane past the
+cricket field, on by the path over the pastures, and entered the great
+gate of the Manor, the gate with the Carey arms emblazoned above it.
+Then a quarter of a mile over rolling hills, with rare shrubs and
+flowers everywhere, brought us to the top of the hill at the edge of the
+little wood which these English people persisted in calling a “forest.”
+ The first tee was there. You drove--if you were skillful or lucky--down
+the long slope to the green two hundred yards away. If you were neither
+skillful nor lucky you were quite as likely to drive into the long grass
+on either side of the fair green. Then you hunted for your ball and,
+having found it, wasted more or less labor and temper in pounding it out
+of the “rough.”
+
+At the first tee a man arrayed in the perfection of natty golfing togs
+was practicing his “swing.” A caddy was carrying his bag. This of itself
+argued the swinger a person of privilege and consequence, for caddies on
+those links were strictly forbidden by the Lady of the Manor. Why they
+were forbidden she alone knew.
+
+As we approached the tee the player turned to look at us. He was not a
+Mayberryite and yet there was something familiar in his appearance. He
+regarded us for a moment and then, dropping his driver, lounged toward
+me and extended his hand.
+
+“Oh, I say!” he exclaimed. “It is you, isn't it! How do you do?”
+
+“Why, Mr. Heathcroft!” I said. “This is a surprise.”
+
+We shook hands. He, apparently, was not at all surprised.
+
+“Heard about your being here, Knowles,” he drawled. “My aunt told me;
+that is, she said there were Americans at the rectory and when she
+mentioned the name I knew, of course, it must be you. Odd you should
+have located here, isn't it! Jolly glad to see you.”
+
+I said I was glad to see him. Then I introduced my companions.
+
+“Bayliss and I have met before,” observed Heathcroft. “Played a round
+with him in the tournament last year. How do, Bayliss? Don't think
+Miss Morley and I have met, though. Great pleasure, really. Are you a
+resident of Mayberry, Miss Morley?”
+
+Frances said that she was a temporary resident.
+
+“Ah! visiting here, I suppose?”
+
+“Yes. Yes, I am visiting. I am living at the rectory, also.”
+
+“Miss Morley is Mr. Knowles's niece,” explained Bayliss.
+
+Heathcroft seemed surprised.
+
+“Indeed!” he drawled. “Didn't know you had a niece, Knowles. She wasn't
+with you on the ship, now was she.”
+
+“Miss Morley had been living in England--here and on the Continent,” I
+answered. I could have kicked Bayliss for his officious explanation of
+kinship. Now I should have that ridiculous “uncle” business to contend
+with, in our acquaintance with Heathcroft as with the Baylisses and the
+rest. Frances, I am sure, read my thoughts, for the corners of her mouth
+twitched and she looked away over the course.
+
+“Won't you ask Mr. Heathcroft to join our game--Uncle?” she said. She
+had dropped the hated “Hosea,” I am happy to say, but in the presence
+of those outside the family she still addressed me as “Uncle.” Of course
+she could not do otherwise without arousing comment, but I did not like
+it. Uncle! there was a venerable, antique quality in the term which
+I resented more and more each time I heard it. It emphasized the
+difference in our ages--and that difference needed no emphasis.
+
+Heathcroft looked pleased at the invitation, but he hesitated in
+accepting it.
+
+“Oh, I shouldn't do that, really,” he declared. “I should be in the way,
+now shouldn't I.”
+
+Bayliss, to whom the remark was addressed, made no answer. I judged that
+he did not care for the honor of the Heathcroft company. But Frances,
+after a glance in his direction, answered for him.
+
+“Oh, not in the least,” she said. “A foursome is ever so much more
+sporting than a threesome. Mr. Heathcroft, you and I will play Doctor
+Bayliss and--Uncle. Shall we?”
+
+Heathcroft declared himself delighted and honored. He looked the
+former. He had scarcely taken his eyes from Miss Morley since their
+introduction.
+
+That match was hard fought. Our new acquaintance was a fair player
+and he played to win. Frances was learning to play and had a natural
+aptitude for the game. I played better than my usual form and I needed
+to, for Bayliss played wretchedly. He “dubbed” his approaches and
+missed easy putts. If he had kept his eye on the ball instead of on
+his opponents he might have done better, but that he would not do. He
+watched Heathcroft and Miss Morley continually, and the more he watched
+the less he seemed to like what he saw.
+
+Perhaps he was not altogether to blame, everything considered. Frances
+was quite aware of the scrutiny and apparently enjoyed his discomfiture.
+She--well, perhaps she did not precisely flirt with A. Carleton
+Heathcroft, but she was very, very agreeable to him and exulted over the
+winning of each hole without regard to the feelings of the losers. As
+for Heathcroft, himself, he was quite as agreeable to her, complimented
+her on her playing, insisted on his caddy's carrying her clubs, assisted
+her over the rough places on the course, and generally acted the gallant
+in a most polished manner. Bayliss and I were beaten three down.
+
+Heathcroft walked with us as far as the lodge gate. Then he said good-by
+with evident reluctance.
+
+“Thank you so much for the game, Miss Morley,” he said. “Enjoyed it
+hugely. You play remarkably well, if you don't mind my saying so.”
+
+Frances was pleased. “Thank you,” she answered. “I know it isn't
+true--that about my playing--but it is awfully nice of you to say it. I
+hope we may play together again. Are you staying here long?”
+
+“Don't know, I'm sure. I am visiting my aunt and she will keep me as
+long as she can. Seems to think I have neglected her of late. Of course
+we must play again. By the way, Knowles, why don't you run over and meet
+Lady Carey? She'll be awfully pleased to meet any friends of mine. Bring
+Miss Morley with you. Perhaps she would care to see the greenhouses.
+They're quite worth looking over, really. Like to have you, too,
+Bayliss, of course.”
+
+Bayliss's thanks were not effusive. Frances, however, declared that
+she should love to see the greenhouses. For my part, common politeness
+demanded my asking Mr. Heathcroft to call at the rectory. He accepted
+the invitation at once and heartily.
+
+He called the very next day and joined us at tea. The following
+afternoon we, Hephzy, Frances and I, visited the greenhouses. On this
+occasion we met, for the first time, the lady of the Manor herself. Lady
+Kent Carey was a stout, gray-haired person, of very decided manner and
+a mannish taste in dress. She was gracious and affable, although I
+suspected that much of her affability toward the American visitors was
+assumed because she wished to please her nephew. A. Carleton Heathcroft,
+Esquire, was plainly her ladyship's pride and pet. She called him
+“Carleton, dear,” and “Carleton, dear” was, in his aunt's estimation,
+the model of everything desirable in man.
+
+The greenhouses were spacious and the display of rare plants and flowers
+more varied and beautiful than any I had ever seen. We walked through
+the grounds surrounding the mansion, and viewed with becoming reverence
+the trees planted by various distinguished personages, His Royal
+Highness the Prince of Wales, Her late Majesty Queen Victoria,
+Ex-President Carnot of France, and others. Hephzy whispered to me as we
+were standing before the Queen Victoria specimen:
+
+“I don't believe Queen Victoria ever planted that in the world, do
+you, Hosy. She'd look pretty, a fleshy old lady like her, puffin' away
+diggin' holes with a spade, now would she!”
+
+I hastily explained the probability that the hole was dug by someone
+else.
+
+Hephzy nodded.
+
+“I guess so,” she added. “And the tree was put in by someone else and
+the dirt put back by the same one. Queen Victoria planted that tree the
+way Susanna Wixon said she broke my best platter, by not doin' a single
+thing to it. I could plant a whole grove that way and not get a bit
+tired.”
+
+Lady Carey bade us farewell at the fish-ponds and asked us to come
+again. Her nephew, however, accompanied us all the way home--that is, he
+accompanied Frances, while Hephzy and I made up the rear guard. The next
+day he dropped in for some tennis. Herbert Bayliss was there before
+him, so the tennis was abandoned, and a three-cornered chat on the
+lawn substituted. Heathcroft treated the young doctor with a polite
+condescension which would have irritated me exceedingly.
+
+From then on, during the fortnight which followed, there was a great
+deal of Heathcroft in the rectory social circle. And when he was
+not there, it was fairly certain that he and Frances were together
+somewhere, golfing, walking or riding. Sometimes I accompanied them,
+sometimes Herbert Bayliss made one of the party. Frances' behavior to
+the young doctor was tantalizingly contradictory. At times she was very
+cordial and kind, at others almost cold and repellent. She kept the
+young fellow in a state of uncertainty most of the time. She treated
+Heathcroft much the same, but there was this difference between
+them--Heathcroft didn't seem to mind; her whims appeared to amuse rather
+than to annoy him. Bayliss, on the contrary, was either in the seventh
+heaven of bliss or the subcellar of despair. I sympathized with him, to
+an extent; the young lady's attitude toward me had an effect which, in
+my case, was ridiculous. My reason told me that I should not care at
+all whether she liked me or whether she didn't, whether I pleased or
+displeased her. But I did care, I couldn't help it, I cared altogether
+too much. A middle-aged quahaug should be phlegmatic and philosophical;
+I once had a reputation for both qualities, but I seemed to possess
+neither now.
+
+I found myself speculating and wondering more than ever concerning the
+outcome of all this. Was there anything serious in the wind at all?
+Herbert Bayliss was in love with Frances Morley, that was obvious now.
+But was she in love with him? I doubted it. Did she care in the least
+for him? I did not know. She seemed to enjoy his society. I did not want
+her to fall in love with A. Carleton Heathcroft, certainly. Nor, to be
+perfectly honest, did I wish her to marry Bayliss, although I like him
+much better than I did Lady Carey's blasé nephew. Somehow, I didn't
+like the idea of her falling in love with anyone. The present state
+of affairs in our household was pleasant enough. We three were happy
+together. Why could not that happiness continue just as it was?
+
+The answer was obvious: It could not continue. Each day that passed
+brought the inevitable end nearer. My determination to put the thought
+of that end from my mind and enjoy the present was shaken. In the
+solitude of the study, in the midst of my writing, after I had gone to
+my room for the night, I found my thoughts drifting toward the day in
+October when, our lease of the rectory ended, we must pack up and go
+somewhere. And when we went, would she go with us? Hardly. She
+would demand the promised “settlement,” and then--What then?
+Explanations--quarrels--parting. A parting for all time. I had reached
+a point where, like Hephzy, I would have gladly suggested a real
+“adoption,” the permanent addition to our family of Strickland Morley's
+daughter, but she would not consent to that. She was proud--very proud.
+And she idolized her father's memory. No, she would not remain under any
+such conditions--I knew it. And the certainty of that knowledge
+brought with it a pang which I could not analyze. A man of my age and
+temperament should not have such feelings.
+
+Hephzy did not fancy Heathcroft. She had liked him well enough during
+our first acquaintance aboard the steamer, but now, when she knew him
+better, she did not fancy him. His lofty, condescending manner irritated
+her and, as he seemed to enjoy joking at her expense, the pair had some
+amusing set-tos. I will say this for Hephzy: In the most of these she
+gave at least as good as she received.
+
+For example: we were sitting about the tea-table on the lawn, Hephzy,
+Frances, Doctor and Mrs. Bayliss, their son, and Heathcroft. The
+conversation had drifted to the subject of eatables, a topic suggested,
+doubtless, by the plum cake and cookies on the table. Mr. Heathcroft was
+amusing himself by poking fun at the American custom of serving cereals
+at breakfast.
+
+“And the variety is amazing,” he declared. “Oats and wheat and corn!
+My word! I felt like some sort of animal--a horse, by Jove! We feed our
+horses that sort of thing over here, Miss Cahoon.”
+
+Hephzy sniffed. “So do we,” she admitted, “but we eat 'em ourselves,
+sometimes, when they're cooked as they ought to be. I think some
+breakfast foods are fine.”
+
+“Do you indeed? What an extraordinary taste! Do you eat hay as well, may
+I ask?”
+
+“No, of course we don't.”
+
+“Why not? Why draw the line? I should think a bit of hay might be
+the--ah--the crowning tit-bit to a breakfasting American. Your horses
+and donkeys enjoy it quite as much as they do oats, don't they?”
+
+“Don't know, I'm sure. I'm neither a horse nor a donkey, I hope.”
+
+“Yes. Oh, yes. But I assure you, Miss Morley, I had extraordinary
+experiences on the other side. I visited in a place called Milwaukee and
+my host there insisted on my trying a new cereal each morning. We did
+the oats and the corn and all the rest and, upon my word, I expected
+the hay. It was the only donkey food he didn't have in the house, and I
+don't see why he hadn't provided a supply of that.”
+
+“Perhaps he didn't know you were comin',” observed Hephzy, cheerfully.
+“Won't you have another cup, Mrs. Bayliss? Or a cooky or somethin'?”
+
+The doctor's wife consented to the refilling of her cup.
+
+“I suppose--what do you call them?--cereals, are an American custom,”
+ she said, evidently aware that her hostess's feelings were ruffled.
+“Every country has its customs, so travelers say. Even our own has some,
+doubtless, though I can't recall any at the moment.”
+
+Heathcroft stroked his mustache.
+
+“Oh,” he drawled, “we have some, possibly; but our breakfasts are not as
+queer as the American breakfasts. You mustn't mind my fun, Miss Cahoon,
+I hope you're not offended.”
+
+“Not a bit,” was the calm reply. “We humans ARE animals, after all, I
+suppose, and some like one kind of food and some another. Donkeys like
+hay and pigs like sweets, and I don't know as I hadn't just as soon live
+in a stable as a sty. Do help yourself to the cake, Mr. Heathcroft.”
+
+No, our aristocratic acquaintance did not, as a general rule, come out
+ahead in these little encounters and I more than once was obliged to
+suppress a chuckle at my plucky relative's spirited retorts. Frances,
+too, seemed to appreciate and enjoy the Yankee victories. Her prejudice
+against America had, so far as outward expression went, almost
+disappeared. She was more likely to champion than criticize our ways and
+habits now.
+
+But, in spite of all this, she seemed to enjoy the Heathcroft society.
+The two were together a great deal. The village people noticed the
+intimacy and comments reached my ears which were not intended for them.
+Hephzy and I had some discussions on the subject.
+
+“You don't suppose he means anything serious, do you, Hosy?” she asked.
+“Or that she thinks he does?”
+
+“I don't know,” I answered. I didn't like the idea any better than she
+did.
+
+“I hope not. Of course he's a big man around here. When his aunt dies
+he'll come in for the estate and the money, so everybody says. And
+if Frances should marry him she'd be--I don't know whether she'd be a
+'Lady' or not, but she'd have an awful high place in society.”
+
+“I suppose she would. But I hope she won't do it.”
+
+“So do I, for poor young Doctor Bayliss's sake, if nothin' else. He's so
+good and so patient with it all. And he's just eaten up with jealousy;
+anybody can see that. I'm scared to death that he and this Heathcroft
+man will have some sort of--of a fight or somethin'. That would be
+awful, wouldn't it!”
+
+I did not answer. My apprehensions were not on Herbert Bayliss's
+account. He could look out for himself. It was Frances' happiness I was
+thinking of.
+
+“Hosy,” said Hephzy, very seriously indeed, “there's somethin' else. I'm
+not sure that Mr. Heathcroft is serious at all. Somethin' Mrs. Bayliss
+said to me makes me feel a little mite anxious. She said Carleton
+Heathcroft was a great lady's man. She told me some things about him
+that--that--Well, I wish Frances wasn't so friendly with him, that's
+all.”
+
+I shrugged my shoulders, pretending more indifference than I felt.
+
+“She's a sensible girl,” said I. “She doesn't need a guardian.”
+
+“I know, but--but he's way up in society, Lady Carey's heir and all
+that. She can't help bein' flattered by his attentions to her. Any girl
+would be, especially an English girl that thinks as much of class and
+all that as they do over here and as she does. I wish I knew how she did
+feel toward him.”
+
+“Why don't you ask her?”
+
+Hephzy shook her head. “I wouldn't dare,” she said. “She'd take my head
+off. We're on awful thin ice, you and I, with her, as it is. She treats
+us real nicely now, but that's because we don't interfere. If I should
+try just once to tell her what she ought to do she'd flare up like a
+bonfire. And then do the other thing to show her independence.”
+
+“I suppose she would,” I admitted, gloomily.
+
+“I know she would. No, we mustn't say anything to her. But--but you
+might say somethin' to him, mightn't you. Just hint around and find
+out what he does mean by bein' with her so much. Couldn't you do that,
+Hosy?”
+
+I smiled. “Possibly I could, but I sha'n't,” I answered. “He would tell
+me to go to perdition, probably, and I shouldn't blame him.”
+
+“Why no, he wouldn't. He thinks you're her uncle, her guardian, you
+know. You'd have a right to do it.”
+
+I did not propose to exercise that right, and I said so, emphatically.
+And yet, before that week was ended, I did do what amounted to that very
+thing. The reason which led to this rash act on my part was a talk I had
+with Lady Kent Carey.
+
+I met her ladyship on the putting green of the ninth hole of the golf
+course. I was playing a round alone. She came strolling over the green,
+dressed as mannishly as usual, but carrying a very feminine parasol,
+which by comparison with the rest of her get-up, looked as out of place
+as a silk hat on the head of a girl in a ball dress. She greeted me very
+affably, waited until I putted out, and then sat beside me on the bench
+under the big oak and chatted for some time.
+
+The subject of her conversation was her nephew. She was, apparently,
+only too glad to talk about him at any time. He was her dead sister's
+child and practically the only relative she had. He seemed like a son to
+her. Such a charming fellow, wasn't he, now? And so considerate and kind
+to her. Everyone liked him; he was a great favorite.
+
+“And he is very fond of you, Mr. Knowles,” she said. “He enjoys your
+acquaintance so much. He says that there is a freshness and novelty
+about you Americans which is quite delightfully amusing. This
+Miss--ah--Cahoon--your cousin, I think she is--is a constant joy to him.
+He never tires of repeating her speeches. He does it very well, don't
+you think. He mimics the American accent wonderfully.”
+
+I agreed that the Heathcroft American accent was wonderful indeed. It
+was all that and more. Lady Carey went on.
+
+“And this Miss Morley, your niece,” she said, poking holes in the turf
+with the tip of her parasol, “she is a charming girl, isn't she. She and
+Carleton are quite friendly, really.”
+
+“Yes,” I admitted, “they seem to be.”
+
+“Yes. Tell me about your niece, Mr. Knowles. Has she lived in England
+long? Who were her parents?”
+
+I dodged the ticklish subject as best I could, told her that Frances'
+father was an Englishman, her mother an American, and that most of the
+young lady's life had been spent in France. I feared more searching
+questions, but she did not ask them.
+
+“I see,” she said, nodding, and was silent for a moment. Then she
+changed the subject, returning once more to her beloved Carleton.
+
+“He's a dear boy,” she declared. “I am planning great things for him.
+Some day he will have the estate here, of course. And I am hoping to
+get him the seat in Parliament when our party returns to power, as it
+is sure to do before long. He will marry then; in fact everything is
+arranged, so far as that goes. Of course there is no actual engagement
+as yet, but we all understand.”
+
+I had been rather bored, now I was interested.
+
+“Indeed!” said I. “And may I ask who is the fortunate young lady?”
+
+“A daughter of an old friend of ours in Warwickshire--a fine family, one
+of the oldest in England. She and Carleton have always been so fond of
+each other. Her parents and I have considered the affair settled for
+years. The young people will be so happy together.”
+
+Here was news. I offered congratulations.
+
+“Thank you so much,” she said. “It is pleasant to know that his future
+is provided for. Margaret will make him a good wife. She worships him.
+If anything should happen to--ah--disturb the arrangement her heart
+would break, I am sure. Of course nothing will happen. I should not
+permit it.”
+
+I made some comment, I don't remember what. She rose from the bench.
+
+“I have been chatting about family affairs and matchmaking like a
+garrulous old woman, haven't I,” she observed, smiling. “So silly of me.
+You have been charmingly kind to listen, Mr. Knowles. Forgive me, won't
+you. Carleton dear is my one interest in life and I talk of him on the
+least excuse, or without any. So sorry to have inflicted my garrulity
+upon you. I may count upon you entering our invitation golf tournament
+next month, may I not? Oh, do say yes. Thank you so much. Au revoir.”
+
+She moved off, as imposing and majestic as a frigate under full sail. I
+walked slowly toward home, thinking hard.
+
+I should have been flattered, perhaps, at her taking me into confidence
+concerning her nephew's matrimonial projects. If I had believed the
+“garrulity,” as she called it, to have been unintentional, I might have
+been flattered. But I did not so believe. I was pretty certain there was
+intention in it and that she expected Frances and Hephzy and me to take
+it as a warning. Carleton dear was, in her eyes, altogether too friendly
+with the youngest tenant in Mayberry rectory. The “garrulity” was a
+notice to keep hands off.
+
+I was not incensed at her; she amused me, rather. But with Heathcroft I
+was growing more incensed every moment. Engaged to be married, was he!
+He and this Warwickshire girl of “fine family” had been “so fond” of
+each other for years. Everything was understood, was it? Then what did
+he mean by his attentions to Frances, attentions which half of Mayberry
+was probably discussing at the moment? The more I considered his conduct
+the angrier I became. It was the worst time possible for a meeting with
+A. Carleton Heathcroft, and yet meet him I did at the loneliest and most
+secluded spot in the hedged lane leading to the lodge gate.
+
+He greeted me cordially enough, if his languid drawl could be called
+cordial.
+
+“Ah, Knowles,” he said. “Been doing the round I see. A bit stupid by
+oneself, I should think. What? Miss Morley and I have been riding. Had a
+ripping canter together.”
+
+It was an unfortunate remark, just at that time. It had the effect of
+spurring my determination to the striking point. I would have it out
+with him then and there.
+
+“Heathcroft,” I said, bluntly, “I am not sure that I approve of Miss
+Morley's riding with you so often.”
+
+He regarded me with astonishment.
+
+“You don't approve!” he repeated. “And why not? There's no danger. She
+rides extremely well.”
+
+“It's not a question of danger. It is one of proprieties, if I must
+put it that way. She is a young woman, hardly more than a girl, and she
+probably does not realize that being seen in your company so frequently
+is likely to cause comment and gossip. Her aunt and I realize it,
+however.”
+
+His expression of surprise was changing to one of languid amusement.
+
+“Really!” he drawled. “By Jove! I say, Knowles, am I such a dangerously
+fascinating character? You flatter me.”
+
+“I don't know anything concerning your character. I do know that there
+is gossip. I am not accusing you of anything. I have no doubt you have
+been merely careless. Your intentions may have been--”
+
+He interrupted me. “My intentions?” he repeated. “My dear fellow, I have
+no intentions. None whatever concerning your niece, if that is what you
+mean. She is a jolly pretty girl and jolly good company. I like her and
+she seems to like me. That is all, upon my word it is.”
+
+He was quite sincere, I was convinced of it. But I had gone too far to
+back out.
+
+“Then you have been thoughtless--or careless,” I said. “It seems to me
+that you should have considered her.”
+
+“Considered her! Oh, I say now! Why should I consider her pray?”
+
+“Why shouldn't you? You are much older than she is and a man of the
+world besides. And you are engaged to be married, or so I am told.”
+
+His smile disappeared.
+
+“Now who the devil told you that?” he demanded.
+
+“I was told, by one who should know, that you were engaged, or what
+amounts to the same thing. It is true, isn't it?”
+
+“Of course it's true! But--but--why, good God, man! you weren't under
+the impression that I was planning to marry your niece, were you? Oh, I
+say! that would be TOO good!”
+
+He laughed heartily. He did not appear in the least annoyed or angry,
+but seemed to consider the whole affair a huge joke. I failed to see the
+joke, myself.
+
+“Oh, no,” he went on, before I could reply, “not that, I assure you. One
+can't afford luxuries of that kind, unless one is a luckier beggar than
+I am. Auntie is attending to all that sort of thing. She has me booked,
+you know, and I can't afford to play the high-spirited independent with
+her. I should say not! Rather!”
+
+He laughed again.
+
+“So you think I've been a bit too prevalent in your niece's
+neighborhood, do you?” he observed. “Sorry. I'd best keep off the lawn a
+bit, you mean to say, I suppose. Very well! I'll mind the notice boards,
+of course. Very glad you spoke. Possibly I have been a bit careless. No
+offence meant, Knowles, and none taken, I trust.”
+
+“No,” I said, with some reluctance. “I'm glad you understand my--our
+position, and take my--my hint so well. I disliked to give it, but I
+thought it best that we have a clear understanding.”
+
+“Of course! Stern uncle and pretty niece, and all that sort of thing.
+You Americans are queer beggars. You don't strike me as the usual type
+of stern uncle at all, Knowles. Oh, by the way, does the niece know that
+uncle is putting up the notice boards?”
+
+“Of course she doesn't,” I replied, hastily.
+
+His smile broadened. “I wonder what she'll say when she finds it out,”
+ he observed. “She has never struck me as being greatly in awe of
+her relatives. I should call HER independent, if I was asked. Well,
+farewell. You and I may have some golf together still, I presume? Good!
+By-by.”
+
+He sauntered on, his serene coolness and calm condescension apparently
+unruffled. I continued on my way also. But my serenity had vanished. I
+had the feeling that I had come off second-best in the encounter. I had
+made a fool of myself, I feared. And more than all, I wondered, as he
+did, what Frances Morley would say when she learned of my interference
+in her personal affairs.
+
+I foresaw trouble--more trouble.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+In Which the Truth Is Told at Last
+
+
+I said nothing to Hephzibah or Frances of my talk with Lady Carey or
+with Heathcroft. I was not proud of my share in the putting up of “the
+notice boards.” I did not mention meeting either the titled aunt or the
+favored nephew. I kept quiet concerning them both and nervously awaited
+developments.
+
+There were none immediately. That day and the next passed and nothing of
+importance happened. It did seem to me, however, that Frances was rather
+quiet during luncheon on the third day. She said very little and
+several times I found her regarding me with an odd expression. My guilty
+conscience smote me and I expected to be asked questions answering which
+would be difficult. But the questions were not asked--then. I went to my
+study and attempted to write; the attempt was a failure.
+
+For an hour or so I stared hopelessly at the blank paper. I hadn't an
+idea in my head, apparently. At last I threw down the pencil and gave up
+the battle for the day. I was not in a writing mood. I lit my pipe, and,
+moving to the arm-chair by the window, sat there, looking out at the
+lawn and flower beds. No one was in sight except Grimmer, the gardener,
+who was trimming a hedge.
+
+I sat there for some time, smoking and thinking. Hephzy dressed in her
+best, passed the window on her way to the gate. She was going for a call
+in the village and had asked me to accompany her, but I declined. I did
+not feel like calling.
+
+My pipe, smoked out, I put in my pocket. If I could have gotten rid of
+my thoughts as easily I should have been happier, but that I could
+not do. They were strange thoughts, hopeless thoughts, ridiculous,
+unavailing thoughts. For me, Kent Knowles, quahaug, to permit myself to
+think in that way was worse than ridiculous; it was pitiful. This was a
+stern reality, this summer of mine in England, not a chapter in one of
+my romances. They ended happily; it was easy to make them end in that
+way. But this--this was no romance, or, if it was, I was but the comic
+relief in the story, the queer old bachelor who had made a fool of
+himself. That was what I was, an old fool. Well, I must stop being
+a fool before it was too late. No one knew I was such a fool. No one
+should know--now or ever.
+
+And having reached this philosophical conclusion I proceeded to dream
+of dark eyes looking into mine across a breakfast table--our table; of a
+home in Bayport--our home; of someone always with me, to share my life,
+my hopes, to spur me on to a work worth while, to glory in my triumphs
+and comfort me in my reverses; to dream of what might have been if--if
+it were not absolutely impossible. Oh, fool, fool, fool!
+
+A quick step sounded on the gravel walk outside the window. I knew the
+step, should have recognized it anywhere. She was walking rapidly toward
+the house, her head bent and her eyes fixed upon the path before
+her. Grimmer touched his hat and said “Good afternoon, miss,” but she
+apparently did not hear him. She passed on and I heard her enter the
+hall. A moment later she knocked at the study door.
+
+She entered the room in answer to my invitation and closed the door
+behind her. She was dressed in her golfing costume, a plain white
+shirtwaist--blouse, she would have called it--a short, dark skirt and
+stout boots. The light garden hat was set upon her dark hair and her
+cheeks were flushed from rapid walking. The hat and waist and skirt were
+extremely becoming. She was pretty--yes, beautiful--and young. I was far
+from beautiful and far from young. I make this obvious statement because
+it was my thought at the moment.
+
+She did not apologize for interrupting me, as she usually did when she
+entered the study during my supposed working periods. This was strange,
+of itself, and my sense of guilt caused me to fear all sorts of things.
+But she smiled and answered my greeting pleasantly enough and, for the
+moment, I experienced relief. Perhaps, after all, she had not learned of
+my interview with Heathcroft.
+
+“I have come to talk with you,” she began. “May I sit down?”
+
+“Certainly. Of course you may,” I answered, smiling as cheerfully as I
+could. “Was it necessary to ask permission?”
+
+She took a chair and I seated myself in the one from which I had just
+risen. For a moment she was silent. I ventured a remark.
+
+“This begins very solemnly,” I said. “Is the talk to be so very
+serious?”
+
+She was serious enough and my apprehensions returned.
+
+“I don't know,” she answered. “I hope it may not be serious at all, Mr.
+Knowles.”
+
+I interrupted. “Mr. Knowles!” I repeated. “Whew! this IS a formal
+interview. I thought the 'Mr. Knowles' had been banished along with
+'Uncle Hosea'.”
+
+She smiled slightly then. “Perhaps it has,” she said. “I am just a
+little troubled--or puzzled--and I have come to you for advice.”
+
+“Advice?” I repeated. “I'm afraid my advice isn't worth much. What sort
+of advice do you want?”
+
+“I wanted to know what I should do in regard to an invitation I have
+received to motor with Doctor Bayliss--Doctor Herbert Bayliss. He has
+asked me to go with him to Edgeboro to-morrow. Should I accept?”
+
+I hesitated. Then: “Alone?” I asked.
+
+“No. His cousin, Miss Tomlinson, will go also.”
+
+“I see no reason why you should not, if you wish to go.”
+
+“Thank you. But suppose it was alone?”
+
+“Then--Well, I presume that would be all right, too. You have motored
+with him before, you know.”
+
+As a matter of fact, I couldn't see why she asked my opinion in such a
+matter. She had never asked it before. Her next remark was more puzzling
+still.
+
+“You approve of Doctor Bayliss, don't you,” she said. It did seem to me
+there was a hint of sarcasm in her tone.
+
+“Yes--certainly,” I answered. I did approve of young Bayliss, generally
+speaking; there was no sane reason why I should not have approved of him
+absolutely.
+
+“And you trust me? You believe me capable of judging what is right or
+wrong?”
+
+“Of course I do.”
+
+“If you didn't you would not presume to interfere in my personal
+affairs? You would not think of doing that, of course?”
+
+“No--o,” more slowly.
+
+“Why do you hesitate? Of course you realize that you have no shadow of
+right to interfere. You know perfectly well why I consented to remain
+here for the present and why I have remained?”
+
+“Yes, yes, I know that.”
+
+“And you wouldn't presume to interfere?”
+
+“Doctor Herbert Bayliss is--”
+
+She sprang to her feet. She was not smiling now.
+
+“Stop!” she interrupted, sharply. “Stop! I did not come to discuss
+Doctor Bayliss. I have asked you a question. I ask you if you would
+presume to interfere in my personal affairs. Would you?”
+
+“Why, no. That is, I--”
+
+“You say that to me! YOU!”
+
+“Frances, if you mean that I have interfered between you and the Doctor,
+I--”
+
+She stamped her foot.
+
+“Stop! Oh, stop!” she cried. “You know what I mean. What did you say to
+Mr. Heathcroft? Do you dare tell me you have not interfered there?”
+
+It had come, the expected. Her smile and the asking for “advice” had
+been apparently but traps to catch me off my guard. I had been prepared
+for some such scene as this, but, in spite of my preparations,
+I hesitated and faltered. I must have looked like the meanest of
+pickpockets caught in the act.
+
+“Frances,” I stammered, “Frances--”
+
+Her fury took my breath away.
+
+“Don't call me Frances,” she cried. “How dare you call me that?”
+
+Perturbed as I was I couldn't resist making the obvious retort.
+
+“You asked me to,” I said.
+
+“I asked you! Yes, I did. You had been kind to me, or I thought you
+had, and I--I was foolish. Oh, how I hate myself for doing it! But I
+was beginning to think you a gentleman. In spite of everything, I was
+beginning to--And now! Oh, at least I thought you wouldn't LIE to me.”
+
+I rose now.
+
+“Frances--Miss Morley,” I said, “do you realize what you are saying?”
+
+“Realize it! Oh,” with a scornful laugh, “I realize it quite well; you
+may be sure of that. Don't you like the word? What else do you call a
+denial of what we both know to be the truth. You did see Mr. Heathcroft.
+You did speak with him.”
+
+“Yes, I did.”
+
+“You did! You admit it!”
+
+“I admit it. But did he tell you what I said?”
+
+“He did not. Mr. Heathcroft IS a gentleman. He told me very little and
+that only in answer to my questions. I knew you and he met the other
+day. You did not mention it, but you were seen together, and when he did
+not come for the ride to which he had invited me I thought it strange.
+And his note to me was stranger still. I began to suspect then, and when
+we next met I asked him some questions. He told me next to nothing, but
+he is honorable and he does not LIE. I learned enough, quite enough.”
+
+I wondered if she had learned of the essential thing, of Heathcroft's
+engagement.
+
+“Did he tell you why I objected to his intimacy with you?” I asked.
+
+“He told me nothing! Nothing! The very fact that you had objected, as
+you call it, was sufficient. Object! YOU object to my doing as I please!
+YOU meddle with my affairs! And humiliate me in the eyes of my friends!
+I could--I could die of shame! I... And as if I did not know your
+reasons. As if they were not perfectly plain.”
+
+The real reason could not be plain to her. Heathcroft evidently had not
+told her of the Warwickshire heiress.
+
+“I don't understand,” I said, trying my hardest to speak calmly. “What
+reasons?”
+
+“Must I tell you? Did you OBJECT to my friendship with Doctor Bayliss,
+pray?”
+
+“Doctor Bayliss! Why, Doctor Bayliss is quite different. He is a fine
+young fellow, and--”
+
+“Yes,” with scornful sarcasm, “so it would appear. You and my aunt and
+he have the most evident of understandings. You need not praise him
+for my benefit. It is quite apparent how you both feel toward Doctor
+Bayliss. I am not blind. I have seen how you have thrown him in my
+company, and made opportunities for me to meet him. Oh, of course, I can
+see! I did not believe it at first. It was too absurd, too outrageously
+impertinent. I COULDN'T believe it. But now I know.”
+
+This was a little too much. The idea that I--_I_ had been playing the
+matchmaker for Bayliss's benefit made me almost as angry as she was.
+
+“Nonsense!” I declared. “Miss Morley, this is too ridiculous to go on.
+I did speak to Mr. Heathcroft. There was a reason, a good reason, for my
+doing so.”
+
+“I do not wish to hear your reason, as you call it. The fact that you
+did speak to him concerning me is enough. Mr. Knowles, this arrangement
+of ours, my living here with you, has gone on too long. I should have
+known it was impossible in the beginning. But I did not know. I was
+alone--and ill--and I did need friends--I was SO alone. I had been
+through so much. I had struggled and suffered and--”
+
+Again, as in our quarrel at Wrayton, she was on the verge of tears. And
+again that unreasonable conscience of mine smote me. I longed to--Well,
+to prove myself the fool I was.
+
+But she did not give me the opportunity. Before I could speak or move
+she was on her way to the door.
+
+“This ends it,” she said. “I shall go away from here at once. I
+shall put the whole matter in my solicitor's hands. This is an end of
+forbearance and all the rest. I am going. You have made me hate you and
+despise you. I only hope that--that some day you will despise yourself
+as much. But you won't,” scornfully. “You are not that sort.”
+
+The door closed. She was gone. Gone! And soon--the next day at the
+latest--she would have been gone for good. This WAS the end.
+
+I walked many miles that day, how many I do not know. Dinner was waiting
+for me when I returned, but I could not eat. I rose from the table, went
+to the study and sat there, alone with my misery. I was torn with the
+wildest longings and desires. One, I think, was to kill Heathcroft
+forthwith. Another was to kill myself.
+
+There came another knock at the door. This time I made no answer. I did
+not want to see anyone.
+
+But the door opened, nevertheless, and Hephzy came in. She crossed the
+room and stood by my chair.
+
+“What is it, Hosy?” she said, gently. “You must tell me all about it.”
+
+I made some answer, told her to go away and leave me, I think. If that
+was it she did not heed. She put her hand upon my shoulder.
+
+“You must tell me, Hosy,” she said. “What has happened? You and Frances
+have had some fallin' out, I know. She wouldn't come to dinner, either,
+and she won't see me. She's up in her room with the door shut. Tell me,
+Hosy; you and I have fought each other's battles for a good many years.
+You can't fight this one alone; I've got to do my share. Tell me,
+dearie, please.”
+
+And tell her I did. I did not mean to, and yet somehow the thought that
+she was there, so strong and quiet and big-hearted and sensible, was, if
+not a comfort to me, at least a marvelous help. I began by telling her a
+little and then went on to tell her all, of my talk with Lady Carey, my
+meeting with Heathcroft, the scene with Frances--everything, word for
+word.
+
+When it was over she patted my shoulder.
+
+“You did just right, Hosy,” she said. “There was nothin' else you could
+do. I never liked that Heathcroft man. And to think of him, engaged to
+another girl, trottin' around with Frances the way he has. I'D like to
+talk with him. He'd get a piece of MY mind.”
+
+“He's all right enough,” I admitted grudgingly. “He took my warning in a
+very good sort, I must say. He has never meant anything serious. It was
+just his way, that's all. He was amusing himself in her company,
+and doubtless thought she would be flattered with his aristocratic
+attentions.”
+
+“Humph! Well, I guess she wouldn't be if she'd known of that other girl.
+You didn't tell her that, you say.”
+
+“I couldn't. I think I should, perhaps, if she would have listened. I'm
+glad I didn't. It isn't a thing for me to tell her.”
+
+“I understand. But she ought to know it, just the same. And she ought to
+know how good you've been to her. Nobody could be better. She must know
+it. Whether she goes or whether she doesn't she must know that.”
+
+I seized her arm. “You mustn't tell her a word,” I cried. “She mustn't
+know. It is better she should go. Better for her and for me--My God,
+yes! so much better for me.”
+
+I could feel the arm on my shoulder start. Hephzy bent down and looked
+into my face. I tried to avoid the scrutiny, but she looked and looked.
+Then she drew a long breath.
+
+“Hosy!” she exclaimed. “Hosy!”
+
+“Don't speak to me. Oh, Hephzy,” with a bitter laugh, “did you ever
+dream there could be such a hopeless lunatic as I am! You needn't say
+it. I know the answer.”
+
+“Hosy! Hosy! you poor boy!”
+
+She kissed me, soothing me as she had when I came home to our empty
+house at the time of my mother's death. That memory came back to me even
+then.
+
+“Forgive me, Hephzy,” I said. “I am ashamed of myself, of course. And
+don't worry. Nobody knows this but you and I, and nobody else shall. I'm
+going to behave and I'm going to be sensible. Just forget all this for
+my sake. I mean to forget it, too.”
+
+But Hephzy shook her head.
+
+“It's all my fault,” she said. “I'm to blame more than anybody else.
+It was me that brought her here in the first place and me that kept you
+from tellin' her the truth in the beginnin'. So it's me who must tell
+her now.”
+
+“Hephzy!”
+
+“Oh, I don't mean the truth about--about what you and I have just said,
+Hosy. She'll never know that, perhaps. Certainly she'll never know it
+from me. But the rest of it she must know. This has gone far enough. She
+sha'n't go away from this house misjudgin' you, thinkin' you're a thief,
+as well as all the rest of it. That she sha'n't do. I shall see to
+that--now.”
+
+“Hephzy, I forbid you to--”
+
+“You can't forbid me, Hosy. It's my duty, and I've been a silly, wicked
+old woman and shirked that duty long enough. Now don't worry any more.
+Go to your room, dearie, and lay down. If you get to sleep so much the
+better. Though I guess,” with a sigh, “we sha'n't either of us sleep
+much this night.”
+
+Before I could prevent her she had left the room. I sprang after her, to
+call her back, to order her not to do the thing she had threatened.
+But, in the drawing-room, Charlotte, the housemaid, met me with an
+announcement.
+
+“Doctor Bayliss--Doctor Herbert Bayliss--is here, sir,” she said. “He
+has called to see you.”
+
+“To see me?” I repeated, trying hard to recover some measure of
+composure. “To see Miss Frances, you mean.”
+
+“No, sir. He says he wants to see you alone. He's in the hall now, sir.”
+
+He was; I could hear him. Certainly I never wished to see anyone less,
+but I could not refuse.
+
+“Ask him to come into the study, Charlotte,” said I.
+
+The young doctor found me sitting in the chair by the desk. The long
+English twilight was almost over and the room was in deep shadow.
+Charlotte entered and lighted the lamp. I was strongly tempted to order
+her to desist, but I could scarcely ask my visitor to sit in the dark,
+however much I might prefer to do so. I compromised by moving to a seat
+farther from the lamp where my face would be less plainly visible. Then,
+Bayliss having, on my invitation, also taken a chair, I waited for him
+to state his business.
+
+It was not easy to state, that was plain. Ordinarily Herbert Bayliss was
+cool and self-possessed. I had never before seen him as embarrassed as
+he seemed to be now. He fidgeted on the edge of the chair, crossed and
+recrossed his legs, and, finally, offered the original remark that it
+had been an extremely pleasant day. I admitted the fact and again there
+was an interval of silence. I should have helped him, I suppose. It
+was quite apparent that his was no casual call and, under ordinary
+circumstances, I should have been interested and curious. Now I did
+not care. If he would say his say and go away and leave me I should be
+grateful.
+
+And, at last, he said it. His next speech was very much nearer the
+point.
+
+“Mr. Knowles,” he said, “I have called to--to see you concerning your
+niece, Miss Morley. I--I have come to ask your consent to my asking her
+to marry me.”
+
+I was not greatly surprised. I had vaguely suspected his purpose when
+he entered the room. I had long foreseen the likelihood of some such
+interview as this, had considered what I should say when the time came.
+But now it had come, I could say nothing. I sat in silence, looking at
+him.
+
+Perhaps he thought I did not understand. At any rate he hastened to
+explain.
+
+“I wish your permission to marry your niece,” he repeated. “I have no
+doubt you are surprised. Perhaps you fancy I am a bit hasty. I suppose
+you do. But I--I care a great deal for her, Mr. Knowles. I will try
+to make her a good husband. Not that I am good enough for her, of
+course--no one could be that, you know; but I'll try and--and--”
+
+He was very red in the face and floundered, amid his jerky sentences,
+like a newly-landed fish, but he stuck to it manfully. I could not help
+admiring the young fellow. He was so young and handsome and so honest
+and boyishly eager in his embarrassment. I admired him--yes, but I
+hated him, too, hated him for his youth and all that it meant, I was
+jealous--bitterly, wickedly jealous, and of all jealousy, hopeless,
+unreasonable jealousy is the worst, I imagine.
+
+He went on to speak of his ambitions and prospects. He did not intend to
+remain always in Mayberry as his father's assistant, not he. He should
+remain for a time, of course, but then he intended to go back to London.
+There were opportunities there. A fellow with the right stuff in him
+could get on there. He had friends in the London hospitals and they had
+promised to put chances his way. He should not presume to marry Frances
+at once, of course. He would not be such a selfish goat as that. All he
+asked was that, my permission granted, she would be patient and wait a
+bit until he got on his feet, professionally he meant to say, and then--
+
+I interrupted.
+
+“One moment,” said I, trying to appear calm and succeeding remarkably
+well, considering the turmoil in my brain; “just a moment, Bayliss, if
+you please. Have you spoken to Miss Morley yet? Do you know her feelings
+toward you?”
+
+No, he had not. Of course he wouldn't do that until he and I had had our
+understanding. He had tried to be honorable and all that. But--but he
+thought she did not object to him. She--well, she had seemed to like him
+well enough. There had been times when he thought she--she--
+
+“Well, you see, sir,” he said, “she's a girl, of course, and a fellow
+never knows just what a girl is going to say or do. There are times when
+one is sure everything is quite right and then that it is all wrong. But
+I have hoped--I believe--She's such a ripping girl, you know. She would
+not flirt with a chap and--I don't mean flirt exactly, she isn't a
+flirt, of course--but--don't you think she likes me, now?”
+
+“I have no reason to suppose she doesn't,” I answered grudgingly. After
+all, he was acting very honorably; I could scarcely do less.
+
+He seemed to find much comfort in my equivocal reply.
+
+“Thanks, thanks awfully,” he exclaimed. “I--I--by Jove, you know, I
+can't tell you how I like to hear you say that! I'm awfully grateful
+to you, Knowles, I am really. And you'll give me permission to speak to
+her?”
+
+I smiled; it was not a happy smile, but there was a certain ironic humor
+in the situation. The idea of anyone's seeking my “permission” in any
+matter concerning Frances Morley. He noticed the smile and was, I think,
+inclined to be offended.
+
+“Is it a joke?” he asked. “I say, now! it isn't a joke to me.”
+
+“Nor to me, I assure you,” I answered, seriously. “If I gave that
+impression it was a mistaken one. I never felt less like joking.”
+
+He put his own interpretation on the last sentence. “I'm sorry,” he
+said, quickly. “I beg your pardon. I understand, of course. You're very
+fond of her; no one could help being that, could they. And she is your
+niece.”
+
+I hesitated. I was minded to blurt out the fact that she was not my
+niece at all; that I had no authority over her in any way. But what
+would be the use? It would lead only to explanations and I did not
+wish to make explanations. I wanted to get through with the whole inane
+business and be left alone.
+
+“But you haven't said yes, have you,” he urged. “You will say it, won't
+you?”
+
+I nodded. “You have my permission, so far as that goes,” I answered.
+
+He sprang to his feet and seized my hand.
+
+“That's topping!” he cried, his face radiant. “I can't thank you
+enough.”
+
+“That's all right. But there is one thing more. Perhaps it isn't my
+affair, and you needn't answer unless you wish. Have you consulted your
+parents? How do they feel about your--your intentions?”
+
+His expression changed. My question was answered before he spoke.
+
+“No,” he admitted, “I haven't told them yet. I--Well, you see, the Mater
+and Father have been making plans about my future, naturally. They have
+some silly ideas about a friend of the family that--Oh, she's a nice
+enough girl; I like her jolly well, but she isn't Miss Morley. Well,
+hardly! They'll take it quite well. By Jove!” excitedly, “they must.
+They've GOT to. Oh, they will. And they're very fond of--of Frances.”
+
+There seemed nothing more for me to say, nothing at that time, at any
+rate. I, too, rose. He shook my hand again.
+
+“You've been a trump to me, Knowles,” he declared. “I appreciate it, you
+know; I do indeed. I'm jolly grateful.”
+
+“You needn't be. It is all right. I--I suppose I should wish you luck
+and happiness. I do. Yes, why shouldn't you be happy, even if--”
+
+“Even if--what? Oh, but you don't think she will turn me off, do you?
+You don't think that?”
+
+“I've told you that I see no reason why she should.”
+
+“Thank you. Thank you so much. Is there anything else that you might
+wish to say to me?”
+
+“Not now. Perhaps some day I--But not now. No, there's nothing else.
+Good night, Bayliss; good night and--and good luck.”
+
+“Good night. I--She's not in now, I suppose, is she?”
+
+“She is in, but--Well, I scarcely think you had better see her to-night.
+She has gone to her room.”
+
+“Oh, I say! it's very early. She's not ill, is she?”
+
+“No, but I think you had best not see her to-night.”
+
+He was disappointed, that was plain, but he yielded. He would have
+agreed, doubtless, with any opinion of mine just then.
+
+“No doubt you're right,” he said. “Good night. And thank you again.”
+
+He left the room. I did not accompany him to the door. Instead I
+returned to my chair. I did not occupy it long, I could not. I could not
+sit still. I rose and went out on the lawn. There, in the night mist, I
+paced up and down, up and down. I had longed to be alone; now that I was
+alone I was more miserable than ever.
+
+Charlotte, the maid, called to me from the doorway.
+
+“Would you wish the light in the study any longer, sir?” she asked.
+
+“No,” said I, curtly. “You may put it out.”
+
+“And shall I lock up, sir; all but this door, I mean?”
+
+“Yes. Where is Miss Cahoon?”
+
+“She's above, sir. With Miss Morley, I think, sir.”
+
+“Very well, Charlotte. That is all. Good night.”
+
+“Good night, sir.”
+
+She went into the house. The lamp in the study was extinguished. I
+continued my pacing up and down. Occasionally I glanced at the upper
+story of the rectory. There was a lighted window there, the window of
+Frances' room. She and Hephzy were together in that room. What was going
+on there? What had Hephzy said to her? What--Oh, WHAT would happen next?
+
+Some time later--I don't know how much later it may have been--I heard
+someone calling me again.
+
+“Hosy!” called Hephzy in a loud whisper; “Hosy, where are you?”
+
+“Here I am,” I answered.
+
+She came to me across the lawn. I could not, of course, see her face,
+but her tone was very anxious.
+
+“Hosy,” she whispered, putting her hand on my arm, “what are you doin'
+out here all alone?”
+
+I laughed. “I'm taking the air,” I answered. “It is good for me. I am
+enjoying the glorious English air old Doctor Bayliss is always talking
+about. Fresh air and exercise--those will cure anything, so he says.
+Perhaps they will cure me. God knows I need curing.”
+
+“Sshh! shh, Hosy! Don't talk that way. I don't like to hear you. Out
+here bareheaded and in all this damp! You'll get your death.”
+
+“Will I? Well, that will be a complete cure, then.”
+
+“Hush! I tell you. Come in the house with me. I want to talk to you.
+Come!”
+
+Still holding my arm she led me toward the house. I hung back.
+
+“You have been up there with her?” I said, with a nod toward the lighted
+window of the room above. “What has happened? What have you said and
+done?”
+
+“Hush! I'll tell you; I'll tell you all about it. Only come in now. I
+sha'n't feel safe until I get you inside. Oh, Hosy, DON'T act this way!
+Do you want to frighten me to death?”
+
+That appeal had an effect. I was ashamed of myself.
+
+“Forgive me, Hephzy,” I said. “I'll try to be decent. You needn't worry
+about me. I'm a fool, of course, but now that I realize it I shall try
+to stop behaving like one. Come along; I'm ready.”
+
+In the drawing-room she closed the door.
+
+“Shall I light the lamp?” she asked.
+
+“No. Oh, for heaven's sake, can't you see that I'm crazy to know what
+you said to that girl and what she said to you? Tell me, and hurry up,
+will you!”
+
+She did not resent my sudden burst of temper and impatience. Instead she
+put her arm about me.
+
+“Sit down, Hosy,” she pleaded. “Sit down and I'll tell you all about it.
+Do sit down.”
+
+I refused to sit.
+
+“Tell me now,” I commanded. “What did you say to her? You didn't--you
+didn't--”
+
+“I did. I told her everything.”
+
+“EVERYTHING! You don't mean--”
+
+“I mean everything. 'Twas time she knew it. I went to that room meanin'
+to tell her and I did. At first she didn't want to listen, didn't want
+to see me at all or even let me in. But I made her let me in and then
+she and I had it out.”
+
+“Hephzy!”
+
+“Don't say it that way, Hosy. The good Lord knows I hate myself for
+doin' it, hated myself while I was doin' it, but it had to be done.
+Every word I spoke cut me as bad as it must have cut her. I kept
+thinkin', 'This is Little Frank I'm talkin' to. This is Ardelia's
+daughter I'm makin' miserable.' A dozen times I stopped and thought I
+couldn't go on, but every time I thought of you and what you'd put up
+with and been through, and I went on.”
+
+“Hephzy! you told her--”
+
+“I said it was time she understood just the plain truth about her father
+and mother and grandfather and the money, and everything. She must know
+it, I said; things couldn't go on as they have been. I told it all. At
+first she wouldn't listen, said I was--well, everything that was mean
+and lyin' and bad. If she could she'd have put me out of her room, I
+presume likely, but I wouldn't go. And, of course, at first she wouldn't
+believe, but I made her believe.”
+
+“Made her believe! Made her believe her father was a thief! How could
+you do that! No one could.”
+
+“I did it. I don't know how exactly. I just went on tellin' it all
+straight from the beginnin', and pretty soon I could see she was
+commencin' to believe. And she believes now, Hosy; she does, I know it.”
+
+“Did she say so?”
+
+“No, she didn't say anything, scarcely--not at the last. She didn't cry,
+either; I almost wish she had. Oh, Hosy, don't ask me any more questions
+than you have to. I can't bear to answer 'em.”
+
+She paused and turned away.
+
+“How she must hate us!” I said, after a moment.
+
+“Why, no--why, no, Hosy, I don't think she does; at least I'm tryin' to
+hope she doesn't. I softened it all I could. I told her why we took her
+with us in the first place; how we couldn't tell her the truth at first,
+or leave her, either, when she was so sick and alone. I told her why
+we brought her here, hopin' it would make her well and strong, and how,
+after she got that way, we put off tellin' her because it was such a
+dreadful hard thing to do. Hard! When I think of her sittin' there,
+white as a sheet, and lookin' at me with those big eyes of hers, her
+fingers twistin' and untwistin' in her lap--a way her mother used to
+have when she was troubled--and every word I spoke soundin' so cruel
+and--and--”
+
+She paused once more. I did not speak. Soon she recovered and went on.
+
+“I told her that I was tellin' her these things now because the
+misunderstandin's and all the rest had to stop and there was no use
+puttin' off any longer. I told her I loved her as if she was my very own
+and that this needn't make the least bit of difference unless she wanted
+it to. I said you felt just the same. I told her your speakin' to that
+Heathcroft man was only for her good and for no other reason. You'd
+learned that he was engaged to be married--”
+
+“You told her that?” I interrupted, involuntarily. “What did she say?”
+
+“Nothin', nothin' at all. I think she heard me and understood, but she
+didn't say anything. Just sat there, white and trembling and crushed,
+sort of, and looked and looked at me. I wanted to put my arms around
+her and ask her pardon and beg her to love me as I did her, but I didn't
+dare--I didn't dare. I did say that you and I would be only too glad to
+have her stay with us always, as one of the family, you know. If she'd
+only forget all the bad part that had gone and do that, I said--but she
+interrupted me. She said 'Forget!' and the way she said it made me
+sure she never would forget. And then--and then she asked me if I would
+please go away and leave her. Would I PLEASE not say any more now, but
+just leave her, only leave her alone. So I came away and--and that's
+all.”
+
+“That's all,” I repeated. “It is enough, I should say. Oh, Hephzy, why
+did you do it? Why couldn't it have gone on as it has been going? Why
+did you do it?”
+
+It was an unthinking, wicked speech. But Hephzy did not resent it. Her
+reply was as patient and kind as if she had been answering a child.
+
+“I had to do it, Hosy,” she said. “After our talk this evenin' there
+was only one thing to do. It had to be done--for your sake, if nothin'
+else--and so I did it. But--but--” with a choking sob, “it was SO hard
+to do! My Ardelia's baby!”
+
+And at last, I am glad to say, I began to realize how very hard it had
+been for her. To understand what she had gone through for my sake and
+what a selfish brute I had been. I put my hands on her shoulders and
+kissed her almost reverently.
+
+“Hephzy,” said I, “you're a saint and a martyr and I am--what I am.
+Please forgive me.”
+
+“There isn't anything to forgive, Hosy. And,” with a shake of the head,
+“I'm an awful poor kind of saint, I guess. They'd never put my image up
+in the churches over here--not if they knew how I felt this minute. And
+a saint from Cape Cod wouldn't be very welcome anyway, I'm afraid. I
+meant well, but that's a poor sort of recommendation. Oh, Hosy, you DO
+think I did for the best, don't you?”
+
+“You did the only thing to be done,” I answered, with decision. “You did
+what I lacked the courage to do. Of course it was best.”
+
+“You're awful good to say so, but I don't know. What'll come of it
+goodness knows. When I think of you and--and--”
+
+“Don't think of me. I'm going to be a man if I can--a quahaug, if
+I can't. At least I'm not going to be what I have been for the last
+month.”
+
+“I know. But when I think of to-morrow and what she'll say to me, then,
+I--”
+
+“You mustn't think. You must go to bed and so must I. To-morrow will
+take care of itself. Come. Let's both sleep and forget it.”
+
+Which was the very best of advice, but, like much good advice,
+impossible to follow. I did not sleep at all that night, nor did I
+forget. God help me! I was realizing that I never could forget.
+
+At six o'clock I came downstairs, made a pretence at eating some
+biscuits and cheese which I found on the sideboard, scribbled a brief
+note to Hephzy stating that I had gone for a walk and should not be back
+to breakfast, and started out. The walk developed into a long one and
+I did not return to the rectory until nearly eleven in the forenoon. By
+that time I was in a better mood, more reconciled to the inevitable--or
+I thought I was. I believed I could play the man, could even see her
+married to Herbert Bayliss and still behave like a man. I vowed and
+revowed it. No one--no one but Hephzy and I should ever know what we
+knew.
+
+Charlotte, the maid, seemed greatly relieved to see me. She hastened to
+the drawing-room.
+
+“Here he is, Miss Cahoon,” she said. “He's come back, ma'am. He's here.”
+
+“Of course I'm here, Charlotte,” I said. “You didn't suppose I had run
+away, did you?... Why--why, Hephzy, what is the matter?”
+
+For Hephzy was coming to meet me, her hands outstretched and on her face
+an expression which I did not understand--sorrow, agitation--yes, and
+pity--were in that expression, or so it seemed to me.
+
+“Oh, Hosy!” she cried, “I'm so glad you've come. I wanted you so.”
+
+“Wanted me?” I repeated. “Why, what do you mean? Has anything happened?”
+
+She nodded, solemnly.
+
+“Yes,” she said, “somethin' has happened. Somethin' we might have
+expected, perhaps, but--but--Hosy, read that.”
+
+I took what she handed me. It was a sheet of note paper, folded across,
+and with Hephzibah's name written upon one side. I recognized the
+writing and, with a sinking heart, unfolded it. Upon the other side was
+written in pencil this:
+
+
+“I am going away. I could not stay, of course. When I think how I have
+stayed and how I have treated you both, who have been so very, very
+kind to me, I feel--I can't tell you how I feel. You must not think me
+ungrateful. You must not think of me at all. And you must not try to
+find me, even if you should wish to do such a thing. I have the money
+which I intended using for my new frocks and I shall use it to pay
+my expenses and my fare to the place I am going. It is your money, of
+course, and some day I shall send it to you. And someday, if I can,
+I shall repay all that you have spent on my account. But you must not
+follow me and you must not think of asking me to come back. That I shall
+never do. I do thank you for all that you have done for me, both of you.
+I cannot understand why you did it, but I shall always remember. Don't
+worry about me. I know what I am going to do and I shall not starve or
+be in want. Good-by. Please try to forget me.
+
+“FRANCES MORLEY.
+
+“Please tell Mr. Knowles that I am sorry for what I said to him this
+afternoon and so many times before. How he could have been so kind and
+patient I can't understand. I shall always remember it--always. Perhaps
+he may forgive me some day. I shall try and hope that he may.”
+
+
+I read to the end. Then, without speaking, I looked at Hephzy. Her eyes
+were brimming with tears.
+
+“She has gone,” she said, in answer to my unspoken question. “She must
+have gone some time in the night. The man at the inn stable drove her
+to the depot at Haddington on Hill. She took the early train for London.
+That is all we know.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+In Which Hephzy and I Agree to Live for Each Other
+
+
+I shall condense the record of that day as much as possible. I should
+omit it altogether, if I could. We tried to trace her, of course. That
+is, I tried and Hephzy did not dissuade me, although she realized, I am
+sure, the hopelessness of the quest. Frances had left the rectory very
+early in the morning. The hostler at the inn had been much surprised to
+find her awaiting him when he came down to the yard at five o'clock.
+She was obliged to go to London, she said, and must take the very
+first train: Would he drive her to Haddington on Hill at once? He did
+so--probably she had offered him a great deal more than the regular
+fare--and she had taken the train.
+
+Questioning the hostler, who was a surly, uncommunicative lout, resulted
+in my learning very little in addition to this. The young lady seemed
+about as usual, so far as he could see. She might 'ave been a bit
+nervous, impatient like, but he attributed that to her anxiety to make
+the train. Yes, she had a bag with her, but no other luggage. No, she
+didn't talk on the way to the station: Why should she? He wasn't the man
+to ask a lady questions about what wasn't his affair. She minded her own
+business and he minded his. No, he didn't know nothin' more about it.
+What was I a-pumpin' him for, anyway?
+
+I gave up the “pumping” and hurried back to the rectory. There Hephzy
+told me a few additional facts. Frances had taken with her only the
+barest necessities, for the most part those which she had when she
+came to us. Her new frocks, those which she had bought with what she
+considered her money, she had left behind. All the presents which we had
+given her were in her room, or so we thought at the time. As she came,
+so she had gone, and the thought that she had gone, that I should never
+see her again, was driving me insane.
+
+And like an insane man I must have behaved, at first. The things I
+did and said, and the way in which I treated Hephzy shame me now, as I
+remember them. I was going to London at once. I would find her and bring
+her back. I would seek help from the police, I would employ detectives,
+I would do anything--everything. She was almost without money; so far as
+I knew without friends. What would she do? What would become of her? I
+must find her. I must bring her back.
+
+I stormed up and down the room, incoherently declaring my intentions and
+upbraiding Hephzy for not having sent the groom or the gardener to find
+me, for allowing all the precious time to elapse. Hephzy offered no
+excuse. She did not attempt justification. Instead she brought the
+railway time-table, gave orders that the horse be harnessed, helped me
+in every way. She would have prepared a meal for me with her own hands,
+would have fed me like a baby, if I had permitted it. One thing she did
+insist upon.
+
+“You must rest a few minutes, Hosy,” she said. “You must, or you'll
+be down sick. You haven't slept a wink all night. You haven't eaten
+anything to speak of since yesterday noon. You can't go this way. You
+must go to your room and rest a few minutes. Lie down and rest, if you
+can.”
+
+“Rest!”
+
+“You must. The train doesn't leave Haddington for pretty nigh two hours,
+and we've got lots of time. I'll fetch you up some tea and toast or
+somethin' by and by and I'll be all ready to start when you are. Now go
+and lie down, Hosy dear, to please me.”
+
+I ignored the last sentence. “You will be ready?” I repeated. “Do you
+mean you're going with me?”
+
+“Of course I am. It isn't likely I'll let you start off all alone, when
+you're in a state like this. Of course I'm goin' with you. Now go and
+lie down. You're so worn out, poor boy.”
+
+I must have had a glimmer of reason then, a trace of decency and
+unselfishness. For the first time I thought of her. I remembered that
+she, too, had loved Little Frank; that she, too, must be suffering.
+
+“I am no more tired than you are,” I said. “You have slept and eaten no
+more than I. You are the one who must rest. I sha'n't let you go with
+me.”
+
+“It isn't a question of lettin'. I shall go if you do, Hosy. And a woman
+don't need rest like a man. Please go upstairs and lie down, Hosy. Oh,”
+ with a sudden burst of feeling, “don't you see I've got about all I can
+bear as it is? I can't--I can't have YOU to worry about too.”
+
+My conscience smote me. “I'll go, Hephzy,” said I. “I'll do whatever you
+wish; it is the least I can do.”
+
+She thanked me. Then she said, hesitatingly:
+
+“Here is--here is her letter, Hosy. You may like to read it again.
+Perhaps it may help you to decide what is best to do.”
+
+She handed me the letter. I took it and went to my room. There I read it
+again and again. And, as I read, the meaning of Hephzy's last sentence,
+that the letter might help me to decide what was best to do, began to
+force itself upon my overwrought brain. I began to understand what she
+had understood from the first, that my trip to London was hopeless,
+absolutely useless--yes, worse than useless.
+
+“You must not try to find me... You must not follow me or think of
+asking me to come back. That I shall never do.”
+
+I was understanding, at last. I might go to London; I might even,
+through the help of the police, or by other means, find Frances Morley.
+But, having found her, what then? What claim had I upon her? What right
+had I to pursue her and force my presence upon her? I knew the shock she
+had undergone, the shattering of her belief in her father, the knowledge
+that she had--as she must feel--forced herself upon our kindness and
+charity. I knew how proud she was and how fiercely she had relented the
+slightest hint that she was in any way dependent upon us or under
+the least obligation to us. I knew all this and I was beginning to
+comprehend what her feelings toward us and toward herself must be--now.
+
+I might find her--yes; but as for convincing her that she should return
+to Mayberry, to live with us as she had been doing, that was so clearly
+impossible as to seem ridiculous even to me. My following her, my
+hunting her down against her expressed wish, would almost surely make
+matters worse. She would probably refuse to see me. She would consider
+my following her a persecution and the result might be to drive her
+still further away. I must not do it, for her sake I must not. She had
+gone and, because I loved her, I must not follow her; I must not add to
+her misery. No, against my will I was forcing myself to realize that my
+duty was to make no attempt to see her again, but to face the situation
+as it was, to cover the running away with a lie, to pretend she had
+gone--gone somewhere or other with our permission and understanding; to
+protect her name from scandal and to conceal my own feelings from all
+the world. That was my duty; that was the situation I must face. But how
+could I face it!
+
+That hour was the worst I have ever spent and I trust I may never be
+called upon to face such another. But, at last, I am glad to say, I
+had made up my mind, and when Hephzy came with the tea and toast I was
+measurably composed and ready to express my determination.
+
+“Hephzy,” said I, “I am not going to London. I have been thinking, and
+I'm not going.”
+
+Hephzy put down the tray she was carrying. She did seem surprised, but I
+am sure she was relieved.
+
+“You're not goin'!” she exclaimed. “Why, Hosy!”
+
+“No, I am not going. I've been crazy, Hephzy, I think, but I am fairly
+sane now. I have reached the conclusion that you reached sometime ago,
+I am certain. We have no right to follow her. Our finding her would only
+make it harder for her and no good could come of it. She went, of her
+own accord, and we must let her go.”
+
+“Let her go? And not try--”
+
+“No. We have no right to try. You know it as well as I do. Now, be
+honest, won't you?”
+
+Hephzy hesitated.
+
+“Why,” she faltered; “well, I--Oh, Hosy, I guess likely you're right. At
+first I was all for goin' after her right away and bringin' her back
+by main strength, if I had to. But the more I thought of it the more
+I--I--”
+
+“Of course,” I interrupted. “It is the only thing we can do. You must
+have been ashamed of me this morning. Well, I'll try and give you no
+cause to be ashamed again. That part of our lives is over. Now we'll
+start afresh.”
+
+Hephzy, after a long look at my face, covered her own with her hands
+and began to cry. I stepped to her side, but she recovered almost
+immediately.
+
+“There! there!” she said, “don't mind me, Hosy. I've been holdin' that
+cry back for a long spell. Now I've had it and it's over and done with.
+After all, you and I have got each other left and we'll start fresh,
+just as you say. And the first thing is for you to eat that toast and
+drink that tea.”
+
+I smiled, or tried to smile.
+
+“The first thing,” I declared, “is for us to decide what story we shall
+tell young Bayliss and the rest of the people to account for her leaving
+so suddenly. I expect Herbert Bayliss here any moment. He came to see me
+about--about her last evening.”
+
+Hephzy nodded.
+
+“I guessed as much,” she said. “I knew he came and I guessed what 'twas
+about. Poor fellow, 'twill be dreadful hard for him, too. He was here
+this mornin' and I said Frances had been called away sudden and wouldn't
+be back to-day. And I said you would be away all day, too, Hosy. It was
+a fib, I guess, but I can't help it if it was. You mustn't see him now
+and you mustn't talk with me either. You must clear off that tray the
+first thing. We'll have our talk to-morrow, maybe. We'll--we'll see the
+course plainer then, perhaps. Now be a good boy and mind me. You ARE
+my boy, you know, and always will be, no matter how old and famous you
+get.”
+
+Herbert Bayliss called again that afternoon. I did not see him, but
+Hephzy did. The young fellow was frightfully disappointed at Frances'
+sudden departure and asked all sorts of questions as to when she would
+return, her London address and the like. Hephzy dodged the questions as
+best she could, but we both foresaw that soon he would have to be told
+some portion of the truth--not the whole truth; he need never know that,
+but something--and that something would be very hard to tell.
+
+The servants, too, must not know or surmise what had happened or the
+reason for it. Hephzy had already given them some excuse, fabricated on
+the spur of the moment. They knew Miss Morley had gone away and might
+not return for some time. But we realized that upon our behavior
+depended a great deal and so we agreed to appear as much like our
+ordinary selves as possible.
+
+It was a hard task. I shall never forget those first meals when we
+two were alone. We did not mention her name, but the shadow was always
+there--the vacant place at the table where she used to sit, the roses
+she had picked the morning before; and, afterward, in the drawing-room,
+the piano with her music upon the rack--the hundred and one little
+reminders that were like so many poisoned needles to aggravate my
+suffering and to remind me of the torture of the days to come. She had
+bade me forget her. Forget! I might forget when I was dead, but not
+before. If I could only die then and there it would seem so easy by
+comparison.
+
+The next forenoon Hephzy and I had our talk. We discussed our future.
+Should we leave the rectory and England and go back to Bayport where
+we belonged? I was in favor of this, but Hephzy seemed reluctant. She,
+apparently, had some reason which made her wish to remain for a time, at
+least. At last the reason was disclosed.
+
+“I supposed you'll laugh at me when I say it, Hosy,” she said; “or at
+any rate you'll think I'm awful silly. But I know--I just KNOW that
+this isn't the end. We shall see her again, you and I. She'll come to us
+again or we'll go to her. I know it; somethin' inside me tells me so.”
+
+ I shook my head.
+
+“It's true,” she went on. “You don't believe it, but it's true. It's a
+presentiment and you haven't believed in my presentiments before, but
+they've come true. Why, you didn't believe we'd ever find Little Frank
+at all, but we did. And do you suppose all that has happened so far has
+been just for nothin'? Indeed and indeed it hasn't. No, this isn't the
+end; it's only the beginnin'.”
+
+Her conviction was so strong that I hadn't the heart to contradict her.
+I said nothing.
+
+“And that's why,” she went on, “I don't like to have us leave here right
+away. She knows we're here, here in England, and if--if she ever should
+be in trouble and need our help she could find us here waitin' to give
+it. If we was away off on the Cape, way on the other side of the ocean,
+she couldn't reach us, or not until 'twas too late anyhow. That's why
+I'd like to stay here a while longer, Hosy. But,” she hastened to add,
+“I wouldn't stay a minute if you really wanted to go.”
+
+I was silent for a moment. The temptation was to go, to get as far from
+the scene of my trouble as I could; but, after all, what did it matter?
+I could never flee from that trouble.
+
+“All right, Hephzy,” I said. “I'll stay, if it pleases you.”
+
+“Thank you, Hosy. It may be foolish, our stayin', but I don't believe
+it is. And--and there's somethin' else. I don't know whether I ought to
+tell you or not. I don't know whether it will make you feel better or
+worse. But I've heard you say that she must hate you. She doesn't--I
+know she doesn't. I've been lookin' over her things, those she left in
+her room. Everythin' we've given her or bought for her since she's been
+here, she left behind--every single thing except one. That little pin
+you bought for her in London the last time you was there and gave her to
+wear at the Samsons' lawn party, I can't find it anywhere. She must have
+taken it with her. Now why should she take that and leave all the rest?”
+
+“Probably she forgot it,” I said.
+
+“Humph! Queer she should forget that and nothin' else. I don't believe
+she forgot it. _I_ think she took it because you gave it to her and she
+wanted to keep it to remind her of you.”
+
+I dismissed the idea as absurd, but I found a ray of comfort in it which
+I should have been ashamed to confess. The idea that she wished to be
+reminded of me was foolish, but--but I was glad she had forgotten to
+leave the pin. It MIGHT remind her of me, even against her will.
+
+A day or two later Herbert Bayliss and I had our delayed interview. He
+had called several times, but Hephzy had kept him out of my way. This
+time our meeting was in the main street of Mayberry, when dodging him
+was an impossibility. He hurried up to me and seized my hand.
+
+“So you're back, Knowles,” he said. “When did you return?”
+
+For the moment I was at a loss to understand his meaning. I had
+forgotten Hephzy's “fib” concerning my going away. Fortunately he did
+not wait for an answer.
+
+“Did Frances--did Miss Morley return with you?” he asked eagerly.
+
+“No,” said I.
+
+His smile vanished.
+
+“Oh!” he said, soberly. “She is still in London, then?”
+
+“I--I presume she is.”
+
+“You presume--? Why, I say! don't you know?”
+
+“I am not sure.”
+
+He seemed puzzled and troubled, but he was too well bred to ask why I
+was not sure. Instead he asked when she would return. I announced that I
+did not know that either.
+
+“You don't know when she is coming back?” he repeated.
+
+“No.”
+
+He regarded me keenly. There was a change in the tone of his next
+remark.
+
+“You are not sure that she is in London and you don't know when she is
+coming back,” he said, slowly. “Would you mind telling me why she left
+Mayberry so suddenly? She had not intended going; at least she did not
+mention her intention to me.”
+
+“She did not mention it to anyone,” I answered. “It was a very sudden
+determination on her part.”
+
+He considered this.
+
+“It would seem so,” he said. “Knowles, you'll excuse my saying it, but
+this whole matter seems deucedly odd to me. There is something which
+I don't understand. You haven't answered my question. Under the
+circumstances, considering our talk the other evening, I think I have a
+right to ask it. Why did she leave so suddenly?”
+
+I hesitated. Mayberry's principal thoroughfare was far from crowded, but
+it was scarcely the place for an interview like this.
+
+“She had a reason for leaving,” I answered, slowly. “I will tell you
+later, perhaps, what it was. Just now I cannot.”
+
+“You cannot!” he repeated. He was evidently struggling with his
+impatience and growing suspicious. “You cannot! But I think I have a
+right to know.”
+
+“I appreciate your feelings, but I cannot tell you now.”
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“Because--Well, because I don't think it would be fair to her. She would
+not wish me to tell you.”
+
+“She would not wish it? Was it because of me she left?”
+
+“No; not in the least.”
+
+“Was it--was it because of someone else? By Jove! it wasn't because of
+that Heathcroft cad? Don't tell me that! My God! she--she didn't--”
+
+I interrupted. His suspicion angered me. I should have understood his
+feelings, should have realized that he had been and was disappointed
+and agitated and that my answers to his questions must have aroused all
+sorts of fears and forebodings in his mind. I should have pitied him,
+but just then I had little pity for others.
+
+“She did nothing but what she considered right,” I said sharply. “Her
+leaving had nothing to do with Heathcroft or with you. I doubt if she
+thought of either of you at all.”
+
+It was a brutal speech, and he took it like a man. I saw him turn pale
+and bite his lips, but when he next spoke it was in a calmer tone.
+
+“I'm sorry,” he said. “I was a silly ass even to think such a thing.
+But--but you see, Knowles, I--I--this means so much to me. I'm sorry,
+though. I ask her pardon and yours.”
+
+I was sorry, too. “Of course I didn't mean that, exactly,” I said. “Her
+feelings toward you are of the kindest, I have no doubt, but her reason
+for leaving was a purely personal one. You were not concerned in it.”
+
+He reflected. He was far from satisfied, naturally, and his next speech
+showed it.
+
+“It is extraordinary, all this,” he said. “You are quite sure you don't
+know when she is coming back?”
+
+“Quite.”
+
+“Would you mind giving me her London address?”
+
+“I don't know it.”
+
+“You don't KNOW it! Oh, I say! that's damned nonsense! You don't know
+when she is coming back and you don't know her address! Do you mean you
+don't know where she has gone?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“What--? Are you trying to tell me she is not coming back at all?”
+
+“I am afraid not.”
+
+He was very pale. He seized my arm.
+
+“What is all this?” he demanded, fiercely. “What has happened? Tell me;
+I want to know. Where is she? Why did she go? Tell me!”
+
+“I can tell you nothing,” I said, as calmly as I could. “She left us
+very suddenly and she is not coming back. Her reason for leaving I can't
+tell you, now. I don't know where she is and I have no right to try and
+find out. She has asked that no one follow her or interfere with her in
+any way. I respect her wish and I advise you, if you wish to remain her
+friend, to do the same, for the present, at least. That is all I can
+tell you.”
+
+He shook my arm savagely.
+
+“By George!” he cried, “you must tell me. I'll make you! I--I--Do you
+think me a fool? Do you suppose I believe such rot as that? You tell me
+she has gone--has left Mayberry--and you don't know where she has gone
+and don't intend trying to find out. Why--”
+
+“There, Bayliss! that is enough. This is not the place for us to
+quarrel. And there is no reason why we should quarrel at all. I have
+told you all that I can tell you now. Some day I may tell you more, but
+until then you must be patient, for her sake. Her leaving Mayberry had
+no connection with you whatever. You must be contented with that.”
+
+“Contented! Why, man, you're mad. She is your niece. You are her
+guardian and--”
+
+“I am not her guardian. Neither is she my niece.”
+
+I had spoken involuntarily. Certainly I had not intended telling him
+that. The speech had the effect of causing him to drop my arm and step
+back. He stared at me blankly. No doubt he did think me crazy, then.
+
+“I have no authority over her in any way,” I went on. “She is Miss
+Cahoon's niece, but we are not her guardians. She has left our home of
+her own free will and neither I nor you nor anyone else shall follow
+her if I can help it. I am sorry to have deceived you. The deceit was
+unavoidable, or seemed to be. I am very, very sorry for you. That is all
+I can say now. Good morning.”
+
+I left him standing there in the street and walked away. He called after
+me, but I did not turn back. He would have followed me, of course, but
+when I did look back I saw that the landlord of the inn was trying to
+talk with him and was detaining him. I was glad that the landlord had
+appeared so opportunely. I had said too much already. I had bungled this
+interview as I had that with Heathcroft.
+
+I told Hephzy all about it. She appeared to think that, after all,
+perhaps it was best.
+
+“When you've got a toothache,” she said, “you might as well go to the
+dentist's right off. The old thing will go on growlin' and grumblin' and
+it's always there to keep you in misery. You'd have had to tell him some
+time. Well, you've told him now, the worst of it, anyhow. The tooth's
+out; though,” with a one-sided smile, “I must say you didn't give the
+poor chap any ether to help along.”
+
+“I'm afraid it isn't out,” I said, truthfully. “He won't be satisfied
+with one operation.”
+
+“Then I'll be on hand to help with the next one. And, between us, I
+cal'late we can make that final. Poor boy! Well, he's young, that's one
+comfort. You get over things quicker when you're young.”
+
+I nodded. “That is true,” I said, “but there is something else, Hephzy.
+You say I have acted for the best. Have I? I don't know. We know he
+cares for her, but--but does she--”
+
+“Does she care for him, you mean? I don't think so, Hosy. For a spell
+I thought she did, but now I doubt it. I think--Well, never mind what
+I think. I think a lot of foolish things. My brain's softenin' up, I
+shouldn't wonder. It's a longshore brain, anyhow, and it needs the
+salt to keep it from spoilin'. I wish you and I could go clammin'.
+When you're diggin' clams you're too full of backache to worry about
+toothaches--or heartaches, either.”
+
+I expected a visit from young Bayliss that very evening, but he did not
+come to the rectory. Instead Doctor Bayliss, Senior, came and requested
+an interview with me. Hephzy announced the visitor.
+
+“He acts pretty solemn, Hosy,” she said. “I wouldn't wonder if his son
+had told him. I guess it's another toothache. Would you like to have me
+stay and help?”
+
+I said I should be glad of her help. So, when the old gentleman was
+shown into the study, he found her there with me. The doctor was very
+grave and his usually ruddy, pleasant face was haggard and careworn. He
+took the chair which I offered him and, without preliminaries, began to
+speak of the subject which had brought him there.
+
+It was as Hephzy had surmised. His son had told him everything, of his
+love for Frances, of his asking my permission to marry her, and of our
+talk before the inn.
+
+“I am sure I don't need to tell you, Knowles,” he said, “that all this
+has shaken the boy's mother and me dreadfully. We knew, of course, that
+the young people liked each other, were together a great deal, and all
+that. But we had not dreamed of any serious attachment between them.”
+
+Hephzy put in a word.
+
+“We don't know as there has been any attachment between them,” she said.
+“Your boy cared for her--we know that--but whether she cared for him or
+not we don't know.”
+
+Our visitor straightened in his chair. The idea that his son could love
+anyone and not be loved in return was plainly quite inconceivable.
+
+“I think we may take that for granted, madame,” he said. “The news was,
+as I say, a great shock to my wife and myself. Herbert is our only child
+and we had, naturally, planned somewhat concerning his future. The--the
+overthrow of our plans was and is a great grief and disappointment
+to us. Not, please understand, that we question your niece's worth or
+anything of that sort. She is a very attractive young woman and would
+doubtless make my son a good wife. But, if you will pardon my saying
+so, we know very little about her or her family. You are comparative
+strangers to us and although we have enjoyed your--ah--society
+and--ah--”
+
+Hephzy interrupted.
+
+“I beg your pardon for saying it, Doctor Bayliss,” she said, “but you
+know as much about us as we do about you.”
+
+The doctor's composure was ruffled still more. He regarded Hephzy
+through his spectacles and then said, with dignity.
+
+“Madame, I have resided in this vicinity for nearly forty years. I think
+my record and that of my family will bear inspection.”
+
+“I don't doubt it a bit. But, as far as that goes, I have lived in
+Bayport for fifty-odd years myself and our folks have lived there for
+a hundred and fifty. I'm not questionin' you or your family, Doctor
+Bayliss. If I had questioned 'em I could easily have looked up the
+record. All I'm sayin' is that I haven't thought of questionin', and I
+don't just see why you shouldn't take as much for granted as I have.”
+
+The old gentleman was a bit disconcerted. He cleared his throat and
+fidgeted in his seat.
+
+“I do--I do, Miss Cahoon, of course,” he said. “But--ah--Well, to
+return to the subject of my son and Miss Morley. The boy is dreadfully
+agitated, Mr. Knowles. He is quite mad about the girl and his mother
+and I are much concerned about him. We would--I assure you we would do
+anything and sacrifice anything for his sake. We like your niece,
+and, although, as I say, we had planned otherwise, nevertheless we
+will--provided all is as it should be--give our consent to--to the
+arrangement, for his sake.”
+
+I did not answer. The idea that marrying Frances Morley would entail a
+sacrifice upon anyone's part except hers angered me and I did not trust
+myself to speak. But Hephzy spoke for me.
+
+“What do you mean by providin' everything is as it should be?” she
+asked.
+
+“Why, I mean--I mean provided we learn that she is--is--That is,--Well,
+one naturally likes to know something concerning his prospective
+daughter-in-law's history, you know. That is to be expected, now isn't
+it.”
+
+Hephzy looked at me and I looked at her.
+
+“Doctor,” she said. “I wonder if your son told you about some things
+Hosy--Mr. Knowles, I mean--told him this mornin'. Did he tell you that?”
+
+The doctor colored slightly. “Yes--yes, he did,” he admitted. “He said
+he had a most extraordinary sort of interview with Mr. Knowles and
+was told by him some quite extraordinary things. Of course, we could
+scarcely believe that he had heard aright. There was some mistake, of
+course.”
+
+“There was no mistake, Doctor Bayliss,” said I. “I told your son the
+truth, a very little of the truth.”
+
+“The truth! But it couldn't be true, you know, as Herbert reported it
+to me. He said Miss Morley had left Mayberry, had gone away for some
+unexplained reason, and was not coming back--that you did not know
+where she had gone, that she had asked not to be hindered or followed or
+something. And he said--My word! he even said you, Knowles, had declared
+yourself to be neither her uncle nor her guardian. THAT couldn't be
+true, now could it!”
+
+Again Hephzy and I looked at each other. Without speaking we reached the
+same conclusion. Hephzy voiced that conclusion.
+
+“I guess, Doctor Bayliss,” she said, “that the time has come when you
+had better be told the whole truth, or as much of the whole truth about
+Frances as Hosy and I know. I'm goin' to tell it to you. It's a kind of
+long story, but I guess likely you ought to know it.”
+
+She began to tell that story, beginning at the very beginning, with
+Ardelia and Strickland Morley and continuing on, through the history of
+the latter's rascality and the fleeing of the pair from America, to
+our own pilgrimage, the finding of Little Frank and the astonishing
+happenings since.
+
+“She's gone,” she said. “She found out what sort of man her father
+really was and, bein' a high-spirited, proud girl--as proud and
+high-spirited as she is clever and pretty and good--she ran away and
+left us. We don't blame her, Hosy and I. We understand just how she
+feels and we've made up our minds to do as she asks and not try to
+follow her or try to bring her back to us against her will. We think
+the world of her. We haven't known her but a little while, but we've
+come--that is,” with a sudden glance in my direction, “I've come to love
+her as if she was my own. It pretty nigh kills me to have her go. When
+I think of her strugglin' along tryin' to earn her own way by singin'
+and--and all, I have to hold myself by main strength to keep from goin'
+after her and beggin' her on my knees to come back. But I sha'n't do it,
+because she doesn't want me to. Of course I hope and believe that some
+day she will come back, but until she does and of her own accord, I'm
+goin' to wait. And, if your son really cares for her as much as we--as I
+do, he'll wait, too.”
+
+She paused and hastily dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief.
+I turned in order that the Doctor might not see my face. It was an
+unnecessary precaution. Doctor Bayliss' mind was busy, apparently, with
+but one thought.
+
+“An opera singer!” he exclaimed, under his breath. “An opera singer!
+Herbert to marry an opera singer! The granddaughter of a Yankee sailor
+and--and--”
+
+“And the daughter of an English thief,” put in Hephzy, sharply. “Maybe
+we'd better leave nationalities out, Doctor Bayliss. The Yankees have
+the best end of it, 'cordin' to my notion.”
+
+He paid no attention to this.
+
+He was greatly upset. “It is impossible!” he declared. “Absolutely
+impossible! Why haven't we known of this before? Why did not Herbert
+know of it? Mr. Knowles, I must say that--that you have been most
+unthinking in this matter.”
+
+“I have been thinking of her,” I answered, curtly. “It was and is her
+secret and we rely upon you to keep it as such. We trust to your honor
+to tell no one, not even your son.”
+
+“My son! Herbert? Why I must tell him! I must tell my wife.”
+
+“You may tell your wife. And your son as much as you think necessary.
+Further than that it must not go.”
+
+“Of course, of course. I understand. But an opera singer!”
+
+“She isn't a real opera singer,” said Hephzy. “That is, not one of those
+great ones. And she told me once that she realized now that she never
+could be. She has a real sweet voice, a beautiful voice, but it isn't
+powerful enough to make her a place in the big companies. She tried and
+tried, she said, but all the managers said the same thing.”
+
+“Hephzy,” I said, “when did she tell you this? I didn't know of it.”
+
+“I know you didn't, Hosy. She told me one day when we were alone. It was
+the only time she ever spoke of herself and she didn't say much then.
+She spoke about her livin' with her relatives here in England and what
+awful, mean, hard people they were. She didn't say who they were nor
+where they lived, but she did say she ran away from them to go on
+the stage as a singer and what trials and troubles she went through
+afterward. She told me that much and then she seemed sorry that she had.
+She made me promise not to tell anyone, not even you. I haven't, until
+now.”
+
+Doctor Bayliss was sitting with a hand to his forehead.
+
+“A provincial opera singer,” he repeated. “Oh, impossible! Quite
+impossible!”
+
+“It may seem impossible to you,” I couldn't help observing, “but I
+question if it will seem so to your son. I doubt if her being an opera
+singer will make much difference to him.”
+
+The doctor groaned. “The boy is mad about her, quite mad,” he admitted.
+
+I was sorry for him. Perhaps if I were in his position I might feel as
+he did.
+
+“I will say this,” I said: “In no way, so far as I know, has Miss Morley
+given your son encouragement. He told me himself that he had never
+spoken to her of his feelings and we have no reason to think that she
+regards him as anything more than a friend. She left no message for him
+when she went away.”
+
+He seemed to find some ground for hope in this. He rose from the chair
+and extended his hand.
+
+“Knowles,” he said, “if I have said anything to hurt your feelings or
+those of Miss Cahoon I am very sorry. I trust it will make no difference
+in our friendship. My wife and I respect and like you both and I think I
+understand how deeply you must feel the loss of your--of Miss Morley. I
+hope she--I hope you may be reunited some day. No doubt you will be. As
+for Herbert--he is our son and if you ever have a son of your own, Mr.
+Knowles, you may appreciate his mother's feelings and mine. We have
+planned and--and--Even now I should not stand in the way of his
+happiness if--if I believed happiness could come of it. But such
+marriages are never happy. And,” with a sudden burst of hope, “as you
+say, she may not be aware of his attachment. The boy is young. He may
+forget.”
+
+“Yes,” said I, with a sigh. “He IS young, and he may forget.”
+
+After he had gone Hephzy turned to me.
+
+“If I hadn't understood that old man's feelin's,” she declared, “I'd
+have given him one talkin' to. The idea of his speakin' as if Frances
+wouldn't be a wife anybody, a lord or anybody else, might be proud of!
+But he didn't know. He's been brought up that way, and he doesn't know.
+And, of course, his son IS the only person on earth to him. Well, that's
+over! We haven't got to worry about them any more. We'll begin to live
+for each other now, Hosy, same as we used to do. And we'll wait for the
+rest. It'll come and come right for all of us. Just you see.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+In Which I Play Golf and Cross the Channel
+
+
+And so we began “to live for each other again,” Hephzy and I. This
+meant, of course, that Hephzy forgot herself entirely and spent the
+greater part of her time trying to find ways to make my living more
+comfortable, just as she had always done. And I--well, I did my best to
+appear, if not happy, at least reasonably calm and companionable. It was
+a hard job for both of us; certainly my part of it was hard enough.
+
+Appearances had to be considered and so we invented a tale of a visit
+to relatives in another part of England to account for the unannounced
+departure of Miss Morley. This excuse served with the neighbors and
+friends not in the secret and, for the benefit of the servants, Hephzy
+elaborated the deceit by pretending eagerness at the arrival of the
+mails and by certain vague remarks at table concerning letters she was
+writing.
+
+“I AM writing 'em, too, Hosy,” she said. “I write to her every few days.
+Of course I don't mail the letters, but it sort of squares things with
+my conscience to really write after talking so much about it. As for her
+visitin' relatives--well, she's got relatives somewhere in England, we
+know that much, and she MAY be visitin' 'em. At any rate I try to think
+she is. Oh, dear, I 'most wish I'd had more experience in tellin' lies;
+then I wouldn't have to invent so many extra ones to make me believe
+those I told at the beginnin'. I wish I'd been brought up a book agent
+or a weather prophet or somethin' like that; then I'd have been in
+trainin'.”
+
+Without any definite agreement we had fallen into the habit of not
+mentioning the name of Little Frank, even when we were alone together.
+In consequence, on these occasions, there would be long intervals
+of silence suddenly broken by Hephzy's bursting out with a surmise
+concerning what was happening in Bayport, whether they had painted the
+public library building yet, or how Susanna was getting on with the cat
+and hens. She had received three letters from Miss Wixon and, as news
+bearers, they were far from satisfactory.
+
+“That girl makes me so provoked,” sniffed Hephzy, dropping the most
+recent letter in her lap with a gesture of disgust. “She says she's got
+a cold in the head and she's scared to death for fear it'll get 'set
+onto her,' whatever that is. Two pages of this letter is nothin' but
+cold in the head and t'other two is about a new hat she's goin' to have
+and she don't know whether to trim it with roses or forget-me-nots. If
+she trimmed it with cabbage 'twould match her head better'n anything
+else. I declare! she ought to be thankful she's got a cold in a head
+like hers; it must be comfortin' to know there's SOMETHIN' there. You've
+got a letter, too, Hosy. Who is it from?”
+
+“From Campbell,” I answered, wearily. “He wants to know how the novel is
+getting on, of course.”
+
+“Humph! Well, you write him that it's gettin' on the way a squid gets
+ahead--by goin' backwards. Don't let him pester you one bit, Hosy. You
+write that novel just as fast or slow as you feel like. He told you to
+take a vacation, anyway.”
+
+I smiled. Mine was a delightful vacation.
+
+The summer dragged on. The days passed. Pleasant days they were, so far
+as the weather was concerned. I spent them somehow, walking, riding,
+golfing, reading. I gave up trying to work; the half-written novel
+remained half written. I could not concentrate my thoughts upon it and I
+lacked the courage to force myself to try. I wrote Campbell that he must
+be patient, I was doing the best I could. He answered by telling me not
+to worry, to enjoy myself. “Why do you stay there in England?” he wrote.
+“I ordered you to travel, not to plant yourself in one place and die
+of dry rot. A British oyster is mighty little improvement on a Cape Cod
+quahaug. You have been in that rectory about long enough. Go to Monte
+Carlo for change. You'll find it there--or lose it.”
+
+It may have been good advice--or bad--according to the way in which
+it was understood, but, good or bad, it didn't appeal to me. I had no
+desire to travel, unless it were to travel back to Bayport, where I
+belonged. I felt no interest in Monte Carlo--for the matter of that, I
+felt no interest in Mayberry or anywhere else. I was not interested in
+anything or anybody--except one, and that one had gone out of my life.
+Night after night I went to sleep determining to forget and morning
+after morning I awoke only to remember, and with the same dull, hopeless
+heartache and longing.
+
+July passed, August was half gone. Still we remained at the rectory. Our
+lease was up on the first of October. The Coles would return then and we
+should be obliged to go elsewhere, whether we wished to or not. Hephzy,
+although she did not say much about it, was willing to go, I think. Her
+“presentiment” had remained only a presentiment so far; no word came
+from Little Frank. We had heard or learned nothing concerning her or her
+whereabouts.
+
+Our neighbors and friends in Mayberry were as kind and neighborly as
+ever. For the first few days after our interview with Doctor Bayliss,
+Senior, Hephzy and I saw nothing of him or his family. Then the doctor
+called again. He seemed in better spirits. His son had yielded to his
+parents' entreaties and had departed for a walking tour through the
+Black Forest with some friends.
+
+“The invitation came at exactly the right time,” said the old gentleman.
+“Herbert was ready to go anywhere or do anything. The poor boy was in
+the depths and when his mother and I urged him to accept he did so. We
+are hoping that when he returns he will have forgotten, or, if not that,
+at least be more reconciled.”
+
+Heathcroft came and went at various times during the summer. I met him
+on the golf course and he was condescendingly friendly as ever. Our talk
+concerning Frances, which had brought such momentous consequences to
+her and to Hephzy and to me, had, apparently, not disturbed him in the
+least. He greeted me blandly and cheerfully, asked how we all were, said
+he had been given to understand that “my charming little niece” was no
+longer with us, and proceeded to beat me two down in eighteen holes.
+I played several times with him afterward and, under different
+circumstances, should have enjoyed doing so, for we were pretty evenly
+matched.
+
+His aunt, the Lady of the Manor, I also met. She went out of her way to
+be as sweetly gracious as possible. I presume she inferred from Frances'
+departure that I had taken her hint and had removed the disturbing
+influence from her nephew's primrose-bordered path. At each of our
+meetings she spoke of the “invitation golf tournament,” several times
+postponed and now to be played within a fortnight. She insisted that
+I must take part in it. At last, having done everything except decline
+absolutely, I finally consented to enter the tournament. It is not
+easy to refuse to obey an imperial decree and Lady Carey was Empress of
+Mayberry.
+
+After accepting I returned to the rectory to find that Hephzy also had
+received an invitation. Not to play golf, of course; her invitation was
+of a totally different kind.
+
+“What do you think, Hosy!” she cried. “I've got a letter and you can't
+guess who it's from.”
+
+“From Susanna?” I ventured.
+
+“Susanna! You don't suppose I'd be as excited as all this over a letter
+from Susanna Wixon, do you? No indeed! I've got a letter from Mrs.
+Hepton, who had the Nickerson cottage last summer. She and her husband
+are in Paris and they want us to meet 'em there in a couple of weeks and
+go for a short trip through Switzerland. They got our address from Mr.
+Campbell before they left home. Mrs. Hepton writes that they're countin'
+on our company. They're goin' to Lake Lucerne and to Mont Blanc and
+everywhere. Wouldn't it be splendid!”
+
+The Heptons had been summer neighbors of ours on the Cape for several
+seasons. They were friends of Jim Campbell's and had first come to
+Bayport on his recommendation. I liked them very well, and, oddly
+enough, for I was not popular with the summer colony, they had seemed to
+like me.
+
+“It was very kind of them to think of us,” I said. “Campbell shouldn't
+have given them our address, of course, but their invitation was well
+meant. You must write them at once. Make our refusal as polite as
+possible.”
+
+Hephzy seemed disappointed, I thought.
+
+“Then you think I'd better say no?” she observed.
+
+“Why, of course. You weren't thinking of accepting, were you?”
+
+“Well, I didn't know. I'm not sure that our goin' wouldn't be the right
+thing. I've been considerin' for some time, Hosy, and I've about come to
+the conclusion that stayin' here is bad for you. Maybe it's bad for both
+of us. Perhaps a change would do us both good.”
+
+I was astonished. “Humph!” I exclaimed; “this is a change of heart,
+Hephzy. A while ago, when I suggested going back to Bayport, you
+wouldn't hear of it. You wanted to stay here and--and wait.”
+
+“I know I did. And I've been waitin', but nothin' has come of it. I've
+still got my presentiment, Hosy. I believe just as strong as I ever did
+that some time or other she and you and I will be together again. But
+stayin' here and seein' nobody but each other and broodin' don't do us
+any good. It's doin' you harm; that's plain enough. You don't write and
+you don't eat--that is, not much--and you're gettin' bluer and more thin
+and peaked every day. You have just got to go away from here, no matter
+whether I do or not. And I've reached the point where I'm willin' to go,
+too. Not for good, maybe. We'll come back here again. Our lease isn't
+up until October and we can leave the servants here and give them our
+address to have mail forwarded. If--if she--that is, if a letter or--or
+anything--SHOULD come we could hurry right back. The Heptons are real
+nice folks; you always liked 'em, Hosy. And you always wanted to see
+Switzerland; you used to say so. Why don't we say yes and go along?”
+
+I did not answer. I believed I understood the reason for Campbell's
+giving our address to the Heptons; also the reason for the invitation.
+Jim was very anxious to have me leave Mayberry; he believed travel and
+change of scene were what I needed. Doubtless he had put the Heptons up
+to asking us to join them on their trip. It was merely an addition to
+his precious prescription.
+
+“Why don't we go?” urged Hephzy.
+
+“Not much!” I answered, decidedly. “I should be poor company on a
+pleasure trip like that. But you might go, Hephzy. There is no reason in
+the world why you shouldn't go. I'll stay here until you return. Go, by
+all means, and enjoy yourself.”
+
+Hephzy shook her head.
+
+“I'd do a lot of enjoyin' without you, wouldn't I,” she observed.
+“While I was lookin' at the scenery I'd be wonderin' what you had for
+breakfast. Every mite of rain would set me to thinkin' of your gettin'
+your feet wet and when I laid eyes on a snow peak I'd wonder if you had
+blankets enough on your bed. I'd be like that yellow cat we used to have
+back in the time when Father was alive. That cat had kittens and Father
+had 'em all drowned but one. After that you never saw the cat anywhere
+unless the kitten was there, too. She wouldn't eat unless it were with
+her and between bites she'd sit down on it so it couldn't run off. She
+lugged it around in her mouth until Father used to vow he'd have eyelet
+holes punched in the scruff of its neck for her teeth to fit into and
+make it easier for both of 'em. It died, finally; she wore it out,
+I guess likely. Then she adopted a chicken and started luggin' that
+around. She had the habit, you see. I'm a good deal like her, Hosy. I've
+took care of you so long that I've got the habit. No, I shouldn't go
+unless you did.”
+
+No amount of urging moved her, so we dropped the subject.
+
+The morning of the golf tournament was clear and fine. I shouldered my
+bag of clubs and walked through the lane toward the first tee. I never
+felt less like playing or more inclined to feign illness and remain at
+home. But I had promised Lady Carey and the promise must be kept.
+
+There was a group of people, players and guests, awaiting me at the tee.
+Her ladyship was there, of course; so also was her nephew, Mr. Carleton
+Heathcroft, whom I had not seen for some time. Heathcroft was in
+conversation with a young fellow who, when he turned in my direction,
+I recognized as Herbert Bayliss. I was surprised to see him; I had not
+heard of his return from the Black Forest trip.
+
+Lady Carey was affable and gracious, also very important and busy. She
+welcomed me absent-mindedly, introduced me to several of her guests,
+ladies and gentlemen from London down for the week-end, and then bustled
+away to confer with Mr. Handliss, steward of the estate, concerning the
+arrangements for the tournament. I felt a touch on my arm and, turning,
+found Doctor Bayliss standing beside me. He was smiling and in apparent
+good humor.
+
+“The boy is back, Knowles,” he said. “Have you seen him?”
+
+“Yes,” said I, “I have seen him, although we haven't met yet. I was
+surprised to find him here. When did he return?”
+
+“Only yesterday. His mother and I were surprised also. We hadn't
+expected him so soon. He's looking very fit, don't you think?”
+
+“Very.” I had not noticed that young Bayliss was looking either more or
+less fit than usual, but I answered as I did because the old gentleman
+seemed so very anxious that I should. He was evidently gratified. “Yes,”
+ he said, “he's looking very fit indeed. I think his trip has benefited
+him hugely. And I think--Yes, I think he is beginning to forget
+his--that is to say, I believe he does not dwell upon the--the recent
+happenings as he did. I think he is forgetting; I really think he is.”
+
+“Indeed,” said I. It struck me that, if Herbert Bayliss was forgetting,
+his memory must be remarkably short. I imagined that his father's wish
+was parent to the thought.
+
+“He has--ah--scarcely mentioned our--our young friend's name since his
+return,” went on the doctor. “He did ask if you had heard--ah--by the
+way, Knowles, you haven't heard, have you?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Dear me! dear me! That's very odd, now isn't it.”
+
+He did not say he was sorry. If he had said it I should not have
+believed him. If ever anything was plain it was that the longer we
+remained without news of Frances Morley the better pleased Herbert
+Bayliss's parents would be.
+
+“But I say, Knowles,” he added, “you and he must meet, you know. He
+doesn't hold any ill-feeling or--or resentment toward you. Really he
+doesn't. Herbert! Oh, I say, Herbert! Come here, will you.”
+
+Young Bayliss turned. The doctor whispered in my ear.
+
+“Perhaps it would be just as well not to refer to--to--You understand
+me, Knowles. Better let sleeping dogs lie, eh? Oh, Herbert, here is
+Knowles waiting to shake hands with you.”
+
+We shook hands. The shake, on his part, was cordial enough, perhaps, but
+not too cordial. It struck me that young Bayliss was neither as “fit”
+ nor as forgetful as his fond parents wished to believe. He looked rather
+worn and nervous, it seemed to me. I asked him about his tramping trip
+and we chatted for a few moments. Then Bayliss, Senior, was called by
+Lady Carey and Handliss to join the discussion concerning the tournament
+rules and the young man and I were left alone together.
+
+“Knowles,” he asked, the moment after his father's departure, “have you
+heard anything? Anything concerning--her?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“You're sure? You're not--”
+
+“I am quite sure. We haven't heard nor do we expect to.”
+
+He looked away across the course and I heard him draw a long breath.
+
+“It's deucedly odd, this,” he said. “How she could disappear so entirely
+I don't understand. And you have no idea where she may be?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“But--but, confound it, man, aren't you trying to find her?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“You're not! Why not?”
+
+“You know why not as well as I. She left us of her own free will and her
+parting request was that we should not follow her. That is sufficient
+for us. Pardon me, but I think it should be for all her friends.”
+
+He was silent for a moment. Then his teeth snapped together.
+
+“I'll find her,” he declared, fiercely. “I'll find her some day.”
+
+“In spite of her request?”
+
+“Yes. In spite of the devil.”
+
+He turned on his heel and walked off. Mr. Handliss stepped to the first
+tee, clapped his hands to attract attention and began a little speech.
+
+The tournament, he said, was about to begin. Play would be, owing to the
+length and difficulty of the course, but eighteen holes instead of the
+usual thirty-six. This meant that each pair of contestants would play
+the nine holes twice. Handicaps had been fixed as equitably as possible
+according to each player's previous record, and players having
+similar handicaps were to play against each other. A light lunch and
+refreshments would be served after the first round had been completed
+by all. Prizes would be distributed by her ladyship when the final round
+was finished. Her ladyship bade us all welcome and was gratified by our
+acceptance of her invitation. He would now proceed to read the names
+of those who were to play against each other, stating handicaps and the
+like. He read accordingly, and I learned that my opponent was to be Mr.
+Heathcroft, each of us having a handicap of two.
+
+Considering everything I thought my particular handicap a stiff one.
+Heathcroft had been in the habit of beating me in two out of three
+of our matches. However, I determined to play my best. Being the only
+outlander on the course I couldn't help feeling that the sporting
+reputation of Yankeeland rested, for this day at least, upon my
+shoulders.
+
+The players were sent off in pairs, the less skilled first. Heathcroft
+and I were next to the last. A London attorney by the name of Jaynes
+and a Wrayton divine named Wilson followed us. Their rating was one plus
+and, judging by the conversation of the “gallery,” they were looked upon
+as winners of the first and second prizes respectively. The Reverend Mr.
+Wilson was called, behind his back, “the sporting curate.” In gorgeous
+tweeds and a shepherd's plaid cap he looked the part.
+
+The first nine went to me. An usually long drive and a lucky putt on the
+eighth gave me the round by one. I played with care and tried my
+hardest to keep my mind on the game. Heathcroft was, as always, calm and
+careful, but between tees he was pleased to be chatty and affable.
+
+“And how is the aunt with the odd name, Knowles?” he inquired. “Does she
+still devour her--er--washing flannels and treacle for breakfast?”
+
+“She does when she cares to,” I replied. “She is an independent lady, as
+I think you know.”
+
+“My word! I believe you. And how are the literary labors progressing? I
+had my bookselling fellow look up a novel of yours the other day. Began
+it that same night, by Jove! It was quite interesting, really. I should
+have finished it, I think, but some of the chaps at the club telephoned
+me to join them for a bit of bridge and of course that ended literature
+for the time. My respected aunt tells me I'm quite dotty on bridge. She
+foresees a gambler's end for me, stony broke, languishing in dungeons
+and all that sort of thing. I am to die of starvation, I think. Is it
+starvation gamblers die of? 'Pon my soul, I should say most of those I
+know would be more likely to die of thirst. Rather!”
+
+Later on he asked another question.
+
+“And how is the pretty niece, Knowles?” he inquired. “When is she coming
+back to the monastery or the nunnery or rectory, or whatever it is?”
+
+“I don't know,” I replied, curtly.
+
+“Oh, I say! Isn't she coming at all? That would be a calamity, now
+wouldn't it? Not to me in particular. I should mind your notice boards,
+of course. But if I were condemned, as you are, to spend a summer among
+the feminine beauties of Mayberry, a face like hers would be like a
+whisky and soda in a thirsty land, as a chap I know is fond of saying.
+Oh, and by the way, speaking of your niece, I had a curious experience
+in Paris a week ago. Most extraordinary thing. For the moment I began
+to believe I really was going dotty, as Auntie fears. I... Your drive,
+Knowles. I'll tell you the story later.”
+
+He did not tell it during that round, forgot it probably. I did not
+remind him. The longer he kept clear of the subject of my “niece” the
+more satisfied I was. We lunched in the pavilion by the first tee. There
+were sandwiches and biscuits--crackers, of course--and cakes and sweets
+galore. Also thirst-quenching materials sufficient to satisfy even the
+gamblers of Mr. Heathcroft's acquaintance. The “sporting curate,” behind
+a huge Scotch and soda, was relating his mishaps in approaching the
+seventh hole for the benefit of his brother churchmen, Messrs. Judson
+and Worcester. Lady Carey was dilating upon her pet subject, the talents
+and virtues of “Carleton, dear,” for the benefit of the London attorney,
+who was pretending to listen with the respectful interest due blood and
+title, but who was thinking of something else, I am sure. “Carleton,
+dear,” himself, was chatting languidly with young Bayliss. The latter
+seemed greatly interested. There was a curious expression on his face.
+I was surprised to see him so cordial to Heathcroft; I knew he did not
+like Lady Carey's nephew.
+
+The second and final round of the tournament began. For six holes
+Heathcroft and I broke even. The seventh he won, making us square for
+the match so far and, with an equal number of strokes. The eighth we
+halved. All depended on the ninth. Halving there would mean a drawn
+match between us and a drawing for choice of prizes, provided we were in
+the prize-winning class. A win for either of us meant the match itself.
+
+Heathcroft, in spite of the close play, was as bland and unconcerned as
+ever. I tried to appear likewise. As a matter of fact, I wanted to win.
+Not because of the possible prize, I cared little for that, but for the
+pleasure of winning against him. We drove from the ninth tee, each got
+a long brassy shot which put us on the edge of the green, and then
+strolled up the hill together.
+
+“I say, Knowles,” he observed; “I haven't finished telling you of my
+Paris experience, have I. Odd coincidence, by Jove! I was telling young
+Bayliss about it just now and he thought it odd, too. I was--some other
+chaps and I drifted into the Abbey over in Paris a week or so ago and
+while we were there a girl came out and sang. She was an extremely
+pretty girl, you understand, but that wasn't the extraordinary part of
+it. She was the image--my word! the very picture of your niece, Miss
+Morley. It quite staggered me for the moment. Upon my soul I thought it
+was she! She sang extremely well, but not for long. I tried to get near
+her--meant to speak to her, you know, but she had gone before I reached
+her. Eh! What did you say?”
+
+I had not said anything--at least I think I had not. He misinterpreted
+my silence.
+
+“Oh, you mustn't be offended,” he said, laughing. “Of course I knew
+it wasn't she--that is, I should have known it if I hadn't been so
+staggered by the resemblance. It was amazing, that resemblance. The
+face, the voice--everything was like hers. I was so dotty about it that
+I even hunted up one of the chaps in charge and asked him who the
+girl was. He said she was an Austrian--Mademoiselle Juno or Junotte or
+something. That ended it, of course. I was a fool to imagine anything
+else, of course. But you would have been a bit staggered if you had
+seen her. And she didn't look Austrian, either. She looked English or
+American--rather! I say, I hope I haven't hurt your feelings, old chap.
+I apologize to you and Miss Morley, you understand. I couldn't help
+telling you; it was extraordinary now, wasn't it.”
+
+I made some answer. He rattled on about that sort of thing making one
+believe in the Prisoner of Zenda stuff, doubles and all that. We reached
+the green. My ball lay nearest the pin and it was his putt. He made
+it, a beauty, the ball halting just at the edge of the cup. My putt
+was wild. He holed out on the next shot. It took me two and I had to
+concentrate my thought by main strength even then. The hole and match
+were his.
+
+He was very decent about it, proclaimed himself lucky, declared I had,
+generally speaking, played much the better game and should have won
+easily. I paid little attention to what he said although I did, of
+course, congratulate him and laughed at the idea that luck had anything
+to do with the result. I no longer cared about the match or the
+tournament in general or anything connected with them. His story of the
+girl who was singing in Paris was what I was interested in now. I wanted
+him to tell me more, to give me particulars. I wanted to ask him a dozen
+questions; and, yet, excited as I was, I realized that those questions
+must be asked carefully. His suspicions must not be aroused.
+
+Before I could ask the first of the dozen Mr. Handliss bustled over to
+us to learn the result of our play and to announce that the distribution
+of prizes would take place in a few moments; also that Lady Carey wished
+to speak with her nephew. The latter sauntered off to join the group by
+the pavilion and my opportunity for questioning had gone, for the time.
+
+Of the distribution of prizes, with its accompanying ceremony, I seem
+to recall very little. Lady Carey made a little speech, I remember that,
+but just what she said I have forgotten. “Much pleasure in rewarding
+skill,” “Dear old Scottish game,” “English sportsmanship,” “Race not to
+the swift”--I must have been splashed with these drops from the fountain
+of oratory, for they stick in my memory. Then, in turn, the winners were
+called up to select their prizes. Wilson, the London attorney, headed
+the list; the sporting curate came next; Heathcroft next; and then I.
+It had not occurred to me that I should win a prize. In fact I had not
+thought anything about it. My thoughts were far from the golf course
+just then. They were in Paris, in a cathedral--Heathcroft had called it
+an abbey, but cathedral he must have meant--where a girl who looked like
+Frances Morley was singing.
+
+However, when Mr. Handliss called my name I answered and stepped
+forward. Her Ladyship said something or other about “our cousin from
+across the sea” and “Anglo-Saxon blood” and her especial pleasure in
+awarding the prize. I stammered thanks, rather incoherently expressed
+they were, I fear, selected the first article that came to hand--it
+happened to be a cigarette case; I never smoke cigarettes--and retired
+to the outer circle. The other winners--Herbert Bayliss and Worcester
+among them--selected their prizes and then Mr. Wilson, winner of the
+tournament, speaking in behalf of us all, thanked the hostess for her
+kindness and hospitality.
+
+Her gracious invitation to play upon the Manor-House course Mr. Wilson
+mentioned feelingly. Also the gracious condescension in presenting the
+prizes with her own hand. They would be cherished, not only for their
+own sake, but for that of the donor. He begged the liberty of proposing
+her ladyship's health.
+
+The “liberty” was, apparently, expected, for Mr. Handliss had full
+glasses ready and waiting. The health was drunk. Lady Carey drank ours
+in return, and the ceremony was over.
+
+I tried in vain to get another word with Heathcroft. He was in
+conversation with his aunt and several of the feminine friends and,
+although I waited for some time, I, at last, gave up the attempt and
+walked home. The Reverend Judson would have accompanied me, but I
+avoided him. I did not wish to listen to Mayberry gossip; I wanted to be
+alone.
+
+Heathcroft's tale had made a great impression upon me--a most
+unreasonable impression, unwarranted by the scant facts as he related
+them. The girl whom he had seen resembled Frances--yes; but she was an
+Austrian, her name was not Morley. And resemblances were common enough.
+That Frances should be singing in a Paris church was most improbable;
+but, so far as that went, the fact of A. Carleton Heathcroft's attending
+a church service I should, ordinarily, have considered improbable.
+Improbable things did happen. Suppose the girl he had seen was Frances.
+My heart leaped at the thought.
+
+But even supposing it was she, what difference did it make--to me? None,
+of course. She had asked us not to follow her, to make no attempt to
+find her. I had preached compliance with her wish to Hephzy, to Doctor
+Bayliss--yes, to Herbert Bayliss that very afternoon. But Herbert
+Bayliss was sworn to find her, in spite of me, in spite of the Evil One.
+And Heathcroft had told young Bayliss the same story he had told me. HE
+would not be deterred by scruples; her wish would not prevent his going
+to Paris in search of her.
+
+I reached the rectory, to be welcomed by Hephzy with questions
+concerning the outcome of the tournament and triumphant gloatings over
+my perfectly useless prize. I did not tell her of Heathcroft's story.
+I merely said I had met that gentleman and that Herbert Bayliss had
+returned to Mayberry. And I asked a question.
+
+“Hephzy,” I asked, “when do the Heptons leave Paris for their trip
+through Switzerland?”
+
+Hephzy considered. “Let me see,” she said. “Today is the eighteenth,
+isn't it. They start on the twenty-second; that's four days from now.”
+
+“Of course you have written them that we cannot accept their invitation
+to go along?”
+
+She hesitated. “Why, no,” she admitted, “I haven't. That is, I have
+written 'em, but I haven't posted the letter. Humph! did you notice
+that 'posted'? Shows what livin' in a different place'll do even to
+as settled a body as I am. In Bayport I should have said 'mailed' the
+letter, same as anybody else. I must be careful or I'll go back home
+and call the expressman a 'carrier' and a pie a 'tart' and a cracker a
+'biscuit.' Land sakes! I remember readin' how David Copperfield's aunt
+always used to eat biscuits soaked in port wine before she went to bed.
+I used to think 'twas dreadful dissipated business and that the old
+lady must have been ready for bed by the time she got through. You see
+I always had riz biscuits in mind. A cracker's different; crackers don't
+soak up much. We'd ought to be careful how we judge folks, hadn't we,
+Hosy.”
+
+“Yes,” said I, absently. “So you haven't posted the letter to the
+Heptons. Why not?”
+
+“Well--well, to tell you the truth, Hosy, I was kind of hopin' you might
+change your mind and decide to go, after all. I wish you would; 'twould
+do you good. And,” wistfully, “Switzerland must be lovely. But there! I
+know just how you feel, you poor boy. I'll mail the letter to-night.”
+
+“Give it to me,” said I. “I'll--I'll see to it.”
+
+Hephzy handed me the letter. I put it in my pocket, but I did not
+post it that evening. A plan--or the possible beginning of a plan--was
+forming in my mind.
+
+That night was another of my bad ones. The little sleep I had was filled
+with dreams, dreams from which I awoke to toss restlessly. I rose and
+walked the floor, calling myself a fool, a silly old fool, over and
+over again. But when morning came my plan, a ridiculous, wild plan from
+which, even if it succeeded--which was most unlikely--nothing but added
+trouble and despair could possibly come, my plan was nearer its ultimate
+formation.
+
+At eleven o'clock that forenoon I walked up the marble steps of the
+Manor House and rang the bell. The butler, an exalted personage in
+livery, answered my ring. Mr. Heathcroft? No, sir. Mr. Heathcroft had
+left for London by the morning train. Her ladyship was in her boudoir.
+She did not see anyone in the morning, sir. I had no wish to see her
+ladyship, but Heathcroft's departure was a distinct disappointment. I
+thanked the butler and, remembering that even cathedral ushers accepted
+tips, slipped a shilling into his hand. His dignity thawed at the silver
+touch, and he expressed regret at Mr. Heathcroft's absence.
+
+“You're not the only gentleman who has been here to see him this
+morning, sir,” he said. “Doctor Bayliss, the younger one, called about
+an hour ago. He seemed quite as sorry to find him gone as you are, sir.”
+
+I think that settled it. When I again entered the rectory my mind was
+made up. The decision was foolish, insane, even dishonorable perhaps,
+but the decision was made.
+
+“Hephzy,” said I, “I have changed my mind. Travel may do me good. I have
+telegraphed the Heptons that we will join them in Paris on the evening
+of the twenty-first. After that--Well, we'll see.”
+
+Hephzy's delight was as great as her surprise. She said I was a dear,
+unselfish boy. Considering what I intended doing I felt decidedly mean;
+but I did not tell her what that intention was.
+
+We took the two-twenty train from Charing Cross on the afternoon of the
+twenty-first. The servants had been left in charge of the rectory. We
+would return in a fortnight, so we told them.
+
+It was a beautiful day, bright and sunshiny, but, after smoky, grimy
+London had been left behind and we were whizzing through the Kentish
+countryside, between the hop fields and the pastures where the sheep
+were feeding, we noticed that a stiff breeze was blowing. Further on,
+as we wound amid the downs near Folkestone, the bending trees and shrubs
+proved that the breeze was a miniature gale. And when we came in sight
+of the Channel, it was thickly sprinkled with whitecaps from beach to
+horizon.
+
+“I imagine we shall have a rather rough passage, Hephzy,” said I.
+
+Hephzy's attention was otherwise engaged.
+
+“Why do they call a hill a 'down' over here?” she asked. “I should think
+an 'up' would be better. What did you say, Hosy? A rough passage? I
+guess that won't bother you and me much. This little mite of water can't
+seem very much stirred up to folks who have sailed clear across the
+Atlantic Ocean. But there! I mustn't put on airs. I used to think Cape
+Cod Bay was about all the water there was. Travelin' does make such
+a difference in a person's ideas. Do you remember the Englishwoman at
+Bancroft's who told me that she supposed the Thames must remind us of
+our own Mississippi?”
+
+“So that's the famous English Channel, is it,” she observed, a moment
+later. “How wide is it, Hosy?”
+
+“About twenty miles at the narrowest point, I believe,” I said.
+
+“Twenty miles! About as far as Bayport to Provincetown. Well, I don't
+know whether any of your ancestors or mine came over with William the
+Conquerer or not, but if they did, they didn't have far to come. I
+cal'late I'll be contented with having my folks cross in the Mayflower.
+They came three thousand miles anyway.”
+
+She was inclined to regard the Channel rather contemptuously just then.
+A half hour later she was more respectful.
+
+The steamer was awaiting us at the pier. As the throng of passengers
+filed up the gang-plank she suddenly squeezed my arm.
+
+“Look! Hosy!” she cried. “Look! Isn't that him?”
+
+I looked where she was pointing.
+
+“Him? Who?” I asked.
+
+“Look! There he goes now. No, he's gone. I can't see him any more. And
+yet I was almost certain 'twas him.”
+
+“Who?” I asked again. “Did you see someone you knew?”
+
+“I thought I did, but I guess I was mistaken. He's just got home; he
+wouldn't be startin' off again so soon. No, it couldn't have been him,
+but I did think--”
+
+I stopped short. “Who did you think you saw?” I demanded.
+
+“I thought I saw Doctor Herbert Bayliss goin' up those stairs to the
+steamboat. It looked like him enough to be his twin brother, if he had
+one.”
+
+I did not answer. I looked about as we stepped aboard the boat, but
+if young Bayliss was there he was not in sight. Hephzy rattled on
+excitedly.
+
+“You can't tell much by seein' folks's backs,” she declared. “I remember
+one time your cousin Hezekiah Knowles--You don't remember him, Hosy; he
+died when you was little--One time Cousin Hezzy was up to Boston with
+his wife and they was shoppin' in one of the big stores. That is, Martha
+Ann--the wife--was shoppin' and he was taggin' along and complainin',
+same as men generally do. He was kind of nearsighted, Hezzy was, and
+when Martha was fightin' to get a place in front of a bargain counter he
+stayed astern and kept his eyes fixed on a hat she was wearin'. 'Twas a
+new hat with blue and yellow flowers on it. Hezzy always said, when he
+told the yarn afterward, that he never once figured that there could
+be another hat like that one. I saw it myself and, if I'd been in his
+place, I'd have HOPED there wasn't anyway. Well, he followed that hat
+from one counter to another and, at last, he stepped up and said, 'Look
+here, dearie,' he says--They hadn't been married very long, not long
+enough to get out of the mushy stage--'Look here, dearie,' he says,
+'hadn't we better be gettin' on home? You'll tire those little feet of
+yours all out trottin' around this way.' And when the hat turned around
+there was a face under it as black as a crow. He'd been followin' a
+darkey woman for ten minutes. She thought he was makin' fun of her feet
+and was awful mad, and when Martha came along and found who he'd taken
+for her she was madder still. Hezzy said, 'I couldn't help it, Martha.
+Nobody could. I never saw two craft look more alike from twenty foot
+astern. And she wears that hat just the way you do.' That didn't help
+matters any, of course, and--Why, Hosy, where are you goin'? Why don't
+you say somethin'? Hadn't we better sit down? All the good seats will be
+gone if we don't.”
+
+I had been struggling through the crowd, trying my best to get a glimpse
+of the man she had thought to be Herbert Bayliss. If it was he then my
+suspicions were confirmed. Heathcroft's story of the girl who sang in
+Paris had impressed him as it had me and he was on his way to see for
+himself. But the man, whoever he might be, had disappeared.
+
+“How the wind does blow,” said Hephzy. “What are the people doin' with
+those black tarpaulins?”
+
+Sailors in uniform were passing among the seated passengers distributing
+large squares of black waterproof canvas. I watched the use to which the
+tarpaulins were put and I understood. I beckoned to the nearest sailor
+and rented two of the canvases for use during the voyage.
+
+“How much?” I asked.
+
+“One franc each,” said the man, curtly.
+
+I had visited the money-changers near the Charing Cross station and was
+prepared. Hephzy's eyes opened.
+
+“A franc,” she repeated. “That's French money, isn't it. Is he a
+Frenchman?”
+
+“Yes,” said I. “This is a French boat, I think.”
+
+She watched the sailor for a moment. Then she sighed.
+
+“And he's a Frenchman,” she said. “I thought Frenchmen wore mustaches
+and goatees and were awful polite. He was about as polite as a pig.
+And all he needs is a hand-organ and a monkey to be an Italian. A body
+couldn't tell the difference without specs. What did you get those
+tarpaulins for, Hosy?”
+
+I covered our traveling bags with one of the tarpaulins, as I saw our
+fellow-passengers doing, and the other I tucked about Hephzy, enveloping
+her from her waist down.
+
+“I don't need that,” she protested. “It isn't cold and it isn't rainin',
+either. I tell you I don't need it, Hosy. Don't tuck me in any more. I
+feel as if I was goin' to France in a baby carriage, not a steamboat.
+And what are they passin' round those--those tin dippers for?”
+
+“They may be useful later on,” I said, watching the seas leap and
+foam against the stone breakwater. “You'll probably understand later,
+Hephzy.”
+
+She understood. The breakwater was scarcely passed when our boat, which
+had seemed so large and steady and substantial, began to manifest a
+desire to stand on both ends at once and to roll like a log in a rapid.
+The sun was shining brightly overhead, the verandas of the hotels along
+the beach were crowded with gaily dressed people, the surf fringing
+that beach was dotted with bathers, everything on shore wore a look of
+holiday and joy--and yet out here, on the edge of the Channel, there was
+anything but calm and anything but joy.
+
+How that blessed boat did toss and rock and dip and leap and pitch! And
+how the spray began to fly as we pushed farther and farther from land!
+It came over the bows in sheets; it swept before the wind in showers,
+in torrents. Hephzy hastily removed her hat and thrust it beneath the
+tarpaulin. I turned up the collar of my steamer coat and slid as far
+down into that collar as I could.
+
+“My soul!” exclaimed Hephzy, the salt water running down her face. “My
+soul and body!”
+
+“I agree with you,” said I.
+
+On we went, over the waves or through them. Our fellow-passengers curled
+up beneath their tarpaulins, smiled stoically or groaned dismally,
+according to their dispositions--or digestions. A huge wave--the upper
+third of it, at least--swept across the deck and spilled a gallon or two
+of cold water upon us. A sturdy, red-faced Englishman, sitting next me,
+grinned cheerfully and observed:
+
+“Trickles down one's neck a bit, doesn't it, sir.”
+
+I agreed that it did. Hephzy, huddled under the lee of my shoulder,
+sputtered.
+
+“Trickles!” she whispered. “My heavens and earth! If this is a trickle
+then Noah's flood couldn't have been more than a splash. Trickles!
+There's a Niagara Falls back of both of my ears this minute.”
+
+Another passenger, also English, but gray-haired and elderly, came
+tacking down the deck, bound somewhere or other. His was a zig-zag
+transit. He dove for the rail, caught it, steadied himself, took a fresh
+start, swooped to the row of chairs by the deck house, carromed from
+them, and, in company with a barrel or two of flying brine, came head
+first into my lap. I expected profanity and temper. I did get a little
+of the former.
+
+“This damned French boat!” he observed, rising with difficulty. “She
+absolutely WON'T be still.”
+
+“The sea is pretty rough.”
+
+“Oh, the sea is all right. A bit damp, that's all. It's the blessed
+boat. Foreigners are such wretched sailors.”
+
+He was off on another tack. Hephzy watched him wonderingly.
+
+“A bit damp,” she repeated. “Yes, I shouldn't wonder if 'twas. I suppose
+likely he wouldn't call it wet if he fell overboard.”
+
+“Not on this side of the Channel,” I answered. “This side is English
+water, therefore it is all right.”
+
+A few minutes later Hephzy spoke again.
+
+“Look at those poor women,” she said.
+
+Opposite us were two English ladies, middle-aged, wretchedly ill and so
+wet that the feathers on their hats hung down in strings.
+
+“Just like drowned cats' tails,” observed Hephzy. “Ain't it awful!
+And they're too miserable to care. You poor thing,” she said, leaning
+forward and addressing the nearest, “can't I fix you so you're more
+comfortable?”
+
+The woman addressed looked up and tried her best to smile.
+
+“Oh, no, thank you,” she said, weakly but cheerfully. “We're doing quite
+well. It will soon be over.”
+
+Hephzy shook her head.
+
+“Did you hear that, Hosy?” she whispered. “I declare! if it wasn't off
+already, and that's a mercy, I'd take off my hat to England and the
+English people. Not a whimper, not a complaint, just sit still and soak
+and tumble around and grin and say it's 'a bit damp.' Whenever I read
+about the grumblin', fault-findin' Englishman I'll think of the folks on
+this boat. It may be patriotism or it may be the race pride and reserve
+we hear so much about--but, whatever it is, it's fine. They've all got
+it, men and women and children. I presume likely the boy that stood on
+the burnin' deck would have said 'twas a bit sultry, and that's all....
+What is it, Hosy?”
+
+I had uttered an exclamation. A young man had just reeled by us on his
+way forward. His cap was pulled down over his eyes and his coat collar
+was turned up, but I recognized him. He was Herbert Bayliss.
+
+We were three hours crossing from Folkestone to Boulogne, instead of the
+usual scant two. We entered the harbor, where the great crucifix on the
+hill above the town attracted Hephzy's attention and the French signs
+over the doors of hotels and shops by the quay made her realize, so she
+said, that we really were in a foreign country.
+
+“Somehow England never did seem so very foreign,” she said. “And the
+Mayberry folks were so nice and homey and kind I've come to think of 'em
+as, not just neighbors, but friends. But this--THIS is foreign enough,
+goodness knows! Let go of my arm!” to the smiling, gesticulating porter
+who was proffering his services. “DON'T wave your hands like that; you
+make me dizzy. Keep 'em still, man! I could understand you just as well
+if they was tied. Hosy, you'll have to be skipper from now on. Now I
+KNOW Cape Cod is three thousand miles off.”
+
+We got through the customs without trouble, found our places in the
+train, and the train, after backing and fussing and fidgeting and
+tooting in a manner thoroughly French, rolled out of the station.
+
+We ate our dinner, and a very good dinner it was, in the dining-car.
+Hephzy, having asked me to translate the heading “Compagnie
+Internationale des Wagon Lits” on the bill of fare, declared she
+couldn't see why a dining-car should be called a “wagon bed.” “There's
+enough to eat to put you to sleep,” she declared, “but you couldn't
+stay asleep any more than you could in the nail factory up to Tremont. I
+never heard such a rattlin' and slambangin' in my life.”
+
+We whizzed through the French country, catching glimpses of little
+towns, with red-roofed cottages clustered about the inevitable church
+and chateau, until night came and looking out of the window was no
+longer profitable. At nine, or thereabouts, we alighted from the train
+at Paris.
+
+In the cab, on the way to the hotel where we were to meet the Heptons,
+Hephzy talked incessantly.
+
+“Paris!” she said, over and over again. “Paris! where they had the Three
+Musketeers and Notre Dame and Henry of Navarre and Saint Bartholomew and
+Napoleon and the guillotine and Innocents Abroad and--and everything.
+Paris! And I'm in it!”
+
+At the door of the hotel Mr. Hepton met us.
+
+Before we retired that night I told Hephzy what I had deferred telling
+until then, namely, that I did not intend leaving for Switzerland with
+her and with the Heptons the following day. I did not tell her my real
+reason for staying; I had invented a reason and told her that instead.
+
+“I want to be alone here in Paris for a few days,” I said. “I think I
+may find some material here which will help me with my novel. You and
+the Heptons must go, just as you have planned, and I will join you at
+Lucerne or Interlaken.”
+
+Hephzy stared at me.
+
+“I sha'n't stir one step without you,” she declared. “If I'd known you
+had such an idea as that in your head I--”
+
+“You wouldn't have come,” I interrupted. “I know that; that's why I
+didn't tell you. Of course you will go and of course you will leave me
+here. We will be separated only two or three days. I'll ask Hepton to
+give me an itinerary of the trip and I will wire when and where I will
+join you. You must go, Hephzy; I insist upon it.”
+
+In spite of my insisting Hephzy still declared she should not go. It was
+nearly midnight before she gave in.
+
+“And if you DON'T come in three days at the longest,” she said, “you'll
+find me back here huntin' you up. I mean that, Hosy, so you'd better
+understand it. And now,” rising from her chair, “I'm goin' to see about
+the things you're to wear while we're separated. If I don't you're
+liable to keep on wet stockin's and shoes and things all the time and
+forget to change 'em. You needn't say you won't, for I know you too
+well. Mercy sakes! do you suppose I've taken care of you all these years
+and DON'T know?”
+
+The next forenoon I said good-by to her and the Heptons at the railway
+station. Hephzy's last words to me were these:
+
+“Remember,” she said, “if you do get caught in the rain, there's dry
+things in the lower tray of your trunk. Collars and neckties and shirts
+are in the upper tray. I've hung your dress suit in the closet in case
+you want it, though that isn't likely. And be careful what you eat, and
+don't smoke too much, and--Yes, Mr. Hepton, I'm comin'--and don't spend
+ALL your money in book-stores; you'll need some of it in Switzerland.
+And--Oh, dear, Hosy! do be a good boy. I know you're always good, but,
+from all I've heard, this Paris is an awful place and--good-by. Good-by.
+In Lucerne in two days or Interlaken in three. It's got to be that,
+or back I come, remember. I HATE to leave you all alone amongst these
+jabberin' foreigners. I'm glad you can jabber, too, that's one comfort.
+If it was me, all I could do would be to holler United States language
+at 'em, and if they didn't understand that, just holler louder. I--Yes,
+Mr. Hepton, I AM comin' now. Good-by, Hosy, dear.”
+
+The train rolled out of the station. I watched it go. Then I turned and
+walked to the street. So far my scheme had worked well. I was alone
+in Paris as I had planned to be. And now--and now to find where a girl
+sang, a girl who looked like Frances Morley.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+In Which I Learn that All Abbeys Are Not Churches
+
+
+And that, now that I really stopped to consider it, began to appear more
+and more of a task. Paris must be full of churches; to visit each of
+them in turn would take weeks at least. Hephzy had given me three days.
+I must join her at Interlaken in three days or there would be trouble.
+And how was I to make even the most superficial search in three days?
+
+Of course I had realized something of this before. Even in the state of
+mind which Heathcroft's story had left me, I had realized that my errand
+in Paris was a difficult one. I realized that I had set out on the
+wildest of wild goose chases and that, even in the improbable event
+of the singer's being Frances, my finding her was most unlikely. The
+chances of success were a hundred to one against me. But I was in the
+mood to take the hundredth chance. I should have taken it if the odds
+were higher still. My plan--if it could be called a plan--was first of
+all to buy a Paris Baedeker and look over the list of churches. This I
+did, and, back in the hotel room, I consulted that list. It staggered
+me. There were churches enough--there were far too many. Cathedrals and
+chapels and churches galore--Catholic and Protestant. But there was no
+church calling itself an abbey. I closed the Baedeker, lit a cigar, and
+settled myself for further reflection.
+
+The girl was singing somewhere and she called herself Mademoiselle Juno
+or Junotte, so Heathcroft had said. So much I knew and that was all.
+It was very, very little. But Herbert Bayliss had come to Paris, I
+believed, because of what Heathcroft had told him. Did he know more
+than I? It was possible. At any rate he had come. I had seen him on
+the steamer, and I believed he had seen and recognized me. Of course
+he might not be in Paris now; he might have gone elsewhere. I did not
+believe it, however. I believed he had crossed the Channel on the same
+errand as I. There was a possible chance. I might, if the other means
+proved profitless, discover at which hotel Bayliss was staying and
+question him. He might tell me nothing, even if he knew, but I could
+keep him in sight, I could follow him and discover where he went.
+It would be dishonorable, perhaps, but I was desperate and doggedly
+regardless of scruples. I was set upon one thing--to find her, to see
+her and speak with her again.
+
+Shadowing Bayliss, however, I set aside as a last resort. Before that I
+would search on my own hook. And, tossing aside the useless Baedeker,
+I tried to think of someone whose advice might be of value. At last,
+I resolved to question the concierge of the hotel. Concierges, I
+knew, were the ever present helps of travelers in trouble. They knew
+everything, spoke all languages, and expected to be asked all sorts of
+unreasonable questions.
+
+The concierge at my hotel was a transcendant specimen of his talented
+class. His name and title was Monsieur Louis--at least that is what I
+had heard the other guests call him. And the questions which he had been
+called upon to answer, in my hearing, ranged in subject from the hour of
+closing the Luxemburg galleries to that of opening the Bal Tabarin, with
+various interruptions during which he settled squabbles over cab fares,
+took orders for theater and opera tickets, and explained why fruit at
+the tables of the Cafe des Ambassadeurs was so very expensive.
+
+Monsieur Louis received me politely, listened, with every appearance of
+interest, to my tale of a young lady, a relative, who was singing at one
+of the Paris churches and whose name was Juno or Junotte, but, when I
+had finished, reluctantly shook his head. There were many, many churches
+in Paris--yes, and, at some of them, young ladies sang; but these were,
+for the most part, the Protestant churches. At the larger churches, the
+Catholic churches, most of the singers were men or boys. He could recall
+none where a lady of that name sang. Monsieur had not been told the name
+of the church?
+
+“The person who told me referred to it as an abbey,” I said.
+
+Louis raised his shoulders. “I am sorry, Monsieur,” he said, “but there
+is no abbey, where ladies sing, in Paris. It is, alas, regrettable, but
+it is so.”
+
+He announced it as he might have broken to me the news of the death of
+a friend. Incidentally, having heard a few sentences of my French, he
+spoke in English, very good English.
+
+“I will, however, make inquiries, Monsieur,” he went on. “Possibly I may
+discover something which will be of help to Monsieur in his difficulty.”
+ In the meantime there was to be a parade of troops at the Champ de
+Mars at four, and the evening performance at the Folies Bergeres was
+unusually good and English and American gentlemen always enjoyed it. It
+would give him pleasure to book a place for me.
+
+I thanked him but I declined the offer, so far as the Folies were
+concerned. I did ask him, however, to give me the name of a few churches
+at which ladies sang. This he did and I set out to find them, in a cab
+which whizzed through the Paris streets as if the driver was bent upon
+suicide and manslaughter.
+
+I visited four places of worship that afternoon and two more that
+evening. Those in charge--for I attended no services--knew nothing of
+Mademoiselle Junotte or Juno. I retired at ten, somewhat discouraged,
+but stubbornly determined to keep on, for my three days at least.
+
+The next morning I consulted Baedeker again, this time for the list of
+hotels, a list which I found quite as lengthy as that of the churches.
+Then I once more sought the help of Monsieur Louis. Could he tell me a
+few of the hotels where English visitors were most likely to stay.
+
+He could do more than that, apparently. Would I be so good as to inform
+him if the lady or gentleman--being Parisian he put the lady first--whom
+I wished to find had recently arrived in Paris. I told him that the
+gentleman had arrived the same evening as I. Whereupon he produced
+a list of guests at all the prominent hotels. Herbert Bayliss was
+registered at the Continental.
+
+To the Continental I went and made inquiries of the concierge there.
+Mr. Bayliss was there, he was in his room, so the concierge believed. He
+would be pleased to ascertain. Would I give my name? I declined to give
+the name, saying that I did not wish to disturb Mr. Bayliss. If he was
+in his room I would wait until he came down. He was in his room, had not
+yet breakfasted, although it was nearly ten in the forenoon. I sat down
+in a chair from which I could command a good view of the elevators, and
+waited.
+
+The concierge strolled over and chatted. Was I a friend of Mr. Bayliss?
+Ah, a charming young gentleman, was he not. This was not his first visit
+to Paris, no indeed; he came frequently--though not as frequently of
+late--and he invariably stayed at the Continental. He had been out late
+the evening before, which doubtless explained his non-appearance. Ah,
+he was breakfasting now; had ordered his “cafe complete.” Doubtless he
+would be down very soon? Would I wish to send up my name now?
+
+Again I declined, to the polite astonishment of the concierge, who
+evidently considered me a queer sort of a friend. He was called to his
+desk by a guest, who wished to ask questions, of course, and I waited
+where I was. At a quarter to eleven Herbert Bayliss emerged from the
+elevator.
+
+His appearance almost shocked me. Out late the night before! He looked
+as if he had been out all night for many nights. He was pale and solemn.
+I stepped forward to greet him and the start he gave when he saw me
+was evidence of the state of his nerves. I had never thought of him as
+possessing any nerves.
+
+“Eh? Why, Knowles!” he exclaimed.
+
+“Good morning, Bayliss,” said I.
+
+We both were embarrassed, he more than I, for I had expected to see him
+and he had not expected to see me. I made a move to shake hands but he
+did not respond. His manner toward me was formal and, I thought, colder
+than it had been at our meeting the day of the golf tournament.
+
+“I called,” I said, “to see you, Bayliss. If you are not engaged I
+should like to talk with you for a few moments.”
+
+His answer was a question.
+
+“How did you know I was here?” he asked.
+
+“I saw your name in the list of recent arrivals at the Continental,” I
+answered.
+
+“I mean how did you know I was in Paris?”
+
+“I didn't know. I thought I caught a glimpse of you on the boat. I was
+almost sure it was you, but you did not appear to recognize me and I had
+no opportunity to speak then.”
+
+He did not speak at once, he did not even attempt denial of having seen
+and recognized me during the Channel crossing. He regarded me intently
+and, I thought, suspiciously.
+
+“Who sent you here?” he asked, suddenly.
+
+“Sent me! No one sent me. I don't understand you.”
+
+“Why did you follow me?”
+
+“Follow you?”
+
+“Yes. Why did you follow me to Paris? No one knew I was coming here,
+not even my own people. They think I am--Well, they don't know that I am
+here.”
+
+His speech and his manner were decidedly irritating. I had made a firm
+resolve to keep my temper, no matter what the result of this interview
+might be, but I could not help answering rather sharply.
+
+“I had no intention of following you--here or anywhere else,” I said.
+“Your action and whereabouts, generally speaking, are of no particular
+interest to me. I did not follow you to Paris, Doctor Bayliss.”
+
+He reddened and hesitated. Then he led the way to a divan in a retired
+corner of the lobby and motioned to me to be seated. There he sat down
+beside me and waited for me to speak. I, in turn, waited for him to
+speak.
+
+At last he spoke.
+
+“I'm sorry, Knowles,” he said. “I am not myself today. I've had a devil
+of a night and I feel like a beast this morning. I should probably have
+insulted my own father, had he appeared suddenly, as you did. Of course
+I should have known you did not follow me to Paris. But--but why did you
+come?”
+
+I hesitated now. “I came,” I said, “to--to--Well, to be perfectly honest
+with you, I came because of something I heard concerning--concerning--”
+
+He interrupted me. “Then Heathcroft did tell you!” he exclaimed. “I
+thought as much.”
+
+“He told you, I know. He said he did.”
+
+“Yes. He did. My God, man, isn't it awful! Have you seen her?”
+
+His manner convinced me that he had seen her. In my eagerness I forgot
+to be careful.
+
+“No,” I answered, breathlessly; “I have not seen her. Where is she?”
+
+He turned and stared at me.
+
+“Don't you know where she is?” he asked, slowly.
+
+“I know nothing. I have been told that she--or someone very like her--is
+singing in a Paris church. Heathcroft told me that and then we were
+interrupted. I--What is the matter?”
+
+He was staring at me more oddly than ever. There was the strangest
+expression on his face.
+
+“In a church!” he repeated. “Heathcroft told you--”
+
+“He told me that he had seen a girl, whose resemblance to Miss Morley
+was so striking as to be marvelous, singing in a Paris church. He called
+it an abbey, but of course it couldn't be that. Do you know anything
+more definite? What did he tell you?”
+
+He did not answer.
+
+“In a church!” he said again. “You thought--Oh, good heavens!”
+
+He began to laugh. It was not a pleasant laugh to hear. Moreover, it
+angered me.
+
+“This may be very humorous,” I said, brusquely. “Perhaps it is--to you.
+But--Bayliss, you know more of this than I. I am certain now that you
+do. I want you to tell me what you know. Is that girl Frances Morley?
+Have you seen her? Where is she?”
+
+He had stopped laughing. Now he seemed to be considering.
+
+“Then you did come over here to find her,” he said, more slowly still.
+“You were following her, why?”
+
+“WHY?”
+
+“Yes, why. She is nothing to you. You told my father that. You told me
+that she was not your niece. You told Father that you had no claim upon
+her whatever and that she had asked you not to try to trace her or to
+learn where she was. You said all that and preached about respecting her
+wish and all that sort of thing. And yet you are here now trying to find
+her.”
+
+The only answer I could make to this was a rather childish retort.
+
+“And so are you,” I said.
+
+His fists clinched.
+
+“I!” he cried, fiercely. “I! Did _I_ ever say she was nothing to me? Did
+_I_ ever tell anyone I should not try to find her? I told you, only
+the other day, that I would find her in spite of the devil. I meant it.
+Knowles, I don't understand you. When I came to you thinking you her
+uncle and guardian, and asked your permission to ask her to marry me,
+you gave that permission. You did. You didn't tell me that she was
+nothing to you. I don't understand you at all. You told my father a lot
+of rot--”
+
+“I told your father the truth. And, when I told you that she had left
+no message for you, that was the truth also. I have no reason to believe
+she cares for you--”
+
+“And none to think that she doesn't. At all events she did not tell ME
+not to follow her. She did tell you. Why are you following her?”
+
+It was a question I could not answer--to him. That reason no one should
+know. And yet what excuse could I give, after all my protestations?
+
+“I--I feel that I have the right, everything considered,” I stammered.
+“She is not my niece, but she is Miss Cahoon's.”
+
+“And she ran away from both of you, asking, as a last request, that you
+both make no attempt to learn where she was. The whole affair is beyond
+understanding. What the truth may be--”
+
+“Are you hinting that I have lied to you?”
+
+“I am not hinting at anything. All I can say is that it is deuced queer,
+all of it. And I sha'n't say more.”
+
+“Will you tell me--”
+
+“I shall tell you nothing. That would be her wish, according to your own
+statement and I will respect that wish, if you don't.”
+
+I rose to my feet. There was little use in an open quarrel between us
+and I was by far the older man. Yes, and his position was infinitely
+stronger than mine, as he understood it. But I never was more strongly
+tempted. He knew where she was. He had seen her. The thought was
+maddening.
+
+He had risen also and was facing me defiantly.
+
+“Good morning, Doctor Bayliss,” said I, and walked away. I turned as I
+reached the entrance of the hotel and looked back. He was still standing
+there, staring at me.
+
+That afternoon I spent in my room. There is little use describing my
+feelings. That she was in Paris I was sure now. That Bayliss had seen
+her I was equally sure. But why had he spoken and looked as he did
+when I first spoke of Heathcroft's story? What had he meant by saying
+something or other was “awful?” And why had he seemed so astonished, why
+had he laughed in that strange way when I had said she was singing in a
+church?
+
+That evening I sought Monsieur Louis, the concierge, once more.
+
+“Is there any building here in Paris,” I asked, “a building in which
+people sing, which is called an abbey? One that is not a church or an
+abbey, but is called that?”
+
+Louis looked at me in an odd way. He seemed a bit embarrassed, an
+embarrassment I should not have expected from him.
+
+“Monsieur asks the question,” he said, smiling. “It was in my mind last
+night, the thought, but Monsieur asked for a church. There is a place
+called L'Abbaye and there young women sing, but--” he hesitated,
+shrugged and then added, “but L'Abbaye is not a church. No, it is not
+that.”
+
+“What is it?” I asked.
+
+“A restaurant, Monsieur. A cafe chantant at Montmartre.”
+
+Montmartre at ten that evening was just beginning to awaken. At the hour
+when respectable Paris, home-loving, domestic Paris, the Paris of which
+the tourist sees so little, is thinking of retiring, Montmartre--or that
+section of it in which L'Abbaye is situated--begins to open its eyes. At
+ten-thirty, as my cab buzzed into the square and pulled up at the curb,
+the electric signs were blazing, the sidewalks were, if not yet crowded,
+at least well filled, and the sounds of music from the open windows of
+The Dead Rat and the other cafes with the cheerful names were mingling
+with noises of the street.
+
+Monsieur Louis had given me my sailing orders, so to speak. He had
+told me that arriving at L'Abbaye before ten-thirty was quite useless.
+Midnight was the accepted hour, he said; prior to that I would find it
+rather dull, triste. But after that--Ah, Monsieur would, at least, be
+entertained.
+
+“But of course Monsieur does not expect to find the young lady of whom
+he is in search there,” he said. “A relative is she not?”
+
+Remembering that I had, when I first mentioned the object of my quest to
+him, referred to her as a relative, I nodded.
+
+He smiled and shrugged.
+
+“A relative of Monsieur's would scarcely be found singing at L'Abbaye,”
+ he said. “But it is a most interesting place, entertaining and chic.
+Many English and American gentlemen sup there after the theater.”
+
+I smiled and intimated that the desire to pass a pleasant evening was my
+sole reason for visiting the place. He was certain I would be pleased.
+
+The doorway of L'Abbaye was not deserted, even at the “triste” hour of
+ten-thirty. Other cabs were drawn up at the curb and, upon the stairs
+leading to the upper floors, were several gaily dressed couples bound,
+as I had proclaimed myself to be, in search of supper and entertainment.
+I had, acting upon the concierge's hint, arrayed myself in my evening
+clothes and I handed my silk hat, purchased in London--where, as
+Hephzy said, “a man without a tall hat is like a rooster without tail
+feathers”--to a polite and busy attendant. Then a personage with a
+very straight beard and a very curly mustache, ushered me into the main
+dining-room.
+
+“Monsieur would wish seats for how many?” he asked, in French.
+
+“For myself only,” I answered, also in French. His next remark was in
+English. I was beginning to notice that when I addressed a Parisian in
+his native language, he usually answered in mine. This may have been
+because of a desire to please me, or in self-defence; I am inclined to
+think the latter.
+
+“Ah, for one only. This way, Monsieur.”
+
+I was given a seat at one end of a long table, and in a corner. There
+were plenty of small tables yet unoccupied, but my guide was apparently
+reserving these for couples or quartettes; at any rate he did not offer
+one to me. I took the seat indicated.
+
+“I shall wish to remain here for some time?” I said. “Probably the
+entire--” I hesitated; considering the hour I scarcely knew whether to
+say “evening” or “morning.” At last I said “night” as a compromise.
+
+The bearded person seemed doubtful.
+
+“There will be a great demand later,” he said. “To oblige Monsieur is of
+course our desire, but.... Ah, merci, Monsieur, I will see that Monsieur
+is not disturbed.”
+
+The reason for his change of heart was the universal one in restaurants.
+He put the reason in his pocket and summoned a waiter to take my order.
+
+I gave the order, a modest one, which dropped me a mile or two in the
+waiter's estimation. However, after a glance at my fellow-diners at
+nearby tables, I achieved a partial uplift by ordering a bottle of
+extremely expensive wine. I had had the idea that, being in France, the
+home of champagne, that beverage would be cheap or, at least, moderately
+priced. But in L'Abbaye the idea seemed to be erroneous.
+
+The wine was brought immediately; the supper was somewhat delayed. I
+did not care. I had not come there to eat--or to drink, either, for that
+matter. I had come--I scarcely knew why I had come. That Frances Morley
+would be singing in a place like this I did not believe. This was the
+sort of “abbey” that A. Carleton Heathcroft would be most likely to
+visit, that was true, but that he had seen her here was most improbable.
+The coincidence of the “abbey” name would not have brought me there, of
+itself. Herbert Bayliss had given me to understand, although he had not
+said it, that she was not singing in a church and he had found the idea
+of her being where she was “awful.” It was because of what he had said
+that I had come, as a sort of last chance, a forlorn hope. Of course she
+would not be here, a hired singer in a Paris night restaurant; that was
+impossible.
+
+How impossible it was likely to be I realized more fully during the
+next hour. There was nothing particularly “awful” about L'Abbaye of
+itself--at first, nor, perhaps, even later; at least the awfulness was
+well covered. The program of entertainment was awful enough, if deadly
+mediocrity is awful. A big darkey, dressed in a suit which reminded me
+of the “end man” at an old-time minstrel show, sang “My Alabama Coon,”
+ accompanying himself, more or less intimately, on the banjo. I could
+have heard the same thing, better done, at a ten cent theater in the
+States, where this chap had doubtless served an apprenticeship. However,
+the audience, which was growing larger every minute, seemed to find the
+bellowing enjoyable and applauded loudly. Then a feminine person did a
+Castilian dance between the tables. I was ready to declare a second war
+with Spain when she had finished. Then there was an orchestral interval,
+during which the tables filled.
+
+The impossibility of Frances singing in a place like this became more
+certain each minute, to my mind. I called the waiter.
+
+“Does Mademoiselle Juno sing here this evening?” I asked, in my lame
+French.
+
+He shook his head. “Non, Monsieur,” he answered, absently, and hastened
+on with the bottle he was carrying.
+
+Apparently that settled it. I might as well go. Then I decided to remain
+a little longer. After all, I was there, and I, or Heathcroft, might
+have misunderstood the name. I would stay for a while.
+
+The long table at which I sat was now occupied from end to end. There
+were several couples, male and female, and a number of unattached
+young ladies, well-dressed, pretty for the most part, and vivacious
+and inclined to be companionable. They chatted with their neighbors and
+would have chatted with me if I had been in the mood. For the matter of
+that everyone talked with everyone else, in French or English, good, bad
+and indifferent, and there was much laughter and gaiety. L'Abbaye was
+wide awake by this time.
+
+The bearded personage who had shown me to my seat, appeared, followed
+by a dozen attendants bearing paper parasols and bags containing little
+celluloid balls, red, white, and blue. They were distributed among the
+feminine guests. The parasols, it developed, were to be waved and the
+balls to be thrown. You were supposed to catch as many as were thrown
+at you and throw them back. It was wonderful fun--or would have been for
+children--and very, very amusing--after the second bottle.
+
+For my part I found it very stupid. As I have said at least once in this
+history I am not what is called a “good mixer” and in an assemblage like
+this I was as out of place as a piece of ice on a hot stove. Worse than
+that, for the ice would have melted and I congealed the more. My bottle
+of champagne remained almost untouched and when a celluloid ball bounced
+on the top of my head I did not scream “Whoopee! Bullseye!” as my
+American neighbors did or “Voila! Touche!” like the French. There were
+plenty of Americans and English there, and they seemed to be having a
+good time, but their good time was incomprehensible to me. This was “gay
+Paris,” of course, but somehow the gaiety seemed forced and artificial
+and silly, except to the proprietors of L'Abbaye. If I had been getting
+the price for food and liquids which they received I might, perhaps,
+have been gay.
+
+The young Frenchman at my right was gay enough. He had early discovered
+my nationality and did his best to be entertaining. When a performer
+from the Olympia, the music hall on the Boulevard des Italiens, sang a
+distressing love ballad in a series of shrieks like those of a circular
+saw in a lumber mill, this person shouted his “Bravos” with the rest and
+then, waving his hands before my face, called for, “De cheer Americain!
+One, two, tree--Heep! Heep! Heep! Oo--ray-y-y!” I did not join in “the
+cheer Americain,” but I did burst out laughing, a proceeding which
+caused the young lady at my left to pat my arm and nod delighted
+approval. She evidently thought I was becoming gay and lighthearted at
+last. She was never more mistaken.
+
+It was nearly two o'clock and I had had quite enough of L'Abbaye. I had
+not enjoyed myself--had not expected to, so far as that went. I hope I
+am not a prig, and, whatever I am or am not, priggishness had no part in
+my feelings then. Under ordinary circumstances I should not have enjoyed
+myself in a place like that. Mine is not the temperament--I shouldn't
+know how. I must have appeared the most solemn ass in creation, and if I
+had come there with the idea of amusement, I should have felt like one.
+As it was, my feeling was not disgust, but unreasonable disappointment.
+Certainly I did not wish--now that I had seen L'Abbaye--to find Frances
+Morley there; but just as certainly I was disappointed.
+
+I called for my bill, paid it, and stood up. I gave one look about the
+crowded, noisy place, and then I started violently and sat down again. I
+had seen Herbert Bayliss. He had, apparently, just entered and a waiter
+was finding a seat for him at a table some distance away and on the
+opposite side of the great room.
+
+There was no doubt about it; it was he. My heart gave a bound that
+almost choked me and all sorts of possibilities surged through my brain.
+He had come to Paris to find her, he had found her--in our conversation
+he had intimated as much. And now, he was here at the “Abbey.” Why? Was
+it here that he had found her? Was she singing here after all?
+
+Bayliss glanced in my direction and I sank lower in my chair. I did
+not wish him to see me. Fortunately the lady opposite waved her paper
+parasol just then and I went into eclipse, so far as he was concerned.
+When the eclipse was over he was looking elsewhere.
+
+The black-bearded Frenchman, who seemed to be, if not one of the
+proprietors, at least one of the managers of L'Abbaye, appeared in the
+clear space at the center of the room between the tables and waved
+his hands. He was either much excited or wished to seem so. He shouted
+something in French which I could not understand. There was a buzz of
+interest all about me; then the place grew still--or stiller. Something
+was going to happen, that was evident. I leaned toward my voluble
+neighbor, the French gentleman who had called for “de cheer Americain.”
+
+“What is it?” I asked. “What is the matter?”
+
+He ignored, or did not hear, my question. The bearded person was still
+waving his hands. The orchestra burst into a sort of triumphal march and
+then into the open space between the tables came--Frances Morley.
+
+She was dressed in a simple evening gown, she was not painted or
+powdered to the extent that women who had sung before her had been, her
+hair was simply dressed. She looked thinner than she had when I last saw
+her, but otherwise she was unchanged. In that place, amid the lights and
+the riot of color, the silks and satins and jewels, the flushed faces of
+the crowd, she stood and bowed, a white rose in a bed of tiger lilies,
+and the crowd rose and shouted at her.
+
+The orchestra broke off its triumphal march and the leader stood up, his
+violin at his shoulder. He played a bar or two and she began to sing.
+
+She sang a simple, almost childish, love song in French. There was
+nothing sensational about it, nothing risque, certainly nothing which
+should have appealed to the frequenters of L'Abbaye. And her voice,
+although sweet and clear and pure, was not extraordinary. And yet, when
+she had finished, there was a perfect storm of “Bravos.” Parasols waved,
+flowers were thrown, and a roar of applause lasted for minutes. Why this
+should have been is a puzzle to me even now. Perhaps it was because of
+her clean, girlish beauty; perhaps because it was so unexpected and so
+different; perhaps because of the mystery concerning her. I don't know.
+Then I did not ask. I sat in my chair at the table, trembling from head
+to foot, and looking at her. I had never expected to see her again and
+now she was before my eyes--here in this place.
+
+She sang again; this time a jolly little ballad of soldiers and glory
+and the victory of the Tri-Color. And again she swept them off their
+feet. She bowed and smiled in answer to their applause and, motioning
+to the orchestra leader, began without accompaniment, “Loch Lomond,” in
+English. It was one of the songs I had asked her to sing at the rectory,
+one I had found in the music cabinet, one that her mother and mine had
+sung years before.
+
+
+     “Ye'll take the high road
+      And I'll take the low road,
+      And I'll be in Scotland afore ye--”
+
+
+I was on my feet. I have no remembrance of having risen, but I was
+standing, leaning across the table, looking at her. There were cries of
+“Sit down” in English and other cries in French. There were tugs at my
+coat tails.
+
+
+     “But me and my true love
+      Shall never meet again,
+      By the bonny, bonny banks
+      Of Loch--”
+
+
+She saw me. The song stopped. I saw her turn white, so white that the
+rouge on her cheeks looked like fever spots. She looked at me and I at
+her. Then she raised her hand to her throat, turned and almost ran from
+the room.
+
+I should have followed her, then and there, I think. I was on my way
+around the end of the table, regardless of masculine boots and feminine
+skirts. But a stout Englishman got in my way and detained me and the
+crowd was so dense that I could not push through it. It was an excited
+crowd, too. For a moment there had been a surprised silence, but now
+everyone was exclaiming and talking in his or her native language.
+
+“Oh, I say! What happened? What made her do that?” demanded the stout
+Englishman. Then he politely requested me to get off his foot.
+
+The bearded manager--or proprietor--was waving his hands once more and
+begging attention and silence. He got both, in a measure. Then he made
+his announcement.
+
+He begged ten thousand pardons, but Mademoiselle Guinot--That was it,
+Guinot, not Juno or Junotte--had been seized with a most regrettable
+illness. She had been unable to continue her performance. It was not
+serious, but she could sing no more that evening. To-morrow evening--ah,
+yes. Most certainly. But to-night--no. Monsieur Hairee Opkins, the
+most famous Engleesh comedy artiste would now entertain the patrons of
+L'Abbaye. He begged, he entreated attention for Monsieur Opkins.
+
+I did not wait for “Monsieur Hairee.” I forced my way to the door. As I
+passed out I cast a glance in the direction of young Bayliss. He was
+on his feet, loudly shouting for a waiter and his bill. I had so much
+start, at all events.
+
+Through the waiters and uniformed attendants I elbowed. Another man with
+a beard--he looked enough like the other to be his brother, and perhaps
+he was--got in my way at last. A million or more pardons, but Monsieur
+could not go in that direction. The exit was there, pointing.
+
+As patiently and carefully as I could, considering my agitation, I
+explained that I did not wish to find the exit. I was a friend, a--yes,
+a--er--relative of the young lady who had just sung and who had been
+taken ill. I wanted to go to her.
+
+Another million pardons, but that was impossible. I did not understand,
+Mademoiselle was--well, she did not see gentlemen. She was--with
+the most expressive of shrugs--peculiar. She desired no friends. It
+was--ah--quite impossible.
+
+I found my pocketbook and pressed my card into his hand. Would he give
+Mademoiselle my card? Would he tell her that I must see her, if only for
+a minute? Just give her the card and tell her that.
+
+He shook his head, smiling but firm. I could have punched him for the
+smile, but instead I took other measures. I reached into my
+pocket, found some gold pieces--I have no idea how many or of what
+denomination--and squeezed them in the hand with the card. He still
+smiled and shook his head, but his firmness was shaken.
+
+“I will give the card,” he said, “but I warn Monsieur it is quite
+useless. She will not see him.”
+
+The waiter with whom I had seen Herbert Bayliss in altercation was
+hurrying by me. I caught his arm.
+
+“Pardon, Monsieur,” he protested, “but I must go. The gentleman yonder
+desires his bill.”
+
+“Don't give it to him,” I whispered, trying hard to think of the French
+words. “Don't give it to him yet. Keep him where he is for a time.”
+
+I backed the demand with another gold piece, the last in my pocket. The
+waiter seemed surprised.
+
+“Not give the bill?” he repeated.
+
+“No, not yet.” I did my best to look wicked and knowing--“He and I wish
+to meet the same young lady and I prefer to be first.”
+
+That was sufficient--in Paris. The waiter bowed low.
+
+“Rest in peace, Monsieur,” he said. “The gentleman shall wait.”
+
+I waited also, for what seemed a long time. Then the bearded one
+reappeared. He looked surprised but pleased.
+
+“Bon, Monsieur,” he whispered, patting my arm. “She will see you. You
+are to wait at the private door. I will conduct you there. It is most
+unusual. Monsieur is a most fortunate gentleman.”
+
+At the door, at the foot of a narrow staircase--decidedly lacking in the
+white and gold of the other, the public one--I waited, for another age.
+The staircase was lighted by one sickly gas jet and the street outside
+was dark and dirty. I waited on the narrow sidewalk, listening to the
+roar of nocturnal Montmartre around the corner, to the beating of my own
+heart, and for her footstep on the stairs.
+
+At last I heard it. The door opened and she came out. She wore a cloak
+over her street costume and her hat was one that she had bought in
+London with my money. She wore a veil and I could not see her face.
+
+I seized her hands with both of mine.
+
+“Frances!” I cried, chokingly. “Oh, Frances!”
+
+She withdrew her hands. When she spoke her tone was quiet but very firm.
+
+“Why did you come here?” she asked.
+
+“Why did I come? Why--”
+
+“Yes. Why did you come? Was it to find me? Did you know I was here?”
+
+“I did not know. I had heard--”
+
+“Did Doctor Bayliss tell you?”
+
+I hesitated. So she HAD seen Bayliss and spoken with him.
+
+“No,” I answered, after a moment, “he did not tell me, exactly. But I
+had heard that someone who resembled you was singing here in Paris.”
+
+“And you followed me. In spite of my letter begging you, for my sake,
+not to try to find me. Did you get that letter?”
+
+“Yes, I got it.”
+
+“Then why did you do it? Oh, WHY did you?”
+
+For the first time there was a break in her voice. We were standing
+before the door. The street, it was little more than an alley, was
+almost deserted, but I felt it was not the place for explanations. I
+wanted to get her away from there, as far from that dreadful “Abbey” as
+possible. I took her arm.
+
+“Come,” I said, “I will tell you as we go. Come with me now.”
+
+She freed her arm.
+
+“I am not coming with you,” she said. “Why did you come here?”
+
+“I came--I came--Why did YOU come? Why did you leave us as you did?
+Without a word!”
+
+She turned and faced me.
+
+“You know why I left you,” she said. “You know. You knew all the
+time. And yet you let me believe--You let me think--I lived upon your
+money--I--I--Oh, don't speak of it! Go away! please go away and leave
+me.”
+
+“I am not going away--without you. I came to get you to go back with me.
+You don't understand. Your aunt and I want you to come with us. We want
+you to come and live with us again. We--”
+
+She interrupted. I doubt if she had comprehended more than the first few
+words of what I was saying.
+
+“Please go away,” she begged. “I know I owe you money, so much money.
+I shall pay it. I mean to pay it all. At first I could not. I could not
+earn it. I tried. Oh, I tried SO hard! In London I tried and tried, but
+all the companies were filled, it was late in the season and I--no one
+would have me. Then I got this chance through an agency. I am succeeding
+here. I am earning the money at last. I am saving--I have saved--And now
+you come to--Oh, PLEASE go and leave me!”
+
+Her firmness had gone. She was on the verge of tears. I tried to take
+her hands again, but she would not permit it.
+
+“I shall not go,” I persisted, as gently as I could. “Or when I go you
+must go with me. You don't understand.”
+
+“But I do understand. My aunt--Miss Cahoon told me. I understand it all.
+Oh, if I had only understood at first.”
+
+“But you don't understand--now. Your aunt and I knew the truth from the
+beginning. That made no difference. We were glad to have you with us. We
+want you to come back. You are our relative--”
+
+“I am not. I am not really related to you in any way. You know I am
+not.”
+
+“You are related to Miss Cahoon. You are her sister's daughter. She
+wants you to come. She wants you to live with us again, just as you did
+before.”
+
+“She wants that! She--But it was your money that paid for the very
+clothes I wore. Your money--not hers; she said so.”
+
+“That doesn't make any difference. She wants you and--”
+
+I was about to add “and so do I,” but she did not permit me to finish
+the sentence. She interrupted again, and there was a change in her tone.
+
+“Stop! Oh, stop!” she cried. “She wanted me and--and so you--Did you
+think I would consent? To live upon your charity?”
+
+“There is no charity about it.”
+
+“There is. You know there is. And you believed that I--knowing what I
+know--that my father--my own father--”
+
+“Hush! hush! That is all past and done with.”
+
+“It may be for you, but not for me. Mr. Knowles, your opinion of me
+must be a very poor one. Or your desire to please your aunt as great as
+your--your charity to me. I thank you both, but I shall stay here. You
+must go and you must not try to see me again.”
+
+There was firmness enough in this speech; altogether too much. But I was
+as firm as she was.
+
+“I shall not go,” I reiterated. “I shall not leave you--in a place like
+this. It isn't a fit place for you to be in. You know it is not. Good
+heavens! you MUST know it?”
+
+“I know what the place is,” she said quietly.
+
+“You know! And yet you stay here! Why? You can't like it!”
+
+It was a foolish speech, and I blurted it without thought. She did not
+answer. Instead she began to walk toward the corner. I followed her.
+
+“I beg your pardon,” I stammered, contritely. “I did not mean that, of
+course. But I cannot think of your singing night after night in such a
+place--before those men and women. It isn't right; it isn't--you shall
+not do it.”
+
+She answered without halting in her walk.
+
+“I shall do it,” she said. “They pay me well, very well, and I--I need
+the money. When I have earned and saved what I need I shall give it up,
+of course. As for liking the work--Like it! Oh, how can you!”
+
+“I beg your pardon. Forgive me. I ought to be shot for saying that. I
+know you can't like it. But you must not stay here. You must come with
+me.”
+
+“No, Mr. Knowles, I am not coming with you. And you must leave me and
+never come back. My sole reason for seeing you to-night was to tell you
+that. But--” she hesitated and then said, with quiet emphasis, “you may
+tell my aunt not to worry about me. In spite of my singing in a cafe
+chantant I shall keep my self-respect. I shall not be--like those
+others. And when I have paid my debt--I can't pay my father's; I wish I
+could--I shall send you the money. When I do that you will know that
+I have resigned my present position and am trying to find a more
+respectable one. Good-by.”
+
+We had reached the corner. Beyond was the square, with its lights and
+its crowds of people and vehicles. I seized her arm.
+
+“It shall not be good-by,” I cried, desperately. “I shall not let you
+go.”
+
+“You must.”
+
+“I sha'n't. I shall come here night after night until you consent to
+come back to Mayberry.”
+
+She stopped then. But when she spoke her tone was firmer than ever.
+
+“Then you will force me to give it up,” she said. “Before I came here I
+was very close to--There were days when I had little or nothing to eat,
+and, with no prospects, no hope, I--if you don't leave me, Mr. Knowles,
+if you do come here night after night, as you say, you may force me to
+that again. You can, of course, if you choose; I can't prevent you. But
+I shall NOT go back to Mayberry. Now, will you say good-by?”
+
+She meant it. If I persisted in my determination she would do as she
+said; I was sure of it.
+
+“I am sure my aunt would not wish you to continue to see me, against my
+will,” she went on. “If she cares for me at all she would not wish that.
+You have done your best to please her. I--I thank you both. Good-by.”
+
+What could I do, or say?
+
+“Good-by,” I faltered.
+
+She turned and started across the square. A flying cab shut her from my
+view. And then I realized what was happening, realized it and realized,
+too, what it meant. She should not go; I would not let her leave me nor
+would I leave her. I sprang after her.
+
+The square was thronged with cabs and motor cars. The Abbey and The Dead
+Rat and all the rest were emptying their patrons into the street. Paris
+traffic regulations are lax and uncertain. I dodged between a limousine
+and a hansom and caught a glimpse of her just as she reached the
+opposite sidewalk.
+
+“Frances!” I called. “Frances!”
+
+She turned and saw me. Then I heard my own name shouted from the
+sidewalk I had just left.
+
+“Knowles! Knowles!”
+
+I looked over my shoulder. Herbert Bayliss was at the curb. He was
+shaking a hand, it may have been a fist, in my direction.
+
+“Knowles!” he shouted. “Stop! I want to see you.”
+
+I did not reply. Instead I ran on. I saw her face among the crowd and
+upon it was a curious expression, of fear, of frantic entreaty.
+
+“Kent! Kent!” she cried. “Oh, be careful! KENT!”
+
+There was a roar, a shout; I have a jumbled recollection of being thrown
+into the air, and rolling over and over upon the stones of the street.
+And there my recollections end, for the time.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+In Which I Take My Turn at Playing the Invalid
+
+
+Not for a very long time. They begin again--those recollections--a
+few minutes later, break off once more, and then return and break off
+alternately, over and over again.
+
+The first thing I remember, after my whirligig flight over the Paris
+pavement, is a crowd of faces above me and someone pawing at my collar
+and holding my wrist. This someone, a man, a stranger, said in French:
+
+“He is not dead, Mademoiselle.”
+
+And then a voice, a voice that I seemed to recognize, said:
+
+“You are sure, Doctor? You are sure? Oh, thank God!”
+
+I tried to turn my head toward the last speaker--whom I decided, for
+some unexplainable reason, must be Hephzy--and to tell her that of
+course I wasn't dead, and then all faded away and there was another
+blank.
+
+The next interval of remembrance begins with a sense of pain, a
+throbbing, savage pain, in my head and chest principally, and a wish
+that the buzzing in my ears would stop. It did not stop, on the contrary
+it grew louder and there was a squeak and rumble and rattle along with
+it. A head--particularly a head bumped as hard as mine had been--might
+be expected to buzz, but it should not rattle, or squeak either.
+Gradually I began to understand that the rattle and squeak were external
+and I was in some sort of vehicle, a sleeping car apparently, for I
+seemed to be lying down. I tried to rise and ask a question and a hand
+was laid on my forehead and a voice--the voice which I had decided was
+Hephzy's--said, gently:
+
+“Lie still. You mustn't move. Lie still, please. We shall be there
+soon.”
+
+Where “there” might be I had no idea and it was too much trouble to ask,
+so I drifted off again.
+
+Next I was being lifted out of the car; men were lifting me--or trying
+to. And, being wider awake by this time, I protested.
+
+“Here! What are you doing?” I asked. “I am all right. Let go of me. Let
+go, I tell you.”
+
+Again the voice--it sounded less and less like Hephzy's--saying:
+
+“Don't! Please don't! You mustn't move.”
+
+But I kept on moving, although moving was a decidedly uncomfortable
+process.
+
+“What are they doing to me?” I asked. “Where am I? Hephzy, where am I?”
+
+“You are at the hospital. You have been hurt and we are taking you to
+the hospital. Lie still and they will carry you in.”
+
+That woke me more thoroughly.
+
+“Nonsense!” I said, as forcefully as I could. “Nonsense! I'm not badly
+hurt. I am all right now. I don't want to go to a hospital. I won't go
+there. Take me to the hotel. I am all right, I tell you.”
+
+The man's voice--the doctor's, I learned afterward--broke in, ordering
+me to be quiet. But I refused to be quiet. I was not going to be taken
+to any hospital.
+
+“I am all right,” I declared. “Or I shall be in a little while. Take me
+to my hotel. I will be looked after, there. Hephzy will look after me.”
+
+The doctor continued to protest--in French--and I to affirm--in English.
+Also I tried to stand. At length my declarations of independence seemed
+to have some effect, for they ceased trying to lift me. A dialogue in
+French followed. I heard it with growing impatience.
+
+“Hephzy,” I said, fretfully. “Hephzy, make them take me to my hotel. I
+insist upon it.”
+
+“Which hotel is it? Kent--Kent, answer me. What is the name of the
+hotel?”
+
+I gave the name; goodness knows how I remembered it. There was more
+argument, and, after a time, the rattle and buzz and squeak began again.
+The next thing I remember distinctly is being carried to my room and
+hearing the voice of Monsieur Louis in excited questioning and command.
+
+After that my recollections are clearer. But it was broad daylight when
+I became my normal self and realized thoroughly where I was. I was in
+my room at the hotel, the sunlight was streaming in at the window and
+Hephzy--I still supposed it was Hephzy--was sitting by that window.
+And for the first time it occurred to me that she should not have been
+there; by all that was right and proper she should be waiting for me in
+Interlaken.
+
+“Hephzy,” I said, weakly, “when did you get here?”
+
+The figure at the window rose and came to the bedside. It was not
+Hephzy. With a thrill I realized who it was.
+
+“Frances!” I cried. “Frances! Why--what--”
+
+“Hush! You mustn't talk. You mustn't. You must be quiet and keep
+perfectly still. The doctor said so.”
+
+“But what happened? How did I get here? What--?”
+
+“Hush! There was an accident; you were hurt. We brought you here in a
+carriage. Don't you remember?”
+
+What I remembered was provokingly little.
+
+“I seem to remember something,” I said. “Something about a hospital.
+Someone was going to take me to a hospital and I wouldn't go.
+Hephzy--No, it couldn't have been Hephzy. Was it--was it you?”
+
+“Yes. We were taking you to the hospital. We did take you there, but as
+they were taking you from the ambulance you--”
+
+“Ambulance! Was I in an ambulance? What happened to me? What sort of an
+accident was it?”
+
+“Please don't try to talk. You must not talk.”
+
+“I won't if you tell me that. What happened?”
+
+“Don't you remember? I left you and crossed the street. You followed me
+and then--and then you stopped. And then--Oh, don't ask me! Don't!”
+
+“I know. Now I do remember. It was that big motor car. I saw it coming.
+But who brought me here? You--I remember you; I thought you were Hephzy.
+And there was someone else.”
+
+“Yes, the doctor--the doctor they called--and Doctor Bayliss.”
+
+“Doctor Bayliss! Herbert Bayliss, do you mean? Yes, I saw him at the
+'Abbey'--and afterward. Did he come here with me?”
+
+“Yes. He was very kind. I don't know what I should have done if it had
+not been for him. Now you MUST not speak another word.”
+
+I did not, for a few moments. I lay there, feebly trying to think,
+and looking at her. I was grateful to young Bayliss, of course, but I
+wished--even then I wished someone else and not he had helped me. I did
+not like to be under obligations to him. I liked him, too; he was a good
+fellow and I had always liked him, but I did not like THAT.
+
+She rose from the chair by the bed and walked across the room.
+
+“Don't go,” I said.
+
+She came back almost immediately.
+
+“It is time for your medicine,” she said.
+
+I took the medicine. She turned away once more.
+
+“Don't go,” I repeated.
+
+“I am not going. Not for the present.”
+
+I was quite contented with the present. The future had no charms just
+then. I lay there, looking at her. She was paler and thinner than she
+had been when she left Mayberry, almost as pale and thin as when I first
+met her in the back room of Mrs. Briggs' lodging house. And there
+was another change, a subtle, undefinable change in her manner and
+appearance that puzzled me. Then I realized what it was; she had grown
+older, more mature. In Mayberry she had been an extraordinarily pretty
+girl. Now she was a beautiful woman. These last weeks had worked the
+change. And I began to understand what she had undergone during those
+weeks.
+
+“Have you been with me ever since it happened--since I was hurt?” I
+asked, suddenly.
+
+“Yes, of course.”
+
+“All night?”
+
+She smiled. “There was very little of the night left,” she answered.
+
+“But you have had no rest at all. You must be worn out.”
+
+“Oh, no; I am used to it. My--” with a slight pause before the
+word--“work of late has accustomed me to resting in the daytime. And I
+shall rest by and by, when my aunt--when Miss Cahoon comes.”
+
+“Miss Cahoon? Hephzy? Have you sent for her?”
+
+My tone of surprise startled her, I think. She looked at me.
+
+“Sent for her?” she repeated. “Isn't she here--in Paris?”
+
+“She is in Interlaken, at the Victoria. Didn't the concierge tell you?”
+
+“He told us she was not here, at this hotel, at present. He said she
+had gone away with some friends. But we took it for granted she was in
+Paris. I told them I would stay until she came. I--”
+
+I interrupted.
+
+“Stay until she comes!” I repeated. “Stay--! Why you can't do that! You
+can't! You must not!”
+
+“Hush! hush! Remember you are ill. Think of yourself!”
+
+“Of myself! I am thinking of you. You mustn't stay here--with me. What
+will they think? What--”
+
+“Hush! hush, please. Think! It makes no difference what they think. If I
+had cared what people thought I should not be singing at--Hush! you must
+not excite yourself in this way.”
+
+But I refused to hush.
+
+“You must not!” I cried. “You shall not! Why did you do it? They could
+have found a nurse, if one was needed. Bayliss--”
+
+“Doctor Bayliss does not know. If he did I should not care. As for the
+others--” she colored, slightly,
+
+“Well, I told the concierge that you were my uncle. It was only a white
+lie; you used to say you were, you know.”
+
+“Say! Oh, Frances, for your own sake, please--”
+
+“Hush! Do you suppose,” her cheeks reddened and her eyes flashed as I
+had seen them flash before, “do you suppose I would go away and leave
+you now? Now, when you are hurt and ill and--and--after all that you
+have done! After I treated you as I did! Oh, let me do something! Let me
+do a little, the veriest little in return. I--Oh, stop! stop! What are
+you doing?”
+
+I suppose I was trying to sit up; I remember raising myself on my elbow.
+Then came the pain again, the throbbing in my head and the agonizing
+pain in my side. And after that there is another long interval in my
+recollections.
+
+For a week--of course I did not know it was a week then--my memories
+consist only of a series of flashes like the memory of the hours
+immediately following the accident. I remember people talking, but not
+what they said; I remember her voice, or I think I do, and the touch
+of her hand on my forehead. And afterward, other voices, Hephzy's in
+particular. But when I came to myself, weak and shaky, but to remain
+myself for good and all, Hephzy--the real Hephzy--was in the room with
+me.
+
+Even then they would not let me ask questions. Another day dragged by
+before I was permitted to do that. Then Hephzy told me I had a cracked
+rib and a variety of assorted bruises, that I had suffered slight
+concussion of the brain, and that my immediate job was to behave myself
+and get well.
+
+“Land sakes!” she exclaimed, “there was a time when I thought you never
+was goin' to get well. Hour after hour I've set here and listened
+to your gabblin' away about everything under the sun and nothin' in
+particular, as crazy as a kitten in a patch of catnip, and thought and
+thought, what should I do, what SHOULD I do. And now I KNOW what I'm
+goin' to do. I'm goin' to keep you in that bed till you're strong and
+well enough to get out of it, if I have to sit on you to hold you down.
+And I'm no hummin'-bird when it comes to perchin', either.”
+
+She had received the telegram which Frances sent and had come from
+Interlaken post haste.
+
+“And I don't know,” she declared, “which part of that telegram upset me
+most--what there was in it or the name signed at the bottom of it. HER
+name! I couldn't believe my eyes. I didn't stop to believe 'em long. I
+just came. And then I found you like this.”
+
+“Was she here?” I asked.
+
+“Who--Frances! My, yes, she was here. So pale and tired lookin' that I
+thought she was goin' to collapse. But she wouldn't give in to it.
+She told me all about how it happened and what the doctor said and
+everything. I didn't pay much attention to it then. All I could think of
+was you. Oh, Hosy! my poor boy! I--I--”
+
+“There! there!” I broke in, gently. “I'm all right now, or I'm going to
+be. You will have the quahaug on your hands for a while longer. But,”
+ returning to the subject which interested me most, “what else did she
+tell you? Did she tell you how I met her--and where?”
+
+“Why, yes. She's singin' somewhere--she didn't say where exactly, but it
+is in some kind of opera-house, I judged. There's a perfectly beautiful
+opera-house a little ways from here on the Avenue de L'Opera, right by
+the Boulevard des Italiens, though there's precious few Italians there,
+far's I can see. And why an opera is a l'opera I--”
+
+“Wait a moment, Hephzy. Did she tell you of our meeting? And how I found
+her?”
+
+“Why, not so dreadful much, Hosy. She's acted kind of queer about that,
+seemed to me. She said you went to this opera-house, wherever it was,
+and saw her there. Then you and she were crossin' the road and one of
+these dreadful French automobiles--the way they let the things tear
+round is a disgrace--ran into you. I declare! It almost made ME sick
+to hear about it. And to think of me away off amongst those mountains,
+enjoyin' myself and not knowin' a thing! Oh, it makes me ashamed to look
+in the glass. I NEVER ought to have left you alone, and I knew it. It's
+a judgment on me, what's happened is.”
+
+“Or on me, I should rather say,” I added. Frances had not told Hephzy of
+L'Abbaye, that was evident. Well, I would keep silence also.
+
+“Where is she now?” I asked. I asked it with as much indifference as I
+could assume, but Hephzy smiled and patted my hand.
+
+“Oh, she comes every day to ask about you,” she said. “And Doctor
+Bayliss comes too. He's been real kind.”
+
+“Bayliss!” I exclaimed. “Is he with--Does he come here?”
+
+“Yes, he comes real often, mostly about the time she does. He hasn't
+been here for two days now, though. Hosy, do you suppose he has spoken
+to her about--about what he spoke to you?”
+
+“I don't know,” I answered, curtly. Then I changed the subject.
+
+“Has she said anything to you about coming back to Mayberry?” I asked.
+“Have you told her how we feel toward her?”
+
+Hephzy's manner changed. “Yes,” she said, reluctantly, “I've told her.
+I've told her everything.”
+
+“Not everything? Hephzy, you haven't told her--”
+
+“No, no. Of course I didn't tell her THAT. You know I wouldn't, Hosy.
+But I told her that her money havin' turned out to be our money didn't
+make a mite of difference. I told her how much we come to think of her
+and how we wanted her to come with us and be the same as she had always
+been. I begged her to come. I said everything I could say.”
+
+“And she said?”
+
+“She said no, Hosy. She wouldn't consider it at all. She asked me not to
+talk about it. It was settled, she said. She must go her way and we ours
+and we must forget her. She was more grateful than she could tell--she
+most cried when she said that--but she won't come back and if I asked
+her again she declared she should have to go away for good.”
+
+“I know. That is what she said to me.”
+
+“Yes. I can't make it out exactly. It's her pride, I suppose. Her mother
+was just as proud. Oh, dear! When I saw her here for the first time,
+after I raced back from Interlaken, I thought--I almost hoped--but I
+guess it can't be.”
+
+I did not answer. I knew only too well that it could not be.
+
+“Does she seem happy?” I asked.
+
+“Why, no; I don't think she is happy. There are times, especially when
+you began to get better, when she seemed happier, but the last few times
+she was here she was--well, different.”
+
+“How different?”
+
+“It's hard to tell you. She looked sort of worn and sad and discouraged.
+Hosy, what sort of a place is it she is singin' in?”
+
+“Why do you ask that?”
+
+“Oh, I don't know. Some things you said when you were out of your head
+made me wonder. That, and some talk I overheard her and Doctor Bayliss
+havin' one time when they were in the other room--my room--together. I
+had stepped out for a minute and when I came back, I came in this door
+instead of the other. They were in the other room talkin' and he was
+beggin' her not to stay somewhere any more. It wasn't a fit place for
+her to be, he said; her reputation would be ruined. She cut him short
+by sayin' that her reputation was her own and that she should do as she
+thought best, or somethin' like that. Then I coughed, so they would know
+I was around, and they commenced talkin' of somethin' else. But it set
+me thinkin' and when you said--”
+
+She paused. “What did I say?” I asked.
+
+“Why, 'twas when she and I were here. You had been quiet for a while and
+all at once you broke out--delirious you was--beggin' somebody or other
+not to do somethin'. For your sake, for their own sake, they mustn't do
+it. 'Twas awful to hear you. A mixed-up jumble about Abbie, whoever
+she is--not much, by the way you went on about her--and please, please,
+please, for the Lord's sake, give it up. I tried to quiet you, but you
+wouldn't be quieted. And finally you said: 'Frances! Oh, Frances! don't!
+Say that you won't any more.' I gave you your sleepin' drops then; I
+thought 'twas time. I was afraid you'd say somethin' that you wouldn't
+want her to hear. You understand, don't you, Hosy?”
+
+“I understand. Thank you, Hephzy.”
+
+“Yes. Well, _I_ didn't understand and I asked her if she did. She said
+no, but she was dreadfully upset and I think she did understand, in
+spite of her sayin' it. What sort of a place is it, this opera-house
+where she sings?”
+
+I dodged the question as best I could. I doubt if Hephzy's suspicions
+were allayed, but she did not press the subject. Instead she told me I
+had talked enough for that afternoon and must rest.
+
+That evening I saw Bayliss for the first time since the accident.
+He congratulated me on my recovery and I thanked him for his help in
+bringing me to the hotel. He waved my thanks aside.
+
+“Quite unnecessary, thanking me,” he said, shortly. “I couldn't do
+anything else, of course. Well, I must be going. Glad you're feeling
+more fit, Knowles, I'm sure.”
+
+“And you?” I asked. “How are you?”
+
+“I? Oh, I'm fit enough, I suppose. Good-by.”
+
+He didn't look fit. He looked more haggard and worn and moody than ever.
+And his manner was absent and distrait. Hephzy noticed it; there were
+few things she did not notice.
+
+“Either that boy's meals don't agree with him,” she announced, “or
+somethin's weighin' on his mind. He looks as if he'd lost his last
+friend. Hosy, do you suppose he's spoken to--to her about what he spoke
+of to you?”
+
+“I don't know. I suppose he has. He was only too anxious to speak, there
+in Mayberry.”
+
+“Humph! Well, IF he has, then--Hosy, sometimes I think this, all this
+pilgrimage of ours--that's what you used to call it, a pilgrimage--is
+goin' to turn out right, after all. Don't it remind you of a book, this
+last part of it?”
+
+“A dismal sort of book,” I said, gloomily.
+
+“Well, I don't know. Here are you, the hero, and here's she, the
+heroine. And the hero is sick and the heroine comes to take care of
+him--she WAS takin' care of you afore I came, you know; and she falls in
+love with him and--”
+
+“Yes,” I observed, sarcastically. “She always does--in books. But in
+those books the hero is not a middle-aged quahaug. Suppose we stick to
+real life and possibilities, Hephzy.”
+
+Hephzy was unconvinced. “I don't care,” she said. “She ought to even if
+she doesn't. _I_ fell in love with you long ago, Hosy. And she DID bring
+you here after you were hurt and took care of you.”
+
+“Hush! hush!” I broke in. “She took care of me, as you call it, because
+she thought it was her duty. She thinks she is under great obligation to
+us because we did not pitch her into the street when we first met her.
+She insists that she owes us money and gratitude. Her kindness to me and
+her care are part payment of the debt. She told me so, herself.”
+
+“But--”
+
+“There aren't any 'buts.' You mustn't be an idiot because I have been
+one, Hephzy. We agreed not to speak of that again. Don't remind me of
+it.”
+
+Hephzy sighed. “All right,” she said. “I suppose you are right, Hosy.
+But--but how is all this goin' to end? She won't go with us. Are we
+goin' to leave her here alone?”
+
+I was silent. The same question was in my mind, but I had answered it. I
+was NOT going to leave her there alone. And yet--
+
+“If I was sure,” mused Hephzy, “that she was in love with Herbert
+Bayliss, then 'twould be all right, I suppose. They would get married
+and it would be all right--or near right--wouldn't it, Hosy.”
+
+I said nothing.
+
+The next morning I saw her. She came to inquire for me and Hephzy
+brought her into my room for a stay of a minute or two. She seemed glad
+to find me so much improved in health and well on the road to recovery.
+I tried to thank her for her care of me, for her sending for Hephzy and
+all the rest of it, but she would not listen. She chatted about Paris
+and the French people, about Monsieur Louis, the concierge, and joked
+with Hephzy about that gentleman's admiration for “the wonderful
+American lady,” meaning Hephzy herself.
+
+“He calls you 'Madame Cay-hoo-on,'” she said, “and he thinks you a
+miracle of decision and management. I think he is almost afraid of you,
+I really do.”
+
+Hephzy smiled, grimly. “He'd better be,” she declared. “The way
+everybody was flyin' around when I first got here after comin' from
+Interlaken, and the way the help jabbered and hunched up their shoulders
+when I asked questions made me so fidgety I couldn't keep still. I
+wanted an egg for breakfast, that first mornin' and when the waiter
+brought it, it was in the shell, the way they eat eggs over here. I
+can't eat 'em that way--I'm no weasel--and I told the waiter I wanted an
+egg cup. Nigh as I could make out from his pigeon English he was
+tellin' me there was a cup there. Well, there was, one of those little,
+two-for-a-cent contraptions, just big enough to stick one end of the
+egg into. 'I want a big one,' says I. 'We, Madame,' says he, and off
+he trotted. When he came back he brought me a big EGG, a duck's egg, I
+guess 'twas. Then I scolded and he jabbered some more and by and by he
+went and fetched this Monsieur Louis man. He could speak English, thank
+goodness, and he was real nice, in his French way. He begged my pardon
+for the waiter's stupidness, said he was a new hand, and the like of
+that, and went on apologizin' and bowin' and smilin' till I almost had a
+fit.
+
+“'For mercy sakes!' I says, 'don't say any more about it. If that last
+egg hadn't been boiled 'twould have hatched out an--an ostrich, or
+somethin' or other, by this time. And it's stone cold, of course.
+Have this--this jumpin'-jack of yours bring me a hot egg--a hen's
+egg--opened, in a cup big enough to see without spectacles, and tell
+him to bring some cream with the coffee. At any rate, if there isn't
+any cream, have him bring some real milk instead of this watery stuff.
+I might wash clothes with that, for I declare I think there's bluin'
+in it, but I sha'n't drink it; I'd be afraid of swallowin' a fish by
+accident. And do hurry!'
+
+“He went away then, hurryin' accordin' to orders, and ever since then
+he's been bobbin' up to ask if 'Madame finds everything satisfactory.' I
+suppose likely I shouldn't have spoken as I did, he means well--it isn't
+his fault, or the waiter's either, that they can't talk without wavin'
+their hands as if they were givin' three cheers--but I was terribly
+nervous that mornin' and I barked like a tied-up dog. Oh dear, Hosy! if
+ever I missed you and your help it's in this blessed country.”
+
+Frances laughed at all this; she seemed just then to be in high spirits;
+but I thought, or imagined, that her high spirits were assumed for our
+benefit. At the first hint of questioning concerning her own life, where
+she lodged or what her plans might be, she rose and announced that she
+must go.
+
+Each morning of that week she came, remaining but a short time, and
+always refusing to speak of herself or her plans. Hephzy and I, finding
+that a reference to those plans meant the abrupt termination of the
+call, ceased trying to question. And we did not mention our life at the
+rectory, either; that, too, she seemed unwilling to discuss. Once,
+when I spoke of our drive to Wrayton, she began a reply, stopped in the
+middle of a sentence, and then left the room.
+
+Hephzy hastened after her. She returned alone.
+
+“She was cryin', Hosy,” she said. “She said she wasn't, but she was. The
+poor thing! she's unhappy and I know it; she's miserable. But she's so
+proud she won't own it and, although I'm dyin' to put my arms around her
+and comfort her, I know if I did she'd go away and never come back.
+Do you notice she hasn't called me 'Auntie' once. And she always used
+to--at the rectory. I'm afraid--I'm afraid she's just as determined as
+she was when she ran away, never to live with us again. What SHALL we
+do?”
+
+I did not know and I did not dare to think. I was as certain that these
+visits would cease very soon as I was that they were the only things
+which made my life bearable. How I did look forward to them! And while
+she was there, with us, how short the time seemed and how it dragged
+when she had gone. The worst thing possible for me, this seeing her and
+being with her; I knew it. I knew it perfectly well. But, knowing it,
+and realizing that it could not last and that it was but the prelude to
+a worse loneliness which was sure to come, made no difference. I dreaded
+to be well again, fearing that would mean the end of those visits.
+
+But I was getting well and rapidly. I sat up for longer and longer
+periods each day. I began to read my letters now, instead of having
+Hephzy read them to me, letters from Matthews at the London office and
+from Jim Campbell at home. Matthews had cabled Jim of the accident and
+later that I was recovering. So Jim wrote, professing to find material
+gain in the affair.
+
+“Great stuff,” he wrote. “Two chapters at least. The hero, pursuing the
+villain through the streets of Paris at midnight, is run down by an
+auto driven by said villain. 'Ah ha!' says the villain: 'Now will you be
+good?' or words to that effect. 'Desmond,' says the hero, unflinchingly,
+as they extract the cobble-stones from his cuticle, 'you triumph for the
+moment, but beware! there will be something doing later on.' See? If
+it wasn't for the cracked rib and the rest I should be almost glad it
+happened. All you need is the beautiful heroine nursing you to recovery.
+Can't you find her?”
+
+He did not know that I had found her, or that the hoped-for novel was
+less likely to be finished than ever.
+
+Hephzy was now able to leave me occasionally, to take the walks which I
+insisted upon. She had some queer experiences in these walks.
+
+“Lost again to-day, Hosy,” she said, cheerfully, removing her bonnet. “I
+went cruisin' through the streets over to the south'ard and they were so
+narrow and so crooked--to say nothin' of bein' dirty and smelly--that I
+thought I never should get out. Of course I could have hired a hack
+and let it bring me to the hotel but I wouldn't do that. I was set on
+findin' my own way. I'd walked in and I was goin' to walk out, that was
+all there was to it. 'Twasn't the first time I'd been lost in this Paris
+place and I've got a system of my own. When I get to the square 'Place
+delay Concorde,' they call it, I know where I am. And 'Concorde' is
+enough like Concord, Mass., to make me remember the name. So I walk up
+to a nice appearin' Frenchman with a tall hat and whiskers--I didn't
+know there was so many chin whiskers outside of East Harniss, or some
+other back number place--and I say, 'Pardon, Monseer. Place delay
+Concorde?' Just like that with a question mark after it. After I say it
+two or three times he begins to get a floatin' sniff of what I'm drivin'
+at and says he: 'Place delay Concorde? Oh, we, we, we, Madame!' Then a
+whole string of jabber and arm wavin', with some countin' in the middle
+of it. Now I've learned 'one, two, three' in French and I know he
+means for me to keep on for two or three more streets in the way he's
+pointin'. So I keep on, and, when I get there, I go through the whole
+rigamarole with another Frenchman. About the third session and I'm back
+on the Concord Place. THERE I am all right. No, I don't propose to stay
+lost long. My father and grandfather and all my men folks spent their
+lives cruisin' through crooked passages and crowded shoals and I guess
+I've inherited some of the knack.”
+
+At last I was strong enough to take a short outing in Hephzy's company.
+I returned to the hotel, where Hephzy left me. She was going to do a
+little shopping by herself. I went to my room and sat down to rest.
+A bell boy--at least that is what we should have called him in the
+States--knocked at the door.
+
+“A lady to see Monsieur,” he said.
+
+The lady was Frances.
+
+She entered the room and I rose to greet her.
+
+“Why, you are alone!” she exclaimed. “Where is Miss Cahoon?”
+
+“She is out, on a shopping expedition,” I explained. “She will be back
+soon. I have been out too. We have been driving together. What do you
+think of that!”
+
+She seemed pleased at the news but when I urged her to sit and wait
+for Hephzy's return she hesitated. Her hesitation, however, was only
+momentary. She took the chair by the window and we chatted together,
+of my newly-gained strength, of Hephzy's adventures as a pathfinder in
+Paris, of the weather, of a dozen inconsequential things. I found it
+difficult to sustain my part in the conversation. There was so much
+of real importance which I wanted to say. I wanted to ask her about
+herself, where she lodged, if she was still singing at L'Abbaye, what
+her plans for the future might be. And I did not dare.
+
+My remarks became more and more disjointed and she, too, seemed uneasy
+and absent-minded. At length there was an interval of silence. She broke
+that silence.
+
+“I suppose,” she said, “you will be going back to Mayberry soon.”
+
+“Back to Mayberry?” I repeated.
+
+“Yes. You and Miss Cahoon will go back there, of course, now that you
+are strong enough to travel. She told me that the American friends with
+whom you and she were to visit Switzerland had changed their plans and
+were going on to Italy. She said that she had written them that your
+proposed Continental trip was abandoned.”
+
+“Yes. Yes, that was given up, of course.”
+
+“Then you will go back to England, will you not?”
+
+“I don't know. We have made no plans as yet.”
+
+“But you will go back. Miss Cahoon said you would. And, when your lease
+of the rectory expires, you will sail for America.”
+
+“I don't know.”
+
+“But you must know,” with a momentary impatience. “Surely you don't
+intend to remain here in Paris.”
+
+“I don't know that, either. I haven't considered what I shall do. It
+depends--that is--”
+
+I did not finish the sentence. I had said more than I intended and it
+was high time I stopped. But I had said too much, as it was. She asked
+more questions.
+
+“Upon what does it depend?” she asked.
+
+“Oh, nothing. I did not mean that it depended upon anything in
+particular. I--”
+
+“You must have meant something. Tell me--answer me truthfully, please:
+Does it depend upon me?”
+
+Of course that was just what it did depend upon. And suddenly I
+determined to tell her so.
+
+“Frances,” I demanded, “are you still there--at that place?”
+
+“At L'Abbaye. Yes.”
+
+“You sing there every night?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Why do you do it? You know--”
+
+“I know everything. But you know, too. I told you I sang there because
+I must earn my living in some way and that seems to be the only place
+where I can earn it. They pay me well there, and the people--the
+proprietors--are considerate and kind, in their way.”
+
+“But it isn't a fit place for you. And you don't like it; I know you
+don't.”
+
+“No,” quietly. “I don't like it.”
+
+“Then don't do it. Give it up.”
+
+“If I give it up what shall I do?”
+
+“You know. Come back with us and live with us as you did before. I want
+you; Hephzy is crazy to have you. We--she has missed you dreadfully. She
+grieves for you and worries about you. We offer you a home and--”
+
+She interrupted. “Please don't,” she said. “I have told you that that is
+impossible. It is. I shall never go back to Mayberry.”
+
+“But why? Your aunt--”
+
+“Don't! My aunt is very kind--she has been so kind that I cannot bear to
+speak of her. Her kindness and--and yours are the few pleasant memories
+that I have--of this last dreadful year. To please you both I would do
+anything--anything--except--”
+
+“Don't make any exceptions. Come with us. If not to Mayberry, then
+somewhere else. Come to America with us.”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Frances--”
+
+“Don't! My mind is made up. Please don't speak of that again.”
+
+Again I realized the finality in her tone. The same finality was in mine
+as I answered.
+
+“Then I shall stay here,” I declared. “I shall not leave you alone,
+without friends or a protector of any kind, to sing night after night in
+that place. I shall not do it. I shall stay here as long as you do.”
+
+She was silent. I wondered what was coming next. I expected her to
+say, as she had said before, that I was forcing her to give up her one
+opportunity. I expected reproaches and was doggedly prepared to meet
+them. But she did not reproach me. She said nothing; instead she seemed
+to be thinking, to be making up her mind.
+
+“Don't do it, Frances,” I pleaded. “Don't sing there any longer. Give it
+up. You don't like the work; it isn't fit work for you. Give it up.”
+
+She rose from her chair and standing by the window looked out into the
+street. Suddenly she turned and looked at me.
+
+“Would it please you if I gave up singing at L'Abbaye?” she asked
+quietly. “You know it would.”
+
+“And if I did would you and Miss Cahoon go back to England--at once?”
+
+Here was another question, one that I found very hard to answer. I tried
+to temporize.
+
+“We want you to come with us,” I said, earnestly. “We want you.
+Hephzy--”
+
+“Oh, don't, don't, don't! Why will you persist? Can't you understand
+that you hurt me? I am trying to believe I have some self-respect left,
+even after all that has happened. And you--What CAN you think of me! No,
+I tell you! NO!”
+
+“But for Hephzy's sake. She is your only relative.”
+
+She looked at me oddly. And when she spoke her answer surprised me.
+
+“You are mistaken,” she said. “I have other--relatives. Good-by, Mr.
+Knowles.”
+
+She was on her way to the door.
+
+“But, Frances,” I cried, “you are not going. Wait. Hephzy will be here
+any moment. Don't go.”
+
+She shook her head.
+
+“I must go,” she said. At the door she turned and looked back.
+
+“Good-by,” she said, again. “Good-by, Kent.”
+
+She had gone and when I reached the door she had turned the corner of
+the corridor.
+
+When Hephzy came I told her of the visit and what had taken place.
+
+“That's queer,” said Hephzy. “I can't think what she meant. I don't know
+of any other relatives she's got except Strickland Morley's tribe. And
+they threw him overboard long, long ago. I can't understand who she
+meant; can you, Hosy?”
+
+I had been thinking.
+
+“Wasn't there someone else--some English cousins of hers with whom she
+lived for a time after her father's death? Didn't she tell you about
+them?”
+
+Hephzy nodded vigorously. “That's so,” she declared. “There was. And
+she did live with 'em, too. She never told me their names or where they
+lived, but I know she despised and hated 'em. She gave me to understand
+that. And she ran away from 'em, too, just as she did from us. I don't
+see why she should have meant them. I don't believe she did. Perhaps
+she'll tell us more next time she comes. That'll be tomorrow, most
+likely.”
+
+I hoped that it might be to-morrow, but I was fearful. The way in which
+she had said good-by made me so. Her look, her manner, seemed to imply
+more than a good-by for a day. And, though this I did not tell Hephzy,
+she had called me “Kent” for the first time since the happy days at the
+rectory. I feared--all sorts of things.
+
+She did not come on the morrow, or the following day, or the day after
+that. Another week passed and she did not come, nor had we received any
+word from her. By that time Hephzy was as anxious and fretful as I.
+And, when I proposed going in search of her, Hephzy, for a wonder,
+considering how very, very careful she was of my precious health, did
+not say no.
+
+“You're pretty close to bein' as well as ever you was, Hosy,” she said.
+“And I know how terribly worried you are. If you do go out at night
+you may be sick again, but if you don't go and lay awake frettin' and
+frettin' about her I KNOW you'll be sick. So perhaps you'd better do it.
+Shall I--Sha'n't I go with you?”
+
+“I think you had better not,” I said.
+
+“Well, perhaps you're right. You never would tell me much about this
+opera-house, or whatever 'tis, but I shouldn't wonder if, bein' a
+Yankee, I'd guessed considerable. Go, Hosy, and bring her back if you
+can. Find her anyhow. There! there run along. The hack's down at the
+door waitin'. Is your head feelin' all right? You're sure? And you
+haven't any pain? And you'll keep wrapped up? All right? Good-by,
+dearie. Hurry back! Do hurry back, for my sake. And I hope--Oh, I do
+hope you'll bring no bad news.”
+
+L'Abbaye, at eight-thirty in the evening was a deserted place compared
+to what it had been when I visited it at midnight. The waiters and
+attendants were there, of course, and a few early bird patrons, but not
+many. The bearded proprietors, or managers, were flying about, and I
+caught one of them in the middle of a flight.
+
+He did not recognize me at first, but when I stated my errand, he did.
+Out went his hands and up went his shoulders.
+
+“The Mademoiselle,” he said. “Ah, yes! You are her friend, Monsieur; I
+remember perfectly. Oh, no, no, no! she is not here any more. She
+has left us. She sings no longer at L'Abbaye. We are desolate; we are
+inconsolable. We pleaded, but she was firm. She has gone. Where? Ah,
+Monsieur, so many ask that; but alas! we do not know.”
+
+“But you do know where she lives,” I urged. “You must know her home
+address. Give me that. It is of the greatest importance that I see her
+at once.”
+
+At first he declared that he did not know her address, the address where
+she lodged. I persisted and, at last, he admitted that he did know it,
+but that he was bound by the most solemn promise to reveal it to no one.
+
+“It was her wish, Monsieur. It was a part of the agreement under which
+she sang for us. No one should know who she was or where she lived. And
+I--I am an honorable man, Monsieur. I have promised and--” the business
+of shoulders and hands again--“my pledged word to a lady, how shall it
+be broken?”
+
+I found a way to break it, nevertheless. A trio of gold pieces and the
+statement that I was her uncle did the trick. An uncle! Ah, that was
+different. And, Mademoiselle had consented to see me when I came before,
+that was true. She had seen the young English gentleman also--but we
+two only. Was the young English Monsieur--“the Doctor Baylees”--was he a
+relative also?
+
+I did not answer that question. It was not his business and, beside, I
+did not wish to speak of Herbert Bayliss.
+
+The address which the manager of L'Abbaye gave me, penciled on a card,
+was a number in a street in Montmartre, and not far away. I might easily
+have walked there, I was quite strong enough for walking now, but I
+preferred a cab. Paris motor cabs, as I knew from experience, moved
+rapidly. This one bore me to my destination in a few minutes.
+
+A stout middle-aged French woman answered my ring. But her answer to my
+inquiries was most unsatisfactory. And, worse than all, I was certain
+she was telling me the truth.
+
+The Mademoiselle was no longer there, she said. She had given up
+her room three days ago and had gone away. Where? That, alas, was a
+question. She had told no one. She had gone and she was not coming back.
+Was it not a pity, a great pity! Such a beautiful Mademoiselle! such an
+artiste! who sang so sweetly! Ah, the success she had made. And such a
+good young lady, too! Not like the others--oh, no, no, no! No one was to
+know she lodged there; she would see no one. Ah, a good girl, Monsieur,
+if ever one lived.
+
+“Did she--did she go alone?” I asked.
+
+The stout lady hesitated. Was Monsieur a very close friend? Perhaps a
+relative?
+
+“An uncle,” I said, telling the old lie once more.
+
+Ah, an uncle! It was all right then. No, Mademoiselle had not gone
+alone. A young gentleman, a young English gentleman had gone with her,
+or, at least, had brought the cab in which she went and had driven
+off in it with her. A young English gentleman with a yellow mustache.
+Perhaps I knew him.
+
+I recognized the description. She had left the house with Herbert
+Bayliss. What did that mean? Had she said yes to him? Were they married?
+I dreaded to know, but know I must.
+
+And, as the one possible chance of settling the question, I bade my cab
+driver take me to the Hotel Continental. There, at the desk, I asked if
+Doctor Bayliss was still in the hotel. They said he was. I think I must
+have appeared strange or the gasp of relief with which I received the
+news was audible, for the concierge asked me if I was ill. I said no,
+and then he told me that Bayliss was planning to leave the next day, but
+was just then in his room. Did I wish to see him? I said I did and gave
+them my card.
+
+He came down soon afterward. I had not seen him for a fortnight, for his
+calls had ceased even before Frances' last visit. Hephzy had said that,
+in her opinion, his meals must be disagreeing with him. Judging by his
+appearance his digestion was still very much impaired. He was in evening
+dress, of course; being an English gentleman he would have dressed for
+his own execution, if it was scheduled to take place after six o'clock.
+But his tie was carelessly arranged, his shirt bosom was slightly
+crumpled and there was a general “don't care” look about his raiment
+which was, for him, most unusual. And he was very solemn. I decided at
+once, whatever might have happened, it was not what I surmised. He was
+neither a happy bridegroom nor a prospective one.
+
+“Good evening, Bayliss,” said I, and extended my hand.
+
+“Good evening, Knowles,” he said, but he kept his own hands in his
+pockets. And he did not ask me to be seated.
+
+“Well?” he said, after a moment.
+
+“I came to you,” I began--mine was a delicate errand and hard to
+state--“I came to you to ask if you could tell me where Miss Morley has
+gone. She has left L'Abbaye and has given up her room at her lodgings.
+She has gone--somewhere. Do you know where she is?”
+
+It was quite evident that he did know. I could see it in his face. He
+did not answer, however. Instead he glanced about uneasily and then,
+turning, led the way toward a small reception room adjoining the lobby.
+This room was, save for ourselves, unoccupied.
+
+“We can be more private here,” he explained, briefly. “What did you
+ask?”
+
+“I asked if you knew where Miss Morley had gone and where she was at the
+present time?”
+
+He hesitated, pulling at his mustache, and frowning. “I don't see why
+you should ask me that?” he said, after a moment.
+
+“But I do ask it. Do you know where she is?”
+
+Another pause. “Well, if I did,” he said, stiffly, “I see no reason
+why I should tell you. To be perfectly frank, and as I have said to you
+before, I don't consider myself bound to tell you anything concerning
+her.”
+
+His manner was most offensive. Again, as at the time I came to him at
+that very hotel on a similar errand, after my arrival in Paris, I found
+it hard to keep my temper.
+
+“Don't misunderstand me,” I said, as calmly as I could. “I am not
+pretending now to have a claim upon Miss Morley. I am not asking you to
+tell me just where she is, if you don't wish to tell. And it is not for
+my sake--that is, not primarily for that--that I am anxious about her.
+It is for hers. I wish you might tell me this: Is she safe? Is she among
+friends? Is she--is she quite safe and in a respectable place and likely
+to be happy? Will you tell me that?”
+
+He hesitated again. “She is quite safe,” he said, after a moment. “And
+she is among friends, or I suppose they are friends. As to her being
+happy--well, you ought to know that better than I, it seems to me.”
+
+I was puzzled. “_I_ ought to know?” I repeated. “I ought to know whether
+she is happy or not? I don't understand.”
+
+He looked at me intently. “Don't you?” he asked. “You are certain you
+don't? Humph! Well, if I were in your place I would jolly well find out;
+you may be sure of that.”
+
+“What are you driving at, Bayliss? I tell you I don't know what you
+mean.”
+
+He did not answer. He was frowning and kicking the corner of a rug with
+his foot.
+
+“I don't understand what you mean,” I repeated. “You are saying too much
+or too little for my comprehension.”
+
+“I've said too much,” he muttered. “At all events, I have said all
+I shall say. Was there any other subject you wished to see me about,
+Knowles? If not I must be going. I'm rather busy this evening.”
+
+“There was no subject but that one. And you will tell me nothing more
+concerning Miss Morley?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Good night,” I said, and turned away. Then I turned back.
+
+“Bayliss,” said I, “I think perhaps I had better say this: I have only
+the kindest feelings toward you. You may have misunderstood my attitude
+in all this. I have said nothing to prejudice her--Miss Morley against
+you. I never shall. You care for her, I know. If she cares for you that
+is enough, so far as I am concerned. Her happiness is my sole wish. I
+want you to consider me your friend--and hers.”
+
+Once more I extended my hand. For an instant I thought he was going to
+take it, but he did not.
+
+“No,” he said, sullenly. “I won't shake hands with you. Why should I?
+You don't mean what you say. At least I don't think you do. I--I--By
+Jove! you can't!”
+
+“But I do,” I said, patiently.
+
+“You can't! Look here! you say I care for her. God knows I do! But
+you--suppose you knew where she was, what would you do? Would you go to
+her?”
+
+I had been considering this very thing, during my ride to the lodgings
+and on the way to the hotel; and I had reached a conclusion.
+
+“No,” I answered, slowly. “I think I should not. I know she does not
+wish me to follow her. I suppose she went away to avoid me. If I were
+convinced that she was among friends, in a respectable place, and quite
+safe, I should try to respect her wish. I think I should not follow her
+there.”
+
+He stared at me, wide-eyed.
+
+“You wouldn't!” he repeated. “You wouldn't! And you--Oh, I say! And you
+talked of her happiness!”
+
+“It is her happiness I am thinking of. If it were my own I should--”
+
+“What?”
+
+“Nothing, nothing. She will be happier if I do not follow her, I
+suppose. That is enough for me.”
+
+He regarded me with the same intent stare.
+
+“Knowles,” he said, suddenly, “she is at the home of a relative of
+hers--Cripps is the name--in Leatherhead, England. There! I have told
+you. Why I should be such a fool I don't know. And now you will go
+there, I suppose. What?”
+
+“No,” I answered. “No. I thank you for telling me, Bayliss, but it shall
+make no difference. I will respect her wish. I will not go there.”
+
+“You won't!”
+
+“No, I will not trouble her again.”
+
+To my surprise he laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh, there was more
+sarcasm than mirth in it, or so it seemed, but why he should laugh at
+all I could not understand.
+
+“Knowles,” he said, “you're a good fellow, but--”
+
+“But what?” I asked, stiffly.
+
+“You're no end of a silly ass in some ways. Good night.”
+
+He turned on his heel and walked off.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+In Which I, as Well as Mr. Solomon Cripps, Am Surprised
+
+
+“And to think,” cried Hephzy, for at least the fifth time since I told
+her, “that those Crippses are her people, the cousins she lived with
+after her pa's death! No wonder she was surprised when I told her how
+you and I went to Leatherhead and looked at their 'Ash Dump'--'Ash
+Chump,' I mean. And we came just as near hirin' it, too; we would have
+hired it if she hadn't put her foot down and said she wouldn't go there.
+A good many queer things have happened on this pilgrimage of ours, Hosy,
+but I do believe our goin' straight to those Crippses, of all the folks
+in England, is about the strangest. Seems as if we was sent there with a
+purpose, don't it?”
+
+“It is a strange coincidence,” I admitted.
+
+“It's more'n that. And her goin' back to them is queerer still. She
+hates 'em, I know she does. She as much as said so, not mention' their
+names, of course. Why did she do it?”
+
+I knew why she had done it, or I believed I did.
+
+“She did it to please you and me, Hephzy,” I said. “And to get rid of
+us. She said she would do anything to please us, and she knew I did not
+want her to remain here in Paris. I told her I should stay here as long
+as she did, or at least as long as she sang at--at the place where she
+was singing. And she asked if, provided she gave up singing there, you
+and I would go back to England--or America?”
+
+“Yes, I know; you told me that, Hosy. But you said you didn't promise to
+do it.”
+
+“I didn't promise anything. I couldn't promise not to follow her. I
+didn't believe I could keep the promise. But I sha'n't follow her,
+Hephzy. I shall not go to Leatherhead.”
+
+Hephzy was silent for a moment. Then she said: “Why not?”
+
+“You know why. That night when I first met her, the night after you had
+gone to Lucerne, she told me that if I persisted in following her and
+trying to see her I would force her to give up the only means of earning
+a living she had been able to find. Well, I have forced her to do that.
+She has been obliged to run away once more in order to get rid of us.
+I am not going to persecute her further. I am going to try and be
+unselfish and decent, if I can. Now that we know she is safe and among
+friends--”
+
+“Friends! A healthy lot of friends they are--that Solomon Cripps and his
+wife! If ever I ran afoul of a sanctimonious pair of hypocrites they're
+the pair. Oh, they were sweet and buttery enough to us, I give in, but
+that was because they thought we was goin' to hire their Dump or Chump,
+or whatever 'twas. I'll bet they could be hard as nails to anybody they
+had under their thumbs. Whenever I see a woman or a man with a mouth
+that shuts up like a crack in a plate, the way theirs do, it takes more
+than Scriptur' texts from that mouth to make me believe it won't bite
+when it has the chance. Safe! poor Little Frank may be safe enough at
+Leatherhead, but I'll bet she's miserable. WHAT made her go there?”
+
+“Because she had no other place to go, I suppose,” I said. “And
+there, among her relatives, she thought she would be free from our
+persecution.”
+
+“There's some things worse than persecution,” Hephzy declared; “and,
+so far as that goes, there are different kinds of persecution. But what
+makes those Crippses willin' to take her in and look after her is what
+_I_ can't understand. They MAY be generous and forgivin' and kind, but,
+if they are, then I miss my guess. The whole business is awful queer.
+Tell me all about your talk with Doctor Bayliss, Hosy. What did he say?
+And how did he look when he said it?”
+
+I told her, repeating our conversation word for word, as near as I could
+remember it. She listened intently and when I had finished there was an
+odd expression on her face.
+
+“Humph!” she exclaimed. “He seemed surprised to think you weren't goin'
+to Leatherhead, you say?”
+
+“Yes. At least I thought he was surprised. He knew I had chased her from
+Mayberry to Paris and was there at the hotel trying to learn from him
+where she was. And he knows you are her aunt. I suppose he thought it
+strange that we were not going to follow her any further.”
+
+“Maybe so... maybe so. But why did he call you a--what was it?--a silly
+donkey?”
+
+“Because I am one, I imagine,” I answered, bitterly. “It's my natural
+state. I was born one.”
+
+“Humph! Well, 'twould take more than that boy's word to make me believe
+it. No there's something!--I wish I could see that young fellow myself.
+He's at the Continental Hotel, you say?”
+
+“Yes; but he leaves to-morrow. There, Hephzy, that's enough. Don't talk
+about it. Change the subject. I am ready to go back to England--yes,
+or America either, whenever you say the word. The sooner the better for
+me.”
+
+Hephzy obediently changed the subject and we decided to leave Paris the
+following afternoon. We would go back to the rectory, of course, and
+leave there for home as soon as the necessary arrangements could be
+made. Hephzy agreed to everything, she offered no objections, in fact
+it seemed to me that she was paying very little attention. Her lack of
+interest--yes, and apparent lack of sympathy, for I knew she must know
+what my decision meant to me--hurt and irritated me.
+
+I rose.
+
+“Good night,” I said, curtly. “I'm going to bed.”
+
+“That's right, Hosy. You ought to go. You'll be sick again if you sit up
+any longer. Good night, dearie.”
+
+“And you?” I asked. “What are you going to do?”
+
+“I'm going to set up a spell longer. I want to think.”
+
+“I don't. I wish I might never think again. Or dream, either. I am awake
+at last. God knows I wish I wasn't!”
+
+She moved toward me. There was the same odd expression on her face and a
+queer, excited look in her eyes.
+
+“Perhaps you aren't really awake, Hosy,” she said, gently. “Perhaps this
+is the final dream and when you do wake you'll find--”
+
+“Oh, bosh!” I interrupted. “Don't tell me you have another presentiment.
+If you have keep it to yourself. Good night.”
+
+I was weak from my recent illness and I had been under a great nervous
+strain all that evening. These are my only excuses and they are poor
+ones. I spoke and acted abominably and I was sorry for it afterward. I
+have told Hephzy so a good many times since, but I think she understood
+without my telling her.
+
+“Well,” she said, quietly, “dreams are somethin', after all. It's
+somethin' to have had dreams. I sha'n't forget mine. Good night, Hosy.”
+
+The next morning after breakfast she announced that she had an errand
+or two to do. She would run out and do them, she said, but she would be
+gone only a little while. She was gone nearly two hours during which I
+paced the floor or sat by the window looking out. The crowded boulevard
+was below me, but I did not see it. All I saw was a future as desolate
+and blank as the Bayport flats at low tide, and I, a quahaug on those
+flats, doomed to live, or exist, forever and ever and ever, with nothing
+to live for.
+
+Hephzy, when she did return to the hotel, was surprisingly chatty and
+good-humored. She talked, talked, talked all the time, about nothing in
+particular, laughed a good deal, and flew about, packing our belongings
+and humming to herself. She acted more like the Hephzy of old than she
+had for weeks. There was an air of suppressed excitement about her which
+I could not understand. I attributed it to the fact of our leaving for
+America in the near future and her good humor irritated me. My spirits
+were lower than ever.
+
+“You seem to be remarkably happy,” I observed, fretfully.
+
+“What makes you think so, Hosy? Because I was singin'? Father used
+to say my singin' was the most doleful noise he ever heard, except
+a fog-horn on a lee shore. I'm glad if you think it's a proof of
+happiness: I'm much obliged for the compliment.”
+
+“Well, you are happy, or you are trying to appear so. If you are
+pretending for my benefit, don't. I'M not happy.”
+
+“I know, Hosy; I know. Well, perhaps you--”
+
+She didn't finish the sentence.
+
+“Perhaps what?”
+
+“Oh, nothin', nothin'. How many shirts did you bring with you? is this
+all?”
+
+She sang no more, probably because she saw that the “fog-horn” annoyed
+me, but her manner was just as strange and her nervous energy as
+pronounced. I began to doubt if my surmise, that her excitement and
+exaltation were due to the anticipation of an early return to Bayport,
+was a correct one. I began to thing there must be some other course and
+to speculate concerning it. And I, too, grew a bit excited.
+
+“Hephzy,” I said, suddenly, “where did you go when you went out this
+morning? What sort of 'errands' were those of yours?”
+
+She was folding my ties, her back toward me, and she answered without
+turning.
+
+“Oh, I had some odds and ends of things to do,” she said. “This plaid
+necktie of yours is gettin' pretty shabby, Hosy. I guess you can't
+wear it again. There! I mustn't stop to talk. I've got my own things to
+pack.”
+
+She hurried to her own room and I asked no more questions just then.
+But I was more suspicious than ever. I remembered a question of hers
+the previous evening and I believed.... But, if she had gone to the
+Continental and seen Herbert Bayliss, what could he have told her to
+make her happy?
+
+We took the train for Calais and crossed the Channel to Dover. This time
+the eccentric strip of water was as calm as a pond at sunset. No jumpy,
+white-capped billows, no flying spray, no seasick passengers. Tarpaulins
+were a drag on the market.
+
+“I wouldn't believe,” declared Hephzy, “that this lookin'-glass was
+the same as that churned-up tub of suds we slopped through before. It
+doesn't trickle down one's neck now, does it, Hosy. A 'nahsty' cross-in'
+comin' and a smooth one comin' back. I wonder if that's a sign.”
+
+“Oh, don't talk about signs, Hephzy,” I pleaded, wearily. “You'll begin
+to dream again, I suppose, pretty soon.”
+
+“No, I won't. I think you and I have stopped dreamin', Hosy. Maybe we're
+just wakin' up, same as I told you.”
+
+“What do you mean by that?”
+
+“Mean? Oh, I guess I didn't mean anything. Good-by, old France! You're a
+lovely country and a lively one, but I sha'n't cry at sayin' good-by to
+you this time. And there's England dead ahead. Won't it seem good to
+be where they talk instead of jabber! I sha'n't have to navigate by the
+'one-two-three' chart over there.”
+
+Dover, a flying trip through the customs, the train again, an English
+dinner in an English restaurant car--not a “wagon bed,” as Hephzy said,
+exultantly--and then London.
+
+We took a cab to the hotel, not Bancroft's this time, but a modern
+downtown hostelry where there were at least as many Americans as
+English. In our rooms I would have cross-questioned Hephzy, but she
+would not be questioned, declaring that she was tired and sleepy. I was
+tired, also, but not sleepy. I was almost as excited as she seemed to
+be by this time. I was sure she had learned something that morning in
+Paris, something which pleased her greatly. What that something might
+be I could not imagine; but I believed she had learned it from Herbert
+Bayliss.
+
+And the next morning, after breakfast, she announced that she had
+arranged for a cab and we must start for the station at once. I said
+nothing then, but when the cab pulled up before a railway station, a
+station which was not our accustomed one but another, I said a great
+deal.
+
+“What in the world, Hephzy!” I exclaimed. “We can't go to Mayberry from
+here.”
+
+“Hush, hush, Hosy. Wait a minute--wait till I've paid the driver. Yes,
+I'm doin' it myself. I'm skipper on this cruise. You're an invalid,
+didn't you know it. Invalids have to obey orders.”
+
+The cabman paid, she took my arm and led me into the station.
+
+“And now, Hosy,” she said, “let me tell you. We aren't goin' to
+Mayberry--not yet. We're going to Leatherhead.”
+
+“To Leatherhead!” I repeated. “To Leatherhead! To--her? We certainly
+will do no such thing.”
+
+“Yes, we will, Hosy,” quietly. “I haven't said anything about it before,
+but I've made up my mind. It's our duty to see her just once more, once
+more before--before we say good-by for good. It's our duty.”
+
+“Duty! Our duty is to let her alone, to leave her in peace, as she asked
+us.”
+
+“How do you know she is in peace? Suppose she isn't. Suppose she's
+miserable and unhappy. Isn't it our duty to find out? I think it is?”
+
+I looked her full in the face. “Hephzy,” I said, sharply, “you know
+something about her, something that I don't know. What is it?”
+
+“I don't know as I know anything, Hosy. I can't say that I do. But--”
+
+“You saw Herbert Bayliss yesterday. That was the 'errand' you went upon
+yesterday morning in Paris. Wasn't it?”
+
+She was very much taken aback. She has told me since that she had no
+idea I suspected the truth.
+
+“Wasn't it?” I repeated.
+
+“Why--why, yes, it was, Hosy. I did go to see him, there at his hotel.
+When you told me how he acted and what he said to you I thought 'twas
+awfully funny, and the more I thought it over the funnier it seemed. So
+I made up my mind to see him and talk with him myself. And I did.”
+
+“What did he tell you?” I asked.
+
+“He told me--he told me--Well, he didn't tell me so much, maybe, but he
+gave me to understand a whole lot. She's gone to those Crippses, Hosy,
+just as I suspicioned, not because she likes 'em--she hates 'em--or
+because she wanted to go, but because she thought 'twould please us if
+she did. It doesn't please us; it doesn't please me, anyway. She sha'n't
+be miserable for our sake, not without a word from us. No, we must go
+there and see her and--and tell her once more just how we feel about it.
+It's our duty to go and we must. And,” with decision, “we're goin' now.”
+
+She had poured out this explanation breathlessly, hurrying as if fearful
+that I might interrupt and ask more questions. I asked one of them the
+moment she paused.
+
+“We knew all that before,” I said. “That is, we were practically sure
+she had left Paris to get rid of us and had gone to her cousins, the
+Crippses, because of her half-promise to me not to sing at places like
+the Abbey again. We knew all that. And she asked me to promise that we
+would not follow her. I didn't promise, but that makes no difference.
+Was that all Bayliss told you?”
+
+Hephzy was still embarrassed and confused, though she answered promptly
+enough.
+
+“He told me he knew she didn't want to go to--to those Leatherheaded
+folks,” she declared. “We guessed she didn't, but we didn't know it for
+sure. And he said we ought to go to her. He said that.”
+
+“But why did he say it? Our going will not alter her determination to
+stay and our seeing her again will only make it harder for her.”
+
+“No, it won't--no it won't,” hastily. “Besides I want to see that Cripps
+man and have a talk with him, myself. I want to know why a man like
+him--I'm pretty well along in years; I've met folks and bargained and
+dealt with 'em all my grown-up life and I KNOW he isn't the kind to do
+things for nothin' for ANYBODY--I want to know why he and his wife are
+so generous to her. There's somethin' behind it.”
+
+“There's something behind you, Hephzy. Some other reason that you
+haven't told me. Was that all Bayliss said?”
+
+She hesitated. “Yes,” she said, after a moment, “that's all, all I can
+tell you now, anyway. But I want you to go with me to that Ash Dump and
+see her once more.”
+
+“I shall not, Hephzy.”
+
+“Well, then I'll have to go by myself. And if you don't go, too, I
+think you'll be awfully sorry. I think you will. Oh, Hosy,” pleadingly,
+“please go with me. I don't ask you to do many things, now do I? I do
+ask you to do this.”
+
+I shook my head.
+
+“I would do almost anything for your sake, Hephzy,” I began.
+
+“But this isn't for my sake. It's for hers. For hers. I'm sure--I'm
+ALMOST sure you and she will both be glad you did it.”
+
+I could not understand it at all. I had never seen her more earnest. She
+was not the one to ask unreasonable things and yet where her sister's
+child was concerned she could be obstinate enough--I knew that.
+
+“I shall go whether you do or not,” she said, as I stood looking at her.
+
+“You mean that, Hephzy?”
+
+“I surely do. I'm goin' to see her this very forenoon. And I do hope
+you'll go with me.”
+
+I reflected. If she went alone it would be almost as hard for Frances
+as if I went with her. And the temptation was very strong. The desire to
+see her once more, only once....
+
+“I'll go, Hephzy,” I said. I didn't mean to say it; the words seemed to
+come of themselves.
+
+“You will! Oh, I'm so glad! I'm so glad! And I think--I think you'll be
+glad, too, Hosy. I'm hopin' you will.”
+
+“I'll go,” I said. “But this is the last time you and I must trouble
+her. I'll go--not because of any reason you have given me, Hephzy, but
+because I believe there must be some other and stronger reason, which
+you haven't told me.”
+
+Hephzy drew a long breath. She seemed to be struggling between a desire
+to tell me more--whatever that more might be--and a determination not to
+tell.
+
+“Maybe there is, Hosy,” she said, slowly. “Maybe there is. I--I--Well,
+there! I must go and buy the tickets. You sit down and wait. I'm skipper
+of this craft to-day, you know. I'm in command on this voyage.”
+
+Leatherhead looked exactly as it had on our previous visit. “Ash Clump,”
+ the villa which the Crippses had been so anxious for us to hire, was
+still untenanted, or looked to be. We walked on until we reached the
+Cripps home and entered the Cripps gate. I rang the bell and the maid
+answered the ring.
+
+In answer to our inquiries she told us that Mr. Cripps was not in. He
+and Mrs. Cripps had gone to chapel. I remembered then that the day was
+Sunday. I had actually forgotten it.
+
+“Is Miss Morley in?” asked Hephzy.
+
+The maid shook her head.
+
+“No, ma'am,” she said. “Miss Morley ain't in, either. I think she's gone
+to chapel, too. I ain't sure, ma'am, but I think she 'as. She's not in.”
+
+She asked if we would leave cards. Hephzy said no.
+
+“It's 'most noon,” she said. “They'll be back pretty soon. We'll wait.
+No, we won't come in. We'll wait out here, I guess.”
+
+There was a rustic seat on the lawn near the house and Hephzy seated
+herself upon it. I walked up and down. I was in a state of what Hephzy
+would have called “nerves.” I had determined to be very calm when I
+met her, to show no emotion, to be very calm and cool, no matter what
+happened. But this waiting was hard. I grew more nervous every minute.
+
+“I'm going to stroll about, Hephzy,” I said. “About the garden and
+grounds. I sha'n't go far and I'll return soon. I shall be within call.
+Send one of the servants for me if she--if the Crippses come before I
+get back.”
+
+Hephzy did not urge me to remain. Nor did she offer to accompany me. As
+usual she seemed to read my thoughts and understand them.
+
+“All right, Hosy,” she said. “You go and have your walk. I'll wait here.
+But don't be long, will you.”
+
+I promised not to be long. The Cripps gardens and grounds were not
+extensive, but they were well kept even if the beds were geometrically
+ugly and the color masses jarring and in bad taste. The birds sang, the
+breeze stirred the leaves and petals, and there was a Sunday quiet, the
+restful hush of an English Sunday, everywhere.
+
+I strolled on along the paths, through the gap in the hedge dividing
+the kitchen garden from the purely ornamental section, past the stables,
+until I emerged from the shrubbery at the top of a little hill. There
+was a pleasant view from this hill, the customary view of hedged fields
+and meadows, flocks of sheep and groups of grazing cattle, and over all
+the soft blue haze and misty sky.
+
+I paused. And then close beside me, I heard a startled exclamation.
+
+I turned. In a nook of the shrubbery was another rustic seat. Rising
+from that seat and gazing at me with a look of amazed incredulity,
+was--Frances Morley.
+
+I did not speak. I could not, for the moment. She spoke first.
+
+“You!” she exclaimed. “You--here!”
+
+And still I did not speak. Where was the calm with which I was to meet
+her? Where were the carefully planned sentences which were to explain
+how I had come and why? I don't know where they were; I seemed to
+know only that she was there, that I was alone with her as I had never
+thought or meant to be again, and that if I spoke I should say things
+far different from those I had intended.
+
+She was recovering from her surprise. She came toward me.
+
+“What are you doing here?” she asked. “Why did you come?”
+
+I stammered a word or two, some incoherences to the effect that I had
+not expected to find her there, that I had been told she was at church.
+She shook her head, impatiently.
+
+“I mean why did you come here--to Leatherhead?” she asked. “Why did you
+come? Did you know--”
+
+I interrupted her. If ever I was to explain, or attempt to explain, I
+realized that it must be at that moment. She might listen to me then,
+before she had had time to think. Later I knew she would not.
+
+“I knew you were here,” I broke in, quickly. “I--we--your aunt knew and
+we came.”
+
+“But HOW did you know? Who told you?”
+
+“The--we learned,” I answered. “And we came.”
+
+It was a poor explanation--or none at all. She seemed to think it so.
+And yet she seemed more hurt than offended.
+
+“You came--yes,” she said. “And you knew that I left Paris because--Oh,
+you knew that! I asked you not to follow me. You promised you would
+not.”
+
+I was ashamed, thoroughly ashamed and disgusted with myself for yielding
+to Hephzy's entreaties.
+
+“No, no,” I protested, “I did not promise. I did not promise, Frances.”
+
+“But you know I did not wish you to do it. I did not wish you to follow
+me to Paris, but you did it. I told you you would force me to give up my
+only means of earning money. You did force me to give it up. I gave it
+up to please you, for your sake, and now--”
+
+“Did you?” I cried, eagerly. “Did you give it up for my sake, Frances?
+Did you?”
+
+“You know I did. You must know it. And now that I have done it, now that
+I have given up my opportunity and my--my self-respect and my one chance
+and come here to this--to this place, you--you--Oh, how could you!
+Wasn't I unhappy enough before? And unhappy enough now? Oh, how could
+you!”
+
+I was more ashamed than ever. I tried desperately to justify my action.
+
+“But that was it,” I persisted. “Don't you see? It was your happiness,
+the thought that you were unhappy which brought me here. I know--you
+told your aunt how unhappy you had been when you were with these people
+before. I know how much you disliked them. That was why I came. To ask
+you to give this up as you did the other. To come with us and BE happy.
+I want you to come, Frances. Think! Think how much I must want you.”
+
+And, for the moment I thought this appeal had some effect. It seemed to
+me that her resolution was shaken, that she was wavering.
+
+“You--you really want me?” she repeated.
+
+“Yes. Yes, I can't tell you--I must not tell you how much I want you.
+And your aunt--she wants you to come. She is here, too. She will tell
+you.”
+
+Her manner changed once more. The tone in which she spoke was different.
+There were no signs of the wavering which I had noticed--or hoped I
+noticed.
+
+“No,” she said. “No. I shall not see my aunt. And I must not talk with
+you any longer. I asked you not to follow me here. You did it, in spite
+of my asking. Now, unless you wish to drive me away from here, as you
+did from Paris, you will leave me and not try to see me again. Oh, don't
+you see--CAN'T you see how miserable you are making me? And yet you
+talk of my happiness!”
+
+“But you aren't happy here. ARE you happy?”
+
+“I am happy enough. Yes, I am happy.”
+
+“I don't believe it. Are these Crippses kind to you?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+I didn't believe that, either, but I did not say so. Instead I said what
+I had determined to say, the same thing that I should have said before,
+in Mayberry and in Paris--if I could have mustered the courage and
+decency to say it.
+
+“Frances,” I said, “there is something else, something which may have
+a bearing on your happiness, or may not, I don't know. The night before
+you left us, at Mayberry, Herbert Bayliss came to me and asked my
+permission to marry you, if you were willing. He thought you were my
+niece--then. I said that--I said that, although of course I had no
+shadow of authority over you, I did care for your happiness. I cared for
+that a great deal. If you loved him I should certainly--”
+
+“I see,” she broke in, scornfully. “I see. He told you I was here. That
+is why you came. Did he send you to me to say--what you are trying to
+say?”
+
+“Oh, no, no! You are mistaken. You wrong him, Frances. He did not do
+that. He's not that sort. He's a good fellow, an honorable man. And he
+does care for you. I know it. He cares greatly. He would, I am sure,
+make you a good husband, and if you care for him, he would do his best
+to make you happy, I--”
+
+Again she interrupted. “One moment,” she said, “Let me understand. Are
+you urging me to marry Herbert Bayliss?”
+
+“No. I am not urging you, of course. But if you do care for him--”
+
+“I do not.”
+
+“Oh, you don't love him?”
+
+I wonder if there was relief in my tone. There should not have been, of
+course, but I fear there was.
+
+“No, I do not--love him. He is a gentleman and I like him well enough,
+but not in that way. Please don't say any more.”
+
+“Very well. I only meant--Tell me this, if you will: Is there someone
+you do care for?”
+
+She did not answer. I had offended her again. She had cause to be
+offended. What business was it of mine?
+
+“I beg your pardon,” I said, humbly. “I should not have asked that. I
+have no right to ask it. But if there is someone for whom you care in
+that way and he cares for you, it--”
+
+“Oh, don't, don't! He doesn't.”
+
+“Then there is someone?”
+
+She was silent. I tried to speak like a man, like the man I was
+pretending to be.
+
+“I am glad to know it,” I said. “If you care for him he must care for
+you. He cannot help it. I am sure you will be happy by and by. I can
+leave you here now with more--with less reluctance. I--”
+
+I could not trust myself to go on, although I tried to do so. She
+answered, without looking at me.
+
+“Yes,” she said, “you can leave me now. I am safe and--and happy.
+Good-by.”
+
+I took her hand.
+
+“Good-by,” I said. “Forgive me for coming. I shall not trouble you
+again. This time I promise. You may not wish to write us, but we shall
+write you. And I--I hope you won't forget us.”
+
+It was a lame conclusion and trite enough. She must have thought so.
+
+“I shall not forget you,” she said, simply. “And I will try to write
+occasionally. Yes, I will try. Now please go. Good-by.”
+
+I went, without looking back. I strode along the paths, scarcely
+noticing where I was going. As I neared the corner of the house I heard
+voices, loud voices. One of them, though it was not as loud as the
+others, was Hephzy's.
+
+“I knew it,” she was saying, as I turned the corner. “I knew it. I knew
+there was some reason, some mean selfish reason why you were willin' to
+take that girl under your wing. I knew it wasn't kind-heartedness and
+relationship. I knew it.”
+
+It was Solomon Cripps who answered. Mr. and Mrs. Cripps, arrayed in
+their Sabbath black and white, were standing by the door of their villa.
+Hephzy was standing before them. Her face was set and determined and she
+looked highly indignant. Mr. Cripps' face was red and frowning and he
+gesticulated with a red hand, which clasped a Testament. His English was
+by no means as pure and undefiled as when he had endeavored to persuade
+us into hiring “Ash Clump.”
+
+“Look 'ere,” he snarled. “Don't you talk to me like that. Don't you
+suppose I know what I'm doing. You Yankees may be clever at your tricks,
+but you can't trick me. Don't I know about the money you stole from 'er
+father? Don't I, eh? You can tell 'er your lies about it being stolen by
+someone else, but I can see a 'ole through a millstone. You can't trick
+me, I tell you. They're giving that girl a good 'ome and care and all
+that, but we're goin' to see she 'as 'er rights. You've filled 'er silly
+'ead with your stories. You've made 'er think you're all that's good
+and--”
+
+I was at hand by this time.
+
+“What's all this, Hephzy?” I asked.
+
+Before Hephzy could reply Mrs. Cripps spoke.
+
+“It's him!” she cried, seizing her husband's arm with one hand and
+pointing at me with the other. “It's him,” she cried, venomously. “He's
+here, too.”
+
+The sight of me appeared to upset what little self-control Mr. Cripps
+had left.
+
+“You!” he shouted, “I might 'ave known you were 'ere. You're the one
+that's done it. You're responsible. Filling her silly 'ead with lies
+about your goodness and all that. Making her fall in love with you
+and--”
+
+I sprang forward.
+
+“WHAT?” I cried. “What are you saying?”
+
+Hephzy was frightened.
+
+“Hosy,” she cried, “don't look so. Don't! You frighten me.”
+
+I scarcely heard her.
+
+“WHAT did you say?” I demanded, addressing Cripps, who shrank back,
+rather alarmed apparently. “Why, you scoundrel! What do you mean by
+saying that? Speak up! What do you mean by it?”
+
+If Mr. Cripps was alarmed his wife was not. She stepped forward and
+faced me defiantly.
+
+“He means just what he says,” she declared, her shrill voice quivering
+with vindictive spite. “And you know what he means perfectly well. You
+ought to be ashamed of yourself, a man as old as you and she an innocent
+young girl! You've hypnotized her--that is what you've done, hypnotized
+her. All those ridiculous stories about her having no money she believes
+because you told them to her. She would believe the moon was made of
+green cheese if you said so. She's mad about you--the poor little fool!
+She won't hear a word against you--says you're the best, noblest man in
+the world! You! Why she won't even deny that she's in love with you; she
+was brazen enough to tell me she was proud of it. Oh.... Stop! Where are
+you going? Solomon, stop him!”
+
+Solomon did not stop me. I am very glad he didn't try. No one could have
+stopped me then. I was on my way back along the garden path, and if I
+did not keep to that path, but plunged ruthlessly through flower beds
+and shrubbery I did not care, nor do I care now.
+
+She was sitting on the rustic seat where I had left her. There were
+tears on her cheeks. She had heard me coming--a deaf person would have
+heard that--and she rose as I burst into view.
+
+“What is it?” she cried, in alarm. “Oh, what is it?”
+
+At the sight of her I paused. I had not meant to pause; I had intended
+to take her in my arms, to ask her if what I had just heard was true, to
+make her answer me. But now, as she stood there before me, so young, so
+girlish, so beautiful, the hopeless idiocy of the thing struck me with
+overwhelming force. It WAS idiocy. It couldn't be true.
+
+“What is it?” she repeated. “Oh, Kent! what is the matter? Why did you
+come back? What has happened?”
+
+I stepped forward. True or false I must know. I must know then and
+there. It was now or never for me.
+
+“Frances,” I stammered, “I came back because--I--I have just
+heard--Frances, you told me you loved someone--not Bayliss, but someone
+else. Who is that someone?”
+
+She had been pale. My sudden and unexpected appearance had frightened
+her. Now as we faced each other, as I stood looking down into her face,
+I saw the color rise and spread over that face from throat to brow.
+
+“Who is it?” I repeated.
+
+She drew back.
+
+“I--I can't tell you,” she faltered. “You mustn't ask me.”
+
+“But I do ask. You must tell me, Frances--Frances, it isn't--it can't be
+that you love ME. Do you?”
+
+She drew back still further. If there had been a way of escape I think
+she would have taken it. But there was none. The thick shrubbery was
+behind her and I was between her and the path. And I would not let her
+pass.
+
+“Oh, Frances, do you?” I repeated. “I never meant to ask you. I never
+meant that you should know. I am so much older, and so--so unworthy--it
+has seemed so hopeless and ridiculous. But I love you, Frances, I have
+loved you from the very beginning, although at first I didn't realize
+it. I--If you do--if you can--I--I--”
+
+I faltered, hesitated, and stopped. She did not answer for a moment, a
+long, long moment. Then:
+
+“Mr. Knowles,” she said, “you surprise me. I didn't suspect--I didn't
+think--”
+
+I sighed. I had had my answer. Of course it was idiotic. I should have
+known; I did know.
+
+“I see,” I said. “I understand. Forgive me, please. I was a fool to even
+think of such a thing. I didn't think it. I didn't dare until--until
+just now. Then I was told--your cousin said--I might have known he
+didn't mean what he said. But he said it and--and--”
+
+“What did he say? Mr. Cripps, do you mean? What did he say?”
+
+“He said--he said you--you cared for me--in that way. Of course you
+don't--you can't. I know better. But for the moment I dared to hope. I
+was crazy, of course. Forgive me, Frances.”
+
+She looked up and then down again.
+
+“There is nothing to forgive,” she said.
+
+“Yes, there is. There is a great deal. An old--”
+
+“Hush! hush, please. Don't speak like that. I--I thank you. I--you
+mustn't suppose I am not grateful. I know you pity me. I know how
+generous you are. But your pity--”
+
+“It isn't pity. I should pity myself, if that were all. I love you
+Frances, and I shall always love you. I am not ashamed of it. I shall
+have that love to comfort me till I die. I am ashamed of having told
+you, of troubling you again, that is all.”
+
+I was turning away, but I heard her step beside me and felt her hand
+upon my sleeve. I turned back again. She was looking me full in the face
+now and her eyes were shining.
+
+“What Mr. Cripps said was true,” she said.
+
+I could not believe it. I did not believe it even then.
+
+“True!” I repeated. “No, no! You don't mean--”
+
+“I do mean it. I told him that I loved you.”
+
+I don't know what more she would have said. I did not wait to hear. She
+was in my arms at last and all England was whirling about me like a top.
+
+“But you can't!” I found myself saying over and over. I must have
+said other things before, but I don't remember them. “You can't! it is
+impossible. You! marry an old fossil like me! Oh, Frances, are you sure?
+Are you sure?”
+
+“Yes, Kent,” softly, “I am sure.”
+
+“But you can't love me. You are sure that your--You have no reason to be
+grateful to me, but you have said you were, you know. You are sure you
+are not doing this because--”
+
+“I am sure. It is not because I am grateful.”
+
+“But, my dear--think! Think what it means, I am--”
+
+“I know what you are,” tenderly. “No one knows as well. But, Kent--Kent,
+are YOU sure? It isn't pity for me?”
+
+I think I convinced her that it was not pity. I know I tried. And I was
+still trying when the sound of steps and voices on the other side of
+the shrubbery caused us--or caused her; I doubt if I should have heard
+anything except her voice just then--to start and exclaim:
+
+“Someone is coming! Don't, dear, don't! Someone is coming.”
+
+It was the Crippses who were coming, of course. Mr. and Mrs. Cripps and
+Hephzy. They would have come sooner, I learned afterwards, but Hephzy
+had prevented it.
+
+Solomon's red face was redder still when he saw us together. And Mrs.
+Cripps' mouth looked more like “a crack in a plate” than ever.
+
+“So!” she exclaimed. “Here's where you are! I thought as much. And
+you--you brazen creature!”
+
+I objected strongly to “brazen creature” as a term applied to my future
+wife. I intended saying so, but Mr. Cripps got ahead of me.
+
+“You get off my grounds,” he blurted, waving his fist. “You get out of
+'ere now or I'll 'ave you put off. Do you 'ear?”
+
+I should have answered him as he deserved to be answered, but Frances
+would not let me.
+
+“Don't, Kent,” she whispered. “Don't quarrel with him, please. He is
+going, Mr. Cripps. We are going--now.”
+
+Mrs. Cripps fairly shrieked. “WE are going?” she repeated. “Do you mean
+you are going with him?”
+
+Hephzy joined in, but in a quite different tone.
+
+“You are goin'?” she said, joyfully. “Oh, Frances, are you comin' with
+us?”
+
+It was my turn now and I rejoiced in the prospect. An entire brigade of
+Crippses would not have daunted me then. I should have enjoyed defying
+them all.
+
+“Yes,” said I, “she is coming with us, Hephzy. Mr. Cripps, will you be
+good enough to stand out of the way? Come, Frances.”
+
+It is not worth while repeating what Mr. and Mrs. Cripps said. They said
+a good deal, threatened all sorts of things, lawsuits among the rest.
+Hephzy fired the last guns for our side.
+
+“Yes, yes,” she retorted, impatiently. “I know you're goin' to sue. Go
+ahead and sue and prosecute yourselves to death, if you want to. The
+lawyers'll get their fees out of you, and that's some comfort--though
+I shouldn't wonder if THEY had to sue to get even that. And I tell you
+this: If you don't send Little Frank's--Miss Morley's trunks to Mayberry
+inside of two days we'll come and get 'em and we'll come with the
+sheriff and the police.”
+
+Mrs. Cripps, standing by the gate, fell back upon her last line of
+intrenchments, the line of piety.
+
+“And to think,” she declared, with upturned eyes, “that this is the 'oly
+Sabbath! Never mind, Solomon. The Lord will punish 'em. I shall pray to
+Him not to curse them too hard.”
+
+Hephzy's retort was to the point.
+
+“I wouldn't,” she said. “If I had been doin' what you two have been up
+to, pretendin' to care for a young girl and offerin' to give her a home,
+and all the time doin' it just because I thought I could squeeze money
+out of her, I shouldn't trouble the Lord much. I wouldn't take the risk
+of callin' His attention to me.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+In Which the Pilgrimage Ends Where It Began
+
+
+We did not go to Mayberry that day. We went to London and to the hotel;
+not Bancroft's, but the hotel where Hephzy and I had stayed the previous
+night. It was Frances' wish that we should not go to Bancroft's.
+
+“I don't think that I could go there, Kent,” she whispered to me, on the
+train. “Mr. and Mrs Jameson were very kind, and I liked them so much,
+but--but they would ask questions; they wouldn't understand. It would be
+hard to make them understand. Don't you see, Kent?”
+
+I saw perfectly. Considering that the Jamesons believed Miss Morley to
+be my niece, it would indeed be hard to make them understand. I was not
+inclined to try. I had had quite enough of the uncle and niece business.
+
+So we went to the other hotel and if the clerk was surprised to see us
+again so soon he said nothing about it. Perhaps he was not surprised. It
+must take a good deal to surprise a hotel clerk.
+
+On the train, in our compartment--a first-class compartment, you may be
+sure; I would have hired the whole train if it had been necessary; there
+was nothing too good or too expensive for us that afternoon--on the
+train, discussing the ride to London, Hephzy did most of the talking.
+I was too happy to talk much and Frances, sitting in her corner and
+pretending to look out of the window, was silent also. I should have
+been fearful that she was not happy, that she was already repenting her
+rashness in promising to marry the Bayport “quahaug,” but occasionally
+she looked at me, and, whenever she did, the wireless message our eyes
+exchanged, sent that quahaug aloft on a flight through paradise. A
+flying clam is an unusual specimen, I admit, but no other quahaug in
+this wide, wide world had an excuse like mine for developing wings.
+
+Hephzy did not appear to notice our silence. She chatted and laughed
+continuously. We had not told her our secret--the great secret--and if
+she suspected it she kept her suspicions to herself. Her chatter was a
+curious mixture: triumph over the detached Crippses; joy because, after
+all, “Little Frank” had consented to come with us, to live with us
+again; and triumph over me because her dreams and presentiments had come
+true.
+
+“I told you, Hosy,” she kept saying. “I told you! I said it would all
+come out in the end. He wouldn't believe it, Frances. He said I was an
+old lunatic and--”
+
+“I didn't say anything of the kind,” I broke in.
+
+“You said what amounted to that and I don't know as I blame you. But
+I knew--I just KNEW he and I had been 'sent' on this course and that
+we--all three of us--would make the right port in the end. And we
+have--we have, haven't we, Frances?”
+
+“Yes,” said Frances, simply. “We have, Auntie--”
+
+“There! do you hear that, Hosy? Isn't it good to hear her call
+me 'Auntie' again! Now I'm satisfied; or”--with a momentary
+hesitation--“pretty nearly satisfied, anyway.”
+
+“Oh, then you're not quite satisfied, after all,” I observed. “What more
+do you want?”
+
+“I want just one thing more; just one, that's all.”
+
+I believed I know what that one thing was, but I asked her. She shot a
+look at me, a look of indignant meaning.
+
+“Never mind,” she said, decidedly. “That's my affair. Oh, Ho!” with a
+reminiscent chuckle, “how that Cripps woman did glare at me when I said
+'twas pretty risky her callin' the Almighty's attention to their doin's.
+I hope it did her good. Maybe she'll think of it next time she goes to
+chapel. But I suppose she won't. All such folks care for is money. They
+wouldn't be so anxious to get to Heaven if they hadn't read about the
+golden streets.”
+
+That evening, at the hotel, Frances told us her story, the story
+of which we had guessed a good deal, but of which she had told so
+little--how, after her father's death, she had gone to live with the
+Crippses because, as she thought, they wished her to do so from motives
+of generosity and kindness.
+
+“They are not really relatives of mine,” she said. “I am glad of that.
+Mrs. Cripps married a cousin of my father's; he died and then she
+married Mr. Cripps. After Father's death they wrote me a very kind
+letter, or I thought it kind at the time. They said all sorts of kindly
+things, they offered me a home, they said I should be like their own
+daughter. So, having nowhere else to go, I went to them. I lived there
+nearly two years. Oh, what a life it was! They are very churchly people,
+they call themselves religious, but I don't. They pretend to be--perhaps
+they think they are--good, very good. But they aren't--they aren't. They
+are hard and cruel. Mr. Cripps owns several tenements where poor people
+live. I have heard things from those people that--Oh, I can't tell you!
+I ran away because I had learned what they really were.”
+
+Hephzy nodded. “What I can't understand,” she said, “is why they offered
+you a home in the first place. It was because they thought you had money
+comin' to you, that's plain enough now; but how did they know?”
+
+Frances colored. “I'm afraid--I'm afraid Father must have written them,”
+ she said. “He needed money very much in his later years and he may have
+written them asking--asking for loans and offering my 'inheritance' as
+security. I think now that that was it. But I did not think so then.
+And--and, Oh, Auntie, you mustn't think too harshly of Father. He was
+very good to me, he really was. And DON'T you think he believed--he had
+made himself believe--that there was money of his there in America? I
+can't believe he--he would lie to me.”
+
+“Of course he didn't lie,” said Hephzy, promptly. I could have hugged
+her for saying it. “He was sick and--and sort of out of his head, poor
+man, and I don't doubt he made himself believe all sorts of things. Of
+course he didn't lie--to his own daughter. But why,” she added, quickly,
+before Frances could ask another question, “did you go back to those
+precious Cripps critters after you left Paris?”
+
+Frances looked at me. “I thought it would please you,” she said, simply.
+“I knew you didn't want me to sing in public. Kent had said he would be
+happier if he knew I had given up that life and was among friends. And
+they--they had called themselves my friends. When I went back to them
+they welcomed me. Mr. Cripps called me his 'prodigal daughter,' and
+Mrs. Cripps prayed over me. It wasn't until I told them I had no
+'inheritance,' except one of debt, that they began to show me what they
+really were. They wouldn't believe it. They said you were trying to
+defraud me. It was dreadful. I--I think I should have run away again
+if--if you had not come.”
+
+“Well, we did come,” said Hephzy, cheerfully, “and I thank the good Lord
+for it. Now we won't talk any more about THAT.”
+
+She left us alone soon afterward, going to my room--we were in hers,
+hers and Frances'--to unpack my trunk once more. She wouldn't hear of my
+unpacking it. When she was gone Frances turned to me.
+
+“You--you haven't told her,” she faltered.
+
+“No,” said I, “not yet. I wanted to speak with you first. I can't
+believe it is true. Or, if it is, that it is right. Oh, my dear, do you
+realize what you are doing? I am--I am ever so much older than you. I am
+not worthy of you. You could have made a so much better marriage.”
+
+She looked at me. She was smiling, but there was a tiny wrinkle between
+her brows.
+
+“Meaning,” she said, “I suppose, that I might have married Doctor
+Bayliss. I might perhaps marry him even yet, if I wished. I--I think he
+would have me, if I threw myself at his head.”
+
+“Yes,” I admitted, grudgingly. “Yes, he loves you, Frances.”
+
+“Kent, when we were there in Mayberry it seemed to me that my aunt and
+you were almost anxious that I should marry him. It seemed to me that
+you took every opportunity to throw me in his way; you refused my
+invitations for golf and tennis and suggested that I play with him
+instead. It used to annoy me. I resented it. I thought you were eager to
+get rid of me. I did not know then the truth about Father and--and the
+money. And I thought you hoped I might marry him and--and not trouble
+you any more. But I think I understand now. You--you did not care for me
+so much then. Was that it?”
+
+I shook my head. “Care for you!” I repeated. “I cared for you so much
+that I did not dare trust myself with you. I did not dare to think of
+you, and yet I could think of no one else. I know now that I fell in
+love with you when I first met you at that horrible Briggs woman's
+lodging-house. Don't you see? That was the very reason why. Don't you
+see?”
+
+“No, I'm afraid I don't quite see. If you cared for me like that how
+could you be willing for me to marry him? That is what puzzles me. I
+don't understand it.”
+
+“It was because I did care for you. It was because I cared so much, I
+wanted you to be happy. I never dreamed that you could care for an old,
+staid, broken-down bookworm like me. It wasn't thinkable. I can scarcely
+think it now. Oh, Frances, are you SURE you are not making a mistake?
+Are you sure it isn't gratitude which makes you--”
+
+She rose from her chair and came to me. Her eyes were wet, but there was
+a light in them like the sunlight behind a summer shower.
+
+“Don't, please don't!” she begged. “And caring for me like that you
+could still come to me as you did this morning and suggest my marrying
+him.”
+
+“Yes, yes, I came because--because I knew he loved you and I
+thought that you might not know it. And if you did know it I
+thought--perhaps--you might be happier and--”
+
+I faltered and stopped. She was standing beside me, looking up into my
+face.
+
+“I did know it,” she said. “He told me, there in Paris. And I told
+him--”
+
+“You told him--?”
+
+“I told him that I liked him; I do, I do; he is a good man. But I told
+him--” she rose on tiptoe and kissed me--“I told him that I loved you,
+dear. See! here is the pin you gave me. It is the one thing I could
+not leave behind when I ran away from Mayberry. I meant to keep that
+always--and I always shall.”
+
+After a time we remembered Hephzy. It would be more truthful to say that
+Frances remembered her. I had forgotten Hephzy altogether, I am ashamed
+to say.
+
+“Kent,” she said; “don't you think we should tell Auntie now? She will
+be pleased, I hope.”
+
+“Pleased! She will be--I can't think of a word to describe it. She loves
+you, too, dear.”
+
+“I know. I hope she will love me more now. She worships you, Kent.”
+
+“I am afraid she does. She doesn't realize what a tinsel god I am. And
+I fear you don't either. I am not a great man. I am not even a famous
+author. I--Are you SURE, Frances?”
+
+She laughed lightly. “Kent,” she whispered, “what was it Doctor Bayliss
+called you when you offered to promise not to follow me to Leatherhead?”
+
+I had told her the whole story of my last interview with Bayliss at the
+Continental.
+
+“He called me a silly ass,” I answered promptly. “I don't care.”
+
+“Neither do I; but don't you think you are one, just a little bit of
+one, in some things? You mustn't ask me if I am sure again. Come! we
+will go to Auntie.”
+
+Hephzy had finished unpacking my trunk and was standing by the closet
+door, shaking the wrinkles out of my dinner coat. She heard us enter and
+turned.
+
+“I never saw clothes in such a mess in my life,” she announced. “And I
+packed this trunk, too. I guess the trembles in my head must have got
+into my fingers when I did it. I--”
+
+She stopped at the beginning of the sentence. I had taken Frances by the
+hand and led her up to where she was standing. Hephzy said nothing, she
+stood there and stared at us, but the coat fell to the floor.
+
+“Hephzy,” said I, “I've come to make an apology. I believe in dreams
+and presentiments and Spiritualism and all the rest of it now. You were
+right. Our pilgrimage has ended just as you declared it would. I know
+now that we were 'sent' upon it. Frances has said--”
+
+Hephzy didn't wait to hear any more. She threw her arms about
+Frances' neck, then about mine, hugged us both, and then, to my utter
+astonishment, sat down upon the closed trunk and burst into tears. When
+we tried to comfort her she waved us away.
+
+“Don't touch me,” she commanded. “Don't say anything to me. Just let me
+be. I've done all kinds of loony things in my life and this attack
+is just natural, that's all. I--I'll get over it in a minute. There!”
+ rising and dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief, “I'm over it now.
+Hosy Knowles, I've cried about a million times since--since that awful
+mornin' in Mayberry. You didn't know it, but I have. I'm through now.
+I'm never goin' to cry any more. I'm goin' to laugh! I'm going to sing!
+I declare if you don't grab me and hold me down I shall dance! Oh, Oh,
+OH! I'm so glad! I'm so glad!”
+
+We sat up until the early morning hours, talking and planning. We were
+to go back to America as soon as we could secure passage; upon that we
+all agreed in the end. I was the only one who hesitated. I had a vague
+feeling of uneasiness, a dread, that Frances might not wish it, that her
+saying she would love to go was merely to please me. I remembered how
+she had hated America and Americans, or professed to hate them, in the
+days of our first acquaintanceship. I thought of quiet, sleepy, humdrum
+old Bayport and the fear that she might be disappointed when she saw it,
+that she might be lonely and unhappy there, was strong. So when Hephzy
+talked of our going straight to the steamship offices next day I
+demurred. I suggested a Continental trip, to Switzerland, to the
+Mediterranean--anywhere. I forgot that my means were limited, that I had
+been idle for longer than I should have been, and that I absolutely must
+work soon. I forgot everything, and talked, as Hephzy said afterward,
+“regardless, like a whole kerosene oil company.”
+
+But, to my surprise, it was Frances herself who was most insistent upon
+our going to America. She wanted to go, she said. Of course she did
+not mean to be selfish, and if Auntie and I really wished to go to the
+Continent or remain in England she would be quite content.
+
+“But, Oh Kent,” she said, “if you are suggesting all this merely because
+you think I will like it, please don't. I have lived in France and I
+have been very unhappy there. I have been happier here in England, but
+I have been unhappy here, too. I have no friends here now. I have no
+friends anywhere except you. I know you both want to see your home
+again--you must. And--and your home will be mine now.”
+
+So we decided to sail for America, and that without delay. And the
+next morning, before breakfast, Hephzy came to my room with another
+suggestion.
+
+“Hosy,” she said, “I've been thinkin'. All our things, or most of 'em,
+are at Mayberry. Somebody's got to go there, of course, to pack up and
+make arrangements for our leavin'. She--Frances, I mean--would go, too,
+if we asked her, I suppose likely; she'd do anything you asked, now. But
+it would be awful hard for her. She'd meet all the people she used to
+know there and they wouldn't understand and 'twould be hard to explain.
+The Baylisses know the real truth, but the rest of 'em don't. You'd have
+all that niece and uncle mess again, and I don't suppose you want any
+more of THAT.”
+
+“I should say I didn't!” I exclaimed, fervently.
+
+“Yes, that's the way it seemed to me. So she hadn't ought to go
+to Mayberry. And we can't leave her here alone in London. She'd be
+lonesome, for one thing, and those everlastin' Crippses might find out
+where she was, for another. It may be that that Solomon and his wife
+will let her go and say nothin', but I doubt it. So long as they think
+she's got a cent comin' to her they'll pester her in every way they can,
+I believe. That woman's nose can smell money as far as a cat can smell
+fish. No, we can't leave Little Frank here alone. Of course, I might
+stay with her and you might go by yourself, but--”
+
+This way out of the difficulty had occurred to me; so when she seemed to
+hesitate, I asked: “But what?”
+
+“But it won't be very pleasant for you in Mayberry. You'd have
+considerable explainin' to do. And, more'n that, Hosy, there's all that
+packin' up to do and I've seen you try to pack a trunk too often before.
+You're just as likely to pack a flat-iron on top of a lookin' glass as
+to do the other thing. No, I'm the one to go to Mayberry. I must go by
+myself and you must stay here in London with her.”
+
+“I can't do that, Hephzy,” I said. “How could I?”
+
+“You couldn't, as things are, of course. But if they were different.
+If she was your wife you could. And then if that Solomon thing came you
+could--”
+
+I interrupted. “My wife!” I repeated. “Hephzy, what are you talking
+about? Do you mean--”
+
+“I mean that you and she might be married right off, to-day perhaps.
+Then everything would be all right.”
+
+I stared at her.
+
+“But--but she wouldn't consent,” I stammered. “It is impossible. She
+wouldn't think of such a thing.”
+
+Hephzy nodded. “Oh, yes, she would,” she said. “She is thinkin' of it
+now. She and I have just had a long talk. She's a sensible girl, Hosy,
+and she listened to reason. If she was sure that you wanted to marry her
+so soon she--”
+
+“Wanted to!” I cried. “Hephzy!”
+
+Hephzy nodded again. “Then that's settled,” she said. “It's a big
+disappointment to me, I give in. I'd set my heart on your bein' married
+at our meetin'-house in Bayport, with Mr. Partridge to do the marryin',
+and a weddin' reception at our house and--and everything. But I guess
+this is the best, and I know it's the most sensible. But, Oh Hosy,
+there's one thing I can't give up. I want you to be married at the
+American Ambassador's or somewhere like it and by an American minister.
+I sha'n't feel safe if it's done anywhere else and by a foreigner, even
+if he's English, which don't seem foreign to me at all any more.
+No, he's got to be an American and--and, Oh, Hosy! DO try to get a
+Methodist.”
+
+I couldn't get a Methodist, but by consulting the hotel register I found
+an American clergyman, a Congregationalist, who was a fine fellow and
+consented to perform the ceremony. And, if we were not married at
+the American Embassy, we were at the rooms of the London consul,
+whom Matthews, at the Camford Street office, knew and who was another
+splendid chap and glad to oblige a fellow-countryman, particularly after
+seeing the lady he was to marry.
+
+The consul and his wife and Hephzy were our only witnesses. Frances'
+wedding gown was not new, but it was very becoming--the consul's wife
+said so, and she should know. Also she said she had never seen a
+sweeter or more beautiful bride. No one said anything concerning the
+bridegroom's appearance, but he did not care. It was a drizzly, foggy
+day, but that made no difference. A Kansas cyclone and a Bayport
+no'theaster combined could not have cast a damper on that day.
+
+When it was over, Hephzy, who had been heroically struggling to keep her
+vow not to shed another tear during our pilgrimage, hugged us both.
+
+“I--I--” she faltered, “I--I can't say it, but you know how I feel.
+There's nothin' I sha'n't believe after this. I used to believe I'd
+never travel, but I have. And there in Mayberry I believed I'd never
+be happy again, but I am. HAPPY! hap--hap--Oh dear! WHAT a fool I am!
+I ca--I can't help it! I expect I look like the most miserable thing on
+earth, but that's because I AM so happy. God bless you both! Now--now
+don't so much as look at me for a few minutes.”
+
+That afternoon she left for Mayberry to do the “packing up” and my wife
+and I were alone--and together.
+
+I saw London again during the next few days. We rode on the tops of
+busses, we visited Kew Gardens and Hampton Court and Windsor. We took
+long trips up and down the Thames on the little steamers. Frances called
+them our honeymoon trips. The time flew by. Then I received a note
+from Hephzy that the “packing up” was finished at last and that she was
+returning to London.
+
+It was raining hard, the morning of her arrival, and I went alone to
+meet her at the railway station. I was early there and, as I was walking
+up, awaiting the train, I heard someone speak my name. I turned
+and there, immaculate, serene and debonair as ever, was A. Carleton
+Heathcroft.
+
+“Ah, Knowles,” he said, cheerfully. “Thought it was you. Haven't seen
+you of late. Missed you at Burgleston, on the course. How are you?”
+
+I told him I was quite well, and inquired concerning his own health.
+
+“Topping,” he replied. “Rotten weather, eh--what? And how's Miss--Oh,
+dear me, always forget the name! The eccentric aunt who is so intensely
+patriotic and American--How is she?”
+
+“She is well, too,” I answered.
+
+“Couldn't think of her being ill, somehow,” he observed. “And where have
+you been, may I ask?”
+
+I said I had been on the Continent for a short stay.
+
+“Oh, yes! I remember now. Someone said you had gone. That reminds me:
+Did you go to Paris? Did you see the girl who sang at the Abbey--the one
+I told you of, who looked so like that pretty niece of yours? Hope you
+did. The resemblance was quite extraordinary. Did you see her?”
+
+I dodged the question. I asked him what he had been doing since the day
+of the golf tournament.
+
+“I--Oh, by Jove!” he exclaimed, “now I am going to surprise you. I have
+been getting ready to take the fatal step. I'm going to be married.”
+
+“Married!” I repeated. “Really? The--the Warwickshire young lady, I
+presume.”
+
+“Yes. How did you know of her?”
+
+“Your aunt--Lady Carey--mentioned that your--your affections were
+somewhat engaged in that quarter.”
+
+“Did she? Really! Yes, she would mention it, I suppose. She mentions it
+to everybody; it's a sort of hobby of hers, like my humble self, and the
+roses. She has been more insistent of late and at last I consented to
+oblige her. Do you know, Knowles, I think she was rather fearful that I
+might be smitten by your Miss Morley. Shared your fears, eh?”
+
+I smiled, but I said nothing. A train which I believed to be the one
+upon which Hephzy was expected, was drawing into the station.
+
+“A remarkably attractive girl, your niece,” he went on. “Have you heard
+from her?”
+
+“Yes,” I said, absently. “I must say good-by, Heathcroft. That is the
+train I have been waiting for.”
+
+“Oh, is it. Then, au revoir, Knowles. By the way, kindly remember me to
+your niece when you see her, will you.”
+
+“I will. But--” I could not resist the temptation; “but she isn't my
+niece,” I said.
+
+“Oh, I say! What? Not your niece? What is she then?”
+
+“She is my wife--now,” I said. “Good-by, Mr. Heathcroft.”
+
+I hurried away before he could do more than gasp. I think I shook even
+his serene composure at last.
+
+I told Hephzy about it as we rode to the hotel in the cab.
+
+“It was silly, I suppose,” I said. “I told him on the spur of the
+moment. I imagine all Mayberry, not to mention Burgleston Bogs, will
+have something to talk about now. They expect almost anything of
+Americans, or some of them do, but the marriage of an uncle and niece
+ought to be a surprise, I should think.”
+
+Hephzy laughed. “The Baylisses will explain,” she said. “I told the old
+doctor and his wife all about it. They were very much pleased, that was
+plain enough. They knew she wasn't your niece and they'll tell the other
+folks. That'll be all right, Hosy. Yes, Doctor and Mrs. Bayliss were
+tickled almost to death. It stops all their worry about their son and
+Frances, of course. He is in Switzerland now, poor chap. They'll write
+him and he'll come home again by and by where he ought to be. And he'll
+forget by and by, too. He's only a boy and he'll forget. So THAT'S all
+right.
+
+“Everybody sent their love to you,” she went on. “The curates and the
+Samsons and everybody. Mr. Cole and his wife are comin' back next week
+and the servants'll take care of the rectory till they come. Everybody
+was so glad to see me, and they're goin' to write and everything. I
+declare! I felt real bad to leave 'em. They're SUCH nice people, these
+English folks. Aren't they, Hosy.”
+
+They were and are. I hope that some day I may have, in my own country,
+the opportunity to repay a little of the hospitality and kindness that
+my Mayberry friends bestowed on me in theirs.
+
+We sailed for home two days later. A pleasant voyage it was, on a good
+ship and with agreeable fellow-passengers. And, at last, one bright,
+cloudless morning, a stiff breeze blowing and the green and white
+waves leaping and tossing in the sunlight, we saw ahead of us a little
+speck--the South Shoal lightship. Everyone crowded to the rail, of
+course. Hephzy sighed, a sigh of pure happiness.
+
+“Nantucket!” she said, reading the big letters on the side of the little
+vessel. “Nantucket! Don't that sound like home, Hosy! Nantucket and
+Cape Cod are next-door neighbors, as you might say! My! the air seems
+different already. I believe I can almost smell the Bayport flats. Do
+you know what I am goin' to do as soon as I get into my kitchen? After
+I've seen some of my neighbors and the cat and the hens, of course. I'm
+going to make a clam chowder. I've been just dyin' for a clam chowder
+ever since we left England.”
+
+And the next morning we landed at New York. Jim Campbell was at the
+wharf to meet us. His handshake was a welcome home which was good to
+feel. He welcomed Hephzy just as heartily. But I saw him looking
+at Frances with curiosity and I flattered myself, admiration, and I
+chuckled as I thought of the surprise which I was about to give him.
+It would be a surprise, sure enough. I had written him nothing of the
+recent wonderful happenings in Paris and in London, and I had sworn
+Matthews to secrecy likewise. No, he did not know, he did not suspect,
+and I gloried in the opportunity which was mine.
+
+“Jim,” I said, “there is one member of our party whom you have not met.
+Frances, you have heard me speak of Mr. Campbell very often. Here he is.
+Jim, I have the pleasure of presenting you to Mrs. Knowles, my wife.”
+
+Jim stood the shock remarkably well, considering. He gave me one glance,
+a glance which expressed a portion of his feelings, and then he and
+Frances shook hands.
+
+“Mrs. Knowles,” he said, “I--you'll excuse my apparent lack of
+intellect, but--but this husband of yours has--I've known him a good
+while and I thought I had lost all capacity for surprise at anything
+he might do, but--but I hadn't. I--I--Please don't mind me; I'm really
+quite sane at times. I am very, very glad. May we shake hands again?”
+
+He insisted upon our breakfasting with him at a near-by hotel. When he
+and I were alone together he seized my arm.
+
+“Confound you!” he exclaimed. “You old chump! What do you mean by
+springing this thing on me without a word of warning? I never was as
+nearly knocked out in my life. What do you mean by it?”
+
+I laughed. “It is all part of your prescription,” I said. “You told me I
+should marry, you know. Do you approve of my selection?”
+
+“Approve of it! Why, man, she's--she's wonderful. Approve of YOUR
+selection! How about hers? You durned quahaug! How did you do it?”
+
+I gave him a condensed and hurried resume of the whole story. He did
+not interrupt once--a perfectly amazing feat for him--and when I had
+finished he shook his head.
+
+“It's no use,” he said. “I'm too good for the business I am in. I am
+wasting my talents. _I_ sent you over there. _I_ told you to go. _I_
+prescribed travel and a wife and all the rest. _I_ did it. I'm going to
+quit the publishing game. I'm going to set up as a specialist, a brain
+specialist, for clams. And I'll use your face as a testimonial: 'Kent
+Knowles, Quahaug. Before and After Taking.' Man, you look ten years
+younger than you did when you went away.”
+
+“You must not take all the credit,” I told him. “You forget Hephzy and
+her dreams, the dream she told us about that day at Bayport. That dream
+has come true; do you realize it?”
+
+He nodded. “I admit it,” he said. “She is a better specialist than I.
+I shall have to take her into partnership. 'Campbell and Cahoon.
+Prescribers and Predictors. Authors Made Human.' I'll speak to her about
+it.”
+
+As he said good-by to us at the Grand Central Station he asked me
+another question.
+
+“Kent,” he whispered, “what are you going to do now? What are you going
+to do with her? Are you and she going back to Bayport to be Mr. and Mrs.
+Quahaug? Is that your idea?”
+
+I shook my head. “We're going back to Bayport,” I said, “but how long
+we shall stay there I don't know. One thing you may be sure of, Jim; I
+shall be a quahaug no more.”
+
+He nodded. “I think you're right,” he declared. “She'll see to that, or
+I miss my guess. No, my boy, your quahaug days are over. There's nothing
+of the shellfish about her; she's a live woman, as well as a mighty
+pretty one, and she cares enough about you to keep you awake and in the
+game. I congratulate you, Kent, and I'm almost as happy as you are. Also
+I shall play the optimist at our next directors' meeting; I see signs
+of a boom in the literature factory. Go to it, my son. You have my
+blessing.”
+
+We took the one o'clock train for Boston, remained there over night, and
+left on the early morning “accommodation”--so called, I think, because
+it accommodates the train hands--for Cape Cod. As we neared Buzzard's
+Bay my spirits, which had been at topnotch, began to sink. When the sand
+dunes of Barnstable harbor hove in sight they sank lower and lower.
+It was October, the summer people, most of them, had gone, the station
+platforms were almost deserted, the more pretentious cottages were
+closed. The Cape looked bare and brown and wind-swept. I thought of
+the English fields and hedges, of the verdant beauty of the Mayberry
+pastures. What SORT of a place would she think this, the home to which I
+was bringing her?
+
+She had been very much excited and very much interested. New York,
+with its sky-scrapers and trolleys, its electric signs and clean white
+buildings, the latter so different from the grimy, gray dwellings and
+shops of London, had been a wonderland to her. She had liked the Pullman
+and the dining-car and the Boston hotel. But this, this was different.
+How would she like sleepy, old Bayport and the people of Bayport.
+
+Well, I should soon know. Even the morning “accommodation” reaches
+Bayport some time or other. We were the only passengers to alight at the
+station, and Elmer Snow, the station agent, and Gabe Lumley, who drives
+the depot wagon, were the only ones to welcome us. Their welcome was
+hearty enough, I admit. Gabe would have asked a hundred questions if I
+had answered the first of the hundred, but he seemed strangely reluctant
+to answer those I asked him.
+
+Bayport was gettin' along first-rate, he told me. Tad Simpson's youngest
+child had diphtheria, but was sittin' up now and the fish weirs had
+caught consider'ble mackerel that summer. So much he was willing to say,
+but he said little more. I asked how the house and garden were looking
+and he cal'lated they were all right. Pumping Gabe Lumley was a new
+experience for me. Ordinarily he doesn't need pumping. I could not
+understand it. I saw Hephzy and he in consultation on the station
+platform and I wondered if she had been able to get more news than I.
+
+We rattled along the main road, up the hill by the Whittaker place--I
+looked eagerly for a glimpse of Captain Cy himself, but I didn't see
+him--and on until we reached our gate. Frances said very little during
+our progress through the village. I did not dare speak to her; I was
+afraid of asking her how she liked what she had seen of Bayport. And
+Hephzy, too, was silent, although she kept her head out of the window
+most of the time.
+
+But when the depot wagon entered the big gate and stopped before the
+side door I felt that I must say something. I must not appear fearful or
+uneasy.
+
+“Here we are!” I cried, springing out and helping her and Hephzy to
+alight. “Here we are at last. This is home, dear.”
+
+And then the door opened and I saw that the dining-room was filled
+with people, people whom I had known all my life. Mr. Partridge, the
+minister, was there, and his wife, and Captain Whittaker and his wife,
+and the Dimicks and the Salterses and more. Before I could recover from
+my surprise Mr. Partridge stepped forward.
+
+“Mr. Knowles,” he said, “on this happy occasion it is our privilege
+to--”
+
+But Captain Cy interrupted him.
+
+“Good Lord!” he exclaimed, “don't make a speech to him now, Mr.
+Partridge. Welcome home, Kent! We're all mighty glad to see you back
+again safe and sound. And Hephzy, too. By the big dipper, Hephzy, the
+sight of you is good for sore eyes! And I suppose this is your wife,
+Kent. Well, we--Hey! I might have known Phoebe would get ahead of me.”
+
+For Mrs. Whittaker and Frances were shaking hands. Others were
+crowding forward to do so. And the table was set and there were flowers
+everywhere and, in the background, was Susanna Wixon, grinning from ear
+to ear, with the cat--our cat--who seemed the least happy of the party,
+in her arms.
+
+Hephzy had written Mrs. Whittaker from London, telling her of my
+marriage; she had telegraphed from New York the day before, announcing
+the hour of our return. And this was the result.
+
+When it was all over and they had gone--they would not remain for
+dinner, although we begged them to do so--when they had gone and Hephzy
+had fled to the yard to inspect the hens, I turned to my wife.
+
+“Frances,” I said, “this is home. Here is where Hephzy and I have lived
+for so long. I--I hope you may be happy here. It is a rather crude
+place, but--”
+
+She came to me and put her arms about my neck.
+
+“Don't, my dear, don't!” she said. “It is beautiful. It is home.
+And--and you know I have never had a home, a real home before.”
+
+“Then you like it?” I cried. “You really like it? It is so different
+from England. The people--”
+
+“They are dear, kind people. And they like you and respect you, Kent.
+How could you say they didn't! I know I shall love them all.”
+
+I made a dash for the kitchen. “Hephzy!” I shouted. “Hephzy! She does
+like it. She likes Bayport and the people and everything.”
+
+Hephzy was just entering at the back door. She did not seem in the least
+surprised.
+
+“Of course she likes it,” she said, with decision. “How could anybody
+help likin' Bayport?”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+Which Treats of Quahaugs in General
+
+
+Asaph Tidditt helped me to begin this long chronicle of a quahaug's
+pilgrimage. Perhaps it is fitting that Asaph should end it. He dropped
+in for a call the other afternoon and, as I had finished my day's
+“stunt” at the desk, I assisted in entertaining him. Frances was in the
+sitting-room also and Hephzy joined us soon afterward. Mr. Tidditt had
+stopped at the post-office on his way down and he had the Boston morning
+paper in his hand. Of course he was filled to the brim with war news. We
+discuss little else in Bayport now; even the new baby at the parsonage
+has to play second fiddle.
+
+“My godfreys!” exclaimed Asaph, as soon as he sat down in the rocking
+chair and put his cap on the floor beneath it. “My godfreys, but they're
+havin' awful times over across, now ain't they. Killin' and fightin' and
+battlin' and slaughterin'! It don't seem human to me somehow.”
+
+“It is human, I'm afraid,” I said, with a sigh. “Altogether too human.
+We're a poor lot, we, humans, after all. We pride ourselves on our
+civilization, but after all, it takes very little to send us back to
+savagery.”
+
+“That's so,” said Asaph, with conviction. “That's true about everybody
+but us folks in the United States. We are awful fortunate, we are. We
+ain't savages. We was born in a free country, and we've been brought up
+right, I declare! I beg your pardon, Mrs. Knowles; I forgot you wasn't
+born in Bayport.”
+
+Frances smiled. “No apology is needed, Mr. Tidditt,” she said. “I
+confess to having been born a--savage.”
+
+“But you're all right now,” said Asaph, hastily, trying to cover his
+slip. “You're all right now. You're just as American as the rest of us.
+Kent, suppose this war in Europe is goin' to hurt your trade any? It's
+goin' to hurt a good many folks's. They tell me groceries and such like
+is goin' way up. Lucky we've got fish and clams to depend on. Clams
+and quahaugs'll keep us from starvin' for a spell. Oh,” with a chuckle,
+“speakin' of quahaugs reminds me. Did you know they used to call your
+husband a quahaug, Mrs. Knowles? That's what they used to call him round
+here--'The Quahaug.' They called him that 'count of his keepin' inside
+his shell all the time and not mixin' with folks, not toadyin' up to the
+summer crowd and all. I always respected him for it. _I_ don't toady to
+nobody neither.”
+
+Hephzy had come in by this time and now she took a part in the
+conversation.
+
+“They don't call him 'The Quahaug' any more,” she declared, indignantly.
+“He's been out of his shell more and seen more than most of the folks in
+this town.”
+
+“I know it; I know it. And he's kept goin' ever since. Runnin' to
+New York, he and you,” with a nod toward Frances, “and travelin' to
+Washin'ton and Niagary Falls and all. Wonder to me how he does as much
+writin' as he does. That last book of yours is sellin' first-rate, they
+tell me, Kent.”
+
+He referred to the novel I began in Mayberry. I have rewritten and
+finished it since, and it has had a surprising sale. The critics seem to
+think I have achieved my first genuine success.
+
+“What are you writin' now?” asked Asaph. “More of them yarns about
+pirates and such? Land sakes! when I go by this house nights and see a
+light in your library window there, Kent, and know you're pluggin' along
+amongst all them adventures, I wonder how you can stand it. 'Twould give
+me the shivers. Godfreys! the last time I read one of them yarns--that
+about the 'Black Brig' 'twas--I hardly dast to go to bed. And I DIDN'T
+dast to put out the light. I see a pirate in every corner, grittin' his
+teeth. Writin' another of that kind, are you?”
+
+“No,” I said; “this one is quite different. You will have no trouble in
+sleeping over this one, Ase.”
+
+“That's a comfort. Got a little Bayport in it? Seems to me you ought to
+put a little Bayport in, for a change.”
+
+I smiled. “There is a little in this,” I answered. “A little at the
+beginning, and, perhaps, at the end.”
+
+“You don't say! You ain't got me in it, have you? I'd--I'd look kind of
+funny in a book, wouldn't I?”
+
+I laughed, but I did not answer.
+
+“Not that I ain't seen things in my life,” went on Asaph, hopefully. “A
+man can't be town clerk in a live town like this and not see things. But
+I hope you won't put any more foreigners in. This we're readin' now,”
+ rapping the newspaper with his knuckles, “gives us all we want to know
+about foreigners. Just savages, they be, as you say, and nothin' more. I
+pity 'em.”
+
+I laughed again.
+
+“Asaph,” said I, “what would you say if I told you that the English and
+French--yes, and the Germans, too, though I haven't seen them at home as
+I have the others--were no more savages than we are?”
+
+“I'd say you was crazy,” was the prompt answer.
+
+“Well, I'm not. And you're not very complimentary. You're forgetting
+again. You forget that I married one of those savages.”
+
+Asaph was taken aback, but he recovered promptly, as he had before.
+
+“She ain't any savage,” he announced. “Her mother was born right here in
+Bayport. And she knows, just as I do, that Bayport's the best place in
+the world; don't you, Mrs. Knowles?”
+
+“Yes,” said Frances, “I am sure of it, Mr. Tidditt.”
+
+So Asaph went away triumphantly happy. After he had gone I apologized
+for him.
+
+“He's a fair sample,” I said. “He is a quahaug, although he doesn't know
+it. He is a certain type, an exaggerated type, of American.”
+
+Frances smiled. “He's not much worse than I used to be,” she said. “I
+used to call America an uncivilized country, you remember. I suppose
+I--and Mr. Heathcroft--were exaggerated types of a certain kind of
+English. We were English quahaugs, weren't we?”
+
+Hephzy nodded. “We're all quahaugs,” she declared. “Most of us, anyhow.
+That's the trouble with all the folks of all the nations; they stay in
+their shells and they don't try to know and understand their neighbors.
+Kent, you used to be a quahaug--a different kind of one--but that kind,
+too. I was a quahaug afore I lived in Mayberry. That's who makes wars
+like this dreadful one--quahaugs. We know better now--you and Frances
+and I. We've found out that, down underneath, there's precious little
+difference. Humans are humans.”
+
+She paused and then, as a final summing up, added:
+
+“I guess that's it: American or German or French or anything--nice folks
+are nice folks anywhere.”
+
+
+THE END
+
+
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+      Kent Knowles: Quahaug, by Joseph C. Lincoln
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+<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Kent Knowles: Quahaug, by Joseph C. Lincoln</p>
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+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Kent Knowles: Quahaug</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Joseph C. Lincoln</div>
+<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: June 6, 2006 [eBook #5980]<br />
+[Most recently updated: January 7, 2023]</p>
+<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p>
+  <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by:
+  Don Lainson; David Widger</p>
+<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KENT KNOWLES: QUAHAUG ***</div>
+
+    <h1>
+      KENT KNOWLES: QUAHAUG
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By Joseph C. Lincoln <br /> <br /> 1914
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <big><b>KENT KNOWLES: QUAHAUG</b></big>
+        </a> <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I </a> -- Which is Not a Chapter at All<br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II </a> -- Which Repeats, for the Most Part, What Jim Campbell Said to Me and What I Said to Him<br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III </a> -- Which, Although It Is Largely Family History, Should Not Be Skipped by the Reader<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0004">
+        CHAPTER IV </a> -- In Which Hephzy and I and the Plutonia Sail Together<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V </a> -- In Which We View, and Even Mingle Slightly with, the Upper Classes<br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI </a> -- In Which We Are Received at Bancroft's Hotel and I Receive a Letter<br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII </a> -- In Which a Dream Becomes a Reality<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0008">
+        CHAPTER VIII </a> -- In Which the Pilgrims Become Tenants<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX </a> -- In Which We Make the Acquaintance of Mayberry and a Portion of Burgleston Bogs<br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X </a> -- In Which I Break All Previous Resolutions and Make a New One<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0011">
+        CHAPTER XI </a> -- In Which Complications Become More Complicated<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII </a> -- In Which the Truth Is Told at Last<br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII </a> -- In Which Hephzy and I Agree to Live for Each Other<br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV </a> -- In Which I Play Golf and Cross the Channel<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0015">
+        CHAPTER XV </a> -- In Which I Learn that All Abbeys Are Not Churches<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI </a> -- In Which I Take My Turn at Playing the Invalid<br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII </a> -- In Which I, as Well as Mr. Solomon Cripps, Am Surprised<br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII </a> -- In Which the Pilgrimage Ends Where It Began<br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX </a> -- Which Treats of Quahaugs in General
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      KENT KNOWLES: QUAHAUG
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Which is Not a Chapter at All
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      It was Asaph Tidditt who told me how to begin this history. Perhaps I
+      should be very much obliged to Asaph; perhaps I shouldn't. He has gotten
+      me out of a difficulty&mdash;or into one; I am far from certain which.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ordinarily&mdash;I am speaking now of the writing of swashbuckling
+      romances, which is, or was, my trade&mdash;I swear I never have called it
+      a profession&mdash;the beginning of a story is the least of the troubles
+      connected with its manufacture. Given a character or two and a situation,
+      the beginning of one of those romances is, or was, pretty likely to be
+      something like this:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was a black night. Heavy clouds had obscured the setting sun and now,
+      as the clock in the great stone tower boomed twelve, the darkness was
+      pitchy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That is a good safe beginning. Midnight, a stone tower, a booming clock,
+      and darkness make an appeal to the imagination. On a night like that
+      almost anything may happen. A reader of one of my romances&mdash;and
+      readers there must be, for the things did, and still do, sell to some
+      extent&mdash;might be fairly certain that something WOULD happen before
+      the end of the second page. After that the somethings continued to happen
+      as fast as I could invent them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this story was different. The weather or the time had nothing to do
+      with its beginning. There were no solitary horsemen or strange wayfarers
+      on lonely roads, no unexpected knocks at the doors of taverns, no cloaked
+      personages landing from boats rowed by black-browed seamen with red
+      handkerchiefs knotted about their heads and knives in their belts. The
+      hero was not addressed as &ldquo;My Lord&rdquo;; he was not &ldquo;Sir Somebody-or-other&rdquo; in
+      disguise. He was not young and handsome; there was not even &ldquo;a certain
+      something in his manner and bearing which hinted of an eventful past.&rdquo;
+       Indeed there was not. For, if this particular yarn or history or chronicle
+      which I had made up my mind to write, and which I am writing now, had or
+      has a hero, I am he. And I am Hosea Kent Knowles, of Bayport,
+      Massachusetts, the latter the village in which I was born and in which I
+      have lived most of the time since I was twenty-seven years old. Nobody
+      calls me &ldquo;My Lord.&rdquo; Hephzy has always called me &ldquo;Hosy&rdquo;&mdash;a name which
+      I despise&mdash;and the others, most of them, &ldquo;Kent&rdquo; to my face and &ldquo;The
+      Quahaug&rdquo; behind my back, a quahaug being a very common form of clam which
+      is supposed to lead a solitary existence and to keep its shell tightly
+      shut. If anything in my manner had hinted at a mysterious past no one in
+      Bayport would have taken the hint. Bayporters know my past and that of my
+      ancestors only too well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for being young and handsome&mdash;well, I was thirty-eight years old
+      last March. Which is quite enough on THAT subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I had determined to write the story, so I sat down to begin it. And
+      immediately I got into difficulties. How should I begin? I might begin at
+      any one of a dozen places&mdash;with Hephzy's receiving the Raymond and
+      Whitcomb circular; with our arrival in London; with Jim Campbell's visit
+      to me here in Bayport; with the curious way in which the letter reached
+      us, after crossing the ocean twice. Any one of these might serve as a
+      beginning&mdash;but which? I made I don't know how many attempts, but not
+      one was satisfactory. I, who had begun I am ashamed to tell you how many
+      stories&mdash;yes, and had finished them and seen them in print as well&mdash;was
+      stumped at the very beginning of this one. Like Sim Phinney I had worked
+      at my job &ldquo;a long spell&rdquo; and &ldquo;cal'lated&rdquo; I knew it, but here was something
+      I didn't know. As Sim said, when he faced his problem, &ldquo;I couldn't seem to
+      get steerage way on her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Simeon, you see&mdash;He is Angeline Phinney's second cousin and lives in
+      the third house beyond the Holiness Bethel on the right-hand side of the
+      road&mdash;Simeon has &ldquo;done carpentering&rdquo; here in Bayport all his life. He
+      built practically every henhouse now gracing or disgracing the backyards
+      of our village. He is our &ldquo;henhouse specialist,&rdquo; so to speak. He has even
+      been known to boast of his skill. &ldquo;Henhouses!&rdquo; snorted Sim; &ldquo;land of love!
+      I can build a henhouse with my eyes shut. Nowadays when another one of
+      them foolheads that's been readin' 'How to Make a Million Poultry Raisin''
+      in the Farm Gazette comes to me and says 'Henhouse,' I say, 'Yes sir.
+      Fifteen dollars if you pay me cash now and a hundred and fifteen if you
+      want to wait and pay me out of your egg profits. That's all there is to
+      it.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet, when Captain Darius Nickerson, who made the most of his money
+      selling fifty-foot lots of sand, beachgrass and ticks to summer people for
+      bungalow sites&mdash;when Captain Darius, grown purse-proud and
+      vainglorious, expressed a desire for a henhouse with a mansard roof and a
+      cupola, the latter embellishments to match those surmounting his own
+      dwelling, Simeon was set aback with his canvas flapping. At the end of a
+      week he had not driven a nail. &ldquo;Godfrey's mighty!&rdquo; he is reported to have
+      exclaimed. &ldquo;I don't know whether to build the average cupola and trust to
+      a hen's fittin' it, or take an average hen and build a cupola round her.
+      Maybe I'll be all right after I get started, but it's where to start that
+      beats me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Where to start beat me, also, and it might be beating me yet, if I hadn't
+      dropped in at the post-office and heard Asaph Tidditt telling a story to
+      the group around the stove. After he had finished, and, the mail being
+      sorted, we were walking homeward together, I asked a question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Asaph,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;when you start to spin a yarn how do you begin?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hey?&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;How do I begin? Why, I just heave to and go to work
+      and begin, that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I know, but where do you begin?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At the beginnin', naturally. If you was cal'latin' to sail a boat race
+      you wouldn't commence at t'other end of the course, would you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;<i>I</i> might; practical people wouldn't, I suppose. But&mdash;what IS
+      the beginning? Suppose there were a lot of beginnings and you didn't know
+      which to choose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, we-ll, in that case I'd just sort of&mdash;of edge around till I
+      found one that&mdash;that was a beginnin' of SOMETHIN' and I'd start
+      there. You understand, don't you? Take that yarn I was spinnin' just now&mdash;that
+      one about Josiah Dimick's great uncle's pig on his mother's side. I mean
+      his uncle on his mother's side, not the pig, of course. Now I hadn't no
+      intention of tellin' about that hog; hadn't thought of it for a thousand
+      year, as you might say. I just commenced to tell about Angie Phinney,
+      about how fast she could talk, and that reminded me of a parrot that
+      belonged to Sylvanus Cahoon's sister&mdash;Violet, the sister's name was&mdash;loony
+      name, too, if you ask ME, 'cause she was a plaguey sight nigher bein' a
+      sunflower than she was a violet&mdash;weighed two hundred and ten and had
+      a face on her as red as&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just a minute, Ase. About that pig?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes! Well, the pig reminded me of Violet's parrot and the parrot
+      reminded me of a Plymouth Rock rooster I had that used to roost in the
+      pigpen nights&mdash;wouldn't use the henhouse no more'n you nor I would&mdash;and
+      that, naturally, made me think of pigs, and pigs fetched Josiah's uncle's
+      pig to mind and there I was all ready to start on the yarn. It pretty
+      often works out that way. When you want to start a yarn and you can't
+      start&mdash;you've forgot it, or somethin'&mdash;just begin somewhere, get
+      goin' somehow. Edge around and keep edgin' around and pretty soon you'll
+      fetch up at the right place TO start. See, don't you, Kent?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I saw&mdash;that is, I saw enough. I came home and this morning I began
+      the &ldquo;edging around&rdquo; process. I don't seem to have &ldquo;fetched up&rdquo; anywhere in
+      particular, but I shall keep on with the edging until I do. As Asaph says,
+      I must begin somewhere, so I shall begin with the Saturday morning of last
+      April when Jim Campbell, my publisher and my friend&mdash;which is by no
+      means such an unusual combination as many people think&mdash;sat on the
+      veranda of my boathouse overlooking Cape Cod Bay and discussed my past,
+      present and, more particularly, my future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Which Repeats, for the Most Part, What Jim Campbell Said to Me and What I
+      Said to Him
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jim,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;what is the matter with me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim, who was seated in the ancient and dilapidated arm-chair which was the
+      finest piece of furniture in the boathouse and which I always offered to
+      visitors, looked at me over the collar of my sweater. I used the sweater
+      as I did the arm-chair when I did not have visitors. He was using it then
+      because, like an idiot, he had come to Cape Cod in April with nothing
+      warmer than a very natty suit and a light overcoat. Of course one may go
+      clamming and fishing in a light overcoat, but&mdash;one doesn't.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim looked at me over the collar of my sweater. Then he crossed his
+      oilskinned and rubber-booted legs&mdash;they were my oilskins and my boots&mdash;and
+      answered promptly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indigestion,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You ate nine of those biscuits this morning; I
+      saw you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not,&rdquo; I retorted, &ldquo;because you saw them first. MY interior is in
+      its normal condition. As for yours&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mine,&rdquo; he interrupted, filling his pipe from my tobacco pouch, &ldquo;being
+      accustomed to a breakfast, not a gorge, is abnormal but satisfactory,
+      thank you&mdash;quite satisfactory.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;we will discuss later, when I have you out back of the
+      bar in my catboat. Judging from present indications there will be some
+      sea-running. The 'Hephzy' is a good, capable craft, but a bit cranky, like
+      the lady she is named for. I imagine she will roll.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He didn't like that. You see, I had sailed with him before and I
+      remembered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ho-se-a,&rdquo; he drawled, &ldquo;you have a vivid imagination. It is a pity you
+      don't use more of it in those stories of yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! I am obliged to use the most of it on the royalty statements you
+      send me. If you call me 'Hosea' again I will take the 'Hephzy' across the
+      Point Rip. The waves there are fifteen feet high at low tide. See here, I
+      asked you a serious question and I should like a serious answer. Jim, what
+      IS the matter with me? Have I written out or what is the trouble?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at me again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you in earnest?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am, very much in earnest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you really want to talk shop after a breakfast like that and on a
+      morning like this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was that why you asked me to come to Bayport and spend the week-end?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No-o. No, of course not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're another; it was. When you met me at the railroad station yesterday
+      I could see there was something wrong with you. All this morning you've
+      had something on your chest. I thought it was the biscuits, of course; but
+      it wasn't, eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then what was it? Aren't we paying you a large enough royalty?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are paying me a good deal larger one than I deserve. I don't see why
+      you do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; with a wave of the hand, &ldquo;that's all right. The publishing of books
+      is a pure philanthropy. We are in business for our health, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shut up. You know as well as I do that the last two yarns of mine which
+      your house published have not done as well as the others.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had caught him now. Anything remotely approaching a reflection upon the
+      business house of which he was the head was sufficient to stir up Jim
+      Campbell. That business, its methods and its success, were his idols.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know any such thing,&rdquo; he protested, hotly. &ldquo;We sold&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hang the sale! You sold quite enough. It is an everlasting miracle to me
+      that you are able to sell a single copy. Why a self-respecting person,
+      possessed of any intelligence whatever, should wish to read the stuff I
+      write, to say nothing of paying money for the privilege, I can't
+      understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't have to understand. No one expects an author to understand
+      anything. All you are expected to do is to write; we'll attend to the rest
+      of it. And as for sales&mdash;why, 'The Black Brig'&mdash;that was the
+      last one, wasn't it?&mdash;beat the 'Omelet' by eight thousand or more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Omelet&rdquo; was our pet name for &ldquo;The Queen's Amulet,&rdquo; my first offence
+      in the literary line. It was a highly seasoned concoction of revolution
+      and adventure in a mythical kingdom where life was not dull, to say the
+      least. The humblest character in it was a viscount. Living in Bayport had,
+      naturally, made me familiar with the doings of viscounts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eight thousand more than the last isn't so bad, is it?&rdquo; demanded Jim
+      Campbell combatively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It isn't. It is astonishingly good. It is the books themselves that are
+      bad. The 'Omelet' was bad enough, but I wrote it more as a joke than
+      anything else. I didn't take it seriously at all. Every time I called a
+      duke by his Christian name I grinned. But nowadays I don't grin&mdash;I
+      swear. I hate the things, Jim. They're no good. And the reviewers are
+      beginning to tumble to the fact that they're no good, too. You saw the
+      press notices yourself. 'Another Thriller by the Indefatigable Knowles'
+      'Barnacles, Buccaneers and Blood, not to Mention Beauty and the Bourbons.'
+      That's the way two writers headed their articles about 'The Black Brig.'
+      And a third said that I must be getting tired; I wrote as if I was. THAT
+      fellow was right. I am tired, Jim. I'm tired and sick of writing slush. I
+      can't write any more of it. And yet I can't write anything else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim's pipe had gone out. Now he relit it and tossed the match over the
+      veranda rail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you know you can't?&rdquo; he demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can't what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can't write anything but slush?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah ha! Then it is slush. You admit it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't admit anything of the kind. You may not be a William Shakespeare
+      or even a George Meredith, but you have written some mighty interesting
+      stories. Why, I know a chap who sits up till morning to finish a book of
+      yours. Can't sleep until he has finished it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the matter with him; insomnia?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; he's a night watchman. Does that satisfy you, you crossgrained old
+      shellfish? Come on, let's dig clams&mdash;some of your own blood relations&mdash;and
+      forget it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't want to forget it and there is plenty of time for clamming. The
+      tide won't cover the flats for two hours yet. I tell you I'm serious, Jim.
+      I can't write any more. I know it. The stuff I've been writing makes me
+      sick. I hate it, I tell you. What the devil I'm going to do for a living I
+      can't see&mdash;but I can't write another story.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim put his pipe in his pocket. I think at last he was convinced that I
+      meant what I said, which I certainly did. The last year had been a year of
+      torment to me. I had finished the 'Brig,' as a matter of duty, but if that
+      piratical craft had sunk with all hands, including its creator, I should
+      not have cared. I drove myself to my desk each day, as a horse might be
+      driven to a treadmill, but the animal could have taken no less interest in
+      his work than I had taken in mine. It was bad&mdash;bad&mdash;bad;
+      worthless and hateful. There wasn't a new idea in it and I hadn't one in
+      my head. I, who had taken up writing as a last resort, a gamble which
+      might, on a hundred-to-one chance, win where everything else had failed,
+      had now reached the point where that had failed, too. Campbell's surmise
+      was correct; with the pretence of asking him to the Cape for a week-end of
+      fishing and sailing I had lured him there to tell him of my discouragement
+      and my determination to quit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took his feet from the rail and hitched his chair about until he faced
+      me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you're not going to write any more,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not. I can't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you going to do; live on back royalties and clams?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I may have to live on the clams; my back royalties won't keep me very
+      long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! I should think they might keep you a good while down here. You
+      must have something in the stocking. You can't have wasted very much in
+      riotous living on this sand-heap. What have you done with your money, for
+      the last ten years; been leading a double life?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've found leading a single one hard enough. I have saved something, of
+      course. It isn't the money that worries me, Jim; I told you that. It's
+      myself; I'm no good. Every author, sometime or other, reaches the point
+      where he knows perfectly well he has done all the real work he can ever
+      do, that he has written himself out. That's what's the matter with me&mdash;I'm
+      written out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim snorted. &ldquo;For Heaven's sake, Kent Knowles,&rdquo; he demanded, &ldquo;how old are
+      you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm thirty-eight, according to the almanac, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thirty-eight! Why, Thackeray wrote&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Drop it! I know when Thackeray wrote 'Vanity Fair' as well as you do. I'm
+      no Thackeray to begin with, and, besides, I am older at thirty-eight than
+      he was when he died&mdash;yes, older than he would have been if he had
+      lived twice as long. So far as feeling and all the rest of it go, I'm a
+      second Methusaleh.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My soul! hear the man! And I'm forty-two myself. Well, Grandpa, what do
+      you expect me to do; get you admitted to the Old Man's Home?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I expect&mdash;&rdquo; I began, &ldquo;I expect&mdash;&rdquo; and I concluded with the lame
+      admission that I didn't expect him to do anything. It was up to me to do
+      whatever must be done, I imagined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled grimly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Glad your senility has not affected that remnant of your common-sense,&rdquo;
+       he declared. &ldquo;You're dead right, my boy; it IS up to you. You ought to be
+      ashamed of yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am, but that doesn't help me a whole lot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing will help you as long as you think and speak as you have this
+      morning. See here, Kent! answer me a question or two, will you? They may
+      be personal questions, but will you answer them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess so. There has been what a disinterested listener might call a
+      slightly personal flavor to your remarks so far. Do your worst. Fire
+      away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right. You've lived in Bayport ten years or so, I know that. What
+      have you done in all that time&mdash;besides write?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I've continued to live.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doubted. You've continued to exist; but how? I've been here before. This
+      isn't my first visit, by a good deal. Each time I have been here your
+      daily routine&mdash;leaving out the exciting clam hunts and the excursions
+      in quest of the ferocious flounder, like the one we're supposed&mdash;mind,
+      I say supposed&mdash;to be on at the present moment&mdash;you have put in
+      the day about like this: Get up, bathe, eat, walk to the post-office, walk
+      home, sit about, talk a little, read some, walk some more, eat again,
+      smoke, talk, read, eat for the third time, smoke, talk, read and go to
+      bed. That's the program, isn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not exactly. I play tennis in summer&mdash;when there is anyone to play
+      with me&mdash;and golf, after a fashion. I used to play both a good deal,
+      when I was younger. I swim, and I shoot a little, and&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How about society? Have any, do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the summer, when the city people are here, there is a good deal going
+      on, if you care for it&mdash;picnics and clam bakes and teas and lawn
+      parties and such.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heavens! what reckless dissipation! Do you indulge?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, no&mdash;not very much. Hang it all, Jim! you know I'm no society
+      man. I used to do the usual round of fool stunts when I was younger, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But now you're too antique, I suppose. Wonder that someone hasn't
+      collected you as a genuine Chippendale or something. So you don't 'tea'
+      much?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not much. I'm not often invited, to tell you the truth. The summer crowd
+      doesn't take kindly to me, I'm afraid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Astonishing! You're such a chatty, entertaining, communicative cuss on
+      first acquaintance, too. So captivatingly loquacious to strangers. I can
+      imagine how you'd shine at a 'tea.' Every summer girl that tried to talk
+      to you would be frost-bitten. Do you accept invitations when they do
+      come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not often nowadays. You see, I know they don't really want me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you know it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why&mdash;well, why should they? Everybody else calls me&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They call you a clam and so you try to live up to your reputation. I know
+      you, Kent. You think yourself a tough old bivalve, but the most serious
+      complaint you suffer from is ingrowing sensitiveness. They do want you.
+      They'd invite you if you gave them half a chance. Oh, I know you won't, of
+      course; but if I had my way I'd have you dragged by main strength to every
+      picnic and tea and feminine talk-fest within twenty miles. You might meet
+      some persevering female who would propose marriage. YOU never would, but
+      SHE might.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I rose to my feet in disgust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'll go clamming,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not move.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will&mdash;later on,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;We haven't got to the last page of
+      the catechism yet. I mentioned matrimony because a good, capable, managing
+      wife would be my first prescription in your case. I have one or two more
+      up my sleeve. Tell me this: How often do you get away from Bayport? How
+      often do you get to&mdash;well, to Boston, we'll say? How many times have
+      you been there in the last year?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know. A dozen, perhaps.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you do when you went?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Various things. Shopped some, went to the theater occasionally, if there
+      happened to be anything on that I cared to see. Bought a good many books.
+      Saw the new Sargent pictures at the library. And&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And shook hands with your brother fossils at the museum, I suppose. Wild
+      life you lead, Kent. Did you visit anybody? Meet any friends or
+      acquaintances&mdash;any live ones?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not many. I haven't many friends, Jim; you know that. As for the wild
+      life&mdash;well, I made two visits to New York this year.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; drily; &ldquo;and we saw Sothern and Marlowe and had dinner at the
+      Holland. The rest of the time we talked shop. That was the first visit.
+      The second was more exciting still; we talked shop ALL the time and you
+      took the six o'clock train home again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're wrong there. I saw the new loan collections at the Metropolitan
+      and heard Ysaye play at Carnegie Hall. I didn't start for home until the
+      next day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that so. That's news to me. You said you were going that afternoon.
+      That was to put the kibosh on my intention of taking you home to my wife
+      and her bridge party, I suppose. Was it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well&mdash;well, you see, Jim, I&mdash;I don't play bridge and I AM such
+      a stick in a crowd like that. I wanted to stay and you were mighty kind,
+      but&mdash;but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right. All right, my boy. Next time it will be Bustanoby's, the
+      Winter Garden and a three A. M. cabaret for yours. My time is coming. Now&mdash;Well,
+      now we'll go clamming.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He swung out of the arm-chair and walked to the top of the steps leading
+      down to the beach. I was surprised, of course; I have known Jim Campbell a
+      long time, but he can surprise me even yet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here! hold on!&rdquo; I protested. &ldquo;How about the rest of that catechism?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've had it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Were those all the questions you wanted to ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! And that is all the advice and encouragement I'm to get from you!
+      How about those prescriptions you had up your sleeve?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll get those by and by. Before I leave this gay and festive scene
+      to-morrow I'm going to talk to you, Ho-se-a. And you're going to listen.
+      You'll listen to old Doctor Campbell; HE'LL prescribe for you, don't you
+      worry. And now,&rdquo; beginning to descend the steps, &ldquo;now for clams and
+      flounders.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the Point Rip,&rdquo; I added, maliciously, for his frivolous treatment of
+      what was to me a very serious matter, was disappointing and provoking.
+      &ldquo;Don't forget the Point Rip.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We dug the clams&mdash;they were for bait&mdash;we boarded the &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo;
+       sailed out to the fishing grounds, and caught flounders. I caught the most
+      of them; Jim was not interested in fishing during the greater part of the
+      time. Then we sailed home again and walked up to the house. Hephzibah, for
+      whom my boat is named, met us at the back door. As usual her greeting was
+      not to the point and practical.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Leave your rubber boots right outside on the porch,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Here,
+      give me those flatfish; I'll take care of 'em. Hosy, you'll find dry
+      things ready in your room. Here's your shoes; I've been warmin' 'em. Mr.
+      Campbell I've put a suit of Hosy's and some flannels on your bed. They may
+      not fit you, but they'll be lots better than the damp ones you've got on.
+      You needn't hurry; dinner won't be ready till you are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not say anything; I knew Hephzy&mdash;had known her all my life.
+      Jim, who, naturally enough, didn't know her as well, protested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We're not wet, Miss Cahoon,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;At least, I'm not, and I don't
+      see how Kent can be. We both wore oilskins.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That doesn't make any difference. You ought to change your clothes
+      anyhow. Been out in that boat, haven't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then! Don't say another word. I'll have a fire in the sittin'-room
+      and somethin' hot ready when you come down. Hosy, be sure and put on BOTH
+      the socks I darned for you. Don't get thinkin' of somethin' else and come
+      down with one whole and one holey, same as you did last time. You must
+      excuse me, Mr. Campbell. I've got saleratus biscuits in the oven.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hastened into the kitchen. When Jim and I, having obeyed orders to the
+      extent of leaving our boots on the porch, passed through that kitchen she
+      was busy with the tea-kettle. I led the way through the dining-room and up
+      the front stairs. My visitor did not speak until we reached the second
+      story. Then he expressed his feelings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Kent&rdquo; he demanded, &ldquo;are you going to change your clothes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why? You're no wetter than I am, are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a bit, but I'm going to change, just the same. It's the easier way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is, is it! What's the other way?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The other way is to keep on those you're wearing and take the
+      consequences.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What consequences?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jamaica ginger, hot water bottles and an afternoon's roast in front of
+      the sitting-room fire. Hephzibah went out sailing with me last October and
+      caught cold. That was enough; no one else shall have the experience if she
+      can help it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But&mdash;but good heavens! Kent, do you mean to say you always have to
+      change when you come in from sailing?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Except in summer, yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because Hephzy tells me to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you always do what she tells you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Generally. It's the easiest way, as I said before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good&mdash;heavens! And she darns your socks and tells you what&mdash;er
+      lingerie to wear and&mdash;does she wash your face and wipe your nose and
+      scrub behind your ears?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not exactly, but she probably would if I didn't do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I'll be hanged! And she extends the same treatment to all your
+      guests?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't have any guests but you. No doubt she would if I did. She mothers
+      every stray cat and sick chicken in the neighborhood. There, Jim, you trot
+      along and do as you're told like a nice little boy. I'll join you in the
+      sitting-room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! perhaps I'd better. I may be spanked and put to bed if I don't.
+      Well, well! and you are the author of 'The Black Brig!' 'Buccaneers and
+      Blood!' 'Bibs and Butterscotch' it should be! Don't stand out here in the
+      cold hall, Hosy darling; you may get the croup if you do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was waiting in the sitting-room when he came down. There was a roaring
+      fire in the big, old-fashioned fireplace. That fireplace had been bricked
+      up in the days when people used those abominations, stoves. As a boy I was
+      well acquainted with the old &ldquo;gas burner&rdquo; with the iron urn on top and the
+      nickeled ornaments and handles which Mother polished so assiduously. But
+      the gas burner had long since gone to the junk dealer. Among the
+      improvements which my first royalty checks made possible were steam heat
+      and the restoration of the fireplace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim found me sitting before the fire in one of the two big &ldquo;wing&rdquo; chairs
+      which I had purchased when Darius Barlay's household effects were sold at
+      auction. I should not have acquired them as cheaply if Captain Cyrus
+      Whittaker had been at home when the auction took place. Captain Cy loves
+      old-fashioned things as much as I do and, as he has often told me since,
+      he meant to land those chairs some day if he had to run his bank account
+      high and dry in consequence. But the Captain and his wife&mdash;who used
+      to be Phoebe Dawes, our school-teacher here in Bayport&mdash;were away
+      visiting their adopted daughter, Emily, who is married and living in
+      Boston, and I got the chairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the Barclay auction I bought also the oil painting of the bark
+      &ldquo;Freedom&rdquo;&mdash;a command of Captain Elkanah Barclay, uncle of the late
+      Darius&mdash;and the set&mdash;two volumes missing&mdash;of The Spectator,
+      bound in sheepskin. The &ldquo;Freedom&rdquo; is depicted &ldquo;Entering the Port of Genoa,
+      July 10th, 1848,&rdquo; and if the port is somewhat wavy and uncertain, the
+      bark's canvas and rigging are definite and rigid enough to make up. The
+      Spectator set is chiefly remarkable for its marginal notes; Captain
+      Elkanah bought the books in London and read and annotated at spare
+      intervals during subsequent voyages. His opinions were decided and his
+      notes nautical and emphatic. Hephzibah read a few pages of the notes when
+      the books first came into the house and then went to prayer-meeting. As
+      she had announced her intention of remaining at home that evening I was
+      surprised&mdash;until I read them myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim came downstairs, arrayed in the suit which Hephzy had laid out for
+      him. I made no comment upon his appearance. To do so would have been
+      superfluous; he looked all the comments necessary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I waved my hand towards the unoccupied wing chair and he sat down. Two
+      glasses, one empty and the other half full of a steaming mixture, were on
+      the little table beside us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Help yourself, Jim,&rdquo; I said, indicating the glasses. He took up the one
+      containing the mixture and regarded it hopefully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A Cahoon toddy,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Warranted to keep off chills, rheumatism,
+      lumbago and kindred miseries. Good for what ails you. Don't wait; I've had
+      mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took a sniff and then a very small sip. His face expressed genuine
+      emotion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whew!&rdquo; he gasped, choking. &ldquo;What in blazes&mdash;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jamaica ginger, sugar and hot water,&rdquo; I explained blandly. &ldquo;It won't hurt
+      you&mdash;longer than five minutes. It is Hephzy's invariable
+      prescription.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good Lord! Did you drink yours?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;I never do, unless she watches me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But your glass is empty. What did you do with it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Emptied it behind the back log. Of course, if you prefer to drink it&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Drink it!&rdquo; His &ldquo;toddy&rdquo; splashed the back log, causing a tremendous
+      sizzle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before he could relieve his mind further, Hephzy appeared to announce that
+      dinner was ready if we were. We were, most emphatically, so we went into
+      the dining-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy and Jim did most of the talking during the meal. I had talked more
+      that forenoon than I had for a week&mdash;I am not a chatty person,
+      ordinarily, which, in part, explains my nickname&mdash;and I was very
+      willing to eat and listen. Hephzy, who was garbed in her best gown&mdash;best
+      weekday gown, that is; she kept her black silk for Sundays&mdash;talked a
+      good deal, mostly about dreams and presentiments. Susanna Wixon, Tobias
+      Wixon's oldest daughter, waited on table, when she happened to think of
+      it, and listened when she did not. Susanna had been hired to do the
+      waiting and the dish-washing during Campbell's brief visit. It was I who
+      hired her. If I had had my way she would have been a permanent fixture in
+      the household, but Hephzy scoffed at the idea. &ldquo;Pity if I can't do
+      housework for two folks,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;I don't care if you can afford
+      it. Keepin' hired help in a family no bigger than this, is a sinful
+      extravagance.&rdquo; As Susanna's services had been already engaged for the
+      weekend she could not discharge her, but she insisted on doing all the
+      cooking herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her conversation, as I said, dealt mainly with dreams and presentiments.
+      Hephzibah is not what I should call a superstitious person. She doesn't
+      believe in &ldquo;signs,&rdquo; although she might feel uncomfortable if she broke a
+      looking-glass or saw the new moon over her left shoulder. She has a most
+      amazing fund of common-sense and is &ldquo;down&rdquo; on Spiritualism to a degree. It
+      is one of Bayport's pet yarns, that at the Harniss Spiritualist
+      camp-meeting when the &ldquo;test medium&rdquo; announced from the platform that he
+      had a message for a lady named Hephzibah C&mdash;he &ldquo;seemed to get the
+      name Hephzibah C&rdquo;&mdash;Hephzy got up and walked out. &ldquo;Any dead relations
+      I've got,&rdquo; she declared, &ldquo;who send messages through a longhaired idiot
+      like that one up there&rdquo;&mdash;meaning the medium,&mdash;&ldquo;can't have much
+      to say that's worth listenin' to. They can talk to themselves if they want
+      to, but they shan't waste MY time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In but one particular was Hephzy superstitious. Whenever she dreamed of
+      &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; she was certain something was going to happen. She had
+      dreamed of &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; the night before and, if she had not been headed
+      off, she would have talked of nothing else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw him just as plain as I see you this minute, Hosy,&rdquo; she said to me.
+      &ldquo;I was somewhere, in a strange place&mdash;a foreign place, I should say
+      'twas&mdash;and there I saw him. He didn't know me; at least I don't think
+      he did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Considering that he never saw you that isn't so surprising,&rdquo; I
+      interrupted. &ldquo;I think Mr. Campbell would have another cup of coffee if you
+      urged him. Susanna, take Mr. Campbell's cup.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim declined the coffee; said he hadn't finished his first cup yet. I knew
+      that, of course, but I was trying to head off Hephzy. She refused to be
+      headed, just then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I knew HIM,&rdquo; she went on. &ldquo;He looked just the same as he has when
+      I've seen him before&mdash;in the other dreams, you know. The very image
+      of his mother. Isn't it wonderful, Hosy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; but don't resurrect the family skeletons, Hephzy. Mr. Campbell isn't
+      interested in anatomy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Skeletons! I don't know what you're talkin' about. He wasn't a skeleton.
+      I saw him just as plain! And I said to myself, 'It's little Frank!' Now
+      what do you suppose he came to me for? What do you suppose it means? It
+      means somethin', I know that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Means that you weren't sleeping well, probably,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;Jim, here,
+      will dream of cross-seas and the Point Rip to-night, I have no doubt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim promptly declared that if he thought that likely he shouldn't mind so
+      much. What he feared most was a nightmare session with an author.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah was interested at once. &ldquo;Oh, do you dream about authors, Mr.
+      Campbell?&rdquo; she demanded. &ldquo;I presume likely you do, they're so mixed up
+      with your business. Do your dreams ever come true?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not often,&rdquo; was the solemn reply. &ldquo;Most of my dream-authors are rational
+      and almost human.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy, of course, did not understand this, but it did have the effect for
+      which I had been striving, that of driving &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; from her mind
+      for the time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't care,&rdquo; she declared, &ldquo;I s'pose it's awful foolish and silly of
+      me, but it does seem sometimes as if there was somethin' in dreams, some
+      kind of dreams. Hosy laughs at me and maybe I ought to laugh at myself,
+      but some dreams come true, or awfully near to true; now don't they.
+      Angeline Phinney was in here the other day and she was tellin' about her
+      second cousin that was&mdash;he's dead now&mdash;Abednego Small. He was
+      constable here in Bayport for years; everybody called him 'Uncle Bedny.'
+      Uncle Bedny had been keepin' company with a woman named Dimick&mdash;Josiah
+      Dimick's niece&mdash;lots younger than he, she was. He'd been thinkin' of
+      marryin' her, so Angie said, but his folks had been talkin' to him,
+      tellin' him he was too old to take such a young woman for his third wife,
+      so he had made up his mind to throw her over, to write a letter sayin' it
+      was all off between 'em. Well, he'd begun the letter but he never finished
+      it, for three nights runnin' he dreamed that awful trouble was hangin'
+      over him. That dream made such an impression on him that he tore the
+      letter up and married the Dimick woman after all. And then&mdash;I didn't
+      know this until Angie told me&mdash;it turned out that she had heard he
+      was goin' to give her the go-by and had made all her arrangements to sue
+      him for breach of promise if he did. That was the awful trouble, you see,
+      and the dream saved him from it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled. &ldquo;The fault there was in the interpretation of the dream,&rdquo; I
+      said. &ldquo;The 'awful trouble' of the breach of promise suit wouldn't have
+      been a circumstance to the trouble poor Uncle Bedny got into by marrying
+      Ann Dimick. THAT trouble lasted till he died.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah laughed and said she guessed that was so, she hadn't thought of
+      it in that way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Probably dreams are all nonsense,&rdquo; she admitted. &ldquo;Usually, I don't pay
+      much attention to 'em. But when I dream of poor 'Little Frank,' away off
+      there, I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come into the sitting-room, Jim,&rdquo; I put in hastily. &ldquo;I have a cigar or
+      two there. I don't buy them in Bayport, either.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And who,&rdquo; asked Jim, as we sat smoking by the fire, &ldquo;is Little Frank?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is a mythical relative of ours,&rdquo; I explained, shortly. &ldquo;He was born
+      twenty years ago or so&mdash;at least we heard that he was; and we haven't
+      heard anything of him since, except by the dream route, which is not
+      entirely convincing. He is Hephzy's pet obsession. Kindly forget him, to
+      oblige me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked puzzled, but he did not mention &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; again, for which
+      I was thankful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That afternoon we walked up to the village, stopping in at Simmons's
+      store, which is also the post-office, for the mail. Captain Cyrus
+      Whittaker happened to be there, also Asaph Tidditt and Bailey Bangs and
+      Sylvanus Cahoon and several others. I introduced Campbell to the crowd and
+      he seemed to be enjoying himself. When we came out and were walking home
+      again, he observed:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That Whittaker is an interesting chap, isn't he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;He is all right. Been everywhere and seen everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that,&rdquo; with an odd significance in his tone, &ldquo;may possibly help to
+      make him interesting, don't you think?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose so. He lives here in Bayport now, though.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So I gathered. Popular, is he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Satisfied with life?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seems to be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hum! No one calls HIM a&mdash;what is it&mdash;quahaug?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I'm the only human clam in this neighborhood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not say any more, nor did I. My fit of the blues was on again and
+      his silence on the subject in which I was interested, my work and my
+      future, troubled me and made me more despondent. I began to lose faith in
+      the &ldquo;prescription&rdquo; which he had promised so emphatically. How could he, or
+      anyone else, help me? No one could write my stories but myself, and I
+      knew, only too well, that I could not write them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The only mail matter in our box was a letter addressed to Hephzibah. I
+      forgot it until after supper and then I gave it to her. Jim retired early;
+      the salt air made him sleepy, so he said, and he went upstairs shortly
+      after nine. He had not mentioned our talk of the morning, nor did he until
+      I left him at the door of his room. Then he said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kent, I've got one of the answers to your conundrum. I've diagnosed one
+      of your troubles. You're blind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Blind?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, blind. Or, if not blind altogether you're suffering from the worse
+      case of far-sightedness I ever saw. All your literary&mdash;we'll call it
+      that for compliment's sake&mdash;all your literary life you've spent
+      writing about people and things so far off you don't know anything about
+      them. You and your dukes and your earls and your titled ladies! What do
+      you know of that crowd? You never saw a lord in your life. Why don't you
+      write of something near by, something or somebody you are acquainted
+      with?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Acquainted with! You're crazy, man. What am I acquainted with, except
+      this house, and myself and my books and&mdash;and Bayport?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's enough. Why, there is material in that gang at the post-office to
+      make a dozen books. Write about them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tut! tut! tut! You ARE crazy. What shall I write; the life of Ase Tidditt
+      in four volumes, beginning with 'I swan to man' and ending with 'By
+      godfrey'?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You might do worse. If the book were as funny as its hero I'd undertake
+      to sell a few copies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Funny! <i>I</i> couldn't write a funny book.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not an intentionally funny one, you mean. But there! There's no use to
+      talk to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is not, if you talk like an imbecile. Is this your brilliant
+      'prescription'?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. It might be; it would be, if you would take it, but you won't&mdash;not
+      now. You need something else first and I'll give it to you. But I'll tell
+      you this, and I mean it: Downstairs, in that dining-room of yours, there's
+      one mighty good story, at least.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The dining-room? A story in the dining-room?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Or it was there when we passed the door just now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at him. He seemed to be serious, but I knew he was not. I hate
+      riddles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, go to blazes!&rdquo; I retorted, and turned away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked into the dining-room as I went by. There was no story in sight
+      there, so far as I could see. Hephzy was seated by the table, mending
+      something, something of mine, of course. She looked up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Hosy,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;that letter you brought was a travel book from the
+      Raymond and Whitcomb folks. I sent a stamp for it. It's awfully
+      interesting! All about tours through England and France and Switzerland
+      and everywhere. So cheap they are! I'm pickin' out the ones I'm goin' on
+      some day. The pictures are lovely. Don't you want to see 'em?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not now,&rdquo; I replied. Another obsession of Hephzy's was travel. She, who
+      had never been further from Bayport than Hartford, Connecticut, was
+      forever dreaming of globe-trotting. It was not a new disease with her, by
+      any means; she had been dreaming the same things ever since I had known
+      her, and that is since I knew anything. Some day, SOME day she was going
+      to this, that and the other place. She knew all about these places,
+      because she had read about them over and over again. Her knowledge,
+      derived as it was from so many sources, was curiously mixed, but it was
+      comprehensive, of its kind. She was continually sending for Cook's
+      circulars and booklets advertising personally conducted excursions. And,
+      with the arrival of each new circular or booklet, she picked out, as she
+      had just done, the particular tours she would go on when her &ldquo;some day&rdquo;
+       came. It was funny, this queer habit of hers, but not half as funny as the
+      thought of her really going would have been. I would have as soon thought
+      of our front door leaving home and starting on its travels as of Hephzy's
+      doing it. The door was no more a part and fixture of that home than she
+      was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I went into my study, which adjoins the sitting-room, and sat down at my
+      desk. Not with the intention of writing anything, or even of considering
+      something to write about. That I made up my mind to forget for this night,
+      at least. My desk chair was my usual seat in that room and I took that
+      seat as a matter of habit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a matter of habit also I looked about for a book. I did not have to
+      look far. Books were my extravagance&mdash;almost my only one. They filled
+      the shelves to the ceiling on three sides of the study and overflowed in
+      untidy heaps on the floor. They were Hephzy's bugbear, for I refused to
+      permit their being &ldquo;straightened out&rdquo; or arranged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked about for a book and selected several, but, although they were
+      old favorites, I could not interest myself in any of them. I tried and
+      tried, but even Mr. Pepys, that dependable solace of a lonely hour, failed
+      to interest me with his chatter. Perhaps Campbell's pointed remarks
+      concerning lords and ladies had its effect here. Old Samuel loved to write
+      of such people, having a wide acquaintance with them, and perhaps that
+      very acquaintance made me jealous. At any rate I threw the volume back
+      upon its pile and began to think of myself, and of my work, the very thing
+      I had expressly determined not to do when I came into the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim's foolish and impossible advice to write of places and people I knew
+      haunted and irritated me. I did know Bayport&mdash;yes, and it might be
+      true that the group at the post-office contained possible material for
+      many books; but, if so, it was material for the other man, not for me.
+      &ldquo;Write of what you know,&rdquo; said Jim. And I knew so little. There was at
+      least one good yarn in the dining-room at that moment, he had declared. He
+      must have meant Hephzibah, but, if he did, what was there in Hephzibah's
+      dull, gray life-story to interest an outside reader? Her story and mine
+      were interwoven and neither contained anything worth writing about. His
+      fancy had been caught, probably, by her odd combination of the romantic
+      and the practical, and in her dream of &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; he had scented a
+      mystery. There was no mystery there, nothing but the most commonplace
+      record of misplaced trust and ingratitude. Similar things happen in so
+      many families.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, I began to think of Hephzy and, as I said, of myself, and to
+      review my life since Ardelia Cahoon and Strickland Morley changed its
+      course so completely. And now it seems to me that, in the course of my
+      &ldquo;edging around&rdquo; for the beginning of this present chronicle&mdash;so
+      different from anything I have ever written before or ever expected to
+      write&mdash;the time has come when the reader&mdash;provided, of course,
+      the said chronicle is ever finished or ever reaches a reader&mdash;should
+      know something of that life; should know a little of the family history of
+      the Knowles and the Cahoons and the Morleys.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Which, Although It Is Largely Family History, Should Not Be Skipped by the
+      Reader
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Let us take the Knowleses first. My name is Hosea Kent Knowles&mdash;I
+      said that before&mdash;and my father was Captain Philander Kent Knowles.
+      He was lost in the wreck of the steamer &ldquo;Monarch of the Sea,&rdquo; off
+      Hatteras. The steamer caught fire in the middle of the night, a howling
+      gale blowing and the thermometer a few degrees above zero. The passengers
+      and crew took to the boats and were saved. My father stuck by his ship and
+      went down with her, as did also her first mate, another Cape-Codder. I was
+      a baby at the time, and was at Bayport with my mother, Emily Knowles,
+      formerly Emily Cahoon, Captain Barnabas Cahoon's niece. Mother had a
+      little money of her own and Father's life was insured for a moderate sum.
+      Her small fortune was invested for her by her uncle, Captain Barnabas, who
+      was the Bayport magnate and man of affairs in those days. Mother and I
+      continued to live in the old house in Bayport and I went to school in the
+      village until I was fourteen, when I went away to a preparatory school
+      near Boston. Mother died a year later. I was an only child, but Hephzibah,
+      who had always seemed like an older sister to me, now began to &ldquo;mother&rdquo;
+       me, the process which she has kept up ever since.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah was the daughter of Captain Barnabas by his first wife. Hephzy
+      was born in 1859, so she is well over fifty now, although no one would
+      guess it. Her mother died when she was a little girl and ten years later
+      Captain Barnabas married again. His second wife was Susan Hammond, of
+      Ostable, and by her he had one daughter, Ardelia. Hephzy has always
+      declared &ldquo;Ardelia&rdquo; to be a pretty name. I have my own opinion on that
+      subject, but I keep it to myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At any rate, Ardelia herself was pretty enough. She was pretty when a baby
+      and prettier still as a schoolgirl. Her mother&mdash;while she lived,
+      which was not long&mdash;spoiled her, and her half-sister, Hephzy,
+      assisted in the petting and spoiling. Ardelia grew up with the idea that
+      most things in this world were hers for the asking. Whatever took her
+      fancy she asked for and, if Captain Barnabas did not give it to her, she
+      considered herself ill-used. She was the young lady of the family and
+      Hephzibah was the housekeeper and drudge, an uncomplaining one, be it
+      understood. For her, as for the Captain, the business of life was keeping
+      Ardelia contented and happy, and they gloried in the task. Hephzy might
+      have married well at least twice, but she wouldn't think of such a thing.
+      &ldquo;Pa and Ardelia need me,&rdquo; she said; that was reason sufficient.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In 1888 Captain Barnabas went to Philadelphia on business. He had retired
+      from active sea-going years before, but he retained an interest in a
+      certain line of coasting schooners. The Captain, as I said, went to
+      Philadelphia on business connected with these schooners and Ardelia went
+      with him. Hephzibah stayed at home, of course; she always stayed at home,
+      never expected to do anything else, although even then her favorite
+      reading were books of travel, and pictures of the Alps, and of St. Peter's
+      at Rome, and the Tower of London were tacked up about her room. She, too,
+      might have gone to Philadelphia, doubtless, if she had asked, but she did
+      not ask. Her father did not think of inviting her. He loved his oldest
+      daughter, although he did not worship her as he did Ardelia, but it never
+      occurred to him that she, too, might enjoy the trip. Hephzy was always at
+      home, she WAS home; so at home she remained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Philadelphia Ardelia met Strickland Morley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I give that statement a line all by itself, for it is by far the most
+      important I have set down so far. The whole story of the Cahoons and the
+      Knowleses&mdash;that is, all of their story which is the foundation of
+      this history of mine&mdash;hinges on just that. If those two had not met I
+      should not be writing this to-day, I might not be writing at all; instead
+      of having become a Bayport &ldquo;quahaug&rdquo; I might have been the Lord knows
+      what.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, they did meet, at the home of a wealthy shipping merchant named
+      Osgood who was a lifelong friend of Captain Barnabas. This shipping
+      merchant had a daughter and that daughter was giving a party at her
+      father's home. Barnabas and Ardelia were invited. Strickland Morley was
+      invited also.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Morley, at that time&mdash;I saw a good deal of him afterward, when he was
+      at Bayport and when I was at the Cahoon house on holidays and vacations&mdash;was
+      a handsome, aristocratic young Englishman. He was twenty-eight, but he
+      looked younger. He was the second son in a Leicestershire family which had
+      once been wealthy and influential but which had, in its later generations,
+      gone to seed. He was educated, in a general sort of way, was a good
+      dancer, played the violin fairly well, sang fairly well, had an attractive
+      presence, and was one of the most plausible and fascinating talkers I ever
+      listened to. He had studied medicine&mdash;studied it after a fashion,
+      that is; he never applied himself to anything&mdash;and was then, in '88,
+      &ldquo;ship's doctor&rdquo; aboard a British steamer, which ran between Philadelphia
+      and Glasgow. Miss Osgood had met him at the home of a friend of hers who
+      had traveled on that steamer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy and I do not agree as to whether or not he actually fell in love
+      with Ardelia Cahoon. Hephzy, of course, to whom Ardelia was the most
+      wonderfully beautiful creature on earth, is certain that he did&mdash;he
+      could not help it, she says. I am not so sure. It is very hard for me to
+      believe that Strickland Morley was ever in love with anyone but himself.
+      Captain Barnabas was well-to-do and had the reputation of being much
+      richer than he really was. And Ardelia WAS beautiful, there is no doubt of
+      that. At all events, Ardelia fell in love, with him, violently,
+      desperately, head over heels in love, the very moment the two were
+      introduced. They danced practically every dance together that evening, met
+      surreptitiously the next day and for five days thereafter, and on the
+      sixth day Captain Barnabas received a letter from his daughter announcing
+      that she and Morley were married and had gone to New York together. &ldquo;We
+      will meet you there, Pa,&rdquo; wrote Ardelia. &ldquo;I know you will forgive me for
+      marrying Strickland. He is the most wonderful man in the wide world. You
+      will love him, Pa, as I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was very little love expressed by the Captain when he read the note.
+      According to Mr. Osgood's account, Barnabas's language was a throwback
+      from the days when he was first mate on a Liverpool packet. That his
+      idolized daughter had married without asking his consent was bad enough;
+      that she had married an Englishman was worse. Captain Barnabas hated all
+      Englishmen. A ship of his had been captured and burned, in the war time,
+      by the &ldquo;Alabama,&rdquo; a British built privateer, and the very mildest of the
+      terms he applied to a &ldquo;John Bull&rdquo; will not bear repetition in respectable
+      society. He would not forgive Ardelia. She and her &ldquo;Cockney husband&rdquo; might
+      sail together to the most tropical of tropics, or words to that effect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he did forgive her, of course. Likewise he forgave his son-in-law.
+      When the Captain returned to Bayport he brought the newly wedded pair with
+      him. I was not present at that homecoming. I was away at prep school,
+      digging at my examinations, trying hard to forget that I was an orphan,
+      but with the dull ache caused by my mother's death always grinding at my
+      heart. Many years ago she died, but the ache comes back now, as I think of
+      her. There is more self-reproach in it than there used to be, more vain
+      regrets for impatient words and wasted opportunities. Ah, if some of us&mdash;boys
+      grown older&mdash;might have our mothers back again, would we be as
+      impatient and selfish now? Would we neglect the opportunities? I think
+      not; I hope not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah, after she got over the shock of the surprise and the pain of
+      sharing her beloved sister with another, welcomed that other for Ardelia's
+      sake. She determined to like him very much indeed. This wasn't so hard, at
+      first. Everyone liked and trusted Strickland Morley at first sight.
+      Afterward, when they came to know him better, they were not&mdash;if they
+      were as wise and discerning as Hephzy&mdash;so sure of the trust. The wise
+      and discerning were not, I say; Captain Barnabas, though wise and shrewd
+      enough in other things, trusted him to the end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Morley made it a point to win the affection and goodwill of his
+      father-in-law. For the first month or two after the return to Bayport the
+      new member of the family was always speaking of his plans for the future,
+      of his profession and how he intended soon, very soon, to look up a good
+      location and settle down to practice. Whenever he spoke thus, Captain
+      Barnabas and Ardelia begged him not to do it yet, to wait awhile. &ldquo;I am so
+      happy with you and Pa and Hephzy,&rdquo; declared Ardelia. &ldquo;I can't bear to go
+      away yet, Strickland. And Pa doesn't want us to; do you, Pa?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Of course Captain Barnabas agreed with her, he always did, and so the
+      Morleys remained at Bayport in the old house. Then came the first of the
+      paralytic shocks&mdash;a very slight one&mdash;which rendered Captain
+      Barnabas, the hitherto hale, active old seaman, unfit for exertion or the
+      cares of business. He was not bedridden by any means; he could still take
+      short walks, attend town meetings and those of the parish committee, but
+      he must not, so Dr. Parker said, be allowed to worry about anything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Morley took it upon himself to prevent that worry. He spoke no more of
+      leaving Bayport and settling down to practice his profession. Instead he
+      settled down in Bayport and took the Captain's business cares upon his own
+      shoulders. Little by little he increased his influence over the old man.
+      He attended to the latter's investments, took charge of his bank account,
+      collected his dividends, became, so to speak, his financial guardian.
+      Captain Barnabas, at first rebellious&mdash;&ldquo;I've always bossed my own
+      ship,&rdquo; he declared, &ldquo;and I ain't so darned feeble-headed that I can't do
+      it yet&rdquo;&mdash;gradually grew reconciled and then contented. He, too, began
+      to worship his daughter's husband as the daughter herself did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's a wonder,&rdquo; said the Captain. &ldquo;I never saw such a fellow for money
+      matters. He's handled my stocks and things a whole lot better'n I ever
+      did. I used to cal'late if I got six per cent. interest I was doin' well.
+      He ain't satisfied with anything short of eight, and he gets it, too.
+      Whatever that boy wants and I own he can have. Sometimes I think this
+      consarned palsy of mine is a judgment on me for bein' so sot against him
+      in the beginnin'. Why, just look at how he runs this house, to say nothing
+      of the rest of it! He's a skipper here; the rest of us ain't anything but
+      fo'most hands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Which was not the exact truth. Morley was skipper of the Cahoon house,
+      Ardelia first mate, her father a passenger, and the foremast hand was
+      Hephzy. And yet, so far as &ldquo;running&rdquo; that house was concerned the foremast
+      hand ran it, as she always had done. The Captain and Ardelia were Morley's
+      willing slaves; Hephzy was, and continued to be, a free woman. She worked
+      from morning until night, but she obeyed only such orders as she saw fit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She alone did not take the new skipper at his face value.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know what there was about him that made me uneasy,&rdquo; she has told
+      me since. &ldquo;Maybe there wasn't anything; perhaps that was just the reason.
+      When a person is SO good and SO smart and SO polite&mdash;maybe the
+      average sinful common mortal like me gets jealous; I don't know. But I do
+      know that, to save my life, I couldn't swallow him whole the way Ardelia
+      and Father did. I wanted to look him over first; and the more I looked him
+      over, and the smoother and smoother he looked, the more sure I felt he'd
+      give us all dyspepsy before he got through. Unreasonable, wasn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For Ardelia's sake she concealed her distrust and did her best to get on
+      with the new head of the family. Only one thing she did, and that against
+      Motley's and her father's protest. She withdrew her own little fortune,
+      left her by her mother, from Captain Barnabas's care and deposited it in
+      the Ostable savings bank and in equally secure places. Of course she told
+      the Captain of her determination to do this before she did it and the
+      telling was the cause of the only disagreement, almost a quarrel, which
+      she and her father ever had. The Captain was very angry and demanded
+      reasons. Hephzibah declared she didn't know that she had any reasons, but
+      she was going to do it, nevertheless. And she did do it. For months
+      thereafter relations between the two were strained; Barnabas scarcely
+      spoke to his older daughter and Hephzy shed tears in the solitude of her
+      bedroom. They were hard months for her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the end of them came the crash. Morley had developed a habit of running
+      up to Boston on business trips connected with his father-in-law's
+      investments. Of late these little trips had become more frequent. Also, so
+      it seemed to Hephzy, he was losing something of his genial sweetness and
+      suavity, and becoming more moody and less entertaining. Telegrams and
+      letters came frequently and these he read and destroyed at once. He seldom
+      played the violin now unless Captain Barnabas&mdash;who was fond of music
+      of the simpler sort&mdash;requested him to do so and he seemed uneasy and,
+      for him, surprisingly disinclined to talk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was not the only one who noticed the change in him. Ardelia noticed
+      it also and, as she always did when troubled or perplexed, sought her
+      sister's advice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I sha'n't ever forget that night when she came to me for the last time,&rdquo;
+       Hephzy has told me over and over again. &ldquo;She came up to my room, poor
+      thing, and set down on the side of my bed and told me how worried she was
+      about her husband. Father had turned in and HE was out, gone to the
+      post-office or somewheres. I had Ardelia all to myself, for a wonder, and
+      we sat and talked just the same as we used to before she was married. I'm
+      glad it happened so. I shall always have that to remember, anyhow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course, all her worry was about Strickland. She was afraid he was
+      makin' himself sick. He worked so hard; didn't I think so? Well, so far as
+      that was concerned, I had come to believe that almost any kind of work was
+      liable to make HIM sick, but of course I didn't say that to her. That
+      somethin' was troublin' him was plain, though I was far enough from
+      guessin' what that somethin' was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We set and talked, about Strickland and about Father and about ourselves.
+      Mainly Ardelia's talk was a praise service with her husband for the
+      subject of worship; she was so happy with him and idolized him so that she
+      couldn't spare time for much else. But she did speak a little about
+      herself and, before she went away, she whispered somethin' in my ear which
+      was a dead secret. Even Father didn't know it yet, she said. Of course I
+      was as pleased as she was, almost&mdash;and a little frightened too,
+      although I didn't say so to her. She was always a frail little thing,
+      delicate as she was pretty; not a strapping, rugged, homely body like me.
+      We wasn't a bit alike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So we talked and when she went away to bed she gave me an extra hug and
+      kiss; came back to give 'em to me, just as she used to when she was a
+      little girl. I wondered since if she had any inklin' of what was goin' to
+      happen. I'm sure she didn't; I'm sure of it as I am that it did happen.
+      She couldn't have kept it from me if she had known&mdash;not that night.
+      She went away to bed and I went to bed, too. I was a long while gettin' to
+      sleep and after I did I dreamed my first dream about 'Little Frank.' I
+      didn't call him 'Little Frank' then, though. I don't seem to remember what
+      I did call him or just how he looked except that he looked like Ardelia.
+      And the next afternoon she and Strickland went away&mdash;to Boston, he
+      told us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      From that trip they never returned. Morley's influence over his wife must
+      have been greater even than any of us thought to induce her to desert her
+      father and Hephzy without even a written word of explanation or farewell.
+      It is possible that she did write and that her husband destroyed the
+      letter. I am as sure as Hephzy is that Ardelia did not know what Morley
+      had done. But, at all events, they never came back to Bayport and within
+      the week the truth became known. Morley had speculated, had lost and lost
+      again and again. All of Captain Barnabas's own money and all intrusted to
+      his care, including my little nest-egg, had gone as margins to the brokers
+      who had bought for Morley his worthless eight per cent. wildcats. Hephzy's
+      few thousands in the savings bank and elsewhere were all that was left.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shall condense the rest of the miserable business as much as I can.
+      Captain Barnabas traced his daughter and her husband as far as the steamer
+      which sailed for England. Farther he would not trace them, although he
+      might easily have cabled and caused his son-in-law's arrest. For a month
+      he went about in a sort of daze, speaking to almost no one and sitting for
+      hours alone in his room. The doctor feared for his sanity, but when the
+      breakdown came it was in the form of a second paralytic stroke which left
+      him a helpless, crippled dependent, weak and shattered in body and mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He lived nine years longer. Meanwhile various things happened. I managed
+      to finish my preparatory school term and, then, instead of entering
+      college as Mother and I had planned, I went into business&mdash;save the
+      mark&mdash;taking the exalted position of entry clerk in a wholesale
+      drygoods house in Boston. As entry clerk I did not shine, but I continued
+      to keep the place until the firm failed&mdash;whether or not because of my
+      connection with it I am not sure, though I doubt if my services were
+      sufficiently important to contribute toward even this result. A month
+      later I obtained another position and, after that, another. I was never
+      discharged; I declare that with a sort of negative pride; but when I
+      announced to my second employer my intention of resigning he bore the
+      shock with&mdash;to say the least&mdash;philosophic fortitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall miss you, Knowles,&rdquo; he observed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, sir,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I doubt if we ever have another bookkeeper just like you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I thanked him again, fighting down my blushes with heroic modesty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I guess you can find one if you try,&rdquo; I said, lightly, wishing to
+      comfort him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook his head. &ldquo;I sha'n't try,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;I am not as young and as
+      strong as I was and&mdash;well, there is always the chance that we might
+      succeed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a mean thing to say&mdash;to a boy, for I was scarcely more than
+      that. And yet, looking back at it now, I am much more disposed to smile
+      and forgive than I was then. My bookkeeping must have been a trial to his
+      orderly, pigeon-holed soul. Why in the world he and his partner put up
+      with it so long is a miracle. When, after my first novel appeared, he
+      wrote me to say that the consciousness of having had a part, small though
+      it might be, in training my young mind upward toward the success it had
+      achieved would always be a great gratification to him, I did not send the
+      letter I wrote in answer. Instead I tore up my letter and his and grinned.
+      I WAS a bad bookkeeper; I was, and still am, a bad business man. Now I
+      don't care so much; that is the difference.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then I cared a great deal, but I kept on at my hated task. What else was
+      there for me to do? My salary was so small that, as Charlie Burns, one of
+      my fellow-clerks, said of his, I was afraid to count it over a bare floor
+      for fear that it might drop in a crack and be lost. It was my only
+      revenue, however, and I continued to live upon it somehow. I had a small
+      room in a boarding-house on Shawmut Avenue and I spent most of my evenings
+      there or in the reading-room at the public library. I was not popular at
+      the boarding-house. Most of the young fellows there went out a good deal,
+      to call upon young ladies or to dance or to go to the theater. I had
+      learned to dance when I was at school and I was fond of the theater, but I
+      did not dance well and on the rare occasions when I did accompany the
+      other fellows to the play and they laughed and applauded and tried to
+      flirt with the chorus girls, I fidgeted in my seat and was uncomfortable.
+      Not that I disapproved of their conduct; I rather envied them, in fact.
+      But if I laughed too heartily I was sure that everyone was looking at me,
+      and though I should have liked to flirt, I didn't know how.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The few attempts I made were not encouraging. One evening&mdash;I was
+      nineteen then, or thereabouts&mdash;Charlie Burns, the clerk whom I have
+      mentioned, suggested that we get dinner downtown at a restaurant and &ldquo;go
+      somewhere&rdquo; afterward. I agreed&mdash;it happened to be Saturday night and
+      I had my pay in my pocket&mdash;so we feasted on oyster stew and ice cream
+      and then started for what my companion called a &ldquo;variety show.&rdquo; Burns, who
+      cherished the fond hope that he was a true sport, ordered beer with his
+      oyster stew and insisted that I should do the same. My acquaintance with
+      beer was limited and I never did like the stuff, but I drank it with
+      reckless abandon, following each sip with a mouthful of something else to
+      get rid of the taste. On the way to the &ldquo;show&rdquo; we met two young women of
+      Burns' acquaintance and stopped to converse with them. Charlie offered his
+      arm to one, the best looking; I offered mine to the discard, and we
+      proceeded to stroll two by two along the Tremont Street mall of the
+      Common. We had strolled for perhaps ten minutes, most of which time I had
+      spent trying to think of something to say, when Burns' charmer&mdash;she
+      was a waitress in one of Mr. Wyman's celebrated &ldquo;sandwich depots,&rdquo; I
+      believe&mdash;turned and, looking back at my fair one and myself, observed
+      with some sarcasm: &ldquo;What's the matter with your silent partner, Mame? Got
+      the lock-jaw, has he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I left them soon after that. There was no &ldquo;variety show&rdquo; for me that
+      night. Humiliated and disgusted with myself I returned to my room at the
+      boarding-house, realizing in bitterness of spirit that the gentlemanly
+      dissipations of a true sport were never to be mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I grew older I kept more and more to myself. My work at the office must
+      have been a little better done, I fancy, for my salary was raised twice in
+      four years, but I detested the work and the office and all connected with
+      it. I read more and more at the public library and began to spend the few
+      dollars I could spare for luxuries on books. Among my acquaintances at the
+      boarding-house and elsewhere I had the reputation of being &ldquo;queer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My only periods of real pleasure were my annual vacations in summer. These
+      glorious fortnights were spent at Bayport. There, at our old home, for
+      Hephzibah had sold the big Cahoon house and she and her father were living
+      in mine, for which they paid a very small rent, I was happy. I spent the
+      two weeks in sailing and fishing, and tramping along the waved-washed
+      beaches and over the pine-sprinkled hills. Even in Bayport I had few
+      associates of my own age. Even then they began to call me &ldquo;The Quahaug.&rdquo;
+       Hephzy hugged me when I came and wept over me when I went away and mended
+      my clothes and cooked my favorite dishes in the interval. Captain Barnabas
+      sat in the big arm-chair by the sitting-room window, looking out or
+      sleeping. He took little interest in me or anyone else and spoke but
+      seldom. Occasionally I spent the Fourth of July or Christmas at Bayport;
+      not often, but as often as I could.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One morning&mdash;I was twenty-five at the time, and the day was Sunday&mdash;I
+      read a story in one of the low-priced magazines. It was not much of a
+      story, and, as I read it, I kept thinking that I could write as good a
+      one. I had had such ideas before, but nothing had come of them. This time,
+      however, I determined to try. In half an hour I had evolved a plot, such
+      as it was, and at a quarter to twelve that night the story was finished. A
+      highwayman was its hero and its scene the great North Road in England. My
+      conceptions of highwaymen and the North Road&mdash;of England, too, for
+      that matter&mdash;were derived from something I had read at some time or
+      other, I suppose; they must have been. At any rate, I finished that story,
+      addressed the envelope to the editor of the magazine and dropped the
+      envelope and its inclosure in the corner mail-box before I went to bed.
+      Next morning I went to the office as usual. I had not the faintest hope
+      that the story would be accepted. The writing of it had been fun and the
+      sending it to the magazine a joke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the story was accepted and the check which I received&mdash;forty
+      dollars&mdash;was far from a joke to a man whose weekly wage was half that
+      amount. The encouraging letter which accompanied the check was best of
+      all. Before the week ended I had written another thriller and this, too,
+      was accepted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thereafter, for a year or more, my Sundays and the most of my evenings
+      were riots of ink and blood. The ink was real enough and the blood purely
+      imaginary. My heroes spilled the latter and I the former. Sometimes my
+      yarns were refused, but the most of them were accepted and paid for.
+      Editors of other periodicals began to write to me requesting
+      contributions. My price rose. For one particularly harrowing and romantic
+      tale I was paid seventy-five dollars. I dressed in my best that evening,
+      dined at the Adams House, gave the waiter a quarter, and saw Joseph
+      Jefferson from an orchestra seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then came the letter from Jim Campbell requesting me to come to New York
+      and see him concerning a possible book, a romance, to be written by me and
+      published by the firm of which he was the head. I saw my employer,
+      obtained a Saturday off, and spent that Saturday and Sunday in New York,
+      my first visit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a result of that visit began my friendship with Campbell and my first
+      long story, &ldquo;The Queen's Amulet.&rdquo; The &ldquo;Amulet,&rdquo; or the &ldquo;Omelet,&rdquo; just as
+      you like, was a financial success. It sold a good many thousand copies.
+      Six months later I broke to my employers the distressing news that their
+      business must henceforth worry on as best it could without my aid; I was
+      going to devote my valuable time and effort to literature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My fellow-clerks were surprised. Charlie Burns, head bookkeeper now, and a
+      married man and a father, was much concerned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, great Scott, Kent!&rdquo; he protested, &ldquo;you're going to do something
+      besides write books, ain't you? You ain't going to make your whole living
+      that way?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to try,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Great Scott! Why, you'll starve! All those fellows live in garrets and
+      starve to death, don't they?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not all,&rdquo; I told him. &ldquo;Only real geniuses do that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook his head and his good-by was anything but cheerful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My plans were made and I put them into execution at once. I shipped my
+      goods and chattels, the latter for the most part books, to Bayport and
+      went there to live and write in the old house where I was born. Hephzy was
+      engaged as my housekeeper. She was alone now; Captain Barnabas had died
+      nearly two years before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the Captain's papers and discovered by his daughter after his death
+      was a letter from Strickland Morley. It was written from a town in France
+      and was dated six years after Morley's flight and the disclosure of his
+      crookedness. Captain Barnabas had never, apparently, answered the letter;
+      certainly he had never told anyone of its receipt by him. The old man
+      never mentioned Morley's name and only spoke of Ardelia during his last
+      hours, when his mind was wandering. Then he spoke of and asked for her
+      continually, driving poor Hephzibah to distraction, for her love for her
+      lost sister was as great as his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The letter was the complaining whine of a thoroughly selfish man. I can
+      scarcely refer to it without losing patience, even now when I understand
+      more completely the circumstances under which it was written. It was not
+      too plainly written or coherent and seemed to imply that other letters had
+      preceded it. Morley begged for money. He was in &ldquo;pitiful straits,&rdquo; he
+      declared, compelled to live as no gentleman of birth and breeding should
+      live. As a matter of fact, the remnant of his resources, the little cash
+      left from the Captain's fortune which he had taken with him had gone and
+      he was earning a precarious living by playing the violin in a second-rate
+      orchestra. &ldquo;For poor dead Ardelia's sake,&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;and for the sake of
+      little Francis, your grandchild, I ask you to extend the financial help
+      which I, as your heir-in-law, might demand. You may consider that I have
+      wronged you, but, as you should know and must know, the wrong was
+      unintentional and due solely to the sudden collapse of the worthless
+      American investments which the scoundrelly Yankee brokers inveigled me
+      into making.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      If the money was sent at once, he added, it might reach him in time to
+      prevent his yielding to despondency and committing suicide.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Suicide! HE commit suicide!&rdquo; sniffed Hephzy when she read me the letter.
+      &ldquo;He thinks too much of his miserable self ever to hurt it. But, oh dear! I
+      wish Pa had told me of this letter instead of hidin' it away. I might have
+      sent somethin', not to him, but to poor, motherless Little Frank.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had tried; that is, she had written to the French address, but her
+      letter had been returned. Morley and the child of whom this letter
+      furnished the only information were no longer in that locality. Hephzy had
+      talked of &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; and dreamed about him at intervals ever since. He
+      had come to be a reality to her, and she even cut a child's picture from a
+      magazine and fastened it to the wall of her room beneath the engraving of
+      Westminster Abbey, because there was something about the child in the
+      picture which reminded her of &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; as he looked in her dreams.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She and I had lived together ever since, I continuing to turn out, each
+      with less enthusiasm and more labor, my stories of persons and places of
+      which, as Campbell said but too truly, I knew nothing whatever. Finally I
+      had reached my determination to write no more &ldquo;slush,&rdquo; profitable though
+      it might be. I invited Jim to visit me; he had come and the conversation
+      at the boathouse and his remarks at the bedroom door were all the
+      satisfaction that visit had brought me so far.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I sat there in my study, going over all this, not so fully as I have set
+      it down here, but fully nevertheless, and the possibility of finding even
+      a glimmer of interest or a hint of fictional foundation in Hephzibah or
+      her life or mine was as remote at the end of my thinking as it had been at
+      the beginning. There might be a story there, or a part of a story, but I
+      could not write it. The real trouble was that I could not write anything.
+      With which, conclusion, exactly what I started with, I blew out the lamp
+      and went upstairs to bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next morning Jim and I went for another sail from which we did not return
+      until nearly dinner-time. During that whole forenoon he did not mention
+      the promised &ldquo;prescription,&rdquo; although I offered him plenty of
+      opportunities and threw out various hints by way of bait.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He ignored the bait altogether and, though he talked a great deal and
+      asked a good many questions, both talk and questions had no bearing on the
+      all-important problem which had been my real reason for inviting him to
+      Bayport. He questioned me again concerning my way of spending my time,
+      about my savings, how much money I had put by, and the like, but I was not
+      particularly interested in these matters and they were not his business,
+      to put it plainly. At least, I could not see that they were.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I answered him as briefly as possible and, I am afraid, behaved rather
+      boorishly to one, who next to Hephzy, was perhaps the best friend I had in
+      the world. His apparent lack of interest hurt and disappointed me and I
+      did not care if he knew it. My impatience must have been apparent enough,
+      but if so it did not trouble him; he chatted and laughed and told stories
+      all the way from the landing to the house and announced to Hephzy, who had
+      stayed at home from church in order to prepare and cook clam chowder and
+      chicken pie and a &ldquo;Queen pudding,&rdquo; that he had an appetite like a starved
+      shark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When, at last, that appetite was satisfied, he and I adjourned to the
+      sitting-room for a farewell smoke. His train left at three-thirty and it
+      lacked but an hour of that time. He had worn my suit, the one which
+      Hephzibah had laid out for him the day before, but had changed to his own
+      again and packed his bag before dinner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We camped in the wing chairs and he lighted his cigar. Then, to my
+      astonishment, he rose and shut the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you do that for?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He came back to his chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I'm going to talk to you like a Dutch uncle,&rdquo; he replied, &ldquo;and I
+      don't want anyone, not even a Cape Cod cousin, butting in. Kent, I told
+      you that before I went I was going to prescribe for you, didn't I? Well,
+      I'm going to do it now. Are you ready for the prescription?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been ready for it for some time,&rdquo; I retorted. &ldquo;I began to think
+      you had forgotten it altogether.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hadn't. But I wanted it to be the last word you should hear from me and
+      I didn't want to give you time to think up a lot of fool objections to
+      spring on me before I left. Look here, I'm your doctor now; do you
+      understand? You called me in as a specialist and what I say goes. Is that
+      understood?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hear you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've got to do more than hear me. You've got to do what I tell you. I
+      know what ails you. You've buried yourself in the mud down here. Wake up,
+      you clam! Come out of your shell. Stir around. Stop thinking about
+      yourself and think of something worth while.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear! dear! hark to the voice of the oracle. And what is the something
+      worth while I am to think about; you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, by George! me! Me and the dear public! Here are thirty-five thousand
+      seekers after the&mdash;the higher literature, panting open-mouthed for
+      another Knowles classic. And you sit back here and cover yourself with
+      sand and seaweed and say you won't give it to them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're wrong. I say I can't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will, though.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I won't. You can bet high on that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will, and I'll bet higher. YOU write no more stories! You! Why,
+      confound you, you couldn't help it if you tried. You needn't write another
+      'Black Brig' unless you want to. You needn't&mdash;you mustn't write
+      anything UNTIL you want to. But, by George! you'll get up and open your
+      eyes and stir around, and keep stirring until the time comes when you've
+      found something or someone you DO want to write about. THEN you'll write;
+      you will, for I know you. It may turn out to be what you call 'slush,' or
+      it may not, but you'll write it, mark my words.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was serious now, serious enough even to suit me. But what he had said
+      did not suit me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't talk nonsense, Jim,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Don't you suppose I have thought&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thought! that's just it; you do nothing but think. Stop thinking. Stop
+      being a quahaug&mdash;a dead one, anyway. Drop the whole business, drop
+      Bayport, drop America, if you like. Get up, clear out, go to China, go to
+      Europe, go to&mdash;Well, never mind, but go somewhere. Go somewhere and
+      forget it. Travel, take a long trip, start for one place and, if you
+      change your mind before you get there, go somewhere else. It doesn't make
+      much difference where, so that you go, and see different things. I'm
+      talking now, Kent Knowles, and it isn't altogether because it pays us to
+      publish your books, either. You drop Bayport and drop writing. Go out and
+      pick up and go. Stay six months, stay a year, stay two years, but keep
+      alive and meet people and give what you flatter yourself is a brain
+      house-cleaning. Confound you, you've kept it shut like one of these best
+      front parlors down here. Open the windows and air out. Let the outside
+      light in. An idea may come with it; it is barely possible, even to you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was out of breath by this time. I was in a somewhat similar condition
+      for his tirade had taken mine away. However, I managed to express my
+      feelings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph!&rdquo; I grunted. &ldquo;And so this is your wonderful prescription. I am to
+      travel, am I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are. You can afford it, and I'll see that you do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And just what port would you recommend?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't care, I tell you, except that it ought to be a long way off. I'm
+      not joking, Kent; this is straight. A good long jaunt around the world
+      would do you a barrel of good. Don't stop to think about it, just start,
+      that's all. Will you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed. The idea of my starting on a pleasure trip was ridiculous. If
+      ever there was a home-loving and home-staying person it was I. The bare
+      thought of leaving my comfort and my books and Hephzy made me shudder. I
+      hadn't the least desire to see other countries and meet other people. I
+      hated sleeping cars and railway trains and traveling acquaintances. So I
+      laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sorry, Jim,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;but I'm afraid I can't take your prescription.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For one reason because I don't want to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's no reason at all. It doesn't make any difference what you want.
+      Anything else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. I would no more wander about creation all alone than&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take someone with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who? Will you go, yourself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish I could,&rdquo; he said, and I think he meant it. &ldquo;I'd like nothing
+      better. I'D keep you alive, you can bet on that. But I can't leave the
+      literature works just now. I'll do my best to find someone who will,
+      though. I know a lot of good fellows who travel&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I held up my hand. &ldquo;That's enough,&rdquo; I interrupted. &ldquo;They can't travel with
+      me. They wouldn't be good fellows long if they did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He struck the chair arm with his fist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're as near impossible as you can be, aren't you,&rdquo; he exclaimed.
+      &ldquo;Never mind; you're going to do as I tell you. I never gave you bad advice
+      yet, now did I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;o. No, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not giving it to you now. You'll go and you'll go in a hurry. I'll
+      give you a week to think the idea over. At the end of that time if I don't
+      hear from you I'll be down here again, and I'll worry you every minute
+      until you'll go anywhere to get rid of me. Kent, you must do it. You
+      aren't written out, as you call it, but you are rusting out, fast. If you
+      don't get away and polish up you'll never do a thing worth while. You'll
+      be another what's-his-name&mdash;Ase Tidditt; that's what you'll be. I can
+      see it coming on. You're ossifying; you're narrowing; you're&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I broke in here. I didn't like to be called narrow and I did not like to
+      be paired with Asaph Tidditt, although our venerable town clerk is a good
+      citizen and all right, in his way. But I had flattered myself that way was
+      not mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop it, Jim!&rdquo; I ordered. &ldquo;Don't blow off any more steam in this
+      ridiculous fashion. If this is all you have to say to me, you may as well
+      stop.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop! I've only begun. I'll stop when you start, and not before. Will you
+      go?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't, Jim. You know I can't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know you can and I know you're going to. There!&rdquo; rising and laying a
+      hand on my shoulder, &ldquo;it is time for ME to be starting. Kent, old man, I
+      want you to promise me that you will do as I tell you. Will you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't, Jim. I would if I could, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you promise me to think the idea over? Think it over carefully;
+      don't think of anything else for the rest of the week? Will you promise me
+      to do that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hesitated. I was perfectly sure that all my thinking would but
+      strengthen my determination to remain at home, but I did not like to
+      appear too stubborn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, yes, Jim,&rdquo; I said, doubtfully, &ldquo;I promise so much, if that is any
+      satisfaction to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right. I'll give you until Friday to make up your mind. If I don't
+      hear from you by that time I shall take it for granted that you have made
+      it up in the wrong way and I'll be here on Saturday. I'll keep the process
+      up week in and week out until you give in. That's MY promise. Come on. We
+      must be moving.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He said good-by to Hephzy and we walked together to the station. His last
+      words as we shook hands by the car steps were: &ldquo;Remember&mdash;think. But
+      don't you dare think of anything else.&rdquo; My answer was a dubious shake of
+      the head. Then the train pulled out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I believe that afternoon and evening to have been the &ldquo;bluest&rdquo; of all my
+      blue periods, and I had had some blue ones prior to Jim's visit. I was
+      dreadfully disappointed. Of course I should have realized that no advice
+      or &ldquo;prescription&rdquo; could help me. As Campbell had said, &ldquo;It was up to me;&rdquo;
+       I must help myself; but I had been trying to help myself for months and I
+      had not succeeded. I had&mdash;foolishly, I admit&mdash;relied upon him to
+      give me a new idea, a fresh inspiration, and he had not done it. I was
+      disappointed and more discouraged than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My state of mind may seem ridiculous. Perhaps it was. I was in good
+      health, not very old&mdash;except in my feelings&mdash;and my stories,
+      even the &ldquo;Black Brig,&rdquo; had not been failures, by any means. But I am sure
+      that every man or woman who writes, or paints, or does creative work of
+      any kind, will understand and sympathize with me. I had &ldquo;gone stale,&rdquo; that
+      is the technical name for my disease, and to &ldquo;go stale&rdquo; is no joke. If you
+      doubt it ask the writer or painter of your acquaintance. Ask him if he
+      ever has felt that he could write or paint no more, and then ask him how
+      he liked the feeling. The fact that he has written or painted a great deal
+      since has no bearing on the matter. &ldquo;Staleness&rdquo; is purely a mental
+      ailment, and the confident assurance of would-be doctors that its attacks
+      are seldom fatal doesn't help the sufferer at the time. He knows he is
+      dead, and that is no better, then, than being dead in earnest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I knew I was dead, so far as my writing was concerned, and the advice to
+      go away and bury myself in a strange country did not appeal to me. It
+      might be true that I was already buried in Bayport, but that was my home
+      cemetery, at all events. The more I thought of Jim Campbell's prescription
+      the less I felt like taking it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, I kept on with the thinking; I had promised to do that. On
+      Wednesday came a postcard from Jim, himself, demanding information. &ldquo;When
+      and where are you going?&rdquo; he wrote. &ldquo;Wire answer.&rdquo; I did not wire answer.
+      I was not going anywhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I thrust the card into my pocket and, turning away from the frame of
+      letter boxes, faced Captain Cyrus Whittaker, who, like myself, had come to
+      Simmons's for his mail. He greeted me cordially.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello, Kent,&rdquo; he hailed. &ldquo;How are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About the same as usual, Captain,&rdquo; I answered, shortly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's pretty fair, by the looks. You don't look too happy, though, come
+      to notice it. What's the matter; got bad news?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. I haven't any news, good or bad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That so? Then I'll give you some. Phoebe and I are going to start for
+      California to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are? To California? Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, just for instance, that's all. Time's come when I have to go
+      somewhere, and the Yosemite and the big trees look good to me. It's this
+      way, Kent; I like Bayport, you know that. Nobody's more in love with this
+      old town than I am; it's my home and I mean to live and die here, if I
+      have luck. But it don't do for me to stay here all the time. If I do I
+      begin to be no good, like a strawberry plant that's been kept in one place
+      too long and has quit bearin.' The only thing to do with that plant is to
+      transplant it and let it get nourishment in a new spot. Then you can move
+      it back by and by and it's all right. Same way with me. Every once in a
+      while I have to be transplanted so's to freshen up. My brains need
+      somethin' besides post-office talk and sewin'-circle gossip to keep them
+      from shrivelin'. I was commencin' to feel the shrivel, so it's California
+      for Phoebe and me. Better come along, Kent. You're beginnin' to shrivel a
+      little, ain't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Was it as apparent as all that? I was indignant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do I look it?&rdquo; I demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;o, but I ain't sure that you don't act it. No offence, you
+      understand. Just a little ground bait to coax you to come on the
+      California cruise along with Phoebe and me, that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not likely that I should accept. Two are company and three a crowd,
+      and if ever two were company Captain Cy and his wife were those two. I
+      thanked him and declined, but I asked a question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You believe in travel as a restorative, you do?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hey? I sartin do. Change your course once in awhile, same as you change
+      your clothes. Wearin' the same suit and cruisin' in the same puddle all
+      the time ain't healthy. You're too apt to get sick of the clothes and
+      puddle both.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you don't believe in traveling alone, do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; emphatically, &ldquo;I don't, generally speakin.' If you go off by
+      yourself you're too likely to keep thinkin' ABOUT yourself. Take somebody
+      with you; somebody you're used to and know well and like, though.
+      Travelin' with strangers is a little mite worse than travelin' alone. You
+      want to be mighty sure of your shipmate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I walked home. Hephzibah was in the sitting-room, reading and knitting a
+      stocking, a stocking for me. She did not need to use her eyes for the
+      knitting; I am quite sure she could have knit in her sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello, Hosy,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;been up to the office, have you? Any mail?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing much. Humph! Still reading that Raymond and Whitcomb circular?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, not that one. This is one I got last year. I've been sittin' here
+      plannin' out just where I'd go and what I'd see if I could. It's the next
+      best thing to really goin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at her. All at once a new idea began to crystallize in my mind.
+      It was a curious idea, a ridiculous idea, and yet&mdash;and yet it seemed&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; said I, suddenly, &ldquo;would you really like to go abroad?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;WOULD I? Hosy, how you talk! You know I've been crazy to go ever since I
+      was a little girl. I don't know what makes me so. Perhaps it's the salt
+      water in my blood. All our folks were sailors and ship captains. They went
+      everywhere. I presume likely it takes more than one generation to kill off
+      that sort of thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you really want to go?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then why haven't you gone? You could afford to take a moderate-priced
+      tour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy laughed over her knitting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I haven't gone for the reason you haven't, Hosy. You
+      could afford, it, too&mdash;you know you could. But how could I go and
+      leave you? Why, I shouldn't sleep a minute wonderin' if you were wearin'
+      clothes without holes in 'em and if you changed your flannels when the
+      weather changed and ate what you ought to, and all that. You've been so&mdash;so
+      sort of dependent on me and I've been so used to takin' care of you that I
+      don't believe either of us would be happy anywhere without the other. I
+      know certain sure <i>I</i> shouldn't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not answer immediately. The idea, the amazing, ridiculous idea which
+      had burst upon me suddenly began to lose something of its absurdity.
+      Somehow it began to look like the answer to my riddle. I realized that my
+      main objection to the Campbell prescription had been that I must take it
+      alone or with strangers. And now&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; I demanded, &ldquo;would you go away&mdash;on a trip abroad&mdash;with
+      me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She put down the knitting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy Knowles!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;WHAT are you talkin' about?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But would you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I presume likely I would, if I had the chance; but it isn't likely that&mdash;where
+      are you goin'?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not answer. I hurried out of the sitting-room and out of the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I returned I found her still knitting. The circular lay on the floor
+      at her feet. She regarded me anxiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy,&rdquo; she demanded, &ldquo;where&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I interrupted. &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I have been to the station to send a
+      telegram.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A telegram? A TELEGRAM! For mercy sakes, who's dead?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Telegrams in Bayport usually mean death or desperate illness. I laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No one is dead, Hephzy,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;In fact it is barely possible that
+      someone is coming to life. I telegraphed Mr. Campbell to engage passage
+      for you and me on some steamer leaving for Europe next week.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah turned pale. The partially knitted sock dropped beside the
+      circular.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why&mdash;why&mdash;what&mdash;?&rdquo; she gasped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On a steamer leaving next week,&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;You want to travel, Hephzy.
+      Jim says I must. So we'll travel together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not believe I meant it, of course, and it took a long time to
+      convince her. But when at last she began to believe&mdash;at least to the
+      extent of believing that I had sent the telegram&mdash;her next remark was
+      characteristic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I&mdash;I can't go, Hosy,&rdquo; declared Hephzibah. &ldquo;I CAN'T. Who&mdash;who
+      would take care of the cat and the hens?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which Hephzy and I and the Plutonia Sail Together
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The week which began that Wednesday afternoon seems, as I look back to it
+      now, a bit of the remote past, instead of seven days of a year ago. Its
+      happenings, important and wonderful as they were, seem trivial and tame
+      compared with those which came afterward. And yet, at the time, that week
+      was a season of wild excitement and delightful anticipation for Hephzibah,
+      and of excitement not unmingled with doubts and misgivings for me. For us
+      both it was a busy week, to put it mildly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once convinced that I meant what I said and that I was not &ldquo;raving
+      distracted,&rdquo; which I think was her first diagnosis of my case, Hephzy's
+      practical mind began to unearth objections, first to her going at all and,
+      second, to going on such short notice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't think I'd better, Hosy,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You're awful good to ask me
+      and I know you think you mean it, but I don't believe I ought to do it,
+      even if I felt as if I could leave the house and everything alone. You
+      see, I've lived here in Bayport so long that I'm old-fashioned and funny
+      and countrified, I guess. You'd be ashamed of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled. &ldquo;When I am ashamed of you, Hephzy,&rdquo; I replied, &ldquo;I shall be on my
+      way to the insane asylum, not to Europe. You are much more likely to be
+      ashamed of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The idea! And you the pride of this town! The only author that ever lived
+      in it&mdash;unless you call Joshua Snow an author, and he lived in the
+      poorhouse and nobody but himself was proud of HIM.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Josh Snow was Bayport's Homer, its only native poet. He wrote the immortal
+      ballad of the scallop industry, which begins:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;On a fine morning at break of day,
+      When the ice has all gone out of the bay,
+      And the sun is shining nice and it is like spring,
+      Then all hands start to go scallop-ING.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      In order to get the fullest measure of music from this lyric gem you
+      should put a strong emphasis on the final &ldquo;ing.&rdquo; Joshua always did and the
+      summer people never seemed to tire of hearing him recite it. There are
+      eighteen more verses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not be ashamed of you, Hephzy,&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;You know it
+      perfectly well. And I shall not go unless you go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I can't go, Hosy. I couldn't leave the hens and the cat. They'd
+      starve; you know they would.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Susanna will look after them. I'll leave money for their provender. And I
+      will pay Susanna for taking care of them. She has fallen in love with the
+      cat; she'll be only too glad to adopt it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I haven't got a single thing fit to wear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Neither have I. We will buy complete fit-outs in Boston or New York.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There were innumerable &ldquo;buts.&rdquo; I answered them as best I could. Also I
+      reiterated my determination not to go unless she did. I told of Campbell's
+      advice and laid strong emphasis on the fact that he had said travel was my
+      only hope. Unless she wished me to die of despair she must agree to travel
+      with me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you have said over and over again that your one desire was to go
+      abroad,&rdquo; I added, as a final clincher.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know it. I know I have. But&mdash;but now when it comes to really goin'
+      I'm not so sure. Uncle Bedny Small was always declarin' in prayer-meetin'
+      that he wanted to die so as to get to Heaven, but when he was taken down
+      with influenza he made his folks call both doctors here in town and one
+      from Harniss. I don't know whether I want to go or not, Hosy. I&mdash;I'm
+      frightened, I guess.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim's answer to my telegram arrived the very next day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have engaged two staterooms for ship sailing Wednesday the tenth,&rdquo; it
+      read. &ldquo;Hearty congratulations on your good sense. Who is your companion?
+      Write particulars.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The telegram quashed the last of Hephzy's objections. The fares had been
+      paid and she was certain they must be &ldquo;dreadful expensive.&rdquo; All that money
+      could not be wasted, so she accepted the inevitable and began
+      preparations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not write the &ldquo;particulars&rdquo; requested. I had a feeling that Campbell
+      might consider my choice of a traveling companion a queer one and,
+      although my mind was made up and his opinion could not change it, I
+      thought it just as well to wait until our arrival in New York before
+      telling him. So I wrote a brief note stating that my friend and I would
+      reach New York on the morning of the tenth and that I would see him there.
+      Also I asked, for my part, the name of the steamer he had selected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His answer was as vague as mine. He congratulated me once more upon my
+      decision, prophesied great things as the result of what he called my
+      &ldquo;foreign junket,&rdquo; and gave some valuable advice concerning the necessary
+      outfit, clothes, trunks and the like. &ldquo;Travel light,&rdquo; he wrote. &ldquo;You can
+      buy whatever else you may need on the other side. 'Phone as soon as you
+      reach New York.&rdquo; But he did not tell me the name of the ship, nor for what
+      port she was to sail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So Hephzy and I were obliged to turn to the newspapers for information
+      upon those more or less important subjects, and we speculated and guessed
+      not a little. The New York dailies were not obtainable in Bayport except
+      during the summer months and the Boston publications did not give the New
+      York sailings. I wrote to a friend in Boston and he sent me the leading
+      journals of the former city and, as soon as they arrived, Hephzy sat down
+      upon the sitting-room carpet&mdash;which she had insisted upon having
+      taken up to be packed away in moth balls&mdash;to look at the maritime
+      advertisements. I am quite certain it was the only time she sat down,
+      except at meals, that day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I selected one of the papers and she another. We reached the same
+      conclusion simultaneously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, it must be&mdash;&rdquo; she began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Princess Eulalie,&rdquo; I finished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the only one that sails on the tenth. There is one on the eleventh,
+      though.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but that one is the 'Plutonia,' one of the fastest and most
+      expensive liners afloat. It isn't likely that Jim had booked us for the
+      'Plutonia.' She would scarcely be in our&mdash;in my class.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! I guess she isn't any too good for a famous man like you, Hosy.
+      But I would look funny on her, I give in. I've read about her. She's
+      always full of lords and ladies and millionaires and things. Just the sort
+      of folks you write about. She'd be just the one for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I shook my head. &ldquo;My lords and ladies are only paper dolls, Hephzy,&rdquo; I
+      said, ruefully. &ldquo;I should be as lost as you among the flesh and blood
+      variety. No, the 'Princess Eulalie' must be ours. She runs to Amsterdam,
+      though. Odd that Jim should send me to Holland.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy nodded and then offered a solution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't doubt he did it on purpose,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;He knew neither you
+      nor I was anxious to go to England. He knows we don't think much of the
+      English, after our experience with that Morley brute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, he doesn't know any such thing. I've never told him a word about
+      Morley. And he doesn't know you're going, Hephzy. I've kept that as a&mdash;as
+      a surprise for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, never mind. I'd rather go to Amsterdam than England. It's nearer to
+      France.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was surprised. &ldquo;Nearer to France?&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;What difference does
+      that make? We don't know anyone in France.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah was plainly shocked. &ldquo;Why, Hosy!&rdquo; she protested. &ldquo;Have you
+      forgotten Little Frank? He is in France somewhere, or he was at last
+      accounts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good Lord!&rdquo; I groaned. Then I got up and went out. I had forgotten
+      &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; and hoped that she had. If she was to flit about Europe
+      seeing &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; on every corner I foresaw trouble. &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo;
+       was likely to be the bane of my existence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We left Bayport on Monday morning. The house was cleaned and swept and
+      scoured and moth-proofed from top to bottom. Every door was double-locked
+      and every window nailed. Burglars are unknown in Bayport, but that didn't
+      make any difference. &ldquo;You can't be too careful,&rdquo; said Hephzy. I was of the
+      opinion that you could.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cat had been &ldquo;farmed out&rdquo; with Susanna's people and Susanna herself
+      was to feed the hens twice a day, lock them in each night and let them out
+      each morning. Their keeper had a carefully prepared schedule as to
+      quantity and quality of food; Hephzy had prepared and furnished it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And don't you give 'em any fish,&rdquo; ordered Hephzy. &ldquo;I ate a chicken once
+      that had been fed on fish, and&mdash;my soul!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was quite an assemblage at the station to see us off. Captain
+      Whittaker and his wife were not there, of course; they were near
+      California by this time. But Mr. Partridge, the minister, was there and so
+      was his wife; and Asaph Tidditt and Mr. and Mrs. Bailey Bangs and Captain
+      Josiah Dimick and HIS wife, and several others. Oh, yes! and Angeline
+      Phinney. Angeline was there, of course. If anything happened in Bayport
+      and Angeline was not there to help it happen, then&mdash;I don't know what
+      then; the experiment had never been tried in my lifetime.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everyone said pleasant things to us. They really seemed sorry to have us
+      leave Bayport, but for our sakes they expressed themselves as glad. It
+      would be such a glorious trip; we would have so much to tell when we got
+      back. Mr. Partridge said he should plan for me to give a little talk to
+      the Sunday school upon my return. It would be a wonderful thing for the
+      children. To my mind the most wonderful part of the idea was that he
+      should take my consent for granted. <i>I</i> talk to the Sunday school! I,
+      the Quahaug! My knees shook even at the thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Keturah Bangs hoped we would have a &ldquo;lovely time.&rdquo; She declared that it
+      had been the one ambition of her life to go sight-seeing. But she should
+      never do it&mdash;no, no! Such things wasn't for her. If she had a husband
+      like some women it might be, but not as 'twas. She had long ago given up
+      hopin' to do anything but keep boarders, and she had to do that all by
+      herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bailey, her husband, grinned sheepishly but, for a wonder, he did not
+      attempt defence. I gathered that Bailey was learning wisdom. It was time;
+      he had attended his wife's academy a long while.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Captain Dimick brought a bag of apples, greenings, some he had kept in the
+      cellar over winter. &ldquo;Nice to eat on the cars,&rdquo; he told us. Everyone asked
+      us to send postcards. Miss Phinney was especially solicitous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It'll be just lovely to know where you be and what you're doin,&rdquo; she
+      declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the train had started and we had waved the last good-bys from the
+      window Hephzibah expressed her opinion concerning Angeline's request.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I send HER postcards!&rdquo; she snapped. &ldquo;I think I see myself doin' it! All
+      she cares about 'em is so she can run from Dan to Beersheba showin' 'em to
+      everybody and talkin' about how extravagant we are and wonderin' if we
+      borrowed the money. But there! it won't make any difference. If I don't
+      send 'em to her she'll read all I send to other folks. She and Rebecca
+      Simmons are close as two peas in a pod and Becky reads everything that
+      comes through her husband's post-office. All that aren't sealed, that is&mdash;yes,
+      and some that are, I shouldn't wonder, if they're not sealed tight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her next remark was a surprising one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;how much they all think of you, don't they. Isn't it
+      nice to know you're so popular.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I turned in the seat to stare at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Popular!&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;Hephzy, I have a good deal of respect for your
+      brain, generally speaking, but there are times when I think it shows signs
+      of softening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not resent my candor; she paid absolutely no attention to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't mean popular with everybody, rag, tag and bobtail and all, like&mdash;well,
+      Eben Salters,&rdquo; she went on. &ldquo;But the folks that count all respect and like
+      you, Hosy. I know they do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Salters is our leading local statesman&mdash;since the departure of
+      the Honorable Heman Atkins. He has filled every office in his native
+      village and he has served one term as representative in the State House at
+      Boston. He IS popular.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is marvelous how affection can be concealed,&rdquo; I observed, with
+      sarcasm. Hephzy was back at me like a flash.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course they don't tell you of it,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;If they did you'd
+      probably tell 'em to their faces that they were fibbin' and not speak to
+      'em again. But they do like you, and I know it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was useless to carry the argument further. When Hephzy begins chanting
+      my praises I find it easier to surrender&mdash;and change the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Boston we shopped. It seems to me that we did nothing else. I bought
+      what I needed the very first day, clothes, hat, steamer coat and traveling
+      cap included. It did not take me long; fortunately I am of the average
+      height and shape and the salesmen found me easy to please. My shopping
+      tour was ended by three o'clock and I spent the remainder of the afternoon
+      at a bookseller's. There was a set of &ldquo;Early English Poets&rdquo; there,
+      nineteen little, fat, chunky volumes, not new and shiny and grand, but
+      middle-aged and shabby and comfortable, which appealed to me. The price,
+      however, was high; I had the uneasy feeling that I ought not to afford it.
+      Then the bookseller himself, who also was fat and comfortably shabby, and
+      who had beguiled from me the information that I was about to travel,
+      suggested that the &ldquo;Poets&rdquo; would make very pleasant reading en route.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have found,&rdquo; he said, beaming over his spectacles, &ldquo;that a little book
+      of this kind,&rdquo; patting one of the volumes, &ldquo;which may be carried in the
+      pocket, is a rare traveling companion. When you wish his society he is
+      there, and when you tire of him you can shut him up. You can't do that
+      with all traveling companions, you know. Ha! ha!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He chuckled over his joke and I chuckled with him. Humor of that kind is
+      expensive, for I bought the &ldquo;English Poets&rdquo; and ordered them sent to my
+      hotel. It was not until they were delivered, an hour later, that I began
+      to wonder what I should do with them. Our trunks were likely to be crowded
+      and I could not carry all of the nineteen volumes in my pockets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah, who had been shopping on her own hook, did not return until
+      nearly seven. She returned weary and almost empty-handed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But didn't you buy ANYTHING?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;Where in the world have you
+      been?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had been everywhere, so she said. This wasn't entirely true, but I
+      gathered that she had visited about every department store in the city.
+      She had found ever so many things she liked, but oh dear! they did cost so
+      much.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was one traveling coat that I did want dreadfully,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It
+      was a dark brown, not too dark, but just light enough so it wouldn't show
+      water spots. I've been out sailing enough times to know how your things
+      get water-spotted. It fitted me real nice; there wouldn't have to be a
+      thing done to it. But it cost thirty-one dollars! 'My soul!' says I, 'I
+      can't afford THAT!' But they didn't have anything cheaper that wouldn't
+      have made me look like one of those awful play-actin' girls that came to
+      Bayport with the Uncle Tom's Cabin show. And I tried everywhere and
+      nothin' pleased me so well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you didn't buy the coat?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;BUY it? My soul Hosy, didn't I tell you it cost&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know. What else did you see that you didn't buy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hey? Oh, I saw a suit, a nice lady-like suit, and I tried it on. That
+      fitted me, too, only the sleeves would have to be shortened. And it would
+      have gone SO well with that coat. But the suit cost FORTY dollars. 'Good
+      land!' I said, 'haven't you got ANYTHING for poor folks?' And you ought to
+      have seen the look that girl gave me! And a hat&mdash;oh, yes, I saw a
+      hat! It was&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a great deal more. Summed up it amounted to something like this:
+      All that suited her had been too high-priced and all that she considered
+      within her means hadn't suited her at all. So she had bought practically
+      nothing but a few non-essentials. And we were to leave for New York the
+      following night and sail for Europe the day after.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;you will go shopping again to-morrow morning and I'll
+      go with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Go we did, and we bought the coat and the hat and the suit and various
+      other things. With each purchase Hephzy's groans and protests at my
+      reckless extravagance grew louder. At last I had an inspiration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;when we meet Little Frank over there in France, or
+      wherever he may be, you will want him to be favorably impressed with your
+      appearance, won't you? These things cost money of course, but we must
+      think of Little Frank. He has never seen his American relatives and so
+      much depends on a first impression.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy regarded me with suspicion. &ldquo;Humph!&rdquo; she sniffed, &ldquo;that's the first
+      time I ever knew you to give in that there WAS a Little Frank. All right,
+      I sha'n't say any more, but I hope the foreign poorhouses are more
+      comfortable than ours, that's all. If you make me keep on this way, I'll
+      fetch up in one before the first month's over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We left for New York on the five o'clock train. Packing those &ldquo;Early
+      English Poets&rdquo; was a confounded nuisance. They had to be stuffed here,
+      there and everywhere amid my wearing apparel and Hephzibah prophesied evil
+      to come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Books are the worse things goin' to make creases,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;They're
+      all sharp edges.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had to carry two of the volumes in my pockets, even then, at the very
+      start. They might prove delightful traveling companions, as the bookman
+      had said, but they were most uncomfortable things to sit on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We reached the Grand Central station on time and went to a nearby hotel. I
+      should have sent the heavier baggage directly to the steamer, but I was
+      not sure&mdash;absolutely sure&mdash;which steamer it was to be. The
+      &ldquo;Princess Eulalie&rdquo; almost certainly, but I did not dare take the risk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy called to me from the room adjoining mine at twelve that night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just think, Hosy!&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;this is the last night either of us will
+      spend on dry land.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heavens! I hope it won't be as bad as that,&rdquo; I retorted. &ldquo;Holland is
+      pretty wet, so they say, but we should be able to find some dry spots.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not laugh. &ldquo;You know what I mean,&rdquo; she observed. &ldquo;To-morrow night
+      at twelve o'clock we shall be far out on the vasty deep.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall be on the 'Princess Eulalie,'&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;Go to sleep.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Neither of us spoke the truth. At twelve the following night we were
+      neither &ldquo;far out on the vasty deep&rdquo; nor on the &ldquo;Princess Eulalie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My first move after breakfast was to telephone Campbell at his city home.
+      He hailed me joyfully and ordered me to stay where I was, that is, at the
+      hotel. He would be there in an hour, he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was five minutes ahead of his promise. We shook hands heartily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are going to take my prescription, after all,&rdquo; he crowed. &ldquo;Didn't I
+      tell you I was the only real doctor for sick authors? Bully for you! Wish
+      I was going with you. Who is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come to my room and I'll show you,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;You may be surprised.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;See here! you haven't gone and dug up another fossilized bookworm like
+      yourself, have you? If you have, I refuse&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come and see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We took the elevator to the fourth floor and walked to my room. I opened
+      the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;here is someone you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy, who had been looking out of the window of her room, hurried in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Mr. Campbell!&rdquo; she exclaimed, holding out her hand, &ldquo;how do you do?
+      We got here all right, you see. But the way Hosy has been wastin' money,
+      his and mine, buyin' things we didn't need, I began to think one spell
+      we'd never get any further. Is it time to start for the steamer yet?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim's face was worth looking at. He shook Hephzibah's hand mechanically,
+      but he did not speak. Instead he looked at her and at me. I didn't speak
+      either; I was having a thoroughly good time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Had we ought to start now?&rdquo; repeated Hephzibah. &ldquo;I'm all ready but
+      puttin' on my things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim came out of his trance. He dropped the hand and came to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you&mdash;is she&mdash;&rdquo; he stammered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Miss Cahoon is going with me. I wrote you I had selected a
+      good traveling companion. I have, haven't I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He would have it so, Mr. Campbell,&rdquo; put in Hephzy. &ldquo;I said no and kept on
+      sayin' it, but he vowed and declared he wouldn't go unless I did. I know
+      you must think it's queer my taggin' along, but it isn't any queerer to
+      you than it is to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim behaved very well, considering. He did not laugh. For a moment I
+      thought he was going to; if he had I don't know what I should have done,
+      said things for which I might have been sorry later on, probably. But he
+      did not laugh. He didn't even express the tremendous surprise which he
+      must have felt. Instead he shook hands again with both of us and said it
+      was fine, bully, just the thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To tell the truth, Miss Cahoon,&rdquo; he declared, &ldquo;I have been rather fearful
+      of this pet infant of ours. I didn't know what sort of helpless creature
+      he might have coaxed into roaming loose with him in the wilds of Europe. I
+      expected another babe in the woods and I was contemplating cabling the
+      police to look out for them and shoo away the wolves. But he'll be all
+      right now. Yes, indeed! he'll be looked out for now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you approve?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He shot a side-long glance at me. &ldquo;Approve!&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;I'm crazy about
+      the whole business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I judged he considered me crazy, hopelessly so. I did not care. I agreed
+      with him in this&mdash;the whole business was insane and Hephzibah's going
+      was the only sensible thing about it, so far.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His next question was concerning our baggage. I told him I had left it at
+      the railway station because I was not sure where it should be sent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What time does the 'Princess Eulalie' sail?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at me oddly. &ldquo;What?&rdquo; he queried. &ldquo;The 'Princess Eulalie'? Twelve
+      o'clock, I believe, I'm not sure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're not sure! And it is after nine now. It strikes me that&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind what strikes you. So long as it isn't lightning you shouldn't
+      complain. Have you the baggage checks? Give them to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I handed him the checks, obediently, and he stepped to the telephone and
+      gave a number. A short conversation followed. Then he hung up the
+      receiver.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One of the men from the office will be here soon,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;He will
+      attend to all your baggage, get it aboard the ship and see that it is put
+      in your staterooms. Now, then, tell me all about it. What have you been
+      doing since I saw you? When did you arrive? How did you happen to think of
+      taking&mdash;er&mdash;Miss Cahoon with you? Tell me the whole.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I told him. Hephzy assisted, sitting on the edge of a rocking chair and
+      asking me what time it was at intervals of ten minutes. She was decidedly
+      fidgety. When she went to Boston she usually reached the station half an
+      hour before train time, and to sit calmly in a hotel room, when the ship
+      that was to take us to the ends of the earth was to sail in two hours, was
+      a reckless gamble with Fate, to her mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man from the office came and the baggage checks were turned over to
+      him. So also were our bags and our umbrellas. Campbell stepped into the
+      hall and the pair held a whispered conversation. Hephzy seized the
+      opportunity to express to me her perturbation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My soul, Hosy!&rdquo; she whispered. &ldquo;Mr. Campbell's out of his head, ain't he?
+      Here we are a sittin' and sittin' and time's goin' by. We'll be too late.
+      Can't you make him hurry?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was almost as nervous as she was, but I would not have let our guardian
+      know it for the world. If we lost a dozen steamers I shouldn't call his
+      attention to the fact. I might be a &ldquo;Babe in the Wood,&rdquo; but he should not
+      have the satisfaction of hearing me whimper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He came back to the room a moment later and began asking more questions.
+      Our answers, particularly Hephzy's, seemed to please him a great deal. At
+      some of them he laughed uproariously. At last he looked at his watch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Almost eleven,&rdquo; he observed. &ldquo;I must be getting around to the office.
+      Miss Cahoon will you excuse Kent and me for an hour or so? I have his
+      letters of credit and the tickets in our safe and he had better come
+      around with me and get them. If you have any last bits of shopping to do,
+      now is your opportunity. Or you might wait here if you prefer. We will be
+      back at half-past twelve and lunch together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I started. Hephzy sprang from the chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Half-past twelve!&rdquo; I cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lunch together!&rdquo; gasped Hephzy. &ldquo;Why, Mr. Campbell! the 'Princess
+      Eulalie' sails at noon. You said so yourself!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim smiled. &ldquo;I know I did,&rdquo; he replied, &ldquo;but that is immaterial. You are
+      not concerned with the 'Princess Eulalie.' Your passages are booked on the
+      'Plutonia' and she doesn't leave her dock until one o'clock to-morrow
+      morning. We will meet here for lunch at twelve-thirty. Come, Kent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I didn't attempt an answer. I am not exactly sure what I did. A few
+      minutes later I walked out of that room with Campbell and I have a hazy
+      recollection of leaving Hephzy seated in the rocker and of hearing her
+      voice, as the door closed, repeating over and over:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The 'Plutonia'! My soul and body! The 'Plutonia'! Me&mdash;ME on the
+      'Plutonia'!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      What I said and did afterwards doesn't make much difference. I know I
+      called my publisher a number of disrespectful names not one of which he
+      deserved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Confound you!&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;You know I wouldn't have dreamed of taking a
+      passage on a ship like that. She's a floating Waldorf, everyone says so.
+      Dress and swagger society and&mdash;Oh, you idiot! I wanted quiet! I
+      wanted to be alone! I wanted&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim interrupted me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know you did,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But you're not going to have them. You've been
+      alone too much. You need a change. If I know the 'Plutonia'&mdash;and I've
+      crossed on her four times&mdash;you're going to have it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He burst into a roar of laughter. We were in a cab, fortunately, or his
+      behavior would have attracted attention. I could have choked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You imbecile!&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;I have a good mind to throw the whole thing up
+      and go home to Bayport. By George, I will!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He continued to chuckle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see you doing it!&rdquo; he observed. &ldquo;How about your&mdash;what's her name?&mdash;Hephzibah?
+      Going to tell her that it's all off, are you? Going to tell her that you
+      will forfeit your passage money and hers? Why, man, haven't you a heart?
+      If she was booked for Paradise instead of Paris she couldn't be any
+      happier. Don't be foolish! Your trunks are on the 'Plutonia' and on the
+      'Plutonia' you'll be to-night. It's the best thing that can happen to you.
+      I did it on purpose. You'll thank me come day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I didn't thank him then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We returned to the hotel at twelve-thirty, my pocket-book loaded with
+      tickets and letters of credit and unfamiliar white paper notes bearing the
+      name of the Bank of England. Hephzibah was still in the rocking chair. I
+      am sure she had not left it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We lunched in the hotel dining-room. Campbell ordered the luncheon and
+      paid for it while Hephzibah exclaimed at his extravagance. She was too
+      excited to eat much and too worried concerning the extent of her wardrobe
+      to talk of less important matters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh dear, Hosy!&rdquo; she wailed, &ldquo;WHY didn't I buy another best dress. DO you
+      suppose my black one will be good enough? All those lords and ladies and
+      millionaires on the 'Plutonia'! Won't they think I'm dreadful
+      poverty-stricken. I saw a dress I wanted awfully&mdash;in one of those
+      Boston stores it was; but I didn't buy it because it was so dear. And I
+      didn't tell you I wanted it because I knew if I did you'd buy it. You're
+      so reckless with money. But now I wish I'd bought it myself. What WILL all
+      those rich people think of me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About what they think of me, Hephzy, I imagine,&rdquo; I answered, ruefully.
+      &ldquo;Jim here has put up a joke on us. He is the only one who is getting any
+      fun out of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim, for a wonder, was serious. &ldquo;Miss Cahoon,&rdquo; he declared, earnestly,
+      &ldquo;don't worry. I'm sure the black silk is all right; but if it wasn't it
+      wouldn't make any difference. On the 'Plutonia' nobody notices other
+      people's clothes. Most of them are too busy noticing their own. If Kent
+      has his evening togs and you have the black silk you'll pass muster.
+      You'll have a gorgeous time. I only wish I was going with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He repeated the wish several times during the afternoon. He insisted on
+      taking us to a matinee and Hephzy's comments on the performance seemed to
+      amuse him hugely. It had been eleven years, so she said, since she went to
+      the theater.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Unless you count 'Uncle Tom' or 'Ten Nights in a Barroom,' or some of
+      those other plays that come to Bayport,&rdquo; she added. &ldquo;I suppose I'm making
+      a perfect fool of myself laughin' and cryin' over what's nothin' but
+      make-believe, but I can't help it. Isn't it splendid, Hosy! I wonder what
+      Father would say if he could know that his daughter was really travelin'&mdash;just
+      goin' to Europe! He used to worry a good deal, in his last years, about
+      me. Seemed to feel that he hadn't taken me around and done as much for me
+      as he ought to in the days when he could. 'Twas just nonsense, his feelin'
+      that way, and I told him so. But I wonder if he knows now how happy I am.
+      I hope he does. My goodness! I can't realize it myself. Oh, there goes the
+      curtain up again! Oh, ain't that pretty! I AM actin' ridiculous, I know,
+      Mr. Campbell,' but you mustn't mind. Laugh at me all you want to; I
+      sha'n't care a bit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim didn't laugh&mdash;then. Neither did I. He and I looked at each other
+      and I think the same thought was in both our minds. Good, kind,
+      whole-souled, self-sacrificing Hephzibah! The last misgiving, the last
+      doubt as to the wisdom of my choice of a traveling companion vanished from
+      my thoughts. For the first time I was actually glad I was going, glad
+      because of the happiness it would mean to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When we came out of the theater Campbell reached down in the crowd to
+      shake my hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Congratulations, old man,&rdquo; he whispered; &ldquo;you did exactly the right
+      thing. You surprised me, I admit, but you were dead right. She's a brick.
+      But don't I wish I was going along! Oh my! oh my! to think of you two
+      wandering about Europe together! If only I might be there to see and hear!
+      Kent, keep a diary; for my sake, promise me you'll keep a diary. Put down
+      everything she says and read it to me when you get home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He left us soon afterward. He had given up the entire day to me and would,
+      I know, have cheerfully given the evening as well, but I would not hear of
+      it. A messenger from the office had brought him word of the presence in
+      New York of a distinguished scientist who was preparing a manuscript for
+      publication and the scientist had requested an interview that night.
+      Campbell was very anxious to obtain that manuscript and I knew it.
+      Therefore I insisted that he leave us. He was loathe to do so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hate to, Kent,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;I had set my heart on seeing you on board
+      and seeing you safely started. But I do want to nail Scheinfeldt, I must
+      admit. The book is one that he has been at work on for years and two other
+      publishing houses are as anxious as ours to get it. To-night is my chance,
+      and to-morrow may be too late.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you must not miss the chance. You must go, and go now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't like to. Sure you've got everything you need? Your tickets and
+      your letters of credit and all? Sure you have money enough to carry you
+      across comfortably?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, and more than enough, even on the 'Plutonia.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, all right, then. When you reach London go to our English branch&mdash;you
+      have the address, Camford Street, just off the Strand&mdash;and whatever
+      help you may need they'll give you. I've cabled them instructions. Think
+      you can get down to the ship all right?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed. &ldquo;I think it fairly possible,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;If I lose my way, or
+      Hephzy is kidnapped, I'll speak to the police or telephone you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The latter would be safer and much less expensive. Well, good-by, Kent.
+      Remember now, you're going for a good time and you're to forget
+      literature. Write often and keep in touch with me. Good-by, Miss Cahoon.
+      Take care of this&mdash;er&mdash;clam of ours, won't you. Don't let anyone
+      eat him on the half-shell, or anything like that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy smiled. &ldquo;They'd have to eat me first,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and I'm pretty
+      old and tough. I'll look after him, Mr. Campbell, don't you worry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't. Good luck to you both&mdash;and good-by.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A final handshake and he was gone. Hephzy looked after him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There!&rdquo; she exclaimed; &ldquo;I really begin to believe I'm goin'. Somehow I
+      feel as if the last rope had been cast off. We've got to depend on
+      ourselves now, Hosy, dear. Mercy! how silly I am talkin'. A body would
+      think I was homesick before I started.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not answer, for I WAS homesick. We dined together at the hotel.
+      There remained three long hours before it would be time for us to take the
+      cab for the 'Plutonia's' wharf. I suggested another theater, but Hephzy,
+      to my surprise, declined the invitation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you don't mind, Hosy,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I guess I'd rather stay right here
+      in the room. I&mdash;I feel sort of solemn and as if I wanted to sit still
+      and think. Perhaps it's just as well. After waitin' eleven years to go to
+      one theater, maybe two in the same day would be more than I could stand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So we sat together in the room at the hotel&mdash;sat and thought. The
+      minutes dragged by. Outside beneath the windows, New York blazed and
+      roared. I looked down at the hurrying little black manikins on the
+      sidewalks, each, apparently, bound somewhere on business or pleasure of
+      its own, and I wondered vaguely what that business or pleasure might be
+      and why they hurried so. There were many single ones, of course, and
+      occasionally groups of three or four, but couples were the most numerous.
+      Husbands and wives, lovers and sweethearts, each with his or her life and
+      interests bound up in the life and interests of the other. I envied them.
+      Mine had been a solitary life, an unusual, abnormal kind of life. No one
+      had shared its interests and ambitions with me, no one had spurred me on
+      to higher endeavor, had loved with me and suffered with me, helping me
+      through the shadows and laughing with me in the sunshine. No one, since
+      Mother's death, except Hephzy and Hephzy's love and care and sacrifice,
+      fine as they were, were different. I had missed something, I had missed a
+      great deal, and now it was too late. Youth and high endeavor and ambition
+      had gone by; I had left them behind. I was a solitary, queer,
+      self-centered old bachelor, a &ldquo;quahaug,&rdquo; as my fellow-Bayporters called
+      me. And to ship a quahaug around the world is not likely to do the
+      creature a great deal of good. If he lives through it he is likely to be
+      shipped home again tougher and drier and more useless to the rest of
+      creation than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah, too, had evidently been thinking, for she interrupted my dismal
+      meditations with a long sigh. I started and turned toward her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the matter?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, nothin',&rdquo; was the solemn answer. &ldquo;I was wonderin', that's all. Just
+      wonderin' if he would talk English. It would be a terrible thing if he
+      could speak nothin' but French or a foreign language and I couldn't
+      understand him. But Ardelia was American and that brute of a Morley spoke
+      plain enough, so I suppose&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I judged it high time to interrupt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, Hephzy,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;It is half-past ten. We may as well start at
+      once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Broadway, seen through the cab windows, was bright enough, a blaze of
+      flashing signs and illuminated shop windows. But &mdash;th street, at the
+      foot of which the wharves of the Trans-Atlantic Steamship Company were
+      located, was black and dismal. It was by no means deserted, however.
+      Before and behind and beside us were other cabs and automobiles bound in
+      the same direction. Hephzy peered out at them in amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mercy on us, Hosy!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;I never saw such a procession of
+      carriages. They're as far ahead and as far back of us as you can see. It
+      is like the biggest funeral that ever was, except that they don't crawl
+      along the way a funeral does. I'm glad of that, anyhow. I wish I didn't
+      FEEL so much as if I was goin' to be buried. I don't know why I do. I hope
+      it isn't a presentiment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      If it was she forgot it a few minutes later. The cab stopped before a
+      mammoth doorway in a long, low building and a person in uniform opened the
+      door. The wide street was crowded with vehicles and from them were
+      descending people attired as if for a party rather than an ocean voyage. I
+      helped Hephzy to alight and, while I was paying the cab driver, she looked
+      about her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy! Hosy!&rdquo; she whispered, seizing my arm tight, &ldquo;we've made a mistake.
+      This isn't the steamboat; this is&mdash;is a weddin' or somethin'. Look!
+      look!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked, looked at the silk hats, the opera cloaks, the jewels and those
+      who wore them. For a moment I, too, was certain there must be a mistake.
+      Then I looked upward and saw above the big doorway the flashing electric
+      sign of the &ldquo;Trans-Atlantic Navigation Company.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Hephzy,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;I guess it is the right place. Come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I gave her my arm&mdash;that is, she continued to clutch it with both
+      hands&mdash;and we moved forward with the crowd, through the doorway, past
+      a long, moving inclined plane up which bags, valises, bundles of golf
+      sticks and all sorts of lighter baggage were gliding, and faced another
+      and smaller door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lift this way! This way to the lift!&rdquo; bawled a voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's a lift?&rdquo; whispered Hephzy, tremulously, &ldquo;Hosy, what's a lift?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An elevator,&rdquo; I whispered in reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But we can't go on board a steamboat in an elevator, can we? I never
+      heard&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I don't know what she never heard. The sentence was not finished. Into the
+      lift we went. On either side of us were men in evening dress and directly
+      in front was a large woman, hatless and opera-cloaked, with diamonds in
+      her ears and a rustle of silk at every point of her persons. The car
+      reeked with perfume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The large woman wriggled uneasily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;George,&rdquo; she said, in a loud whisper, &ldquo;why do they crowd these lifts in
+      this disgusting way? And WHY,&rdquo; with another wriggle, &ldquo;do they permit
+      PERSONS with packages to use them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As we emerged from the elevator Hephzy whispered again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She meant us, Hosy,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I've got three of those books of yours in
+      this bundle under my arm. I COULDN'T squeeze 'em into either of the
+      valises. But she needn't have been so disagreeable about it, need she.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Still following the crowd, we passed through more wide doorways and into a
+      huge loft where, through mammoth openings at our left, the cool air from
+      the river blew upon our faces. Beyond these openings loomed an enormous
+      something with rows of railed walks leading up its sides. Hephzibah and I,
+      moving in a sort of bewildered dream, found ourselves ascending one of
+      these walks. At its end was another doorway and, beyond, a great room,
+      with more elevators and a mosaic floor, and mahogany and gilt and
+      gorgeousness, and silk and broadcloth and satin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy gasped and stopped short.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It IS a mistake, Hosy!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Where is the steamer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled. I felt almost as &ldquo;green&rdquo; and bewildered as she, but I tried not
+      to show my feelings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is all right, Hephzy,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;This is the steamer. I know it
+      doesn't look like one, but it is. This is the 'Plutonia' and we are on
+      board at last.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Two hours later we leaned together over the rail and watched the lights of
+      New York grow fainter behind us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah drew a deep breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is so,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It is really so. We ARE, aren't we, Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;There is no doubt of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder what will happen to us before we see those lights again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think HE&mdash;Do you think Little Frank&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; I interrupted, &ldquo;if we are going to bed at all before morning, we
+      had better start now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, Hosy. But you mustn't say 'go to bed.' Say 'turn in.' Everyone
+      calls going to bed 'turning in' aboard a vessel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which We View, and Even Mingle Slightly with, the Upper Classes
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      It is astonishing&mdash;the ease with which the human mind can accustom
+      itself to the unfamiliar and hitherto strange. Nothing could have been
+      more unfamiliar or strange to Hephzibah and me than an ocean voyage and
+      the &ldquo;Plutonia.&rdquo; And yet before three days of that voyage were at an end we
+      were accustomed to both&mdash;to a degree. We had learned to do certain
+      things and not to do others. Some pet illusions had been shattered, and
+      new and, at first, surprising items of information had lost their newness
+      and come to be accepted as everyday facts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For example, we learned that people in real life actually wore monocles,
+      something, which I, of course, had known to be true but which had seemed
+      nevertheless an unreality, part of a stage play, a &ldquo;dress-up&rdquo; game for
+      children and amateur actors. The &ldquo;English swell&rdquo; in the performances of
+      the Bayport Dramatic Society always wore a single eyeglass, but he also
+      wore Dundreary whiskers and clothes which would have won him admittance to
+      the Home for Feeble-Minded Youth without the formality of an examination.
+      His &ldquo;English accent&rdquo; was a combination of the East Bayport twang and an
+      Irish brogue and he was a blithering idiot in appearance and behavior. No
+      one in his senses could have accepted him as anything human and the
+      eyeglass had been but a part of his unreal absurdity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet, here on the &ldquo;Plutonia,&rdquo; were at least a dozen men, men of dignity
+      and manner, who sported monocles and acted as if they were used to them.
+      The first evening before we left port, one or two were in evidence; the
+      next afternoon, in the Lounge, there were more. The fact that they were on
+      an English ship, bound for England, brought the monocles out of their
+      concealment, as Hephzy said, &ldquo;like hoptoads after the first spring thaw.&rdquo;
+       Her amazed comments were unique.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what good are they, Hosy?&rdquo; she demanded. &ldquo;Can they see with 'em?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose they can,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;You can see better with your spectacles
+      than you can without them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! I can see better with two eyes than I can with one, as far as that
+      goes. I don't believe they wear 'em for seein' at all. Take that man
+      there,&rdquo; pointing to a long, lank Canadian in a yellow ulster, whom the
+      irreverent smoking-room had already christened &ldquo;The Duke of Labrador.&rdquo;
+       &ldquo;Look at him! He didn't wear a sign of one until this mornin'. If he
+      needed it to see with he'd have worn it before, wouldn't he? Don't tell
+      me! He wears it because he wants people to think he's a regular boarder at
+      Windsor Castle. And he isn't; he comes from Toronto, and that's only a few
+      miles from the United States. Ugh! You foolish thing!&rdquo; as the &ldquo;Duke of
+      Labrador&rdquo; strutted by our deck-chairs; &ldquo;I suppose you think you're pretty,
+      don't you? Well, you're not. You look for all the world like a lighthouse
+      with one window in it and the lamp out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed. &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;every nation has its peculiarities and the
+      monocle is an English national institution, like&mdash;well, like tea, for
+      instance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Institution! Don't talk to me about institutions! I know the institution
+      I'd put HIM in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She didn't fancy the &ldquo;Duke of Labrador.&rdquo; Neither did she fancy tea at
+      breakfast and coffee at dinner. But she learned to accept the first. Two
+      sessions with the &ldquo;Plutonia's&rdquo; breakfast coffee completed her education.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bring me tea,&rdquo; she said to our table steward on the third morning. &ldquo;I've
+      tried most every kind of coffee and lived through it, but I'm gettin' too
+      old to keep on experimentin' with my health. Bring me tea and I'll try to
+      forget what time it is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We had tea at breakfast, therefore, and tea at four in the afternoon.
+      Hephzibah and I learned to take it with the rest. She watched her
+      fellow-passengers, however, and as usual had something to say concerning
+      their behavior.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you hear that, Hosy?&rdquo; she whispered, as we sat together in the
+      &ldquo;Lounge,&rdquo; sipping tea and nibbling thin bread and butter and the
+      inevitable plum cake. &ldquo;Did you hear what that woman said about her
+      husband?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had not heard, and said so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, judgin' by her actions, I thought her husband was lost and she was
+      sure he had been washed overboard. 'Where is Edward?' she kept askin'.
+      'Poor Edward! What WILL he do? Where is he?' I was gettin' real anxious,
+      and then it turned out that she was afraid that, if he didn't come soon,
+      he'd miss his tea. My soul! Hosy, I've been thinkin' and do you know the
+      conclusion I've come to?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, it sounds awfully irreverent, but I've come to the conclusion that
+      the first part of the Genesis in the English scriptures must be different
+      than ours. I'm sure they think that the earth was created in six days and,
+      on the seventh, Adam and Eve had tea. I believe it for an absolute fact.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The pet illusion, the loss of which caused her the most severe shock, was
+      that concerning the nobility. On the morning of our first day afloat the
+      passenger lists were distributed. Hephzibah was early on deck. Fortunately
+      neither she nor I were in the least discomfited by the motion of the ship,
+      then or at any time. We proved to be good sailors; Hephzibah declared it
+      was in the blood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For a Knowles or a Cahoon to be seasick,&rdquo; she announced, &ldquo;would be a
+      disgrace. Our men folks for four generations would turn over in their
+      graves.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was early on deck that first morning and, at breakfast she and I had
+      the table to ourselves. She had the passenger list propped against the
+      sugar bowl and was reading the names.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My gracious, Hosy!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;What, do you think! There are five
+      'Sirs' on board and one 'Lord'! Just think of it! Where do you suppose
+      they are?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In their berths, probably, at this hour,&rdquo; I answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I'm goin' to stay right here till they come out. I'm goin' to see
+      'em and know what they look like if I sit at this table all day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled. &ldquo;I wouldn't do that, Hephzy,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;We can see them at
+      lunch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! O&mdash;Oh! And there's a Princess here! Princess
+      B-e-r-g-e-n-s-t-e-i-n&mdash;Bergenstein. Princess Bergenstein. What do you
+      suppose she's Princess of?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Princess of Jerusalem, I should imagine,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;Oh, I see! You've
+      skipped a line, Hephzy. Bergenstein belongs to another person. The
+      Princess's name is Berkovitchky. Russian or Polish, perhaps.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't care if she's Chinese; I mean to see her. I never expected to
+      look at a live Princess in MY life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We stopped in the hall at the entrance to the dining-saloon to examine the
+      table chart. Hephzibah made careful notes of the tables at which the
+      knights and the lord and the Princess were seated and their locations. At
+      lunch she consulted the notes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The lord sits right behind us at that little table there,&rdquo; she said,
+      excitedly. &ldquo;That table for two is marked 'Lord and Lady Erkskine.' Now we
+      must watch when they come in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A few minutes later a gray-haired little man, accompanied by a middle-aged
+      woman entered the saloon and were seated at the small table by an
+      obsequious steward. Hephzy gasped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why&mdash;why, Hosy!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;That isn't the lord, is it? THAT?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose it must be,&rdquo; I answered. When our own Steward came I asked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; he answered, with unction. &ldquo;Yes, sir, that is Lord and Lady
+      Erkskine, sir, thank you, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy stared at Lord and Lady Erkskine. I gave our luncheon order, and
+      the steward departed. Then her indignant disgust and disappointment burst
+      forth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well! well!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;And that is a real live lord! That is! Why,
+      Hosy, he's the livin' image of Asaph Tidditt back in Bayport. If Ase could
+      afford clothes like that he might be his twin brother. Well! I guess
+      that's enough. I don't want to see that Princess any more. Just as like as
+      not she'd look like Susanna Wixon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her criticisms were not confined to passengers of other nationalities.
+      Some of our own came in for comment quite as severe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look at those girls at that table over there,&rdquo; she whispered. &ldquo;The two in
+      red, I mean. One of 'em has got a little flag pinned on her dress. What do
+      you suppose that is for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at the young ladies in red. They were vivacious damsels and their
+      conversation and laughter were by no means subdued. A middle-aged man and
+      woman and two young fellows were their table-mates and the group attracted
+      a great deal of attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What has she got that flag pinned on her for?&rdquo; repeated Hephzy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She wishes everyone to know she's an American exportation, I suppose,&rdquo; I
+      answered. &ldquo;She is evidently proud of her country.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! Her country wouldn't be proud of her, if it had to listen to her
+      the way we do. There's some exports it doesn't pay to advertise, I guess,
+      and she and her sister are that kind. Every time they laugh I can see that
+      Lady Erkskine shrivel up like a sensitive plant. I hope she don't think
+      all American girls are like those two.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She probably does.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, IF she does she's makin' a big mistake. I might as well believe all
+      Englishmen were like this specimen comin' now, and I don't believe that,
+      even if I do hail from Bayport.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The specimen was the &ldquo;Duke of Labrador,&rdquo; who sauntered by, monocle in eye,
+      hands in pockets and an elaborate affection of the &ldquo;Oxford stoop&rdquo; which he
+      must have spent time and effort in acquiring. Hephzibah shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish Toronto was further from home than it is,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;But
+      there! I shan't worry about him. I'll leave him for Lord Erkskine and his
+      wife to be ashamed of. He's their countryman, or he hopes he is. I've got
+      enough to do bein' ashamed of those two American girls.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It may be gathered from these conversations that Hephzy and I had been so
+      fortunate as to obtain a table by ourselves. This was not the case. There
+      were four seats at our table and, according to the chart of the
+      dining-saloon, one of them should be occupied by a &ldquo;Miss Rutledge of New
+      York&rdquo; and the other by &ldquo;A. Carleton Heathcroft of London.&rdquo; Miss Rutledge
+      we had not seen at all. Our table steward informed us that the lady was
+      &ldquo;hindisposed&rdquo; and confined to her room. She was an actress, he added.
+      Hephzy, whose New England training had imbued her with the conviction that
+      all people connected with the stage must be highly undesirable as
+      acquaintances, was quite satisfied. &ldquo;Of course I'm sorry she isn't well,&rdquo;
+       she confided to me &ldquo;but I'm awfully glad she won't be at our table. I
+      shouldn't want to hurt her feelin's, but I couldn't talk to her as I would
+      to an ordinary person. I COULDN'T! All I should be able to think of was
+      what she wore, or didn't wear, when she was actin' her parts. I expect I'm
+      old-fashioned, but when I think of those girls in the pictures outside
+      that theater&mdash;the one we didn't go to&mdash;I&mdash;well&mdash;mercy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The &ldquo;pictures&rdquo; were the posters advertising a popular musical comedy which
+      Campbell had at first suggested our witnessing the afternoon of our stay
+      in New York. Hephzibah's shocked expression and my whispered advice had
+      brought about a change of plans. We saw a perfectly respectable, though
+      thrilling, melodrama instead. I might have relieved my relative's mind by
+      assuring her that all actresses were not necessarily attired as &ldquo;merry
+      villagers,&rdquo; but the probable result of my assurance seemed scarcely worth
+      the effort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire, was not acquainted with the stage, in a
+      professional way, at any rate. He was a slim and elegant gentleman,
+      dressed with elaborate care, who appeared profoundly bored with life in
+      general and our society in particular. He sported one of Hephzibah's
+      detestations, a monocle, and spoke, when he spoke at all, with a languid
+      drawl and what I learned later was a Piccadilly accent. He favored us with
+      his company during our first day afloat; after that we saw him amid the
+      select group at that much sought&mdash;by some&mdash;center of shipboard
+      prominence, &ldquo;the Captain's table.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Oddly enough Hephzibah did not resent the Heathcroft condescension and
+      single eyeglass as much as I had expected. She explained her feeling in
+      this way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know he's dreadfully high and mighty and all that,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;And the
+      way he said 'Really?' when you and I spoke to him was enough to squelch
+      even an Angelina Phinney. But I didn't care so much. Anybody, even a body
+      as green as I am, can see that he actually IS somebody when he's at home,
+      not a make-believe, like that Toronto man. And I'm glad for our waiter's
+      sake that he's gone somewhere else. The poor thing bowed so low when he
+      came in and was so terribly humble every time Mr. Heathcroft spoke to him.
+      I should hate to feel I must say 'Thank you' when I was told that the food
+      was 'rotten bad.' I never thought 'rotten' was a nice word, but all these
+      English folks say it. I heard that pretty English girl over there tell her
+      father that it was a 'jolly rotten mornin',' and she's as nice and sweet
+      as she can be. Well, I'm learnin' fast, Hosy. I can see a woman smoke a
+      cigarette now and not shiver&mdash;much. Old Bridget Doyle up in West
+      Bayport, used to smoke a pipe and the whole town talked about it. She'd be
+      right at home in that sittin'-room they call a 'Lounge' after dinner,
+      wouldn't she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My acquaintance with A. Carleton Heathcroft, which appeared to have ended
+      almost as soon as it began, was renewed in an odd way. I was in the
+      &ldquo;Smoke-Room&rdquo; after dinner the third evening out, enjoying a cigar and idly
+      listening to the bidding for pools on the ship's run, that time-honored
+      custom which helps the traveling gentleman of sporting proclivities to
+      kill time and lose money. On board the &ldquo;Plutonia,&rdquo; with its unusually
+      large quota of millionaires and personages, the bidding was lively and the
+      prices paid for favored numbers high. Needless to say I was not one of the
+      bidders. My interest was merely casual.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The auctioneer that evening was a famous comedian with an international
+      reputation and his chatter, as he urged his hearers to higher bids, was
+      clever and amusing. I was listening to it and smiling at the jokes when a
+      voice at my elbow said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Five pounds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I turned and saw that the speaker was Heathcroft. His monocle was in his
+      eye, a cigarette was between his fingers and he looked as if he had been
+      newly washed and ironed and pressed from head to foot. He nodded
+      carelessly and I bowed in return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Five pounds,&rdquo; repeated Mr. Heathcroft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The auctioneer acknowledged the bid and proceeded to urge his audience on
+      to higher flights. The flights were made and my companion capped each with
+      one more lofty. Eight, nine, ten pounds were bid. Heathcroft bid eleven.
+      Someone at the opposite side of the room bid twelve. It seemed ridiculous
+      to me. Possibly my face expressed my feeling; at any rate something caused
+      the immaculate gentleman in the next chair to address me instead of the
+      auctioneer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that's running a bit high, isn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It seems so to me,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;The number is five hundred and eighty-six
+      and I think we shall do better than that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, do you! Really! And why do you think so, may I ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because we are having a remarkably smooth sea and a favorable wind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, but you forget the fog. There's quite a bit of fog about us now,
+      isn't there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I wish I could describe the Heathcroft manner of saying &ldquo;Isn't there.&rdquo; I
+      can't, however; there is no use trying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will amount to nothing,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;The glass is high and there is
+      no indication of bad weather. Our run this noon was five hundred and
+      ninety-one, you remember.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. But we did have extraordinarily good weather for that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, not particularly good. We slowed down about midnight. There was a
+      real fog then and the glass was low. The second officer told me it dropped
+      very suddenly and there was a heavy sea running. For an hour between
+      twelve and one we were making not much more than half our usual speed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really! That's interesting. May I ask if you and the second officer are
+      friends?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Scarcely that. He and I exchanged a few words on deck this morning,
+      that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he told you about the fog and the&mdash;what is it&mdash;the glass,
+      and all that. Fancy! that's extremely odd. I'm acquainted with the captain
+      in a trifling sort of way; I sit at his table, I mean to say. And I assure
+      you he doesn't tell us a word. And, by Jove, we cross-question him, too!
+      Rather!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled. I could imagine the cross-questioning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose the captain is obliged to be non-committal,&rdquo; I observed.
+      &ldquo;That's part of his job. The second officer meant to be, I have no doubt,
+      but perhaps my remarks showed that I was really interested in ships and
+      the sea. My father and grandfather, too, for that matter were seafaring
+      men, both captains. That may have made the second officer more
+      communicative. Not that he said anything of importance, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Heathcroft seemed very interested. He actually removed his eyeglass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;You know something about it, then. I thought it was
+      extraordinary, but now I see. And you think our run will be better than
+      five hundred and eighty?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It should be, unless there is a remarkable change. This ship makes over
+      six hundred, day after day, in good weather. She should do at least six
+      hundred by to-morrow noon, unless there is a sudden change, as I said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But six hundred would be&mdash;it would be the high field, by Jove!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anything over five hundred and ninety-four would be that. The numbers are
+      very low to-night. Far too low, I should say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Heathcroft was silent. The auctioneer, having forced the bid on number
+      five hundred and eighty-six up to thirteen pounds ten, was imploring his
+      hearers not to permit a certain winner to be sacrificed at this absurd
+      figure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fourteen pounds, gentlemen,&rdquo; he begged. &ldquo;For the sake of the wife and
+      children, for the honor of the star spangled banner and the union jack,&mdash;DON'T
+      hesitate&mdash;don't even stammer&mdash;below fourteen pounds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked in our direction as he said it. Mr. Heathcroft made no sign. He
+      produced a gold cigarette box and extended it in my direction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you?&rdquo; he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, thank you,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;I will smoke a cigar, if you don't mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not appear to mind. He lighted his cigarette, readjusted his
+      monocle, and stared stonily at the gesticulating auctioneer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bidding went on. One by one the numbers were sold until all were gone.
+      Then the auctioneer announced that bids for the &ldquo;high field,&rdquo; that is, any
+      number above five hundred and ninety-four, were in order. My companion
+      suddenly came to life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ten pounds,&rdquo; he called.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I started. &ldquo;For mercy sake, Mr. Heathcroft,&rdquo; I protested, &ldquo;don't let
+      anything I have said influence your bidding. I may be entirely wrong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned and surveyed me through the eyeglass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may wish to bid yourself,&rdquo; he drawled. &ldquo;Careless of me. So sorry.
+      Shall I withdraw the bid?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no. I'm not going to bid. I only&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eleven pounds I am offered, gentlemen,&rdquo; shouted the auctioneer. &ldquo;Eleven
+      pounds! It would be like robbing an orphan asylum. Do I hear twelve?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He heard twelve immediately&mdash;from Mr. Heathcroft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thirteen pounds were bid. Evidently others shared my opinion concerning
+      the value of the &ldquo;high field.&rdquo; Heathcroft promptly raised it to fourteen.
+      I ventured another protest. So far as effect was concerned I might as well
+      have been talking to one of the smoke-stacks. The bidding was lively and
+      lengthy. At last the &ldquo;high field&rdquo; went to Mr. A. Carleton Heathcroft for
+      twenty-one pounds, approximately one hundred and five dollars. I thought
+      it time for me to make my escape. I was wondering where I should hide next
+      day, when the run was announced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Greatly obliged to you, I'm sure,&rdquo; drawled the fortunate bidder. &ldquo;Won't
+      you join me in a whisky and soda or something?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I declined the whisky and soda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sorry,&rdquo; said Mr. Heathcroft. &ldquo;Jolly grateful for putting me right, Mr.&mdash;er&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Knowles is my name,&rdquo; I said. He might have remembered it; I remembered
+      his perfectly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course&mdash;Knowles. Thank you so much, Knowles. Thank you and the
+      second officer. Nothing like having professional information&mdash;eh,
+      what? Rather!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There seemed to be no doubt in his mind that he was going to win. There
+      was more than a doubt in mine. I told Hephzy of my experience when I
+      joined her in the Lounge. My attempts to say &ldquo;Really&rdquo; and &ldquo;Isn't it&rdquo; and
+      &ldquo;Rather&rdquo; in the Heathcroft manner and with the Heathcroft accent pleased
+      her very much. As to the result of my unpremeditated &ldquo;tip&rdquo; she was quite
+      indifferent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If he loses it will serve him good and right,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;Gamblin's
+      poor business and I sha'n't care if he does lose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall,&rdquo; I observed. &ldquo;I feel responsible in a way and I shall be sorry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'SO sorry,' you mean, Hosy. That's what that blunderin' steward said when
+      he stepped on my skirt and tore the gatherin' all loose. I told him he
+      wasn't half as sorry as I was.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But at noon next day, when the observation was taken and the run posted on
+      the bulletin board the figure was six hundred and two. My &ldquo;tip&rdquo; had been a
+      good one after all and A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire, was richer by some
+      seven hundred dollars, even after the expenses of treating the
+      &ldquo;smoke-room&rdquo; and feeing the smoke-room steward had been deducted. I did
+      not visit the smoke-room to share in the treat. I feared I might be
+      expected to furnish more professional information. But that evening a
+      bottle of vintage champagne was produced by our obsequious table steward.
+      &ldquo;With Mr. 'Eathcroft's compliments, sir, thank you, sir,&rdquo; announced the
+      latter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah looked at the gilt-topped bottle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;WHAT in the world will we do with it, Hosy?&rdquo; she demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, drink it, I suppose,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;It is the only thing we can do.
+      We can't send it back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you can't drink the whole of it, and I'm sure I sha'n't start in to
+      be a drunkard at my age. I'll take the least little bit of a drop, just to
+      see what it tastes like. I've read about champagne, just as I've read
+      about lords and ladies, all my life, but I never expected to see either of
+      'em. Well there!&rdquo; after a very small sip from the glass, &ldquo;there's another
+      pet idea gone to smash. A lord looks like Ase Tidditt, and champagne
+      tastes like vinegar and soda. Tut! tut! tut! if I had to drink that sour
+      stuff all my life I'd probably look like Asaph, too. No wonder that
+      Erkskine man is such a shriveled-up thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I glanced toward the captain's table. Mr. Heathcroft raised his glass. I
+      bowed and raised mine. The group at that table, the captain included, were
+      looking in my direction. I judged that my smoke-room acquaintance had told
+      them of my wonderful &ldquo;tip.&rdquo; I imagined I could see the sarcastic smile
+      upon the captain's face. I did not care for that kind of celebrity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the affair had one quite unexpected result. The next forenoon as
+      Hephzibah and I were reclining in our deck-chairs the captain himself,
+      florid-faced, gray-bearded, gold-laced and grand, halted before us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe your name is Knowles, sir,&rdquo; he said, raising his cap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is,&rdquo; I replied. I wondered what in the world was coming next. Was he
+      going to take me to task for talking with his second officer?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your home is in Bayport, Massachusetts, I see by the passenger list,&rdquo; he
+      went on. &ldquo;Is that Bayport on Cape Cod, may I ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I replied, more puzzled than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I once knew a Knowles from your town, sir. He was a seafaring man like
+      myself. His name was Philander Knowles, and when I knew him he was
+      commander of the bark 'Ranger.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was my father,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Captain Stone extended his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; he declared, &ldquo;this is a great pleasure, sir. I knew your
+      father years ago when I was a young man, mate of one of our ships engaged
+      in the Italian fruit trade. He was very kind to me at that time. I have
+      never forgotten it. May I sit down?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The chair next to ours happened to be unoccupied at the moment and he took
+      it. I introduced Hephzibah and we chatted for some time. The captain
+      appeared delighted to meet the son of his old acquaintance. Father and he
+      had met in Messina&mdash;Father's ship was in the fruit trade also at that
+      time&mdash;and something or other he had done to help young Stone had made
+      a great impression on the latter. I don't know what the something was,
+      whether it was monetary help or assistance in getting out of a serious
+      scrape; Stone did not tell me and I didn't ask. But, at any rate, the pair
+      had become very friendly there and at subsequent meetings in the
+      Mediterranean ports. The captain asked all sorts of questions about
+      Father, his life, his family and his death aboard the sinking &ldquo;Monarch of
+      the Seas.&rdquo; Hephzibah furnished most of the particulars. She remembered
+      them well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Captain Stone nodded solemnly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is the way the master of a ship should die,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;Your
+      father, Mr. Knowles, was a man and he died like one. He was my first
+      American acquaintance and he gave me a new idea of Yankees&mdash;if you'll
+      excuse my calling them that, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy had a comment to make.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are SOME pretty fair Yankees,&rdquo; she observed, drily. &ldquo;ALL the good
+      folks haven't moved back to England yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The captain solemnly assured her that he was certain of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Though two of the best are on their way,&rdquo; I added, with a wink at Hephzy.
+      This attempt at humor was entirely lost. Our companion said he presumed I
+      referred to Mr. and Mrs. Van Hook, who sat next him at table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that leads me to ask if Miss Cahoon and yourself will not join us,&rdquo;
+       he went on. &ldquo;I could easily arrange for two places.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at Hephzy. Her face expressed decided disapproval and she shook
+      her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, Captain Stone,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;but we have a table to ourselves and
+      are very comfortable. We should not think of troubling you to that
+      extent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He assured us it would not be a trouble, but a pleasure. We were firm in
+      our refusal, however, and he ceased to urge. He declared his intention of
+      seeing that our quarters were adequate, offered to accompany us through
+      the engine-rooms and the working portions of the ship whenever we wished,
+      ordered the deck steward, who was all but standing on his head in
+      obsequious desire to oblige, to take good care of us, shook hands once
+      more, and went away. Hephzibah drew a long breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My goodness!&rdquo; she exclaimed; &ldquo;sit at HIS table! I guess not! There's
+      another lord and his wife there, to say nothin' of the Van Hooks. I'd look
+      pretty, in my Cape Cod clothes, perched up there, wouldn't I! A hen is all
+      right in her place, but she don't belong in a peacock cage. And they drink
+      champagne ALL the time there; I've watched 'em. No thank you, I'll stay in
+      the henyard along with the everyday fowls.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Odd that he should have known Father,&rdquo; I observed. &ldquo;Well, I suppose the
+      proper remark to make, under the circumstances, is that this is a small
+      world. That is what nine-tenths of Bayport would say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's what I say, too,&rdquo; declared Hephzy, with emphasis. &ldquo;Well, it's awful
+      encouraging for us, isn't it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Encouraging? What do you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, I mean about Little Frank. It makes me feel surer than ever that we
+      shall run across him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I suppressed a groan. &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;why on earth should the fact that
+      Captain Stone knew my father encourage you to believe that we shall meet a
+      person we never knew at all?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy, how you do talk! If you and I, just cruisin' this way across the
+      broadside of creation, run across a man that knew Cousin Philander
+      thirty-nine years ago, isn't it just as reasonable to suppose we'll meet a
+      child who was born twenty-one years ago? I should say 'twas! Hosy, I've
+      had a presentiment about this cruise of ours: We're SENT on it; that's
+      what I think&mdash;we're sent. Oh, you can laugh! You'll see by and by.
+      THEN you won't laugh.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Hephzy,&rdquo; I admitted, resignedly, &ldquo;I won't laugh then, I promise you.
+      If <i>I</i> ever reach the stage where I see a Little Frank I promise you
+      I sha'n't laugh. I'll believe diseases of the brain are contagious, like
+      the measles, and I'll send for a doctor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The captain met us again in the dining-room that evening. He came over to
+      our table and chatted for some time. His visit caused quite a sensation.
+      Shipboard society is a little world by itself and the ship's captain is
+      the head of it. Persons who would, very likely, have passed Captain Stone
+      on Fifth Avenue or Piccadilly without recognizing him now toadied to him
+      as if he were a Czar, which, in a way, I suppose he is when afloat. His
+      familiarity with us shed a sort of reflected glory upon Hephzy and me.
+      Several of our fellow-passengers spoke to us that evening for the first
+      time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire, was not among the Lounge habitues; the
+      smoke-room was his accustomed haunt. But the next forenoon as I leaned
+      over the rail of the after promenade deck watching the antics of the
+      &ldquo;Stokers' Band&rdquo; which was performing for the benefit of the second-class
+      with an eye toward pennies and small silver from all classes, Heathcroft
+      sauntered up and leaned beside me. We exchanged good-mornings. I thanked
+      him for the wine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite unnecessary, Knowles,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Least I could do, it seems to me.
+      I pulled quite a tidy bit from that inside information of yours; I did
+      really. Awfully obliged, and all that. You seem to have a wide
+      acquaintance among the officers. That captain chap tells us he knew your
+      father&mdash;the sailor one you told me of, you understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Having had but one father I understood perfectly. We chatted in a
+      inconsequential way for a short time. In the course of our conversation I
+      happened to mention that I wrote, professionally. To my surprise
+      Heathcroft was impressed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you, really!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;That's interesting, isn't it now! I have
+      a cousin who writes. Don't know why she does it; she doesn't get her
+      writings printed, but she keeps on. It is a habit of hers. Curious
+      dissipation&mdash;eh, what? Does that&mdash;er&mdash;Miss&mdash;that
+      companion of yours, write also?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed and informed him that writing was not one of Hephzibah's bad
+      habits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Extraordinary woman, isn't she,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I met her just now, walking
+      about, and I happened to mention that I was taking the air. She said she
+      wouldn't quarrel with me because of that. The more I took the better she
+      would like it; she could spare about a gale and a quarter and not feel&mdash;What
+      did she call it? Oh yes, 'scrimped.' What is 'scrimped,' may I ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I explained the meaning of &ldquo;scrimped.&rdquo; Heathcroft was much amused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It WAS blowing a bit strong up forward there,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;That was a
+      clever way of putting it, wasn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is a clever woman,&rdquo; I said, shortly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Heathcroft did not enthuse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; he said dubiously. &ldquo;A relative of yours, I suppose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A cousin, that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One's relatives, particularly the feminine relatives, incline toward
+      eccentricity as they grow older, don't you think. I have an aunt down in
+      Sussex, who is queer. A good sort, too, no end of money, a big place and
+      all that, but odd. She and I get on well together&mdash;I am her pet, I
+      suppose I may say&mdash;but, by Jove, she has quarreled with everyone else
+      in the family. I let her have her own way and it has convinced her that I
+      am the only rational Heathcroft in existence. Do you golf, Knowles?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I attempt something in that line. I doubt if my efforts should be called
+      golf.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a rotten game when one is off form, isn't it. If you are down in
+      Sussex and I chance to be there I should be glad to have you play an
+      eighteen with me. Burglestone Bogs is the village. Anyone will direct you
+      to the Manor. If I'm not there, introduce yourself to my aunt. Lady Kent
+      Carey is the name. She'll be jolly glad to welcome you if you tell her you
+      know me. I'm her sole interest in life, the greenhouses excepted, of
+      course. Cultivating roses and rearing me are her hobbies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I thought it improbable that the golfers of Burglestone Bogs would ever be
+      put to shame by the brilliancy of my game. I thanked him, however. I was
+      surprised at the invitation. I had been under the impression, derived from
+      my reading, that the average Englishman required an acquaintance of
+      several months before proffering hospitality. No doubt Mr. Heathcroft was
+      not an average Englishman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you be in London long?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;I suppose not. You're probably
+      off on a hurricane jaunt from one end of the Continent to the other. Two
+      hours at Stratford, bowing before Shakespeare's tomb, a Derby through the
+      cathedral towns, and then the Channel boat, eh? That's the American way,
+      isn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not our way,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;We have no itinerary. I don't know where
+      we may go or how long we shall stay.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Evidently I rose again in his estimation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you picked your hotel in London?&rdquo; he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. I shall be glad of any help you may be kind enough to give along that
+      line.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He reflected. &ldquo;There's a decent little hotel in Mayfair,&rdquo; he said, after a
+      moment. &ldquo;A private sort of shop. I don't use it myself; generally put up
+      at the club, I mean to say. But my aunt and my sisters do. They're quite
+      mad about it. It is&mdash;Ah&mdash;Bancroft's&mdash;that's it, Bancroft's
+      Hotel. I'll give you the address before I leave.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I thanked him again. He was certainly trying to be kind. No doubt the
+      kindness was due to his sense of obligation engendered by what he called
+      my &ldquo;professional information,&rdquo; but it was kindness all the same.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first bugle for luncheon sounded. Mr. Heathcroft turned to go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll see you again, Knowles,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and give you the hotel street and
+      number and all that. Hope you'll like it. If you shouldn't the Langham is
+      not bad&mdash;quiet and old-fashioned, but really very fair. And if you
+      care for something more public and&mdash;Ah&mdash;American, there are
+      always the Savoy and the Cecil. Here is my card. If I can be of any
+      service to you while you are in town drop me a line at my clubs, either of
+      them. I must be toddling. By, by.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He &ldquo;toddled&rdquo; and I sought my room to prepare for luncheon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two days more and our voyage was at an end. We saw more of our friend the
+      captain during those days and of Heathcroft as well. The former fulfilled
+      his promise of showing us through the ship, and Hephzy and I, descending
+      greasy iron stairways and twisting through narrow passages, saw great
+      rooms full of mighty machinery, and a cavern where perspiring, grimy men,
+      looking but half-human in the red light from the furnace mouths, toiled
+      ceaselessly with pokers and shovels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We stood at the forward end of the promenade deck at night, looking out
+      into the blackness, and heard the clang of four bells from the shadows at
+      the bow, the answering clang from the crow's-nest on the foremast, and the
+      weird cry of &ldquo;All's well&rdquo; from the lookouts. This experience made a great
+      impression on us both. Hephzy expressed my feeling exactly when she said
+      in a hushed whisper:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, Hosy! for the first time I feel as if I really was on board a ship
+      at sea. My father and your father and all our men-folks for ever so far
+      back have heard that 'All's well'&mdash;yes, and called it, too, when they
+      first went as sailors. Just think of it! Why Father was only sixteen when
+      he shipped; just a boy, that's all. I've heard him say 'All's well' over
+      and over again; 'twas a kind of byword with him. This whole thing seems
+      like somethin' callin' to me out of the past and gone. Don't you feel it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I felt it, as she did. The black night, the quiet, the loneliness, the
+      salt spray on our faces and the wash of the waves alongside, the high
+      singsong wail from lookout to lookout&mdash;it WAS a voice from the past,
+      the call of generations of sea-beaten, weather-worn, brave old Cape
+      Codders to their descendants, reminding the latter of a dead and gone
+      profession and of thousands of fine, old ships which had plowed the ocean
+      in the days when &ldquo;Plutonias&rdquo; were unknown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We attended the concert in the Lounge, and the ball on the promenade deck
+      which followed. Mr. Heathcroft, who seemed to have made the acquaintance
+      of most of the pretty girls on board, informed us in the intervals between
+      a two-step and a tango, that he had been &ldquo;dancing madly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You Americans are extraordinary people,&rdquo; he added. &ldquo;Your dances are as
+      extraordinary as your food. That Mrs. Van Hook, who sits near me at table,
+      was indulging in&mdash;what do you call them?&mdash;oh, yes, griddle cakes&mdash;this
+      morning. Begged me to try them. I declined. Horrid things they were.
+      Round, like a&mdash;like a washing-flannel, and swimming in treacle.
+      Frightful!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that man,&rdquo; commented Hephzy, &ldquo;eats cold toast and strawberry
+      preserves for breakfast and washes 'em down with three cups of tea. And he
+      calls nice hot pancakes frightful!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At ten o'clock in the morning of the sixth day we sighted the Irish coast
+      through the dripping haze which shrouded it and at four we dropped anchor
+      abreast the breakwater of the little Welsh village which was to be our
+      landing place. The sun was shining dimly by this time and the rounded
+      hills and the mountains beyond them, the green slopes dotted with farms
+      and checkered with hedges and stone walls, the gray stone fort with its
+      white-washed barrack buildings, the spires and chimneys of the village in
+      the hollow&mdash;all these combined to make a picture which was homelike
+      and yet not like home, foreign and yet strangely familiar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We leaned over the rail and watched the trunks and boxes and bags and
+      bundles shoot down the slide into the baggage and mail-boat which lay
+      alongside. Hephzy was nervous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They'll smash everything to pieces&mdash;they surely will!&rdquo; she declared.
+      &ldquo;Either that or smash themselves, I don't know which is liable to happen
+      first. Mercy on us! Did you see that? That box hit the man right in the
+      back!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It didn't hurt him,&rdquo; I said, reassuringly. &ldquo;It was nothing but a
+      hat-box.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hurt HIM&mdash;no! But I guess likely it didn't do the hat much good. I
+      thought baggage smashin' was an American institution, but they've got some
+      experts over here. Oh, my soul and body! there goes MY trunk&mdash;end
+      over end, of course. Well, I'm glad there's no eggs in it, anyway. Josiah
+      Dimick always used to carry two dozen eggs to his daughter-in-law every
+      time he went to Boston. He had 'em in a box once and put the box on the
+      seat alongside of him and a big fat woman came and sat&mdash;Oh! that was
+      your trunk, Hosy! Did you hear it hit? I expect every one of those
+      'English Poets' went from top to bottom then, right through all your
+      clothes. Never mind, I suppose it's all part of travelin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Heathcroft, looking more English than ever in his natty top coat, and
+      hat at the back of his head, sauntered up. He was, for him, almost
+      enthusiastic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Looking at the water, were you?&rdquo; he queried. &ldquo;Glorious color, isn't it.
+      One never sees a sea like that or a sky like that anywhere but here at
+      home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy looked at the sea and sky. It was plain that she wished to admire,
+      for his sake, but her admiration was qualified.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you think if they were a little brighter and bluer they'd be
+      prettier?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Heathcroft stared at her through his monocle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bluer?&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;My dear woman, there are no skies as blue as the
+      English skies. They are quite celebrated&mdash;really.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He sauntered on again, evidently disgusted at our lack of appreciation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He must be color-blind,&rdquo; I observed. Hephzy was more charitable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess likely everybody's home things are best,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I suppose
+      this green-streaked water and those gray clouds do look bright and blue to
+      him. We must make allowances, Hosy. He never saw an August mornin' at
+      Bayport, with a northwest wind blowin' and the bay white and blue to the
+      edge of all creation. That's been denied him. He means well, poor thing;
+      he don't know any better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      An hour later we landed from the passenger tender at a stone pier covered
+      with substantial stone buildings. Uniformed custom officers and uniformed
+      policemen stood in line as we came up the gang-plank. Behind them, funny
+      little locomotives attached to queer cars which appeared to be all doors,
+      puffed and panted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah looked about her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, with conviction. &ldquo;I'm believin' it more and more all the
+      time. It is England, just like the pictures. How many times I've seen
+      engines like that in pictures, and cars like that, too. I never thought
+      I'd ride in 'em. My goodness me? Hephzibah Jane Cahoon, you're in England&mdash;YOU
+      are! You needn't be afraid to turn over for fear of wakin' up, either.
+      You're awake and alive and in England! Hosy,&rdquo; with a sudden burst of
+      exuberance, &ldquo;hold on to me tight. I'm just as likely to wave my hat and
+      hurrah as I am to do anything. Hold on to me&mdash;tight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We got through the perfunctory customs examination without trouble. Our
+      tickets provided by Campbell, included those for the railway journey to
+      London. I secured a first-class compartment at the booking-office and a
+      guard conducted us to it and closed the door. Another short delay and
+      then, with a whistle as queer and unfamiliar as its own appearance, the
+      little locomotive began to pull our train out of the station.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy leaned back against the cushions with a sigh of supreme content.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;for London. London! think of it, Hephzy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm thinkin' of it,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;London&mdash;the biggest city in the
+      world! Who knows, Hosy? France is such a little ways off; probably Little
+      Frank has been to London a hundred times. He may even be there now. Who
+      knows? I shouldn't be surprised if we met him right in London. I sha'n't
+      be surprised at anything anymore. I'm in England and on my way to London;
+      that's surprise enough. NOTHIN' could be more wonderful than that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which We Are Received at Bancroft's Hotel and I Receive a Letter
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      It was late when we reached London, nearly eleven o'clock. The long train
+      journey was a delight. During the few hours of daylight and dusk we peered
+      through the car windows at the scenery flying past; at the villages, the
+      green fields, the hedges, the neat, trim farms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Everything looks as if it has been swept and dusted,&rdquo; declared Hephzy.
+      &ldquo;There aren't any waste places at all. What do they do with their spare
+      land?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They haven't any,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;Land is too valuable to waste. There's
+      another thatched roof. It looks like those in the pictures, doesn't it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy nodded. &ldquo;Just exactly,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Everything looks like the
+      pictures. I feel as if I'd seen it all before. If that engine didn't toot
+      so much like a tin whistle I should almost think it was a picture. But it
+      isn't&mdash;it isn't; it's real, and you and I are part of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We dined on the train. Night came and our window-pictures changed to
+      glimpses of flashing lights interspersed with shadowy blotches of
+      darkness. At length the lights became more and more frequent and began to
+      string out in long lines marking suburban streets. Then the little
+      locomotive tooted its tin whistle frantically and we rolled slowly under a
+      great train shed&mdash;Paddington Station and London itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Amid the crowd on the platform Hephzy and I stood, two lone wanderers not
+      exactly sure what we should do next. About us the busy crowd jostled and
+      pushed. Relatives met relatives and fathers and mothers met sons and
+      daughters returning home after long separations. No one met us, no one was
+      interested in us at all, except the porters and the cabmen. I selected a
+      red-faced chunky porter who was a decidedly able person, apparently
+      capable of managing anything except the letter h. The acrobatics which he
+      performed with that defenceless consonant were marvelous. I have said that
+      I selected him; that he selected me would be nearer the truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cab, sir. Yes, sir, thank you, sir,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Leave that to me, sir.
+      Will you 'ave a fourwheeler or a hordinary cab, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I wasn't exactly certain what a fourwheeler might be. I had read about
+      them often enough, but I had never seen one pictured and properly labeled.
+      For the matter of that, all the vehicles in sight appeared to have four
+      wheels. So I said, at a venture, that I thought an ordinary cab would do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir; 'ere you are, sir. Your boxes are in the luggage van, I
+      suppose, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I took it for granted he meant my trunks and those were in what I, in my
+      ignorance, would have called a baggage car:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; said the porter. &ldquo;If the lidy will be good enough to wait
+      'ere, sir, you and I will go hafter the boxes, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Cautioning Hephzy not to stir from her moorings on any account I followed
+      my guide to the &ldquo;luggage van.&rdquo; This crowded car disgorged our two steamer
+      trunks and, my particular porter having corraled a fellow-craftsman to
+      help him, the trunks were dragged to the waiting cab.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I found Hephzy waiting, outwardly calm, but inwardly excited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw one at last,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;I'd about come to believe there wasn't
+      such a thing, but there is; I just saw one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One&mdash;what?&rdquo; I asked, puzzled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An Englishman with side-whiskers. They wasn't as big and long as those in
+      the pictures, but they were side-whiskers. I feel better. When you've been
+      brought up to believe every Englishman wore 'em, it was kind of
+      humiliatin' not to see one single set.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I paid my porters&mdash;I learned afterward that, like most Americans, I
+      had given them altogether too much&mdash;and we climbed into the cab with
+      our bags. The &ldquo;boxes,&rdquo; or trunks, were on the driver's seat and on the
+      roof.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where to, sir?&rdquo; asked the driver.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hesitated. Even at this late date I had not made up my mind exactly
+      &ldquo;where to.&rdquo; My decision was a hasty one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why&mdash;er&mdash;to&mdash;to Bancroft's Hotel,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Blithe Street,
+      just off Piccadilly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I think the driver was somewhat astonished. Very few of his American
+      passengers selected Bancroft's as a stopping place, I imagine. However,
+      his answer was prompt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir, thank you, sir,&rdquo; he said. The cab rolled out of the station.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose,&rdquo; said Hephzy, reflectively, &ldquo;if you had told him or that
+      porter man that they were everlastin' idiots they'd have thanked you just
+      the same and called you 'sir' four times besides.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No doubt they would.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir, I'm perfectly sure they would&mdash;thank you, sir. So this is
+      London. It doesn't look such an awful lot different from Boston or New
+      York so far.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Bancroft's, when we reached it, was as unlike a Boston or New York
+      hotel as anything could be. A short, quiet, eminently respectable street,
+      leading from Piccadilly; a street fenced in, on both sides, by
+      three-story, solid, eminently respectable houses of brick and stone. No
+      signs, no street cars, no crowds, no glaring lights. Merely a gas lamp
+      burning over the fanlight of a spotless white door, and the words
+      &ldquo;Bancroft's Hotel&rdquo; in mosaic lettering set in a white stone slab in the
+      pavement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cab pulled up before the white door and Hephzy and I looked out of the
+      window. The same thought was in both our minds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This can't be the place,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This isn't a hotel, is it, Hosy?&rdquo; asked Hephzy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The white door opened and a brisk, red-cheeked English boy in uniform
+      hastened to the cab. Before he reached it I had seen the lettering in the
+      pavement and knew that, in spite of appearances, we had reached our
+      destination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is it, Hephzy,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy opened the cab door and we alighted. Then in the doorway of
+      &ldquo;Bancroft's&rdquo; appeared a stout, red-faced and very dignified person, also
+      in uniform. This person wore short &ldquo;mutton-chop&rdquo; whiskers and had the air
+      of a member of the Royal Family; that is to say, the air which a member of
+      the Royal Family might be expected to have.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good evening, sir,&rdquo; said the personage, bowing respectfully. The bow was
+      a triumph in itself; not too low, not abject in the least, not familiar; a
+      bow which implied much, but promised nothing; a bow which seemed to demand
+      references, but was far from repellant or bullying. Altogether a wonderful
+      bow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good evening,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;This is Bancroft's Hotel, is it not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish to secure rooms for this lady and myself, if possible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir. This way, sir, if you please. Richard,&rdquo; this to the boy and in
+      a tone entirely different&mdash;the tone of a commanding officer to a
+      private&mdash;&ldquo;see to the gentleman's luggage. This way, sir; thank you,
+      sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hesitated. &ldquo;The cabman has not been paid,&rdquo; I stammered. I was a trifle
+      overawed by the grandeur of the mutton-chops and the &ldquo;sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will attend to that, sir. If you will be good enough to come in, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We entered and found ourselves in a narrow hall, old-fashioned, homelike
+      and as spotless as the white door. Two more uniforms bowed before us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, sir,&rdquo; said the member of the Royal Family. It was with
+      difficulty that I repressed the desire to tell him he was quite welcome.
+      His manner of thanking me seemed to imply that we had conferred a favor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will speak to Mr. Jameson,&rdquo; he went on, with another bow. Then he left
+      us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is&mdash;is that Mr. Bancroft?&rdquo; whispered Hephzy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shook my head. &ldquo;It must be the Prince of Wales, at least,&rdquo; I whispered
+      in return. &ldquo;I infer that there is no Mr. Bancroft.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It developed that I was right. Mr. Jameson was the proprietor of the
+      hotel, and Mr. Jameson was a pleasant, refined, quiet man of middle age.
+      He appeared from somewhere or other, ascertained our wants, stated that he
+      had a few vacant rooms and could accommodate us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you wish a sitting-room?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was not sure. I wanted comfort, that I knew, and I said so. I mentioned,
+      as an afterthought, that Mr. Heathcroft had recommended Bancroft's to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Heathcroft name seemed to settle everything. Mr. Jameson summoned the
+      representative of royalty and spoke to him in a low tone. The
+      representative&mdash;his name, I learned later, was Henry and he was
+      butler and major-domo at Bancroft's&mdash;bowed once more. A few minutes
+      later we were shown to an apartment on the second floor front, a room
+      large, old-fashioned, furnished with easy-chairs, tables and a big,
+      comfortable sofa. Sofa and easy-chairs were covered with figured, glazed
+      chintz.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your sitting-room, sir,&rdquo; said Henry. &ldquo;Your bedrooms open hoff it, sir.
+      The chambermaid will 'ave them ready in a moment, sir. Richard and the
+      porter will bring up your luggage and the boxes. Will you and the lady
+      wish supper, sir? Thank you, sir. Very good, sir. Will you require a fire,
+      sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The room was a trifle chilly. There was a small iron grate at its end, and
+      a coal fire ready to kindle. I answered that a fire might be enjoyable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; said Henry. &ldquo;Himmediately, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon Hephzy and I were drinking hot tea and eating bread and butter and
+      plum cake before a snapping fire. George, the waiter, had brought us the
+      tea and accessories and set the table; the chambermaid had prepared the
+      bedrooms; Henry had supervised everything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; observed Hephzy, with a sigh of content, &ldquo;I feel better satisfied
+      every minute. When we were in the hack&mdash;cab, I mean&mdash;I couldn't
+      realize we weren't ridin' through an American city. The houses and
+      sidewalks and everything&mdash;what I could see of 'em&mdash;looked so
+      much like Boston that I was sort of disappointed. I wanted it to be more
+      different, some way. But this IS different. This may be a hotel&mdash;I
+      suppose likely 'tis&mdash;but it don't seem like one, does it? If it
+      wasn't for the Henry and that Richard and that&mdash;what's his name?
+      George&mdash;and all the rest, I should think I was in Cap'n Cyrus
+      Whittaker's settin-room back home. The furniture looks like Cap'n Cy's and
+      the pictures look like those he has, and&mdash;and everything looks as
+      stiff and starched and old-fashioned as can be. But the Cap'n never had a
+      Henry. No, sirree, Henry don't belong on Cape Cod! Hosy,&rdquo; with a sudden
+      burst of confidence, &ldquo;it's a good thing I saw that Lord Erskine first. If
+      I hadn't found out what a live lord looked like I'd have thought Henry was
+      one sure. Do you really think it's right for me to call him by his
+      Christian name? It seems sort of&mdash;sort of irreverent, somehow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I wish it were possible for me to describe in detail our first days at
+      Bancroft's. If it were not for the fact that so many really important
+      events and happenings remain to be described&mdash;if it were not that the
+      most momentous event of my life, the event that was the beginning of the
+      great change in that life&mdash;if that event were not so close at hand, I
+      should be tempted to linger upon those first few days. They were strange
+      and wonderful and funny to Hephzibah and me. The strangeness and the
+      wonder wore off gradually; the fun still sticks in my memory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To have one's bedroom invaded at an early hour by a chambermaid who,
+      apparently quite oblivious of the fact that the bed was still occupied by
+      a male, proceeded to draw the curtains, bring the hot water and fill the
+      tin tub for my bath, was astonishing and funny enough, Hephzibah's
+      comments on the proceeding were funnier still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean to tell me,&rdquo; she demanded, &ldquo;that that hussy was brazen enough
+      to march right in here before you got up?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I am only thankful that I HADN'T got up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well! I must say! Did she fetch the water in a garden waterin'-pot, same
+      as she did to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just the same.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And did she pour it into that&mdash;that flat dishpan on the floor and
+      tell you your 'bawth' was ready?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! Of all the&mdash;I hope she cleared out THEN?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's a mercy, anyhow. Did you take a bath in that dishpan?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tried.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I didn't. I'd as soon try to bathe in a saucer. I'd have felt as if
+      I'd needed a teaspoon to dip up the half pint of water and pour it over
+      me. Don't these English folks have real bathtubs for grown-up people?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not know, then. Later I learned that Bancroft's Hotel possessed
+      several bathrooms, and that I might use one if I preferred. Being an
+      American I did so prefer. Most of the guests, being English, preferred the
+      &ldquo;dishpans.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We learned to accept the early morning visits of the chambermaid as
+      matters of course. We learned to order breakfast the night before and to
+      eat it in our sitting-room. We tasted a &ldquo;grilled sole&rdquo; for the first time,
+      and although Hephzy persisted in referring to it as &ldquo;fried flatfish&rdquo; we
+      liked the taste. We became accustomed to being waited upon, to do next to
+      nothing for ourselves, and I found that a valet who laid out my evening
+      clothes, put the studs in my shirts, selected my neckties, and saw that my
+      shoes were polished, was a rather convenient person to have about. Hephzy
+      fumed a good deal at first; she declared that she felt ashamed, an
+      able-bodied woman like her, to sit around with her hands folded and do
+      nothing. She asked her maid a great many questions, and the answers she
+      received explained some of her puzzles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know what that poor thing gets a week?&rdquo; she observed, referring to
+      the maid. &ldquo;Eight shillin's&mdash;two dollars a week, that's what she gets.
+      And your valet man doesn't get any more. I can see now how Mr. Jameson can
+      afford to keep so much help at the board he charges. I pay that Susanna
+      Wixon thing at Bayport three dollars and she doesn't know enough to boil
+      water without burnin' it on, scarcely. And Peters&mdash;why in the world
+      do they call women by their last names?&mdash;Peters, she's the maid, says
+      it's a real nice place and she's quite satisfied. Well, where ignorance is
+      bliss it's foolish to be sensible, I suppose; but <i>I</i> wouldn't fetch
+      and carry for the President's wife, to say nothin' of an everyday body
+      like me, for two dollars a week.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We learned that the hotel dining-room was a &ldquo;Coffee Room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nobody with sense would take coffee there&mdash;not more'n once, they
+      wouldn't,&rdquo; declared Hephzy. &ldquo;I asked Peters why they didn't call it the
+      'Tea Room' and be done with it. She said because it was the Coffee Room. I
+      suppose likely that was an answer, but I felt a good deal as if I'd come
+      out of the same hole I went in at. She thanked me for askin' her, though;
+      she never forgets that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We became accustomed to addressing the lordly Henry by his Christian name
+      and found him a most obliging person. He, like everyone else, had
+      instantly recognized us as Americans, and, consequently, was
+      condescendingly kind to strangers from a distant and barbarous country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What SORT of place do they think the States are?&rdquo; asked Hephzy. &ldquo;That's
+      what they always call home&mdash;'the States'&mdash;and they seem to think
+      it's about as big as a pocket handkerchief. That Henry asked me if the red
+      Indians were numerous where we lived. I said no&mdash;as soon as I could
+      say anything; I told him there was only one tribe of Red Men in town and
+      they were white. I guess he thought I was crazy, but it don't make any
+      difference. And Peters said she had a cousin in a place called Chicago and
+      did I know him. What do you think of that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you tell her?&rdquo; I inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hey? Oh, I told her that, bein' as Chicago was a thousand miles from
+      Bayport, I hadn't had time to do much visitin' there. I told her the
+      truth, but she didn't believe it. I could see she didn't. She thinks
+      Chicago and San Francisco and New York and Boston are nests of wigwams in
+      the same patch of woods and all hands that live there have been scalped at
+      least once. SUCH ignorance!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry, at my request, procured seats for us at one of the London theaters.
+      There we saw a good play, splendidly acted, and Hephzy laughed and wept at
+      the performance. As usual, however, she had a characteristic comment to
+      make.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do they call the front seats the 'stalls'?&rdquo; she whispered to me
+      between the acts. &ldquo;Stalls! The idea! I'm no horse. Perhaps they call 'em
+      that because folks are donkeys enough to pay two dollars and a half for
+      the privilege of sittin' in 'em. Don't YOU be so extravagant again, Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the characters in the play was supposed to be an American
+      gentleman, and his behavior and dress and speech stirred me to
+      indignation. I asked the question which every American asks under similar
+      circumstances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why on earth,&rdquo; I demanded, &ldquo;do they permit that fellow to make such a
+      fool of himself? He yells and drawls and whines through his nose and wears
+      clothes which would make an American cry. That last scene was supposed to
+      be a reception and he wore an outing suit and no waistcoat. Do they
+      suppose such a fellow would be tolerated in respectable society in the
+      United States?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And now it was Hephzy's turn to be philosophical.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess likely the answer to that is simple enough,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;He's what
+      they think an American ought to be, even if he isn't. If he behaved like a
+      human bein' he wouldn't be the kind of American they expect on the stage.
+      After all, he isn't any worse than the Englishmen we have in the Dramatic
+      Society's plays at home. I haven't seen one of that kind since I got here;
+      and I've given up expectin' to&mdash;unless you and I go to some crazy
+      asylum&mdash;which isn't likely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We rode on the tops of busses, we visited the Tower, and Westminster
+      Abbey, and Saint Paul's. We saw the Horse Guard sentinels on duty in
+      Whitehall, and watched the ceremony of guard changing at St. James's.
+      Hephzy was impressed, in her own way, by the uniforms of the &ldquo;Cold
+      Streams.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There!&rdquo; she exclaimed, &ldquo;I've seen 'em walk. Now I feel better. When they
+      stood there, with those red jackets and with the fur hats on their heads,
+      I couldn't make myself believe they hadn't been taken out of a box for
+      children to play with. I wanted to get up close so as to see if their feet
+      were glued to round pieces of wood like Noah's and Ham's and Japhet's in
+      the Ark. But they aren't wood, they're alive. They're men, not toys. I'm
+      glad I've seen 'em. THEY are satisfyin'. They make me more reconciled to a
+      King with a Derby hat on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She and I had stood in the crowd fringing the park mall and seen King
+      George trot by on horseback. His Majesty's lack of crown and robes and
+      scepter had been a great disappointment to Hephzy; I think she expected
+      the crown at least.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had, of course, visited the London office of my publishers, in Camford
+      Street and had found Mr. Matthews, the manager, expecting me. Jim Campbell
+      had cabled and written of my coming and Matthews' welcome was a warm one.
+      He was kindness itself. All my financial responsibilities were to be
+      shifted to his shoulders. I was to use the office as a bank, as a tourist
+      agency, even as a guide's headquarters. He put his clerks at my disposal;
+      they would conduct us on sight-seeing expeditions whenever and wherever we
+      wished. He even made out a list of places in and about London which we, as
+      strangers, should see.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His cordiality and thoughtfulness were appreciated. They made me feel less
+      alone and less dependent upon my own resources. Campbell had arranged that
+      all letters addressed to me in America should be forwarded to the Camford
+      Street office, and Matthews insisted that I should write my own letters
+      there. I began to make it a practice to drop in at the office almost every
+      morning before starting on the day's round of sight-seeing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bancroft's Hotel also began to seem less strange and more homelike. Mr.
+      Jameson, the proprietor, was a fine fellow&mdash;quiet, refined, and
+      pleasant. He, too, tried to help us in every possible way. His wife, a
+      sweet-faced Englishwoman, made Hephzy's acquaintance and Hephzy liked her
+      extremely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's as nice as she can be,&rdquo; declared Hephzy. &ldquo;If it wasn't that she
+      says 'Fancy!' and 'Really!' instead of 'My gracious!' and 'I want to
+      know!' I should think I was talking to a Cape Codder, the best kind of
+      one. She's got sense, too. SHE don't ask about 'red Indians' in Bayport.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the multitude of our new experiences we learned the value of a
+      judicious &ldquo;tip.&rdquo; We had learned something concerning tips on the
+      &ldquo;Plutonia&rdquo;; Campbell had coached us concerning those, and we were provided
+      with a schedule of rates&mdash;so much to the bedroom steward, so much to
+      the stewardess, to the deck steward, to the &ldquo;boots,&rdquo; and all the rest. But
+      tipping in London we were obliged to adjust for ourselves, and the result
+      of our education was surprising.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At Saint Paul's an elderly and impressively haughty person in a black robe
+      showed us through the Crypt and delivered learned lectures before the
+      tombs of Nelson and Wellington. His appearance and manner were somewhat
+      awe-inspiring, especially to Hephzy, who asked me, in a whisper, if I
+      thought likely he was a bishop or a canon or something. When the round was
+      ended and we were leaving the Crypt she saw me put a hand in my pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mercy sakes, Hosy,&rdquo; she whispered. &ldquo;You aren't goin' to offer him money,
+      are you? He'll be insulted. I'd as soon think of givin' Mr. Partridge, our
+      minister, money for takin' us to the cemetery to see the first settlers'
+      gravestones. Don't you do it. He'll throw it back at you. I'll be so
+      ashamed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But I had been watching our fellow-sight-seers as they filed out, and when
+      our time came I dropped two shillings in the hand of the black-robed
+      dignitary. The hand did not spurn the coins, which I&mdash;rather timidly,
+      I confess&mdash;dropped into it. Instead it closed upon them tightly and
+      the haughty lips thanked me, not profusely, not even smilingly, but
+      thanked me, nevertheless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At our visit to the Law Courts a similar experience awaited us. Another
+      dignified and elderly person, who, judging by his appearance, should have
+      been a judge at least, not only accepted the shilling I gave him, but
+      bowed, smiled and offered to conduct us to the divorce court.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A very interesting case there, sir, just now,&rdquo; he murmured, confidingly.
+      &ldquo;Very interesting and sensational indeed, sir. You and the lady will enjoy
+      it, I'm sure, sir. All Americans do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was indignant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well!&rdquo; she exclaimed, as we emerged upon the Strand. &ldquo;Well! I must say!
+      What sort of folks does he think we are, I'd like to know. Divorce case!
+      I'd be ashamed to hear one. And that old man bein' so wicked and
+      ridiculous for twenty-five cents! Hosy, I do believe if you'd given him
+      another shillin' he'd have introduced us to that man in the red robe and
+      cotton wool wig&mdash;What did he call him?&mdash;Oh, yes, the Lord Chief
+      Justice. And I suppose you'd have had to tip HIM, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The first two weeks of our stay in London came to an end. Our plans were
+      still as indefinite as ever. How long we should stay, where we should go
+      next, what we should do when we decided where that &ldquo;next&rdquo; was to be&mdash;all
+      these questions we had not considered at all. I, for my part, was
+      curiously uninterested in the future. I was enjoying myself in an idle,
+      irresponsible way, and I could not seem to concentrate my thoughts upon a
+      definite course of action. If I did permit myself to think I found my
+      thoughts straying to my work and there they faced the same impassable
+      wall. I felt no inclination to write; I was just as certain as ever that I
+      should never write again. Thinking along this line only brought back the
+      old feeling of despondency. So I refused to think and, taking Jim's
+      advice, put work and responsibility from my mind. We would remain in
+      London as long as we were contented there. When the spirit moved we would
+      move with it&mdash;somewhere&mdash;either about England or to the
+      Continent. I did not know which and I did not care; I did not seem to care
+      much about anything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was perfectly happy. London to her was as wonderful as ever. She
+      never tired of sight-seeing, and on occasions when I felt disinclined to
+      leave the hotel she went out alone, shopping or wandering about the
+      streets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She scarcely mentioned &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; and I took care not to remind her of
+      that mythical youth. I had expected her to see him on every street corner,
+      to be brought face to face with unsuspecting young Englishmen and made to
+      ask ridiculous questions which might lead to our being taken in charge as
+      a pair of demented foreigners. But my forebodings were not realized.
+      London was so huge and the crowds so great that even Hephzy's courage
+      faltered. To select Little Frank from the multitude was a task too great,
+      even for her, I imagine. At any rate, she did not make the attempt, and
+      the belief that we were &ldquo;sent&rdquo; upon our pilgrimage for that express
+      purpose she had not expressed since our evening on the train.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The third week passed. I was growing tired of trotting about. Not tired of
+      London in particular. The gray, dingy, historic, wonderful old city was
+      still fascinating. It is hard to conceive of an intelligent person's ever
+      growing weary of the narrow streets with the familiar names&mdash;Fleet
+      Street, Fetter Lane, Pudding Lane and all the rest&mdash;names as familiar
+      to a reader of history or English fiction as that of his own town. To
+      wander into an unknown street and to learn that it is Shoreditch, or to
+      look up at an ancient building and discover it to be the Charterhouse,
+      were ever fresh miracles to me, as I am sure they must be to every
+      book-loving American. No, I was not tired of London. Had I come there
+      under other circumstances I should have been as happy and content as
+      Hephzy herself. But, now that the novelty was wearing off, I was beginning
+      to think again, to think of myself&mdash;the very thing I had determined,
+      and still meant, not to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One afternoon I drifted into the Camford Street office. Hephzy had left me
+      at Piccadilly Circus and was now, it was safe to presume, enjoying a
+      delightful sojourn amid the shops of Regent and Oxford Streets. When she
+      returned she would have a half-dozen purchases to display, a two-and-six
+      glove bargain from Robinson's, a bit of lace from Selfridge's, a
+      knick-knack from Liberty's&mdash;&ldquo;All so MUCH cheaper than you can get 'em
+      in Boston, Hosy.&rdquo; She would have had a glorious time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Matthews, the manager at Camford Street, was out, but Holton, the head
+      clerk&mdash;I was learning to speak of him as a &ldquo;clark&rdquo;&mdash;was in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are some American letters for you, sir,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I was about to
+      send them to your hotel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He gave me the letters&mdash;four of them altogether&mdash;and I went into
+      the private office to look them over. My first batch of mail from home; it
+      gave me a small thrill to see two-cent stamps in the corners of the
+      envelopes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the letters was from Campbell. I opened it first of all. Jim wrote
+      a rambling, good-humored letter, a mixture of business, news, advice and
+      nonsense. &ldquo;The Black Brig&rdquo; had gone into another edition. Considering my
+      opinion of such &ldquo;slush&rdquo; I should be ashamed to accept the royalties, but
+      he would continue to give my account credit for them until I cabled to the
+      contrary. He trusted we were behaving ourselves in a manner which would
+      reflect credit upon our country. I was to be sure not to let Hephzy marry
+      a title. And so on, for six pages. The letter was almost like a chat with
+      Jim himself, and I read it with chuckles and a pang of homesickness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the envelopes bore Hephzy's name and I, of course, did not open it.
+      It was postmarked &ldquo;Bayport&rdquo; and I thought I recognized the handwriting as
+      Susanna Wixon's. The third letter turned out to be not a letter at all,
+      but a bill from Sylvanus Cahoon, who took care of our &ldquo;lots&rdquo; in the
+      Bayport cemetery. It had been my intention to pay all bills before leaving
+      home, but, somehow or other, Sylvanus's had been overlooked. I must send
+      him a check at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fourth and last envelope was stained and crumpled. It had traveled a
+      long way. To my surprise I noticed that the stamp in the corner was
+      English and the postmark &ldquo;London.&rdquo; The address, moreover, was &ldquo;Captain
+      Barnabas Cahoon, Bayport, Massachusetts, U. S. A.&rdquo; The letter had
+      obviously been mailed in London, had journeyed to Bayport, from there to
+      New York, and had then been forwarded to London again. Someone, presumably
+      Simmons, the postmaster, had written &ldquo;Care Hosea Knowles&rdquo; and my
+      publisher's New York address in the lower corner. This had been scratched
+      out and &ldquo;28 Camford Street, London, England,&rdquo; added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at the envelope. Who in the world, or in England, could have
+      written Captain Barnabas&mdash;Captain Barnabas Cahoon, my great-uncle,
+      dead so many years? At first I was inclined to hand the letter, unopened,
+      to Hephzy. She was Captain Barnabas's daughter and it belonged to her by
+      right. But I knew Hephzy had no secrets from me and, besides, my curiosity
+      was great. At length I yielded to it and tore open the envelope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Inside was a sheet of thin foreign paper, both sides covered with writing.
+      I read the first line.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Captain Barnabas Cahoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are my nearest relative, my mother's father, and I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I uttered an exclamation. Then I stepped to the door of the private
+      office, made sure that it was shut, came back, sat down in the chair
+      before the desk which Mr. Matthews had put at my disposal, and read the
+      letter from beginning to end. This is what I read:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Captain Barnabas Cahoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are my nearest relative, my mother's father, and I, therefore,
+      address this letter to you. I know little concerning you. I do not know
+      even that you are still living in Bayport, or that you are living at all.
+      (N.B. In case Captain Cahoon is not living this letter is to be read and
+      acted upon by his heirs, upon whose estate I have an equal claim.) My
+      mother, Ardelia Cahoon Morley, died in Liverpool in 1896. My father,
+      Strickland Morley, died in Paris in December, 1908. I, as their only
+      child, am their heir, and I am writing to you asking what I might demand&mdash;that
+      is, a portion of the money which was my mother's and which you kept from
+      her and from my father all these years. My father told me the whole story
+      before he died, and he also told me that he had written you several times,
+      but that his letters had been ignored. My father was an English gentleman
+      and he was proud; that is why he did not take legal steps against you for
+      the recovery of what was his by law in England OR ANY CIVILISED COUNTRY,
+      one may presume. He would not STOOP to such measures even against those
+      who, as you know well, so meanly and fraudulently deprived him and his of
+      their inheritance. He is dead now. He died lacking the comforts and
+      luxuries with which you might and SHOULD have provided him. His
+      forbearance was wonderful and characteristic, but had I known of it sooner
+      I should have insisted upon demanding from you the money which was his. I
+      am now demanding it myself. Not BEGGING; that I wish THOROUGHLY
+      understood. I am giving you the opportunity to make a partial restitution,
+      that is all. It is what he would have wished, and his wish ALONE prevents
+      my putting the whole matter in my solicitor's hands. If I do not hear from
+      you within a reasonable time I shall know what to do. You may address me
+      care Mrs. Briggs, 218 &mdash;&mdash; Street, London, England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Awaiting your reply, I am, sir,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yours,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;FRANCIS STRICKLAND MORLEY. &ldquo;P. S.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not to be considered under ANY circumstances a subject for charity.
+      I am NOT begging. You, I am given to understand, are a wealthy man. I
+      demand my share of that wealth&mdash;that is all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I read this amazing epistle through once. Then, after rising and walking
+      about the office to make sure that I was thoroughly awake, I sat down and
+      read it again. There was no mistake. I had read it correctly. The writing
+      was somewhat illegible in spots and the signature was blotted, but it was
+      from Francis Strickland Morley. From &ldquo;Little Frank!&rdquo; I think my first and
+      greatest sensation was of tremendous surprise that there really was a
+      &ldquo;Little Frank.&rdquo; Hephzy had been right. Once more I should have to take off
+      my hat to Hephzy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The surprise remained, but other sensations came to keep it company. The
+      extraordinary fact of the letter's reaching me when and where it did, in
+      London, the city from which it was written and where, doubtless, the
+      writer still was. If I chose I might, perhaps, that very afternoon, meet
+      and talk with Ardelia Cahoon's son, with &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; himself. I could
+      scarcely realize it. Hephzy had declared that our coming to London was the
+      result of a special dispensation&mdash;we had been &ldquo;sent&rdquo; there. In the
+      face of this miracle I was not disposed to contradict her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The letter itself was more extraordinary than all else. It was that of a
+      young person, of a hot-headed boy. But WHAT a boy he must be! What an
+      unlicked, impudent, arrogant young cub! The boyishness was evident in
+      every line, in the underscored words, the pitiful attempt at dignity and
+      the silly veiled threats. He was so insistent upon the statement that he
+      was not a beggar. And yet he could write a begging letter like this. He
+      did not ask for charity, not he, he demanded it. Demanded it&mdash;he, the
+      son of a thief, demanded, from those whom his father had robbed, his
+      &ldquo;rights.&rdquo; He should have his rights; I would see to that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was angry enough but, as I read the letter for the third time, the
+      pitifulness of it became more apparent. I imagined Francis Strickland
+      Morley to be the replica of the Strickland Morley whom I remembered, the
+      useless, incompetent, inadequate son of a good-for-nothing father. No
+      doubt the father was responsible for such a letter as this having been
+      written. Doubtless he HAD told the boy all sorts of tales; perhaps he HAD
+      declared himself to be the defrauded instead of the defrauder; he was
+      quite capable of it. Possibly the youngster did believe he had a claim
+      upon the wealthy relatives in that &ldquo;uncivilized&rdquo; country, America. The
+      wealthy relatives! I thought of Captain Barnabas's last years, of
+      Hephzibah's plucky fight against poverty, of my own lost opportunities, of
+      the college course which I had been obliged to forego. My indignation
+      returned. I would not go back at once to Hephzy with the letter. I would,
+      myself, seek out the writer of that letter, and, if I found him, he and I
+      would have a heart to heart talk which should disabuse his mind of a few
+      illusions. We would have a full and complete understanding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hastily made a memorandum of the address, &ldquo;Care Mrs. Briggs,&rdquo; thrust the
+      letter back into the envelope, put it and my other mail into my pocket,
+      and walked out into the main office. Holton, the clerk, looked up from his
+      desk. Probably my feelings showed in my face, for he said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it, Mr. Knowles? No bad news, I trust, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; I answered, shortly. &ldquo;Where is &mdash;&mdash; Street? Is it far from
+      here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was rather far from there, in Camberwell, on the Surrey side of the
+      river. I might take a bus at such a corner and change again at so and so.
+      It sounded like a journey and I was impatient. I suggested that I might
+      take a cab. Certainly I could do that. William, the boy, would call a cab
+      at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      William did so and I gave the driver the address from my memoranda.
+      Through the Strand I was whirled, across Blackfriars Bridge and on through
+      the intricate web of avenues and streets on the Surrey side. The locality
+      did not impress me favorably. There was an abundance of &ldquo;pubs&rdquo; and of
+      fried-fish shops where &ldquo;jellied eels&rdquo; seemed to be a viand much in demand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &mdash;&mdash; Street, when I reached it, was dingy and third rate.
+      Three-storied old brick houses, with shops on their first floors,
+      predominated. Number 218 was one of these. The signs &ldquo;Lodgings&rdquo; over the
+      tarnished bell-pull and the name &ldquo;Briggs&rdquo; on the plate beside it proved
+      that I had located the house from which the letter had been sent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I paid my cabman, dismissed him, and rang the bell. A slouchy maid-servant
+      answered the ring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is Mr. Francis Morley in?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The maid looked at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wat, sir?&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does Mr. Francis Morley live here?&rdquo; I asked, raising my voice. &ldquo;Is he
+      in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The maid's face was as wooden as the door-post. Her mouth, already open,
+      opened still wider and she continued to stare. A step sounded in the dark
+      hall behind her and another voice said, sharply:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Oo is it, 'Arriet? And w'at does 'e want?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The maid grinned. &ldquo;'E wants to see MISTER Morley, ma'am,&rdquo; she said, with a
+      giggle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was pushed aside and a red-faced woman, with thin lips and scowl, took
+      her place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'OO do you want to see?&rdquo; she demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Francis Morley. Does he live here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'OO?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Francis Morley.&rdquo; My answer was sharp enough this time. I began to think I
+      had invaded a colony of imbeciles&mdash;or owls; their conversation seemed
+      limited to &ldquo;oos.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;W'at do you want to see&mdash;to see Morley for?&rdquo; demanded the red-faced
+      female.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On business. Is Mrs. Briggs in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm Mrs. Briggs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good! I'm glad of that. Now will you tell me if Mr. Morley is in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There ain't no Mr. Morley. There's a&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was interrupted. From the hall, apparently from the top of the flight
+      of stairs, another was heard, a feminine voice like the others, but unlike
+      them&mdash;decidedly unlike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is it, Mrs. Briggs?&rdquo; said this voice. &ldquo;Does the gentleman wish to see
+      me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, 'e don't,&rdquo; declared Mrs. Briggs, with emphasis. &ldquo;'E wants to see
+      Mister Morley and I'm telling 'im there ain't none such.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But are you sure he doesn't mean Miss Morley? Ask him, please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Before the Briggs woman could reply I spoke again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to see a Francis Morley,&rdquo; I repeated, loudly. &ldquo;I have come here in
+      answer to a letter. The letter gave this as his address. If he isn't here,
+      will you be good enough to tell me where he is? I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was another interruption, an exclamation from the darkness behind
+      Mrs. Briggs and the maid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; said the third voice, with a little catch in it. &ldquo;Who is it, please?
+      Who is it? What is the person's name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Briggs scowled at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wat's your name?&rdquo; she snapped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My name is Knowles. I am an American relative of Mr. Morley's and I'm
+      here in answer to a letter written by Mr. Morley himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a moment's silence. Then the third voice said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ask&mdash;ask him to come up. Show him up, Mrs. Briggs, if you please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Briggs grunted and stepped aside. I entered the hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;First floor back,&rdquo; mumbled the landlady. &ldquo;Straight as you go. You won't
+      need any showin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I mounted the stairs. The landing at the top was dark, but the door at the
+      rear was ajar. I knocked. A voice, the same voice I had heard before, bade
+      me come in. I entered the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a dingy little room, sparely furnished, with a bed and two chairs,
+      a dilapidated washstand and a battered bureau. I noticed these afterwards.
+      Just then my attention was centered upon the occupant of the room, a young
+      woman, scarcely more than a girl, dark-haired, dark-eyed, slender and
+      graceful. She was standing by the bureau, resting one hand upon it, and
+      gazing at me, with a strange expression, a curious compound of fright,
+      surprise and defiance. She did not speak. I was embarrassed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon,&rdquo; I stammered. &ldquo;I am afraid there is some mistake. I
+      came here in answer to a letter written by a Francis Morley, who is&mdash;well,
+      I suppose he is a distant relative of mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stepped forward and closed the door by which I had entered. Then she
+      turned and faced me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are an American,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I am an American. I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She interrupted me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you&mdash;do you come from&mdash;from Bayport, Massachusetts?&rdquo; she
+      faltered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I stared at her. &ldquo;Why, yes,&rdquo; I admitted. &ldquo;I do come from Bayport. How in
+      the world did you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was the letter you speak of addressed to Captain Barnabas Cahoon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then&mdash;then there isn't any mistake. I wrote it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I imagine that my mouth opened as wide as the maid's had done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You!&rdquo; I exclaimed. &ldquo;Why&mdash;why&mdash;it was written by Francis Morley&mdash;Francis
+      Strickland Morley.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am Frances Strickland Morley.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I heard this, of course, but I did not comprehend it. I had been working
+      along the lines of a fixed idea. Now that idea had been knocked into a
+      cocked hat, and my intellect had been knocked with it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why&mdash;why, no,&rdquo; I repeated, stupidly. &ldquo;Francis Morley is the son of
+      Strickland Morley.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was no son,&rdquo; impatiently. &ldquo;I am Frances Morley, I tell you. I am
+      Strickland Morley's daughter. I wrote that letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I sat down upon the nearest of the two chairs. I was obliged to sit. I
+      could not stand and face the fact which, at least, even my benumbed brain
+      was beginning to comprehend. The mistake was a simple one, merely the
+      difference between an &ldquo;i&rdquo; and an &ldquo;e&rdquo; in a name, that was all. And yet that
+      mistake&mdash;that slight difference between &ldquo;Francis&rdquo; and &ldquo;Frances&rdquo;&mdash;explained
+      the amazing difference between the Little Frank of Hephzibah's fancy and
+      the reality before me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The real Little Frank was a girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which a Dream Becomes a Reality
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      I said nothing immediately. I could not. It was &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; who resumed
+      the conversation. &ldquo;Who are you?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who&mdash;I beg your pardon? I am rather upset, I'm afraid. I didn't
+      expect&mdash;that is, I expected.... Well, I didn't expect THIS! What was
+      it you asked me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I asked you who you were.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My name is Knowles&mdash;Kent Knowles. I am Captain Cahoon's
+      grand-nephew.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His grand-nephew. Then&mdash;Did Captain Cahoon send you to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Send me! I beg your pardon once more. No.... No. Captain Cahoon is dead.
+      He has been dead nearly ten years. No one sent me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then why did you come? You have my letter; you said so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; I&mdash;I have your letter. I received it about an hour ago. It was
+      forwarded to me&mdash;to my cousin and me&mdash;here in London.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here in London! Then you did not come to London in answer to that
+      letter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. My cousin and I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What cousin? What is his name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His name? It isn't a&mdash;That is, the cousin is a woman. She is Miss
+      Hephzibah Cahoon, your&mdash;your mother's half-sister. She is&mdash;Why,
+      she is your aunt!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a fact; Hephzibah was this young lady's aunt. I don't know why that
+      seemed so impossible and ridiculous, but it did. The young lady herself
+      seemed to find it so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My aunt?&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;I didn't know&mdash;But&mdash;but, why is my&mdash;my
+      aunt here with you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are on a pleasure trip. We&mdash;I beg your pardon. What have I been
+      thinking of? Don't stand. Please sit down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She accepted the invitation. As she walked toward the chair it seemed to
+      me that she staggered a little. I noticed then for the first time, how
+      very slender she was, almost emaciated. There were dark hollows beneath
+      her eyes and her face was as white as the bed-linen&mdash;No, I am wrong;
+      it was whiter than Mrs. Briggs' bed-linen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you ill?&rdquo; I asked involuntarily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not answer. She seated herself in the chair and fixed her dark
+      eyes upon me. They were large eyes and very dark. Hephzy said, when she
+      first saw them, that they looked like &ldquo;burnt holes in a blanket.&rdquo; Perhaps
+      they did; that simile did not occur to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have read my letter?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was evident that I must have read the letter or I should not have
+      learned where to find her, but I did not call attention to this. I said
+      simply that I had read the letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then what do you propose?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Propose?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; impatiently. &ldquo;What proposition do you make me? If you have read the
+      letter you must know what I mean. You must have come here for the purpose
+      of saying something, of making some offer. What is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was speechless. I had come there to find an impudent young blackguard
+      and tell him what I thought of him. That was as near a definite reason for
+      my coming as any. If I had not acted upon impulse, if I had stopped to
+      consider, it is quite likely that I should not have come at all. But the
+      blackguard was&mdash;was&mdash;well, he was not and never had been. In his
+      place was this white-faced, frail girl. I couldn't tell her what I thought
+      of her. I didn't know what to think.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She waited for me to answer and, as I continued to play the dumb idiot,
+      her impatience grew. Her brows&mdash;very dark brown they were, almost
+      black against the pallor of her face&mdash;drew together and her foot
+      began to pat the faded carpet. &ldquo;I am waiting,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I realized that I must say something, so I said the only thing which
+      occurred to me. It was a question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your father is dead?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She nodded. &ldquo;My letter told you that,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;He died in Paris
+      three years ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And&mdash;and had he no relatives here in England?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hesitated before replying. &ldquo;No near relatives whom he cared to
+      recognize,&rdquo; she answered haughtily. &ldquo;My father, Mr. Knowles was a
+      gentleman and, having been most unjustly treated by his own family, as
+      well as by OTHERS&rdquo;&mdash;with a marked emphasis on the word&mdash;&ldquo;he did
+      not stoop, even in his illness and distress, to beg where he should have
+      commanded.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! Oh, I see,&rdquo; I said, feebly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no reason why you should see. My father was the second son and&mdash;But
+      this is quite irrelevant. You, an American, can scarcely be expected to
+      understand English family customs. It is sufficient that, for reasons of
+      his own, my father had for years been estranged from his own people.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The air with which this was delivered was quite overwhelming. If I had not
+      known Strickland Morley, and a little of his history, I should have been
+      crushed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you have been quite alone since his death?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again she hesitated. &ldquo;For a time,&rdquo; she said, after a moment. &ldquo;I lived with
+      a married cousin of his in one of the London suburbs. Then I&mdash;But
+      really, Mr. Knowles, I cannot see that my private affairs need interest
+      you. As I understand it, this interview of ours is quite impersonal, in a
+      sense. You understand, of course&mdash;you must understand&mdash;that in
+      writing as I did I was not seeking the acquaintance of my mother's
+      relatives. I do not desire their friendship. I am not asking them for
+      anything. I am giving them the opportunity to do justice, to give me what
+      is my own&mdash;my OWN. If you don't understand this I&mdash;I&mdash;Oh,
+      you MUST understand it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose from the chair. Her eyes were flashing and she was trembling from
+      head to foot. Again I realized how weak and frail she was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must understand,&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;You MUST!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes,&rdquo; I said hastily. &ldquo;I think I&mdash;I suppose I understand your
+      feelings. But&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are no buts. Don't pretend there are. Do you think for one instant
+      that I am begging, asking you for HELP? YOU&mdash;of all the world!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This seemed personal enough, in spite of her protestations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you never met me before,&rdquo; I said, involuntarily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You never knew of my existence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stamped her foot. &ldquo;I knew of my American relatives,&rdquo; she cried,
+      scornfully. &ldquo;I knew of them and their&mdash;Oh, I cannot say the word!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your father told you&mdash;&rdquo; I began. She burst out at me like a flame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My father,&rdquo; she declared, &ldquo;was a brave, kind, noble man. Don't mention
+      his name to me. I won't have you speak of him. If it were not for his
+      forbearance and self-sacrifice you&mdash;all of you&mdash;would be&mdash;would
+      be&mdash;Oh, don't speak of my father! Don't!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To my amazement and utter discomfort she sank into the chair and burst
+      into tears. I was completely demoralized.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't, Miss Morley,&rdquo; I begged. &ldquo;Please don't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She continued to sob hysterically. To make matters worse sounds from
+      behind the closed door led me to think that someone&mdash;presumably that
+      confounded Mrs. Briggs&mdash;was listening at the keyhole.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't, Miss Morley,&rdquo; I pleaded. &ldquo;Don't!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My pleas were unavailing. The young lady sobbed and sobbed. I fidgeted on
+      the edge of my chair in an agony of mortified embarrassment. &ldquo;Don'ts&rdquo; were
+      quite useless and I could think of nothing else to say except &ldquo;Compose
+      yourself&rdquo; and that, somehow or other, was too ridiculously reminiscent of
+      Mr. Pickwick and Mrs. Bardell. It was an idiotic situation for me to be
+      in. Some men&mdash;men of experience with woman-kind&mdash;might have
+      known how to handle it, but I had had no such experience. It was all my
+      fault, of course; I should not have mentioned her father. But how was I to
+      know that Strickland Morley was a persecuted saint? I should have called
+      him everything but that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last I had an inspiration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are ill,&rdquo; I said, rising. &ldquo;I will call someone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That had the desired effect. My newly found third&mdash;or was it fourth
+      or fifth&mdash;cousin made a move in protest. She fought down her emotion,
+      her sobs ceased, and she leaned back in her chair looking paler and weaker
+      than ever. I should have pitied her if she had not been so superior and
+      insultingly scornful in her manner toward me. I&mdash;Well, yes, I did
+      pity her, even as it was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't,&rdquo; she said, in her turn. &ldquo;Don't call anyone. I am not ill&mdash;not
+      now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you have been,&rdquo; I put in, I don't know why.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have not been well for some time. But I am not ill. I am quite strong
+      enough to hear what you have to say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This might have been satisfactory if I had had anything to say. I had not.
+      She evidently expected me to express repentance for something or other and
+      make some sort of proposition. I was not repentant and I had no
+      proposition to make. But how was I to tell her that without bringing on
+      another storm? Oh, if I had had time to consider. If I had not come alone.
+      If Hephzy,&mdash;cool-headed, sensible Hephzy&mdash;were only with me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo; I began. Then desperately: &ldquo;I scarcely know what to
+      say, Miss Morley,&rdquo; I faltered. &ldquo;I came here, as I told you, expecting to
+      find a&mdash;a&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, pray?&rdquo; with a haughty lift of the dark eyebrows. &ldquo;What did you
+      expect to find, may I ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing&mdash;that is, I&mdash;Well, never mind that. I came on the spur
+      of the moment, immediately after receiving your letter. I have had no time
+      to think, to consult my&mdash;your aunt&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What has my&mdash;AUNT&rdquo; with withering emphasis, &ldquo;to do with it? Why
+      should you consult her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, she is your mother's nearest relative, I suppose. She is Captain
+      Cahoon's daughter and at least as much interested as I. I must consult
+      her, of course. But, frankly, Miss Morley, I think I ought to tell you
+      that you are under a misapprehension. There are matters which you don't
+      understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I understand everything. I understand only too well. What do you mean by
+      a misapprehension? Do you mean&mdash;do you dare to insinuate that my
+      father did not tell me the truth?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no, no,&rdquo; I interrupted. That was exactly what I did mean, but I was
+      not going to let the shade of the departed Strickland appear again until I
+      was out of that room and house. &ldquo;I am not insinuating anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am very glad to hear it. I wish you to know that I perfectly understand
+      EVERYTHING.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That seemed to settle it; at any rate it settled me for the time. I took
+      up my hat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Morley,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;I can't discuss this matter further just now. I
+      must consult my cousin first. She and I will call upon you to-morrow at
+      any hour you may name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was disappointed; that was plain. I thought for the moment that she
+      was going to break down again. But she did not; she controlled her
+      feelings and faced me firmly and pluckily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At nine&mdash;no, at ten to-morrow, then,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I shall expect your
+      final answer then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will come? Of course; I am forgetting. You said you would.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will be here at ten. Here is my address.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I gave her my card, scribbling the street and number of Bancroft's in
+      pencil in the corner. She took the card.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you. Good afternoon,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I said &ldquo;Good afternoon&rdquo; and opened the door. The hall outside was empty,
+      but someone was descending the stairs in a great hurry. I descended also.
+      At the top step I glanced once more into the room I had just left. Frances
+      Strickland Morley&mdash;Little Frank&mdash;was seated in the chair, one
+      hand before her eyes. Her attitude expressed complete weariness and utter
+      collapse. She had said she was not sick, but she looked sick&mdash;she did
+      indeed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Harriet, the slouchy maid, was not in evidence, so I opened the street
+      door for myself. As I reached the sidewalk&mdash;I suppose, as this was
+      England, I should call it the &ldquo;pavement&rdquo;&mdash;I was accosted by Mrs.
+      Briggs. She was out of breath; I am quite sure she had reached that
+      pavement but the moment before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Ow is she?&rdquo; demanded Mrs. Briggs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who?&rdquo; I asked, not too politely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That Morley one. Is she goin' to be hill again?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do I know? Has she been sick&mdash;ill, I mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Huh! Hill! 'Er? Now, now, sir! I give you my word she's been hill hever
+      since she came 'ere. I thought one time she was goin' to die on my 'ands.
+      And 'oo was to pay for 'er buryin', I'd like to know? That's w'at it is!
+      'Oo's goin' to pay for 'er buryin' and the food she eats; to say nothin'
+      of 'er room money, and that's been owin' me for a matter of three weeks?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How should I know who is going to pay for it? She will, I suppose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She! W'at with? She ain't got a bob to bless 'erself with, she ain't.
+      She's broke, stony broke. Honly for my kind 'eart she'd a been out on the
+      street afore this. That and 'er tellin' me she was expectin' money from
+      'er rich friends in the States. You're from the States, ain't you, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. But do you mean to tell me that Miss Morley has no money of her
+      own?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I mean it. W'en she come 'ere she told me she was on the stage.
+      A hopera singer, she said she was. She 'ad money then, enough to pay 'er
+      way, she 'ad. She was expectin' to go with some troupe or other, but she
+      never 'as. Oh, them stage people! Don't I know 'em? Ain't I 'ad experience
+      of 'em? A woman as 'as let lodgin's as long as me? If it wasn't for them
+      rich friends in the States I 'ave never put up with 'er the way I 'ave.
+      You're from the States, ain't you, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes, I'm from the States. Now, see here, Mrs. Briggs; I'm coming
+      back here to-morrow. If&mdash;Well, if Miss Morley needs anything, food or
+      medicines or anything, in the meantime, you see that she has them. I'll
+      pay you when I come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Briggs actually smiled. She would have patted my arm if I had not
+      jerked it out of the way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You trust me, sir,&rdquo; she whispered, confidingly. &ldquo;You trust my kind 'eart.
+      I'll look after 'er like she was my own daughter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I should have hated to trust even my worst enemy&mdash;if I had one&mdash;to
+      Mrs. Briggs' &ldquo;kind heart.&rdquo; I walked off in disgust. I found a cab at the
+      next corner and, bidding the driver take me to Bancroft's, threw myself
+      back on the cushions. This was a lovely mess! This was a beautiful climax
+      to the first act&mdash;no, merely the prologue&mdash;of the drama of
+      Hephzy's and my pilgrimage. What would Jim Campbell say to this? I was to
+      be absolutely care-free; I was not to worry about myself or anyone else.
+      That was the essential part of his famous &ldquo;prescription.&rdquo; And now, here I
+      was, with this impossible situation and more impossible young woman on my
+      hands. If Little Frank had been a boy, a healthy boy, it would be bad
+      enough. But Little Frank was a girl&mdash;a sick girl, without a penny.
+      And a girl thoroughly convinced that she was the rightful heir to goodness
+      knows how much wealth&mdash;wealth of which we, the uncivilized,
+      unprincipled natives of an unprincipled, uncivilized country, had robbed
+      her parents and herself. Little Frank had been a dream before; now he&mdash;she,
+      I mean&mdash;was a nightmare; worse than that, for one wakes from a
+      nightmare. And I was on my way to tell Hephzy!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, I told her. She was in our sitting-room when I reached the hotel and
+      I told her the whole story. I began by reading the letter. Before she had
+      recovered from the shock of the reading, I told her that I had actually
+      met and talked with Little Frank; and while this astounding bit of news
+      was, so to speak, soaking into her bewildered brain, I went on to impart
+      the crowning item of information&mdash;namely, that Little Frank was Miss
+      Frances. Then I sat back and awaited what might follow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her first coherent remark was one which I had not expected&mdash;and I had
+      expected almost anything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Hosy,&rdquo; gasped Hephzy, &ldquo;tell me&mdash;tell me before you say anything
+      else. Does he&mdash;she, I mean&mdash;look like Ardelia?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh? What?&rdquo; I stammered. &ldquo;Look like&mdash;look like what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not what&mdash;who. Does she look like Ardelia? Like her mother? Oh, I
+      HOPE she doesn't favor her father's side! I did so want our Little Frank
+      to look like his&mdash;her&mdash;I CAN'T get used to it&mdash;like my poor
+      Ardelia. Does she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Goodness knows! I don't know who she looks like. I didn't notice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You didn't! I should have noticed that before anything else. What kind of
+      a girl is she? Is she pretty?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know. She isn't ugly, I should say. I wasn't particularly
+      interested in her looks. The fact that she was at all was enough; I
+      haven't gotten over that yet. What are we going to do with her? Or are we
+      going to do anything? Those are the questions I should like to have
+      answered. For heaven's sake, Hephzy, don't talk about her personal
+      appearance. There she is and here are we. What are we going to do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy shook her head. &ldquo;I don't know, Hosy,&rdquo; she admitted. &ldquo;I don't know,
+      I'm sure. This is&mdash;this is&mdash;Oh, didn't I tell you we were SENT&mdash;sent
+      by Providence!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was silent. If we had been &ldquo;sent,&rdquo; as she called it, I was far from
+      certain that Providence was responsible. I was more inclined to place the
+      responsibility in a totally different quarter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; she continued, &ldquo;I think you'd better tell me the whole thing
+      all over again, Hosy. Tell it slow and don't leave out a word. Tell me
+      what sort of place she was in and what she said and how she looked, as
+      near as you can remember. I'll try and pay attention; I'll try as hard as
+      I can. It'll be a job. All I can think of now is that to-morrow mornin'&mdash;only
+      to-morrow mornin'&mdash;I'm going to see Little Frank&mdash;Ardelia's
+      Little Frank.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I complied with her request, giving every detail of my afternoon's
+      experience. I reread the letter, and handed it to her, that she might read
+      it herself. I described Mrs. Briggs and what I had seen of Mrs. Briggs'
+      lodging-house. I described Miss Morley as best I could, dark eyes, dark
+      hair and the look of weakness and frailty. I repeated our conversation
+      word for word; I had forgotten nothing of that. Hephzy listened in
+      silence. When I had finished she sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The poor thing,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I do pity her so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pity her!&rdquo; I exclaimed. &ldquo;Well, perhaps I pity her, too, in a way. But my
+      pity and yours don't alter the situation. She doesn't want pity. She
+      doesn't want help. She flew at me like a wildcat when I asked if she was
+      ill. Her personal affairs, she says, are not ours; she doesn't want our
+      acquaintance or our friendship. She has gotten some crazy notion in her
+      head that you and I and Uncle Barnabas have cheated her out of an
+      inheritance, and she wants that! Inheritance! Good Lord! A fine
+      inheritance hers is! Daughter of the man who robbed us of everything we
+      had.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know&mdash;I know. But SHE doesn't know, does she, Hosy. Her father
+      must have told her&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He told her a barrel of lies, of course. What they were I can't imagine,
+      but that fellow was capable of anything. Know! No, she doesn't know now,
+      but she will have to know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you goin' to tell her, Hosy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I stared in amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell her!&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;What do you mean? You don't intend letting her
+      think that WE are the thieves, do you? That's what she thinks now. Of
+      course I shall tell her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will be awful hard to tell. She worshipped her father, I guess. He was
+      a dreadful fascinatin' man, when he wanted to be. He could make a body
+      believe black was white. Poor Ardelia thought he was&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't help that. I'm not Ardelia.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know, but she is Ardelia's child. Hosy, if you are so set on tellin'
+      her why didn't you tell her this afternoon? It would have been just as
+      easy then as to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was a staggerer. A truthful answer would be so humiliating. I had not
+      told Frances Morley that her father was a thief and a liar because I
+      couldn't muster courage to do it. She had seemed so alone and friendless
+      and ill. I lacked the pluck to face the situation. But I could not tell
+      Hephzy this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why didn't you tell her?&rdquo; she repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, bosh!&rdquo; I exclaimed, impatiently. &ldquo;This is nonsense and you know it,
+      Hephzy. She'll have to be told and you and I must tell her. DON'T look at
+      me like that. What else are we to do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Another shake of the head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know. I can't decide any more than you can, Hosy. What do YOU
+      think we should do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With which unsatisfactory remark this particular conversation ended. I
+      went to my room to dress for dinner. I had no appetite and dinner was not
+      appealing; but I did not want to discuss Little Frank any longer. I
+      mentally cursed Jim Campbell a good many times that evening and during the
+      better part of a sleepless night. If it were not for him I should be in
+      Bayport instead of London. From a distance of three thousand miles I
+      could, without the least hesitancy, have told Strickland Morley's &ldquo;heir&rdquo;
+       what to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy did not come down to dinner at all. From behind the door of her
+      room she told me, in a peculiar tone, that she could not eat. I could not
+      eat, either, but I made the pretence of doing so. The next morning, at
+      breakfast in the sitting-room, we were a silent pair. I don't know what
+      George, the waiter, thought of us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At a quarter after nine I turned away from the window through which I had
+      been moodily regarding the donkey cart of a flower huckster in the street
+      below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'd better get on your things,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;It is time for us to go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy donned her hat and wrap. Then she came over to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't be cross, Hosy,&rdquo; she pleaded. &ldquo;I've been thinkin' it over all night
+      long and I've come to the conclusion that you are probably right. She
+      hasn't any real claim on us, of course; it's the other way around, if
+      anything. You do just as you think best and I'll back you up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you agree that we should tell her the truth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, if you think so. I'm goin' to leave it all in your hands. Whatever
+      you do will be right. I'll trust you as I always have.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a big responsibility, it seemed to me. I did wish she had been more
+      emphatic. However, I set my teeth and resolved upon a course of action.
+      Pity and charity and all the rest of it I would not consider. Right was
+      right, and justice was justice. I would end a disagreeable business as
+      quickly as I could.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Briggs' lodging-house, viewed from the outside, was no more inviting
+      at ten in the morning than it had been at four in the afternoon. I
+      expected Hephzy to make some comment upon the dirty steps and the still
+      dirtier front door. She did neither. We stood together upon the steps and
+      I rang the bell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Briggs herself opened the door. I think she had been watching from
+      behind the curtains and had seen our cab draw up at the curb. She was in a
+      state of great agitation, a combination of relieved anxiety, excitement
+      and overdone politeness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good mornin', sir,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;and good mornin', lady. I've been
+      expectin' you, and so 'as she, poor dear. I thought one w'ile she was that
+      hill she couldn't see you, but Lor' bless you, I've nursed 'er same as if
+      she was my own daughter. I told you I would sir, now didn't I.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      One word in this harangue caught my attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ill?&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;What do you mean? Is she worse than she was
+      yesterday?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Briggs held up her hands. &ldquo;Worse!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Why, bless your 'art,
+      sir, she was quite well yesterday. Quite 'erself, she was, when you come.
+      But after you went away she seemed to go all to pieces like. W'en I went
+      hup to 'er, to carry 'er 'er tea&mdash;She always 'as 'er tea; I've been a
+      mother to 'er, I 'ave&mdash;she'll tell you so. W'en I went hup with the
+      tea there she was in a faint. W'ite as if she was dead. My word, sir, I
+      was frightened. And all night she's been tossin' about, a-cryin' out and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is she now?&rdquo; put in Hephzy, sharply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's in 'er room ma'am. Dressed she is; she would dress, knowin' of your
+      comin', though I told 'er she shouldn't. She's dressed, but she's lyin'
+      down. She would 'ave tried to sit hup, but THAT I wouldn't 'ave, ma'am.
+      'Now, dearie,' I told 'er&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But I would not hear any more. As for Hephzy she was in the dingy front
+      hall already.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall we go up?&rdquo; I asked, impatiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of COURSE you're to go hup. She's a-waitin' for you. But sir&mdash;sir,&rdquo;
+       she caught my sleeve; &ldquo;if you think she's goin' to be ill and needin' the
+      doctor, just pass the word to me. A doctor she shall 'ave, the best there
+      is in London. All I ask you is to pay&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I heard no more. Hephzy was on her way up the stairs and I followed. The
+      door of the first floor back was closed. I rapped upon it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come in,&rdquo; said the voice I remembered, but now it sounded weaker than
+      before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy looked at me. I nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You go first,&rdquo; I whispered. &ldquo;You can call me when you are ready.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy opened the door and entered the room. I closed the door behind her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Silence for what seemed a long, long time. Then the door opened again and
+      Hephzy appeared. Her cheeks were wet with tears. She put her arms about my
+      neck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Hosy,&rdquo; she whispered, &ldquo;she's real sick. And&mdash;and&mdash;Oh, Hosy,
+      how COULD you see her and not see! She's the very image of Ardelia. The
+      very image! Come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I followed her into the room. It was no brighter now, in the middle of a&mdash;for
+      London&mdash;bright forenoon, than it had been on my previous visit. Just
+      as dingy and forbidding and forlorn as ever. But now there was no defiant
+      figure erect to meet me. The figure was lying upon the bed, and the pale
+      cheeks of yesterday were flushed with fever. Miss Morley had looked far
+      from well when I first saw her; now she looked very ill indeed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She acknowledged my good-morning with a distant bow. Her illness had not
+      quenched her spirit, that was plain. She attempted to rise, but Hephzy
+      gently pushed her back upon the pillow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You stay right there,&rdquo; she urged. &ldquo;Stay right there. We can talk just as
+      well, and Mr. Knowles won't mind; will you, Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I stammered something or other. My errand, difficult as it had been from
+      the first, now seemed impossible. I had come there to say certain things&mdash;I
+      had made up my mind to say them; but how was I to say such things to a
+      girl as ill as this one was. I would not have said them to Strickland
+      Morley himself, under such circumstances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I am very sorry you are not well, Miss Morley,&rdquo; I faltered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She thanked me, but there was no warmth in the thanks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not well,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;but that need make no difference. I presume
+      you and this&mdash;this lady are prepared to make a definite proposition
+      to me. I am well enough to hear it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy and I looked at each other. I looked for help, but Hephzy's
+      expression was not helpful at all. It might have meant anything&mdash;or
+      nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Morley,&rdquo; I began. &ldquo;Miss Morley, I&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Morley, I&mdash;I don't know what to say to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose to a sitting posture. Hephzy again tried to restrain her, but
+      this time she would not be restrained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't know what to say?&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;Don't know what to say? Then why
+      did you come here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I came&mdash;we came because&mdash;because I promised we would come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But WHY did you come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy leaned toward her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please, please,&rdquo; she begged. &ldquo;Don't get all excited like this. You
+      mustn't. You'll make yourself sicker, you know. You must lie down and be
+      quiet. Hosy&mdash;oh, please, Hosy, be careful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Morley paid no attention. She was regarding me with eyes which looked
+      me through and through. Her thin hands clutched the bedclothes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;WHY did you come?&rdquo; she demanded. &ldquo;My letter was plain enough, certainly.
+      What I said yesterday was perfectly plain. I told you I did not wish your
+      acquaintance or your friendship. Friendship&mdash;&rdquo; with a blaze of scorn,
+      &ldquo;from YOU! I&mdash;I told you&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! hush! please don't,&rdquo; begged Hephzy. &ldquo;You mustn't. You're too weak
+      and sick. Oh, Hosy, do be careful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was quite willing to be careful&mdash;if I had known how.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;that this interview had better be postponed. Really,
+      Miss Morley, you are not in a condition to&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She sprang to her feet and stood there trembling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My condition has nothing to do with it,&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Oh, CAN'T I make you
+      understand! I am trying to be lenient, to be&mdash;to be&mdash;And you
+      come here, you and this woman, and try to&mdash;to&mdash;You MUST
+      understand! I don't want to know you. I don't want your pity! After your
+      treatment of my mother and my father, I&mdash;I&mdash;I... Oh!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She staggered, put her hands to her head, sank upon the bed, and then
+      collapsed in a dead faint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was at her side in a moment. She knew what to do if I did not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quick!&rdquo; she cried, turning to me. &ldquo;Send for the doctor; she has fainted.
+      Hurry! And send that&mdash;that Briggs woman to me. Don't stand there like
+      that. HURRY!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I found the Briggs woman in the lower hall. From her I learned the name
+      and address of the nearest physician, also the nearest public telephone.
+      Mrs. Briggs went up to Hephzy and I hastened out to telephone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Oh, those London telephones! After innumerable rings and &ldquo;Hellos&rdquo; from me,
+      and &ldquo;Are you theres&rdquo; from Central, I, at last, was connected with the
+      doctor's office and, by great good luck, with the doctor himself. He
+      promised to come at once. In ten minutes I met him at the door and
+      conducted him to the room above.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was in that room a long time. Meanwhile, I waited in the hall, pacing
+      up and down, trying to think my way through this maze. I had succeeded in
+      thinking myself still deeper into it when the physician reappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How is she?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is conscious again, but weak, of course. If she can be kept quiet and
+      have proper care and nourishment and freedom from worry she will,
+      probably, gain strength and health. There is nothing seriously wrong
+      physically, so far as I can see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was glad to hear that and said so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; he went on, &ldquo;her nerves are completely unstrung. She seems to
+      have been under a great mental strain and her surroundings are not&mdash;&rdquo;
+       He paused, and then added, &ldquo;Is the young lady a relative of yours?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye&mdash;es, I suppose&mdash;She is a distant relative, yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! Has she no near relatives? Here in England, I mean. You and the
+      lady with you are Americans, I judge.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I ignored the last sentence. I could not see that our being Americans
+      concerned him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has no near relatives in England, so far as I know,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;Why
+      do you ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Merely because&mdash;Well, to be frank, because if she had such relatives
+      I should strongly recommend their taking charge of her. She is very weak
+      and in a condition where she knight become seriously ill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see. You mean that she should not remain here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do mean that, decidedly. This,&rdquo; with a wave of the hand and a glance
+      about the bare, dirty, dark hall, &ldquo;is not&mdash;Well, she seems to be a
+      young person of some refinement and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not finish the sentence, but I understood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see,&rdquo; I interrupted. &ldquo;And yet she is not seriously ill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not now&mdash;no. Her weakness is due to mental strain and&mdash;well, to
+      a lack of nutrition as much as anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lack of nutrition? You mean she hasn't had enough to eat!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Of course I can't be certain, but that would be my opinion if I were
+      forced to give one. At all events, she should be taken from here as soon
+      as possible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I reflected. &ldquo;A hospital?&rdquo; I suggested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She might be taken to a hospital, of course. But she is scarcely ill
+      enough for that. A good, comfortable home would be better. Somewhere where
+      she might have quiet and rest. If she had relatives I should strongly urge
+      her going to them. She should not be left to herself; I would not be
+      responsible for the consequences if she were. A person in her condition
+      might&mdash;might be capable of any rash act.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was plain enough, but it did not make my course of action plainer to
+      me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is she well enough to be moved&mdash;now?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. If she is not moved she is likely to be less well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I paid him for the visit; he gave me a prescription&mdash;&ldquo;To quiet the
+      nerves,&rdquo; he explained&mdash;and went away. I was to send for him whenever
+      his services were needed. Then I entered the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy and Mrs. Briggs were sitting beside the bed. The face upon the
+      pillow looked whiter and more pitiful than ever. The dark eyes were
+      closed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy signaled me to silence. She rose and tiptoed over to me. I led her
+      out into the hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's sort of dozin' now,&rdquo; she whispered. &ldquo;The poor thing is worn out.
+      What did the doctor say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I told her what the doctor had said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's just right,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;She's half starved, that's what's the
+      matter with her. That and frettin' and worryin' have just about killed
+      her. What are you goin' to do, Hosy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do I know!&rdquo; I answered, impatiently. &ldquo;I don't see exactly why we are
+      called upon to do anything. Do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;o, I&mdash;I don't know as we are called on. No&mdash;o. I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. I know how you feel, Hosy. Considerin' how her father treated us, I
+      won't blame you no matter what you do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Confound her father! I only wish it were he we had to deal with.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was silent. I took a turn up and down the hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The doctor says she should be taken away from here at once,&rdquo; I observed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy nodded. &ldquo;There's no doubt about that,&rdquo; she declared with emphasis.
+      &ldquo;I wouldn't trust a sick cat to that Briggs woman. She's a&mdash;well,
+      she's what she is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suggested a hospital, but he didn't approve,&rdquo; I went on. &ldquo;He
+      recommended some comfortable home with care and quiet and all the rest of
+      it. Her relatives should look after her, he said. She hasn't any relatives
+      that we know of, or any home to go to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again Hephzy was silent. I waited, growing momentarily more nervous and
+      fretful. Of all impossible situations this was the most impossible. And to
+      make it worse, Hephzy, the usually prompt, reliable Hephzy, was of no use
+      at all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do say something,&rdquo; I snapped. &ldquo;What shall we do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know, Hosy, dear. Why!... Where are you going?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm going to the drug-store to get this prescription filled. I'll be back
+      soon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The drug-store&mdash;it was a &ldquo;chemist's shop&rdquo; of course&mdash;was at the
+      corner. It was the chemist's telephone that I had used when I called the
+      doctor. I gave the clerk the prescription and, while he was busy with it,
+      I paced up and down the floor of the shop. At length I sat down before the
+      telephone and demanded a number.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I returned to the lodging-house I gave Hephzy the powders which the
+      chemist's clerk had prepared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is she any better?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's just about the same.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does she say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's too weak and sick to say anything. I don't imagine she knows or
+      cares what is happening to her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is she strong enough to get downstairs to a cab, or to ride in one
+      afterward?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess so. We could help her, you know. But, Hosy, what cab? What do you
+      mean? What are you going to do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm going to take her away from this
+      hole. I must. I don't want to; there's no reason why I should and every
+      reason why I shouldn't; but&mdash;Oh, well, confound it! I've got to. We
+      CAN'T let her starve and die here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But where are you going to take her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's only one place to take her; that's to Bancroft's. I've 'phoned
+      and engaged a room next to ours. She'll have to stay with us for the
+      present. Oh, I don't like it any better than you do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To my intense surprise, Hephzy threw her arms about my neck and hugged me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew you would, Hosy!&rdquo; she sobbed. &ldquo;I knew you would. I was dyin' to
+      have you, but I wouldn't have asked for the world. You're the best man
+      that ever lived. I knew you wouldn't leave poor Ardelia's little girl to&mdash;to&mdash;Oh,
+      I'm so grateful. You're the best man in the world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I freed myself from the embrace as soon as I could. I didn't feel like the
+      best man in the world. I felt like a Quixotic fool.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fortunately I was too busy for the next hour to think of my feelings.
+      Hephzy went in to arrange for the transfer of the invalid to the cab and
+      to collect and pack her most necessary belongings. I spent my time in a
+      financial wrangle with Mrs. Briggs. The number of items which that woman
+      wished included in her bill was surprising. Candles and soap&mdash;the
+      bill itself was the sole evidence of soap's ever having made its
+      appearance in that house&mdash;and washing and tea and food and goodness
+      knows what. The total was amazing. I verified the addition, or, rather,
+      corrected it, and then offered half of the sum demanded. This offer was
+      received with protestations, tears and voluble demands to know if I 'ad
+      the 'art to rob a lone widow who couldn't protect herself. Finally we
+      compromised on a three-quarter basis and Mrs. Briggs receipted the bill.
+      She said her kind disposition would be the undoing of her and she knew it.
+      She was too silly and soft-'arted to let lodgings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We had very little trouble in carrying or leading Little Frank to the cab.
+      The effect of the doctor's powders&mdash;they must have contained some
+      sort of opiate&mdash;was to render the girl only partially conscious of
+      what was going on and we got her to and into the vehicle without
+      difficulty. During the drive to Bancroft's she dozed on Hephzy's shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her room&mdash;it was next to Hephzy's, with a connecting door&mdash;was
+      ready and we led her up the stairs. Mr. and Mrs. Jameson were very kind
+      and sympathetic. They asked surprisingly few questions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor young lady,&rdquo; said Mr. Jameson, when he and I were together in our
+      sitting-room. &ldquo;She is quite ill, isn't she.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I admitted. &ldquo;It is not a serious illness, however. She needs quiet
+      and care more than anything else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir. We will do our best to see that she has both. A relative of
+      yours, sir, I think you said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A&mdash;a&mdash;my niece,&rdquo; I answered, on the spur of the moment. She was
+      Hephzy's niece, of course. As a matter of fact, she was scarcely related
+      to me. However, it seemed useless to explain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn't know you had English relatives, Mr. Knowles. I had been under
+      the impression that you and Miss Cahoon were strangers here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So had I, but I did not explain that, either. Mrs. Jameson joined us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She will sleep now, I think,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;She is quite quiet and peaceful.
+      A near relative of yours, Mr. Knowles?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is Mr. Knowles's niece,&rdquo; explained her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes. A sweet girl she seems. And very pretty, isn't she.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not answer. Mr. Jameson and his wife turned to go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I presume you will wish to communicate with her people,&rdquo; said the former.
+      &ldquo;Shall I send you telegram forms?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not now,&rdquo; I stammered. Telegrams! Her people! She had no people. We were
+      her people. We had taken her in charge and were responsible. And how and
+      when would that responsibility be shifted!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What on earth should we do with her?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy tiptoed in. Her expression was a curious one. She was very solemn,
+      but not sad; the solemnity was not that of sorrow, but appeared to be a
+      sort of spiritual uplift, a kind of reverent joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's asleep,&rdquo; she said, gravely; &ldquo;she's asleep, Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was precious little comfort in that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She'll wake up by and by,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;And then&mdash;what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Neither do I&mdash;now. But we shall have to know pretty soon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose we shall, but I can't&mdash;I can't seem to think of anything
+      that's ahead of us. All I can think is that my Little Frank&mdash;my
+      Ardelia's Little Frank&mdash;is here, here with us, at last.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And TO last, so far as I can see. Hephzy, for heaven's sake, do try to be
+      sensible. Do you realize what this means? As soon as she is well enough to
+      understand what has happened she will want to know what 'proposition' we
+      have to make. And when we tell her we have none to make, she'll probably
+      collapse again. And then&mdash;and then&mdash;what shall we do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know, Hosy. I declare I don't know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I strode into my own room and slammed the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damn!&rdquo; said I, with enthusiasm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo; queried Hephzy, from the sitting-room. &ldquo;What did you say, Hosy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not tell her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which the Pilgrims Become Tenants
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Two weeks later we left Bancroft's and went to Mayberry. Two weeks only,
+      and yet in that two weeks all our plans&mdash;if our indefinite visions of
+      irresponsible flitting about Great Britain and the continent might be
+      called plans&mdash;had changed utterly. Our pilgrimage was, apparently,
+      ended&mdash;it had become an indefinite stay. We were no longer pilgrims,
+      but tenants, tenants in an English rectory, of all places in the world. I,
+      the Cape Cod quahaug, had become an English country gentleman&mdash;or a
+      country gentleman in England&mdash;for the summer, at least.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Little Frank&mdash;Miss Frances Morley&mdash;was responsible for the
+      change, of course. Her sudden materialization and the freak of fortune
+      which had thrown her, weak and ill, upon our hands, were responsible for
+      everything. For how much more, how many other changes, she would be
+      responsible the future only could answer. And the future would answer in
+      its own good, or bad, time. My conundrum &ldquo;What are we going to do with
+      her?&rdquo; was as much of a puzzle as ever. For my part I gave it up.
+      Sufficient unto the day was the evil thereof&mdash;much more than
+      sufficient.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the first twenty-four hours following the arrival of &ldquo;my niece&rdquo; at
+      Bancroft's Hotel the situation regarding that niece remained as it was.
+      Miss Morley&mdash;or Frances&mdash;or Frank as Hephzy persisted in calling
+      her&mdash;was too ill to care what had happened, or, at least, to speak of
+      it. She spoke very little, was confined to her room and bed and slept the
+      greater part of the time. The doctor whom I called, on Mr. Jameson's
+      recommendation, confirmed his fellow practitioner's diagnosis; the young
+      lady, he said, was suffering from general weakness and the effect of
+      nervous strain. She needed absolute rest, care and quiet. There was no
+      organic disease.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But on the morning of the second day she was much better and willing, even
+      anxious to talk. She assailed Hephzy with questions and Hephzy, although
+      she tried to avoid answering most, was obliged to answer some of them. She
+      reported the interview to me during luncheon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She didn't seem to remember much about comin' here, or what happened
+      before or afterward,&rdquo; said Hephzy. &ldquo;But she wanted to know it all. I told
+      her the best I could. 'You couldn't stay there,' I said. 'That Briggs
+      hyena wasn't fit to take care of any human bein' and neither Hosy nor I
+      could leave you in her hands. So we brought you here to the hotel where
+      we're stoppin'.' She thought this over a spell and then she wanted to know
+      whose idea bringin' her here was, yours or mine. I said 'twas yours, and
+      just like you, too; you were the kindest-hearted man in the world, I said.
+      Oh, you needn't look at me like that, Hosy. It's the plain truth, and you
+      know it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph!&rdquo; I grunted. &ldquo;If the young lady were a mind-reader she might&mdash;well,
+      never mind. What else did she say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, a good many things. Wanted to know if her bill at Mrs. Briggs' was
+      paid. I said it was. She thought about that and then she gave me orders
+      that you and I were to keep account of every cent&mdash;no, penny&mdash;we
+      spent for her. She should insist upon that. If we had the idea that she
+      was a subject of charity we were mistaken. She fairly withered me with a
+      look from those big eyes of hers. Ardelia's eyes all over again! Or they
+      would be if they were blue instead of brown. I remember&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I cut short the reminiscence. I was in no mood to listen to the praises of
+      any Morley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What answer did you make to that?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What could I say? I didn't want any more faintin' spells or hysterics,
+      either. I said we weren't thinkin' of offerin' charity and if it would
+      please her to have us run an expense book we'd do it, of course. She asked
+      what the doctor said about her condition. I told her he said she must keep
+      absolutely quiet and not fret about anything or she'd have an awful
+      relapse. That was pretty strong but I meant it that way. Answerin'
+      questions that haven't got any answer to 'em is too much of a strain for
+      ME. You try it some time yourself and see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have tried it, thank you. Well, is that all? Did she tell you anything
+      about herself; where she has been or what she has been or what she has
+      been doing since her precious father died?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, not a word. I was dyin' to ask her, but I didn't. She says she wants
+      to talk with the doctor next time he comes, that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did talk with the doctor, although not during his next call. Several
+      days passed before he would permit her to talk with him. Meanwhile he and
+      I had several talks. What he told me brought my conundrum no nearer its
+      answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was recovering rapidly, he said, but for weeks at least her delicate
+      nervous organism must be handled with care. The slightest set-back would
+      be disastrous. He asked if we intended remaining at Bancroft's
+      indefinitely. I had no intentions&mdash;those I had had were wiped off my
+      mental slate&mdash;so I said I did not know, our future plans were vague.
+      He suggested a sojourn in the country, in some pleasant retired spot in
+      the rural districts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An out-of-door life, walks, rides and sports of all sorts would do your
+      niece a world of good, Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;She needs just that. A
+      very attractive young lady, sir, if you'll pardon my saying so,&rdquo; he went
+      on. &ldquo;Were her people Londoners, may I ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He might ask but I had no intention of telling him. What I knew concerning
+      my &ldquo;niece's&rdquo; people were things not usually told to strangers. I evaded
+      the question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has she had a recent bereavement?&rdquo; he queried. &ldquo;I hope you'll not think
+      me merely idly inquisitive. I cannot understand how a young woman,
+      normally healthy and well, should have been brought to such a strait. Our
+      English girls, Mr. Knowles, do not suffer from nerves, as I am told your
+      American young women so frequently do. Has your niece been in the States
+      with you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I said she had not. Incidentally I informed him that American young women
+      did NOT frequently suffer from nerves. He said &ldquo;Really,&rdquo; but he did not
+      believe me, I'm certain. He was a good fellow, and intelligent, but his
+      ideas of &ldquo;the States&rdquo; had been gathered, largely, I think, from newspapers
+      and novels. He was convinced that most Americans were confirmed neurotics
+      and dyspeptics, just as Hephzy had believed all Englishmen wore
+      side-whiskers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I changed the conversation as soon as I could. I could tell him so little
+      concerning my newly found &ldquo;niece.&rdquo; I knew about as much concerning her
+      life as he did. It is distinctly unpleasant to be uncle to someone you
+      know nothing at all about. I devoutly wished I had not said she was my
+      niece. I repeated that wish many times afterward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Morley's talk with the physician had definite results, surprising
+      results. Following that talk she sent word by the doctor that she wished
+      to see Hephzy and me. We went into her room. She was sitting in a chair by
+      the window, and was wearing a rather pretty wrapper, or kimono, or
+      whatever that sort of garment is called. At any rate, it was becoming. I
+      was obliged to admit that the general opinion expressed by the Jamesons
+      and Hephzy and the doctor&mdash;that she was pretty, was correct enough.
+      She was pretty, but that did not help matters any.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She asked us&mdash;no, she commanded us to sit down. Her manner was
+      decidedly business-like. She wasted no time in preliminaries, but came
+      straight to the point, and that point was the one which I had dreaded. She
+      asked us what decision we had reached concerning her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you decided what your offer is to be?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at Hephzy and she at me. Neither of us derived comfort from the
+      exchange of looks. However, something must be done, or said, and I braced
+      myself to say it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Morley,&rdquo; I began, &ldquo;before I answer that question I should like to
+      ask you one. What do you expect us to do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She regarded me coldly. &ldquo;I expect,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;that you and this&mdash;that
+      you and Miss Cahoon will arrange to pay me the money which was my mother's
+      and which my grandfather should have turned over to her while he lived.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again I looked at Hephzy and again I braced myself for the scene which I
+      was certain would follow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is your impression then,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;that your mother had money of her
+      own and that Captain Barnabas, your grandfather, kept that money for his
+      own use.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not an impression,&rdquo; haughtily; &ldquo;I know it to be a fact.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you know it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My father told me so, during his last illness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was&mdash;pardon me&mdash;was your father himself at the time? Was he&mdash;er&mdash;rational?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rational! My father?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean&mdash;I mean was he himself&mdash;mentally? He was not delirious
+      when he told you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Delirious! Mr. Knowles, I am trying to be patient, but for the last time
+      I warn you that I will not listen to insinuations against my father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not insinuating anything. I am seeking information. Were you and
+      your father together a great deal? Did you know him well? Just what did he
+      tell you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hesitated before replying. When she spoke it was with an exaggerated
+      air of patient toleration, as if she were addressing an unreasonable
+      child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will answer you,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I will answer you because, so far, I have
+      no fault to find with your behavior toward me. You and my&mdash;and my
+      aunt have been as reasonable as I, perhaps, should expect, everything
+      considered. Your bringing me here and providing for me was even kind, I
+      suppose. So I will answer your questions. My father and I were not
+      together a great deal. I attended a convent school in France and saw
+      Father only at intervals. I supposed him to possess an independent income.
+      It was only when he was&mdash;was unable to work,&rdquo; with a quiver in her
+      voice, &ldquo;that I learned how he lived. He had been obliged to depend upon
+      his music, upon his violin playing, to earn money enough to keep us both
+      alive. Then he told me of&mdash;of his life in America and how my mother
+      and he had been&mdash;been cheated and defrauded by those who&mdash;who&mdash;Oh,
+      DON'T ask me any more! Don't!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must ask you. I must ask you to tell me this: How was he defrauded, as
+      you call it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have told you, already. My mother's fortune&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But your mother had no fortune.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The anticipated scene was imminent. She sprang to her feet, but being too
+      weak to stand, sank back again. Hephzy looked appealingly at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy,&rdquo; she cautioned; &ldquo;Oh, Hosy, be careful! Think how sick she has
+      been.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am thinking, Hephzy. I mean to be careful. But what I said is the
+      truth, and you know it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy would have replied, but Little Frank motioned her to be silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush!&rdquo; she commanded. &ldquo;Mr. Knowles, what do you mean? My mother had
+      money, a great deal of money. I don't know the exact sum, but my father
+      said&mdash;You know it! You MUST know it. It was in my grandfather's care
+      and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your grandfather had no money. He&mdash;well, he lost every dollar he
+      had. He died as poor as a church rat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Another interval of silence, during which I endured a piercing scrutiny
+      from the dark eyes. Then Miss Morley's tone changed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; she said, sarcastically. &ldquo;You surprise me, Mr. Knowles. What
+      became of the money, may I ask? I understand that my grandfather was a
+      wealthy man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was fairly well-to-do at one time, but he lost his money and died
+      poor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How did he lose it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The question was a plain one and demanded a plain and satisfying answer.
+      But how could I give that answer&mdash;then? Hephzy was shaking her head
+      violently. I stammered and faltered and looked guilty, I have no doubt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; said Miss Morley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&mdash;he lost it, that is sufficient. You must take my word for it.
+      Captain Cahoon died without a dollar of his own.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When did he LOSE his wealth?&rdquo; with sarcastic emphasis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Years ago. About the time your parents left the United States. There,
+      there, Hephzy! I know. I'm doing my best.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed! When did he die?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Long ago&mdash;more than ten years ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But my parents left America long before that. If my grandfather was
+      penniless how did he manage to live all those years? What supported him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your aunt&mdash;Miss Cahoon here&mdash;had money in her own right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;SHE had money and my mother had not. Yet both were Captain Cahoon's
+      daughters. How did that happen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed to me that it was Hephzy's time to play the target. I turned to
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Cahoon will probably answer that herself,&rdquo; I observed, maliciously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah appeared more embarrassed than I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I&mdash;Oh, what difference does all this make?&rdquo; she faltered.
+      &ldquo;Hosy has told you the truth, Frances. Really and truly he has. Father was
+      poor as poverty when he died and all his last years, too. All his money
+      had gone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, so I have heard Mr. Knowles say. But how did it go?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In&mdash;in&mdash;well, it was invested in stocks and things and&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean that he speculated in shares?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, not&mdash;not&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see. Oh, I see. Father told me a little concerning those speculations.
+      He warned Captain Cahoon before he left the States, but his warnings were
+      not heeded, I presume. And you wish me to believe that ALL the money was
+      lost&mdash;my mother's and all. Is that what you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your mother HAD no money,&rdquo; I put in, desperately, &ldquo;I have told you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have told me many things, Mr. Knowles. Even admitting that my
+      grandfather lost his money, as you say, why should I suffer because of his
+      folly? I am not asking for HIS money. I am demanding money that was my
+      mother's and is now mine. That I expected from him and now I expect it
+      from you, his heirs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But your mother had no&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not care to hear that again. I know she had money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But how do you know?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because my father told me she had, and my father did not lie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There we were again&mdash;just where we started. The doctor re-entered the
+      room and insisted upon his patient's being left to herself. She must lie
+      down and rest, he said. His manner was one of distinct disapproval. It was
+      evident that he considered Hephzy and me disturbers of the peace; in fact
+      he intimated as much when he joined us in the sitting-room in a few
+      minutes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid I made a mistake in permitting the conference,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The
+      young lady seems much agitated, Mr. Knowles. If she is, complete nervous
+      prostration may follow. She may be an invalid for months or even years. I
+      strongly recommend her being taken into the country as soon as possible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This speech and the manner in which it was made were impressive and
+      alarming. The possibilities at which it hinted were more alarming still.
+      We made no attempt to discuss family matters with Little Frank that day
+      nor the next.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But on the day following, when I returned from my morning visit to Camford
+      Street, I found Hephzy awaiting me in the sitting-room. She was very
+      solemn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;sit down. I've got somethin' to tell you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About her?&rdquo; I asked, apprehensively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. She's just been talkin' to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has! I thought we agreed not to talk with her at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We did, and I tried not to. But when I went in to see her just now she
+      was waitin' for me. She had somethin' to say, she said, and she said it&mdash;Oh,
+      my goodness, yes! she said it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did she say? Has she sent for her lawyer&mdash;her solicitor, or
+      whatever he is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, she hasn't done that. I don't know but I 'most wish she had. He
+      wouldn't be any harder to talk to than she is. Hosy, she's made up her
+      mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Made up her mind! I thought HER mind was already made up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was, but she's made it up again. That doctor has been talkin' to her
+      and she's really frightened about her health, I think. Anyhow, she has
+      decided that her principal business just now is to get well. She told me
+      she had decided not to press her claim upon us for the present. If we
+      wished to make an offer of what she calls restitution, she'll listen to
+      it; but she judges we are not ready to make one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! her judgment is correct so far.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but that isn't all. While she is waitin' for that offer she expects
+      us to take care of her. She has been thinkin', she says, and she has come
+      to the conclusion that our providin' for her as we have done isn't charity&mdash;or
+      needn't be considered as charity&mdash;at all. She is willin' to consider
+      it a part of that precious restitution she's forever talkin' about. We are
+      to take care of her, and pay her doctor's bills, and take her into the
+      country as he recommends, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I interrupted. &ldquo;Great Scott!&rdquo; I cried, &ldquo;does she expect us to ADOPT her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know what she expects; I'm tryin' to tell you what she said.
+      We're to do all this and keep a strict account of all it costs, and then
+      when we are ready to make a&mdash;a proposition, as she calls it, this
+      account can be subtracted from the money she thinks we've got that belongs
+      to her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But there isn't any money belonging to her. I told her so, and so did
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know, but we might tell her a thousand times and it wouldn't affect her
+      father's tellin' her once. Oh, that Strickland Morley! If only&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! hush, Hephzy... Well, by George! of all the&mdash;this thing has
+      gone far enough. It has gone too far. We made a great mistake in bringing
+      her here, in having anything to do with her at all&mdash;but we shan't go
+      on making mistakes. We must stop where we are. She must be told the truth
+      now&mdash;to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know&mdash;I know, Hosy; but who'll tell her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She won't believe you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then she must disbelieve. She can call in her solicitor and I'll make him
+      believe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was silent. Her silence annoyed me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don't you say something?&rdquo; I demanded. &ldquo;You know what I say is plain
+      common-sense.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose it is&mdash;I suppose 'tis. But, Hosy, if you start in tellin'
+      her again you know what'll happen. The doctor said the least little thing
+      would bring on nervous prostration. And if she has that, WHAT will become
+      of her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was my turn to hesitate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You couldn't&mdash;we couldn't turn her out into the street if she was
+      nervous prostrated, could we,&rdquo; pleaded Hephzy. &ldquo;After all, she's Ardelia's
+      daughter and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's Strickland Morley's daughter. There is no doubt of that. Hereditary
+      influence is plain enough in her case.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know, but she is Ardelia's daughter, too. I don't see how we can tell
+      her, Hosy; not until she's well and strong again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was never more thoroughly angry in my life. My patience was exhausted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look here, Hephzy,&rdquo; I cried: &ldquo;what is it you are leading up to? You're
+      not proposing&mdash;actually proposing that we adopt this girl, are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;no&mdash;o. Not exactly that, of course. But we might take her
+      into the country somewhere and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, DO be sensible! Do you realize what that would mean? We should have
+      to give up our trip, stop sightseeing, stop everything we had planned to
+      do, and turn ourselves into nurses running a sanitarium for the benefit of
+      a girl whose father's rascality made your father a pauper. And, not only
+      do this, but be treated by her as if&mdash;as if&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, there, Hosy! I know what it will mean. I know what it would mean
+      to you and I don't mean for you to do it. You've done enough and more than
+      enough. But with me it's different. <i>I</i> could do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. I've got some money of my own. I could find a nice, cheap, quiet
+      boardin'-house in the country round here somewhere and she and I could go
+      there and stay until she got well. You needn't go at all; you could go off
+      travelin' by yourself and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy, what are you talking about?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean it. I've thought it all out, Hosy. Ever since Ardelia and I had
+      that last talk together and she whispered to me that&mdash;that&mdash;well,
+      especially ever since I knew there was a Little Frank I've been thinkin'
+      and plannin' about that Little Frank; you know I have. He&mdash;she isn't
+      the kind of Little Frank I expected, but she's, my sister's baby and I
+      can't&mdash;I CAN'T, turn her away to be sick and die. I can't do it. I
+      shouldn't dare face Ardelia in&mdash;on the other side if I did. No, I
+      guess it's my duty and I'm goin' to go on with it. But with you it's
+      different. She isn't any real relation to you. You've done enough&mdash;and
+      more than enough&mdash;as it is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the climax. Of course I might have expected it, but of course I
+      didn't. As soon as I recovered, or partially recovered, from my
+      stupefaction I expostulated and scolded and argued. Hephzy was quiet but
+      firm. She hated to part from me&mdash;she couldn't bear to think of it;
+      but on the other hand she couldn't abandon her Ardelia's little girl. The
+      interview ended by my walking out of the room and out of Bancroft's in
+      disgust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not return until late in the afternoon. I was in better humor then.
+      Hephzy was still in the sitting-room; she looked as if she had been
+      crying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy,&rdquo; she said, as I entered, &ldquo;I&mdash;I hope you don't think I'm too
+      ungrateful. I'm not. Really I'm not. And I care as much for you as if you
+      was my own boy. I can't leave you; I sha'n't. If you say for us to&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I interrupted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;I shan't say anything. I know perfectly well that you
+      couldn't leave me any more than I could leave you. I have arranged with
+      Matthews to set about house-hunting at once. As soon as rural England is
+      ready for us, we shall be ready for it. After all, what difference does it
+      make? I was ordered to get fresh experience. I might as well get it by
+      becoming keeper of a sanitarium as any other way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy looked at me. She rose from her chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy,&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;what&mdash;a sanitarium?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'll keep it together,&rdquo; I said, smiling. &ldquo;You and I and Little Frank.
+      And it is likely to be a wonderful establishment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy said&mdash;she said a great deal, principally concerning my
+      generosity and goodness and kindness and self-sacrifice. I tried to shut
+      off the flow, but it was not until I began to laugh that it ceased.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why!&rdquo; cried Hephzy. &ldquo;You're laughin'! What in the world? I don't see
+      anything to laugh at.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you? I do. Oh, dear me! I&mdash;I, the Bayport quahaug to&mdash;Ho!
+      ho! Hephzy, let me laugh. If there is any fun in this perfectly devilish
+      situation let me enjoy it while I can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And that is how and why I decided to become a country gentleman instead of
+      a traveler. When I told Matthews of my intention he had been petrified
+      with astonishment. I had written Campbell of that intention. I devoutly
+      wished I might see his face when he read my letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For days and days Hephzy and I &ldquo;house-hunted.&rdquo; We engaged a nurse to look
+      after the future patient of the &ldquo;sanitarium&rdquo; while we did our best to look
+      for the sanitarium itself. Mr. Matthews gave us the addresses of real
+      estate agents and we journeyed from suburb to suburb and from seashore to
+      hills. We saw several &ldquo;semi-detached villas.&rdquo; The name &ldquo;semi-detached
+      villa&rdquo; had an appealing sound, especially to Hephzy, but the villas
+      themselves did not appeal. They turned out to be what we, in America,
+      would have called &ldquo;two-family houses.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I never did like the idea of livin' in a two-family house,&rdquo; declared
+      Hephzy. &ldquo;I've known plenty of real nice folks who did live in 'em, or
+      one-half of one of 'em, but it usually happened that the folks in the
+      other half was a dreadful mean set. They let their dog chase your cat and
+      if your hens scratched up their flower garden they were real unlikely
+      about it. I've heard Father tell about Cap'n Noah Doane and Cap'n Elkanah
+      Howes who used to live in Bayport. They'd been chums all their lives and
+      when they retired from the sea they thought 'twould be lovely to build a
+      double house so's they would be right close together all the time. Well,
+      they did it and they hadn't been settled more'n a month when they began
+      quarrelin'. Cap'n Noah's wife wanted the house painted yellow and Mrs.
+      Cap'n Elkanah, she wanted it green. They started the fuss and it ended by
+      one-half bein' yellow and t'other half green&mdash;such an outrage you
+      never saw&mdash;and a big fence down the middle of the front yard, and the
+      two families not speakin', and law-suits and land knows what all. They
+      wouldn't even go to the same church nor be buried in the same graveyard.
+      No sir-ee! no two-family house for us if I can help it. We've got troubles
+      enough inside the family without fightin' the neighbors.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But think of the beautiful names,&rdquo; I observed. &ldquo;Those names ought to
+      appeal to your poetic soul, Hephzy. We haven't seen a villa yet, no matter
+      how dingy, or small, that wasn't christened 'Rosemary Terrace' or
+      'Sunnylawn' or something. That last one&mdash;the shack with the broken
+      windows&mdash;was labeled 'Broadview' and it faced an alley ending at a
+      brick stable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know it,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;If they'd called it 'Narrowview' or 'Cow Prospect'
+      'twould have been more fittin', I should say. But I think givin' names to
+      homes is sort of pretty, just the same. We might call our house at home
+      'Writer's Rest.' A writer lives in it, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he has rested more than he has written of late,&rdquo; I observed.
+      &ldquo;'Quahaug Stew' or 'The Tureen' would be better, I should say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When we expressed disapproval of the semi-detached villas our real estate
+      brokers flew to the other extremity and proceeded to show us &ldquo;estates.&rdquo;
+       These estates comprised acres of ground, mansions, game-keepers' and
+      lodge-keepers' houses, and goodness knows what. Some, so the brokers were
+      particular to inform us, were celebrated for their &ldquo;shooting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The villas were not good enough; the estates were altogether too good. We
+      inspected but one and then declined to see more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shootin'!&rdquo; sniffed Hephzy. &ldquo;I should feel like shootin' myself every time
+      I paid the rent. I'd HAVE to do it the second time. 'Twould be a quicker
+      end than starvin', 'and the first month would bring us to that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We found one pleasant cottage in a suburb bearing the euphonious name of
+      &ldquo;Leatherhead&rdquo;&mdash;that is, the village was named &ldquo;Leatherhead&rdquo;; the
+      cottage was &ldquo;Ash Clump.&rdquo; I teased Hephzy by referring to it as &ldquo;Ash Dump,&rdquo;
+       but it really was a pretty, roomy house, with gardens and flowers. For the
+      matter of that, every cottage we visited, even the smallest, was bowered
+      in flowers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy's romantic spirit objected strongly to &ldquo;Leatherhead,&rdquo; but I told
+      her nothing could be more appropriate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This whole proposition&mdash;Beg pardon; I didn't mean to use that word;
+      we've heard enough concerning 'propositions'&mdash;but really, Hephzy,
+      'Leatherhead' is very appropriate for us. If we weren't leather-headed and
+      deserving of leather medals we should not be hunting houses at all. We
+      should have left Little Frank and her affairs in a lawyer's hands and be
+      enjoying ourselves as we intended. Leatherhead for the leather-heads; it's
+      another dispensation of Providence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ash Dump&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Clump,&rdquo; I mean&mdash;was owned by a person named Cripps,
+      Solomon Cripps. Mr. Cripps was a stout, mutton-chopped individual,
+      strongly suggestive of Bancroft's &ldquo;Henry.&rdquo; He was rather pompous and surly
+      when I first knocked at the door of his residence, but when he learned we
+      were house-hunting and had our eyes upon the &ldquo;Clump,&rdquo; he became very
+      polite indeed. &ldquo;A 'eavenly spot,&rdquo; he declared it to be. &ldquo;A beautiful
+      neighborhood. Near the shops and not far from the Primitive Wesleyan
+      chapel.&rdquo; He and Mrs. Cripps attended the chapel, he informed us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not fancy Mr. Cripps; he was too&mdash;too something, I was not sure
+      what. And Mrs. Cripps, whom we met later, was of a similar type. They,
+      like everyone else, recognized us as Americans at once and they spoke
+      highly of the &ldquo;States.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A very fine country, I am informed,&rdquo; said Mr. Cripps. &ldquo;New, of course,
+      but very fine indeed. Young men make money there. Much money&mdash;yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Cripps wished to know if Americans were a religious people, as a
+      rule. Religion, true spiritual religion was on the wane in England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I gathered that she and her husband were doing their best to keep it up to
+      the standard. I had read, in books by English writers, of the British
+      middle-class Pharisee. I judged the Crippses to be Pharisees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy's opinion was like mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If ever there was a sanctimonious hypocrite it's that Mrs. Cripps,&rdquo; she
+      declared. &ldquo;And her husband ain't any better. They remind me of Deacon
+      Hardy and his wife back home. He always passed the plate in church and she
+      was head of the sewin' circle, but when it came to lettin' go of an extry
+      cent for the minister's salary they had glue on their fingers. Father used
+      to say that the Deacon passed the plate himself so nobody could see how
+      little he put in it. They were the ones that always brought a stick of
+      salt herrin' to the donation parties.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We didn't like the Crippses, but we did like &ldquo;Ash Clump.&rdquo; We had almost
+      decided to take it when our plans were quashed by the member of our party
+      on whose account we had planned solely. Miss Morley flatly refused to go
+      to Leatherhead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't ask ME why,&rdquo; said Hephzy, to whom the refusal had been made. &ldquo;I
+      don't know. All I know is that the very name 'Leatherhead' turned her
+      whiter than she has been for a week. She just put that little foot of hers
+      down and said no. I said 'Why not?' and she said 'Never mind.' So I guess
+      we sha'n't be Leatherheaded&mdash;in that way&mdash;this summer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was angry and impatient, but when I tried to reason with the young lady
+      I met a crushing refusal and a decided snub.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not care,&rdquo; said Little Frank, calmly and coldly, &ldquo;to explain my
+      reasons. I have them, and that is sufficient. I shall not go to&mdash;that
+      town or that place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But why?&rdquo; I begged, restraining my desire to shake her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have my reasons. You may go there, if you wish. That is your right. But
+      I shall not. And before you go I shall insist upon a settlement of my
+      claim.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The &ldquo;claim&rdquo; could neither be settled nor discussed; the doctor's warning
+      was no less insistent although his patient was steadily improving. I faced
+      the alternative of my compliance or her nervous prostration and I chose
+      the former. My desire to shake her remained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So &ldquo;Ash Clump&rdquo; was given up. Hephzy and I speculated much concerning
+      Little Frank's aversion to Leatherhead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It must be,&rdquo; said Hephzy, &ldquo;that she knows somebody there, or somethin'
+      like that. That's likely, I suppose. You know we don't know much about her
+      or what she's done since her father died, Hosy. I've tried to ask her but
+      she won't tell. I wish we did know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't,&rdquo; I snarled. &ldquo;I wish to heaven we had never known her at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy sighed. &ldquo;It IS awful hard for you,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;And yet, if we had
+      come to know her in another way you&mdash;we might have been glad. I&mdash;I
+      think she could be as sweet as she is pretty to folks she didn't consider
+      thieves&mdash;and Americans. She does hate Americans. That's her precious
+      pa's doin's, I suppose likely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The next afternoon we saw the advertisement in the Standard. George, the
+      waiter, brought two of the London dailies to our room each day. The
+      advertisement read as follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To Let for the Summer Months&mdash;Furnished. A Rectory in Mayberry,
+      Sussex. Ten rooms, servants' quarters, vegetable gardens, small fruit,
+      tennis court, etc., etc. Water and gas laid on. Golf near by. Terms low.
+      Rector&mdash;Mayberry, Sussex.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I answered it, Hosy,&rdquo; said Hephzy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You did!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. It sounded so nice I couldn't help it. It would be lovely to live in
+      a rectory, wouldn't it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lovely&mdash;and expensive,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;I'm afraid a rectory with
+      tennis courts and servants' quarters and all the rest of it will prove too
+      grand for a pair of Bayporters like you and me. However, your answering
+      the ad does no harm; it doesn't commit us to anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But when the answer to the answer came it was even more appealing than the
+      advertisement itself. And the terms, although a trifle higher than we had
+      planned to pay, were not entirely beyond our means. The rector&mdash;his
+      name was Cole&mdash;urged us to visit Mayberry and see the place for
+      ourselves. We were to take the train for Haddington on Hill where the trap
+      would meet us. Mayberry was two miles from Haddington on Hill, it
+      appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We decided to go, but before writing of our intention, Hephzy consulted
+      the most particular member of our party.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's no use doing anything until we ask her,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;She may be as
+      down on Mayberry as she was on Leatherhead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But she was not. She had no objections to Mayberry. So, after writing and
+      making the necessary arrangements, we took the train one bright, sunny
+      morning, and after a ride of an hour or more, alighted at Haddington on
+      Hill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Haddington on Hill was not on a hill at all, unless a knoll in the middle
+      of a wide flat meadow be called that. There were no houses near the
+      railway station, either rectories or any other sort. We were the only
+      passengers to leave the train there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The trap, however, was waiting. The horse which drew it was a black, plump
+      little animal, and the driver was a neat English lad who touched his hat
+      and assisted Hephzy to the back seat of the vehicle. I climbed up beside
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The road wound over the knoll and away across the meadow. On either side
+      were farm lands, fields of young grain, or pastures with flocks of sheep
+      grazing contentedly. In the distance, in every direction, one caught
+      glimpses of little villages with gray church towers rising amid the
+      foliage. Each field and pasture was bordered with a hedge instead of a
+      fence, and over all hung the soft, light blue haze which is so
+      characteristic of good weather in England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Birds which we took to be crows, but which we learned afterward were
+      rooks, whirled and circled. As we turned a corner a smaller bird rose from
+      the grass beside the road and soared upward, singing with all its little
+      might until it was a fluttering speck against the sky. Hephzy watched it,
+      her eyes shining.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe,&rdquo; she cried, excitedly, &ldquo;I do believe that is a skylark. Do you
+      suppose it is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A lark, yes, lady,&rdquo; said our driver.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A lark, a real skylark! Just think of it, Hosy. I've heard a real lark.
+      Well, Hephzibah Cahoon, you may never get into a book, but you're livin'
+      among book things every day of your life. 'And singin' ever soars and
+      soarin' ever singest.' I'd sing, too, if I knew how. You needn't be
+      frightened&mdash;I sha'n't try.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The meadows ended at the foot of another hill, a real one this time. At
+      our left, crowning the hill, a big house, a mansion with towers and
+      turrets, rose above the trees. Hephzy whispered to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't suppose THAT is the rectory, do you, Hosy?&rdquo; she asked, in an
+      awestricken tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it is we may as well go back to London,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;But it isn't.
+      Nothing lower in churchly rank than a bishop could keep up that
+      establishment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The driver settled our doubts for us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Manor House, sir,&rdquo; he said, pointing with his whip. &ldquo;The estate
+      begins here, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The &ldquo;estate&rdquo; was bordered by a high iron fence, stretching as far as we
+      could see. Beside that fence we rode for some distance. Then another turn
+      in the road and we entered the street of a little village, a village of
+      picturesque little houses, brick or stone always&mdash;not a frame house
+      among them. Many of the roofs were thatched. Flowers and climbing vines
+      and little gardens everywhere. The village looked as if it had been there,
+      just as it was, for centuries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is Mayberry, sir,&rdquo; said our driver. &ldquo;That is the rectory, next the
+      church.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We could see the church tower and the roof, but the rectory was not yet
+      visible to our eyes. We turned in between two of the houses, larger and
+      more pretentious than the rest. The driver alighted and opened a big
+      wooden gate. Before us was a driveway, shaded by great elms and bordered
+      by rose hedges. At the end of the driveway was an old-fashioned,
+      comfortable looking, brick house. Vines hid the most of the bricks. Flower
+      beds covered its foundations. A gray-haired old gentleman stood in the
+      doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the rectory we had come to see and the gray-haired gentleman was
+      the Reverend Mr. Cole, the rector.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My soul!&rdquo; whispered Hephzy, looking aghast at the spacious grounds, &ldquo;we
+      can never hire THIS. This is too expensive and grand for us, Hosy. Look at
+      the grass to cut and the flowers to attend to, and the house to run. No
+      wonder the servants have 'quarters.' My soul and body! I thought a rector
+      was a kind of minister, and a rectory was a sort of parsonage, but I guess
+      I'm off my course, as Father used to say. Either that or ministers' wages
+      are higher than they are in Bayport. No, this place isn't for you and me,
+      Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But it was. Before we left that rectory in the afternoon I had agreed to
+      lease it until the middle of September, servants&mdash;there were five of
+      them, groom and gardener included&mdash;horse and trap, tennis court,
+      vegetable garden, fruit, flowers and all. It developed that the terms,
+      which I had considered rather too high for my purse, included the
+      servants' wages, vegetables from the garden, strawberries and other &ldquo;small
+      fruit&rdquo;&mdash;everything. Even food for the horse was included in that
+      all-embracing rent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Hephzy said, everything considered, the rent of Mayberry Rectory was
+      lower than that of a fair-sized summer cottage at Bayport.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Reverend Mr. Cole was a delightful gentleman. His wife was equally
+      kind and agreeable. I think they were, at first, rather unpleasantly
+      surprised to find that their prospective tenants were from the &ldquo;States&rdquo;;
+      but Hephzy and I managed to behave as unlike savages as we could, and the
+      Cole manner grew less and less reserved. Mr. Cole and his wife were
+      planning to spend a long vacation in Switzerland and his &ldquo;living,&rdquo; or
+      parish, was to be left in charge of his two curates. There was a son at
+      Oxford who was to join them on their vacation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Cole and I walked about the grounds and visited the church, the yard
+      of which, with its weather-beaten gravestones and fine old trees, adjoined
+      the rectory on the western side, behind the tall hedge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The church was built of stone, of course, and a portion of it was older
+      than the Norman conquest. Before the altar steps were two ancient effigies
+      of knights in armor, with crossed gauntlets and their feet supported by
+      crouching lions. These old fellows were scratched and scarred and
+      initialed. Upon one noble nose were the letters &ldquo;A. H. N. 1694.&rdquo; I decided
+      that vandalism was not a modern innovation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While the rector and I were inspecting the church, Mrs. Cole and Hephzy
+      were making a tour of the house. They met us at the door. Mrs. Cole's eyes
+      were twinkling; I judged that she had found Hephzy amusing. If this was
+      true it had not warped her judgment, however, for, a moment later when she
+      and I were alone, she said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your cousin, Miss Cahoon, is a good housekeeper, I imagine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is all of that,&rdquo; I said, decidedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, she was very particular concerning the kitchen and scullery and the
+      maids' rooms. Are all American housekeepers as particular?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not all. Miss Cahoon is unique in many ways; but she is a remarkable
+      woman in all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. I am sure of it. And she has such a typical American accent, hasn't
+      she.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We were to take possession on the following Monday. We lunched at the &ldquo;Red
+      Cow,&rdquo; the village inn, where the meal was served in the parlor and the
+      landlord's daughter waited upon us. The plump black horse drew us to the
+      railway station, and we took the train for London.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We have learned, by this time, that second, or even third-class travel was
+      quite good enough for short journeys and that very few English people paid
+      for first-class compartments. We were fortunate enough to have a
+      second-class compartment to ourselves this time, and, when we were seated,
+      Hephzy asked a question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you think to speak about the golf, Hosy?&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You will want to
+      play some, won't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I did ask about it. It seems that the golf course is a
+      private one, on the big estate we passed on the way from the station.
+      Permission is always given the rectory tenants.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! my gracious, isn't that grand! That estate isn't in Mayberry. The
+      Mayberry bounds&mdash;that's what Mrs. Cole called them&mdash;and just
+      this side. The estate is in the village of&mdash;of Burgleston Bogs.
+      Burgleston Bogs&mdash;it's a funny name. Seem's if I'd heard it before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have,&rdquo; said I, in surprise. &ldquo;Burgleston Bogs is where that Heathcroft
+      chap whom we met on the steamer visits occasionally. His aunt has a big
+      place there. By George! you don't suppose that estate belongs to his aunt,
+      do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy gasped. &ldquo;I wouldn't wonder,&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;I wouldn't wonder if it
+      did. And his aunt was Lady Somebody, wasn't she. Maybe you'll meet him
+      there. Goodness sakes! just think of your playin' golf with a Lady's
+      nephew.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I doubt if we need to think of it,&rdquo; I observed. &ldquo;Mr. Carleton Heathcroft
+      on board ship may be friendly with American plebeians, but on shore, and
+      when visiting his aunt, he may be quite different. I fancy he and I will
+      not play many holes together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy laughed. &ldquo;You 'fancy,'&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;You'll be sayin' 'My word'
+      next. My! Hosy, you ARE gettin' English.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed I'm not!&rdquo; I declared, with emphasis. &ldquo;My experience with an
+      English relative is sufficient of itself to prevent that. Miss Frances
+      Morley and I are compatriots for the summer only.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which We Make the Acquaintance of Mayberry and a Portion of Burgleston
+      Bogs
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      We migrated to Mayberry the following Monday, as we had agreed to do. Miss
+      Morley went with us, of course. I secured a first-class apartment for our
+      party and the journey was a comfortable and quiet one. Our invalid was too
+      weak to talk a great deal even if she had wished, which she apparently did
+      not. Johnson, the groom, met us at Haddington on Hill and we drove to the
+      rectory. There Miss Morley, very tired and worn out, was escorted to her
+      room by Hephzy and Charlotte, the housemaid. She was perfectly willing to
+      remain in that room, in fact she did not leave it for several days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Hephzy and I were doing our best to become acquainted with our
+      new and novel mode of life. Hephzy took charge of the household and was,
+      in a way, quite in her element; in another way she was distinctly out of
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did think I was gettin' used to bein' waited on, Hosy,&rdquo; she confided,
+      &ldquo;but it looks as if I'll have to begin all over again. Managin' one hired
+      girl like Susanna was a job and I tell you I thought managin' three, same
+      as we've got here, would be a staggerer. But it isn't. Somehow the kind of
+      help over here don't seem to need managin'. They manage me more than I do
+      them. There's Mrs. Wigham, the cook. Mrs. Cole told me she was a
+      'superior' person and I guess she is&mdash;at any rate, she's superior to
+      me in some things. She knows what a 'gooseberry fool' is and I'm sure I
+      don't. I felt like another kind of fool when she told me she was goin' to
+      make one, as a 'sweet,' for dinner to-night. As nigh as I can make out
+      it's a sort of gooseberry pie, but <i>I</i> should never have called a
+      gooseberry pie a 'sweet'; a 'sour' would have been better, accordin' to my
+      reckonin'. However, all desserts over here are 'sweets' and fruit is
+      dessert. Then there's Charlotte, the housemaid, and Baker, the
+      'between-maid'&mdash;between upstairs and down, I suppose that means&mdash;and
+      Grimmer, the gardener, and Johnson, the boy that takes care of the horse.
+      Each one of 'em seems to know exactly what their own job is and just as
+      exactly where it leaves off and t'other's job begins. I never saw such
+      obligin' but independent folks in my life. As for my own job, that seems
+      to be settin' still with my hands folded. Well, it's a brand new one and
+      it's goin' to take me one spell to get used to it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed likely to be a &ldquo;spell&rdquo; before I became accustomed to my own
+      &ldquo;job,&rdquo; that of being a country gentleman with nothing to do but play the
+      part. When I went out to walk about the rectory garden, Grimmer touched
+      his hat. When, however, I ventured to pick a few flowers in that garden,
+      his expression of shocked disapproval was so marked that I felt I must
+      have made a dreadful mistake. I had, of course. Grimmer was in charge of
+      those flowers and if I wished any picked I was expected to tell him to
+      pick them. Picking them myself was equivalent to admitting that I was not
+      accustomed to having a gardener in my employ, in other words that I was
+      not a real gentleman at all. I might wait an hour for Johnson to return
+      from some errand or other and harness the horse; but I must on no account
+      save time by harnessing the animal myself. That sort of labor was not done
+      by the &ldquo;gentry.&rdquo; I should have lost caste with the servants a dozen times
+      during my first few days in the rectory were it not for one saving grace;
+      I was an American, and almost any peculiar thing was expected of an
+      American.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I strolled along the village street the male villagers, especially
+      the older ones, touched their hats to me. The old women bowed or
+      courtesied. Also they invariably paused, when I had passed, to stare after
+      me. The group at the blacksmith shop&mdash;where the stone coping of the
+      low wall was worn in hollows by the generations of idlers who had sat upon
+      it, just as their descendants were sitting upon it now&mdash;turned, after
+      I had passed, to stare. There would be a pause in the conversation, then
+      an outburst of talk and laughter. They were talking about the &ldquo;foreigner&rdquo;
+       of course, and laughing at him. At the tailor's, where I sent my clothes
+      to be pressed, the tailor himself, a gray-haired, round-shouldered
+      antique, ventured an opinion concerning those clothes. &ldquo;That coat was not
+      made in England, sir,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We don't make 'em that way 'ere, sir.
+      That's a bit foreign, that coat, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, I was a foreigner. It was hard to realize. In a way everything was so
+      homelike; the people looked like people I had known at home, their faces
+      were New England faces quite as much as they were old England. But their
+      clothes were just a little different, and their ways were different, and a
+      dry-goods store was a &ldquo;draper's shop,&rdquo; and a drug-store was a &ldquo;chemist's,&rdquo;
+       and candies were &ldquo;sweeties&rdquo; and a public school was a &ldquo;board school&rdquo; and a
+      boarding-school was a &ldquo;public school.&rdquo; And I might be polite and pleasant
+      to these people&mdash;persons out of my &ldquo;class&rdquo;&mdash;but I must not be
+      too cordial, for if I did, in the eyes of these very people, I lost caste
+      and they would despise me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, I was a foreigner; it was a queer feeling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Coming from America and particularly from democratic Bayport, where
+      everyone is as good as anyone else provided he behaves himself, the class
+      distinction in Mayberry was strange at first. I do not mean that there was
+      not independence there; there was, among the poorest as well as the richer
+      element. Every male Mayberryite voted as he thought, I am sure; and was
+      self-respecting and independent. He would have resented any infringement
+      of his rights just as Englishmen have resented such infringements and
+      fought against them since history began. But what I am trying to make
+      plain is that political equality and social equality were by no means
+      synonymous. A man was a man for 'a' that, but when he was a gentleman he
+      was 'a' that' and more. And when he was possessed of a title he was
+      revered because of that title, or the title itself was revered. The hatter
+      in London where I purchased a new &ldquo;bowler,&rdquo; had a row of shelves upon
+      which were boxes containing, so I was told, the spare titles of eminent
+      customers. And those hat-boxes were lettered like this: &ldquo;The Right Hon.
+      Col. Wainwright, V.C.,&rdquo; &ldquo;His Grace the Duke of Leicester,&rdquo; &ldquo;Sir George
+      Tupman, K.C.B.,&rdquo; etc., etc. It was my first impression that the hatter was
+      responsible for thus proclaiming his customers' titles, but one day I saw
+      Richard, convoyed by Henry, reverently bearing a suitcase into Bancroft's
+      Hotel. And that suitcase bore upon its side the inscription, in very large
+      letters, &ldquo;Lord Eustace Stairs.&rdquo; Then I realized that Lord Eustace, like
+      the owners of the hat-boxes, recognizing the value of a title, advertised
+      it accordingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed when I saw the suitcase and the hat-boxes. When I told Hephzy
+      about the latter she laughed, too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's funny, isn't it,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Suppose the folks that have their
+      names on the mugs in the barber shop back home had 'em lettered 'Cap'n
+      Elkanah Crowell,' 'Judge the Hon. Ezra Salters,' 'The Grand Exalted Sachem
+      Order of Red Men George Kendrick.' How everybody would laugh, wouldn't
+      they. Why they'd laugh Cap'n Elkanah and Ezra and Kendrick out of town.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So they would have done&mdash;in Bayport&mdash;but not in Mayberry or
+      London. Titles and rank and class in England are established and accepted
+      institutions, and are not laughed at, for where institutions of that kind
+      are laughed at they soon cease to be. Hephzy summed it up pretty well when
+      she said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After all, it all depends on what you've been brought up to, doesn't it,
+      Hosy. Your coat don't look funny to you because you've always worn that
+      kind of coat, but that tailor man thought 'twas funny because he never saw
+      one made like it. And a lord takin' his lordship seriously seems funny to
+      us, but it doesn't seem so to him or to the tailor. They've been brought
+      up to it, same as you have to the coat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On one point she and I had agreed before coming to Mayberry, that was that
+      we must not expect calls from the neighbors or social intercourse with the
+      people of Mayberry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They don't know anything about us,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;except that we are
+      Americans, and that may or may not be a recommendation, according to the
+      kind of Americans they have previously met. The Englishman, so all the
+      books tell us, is reserved and distant at first. He requires a long
+      acquaintance before admitting strangers to his home life and we shall
+      probably have no opportunity to make that acquaintance. If we were to stay
+      in Mayberry a year, and behaved ourselves, we might in time be accepted as
+      desirable, but not during the first summer. So if they leave us to
+      ourselves we must make the best of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy agreed thoroughly. &ldquo;You're right,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;And, after all, it's
+      just what would happen anywhere. You remember when that Portygee family
+      came to Bayport and lived in the Solon Blodgett house. Nobody would have
+      anything to do with 'em for a long time because they were foreigners, but
+      they turned out to be real nice folks after all. We're foreigners here and
+      you can't blame the Mayberry people for not takin' chances; it looks as if
+      nobody in it ever had taken a chance, as if it had been just the way it is
+      since Noah came out of the Ark. I never felt so new and shiny in my life
+      as I do around this old rectory and this old town.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Which was all perfectly true and yet the fact remains that, &ldquo;new and
+      shiny&rdquo; as we were, the Mayberry people&mdash;those of our &ldquo;class&rdquo;&mdash;began
+      to call upon us almost immediately, to invite us to their homes, to show
+      us little kindnesses, and to be whole-souled and hospitable and friendly
+      as if we had known them and they us for years. It was one of the greatest
+      surprises, and remains one of the most pleasant recollections, of my brief
+      career as a resident in England, the kindly cordiality of these neighbors
+      in Mayberry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first caller was Dr. Bayliss, who occupied &ldquo;Jasmine Gables,&rdquo; the
+      pretty house next door. He dropped in one morning, introduced himself,
+      shook hands and chatted for an hour. That afternoon his wife called upon
+      Hephzy. The next day I played a round of golf upon the private course on
+      the Manor House grounds, the Burgleston Bogs grounds&mdash;with the doctor
+      and his son, young Herbert Bayliss, just through Cambridge and the medical
+      college at London. Young Bayliss was a pleasant, good-looking young chap
+      and I liked him as I did his father. He was at present acting as his
+      father's assistant in caring for the former's practice, a practice which
+      embraced three or four villages and a ten-mile stretch of country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Naturally I was interested in the Manor estate and its owner. The grounds
+      were beautiful, three square miles in extent and cared for, so Bayliss,
+      Senior, told me, by some hundred and fifty men, seventy of whom were
+      gardeners. Of the Manor House itself I caught a glimpse, gray-turreted and
+      huge, set at the end of lawns and flower beds, with fountains playing and
+      statues gleaming white amid the foliage. I asked some questions concerning
+      its owner. Yes, she was Lady Kent Carey and she had a nephew named
+      Heathcroft. So there was a chance, after all, that I might again meet my
+      ship acquaintance who abhorred &ldquo;griddle cakes.&rdquo; I imagined he would be
+      somewhat surprised at that meeting. It was an odd coincidence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for the game of golf, my part of it, the least said the better. Doctor
+      Bayliss, who, it developed, was an enthusiast at the game, was kind enough
+      to tell me I had a &ldquo;topping&rdquo; drive. I thanked him, but there was
+      altogether too much &ldquo;topping&rdquo; connected with my play that forenoon to make
+      my thanks enthusiastic. I determined to practice assiduously before
+      attempting another match. Somehow I felt responsible for the golfing honor
+      of my country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Other callers came to the rectory. The two curates, their names were
+      Judson and Worcester, visited us; young men, both of them, and good
+      fellows, Worcester particularly. Although they wore clerical garb they
+      were not in the least &ldquo;preachy.&rdquo; Hephzy, although she liked them,
+      expressed surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They didn't act a bit like ministers,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;They didn't ask us to
+      come to meetin' nor hint at prayin' with the family or anything, yet they
+      looked for all the while like two Methodist parsons, young ones. A curate
+      is a kind of new-hatched rector, isn't he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not exactly,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;He is only partially hatched. But, whatever
+      you do, don't tell them they look like Methodists; they wouldn't consider
+      it a compliment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was a Methodist herself and she resented the slur. &ldquo;Well, I guess a
+      Methodist is as good as an Episcopalian,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;And they don't
+      ACT like Methodists. Why, one of 'em smoked a pipe. Just imagine Mr.
+      Partridge smokin' a pipe!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Judson and I played eighteen holes of golf together. He played a
+      little worse than I did and I felt better. The honor of Bayport's golf had
+      been partially vindicated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While all this was going on our patient remained, for the greater part of
+      the time, in her room. She was improving steadily. Doctor Bayliss, whom I
+      had asked to attend her, declared, as his London associates had done, that
+      all she needed was rest, quiet and the good air and food which she was
+      certain to get in Mayberry. He, too, like the physician at Bancroft's,
+      seemed impressed by her appearance and manner. And he also asked similar
+      embarrassing questions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Delightful young lady, Miss Morley,&rdquo; he observed. &ldquo;One of our English
+      girls, Knowles. She informs me that she IS English.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Partly English,&rdquo; I could not help saying. &ldquo;Her mother was an American.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, indeed! You know she didn't tell me that, now did she.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, by Jove, she didn't. But she has lived all her life in England?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;in England and France.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your niece, I think you said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had said it, unfortunately, and it could not be unsaid now without many
+      explanations. So I nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She doesn't&mdash;er&mdash;behave like an American. She hasn't the
+      American manner, I mean to say. Now Miss Cahoon has&mdash;er&mdash;she has&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Cahoon's manner is American. So is mine; we ARE Americans, you see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes, of course,&rdquo; hastily. &ldquo;When are you and I to have the nine holes
+      you promised, Knowles?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      One fine afternoon the invalid came downstairs. The &ldquo;between-maid&rdquo; had
+      arranged chairs and the table on the lawn. We were to have tea there; we
+      had tea every day, of course&mdash;were getting quite accustomed to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances&mdash;I may as well begin calling her that&mdash;looked in better
+      health then than at any time since our meeting. She was becomingly,
+      although simply gowned, and there was a dash of color in her cheeks.
+      Hephzibah escorted her to the tea table. I rose to meet them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frank&mdash;Frances, I mean&mdash;is goin' to join us to-day,&rdquo; said
+      Hephzy. &ldquo;She's beginnin' to look real well again, isn't she.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I said she was. Frances nodded to me and took one of the chairs, the most
+      comfortable one. She appeared perfectly self-possessed, which I was sure I
+      did not. I was embarrassed, of course. Each time I met the girl the
+      impossible situation in which she had placed us became more impossible, to
+      my mind. And the question, &ldquo;What on earth shall we do with her?&rdquo; more
+      insistent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy poured the tea. Frances, cup in hand, looked about her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is rather a nice place, after all,&rdquo; she observed, &ldquo;isn't it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's a real lovely place,&rdquo; declared Hephzy with enthusiasm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young lady cast another appraising glance at our surroundings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she repeated, &ldquo;it's a jolly old house and the grounds are not bad
+      at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her tone nettled me. Everything considered I thought she might have shown
+      a little more enthusiasm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I infer that you expected something much worse,&rdquo; I observed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, of course I didn't know what to expect. How should I? I had no hand
+      in selecting it, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's hardly seen it,&rdquo; put in Hephzy. &ldquo;She was too sick when she came to
+      notice much, I guess, and this is the first time she has been out doors.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad you approve,&rdquo; I observed, drily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My sarcasm was wasted. Miss Morley said again that she did approve, of
+      what she had seen, and added that we seemed to have chosen very well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't suppose,&rdquo; said Hephzy, complacently, &ldquo;that there are many much
+      prettier places in England than this one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, indeed there are. But all England is beautiful, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I thought of Mrs. Briggs' lodging-house, but I did not refer to it. Our
+      guest&mdash;or my &ldquo;niece&rdquo;&mdash;or our ward&mdash;it was hard to classify
+      her&mdash;changed the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you met any of the people about here?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy burst into enthusiastic praise of the Baylisses and the curates and
+      the Coles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They're all just as nice as they can be,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;I never met
+      nicer folks, at home or anywhere.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances nodded. &ldquo;All English people are nice,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again I thought of Mrs. Briggs and again I kept my thoughts to myself.
+      Hephzy went on rhapsodizing. I paid little attention until I heard her
+      speak my name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And Hosy thinks so, too. Don't you, Hosy?&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I answered yes, on the chance. Frances regarded me oddly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought&mdash;I understood that your name was Kent, Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; she
+      said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then why does Miss Cahoon always&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy interrupted. &ldquo;Oh, I always call him Hosy,&rdquo; she explained. &ldquo;It's a
+      kind of pet name of mine. It's short for Hosea. His whole name is Hosea
+      Kent Knowles, but 'most everybody but me does call him Kent. I don't think
+      he likes Hosea very well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Our companion looked very much as if she did not wonder at my dislike. Her
+      eyes twinkled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosea,&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;That is an odd name. The original Hosea was a
+      prophet, wasn't he? Are you a prophet, Mr. Knowles?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Far from it,&rdquo; I answered, with decision. If I had been a prophet I should
+      have been forewarned and, consequently, forearmed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She smiled and against my will I was forced to admit that her smile was
+      attractive; she was prettier than ever when she smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I remember now,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;all Americans have Scriptural names. I have
+      read about them in books.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy writes books,&rdquo; said Hephzy, proudly. &ldquo;That's his profession; he's an
+      author.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, really, is he! How interesting!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, he is. He has written ever so many books; haven't you, Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I didn't answer. My self and my &ldquo;profession&rdquo; were the last subjects I
+      cared to discuss. The young lady's smile broadened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And where do you write your books, Mr. Knowles?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;In&mdash;er&mdash;Bayport?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I answered, shortly. &ldquo;Hephzy, Miss Morley will have another cup of
+      tea, I think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no, thank you. But tell me about your books, Mr. Knowles. Are they
+      stories of Bayport?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No indeed!&rdquo; Hephzy would do my talking for me, and I could not order her
+      to be quiet. &ldquo;No indeed!&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;He writes about lords and ladies
+      and counts and such. He hardly ever writes about everyday people like the
+      ones in Bayport. You would like his books, Frances. You would enjoy
+      readin' 'em, I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sure I should. They must be delightful. I do hope you brought some
+      with you, Mr. Knowles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He didn't, but I did. I'll lend you some, Frances. I'll lend you 'The
+      Queen's Amulet.' That's a splendid story.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sure it must be. So you write about queens, too, Mr. Knowles. I
+      thought Americans scorned royalty. And what is his queen's name, Miss
+      Cahoon? Is it Scriptural?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no indeed! Besides, all Americans' names aren't out of the Bible, any
+      more than the names in England are. That man who wanted to let us his
+      house in Copperhead&mdash;no, Leatherhead&mdash;funny I should forget THAT
+      awful name&mdash;he was named Solomon&mdash;Solomon Cripps... Why, what is
+      it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Morley's smile and the mischievous twinkle had vanished. She looked
+      startled, and even frightened, it seemed to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it, Frances?&rdquo; repeated Hephzy, anxiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing&mdash;nothing. Solomon&mdash;what was it? Solomon Cripps. That is
+      an odd name. And you met this Mr.&mdash;er&mdash;Cripps?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, we met him. He had a house he wanted to let us, and I guess we'd
+      have taken it, too, only you seemed to hate the name of Leatherhead so.
+      Don't you remember you did? I don't blame you. Of the things to call a
+      pretty town that's about the worst.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, it is rather frightful. But this, Mr.&mdash;er&mdash;Cripps; was he
+      as bad as his name? Did you talk with him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only about the house. Hosy and I didn't like him well enough to talk
+      about anything else, except religion. He and his wife gave us to
+      understand they were awful pious. I'm afraid we wouldn't have been churchy
+      enough to suit them, anyway. Hosy, here, doesn't go to meetin' as often as
+      he ought to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad of it.&rdquo; The young lady's tone was emphatic and she looked as if
+      she meant it. We were surprised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're glad of it!&rdquo; repeated Hephzy, in amazement. &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I hate persons who go to church all the time and boast of it, who
+      do all sorts of mean things, but preach, preach, preach continually. They
+      are hypocritical and false and cruel. I HATE them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked now as she had in the room at Mrs. Briggs's when I had
+      questioned her concerning her father. I could not imagine the reason for
+      this sudden squall from a clear sky. Hephzy drew a long breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; she said, after a moment, &ldquo;then Hosy and you ought to get along
+      first-rate together. He's down on hypocrites and make-believe piety as bad
+      as you are. The only time he and Mr. Partridge, our minister in Bayport,
+      ever quarreled&mdash;'twasn't a real quarrel, but more of a disagreement&mdash;was
+      over what sort of a place Heaven was. Mr. Partridge was certain sure that
+      nobody but church members would be there, and Hosy said if some of the
+      church members in Bayport were sure of a ticket, the other place had
+      strong recommendations. 'Twas an awful thing to say, and I was almost as
+      shocked as the minister was; that is I should have been if I hadn't known
+      he didn't mean it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Morley regarded me with a new interest, or at least I thought she
+      did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you mean it?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Hosy,&rdquo; cried Hephzy. &ldquo;What a way that is to talk! What do you know
+      about the hereafter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not much, but,&rdquo; remembering the old story, &ldquo;I know Bayport. Humph!
+      speaking of ministers, here is one now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Judson, the curate, was approaching across the lawn. Hephzy hastily
+      removed the lid of the teapot. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, with a sigh of relief,
+      &ldquo;there's enough tea left, though you mustn't have any more, Hosy. Mr.
+      Judson always takes three cups.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Judson was introduced and, the &ldquo;between-maid&rdquo; having brought another
+      chair, he joined our party. He accepted the first of the three cups and
+      observed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope I haven't interrupted an important conversation. You appeared to
+      be talking very earnestly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I should have answered, but Hephzy's look of horrified expostulation
+      warned me to be silent. Frances, although she must have seen the look,
+      answered instead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We were discussing Heaven,&rdquo; she said, calmly. &ldquo;Mr. Knowles doesn't
+      approve of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy bounced on her chair. &ldquo;Why!&rdquo; she cried; &ldquo;why, what a&mdash;why,
+      WHAT will Mr. Judson think! Now, Frances, you know&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That was what you said, Mr. Knowles, wasn't it. You said if Paradise was
+      exclusively for church members you preferred&mdash;well, another locality.
+      That was what I understood you to say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Judson looked at me. He was a very good and very orthodox and a very
+      young man and his feelings showed in his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I can scarcely think Mr. Knowles said that, Miss Morley,&rdquo; he
+      protested. &ldquo;You must have misunderstood him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, but I didn't misunderstand. That was what he said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again Mr. Judson looked at me. It seemed time for me to say something.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What I said, or meant to say, was that I doubted if the future life, the&mdash;er&mdash;pleasant
+      part of it, was confined exclusively to&mdash;er&mdash;professed church
+      members,&rdquo; I explained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The curate's ruffled feelings were evidently not soothed by this
+      explanation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But&mdash;but, Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; he stammered, &ldquo;really, I&mdash;I am at a
+      loss to understand your meaning. Surely you do not mean that&mdash;that&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course he didn't mean that,&rdquo; put in Hephzy. &ldquo;What he said was that
+      some of the ones who talk the loudest and oftenest in prayer-meetin' at
+      our Methodist church in Bayport weren't as good as they pretended to be.
+      And that's so, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Judson seemed relieved. &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;Oh, yes, I quite
+      comprehend. Methodists&mdash;er&mdash;dissenters&mdash;that is quite
+      different&mdash;quite.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Judson knows that no one except communicants in the Church of England
+      are certain of happiness,&rdquo; observed Frances, very gravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our caller turned his attention to her. He was not a joker, but I think he
+      was a trifle suspicious. The young lady met his gaze with one of serene
+      simplicity and, although he reddened, he returned to the charge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should&mdash;I should scarcely go as far as that, Miss Morley,&rdquo; he
+      said. &ldquo;But I understand Mr. Knowles to refer to&mdash;er&mdash;church
+      members; and&mdash;er&mdash;dissenters&mdash;Methodists and others&mdash;are
+      not&mdash;are not&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; broke in Hephzibah, with decision, &ldquo;I'm a Methodist, myself, and
+      <i>I</i> don't expect to go to perdition.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Judson's guns were spiked. He turned redder than ever and changed the
+      subject to the weather.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The remainder of the conversation was confined for the most part to
+      Frances and the curate. They discussed the village and the people in it
+      and the church and its activities. At length Judson mentioned golf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Knowles and I are to have another round shortly, I trust,&rdquo; he said.
+      &ldquo;You owe me a revenge, you know, Mr. Knowles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; exclaimed the young lady, in apparent surprise, &ldquo;does Mr. Knowles
+      play golf?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not real golf,&rdquo; I observed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, but he does,&rdquo; protested Mr. Judson, &ldquo;he does. Rather! He plays a very
+      good game indeed. He beat me quite badly the other day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Which, according to my reckoning, was by no means a proof of extraordinary
+      ability. Frances seemed amused, for some unexplained reason.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should never have thought it,&rdquo; she observed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo; asked Judson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I don't know. Golf is a game, and Mr. Knowles doesn't look as if he
+      played games. I should have expected nothing so frivolous from him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My golf is anything but frivolous,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;It's too seriously bad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you golf, Miss Morley, may I ask?&rdquo; inquired the curate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have occasionally, after a fashion. I am sure I should like to learn.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall be delighted to teach you. It would be a great pleasure, really.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked as if it would be a pleasure. Frances smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you so much,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You and I and Mr. Knowles will have a
+      threesome.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Judson's joy at her acceptance was tempered, it seemed to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, of course,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It will be a great pleasure to have your uncle
+      with us. A great pleasure, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My&mdash;uncle?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, yes&mdash;Mr. Knowles, you know. By the way, Miss Morley&mdash;excuse
+      my mentioning it, but I notice you always address your uncle as Mr.
+      Knowles. That seems a bit curious, if you'll pardon my saying so. A bit
+      distant and&mdash;er&mdash;formal to our English habit. Do all nieces and
+      nephews in your country do that? Is it an American custom?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy and I looked at each other and my &ldquo;niece&rdquo; looked at both of us. I
+      could feel the blood tingling in my cheeks and forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it an American custom?&rdquo; repeated Mr. Judson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; with chilling deliberation. &ldquo;I am NOT an American.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The curate said &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; and had the astonishing good sense not to say
+      any more. Shortly afterward he said good-by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I shall look forward to our threesome, Miss Morley,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;I
+      shall count upon it in the near future.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After his departure there was a most embarrassing interval of silence.
+      Hephzy spoke first.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you think you had better go in now, Frances,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Seems to
+      me you had. It's the first time you've been out at all, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young lady rose. &ldquo;I am going,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I am going, if you and&mdash;my
+      uncle&mdash;will excuse me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That evening, after dinner, Hephzy joined me in the drawing-room. It was a
+      beautiful summer evening, but every shade was drawn and every shutter
+      tightly closed. We had, on our second evening in the rectory, suggested
+      leaving them open, but the housemaid had shown such shocked surprise and
+      disapproval that we had not pressed the point. By this time we had learned
+      that &ldquo;privacy&rdquo; was another sacred and inviolable English custom. The
+      rectory sat in its own ground, surrounded by high hedges; no one, without
+      extraordinary pains, could spy upon its inmates, but, nevertheless, the
+      privacy of those inmates must be guaranteed. So the shutters were closed
+      and the shades drawn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; said I to Hephzy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Hephzy, &ldquo;it's better than I was afraid it was goin' to be. I
+      explained that you told the folks at Bancroft's she was your niece because
+      'twas the handiest thing to tell 'em, and you HAD to tell 'em somethin'.
+      And down here in Mayberry the same way. She understood, I guess; at any
+      rate she didn't make any great objection. I thought at the last that she
+      was laughin', but I guess she wasn't. Only what she said sounded funny.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did she say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, she wanted to know if she should call you 'Uncle Hosea.' She
+      supposed it should be that&mdash;'Uncle Hosy' sounded a little
+      irreverent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not answer. &ldquo;Uncle Hosea!&rdquo; a beautiful title, truly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She acted so different to-day, didn't she,&rdquo; observed Hephzy. &ldquo;It's
+      because she's gettin' well, I suppose. She was real full of fun, wasn't
+      she.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Confound her&mdash;yes,&rdquo; I snarled. &ldquo;All the fun is on her side. Well,
+      she should make the best of it while it lasts. When she learns the truth
+      she may not find it so amusing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy sighed. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, slowly, &ldquo;I'm afraid that's so, poor thing.
+      When&mdash;when are you goin' to tell her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;But pretty soon, that's certain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which I Break All Previous Resolutions and Make a New One
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      That afternoon tea on the lawn was the beginning of the great change in
+      our life at the rectory. Prior to that Hephzy and I had, golfly speaking,
+      been playing it as a twosome. Now it became a threesome, with other
+      players added at frequent intervals. At luncheon next day our invalid, a
+      real invalid no longer, joined us at table in the pleasant dining-room,
+      the broad window of which opened upon the formal garden with the sundial
+      in the center. She was in good spirits, and, as Hephzy confided to me
+      afterward, was &ldquo;gettin' a real nice appetite.&rdquo; In gaining this appetite
+      she appeared to have lost some of her dignity and chilling condescension;
+      at all events, she treated her American relatives as if she considered
+      them human beings. She addressed most of her conversation to Hephzy,
+      always speaking of and to her as &ldquo;Miss Cahoon.&rdquo; She still addressed me as
+      &ldquo;Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; and I was duly thankful; I had feared being hailed as
+      &ldquo;Uncle Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After lunch Mr. Judson called again. He was passing, he explained, on his
+      round of parish calls, and had dropped in casually. Mr. Worcester also
+      came; his really was a casual stop, I think. He and his brother curate
+      were very brotherly indeed, but I noticed an apparent reluctance on the
+      part of each to leave before the other. They left together, but Mr. Judson
+      again hinted at the promised golf game, and Mr. Worcester, having learned
+      from Miss Morley that she played and sang, expressed great interest in
+      music and begged permission to bring some &ldquo;favorite songs,&rdquo; which he felt
+      sure Miss Morley might like to run over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Morley herself was impartially gracious and affable to both the
+      clerical gentlemen; she was looking forward to the golf, she said, and the
+      songs she was certain would be jolly. Hephzy and I had very little to say,
+      and no one seemed particularly anxious to hear that little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The curates had scarcely disappeared down the driveway when Doctor Bayliss
+      and his son strolled in from next door. Doctor Bayliss, Senior, was much
+      pleased to find his patient up and about, and Herbert, the son, even more
+      pleased to find her at all, I judge. Young Bayliss was evidently very
+      favorably impressed with his new neighbor. He was a big, healthy,
+      broad-shouldered fellow, a grown-up boy, whose laugh was a pleasure to
+      hear, and who possessed the faculty, envied by me, the quahaug, of
+      chatting entertainingly on all subjects from tennis and the new American
+      dances to Lloyd-George and old-age pensions. Frances declared a strong
+      aversion to the dances, principally because they were American, I
+      suspected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Doctor Bayliss, the old gentleman, then turned to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is the American opinion of the Liberal measures?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should say,&rdquo; I answered, &ldquo;that, so far as they are understood in
+      America, opinion concerning them is divided, much as it is here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really! But you haven't the Liberal and Conservative parties as we have,
+      you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have liberals and conservatives, however, although our political
+      parties are not so named.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We call 'em Republicans and Democrats,&rdquo; explained Hephzy. &ldquo;Hosy is a
+      Republican,&rdquo; she added, proudly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not certain what I am,&rdquo; I observed. &ldquo;I have voted a split ticket of
+      late.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Young Bayliss asked a question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you a&mdash;what is it&mdash;Republican, Miss Morley?&rdquo; he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Morley's eyes dropped disdainfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am neither,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;My father was a Conservative, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I say! That's odd, isn't it. Your uncle here is&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle Hosea, you mean?&rdquo; sweetly. &ldquo;Oh, Uncle Hosea is an American. I am
+      English.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not add &ldquo;Thank heaven,&rdquo; but she might as well. &ldquo;Uncle Hosea&rdquo;
+       shuddered at the name. Young Bayliss grinned behind his blonde mustache.
+      When he left, in company with his father, Hephzy invited him to &ldquo;run in
+      any time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We're next-door neighbors,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;so we mustn't be formal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was fairly certain that the invitation was superfluous. If I knew human
+      nature at all I knew that Bayliss, Junior, did not intend to let formality
+      stand in the way of frequent calls at the rectory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My intuition was correct. The following afternoon he called again. So did
+      Mr. Judson. Both calls were casual, of course. So was Mr. Worcester's that
+      evening. He came to bring the &ldquo;favorite songs&rdquo; and was much surprised to
+      find Miss Morley in the drawing-room. He said so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy and I knew little of our relative's history. She had volunteered no
+      particulars other than those given on the occasion of our first meeting,
+      but we did know, because Mrs. Briggs had told us, that she had been a
+      member of an opera troupe. This evening we heard her sing for the first
+      time. She sang well; her voice was not a strong one, but it was clear and
+      sweet and she knew how to use it. Worcester sang well also, and the little
+      concert was very enjoyable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the first of many. Almost every evening after dinner Frances sat
+      down at the old-fashioned piano, with the candle brackets at each side of
+      the music rack, and sang. Occasionally we were her only auditors, but more
+      often one or both of the curates or Doctor and Mrs. Bayliss or Bayliss,
+      Junior, dropped in. We made other acquaintances&mdash;Mrs. Griggson, the
+      widow in &ldquo;reduced circumstances,&rdquo; whose husband had been killed in the
+      Boer war, and who occupied the little cottage next to the draper's shop;
+      Mr. and Mrs. Samson, of Burgleston Bogs, friends of the Baylisses, and
+      others. They were pleasant, kindly, unaffected people and we enjoyed their
+      society.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Each day Frances gained in health and strength. The care-free, wholesome,
+      out-of-door life at Mayberry seemed to suit her. She seemed to consider
+      herself a member of the family now; at all events she did not speak of
+      leaving nor hint at the prompt settlement of her preposterous &ldquo;claim.&rdquo;
+       Hephzy and I did not mention it, even to each other. Hephzy, I think, was
+      quite satisfied with things as they were, and I, in spite of my threats
+      and repeated declarations that the present state of affairs was ridiculous
+      and could not last, put off telling &ldquo;my niece&rdquo; the truth. I, too, was
+      growing more accustomed to the &ldquo;threesome.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The cloud was always there, hanging over our heads and threatening a storm
+      at any moment, but I was learning to forget it. The situation had its
+      pleasant side; it was not all bad. For instance, meals in the pleasant
+      dining-room, with Hephzy at one end of the table, I at the other, and
+      Frances between us, were more social and chatty than they had been. To
+      have the young lady come down to breakfast, her hair prettily arranged,
+      her cheeks rosy with health, and her eyes shining with youth and the joy
+      of life, was almost a tonic. I found myself taking more pains with my
+      morning toilet, choosing my tie with greater care and being more careful
+      concerning the condition of my boots. I even began to dress for dinner, a
+      concession to English custom which was odd enough in one of my easy-going
+      habits and Bayport rearing. I imagine that the immaculate appearance of
+      young Bayliss, when he dropped in for the &ldquo;sing&rdquo; in the drawing-room, was
+      responsible for the resurrection of my dinner coat. He did look so
+      disgustingly young and handsome and at ease. I was conscious of each one
+      of my thirty-eight years whenever I looked at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was rejuvenating in other ways. It had been my custom at Bayport to
+      retire to my study and my books each evening. Here, where callers were so
+      frequent, I found it difficult to do this and, although the temptation was
+      to sit quietly in a corner and let the others do the talking, I was not
+      allowed to yield. The younger callers, particularly the masculine portion,
+      would not have objected to my silence, I am sure, but &ldquo;my niece&rdquo; seemed to
+      take mischievous pleasure in drawing the quahaug out of his shell. She had
+      a disconcerting habit of asking me unexpected questions at times when my
+      attention was wandering, and, if I happened to state a definite opinion,
+      taking the opposite side with promptness. After a time I decided not to
+      express opinions, but to agree with whatever was said as the simplest way
+      of avoiding controversy and being left to myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This procedure should, it seemed to me, have satisfied her, but apparently
+      it did not. On one occasion, Judson and Herbert Bayliss being present, the
+      conversation turned to the subject of American athletic sports. The curate
+      and Bayliss took the ground, the prevailing thought in England apparently,
+      that all American games were not games, but fights in which the true
+      sporting spirit was sacrificed to the desire to win at any cost. I had
+      said nothing, keeping silent for two reasons. First, that I had given my
+      views on the subject before, and, second, because argument from me was, in
+      that company, fruitless effort. The simplest way to end discussion of a
+      disagreeable topic was to pay no attention to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I was not allowed to escape so easily. Bayliss asked me a question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn't it true, Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; he asked, &ldquo;that the American football player
+      wears a sort of armor to prevent his being killed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My thoughts had been drifting anywhere and everywhere. Just then they were
+      centered about &ldquo;my niece's&rdquo; hands. She had very pretty hands and a most
+      graceful way of using them. At the moment they were idly turning some
+      sheets of music, but the way the slim fingers moved in and out between the
+      pages was pretty and fascinating. Her foot, glimpsed beneath her skirt,
+      was slender and graceful, too. She had an attractive trick of swinging it
+      as she sat upon the piano stool.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Recalled from these and other pleasing observations by Bayliss's mention
+      of my name, I looked up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg pardon?&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bayliss repeated his question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes,&rdquo; said I, and looked down again at the foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So I have been told,&rdquo; said the questioner, triumphantly. &ldquo;And without
+      that&mdash;er&mdash;armor many of the players would be killed, would they
+      not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What? Oh, yes; yes, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And many are killed or badly injured as it is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How many during a season, may I ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh? Oh&mdash;I don't know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A hundred?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The foot was swinging more rapidly now. It was such a small foot. My own
+      looked so enormous and clumsy and uncouth by comparison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A&mdash;oh, thousands,&rdquo; said I, at random. If the number were large
+      enough to satisfy him he might cease to worry me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A beastly game,&rdquo; declared Judson, with conviction. &ldquo;How can a civilized
+      country countenance such brutality! Do you countenance it, Mr. Knowles?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;er&mdash;that is, no.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You agree, then, that it is brutal?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly, certainly.&rdquo; Would the fellow never stop?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo; It was Frances who spoke and her tone was emphatic and
+      impatient. We all looked at her; her cheeks were flushed and she appeared
+      highly indignant. &ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo; she said again. &ldquo;He doesn't agree to any
+      such thing. I've heard him say that American football was not as brutal as
+      our fox-hunting and that fewer people were killed or injured. We play polo
+      and we ride in steeplechases and the papers are full of accidents. I don't
+      believe Americans are more brutal or less civilized in their sports than
+      we are, not in the least.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Considering that she had at the beginning of the conversation apparently
+      agreed with all that had been said, and, moreover, had often, in speaking
+      to Hephzy and me, referred to the &ldquo;States&rdquo; as an uncivilized country, this
+      declaration was astonishing. I was astonished for one. Hephzy clapped her
+      hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course they aren't,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;Hosy&mdash;Mr. Knowles&mdash;didn't
+      mean that they were, either.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Our callers looked at each other and Herbert Bayliss hastily changed the
+      subject. After they had gone I ventured to thank my champion for coming to
+      the rescue of my sporting countrymen. She flashed an indignant glance at
+      me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you say such things?&rdquo; she demanded. &ldquo;You know they weren't true.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What was the use of saying anything else? They have read the accounts of
+      football games which American penny-a-line correspondents send to the
+      London papers and nothing I could say would change their convictions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It doesn't make any difference. You should say what you think. To sit
+      there and let them&mdash;Oh, it is ridiculous!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My feelings were not hurt. Their ideas will broaden by and by, when they
+      are as old as I am. They're young now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This charitable remark seemed to have the effect of making her more
+      indignant than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;You speak as if you were an Old Testament
+      patriarch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy put in a word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Frances,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I thought you didn't like America.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't. Of course I don't. But it makes me lose patience to have him sit
+      there and agree to everything those boys say. Why didn't he answer them as
+      he should? If I were an American no one&mdash;NO one should rag me about
+      my country without getting as good as they gave.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was amused. &ldquo;What would you have me do?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;Rise and sing the
+      'Star Spangled Banner'?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would have you speak your mind like a man. Not sit there like a&mdash;like
+      a rabbit. And I wouldn't act and think like a Methusaleh until I was one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was quite evident that &ldquo;my niece&rdquo; was a young person of whims. The next
+      time the &ldquo;States&rdquo; were mentioned and I ventured to speak in their defence,
+      she calmly espoused the other side and &ldquo;ragged&rdquo; as mercilessly as the
+      rest. I found myself continually on the defensive, and this state of
+      affairs had one good effect at least&mdash;that of waking me up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Toward Hephzy her manner was quite different. She now, especially when we
+      three were alone, occasionally addressed her as &ldquo;Auntie.&rdquo; And she would
+      not permit &ldquo;Auntie&rdquo; to be made fun of. At the least hint of such a thing
+      she snubbed the would-be humorist thoroughly. She and Hephzy were becoming
+      really friendly. I felt certain she was beginning to like her&mdash;to
+      discern the real woman beneath the odd exterior. But when I expressed this
+      thought to Hephzy herself she shook her head doubtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sometimes I've almost thought so, Hosy,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;but only this mornin'
+      when I said somethin' about her mother and how much she looked like her,
+      she almost took my head off. And she's got her pa's picture right in the
+      middle of her bureau. No, Hosy, she's nicer to us than she was at first
+      because it's her nature to be nice. So long as she forgets who and what we
+      are, or what her scamp of a father told her we were, she treats us like
+      her own folks. But when she remembers we're receivers of stolen goods,
+      livin' on money that belongs to her, then it's different. You can't blame
+      her for that, I suppose. But&mdash;but how is it all goin' to end? <i>I</i>
+      don't know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I didn't know either.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had hoped,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;that, living with us as she does, she might come
+      to know and understand us&mdash;to learn that we couldn't be the sort she
+      has believed us to be. Then it seems to me we might tell her and she would
+      listen to reason.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I'm afraid we can't wait long. You see, there's another thing,
+      Hosy. She needs clothes and&mdash;and lots of things. She realizes it.
+      Yesterday she told me she must go up to London, shopping, pretty soon. She
+      asked me to go with her. I put her off; said I was awful busy around the
+      house just now, but she'll ask me again, and if I don't go she'll go by
+      herself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! I don't see how she can do much shopping. She hasn't a penny, so
+      far as I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't understand. She thinks she has got a good many pennies, or
+      we've got 'em for her. She's just as liable to buy all creation and send
+      us the bills.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I whistled. &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; I said, decidedly, &ldquo;when that happens we must put our
+      foot down. Neither you nor I are millionaires, Hephzy, and she must
+      understand that regardless of consequences.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean you'll tell her&mdash;everything?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall have to. Why do you look at me like that? Are we to use
+      common-sense or aren't we? Are we in a position to adopt a young woman of
+      expensive tastes&mdash;actually adopt her? And not only that, but give her
+      carte blanche&mdash;let her buy whatever she pleases and charge it to us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose not. But&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I&mdash;I don't see how we can stop her buying whatever she pleases
+      with what she thinks is her own money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do. We can tell her she has no money. I shall do it. My mind is made
+      up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy said nothing, but her expression was one of doubt. I stalked off in
+      a bad temper. Discussions of the kind always ended in just this way.
+      However, I swore a solemn oath to keep my word this time. There were
+      limits and they had been reached. Besides, as I had said, the situation
+      was changed in one way; we no longer had an invalid to deal with. No, my
+      mind was made up. True, this was at least the tenth time I had made it up,
+      but this time I meant it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The test came two days later and was the result of a call on the Samsons.
+      The Samsons lived at Burgleston Bogs, and we drove to their house in the
+      trap behind &ldquo;Pet,&rdquo; the plump black horse. Mrs. Samson seemed very glad to
+      see us, urged us to remain for tea, and invited us to attend a tennis
+      tournament on their lawn the following week. She asked if Miss Morley
+      played tennis. Frances said she had played, but not recently. She intended
+      to practice, however, and would be delighted to witness the tournament,
+      although, of course, she could not take part in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy&mdash;Mr. Knowles, I mean&mdash;plays tennis,&rdquo; observed Hephzy,
+      seizing the opportunity, as usual, to speak a good word for me. &ldquo;He used
+      to play real well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really!&rdquo; exclaimed Mrs. Samson, &ldquo;how interesting. If we had only known.
+      No doubt Mr. Knowles would have liked to enter. I'm so sorry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hastened to protest. &ldquo;My tennis is decidedly rusty,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I
+      shouldn't think of displaying it in public. In fact, I don't play at all
+      now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On the way home Frances was rather quiet. The next morning she announced
+      that she intended going to Wrayton that afternoon. &ldquo;Johnson will drive me
+      over,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I shall be glad if Auntie will go with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wrayton was the county-seat, a good-sized town five miles from Mayberry.
+      Hephzy declined the invitation. She had promised to &ldquo;tea&rdquo; with Mrs.
+      Griggson that afternoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I must go alone,&rdquo; said Frances. &ldquo;That is unless&mdash;er&mdash;Uncle
+      Hosea cares to go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle Hosea&rdquo; declined. The name of itself was sufficient to make him
+      decline; besides Worcester and I were scheduled for golf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall go alone then,&rdquo; said &ldquo;my niece,&rdquo; with decision. &ldquo;Johnson will
+      look after me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But after luncheon, when I visited the stable to order Johnson to harness
+      &ldquo;Pet,&rdquo; I met with an unexpected difficulty. Johnson, it appeared, was ill,
+      had been indisposed the day before and was now at home in bed. I
+      hesitated. If this were Bayport I should have bade the gardener harness
+      &ldquo;Pet&rdquo; or have harnessed him myself. But this was Mayberry, not Bayport.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gardener, deprived of his assistant's help&mdash;Johnson worked about
+      the garden when not driving&mdash;was not in good humor. I decided not to
+      ask him to harness, but to risk a fall in the estimation of the servants
+      by doing it myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gardener watched me for a moment in shocked disapproval. Then he
+      interfered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you please, Mr. Knowles, sir,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I'll 'arness, but I can't
+      drive, sir. I am netting the gooseberries. Perhaps you might get a man
+      from the Inn stables, unless you or the young lady might wish to drive
+      yourselves.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not wish to drive, having the golf engagement; but when I walked to
+      the Inn I found no driver available. So, rather than be disagreeable, I
+      sent word to the curate that our match was postponed, and accepted the
+      alternative.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances, rather to my surprise, seemed more pleased than otherwise to find
+      that I was to be her coachman. Instead of occupying the rear seat she
+      climbed to that beside me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-by, Auntie,&rdquo; she called to Hephzy, who was standing in the doorway.
+      &ldquo;Sorry you're not going. I'll take good care of Mr. Knowles&mdash;Uncle
+      Hosea, I mean. I'll see that he behaves himself and,&rdquo; with a glance at my,
+      I fear, not too radiant visage, &ldquo;doesn't break any of his venerable
+      bones.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The road, like all English roads which I traveled, was as firm and smooth
+      as a table, the day was fine, the hedges were green and fragrant, the
+      larks sang, and the flocks of sheep in the wayside pastures were
+      picturesque as always. &ldquo;Pet,&rdquo; who had led an easy life since we came to
+      the rectory, was in high spirits and stepped along in lively fashion. My
+      companion, too, was in good spirits and chatted and laughed as she had not
+      done with me since I knew her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Altogether it was a delightful ride. I found myself emerging from my shell
+      and chatting and joking quite unlike the elderly quahaug I was supposed to
+      be. We passed a party of young fellows on a walking tour, knapsacked and
+      knickerbockered, and the admiring glances they passed at my passenger were
+      flattering. They envied me, that was plain. Well, under different
+      circumstances, I could conceive myself an object of envy. A dozen years
+      younger, with the heart of youth and the comeliness of youth, I might have
+      thought myself lucky to be driving along such a road with such a vision by
+      my side. And, the best of it was, the vision treated me as if I really
+      were her own age. I squared my shoulders and as Hephzy would have said,
+      &ldquo;perked up&rdquo; amazingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We entered Wrayton and moved along the main street between the rows of
+      ancient buildings, past the old stone church with its inevitable and
+      always welcome gray, ivy-draped tower, to the quaint old square with the
+      statue of William Pitt in its center. My companion, all at once, seemed to
+      become aware of her surroundings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why!&rdquo; she exclaimed, &ldquo;we are here, aren't we? Fancy! I expected a longer
+      drive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So did I,&rdquo; I agreed. &ldquo;We haven't hurried, either. Where has the time
+      gone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know. We have been so busy talking that I have thought of nothing
+      else. Really, I didn't know you could be so entertaining&mdash;Uncle
+      Hosea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The detested title brought me to myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are here,&rdquo; I said, shortly. &ldquo;And now where shall we go? Have you any
+      stopping place in particular?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I want to stop now. Please pull up over there, in front
+      of that shop with the cricket bats in the window.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The shop was what we, in America, would have called a &ldquo;sporting-goods
+      store.&rdquo; I piloted &ldquo;Pet&rdquo; to the curb and pulled up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going in,&rdquo; said Miss Morley. &ldquo;Oh, don't trouble to help me. I can
+      get down quite well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was down, springing from the step as lightly as a dandelion fluff
+      before I could scramble down on the other side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I won't be long,&rdquo; she said, and went into the shop. I, not being invited,
+      remained on the pavement. Two or three small boys appeared from somewhere
+      and, scenting possible pennies, volunteered to hold the horse. I declined
+      their services.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Five minutes passed, then ten. My passenger was still in the shop. I could
+      not imagine what she was doing there. If it had been a shop of a different
+      kind, and in view of Hephzy's recent statement concerning the buying of
+      clothes, I might have been suspicious. But no clothes were on sale at that
+      shop and, besides, it never occurred to me that she would buy anything of
+      importance without mentioning her intention to me beforehand. I had taken
+      it for granted that she would mention the subject and, when she did, I
+      intended to be firm. But as the minutes went by my suspicions grew. She
+      must be buying something&mdash;or contemplating buying, at least. But she
+      had said nothing to me concerning money; HAD she money of her own after
+      all? It might be possible that she had a very little, and was making some
+      trifling purchase.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She reappeared in the doorway of the shop, followed by a very polite young
+      man with a blonde mustache. The young man was bowing and smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, miss,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I'll have them wrapped immediately. They shall be
+      ready when you return, miss. Thank you, miss.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances nodded acknowledgment of the thanks. Then she favored me with
+      another nod and a most bewitching smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's over,&rdquo; she announced, &ldquo;and now I'm going to the draper's for a
+      moment. It is near here, you say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man bowed again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, miss, on the next corner, next the chemist's.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned to me. &ldquo;You may wait here, Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I shall be
+      back very soon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hurried away. I looked after her, and then, with all sorts of
+      forebodings surging in my brain, strode into that &ldquo;sporting-goods store.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The blond young man was at my elbow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; he said, ingratiatingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did&mdash;did that young lady make some purchases here?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir. Here they are, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There on the counter lay a tennis racket, a racket press and waterproof
+      case, a pair of canvas tennis shoes and a jaunty white felt hat. I stared
+      at the collection. The clerk took up the racket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a Slazenger,&rdquo; he observed, regretfully. &ldquo;I did my best to persuade
+      her to buy a Slazenger; that is the best racket we have. But she decided
+      the Slazenger was a bit high in price, sir. However, sir, this one is not
+      bad. A very fine racket for lady's use; very light and strong, sir,
+      considering the cost&mdash;only sixteen and six, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sixteen and six. Four dollars and&mdash;Did she pay for it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh no, sir. She said you would do that, sir. The total is two pound eight
+      and thruppence, sir. Shall I give you a bill, sir? Thank you, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His thanks were wasted. I pushed him to one side and walked out of that
+      shop. I could not answer; if I answered as I felt I might be sorry later.
+      After all, it wasn't his fault. My business was not with him, but with
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not the amount of the purchase that angered and alarmed me. Two
+      pounds eight&mdash;twelve dollars&mdash;was not so much. If she had asked
+      me, if she had said she desired the racket and the rest of it during the
+      drive over, I think, feeling as I did during that drive, I should have
+      bought them for her. But she had not asked; she had calmly bought them
+      without consulting me at all. She had come to Wrayton for that very
+      purpose. And then had told the clerk that I would pay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The brazen presumption of it! I was merely a convenience, a sort of
+      walking bank account, to be drawn upon as she saw fit, at her imperial
+      will, if you please. It made no difference, to her mind, whether I liked
+      it or not&mdash;whether I could afford it or not. I could, of course,
+      afford this trifling sum, but this was only the beginning. If I permitted
+      this there was no telling to what extent she might go on, buying and
+      buying and buying. This was a precedent&mdash;that was what it was, a
+      precedent; and a precedent once established... It should not be
+      established. I had vowed to Hephzy that it should not. I would prove to
+      this girl that I had a will of my own. The time had come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the boys who had been so anxious to hold the horse was performing
+      that entirely unnecessary duty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay here until I come back,&rdquo; I ordered and hurried to the draper's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was there standing before the counter, and an elderly man was
+      displaying cloths&mdash;white flannels and serges they appeared to be. She
+      was not in the least perturbed at my entrance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you came, after all,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I wondered if you would. Now you must
+      help me. I don't know what your taste in tennis flannels may be, but I
+      hope it is good. I shall have these made up at Mayberry, of course. My
+      other frocks&mdash;and I need so many of them&mdash;I shall buy in London.
+      Do you fancy this, now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I don't know whether I fancied it or not. I am quite sure I could not
+      remember what it was if I were asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; she asked, after an instant. &ldquo;Do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I don't know,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;May I ask you to step outside one moment.
+      I&mdash;I have something I wish to say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She regarded me curiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Something you wish to say?&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I can't tell you here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not, pray?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I can't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at me still more intently. I was conscious of the salesman's
+      regard also. My tone, I am sure, was anything but gracious, and I imagine
+      I appeared as disgusted and embarrassed as I felt. She turned away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I will choose this one,&rdquo; she said, addressing the clerk. &ldquo;You may
+      give me five yards. Oh, yes; and I may as well take the same amount of the
+      other. You may wrap it for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, miss, yes. Thank you, miss. Is there anything else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hesitated. Then, after another sidelong glance at me, she said: &ldquo;Yes,
+      I believe there is. I wish to see some buttons, some braid, and&mdash;oh,
+      ever so many things. Please show them to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, miss, certainly. This way, if you please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you assist in the selection, Uncle Hosea?&rdquo; she inquired, with
+      suspicious sweetness. &ldquo;I am sure your opinion will be invaluable. No? Then
+      I must ask you to wait.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And wait I did, for I could do nothing else. That draper's shop was not
+      the place for a scene, with a half-dozen clerks to enjoy it. I waited,
+      fuming, while she wandered about, taking a great deal of time, and
+      lingering over each purchase in a maddening manner. At last she seemed
+      able to think of no more possibilities and strolled to where I was
+      standing, followed by the salesman, whose hands were full.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may wrap these with the others,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I have my trap here and
+      will take them with me. The trap is here, isn't it&mdash;er&mdash;Uncle
+      Hosea?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is just above here,&rdquo; I answered, sulkily. &ldquo;But&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you will get it. Thank you so much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The salesman noticed my hesitation, put his own interpretation upon it and
+      hastened to oblige.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall be glad to have the purchases carried there,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Our boy
+      will do it, miss. It will be no trouble.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Morley thanked him so much. I was hoping she might leave the shop
+      then, but she did not. The various packages were wrapped, handed to the
+      boy, and she accompanied the latter to the door and showed him our
+      equipage standing before the sporting-goods dealer's. Then she sauntered
+      back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; she said, addressing the clerk. &ldquo;That is all, I believe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The clerk looked at her and at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, miss, thank you,&rdquo; he said, in return. &ldquo;I&mdash;I&mdash;would you be
+      wishing to pay at once, miss, or shall I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, this gentleman will pay. Do you wish to pay now&mdash;Uncle Hosea?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again I was stumped. The salesman was regarding me expectantly; the other
+      clerks were near by; if I made a scene there&mdash;No, I could not do it.
+      I would pay this time. But this should be the end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fortunately, I had money in my pocket&mdash;two five-pound notes and some
+      silver. I paid the bill. Then, and at last, my niece led the way to the
+      pavement. We walked together a few steps in silence. The sporting-goods
+      shop was just ahead, and if ever I was determined not to do a thing that
+      thing was to pay for the tennis racket and the rest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances,&rdquo; I began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well&mdash;Mr. Knowles?&rdquo; calmly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances, I have decided to speak with you frankly. You appear to take
+      certain things for granted in your&mdash;your dealings with Miss Cahoon
+      and myself, things which&mdash;which I cannot countenance or permit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had been walking slowly. Now she stopped short. I stopped, too,
+      because she did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;What things?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was looking me through and through. Again I hesitated, and my
+      hesitation did not help matters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;What is it you cannot countenance or&rdquo;&mdash;scornfully&mdash;&ldquo;permit
+      concerning me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;well, I cannot permit you to do as you have done to-day. You did
+      not tell your aunt or me your purpose in coming to Wrayton. You did not
+      tell us you were coming here to buy&mdash;to buy various things for
+      yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why should I tell you? They were for myself. Is it your idea that I
+      should ask YOUR permission before buying what I choose?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Considering that you ask me to pay, I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I most distinctly did NOT ask you. I TOLD you to pay. Certainly you will
+      pay. Why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, why not. So this was what you wished to speak to me about. This was
+      why you were so&mdash;so boorish and disagreeable in that shop. Tell me&mdash;was
+      that the reason? Was that why you followed me there? Did you think&mdash;did
+      you presume to think of preventing my buying what I pleased with my
+      money?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it had been your money I should not have presumed, certainly. If you
+      had mentioned your intention to me beforehand I might even have paid for
+      your purchases and said nothing. I should&mdash;I should have been glad to
+      do so. I am not unreasonable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed! Indeed! Do you mean that you would have condescended to make me a
+      present of them? And was it your idea that I would accept presents from
+      you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that she had already accepted a
+      good deal; but somehow the place, a public sidewalk, seemed hardly fitting
+      for the discussion of weighty personal matters. Passers-by were regarding
+      us curiously, and in the door of the draper's shop which we had just left
+      I noticed the elderly clerk standing and looking in our direction. I
+      temporized.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't understand, Miss Morley,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Neither your aunt nor I are
+      wealthy. Surely, it is not too much to ask that you consult us before&mdash;before&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She interrupted me. &ldquo;I shall not consult you at all,&rdquo; she declared,
+      fiercely. &ldquo;Wealthy! Am <i>I</i> wealthy? Was my father wealthy? He should
+      have been and so should I. Oh, WHAT do you mean? Are you trying to tell me
+      that you cannot afford to pay for the few trifles I have bought this
+      afternoon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can afford those, of course. But you don't understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Understand? YOU do not understand. The agreement under which I came to
+      Mayberry was that you were to provide for me. I consented to forego
+      pressing my claim against you until&mdash;until you were ready to&mdash;to&mdash;Oh,
+      but why should we go into this again? I thought&mdash;I thought you
+      understood. I thought you understood and appreciated my forbearance. You
+      seemed to understand and to be grateful and kind. I am all alone in the
+      world. I haven't a friend. I have been almost happy for a little while. I
+      was beginning to&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stopped. The dark eyes which had been flashing lightnings in my
+      direction suddenly filled with tears. My heart smote me. After all, she
+      did not understand. Another plea of that kind and I should have&mdash;Well,
+      I'm not sure what I should have done. But the plea was not spoken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, what a fool I am!&rdquo; she cried, fiercely. &ldquo;Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; pointing to
+      the sporting-goods store, &ldquo;I have made some purchases in that shop also. I
+      expect you to pay for those as well. Will you or will you not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was hesitating, weakly. She did not wait for me to reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You WILL pay for them,&rdquo; she declared, &ldquo;and you will pay for others that I
+      may make. I shall buy what I please and do what I please with my money
+      which you are keeping from me. You will pay or take the consequences.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was enough. &ldquo;I will not pay,&rdquo; I said, firmly, &ldquo;under any such
+      arrangement.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will NOT?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I will not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked as if&mdash;Well, if she had been a man I should have expected
+      a blow. Her breast heaved and her fingers clenched. Then she turned and
+      walked toward the shop with the cricket bats in the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are you going?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to tell the man to send the things I have bought to Mayberry
+      by carrier and I shall tell him to send the bill to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you do I shall tell him to do nothing of the kind. Miss Morley, I
+      don't mean to be ungenerous or unreasonable, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop! Stop! Oh!&rdquo; with a sobbing breath, &ldquo;how I hate you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm sorry. When I explain, as I mean to, you will understand, I think. If
+      you will go back to the rectory with me now&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not go back with you. I shall never speak to you again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Morley, be reasonable. You must go back with me. There is no other
+      way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here was more cheer in an already cheerful situation. She could not get to
+      Mayberry that night unless she rode with me. She had no money to take her
+      there or anywhere else. I could hardly carry her to the trap by main
+      strength. And the curiosity of the passers-by was more marked than ever;
+      two or three of them had stopped to watch us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I don't know how it might have ended, but the end came in an unexpected
+      manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Miss Morley,&rdquo; cried a voice from the street behind me. &ldquo;Oh, I say,
+      it IS you, isn't it. How do you do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I turned. A trim little motor car was standing there and Herbert Bayliss
+      was at the wheel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, Knowles, how do you do?&rdquo; said Bayliss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I acknowledged the greeting in an embarrassed fashion. I wondered how long
+      he had been there and what he had heard. He alighted from the car and
+      shook hands with us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Didn't see you, Knowles, at first,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Saw Miss Morley here and
+      thought she was alone. Was going to beg the privilege of taking her home
+      in my car.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Morley answered promptly. &ldquo;You may have the privilege, Doctor
+      Bayliss,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I accept with pleasure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Young Bayliss looked pleased, but rather puzzled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thanks, awfully,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But my car holds but two and your uncle&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, he has the dogcart. It is quite all right, really. I should love the
+      motor ride. May I get in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He helped her into the car. &ldquo;Sure you don't mind, Knowles,&rdquo; he asked.
+      &ldquo;Sorry there's not more room; but you couldn't leave the horse, though,
+      could you? Quite comfy, Miss Morley? Then we're off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The car turned from the curb. I caught Miss Morley's eye for an instant;
+      there was withering contempt in its look&mdash;also triumph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Left alone, I walked to the trap, gave the horse-holding boy sixpence,
+      climbed to the seat and took up the reins. &ldquo;Pet&rdquo; jogged lazily up the
+      street. The ride over had been very, very pleasant; the homeward journey
+      was likely to be anything but that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To begin with, I was thoroughly dissatisfied with myself. I had bungled
+      the affair dreadfully. This was not the time for explanations; I should
+      not have attempted them. It would have been better, much better, to have
+      accepted the inevitable as gracefully as I could, paid the bills, and
+      then, after we reached home, have made the situation plain and &ldquo;have put
+      my foot down&rdquo; once and for all. But I had not done that. I had lost my
+      temper and acted like an eighteen-year-old boy instead of a middle-aged
+      man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not understand, of course. In her eyes I must have appeared stingy
+      and mean and&mdash;and goodness knows what. The money I had refused to pay
+      she did consider hers, of course. It was not hers, and some day she would
+      know that it was not, but the town square at Wrayton was not the place in
+      which to impart knowledge of that kind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was so young, too, and so charming&mdash;that is, she could be when
+      she chose. And she had chosen to be so during our drive together. And I
+      had enjoyed that drive; I had enjoyed nothing as thoroughly since our
+      arrival in England. She had enjoyed it, too; she had said so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, there would be no more enjoyment of that kind. This was the end, of
+      course. And all because I had refused to pay for a tennis racket and a few
+      other things. They were things she wanted&mdash;yes, needed, if she were
+      to remain at the rectory. And, expecting to remain as she did, it was but
+      natural that she should wish to play tennis and dress as did other young
+      players of her sex. Her life had not been a pleasant one; after all, a
+      little happiness added, even though it did cost me some money, was not
+      much. And it must end soon. It seemed a pity to end it in order to save
+      two pounds eight and threepence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is no use cataloguing all my thoughts. Some I have catalogued and
+      the others were similar. The memory of her face and of the choke in her
+      voice as she said she had been almost happy haunted me. My reason told me
+      that, so far as principle and precedent went, I had acted rightly; but my
+      conscience, which was quite unreasonable, told me I had acted like a boor.
+      I stood it as long as I could, then I shouted at &ldquo;Pet,&rdquo; who was jogging
+      on, apparently half asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whoa!&rdquo; I shouted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pet&rdquo; stopped short in the middle of the road. I hesitated. The principle
+      of the thing&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hang the principle!&rdquo; said I, aloud. Then I turned the trap around and
+      drove back to Wrayton. The blond young man in the sporting-goods store was
+      evidently glad to see me. He must have seen me drive away and have judged
+      that his sale was canceled. His judgment had been very near to right, but
+      now I proved it wrong.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I paid for the racket and the press and the shoes and the rest. They were
+      wrapped and ready.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, sir,&rdquo; said the clerk. &ldquo;I trust everything will be quite
+      satisfactory. I'm sorry the young lady did not take the Slazenger, but the
+      one she chose is not at all bad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was on my way to the door. I stopped and turned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is the&mdash;the what is it&mdash;'Slazenger' so much better?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, very much so, sir. Infinitely better, sir. Here it is; judge for
+      yourself. The very best racket made. And only thirty-two shillings, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a better racket, much better. And, after all, when one is hanging
+      principle the execution may as well be complete.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may give me that one instead of the other,&rdquo; I said, and paid the
+      difference.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On my arrival at the rectory Hephzy met me at the door. The between-maid
+      took the packages from the trap. I entered the drawing-room and Hephzy
+      followed me. She looked very grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances is here, I suppose,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, she came an hour ago. Doctor Bayliss, the younger one, brought her
+      in his auto. She hardly spoke to me, Hosy, and went straight to her room.
+      Hosy, what happened? What is the matter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo; said I, curtly. &ldquo;Nothing unusual, that is. I made a fool of
+      myself once more, that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The between-maid knocked and entered. &ldquo;Where would you wish the parcels,
+      sir?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These are Miss Morley's. Take them to her room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The maid retired to obey orders. Hephzy again turned to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Hosy, what is it?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I told her the whole story. When I had finished Hephzy nodded
+      understandingly. She did not say &ldquo;I told you so,&rdquo; but if she had it would
+      have been quite excusable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think&mdash;I think, perhaps, I had better go up and see her,&rdquo; she
+      said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right. I have no objection.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But she'll ask questions, of course. What shall I tell her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell her I changed my mind. Tell her&mdash;oh, tell her anything you
+      like. Don't bother me. I'm sick of the whole business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She left me and I went into the Reverend Cole's study and closed the door.
+      There were books enough there, but the majority of them were theological
+      works or bulky volumes dealing with questions of religion. Most of my own
+      books were in my room. These did not appeal to me; I was not religiously
+      inclined just then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So I sat dumbly in the rector's desk chair and looked out of the window.
+      After a time there was a knock at the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come in,&rdquo; said I, expecting Hephzy. It was not Hephzy who came, however,
+      but Miss Morley herself. And she closed the door behind her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not speak. She walked over and stood beside me. I did not know what
+      she was going to say and the expression did not help me to guess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a moment she did not say anything. Then:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you changed your mind,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't know. Yet you changed it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Oh yes, I changed it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But why? Was it&mdash;was it because you were ashamed of yourself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess so. As much that as anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You realize that you treated me shamefully. You realize that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; wearily. &ldquo;Yes, I realize everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you felt sorry, after I had gone, and so you changed your mind. Was
+      that it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no use in attempting justification. For the absolute surrender I
+      had made there was no justification. I might as well agree to everything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you will never, never treat me in that way again?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you realize that I was right and understand that I am to do as I
+      please with my money?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you beg my pardon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well. Then I beg yours. I'm sorry, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now I WAS surprised. I turned in my chair and looked at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You beg my pardon?&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;For what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, for everything. I suppose I should have spoken to you before buying
+      those things. You might not have been prepared to pay then and&mdash;and
+      that would have been unpleasant for you. But&mdash;well, you see, I didn't
+      think, and you were so queer and cross when you followed me to the
+      draper's shop, that&mdash;that I&mdash;well, I was disagreeable, too. I am
+      sorry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's all right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you. Is there anything else you wish to say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're sure?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did you buy the Slazenger racket instead of the other one?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had forgotten the &ldquo;Slazenger&rdquo; for the moment. She had caught me
+      unawares.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh&mdash;oh,&rdquo; I stammered, &ldquo;well, it was a much better racket and&mdash;and,
+      as you were buying one, it seemed foolish not to get the best.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know. I wanted the better one very much, but I thought it too
+      expensive. I did not feel that I should spend so much money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's all right. The difference wasn't so much and I made the change on
+      my own responsibility. I&mdash;well, just consider that I bought the
+      racket and you bought none.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She regarded me intently. &ldquo;You mean that you bought it as a present for
+      me?&rdquo; she said slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; yes, if you will accept it as such.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was silent. I remembered perfectly well what she had said concerning
+      presents from me and I wondered what I should do with that racket when she
+      threw it back on my hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I will accept it. Thank you very much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was staggered, but I recovered sufficiently to tell her she was quite
+      welcome.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned to go. Then she turned back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doctor Bayliss asked me to play tennis with him tomorrow morning,&rdquo; she
+      said. &ldquo;May I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May you? Why, of course you may, if you wish, I suppose. Why in the world
+      do you ask my permission?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, don't you wish me to ask? I inferred from what you said at Wrayton
+      that you did wish me to ask permission concerning many things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wished&mdash;I said&mdash;oh, don't be silly, please! Haven't we had
+      silliness enough for one afternoon, Miss Morley.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My Christian name is Frances. May I play tennis with Doctor Bayliss
+      to-morrow morning, Uncle Hosea?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course you may. How could I prevent it, even if I wished, which I
+      don't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, Uncle Hosea. Mr. Worcester is going to play also. We need a
+      fourth. I can borrow another racket. Will you be my partner, Uncle Hosea?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;<i>I</i>? Your partner?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. You play tennis; Auntie says so. Will you play to-morrow morning as
+      my partner?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I play an atrocious game and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So do I. We shall match beautifully. Thank you, Uncle Hosea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Once more she turned to go, and again she turned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is there anything else you wish me to do, Uncle Hosea?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The repetition repeated was too much.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I declared. &ldquo;Stop calling me Uncle Hosea. I'm not your uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I know that; but you have told everyone that you were, haven't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had, unfortunately, so I could make no better reply than to state
+      emphatically that I didn't like the title.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, very well,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;But 'Mr. Knowles' sounds so formal, don't you
+      think. What shall I call you? Never mind, perhaps I can think while I am
+      dressing for dinner. I will see you at dinner, won't I. Au revoir, and
+      thank you again for the racket&mdash;Cousin Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not your cousin, either&mdash;at least not more than a nineteenth
+      cousin. And if you begin calling me 'Hosy' I shall&mdash;I don't know what
+      I shall do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear me, how particular you are! Well then, au revoir&mdash;Kent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When Hephzy came to the study I was still seated in the rector's chair.
+      She was brimful full of curiosity, I know, and ready to ask a dozen
+      questions at once. But I headed off the first of the dozen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; I observed, &ldquo;I have made no less than fifty solemn resolutions
+      since we met that girl&mdash;that Little Frank of yours. You've heard me
+      make them, haven't you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, yes, I suppose I have. If you mean resolutions to tell her the truth
+      about her father and put an end to the scrape we're in, I have, certain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; well, I've made another one now. Never, no matter what happens, will
+      I attempt to tell her a word concerning Strickland Morley or her
+      'inheritance' or anything else. Every time I've tried I've made a blessed
+      idiot of myself and now I'm through. She can stay with us forever and run
+      us into debt to her heart's desire&mdash;I don't care. If she ever learns
+      the truth she sha'n't learn it from me. I'm incapable of telling it. I
+      haven't the sand of a yellow dog and I'm not going to worry about it. I'm
+      through, do you hear&mdash;through.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was my newest resolution. It was a comfort to realize that THIS
+      resolution I should probably stick to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which Complications Become More Complicated
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      And stick to it I did. From that day&mdash;the day of our drive to Wrayton&mdash;on
+      through those wonderful summer days in which she and Hephzy and I were
+      together at the rectory, not once did I attempt to remonstrate with my
+      &ldquo;niece&rdquo; concerning her presumption in inflicting her presence upon us or
+      in spending her money, as she thought it&mdash;our money as I knew it to
+      be&mdash;as she saw fit. Having learned and relearned my lesson&mdash;namely,
+      that I lacked the courage to tell her the truth I had so often declared
+      must be told, having shifted the responsibility to Hephzy's shoulders,
+      having admitted and proclaimed myself, in that respect at least, a yellow
+      dog, I proceeded to take life as I found it, as yellow dogs are supposed
+      to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And, having thus weakly rid myself of care and responsibility, I began to
+      enjoy that life. To enjoy the freedom of it, and the novelty of the
+      surroundings, and the friendship of the good people who were our
+      neighbors. Yes, and to enjoy the home life, the afternoons on the tennis
+      court or the golf course, the evenings in the drawing-room, the &ldquo;teas&rdquo; on
+      the lawn&mdash;either our lawn or someone else's&mdash;the chats together
+      across the dinner-table; to enjoy it all; and, more astonishing still, to
+      accept the companionship of the young person who was responsible for our
+      living in that way as a regular and understood part of that life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not that I understood the young person herself; no Bayport quahaug, who
+      had shunned female companionship as I had for so long, could be expected
+      to understand the whims and changing moods of a girl like Frances Morley.
+      At times she charmed and attracted me, at others she tormented and
+      irritated me. She argued with me one moment and disagreed the next. She
+      laughed at Hephzy's and my American accent and idioms, but when Bayliss,
+      Junior, or one of the curates ventured to criticize an &ldquo;Americanism&rdquo; she
+      was quite as likely to declare that she thought it &ldquo;jolly&rdquo; and &ldquo;so
+      expressive.&rdquo; Against my will I was obliged to join in conversations, to
+      take sides in arguments, to be present when callers came, to make calls.
+      I, who had avoided the society of young people because, being no longer
+      young, I felt out of place among them, was now dragged into such society
+      every day and almost every evening. I did not want to be, but Little Frank
+      seemed to find mischievous pleasure in keeping me there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is good for you,&rdquo; she said, on one occasion, when I had sneaked off to
+      my room and the company of the &ldquo;British Poets.&rdquo; &ldquo;Auntie says you started
+      on your travels in order to find something new to write about. You'll
+      never find it in those musty books; every poem in them is at least seventy
+      years old. If you are going to write of England and my people you must
+      know something about those that are alive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, my dear young lady,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;I have no intention of writing of your
+      people, as you call them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You write of knights and lords and ladies and queens. You do&mdash;or you
+      did&mdash;and you certainly know nothing about THEM.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was quite a bit ruffled. &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;You are quite sure of that,
+      are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am,&rdquo; decidedly. &ldquo;I have read 'The Queen's Amulet' and no queen on earth&mdash;in
+      England, surely&mdash;ever acted or spoke like that one. An American queen
+      might, if there was such a thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She laughed and, provoked as I was, I could not help laughing with her.
+      She had a most infectious laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear young lady&mdash;&rdquo; I began again, but she interrupted me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't call me that,&rdquo; she protested. &ldquo;You're not the Archbishop of
+      Canterbury visiting a girl's school and making a speech. You asked me not
+      to call you 'Uncle Hosea.' If you say 'dear young lady' to me again I
+      shall address you publicly as 'dear old Nunky.' Don't be silly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed again. &ldquo;But you ARE young,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what of it. Perhaps neither of us likes to be reminded of our age.
+      I'm sure you don't; I never saw anyone more sensitive on the subject.
+      There! there! put away those silly old books and come down to the
+      drawing-room. I'm going to sing. Mr. Worcester has brought in a lot of new
+      music.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Reluctantly I closed the volume I had in my hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;I'll come if you wish. But I shall only be in the
+      way, as I always am. Mr. Worcester didn't plead for my company, did he? Do
+      you know I think he will bear up manfully if I don't appear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She regarded me with disapproval.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't be childish in your old age,&rdquo; she snapped, &ldquo;Are you coming?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I went, of course, and&mdash;it may have been by way of reward&mdash;she
+      sang several old-fashioned, simple ballads which I had found in a
+      dog's-eared portfolio in the music cabinet and which I liked because my
+      mother used to sing them when I was a little chap. I had asked for them
+      before and she had ignored the request.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This time she sang them and Hephzy, sitting beside me in the darkest
+      corner reached over and laid a hand on mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her mother all over again,&rdquo; she whispered. &ldquo;Ardelia used to sing those.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Next day, on the tennis court, she played with Herbert Bayliss against
+      Worcester and me, and seemed to enjoy beating us six to one. The only
+      regret she expressed was that she and her partner had not made it a &ldquo;love
+      set.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Altogether she was a decidedly vitalizing influence, an influence that
+      was, I began to admit to myself, a good one for me. I needed to be kept
+      alive and active, and here, in this wide-awake household, I couldn't be
+      anything else. The future did not look as dull and hopeless as it had when
+      I left Bayport. I even began to consider the possibilities of another
+      novel, to hope that I might write one. Jim Campbell's &ldquo;prescription,&rdquo;
+       although working in quite a different way from that which he and I had
+      planned, was working nevertheless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Matthews, at the Camford Street office, was forwarding my letters and
+      honoring my drafts with promptness. I received a note each week from
+      Campbell. I had written him all particulars concerning Little Frank and
+      our move to the rectory, and he professed to see in it only a huge joke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell your Miss Cahoon,&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;that I am going to turn Spiritualist
+      right away. I believe in dreams now, and presentiments and all sorts of
+      things. I am trying to dream out a plot for a novel by you. Had a
+      roof-garden supper the other night and that gave me a fine start, but I'll
+      have to tackle another one before I get sufficient thrills to furnish
+      forth one of your gems. Seriously though, old man, this whole thing will
+      do you a world of good. Nothing short of an earthquake would have shaken
+      you out of your Cape Cod dumps and it looks to me as if you and&mdash;what's
+      her name&mdash;Hephzibah, had had the quake. What are you going to do with
+      the Little Frank person in the end? Can't you marry her off to a wealthy
+      Englishman? Or, if not that, why not marry her yourself? She'd turn a dead
+      quahaug into a live lobster, I should imagine, if anyone could. Great
+      idea! What?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His &ldquo;great idea&rdquo; was received with the contempt it deserved. I tore up the
+      letter and threw it into the waste basket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Hephzy herself spoke of matrimony and Little Frank soon after this. We
+      were alone together; Frances had gone on a horseback ride with Herbert
+      Bayliss and a female cousin who was spending the day at &ldquo;Jasmine Gables.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy,&rdquo; said Hephzy, &ldquo;do you realize the summer is half over? It's the
+      middle of July now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So it was, although it seemed scarcely possible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she went on. &ldquo;Our lease of this place is up the first of October.
+      We shall be startin' for home then, I presume likely, sha'n't we.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose so. We can't stay over here indefinitely. Life isn't all
+      skittles and&mdash;and tea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's so. I don't know what skittles are, but I know what tea is. Land
+      sakes! I should say I did. They tell me the English national flower is a
+      rose. It ought to be a tea-plant blossom, if there is such a thing. Hosy,&rdquo;
+       with a sudden return to seriousness, &ldquo;what are we goin' to do with&mdash;with
+      HER when the time comes for us to go?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; I answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you going to take her to America with us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! Well, we'll have to know then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose we shall; but,&rdquo; defiantly, &ldquo;I'm not going to worry about it
+      till the time comes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! Well, you've changed, that's all I've got to say. 'Twan't so long
+      ago that you did nothin' BUT worry. I never saw anybody change the way you
+      have anyway.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In what way?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In every way. You aren't like the same person you used to be. Why,
+      through that last year of ours in Bayport I used to think sometimes you
+      were older than I was&mdash;older in the way you thought and acted, I
+      mean. Now you act as if you were twenty-one. Cavortin' around, playin'
+      tennis and golf and everything! What has got into you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know. Jim Campbell's prescription is taking effect, I guess. He
+      said the change of air and environment would do me good. I tell you,
+      Hephzy, I have made up my mind to enjoy life while I can. I realize as
+      well as you do that the trouble is bound to come, but I'm not going to let
+      it trouble me beforehand. And I advise you to do the same.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I've been tryin' to, but sometimes I can't help wonderin' and
+      dreadin'. Perhaps I'm havin' my dread for nothin'. It may be that, by the
+      time we're ready to start for Bayport, Little Frank will be provided for.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Provided for? What do you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean provided for by somebody else. There's at least two candidates for
+      the job: Don't you think so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean Mr. Worcester and Herbert Bayliss. That Worcester man is a gone
+      case, or I'm no judge. He's keepin' company with Frances, or would, if
+      she'd let him. 'Twould be funny if she married a curate, wouldn't it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not very,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;Married life on a curate's salary is not my idea
+      of humor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose likely that's so. And I can't imagine her a minister's wife,
+      can you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I could not; nor, unless I was greatly mistaken, could the young lady
+      herself. In fact, anything as serious as marriage was far from her
+      thoughts at present, I judged. But Hephzy did not seem so sure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she went on, &ldquo;I don't think the curate's got much chance. But young
+      Doctor Bayliss is different. He's good-lookin' and smart and he's got
+      prospects. I like him first-rate and I think Frances likes him, too. I
+      shouldn't wonder if THAT affair came to somethin'. Wouldn't it be splendid
+      if it did!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I said that it would. And yet, even as I said it, I was conscious of a
+      peculiar feeling of insincerity. I liked young Bayliss. He was all that
+      Hephzy had said, and more. He would, doubtless, make a good husband for
+      any girl. And his engagement to Frances Morley might make easier the
+      explanation which was bound to come. I believed I could tell Herbert
+      Bayliss the truth concerning the ridiculous &ldquo;claim.&rdquo; A man would be
+      susceptible to reason and proof; I could convince him. I should have
+      welcomed the possibility, but, somehow or other, I did not. Somehow or
+      other, the idea of her marrying anyone was repugnant to me. I did not like
+      to think of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh dear!&rdquo; sighed Hephzy; &ldquo;if only things were different. If only she knew
+      all about her father and his rascality and was livin' with us because she
+      wanted to&mdash;if that was the way of it, it would be so different. If
+      you and I had really adopted her! If she only was your niece.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo; I snapped. &ldquo;She isn't my niece.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know it. That's what makes your goodness to her seem so wonderful to
+      me. You treat her as if you cared as much as I do. And of course you
+      don't. It isn't natural you should. She's my sister's child, and she's
+      hardly any relation to you at all. You're awful good, Hosy. She's noticed
+      it, too. I think she likes you now a lot better than she did; she as much
+      as said so. She's beginning to understand you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo; I said again. Understand me! I didn't understand myself.
+      Nevertheless I was foolishly pleased to hear that she liked me. It was
+      pleasant to be liked even by one who was destined to hate me later on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope she won't feel too hard against us,&rdquo; continued Hephzy. &ldquo;I can't
+      bear to think of her doin' that. She&mdash;she seems so near and dear to
+      me now. We&mdash;I shall miss her dreadfully when it's all over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I think she hoped that I might say that I should miss her, also. But I did
+      not say anything of the kind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was resolved not to permit myself to miss her. Hadn't I been scheming
+      and planning to get rid of her ever since she thrust herself upon us? To
+      be sorry when she, at last, was gotten rid of would be too idiotic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; observed Hephzy, in conclusion, &ldquo;perhaps she and Doctor Bayliss
+      will make a match after all. We ought to help it all we can, I suppose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This conversation had various effects upon me. One was to make me
+      unaccountably &ldquo;blue&rdquo; for the rest of that day. Another was that I regarded
+      the visits of Worcester and Herbert Bayliss with a different eye. I
+      speculated foolishly concerning those visits and watched both young
+      gentlemen more closely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not have to watch the curate long. Suddenly he ceased calling at the
+      rectory. Not altogether, of course, but he called only occasionally and
+      his manner toward my &ldquo;niece&rdquo; was oddly formal and constrained. She was
+      very kind to him, kinder than before, I thought, but there was a
+      difference in their manner. Hephzy, of course, had an explanation ready.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's given him his clearance papers,&rdquo; was her way of expressing it.
+      &ldquo;She's told him that it's no use so far as he's concerned. Well, I never
+      did think she cared for him. And that leaves the course clear for the
+      doctor, doesn't it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor took advantage of the clear course. His calls and invitations
+      for rides and tennis and golf were more frequent than ever. She must have
+      understood; but, being a normal young woman, as well as a very, very
+      pretty one, she was a bit of a coquette and kept the boy&mdash;for, after
+      all, he was scarcely more than that&mdash;at arm's length and in a state
+      of alternate hope and despair. I shared his varying moods. If he could not
+      be sure of her feelings toward him, neither could I, and I found myself
+      wondering, wondering constantly. It was foolish for me to wonder, of
+      course. Why should I waste time in speculation on that subject? Why should
+      I care whether she married or not? What difference did it make to me whom
+      she married? I resolved not to think of her at all. And that resolution,
+      like so many I had made, amounted to nothing, for I did think of her
+      constantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then to add a new complication to the already over-complicated
+      situation, came A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances and Herbert Bayliss were scheduled for nine holes of golf on the
+      Manor House course that morning. I had had no intention of playing. My
+      projected novel had reached the stage where, plot building completed, I
+      had really begun the writing. The first chapter was finished and I had
+      intended beginning the second one that day. But, just as I seated myself
+      at the desk in the Reverend Cole's study, the young lady appeared and
+      insisted that the twosome become a threesome, that I leave my &ldquo;stupid old
+      papers and pencils&rdquo; and come for a round on the links. I protested, of
+      course, but she was in one of her wilful moods that morning and declared
+      that she would not play unless I did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will do you good,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You'll write all the better this
+      afternoon. Now, come along.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is Doctor Bayliss as anxious for my company as you seem to be?&rdquo; I asked
+      maliciously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She tossed her head. &ldquo;Of course he is,&rdquo; she retorted. &ldquo;Besides it doesn't
+      make any difference whether he is or not. <i>I</i> want you to play, and
+      that is enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! he may not agree with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then he can play by himself. It will do him good, too. He takes
+      altogether too much for granted. Come! I am waiting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So, after a few more fruitless protests, I reluctantly laid aside the
+      paper and pencils, changed to golfing regalia and, with my bag of clubs on
+      my shoulder, joined the two young people on the lawn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances greeted me very cordially indeed. Her clubs&mdash;I had bought
+      them myself on one of my trips to London: having once yielded, in the
+      matter of the tennis outfit, I now bought various little things which I
+      thought would please her&mdash;were carried by Herbert Bayliss, who, of
+      course, also carried his own. His greeting was not as enthusiastic. He
+      seemed rather glum and out of sorts. Frances addressed most of her
+      conversation to me and I was inclined to think the pair had had some sort
+      of disagreement, what Hephzy would have called a &ldquo;lover's quarrel,&rdquo;
+       perhaps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We walked across the main street of Mayberry, through the lane past the
+      cricket field, on by the path over the pastures, and entered the great
+      gate of the Manor, the gate with the Carey arms emblazoned above it. Then
+      a quarter of a mile over rolling hills, with rare shrubs and flowers
+      everywhere, brought us to the top of the hill at the edge of the little
+      wood which these English people persisted in calling a &ldquo;forest.&rdquo; The first
+      tee was there. You drove&mdash;if you were skillful or lucky&mdash;down
+      the long slope to the green two hundred yards away. If you were neither
+      skillful nor lucky you were quite as likely to drive into the long grass
+      on either side of the fair green. Then you hunted for your ball and,
+      having found it, wasted more or less labor and temper in pounding it out
+      of the &ldquo;rough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the first tee a man arrayed in the perfection of natty golfing togs was
+      practicing his &ldquo;swing.&rdquo; A caddy was carrying his bag. This of itself
+      argued the swinger a person of privilege and consequence, for caddies on
+      those links were strictly forbidden by the Lady of the Manor. Why they
+      were forbidden she alone knew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As we approached the tee the player turned to look at us. He was not a
+      Mayberryite and yet there was something familiar in his appearance. He
+      regarded us for a moment and then, dropping his driver, lounged toward me
+      and extended his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I say!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;It is you, isn't it! How do you do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Mr. Heathcroft!&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;This is a surprise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We shook hands. He, apparently, was not at all surprised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heard about your being here, Knowles,&rdquo; he drawled. &ldquo;My aunt told me; that
+      is, she said there were Americans at the rectory and when she mentioned
+      the name I knew, of course, it must be you. Odd you should have located
+      here, isn't it! Jolly glad to see you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I said I was glad to see him. Then I introduced my companions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bayliss and I have met before,&rdquo; observed Heathcroft. &ldquo;Played a round with
+      him in the tournament last year. How do, Bayliss? Don't think Miss Morley
+      and I have met, though. Great pleasure, really. Are you a resident of
+      Mayberry, Miss Morley?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances said that she was a temporary resident.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! visiting here, I suppose?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Yes, I am visiting. I am living at the rectory, also.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Morley is Mr. Knowles's niece,&rdquo; explained Bayliss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Heathcroft seemed surprised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; he drawled. &ldquo;Didn't know you had a niece, Knowles. She wasn't
+      with you on the ship, now was she.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Morley had been living in England&mdash;here and on the Continent,&rdquo;
+       I answered. I could have kicked Bayliss for his officious explanation of
+      kinship. Now I should have that ridiculous &ldquo;uncle&rdquo; business to contend
+      with, in our acquaintance with Heathcroft as with the Baylisses and the
+      rest. Frances, I am sure, read my thoughts, for the corners of her mouth
+      twitched and she looked away over the course.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Won't you ask Mr. Heathcroft to join our game&mdash;Uncle?&rdquo; she said. She
+      had dropped the hated &ldquo;Hosea,&rdquo; I am happy to say, but in the presence of
+      those outside the family she still addressed me as &ldquo;Uncle.&rdquo; Of course she
+      could not do otherwise without arousing comment, but I did not like it.
+      Uncle! there was a venerable, antique quality in the term which I resented
+      more and more each time I heard it. It emphasized the difference in our
+      ages&mdash;and that difference needed no emphasis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Heathcroft looked pleased at the invitation, but he hesitated in accepting
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I shouldn't do that, really,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;I should be in the way,
+      now shouldn't I.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bayliss, to whom the remark was addressed, made no answer. I judged that
+      he did not care for the honor of the Heathcroft company. But Frances,
+      after a glance in his direction, answered for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, not in the least,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;A foursome is ever so much more
+      sporting than a threesome. Mr. Heathcroft, you and I will play Doctor
+      Bayliss and&mdash;Uncle. Shall we?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Heathcroft declared himself delighted and honored. He looked the former.
+      He had scarcely taken his eyes from Miss Morley since their introduction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That match was hard fought. Our new acquaintance was a fair player and he
+      played to win. Frances was learning to play and had a natural aptitude for
+      the game. I played better than my usual form and I needed to, for Bayliss
+      played wretchedly. He &ldquo;dubbed&rdquo; his approaches and missed easy putts. If he
+      had kept his eye on the ball instead of on his opponents he might have
+      done better, but that he would not do. He watched Heathcroft and Miss
+      Morley continually, and the more he watched the less he seemed to like
+      what he saw.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps he was not altogether to blame, everything considered. Frances was
+      quite aware of the scrutiny and apparently enjoyed his discomfiture. She&mdash;well,
+      perhaps she did not precisely flirt with A. Carleton Heathcroft, but she
+      was very, very agreeable to him and exulted over the winning of each hole
+      without regard to the feelings of the losers. As for Heathcroft, himself,
+      he was quite as agreeable to her, complimented her on her playing,
+      insisted on his caddy's carrying her clubs, assisted her over the rough
+      places on the course, and generally acted the gallant in a most polished
+      manner. Bayliss and I were beaten three down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Heathcroft walked with us as far as the lodge gate. Then he said good-by
+      with evident reluctance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you so much for the game, Miss Morley,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Enjoyed it
+      hugely. You play remarkably well, if you don't mind my saying so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances was pleased. &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;I know it isn't true&mdash;that
+      about my playing&mdash;but it is awfully nice of you to say it. I hope we
+      may play together again. Are you staying here long?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't know, I'm sure. I am visiting my aunt and she will keep me as long
+      as she can. Seems to think I have neglected her of late. Of course we must
+      play again. By the way, Knowles, why don't you run over and meet Lady
+      Carey? She'll be awfully pleased to meet any friends of mine. Bring Miss
+      Morley with you. Perhaps she would care to see the greenhouses. They're
+      quite worth looking over, really. Like to have you, too, Bayliss, of
+      course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bayliss's thanks were not effusive. Frances, however, declared that she
+      should love to see the greenhouses. For my part, common politeness
+      demanded my asking Mr. Heathcroft to call at the rectory. He accepted the
+      invitation at once and heartily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He called the very next day and joined us at tea. The following afternoon
+      we, Hephzy, Frances and I, visited the greenhouses. On this occasion we
+      met, for the first time, the lady of the Manor herself. Lady Kent Carey
+      was a stout, gray-haired person, of very decided manner and a mannish
+      taste in dress. She was gracious and affable, although I suspected that
+      much of her affability toward the American visitors was assumed because
+      she wished to please her nephew. A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire, was
+      plainly her ladyship's pride and pet. She called him &ldquo;Carleton, dear,&rdquo; and
+      &ldquo;Carleton, dear&rdquo; was, in his aunt's estimation, the model of everything
+      desirable in man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The greenhouses were spacious and the display of rare plants and flowers
+      more varied and beautiful than any I had ever seen. We walked through the
+      grounds surrounding the mansion, and viewed with becoming reverence the
+      trees planted by various distinguished personages, His Royal Highness the
+      Prince of Wales, Her late Majesty Queen Victoria, Ex-President Carnot of
+      France, and others. Hephzy whispered to me as we were standing before the
+      Queen Victoria specimen:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't believe Queen Victoria ever planted that in the world, do you,
+      Hosy. She'd look pretty, a fleshy old lady like her, puffin' away diggin'
+      holes with a spade, now would she!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hastily explained the probability that the hole was dug by someone else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess so,&rdquo; she added. &ldquo;And the tree was put in by someone else and the
+      dirt put back by the same one. Queen Victoria planted that tree the way
+      Susanna Wixon said she broke my best platter, by not doin' a single thing
+      to it. I could plant a whole grove that way and not get a bit tired.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Carey bade us farewell at the fish-ponds and asked us to come again.
+      Her nephew, however, accompanied us all the way home&mdash;that is, he
+      accompanied Frances, while Hephzy and I made up the rear guard. The next
+      day he dropped in for some tennis. Herbert Bayliss was there before him,
+      so the tennis was abandoned, and a three-cornered chat on the lawn
+      substituted. Heathcroft treated the young doctor with a polite
+      condescension which would have irritated me exceedingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From then on, during the fortnight which followed, there was a great deal
+      of Heathcroft in the rectory social circle. And when he was not there, it
+      was fairly certain that he and Frances were together somewhere, golfing,
+      walking or riding. Sometimes I accompanied them, sometimes Herbert Bayliss
+      made one of the party. Frances' behavior to the young doctor was
+      tantalizingly contradictory. At times she was very cordial and kind, at
+      others almost cold and repellent. She kept the young fellow in a state of
+      uncertainty most of the time. She treated Heathcroft much the same, but
+      there was this difference between them&mdash;Heathcroft didn't seem to
+      mind; her whims appeared to amuse rather than to annoy him. Bayliss, on
+      the contrary, was either in the seventh heaven of bliss or the subcellar
+      of despair. I sympathized with him, to an extent; the young lady's
+      attitude toward me had an effect which, in my case, was ridiculous. My
+      reason told me that I should not care at all whether she liked me or
+      whether she didn't, whether I pleased or displeased her. But I did care, I
+      couldn't help it, I cared altogether too much. A middle-aged quahaug
+      should be phlegmatic and philosophical; I once had a reputation for both
+      qualities, but I seemed to possess neither now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I found myself speculating and wondering more than ever concerning the
+      outcome of all this. Was there anything serious in the wind at all?
+      Herbert Bayliss was in love with Frances Morley, that was obvious now. But
+      was she in love with him? I doubted it. Did she care in the least for him?
+      I did not know. She seemed to enjoy his society. I did not want her to
+      fall in love with A. Carleton Heathcroft, certainly. Nor, to be perfectly
+      honest, did I wish her to marry Bayliss, although I like him much better
+      than I did Lady Carey's blasé nephew. Somehow, I didn't like the idea of
+      her falling in love with anyone. The present state of affairs in our
+      household was pleasant enough. We three were happy together. Why could not
+      that happiness continue just as it was?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The answer was obvious: It could not continue. Each day that passed
+      brought the inevitable end nearer. My determination to put the thought of
+      that end from my mind and enjoy the present was shaken. In the solitude of
+      the study, in the midst of my writing, after I had gone to my room for the
+      night, I found my thoughts drifting toward the day in October when, our
+      lease of the rectory ended, we must pack up and go somewhere. And when we
+      went, would she go with us? Hardly. She would demand the promised
+      &ldquo;settlement,&rdquo; and then&mdash;What then? Explanations&mdash;quarrels&mdash;parting.
+      A parting for all time. I had reached a point where, like Hephzy, I would
+      have gladly suggested a real &ldquo;adoption,&rdquo; the permanent addition to our
+      family of Strickland Morley's daughter, but she would not consent to that.
+      She was proud&mdash;very proud. And she idolized her father's memory. No,
+      she would not remain under any such conditions&mdash;I knew it. And the
+      certainty of that knowledge brought with it a pang which I could not
+      analyze. A man of my age and temperament should not have such feelings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy did not fancy Heathcroft. She had liked him well enough during our
+      first acquaintance aboard the steamer, but now, when she knew him better,
+      she did not fancy him. His lofty, condescending manner irritated her and,
+      as he seemed to enjoy joking at her expense, the pair had some amusing
+      set-tos. I will say this for Hephzy: In the most of these she gave at
+      least as good as she received.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For example: we were sitting about the tea-table on the lawn, Hephzy,
+      Frances, Doctor and Mrs. Bayliss, their son, and Heathcroft. The
+      conversation had drifted to the subject of eatables, a topic suggested,
+      doubtless, by the plum cake and cookies on the table. Mr. Heathcroft was
+      amusing himself by poking fun at the American custom of serving cereals at
+      breakfast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the variety is amazing,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;Oats and wheat and corn! My
+      word! I felt like some sort of animal&mdash;a horse, by Jove! We feed our
+      horses that sort of thing over here, Miss Cahoon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy sniffed. &ldquo;So do we,&rdquo; she admitted, &ldquo;but we eat 'em ourselves,
+      sometimes, when they're cooked as they ought to be. I think some breakfast
+      foods are fine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you indeed? What an extraordinary taste! Do you eat hay as well, may I
+      ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, of course we don't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not? Why draw the line? I should think a bit of hay might be the&mdash;ah&mdash;the
+      crowning tit-bit to a breakfasting American. Your horses and donkeys enjoy
+      it quite as much as they do oats, don't they?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't know, I'm sure. I'm neither a horse nor a donkey, I hope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Oh, yes. But I assure you, Miss Morley, I had extraordinary
+      experiences on the other side. I visited in a place called Milwaukee and
+      my host there insisted on my trying a new cereal each morning. We did the
+      oats and the corn and all the rest and, upon my word, I expected the hay.
+      It was the only donkey food he didn't have in the house, and I don't see
+      why he hadn't provided a supply of that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps he didn't know you were comin',&rdquo; observed Hephzy, cheerfully.
+      &ldquo;Won't you have another cup, Mrs. Bayliss? Or a cooky or somethin'?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor's wife consented to the refilling of her cup.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose&mdash;what do you call them?&mdash;cereals, are an American
+      custom,&rdquo; she said, evidently aware that her hostess's feelings were
+      ruffled. &ldquo;Every country has its customs, so travelers say. Even our own
+      has some, doubtless, though I can't recall any at the moment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Heathcroft stroked his mustache.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; he drawled, &ldquo;we have some, possibly; but our breakfasts are not as
+      queer as the American breakfasts. You mustn't mind my fun, Miss Cahoon, I
+      hope you're not offended.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a bit,&rdquo; was the calm reply. &ldquo;We humans ARE animals, after all, I
+      suppose, and some like one kind of food and some another. Donkeys like hay
+      and pigs like sweets, and I don't know as I hadn't just as soon live in a
+      stable as a sty. Do help yourself to the cake, Mr. Heathcroft.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      No, our aristocratic acquaintance did not, as a general rule, come out
+      ahead in these little encounters and I more than once was obliged to
+      suppress a chuckle at my plucky relative's spirited retorts. Frances, too,
+      seemed to appreciate and enjoy the Yankee victories. Her prejudice against
+      America had, so far as outward expression went, almost disappeared. She
+      was more likely to champion than criticize our ways and habits now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, in spite of all this, she seemed to enjoy the Heathcroft society. The
+      two were together a great deal. The village people noticed the intimacy
+      and comments reached my ears which were not intended for them. Hephzy and
+      I had some discussions on the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't suppose he means anything serious, do you, Hosy?&rdquo; she asked.
+      &ldquo;Or that she thinks he does?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; I answered. I didn't like the idea any better than she
+      did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope not. Of course he's a big man around here. When his aunt dies
+      he'll come in for the estate and the money, so everybody says. And if
+      Frances should marry him she'd be&mdash;I don't know whether she'd be a
+      'Lady' or not, but she'd have an awful high place in society.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose she would. But I hope she won't do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So do I, for poor young Doctor Bayliss's sake, if nothin' else. He's so
+      good and so patient with it all. And he's just eaten up with jealousy;
+      anybody can see that. I'm scared to death that he and this Heathcroft man
+      will have some sort of&mdash;of a fight or somethin'. That would be awful,
+      wouldn't it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not answer. My apprehensions were not on Herbert Bayliss's account.
+      He could look out for himself. It was Frances' happiness I was thinking
+      of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy,&rdquo; said Hephzy, very seriously indeed, &ldquo;there's somethin' else. I'm
+      not sure that Mr. Heathcroft is serious at all. Somethin' Mrs. Bayliss
+      said to me makes me feel a little mite anxious. She said Carleton
+      Heathcroft was a great lady's man. She told me some things about him that&mdash;that&mdash;Well,
+      I wish Frances wasn't so friendly with him, that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I shrugged my shoulders, pretending more indifference than I felt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's a sensible girl,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;She doesn't need a guardian.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know, but&mdash;but he's way up in society, Lady Carey's heir and all
+      that. She can't help bein' flattered by his attentions to her. Any girl
+      would be, especially an English girl that thinks as much of class and all
+      that as they do over here and as she does. I wish I knew how she did feel
+      toward him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don't you ask her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy shook her head. &ldquo;I wouldn't dare,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;She'd take my head
+      off. We're on awful thin ice, you and I, with her, as it is. She treats us
+      real nicely now, but that's because we don't interfere. If I should try
+      just once to tell her what she ought to do she'd flare up like a bonfire.
+      And then do the other thing to show her independence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose she would,&rdquo; I admitted, gloomily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know she would. No, we mustn't say anything to her. But&mdash;but you
+      might say somethin' to him, mightn't you. Just hint around and find out
+      what he does mean by bein' with her so much. Couldn't you do that, Hosy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled. &ldquo;Possibly I could, but I sha'n't,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;He would tell me
+      to go to perdition, probably, and I shouldn't blame him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why no, he wouldn't. He thinks you're her uncle, her guardian, you know.
+      You'd have a right to do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not propose to exercise that right, and I said so, emphatically. And
+      yet, before that week was ended, I did do what amounted to that very
+      thing. The reason which led to this rash act on my part was a talk I had
+      with Lady Kent Carey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I met her ladyship on the putting green of the ninth hole of the golf
+      course. I was playing a round alone. She came strolling over the green,
+      dressed as mannishly as usual, but carrying a very feminine parasol, which
+      by comparison with the rest of her get-up, looked as out of place as a
+      silk hat on the head of a girl in a ball dress. She greeted me very
+      affably, waited until I putted out, and then sat beside me on the bench
+      under the big oak and chatted for some time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The subject of her conversation was her nephew. She was, apparently, only
+      too glad to talk about him at any time. He was her dead sister's child and
+      practically the only relative she had. He seemed like a son to her. Such a
+      charming fellow, wasn't he, now? And so considerate and kind to her.
+      Everyone liked him; he was a great favorite.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he is very fond of you, Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;He enjoys your
+      acquaintance so much. He says that there is a freshness and novelty about
+      you Americans which is quite delightfully amusing. This Miss&mdash;ah&mdash;Cahoon&mdash;your
+      cousin, I think she is&mdash;is a constant joy to him. He never tires of
+      repeating her speeches. He does it very well, don't you think. He mimics
+      the American accent wonderfully.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I agreed that the Heathcroft American accent was wonderful indeed. It was
+      all that and more. Lady Carey went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And this Miss Morley, your niece,&rdquo; she said, poking holes in the turf
+      with the tip of her parasol, &ldquo;she is a charming girl, isn't she. She and
+      Carleton are quite friendly, really.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I admitted, &ldquo;they seem to be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Tell me about your niece, Mr. Knowles. Has she lived in England long?
+      Who were her parents?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I dodged the ticklish subject as best I could, told her that Frances'
+      father was an Englishman, her mother an American, and that most of the
+      young lady's life had been spent in France. I feared more searching
+      questions, but she did not ask them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see,&rdquo; she said, nodding, and was silent for a moment. Then she changed
+      the subject, returning once more to her beloved Carleton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's a dear boy,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;I am planning great things for him. Some
+      day he will have the estate here, of course. And I am hoping to get him
+      the seat in Parliament when our party returns to power, as it is sure to
+      do before long. He will marry then; in fact everything is arranged, so far
+      as that goes. Of course there is no actual engagement as yet, but we all
+      understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had been rather bored, now I was interested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;And may I ask who is the fortunate young lady?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A daughter of an old friend of ours in Warwickshire&mdash;a fine family,
+      one of the oldest in England. She and Carleton have always been so fond of
+      each other. Her parents and I have considered the affair settled for
+      years. The young people will be so happy together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here was news. I offered congratulations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you so much,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It is pleasant to know that his future is
+      provided for. Margaret will make him a good wife. She worships him. If
+      anything should happen to&mdash;ah&mdash;disturb the arrangement her heart
+      would break, I am sure. Of course nothing will happen. I should not permit
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I made some comment, I don't remember what. She rose from the bench.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been chatting about family affairs and matchmaking like a
+      garrulous old woman, haven't I,&rdquo; she observed, smiling. &ldquo;So silly of me.
+      You have been charmingly kind to listen, Mr. Knowles. Forgive me, won't
+      you. Carleton dear is my one interest in life and I talk of him on the
+      least excuse, or without any. So sorry to have inflicted my garrulity upon
+      you. I may count upon you entering our invitation golf tournament next
+      month, may I not? Oh, do say yes. Thank you so much. Au revoir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She moved off, as imposing and majestic as a frigate under full sail. I
+      walked slowly toward home, thinking hard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I should have been flattered, perhaps, at her taking me into confidence
+      concerning her nephew's matrimonial projects. If I had believed the
+      &ldquo;garrulity,&rdquo; as she called it, to have been unintentional, I might have
+      been flattered. But I did not so believe. I was pretty certain there was
+      intention in it and that she expected Frances and Hephzy and me to take it
+      as a warning. Carleton dear was, in her eyes, altogether too friendly with
+      the youngest tenant in Mayberry rectory. The &ldquo;garrulity&rdquo; was a notice to
+      keep hands off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was not incensed at her; she amused me, rather. But with Heathcroft I
+      was growing more incensed every moment. Engaged to be married, was he! He
+      and this Warwickshire girl of &ldquo;fine family&rdquo; had been &ldquo;so fond&rdquo; of each
+      other for years. Everything was understood, was it? Then what did he mean
+      by his attentions to Frances, attentions which half of Mayberry was
+      probably discussing at the moment? The more I considered his conduct the
+      angrier I became. It was the worst time possible for a meeting with A.
+      Carleton Heathcroft, and yet meet him I did at the loneliest and most
+      secluded spot in the hedged lane leading to the lodge gate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He greeted me cordially enough, if his languid drawl could be called
+      cordial.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, Knowles,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Been doing the round I see. A bit stupid by
+      oneself, I should think. What? Miss Morley and I have been riding. Had a
+      ripping canter together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was an unfortunate remark, just at that time. It had the effect of
+      spurring my determination to the striking point. I would have it out with
+      him then and there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heathcroft,&rdquo; I said, bluntly, &ldquo;I am not sure that I approve of Miss
+      Morley's riding with you so often.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He regarded me with astonishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't approve!&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;And why not? There's no danger. She
+      rides extremely well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's not a question of danger. It is one of proprieties, if I must put it
+      that way. She is a young woman, hardly more than a girl, and she probably
+      does not realize that being seen in your company so frequently is likely
+      to cause comment and gossip. Her aunt and I realize it, however.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His expression of surprise was changing to one of languid amusement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really!&rdquo; he drawled. &ldquo;By Jove! I say, Knowles, am I such a dangerously
+      fascinating character? You flatter me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know anything concerning your character. I do know that there is
+      gossip. I am not accusing you of anything. I have no doubt you have been
+      merely careless. Your intentions may have been&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He interrupted me. &ldquo;My intentions?&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;My dear fellow, I have
+      no intentions. None whatever concerning your niece, if that is what you
+      mean. She is a jolly pretty girl and jolly good company. I like her and
+      she seems to like me. That is all, upon my word it is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was quite sincere, I was convinced of it. But I had gone too far to
+      back out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you have been thoughtless&mdash;or careless,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;It seems to
+      me that you should have considered her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Considered her! Oh, I say now! Why should I consider her pray?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why shouldn't you? You are much older than she is and a man of the world
+      besides. And you are engaged to be married, or so I am told.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His smile disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now who the devil told you that?&rdquo; he demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was told, by one who should know, that you were engaged, or what
+      amounts to the same thing. It is true, isn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course it's true! But&mdash;but&mdash;why, good God, man! you weren't
+      under the impression that I was planning to marry your niece, were you?
+      Oh, I say! that would be TOO good!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed heartily. He did not appear in the least annoyed or angry, but
+      seemed to consider the whole affair a huge joke. I failed to see the joke,
+      myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no,&rdquo; he went on, before I could reply, &ldquo;not that, I assure you. One
+      can't afford luxuries of that kind, unless one is a luckier beggar than I
+      am. Auntie is attending to all that sort of thing. She has me booked, you
+      know, and I can't afford to play the high-spirited independent with her. I
+      should say not! Rather!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you think I've been a bit too prevalent in your niece's neighborhood,
+      do you?&rdquo; he observed. &ldquo;Sorry. I'd best keep off the lawn a bit, you mean
+      to say, I suppose. Very well! I'll mind the notice boards, of course. Very
+      glad you spoke. Possibly I have been a bit careless. No offence meant,
+      Knowles, and none taken, I trust.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; I said, with some reluctance. &ldquo;I'm glad you understand my&mdash;our
+      position, and take my&mdash;my hint so well. I disliked to give it, but I
+      thought it best that we have a clear understanding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course! Stern uncle and pretty niece, and all that sort of thing. You
+      Americans are queer beggars. You don't strike me as the usual type of
+      stern uncle at all, Knowles. Oh, by the way, does the niece know that
+      uncle is putting up the notice boards?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course she doesn't,&rdquo; I replied, hastily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His smile broadened. &ldquo;I wonder what she'll say when she finds it out,&rdquo; he
+      observed. &ldquo;She has never struck me as being greatly in awe of her
+      relatives. I should call HER independent, if I was asked. Well, farewell.
+      You and I may have some golf together still, I presume? Good! By-by.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He sauntered on, his serene coolness and calm condescension apparently
+      unruffled. I continued on my way also. But my serenity had vanished. I had
+      the feeling that I had come off second-best in the encounter. I had made a
+      fool of myself, I feared. And more than all, I wondered, as he did, what
+      Frances Morley would say when she learned of my interference in her
+      personal affairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I foresaw trouble&mdash;more trouble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which the Truth Is Told at Last
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      I said nothing to Hephzibah or Frances of my talk with Lady Carey or with
+      Heathcroft. I was not proud of my share in the putting up of &ldquo;the notice
+      boards.&rdquo; I did not mention meeting either the titled aunt or the favored
+      nephew. I kept quiet concerning them both and nervously awaited
+      developments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were none immediately. That day and the next passed and nothing of
+      importance happened. It did seem to me, however, that Frances was rather
+      quiet during luncheon on the third day. She said very little and several
+      times I found her regarding me with an odd expression. My guilty
+      conscience smote me and I expected to be asked questions answering which
+      would be difficult. But the questions were not asked&mdash;then. I went to
+      my study and attempted to write; the attempt was a failure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For an hour or so I stared hopelessly at the blank paper. I hadn't an idea
+      in my head, apparently. At last I threw down the pencil and gave up the
+      battle for the day. I was not in a writing mood. I lit my pipe, and,
+      moving to the arm-chair by the window, sat there, looking out at the lawn
+      and flower beds. No one was in sight except Grimmer, the gardener, who was
+      trimming a hedge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I sat there for some time, smoking and thinking. Hephzy dressed in her
+      best, passed the window on her way to the gate. She was going for a call
+      in the village and had asked me to accompany her, but I declined. I did
+      not feel like calling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My pipe, smoked out, I put in my pocket. If I could have gotten rid of my
+      thoughts as easily I should have been happier, but that I could not do.
+      They were strange thoughts, hopeless thoughts, ridiculous, unavailing
+      thoughts. For me, Kent Knowles, quahaug, to permit myself to think in that
+      way was worse than ridiculous; it was pitiful. This was a stern reality,
+      this summer of mine in England, not a chapter in one of my romances. They
+      ended happily; it was easy to make them end in that way. But this&mdash;this
+      was no romance, or, if it was, I was but the comic relief in the story,
+      the queer old bachelor who had made a fool of himself. That was what I
+      was, an old fool. Well, I must stop being a fool before it was too late.
+      No one knew I was such a fool. No one should know&mdash;now or ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And having reached this philosophical conclusion I proceeded to dream of
+      dark eyes looking into mine across a breakfast table&mdash;our table; of a
+      home in Bayport&mdash;our home; of someone always with me, to share my
+      life, my hopes, to spur me on to a work worth while, to glory in my
+      triumphs and comfort me in my reverses; to dream of what might have been
+      if&mdash;if it were not absolutely impossible. Oh, fool, fool, fool!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A quick step sounded on the gravel walk outside the window. I knew the
+      step, should have recognized it anywhere. She was walking rapidly toward
+      the house, her head bent and her eyes fixed upon the path before her.
+      Grimmer touched his hat and said &ldquo;Good afternoon, miss,&rdquo; but she
+      apparently did not hear him. She passed on and I heard her enter the hall.
+      A moment later she knocked at the study door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She entered the room in answer to my invitation and closed the door behind
+      her. She was dressed in her golfing costume, a plain white shirtwaist&mdash;blouse,
+      she would have called it&mdash;a short, dark skirt and stout boots. The
+      light garden hat was set upon her dark hair and her cheeks were flushed
+      from rapid walking. The hat and waist and skirt were extremely becoming.
+      She was pretty&mdash;yes, beautiful&mdash;and young. I was far from
+      beautiful and far from young. I make this obvious statement because it was
+      my thought at the moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not apologize for interrupting me, as she usually did when she
+      entered the study during my supposed working periods. This was strange, of
+      itself, and my sense of guilt caused me to fear all sorts of things. But
+      she smiled and answered my greeting pleasantly enough and, for the moment,
+      I experienced relief. Perhaps, after all, she had not learned of my
+      interview with Heathcroft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have come to talk with you,&rdquo; she began. &ldquo;May I sit down?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly. Of course you may,&rdquo; I answered, smiling as cheerfully as I
+      could. &ldquo;Was it necessary to ask permission?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She took a chair and I seated myself in the one from which I had just
+      risen. For a moment she was silent. I ventured a remark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This begins very solemnly,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Is the talk to be so very serious?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was serious enough and my apprehensions returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;I hope it may not be serious at all, Mr.
+      Knowles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I interrupted. &ldquo;Mr. Knowles!&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;Whew! this IS a formal
+      interview. I thought the 'Mr. Knowles' had been banished along with 'Uncle
+      Hosea'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She smiled slightly then. &ldquo;Perhaps it has,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I am just a little
+      troubled&mdash;or puzzled&mdash;and I have come to you for advice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Advice?&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;I'm afraid my advice isn't worth much. What sort of
+      advice do you want?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wanted to know what I should do in regard to an invitation I have
+      received to motor with Doctor Bayliss&mdash;Doctor Herbert Bayliss. He has
+      asked me to go with him to Edgeboro to-morrow. Should I accept?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hesitated. Then: &ldquo;Alone?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. His cousin, Miss Tomlinson, will go also.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see no reason why you should not, if you wish to go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you. But suppose it was alone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then&mdash;Well, I presume that would be all right, too. You have motored
+      with him before, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As a matter of fact, I couldn't see why she asked my opinion in such a
+      matter. She had never asked it before. Her next remark was more puzzling
+      still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You approve of Doctor Bayliss, don't you,&rdquo; she said. It did seem to me
+      there was a hint of sarcasm in her tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;certainly,&rdquo; I answered. I did approve of young Bayliss,
+      generally speaking; there was no sane reason why I should not have
+      approved of him absolutely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you trust me? You believe me capable of judging what is right or
+      wrong?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you didn't you would not presume to interfere in my personal affairs?
+      You would not think of doing that, of course?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;o,&rdquo; more slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you hesitate? Of course you realize that you have no shadow of
+      right to interfere. You know perfectly well why I consented to remain here
+      for the present and why I have remained?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes, I know that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you wouldn't presume to interfere?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doctor Herbert Bayliss is&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She sprang to her feet. She was not smiling now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop!&rdquo; she interrupted, sharply. &ldquo;Stop! I did not come to discuss Doctor
+      Bayliss. I have asked you a question. I ask you if you would presume to
+      interfere in my personal affairs. Would you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, no. That is, I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You say that to me! YOU!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances, if you mean that I have interfered between you and the Doctor, I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stamped her foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop! Oh, stop!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;You know what I mean. What did you say to
+      Mr. Heathcroft? Do you dare tell me you have not interfered there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It had come, the expected. Her smile and the asking for &ldquo;advice&rdquo; had been
+      apparently but traps to catch me off my guard. I had been prepared for
+      some such scene as this, but, in spite of my preparations, I hesitated and
+      faltered. I must have looked like the meanest of pickpockets caught in the
+      act.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances,&rdquo; I stammered, &ldquo;Frances&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her fury took my breath away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't call me Frances,&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;How dare you call me that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Perturbed as I was I couldn't resist making the obvious retort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You asked me to,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I asked you! Yes, I did. You had been kind to me, or I thought you had,
+      and I&mdash;I was foolish. Oh, how I hate myself for doing it! But I was
+      beginning to think you a gentleman. In spite of everything, I was
+      beginning to&mdash;And now! Oh, at least I thought you wouldn't LIE to
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I rose now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances&mdash;Miss Morley,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;do you realize what you are saying?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Realize it! Oh,&rdquo; with a scornful laugh, &ldquo;I realize it quite well; you may
+      be sure of that. Don't you like the word? What else do you call a denial
+      of what we both know to be the truth. You did see Mr. Heathcroft. You did
+      speak with him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You did! You admit it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I admit it. But did he tell you what I said?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He did not. Mr. Heathcroft IS a gentleman. He told me very little and
+      that only in answer to my questions. I knew you and he met the other day.
+      You did not mention it, but you were seen together, and when he did not
+      come for the ride to which he had invited me I thought it strange. And his
+      note to me was stranger still. I began to suspect then, and when we next
+      met I asked him some questions. He told me next to nothing, but he is
+      honorable and he does not LIE. I learned enough, quite enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I wondered if she had learned of the essential thing, of Heathcroft's
+      engagement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did he tell you why I objected to his intimacy with you?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He told me nothing! Nothing! The very fact that you had objected, as you
+      call it, was sufficient. Object! YOU object to my doing as I please! YOU
+      meddle with my affairs! And humiliate me in the eyes of my friends! I
+      could&mdash;I could die of shame! I... And as if I did not know your
+      reasons. As if they were not perfectly plain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The real reason could not be plain to her. Heathcroft evidently had not
+      told her of the Warwickshire heiress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't understand,&rdquo; I said, trying my hardest to speak calmly. &ldquo;What
+      reasons?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Must I tell you? Did you OBJECT to my friendship with Doctor Bayliss,
+      pray?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doctor Bayliss! Why, Doctor Bayliss is quite different. He is a fine
+      young fellow, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; with scornful sarcasm, &ldquo;so it would appear. You and my aunt and he
+      have the most evident of understandings. You need not praise him for my
+      benefit. It is quite apparent how you both feel toward Doctor Bayliss. I
+      am not blind. I have seen how you have thrown him in my company, and made
+      opportunities for me to meet him. Oh, of course, I can see! I did not
+      believe it at first. It was too absurd, too outrageously impertinent. I
+      COULDN'T believe it. But now I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was a little too much. The idea that I&mdash;<i>I</i> had been
+      playing the matchmaker for Bayliss's benefit made me almost as angry as
+      she was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo; I declared. &ldquo;Miss Morley, this is too ridiculous to go on. I
+      did speak to Mr. Heathcroft. There was a reason, a good reason, for my
+      doing so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not wish to hear your reason, as you call it. The fact that you did
+      speak to him concerning me is enough. Mr. Knowles, this arrangement of
+      ours, my living here with you, has gone on too long. I should have known
+      it was impossible in the beginning. But I did not know. I was alone&mdash;and
+      ill&mdash;and I did need friends&mdash;I was SO alone. I had been through
+      so much. I had struggled and suffered and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again, as in our quarrel at Wrayton, she was on the verge of tears. And
+      again that unreasonable conscience of mine smote me. I longed to&mdash;Well,
+      to prove myself the fool I was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she did not give me the opportunity. Before I could speak or move she
+      was on her way to the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This ends it,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I shall go away from here at once. I shall put
+      the whole matter in my solicitor's hands. This is an end of forbearance
+      and all the rest. I am going. You have made me hate you and despise you. I
+      only hope that&mdash;that some day you will despise yourself as much. But
+      you won't,&rdquo; scornfully. &ldquo;You are not that sort.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The door closed. She was gone. Gone! And soon&mdash;the next day at the
+      latest&mdash;she would have been gone for good. This WAS the end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I walked many miles that day, how many I do not know. Dinner was waiting
+      for me when I returned, but I could not eat. I rose from the table, went
+      to the study and sat there, alone with my misery. I was torn with the
+      wildest longings and desires. One, I think, was to kill Heathcroft
+      forthwith. Another was to kill myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There came another knock at the door. This time I made no answer. I did
+      not want to see anyone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the door opened, nevertheless, and Hephzy came in. She crossed the
+      room and stood by my chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it, Hosy?&rdquo; she said, gently. &ldquo;You must tell me all about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I made some answer, told her to go away and leave me, I think. If that was
+      it she did not heed. She put her hand upon my shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must tell me, Hosy,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;What has happened? You and Frances
+      have had some fallin' out, I know. She wouldn't come to dinner, either,
+      and she won't see me. She's up in her room with the door shut. Tell me,
+      Hosy; you and I have fought each other's battles for a good many years.
+      You can't fight this one alone; I've got to do my share. Tell me, dearie,
+      please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And tell her I did. I did not mean to, and yet somehow the thought that
+      she was there, so strong and quiet and big-hearted and sensible, was, if
+      not a comfort to me, at least a marvelous help. I began by telling her a
+      little and then went on to tell her all, of my talk with Lady Carey, my
+      meeting with Heathcroft, the scene with Frances&mdash;everything, word for
+      word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When it was over she patted my shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You did just right, Hosy,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;There was nothin' else you could
+      do. I never liked that Heathcroft man. And to think of him, engaged to
+      another girl, trottin' around with Frances the way he has. I'D like to
+      talk with him. He'd get a piece of MY mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's all right enough,&rdquo; I admitted grudgingly. &ldquo;He took my warning in a
+      very good sort, I must say. He has never meant anything serious. It was
+      just his way, that's all. He was amusing himself in her company, and
+      doubtless thought she would be flattered with his aristocratic
+      attentions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! Well, I guess she wouldn't be if she'd known of that other girl.
+      You didn't tell her that, you say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I couldn't. I think I should, perhaps, if she would have listened. I'm
+      glad I didn't. It isn't a thing for me to tell her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I understand. But she ought to know it, just the same. And she ought to
+      know how good you've been to her. Nobody could be better. She must know
+      it. Whether she goes or whether she doesn't she must know that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I seized her arm. &ldquo;You mustn't tell her a word,&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;She mustn't
+      know. It is better she should go. Better for her and for me&mdash;My God,
+      yes! so much better for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I could feel the arm on my shoulder start. Hephzy bent down and looked
+      into my face. I tried to avoid the scrutiny, but she looked and looked.
+      Then she drew a long breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;Hosy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't speak to me. Oh, Hephzy,&rdquo; with a bitter laugh, &ldquo;did you ever dream
+      there could be such a hopeless lunatic as I am! You needn't say it. I know
+      the answer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy! Hosy! you poor boy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She kissed me, soothing me as she had when I came home to our empty house
+      at the time of my mother's death. That memory came back to me even then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forgive me, Hephzy,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I am ashamed of myself, of course. And
+      don't worry. Nobody knows this but you and I, and nobody else shall. I'm
+      going to behave and I'm going to be sensible. Just forget all this for my
+      sake. I mean to forget it, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Hephzy shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's all my fault,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I'm to blame more than anybody else. It
+      was me that brought her here in the first place and me that kept you from
+      tellin' her the truth in the beginnin'. So it's me who must tell her now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I don't mean the truth about&mdash;about what you and I have just
+      said, Hosy. She'll never know that, perhaps. Certainly she'll never know
+      it from me. But the rest of it she must know. This has gone far enough.
+      She sha'n't go away from this house misjudgin' you, thinkin' you're a
+      thief, as well as all the rest of it. That she sha'n't do. I shall see to
+      that&mdash;now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy, I forbid you to&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can't forbid me, Hosy. It's my duty, and I've been a silly, wicked
+      old woman and shirked that duty long enough. Now don't worry any more. Go
+      to your room, dearie, and lay down. If you get to sleep so much the
+      better. Though I guess,&rdquo; with a sigh, &ldquo;we sha'n't either of us sleep much
+      this night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Before I could prevent her she had left the room. I sprang after her, to
+      call her back, to order her not to do the thing she had threatened. But,
+      in the drawing-room, Charlotte, the housemaid, met me with an
+      announcement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doctor Bayliss&mdash;Doctor Herbert Bayliss&mdash;is here, sir,&rdquo; she
+      said. &ldquo;He has called to see you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To see me?&rdquo; I repeated, trying hard to recover some measure of composure.
+      &ldquo;To see Miss Frances, you mean.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, sir. He says he wants to see you alone. He's in the hall now, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was; I could hear him. Certainly I never wished to see anyone less, but
+      I could not refuse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ask him to come into the study, Charlotte,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young doctor found me sitting in the chair by the desk. The long
+      English twilight was almost over and the room was in deep shadow.
+      Charlotte entered and lighted the lamp. I was strongly tempted to order
+      her to desist, but I could scarcely ask my visitor to sit in the dark,
+      however much I might prefer to do so. I compromised by moving to a seat
+      farther from the lamp where my face would be less plainly visible. Then,
+      Bayliss having, on my invitation, also taken a chair, I waited for him to
+      state his business.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not easy to state, that was plain. Ordinarily Herbert Bayliss was
+      cool and self-possessed. I had never before seen him as embarrassed as he
+      seemed to be now. He fidgeted on the edge of the chair, crossed and
+      recrossed his legs, and, finally, offered the original remark that it had
+      been an extremely pleasant day. I admitted the fact and again there was an
+      interval of silence. I should have helped him, I suppose. It was quite
+      apparent that his was no casual call and, under ordinary circumstances, I
+      should have been interested and curious. Now I did not care. If he would
+      say his say and go away and leave me I should be grateful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And, at last, he said it. His next speech was very much nearer the point.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I have called to&mdash;to see you concerning your
+      niece, Miss Morley. I&mdash;I have come to ask your consent to my asking
+      her to marry me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was not greatly surprised. I had vaguely suspected his purpose when he
+      entered the room. I had long foreseen the likelihood of some such
+      interview as this, had considered what I should say when the time came.
+      But now it had come, I could say nothing. I sat in silence, looking at
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps he thought I did not understand. At any rate he hastened to
+      explain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish your permission to marry your niece,&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;I have no
+      doubt you are surprised. Perhaps you fancy I am a bit hasty. I suppose you
+      do. But I&mdash;I care a great deal for her, Mr. Knowles. I will try to
+      make her a good husband. Not that I am good enough for her, of course&mdash;no
+      one could be that, you know; but I'll try and&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was very red in the face and floundered, amid his jerky sentences, like
+      a newly-landed fish, but he stuck to it manfully. I could not help
+      admiring the young fellow. He was so young and handsome and so honest and
+      boyishly eager in his embarrassment. I admired him&mdash;yes, but I hated
+      him, too, hated him for his youth and all that it meant, I was jealous&mdash;bitterly,
+      wickedly jealous, and of all jealousy, hopeless, unreasonable jealousy is
+      the worst, I imagine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He went on to speak of his ambitions and prospects. He did not intend to
+      remain always in Mayberry as his father's assistant, not he. He should
+      remain for a time, of course, but then he intended to go back to London.
+      There were opportunities there. A fellow with the right stuff in him could
+      get on there. He had friends in the London hospitals and they had promised
+      to put chances his way. He should not presume to marry Frances at once, of
+      course. He would not be such a selfish goat as that. All he asked was
+      that, my permission granted, she would be patient and wait a bit until he
+      got on his feet, professionally he meant to say, and then&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I interrupted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One moment,&rdquo; said I, trying to appear calm and succeeding remarkably
+      well, considering the turmoil in my brain; &ldquo;just a moment, Bayliss, if you
+      please. Have you spoken to Miss Morley yet? Do you know her feelings
+      toward you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      No, he had not. Of course he wouldn't do that until he and I had had our
+      understanding. He had tried to be honorable and all that. But&mdash;but he
+      thought she did not object to him. She&mdash;well, she had seemed to like
+      him well enough. There had been times when he thought she&mdash;she&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you see, sir,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;she's a girl, of course, and a fellow
+      never knows just what a girl is going to say or do. There are times when
+      one is sure everything is quite right and then that it is all wrong. But I
+      have hoped&mdash;I believe&mdash;She's such a ripping girl, you know. She
+      would not flirt with a chap and&mdash;I don't mean flirt exactly, she
+      isn't a flirt, of course&mdash;but&mdash;don't you think she likes me,
+      now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no reason to suppose she doesn't,&rdquo; I answered grudgingly. After
+      all, he was acting very honorably; I could scarcely do less.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He seemed to find much comfort in my equivocal reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thanks, thanks awfully,&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;I&mdash;I&mdash;by Jove, you
+      know, I can't tell you how I like to hear you say that! I'm awfully
+      grateful to you, Knowles, I am really. And you'll give me permission to
+      speak to her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled; it was not a happy smile, but there was a certain ironic humor
+      in the situation. The idea of anyone's seeking my &ldquo;permission&rdquo; in any
+      matter concerning Frances Morley. He noticed the smile and was, I think,
+      inclined to be offended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it a joke?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;I say, now! it isn't a joke to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nor to me, I assure you,&rdquo; I answered, seriously. &ldquo;If I gave that
+      impression it was a mistaken one. I never felt less like joking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He put his own interpretation on the last sentence. &ldquo;I'm sorry,&rdquo; he said,
+      quickly. &ldquo;I beg your pardon. I understand, of course. You're very fond of
+      her; no one could help being that, could they. And she is your niece.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hesitated. I was minded to blurt out the fact that she was not my niece
+      at all; that I had no authority over her in any way. But what would be the
+      use? It would lead only to explanations and I did not wish to make
+      explanations. I wanted to get through with the whole inane business and be
+      left alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you haven't said yes, have you,&rdquo; he urged. &ldquo;You will say it, won't
+      you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I nodded. &ldquo;You have my permission, so far as that goes,&rdquo; I answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sprang to his feet and seized my hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's topping!&rdquo; he cried, his face radiant. &ldquo;I can't thank you enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's all right. But there is one thing more. Perhaps it isn't my
+      affair, and you needn't answer unless you wish. Have you consulted your
+      parents? How do they feel about your&mdash;your intentions?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His expression changed. My question was answered before he spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he admitted, &ldquo;I haven't told them yet. I&mdash;Well, you see, the
+      Mater and Father have been making plans about my future, naturally. They
+      have some silly ideas about a friend of the family that&mdash;Oh, she's a
+      nice enough girl; I like her jolly well, but she isn't Miss Morley. Well,
+      hardly! They'll take it quite well. By Jove!&rdquo; excitedly, &ldquo;they must.
+      They've GOT to. Oh, they will. And they're very fond of&mdash;of Frances.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There seemed nothing more for me to say, nothing at that time, at any
+      rate. I, too, rose. He shook my hand again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've been a trump to me, Knowles,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;I appreciate it, you
+      know; I do indeed. I'm jolly grateful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You needn't be. It is all right. I&mdash;I suppose I should wish you luck
+      and happiness. I do. Yes, why shouldn't you be happy, even if&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even if&mdash;what? Oh, but you don't think she will turn me off, do you?
+      You don't think that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've told you that I see no reason why she should.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you. Thank you so much. Is there anything else that you might wish
+      to say to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not now. Perhaps some day I&mdash;But not now. No, there's nothing else.
+      Good night, Bayliss; good night and&mdash;and good luck.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good night. I&mdash;She's not in now, I suppose, is she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is in, but&mdash;Well, I scarcely think you had better see her
+      to-night. She has gone to her room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I say! it's very early. She's not ill, is she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, but I think you had best not see her to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was disappointed, that was plain, but he yielded. He would have agreed,
+      doubtless, with any opinion of mine just then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No doubt you're right,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Good night. And thank you again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He left the room. I did not accompany him to the door. Instead I returned
+      to my chair. I did not occupy it long, I could not. I could not sit still.
+      I rose and went out on the lawn. There, in the night mist, I paced up and
+      down, up and down. I had longed to be alone; now that I was alone I was
+      more miserable than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charlotte, the maid, called to me from the doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you wish the light in the study any longer, sir?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said I, curtly. &ldquo;You may put it out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And shall I lock up, sir; all but this door, I mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Where is Miss Cahoon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's above, sir. With Miss Morley, I think, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well, Charlotte. That is all. Good night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good night, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She went into the house. The lamp in the study was extinguished. I
+      continued my pacing up and down. Occasionally I glanced at the upper story
+      of the rectory. There was a lighted window there, the window of Frances'
+      room. She and Hephzy were together in that room. What was going on there?
+      What had Hephzy said to her? What&mdash;Oh, WHAT would happen next?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some time later&mdash;I don't know how much later it may have been&mdash;I
+      heard someone calling me again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy!&rdquo; called Hephzy in a loud whisper; &ldquo;Hosy, where are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here I am,&rdquo; I answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She came to me across the lawn. I could not, of course, see her face, but
+      her tone was very anxious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy,&rdquo; she whispered, putting her hand on my arm, &ldquo;what are you doin' out
+      here all alone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed. &ldquo;I'm taking the air,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;It is good for me. I am
+      enjoying the glorious English air old Doctor Bayliss is always talking
+      about. Fresh air and exercise&mdash;those will cure anything, so he says.
+      Perhaps they will cure me. God knows I need curing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sshh! shh, Hosy! Don't talk that way. I don't like to hear you. Out here
+      bareheaded and in all this damp! You'll get your death.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will I? Well, that will be a complete cure, then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! I tell you. Come in the house with me. I want to talk to you.
+      Come!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Still holding my arm she led me toward the house. I hung back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have been up there with her?&rdquo; I said, with a nod toward the lighted
+      window of the room above. &ldquo;What has happened? What have you said and
+      done?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! I'll tell you; I'll tell you all about it. Only come in now. I
+      sha'n't feel safe until I get you inside. Oh, Hosy, DON'T act this way! Do
+      you want to frighten me to death?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That appeal had an effect. I was ashamed of myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forgive me, Hephzy,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I'll try to be decent. You needn't worry
+      about me. I'm a fool, of course, but now that I realize it I shall try to
+      stop behaving like one. Come along; I'm ready.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the drawing-room she closed the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I light the lamp?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. Oh, for heaven's sake, can't you see that I'm crazy to know what you
+      said to that girl and what she said to you? Tell me, and hurry up, will
+      you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not resent my sudden burst of temper and impatience. Instead she
+      put her arm about me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sit down, Hosy,&rdquo; she pleaded. &ldquo;Sit down and I'll tell you all about it.
+      Do sit down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I refused to sit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me now,&rdquo; I commanded. &ldquo;What did you say to her? You didn't&mdash;you
+      didn't&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did. I told her everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;EVERYTHING! You don't mean&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean everything. 'Twas time she knew it. I went to that room meanin' to
+      tell her and I did. At first she didn't want to listen, didn't want to see
+      me at all or even let me in. But I made her let me in and then she and I
+      had it out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't say it that way, Hosy. The good Lord knows I hate myself for doin'
+      it, hated myself while I was doin' it, but it had to be done. Every word I
+      spoke cut me as bad as it must have cut her. I kept thinkin', 'This is
+      Little Frank I'm talkin' to. This is Ardelia's daughter I'm makin'
+      miserable.' A dozen times I stopped and thought I couldn't go on, but
+      every time I thought of you and what you'd put up with and been through,
+      and I went on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy! you told her&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I said it was time she understood just the plain truth about her father
+      and mother and grandfather and the money, and everything. She must know
+      it, I said; things couldn't go on as they have been. I told it all. At
+      first she wouldn't listen, said I was&mdash;well, everything that was mean
+      and lyin' and bad. If she could she'd have put me out of her room, I
+      presume likely, but I wouldn't go. And, of course, at first she wouldn't
+      believe, but I made her believe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Made her believe! Made her believe her father was a thief! How could you
+      do that! No one could.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did it. I don't know how exactly. I just went on tellin' it all
+      straight from the beginnin', and pretty soon I could see she was
+      commencin' to believe. And she believes now, Hosy; she does, I know it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did she say so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, she didn't say anything, scarcely&mdash;not at the last. She didn't
+      cry, either; I almost wish she had. Oh, Hosy, don't ask me any more
+      questions than you have to. I can't bear to answer 'em.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She paused and turned away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How she must hate us!&rdquo; I said, after a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, no&mdash;why, no, Hosy, I don't think she does; at least I'm tryin'
+      to hope she doesn't. I softened it all I could. I told her why we took her
+      with us in the first place; how we couldn't tell her the truth at first,
+      or leave her, either, when she was so sick and alone. I told her why we
+      brought her here, hopin' it would make her well and strong, and how, after
+      she got that way, we put off tellin' her because it was such a dreadful
+      hard thing to do. Hard! When I think of her sittin' there, white as a
+      sheet, and lookin' at me with those big eyes of hers, her fingers twistin'
+      and untwistin' in her lap&mdash;a way her mother used to have when she was
+      troubled&mdash;and every word I spoke soundin' so cruel and&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She paused once more. I did not speak. Soon she recovered and went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told her that I was tellin' her these things now because the
+      misunderstandin's and all the rest had to stop and there was no use
+      puttin' off any longer. I told her I loved her as if she was my very own
+      and that this needn't make the least bit of difference unless she wanted
+      it to. I said you felt just the same. I told her your speakin' to that
+      Heathcroft man was only for her good and for no other reason. You'd
+      learned that he was engaged to be married&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You told her that?&rdquo; I interrupted, involuntarily. &ldquo;What did she say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothin', nothin' at all. I think she heard me and understood, but she
+      didn't say anything. Just sat there, white and trembling and crushed, sort
+      of, and looked and looked at me. I wanted to put my arms around her and
+      ask her pardon and beg her to love me as I did her, but I didn't dare&mdash;I
+      didn't dare. I did say that you and I would be only too glad to have her
+      stay with us always, as one of the family, you know. If she'd only forget
+      all the bad part that had gone and do that, I said&mdash;but she
+      interrupted me. She said 'Forget!' and the way she said it made me sure
+      she never would forget. And then&mdash;and then she asked me if I would
+      please go away and leave her. Would I PLEASE not say any more now, but
+      just leave her, only leave her alone. So I came away and&mdash;and that's
+      all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's all,&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;It is enough, I should say. Oh, Hephzy, why did
+      you do it? Why couldn't it have gone on as it has been going? Why did you
+      do it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was an unthinking, wicked speech. But Hephzy did not resent it. Her
+      reply was as patient and kind as if she had been answering a child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had to do it, Hosy,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;After our talk this evenin' there was
+      only one thing to do. It had to be done&mdash;for your sake, if nothin'
+      else&mdash;and so I did it. But&mdash;but&mdash;&rdquo; with a choking sob, &ldquo;it
+      was SO hard to do! My Ardelia's baby!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And at last, I am glad to say, I began to realize how very hard it had
+      been for her. To understand what she had gone through for my sake and what
+      a selfish brute I had been. I put my hands on her shoulders and kissed her
+      almost reverently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;you're a saint and a martyr and I am&mdash;what I am.
+      Please forgive me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There isn't anything to forgive, Hosy. And,&rdquo; with a shake of the head,
+      &ldquo;I'm an awful poor kind of saint, I guess. They'd never put my image up in
+      the churches over here&mdash;not if they knew how I felt this minute. And
+      a saint from Cape Cod wouldn't be very welcome anyway, I'm afraid. I meant
+      well, but that's a poor sort of recommendation. Oh, Hosy, you DO think I
+      did for the best, don't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You did the only thing to be done,&rdquo; I answered, with decision. &ldquo;You did
+      what I lacked the courage to do. Of course it was best.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're awful good to say so, but I don't know. What'll come of it
+      goodness knows. When I think of you and&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't think of me. I'm going to be a man if I can&mdash;a quahaug, if I
+      can't. At least I'm not going to be what I have been for the last month.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know. But when I think of to-morrow and what she'll say to me, then, I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mustn't think. You must go to bed and so must I. To-morrow will take
+      care of itself. Come. Let's both sleep and forget it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Which was the very best of advice, but, like much good advice, impossible
+      to follow. I did not sleep at all that night, nor did I forget. God help
+      me! I was realizing that I never could forget.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At six o'clock I came downstairs, made a pretence at eating some biscuits
+      and cheese which I found on the sideboard, scribbled a brief note to
+      Hephzy stating that I had gone for a walk and should not be back to
+      breakfast, and started out. The walk developed into a long one and I did
+      not return to the rectory until nearly eleven in the forenoon. By that
+      time I was in a better mood, more reconciled to the inevitable&mdash;or I
+      thought I was. I believed I could play the man, could even see her married
+      to Herbert Bayliss and still behave like a man. I vowed and revowed it. No
+      one&mdash;no one but Hephzy and I should ever know what we knew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charlotte, the maid, seemed greatly relieved to see me. She hastened to
+      the drawing-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here he is, Miss Cahoon,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;He's come back, ma'am. He's here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I'm here, Charlotte,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;You didn't suppose I had run
+      away, did you?... Why&mdash;why, Hephzy, what is the matter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For Hephzy was coming to meet me, her hands outstretched and on her face
+      an expression which I did not understand&mdash;sorrow, agitation&mdash;yes,
+      and pity&mdash;were in that expression, or so it seemed to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Hosy!&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;I'm so glad you've come. I wanted you so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wanted me?&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;Why, what do you mean? Has anything happened?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She nodded, solemnly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;somethin' has happened. Somethin' we might have
+      expected, perhaps, but&mdash;but&mdash;Hosy, read that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I took what she handed me. It was a sheet of note paper, folded across,
+      and with Hephzibah's name written upon one side. I recognized the writing
+      and, with a sinking heart, unfolded it. Upon the other side was written in
+      pencil this:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going away. I could not stay, of course. When I think how I have
+      stayed and how I have treated you both, who have been so very, very kind
+      to me, I feel&mdash;I can't tell you how I feel. You must not think me
+      ungrateful. You must not think of me at all. And you must not try to find
+      me, even if you should wish to do such a thing. I have the money which I
+      intended using for my new frocks and I shall use it to pay my expenses and
+      my fare to the place I am going. It is your money, of course, and some day
+      I shall send it to you. And someday, if I can, I shall repay all that you
+      have spent on my account. But you must not follow me and you must not
+      think of asking me to come back. That I shall never do. I do thank you for
+      all that you have done for me, both of you. I cannot understand why you
+      did it, but I shall always remember. Don't worry about me. I know what I
+      am going to do and I shall not starve or be in want. Good-by. Please try
+      to forget me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;FRANCES MORLEY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please tell Mr. Knowles that I am sorry for what I said to him this
+      afternoon and so many times before. How he could have been so kind and
+      patient I can't understand. I shall always remember it&mdash;always.
+      Perhaps he may forgive me some day. I shall try and hope that he may.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I read to the end. Then, without speaking, I looked at Hephzy. Her eyes
+      were brimming with tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has gone,&rdquo; she said, in answer to my unspoken question. &ldquo;She must
+      have gone some time in the night. The man at the inn stable drove her to
+      the depot at Haddington on Hill. She took the early train for London. That
+      is all we know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which Hephzy and I Agree to Live for Each Other
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      I shall condense the record of that day as much as possible. I should omit
+      it altogether, if I could. We tried to trace her, of course. That is, I
+      tried and Hephzy did not dissuade me, although she realized, I am sure,
+      the hopelessness of the quest. Frances had left the rectory very early in
+      the morning. The hostler at the inn had been much surprised to find her
+      awaiting him when he came down to the yard at five o'clock. She was
+      obliged to go to London, she said, and must take the very first train:
+      Would he drive her to Haddington on Hill at once? He did so&mdash;probably
+      she had offered him a great deal more than the regular fare&mdash;and she
+      had taken the train.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Questioning the hostler, who was a surly, uncommunicative lout, resulted
+      in my learning very little in addition to this. The young lady seemed
+      about as usual, so far as he could see. She might 'ave been a bit nervous,
+      impatient like, but he attributed that to her anxiety to make the train.
+      Yes, she had a bag with her, but no other luggage. No, she didn't talk on
+      the way to the station: Why should she? He wasn't the man to ask a lady
+      questions about what wasn't his affair. She minded her own business and he
+      minded his. No, he didn't know nothin' more about it. What was I a-pumpin'
+      him for, anyway?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I gave up the &ldquo;pumping&rdquo; and hurried back to the rectory. There Hephzy told
+      me a few additional facts. Frances had taken with her only the barest
+      necessities, for the most part those which she had when she came to us.
+      Her new frocks, those which she had bought with what she considered her
+      money, she had left behind. All the presents which we had given her were
+      in her room, or so we thought at the time. As she came, so she had gone,
+      and the thought that she had gone, that I should never see her again, was
+      driving me insane.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And like an insane man I must have behaved, at first. The things I did and
+      said, and the way in which I treated Hephzy shame me now, as I remember
+      them. I was going to London at once. I would find her and bring her back.
+      I would seek help from the police, I would employ detectives, I would do
+      anything&mdash;everything. She was almost without money; so far as I knew
+      without friends. What would she do? What would become of her? I must find
+      her. I must bring her back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I stormed up and down the room, incoherently declaring my intentions and
+      upbraiding Hephzy for not having sent the groom or the gardener to find
+      me, for allowing all the precious time to elapse. Hephzy offered no
+      excuse. She did not attempt justification. Instead she brought the railway
+      time-table, gave orders that the horse be harnessed, helped me in every
+      way. She would have prepared a meal for me with her own hands, would have
+      fed me like a baby, if I had permitted it. One thing she did insist upon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must rest a few minutes, Hosy,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You must, or you'll be
+      down sick. You haven't slept a wink all night. You haven't eaten anything
+      to speak of since yesterday noon. You can't go this way. You must go to
+      your room and rest a few minutes. Lie down and rest, if you can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rest!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must. The train doesn't leave Haddington for pretty nigh two hours,
+      and we've got lots of time. I'll fetch you up some tea and toast or
+      somethin' by and by and I'll be all ready to start when you are. Now go
+      and lie down, Hosy dear, to please me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I ignored the last sentence. &ldquo;You will be ready?&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;Do you mean
+      you're going with me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I am. It isn't likely I'll let you start off all alone, when
+      you're in a state like this. Of course I'm goin' with you. Now go and lie
+      down. You're so worn out, poor boy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I must have had a glimmer of reason then, a trace of decency and
+      unselfishness. For the first time I thought of her. I remembered that she,
+      too, had loved Little Frank; that she, too, must be suffering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am no more tired than you are,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;You have slept and eaten no
+      more than I. You are the one who must rest. I sha'n't let you go with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It isn't a question of lettin'. I shall go if you do, Hosy. And a woman
+      don't need rest like a man. Please go upstairs and lie down, Hosy. Oh,&rdquo;
+       with a sudden burst of feeling, &ldquo;don't you see I've got about all I can
+      bear as it is? I can't&mdash;I can't have YOU to worry about too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My conscience smote me. &ldquo;I'll go, Hephzy,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I'll do whatever you
+      wish; it is the least I can do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She thanked me. Then she said, hesitatingly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here is&mdash;here is her letter, Hosy. You may like to read it again.
+      Perhaps it may help you to decide what is best to do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She handed me the letter. I took it and went to my room. There I read it
+      again and again. And, as I read, the meaning of Hephzy's last sentence,
+      that the letter might help me to decide what was best to do, began to
+      force itself upon my overwrought brain. I began to understand what she had
+      understood from the first, that my trip to London was hopeless, absolutely
+      useless&mdash;yes, worse than useless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must not try to find me... You must not follow me or think of asking
+      me to come back. That I shall never do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was understanding, at last. I might go to London; I might even, through
+      the help of the police, or by other means, find Frances Morley. But,
+      having found her, what then? What claim had I upon her? What right had I
+      to pursue her and force my presence upon her? I knew the shock she had
+      undergone, the shattering of her belief in her father, the knowledge that
+      she had&mdash;as she must feel&mdash;forced herself upon our kindness and
+      charity. I knew how proud she was and how fiercely she had relented the
+      slightest hint that she was in any way dependent upon us or under the
+      least obligation to us. I knew all this and I was beginning to comprehend
+      what her feelings toward us and toward herself must be&mdash;now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I might find her&mdash;yes; but as for convincing her that she should
+      return to Mayberry, to live with us as she had been doing, that was so
+      clearly impossible as to seem ridiculous even to me. My following her, my
+      hunting her down against her expressed wish, would almost surely make
+      matters worse. She would probably refuse to see me. She would consider my
+      following her a persecution and the result might be to drive her still
+      further away. I must not do it, for her sake I must not. She had gone and,
+      because I loved her, I must not follow her; I must not add to her misery.
+      No, against my will I was forcing myself to realize that my duty was to
+      make no attempt to see her again, but to face the situation as it was, to
+      cover the running away with a lie, to pretend she had gone&mdash;gone
+      somewhere or other with our permission and understanding; to protect her
+      name from scandal and to conceal my own feelings from all the world. That
+      was my duty; that was the situation I must face. But how could I face it!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That hour was the worst I have ever spent and I trust I may never be
+      called upon to face such another. But, at last, I am glad to say, I had
+      made up my mind, and when Hephzy came with the tea and toast I was
+      measurably composed and ready to express my determination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I am not going to London. I have been thinking, and I'm
+      not going.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy put down the tray she was carrying. She did seem surprised, but I
+      am sure she was relieved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're not goin'!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;Why, Hosy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I am not going. I've been crazy, Hephzy, I think, but I am fairly
+      sane now. I have reached the conclusion that you reached sometime ago, I
+      am certain. We have no right to follow her. Our finding her would only
+      make it harder for her and no good could come of it. She went, of her own
+      accord, and we must let her go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let her go? And not try&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. We have no right to try. You know it as well as I do. Now, be honest,
+      won't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy hesitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; she faltered; &ldquo;well, I&mdash;Oh, Hosy, I guess likely you're right.
+      At first I was all for goin' after her right away and bringin' her back by
+      main strength, if I had to. But the more I thought of it the more I&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; I interrupted. &ldquo;It is the only thing we can do. You must have
+      been ashamed of me this morning. Well, I'll try and give you no cause to
+      be ashamed again. That part of our lives is over. Now we'll start afresh.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy, after a long look at my face, covered her own with her hands and
+      began to cry. I stepped to her side, but she recovered almost immediately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There! there!&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;don't mind me, Hosy. I've been holdin' that cry
+      back for a long spell. Now I've had it and it's over and done with. After
+      all, you and I have got each other left and we'll start fresh, just as you
+      say. And the first thing is for you to eat that toast and drink that tea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled, or tried to smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The first thing,&rdquo; I declared, &ldquo;is for us to decide what story we shall
+      tell young Bayliss and the rest of the people to account for her leaving
+      so suddenly. I expect Herbert Bayliss here any moment. He came to see me
+      about&mdash;about her last evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guessed as much,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I knew he came and I guessed what 'twas
+      about. Poor fellow, 'twill be dreadful hard for him, too. He was here this
+      mornin' and I said Frances had been called away sudden and wouldn't be
+      back to-day. And I said you would be away all day, too, Hosy. It was a
+      fib, I guess, but I can't help it if it was. You mustn't see him now and
+      you mustn't talk with me either. You must clear off that tray the first
+      thing. We'll have our talk to-morrow, maybe. We'll&mdash;we'll see the
+      course plainer then, perhaps. Now be a good boy and mind me. You ARE my
+      boy, you know, and always will be, no matter how old and famous you get.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Herbert Bayliss called again that afternoon. I did not see him, but Hephzy
+      did. The young fellow was frightfully disappointed at Frances' sudden
+      departure and asked all sorts of questions as to when she would return,
+      her London address and the like. Hephzy dodged the questions as best she
+      could, but we both foresaw that soon he would have to be told some portion
+      of the truth&mdash;not the whole truth; he need never know that, but
+      something&mdash;and that something would be very hard to tell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The servants, too, must not know or surmise what had happened or the
+      reason for it. Hephzy had already given them some excuse, fabricated on
+      the spur of the moment. They knew Miss Morley had gone away and might not
+      return for some time. But we realized that upon our behavior depended a
+      great deal and so we agreed to appear as much like our ordinary selves as
+      possible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a hard task. I shall never forget those first meals when we two
+      were alone. We did not mention her name, but the shadow was always there&mdash;the
+      vacant place at the table where she used to sit, the roses she had picked
+      the morning before; and, afterward, in the drawing-room, the piano with
+      her music upon the rack&mdash;the hundred and one little reminders that
+      were like so many poisoned needles to aggravate my suffering and to remind
+      me of the torture of the days to come. She had bade me forget her. Forget!
+      I might forget when I was dead, but not before. If I could only die then
+      and there it would seem so easy by comparison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next forenoon Hephzy and I had our talk. We discussed our future.
+      Should we leave the rectory and England and go back to Bayport where we
+      belonged? I was in favor of this, but Hephzy seemed reluctant. She,
+      apparently, had some reason which made her wish to remain for a time, at
+      least. At last the reason was disclosed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I supposed you'll laugh at me when I say it, Hosy,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;or at any
+      rate you'll think I'm awful silly. But I know&mdash;I just KNOW that this
+      isn't the end. We shall see her again, you and I. She'll come to us again
+      or we'll go to her. I know it; somethin' inside me tells me so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ I shook my head.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's true,&rdquo; she went on. &ldquo;You don't believe it, but it's true. It's a
+      presentiment and you haven't believed in my presentiments before, but
+      they've come true. Why, you didn't believe we'd ever find Little Frank at
+      all, but we did. And do you suppose all that has happened so far has been
+      just for nothin'? Indeed and indeed it hasn't. No, this isn't the end;
+      it's only the beginnin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her conviction was so strong that I hadn't the heart to contradict her. I
+      said nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that's why,&rdquo; she went on, &ldquo;I don't like to have us leave here right
+      away. She knows we're here, here in England, and if&mdash;if she ever
+      should be in trouble and need our help she could find us here waitin' to
+      give it. If we was away off on the Cape, way on the other side of the
+      ocean, she couldn't reach us, or not until 'twas too late anyhow. That's
+      why I'd like to stay here a while longer, Hosy. But,&rdquo; she hastened to add,
+      &ldquo;I wouldn't stay a minute if you really wanted to go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was silent for a moment. The temptation was to go, to get as far from
+      the scene of my trouble as I could; but, after all, what did it matter? I
+      could never flee from that trouble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, Hephzy,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I'll stay, if it pleases you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, Hosy. It may be foolish, our stayin', but I don't believe it
+      is. And&mdash;and there's somethin' else. I don't know whether I ought to
+      tell you or not. I don't know whether it will make you feel better or
+      worse. But I've heard you say that she must hate you. She doesn't&mdash;I
+      know she doesn't. I've been lookin' over her things, those she left in her
+      room. Everythin' we've given her or bought for her since she's been here,
+      she left behind&mdash;every single thing except one. That little pin you
+      bought for her in London the last time you was there and gave her to wear
+      at the Samsons' lawn party, I can't find it anywhere. She must have taken
+      it with her. Now why should she take that and leave all the rest?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Probably she forgot it,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! Queer she should forget that and nothin' else. I don't believe she
+      forgot it. <i>I</i> think she took it because you gave it to her and she
+      wanted to keep it to remind her of you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I dismissed the idea as absurd, but I found a ray of comfort in it which I
+      should have been ashamed to confess. The idea that she wished to be
+      reminded of me was foolish, but&mdash;but I was glad she had forgotten to
+      leave the pin. It MIGHT remind her of me, even against her will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A day or two later Herbert Bayliss and I had our delayed interview. He had
+      called several times, but Hephzy had kept him out of my way. This time our
+      meeting was in the main street of Mayberry, when dodging him was an
+      impossibility. He hurried up to me and seized my hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you're back, Knowles,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;When did you return?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For the moment I was at a loss to understand his meaning. I had forgotten
+      Hephzy's &ldquo;fib&rdquo; concerning my going away. Fortunately he did not wait for
+      an answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did Frances&mdash;did Miss Morley return with you?&rdquo; he asked eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His smile vanished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; he said, soberly. &ldquo;She is still in London, then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I presume she is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You presume&mdash;? Why, I say! don't you know?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not sure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He seemed puzzled and troubled, but he was too well bred to ask why I was
+      not sure. Instead he asked when she would return. I announced that I did
+      not know that either.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't know when she is coming back?&rdquo; he repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He regarded me keenly. There was a change in the tone of his next remark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not sure that she is in London and you don't know when she is
+      coming back,&rdquo; he said, slowly. &ldquo;Would you mind telling me why she left
+      Mayberry so suddenly? She had not intended going; at least she did not
+      mention her intention to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She did not mention it to anyone,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;It was a very sudden
+      determination on her part.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He considered this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would seem so,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Knowles, you'll excuse my saying it, but
+      this whole matter seems deucedly odd to me. There is something which I
+      don't understand. You haven't answered my question. Under the
+      circumstances, considering our talk the other evening, I think I have a
+      right to ask it. Why did she leave so suddenly?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hesitated. Mayberry's principal thoroughfare was far from crowded, but
+      it was scarcely the place for an interview like this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She had a reason for leaving,&rdquo; I answered, slowly. &ldquo;I will tell you
+      later, perhaps, what it was. Just now I cannot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You cannot!&rdquo; he repeated. He was evidently struggling with his impatience
+      and growing suspicious. &ldquo;You cannot! But I think I have a right to know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I appreciate your feelings, but I cannot tell you now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because&mdash;Well, because I don't think it would be fair to her. She
+      would not wish me to tell you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She would not wish it? Was it because of me she left?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; not in the least.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was it&mdash;was it because of someone else? By Jove! it wasn't because
+      of that Heathcroft cad? Don't tell me that! My God! she&mdash;she didn't&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I interrupted. His suspicion angered me. I should have understood his
+      feelings, should have realized that he had been and was disappointed and
+      agitated and that my answers to his questions must have aroused all sorts
+      of fears and forebodings in his mind. I should have pitied him, but just
+      then I had little pity for others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She did nothing but what she considered right,&rdquo; I said sharply. &ldquo;Her
+      leaving had nothing to do with Heathcroft or with you. I doubt if she
+      thought of either of you at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a brutal speech, and he took it like a man. I saw him turn pale and
+      bite his lips, but when he next spoke it was in a calmer tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm sorry,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I was a silly ass even to think such a thing. But&mdash;but
+      you see, Knowles, I&mdash;I&mdash;this means so much to me. I'm sorry,
+      though. I ask her pardon and yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was sorry, too. &ldquo;Of course I didn't mean that, exactly,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Her
+      feelings toward you are of the kindest, I have no doubt, but her reason
+      for leaving was a purely personal one. You were not concerned in it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He reflected. He was far from satisfied, naturally, and his next speech
+      showed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is extraordinary, all this,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You are quite sure you don't
+      know when she is coming back?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you mind giving me her London address?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't KNOW it! Oh, I say! that's damned nonsense! You don't know when
+      she is coming back and you don't know her address! Do you mean you don't
+      know where she has gone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&mdash;? Are you trying to tell me she is not coming back at all?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was very pale. He seized my arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is all this?&rdquo; he demanded, fiercely. &ldquo;What has happened? Tell me; I
+      want to know. Where is she? Why did she go? Tell me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can tell you nothing,&rdquo; I said, as calmly as I could. &ldquo;She left us very
+      suddenly and she is not coming back. Her reason for leaving I can't tell
+      you, now. I don't know where she is and I have no right to try and find
+      out. She has asked that no one follow her or interfere with her in any
+      way. I respect her wish and I advise you, if you wish to remain her
+      friend, to do the same, for the present, at least. That is all I can tell
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook my arm savagely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By George!&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;you must tell me. I'll make you! I&mdash;I&mdash;Do
+      you think me a fool? Do you suppose I believe such rot as that? You tell
+      me she has gone&mdash;has left Mayberry&mdash;and you don't know where she
+      has gone and don't intend trying to find out. Why&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, Bayliss! that is enough. This is not the place for us to quarrel.
+      And there is no reason why we should quarrel at all. I have told you all
+      that I can tell you now. Some day I may tell you more, but until then you
+      must be patient, for her sake. Her leaving Mayberry had no connection with
+      you whatever. You must be contented with that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Contented! Why, man, you're mad. She is your niece. You are her guardian
+      and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not her guardian. Neither is she my niece.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had spoken involuntarily. Certainly I had not intended telling him that.
+      The speech had the effect of causing him to drop my arm and step back. He
+      stared at me blankly. No doubt he did think me crazy, then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no authority over her in any way,&rdquo; I went on. &ldquo;She is Miss
+      Cahoon's niece, but we are not her guardians. She has left our home of her
+      own free will and neither I nor you nor anyone else shall follow her if I
+      can help it. I am sorry to have deceived you. The deceit was unavoidable,
+      or seemed to be. I am very, very sorry for you. That is all I can say now.
+      Good morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I left him standing there in the street and walked away. He called after
+      me, but I did not turn back. He would have followed me, of course, but
+      when I did look back I saw that the landlord of the inn was trying to talk
+      with him and was detaining him. I was glad that the landlord had appeared
+      so opportunely. I had said too much already. I had bungled this interview
+      as I had that with Heathcroft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I told Hephzy all about it. She appeared to think that, after all, perhaps
+      it was best.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When you've got a toothache,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you might as well go to the
+      dentist's right off. The old thing will go on growlin' and grumblin' and
+      it's always there to keep you in misery. You'd have had to tell him some
+      time. Well, you've told him now, the worst of it, anyhow. The tooth's out;
+      though,&rdquo; with a one-sided smile, &ldquo;I must say you didn't give the poor chap
+      any ether to help along.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm afraid it isn't out,&rdquo; I said, truthfully. &ldquo;He won't be satisfied with
+      one operation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I'll be on hand to help with the next one. And, between us, I
+      cal'late we can make that final. Poor boy! Well, he's young, that's one
+      comfort. You get over things quicker when you're young.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I nodded. &ldquo;That is true,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;but there is something else, Hephzy.
+      You say I have acted for the best. Have I? I don't know. We know he cares
+      for her, but&mdash;but does she&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does she care for him, you mean? I don't think so, Hosy. For a spell I
+      thought she did, but now I doubt it. I think&mdash;Well, never mind what I
+      think. I think a lot of foolish things. My brain's softenin' up, I
+      shouldn't wonder. It's a longshore brain, anyhow, and it needs the salt to
+      keep it from spoilin'. I wish you and I could go clammin'. When you're
+      diggin' clams you're too full of backache to worry about toothaches&mdash;or
+      heartaches, either.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I expected a visit from young Bayliss that very evening, but he did not
+      come to the rectory. Instead Doctor Bayliss, Senior, came and requested an
+      interview with me. Hephzy announced the visitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He acts pretty solemn, Hosy,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I wouldn't wonder if his son had
+      told him. I guess it's another toothache. Would you like to have me stay
+      and help?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I said I should be glad of her help. So, when the old gentleman was shown
+      into the study, he found her there with me. The doctor was very grave and
+      his usually ruddy, pleasant face was haggard and careworn. He took the
+      chair which I offered him and, without preliminaries, began to speak of
+      the subject which had brought him there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was as Hephzy had surmised. His son had told him everything, of his
+      love for Frances, of his asking my permission to marry her, and of our
+      talk before the inn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sure I don't need to tell you, Knowles,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that all this has
+      shaken the boy's mother and me dreadfully. We knew, of course, that the
+      young people liked each other, were together a great deal, and all that.
+      But we had not dreamed of any serious attachment between them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy put in a word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We don't know as there has been any attachment between them,&rdquo; she said.
+      &ldquo;Your boy cared for her&mdash;we know that&mdash;but whether she cared for
+      him or not we don't know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Our visitor straightened in his chair. The idea that his son could love
+      anyone and not be loved in return was plainly quite inconceivable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think we may take that for granted, madame,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The news was, as
+      I say, a great shock to my wife and myself. Herbert is our only child and
+      we had, naturally, planned somewhat concerning his future. The&mdash;the
+      overthrow of our plans was and is a great grief and disappointment to us.
+      Not, please understand, that we question your niece's worth or anything of
+      that sort. She is a very attractive young woman and would doubtless make
+      my son a good wife. But, if you will pardon my saying so, we know very
+      little about her or her family. You are comparative strangers to us and
+      although we have enjoyed your&mdash;ah&mdash;society and&mdash;ah&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy interrupted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon for saying it, Doctor Bayliss,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;but you know
+      as much about us as we do about you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor's composure was ruffled still more. He regarded Hephzy through
+      his spectacles and then said, with dignity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame, I have resided in this vicinity for nearly forty years. I think
+      my record and that of my family will bear inspection.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't doubt it a bit. But, as far as that goes, I have lived in Bayport
+      for fifty-odd years myself and our folks have lived there for a hundred
+      and fifty. I'm not questionin' you or your family, Doctor Bayliss. If I
+      had questioned 'em I could easily have looked up the record. All I'm
+      sayin' is that I haven't thought of questionin', and I don't just see why
+      you shouldn't take as much for granted as I have.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old gentleman was a bit disconcerted. He cleared his throat and
+      fidgeted in his seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do&mdash;I do, Miss Cahoon, of course,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But&mdash;ah&mdash;Well,
+      to return to the subject of my son and Miss Morley. The boy is dreadfully
+      agitated, Mr. Knowles. He is quite mad about the girl and his mother and I
+      are much concerned about him. We would&mdash;I assure you we would do
+      anything and sacrifice anything for his sake. We like your niece, and,
+      although, as I say, we had planned otherwise, nevertheless we will&mdash;provided
+      all is as it should be&mdash;give our consent to&mdash;to the arrangement,
+      for his sake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not answer. The idea that marrying Frances Morley would entail a
+      sacrifice upon anyone's part except hers angered me and I did not trust
+      myself to speak. But Hephzy spoke for me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean by providin' everything is as it should be?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, I mean&mdash;I mean provided we learn that she is&mdash;is&mdash;That
+      is,&mdash;Well, one naturally likes to know something concerning his
+      prospective daughter-in-law's history, you know. That is to be expected,
+      now isn't it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy looked at me and I looked at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doctor,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I wonder if your son told you about some things Hosy&mdash;Mr.
+      Knowles, I mean&mdash;told him this mornin'. Did he tell you that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor colored slightly. &ldquo;Yes&mdash;yes, he did,&rdquo; he admitted. &ldquo;He
+      said he had a most extraordinary sort of interview with Mr. Knowles and
+      was told by him some quite extraordinary things. Of course, we could
+      scarcely believe that he had heard aright. There was some mistake, of
+      course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was no mistake, Doctor Bayliss,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I told your son the
+      truth, a very little of the truth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The truth! But it couldn't be true, you know, as Herbert reported it to
+      me. He said Miss Morley had left Mayberry, had gone away for some
+      unexplained reason, and was not coming back&mdash;that you did not know
+      where she had gone, that she had asked not to be hindered or followed or
+      something. And he said&mdash;My word! he even said you, Knowles, had
+      declared yourself to be neither her uncle nor her guardian. THAT couldn't
+      be true, now could it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again Hephzy and I looked at each other. Without speaking we reached the
+      same conclusion. Hephzy voiced that conclusion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess, Doctor Bayliss,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;that the time has come when you had
+      better be told the whole truth, or as much of the whole truth about
+      Frances as Hosy and I know. I'm goin' to tell it to you. It's a kind of
+      long story, but I guess likely you ought to know it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She began to tell that story, beginning at the very beginning, with
+      Ardelia and Strickland Morley and continuing on, through the history of
+      the latter's rascality and the fleeing of the pair from America, to our
+      own pilgrimage, the finding of Little Frank and the astonishing happenings
+      since.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's gone,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;She found out what sort of man her father really
+      was and, bein' a high-spirited, proud girl&mdash;as proud and
+      high-spirited as she is clever and pretty and good&mdash;she ran away and
+      left us. We don't blame her, Hosy and I. We understand just how she feels
+      and we've made up our minds to do as she asks and not try to follow her or
+      try to bring her back to us against her will. We think the world of her.
+      We haven't known her but a little while, but we've come&mdash;that is,&rdquo;
+       with a sudden glance in my direction, &ldquo;I've come to love her as if she was
+      my own. It pretty nigh kills me to have her go. When I think of her
+      strugglin' along tryin' to earn her own way by singin' and&mdash;and all,
+      I have to hold myself by main strength to keep from goin' after her and
+      beggin' her on my knees to come back. But I sha'n't do it, because she
+      doesn't want me to. Of course I hope and believe that some day she will
+      come back, but until she does and of her own accord, I'm goin' to wait.
+      And, if your son really cares for her as much as we&mdash;as I do, he'll
+      wait, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She paused and hastily dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief. I turned
+      in order that the Doctor might not see my face. It was an unnecessary
+      precaution. Doctor Bayliss' mind was busy, apparently, with but one
+      thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An opera singer!&rdquo; he exclaimed, under his breath. &ldquo;An opera singer!
+      Herbert to marry an opera singer! The granddaughter of a Yankee sailor and&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the daughter of an English thief,&rdquo; put in Hephzy, sharply. &ldquo;Maybe
+      we'd better leave nationalities out, Doctor Bayliss. The Yankees have the
+      best end of it, 'cordin' to my notion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paid no attention to this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was greatly upset. &ldquo;It is impossible!&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;Absolutely
+      impossible! Why haven't we known of this before? Why did not Herbert know
+      of it? Mr. Knowles, I must say that&mdash;that you have been most
+      unthinking in this matter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been thinking of her,&rdquo; I answered, curtly. &ldquo;It was and is her
+      secret and we rely upon you to keep it as such. We trust to your honor to
+      tell no one, not even your son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My son! Herbert? Why I must tell him! I must tell my wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may tell your wife. And your son as much as you think necessary.
+      Further than that it must not go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course, of course. I understand. But an opera singer!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She isn't a real opera singer,&rdquo; said Hephzy. &ldquo;That is, not one of those
+      great ones. And she told me once that she realized now that she never
+      could be. She has a real sweet voice, a beautiful voice, but it isn't
+      powerful enough to make her a place in the big companies. She tried and
+      tried, she said, but all the managers said the same thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;when did she tell you this? I didn't know of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know you didn't, Hosy. She told me one day when we were alone. It was
+      the only time she ever spoke of herself and she didn't say much then. She
+      spoke about her livin' with her relatives here in England and what awful,
+      mean, hard people they were. She didn't say who they were nor where they
+      lived, but she did say she ran away from them to go on the stage as a
+      singer and what trials and troubles she went through afterward. She told
+      me that much and then she seemed sorry that she had. She made me promise
+      not to tell anyone, not even you. I haven't, until now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Doctor Bayliss was sitting with a hand to his forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A provincial opera singer,&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;Oh, impossible! Quite
+      impossible!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It may seem impossible to you,&rdquo; I couldn't help observing, &ldquo;but I
+      question if it will seem so to your son. I doubt if her being an opera
+      singer will make much difference to him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor groaned. &ldquo;The boy is mad about her, quite mad,&rdquo; he admitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was sorry for him. Perhaps if I were in his position I might feel as he
+      did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will say this,&rdquo; I said: &ldquo;In no way, so far as I know, has Miss Morley
+      given your son encouragement. He told me himself that he had never spoken
+      to her of his feelings and we have no reason to think that she regards him
+      as anything more than a friend. She left no message for him when she went
+      away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He seemed to find some ground for hope in this. He rose from the chair and
+      extended his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Knowles,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;if I have said anything to hurt your feelings or
+      those of Miss Cahoon I am very sorry. I trust it will make no difference
+      in our friendship. My wife and I respect and like you both and I think I
+      understand how deeply you must feel the loss of your&mdash;of Miss Morley.
+      I hope she&mdash;I hope you may be reunited some day. No doubt you will
+      be. As for Herbert&mdash;he is our son and if you ever have a son of your
+      own, Mr. Knowles, you may appreciate his mother's feelings and mine. We
+      have planned and&mdash;and&mdash;Even now I should not stand in the way of
+      his happiness if&mdash;if I believed happiness could come of it. But such
+      marriages are never happy. And,&rdquo; with a sudden burst of hope, &ldquo;as you say,
+      she may not be aware of his attachment. The boy is young. He may forget.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said I, with a sigh. &ldquo;He IS young, and he may forget.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After he had gone Hephzy turned to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I hadn't understood that old man's feelin's,&rdquo; she declared, &ldquo;I'd have
+      given him one talkin' to. The idea of his speakin' as if Frances wouldn't
+      be a wife anybody, a lord or anybody else, might be proud of! But he
+      didn't know. He's been brought up that way, and he doesn't know. And, of
+      course, his son IS the only person on earth to him. Well, that's over! We
+      haven't got to worry about them any more. We'll begin to live for each
+      other now, Hosy, same as we used to do. And we'll wait for the rest. It'll
+      come and come right for all of us. Just you see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which I Play Golf and Cross the Channel
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      And so we began &ldquo;to live for each other again,&rdquo; Hephzy and I. This meant,
+      of course, that Hephzy forgot herself entirely and spent the greater part
+      of her time trying to find ways to make my living more comfortable, just
+      as she had always done. And I&mdash;well, I did my best to appear, if not
+      happy, at least reasonably calm and companionable. It was a hard job for
+      both of us; certainly my part of it was hard enough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Appearances had to be considered and so we invented a tale of a visit to
+      relatives in another part of England to account for the unannounced
+      departure of Miss Morley. This excuse served with the neighbors and
+      friends not in the secret and, for the benefit of the servants, Hephzy
+      elaborated the deceit by pretending eagerness at the arrival of the mails
+      and by certain vague remarks at table concerning letters she was writing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I AM writing 'em, too, Hosy,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I write to her every few days.
+      Of course I don't mail the letters, but it sort of squares things with my
+      conscience to really write after talking so much about it. As for her
+      visitin' relatives&mdash;well, she's got relatives somewhere in England,
+      we know that much, and she MAY be visitin' 'em. At any rate I try to think
+      she is. Oh, dear, I 'most wish I'd had more experience in tellin' lies;
+      then I wouldn't have to invent so many extra ones to make me believe those
+      I told at the beginnin'. I wish I'd been brought up a book agent or a
+      weather prophet or somethin' like that; then I'd have been in trainin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Without any definite agreement we had fallen into the habit of not
+      mentioning the name of Little Frank, even when we were alone together. In
+      consequence, on these occasions, there would be long intervals of silence
+      suddenly broken by Hephzy's bursting out with a surmise concerning what
+      was happening in Bayport, whether they had painted the public library
+      building yet, or how Susanna was getting on with the cat and hens. She had
+      received three letters from Miss Wixon and, as news bearers, they were far
+      from satisfactory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That girl makes me so provoked,&rdquo; sniffed Hephzy, dropping the most recent
+      letter in her lap with a gesture of disgust. &ldquo;She says she's got a cold in
+      the head and she's scared to death for fear it'll get 'set onto her,'
+      whatever that is. Two pages of this letter is nothin' but cold in the head
+      and t'other two is about a new hat she's goin' to have and she don't know
+      whether to trim it with roses or forget-me-nots. If she trimmed it with
+      cabbage 'twould match her head better'n anything else. I declare! she
+      ought to be thankful she's got a cold in a head like hers; it must be
+      comfortin' to know there's SOMETHIN' there. You've got a letter, too,
+      Hosy. Who is it from?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From Campbell,&rdquo; I answered, wearily. &ldquo;He wants to know how the novel is
+      getting on, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! Well, you write him that it's gettin' on the way a squid gets
+      ahead&mdash;by goin' backwards. Don't let him pester you one bit, Hosy.
+      You write that novel just as fast or slow as you feel like. He told you to
+      take a vacation, anyway.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled. Mine was a delightful vacation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The summer dragged on. The days passed. Pleasant days they were, so far as
+      the weather was concerned. I spent them somehow, walking, riding, golfing,
+      reading. I gave up trying to work; the half-written novel remained half
+      written. I could not concentrate my thoughts upon it and I lacked the
+      courage to force myself to try. I wrote Campbell that he must be patient,
+      I was doing the best I could. He answered by telling me not to worry, to
+      enjoy myself. &ldquo;Why do you stay there in England?&rdquo; he wrote. &ldquo;I ordered you
+      to travel, not to plant yourself in one place and die of dry rot. A
+      British oyster is mighty little improvement on a Cape Cod quahaug. You
+      have been in that rectory about long enough. Go to Monte Carlo for change.
+      You'll find it there&mdash;or lose it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It may have been good advice&mdash;or bad&mdash;according to the way in
+      which it was understood, but, good or bad, it didn't appeal to me. I had
+      no desire to travel, unless it were to travel back to Bayport, where I
+      belonged. I felt no interest in Monte Carlo&mdash;for the matter of that,
+      I felt no interest in Mayberry or anywhere else. I was not interested in
+      anything or anybody&mdash;except one, and that one had gone out of my
+      life. Night after night I went to sleep determining to forget and morning
+      after morning I awoke only to remember, and with the same dull, hopeless
+      heartache and longing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      July passed, August was half gone. Still we remained at the rectory. Our
+      lease was up on the first of October. The Coles would return then and we
+      should be obliged to go elsewhere, whether we wished to or not. Hephzy,
+      although she did not say much about it, was willing to go, I think. Her
+      &ldquo;presentiment&rdquo; had remained only a presentiment so far; no word came from
+      Little Frank. We had heard or learned nothing concerning her or her
+      whereabouts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our neighbors and friends in Mayberry were as kind and neighborly as ever.
+      For the first few days after our interview with Doctor Bayliss, Senior,
+      Hephzy and I saw nothing of him or his family. Then the doctor called
+      again. He seemed in better spirits. His son had yielded to his parents'
+      entreaties and had departed for a walking tour through the Black Forest
+      with some friends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The invitation came at exactly the right time,&rdquo; said the old gentleman.
+      &ldquo;Herbert was ready to go anywhere or do anything. The poor boy was in the
+      depths and when his mother and I urged him to accept he did so. We are
+      hoping that when he returns he will have forgotten, or, if not that, at
+      least be more reconciled.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Heathcroft came and went at various times during the summer. I met him on
+      the golf course and he was condescendingly friendly as ever. Our talk
+      concerning Frances, which had brought such momentous consequences to her
+      and to Hephzy and to me, had, apparently, not disturbed him in the least.
+      He greeted me blandly and cheerfully, asked how we all were, said he had
+      been given to understand that &ldquo;my charming little niece&rdquo; was no longer
+      with us, and proceeded to beat me two down in eighteen holes. I played
+      several times with him afterward and, under different circumstances,
+      should have enjoyed doing so, for we were pretty evenly matched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His aunt, the Lady of the Manor, I also met. She went out of her way to be
+      as sweetly gracious as possible. I presume she inferred from Frances'
+      departure that I had taken her hint and had removed the disturbing
+      influence from her nephew's primrose-bordered path. At each of our
+      meetings she spoke of the &ldquo;invitation golf tournament,&rdquo; several times
+      postponed and now to be played within a fortnight. She insisted that I
+      must take part in it. At last, having done everything except decline
+      absolutely, I finally consented to enter the tournament. It is not easy to
+      refuse to obey an imperial decree and Lady Carey was Empress of Mayberry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After accepting I returned to the rectory to find that Hephzy also had
+      received an invitation. Not to play golf, of course; her invitation was of
+      a totally different kind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you think, Hosy!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;I've got a letter and you can't
+      guess who it's from.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From Susanna?&rdquo; I ventured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Susanna! You don't suppose I'd be as excited as all this over a letter
+      from Susanna Wixon, do you? No indeed! I've got a letter from Mrs. Hepton,
+      who had the Nickerson cottage last summer. She and her husband are in
+      Paris and they want us to meet 'em there in a couple of weeks and go for a
+      short trip through Switzerland. They got our address from Mr. Campbell
+      before they left home. Mrs. Hepton writes that they're countin' on our
+      company. They're goin' to Lake Lucerne and to Mont Blanc and everywhere.
+      Wouldn't it be splendid!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Heptons had been summer neighbors of ours on the Cape for several
+      seasons. They were friends of Jim Campbell's and had first come to Bayport
+      on his recommendation. I liked them very well, and, oddly enough, for I
+      was not popular with the summer colony, they had seemed to like me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was very kind of them to think of us,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Campbell shouldn't
+      have given them our address, of course, but their invitation was well
+      meant. You must write them at once. Make our refusal as polite as
+      possible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy seemed disappointed, I thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you think I'd better say no?&rdquo; she observed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, of course. You weren't thinking of accepting, were you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I didn't know. I'm not sure that our goin' wouldn't be the right
+      thing. I've been considerin' for some time, Hosy, and I've about come to
+      the conclusion that stayin' here is bad for you. Maybe it's bad for both
+      of us. Perhaps a change would do us both good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was astonished. &ldquo;Humph!&rdquo; I exclaimed; &ldquo;this is a change of heart,
+      Hephzy. A while ago, when I suggested going back to Bayport, you wouldn't
+      hear of it. You wanted to stay here and&mdash;and wait.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know I did. And I've been waitin', but nothin' has come of it. I've
+      still got my presentiment, Hosy. I believe just as strong as I ever did
+      that some time or other she and you and I will be together again. But
+      stayin' here and seein' nobody but each other and broodin' don't do us any
+      good. It's doin' you harm; that's plain enough. You don't write and you
+      don't eat&mdash;that is, not much&mdash;and you're gettin' bluer and more
+      thin and peaked every day. You have just got to go away from here, no
+      matter whether I do or not. And I've reached the point where I'm willin'
+      to go, too. Not for good, maybe. We'll come back here again. Our lease
+      isn't up until October and we can leave the servants here and give them
+      our address to have mail forwarded. If&mdash;if she&mdash;that is, if a
+      letter or&mdash;or anything&mdash;SHOULD come we could hurry right back.
+      The Heptons are real nice folks; you always liked 'em, Hosy. And you
+      always wanted to see Switzerland; you used to say so. Why don't we say yes
+      and go along?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not answer. I believed I understood the reason for Campbell's giving
+      our address to the Heptons; also the reason for the invitation. Jim was
+      very anxious to have me leave Mayberry; he believed travel and change of
+      scene were what I needed. Doubtless he had put the Heptons up to asking us
+      to join them on their trip. It was merely an addition to his precious
+      prescription.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don't we go?&rdquo; urged Hephzy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not much!&rdquo; I answered, decidedly. &ldquo;I should be poor company on a pleasure
+      trip like that. But you might go, Hephzy. There is no reason in the world
+      why you shouldn't go. I'll stay here until you return. Go, by all means,
+      and enjoy yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'd do a lot of enjoyin' without you, wouldn't I,&rdquo; she observed. &ldquo;While I
+      was lookin' at the scenery I'd be wonderin' what you had for breakfast.
+      Every mite of rain would set me to thinkin' of your gettin' your feet wet
+      and when I laid eyes on a snow peak I'd wonder if you had blankets enough
+      on your bed. I'd be like that yellow cat we used to have back in the time
+      when Father was alive. That cat had kittens and Father had 'em all drowned
+      but one. After that you never saw the cat anywhere unless the kitten was
+      there, too. She wouldn't eat unless it were with her and between bites
+      she'd sit down on it so it couldn't run off. She lugged it around in her
+      mouth until Father used to vow he'd have eyelet holes punched in the
+      scruff of its neck for her teeth to fit into and make it easier for both
+      of 'em. It died, finally; she wore it out, I guess likely. Then she
+      adopted a chicken and started luggin' that around. She had the habit, you
+      see. I'm a good deal like her, Hosy. I've took care of you so long that
+      I've got the habit. No, I shouldn't go unless you did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      No amount of urging moved her, so we dropped the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The morning of the golf tournament was clear and fine. I shouldered my bag
+      of clubs and walked through the lane toward the first tee. I never felt
+      less like playing or more inclined to feign illness and remain at home.
+      But I had promised Lady Carey and the promise must be kept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a group of people, players and guests, awaiting me at the tee.
+      Her ladyship was there, of course; so also was her nephew, Mr. Carleton
+      Heathcroft, whom I had not seen for some time. Heathcroft was in
+      conversation with a young fellow who, when he turned in my direction, I
+      recognized as Herbert Bayliss. I was surprised to see him; I had not heard
+      of his return from the Black Forest trip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Carey was affable and gracious, also very important and busy. She
+      welcomed me absent-mindedly, introduced me to several of her guests,
+      ladies and gentlemen from London down for the week-end, and then bustled
+      away to confer with Mr. Handliss, steward of the estate, concerning the
+      arrangements for the tournament. I felt a touch on my arm and, turning,
+      found Doctor Bayliss standing beside me. He was smiling and in apparent
+      good humor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The boy is back, Knowles,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Have you seen him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I have seen him, although we haven't met yet. I was
+      surprised to find him here. When did he return?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only yesterday. His mother and I were surprised also. We hadn't expected
+      him so soon. He's looking very fit, don't you think?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very.&rdquo; I had not noticed that young Bayliss was looking either more or
+      less fit than usual, but I answered as I did because the old gentleman
+      seemed so very anxious that I should. He was evidently gratified. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo;
+       he said, &ldquo;he's looking very fit indeed. I think his trip has benefited him
+      hugely. And I think&mdash;Yes, I think he is beginning to forget his&mdash;that
+      is to say, I believe he does not dwell upon the&mdash;the recent
+      happenings as he did. I think he is forgetting; I really think he is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed,&rdquo; said I. It struck me that, if Herbert Bayliss was forgetting,
+      his memory must be remarkably short. I imagined that his father's wish was
+      parent to the thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has&mdash;ah&mdash;scarcely mentioned our&mdash;our young friend's
+      name since his return,&rdquo; went on the doctor. &ldquo;He did ask if you had heard&mdash;ah&mdash;by
+      the way, Knowles, you haven't heard, have you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear me! dear me! That's very odd, now isn't it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not say he was sorry. If he had said it I should not have believed
+      him. If ever anything was plain it was that the longer we remained without
+      news of Frances Morley the better pleased Herbert Bayliss's parents would
+      be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I say, Knowles,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;you and he must meet, you know. He
+      doesn't hold any ill-feeling or&mdash;or resentment toward you. Really he
+      doesn't. Herbert! Oh, I say, Herbert! Come here, will you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Young Bayliss turned. The doctor whispered in my ear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps it would be just as well not to refer to&mdash;to&mdash;You
+      understand me, Knowles. Better let sleeping dogs lie, eh? Oh, Herbert,
+      here is Knowles waiting to shake hands with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We shook hands. The shake, on his part, was cordial enough, perhaps, but
+      not too cordial. It struck me that young Bayliss was neither as &ldquo;fit&rdquo; nor
+      as forgetful as his fond parents wished to believe. He looked rather worn
+      and nervous, it seemed to me. I asked him about his tramping trip and we
+      chatted for a few moments. Then Bayliss, Senior, was called by Lady Carey
+      and Handliss to join the discussion concerning the tournament rules and
+      the young man and I were left alone together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Knowles,&rdquo; he asked, the moment after his father's departure, &ldquo;have you
+      heard anything? Anything concerning&mdash;her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're sure? You're not&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am quite sure. We haven't heard nor do we expect to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked away across the course and I heard him draw a long breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's deucedly odd, this,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;How she could disappear so entirely I
+      don't understand. And you have no idea where she may be?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But&mdash;but, confound it, man, aren't you trying to find her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're not! Why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know why not as well as I. She left us of her own free will and her
+      parting request was that we should not follow her. That is sufficient for
+      us. Pardon me, but I think it should be for all her friends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was silent for a moment. Then his teeth snapped together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll find her,&rdquo; he declared, fiercely. &ldquo;I'll find her some day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In spite of her request?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. In spite of the devil.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned on his heel and walked off. Mr. Handliss stepped to the first
+      tee, clapped his hands to attract attention and began a little speech.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tournament, he said, was about to begin. Play would be, owing to the
+      length and difficulty of the course, but eighteen holes instead of the
+      usual thirty-six. This meant that each pair of contestants would play the
+      nine holes twice. Handicaps had been fixed as equitably as possible
+      according to each player's previous record, and players having similar
+      handicaps were to play against each other. A light lunch and refreshments
+      would be served after the first round had been completed by all. Prizes
+      would be distributed by her ladyship when the final round was finished.
+      Her ladyship bade us all welcome and was gratified by our acceptance of
+      her invitation. He would now proceed to read the names of those who were
+      to play against each other, stating handicaps and the like. He read
+      accordingly, and I learned that my opponent was to be Mr. Heathcroft, each
+      of us having a handicap of two.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Considering everything I thought my particular handicap a stiff one.
+      Heathcroft had been in the habit of beating me in two out of three of our
+      matches. However, I determined to play my best. Being the only outlander
+      on the course I couldn't help feeling that the sporting reputation of
+      Yankeeland rested, for this day at least, upon my shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The players were sent off in pairs, the less skilled first. Heathcroft and
+      I were next to the last. A London attorney by the name of Jaynes and a
+      Wrayton divine named Wilson followed us. Their rating was one plus and,
+      judging by the conversation of the &ldquo;gallery,&rdquo; they were looked upon as
+      winners of the first and second prizes respectively. The Reverend Mr.
+      Wilson was called, behind his back, &ldquo;the sporting curate.&rdquo; In gorgeous
+      tweeds and a shepherd's plaid cap he looked the part.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first nine went to me. An usually long drive and a lucky putt on the
+      eighth gave me the round by one. I played with care and tried my hardest
+      to keep my mind on the game. Heathcroft was, as always, calm and careful,
+      but between tees he was pleased to be chatty and affable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how is the aunt with the odd name, Knowles?&rdquo; he inquired. &ldquo;Does she
+      still devour her&mdash;er&mdash;washing flannels and treacle for
+      breakfast?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She does when she cares to,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;She is an independent lady, as I
+      think you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My word! I believe you. And how are the literary labors progressing? I
+      had my bookselling fellow look up a novel of yours the other day. Began it
+      that same night, by Jove! It was quite interesting, really. I should have
+      finished it, I think, but some of the chaps at the club telephoned me to
+      join them for a bit of bridge and of course that ended literature for the
+      time. My respected aunt tells me I'm quite dotty on bridge. She foresees a
+      gambler's end for me, stony broke, languishing in dungeons and all that
+      sort of thing. I am to die of starvation, I think. Is it starvation
+      gamblers die of? 'Pon my soul, I should say most of those I know would be
+      more likely to die of thirst. Rather!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Later on he asked another question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how is the pretty niece, Knowles?&rdquo; he inquired. &ldquo;When is she coming
+      back to the monastery or the nunnery or rectory, or whatever it is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; I replied, curtly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I say! Isn't she coming at all? That would be a calamity, now
+      wouldn't it? Not to me in particular. I should mind your notice boards, of
+      course. But if I were condemned, as you are, to spend a summer among the
+      feminine beauties of Mayberry, a face like hers would be like a whisky and
+      soda in a thirsty land, as a chap I know is fond of saying. Oh, and by the
+      way, speaking of your niece, I had a curious experience in Paris a week
+      ago. Most extraordinary thing. For the moment I began to believe I really
+      was going dotty, as Auntie fears. I... Your drive, Knowles. I'll tell you
+      the story later.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not tell it during that round, forgot it probably. I did not remind
+      him. The longer he kept clear of the subject of my &ldquo;niece&rdquo; the more
+      satisfied I was. We lunched in the pavilion by the first tee. There were
+      sandwiches and biscuits&mdash;crackers, of course&mdash;and cakes and
+      sweets galore. Also thirst-quenching materials sufficient to satisfy even
+      the gamblers of Mr. Heathcroft's acquaintance. The &ldquo;sporting curate,&rdquo;
+       behind a huge Scotch and soda, was relating his mishaps in approaching the
+      seventh hole for the benefit of his brother churchmen, Messrs. Judson and
+      Worcester. Lady Carey was dilating upon her pet subject, the talents and
+      virtues of &ldquo;Carleton, dear,&rdquo; for the benefit of the London attorney, who
+      was pretending to listen with the respectful interest due blood and title,
+      but who was thinking of something else, I am sure. &ldquo;Carleton, dear,&rdquo;
+       himself, was chatting languidly with young Bayliss. The latter seemed
+      greatly interested. There was a curious expression on his face. I was
+      surprised to see him so cordial to Heathcroft; I knew he did not like Lady
+      Carey's nephew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The second and final round of the tournament began. For six holes
+      Heathcroft and I broke even. The seventh he won, making us square for the
+      match so far and, with an equal number of strokes. The eighth we halved.
+      All depended on the ninth. Halving there would mean a drawn match between
+      us and a drawing for choice of prizes, provided we were in the
+      prize-winning class. A win for either of us meant the match itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Heathcroft, in spite of the close play, was as bland and unconcerned as
+      ever. I tried to appear likewise. As a matter of fact, I wanted to win.
+      Not because of the possible prize, I cared little for that, but for the
+      pleasure of winning against him. We drove from the ninth tee, each got a
+      long brassy shot which put us on the edge of the green, and then strolled
+      up the hill together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say, Knowles,&rdquo; he observed; &ldquo;I haven't finished telling you of my Paris
+      experience, have I. Odd coincidence, by Jove! I was telling young Bayliss
+      about it just now and he thought it odd, too. I was&mdash;some other chaps
+      and I drifted into the Abbey over in Paris a week or so ago and while we
+      were there a girl came out and sang. She was an extremely pretty girl, you
+      understand, but that wasn't the extraordinary part of it. She was the
+      image&mdash;my word! the very picture of your niece, Miss Morley. It quite
+      staggered me for the moment. Upon my soul I thought it was she! She sang
+      extremely well, but not for long. I tried to get near her&mdash;meant to
+      speak to her, you know, but she had gone before I reached her. Eh! What
+      did you say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had not said anything&mdash;at least I think I had not. He
+      misinterpreted my silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you mustn't be offended,&rdquo; he said, laughing. &ldquo;Of course I knew it
+      wasn't she&mdash;that is, I should have known it if I hadn't been so
+      staggered by the resemblance. It was amazing, that resemblance. The face,
+      the voice&mdash;everything was like hers. I was so dotty about it that I
+      even hunted up one of the chaps in charge and asked him who the girl was.
+      He said she was an Austrian&mdash;Mademoiselle Juno or Junotte or
+      something. That ended it, of course. I was a fool to imagine anything
+      else, of course. But you would have been a bit staggered if you had seen
+      her. And she didn't look Austrian, either. She looked English or American&mdash;rather!
+      I say, I hope I haven't hurt your feelings, old chap. I apologize to you
+      and Miss Morley, you understand. I couldn't help telling you; it was
+      extraordinary now, wasn't it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I made some answer. He rattled on about that sort of thing making one
+      believe in the Prisoner of Zenda stuff, doubles and all that. We reached
+      the green. My ball lay nearest the pin and it was his putt. He made it, a
+      beauty, the ball halting just at the edge of the cup. My putt was wild. He
+      holed out on the next shot. It took me two and I had to concentrate my
+      thought by main strength even then. The hole and match were his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was very decent about it, proclaimed himself lucky, declared I had,
+      generally speaking, played much the better game and should have won
+      easily. I paid little attention to what he said although I did, of course,
+      congratulate him and laughed at the idea that luck had anything to do with
+      the result. I no longer cared about the match or the tournament in general
+      or anything connected with them. His story of the girl who was singing in
+      Paris was what I was interested in now. I wanted him to tell me more, to
+      give me particulars. I wanted to ask him a dozen questions; and, yet,
+      excited as I was, I realized that those questions must be asked carefully.
+      His suspicions must not be aroused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before I could ask the first of the dozen Mr. Handliss bustled over to us
+      to learn the result of our play and to announce that the distribution of
+      prizes would take place in a few moments; also that Lady Carey wished to
+      speak with her nephew. The latter sauntered off to join the group by the
+      pavilion and my opportunity for questioning had gone, for the time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the distribution of prizes, with its accompanying ceremony, I seem to
+      recall very little. Lady Carey made a little speech, I remember that, but
+      just what she said I have forgotten. &ldquo;Much pleasure in rewarding skill,&rdquo;
+       &ldquo;Dear old Scottish game,&rdquo; &ldquo;English sportsmanship,&rdquo; &ldquo;Race not to the swift&rdquo;&mdash;I
+      must have been splashed with these drops from the fountain of oratory, for
+      they stick in my memory. Then, in turn, the winners were called up to
+      select their prizes. Wilson, the London attorney, headed the list; the
+      sporting curate came next; Heathcroft next; and then I. It had not
+      occurred to me that I should win a prize. In fact I had not thought
+      anything about it. My thoughts were far from the golf course just then.
+      They were in Paris, in a cathedral&mdash;Heathcroft had called it an
+      abbey, but cathedral he must have meant&mdash;where a girl who looked like
+      Frances Morley was singing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, when Mr. Handliss called my name I answered and stepped forward.
+      Her Ladyship said something or other about &ldquo;our cousin from across the
+      sea&rdquo; and &ldquo;Anglo-Saxon blood&rdquo; and her especial pleasure in awarding the
+      prize. I stammered thanks, rather incoherently expressed they were, I
+      fear, selected the first article that came to hand&mdash;it happened to be
+      a cigarette case; I never smoke cigarettes&mdash;and retired to the outer
+      circle. The other winners&mdash;Herbert Bayliss and Worcester among them&mdash;selected
+      their prizes and then Mr. Wilson, winner of the tournament, speaking in
+      behalf of us all, thanked the hostess for her kindness and hospitality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her gracious invitation to play upon the Manor-House course Mr. Wilson
+      mentioned feelingly. Also the gracious condescension in presenting the
+      prizes with her own hand. They would be cherished, not only for their own
+      sake, but for that of the donor. He begged the liberty of proposing her
+      ladyship's health.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The &ldquo;liberty&rdquo; was, apparently, expected, for Mr. Handliss had full glasses
+      ready and waiting. The health was drunk. Lady Carey drank ours in return,
+      and the ceremony was over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I tried in vain to get another word with Heathcroft. He was in
+      conversation with his aunt and several of the feminine friends and,
+      although I waited for some time, I, at last, gave up the attempt and
+      walked home. The Reverend Judson would have accompanied me, but I avoided
+      him. I did not wish to listen to Mayberry gossip; I wanted to be alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Heathcroft's tale had made a great impression upon me&mdash;a most
+      unreasonable impression, unwarranted by the scant facts as he related
+      them. The girl whom he had seen resembled Frances&mdash;yes; but she was
+      an Austrian, her name was not Morley. And resemblances were common enough.
+      That Frances should be singing in a Paris church was most improbable; but,
+      so far as that went, the fact of A. Carleton Heathcroft's attending a
+      church service I should, ordinarily, have considered improbable.
+      Improbable things did happen. Suppose the girl he had seen was Frances. My
+      heart leaped at the thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But even supposing it was she, what difference did it make&mdash;to me?
+      None, of course. She had asked us not to follow her, to make no attempt to
+      find her. I had preached compliance with her wish to Hephzy, to Doctor
+      Bayliss&mdash;yes, to Herbert Bayliss that very afternoon. But Herbert
+      Bayliss was sworn to find her, in spite of me, in spite of the Evil One.
+      And Heathcroft had told young Bayliss the same story he had told me. HE
+      would not be deterred by scruples; her wish would not prevent his going to
+      Paris in search of her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I reached the rectory, to be welcomed by Hephzy with questions concerning
+      the outcome of the tournament and triumphant gloatings over my perfectly
+      useless prize. I did not tell her of Heathcroft's story. I merely said I
+      had met that gentleman and that Herbert Bayliss had returned to Mayberry.
+      And I asked a question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; I asked, &ldquo;when do the Heptons leave Paris for their trip through
+      Switzerland?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy considered. &ldquo;Let me see,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Today is the eighteenth, isn't
+      it. They start on the twenty-second; that's four days from now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course you have written them that we cannot accept their invitation to
+      go along?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hesitated. &ldquo;Why, no,&rdquo; she admitted, &ldquo;I haven't. That is, I have
+      written 'em, but I haven't posted the letter. Humph! did you notice that
+      'posted'? Shows what livin' in a different place'll do even to as settled
+      a body as I am. In Bayport I should have said 'mailed' the letter, same as
+      anybody else. I must be careful or I'll go back home and call the
+      expressman a 'carrier' and a pie a 'tart' and a cracker a 'biscuit.' Land
+      sakes! I remember readin' how David Copperfield's aunt always used to eat
+      biscuits soaked in port wine before she went to bed. I used to think 'twas
+      dreadful dissipated business and that the old lady must have been ready
+      for bed by the time she got through. You see I always had riz biscuits in
+      mind. A cracker's different; crackers don't soak up much. We'd ought to be
+      careful how we judge folks, hadn't we, Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said I, absently. &ldquo;So you haven't posted the letter to the Heptons.
+      Why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well&mdash;well, to tell you the truth, Hosy, I was kind of hopin' you
+      might change your mind and decide to go, after all. I wish you would;
+      'twould do you good. And,&rdquo; wistfully, &ldquo;Switzerland must be lovely. But
+      there! I know just how you feel, you poor boy. I'll mail the letter
+      to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give it to me,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I'll&mdash;I'll see to it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy handed me the letter. I put it in my pocket, but I did not post it
+      that evening. A plan&mdash;or the possible beginning of a plan&mdash;was
+      forming in my mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That night was another of my bad ones. The little sleep I had was filled
+      with dreams, dreams from which I awoke to toss restlessly. I rose and
+      walked the floor, calling myself a fool, a silly old fool, over and over
+      again. But when morning came my plan, a ridiculous, wild plan from which,
+      even if it succeeded&mdash;which was most unlikely&mdash;nothing but added
+      trouble and despair could possibly come, my plan was nearer its ultimate
+      formation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At eleven o'clock that forenoon I walked up the marble steps of the Manor
+      House and rang the bell. The butler, an exalted personage in livery,
+      answered my ring. Mr. Heathcroft? No, sir. Mr. Heathcroft had left for
+      London by the morning train. Her ladyship was in her boudoir. She did not
+      see anyone in the morning, sir. I had no wish to see her ladyship, but
+      Heathcroft's departure was a distinct disappointment. I thanked the butler
+      and, remembering that even cathedral ushers accepted tips, slipped a
+      shilling into his hand. His dignity thawed at the silver touch, and he
+      expressed regret at Mr. Heathcroft's absence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're not the only gentleman who has been here to see him this morning,
+      sir,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Doctor Bayliss, the younger one, called about an hour ago.
+      He seemed quite as sorry to find him gone as you are, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I think that settled it. When I again entered the rectory my mind was made
+      up. The decision was foolish, insane, even dishonorable perhaps, but the
+      decision was made.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I have changed my mind. Travel may do me good. I have
+      telegraphed the Heptons that we will join them in Paris on the evening of
+      the twenty-first. After that&mdash;Well, we'll see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy's delight was as great as her surprise. She said I was a dear,
+      unselfish boy. Considering what I intended doing I felt decidedly mean;
+      but I did not tell her what that intention was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We took the two-twenty train from Charing Cross on the afternoon of the
+      twenty-first. The servants had been left in charge of the rectory. We
+      would return in a fortnight, so we told them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a beautiful day, bright and sunshiny, but, after smoky, grimy
+      London had been left behind and we were whizzing through the Kentish
+      countryside, between the hop fields and the pastures where the sheep were
+      feeding, we noticed that a stiff breeze was blowing. Further on, as we
+      wound amid the downs near Folkestone, the bending trees and shrubs proved
+      that the breeze was a miniature gale. And when we came in sight of the
+      Channel, it was thickly sprinkled with whitecaps from beach to horizon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I imagine we shall have a rather rough passage, Hephzy,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy's attention was otherwise engaged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do they call a hill a 'down' over here?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;I should think
+      an 'up' would be better. What did you say, Hosy? A rough passage? I guess
+      that won't bother you and me much. This little mite of water can't seem
+      very much stirred up to folks who have sailed clear across the Atlantic
+      Ocean. But there! I mustn't put on airs. I used to think Cape Cod Bay was
+      about all the water there was. Travelin' does make such a difference in a
+      person's ideas. Do you remember the Englishwoman at Bancroft's who told me
+      that she supposed the Thames must remind us of our own Mississippi?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So that's the famous English Channel, is it,&rdquo; she observed, a moment
+      later. &ldquo;How wide is it, Hosy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About twenty miles at the narrowest point, I believe,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Twenty miles! About as far as Bayport to Provincetown. Well, I don't know
+      whether any of your ancestors or mine came over with William the Conquerer
+      or not, but if they did, they didn't have far to come. I cal'late I'll be
+      contented with having my folks cross in the Mayflower. They came three
+      thousand miles anyway.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was inclined to regard the Channel rather contemptuously just then. A
+      half hour later she was more respectful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The steamer was awaiting us at the pier. As the throng of passengers filed
+      up the gang-plank she suddenly squeezed my arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look! Hosy!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Look! Isn't that him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked where she was pointing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Him? Who?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look! There he goes now. No, he's gone. I can't see him any more. And yet
+      I was almost certain 'twas him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who?&rdquo; I asked again. &ldquo;Did you see someone you knew?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought I did, but I guess I was mistaken. He's just got home; he
+      wouldn't be startin' off again so soon. No, it couldn't have been him, but
+      I did think&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I stopped short. &ldquo;Who did you think you saw?&rdquo; I demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought I saw Doctor Herbert Bayliss goin' up those stairs to the
+      steamboat. It looked like him enough to be his twin brother, if he had
+      one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not answer. I looked about as we stepped aboard the boat, but if
+      young Bayliss was there he was not in sight. Hephzy rattled on excitedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can't tell much by seein' folks's backs,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;I remember
+      one time your cousin Hezekiah Knowles&mdash;You don't remember him, Hosy;
+      he died when you was little&mdash;One time Cousin Hezzy was up to Boston
+      with his wife and they was shoppin' in one of the big stores. That is,
+      Martha Ann&mdash;the wife&mdash;was shoppin' and he was taggin' along and
+      complainin', same as men generally do. He was kind of nearsighted, Hezzy
+      was, and when Martha was fightin' to get a place in front of a bargain
+      counter he stayed astern and kept his eyes fixed on a hat she was wearin'.
+      'Twas a new hat with blue and yellow flowers on it. Hezzy always said,
+      when he told the yarn afterward, that he never once figured that there
+      could be another hat like that one. I saw it myself and, if I'd been in
+      his place, I'd have HOPED there wasn't anyway. Well, he followed that hat
+      from one counter to another and, at last, he stepped up and said, 'Look
+      here, dearie,' he says&mdash;They hadn't been married very long, not long
+      enough to get out of the mushy stage&mdash;'Look here, dearie,' he says,
+      'hadn't we better be gettin' on home? You'll tire those little feet of
+      yours all out trottin' around this way.' And when the hat turned around
+      there was a face under it as black as a crow. He'd been followin' a darkey
+      woman for ten minutes. She thought he was makin' fun of her feet and was
+      awful mad, and when Martha came along and found who he'd taken for her she
+      was madder still. Hezzy said, 'I couldn't help it, Martha. Nobody could. I
+      never saw two craft look more alike from twenty foot astern. And she wears
+      that hat just the way you do.' That didn't help matters any, of course,
+      and&mdash;Why, Hosy, where are you goin'? Why don't you say somethin'?
+      Hadn't we better sit down? All the good seats will be gone if we don't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had been struggling through the crowd, trying my best to get a glimpse
+      of the man she had thought to be Herbert Bayliss. If it was he then my
+      suspicions were confirmed. Heathcroft's story of the girl who sang in
+      Paris had impressed him as it had me and he was on his way to see for
+      himself. But the man, whoever he might be, had disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How the wind does blow,&rdquo; said Hephzy. &ldquo;What are the people doin' with
+      those black tarpaulins?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sailors in uniform were passing among the seated passengers distributing
+      large squares of black waterproof canvas. I watched the use to which the
+      tarpaulins were put and I understood. I beckoned to the nearest sailor and
+      rented two of the canvases for use during the voyage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How much?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One franc each,&rdquo; said the man, curtly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had visited the money-changers near the Charing Cross station and was
+      prepared. Hephzy's eyes opened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A franc,&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;That's French money, isn't it. Is he a
+      Frenchman?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;This is a French boat, I think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She watched the sailor for a moment. Then she sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he's a Frenchman,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I thought Frenchmen wore mustaches and
+      goatees and were awful polite. He was about as polite as a pig. And all he
+      needs is a hand-organ and a monkey to be an Italian. A body couldn't tell
+      the difference without specs. What did you get those tarpaulins for,
+      Hosy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I covered our traveling bags with one of the tarpaulins, as I saw our
+      fellow-passengers doing, and the other I tucked about Hephzy, enveloping
+      her from her waist down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't need that,&rdquo; she protested. &ldquo;It isn't cold and it isn't rainin',
+      either. I tell you I don't need it, Hosy. Don't tuck me in any more. I
+      feel as if I was goin' to France in a baby carriage, not a steamboat. And
+      what are they passin' round those&mdash;those tin dippers for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They may be useful later on,&rdquo; I said, watching the seas leap and foam
+      against the stone breakwater. &ldquo;You'll probably understand later, Hephzy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She understood. The breakwater was scarcely passed when our boat, which
+      had seemed so large and steady and substantial, began to manifest a desire
+      to stand on both ends at once and to roll like a log in a rapid. The sun
+      was shining brightly overhead, the verandas of the hotels along the beach
+      were crowded with gaily dressed people, the surf fringing that beach was
+      dotted with bathers, everything on shore wore a look of holiday and joy&mdash;and
+      yet out here, on the edge of the Channel, there was anything but calm and
+      anything but joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How that blessed boat did toss and rock and dip and leap and pitch! And
+      how the spray began to fly as we pushed farther and farther from land! It
+      came over the bows in sheets; it swept before the wind in showers, in
+      torrents. Hephzy hastily removed her hat and thrust it beneath the
+      tarpaulin. I turned up the collar of my steamer coat and slid as far down
+      into that collar as I could.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My soul!&rdquo; exclaimed Hephzy, the salt water running down her face. &ldquo;My
+      soul and body!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I agree with you,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On we went, over the waves or through them. Our fellow-passengers curled
+      up beneath their tarpaulins, smiled stoically or groaned dismally,
+      according to their dispositions&mdash;or digestions. A huge wave&mdash;the
+      upper third of it, at least&mdash;swept across the deck and spilled a
+      gallon or two of cold water upon us. A sturdy, red-faced Englishman,
+      sitting next me, grinned cheerfully and observed:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Trickles down one's neck a bit, doesn't it, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I agreed that it did. Hephzy, huddled under the lee of my shoulder,
+      sputtered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Trickles!&rdquo; she whispered. &ldquo;My heavens and earth! If this is a trickle
+      then Noah's flood couldn't have been more than a splash. Trickles! There's
+      a Niagara Falls back of both of my ears this minute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Another passenger, also English, but gray-haired and elderly, came tacking
+      down the deck, bound somewhere or other. His was a zig-zag transit. He
+      dove for the rail, caught it, steadied himself, took a fresh start,
+      swooped to the row of chairs by the deck house, carromed from them, and,
+      in company with a barrel or two of flying brine, came head first into my
+      lap. I expected profanity and temper. I did get a little of the former.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This damned French boat!&rdquo; he observed, rising with difficulty. &ldquo;She
+      absolutely WON'T be still.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The sea is pretty rough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, the sea is all right. A bit damp, that's all. It's the blessed boat.
+      Foreigners are such wretched sailors.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was off on another tack. Hephzy watched him wonderingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A bit damp,&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;Yes, I shouldn't wonder if 'twas. I suppose
+      likely he wouldn't call it wet if he fell overboard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not on this side of the Channel,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;This side is English
+      water, therefore it is all right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A few minutes later Hephzy spoke again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look at those poor women,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Opposite us were two English ladies, middle-aged, wretchedly ill and so
+      wet that the feathers on their hats hung down in strings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just like drowned cats' tails,&rdquo; observed Hephzy. &ldquo;Ain't it awful! And
+      they're too miserable to care. You poor thing,&rdquo; she said, leaning forward
+      and addressing the nearest, &ldquo;can't I fix you so you're more comfortable?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The woman addressed looked up and tried her best to smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no, thank you,&rdquo; she said, weakly but cheerfully. &ldquo;We're doing quite
+      well. It will soon be over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you hear that, Hosy?&rdquo; she whispered. &ldquo;I declare! if it wasn't off
+      already, and that's a mercy, I'd take off my hat to England and the
+      English people. Not a whimper, not a complaint, just sit still and soak
+      and tumble around and grin and say it's 'a bit damp.' Whenever I read
+      about the grumblin', fault-findin' Englishman I'll think of the folks on
+      this boat. It may be patriotism or it may be the race pride and reserve we
+      hear so much about&mdash;but, whatever it is, it's fine. They've all got
+      it, men and women and children. I presume likely the boy that stood on the
+      burnin' deck would have said 'twas a bit sultry, and that's all.... What
+      is it, Hosy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had uttered an exclamation. A young man had just reeled by us on his way
+      forward. His cap was pulled down over his eyes and his coat collar was
+      turned up, but I recognized him. He was Herbert Bayliss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We were three hours crossing from Folkestone to Boulogne, instead of the
+      usual scant two. We entered the harbor, where the great crucifix on the
+      hill above the town attracted Hephzy's attention and the French signs over
+      the doors of hotels and shops by the quay made her realize, so she said,
+      that we really were in a foreign country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Somehow England never did seem so very foreign,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;And the
+      Mayberry folks were so nice and homey and kind I've come to think of 'em
+      as, not just neighbors, but friends. But this&mdash;THIS is foreign
+      enough, goodness knows! Let go of my arm!&rdquo; to the smiling, gesticulating
+      porter who was proffering his services. &ldquo;DON'T wave your hands like that;
+      you make me dizzy. Keep 'em still, man! I could understand you just as
+      well if they was tied. Hosy, you'll have to be skipper from now on. Now I
+      KNOW Cape Cod is three thousand miles off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We got through the customs without trouble, found our places in the train,
+      and the train, after backing and fussing and fidgeting and tooting in a
+      manner thoroughly French, rolled out of the station.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We ate our dinner, and a very good dinner it was, in the dining-car.
+      Hephzy, having asked me to translate the heading &ldquo;Compagnie Internationale
+      des Wagon Lits&rdquo; on the bill of fare, declared she couldn't see why a
+      dining-car should be called a &ldquo;wagon bed.&rdquo; &ldquo;There's enough to eat to put
+      you to sleep,&rdquo; she declared, &ldquo;but you couldn't stay asleep any more than
+      you could in the nail factory up to Tremont. I never heard such a rattlin'
+      and slambangin' in my life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We whizzed through the French country, catching glimpses of little towns,
+      with red-roofed cottages clustered about the inevitable church and
+      chateau, until night came and looking out of the window was no longer
+      profitable. At nine, or thereabouts, we alighted from the train at Paris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the cab, on the way to the hotel where we were to meet the Heptons,
+      Hephzy talked incessantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Paris!&rdquo; she said, over and over again. &ldquo;Paris! where they had the Three
+      Musketeers and Notre Dame and Henry of Navarre and Saint Bartholomew and
+      Napoleon and the guillotine and Innocents Abroad and&mdash;and everything.
+      Paris! And I'm in it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the door of the hotel Mr. Hepton met us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before we retired that night I told Hephzy what I had deferred telling
+      until then, namely, that I did not intend leaving for Switzerland with her
+      and with the Heptons the following day. I did not tell her my real reason
+      for staying; I had invented a reason and told her that instead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to be alone here in Paris for a few days,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I think I may
+      find some material here which will help me with my novel. You and the
+      Heptons must go, just as you have planned, and I will join you at Lucerne
+      or Interlaken.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy stared at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I sha'n't stir one step without you,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;If I'd known you had
+      such an idea as that in your head I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You wouldn't have come,&rdquo; I interrupted. &ldquo;I know that; that's why I didn't
+      tell you. Of course you will go and of course you will leave me here. We
+      will be separated only two or three days. I'll ask Hepton to give me an
+      itinerary of the trip and I will wire when and where I will join you. You
+      must go, Hephzy; I insist upon it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of my insisting Hephzy still declared she should not go. It was
+      nearly midnight before she gave in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if you DON'T come in three days at the longest,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you'll
+      find me back here huntin' you up. I mean that, Hosy, so you'd better
+      understand it. And now,&rdquo; rising from her chair, &ldquo;I'm goin' to see about
+      the things you're to wear while we're separated. If I don't you're liable
+      to keep on wet stockin's and shoes and things all the time and forget to
+      change 'em. You needn't say you won't, for I know you too well. Mercy
+      sakes! do you suppose I've taken care of you all these years and DON'T
+      know?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The next forenoon I said good-by to her and the Heptons at the railway
+      station. Hephzy's last words to me were these:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Remember,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;if you do get caught in the rain, there's dry
+      things in the lower tray of your trunk. Collars and neckties and shirts
+      are in the upper tray. I've hung your dress suit in the closet in case you
+      want it, though that isn't likely. And be careful what you eat, and don't
+      smoke too much, and&mdash;Yes, Mr. Hepton, I'm comin'&mdash;and don't
+      spend ALL your money in book-stores; you'll need some of it in
+      Switzerland. And&mdash;Oh, dear, Hosy! do be a good boy. I know you're
+      always good, but, from all I've heard, this Paris is an awful place and&mdash;good-by.
+      Good-by. In Lucerne in two days or Interlaken in three. It's got to be
+      that, or back I come, remember. I HATE to leave you all alone amongst
+      these jabberin' foreigners. I'm glad you can jabber, too, that's one
+      comfort. If it was me, all I could do would be to holler United States
+      language at 'em, and if they didn't understand that, just holler louder. I&mdash;Yes,
+      Mr. Hepton, I AM comin' now. Good-by, Hosy, dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The train rolled out of the station. I watched it go. Then I turned and
+      walked to the street. So far my scheme had worked well. I was alone in
+      Paris as I had planned to be. And now&mdash;and now to find where a girl
+      sang, a girl who looked like Frances Morley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XV
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which I Learn that All Abbeys Are Not Churches
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      And that, now that I really stopped to consider it, began to appear more
+      and more of a task. Paris must be full of churches; to visit each of them
+      in turn would take weeks at least. Hephzy had given me three days. I must
+      join her at Interlaken in three days or there would be trouble. And how
+      was I to make even the most superficial search in three days?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of course I had realized something of this before. Even in the state of
+      mind which Heathcroft's story had left me, I had realized that my errand
+      in Paris was a difficult one. I realized that I had set out on the wildest
+      of wild goose chases and that, even in the improbable event of the
+      singer's being Frances, my finding her was most unlikely. The chances of
+      success were a hundred to one against me. But I was in the mood to take
+      the hundredth chance. I should have taken it if the odds were higher
+      still. My plan&mdash;if it could be called a plan&mdash;was first of all
+      to buy a Paris Baedeker and look over the list of churches. This I did,
+      and, back in the hotel room, I consulted that list. It staggered me. There
+      were churches enough&mdash;there were far too many. Cathedrals and chapels
+      and churches galore&mdash;Catholic and Protestant. But there was no church
+      calling itself an abbey. I closed the Baedeker, lit a cigar, and settled
+      myself for further reflection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl was singing somewhere and she called herself Mademoiselle Juno or
+      Junotte, so Heathcroft had said. So much I knew and that was all. It was
+      very, very little. But Herbert Bayliss had come to Paris, I believed,
+      because of what Heathcroft had told him. Did he know more than I? It was
+      possible. At any rate he had come. I had seen him on the steamer, and I
+      believed he had seen and recognized me. Of course he might not be in Paris
+      now; he might have gone elsewhere. I did not believe it, however. I
+      believed he had crossed the Channel on the same errand as I. There was a
+      possible chance. I might, if the other means proved profitless, discover
+      at which hotel Bayliss was staying and question him. He might tell me
+      nothing, even if he knew, but I could keep him in sight, I could follow
+      him and discover where he went. It would be dishonorable, perhaps, but I
+      was desperate and doggedly regardless of scruples. I was set upon one
+      thing&mdash;to find her, to see her and speak with her again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shadowing Bayliss, however, I set aside as a last resort. Before that I
+      would search on my own hook. And, tossing aside the useless Baedeker, I
+      tried to think of someone whose advice might be of value. At last, I
+      resolved to question the concierge of the hotel. Concierges, I knew, were
+      the ever present helps of travelers in trouble. They knew everything,
+      spoke all languages, and expected to be asked all sorts of unreasonable
+      questions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The concierge at my hotel was a transcendant specimen of his talented
+      class. His name and title was Monsieur Louis&mdash;at least that is what I
+      had heard the other guests call him. And the questions which he had been
+      called upon to answer, in my hearing, ranged in subject from the hour of
+      closing the Luxemburg galleries to that of opening the Bal Tabarin, with
+      various interruptions during which he settled squabbles over cab fares,
+      took orders for theater and opera tickets, and explained why fruit at the
+      tables of the Cafe des Ambassadeurs was so very expensive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monsieur Louis received me politely, listened, with every appearance of
+      interest, to my tale of a young lady, a relative, who was singing at one
+      of the Paris churches and whose name was Juno or Junotte, but, when I had
+      finished, reluctantly shook his head. There were many, many churches in
+      Paris&mdash;yes, and, at some of them, young ladies sang; but these were,
+      for the most part, the Protestant churches. At the larger churches, the
+      Catholic churches, most of the singers were men or boys. He could recall
+      none where a lady of that name sang. Monsieur had not been told the name
+      of the church?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The person who told me referred to it as an abbey,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Louis raised his shoulders. &ldquo;I am sorry, Monsieur,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but there is
+      no abbey, where ladies sing, in Paris. It is, alas, regrettable, but it is
+      so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He announced it as he might have broken to me the news of the death of a
+      friend. Incidentally, having heard a few sentences of my French, he spoke
+      in English, very good English.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will, however, make inquiries, Monsieur,&rdquo; he went on. &ldquo;Possibly I may
+      discover something which will be of help to Monsieur in his difficulty.&rdquo;
+       In the meantime there was to be a parade of troops at the Champ de Mars at
+      four, and the evening performance at the Folies Bergeres was unusually
+      good and English and American gentlemen always enjoyed it. It would give
+      him pleasure to book a place for me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I thanked him but I declined the offer, so far as the Folies were
+      concerned. I did ask him, however, to give me the name of a few churches
+      at which ladies sang. This he did and I set out to find them, in a cab
+      which whizzed through the Paris streets as if the driver was bent upon
+      suicide and manslaughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I visited four places of worship that afternoon and two more that evening.
+      Those in charge&mdash;for I attended no services&mdash;knew nothing of
+      Mademoiselle Junotte or Juno. I retired at ten, somewhat discouraged, but
+      stubbornly determined to keep on, for my three days at least.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next morning I consulted Baedeker again, this time for the list of
+      hotels, a list which I found quite as lengthy as that of the churches.
+      Then I once more sought the help of Monsieur Louis. Could he tell me a few
+      of the hotels where English visitors were most likely to stay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He could do more than that, apparently. Would I be so good as to inform
+      him if the lady or gentleman&mdash;being Parisian he put the lady first&mdash;whom
+      I wished to find had recently arrived in Paris. I told him that the
+      gentleman had arrived the same evening as I. Whereupon he produced a list
+      of guests at all the prominent hotels. Herbert Bayliss was registered at
+      the Continental.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To the Continental I went and made inquiries of the concierge there. Mr.
+      Bayliss was there, he was in his room, so the concierge believed. He would
+      be pleased to ascertain. Would I give my name? I declined to give the
+      name, saying that I did not wish to disturb Mr. Bayliss. If he was in his
+      room I would wait until he came down. He was in his room, had not yet
+      breakfasted, although it was nearly ten in the forenoon. I sat down in a
+      chair from which I could command a good view of the elevators, and waited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The concierge strolled over and chatted. Was I a friend of Mr. Bayliss?
+      Ah, a charming young gentleman, was he not. This was not his first visit
+      to Paris, no indeed; he came frequently&mdash;though not as frequently of
+      late&mdash;and he invariably stayed at the Continental. He had been out
+      late the evening before, which doubtless explained his non-appearance. Ah,
+      he was breakfasting now; had ordered his &ldquo;cafe complete.&rdquo; Doubtless he
+      would be down very soon? Would I wish to send up my name now?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again I declined, to the polite astonishment of the concierge, who
+      evidently considered me a queer sort of a friend. He was called to his
+      desk by a guest, who wished to ask questions, of course, and I waited
+      where I was. At a quarter to eleven Herbert Bayliss emerged from the
+      elevator.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His appearance almost shocked me. Out late the night before! He looked as
+      if he had been out all night for many nights. He was pale and solemn. I
+      stepped forward to greet him and the start he gave when he saw me was
+      evidence of the state of his nerves. I had never thought of him as
+      possessing any nerves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh? Why, Knowles!&rdquo; he exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good morning, Bayliss,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We both were embarrassed, he more than I, for I had expected to see him
+      and he had not expected to see me. I made a move to shake hands but he did
+      not respond. His manner toward me was formal and, I thought, colder than
+      it had been at our meeting the day of the golf tournament.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I called,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;to see you, Bayliss. If you are not engaged I should
+      like to talk with you for a few moments.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His answer was a question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How did you know I was here?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw your name in the list of recent arrivals at the Continental,&rdquo; I
+      answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean how did you know I was in Paris?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn't know. I thought I caught a glimpse of you on the boat. I was
+      almost sure it was you, but you did not appear to recognize me and I had
+      no opportunity to speak then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not speak at once, he did not even attempt denial of having seen
+      and recognized me during the Channel crossing. He regarded me intently
+      and, I thought, suspiciously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who sent you here?&rdquo; he asked, suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sent me! No one sent me. I don't understand you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did you follow me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Follow you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Why did you follow me to Paris? No one knew I was coming here, not
+      even my own people. They think I am&mdash;Well, they don't know that I am
+      here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His speech and his manner were decidedly irritating. I had made a firm
+      resolve to keep my temper, no matter what the result of this interview
+      might be, but I could not help answering rather sharply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had no intention of following you&mdash;here or anywhere else,&rdquo; I said.
+      &ldquo;Your action and whereabouts, generally speaking, are of no particular
+      interest to me. I did not follow you to Paris, Doctor Bayliss.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He reddened and hesitated. Then he led the way to a divan in a retired
+      corner of the lobby and motioned to me to be seated. There he sat down
+      beside me and waited for me to speak. I, in turn, waited for him to speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last he spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm sorry, Knowles,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I am not myself today. I've had a devil of
+      a night and I feel like a beast this morning. I should probably have
+      insulted my own father, had he appeared suddenly, as you did. Of course I
+      should have known you did not follow me to Paris. But&mdash;but why did
+      you come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hesitated now. &ldquo;I came,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;to&mdash;to&mdash;Well, to be
+      perfectly honest with you, I came because of something I heard concerning&mdash;concerning&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He interrupted me. &ldquo;Then Heathcroft did tell you!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;I
+      thought as much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He told you, I know. He said he did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. He did. My God, man, isn't it awful! Have you seen her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His manner convinced me that he had seen her. In my eagerness I forgot to
+      be careful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; I answered, breathlessly; &ldquo;I have not seen her. Where is she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned and stared at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you know where she is?&rdquo; he asked, slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know nothing. I have been told that she&mdash;or someone very like her&mdash;is
+      singing in a Paris church. Heathcroft told me that and then we were
+      interrupted. I&mdash;What is the matter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was staring at me more oddly than ever. There was the strangest
+      expression on his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In a church!&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;Heathcroft told you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He told me that he had seen a girl, whose resemblance to Miss Morley was
+      so striking as to be marvelous, singing in a Paris church. He called it an
+      abbey, but of course it couldn't be that. Do you know anything more
+      definite? What did he tell you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In a church!&rdquo; he said again. &ldquo;You thought&mdash;Oh, good heavens!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He began to laugh. It was not a pleasant laugh to hear. Moreover, it
+      angered me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This may be very humorous,&rdquo; I said, brusquely. &ldquo;Perhaps it is&mdash;to
+      you. But&mdash;Bayliss, you know more of this than I. I am certain now
+      that you do. I want you to tell me what you know. Is that girl Frances
+      Morley? Have you seen her? Where is she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had stopped laughing. Now he seemed to be considering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you did come over here to find her,&rdquo; he said, more slowly still.
+      &ldquo;You were following her, why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;WHY?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, why. She is nothing to you. You told my father that. You told me
+      that she was not your niece. You told Father that you had no claim upon
+      her whatever and that she had asked you not to try to trace her or to
+      learn where she was. You said all that and preached about respecting her
+      wish and all that sort of thing. And yet you are here now trying to find
+      her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The only answer I could make to this was a rather childish retort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so are you,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His fists clinched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I!&rdquo; he cried, fiercely. &ldquo;I! Did <i>I</i> ever say she was nothing to me?
+      Did <i>I</i> ever tell anyone I should not try to find her? I told you,
+      only the other day, that I would find her in spite of the devil. I meant
+      it. Knowles, I don't understand you. When I came to you thinking you her
+      uncle and guardian, and asked your permission to ask her to marry me, you
+      gave that permission. You did. You didn't tell me that she was nothing to
+      you. I don't understand you at all. You told my father a lot of rot&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told your father the truth. And, when I told you that she had left no
+      message for you, that was the truth also. I have no reason to believe she
+      cares for you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And none to think that she doesn't. At all events she did not tell ME not
+      to follow her. She did tell you. Why are you following her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a question I could not answer&mdash;to him. That reason no one
+      should know. And yet what excuse could I give, after all my protestations?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I feel that I have the right, everything considered,&rdquo; I
+      stammered. &ldquo;She is not my niece, but she is Miss Cahoon's.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And she ran away from both of you, asking, as a last request, that you
+      both make no attempt to learn where she was. The whole affair is beyond
+      understanding. What the truth may be&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you hinting that I have lied to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not hinting at anything. All I can say is that it is deuced queer,
+      all of it. And I sha'n't say more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you tell me&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall tell you nothing. That would be her wish, according to your own
+      statement and I will respect that wish, if you don't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I rose to my feet. There was little use in an open quarrel between us and
+      I was by far the older man. Yes, and his position was infinitely stronger
+      than mine, as he understood it. But I never was more strongly tempted. He
+      knew where she was. He had seen her. The thought was maddening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had risen also and was facing me defiantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good morning, Doctor Bayliss,&rdquo; said I, and walked away. I turned as I
+      reached the entrance of the hotel and looked back. He was still standing
+      there, staring at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That afternoon I spent in my room. There is little use describing my
+      feelings. That she was in Paris I was sure now. That Bayliss had seen her
+      I was equally sure. But why had he spoken and looked as he did when I
+      first spoke of Heathcroft's story? What had he meant by saying something
+      or other was &ldquo;awful?&rdquo; And why had he seemed so astonished, why had he
+      laughed in that strange way when I had said she was singing in a church?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That evening I sought Monsieur Louis, the concierge, once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is there any building here in Paris,&rdquo; I asked, &ldquo;a building in which
+      people sing, which is called an abbey? One that is not a church or an
+      abbey, but is called that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Louis looked at me in an odd way. He seemed a bit embarrassed, an
+      embarrassment I should not have expected from him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur asks the question,&rdquo; he said, smiling. &ldquo;It was in my mind last
+      night, the thought, but Monsieur asked for a church. There is a place
+      called L'Abbaye and there young women sing, but&mdash;&rdquo; he hesitated,
+      shrugged and then added, &ldquo;but L'Abbaye is not a church. No, it is not
+      that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A restaurant, Monsieur. A cafe chantant at Montmartre.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Montmartre at ten that evening was just beginning to awaken. At the hour
+      when respectable Paris, home-loving, domestic Paris, the Paris of which
+      the tourist sees so little, is thinking of retiring, Montmartre&mdash;or
+      that section of it in which L'Abbaye is situated&mdash;begins to open its
+      eyes. At ten-thirty, as my cab buzzed into the square and pulled up at the
+      curb, the electric signs were blazing, the sidewalks were, if not yet
+      crowded, at least well filled, and the sounds of music from the open
+      windows of The Dead Rat and the other cafes with the cheerful names were
+      mingling with noises of the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monsieur Louis had given me my sailing orders, so to speak. He had told me
+      that arriving at L'Abbaye before ten-thirty was quite useless. Midnight
+      was the accepted hour, he said; prior to that I would find it rather dull,
+      triste. But after that&mdash;Ah, Monsieur would, at least, be entertained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But of course Monsieur does not expect to find the young lady of whom he
+      is in search there,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;A relative is she not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Remembering that I had, when I first mentioned the object of my quest to
+      him, referred to her as a relative, I nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled and shrugged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A relative of Monsieur's would scarcely be found singing at L'Abbaye,&rdquo; he
+      said. &ldquo;But it is a most interesting place, entertaining and chic. Many
+      English and American gentlemen sup there after the theater.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled and intimated that the desire to pass a pleasant evening was my
+      sole reason for visiting the place. He was certain I would be pleased.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doorway of L'Abbaye was not deserted, even at the &ldquo;triste&rdquo; hour of
+      ten-thirty. Other cabs were drawn up at the curb and, upon the stairs
+      leading to the upper floors, were several gaily dressed couples bound, as
+      I had proclaimed myself to be, in search of supper and entertainment. I
+      had, acting upon the concierge's hint, arrayed myself in my evening
+      clothes and I handed my silk hat, purchased in London&mdash;where, as
+      Hephzy said, &ldquo;a man without a tall hat is like a rooster without tail
+      feathers&rdquo;&mdash;to a polite and busy attendant. Then a personage with a
+      very straight beard and a very curly mustache, ushered me into the main
+      dining-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur would wish seats for how many?&rdquo; he asked, in French.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For myself only,&rdquo; I answered, also in French. His next remark was in
+      English. I was beginning to notice that when I addressed a Parisian in his
+      native language, he usually answered in mine. This may have been because
+      of a desire to please me, or in self-defence; I am inclined to think the
+      latter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, for one only. This way, Monsieur.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was given a seat at one end of a long table, and in a corner. There were
+      plenty of small tables yet unoccupied, but my guide was apparently
+      reserving these for couples or quartettes; at any rate he did not offer
+      one to me. I took the seat indicated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall wish to remain here for some time?&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Probably the entire&mdash;&rdquo;
+       I hesitated; considering the hour I scarcely knew whether to say &ldquo;evening&rdquo;
+       or &ldquo;morning.&rdquo; At last I said &ldquo;night&rdquo; as a compromise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bearded person seemed doubtful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There will be a great demand later,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;To oblige Monsieur is of
+      course our desire, but.... Ah, merci, Monsieur, I will see that Monsieur
+      is not disturbed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The reason for his change of heart was the universal one in restaurants.
+      He put the reason in his pocket and summoned a waiter to take my order.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I gave the order, a modest one, which dropped me a mile or two in the
+      waiter's estimation. However, after a glance at my fellow-diners at nearby
+      tables, I achieved a partial uplift by ordering a bottle of extremely
+      expensive wine. I had had the idea that, being in France, the home of
+      champagne, that beverage would be cheap or, at least, moderately priced.
+      But in L'Abbaye the idea seemed to be erroneous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wine was brought immediately; the supper was somewhat delayed. I did
+      not care. I had not come there to eat&mdash;or to drink, either, for that
+      matter. I had come&mdash;I scarcely knew why I had come. That Frances
+      Morley would be singing in a place like this I did not believe. This was
+      the sort of &ldquo;abbey&rdquo; that A. Carleton Heathcroft would be most likely to
+      visit, that was true, but that he had seen her here was most improbable.
+      The coincidence of the &ldquo;abbey&rdquo; name would not have brought me there, of
+      itself. Herbert Bayliss had given me to understand, although he had not
+      said it, that she was not singing in a church and he had found the idea of
+      her being where she was &ldquo;awful.&rdquo; It was because of what he had said that I
+      had come, as a sort of last chance, a forlorn hope. Of course she would
+      not be here, a hired singer in a Paris night restaurant; that was
+      impossible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How impossible it was likely to be I realized more fully during the next
+      hour. There was nothing particularly &ldquo;awful&rdquo; about L'Abbaye of itself&mdash;at
+      first, nor, perhaps, even later; at least the awfulness was well covered.
+      The program of entertainment was awful enough, if deadly mediocrity is
+      awful. A big darkey, dressed in a suit which reminded me of the &ldquo;end man&rdquo;
+       at an old-time minstrel show, sang &ldquo;My Alabama Coon,&rdquo; accompanying
+      himself, more or less intimately, on the banjo. I could have heard the
+      same thing, better done, at a ten cent theater in the States, where this
+      chap had doubtless served an apprenticeship. However, the audience, which
+      was growing larger every minute, seemed to find the bellowing enjoyable
+      and applauded loudly. Then a feminine person did a Castilian dance between
+      the tables. I was ready to declare a second war with Spain when she had
+      finished. Then there was an orchestral interval, during which the tables
+      filled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The impossibility of Frances singing in a place like this became more
+      certain each minute, to my mind. I called the waiter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does Mademoiselle Juno sing here this evening?&rdquo; I asked, in my lame
+      French.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook his head. &ldquo;Non, Monsieur,&rdquo; he answered, absently, and hastened on
+      with the bottle he was carrying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Apparently that settled it. I might as well go. Then I decided to remain a
+      little longer. After all, I was there, and I, or Heathcroft, might have
+      misunderstood the name. I would stay for a while.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The long table at which I sat was now occupied from end to end. There were
+      several couples, male and female, and a number of unattached young ladies,
+      well-dressed, pretty for the most part, and vivacious and inclined to be
+      companionable. They chatted with their neighbors and would have chatted
+      with me if I had been in the mood. For the matter of that everyone talked
+      with everyone else, in French or English, good, bad and indifferent, and
+      there was much laughter and gaiety. L'Abbaye was wide awake by this time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bearded personage who had shown me to my seat, appeared, followed by a
+      dozen attendants bearing paper parasols and bags containing little
+      celluloid balls, red, white, and blue. They were distributed among the
+      feminine guests. The parasols, it developed, were to be waved and the
+      balls to be thrown. You were supposed to catch as many as were thrown at
+      you and throw them back. It was wonderful fun&mdash;or would have been for
+      children&mdash;and very, very amusing&mdash;after the second bottle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For my part I found it very stupid. As I have said at least once in this
+      history I am not what is called a &ldquo;good mixer&rdquo; and in an assemblage like
+      this I was as out of place as a piece of ice on a hot stove. Worse than
+      that, for the ice would have melted and I congealed the more. My bottle of
+      champagne remained almost untouched and when a celluloid ball bounced on
+      the top of my head I did not scream &ldquo;Whoopee! Bullseye!&rdquo; as my American
+      neighbors did or &ldquo;Voila! Touche!&rdquo; like the French. There were plenty of
+      Americans and English there, and they seemed to be having a good time, but
+      their good time was incomprehensible to me. This was &ldquo;gay Paris,&rdquo; of
+      course, but somehow the gaiety seemed forced and artificial and silly,
+      except to the proprietors of L'Abbaye. If I had been getting the price for
+      food and liquids which they received I might, perhaps, have been gay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young Frenchman at my right was gay enough. He had early discovered my
+      nationality and did his best to be entertaining. When a performer from the
+      Olympia, the music hall on the Boulevard des Italiens, sang a distressing
+      love ballad in a series of shrieks like those of a circular saw in a
+      lumber mill, this person shouted his &ldquo;Bravos&rdquo; with the rest and then,
+      waving his hands before my face, called for, &ldquo;De cheer Americain! One,
+      two, tree&mdash;Heep! Heep! Heep! Oo&mdash;ray-y-y!&rdquo; I did not join in
+      &ldquo;the cheer Americain,&rdquo; but I did burst out laughing, a proceeding which
+      caused the young lady at my left to pat my arm and nod delighted approval.
+      She evidently thought I was becoming gay and lighthearted at last. She was
+      never more mistaken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was nearly two o'clock and I had had quite enough of L'Abbaye. I had
+      not enjoyed myself&mdash;had not expected to, so far as that went. I hope
+      I am not a prig, and, whatever I am or am not, priggishness had no part in
+      my feelings then. Under ordinary circumstances I should not have enjoyed
+      myself in a place like that. Mine is not the temperament&mdash;I shouldn't
+      know how. I must have appeared the most solemn ass in creation, and if I
+      had come there with the idea of amusement, I should have felt like one. As
+      it was, my feeling was not disgust, but unreasonable disappointment.
+      Certainly I did not wish&mdash;now that I had seen L'Abbaye&mdash;to find
+      Frances Morley there; but just as certainly I was disappointed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I called for my bill, paid it, and stood up. I gave one look about the
+      crowded, noisy place, and then I started violently and sat down again. I
+      had seen Herbert Bayliss. He had, apparently, just entered and a waiter
+      was finding a seat for him at a table some distance away and on the
+      opposite side of the great room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no doubt about it; it was he. My heart gave a bound that almost
+      choked me and all sorts of possibilities surged through my brain. He had
+      come to Paris to find her, he had found her&mdash;in our conversation he
+      had intimated as much. And now, he was here at the &ldquo;Abbey.&rdquo; Why? Was it
+      here that he had found her? Was she singing here after all?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bayliss glanced in my direction and I sank lower in my chair. I did not
+      wish him to see me. Fortunately the lady opposite waved her paper parasol
+      just then and I went into eclipse, so far as he was concerned. When the
+      eclipse was over he was looking elsewhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The black-bearded Frenchman, who seemed to be, if not one of the
+      proprietors, at least one of the managers of L'Abbaye, appeared in the
+      clear space at the center of the room between the tables and waved his
+      hands. He was either much excited or wished to seem so. He shouted
+      something in French which I could not understand. There was a buzz of
+      interest all about me; then the place grew still&mdash;or stiller.
+      Something was going to happen, that was evident. I leaned toward my
+      voluble neighbor, the French gentleman who had called for &ldquo;de cheer
+      Americain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;What is the matter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He ignored, or did not hear, my question. The bearded person was still
+      waving his hands. The orchestra burst into a sort of triumphal march and
+      then into the open space between the tables came&mdash;Frances Morley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was dressed in a simple evening gown, she was not painted or powdered
+      to the extent that women who had sung before her had been, her hair was
+      simply dressed. She looked thinner than she had when I last saw her, but
+      otherwise she was unchanged. In that place, amid the lights and the riot
+      of color, the silks and satins and jewels, the flushed faces of the crowd,
+      she stood and bowed, a white rose in a bed of tiger lilies, and the crowd
+      rose and shouted at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The orchestra broke off its triumphal march and the leader stood up, his
+      violin at his shoulder. He played a bar or two and she began to sing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sang a simple, almost childish, love song in French. There was nothing
+      sensational about it, nothing risque, certainly nothing which should have
+      appealed to the frequenters of L'Abbaye. And her voice, although sweet and
+      clear and pure, was not extraordinary. And yet, when she had finished,
+      there was a perfect storm of &ldquo;Bravos.&rdquo; Parasols waved, flowers were
+      thrown, and a roar of applause lasted for minutes. Why this should have
+      been is a puzzle to me even now. Perhaps it was because of her clean,
+      girlish beauty; perhaps because it was so unexpected and so different;
+      perhaps because of the mystery concerning her. I don't know. Then I did
+      not ask. I sat in my chair at the table, trembling from head to foot, and
+      looking at her. I had never expected to see her again and now she was
+      before my eyes&mdash;here in this place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sang again; this time a jolly little ballad of soldiers and glory and
+      the victory of the Tri-Color. And again she swept them off their feet. She
+      bowed and smiled in answer to their applause and, motioning to the
+      orchestra leader, began without accompaniment, &ldquo;Loch Lomond,&rdquo; in English.
+      It was one of the songs I had asked her to sing at the rectory, one I had
+      found in the music cabinet, one that her mother and mine had sung years
+      before.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Ye'll take the high road
+      And I'll take the low road,
+      And I'll be in Scotland afore ye&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      I was on my feet. I have no remembrance of having risen, but I was
+      standing, leaning across the table, looking at her. There were cries of
+      &ldquo;Sit down&rdquo; in English and other cries in French. There were tugs at my
+      coat tails.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;But me and my true love
+      Shall never meet again,
+      By the bonny, bonny banks
+      Of Loch&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      She saw me. The song stopped. I saw her turn white, so white that the
+      rouge on her cheeks looked like fever spots. She looked at me and I at
+      her. Then she raised her hand to her throat, turned and almost ran from
+      the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I should have followed her, then and there, I think. I was on my way
+      around the end of the table, regardless of masculine boots and feminine
+      skirts. But a stout Englishman got in my way and detained me and the crowd
+      was so dense that I could not push through it. It was an excited crowd,
+      too. For a moment there had been a surprised silence, but now everyone was
+      exclaiming and talking in his or her native language.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I say! What happened? What made her do that?&rdquo; demanded the stout
+      Englishman. Then he politely requested me to get off his foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bearded manager&mdash;or proprietor&mdash;was waving his hands once
+      more and begging attention and silence. He got both, in a measure. Then he
+      made his announcement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He begged ten thousand pardons, but Mademoiselle Guinot&mdash;That was it,
+      Guinot, not Juno or Junotte&mdash;had been seized with a most regrettable
+      illness. She had been unable to continue her performance. It was not
+      serious, but she could sing no more that evening. To-morrow evening&mdash;ah,
+      yes. Most certainly. But to-night&mdash;no. Monsieur Hairee Opkins, the
+      most famous Engleesh comedy artiste would now entertain the patrons of
+      L'Abbaye. He begged, he entreated attention for Monsieur Opkins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not wait for &ldquo;Monsieur Hairee.&rdquo; I forced my way to the door. As I
+      passed out I cast a glance in the direction of young Bayliss. He was on
+      his feet, loudly shouting for a waiter and his bill. I had so much start,
+      at all events.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Through the waiters and uniformed attendants I elbowed. Another man with a
+      beard&mdash;he looked enough like the other to be his brother, and perhaps
+      he was&mdash;got in my way at last. A million or more pardons, but
+      Monsieur could not go in that direction. The exit was there, pointing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As patiently and carefully as I could, considering my agitation, I
+      explained that I did not wish to find the exit. I was a friend, a&mdash;yes,
+      a&mdash;er&mdash;relative of the young lady who had just sung and who had
+      been taken ill. I wanted to go to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another million pardons, but that was impossible. I did not understand,
+      Mademoiselle was&mdash;well, she did not see gentlemen. She was&mdash;with
+      the most expressive of shrugs&mdash;peculiar. She desired no friends. It
+      was&mdash;ah&mdash;quite impossible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I found my pocketbook and pressed my card into his hand. Would he give
+      Mademoiselle my card? Would he tell her that I must see her, if only for a
+      minute? Just give her the card and tell her that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook his head, smiling but firm. I could have punched him for the
+      smile, but instead I took other measures. I reached into my pocket, found
+      some gold pieces&mdash;I have no idea how many or of what denomination&mdash;and
+      squeezed them in the hand with the card. He still smiled and shook his
+      head, but his firmness was shaken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will give the card,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but I warn Monsieur it is quite useless.
+      She will not see him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The waiter with whom I had seen Herbert Bayliss in altercation was
+      hurrying by me. I caught his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pardon, Monsieur,&rdquo; he protested, &ldquo;but I must go. The gentleman yonder
+      desires his bill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't give it to him,&rdquo; I whispered, trying hard to think of the French
+      words. &ldquo;Don't give it to him yet. Keep him where he is for a time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I backed the demand with another gold piece, the last in my pocket. The
+      waiter seemed surprised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not give the bill?&rdquo; he repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, not yet.&rdquo; I did my best to look wicked and knowing&mdash;&ldquo;He and I
+      wish to meet the same young lady and I prefer to be first.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was sufficient&mdash;in Paris. The waiter bowed low.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rest in peace, Monsieur,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The gentleman shall wait.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I waited also, for what seemed a long time. Then the bearded one
+      reappeared. He looked surprised but pleased.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bon, Monsieur,&rdquo; he whispered, patting my arm. &ldquo;She will see you. You are
+      to wait at the private door. I will conduct you there. It is most unusual.
+      Monsieur is a most fortunate gentleman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the door, at the foot of a narrow staircase&mdash;decidedly lacking in
+      the white and gold of the other, the public one&mdash;I waited, for
+      another age. The staircase was lighted by one sickly gas jet and the
+      street outside was dark and dirty. I waited on the narrow sidewalk,
+      listening to the roar of nocturnal Montmartre around the corner, to the
+      beating of my own heart, and for her footstep on the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last I heard it. The door opened and she came out. She wore a cloak
+      over her street costume and her hat was one that she had bought in London
+      with my money. She wore a veil and I could not see her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I seized her hands with both of mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances!&rdquo; I cried, chokingly. &ldquo;Oh, Frances!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She withdrew her hands. When she spoke her tone was quiet but very firm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did you come here?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did I come? Why&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Why did you come? Was it to find me? Did you know I was here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not know. I had heard&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did Doctor Bayliss tell you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hesitated. So she HAD seen Bayliss and spoken with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; I answered, after a moment, &ldquo;he did not tell me, exactly. But I had
+      heard that someone who resembled you was singing here in Paris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you followed me. In spite of my letter begging you, for my sake, not
+      to try to find me. Did you get that letter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I got it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then why did you do it? Oh, WHY did you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For the first time there was a break in her voice. We were standing before
+      the door. The street, it was little more than an alley, was almost
+      deserted, but I felt it was not the place for explanations. I wanted to
+      get her away from there, as far from that dreadful &ldquo;Abbey&rdquo; as possible. I
+      took her arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;I will tell you as we go. Come with me now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She freed her arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not coming with you,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Why did you come here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I came&mdash;I came&mdash;Why did YOU come? Why did you leave us as you
+      did? Without a word!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned and faced me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know why I left you,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You know. You knew all the time. And
+      yet you let me believe&mdash;You let me think&mdash;I lived upon your
+      money&mdash;I&mdash;I&mdash;Oh, don't speak of it! Go away! please go away
+      and leave me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not going away&mdash;without you. I came to get you to go back with
+      me. You don't understand. Your aunt and I want you to come with us. We
+      want you to come and live with us again. We&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She interrupted. I doubt if she had comprehended more than the first few
+      words of what I was saying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please go away,&rdquo; she begged. &ldquo;I know I owe you money, so much money. I
+      shall pay it. I mean to pay it all. At first I could not. I could not earn
+      it. I tried. Oh, I tried SO hard! In London I tried and tried, but all the
+      companies were filled, it was late in the season and I&mdash;no one would
+      have me. Then I got this chance through an agency. I am succeeding here. I
+      am earning the money at last. I am saving&mdash;I have saved&mdash;And now
+      you come to&mdash;Oh, PLEASE go and leave me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her firmness had gone. She was on the verge of tears. I tried to take her
+      hands again, but she would not permit it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not go,&rdquo; I persisted, as gently as I could. &ldquo;Or when I go you
+      must go with me. You don't understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I do understand. My aunt&mdash;Miss Cahoon told me. I understand it
+      all. Oh, if I had only understood at first.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you don't understand&mdash;now. Your aunt and I knew the truth from
+      the beginning. That made no difference. We were glad to have you with us.
+      We want you to come back. You are our relative&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not. I am not really related to you in any way. You know I am not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are related to Miss Cahoon. You are her sister's daughter. She wants
+      you to come. She wants you to live with us again, just as you did before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She wants that! She&mdash;But it was your money that paid for the very
+      clothes I wore. Your money&mdash;not hers; she said so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That doesn't make any difference. She wants you and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was about to add &ldquo;and so do I,&rdquo; but she did not permit me to finish the
+      sentence. She interrupted again, and there was a change in her tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop! Oh, stop!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;She wanted me and&mdash;and so you&mdash;Did
+      you think I would consent? To live upon your charity?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no charity about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is. You know there is. And you believed that I&mdash;knowing what I
+      know&mdash;that my father&mdash;my own father&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! hush! That is all past and done with.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It may be for you, but not for me. Mr. Knowles, your opinion of me must
+      be a very poor one. Or your desire to please your aunt as great as your&mdash;your
+      charity to me. I thank you both, but I shall stay here. You must go and
+      you must not try to see me again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was firmness enough in this speech; altogether too much. But I was
+      as firm as she was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not go,&rdquo; I reiterated. &ldquo;I shall not leave you&mdash;in a place
+      like this. It isn't a fit place for you to be in. You know it is not. Good
+      heavens! you MUST know it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know what the place is,&rdquo; she said quietly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know! And yet you stay here! Why? You can't like it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a foolish speech, and I blurted it without thought. She did not
+      answer. Instead she began to walk toward the corner. I followed her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon,&rdquo; I stammered, contritely. &ldquo;I did not mean that, of
+      course. But I cannot think of your singing night after night in such a
+      place&mdash;before those men and women. It isn't right; it isn't&mdash;you
+      shall not do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She answered without halting in her walk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall do it,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;They pay me well, very well, and I&mdash;I
+      need the money. When I have earned and saved what I need I shall give it
+      up, of course. As for liking the work&mdash;Like it! Oh, how can you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon. Forgive me. I ought to be shot for saying that. I know
+      you can't like it. But you must not stay here. You must come with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Mr. Knowles, I am not coming with you. And you must leave me and
+      never come back. My sole reason for seeing you to-night was to tell you
+      that. But&mdash;&rdquo; she hesitated and then said, with quiet emphasis, &ldquo;you
+      may tell my aunt not to worry about me. In spite of my singing in a cafe
+      chantant I shall keep my self-respect. I shall not be&mdash;like those
+      others. And when I have paid my debt&mdash;I can't pay my father's; I wish
+      I could&mdash;I shall send you the money. When I do that you will know
+      that I have resigned my present position and am trying to find a more
+      respectable one. Good-by.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We had reached the corner. Beyond was the square, with its lights and its
+      crowds of people and vehicles. I seized her arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It shall not be good-by,&rdquo; I cried, desperately. &ldquo;I shall not let you go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I sha'n't. I shall come here night after night until you consent to come
+      back to Mayberry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stopped then. But when she spoke her tone was firmer than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you will force me to give it up,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Before I came here I
+      was very close to&mdash;There were days when I had little or nothing to
+      eat, and, with no prospects, no hope, I&mdash;if you don't leave me, Mr.
+      Knowles, if you do come here night after night, as you say, you may force
+      me to that again. You can, of course, if you choose; I can't prevent you.
+      But I shall NOT go back to Mayberry. Now, will you say good-by?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She meant it. If I persisted in my determination she would do as she said;
+      I was sure of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sure my aunt would not wish you to continue to see me, against my
+      will,&rdquo; she went on. &ldquo;If she cares for me at all she would not wish that.
+      You have done your best to please her. I&mdash;I thank you both. Good-by.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      What could I do, or say?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-by,&rdquo; I faltered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned and started across the square. A flying cab shut her from my
+      view. And then I realized what was happening, realized it and realized,
+      too, what it meant. She should not go; I would not let her leave me nor
+      would I leave her. I sprang after her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The square was thronged with cabs and motor cars. The Abbey and The Dead
+      Rat and all the rest were emptying their patrons into the street. Paris
+      traffic regulations are lax and uncertain. I dodged between a limousine
+      and a hansom and caught a glimpse of her just as she reached the opposite
+      sidewalk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances!&rdquo; I called. &ldquo;Frances!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned and saw me. Then I heard my own name shouted from the sidewalk
+      I had just left.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Knowles! Knowles!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked over my shoulder. Herbert Bayliss was at the curb. He was shaking
+      a hand, it may have been a fist, in my direction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Knowles!&rdquo; he shouted. &ldquo;Stop! I want to see you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not reply. Instead I ran on. I saw her face among the crowd and upon
+      it was a curious expression, of fear, of frantic entreaty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kent! Kent!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Oh, be careful! KENT!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a roar, a shout; I have a jumbled recollection of being thrown
+      into the air, and rolling over and over upon the stones of the street. And
+      there my recollections end, for the time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVI
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which I Take My Turn at Playing the Invalid
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Not for a very long time. They begin again&mdash;those recollections&mdash;a
+      few minutes later, break off once more, and then return and break off
+      alternately, over and over again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first thing I remember, after my whirligig flight over the Paris
+      pavement, is a crowd of faces above me and someone pawing at my collar and
+      holding my wrist. This someone, a man, a stranger, said in French:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is not dead, Mademoiselle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then a voice, a voice that I seemed to recognize, said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are sure, Doctor? You are sure? Oh, thank God!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I tried to turn my head toward the last speaker&mdash;whom I decided, for
+      some unexplainable reason, must be Hephzy&mdash;and to tell her that of
+      course I wasn't dead, and then all faded away and there was another blank.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next interval of remembrance begins with a sense of pain, a throbbing,
+      savage pain, in my head and chest principally, and a wish that the buzzing
+      in my ears would stop. It did not stop, on the contrary it grew louder and
+      there was a squeak and rumble and rattle along with it. A head&mdash;particularly
+      a head bumped as hard as mine had been&mdash;might be expected to buzz,
+      but it should not rattle, or squeak either. Gradually I began to
+      understand that the rattle and squeak were external and I was in some sort
+      of vehicle, a sleeping car apparently, for I seemed to be lying down. I
+      tried to rise and ask a question and a hand was laid on my forehead and a
+      voice&mdash;the voice which I had decided was Hephzy's&mdash;said, gently:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lie still. You mustn't move. Lie still, please. We shall be there soon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Where &ldquo;there&rdquo; might be I had no idea and it was too much trouble to ask,
+      so I drifted off again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next I was being lifted out of the car; men were lifting me&mdash;or
+      trying to. And, being wider awake by this time, I protested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here! What are you doing?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;I am all right. Let go of me. Let
+      go, I tell you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again the voice&mdash;it sounded less and less like Hephzy's&mdash;saying:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't! Please don't! You mustn't move.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But I kept on moving, although moving was a decidedly uncomfortable
+      process.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are they doing to me?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;Where am I? Hephzy, where am I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are at the hospital. You have been hurt and we are taking you to the
+      hospital. Lie still and they will carry you in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That woke me more thoroughly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo; I said, as forcefully as I could. &ldquo;Nonsense! I'm not badly
+      hurt. I am all right now. I don't want to go to a hospital. I won't go
+      there. Take me to the hotel. I am all right, I tell you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man's voice&mdash;the doctor's, I learned afterward&mdash;broke in,
+      ordering me to be quiet. But I refused to be quiet. I was not going to be
+      taken to any hospital.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am all right,&rdquo; I declared. &ldquo;Or I shall be in a little while. Take me to
+      my hotel. I will be looked after, there. Hephzy will look after me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor continued to protest&mdash;in French&mdash;and I to affirm&mdash;in
+      English. Also I tried to stand. At length my declarations of independence
+      seemed to have some effect, for they ceased trying to lift me. A dialogue
+      in French followed. I heard it with growing impatience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; I said, fretfully. &ldquo;Hephzy, make them take me to my hotel. I
+      insist upon it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Which hotel is it? Kent&mdash;Kent, answer me. What is the name of the
+      hotel?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I gave the name; goodness knows how I remembered it. There was more
+      argument, and, after a time, the rattle and buzz and squeak began again.
+      The next thing I remember distinctly is being carried to my room and
+      hearing the voice of Monsieur Louis in excited questioning and command.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After that my recollections are clearer. But it was broad daylight when I
+      became my normal self and realized thoroughly where I was. I was in my
+      room at the hotel, the sunlight was streaming in at the window and Hephzy&mdash;I
+      still supposed it was Hephzy&mdash;was sitting by that window. And for the
+      first time it occurred to me that she should not have been there; by all
+      that was right and proper she should be waiting for me in Interlaken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; I said, weakly, &ldquo;when did you get here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The figure at the window rose and came to the bedside. It was not Hephzy.
+      With a thrill I realized who it was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances!&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;Frances! Why&mdash;what&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! You mustn't talk. You mustn't. You must be quiet and keep perfectly
+      still. The doctor said so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what happened? How did I get here? What&mdash;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! There was an accident; you were hurt. We brought you here in a
+      carriage. Don't you remember?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      What I remembered was provokingly little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I seem to remember something,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Something about a hospital.
+      Someone was going to take me to a hospital and I wouldn't go. Hephzy&mdash;No,
+      it couldn't have been Hephzy. Was it&mdash;was it you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. We were taking you to the hospital. We did take you there, but as
+      they were taking you from the ambulance you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ambulance! Was I in an ambulance? What happened to me? What sort of an
+      accident was it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please don't try to talk. You must not talk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I won't if you tell me that. What happened?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you remember? I left you and crossed the street. You followed me
+      and then&mdash;and then you stopped. And then&mdash;Oh, don't ask me!
+      Don't!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know. Now I do remember. It was that big motor car. I saw it coming.
+      But who brought me here? You&mdash;I remember you; I thought you were
+      Hephzy. And there was someone else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, the doctor&mdash;the doctor they called&mdash;and Doctor Bayliss.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doctor Bayliss! Herbert Bayliss, do you mean? Yes, I saw him at the
+      'Abbey'&mdash;and afterward. Did he come here with me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. He was very kind. I don't know what I should have done if it had not
+      been for him. Now you MUST not speak another word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not, for a few moments. I lay there, feebly trying to think, and
+      looking at her. I was grateful to young Bayliss, of course, but I wished&mdash;even
+      then I wished someone else and not he had helped me. I did not like to be
+      under obligations to him. I liked him, too; he was a good fellow and I had
+      always liked him, but I did not like THAT.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose from the chair by the bed and walked across the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't go,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She came back almost immediately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is time for your medicine,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I took the medicine. She turned away once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't go,&rdquo; I repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not going. Not for the present.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was quite contented with the present. The future had no charms just
+      then. I lay there, looking at her. She was paler and thinner than she had
+      been when she left Mayberry, almost as pale and thin as when I first met
+      her in the back room of Mrs. Briggs' lodging house. And there was another
+      change, a subtle, undefinable change in her manner and appearance that
+      puzzled me. Then I realized what it was; she had grown older, more mature.
+      In Mayberry she had been an extraordinarily pretty girl. Now she was a
+      beautiful woman. These last weeks had worked the change. And I began to
+      understand what she had undergone during those weeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you been with me ever since it happened&mdash;since I was hurt?&rdquo; I
+      asked, suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All night?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She smiled. &ldquo;There was very little of the night left,&rdquo; she answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you have had no rest at all. You must be worn out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no; I am used to it. My&mdash;&rdquo; with a slight pause before the word&mdash;&ldquo;work
+      of late has accustomed me to resting in the daytime. And I shall rest by
+      and by, when my aunt&mdash;when Miss Cahoon comes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Cahoon? Hephzy? Have you sent for her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My tone of surprise startled her, I think. She looked at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sent for her?&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;Isn't she here&mdash;in Paris?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is in Interlaken, at the Victoria. Didn't the concierge tell you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He told us she was not here, at this hotel, at present. He said she had
+      gone away with some friends. But we took it for granted she was in Paris.
+      I told them I would stay until she came. I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I interrupted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay until she comes!&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;Stay&mdash;! Why you can't do that!
+      You can't! You must not!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! hush! Remember you are ill. Think of yourself!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of myself! I am thinking of you. You mustn't stay here&mdash;with me.
+      What will they think? What&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! hush, please. Think! It makes no difference what they think. If I
+      had cared what people thought I should not be singing at&mdash;Hush! you
+      must not excite yourself in this way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But I refused to hush.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must not!&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;You shall not! Why did you do it? They could
+      have found a nurse, if one was needed. Bayliss&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doctor Bayliss does not know. If he did I should not care. As for the
+      others&mdash;&rdquo; she colored, slightly,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I told the concierge that you were my uncle. It was only a white
+      lie; you used to say you were, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say! Oh, Frances, for your own sake, please&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! Do you suppose,&rdquo; her cheeks reddened and her eyes flashed as I had
+      seen them flash before, &ldquo;do you suppose I would go away and leave you now?
+      Now, when you are hurt and ill and&mdash;and&mdash;after all that you have
+      done! After I treated you as I did! Oh, let me do something! Let me do a
+      little, the veriest little in return. I&mdash;Oh, stop! stop! What are you
+      doing?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I suppose I was trying to sit up; I remember raising myself on my elbow.
+      Then came the pain again, the throbbing in my head and the agonizing pain
+      in my side. And after that there is another long interval in my
+      recollections.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a week&mdash;of course I did not know it was a week then&mdash;my
+      memories consist only of a series of flashes like the memory of the hours
+      immediately following the accident. I remember people talking, but not
+      what they said; I remember her voice, or I think I do, and the touch of
+      her hand on my forehead. And afterward, other voices, Hephzy's in
+      particular. But when I came to myself, weak and shaky, but to remain
+      myself for good and all, Hephzy&mdash;the real Hephzy&mdash;was in the
+      room with me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even then they would not let me ask questions. Another day dragged by
+      before I was permitted to do that. Then Hephzy told me I had a cracked rib
+      and a variety of assorted bruises, that I had suffered slight concussion
+      of the brain, and that my immediate job was to behave myself and get well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Land sakes!&rdquo; she exclaimed, &ldquo;there was a time when I thought you never
+      was goin' to get well. Hour after hour I've set here and listened to your
+      gabblin' away about everything under the sun and nothin' in particular, as
+      crazy as a kitten in a patch of catnip, and thought and thought, what
+      should I do, what SHOULD I do. And now I KNOW what I'm goin' to do. I'm
+      goin' to keep you in that bed till you're strong and well enough to get
+      out of it, if I have to sit on you to hold you down. And I'm no
+      hummin'-bird when it comes to perchin', either.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had received the telegram which Frances sent and had come from
+      Interlaken post haste.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I don't know,&rdquo; she declared, &ldquo;which part of that telegram upset me
+      most&mdash;what there was in it or the name signed at the bottom of it.
+      HER name! I couldn't believe my eyes. I didn't stop to believe 'em long. I
+      just came. And then I found you like this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was she here?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who&mdash;Frances! My, yes, she was here. So pale and tired lookin' that
+      I thought she was goin' to collapse. But she wouldn't give in to it. She
+      told me all about how it happened and what the doctor said and everything.
+      I didn't pay much attention to it then. All I could think of was you. Oh,
+      Hosy! my poor boy! I&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There! there!&rdquo; I broke in, gently. &ldquo;I'm all right now, or I'm going to
+      be. You will have the quahaug on your hands for a while longer. But,&rdquo;
+       returning to the subject which interested me most, &ldquo;what else did she tell
+      you? Did she tell you how I met her&mdash;and where?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, yes. She's singin' somewhere&mdash;she didn't say where exactly, but
+      it is in some kind of opera-house, I judged. There's a perfectly beautiful
+      opera-house a little ways from here on the Avenue de L'Opera, right by the
+      Boulevard des Italiens, though there's precious few Italians there, far's
+      I can see. And why an opera is a l'opera I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait a moment, Hephzy. Did she tell you of our meeting? And how I found
+      her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, not so dreadful much, Hosy. She's acted kind of queer about that,
+      seemed to me. She said you went to this opera-house, wherever it was, and
+      saw her there. Then you and she were crossin' the road and one of these
+      dreadful French automobiles&mdash;the way they let the things tear round
+      is a disgrace&mdash;ran into you. I declare! It almost made ME sick to
+      hear about it. And to think of me away off amongst those mountains,
+      enjoyin' myself and not knowin' a thing! Oh, it makes me ashamed to look
+      in the glass. I NEVER ought to have left you alone, and I knew it. It's a
+      judgment on me, what's happened is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Or on me, I should rather say,&rdquo; I added. Frances had not told Hephzy of
+      L'Abbaye, that was evident. Well, I would keep silence also.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is she now?&rdquo; I asked. I asked it with as much indifference as I
+      could assume, but Hephzy smiled and patted my hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, she comes every day to ask about you,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;And Doctor Bayliss
+      comes too. He's been real kind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bayliss!&rdquo; I exclaimed. &ldquo;Is he with&mdash;Does he come here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, he comes real often, mostly about the time she does. He hasn't been
+      here for two days now, though. Hosy, do you suppose he has spoken to her
+      about&mdash;about what he spoke to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; I answered, curtly. Then I changed the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has she said anything to you about coming back to Mayberry?&rdquo; I asked.
+      &ldquo;Have you told her how we feel toward her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy's manner changed. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, reluctantly, &ldquo;I've told her.
+      I've told her everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not everything? Hephzy, you haven't told her&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no. Of course I didn't tell her THAT. You know I wouldn't, Hosy. But
+      I told her that her money havin' turned out to be our money didn't make a
+      mite of difference. I told her how much we come to think of her and how we
+      wanted her to come with us and be the same as she had always been. I
+      begged her to come. I said everything I could say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And she said?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She said no, Hosy. She wouldn't consider it at all. She asked me not to
+      talk about it. It was settled, she said. She must go her way and we ours
+      and we must forget her. She was more grateful than she could tell&mdash;she
+      most cried when she said that&mdash;but she won't come back and if I asked
+      her again she declared she should have to go away for good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know. That is what she said to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. I can't make it out exactly. It's her pride, I suppose. Her mother
+      was just as proud. Oh, dear! When I saw her here for the first time, after
+      I raced back from Interlaken, I thought&mdash;I almost hoped&mdash;but I
+      guess it can't be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not answer. I knew only too well that it could not be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does she seem happy?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, no; I don't think she is happy. There are times, especially when you
+      began to get better, when she seemed happier, but the last few times she
+      was here she was&mdash;well, different.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How different?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's hard to tell you. She looked sort of worn and sad and discouraged.
+      Hosy, what sort of a place is it she is singin' in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you ask that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I don't know. Some things you said when you were out of your head
+      made me wonder. That, and some talk I overheard her and Doctor Bayliss
+      havin' one time when they were in the other room&mdash;my room&mdash;together.
+      I had stepped out for a minute and when I came back, I came in this door
+      instead of the other. They were in the other room talkin' and he was
+      beggin' her not to stay somewhere any more. It wasn't a fit place for her
+      to be, he said; her reputation would be ruined. She cut him short by
+      sayin' that her reputation was her own and that she should do as she
+      thought best, or somethin' like that. Then I coughed, so they would know I
+      was around, and they commenced talkin' of somethin' else. But it set me
+      thinkin' and when you said&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She paused. &ldquo;What did I say?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, 'twas when she and I were here. You had been quiet for a while and
+      all at once you broke out&mdash;delirious you was&mdash;beggin' somebody
+      or other not to do somethin'. For your sake, for their own sake, they
+      mustn't do it. 'Twas awful to hear you. A mixed-up jumble about Abbie,
+      whoever she is&mdash;not much, by the way you went on about her&mdash;and
+      please, please, please, for the Lord's sake, give it up. I tried to quiet
+      you, but you wouldn't be quieted. And finally you said: 'Frances! Oh,
+      Frances! don't! Say that you won't any more.' I gave you your sleepin'
+      drops then; I thought 'twas time. I was afraid you'd say somethin' that
+      you wouldn't want her to hear. You understand, don't you, Hosy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I understand. Thank you, Hephzy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Well, <i>I</i> didn't understand and I asked her if she did. She
+      said no, but she was dreadfully upset and I think she did understand, in
+      spite of her sayin' it. What sort of a place is it, this opera-house where
+      she sings?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I dodged the question as best I could. I doubt if Hephzy's suspicions were
+      allayed, but she did not press the subject. Instead she told me I had
+      talked enough for that afternoon and must rest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That evening I saw Bayliss for the first time since the accident. He
+      congratulated me on my recovery and I thanked him for his help in bringing
+      me to the hotel. He waved my thanks aside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite unnecessary, thanking me,&rdquo; he said, shortly. &ldquo;I couldn't do
+      anything else, of course. Well, I must be going. Glad you're feeling more
+      fit, Knowles, I'm sure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;How are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I? Oh, I'm fit enough, I suppose. Good-by.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He didn't look fit. He looked more haggard and worn and moody than ever.
+      And his manner was absent and distrait. Hephzy noticed it; there were few
+      things she did not notice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Either that boy's meals don't agree with him,&rdquo; she announced, &ldquo;or
+      somethin's weighin' on his mind. He looks as if he'd lost his last friend.
+      Hosy, do you suppose he's spoken to&mdash;to her about what he spoke of to
+      you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know. I suppose he has. He was only too anxious to speak, there
+      in Mayberry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! Well, IF he has, then&mdash;Hosy, sometimes I think this, all this
+      pilgrimage of ours&mdash;that's what you used to call it, a pilgrimage&mdash;is
+      goin' to turn out right, after all. Don't it remind you of a book, this
+      last part of it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A dismal sort of book,&rdquo; I said, gloomily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I don't know. Here are you, the hero, and here's she, the heroine.
+      And the hero is sick and the heroine comes to take care of him&mdash;she
+      WAS takin' care of you afore I came, you know; and she falls in love with
+      him and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I observed, sarcastically. &ldquo;She always does&mdash;in books. But in
+      those books the hero is not a middle-aged quahaug. Suppose we stick to
+      real life and possibilities, Hephzy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was unconvinced. &ldquo;I don't care,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;She ought to even if
+      she doesn't. <i>I</i> fell in love with you long ago, Hosy. And she DID
+      bring you here after you were hurt and took care of you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! hush!&rdquo; I broke in. &ldquo;She took care of me, as you call it, because
+      she thought it was her duty. She thinks she is under great obligation to
+      us because we did not pitch her into the street when we first met her. She
+      insists that she owes us money and gratitude. Her kindness to me and her
+      care are part payment of the debt. She told me so, herself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There aren't any 'buts.' You mustn't be an idiot because I have been one,
+      Hephzy. We agreed not to speak of that again. Don't remind me of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy sighed. &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I suppose you are right, Hosy. But&mdash;but
+      how is all this goin' to end? She won't go with us. Are we goin' to leave
+      her here alone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was silent. The same question was in my mind, but I had answered it. I
+      was NOT going to leave her there alone. And yet&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I was sure,&rdquo; mused Hephzy, &ldquo;that she was in love with Herbert Bayliss,
+      then 'twould be all right, I suppose. They would get married and it would
+      be all right&mdash;or near right&mdash;wouldn't it, Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I said nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next morning I saw her. She came to inquire for me and Hephzy brought
+      her into my room for a stay of a minute or two. She seemed glad to find me
+      so much improved in health and well on the road to recovery. I tried to
+      thank her for her care of me, for her sending for Hephzy and all the rest
+      of it, but she would not listen. She chatted about Paris and the French
+      people, about Monsieur Louis, the concierge, and joked with Hephzy about
+      that gentleman's admiration for &ldquo;the wonderful American lady,&rdquo; meaning
+      Hephzy herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He calls you 'Madame Cay-hoo-on,'&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and he thinks you a miracle
+      of decision and management. I think he is almost afraid of you, I really
+      do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy smiled, grimly. &ldquo;He'd better be,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;The way everybody
+      was flyin' around when I first got here after comin' from Interlaken, and
+      the way the help jabbered and hunched up their shoulders when I asked
+      questions made me so fidgety I couldn't keep still. I wanted an egg for
+      breakfast, that first mornin' and when the waiter brought it, it was in
+      the shell, the way they eat eggs over here. I can't eat 'em that way&mdash;I'm
+      no weasel&mdash;and I told the waiter I wanted an egg cup. Nigh as I could
+      make out from his pigeon English he was tellin' me there was a cup there.
+      Well, there was, one of those little, two-for-a-cent contraptions, just
+      big enough to stick one end of the egg into. 'I want a big one,' says I.
+      'We, Madame,' says he, and off he trotted. When he came back he brought me
+      a big EGG, a duck's egg, I guess 'twas. Then I scolded and he jabbered
+      some more and by and by he went and fetched this Monsieur Louis man. He
+      could speak English, thank goodness, and he was real nice, in his French
+      way. He begged my pardon for the waiter's stupidness, said he was a new
+      hand, and the like of that, and went on apologizin' and bowin' and smilin'
+      till I almost had a fit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'For mercy sakes!' I says, 'don't say any more about it. If that last egg
+      hadn't been boiled 'twould have hatched out an&mdash;an ostrich, or
+      somethin' or other, by this time. And it's stone cold, of course. Have
+      this&mdash;this jumpin'-jack of yours bring me a hot egg&mdash;a hen's egg&mdash;opened,
+      in a cup big enough to see without spectacles, and tell him to bring some
+      cream with the coffee. At any rate, if there isn't any cream, have him
+      bring some real milk instead of this watery stuff. I might wash clothes
+      with that, for I declare I think there's bluin' in it, but I sha'n't drink
+      it; I'd be afraid of swallowin' a fish by accident. And do hurry!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He went away then, hurryin' accordin' to orders, and ever since then he's
+      been bobbin' up to ask if 'Madame finds everything satisfactory.' I
+      suppose likely I shouldn't have spoken as I did, he means well&mdash;it
+      isn't his fault, or the waiter's either, that they can't talk without
+      wavin' their hands as if they were givin' three cheers&mdash;but I was
+      terribly nervous that mornin' and I barked like a tied-up dog. Oh dear,
+      Hosy! if ever I missed you and your help it's in this blessed country.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances laughed at all this; she seemed just then to be in high spirits;
+      but I thought, or imagined, that her high spirits were assumed for our
+      benefit. At the first hint of questioning concerning her own life, where
+      she lodged or what her plans might be, she rose and announced that she
+      must go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Each morning of that week she came, remaining but a short time, and always
+      refusing to speak of herself or her plans. Hephzy and I, finding that a
+      reference to those plans meant the abrupt termination of the call, ceased
+      trying to question. And we did not mention our life at the rectory,
+      either; that, too, she seemed unwilling to discuss. Once, when I spoke of
+      our drive to Wrayton, she began a reply, stopped in the middle of a
+      sentence, and then left the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy hastened after her. She returned alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She was cryin', Hosy,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;She said she wasn't, but she was. The
+      poor thing! she's unhappy and I know it; she's miserable. But she's so
+      proud she won't own it and, although I'm dyin' to put my arms around her
+      and comfort her, I know if I did she'd go away and never come back. Do you
+      notice she hasn't called me 'Auntie' once. And she always used to&mdash;at
+      the rectory. I'm afraid&mdash;I'm afraid she's just as determined as she
+      was when she ran away, never to live with us again. What SHALL we do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not know and I did not dare to think. I was as certain that these
+      visits would cease very soon as I was that they were the only things which
+      made my life bearable. How I did look forward to them! And while she was
+      there, with us, how short the time seemed and how it dragged when she had
+      gone. The worst thing possible for me, this seeing her and being with her;
+      I knew it. I knew it perfectly well. But, knowing it, and realizing that
+      it could not last and that it was but the prelude to a worse loneliness
+      which was sure to come, made no difference. I dreaded to be well again,
+      fearing that would mean the end of those visits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I was getting well and rapidly. I sat up for longer and longer periods
+      each day. I began to read my letters now, instead of having Hephzy read
+      them to me, letters from Matthews at the London office and from Jim
+      Campbell at home. Matthews had cabled Jim of the accident and later that I
+      was recovering. So Jim wrote, professing to find material gain in the
+      affair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Great stuff,&rdquo; he wrote. &ldquo;Two chapters at least. The hero, pursuing the
+      villain through the streets of Paris at midnight, is run down by an auto
+      driven by said villain. 'Ah ha!' says the villain: 'Now will you be good?'
+      or words to that effect. 'Desmond,' says the hero, unflinchingly, as they
+      extract the cobble-stones from his cuticle, 'you triumph for the moment,
+      but beware! there will be something doing later on.' See? If it wasn't for
+      the cracked rib and the rest I should be almost glad it happened. All you
+      need is the beautiful heroine nursing you to recovery. Can't you find
+      her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not know that I had found her, or that the hoped-for novel was less
+      likely to be finished than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was now able to leave me occasionally, to take the walks which I
+      insisted upon. She had some queer experiences in these walks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lost again to-day, Hosy,&rdquo; she said, cheerfully, removing her bonnet. &ldquo;I
+      went cruisin' through the streets over to the south'ard and they were so
+      narrow and so crooked&mdash;to say nothin' of bein' dirty and smelly&mdash;that
+      I thought I never should get out. Of course I could have hired a hack and
+      let it bring me to the hotel but I wouldn't do that. I was set on findin'
+      my own way. I'd walked in and I was goin' to walk out, that was all there
+      was to it. 'Twasn't the first time I'd been lost in this Paris place and
+      I've got a system of my own. When I get to the square 'Place delay
+      Concorde,' they call it, I know where I am. And 'Concorde' is enough like
+      Concord, Mass., to make me remember the name. So I walk up to a nice
+      appearin' Frenchman with a tall hat and whiskers&mdash;I didn't know there
+      was so many chin whiskers outside of East Harniss, or some other back
+      number place&mdash;and I say, 'Pardon, Monseer. Place delay Concorde?'
+      Just like that with a question mark after it. After I say it two or three
+      times he begins to get a floatin' sniff of what I'm drivin' at and says
+      he: 'Place delay Concorde? Oh, we, we, we, Madame!' Then a whole string of
+      jabber and arm wavin', with some countin' in the middle of it. Now I've
+      learned 'one, two, three' in French and I know he means for me to keep on
+      for two or three more streets in the way he's pointin'. So I keep on, and,
+      when I get there, I go through the whole rigamarole with another
+      Frenchman. About the third session and I'm back on the Concord Place.
+      THERE I am all right. No, I don't propose to stay lost long. My father and
+      grandfather and all my men folks spent their lives cruisin' through
+      crooked passages and crowded shoals and I guess I've inherited some of the
+      knack.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At last I was strong enough to take a short outing in Hephzy's company. I
+      returned to the hotel, where Hephzy left me. She was going to do a little
+      shopping by herself. I went to my room and sat down to rest. A bell boy&mdash;at
+      least that is what we should have called him in the States&mdash;knocked
+      at the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A lady to see Monsieur,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lady was Frances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She entered the room and I rose to greet her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, you are alone!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;Where is Miss Cahoon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is out, on a shopping expedition,&rdquo; I explained. &ldquo;She will be back
+      soon. I have been out too. We have been driving together. What do you
+      think of that!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She seemed pleased at the news but when I urged her to sit and wait for
+      Hephzy's return she hesitated. Her hesitation, however, was only
+      momentary. She took the chair by the window and we chatted together, of my
+      newly-gained strength, of Hephzy's adventures as a pathfinder in Paris, of
+      the weather, of a dozen inconsequential things. I found it difficult to
+      sustain my part in the conversation. There was so much of real importance
+      which I wanted to say. I wanted to ask her about herself, where she
+      lodged, if she was still singing at L'Abbaye, what her plans for the
+      future might be. And I did not dare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My remarks became more and more disjointed and she, too, seemed uneasy and
+      absent-minded. At length there was an interval of silence. She broke that
+      silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you will be going back to Mayberry soon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Back to Mayberry?&rdquo; I repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. You and Miss Cahoon will go back there, of course, now that you are
+      strong enough to travel. She told me that the American friends with whom
+      you and she were to visit Switzerland had changed their plans and were
+      going on to Italy. She said that she had written them that your proposed
+      Continental trip was abandoned.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Yes, that was given up, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you will go back to England, will you not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know. We have made no plans as yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you will go back. Miss Cahoon said you would. And, when your lease of
+      the rectory expires, you will sail for America.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you must know,&rdquo; with a momentary impatience. &ldquo;Surely you don't intend
+      to remain here in Paris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know that, either. I haven't considered what I shall do. It
+      depends&mdash;that is&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not finish the sentence. I had said more than I intended and it was
+      high time I stopped. But I had said too much, as it was. She asked more
+      questions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Upon what does it depend?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, nothing. I did not mean that it depended upon anything in particular.
+      I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must have meant something. Tell me&mdash;answer me truthfully,
+      please: Does it depend upon me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Of course that was just what it did depend upon. And suddenly I determined
+      to tell her so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances,&rdquo; I demanded, &ldquo;are you still there&mdash;at that place?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At L'Abbaye. Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You sing there every night?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you do it? You know&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know everything. But you know, too. I told you I sang there because I
+      must earn my living in some way and that seems to be the only place where
+      I can earn it. They pay me well there, and the people&mdash;the
+      proprietors&mdash;are considerate and kind, in their way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it isn't a fit place for you. And you don't like it; I know you
+      don't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; quietly. &ldquo;I don't like it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then don't do it. Give it up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I give it up what shall I do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know. Come back with us and live with us as you did before. I want
+      you; Hephzy is crazy to have you. We&mdash;she has missed you dreadfully.
+      She grieves for you and worries about you. We offer you a home and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She interrupted. &ldquo;Please don't,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I have told you that that is
+      impossible. It is. I shall never go back to Mayberry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But why? Your aunt&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't! My aunt is very kind&mdash;she has been so kind that I cannot bear
+      to speak of her. Her kindness and&mdash;and yours are the few pleasant
+      memories that I have&mdash;of this last dreadful year. To please you both
+      I would do anything&mdash;anything&mdash;except&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't make any exceptions. Come with us. If not to Mayberry, then
+      somewhere else. Come to America with us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't! My mind is made up. Please don't speak of that again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again I realized the finality in her tone. The same finality was in mine
+      as I answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I shall stay here,&rdquo; I declared. &ldquo;I shall not leave you alone,
+      without friends or a protector of any kind, to sing night after night in
+      that place. I shall not do it. I shall stay here as long as you do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was silent. I wondered what was coming next. I expected her to say, as
+      she had said before, that I was forcing her to give up her one
+      opportunity. I expected reproaches and was doggedly prepared to meet them.
+      But she did not reproach me. She said nothing; instead she seemed to be
+      thinking, to be making up her mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't do it, Frances,&rdquo; I pleaded. &ldquo;Don't sing there any longer. Give it
+      up. You don't like the work; it isn't fit work for you. Give it up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose from her chair and standing by the window looked out into the
+      street. Suddenly she turned and looked at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would it please you if I gave up singing at L'Abbaye?&rdquo; she asked quietly.
+      &ldquo;You know it would.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if I did would you and Miss Cahoon go back to England&mdash;at once?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here was another question, one that I found very hard to answer. I tried
+      to temporize.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We want you to come with us,&rdquo; I said, earnestly. &ldquo;We want you. Hephzy&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, don't, don't, don't! Why will you persist? Can't you understand that
+      you hurt me? I am trying to believe I have some self-respect left, even
+      after all that has happened. And you&mdash;What CAN you think of me! No, I
+      tell you! NO!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But for Hephzy's sake. She is your only relative.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at me oddly. And when she spoke her answer surprised me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are mistaken,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I have other&mdash;relatives. Good-by, Mr.
+      Knowles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was on her way to the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Frances,&rdquo; I cried, &ldquo;you are not going. Wait. Hephzy will be here any
+      moment. Don't go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must go,&rdquo; she said. At the door she turned and looked back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-by,&rdquo; she said, again. &ldquo;Good-by, Kent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had gone and when I reached the door she had turned the corner of the
+      corridor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Hephzy came I told her of the visit and what had taken place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's queer,&rdquo; said Hephzy. &ldquo;I can't think what she meant. I don't know
+      of any other relatives she's got except Strickland Morley's tribe. And
+      they threw him overboard long, long ago. I can't understand who she meant;
+      can you, Hosy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had been thinking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wasn't there someone else&mdash;some English cousins of hers with whom
+      she lived for a time after her father's death? Didn't she tell you about
+      them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy nodded vigorously. &ldquo;That's so,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;There was. And she
+      did live with 'em, too. She never told me their names or where they lived,
+      but I know she despised and hated 'em. She gave me to understand that. And
+      she ran away from 'em, too, just as she did from us. I don't see why she
+      should have meant them. I don't believe she did. Perhaps she'll tell us
+      more next time she comes. That'll be tomorrow, most likely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hoped that it might be to-morrow, but I was fearful. The way in which
+      she had said good-by made me so. Her look, her manner, seemed to imply
+      more than a good-by for a day. And, though this I did not tell Hephzy, she
+      had called me &ldquo;Kent&rdquo; for the first time since the happy days at the
+      rectory. I feared&mdash;all sorts of things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not come on the morrow, or the following day, or the day after
+      that. Another week passed and she did not come, nor had we received any
+      word from her. By that time Hephzy was as anxious and fretful as I. And,
+      when I proposed going in search of her, Hephzy, for a wonder, considering
+      how very, very careful she was of my precious health, did not say no.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're pretty close to bein' as well as ever you was, Hosy,&rdquo; she said.
+      &ldquo;And I know how terribly worried you are. If you do go out at night you
+      may be sick again, but if you don't go and lay awake frettin' and frettin'
+      about her I KNOW you'll be sick. So perhaps you'd better do it. Shall I&mdash;Sha'n't
+      I go with you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you had better not,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, perhaps you're right. You never would tell me much about this
+      opera-house, or whatever 'tis, but I shouldn't wonder if, bein' a Yankee,
+      I'd guessed considerable. Go, Hosy, and bring her back if you can. Find
+      her anyhow. There! there run along. The hack's down at the door waitin'.
+      Is your head feelin' all right? You're sure? And you haven't any pain? And
+      you'll keep wrapped up? All right? Good-by, dearie. Hurry back! Do hurry
+      back, for my sake. And I hope&mdash;Oh, I do hope you'll bring no bad
+      news.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      L'Abbaye, at eight-thirty in the evening was a deserted place compared to
+      what it had been when I visited it at midnight. The waiters and attendants
+      were there, of course, and a few early bird patrons, but not many. The
+      bearded proprietors, or managers, were flying about, and I caught one of
+      them in the middle of a flight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not recognize me at first, but when I stated my errand, he did. Out
+      went his hands and up went his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Mademoiselle,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Ah, yes! You are her friend, Monsieur; I
+      remember perfectly. Oh, no, no, no! she is not here any more. She has left
+      us. She sings no longer at L'Abbaye. We are desolate; we are inconsolable.
+      We pleaded, but she was firm. She has gone. Where? Ah, Monsieur, so many
+      ask that; but alas! we do not know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you do know where she lives,&rdquo; I urged. &ldquo;You must know her home
+      address. Give me that. It is of the greatest importance that I see her at
+      once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At first he declared that he did not know her address, the address where
+      she lodged. I persisted and, at last, he admitted that he did know it, but
+      that he was bound by the most solemn promise to reveal it to no one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was her wish, Monsieur. It was a part of the agreement under which she
+      sang for us. No one should know who she was or where she lived. And I&mdash;I
+      am an honorable man, Monsieur. I have promised and&mdash;&rdquo; the business of
+      shoulders and hands again&mdash;&ldquo;my pledged word to a lady, how shall it
+      be broken?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I found a way to break it, nevertheless. A trio of gold pieces and the
+      statement that I was her uncle did the trick. An uncle! Ah, that was
+      different. And, Mademoiselle had consented to see me when I came before,
+      that was true. She had seen the young English gentleman also&mdash;but we
+      two only. Was the young English Monsieur&mdash;&ldquo;the Doctor Baylees&rdquo;&mdash;was
+      he a relative also?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not answer that question. It was not his business and, beside, I did
+      not wish to speak of Herbert Bayliss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The address which the manager of L'Abbaye gave me, penciled on a card, was
+      a number in a street in Montmartre, and not far away. I might easily have
+      walked there, I was quite strong enough for walking now, but I preferred a
+      cab. Paris motor cabs, as I knew from experience, moved rapidly. This one
+      bore me to my destination in a few minutes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A stout middle-aged French woman answered my ring. But her answer to my
+      inquiries was most unsatisfactory. And, worse than all, I was certain she
+      was telling me the truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Mademoiselle was no longer there, she said. She had given up her room
+      three days ago and had gone away. Where? That, alas, was a question. She
+      had told no one. She had gone and she was not coming back. Was it not a
+      pity, a great pity! Such a beautiful Mademoiselle! such an artiste! who
+      sang so sweetly! Ah, the success she had made. And such a good young lady,
+      too! Not like the others&mdash;oh, no, no, no! No one was to know she
+      lodged there; she would see no one. Ah, a good girl, Monsieur, if ever one
+      lived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did she&mdash;did she go alone?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The stout lady hesitated. Was Monsieur a very close friend? Perhaps a
+      relative?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An uncle,&rdquo; I said, telling the old lie once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ah, an uncle! It was all right then. No, Mademoiselle had not gone alone.
+      A young gentleman, a young English gentleman had gone with her, or, at
+      least, had brought the cab in which she went and had driven off in it with
+      her. A young English gentleman with a yellow mustache. Perhaps I knew him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I recognized the description. She had left the house with Herbert Bayliss.
+      What did that mean? Had she said yes to him? Were they married? I dreaded
+      to know, but know I must.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And, as the one possible chance of settling the question, I bade my cab
+      driver take me to the Hotel Continental. There, at the desk, I asked if
+      Doctor Bayliss was still in the hotel. They said he was. I think I must
+      have appeared strange or the gasp of relief with which I received the news
+      was audible, for the concierge asked me if I was ill. I said no, and then
+      he told me that Bayliss was planning to leave the next day, but was just
+      then in his room. Did I wish to see him? I said I did and gave them my
+      card.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He came down soon afterward. I had not seen him for a fortnight, for his
+      calls had ceased even before Frances' last visit. Hephzy had said that, in
+      her opinion, his meals must be disagreeing with him. Judging by his
+      appearance his digestion was still very much impaired. He was in evening
+      dress, of course; being an English gentleman he would have dressed for his
+      own execution, if it was scheduled to take place after six o'clock. But
+      his tie was carelessly arranged, his shirt bosom was slightly crumpled and
+      there was a general &ldquo;don't care&rdquo; look about his raiment which was, for
+      him, most unusual. And he was very solemn. I decided at once, whatever
+      might have happened, it was not what I surmised. He was neither a happy
+      bridegroom nor a prospective one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good evening, Bayliss,&rdquo; said I, and extended my hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good evening, Knowles,&rdquo; he said, but he kept his own hands in his
+      pockets. And he did not ask me to be seated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; he said, after a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I came to you,&rdquo; I began&mdash;mine was a delicate errand and hard to
+      state&mdash;&ldquo;I came to you to ask if you could tell me where Miss Morley
+      has gone. She has left L'Abbaye and has given up her room at her lodgings.
+      She has gone&mdash;somewhere. Do you know where she is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was quite evident that he did know. I could see it in his face. He did
+      not answer, however. Instead he glanced about uneasily and then, turning,
+      led the way toward a small reception room adjoining the lobby. This room
+      was, save for ourselves, unoccupied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We can be more private here,&rdquo; he explained, briefly. &ldquo;What did you ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I asked if you knew where Miss Morley had gone and where she was at the
+      present time?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He hesitated, pulling at his mustache, and frowning. &ldquo;I don't see why you
+      should ask me that?&rdquo; he said, after a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I do ask it. Do you know where she is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Another pause. &ldquo;Well, if I did,&rdquo; he said, stiffly, &ldquo;I see no reason why I
+      should tell you. To be perfectly frank, and as I have said to you before,
+      I don't consider myself bound to tell you anything concerning her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His manner was most offensive. Again, as at the time I came to him at that
+      very hotel on a similar errand, after my arrival in Paris, I found it hard
+      to keep my temper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't misunderstand me,&rdquo; I said, as calmly as I could. &ldquo;I am not
+      pretending now to have a claim upon Miss Morley. I am not asking you to
+      tell me just where she is, if you don't wish to tell. And it is not for my
+      sake&mdash;that is, not primarily for that&mdash;that I am anxious about
+      her. It is for hers. I wish you might tell me this: Is she safe? Is she
+      among friends? Is she&mdash;is she quite safe and in a respectable place
+      and likely to be happy? Will you tell me that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He hesitated again. &ldquo;She is quite safe,&rdquo; he said, after a moment. &ldquo;And she
+      is among friends, or I suppose they are friends. As to her being happy&mdash;well,
+      you ought to know that better than I, it seems to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was puzzled. &ldquo;<i>I</i> ought to know?&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;I ought to know
+      whether she is happy or not? I don't understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at me intently. &ldquo;Don't you?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;You are certain you
+      don't? Humph! Well, if I were in your place I would jolly well find out;
+      you may be sure of that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you driving at, Bayliss? I tell you I don't know what you mean.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not answer. He was frowning and kicking the corner of a rug with
+      his foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't understand what you mean,&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;You are saying too much
+      or too little for my comprehension.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've said too much,&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;At all events, I have said all I shall
+      say. Was there any other subject you wished to see me about, Knowles? If
+      not I must be going. I'm rather busy this evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was no subject but that one. And you will tell me nothing more
+      concerning Miss Morley?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good night,&rdquo; I said, and turned away. Then I turned back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bayliss,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I think perhaps I had better say this: I have only the
+      kindest feelings toward you. You may have misunderstood my attitude in all
+      this. I have said nothing to prejudice her&mdash;Miss Morley against you.
+      I never shall. You care for her, I know. If she cares for you that is
+      enough, so far as I am concerned. Her happiness is my sole wish. I want
+      you to consider me your friend&mdash;and hers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Once more I extended my hand. For an instant I thought he was going to
+      take it, but he did not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said, sullenly. &ldquo;I won't shake hands with you. Why should I? You
+      don't mean what you say. At least I don't think you do. I&mdash;I&mdash;By
+      Jove! you can't!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I do,&rdquo; I said, patiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can't! Look here! you say I care for her. God knows I do! But you&mdash;suppose
+      you knew where she was, what would you do? Would you go to her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had been considering this very thing, during my ride to the lodgings and
+      on the way to the hotel; and I had reached a conclusion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; I answered, slowly. &ldquo;I think I should not. I know she does not wish
+      me to follow her. I suppose she went away to avoid me. If I were convinced
+      that she was among friends, in a respectable place, and quite safe, I
+      should try to respect her wish. I think I should not follow her there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stared at me, wide-eyed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You wouldn't!&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;You wouldn't! And you&mdash;Oh, I say! And
+      you talked of her happiness!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is her happiness I am thinking of. If it were my own I should&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing, nothing. She will be happier if I do not follow her, I suppose.
+      That is enough for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He regarded me with the same intent stare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Knowles,&rdquo; he said, suddenly, &ldquo;she is at the home of a relative of hers&mdash;Cripps
+      is the name&mdash;in Leatherhead, England. There! I have told you. Why I
+      should be such a fool I don't know. And now you will go there, I suppose.
+      What?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;No. I thank you for telling me, Bayliss, but it shall
+      make no difference. I will respect her wish. I will not go there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You won't!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I will not trouble her again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To my surprise he laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh, there was more
+      sarcasm than mirth in it, or so it seemed, but why he should laugh at all
+      I could not understand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Knowles,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you're a good fellow, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what?&rdquo; I asked, stiffly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're no end of a silly ass in some ways. Good night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned on his heel and walked off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which I, as Well as Mr. Solomon Cripps, Am Surprised
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And to think,&rdquo; cried Hephzy, for at least the fifth time since I told
+      her, &ldquo;that those Crippses are her people, the cousins she lived with after
+      her pa's death! No wonder she was surprised when I told her how you and I
+      went to Leatherhead and looked at their 'Ash Dump'&mdash;'Ash Chump,' I
+      mean. And we came just as near hirin' it, too; we would have hired it if
+      she hadn't put her foot down and said she wouldn't go there. A good many
+      queer things have happened on this pilgrimage of ours, Hosy, but I do
+      believe our goin' straight to those Crippses, of all the folks in England,
+      is about the strangest. Seems as if we was sent there with a purpose,
+      don't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a strange coincidence,&rdquo; I admitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's more'n that. And her goin' back to them is queerer still. She hates
+      'em, I know she does. She as much as said so, not mention' their names, of
+      course. Why did she do it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I knew why she had done it, or I believed I did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She did it to please you and me, Hephzy,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;And to get rid of us.
+      She said she would do anything to please us, and she knew I did not want
+      her to remain here in Paris. I told her I should stay here as long as she
+      did, or at least as long as she sang at&mdash;at the place where she was
+      singing. And she asked if, provided she gave up singing there, you and I
+      would go back to England&mdash;or America?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I know; you told me that, Hosy. But you said you didn't promise to
+      do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn't promise anything. I couldn't promise not to follow her. I didn't
+      believe I could keep the promise. But I sha'n't follow her, Hephzy. I
+      shall not go to Leatherhead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was silent for a moment. Then she said: &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know why. That night when I first met her, the night after you had
+      gone to Lucerne, she told me that if I persisted in following her and
+      trying to see her I would force her to give up the only means of earning a
+      living she had been able to find. Well, I have forced her to do that. She
+      has been obliged to run away once more in order to get rid of us. I am not
+      going to persecute her further. I am going to try and be unselfish and
+      decent, if I can. Now that we know she is safe and among friends&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Friends! A healthy lot of friends they are&mdash;that Solomon Cripps and
+      his wife! If ever I ran afoul of a sanctimonious pair of hypocrites
+      they're the pair. Oh, they were sweet and buttery enough to us, I give in,
+      but that was because they thought we was goin' to hire their Dump or
+      Chump, or whatever 'twas. I'll bet they could be hard as nails to anybody
+      they had under their thumbs. Whenever I see a woman or a man with a mouth
+      that shuts up like a crack in a plate, the way theirs do, it takes more
+      than Scriptur' texts from that mouth to make me believe it won't bite when
+      it has the chance. Safe! poor Little Frank may be safe enough at
+      Leatherhead, but I'll bet she's miserable. WHAT made her go there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because she had no other place to go, I suppose,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;And there,
+      among her relatives, she thought she would be free from our persecution.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's some things worse than persecution,&rdquo; Hephzy declared; &ldquo;and, so
+      far as that goes, there are different kinds of persecution. But what makes
+      those Crippses willin' to take her in and look after her is what <i>I</i>
+      can't understand. They MAY be generous and forgivin' and kind, but, if
+      they are, then I miss my guess. The whole business is awful queer. Tell me
+      all about your talk with Doctor Bayliss, Hosy. What did he say? And how
+      did he look when he said it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I told her, repeating our conversation word for word, as near as I could
+      remember it. She listened intently and when I had finished there was an
+      odd expression on her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;He seemed surprised to think you weren't goin' to
+      Leatherhead, you say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. At least I thought he was surprised. He knew I had chased her from
+      Mayberry to Paris and was there at the hotel trying to learn from him
+      where she was. And he knows you are her aunt. I suppose he thought it
+      strange that we were not going to follow her any further.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Maybe so... maybe so. But why did he call you a&mdash;what was it?&mdash;a
+      silly donkey?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I am one, I imagine,&rdquo; I answered, bitterly. &ldquo;It's my natural
+      state. I was born one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! Well, 'twould take more than that boy's word to make me believe
+      it. No there's something!&mdash;I wish I could see that young fellow
+      myself. He's at the Continental Hotel, you say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; but he leaves to-morrow. There, Hephzy, that's enough. Don't talk
+      about it. Change the subject. I am ready to go back to England&mdash;yes,
+      or America either, whenever you say the word. The sooner the better for
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy obediently changed the subject and we decided to leave Paris the
+      following afternoon. We would go back to the rectory, of course, and leave
+      there for home as soon as the necessary arrangements could be made. Hephzy
+      agreed to everything, she offered no objections, in fact it seemed to me
+      that she was paying very little attention. Her lack of interest&mdash;yes,
+      and apparent lack of sympathy, for I knew she must know what my decision
+      meant to me&mdash;hurt and irritated me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I rose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good night,&rdquo; I said, curtly. &ldquo;I'm going to bed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's right, Hosy. You ought to go. You'll be sick again if you sit up
+      any longer. Good night, dearie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;What are you going to do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm going to set up a spell longer. I want to think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't. I wish I might never think again. Or dream, either. I am awake
+      at last. God knows I wish I wasn't!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She moved toward me. There was the same odd expression on her face and a
+      queer, excited look in her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps you aren't really awake, Hosy,&rdquo; she said, gently. &ldquo;Perhaps this
+      is the final dream and when you do wake you'll find&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, bosh!&rdquo; I interrupted. &ldquo;Don't tell me you have another presentiment.
+      If you have keep it to yourself. Good night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was weak from my recent illness and I had been under a great nervous
+      strain all that evening. These are my only excuses and they are poor ones.
+      I spoke and acted abominably and I was sorry for it afterward. I have told
+      Hephzy so a good many times since, but I think she understood without my
+      telling her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; she said, quietly, &ldquo;dreams are somethin', after all. It's
+      somethin' to have had dreams. I sha'n't forget mine. Good night, Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The next morning after breakfast she announced that she had an errand or
+      two to do. She would run out and do them, she said, but she would be gone
+      only a little while. She was gone nearly two hours during which I paced
+      the floor or sat by the window looking out. The crowded boulevard was
+      below me, but I did not see it. All I saw was a future as desolate and
+      blank as the Bayport flats at low tide, and I, a quahaug on those flats,
+      doomed to live, or exist, forever and ever and ever, with nothing to live
+      for.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy, when she did return to the hotel, was surprisingly chatty and
+      good-humored. She talked, talked, talked all the time, about nothing in
+      particular, laughed a good deal, and flew about, packing our belongings
+      and humming to herself. She acted more like the Hephzy of old than she had
+      for weeks. There was an air of suppressed excitement about her which I
+      could not understand. I attributed it to the fact of our leaving for
+      America in the near future and her good humor irritated me. My spirits
+      were lower than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You seem to be remarkably happy,&rdquo; I observed, fretfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What makes you think so, Hosy? Because I was singin'? Father used to say
+      my singin' was the most doleful noise he ever heard, except a fog-horn on
+      a lee shore. I'm glad if you think it's a proof of happiness: I'm much
+      obliged for the compliment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you are happy, or you are trying to appear so. If you are
+      pretending for my benefit, don't. I'M not happy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know, Hosy; I know. Well, perhaps you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She didn't finish the sentence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, nothin', nothin'. How many shirts did you bring with you? is this
+      all?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She sang no more, probably because she saw that the &ldquo;fog-horn&rdquo; annoyed me,
+      but her manner was just as strange and her nervous energy as pronounced. I
+      began to doubt if my surmise, that her excitement and exaltation were due
+      to the anticipation of an early return to Bayport, was a correct one. I
+      began to thing there must be some other course and to speculate concerning
+      it. And I, too, grew a bit excited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; I said, suddenly, &ldquo;where did you go when you went out this
+      morning? What sort of 'errands' were those of yours?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was folding my ties, her back toward me, and she answered without
+      turning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I had some odds and ends of things to do,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;This plaid
+      necktie of yours is gettin' pretty shabby, Hosy. I guess you can't wear it
+      again. There! I mustn't stop to talk. I've got my own things to pack.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hurried to her own room and I asked no more questions just then. But I
+      was more suspicious than ever. I remembered a question of hers the
+      previous evening and I believed.... But, if she had gone to the
+      Continental and seen Herbert Bayliss, what could he have told her to make
+      her happy?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We took the train for Calais and crossed the Channel to Dover. This time
+      the eccentric strip of water was as calm as a pond at sunset. No jumpy,
+      white-capped billows, no flying spray, no seasick passengers. Tarpaulins
+      were a drag on the market.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wouldn't believe,&rdquo; declared Hephzy, &ldquo;that this lookin'-glass was the
+      same as that churned-up tub of suds we slopped through before. It doesn't
+      trickle down one's neck now, does it, Hosy. A 'nahsty' cross-in' comin'
+      and a smooth one comin' back. I wonder if that's a sign.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, don't talk about signs, Hephzy,&rdquo; I pleaded, wearily. &ldquo;You'll begin to
+      dream again, I suppose, pretty soon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I won't. I think you and I have stopped dreamin', Hosy. Maybe we're
+      just wakin' up, same as I told you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean by that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mean? Oh, I guess I didn't mean anything. Good-by, old France! You're a
+      lovely country and a lively one, but I sha'n't cry at sayin' good-by to
+      you this time. And there's England dead ahead. Won't it seem good to be
+      where they talk instead of jabber! I sha'n't have to navigate by the
+      'one-two-three' chart over there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dover, a flying trip through the customs, the train again, an English
+      dinner in an English restaurant car&mdash;not a &ldquo;wagon bed,&rdquo; as Hephzy
+      said, exultantly&mdash;and then London.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We took a cab to the hotel, not Bancroft's this time, but a modern
+      downtown hostelry where there were at least as many Americans as English.
+      In our rooms I would have cross-questioned Hephzy, but she would not be
+      questioned, declaring that she was tired and sleepy. I was tired, also,
+      but not sleepy. I was almost as excited as she seemed to be by this time.
+      I was sure she had learned something that morning in Paris, something
+      which pleased her greatly. What that something might be I could not
+      imagine; but I believed she had learned it from Herbert Bayliss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the next morning, after breakfast, she announced that she had arranged
+      for a cab and we must start for the station at once. I said nothing then,
+      but when the cab pulled up before a railway station, a station which was
+      not our accustomed one but another, I said a great deal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What in the world, Hephzy!&rdquo; I exclaimed. &ldquo;We can't go to Mayberry from
+      here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush, hush, Hosy. Wait a minute&mdash;wait till I've paid the driver.
+      Yes, I'm doin' it myself. I'm skipper on this cruise. You're an invalid,
+      didn't you know it. Invalids have to obey orders.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The cabman paid, she took my arm and led me into the station.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now, Hosy,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;let me tell you. We aren't goin' to Mayberry&mdash;not
+      yet. We're going to Leatherhead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To Leatherhead!&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;To Leatherhead! To&mdash;her? We certainly
+      will do no such thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, we will, Hosy,&rdquo; quietly. &ldquo;I haven't said anything about it before,
+      but I've made up my mind. It's our duty to see her just once more, once
+      more before&mdash;before we say good-by for good. It's our duty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Duty! Our duty is to let her alone, to leave her in peace, as she asked
+      us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you know she is in peace? Suppose she isn't. Suppose she's
+      miserable and unhappy. Isn't it our duty to find out? I think it is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked her full in the face. &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; I said, sharply, &ldquo;you know
+      something about her, something that I don't know. What is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know as I know anything, Hosy. I can't say that I do. But&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You saw Herbert Bayliss yesterday. That was the 'errand' you went upon
+      yesterday morning in Paris. Wasn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was very much taken aback. She has told me since that she had no idea
+      I suspected the truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wasn't it?&rdquo; I repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why&mdash;why, yes, it was, Hosy. I did go to see him, there at his
+      hotel. When you told me how he acted and what he said to you I thought
+      'twas awfully funny, and the more I thought it over the funnier it seemed.
+      So I made up my mind to see him and talk with him myself. And I did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did he tell you?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He told me&mdash;he told me&mdash;Well, he didn't tell me so much, maybe,
+      but he gave me to understand a whole lot. She's gone to those Crippses,
+      Hosy, just as I suspicioned, not because she likes 'em&mdash;she hates 'em&mdash;or
+      because she wanted to go, but because she thought 'twould please us if she
+      did. It doesn't please us; it doesn't please me, anyway. She sha'n't be
+      miserable for our sake, not without a word from us. No, we must go there
+      and see her and&mdash;and tell her once more just how we feel about it.
+      It's our duty to go and we must. And,&rdquo; with decision, &ldquo;we're goin' now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had poured out this explanation breathlessly, hurrying as if fearful
+      that I might interrupt and ask more questions. I asked one of them the
+      moment she paused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We knew all that before,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;That is, we were practically sure she
+      had left Paris to get rid of us and had gone to her cousins, the Crippses,
+      because of her half-promise to me not to sing at places like the Abbey
+      again. We knew all that. And she asked me to promise that we would not
+      follow her. I didn't promise, but that makes no difference. Was that all
+      Bayliss told you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was still embarrassed and confused, though she answered promptly
+      enough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He told me he knew she didn't want to go to&mdash;to those Leatherheaded
+      folks,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;We guessed she didn't, but we didn't know it for
+      sure. And he said we ought to go to her. He said that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But why did he say it? Our going will not alter her determination to stay
+      and our seeing her again will only make it harder for her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, it won't&mdash;no it won't,&rdquo; hastily. &ldquo;Besides I want to see that
+      Cripps man and have a talk with him, myself. I want to know why a man like
+      him&mdash;I'm pretty well along in years; I've met folks and bargained and
+      dealt with 'em all my grown-up life and I KNOW he isn't the kind to do
+      things for nothin' for ANYBODY&mdash;I want to know why he and his wife
+      are so generous to her. There's somethin' behind it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's something behind you, Hephzy. Some other reason that you haven't
+      told me. Was that all Bayliss said?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hesitated. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, after a moment, &ldquo;that's all, all I can
+      tell you now, anyway. But I want you to go with me to that Ash Dump and
+      see her once more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not, Hephzy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then I'll have to go by myself. And if you don't go, too, I think
+      you'll be awfully sorry. I think you will. Oh, Hosy,&rdquo; pleadingly, &ldquo;please
+      go with me. I don't ask you to do many things, now do I? I do ask you to
+      do this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I shook my head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would do almost anything for your sake, Hephzy,&rdquo; I began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But this isn't for my sake. It's for hers. For hers. I'm sure&mdash;I'm
+      ALMOST sure you and she will both be glad you did it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I could not understand it at all. I had never seen her more earnest. She
+      was not the one to ask unreasonable things and yet where her sister's
+      child was concerned she could be obstinate enough&mdash;I knew that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall go whether you do or not,&rdquo; she said, as I stood looking at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean that, Hephzy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I surely do. I'm goin' to see her this very forenoon. And I do hope
+      you'll go with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I reflected. If she went alone it would be almost as hard for Frances as
+      if I went with her. And the temptation was very strong. The desire to see
+      her once more, only once....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll go, Hephzy,&rdquo; I said. I didn't mean to say it; the words seemed to
+      come of themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will! Oh, I'm so glad! I'm so glad! And I think&mdash;I think you'll
+      be glad, too, Hosy. I'm hopin' you will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll go,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;But this is the last time you and I must trouble her.
+      I'll go&mdash;not because of any reason you have given me, Hephzy, but
+      because I believe there must be some other and stronger reason, which you
+      haven't told me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy drew a long breath. She seemed to be struggling between a desire to
+      tell me more&mdash;whatever that more might be&mdash;and a determination
+      not to tell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Maybe there is, Hosy,&rdquo; she said, slowly. &ldquo;Maybe there is. I&mdash;I&mdash;Well,
+      there! I must go and buy the tickets. You sit down and wait. I'm skipper
+      of this craft to-day, you know. I'm in command on this voyage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Leatherhead looked exactly as it had on our previous visit. &ldquo;Ash Clump,&rdquo;
+       the villa which the Crippses had been so anxious for us to hire, was still
+      untenanted, or looked to be. We walked on until we reached the Cripps home
+      and entered the Cripps gate. I rang the bell and the maid answered the
+      ring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In answer to our inquiries she told us that Mr. Cripps was not in. He and
+      Mrs. Cripps had gone to chapel. I remembered then that the day was Sunday.
+      I had actually forgotten it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is Miss Morley in?&rdquo; asked Hephzy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The maid shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, ma'am,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Miss Morley ain't in, either. I think she's gone
+      to chapel, too. I ain't sure, ma'am, but I think she 'as. She's not in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She asked if we would leave cards. Hephzy said no.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's 'most noon,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;They'll be back pretty soon. We'll wait. No,
+      we won't come in. We'll wait out here, I guess.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a rustic seat on the lawn near the house and Hephzy seated
+      herself upon it. I walked up and down. I was in a state of what Hephzy
+      would have called &ldquo;nerves.&rdquo; I had determined to be very calm when I met
+      her, to show no emotion, to be very calm and cool, no matter what
+      happened. But this waiting was hard. I grew more nervous every minute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm going to stroll about, Hephzy,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;About the garden and
+      grounds. I sha'n't go far and I'll return soon. I shall be within call.
+      Send one of the servants for me if she&mdash;if the Crippses come before I
+      get back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy did not urge me to remain. Nor did she offer to accompany me. As
+      usual she seemed to read my thoughts and understand them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, Hosy,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You go and have your walk. I'll wait here.
+      But don't be long, will you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I promised not to be long. The Cripps gardens and grounds were not
+      extensive, but they were well kept even if the beds were geometrically
+      ugly and the color masses jarring and in bad taste. The birds sang, the
+      breeze stirred the leaves and petals, and there was a Sunday quiet, the
+      restful hush of an English Sunday, everywhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I strolled on along the paths, through the gap in the hedge dividing the
+      kitchen garden from the purely ornamental section, past the stables, until
+      I emerged from the shrubbery at the top of a little hill. There was a
+      pleasant view from this hill, the customary view of hedged fields and
+      meadows, flocks of sheep and groups of grazing cattle, and over all the
+      soft blue haze and misty sky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I paused. And then close beside me, I heard a startled exclamation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I turned. In a nook of the shrubbery was another rustic seat. Rising from
+      that seat and gazing at me with a look of amazed incredulity, was&mdash;Frances
+      Morley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not speak. I could not, for the moment. She spoke first.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;You&mdash;here!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And still I did not speak. Where was the calm with which I was to meet
+      her? Where were the carefully planned sentences which were to explain how
+      I had come and why? I don't know where they were; I seemed to know only
+      that she was there, that I was alone with her as I had never thought or
+      meant to be again, and that if I spoke I should say things far different
+      from those I had intended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was recovering from her surprise. She came toward me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you doing here?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;Why did you come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I stammered a word or two, some incoherences to the effect that I had not
+      expected to find her there, that I had been told she was at church. She
+      shook her head, impatiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean why did you come here&mdash;to Leatherhead?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;Why did
+      you come? Did you know&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I interrupted her. If ever I was to explain, or attempt to explain, I
+      realized that it must be at that moment. She might listen to me then,
+      before she had had time to think. Later I knew she would not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew you were here,&rdquo; I broke in, quickly. &ldquo;I&mdash;we&mdash;your aunt
+      knew and we came.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But HOW did you know? Who told you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The&mdash;we learned,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;And we came.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a poor explanation&mdash;or none at all. She seemed to think it so.
+      And yet she seemed more hurt than offended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You came&mdash;yes,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;And you knew that I left Paris because&mdash;Oh,
+      you knew that! I asked you not to follow me. You promised you would not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was ashamed, thoroughly ashamed and disgusted with myself for yielding
+      to Hephzy's entreaties.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; I protested, &ldquo;I did not promise. I did not promise, Frances.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you know I did not wish you to do it. I did not wish you to follow me
+      to Paris, but you did it. I told you you would force me to give up my only
+      means of earning money. You did force me to give it up. I gave it up to
+      please you, for your sake, and now&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you?&rdquo; I cried, eagerly. &ldquo;Did you give it up for my sake, Frances? Did
+      you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know I did. You must know it. And now that I have done it, now that I
+      have given up my opportunity and my&mdash;my self-respect and my one
+      chance and come here to this&mdash;to this place, you&mdash;you&mdash;Oh,
+      how could you! Wasn't I unhappy enough before? And unhappy enough now? Oh,
+      how could you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was more ashamed than ever. I tried desperately to justify my action.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But that was it,&rdquo; I persisted. &ldquo;Don't you see? It was your happiness, the
+      thought that you were unhappy which brought me here. I know&mdash;you told
+      your aunt how unhappy you had been when you were with these people before.
+      I know how much you disliked them. That was why I came. To ask you to give
+      this up as you did the other. To come with us and BE happy. I want you to
+      come, Frances. Think! Think how much I must want you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And, for the moment I thought this appeal had some effect. It seemed to me
+      that her resolution was shaken, that she was wavering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&mdash;you really want me?&rdquo; she repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Yes, I can't tell you&mdash;I must not tell you how much I want you.
+      And your aunt&mdash;she wants you to come. She is here, too. She will tell
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her manner changed once more. The tone in which she spoke was different.
+      There were no signs of the wavering which I had noticed&mdash;or hoped I
+      noticed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;No. I shall not see my aunt. And I must not talk with you
+      any longer. I asked you not to follow me here. You did it, in spite of my
+      asking. Now, unless you wish to drive me away from here, as you did from
+      Paris, you will leave me and not try to see me again. Oh, don't you see&mdash;CAN'T
+      you see how miserable you are making me? And yet you talk of my
+      happiness!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you aren't happy here. ARE you happy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am happy enough. Yes, I am happy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't believe it. Are these Crippses kind to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I didn't believe that, either, but I did not say so. Instead I said what I
+      had determined to say, the same thing that I should have said before, in
+      Mayberry and in Paris&mdash;if I could have mustered the courage and
+      decency to say it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;there is something else, something which may have a
+      bearing on your happiness, or may not, I don't know. The night before you
+      left us, at Mayberry, Herbert Bayliss came to me and asked my permission
+      to marry you, if you were willing. He thought you were my niece&mdash;then.
+      I said that&mdash;I said that, although of course I had no shadow of
+      authority over you, I did care for your happiness. I cared for that a
+      great deal. If you loved him I should certainly&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see,&rdquo; she broke in, scornfully. &ldquo;I see. He told you I was here. That is
+      why you came. Did he send you to me to say&mdash;what you are trying to
+      say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no, no! You are mistaken. You wrong him, Frances. He did not do that.
+      He's not that sort. He's a good fellow, an honorable man. And he does care
+      for you. I know it. He cares greatly. He would, I am sure, make you a good
+      husband, and if you care for him, he would do his best to make you happy,
+      I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again she interrupted. &ldquo;One moment,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;Let me understand. Are you
+      urging me to marry Herbert Bayliss?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. I am not urging you, of course. But if you do care for him&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you don't love him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I wonder if there was relief in my tone. There should not have been, of
+      course, but I fear there was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I do not&mdash;love him. He is a gentleman and I like him well
+      enough, but not in that way. Please don't say any more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well. I only meant&mdash;Tell me this, if you will: Is there someone
+      you do care for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not answer. I had offended her again. She had cause to be
+      offended. What business was it of mine?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon,&rdquo; I said, humbly. &ldquo;I should not have asked that. I have
+      no right to ask it. But if there is someone for whom you care in that way
+      and he cares for you, it&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, don't, don't! He doesn't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then there is someone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was silent. I tried to speak like a man, like the man I was pretending
+      to be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad to know it,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;If you care for him he must care for you.
+      He cannot help it. I am sure you will be happy by and by. I can leave you
+      here now with more&mdash;with less reluctance. I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I could not trust myself to go on, although I tried to do so. She
+      answered, without looking at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you can leave me now. I am safe and&mdash;and happy.
+      Good-by.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I took her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-by,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Forgive me for coming. I shall not trouble you again.
+      This time I promise. You may not wish to write us, but we shall write you.
+      And I&mdash;I hope you won't forget us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a lame conclusion and trite enough. She must have thought so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not forget you,&rdquo; she said, simply. &ldquo;And I will try to write
+      occasionally. Yes, I will try. Now please go. Good-by.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I went, without looking back. I strode along the paths, scarcely noticing
+      where I was going. As I neared the corner of the house I heard voices,
+      loud voices. One of them, though it was not as loud as the others, was
+      Hephzy's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew it,&rdquo; she was saying, as I turned the corner. &ldquo;I knew it. I knew
+      there was some reason, some mean selfish reason why you were willin' to
+      take that girl under your wing. I knew it wasn't kind-heartedness and
+      relationship. I knew it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Solomon Cripps who answered. Mr. and Mrs. Cripps, arrayed in their
+      Sabbath black and white, were standing by the door of their villa. Hephzy
+      was standing before them. Her face was set and determined and she looked
+      highly indignant. Mr. Cripps' face was red and frowning and he
+      gesticulated with a red hand, which clasped a Testament. His English was
+      by no means as pure and undefiled as when he had endeavored to persuade us
+      into hiring &ldquo;Ash Clump.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look 'ere,&rdquo; he snarled. &ldquo;Don't you talk to me like that. Don't you
+      suppose I know what I'm doing. You Yankees may be clever at your tricks,
+      but you can't trick me. Don't I know about the money you stole from 'er
+      father? Don't I, eh? You can tell 'er your lies about it being stolen by
+      someone else, but I can see a 'ole through a millstone. You can't trick
+      me, I tell you. They're giving that girl a good 'ome and care and all
+      that, but we're goin' to see she 'as 'er rights. You've filled 'er silly
+      'ead with your stories. You've made 'er think you're all that's good and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was at hand by this time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's all this, Hephzy?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before Hephzy could reply Mrs. Cripps spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's him!&rdquo; she cried, seizing her husband's arm with one hand and
+      pointing at me with the other. &ldquo;It's him,&rdquo; she cried, venomously. &ldquo;He's
+      here, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sight of me appeared to upset what little self-control Mr. Cripps had
+      left.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You!&rdquo; he shouted, &ldquo;I might 'ave known you were 'ere. You're the one
+      that's done it. You're responsible. Filling her silly 'ead with lies about
+      your goodness and all that. Making her fall in love with you and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I sprang forward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;WHAT?&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;What are you saying?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was frightened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy,&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;don't look so. Don't! You frighten me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I scarcely heard her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;WHAT did you say?&rdquo; I demanded, addressing Cripps, who shrank back, rather
+      alarmed apparently. &ldquo;Why, you scoundrel! What do you mean by saying that?
+      Speak up! What do you mean by it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      If Mr. Cripps was alarmed his wife was not. She stepped forward and faced
+      me defiantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He means just what he says,&rdquo; she declared, her shrill voice quivering
+      with vindictive spite. &ldquo;And you know what he means perfectly well. You
+      ought to be ashamed of yourself, a man as old as you and she an innocent
+      young girl! You've hypnotized her&mdash;that is what you've done,
+      hypnotized her. All those ridiculous stories about her having no money she
+      believes because you told them to her. She would believe the moon was made
+      of green cheese if you said so. She's mad about you&mdash;the poor little
+      fool! She won't hear a word against you&mdash;says you're the best,
+      noblest man in the world! You! Why she won't even deny that she's in love
+      with you; she was brazen enough to tell me she was proud of it. Oh....
+      Stop! Where are you going? Solomon, stop him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Solomon did not stop me. I am very glad he didn't try. No one could have
+      stopped me then. I was on my way back along the garden path, and if I did
+      not keep to that path, but plunged ruthlessly through flower beds and
+      shrubbery I did not care, nor do I care now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was sitting on the rustic seat where I had left her. There were tears
+      on her cheeks. She had heard me coming&mdash;a deaf person would have
+      heard that&mdash;and she rose as I burst into view.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; she cried, in alarm. &ldquo;Oh, what is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the sight of her I paused. I had not meant to pause; I had intended to
+      take her in my arms, to ask her if what I had just heard was true, to make
+      her answer me. But now, as she stood there before me, so young, so
+      girlish, so beautiful, the hopeless idiocy of the thing struck me with
+      overwhelming force. It WAS idiocy. It couldn't be true.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;Oh, Kent! what is the matter? Why did you
+      come back? What has happened?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I stepped forward. True or false I must know. I must know then and there.
+      It was now or never for me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances,&rdquo; I stammered, &ldquo;I came back because&mdash;I&mdash;I have just
+      heard&mdash;Frances, you told me you loved someone&mdash;not Bayliss, but
+      someone else. Who is that someone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had been pale. My sudden and unexpected appearance had frightened her.
+      Now as we faced each other, as I stood looking down into her face, I saw
+      the color rise and spread over that face from throat to brow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is it?&rdquo; I repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She drew back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I can't tell you,&rdquo; she faltered. &ldquo;You mustn't ask me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I do ask. You must tell me, Frances&mdash;Frances, it isn't&mdash;it
+      can't be that you love ME. Do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She drew back still further. If there had been a way of escape I think she
+      would have taken it. But there was none. The thick shrubbery was behind
+      her and I was between her and the path. And I would not let her pass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Frances, do you?&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;I never meant to ask you. I never
+      meant that you should know. I am so much older, and so&mdash;so unworthy&mdash;it
+      has seemed so hopeless and ridiculous. But I love you, Frances, I have
+      loved you from the very beginning, although at first I didn't realize it.
+      I&mdash;If you do&mdash;if you can&mdash;I&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I faltered, hesitated, and stopped. She did not answer for a moment, a
+      long, long moment. Then:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you surprise me. I didn't suspect&mdash;I didn't
+      think&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I sighed. I had had my answer. Of course it was idiotic. I should have
+      known; I did know.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I understand. Forgive me, please. I was a fool to even
+      think of such a thing. I didn't think it. I didn't dare until&mdash;until
+      just now. Then I was told&mdash;your cousin said&mdash;I might have known
+      he didn't mean what he said. But he said it and&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did he say? Mr. Cripps, do you mean? What did he say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He said&mdash;he said you&mdash;you cared for me&mdash;in that way. Of
+      course you don't&mdash;you can't. I know better. But for the moment I
+      dared to hope. I was crazy, of course. Forgive me, Frances.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked up and then down again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is nothing to forgive,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, there is. There is a great deal. An old&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! hush, please. Don't speak like that. I&mdash;I thank you. I&mdash;you
+      mustn't suppose I am not grateful. I know you pity me. I know how generous
+      you are. But your pity&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It isn't pity. I should pity myself, if that were all. I love you
+      Frances, and I shall always love you. I am not ashamed of it. I shall have
+      that love to comfort me till I die. I am ashamed of having told you, of
+      troubling you again, that is all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was turning away, but I heard her step beside me and felt her hand upon
+      my sleeve. I turned back again. She was looking me full in the face now
+      and her eyes were shining.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What Mr. Cripps said was true,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I could not believe it. I did not believe it even then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;True!&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;No, no! You don't mean&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do mean it. I told him that I loved you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I don't know what more she would have said. I did not wait to hear. She
+      was in my arms at last and all England was whirling about me like a top.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you can't!&rdquo; I found myself saying over and over. I must have said
+      other things before, but I don't remember them. &ldquo;You can't! it is
+      impossible. You! marry an old fossil like me! Oh, Frances, are you sure?
+      Are you sure?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Kent,&rdquo; softly, &ldquo;I am sure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you can't love me. You are sure that your&mdash;You have no reason to
+      be grateful to me, but you have said you were, you know. You are sure you
+      are not doing this because&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sure. It is not because I am grateful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, my dear&mdash;think! Think what it means, I am&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know what you are,&rdquo; tenderly. &ldquo;No one knows as well. But, Kent&mdash;Kent,
+      are YOU sure? It isn't pity for me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I think I convinced her that it was not pity. I know I tried. And I was
+      still trying when the sound of steps and voices on the other side of the
+      shrubbery caused us&mdash;or caused her; I doubt if I should have heard
+      anything except her voice just then&mdash;to start and exclaim:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Someone is coming! Don't, dear, don't! Someone is coming.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the Crippses who were coming, of course. Mr. and Mrs. Cripps and
+      Hephzy. They would have come sooner, I learned afterwards, but Hephzy had
+      prevented it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Solomon's red face was redder still when he saw us together. And Mrs.
+      Cripps' mouth looked more like &ldquo;a crack in a plate&rdquo; than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;Here's where you are! I thought as much. And you&mdash;you
+      brazen creature!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I objected strongly to &ldquo;brazen creature&rdquo; as a term applied to my future
+      wife. I intended saying so, but Mr. Cripps got ahead of me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You get off my grounds,&rdquo; he blurted, waving his fist. &ldquo;You get out of
+      'ere now or I'll 'ave you put off. Do you 'ear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I should have answered him as he deserved to be answered, but Frances
+      would not let me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't, Kent,&rdquo; she whispered. &ldquo;Don't quarrel with him, please. He is
+      going, Mr. Cripps. We are going&mdash;now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Cripps fairly shrieked. &ldquo;WE are going?&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;Do you mean
+      you are going with him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy joined in, but in a quite different tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are goin'?&rdquo; she said, joyfully. &ldquo;Oh, Frances, are you comin' with
+      us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was my turn now and I rejoiced in the prospect. An entire brigade of
+      Crippses would not have daunted me then. I should have enjoyed defying
+      them all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;she is coming with us, Hephzy. Mr. Cripps, will you be
+      good enough to stand out of the way? Come, Frances.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It is not worth while repeating what Mr. and Mrs. Cripps said. They said a
+      good deal, threatened all sorts of things, lawsuits among the rest. Hephzy
+      fired the last guns for our side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes,&rdquo; she retorted, impatiently. &ldquo;I know you're goin' to sue. Go
+      ahead and sue and prosecute yourselves to death, if you want to. The
+      lawyers'll get their fees out of you, and that's some comfort&mdash;though
+      I shouldn't wonder if THEY had to sue to get even that. And I tell you
+      this: If you don't send Little Frank's&mdash;Miss Morley's trunks to
+      Mayberry inside of two days we'll come and get 'em and we'll come with the
+      sheriff and the police.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Cripps, standing by the gate, fell back upon her last line of
+      intrenchments, the line of piety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And to think,&rdquo; she declared, with upturned eyes, &ldquo;that this is the 'oly
+      Sabbath! Never mind, Solomon. The Lord will punish 'em. I shall pray to
+      Him not to curse them too hard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy's retort was to the point.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wouldn't,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;If I had been doin' what you two have been up to,
+      pretendin' to care for a young girl and offerin' to give her a home, and
+      all the time doin' it just because I thought I could squeeze money out of
+      her, I shouldn't trouble the Lord much. I wouldn't take the risk of
+      callin' His attention to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVIII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which the Pilgrimage Ends Where It Began
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      We did not go to Mayberry that day. We went to London and to the hotel;
+      not Bancroft's, but the hotel where Hephzy and I had stayed the previous
+      night. It was Frances' wish that we should not go to Bancroft's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't think that I could go there, Kent,&rdquo; she whispered to me, on the
+      train. &ldquo;Mr. and Mrs Jameson were very kind, and I liked them so much, but&mdash;but
+      they would ask questions; they wouldn't understand. It would be hard to
+      make them understand. Don't you see, Kent?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I saw perfectly. Considering that the Jamesons believed Miss Morley to be
+      my niece, it would indeed be hard to make them understand. I was not
+      inclined to try. I had had quite enough of the uncle and niece business.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So we went to the other hotel and if the clerk was surprised to see us
+      again so soon he said nothing about it. Perhaps he was not surprised. It
+      must take a good deal to surprise a hotel clerk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the train, in our compartment&mdash;a first-class compartment, you may
+      be sure; I would have hired the whole train if it had been necessary;
+      there was nothing too good or too expensive for us that afternoon&mdash;on
+      the train, discussing the ride to London, Hephzy did most of the talking.
+      I was too happy to talk much and Frances, sitting in her corner and
+      pretending to look out of the window, was silent also. I should have been
+      fearful that she was not happy, that she was already repenting her
+      rashness in promising to marry the Bayport &ldquo;quahaug,&rdquo; but occasionally she
+      looked at me, and, whenever she did, the wireless message our eyes
+      exchanged, sent that quahaug aloft on a flight through paradise. A flying
+      clam is an unusual specimen, I admit, but no other quahaug in this wide,
+      wide world had an excuse like mine for developing wings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy did not appear to notice our silence. She chatted and laughed
+      continuously. We had not told her our secret&mdash;the great secret&mdash;and
+      if she suspected it she kept her suspicions to herself. Her chatter was a
+      curious mixture: triumph over the detached Crippses; joy because, after
+      all, &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; had consented to come with us, to live with us again;
+      and triumph over me because her dreams and presentiments had come true.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told you, Hosy,&rdquo; she kept saying. &ldquo;I told you! I said it would all come
+      out in the end. He wouldn't believe it, Frances. He said I was an old
+      lunatic and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn't say anything of the kind,&rdquo; I broke in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You said what amounted to that and I don't know as I blame you. But I
+      knew&mdash;I just KNEW he and I had been 'sent' on this course and that we&mdash;all
+      three of us&mdash;would make the right port in the end. And we have&mdash;we
+      have, haven't we, Frances?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Frances, simply. &ldquo;We have, Auntie&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There! do you hear that, Hosy? Isn't it good to hear her call me 'Auntie'
+      again! Now I'm satisfied; or&rdquo;&mdash;with a momentary hesitation&mdash;&ldquo;pretty
+      nearly satisfied, anyway.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, then you're not quite satisfied, after all,&rdquo; I observed. &ldquo;What more
+      do you want?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want just one thing more; just one, that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I believed I know what that one thing was, but I asked her. She shot a
+      look at me, a look of indignant meaning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind,&rdquo; she said, decidedly. &ldquo;That's my affair. Oh, Ho!&rdquo; with a
+      reminiscent chuckle, &ldquo;how that Cripps woman did glare at me when I said
+      'twas pretty risky her callin' the Almighty's attention to their doin's. I
+      hope it did her good. Maybe she'll think of it next time she goes to
+      chapel. But I suppose she won't. All such folks care for is money. They
+      wouldn't be so anxious to get to Heaven if they hadn't read about the
+      golden streets.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That evening, at the hotel, Frances told us her story, the story of which
+      we had guessed a good deal, but of which she had told so little&mdash;how,
+      after her father's death, she had gone to live with the Crippses because,
+      as she thought, they wished her to do so from motives of generosity and
+      kindness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are not really relatives of mine,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I am glad of that.
+      Mrs. Cripps married a cousin of my father's; he died and then she married
+      Mr. Cripps. After Father's death they wrote me a very kind letter, or I
+      thought it kind at the time. They said all sorts of kindly things, they
+      offered me a home, they said I should be like their own daughter. So,
+      having nowhere else to go, I went to them. I lived there nearly two years.
+      Oh, what a life it was! They are very churchly people, they call
+      themselves religious, but I don't. They pretend to be&mdash;perhaps they
+      think they are&mdash;good, very good. But they aren't&mdash;they aren't.
+      They are hard and cruel. Mr. Cripps owns several tenements where poor
+      people live. I have heard things from those people that&mdash;Oh, I can't
+      tell you! I ran away because I had learned what they really were.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy nodded. &ldquo;What I can't understand,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;is why they offered
+      you a home in the first place. It was because they thought you had money
+      comin' to you, that's plain enough now; but how did they know?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances colored. &ldquo;I'm afraid&mdash;I'm afraid Father must have written
+      them,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;He needed money very much in his later years and he may
+      have written them asking&mdash;asking for loans and offering my
+      'inheritance' as security. I think now that that was it. But I did not
+      think so then. And&mdash;and, Oh, Auntie, you mustn't think too harshly of
+      Father. He was very good to me, he really was. And DON'T you think he
+      believed&mdash;he had made himself believe&mdash;that there was money of
+      his there in America? I can't believe he&mdash;he would lie to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course he didn't lie,&rdquo; said Hephzy, promptly. I could have hugged her
+      for saying it. &ldquo;He was sick and&mdash;and sort of out of his head, poor
+      man, and I don't doubt he made himself believe all sorts of things. Of
+      course he didn't lie&mdash;to his own daughter. But why,&rdquo; she added,
+      quickly, before Frances could ask another question, &ldquo;did you go back to
+      those precious Cripps critters after you left Paris?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances looked at me. &ldquo;I thought it would please you,&rdquo; she said, simply.
+      &ldquo;I knew you didn't want me to sing in public. Kent had said he would be
+      happier if he knew I had given up that life and was among friends. And
+      they&mdash;they had called themselves my friends. When I went back to them
+      they welcomed me. Mr. Cripps called me his 'prodigal daughter,' and Mrs.
+      Cripps prayed over me. It wasn't until I told them I had no 'inheritance,'
+      except one of debt, that they began to show me what they really were. They
+      wouldn't believe it. They said you were trying to defraud me. It was
+      dreadful. I&mdash;I think I should have run away again if&mdash;if you had
+      not come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, we did come,&rdquo; said Hephzy, cheerfully, &ldquo;and I thank the good Lord
+      for it. Now we won't talk any more about THAT.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She left us alone soon afterward, going to my room&mdash;we were in hers,
+      hers and Frances'&mdash;to unpack my trunk once more. She wouldn't hear of
+      my unpacking it. When she was gone Frances turned to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&mdash;you haven't told her,&rdquo; she faltered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;not yet. I wanted to speak with you first. I can't believe
+      it is true. Or, if it is, that it is right. Oh, my dear, do you realize
+      what you are doing? I am&mdash;I am ever so much older than you. I am not
+      worthy of you. You could have made a so much better marriage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at me. She was smiling, but there was a tiny wrinkle between
+      her brows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Meaning,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I suppose, that I might have married Doctor Bayliss.
+      I might perhaps marry him even yet, if I wished. I&mdash;I think he would
+      have me, if I threw myself at his head.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I admitted, grudgingly. &ldquo;Yes, he loves you, Frances.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kent, when we were there in Mayberry it seemed to me that my aunt and you
+      were almost anxious that I should marry him. It seemed to me that you took
+      every opportunity to throw me in his way; you refused my invitations for
+      golf and tennis and suggested that I play with him instead. It used to
+      annoy me. I resented it. I thought you were eager to get rid of me. I did
+      not know then the truth about Father and&mdash;and the money. And I
+      thought you hoped I might marry him and&mdash;and not trouble you any
+      more. But I think I understand now. You&mdash;you did not care for me so
+      much then. Was that it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I shook my head. &ldquo;Care for you!&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;I cared for you so much that
+      I did not dare trust myself with you. I did not dare to think of you, and
+      yet I could think of no one else. I know now that I fell in love with you
+      when I first met you at that horrible Briggs woman's lodging-house. Don't
+      you see? That was the very reason why. Don't you see?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I'm afraid I don't quite see. If you cared for me like that how could
+      you be willing for me to marry him? That is what puzzles me. I don't
+      understand it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was because I did care for you. It was because I cared so much, I
+      wanted you to be happy. I never dreamed that you could care for an old,
+      staid, broken-down bookworm like me. It wasn't thinkable. I can scarcely
+      think it now. Oh, Frances, are you SURE you are not making a mistake? Are
+      you sure it isn't gratitude which makes you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose from her chair and came to me. Her eyes were wet, but there was a
+      light in them like the sunlight behind a summer shower.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't, please don't!&rdquo; she begged. &ldquo;And caring for me like that you could
+      still come to me as you did this morning and suggest my marrying him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes, I came because&mdash;because I knew he loved you and I thought
+      that you might not know it. And if you did know it I thought&mdash;perhaps&mdash;you
+      might be happier and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I faltered and stopped. She was standing beside me, looking up into my
+      face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did know it,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;He told me, there in Paris. And I told him&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You told him&mdash;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told him that I liked him; I do, I do; he is a good man. But I told him&mdash;&rdquo;
+       she rose on tiptoe and kissed me&mdash;&ldquo;I told him that I loved you, dear.
+      See! here is the pin you gave me. It is the one thing I could not leave
+      behind when I ran away from Mayberry. I meant to keep that always&mdash;and
+      I always shall.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After a time we remembered Hephzy. It would be more truthful to say that
+      Frances remembered her. I had forgotten Hephzy altogether, I am ashamed to
+      say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kent,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;don't you think we should tell Auntie now? She will be
+      pleased, I hope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pleased! She will be&mdash;I can't think of a word to describe it. She
+      loves you, too, dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know. I hope she will love me more now. She worships you, Kent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid she does. She doesn't realize what a tinsel god I am. And I
+      fear you don't either. I am not a great man. I am not even a famous
+      author. I&mdash;Are you SURE, Frances?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She laughed lightly. &ldquo;Kent,&rdquo; she whispered, &ldquo;what was it Doctor Bayliss
+      called you when you offered to promise not to follow me to Leatherhead?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had told her the whole story of my last interview with Bayliss at the
+      Continental.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He called me a silly ass,&rdquo; I answered promptly. &ldquo;I don't care.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Neither do I; but don't you think you are one, just a little bit of one,
+      in some things? You mustn't ask me if I am sure again. Come! we will go to
+      Auntie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy had finished unpacking my trunk and was standing by the closet
+      door, shaking the wrinkles out of my dinner coat. She heard us enter and
+      turned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never saw clothes in such a mess in my life,&rdquo; she announced. &ldquo;And I
+      packed this trunk, too. I guess the trembles in my head must have got into
+      my fingers when I did it. I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stopped at the beginning of the sentence. I had taken Frances by the
+      hand and led her up to where she was standing. Hephzy said nothing, she
+      stood there and stared at us, but the coat fell to the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I've come to make an apology. I believe in dreams and
+      presentiments and Spiritualism and all the rest of it now. You were right.
+      Our pilgrimage has ended just as you declared it would. I know now that we
+      were 'sent' upon it. Frances has said&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy didn't wait to hear any more. She threw her arms about Frances'
+      neck, then about mine, hugged us both, and then, to my utter astonishment,
+      sat down upon the closed trunk and burst into tears. When we tried to
+      comfort her she waved us away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't touch me,&rdquo; she commanded. &ldquo;Don't say anything to me. Just let me
+      be. I've done all kinds of loony things in my life and this attack is just
+      natural, that's all. I&mdash;I'll get over it in a minute. There!&rdquo; rising
+      and dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief, &ldquo;I'm over it now. Hosy
+      Knowles, I've cried about a million times since&mdash;since that awful
+      mornin' in Mayberry. You didn't know it, but I have. I'm through now. I'm
+      never goin' to cry any more. I'm goin' to laugh! I'm going to sing! I
+      declare if you don't grab me and hold me down I shall dance! Oh, Oh, OH!
+      I'm so glad! I'm so glad!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We sat up until the early morning hours, talking and planning. We were to
+      go back to America as soon as we could secure passage; upon that we all
+      agreed in the end. I was the only one who hesitated. I had a vague feeling
+      of uneasiness, a dread, that Frances might not wish it, that her saying
+      she would love to go was merely to please me. I remembered how she had
+      hated America and Americans, or professed to hate them, in the days of our
+      first acquaintanceship. I thought of quiet, sleepy, humdrum old Bayport
+      and the fear that she might be disappointed when she saw it, that she
+      might be lonely and unhappy there, was strong. So when Hephzy talked of
+      our going straight to the steamship offices next day I demurred. I
+      suggested a Continental trip, to Switzerland, to the Mediterranean&mdash;anywhere.
+      I forgot that my means were limited, that I had been idle for longer than
+      I should have been, and that I absolutely must work soon. I forgot
+      everything, and talked, as Hephzy said afterward, &ldquo;regardless, like a
+      whole kerosene oil company.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But, to my surprise, it was Frances herself who was most insistent upon
+      our going to America. She wanted to go, she said. Of course she did not
+      mean to be selfish, and if Auntie and I really wished to go to the
+      Continent or remain in England she would be quite content.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Oh Kent,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;if you are suggesting all this merely because
+      you think I will like it, please don't. I have lived in France and I have
+      been very unhappy there. I have been happier here in England, but I have
+      been unhappy here, too. I have no friends here now. I have no friends
+      anywhere except you. I know you both want to see your home again&mdash;you
+      must. And&mdash;and your home will be mine now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So we decided to sail for America, and that without delay. And the next
+      morning, before breakfast, Hephzy came to my room with another suggestion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I've been thinkin'. All our things, or most of 'em, are
+      at Mayberry. Somebody's got to go there, of course, to pack up and make
+      arrangements for our leavin'. She&mdash;Frances, I mean&mdash;would go,
+      too, if we asked her, I suppose likely; she'd do anything you asked, now.
+      But it would be awful hard for her. She'd meet all the people she used to
+      know there and they wouldn't understand and 'twould be hard to explain.
+      The Baylisses know the real truth, but the rest of 'em don't. You'd have
+      all that niece and uncle mess again, and I don't suppose you want any more
+      of THAT.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should say I didn't!&rdquo; I exclaimed, fervently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, that's the way it seemed to me. So she hadn't ought to go to
+      Mayberry. And we can't leave her here alone in London. She'd be lonesome,
+      for one thing, and those everlastin' Crippses might find out where she
+      was, for another. It may be that that Solomon and his wife will let her go
+      and say nothin', but I doubt it. So long as they think she's got a cent
+      comin' to her they'll pester her in every way they can, I believe. That
+      woman's nose can smell money as far as a cat can smell fish. No, we can't
+      leave Little Frank here alone. Of course, I might stay with her and you
+      might go by yourself, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This way out of the difficulty had occurred to me; so when she seemed to
+      hesitate, I asked: &ldquo;But what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it won't be very pleasant for you in Mayberry. You'd have
+      considerable explainin' to do. And, more'n that, Hosy, there's all that
+      packin' up to do and I've seen you try to pack a trunk too often before.
+      You're just as likely to pack a flat-iron on top of a lookin' glass as to
+      do the other thing. No, I'm the one to go to Mayberry. I must go by myself
+      and you must stay here in London with her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't do that, Hephzy,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;How could I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You couldn't, as things are, of course. But if they were different. If
+      she was your wife you could. And then if that Solomon thing came you could&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I interrupted. &ldquo;My wife!&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;Hephzy, what are you talking about?
+      Do you mean&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean that you and she might be married right off, to-day perhaps. Then
+      everything would be all right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I stared at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But&mdash;but she wouldn't consent,&rdquo; I stammered. &ldquo;It is impossible. She
+      wouldn't think of such a thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy nodded. &ldquo;Oh, yes, she would,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;She is thinkin' of it now.
+      She and I have just had a long talk. She's a sensible girl, Hosy, and she
+      listened to reason. If she was sure that you wanted to marry her so soon
+      she&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wanted to!&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;Hephzy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy nodded again. &ldquo;Then that's settled,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It's a big
+      disappointment to me, I give in. I'd set my heart on your bein' married at
+      our meetin'-house in Bayport, with Mr. Partridge to do the marryin', and a
+      weddin' reception at our house and&mdash;and everything. But I guess this
+      is the best, and I know it's the most sensible. But, Oh Hosy, there's one
+      thing I can't give up. I want you to be married at the American
+      Ambassador's or somewhere like it and by an American minister. I sha'n't
+      feel safe if it's done anywhere else and by a foreigner, even if he's
+      English, which don't seem foreign to me at all any more. No, he's got to
+      be an American and&mdash;and, Oh, Hosy! DO try to get a Methodist.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I couldn't get a Methodist, but by consulting the hotel register I found
+      an American clergyman, a Congregationalist, who was a fine fellow and
+      consented to perform the ceremony. And, if we were not married at the
+      American Embassy, we were at the rooms of the London consul, whom
+      Matthews, at the Camford Street office, knew and who was another splendid
+      chap and glad to oblige a fellow-countryman, particularly after seeing the
+      lady he was to marry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The consul and his wife and Hephzy were our only witnesses. Frances'
+      wedding gown was not new, but it was very becoming&mdash;the consul's wife
+      said so, and she should know. Also she said she had never seen a sweeter
+      or more beautiful bride. No one said anything concerning the bridegroom's
+      appearance, but he did not care. It was a drizzly, foggy day, but that
+      made no difference. A Kansas cyclone and a Bayport no'theaster combined
+      could not have cast a damper on that day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When it was over, Hephzy, who had been heroically struggling to keep her
+      vow not to shed another tear during our pilgrimage, hugged us both.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo; she faltered, &ldquo;I&mdash;I can't say it, but you know how
+      I feel. There's nothin' I sha'n't believe after this. I used to believe
+      I'd never travel, but I have. And there in Mayberry I believed I'd never
+      be happy again, but I am. HAPPY! hap&mdash;hap&mdash;Oh dear! WHAT a fool
+      I am! I ca&mdash;I can't help it! I expect I look like the most miserable
+      thing on earth, but that's because I AM so happy. God bless you both! Now&mdash;now
+      don't so much as look at me for a few minutes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That afternoon she left for Mayberry to do the &ldquo;packing up&rdquo; and my wife
+      and I were alone&mdash;and together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I saw London again during the next few days. We rode on the tops of
+      busses, we visited Kew Gardens and Hampton Court and Windsor. We took long
+      trips up and down the Thames on the little steamers. Frances called them
+      our honeymoon trips. The time flew by. Then I received a note from Hephzy
+      that the &ldquo;packing up&rdquo; was finished at last and that she was returning to
+      London.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was raining hard, the morning of her arrival, and I went alone to meet
+      her at the railway station. I was early there and, as I was walking up,
+      awaiting the train, I heard someone speak my name. I turned and there,
+      immaculate, serene and debonair as ever, was A. Carleton Heathcroft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, Knowles,&rdquo; he said, cheerfully. &ldquo;Thought it was you. Haven't seen you
+      of late. Missed you at Burgleston, on the course. How are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I told him I was quite well, and inquired concerning his own health.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Topping,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;Rotten weather, eh&mdash;what? And how's Miss&mdash;Oh,
+      dear me, always forget the name! The eccentric aunt who is so intensely
+      patriotic and American&mdash;How is she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is well, too,&rdquo; I answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Couldn't think of her being ill, somehow,&rdquo; he observed. &ldquo;And where have
+      you been, may I ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I said I had been on the Continent for a short stay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes! I remember now. Someone said you had gone. That reminds me: Did
+      you go to Paris? Did you see the girl who sang at the Abbey&mdash;the one
+      I told you of, who looked so like that pretty niece of yours? Hope you
+      did. The resemblance was quite extraordinary. Did you see her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I dodged the question. I asked him what he had been doing since the day of
+      the golf tournament.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;Oh, by Jove!&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;now I am going to surprise you. I
+      have been getting ready to take the fatal step. I'm going to be married.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Married!&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;Really? The&mdash;the Warwickshire young lady, I
+      presume.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. How did you know of her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your aunt&mdash;Lady Carey&mdash;mentioned that your&mdash;your
+      affections were somewhat engaged in that quarter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did she? Really! Yes, she would mention it, I suppose. She mentions it to
+      everybody; it's a sort of hobby of hers, like my humble self, and the
+      roses. She has been more insistent of late and at last I consented to
+      oblige her. Do you know, Knowles, I think she was rather fearful that I
+      might be smitten by your Miss Morley. Shared your fears, eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled, but I said nothing. A train which I believed to be the one upon
+      which Hephzy was expected, was drawing into the station.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A remarkably attractive girl, your niece,&rdquo; he went on. &ldquo;Have you heard
+      from her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I said, absently. &ldquo;I must say good-by, Heathcroft. That is the
+      train I have been waiting for.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, is it. Then, au revoir, Knowles. By the way, kindly remember me to
+      your niece when you see her, will you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will. But&mdash;&rdquo; I could not resist the temptation; &ldquo;but she isn't my
+      niece,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I say! What? Not your niece? What is she then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is my wife&mdash;now,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Good-by, Mr. Heathcroft.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hurried away before he could do more than gasp. I think I shook even his
+      serene composure at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I told Hephzy about it as we rode to the hotel in the cab.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was silly, I suppose,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I told him on the spur of the moment.
+      I imagine all Mayberry, not to mention Burgleston Bogs, will have
+      something to talk about now. They expect almost anything of Americans, or
+      some of them do, but the marriage of an uncle and niece ought to be a
+      surprise, I should think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy laughed. &ldquo;The Baylisses will explain,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I told the old
+      doctor and his wife all about it. They were very much pleased, that was
+      plain enough. They knew she wasn't your niece and they'll tell the other
+      folks. That'll be all right, Hosy. Yes, Doctor and Mrs. Bayliss were
+      tickled almost to death. It stops all their worry about their son and
+      Frances, of course. He is in Switzerland now, poor chap. They'll write him
+      and he'll come home again by and by where he ought to be. And he'll forget
+      by and by, too. He's only a boy and he'll forget. So THAT'S all right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Everybody sent their love to you,&rdquo; she went on. &ldquo;The curates and the
+      Samsons and everybody. Mr. Cole and his wife are comin' back next week and
+      the servants'll take care of the rectory till they come. Everybody was so
+      glad to see me, and they're goin' to write and everything. I declare! I
+      felt real bad to leave 'em. They're SUCH nice people, these English folks.
+      Aren't they, Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were and are. I hope that some day I may have, in my own country, the
+      opportunity to repay a little of the hospitality and kindness that my
+      Mayberry friends bestowed on me in theirs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We sailed for home two days later. A pleasant voyage it was, on a good
+      ship and with agreeable fellow-passengers. And, at last, one bright,
+      cloudless morning, a stiff breeze blowing and the green and white waves
+      leaping and tossing in the sunlight, we saw ahead of us a little speck&mdash;the
+      South Shoal lightship. Everyone crowded to the rail, of course. Hephzy
+      sighed, a sigh of pure happiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nantucket!&rdquo; she said, reading the big letters on the side of the little
+      vessel. &ldquo;Nantucket! Don't that sound like home, Hosy! Nantucket and Cape
+      Cod are next-door neighbors, as you might say! My! the air seems different
+      already. I believe I can almost smell the Bayport flats. Do you know what
+      I am goin' to do as soon as I get into my kitchen? After I've seen some of
+      my neighbors and the cat and the hens, of course. I'm going to make a clam
+      chowder. I've been just dyin' for a clam chowder ever since we left
+      England.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the next morning we landed at New York. Jim Campbell was at the wharf
+      to meet us. His handshake was a welcome home which was good to feel. He
+      welcomed Hephzy just as heartily. But I saw him looking at Frances with
+      curiosity and I flattered myself, admiration, and I chuckled as I thought
+      of the surprise which I was about to give him. It would be a surprise,
+      sure enough. I had written him nothing of the recent wonderful happenings
+      in Paris and in London, and I had sworn Matthews to secrecy likewise. No,
+      he did not know, he did not suspect, and I gloried in the opportunity
+      which was mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jim,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;there is one member of our party whom you have not met.
+      Frances, you have heard me speak of Mr. Campbell very often. Here he is.
+      Jim, I have the pleasure of presenting you to Mrs. Knowles, my wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim stood the shock remarkably well, considering. He gave me one glance, a
+      glance which expressed a portion of his feelings, and then he and Frances
+      shook hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mrs. Knowles,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I&mdash;you'll excuse my apparent lack of
+      intellect, but&mdash;but this husband of yours has&mdash;I've known him a
+      good while and I thought I had lost all capacity for surprise at anything
+      he might do, but&mdash;but I hadn't. I&mdash;I&mdash;Please don't mind me;
+      I'm really quite sane at times. I am very, very glad. May we shake hands
+      again?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He insisted upon our breakfasting with him at a near-by hotel. When he and
+      I were alone together he seized my arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Confound you!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;You old chump! What do you mean by
+      springing this thing on me without a word of warning? I never was as
+      nearly knocked out in my life. What do you mean by it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed. &ldquo;It is all part of your prescription,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;You told me I
+      should marry, you know. Do you approve of my selection?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Approve of it! Why, man, she's&mdash;she's wonderful. Approve of YOUR
+      selection! How about hers? You durned quahaug! How did you do it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I gave him a condensed and hurried resume of the whole story. He did not
+      interrupt once&mdash;a perfectly amazing feat for him&mdash;and when I had
+      finished he shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's no use,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I'm too good for the business I am in. I am
+      wasting my talents. <i>I</i> sent you over there. <i>I</i> told you to go.
+      <i>I</i> prescribed travel and a wife and all the rest. <i>I</i> did it.
+      I'm going to quit the publishing game. I'm going to set up as a
+      specialist, a brain specialist, for clams. And I'll use your face as a
+      testimonial: 'Kent Knowles, Quahaug. Before and After Taking.' Man, you
+      look ten years younger than you did when you went away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must not take all the credit,&rdquo; I told him. &ldquo;You forget Hephzy and her
+      dreams, the dream she told us about that day at Bayport. That dream has
+      come true; do you realize it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He nodded. &ldquo;I admit it,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;She is a better specialist than I. I
+      shall have to take her into partnership. 'Campbell and Cahoon. Prescribers
+      and Predictors. Authors Made Human.' I'll speak to her about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he said good-by to us at the Grand Central Station he asked me another
+      question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kent,&rdquo; he whispered, &ldquo;what are you going to do now? What are you going to
+      do with her? Are you and she going back to Bayport to be Mr. and Mrs.
+      Quahaug? Is that your idea?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I shook my head. &ldquo;We're going back to Bayport,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;but how long we
+      shall stay there I don't know. One thing you may be sure of, Jim; I shall
+      be a quahaug no more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He nodded. &ldquo;I think you're right,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;She'll see to that, or I
+      miss my guess. No, my boy, your quahaug days are over. There's nothing of
+      the shellfish about her; she's a live woman, as well as a mighty pretty
+      one, and she cares enough about you to keep you awake and in the game. I
+      congratulate you, Kent, and I'm almost as happy as you are. Also I shall
+      play the optimist at our next directors' meeting; I see signs of a boom in
+      the literature factory. Go to it, my son. You have my blessing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We took the one o'clock train for Boston, remained there over night, and
+      left on the early morning &ldquo;accommodation&rdquo;&mdash;so called, I think,
+      because it accommodates the train hands&mdash;for Cape Cod. As we neared
+      Buzzard's Bay my spirits, which had been at topnotch, began to sink. When
+      the sand dunes of Barnstable harbor hove in sight they sank lower and
+      lower. It was October, the summer people, most of them, had gone, the
+      station platforms were almost deserted, the more pretentious cottages were
+      closed. The Cape looked bare and brown and wind-swept. I thought of the
+      English fields and hedges, of the verdant beauty of the Mayberry pastures.
+      What SORT of a place would she think this, the home to which I was
+      bringing her?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had been very much excited and very much interested. New York, with
+      its sky-scrapers and trolleys, its electric signs and clean white
+      buildings, the latter so different from the grimy, gray dwellings and
+      shops of London, had been a wonderland to her. She had liked the Pullman
+      and the dining-car and the Boston hotel. But this, this was different. How
+      would she like sleepy, old Bayport and the people of Bayport.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, I should soon know. Even the morning &ldquo;accommodation&rdquo; reaches Bayport
+      some time or other. We were the only passengers to alight at the station,
+      and Elmer Snow, the station agent, and Gabe Lumley, who drives the depot
+      wagon, were the only ones to welcome us. Their welcome was hearty enough,
+      I admit. Gabe would have asked a hundred questions if I had answered the
+      first of the hundred, but he seemed strangely reluctant to answer those I
+      asked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bayport was gettin' along first-rate, he told me. Tad Simpson's youngest
+      child had diphtheria, but was sittin' up now and the fish weirs had caught
+      consider'ble mackerel that summer. So much he was willing to say, but he
+      said little more. I asked how the house and garden were looking and he
+      cal'lated they were all right. Pumping Gabe Lumley was a new experience
+      for me. Ordinarily he doesn't need pumping. I could not understand it. I
+      saw Hephzy and he in consultation on the station platform and I wondered
+      if she had been able to get more news than I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We rattled along the main road, up the hill by the Whittaker place&mdash;I
+      looked eagerly for a glimpse of Captain Cy himself, but I didn't see him&mdash;and
+      on until we reached our gate. Frances said very little during our progress
+      through the village. I did not dare speak to her; I was afraid of asking
+      her how she liked what she had seen of Bayport. And Hephzy, too, was
+      silent, although she kept her head out of the window most of the time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But when the depot wagon entered the big gate and stopped before the side
+      door I felt that I must say something. I must not appear fearful or
+      uneasy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here we are!&rdquo; I cried, springing out and helping her and Hephzy to
+      alight. &ldquo;Here we are at last. This is home, dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then the door opened and I saw that the dining-room was filled with
+      people, people whom I had known all my life. Mr. Partridge, the minister,
+      was there, and his wife, and Captain Whittaker and his wife, and the
+      Dimicks and the Salterses and more. Before I could recover from my
+      surprise Mr. Partridge stepped forward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;on this happy occasion it is our privilege to&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Captain Cy interrupted him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good Lord!&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;don't make a speech to him now, Mr. Partridge.
+      Welcome home, Kent! We're all mighty glad to see you back again safe and
+      sound. And Hephzy, too. By the big dipper, Hephzy, the sight of you is
+      good for sore eyes! And I suppose this is your wife, Kent. Well, we&mdash;Hey!
+      I might have known Phoebe would get ahead of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For Mrs. Whittaker and Frances were shaking hands. Others were crowding
+      forward to do so. And the table was set and there were flowers everywhere
+      and, in the background, was Susanna Wixon, grinning from ear to ear, with
+      the cat&mdash;our cat&mdash;who seemed the least happy of the party, in
+      her arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy had written Mrs. Whittaker from London, telling her of my marriage;
+      she had telegraphed from New York the day before, announcing the hour of
+      our return. And this was the result.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When it was all over and they had gone&mdash;they would not remain for
+      dinner, although we begged them to do so&mdash;when they had gone and
+      Hephzy had fled to the yard to inspect the hens, I turned to my wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;this is home. Here is where Hephzy and I have lived
+      for so long. I&mdash;I hope you may be happy here. It is a rather crude
+      place, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She came to me and put her arms about my neck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't, my dear, don't!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It is beautiful. It is home. And&mdash;and
+      you know I have never had a home, a real home before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you like it?&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;You really like it? It is so different from
+      England. The people&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are dear, kind people. And they like you and respect you, Kent. How
+      could you say they didn't! I know I shall love them all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I made a dash for the kitchen. &ldquo;Hephzy!&rdquo; I shouted. &ldquo;Hephzy! She does like
+      it. She likes Bayport and the people and everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was just entering at the back door. She did not seem in the least
+      surprised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course she likes it,&rdquo; she said, with decision. &ldquo;How could anybody help
+      likin' Bayport?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIX
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Which Treats of Quahaugs in General
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Asaph Tidditt helped me to begin this long chronicle of a quahaug's
+      pilgrimage. Perhaps it is fitting that Asaph should end it. He dropped in
+      for a call the other afternoon and, as I had finished my day's &ldquo;stunt&rdquo; at
+      the desk, I assisted in entertaining him. Frances was in the sitting-room
+      also and Hephzy joined us soon afterward. Mr. Tidditt had stopped at the
+      post-office on his way down and he had the Boston morning paper in his
+      hand. Of course he was filled to the brim with war news. We discuss little
+      else in Bayport now; even the new baby at the parsonage has to play second
+      fiddle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My godfreys!&rdquo; exclaimed Asaph, as soon as he sat down in the rocking
+      chair and put his cap on the floor beneath it. &ldquo;My godfreys, but they're
+      havin' awful times over across, now ain't they. Killin' and fightin' and
+      battlin' and slaughterin'! It don't seem human to me somehow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is human, I'm afraid,&rdquo; I said, with a sigh. &ldquo;Altogether too human.
+      We're a poor lot, we, humans, after all. We pride ourselves on our
+      civilization, but after all, it takes very little to send us back to
+      savagery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's so,&rdquo; said Asaph, with conviction. &ldquo;That's true about everybody but
+      us folks in the United States. We are awful fortunate, we are. We ain't
+      savages. We was born in a free country, and we've been brought up right, I
+      declare! I beg your pardon, Mrs. Knowles; I forgot you wasn't born in
+      Bayport.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances smiled. &ldquo;No apology is needed, Mr. Tidditt,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I confess
+      to having been born a&mdash;savage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you're all right now,&rdquo; said Asaph, hastily, trying to cover his slip.
+      &ldquo;You're all right now. You're just as American as the rest of us. Kent,
+      suppose this war in Europe is goin' to hurt your trade any? It's goin' to
+      hurt a good many folks's. They tell me groceries and such like is goin'
+      way up. Lucky we've got fish and clams to depend on. Clams and quahaugs'll
+      keep us from starvin' for a spell. Oh,&rdquo; with a chuckle, &ldquo;speakin' of
+      quahaugs reminds me. Did you know they used to call your husband a
+      quahaug, Mrs. Knowles? That's what they used to call him round here&mdash;'The
+      Quahaug.' They called him that 'count of his keepin' inside his shell all
+      the time and not mixin' with folks, not toadyin' up to the summer crowd
+      and all. I always respected him for it. <i>I</i> don't toady to nobody
+      neither.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy had come in by this time and now she took a part in the
+      conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They don't call him 'The Quahaug' any more,&rdquo; she declared, indignantly.
+      &ldquo;He's been out of his shell more and seen more than most of the folks in
+      this town.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know it; I know it. And he's kept goin' ever since. Runnin' to New
+      York, he and you,&rdquo; with a nod toward Frances, &ldquo;and travelin' to Washin'ton
+      and Niagary Falls and all. Wonder to me how he does as much writin' as he
+      does. That last book of yours is sellin' first-rate, they tell me, Kent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He referred to the novel I began in Mayberry. I have rewritten and
+      finished it since, and it has had a surprising sale. The critics seem to
+      think I have achieved my first genuine success.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you writin' now?&rdquo; asked Asaph. &ldquo;More of them yarns about pirates
+      and such? Land sakes! when I go by this house nights and see a light in
+      your library window there, Kent, and know you're pluggin' along amongst
+      all them adventures, I wonder how you can stand it. 'Twould give me the
+      shivers. Godfreys! the last time I read one of them yarns&mdash;that about
+      the 'Black Brig' 'twas&mdash;I hardly dast to go to bed. And I DIDN'T dast
+      to put out the light. I see a pirate in every corner, grittin' his teeth.
+      Writin' another of that kind, are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;this one is quite different. You will have no trouble in
+      sleeping over this one, Ase.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's a comfort. Got a little Bayport in it? Seems to me you ought to
+      put a little Bayport in, for a change.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled. &ldquo;There is a little in this,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;A little at the
+      beginning, and, perhaps, at the end.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't say! You ain't got me in it, have you? I'd&mdash;I'd look kind
+      of funny in a book, wouldn't I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed, but I did not answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not that I ain't seen things in my life,&rdquo; went on Asaph, hopefully. &ldquo;A
+      man can't be town clerk in a live town like this and not see things. But I
+      hope you won't put any more foreigners in. This we're readin' now,&rdquo;
+       rapping the newspaper with his knuckles, &ldquo;gives us all we want to know
+      about foreigners. Just savages, they be, as you say, and nothin' more. I
+      pity 'em.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Asaph,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;what would you say if I told you that the English and
+      French&mdash;yes, and the Germans, too, though I haven't seen them at home
+      as I have the others&mdash;were no more savages than we are?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'd say you was crazy,&rdquo; was the prompt answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I'm not. And you're not very complimentary. You're forgetting
+      again. You forget that I married one of those savages.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Asaph was taken aback, but he recovered promptly, as he had before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She ain't any savage,&rdquo; he announced. &ldquo;Her mother was born right here in
+      Bayport. And she knows, just as I do, that Bayport's the best place in the
+      world; don't you, Mrs. Knowles?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Frances, &ldquo;I am sure of it, Mr. Tidditt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So Asaph went away triumphantly happy. After he had gone I apologized for
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's a fair sample,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;He is a quahaug, although he doesn't know
+      it. He is a certain type, an exaggerated type, of American.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances smiled. &ldquo;He's not much worse than I used to be,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I used
+      to call America an uncivilized country, you remember. I suppose I&mdash;and
+      Mr. Heathcroft&mdash;were exaggerated types of a certain kind of English.
+      We were English quahaugs, weren't we?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy nodded. &ldquo;We're all quahaugs,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;Most of us, anyhow.
+      That's the trouble with all the folks of all the nations; they stay in
+      their shells and they don't try to know and understand their neighbors.
+      Kent, you used to be a quahaug&mdash;a different kind of one&mdash;but
+      that kind, too. I was a quahaug afore I lived in Mayberry. That's who
+      makes wars like this dreadful one&mdash;quahaugs. We know better now&mdash;you
+      and Frances and I. We've found out that, down underneath, there's precious
+      little difference. Humans are humans.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She paused and then, as a final summing up, added:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess that's it: American or German or French or anything&mdash;nice
+      folks are nice folks anywhere.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      THE END <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Kent Knowles: Quahaug, by Joseph C. Lincoln
+(#12 in our series by Joseph C. Lincoln)
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
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+Title: Kent Knowles: Quahaug
+
+Author: Joseph C. Lincoln
+
+Release Date: June, 2004  [EBook #5980]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on October 5, 2002]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, KENT KNOWLES: QUAHAUG ***
+
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by Don Lainson.
+
+
+
+
+KENT KNOWLES: QUAHAUG
+
+
+by
+
+
+JOSEPH C. LINCOLN
+
+
+
+1914
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+I.  Which is not a chapter at all
+
+II.  Which repeats, for the most part, what Jim Campbell said to me
+and what I said to him
+
+III.  Which, although it is largely family history, should not be
+skipped by the reader
+
+IV.  In which Hephzy and I and the Plutonia sail together
+
+V.  In which we view, and even mingle slightly with, the upper
+classes
+
+VI.  In which we are received at Bancroft's Hotel and I receive a
+letter
+
+VII.  In which a dream becomes a reality
+
+VIII.  In which the pilgrims become tenants
+
+IX.  In which we make the acquaintance of Mayberry and a portion of
+Burgleston Bogs
+
+X.  In which I break all previous resolutions and make a new one
+
+XI.  In which complications become more complicated
+
+XII.  In which the truth is told at last
+
+XIII.  In which Hephzy and I agree to live for each other
+
+XIV.  In which I play golf and cross the channel
+
+XV.  In which I learn that all abbeys are not churches
+
+XVI.  In which I take my turn at playing the invalid
+
+XVII.  In which I, as well as Mr. Solomon Cripps, am surprised
+
+XVIII.  In which the pilgrimage ends where it began
+
+XIX.  Which treats of quahaugs in general
+
+
+
+
+
+KENT KNOWLES: QUAHAUG
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Which is Not a Chapter at All
+
+
+It was Asaph Tidditt who told me how to begin this history.
+Perhaps I should be very much obliged to Asaph; perhaps I
+shouldn't.  He has gotten me out of a difficulty--or into one;
+I am far from certain which.
+
+Ordinarily--I am speaking now of the writing of swashbuckling
+romances, which is, or was, my trade--I swear I never have called
+it a profession--the beginning of a story is the least of the
+troubles connected with its manufacture.  Given a character or two
+and a situation, the beginning of one of those romances is, or was,
+pretty likely to be something like this:
+
+"It was a black night.  Heavy clouds had obscured the setting sun
+and now, as the clock in the great stone tower boomed twelve, the
+darkness was pitchy."
+
+That is a good safe beginning.  Midnight, a stone tower, a booming
+clock, and darkness make an appeal to the imagination.  On a night
+like that almost anything may happen.  A reader of one of my
+romances--and readers there must be, for the things did, and still
+do, sell to some extent--might be fairly certain that something
+WOULD happen before the end of the second page.  After that the
+somethings continued to happen as fast as I could invent them.
+
+But this story was different.  The weather or the time had nothing
+to do with its beginning.  There were no solitary horsemen or
+strange wayfarers on lonely roads, no unexpected knocks at the
+doors of taverns, no cloaked personages landing from boats rowed by
+black-browed seamen with red handkerchiefs knotted about their
+heads and knives in their belts.  The hero was not addressed as "My
+Lord"; he was not "Sir Somebody-or-other" in disguise.  He was not
+young and handsome; there was not even "a certain something in his
+manner and bearing which hinted of an eventful past."  Indeed there
+was not.  For, if this particular yarn or history or chronicle
+which I had made up my mind to write, and which I am writing now,
+had or has a hero, I am he.  And I am Hosea Kent Knowles, of
+Bayport, Massachusetts, the latter the village in which I was born
+and in which I have lived most of the time since I was twenty-seven
+years old.  Nobody calls me "My Lord."  Hephzy has always called me
+"Hosy"--a name which I despise--and the others, most of them,
+"Kent" to my face and "The Quahaug" behind my back, a quahaug being
+a very common form of clam which is supposed to lead a solitary
+existence and to keep its shell tightly shut.  If anything in my
+manner had hinted at a mysterious past no one in Bayport would have
+taken the hint.  Bayporters know my past and that of my ancestors
+only too well.
+
+As for being young and handsome--well, I was thirty-eight years old
+last March.  Which is quite enough on THAT subject.
+
+But I had determined to write the story, so I sat down to begin it.
+And immediately I got into difficulties.  How should I begin?  I
+might begin at any one of a dozen places--with Hephzy's receiving
+the Raymond and Whitcomb circular; with our arrival in London; with
+Jim Campbell's visit to me here in Bayport; with the curious way in
+which the letter reached us, after crossing the ocean twice.  Any
+one of these might serve as a beginning--but which?  I made I don't
+know how many attempts, but not one was satisfactory.  I, who had
+begun I am ashamed to tell you how many stories--yes, and had
+finished them and seen them in print as well--was stumped at the
+very beginning of this one.  Like Sim Phinney I had worked at my
+job "a long spell" and "cal'lated" I knew it, but here was
+something I didn't know.  As Sim said, when he faced his problem,
+"I couldn't seem to get steerage way on her."
+
+Simeon, you see--He is Angeline Phinney's second cousin and lives
+in the third house beyond the Holiness Bethel on the right-hand
+side of the road--Simeon has "done carpentering" here in Bayport
+all his life.  He built practically every henhouse now gracing or
+disgracing the backyards of our village.  He is our "henhouse
+specialist," so to speak.  He has even been known to boast of his
+skill.  "Henhouses!" snorted Sim; "land of love!  I can build a
+henhouse with my eyes shut.  Nowadays when another one of them
+foolheads that's been readin' 'How to Make a Million Poultry
+Raisin'' in the Farm Gazette comes to me and says 'Henhouse,' I
+say, 'Yes sir.  Fifteen dollars if you pay me cash now and a
+hundred and fifteen if you want to wait and pay me out of your egg
+profits.  That's all there is to it.'"
+
+And yet, when Captain Darius Nickerson, who made the most of his
+money selling fifty-foot lots of sand, beachgrass and ticks to
+summer people for bungalow sites--when Captain Darius, grown purse-
+proud and vainglorious, expressed a desire for a henhouse with a
+mansard roof and a cupola, the latter embellishments to match those
+surmounting his own dwelling, Simeon was set aback with his canvas
+flapping.  At the end of a week he had not driven a nail.
+"Godfrey's mighty!" he is reported to have exclaimed.  "I don't
+know whether to build the average cupola and trust to a hen's
+fittin' it, or take an average hen and build a cupola round her.
+Maybe I'll be all right after I get started, but it's where to
+start that beats me."
+
+Where to start beat me, also, and it might be beating me yet,
+if I hadn't dropped in at the post-office and heard Asaph Tidditt
+telling a story to the group around the stove.  After he had
+finished, and, the mail being sorted, we were walking homeward
+together, I asked a question.
+
+"Asaph," said I, "when you start to spin a yarn how do you begin?"
+
+"Hey?" he exclaimed.  "How do I begin?  Why, I just heave to and go
+to work and begin, that's all."
+
+"Yes, I know, but where do you begin?"
+
+"At the beginnin', naturally.  If you was cal'latin' to sail a boat
+race you wouldn't commence at t'other end of the course, would
+you?"
+
+"_I_ might; practical people wouldn't, I suppose.  But--what IS the
+beginning?  Suppose there were a lot of beginnings and you didn't
+know which to choose."
+
+"Oh, we-ll, in that case I'd just sort of--of edge around till I
+found one that--that was a beginnin' of SOMETHIN' and I'd start
+there.  You understand, don't you?  Take that yarn I was spinnin'
+just now--that one about Josiah Dimick's great uncle's pig on his
+mother's side.  I mean his uncle on his mother's side, not the pig,
+of course.  Now I hadn't no intention of tellin' about that hog;
+hadn't thought of it for a thousand year, as you might say.  I just
+commenced to tell about Angie Phinney, about how fast she could
+talk, and that reminded me of a parrot that belonged to Sylvanus
+Cahoon's sister--Violet, the sister's name was--loony name, too, if
+you ask ME, 'cause she was a plaguey sight nigher bein' a sunflower
+than she was a violet--weighed two hundred and ten and had a face
+on her as red as--"
+
+"Just a minute, Ase.  About that pig?"
+
+"Oh, yes!  Well, the pig reminded me of Violet's parrot and the
+parrot reminded me of a Plymouth Rock rooster I had that used to
+roost in the pigpen nights--wouldn't use the henhouse no more'n you
+nor I would--and that, naturally, made me think of pigs, and pigs
+fetched Josiah's uncle's pig to mind and there I was all ready to
+start on the yarn.  It pretty often works out that way.  When you
+want to start a yarn and you can't start--you've forgot it, or
+somethin'--just begin somewhere, get goin' somehow.  Edge around
+and keep edgin' around and pretty soon you'll fetch up at the right
+place TO start.  See, don't you, Kent?"
+
+I saw--that is, I saw enough.  I came home and this morning I began
+the "edging around" process.  I don't seem to have "fetched up"
+anywhere in particular, but I shall keep on with the edging until I
+do.  As Asaph says, I must begin somewhere, so I shall begin with
+the Saturday morning of last April when Jim Campbell, my publisher
+and my friend--which is by no means such an unusual combination as
+many people think--sat on the veranda of my boathouse overlooking
+Cape Cod Bay and discussed my past, present and, more particularly,
+my future.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Which Repeats, for the Most Part, What Jim Campbell Said to Me and
+What I Said to Him
+
+
+"Jim," said I, "what is the matter with me?"
+
+Jim, who was seated in the ancient and dilapidated arm-chair which
+was the finest piece of furniture in the boathouse and which I
+always offered to visitors, looked at me over the collar of my
+sweater.  I used the sweater as I did the arm-chair when I did not
+have visitors.  He was using it then because, like an idiot, he had
+come to Cape Cod in April with nothing warmer than a very natty
+suit and a light overcoat.  Of course one may go clamming and
+fishing in a light overcoat, but--one doesn't.
+
+Jim looked at me over the collar of my sweater.  Then he crossed
+his oilskinned and rubber-booted legs--they were my oilskins and my
+boots--and answered promptly.
+
+"Indigestion," he said.  "You ate nine of those biscuits this
+morning; I saw you."
+
+"I did not," I retorted, "because you saw them first.  MY interior
+is in its normal condition.  As for yours--"
+
+"Mine," he interrupted, filling his pipe from my tobacco pouch,
+"being accustomed to a breakfast, not a gorge, is abnormal but
+satisfactory, thank you--quite satisfactory."
+
+"That," said I, "we will discuss later, when I have you out back of
+the bar in my catboat.  Judging from present indications there will
+be some sea-running.  The "Hephzy" is a good, capable craft, but a
+bit cranky, like the lady she is named for.  I imagine she will
+roll."
+
+He didn't like that.  You see, I had sailed with him before and I
+remembered.
+
+"Ho-se-a," he drawled, "you have a vivid imagination.  It is a pity
+you don't use more of it in those stories of yours."
+
+"Humph!  I am obliged to use the most of it on the royalty
+statements you send me.  If you call me 'Hosea' again I will take
+the 'Hephzy' across the Point Rip.  The waves there are fifteen
+feet high at low tide.  See here, I asked you a serious question
+and I should like a serious answer.  Jim, what IS the matter with
+me?  Have I written out or what is the trouble?"
+
+He looked at me again.
+
+"Are you in earnest?" he asked.
+
+"I am, very much in earnest."
+
+"And you really want to talk shop after a breakfast like that and
+on a morning like this?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Was that why you asked me to come to Bayport and spend the week-
+end?"
+
+"No-o.  No, of course not."
+
+"You're another; it was.  When you met me at the railroad station
+yesterday I could see there was something wrong with you.  All this
+morning you've had something on your chest.  I thought it was the
+biscuits, of course; but it wasn't, eh?"
+
+"It was not."
+
+"Then what was it?  Aren't we paying you a large enough royalty?"
+
+"You are paying me a good deal larger one than I deserve.  I don't
+see why you do it."
+
+"Oh," with a wave of the hand, "that's all right.  The publishing
+of books is a pure philanthropy.  We are in business for our
+health, and--"
+
+"Shut up.  You know as well as I do that the last two yarns of mine
+which your house published have not done as well as the others."
+
+I had caught him now.  Anything remotely approaching a reflection
+upon the business house of which he was the head was sufficient to
+stir up Jim Campbell.  That business, its methods and its success,
+were his idols.
+
+"I don't know any such thing," he protested, hotly.  "We sold--"
+
+"Hang the sale!  You sold quite enough.  It is an everlasting
+miracle to me that you are able to sell a single copy.  Why a self-
+respecting person, possessed of any intelligence whatever, should
+wish to read the stuff I write, to say nothing of paying money for
+the privilege, I can't understand."
+
+"You don't have to understand.  No one expects an author to
+understand anything.  All you are expected to do is to write; we'll
+attend to the rest of it.  And as for sales--why, 'The Black Brig'--
+that was the last one, wasn't it?--beat the 'Omelet' by eight
+thousand or more."
+
+"The Omelet" was our pet name for "The Queen's Amulet," my first
+offence in the literary line.  It was a highly seasoned concoction
+of revolution and adventure in a mythical kingdom where life was
+not dull, to say the least.  The humblest character in it was a
+viscount.  Living in Bayport had, naturally, made me familiar with
+the doings of viscounts.
+
+"Eight thousand more than the last isn't so bad, is it?" demanded
+Jim Campbell combatively.
+
+"It isn't.  It is astonishingly good.  It is the books themselves
+that are bad.  The 'Omelet' was bad enough, but I wrote it more as
+a joke than anything else.  I didn't take it seriously at all.
+Every time I called a duke by his Christian name I grinned.  But
+nowadays I don't grin--I swear.  I hate the things, Jim.  They're
+no good.  And the reviewers are beginning to tumble to the fact
+that they're no good, too.  You saw the press notices yourself.
+'Another Thriller by the Indefatigable Knowles'  'Barnacles,
+Buccaneers and Blood, not to Mention Beauty and the Bourbons.'
+That's the way two writers headed their articles about 'The Black
+Brig.'  And a third said that I must be getting tired; I wrote as
+if I was.  THAT fellow was right.  I am tired, Jim.  I'm tired and
+sick of writing slush.  I can't write any more of it.  And yet I
+can't write anything else."
+
+Jim's pipe had gone out.  Now he relit it and tossed the match over
+the veranda rail.
+
+"How do you know you can't?" he demanded.
+
+"Can't what?"
+
+"Can't write anything but slush?"
+
+"Ah ha!  Then it is slush.  You admit it."
+
+"I don't admit anything of the kind.  You may not be a William
+Shakespeare or even a George Meredith, but you have written some
+mighty interesting stories.  Why, I know a chap who sits up till
+morning to finish a book of yours.  Can't sleep until he has
+finished it."
+
+"What's the matter with him; insomnia?"
+
+"No; he's a night watchman.  Does that satisfy you, you crossgrained
+old shellfish?  Come on, let's dig clams--some of your own blood
+relations--and forget it."
+
+"I don't want to forget it and there is plenty of time for
+clamming.  The tide won't cover the flats for two hours yet.  I
+tell you I'm serious, Jim.  I can't write any more.  I know it.
+The stuff I've been writing makes me sick.  I hate it, I tell you.
+What the devil I'm going to do for a living I can't see--but I
+can't write another story."
+
+Jim put his pipe in his pocket.  I think at last he was convinced
+that I meant what I said, which I certainly did.  The last year had
+been a year of torment to me.  I had finished the 'Brig,' as a
+matter of duty, but if that piratical craft had sunk with all
+hands, including its creator, I should not have cared.  I drove
+myself to my desk each day, as a horse might be driven to a
+treadmill, but the animal could have taken no less interest in his
+work than I had taken in mine.  It was bad--bad--bad; worthless and
+hateful.  There wasn't a new idea in it and I hadn't one in my
+head.  I, who had taken up writing as a last resort, a gamble which
+might, on a hundred-to-one chance, win where everything else had
+failed, had now reached the point where that had failed, too.
+Campbell's surmise was correct; with the pretence of asking him to
+the Cape for a week-end of fishing and sailing I had lured him
+there to tell him of my discouragement and my determination to
+quit.
+
+He took his feet from the rail and hitched his chair about until he
+faced me.
+
+"So you're not going to write any more," he said.
+
+"I'm not.  I can't."
+
+"What are you going to do; live on back royalties and clams?"
+
+"I may have to live on the clams; my back royalties won't keep me
+very long."
+
+"Humph!  I should think they might keep you a good while down here.
+You must have something in the stocking.  You can't have wasted
+very much in riotous living on this sand-heap.  What have you done
+with your money, for the last ten years; been leading a double
+life?"
+
+"I've found leading a single one hard enough.  I have saved
+something, of course.  It isn't the money that worries me, Jim; I
+told you that.  It's myself; I'm no good.  Every author, sometime
+or other, reaches the point where he knows perfectly well he has
+done all the real work he can ever do, that he has written himself
+out.  That's what's the matter with me--I'm written out."
+
+Jim snorted.  "For Heaven's sake, Kent Knowles," he demanded, "how
+old are you?"
+
+"I'm thirty-eight, according to the almanac, but--"
+
+"Thirty-eight!  Why, Thackeray wrote--"
+
+"Drop it!  I know when Thackeray wrote 'Vanity Fair' as well as you
+do.  I'm no Thackeray to begin with, and, besides, I am older at
+thirty-eight than he was when he died--yes, older than he would
+have been if he had lived twice as long.  So far as feeling and all
+the rest of it go, I'm a second Methusaleh."
+
+"My soul! hear the man!  And I'm forty-two myself.  Well, Grandpa,
+what do you expect me to do; get you admitted to the Old Man's
+Home?"
+
+"I expect--" I began, "I expect--" and I concluded with the lame
+admission that I didn't expect him to do anything.  It was up to me
+to do whatever must be done, I imagined.
+
+He smiled grimly.
+
+"Glad your senility has not affected that remnant of your common-
+sense," he declared.  "You're dead right, my boy; it IS up to you.
+You ought to be ashamed of yourself."
+
+"I am, but that doesn't help me a whole lot."
+
+"Nothing will help you as long as you think and speak as you have
+this morning.  See here, Kent! answer me a question or two, will
+you?  They may be personal questions, but will you answer them?"
+
+"I guess so.  There has been what a disinterested listener might
+call a slightly personal flavor to your remarks so far.  Do your
+worst.  Fire away."
+
+"All right.  You've lived in Bayport ten years or so, I know that.
+What have you done in all that time--besides write?"
+
+"Well, I've continued to live."
+
+"Doubted.  You've continued to exist; but how?  I've been here
+before.  This isn't my first visit, by a good deal.  Each time I
+have been here your daily routine--leaving out the exciting clam
+hunts and the excursions in quest of the ferocious flounder, like
+the one we're supposed--mind, I say supposed--to be on at the
+present moment--you have put in the day about like this:  Get up,
+bathe, eat, walk to the post-office, walk home, sit about, talk a
+little, read some, walk some more, eat again, smoke, talk, read,
+eat for the third time, smoke, talk, read and go to bed.  That's
+the program, isn't it?"
+
+"Not exactly.  I play tennis in summer--when there is anyone to
+play with me--and golf, after a fashion.  I used to play both a
+good deal, when I was younger.  I swim, and I shoot a little, and--
+and--"
+
+"How about society?  Have any, do you?"
+
+"In the summer, when the city people are here, there is a good deal
+going on, if you care for it--picnics and clam bakes and teas and
+lawn parties and such."
+
+"Heavens! what reckless dissipation!  Do you indulge?"
+
+"Why, no--not very much.  Hang it all, Jim! you know I'm no society
+man.  I used to do the usual round of fool stunts when I was
+younger, but--"
+
+"But now you're too antique, I suppose.  Wonder that someone hasn't
+collected you as a genuine Chippendale or something.  So you don't
+'tea' much?"
+
+"Not much.  I'm not often invited, to tell you the truth.  The
+summer crowd doesn't take kindly to me, I'm afraid."
+
+"Astonishing!  You're such a chatty, entertaining, communicative
+cuss on first acquaintance, too.  So captivatingly loquacious to
+strangers.  I can imagine how you'd shine at a 'tea.'  Every summer
+girl that tried to talk to you would be frost-bitten.  Do you
+accept invitations when they do come?"
+
+"Not often nowadays.  You see, I know they don't really want me."
+
+"How do you know it?"
+
+"Why--well, why should they?  Everybody else calls me--"
+
+"They call you a clam and so you try to live up to your reputation.
+I know you, Kent.  You think yourself a tough old bivalve, but the
+most serious complaint you suffer from is ingrowing sensitiveness.
+They do want you.  They'd invite you if you gave them half a
+chance.  Oh, I know you won't, of course; but if I had my way I'd
+have you dragged by main strength to every picnic and tea and
+feminine talk-fest within twenty miles.  You might meet some
+persevering female who would propose marriage.  YOU never would,
+but SHE might."
+
+I rose to my feet in disgust.
+
+"We'll go clamming," said I.
+
+He did not move.
+
+"We will--later on," he answered.  "We haven't got to the last page
+of the catechism yet.  I mentioned matrimony because a good,
+capable, managing wife would be my first prescription in your case.
+I have one or two more up my sleeve.  Tell me this:  How often do
+you get away from Bayport?  How often do you get to--well, to
+Boston, we'll say?  How many times have you been there in the last
+year?"
+
+"I don't know.  A dozen, perhaps."
+
+"What did you do when you went?"
+
+"Various things.  Shopped some, went to the theater occasionally,
+if there happened to be anything on that I cared to see.  Bought a
+good many books.  Saw the new Sargent pictures at the library.
+And--and--"
+
+"And shook hands with your brother fossils at the museum, I
+suppose.  Wild life you lead, Kent.  Did you visit anybody?  Meet
+any friends or acquaintances--any live ones?"
+
+"Not many.  I haven't many friends, Jim; you know that.  As for the
+wild life--well, I made two visits to New York this year."
+
+"Yes," drily; "and we saw Sothern and Marlowe and had dinner at the
+Holland.  The rest of the time we talked shop.  That was the first
+visit.  The second was more exciting still; we talked shop ALL the
+time and you took the six o'clock train home again."
+
+"You're wrong there.  I saw the new loan collections at the
+Metropolitan and heard Ysaye play at Carnegie Hall.  I didn't start
+for home until the next day."
+
+"Is that so.  That's news to me.  You said you were going that
+afternoon.  That was to put the kibosh on my intention of taking
+you home to my wife and her bridge party, I suppose.  Was it?"
+
+"Well--well, you see, Jim, I--I don't play bridge and I AM such a
+stick in a crowd like that.  I wanted to stay and you were mighty
+kind, but--but--"
+
+"All right.  All right, my boy.  Next time it will be Bustanoby's,
+the Winter Garden and a three A. M. cabaret for yours.  My time is
+coming.  Now--Well, now we'll go clamming."
+
+He swung out of the arm-chair and walked to the top of the steps
+leading down to the beach.  I was surprised, of course; I have
+known Jim Campbell a long time, but he can surprise me even yet.
+
+"Here! hold on!" I protested.  "How about the rest of that
+catechism?"
+
+"You've had it."
+
+"Were those all the questions you wanted to ask?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Humph!  And that is all the advice and encouragement I'm to get
+from you!  How about those prescriptions you had up your sleeve?"
+
+"You'll get those by and by.  Before I leave this gay and festive
+scene to-morrow I'm going to talk to you, Ho-se-a.  And you're
+going to listen.  You'll listen to old Doctor Campbell; HE'LL
+prescribe for you, don't you worry.  And now," beginning to descend
+the steps, "now for clams and flounders."
+
+"And the Point Rip," I added, maliciously, for his frivolous
+treatment of what was to me a very serious matter, was disappointing
+and provoking.  "Don't forget the Point Rip."
+
+We dug the clams--they were for bait--we boarded the "Hephzy,"
+sailed out to the fishing grounds, and caught flounders.  I caught
+the most of them; Jim was not interested in fishing during the
+greater part of the time.  Then we sailed home again and walked up
+to the house.  Hephzibah, for whom my boat is named, met us at the
+back door.  As usual her greeting was not to the point and
+practical.
+
+"Leave your rubber boots right outside on the porch," she said.
+"Here, give me those flatfish; I'll take care of 'em.  Hosy, you'll
+find dry things ready in your room.  Here's your shoes; I've been
+warmin' 'em.  Mr. Campbell I've put a suit of Hosy's and some
+flannels on your bed.  They may not fit you, but they'll be lots
+better than the damp ones you've got on.  You needn't hurry; dinner
+won't be ready till you are."
+
+I did not say anything; I knew Hephzy--had known her all my life.
+Jim, who, naturally enough, didn't know her as well, protested.
+
+"We're not wet, Miss Cahoon," he declared.  "At least, I'm not, and
+I don't see how Kent can be.  We both wore oilskins."
+
+"That doesn't make any difference.  You ought to change your
+clothes anyhow.  Been out in that boat, haven't you?"
+
+"Yes, but--"
+
+"Well, then!  Don't say another word.  I'll have a fire in the
+sittin'-room and somethin' hot ready when you come down.  Hosy, be
+sure and put on BOTH the socks I darned for you.  Don't get
+thinkin' of somethin' else and come down with one whole and one
+holey, same as you did last time.  You must excuse me, Mr.
+Campbell.  I've got saleratus biscuits in the oven."
+
+She hastened into the kitchen.  When Jim and I, having obeyed
+orders to the extent of leaving our boots on the porch, passed
+through that kitchen she was busy with the tea-kettle.  I led the
+way through the dining-room and up the front stairs.  My visitor
+did not speak until we reached the second story.  Then he expressed
+his feelings.
+
+"Say, Kent" he demanded, "are you going to change your clothes?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why?  You're no wetter than I am, are you?"
+
+"Not a bit, but I'm going to change, just the same.  It's the
+easier way."
+
+"It is, is it!  What's the other way?"
+
+"The other way is to keep on those you're wearing and take the
+consequences."
+
+"What consequences?"
+
+"Jamaica ginger, hot water bottles and an afternoon's roast in
+front of the sitting-room fire.  Hephzibah went out sailing with me
+last October and caught cold.  That was enough; no one else shall
+have the experience if she can help it."
+
+"But--but good heavens!  Kent, do you mean to say you always have
+to change when you come in from sailing?"
+
+"Except in summer, yes."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"Because Hephzy tells me to."
+
+"Do you always do what she tells you?"
+
+"Generally.  It's the easiest way, as I said before."
+
+"Good--heavens!  And she darns your socks and tells you what--er
+lingerie to wear and--does she wash your face and wipe your nose
+and scrub behind your ears?"
+
+"Not exactly, but she probably would if I didn't do it."
+
+"Well, I'll be hanged!  And she extends the same treatment to all
+your guests?"
+
+"I don't have any guests but you.  No doubt she would if I did.
+She mothers every stray cat and sick chicken in the neighborhood.
+There, Jim, you trot along and do as you're told like a nice little
+boy.  I'll join you in the sitting-room."
+
+"Humph! perhaps I'd better.  I may be spanked and put to bed if I
+don't.  Well, well! and you are the author of 'The Black Brig!'
+'Buccaneers and Blood!'  'Bibs and Butterscotch' it should be!
+Don't stand out here in the cold hall, Hosy darling; you may get
+the croup if you do."
+
+I was waiting in the sitting-room when he came down.  There was a
+roaring fire in the big, old-fashioned fireplace.  That fireplace
+had been bricked up in the days when people used those abominations,
+stoves.  As a boy I was well acquainted with the old "gas burner"
+with the iron urn on top and the nickeled ornaments and handles
+which Mother polished so assiduously.  But the gas burner had long
+since gone to the junk dealer.  Among the improvements which my
+first royalty checks made possible were steam heat and the
+restoration of the fireplace.
+
+Jim found me sitting before the fire in one of the two big "wing"
+chairs which I had purchased when Darius Barlay's household effects
+were sold at auction.  I should not have acquired them as cheaply
+if Captain Cyrus Whittaker had been at home when the auction took
+place.  Captain Cy loves old-fashioned things as much as I do and,
+as he has often told me since, he meant to land those chairs some
+day if he had to run his bank account high and dry in consequence.
+But the Captain and his wife--who used to be Phoebe Dawes, our
+school-teacher here in Bayport--were away visiting their adopted
+daughter, Emily, who is married and living in Boston, and I got the
+chairs.
+
+At the Barclay auction I bought also the oil painting of the bark
+"Freedom"--a command of Captain Elkanah Barclay, uncle of the late
+Darius--and the set--two volumes missing--of The Spectator, bound
+in sheepskin.  The "Freedom" is depicted "Entering the Port of
+Genoa, July 10th, 1848," and if the port is somewhat wavy and
+uncertain, the bark's canvas and rigging are definite and rigid
+enough to make up.  The Spectator set is chiefly remarkable for its
+marginal notes; Captain Elkanah bought the books in London and read
+and annotated at spare intervals during subsequent voyages.  His
+opinions were decided and his notes nautical and emphatic.
+Hephzibah read a few pages of the notes when the books first came
+into the house and then went to prayer-meeting.  As she had
+announced her intention of remaining at home that evening I was
+surprised--until I read them myself.
+
+Jim came downstairs, arrayed in the suit which Hephzy had laid out
+for him.  I made no comment upon his appearance.  To do so would
+have been superfluous; he looked all the comments necessary.
+
+I waved my hand towards the unoccupied wing chair and he sat down.
+Two glasses, one empty and the other half full of a steaming
+mixture, were on the little table beside us.
+
+"Help yourself, Jim," I said, indicating the glasses.  He took up
+the one containing the mixture and regarded it hopefully.
+
+"What?" he asked.
+
+"A Cahoon toddy," said I.  "Warranted to keep off chills,
+rheumatism, lumbago and kindred miseries.  Good for what ails you.
+Don't wait; I've had mine."
+
+He took a sniff and then a very small sip.  His face expressed
+genuine emotion.
+
+"Whew!" he gasped, choking.  "What in blazes--?"
+
+"Jamaica ginger, sugar and hot water," I explained blandly.  "It
+won't hurt you--longer than five minutes.  It is Hephzy's
+invariable prescription."
+
+"Good Lord!  Did you drink yours?"
+
+"No--I never do, unless she watches me."
+
+"But your glass is empty.  What did you do with it?"
+
+"Emptied it behind the back log.  Of course, if you prefer to drink
+it--"
+
+"Drink it!"  His "toddy" splashed the back log, causing a
+tremendous sizzle.
+
+Before he could relieve his mind further, Hephzy appeared to
+announce that dinner was ready if we were.  We were, most
+emphatically, so we went into the dining-room.
+
+Hephzy and Jim did most of the talking during the meal.  I had
+talked more that forenoon than I had for a week--I am not a chatty
+person, ordinarily, which, in part, explains my nickname--and I was
+very willing to eat and listen.  Hephzy, who was garbed in her best
+gown--best weekday gown, that is; she kept her black silk for
+Sundays--talked a good deal, mostly about dreams and presentiments.
+Susanna Wixon, Tobias Wixon's oldest daughter, waited on table,
+when she happened to think of it, and listened when she did not.
+Susanna had been hired to do the waiting and the dish-washing
+during Campbell's brief visit.  It was I who hired her.  If I had
+had my way she would have been a permanent fixture in the
+household, but Hephzy scoffed at the idea.  "Pity if I can't do
+housework for two folks," she declared.  "I don't care if you can
+afford it.  Keepin' hired help in a family no bigger than this, is
+a sinful extravagance."  As Susanna's services had been already
+engaged for the weekend she could not discharge her, but she
+insisted on doing all the cooking herself.
+
+Her conversation, as I said, dealt mainly with dreams and
+presentiments.  Hephzibah is not what I should call a superstitious
+person.  She doesn't believe in "signs," although she might feel
+uncomfortable if she broke a looking-glass or saw the new moon over
+her left shoulder.  She has a most amazing fund of common-sense and
+is "down" on Spiritualism to a degree.  It is one of Bayport's pet
+yarns, that at the Harniss Spiritualist camp-meeting when the "test
+medium" announced from the platform that he had a message for a
+lady named Hephzibah C--he "seemed to get the name Hephzibah C"--
+Hephzy got up and walked out.  "Any dead relations I've got," she
+declared, "who send messages through a longhaired idiot like that
+one up there"--meaning the medium,--"can't have much to say that's
+worth listenin' to.  They can talk to themselves if they want to,
+but they shan't waste MY time."
+
+In but one particular was Hephzy superstitious.  Whenever she
+dreamed of "Little Frank" she was certain something was going to
+happen.  She had dreamed of "Little Frank" the night before and, if
+she had not been headed off, she would have talked of nothing else.
+
+"I saw him just as plain as I see you this minute, Hosy," she said
+to me.  "I was somewhere, in a strange place--a foreign place, I
+should say 'twas--and there I saw him.  He didn't know me; at least
+I don't think he did."
+
+"Considering that he never saw you that isn't so surprising," I
+interrupted.  "I think Mr. Campbell would have another cup of
+coffee if you urged him.  Susanna, take Mr. Campbell's cup."
+
+Jim declined the coffee; said he hadn't finished his first cup yet.
+I knew that, of course, but I was trying to head off Hephzy.  She
+refused to be headed, just then.
+
+"But I knew HIM," she went on.  "He looked just the same as he has
+when I've seen him before--in the other dreams, you know.  The very
+image of his mother.  Isn't it wonderful, Hosy!"
+
+"Yes; but don't resurrect the family skeletons, Hephzy.  Mr.
+Campbell isn't interested in anatomy."
+
+"Skeletons!  I don't know what you're talkin' about.  He wasn't a
+skeleton.  I saw him just as plain!  And I said to myself, 'It's
+little Frank!'  Now what do you suppose he came to me for?  What do
+you suppose it means?  It means somethin', I know that."
+
+"Means that you weren't sleeping well, probably," I answered.
+"Jim, here, will dream of cross-seas and the Point Rip to-night, I
+have no doubt."
+
+Jim promptly declared that if he thought that likely he shouldn't
+mind so much.  What he feared most was a nightmare session with an
+author.
+
+Hephzibah was interested at once.  "Oh, do you dream about authors,
+Mr. Campbell?" she demanded.  "I presume likely you do, they're so
+mixed up with your business.  Do your dreams ever come true?"
+
+"Not often," was the solemn reply.  "Most of my dream-authors are
+rational and almost human."
+
+Hephzy, of course, did not understand this, but it did have the
+effect for which I had been striving, that of driving "Little
+Frank" from her mind for the time.
+
+"I don't care," she declared, "I s'pose it's awful foolish and
+silly of me, but it does seem sometimes as if there was somethin'
+in dreams, some kind of dreams.  Hosy laughs at me and maybe I
+ought to laugh at myself, but some dreams come true, or awfully
+near to true; now don't they.  Angeline Phinney was in here the
+other day and she was tellin' about her second cousin that was--
+he's dead now--Abednego Small.  He was constable here in Bayport
+for years; everybody called him 'Uncle Bedny.'  Uncle Bedny had
+been keepin' company with a woman named Dimick--Josiah Dimick's
+niece--lots younger than he, she was.  He'd been thinkin' of
+marryin' her, so Angie said, but his folks had been talkin' to him,
+tellin' him he was too old to take such a young woman for his third
+wife, so he had made up his mind to throw her over, to write a
+letter sayin' it was all off between 'em.  Well, he'd begun the
+letter but he never finished it, for three nights runnin' he
+dreamed that awful trouble was hangin' over him.  That dream made
+such an impression on him that he tore the letter up and married
+the Dimick woman after all.  And then--I didn't know this until
+Angie told me--it turned out that she had heard he was goin' to
+give her the go-by and had made all her arrangements to sue him for
+breach of promise if he did.  That was the awful trouble, you see,
+and the dream saved him from it."
+
+I smiled.  "The fault there was in the interpretation of the
+dream," I said.  "The 'awful trouble' of the breach of promise suit
+wouldn't have been a circumstance to the trouble poor Uncle Bedny
+got into by marrying Ann Dimick.  THAT trouble lasted till he
+died."
+
+Hephzibah laughed and said she guessed that was so, she hadn't
+thought of it in that way.
+
+"Probably dreams are all nonsense," she admitted.  "Usually, I
+don't pay much attention to 'em.  But when I dream of poor 'Little
+Frank,' away off there, I--"
+
+"Come into the sitting-room, Jim," I put in hastily.  "I have a
+cigar or two there.  I don't buy them in Bayport, either."
+
+"And who," asked Jim, as we sat smoking by the fire, "is Little
+Frank?"
+
+"He is a mythical relative of ours," I explained, shortly.  "He was
+born twenty years ago or so--at least we heard that he was; and we
+haven't heard anything of him since, except by the dream route,
+which is not entirely convincing.  He is Hephzy's pet obsession.
+Kindly forget him, to oblige me."
+
+He looked puzzled, but he did not mention "Little Frank" again, for
+which I was thankful.
+
+That afternoon we walked up to the village, stopping in at
+Simmons's store, which is also the post-office, for the mail.
+Captain Cyrus Whittaker happened to be there, also Asaph Tidditt
+and Bailey Bangs and Sylvanus Cahoon and several others.  I
+introduced Campbell to the crowd and he seemed to be enjoying
+himself.  When we came out and were walking home again, he
+observed:
+
+"That Whittaker is an interesting chap, isn't he?"
+
+"Yes," I said.  "He is all right.  Been everywhere and seen
+everything."
+
+"And that," with an odd significance in his tone, "may possibly
+help to make him interesting, don't you think?"
+
+"I suppose so.  He lives here in Bayport now, though."
+
+"So I gathered.  Popular, is he?"
+
+"Very."
+
+"Satisfied with life?"
+
+"Seems to be."
+
+"Hum!  No one calls HIM a--what is it--quahaug?"
+
+"No, I'm the only human clam in this neighborhood."
+
+He did not say any more, nor did I.  My fit of the blues was on
+again and his silence on the subject in which I was interested, my
+work and my future, troubled me and made me more despondent.  I
+began to lose faith in the "prescription" which he had promised so
+emphatically.  How could he, or anyone else, help me?  No one could
+write my stories but myself, and I knew, only too well, that I
+could not write them.
+
+The only mail matter in our box was a letter addressed to
+Hephzibah.  I forgot it until after supper and then I gave it to
+her.  Jim retired early; the salt air made him sleepy, so he said,
+and he went upstairs shortly after nine.  He had not mentioned our
+talk of the morning, nor did he until I left him at the door of his
+room.  Then he said:
+
+"Kent, I've got one of the answers to your conundrum.  I've
+diagnosed one of your troubles.  You're blind."
+
+"Blind?"
+
+"Yes, blind.  Or, if not blind altogether you're suffering from the
+worse case of far-sightedness I ever saw.  All your literary--we'll
+call it that for compliment's sake--all your literary life you've
+spent writing about people and things so far off you don't know
+anything about them.  You and your dukes and your earls and your
+titled ladies!  What do you know of that crowd?  You never saw a
+lord in your life.  Why don't you write of something near by,
+something or somebody you are acquainted with?"
+
+"Acquainted with!  You're crazy, man.  What am I acquainted with,
+except this house, and myself and my books and--and Bayport?"
+
+"That's enough.  Why, there is material in that gang at the post-
+office to make a dozen books.  Write about them."
+
+"Tut! tut! tut!  You ARE crazy.  What shall I write; the life of
+Ase Tidditt in four volumes, beginning with 'I swan to man' and
+ending with 'By godfrey'?"
+
+"You might do worse.  If the book were as funny as its hero I'd
+undertake to sell a few copies."
+
+"Funny!  _I_ couldn't write a funny book."
+
+"Not an intentionally funny one, you mean.  But there!  There's no
+use to talk to you."
+
+"There is not, if you talk like an imbecile.  Is this your
+brilliant 'prescription'?"
+
+"No.  It might be; it would be, if you would take it, but you
+won't--not now.  You need something else first and I'll give it to
+you.  But I'll tell you this, and I mean it:  Downstairs, in that
+dining-room of yours, there's one mighty good story, at least."
+
+"The dining-room?  A story in the dining-room?"
+
+"Yes.  Or it was there when we passed the door just now."
+
+I looked at him.  He seemed to be serious, but I knew he was not.
+I hate riddles.
+
+"Oh, go to blazes!" I retorted, and turned away.
+
+I looked into the dining-room as I went by.  There was no story in
+sight there, so far as I could see.  Hephzy was seated by the
+table, mending something, something of mine, of course.  She looked
+up.
+
+"Oh, Hosy," she said, "that letter you brought was a travel book
+from the Raymond and Whitcomb folks.  I sent a stamp for it.  It's
+awfully interesting!  All about tours through England and France
+and Switzerland and everywhere.  So cheap they are!  I'm pickin'
+out the ones I'm goin' on some day.  The pictures are lovely.
+Don't you want to see 'em?"
+
+"Not now," I replied.  Another obsession of Hephzy's was travel.
+She, who had never been further from Bayport than Hartford,
+Connecticut, was forever dreaming of globe-trotting.  It was not a
+new disease with her, by any means; she had been dreaming the same
+things ever since I had known her, and that is since I knew
+anything.  Some day, SOME day she was going to this, that and the
+other place.  She knew all about these places, because she had read
+about them over and over again.  Her knowledge, derived as it was
+from so many sources, was curiously mixed, but it was comprehensive,
+of its kind.  She was continually sending for Cook's circulars and
+booklets advertising personally conducted excursions.  And, with
+the arrival of each new circular or booklet, she picked out, as she
+had just done, the particular tours she would go on when her "some
+day" came.  It was funny, this queer habit of hers, but not half as
+funny as the thought of her really going would have been.  I would
+have as soon thought of our front door leaving home and starting on
+its travels as of Hephzy's doing it.  The door was no more a part
+and fixture of that home than she was.
+
+I went into my study, which adjoins the sitting-room, and sat down
+at my desk.  Not with the intention of writing anything, or even of
+considering something to write about.  That I made up my mind to
+forget for this night, at least.  My desk chair was my usual seat
+in that room and I took that seat as a matter of habit.
+
+As a matter of habit also I looked about for a book.  I did not
+have to look far.  Books were my extravagance--almost my only one.
+They filled the shelves to the ceiling on three sides of the study
+and overflowed in untidy heaps on the floor.  They were Hephzy's
+bugbear, for I refused to permit their being "straightened out" or
+arranged.
+
+I looked about for a book and selected several, but, although they
+were old favorites, I could not interest myself in any of them.  I
+tried and tried, but even Mr. Pepys, that dependable solace of a
+lonely hour, failed to interest me with his chatter.  Perhaps
+Campbell's pointed remarks concerning lords and ladies had its
+effect here.  Old Samuel loved to write of such people, having a
+wide acquaintance with them, and perhaps that very acquaintance
+made me jealous.  At any rate I threw the volume back upon its pile
+and began to think of myself, and of my work, the very thing I had
+expressly determined not to do when I came into the room.
+
+Jim's foolish and impossible advice to write of places and people I
+knew haunted and irritated me.  I did know Bayport--yes, and it
+might be true that the group at the post-office contained possible
+material for many books; but, if so, it was material for the other
+man, not for me.  "Write of what you know," said Jim.  And I knew
+so little.  There was at least one good yarn in the dining-room at
+that moment, he had declared.  He must have meant Hephzibah, but,
+if he did, what was there in Hephzibah's dull, gray life-story to
+interest an outside reader?  Her story and mine were interwoven and
+neither contained anything worth writing about.  His fancy had been
+caught, probably, by her odd combination of the romantic and the
+practical, and in her dream of "Little Frank" he had scented a
+mystery.  There was no mystery there, nothing but the most
+commonplace record of misplaced trust and ingratitude.  Similar
+things happen in so many families.
+
+However, I began to think of Hephzy and, as I said, of myself, and
+to review my life since Ardelia Cahoon and Strickland Morley
+changed its course so completely.  And now it seems to me that, in
+the course of my "edging around" for the beginning of this present
+chronicle--so different from anything I have ever written before or
+ever expected to write--the time has come when the reader--
+provided, of course, the said chronicle is ever finished or ever
+reaches a reader--should know something of that life; should know a
+little of the family history of the Knowles and the Cahoons and the
+Morleys.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+Which, Although It Is Largely Family History, Should Not Be Skipped
+by the Reader
+
+
+Let us take the Knowleses first.  My name is Hosea Kent Knowles--I
+said that before--and my father was Captain Philander Kent Knowles.
+He was lost in the wreck of the steamer "Monarch of the Sea," off
+Hatteras.  The steamer caught fire in the middle of the night, a
+howling gale blowing and the thermometer a few degrees above zero.
+The passengers and crew took to the boats and were saved.  My
+father stuck by his ship and went down with her, as did also her
+first mate, another Cape-Codder.  I was a baby at the time, and was
+at Bayport with my mother, Emily Knowles, formerly Emily Cahoon,
+Captain Barnabas Cahoon's niece.  Mother had a little money of her
+own and Father's life was insured for a moderate sum.  Her small
+fortune was invested for her by her uncle, Captain Barnabas, who
+was the Bayport magnate and man of affairs in those days.  Mother
+and I continued to live in the old house in Bayport and I went to
+school in the village until I was fourteen, when I went away to a
+preparatory school near Boston.  Mother died a year later.  I was
+an only child, but Hephzibah, who had always seemed like an older
+sister to me, now began to "mother" me, the process which she has
+kept up ever since.
+
+Hephzibah was the daughter of Captain Barnabas by his first wife.
+Hephzy was born in 1859, so she is well over fifty now, although no
+one would guess it.  Her mother died when she was a little girl and
+ten years later Captain Barnabas married again.  His second wife
+was Susan Hammond, of Ostable, and by her he had one daughter,
+Ardelia.  Hephzy has always declared "Ardelia" to be a pretty name.
+I have my own opinion on that subject, but I keep it to myself.
+
+At any rate, Ardelia herself was pretty enough.  She was pretty
+when a baby and prettier still as a schoolgirl.  Her mother--while
+she lived, which was not long--spoiled her, and her half-sister,
+Hephzy, assisted in the petting and spoiling.  Ardelia grew up with
+the idea that most things in this world were hers for the asking.
+Whatever took her fancy she asked for and, if Captain Barnabas did
+not give it to her, she considered herself ill-used.  She was the
+young lady of the family and Hephzibah was the housekeeper and
+drudge, an uncomplaining one, be it understood.  For her, as for
+the Captain, the business of life was keeping Ardelia contented and
+happy, and they gloried in the task.  Hephzy might have married
+well at least twice, but she wouldn't think of such a thing.  "Pa
+and Ardelia need me," she said; that was reason sufficient.
+
+In 1888 Captain Barnabas went to Philadelphia on business.  He had
+retired from active sea-going years before, but he retained an
+interest in a certain line of coasting schooners.  The Captain, as
+I said, went to Philadelphia on business connected with these
+schooners and Ardelia went with him.  Hephzibah stayed at home, of
+course; she always stayed at home, never expected to do anything
+else, although even then her favorite reading were books of travel,
+and pictures of the Alps, and of St. Peter's at Rome, and the Tower
+of London were tacked up about her room.  She, too, might have gone
+to Philadelphia, doubtless, if she had asked, but she did not ask.
+Her father did not think of inviting her.  He loved his oldest
+daughter, although he did not worship her as he did Ardelia, but it
+never occurred to him that she, too, might enjoy the trip.  Hephzy
+was always at home, she WAS home; so at home she remained.
+
+In Philadelphia Ardelia met Strickland Morley.
+
+I give that statement a line all by itself, for it is by far the
+most important I have set down so far.  The whole story of the
+Cahoons and the Knowleses--that is, all of their story which is the
+foundation of this history of mine--hinges on just that.  If those
+two had not met I should not be writing this to-day, I might not be
+writing at all; instead of having become a Bayport "quahaug" I
+might have been the Lord knows what.
+
+However, they did meet, at the home of a wealthy shipping merchant
+named Osgood who was a lifelong friend of Captain Barnabas.  This
+shipping merchant had a daughter and that daughter was giving a
+party at her father's home.  Barnabas and Ardelia were invited.
+Strickland Morley was invited also.
+
+Morley, at that time--I saw a good deal of him afterward, when he
+was at Bayport and when I was at the Cahoon house on holidays and
+vacations--was a handsome, aristocratic young Englishman.  He was
+twenty-eight, but he looked younger.  He was the second son in a
+Leicestershire family which had once been wealthy and influential
+but which had, in its later generations, gone to seed.  He was
+educated, in a general sort of way, was a good dancer, played the
+violin fairly well, sang fairly well, had an attractive presence,
+and was one of the most plausible and fascinating talkers I ever
+listened to.  He had studied medicine--studied it after a fashion,
+that is; he never applied himself to anything--and was then, in
+'88, "ship's doctor" aboard a British steamer, which ran between
+Philadelphia and Glasgow.  Miss Osgood had met him at the home of a
+friend of hers who had traveled on that steamer.
+
+Hephzy and I do not agree as to whether or not he actually fell in
+love with Ardelia Cahoon.  Hephzy, of course, to whom Ardelia was
+the most wonderfully beautiful creature on earth, is certain that
+he did--he could not help it, she says.  I am not so sure.  It is
+very hard for me to believe that Strickland Morley was ever in love
+with anyone but himself.  Captain Barnabas was well-to-do and had
+the reputation of being much richer than he really was.  And
+Ardelia WAS beautiful, there is no doubt of that.  At all events,
+Ardelia fell in love, with him, violently, desperately, head over
+heels in love, the very moment the two were introduced.  They
+danced practically every dance together that evening, met
+surreptitiously the next day and for five days thereafter, and on
+the sixth day Captain Barnabas received a letter from his daughter
+announcing that she and Morley were married and had gone to New
+York together.  "We will meet you there, Pa," wrote Ardelia.  "I
+know you will forgive me for marrying Strickland.  He is the most
+wonderful man in the wide world.  You will love him, Pa, as I do."
+
+There was very little love expressed by the Captain when he read
+the note.  According to Mr. Osgood's account, Barnabas's language
+was a throwback from the days when he was first mate on a Liverpool
+packet.  That his idolized daughter had married without asking his
+consent was bad enough; that she had married an Englishman was
+worse.  Captain Barnabas hated all Englishmen.  A ship of his had
+been captured and burned, in the war time, by the "Alabama," a
+British built privateer, and the very mildest of the terms he
+applied to a "John Bull" will not bear repetition in respectable
+society.  He would not forgive Ardelia.  She and her "Cockney
+husband" might sail together to the most tropical of tropics, or
+words to that effect.
+
+But he did forgive her, of course.  Likewise he forgave his son-in-
+law.  When the Captain returned to Bayport he brought the newly
+wedded pair with him.  I was not present at that homecoming.  I was
+away at prep school, digging at my examinations, trying hard to
+forget that I was an orphan, but with the dull ache caused by my
+mother's death always grinding at my heart.  Many years ago she
+died, but the ache comes back now, as I think of her.  There is
+more self-reproach in it than there used to be, more vain regrets
+for impatient words and wasted opportunities.  Ah, if some of us--
+boys grown older--might have our mothers back again, would we be as
+impatient and selfish now?  Would we neglect the opportunities?  I
+think not; I hope not.
+
+Hephzibah, after she got over the shock of the surprise and the
+pain of sharing her beloved sister with another, welcomed that
+other for Ardelia's sake.  She determined to like him very much
+indeed.  This wasn't so hard, at first.  Everyone liked and trusted
+Strickland Morley at first sight.  Afterward, when they came to
+know him better, they were not--if they were as wise and discerning
+as Hephzy--so sure of the trust.  The wise and discerning were not,
+I say; Captain Barnabas, though wise and shrewd enough in other
+things, trusted him to the end.
+
+Morley made it a point to win the affection and goodwill of his
+father-in-law.  For the first month or two after the return to
+Bayport the new member of the family was always speaking of his
+plans for the future, of his profession and how he intended soon,
+very soon, to look up a good location and settle down to practice.
+Whenever he spoke thus, Captain Barnabas and Ardelia begged him not
+to do it yet, to wait awhile.  "I am so happy with you and Pa and
+Hephzy," declared Ardelia.  "I can't bear to go away yet,
+Strickland.  And Pa doesn't want us to; do you, Pa?"
+
+Of course Captain Barnabas agreed with her, he always did, and so
+the Morleys remained at Bayport in the old house.  Then came the
+first of the paralytic shocks--a very slight one--which rendered
+Captain Barnabas, the hitherto hale, active old seaman, unfit for
+exertion or the cares of business.  He was not bedridden by any
+means; he could still take short walks, attend town meetings and
+those of the parish committee, but he must not, so Dr. Parker said,
+be allowed to worry about anything.
+
+And Morley took it upon himself to prevent that worry.  He spoke no
+more of leaving Bayport and settling down to practice his
+profession.  Instead he settled down in Bayport and took the
+Captain's business cares upon his own shoulders.  Little by little
+he increased his influence over the old man.  He attended to the
+latter's investments, took charge of his bank account, collected
+his dividends, became, so to speak, his financial guardian.
+Captain Barnabas, at first rebellious--"I've always bossed my own
+ship," he declared, "and I ain't so darned feeble-headed that I
+can't do it yet"--gradually grew reconciled and then contented.
+He, too, began to worship his daughter's husband as the daughter
+herself did.
+
+"He's a wonder," said the Captain.  "I never saw such a fellow for
+money matters.  He's handled my stocks and things a whole lot
+better'n I ever did.  I used to cal'late if I got six per cent.
+interest I was doin' well.  He ain't satisfied with anything short
+of eight, and he gets it, too.  Whatever that boy wants and I own
+he can have.  Sometimes I think this consarned palsy of mine is a
+judgment on me for bein' so sot against him in the beginnin'.  Why,
+just look at how he runs this house, to say nothing of the rest of
+it!  He's a skipper here; the rest of us ain't anything but fo'most
+hands."
+
+Which was not the exact truth.  Morley was skipper of the Cahoon
+house, Ardelia first mate, her father a passenger, and the foremast
+hand was Hephzy.  And yet, so far as "running" that house was
+concerned the foremast hand ran it, as she always had done.  The
+Captain and Ardelia were Morley's willing slaves; Hephzy was, and
+continued to be, a free woman.  She worked from morning until
+night, but she obeyed only such orders as she saw fit.
+
+She alone did not take the new skipper at his face value.
+
+"I don't know what there was about him that made me uneasy," she
+has told me since.  "Maybe there wasn't anything; perhaps that was
+just the reason.  When a person is SO good and SO smart and SO
+polite--maybe the average sinful common mortal like me gets
+jealous; I don't know.  But I do know that, to save my life, I
+couldn't swallow him whole the way Ardelia and Father did.  I
+wanted to look him over first; and the more I looked him over, and
+the smoother and smoother he looked, the more sure I felt he'd give
+us all dyspepsy before he got through.  Unreasonable, wasn't it?"
+
+For Ardelia's sake she concealed her distrust and did her best to
+get on with the new head of the family.  Only one thing she did,
+and that against Motley's and her father's protest.  She withdrew
+her own little fortune, left her by her mother, from Captain
+Barnabas's care and deposited it in the Ostable savings bank and in
+equally secure places.  Of course she told the Captain of her
+determination to do this before she did it and the telling was the
+cause of the only disagreement, almost a quarrel, which she and her
+father ever had.  The Captain was very angry and demanded reasons.
+Hephzibah declared she didn't know that she had any reasons, but
+she was going to do it, nevertheless.  And she did do it.  For
+months thereafter relations between the two were strained; Barnabas
+scarcely spoke to his older daughter and Hephzy shed tears in the
+solitude of her bedroom.  They were hard months for her.
+
+At the end of them came the crash.  Morley had developed a habit of
+running up to Boston on business trips connected with his father-
+in-law's investments.  Of late these little trips had become more
+frequent.  Also, so it seemed to Hephzy, he was losing something of
+his genial sweetness and suavity, and becoming more moody and less
+entertaining.  Telegrams and letters came frequently and these he
+read and destroyed at once.  He seldom played the violin now unless
+Captain Barnabas--who was fond of music of the simpler sort--
+requested him to do so and he seemed uneasy and, for him,
+surprisingly disinclined to talk.
+
+Hephzy was not the only one who noticed the change in him.  Ardelia
+noticed it also and, as she always did when troubled or perplexed,
+sought her sister's advice.
+
+"I sha'n't ever forget that night when she came to me for the last
+time," Hephzy has told me over and over again.  "She came up to my
+room, poor thing, and set down on the side of my bed and told me
+how worried she was about her husband.  Father had turned in and HE
+was out, gone to the post-office or somewheres.  I had Ardelia all
+to myself, for a wonder, and we sat and talked just the same as we
+used to before she was married.  I'm glad it happened so.  I shall
+always have that to remember, anyhow.
+
+"Of course, all her worry was about Strickland.  She was afraid he
+was makin' himself sick.  He worked so hard; didn't I think so?
+Well, so far as that was concerned, I had come to believe that
+almost any kind of work was liable to make HIM sick, but of course
+I didn't say that to her.  That somethin' was troublin' him was
+plain, though I was far enough from guessin' what that somethin'
+was.
+
+"We set and talked, about Strickland and about Father and about
+ourselves.  Mainly Ardelia's talk was a praise service with her
+husband for the subject of worship; she was so happy with him and
+idolized him so that she couldn't spare time for much else.  But
+she did speak a little about herself and, before she went away, she
+whispered somethin' in my ear which was a dead secret.  Even Father
+didn't know it yet, she said.  Of course I was as pleased as she
+was, almost--and a little frightened too, although I didn't say so
+to her.  She was always a frail little thing, delicate as she was
+pretty; not a strapping, rugged, homely body like me.  We wasn't a
+bit alike.
+
+"So we talked and when she went away to bed she gave me an extra
+hug and kiss; came back to give 'em to me, just as she used to when
+she was a little girl.  I wondered since if she had any inklin' of
+what was goin' to happen.  I'm sure she didn't; I'm sure of it as I
+am that it did happen.  She couldn't have kept it from me if she
+had known--not that night.  She went away to bed and I went to bed,
+too.  I was a long while gettin' to sleep and after I did I dreamed
+my first dream about 'Little Frank.'  I didn't call him 'Little
+Frank' then, though.  I don't seem to remember what I did call him
+or just how he looked except that he looked like Ardelia.  And the
+next afternoon she and Strickland went away--to Boston, he told
+us."
+
+From that trip they never returned.  Morley's influence over his
+wife must have been greater even than any of us thought to induce
+her to desert her father and Hephzy without even a written word of
+explanation or farewell.  It is possible that she did write and
+that her husband destroyed the letter.  I am as sure as Hephzy is
+that Ardelia did not know what Morley had done.  But, at all
+events, they never came back to Bayport and within the week the
+truth became known.  Morley had speculated, had lost and lost again
+and again.  All of Captain Barnabas's own money and all intrusted
+to his care, including my little nest-egg, had gone as margins to
+the brokers who had bought for Morley his worthless eight per cent.
+wildcats.  Hephzy's few thousands in the savings bank and elsewhere
+were all that was left.
+
+I shall condense the rest of the miserable business as much as I
+can.  Captain Barnabas traced his daughter and her husband as far
+as the steamer which sailed for England.  Farther he would not
+trace them, although he might easily have cabled and caused his
+son-in-law's arrest.  For a month he went about in a sort of daze,
+speaking to almost no one and sitting for hours alone in his room.
+The doctor feared for his sanity, but when the breakdown came it
+was in the form of a second paralytic stroke which left him a
+helpless, crippled dependent, weak and shattered in body and mind.
+
+He lived nine years longer.  Meanwhile various things happened.  I
+managed to finish my preparatory school term and, then, instead of
+entering college as Mother and I had planned, I went into business--
+save the mark--taking the exalted position of entry clerk in a
+wholesale drygoods house in Boston.  As entry clerk I did not
+shine, but I continued to keep the place until the firm failed--
+whether or not because of my connection with it I am not sure,
+though I doubt if my services were sufficiently important to
+contribute toward even this result.  A month later I obtained
+another position and, after that, another.  I was never discharged;
+I declare that with a sort of negative pride; but when I announced
+to my second employer my intention of resigning he bore the shock
+with--to say the least--philosophic fortitude.
+
+"We shall miss you, Knowles," he observed.
+
+"Thank you, sir," said I.
+
+"I doubt if we ever have another bookkeeper just like you."
+
+I thanked him again, fighting down my blushes with heroic modesty.
+
+"Oh, I guess you can find one if you try," I said, lightly, wishing
+to comfort him.
+
+He shook his head.  "I sha'n't try," he declared.  "I am not as
+young and as strong as I was and--well, there is always the chance
+that we might succeed."
+
+It was a mean thing to say--to a boy, for I was scarcely more than
+that.  And yet, looking back at it now, I am much more disposed to
+smile and forgive than I was then.  My bookkeeping must have been a
+trial to his orderly, pigeon-holed soul.  Why in the world he and
+his partner put up with it so long is a miracle.  When, after my
+first novel appeared, he wrote me to say that the consciousness of
+having had a part, small though it might be, in training my young
+mind upward toward the success it had achieved would always be a
+great gratification to him, I did not send the letter I wrote in
+answer.  Instead I tore up my letter and his and grinned.  I WAS a
+bad bookkeeper; I was, and still am, a bad business man.  Now I
+don't care so much; that is the difference.
+
+Then I cared a great deal, but I kept on at my hated task.  What
+else was there for me to do?  My salary was so small that, as
+Charlie Burns, one of my fellow-clerks, said of his, I was afraid
+to count it over a bare floor for fear that it might drop in a
+crack and be lost.  It was my only revenue, however, and I
+continued to live upon it somehow.  I had a small room in a
+boarding-house on Shawmut Avenue and I spent most of my evenings
+there or in the reading-room at the public library.  I was not
+popular at the boarding-house.  Most of the young fellows there
+went out a good deal, to call upon young ladies or to dance or to
+go to the theater.  I had learned to dance when I was at school and
+I was fond of the theater, but I did not dance well and on the rare
+occasions when I did accompany the other fellows to the play and
+they laughed and applauded and tried to flirt with the chorus
+girls, I fidgeted in my seat and was uncomfortable.  Not that I
+disapproved of their conduct; I rather envied them, in fact.  But
+if I laughed too heartily I was sure that everyone was looking at
+me, and though I should have liked to flirt, I didn't know how.
+
+The few attempts I made were not encouraging.  One evening--I was
+nineteen then, or thereabouts--Charlie Burns, the clerk whom I have
+mentioned, suggested that we get dinner downtown at a restaurant
+and "go somewhere" afterward.  I agreed--it happened to be Saturday
+night and I had my pay in my pocket--so we feasted on oyster stew
+and ice cream and then started for what my companion called a
+"variety show."  Burns, who cherished the fond hope that he was a
+true sport, ordered beer with his oyster stew and insisted that I
+should do the same.  My acquaintance with beer was limited and I
+never did like the stuff, but I drank it with reckless abandon,
+following each sip with a mouthful of something else to get rid of
+the taste.  On the way to the "show" we met two young women of
+Burns' acquaintance and stopped to converse with them.  Charlie
+offered his arm to one, the best looking; I offered mine to the
+discard, and we proceeded to stroll two by two along the Tremont
+Street mall of the Common.  We had strolled for perhaps ten
+minutes, most of which time I had spent trying to think of
+something to say, when Burns' charmer--she was a waitress in one of
+Mr. Wyman's celebrated "sandwich depots," I believe--turned and,
+looking back at my fair one and myself, observed with some sarcasm:
+"What's the matter with your silent partner, Mame?  Got the lock-
+jaw, has he?"
+
+I left them soon after that.  There was no "variety show" for me
+that night.  Humiliated and disgusted with myself I returned to my
+room at the boarding-house, realizing in bitterness of spirit that
+the gentlemanly dissipations of a true sport were never to be mine.
+
+As I grew older I kept more and more to myself.  My work at the
+office must have been a little better done, I fancy, for my salary
+was raised twice in four years, but I detested the work and the
+office and all connected with it.  I read more and more at the
+public library and began to spend the few dollars I could spare for
+luxuries on books.  Among my acquaintances at the boarding-house
+and elsewhere I had the reputation of being "queer."
+
+My only periods of real pleasure were my annual vacations in
+summer.  These glorious fortnights were spent at Bayport.  There,
+at our old home, for Hephzibah had sold the big Cahoon house and
+she and her father were living in mine, for which they paid a very
+small rent, I was happy.  I spent the two weeks in sailing and
+fishing, and tramping along the waved-washed beaches and over the
+pine-sprinkled hills.  Even in Bayport I had few associates of my
+own age.  Even then they began to call me "The Quahaug."  Hephzy
+hugged me when I came and wept over me when I went away and mended
+my clothes and cooked my favorite dishes in the interval.  Captain
+Barnabas sat in the big arm-chair by the sitting-room window,
+looking out or sleeping.  He took little interest in me or anyone
+else and spoke but seldom.  Occasionally I spent the Fourth of July
+or Christmas at Bayport; not often, but as often as I could.
+
+One morning--I was twenty-five at the time, and the day was Sunday--
+I read a story in one of the low-priced magazines.  It was not
+much of a story, and, as I read it, I kept thinking that I could
+write as good a one.  I had had such ideas before, but nothing had
+come of them.  This time, however, I determined to try.  In half an
+hour I had evolved a plot, such as it was, and at a quarter to
+twelve that night the story was finished.  A highwayman was its
+hero and its scene the great North Road in England.  My conceptions
+of highwaymen and the North Road--of England, too, for that matter--
+were derived from something I had read at some time or other, I
+suppose; they must have been.  At any rate, I finished that story,
+addressed the envelope to the editor of the magazine and dropped
+the envelope and its inclosure in the corner mail-box before I went
+to bed.  Next morning I went to the office as usual.  I had not the
+faintest hope that the story would be accepted.  The writing of it
+had been fun and the sending it to the magazine a joke.
+
+But the story was accepted and the check which I received--forty
+dollars--was far from a joke to a man whose weekly wage was half
+that amount.  The encouraging letter which accompanied the check
+was best of all.  Before the week ended I had written another
+thriller and this, too, was accepted.
+
+Thereafter, for a year or more, my Sundays and the most of my
+evenings were riots of ink and blood.  The ink was real enough and
+the blood purely imaginary.  My heroes spilled the latter and I the
+former.  Sometimes my yarns were refused, but the most of them were
+accepted and paid for.  Editors of other periodicals began to write
+to me requesting contributions.  My price rose.  For one
+particularly harrowing and romantic tale I was paid seventy-five
+dollars.  I dressed in my best that evening, dined at the Adams
+House, gave the waiter a quarter, and saw Joseph Jefferson from an
+orchestra seat.
+
+Then came the letter from Jim Campbell requesting me to come to New
+York and see him concerning a possible book, a romance, to be
+written by me and published by the firm of which he was the head.
+I saw my employer, obtained a Saturday off, and spent that Saturday
+and Sunday in New York, my first visit.
+
+As a result of that visit began my friendship with Campbell and my
+first long story, "The Queen's Amulet."  The "Amulet," or the
+"Omelet," just as you like, was a financial success.  It sold a
+good many thousand copies.  Six months later I broke to my
+employers the distressing news that their business must henceforth
+worry on as best it could without my aid; I was going to devote my
+valuable time and effort to literature.
+
+My fellow-clerks were surprised.  Charlie Burns, head bookkeeper
+now, and a married man and a father, was much concerned.
+
+"But, great Scott, Kent!" he protested, "you're going to do
+something besides write books, ain't you?  You ain't going to make
+your whole living that way?"
+
+"I am going to try," I said.
+
+"Great Scott!  Why, you'll starve!  All those fellows live in
+garrets and starve to death, don't they?"
+
+"Not all," I told him.  "Only real geniuses do that."
+
+He shook his head and his good-by was anything but cheerful.
+
+My plans were made and I put them into execution at once.  I
+shipped my goods and chattels, the latter for the most part books,
+to Bayport and went there to live and write in the old house where
+I was born.  Hephzy was engaged as my housekeeper.  She was alone
+now; Captain Barnabas had died nearly two years before.
+
+Among the Captain's papers and discovered by his daughter after his
+death was a letter from Strickland Morley.  It was written from a
+town in France and was dated six years after Morley's flight and
+the disclosure of his crookedness.  Captain Barnabas had never,
+apparently, answered the letter; certainly he had never told anyone
+of its receipt by him.  The old man never mentioned Morley's name
+and only spoke of Ardelia during his last hours, when his mind was
+wandering.  Then he spoke of and asked for her continually, driving
+poor Hephzibah to distraction, for her love for her lost sister was
+as great as his.
+
+The letter was the complaining whine of a thoroughly selfish man.
+I can scarcely refer to it without losing patience, even now when I
+understand more completely the circumstances under which it was
+written.  It was not too plainly written or coherent and seemed to
+imply that other letters had preceded it.  Morley begged for money.
+He was in "pitiful straits," he declared, compelled to live as no
+gentleman of birth and breeding should live.  As a matter of fact,
+the remnant of his resources, the little cash left from the
+Captain's fortune which he had taken with him had gone and he was
+earning a precarious living by playing the violin in a second-rate
+orchestra.  "For poor dead Ardelia's sake," he wrote, "and for the
+sake of little Francis, your grandchild, I ask you to extend the
+financial help which I, as your heir-in-law, might demand.  You may
+consider that I have wronged you, but, as you should know and must
+know, the wrong was unintentional and due solely to the sudden
+collapse of the worthless American investments which the
+scoundrelly Yankee brokers inveigled me into making."
+
+If the money was sent at once, he added, it might reach him in time
+to prevent his yielding to despondency and committing suicide.
+
+"Suicide!  HE commit suicide!" sniffed Hephzy when she read me the
+letter.  "He thinks too much of his miserable self ever to hurt it.
+But, oh dear! I wish Pa had told me of this letter instead of
+hidin' it away.  I might have sent somethin', not to him, but to
+poor, motherless Little Frank."
+
+She had tried; that is, she had written to the French address, but
+her letter had been returned.  Morley and the child of whom this
+letter furnished the only information were no longer in that
+locality.  Hephzy had talked of "Little Frank" and dreamed about
+him at intervals ever since.  He had come to be a reality to her,
+and she even cut a child's picture from a magazine and fastened it
+to the wall of her room beneath the engraving of Westminster Abbey,
+because there was something about the child in the picture which
+reminded her of "Little Frank" as he looked in her dreams.
+
+She and I had lived together ever since, I continuing to turn out,
+each with less enthusiasm and more labor, my stories of persons and
+places of which, as Campbell said but too truly, I knew nothing
+whatever.  Finally I had reached my determination to write no more
+"slush," profitable though it might be.  I invited Jim to visit me;
+he had come and the conversation at the boathouse and his remarks
+at the bedroom door were all the satisfaction that visit had
+brought me so far.
+
+I sat there in my study, going over all this, not so fully as I
+have set it down here, but fully nevertheless, and the possibility
+of finding even a glimmer of interest or a hint of fictional
+foundation in Hephzibah or her life or mine was as remote at the
+end of my thinking as it had been at the beginning.  There might be
+a story there, or a part of a story, but I could not write it.  The
+real trouble was that I could not write anything.  With which,
+conclusion, exactly what I started with, I blew out the lamp and
+went upstairs to bed.
+
+Next morning Jim and I went for another sail from which we did not
+return until nearly dinner-time.  During that whole forenoon he did
+not mention the promised "prescription," although I offered him
+plenty of opportunities and threw out various hints by way of bait.
+
+He ignored the bait altogether and, though he talked a great deal
+and asked a good many questions, both talk and questions had no
+bearing on the all-important problem which had been my real reason
+for inviting him to Bayport.  He questioned me again concerning my
+way of spending my time, about my savings, how much money I had put
+by, and the like, but I was not particularly interested in these
+matters and they were not his business, to put it plainly.  At
+least, I could not see that they were.
+
+I answered him as briefly as possible and, I am afraid, behaved
+rather boorishly to one, who next to Hephzy, was perhaps the best
+friend I had in the world.  His apparent lack of interest hurt and
+disappointed me and I did not care if he knew it.  My impatience
+must have been apparent enough, but if so it did not trouble him;
+he chatted and laughed and told stories all the way from the
+landing to the house and announced to Hephzy, who had stayed at
+home from church in order to prepare and cook clam chowder and
+chicken pie and a "Queen pudding," that he had an appetite like a
+starved shark.
+
+When, at last, that appetite was satisfied, he and I adjourned to
+the sitting-room for a farewell smoke.  His train left at three-
+thirty and it lacked but an hour of that time.  He had worn my
+suit, the one which Hephzibah had laid out for him the day before,
+but had changed to his own again and packed his bag before dinner.
+
+We camped in the wing chairs and he lighted his cigar.  Then, to my
+astonishment, he rose and shut the door.
+
+"What did you do that for?" I asked.
+
+He came back to his chair.
+
+"Because I'm going to talk to you like a Dutch uncle," he replied,
+"and I don't want anyone, not even a Cape Cod cousin, butting in.
+Kent, I told you that before I went I was going to prescribe for
+you, didn't I?  Well, I'm going to do it now.  Are you ready for
+the prescription?"
+
+"I have been ready for it for some time," I retorted.  "I began to
+think you had forgotten it altogether."
+
+"I hadn't.  But I wanted it to be the last word you should hear
+from me and I didn't want to give you time to think up a lot of
+fool objections to spring on me before I left.  Look here, I'm your
+doctor now; do you understand?  You called me in as a specialist
+and what I say goes.  Is that understood?"
+
+"I hear you."
+
+"You've got to do more than hear me.  You've got to do what I tell
+you.  I know what ails you.  You've buried yourself in the mud down
+here.  Wake up, you clam!  Come out of your shell.  Stir around.
+Stop thinking about yourself and think of something worth while."
+
+"Dear! dear! hark to the voice of the oracle.  And what is the
+something worth while I am to think about; you?"
+
+"Yes, by George! me!  Me and the dear public!  Here are thirty-five
+thousand seekers after the--the higher literature, panting open-
+mouthed for another Knowles classic.  And you sit back here and
+cover yourself with sand and seaweed and say you won't give it to
+them."
+
+"You're wrong.  I say I can't."
+
+"You will, though."
+
+"I won't.  You can bet high on that."
+
+"You will, and I'll bet higher.  YOU write no more stories!  You!
+Why, confound you, you couldn't help it if you tried.  You needn't
+write another 'Black Brig' unless you want to.  You needn't--you
+mustn't write anything UNTIL you want to.  But, by George! you'll
+get up and open your eyes and stir around, and keep stirring until
+the time comes when you've found something or someone you DO want
+to write about.  THEN you'll write; you will, for I know you.  It
+may turn out to be what you call 'slush,' or it may not, but you'll
+write it, mark my words."
+
+He was serious now, serious enough even to suit me.  But what he
+had said did not suit me.
+
+"Don't talk nonsense, Jim," I said.  "Don't you suppose I have
+thought--"
+
+"Thought! that's just it; you do nothing but think.  Stop thinking.
+Stop being a quahaug--a dead one, anyway.  Drop the whole business,
+drop Bayport, drop America, if you like.  Get up, clear out, go to
+China, go to Europe, go to--Well, never mind, but go somewhere.  Go
+somewhere and forget it.  Travel, take a long trip, start for one
+place and, if you change your mind before you get there, go
+somewhere else.  It doesn't make much difference where, so that you
+go, and see different things.  I'm talking now, Kent Knowles, and
+it isn't altogether because it pays us to publish your books,
+either.  You drop Bayport and drop writing.  Go out and pick up and
+go.  Stay six months, stay a year, stay two years, but keep alive
+and meet people and give what you flatter yourself is a brain
+house-cleaning.  Confound you, you've kept it shut like one of
+these best front parlors down here.  Open the windows and air out.
+Let the outside light in.  An idea may come with it; it is barely
+possible, even to you!"
+
+He was out of breath by this time.  I was in a somewhat similar
+condition for his tirade had taken mine away.  However, I managed
+to express my feelings.
+
+"Humph!" I grunted.  "And so this is your wonderful prescription.
+I am to travel, am I?"
+
+"You are.  You can afford it, and I'll see that you do."
+
+"And just what port would you recommend?"
+
+"I don't care, I tell you, except that it ought to be a long way
+off.  I'm not joking, Kent; this is straight.  A good long jaunt
+around the world would do you a barrel of good.  Don't stop to
+think about it, just start, that's all.  Will you?"
+
+I laughed.  The idea of my starting on a pleasure trip was
+ridiculous.  If ever there was a home-loving and home-staying
+person it was I.  The bare thought of leaving my comfort and my
+books and Hephzy made me shudder.  I hadn't the least desire to see
+other countries and meet other people.  I hated sleeping cars and
+railway trains and traveling acquaintances.  So I laughed.
+
+"Sorry, Jim," I said, "but I'm afraid I can't take your
+prescription."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"For one reason because I don't want to."
+
+"That's no reason at all.  It doesn't make any difference what you
+want.  Anything else?"
+
+"Yes.  I would no more wander about creation all alone than--"
+
+"Take someone with you."
+
+"Who?  Will you go, yourself?"
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"I wish I could," he said, and I think he meant it.  "I'd like
+nothing better.  I'D keep you alive, you can bet on that.  But I
+can't leave the literature works just now.  I'll do my best to find
+someone who will, though.  I know a lot of good fellows who travel--"
+
+I held up my hand.  "That's enough," I interrupted.  "They can't
+travel with me.  They wouldn't be good fellows long if they did."
+
+He struck the chair arm with his fist.
+
+"You're as near impossible as you can be, aren't you," he
+exclaimed.  "Never mind; you're going to do as I tell you.  I never
+gave you bad advice yet, now did I?"
+
+"No--o.  No, but--"
+
+"I'm not giving it to you now.  You'll go and you'll go in a hurry.
+I'll give you a week to think the idea over.  At the end of that
+time if I don't hear from you I'll be down here again, and I'll
+worry you every minute until you'll go anywhere to get rid of me.
+Kent, you must do it.  You aren't written out, as you call it, but
+you are rusting out, fast.  If you don't get away and polish up
+you'll never do a thing worth while.  You'll be another what's-his-
+name--Ase Tidditt; that's what you'll be.  I can see it coming on.
+You're ossifying; you're narrowing; you're--"
+
+I broke in here.  I didn't like to be called narrow and I did not
+like to be paired with Asaph Tidditt, although our venerable town
+clerk is a good citizen and all right, in his way.  But I had
+flattered myself that way was not mine.
+
+"Stop it, Jim!" I ordered.  "Don't blow off any more steam in this
+ridiculous fashion.  If this is all you have to say to me, you may
+as well stop."
+
+"Stop!  I've only begun.  I'll stop when you start, and not before.
+Will you go?"
+
+"I can't, Jim.  You know I can't."
+
+"I know you can and I know you're going to.  There!" rising and
+laying a hand on my shoulder, "it is time for ME to be starting.
+Kent, old man, I want you to promise me that you will do as I tell
+you.  Will you?"
+
+"I can't, Jim.  I would if I could, but--"
+
+"Will you promise me to think the idea over?  Think it over
+carefully; don't think of anything else for the rest of the week?
+Will you promise me to do that?"
+
+I hesitated.  I was perfectly sure that all my thinking would but
+strengthen my determination to remain at home, but I did not like
+to appear too stubborn.
+
+"Why, yes, Jim," I said, doubtfully, "I promise so much, if that is
+any satisfaction to you."
+
+"All right.  I'll give you until Friday to make up your mind.  If I
+don't hear from you by that time I shall take it for granted that
+you have made it up in the wrong way and I'll be here on Saturday.
+I'll keep the process up week in and week out until you give in.
+That's MY promise.  Come on.  We must be moving."
+
+He said good-by to Hephzy and we walked together to the station.
+His last words as we shook hands by the car steps were:  "Remember--
+think.  But don't you dare think of anything else."  My answer was
+a dubious shake of the head.  Then the train pulled out.
+
+I believe that afternoon and evening to have been the "bluest" of
+all my blue periods, and I had had some blue ones prior to Jim's
+visit.  I was dreadfully disappointed.  Of course I should have
+realized that no advice or "prescription" could help me.  As
+Campbell had said, "It was up to me;" I must help myself; but I had
+been trying to help myself for months and I had not succeeded.  I
+had--foolishly, I admit--relied upon him to give me a new idea, a
+fresh inspiration, and he had not done it.  I was disappointed and
+more discouraged than ever.
+
+My state of mind may seem ridiculous.  Perhaps it was.  I was in
+good health, not very old--except in my feelings--and my stories,
+even the "Black Brig," had not been failures, by any means.  But I
+am sure that every man or woman who writes, or paints, or does
+creative work of any kind, will understand and sympathize with me.
+I had "gone stale," that is the technical name for my disease, and
+to "go stale" is no joke.  If you doubt it ask the writer or
+painter of your acquaintance.  Ask him if he ever has felt that he
+could write or paint no more, and then ask him how he liked the
+feeling.  The fact that he has written or painted a great deal
+since has no bearing on the matter.  "Staleness" is purely a mental
+ailment, and the confident assurance of would-be doctors that its
+attacks are seldom fatal doesn't help the sufferer at the time.  He
+knows he is dead, and that is no better, then, than being dead in
+earnest.
+
+I knew I was dead, so far as my writing was concerned, and the
+advice to go away and bury myself in a strange country did not
+appeal to me.  It might be true that I was already buried in
+Bayport, but that was my home cemetery, at all events.  The more I
+thought of Jim Campbell's prescription the less I felt like taking
+it.
+
+However, I kept on with the thinking; I had promised to do that.
+On Wednesday came a postcard from Jim, himself, demanding
+information.  "When and where are you going?" he wrote.  "Wire
+answer."  I did not wire answer.  I was not going anywhere.
+
+I thrust the card into my pocket and, turning away from the frame
+of letter boxes, faced Captain Cyrus Whittaker, who, like myself,
+had come to Simmons's for his mail.  He greeted me cordially.
+
+"Hello, Kent," he hailed.  "How are you?"
+
+"About the same as usual, Captain," I answered, shortly.
+
+"That's pretty fair, by the looks.  You don't look too happy,
+though, come to notice it.  What's the matter; got bad news?"
+
+"No.  I haven't any news, good or bad."
+
+"That so?  Then I'll give you some.  Phoebe and I are going to
+start for California to-morrow."
+
+"You are?  To California?  Why?"
+
+"Oh, just for instance, that's all.  Time's come when I have to go
+somewhere, and the Yosemite and the big trees look good to me.
+It's this way, Kent; I like Bayport, you know that.  Nobody's more
+in love with this old town than I am; it's my home and I mean to
+live and die here, if I have luck.  But it don't do for me to stay
+here all the time.  If I do I begin to be no good, like a
+strawberry plant that's been kept in one place too long and has
+quit bearin.'  The only thing to do with that plant is to
+transplant it and let it get nourishment in a new spot.  Then you
+can move it back by and by and it's all right.  Same way with me.
+Every once in a while I have to be transplanted so's to freshen up.
+My brains need somethin' besides post-office talk and sewin'-circle
+gossip to keep them from shrivelin'.  I was commencin' to feel the
+shrivel, so it's California for Phoebe and me.  Better come along,
+Kent.  You're beginnin' to shrivel a little, ain't you?"
+
+Was it as apparent as all that?  I was indignant.
+
+"Do I look it?" I demanded.
+
+"No--o, but I ain't sure that you don't act it.  No offence, you
+understand.  Just a little ground bait to coax you to come on the
+California cruise along with Phoebe and me, that's all."
+
+It was not likely that I should accept.  Two are company and three
+a crowd, and if ever two were company Captain Cy and his wife were
+those two.  I thanked him and declined, but I asked a question.
+
+"You believe in travel as a restorative, you do?" I asked.
+
+"Hey?  I sartin do.  Change your course once in awhile, same as you
+change your clothes.  Wearin' the same suit and cruisin' in the
+same puddle all the time ain't healthy.  You're too apt to get sick
+of the clothes and puddle both."
+
+"But you don't believe in traveling alone, do you?"
+
+"No," emphatically, "I don't, generally speakin.'  If you go off by
+yourself you're too likely to keep thinkin' ABOUT yourself.  Take
+somebody with you; somebody you're used to and know well and like,
+though.  Travelin' with strangers is a little mite worse than
+travelin' alone.  You want to be mighty sure of your shipmate."
+
+I walked home.  Hephzibah was in the sitting-room, reading and
+knitting a stocking, a stocking for me.  She did not need to use
+her eyes for the knitting; I am quite sure she could have knit in
+her sleep.
+
+"Hello, Hosy," she said, "been up to the office, have you?  Any
+mail?"
+
+"Nothing much.  Humph!  Still reading that Raymond and Whitcomb
+circular?"
+
+"No, not that one.  This is one I got last year.  I've been sittin'
+here plannin' out just where I'd go and what I'd see if I could.
+It's the next best thing to really goin'."
+
+I looked at her.  All at once a new idea began to crystallize in my
+mind.  It was a curious idea, a ridiculous idea, and yet--and yet
+it seemed--
+
+"Hephzy," said I, suddenly, "would you really like to go abroad?"
+
+"WOULD I?  Hosy, how you talk!  You know I've been crazy to go ever
+since I was a little girl.  I don't know what makes me so.  Perhaps
+it's the salt water in my blood.  All our folks were sailors and
+ship captains.  They went everywhere.  I presume likely it takes
+more than one generation to kill off that sort of thing."
+
+"And you really want to go?"
+
+"Of course I do."
+
+"Then why haven't you gone?  You could afford to take a moderate-
+priced tour."
+
+Hephzy laughed over her knitting.
+
+"I guess," she said, "I haven't gone for the reason you haven't,
+Hosy.  You could afford, it, too--you know you could.  But how
+could I go and leave you?  Why, I shouldn't sleep a minute
+wonderin' if you were wearin' clothes without holes in 'em and if
+you changed your flannels when the weather changed and ate what you
+ought to, and all that.  You've been so--so sort of dependent on me
+and I've been so used to takin' care of you that I don't believe
+either of us would be happy anywhere without the other.  I know
+certain sure _I_ shouldn't."
+
+I did not answer immediately.  The idea, the amazing, ridiculous
+idea which had burst upon me suddenly began to lose something of
+its absurdity.  Somehow it began to look like the answer to my
+riddle.  I realized that my main objection to the Campbell
+prescription had been that I must take it alone or with strangers.
+And now--
+
+"Hephzy," I demanded, "would you go away--on a trip abroad--with
+me?"
+
+She put down the knitting.
+
+"Hosy Knowles!" she exclaimed.  "WHAT are you talkin' about?"
+
+"But would you?"
+
+"I presume likely I would, if I had the chance; but it isn't likely
+that--where are you goin'?"
+
+I did not answer.  I hurried out of the sitting-room and out of the
+house.
+
+When I returned I found her still knitting.  The circular lay on
+the floor at her feet.  She regarded me anxiously.
+
+"Hosy," she demanded, "where--"
+
+I interrupted.  "Hephzy," said I, "I have been to the station to
+send a telegram."
+
+"A telegram?  A TELEGRAM!  For mercy sakes, who's dead?"
+
+Telegrams in Bayport usually mean death or desperate illness.
+I laughed.
+
+"No one is dead, Hephzy," I replied.  "In fact it is barely
+possible that someone is coming to life.  I telegraphed Mr.
+Campbell to engage passage for you and me on some steamer leaving
+for Europe next week."
+
+Hephzibah turned pale.  The partially knitted sock dropped beside
+the circular.
+
+"Why--why--what--?" she gasped.
+
+"On a steamer leaving next week," I repeated.  "You want to travel,
+Hephzy.  Jim says I must.  So we'll travel together."
+
+She did not believe I meant it, of course, and it took a long time
+to convince her.  But when at last she began to believe--at least
+to the extent of believing that I had sent the telegram--her next
+remark was characteristic.
+
+"But I--I can't go, Hosy," declared Hephzibah.  "I CAN'T.  Who--who
+would take care of the cat and the hens?"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+In Which Hephzy and I and the Plutonia Sail Together
+
+
+The week which began that Wednesday afternoon seems, as I look back
+to it now, a bit of the remote past, instead of seven days of a
+year ago.  Its happenings, important and wonderful as they were,
+seem trivial and tame compared with those which came afterward.
+And yet, at the time, that week was a season of wild excitement and
+delightful anticipation for Hephzibah, and of excitement not
+unmingled with doubts and misgivings for me.  For us both it was a
+busy week, to put it mildly.
+
+Once convinced that I meant what I said and that I was not "raving
+distracted," which I think was her first diagnosis of my case,
+Hephzy's practical mind began to unearth objections, first to her
+going at all and, second, to going on such short notice.
+
+"I don't think I'd better, Hosy," she said.  "You're awful good to
+ask me and I know you think you mean it, but I don't believe I
+ought to do it, even if I felt as if I could leave the house and
+everything alone.  You see, I've lived here in Bayport so long that
+I'm old-fashioned and funny and countrified, I guess.  You'd be
+ashamed of me."
+
+I smiled.  "When I am ashamed of you, Hephzy," I replied, "I shall
+be on my way to the insane asylum, not to Europe.  You are much
+more likely to be ashamed of me."
+
+"The idea!  And you the pride of this town!  The only author that
+ever lived in it--unless you call Joshua Snow an author, and he
+lived in the poorhouse and nobody but himself was proud of HIM."
+
+Josh Snow was Bayport's Homer, its only native poet.  He wrote the
+immortal ballad of the scallop industry, which begins:
+
+
+     "On a fine morning at break of day,
+      When the ice has all gone out of the bay,
+      And the sun is shining nice and it is like spring,
+      Then all hands start to go scallop-ING."
+
+
+In order to get the fullest measure of music from this lyric gem
+you should put a strong emphasis on the final "ing."  Joshua always
+did and the summer people never seemed to tire of hearing him
+recite it.  There are eighteen more verses.
+
+"I shall not be ashamed of you, Hephzy," I repeated.  "You know it
+perfectly well.  And I shall not go unless you go."
+
+"But I can't go, Hosy.  I couldn't leave the hens and the cat.
+They'd starve; you know they would."
+
+"Susanna will look after them.  I'll leave money for their
+provender.  And I will pay Susanna for taking care of them.  She
+has fallen in love with the cat; she'll be only too glad to adopt
+it."
+
+"And I haven't got a single thing fit to wear."
+
+"Neither have I.  We will buy complete fit-outs in Boston or New
+York."
+
+"But--"
+
+There were innumerable "buts."  I answered them as best I could.
+Also I reiterated my determination not to go unless she did.  I
+told of Campbell's advice and laid strong emphasis on the fact that
+he had said travel was my only hope.  Unless she wished me to die
+of despair she must agree to travel with me.
+
+"And you have said over and over again that your one desire was to
+go abroad," I added, as a final clincher.
+
+"I know it.  I know I have.  But--but now when it comes to really
+goin' I'm not so sure.  Uncle Bedny Small was always declarin' in
+prayer-meetin' that he wanted to die so as to get to Heaven, but
+when he was taken down with influenza he made his folks call both
+doctors here in town and one from Harniss.  I don't know whether I
+want to go or not, Hosy.  I--I'm frightened, I guess."
+
+Jim's answer to my telegram arrived the very next day.
+
+"Have engaged two staterooms for ship sailing Wednesday the tenth,"
+it read.  "Hearty congratulations on your good sense.  Who is your
+companion?  Write particulars."
+
+The telegram quashed the last of Hephzy's objections.  The fares
+had been paid and she was certain they must be "dreadful
+expensive."  All that money could not be wasted, so she accepted
+the inevitable and began preparations.
+
+I did not write the "particulars" requested.  I had a feeling that
+Campbell might consider my choice of a traveling companion a queer
+one and, although my mind was made up and his opinion could not
+change it, I thought it just as well to wait until our arrival in
+New York before telling him.  So I wrote a brief note stating that
+my friend and I would reach New York on the morning of the tenth
+and that I would see him there.  Also I asked, for my part, the
+name of the steamer he had selected.
+
+His answer was as vague as mine.  He congratulated me once more
+upon my decision, prophesied great things as the result of what he
+called my "foreign junket," and gave some valuable advice
+concerning the necessary outfit, clothes, trunks and the like.
+"Travel light," he wrote.  "You can buy whatever else you may need
+on the other side.  'Phone as soon as you reach New York."  But he
+did not tell me the name of the ship, nor for what port she was to
+sail.
+
+So Hephzy and I were obliged to turn to the newspapers for
+information upon those more or less important subjects, and we
+speculated and guessed not a little.  The New York dailies were not
+obtainable in Bayport except during the summer months and the
+Boston publications did not give the New York sailings.  I wrote to
+a friend in Boston and he sent me the leading journals of the
+former city and, as soon as they arrived, Hephzy sat down upon the
+sitting-room carpet--which she had insisted upon having taken up to
+be packed away in moth balls--to look at the maritime advertisements.
+I am quite certain it was the only time she sat down, except at
+meals, that day.
+
+I selected one of the papers and she another.  We reached the same
+conclusion simultaneously.
+
+"Why, it must be--" she began.
+
+"The Princess Eulalie," I finished.
+
+"It is the only one that sails on the tenth.  There is one on the
+eleventh, though."
+
+"Yes, but that one is the 'Plutonia,' one of the fastest and most
+expensive liners afloat.  It isn't likely that Jim had booked us
+for the 'Plutonia.'  She would scarcely be in our--in my class."
+
+"Humph!  I guess she isn't any too good for a famous man like you,
+Hosy.  But I would look funny on her, I give in.  I've read about
+her.  She's always full of lords and ladies and millionaires and
+things.  Just the sort of folks you write about.  She'd be just the
+one for you."
+
+I shook my head.  "My lords and ladies are only paper dolls,
+Hephzy," I said, ruefully.  "I should be as lost as you among the
+flesh and blood variety.  No, the 'Princess Eulalie' must be ours.
+She runs to Amsterdam, though.  Odd that Jim should send me to
+Holland."
+
+Hephzy nodded and then offered a solution.
+
+"I don't doubt he did it on purpose," she declared.  "He knew
+neither you nor I was anxious to go to England.  He knows we don't
+think much of the English, after our experience with that Morley
+brute."
+
+"No, he doesn't know any such thing.  I've never told him a word
+about Morley.  And he doesn't know you're going, Hephzy.  I've kept
+that as a--as a surprise for him."
+
+"Well, never mind.  I'd rather go to Amsterdam than England.  It's
+nearer to France."
+
+I was surprised.  "Nearer to France?" I repeated.  "What difference
+does that make?  We don't know anyone in France."
+
+Hephzibah was plainly shocked.  "Why, Hosy!" she protested.  "Have
+you forgotten Little Frank?  He is in France somewhere, or he was
+at last accounts."
+
+"Good Lord!" I groaned.  Then I got up and went out.  I had
+forgotten "Little Frank" and hoped that she had.  If she was to
+flit about Europe seeing "Little Frank" on every corner I foresaw
+trouble.  "Little Frank" was likely to be the bane of my existence.
+
+We left Bayport on Monday morning.  The house was cleaned and swept
+and scoured and moth-proofed from top to bottom.  Every door was
+double-locked and every window nailed.  Burglars are unknown in
+Bayport, but that didn't make any difference.  "You can't be too
+careful," said Hephzy.  I was of the opinion that you could.
+
+The cat had been "farmed out" with Susanna's people and Susanna
+herself was to feed the hens twice a day, lock them in each night
+and let them out each morning.  Their keeper had a carefully
+prepared schedule as to quantity and quality of food; Hephzy had
+prepared and furnished it.
+
+"And don't you give 'em any fish," ordered Hephzy.  "I ate a
+chicken once that had been fed on fish, and--my soul!"
+
+There was quite an assemblage at the station to see us off.
+Captain Whittaker and his wife were not there, of course; they were
+near California by this time.  But Mr. Partridge, the minister, was
+there and so was his wife; and Asaph Tidditt and Mr. and Mrs.
+Bailey Bangs and Captain Josiah Dimick and HIS wife, and several
+others.  Oh, yes! and Angeline Phinney.  Angeline was there, of
+course.  If anything happened in Bayport and Angeline was not there
+to help it happen, then--I don't know what then; the experiment had
+never been tried in my lifetime.
+
+Everyone said pleasant things to us.  They really seemed sorry to
+have us leave Bayport, but for our sakes they expressed themselves
+as glad.  It would be such a glorious trip; we would have so much
+to tell when we got back.  Mr. Partridge said he should plan for me
+to give a little talk to the Sunday school upon my return.  It
+would be a wonderful thing for the children.  To my mind the most
+wonderful part of the idea was that he should take my consent for
+granted.  _I_ talk to the Sunday school!  I, the Quahaug!  My knees
+shook even at the thought.
+
+Keturah Bangs hoped we would have a "lovely time."  She declared
+that it had been the one ambition of her life to go sight-seeing.
+But she should never do it--no, no!  Such things wasn't for her.
+If she had a husband like some women it might be, but not as 'twas.
+She had long ago given up hopin' to do anything but keep boarders,
+and she had to do that all by herself.
+
+Bailey, her husband, grinned sheepishly but, for a wonder, he did
+not attempt defence.  I gathered that Bailey was learning wisdom.
+It was time; he had attended his wife's academy a long while.
+
+Captain Dimick brought a bag of apples, greenings, some he had kept
+in the cellar over winter.  "Nice to eat on the cars," he told us.
+Everyone asked us to send postcards.  Miss Phinney was especially
+solicitous.
+
+"It'll be just lovely to know where you be and what you're doin,"
+she declared.
+
+When the train had started and we had waved the last good-bys from
+the window Hephzibah expressed her opinion concerning Angeline's
+request.
+
+"I send HER postcards!" she snapped.  "I think I see myself doin'
+it!  All she cares about 'em is so she can run from Dan to
+Beersheba showin' 'em to everybody and talkin' about how
+extravagant we are and wonderin' if we borrowed the money.  But
+there! it won't make any difference.  If I don't send 'em to her
+she'll read all I send to other folks.  She and Rebecca Simmons are
+close as two peas in a pod and Becky reads everything that comes
+through her husband's post-office.  All that aren't sealed, that
+is--yes, and some that are, I shouldn't wonder, if they're not
+sealed tight."
+
+Her next remark was a surprising one.
+
+"Hosy," she said, "how much they all think of you, don't they.
+Isn't it nice to know you're so popular."
+
+I turned in the seat to stare at her.
+
+"Popular!" I repeated.  "Hephzy, I have a good deal of respect for
+your brain, generally speaking, but there are times when I think it
+shows signs of softening."
+
+She did not resent my candor; she paid absolutely no attention to
+it.
+
+"I don't mean popular with everybody, rag, tag and bobtail and all,
+like--well, Eben Salters," she went on.  "But the folks that count
+all respect and like you, Hosy.  I know they do."
+
+Mr. Salters is our leading local statesman--since the departure of
+the Honorable Heman Atkins.  He has filled every office in his
+native village and he has served one term as representative in the
+State House at Boston.  He IS popular.
+
+"It is marvelous how affection can be concealed," I observed, with
+sarcasm.  Hephzy was back at me like a flash.
+
+"Of course they don't tell you of it," she said.  "If they did
+you'd probably tell 'em to their faces that they were fibbin' and
+not speak to 'em again.  But they do like you, and I know it."
+
+It was useless to carry the argument further.  When Hephzy begins
+chanting my praises I find it easier to surrender--and change the
+subject.
+
+In Boston we shopped.  It seems to me that we did nothing else.  I
+bought what I needed the very first day, clothes, hat, steamer coat
+and traveling cap included.  It did not take me long; fortunately I
+am of the average height and shape and the salesmen found me easy
+to please.  My shopping tour was ended by three o'clock and I spent
+the remainder of the afternoon at a bookseller's.  There was a set
+of "Early English Poets" there, nineteen little, fat, chunky
+volumes, not new and shiny and grand, but middle-aged and shabby
+and comfortable, which appealed to me.  The price, however, was
+high; I had the uneasy feeling that I ought not to afford it.  Then
+the bookseller himself, who also was fat and comfortably shabby,
+and who had beguiled from me the information that I was about to
+travel, suggested that the "Poets" would make very pleasant reading
+en route.
+
+"I have found," he said, beaming over his spectacles, "that a
+little book of this kind," patting one of the volumes, "which may
+be carried in the pocket, is a rare traveling companion.  When you
+wish his society he is there, and when you tire of him you can shut
+him up.  You can't do that with all traveling companions, you know.
+Ha! ha!"
+
+He chuckled over his joke and I chuckled with him.  Humor of that
+kind is expensive, for I bought the "English Poets" and ordered
+them sent to my hotel.  It was not until they were delivered, an
+hour later, that I began to wonder what I should do with them.  Our
+trunks were likely to be crowded and I could not carry all of the
+nineteen volumes in my pockets.
+
+Hephzibah, who had been shopping on her own hook, did not return
+until nearly seven.  She returned weary and almost empty-handed.
+
+"But didn't you buy ANYTHING?" I asked.  "Where in the world have
+you been?"
+
+She had been everywhere, so she said.  This wasn't entirely true,
+but I gathered that she had visited about every department store in
+the city.  She had found ever so many things she liked, but oh
+dear! they did cost so much.
+
+"There was one traveling coat that I did want dreadfully," she
+said.  "It was a dark brown, not too dark, but just light enough so
+it wouldn't show water spots.  I've been out sailing enough times
+to know how your things get water-spotted.  It fitted me real nice;
+there wouldn't have to be a thing done to it.  But it cost thirty-
+one dollars!  'My soul!' says I, 'I can't afford THAT!'  But they
+didn't have anything cheaper that wouldn't have made me look like
+one of those awful play-actin' girls that came to Bayport with the
+Uncle Tom's Cabin show.  And I tried everywhere and nothin' pleased
+me so well."
+
+"So you didn't buy the coat?"
+
+"BUY it?  My soul Hosy, didn't I tell you it cost--"
+
+"I know.  What else did you see that you didn't buy?"
+
+"Hey?  Oh, I saw a suit, a nice lady-like suit, and I tried it on.
+That fitted me, too, only the sleeves would have to be shortened.
+And it would have gone SO well with that coat.  But the suit cost
+FORTY dollars.  'Good land!' I said, 'haven't you got ANYTHING for
+poor folks?'  And you ought to have seen the look that girl gave
+me!  And a hat--oh, yes, I saw a hat!  It was--"
+
+There was a great deal more.  Summed up it amounted to something
+like this:  All that suited her had been too high-priced and all
+that she considered within her means hadn't suited her at all.  So
+she had bought practically nothing but a few non-essentials.  And
+we were to leave for New York the following night and sail for
+Europe the day after.
+
+"Hephzy," said I, "you will go shopping again to-morrow morning and
+I'll go with you."
+
+Go we did, and we bought the coat and the hat and the suit and
+various other things.  With each purchase Hephzy's groans and
+protests at my reckless extravagance grew louder.  At last I had an
+inspiration.
+
+"Hephzy," said I, "when we meet Little Frank over there in France,
+or wherever he may be, you will want him to be favorably impressed
+with your appearance, won't you?  These things cost money of
+course, but we must think of Little Frank.  He has never seen his
+American relatives and so much depends on a first impression."
+
+Hephzy regarded me with suspicion.  "Humph!" she sniffed, "that's
+the first time I ever knew you to give in that there WAS a Little
+Frank.  All right, I sha'n't say any more, but I hope the foreign
+poorhouses are more comfortable than ours, that's all.  If you make
+me keep on this way, I'll fetch up in one before the first month's
+over."
+
+We left for New York on the five o'clock train.  Packing those
+"Early English Poets" was a confounded nuisance.  They had to be
+stuffed here, there and everywhere amid my wearing apparel and
+Hephzibah prophesied evil to come.
+
+"Books are the worse things goin' to make creases," she declared.
+"They're all sharp edges."
+
+I had to carry two of the volumes in my pockets, even then, at the
+very start.  They might prove delightful traveling companions, as
+the bookman had said, but they were most uncomfortable things to
+sit on.
+
+We reached the Grand Central station on time and went to a nearby
+hotel.  I should have sent the heavier baggage directly to the
+steamer, but I was not sure--absolutely sure--which steamer it was
+to be.  The "Princess Eulalie" almost certainly, but I did not dare
+take the risk.
+
+Hephzy called to me from the room adjoining mine at twelve that
+night.
+
+"Just think, Hosy!" she cried, "this is the last night either of us
+will spend on dry land."
+
+"Heavens!  I hope it won't be as bad as that," I retorted.
+"Holland is pretty wet, so they say, but we should be able to find
+some dry spots."
+
+She did not laugh.  "You know what I mean," she observed.  "To-
+morrow night at twelve o'clock we shall be far out on the vasty
+deep."
+
+"We shall be on the 'Princess Eulalie,'" I answered.  "Go to
+sleep."
+
+Neither of us spoke the truth.  At twelve the following night we
+were neither "far out on the vasty deep" nor on the "Princess
+Eulalie."
+
+My first move after breakfast was to telephone Campbell at his city
+home.  He hailed me joyfully and ordered me to stay where I was,
+that is, at the hotel.  He would be there in an hour, he said.
+
+He was five minutes ahead of his promise.  We shook hands heartily.
+
+"You are going to take my prescription, after all," he crowed.
+"Didn't I tell you I was the only real doctor for sick authors?
+Bully for you!  Wish I was going with you.  Who is?"
+
+"Come to my room and I'll show you," said I.  "You may be
+surprised."
+
+"See here! you haven't gone and dug up another fossilized bookworm
+like yourself, have you?  If you have, I refuse--"
+
+"Come and see."
+
+We took the elevator to the fourth floor and walked to my room.  I
+opened the door.
+
+"Hephzy," said I, "here is someone you know."
+
+Hephzy, who had been looking out of the window of her room, hurried
+in.
+
+"Well, Mr. Campbell!" she exclaimed, holding out her hand, "how do
+you do?  We got here all right, you see.  But the way Hosy has been
+wastin' money, his and mine, buyin' things we didn't need, I began
+to think one spell we'd never get any further.  Is it time to start
+for the steamer yet?"
+
+Jim's face was worth looking at.  He shook Hephzibah's hand
+mechanically, but he did not speak.  Instead he looked at her and
+at me.  I didn't speak either; I was having a thoroughly good time.
+
+"Had we ought to start now?" repeated Hephzibah.  "I'm all ready
+but puttin' on my things."
+
+Jim came out of his trance.  He dropped the hand and came to me.
+
+"Are you--is she--" he stammered.
+
+"Yes," said I.  "Miss Cahoon is going with me.  I wrote you I had
+selected a good traveling companion.  I have, haven't I?"
+
+"He would have it so, Mr. Campbell," put in Hephzy.  "I said no and
+kept on sayin' it, but he vowed and declared he wouldn't go unless
+I did.  I know you must think it's queer my taggin' along, but it
+isn't any queerer to you than it is to me."
+
+Jim behaved very well, considering.  He did not laugh.  For a
+moment I thought he was going to; if he had I don't know what I
+should have done, said things for which I might have been sorry
+later on, probably.  But he did not laugh.  He didn't even express
+the tremendous surprise which he must have felt.  Instead he shook
+hands again with both of us and said it was fine, bully, just the
+thing.
+
+"To tell the truth, Miss Cahoon," he declared, "I have been rather
+fearful of this pet infant of ours.  I didn't know what sort of
+helpless creature he might have coaxed into roaming loose with him
+in the wilds of Europe.  I expected another babe in the woods and I
+was contemplating cabling the police to look out for them and shoo
+away the wolves.  But he'll be all right now.  Yes, indeed! he'll
+be looked out for now."
+
+"Then you approve?" I asked.
+
+He shot a side-long glance at me.  "Approve!" he repeated.  "I'm
+crazy about the whole business."
+
+I judged he considered me crazy, hopelessly so.  I did not care.
+I agreed with him in this--the whole business was insane and
+Hephzibah's going was the only sensible thing about it, so far.
+
+His next question was concerning our baggage.  I told him I had
+left it at the railway station because I was not sure where it
+should be sent.
+
+"What time does the 'Princess Eulalie' sail?" I asked.
+
+He looked at me oddly.  "What?" he queried.  "The 'Princess
+Eulalie'?  Twelve o'clock, I believe, I'm not sure."
+
+"You're not sure!  And it is after nine now.  It strikes me that--"
+
+"Never mind what strikes you.  So long as it isn't lightning you
+shouldn't complain.  Have you the baggage checks?  Give them to
+me."
+
+I handed him the checks, obediently, and he stepped to the
+telephone and gave a number.  A short conversation followed.  Then
+he hung up the receiver.
+
+"One of the men from the office will be here soon," he said.  "He
+will attend to all your baggage, get it aboard the ship and see
+that it is put in your staterooms.  Now, then, tell me all about
+it.  What have you been doing since I saw you?  When did you
+arrive?  How did you happen to think of taking--er--Miss Cahoon
+with you?  Tell me the whole."
+
+I told him.  Hephzy assisted, sitting on the edge of a rocking
+chair and asking me what time it was at intervals of ten minutes.
+She was decidedly fidgety.  When she went to Boston she usually
+reached the station half an hour before train time, and to sit
+calmly in a hotel room, when the ship that was to take us to the
+ends of the earth was to sail in two hours, was a reckless gamble
+with Fate, to her mind.
+
+The man from the office came and the baggage checks were turned
+over to him.  So also were our bags and our umbrellas.  Campbell
+stepped into the hall and the pair held a whispered conversation.
+Hephzy seized the opportunity to express to me her perturbation.
+
+"My soul, Hosy!" she whispered.  "Mr. Campbell's out of his head,
+ain't he?  Here we are a sittin' and sittin' and time's goin' by.
+We'll be too late.  Can't you make him hurry?"
+
+I was almost as nervous as she was, but I would not have let our
+guardian know it for the world.  If we lost a dozen steamers I
+shouldn't call his attention to the fact.  I might be a "Babe in
+the Wood," but he should not have the satisfaction of hearing me
+whimper.
+
+He came back to the room a moment later and began asking more
+questions.  Our answers, particularly Hephzy's, seemed to please
+him a great deal.  At some of them he laughed uproariously.  At
+last he looked at his watch.
+
+"Almost eleven," he observed.  "I must be getting around to the
+office.  Miss Cahoon will you excuse Kent and me for an hour or so?
+I have his letters of credit and the tickets in our safe and he had
+better come around with me and get them.  If you have any last bits
+of shopping to do, now is your opportunity.  Or you might wait here
+if you prefer.  We will be back at half-past twelve and lunch
+together."
+
+I started.  Hephzy sprang from the chair.
+
+"Half-past twelve!" I cried.
+
+"Lunch together!" gasped Hephzy.  "Why, Mr. Campbell! the 'Princess
+Eulalie' sails at noon.  You said so yourself!"
+
+Jim smiled.  "I know I did," he replied, "but that is immaterial.
+You are not concerned with the 'Princess Eulalie.'  Your passages
+are booked on the 'Plutonia' and she doesn't leave her dock until
+one o'clock to-morrow morning.  We will meet here for lunch at
+twelve-thirty.  Come, Kent."
+
+I didn't attempt an answer.  I am not exactly sure what I did.  A
+few minutes later I walked out of that room with Campbell and I
+have a hazy recollection of leaving Hephzy seated in the rocker and
+of hearing her voice, as the door closed, repeating over and over:
+
+"The 'Plutonia'!  My soul and body!  The 'Plutonia'!  Me--ME on the
+'Plutonia'!"
+
+What I said and did afterwards doesn't make much difference.  I
+know I called my publisher a number of disrespectful names not one
+of which he deserved.
+
+"Confound you!" I cried.  "You know I wouldn't have dreamed of
+taking a passage on a ship like that.  She's a floating Waldorf,
+everyone says so.  Dress and swagger society and--Oh, you idiot!
+I wanted quiet!  I wanted to be alone!  I wanted--"
+
+Jim interrupted me.
+
+"I know you did," he said.  "But you're not going to have them.
+You've been alone too much.  You need a change.  If I know the
+'Plutonia'--and I've crossed on her four times--you're going to
+have it."
+
+He burst into a roar of laughter.  We were in a cab, fortunately,
+or his behavior would have attracted attention.  I could have
+choked him.
+
+"You imbecile!" I cried.  "I have a good mind to throw the whole
+thing up and go home to Bayport.  By George, I will!"
+
+He continued to chuckle.
+
+"I see you doing it!" he observed.  "How about your--what's her
+name?--Hephzibah?  Going to tell her that it's all off, are you?
+Going to tell her that you will forfeit your passage money and
+hers?  Why, man, haven't you a heart?  If she was booked for
+Paradise instead of Paris she couldn't be any happier.  Don't be
+foolish!  Your trunks are on the 'Plutonia' and on the 'Plutonia'
+you'll be to-night.  It's the best thing that can happen to you.
+I did it on purpose.  You'll thank me come day."
+
+I didn't thank him then.
+
+We returned to the hotel at twelve-thirty, my pocket-book loaded
+with tickets and letters of credit and unfamiliar white paper notes
+bearing the name of the Bank of England.  Hephzibah was still in
+the rocking chair.  I am sure she had not left it.
+
+We lunched in the hotel dining-room.  Campbell ordered the luncheon
+and paid for it while Hephzibah exclaimed at his extravagance.  She
+was too excited to eat much and too worried concerning the extent
+of her wardrobe to talk of less important matters.
+
+"Oh dear, Hosy!" she wailed, "WHY didn't I buy another best dress.
+DO you suppose my black one will be good enough?  All those lords
+and ladies and millionaires on the 'Plutonia'!  Won't they think
+I'm dreadful poverty-stricken.  I saw a dress I wanted awfully--in
+one of those Boston stores it was; but I didn't buy it because it
+was so dear.  And I didn't tell you I wanted it because I knew if I
+did you'd buy it.  You're so reckless with money.  But now I wish
+I'd bought it myself.  What WILL all those rich people think of
+me?"
+
+"About what they think of me, Hephzy, I imagine," I answered,
+ruefully.  "Jim here has put up a joke on us.  He is the only one
+who is getting any fun out of it."
+
+Jim, for a wonder, was serious.  "Miss Cahoon," he declared,
+earnestly, "don't worry.  I'm sure the black silk is all right; but
+if it wasn't it wouldn't make any difference.  On the 'Plutonia'
+nobody notices other people's clothes.  Most of them are too busy
+noticing their own.  If Kent has his evening togs and you have the
+black silk you'll pass muster.  You'll have a gorgeous time.
+I only wish I was going with you."
+
+He repeated the wish several times during the afternoon.  He
+insisted on taking us to a matinee and Hephzy's comments on the
+performance seemed to amuse him hugely.  It had been eleven years,
+so she said, since she went to the theater.
+
+"Unless you count 'Uncle Tom' or 'Ten Nights in a Barroom,' or some
+of those other plays that come to Bayport," she added.  "I suppose
+I'm making a perfect fool of myself laughin' and cryin' over what's
+nothin' but make-believe, but I can't help it.  Isn't it splendid,
+Hosy!  I wonder what Father would say if he could know that his
+daughter was really travelin'--just goin' to Europe!  He used to
+worry a good deal, in his last years, about me.  Seemed to feel
+that he hadn't taken me around and done as much for me as he ought
+to in the days when he could.  'Twas just nonsense, his feelin'
+that way, and I told him so.  But I wonder if he knows now how
+happy I am.  I hope he does.  My goodness!  I can't realize it
+myself.  Oh, there goes the curtain up again!  Oh, ain't that
+pretty!  I AM actin' ridiculous, I know, Mr. Campbell,' but you
+mustn't mind.  Laugh at me all you want to; I sha'n't care a bit."
+
+Jim didn't laugh--then.  Neither did I.  He and I looked at each
+other and I think the same thought was in both our minds.  Good,
+kind, whole-souled, self-sacrificing Hephzibah!  The last
+misgiving, the last doubt as to the wisdom of my choice of a
+traveling companion vanished from my thoughts.  For the first time
+I was actually glad I was going, glad because of the happiness it
+would mean to her.
+
+When we came out of the theater Campbell reached down in the crowd
+to shake my hand.
+
+"Congratulations, old man," he whispered; "you did exactly the
+right thing.  You surprised me, I admit, but you were dead right.
+She's a brick.  But don't I wish I was going along!  Oh my! oh my!
+to think of you two wandering about Europe together!  If only I
+might be there to see and hear!  Kent, keep a diary; for my sake,
+promise me you'll keep a diary.  Put down everything she says and
+read it to me when you get home."
+
+He left us soon afterward.  He had given up the entire day to me
+and would, I know, have cheerfully given the evening as well, but I
+would not hear of it.  A messenger from the office had brought him
+word of the presence in New York of a distinguished scientist who
+was preparing a manuscript for publication and the scientist had
+requested an interview that night.  Campbell was very anxious to
+obtain that manuscript and I knew it.  Therefore I insisted that he
+leave us.  He was loathe to do so.
+
+"I hate to, Kent," he declared.  "I had set my heart on seeing you
+on board and seeing you safely started.  But I do want to nail
+Scheinfeldt, I must admit.  The book is one that he has been at
+work on for years and two other publishing houses are as anxious as
+ours to get it.  To-night is my chance, and to-morrow may be too
+late."
+
+"Then you must not miss the chance.  You must go, and go now."
+
+"I don't like to.  Sure you've got everything you need?  Your
+tickets and your letters of credit and all?  Sure you have money
+enough to carry you across comfortably?"
+
+"Yes, and more than enough, even on the 'Plutonia.'"
+
+"Well, all right, then.  When you reach London go to our English
+branch--you have the address, Camford Street, just off the Strand--
+and whatever help you may need they'll give you.  I've cabled them
+instructions.  Think you can get down to the ship all right?"
+
+I laughed.  "I think it fairly possible," I said.  "If I lose my
+way, or Hephzy is kidnapped, I'll speak to the police or telephone
+you."
+
+"The latter would be safer and much less expensive.  Well, good-by,
+Kent.  Remember now, you're going for a good time and you're to
+forget literature.  Write often and keep in touch with me.  Good-
+by, Miss Cahoon.  Take care of this--er--clam of ours, won't you.
+Don't let anyone eat him on the half-shell, or anything like that."
+
+Hephzy smiled.  "They'd have to eat me first," she said, "and I'm
+pretty old and tough.  I'll look after him, Mr. Campbell, don't you
+worry."
+
+"I don't.  Good luck to you both--and good-by."
+
+A final handshake and he was gone.  Hephzy looked after him.
+
+"There!" she exclaimed; "I really begin to believe I'm goin'.
+Somehow I feel as if the last rope had been cast off.  We've got to
+depend on ourselves now, Hosy, dear.  Mercy! how silly I am
+talkin'.  A body would think I was homesick before I started."
+
+I did not answer, for I WAS homesick.  We dined together at the
+hotel.  There remained three long hours before it would be time for
+us to take the cab for the 'Plutonia's' wharf.  I suggested another
+theater, but Hephzy, to my surprise, declined the invitation.
+
+"If you don't mind, Hosy," she said, "I guess I'd rather stay right
+here in the room.  I--I feel sort of solemn and as if I wanted to
+sit still and think.  Perhaps it's just as well.  After waitin'
+eleven years to go to one theater, maybe two in the same day would
+be more than I could stand."
+
+So we sat together in the room at the hotel--sat and thought.  The
+minutes dragged by.  Outside beneath the windows, New York blazed
+and roared.  I looked down at the hurrying little black manikins on
+the sidewalks, each, apparently, bound somewhere on business or
+pleasure of its own, and I wondered vaguely what that business or
+pleasure might be and why they hurried so.  There were many single
+ones, of course, and occasionally groups of three or four, but
+couples were the most numerous.  Husbands and wives, lovers and
+sweethearts, each with his or her life and interests bound up in
+the life and interests of the other.  I envied them.  Mine had been
+a solitary life, an unusual, abnormal kind of life.  No one had
+shared its interests and ambitions with me, no one had spurred me
+on to higher endeavor, had loved with me and suffered with me,
+helping me through the shadows and laughing with me in the
+sunshine.  No one, since Mother's death, except Hephzy and Hephzy's
+love and care and sacrifice, fine as they were, were different.  I
+had missed something, I had missed a great deal, and now it was too
+late.  Youth and high endeavor and ambition had gone by; I had left
+them behind.  I was a solitary, queer, self-centered old bachelor,
+a "quahaug," as my fellow-Bayporters called me.  And to ship a
+quahaug around the world is not likely to do the creature a great
+deal of good.  If he lives through it he is likely to be shipped
+home again tougher and drier and more useless to the rest of
+creation than ever.
+
+Hephzibah, too, had evidently been thinking, for she interrupted my
+dismal meditations with a long sigh.  I started and turned toward
+her.
+
+"What's the matter?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, nothin'," was the solemn answer.  "I was wonderin', that's
+all.  Just wonderin' if he would talk English.  It would be a
+terrible thing if he could speak nothin' but French or a foreign
+language and I couldn't understand him.  But Ardelia was American
+and that brute of a Morley spoke plain enough, so I suppose--"
+
+I judged it high time to interrupt.
+
+"Come, Hephzy," said I.  "It is half-past ten.  We may as well
+start at once."
+
+Broadway, seen through the cab windows, was bright enough, a blaze
+of flashing signs and illuminated shop windows.  But --th street,
+at the foot of which the wharves of the Trans-Atlantic Steamship
+Company were located, was black and dismal.  It was by no means
+deserted, however.  Before and behind and beside us were other cabs
+and automobiles bound in the same direction.  Hephzy peered out at
+them in amazement.
+
+"Mercy on us, Hosy!" she exclaimed.  "I never saw such a procession
+of carriages.  They're as far ahead and as far back of us as you
+can see.  It is like the biggest funeral that ever was, except that
+they don't crawl along the way a funeral does.  I'm glad of that,
+anyhow.  I wish I didn't FEEL so much as if I was goin' to be
+buried.  I don't know why I do.  I hope it isn't a presentiment."
+
+If it was she forgot it a few minutes later.  The cab stopped
+before a mammoth doorway in a long, low building and a person in
+uniform opened the door.  The wide street was crowded with vehicles
+and from them were descending people attired as if for a party
+rather than an ocean voyage.  I helped Hephzy to alight and, while
+I was paying the cab driver, she looked about her.
+
+"Hosy!  Hosy!" she whispered, seizing my arm tight, "we've made a
+mistake.  This isn't the steamboat; this is--is a weddin' or
+somethin'.  Look! look!"
+
+I looked, looked at the silk hats, the opera cloaks, the jewels and
+those who wore them.  For a moment I, too, was certain there must
+be a mistake.  Then I looked upward and saw above the big doorway
+the flashing electric sign of the "Trans-Atlantic Navigation
+Company."
+
+"No, Hephzy," said I; "I guess it is the right place.  Come."
+
+I gave her my arm--that is, she continued to clutch it with both
+hands--and we moved forward with the crowd, through the doorway,
+past a long, moving inclined plane up which bags, valises, bundles
+of golf sticks and all sorts of lighter baggage were gliding, and
+faced another and smaller door.
+
+"Lift this way!  This way to the lift!" bawled a voice.
+
+"What's a lift?" whispered Hephzy, tremulously, "Hosy, what's a
+lift?"
+
+"An elevator," I whispered in reply.
+
+"But we can't go on board a steamboat in an elevator, can we?
+I never heard--"
+
+I don't know what she never heard.  The sentence was not finished.
+Into the lift we went.  On either side of us were men in evening
+dress and directly in front was a large woman, hatless and opera-
+cloaked, with diamonds in her ears and a rustle of silk at every
+point of her persons.  The car reeked with perfume.
+
+The large woman wriggled uneasily.
+
+"George," she said, in a loud whisper, "why do they crowd these
+lifts in this disgusting way?  And WHY," with another wriggle, "do
+they permit PERSONS with packages to use them?"
+
+As we emerged from the elevator Hephzy whispered again.
+
+"She meant us, Hosy," she said.  "I've got three of those books of
+yours in this bundle under my arm.  I COULDN'T squeeze 'em into
+either of the valises.  But she needn't have been so disagreeable
+about it, need she."
+
+Still following the crowd, we passed through more wide doorways and
+into a huge loft where, through mammoth openings at our left, the
+cool air from the river blew upon our faces.  Beyond these openings
+loomed an enormous something with rows of railed walks leading up
+its sides.  Hephzibah and I, moving in a sort of bewildered dream,
+found ourselves ascending one of these walks.  At its end was
+another doorway and, beyond, a great room, with more elevators and
+a mosaic floor, and mahogany and gilt and gorgeousness, and silk
+and broadcloth and satin.
+
+Hephzy gasped and stopped short.
+
+"It IS a mistake, Hosy!" she cried.  "Where is the steamer?"
+
+I smiled.  I felt almost as "green" and bewildered as she, but I
+tried not to show my feelings.
+
+"It is all right, Hephzy," I answered.  "This is the steamer.  I
+know it doesn't look like one, but it is.  This is the 'Plutonia'
+and we are on board at last."
+
+Two hours later we leaned together over the rail and watched the
+lights of New York grow fainter behind us.
+
+Hephzibah drew a deep breath.
+
+"It is so," she said.  "It is really so.  We ARE, aren't we, Hosy."
+
+"We are," said I.  "There is no doubt of it."
+
+"I wonder what will happen to us before we see those lights again."
+
+"I wonder."
+
+"Do you think HE--Do you think Little Frank--"
+
+"Hephzy," I interrupted, "if we are going to bed at all before
+morning, we had better start now."
+
+"All right, Hosy.  But you mustn't say 'go to bed.'  Say 'turn in.'
+Everyone calls going to bed 'turning in' aboard a vessel."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+In Which We View, and Even Mingle Slightly with, the Upper Classes
+
+
+It is astonishing--the ease with which the human mind can accustom
+itself to the unfamiliar and hitherto strange.  Nothing could have
+been more unfamiliar or strange to Hephzibah and me than an ocean
+voyage and the "Plutonia."  And yet before three days of that
+voyage were at an end we were accustomed to both--to a degree.  We
+had learned to do certain things and not to do others.  Some pet
+illusions had been shattered, and new and, at first, surprising
+items of information had lost their newness and come to be accepted
+as everyday facts.
+
+For example, we learned that people in real life actually wore
+monocles, something, which I, of course, had known to be true but
+which had seemed nevertheless an unreality, part of a stage play, a
+"dress-up" game for children and amateur actors.  The "English
+swell" in the performances of the Bayport Dramatic Society always
+wore a single eyeglass, but he also wore Dundreary whiskers and
+clothes which would have won him admittance to the Home for Feeble-
+Minded Youth without the formality of an examination.  His "English
+accent" was a combination of the East Bayport twang and an Irish
+brogue and he was a blithering idiot in appearance and behavior.
+No one in his senses could have accepted him as anything human and
+the eyeglass had been but a part of his unreal absurdity.
+
+And yet, here on the "Plutonia," were at least a dozen men, men of
+dignity and manner, who sported monocles and acted as if they were
+used to them.  The first evening before we left port, one or two
+were in evidence; the next afternoon, in the Lounge, there were
+more.  The fact that they were on an English ship, bound for
+England, brought the monocles out of their concealment, as Hephzy
+said, "like hoptoads after the first spring thaw."  Her amazed
+comments were unique.
+
+"But what good are they, Hosy?" she demanded.  "Can they see with
+'em?"
+
+"I suppose they can," I answered.  "You can see better with your
+spectacles than you can without them."
+
+"Humph!  I can see better with two eyes than I can with one, as far
+as that goes.  I don't believe they wear 'em for seein' at all.
+Take that man there," pointing to a long, lank Canadian in a yellow
+ulster, whom the irreverent smoking-room had already christened
+"The Duke of Labrador."  "Look at him!  He didn't wear a sign of
+one until this mornin'.  If he needed it to see with he'd have worn
+it before, wouldn't he?  Don't tell me!  He wears it because he
+wants people to think he's a regular boarder at Windsor Castle.
+And he isn't; he comes from Toronto, and that's only a few miles
+from the United States.  Ugh!  You foolish thing!" as the "Duke of
+Labrador" strutted by our deck-chairs; "I suppose you think you're
+pretty, don't you?  Well, you're not.  You look for all the world
+like a lighthouse with one window in it and the lamp out."
+
+I laughed.  "Hephzy," said I, "every nation has its peculiarities
+and the monocle is an English national institution, like--well,
+like tea, for instance."
+
+"Institution!  Don't talk to me about institutions!  I know the
+institution I'd put HIM in."
+
+She didn't fancy the "Duke of Labrador."  Neither did she fancy tea
+at breakfast and coffee at dinner.  But she learned to accept the
+first.  Two sessions with the "Plutonia's" breakfast coffee
+completed her education.
+
+"Bring me tea," she said to our table steward on the third morning.
+"I've tried most every kind of coffee and lived through it, but I'm
+gettin' too old to keep on experimentin' with my health.  Bring me
+tea and I'll try to forget what time it is."
+
+We had tea at breakfast, therefore, and tea at four in the
+afternoon.  Hephzibah and I learned to take it with the rest.  She
+watched her fellow-passengers, however, and as usual had something
+to say concerning their behavior.
+
+"Did you hear that, Hosy?" she whispered, as we sat together in the
+"Lounge," sipping tea and nibbling thin bread and butter and the
+inevitable plum cake.  "Did you hear what that woman said about her
+husband?"
+
+I had not heard, and said so.
+
+"Well, judgin' by her actions, I thought her husband was lost and
+she was sure he had been washed overboard.  'Where is Edward?' she
+kept askin'.  'Poor Edward!  What WILL he do?  Where is he?'  I was
+gettin' real anxious, and then it turned out that she was afraid
+that, if he didn't come soon, he'd miss his tea.  My soul!  Hosy,
+I've been thinkin' and do you know the conclusion I've come to?"
+
+"No," I replied.  "What is it?"
+
+"Well, it sounds awfully irreverent, but I've come to the
+conclusion that the first part of the Genesis in the English
+scriptures must be different than ours.  I'm sure they think that
+the earth was created in six days and, on the seventh, Adam and Eve
+had tea.  I believe it for an absolute fact."
+
+The pet illusion, the loss of which caused her the most severe
+shock, was that concerning the nobility.  On the morning of our
+first day afloat the passenger lists were distributed.  Hephzibah
+was early on deck.  Fortunately neither she nor I were in the least
+discomfited by the motion of the ship, then or at any time.  We
+proved to be good sailors; Hephzibah declared it was in the blood.
+
+"For a Knowles or a Cahoon to be seasick," she announced, "would be
+a disgrace.  Our men folks for four generations would turn over in
+their graves."
+
+She was early on deck that first morning and, at breakfast she and
+I had the table to ourselves.  She had the passenger list propped
+against the sugar bowl and was reading the names.
+
+"My gracious, Hosy!" she exclaimed.  "What, do you think!  There
+are five 'Sirs' on board and one 'Lord'!  Just think of it!  Where
+do you suppose they are?"
+
+"In their berths, probably, at this hour," I answered.
+
+"Then I'm goin' to stay right here till they come out.  I'm goin'
+to see 'em and know what they look like if I sit at this table all
+day."
+
+I smiled.  "I wouldn't do that, Hephzy," said I.  "We can see them
+at lunch."
+
+"Oh!  O--Oh!  And there's a Princess here!  Princess B-e-r-g-e-n-s-
+t-e-i-n--Bergenstein.  Princess Bergenstein.  What do you suppose
+she's Princess of?"
+
+"Princess of Jerusalem, I should imagine," I answered.  "Oh, I see!
+You've skipped a line, Hephzy.  Bergenstein belongs to another
+person.  The Princess's name is Berkovitchky.  Russian or Polish,
+perhaps."
+
+"I don't care if she's Chinese; I mean to see her.  I never
+expected to look at a live Princess in MY life."
+
+We stopped in the hall at the entrance to the dining-saloon to
+examine the table chart.  Hephzibah made careful notes of the
+tables at which the knights and the lord and the Princess were
+seated and their locations.  At lunch she consulted the notes.
+
+"The lord sits right behind us at that little table there," she
+said, excitedly.  "That table for two is marked 'Lord and Lady
+Erkskine.'  Now we must watch when they come in."
+
+A few minutes later a gray-haired little man, accompanied by a
+middle-aged woman entered the saloon and were seated at the small
+table by an obsequious steward.  Hephzy gasped.
+
+"Why--why, Hosy!" she exclaimed.  "That isn't the lord, is it?
+THAT?"
+
+"I suppose it must be," I answered.  When our own Steward came I
+asked him.
+
+"Yes, sir," he answered, with unction.  "Yes, sir, that is Lord and
+Lady Erkskine, sir, thank you, sir."
+
+Hephzy stared at Lord and Lady Erkskine.  I gave our luncheon
+order, and the steward departed.  Then her indignant disgust and
+disappointment burst forth.
+
+"Well! well!" she exclaimed.  "And that is a real live lord!  That
+is!  Why, Hosy, he's the livin' image of Asaph Tidditt back in
+Bayport.  If Ase could afford clothes like that he might be his
+twin brother.  Well! I guess that's enough.  I don't want to see
+that Princess any more.  Just as like as not she'd look like
+Susanna Wixon."
+
+Her criticisms were not confined to passengers of other
+nationalities.  Some of our own came in for comment quite as
+severe.
+
+"Look at those girls at that table over there," she whispered.
+"The two in red, I mean.  One of 'em has got a little flag pinned
+on her dress.  What do you suppose that is for?"
+
+I looked at the young ladies in red.  They were vivacious damsels
+and their conversation and laughter were by no means subdued.  A
+middle-aged man and woman and two young fellows were their table-
+mates and the group attracted a great deal of attention.
+
+"What has she got that flag pinned on her for?" repeated Hephzy.
+
+"She wishes everyone to know she's an American exportation, I
+suppose," I answered.  "She is evidently proud of her country."
+
+"Humph!  Her country wouldn't be proud of her, if it had to listen
+to her the way we do.  There's some exports it doesn't pay to
+advertise, I guess, and she and her sister are that kind.  Every
+time they laugh I can see that Lady Erkskine shrivel up like a
+sensitive plant.  I hope she don't think all American girls are
+like those two."
+
+"She probably does."
+
+"Well, IF she does she's makin' a big mistake.  I might as well
+believe all Englishmen were like this specimen comin' now, and I
+don't believe that, even if I do hail from Bayport."
+
+The specimen was the "Duke of Labrador," who sauntered by, monocle
+in eye, hands in pockets and an elaborate affection of the "Oxford
+stoop" which he must have spent time and effort in acquiring.
+Hephzibah shook her head.
+
+"I wish Toronto was further from home than it is," she declared.
+"But there!  I shan't worry about him.  I'll leave him for Lord
+Erkskine and his wife to be ashamed of.  He's their countryman, or
+he hopes he is.  I've got enough to do bein' ashamed of those two
+American girls."
+
+It may be gathered from these conversations that Hephzy and I had
+been so fortunate as to obtain a table by ourselves.  This was not
+the case.  There were four seats at our table and, according to the
+chart of the dining-saloon, one of them should be occupied by a
+"Miss Rutledge of New York" and the other by "A. Carleton
+Heathcroft of London."  Miss Rutledge we had not seen at all.  Our
+table steward informed us that the lady was "hindisposed" and
+confined to her room.  She was an actress, he added.  Hephzy, whose
+New England training had imbued her with the conviction that all
+people connected with the stage must be highly undesirable as
+acquaintances, was quite satisfied.  "Of course I'm sorry she isn't
+well," she confided to me "but I'm awfully glad she won't be at our
+table.  I shouldn't want to hurt her feelin's, but I couldn't talk
+to her as I would to an ordinary person.  I COULDN'T!  All I should
+be able to think of was what she wore, or didn't wear, when she was
+actin' her parts.  I expect I'm old-fashioned, but when I think of
+those girls in the pictures outside that theater--the one we didn't
+go to--I--well--mercy!"
+
+The "pictures" were the posters advertising a popular musical
+comedy which Campbell had at first suggested our witnessing the
+afternoon of our stay in New York.  Hephzibah's shocked expression
+and my whispered advice had brought about a change of plans.  We
+saw a perfectly respectable, though thrilling, melodrama instead.
+I might have relieved my relative's mind by assuring her that all
+actresses were not necessarily attired as "merry villagers," but
+the probable result of my assurance seemed scarcely worth the
+effort.
+
+A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire, was not acquainted with the stage,
+in a professional way, at any rate.  He was a slim and elegant
+gentleman, dressed with elaborate care, who appeared profoundly
+bored with life in general and our society in particular.  He
+sported one of Hephzibah's detestations, a monocle, and spoke, when
+he spoke at all, with a languid drawl and what I learned later was
+a Piccadilly accent.  He favored us with his company during our
+first day afloat; after that we saw him amid the select group at
+that much sought--by some--center of shipboard prominence, "the
+Captain's table."
+
+Oddly enough Hephzibah did not resent the Heathcroft condescension
+and single eyeglass as much as I had expected.  She explained her
+feeling in this way.
+
+"I know he's dreadfully high and mighty and all that," she said.
+"And the way he said 'Really?' when you and I spoke to him was
+enough to squelch even an Angelina Phinney.  But I didn't care so
+much.  Anybody, even a body as green as I am, can see that he
+actually IS somebody when he's at home, not a make-believe, like
+that Toronto man.  And I'm glad for our waiter's sake that he's
+gone somewhere else.  The poor thing bowed so low when he came in
+and was so terribly humble every time Mr. Heathcroft spoke to him.
+I should hate to feel I must say 'Thank you' when I was told that
+the food was 'rotten bad.'  I never thought 'rotten' was a nice
+word, but all these English folks say it.  I heard that pretty
+English girl over there tell her father that it was a 'jolly rotten
+mornin',' and she's as nice and sweet as she can be.  Well, I'm
+learnin' fast, Hosy.  I can see a woman smoke a cigarette now and
+not shiver--much.  Old Bridget Doyle up in West Bayport, used to
+smoke a pipe and the whole town talked about it.  She'd be right at
+home in that sittin'-room they call a 'Lounge' after dinner,
+wouldn't she?"
+
+My acquaintance with A. Carleton Heathcroft, which appeared to have
+ended almost as soon as it began, was renewed in an odd way.  I was
+in the "Smoke-Room" after dinner the third evening out, enjoying a
+cigar and idly listening to the bidding for pools on the ship's
+run, that time-honored custom which helps the traveling gentleman
+of sporting proclivities to kill time and lose money.  On board the
+"Plutonia," with its unusually large quota of millionaires and
+personages, the bidding was lively and the prices paid for favored
+numbers high.  Needless to say I was not one of the bidders.  My
+interest was merely casual.
+
+The auctioneer that evening was a famous comedian with an
+international reputation and his chatter, as he urged his hearers
+to higher bids, was clever and amusing.  I was listening to it and
+smiling at the jokes when a voice at my elbow said:
+
+"Five pounds."
+
+I turned and saw that the speaker was Heathcroft.  His monocle was
+in his eye, a cigarette was between his fingers and he looked as if
+he had been newly washed and ironed and pressed from head to foot.
+He nodded carelessly and I bowed in return.
+
+"Five pounds," repeated Mr. Heathcroft.
+
+The auctioneer acknowledged the bid and proceeded to urge his
+audience on to higher flights.  The flights were made and my
+companion capped each with one more lofty.  Eight, nine, ten pounds
+were bid.  Heathcroft bid eleven.  Someone at the opposite side of
+the room bid twelve.  It seemed ridiculous to me.  Possibly my face
+expressed my feeling; at any rate something caused the immaculate
+gentleman in the next chair to address me instead of the
+auctioneer.
+
+"I say," he said, "that's running a bit high, isn't it?"
+
+"It seems so to me," I replied.  "The number is five hundred and
+eighty-six and I think we shall do better than that."
+
+"Oh, do you!  Really!  And why do you think so, may I ask?"
+
+"Because we are having a remarkably smooth sea and a favorable
+wind."
+
+"Oh, but you forget the fog.  There's quite a bit of fog about us
+now, isn't there."
+
+I wish I could describe the Heathcroft manner of saying "Isn't
+there."  I can't, however; there is no use trying.
+
+"It will amount to nothing," I answered.  "The glass is high and
+there is no indication of bad weather.  Our run this noon was five
+hundred and ninety-one, you remember."
+
+"Yes.  But we did have extraordinarily good weather for that."
+
+"Why, not particularly good.  We slowed down about midnight.  There
+was a real fog then and the glass was low.  The second officer told
+me it dropped very suddenly and there was a heavy sea running.  For
+an hour between twelve and one we were making not much more than
+half our usual speed."
+
+"Really!  That's interesting.  May I ask if you and the second
+officer are friends?"
+
+"Scarcely that.  He and I exchanged a few words on deck this
+morning, that's all."
+
+"But he told you about the fog and the--what is it--the glass, and
+all that.  Fancy! that's extremely odd.  I'm acquainted with the
+captain in a trifling sort of way; I sit at his table, I mean to
+say.  And I assure you he doesn't tell us a word.  And, by Jove, we
+cross-question him, too!  Rather!"
+
+I smiled.  I could imagine the cross-questioning.
+
+"I suppose the captain is obliged to be non-committal," I observed.
+"That's part of his job.  The second officer meant to be, I have no
+doubt, but perhaps my remarks showed that I was really interested
+in ships and the sea.  My father and grandfather, too, for that
+matter were seafaring men, both captains.  That may have made the
+second officer more communicative.  Not that he said anything of
+importance, of course."
+
+Mr. Heathcroft seemed very interested.  He actually removed his
+eyeglass.
+
+"Oh!" he exclaimed.  "You know something about it, then.  I thought
+it was extraordinary, but now I see.  And you think our run will be
+better than five hundred and eighty?"
+
+"It should be, unless there is a remarkable change.  This ship
+makes over six hundred, day after day, in good weather.  She should
+do at least six hundred by to-morrow noon, unless there is a sudden
+change, as I said."
+
+"But six hundred would be--it would be the high field, by Jove!"
+
+"Anything over five hundred and ninety-four would be that.  The
+numbers are very low to-night.  Far too low, I should say."
+
+Heathcroft was silent.  The auctioneer, having forced the bid on
+number five hundred and eighty-six up to thirteen pounds ten, was
+imploring his hearers not to permit a certain winner to be
+sacrificed at this absurd figure.
+
+"Fourteen pounds, gentlemen," he begged.  "For the sake of the wife
+and children, for the honor of the star spangled banner and the
+union jack,--DON'T hesitate--don't even stammer--below fourteen
+pounds."
+
+He looked in our direction as he said it.  Mr. Heathcroft made no
+sign.  He produced a gold cigarette box and extended it in my
+direction.
+
+"Will you?" he inquired.
+
+"No, thank you," I replied.  "I will smoke a cigar, if you don't
+mind."
+
+He did not appear to mind.  He lighted his cigarette, readjusted
+his monocle, and stared stonily at the gesticulating auctioneer.
+
+The bidding went on.  One by one the numbers were sold until all
+were gone.  Then the auctioneer announced that bids for the "high
+field," that is, any number above five hundred and ninety-four,
+were in order.  My companion suddenly came to life.
+
+"Ten pounds," he called.
+
+I started.  "For mercy sake, Mr. Heathcroft," I protested, "don't
+let anything I have said influence your bidding.  I may be entirely
+wrong."
+
+He turned and surveyed me through the eyeglass.
+
+"You may wish to bid yourself," he drawled.  "Careless of me.  So
+sorry.  Shall I withdraw the bid?"
+
+"No, no.  I'm not going to bid.  I only--"
+
+"Eleven pounds I am offered, gentlemen," shouted the auctioneer.
+"Eleven pounds!  It would be like robbing an orphan asylum.  Do I
+hear twelve?"
+
+He heard twelve immediately--from Mr. Heathcroft.
+
+Thirteen pounds were bid.  Evidently others shared my opinion
+concerning the value of the "high field."  Heathcroft promptly
+raised it to fourteen.  I ventured another protest.  So far as
+effect was concerned I might as well have been talking to one of
+the smoke-stacks.  The bidding was lively and lengthy.  At last the
+"high field" went to Mr. A. Carleton Heathcroft for twenty-one
+pounds, approximately one hundred and five dollars.  I thought it
+time for me to make my escape.  I was wondering where I should hide
+next day, when the run was announced.
+
+"Greatly obliged to you, I'm sure," drawled the fortunate bidder.
+"Won't you join me in a whisky and soda or something?"
+
+I declined the whisky and soda.
+
+"Sorry," said Mr. Heathcroft.  "Jolly grateful for putting me
+right, Mr.--er--"
+
+"Knowles is my name," I said.  He might have remembered it; I
+remembered his perfectly.
+
+"Of course--Knowles.  Thank you so much, Knowles.  Thank you and
+the second officer.  Nothing like having professional information--
+eh, what?  Rather!"
+
+There seemed to be no doubt in his mind that he was going to win.
+There was more than a doubt in mine.  I told Hephzy of my
+experience when I joined her in the Lounge.  My attempts to say
+"Really" and "Isn't it" and "Rather" in the Heathcroft manner and
+with the Heathcroft accent pleased her very much.  As to the result
+of my unpremeditated "tip" she was quite indifferent.
+
+"If he loses it will serve him good and right," she declared.
+"Gamblin's poor business and I sha'n't care if he does lose."
+
+"I shall," I observed.  "I feel responsible in a way and I shall be
+sorry."
+
+"'SO sorry,' you mean, Hosy.  That's what that blunderin' steward
+said when he stepped on my skirt and tore the gatherin' all loose.
+I told him he wasn't half as sorry as I was."
+
+But at noon next day, when the observation was taken and the run
+posted on the bulletin board the figure was six hundred and two.
+My "tip" had been a good one after all and A. Carleton Heathcroft,
+Esquire, was richer by some seven hundred dollars, even after the
+expenses of treating the "smoke-room" and feeing the smoke-room
+steward had been deducted.  I did not visit the smoke-room to share
+in the treat.  I feared I might be expected to furnish more
+professional information.  But that evening a bottle of vintage
+champagne was produced by our obsequious table steward.  "With Mr.
+'Eathcroft's compliments, sir, thank you, sir," announced the
+latter.
+
+Hephzibah looked at the gilt-topped bottle.
+
+"WHAT in the world will we do with it, Hosy?" she demanded.
+
+"Why, drink it, I suppose," I answered.  "It is the only thing we
+can do.  We can't send it back."
+
+"But you can't drink the whole of it, and I'm sure I sha'n't start
+in to be a drunkard at my age.  I'll take the least little bit of a
+drop, just to see what it tastes like.  I've read about champagne,
+just as I've read about lords and ladies, all my life, but I never
+expected to see either of 'em.  Well there!" after a very small sip
+from the glass, "there's another pet idea gone to smash.  A lord
+looks like Ase Tidditt, and champagne tastes like vinegar and soda.
+Tut! tut! tut! if I had to drink that sour stuff all my life I'd
+probably look like Asaph, too.  No wonder that Erkskine man is such
+a shriveled-up thing."
+
+I glanced toward the captain's table.  Mr. Heathcroft raised his
+glass.  I bowed and raised mine.  The group at that table, the
+captain included, were looking in my direction.  I judged that my
+smoke-room acquaintance had told them of my wonderful "tip."  I
+imagined I could see the sarcastic smile upon the captain's face.
+I did not care for that kind of celebrity.
+
+But the affair had one quite unexpected result.  The next forenoon
+as Hephzibah and I were reclining in our deck-chairs the captain
+himself, florid-faced, gray-bearded, gold-laced and grand, halted
+before us.
+
+"I believe your name is Knowles, sir," he said, raising his cap.
+
+"It is," I replied.  I wondered what in the world was coming next.
+Was he going to take me to task for talking with his second
+officer?
+
+"Your home is in Bayport, Massachusetts, I see by the passenger
+list," he went on.  "Is that Bayport on Cape Cod, may I ask?"
+
+"Yes," I replied, more puzzled than ever.
+
+"I once knew a Knowles from your town, sir.  He was a seafaring man
+like myself.  His name was Philander Knowles, and when I knew him
+he was commander of the bark 'Ranger.'"
+
+"He was my father," I said.
+
+Captain Stone extended his hand.
+
+"Mr. Knowles," he declared, "this is a great pleasure, sir.  I knew
+your father years ago when I was a young man, mate of one of our
+ships engaged in the Italian fruit trade.  He was very kind to me
+at that time.  I have never forgotten it.  May I sit down?"
+
+The chair next to ours happened to be unoccupied at the moment and
+he took it.  I introduced Hephzibah and we chatted for some time.
+The captain appeared delighted to meet the son of his old
+acquaintance.  Father and he had met in Messina--Father's ship was
+in the fruit trade also at that time--and something or other he had
+done to help young Stone had made a great impression on the latter.
+I don't know what the something was, whether it was monetary help
+or assistance in getting out of a serious scrape; Stone did not
+tell me and I didn't ask.  But, at any rate, the pair had become
+very friendly there and at subsequent meetings in the Mediterranean
+ports.  The captain asked all sorts of questions about Father, his
+life, his family and his death aboard the sinking "Monarch of the
+Seas."  Hephzibah furnished most of the particulars.  She
+remembered them well.
+
+Captain Stone nodded solemnly.
+
+"That is the way the master of a ship should die," he declared.
+"Your father, Mr. Knowles, was a man and he died like one.  He was
+my first American acquaintance and he gave me a new idea of
+Yankees--if you'll excuse my calling them that, sir."
+
+Hephzy had a comment to make.
+
+"There are SOME pretty fair Yankees," she observed, drily.  "ALL
+the good folks haven't moved back to England yet."
+
+The captain solemnly assured her that he was certain of it.
+
+"Though two of the best are on their way," I added, with a wink at
+Hephzy.  This attempt at humor was entirely lost.  Our companion
+said he presumed I referred to Mr. and Mrs. Van Hook, who sat next
+him at table.
+
+"And that leads me to ask if Miss Cahoon and yourself will not join
+us," he went on.  "I could easily arrange for two places."
+
+I looked at Hephzy.  Her face expressed decided disapproval and she
+shook her head.
+
+"Thank you, Captain Stone," I said; "but we have a table to
+ourselves and are very comfortable.  We should not think of
+troubling you to that extent."
+
+He assured us it would not be a trouble, but a pleasure.  We were
+firm in our refusal, however, and he ceased to urge.  He declared
+his intention of seeing that our quarters were adequate, offered to
+accompany us through the engine-rooms and the working portions of
+the ship whenever we wished, ordered the deck steward, who was all
+but standing on his head in obsequious desire to oblige, to take
+good care of us, shook hands once more, and went away.  Hephzibah
+drew a long breath.
+
+"My goodness!" she exclaimed; "sit at HIS table!  I guess not!
+There's another lord and his wife there, to say nothin' of the Van
+Hooks.  I'd look pretty, in my Cape Cod clothes, perched up there,
+wouldn't I!  A hen is all right in her place, but she don't belong
+in a peacock cage.  And they drink champagne ALL the time there;
+I've watched 'em.  No thank you, I'll stay in the henyard along
+with the everyday fowls."
+
+"Odd that he should have known Father," I observed.  "Well, I
+suppose the proper remark to make, under the circumstances, is that
+this is a small world.  That is what nine-tenths of Bayport would
+say."
+
+"It's what I say, too," declared Hephzy, with emphasis.  "Well,
+it's awful encouraging for us, isn't it."
+
+"Encouraging?  What do you mean?"
+
+"Why, I mean about Little Frank.  It makes me feel surer than ever
+that we shall run across him."
+
+I suppressed a groan.  "Hephzy," said I, "why on earth should the
+fact that Captain Stone knew my father encourage you to believe
+that we shall meet a person we never knew at all?"
+
+"Hosy, how you do talk!  If you and I, just cruisin' this way
+across the broadside of creation, run across a man that knew Cousin
+Philander thirty-nine years ago, isn't it just as reasonable to
+suppose we'll meet a child who was born twenty-one years ago?  I
+should say 'twas!  Hosy, I've had a presentiment about this cruise
+of ours:  We're SENT on it; that's what I think--we're sent.  Oh,
+you can laugh!  You'll see by and by.  THEN you won't laugh."
+
+"No, Hephzy," I admitted, resignedly, "I won't laugh then, I
+promise you.  If _I_ ever reach the stage where I see a Little
+Frank I promise you I sha'n't laugh.  I'll believe diseases of the
+brain are contagious, like the measles, and I'll send for a
+doctor."
+
+The captain met us again in the dining-room that evening.  He came
+over to our table and chatted for some time.  His visit caused
+quite a sensation.  Shipboard society is a little world by itself
+and the ship's captain is the head of it.  Persons who would, very
+likely, have passed Captain Stone on Fifth Avenue or Piccadilly
+without recognizing him now toadied to him as if he were a Czar,
+which, in a way, I suppose he is when afloat.  His familiarity with
+us shed a sort of reflected glory upon Hephzy and me.  Several of
+our fellow-passengers spoke to us that evening for the first time.
+
+A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire, was not among the Lounge habitues;
+the smoke-room was his accustomed haunt.  But the next forenoon as
+I leaned over the rail of the after promenade deck watching the
+antics of the "Stokers' Band" which was performing for the benefit
+of the second-class with an eye toward pennies and small silver
+from all classes, Heathcroft sauntered up and leaned beside me.  We
+exchanged good-mornings.  I thanked him for the wine.
+
+"Quite unnecessary, Knowles," he said.  "Least I could do, it seems
+to me.  I pulled quite a tidy bit from that inside information of
+yours; I did really.  Awfully obliged, and all that.  You seem to
+have a wide acquaintance among the officers.  That captain chap
+tells us he knew your father--the sailor one you told me of, you
+understand."
+
+Having had but one father I understood perfectly.  We chatted in a
+inconsequential way for a short time.  In the course of our
+conversation I happened to mention that I wrote, professionally.
+To my surprise Heathcroft was impressed.
+
+"Do you, really!" he exclaimed.  "That's interesting, isn't it now!
+I have a cousin who writes.  Don't know why she does it; she
+doesn't get her writings printed, but she keeps on.  It is a habit
+of hers.  Curious dissipation--eh, what?  Does that--er--Miss--that
+companion of yours, write also?"
+
+I laughed and informed him that writing was not one of Hephzibah's
+bad habits.
+
+"Extraordinary woman, isn't she," he said.  "I met her just now,
+walking about, and I happened to mention that I was taking the air.
+She said she wouldn't quarrel with me because of that.  The more I
+took the better she would like it; she could spare about a gale and
+a quarter and not feel--What did she call it?  Oh yes, 'scrimped.'
+What is 'scrimped,' may I ask?"
+
+I explained the meaning of "scrimped."  Heathcroft was much amused.
+
+"It WAS blowing a bit strong up forward there," he declared.  "That
+was a clever way of putting it, wasn't it?"
+
+"She is a clever woman," I said, shortly.
+
+Heathcroft did not enthuse.
+
+"Oh," he said dubiously.  "A relative of yours, I suppose."
+
+"A cousin, that's all."
+
+"One's relatives, particularly the feminine relatives, incline
+toward eccentricity as they grow older, don't you think.  I have an
+aunt down in Sussex, who is queer.  A good sort, too, no end of
+money, a big place and all that, but odd.  She and I get on well
+together--I am her pet, I suppose I may say--but, by Jove, she has
+quarreled with everyone else in the family.  I let her have her own
+way and it has convinced her that I am the only rational Heathcroft
+in existence.  Do you golf, Knowles?"
+
+"I attempt something in that line.  I doubt if my efforts should be
+called golf."
+
+"It is a rotten game when one is off form, isn't it.  If you are
+down in Sussex and I chance to be there I should be glad to have
+you play an eighteen with me.  Burglestone Bogs is the village.
+Anyone will direct you to the Manor.  If I'm not there, introduce
+yourself to my aunt.  Lady Kent Carey is the name.  She'll be jolly
+glad to welcome you if you tell her you know me.  I'm her sole
+interest in life, the greenhouses excepted, of course.  Cultivating
+roses and rearing me are her hobbies."
+
+I thought it improbable that the golfers of Burglestone Bogs would
+ever be put to shame by the brilliancy of my game.  I thanked him,
+however.  I was surprised at the invitation.  I had been under the
+impression, derived from my reading, that the average Englishman
+required an acquaintance of several months before proffering
+hospitality.  No doubt Mr. Heathcroft was not an average
+Englishman.
+
+"Will you be in London long?" he asked.  "I suppose not.  You're
+probably off on a hurricane jaunt from one end of the Continent to
+the other.  Two hours at Stratford, bowing before Shakespeare's
+tomb, a Derby through the cathedral towns, and then the Channel
+boat, eh?  That's the American way, isn't it?"
+
+"It is not our way," I replied.  "We have no itinerary.  I don't
+know where we may go or how long we shall stay."
+
+Evidently I rose again in his estimation.
+
+"Have you picked your hotel in London?" he inquired.
+
+"No.  I shall be glad of any help you may be kind enough to give
+along that line."
+
+He reflected.  "There's a decent little hotel in Mayfair," he said,
+after a moment.  "A private sort of shop.  I don't use it myself;
+generally put up at the club, I mean to say.  But my aunt and my
+sisters do.  They're quite mad about it.  It is--Ah--Bancroft's--
+that's it, Bancroft's Hotel.  I'll give you the address before I
+leave."
+
+I thanked him again.  He was certainly trying to be kind.  No doubt
+the kindness was due to his sense of obligation engendered by what
+he called my "professional information," but it was kindness all
+the same.
+
+The first bugle for luncheon sounded.  Mr. Heathcroft turned to go.
+
+"I'll see you again, Knowles," he said, "and give you the hotel
+street and number and all that.  Hope you'll like it.  If you
+shouldn't the Langham is not bad--quiet and old-fashioned, but
+really very fair.  And if you care for something more public and--
+Ah--American, there are always the Savoy and the Cecil.  Here is my
+card.  If I can be of any service to you while you are in town drop
+me a line at my clubs, either of them.  I must be toddling.  By,
+by."
+
+He "toddled" and I sought my room to prepare for luncheon.
+
+Two days more and our voyage was at an end.  We saw more of our
+friend the captain during those days and of Heathcroft as well.
+The former fulfilled his promise of showing us through the ship,
+and Hephzy and I, descending greasy iron stairways and twisting
+through narrow passages, saw great rooms full of mighty machinery,
+and a cavern where perspiring, grimy men, looking but half-human in
+the red light from the furnace mouths, toiled ceaselessly with
+pokers and shovels.
+
+We stood at the forward end of the promenade deck at night, looking
+out into the blackness, and heard the clang of four bells from the
+shadows at the bow, the answering clang from the crow's-nest on the
+foremast, and the weird cry of "All's well" from the lookouts.
+This experience made a great impression on us both.  Hephzy
+expressed my feeling exactly when she said in a hushed whisper:
+
+"There, Hosy! for the first time I feel as if I really was on board
+a ship at sea.  My father and your father and all our men-folks for
+ever so far back have heard that 'All's well'--yes, and called it,
+too, when they first went as sailors.  Just think of it!  Why
+Father was only sixteen when he shipped; just a boy, that's all.
+I've heard him say 'All's well' over and over again; 'twas a kind
+of byword with him.  This whole thing seems like somethin' callin'
+to me out of the past and gone.  Don't you feel it?"
+
+I felt it, as she did.  The black night, the quiet, the loneliness,
+the salt spray on our faces and the wash of the waves alongside,
+the high singsong wail from lookout to lookout--it WAS a voice from
+the past, the call of generations of sea-beaten, weather-worn,
+brave old Cape Codders to their descendants, reminding the latter
+of a dead and gone profession and of thousands of fine, old ships
+which had plowed the ocean in the days when "Plutonias" were
+unknown.
+
+We attended the concert in the Lounge, and the ball on the
+promenade deck which followed.  Mr. Heathcroft, who seemed to have
+made the acquaintance of most of the pretty girls on board,
+informed us in the intervals between a two-step and a tango, that
+he had been "dancing madly."
+
+"You Americans are extraordinary people," he added.  "Your dances
+are as extraordinary as your food.  That Mrs. Van Hook, who sits
+near me at table, was indulging in--what do you call them?--oh,
+yes, griddle cakes--this morning.  Begged me to try them.  I
+declined.  Horrid things they were.  Round, like a--like a washing-
+flannel, and swimming in treacle.  Frightful!"
+
+"And that man," commented Hephzy, "eats cold toast and strawberry
+preserves for breakfast and washes 'em down with three cups of tea.
+And he calls nice hot pancakes frightful!"
+
+At ten o'clock in the morning of the sixth day we sighted the Irish
+coast through the dripping haze which shrouded it and at four we
+dropped anchor abreast the breakwater of the little Welsh village
+which was to be our landing place.  The sun was shining dimly by
+this time and the rounded hills and the mountains beyond them, the
+green slopes dotted with farms and checkered with hedges and stone
+walls, the gray stone fort with its white-washed barrack buildings,
+the spires and chimneys of the village in the hollow--all these
+combined to make a picture which was homelike and yet not like
+home, foreign and yet strangely familiar.
+
+We leaned over the rail and watched the trunks and boxes and bags
+and bundles shoot down the slide into the baggage and mail-boat
+which lay alongside.  Hephzy was nervous.
+
+"They'll smash everything to pieces--they surely will!" she
+declared.  "Either that or smash themselves, I don't know which is
+liable to happen first.  Mercy on us!  Did you see that?  That box
+hit the man right in the back!"
+
+"It didn't hurt him," I said, reassuringly.  "It was nothing but a
+hat-box."
+
+"Hurt HIM--no!  But I guess likely it didn't do the hat much good.
+I thought baggage smashin' was an American institution, but they've
+got some experts over here.  Oh, my soul and body! there goes MY
+trunk--end over end, of course.  Well, I'm glad there's no eggs in
+it, anyway.  Josiah Dimick always used to carry two dozen eggs to
+his daughter-in-law every time he went to Boston.  He had 'em in a
+box once and put the box on the seat alongside of him and a big fat
+woman came and sat--Oh! that was your trunk, Hosy!  Did you hear it
+hit?  I expect every one of those 'English Poets' went from top to
+bottom then, right through all your clothes.  Never mind, I suppose
+it's all part of travelin'."
+
+Mr. Heathcroft, looking more English than ever in his natty top
+coat, and hat at the back of his head, sauntered up.  He was, for
+him, almost enthusiastic.
+
+"Looking at the water, were you?" he queried.  "Glorious color,
+isn't it.  One never sees a sea like that or a sky like that
+anywhere but here at home."
+
+Hephzy looked at the sea and sky.  It was plain that she wished to
+admire, for his sake, but her admiration was qualified.
+
+"Don't you think if they were a little brighter and bluer they'd be
+prettier?" she asked.
+
+Heathcroft stared at her through his monocle.
+
+"Bluer?" he repeated.  "My dear woman, there are no skies as blue
+as the English skies.  They are quite celebrated--really."
+
+He sauntered on again, evidently disgusted at our lack of
+appreciation.
+
+"He must be color-blind," I observed.  Hephzy was more charitable.
+
+"I guess likely everybody's home things are best," she said.  "I
+suppose this green-streaked water and those gray clouds do look
+bright and blue to him.  We must make allowances, Hosy.  He never
+saw an August mornin' at Bayport, with a northwest wind blowin' and
+the bay white and blue to the edge of all creation.  That's been
+denied him.  He means well, poor thing; he don't know any better."
+
+An hour later we landed from the passenger tender at a stone pier
+covered with substantial stone buildings.  Uniformed custom
+officers and uniformed policemen stood in line as we came up the
+gang-plank.  Behind them, funny little locomotives attached to
+queer cars which appeared to be all doors, puffed and panted.
+
+Hephzibah looked about her.
+
+"Yes," she said, with conviction.  "I'm believin' it more and more
+all the time.  It is England, just like the pictures.  How many
+times I've seen engines like that in pictures, and cars like that,
+too.  I never thought I'd ride in 'em.  My goodness me?  Hephzibah
+Jane Cahoon, you're in England--YOU are!  You needn't be afraid to
+turn over for fear of wakin' up, either.  You're awake and alive
+and in England!  Hosy," with a sudden burst of exuberance, "hold on
+to me tight.  I'm just as likely to wave my hat and hurrah as I am
+to do anything.  Hold on to me--tight."
+
+We got through the perfunctory customs examination without trouble.
+Our tickets provided by Campbell, included those for the railway
+journey to London.  I secured a first-class compartment at the
+booking-office and a guard conducted us to it and closed the door.
+Another short delay and then, with a whistle as queer and
+unfamiliar as its own appearance, the little locomotive began to
+pull our train out of the station.
+
+Hephzy leaned back against the cushions with a sigh of supreme
+content.
+
+"And now," said I, "for London.  London! think of it, Hephzy!"
+
+Hephzy shook her head.
+
+"I'm thinkin' of it," she said.  "London--the biggest city in the
+world!  Who knows, Hosy?  France is such a little ways off;
+probably Little Frank has been to London a hundred times.  He may
+even be there now.  Who knows?  I shouldn't be surprised if we met
+him right in London.  I sha'n't be surprised at anything anymore.
+I'm in England and on my way to London; that's surprise enough.
+NOTHIN' could be more wonderful than that."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+In Which We Are Received at Bancroft's Hotel and I Receive a Letter
+
+
+It was late when we reached London, nearly eleven o'clock.  The
+long train journey was a delight.  During the few hours of daylight
+and dusk we peered through the car windows at the scenery flying
+past; at the villages, the green fields, the hedges, the neat, trim
+farms.
+
+"Everything looks as if it has been swept and dusted," declared
+Hephzy.  "There aren't any waste places at all.  What do they do
+with their spare land?"
+
+"They haven't any," I answered.  "Land is too valuable to waste.
+There's another thatched roof.  It looks like those in the
+pictures, doesn't it."
+
+Hephzy nodded.  "Just exactly," she said.  "Everything looks like
+the pictures.  I feel as if I'd seen it all before.  If that engine
+didn't toot so much like a tin whistle I should almost think it was
+a picture.  But it isn't--it isn't; it's real, and you and I are
+part of it."
+
+We dined on the train.  Night came and our window-pictures changed
+to glimpses of flashing lights interspersed with shadowy blotches
+of darkness.  At length the lights became more and more frequent
+and began to string out in long lines marking suburban streets.
+Then the little locomotive tooted its tin whistle frantically and
+we rolled slowly under a great train shed--Paddington Station and
+London itself.
+
+Amid the crowd on the platform Hephzy and I stood, two lone
+wanderers not exactly sure what we should do next.  About us the
+busy crowd jostled and pushed.  Relatives met relatives and fathers
+and mothers met sons and daughters returning home after long
+separations.  No one met us, no one was interested in us at all,
+except the porters and the cabmen.  I selected a red-faced chunky
+porter who was a decidedly able person, apparently capable of
+managing anything except the letter h.  The acrobatics which he
+performed with that defenceless consonant were marvelous.  I have
+said that I selected him; that he selected me would be nearer the
+truth.
+
+"Cab, sir.  Yes, sir, thank you, sir," he said.  "Leave that to me,
+sir.  Will you 'ave a fourwheeler or a hordinary cab, sir?"
+
+I wasn't exactly certain what a fourwheeler might be.  I had read
+about them often enough, but I had never seen one pictured and
+properly labeled.  For the matter of that, all the vehicles in
+sight appeared to have four wheels.  So I said, at a venture, that
+I thought an ordinary cab would do.
+
+"Yes, sir; 'ere you are, sir.  Your boxes are in the luggage van,
+I suppose, sir."
+
+I took it for granted he meant my trunks and those were in what I,
+in my ignorance, would have called a baggage car:
+
+"Yes, sir," said the porter.  "If the lidy will be good enough to
+wait 'ere, sir, you and I will go hafter the boxes, sir."
+
+Cautioning Hephzy not to stir from her moorings on any account I
+followed my guide to the "luggage van."  This crowded car disgorged
+our two steamer trunks and, my particular porter having corraled a
+fellow-craftsman to help him, the trunks were dragged to the
+waiting cab.
+
+I found Hephzy waiting, outwardly calm, but inwardly excited.
+
+"I saw one at last," she declared.  "I'd about come to believe
+there wasn't such a thing, but there is; I just saw one."
+
+"One--what?" I asked, puzzled.
+
+"An Englishman with side-whiskers.  They wasn't as big and long as
+those in the pictures, but they were side-whiskers.  I feel better.
+When you've been brought up to believe every Englishman wore 'em,
+it was kind of humiliatin' not to see one single set."
+
+I paid my porters--I learned afterward that, like most Americans, I
+had given them altogether too much--and we climbed into the cab
+with our bags.  The "boxes," or trunks, were on the driver's seat
+and on the roof.
+
+"Where to, sir?" asked the driver.
+
+I hesitated.  Even at this late date I had not made up my mind
+exactly "where to."  My decision was a hasty one.
+
+"Why--er--to--to Bancroft's Hotel," I said.  "Blithe Street, just
+off Piccadilly."
+
+I think the driver was somewhat astonished.  Very few of his
+American passengers selected Bancroft's as a stopping place, I
+imagine.  However, his answer was prompt.
+
+"Yes, sir, thank you, sir," he said.  The cab rolled out of the
+station.
+
+"I suppose," said Hephzy, reflectively, "if you had told him or
+that porter man that they were everlastin' idiots they'd have
+thanked you just the same and called you 'sir' four times besides."
+
+"No doubt they would."
+
+"Yes, sir, I'm perfectly sure they would--thank you, sir.  So this
+is London.  It doesn't look such an awful lot different from Boston
+or New York so far."
+
+But Bancroft's, when we reached it, was as unlike a Boston or New
+York hotel as anything could be.  A short, quiet, eminently
+respectable street, leading from Piccadilly; a street fenced in, on
+both sides, by three-story, solid, eminently respectable houses of
+brick and stone.  No signs, no street cars, no crowds, no glaring
+lights.  Merely a gas lamp burning over the fanlight of a spotless
+white door, and the words "Bancroft's Hotel" in mosaic lettering
+set in a white stone slab in the pavement.
+
+The cab pulled up before the white door and Hephzy and I looked out
+of the window.  The same thought was in both our minds.
+
+"This can't be the place," said I.
+
+"This isn't a hotel, is it, Hosy?" asked Hephzy.
+
+The white door opened and a brisk, red-cheeked English boy in
+uniform hastened to the cab.  Before he reached it I had seen the
+lettering in the pavement and knew that, in spite of appearances,
+we had reached our destination.
+
+"This is it, Hephzy," I said.  "Come."
+
+The boy opened the cab door and we alighted.  Then in the doorway
+of "Bancroft's" appeared a stout, red-faced and very dignified
+person, also in uniform.  This person wore short "mutton-chop"
+whiskers and had the air of a member of the Royal Family; that is
+to say, the air which a member of the Royal Family might be
+expected to have.
+
+"Good evening, sir," said the personage, bowing respectfully.  The
+bow was a triumph in itself; not too low, not abject in the least,
+not familiar; a bow which implied much, but promised nothing; a bow
+which seemed to demand references, but was far from repellant or
+bullying.  Altogether a wonderful bow.
+
+"Good evening," said I.  "This is Bancroft's Hotel, is it not?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"I wish to secure rooms for this lady and myself, if possible."
+
+"Yes, sir.  This way, sir, if you please.  Richard," this to the
+boy and in a tone entirely different--the tone of a commanding
+officer to a private--"see to the gentleman's luggage.  This way,
+sir; thank you, sir."
+
+I hesitated.  "The cabman has not been paid," I stammered.  I was a
+trifle overawed by the grandeur of the mutton-chops and the "sir."
+
+"I will attend to that, sir.  If you will be good enough to come
+in, sir."
+
+We entered and found ourselves in a narrow hall, old-fashioned,
+homelike and as spotless as the white door.  Two more uniforms
+bowed before us.
+
+"Thank you, sir," said the member of the Royal Family.  It was with
+difficulty that I repressed the desire to tell him he was quite
+welcome.  His manner of thanking me seemed to imply that we had
+conferred a favor.
+
+"I will speak to Mr. Jameson," he went on, with another bow.  Then
+he left us.
+
+"Is--is that Mr. Bancroft?" whispered Hephzy.
+
+I shook my head.  "It must be the Prince of Wales, at least," I
+whispered in return.  "I infer that there is no Mr. Bancroft."
+
+It developed that I was right.  Mr. Jameson was the proprietor of
+the hotel, and Mr. Jameson was a pleasant, refined, quiet man of
+middle age.  He appeared from somewhere or other, ascertained our
+wants, stated that he had a few vacant rooms and could accommodate
+us.
+
+"Do you wish a sitting-room?" he asked.
+
+I was not sure.  I wanted comfort, that I knew, and I said so.  I
+mentioned, as an afterthought, that Mr. Heathcroft had recommended
+Bancroft's to me.
+
+The Heathcroft name seemed to settle everything.  Mr. Jameson
+summoned the representative of royalty and spoke to him in a low
+tone.  The representative--his name, I learned later, was Henry and
+he was butler and major-domo at Bancroft's--bowed once more.  A few
+minutes later we were shown to an apartment on the second floor
+front, a room large, old-fashioned, furnished with easy-chairs,
+tables and a big, comfortable sofa.  Sofa and easy-chairs were
+covered with figured, glazed chintz.
+
+"Your sitting-room, sir," said Henry.  "Your bedrooms open hoff it,
+sir.  The chambermaid will 'ave them ready in a moment, sir.
+Richard and the porter will bring up your luggage and the boxes.
+Will you and the lady wish supper, sir?  Thank you, sir.  Very
+good, sir.  Will you require a fire, sir?"
+
+The room was a trifle chilly.  There was a small iron grate at its
+end, and a coal fire ready to kindle.  I answered that a fire might
+be enjoyable.
+
+"Yes, sir," said Henry.  "Himmediately, sir."
+
+Soon Hephzy and I were drinking hot tea and eating bread and butter
+and plum cake before a snapping fire.  George, the waiter, had
+brought us the tea and accessories and set the table; the
+chambermaid had prepared the bedrooms; Henry had supervised
+everything.
+
+"Well," observed Hephzy, with a sigh of content, "I feel better
+satisfied every minute.  When we were in the hack--cab, I mean--I
+couldn't realize we weren't ridin' through an American city.  The
+houses and sidewalks and everything--what I could see of 'em--
+looked so much like Boston that I was sort of disappointed.  I
+wanted it to be more different, some way.  But this IS different.
+This may be a hotel--I suppose likely 'tis--but it don't seem like
+one, does it?  If it wasn't for the Henry and that Richard and
+that--what's his name?  George--and all the rest, I should think I
+was in Cap'n Cyrus Whittaker's settin-room back home.  The
+furniture looks like Cap'n Cy's and the pictures look like those he
+has, and--and everything looks as stiff and starched and old-
+fashioned as can be.  But the Cap'n never had a Henry.  No, sirree,
+Henry don't belong on Cape Cod!  Hosy," with a sudden burst of
+confidence, "it's a good thing I saw that Lord Erskine first.  If I
+hadn't found out what a live lord looked like I'd have thought
+Henry was one sure.  Do you really think it's right for me to call
+him by his Christian name?  It seems sort of--sort of irreverent,
+somehow."
+
+I wish it were possible for me to describe in detail our first days
+at Bancroft's.  If it were not for the fact that so many really
+important events and happenings remain to be described--if it were
+not that the most momentous event of my life, the event that was
+the beginning of the great change in that life--if that event were
+not so close at hand, I should be tempted to linger upon those
+first few days.  They were strange and wonderful and funny to
+Hephzibah and me.  The strangeness and the wonder wore off
+gradually; the fun still sticks in my memory.
+
+To have one's bedroom invaded at an early hour by a chambermaid
+who, apparently quite oblivious of the fact that the bed was still
+occupied by a male, proceeded to draw the curtains, bring the hot
+water and fill the tin tub for my bath, was astonishing and funny
+enough, Hephzibah's comments on the proceeding were funnier still.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me," she demanded, "that that hussy was brazen
+enough to march right in here before you got up?"
+
+"Yes," I said.  "I am only thankful that I HADN'T got up."
+
+"Well!  I must say!  Did she fetch the water in a garden waterin'-
+pot, same as she did to me?"
+
+"Just the same."
+
+"And did she pour it into that--that flat dishpan on the floor and
+tell you your 'bawth' was ready?"
+
+"She did."
+
+"Humph!  Of all the--I hope she cleared out THEN?"
+
+"She did."
+
+"That's a mercy, anyhow.  Did you take a bath in that dishpan?"
+
+"I tried."
+
+"Well, I didn't.  I'd as soon try to bathe in a saucer.  I'd have
+felt as if I'd needed a teaspoon to dip up the half pint of water
+and pour it over me.  Don't these English folks have real bathtubs
+for grown-up people?"
+
+I did not know, then.  Later I learned that Bancroft's Hotel
+possessed several bathrooms, and that I might use one if I
+preferred.  Being an American I did so prefer.  Most of the guests,
+being English, preferred the "dishpans."
+
+We learned to accept the early morning visits of the chambermaid as
+matters of course.  We learned to order breakfast the night before
+and to eat it in our sitting-room.  We tasted a "grilled sole" for
+the first time, and although Hephzy persisted in referring to it as
+"fried flatfish" we liked the taste.  We became accustomed to being
+waited upon, to do next to nothing for ourselves, and I found that
+a valet who laid out my evening clothes, put the studs in my
+shirts, selected my neckties, and saw that my shoes were polished,
+was a rather convenient person to have about.  Hephzy fumed a good
+deal at first; she declared that she felt ashamed, an able-bodied
+woman like her, to sit around with her hands folded and do nothing.
+She asked her maid a great many questions, and the answers she
+received explained some of her puzzles.
+
+"Do you know what that poor thing gets a week?" she observed,
+referring to the maid.  "Eight shillin's--two dollars a week,
+that's what she gets.  And your valet man doesn't get any more.  I
+can see now how Mr. Jameson can afford to keep so much help at the
+board he charges.  I pay that Susanna Wixon thing at Bayport three
+dollars and she doesn't know enough to boil water without burnin'
+it on, scarcely.  And Peters--why in the world do they call women
+by their last names?--Peters, she's the maid, says it's a real nice
+place and she's quite satisfied.  Well, where ignorance is bliss
+it's foolish to be sensible, I suppose; but _I_ wouldn't fetch and
+carry for the President's wife, to say nothin' of an everyday body
+like me, for two dollars a week."
+
+We learned that the hotel dining-room was a "Coffee Room."
+
+"Nobody with sense would take coffee there--not more'n once, they
+wouldn't," declared Hephzy.  "I asked Peters why they didn't call
+it the 'Tea Room' and be done with it.  She said because it was the
+Coffee Room.  I suppose likely that was an answer, but I felt a
+good deal as if I'd come out of the same hole I went in at.  She
+thanked me for askin' her, though; she never forgets that."
+
+We became accustomed to addressing the lordly Henry by his
+Christian name and found him a most obliging person.  He, like
+everyone else, had instantly recognized us as Americans, and,
+consequently, was condescendingly kind to strangers from a distant
+and barbarous country.
+
+"What SORT of place do they think the States are?" asked Hephzy.
+"That's what they always call home--'the States'--and they seem to
+think it's about as big as a pocket handkerchief.  That Henry asked
+me if the red Indians were numerous where we lived.  I said no--as
+soon as I could say anything; I told him there was only one tribe
+of Red Men in town and they were white.  I guess he thought I was
+crazy, but it don't make any difference.  And Peters said she had a
+cousin in a place called Chicago and did I know him.  What do you
+think of that?"
+
+"What did you tell her?" I inquired.
+
+"Hey?  Oh, I told her that, bein' as Chicago was a thousand miles
+from Bayport, I hadn't had time to do much visitin' there.  I told
+her the truth, but she didn't believe it.  I could see she didn't.
+She thinks Chicago and San Francisco and New York and Boston are
+nests of wigwams in the same patch of woods and all hands that live
+there have been scalped at least once.  SUCH ignorance!"
+
+Henry, at my request, procured seats for us at one of the London
+theaters.  There we saw a good play, splendidly acted, and Hephzy
+laughed and wept at the performance.  As usual, however, she had a
+characteristic comment to make.
+
+"Why do they call the front seats the 'stalls'?" she whispered to
+me between the acts.  "Stalls!  The idea!  I'm no horse.  Perhaps
+they call 'em that because folks are donkeys enough to pay two
+dollars and a half for the privilege of sittin' in 'em.  Don't YOU
+be so extravagant again, Hosy."
+
+One of the characters in the play was supposed to be an American
+gentleman, and his behavior and dress and speech stirred me to
+indignation.  I asked the question which every American asks under
+similar circumstances.
+
+"Why on earth," I demanded, "do they permit that fellow to make
+such a fool of himself?  He yells and drawls and whines through his
+nose and wears clothes which would make an American cry.  That last
+scene was supposed to be a reception and he wore an outing suit and
+no waistcoat.  Do they suppose such a fellow would be tolerated in
+respectable society in the United States?"
+
+And now it was Hephzy's turn to be philosophical.
+
+"I guess likely the answer to that is simple enough," she said.
+"He's what they think an American ought to be, even if he isn't.
+If he behaved like a human bein' he wouldn't be the kind of
+American they expect on the stage.  After all, he isn't any worse
+than the Englishmen we have in the Dramatic Society's plays at
+home.  I haven't seen one of that kind since I got here; and I've
+given up expectin' to--unless you and I go to some crazy asylum--
+which isn't likely."
+
+We rode on the tops of busses, we visited the Tower, and
+Westminster Abbey, and Saint Paul's.  We saw the Horse Guard
+sentinels on duty in Whitehall, and watched the ceremony of guard
+changing at St. James's.  Hephzy was impressed, in her own way, by
+the uniforms of the "Cold Streams."
+
+"There!" she exclaimed, "I've seen 'em walk.  Now I feel better.
+When they stood there, with those red jackets and with the fur hats
+on their heads, I couldn't make myself believe they hadn't been
+taken out of a box for children to play with.  I wanted to get up
+close so as to see if their feet were glued to round pieces of wood
+like Noah's and Ham's and Japhet's in the Ark.  But they aren't
+wood, they're alive.  They're men, not toys.  I'm glad I've seen
+'em.  THEY are satisfyin'.  They make me more reconciled to a King
+with a Derby hat on."
+
+She and I had stood in the crowd fringing the park mall and seen
+King George trot by on horseback.  His Majesty's lack of crown and
+robes and scepter had been a great disappointment to Hephzy; I
+think she expected the crown at least.
+
+I had, of course, visited the London office of my publishers, in
+Camford Street and had found Mr. Matthews, the manager, expecting
+me.  Jim Campbell had cabled and written of my coming and Matthews'
+welcome was a warm one.  He was kindness itself.  All my financial
+responsibilities were to be shifted to his shoulders.  I was to use
+the office as a bank, as a tourist agency, even as a guide's
+headquarters.  He put his clerks at my disposal; they would conduct
+us on sight-seeing expeditions whenever and wherever we wished.  He
+even made out a list of places in and about London which we, as
+strangers, should see.
+
+His cordiality and thoughtfulness were appreciated.  They made me
+feel less alone and less dependent upon my own resources.  Campbell
+had arranged that all letters addressed to me in America should be
+forwarded to the Camford Street office, and Matthews insisted that
+I should write my own letters there.  I began to make it a practice
+to drop in at the office almost every morning before starting on
+the day's round of sight-seeing.
+
+Bancroft's Hotel also began to seem less strange and more homelike.
+Mr. Jameson, the proprietor, was a fine fellow--quiet, refined, and
+pleasant.  He, too, tried to help us in every possible way.  His
+wife, a sweet-faced Englishwoman, made Hephzy's acquaintance and
+Hephzy liked her extremely.
+
+"She's as nice as she can be," declared Hephzy.  "If it wasn't that
+she says 'Fancy!' and 'Really!' instead of 'My gracious!' and 'I
+want to know!' I should think I was talking to a Cape Codder, the
+best kind of one.  She's got sense, too.  SHE don't ask about 'red
+Indians' in Bayport."
+
+Among the multitude of our new experiences we learned the value of
+a judicious "tip."  We had learned something concerning tips on the
+"Plutonia"; Campbell had coached us concerning those, and we were
+provided with a schedule of rates--so much to the bedroom steward,
+so much to the stewardess, to the deck steward, to the "boots," and
+all the rest.  But tipping in London we were obliged to adjust for
+ourselves, and the result of our education was surprising.
+
+At Saint Paul's an elderly and impressively haughty person in a
+black robe showed us through the Crypt and delivered learned
+lectures before the tombs of Nelson and Wellington.  His appearance
+and manner were somewhat awe-inspiring, especially to Hephzy, who
+asked me, in a whisper, if I thought likely he was a bishop or a
+canon or something.  When the round was ended and we were leaving
+the Crypt she saw me put a hand in my pocket.
+
+"Mercy sakes, Hosy," she whispered.  "You aren't goin' to offer him
+money, are you?  He'll be insulted.  I'd as soon think of givin'
+Mr. Partridge, our minister, money for takin' us to the cemetery to
+see the first settlers' gravestones.  Don't you do it.  He'll throw
+it back at you.  I'll be so ashamed."
+
+But I had been watching our fellow-sight-seers as they filed out,
+and when our time came I dropped two shillings in the hand of the
+black-robed dignitary.  The hand did not spurn the coins, which I--
+rather timidly, I confess--dropped into it.  Instead it closed upon
+them tightly and the haughty lips thanked me, not profusely, not
+even smilingly, but thanked me, nevertheless.
+
+At our visit to the Law Courts a similar experience awaited us.
+Another dignified and elderly person, who, judging by his
+appearance, should have been a judge at least, not only accepted
+the shilling I gave him, but bowed, smiled and offered to conduct
+us to the divorce court.
+
+"A very interesting case there, sir, just now," he murmured,
+confidingly.  "Very interesting and sensational indeed, sir.  You
+and the lady will enjoy it, I'm sure, sir.  All Americans do."
+
+Hephzy was indignant.
+
+"Well!" she exclaimed, as we emerged upon the Strand.  "Well!  I
+must say!  What sort of folks does he think we are, I'd like to
+know.  Divorce case!  I'd be ashamed to hear one.  And that old man
+bein' so wicked and ridiculous for twenty-five cents!  Hosy, I do
+believe if you'd given him another shillin' he'd have introduced us
+to that man in the red robe and cotton wool wig--What did he call
+him?--Oh, yes, the Lord Chief Justice.  And I suppose you'd have
+had to tip HIM, too."
+
+The first two weeks of our stay in London came to an end.  Our
+plans were still as indefinite as ever.  How long we should stay,
+where we should go next, what we should do when we decided where
+that "next" was to be--all these questions we had not considered at
+all.  I, for my part, was curiously uninterested in the future.  I
+was enjoying myself in an idle, irresponsible way, and I could not
+seem to concentrate my thoughts upon a definite course of action.
+If I did permit myself to think I found my thoughts straying to my
+work and there they faced the same impassable wall.  I felt no
+inclination to write; I was just as certain as ever that I should
+never write again.  Thinking along this line only brought back the
+old feeling of despondency.  So I refused to think and, taking
+Jim's advice, put work and responsibility from my mind.  We would
+remain in London as long as we were contented there.  When the
+spirit moved we would move with it--somewhere--either about England
+or to the Continent.  I did not know which and I did not care; I
+did not seem to care much about anything.
+
+Hephzy was perfectly happy.  London to her was as wonderful as
+ever.  She never tired of sight-seeing, and on occasions when I
+felt disinclined to leave the hotel she went out alone, shopping or
+wandering about the streets.
+
+She scarcely mentioned "Little Frank" and I took care not to remind
+her of that mythical youth.  I had expected her to see him on every
+street corner, to be brought face to face with unsuspecting young
+Englishmen and made to ask ridiculous questions which might lead to
+our being taken in charge as a pair of demented foreigners.  But my
+forebodings were not realized.  London was so huge and the crowds
+so great that even Hephzy's courage faltered.  To select Little
+Frank from the multitude was a task too great, even for her, I
+imagine.  At any rate, she did not make the attempt, and the belief
+that we were "sent" upon our pilgrimage for that express purpose
+she had not expressed since our evening on the train.
+
+The third week passed.  I was growing tired of trotting about.  Not
+tired of London in particular.  The gray, dingy, historic,
+wonderful old city was still fascinating.  It is hard to conceive
+of an intelligent person's ever growing weary of the narrow streets
+with the familiar names--Fleet Street, Fetter Lane, Pudding Lane
+and all the rest--names as familiar to a reader of history or
+English fiction as that of his own town.  To wander into an unknown
+street and to learn that it is Shoreditch, or to look up at an
+ancient building and discover it to be the Charterhouse, were ever
+fresh miracles to me, as I am sure they must be to every book-
+loving American.  No, I was not tired of London.  Had I come there
+under other circumstances I should have been as happy and content
+as Hephzy herself.  But, now that the novelty was wearing off, I
+was beginning to think again, to think of myself--the very thing I
+had determined, and still meant, not to do.
+
+One afternoon I drifted into the Camford Street office.  Hephzy had
+left me at Piccadilly Circus and was now, it was safe to presume,
+enjoying a delightful sojourn amid the shops of Regent and Oxford
+Streets.  When she returned she would have a half-dozen purchases
+to display, a two-and-six glove bargain from Robinson's, a bit of
+lace from Selfridge's, a knick-knack from Liberty's--"All so MUCH
+cheaper than you can get 'em in Boston, Hosy."  She would have had
+a glorious time.
+
+Matthews, the manager at Camford Street, was out, but Holton, the
+head clerk--I was learning to speak of him as a "clark"--was in.
+
+"There are some American letters for you, sir," he said.  "I was
+about to send them to your hotel."
+
+He gave me the letters--four of them altogether--and I went into
+the private office to look them over.  My first batch of mail from
+home; it gave me a small thrill to see two-cent stamps in the
+corners of the envelopes.
+
+One of the letters was from Campbell.  I opened it first of all.
+Jim wrote a rambling, good-humored letter, a mixture of business,
+news, advice and nonsense.  "The Black Brig" had gone into another
+edition.  Considering my opinion of such "slush" I should be
+ashamed to accept the royalties, but he would continue to give my
+account credit for them until I cabled to the contrary.  He trusted
+we were behaving ourselves in a manner which would reflect credit
+upon our country.  I was to be sure not to let Hephzy marry a
+title.  And so on, for six pages.  The letter was almost like a
+chat with Jim himself, and I read it with chuckles and a pang of
+homesickness.
+
+One of the envelopes bore Hephzy's name and I, of course, did not
+open it.  It was postmarked "Bayport" and I thought I recognized
+the handwriting as Susanna Wixon's.  The third letter turned out to
+be not a letter at all, but a bill from Sylvanus Cahoon, who took
+care of our "lots" in the Bayport cemetery.  It had been my
+intention to pay all bills before leaving home, but, somehow or
+other, Sylvanus's had been overlooked.  I must send him a check at
+once.
+
+The fourth and last envelope was stained and crumpled.  It had
+traveled a long way.  To my surprise I noticed that the stamp in
+the corner was English and the postmark "London."  The address,
+moreover, was "Captain Barnabas Cahoon, Bayport, Massachusetts,
+U. S. A."  The letter had obviously been mailed in London, had
+journeyed to Bayport, from there to New York, and had then been
+forwarded to London again.  Someone, presumably Simmons, the
+postmaster, had written "Care Hosea Knowles" and my publisher's New
+York address in the lower corner.  This had been scratched out and
+"28 Camford Street, London, England," added.
+
+I looked at the envelope.  Who in the world, or in England, could
+have written Captain Barnabas--Captain Barnabas Cahoon, my great-
+uncle, dead so many years?  At first I was inclined to hand the
+letter, unopened, to Hephzy.  She was Captain Barnabas's daughter
+and it belonged to her by right.  But I knew Hephzy had no secrets
+from me and, besides, my curiosity was great.  At length I yielded
+to it and tore open the envelope.
+
+Inside was a sheet of thin foreign paper, both sides covered with
+writing.  I read the first line.
+
+
+"Captain Barnabas Cahoon.
+
+"Sir:
+
+"You are my nearest relative, my mother's father, and I--"
+
+
+"I uttered an exclamation.  Then I stepped to the door of the
+private office, made sure that it was shut, came back, sat down in
+the chair before the desk which Mr. Matthews had put at my
+disposal, and read the letter from beginning to end.  This is what
+I read:
+
+
+"Captain Barnabas Cahoon.
+
+"Sir:
+
+"You are my nearest relative, my mother's father, and I, therefore,
+address this letter to you.  I know little concerning you.  I do
+not know even that you are still living in Bayport, or that you are
+living at all.  (N.B.  In case Captain Cahoon is not living this
+letter is to be read and acted upon by his heirs, upon whose estate
+I have an equal claim.)  My mother, Ardelia Cahoon Morley, died in
+Liverpool in 1896.  My father, Strickland Morley, died in Paris in
+December, 1908.  I, as their only child, am their heir, and I am
+writing to you asking what I might demand--that is, a portion of
+the money which was my mother's and which you kept from her and
+from my father all these years.  My father told me the whole story
+before he died, and he also told me that he had written you several
+times, but that his letters had been ignored.  My father was an
+English gentleman and he was proud; that is why he did not take
+legal steps against you for the recovery of what was his by law in
+England OR ANY CIVILISED COUNTRY, one may presume.  He would not
+STOOP to such measures even against those who, as you know well, so
+meanly and fraudulently deprived him and his of their inheritance.
+He is dead now.  He died lacking the comforts and luxuries with
+which you might and SHOULD have provided him.  His forbearance was
+wonderful and characteristic, but had I known of it sooner I should
+have insisted upon demanding from you the money which was his.  I
+am now demanding it myself.  Not BEGGING; that I wish THOROUGHLY
+understood.  I am giving you the opportunity to make a partial
+restitution, that is all.  It is what he would have wished, and his
+wish ALONE prevents my putting the whole matter in my solicitor's
+hands.  If I do not hear from you within a reasonable time I shall
+know what to do.  You may address me care Mrs. Briggs, 218 ----
+Street, London, England.
+
+"Awaiting your reply, I am, sir,
+
+"Yours,
+
+"FRANCIS STRICKLAND MORLEY.
+
+"P. S.
+
+"I am not to be considered under ANY circumstances a subject for
+charity.  I am NOT begging.  You, I am given to understand, are a
+wealthy man.  I demand my share of that wealth--that is all."
+
+
+I read this amazing epistle through once.  Then, after rising and
+walking about the office to make sure that I was thoroughly awake,
+I sat down and read it again.  There was no mistake.  I had read it
+correctly.  The writing was somewhat illegible in spots and the
+signature was blotted, but it was from Francis Strickland Morley.
+From "Little Frank!"  I think my first and greatest sensation was
+of tremendous surprise that there really was a "Little Frank."
+Hephzy had been right.  Once more I should have to take off my hat
+to Hephzy.
+
+The surprise remained, but other sensations came to keep it
+company.  The extraordinary fact of the letter's reaching me when
+and where it did, in London, the city from which it was written and
+where, doubtless, the writer still was.  If I chose I might,
+perhaps, that very afternoon, meet and talk with Ardelia Cahoon's
+son, with "Little Frank" himself.  I could scarcely realize it.
+Hephzy had declared that our coming to London was the result of a
+special dispensation--we had been "sent" there.  In the face of
+this miracle I was not disposed to contradict her.
+
+The letter itself was more extraordinary than all else.  It was
+that of a young person, of a hot-headed boy.  But WHAT a boy he
+must be!  What an unlicked, impudent, arrogant young cub!  The
+boyishness was evident in every line, in the underscored words, the
+pitiful attempt at dignity and the silly veiled threats.  He was so
+insistent upon the statement that he was not a beggar.  And yet he
+could write a begging letter like this.  He did not ask for
+charity, not he, he demanded it.  Demanded it--he, the son of a
+thief, demanded, from those whom his father had robbed, his
+"rights."  He should have his rights; I would see to that.
+
+I was angry enough but, as I read the letter for the third time,
+the pitifulness of it became more apparent.  I imagined Francis
+Strickland Morley to be the replica of the Strickland Morley whom I
+remembered, the useless, incompetent, inadequate son of a good-for-
+nothing father.  No doubt the father was responsible for such a
+letter as this having been written.  Doubtless he HAD told the boy
+all sorts of tales; perhaps he HAD declared himself to be the
+defrauded instead of the defrauder; he was quite capable of it.
+Possibly the youngster did believe he had a claim upon the wealthy
+relatives in that "uncivilized" country, America.  The wealthy
+relatives!  I thought of Captain Barnabas's last years, of
+Hephzibah's plucky fight against poverty, of my own lost
+opportunities, of the college course which I had been obliged to
+forego.  My indignation returned.  I would not go back at once to
+Hephzy with the letter.  I would, myself, seek out the writer of
+that letter, and, if I found him, he and I would have a heart to
+heart talk which should disabuse his mind of a few illusions.  We
+would have a full and complete understanding.
+
+I hastily made a memorandum of the address, "Care Mrs. Briggs,"
+thrust the letter back into the envelope, put it and my other mail
+into my pocket, and walked out into the main office.  Holton, the
+clerk, looked up from his desk.  Probably my feelings showed in my
+face, for he said:
+
+"What is it, Mr. Knowles?  No bad news, I trust, sir."
+
+"No," I answered, shortly.  "Where is ---- Street?  Is it far from
+here?"
+
+It was rather far from there, in Camberwell, on the Surrey side of
+the river.  I might take a bus at such a corner and change again at
+so and so.  It sounded like a journey and I was impatient.  I
+suggested that I might take a cab.  Certainly I could do that.
+William, the boy, would call a cab at once.
+
+William did so and I gave the driver the address from my memoranda.
+Through the Strand I was whirled, across Blackfriars Bridge and on
+through the intricate web of avenues and streets on the Surrey
+side.  The locality did not impress me favorably.  There was an
+abundance of "pubs" and of fried-fish shops where "jellied eels"
+seemed to be a viand much in demand.
+
+---- Street, when I reached it, was dingy and third rate.  Three-
+storied old brick houses, with shops on their first floors,
+predominated.  Number 218 was one of these.  The signs "Lodgings"
+over the tarnished bell-pull and the name "Briggs" on the plate
+beside it proved that I had located the house from which the letter
+had been sent.
+
+I paid my cabman, dismissed him, and rang the bell.  A slouchy
+maid-servant answered the ring.
+
+"Is Mr. Francis Morley in?" I asked.
+
+The maid looked at me.
+
+"Wat, sir?" she said.
+
+"Does Mr. Francis Morley live here?" I asked, raising my voice.
+"Is he in?"
+
+The maid's face was as wooden as the door-post.  Her mouth, already
+open, opened still wider and she continued to stare.  A step
+sounded in the dark hall behind her and another voice said,
+sharply:
+
+"'Oo is it, 'Arriet?  And w'at does 'e want?"
+
+The maid grinned.  "'E wants to see MISTER Morley, ma'am," she
+said, with a giggle.
+
+She was pushed aside and a red-faced woman, with thin lips and
+scowl, took her place.
+
+"'OO do you want to see?" she demanded.
+
+"Francis Morley.  Does he live here?"
+
+"'OO?"
+
+"Francis Morley."  My answer was sharp enough this time.  I began
+to think I had invaded a colony of imbeciles--or owls; their
+conversation seemed limited to "oos."
+
+"W'at do you want to see--to see Morley for?" demanded the red-
+faced female.
+
+"On business.  Is Mrs. Briggs in?"
+
+"I'm Mrs. Briggs."
+
+"Good!  I'm glad of that.  Now will you tell me if Mr. Morley is
+in?"
+
+"There ain't no Mr. Morley.  There's a--"
+
+She was interrupted.  From the hall, apparently from the top of the
+flight of stairs, another was heard, a feminine voice like the
+others, but unlike them--decidedly unlike.
+
+"Who is it, Mrs. Briggs?" said this voice.  "Does the gentleman
+wish to see me?"
+
+"No, 'e don't," declared Mrs. Briggs, with emphasis.  "'E wants to
+see Mister Morley and I'm telling 'im there ain't none such."
+
+"But are you sure he doesn't mean Miss Morley?  Ask him, please."
+
+Before the Briggs woman could reply I spoke again.
+
+"I want to see a Francis Morley," I repeated, loudly.  "I have come
+here in answer to a letter.  The letter gave this as his address.
+If he isn't here, will you be good enough to tell me where he is?
+I--"
+
+There was another interruption, an exclamation from the darkness
+behind Mrs. Briggs and the maid.
+
+"Oh!" said the third voice, with a little catch in it.  "Who is it,
+please?  Who is it?  What is the person's name?"
+
+Mrs. Briggs scowled at me.
+
+"Wat's your name?" she snapped.
+
+"My name is Knowles.  I am an American relative of Mr. Morley's and
+I'm here in answer to a letter written by Mr. Morley himself."
+
+There was a moment's silence.  Then the third voice said:
+
+"Ask--ask him to come up.  Show him up, Mrs. Briggs, if you
+please."
+
+Mrs. Briggs grunted and stepped aside.  I entered the hall.
+
+"First floor back," mumbled the landlady.  "Straight as you go.
+You won't need any showin'."
+
+I mounted the stairs.  The landing at the top was dark, but the
+door at the rear was ajar.  I knocked.  A voice, the same voice I
+had heard before, bade me come in.  I entered the room.
+
+It was a dingy little room, sparely furnished, with a bed and two
+chairs, a dilapidated washstand and a battered bureau.  I noticed
+these afterwards.  Just then my attention was centered upon the
+occupant of the room, a young woman, scarcely more than a girl,
+dark-haired, dark-eyed, slender and graceful.  She was standing by
+the bureau, resting one hand upon it, and gazing at me, with a
+strange expression, a curious compound of fright, surprise and
+defiance.  She did not speak.  I was embarrassed.
+
+"I beg your pardon," I stammered.  "I am afraid there is some
+mistake.  I came here in answer to a letter written by a Francis
+Morley, who is--well, I suppose he is a distant relative of mine."
+
+She stepped forward and closed the door by which I had entered.
+Then she turned and faced me.
+
+"You are an American," she said.
+
+"Yes, I am an American.  I--"
+
+She interrupted me.
+
+"Do you--do you come from--from Bayport, Massachusetts?" she
+faltered.
+
+I stared at her.  "Why, yes," I admitted.  "I do come from Bayport.
+How in the world did you--"
+
+"Was the letter you speak of addressed to Captain Barnabas Cahoon?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then--then there isn't any mistake.  I wrote it."
+
+I imagine that my mouth opened as wide as the maid's had done.
+
+"You!" I exclaimed.  "Why--why--it was written by Francis Morley--
+Francis Strickland Morley."
+
+"I am Frances Strickland Morley."
+
+I heard this, of course, but I did not comprehend it.  I had been
+working along the lines of a fixed idea.  Now that idea had been
+knocked into a cocked hat, and my intellect had been knocked with
+it.
+
+"Why--why, no," I repeated, stupidly.  "Francis Morley is the son
+of Strickland Morley."
+
+"There was no son," impatiently.  "I am Frances Morley, I tell you.
+I am Strickland Morley's daughter.  I wrote that letter."
+
+I sat down upon the nearest of the two chairs.  I was obliged to
+sit.  I could not stand and face the fact which, at least, even my
+benumbed brain was beginning to comprehend.  The mistake was a
+simple one, merely the difference between an "i" and an "e" in a
+name, that was all.  And yet that mistake--that slight difference
+between "Francis" and "Frances"--explained the amazing difference
+between the Little Frank of Hephzibah's fancy and the reality
+before me.
+
+The real Little Frank was a girl.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+In Which a Dream Becomes a Reality
+
+
+I said nothing immediately.  I could not.  It was "Little Frank"
+who resumed the conversation.  "Who are you?" she asked.
+
+"Who--I beg your pardon?  I am rather upset, I'm afraid.  I didn't
+expect--that is, I expected. . . .  Well, I didn't expect THIS!
+What was it you asked me?"
+
+"I asked you who you were."
+
+"My name is Knowles--Kent Knowles.  I am Captain Cahoon's grand-
+nephew."
+
+"His grand-nephew.  Then--Did Captain Cahoon send you to me?"
+
+"Send me!  I beg your pardon once more.  No. . . .  No.  Captain
+Cahoon is dead.  He has been dead nearly ten years.  No one sent
+me."
+
+"Then why did you come?  You have my letter; you said so."
+
+"Yes; I--I have your letter.  I received it about an hour ago.  It
+was forwarded to me--to my cousin and me--here in London."
+
+"Here in London!  Then you did not come to London in answer to that
+letter?"
+
+"No.  My cousin and I--"
+
+"What cousin?  What is his name?"
+
+"His name?  It isn't a--That is, the cousin is a woman.  She is
+Miss Hephzibah Cahoon, your--your mother's half-sister.  She is--
+Why, she is your aunt!"
+
+It was a fact; Hephzibah was this young lady's aunt.  I don't know
+why that seemed so impossible and ridiculous, but it did.  The
+young lady herself seemed to find it so.
+
+"My aunt?" she repeated.  "I didn't know--But--but, why is my--my
+aunt here with you?"
+
+"We are on a pleasure trip.  We--I beg your pardon.  What have I
+been thinking of?  Don't stand.  Please sit down."
+
+She accepted the invitation.  As she walked toward the chair it
+seemed to me that she staggered a little.  I noticed then for the
+first time, how very slender she was, almost emaciated.  There were
+dark hollows beneath her eyes and her face was as white as the bed-
+linen--No, I am wrong; it was whiter than Mrs. Briggs' bed-linen.
+
+"Are you ill?" I asked involuntarily.
+
+She did not answer.  She seated herself in the chair and fixed her
+dark eyes upon me.  They were large eyes and very dark.  Hephzy
+said, when she first saw them, that they looked like "burnt holes
+in a blanket."  Perhaps they did; that simile did not occur to me.
+
+"You have read my letter?" she asked.
+
+It was evident that I must have read the letter or I should not
+have learned where to find her, but I did not call attention to
+this.  I said simply that I had read the letter.
+
+"Then what do you propose?" she asked.
+
+"Propose?"
+
+"Yes," impatiently.  "What proposition do you make me?  If you have
+read the letter you must know what I mean.  You must have come here
+for the purpose of saying something, of making some offer.  What is
+it?"
+
+I was speechless.  I had come there to find an impudent young
+blackguard and tell him what I thought of him.  That was as near a
+definite reason for my coming as any.  If I had not acted upon
+impulse, if I had stopped to consider, it is quite likely that I
+should not have come at all.  But the blackguard was--was--well, he
+was not and never had been.  In his place was this white-faced,
+frail girl.  I couldn't tell her what I thought of her.  I didn't
+know what to think.
+
+She waited for me to answer and, as I continued to play the dumb
+idiot, her impatience grew.  Her brows--very dark brown they were,
+almost black against the pallor of her face--drew together and her
+foot began to pat the faded carpet.  "I am waiting," she said.
+
+I realized that I must say something, so I said the only thing
+which occurred to me.  It was a question.
+
+"Your father is dead?" I asked.
+
+She nodded.  "My letter told you that," she answered.  "He died in
+Paris three years ago."
+
+"And--and had he no relatives here in England?"
+
+She hesitated before replying.  "No near relatives whom he cared to
+recognize," she answered haughtily.  "My father, Mr. Knowles was a
+gentleman and, having been most unjustly treated by his own family,
+as well as by OTHERS"--with a marked emphasis on the word--"he did
+not stoop, even in his illness and distress, to beg where he should
+have commanded."
+
+"Oh!  Oh, I see," I said, feebly.
+
+"There is no reason why you should see.  My father was the second
+son and--But this is quite irrelevant.  You, an American, can
+scarcely be expected to understand English family customs.  It is
+sufficient that, for reasons of his own, my father had for years
+been estranged from his own people."
+
+The air with which this was delivered was quite overwhelming.  If I
+had not known Strickland Morley, and a little of his history, I
+should have been crushed.
+
+"Then you have been quite alone since his death?" I asked.
+
+Again she hesitated.  "For a time," she said, after a moment.  "I
+lived with a married cousin of his in one of the London suburbs.
+Then I--But really, Mr. Knowles, I cannot see that my private
+affairs need interest you.  As I understand it, this interview of
+ours is quite impersonal, in a sense.  You understand, of course--
+you must understand--that in writing as I did I was not seeking the
+acquaintance of my mother's relatives.  I do not desire their
+friendship.  I am not asking them for anything.  I am giving them
+the opportunity to do justice, to give me what is my own--my OWN.
+If you don't understand this I--I--Oh, you MUST understand it!"
+
+She rose from the chair.  Her eyes were flashing and she was
+trembling from head to foot.  Again I realized how weak and frail
+she was.
+
+"You must understand," she repeated.  "You MUST!"
+
+"Yes, yes," I said hastily.  "I think I--I suppose I understand
+your feelings.  But--"
+
+"There are no buts.  Don't pretend there are.  Do you think for one
+instant that I am begging, asking you for HELP?  YOU--of all the
+world!"
+
+This seemed personal enough, in spite of her protestations.
+
+"But you never met me before," I said, involuntarily.
+
+"You never knew of my existence."
+
+She stamped her foot.  "I knew of my American relatives," she
+cried, scornfully.  "I knew of them and their--Oh, I cannot say the
+word!"
+
+"Your father told you--" I began.  She burst out at me like a
+flame.
+
+"My father," she declared, "was a brave, kind, noble man.  Don't
+mention his name to me.  I won't have you speak of him.  If it were
+not for his forbearance and self-sacrifice you--all of you--would
+be--would be--Oh, don't speak of my father!  Don't!"
+
+To my amazement and utter discomfort she sank into the chair and
+burst into tears.  I was completely demoralized.
+
+"Don't, Miss Morley," I begged.  "Please don't."
+
+She continued to sob hysterically.  To make matters worse sounds
+from behind the closed door led me to think that someone--
+presumably that confounded Mrs. Briggs--was listening at the
+keyhole.
+
+"Don't, Miss Morley," I pleaded.  "Don't!"
+
+My pleas were unavailing.  The young lady sobbed and sobbed.  I
+fidgeted on the edge of my chair in an agony of mortified
+embarrassment.  "Don'ts" were quite useless and I could think of
+nothing else to say except "Compose yourself" and that, somehow or
+other, was too ridiculously reminiscent of Mr. Pickwick and Mrs.
+Bardell.  It was an idiotic situation for me to be in.  Some men--
+men of experience with woman-kind--might have known how to handle
+it, but I had had no such experience.  It was all my fault, of
+course; I should not have mentioned her father.  But how was I to
+know that Strickland Morley was a persecuted saint?  I should have
+called him everything but that.
+
+At last I had an inspiration.
+
+"You are ill," I said, rising.  "I will call someone."
+
+That had the desired effect.  My newly found third--or was it
+fourth or fifth--cousin made a move in protest.  She fought down
+her emotion, her sobs ceased, and she leaned back in her chair
+looking paler and weaker than ever.  I should have pitied her if
+she had not been so superior and insultingly scornful in her manner
+toward me.  I--Well, yes, I did pity her, even as it was.
+
+"Don't," she said, in her turn.  "Don't call anyone.  I am not ill--
+not now."
+
+"But you have been," I put in, I don't know why.
+
+"I have not been well for some time.  But I am not ill.  I am quite
+strong enough to hear what you have to say."
+
+This might have been satisfactory if I had had anything to say.  I
+had not.  She evidently expected me to express repentance for
+something or other and make some sort of proposition.  I was not
+repentant and I had no proposition to make.  But how was I to tell
+her that without bringing on another storm?  Oh, if I had had time
+to consider.  If I had not come alone.  If Hephzy,--cool-headed,
+sensible Hephzy--were only with me.
+
+"I--I--" I began.  Then desperately:  "I scarcely know what to say,
+Miss Morley," I faltered.  "I came here, as I told you, expecting
+to find a--a--"
+
+"What, pray?" with a haughty lift of the dark eyebrows.  "What did
+you expect to find, may I ask?"
+
+"Nothing--that is, I--Well, never mind that.  I came on the spur of
+the moment, immediately after receiving your letter.  I have had no
+time to think, to consult my--your aunt--"
+
+"What has my--AUNT" with withering emphasis, "to do with it?  Why
+should you consult her?"
+
+"Well, she is your mother's nearest relative, I suppose.  She is
+Captain Cahoon's daughter and at least as much interested as I.  I
+must consult her, of course.  But, frankly, Miss Morley, I think I
+ought to tell you that you are under a misapprehension.  There are
+matters which you don't understand."
+
+"I understand everything.  I understand only too well.  What do you
+mean by a misapprehension?  Do you mean--do you dare to insinuate
+that my father did not tell me the truth?"
+
+"Oh, no, no," I interrupted.  That was exactly what I did mean, but
+I was not going to let the shade of the departed Strickland appear
+again until I was out of that room and house.  "I am not
+insinuating anything."
+
+"I am very glad to hear it.  I wish you to know that I perfectly
+understand EVERYTHING."
+
+That seemed to settle it; at any rate it settled me for the time.
+I took up my hat.
+
+"Miss Morley," I said, "I can't discuss this matter further just
+now.  I must consult my cousin first.  She and I will call upon you
+to-morrow at any hour you may name."
+
+She was disappointed; that was plain.  I thought for the moment
+that she was going to break down again.  But she did not; she
+controlled her feelings and faced me firmly and pluckily.
+
+"At nine--no, at ten to-morrow, then," she said.  "I shall expect
+your final answer then."
+
+"Very well."
+
+"You will come?  Of course; I am forgetting.  You said you would."
+
+"We will be here at ten.  Here is my address."
+
+I gave her my card, scribbling the street and number of Bancroft's
+in pencil in the corner.  She took the card.
+
+"Thank you.  Good afternoon," she said.
+
+I said "Good afternoon" and opened the door.  The hall outside was
+empty, but someone was descending the stairs in a great hurry.  I
+descended also.  At the top step I glanced once more into the room
+I had just left.  Frances Strickland Morley--Little Frank--was
+seated in the chair, one hand before her eyes.  Her attitude
+expressed complete weariness and utter collapse.  She had said she
+was not sick, but she looked sick--she did indeed.
+
+Harriet, the slouchy maid, was not in evidence, so I opened the
+street door for myself.  As I reached the sidewalk--I suppose, as
+this was England, I should call it the "pavement"--I was accosted
+by Mrs. Briggs.  She was out of breath; I am quite sure she had
+reached that pavement but the moment before.
+
+"'Ow is she?" demanded Mrs. Briggs.
+
+"Who?" I asked, not too politely.
+
+"That Morley one.  Is she goin' to be hill again?"
+
+"How do I know?  Has she been sick--ill, I mean?"
+
+"Huh!  Hill!  'Er?  Now, now, sir!  I give you my word she's been
+hill hever since she came 'ere.  I thought one time she was goin'
+to die on my 'ands.  And 'oo was to pay for 'er buryin', I'd like
+to know?  That's w'at it is!  'Oo's goin' to pay for 'er buryin'
+and the food she eats; to say nothin' of 'er room money, and that's
+been owin' me for a matter of three weeks?"
+
+"How should I know who is going to pay for it?  She will, I
+suppose."
+
+"She!  W'at with?  She ain't got a bob to bless 'erself with, she
+ain't.  She's broke, stony broke.  Honly for my kind 'eart she'd a
+been out on the street afore this.  That and 'er tellin' me she was
+expectin' money from 'er rich friends in the States.  You're from
+the States, ain't you, sir?"
+
+"Yes.  But do you mean to tell me that Miss Morley has no money of
+her own?"
+
+"Of course I mean it.  W'en she come 'ere she told me she was on
+the stage.  A hopera singer, she said she was.  She 'ad money then,
+enough to pay 'er way, she 'ad.  She was expectin' to go with some
+troupe or other, but she never 'as.  Oh, them stage people!  Don't
+I know 'em?  Ain't I 'ad experience of 'em?  A woman as 'as let
+lodgin's as long as me?  If it wasn't for them rich friends in the
+States I 'ave never put up with 'er the way I 'ave.  You're from
+the States, ain't you, sir?"
+
+"Yes, yes, I'm from the States.  Now, see here, Mrs. Briggs; I'm
+coming back here to-morrow.  If--Well, if Miss Morley needs
+anything, food or medicines or anything, in the meantime, you see
+that she has them.  I'll pay you when I come."
+
+Mrs. Briggs actually smiled.  She would have patted my arm if I had
+not jerked it out of the way.
+
+"You trust me, sir," she whispered, confidingly.  "You trust my
+kind 'eart.  I'll look after 'er like she was my own daughter."
+
+I should have hated to trust even my worst enemy--if I had one--to
+Mrs. Briggs' "kind heart."  I walked off in disgust.  I found a cab
+at the next corner and, bidding the driver take me to Bancroft's,
+threw myself back on the cushions.  This was a lovely mess!  This
+was a beautiful climax to the first act--no, merely the prologue--
+of the drama of Hephzy's and my pilgrimage.  What would Jim
+Campbell say to this?  I was to be absolutely care-free; I was not
+to worry about myself or anyone else.  That was the essential part
+of his famous "prescription."  And now, here I was, with this
+impossible situation and more impossible young woman on my hands.
+If Little Frank had been a boy, a healthy boy, it would be bad
+enough.  But Little Frank was a girl--a sick girl, without a penny.
+And a girl thoroughly convinced that she was the rightful heir to
+goodness knows how much wealth--wealth of which we, the uncivilized,
+unprincipled natives of an unprincipled, uncivilized country, had
+robbed her parents and herself.  Little Frank had been a dream
+before; now he--she, I mean--was a nightmare; worse than that, for
+one wakes from a nightmare.  And I was on my way to tell Hephzy!
+
+Well, I told her.  She was in our sitting-room when I reached the
+hotel and I told her the whole story.  I began by reading the
+letter.  Before she had recovered from the shock of the reading, I
+told her that I had actually met and talked with Little Frank; and
+while this astounding bit of news was, so to speak, soaking into
+her bewildered brain, I went on to impart the crowning item of
+information--namely, that Little Frank was Miss Frances.  Then I
+sat back and awaited what might follow.
+
+Her first coherent remark was one which I had not expected--and I
+had expected almost anything.
+
+"Oh, Hosy," gasped Hephzy, "tell me--tell me before you say
+anything else.  Does he--she, I mean--look like Ardelia?"
+
+"Eh?  What?" I stammered.  "Look like--look like what?"
+
+"Not what--who.  Does she look like Ardelia?  Like her mother?  Oh,
+I HOPE she doesn't favor her father's side!  I did so want our
+Little Frank to look like his--her--I CAN'T get used to it--like
+my poor Ardelia.  Does she?"
+
+"Goodness knows!  I don't know who she looks like.  I didn't
+notice."
+
+"You didn't!  I should have noticed that before anything else.
+What kind of a girl is she?  Is she pretty?"
+
+"I don't know.  She isn't ugly, I should say.  I wasn't particularly
+interested in her looks.  The fact that she was at all was enough; I
+haven't gotten over that yet.  What are we going to do with her?  Or
+are we going to do anything?  Those are the questions I should like
+to have answered.  For heaven's sake, Hephzy, don't talk about her
+personal appearance.  There she is and here are we.  What are we
+going to do?"
+
+Hephzy shook her head.  "I don't know, Hosy," she admitted.  "I
+don't know, I'm sure.  This is--this is--Oh, didn't I tell you we
+were SENT--sent by Providence!"
+
+I was silent.  If we had been "sent," as she called it, I was far
+from certain that Providence was responsible.  I was more inclined
+to place the responsibility in a totally different quarter.
+
+"I think," she continued, "I think you'd better tell me the whole
+thing all over again, Hosy.  Tell it slow and don't leave out a
+word.  Tell me what sort of place she was in and what she said and
+how she looked, as near as you can remember.  I'll try and pay
+attention; I'll try as hard as I can.  It'll be a job.  All I can
+think of now is that to-morrow mornin'--only to-morrow mornin'--I'm
+going to see Little Frank--Ardelia's Little Frank."
+
+I complied with her request, giving every detail of my afternoon's
+experience.  I reread the letter, and handed it to her, that she
+might read it herself.  I described Mrs. Briggs and what I had seen
+of Mrs. Briggs' lodging-house.  I described Miss Morley as best I
+could, dark eyes, dark hair and the look of weakness and frailty.
+I repeated our conversation word for word; I had forgotten nothing
+of that.  Hephzy listened in silence.  When I had finished she
+sighed.
+
+"The poor thing," she said.  "I do pity her so."
+
+"Pity her!" I exclaimed.  "Well, perhaps I pity her, too, in a way.
+But my pity and yours don't alter the situation.  She doesn't want
+pity.  She doesn't want help.  She flew at me like a wildcat when I
+asked if she was ill.  Her personal affairs, she says, are not
+ours; she doesn't want our acquaintance or our friendship.  She has
+gotten some crazy notion in her head that you and I and Uncle
+Barnabas have cheated her out of an inheritance, and she wants
+that!  Inheritance!  Good Lord!  A fine inheritance hers is!
+Daughter of the man who robbed us of everything we had."
+
+"I know--I know.  But SHE doesn't know, does she, Hosy.  Her father
+must have told her--"
+
+"He told her a barrel of lies, of course.  What they were I can't
+imagine, but that fellow was capable of anything.  Know!  No, she
+doesn't know now, but she will have to know."
+
+"Are you goin' to tell her, Hosy?"
+
+I stared in amazement.
+
+"Tell her!" I repeated.  "What do you mean?  You don't intend
+letting her think that WE are the thieves, do you?  That's what she
+thinks now.  Of course I shall tell her."
+
+"It will be awful hard to tell.  She worshipped her father, I
+guess.  He was a dreadful fascinatin' man, when he wanted to be.
+He could make a body believe black was white.  Poor Ardelia thought
+he was--"
+
+"I can't help that.  I'm not Ardelia."
+
+"I know, but she is Ardelia's child.  Hosy, if you are so set on
+tellin' her why didn't you tell her this afternoon?  It would have
+been just as easy then as to-morrow."
+
+This was a staggerer.  A truthful answer would be so humiliating.
+I had not told Frances Morley that her father was a thief and a
+liar because I couldn't muster courage to do it.  She had seemed so
+alone and friendless and ill.  I lacked the pluck to face the
+situation.  But I could not tell Hephzy this.
+
+"Why didn't you tell her?" she repeated.
+
+"Oh, bosh!" I exclaimed, impatiently.  "This is nonsense and you
+know it, Hephzy.  She'll have to be told and you and I must tell
+her.  DON'T look at me like that.  What else are we to do?"
+
+Another shake of the head.
+
+"I don't know.  I can't decide any more than you can, Hosy.  What
+do YOU think we should do?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+With which unsatisfactory remark this particular conversation
+ended.  I went to my room to dress for dinner.  I had no appetite
+and dinner was not appealing; but I did not want to discuss Little
+Frank any longer.  I mentally cursed Jim Campbell a good many times
+that evening and during the better part of a sleepless night.  If
+it were not for him I should be in Bayport instead of London.  From
+a distance of three thousand miles I could, without the least
+hesitancy, have told Strickland Morley's "heir" what to do.
+
+Hephzy did not come down to dinner at all.  From behind the door of
+her room she told me, in a peculiar tone, that she could not eat.
+I could not eat, either, but I made the pretence of doing so.  The
+next morning, at breakfast in the sitting-room, we were a silent
+pair.  I don't know what George, the waiter, thought of us.
+
+At a quarter after nine I turned away from the window through which
+I had been moodily regarding the donkey cart of a flower huckster
+in the street below.
+
+"You'd better get on your things," I said.  "It is time for us to
+go."
+
+Hephzy donned her hat and wrap.  Then she came over to me.
+
+"Don't be cross, Hosy," she pleaded.  "I've been thinkin' it over
+all night long and I've come to the conclusion that you are
+probably right.  She hasn't any real claim on us, of course; it's
+the other way around, if anything.  You do just as you think best
+and I'll back you up."
+
+"Then you agree that we should tell her the truth."
+
+"Yes, if you think so.  I'm goin' to leave it all in your hands.
+Whatever you do will be right.  I'll trust you as I always have."
+
+It was a big responsibility, it seemed to me.  I did wish she had
+been more emphatic.  However, I set my teeth and resolved upon a
+course of action.  Pity and charity and all the rest of it I would
+not consider.  Right was right, and justice was justice.  I would
+end a disagreeable business as quickly as I could.
+
+Mrs. Briggs' lodging-house, viewed from the outside, was no more
+inviting at ten in the morning than it had been at four in the
+afternoon.  I expected Hephzy to make some comment upon the dirty
+steps and the still dirtier front door.  She did neither.  We stood
+together upon the steps and I rang the bell.
+
+Mrs. Briggs herself opened the door.  I think she had been watching
+from behind the curtains and had seen our cab draw up at the curb.
+She was in a state of great agitation, a combination of relieved
+anxiety, excitement and overdone politeness.
+
+"Good mornin', sir," she said; "and good mornin', lady.  I've been
+expectin' you, and so 'as she, poor dear.  I thought one w'ile she
+was that hill she couldn't see you, but Lor' bless you, I've nursed
+'er same as if she was my own daughter.  I told you I would sir,
+now didn't I."
+
+One word in this harangue caught my attention.
+
+"Ill?" I repeated.  "What do you mean?  Is she worse than she was
+yesterday?"
+
+Mrs. Briggs held up her hands.  "Worse!" she cried.  "Why, bless
+your 'art, sir, she was quite well yesterday.  Quite 'erself, she
+was, when you come.  But after you went away she seemed to go all
+to pieces like.  W'en I went hup to 'er, to carry 'er 'er tea--She
+always 'as 'er tea; I've been a mother to 'er, I 'ave--she'll tell
+you so.  W'en I went hup with the tea there she was in a faint.
+W'ite as if she was dead.  My word, sir, I was frightened.  And all
+night she's been tossin' about, a-cryin' out and--"
+
+"Where is she now?" put in Hephzy, sharply.
+
+"She's in 'er room ma'am.  Dressed she is; she would dress, knowin'
+of your comin', though I told 'er she shouldn't.  She's dressed,
+but she's lyin' down.  She would 'ave tried to sit hup, but THAT I
+wouldn't 'ave, ma'am.  'Now, dearie,' I told 'er--"
+
+But I would not hear any more.  As for Hephzy she was in the dingy
+front hall already.
+
+"Shall we go up?" I asked, impatiently.
+
+"Of COURSE you're to go hup.  She's a-waitin' for you.  But sir--
+sir," she caught my sleeve; "if you think she's goin' to be ill and
+needin' the doctor, just pass the word to me.  A doctor she shall
+'ave, the best there is in London.  All I ask you is to pay--"
+
+I heard no more.  Hephzy was on her way up the stairs and I
+followed.  The door of the first floor back was closed.  I rapped
+upon it.
+
+"Come in," said the voice I remembered, but now it sounded weaker
+than before.
+
+Hephzy looked at me.  I nodded.
+
+"You go first," I whispered.  "You can call me when you are ready."
+
+Hephzy opened the door and entered the room.  I closed the door
+behind her.
+
+Silence for what seemed a long, long time.  Then the door opened
+again and Hephzy appeared.  Her cheeks were wet with tears.  She
+put her arms about my neck.
+
+"Oh, Hosy," she whispered, "she's real sick.  And--and--Oh, Hosy,
+how COULD you see her and not see!  She's the very image of
+Ardelia.  The very image!  Come."
+
+I followed her into the room.  It was no brighter now, in the
+middle of a--for London--bright forenoon, than it had been on my
+previous visit.  Just as dingy and forbidding and forlorn as ever.
+But now there was no defiant figure erect to meet me.  The figure
+was lying upon the bed, and the pale cheeks of yesterday were
+flushed with fever.  Miss Morley had looked far from well when I
+first saw her; now she looked very ill indeed.
+
+She acknowledged my good-morning with a distant bow.  Her illness
+had not quenched her spirit, that was plain.  She attempted to
+rise, but Hephzy gently pushed her back upon the pillow.
+
+"You stay right there," she urged.  "Stay right there.  We can talk
+just as well, and Mr. Knowles won't mind; will you, Hosy."
+
+I stammered something or other.  My errand, difficult as it had
+been from the first, now seemed impossible.  I had come there to
+say certain things--I had made up my mind to say them; but how was
+I to say such things to a girl as ill as this one was.  I would not
+have said them to Strickland Morley himself, under such
+circumstances.
+
+"I--I am very sorry you are not well, Miss Morley," I faltered.
+
+She thanked me, but there was no warmth in the thanks.
+
+"I am not well," she said; "but that need make no difference.  I
+presume you and this--this lady are prepared to make a definite
+proposition to me.  I am well enough to hear it."
+
+Hephzy and I looked at each other.  I looked for help, but Hephzy's
+expression was not helpful at all.  It might have meant anything--
+or nothing.
+
+"Miss Morley," I began.  "Miss Morley, I--I--"
+
+"Well, sir?"
+
+"Miss Morley, I--I don't know what to say to you."
+
+She rose to a sitting posture.  Hephzy again tried to restrain her,
+but this time she would not be restrained.
+
+"Don't know what to say?" she repeated.  "Don't know what to say?
+Then why did you come here?"
+
+"I came--we came because--because I promised we would come."
+
+"But WHY did you come?"
+
+Hephzy leaned toward her.
+
+"Please, please," she begged.  "Don't get all excited like this.
+You mustn't.  You'll make yourself sicker, you know.  You must lie
+down and be quiet.  Hosy--oh, please, Hosy, be careful."
+
+Miss Morley paid no attention.  She was regarding me with eyes
+which looked me through and through.  Her thin hands clutched the
+bedclothes.
+
+"WHY did you come?" she demanded.  "My letter was plain enough,
+certainly.  What I said yesterday was perfectly plain.  I told you
+I did not wish your acquaintance or your friendship.  Friendship--"
+with a blaze of scorn, "from YOU!  I--I told you--I--"
+
+"Hush! hush! please don't," begged Hephzy.  "You mustn't.  You're
+too weak and sick.  Oh, Hosy, do be careful."
+
+I was quite willing to be careful--if I had known how.
+
+"I think," I said, "that this interview had better be postponed.
+Really, Miss Morley, you are not in a condition to--"
+
+She sprang to her feet and stood there trembling.
+
+"My condition has nothing to do with it," she cried.  "Oh, CAN'T I
+make you understand!  I am trying to be lenient, to be--to be--And
+you come here, you and this woman, and try to--to--You MUST
+understand!  I don't want to know you.  I don't want your pity!
+After your treatment of my mother and my father, I--I--I . . .
+Oh!"
+
+She staggered, put her hands to her head, sank upon the bed, and
+then collapsed in a dead faint.
+
+Hephzy was at her side in a moment.  She knew what to do if I did
+not.
+
+"Quick!" she cried, turning to me.  "Send for the doctor; she has
+fainted.  Hurry!  And send that--that Briggs woman to me.  Don't
+stand there like that.  HURRY!"
+
+I found the Briggs woman in the lower hall.  From her I learned the
+name and address of the nearest physician, also the nearest public
+telephone.  Mrs. Briggs went up to Hephzy and I hastened out to
+telephone.
+
+Oh, those London telephones!  After innumerable rings and "Hellos"
+from me, and "Are you theres" from Central, I, at last, was
+connected with the doctor's office and, by great good luck, with
+the doctor himself.  He promised to come at once.  In ten minutes I
+met him at the door and conducted him to the room above.
+
+He was in that room a long time.  Meanwhile, I waited in the hall,
+pacing up and down, trying to think my way through this maze.  I
+had succeeded in thinking myself still deeper into it when the
+physician reappeared.
+
+"How is she?" I asked.
+
+"She is conscious again, but weak, of course.  If she can be kept
+quiet and have proper care and nourishment and freedom from worry
+she will, probably, gain strength and health.  There is nothing
+seriously wrong physically, so far as I can see."
+
+I was glad to hear that and said so.
+
+"Of course," he went on, "her nerves are completely unstrung.  She
+seems to have been under a great mental strain and her surroundings
+are not--"  He paused, and then added, "Is the young lady a
+relative of yours?"
+
+"Ye--es, I suppose--She is a distant relative, yes."
+
+"Humph!  Has she no near relatives?  Here in England, I mean.  You
+and the lady with you are Americans, I judge."
+
+I ignored the last sentence.  I could not see that our being
+Americans concerned him.
+
+"She has no near relatives in England, so far as I know," I
+answered.  "Why do you ask?"
+
+"Merely because--Well, to be frank, because if she had such
+relatives I should strongly recommend their taking charge of her.
+She is very weak and in a condition where she knight become
+seriously ill."
+
+"I see.  You mean that she should not remain here."
+
+"I do mean that, decidedly.  This," with a wave of the hand and a
+glance about the bare, dirty, dark hall, "is not--Well, she seems
+to be a young person of some refinement and--"
+
+He did not finish the sentence, but I understood.
+
+"I see," I interrupted.  "And yet she is not seriously ill."
+
+"Not now--no.  Her weakness is due to mental strain and--well, to a
+lack of nutrition as much as anything."
+
+"Lack of nutrition?  You mean she hasn't had enough to eat!"
+
+"Yes.  Of course I can't be certain, but that would be my opinion
+if I were forced to give one.  At all events, she should be taken
+from here as soon as possible."
+
+I reflected.  "A hospital?" I suggested.
+
+"She might be taken to a hospital, of course.  But she is scarcely
+ill enough for that.  A good, comfortable home would be better.
+Somewhere where she might have quiet and rest.  If she had
+relatives I should strongly urge her going to them.  She should not
+be left to herself; I would not be responsible for the consequences
+if she were.  A person in her condition might--might be capable of
+any rash act."
+
+This was plain enough, but it did not make my course of action
+plainer to me.
+
+"Is she well enough to be moved--now?" I asked.
+
+"Yes.  If she is not moved she is likely to be less well."
+
+I paid him for the visit; he gave me a prescription--"To quiet the
+nerves," he explained--and went away.  I was to send for him
+whenever his services were needed.  Then I entered the room.
+
+Hephzy and Mrs. Briggs were sitting beside the bed.  The face upon
+the pillow looked whiter and more pitiful than ever.  The dark eyes
+were closed.
+
+Hephzy signaled me to silence.  She rose and tiptoed over to me.  I
+led her out into the hall.
+
+"She's sort of dozin' now," she whispered.  "The poor thing is worn
+out.  What did the doctor say?"
+
+I told her what the doctor had said.
+
+"He's just right," she declared.  "She's half starved, that's
+what's the matter with her.  That and frettin' and worryin' have
+just about killed her.  What are you goin' to do, Hosy?"
+
+"How do I know!" I answered, impatiently.  "I don't see exactly why
+we are called upon to do anything.  Do you?"
+
+"No--o, I--I don't know as we are called on.  No--o.  I--"
+
+"Well, do you?"
+
+"No.  I know how you feel, Hosy.  Considerin' how her father
+treated us, I won't blame you no matter what you do."
+
+"Confound her father!  I only wish it were he we had to deal with."
+
+Hephzy was silent.  I took a turn up and down the hall.
+
+"The doctor says she should be taken away from here at once," I
+observed.
+
+Hephzy nodded.  "There's no doubt about that," she declared with
+emphasis.  "I wouldn't trust a sick cat to that Briggs woman.
+She's a--well, she's what she is."
+
+"I suggested a hospital, but he didn't approve," I went on.  "He
+recommended some comfortable home with care and quiet and all the
+rest of it.  Her relatives should look after her, he said.  She
+hasn't any relatives that we know of, or any home to go to."
+
+Again Hephzy was silent.  I waited, growing momentarily more
+nervous and fretful.  Of all impossible situations this was the
+most impossible.  And to make it worse, Hephzy, the usually prompt,
+reliable Hephzy, was of no use at all.
+
+"Do say something," I snapped.  "What shall we do?"
+
+"I don't know, Hosy, dear.  Why! . . .  Where are you going?"
+
+"I'm going to the drug-store to get this prescription filled.  I'll
+be back soon."
+
+The drug-store--it was a "chemist's shop" of course--was at the
+corner.  It was the chemist's telephone that I had used when I
+called the doctor.  I gave the clerk the prescription and, while he
+was busy with it, I paced up and down the floor of the shop.  At
+length I sat down before the telephone and demanded a number.
+
+When I returned to the lodging-house I gave Hephzy the powders
+which the chemist's clerk had prepared.
+
+"Is she any better?" I asked.
+
+"She's just about the same."
+
+"What does she say?"
+
+"She's too weak and sick to say anything.  I don't imagine she
+knows or cares what is happening to her."
+
+"Is she strong enough to get downstairs to a cab, or to ride in one
+afterward?"
+
+"I guess so.  We could help her, you know.  But, Hosy, what cab?
+What do you mean?  What are you going to do?"
+
+"I don't know what I'm going to do.  I'm going to take her away
+from this hole.  I must.  I don't want to; there's no reason why I
+should and every reason why I shouldn't; but--Oh, well, confound
+it!  I've got to.  We CAN'T let her starve and die here."
+
+"But where are you going to take her?"
+
+"There's only one place to take her; that's to Bancroft's.  I've
+'phoned and engaged a room next to ours.  She'll have to stay with
+us for the present.  Oh, I don't like it any better than you do."
+
+To my intense surprise, Hephzy threw her arms about my neck and
+hugged me.
+
+"I knew you would, Hosy!" she sobbed.  "I knew you would.  I was
+dyin' to have you, but I wouldn't have asked for the world.  You're
+the best man that ever lived.  I knew you wouldn't leave poor
+Ardelia's little girl to--to--Oh, I'm so grateful.  You're the best
+man in the world."
+
+I freed myself from the embrace as soon as I could.  I didn't feel
+like the best man in the world.  I felt like a Quixotic fool.
+
+Fortunately I was too busy for the next hour to think of my
+feelings.  Hephzy went in to arrange for the transfer of the
+invalid to the cab and to collect and pack her most necessary
+belongings.  I spent my time in a financial wrangle with Mrs.
+Briggs.  The number of items which that woman wished included in
+her bill was surprising.  Candles and soap--the bill itself was the
+sole evidence of soap's ever having made its appearance in that
+house--and washing and tea and food and goodness knows what.  The
+total was amazing.  I verified the addition, or, rather, corrected
+it, and then offered half of the sum demanded.  This offer was
+received with protestations, tears and voluble demands to know if I
+'ad the 'art to rob a lone widow who couldn't protect herself.
+Finally we compromised on a three-quarter basis and Mrs. Briggs
+receipted the bill.  She said her kind disposition would be the
+undoing of her and she knew it.  She was too silly and soft-'arted
+to let lodgings.
+
+We had very little trouble in carrying or leading Little Frank to
+the cab.  The effect of the doctor's powders--they must have
+contained some sort of opiate--was to render the girl only
+partially conscious of what was going on and we got her to and into
+the vehicle without difficulty.  During the drive to Bancroft's she
+dozed on Hephzy's shoulder.
+
+Her room--it was next to Hephzy's, with a connecting door--was
+ready and we led her up the stairs.  Mr. and Mrs. Jameson were very
+kind and sympathetic.  They asked surprisingly few questions.
+
+"Poor young lady," said Mr. Jameson, when he and I were together in
+our sitting-room.  "She is quite ill, isn't she."
+
+"Yes," I admitted.  "It is not a serious illness, however.  She
+needs quiet and care more than anything else."
+
+"Yes, sir.  We will do our best to see that she has both.  A
+relative of yours, sir, I think you said."
+
+"A--a--my niece," I answered, on the spur of the moment.  She was
+Hephzy's niece, of course.  As a matter of fact, she was scarcely
+related to me.  However, it seemed useless to explain.
+
+"I didn't know you had English relatives, Mr. Knowles.  I had been
+under the impression that you and Miss Cahoon were strangers here."
+
+So had I, but I did not explain that, either.  Mrs. Jameson joined
+us.
+
+"She will sleep now, I think," she said.  "She is quite quiet and
+peaceful.  A near relative of yours, Mr. Knowles?"
+
+"She is Mr. Knowles's niece," explained her husband.
+
+"Oh, yes.  A sweet girl she seems.  And very pretty, isn't she."
+
+I did not answer.  Mr. Jameson and his wife turned to go.
+
+"I presume you will wish to communicate with her people," said the
+former.  "Shall I send you telegram forms?"
+
+"Not now," I stammered.  Telegrams!  Her people!  She had no
+people.  We were her people.  We had taken her in charge and were
+responsible.  And how and when would that responsibility be
+shifted!
+
+What on earth should we do with her?
+
+Hephzy tiptoed in.  Her expression was a curious one.  She was very
+solemn, but not sad; the solemnity was not that of sorrow, but
+appeared to be a sort of spiritual uplift, a kind of reverent joy.
+
+"She's asleep," she said, gravely; "she's asleep, Hosy."
+
+There was precious little comfort in that.
+
+"She'll wake up by and by," I said.  "And then--what?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Neither do I--now.  But we shall have to know pretty soon."
+
+"I suppose we shall, but I can't--I can't seem to think of anything
+that's ahead of us.  All I can think is that my Little Frank--my
+Ardelia's Little Frank--is here, here with us, at last."
+
+"And TO last, so far as I can see.  Hephzy, for heaven's sake, do
+try to be sensible.  Do you realize what this means?  As soon as
+she is well enough to understand what has happened she will want to
+know what 'proposition' we have to make.  And when we tell her we
+have none to make, she'll probably collapse again.  And then--and
+then--what shall we do?"
+
+"I don't know, Hosy.  I declare I don't know."
+
+I strode into my own room and slammed the door.
+
+"Damn!" said I, with enthusiasm.
+
+"What?" queried Hephzy, from the sitting-room.  "What did you say,
+Hosy?"
+
+I did not tell her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+In Which the Pilgrims Become Tenants
+
+
+Two weeks later we left Bancroft's and went to Mayberry.  Two weeks
+only, and yet in that two weeks all our plans--if our indefinite
+visions of irresponsible flitting about Great Britain and the
+continent might be called plans--had changed utterly.  Our
+pilgrimage was, apparently, ended--it had become an indefinite
+stay.  We were no longer pilgrims, but tenants, tenants in an
+English rectory, of all places in the world.  I, the Cape Cod
+quahaug, had become an English country gentleman--or a country
+gentleman in England--for the summer, at least.
+
+Little Frank--Miss Frances Morley--was responsible for the change,
+of course.  Her sudden materialization and the freak of fortune
+which had thrown her, weak and ill, upon our hands, were
+responsible for everything.  For how much more, how many other
+changes, she would be responsible the future only could answer.
+And the future would answer in its own good, or bad, time.  My
+conundrum "What are we going to do with her?" was as much of a
+puzzle as ever.  For my part I gave it up.  Sufficient unto the day
+was the evil thereof--much more than sufficient.
+
+For the first twenty-four hours following the arrival of "my niece"
+at Bancroft's Hotel the situation regarding that niece remained as
+it was.  Miss Morley--or Frances--or Frank as Hephzy persisted in
+calling her--was too ill to care what had happened, or, at least,
+to speak of it.  She spoke very little, was confined to her room
+and bed and slept the greater part of the time.  The doctor whom I
+called, on Mr. Jameson's recommendation, confirmed his fellow
+practitioner's diagnosis; the young lady, he said, was suffering
+from general weakness and the effect of nervous strain.  She needed
+absolute rest, care and quiet.  There was no organic disease.
+
+But on the morning of the second day she was much better and
+willing, even anxious to talk.  She assailed Hephzy with questions
+and Hephzy, although she tried to avoid answering most, was obliged
+to answer some of them.  She reported the interview to me during
+luncheon.
+
+"She didn't seem to remember much about comin' here, or what
+happened before or afterward," said Hephzy.  "But she wanted to
+know it all.  I told her the best I could.  'You couldn't stay
+there,' I said.  'That Briggs hyena wasn't fit to take care of any
+human bein' and neither Hosy nor I could leave you in her hands.
+So we brought you here to the hotel where we're stoppin'.'  She
+thought this over a spell and then she wanted to know whose idea
+bringin' her here was, yours or mine.  I said 'twas yours, and just
+like you, too; you were the kindest-hearted man in the world, I
+said.  Oh, you needn't look at me like that, Hosy.  It's the plain
+truth, and you know it."
+
+"Humph!" I grunted.  "If the young lady were a mind-reader she
+might--well, never mind.  What else did she say?"
+
+"Oh, a good many things.  Wanted to know if her bill at Mrs.
+Briggs' was paid.  I said it was.  She thought about that and then
+she gave me orders that you and I were to keep account of every
+cent--no, penny--we spent for her.  She should insist upon that.
+If we had the idea that she was a subject of charity we were
+mistaken.  She fairly withered me with a look from those big eyes
+of hers.  Ardelia's eyes all over again!  Or they would be if they
+were blue instead of brown.  I remember--"
+
+I cut short the reminiscence.  I was in no mood to listen to the
+praises of any Morley.
+
+"What answer did you make to that?" I asked.
+
+"What could I say?  I didn't want any more faintin' spells or
+hysterics, either.  I said we weren't thinkin' of offerin' charity
+and if it would please her to have us run an expense book we'd do
+it, of course.  She asked what the doctor said about her condition.
+I told her he said she must keep absolutely quiet and not fret
+about anything or she'd have an awful relapse.  That was pretty
+strong but I meant it that way.  Answerin' questions that haven't
+got any answer to 'em is too much of a strain for ME.  You try it
+some time yourself and see."
+
+"I have tried it, thank you.  Well, is that all?  Did she tell you
+anything about herself; where she has been or what she has been or
+what she has been doing since her precious father died?"
+
+"No, not a word.  I was dyin' to ask her, but I didn't.  She says
+she wants to talk with the doctor next time he comes, that's all."
+
+She did talk with the doctor, although not during his next call.
+Several days passed before he would permit her to talk with him.
+Meanwhile he and I had several talks.  What he told me brought my
+conundrum no nearer its answer.
+
+She was recovering rapidly, he said, but for weeks at least her
+delicate nervous organism must be handled with care.  The slightest
+set-back would be disastrous.  He asked if we intended remaining at
+Bancroft's indefinitely.  I had no intentions--those I had had were
+wiped off my mental slate--so I said I did not know, our future
+plans were vague.  He suggested a sojourn in the country, in some
+pleasant retired spot in the rural districts.
+
+"An out-of-door life, walks, rides and sports of all sorts would do
+your niece a world of good, Mr. Knowles," he declared.  "She needs
+just that.  A very attractive young lady, sir, if you'll pardon my
+saying so," he went on.  "Were her people Londoners, may I ask?"
+
+He might ask but I had no intention of telling him.  What I knew
+concerning my "niece's" people were things not usually told to
+strangers.  I evaded the question.
+
+"Has she had a recent bereavement?" he queried.  "I hope you'll not
+think me merely idly inquisitive.  I cannot understand how a young
+woman, normally healthy and well, should have been brought to such
+a strait.  Our English girls, Mr. Knowles, do not suffer from
+nerves, as I am told your American young women so frequently do.
+Has your niece been in the States with you?"
+
+I said she had not.  Incidentally I informed him that American
+young women did NOT frequently suffer from nerves.  He said
+"Really," but he did not believe me, I'm certain.  He was a good
+fellow, and intelligent, but his ideas of "the States" had been
+gathered, largely, I think, from newspapers and novels.  He was
+convinced that most Americans were confirmed neurotics and
+dyspeptics, just as Hephzy had believed all Englishmen wore side-
+whiskers.
+
+I changed the conversation as soon as I could.  I could tell him so
+little concerning my newly found "niece."  I knew about as much
+concerning her life as he did.  It is distinctly unpleasant to be
+uncle to someone you know nothing at all about.  I devoutly wished
+I had not said she was my niece.  I repeated that wish many times
+afterward.
+
+Miss Morley's talk with the physician had definite results,
+surprising results.  Following that talk she sent word by the
+doctor that she wished to see Hephzy and me.  We went into her
+room.  She was sitting in a chair by the window, and was wearing a
+rather pretty wrapper, or kimono, or whatever that sort of garment
+is called.  At any rate, it was becoming.  I was obliged to admit
+that the general opinion expressed by the Jamesons and Hephzy and
+the doctor--that she was pretty, was correct enough.  She was
+pretty, but that did not help matters any.
+
+She asked us--no, she commanded us to sit down.  Her manner was
+decidedly business-like.  She wasted no time in preliminaries, but
+came straight to the point, and that point was the one which I had
+dreaded.  She asked us what decision we had reached concerning her.
+
+"Have you decided what your offer is to be?" she asked.
+
+I looked at Hephzy and she at me.  Neither of us derived comfort
+from the exchange of looks.  However, something must be done, or
+said, and I braced myself to say it.
+
+"Miss Morley," I began, "before I answer that question I should
+like to ask you one.  What do you expect us to do?"
+
+She regarded me coldly.  "I expect," she said, "that you and this--
+that you and Miss Cahoon will arrange to pay me the money which was
+my mother's and which my grandfather should have turned over to her
+while he lived."
+
+Again I looked at Hephzy and again I braced myself for the scene
+which I was certain would follow.
+
+"It is your impression then," I said, "that your mother had money
+of her own and that Captain Barnabas, your grandfather, kept that
+money for his own use."
+
+"It is not an impression," haughtily; "I know it to be a fact."
+
+"How do you know it?"
+
+"My father told me so, during his last illness."
+
+"Was--pardon me--was your father himself at the time?  Was he--er--
+rational?"
+
+"Rational!  My father?"
+
+"I mean--I mean was he himself--mentally?  He was not delirious
+when he told you?"
+
+"Delirious!  Mr. Knowles, I am trying to be patient, but for the
+last time I warn you that I will not listen to insinuations against
+my father."
+
+"I am not insinuating anything.  I am seeking information.  Were
+you and your father together a great deal?  Did you know him well?
+Just what did he tell you?"
+
+She hesitated before replying.  When she spoke it was with an
+exaggerated air of patient toleration, as if she were addressing an
+unreasonable child.
+
+"I will answer you," she said.  "I will answer you because, so far,
+I have no fault to find with your behavior toward me.  You and my--
+and my aunt have been as reasonable as I, perhaps, should expect,
+everything considered.  Your bringing me here and providing for me
+was even kind, I suppose.  So I will answer your questions.  My
+father and I were not together a great deal.  I attended a convent
+school in France and saw Father only at intervals.  I supposed him
+to possess an independent income.  It was only when he was--was
+unable to work," with a quiver in her voice, "that I learned how he
+lived.  He had been obliged to depend upon his music, upon his
+violin playing, to earn money enough to keep us both alive.  Then
+he told me of--of his life in America and how my mother and he had
+been--been cheated and defrauded by those who--who--Oh, DON'T ask
+me any more!  Don't!"
+
+"I must ask you.  I must ask you to tell me this:  How was he
+defrauded, as you call it?"
+
+"I have told you, already.  My mother's fortune--"
+
+"But your mother had no fortune."
+
+The anticipated scene was imminent.  She sprang to her feet, but
+being too weak to stand, sank back again.  Hephzy looked
+appealingly at me.
+
+"Hosy," she cautioned; "Oh, Hosy, be careful!  Think how sick she
+has been."
+
+"I am thinking, Hephzy.  I mean to be careful.  But what I said is
+the truth, and you know it."
+
+Hephzy would have replied, but Little Frank motioned her to be
+silent.
+
+"Hush!" she commanded.  "Mr. Knowles, what do you mean?  My mother
+had money, a great deal of money.  I don't know the exact sum, but
+my father said--You know it!  You MUST know it.  It was in my
+grandfather's care and--"
+
+"Your grandfather had no money.  He--well, he lost every dollar he
+had.  He died as poor as a church rat."
+
+Another interval of silence, during which I endured a piercing
+scrutiny from the dark eyes.  Then Miss Morley's tone changed.
+
+"Indeed!" she said, sarcastically.  "You surprise me, Mr. Knowles.
+What became of the money, may I ask?  I understand that my
+grandfather was a wealthy man."
+
+"He was fairly well-to-do at one time, but he lost his money and
+died poor."
+
+"How did he lose it?"
+
+The question was a plain one and demanded a plain and satisfying
+answer.  But how could I give that answer--then?  Hephzy was
+shaking her head violently.  I stammered and faltered and looked
+guilty, I have no doubt.
+
+"Well?" said Miss Morley.
+
+"He--he lost it, that is sufficient.  You must take my word for it.
+Captain Cahoon died without a dollar of his own."
+
+"When did he LOSE his wealth?" with sarcastic emphasis.
+
+"Years ago.  About the time your parents left the United States.
+There, there, Hephzy!  I know.  I'm doing my best."
+
+"Indeed!  When did he die?"
+
+"Long ago--more than ten years ago."
+
+"But my parents left America long before that.  If my grandfather
+was penniless how did he manage to live all those years?  What
+supported him?"
+
+"Your aunt--Miss Cahoon here--had money in her own right."
+
+"SHE had money and my mother had not.  Yet both were Captain
+Cahoon's daughters.  How did that happen?"
+
+It seemed to me that it was Hephzy's time to play the target.
+I turned to her.
+
+"Miss Cahoon will probably answer that herself," I observed,
+maliciously.
+
+Hephzibah appeared more embarrassed than I.
+
+"I--I--Oh, what difference does all this make?" she faltered.
+"Hosy has told you the truth, Frances.  Really and truly he has.
+Father was poor as poverty when he died and all his last years,
+too.  All his money had gone."
+
+"Yes, so I have heard Mr. Knowles say.  But how did it go?"
+
+"In--in--well, it was invested in stocks and things and--and--"
+
+"Do you mean that he speculated in shares?"
+
+"Well, not--not--"
+
+"I see.  Oh, I see.  Father told me a little concerning those
+speculations.  He warned Captain Cahoon before he left the States,
+but his warnings were not heeded, I presume.  And you wish me to
+believe that ALL the money was lost--my mother's and all.  Is that
+what you mean?"
+
+"Your mother HAD no money," I put in, desperately, "I have told
+you--"
+
+"You have told me many things, Mr. Knowles.  Even admitting that my
+grandfather lost his money, as you say, why should I suffer because
+of his folly?  I am not asking for HIS money.  I am demanding money
+that was my mother's and is now mine.  That I expected from him and
+now I expect it from you, his heirs."
+
+"But your mother had no--"
+
+"I do not care to hear that again.  I know she had money."
+
+"But how do you know?"
+
+"Because my father told me she had, and my father did not lie."
+
+There we were again--just where we started.  The doctor re-entered
+the room and insisted upon his patient's being left to herself.
+She must lie down and rest, he said.  His manner was one of
+distinct disapproval.  It was evident that he considered Hephzy and
+me disturbers of the peace; in fact he intimated as much when he
+joined us in the sitting-room in a few minutes.
+
+"I am afraid I made a mistake in permitting the conference," he
+said.  "The young lady seems much agitated, Mr. Knowles.  If she
+is, complete nervous prostration may follow.  She may be an invalid
+for months or even years.  I strongly recommend her being taken
+into the country as soon as possible."
+
+This speech and the manner in which it was made were impressive and
+alarming.  The possibilities at which it hinted were more alarming
+still.  We made no attempt to discuss family matters with Little
+Frank that day nor the next.
+
+But on the day following, when I returned from my morning visit to
+Camford Street, I found Hephzy awaiting me in the sitting-room.
+She was very solemn.
+
+"Hosy," she said, "sit down.  I've got somethin' to tell you."
+
+"About her?" I asked, apprehensively.
+
+"Yes.  She's just been talkin' to me."
+
+"She has!  I thought we agreed not to talk with her at all."
+
+"We did, and I tried not to.  But when I went in to see her just
+now she was waitin' for me.  She had somethin' to say, she said,
+and she said it--Oh, my goodness, yes! she said it."
+
+"What did she say?  Has she sent for her lawyer--her solicitor, or
+whatever he is?"
+
+"No, she hasn't done that.  I don't know but I 'most wish she had.
+He wouldn't be any harder to talk to than she is.  Hosy, she's made
+up her mind."
+
+"Made up her mind!  I thought HER mind was already made up."
+
+"It was, but she's made it up again.  That doctor has been talkin'
+to her and she's really frightened about her health, I think.
+Anyhow, she has decided that her principal business just now is to
+get well.  She told me she had decided not to press her claim upon
+us for the present.  If we wished to make an offer of what she
+calls restitution, she'll listen to it; but she judges we are not
+ready to make one."
+
+"Humph! her judgment is correct so far."
+
+"Yes, but that isn't all.  While she is waitin' for that offer she
+expects us to take care of her.  She has been thinkin', she says,
+and she has come to the conclusion that our providin' for her as we
+have done isn't charity--or needn't be considered as charity--at
+all.  She is willin' to consider it a part of that precious
+restitution she's forever talkin' about.  We are to take care of
+her, and pay her doctor's bills, and take her into the country as
+he recommends, and--"
+
+I interrupted.  "Great Scott!" I cried, "does she expect us to
+ADOPT her?"
+
+"I don't know what she expects; I'm tryin' to tell you what she
+said.  We're to do all this and keep a strict account of all it
+costs, and then when we are ready to make a--a proposition, as she
+calls it, this account can be subtracted from the money she thinks
+we've got that belongs to her."
+
+"But there isn't any money belonging to her.  I told her so, and so
+did you."
+
+"I know, but we might tell her a thousand times and it wouldn't
+affect her father's tellin' her once.  Oh, that Strickland Morley!
+If only--"
+
+"Hush! hush, Hephzy . . . Well, by George! of all the--this thing
+has gone far enough.  It has gone too far.  We made a great mistake
+in bringing her here, in having anything to do with her at all--but
+we shan't go on making mistakes.  We must stop where we are.  She
+must be told the truth now--to-day."
+
+"I know--I know, Hosy; but who'll tell her?"
+
+"I will."
+
+"She won't believe you."
+
+"Then she must disbelieve.  She can call in her solicitor and I'll
+make him believe."
+
+Hephzy was silent.  Her silence annoyed me.
+
+"Why don't you say something?" I demanded.  "You know what I say is
+plain common-sense."
+
+"I suppose it is--I suppose 'tis.  But, Hosy, if you start in
+tellin' her again you know what'll happen.  The doctor said the
+least little thing would bring on nervous prostration.  And if she
+has that, WHAT will become of her?"
+
+It was my turn to hesitate.
+
+"You couldn't--we couldn't turn her out into the street if she was
+nervous prostrated, could we," pleaded Hephzy.  "After all, she's
+Ardelia's daughter and--"
+
+"She's Strickland Morley's daughter.  There is no doubt of that.
+Hereditary influence is plain enough in her case."
+
+"I know, but she is Ardelia's daughter, too.  I don't see how we
+can tell her, Hosy; not until she's well and strong again."
+
+I was never more thoroughly angry in my life.  My patience was
+exhausted.
+
+"Look here, Hephzy," I cried: "what is it you are leading up to?
+You're not proposing--actually proposing that we adopt this girl,
+are you?"
+
+"No--no--o.  Not exactly that, of course.  But we might take her
+into the country somewhere and--"
+
+"Oh, DO be sensible!  Do you realize what that would mean?  We
+should have to give up our trip, stop sightseeing, stop everything
+we had planned to do, and turn ourselves into nurses running a
+sanitarium for the benefit of a girl whose father's rascality made
+your father a pauper.  And, not only do this, but be treated by her
+as if--as if--"
+
+"There, there, Hosy!  I know what it will mean.  I know what it
+would mean to you and I don't mean for you to do it.  You've done
+enough and more than enough.  But with me it's different.  _I_
+could do it."
+
+"You?"
+
+"Yes.  I've got some money of my own.  I could find a nice, cheap,
+quiet boardin'-house in the country round here somewhere and she
+and I could go there and stay until she got well.  You needn't go
+at all; you could go off travelin' by yourself and--"
+
+"Hephzy, what are you talking about?"
+
+"I mean it.  I've thought it all out, Hosy.  Ever since Ardelia and
+I had that last talk together and she whispered to me that--that--
+well, especially ever since I knew there was a Little Frank I've
+been thinkin' and plannin' about that Little Frank; you know I
+have.  He--she isn't the kind of Little Frank I expected, but
+she's, my sister's baby and I can't--I CAN'T, turn her away to be
+sick and die.  I can't do it.  I shouldn't dare face Ardelia in--on
+the other side if I did.  No, I guess it's my duty and I'm goin' to
+go on with it.  But with you it's different.  She isn't any real
+relation to you.  You've done enough--and more than enough--as it
+is."
+
+This was the climax.  Of course I might have expected it, but of
+course I didn't.  As soon as I recovered, or partially recovered,
+from my stupefaction I expostulated and scolded and argued.  Hephzy
+was quiet but firm.  She hated to part from me--she couldn't bear
+to think of it; but on the other hand she couldn't abandon her
+Ardelia's little girl.  The interview ended by my walking out of
+the room and out of Bancroft's in disgust.
+
+I did not return until late in the afternoon.  I was in better
+humor then.  Hephzy was still in the sitting-room; she looked as if
+she had been crying.
+
+"Hosy," she said, as I entered, "I--I hope you don't think I'm too
+ungrateful.  I'm not.  Really I'm not.  And I care as much for you
+as if you was my own boy.  I can't leave you; I sha'n't.  If you
+say for us to--"
+
+I interrupted.
+
+"Hephzy," I said, "I shan't say anything.  I know perfectly well
+that you couldn't leave me any more than I could leave you.  I have
+arranged with Matthews to set about house-hunting at once.  As soon
+as rural England is ready for us, we shall be ready for it.  After
+all, what difference does it make?  I was ordered to get fresh
+experience.  I might as well get it by becoming keeper of a
+sanitarium as any other way."
+
+Hephzy looked at me.  She rose from her chair.
+
+"Hosy," she cried, "what--a sanitarium?"
+
+"We'll keep it together," I said, smiling.  "You and I and Little
+Frank.  And it is likely to be a wonderful establishment."
+
+Hephzy said--she said a great deal, principally concerning my
+generosity and goodness and kindness and self-sacrifice.  I tried
+to shut off the flow, but it was not until I began to laugh that it
+ceased.
+
+"Why!" cried Hephzy.  "You're laughin'!  What in the world?  I
+don't see anything to laugh at."
+
+"Don't you?  I do.  Oh, dear me!  I--I, the Bayport quahaug to--Ho!
+ho!  Hephzy, let me laugh.  If there is any fun in this perfectly
+devilish situation let me enjoy it while I can."
+
+And that is how and why I decided to become a country gentleman
+instead of a traveler.  When I told Matthews of my intention he had
+been petrified with astonishment.  I had written Campbell of that
+intention.  I devoutly wished I might see his face when he read my
+letter.
+
+For days and days Hephzy and I "house-hunted."  We engaged a nurse
+to look after the future patient of the "sanitarium" while we did
+our best to look for the sanitarium itself.  Mr. Matthews gave us
+the addresses of real estate agents and we journeyed from suburb to
+suburb and from seashore to hills.  We saw several "semi-detached
+villas."  The name "semi-detached villa" had an appealing sound,
+especially to Hephzy, but the villas themselves did not appeal.
+They turned out to be what we, in America, would have called "two-
+family houses."
+
+"And I never did like the idea of livin' in a two-family house,"
+declared Hephzy.  "I've known plenty of real nice folks who did
+live in 'em, or one-half of one of 'em, but it usually happened
+that the folks in the other half was a dreadful mean set.  They let
+their dog chase your cat and if your hens scratched up their flower
+garden they were real unlikely about it.  I've heard Father tell
+about Cap'n Noah Doane and Cap'n Elkanah Howes who used to live in
+Bayport.  They'd been chums all their lives and when they retired
+from the sea they thought 'twould be lovely to build a double house
+so's they would be right close together all the time.  Well, they
+did it and they hadn't been settled more'n a month when they began
+quarrelin'.  Cap'n Noah's wife wanted the house painted yellow and
+Mrs. Cap'n Elkanah, she wanted it green.  They started the fuss and
+it ended by one-half bein' yellow and t'other half green--such an
+outrage you never saw--and a big fence down the middle of the front
+yard, and the two families not speakin', and law-suits and land
+knows what all.  They wouldn't even go to the same church nor be
+buried in the same graveyard.  No sir-ee! no two-family house for
+us if I can help it.  We've got troubles enough inside the family
+without fightin' the neighbors."
+
+"But think of the beautiful names," I observed.  "Those names ought
+to appeal to your poetic soul, Hephzy.  We haven't seen a villa
+yet, no matter how dingy, or small, that wasn't christened
+'Rosemary Terrace' or 'Sunnylawn' or something.  That last one--the
+shack with the broken windows--was labeled 'Broadview' and it faced
+an alley ending at a brick stable."
+
+"I know it," she said.  "If they'd called it 'Narrowview' or 'Cow
+Prospect' 'twould have been more fittin', I should say.  But I
+think givin' names to homes is sort of pretty, just the same.  We
+might call our house at home 'Writer's Rest.'  A writer lives in
+it, you know."
+
+"And he has rested more than he has written of late," I observed.
+"'Quahaug Stew' or 'The Tureen' would be better, I should say."
+
+When we expressed disapproval of the semi-detached villas our real
+estate brokers flew to the other extremity and proceeded to show us
+"estates."  These estates comprised acres of ground, mansions,
+game-keepers' and lodge-keepers' houses, and goodness knows what.
+Some, so the brokers were particular to inform us, were celebrated
+for their "shooting."
+
+The villas were not good enough; the estates were altogether too
+good.  We inspected but one and then declined to see more.
+
+"Shootin'!" sniffed Hephzy.  "I should feel like shootin' myself
+every time I paid the rent.  I'd HAVE to do it the second time.
+'Twould be a quicker end than starvin', 'and the first month would
+bring us to that."
+
+We found one pleasant cottage in a suburb bearing the euphonious
+name of "Leatherhead"--that is, the village was named "Leatherhead";
+the cottage was "Ash Clump."  I teased Hephzy by referring to it as
+"Ash Dump," but it really was a pretty, roomy house, with gardens and
+flowers.  For the matter of that, every cottage we visited, even the
+smallest, was bowered in flowers.
+
+Hephzy's romantic spirit objected strongly to "Leatherhead," but I
+told her nothing could be more appropriate.
+
+"This whole proposition--Beg pardon; I didn't mean to use that
+word; we've heard enough concerning 'propositions'--but really,
+Hephzy, 'Leatherhead' is very appropriate for us.  If we weren't
+leather-headed and deserving of leather medals we should not be
+hunting houses at all.  We should have left Little Frank and her
+affairs in a lawyer's hands and be enjoying ourselves as we
+intended.  Leatherhead for the leather-heads; it's another
+dispensation of Providence."
+
+"Ash Dump"--"Clump," I mean--was owned by a person named Cripps,
+Solomon Cripps.  Mr. Cripps was a stout, mutton-chopped individual,
+strongly suggestive of Bancroft's "Henry."  He was rather pompous
+and surly when I first knocked at the door of his residence, but
+when he learned we were house-hunting and had our eyes upon the
+"Clump," he became very polite indeed.  "A 'eavenly spot," he
+declared it to be.  "A beautiful neighborhood.  Near the shops and
+not far from the Primitive Wesleyan chapel."  He and Mrs. Cripps
+attended the chapel, he informed us.
+
+I did not fancy Mr. Cripps; he was too--too something, I was not
+sure what.  And Mrs. Cripps, whom we met later, was of a similar
+type.  They, like everyone else, recognized us as Americans at once
+and they spoke highly of the "States."
+
+"A very fine country, I am informed," said Mr. Cripps.  "New, of
+course, but very fine indeed.  Young men make money there.  Much
+money--yes."
+
+Mrs. Cripps wished to know if Americans were a religious people, as
+a rule.  Religion, true spiritual religion was on the wane in
+England.
+
+I gathered that she and her husband were doing their best to keep
+it up to the standard.  I had read, in books by English writers, of
+the British middle-class Pharisee.  I judged the Crippses to be
+Pharisees.
+
+Hephzy's opinion was like mine.
+
+"If ever there was a sanctimonious hypocrite it's that Mrs.
+Cripps," she declared.  "And her husband ain't any better.  They
+remind me of Deacon Hardy and his wife back home.  He always passed
+the plate in church and she was head of the sewin' circle, but when
+it came to lettin' go of an extry cent for the minister's salary
+they had glue on their fingers.  Father used to say that the Deacon
+passed the plate himself so nobody could see how little he put in
+it.  They were the ones that always brought a stick of salt herrin'
+to the donation parties."
+
+We didn't like the Crippses, but we did like "Ash Clump."  We had
+almost decided to take it when our plans were quashed by the member
+of our party on whose account we had planned solely.  Miss Morley
+flatly refused to go to Leatherhead.
+
+"Don't ask ME why," said Hephzy, to whom the refusal had been made.
+"I don't know.  All I know is that the very name 'Leatherhead'
+turned her whiter than she has been for a week.  She just put that
+little foot of hers down and said no.  I said 'Why not?' and she
+said 'Never mind.'  So I guess we sha'n't be Leatherheaded--in that
+way--this summer."
+
+I was angry and impatient, but when I tried to reason with the
+young lady I met a crushing refusal and a decided snub.
+
+"I do not care," said Little Frank, calmly and coldly, "to explain
+my reasons.  I have them, and that is sufficient.  I shall not go
+to--that town or that place."
+
+"But why?" I begged, restraining my desire to shake her.
+
+"I have my reasons.  You may go there, if you wish.  That is your
+right.  But I shall not.  And before you go I shall insist upon a
+settlement of my claim."
+
+The "claim" could neither be settled nor discussed; the doctor's
+warning was no less insistent although his patient was steadily
+improving.  I faced the alternative of my compliance or her nervous
+prostration and I chose the former.  My desire to shake her
+remained.
+
+So "Ash Clump" was given up.  Hephzy and I speculated much
+concerning Little Frank's aversion to Leatherhead.
+
+"It must be," said Hephzy, "that she knows somebody there, or
+somethin' like that.  That's likely, I suppose.  You know we don't
+know much about her or what she's done since her father died, Hosy.
+I've tried to ask her but she won't tell.  I wish we did know."
+
+"I don't," I snarled.  "I wish to heaven we had never known her at
+all."
+
+Hephzy sighed.  "It IS awful hard for you," she said.  "And yet, if
+we had come to know her in another way you--we might have been
+glad.  I--I think she could be as sweet as she is pretty to folks
+she didn't consider thieves--and Americans.  She does hate
+Americans.  That's her precious pa's doin's, I suppose likely."
+
+The next afternoon we saw the advertisement in the Standard.
+George, the waiter, brought two of the London dailies to our room
+each day.  The advertisement read as follows:
+
+
+"To Let for the Summer Months--Furnished.  A Rectory in Mayberry,
+Sussex.  Ten rooms, servants' quarters, vegetable gardens, small
+fruit, tennis court, etc., etc.  Water and gas laid on.  Golf near
+by.  Terms low.  Rector--Mayberry, Sussex."
+
+
+"I answered it, Hosy," said Hephzy.
+
+"You did!"
+
+"Yes.  It sounded so nice I couldn't help it.  It would be lovely
+to live in a rectory, wouldn't it."
+
+"Lovely--and expensive," I answered.  "I'm afraid a rectory with
+tennis courts and servants' quarters and all the rest of it will
+prove too grand for a pair of Bayporters like you and me.  However,
+your answering the ad does no harm; it doesn't commit us to
+anything."
+
+But when the answer to the answer came it was even more appealing
+than the advertisement itself.  And the terms, although a trifle
+higher than we had planned to pay, were not entirely beyond our
+means.  The rector--his name was Cole--urged us to visit Mayberry
+and see the place for ourselves.  We were to take the train for
+Haddington on Hill where the trap would meet us.  Mayberry was two
+miles from Haddington on Hill, it appeared.
+
+We decided to go, but before writing of our intention, Hephzy
+consulted the most particular member of our party.
+
+"It's no use doing anything until we ask her," she said.  "She may
+be as down on Mayberry as she was on Leatherhead."
+
+But she was not.  She had no objections to Mayberry.  So, after
+writing and making the necessary arrangements, we took the train
+one bright, sunny morning, and after a ride of an hour or more,
+alighted at Haddington on Hill.
+
+Haddington on Hill was not on a hill at all, unless a knoll in the
+middle of a wide flat meadow be called that.  There were no houses
+near the railway station, either rectories or any other sort.  We
+were the only passengers to leave the train there.
+
+The trap, however, was waiting.  The horse which drew it was a
+black, plump little animal, and the driver was a neat English lad
+who touched his hat and assisted Hephzy to the back seat of the
+vehicle.  I climbed up beside her.
+
+The road wound over the knoll and away across the meadow.  On
+either side were farm lands, fields of young grain, or pastures
+with flocks of sheep grazing contentedly.  In the distance, in
+every direction, one caught glimpses of little villages with gray
+church towers rising amid the foliage.  Each field and pasture was
+bordered with a hedge instead of a fence, and over all hung the
+soft, light blue haze which is so characteristic of good weather in
+England.
+
+Birds which we took to be crows, but which we learned afterward
+were rooks, whirled and circled.  As we turned a corner a smaller
+bird rose from the grass beside the road and soared upward, singing
+with all its little might until it was a fluttering speck against
+the sky.  Hephzy watched it, her eyes shining.
+
+"I believe," she cried, excitedly, "I do believe that is a skylark.
+Do you suppose it is?"
+
+"A lark, yes, lady," said our driver.
+
+"A lark, a real skylark!  Just think of it, Hosy.  I've heard a
+real lark.  Well, Hephzibah Cahoon, you may never get into a book,
+but you're livin' among book things every day of your life.  'And
+singin' ever soars and soarin' ever singest.'  I'd sing, too, if I
+knew how.  You needn't be frightened--I sha'n't try."
+
+The meadows ended at the foot of another hill, a real one this
+time.  At our left, crowning the hill, a big house, a mansion with
+towers and turrets, rose above the trees.  Hephzy whispered to me.
+
+"You don't suppose THAT is the rectory, do you, Hosy?" she asked,
+in an awestricken tone.
+
+"If it is we may as well go back to London," I answered.  "But it
+isn't.  Nothing lower in churchly rank than a bishop could keep up
+that establishment."
+
+The driver settled our doubts for us.
+
+"The Manor House, sir," he said, pointing with his whip.  "The
+estate begins here, sir."
+
+The "estate" was bordered by a high iron fence, stretching as far
+as we could see.  Beside that fence we rode for some distance.
+Then another turn in the road and we entered the street of a little
+village, a village of picturesque little houses, brick or stone
+always--not a frame house among them.  Many of the roofs were
+thatched.  Flowers and climbing vines and little gardens
+everywhere.  The village looked as if it had been there, just as it
+was, for centuries.
+
+"This is Mayberry, sir," said our driver.  "That is the rectory,
+next the church."
+
+We could see the church tower and the roof, but the rectory was not
+yet visible to our eyes.  We turned in between two of the houses,
+larger and more pretentious than the rest.  The driver alighted and
+opened a big wooden gate.  Before us was a driveway, shaded by
+great elms and bordered by rose hedges.  At the end of the driveway
+was an old-fashioned, comfortable looking, brick house.  Vines hid
+the most of the bricks.  Flower beds covered its foundations.  A
+gray-haired old gentleman stood in the doorway.
+
+This was the rectory we had come to see and the gray-haired
+gentleman was the Reverend Mr. Cole, the rector.
+
+"My soul!" whispered Hephzy, looking aghast at the spacious
+grounds, "we can never hire THIS.  This is too expensive and grand
+for us, Hosy.  Look at the grass to cut and the flowers to attend
+to, and the house to run.  No wonder the servants have 'quarters.'
+My soul and body!  I thought a rector was a kind of minister, and a
+rectory was a sort of parsonage, but I guess I'm off my course, as
+Father used to say.  Either that or ministers' wages are higher
+than they are in Bayport.  No, this place isn't for you and me,
+Hosy."
+
+But it was.  Before we left that rectory in the afternoon I had
+agreed to lease it until the middle of September, servants--there
+were five of them, groom and gardener included--horse and trap,
+tennis court, vegetable garden, fruit, flowers and all.  It
+developed that the terms, which I had considered rather too high
+for my purse, included the servants' wages, vegetables from the
+garden, strawberries and other "small fruit"--everything.  Even
+food for the horse was included in that all-embracing rent.
+
+As Hephzy said, everything considered, the rent of Mayberry Rectory
+was lower than that of a fair-sized summer cottage at Bayport.
+
+The Reverend Mr. Cole was a delightful gentleman.  His wife was
+equally kind and agreeable.  I think they were, at first, rather
+unpleasantly surprised to find that their prospective tenants were
+from the "States"; but Hephzy and I managed to behave as unlike
+savages as we could, and the Cole manner grew less and less
+reserved.  Mr. Cole and his wife were planning to spend a long
+vacation in Switzerland and his "living," or parish, was to be left
+in charge of his two curates.  There was a son at Oxford who was to
+join them on their vacation.
+
+Mr. Cole and I walked about the grounds and visited the church, the
+yard of which, with its weather-beaten gravestones and fine old
+trees, adjoined the rectory on the western side, behind the tall
+hedge.
+
+The church was built of stone, of course, and a portion of it was
+older than the Norman conquest.  Before the altar steps were two
+ancient effigies of knights in armor, with crossed gauntlets and
+their feet supported by crouching lions.  These old fellows were
+scratched and scarred and initialed.  Upon one noble nose were the
+letters "A. H. N. 1694."  I decided that vandalism was not a modern
+innovation.
+
+While the rector and I were inspecting the church, Mrs. Cole and
+Hephzy were making a tour of the house.  They met us at the door.
+Mrs. Cole's eyes were twinkling; I judged that she had found Hephzy
+amusing.  If this was true it had not warped her judgment, however,
+for, a moment later when she and I were alone, she said:
+
+"Your cousin, Miss Cahoon, is a good housekeeper, I imagine."
+
+"She is all of that," I said, decidedly.
+
+"Yes, she was very particular concerning the kitchen and scullery
+and the maids' rooms.  Are all American housekeepers as
+particular?"
+
+"Not all.  Miss Cahoon is unique in many ways; but she is a
+remarkable woman in all."
+
+"Yes.  I am sure of it.  And she has such a typical American
+accent, hasn't she."
+
+We were to take possession on the following Monday.  We lunched at
+the "Red Cow," the village inn, where the meal was served in the
+parlor and the landlord's daughter waited upon us.  The plump black
+horse drew us to the railway station, and we took the train for
+London.
+
+We have learned, by this time, that second, or even third-class
+travel was quite good enough for short journeys and that very few
+English people paid for first-class compartments.  We were
+fortunate enough to have a second-class compartment to ourselves
+this time, and, when we were seated, Hephzy asked a question.
+
+"Did you think to speak about the golf, Hosy?" she said.  "You will
+want to play some, won't you?"
+
+"Yes," said I.  "I did ask about it.  It seems that the golf course
+is a private one, on the big estate we passed on the way from the
+station.  Permission is always given the rectory tenants."
+
+"Oh! my gracious, isn't that grand!  That estate isn't in Mayberry.
+The Mayberry bounds--that's what Mrs. Cole called them--and just
+this side.  The estate is in the village of--of Burgleston Bogs.
+Burgleston Bogs--it's a funny name.  Seem's if I'd heard it
+before."
+
+"You have," said I, in surprise.  "Burgleston Bogs is where that
+Heathcroft chap whom we met on the steamer visits occasionally.
+His aunt has a big place there.  By George! you don't suppose that
+estate belongs to his aunt, do you?"
+
+Hephzy gasped.  "I wouldn't wonder," she cried.  "I wouldn't wonder
+if it did.  And his aunt was Lady Somebody, wasn't she.  Maybe
+you'll meet him there.  Goodness sakes! just think of your playin'
+golf with a Lady's nephew."
+
+"I doubt if we need to think of it," I observed.  "Mr. Carleton
+Heathcroft on board ship may be friendly with American plebeians,
+but on shore, and when visiting his aunt, he may be quite
+different.  I fancy he and I will not play many holes together."
+
+Hephzy laughed.  "You 'fancy,'" she repeated.  "You'll be sayin'
+'My word' next.  My! Hosy, you ARE gettin' English."
+
+"Indeed I'm not!" I declared, with emphasis.  "My experience with
+an English relative is sufficient of itself to prevent that.  Miss
+Frances Morley and I are compatriots for the summer only."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+In Which We Make the Acquaintance of Mayberry and a Portion of
+Burgleston Bogs
+
+
+We migrated to Mayberry the following Monday, as we had agreed to
+do.  Miss Morley went with us, of course.  I secured a first-class
+apartment for our party and the journey was a comfortable and quiet
+one.  Our invalid was too weak to talk a great deal even if she had
+wished, which she apparently did not.  Johnson, the groom, met us
+at Haddington on Hill and we drove to the rectory.  There Miss
+Morley, very tired and worn out, was escorted to her room by Hephzy
+and Charlotte, the housemaid.  She was perfectly willing to remain
+in that room, in fact she did not leave it for several days.
+
+Meanwhile Hephzy and I were doing our best to become acquainted
+with our new and novel mode of life.  Hephzy took charge of the
+household and was, in a way, quite in her element; in another way
+she was distinctly out of it.
+
+"I did think I was gettin' used to bein' waited on, Hosy," she
+confided, "but it looks as if I'll have to begin all over again.
+Managin' one hired girl like Susanna was a job and I tell you I
+thought managin' three, same as we've got here, would be a
+staggerer.  But it isn't.  Somehow the kind of help over here don't
+seem to need managin'.  They manage me more than I do them.
+There's Mrs. Wigham, the cook.  Mrs. Cole told me she was a
+'superior' person and I guess she is--at any rate, she's superior
+to me in some things.  She knows what a 'gooseberry fool' is and
+I'm sure I don't.  I felt like another kind of fool when she told
+me she was goin' to make one, as a 'sweet,' for dinner to-night.
+As nigh as I can make out it's a sort of gooseberry pie, but _I_
+should never have called a gooseberry pie a 'sweet'; a 'sour' would
+have been better, accordin' to my reckonin'.  However, all desserts
+over here are 'sweets' and fruit is dessert.  Then there's
+Charlotte, the housemaid, and Baker, the 'between-maid'--between
+upstairs and down, I suppose that means--and Grimmer, the gardener,
+and Johnson, the boy that takes care of the horse.  Each one of 'em
+seems to know exactly what their own job is and just as exactly
+where it leaves off and t'other's job begins.  I never saw such
+obligin' but independent folks in my life.  As for my own job, that
+seems to be settin' still with my hands folded.  Well, it's a brand
+new one and it's goin' to take me one spell to get used to it."
+
+It seemed likely to be a "spell" before I became accustomed to my
+own "job," that of being a country gentleman with nothing to do but
+play the part.  When I went out to walk about the rectory garden,
+Grimmer touched his hat.  When, however, I ventured to pick a few
+flowers in that garden, his expression of shocked disapproval was
+so marked that I felt I must have made a dreadful mistake.  I had,
+of course.  Grimmer was in charge of those flowers and if I wished
+any picked I was expected to tell him to pick them.  Picking them
+myself was equivalent to admitting that I was not accustomed to
+having a gardener in my employ, in other words that I was not a
+real gentleman at all.  I might wait an hour for Johnson to return
+from some errand or other and harness the horse; but I must on no
+account save time by harnessing the animal myself.  That sort of
+labor was not done by the "gentry."  I should have lost caste with
+the servants a dozen times during my first few days in the rectory
+were it not for one saving grace; I was an American, and almost any
+peculiar thing was expected of an American.
+
+When I strolled along the village street the male villagers,
+especially the older ones, touched their hats to me.  The old women
+bowed or courtesied.  Also they invariably paused, when I had
+passed, to stare after me.  The group at the blacksmith shop--where
+the stone coping of the low wall was worn in hollows by the
+generations of idlers who had sat upon it, just as their descendants
+were sitting upon it now--turned, after I had passed, to stare.
+There would be a pause in the conversation, then an outburst of talk
+and laughter.  They were talking about the "foreigner" of course,
+and laughing at him.  At the tailor's, where I sent my clothes to be
+pressed, the tailor himself, a gray-haired, round-shouldered
+antique, ventured an opinion concerning those clothes.  "That coat
+was not made in England, sir," he said.  "We don't make 'em that way
+'ere, sir.  That's a bit foreign, that coat, sir."
+
+Yes, I was a foreigner.  It was hard to realize.  In a way
+everything was so homelike; the people looked like people I had
+known at home, their faces were New England faces quite as much as
+they were old England.  But their clothes were just a little
+different, and their ways were different, and a dry-goods store was
+a "draper's shop," and a drug-store was a "chemist's," and candies
+were "sweeties" and a public school was a "board school" and a
+boarding-school was a "public school."  And I might be polite and
+pleasant to these people--persons out of my "class"--but I must not
+be too cordial, for if I did, in the eyes of these very people, I
+lost caste and they would despise me.
+
+Yes, I was a foreigner; it was a queer feeling.
+
+Coming from America and particularly from democratic Bayport, where
+everyone is as good as anyone else provided he behaves himself, the
+class distinction in Mayberry was strange at first.  I do not mean
+that there was not independence there; there was, among the poorest
+as well as the richer element.  Every male Mayberryite voted as he
+thought, I am sure; and was self-respecting and independent.  He
+would have resented any infringement of his rights just as
+Englishmen have resented such infringements and fought against them
+since history began.  But what I am trying to make plain is that
+political equality and social equality were by no means synonymous.
+A man was a man for 'a' that, but when he was a gentleman he was
+'a' that' and more.  And when he was possessed of a title he was
+revered because of that title, or the title itself was revered.
+The hatter in London where I purchased a new "bowler," had a row of
+shelves upon which were boxes containing, so I was told, the spare
+titles of eminent customers.  And those hat-boxes were lettered
+like this:  "The Right Hon. Col. Wainwright, V.C.," "His Grace the
+Duke of Leicester," "Sir George Tupman, K.C.B.," etc., etc.  It was
+my first impression that the hatter was responsible for thus
+proclaiming his customers' titles, but one day I saw Richard,
+convoyed by Henry, reverently bearing a suitcase into Bancroft's
+Hotel.  And that suitcase bore upon its side the inscription, in
+very large letters, "Lord Eustace Stairs."  Then I realized that
+Lord Eustace, like the owners of the hat-boxes, recognizing the
+value of a title, advertised it accordingly.
+
+I laughed when I saw the suitcase and the hat-boxes.  When I told
+Hephzy about the latter she laughed, too.
+
+"That's funny, isn't it," she said.  "Suppose the folks that have
+their names on the mugs in the barber shop back home had 'em
+lettered 'Cap'n Elkanah Crowell,' 'Judge the Hon. Ezra Salters,'
+'The Grand Exalted Sachem Order of Red Men George Kendrick.'  How
+everybody would laugh, wouldn't they.  Why they'd laugh Cap'n
+Elkanah and Ezra and Kendrick out of town."
+
+So they would have done--in Bayport--but not in Mayberry or London.
+Titles and rank and class in England are established and accepted
+institutions, and are not laughed at, for where institutions of
+that kind are laughed at they soon cease to be.  Hephzy summed it
+up pretty well when she said:
+
+"After all, it all depends on what you've been brought up to,
+doesn't it, Hosy.  Your coat don't look funny to you because you've
+always worn that kind of coat, but that tailor man thought 'twas
+funny because he never saw one made like it.  And a lord takin' his
+lordship seriously seems funny to us, but it doesn't seem so to him
+or to the tailor.  They've been brought up to it, same as you have
+to the coat."
+
+On one point she and I had agreed before coming to Mayberry, that
+was that we must not expect calls from the neighbors or social
+intercourse with the people of Mayberry.
+
+"They don't know anything about us," said I, "except that we are
+Americans, and that may or may not be a recommendation, according
+to the kind of Americans they have previously met.  The Englishman,
+so all the books tell us, is reserved and distant at first.  He
+requires a long acquaintance before admitting strangers to his home
+life and we shall probably have no opportunity to make that
+acquaintance.  If we were to stay in Mayberry a year, and behaved
+ourselves, we might in time be accepted as desirable, but not
+during the first summer.  So if they leave us to ourselves we must
+make the best of it."
+
+Hephzy agreed thoroughly.  "You're right," she said.  "And, after
+all, it's just what would happen anywhere.  You remember when that
+Portygee family came to Bayport and lived in the Solon Blodgett
+house.  Nobody would have anything to do with 'em for a long time
+because they were foreigners, but they turned out to be real nice
+folks after all.  We're foreigners here and you can't blame the
+Mayberry people for not takin' chances; it looks as if nobody in it
+ever had taken a chance, as if it had been just the way it is since
+Noah came out of the Ark.  I never felt so new and shiny in my life
+as I do around this old rectory and this old town."
+
+Which was all perfectly true and yet the fact remains that, "new
+and shiny" as we were, the Mayberry people--those of our "class"--
+began to call upon us almost immediately, to invite us to their
+homes, to show us little kindnesses, and to be whole-souled and
+hospitable and friendly as if we had known them and they us for
+years.  It was one of the greatest surprises, and remains one of
+the most pleasant recollections, of my brief career as a resident
+in England, the kindly cordiality of these neighbors in Mayberry.
+
+The first caller was Dr. Bayliss, who occupied "Jasmine Gables,"
+the pretty house next door.  He dropped in one morning, introduced
+himself, shook hands and chatted for an hour.  That afternoon his
+wife called upon Hephzy.  The next day I played a round of golf
+upon the private course on the Manor House grounds, the Burgleston
+Bogs grounds--with the doctor and his son, young Herbert Bayliss,
+just through Cambridge and the medical college at London.  Young
+Bayliss was a pleasant, good-looking young chap and I liked him as
+I did his father.  He was at present acting as his father's
+assistant in caring for the former's practice, a practice which
+embraced three or four villages and a ten-mile stretch of country.
+
+Naturally I was interested in the Manor estate and its owner.  The
+grounds were beautiful, three square miles in extent and cared for,
+so Bayliss, Senior, told me, by some hundred and fifty men, seventy
+of whom were gardeners.  Of the Manor House itself I caught a
+glimpse, gray-turreted and huge, set at the end of lawns and flower
+beds, with fountains playing and statues gleaming white amid the
+foliage.  I asked some questions concerning its owner.  Yes, she
+was Lady Kent Carey and she had a nephew named Heathcroft.  So
+there was a chance, after all, that I might again meet my ship
+acquaintance who abhorred "griddle cakes."  I imagined he would be
+somewhat surprised at that meeting.  It was an odd coincidence.
+
+As for the game of golf, my part of it, the least said the better.
+Doctor Bayliss, who, it developed, was an enthusiast at the game,
+was kind enough to tell me I had a "topping" drive.  I thanked him,
+but there was altogether too much "topping" connected with my play
+that forenoon to make my thanks enthusiastic.  I determined to
+practice assiduously before attempting another match.  Somehow I
+felt responsible for the golfing honor of my country.
+
+Other callers came to the rectory.  The two curates, their names
+were Judson and Worcester, visited us; young men, both of them, and
+good fellows, Worcester particularly.  Although they wore clerical
+garb they were not in the least "preachy."  Hephzy, although she
+liked them, expressed surprise.
+
+"They didn't act a bit like ministers," she said.  "They didn't ask
+us to come to meetin' nor hint at prayin' with the family or
+anything, yet they looked for all the while like two Methodist
+parsons, young ones.  A curate is a kind of new-hatched rector,
+isn't he?"
+
+"Not exactly," I answered.  "He is only partially hatched.  But,
+whatever you do, don't tell them they look like Methodists; they
+wouldn't consider it a compliment."
+
+Hephzy was a Methodist herself and she resented the slur.  "Well,
+I guess a Methodist is as good as an Episcopalian," she declared.
+"And they don't ACT like Methodists.  Why, one of 'em smoked a
+pipe.  Just imagine Mr. Partridge smokin' a pipe!"
+
+Mr. Judson and I played eighteen holes of golf together.  He played
+a little worse than I did and I felt better.  The honor of
+Bayport's golf had been partially vindicated.
+
+While all this was going on our patient remained, for the greater
+part of the time, in her room.  She was improving steadily.  Doctor
+Bayliss, whom I had asked to attend her, declared, as his London
+associates had done, that all she needed was rest, quiet and the
+good air and food which she was certain to get in Mayberry.  He,
+too, like the physician at Bancroft's, seemed impressed by her
+appearance and manner.  And he also asked similar embarrassing
+questions.
+
+"Delightful young lady, Miss Morley," he observed.  "One of our
+English girls, Knowles.  She informs me that she IS English."
+
+"Partly English," I could not help saying.  "Her mother was an
+American."
+
+"Oh, indeed!  You know she didn't tell me that, now did she."
+
+"Perhaps not."
+
+"No, by Jove, she didn't.  But she has lived all her life in
+England?"
+
+"Yes--in England and France."
+
+"Your niece, I think you said."
+
+I had said it, unfortunately, and it could not be unsaid now
+without many explanations.  So I nodded.
+
+"She doesn't--er--behave like an American.  She hasn't the American
+manner, I mean to say.  Now Miss Cahoon has--er--she has--"
+
+"Miss Cahoon's manner is American.  So is mine; we ARE Americans,
+you see."
+
+"Yes, yes, of course," hastily.  "When are you and I to have the
+nine holes you promised, Knowles?"
+
+One fine afternoon the invalid came downstairs.  The "between-maid"
+had arranged chairs and the table on the lawn.  We were to have tea
+there; we had tea every day, of course--were getting quite
+accustomed to it.
+
+Frances--I may as well begin calling her that--looked in better
+health then than at any time since our meeting.  She was
+becomingly, although simply gowned, and there was a dash of color
+in her cheeks.  Hephzibah escorted her to the tea table.  I rose to
+meet them.
+
+"Frank--Frances, I mean--is goin' to join us to-day," said Hephzy.
+"She's beginnin' to look real well again, isn't she."
+
+I said she was.  Frances nodded to me and took one of the chairs,
+the most comfortable one.  She appeared perfectly self-possessed,
+which I was sure I did not.  I was embarrassed, of course.  Each
+time I met the girl the impossible situation in which she had
+placed us became more impossible, to my mind.  And the question,
+"What on earth shall we do with her?" more insistent.
+
+Hephzy poured the tea.  Frances, cup in hand, looked about her.
+
+"This is rather a nice place, after all," she observed, "isn't it."
+
+"It's a real lovely place," declared Hephzy with enthusiasm.
+
+The young lady cast another appraising glance at our surroundings.
+
+"Yes," she repeated, "it's a jolly old house and the grounds are
+not bad at all."
+
+Her tone nettled me.  Everything considered I thought she might
+have shown a little more enthusiasm.
+
+"I infer that you expected something much worse," I observed.
+
+"Oh, of course I didn't know what to expect.  How should I?  I had
+no hand in selecting it, you know."
+
+"She's hardly seen it," put in Hephzy.  "She was too sick when she
+came to notice much, I guess, and this is the first time she has
+been out doors."
+
+"I am glad you approve," I observed, drily.
+
+My sarcasm was wasted.  Miss Morley said again that she did
+approve, of what she had seen, and added that we seemed to have
+chosen very well.
+
+"I don't suppose," said Hephzy, complacently, "that there are many
+much prettier places in England than this one."
+
+"Oh, indeed there are.  But all England is beautiful, of course."
+
+I thought of Mrs. Briggs' lodging-house, but I did not refer to it.
+Our guest--or my "niece"--or our ward--it was hard to classify her--
+changed the subject.
+
+"Have you met any of the people about here?" she asked.
+
+Hephzy burst into enthusiastic praise of the Baylisses and the
+curates and the Coles.
+
+"They're all just as nice as they can be," she declared.  "I never
+met nicer folks, at home or anywhere."
+
+Frances nodded.  "All English people are nice," she said.
+
+Again I thought of Mrs. Briggs and again I kept my thoughts to
+myself.  Hephzy went on rhapsodizing.  I paid little attention
+until I heard her speak my name.
+
+"And Hosy thinks so, too.  Don't you, Hosy?" she said.
+
+I answered yes, on the chance.  Frances regarded me oddly.
+
+"I thought--I understood that your name was Kent, Mr. Knowles," she
+said.
+
+"It is."
+
+"Then why does Miss Cahoon always--"
+
+Hephzy interrupted.  "Oh, I always call him Hosy," she explained.
+"It's a kind of pet name of mine.  It's short for Hosea.  His whole
+name is Hosea Kent Knowles, but 'most everybody but me does call
+him Kent.  I don't think he likes Hosea very well."
+
+Our companion looked very much as if she did not wonder at my
+dislike.  Her eyes twinkled.
+
+"Hosea," she repeated.  "That is an odd name.  The original Hosea
+was a prophet, wasn't he?  Are you a prophet, Mr. Knowles?"
+
+"Far from it," I answered, with decision.  If I had been a prophet
+I should have been forewarned and, consequently, forearmed.
+
+She smiled and against my will I was forced to admit that her smile
+was attractive; she was prettier than ever when she smiled.
+
+"I remember now," she said; "all Americans have Scriptural names.
+I have read about them in books."
+
+"Hosy writes books," said Hephzy, proudly.  "That's his profession;
+he's an author."
+
+"Oh, really, is he!  How interesting!"
+
+"Yes, he is.  He has written ever so many books; haven't you,
+Hosy."
+
+I didn't answer.  My self and my "profession" were the last
+subjects I cared to discuss.  The young lady's smile broadened.
+
+"And where do you write your books, Mr. Knowles?" she asked.  "In--
+er--Bayport?"
+
+"Yes," I answered, shortly.  "Hephzy, Miss Morley will have another
+cup of tea, I think."
+
+"Oh, no, thank you.  But tell me about your books, Mr. Knowles.
+Are they stories of Bayport?"
+
+"No indeed!"  Hephzy would do my talking for me, and I could not
+order her to be quiet.  "No indeed!" she declared.  "He writes
+about lords and ladies and counts and such.  He hardly ever writes
+about everyday people like the ones in Bayport.  You would like his
+books, Frances.  You would enjoy readin' 'em, I know."
+
+"I am sure I should.  They must be delightful.  I do hope you
+brought some with you, Mr. Knowles."
+
+"He didn't, but I did.  I'll lend you some, Frances.  I'll lend you
+'The Queen's Amulet.'  That's a splendid story."
+
+"I am sure it must be.  So you write about queens, too, Mr.
+Knowles.  I thought Americans scorned royalty.  And what is his
+queen's name, Miss Cahoon?  Is it Scriptural?"
+
+"Oh, no indeed!  Besides, all Americans' names aren't out of the
+Bible, any more than the names in England are.  That man who wanted
+to let us his house in Copperhead--no, Leatherhead--funny I should
+forget THAT awful name--he was named Solomon--Solomon Cripps . . .
+Why, what is it?"
+
+Miss Morley's smile and the mischievous twinkle had vanished.  She
+looked startled, and even frightened, it seemed to me.
+
+"What is it, Frances?" repeated Hephzy, anxiously.
+
+"Nothing--nothing.  Solomon--what was it?  Solomon Cripps.  That is
+an odd name.  And you met this Mr.--er--Cripps?"
+
+"Yes, we met him.  He had a house he wanted to let us, and I guess
+we'd have taken it, too, only you seemed to hate the name of
+Leatherhead so.  Don't you remember you did?  I don't blame you.
+Of the things to call a pretty town that's about the worst."
+
+"Yes, it is rather frightful.  But this, Mr.--er--Cripps; was he as
+bad as his name?  Did you talk with him?"
+
+"Only about the house.  Hosy and I didn't like him well enough to
+talk about anything else, except religion.  He and his wife gave us
+to understand they were awful pious.  I'm afraid we wouldn't have
+been churchy enough to suit them, anyway.  Hosy, here, doesn't go
+to meetin' as often as he ought to."
+
+"I am glad of it."  The young lady's tone was emphatic and she
+looked as if she meant it.  We were surprised.
+
+"You're glad of it!" repeated Hephzy, in amazement.  "Why?"
+
+"Because I hate persons who go to church all the time and boast of
+it, who do all sorts of mean things, but preach, preach, preach
+continually.  They are hypocritical and false and cruel.  I HATE
+them."
+
+She looked now as she had in the room at Mrs. Briggs's when I had
+questioned her concerning her father.  I could not imagine the
+reason for this sudden squall from a clear sky.  Hephzy drew a long
+breath.
+
+"Well," she said, after a moment, "then Hosy and you ought to get
+along first-rate together.  He's down on hypocrites and make-
+believe piety as bad as you are.  The only time he and Mr.
+Partridge, our minister in Bayport, ever quarreled--'twasn't a real
+quarrel, but more of a disagreement--was over what sort of a place
+Heaven was.  Mr. Partridge was certain sure that nobody but church
+members would be there, and Hosy said if some of the church members
+in Bayport were sure of a ticket, the other place had strong
+recommendations.  'Twas an awful thing to say, and I was almost as
+shocked as the minister was; that is I should have been if I hadn't
+known he didn't mean it."
+
+Miss Morley regarded me with a new interest, or at least I thought
+she did.
+
+"Did you mean it?" she asked.
+
+I smiled.  "Yes," I answered.
+
+"Now, Hosy," cried Hephzy.  "What a way that is to talk!  What do
+you know about the hereafter?"
+
+"Not much, but," remembering the old story, "I know Bayport.
+Humph! speaking of ministers, here is one now."
+
+Judson, the curate, was approaching across the lawn.  Hephzy
+hastily removed the lid of the teapot.  "Yes," she said, with a
+sigh of relief, "there's enough tea left, though you mustn't have
+any more, Hosy.  Mr. Judson always takes three cups."
+
+Judson was introduced and, the "between-maid" having brought
+another chair, he joined our party.  He accepted the first of the
+three cups and observed.
+
+"I hope I haven't interrupted an important conversation.  You
+appeared to be talking very earnestly."
+
+I should have answered, but Hephzy's look of horrified
+expostulation warned me to be silent.  Frances, although she must
+have seen the look, answered instead.
+
+"We were discussing Heaven," she said, calmly.  "Mr. Knowles
+doesn't approve of it."
+
+Hephzy bounced on her chair.  "Why!" she cried; "why, what a--why,
+WHAT will Mr. Judson think!  Now, Frances, you know--"
+
+"That was what you said, Mr. Knowles, wasn't it.  You said if
+Paradise was exclusively for church members you preferred--well,
+another locality.  That was what I understood you to say."
+
+Mr. Judson looked at me.  He was a very good and very orthodox and
+a very young man and his feelings showed in his face.
+
+"I--I can scarcely think Mr. Knowles said that, Miss Morley," he
+protested.  "You must have misunderstood him."
+
+"Oh, but I didn't misunderstand.  That was what he said."
+
+Again Mr. Judson looked at me.  It seemed time for me to say
+something.
+
+"What I said, or meant to say, was that I doubted if the future
+life, the--er--pleasant part of it, was confined exclusively to--
+er--professed church members," I explained.
+
+The curate's ruffled feelings were evidently not soothed by this
+explanation.
+
+"But--but, Mr. Knowles," he stammered, "really, I--I am at a loss
+to understand your meaning.  Surely you do not mean that--that--"
+
+"Of course he didn't mean that," put in Hephzy.  "What he said was
+that some of the ones who talk the loudest and oftenest in prayer-
+meetin' at our Methodist church in Bayport weren't as good as they
+pretended to be.  And that's so, too."
+
+Mr. Judson seemed relieved.  "Oh," he exclaimed.  "Oh, yes, I quite
+comprehend.  Methodists--er--dissenters--that is quite different--
+quite."
+
+"Mr. Judson knows that no one except communicants in the Church of
+England are certain of happiness," observed Frances, very gravely.
+
+Our caller turned his attention to her.  He was not a joker, but I
+think he was a trifle suspicious.  The young lady met his gaze with
+one of serene simplicity and, although he reddened, he returned to
+the charge.
+
+"I should--I should scarcely go as far as that, Miss Morley," he
+said.  "But I understand Mr. Knowles to refer to--er--church
+members; and--er--dissenters--Methodists and others--are not--are
+not--"
+
+"Well," broke in Hephzibah, with decision, "I'm a Methodist,
+myself, and _I_ don't expect to go to perdition."
+
+Judson's guns were spiked.  He turned redder than ever and changed
+the subject to the weather.
+
+The remainder of the conversation was confined for the most part to
+Frances and the curate.  They discussed the village and the people
+in it and the church and its activities.  At length Judson
+mentioned golf.
+
+"Mr. Knowles and I are to have another round shortly, I trust," he
+said.  "You owe me a revenge, you know, Mr. Knowles."
+
+"Oh," exclaimed the young lady, in apparent surprise, "does Mr.
+Knowles play golf?"
+
+"Not real golf," I observed.
+
+"Oh, but he does," protested Mr. Judson, "he does.  Rather!  He
+plays a very good game indeed.  He beat me quite badly the other
+day."
+
+Which, according to my reckoning, was by no means a proof of
+extraordinary ability.  Frances seemed amused, for some unexplained
+reason.
+
+"I should never have thought it," she observed.
+
+"Why not?" asked Judson.
+
+"Oh, I don't know.  Golf is a game, and Mr. Knowles doesn't look as
+if he played games.  I should have expected nothing so frivolous
+from him."
+
+"My golf is anything but frivolous," I said.  "It's too seriously
+bad."
+
+"Do you golf, Miss Morley, may I ask?" inquired the curate.
+
+"I have occasionally, after a fashion.  I am sure I should like to
+learn."
+
+"I shall be delighted to teach you.  It would be a great pleasure,
+really."
+
+He looked as if it would be a pleasure.  Frances smiled.
+
+"Thank you so much," she said.  "You and I and Mr. Knowles will
+have a threesome."
+
+Judson's joy at her acceptance was tempered, it seemed to me.
+
+"Oh, of course," he said.  "It will be a great pleasure to have
+your uncle with us.  A great pleasure, of course."
+
+"My--uncle?"
+
+"Why, yes--Mr. Knowles, you know.  By the way, Miss Morley--excuse
+my mentioning it, but I notice you always address your uncle as Mr.
+Knowles.  That seems a bit curious, if you'll pardon my saying so.
+A bit distant and--er--formal to our English habit.  Do all nieces
+and nephews in your country do that?  Is it an American custom?"
+
+Hephzy and I looked at each other and my "niece" looked at both of
+us.  I could feel the blood tingling in my cheeks and forehead.
+
+"Is it an American custom?" repeated Mr. Judson.
+
+"I don't know," with chilling deliberation.  "I am NOT an
+American."
+
+The curate said "Indeed!" and had the astonishing good sense not to
+say any more.  Shortly afterward he said good-by.
+
+"But I shall look forward to our threesome, Miss Morley," he
+declared.  "I shall count upon it in the near future."
+
+After his departure there was a most embarrassing interval of
+silence.  Hephzy spoke first.
+
+"Don't you think you had better go in now, Frances," she said.
+"Seems to me you had.  It's the first time you've been out at all,
+you know."
+
+The young lady rose.  "I am going," she said.  "I am going, if you
+and--my uncle--will excuse me."
+
+That evening, after dinner, Hephzy joined me in the drawing-room.
+It was a beautiful summer evening, but every shade was drawn and
+every shutter tightly closed.  We had, on our second evening in the
+rectory, suggested leaving them open, but the housemaid had shown
+such shocked surprise and disapproval that we had not pressed the
+point.  By this time we had learned that "privacy" was another
+sacred and inviolable English custom.  The rectory sat in its own
+ground, surrounded by high hedges; no one, without extraordinary
+pains, could spy upon its inmates, but, nevertheless, the privacy
+of those inmates must be guaranteed.  So the shutters were closed
+and the shades drawn.
+
+"Well?" said I to Hephzy.
+
+"Well," said Hephzy, "it's better than I was afraid it was goin' to
+be.  I explained that you told the folks at Bancroft's she was your
+niece because 'twas the handiest thing to tell 'em, and you HAD to
+tell 'em somethin'.  And down here in Mayberry the same way.  She
+understood, I guess; at any rate she didn't make any great
+objection.  I thought at the last that she was laughin', but I
+guess she wasn't.  Only what she said sounded funny."
+
+"What did she say?"
+
+"Why, she wanted to know if she should call you 'Uncle Hosea.'  She
+supposed it should be that--'Uncle Hosy' sounded a little
+irreverent."
+
+I did not answer.  "Uncle Hosea!" a beautiful title, truly.
+
+She acted so different to-day, didn't she," observed Hephzy.  "It's
+because she's gettin' well, I suppose.  She was real full of fun,
+wasn't she."
+
+"Confound her--yes," I snarled.  "All the fun is on her side.
+Well, she should make the best of it while it lasts.  When she
+learns the truth she may not find it so amusing."
+
+Hephzy sighed.  "Yes," she said, slowly, "I'm afraid that's so,
+poor thing.  When--when are you goin' to tell her?"
+
+"I don't know," I answered.  "But pretty soon, that's certain."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+In Which I Break All Previous Resolutions and Make a New One
+
+
+That afternoon tea on the lawn was the beginning of the great
+change in our life at the rectory.  Prior to that Hephzy and I had,
+golfly speaking, been playing it as a twosome.  Now it became a
+threesome, with other players added at frequent intervals.  At
+luncheon next day our invalid, a real invalid no longer, joined us
+at table in the pleasant dining-room, the broad window of which
+opened upon the formal garden with the sundial in the center.
+She was in good spirits, and, as Hephzy confided to me afterward,
+was "gettin' a real nice appetite."  In gaining this appetite she
+appeared to have lost some of her dignity and chilling condescension;
+at all events, she treated her American relatives as if she
+considered them human beings.  She addressed most of her
+conversation to Hephzy, always speaking of and to her as "Miss
+Cahoon."  She still addressed me as "Mr. Knowles," and I was duly
+thankful; I had feared being hailed as "Uncle Hosy."
+
+After lunch Mr. Judson called again.  He was passing, he explained,
+on his round of parish calls, and had dropped in casually.  Mr.
+Worcester also came; his really was a casual stop, I think.  He and
+his brother curate were very brotherly indeed, but I noticed an
+apparent reluctance on the part of each to leave before the other.
+They left together, but Mr. Judson again hinted at the promised
+golf game, and Mr. Worcester, having learned from Miss Morley that
+she played and sang, expressed great interest in music and begged
+permission to bring some "favorite songs," which he felt sure Miss
+Morley might like to run over.
+
+Miss Morley herself was impartially gracious and affable to both
+the clerical gentlemen; she was looking forward to the golf, she
+said, and the songs she was certain would be jolly.  Hephzy and I
+had very little to say, and no one seemed particularly anxious to
+hear that little.
+
+The curates had scarcely disappeared down the driveway when Doctor
+Bayliss and his son strolled in from next door.  Doctor Bayliss,
+Senior, was much pleased to find his patient up and about, and
+Herbert, the son, even more pleased to find her at all, I judge.
+Young Bayliss was evidently very favorably impressed with his new
+neighbor.  He was a big, healthy, broad-shouldered fellow, a grown-
+up boy, whose laugh was a pleasure to hear, and who possessed the
+faculty, envied by me, the quahaug, of chatting entertainingly on
+all subjects from tennis and the new American dances to Lloyd-
+George and old-age pensions.  Frances declared a strong aversion to
+the dances, principally because they were American, I suspected.
+
+Doctor Bayliss, the old gentleman, then turned to me.
+
+"What is the American opinion of the Liberal measures?" he asked.
+
+"I should say," I answered, "that, so far as they are understood in
+America, opinion concerning them is divided, much as it is here."
+
+"Really!  But you haven't the Liberal and Conservative parties as
+we have, you know."
+
+"We have liberals and conservatives, however, although our
+political parties are not so named."
+
+"We call 'em Republicans and Democrats," explained Hephzy.  "Hosy
+is a Republican," she added, proudly.
+
+"I am not certain what I am," I observed.  "I have voted a split
+ticket of late."
+
+Young Bayliss asked a question.
+
+"Are you a--what is it--Republican, Miss Morley?" he inquired.
+
+Miss Morley's eyes dropped disdainfully.
+
+"I am neither," she said.  "My father was a Conservative, of
+course."
+
+"Oh, I say!  That's odd, isn't it.  Your uncle here is--"
+
+"Uncle Hosea, you mean?" sweetly.  "Oh, Uncle Hosea is an American.
+I am English."
+
+She did not add "Thank heaven," but she might as well.  "Uncle
+Hosea" shuddered at the name.  Young Bayliss grinned behind his
+blonde mustache.  When he left, in company with his father, Hephzy
+invited him to "run in any time."
+
+"We're next-door neighbors," she said, "so we mustn't be formal."
+
+I was fairly certain that the invitation was superfluous.  If I
+knew human nature at all I knew that Bayliss, Junior, did not
+intend to let formality stand in the way of frequent calls at the
+rectory.
+
+My intuition was correct.  The following afternoon he called again.
+So did Mr. Judson.  Both calls were casual, of course.  So was Mr.
+Worcester's that evening.  He came to bring the "favorite songs"
+and was much surprised to find Miss Morley in the drawing-room.  He
+said so.
+
+Hephzy and I knew little of our relative's history.  She had
+volunteered no particulars other than those given on the occasion
+of our first meeting, but we did know, because Mrs. Briggs had told
+us, that she had been a member of an opera troupe.  This evening we
+heard her sing for the first time.  She sang well; her voice was
+not a strong one, but it was clear and sweet and she knew how to
+use it.  Worcester sang well also, and the little concert was very
+enjoyable.
+
+It was the first of many.  Almost every evening after dinner
+Frances sat down at the old-fashioned piano, with the candle
+brackets at each side of the music rack, and sang.  Occasionally we
+were her only auditors, but more often one or both of the curates
+or Doctor and Mrs. Bayliss or Bayliss, Junior, dropped in.  We made
+other acquaintances--Mrs. Griggson, the widow in "reduced
+circumstances," whose husband had been killed in the Boer war, and
+who occupied the little cottage next to the draper's shop; Mr. and
+Mrs. Samson, of Burgleston Bogs, friends of the Baylisses, and
+others.  They were pleasant, kindly, unaffected people and we
+enjoyed their society.
+
+Each day Frances gained in health and strength.  The care-free,
+wholesome, out-of-door life at Mayberry seemed to suit her.  She
+seemed to consider herself a member of the family now; at all
+events she did not speak of leaving nor hint at the prompt
+settlement of her preposterous "claim."  Hephzy and I did not
+mention it, even to each other.  Hephzy, I think, was quite
+satisfied with things as they were, and I, in spite of my threats
+and repeated declarations that the present state of affairs was
+ridiculous and could not last, put off telling "my niece" the
+truth.  I, too, was growing more accustomed to the "threesome."
+
+The cloud was always there, hanging over our heads and threatening
+a storm at any moment, but I was learning to forget it.  The
+situation had its pleasant side; it was not all bad.  For instance,
+meals in the pleasant dining-room, with Hephzy at one end of the
+table, I at the other, and Frances between us, were more social and
+chatty than they had been.  To have the young lady come down to
+breakfast, her hair prettily arranged, her cheeks rosy with health,
+and her eyes shining with youth and the joy of life, was almost a
+tonic.  I found myself taking more pains with my morning toilet,
+choosing my tie with greater care and being more careful concerning
+the condition of my boots.  I even began to dress for dinner, a
+concession to English custom which was odd enough in one of my
+easy-going habits and Bayport rearing.  I imagine that the
+immaculate appearance of young Bayliss, when he dropped in for the
+"sing" in the drawing-room, was responsible for the resurrection of
+my dinner coat.  He did look so disgustingly young and handsome and
+at ease.  I was conscious of each one of my thirty-eight years
+whenever I looked at him.
+
+I was rejuvenating in other ways.  It had been my custom at Bayport
+to retire to my study and my books each evening.  Here, where
+callers were so frequent, I found it difficult to do this and,
+although the temptation was to sit quietly in a corner and let the
+others do the talking, I was not allowed to yield.  The younger
+callers, particularly the masculine portion, would not have
+objected to my silence, I am sure, but "my niece" seemed to take
+mischievous pleasure in drawing the quahaug out of his shell.  She
+had a disconcerting habit of asking me unexpected questions at
+times when my attention was wandering, and, if I happened to state
+a definite opinion, taking the opposite side with promptness.
+After a time I decided not to express opinions, but to agree with
+whatever was said as the simplest way of avoiding controversy and
+being left to myself.
+
+This procedure should, it seemed to me, have satisfied her, but
+apparently it did not.  On one occasion, Judson and Herbert Bayliss
+being present, the conversation turned to the subject of American
+athletic sports.  The curate and Bayliss took the ground, the
+prevailing thought in England apparently, that all American games
+were not games, but fights in which the true sporting spirit was
+sacrificed to the desire to win at any cost.  I had said nothing,
+keeping silent for two reasons.  First, that I had given my views
+on the subject before, and, second, because argument from me was,
+in that company, fruitless effort.  The simplest way to end
+discussion of a disagreeable topic was to pay no attention to it.
+
+But I was not allowed to escape so easily.  Bayliss asked me a
+question.
+
+"Isn't it true, Mr. Knowles," he asked, "that the American football
+player wears a sort of armor to prevent his being killed?"
+
+My thoughts had been drifting anywhere and everywhere.  Just then
+they were centered about "my niece's" hands.  She had very pretty
+hands and a most graceful way of using them.  At the moment they
+were idly turning some sheets of music, but the way the slim
+fingers moved in and out between the pages was pretty and
+fascinating.  Her foot, glimpsed beneath her skirt, was slender and
+graceful, too.  She had an attractive trick of swinging it as she
+sat upon the piano stool.
+
+Recalled from these and other pleasing observations by Bayliss's
+mention of my name, I looked up.
+
+"I beg pardon?" said I.
+
+Bayliss repeated his question.
+
+"Oh, yes," said I, and looked down again at the foot.
+
+"So I have been told," said the questioner, triumphantly.  "And
+without that--er--armor many of the players would be killed, would
+they not?"
+
+"What?  Oh, yes; yes, of course."
+
+"And many are killed or badly injured as it is?"
+
+"Oh, yes."
+
+"How many during a season, may I ask?"
+
+"Eh?  Oh--I don't know."
+
+"A hundred?"
+
+The foot was swinging more rapidly now.  It was such a small foot.
+My own looked so enormous and clumsy and uncouth by comparison.
+
+"A--oh, thousands," said I, at random.  If the number were large
+enough to satisfy him he might cease to worry me.
+
+"A beastly game," declared Judson, with conviction.  "How can a
+civilized country countenance such brutality!  Do you countenance
+it, Mr. Knowles?"
+
+"Yes--er--that is, no."
+
+"You agree, then, that it is brutal?"
+
+"Certainly, certainly."  Would the fellow never stop?
+
+"Then--"
+
+"Nonsense!"  It was Frances who spoke and her tone was emphatic and
+impatient.  We all looked at her; her cheeks were flushed and she
+appeared highly indignant.  "Nonsense!" she said again.  "He
+doesn't agree to any such thing.  I've heard him say that American
+football was not as brutal as our fox-hunting and that fewer people
+were killed or injured.  We play polo and we ride in steeplechases
+and the papers are full of accidents.  I don't believe Americans
+are more brutal or less civilized in their sports than we are, not
+in the least."
+
+Considering that she had at the beginning of the conversation
+apparently agreed with all that had been said, and, moreover, had
+often, in speaking to Hephzy and me, referred to the "States" as an
+uncivilized country, this declaration was astonishing.  I was
+astonished for one.  Hephzy clapped her hands.
+
+"Of course they aren't," she declared.  "Hosy--Mr. Knowles--didn't
+mean that they were, either."
+
+Our callers looked at each other and Herbert Bayliss hastily
+changed the subject.  After they had gone I ventured to thank my
+champion for coming to the rescue of my sporting countrymen.  She
+flashed an indignant glance at me.
+
+"Why do you say such things?" she demanded.  "You know they weren't
+true."
+
+"What was the use of saying anything else?  They have read the
+accounts of football games which American penny-a-line correspondents
+send to the London papers and nothing I could say would change their
+convictions."
+
+"It doesn't make any difference.  You should say what you think.
+To sit there and let them--Oh, it is ridiculous!"
+
+"My feelings were not hurt.  Their ideas will broaden by and by,
+when they are as old as I am.  They're young now."
+
+This charitable remark seemed to have the effect of making her more
+indignant than ever.
+
+"Nonsense!" she cried.  "You speak as if you were an Old Testament
+patriarch."
+
+Hephzy put in a word.
+
+"Why, Frances," she said, "I thought you didn't like America."
+
+"I don't.  Of course I don't.  But it makes me lose patience to
+have him sit there and agree to everything those boys say.  Why
+didn't he answer them as he should?  If I were an American no one--
+NO one should rag me about my country without getting as good as
+they gave."
+
+I was amused.  "What would you have me do?" I asked.  "Rise and
+sing the 'Star Spangled Banner'?"
+
+"I would have you speak your mind like a man.  Not sit there like
+a--like a rabbit.  And I wouldn't act and think like a Methusaleh
+until I was one."
+
+It was quite evident that "my niece" was a young person of whims.
+The next time the "States" were mentioned and I ventured to speak
+in their defence, she calmly espoused the other side and "ragged"
+as mercilessly as the rest.  I found myself continually on the
+defensive, and this state of affairs had one good effect at least--
+that of waking me up.
+
+Toward Hephzy her manner was quite different.  She now, especially
+when we three were alone, occasionally addressed her as "Auntie."
+And she would not permit "Auntie" to be made fun of.  At the least
+hint of such a thing she snubbed the would-be humorist thoroughly.
+She and Hephzy were becoming really friendly.  I felt certain she
+was beginning to like her--to discern the real woman beneath the
+odd exterior.  But when I expressed this thought to Hephzy herself
+she shook her head doubtfully.
+
+"Sometimes I've almost thought so, Hosy," she said, "but only this
+mornin' when I said somethin' about her mother and how much she
+looked like her, she almost took my head off.  And she's got her
+pa's picture right in the middle of her bureau.  No, Hosy, she's
+nicer to us than she was at first because it's her nature to be
+nice.  So long as she forgets who and what we are, or what her
+scamp of a father told her we were, she treats us like her own
+folks.  But when she remembers we're receivers of stolen goods,
+livin' on money that belongs to her, then it's different.  You
+can't blame her for that, I suppose.  But--but how is it all goin'
+to end?  _I_ don't know."
+
+I didn't know either.
+
+"I had hoped," I said, "that, living with us as she does, she might
+come to know and understand us--to learn that we couldn't be the
+sort she has believed us to be.  Then it seems to me we might tell
+her and she would listen to reason."
+
+"I--I'm afraid we can't wait long.  You see, there's another thing,
+Hosy.  She needs clothes and--and lots of things.  She realizes it.
+Yesterday she told me she must go up to London, shopping, pretty
+soon.  She asked me to go with her.  I put her off; said I was
+awful busy around the house just now, but she'll ask me again, and
+if I don't go she'll go by herself."
+
+"Humph!  I don't see how she can do much shopping.  She hasn't a
+penny, so far as I know."
+
+"You don't understand.  She thinks she has got a good many pennies,
+or we've got 'em for her.  She's just as liable to buy all creation
+and send us the bills."
+
+I whistled.  "Well," I said, decidedly, "when that happens we must
+put our foot down.  Neither you nor I are millionaires, Hephzy, and
+she must understand that regardless of consequences."
+
+"You mean you'll tell her--everything?"
+
+"I shall have to.  Why do you look at me like that?  Are we to use
+common-sense or aren't we?  Are we in a position to adopt a young
+woman of expensive tastes--actually adopt her?  And not only that,
+but give her carte blanche--let her buy whatever she pleases and
+charge it to us?"
+
+"I suppose not.  But--"
+
+"But what?"
+
+"Well, I--I don't see how we can stop her buying whatever she
+pleases with what she thinks is her own money."
+
+"I do.  We can tell her she has no money.  I shall do it.  My mind
+is made up."
+
+Hephzy said nothing, but her expression was one of doubt.  I
+stalked off in a bad temper.  Discussions of the kind always ended
+in just this way.  However, I swore a solemn oath to keep my word
+this time.  There were limits and they had been reached.  Besides,
+as I had said, the situation was changed in one way; we no longer
+had an invalid to deal with.  No, my mind was made up.  True, this
+was at least the tenth time I had made it up, but this time I meant
+it.
+
+The test came two days later and was the result of a call on the
+Samsons.  The Samsons lived at Burgleston Bogs, and we drove to
+their house in the trap behind "Pet," the plump black horse.  Mrs.
+Samson seemed very glad to see us, urged us to remain for tea, and
+invited us to attend a tennis tournament on their lawn the
+following week.  She asked if Miss Morley played tennis.  Frances
+said she had played, but not recently.  She intended to practice,
+however, and would be delighted to witness the tournament,
+although, of course, she could not take part in it.
+
+"Hosy--Mr. Knowles, I mean--plays tennis," observed Hephzy, seizing
+the opportunity, as usual, to speak a good word for me.  "He used
+to play real well."
+
+"Really!" exclaimed Mrs. Samson, "how interesting.  If we had only
+known.  No doubt Mr. Knowles would have liked to enter.  I'm so
+sorry."
+
+I hastened to protest.  "My tennis is decidedly rusty," I said.  "I
+shouldn't think of displaying it in public.  In fact, I don't play
+at all now."
+
+On the way home Frances was rather quiet.  The next morning she
+announced that she intended going to Wrayton that afternoon.
+"Johnson will drive me over," she said.  "I shall be glad if Auntie
+will go with me."
+
+Wrayton was the county-seat, a good-sized town five miles from
+Mayberry.  Hephzy declined the invitation.  She had promised to
+"tea" with Mrs. Griggson that afternoon.
+
+"Then I must go alone," said Frances.  "That is unless--er--Uncle
+Hosea cares to go."
+
+"Uncle Hosea" declined.  The name of itself was sufficient to make
+him decline; besides Worcester and I were scheduled for golf.
+
+"I shall go alone then," said "my niece," with decision.  "Johnson
+will look after me."
+
+But after luncheon, when I visited the stable to order Johnson to
+harness "Pet," I met with an unexpected difficulty.  Johnson, it
+appeared, was ill, had been indisposed the day before and was now
+at home in bed.  I hesitated.  If this were Bayport I should have
+bade the gardener harness "Pet" or have harnessed him myself.  But
+this was Mayberry, not Bayport.
+
+The gardener, deprived of his assistant's help--Johnson worked
+about the garden when not driving--was not in good humor.  I
+decided not to ask him to harness, but to risk a fall in the
+estimation of the servants by doing it myself.
+
+The gardener watched me for a moment in shocked disapproval.  Then
+he interfered.
+
+"If you please, Mr. Knowles, sir," he said, "I'll 'arness, but I
+can't drive, sir.  I am netting the gooseberries.  Perhaps you
+might get a man from the Inn stables, unless you or the young lady
+might wish to drive yourselves."
+
+I did not wish to drive, having the golf engagement; but when I
+walked to the Inn I found no driver available.  So, rather than be
+disagreeable, I sent word to the curate that our match was
+postponed, and accepted the alternative.
+
+Frances, rather to my surprise, seemed more pleased than otherwise
+to find that I was to be her coachman.  Instead of occupying the
+rear seat she climbed to that beside me.
+
+"Good-by, Auntie," she called to Hephzy, who was standing in the
+doorway.  "Sorry you're not going.  I'll take good care of Mr.
+Knowles--Uncle Hosea, I mean.  I'll see that he behaves himself
+and," with a glance at my, I fear, not too radiant visage, "doesn't
+break any of his venerable bones."
+
+The road, like all English roads which I traveled, was as firm and
+smooth as a table, the day was fine, the hedges were green and
+fragrant, the larks sang, and the flocks of sheep in the wayside
+pastures were picturesque as always.  "Pet," who had led an easy
+life since we came to the rectory, was in high spirits and stepped
+along in lively fashion.  My companion, too, was in good spirits
+and chatted and laughed as she had not done with me since I knew
+her.
+
+Altogether it was a delightful ride.  I found myself emerging from
+my shell and chatting and joking quite unlike the elderly quahaug I
+was supposed to be.  We passed a party of young fellows on a
+walking tour, knapsacked and knickerbockered, and the admiring
+glances they passed at my passenger were flattering.  They envied
+me, that was plain.  Well, under different circumstances, I could
+conceive myself an object of envy.  A dozen years younger, with the
+heart of youth and the comeliness of youth, I might have thought
+myself lucky to be driving along such a road with such a vision by
+my side.  And, the best of it was, the vision treated me as if I
+really were her own age.  I squared my shoulders and as Hephzy
+would have said, "perked up" amazingly.
+
+We entered Wrayton and moved along the main street between the rows
+of ancient buildings, past the old stone church with its inevitable
+and always welcome gray, ivy-draped tower, to the quaint old square
+with the statue of William Pitt in its center.  My companion, all
+at once, seemed to become aware of her surroundings.
+
+"Why!" she exclaimed, "we are here, aren't we?  Fancy!  I expected
+a longer drive."
+
+"So did I," I agreed.  "We haven't hurried, either.  Where has the
+time gone."
+
+"I don't know.  We have been so busy talking that I have thought of
+nothing else.  Really, I didn't know you could be so entertaining--
+Uncle Hosea."
+
+The detested title brought me to myself.
+
+"We are here," I said, shortly.  "And now where shall we go?  Have
+you any stopping place in particular?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"Yes," she said, "I want to stop now.  Please pull up over there,
+in front of that shop with the cricket bats in the window."
+
+The shop was what we, in America, would have called a "sporting-
+goods store."  I piloted "Pet" to the curb and pulled up.
+
+"I am going in," said Miss Morley.  "Oh, don't trouble to help me.
+I can get down quite well."
+
+She was down, springing from the step as lightly as a dandelion
+fluff before I could scramble down on the other side.
+
+"I won't be long," she said, and went into the shop.  I, not being
+invited, remained on the pavement.  Two or three small boys
+appeared from somewhere and, scenting possible pennies, volunteered
+to hold the horse.  I declined their services.
+
+Five minutes passed, then ten.  My passenger was still in the shop.
+I could not imagine what she was doing there.  If it had been a
+shop of a different kind, and in view of Hephzy's recent statement
+concerning the buying of clothes, I might have been suspicious.
+But no clothes were on sale at that shop and, besides, it never
+occurred to me that she would buy anything of importance without
+mentioning her intention to me beforehand.  I had taken it for
+granted that she would mention the subject and, when she did, I
+intended to be firm.  But as the minutes went by my suspicions
+grew.  She must be buying something--or contemplating buying, at
+least.  But she had said nothing to me concerning money; HAD she
+money of her own after all?  It might be possible that she had a
+very little, and was making some trifling purchase.
+
+She reappeared in the doorway of the shop, followed by a very
+polite young man with a blonde mustache.  The young man was bowing
+and smiling.
+
+"Yes, miss," he said, "I'll have them wrapped immediately.  They
+shall be ready when you return, miss.  Thank you, miss."
+
+Frances nodded acknowledgment of the thanks.  Then she favored me
+with another nod and a most bewitching smile.
+
+"That's over," she announced, "and now I'm going to the draper's
+for a moment.  It is near here, you say?"
+
+The young man bowed again.
+
+"Yes, miss, on the next corner, next the chemist's."
+
+She turned to me.  "You may wait here, Mr. Knowles," she said.  "I
+shall be back very soon."
+
+She hurried away.  I looked after her, and then, with all sorts of
+forebodings surging in my brain, strode into that "sporting-goods
+store."
+
+The blond young man was at my elbow.
+
+"Yes, sir," he said, ingratiatingly.
+
+"Did--did that young lady make some purchases here?" I asked.
+
+"Yes, sir.  Here they are, sir."
+
+There on the counter lay a tennis racket, a racket press and
+waterproof case, a pair of canvas tennis shoes and a jaunty white
+felt hat.  I stared at the collection.  The clerk took up the
+racket.
+
+"Not a Slazenger," he observed, regretfully.  "I did my best to
+persuade her to buy a Slazenger; that is the best racket we have.
+But she decided the Slazenger was a bit high in price, sir.
+However, sir, this one is not bad.  A very fine racket for lady's
+use; very light and strong, sir, considering the cost--only sixteen
+and six, sir."
+
+"Sixteen and six.  Four dollars and--Did she pay for it?"
+
+"Oh no, sir.  She said you would do that, sir.  The total is two
+pound eight and thruppence, sir.  Shall I give you a bill, sir?
+Thank you, sir."
+
+His thanks were wasted.  I pushed him to one side and walked out of
+that shop.  I could not answer; if I answered as I felt I might be
+sorry later.  After all, it wasn't his fault.  My business was not
+with him, but with her.
+
+It was not the amount of the purchase that angered and alarmed me.
+Two pounds eight--twelve dollars--was not so much.  If she had
+asked me, if she had said she desired the racket and the rest of it
+during the drive over, I think, feeling as I did during that drive,
+I should have bought them for her.  But she had not asked; she had
+calmly bought them without consulting me at all.  She had come to
+Wrayton for that very purpose.  And then had told the clerk that I
+would pay.
+
+The brazen presumption of it!  I was merely a convenience, a sort
+of walking bank account, to be drawn upon as she saw fit, at her
+imperial will, if you please.  It made no difference, to her mind,
+whether I liked it or not--whether I could afford it or not.  I
+could, of course, afford this trifling sum, but this was only the
+beginning.  If I permitted this there was no telling to what extent
+she might go on, buying and buying and buying.  This was a
+precedent--that was what it was, a precedent; and a precedent once
+established . . .  It should not be established.  I had vowed to
+Hephzy that it should not.  I would prove to this girl that I had a
+will of my own.  The time had come.
+
+One of the boys who had been so anxious to hold the horse was
+performing that entirely unnecessary duty.
+
+"Stay here until I come back," I ordered and hurried to the
+draper's.
+
+She was there standing before the counter, and an elderly man was
+displaying cloths--white flannels and serges they appeared to be.
+She was not in the least perturbed at my entrance.
+
+"So you came, after all," she said.  "I wondered if you would.  Now
+you must help me.  I don't know what your taste in tennis flannels
+may be, but I hope it is good.  I shall have these made up at
+Mayberry, of course.  My other frocks--and I need so many of them--
+I shall buy in London.  Do you fancy this, now?"
+
+I don't know whether I fancied it or not.  I am quite sure I could
+not remember what it was if I were asked.
+
+"Well?" she asked, after an instant.  "Do you?"
+
+"I--I don't know," I said.  "May I ask you to step outside one
+moment.  I--I have something I wish to say."
+
+She regarded me curiously.
+
+"Something you wish to say?" she repeated.  "What is it?"
+
+"I--I can't tell you here."
+
+"Why not, pray?"
+
+"Because I can't."
+
+She looked at me still more intently.  I was conscious of the
+salesman's regard also.  My tone, I am sure, was anything but
+gracious, and I imagine I appeared as disgusted and embarrassed as
+I felt.  She turned away.
+
+"I think I will choose this one," she said, addressing the clerk.
+"You may give me five yards.  Oh, yes; and I may as well take the
+same amount of the other.  You may wrap it for me."
+
+"Yes, miss, yes.  Thank you, miss.  Is there anything else?"
+
+She hesitated.  Then, after another sidelong glance at me, she
+said:  "Yes, I believe there is.  I wish to see some buttons, some
+braid, and--oh, ever so many things.  Please show them to me."
+
+"Yes, miss, certainly.  This way, if you please."
+
+She turned to me.
+
+"Will you assist in the selection, Uncle Hosea?" she inquired, with
+suspicious sweetness.  "I am sure your opinion will be invaluable.
+No?  Then I must ask you to wait."
+
+And wait I did, for I could do nothing else.  That draper's shop
+was not the place for a scene, with a half-dozen clerks to enjoy
+it.  I waited, fuming, while she wandered about, taking a great
+deal of time, and lingering over each purchase in a maddening
+manner.  At last she seemed able to think of no more possibilities
+and strolled to where I was standing, followed by the salesman,
+whose hands were full.
+
+"You may wrap these with the others," she said.  "I have my trap
+here and will take them with me.  The trap is here, isn't it--er--
+Uncle Hosea?"
+
+"It is just above here," I answered, sulkily.  But--"
+
+"But you will get it.  Thank you so much."
+
+The salesman noticed my hesitation, put his own interpretation upon
+it and hastened to oblige.
+
+"I shall be glad to have the purchases carried there," he said.
+"Our boy will do it, miss.  It will be no trouble."
+
+Miss Morley thanked him so much.  I was hoping she might leave the
+shop then, but she did not.  The various packages were wrapped,
+handed to the boy, and she accompanied the latter to the door and
+showed him our equipage standing before the sporting-goods
+dealer's.  Then she sauntered back.
+
+"Thank you," she said, addressing the clerk.  "That is all, I
+believe."
+
+The clerk looked at her and at me.
+
+"Yes, miss, thank you," he said, in return.  "I--I--would you be
+wishing to pay at once, miss, or shall I--"
+
+"Oh, this gentleman will pay.  Do you wish to pay now--Uncle
+Hosea?"
+
+Again I was stumped.  The salesman was regarding me expectantly;
+the other clerks were near by; if I made a scene there--No, I could
+not do it.  I would pay this time.  But this should be the end.
+
+Fortunately, I had money in my pocket--two five-pound notes and
+some silver.  I paid the bill.  Then, and at last, my niece led the
+way to the pavement.  We walked together a few steps in silence.
+The sporting-goods shop was just ahead, and if ever I was
+determined not to do a thing that thing was to pay for the tennis
+racket and the rest.
+
+"Frances," I began.
+
+"Well--Mr. Knowles?" calmly.
+
+"Frances, I have decided to speak with you frankly.  You appear to
+take certain things for granted in your--your dealings with Miss
+Cahoon and myself, things which--which I cannot countenance or
+permit."
+
+She had been walking slowly.  Now she stopped short.  I stopped,
+too, because she did.
+
+"What do you mean?" she asked.  "What things?"
+
+She was looking me through and through.  Again I hesitated, and my
+hesitation did not help matters.
+
+"What do you mean?" she repeated.  "What is it you cannot
+countenance or"--scornfully--"permit concerning me?"
+
+"I--well, I cannot permit you to do as you have done to-day.  You
+did not tell your aunt or me your purpose in coming to Wrayton.
+You did not tell us you were coming here to buy--to buy various
+things for yourself."
+
+"Why should I tell you?  They were for myself.  Is it your idea
+that I should ask YOUR permission before buying what I choose?"
+
+"Considering that you ask me to pay, I--"
+
+"I most distinctly did NOT ask you.  I TOLD you to pay.  Certainly
+you will pay.  Why not?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Yes, why not.  So this was what you wished to speak to me about.
+This was why you were so--so boorish and disagreeable in that shop.
+Tell me--was that the reason?  Was that why you followed me there?
+Did you think--did you presume to think of preventing my buying
+what I pleased with my money?"
+
+"If it had been your money I should not have presumed, certainly.
+If you had mentioned your intention to me beforehand I might even
+have paid for your purchases and said nothing.  I should--I should
+have been glad to do so.  I am not unreasonable."
+
+"Indeed!  Indeed!  Do you mean that you would have condescended to
+make me a present of them?  And was it your idea that I would
+accept presents from you?"
+
+It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that she had already
+accepted a good deal; but somehow the place, a public sidewalk,
+seemed hardly fitting for the discussion of weighty personal
+matters.  Passers-by were regarding us curiously, and in the door
+of the draper's shop which we had just left I noticed the elderly
+clerk standing and looking in our direction.  I temporized.
+
+"You don't understand, Miss Morley," I said.  "Neither your aunt
+nor I are wealthy.  Surely, it is not too much to ask that you
+consult us before--before--"
+
+She interrupted me.  "I shall not consult you at all," she
+declared, fiercely.  "Wealthy!  Am _I_ wealthy?  Was my father
+wealthy?  He should have been and so should I.  Oh, WHAT do you
+mean?  Are you trying to tell me that you cannot afford to pay for
+the few trifles I have bought this afternoon?"
+
+"I can afford those, of course.  But you don't understand."
+
+"Understand?  YOU do not understand.  The agreement under which I
+came to Mayberry was that you were to provide for me.  I consented
+to forego pressing my claim against you until--until you were ready
+to--to--Oh, but why should we go into this again?  I thought--I
+thought you understood.  I thought you understood and appreciated
+my forbearance.  You seemed to understand and to be grateful and
+kind.  I am all alone in the world.  I haven't a friend.  I have
+been almost happy for a little while.  I was beginning to--"
+
+She stopped.  The dark eyes which had been flashing lightnings in
+my direction suddenly filled with tears.  My heart smote me.  After
+all, she did not understand.  Another plea of that kind and I
+should have--Well, I'm not sure what I should have done.  But the
+plea was not spoken.
+
+"Oh, what a fool I am!" she cried, fiercely.  "Mr. Knowles,"
+pointing to the sporting-goods store, "I have made some purchases
+in that shop also.  I expect you to pay for those as well.  Will
+you or will you not?"
+
+I was hesitating, weakly.  She did not wait for me to reply.
+
+"You WILL pay for them," she declared, "and you will pay for others
+that I may make.  I shall buy what I please and do what I please
+with my money which you are keeping from me.  You will pay or take
+the consequences."
+
+That was enough.  "I will not pay," I said, firmly, "under any such
+arrangement."
+
+"You will NOT?"
+
+"No, I will not."
+
+She looked as if--Well, if she had been a man I should have
+expected a blow.  Her breast heaved and her fingers clenched.  Then
+she turned and walked toward the shop with the cricket bats in the
+window.
+
+"Where are you going?" I asked.
+
+"I am going to tell the man to send the things I have bought to
+Mayberry by carrier and I shall tell him to send the bill to you."
+
+"If you do I shall tell him to do nothing of the kind.  Miss
+Morley, I don't mean to be ungenerous or unreasonable, but--"
+
+"Stop!  Stop!  Oh!" with a sobbing breath, "how I hate you!"
+
+"I'm sorry.  When I explain, as I mean to, you will understand, I
+think.  If you will go back to the rectory with me now--"
+
+"I shall not go back with you.  I shall never speak to you again."
+
+"Miss Morley, be reasonable.  You must go back with me.  There is
+no other way."
+
+"I will not."
+
+Here was more cheer in an already cheerful situation.  She could
+not get to Mayberry that night unless she rode with me.  She had no
+money to take her there or anywhere else.  I could hardly carry her
+to the trap by main strength.  And the curiosity of the passers-by
+was more marked than ever; two or three of them had stopped to
+watch us.
+
+I don't know how it might have ended, but the end came in an
+unexpected manner.
+
+"Why, Miss Morley," cried a voice from the street behind me.  "Oh,
+I say, it IS you, isn't it.  How do you do?"
+
+I turned.  A trim little motor car was standing there and Herbert
+Bayliss was at the wheel.
+
+"Ah, Knowles, how do you do?" said Bayliss.
+
+I acknowledged the greeting in an embarrassed fashion.  I wondered
+how long he had been there and what he had heard.  He alighted from
+the car and shook hands with us.
+
+"Didn't see you, Knowles, at first," he said.  "Saw Miss Morley
+here and thought she was alone.  Was going to beg the privilege of
+taking her home in my car."
+
+Miss Morley answered promptly.  "You may have the privilege, Doctor
+Bayliss," she said.  "I accept with pleasure."
+
+Young Bayliss looked pleased, but rather puzzled.
+
+"Thanks, awfully," he said.  "But my car holds but two and your
+uncle--"
+
+"Oh, he has the dogcart.  It is quite all right, really.  I should
+love the motor ride.  May I get in?"
+
+He helped her into the car.  "Sure you don't mind, Knowles," he
+asked.  "Sorry there's not more room; but you couldn't leave the
+horse, though, could you?  Quite comfy, Miss Morley?  Then we're
+off."
+
+The car turned from the curb.  I caught Miss Morley's eye for an
+instant; there was withering contempt in its look--also triumph.
+
+Left alone, I walked to the trap, gave the horse-holding boy
+sixpence, climbed to the seat and took up the reins.  "Pet" jogged
+lazily up the street.  The ride over had been very, very pleasant;
+the homeward journey was likely to be anything but that.
+
+To begin with, I was thoroughly dissatisfied with myself.  I had
+bungled the affair dreadfully.  This was not the time for
+explanations; I should not have attempted them.  It would have been
+better, much better, to have accepted the inevitable as gracefully
+as I could, paid the bills, and then, after we reached home, have
+made the situation plain and "have put my foot down" once and for
+all.  But I had not done that.  I had lost my temper and acted like
+an eighteen-year-old boy instead of a middle-aged man.
+
+She did not understand, of course.  In her eyes I must have
+appeared stingy and mean and--and goodness knows what.  The money I
+had refused to pay she did consider hers, of course.  It was not
+hers, and some day she would know that it was not, but the town
+square at Wrayton was not the place in which to impart knowledge of
+that kind.
+
+She was so young, too, and so charming--that is, she could be when
+she chose.  And she had chosen to be so during our drive together.
+And I had enjoyed that drive; I had enjoyed nothing as thoroughly
+since our arrival in England.  She had enjoyed it, too; she had
+said so.
+
+Well, there would be no more enjoyment of that kind.  This was the
+end, of course.  And all because I had refused to pay for a tennis
+racket and a few other things.  They were things she wanted--yes,
+needed, if she were to remain at the rectory.  And, expecting to
+remain as she did, it was but natural that she should wish to play
+tennis and dress as did other young players of her sex.  Her life
+had not been a pleasant one; after all, a little happiness added,
+even though it did cost me some money, was not much.  And it must
+end soon.  It seemed a pity to end it in order to save two pounds
+eight and threepence.
+
+There is no use cataloguing all my thoughts.  Some I have
+catalogued and the others were similar.  The memory of her face and
+of the choke in her voice as she said she had been almost happy
+haunted me.  My reason told me that, so far as principle and
+precedent went, I had acted rightly; but my conscience, which was
+quite unreasonable, told me I had acted like a boor.  I stood it as
+long as I could, then I shouted at "Pet," who was jogging on,
+apparently half asleep.
+
+"Whoa!" I shouted.
+
+"Pet" stopped short in the middle of the road.  I hesitated.  The
+principle of the thing--
+
+"Hang the principle!" said I, aloud.  Then I turned the trap around
+and drove back to Wrayton.  The blond young man in the sporting-
+goods store was evidently glad to see me.  He must have seen me
+drive away and have judged that his sale was canceled.  His
+judgment had been very near to right, but now I proved it wrong.
+
+I paid for the racket and the press and the shoes and the rest.
+They were wrapped and ready.
+
+"Thank you, sir," said the clerk.  "I trust everything will be
+quite satisfactory.  I'm sorry the young lady did not take the
+Slazenger, but the one she chose is not at all bad."
+
+I was on my way to the door.  I stopped and turned.
+
+"Is the--the what is it--'Slazenger' so much better?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, very much so, sir.  Infinitely better, sir.  Here it is; judge
+for yourself.  The very best racket made.  And only thirty-two
+shillings, sir."
+
+It was a better racket, much better.  And, after all, when one is
+hanging principle the execution may as well be complete.
+
+"You may give me that one instead of the other," I said, and paid
+the difference.
+
+On my arrival at the rectory Hephzy met me at the door.  The
+between-maid took the packages from the trap.  I entered the
+drawing-room and Hephzy followed me.  She looked very grave.
+
+"Frances is here, I suppose," I said.
+
+"Yes, she came an hour ago.  Doctor Bayliss, the younger one,
+brought her in his auto.  She hardly spoke to me, Hosy, and went
+straight to her room.  Hosy, what happened?  What is the matter?"
+
+"Nothing," said I, curtly.  "Nothing unusual, that is.  I made a
+fool of myself once more, that's all."
+
+The between-maid knocked and entered.  "Where would you wish the
+parcels, sir?" she asked.
+
+"These are Miss Morley's.  Take them to her room."
+
+The maid retired to obey orders.  Hephzy again turned to me.
+
+"Now, Hosy, what is it?" she asked.
+
+I told her the whole story.  When I had finished Hephzy nodded
+understandingly.  She did not say "I told you so," but if she had
+it would have been quite excusable.
+
+"I think--I think, perhaps, I had better go up and see her," she
+said.
+
+"All right.  I have no objection."
+
+"But she'll ask questions, of course.  What shall I tell her?"
+
+"Tell her I changed my mind.  Tell her--oh, tell her anything you
+like.  Don't bother me.  I'm sick of the whole business."
+
+She left me and I went into the Reverend Cole's study and closed
+the door.  There were books enough there, but the majority of them
+were theological works or bulky volumes dealing with questions of
+religion.  Most of my own books were in my room.  These did not
+appeal to me; I was not religiously inclined just then.
+
+So I sat dumbly in the rector's desk chair and looked out of the
+window.  After a time there was a knock at the door.
+
+"Come in," said I, expecting Hephzy.  It was not Hephzy who came,
+however, but Miss Morley herself.  And she closed the door behind
+her.
+
+I did not speak.  She walked over and stood beside me.  I did not
+know what she was going to say and the expression did not help me
+to guess.
+
+For a moment she did not say anything.  Then:
+
+"So you changed your mind," she said.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"You don't know.  Yet you changed it."
+
+"Yes.  Oh yes, I changed it."
+
+"But why?  Was it--was it because you were ashamed of yourself?"
+
+"I guess so.  As much that as anything."
+
+"You realize that you treated me shamefully.  You realize that?"
+
+"Yes," wearily.  "Yes, I realize everything."
+
+"And you felt sorry, after I had gone, and so you changed your
+mind.  Was that it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+There was no use in attempting justification.  For the absolute
+surrender I had made there was no justification.  I might as well
+agree to everything.
+
+"And you will never, never treat me in that way again?"
+
+"No."
+
+"And you realize that I was right and understand that I am to do as
+I please with my money?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you beg my pardon?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Very well.  Then I beg yours.  I'm sorry, too."
+
+Now I WAS surprised.  I turned in my chair and looked at her.
+
+"You beg my pardon?" I repeated.  "For what?"
+
+"Oh, for everything.  I suppose I should have spoken to you before
+buying those things.  You might not have been prepared to pay then
+and--and that would have been unpleasant for you.  But--well, you
+see, I didn't think, and you were so queer and cross when you
+followed me to the draper's shop, that--that I--well, I was
+disagreeable, too.  I am sorry."
+
+"That's all right."
+
+"Thank you.  Is there anything else you wish to say?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You're sure?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why did you buy the Slazenger racket instead of the other one?"
+
+I had forgotten the "Slazenger" for the moment.  She had caught me
+unawares.
+
+"Oh--oh," I stammered, "well, it was a much better racket and--and,
+as you were buying one, it seemed foolish not to get the best."
+
+"I know.  I wanted the better one very much, but I thought it too
+expensive.  I did not feel that I should spend so much money."
+
+"That's all right.  The difference wasn't so much and I made the
+change on my own responsibility.  I--well, just consider that I
+bought the racket and you bought none."
+
+She regarded me intently.  "You mean that you bought it as a
+present for me?" she said slowly.
+
+"Yes; yes, if you will accept it as such."
+
+She was silent.  I remembered perfectly well what she had said
+concerning presents from me and I wondered what I should do with
+that racket when she threw it back on my hands.
+
+"Thank you," she said.  "I will accept it.  Thank you very much."
+
+I was staggered, but I recovered sufficiently to tell her she was
+quite welcome.
+
+She turned to go.  Then she turned back.
+
+"Doctor Bayliss asked me to play tennis with him tomorrow morning,"
+she said.  "May I?"
+
+"May you?  Why, of course you may, if you wish, I suppose.  Why in
+the world do you ask my permission?"
+
+"Oh, don't you wish me to ask?  I inferred from what you said at
+Wrayton that you did wish me to ask permission concerning many
+things."
+
+"I wished--I said--oh, don't be silly, please!  Haven't we had
+silliness enough for one afternoon, Miss Morley."
+
+"My Christian name is Frances.  May I play tennis with Doctor
+Bayliss to-morrow morning, Uncle Hosea?"
+
+"Of course you may.  How could I prevent it, even if I wished,
+which I don't."
+
+"Thank you, Uncle Hosea.  Mr. Worcester is going to play also.  We
+need a fourth.  I can borrow another racket.  Will you be my
+partner, Uncle Hosea?"
+
+"_I_?  Your partner?"
+
+"Yes.  You play tennis; Auntie says so.  Will you play to-morrow
+morning as my partner?"
+
+"But I play an atrocious game and--"
+
+"So do I.  We shall match beautifully.  Thank you, Uncle Hosea."
+
+Once more she turned to go, and again she turned.
+
+"Is there anything else you wish me to do, Uncle Hosea?" she asked.
+
+The repetition repeated was too much.
+
+"Yes," I declared.  "Stop calling me Uncle Hosea.  I'm not your
+uncle."
+
+"Oh, I know that; but you have told everyone that you were, haven't
+you?"
+
+I had, unfortunately, so I could make no better reply than to state
+emphatically that I didn't like the title.
+
+"Oh, very well," she said.  "But 'Mr. Knowles' sounds so formal,
+don't you think.  What shall I call you?  Never mind, perhaps I can
+think while I am dressing for dinner.  I will see you at dinner,
+won't I.  Au revoir, and thank you again for the racket--Cousin
+Hosy."
+
+"I'm not your cousin, either--at least not more than a nineteenth
+cousin.  And if you begin calling me 'Hosy' I shall--I don't know
+what I shall do."
+
+"Dear me, how particular you are!  Well then, au revoir--Kent."
+
+When Hephzy came to the study I was still seated in the rector's
+chair.  She was brimful full of curiosity, I know, and ready to ask
+a dozen questions at once.  But I headed off the first of the
+dozen.
+
+"Hephzy," I observed, "I have made no less than fifty solemn
+resolutions since we met that girl--that Little Frank of yours.
+You've heard me make them, haven't you."
+
+"Why, yes, I suppose I have.  If you mean resolutions to tell her
+the truth about her father and put an end to the scrape we're in, I
+have, certain."
+
+"Yes; well, I've made another one now.  Never, no matter what
+happens, will I attempt to tell her a word concerning Strickland
+Morley or her 'inheritance' or anything else.  Every time I've
+tried I've made a blessed idiot of myself and now I'm through.  She
+can stay with us forever and run us into debt to her heart's
+desire--I don't care.  If she ever learns the truth she sha'n't
+learn it from me.  I'm incapable of telling it.  I haven't the sand
+of a yellow dog and I'm not going to worry about it.  I'm through,
+do you hear--through."
+
+That was my newest resolution.  It was a comfort to realize that
+THIS resolution I should probably stick to.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+In Which Complications Become More Complicated
+
+
+And stick to it I did.  From that day--the day of our drive to
+Wrayton--on through those wonderful summer days in which she and
+Hephzy and I were together at the rectory, not once did I attempt
+to remonstrate with my "niece" concerning her presumption in
+inflicting her presence upon us or in spending her money, as she
+thought it--our money as I knew it to be--as she saw fit.  Having
+learned and relearned my lesson--namely, that I lacked the courage
+to tell her the truth I had so often declared must be told, having
+shifted the responsibility to Hephzy's shoulders, having admitted
+and proclaimed myself, in that respect at least, a yellow dog, I
+proceeded to take life as I found it, as yellow dogs are supposed
+to do.
+
+And, having thus weakly rid myself of care and responsibility, I
+began to enjoy that life.  To enjoy the freedom of it, and the
+novelty of the surroundings, and the friendship of the good people
+who were our neighbors.  Yes, and to enjoy the home life, the
+afternoons on the tennis court or the golf course, the evenings in
+the drawing-room, the "teas" on the lawn--either our lawn or
+someone else's--the chats together across the dinner-table; to
+enjoy it all; and, more astonishing still, to accept the
+companionship of the young person who was responsible for our
+living in that way as a regular and understood part of that life.
+
+Not that I understood the young person herself; no Bayport quahaug,
+who had shunned female companionship as I had for so long, could be
+expected to understand the whims and changing moods of a girl like
+Frances Morley.  At times she charmed and attracted me, at others
+she tormented and irritated me.  She argued with me one moment and
+disagreed the next.  She laughed at Hephzy's and my American accent
+and idioms, but when Bayliss, Junior, or one of the curates
+ventured to criticize an "Americanism" she was quite as likely to
+declare that she thought it "jolly" and "so expressive."  Against
+my will I was obliged to join in conversations, to take sides in
+arguments, to be present when callers came, to make calls.  I, who
+had avoided the society of young people because, being no longer
+young, I felt out of place among them, was now dragged into such
+society every day and almost every evening.  I did not want to be,
+but Little Frank seemed to find mischievous pleasure in keeping me
+there.
+
+"It is good for you," she said, on one occasion, when I had sneaked
+off to my room and the company of the "British Poets."  "Auntie
+says you started on your travels in order to find something new to
+write about.  You'll never find it in those musty books; every poem
+in them is at least seventy years old.  If you are going to write
+of England and my people you must know something about those that
+are alive."
+
+"But, my dear young lady," I said, "I have no intention of writing
+of your people, as you call them."
+
+"You write of knights and lords and ladies and queens.  You do--or
+you did--and you certainly know nothing about THEM."
+
+I was quite a bit ruffled.  "Indeed!" said I.  "You are quite sure
+of that, are you?"
+
+"I am," decidedly.  "I have read 'The Queen's Amulet' and no queen
+on earth--in England, surely--ever acted or spoke like that one.
+An American queen might, if there was such a thing."
+
+She laughed and, provoked as I was, I could not help laughing with
+her.  She had a most infectious laugh.
+
+"My dear young lady--" I began again, but she interrupted me.
+
+"Don't call me that," she protested.  "You're not the Archbishop of
+Canterbury visiting a girl's school and making a speech.  You asked
+me not to call you 'Uncle Hosea.'  If you say 'dear young lady' to
+me again I shall address you publicly as 'dear old Nunky.'  Don't
+be silly."
+
+I laughed again.  "But you ARE young," I said.
+
+"Well, what of it.  Perhaps neither of us likes to be reminded of
+our age.  I'm sure you don't; I never saw anyone more sensitive on
+the subject.  There! there! put away those silly old books and come
+down to the drawing-room.  I'm going to sing.  Mr. Worcester has
+brought in a lot of new music."
+
+Reluctantly I closed the volume I had in my hand.
+
+"Very well," I said; "I'll come if you wish.  But I shall only be
+in the way, as I always am.  Mr. Worcester didn't plead for my
+company, did he?  Do you know I think he will bear up manfully if I
+don't appear."
+
+She regarded me with disapproval.
+
+"Don't be childish in your old age," she snapped, "Are you coming?"
+
+I went, of course, and--it may have been by way of reward--she sang
+several old-fashioned, simple ballads which I had found in a dog's-
+eared portfolio in the music cabinet and which I liked because my
+mother used to sing them when I was a little chap.  I had asked for
+them before and she had ignored the request.
+
+This time she sang them and Hephzy, sitting beside me in the
+darkest corner reached over and laid a hand on mine.
+
+"Her mother all over again," she whispered.  "Ardelia used to sing
+those."
+
+Next day, on the tennis court, she played with Herbert Bayliss
+against Worcester and me, and seemed to enjoy beating us six to
+one.  The only regret she expressed was that she and her partner
+had not made it a "love set."
+
+Altogether she was a decidedly vitalizing influence, an influence
+that was, I began to admit to myself, a good one for me.  I needed
+to be kept alive and active, and here, in this wide-awake
+household, I couldn't be anything else.  The future did not look as
+dull and hopeless as it had when I left Bayport.  I even began to
+consider the possibilities of another novel, to hope that I might
+write one.  Jim Campbell's "prescription," although working in
+quite a different way from that which he and I had planned, was
+working nevertheless.
+
+Matthews, at the Camford Street office, was forwarding my letters
+and honoring my drafts with promptness.  I received a note each
+week from Campbell.  I had written him all particulars concerning
+Little Frank and our move to the rectory, and he professed to see
+in it only a huge joke.
+
+"Tell your Miss Cahoon," he wrote, "that I am going to turn
+Spiritualist right away.  I believe in dreams now, and presentiments
+and all sorts of things.  I am trying to dream out a plot for a
+novel by you.  Had a roof-garden supper the other night and that
+gave me a fine start, but I'll have to tackle another one before I
+get sufficient thrills to furnish forth one of your gems.  Seriously
+though, old man, this whole thing will do you a world of good.
+Nothing short of an earthquake would have shaken you out of your
+Cape Cod dumps and it looks to me as if you and--what's her name--
+Hephzibah, had had the quake.  What are you going to do with the
+Little Frank person in the end?  Can't you marry her off to a
+wealthy Englishman?  Or, if not that, why not marry her yourself?
+She'd turn a dead quahaug into a live lobster, I should imagine, if
+anyone could.  Great idea!  What?"
+
+His "great idea" was received with the contempt it deserved.
+I tore up the letter and threw it into the waste basket.
+
+But Hephzy herself spoke of matrimony and Little Frank soon after
+this.  We were alone together; Frances had gone on a horseback ride
+with Herbert Bayliss and a female cousin who was spending the day
+at "Jasmine Gables."
+
+"Hosy," said Hephzy, "do you realize the summer is half over?  It's
+the middle of July now."
+
+So it was, although it seemed scarcely possible.
+
+"Yes," she went on.  "Our lease of this place is up the first of
+October.  We shall be startin' for home then, I presume likely,
+sha'n't we."
+
+"I suppose so.  We can't stay over here indefinitely.  Life isn't
+all skittles and--and tea."
+
+"That's so.  I don't know what skittles are, but I know what tea
+is.  Land sakes!  I should say I did.  They tell me the English
+national flower is a rose.  It ought to be a tea-plant blossom, if
+there is such a thing.  Hosy," with a sudden return to seriousness,
+"what are we goin' to do with--with HER when the time comes for us
+to go?"
+
+"I don't know," I answered.
+
+"Are you going to take her to America with us?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Humph!  Well, we'll have to know then."
+
+"I suppose we shall; but," defiantly, "I'm not going to worry about
+it till the time comes."
+
+"Humph!  Well, you've changed, that's all I've got to say.  'Twan't
+so long ago that you did nothin' BUT worry.  I never saw anybody
+change the way you have anyway."
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"In every way.  You aren't like the same person you used to be.
+Why, through that last year of ours in Bayport I used to think
+sometimes you were older than I was--older in the way you thought
+and acted, I mean.  Now you act as if you were twenty-one.
+Cavortin' around, playin' tennis and golf and everything!  What has
+got into you?"
+
+"I don't know.  Jim Campbell's prescription is taking effect, I
+guess.  He said the change of air and environment would do me good.
+I tell you, Hephzy, I have made up my mind to enjoy life while I
+can.  I realize as well as you do that the trouble is bound to
+come, but I'm not going to let it trouble me beforehand.  And I
+advise you to do the same."
+
+"Well, I've been tryin' to, but sometimes I can't help wonderin'
+and dreadin'.  Perhaps I'm havin' my dread for nothin'.  It may be
+that, by the time we're ready to start for Bayport, Little Frank
+will be provided for."
+
+"Provided for?  What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean provided for by somebody else.  There's at least two
+candidates for the job:  Don't you think so?"
+
+"You mean--"
+
+"I mean Mr. Worcester and Herbert Bayliss.  That Worcester man is a
+gone case, or I'm no judge.  He's keepin' company with Frances, or
+would, if she'd let him.  'Twould be funny if she married a curate,
+wouldn't it."
+
+"Not very," I answered.  "Married life on a curate's salary is not
+my idea of humor."
+
+"I suppose likely that's so.  And I can't imagine her a minister's
+wife, can you?"
+
+I could not; nor, unless I was greatly mistaken, could the young
+lady herself.  In fact, anything as serious as marriage was far
+from her thoughts at present, I judged.  But Hephzy did not seem so
+sure.
+
+"No," she went on, "I don't think the curate's got much chance.
+But young Doctor Bayliss is different.  He's good-lookin' and smart
+and he's got prospects.  I like him first-rate and I think Frances
+likes him, too.  I shouldn't wonder if THAT affair came to
+somethin'.  Wouldn't it be splendid if it did!"
+
+I said that it would.  And yet, even as I said it, I was conscious
+of a peculiar feeling of insincerity.  I liked young Bayliss.  He
+was all that Hephzy had said, and more.  He would, doubtless, make
+a good husband for any girl.  And his engagement to Frances Morley
+might make easier the explanation which was bound to come.  I
+believed I could tell Herbert Bayliss the truth concerning the
+ridiculous "claim."  A man would be susceptible to reason and
+proof; I could convince him.  I should have welcomed the
+possibility, but, somehow or other, I did not.  Somehow or other,
+the idea of her marrying anyone was repugnant to me.  I did not
+like to think of it.
+
+"Oh dear!" sighed Hephzy; "if only things were different.  If only
+she knew all about her father and his rascality and was livin' with
+us because she wanted to--if that was the way of it, it would be so
+different.  If you and I had really adopted her!  If she only was
+your niece."
+
+"Nonsense!" I snapped.  "She isn't my niece."
+
+"I know it.  That's what makes your goodness to her seem so
+wonderful to me.  You treat her as if you cared as much as I do.
+And of course you don't.  It isn't natural you should.  She's my
+sister's child, and she's hardly any relation to you at all.
+You're awful good, Hosy.  She's noticed it, too.  I think she likes
+you now a lot better than she did; she as much as said so.  She's
+beginning to understand you."
+
+"Nonsense!" I said again.  Understand me!  I didn't understand
+myself.  Nevertheless I was foolishly pleased to hear that she
+liked me.  It was pleasant to be liked even by one who was destined
+to hate me later on.
+
+"I hope she won't feel too hard against us," continued Hephzy.  "I
+can't bear to think of her doin' that.  She--she seems so near and
+dear to me now.  We--I shall miss her dreadfully when it's all
+over."
+
+I think she hoped that I might say that I should miss her, also.
+But I did not say anything of the kind.
+
+I was resolved not to permit myself to miss her.  Hadn't I been
+scheming and planning to get rid of her ever since she thrust
+herself upon us?  To be sorry when she, at last, was gotten rid of
+would be too idiotic.
+
+"Well," observed Hephzy, in conclusion, "perhaps she and Doctor
+Bayliss will make a match after all.  We ought to help it all we
+can, I suppose."
+
+This conversation had various effects upon me.  One was to make me
+unaccountably "blue" for the rest of that day.  Another was that I
+regarded the visits of Worcester and Herbert Bayliss with a
+different eye.  I speculated foolishly concerning those visits and
+watched both young gentlemen more closely.
+
+I did not have to watch the curate long.  Suddenly he ceased
+calling at the rectory.  Not altogether, of course, but he called
+only occasionally and his manner toward my "niece" was oddly formal
+and constrained.  She was very kind to him, kinder than before, I
+thought, but there was a difference in their manner.  Hephzy, of
+course, had an explanation ready.
+
+"She's given him his clearance papers," was her way of expressing
+it.  "She's told him that it's no use so far as he's concerned.
+Well, I never did think she cared for him.  And that leaves the
+course clear for the doctor, doesn't it."
+
+The doctor took advantage of the clear course.  His calls and
+invitations for rides and tennis and golf were more frequent than
+ever.  She must have understood; but, being a normal young woman,
+as well as a very, very pretty one, she was a bit of a coquette and
+kept the boy--for, after all, he was scarcely more than that--at
+arm's length and in a state of alternate hope and despair.  I
+shared his varying moods.  If he could not be sure of her feelings
+toward him, neither could I, and I found myself wondering,
+wondering constantly.  It was foolish for me to wonder, of course.
+Why should I waste time in speculation on that subject?  Why should
+I care whether she married or not?  What difference did it make to
+me whom she married?  I resolved not to think of her at all.  And
+that resolution, like so many I had made, amounted to nothing, for
+I did think of her constantly.
+
+And then to add a new complication to the already over-complicated
+situation, came A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire.
+
+Frances and Herbert Bayliss were scheduled for nine holes of golf
+on the Manor House course that morning.  I had had no intention of
+playing.  My projected novel had reached the stage where, plot
+building completed, I had really begun the writing.  The first
+chapter was finished and I had intended beginning the second one
+that day.  But, just as I seated myself at the desk in the Reverend
+Cole's study, the young lady appeared and insisted that the twosome
+become a threesome, that I leave my "stupid old papers and pencils"
+and come for a round on the links.  I protested, of course, but she
+was in one of her wilful moods that morning and declared that she
+would not play unless I did.
+
+"It will do you good," she said.  "You'll write all the better this
+afternoon.  Now, come along."
+
+"Is Doctor Bayliss as anxious for my company as you seem to be?" I
+asked maliciously.
+
+She tossed her head.  "Of course he is," she retorted.  "Besides it
+doesn't make any difference whether he is or not.  _I_ want you to
+play, and that is enough."
+
+"Humph! he may not agree with you."
+
+"Then he can play by himself.  It will do him good, too.  He takes
+altogether too much for granted.  Come!  I am waiting."
+
+So, after a few more fruitless protests, I reluctantly laid aside
+the paper and pencils, changed to golfing regalia and, with my bag
+of clubs on my shoulder, joined the two young people on the lawn.
+
+Frances greeted me very cordially indeed.  Her clubs--I had bought
+them myself on one of my trips to London: having once yielded, in
+the matter of the tennis outfit, I now bought various little things
+which I thought would please her--were carried by Herbert Bayliss,
+who, of course, also carried his own.  His greeting was not as
+enthusiastic.  He seemed rather glum and out of sorts.  Frances
+addressed most of her conversation to me and I was inclined to
+think the pair had had some sort of disagreement, what Hephzy would
+have called a "lover's quarrel," perhaps.
+
+We walked across the main street of Mayberry, through the lane past
+the cricket field, on by the path over the pastures, and entered
+the great gate of the Manor, the gate with the Carey arms
+emblazoned above it.  Then a quarter of a mile over rolling hills,
+with rare shrubs and flowers everywhere, brought us to the top of
+the hill at the edge of the little wood which these English people
+persisted in calling a "forest."  The first tee was there.  You
+drove--if you were skillful or lucky--down the long slope to the
+green two hundred yards away.  If you were neither skillful nor
+lucky you were quite as likely to drive into the long grass on
+either side of the fair green.  Then you hunted for your ball and,
+having found it, wasted more or less labor and temper in pounding
+it out of the "rough."
+
+At the first tee a man arrayed in the perfection of natty golfing
+togs was practicing his "swing."  A caddy was carrying his bag.
+This of itself argued the swinger a person of privilege and
+consequence, for caddies on those links were strictly forbidden by
+the Lady of the Manor.  Why they were forbidden she alone knew.
+
+As we approached the tee the player turned to look at us.  He was
+not a Mayberryite and yet there was something familiar in his
+appearance.  He regarded us for a moment and then, dropping his
+driver, lounged toward me and extended his hand.
+
+"Oh, I say!" he exclaimed.  "It is you, isn't it!  How do you do?"
+
+"Why, Mr. Heathcroft!" I said.  "This is a surprise."
+
+We shook hands.  He, apparently, was not at all surprised.
+
+"Heard about your being here, Knowles," he drawled.  "My aunt told
+me; that is, she said there were Americans at the rectory and when
+she mentioned the name I knew, of course, it must be you.  Odd you
+should have located here, isn't it!  Jolly glad to see you."
+
+I said I was glad to see him.  Then I introduced my companions.
+
+"Bayliss and I have met before," observed Heathcroft.  "Played a
+round with him in the tournament last year.  How do, Bayliss?
+Don't think Miss Morley and I have met, though.  Great pleasure,
+really.  Are you a resident of Mayberry, Miss Morley?"
+
+Frances said that she was a temporary resident.
+
+"Ah! visiting here, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes.  Yes, I am visiting.  I am living at the rectory, also."
+
+"Miss Morley is Mr. Knowles's niece," explained Bayliss.
+
+Heathcroft seemed surprised.
+
+"Indeed!" he drawled.  "Didn't know you had a niece, Knowles.  She
+wasn't with you on the ship, now was she."
+
+"Miss Morley had been living in England--here and on the
+Continent," I answered.  I could have kicked Bayliss for his
+officious explanation of kinship.  Now I should have that
+ridiculous "uncle" business to contend with, in our acquaintance
+with Heathcroft as with the Baylisses and the rest.  Frances, I am
+sure, read my thoughts, for the corners of her mouth twitched and
+she looked away over the course.
+
+"Won't you ask Mr. Heathcroft to join our game--Uncle?" she said.
+She had dropped the hated "Hosea," I am happy to say, but in the
+presence of those outside the family she still addressed me as
+"Uncle."  Of course she could not do otherwise without arousing
+comment, but I did not like it.  Uncle! there was a venerable,
+antique quality in the term which I resented more and more each
+time I heard it.  It emphasized the difference in our ages--and
+that difference needed no emphasis.
+
+Heathcroft looked pleased at the invitation, but he hesitated in
+accepting it.
+
+"Oh, I shouldn't do that, really," he declared.  "I should be in
+the way, now shouldn't I."
+
+Bayliss, to whom the remark was addressed, made no answer.  I
+judged that he did not care for the honor of the Heathcroft
+company.  But Frances, after a glance in his direction, answered
+for him.
+
+"Oh, not in the least," she said.  "A foursome is ever so much more
+sporting than a threesome.  Mr. Heathcroft, you and I will play
+Doctor Bayliss and--Uncle.  Shall we?"
+
+Heathcroft declared himself delighted and honored.  He looked the
+former.  He had scarcely taken his eyes from Miss Morley since
+their introduction.
+
+That match was hard fought.  Our new acquaintance was a fair player
+and he played to win.  Frances was learning to play and had a
+natural aptitude for the game.  I played better than my usual form
+and I needed to, for Bayliss played wretchedly.  He "dubbed" his
+approaches and missed easy putts.  If he had kept his eye on the
+ball instead of on his opponents he might have done better, but
+that he would not do.  He watched Heathcroft and Miss Morley
+continually, and the more he watched the less he seemed to like
+what he saw.
+
+Perhaps he was not altogether to blame, everything considered.
+Frances was quite aware of the scrutiny and apparently enjoyed his
+discomfiture.  She--well, perhaps she did not precisely flirt with
+A. Carleton Heathcroft, but she was very, very agreeable to him and
+exulted over the winning of each hole without regard to the
+feelings of the losers.  As for Heathcroft, himself, he was quite
+as agreeable to her, complimented her on her playing, insisted on
+his caddy's carrying her clubs, assisted her over the rough places
+on the course, and generally acted the gallant in a most polished
+manner.  Bayliss and I were beaten three down.
+
+Heathcroft walked with us as far as the lodge gate.  Then he said
+good-by with evident reluctance.
+
+"Thank you so much for the game, Miss Morley," he said.  "Enjoyed
+it hugely.  You play remarkably well, if you don't mind my saying
+so."
+
+Frances was pleased.  "Thank you," she answered.  "I know it isn't
+true--that about my playing--but it is awfully nice of you to say
+it.  I hope we may play together again.  Are you staying here
+long?"
+
+"Don't know, I'm sure.  I am visiting my aunt and she will keep me
+as long as she can.  Seems to think I have neglected her of late.
+Of course we must play again.  By the way, Knowles, why don't you
+run over and meet Lady Carey?  She'll be awfully pleased to meet
+any friends of mine.  Bring Miss Morley with you.  Perhaps she
+would care to see the greenhouses.  They're quite worth looking
+over, really.  Like to have you, too, Bayliss, of course."
+
+Bayliss's thanks were not effusive.  Frances, however, declared
+that she should love to see the greenhouses.  For my part, common
+politeness demanded my asking Mr. Heathcroft to call at the
+rectory.  He accepted the invitation at once and heartily.
+
+He called the very next day and joined us at tea.  The following
+afternoon we, Hephzy, Frances and I, visited the greenhouses.  On
+this occasion we met, for the first time, the lady of the Manor
+herself.  Lady Kent Carey was a stout, gray-haired person, of very
+decided manner and a mannish taste in dress.  She was gracious and
+affable, although I suspected that much of her affability toward
+the American visitors was assumed because she wished to please her
+nephew.  A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire, was plainly her
+ladyship's pride and pet.  She called him "Carleton, dear," and
+"Carleton, dear" was, in his aunt's estimation, the model of
+everything desirable in man.
+
+The greenhouses were spacious and the display of rare plants and
+flowers more varied and beautiful than any I had ever seen.  We
+walked through the grounds surrounding the mansion, and viewed with
+becoming reverence the trees planted by various distinguished
+personages, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, Her late
+Majesty Queen Victoria, Ex-President Carnot of France, and others.
+Hephzy whispered to me as we were standing before the Queen
+Victoria specimen:
+
+"I don't believe Queen Victoria ever planted that in the world, do
+you, Hosy.  She'd look pretty, a fleshy old lady like her, puffin'
+away diggin' holes with a spade, now would she!"
+
+I hastily explained the probability that the hole was dug by
+someone else.
+
+Hephzy nodded.
+
+"I guess so," she added.  "And the tree was put in by someone else
+and the dirt put back by the same one.  Queen Victoria planted that
+tree the way Susanna Wixon said she broke my best platter, by not
+doin' a single thing to it.  I could plant a whole grove that way
+and not get a bit tired."
+
+Lady Carey bade us farewell at the fish-ponds and asked us to come
+again.  Her nephew, however, accompanied us all the way home--that
+is, he accompanied Frances, while Hephzy and I made up the rear
+guard.  The next day he dropped in for some tennis.  Herbert
+Bayliss was there before him, so the tennis was abandoned, and a
+three-cornered chat on the lawn substituted.  Heathcroft treated
+the young doctor with a polite condescension which would have
+irritated me exceedingly.
+
+From then on, during the fortnight which followed, there was a
+great deal of Heathcroft in the rectory social circle.  And when
+he was not there, it was fairly certain that he and Frances were
+together somewhere, golfing, walking or riding.  Sometimes I
+accompanied them, sometimes Herbert Bayliss made one of the
+party.  Frances' behavior to the young doctor was tantalizingly
+contradictory.  At times she was very cordial and kind, at others
+almost cold and repellent.  She kept the young fellow in a state of
+uncertainty most of the time.  She treated Heathcroft much the same,
+but there was this difference between them--Heathcroft didn't seem
+to mind; her whims appeared to amuse rather than to annoy him.
+Bayliss, on the contrary, was either in the seventh heaven of bliss
+or the subcellar of despair.  I sympathized with him, to an extent;
+the young lady's attitude toward me had an effect which, in my case,
+was ridiculous.  My reason told me that I should not care at all
+whether she liked me or whether she didn't, whether I pleased or
+displeased her.  But I did care, I couldn't help it, I cared
+altogether too much.  A middle-aged quahaug should be phlegmatic and
+philosophical; I once had a reputation for both qualities, but I
+seemed to possess neither now.
+
+I found myself speculating and wondering more than ever concerning
+the outcome of all this.  Was there anything serious in the wind at
+all?  Herbert Bayliss was in love with Frances Morley, that was
+obvious now.  But was she in love with him?  I doubted it.  Did she
+care in the least for him?  I did not know.  She seemed to enjoy
+his society.  I did not want her to fall in love with A. Carleton
+Heathcroft, certainly.  Nor, to be perfectly honest, did I wish her
+to marry Bayliss, although I like him much better than I did Lady
+Carey's blas� nephew.  Somehow, I didn't like the idea of her
+falling in love with anyone.  The present state of affairs in our
+household was pleasant enough.  We three were happy together.  Why
+could not that happiness continue just as it was?
+
+The answer was obvious:  It could not continue.  Each day that
+passed brought the inevitable end nearer.  My determination to put
+the thought of that end from my mind and enjoy the present was
+shaken.  In the solitude of the study, in the midst of my writing,
+after I had gone to my room for the night, I found my thoughts
+drifting toward the day in October when, our lease of the rectory
+ended, we must pack up and go somewhere.  And when we went,
+would she go with us?  Hardly.  She would demand the promised
+"settlement," and then--What then?  Explanations--quarrels--
+parting.  A parting for all time.  I had reached a point where,
+like Hephzy, I would have gladly suggested a real "adoption," the
+permanent addition to our family of Strickland Morley's daughter,
+but she would not consent to that.  She was proud--very proud.  And
+she idolized her father's memory.  No, she would not remain under
+any such conditions--I knew it.  And the certainty of that
+knowledge brought with it a pang which I could not analyze.  A man
+of my age and temperament should not have such feelings.
+
+Hephzy did not fancy Heathcroft.  She had liked him well enough
+during our first acquaintance aboard the steamer, but now, when she
+knew him better, she did not fancy him.  His lofty, condescending
+manner irritated her and, as he seemed to enjoy joking at her
+expense, the pair had some amusing set-tos.  I will say this for
+Hephzy:  In the most of these she gave at least as good as she
+received.
+
+For example: we were sitting about the tea-table on the lawn,
+Hephzy, Frances, Doctor and Mrs. Bayliss, their son, and
+Heathcroft.  The conversation had drifted to the subject of
+eatables, a topic suggested, doubtless, by the plum cake and
+cookies on the table.  Mr. Heathcroft was amusing himself by poking
+fun at the American custom of serving cereals at breakfast.
+
+"And the variety is amazing," he declared.  "Oats and wheat and
+corn!  My word!  I felt like some sort of animal--a horse, by Jove!
+We feed our horses that sort of thing over here, Miss Cahoon."
+
+Hephzy sniffed.  "So do we," she admitted, "but we eat 'em
+ourselves, sometimes, when they're cooked as they ought to be.
+I think some breakfast foods are fine."
+
+"Do you indeed?  What an extraordinary taste!  Do you eat hay as
+well, may I ask?"
+
+"No, of course we don't."
+
+"Why not?  Why draw the line?  I should think a bit of hay might be
+the--ah--the crowning tit-bit to a breakfasting American.  Your
+horses and donkeys enjoy it quite as much as they do oats, don't
+they?"
+
+"Don't know, I'm sure.  I'm neither a horse nor a donkey, I hope."
+
+"Yes.  Oh, yes.  But I assure you, Miss Morley, I had extraordinary
+experiences on the other side.  I visited in a place called
+Milwaukee and my host there insisted on my trying a new cereal each
+morning.  We did the oats and the corn and all the rest and, upon
+my word, I expected the hay.  It was the only donkey food he didn't
+have in the house, and I don't see why he hadn't provided a supply
+of that."
+
+"Perhaps he didn't know you were comin'," observed Hephzy,
+cheerfully.  "Won't you have another cup, Mrs. Bayliss?  Or a cooky
+or somethin'?"
+
+The doctor's wife consented to the refilling of her cup.
+
+"I suppose--what do you call them?--cereals, are an American
+custom," she said, evidently aware that her hostess's feelings were
+ruffled.  "Every country has its customs, so travelers say.  Even
+our own has some, doubtless, though I can't recall any at the
+moment."
+
+Heathcroft stroked his mustache.
+
+"Oh," he drawled, "we have some, possibly; but our breakfasts are
+not as queer as the American breakfasts.  You mustn't mind my fun,
+Miss Cahoon, I hope you're not offended."
+
+"Not a bit," was the calm reply.  "We humans ARE animals, after
+all, I suppose, and some like one kind of food and some another.
+Donkeys like hay and pigs like sweets, and I don't know as I hadn't
+just as soon live in a stable as a sty.  Do help yourself to the
+cake, Mr. Heathcroft."
+
+No, our aristocratic acquaintance did not, as a general rule, come
+out ahead in these little encounters and I more than once was
+obliged to suppress a chuckle at my plucky relative's spirited
+retorts.  Frances, too, seemed to appreciate and enjoy the Yankee
+victories.  Her prejudice against America had, so far as outward
+expression went, almost disappeared.  She was more likely to
+champion than criticize our ways and habits now.
+
+But, in spite of all this, she seemed to enjoy the Heathcroft
+society.  The two were together a great deal.  The village people
+noticed the intimacy and comments reached my ears which were not
+intended for them.  Hephzy and I had some discussions on the
+subject.
+
+"You don't suppose he means anything serious, do you, Hosy?" she
+asked.  "Or that she thinks he does?"
+
+"I don't know," I answered.  I didn't like the idea any better than
+she did.
+
+"I hope not.  Of course he's a big man around here.  When his aunt
+dies he'll come in for the estate and the money, so everybody says.
+And if Frances should marry him she'd be--I don't know whether
+she'd be a 'Lady' or not, but she'd have an awful high place in
+society."
+
+"I suppose she would.  But I hope she won't do it."
+
+"So do I, for poor young Doctor Bayliss's sake, if nothin' else.
+He's so good and so patient with it all.  And he's just eaten up
+with jealousy; anybody can see that.  I'm scared to death that he
+and this Heathcroft man will have some sort of--of a fight or
+somethin'.  That would be awful, wouldn't it!"
+
+I did not answer.  My apprehensions were not on Herbert Bayliss's
+account.  He could look out for himself.  It was Frances' happiness
+I was thinking of.
+
+"Hosy," said Hephzy, very seriously indeed, "there's somethin'
+else.  I'm not sure that Mr. Heathcroft is serious at all.
+Somethin' Mrs. Bayliss said to me makes me feel a little mite
+anxious.  She said Carleton Heathcroft was a great lady's man.  She
+told me some things about him that--that--Well, I wish Frances
+wasn't so friendly with him, that's all."
+
+I shrugged my shoulders, pretending more indifference than I felt.
+
+"She's a sensible girl," said I.  "She doesn't need a guardian."
+
+"I know, but--but he's way up in society, Lady Carey's heir and all
+that.  She can't help bein' flattered by his attentions to her.
+Any girl would be, especially an English girl that thinks as much
+of class and all that as they do over here and as she does.  I wish
+I knew how she did feel toward him."
+
+"Why don't you ask her?"
+
+Hephzy shook her head.  "I wouldn't dare," she said.  "She'd take
+my head off.  We're on awful thin ice, you and I, with her, as it
+is.  She treats us real nicely now, but that's because we don't
+interfere.  If I should try just once to tell her what she ought to
+do she'd flare up like a bonfire.  And then do the other thing to
+show her independence."
+
+"I suppose she would," I admitted, gloomily.
+
+"I know she would.  No, we mustn't say anything to her.  But--but
+you might say somethin' to him, mightn't you.  Just hint around and
+find out what he does mean by bein' with her so much.  Couldn't you
+do that, Hosy?"
+
+I smiled.  "Possibly I could, but I sha'n't," I answered.  "He
+would tell me to go to perdition, probably, and I shouldn't blame
+him."
+
+"Why no, he wouldn't.  He thinks you're her uncle, her guardian,
+you know.  You'd have a right to do it."
+
+I did not propose to exercise that right, and I said so,
+emphatically.  And yet, before that week was ended, I did do what
+amounted to that very thing.  The reason which led to this rash act
+on my part was a talk I had with Lady Kent Carey.
+
+I met her ladyship on the putting green of the ninth hole of the
+golf course.  I was playing a round alone.  She came strolling over
+the green, dressed as mannishly as usual, but carrying a very
+feminine parasol, which by comparison with the rest of her get-up,
+looked as out of place as a silk hat on the head of a girl in a
+ball dress.  She greeted me very affably, waited until I putted
+out, and then sat beside me on the bench under the big oak and
+chatted for some time.
+
+The subject of her conversation was her nephew.  She was,
+apparently, only too glad to talk about him at any time.  He was
+her dead sister's child and practically the only relative she had.
+He seemed like a son to her.  Such a charming fellow, wasn't he,
+now?  And so considerate and kind to her.  Everyone liked him; he
+was a great favorite.
+
+"And he is very fond of you, Mr. Knowles," she said.  "He enjoys
+your acquaintance so much.  He says that there is a freshness and
+novelty about you Americans which is quite delightfully amusing.
+This Miss--ah--Cahoon--your cousin, I think she is--is a constant
+joy to him.  He never tires of repeating her speeches.  He does it
+very well, don't you think.  He mimics the American accent
+wonderfully."
+
+I agreed that the Heathcroft American accent was wonderful indeed.
+It was all that and more.  Lady Carey went on.
+
+"And this Miss Morley, your niece," she said, poking holes in the
+turf with the tip of her parasol, "she is a charming girl, isn't
+she.  She and Carleton are quite friendly, really."
+
+"Yes," I admitted, "they seem to be."
+
+"Yes.  Tell me about your niece, Mr. Knowles.  Has she lived in
+England long?  Who were her parents?"
+
+I dodged the ticklish subject as best I could, told her that
+Frances' father was an Englishman, her mother an American, and that
+most of the young lady's life had been spent in France.  I feared
+more searching questions, but she did not ask them.
+
+"I see," she said, nodding, and was silent for a moment.  Then she
+changed the subject, returning once more to her beloved Carleton.
+
+"He's a dear boy," she declared.  "I am planning great things for
+him.  Some day he will have the estate here, of course.  And I am
+hoping to get him the seat in Parliament when our party returns to
+power, as it is sure to do before long.  He will marry then; in
+fact everything is arranged, so far as that goes.  Of course there
+is no actual engagement as yet, but we all understand."
+
+I had been rather bored, now I was interested.
+
+"Indeed!" said I.  "And may I ask who is the fortunate young lady?"
+
+"A daughter of an old friend of ours in Warwickshire--a fine
+family, one of the oldest in England.  She and Carleton have always
+been so fond of each other.  Her parents and I have considered the
+affair settled for years.  The young people will be so happy
+together."
+
+Here was news.  I offered congratulations.
+
+"Thank you so much," she said.  "It is pleasant to know that his
+future is provided for.  Margaret will make him a good wife.  She
+worships him.  If anything should happen to--ah--disturb the
+arrangement her heart would break, I am sure.  Of course nothing
+will happen.  I should not permit it."
+
+I made some comment, I don't remember what.  She rose from the
+bench.
+
+"I have been chatting about family affairs and matchmaking like a
+garrulous old woman, haven't I," she observed, smiling.  "So silly
+of me.  You have been charmingly kind to listen, Mr. Knowles.
+Forgive me, won't you.  Carleton dear is my one interest in life
+and I talk of him on the least excuse, or without any.  So sorry to
+have inflicted my garrulity upon you.  I may count upon you
+entering our invitation golf tournament next month, may I not?  Oh,
+do say yes.  Thank you so much.  Au revoir."
+
+She moved off, as imposing and majestic as a frigate under full
+sail.  I walked slowly toward home, thinking hard.
+
+I should have been flattered, perhaps, at her taking me into
+confidence concerning her nephew's matrimonial projects.  If I
+had believed the "garrulity," as she called it, to have been
+unintentional, I might have been flattered.  But I did not so
+believe.  I was pretty certain there was intention in it and that
+she expected Frances and Hephzy and me to take it as a warning.
+Carleton dear was, in her eyes, altogether too friendly with the
+youngest tenant in Mayberry rectory.  The "garrulity" was a notice
+to keep hands off.
+
+I was not incensed at her; she amused me, rather.  But with
+Heathcroft I was growing more incensed every moment.  Engaged to be
+married, was he!  He and this Warwickshire girl of "fine family"
+had been "so fond" of each other for years.  Everything was
+understood, was it?  Then what did he mean by his attentions to
+Frances, attentions which half of Mayberry was probably discussing
+at the moment?  The more I considered his conduct the angrier I
+became.  It was the worst time possible for a meeting with A.
+Carleton Heathcroft, and yet meet him I did at the loneliest and
+most secluded spot in the hedged lane leading to the lodge gate.
+
+He greeted me cordially enough, if his languid drawl could be
+called cordial.
+
+"Ah, Knowles," he said.  "Been doing the round I see.  A bit stupid
+by oneself, I should think.  What?  Miss Morley and I have been
+riding.  Had a ripping canter together."
+
+It was an unfortunate remark, just at that time.  It had the effect
+of spurring my determination to the striking point.  I would have
+it out with him then and there.
+
+"Heathcroft," I said, bluntly, "I am not sure that I approve of
+Miss Morley's riding with you so often."
+
+He regarded me with astonishment.
+
+"You don't approve!" he repeated.  "And why not?  There's no
+danger.  She rides extremely well."
+
+"It's not a question of danger.  It is one of proprieties, if I
+must put it that way.  She is a young woman, hardly more than a
+girl, and she probably does not realize that being seen in your
+company so frequently is likely to cause comment and gossip.  Her
+aunt and I realize it, however."
+
+His expression of surprise was changing to one of languid
+amusement.
+
+"Really!" he drawled.  "By Jove!  I say, Knowles, am I such a
+dangerously fascinating character?  You flatter me."
+
+"I don't know anything concerning your character.  I do know that
+there is gossip.  I am not accusing you of anything.  I have no
+doubt you have been merely careless.  Your intentions may have
+been--"
+
+He interrupted me.  "My intentions?" he repeated.  "My dear fellow,
+I have no intentions.  None whatever concerning your niece, if that
+is what you mean.  She is a jolly pretty girl and jolly good
+company.  I like her and she seems to like me.  That is all, upon
+my word it is."
+
+He was quite sincere, I was convinced of it.  But I had gone too
+far to back out.
+
+"Then you have been thoughtless--or careless," I said.  "It seems
+to me that you should have considered her."
+
+"Considered her!  Oh, I say now!  Why should I consider her pray?"
+
+"Why shouldn't you?  You are much older than she is and a man of
+the world besides.  And you are engaged to be married, or so I am
+told."
+
+His smile disappeared.
+
+"Now who the devil told you that?" he demanded.
+
+"I was told, by one who should know, that you were engaged, or what
+amounts to the same thing.  It is true, isn't it?"
+
+"Of course it's true!  But--but--why, good God, man! you weren't
+under the impression that I was planning to marry your niece, were
+you?  Oh, I say! that would be TOO good!"
+
+He laughed heartily.  He did not appear in the least annoyed or
+angry, but seemed to consider the whole affair a huge joke.  I
+failed to see the joke, myself.
+
+"Oh, no," he went on, before I could reply, "not that, I assure
+you.  One can't afford luxuries of that kind, unless one is a
+luckier beggar than I am.  Auntie is attending to all that sort of
+thing.  She has me booked, you know, and I can't afford to play the
+high-spirited independent with her.  I should say not!  Rather!"
+
+He laughed again.
+
+"So you think I've been a bit too prevalent in your niece's
+neighborhood, do you?" he observed.  "Sorry.  I'd best keep off the
+lawn a bit, you mean to say, I suppose.  Very well!  I'll mind the
+notice boards, of course.  Very glad you spoke.  Possibly I have
+been a bit careless.  No offence meant, Knowles, and none taken, I
+trust."
+
+"No," I said, with some reluctance.  "I'm glad you understand my--
+our position, and take my--my hint so well.  I disliked to give it,
+but I thought it best that we have a clear understanding."
+
+"Of course!  Stern uncle and pretty niece, and all that sort of
+thing.  You Americans are queer beggars.  You don't strike me as
+the usual type of stern uncle at all, Knowles.  Oh, by the way,
+does the niece know that uncle is putting up the notice boards?"
+
+"Of course she doesn't," I replied, hastily.
+
+His smile broadened.  "I wonder what she'll say when she finds it
+out," he observed.  "She has never struck me as being greatly in
+awe of her relatives.  I should call HER independent, if I was
+asked.  Well, farewell.  You and I may have some golf together
+still, I presume?  Good!  By-by."
+
+He sauntered on, his serene coolness and calm condescension
+apparently unruffled.  I continued on my way also.  But my serenity
+had vanished.  I had the feeling that I had come off second-best in
+the encounter.  I had made a fool of myself, I feared.  And more
+than all, I wondered, as he did, what Frances Morley would say when
+she learned of my interference in her personal affairs.
+
+I foresaw trouble--more trouble.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+In Which the Truth Is Told at Last
+
+
+I said nothing to Hephzibah or Frances of my talk with Lady Carey
+or with Heathcroft.  I was not proud of my share in the putting up
+of "the notice boards."  I did not mention meeting either the
+titled aunt or the favored nephew.  I kept quiet concerning them
+both and nervously awaited developments.
+
+There were none immediately.  That day and the next passed and
+nothing of importance happened.  It did seem to me, however, that
+Frances was rather quiet during luncheon on the third day.  She
+said very little and several times I found her regarding me with an
+odd expression.  My guilty conscience smote me and I expected to be
+asked questions answering which would be difficult.  But the
+questions were not asked--then.  I went to my study and attempted
+to write; the attempt was a failure.
+
+For an hour or so I stared hopelessly at the blank paper.  I hadn't
+an idea in my head, apparently.  At last I threw down the pencil
+and gave up the battle for the day.  I was not in a writing mood.
+I lit my pipe, and, moving to the arm-chair by the window, sat
+there, looking out at the lawn and flower beds.  No one was in
+sight except Grimmer, the gardener, who was trimming a hedge.
+
+I sat there for some time, smoking and thinking.  Hephzy dressed in
+her best, passed the window on her way to the gate.  She was going
+for a call in the village and had asked me to accompany her, but I
+declined.  I did not feel like calling.
+
+My pipe, smoked out, I put in my pocket.  If I could have gotten
+rid of my thoughts as easily I should have been happier, but that I
+could not do.  They were strange thoughts, hopeless thoughts,
+ridiculous, unavailing thoughts.  For me, Kent Knowles, quahaug, to
+permit myself to think in that way was worse than ridiculous; it
+was pitiful.  This was a stern reality, this summer of mine in
+England, not a chapter in one of my romances.  They ended happily;
+it was easy to make them end in that way.  But this--this was no
+romance, or, if it was, I was but the comic relief in the story,
+the queer old bachelor who had made a fool of himself.  That was
+what I was, an old fool.  Well, I must stop being a fool before it
+was too late.  No one knew I was such a fool.  No one should know--
+now or ever.
+
+And having reached this philosophical conclusion I proceeded to
+dream of dark eyes looking into mine across a breakfast table--our
+table; of a home in Bayport--our home; of someone always with me,
+to share my life, my hopes, to spur me on to a work worth while, to
+glory in my triumphs and comfort me in my reverses; to dream of
+what might have been if--if it were not absolutely impossible.  Oh,
+fool, fool, fool!
+
+A quick step sounded on the gravel walk outside the window.  I knew
+the step, should have recognized it anywhere.  She was walking
+rapidly toward the house, her head bent and her eyes fixed upon the
+path before her.  Grimmer touched his hat and said "Good afternoon,
+miss," but she apparently did not hear him.  She passed on and I
+heard her enter the hall.  A moment later she knocked at the study
+door.
+
+She entered the room in answer to my invitation and closed the door
+behind her.  She was dressed in her golfing costume, a plain white
+shirtwaist--blouse, she would have called it--a short, dark skirt
+and stout boots.  The light garden hat was set upon her dark hair
+and her cheeks were flushed from rapid walking.  The hat and waist
+and skirt were extremely becoming.  She was pretty--yes, beautiful--
+and young.  I was far from beautiful and far from young.  I make
+this obvious statement because it was my thought at the moment.
+
+She did not apologize for interrupting me, as she usually did when
+she entered the study during my supposed working periods.  This was
+strange, of itself, and my sense of guilt caused me to fear all
+sorts of things.  But she smiled and answered my greeting
+pleasantly enough and, for the moment, I experienced relief.
+Perhaps, after all, she had not learned of my interview with
+Heathcroft.
+
+"I have come to talk with you," she began.  "May I sit down?"
+
+"Certainly.  Of course you may," I answered, smiling as cheerfully
+as I could.  "Was it necessary to ask permission?"
+
+She took a chair and I seated myself in the one from which I had
+just risen.  For a moment she was silent.  I ventured a remark.
+
+"This begins very solemnly," I said.  "Is the talk to be so very
+serious?"
+
+She was serious enough and my apprehensions returned.
+
+"I don't know," she answered.  "I hope it may not be serious at
+all, Mr. Knowles."
+
+I interrupted.  "Mr. Knowles!" I repeated.  "Whew! this IS a formal
+interview.  I thought the 'Mr. Knowles' had been banished along
+with 'Uncle Hosea'."
+
+She smiled slightly then.  "Perhaps it has," she said.  "I am just
+a little troubled--or puzzled--and I have come to you for advice."
+
+"Advice?" I repeated.  "I'm afraid my advice isn't worth much.
+What sort of advice do you want?"
+
+"I wanted to know what I should do in regard to an invitation I
+have received to motor with Doctor Bayliss--Doctor Herbert Bayliss.
+He has asked me to go with him to Edgeboro to-morrow.  Should I
+accept?"
+
+I hesitated.  Then:  "Alone?" I asked.
+
+"No.  His cousin, Miss Tomlinson, will go also."
+
+"I see no reason why you should not, if you wish to go."
+
+"Thank you.  But suppose it was alone?"
+
+"Then--Well, I presume that would be all right, too.  You have
+motored with him before, you know."
+
+As a matter of fact, I couldn't see why she asked my opinion in
+such a matter.  She had never asked it before.  Her next remark was
+more puzzling still.
+
+"You approve of Doctor Bayliss, don't you," she said.  It did seem
+to me there was a hint of sarcasm in her tone.
+
+"Yes--certainly," I answered.  I did approve of young Bayliss,
+generally speaking; there was no sane reason why I should not have
+approved of him absolutely.
+
+"And you trust me?  You believe me capable of judging what is right
+or wrong?"
+
+"Of course I do."
+
+"If you didn't you would not presume to interfere in my personal
+affairs?  You would not think of doing that, of course?"
+
+"No--o," more slowly.
+
+"Why do you hesitate?  Of course you realize that you have no
+shadow of right to interfere.  You know perfectly well why I
+consented to remain here for the present and why I have remained?"
+
+"Yes, yes, I know that."
+
+"And you wouldn't presume to interfere?"
+
+"Doctor Herbert Bayliss is--"
+
+She sprang to her feet.  She was not smiling now.
+
+"Stop!" she interrupted, sharply.  "Stop!  I did not come to
+discuss Doctor Bayliss.  I have asked you a question.  I ask you if
+you would presume to interfere in my personal affairs.  Would you?"
+
+"Why, no.  That is, I--"
+
+"You say that to me!  YOU!"
+
+"Frances, if you mean that I have interfered between you and the
+Doctor, I--"
+
+She stamped her foot.
+
+"Stop!  Oh, stop!" she cried.  "You know what I mean.  What did you
+say to Mr. Heathcroft?  Do you dare tell me you have not interfered
+there?"
+
+It had come, the expected.  Her smile and the asking for "advice"
+had been apparently but traps to catch me off my guard.  I had been
+prepared for some such scene as this, but, in spite of my
+preparations, I hesitated and faltered.  I must have looked like
+the meanest of pickpockets caught in the act.
+
+"Frances," I stammered, "Frances--"
+
+Her fury took my breath away.
+
+"Don't call me Frances," she cried.  "How dare you call me that?"
+
+Perturbed as I was I couldn't resist making the obvious retort.
+
+"You asked me to," I said.
+
+"I asked you!  Yes, I did.  You had been kind to me, or I thought
+you had, and I--I was foolish.  Oh, how I hate myself for doing it!
+But I was beginning to think you a gentleman.  In spite of
+everything, I was beginning to--And now!  Oh, at least I thought
+you wouldn't LIE to me."
+
+I rose now.
+
+"Frances--Miss Morley," I said, "do you realize what you are
+saying?"
+
+"Realize it!  Oh," with a scornful laugh, "I realize it quite well;
+you may be sure of that.  Don't you like the word?  What else do
+you call a denial of what we both know to be the truth.  You did
+see Mr. Heathcroft.  You did speak with him."
+
+"Yes, I did."
+
+"You did!  You admit it!"
+
+"I admit it.  But did he tell you what I said?"
+
+"He did not.  Mr. Heathcroft IS a gentleman.  He told me very
+little and that only in answer to my questions.  I knew you and he
+met the other day.  You did not mention it, but you were seen
+together, and when he did not come for the ride to which he had
+invited me I thought it strange.  And his note to me was stranger
+still.  I began to suspect then, and when we next met I asked him
+some questions.  He told me next to nothing, but he is honorable
+and he does not LIE.  I learned enough, quite enough."
+
+I wondered if she had learned of the essential thing, of
+Heathcroft's engagement.
+
+"Did he tell you why I objected to his intimacy with you?" I asked.
+
+"He told me nothing!  Nothing!  The very fact that you had
+objected, as you call it, was sufficient.  Object!  YOU object to
+my doing as I please!  YOU meddle with my affairs!  And humiliate
+me in the eyes of my friends!  I could--I could die of shame!
+I . . .  And as if I did not know your reasons.  As if they were
+not perfectly plain."
+
+The real reason could not be plain to her.  Heathcroft evidently
+had not told her of the Warwickshire heiress.
+
+"I don't understand," I said, trying my hardest to speak calmly.
+"What reasons?"
+
+"Must I tell you?  Did you OBJECT to my friendship with Doctor
+Bayliss, pray?"
+
+"Doctor Bayliss!  Why, Doctor Bayliss is quite different.  He is a
+fine young fellow, and--"
+
+"Yes," with scornful sarcasm, "so it would appear.  You and my aunt
+and he have the most evident of understandings.  You need not
+praise him for my benefit.  It is quite apparent how you both feel
+toward Doctor Bayliss.  I am not blind.  I have seen how you have
+thrown him in my company, and made opportunities for me to meet
+him.  Oh, of course, I can see!  I did not believe it at first.  It
+was too absurd, too outrageously impertinent.  I COULDN'T believe
+it.  But now I know."
+
+This was a little too much.  The idea that I--_I_ had been playing
+the matchmaker for Bayliss's benefit made me almost as angry as she
+was.
+
+"Nonsense!" I declared.  "Miss Morley, this is too ridiculous to go
+on.  I did speak to Mr. Heathcroft.  There was a reason, a good
+reason, for my doing so."
+
+"I do not wish to hear your reason, as you call it.  The fact that
+you did speak to him concerning me is enough.  Mr. Knowles, this
+arrangement of ours, my living here with you, has gone on too long.
+I should have known it was impossible in the beginning.  But I did
+not know.  I was alone--and ill--and I did need friends--I was SO
+alone.  I had been through so much.  I had struggled and suffered
+and--"
+
+Again, as in our quarrel at Wrayton, she was on the verge of tears.
+And again that unreasonable conscience of mine smote me.  I longed
+to--Well, to prove myself the fool I was.
+
+But she did not give me the opportunity.  Before I could speak or
+move she was on her way to the door.
+
+"This ends it," she said.  "I shall go away from here at once.  I
+shall put the whole matter in my solicitor's hands.  This is an end
+of forbearance and all the rest.  I am going.  You have made me
+hate you and despise you.  I only hope that--that some day you will
+despise yourself as much.  But you won't," scornfully.  "You are
+not that sort."
+
+The door closed.  She was gone.  Gone!  And soon--the next day at
+the latest--she would have been gone for good.  This WAS the end.
+
+I walked many miles that day, how many I do not know.  Dinner was
+waiting for me when I returned, but I could not eat.  I rose from
+the table, went to the study and sat there, alone with my misery.
+I was torn with the wildest longings and desires.  One, I think,
+was to kill Heathcroft forthwith.  Another was to kill myself.
+
+There came another knock at the door.  This time I made no answer.
+I did not want to see anyone.
+
+But the door opened, nevertheless, and Hephzy came in.  She crossed
+the room and stood by my chair.
+
+"What is it, Hosy?" she said, gently.  "You must tell me all about
+it."
+
+I made some answer, told her to go away and leave me, I think.  If
+that was it she did not heed.  She put her hand upon my shoulder.
+
+"You must tell me, Hosy," she said.  "What has happened?  You and
+Frances have had some fallin' out, I know.  She wouldn't come to
+dinner, either, and she won't see me.  She's up in her room with
+the door shut.  Tell me, Hosy; you and I have fought each other's
+battles for a good many years.  You can't fight this one alone;
+I've got to do my share.  Tell me, dearie, please."
+
+And tell her I did.  I did not mean to, and yet somehow the thought
+that she was there, so strong and quiet and big-hearted and
+sensible, was, if not a comfort to me, at least a marvelous help.
+I began by telling her a little and then went on to tell her all,
+of my talk with Lady Carey, my meeting with Heathcroft, the scene
+with Frances--everything, word for word.
+
+When it was over she patted my shoulder.
+
+"You did just right, Hosy," she said.  "There was nothin' else you
+could do.  I never liked that Heathcroft man.  And to think of him,
+engaged to another girl, trottin' around with Frances the way he
+has.  I'D like to talk with him.  He'd get a piece of MY mind."
+
+"He's all right enough," I admitted grudgingly.  "He took my
+warning in a very good sort, I must say.  He has never meant
+anything serious.  It was just his way, that's all.  He was amusing
+himself in her company, and doubtless thought she would be
+flattered with his aristocratic attentions."
+
+"Humph!  Well, I guess she wouldn't be if she'd known of that other
+girl.  You didn't tell her that, you say."
+
+"I couldn't.  I think I should, perhaps, if she would have
+listened.  I'm glad I didn't.  It isn't a thing for me to tell
+her."
+
+"I understand.  But she ought to know it, just the same.  And she
+ought to know how good you've been to her.  Nobody could be better.
+She must know it.  Whether she goes or whether she doesn't she must
+know that."
+
+I seized her arm.  "You mustn't tell her a word," I cried.  "She
+mustn't know.  It is better she should go.  Better for her and for
+me--My God, yes! so much better for me."
+
+I could feel the arm on my shoulder start.  Hephzy bent down and
+looked into my face.  I tried to avoid the scrutiny, but she looked
+and looked.  Then she drew a long breath.
+
+"Hosy!" she exclaimed.  "Hosy!"
+
+"Don't speak to me.  Oh, Hephzy," with a bitter laugh, "did you
+ever dream there could be such a hopeless lunatic as I am!  You
+needn't say it.  I know the answer."
+
+"Hosy!  Hosy! you poor boy!"
+
+She kissed me, soothing me as she had when I came home to our empty
+house at the time of my mother's death.  That memory came back to
+me even then.
+
+"Forgive me, Hephzy," I said.  "I am ashamed of myself, of course.
+And don't worry.  Nobody knows this but you and I, and nobody else
+shall.  I'm going to behave and I'm going to be sensible.  Just
+forget all this for my sake.  I mean to forget it, too."
+
+But Hephzy shook her head.
+
+"It's all my fault," she said.  "I'm to blame more than anybody
+else.  It was me that brought her here in the first place and me
+that kept you from tellin' her the truth in the beginnin'.  So it's
+me who must tell her now."
+
+"Hephzy!"
+
+"Oh, I don't mean the truth about--about what you and I have just
+said, Hosy.  She'll never know that, perhaps.  Certainly she'll
+never know it from me.  But the rest of it she must know.  This has
+gone far enough.  She sha'n't go away from this house misjudgin'
+you, thinkin' you're a thief, as well as all the rest of it.  That
+she sha'n't do.  I shall see to that--now."
+
+"Hephzy, I forbid you to--"
+
+"You can't forbid me, Hosy.  It's my duty, and I've been a silly,
+wicked old woman and shirked that duty long enough.  Now don't
+worry any more.  Go to your room, dearie, and lay down.  If you get
+to sleep so much the better.  Though I guess," with a sigh, "we
+sha'n't either of us sleep much this night."
+
+Before I could prevent her she had left the room.  I sprang after
+her, to call her back, to order her not to do the thing she had
+threatened.  But, in the drawing-room, Charlotte, the housemaid,
+met me with an announcement.
+
+"Doctor Bayliss--Doctor Herbert Bayliss--is here, sir," she said.
+"He has called to see you."
+
+"To see me?" I repeated, trying hard to recover some measure of
+composure.  "To see Miss Frances, you mean."
+
+"No, sir.  He says he wants to see you alone.  He's in the hall
+now, sir."
+
+He was; I could hear him.  Certainly I never wished to see anyone
+less, but I could not refuse.
+
+"Ask him to come into the study, Charlotte," said I.
+
+The young doctor found me sitting in the chair by the desk.  The
+long English twilight was almost over and the room was in deep
+shadow.  Charlotte entered and lighted the lamp.  I was strongly
+tempted to order her to desist, but I could scarcely ask my visitor
+to sit in the dark, however much I might prefer to do so.  I
+compromised by moving to a seat farther from the lamp where my face
+would be less plainly visible.  Then, Bayliss having, on my
+invitation, also taken a chair, I waited for him to state his
+business.
+
+It was not easy to state, that was plain.  Ordinarily Herbert
+Bayliss was cool and self-possessed.  I had never before seen him
+as embarrassed as he seemed to be now.  He fidgeted on the edge of
+the chair, crossed and recrossed his legs, and, finally, offered
+the original remark that it had been an extremely pleasant day.  I
+admitted the fact and again there was an interval of silence.  I
+should have helped him, I suppose.  It was quite apparent that his
+was no casual call and, under ordinary circumstances, I should have
+been interested and curious.  Now I did not care.  If he would say
+his say and go away and leave me I should be grateful.
+
+And, at last, he said it.  His next speech was very much nearer the
+point.
+
+"Mr. Knowles," he said, "I have called to--to see you concerning
+your niece, Miss Morley.  I--I have come to ask your consent to my
+asking her to marry me."
+
+I was not greatly surprised.  I had vaguely suspected his purpose
+when he entered the room.  I had long foreseen the likelihood of
+some such interview as this, had considered what I should say when
+the time came.  But now it had come, I could say nothing.  I sat in
+silence, looking at him.
+
+Perhaps he thought I did not understand.  At any rate he hastened
+to explain.
+
+"I wish your permission to marry your niece," he repeated.  "I have
+no doubt you are surprised.  Perhaps you fancy I am a bit hasty.  I
+suppose you do.  But I--I care a great deal for her, Mr. Knowles.
+I will try to make her a good husband.  Not that I am good enough
+for her, of course--no one could be that, you know; but I'll try
+and--and--"
+
+He was very red in the face and floundered, amid his jerky
+sentences, like a newly-landed fish, but he stuck to it manfully.
+I could not help admiring the young fellow.  He was so young and
+handsome and so honest and boyishly eager in his embarrassment.  I
+admired him--yes, but I hated him, too, hated him for his youth and
+all that it meant, I was jealous--bitterly, wickedly jealous, and
+of all jealousy, hopeless, unreasonable jealousy is the worst, I
+imagine.
+
+He went on to speak of his ambitions and prospects.  He did not
+intend to remain always in Mayberry as his father's assistant, not
+he.  He should remain for a time, of course, but then he intended
+to go back to London.  There were opportunities there.  A fellow
+with the right stuff in him could get on there.  He had friends in
+the London hospitals and they had promised to put chances his way.
+He should not presume to marry Frances at once, of course.  He
+would not be such a selfish goat as that.  All he asked was that,
+my permission granted, she would be patient and wait a bit until he
+got on his feet, professionally he meant to say, and then--
+
+I interrupted.
+
+"One moment," said I, trying to appear calm and succeeding
+remarkably well, considering the turmoil in my brain; "just a
+moment, Bayliss, if you please.  Have you spoken to Miss Morley
+yet?  Do you know her feelings toward you?"
+
+No, he had not.  Of course he wouldn't do that until he and I had
+had our understanding.  He had tried to be honorable and all that.
+But--but he thought she did not object to him.  She--well, she had
+seemed to like him well enough.  There had been times when he
+thought she--she--
+
+"Well, you see, sir," he said, "she's a girl, of course, and a
+fellow never knows just what a girl is going to say or do.  There
+are times when one is sure everything is quite right and then that
+it is all wrong.  But I have hoped--I believe--She's such a ripping
+girl, you know.  She would not flirt with a chap and--I don't mean
+flirt exactly, she isn't a flirt, of course--but--don't you think
+she likes me, now?"
+
+"I have no reason to suppose she doesn't," I answered grudgingly.
+After all, he was acting very honorably; I could scarcely do less.
+
+He seemed to find much comfort in my equivocal reply.
+
+"Thanks, thanks awfully," he exclaimed.  "I--I--by Jove, you know,
+I can't tell you how I like to hear you say that!  I'm awfully
+grateful to you, Knowles, I am really.  And you'll give me
+permission to speak to her?"
+
+I smiled; it was not a happy smile, but there was a certain ironic
+humor in the situation.  The idea of anyone's seeking my
+"permission" in any matter concerning Frances Morley.  He noticed
+the smile and was, I think, inclined to be offended.
+
+"Is it a joke?" he asked.  "I say, now! it isn't a joke to me."
+
+"Nor to me, I assure you," I answered, seriously.  "If I gave that
+impression it was a mistaken one.  I never felt less like joking."
+
+He put his own interpretation on the last sentence.  "I'm sorry,"
+he said, quickly.  "I beg your pardon.  I understand, of course.
+You're very fond of her; no one could help being that, could they.
+And she is your niece."
+
+I hesitated.  I was minded to blurt out the fact that she was not
+my niece at all; that I had no authority over her in any way.  But
+what would be the use?  It would lead only to explanations and I
+did not wish to make explanations.  I wanted to get through with
+the whole inane business and be left alone.
+
+"But you haven't said yes, have you," he urged.  "You will say it,
+won't you?"
+
+I nodded.  "You have my permission, so far as that goes," I
+answered.
+
+He sprang to his feet and seized my hand.
+
+"That's topping!" he cried, his face radiant.  "I can't thank you
+enough."
+
+"That's all right.  But there is one thing more.  Perhaps it isn't
+my affair, and you needn't answer unless you wish.  Have you
+consulted your parents?  How do they feel about your--your
+intentions?"
+
+His expression changed.  My question was answered before he spoke.
+
+"No," he admitted, "I haven't told them yet.  I--Well, you see, the
+Mater and Father have been making plans about my future, naturally.
+They have some silly ideas about a friend of the family that--Oh,
+she's a nice enough girl; I like her jolly well, but she isn't Miss
+Morley.  Well, hardly!  They'll take it quite well.  By Jove!"
+excitedly, "they must.  They've GOT to.  Oh, they will.  And
+they're very fond of--of Frances."
+
+There seemed nothing more for me to say, nothing at that time, at
+any rate.  I, too, rose.  He shook my hand again.
+
+"You've been a trump to me, Knowles," he declared.  "I appreciate
+it, you know; I do indeed.  I'm jolly grateful."
+
+"You needn't be.  It is all right.  I--I suppose I should wish you
+luck and happiness.  I do.  Yes, why shouldn't you be happy, even
+if--"
+
+"Even if--what?  Oh, but you don't think she will turn me off, do
+you?  You don't think that?"
+
+"I've told you that I see no reason why she should."
+
+"Thank you.  Thank you so much.  Is there anything else that you
+might wish to say to me?"
+
+"Not now.  Perhaps some day I--But not now.  No, there's nothing
+else.  Good night, Bayliss; good night and--and good luck."
+
+"Good night.  I--She's not in now, I suppose, is she?"
+
+"She is in, but--Well, I scarcely think you had better see her to-
+night.  She has gone to her room."
+
+"Oh, I say! it's very early.  She's not ill, is she?"
+
+"No, but I think you had best not see her to-night."
+
+He was disappointed, that was plain, but he yielded.  He would have
+agreed, doubtless, with any opinion of mine just then.
+
+"No doubt you're right," he said.  "Good night.  And thank you
+again."
+
+He left the room.  I did not accompany him to the door.  Instead I
+returned to my chair.  I did not occupy it long, I could not.  I
+could not sit still.  I rose and went out on the lawn.  There, in
+the night mist, I paced up and down, up and down.  I had longed to
+be alone; now that I was alone I was more miserable than ever.
+
+Charlotte, the maid, called to me from the doorway.
+
+"Would you wish the light in the study any longer, sir?" she asked.
+
+"No," said I, curtly.  "You may put it out."
+
+"And shall I lock up, sir; all but this door, I mean?"
+
+"Yes.  Where is Miss Cahoon?"
+
+"She's above, sir.  With Miss Morley, I think, sir."
+
+"Very well, Charlotte.  That is all.  Good night."
+
+"Good night, sir."
+
+She went into the house.  The lamp in the study was extinguished.
+I continued my pacing up and down.  Occasionally I glanced at the
+upper story of the rectory.  There was a lighted window there, the
+window of Frances' room.  She and Hephzy were together in that
+room.  What was going on there?  What had Hephzy said to her?
+What--Oh, WHAT would happen next?
+
+Some time later--I don't know how much later it may have been--I
+heard someone calling me again.
+
+"Hosy!" called Hephzy in a loud whisper; "Hosy, where are you?"
+
+"Here I am," I answered.
+
+She came to me across the lawn.  I could not, of course, see her
+face, but her tone was very anxious.
+
+"Hosy," she whispered, putting her hand on my arm, "what are you
+doin' out here all alone?"
+
+I laughed.  "I'm taking the air," I answered.  "It is good for me.
+I am enjoying the glorious English air old Doctor Bayliss is always
+talking about.  Fresh air and exercise--those will cure anything,
+so he says.  Perhaps they will cure me.  God knows I need curing."
+
+"Sshh! shh, Hosy!  Don't talk that way.  I don't like to hear you.
+Out here bareheaded and in all this damp!  You'll get your death."
+
+"Will I?  Well, that will be a complete cure, then."
+
+"Hush!  I tell you.  Come in the house with me.  I want to talk to
+you.  Come!"
+
+Still holding my arm she led me toward the house.  I hung back.
+
+"You have been up there with her?" I said, with a nod toward the
+lighted window of the room above.  "What has happened?  What have
+you said and done?"
+
+"Hush!  I'll tell you; I'll tell you all about it.  Only come in
+now.  I sha'n't feel safe until I get you inside.  Oh, Hosy, DON'T
+act this way!  Do you want to frighten me to death?"
+
+That appeal had an effect.  I was ashamed of myself.
+
+"Forgive me, Hephzy," I said.  "I'll try to be decent.  You needn't
+worry about me.  I'm a fool, of course, but now that I realize it I
+shall try to stop behaving like one.  Come along; I'm ready."
+
+In the drawing-room she closed the door.
+
+"Shall I light the lamp?" she asked.
+
+"No.  Oh, for heaven's sake, can't you see that I'm crazy to know
+what you said to that girl and what she said to you?  Tell me, and
+hurry up, will you!"
+
+She did not resent my sudden burst of temper and impatience.
+Instead she put her arm about me.
+
+"Sit down, Hosy," she pleaded.  "Sit down and I'll tell you all
+about it.  Do sit down."
+
+I refused to sit.
+
+"Tell me now," I commanded.  "What did you say to her?  You didn't--
+you didn't--"
+
+"I did.  I told her everything."
+
+"EVERYTHING!  You don't mean--"
+
+"I mean everything.  'Twas time she knew it.  I went to that room
+meanin' to tell her and I did.  At first she didn't want to listen,
+didn't want to see me at all or even let me in.  But I made her let
+me in and then she and I had it out."
+
+"Hephzy!"
+
+"Don't say it that way, Hosy.  The good Lord knows I hate myself
+for doin' it, hated myself while I was doin' it, but it had to be
+done.  Every word I spoke cut me as bad as it must have cut her.  I
+kept thinkin', 'This is Little Frank I'm talkin' to.  This is
+Ardelia's daughter I'm makin' miserable.'  A dozen times I stopped
+and thought I couldn't go on, but every time I thought of you and
+what you'd put up with and been through, and I went on."
+
+"Hephzy! you told her--"
+
+"I said it was time she understood just the plain truth about her
+father and mother and grandfather and the money, and everything.
+She must know it, I said; things couldn't go on as they have been.
+I told it all.  At first she wouldn't listen, said I was--well,
+everything that was mean and lyin' and bad.  If she could she'd
+have put me out of her room, I presume likely, but I wouldn't go.
+And, of course, at first she wouldn't believe, but I made her
+believe."
+
+"Made her believe!  Made her believe her father was a thief!  How
+could you do that!  No one could."
+
+"I did it.  I don't know how exactly.  I just went on tellin' it
+all straight from the beginnin', and pretty soon I could see she
+was commencin' to believe.  And she believes now, Hosy; she does,
+I know it."
+
+"Did she say so?"
+
+"No, she didn't say anything, scarcely--not at the last.  She
+didn't cry, either; I almost wish she had.  Oh, Hosy, don't ask me
+any more questions than you have to.  I can't bear to answer 'em."
+
+She paused and turned away.
+
+"How she must hate us!" I said, after a moment.
+
+"Why, no--why, no, Hosy, I don't think she does; at least I'm
+tryin' to hope she doesn't.  I softened it all I could.  I told her
+why we took her with us in the first place; how we couldn't tell
+her the truth at first, or leave her, either, when she was so sick
+and alone.  I told her why we brought her here, hopin' it would
+make her well and strong, and how, after she got that way, we put
+off tellin' her because it was such a dreadful hard thing to do.
+Hard!  When I think of her sittin' there, white as a sheet, and
+lookin' at me with those big eyes of hers, her fingers twistin' and
+untwistin' in her lap--a way her mother used to have when she was
+troubled--and every word I spoke soundin' so cruel and--and--"
+
+She paused once more.  I did not speak.  Soon she recovered and
+went on.
+
+"I told her that I was tellin' her these things now because the
+misunderstandin's and all the rest had to stop and there was no use
+puttin' off any longer.  I told her I loved her as if she was my
+very own and that this needn't make the least bit of difference
+unless she wanted it to.  I said you felt just the same.  I told
+her your speakin' to that Heathcroft man was only for her good and
+for no other reason.  You'd learned that he was engaged to be
+married--"
+
+"You told her that?" I interrupted, involuntarily.  "What did she
+say?"
+
+"Nothin', nothin' at all.  I think she heard me and understood, but
+she didn't say anything.  Just sat there, white and trembling and
+crushed, sort of, and looked and looked at me.  I wanted to put my
+arms around her and ask her pardon and beg her to love me as I did
+her, but I didn't dare--I didn't dare.  I did say that you and I
+would be only too glad to have her stay with us always, as one of
+the family, you know.  If she'd only forget all the bad part that
+had gone and do that, I said--but she interrupted me.  She said
+"Forget!" and the way she said it made me sure she never would
+forget.  And then--and then she asked me if I would please go away
+and leave her.  Would I PLEASE not say any more now, but just leave
+her, only leave her alone.  So I came away and--and that's all."
+
+"That's all," I repeated.  "It is enough, I should say.  Oh,
+Hephzy, why did you do it?  Why couldn't it have gone on as it has
+been going?  Why did you do it?"
+
+It was an unthinking, wicked speech.  But Hephzy did not resent it.
+Her reply was as patient and kind as if she had been answering a
+child.
+
+"I had to do it, Hosy," she said.  "After our talk this evenin'
+there was only one thing to do.  It had to be done--for your sake,
+if nothin' else--and so I did it.  But--but--" with a choking sob,
+"it was SO hard to do!  My Ardelia's baby!"
+
+And at last, I am glad to say, I began to realize how very hard it
+had been for her.  To understand what she had gone through for my
+sake and what a selfish brute I had been.  I put my hands on her
+shoulders and kissed her almost reverently.
+
+"Hephzy," said I, "you're a saint and a martyr and I am--what I am.
+Please forgive me."
+
+"There isn't anything to forgive, Hosy.  And," with a shake of the
+head, "I'm an awful poor kind of saint, I guess.  They'd never put
+my image up in the churches over here--not if they knew how I felt
+this minute.  And a saint from Cape Cod wouldn't be very welcome
+anyway, I'm afraid.  I meant well, but that's a poor sort of
+recommendation.  Oh, Hosy, you DO think I did for the best, don't
+you?"
+
+"You did the only thing to be done," I answered, with decision.
+"You did what I lacked the courage to do.  Of course it was best."
+
+"You're awful good to say so, but I don't know.  What'll come of it
+goodness knows.  When I think of you and--and--"
+
+"Don't think of me.  I'm going to be a man if I can--a quahaug, if
+I can't.  At least I'm not going to be what I have been for the
+last month."
+
+"I know.  But when I think of to-morrow and what she'll say to me,
+then, I--"
+
+"You mustn't think.  You must go to bed and so must I.  To-morrow
+will take care of itself.  Come.  Let's both sleep and forget it."
+
+Which was the very best of advice, but, like much good advice,
+impossible to follow.  I did not sleep at all that night, nor did I
+forget.  God help me!  I was realizing that I never could forget.
+
+At six o'clock I came downstairs, made a pretence at eating some
+biscuits and cheese which I found on the sideboard, scribbled a
+brief note to Hephzy stating that I had gone for a walk and should
+not be back to breakfast, and started out.  The walk developed into
+a long one and I did not return to the rectory until nearly eleven
+in the forenoon.  By that time I was in a better mood, more
+reconciled to the inevitable--or I thought I was.  I believed I
+could play the man, could even see her married to Herbert Bayliss
+and still behave like a man.  I vowed and revowed it.  No one--no
+one but Hephzy and I should ever know what we knew.
+
+Charlotte, the maid, seemed greatly relieved to see me.  She
+hastened to the drawing-room.
+
+"Here he is, Miss Cahoon," she said.  "He's come back, ma'am.  He's
+here."
+
+"Of course I'm here, Charlotte," I said.  "You didn't suppose I had
+run away, did you? . . .  Why--why, Hephzy, what is the matter?"
+
+For Hephzy was coming to meet me, her hands outstretched and on her
+face an expression which I did not understand--sorrow, agitation--
+yes, and pity--were in that expression, or so it seemed to me.
+
+"Oh, Hosy!" she cried, "I'm so glad you've come.  I wanted you so."
+
+"Wanted me?" I repeated.  "Why, what do you mean?  Has anything
+happened?"
+
+She nodded, solemnly.
+
+"Yes," she said, "somethin' has happened.  Somethin' we might have
+expected, perhaps, but--but--Hosy, read that."
+
+I took what she handed me.  It was a sheet of note paper, folded
+across, and with Hephzibah's name written upon one side.  I
+recognized the writing and, with a sinking heart, unfolded it.
+Upon the other side was written in pencil this:
+
+
+"I am going away.  I could not stay, of course.  When I think how I
+have stayed and how I have treated you both, who have been so very,
+very kind to me, I feel--I can't tell you how I feel.  You must not
+think me ungrateful.  You must not think of me at all.  And you
+must not try to find me, even if you should wish to do such a
+thing.  I have the money which I intended using for my new frocks
+and I shall use it to pay my expenses and my fare to the place I am
+going.  It is your money, of course, and some day I shall send it
+to you.  And someday, if I can, I shall repay all that you have
+spent on my account.  But you must not follow me and you must not
+think of asking me to come back.  That I shall never do.  I do
+thank you for all that you have done for me, both of you.  I cannot
+understand why you did it, but I shall always remember.  Don't
+worry about me.  I know what I am going to do and I shall not
+starve or be in want.  Good-by.  Please try to forget me.
+
+"FRANCES MORLEY.
+
+"Please tell Mr. Knowles that I am sorry for what I said to him
+this afternoon and so many times before.  How he could have been so
+kind and patient I can't understand.  I shall always remember it--
+always.  Perhaps he may forgive me some day.  I shall try and hope
+that he may."
+
+
+I read to the end.  Then, without speaking, I looked at Hephzy.
+Her eyes were brimming with tears.
+
+"She has gone," she said, in answer to my unspoken question.  "She
+must have gone some time in the night.  The man at the inn stable
+drove her to the depot at Haddington on Hill.  She took the early
+train for London.  That is all we know."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+In Which Hephzy and I Agree to Live for Each Other
+
+
+I shall condense the record of that day as much as possible.  I
+should omit it altogether, if I could.  We tried to trace her, of
+course.  That is, I tried and Hephzy did not dissuade me, although
+she realized, I am sure, the hopelessness of the quest.  Frances
+had left the rectory very early in the morning.  The hostler at the
+inn had been much surprised to find her awaiting him when he came
+down to the yard at five o'clock.  She was obliged to go to London,
+she said, and must take the very first train:  Would he drive her
+to Haddington on Hill at once?  He did so--probably she had offered
+him a great deal more than the regular fare--and she had taken the
+train.
+
+Questioning the hostler, who was a surly, uncommunicative lout,
+resulted in my learning very little in addition to this.  The young
+lady seemed about as usual, so far as he could see.  She might 'ave
+been a bit nervous, impatient like, but he attributed that to her
+anxiety to make the train.  Yes, she had a bag with her, but no
+other luggage.  No, she didn't talk on the way to the station:  Why
+should she?  He wasn't the man to ask a lady questions about what
+wasn't his affair.  She minded her own business and he minded his.
+No, he didn't know nothin' more about it.  What was I a-pumpin' him
+for, anyway?
+
+I gave up the "pumping" and hurried back to the rectory.  There
+Hephzy told me a few additional facts.  Frances had taken with her
+only the barest necessities, for the most part those which she had
+when she came to us.  Her new frocks, those which she had bought
+with what she considered her money, she had left behind.  All the
+presents which we had given her were in her room, or so we thought
+at the time.  As she came, so she had gone, and the thought that
+she had gone, that I should never see her again, was driving me
+insane.
+
+And like an insane man I must have behaved, at first.  The things I
+did and said, and the way in which I treated Hephzy shame me now,
+as I remember them.  I was going to London at once.  I would find
+her and bring her back.  I would seek help from the police, I would
+employ detectives, I would do anything--everything.  She was almost
+without money; so far as I knew without friends.  What would she
+do?  What would become of her?  I must find her.  I must bring her
+back.
+
+I stormed up and down the room, incoherently declaring my intentions
+and upbraiding Hephzy for not having sent the groom or the gardener
+to find me, for allowing all the precious time to elapse.  Hephzy
+offered no excuse.  She did not attempt justification.  Instead she
+brought the railway time-table, gave orders that the horse be
+harnessed, helped me in every way.  She would have prepared a meal
+for me with her own hands, would have fed me like a baby, if I had
+permitted it.  One thing she did insist upon.
+
+"You must rest a few minutes, Hosy," she said.  "You must, or
+you'll be down sick.  You haven't slept a wink all night.  You
+haven't eaten anything to speak of since yesterday noon.  You can't
+go this way.  You must go to your room and rest a few minutes.  Lie
+down and rest, if you can."
+
+"Rest!"
+
+"You must.  The train doesn't leave Haddington for pretty nigh two
+hours, and we've got lots of time.  I'll fetch you up some tea and
+toast or somethin' by and by and I'll be all ready to start when
+you are.  Now go and lie down, Hosy dear, to please me."
+
+I ignored the last sentence.  "You will be ready?" I repeated.  "Do
+you mean you're going with me?"
+
+"Of course I am.  It isn't likely I'll let you start off all alone,
+when you're in a state like this.  Of course I'm goin' with you.
+Now go and lie down.  You're so worn out, poor boy."
+
+I must have had a glimmer of reason then, a trace of decency and
+unselfishness.  For the first time I thought of her.  I remembered
+that she, too, had loved Little Frank; that she, too, must be
+suffering.
+
+"I am no more tired than you are," I said.  "You have slept and
+eaten no more than I.  You are the one who must rest.  I sha'n't
+let you go with me."
+
+"It isn't a question of lettin'.  I shall go if you do, Hosy.  And
+a woman don't need rest like a man.  Please go upstairs and lie
+down, Hosy.  Oh," with a sudden burst of feeling, "don't you see
+I've got about all I can bear as it is?  I can't--I can't have YOU
+to worry about too."
+
+My conscience smote me.  "I'll go, Hephzy," said I.  "I'll do
+whatever you wish; it is the least I can do."
+
+She thanked me.  Then she said, hesitatingly:
+
+"Here is--here is her letter, Hosy.  You may like to read it again.
+Perhaps it may help you to decide what is best to do."
+
+She handed me the letter.  I took it and went to my room.  There I
+read it again and again.  And, as I read, the meaning of Hephzy's
+last sentence, that the letter might help me to decide what was
+best to do, began to force itself upon my overwrought brain.  I
+began to understand what she had understood from the first, that my
+trip to London was hopeless, absolutely useless--yes, worse than
+useless.
+
+"You must not try to find me . . .  You must not follow me or think
+of asking me to come back.  That I shall never do."
+
+I was understanding, at last.  I might go to London; I might even,
+through the help of the police, or by other means, find Frances
+Morley.  But, having found her, what then?  What claim had I upon
+her?  What right had I to pursue her and force my presence upon
+her?  I knew the shock she had undergone, the shattering of her
+belief in her father, the knowledge that she had--as she must feel--
+forced herself upon our kindness and charity.  I knew how proud
+she was and how fiercely she had relented the slightest hint that
+she was in any way dependent upon us or under the least obligation
+to us.  I knew all this and I was beginning to comprehend what her
+feelings toward us and toward herself must be--now.
+
+I might find her--yes; but as for convincing her that she should
+return to Mayberry, to live with us as she had been doing, that was
+so clearly impossible as to seem ridiculous even to me.  My
+following her, my hunting her down against her expressed wish,
+would almost surely make matters worse.  She would probably refuse
+to see me.  She would consider my following her a persecution and
+the result might be to drive her still further away.  I must not do
+it, for her sake I must not.  She had gone and, because I loved
+her, I must not follow her; I must not add to her misery.  No,
+against my will I was forcing myself to realize that my duty was to
+make no attempt to see her again, but to face the situation as it
+was, to cover the running away with a lie, to pretend she had gone--
+gone somewhere or other with our permission and understanding; to
+protect her name from scandal and to conceal my own feelings from
+all the world.  That was my duty; that was the situation I must
+face.  But how could I face it!
+
+That hour was the worst I have ever spent and I trust I may never
+be called upon to face such another.  But, at last, I am glad to
+say, I had made up my mind, and when Hephzy came with the tea and
+toast I was measurably composed and ready to express my
+determination.
+
+"Hephzy," said I, "I am not going to London.  I have been thinking,
+and I'm not going."
+
+Hephzy put down the tray she was carrying.  She did seem surprised,
+but I am sure she was relieved.
+
+"You're not goin'!" she exclaimed.  "Why, Hosy!"
+
+"No, I am not going.  I've been crazy, Hephzy, I think, but I am
+fairly sane now.  I have reached the conclusion that you reached
+sometime ago, I am certain.  We have no right to follow her.  Our
+finding her would only make it harder for her and no good could
+come of it.  She went, of her own accord, and we must let her go."
+
+"Let her go?  And not try--"
+
+"No.  We have no right to try.  You know it as well as I do.  Now,
+be honest, won't you?"
+
+Hephzy hesitated.
+
+"Why," she faltered; "well, I--Oh, Hosy, I guess likely you're
+right.  At first I was all for goin' after her right away and
+bringin' her back by main strength, if I had to.  But the more I
+thought of it the more I--I--"
+
+"Of course," I interrupted.  "It is the only thing we can do.  You
+must have been ashamed of me this morning.  Well, I'll try and give
+you no cause to be ashamed again.  That part of our lives is over.
+Now we'll start afresh."
+
+Hephzy, after a long look at my face, covered her own with her
+hands and began to cry.  I stepped to her side, but she recovered
+almost immediately.
+
+"There! there!" she said, "don't mind me, Hosy.  I've been holdin'
+that cry back for a long spell.  Now I've had it and it's over and
+done with.  After all, you and I have got each other left and we'll
+start fresh, just as you say.  And the first thing is for you to
+eat that toast and drink that tea."
+
+I smiled, or tried to smile.
+
+"The first thing," I declared, "is for us to decide what story we
+shall tell young Bayliss and the rest of the people to account for
+her leaving so suddenly.  I expect Herbert Bayliss here any moment.
+He came to see me about--about her last evening."
+
+Hephzy nodded.
+
+"I guessed as much," she said.  "I knew he came and I guessed what
+'twas about.  Poor fellow, 'twill be dreadful hard for him, too.
+He was here this mornin' and I said Frances had been called away
+sudden and wouldn't be back to-day.  And I said you would be away
+all day, too, Hosy.  It was a fib, I guess, but I can't help it if
+it was.  You mustn't see him now and you mustn't talk with me
+either.  You must clear off that tray the first thing.  We'll have
+our talk to-morrow, maybe.  We'll--we'll see the course plainer
+then, perhaps.  Now be a good boy and mind me.  You ARE my boy, you
+know, and always will be, no matter how old and famous you get."
+
+Herbert Bayliss called again that afternoon.  I did not see him,
+but Hephzy did.  The young fellow was frightfully disappointed at
+Frances' sudden departure and asked all sorts of questions as to
+when she would return, her London address and the like.  Hephzy
+dodged the questions as best she could, but we both foresaw that
+soon he would have to be told some portion of the truth--not the
+whole truth; he need never know that, but something--and that
+something would be very hard to tell.
+
+The servants, too, must not know or surmise what had happened or
+the reason for it.  Hephzy had already given them some excuse,
+fabricated on the spur of the moment.  They knew Miss Morley had
+gone away and might not return for some time.  But we realized that
+upon our behavior depended a great deal and so we agreed to appear
+as much like our ordinary selves as possible.
+
+It was a hard task.  I shall never forget those first meals when we
+two were alone.  We did not mention her name, but the shadow was
+always there--the vacant place at the table where she used to sit,
+the roses she had picked the morning before; and, afterward, in the
+drawing-room, the piano with her music upon the rack--the hundred
+and one little reminders that were like so many poisoned needles to
+aggravate my suffering and to remind me of the torture of the days
+to come.  She had bade me forget her.  Forget!  I might forget when
+I was dead, but not before.  If I could only die then and there it
+would seem so easy by comparison.
+
+The next forenoon Hephzy and I had our talk.  We discussed our
+future.  Should we leave the rectory and England and go back to
+Bayport where we belonged?  I was in favor of this, but Hephzy
+seemed reluctant.  She, apparently, had some reason which made her
+wish to remain for a time, at least.  At last the reason was
+disclosed.
+
+"I supposed you'll laugh at me when I say it, Hosy," she said; "or
+at any rate you'll think I'm awful silly.  But I know--I just KNOW
+that this isn't the end.  We shall see her again, you and I.
+She'll come to us again or we'll go to her.  I know it; somethin'
+inside me tells me so."
+
+ I shook my head.
+
+"It's true," she went on.  "You don't believe it, but it's true.
+It's a presentiment and you haven't believed in my presentiments
+before, but they've come true.  Why, you didn't believe we'd ever
+find Little Frank at all, but we did.  And do you suppose all that
+has happened so far has been just for nothin'?  Indeed and indeed
+it hasn't.  No, this isn't the end; it's only the beginnin'."
+
+Her conviction was so strong that I hadn't the heart to contradict
+her.  I said nothing.
+
+"And that's why," she went on, "I don't like to have us leave here
+right away.  She knows we're here, here in England, and if--if she
+ever should be in trouble and need our help she could find us here
+waitin' to give it.  If we was away off on the Cape, way on the
+other side of the ocean, she couldn't reach us, or not until 'twas
+too late anyhow.  That's why I'd like to stay here a while longer,
+Hosy.  But," she hastened to add, "I wouldn't stay a minute if you
+really wanted to go."
+
+I was silent for a moment.  The temptation was to go, to get as far
+from the scene of my trouble as I could; but, after all, what did
+it matter?  I could never flee from that trouble.
+
+"All right, Hephzy," I said.  "I'll stay, if it pleases you."
+
+"Thank you, Hosy.  It may be foolish, our stayin', but I don't
+believe it is.  And--and there's somethin' else.  I don't know
+whether I ought to tell you or not.  I don't know whether it will
+make you feel better or worse.  But I've heard you say that she
+must hate you.  She doesn't--I know she doesn't.  I've been lookin'
+over her things, those she left in her room.  Everythin' we've
+given her or bought for her since she's been here, she left behind--
+every single thing except one.  That little pin you bought for her
+in London the last time you was there and gave her to wear at the
+Samsons' lawn party, I can't find it anywhere.  She must have taken
+it with her.  Now why should she take that and leave all the rest?"
+
+"Probably she forgot it," I said.
+
+"Humph!  Queer she should forget that and nothin' else.  I don't
+believe she forgot it.  _I_ think she took it because you gave it
+to her and she wanted to keep it to remind her of you."
+
+I dismissed the idea as absurd, but I found a ray of comfort in it
+which I should have been ashamed to confess.  The idea that she
+wished to be reminded of me was foolish, but--but I was glad she
+had forgotten to leave the pin.  It MIGHT remind her of me, even
+against her will.
+
+A day or two later Herbert Bayliss and I had our delayed interview.
+He had called several times, but Hephzy had kept him out of my way.
+This time our meeting was in the main street of Mayberry, when
+dodging him was an impossibility.  He hurried up to me and seized
+my hand.
+
+"So you're back, Knowles," he said.  "When did you return?"
+
+For the moment I was at a loss to understand his meaning.  I had
+forgotten Hephzy's "fib" concerning my going away.  Fortunately he
+did not wait for an answer.
+
+"Did Frances--did Miss Morley return with you?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"No," said I.
+
+His smile vanished.
+
+"Oh!" he said, soberly.  "She is still in London, then?"
+
+"I--I presume she is."
+
+"You presume--?  Why, I say! don't you know?"
+
+"I am not sure."
+
+He seemed puzzled and troubled, but he was too well bred to ask
+why I was not sure.  Instead he asked when she would return.  I
+announced that I did not know that either.
+
+"You don't know when she is coming back?" he repeated.
+
+"No."
+
+He regarded me keenly.  There was a change in the tone of his next
+remark.
+
+"You are not sure that she is in London and you don't know when she
+is coming back," he said, slowly.  "Would you mind telling me why
+she left Mayberry so suddenly?  She had not intended going; at
+least she did not mention her intention to me."
+
+"She did not mention it to anyone," I answered.  "It was a very
+sudden determination on her part."
+
+He considered this.
+
+"It would seem so," he said.  "Knowles, you'll excuse my saying it,
+but this whole matter seems deucedly odd to me.  There is something
+which I don't understand.  You haven't answered my question.  Under
+the circumstances, considering our talk the other evening, I think
+I have a right to ask it.  Why did she leave so suddenly?"
+
+I hesitated.  Mayberry's principal thoroughfare was far from
+crowded, but it was scarcely the place for an interview like this.
+
+"She had a reason for leaving," I answered, slowly.  "I will tell
+you later, perhaps, what it was.  Just now I cannot."
+
+"You cannot!" he repeated.  He was evidently struggling with his
+impatience and growing suspicious.  "You cannot!  But I think I
+have a right to know."
+
+"I appreciate your feelings, but I cannot tell you now."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because--Well, because I don't think it would be fair to her.  She
+would not wish me to tell you."
+
+"She would not wish it?  Was it because of me she left?"
+
+"No; not in the least."
+
+"Was it--was it because of someone else?  By Jove! it wasn't
+because of that Heathcroft cad?  Don't tell me that!  My God! she--
+she didn't--"
+
+I interrupted.  His suspicion angered me.  I should have understood
+his feelings, should have realized that he had been and was
+disappointed and agitated and that my answers to his questions must
+have aroused all sorts of fears and forebodings in his mind.  I
+should have pitied him, but just then I had little pity for others.
+
+"She did nothing but what she considered right," I said sharply.
+"Her leaving had nothing to do with Heathcroft or with you.  I
+doubt if she thought of either of you at all."
+
+It was a brutal speech, and he took it like a man.  I saw him turn
+pale and bite his lips, but when he next spoke it was in a calmer
+tone.
+
+"I'm sorry," he said.  "I was a silly ass even to think such a
+thing.  But--but you see, Knowles, I--I--this means so much to me.
+I'm sorry, though.  I ask her pardon and yours."
+
+I was sorry, too.  "Of course I didn't mean that, exactly," I said.
+"Her feelings toward you are of the kindest, I have no doubt, but
+her reason for leaving was a purely personal one.  You were not
+concerned in it."
+
+He reflected.  He was far from satisfied, naturally, and his next
+speech showed it.
+
+"It is extraordinary, all this," he said.  "You are quite sure you
+don't know when she is coming back?"
+
+"Quite."
+
+"Would you mind giving me her London address?"
+
+"I don't know it."
+
+"You don't KNOW it!  Oh, I say! that's damned nonsense!  You don't
+know when she is coming back and you don't know her address!  Do
+you mean you don't know where she has gone?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What--?  Are you trying to tell me she is not coming back at all?"
+
+"I am afraid not."
+
+He was very pale.  He seized my arm.
+
+"What is all this?" he demanded, fiercely.  "What has happened?
+Tell me; I want to know.  Where is she?  Why did she go?  Tell me!"
+
+"I can tell you nothing," I said, as calmly as I could.  "She left
+us very suddenly and she is not coming back.  Her reason for
+leaving I can't tell you, now.  I don't know where she is and I
+have no right to try and find out.  She has asked that no one
+follow her or interfere with her in any way.  I respect her wish
+and I advise you, if you wish to remain her friend, to do the same,
+for the present, at least.  That is all I can tell you."
+
+He shook my arm savagely.
+
+"By George!" he cried, "you must tell me.  I'll make you!  I--I--Do
+you think me a fool?  Do you suppose I believe such rot as that?
+You tell me she has gone--has left Mayberry--and you don't know
+where she has gone and don't intend trying to find out.  Why--"
+
+"There, Bayliss! that is enough.  This is not the place for us to
+quarrel.  And there is no reason why we should quarrel at all.  I
+have told you all that I can tell you now.  Some day I may tell you
+more, but until then you must be patient, for her sake.  Her
+leaving Mayberry had no connection with you whatever.  You must be
+contented with that."
+
+"Contented!  Why, man, you're mad.  She is your niece.  You are her
+guardian and--"
+
+"I am not her guardian.  Neither is she my niece."
+
+I had spoken involuntarily.  Certainly I had not intended telling
+him that.  The speech had the effect of causing him to drop my arm
+and step back.  He stared at me blankly.  No doubt he did think me
+crazy, then.
+
+"I have no authority over her in any way," I went on.  "She is Miss
+Cahoon's niece, but we are not her guardians.  She has left our
+home of her own free will and neither I nor you nor anyone else
+shall follow her if I can help it.  I am sorry to have deceived
+you.  The deceit was unavoidable, or seemed to be.  I am very, very
+sorry for you.  That is all I can say now.  Good morning."
+
+I left him standing there in the street and walked away.  He called
+after me, but I did not turn back.  He would have followed me, of
+course, but when I did look back I saw that the landlord of the inn
+was trying to talk with him and was detaining him.  I was glad that
+the landlord had appeared so opportunely.  I had said too much
+already.  I had bungled this interview as I had that with
+Heathcroft.
+
+I told Hephzy all about it.  She appeared to think that, after all,
+perhaps it was best.
+
+"When you've got a toothache," she said, "you might as well go to
+the dentist's right off.  The old thing will go on growlin' and
+grumblin' and it's always there to keep you in misery.  You'd have
+had to tell him some time.  Well, you've told him now, the worst of
+it, anyhow.  The tooth's out; though," with a one-sided smile, "I
+must say you didn't give the poor chap any ether to help along."
+
+"I'm afraid it isn't out," I said, truthfully.  "He won't be
+satisfied with one operation."
+
+"Then I'll be on hand to help with the next one.  And, between us,
+I cal'late we can make that final.  Poor boy!  Well, he's young,
+that's one comfort.  You get over things quicker when you're
+young."
+
+I nodded.  "That is true," I said, "but there is something else,
+Hephzy.  You say I have acted for the best.  Have I?  I don't know.
+We know he cares for her, but--but does she--"
+
+"Does she care for him, you mean?  I don't think so, Hosy.  For a
+spell I thought she did, but now I doubt it.  I think--Well, never
+mind what I think.  I think a lot of foolish things.  My brain's
+softenin' up, I shouldn't wonder.  It's a longshore brain, anyhow,
+and it needs the salt to keep it from spoilin'.  I wish you and I
+could go clammin'.  When you're diggin' clams you're too full of
+backache to worry about toothaches--or heartaches, either."
+
+I expected a visit from young Bayliss that very evening, but he did
+not come to the rectory.  Instead Doctor Bayliss, Senior, came and
+requested an interview with me.  Hephzy announced the visitor.
+
+"He acts pretty solemn, Hosy," she said.  "I wouldn't wonder if his
+son had told him.  I guess it's another toothache.  Would you like
+to have me stay and help?"
+
+I said I should be glad of her help.  So, when the old gentleman
+was shown into the study, he found her there with me.  The doctor
+was very grave and his usually ruddy, pleasant face was haggard and
+careworn.  He took the chair which I offered him and, without
+preliminaries, began to speak of the subject which had brought him
+there.
+
+It was as Hephzy had surmised.  His son had told him everything, of
+his love for Frances, of his asking my permission to marry her, and
+of our talk before the inn.
+
+"I am sure I don't need to tell you, Knowles," he said, "that all
+this has shaken the boy's mother and me dreadfully.  We knew, of
+course, that the young people liked each other, were together a
+great deal, and all that.  But we had not dreamed of any serious
+attachment between them."
+
+Hephzy put in a word.
+
+"We don't know as there has been any attachment between them," she
+said.  "Your boy cared for her--we know that--but whether she cared
+for him or not we don't know."
+
+Our visitor straightened in his chair.  The idea that his son could
+love anyone and not be loved in return was plainly quite
+inconceivable.
+
+"I think we may take that for granted, madame," he said.  "The news
+was, as I say, a great shock to my wife and myself.  Herbert is our
+only child and we had, naturally, planned somewhat concerning his
+future.  The--the overthrow of our plans was and is a great grief
+and disappointment to us.  Not, please understand, that we question
+your niece's worth or anything of that sort.  She is a very
+attractive young woman and would doubtless make my son a good wife.
+But, if you will pardon my saying so, we know very little about her
+or her family.  You are comparative strangers to us and although we
+have enjoyed your--ah--society and--ah--"
+
+Hephzy interrupted.
+
+"I beg your pardon for saying it, Doctor Bayliss," she said, "but
+you know as much about us as we do about you."
+
+The doctor's composure was ruffled still more.  He regarded Hephzy
+through his spectacles and then said, with dignity.
+
+"Madame, I have resided in this vicinity for nearly forty years.  I
+think my record and that of my family will bear inspection."
+
+"I don't doubt it a bit.  But, as far as that goes, I have lived in
+Bayport for fifty-odd years myself and our folks have lived there
+for a hundred and fifty.  I'm not questionin' you or your family,
+Doctor Bayliss.  If I had questioned 'em I could easily have looked
+up the record.  All I'm sayin' is that I haven't thought of
+questionin', and I don't just see why you shouldn't take as much
+for granted as I have."
+
+The old gentleman was a bit disconcerted.  He cleared his throat
+and fidgeted in his seat.
+
+"I do--I do, Miss Cahoon, of course," he said.  "But--ah--Well, to
+return to the subject of my son and Miss Morley.  The boy is
+dreadfully agitated, Mr. Knowles.  He is quite mad about the girl
+and his mother and I are much concerned about him.  We would--I
+assure you we would do anything and sacrifice anything for his
+sake.  We like your niece, and, although, as I say, we had planned
+otherwise, nevertheless we will--provided all is as it should be--
+give our consent to--to the arrangement, for his sake."
+
+I did not answer.  The idea that marrying Frances Morley would
+entail a sacrifice upon anyone's part except hers angered me and I
+did not trust myself to speak.  But Hephzy spoke for me.
+
+"What do you mean by providin' everything is as it should be?" she
+asked.
+
+"Why, I mean--I mean provided we learn that she is--is--That is,--
+Well, one naturally likes to know something concerning his
+prospective daughter-in-law's history, you know.  That is to be
+expected, now isn't it."
+
+Hephzy looked at me and I looked at her.
+
+"Doctor," she said.  "I wonder if your son told you about some
+things Hosy--Mr. Knowles, I mean--told him this mornin'.  Did he
+tell you that?"
+
+The doctor colored slightly.  "Yes--yes, he did," he admitted.  "He
+said he had a most extraordinary sort of interview with Mr. Knowles
+and was told by him some quite extraordinary things.  Of course, we
+could scarcely believe that he had heard aright.  There was some
+mistake, of course."
+
+"There was no mistake, Doctor Bayliss," said I.  "I told your son
+the truth, a very little of the truth."
+
+"The truth!  But it couldn't be true, you know, as Herbert reported
+it to me.  He said Miss Morley had left Mayberry, had gone away for
+some unexplained reason, and was not coming back--that you did not
+know where she had gone, that she had asked not to be hindered or
+followed or something.  And he said--My word! he even said you,
+Knowles, had declared yourself to be neither her uncle nor her
+guardian.  THAT couldn't be true, now could it!"
+
+Again Hephzy and I looked at each other.  Without speaking we
+reached the same conclusion.  Hephzy voiced that conclusion.
+
+"I guess, Doctor Bayliss," she said, "that the time has come when
+you had better be told the whole truth, or as much of the whole
+truth about Frances as Hosy and I know.  I'm goin' to tell it to
+you.  It's a kind of long story, but I guess likely you ought to
+know it."
+
+She began to tell that story, beginning at the very beginning, with
+Ardelia and Strickland Morley and continuing on, through the
+history of the latter's rascality and the fleeing of the pair from
+America, to our own pilgrimage, the finding of Little Frank and the
+astonishing happenings since.
+
+"She's gone," she said.  "She found out what sort of man her father
+really was and, bein' a high-spirited, proud girl--as proud and
+high-spirited as she is clever and pretty and good--she ran away
+and left us.  We don't blame her, Hosy and I.  We understand just
+how she feels and we've made up our minds to do as she asks and not
+try to follow her or try to bring her back to us against her will.
+We think the world of her.  We haven't known her but a little
+while, but we've come--that is," with a sudden glance in my
+direction, "I've come to love her as if she was my own.  It pretty
+nigh kills me to have her go.  When I think of her strugglin' along
+tryin' to earn her own way by singin' and--and all, I have to hold
+myself by main strength to keep from goin' after her and beggin'
+her on my knees to come back.  But I sha'n't do it, because she
+doesn't want me to.  Of course I hope and believe that some day she
+will come back, but until she does and of her own accord, I'm goin'
+to wait.  And, if your son really cares for her as much as we--as I
+do, he'll wait, too."
+
+She paused and hastily dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief.  I
+turned in order that the Doctor might not see my face.  It was an
+unnecessary precaution.  Doctor Bayliss' mind was busy, apparently,
+with but one thought.
+
+"An opera singer!" he exclaimed, under his breath.  "An opera
+singer!  Herbert to marry an opera singer!  The granddaughter of a
+Yankee sailor and--and--"
+
+"And the daughter of an English thief," put in Hephzy, sharply.
+"Maybe we'd better leave nationalities out, Doctor Bayliss.  The
+Yankees have the best end of it, 'cordin' to my notion."
+
+He paid no attention to this.
+
+He was greatly upset.  "It is impossible!" he declared.  "Absolutely
+impossible!  Why haven't we known of this before?  Why did not
+Herbert know of it?  Mr. Knowles, I must say that--that you have
+been most unthinking in this matter."
+
+"I have been thinking of her," I answered, curtly.  "It was and is
+her secret and we rely upon you to keep it as such.  We trust to
+your honor to tell no one, not even your son."
+
+"My son!  Herbert?  Why I must tell him!  I must tell my wife."
+
+"You may tell your wife.  And your son as much as you think
+necessary.  Further than that it must not go."
+
+"Of course, of course.  I understand.  But an opera singer!"
+
+"She isn't a real opera singer," said Hephzy.  "That is, not one of
+those great ones.  And she told me once that she realized now that
+she never could be.  She has a real sweet voice, a beautiful voice,
+but it isn't powerful enough to make her a place in the big
+companies.  She tried and tried, she said, but all the managers
+said the same thing."
+
+"Hephzy," I said, "when did she tell you this?  I didn't know of
+it."
+
+"I know you didn't, Hosy.  She told me one day when we were alone.
+It was the only time she ever spoke of herself and she didn't say
+much then.  She spoke about her livin' with her relatives here in
+England and what awful, mean, hard people they were.  She didn't
+say who they were nor where they lived, but she did say she ran
+away from them to go on the stage as a singer and what trials and
+troubles she went through afterward.  She told me that much and
+then she seemed sorry that she had.  She made me promise not to
+tell anyone, not even you.  I haven't, until now."
+
+Doctor Bayliss was sitting with a hand to his forehead.
+
+"A provincial opera singer," he repeated.  "Oh, impossible!  Quite
+impossible!"
+
+"It may seem impossible to you," I couldn't help observing, "but I
+question if it will seem so to your son.  I doubt if her being an
+opera singer will make much difference to him."
+
+The doctor groaned.  "The boy is mad about her, quite mad," he
+admitted.
+
+I was sorry for him.  Perhaps if I were in his position I might
+feel as he did.
+
+"I will say this," I said:  "In no way, so far as I know, has Miss
+Morley given your son encouragement.  He told me himself that he
+had never spoken to her of his feelings and we have no reason to
+think that she regards him as anything more than a friend.  She
+left no message for him when she went away."
+
+He seemed to find some ground for hope in this.  He rose from the
+chair and extended his hand.
+
+"Knowles," he said, "if I have said anything to hurt your feelings
+or those of Miss Cahoon I am very sorry.  I trust it will make no
+difference in our friendship.  My wife and I respect and like you
+both and I think I understand how deeply you must feel the loss of
+your--of Miss Morley.  I hope she--I hope you may be reunited some
+day.  No doubt you will be.  As for Herbert--he is our son and if
+you ever have a son of your own, Mr. Knowles, you may appreciate
+his mother's feelings and mine.  We have planned and--and--Even now
+I should not stand in the way of his happiness if--if I believed
+happiness could come of it.  But such marriages are never happy.
+And," with a sudden burst of hope, "as you say, she may not be
+aware of his attachment.  The boy is young.  He may forget."
+
+"Yes," said I, with a sigh.  "He IS young, and he may forget."
+
+After he had gone Hephzy turned to me.
+
+"If I hadn't understood that old man's feelin's," she declared,
+"I'd have given him one talkin' to.  The idea of his speakin' as if
+Frances wouldn't be a wife anybody, a lord or anybody else, might
+be proud of!  But he didn't know.  He's been brought up that way,
+and he doesn't know.  And, of course, his son IS the only person on
+earth to him.  Well, that's over!  We haven't got to worry about
+them any more.  We'll begin to live for each other now, Hosy, same
+as we used to do.  And we'll wait for the rest.  It'll come and
+come right for all of us.  Just you see."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+In Which I Play Golf and Cross the Channel
+
+
+And so we began "to live for each other again," Hephzy and I.  This
+meant, of course, that Hephzy forgot herself entirely and spent the
+greater part of her time trying to find ways to make my living more
+comfortable, just as she had always done.  And I--well, I did my
+best to appear, if not happy, at least reasonably calm and
+companionable.  It was a hard job for both of us; certainly my part
+of it was hard enough.
+
+Appearances had to be considered and so we invented a tale of a
+visit to relatives in another part of England to account for the
+unannounced departure of Miss Morley.  This excuse served with the
+neighbors and friends not in the secret and, for the benefit of the
+servants, Hephzy elaborated the deceit by pretending eagerness at
+the arrival of the mails and by certain vague remarks at table
+concerning letters she was writing.
+
+"I AM writing 'em, too, Hosy," she said.  "I write to her every few
+days.  Of course I don't mail the letters, but it sort of squares
+things with my conscience to really write after talking so much
+about it.  As for her visitin' relatives--well, she's got relatives
+somewhere in England, we know that much, and she MAY be visitin'
+'em.  At any rate I try to think she is.  Oh, dear, I 'most wish
+I'd had more experience in tellin' lies; then I wouldn't have to
+invent so many extra ones to make me believe those I told at the
+beginnin'.  I wish I'd been brought up a book agent or a weather
+prophet or somethin' like that; then I'd have been in trainin'."
+
+Without any definite agreement we had fallen into the habit of not
+mentioning the name of Little Frank, even when we were alone
+together.  In consequence, on these occasions, there would be long
+intervals of silence suddenly broken by Hephzy's bursting out with
+a surmise concerning what was happening in Bayport, whether they
+had painted the public library building yet, or how Susanna was
+getting on with the cat and hens.  She had received three letters
+from Miss Wixon and, as news bearers, they were far from
+satisfactory.
+
+"That girl makes me so provoked," sniffed Hephzy, dropping the most
+recent letter in her lap with a gesture of disgust.  "She says
+she's got a cold in the head and she's scared to death for fear
+it'll get 'set onto her,' whatever that is.  Two pages of this
+letter is nothin' but cold in the head and t'other two is about a
+new hat she's goin' to have and she don't know whether to trim it
+with roses or forget-me-nots.  If she trimmed it with cabbage
+'twould match her head better'n anything else.  I declare! she
+ought to be thankful she's got a cold in a head like hers; it must
+be comfortin' to know there's SOMETHIN' there.  You've got a
+letter, too, Hosy.  Who is it from?"
+
+"From Campbell," I answered, wearily.  "He wants to know how the
+novel is getting on, of course."
+
+"Humph!  Well, you write him that it's gettin' on the way a squid
+gets ahead--by goin' backwards.  Don't let him pester you one bit,
+Hosy.  You write that novel just as fast or slow as you feel like.
+He told you to take a vacation, anyway."
+
+I smiled.  Mine was a delightful vacation.
+
+The summer dragged on.  The days passed.  Pleasant days they were,
+so far as the weather was concerned.  I spent them somehow,
+walking, riding, golfing, reading.  I gave up trying to work; the
+half-written novel remained half written.  I could not concentrate
+my thoughts upon it and I lacked the courage to force myself to
+try.  I wrote Campbell that he must be patient, I was doing the
+best I could.  He answered by telling me not to worry, to enjoy
+myself.  "Why do you stay there in England?" he wrote.  "I ordered
+you to travel, not to plant yourself in one place and die of dry
+rot.  A British oyster is mighty little improvement on a Cape Cod
+quahaug.  You have been in that rectory about long enough.  Go to
+Monte Carlo for change.  You'll find it there--or lose it."
+
+It may have been good advice--or bad--according to the way in which
+it was understood, but, good or bad, it didn't appeal to me.  I had
+no desire to travel, unless it were to travel back to Bayport,
+where I belonged.  I felt no interest in Monte Carlo--for the
+matter of that, I felt no interest in Mayberry or anywhere else.  I
+was not interested in anything or anybody--except one, and that one
+had gone out of my life.  Night after night I went to sleep
+determining to forget and morning after morning I awoke only to
+remember, and with the same dull, hopeless heartache and longing.
+
+July passed, August was half gone.  Still we remained at the
+rectory.  Our lease was up on the first of October.  The Coles
+would return then and we should be obliged to go elsewhere, whether
+we wished to or not.  Hephzy, although she did not say much about
+it, was willing to go, I think.  Her "presentiment" had remained
+only a presentiment so far; no word came from Little Frank.  We had
+heard or learned nothing concerning her or her whereabouts.
+
+Our neighbors and friends in Mayberry were as kind and neighborly
+as ever.  For the first few days after our interview with Doctor
+Bayliss, Senior, Hephzy and I saw nothing of him or his family.
+Then the doctor called again.  He seemed in better spirits.  His
+son had yielded to his parents' entreaties and had departed for a
+walking tour through the Black Forest with some friends.
+
+"The invitation came at exactly the right time," said the old
+gentleman.  "Herbert was ready to go anywhere or do anything.  The
+poor boy was in the depths and when his mother and I urged him to
+accept he did so.  We are hoping that when he returns he will have
+forgotten, or, if not that, at least be more reconciled."
+
+Heathcroft came and went at various times during the summer.  I met
+him on the golf course and he was condescendingly friendly as ever.
+Our talk concerning Frances, which had brought such momentous
+consequences to her and to Hephzy and to me, had, apparently, not
+disturbed him in the least.  He greeted me blandly and cheerfully,
+asked how we all were, said he had been given to understand that
+"my charming little niece" was no longer with us, and proceeded to
+beat me two down in eighteen holes.  I played several times with
+him afterward and, under different circumstances, should have
+enjoyed doing so, for we were pretty evenly matched.
+
+His aunt, the Lady of the Manor, I also met.  She went out of her
+way to be as sweetly gracious as possible.  I presume she inferred
+from Frances' departure that I had taken her hint and had removed
+the disturbing influence from her nephew's primrose-bordered path.
+At each of our meetings she spoke of the "invitation golf
+tournament," several times postponed and now to be played within a
+fortnight.  She insisted that I must take part in it.  At last,
+having done everything except decline absolutely, I finally
+consented to enter the tournament.  It is not easy to refuse to
+obey an imperial decree and Lady Carey was Empress of Mayberry.
+
+After accepting I returned to the rectory to find that Hephzy also
+had received an invitation.  Not to play golf, of course; her
+invitation was of a totally different kind.
+
+"What do you think, Hosy!" she cried.  "I've got a letter and you
+can't guess who it's from."
+
+"From Susanna?" I ventured.
+
+"Susanna!  You don't suppose I'd be as excited as all this over a
+letter from Susanna Wixon, do you?  No indeed!  I've got a letter
+from Mrs. Hepton, who had the Nickerson cottage last summer.  She
+and her husband are in Paris and they want us to meet 'em there in
+a couple of weeks and go for a short trip through Switzerland.
+They got our address from Mr. Campbell before they left home.  Mrs.
+Hepton writes that they're countin' on our company.  They're goin'
+to Lake Lucerne and to Mont Blanc and everywhere.  Wouldn't it be
+splendid!"
+
+The Heptons had been summer neighbors of ours on the Cape for
+several seasons.  They were friends of Jim Campbell's and had first
+come to Bayport on his recommendation.  I liked them very well,
+and, oddly enough, for I was not popular with the summer colony,
+they had seemed to like me.
+
+"It was very kind of them to think of us," I said.  "Campbell
+shouldn't have given them our address, of course, but their
+invitation was well meant.  You must write them at once.  Make our
+refusal as polite as possible."
+
+Hephzy seemed disappointed, I thought.
+
+"Then you think I'd better say no?" she observed.
+
+"Why, of course.  You weren't thinking of accepting, were you?"
+
+"Well, I didn't know.  I'm not sure that our goin' wouldn't be the
+right thing.  I've been considerin' for some time, Hosy, and I've
+about come to the conclusion that stayin' here is bad for you.
+Maybe it's bad for both of us.  Perhaps a change would do us both
+good."
+
+I was astonished.  "Humph!" I exclaimed; "this is a change of
+heart, Hephzy.  A while ago, when I suggested going back to
+Bayport, you wouldn't hear of it.  You wanted to stay here and--and
+wait."
+
+"I know I did.  And I've been waitin', but nothin' has come of it.
+I've still got my presentiment, Hosy.  I believe just as strong as
+I ever did that some time or other she and you and I will be
+together again.  But stayin' here and seein' nobody but each other
+and broodin' don't do us any good.  It's doin' you harm; that's
+plain enough.  You don't write and you don't eat--that is, not
+much--and you're gettin' bluer and more thin and peaked every day.
+You have just got to go away from here, no matter whether I do or
+not.  And I've reached the point where I'm willin' to go, too.  Not
+for good, maybe.  We'll come back here again.  Our lease isn't up
+until October and we can leave the servants here and give them our
+address to have mail forwarded.  If--if she--that is, if a letter
+or--or anything--SHOULD come we could hurry right back.  The
+Heptons are real nice folks; you always liked 'em, Hosy.  And you
+always wanted to see Switzerland; you used to say so.  Why don't we
+say yes and go along?"
+
+I did not answer.  I believed I understood the reason for
+Campbell's giving our address to the Heptons; also the reason for
+the invitation.  Jim was very anxious to have me leave Mayberry; he
+believed travel and change of scene were what I needed.  Doubtless
+he had put the Heptons up to asking us to join them on their trip.
+It was merely an addition to his precious prescription.
+
+"Why don't we go?" urged Hephzy.
+
+"Not much!" I answered, decidedly.  "I should be poor company on a
+pleasure trip like that.  But you might go, Hephzy.  There is no
+reason in the world why you shouldn't go.  I'll stay here until you
+return.  Go, by all means, and enjoy yourself."
+
+Hephzy shook her head.
+
+"I'd do a lot of enjoyin' without you, wouldn't I," she observed.
+"While I was lookin' at the scenery I'd be wonderin' what you had
+for breakfast.  Every mite of rain would set me to thinkin' of your
+gettin' your feet wet and when I laid eyes on a snow peak I'd
+wonder if you had blankets enough on your bed.  I'd be like that
+yellow cat we used to have back in the time when Father was alive.
+That cat had kittens and Father had 'em all drowned but one.  After
+that you never saw the cat anywhere unless the kitten was there,
+too.  She wouldn't eat unless it were with her and between bites
+she'd sit down on it so it couldn't run off.  She lugged it around
+in her mouth until Father used to vow he'd have eyelet holes
+punched in the scruff of its neck for her teeth to fit into and
+make it easier for both of 'em.  It died, finally; she wore it out,
+I guess likely.  Then she adopted a chicken and started luggin'
+that around.  She had the habit, you see.  I'm a good deal like
+her, Hosy.  I've took care of you so long that I've got the habit.
+No, I shouldn't go unless you did."
+
+No amount of urging moved her, so we dropped the subject.
+
+The morning of the golf tournament was clear and fine.  I
+shouldered my bag of clubs and walked through the lane toward the
+first tee.  I never felt less like playing or more inclined to
+feign illness and remain at home.  But I had promised Lady Carey
+and the promise must be kept.
+
+There was a group of people, players and guests, awaiting me at the
+tee.  Her ladyship was there, of course; so also was her nephew,
+Mr. Carleton Heathcroft, whom I had not seen for some time.
+Heathcroft was in conversation with a young fellow who, when he
+turned in my direction, I recognized as Herbert Bayliss.  I was
+surprised to see him; I had not heard of his return from the Black
+Forest trip.
+
+Lady Carey was affable and gracious, also very important and busy.
+She welcomed me absent-mindedly, introduced me to several of her
+guests, ladies and gentlemen from London down for the week-end, and
+then bustled away to confer with Mr. Handliss, steward of the
+estate, concerning the arrangements for the tournament.  I felt a
+touch on my arm and, turning, found Doctor Bayliss standing beside
+me.  He was smiling and in apparent good humor.
+
+"The boy is back, Knowles," he said.  "Have you seen him?"
+
+"Yes," said I, "I have seen him, although we haven't met yet.  I
+was surprised to find him here.  When did he return?"
+
+"Only yesterday.  His mother and I were surprised also.  We hadn't
+expected him so soon.  He's looking very fit, don't you think?"
+
+"Very."  I had not noticed that young Bayliss was looking either
+more or less fit than usual, but I answered as I did because the
+old gentleman seemed so very anxious that I should.  He was
+evidently gratified.  "Yes," he said, "he's looking very fit
+indeed.  I think his trip has benefited him hugely.  And I think--
+Yes, I think he is beginning to forget his--that is to say, I
+believe he does not dwell upon the--the recent happenings as he
+did.  I think he is forgetting; I really think he is."
+
+"Indeed," said I.  It struck me that, if Herbert Bayliss was
+forgetting, his memory must be remarkably short.  I imagined that
+his father's wish was parent to the thought.
+
+"He has--ah--scarcely mentioned our--our young friend's name since
+his return," went on the doctor.  "He did ask if you had heard--ah--
+by the way, Knowles, you haven't heard, have you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Dear me! dear me!  That's very odd, now isn't it."
+
+He did not say he was sorry.  If he had said it I should not have
+believed him.  If ever anything was plain it was that the longer we
+remained without news of Frances Morley the better pleased Herbert
+Bayliss's parents would be.
+
+"But I say, Knowles," he added, "you and he must meet, you know.
+He doesn't hold any ill-feeling or--or resentment toward you.
+Really he doesn't.  Herbert!  Oh, I say, Herbert!  Come here, will
+you."
+
+Young Bayliss turned.  The doctor whispered in my ear.
+
+"Perhaps it would be just as well not to refer to--to--You
+understand me, Knowles.  Better let sleeping dogs lie, eh?  Oh,
+Herbert, here is Knowles waiting to shake hands with you."
+
+We shook hands.  The shake, on his part, was cordial enough,
+perhaps, but not too cordial.  It struck me that young Bayliss was
+neither as "fit" nor as forgetful as his fond parents wished to
+believe.  He looked rather worn and nervous, it seemed to me.  I
+asked him about his tramping trip and we chatted for a few moments.
+Then Bayliss, Senior, was called by Lady Carey and Handliss to join
+the discussion concerning the tournament rules and the young man
+and I were left alone together.
+
+"Knowles," he asked, the moment after his father's departure, "have
+you heard anything?  Anything concerning--her?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You're sure?  You're not--"
+
+"I am quite sure.  We haven't heard nor do we expect to."
+
+He looked away across the course and I heard him draw a long
+breath.
+
+"It's deucedly odd, this," he said.  "How she could disappear so
+entirely I don't understand.  And you have no idea where she may
+be?"
+
+"No."
+
+"But--but, confound it, man, aren't you trying to find her?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You're not!  Why not?"
+
+"You know why not as well as I.  She left us of her own free will
+and her parting request was that we should not follow her.  That is
+sufficient for us.  Pardon me, but I think it should be for all her
+friends."
+
+He was silent for a moment.  Then his teeth snapped together.
+
+"I'll find her," he declared, fiercely.  "I'll find her some day."
+
+"In spite of her request?"
+
+"Yes.  In spite of the devil."
+
+He turned on his heel and walked off.  Mr. Handliss stepped to the
+first tee, clapped his hands to attract attention and began a
+little speech.
+
+The tournament, he said, was about to begin.  Play would be, owing
+to the length and difficulty of the course, but eighteen holes
+instead of the usual thirty-six.  This meant that each pair of
+contestants would play the nine holes twice.  Handicaps had been
+fixed as equitably as possible according to each player's previous
+record, and players having similar handicaps were to play against
+each other.  A light lunch and refreshments would be served after
+the first round had been completed by all.  Prizes would be
+distributed by her ladyship when the final round was finished.  Her
+ladyship bade us all welcome and was gratified by our acceptance of
+her invitation.  He would now proceed to read the names of those
+who were to play against each other, stating handicaps and the
+like.  He read accordingly, and I learned that my opponent was to
+be Mr. Heathcroft, each of us having a handicap of two.
+
+Considering everything I thought my particular handicap a stiff
+one.  Heathcroft had been in the habit of beating me in two out of
+three of our matches.  However, I determined to play my best.
+Being the only outlander on the course I couldn't help feeling that
+the sporting reputation of Yankeeland rested, for this day at
+least, upon my shoulders.
+
+The players were sent off in pairs, the less skilled first.
+Heathcroft and I were next to the last.  A London attorney by the
+name of Jaynes and a Wrayton divine named Wilson followed us.
+Their rating was one plus and, judging by the conversation of the
+"gallery," they were looked upon as winners of the first and second
+prizes respectively.  The Reverend Mr. Wilson was called, behind
+his back, "the sporting curate."  In gorgeous tweeds and a
+shepherd's plaid cap he looked the part.
+
+The first nine went to me.  An usually long drive and a lucky putt
+on the eighth gave me the round by one.  I played with care and
+tried my hardest to keep my mind on the game.  Heathcroft was, as
+always, calm and careful, but between tees he was pleased to be
+chatty and affable.
+
+"And how is the aunt with the odd name, Knowles?" he inquired.
+"Does she still devour her--er--washing flannels and treacle for
+breakfast?"
+
+"She does when she cares to," I replied.  "She is an independent
+lady, as I think you know."
+
+"My word!  I believe you.  And how are the literary labors
+progressing?  I had my bookselling fellow look up a novel of yours
+the other day.  Began it that same night, by Jove!  It was quite
+interesting, really.  I should have finished it, I think, but some
+of the chaps at the club telephoned me to join them for a bit of
+bridge and of course that ended literature for the time.  My
+respected aunt tells me I'm quite dotty on bridge.  She foresees a
+gambler's end for me, stony broke, languishing in dungeons and all
+that sort of thing.  I am to die of starvation, I think.  Is it
+starvation gamblers die of?  'Pon my soul, I should say most of
+those I know would be more likely to die of thirst.  Rather!"
+
+Later on he asked another question.
+
+"And how is the pretty niece, Knowles?" he inquired.  "When is she
+coming back to the monastery or the nunnery or rectory, or whatever
+it is?"
+
+"I don't know," I replied, curtly.
+
+"Oh, I say!  Isn't she coming at all?  That would be a calamity,
+now wouldn't it?  Not to me in particular.  I should mind your
+notice boards, of course.  But if I were condemned, as you are, to
+spend a summer among the feminine beauties of Mayberry, a face like
+hers would be like a whisky and soda in a thirsty land, as a chap I
+know is fond of saying.  Oh, and by the way, speaking of your
+niece, I had a curious experience in Paris a week ago.  Most
+extraordinary thing.  For the moment I began to believe I really
+was going dotty, as Auntie fears.  I . . .  Your drive, Knowles.
+I'll tell you the story later."
+
+He did not tell it during that round, forgot it probably.  I did
+not remind him.  The longer he kept clear of the subject of my
+"niece" the more satisfied I was.  We lunched in the pavilion by
+the first tee.  There were sandwiches and biscuits--crackers, of
+course--and cakes and sweets galore.  Also thirst-quenching
+materials sufficient to satisfy even the gamblers of Mr.
+Heathcroft's acquaintance.  The "sporting curate," behind a huge
+Scotch and soda, was relating his mishaps in approaching the
+seventh hole for the benefit of his brother churchmen, Messrs.
+Judson and Worcester.  Lady Carey was dilating upon her pet
+subject, the talents and virtues of "Carleton, dear," for the
+benefit of the London attorney, who was pretending to listen with
+the respectful interest due blood and title, but who was thinking
+of something else, I am sure.  "Carleton, dear," himself, was
+chatting languidly with young Bayliss.  The latter seemed greatly
+interested.  There was a curious expression on his face.  I was
+surprised to see him so cordial to Heathcroft; I knew he did not
+like Lady Carey's nephew.
+
+The second and final round of the tournament began.  For six holes
+Heathcroft and I broke even.  The seventh he won, making us square
+for the match so far and, with an equal number of strokes.  The
+eighth we halved.  All depended on the ninth.  Halving there would
+mean a drawn match between us and a drawing for choice of prizes,
+provided we were in the prize-winning class.  A win for either of
+us meant the match itself.
+
+Heathcroft, in spite of the close play, was as bland and
+unconcerned as ever.  I tried to appear likewise.  As a matter of
+fact, I wanted to win.  Not because of the possible prize, I cared
+little for that, but for the pleasure of winning against him.  We
+drove from the ninth tee, each got a long brassy shot which put us
+on the edge of the green, and then strolled up the hill together.
+
+"I say, Knowles," he observed; "I haven't finished telling you of
+my Paris experience, have I.  Odd coincidence, by Jove!  I was
+telling young Bayliss about it just now and he thought it odd, too.
+I was--some other chaps and I drifted into the Abbey over in Paris
+a week or so ago and while we were there a girl came out and sang.
+She was an extremely pretty girl, you understand, but that wasn't
+the extraordinary part of it.  She was the image--my word! the very
+picture of your niece, Miss Morley.  It quite staggered me for the
+moment.  Upon my soul I thought it was she!  She sang extremely
+well, but not for long.  I tried to get near her--meant to speak to
+her, you know, but she had gone before I reached her.  Eh!  What
+did you say?"
+
+I had not said anything--at least I think I had not.  He
+misinterpreted my silence.
+
+"Oh, you mustn't be offended," he said, laughing.  "Of course I
+knew it wasn't she--that is, I should have known it if I hadn't
+been so staggered by the resemblance.  It was amazing, that
+resemblance.  The face, the voice--everything was like hers.  I was
+so dotty about it that I even hunted up one of the chaps in charge
+and asked him who the girl was.  He said she was an Austrian--
+Mademoiselle Juno or Junotte or something.  That ended it, of
+course.  I was a fool to imagine anything else, of course.  But you
+would have been a bit staggered if you had seen her.  And she
+didn't look Austrian, either.  She looked English or American--
+rather!  I say, I hope I haven't hurt your feelings, old chap.  I
+apologize to you and Miss Morley, you understand.  I couldn't help
+telling you; it was extraordinary now, wasn't it."
+
+I made some answer.  He rattled on about that sort of thing making
+one believe in the Prisoner of Zenda stuff, doubles and all that.
+We reached the green.  My ball lay nearest the pin and it was his
+putt.  He made it, a beauty, the ball halting just at the edge of
+the cup.  My putt was wild.  He holed out on the next shot.  It
+took me two and I had to concentrate my thought by main strength
+even then.  The hole and match were his.
+
+He was very decent about it, proclaimed himself lucky, declared I
+had, generally speaking, played much the better game and should
+have won easily.  I paid little attention to what he said although
+I did, of course, congratulate him and laughed at the idea that
+luck had anything to do with the result.  I no longer cared about
+the match or the tournament in general or anything connected with
+them.  His story of the girl who was singing in Paris was what I
+was interested in now.  I wanted him to tell me more, to give me
+particulars.  I wanted to ask him a dozen questions; and, yet,
+excited as I was, I realized that those questions must be asked
+carefully.  His suspicions must not be aroused.
+
+Before I could ask the first of the dozen Mr. Handliss bustled over
+to us to learn the result of our play and to announce that the
+distribution of prizes would take place in a few moments; also that
+Lady Carey wished to speak with her nephew.  The latter sauntered
+off to join the group by the pavilion and my opportunity for
+questioning had gone, for the time.
+
+Of the distribution of prizes, with its accompanying ceremony, I
+seem to recall very little.  Lady Carey made a little speech, I
+remember that, but just what she said I have forgotten.  "Much
+pleasure in rewarding skill," "Dear old Scottish game," "English
+sportsmanship," "Race not to the swift"--I must have been splashed
+with these drops from the fountain of oratory, for they stick in my
+memory.  Then, in turn, the winners were called up to select their
+prizes.  Wilson, the London attorney, headed the list; the sporting
+curate came next; Heathcroft next; and then I.  It had not occurred
+to me that I should win a prize.  In fact I had not thought
+anything about it.  My thoughts were far from the golf course just
+then.  They were in Paris, in a cathedral--Heathcroft had called it
+an abbey, but cathedral he must have meant--where a girl who looked
+like Frances Morley was singing.
+
+However, when Mr. Handliss called my name I answered and stepped
+forward.  Her Ladyship said something or other about "our cousin
+from across the sea" and "Anglo-Saxon blood" and her especial
+pleasure in awarding the prize.  I stammered thanks, rather
+incoherently expressed they were, I fear, selected the first
+article that came to hand--it happened to be a cigarette case; I
+never smoke cigarettes--and retired to the outer circle.  The other
+winners--Herbert Bayliss and Worcester among them--selected their
+prizes and then Mr. Wilson, winner of the tournament, speaking in
+behalf of us all, thanked the hostess for her kindness and
+hospitality.
+
+Her gracious invitation to play upon the Manor-House course Mr.
+Wilson mentioned feelingly.  Also the gracious condescension in
+presenting the prizes with her own hand.  They would be cherished,
+not only for their own sake, but for that of the donor.  He begged
+the liberty of proposing her ladyship's health.
+
+The "liberty" was, apparently, expected, for Mr. Handliss had full
+glasses ready and waiting.  The health was drunk.  Lady Carey drank
+ours in return, and the ceremony was over.
+
+I tried in vain to get another word with Heathcroft.  He was in
+conversation with his aunt and several of the feminine friends and,
+although I waited for some time, I, at last, gave up the attempt
+and walked home.  The Reverend Judson would have accompanied me,
+but I avoided him.  I did not wish to listen to Mayberry gossip;
+I wanted to be alone.
+
+Heathcroft's tale had made a great impression upon me--a most
+unreasonable impression, unwarranted by the scant facts as he
+related them.  The girl whom he had seen resembled Frances--yes;
+but she was an Austrian, her name was not Morley.  And resemblances
+were common enough.  That Frances should be singing in a Paris
+church was most improbable; but, so far as that went, the fact of
+A. Carleton Heathcroft's attending a church service I should,
+ordinarily, have considered improbable.  Improbable things did
+happen.  Suppose the girl he had seen was Frances.  My heart leaped
+at the thought.
+
+But even supposing it was she, what difference did it make--to me?
+None, of course.  She had asked us not to follow her, to make no
+attempt to find her.  I had preached compliance with her wish to
+Hephzy, to Doctor Bayliss--yes, to Herbert Bayliss that very
+afternoon.  But Herbert Bayliss was sworn to find her, in spite of
+me, in spite of the Evil One.  And Heathcroft had told young
+Bayliss the same story he had told me.  HE would not be deterred by
+scruples; her wish would not prevent his going to Paris in search
+of her.
+
+I reached the rectory, to be welcomed by Hephzy with questions
+concerning the outcome of the tournament and triumphant gloatings
+over my perfectly useless prize.  I did not tell her of
+Heathcroft's story.  I merely said I had met that gentleman and
+that Herbert Bayliss had returned to Mayberry.  And I asked a
+question.
+
+"Hephzy," I asked, "when do the Heptons leave Paris for their trip
+through Switzerland?"
+
+Hephzy considered.  "Let me see," she said.  "Today is the
+eighteenth, isn't it.  They start on the twenty-second; that's four
+days from now."
+
+"Of course you have written them that we cannot accept their
+invitation to go along?"
+
+She hesitated.  "Why, no," she admitted, "I haven't.  That is, I
+have written 'em, but I haven't posted the letter.  Humph! did you
+notice that 'posted'?  Shows what livin' in a different place'll do
+even to as settled a body as I am.  In Bayport I should have said
+'mailed' the letter, same as anybody else.  I must be careful or
+I'll go back home and call the expressman a 'carrier' and a pie a
+'tart' and a cracker a 'biscuit.'  Land sakes!  I remember readin'
+how David Copperfield's aunt always used to eat biscuits soaked in
+port wine before she went to bed.  I used to think 'twas dreadful
+dissipated business and that the old lady must have been ready for
+bed by the time she got through.  You see I always had riz biscuits
+in mind.  A cracker's different; crackers don't soak up much.  We'd
+ought to be careful how we judge folks, hadn't we, Hosy."
+
+"Yes," said I, absently.  "So you haven't posted the letter to the
+Heptons.  Why not?"
+
+"Well--well, to tell you the truth, Hosy, I was kind of hopin' you
+might change your mind and decide to go, after all.  I wish you
+would; 'twould do you good.  And," wistfully, "Switzerland must be
+lovely.  But there!  I know just how you feel, you poor boy.  I'll
+mail the letter to-night."
+
+"Give it to me," said I.  "I'll--I'll see to it."
+
+Hephzy handed me the letter.  I put it in my pocket, but I did not
+post it that evening.  A plan--or the possible beginning of a plan--
+was forming in my mind.
+
+That night was another of my bad ones.  The little sleep I had was
+filled with dreams, dreams from which I awoke to toss restlessly.
+I rose and walked the floor, calling myself a fool, a silly old
+fool, over and over again.  But when morning came my plan, a
+ridiculous, wild plan from which, even if it succeeded--which was
+most unlikely--nothing but added trouble and despair could possibly
+come, my plan was nearer its ultimate formation.
+
+At eleven o'clock that forenoon I walked up the marble steps of the
+Manor House and rang the bell.  The butler, an exalted personage in
+livery, answered my ring.  Mr. Heathcroft?  No, sir.  Mr.
+Heathcroft had left for London by the morning train.  Her ladyship
+was in her boudoir.  She did not see anyone in the morning, sir.  I
+had no wish to see her ladyship, but Heathcroft's departure was a
+distinct disappointment.  I thanked the butler and, remembering
+that even cathedral ushers accepted tips, slipped a shilling into
+his hand.  His dignity thawed at the silver touch, and he expressed
+regret at Mr. Heathcroft's absence.
+
+"You're not the only gentleman who has been here to see him this
+morning, sir," he said.  "Doctor Bayliss, the younger one, called
+about an hour ago.  He seemed quite as sorry to find him gone as
+you are, sir."
+
+I think that settled it.  When I again entered the rectory my mind
+was made up.  The decision was foolish, insane, even dishonorable
+perhaps, but the decision was made.
+
+"Hephzy," said I, "I have changed my mind.  Travel may do me good.
+I have telegraphed the Heptons that we will join them in Paris on
+the evening of the twenty-first.  After that--Well, we'll see."
+
+Hephzy's delight was as great as her surprise.  She said I was a
+dear, unselfish boy.  Considering what I intended doing I felt
+decidedly mean; but I did not tell her what that intention was.
+
+We took the two-twenty train from Charing Cross on the afternoon of
+the twenty-first.  The servants had been left in charge of the
+rectory.  We would return in a fortnight, so we told them.
+
+It was a beautiful day, bright and sunshiny, but, after smoky,
+grimy London had been left behind and we were whizzing through the
+Kentish countryside, between the hop fields and the pastures where
+the sheep were feeding, we noticed that a stiff breeze was blowing.
+Further on, as we wound amid the downs near Folkestone, the bending
+trees and shrubs proved that the breeze was a miniature gale.  And
+when we came in sight of the Channel, it was thickly sprinkled with
+whitecaps from beach to horizon.
+
+"I imagine we shall have a rather rough passage, Hephzy," said I.
+
+Hephzy's attention was otherwise engaged.
+
+"Why do they call a hill a 'down' over here?" she asked.  "I should
+think an 'up' would be better.  What did you say, Hosy?  A rough
+passage?  I guess that won't bother you and me much.  This little
+mite of water can't seem very much stirred up to folks who have
+sailed clear across the Atlantic Ocean.  But there!  I mustn't put
+on airs.  I used to think Cape Cod Bay was about all the water
+there was.  Travelin' does make such a difference in a person's
+ideas.  Do you remember the Englishwoman at Bancroft's who told me
+that she supposed the Thames must remind us of our own Mississippi?"
+
+"So that's the famous English Channel, is it," she observed, a
+moment later.  "How wide is it, Hosy?"
+
+"About twenty miles at the narrowest point, I believe," I said.
+
+"Twenty miles!  About as far as Bayport to Provincetown.  Well, I
+don't know whether any of your ancestors or mine came over with
+William the Conquerer or not, but if they did, they didn't have far
+to come.  I cal'late I'll be contented with having my folks cross
+in the Mayflower.  They came three thousand miles anyway."
+
+She was inclined to regard the Channel rather contemptuously just
+then.  A half hour later she was more respectful.
+
+The steamer was awaiting us at the pier.  As the throng of
+passengers filed up the gang-plank she suddenly squeezed my arm.
+
+"Look!  Hosy!" she cried.  "Look!  Isn't that him?"
+
+I looked where she was pointing.
+
+"Him?  Who?" I asked.
+
+"Look!  There he goes now.  No, he's gone.  I can't see him any
+more.  And yet I was almost certain 'twas him."
+
+"Who?" I asked again.  "Did you see someone you knew?"
+
+"I thought I did, but I guess I was mistaken.  He's just got home;
+he wouldn't be startin' off again so soon.  No, it couldn't have
+been him, but I did think--"
+
+I stopped short.  "Who did you think you saw?" I demanded.
+
+"I thought I saw Doctor Herbert Bayliss goin' up those stairs to
+the steamboat.  It looked like him enough to be his twin brother,
+if he had one."
+
+I did not answer.  I looked about as we stepped aboard the boat,
+but if young Bayliss was there he was not in sight.  Hephzy rattled
+on excitedly.
+
+"You can't tell much by seein' folks's backs," she declared.  "I
+remember one time your cousin Hezekiah Knowles--You don't remember
+him, Hosy; he died when you was little--One time Cousin Hezzy was
+up to Boston with his wife and they was shoppin' in one of the big
+stores.  That is, Martha Ann--the wife--was shoppin' and he was
+taggin' along and complainin', same as men generally do.  He was
+kind of nearsighted, Hezzy was, and when Martha was fightin' to get
+a place in front of a bargain counter he stayed astern and kept his
+eyes fixed on a hat she was wearin'.  'Twas a new hat with blue and
+yellow flowers on it.  Hezzy always said, when he told the yarn
+afterward, that he never once figured that there could be another
+hat like that one.  I saw it myself and, if I'd been in his place,
+I'd have HOPED there wasn't anyway.  Well, he followed that hat
+from one counter to another and, at last, he stepped up and said,
+'Look here, dearie,' he says--They hadn't been married very long,
+not long enough to get out of the mushy stage--'Look here, dearie,'
+he says, 'hadn't we better be gettin' on home?  You'll tire those
+little feet of yours all out trottin' around this way.'  And when
+the hat turned around there was a face under it as black as a crow.
+He'd been followin' a darkey woman for ten minutes.  She thought he
+was makin' fun of her feet and was awful mad, and when Martha came
+along and found who he'd taken for her she was madder still.  Hezzy
+said, 'I couldn't help it, Martha.  Nobody could.  I never saw two
+craft look more alike from twenty foot astern.  And she wears that
+hat just the way you do.'  That didn't help matters any, of course,
+and--Why, Hosy, where are you goin'?  Why don't you say somethin'?
+Hadn't we better sit down?  All the good seats will be gone if we
+don't."
+
+I had been struggling through the crowd, trying my best to get a
+glimpse of the man she had thought to be Herbert Bayliss.  If it
+was he then my suspicions were confirmed.  Heathcroft's story of
+the girl who sang in Paris had impressed him as it had me and he
+was on his way to see for himself.  But the man, whoever he might
+be, had disappeared.
+
+"How the wind does blow," said Hephzy.  "What are the people doin'
+with those black tarpaulins?"
+
+Sailors in uniform were passing among the seated passengers
+distributing large squares of black waterproof canvas.  I watched
+the use to which the tarpaulins were put and I understood.  I
+beckoned to the nearest sailor and rented two of the canvases for
+use during the voyage.
+
+"How much?" I asked.
+
+"One franc each," said the man, curtly.
+
+I had visited the money-changers near the Charing Cross station and
+was prepared.  Hephzy's eyes opened.
+
+"A franc," she repeated.  "That's French money, isn't it.  Is he a
+Frenchman?"
+
+"Yes," said I.  "This is a French boat, I think."
+
+She watched the sailor for a moment.  Then she sighed.
+
+"And he's a Frenchman," she said.  "I thought Frenchmen wore
+mustaches and goatees and were awful polite.  He was about as
+polite as a pig.  And all he needs is a hand-organ and a monkey to
+be an Italian.  A body couldn't tell the difference without specs.
+What did you get those tarpaulins for, Hosy?"
+
+I covered our traveling bags with one of the tarpaulins, as I saw
+our fellow-passengers doing, and the other I tucked about Hephzy,
+enveloping her from her waist down.
+
+"I don't need that," she protested.  "It isn't cold and it isn't
+rainin', either.  I tell you I don't need it, Hosy.  Don't tuck me
+in any more.  I feel as if I was goin' to France in a baby
+carriage, not a steamboat.  And what are they passin' round those--
+those tin dippers for?"
+
+"They may be useful later on," I said, watching the seas leap and
+foam against the stone breakwater.  "You'll probably understand
+later, Hephzy."
+
+She understood.  The breakwater was scarcely passed when our boat,
+which had seemed so large and steady and substantial, began to
+manifest a desire to stand on both ends at once and to roll like a
+log in a rapid.  The sun was shining brightly overhead, the
+verandas of the hotels along the beach were crowded with gaily
+dressed people, the surf fringing that beach was dotted with
+bathers, everything on shore wore a look of holiday and joy--and
+yet out here, on the edge of the Channel, there was anything but
+calm and anything but joy.
+
+How that blessed boat did toss and rock and dip and leap and pitch!
+And how the spray began to fly as we pushed farther and farther
+from land!  It came over the bows in sheets; it swept before the
+wind in showers, in torrents.  Hephzy hastily removed her hat and
+thrust it beneath the tarpaulin.  I turned up the collar of my
+steamer coat and slid as far down into that collar as I could.
+
+"My soul!" exclaimed Hephzy, the salt water running down her face.
+"My soul and body!"
+
+"I agree with you," said I.
+
+On we went, over the waves or through them.  Our fellow-passengers
+curled up beneath their tarpaulins, smiled stoically or groaned
+dismally, according to their dispositions--or digestions.  A huge
+wave--the upper third of it, at least--swept across the deck and
+spilled a gallon or two of cold water upon us.  A sturdy, red-faced
+Englishman, sitting next me, grinned cheerfully and observed:
+
+"Trickles down one's neck a bit, doesn't it, sir."
+
+I agreed that it did.  Hephzy, huddled under the lee of my
+shoulder, sputtered.
+
+"Trickles!" she whispered.  "My heavens and earth!  If this is a
+trickle then Noah's flood couldn't have been more than a splash.
+Trickles!  There's a Niagara Falls back of both of my ears this
+minute."
+
+Another passenger, also English, but gray-haired and elderly, came
+tacking down the deck, bound somewhere or other.  His was a zig-zag
+transit.  He dove for the rail, caught it, steadied himself, took a
+fresh start, swooped to the row of chairs by the deck house,
+carromed from them, and, in company with a barrel or two of flying
+brine, came head first into my lap.  I expected profanity and
+temper.  I did get a little of the former.
+
+"This damned French boat!" he observed, rising with difficulty.
+"She absolutely WON'T be still."
+
+"The sea is pretty rough."
+
+"Oh, the sea is all right.  A bit damp, that's all.  It's the
+blessed boat.  Foreigners are such wretched sailors."
+
+He was off on another tack.  Hephzy watched him wonderingly.
+
+"A bit damp," she repeated.  "Yes, I shouldn't wonder if 'twas.
+I suppose likely he wouldn't call it wet if he fell overboard."
+
+"Not on this side of the Channel," I answered.  "This side is
+English water, therefore it is all right."
+
+A few minutes later Hephzy spoke again.
+
+"Look at those poor women," she said.
+
+Opposite us were two English ladies, middle-aged, wretchedly ill
+and so wet that the feathers on their hats hung down in strings.
+
+"Just like drowned cats' tails," observed Hephzy.  "Ain't it awful!
+And they're too miserable to care.  You poor thing," she said,
+leaning forward and addressing the nearest, "can't I fix you so
+you're more comfortable?"
+
+The woman addressed looked up and tried her best to smile.
+
+"Oh, no, thank you," she said, weakly but cheerfully.  "We're doing
+quite well.  It will soon be over."
+
+Hephzy shook her head.
+
+"Did you hear that, Hosy?" she whispered.  "I declare! if it wasn't
+off already, and that's a mercy, I'd take off my hat to England and
+the English people.  Not a whimper, not a complaint, just sit still
+and soak and tumble around and grin and say it's 'a bit damp.'
+Whenever I read about the grumblin', fault-findin' Englishman I'll
+think of the folks on this boat.  It may be patriotism or it may be
+the race pride and reserve we hear so much about--but, whatever it
+is, it's fine.  They've all got it, men and women and children.  I
+presume likely the boy that stood on the burnin' deck would have
+said 'twas a bit sultry, and that's all. . . .  What is it, Hosy?"
+
+I had uttered an exclamation.  A young man had just reeled by us on
+his way forward.  His cap was pulled down over his eyes and his
+coat collar was turned up, but I recognized him.  He was Herbert
+Bayliss.
+
+We were three hours crossing from Folkestone to Boulogne, instead
+of the usual scant two.  We entered the harbor, where the great
+crucifix on the hill above the town attracted Hephzy's attention
+and the French signs over the doors of hotels and shops by the quay
+made her realize, so she said, that we really were in a foreign
+country.
+
+"Somehow England never did seem so very foreign," she said.  "And
+the Mayberry folks were so nice and homey and kind I've come to
+think of 'em as, not just neighbors, but friends.  But this--THIS
+is foreign enough, goodness knows!  Let go of my arm!" to the
+smiling, gesticulating porter who was proffering his services.
+"DON'T wave your hands like that; you make me dizzy.  Keep 'em
+still, man!  I could understand you just as well if they was tied.
+Hosy, you'll have to be skipper from now on.  Now I KNOW Cape Cod
+is three thousand miles off."
+
+We got through the customs without trouble, found our places in the
+train, and the train, after backing and fussing and fidgeting and
+tooting in a manner thoroughly French, rolled out of the station.
+
+We ate our dinner, and a very good dinner it was, in the dining-
+car.  Hephzy, having asked me to translate the heading "Compagnie
+Internationale des Wagon Lits" on the bill of fare, declared she
+couldn't see why a dining-car should be called a "wagon bed."
+"There's enough to eat to put you to sleep," she declared, "but you
+couldn't stay asleep any more than you could in the nail factory up
+to Tremont.  I never heard such a rattlin' and slambangin' in my
+life."
+
+We whizzed through the French country, catching glimpses of little
+towns, with red-roofed cottages clustered about the inevitable
+church and chateau, until night came and looking out of the window
+was no longer profitable.  At nine, or thereabouts, we alighted
+from the train at Paris.
+
+In the cab, on the way to the hotel where we were to meet the
+Heptons, Hephzy talked incessantly.
+
+"Paris!" she said, over and over again.  "Paris! where they had the
+Three Musketeers and Notre Dame and Henry of Navarre and Saint
+Bartholomew and Napoleon and the guillotine and Innocents Abroad
+and--and everything.  Paris!  And I'm in it!"
+
+At the door of the hotel Mr. Hepton met us.
+
+Before we retired that night I told Hephzy what I had deferred
+telling until then, namely, that I did not intend leaving for
+Switzerland with her and with the Heptons the following day.  I did
+not tell her my real reason for staying; I had invented a reason
+and told her that instead.
+
+"I want to be alone here in Paris for a few days," I said.  "I
+think I may find some material here which will help me with my
+novel.  You and the Heptons must go, just as you have planned, and
+I will join you at Lucerne or Interlaken."
+
+Hephzy stared at me.
+
+"I sha'n't stir one step without you," she declared. "If I'd known
+you had such an idea as that in your head I--"
+
+"You wouldn't have come," I interrupted.  "I know that; that's why
+I didn't tell you.  Of course you will go and of course you will
+leave me here.  We will be separated only two or three days.  I'll
+ask Hepton to give me an itinerary of the trip and I will wire when
+and where I will join you.  You must go, Hephzy; I insist upon it."
+
+In spite of my insisting Hephzy still declared she should not go.
+It was nearly midnight before she gave in.
+
+"And if you DON'T come in three days at the longest," she said,
+"you'll find me back here huntin' you up.  I mean that, Hosy, so
+you'd better understand it.  And now," rising from her chair, "I'm
+goin' to see about the things you're to wear while we're separated.
+If I don't you're liable to keep on wet stockin's and shoes and
+things all the time and forget to change 'em.  You needn't say you
+won't, for I know you too well.  Mercy sakes! do you suppose I've
+taken care of you all these years and DON'T know?"
+
+The next forenoon I said good-by to her and the Heptons at the
+railway station.  Hephzy's last words to me were these:
+
+"Remember," she said, "if you do get caught in the rain, there's
+dry things in the lower tray of your trunk.  Collars and neckties
+and shirts are in the upper tray.  I've hung your dress suit in the
+closet in case you want it, though that isn't likely.  And be
+careful what you eat, and don't smoke too much, and--Yes, Mr.
+Hepton, I'm comin'--and don't spend ALL your money in book-stores;
+you'll need some of it in Switzerland.  And--Oh, dear, Hosy! do be
+a good boy.  I know you're always good, but, from all I've heard,
+this Paris is an awful place and--good-by.  Good-by.  In Lucerne in
+two days or Interlaken in three.  It's got to be that, or back I
+come, remember.  I HATE to leave you all alone amongst these
+jabberin' foreigners.  I'm glad you can jabber, too, that's one
+comfort.  If it was me, all I could do would be to holler United
+States language at 'em, and if they didn't understand that, just
+holler louder.  I--Yes, Mr. Hepton, I AM comin' now.  Good-by,
+Hosy, dear."
+
+The train rolled out of the station.  I watched it go.  Then I
+turned and walked to the street.  So far my scheme had worked well.
+I was alone in Paris as I had planned to be.  And now--and now to
+find where a girl sang, a girl who looked like Frances Morley.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+In Which I Learn that All Abbeys Are Not Churches
+
+
+And that, now that I really stopped to consider it, began to appear
+more and more of a task.  Paris must be full of churches; to visit
+each of them in turn would take weeks at least.  Hephzy had given
+me three days.  I must join her at Interlaken in three days or
+there would be trouble.  And how was I to make even the most
+superficial search in three days?
+
+Of course I had realized something of this before.  Even in the
+state of mind which Heathcroft's story had left me, I had realized
+that my errand in Paris was a difficult one.  I realized that I had
+set out on the wildest of wild goose chases and that, even in the
+improbable event of the singer's being Frances, my finding her was
+most unlikely.  The chances of success were a hundred to one
+against me.  But I was in the mood to take the hundredth chance.  I
+should have taken it if the odds were higher still.  My plan--if it
+could be called a plan--was first of all to buy a Paris Baedeker
+and look over the list of churches.  This I did, and, back in the
+hotel room, I consulted that list.  It staggered me.  There were
+churches enough--there were far too many.  Cathedrals and chapels
+and churches galore--Catholic and Protestant.  But there was no
+church calling itself an abbey.  I closed the Baedeker, lit a
+cigar, and settled myself for further reflection.
+
+The girl was singing somewhere and she called herself Mademoiselle
+Juno or Junotte, so Heathcroft had said.  So much I knew and that
+was all.  It was very, very little.  But Herbert Bayliss had come
+to Paris, I believed, because of what Heathcroft had told him.  Did
+he know more than I?  It was possible.  At any rate he had come.  I
+had seen him on the steamer, and I believed he had seen and
+recognized me.  Of course he might not be in Paris now; he might
+have gone elsewhere.  I did not believe it, however.  I believed he
+had crossed the Channel on the same errand as I.  There was a
+possible chance.  I might, if the other means proved profitless,
+discover at which hotel Bayliss was staying and question him.  He
+might tell me nothing, even if he knew, but I could keep him in
+sight, I could follow him and discover where he went.  It would be
+dishonorable, perhaps, but I was desperate and doggedly regardless
+of scruples.  I was set upon one thing--to find her, to see her and
+speak with her again.
+
+Shadowing Bayliss, however, I set aside as a last resort.  Before
+that I would search on my own hook.  And, tossing aside the useless
+Baedeker, I tried to think of someone whose advice might be of
+value.  At last, I resolved to question the concierge of the hotel.
+Concierges, I knew, were the ever present helps of travelers in
+trouble.  They knew everything, spoke all languages, and expected
+to be asked all sorts of unreasonable questions.
+
+The concierge at my hotel was a transcendant specimen of his
+talented class.  His name and title was Monsieur Louis--at least
+that is what I had heard the other guests call him.  And the
+questions which he had been called upon to answer, in my hearing,
+ranged in subject from the hour of closing the Luxemburg galleries
+to that of opening the Bal Tabarin, with various interruptions
+during which he settled squabbles over cab fares, took orders for
+theater and opera tickets, and explained why fruit at the tables of
+the Cafe des Ambassadeurs was so very expensive.
+
+Monsieur Louis received me politely, listened, with every
+appearance of interest, to my tale of a young lady, a relative, who
+was singing at one of the Paris churches and whose name was Juno or
+Junotte, but, when I had finished, reluctantly shook his head.
+There were many, many churches in Paris--yes, and, at some of them,
+young ladies sang; but these were, for the most part, the
+Protestant churches.  At the larger churches, the Catholic
+churches, most of the singers were men or boys.  He could recall
+none where a lady of that name sang.  Monsieur had not been told
+the name of the church?
+
+"The person who told me referred to it as an abbey," I said.
+
+Louis raised his shoulders.  "I am sorry, Monsieur," he said, "but
+there is no abbey, where ladies sing, in Paris.  It is, alas,
+regrettable, but it is so."
+
+He announced it as he might have broken to me the news of the death
+of a friend.  Incidentally, having heard a few sentences of my
+French, he spoke in English, very good English.
+
+"I will, however, make inquiries, Monsieur," he went on.  "Possibly
+I may discover something which will be of help to Monsieur in his
+difficulty."  In the meantime there was to be a parade of troops at
+the Champ de Mars at four, and the evening performance at the
+Folies Bergeres was unusually good and English and American
+gentlemen always enjoyed it.  It would give him pleasure to book a
+place for me.
+
+I thanked him but I declined the offer, so far as the Folies were
+concerned.  I did ask him, however, to give me the name of a few
+churches at which ladies sang.  This he did and I set out to find
+them, in a cab which whizzed through the Paris streets as if the
+driver was bent upon suicide and manslaughter.
+
+I visited four places of worship that afternoon and two more that
+evening.  Those in charge--for I attended no services--knew nothing
+of Mademoiselle Junotte or Juno.  I retired at ten, somewhat
+discouraged, but stubbornly determined to keep on, for my three
+days at least.
+
+The next morning I consulted Baedeker again, this time for the list
+of hotels, a list which I found quite as lengthy as that of the
+churches.  Then I once more sought the help of Monsieur Louis.
+Could he tell me a few of the hotels where English visitors were
+most likely to stay.
+
+He could do more than that, apparently.  Would I be so good as to
+inform him if the lady or gentleman--being Parisian he put the lady
+first--whom I wished to find had recently arrived in Paris.  I told
+him that the gentleman had arrived the same evening as I.
+Whereupon he produced a list of guests at all the prominent hotels.
+Herbert Bayliss was registered at the Continental.
+
+To the Continental I went and made inquiries of the concierge
+there.  Mr. Bayliss was there, he was in his room, so the concierge
+believed.  He would be pleased to ascertain.  Would I give my name?
+I declined to give the name, saying that I did not wish to disturb
+Mr. Bayliss.  If he was in his room I would wait until he came
+down.  He was in his room, had not yet breakfasted, although it was
+nearly ten in the forenoon.  I sat down in a chair from which I
+could command a good view of the elevators, and waited.
+
+The concierge strolled over and chatted.  Was I a friend of Mr.
+Bayliss?  Ah, a charming young gentleman, was he not.  This was not
+his first visit to Paris, no indeed; he came frequently--though not
+as frequently of late--and he invariably stayed at the Continental.
+He had been out late the evening before, which doubtless explained
+his non-appearance.  Ah, he was breakfasting now; had ordered his
+"cafe complete."  Doubtless he would be down very soon?  Would I
+wish to send up my name now?
+
+Again I declined, to the polite astonishment of the concierge, who
+evidently considered me a queer sort of a friend.  He was called to
+his desk by a guest, who wished to ask questions, of course, and I
+waited where I was.  At a quarter to eleven Herbert Bayliss emerged
+from the elevator.
+
+His appearance almost shocked me.  Out late the night before!  He
+looked as if he had been out all night for many nights.  He was
+pale and solemn.  I stepped forward to greet him and the start he
+gave when he saw me was evidence of the state of his nerves.  I had
+never thought of him as possessing any nerves.
+
+"Eh?  Why, Knowles!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Good morning, Bayliss," said I.
+
+We both were embarrassed, he more than I, for I had expected to see
+him and he had not expected to see me.  I made a move to shake
+hands but he did not respond.  His manner toward me was formal and,
+I thought, colder than it had been at our meeting the day of the
+golf tournament.
+
+"I called," I said, "to see you, Bayliss.  If you are not engaged I
+should like to talk with you for a few moments."
+
+His answer was a question.
+
+"How did you know I was here?" he asked.
+
+"I saw your name in the list of recent arrivals at the
+Continental," I answered.
+
+"I mean how did you know I was in Paris?"
+
+"I didn't know.  I thought I caught a glimpse of you on the boat.
+I was almost sure it was you, but you did not appear to recognize
+me and I had no opportunity to speak then."
+
+He did not speak at once, he did not even attempt denial of having
+seen and recognized me during the Channel crossing.  He regarded me
+intently and, I thought, suspiciously.
+
+"Who sent you here?" he asked, suddenly.
+
+"Sent me!  No one sent me.  I don't understand you."
+
+"Why did you follow me?"
+
+"Follow you?"
+
+"Yes.  Why did you follow me to Paris?  No one knew I was coming
+here, not even my own people.  They think I am--Well, they don't
+know that I am here."
+
+His speech and his manner were decidedly irritating.  I had made a
+firm resolve to keep my temper, no matter what the result of this
+interview might be, but I could not help answering rather sharply.
+
+"I had no intention of following you--here or anywhere else," I
+said.  "Your action and whereabouts, generally speaking, are of no
+particular interest to me.  I did not follow you to Paris, Doctor
+Bayliss."
+
+He reddened and hesitated.  Then he led the way to a divan in a
+retired corner of the lobby and motioned to me to be seated.  There
+he sat down beside me and waited for me to speak.  I, in turn,
+waited for him to speak.
+
+At last he spoke.
+
+"I'm sorry, Knowles," he said.  "I am not myself today.  I've had a
+devil of a night and I feel like a beast this morning.  I should
+probably have insulted my own father, had he appeared suddenly, as
+you did.  Of course I should have known you did not follow me to
+Paris.  But--but why did you come?"
+
+I hesitated now.  "I came," I said, "to--to--Well, to be perfectly
+honest with you, I came because of something I heard concerning--
+concerning--"
+
+He interrupted me.  "Then Heathcroft did tell you!" he exclaimed.
+"I thought as much."
+
+"He told you, I know.  He said he did."
+
+"Yes.  He did.  My God, man, isn't it awful!  Have you seen her?"
+
+His manner convinced me that he had seen her.  In my eagerness I
+forgot to be careful.
+
+"No," I answered, breathlessly; "I have not seen her.  Where is
+she?"
+
+He turned and stared at me.
+
+"Don't you know where she is?" he asked, slowly.
+
+"I know nothing.  I have been told that she--or someone very like
+her--is singing in a Paris church.  Heathcroft told me that and
+then we were interrupted.  I--What is the matter?"
+
+He was staring at me more oddly than ever.  There was the strangest
+expression on his face.
+
+"In a church!" he repeated.  "Heathcroft told you--"
+
+"He told me that he had seen a girl, whose resemblance to Miss
+Morley was so striking as to be marvelous, singing in a Paris
+church.  He called it an abbey, but of course it couldn't be that.
+Do you know anything more definite?  What did he tell you?"
+
+He did not answer.
+
+"In a church!" he said again.  "You thought--Oh, good heavens!"
+
+He began to laugh.  It was not a pleasant laugh to hear.  Moreover,
+it angered me.
+
+"This may be very humorous," I said, brusquely.  "Perhaps it is--to
+you.  But--Bayliss, you know more of this than I.  I am certain now
+that you do.  I want you to tell me what you know.  Is that girl
+Frances Morley?  Have you seen her?  Where is she?"
+
+He had stopped laughing.  Now he seemed to be considering.
+
+"Then you did come over here to find her," he said, more slowly
+still.  "You were following her, why?"
+
+"WHY?"
+
+"Yes, why.  She is nothing to you.  You told my father that.  You
+told me that she was not your niece.  You told Father that you had
+no claim upon her whatever and that she had asked you not to try to
+trace her or to learn where she was.  You said all that and
+preached about respecting her wish and all that sort of thing.  And
+yet you are here now trying to find her."
+
+The only answer I could make to this was a rather childish retort.
+
+"And so are you," I said.
+
+His fists clinched.
+
+"I!" he cried, fiercely.  "I!  Did _I_ ever say she was nothing to
+me?  Did _I_ ever tell anyone I should not try to find her?  I told
+you, only the other day, that I would find her in spite of the
+devil.  I meant it.  Knowles, I don't understand you.  When I came
+to you thinking you her uncle and guardian, and asked your
+permission to ask her to marry me, you gave that permission.  You
+did.  You didn't tell me that she was nothing to you.  I don't
+understand you at all.  You told my father a lot of rot--"
+
+"I told your father the truth.  And, when I told you that she had
+left no message for you, that was the truth also.  I have no reason
+to believe she cares for you--"
+
+"And none to think that she doesn't.  At all events she did not
+tell ME not to follow her.  She did tell you.  Why are you
+following her?"
+
+It was a question I could not answer--to him.  That reason no one
+should know.  And yet what excuse could I give, after all my
+protestations?
+
+"I--I feel that I have the right, everything considered," I
+stammered.  "She is not my niece, but she is Miss Cahoon's."
+
+"And she ran away from both of you, asking, as a last request, that
+you both make no attempt to learn where she was.  The whole affair
+is beyond understanding.  What the truth may be--"
+
+"Are you hinting that I have lied to you?"
+
+"I am not hinting at anything.  All I can say is that it is deuced
+queer, all of it.  And I sha'n't say more."
+
+"Will you tell me--"
+
+"I shall tell you nothing.  That would be her wish, according to
+your own statement and I will respect that wish, if you don't."
+
+I rose to my feet.  There was little use in an open quarrel between
+us and I was by far the older man.  Yes, and his position was
+infinitely stronger than mine, as he understood it.  But I never
+was more strongly tempted.  He knew where she was.  He had seen
+her.  The thought was maddening.
+
+He had risen also and was facing me defiantly.
+
+"Good morning, Doctor Bayliss," said I, and walked away.  I turned
+as I reached the entrance of the hotel and looked back.  He was
+still standing there, staring at me.
+
+That afternoon I spent in my room.  There is little use describing
+my feelings.  That she was in Paris I was sure now.  That Bayliss
+had seen her I was equally sure.  But why had he spoken and looked
+as he did when I first spoke of Heathcroft's story?  What had he
+meant by saying something or other was "awful?"  And why had he
+seemed so astonished, why had he laughed in that strange way when I
+had said she was singing in a church?
+
+That evening I sought Monsieur Louis, the concierge, once more.
+
+"Is there any building here in Paris," I asked, "a building in
+which people sing, which is called an abbey?  One that is not a
+church or an abbey, but is called that?"
+
+Louis looked at me in an odd way.  He seemed a bit embarrassed, an
+embarrassment I should not have expected from him.
+
+"Monsieur asks the question," he said, smiling.  "It was in my mind
+last night, the thought, but Monsieur asked for a church.  There is
+a place called L'Abbaye and there young women sing, but--" he
+hesitated, shrugged and then added, "but L'Abbaye is not a church.
+No, it is not that."
+
+"What is it?" I asked.
+
+"A restaurant, Monsieur.  A cafe chantant at Montmartre."
+
+Montmartre at ten that evening was just beginning to awaken.  At
+the hour when respectable Paris, home-loving, domestic Paris, the
+Paris of which the tourist sees so little, is thinking of retiring,
+Montmartre--or that section of it in which L'Abbaye is situated--
+begins to open its eyes.  At ten-thirty, as my cab buzzed into the
+square and pulled up at the curb, the electric signs were blazing,
+the sidewalks were, if not yet crowded, at least well filled, and
+the sounds of music from the open windows of The Dead Rat and the
+other cafes with the cheerful names were mingling with noises of
+the street.
+
+Monsieur Louis had given me my sailing orders, so to speak.  He had
+told me that arriving at L'Abbaye before ten-thirty was quite
+useless.  Midnight was the accepted hour, he said; prior to that I
+would find it rather dull, triste.  But after that--Ah, Monsieur
+would, at least, be entertained.
+
+"But of course Monsieur does not expect to find the young lady of
+whom he is in search there," he said.  "A relative is she not?"
+
+Remembering that I had, when I first mentioned the object of my
+quest to him, referred to her as a relative, I nodded.
+
+He smiled and shrugged.
+
+"A relative of Monsieur's would scarcely be found singing at
+L'Abbaye," he said.  "But it is a most interesting place,
+entertaining and chic.  Many English and American gentlemen sup
+there after the theater."
+
+I smiled and intimated that the desire to pass a pleasant evening
+was my sole reason for visiting the place.  He was certain I would
+be pleased.
+
+The doorway of L'Abbaye was not deserted, even at the "triste" hour
+of ten-thirty.  Other cabs were drawn up at the curb and, upon the
+stairs leading to the upper floors, were several gaily dressed
+couples bound, as I had proclaimed myself to be, in search of
+supper and entertainment.  I had, acting upon the concierge's hint,
+arrayed myself in my evening clothes and I handed my silk hat,
+purchased in London--where, as Hephzy said, "a man without a tall
+hat is like a rooster without tail feathers"--to a polite and busy
+attendant.  Then a personage with a very straight beard and a very
+curly mustache, ushered me into the main dining-room.
+
+"Monsieur would wish seats for how many?" he asked, in French.
+
+"For myself only," I answered, also in French.  His next remark was
+in English.  I was beginning to notice that when I addressed a
+Parisian in his native language, he usually answered in mine.  This
+may have been because of a desire to please me, or in self-defence;
+I am inclined to think the latter.
+
+"Ah, for one only.  This way, Monsieur."
+
+I was given a seat at one end of a long table, and in a corner.
+There were plenty of small tables yet unoccupied, but my guide was
+apparently reserving these for couples or quartettes; at any rate
+he did not offer one to me.  I took the seat indicated.
+
+"I shall wish to remain here for some time?" I said.  "Probably the
+entire--" I hesitated; considering the hour I scarcely knew whether
+to say "evening" or "morning."  At last I said "night" as a
+compromise.
+
+The bearded person seemed doubtful.
+
+"There will be a great demand later," he said.  "To oblige Monsieur
+is of course our desire, but. . . .  Ah, merci, Monsieur, I will
+see that Monsieur is not disturbed."
+
+The reason for his change of heart was the universal one in
+restaurants.  He put the reason in his pocket and summoned a waiter
+to take my order.
+
+I gave the order, a modest one, which dropped me a mile or two in
+the waiter's estimation.  However, after a glance at my fellow-
+diners at nearby tables, I achieved a partial uplift by ordering a
+bottle of extremely expensive wine.  I had had the idea that, being
+in France, the home of champagne, that beverage would be cheap or,
+at least, moderately priced.  But in L'Abbaye the idea seemed to be
+erroneous.
+
+The wine was brought immediately; the supper was somewhat delayed.
+I did not care.  I had not come there to eat--or to drink, either,
+for that matter.  I had come--I scarcely knew why I had come.  That
+Frances Morley would be singing in a place like this I did not
+believe.  This was the sort of "abbey" that A. Carleton Heathcroft
+would be most likely to visit, that was true, but that he had seen
+her here was most improbable.  The coincidence of the "abbey" name
+would not have brought me there, of itself.  Herbert Bayliss had
+given me to understand, although he had not said it, that she was
+not singing in a church and he had found the idea of her being
+where she was "awful."  It was because of what he had said that I
+had come, as a sort of last chance, a forlorn hope.  Of course she
+would not be here, a hired singer in a Paris night restaurant; that
+was impossible.
+
+How impossible it was likely to be I realized more fully during the
+next hour.  There was nothing particularly "awful" about L'Abbaye
+of itself--at first, nor, perhaps, even later; at least the
+awfulness was well covered.  The program of entertainment was awful
+enough, if deadly mediocrity is awful.  A big darkey, dressed in a
+suit which reminded me of the "end man" at an old-time minstrel
+show, sang "My Alabama Coon," accompanying himself, more or less
+intimately, on the banjo.  I could have heard the same thing,
+better done, at a ten cent theater in the States, where this chap
+had doubtless served an apprenticeship.  However, the audience,
+which was growing larger every minute, seemed to find the bellowing
+enjoyable and applauded loudly.  Then a feminine person did a
+Castilian dance between the tables.  I was ready to declare a
+second war with Spain when she had finished.  Then there was an
+orchestral interval, during which the tables filled.
+
+The impossibility of Frances singing in a place like this became
+more certain each minute, to my mind.  I called the waiter.
+
+"Does Mademoiselle Juno sing here this evening?" I asked, in my
+lame French.
+
+He shook his head.  "Non, Monsieur," he answered, absently, and
+hastened on with the bottle he was carrying.
+
+Apparently that settled it.  I might as well go.  Then I decided to
+remain a little longer.  After all, I was there, and I, or
+Heathcroft, might have misunderstood the name.  I would stay for a
+while.
+
+The long table at which I sat was now occupied from end to end.
+There were several couples, male and female, and a number of
+unattached young ladies, well-dressed, pretty for the most part,
+and vivacious and inclined to be companionable.  They chatted with
+their neighbors and would have chatted with me if I had been in the
+mood.  For the matter of that everyone talked with everyone else,
+in French or English, good, bad and indifferent, and there was much
+laughter and gaiety.  L'Abbaye was wide awake by this time.
+
+The bearded personage who had shown me to my seat, appeared,
+followed by a dozen attendants bearing paper parasols and bags
+containing little celluloid balls, red, white, and blue.  They were
+distributed among the feminine guests.  The parasols, it developed,
+were to be waved and the balls to be thrown.  You were supposed to
+catch as many as were thrown at you and throw them back.  It was
+wonderful fun--or would have been for children--and very, very
+amusing--after the second bottle.
+
+For my part I found it very stupid.  As I have said at least once
+in this history I am not what is called a "good mixer" and in an
+assemblage like this I was as out of place as a piece of ice on a
+hot stove.  Worse than that, for the ice would have melted and I
+congealed the more.  My bottle of champagne remained almost
+untouched and when a celluloid ball bounced on the top of my head I
+did not scream "Whoopee!  Bullseye!" as my American neighbors did
+or "Voila!  Touche!" like the French.  There were plenty of
+Americans and English there, and they seemed to be having a good
+time, but their good time was incomprehensible to me.  This was
+"gay Paris," of course, but somehow the gaiety seemed forced and
+artificial and silly, except to the proprietors of L'Abbaye.  If I
+had been getting the price for food and liquids which they received
+I might, perhaps, have been gay.
+
+The young Frenchman at my right was gay enough.  He had early
+discovered my nationality and did his best to be entertaining.
+When a performer from the Olympia, the music hall on the Boulevard
+des Italiens, sang a distressing love ballad in a series of shrieks
+like those of a circular saw in a lumber mill, this person shouted
+his "Bravos" with the rest and then, waving his hands before my
+face, called for, "De cheer Americain!  One, two, tree--Heep!
+Heep!  Heep!  Oo--ray-y-y!"  I did not join in "the cheer
+Americain," but I did burst out laughing, a proceeding which caused
+the young lady at my left to pat my arm and nod delighted approval.
+She evidently thought I was becoming gay and lighthearted at last.
+She was never more mistaken.
+
+It was nearly two o'clock and I had had quite enough of L'Abbaye.
+I had not enjoyed myself--had not expected to, so far as that went.
+I hope I am not a prig, and, whatever I am or am not, priggishness
+had no part in my feelings then.  Under ordinary circumstances I
+should not have enjoyed myself in a place like that.  Mine is not
+the temperament--I shouldn't know how.  I must have appeared the
+most solemn ass in creation, and if I had come there with the idea
+of amusement, I should have felt like one.  As it was, my feeling
+was not disgust, but unreasonable disappointment.  Certainly I did
+not wish--now that I had seen L'Abbaye--to find Frances Morley
+there; but just as certainly I was disappointed.
+
+I called for my bill, paid it, and stood up.  I gave one look about
+the crowded, noisy place, and then I started violently and sat down
+again.  I had seen Herbert Bayliss.  He had, apparently, just
+entered and a waiter was finding a seat for him at a table some
+distance away and on the opposite side of the great room.
+
+There was no doubt about it; it was he.  My heart gave a bound that
+almost choked me and all sorts of possibilities surged through my
+brain.  He had come to Paris to find her, he had found her--in our
+conversation he had intimated as much.  And now, he was here at the
+"Abbey."  Why?  Was it here that he had found her?  Was she singing
+here after all?
+
+Bayliss glanced in my direction and I sank lower in my chair.  I
+did not wish him to see me.  Fortunately the lady opposite waved
+her paper parasol just then and I went into eclipse, so far as he
+was concerned.  When the eclipse was over he was looking elsewhere.
+
+The black-bearded Frenchman, who seemed to be, if not one of the
+proprietors, at least one of the managers of L'Abbaye, appeared in
+the clear space at the center of the room between the tables and
+waved his hands.  He was either much excited or wished to seem so.
+He shouted something in French which I could not understand.  There
+was a buzz of interest all about me; then the place grew still--or
+stiller.  Something was going to happen, that was evident.  I
+leaned toward my voluble neighbor, the French gentleman who had
+called for "de cheer Americain."
+
+"What is it?" I asked.  "What is the matter?"
+
+He ignored, or did not hear, my question.  The bearded person was
+still waving his hands.  The orchestra burst into a sort of
+triumphal march and then into the open space between the tables
+came--Frances Morley.
+
+She was dressed in a simple evening gown, she was not painted or
+powdered to the extent that women who had sung before her had been,
+her hair was simply dressed.  She looked thinner than she had when
+I last saw her, but otherwise she was unchanged.  In that place,
+amid the lights and the riot of color, the silks and satins and
+jewels, the flushed faces of the crowd, she stood and bowed, a
+white rose in a bed of tiger lilies, and the crowd rose and shouted
+at her.
+
+The orchestra broke off its triumphal march and the leader stood
+up, his violin at his shoulder.  He played a bar or two and she
+began to sing.
+
+She sang a simple, almost childish, love song in French.  There was
+nothing sensational about it, nothing risque, certainly nothing
+which should have appealed to the frequenters of L'Abbaye.  And her
+voice, although sweet and clear and pure, was not extraordinary.
+And yet, when she had finished, there was a perfect storm of
+"Bravos."  Parasols waved, flowers were thrown, and a roar of
+applause lasted for minutes.  Why this should have been is a puzzle
+to me even now.  Perhaps it was because of her clean, girlish
+beauty; perhaps because it was so unexpected and so different;
+perhaps because of the mystery concerning her.  I don't know.  Then
+I did not ask.  I sat in my chair at the table, trembling from head
+to foot, and looking at her.  I had never expected to see her again
+and now she was before my eyes--here in this place.
+
+She sang again; this time a jolly little ballad of soldiers and
+glory and the victory of the Tri-Color.  And again she swept them
+off their feet.  She bowed and smiled in answer to their applause
+and, motioning to the orchestra leader, began without accompaniment,
+"Loch Lomond," in English.  It was one of the songs I had asked her
+to sing at the rectory, one I had found in the music cabinet, one
+that her mother and mine had sung years before.
+
+
+     "Ye'll take the high road
+      And I'll take the low road,
+      And I'll be in Scotland afore ye--"
+
+
+I was on my feet.  I have no remembrance of having risen, but I was
+standing, leaning across the table, looking at her.  There were
+cries of "Sit down" in English and other cries in French.  There
+were tugs at my coat tails.
+
+
+     "But me and my true love
+      Shall never meet again,
+      By the bonny, bonny banks
+      Of Loch--"
+
+
+She saw me.  The song stopped.  I saw her turn white, so white that
+the rouge on her cheeks looked like fever spots.  She looked at me
+and I at her.  Then she raised her hand to her throat, turned and
+almost ran from the room.
+
+I should have followed her, then and there, I think.  I was on my
+way around the end of the table, regardless of masculine boots and
+feminine skirts.  But a stout Englishman got in my way and detained
+me and the crowd was so dense that I could not push through it.  It
+was an excited crowd, too.  For a moment there had been a surprised
+silence, but now everyone was exclaiming and talking in his or her
+native language.
+
+"Oh, I say!  What happened?  What made her do that?" demanded the
+stout Englishman.  Then he politely requested me to get off his
+foot.
+
+The bearded manager--or proprietor--was waving his hands once more
+and begging attention and silence.  He got both, in a measure.
+Then he made his announcement.
+
+He begged ten thousand pardons, but Mademoiselle Guinot--That was
+it, Guinot, not Juno or Junotte--had been seized with a most
+regrettable illness.  She had been unable to continue her
+performance.  It was not serious, but she could sing no more that
+evening.  To-morrow evening--ah, yes.  Most certainly.  But to-
+night--no.  Monsieur Hairee Opkins, the most famous Engleesh comedy
+artiste would now entertain the patrons of L'Abbaye.  He begged, he
+entreated attention for Monsieur Opkins.
+
+I did not wait for "Monsieur Hairee."  I forced my way to the door.
+As I passed out I cast a glance in the direction of young Bayliss.
+He was on his feet, loudly shouting for a waiter and his bill.  I
+had so much start, at all events.
+
+Through the waiters and uniformed attendants I elbowed.  Another
+man with a beard--he looked enough like the other to be his
+brother, and perhaps he was--got in my way at last.  A million or
+more pardons, but Monsieur could not go in that direction.  The
+exit was there, pointing.
+
+As patiently and carefully as I could, considering my agitation, I
+explained that I did not wish to find the exit.  I was a friend, a--
+yes, a--er--relative of the young lady who had just sung and who
+had been taken ill.  I wanted to go to her.
+
+Another million pardons, but that was impossible.  I did not
+understand, Mademoiselle was--well, she did not see gentlemen.  She
+was--with the most expressive of shrugs--peculiar.  She desired no
+friends.  It was--ah--quite impossible.
+
+I found my pocketbook and pressed my card into his hand.  Would he
+give Mademoiselle my card?  Would he tell her that I must see her,
+if only for a minute?  Just give her the card and tell her that.
+
+He shook his head, smiling but firm.  I could have punched him for
+the smile, but instead I took other measures.  I reached into my
+pocket, found some gold pieces--I have no idea how many or of what
+denomination--and squeezed them in the hand with the card."  He
+still smiled and shook his head, but his firmness was shaken.
+
+"I will give the card," he said, "but I warn Monsieur it is quite
+useless.  She will not see him."
+
+The waiter with whom I had seen Herbert Bayliss in altercation was
+hurrying by me.  I caught his arm.
+
+"Pardon, Monsieur," he protested, "but I must go.  The gentleman
+yonder desires his bill."
+
+"Don't give it to him," I whispered, trying hard to think of the
+French words.  "Don't give it to him yet.  Keep him where he is for
+a time."
+
+I backed the demand with another gold piece, the last in my pocket.
+The waiter seemed surprised.
+
+"Not give the bill?" he repeated.
+
+"No, not yet."  I did my best to look wicked and knowing--"He and I
+wish to meet the same young lady and I prefer to be first."
+
+That was sufficient--in Paris.  The waiter bowed low.
+
+"Rest in peace, Monsieur," he said.  "The gentleman shall wait."
+
+I waited also, for what seemed a long time.  Then the bearded one
+reappeared.  He looked surprised but pleased.
+
+"Bon, Monsieur," he whispered, patting my arm.  "She will see you.
+You are to wait at the private door.  I will conduct you there.  It
+is most unusual.  Monsieur is a most fortunate gentleman."
+
+At the door, at the foot of a narrow staircase--decidedly lacking
+in the white and gold of the other, the public one--I waited, for
+another age.  The staircase was lighted by one sickly gas jet and
+the street outside was dark and dirty.  I waited on the narrow
+sidewalk, listening to the roar of nocturnal Montmartre around the
+corner, to the beating of my own heart, and for her footstep on the
+stairs.
+
+At last I heard it.  The door opened and she came out.  She wore a
+cloak over her street costume and her hat was one that she had
+bought in London with my money.  She wore a veil and I could not
+see her face.
+
+I seized her hands with both of mine.
+
+"Frances!" I cried, chokingly.  "Oh, Frances!"
+
+She withdrew her hands.  When she spoke her tone was quiet but very
+firm.
+
+"Why did you come here?" she asked.
+
+"Why did I come?  Why--"
+
+"Yes.  Why did you come?  Was it to find me?  Did you know I was
+here?"
+
+"I did not know.  I had heard--"
+
+"Did Doctor Bayliss tell you?"
+
+I hesitated.  So she HAD seen Bayliss and spoken with him.
+
+"No," I answered, after a moment, "he did not tell me, exactly.
+But I had heard that someone who resembled you was singing here in
+Paris."
+
+"And you followed me.  In spite of my letter begging you, for my
+sake, not to try to find me.  Did you get that letter?"
+
+"Yes, I got it."
+
+"Then why did you do it?  Oh, WHY did you?"
+
+For the first time there was a break in her voice.  We were
+standing before the door.  The street, it was little more than an
+alley, was almost deserted, but I felt it was not the place for
+explanations.  I wanted to get her away from there, as far from
+that dreadful "Abbey" as possible.  I took her arm.
+
+"Come," I said, "I will tell you as we go.  Come with me now."
+
+She freed her arm.
+
+"I am not coming with you," she said.  "Why did you come here?"
+
+"I came--I came--Why did YOU come?  Why did you leave us as you
+did?  Without a word!"
+
+She turned and faced me.
+
+"You know why I left you," she said.  "You know.  You knew all the
+time.  And yet you let me believe--You let me think--I lived upon
+your money--I--I--Oh, don't speak of it!  Go away! please go away
+and leave me."
+
+"I am not going away--without you.  I came to get you to go back
+with me.  You don't understand.  Your aunt and I want you to come
+with us.  We want you to come and live with us again.  We--"
+
+She interrupted.  I doubt if she had comprehended more than the
+first few words of what I was saying.
+
+"Please go away," she begged.  "I know I owe you money, so much
+money.  I shall pay it.  I mean to pay it all.  At first I could
+not.  I could not earn it.  I tried.  Oh, I tried SO hard!  In
+London I tried and tried, but all the companies were filled, it was
+late in the season and I--no one would have me.  Then I got this
+chance through an agency.  I am succeeding here.  I am earning the
+money at last.  I am saving--I have saved--And now you come to--Oh,
+PLEASE go and leave me!"
+
+Her firmness had gone.  She was on the verge of tears.  I tried to
+take her hands again, but she would not permit it.
+
+"I shall not go," I persisted, as gently as I could.  "Or when I go
+you must go with me.  You don't understand."
+
+"But I do understand.  My aunt--Miss Cahoon told me.  I understand
+it all.  Oh, if I had only understood at first."
+
+"But you don't understand--now.  Your aunt and I knew the truth
+from the beginning.  That made no difference.  We were glad to have
+you with us.  We want you to come back.  You are our relative--"
+
+"I am not.  I am not really related to you in any way.  You know I
+am not."
+
+"You are related to Miss Cahoon.  You are her sister's daughter.
+She wants you to come.  She wants you to live with us again, just
+as you did before."
+
+"She wants that!  She--But it was your money that paid for the very
+clothes I wore.  Your money--not hers; she said so."
+
+"That doesn't make any difference.  She wants you and--"
+
+I was about to add "and so do I," but she did not permit me to
+finish the sentence.  She interrupted again, and there was a change
+in her tone.
+
+"Stop!  Oh, stop!" she cried.  "She wanted me and--and so you--Did
+you think I would consent?  To live upon your charity?"
+
+"There is no charity about it."
+
+"There is.  You know there is.  And you believed that I--knowing
+what I know--that my father--my own father--"
+
+"Hush! hush!  That is all past and done with."
+
+"It may be for you, but not for me.  Mr. Knowles, your opinion of
+me must be a very poor one.  Or your desire to please your aunt as
+great as your--your charity to me.  I thank you both, but I shall
+stay here.  You must go and you must not try to see me again."
+
+There was firmness enough in this speech; altogether too much.  But
+I was as firm as she was.
+
+"I shall not go," I reiterated.  "I shall not leave you--in a place
+like this.  It isn't a fit place for you to be in.  You know it is
+not.  Good heavens! you MUST know it?"
+
+"I know what the place is," she said quietly.
+
+"You know!  And yet you stay here!  Why?  You can't like it!"
+
+It was a foolish speech, and I blurted it without thought.  She did
+not answer.  Instead she began to walk toward the corner.  I
+followed her.
+
+"I beg your pardon," I stammered, contritely.  "I did not mean
+that, of course.  But I cannot think of your singing night after
+night in such a place--before those men and women.  It isn't right;
+it isn't--you shall not do it."
+
+She answered without halting in her walk.
+
+"I shall do it," she said.  "They pay me well, very well, and I--I
+need the money.  When I have earned and saved what I need I shall
+give it up, of course.  As for liking the work--Like it!  Oh, how
+can you!"
+
+"I beg your pardon.  Forgive me.  I ought to be shot for saying
+that.  I know you can't like it.  But you must not stay here.  You
+must come with me."
+
+"No, Mr. Knowles, I am not coming with you.  And you must leave me
+and never come back.  My sole reason for seeing you to-night was to
+tell you that.  But--" she hesitated and then said, with quiet
+emphasis, "you may tell my aunt not to worry about me.  In spite of
+my singing in a cafe chantant I shall keep my self-respect.  I
+shall not be--like those others.  And when I have paid my debt--I
+can't pay my father's; I wish I could--I shall send you the money.
+When I do that you will know that I have resigned my present
+position and am trying to find a more respectable one.  Good-by."
+
+We had reached the corner.  Beyond was the square, with its lights
+and its crowds of people and vehicles.  I seized her arm.
+
+"It shall not be good-by," I cried, desperately.  "I shall not let
+you go."
+
+"You must."
+
+"I sha'n't.  I shall come here night after night until you consent
+to come back to Mayberry."
+
+She stopped then.  But when she spoke her tone was firmer than
+ever.
+
+"Then you will force me to give it up," she said.  "Before I came
+here I was very close to--There were days when I had little or
+nothing to eat, and, with no prospects, no hope, I--if you don't
+leave me, Mr. Knowles, if you do come here night after night, as
+you say, you may force me to that again.  You can, of course, if
+you choose; I can't prevent you.  But I shall NOT go back to
+Mayberry.  Now, will you say good-by?"
+
+She meant it.  If I persisted in my determination she would do as
+she said; I was sure of it.
+
+"I am.  sure my aunt would not wish you to continue to see me,
+against my will," she went on.  "If she cares for me at all she
+would not wish that.  You have done your best to please her.  I--I
+thank you both.  Good-by."
+
+What could I do, or say?
+
+"Good-by," I faltered.
+
+She turned and started across the square.  A flying cab shut her
+from my view.  And then I realized what was happening, realized it
+and realized, too, what it meant.  She should not go; I would not
+let her leave me nor would I leave her.  I sprang after her.
+
+The square was thronged with cabs and motor cars.  The Abbey and
+The Dead Rat and all the rest were emptying their patrons into the
+street.  Paris traffic regulations are lax and uncertain.  I dodged
+between a limousine and a hansom and caught a glimpse of her just
+as she reached the opposite sidewalk.
+
+"Frances!" I called.  "Frances!"
+
+She turned and saw me.  Then I heard my own name shouted from the
+sidewalk I had just left.
+
+"Knowles!  Knowles!"
+
+I looked over my shoulder.  Herbert Bayliss was at the curb.  He
+was shaking a hand, it may have been a fist, in my direction.
+
+"Knowles!" he shouted.  "Stop!  I want to see you."
+
+I did not reply.  Instead I ran on.  I saw her face among the crowd
+and upon it was a curious expression, of fear, of frantic entreaty.
+
+"Kent!  Kent!" she cried.  "Oh, be careful!  KENT!"
+
+There was a roar, a shout; I have a jumbled recollection of being
+thrown into the air, and rolling over and over upon the stones of
+the street.  And there my recollections end, for the time.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+In Which I Take My Turn at Playing the Invalid
+
+
+Not for a very long time.  They begin again--those recollections--a
+few minutes later, break off once more, and then return and break
+off alternately, over and over again.
+
+The first thing I remember, after my whirligig flight over the
+Paris pavement, is a crowd of faces above me and someone pawing at
+my collar and holding my wrist.  This someone, a man, a stranger,
+said in French:
+
+"He is not dead, Mademoiselle."
+
+And then a voice, a voice that I seemed to recognize, said:
+
+"You are sure, Doctor?  You are sure?  Oh, thank God!"
+
+I tried to turn my head toward the last speaker--whom I decided,
+for some unexplainable reason, must be Hephzy--and to tell her that
+of course I wasn't dead, and then all faded away and there was
+another blank.
+
+The next interval of remembrance begins with a sense of pain, a
+throbbing, savage pain, in my head and chest principally, and a
+wish that the buzzing in my ears would stop.  It did not stop, on
+the contrary it grew louder and there was a squeak and rumble and
+rattle along with it.  A head--particularly a head bumped as hard
+as mine had been--might be expected to buzz, but it should not
+rattle, or squeak either.  Gradually I began to understand that the
+rattle and squeak were external and I was in some sort of vehicle,
+a sleeping car apparently, for I seemed to be lying down.  I tried
+to rise and ask a question and a hand was laid on my forehead and a
+voice--the voice which I had decided was Hephzy's--said, gently:
+
+"Lie still.  You mustn't move.  Lie still, please.  We shall be
+there soon."
+
+Where "there" might be I had no idea and it was too much trouble to
+ask, so I drifted off again.
+
+Next I was being lifted out of the car; men were lifting me--or
+trying to.  And, being wider awake by this time, I protested.
+
+"Here!  What are you doing?" I asked.  "I am all right.  Let go of
+me.  Let go, I tell you."
+
+Again the voice--it sounded less and less like Hephzy's--saying:
+
+"Don't!  Please don't!  You mustn't move."
+
+But I kept on moving, although moving was a decidedly uncomfortable
+process.
+
+"What are they doing to me?" I asked.  "Where am I?  Hephzy, where
+am I?"
+
+"You are at the hospital.  You have been hurt and we are taking you
+to the hospital.  Lie still and they will carry you in."
+
+That woke me more thoroughly.
+
+"Nonsense!" I said, as forcefully as I could.  "Nonsense!  I'm not
+badly hurt.  I am all right now.  I don't want to go to a hospital.
+I won't go there.  Take me to the hotel.  I am all right, I tell
+you."
+
+The man's voice--the doctor's, I learned afterward--broke in,
+ordering me to be quiet.  But I refused to be quiet.  I was not
+going to be taken to any hospital.
+
+"I am all right," I declared.  "Or I shall be in a little while.
+Take me to my hotel.  I will be looked after, there.  Hephzy will
+look after me."
+
+The doctor continued to protest--in French--and I to affirm--in
+English.  Also I tried to stand.  At length my declarations of
+independence seemed to have some effect, for they ceased trying to
+lift me.  A dialogue in French followed.  I heard it with growing
+impatience.
+
+"Hephzy," I said, fretfully.  "Hephzy, make them take me to my
+hotel.  I insist upon it."
+
+"Which hotel is it?  Kent--Kent, answer me.  What is the name of
+the hotel?"
+
+I gave the name; goodness knows how I remembered it.  There was
+more argument, and, after a time, the rattle and buzz and squeak
+began again.  The next thing I remember distinctly is being carried
+to my room and hearing the voice of Monsieur Louis in excited
+questioning and command.
+
+After that my recollections are clearer.  But it was broad daylight
+when I became my normal self and realized thoroughly where I was.
+I was in my room at the hotel, the sunlight was streaming in at the
+window and Hephzy--I still supposed it was Hephzy--was sitting by
+that window.  And for the first time it occurred to me that she
+should not have been there; by all that was right and proper she
+should be waiting for me in Interlaken.
+
+"Hephzy," I said, weakly, "when did you get here?"
+
+The figure at the window rose and came to the bedside.  It was not
+Hephzy.  With a thrill I realized who it was.
+
+"Frances!" I cried.  "Frances!  Why--what--"
+
+"Hush!  You mustn't talk.  You mustn't.  You must be quiet and keep
+perfectly still.  The doctor said so."
+
+"But what happened?  How did I get here?  What--?"
+
+"Hush!  There was an accident; you were hurt.  We brought you here
+in a carriage.  Don't you remember?"
+
+What I remembered was provokingly little.
+
+"I seem to remember something," I said.  "Something about a
+hospital.  Someone was going to take me to a hospital and I
+wouldn't go.  Hephzy--No, it couldn't have been Hephzy.  Was it--
+was it you?"
+
+"Yes.  We were taking you to the hospital.  We did take you there,
+but as they were taking you from the ambulance you--"
+
+"Ambulance!  Was I in an ambulance?  What happened to me?  What
+sort of an accident was it?"
+
+"Please don't try to talk.  You must not talk."
+
+"I won't if you tell me that.  What happened?"
+
+"Don't you remember?  I left you and crossed the street.  You
+followed me and then--and then you stopped.  And then--Oh, don't
+ask me!  Don't!"
+
+"I know.  Now I do remember.  It was that big motor car.  I saw it
+coming.  But who brought me here?  You--I remember you; I thought
+you were Hephzy.  And there was someone else."
+
+"Yes, the doctor--the doctor they called--and Doctor Bayliss."
+
+"Doctor Bayliss!  Herbert Bayliss, do you mean?  Yes, I saw him at
+the 'Abbey'--and afterward.  Did he come here with me?"
+
+"Yes.  He was very kind.  I don't know what I should have done if
+it had not been for him.  Now you MUST not speak another word."
+
+I did not, for a few moments.  I lay there, feebly trying to think,
+and looking at her.  I was grateful to young Bayliss, of course,
+but I wished--even then I wished someone else and not he had helped
+me.  I did not like to be under obligations to him.  I liked him,
+too; he was a good fellow and I had always liked him, but I did not
+like THAT.
+
+She rose from the chair by the bed and walked across the room.
+
+"Don't go," I said.
+
+She came back almost immediately.
+
+"It is time for your medicine," she said.
+
+I took the medicine.  She turned away once more.
+
+"Don't go," I repeated.
+
+"I am not going.  Not for the present."
+
+I was quite contented with the present.  The future had no charms
+just then.  I lay there, looking at her.  She was paler and thinner
+than she had been when she left Mayberry, almost as pale and thin
+as when I first met her in the back room of Mrs. Briggs' lodging
+house.  And there was another change, a subtle, undefinable change
+in her manner and appearance that puzzled me.  Then I realized what
+it was; she had grown older, more mature.  In Mayberry she had been
+an extraordinarily pretty girl.  Now she was a beautiful woman.
+These last weeks had worked the change.  And I began to understand
+what she had undergone during those weeks.
+
+"Have you been with me ever since it happened--since I was hurt?" I
+asked, suddenly.
+
+"Yes, of course."
+
+"All night?"
+
+She smiled.  "There was very little of the night left," she
+answered.
+
+"But you have had no rest at all.  You must be worn out."
+
+"Oh, no; I am used to it.  My--" with a slight pause before the
+word--"work of late has accustomed me to resting in the daytime.
+And I shall rest by and by, when my aunt--when Miss Cahoon comes."
+
+"Miss Cahoon?  Hephzy?  Have you sent for her?"
+
+My tone of surprise startled her, I think.  She looked at me.
+
+"Sent for her?" she repeated.  "Isn't she here--in Paris?"
+
+"She is in Interlaken, at the Victoria.  Didn't the concierge tell
+you?"
+
+"He told us she was not here, at this hotel, at present.  He said
+she had gone away with some friends.  But we took it for granted
+she was in Paris.  I told them I would stay until she came.  I--"
+
+I interrupted.
+
+"Stay until she comes!" I repeated.  "Stay--!  Why you can't do
+that!  You can't!  You must not!"
+
+"Hush! hush!  Remember you are ill.  Think of yourself!"
+
+"Of myself!  I am thinking of you.  You mustn't stay here--with me.
+What will they think?  What--"
+
+"Hush! hush, please.  Think!  It makes no difference what they
+think.  If I had cared what people thought I should not be singing
+at--Hush! you must not excite yourself in this way."
+
+But I refused to hush.
+
+"You must not!" I cried.  "You shall not!  Why did you do it?  They
+could have found a nurse, if one was needed.  Bayliss--"
+
+"Doctor Bayliss does not know.  If he did I should not care.  As
+for the others--" she colored, slightly,
+
+"Well, I told the concierge that you were my uncle.  It was only a
+white lie; you used to say you were, you know."
+
+"Say!  Oh, Frances, for your own sake, please--"
+
+"Hush!  Do you suppose," her cheeks reddened and her eyes flashed
+as I had seen them flash before, "do you suppose I would go away
+and leave you now?  Now, when you are hurt and ill and--and--after
+all that you have done!  After I treated you as I did!  Oh, let me
+do something!  Let me do a little, the veriest little in return.
+I--Oh, stop! stop!  What are you doing?"
+
+I suppose I was trying to sit up; I remember raising myself on my
+elbow.  Then came the pain again, the throbbing in my head and the
+agonizing pain in my side.  And after that there is another long
+interval in my recollections.
+
+For a week--of course I did not know it was a week then--my
+memories consist only of a series of flashes like the memory of the
+hours immediately following the accident.  I remember people
+talking, but not what they said; I remember her voice, or I think I
+do, and the touch of her hand on my forehead.  And afterward, other
+voices, Hephzy's in particular.  But when I came to myself, weak
+and shaky, but to remain myself for good and all, Hephzy--the real
+Hephzy--was in the room with me.
+
+Even then they would not let me ask questions.  Another day dragged
+by before I was permitted to do that.  Then Hephzy told me I had a
+cracked rib and a variety of assorted bruises, that I had suffered
+slight concussion of the brain, and that my immediate job was to
+behave myself and get well.
+
+"Land sakes!" she exclaimed, "there was a time when I thought you
+never was goin' to get well.  Hour after hour I've set here and
+listened to your gabblin' away about everything under the sun and
+nothin' in particular, as crazy as a kitten in a patch of catnip,
+and thought and thought, what should I do, what SHOULD I do.  And
+now I KNOW what I'm goin' to do.  I'm goin' to keep you in that bed
+till you're strong and well enough to get out of it, if I have to
+sit on you to hold you down.  And I'm no hummin'-bird when it comes
+to perchin', either."
+
+She had received the telegram which Frances sent and had come from
+Interlaken post haste.
+
+"And I don't know," she declared, "which part of that telegram
+upset me most--what there was in it or the name signed at the
+bottom of it.  HER name!  I couldn't believe my eyes.  I didn't
+stop to believe 'em long.  I just came.  And then I found you like
+this."
+
+"Was she here?" I asked.
+
+"Who--Frances!  My, yes, she was here.  So pale and tired lookin'
+that I thought she was goin' to collapse.  But she wouldn't give in
+to it.  She told me all about how it happened and what the doctor
+said and everything.  I didn't pay much attention to it then.  All
+I could think of was you.  Oh, Hosy! my poor boy!  I--I--"
+
+"There! there!" I broke in, gently.  "I'm all right now, or I'm
+going to be.  You will have the quahaug on your hands for a while
+longer.  But," returning to the subject which interested me most,
+"what else did she tell you?  Did she tell you how I met her--and
+where?"
+
+"Why, yes.  She's singin' somewhere--she didn't say where exactly,
+but it is in some kind of opera-house, I judged.  There's a
+perfectly beautiful opera-house a little ways from here on the
+Avenue de L'Opera, right by the Boulevard des Italiens, though
+there's precious few Italians there, far's I can see.  And why an
+opera is a l'opera I--"
+
+"Wait a moment, Hephzy.  Did she tell you of our meeting?  And how
+I found her?"
+
+"Why, not so dreadful much, Hosy.  She's acted kind of queer about
+that, seemed to me.  She said you went to this opera-house,
+wherever it was, and saw her there.  Then you and she were crossin'
+the road and one of these dreadful French automobiles--the way they
+let the things tear round is a disgrace--ran into you.  I declare!
+It almost made ME sick to hear about it.  And to think of me away
+off amongst those mountains, enjoyin' myself and not knowin' a
+thing!  Oh, it makes me ashamed to look in the glass.  I NEVER
+ought to have left you alone, and I knew it.  It's a judgment on
+me, what's happened is."
+
+"Or on me, I should rather say," I added.  Frances had not told
+Hephzy of L'Abbaye, that was evident.  Well, I would keep silence
+also.
+
+"Where is she now?" I asked.  I asked it with as much indifference
+as I could assume, but Hephzy smiled and patted my hand.
+
+"Oh, she comes every day to ask about you," she said.  "And Doctor
+Bayliss comes too.  He's been real kind."
+
+"Bayliss!" I exclaimed.  "Is he with--Does he come here?"
+
+"Yes, he comes real often, mostly about the time she does.  He
+hasn't been here for two days now, though.  Hosy, do you suppose he
+has spoken to her about--about what he spoke to you?"
+
+"I don't know," I answered, curtly.  Then I changed the subject.
+
+"Has she said anything to you about coming back to Mayberry?" I
+asked.  "Have you told her how we feel toward her?"
+
+Hephzy's manner changed.  "Yes," she said, reluctantly, "I've told
+her.  I've told her everything."
+
+"Not everything?  Hephzy, you haven't told her--"
+
+"No, no.  Of course I didn't tell her THAT.  You know I wouldn't,
+Hosy.  But I told her that her money havin' turned out to be our
+money didn't make a mite of difference.  I told her how much we
+come to think of her and how we wanted her to come with us and be
+the same as she had always been.  I begged her to come.  I said
+everything I could say."
+
+"And she said?"
+
+"She said no, Hosy.  She wouldn't consider it at all.  She asked me
+not to talk about it.  It was settled, she said.  She must go her
+way and we ours and we must forget her.  She was more grateful than
+she could tell--she most cried when she said that--but she won't
+come back and if I asked her again she declared she should have to
+go away for good."
+
+"I know.  That is what she said to me."
+
+"Yes.  I can't make it out exactly.  It's her pride, I suppose.
+Her mother was just as proud.  Oh, dear!  When I saw her here for
+the first time, after I raced back from Interlaken, I thought--I
+almost hoped--but I guess it can't be."
+
+I did not answer.  I knew only too well that it could not be.
+
+"Does she seem happy?" I asked.
+
+"Why, no; I don't think she is happy.  There are times, especially
+when you began to get better, when she seemed happier, but the last
+few times she was here she was--well, different."
+
+"How different?"
+
+"It's hard to tell you.  She looked sort of worn and sad and
+discouraged.  Hosy, what sort of a place is it she is singin' in?"
+
+"Why do you ask that?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know.  Some things you said when you were out of your
+head made me wonder.  That, and some talk I overheard her and
+Doctor Bayliss havin' one time when they were in the other room--my
+room--together.  I had stepped out for a minute and when I came
+back, I came in this door instead of the other.  They were in the
+other room talkin' and he was beggin' her not to stay somewhere any
+more.  It wasn't a fit place for her to be, he said; her reputation
+would be ruined.  She cut him short by sayin' that her reputation
+was her own and that she should do as she thought best, or
+somethin' like that.  Then I coughed, so they would know I was
+around, and they commenced talkin' of somethin' else.  But it set
+me thinkin' and when you said--"
+
+She paused.  "What did I say?" I asked.
+
+"Why, 'twas when she and I were here.  You had been quiet for a
+while and all at once you broke out--delirious you was--beggin'
+somebody or other not to do somethin'.  For your sake, for their
+own sake, they mustn't do it.  'Twas awful to hear you.  A mixed-up
+jumble about Abbie, whoever she is--not much, by the way you went
+on about her--and please, please, please, for the Lord's sake, give
+it up.  I tried to quiet you, but you wouldn't be quieted.  And
+finally you said:  'Frances!  Oh, Frances! don't!  Say that you
+won't any more.'  I gave you your sleepin' drops then; I thought
+'twas time.  I was afraid you'd say somethin' that you wouldn't
+want her to hear.  You understand, don't you, Hosy?"
+
+"I understand.  Thank you, Hephzy."
+
+"Yes.  Well, _I_ didn't understand and I asked her if she did.
+She said no, but she was dreadfully upset and I think she did
+understand, in spite of her sayin' it.  What sort of a place is it,
+this opera-house where she sings?"
+
+I dodged the question as best I could.  I doubt if Hephzy's
+suspicions were allayed, but she did not press the subject.
+Instead she told me I had talked enough for that afternoon and must
+rest.
+
+That evening I saw Bayliss for the first time since the accident.
+He congratulated me on my recovery and I thanked him for his help
+in bringing me to the hotel.  He waved my thanks aside.
+
+"Quite unnecessary, thanking me," he said, shortly.  "I couldn't do
+anything else, of course.  Well, I must be going.  Glad you're
+feeling more fit, Knowles, I'm sure."
+
+"And you?" I asked.  "How are you?"
+
+"I?  Oh, I'm fit enough, I suppose.  Good-by."
+
+He didn't look fit.  He looked more haggard and worn and moody than
+ever.  And his manner was absent and distrait.  Hephzy noticed it;
+there were few things she did not notice.
+
+"Either that boy's meals don't agree with him," she announced, "or
+somethin's weighin' on his mind.  He looks as if he'd lost his last
+friend.  Hosy, do you suppose he's spoken to--to her about what he
+spoke of to you?"
+
+"I don't know.  I suppose he has.  He was only too anxious to
+speak, there in Mayberry."
+
+"Humph!  Well, IF he has, then--Hosy, sometimes I think this, all
+this pilgrimage of ours--that's what you used to call it, a
+pilgrimage--is goin' to turn out right, after all.  Don't it remind
+you of a book, this last part of it?"
+
+"A dismal sort of book," I said, gloomily.
+
+"Well, I don't know.  Here are you, the hero, and here's she, the
+heroine.  And the hero is sick and the heroine comes to take care
+of him--she WAS takin' care of you afore I came, you know; and she
+falls in love with him and--"
+
+"Yes," I observed, sarcastically.  "She always does--in books.  But
+in those books the hero is not a middle-aged quahaug.  Suppose we
+stick to real life and possibilities, Hephzy."
+
+Hephzy was unconvinced.  "I don't care," she said.  "She ought to
+even if she doesn't.  _I_ fell in love with you long ago, Hosy.
+And she DID bring you here after you were hurt and took care of
+you."
+
+"Hush! hush!" I broke in.  "She took care of me, as you call it,
+because she thought it was her duty.  She thinks she is under great
+obligation to us because we did not pitch her into the street when
+we first met her.  She insists that she owes us money and
+gratitude.  Her kindness to me and her care are part payment of the
+debt.  She told me so, herself."
+
+"But--"
+
+"There aren't any 'buts.'  You mustn't be an idiot because I have
+been one, Hephzy.  We agreed not to speak of that again.  Don't
+remind me of it."
+
+Hephzy sighed.  "All right," she said.  "I suppose you are right,
+Hosy.  But--but how is all this goin' to end?  She won't go with
+us.  Are we goin' to leave her here alone?"
+
+I was silent.  The same question was in my mind, but I had answered
+it.  I was NOT going to leave her there alone.  And yet--
+
+"If I was sure," mused Hephzy, "that she was in love with Herbert
+Bayliss, then 'twould be all right, I suppose.  They would get
+married and it would be all right--or near right--wouldn't it,
+Hosy."
+
+I said nothing.
+
+The next morning I saw her.  She came to inquire for me and Hephzy
+brought her into my room for a stay of a minute or two.  She seemed
+glad to find me so much improved in health and well on the road to
+recovery.  I tried to thank her for her care of me, for her sending
+for Hephzy and all the rest of it, but she would not listen.  She
+chatted about Paris and the French people, about Monsieur Louis,
+the concierge, and joked with Hephzy about that gentleman's
+admiration for "the wonderful American lady," meaning Hephzy
+herself.
+
+"He calls you 'Madame Cay-hoo-on,'" she said, "and he thinks you a
+miracle of decision and management.  I think he is almost afraid of
+you, I really do."
+
+Hephzy smiled, grimly.  "He'd better be," she declared.  "The way
+everybody was flyin' around when I first got here after comin' from
+Interlaken, and the way the help jabbered and hunched up their
+shoulders when I asked questions made me so fidgety I couldn't keep
+still.  I wanted an egg for breakfast, that first mornin' and when
+the waiter brought it, it was in the shell, the way they eat eggs
+over here.  I can't eat 'em that way--I'm no weasel--and I told the
+waiter I wanted an egg cup.  Nigh as I could make out from his
+pigeon English he was tellin' me there was a cup there.  Well,
+there was, one of those little, two-for-a-cent contraptions, just
+big enough to stick one end of the egg into.  'I want a big one,'
+says I.  'We, Madame,' says he, and off he trotted.  When he came
+back he brought me a big EGG, a duck's egg, I guess 'twas.  Then I
+scolded and he jabbered some more and by and by he went and fetched
+this Monsieur Louis man.  He could speak English, thank goodness,
+and he was real nice, in his French way.  He begged my pardon for
+the waiter's stupidness, said he was a new hand, and the like of
+that, and went on apologizin' and bowin' and smilin' till I almost
+had a fit.
+
+"'For mercy sakes!' I says, 'don't say any more about it.  If that
+last egg hadn't been boiled 'twould have hatched out an--an
+ostrich, or somethin' or other, by this time.  And it's stone cold,
+of course.  Have this--this jumpin'-jack of yours bring me a hot
+egg--a hen's egg--opened, in a cup big enough to see without
+spectacles, and tell him to bring some cream with the coffee.  At
+any rate, if there isn't any cream, have him bring some real milk
+instead of this watery stuff.  I might wash clothes with that, for
+I declare I think there's bluin' in it, but I sha'n't drink it; I'd
+be afraid of swallowin' a fish by accident.  And do hurry!'
+
+"He went away then, hurryin' accordin' to orders, and ever since
+then he's been bobbin' up to ask if 'Madame finds everything
+satisfactory.'  I suppose likely I shouldn't have spoken as I did,
+he means well--it isn't his fault, or the waiter's either, that
+they can't talk without wavin' their hands as if they were givin'
+three cheers--but I was terribly nervous that mornin' and I barked
+like a tied-up dog.  Oh dear, Hosy! if ever I missed you and your
+help it's in this blessed country."
+
+Frances laughed at all this; she seemed just then to be in high
+spirits; but I thought, or imagined, that her high spirits were
+assumed for our benefit.  At the first hint of questioning
+concerning her own life, where she lodged or what her plans might
+be, she rose and announced that she must go.
+
+Each morning of that week she came, remaining but a short time, and
+always refusing to speak of herself or her plans.  Hephzy and I,
+finding that a reference to those plans meant the abrupt termination
+of the call, ceased trying to question.  And we did not mention our
+life at the rectory, either; that, too, she seemed unwilling to
+discuss.  Once, when I spoke of our drive to Wrayton, she began a
+reply, stopped in the middle of a sentence, and then left the room.
+
+Hephzy hastened after her.  She returned alone.
+
+"She was cryin', Hosy," she said.  "She said she wasn't, but she
+was.  The poor thing! she's unhappy and I know it; she's miserable.
+But she's so proud she won't own it and, although I'm dyin' to put
+my arms around her and comfort her, I know if I did she'd go away
+and never come back.  Do you notice she hasn't called me 'Auntie'
+once.  And she always used to--at the rectory.  I'm afraid--I'm
+afraid she's just as determined as she was when she ran away, never
+to live with us again.  What SHALL we do?"
+
+I did not know and I did not dare to think.  I was as certain that
+these visits would cease very soon as I was that they were the only
+things which made my life bearable.  How I did look forward to
+them!  And while she was there, with us, how short the time seemed
+and how it dragged when she had gone.  The worst thing possible for
+me, this seeing her and being with her; I knew it.  I knew it
+perfectly well.  But, knowing it, and realizing that it could not
+last and that it was but the prelude to a worse loneliness which
+was sure to come, made no difference.  I dreaded to be well again,
+fearing that would mean the end of those visits.
+
+But I was getting well and rapidly.  I sat up for longer and longer
+periods each day.  I began to read my letters now, instead of
+having Hephzy read them to me, letters from Matthews at the London
+office and from Jim Campbell at home.  Matthews had cabled Jim of
+the accident and later that I was recovering.  So Jim wrote,
+professing to find material gain in the affair.
+
+"Great stuff," he wrote.  "Two chapters at least.  The hero,
+pursuing the villain through the streets of Paris at midnight, is
+run down by an auto driven by said villain.  'Ah ha!' says the
+villain:  'Now will you be good?' or words to that effect.
+'Desmond,' says the hero, unflinchingly, as they extract the
+cobble-stones from his cuticle, 'you triumph for the moment, but
+beware! there will be something doing later on.'  See?  If it
+wasn't for the cracked rib and the rest I should be almost glad it
+happened.  All you need is the beautiful heroine nursing you to
+recovery.  Can't you find her?"
+
+He did not know that I had found her, or that the hoped-for novel
+was less likely to be finished than ever.
+
+Hephzy was now able to leave me occasionally, to take the walks
+which I insisted upon.  She had some queer experiences in these
+walks.
+
+"Lost again to-day, Hosy," she said, cheerfully, removing her
+bonnet.  "I went cruisin' through the streets over to the south'ard
+and they were so narrow and so crooked--to say nothin' of bein'
+dirty and smelly--that I thought I never should get out.  Of course
+I could have hired a hack and let it bring me to the hotel but I
+wouldn't do that.  I was set on findin' my own way.  I'd walked in
+and I was goin' to walk out, that was all there was to it.
+'Twasn't the first time I'd been lost in this Paris place and I've
+got a system of my own.  When I get to the square 'Place delay
+Concorde,' they call it, I know where I am.  And 'Concorde' is
+enough like Concord, Mass., to make me remember the name.  So I
+walk up to a nice appearin' Frenchman with a tall hat and whiskers--
+I didn't know there was so many chin whiskers outside of East
+Harniss, or some other back number place--and I say, 'Pardon,
+Monseer.  Place delay Concorde?'  Just like that with a question
+mark after it.  After I say it two or three times he begins to get
+a floatin' sniff of what I'm drivin' at and says he:  'Place delay
+Concorde?  Oh, we, we, we, Madame!'  Then a whole string of jabber
+and arm wavin', with some countin' in the middle of it.  Now I've
+learned 'one, two, three' in French and I know he means for me to
+keep on for two or three more streets in the way he's pointin'.  So
+I keep on, and, when I get there, I go through the whole rigamarole
+with another Frenchman.  About the third session and I'm back on
+the Concord Place.  THERE I am all right.  No, I don't propose to
+stay lost long.  My father and grandfather and all my men folks
+spent their lives cruisin' through crooked passages and crowded
+shoals and I guess I've inherited some of the knack."
+
+At last I was strong enough to take a short outing in Hephzy's
+company.  I returned to the hotel, where Hephzy left me.  She was
+going to do a little shopping by herself.  I went to my room and
+sat down to rest.  A bell boy--at least that is what we should have
+called him in the States--knocked at the door.
+
+"A lady to see Monsieur," he said.
+
+The lady was Frances.
+
+She entered the room and I rose to greet her.
+
+"Why, you are alone!" she exclaimed.  "Where is Miss Cahoon?"
+
+"She is out, on a shopping expedition," I explained.  "She will be
+back soon.  I have been out too.  We have been driving together.
+What do you think of that!"
+
+She seemed pleased at the news but when I urged her to sit and wait
+for Hephzy's return she hesitated.  Her hesitation, however, was
+only momentary.  She took the chair by the window and we chatted
+together, of my newly-gained strength, of Hephzy's adventures as a
+pathfinder in Paris, of the weather, of a dozen inconsequential
+things.  I found it difficult to sustain my part in the conversation.
+There was so much of real importance which I wanted to say.  I
+wanted to ask her about herself, where she lodged, if she was still
+singing at L'Abbaye, what her plans for the future might be.  And I
+did not dare.
+
+My remarks became more and more disjointed and she, too, seemed
+uneasy and absent-minded.  At length there was an interval of
+silence.  She broke that silence.
+
+"I suppose," she said, "you will be going back to Mayberry soon."
+
+"Back to Mayberry?" I repeated.
+
+"Yes.  You and Miss Cahoon will go back there, of course, now that
+you are strong enough to travel.  She told me that the American
+friends with whom you and she were to visit Switzerland had changed
+their plans and were going on to Italy.  She said that she had
+written them that your proposed Continental trip was abandoned."
+
+"Yes.  Yes, that was given up, of course."
+
+"Then you will go back to England, will you not?"
+
+"I don't know.  We have made no plans as yet."
+
+"But you will go back.  Miss Cahoon said you would.  And, when your
+lease of the rectory expires, you will sail for America."
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"But you must know," with a momentary impatience.  "Surely you
+don't intend to remain here in Paris."
+
+"I don't know that, either.  I haven't considered what I shall do.
+It depends--that is--"
+
+I did not finish the sentence.  I had said more than I intended and
+it was high time I stopped.  But I had said too much, as it was.
+She asked more questions.
+
+"Upon what does it depend?" she asked.
+
+"Oh, nothing.  I did not mean that it depended upon anything in
+particular.  I--"
+
+"You must have meant something.  Tell me--answer me truthfully,
+please:  Does it depend upon me?"
+
+Of course that was just what it did depend upon.  And suddenly I
+determined to tell her so.
+
+"Frances," I demanded, "are you still there--at that place?"
+
+"At L'Abbaye.  Yes."
+
+"You sing there every night?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why do you do it?  You know--"
+
+"I know everything.  But you know, too.  I told you I sang there
+because I must earn my living in some way and that seems to be the
+only place where I can earn it.  They pay me well there, and the
+people--the proprietors--are considerate and kind, in their way."
+
+"But it isn't a fit place for you.  And you don't like it; I know
+you don't."
+
+"No," quietly.  "I don't like it."
+
+"Then don't do it.  Give it up."
+
+"If I give it up what shall I do?"
+
+"You know.  Come back with us and live with us as you did before.
+I want you; Hephzy is crazy to have you.  We--she has missed you
+dreadfully.  She grieves for you and worries about you.  We offer
+you a home and--"
+
+She interrupted.  "Please don't," she said.  "I have told you that
+that is impossible.  It is.  I shall never go back to Mayberry."
+
+"But why?  Your aunt--"
+
+"Don't!  My aunt is very kind--she has been so kind that I cannot
+bear to speak of her.  Her kindness and--and yours are the few
+pleasant memories that I have--of this last dreadful year.  To
+please you both I would do anything--anything--except--"
+
+"Don't make any exceptions.  Come with us.  If not to Mayberry,
+then somewhere else.  Come to America with us."
+
+"No."
+
+"Frances--"
+
+"Don't!  My mind is made up.  Please don't speak of that again."
+
+Again I realized the finality in her tone.  The same finality was
+in mine as I answered.
+
+"Then I shall stay here," I declared.  "I shall not leave you
+alone, without friends or a protector of any kind, to sing night
+after night in that place.  I shall not do it.  I shall stay here
+as long as you do."
+
+She was silent.  I wondered what was coming next.  I expected her
+to say, as she had said before, that I was forcing her to give up
+her one opportunity.  I expected reproaches and was doggedly
+prepared to meet them.  But she did not reproach me.  She said
+nothing; instead she seemed to be thinking, to be making up her
+mind.
+
+"Don't do it, Frances," I pleaded.  "Don't sing there any longer.
+Give it up.  You don't like the work; it isn't fit work for you.
+Give it up."
+
+She rose from her chair and standing by the window looked out into
+the street.  Suddenly she turned and looked at me.
+
+"Would it please you if I gave up singing at L'Abbaye?" she asked
+quietly.  "You know it would."
+
+"And if I did would you and Miss Cahoon go back to England--at
+once?"
+
+Here was another question, one that I found very hard to answer.
+I tried to temporize.
+
+"We want you to come with us," I said, earnestly.  "We want you.
+Hephzy--"
+
+"Oh, don't, don't, don't!  Why will you persist?  Can't you
+understand that you hurt me?  I am trying to believe I have some
+self-respect left, even after all that has happened.  And you--What
+CAN you think of me!  No, I tell you!  NO!"
+
+"But for Hephzy's sake.  She is your only relative."
+
+She looked at me oddly.  And when she spoke her answer surprised
+me.
+
+"You are mistaken," she said.  "I have other--relatives.  Good-by,
+Mr. Knowles."
+
+She was on her way to the door.
+
+"But, Frances," I cried, "you are not going.  Wait.  Hephzy will be
+here any moment.  Don't go."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"I must go," she said.  At the door she turned and looked back.
+
+"Good-by," she said, again.  "Good-by, Kent."
+
+She had gone and when I reached the door she had turned the corner
+of the corridor.
+
+When Hephzy came I told her of the visit and what had taken place.
+
+"That's queer," said Hephzy.  "I can't think what she meant.
+I don't know of any other relatives she's got except Strickland
+Morley's tribe.  And they threw him overboard long, long ago.
+I can't understand who she meant; can you, Hosy?"
+
+I had been thinking.
+
+"Wasn't there someone else--some English cousins of hers with whom
+she lived for a time after her father's death?  Didn't she tell you
+about them?"
+
+Hephzy nodded vigorously.  "That's so," she declared.  "There was.
+And she did live with 'em, too.  She never told me their names or
+where they lived, but I know she despised and hated 'em.  She gave
+me to understand that.  And she ran away from 'em, too, just as she
+did from us.  I don't see why she should have meant them.  I don't
+believe she did.  Perhaps she'll tell us more next time she comes.
+That'll be tomorrow, most likely."
+
+I hoped that it might be to-morrow, but I was fearful.  The way in
+which she had said good-by made me so.  Her look, her manner,
+seemed to imply more than a good-by for a day.  And, though this I
+did not tell Hephzy, she had called me "Kent" for the first time
+since the happy days at the rectory.  I feared--all sorts of
+things.
+
+She did not come on the morrow, or the following day, or the day
+after that.  Another week passed and she did not come, nor had we
+received any word from her.  By that time Hephzy was as anxious and
+fretful as I.  And, when I proposed going in search of her, Hephzy,
+for a wonder, considering how very, very careful she was of my
+precious health, did not say no.
+
+"You're pretty close to bein' as well as ever you was, Hosy," she
+said.  "And I know how terribly worried you are.  If you do go out
+at night you may be sick again, but if you don't go and lay awake
+frettin' and frettin' about her I KNOW you'll be sick.  So perhaps
+you'd better do it.  Shall I--Sha'n't I go with you?"
+
+"I think you had better not," I said.
+
+"Well, perhaps you're right.  You never would tell me much about
+this opera-house, or whatever 'tis, but I shouldn't wonder if,
+bein' a Yankee, I'd guessed considerable.  Go, Hosy, and bring her
+back if you can.  Find her anyhow.  There! there run along.  The
+hack's down at the door waitin'.  Is your head feelin' all right?
+You're sure?  And you haven't any pain?  And you'll keep wrapped
+up?  All right?  Good-by, dearie.  Hurry back!  Do hurry back, for
+my sake.  And I hope--Oh, I do hope you'll bring no bad news."
+
+L'Abbaye, at eight-thirty in the evening was a deserted place
+compared to what it had been when I visited it at midnight.  The
+waiters and attendants were there, of course, and a few early bird
+patrons, but not many.  The bearded proprietors, or managers, were
+flying about, and I caught one of them in the middle of a flight.
+
+He did not recognize me at first, but when I stated my errand, he
+did.  Out went his hands and up went his shoulders.
+
+"The Mademoiselle," he said.  "Ah, yes!  You are her friend,
+Monsieur; I remember perfectly.  Oh, no, no, no! she is not here
+any more.  She has left us.  She sings no longer at L'Abbaye.  We
+are desolate; we are inconsolable.  We pleaded, but she was firm.
+She has gone.  Where?  Ah, Monsieur, so many ask that; but alas! we
+do not know."
+
+"But you do know where she lives," I urged.  "You must know her
+home address.  Give me that.  It is of the greatest importance that
+I see her at once."
+
+At first he declared that he did not know her address, the address
+where she lodged.  I persisted and, at last, he admitted that he
+did know it, but that he was bound by the most solemn promise to
+reveal it to no one.
+
+"It was her wish, Monsieur.  It was a part of the agreement under
+which she sang for us.  No one should know who she was or where she
+lived.  And I--I am an honorable man, Monsieur.  I have promised
+and--" the business of shoulders and hands again--"my pledged word
+to a lady, how shall it be broken?"
+
+I found a way to break it, nevertheless.  A trio of gold pieces and
+the statement that I was her uncle did the trick.  An uncle!  Ah,
+that was different.  And, Mademoiselle had consented to see me when
+I came before, that was true.  She had seen the young English
+gentleman also--but we two only.  Was the young English Monsieur--
+"the Doctor Baylees"--was he a relative also?
+
+I did not answer that question.  It was not his business and,
+beside, I did not wish to speak of Herbert Bayliss.
+
+The address which the manager of L'Abbaye gave me, penciled on a
+card, was a number in a street in Montmartre, and not far away.  I
+might easily have walked there, I was quite strong enough for
+walking now, but I preferred a cab.  Paris motor cabs, as I knew
+from experience, moved rapidly.  This one bore me to my destination
+in a few minutes.
+
+A stout middle-aged French woman answered my ring.  But her answer
+to my inquiries was most unsatisfactory.  And, worse than all, I
+was certain she was telling me the truth.
+
+The Mademoiselle was no longer there, she said.  She had given up
+her room three days ago and had gone away.  Where?  That, alas, was
+a question.  She had told no one.  She had gone and she was not
+coming back.  Was it not a pity, a great pity!  Such a beautiful
+Mademoiselle! such an artiste! who sang so sweetly!  Ah, the
+success she had made.  And such a good young lady, too!  Not like
+the others--oh, no, no, no!  No one was to know she lodged there;
+she would see no one.  Ah, a good girl, Monsieur, if ever one
+lived.
+
+"Did she--did she go alone?" I asked.
+
+The stout lady hesitated.  Was Monsieur a very close friend?
+Perhaps a relative?
+
+"An uncle," I said, telling the old lie once more.
+
+Ah, an uncle!  It was all right then.  No, Mademoiselle had not
+gone alone.  A young gentleman, a young English gentleman had gone
+with her, or, at least, had brought the cab in which she went and
+had driven off in it with her.  A young English gentleman with a
+yellow mustache.  Perhaps I knew him.
+
+I recognized the description.  She had left the house with Herbert
+Bayliss.  What did that mean?  Had she said yes to him?  Were they
+married?  I dreaded to know, but know I must.
+
+And, as the one possible chance of settling the question, I bade my
+cab driver take me to the Hotel Continental.  There, at the desk, I
+asked if Doctor Bayliss was still in the hotel.  They said he was.
+I think I must have appeared strange or the gasp of relief with
+which I received the news was audible, for the concierge asked me
+if I was ill.  I said no, and then he told me that Bayliss was
+planning to leave the next day, but was just then in his room.  Did
+I wish to see him?  I said I did and gave them my card.
+
+He came down soon afterward.  I had not seen him for a fortnight,
+for his calls had ceased even before Frances' last visit.  Hephzy
+had said that, in her opinion, his meals must be disagreeing with
+him.  Judging by his appearance his digestion was still very much
+impaired.  He was in evening dress, of course; being an English
+gentleman he would have dressed for his own execution, if it was
+scheduled to take place after six o'clock.  But his tie was
+carelessly arranged, his shirt bosom was slightly crumpled and
+there was a general "don't care" look about his raiment which was,
+for him, most unusual.  And he was very solemn.  I decided at once,
+whatever might have happened, it was not what I surmised.  He was
+neither a happy bridegroom nor a prospective one.
+
+"Good evening, Bayliss," said I, and extended my hand.
+
+"Good evening, Knowles," he said, but he kept his own hands in his
+pockets.  And he did not ask me to be seated.
+
+"Well?" he said, after a moment.
+
+"I came to you," I began--mine was a delicate errand and hard to
+state--"I came to you to ask if you could tell me where Miss Morley
+has gone.  She has left L'Abbaye and has given up her room at her
+lodgings.  She has gone--somewhere.  Do you know where she is?"
+
+It was quite evident that he did know.  I could see it in his face.
+He did not answer, however.  Instead he glanced about uneasily and
+then, turning, led the way toward a small reception room adjoining
+the lobby.  This room was, save for ourselves, unoccupied.
+
+"We can be more private here," he explained, briefly.  "What did
+you ask?"
+
+"I asked if you knew where Miss Morley had gone and where she was
+at the present time?"
+
+He hesitated, pulling at his mustache, and frowning.  "I don't see
+why you should ask me that?" he said, after a moment.
+
+"But I do ask it.  Do you know where she is?"
+
+Another pause.  "Well, if I did," he said, stiffly, "I see no
+reason why I should tell you.  To be perfectly frank, and as I have
+said to you before, I don't consider myself bound to tell you
+anything concerning her."
+
+His manner was most offensive.  Again, as at the time I came to him
+at that very hotel on a similar errand, after my arrival in Paris,
+I found it hard to keep my temper.
+
+"Don't misunderstand me," I said, as calmly as I could.  "I am not
+pretending now to have a claim upon Miss Morley.  I am not asking
+you to tell me just where she is, if you don't wish to tell.  And
+it is not for my sake--that is, not primarily for that--that I am
+anxious about her.  It is for hers.  I wish you might tell me this:
+Is she safe?  Is she among friends?  Is she--is she quite safe and
+in a respectable place and likely to be happy?  Will you tell me
+that?"
+
+He hesitated again.  "She is quite safe," he said, after a moment.
+"And she is among friends, or I suppose they are friends.  As to
+her being happy--well, you ought to know that better than I, it
+seems to me."
+
+I was puzzled.  "_I_ ought to know?" I repeated.  "I ought to know
+whether she is happy or not?  I don't understand."
+
+He looked at me intently.  "Don't you?" he asked.  "You are certain
+you don't?  Humph!  Well, if I were in your place I would jolly
+well find out; you may be sure of that."
+
+"What are you driving at, Bayliss?  I tell you I don't know what
+you mean."
+
+He did not answer.  He was frowning and kicking the corner of a rug
+with his foot.
+
+"I don't understand what you mean," I repeated.  "You are saying
+too much or too little for my comprehension."
+
+"I've said too much," he muttered.  "At all events, I have said all
+I shall say.  Was there any other subject you wished to see me
+about, Knowles?  If not I must be going.  I'm rather busy this
+evening."
+
+"There was no subject but that one.  And you will tell me nothing
+more concerning Miss Morley?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Good night," I said, and turned away.  Then I turned back.
+
+"Bayliss," said I, "I think perhaps I had better say this:  I have
+only the kindest feelings toward you.  You may have misunderstood
+my attitude in all this.  I have said nothing to prejudice her--
+Miss Morley against you.  I never shall.  You care for her, I know.
+If she cares for you that is enough, so far as I am concerned.  Her
+happiness is my sole wish.  I want you to consider me your friend--
+and hers."
+
+Once more I extended my hand.  For an instant I thought he was
+going to take it, but he did not.
+
+"No," he said, sullenly.  "I won't shake hands with you.  Why
+should I?  You don't mean what you say.  At least I don't think you
+do.  I--I--By Jove! you can't!"
+
+"But I do," I said, patiently.
+
+"You can't!  Look here! you say I care for her.  God knows I do!
+But you--suppose you knew where she was, what would you do?  Would
+you go to her?"
+
+I had been considering this very thing, during my ride to the
+lodgings and on the way to the hotel; and I had reached a
+conclusion.
+
+"No," I answered, slowly.  "I think I should not.  I know she does
+not wish me to follow her.  I suppose she went away to avoid me.
+If I were convinced that she was among friends, in a respectable
+place, and quite safe, I should try to respect her wish.  I think I
+should not follow her there."
+
+He stared at me, wide-eyed.
+
+"You wouldn't!" he repeated.  "You wouldn't!  And you--Oh, I say!
+And you talked of her happiness!"
+
+"It is her happiness I am thinking of.  If it were my own I should--"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Nothing, nothing.  She will be happier if I do not follow her, I
+suppose.  That is enough for me."
+
+He regarded me with the same intent stare.
+
+"Knowles," he said, suddenly, "she is at the home of a relative of
+hers--Cripps is the name--in Leatherhead, England.  There!  I have
+told you.  Why I should be such a fool I don't know.  And now you
+will go there, I suppose.  What?"
+
+"No," I answered.  "No.  I thank you for telling me, Bayliss, but
+it shall make no difference.  I will respect her wish.  I will not
+go there."
+
+"You won't!"
+
+"No, I will not trouble her again."
+
+To my surprise he laughed.  It was not a pleasant laugh, there was
+more sarcasm than mirth in it, or so it seemed, but why he should
+laugh at all I could not understand.
+
+"Knowles," he said, "you're a good fellow, but--"
+
+"But what?" I asked, stiffly.
+
+"You're no end of a silly ass in some ways.  Good night."
+
+He turned on his heel and walked off.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+In Which I, as Well as Mr. Solomon Cripps, Am Surprised
+
+
+"And to think," cried Hephzy, for at least the fifth time since I
+told her, "that those Crippses are her people, the cousins she
+lived with after her pa's death!  No wonder she was surprised when
+I told her how you and I went to Leatherhead and looked at their
+'Ash Dump'--'Ash Chump,' I mean.  And we came just as near hirin'
+it, too; we would have hired it if she hadn't put her foot down and
+said she wouldn't go there.  A good many queer things have happened
+on this pilgrimage of ours, Hosy, but I do believe our goin'
+straight to those Crippses, of all the folks in England, is about
+the strangest.  Seems as if we was sent there with a purpose, don't
+it?"
+
+"It is a strange coincidence," I admitted.
+
+"It's more'n that.  And her goin' back to them is queerer still.
+She hates 'em, I know she does.  She as much as said so, not
+mention' their names, of course.  Why did she do it?"
+
+I knew why she had done it, or I believed I did.
+
+"She did it to please you and me, Hephzy," I said.  "And to get rid
+of us.  She said she would do anything to please us, and she knew I
+did not want her to remain here in Paris.  I told her I should stay
+here as long as she did, or at least as long as she sang at--at the
+place where she was singing.  And she asked if, provided she gave
+up singing there, you and I would go back to England--or America?"
+
+"Yes, I know; you told me that, Hosy.  But you said you didn't
+promise to do it."
+
+"I didn't promise anything.  I couldn't promise not to follow her.
+I didn't believe I could keep the promise.  But I sha'n't follow
+her, Hephzy.  I shall not go to Leatherhead."
+
+Hephzy was silent for a moment.  Then she said:  "Why not?"
+
+"You know why.  That night when I first met her, the night after
+you had gone to Lucerne, she told me that if I persisted in
+following her and trying to see her I would force her to give up
+the only means of earning a living she had been able to find.
+Well, I have forced her to do that.  She has been obliged to run
+away once more in order to get rid of us.  I am not going to
+persecute her further.  I am going to try and be unselfish and
+decent, if I can.  Now that we know she is safe and among friends--
+"
+
+"Friends!  A healthy lot of friends they are--that Solomon Cripps
+and his wife!  If ever I ran afoul of a sanctimonious pair of
+hypocrites they're the pair.  Oh, they were sweet and buttery
+enough to us, I give in, but that was because they thought we was
+goin' to hire their Dump or Chump, or whatever 'twas.  I'll bet
+they could be hard as nails to anybody they had under their thumbs.
+Whenever I see a woman or a man with a mouth that shuts up like a
+crack in a plate, the way theirs do, it takes more than Scriptur'
+texts from that mouth to make me believe it won't bite when it has
+the chance.  Safe! poor Little Frank may be safe enough at
+Leatherhead, but I'll bet she's miserable.  WHAT made her go
+there?"
+
+"Because she had no other place to go, I suppose," I said.  "And
+there, among her relatives, she thought she would be free from our
+persecution."
+
+"There's some things worse than persecution," Hephzy declared;
+"and, so far as that goes, there are different kinds of
+persecution.  But what makes those Crippses willin' to take her in
+and look after her is what _I_ can't understand.  They MAY be
+generous and forgivin' and kind, but, if they are, then I miss my
+guess.  The whole business is awful queer.  Tell me all about your
+talk with Doctor Bayliss, Hosy.  What did he say?  And how did he
+look when he said it?"
+
+I told her, repeating our conversation word for word, as near as I
+could remember it.  She listened intently and when I had finished
+there was an odd expression on her face.
+
+"Humph!" she exclaimed.  "He seemed surprised to think you weren't
+goin' to Leatherhead, you say?"
+
+"Yes.  At least I thought he was surprised.  He knew I had chased
+her from Mayberry to Paris and was there at the hotel trying to
+learn from him where she was.  And he knows you are her aunt.  I
+suppose he thought it strange that we were not going to follow her
+any further."
+
+"Maybe so . . . maybe so.  But why did he call you a--what was it?--
+a silly donkey?"
+
+"Because I am one, I imagine," I answered, bitterly.  "It's my
+natural state.  I was born one."
+
+"Humph!  Well, 'twould take more than that boy's word to make me
+believe it.  No there's something!--I wish I could see that young
+fellow myself.  He's at the Continental Hotel, you say?"
+
+"Yes; but he leaves to-morrow.  There, Hephzy, that's enough.
+Don't talk about it.  Change the subject.  I am ready to go back to
+England--yes, or America either, whenever you say the word.  The
+sooner the better for me."
+
+Hephzy obediently changed the subject and we decided to leave Paris
+the following afternoon.  We would go back to the rectory, of
+course, and leave there for home as soon as the necessary
+arrangements could be made.  Hephzy agreed to everything, she
+offered no objections, in fact it seemed to me that she was paying
+very little attention.  Her lack of interest--yes, and apparent
+lack of sympathy, for I knew she must know what my decision meant
+to me--hurt and irritated me.
+
+I rose.
+
+"Good night," I said, curtly.  "I'm going to bed."
+
+"That's right, Hosy.  You ought to go.  You'll be sick again if you
+sit up any longer.  Good night, dearie."
+
+"And you?" I asked.  "What are you going to do?"
+
+"I'm going to set up a spell longer.  I want to think."
+
+"I don't.  I wish I might never think again.  Or dream, either.  I
+am awake at last.  God knows I wish I wasn't!"
+
+She moved toward me.  There was the same odd expression on her face
+and a queer, excited look in her eyes.
+
+"Perhaps you aren't really awake, Hosy," she said, gently.
+"Perhaps this is the final dream and when you do wake you'll find--
+"
+
+"Oh, bosh!" I interrupted.  "Don't tell me you have another
+presentiment.  If you have keep it to yourself.  Good night."
+
+I was weak from my recent illness and I had been under a great
+nervous strain all that evening.  These are my only excuses and
+they are poor ones.  I spoke and acted abominably and I was sorry
+for it afterward.  I have told Hephzy so a good many times since,
+but I think she understood without my telling her.
+
+"Well," she said, quietly, "dreams are somethin', after all.  It's
+somethin' to have had dreams.  I sha'n't forget mine.  Good night,
+Hosy."
+
+The next morning after breakfast she announced that she had an
+errand or two to do.  She would run out and do them, she said, but
+she would be gone only a little while.  She was gone nearly two
+hours during which I paced the floor or sat by the window looking
+out.  The crowded boulevard was below me, but I did not see it.
+All I saw was a future as desolate and blank as the Bayport flats
+at low tide, and I, a quahaug on those flats, doomed to live, or
+exist, forever and ever and ever, with nothing to live for.
+
+Hephzy, when she did return to the hotel, was surprisingly chatty
+and good-humored.  She talked, talked, talked all the time, about
+nothing in particular, laughed a good deal, and flew about, packing
+our belongings and humming to herself.  She acted more like the
+Hephzy of old than she had for weeks.  There was an air of
+suppressed excitement about her which I could not understand.  I
+attributed it to the fact of our leaving for America in the near
+future and her good humor irritated me.  My spirits were lower than
+ever.
+
+"You seem to be remarkably happy," I observed, fretfully.
+
+"What makes you think so, Hosy?  Because I was singin'?  Father
+used to say my singin' was the most doleful noise he ever heard,
+except a fog-horn on a lee shore.  I'm glad if you think it's a
+proof of happiness: I'm much obliged for the compliment."
+
+"Well, you are happy, or you are trying to appear so.  If you are
+pretending for my benefit, don't.  I'M not happy."
+
+"I know, Hosy; I know.  Well, perhaps you--"
+
+She didn't finish the sentence.
+
+"Perhaps what?"
+
+"Oh, nothin', nothin'.  How many shirts did you bring with you? is
+this all?"
+
+She sang no more, probably because she saw that the "fog-horn"
+annoyed me, but her manner was just as strange and her nervous
+energy as pronounced.  I began to doubt if my surmise, that her
+excitement and exaltation were due to the anticipation of an early
+return to Bayport, was a correct one.  I began to thing there must
+be some other course and to speculate concerning it.  And I, too,
+grew a bit excited.
+
+"Hephzy," I said, suddenly, "where did you go when you went out
+this morning?  What sort of 'errands' were those of yours?"
+
+She was folding my ties, her back toward me, and she answered
+without turning.
+
+"Oh, I had some odds and ends of things to do," she said.  "This
+plaid necktie of yours is gettin' pretty shabby, Hosy.  I guess you
+can't wear it again.  There!  I mustn't stop to talk.  I've got my
+own things to pack."
+
+She hurried to her own room and I asked no more questions just
+then.  But I was more suspicious than ever.  I remembered a
+question of hers the previous evening and I believed. . . .  But,
+if she had gone to the Continental and seen Herbert Bayliss, what
+could he have told her to make her happy?
+
+We took the train for Calais and crossed the Channel to Dover.
+This time the eccentric strip of water was as calm as a pond at
+sunset.  No jumpy, white-capped billows, no flying spray, no
+seasick passengers.  Tarpaulins were a drag on the market.
+
+"I wouldn't believe," declared Hephzy, "that this lookin'-glass was
+the same as that churned-up tub of suds we slopped through before.
+It doesn't trickle down one's neck now, does it, Hosy.  A 'nahsty'
+cross-in' comin' and a smooth one comin' back.  I wonder if that's
+a sign."
+
+"Oh, don't talk about signs, Hephzy," I pleaded, wearily.  "You'll
+begin to dream again, I suppose, pretty soon."
+
+"No, I won't.  I think you and I have stopped dreamin', Hosy.
+Maybe we're just wakin' up, same as I told you."
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+"Mean?  Oh, I guess I didn't mean anything.  Good-by, old France!
+You're a lovely country and a lively one, but I sha'n't cry at
+sayin' good-by to you this time.  And there's England dead ahead.
+Won't it seem good to be where they talk instead of jabber!  I
+sha'n't have to navigate by the 'one-two-three' chart over there."
+
+Dover, a flying trip through the customs, the train again, an
+English dinner in an English restaurant car--not a "wagon bed," as
+Hephzy said, exultantly--and then London.
+
+We took a cab to the hotel, not Bancroft's this time, but a modern
+downtown hostelry where there were at least as many Americans as
+English.  In our rooms I would have cross-questioned Hephzy, but
+she would not be questioned, declaring that she was tired and
+sleepy.  I was tired, also, but not sleepy.  I was almost as
+excited as she seemed to be by this time.  I was sure she had
+learned something that morning in Paris, something which pleased
+her greatly.  What that something might be I could not imagine; but
+I believed she had learned it from Herbert Bayliss.
+
+And the next morning, after breakfast, she announced that she had
+arranged for a cab and we must start for the station at once.  I
+said nothing then, but when the cab pulled up before a railway
+station, a station which was not our accustomed one but another, I
+said a great deal.
+
+"What in the world, Hephzy!" I exclaimed.  "We can't go to Mayberry
+from here."
+
+"Hush, hush, Hosy.  Wait a minute--wait till I've paid the driver.
+Yes, I'm doin' it myself.  I'm skipper on this cruise.  You're an
+invalid, didn't you know it.  Invalids have to obey orders."
+
+The cabman paid, she took my arm and led me into the station.
+
+"And now, Hosy," she said, "let me tell you.  We aren't goin' to
+Mayberry--not yet.  We're going to Leatherhead."
+
+"To Leatherhead!" I repeated.  "To Leatherhead!  To--her?  We
+certainly will do no such thing."
+
+"Yes, we will, Hosy," quietly.  "I haven't said anything about it
+before, but I've made up my mind.  It's our duty to see her just
+once more, once more before--before we say good-by for good.  It's
+our duty."
+
+"Duty!  Our duty is to let her alone, to leave her in peace, as she
+asked us."
+
+"How do you know she is in peace?  Suppose she isn't.  Suppose
+she's miserable and unhappy.  Isn't it our duty to find out?  I
+think it is?"
+
+I looked her full in the face.  "Hephzy," I said, sharply, "you
+know something about her, something that I don't know.  What is
+it?"
+
+"I don't know as I know anything, Hosy.  I can't say that I do.
+But--"
+
+"You saw Herbert Bayliss yesterday.  That was the 'errand' you went
+upon yesterday morning in Paris.  Wasn't it?"
+
+She was very much taken aback.  She has told me since that she had
+no idea I suspected the truth.
+
+"Wasn't it?" I repeated.
+
+"Why--why, yes, it was, Hosy.  I did go to see him, there at his
+hotel.  When you told me how he acted and what he said to you I
+thought 'twas awfully funny, and the more I thought it over the
+funnier it seemed.  So I made up my mind to see him and talk with
+him myself.  And I did."
+
+"What did he tell you?" I asked.
+
+"He told me--he told me--Well, he didn't tell me so much, maybe,
+but he gave me to understand a whole lot.  She's gone to those
+Crippses, Hosy, just as I suspicioned, not because she likes 'em--
+she hates 'em--or because she wanted to go, but because she thought
+'twould please us if she did.  It doesn't please us; it doesn't
+please me, anyway.  She sha'n't be miserable for our sake, not
+without a word from us.  No, we must go there and see her and--and
+tell her once more just how we feel about it.  It's our duty to go
+and we must.  And," with decision, "we're goin' now."
+
+She had poured out this explanation breathlessly, hurrying as if
+fearful that I might interrupt and ask more questions.  I asked one
+of them the moment she paused.
+
+"We knew all that before," I said.  "That is, we were practically
+sure she had left Paris to get rid of us and had gone to her
+cousins, the Crippses, because of her half-promise to me not to
+sing at places like the Abbey again.  We knew all that.  And she
+asked me to promise that we would not follow her.  I didn't
+promise, but that makes no difference.  Was that all Bayliss told
+you?"
+
+Hephzy was still embarrassed and confused, though she answered
+promptly enough.
+
+"He told me he knew she didn't want to go to--to those Leatherheaded
+folks," she declared.  "We guessed she didn't, but we didn't know it
+for sure.  And he said we ought to go to her.  He said that."
+
+"But why did he say it?  Our going will not alter her determination
+to stay and our seeing her again will only make it harder for her."
+
+"No, it won't--no it won't," hastily.  "Besides I want to see that
+Cripps man and have a talk with him, myself.  I want to know why a
+man like him--I'm pretty well along in years; I've met folks and
+bargained and dealt with 'em all my grown-up life and I KNOW he
+isn't the kind to do things for nothin' for ANYBODY--I want to know
+why he and his wife are so generous to her.  There's somethin'
+behind it."
+
+"There's something behind you, Hephzy.  Some other reason that you
+haven't told me.  Was that all Bayliss said?"
+
+She hesitated.  "Yes," she said, after a moment, "that's all, all I
+can tell you now, anyway.  But I want you to go with me to that Ash
+Dump and see her once more."
+
+"I shall not, Hephzy."
+
+"Well, then I'll have to go by myself.  And if you don't go, too, I
+think you'll be awfully sorry.  I think you will.  Oh, Hosy,"
+pleadingly, "please go with me.  I don't ask you to do many things,
+now do I?  I do ask you to do this."
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"I would do almost anything for your sake, Hephzy," I began.
+
+"But this isn't for my sake.  It's for hers.  For hers.  I'm sure--
+I'm ALMOST sure you and she will both be glad you did it."
+
+I could not understand it at all.  I had never seen her more
+earnest.  She was not the one to ask unreasonable things and yet
+where her sister's child was concerned she could be obstinate
+enough--I knew that.
+
+"I shall go whether you do or not," she said, as I stood looking at
+her.
+
+"You mean that, Hephzy?"
+
+"I surely do.  I'm goin' to see her this very forenoon.  And I do
+hope you'll go with me."
+
+I reflected.  If she went alone it would be almost as hard for
+Frances as if I went with her.  And the temptation was very strong.
+The desire to see her once more, only once. . . .
+
+"I'll go, Hephzy," I said.  I didn't mean to say it; the words
+seemed to come of themselves.
+
+"You will!  Oh, I'm so glad!  I'm so glad!  And I think--I think
+you'll be glad, too, Hosy.  I'm hopin' you will."
+
+"I'll go," I said.  "But this is the last time you and I must
+trouble her.  I'll go--not because of any reason you have given me,
+Hephzy, but because I believe there must be some other and stronger
+reason, which you haven't told me."
+
+Hephzy drew a long breath.  She seemed to be struggling between a
+desire to tell me more--whatever that more might be--and a
+determination not to tell.
+
+"Maybe there is, Hosy," she said, slowly.  "Maybe there is.  I--I--
+Well, there!  I must go and buy the tickets.  You sit down and
+wait.  I'm skipper of this craft to-day, you know.  I'm in command
+on this voyage."
+
+Leatherhead looked exactly as it had on our previous visit.  "Ash
+Clump," the villa which the Crippses had been so anxious for us to
+hire, was still untenanted, or looked to be.  We walked on until we
+reached the Cripps home and entered the Cripps gate.  I rang the
+bell and the maid answered the ring.
+
+In answer to our inquiries she told us that Mr. Cripps was not in.
+He and Mrs. Cripps had gone to chapel.  I remembered then that the
+day was Sunday.  I had actually forgotten it.
+
+"Is Miss Morley in?" asked Hephzy.
+
+The maid shook her head.
+
+"No, ma'am," she said.  "Miss Morley ain't in, either.  I think
+she's gone to chapel, too.  I ain't sure, ma'am, but I think she
+'as.  She's not in."
+
+She asked if we would leave cards.  Hephzy said no.
+
+"It's 'most noon," she said.  "They'll be back pretty soon.  We'll
+wait.  No, we won't come in.  We'll wait out here, I guess."
+
+There was a rustic seat on the lawn near the house and Hephzy
+seated herself upon it.  I walked up and down.  I was in a state of
+what Hephzy would have called "nerves."  I had determined to be
+very calm when I met her, to show no emotion, to be very calm and
+cool, no matter what happened.  But this waiting was hard.  I grew
+more nervous every minute.
+
+"I'm going to stroll about, Hephzy," I said.  "About the garden and
+grounds.  I sha'n't go far and I'll return soon.  I shall be within
+call.  Send one of the servants for me if she--if the Crippses come
+before I get back."
+
+Hephzy did not urge me to remain.  Nor did she offer to accompany
+me.  As usual she seemed to read my thoughts and understand them.
+
+"All right, Hosy," she said.  "You go and have your walk.  I'll
+wait here.  But don't be long, will you."
+
+I promised not to be long.  The Cripps gardens and grounds were
+not extensive, but they were well kept even if the beds were
+geometrically ugly and the color masses jarring and in bad taste.
+The birds sang, the breeze stirred the leaves and petals, and there
+was a Sunday quiet, the restful hush of an English Sunday,
+everywhere.
+
+I strolled on along the paths, through the gap in the hedge
+dividing the kitchen garden from the purely ornamental section,
+past the stables, until I emerged from the shrubbery at the top of
+a little hill.  There was a pleasant view from this hill, the
+customary view of hedged fields and meadows, flocks of sheep and
+groups of grazing cattle, and over all the soft blue haze and misty
+sky.
+
+I paused.  And then close beside me, I heard a startled exclamation.
+
+I turned.  In a nook of the shrubbery was another rustic seat.
+Rising from that seat and gazing at me with a look of amazed
+incredulity, was--Frances Morley.
+
+I did not speak.  I could not, for the moment.  She spoke first.
+
+"You!" she exclaimed.  "You--here!"
+
+And still I did not speak.  Where was the calm with which I was to
+meet her?  Where were the carefully planned sentences which were to
+explain how I had come and why?  I don't know where they were; I
+seemed to know only that she was there, that I was alone with her
+as I had never thought or meant to be again, and that if I spoke I
+should say things far different from those I had intended.
+
+She was recovering from her surprise.  She came toward me.
+
+"What are you doing here?" she asked.  "Why did you come?"
+
+I stammered a word or two, some incoherences to the effect that I
+had not expected to find her there, that I had been told she was at
+church.  She shook her head, impatiently.
+
+"I mean why did you come here--to Leatherhead?" she asked.  "Why
+did you come?  Did you know--"
+
+I interrupted her.  If ever I was to explain, or attempt to
+explain, I realized that it must be at that moment.  She might
+listen to me then, before she had had time to think.  Later I knew
+she would not.
+
+"I knew you were here," I broke in, quickly.  "I--we--your aunt
+knew and we came."
+
+"But HOW did you know?  Who told you?"
+
+"The--we learned," I answered.  "And we came."
+
+It was a poor explanation--or none at all.  She seemed to think it
+so.  And yet she seemed more hurt than offended.
+
+"You came--yes," she said.  "And you knew that I left Paris
+because--Oh, you knew that!  I asked you not to follow me.  You
+promised you would not."
+
+I was ashamed, thoroughly ashamed and disgusted with myself for
+yielding to Hephzy's entreaties.
+
+"No, no," I protested, "I did not promise.  I did not promise,
+Frances."
+
+"But you know I did not wish you to do it.  I did not wish you to
+follow me to Paris, but you did it.  I told you you would force me
+to give up my only means of earning money.  You did force me to
+give it up.  I gave it up to please you, for your sake, and now--"
+
+"Did you?" I cried, eagerly.  "Did you give it up for my sake,
+Frances?  Did you?"
+
+"You know I did.  You must know it.  And now that I have done it,
+now that I have given up my opportunity and my--my self-respect and
+my one chance and come here to this--to this place, you--you--Oh,
+how could you!  Wasn't I unhappy enough before?  And unhappy enough
+now?  Oh, how could you!"
+
+I was more ashamed than ever.  I tried desperately to justify my
+action.
+
+"But that was it," I persisted.  "Don't you see?  It was your
+happiness, the thought that you were unhappy which brought me here.
+I know--you told your aunt how unhappy you had been when you were
+with these people before.  I know how much you disliked them.  That
+was why I came.  To ask you to give this up as you did the other.
+To come with us and BE happy.  I want you to come, Frances.  Think!
+Think how much I must want you."
+
+And, for the moment I thought this appeal had some effect.  It
+seemed to me that her resolution was shaken, that she was wavering.
+
+"You--you really want me?" she repeated.
+
+"Yes.  Yes, I can't tell you--I must not tell you how much I want
+you.  And your aunt--she wants you to come.  She is here, too.  She
+will tell you."
+
+Her manner changed once more.  The tone in which she spoke was
+different.  There were no signs of the wavering which I had
+noticed--or hoped I noticed.
+
+"No," she said.  "No.  I shall not see my aunt.  And I must not
+talk with you any longer.  I asked you not to follow me here.  You
+did it, in spite of my asking.  Now, unless you wish to drive me
+away from here, as you did from Paris, you will leave me and not
+try to see me again.  Oh, don't you see--CAN'T you see how
+miserable you are making rne?  And yet you talk of my happiness!"
+
+"But you aren't happy here.  ARE you happy?"
+
+"I am happy enough.  Yes, I am happy."
+
+"I don't believe it.  Are these Crippses kind to you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+I didn't believe that, either, but I did not say so.  Instead I
+said what I had determined to say, the same thing that I should
+have said before, in Mayberry and in Paris--if I could have
+mustered the courage and decency to say it.
+
+"Frances," I said, "there is something else, something which may
+have a bearing on your happiness, or may not, I don't know.  The
+night before you left us, at Mayberry, Herbert Bayliss came to me
+and asked my permission to marry you, if you were willing.  He
+thought you were my niece--then.  I said that--I said that,
+although of course I had no shadow of authority over you, I did
+care for your happiness.  I cared for that a great deal.  If you
+loved him I should certainly--"
+
+"I see," she broke in, scornfully.  "I see.  He told you I was
+here.  That is why you came.  Did he send you to me to say--what
+you are trying to say?"
+
+"Oh, no, no!  You are mistaken.  You wrong him, Frances.  He did
+not do that.  He's not that sort.  He's a good fellow, an honorable
+man.  And he does care for you.  I know it.  He cares greatly.  He
+would, I am sure, make you a good husband, and if you care for him,
+he would do his best to make you happy, I--"
+
+Again she interrupted.  "One moment," she said, "Let me understand.
+Are you urging me to marry Herbert Bayliss?"
+
+"No.  I am not urging you, of course.  But if you do care for him--"
+
+"I do not."
+
+"Oh, you don't love him?"
+
+I wonder if there was relief in my tone.  There should not have
+been, of course, but I fear there was."
+
+"No, I do not--love him.  He is a gentleman and I like him well
+enough, but not in that way.  Please don't say any more."
+
+"Very well.  I only meant--Tell me this, if you will:  Is there
+someone you do care for?"
+
+She did not answer.  I had offended her again.  She had cause to be
+offended.  What business was it of mine?
+
+"I beg your pardon," I said, humbly.  "I should not have asked
+that.  I have no right to ask it.  But if there is someone for whom
+you care in that way and he cares for you, it--"
+
+"Oh, don't, don't!  He doesn't."
+
+"Then there is someone?"
+
+She was silent.  I tried to speak like a man, like the man I was
+pretending to be.
+
+"I am glad to know it," I said.  "If you care for him he must care
+for you.  He cannot help it.  I am sure you will be happy by and
+by.  I can leave you here now with more--with less reluctance.
+I--"
+
+I could not trust myself to go on, although I tried to do so.  She
+answered, without looking at me.
+
+"Yes," she said, "you can leave me now.  I am safe and--and happy.
+Good-by."
+
+I took her hand.
+
+"Good-by," I said.  "Forgive me for coming.  I shall not trouble
+you again.  This time I promise.  You may not wish to write us, but
+we shall write you.  And I--I hope you won't forget us."
+
+It was a lame conclusion and trite enough.  She must have thought
+so.
+
+"I shall not forget you," she said, simply.  "And I will try to
+write occasionally.  Yes, I will try.  Now please go.  Good-by."
+
+I went, without looking back.  I strode along the paths, scarcely
+noticing where I was going.  As I neared the corner of the house I
+heard voices, loud voices.  One of them, though it was not as loud
+as the others, was Hephzy's.
+
+"I knew it," she was saying, as I turned the corner.  "I knew it.
+I knew there was some reason, some mean selfish reason why you were
+willin' to take that girl under your wing.  I knew it wasn't kind-
+heartedness and relationship.  I knew it."
+
+It was Solomon Cripps who answered.  Mr. and Mrs. Cripps, arrayed
+in their Sabbath black and white, were standing by the door of
+their villa.  Hephzy was standing before them.  Her face was set
+and determined and she looked highly indignant.  Mr. Cripps' face
+was red and frowning and he gesticulated with a red hand, which
+clasped a Testament.  His English was by no means as pure and
+undefiled as when he had endeavored to persuade us into hiring "Ash
+Clump."
+
+"Look 'ere," he snarled.  "Don't you talk to me like that.  Don't
+you suppose I know what I'm doing.  You Yankees may be clever at
+your tricks, but you can't trick me.  Don't I know about the money
+you stole from 'er father?  Don't I, eh?  You can tell 'er your
+lies about it being stolen by someone else, but I can see a 'ole
+through a millstone.  You can't trick me, I tell you.  They're
+giving that girl a good 'ome and care and all that, but we're goin'
+to see she 'as 'er rights.  You've filled 'er silly 'ead with your
+stories.  You've made 'er think you're all that's good and--"
+
+I was at hand by this time.
+
+"What's all this, Hephzy?" I asked.
+
+Before Hephzy could reply Mrs. Cripps spoke.
+
+"It's him!" she cried, seizing her husband's arm with one hand and
+pointing at me with the other.  "It's him," she cried, venomously.
+"He's here, too."
+
+The sight of me appeared to upset what little self-control Mr.
+Cripps had left.
+
+"You!" he shouted, "I might 'ave known you were 'ere.  You're the
+one that's done it.  You're responsible.  Filling her silly 'ead
+with lies about your goodness and all that.  Making her fall in
+love with you and--"
+
+I sprang forward.
+
+"WHAT?" I cried.  "What are you saying?"
+
+Hephzy was frightened.
+
+"Hosy," she cried, "don't look so.  Don't!  You frighten me."
+
+I scarcely heard her.
+
+"WHAT did you say?" I demanded, addressing Cripps, who shrank back,
+rather alarmed apparently.  "Why, you scoundrel!  What do you mean
+by saying that?  Speak up!  What do you mean by it?"
+
+If Mr. Cripps was alarmed his wife was not.  She stepped forward
+and faced me defiantly.
+
+"He means just what he says," she declared, her shrill voice
+quivering with vindictive spite.  "And you know what he means
+perfectly well.  You ought to be ashamed of yourself, a man as old
+as you and she an innocent young girl!  You've hypnotized her--that
+is what you've done, hypnotized her.  All those ridiculous stories
+about her having no money she believes because you told them to
+her.  She would believe the moon was made of green cheese if you
+said so.  She's mad about you--the poor little fool!  She won't
+hear a word against you--says you're the best, noblest man in the
+world!  You!  Why she won't even deny that she's in love with you;
+she was brazen enough to tell me she was proud of it.  Oh. . . .
+Stop!  Where are you going?  Solomon, stop him!"
+
+Solomon did not stop me.  I am very glad he didn't try.  No one
+could have stopped me then.  I was on my way back along the garden
+path, and if I did not keep to that path, but plunged ruthlessly
+through flower beds and shrubbery I did not care, nor do I care
+now.
+
+She was sitting on the rustic seat where I had left her.  There
+were tears on her cheeks.  She had heard me coming--a deaf person
+would have heard that--and she rose as I burst into view.
+
+"What is it?" she cried, in alarm.  "Oh, what is it?"
+
+At the sight of her I paused.  I had not meant to pause; I had
+intended to take her in my arms, to ask her if what I had just
+heard was true, to make her answer me.  But now, as she stood there
+before me, so young, so girlish, so beautiful, the hopeless idiocy
+of the thing struck me with overwhelming force.  It WAS idiocy.  It
+couldn't be true.
+
+"What is it?" she repeated.  "Oh, Kent! what is the matter?  Why
+did you come back?  What has happened?"
+
+I stepped forward.  True or false I must know.  I must know then
+and there.  It was now or never for me.
+
+"Frances," I stammered, "I came back because--I--I have just heard--
+Frances, you told me you loved someone--not Bayliss, but someone
+else.  Who is that someone?"
+
+She had been pale.  My sudden and unexpected appearance had
+frightened her.  Now as we faced each other, as I stood looking
+down into her face, I saw the color rise and spread over that face
+from throat to brow.
+
+"Who is it?" I repeated.
+
+She drew back.
+
+"I--I can't tell you," she faltered.  "You mustn't ask me."
+
+"But I do ask.  You must tell me, Frances--Frances, it isn't--it
+can't be that you love ME.  Do you?"
+
+She drew back still further.  If there had been a way of escape I
+think she would have taken it.  But there was none.  The thick
+shrubbery was behind her and I was between her and the path.  And I
+would not let her pass.
+
+"Oh, Frances, do you?" I repeated.  "I never meant to ask you.  I
+never meant that you should know.  I am so much older, and so--so
+unworthy--it has seemed so hopeless and ridiculous.  But I love
+you, Frances, I have loved you from the very beginning, although at
+first I didn't realize it.  I--If you do--if you can--I--I--"
+
+I faltered, hesitated, and stopped.  She did not answer for a
+moment, a long, long moment.  Then:
+
+"Mr. Knowles," she said, "you surprise me.  I didn't suspect--I
+didn't think--"
+
+I sighed.  I had had my answer.  Of course it was idiotic.  I
+should have known; I did know.
+
+"I see," I said.  "I understand.  Forgive me, please.  I was a fool
+to even think of such a thing.  I didn't think it.  I didn't dare
+until--until just now.  Then I was told--your cousin said--I might
+have known he didn't mean what he said.  But he said it and--and--"
+
+"What did he say?  Mr. Cripps, do you mean?  What did he say?"
+
+"He said--he said you--you cared for me--in that way.  Of course
+you don't--you can't.  I know better.  But for the moment I dared
+to hope.  I was crazy, of course.  Forgive me, Frances."
+
+She looked up and then down again.
+
+"There is nothing to forgive," she said.
+
+"Yes, there is.  There is a great deal.  An old--"
+
+"Hush! hush, please.  Don't speak like that.  I--I thank you.  I--
+you mustn't suppose I am not grateful.  I know you pity me.  I know
+how generous you are.  But your pity--"
+
+"It isn't pity.  I should pity myself, if that were all.  I love
+you Frances, and I shall always love you.  I am not ashamed of it.
+I shall have that love to comfort me till I die.  I am ashamed of
+having told you, of troubling you again, that is all."
+
+I was turning away, but I heard her step beside me and felt her
+hand upon my sleeve.  I turned back again.  She was looking me full
+in the face now and her eyes were shining.
+
+"What Mr. Cripps said was true," she said.
+
+I could not believe it.  I did not believe it even then.
+
+"True!" I repeated.  "No, no!  You don't mean--"
+
+"I do mean it.  I told him that I loved you."
+
+I don't know what more she would have said.  I did not wait to
+hear.  She was in my arms at last and all England was whirling
+about me like a top.
+
+"But you can't!" I found myself saying over and over.  I must have
+said other things before, but I don't remember them.  "You can't!
+it is impossible.  You! marry an old fossil like me!  Oh, Frances,
+are you sure?  Are you sure?"
+
+"Yes, Kent," softly, "I am sure."
+
+"But you can't love me.  You are sure that your--You have no reason
+to be grateful to me, but you have said you were, you know.  You
+are sure you are not doing this because--"
+
+"I am sure.  It is not because I am grateful."
+
+"But, my dear--think!  Think what it means, I am--"
+
+"I know what you are," tenderly.  "No one knows as well.  But,
+Kent--Kent, are YOU sure?  It isn't pity for me?"
+
+I think I convinced her that it was not pity.  I know I tried.  And
+I was still trying when the sound of steps and voices on the other
+side of the shrubbery caused us--or caused her; I doubt if I should
+have heard anything except her voice just then--to start and
+exclaim:
+
+"Someone is coming!  Don't, dear, don't!  Someone is coming."
+
+It was the Crippses who were coming, of course.  Mr. and Mrs.
+Cripps and Hephzy.  They would have come sooner, I learned
+afterwards, but Hephzy had prevented it.
+
+Solomon's red face was redder still when he saw us together.  And
+Mrs. Cripps' mouth looked more like "a crack in a plate" than ever.
+
+"So!" she exclaimed.  "Here's where you are!  I thought as much.
+And you--you brazen creature!"
+
+I objected strongly to "brazen creature" as a term applied to my
+future wife.  I intended saying so, but Mr. Cripps got ahead of me.
+
+"You get off my grounds," he blurted, waving his fist.  "You get
+out of 'ere now or I'll 'ave you put off.  Do you 'ear?"
+
+I should have answered him as he deserved to be answered, but
+Frances would not let me.
+
+"Don't, Kent," she whispered.  "Don't quarrel with him, please.  He
+is going, Mr. Cripps.  We are going--now."
+
+Mrs. Cripps fairly shrieked.  "WE are going?" she repeated.  "Do
+you mean you are going with him?"
+
+Hephzy joined in, but in a quite different tone.
+
+"You are goin'?" she said, joyfully.  "Oh, Frances, are you comin'
+with us?"
+
+It was my turn now and I rejoiced in the prospect.  An entire
+brigade of Crippses would not have daunted me then.  I should have
+enjoyed defying them all.
+
+"Yes," said I, "she is coming with us, Hephzy.  Mr. Cripps, will
+you be good enough to stand out of the way?  Come, Frances."
+
+It is not worth while repeating what Mr. and Mrs, Cripps said.
+They said a good deal, threatened all sorts of things, lawsuits
+among the rest.  Hephzy fired the last guns for our side.
+
+"Yes, yes," she retorted, impatiently.  "I know you're goin' to
+sue.  Go ahead and sue and prosecute yourselves to death, if you
+want to.  The lawyers'll get their fees out of you, and that's some
+comfort--though I shouldn't wonder if THEY had to sue to get even
+that.  And I tell you this:  If you don't send Little Frank's--Miss
+Morley's trunks to Mayberry inside of two days we'll come and get
+'em and we'll come with the sheriff and the police."
+
+Mrs. Cripps, standing by the gate, fell back upon her last line of
+intrenchments, the line of piety.
+
+"And to think," she declared, with upturned eyes, "that this is the
+'oly Sabbath!  Never mind, Solomon.  The Lord will punish 'em.  I
+shall pray to Him not to curse them too hard."
+
+Hephzy's retort was to the point.
+
+"I wouldn't," she said.  "If I had been doin' what you two have
+been up to, pretendin' to care for a young girl and offerin' to
+give her a home, and all the time doin' it just because I thought I
+could squeeze money out of her, I shouldn't trouble the Lord much.
+I wouldn't take the risk of callin' His attention to me."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+In Which the Pilgrimage Ends Where It Began
+
+
+We did not go to Mayberry that day.  We went to London and to the
+hotel; not Bancroft's, but the hotel where Hephzy and I had stayed
+the previous night.  It was Frances' wish that we should not go to
+Bancroft's.
+
+"I don't think that I could go there, Kent," she whispered to me,
+on the train.  "Mr. and Mrs Jameson were very kind, and I liked
+them so much, but--but they would ask questions; they wouldn't
+understand.  It would be hard to make them understand.  Don't you
+see, Kent?"
+
+I saw perfectly.  Considering that the Jamesons believed Miss
+Morley to be my niece, it would indeed be hard to make them
+understand.  I was not inclined to try.  I had had quite enough of
+the uncle and niece business.
+
+So we went to the other hotel and if the clerk was surprised to see
+us again so soon he said nothing about it.  Perhaps he was not
+surprised.  It must take a good deal to surprise a hotel clerk.
+
+On the train, in our compartment--a first-class compartment, you
+may be sure; I would have hired the whole train if it had been
+necessary; there was nothing too good or too expensive for us that
+afternoon--on the train, discussing the ride to London, Hephzy did
+most of the talking.  I was too happy to talk much and Frances,
+sitting in her corner and pretending to look out of the window, was
+silent also.  I should have been fearful that she was not happy,
+that she was already repenting her rashness in promising to marry
+the Bayport "quahaug," but occasionally she looked at me, and,
+whenever she did, the wireless message our eyes exchanged, sent
+that quahaug aloft on a flight through paradise.  A flying clam is
+an unusual specimen, I admit, but no other quahaug in this wide,
+wide world had an excuse like mine for developing wings.
+
+Hephzy did not appear to notice our silence.  She chatted and
+laughed continuously.  We had not told her our secret--the great
+secret--and if she suspected it she kept her suspicions to herself.
+Her chatter was a curious mixture: triumph over the detached
+Crippses; joy because, after all, "Little Frank" had consented to
+come with us, to live with us again; and triumph over me because
+her dreams and presentiments had come true.
+
+"I told you, Hosy," she kept saying.  "I told you!  I said it would
+all come out in the end.  He wouldn't believe it, Frances.  He said
+I was an old lunatic and--"
+
+"I didn't say anything of the kind," I broke in.
+
+"You said what amounted to that and I don't know as I blame you.
+But I knew--I just KNEW he and I had been 'sent' on this course and
+that we--all three of us--would make the right port in the end.
+And we have--we have, haven't we, Frances?"
+
+"Yes," said Frances, simply.  "We have, Auntie--"
+
+"There! do you hear that, Hosy?  Isn't it good to hear her call me
+'Auntie' again!  Now I'm satisfied; or"--with a momentary
+hesitation--"pretty nearly satisfied, anyway."
+
+"Oh, then you're not quite satisfied, after all," I observed.
+"What more do you want?"
+
+"I want just one thing more; just one, that's all."
+
+I believed I know what that one thing was, but I asked her.  She
+shot a look at me, a look of indignant meaning.
+
+"Never mind," she said, decidedly.  "That's my affair.  Oh, Ho!"
+with a reminiscent chuckle, "how that Cripps woman did glare at me
+when I said 'twas pretty risky her callin' the Almighty's attention
+to their doin's.  I hope it did her good.  Maybe she'll think of it
+next time she goes to chapel.  But I suppose she won't.  All such
+folks care for is money.  They wouldn't be so anxious to get to
+Heaven if they hadn't read about the golden streets."
+
+That evening, at the hotel, Frances told us her story, the story of
+which we had guessed a good deal, but of which she had told so
+little--how, after her father's death, she had gone to live with
+the Crippses because, as she thought, they wished her to do so from
+motives of generosity and kindness.
+
+"They are not really relatives of mine," she said.  "I am glad of
+that.  Mrs. Cripps married a cousin of my father's; he died and
+then she married Mr. Cripps.  After Father's death they wrote me a
+very kind letter, or I thought it kind at the time.  They said all
+sorts of kindly things, they offered me a home, they said I should
+be like their own daughter.  So, having nowhere else to go, I went
+to them.  I lived there nearly two years.  Oh, what a life it was!
+They are very churchly people, they call themselves religious, but
+I don't.  They pretend to be--perhaps they think they are--good,
+very good.  But they aren't--they aren't.  They are hard and cruel.
+Mr. Cripps owns several tenements where poor people live.  I have
+heard things from those people that--Oh, I can't tell you!  I ran
+away because I had learned what they really were."
+
+Hephzy nodded.  "What I can't understand," she said, "is why they
+offered you a home in the first place.  It was because they thought
+you had money comin' to you, that's plain enough now; but how did
+they know?"
+
+Frances colored.  "I'm afraid--I'm afraid Father must have written
+them," she said.  "He needed money very much in his later years and
+he may have written them asking--asking for loans and offering my
+'inheritance' as security.  I think now that that was it.  But I
+did not think so then.  And--and, Oh, Auntie, you mustn't think too
+harshly of Father.  He was very good to me, he really was.  And
+DON'T you think he believed--he had made himself believe--that
+there was money of his there in America?  I can't believe he--he
+would lie to me."
+
+"Of course he didn't lie," said Hephzy, promptly.  I could have
+hugged her for saying it.  "He was sick and--and sort of out of his
+head, poor man, and I don't doubt he made himself believe all sorts
+of things.  Of course he didn't lie--to his own daughter.  But
+why," she added, quickly, before Frances could ask another
+question, "did you go back to those precious Cripps critters after
+you left Paris?"
+
+Frances looked at me.  "I thought it would please you," she said,
+simply.  "I knew you didn't want me to sing in public.  Kent had
+said he would be happier if he knew I had given up that life and
+was among friends.  And they--they had called themselves my
+friends.  When I went back to them they welcomed me.  Mr. Cripps
+called me his 'prodigal daughter,' and Mrs. Cripps prayed over me.
+It wasn't until I told them I had no 'inheritance,' except one of
+debt, that they began to show me what they really were.  They
+wouldn't believe it.  They said you were trying to defraud me.  It
+was dreadful.  I--I think I should have run away again if--if you
+had not come."
+
+"Well, we did come," said Hephzy, cheerfully, "and I thank the good
+Lord for it.  Now we won't talk any more about THAT."
+
+She left us alone soon afterward, going to my room--we were in
+hers, hers and Frances'--to unpack my trunk once more.  She
+wouldn't hear of my unpacking it.  When she was gone Frances turned
+to me.
+
+"You--you haven't told her," she faltered.
+
+"No," said I, "not yet.  I wanted to speak with you first.  I can't
+believe it is true.  Or, if it is, that it is right.  Oh, my dear,
+do you realize what you are doing?  I am--I am ever so much older
+than you.  I am not worthy of you.  You could have made a so much
+better marriage."
+
+She looked at me.  She was smiling, but there was a tiny wrinkle
+between her brows.
+
+"Meaning," she said, "I suppose, that I might have married Doctor
+Bayliss.  I might perhaps marry him even yet, if I wished.  I--I
+think he would have me, if I threw myself at his head."
+
+"Yes," I admitted, grudgingly.  "Yes, he loves you, Frances."
+
+"Kent, when we were there in Mayberry it seemed to me that my aunt
+and you were almost anxious that I should marry him.  It seemed to
+me that you took every opportunity to throw me in his way; you
+refused my invitations for golf and tennis and suggested that I
+play with him instead.  It used to annoy me.  I resented it.  I
+thought you were eager to get rid of me.  I did not know then the
+truth about Father and--and the money.  And I thought you hoped I
+might marry him and--and not trouble you any more.  But I think I
+understand now.  You--you did not care for me so much then.  Was
+that it?"
+
+I shook my head.  "Care for you!" I repeated.  "I cared for you so
+much that I did not dare trust myself with you.  I did not dare to
+think of you, and yet I could think of no one else.  I know now
+that I fell in love with you when I first met you at that horrible
+Briggs woman's lodging-house.  Don't you see?  That was the very
+reason why.  Don't you see?"
+
+"No, I'm afraid I don't quite see.  If you cared for me like that
+how could you be willing for me to marry him?  That is what puzzles
+me.  I don't understand it."
+
+"It was because I did care for you.  It was because I cared so
+much, I wanted you to be happy.  I never dreamed that you could
+care for an old, staid, broken-down bookworm like me.  It wasn't
+thinkable.  I can scarcely think it now.  Oh, Frances, are you SURE
+you are not making a mistake?  Are you sure it isn't gratitude
+which makes you--"
+
+She rose from her chair and came to me.  Her eyes were wet, but
+there was a light in them like the sunlight behind a summer shower.
+
+"Don't, please don't!" she begged.  "And caring for me like that
+you could still come to me as you did this morning and suggest my
+marrying him."
+
+"Yes, yes, I came because--because I knew he loved you and I
+thought that you might not know it.  And if you did know it I
+thought--perhaps--you might be happier and--"
+
+I faltered and stopped.  She was standing beside me, looking up
+into my face.
+
+"I did know it," she said.  "He told me, there in Paris.  And I
+told him--"
+
+"You told him--?"
+
+"I told him that I liked him; I do, I do; he is a good man.  But I
+told him--" she rose on tiptoe and kissed me--"I told him that I
+loved you, dear.  See! here is the pin you gave me.  It is the one
+thing I could not leave behind when I ran away from Mayberry.  I
+meant to keep that always--and I always shall."
+
+After a time we remembered Hephzy.  It would be more truthful to
+say that Frances remembered her.  I had forgotten Hephzy
+altogether, I am ashamed to say.
+
+"Kent," she said; "don't you think we should tell Auntie now?  She
+will be pleased, I hope."
+
+"Pleased!  She will be--I can't think of a word to describe it.
+She loves you, too, dear."
+
+"I know.  I hope she will love me more now.  She worships you,
+Kent."
+
+"I am afraid she does.  She doesn't realize what a tinsel god I am.
+And I fear you don't either.  I am not a great man.  I am not even
+a famous author.  I--Are you SURE, Frances?"
+
+She laughed lightly.  "Kent," she whispered, "what was it Doctor
+Bayliss called you when you offered to promise not to follow me to
+Leatherhead?"
+
+I had told her the whole story of my last interview with Bayliss at
+the Continental.
+
+"He called me a silly ass," I answered promptly.  "I don't care."
+
+"Neither do I; but don't you think you are one, just a little bit
+of one, in some things?  You mustn't ask me if I am sure again.
+Come! we will go to Auntie."
+
+Hephzy had finished unpacking my trunk and was standing by the
+closet door, shaking the wrinkles out of my dinner coat.  She heard
+us enter and turned.
+
+"I never saw clothes in such a mess in my life," she announced.
+"And I packed this trunk, too.  I guess the trembles in my head
+must have got into my fingers when I did it.  I--"
+
+She stopped at the beginning of the sentence.  I had taken Frances
+by the hand and led her up to where she was standing.  Hephzy said
+nothing, she stood there and stared at us, but the coat fell to the
+floor.
+
+"Hephzy," said I, "I've come to make an apology.  I believe in
+dreams and presentiments and Spiritualism and all the rest of it
+now.  You were right.  Our pilgrimage has ended just as you
+declared it would.  I know now that we were 'sent' upon it.
+Frances has said--"
+
+Hephzy didn't wait to hear any more.  She threw her arms about
+Frances' neck, then about mine, hugged us both, and then, to my
+utter astonishment, sat down upon the closed trunk and burst into
+tears.  When we tried to comfort her she waved us away.
+
+"Don't touch me," she commanded.  "Don't say anything to me.  Just
+let me be.  I've done all kinds of loony things in my life and this
+attack is just natural, that's all.  I--I'll get over it in a
+minute.  There!" rising and dabbing at her eyes with her
+handkerchief, "I'm over it now.  Hosy Knowles, I've cried about a
+million times since--since that awful mornin' in Mayberry.  You
+didn't know it, but I have.  I'm through now.  I'm never goin' to
+cry any more.  I'm goin' to laugh!  I'm going to sing!  I declare
+if you don't grab me and hold me down I shall dance!  Oh, Oh, OH!
+I'm so glad!  I'm so glad!"
+
+We sat up until the early morning hours, talking and planning.  We
+were to go back to America as soon as we could secure passage; upon
+that we all agreed in the end.  I was the only one who hesitated.
+I had a vague feeling of uneasiness, a dread, that Frances might
+not wish it, that her saying she would love to go was merely to
+please me.  I remembered how she had hated America and Americans,
+or professed to hate them, in the days of our first acquaintanceship.
+I thought of quiet, sleepy, humdrum old Bayport and the fear that
+she might be disappointed when she saw it, that she might be lonely
+and unhappy there, was strong.  So when Hephzy talked of our going
+straight to the steamship offices next day I demurred.  I suggested
+a Continental trip, to Switzerland, to the Mediterranean--anywhere.
+I forgot that my means were limited, that I had been idle for longer
+than I should have been, and that I absolutely must work soon.  I
+forgot everything, and talked, as Hephzy said afterward,
+"regardless, like a whole kerosene oil company."
+
+But, to my surprise, it was Frances herself who was most insistent
+upon our going to America.  She wanted to go, she said.  Of course
+she did not mean to be selfish, and if Auntie and I really wished
+to go to the Continent or remain in England she would be quite
+content.
+
+"But, Oh Kent," she said, "if you are suggesting all this merely
+because you think I will like it, please don't.  I have lived in
+France and I have been very unhappy there.  I have been happier
+here in England, but I have been unhappy here, too.  I have no
+friends here now.  I have no friends anywhere except you.  I know
+you both want to see your home again--you must.  And--and your home
+will be mine now."
+
+So we decided to sail for America, and that without delay.  And the
+next morning, before breakfast, Hephzy came to my room with another
+suggestion.
+
+"Hosy," she said, "I've been thinkin'.  All our things, or most of
+'em, are at Mayberry.  Somebody's got to go there, of course, to
+pack up and make arrangements for our leavin'.  She--Frances, I
+mean--would go, too, if we asked her, I suppose likely; she'd do
+anything you asked, now.  But it would be awful hard for her.
+She'd meet all the people she used to know there and they wouldn't
+understand and 'twould be hard to explain.  The Baylisses know the
+real truth, but the rest of 'em don't.  You'd have all that niece
+and uncle mess again, and I don't suppose you want any more of
+THAT."
+
+"I should say I didn't!" I exclaimed, fervently.
+
+"Yes, that's the way it seemed to me.  So she hadn't ought to go to
+Mayberry.  And we can't leave her here alone in London.  She'd be
+lonesome, for one thing, and those everlastin' Crippses might find
+out where she was, for another.  It may be that that Solomon and
+his wife will let her go and say nothin', but I doubt it.  So long
+as they think she's got a cent comin' to her they'll pester her in
+every way they can, I believe.  That woman's nose can smell money
+as far as a cat can smell fish.  No, we can't leave Little Frank
+here alone.  Of course, I might stay with her and you might go by
+yourself, but--"
+
+This way out of the difficulty had occurred to me; so when she
+seemed to hesitate, I asked:  "But what?"
+
+"But it won't be very pleasant for you in Mayberry.  You'd have
+considerable explainin' to do.  And, more'n that, Hosy, there's all
+that packin' up to do and I've seen you try to pack a trunk too
+often before.  You're just as likely to pack a flat-iron on top of
+a lookin' glass as to do the other thing.  No, I'm the one to go to
+Mayberry.  I must go by myself and you must stay here in London
+with her."
+
+"I can't do that, Hephzy," I said.  "How could I?"
+
+"You couldn't, as things are, of course.  But if they were
+different.  If she was your wife you could.  And then if that
+Solomon thing came you could--"
+
+I interrupted.  "My wife!" I repeated.  "Hephzy, what are you
+talking about?  Do you mean--"
+
+"I mean that you and she might be married right off, to-day
+perhaps.  Then everything would be all right."
+
+I stared at her.
+
+"But--but she wouldn't consent," I stammered.  "It is impossible.
+She wouldn't think of such a thing."
+
+Hephzy nodded.  "Oh, yes, she would," she said.  "She is thinkin'
+of it now.  She and I have just had a long talk.  She's a sensible
+girl, Hosy, and she listened to reason.  If she was sure that you
+wanted to marry her so soon she--"
+
+"Wanted to!" I cried.  "Hephzy!"
+
+Hephzy nodded again.  "Then that's settled," she said.  "It's a big
+disappointment to me, I give in.  I'd set my heart on your bein'
+married at our meetin'-house in Bayport, with Mr. Partridge to do
+the marryin', and a weddin' reception at our house and--and
+everything.  But I guess this is the best, and I know it's the most
+sensible.  But, Oh Hosy, there's one thing I can't give up.  I want
+you to be married at the American Ambassador's or somewhere like it
+and by an American minister.  I sha'n't feel safe if it's done
+anywhere else and by a foreigner, even if he's English, which don't
+seem foreign to me at all any more.  No, he's got to be an American
+and--and, Oh, Hosy! DO try to get a Methodist."
+
+I couldn't get a Methodist, but by consulting the hotel register I
+found an American clergyman, a Congregationalist, who was a fine
+fellow and consented to perform the ceremony.  And, if we were not
+married at the American Embassy, we were at the rooms of the London
+consul, whom Matthews, at the Camford Street office, knew and who
+was another splendid chap and glad to oblige a fellow-countryman,
+particularly after seeing the lady he was to marry.
+
+The consul and his wife and Hephzy were our only witnesses.
+Frances' wedding gown was not new, but it was very becoming--the
+consul's wife said so, and she should know.  Also she said she had
+never seen a sweeter or more beautiful bride.  No one said anything
+concerning the bridegroom's appearance, but he did not care.  It
+was a drizzly, foggy day, but that made no difference.  A Kansas
+cyclone and a Bayport no'theaster combined could not have cast a
+damper on that day.
+
+When it was over, Hephzy, who had been heroically struggling to
+keep her vow not to shed another tear during our pilgrimage, hugged
+us both.
+
+"I--I--" she faltered, "I--I can't say it, but you know how I feel.
+There's nothin' I sha'n't believe after this.  I used to believe
+I'd never travel, but I have.  And there in Mayberry I believed I'd
+never be happy again, but I am.  HAPPY! hap--hap--Oh dear!  WHAT a
+fool I am!  I ca--I can't help it!  I expect I look like the most
+miserable thing on earth, but that's because I AM so happy.  God
+bless you both!  Now--now don't so much as look at me for a few
+minutes."
+
+That afternoon she left for Mayberry to do the "packing up" and my
+wife and I were alone--and together.
+
+I saw London again during the next few days.  We rode on the tops
+of busses, we visited Kew Gardens and Hampton Court and Windsor.
+We took long trips up and down the Thames on the little steamers.
+Frances called them our honeymoon trips.  The time flew by.  Then I
+received a note from Hephzy that the "packing up" was finished at
+last and that she was returning to London.
+
+It was raining hard, the morning of her arrival, and I went alone
+to meet her at the railway station.  I was early there and, as I
+was walking up, awaiting the train, I heard someone speak my name.
+I turned and there, immaculate, serene and debonair as ever, was A.
+Carleton Heathcroft.
+
+"Ah, Knowles," he said, cheerfully.  "Thought it was you.  Haven't
+seen you of late.  Missed you at Burgleston, on the course.  How
+are you?"
+
+I told him I was quite well, and inquired concerning his own
+health.
+
+"Topping," he replied.  "Rotten weather, eh--what?  And how's Miss--
+Oh, dear me, always forget the name!  The eccentric aunt who is so
+intensely patriotic and American--How is she?"
+
+"She is well, too," I answered.
+
+"Couldn't think of her being ill, somehow," he observed.  "And
+where have you been, may I ask?"
+
+I said I had been on the Continent for a short stay.
+
+"Oh, yes!  I remember now.  Someone said you had gone.  That
+reminds me:  Did you go to Paris?  Did you see the girl who sang at
+the Abbey--the one I told you of, who looked so like that pretty
+niece of yours?  Hope you did.  The resemblance was quite
+extraordinary.  Did you see her?"
+
+I dodged the question.  I asked him what he had been doing since
+the day of the golf tournament.
+
+"I--Oh, by Jove!" he exclaimed, "now I am going to surprise you.
+I have been getting ready to take the fatal step.  I'm going to be
+married."
+
+"Married!" I repeated.  "Really?  The--the Warwickshire young lady,
+I presume."
+
+"Yes.  How did you know of her?"
+
+"Your aunt--Lady Carey--mentioned that your--your affections were
+somewhat engaged in that quarter."
+
+"Did she?  Really!  Yes, she would mention it, I suppose.  She
+mentions it to everybody; it's a sort of hobby of hers, like my
+humble self, and the roses.  She has been more insistent of late
+and at last I consented to oblige her.  Do you know, Knowles, I
+think she was rather fearful that I might be smitten by your Miss
+Morley.  Shared your fears, eh?"
+
+I smiled, but I said nothing.  A train which I believed to be the
+one upon which Hephzy was expected, was drawing into the station,
+
+"A remarkably attractive girl, your niece," he went on.  "Have you
+heard from her?"
+
+"Yes," I said, absently.  "I must say good-by, Heathcroft.  That is
+the train I have been waiting for."
+
+"Oh, is it.  Then, au revoir, Knowles.  By the way, kindly remember
+me to your niece when you see her, will you."
+
+"I will.  But--" I could not resist the temptation; "but she isn't
+my niece," I said.
+
+"Oh, I say!  What?  Not your niece?  What is she then?"
+
+"She is my wife--now," I said.  "Good-by, Mr. Heathcroft."
+
+I hurried away before he could do more than gasp.  I think I shook
+even his serene composure at last.
+
+I told Hephzy about it as we rode to the hotel in the cab.
+
+"It was silly, I suppose," I said.  "I told him on the spur of the
+moment.  I imagine all Mayberry, not to mention Burgleston Bogs,
+will have something to talk about now.  They expect almost anything
+of Americans, or some of them do, but the marriage of an uncle and
+niece ought to be a surprise, I should think."
+
+Hephzy laughed.  "The Baylisses will explain," she said.  "I told
+the old doctor and his wife all about it.  They were very much
+pleased, that was plain enough.  They knew she wasn't your niece
+and they'll tell the other folks.  That'll be all right, Hosy.
+Yes, Doctor and Mrs. Bayliss were tickled almost to death.  It
+stops all their worry about their son and Frances, of course.  He
+is in Switzerland now, poor chap.  They'll write him and he'll come
+home again by and by where he ought to be.  And he'll forget by and
+by, too.  He's only a boy and he'll forget.  So THAT'S all right.
+
+"Everybody sent their love to you," she went on.  "The curates and
+the Samsons and everybody.  Mr. Cole and his wife are comin' back
+next week and the servants'll take care of the rectory till they
+come.  Everybody was so glad to see me, and they're goin' to write
+and everything.  I declare!  I felt real bad to leave 'em.  They're
+SUCH nice people, these English folks.  Aren't they, Hosy."
+
+They were and are.  I hope that some day I may have, in my own
+country, the opportunity to repay a little of the hospitality and
+kindness that my Mayberry friends bestowed on me in theirs.
+
+We sailed for home two days later.  A pleasant voyage it was, on a
+good ship and with agreeable fellow-passengers.  And, at last, one
+bright, cloudless morning, a stiff breeze blowing and the green and
+white waves leaping and tossing in the sunlight, we saw ahead of us
+a little speck--the South Shoal lightship.  Everyone crowded to the
+rail, of course.  Hephzy sighed, a sigh of pure happiness.
+
+"Nantucket!" she said, reading the big letters on the side of the
+little vessel.  "Nantucket!  Don't that sound like home, Hosy!
+Nantucket and Cape Cod are next-door neighbors, as you might say!
+My! the air seems different already.  I believe I can almost smell
+the Bayport flats.  Do you know what I am goin' to do as soon as I
+get into my kitchen?  After I've seen some of my neighbors and the
+cat and the hens, of course.  I'm going to make a clam chowder.
+I've been just dyin' for a clam chowder ever since we left
+England."
+
+And the next morning we landed at New York.  Jim Campbell was at
+the wharf to meet us.  His handshake was a welcome home which was
+good to feel.  He welcomed Hephzy just as heartily.  But I saw him
+looking at Frances with curiosity and I flattered myself,
+admiration, and I chuckled as I thought of the surprise which I was
+about to give him.  It would be a surprise, sure enough.  I had
+written him nothing of the recent wonderful happenings in Paris and
+in London, and I had sworn Matthews to secrecy likewise.  No, he
+did not know, he did not suspect, and I gloried in the opportunity
+which was mine.
+
+"Jim," I said, "there is one member of our party whom you have not
+met.  Frances, you have heard me speak of Mr. Campbell very often.
+Here he is.  Jim, I have the pleasure of presenting you to Mrs.
+Knowles, my wife."
+
+Jim stood the shock remarkably well, considering.  He gave me one
+glance, a glance which expressed a portion of his feelings, and
+then he and Frances shook hands.
+
+"Mrs. Knowles," he said, "I--you'll excuse my apparent lack of
+intellect, but--but this husband of yours has--I've known him a
+good while and I thought I had lost all capacity for surprise at
+anything he might do, but--but I hadn't.  I--I--Please don't mind
+me; I'm really quite sane at times.  I am very, very glad.  May we
+shake hands again?"
+
+He insisted upon our breakfasting with him at a near-by hotel.
+When he and I were alone together he seized my arm.
+
+"Confound you!" he exclaimed.  "You old chump!  What do you mean by
+springing this thing on me without a word of warning?  I never was
+as nearly knocked out in my life.  What do you mean by it?"
+
+I laughed.  "It is all part of your prescription," I said.  "You
+told me I should marry, you know.  Do you approve of my selection?"
+
+"Approve of it!  Why, man, she's--she's wonderful.  Approve of YOUR
+selection!  How about hers?  You durned quahaug!  How did you do
+it?"
+
+I gave him a condensed and hurried resume of the whole story.  He
+did not interrupt once--a perfectly amazing feat for him--and when
+I had finished he shook his head.
+
+"It's no use," he said.  "I'm too good for the business I am in.  I
+am wasting my talents.  _I_ sent you over there.  _I_ told you to
+go.  _I_ prescribed travel and a wife and all the rest.  _I_ did
+it.  I'm going to quit the publishing game.  I'm going to set up as
+a specialist, a brain specialist, for clams.  And I'll use your
+face as a testimonial:  'Kent Knowles, Quahaug.  Before and After
+Taking.'  Man, you look ten years younger than you did when you
+went away."
+
+"You must not take all the credit," I told him.  "You forget Hephzy
+and her dreams, the dream she told us about that day at Bayport.
+That dream has come true; do you realize it?"
+
+He nodded.  "I admit it," he said.  "She is a better specialist
+than I.  I shall have to take her into partnership.  'Campbell and
+Cahoon.  Prescribers and Predictors.  Authors Made Human.'  I'll
+speak to her about it."
+
+As he said good-by to us at the Grand Central Station he asked me
+another question.
+
+"Kent," he whispered, "what are you going to do now?  What are you
+going to do with her?  Are you and she going back to Bayport to be
+Mr. and Mrs. Quahaug?  Is that your idea?"
+
+I shook my head.  "We're going back to Bayport," I said, "but how
+long we shall stay there I don't know.  One thing you may be sure
+of, Jim; I shall be a quahaug no more."
+
+He nodded.  "I think you're right," he declared.  "She'll see to
+that, or I miss my guess.  No, my boy, your quahaug days are over.
+There's nothing of the shellfish about her; she's a live woman, as
+well as a mighty pretty one, and she cares enough about you to keep
+you awake and in the game.  I congratulate you, Kent, and I'm
+almost as happy as you are.  Also I shall play the optimist at our
+next directors' meeting; I see signs of a boom in the literature
+factory.  Go to it, my son.  You have my blessing."
+
+We took the one o'clock train for Boston, remained there over
+night, and left on the early morning "accommodation"--so called, I
+think, because it accommodates the train hands--for Cape Cod.  As
+we neared Buzzard's Bay my spirits, which had been at topnotch,
+began to sink.  When the sand dunes of Barnstable harbor hove in
+sight they sank lower and lower.  It was October, the summer
+people, most of them, had gone, the station platforms were almost
+deserted, the more pretentious cottages were closed.  The Cape
+looked bare and brown and wind-swept.  I thought of the English
+fields and hedges, of the verdant beauty of the Mayberry pastures.
+What SORT of a place would she think this, the home to which I was
+bringing her?
+
+She had been very much excited and very much interested.  New York,
+with its sky-scrapers and trolleys, its electric signs and clean
+white buildings, the latter so different from the grimy, gray
+dwellings and shops of London, had been a wonderland to her.  She
+had liked the Pullman and the dining-car and the Boston hotel.  But
+this, this was different.  How would she like sleepy, old Bayport
+and the people of Bayport.
+
+Well, I should soon know.  Even the morning "accommodation" reaches
+Bayport some time or other.  We were the only passengers to alight
+at the station, and Elmer Snow, the station agent, and Gabe Lumley,
+who drives the depot wagon, were the only ones to welcome us.
+Their welcome was hearty enough, I admit.  Gabe would have asked a
+hundred questions if I had answered the first of the hundred, but
+he seemed strangely reluctant to answer those I asked him.
+
+Bayport was gettin' along first-rate, he told me.  Tad Simpson's
+youngest child had diphtheria, but was sittin' up now and the fish
+weirs had caught consider'ble mackerel that summer.  So much he was
+willing to say, but he said little more.  I asked how the house and
+garden were looking and he cal'lated they were all right.  Pumping
+Gabe Lumley was a new experience for me.  Ordinarily he doesn't
+need pumping.  I could not understand it.  I saw Hephzy and he in
+consultation on the station platform and I wondered if she had been
+able to get more news than I.
+
+We rattled along the main road, up the hill by the Whittaker place--
+I looked eagerly for a glimpse of Captain Cy himself, but I didn't
+see him--and on until we reached our gate.  Frances said very
+little during our progress through the village.  I did not dare
+speak to her; I was afraid of asking her how she liked what she had
+seen of Bayport.  And Hephzy, too, was silent, although she kept
+her head out of the window most of the time.
+
+But when the depot wagon entered the big gate and stopped before
+the side door I felt that I must say something.  I must not appear
+fearful or uneasy.
+
+"Here we are!" I cried, springing out and helping her and Hephzy to
+alight.  "Here we are at last.  This is home, dear."
+
+And then the door opened and I saw that the dining-room was filled
+with people, people whom I had known all my life.  Mr. Partridge,
+the minister, was there, and his wife, and Captain Whittaker and
+his wife, and the Dimicks and the Salterses and more.  Before I
+could recover from my surprise Mr. Partridge stepped forward.
+
+"Mr. Knowles," he said, "on this happy occasion it is our privilege
+to--"
+
+But Captain Cy interrupted him.
+
+"Good Lord!" he exclaimed, "don't make a speech to him now, Mr.
+Partridge.  Welcome home, Kent!  We're all mighty glad to see you
+back again safe and sound.  And Hephzy, too.  By the big dipper,
+Hephzy, the sight of you is good for sore eyes!  And I suppose this
+is your wife, Kent.  Well, we--Hey!  I might have known Phoebe
+would get ahead of me."
+
+For Mrs. Whittaker and Frances were shaking hands.  Others were
+crowding forward to do so.  And the table was set and there were
+flowers everywhere and, in the background, was Susanna Wixon,
+grinning from ear to ear, with the cat--our cat--who seemed the
+least happy of the party, in her arms.
+
+Hephzy had written Mrs. Whittaker from London, telling her of my
+marriage; she had telegraphed from New York the day before,
+announcing the hour of our return.  And this was the result.
+
+When it was all over and they had gone--they would not remain for
+dinner, although we begged them to do so--when they had gone and
+Hephzy had fled to the yard to inspect the hens, I turned to my
+wife.
+
+"Frances," I said, "this is home.  Here is where Hephzy and I have
+lived for so long.  I--I hope you may be happy here.  It is a
+rather crude place, but--"
+
+She came to me and put her arms about my neck.
+
+"Don't, my dear, don't!" she said.  "It is beautiful.  It is home.
+And--and you know I have never had a home, a real home before."
+
+"Then you like it?" I cried.  "You really like it?  It is so
+different from England.  The people--"
+
+"They are dear, kind people.  And they like you and respect you,
+Kent.  How could you say they didn't!  I know I shall love them
+all."
+
+I made a dash for the kitchen.  "Hephzy!" I shouted.  "Hephzy!  She
+does like it.  She likes Bayport and the people and everything."
+
+Hephzy was just entering at the back door.  She did not seem in the
+least surprised.
+
+"Of course she likes it," she said, with decision.  "How could
+anybody help likin' Bayport?"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+Which Treats of Quahaugs in General
+
+
+Asaph Tidditt helped me to begin this long chronicle of a quahaug's
+pilgrimage.  Perhaps it is fitting that Asaph should end it.  He
+dropped in for a call the other afternoon and, as I had finished my
+day's "stunt" at the desk, I assisted in entertaining him.  Frances
+was in the sitting-room also and Hephzy joined us soon afterward.
+Mr. Tidditt had stopped at the post-office on his way down and he
+had the Boston morning paper in his hand.  Of course he was filled
+to the brim with war news.  We discuss little else in Bayport now;
+even the new baby at the parsonage has to play second fiddle.
+
+"My godfreys!" exclaimed Asaph, as soon as he sat down in the
+rocking chair and put his cap on the floor beneath it.  "My
+godfreys, but they're havin' awful times over across, now ain't
+they.  Killin' and fightin' and battlin' and slaughterin'!  It
+don't seem human to me somehow."
+
+"It is human, I'm afraid," I said, with a sigh.  "Altogether too
+human.  We're a poor lot, we, humans, after all.  We pride
+ourselves on our civilization, but after all, it takes very little
+to send us back to savagery."
+
+"That's so," said Asaph, with conviction.  "That's true about
+everybody but us folks in the United States.  We are awful
+fortunate, we are.  We ain't savages.  We was born in a free
+country, and we've been brought up right, I declare!  I beg your
+pardon, Mrs. Knowles; I forgot you wasn't born in Bayport."
+
+Frances smiled.  "No apology is needed, Mr. Tidditt," she said.
+"I confess to having been born a--savage."
+
+"But you're all right now," said Asaph, hastily, trying to cover
+his slip.  "You're all right now.  You're just as American as the
+rest of us.  Kent, suppose this war in Europe is goin' to hurt your
+trade any?  It's goin' to hurt a good many folks's.  They tell me
+groceries and such like is goin' way up.  Lucky we've got fish and
+clams to depend on.  Clams and quahaugs'll keep us from starvin'
+for a spell.  Oh," with a chuckle, "speakin' of quahaugs reminds
+me.  Did you know they used to call your husband a quahaug, Mrs.
+Knowles?  That's what they used to call him round here--'The
+Quahaug.'  They called him that 'count of his keepin' inside his
+shell all the time and not mixin' with folks, not toadyin' up to
+the summer crowd and all.  I always respected him for it.  _I_
+don't toady to nobody neither."
+
+Hephzy had come in by this time and now she took a part in the
+conversation.
+
+"They don't call him 'The Quahaug' any more," she declared,
+indignantly.  "He's been out of his shell more and seen more than
+most of the folks in this town."
+
+"I know it; I know it.  And he's kept goin' ever since.  Runnin' to
+New York, he and you," with a nod toward Frances, "and travelin' to
+Washin'ton and Niagary Falls and all.  Wonder to me how he does as
+much writin' as he does.  That last book of yours is sellin' first-
+rate, they tell me, Kent."
+
+He referred to the novel I began in Mayberry.  I have rewritten and
+finished it since, and it has had a surprising sale.  The critics
+seem to think I have achieved my first genuine success.
+
+"What are you writin' now?" asked Asaph.  "More of them yarns about
+pirates and such?  Land sakes! when I go by this house nights and
+see a light in your library window there, Kent, and know you're
+pluggin' along amongst all them adventures, I wonder how you can
+stand it.  'Twould give me the shivers.  Godfreys! the last time I
+read one of them yarns--that about the 'Black Brig' 'twas--I hardly
+dast to go to bed.  And I DIDN'T dast to put out the light.  I see
+a pirate in every corner, grittin' his teeth.  Writin' another of
+that kind, are you?"
+
+"No," I said; "this one is quite different.  You will have no
+trouble in sleeping over this one, Ase."
+
+"That's a comfort.  Got a little Bayport in it?  Seems to me you
+ought to put a little Bayport in, for a change."
+
+I smiled.  "There is a little in this," I answered.  "A little at
+the beginning, and, perhaps, at the end."
+
+"You don't say!  You ain't got me in it, have you?  I'd--I'd look
+kind of funny in a book, wouldn't I?"
+
+I laughed, but I did not answer.
+
+"Not that I ain't seen things in my life," went on Asaph,
+hopefully.  "A man can't be town clerk in a live town like this and
+not see things.  But I hope you won't put any more foreigners in.
+This we're readin' now," rapping the newspaper with his knuckles,
+"gives us all we want to know about foreigners.  Just savages, they
+be, as you say, and nothin' more.  I pity 'em."
+
+I laughed again.
+
+"Asaph," said I, "what would you say if I told you that the English
+and French--yes, and the Germans, too, though I haven't seen them
+at home as I have the others--were no more savages than we are?"
+
+"I'd say you was crazy," was the prompt answer.
+
+"Well, I'm not.  And you're not very complimentary.  You're
+forgetting again.  You forget that I married one of those savages."
+
+Asaph was taken aback, but he recovered promptly, as he had before.
+
+"She ain't any savage," he announced.  "Her mother was born right
+here in Bayport.  And she knows, just as I do, that Bayport's the
+best place in the world; don't you, Mrs. Knowles?"
+
+"Yes," said Frances, "I am sure of it, Mr. Tidditt."
+
+So Asaph went away triumphantly happy.  After he had gone I
+apologized for him.
+
+"He's a fair sample," I said.  "He is a quahaug, although he
+doesn't know it.  He is a certain type, an exaggerated type, of
+American."
+
+Frances smiled.  "He's not much worse than I used to be," she said.
+"I used to call America an uncivilized country, you remember.  I
+suppose I--and Mr. Heathcroft--were exaggerated types of a certain
+kind of English.  We were English quahaugs, weren't we?"
+
+Hephzy nodded.  "We're all quahaugs," she declared.  "Most of us,
+anyhow.  That's the trouble with all the folks of all the nations;
+they stay in their shells and they don't try to know and understand
+their neighbors.  Kent, you used to be a quahaug--a different kind
+of one--but that kind, too.  I was a quahaug afore I lived in
+Mayberry.  That's who makes wars like this dreadful one--quahaugs.
+We know better now--you and Frances and I.  We've found out that,
+down underneath, there's precious little difference.  Humans are
+humans."
+
+She paused and then, as a final summing up, added:
+
+"I guess that's it: American or German or French or anything--nice
+folks are nice folks anywhere."
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, KENT KNOWLES: QUAHAUG ***
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@@ -0,0 +1,15611 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Kent Knowles: Quahaug, by Joseph C. Lincoln
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Kent Knowles: Quahaug
+
+Author: Joseph C. Lincoln
+
+Release Date: June 6, 2006 [EBook #5980]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KENT KNOWLES: QUAHAUG ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Don Lainson; David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+KENT KNOWLES: QUAHAUG
+
+
+By Joseph C. Lincoln
+
+
+
+1914
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+I.     Which is not a chapter at all
+
+II.    Which repeats, for the most part, what Jim Campbell said to me and
+       what I said to him
+
+III.   Which, although it is largely family history, should not be skipped
+       by the reader
+
+IV.    In which Hephzy and I and the Plutonia sail together
+
+V.     In which we view, and even mingle slightly with, the upper classes
+
+VI.    In which we are received at Bancroft's Hotel and I receive a letter
+
+VII.   In which a dream becomes a reality
+
+VIII.  In which the pilgrims become tenants
+
+IX.    In which we make the acquaintance of Mayberry and a portion of
+       Burgleston Bogs
+
+X.     In which I break all previous resolutions and make a new one
+
+XI.    In which complications become more complicated
+
+XII.   In which the truth is told at last
+
+XIII.  In which Hephzy and I agree to live for each other
+
+XIV.   In which I play golf and cross the channel
+
+XV.    In which I learn that all abbeys are not churches
+
+XVI.   In which I take my turn at playing the invalid
+
+XVII.  In which I, as well as Mr. Solomon Cripps, am surprised
+
+XVIII. In which the pilgrimage ends where it began
+
+XIX.   Which treats of quahaugs in general
+
+
+
+
+
+KENT KNOWLES: QUAHAUG
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Which is Not a Chapter at All
+
+
+It was Asaph Tidditt who told me how to begin this history. Perhaps I
+should be very much obliged to Asaph; perhaps I shouldn't. He has gotten
+me out of a difficulty--or into one; I am far from certain which.
+
+Ordinarily--I am speaking now of the writing of swashbuckling
+romances, which is, or was, my trade--I swear I never have called it
+a profession--the beginning of a story is the least of the troubles
+connected with its manufacture. Given a character or two and a
+situation, the beginning of one of those romances is, or was, pretty
+likely to be something like this:
+
+"It was a black night. Heavy clouds had obscured the setting sun and
+now, as the clock in the great stone tower boomed twelve, the darkness
+was pitchy."
+
+That is a good safe beginning. Midnight, a stone tower, a booming clock,
+and darkness make an appeal to the imagination. On a night like that
+almost anything may happen. A reader of one of my romances--and
+readers there must be, for the things did, and still do, sell to some
+extent--might be fairly certain that something WOULD happen before the
+end of the second page. After that the somethings continued to happen as
+fast as I could invent them.
+
+But this story was different. The weather or the time had nothing to do
+with its beginning. There were no solitary horsemen or strange wayfarers
+on lonely roads, no unexpected knocks at the doors of taverns, no
+cloaked personages landing from boats rowed by black-browed seamen with
+red handkerchiefs knotted about their heads and knives in their
+belts. The hero was not addressed as "My Lord"; he was not "Sir
+Somebody-or-other" in disguise. He was not young and handsome; there was
+not even "a certain something in his manner and bearing which hinted of
+an eventful past." Indeed there was not. For, if this particular yarn or
+history or chronicle which I had made up my mind to write, and which I
+am writing now, had or has a hero, I am he. And I am Hosea Kent Knowles,
+of Bayport, Massachusetts, the latter the village in which I was born
+and in which I have lived most of the time since I was twenty-seven
+years old. Nobody calls me "My Lord." Hephzy has always called me
+"Hosy"--a name which I despise--and the others, most of them, "Kent" to
+my face and "The Quahaug" behind my back, a quahaug being a very common
+form of clam which is supposed to lead a solitary existence and to
+keep its shell tightly shut. If anything in my manner had hinted at a
+mysterious past no one in Bayport would have taken the hint. Bayporters
+know my past and that of my ancestors only too well.
+
+As for being young and handsome--well, I was thirty-eight years old last
+March. Which is quite enough on THAT subject.
+
+But I had determined to write the story, so I sat down to begin it. And
+immediately I got into difficulties. How should I begin? I might begin
+at any one of a dozen places--with Hephzy's receiving the Raymond and
+Whitcomb circular; with our arrival in London; with Jim Campbell's visit
+to me here in Bayport; with the curious way in which the letter reached
+us, after crossing the ocean twice. Any one of these might serve as a
+beginning--but which? I made I don't know how many attempts, but not
+one was satisfactory. I, who had begun I am ashamed to tell you how many
+stories--yes, and had finished them and seen them in print as well--was
+stumped at the very beginning of this one. Like Sim Phinney I had
+worked at my job "a long spell" and "cal'lated" I knew it, but here
+was something I didn't know. As Sim said, when he faced his problem, "I
+couldn't seem to get steerage way on her."
+
+Simeon, you see--He is Angeline Phinney's second cousin and lives in
+the third house beyond the Holiness Bethel on the right-hand side of the
+road--Simeon has "done carpentering" here in Bayport all his life. He
+built practically every henhouse now gracing or disgracing the backyards
+of our village. He is our "henhouse specialist," so to speak. He has
+even been known to boast of his skill. "Henhouses!" snorted Sim; "land
+of love! I can build a henhouse with my eyes shut. Nowadays when another
+one of them foolheads that's been readin' 'How to Make a Million Poultry
+Raisin'' in the Farm Gazette comes to me and says 'Henhouse,' I say,
+'Yes sir. Fifteen dollars if you pay me cash now and a hundred and
+fifteen if you want to wait and pay me out of your egg profits. That's
+all there is to it.'"
+
+And yet, when Captain Darius Nickerson, who made the most of his money
+selling fifty-foot lots of sand, beachgrass and ticks to summer
+people for bungalow sites--when Captain Darius, grown purse-proud and
+vainglorious, expressed a desire for a henhouse with a mansard roof and
+a cupola, the latter embellishments to match those surmounting his own
+dwelling, Simeon was set aback with his canvas flapping. At the end of
+a week he had not driven a nail. "Godfrey's mighty!" he is reported to
+have exclaimed. "I don't know whether to build the average cupola and
+trust to a hen's fittin' it, or take an average hen and build a cupola
+round her. Maybe I'll be all right after I get started, but it's where
+to start that beats me."
+
+Where to start beat me, also, and it might be beating me yet, if I
+hadn't dropped in at the post-office and heard Asaph Tidditt telling
+a story to the group around the stove. After he had finished, and,
+the mail being sorted, we were walking homeward together, I asked a
+question.
+
+"Asaph," said I, "when you start to spin a yarn how do you begin?"
+
+"Hey?" he exclaimed. "How do I begin? Why, I just heave to and go to
+work and begin, that's all."
+
+"Yes, I know, but where do you begin?"
+
+"At the beginnin', naturally. If you was cal'latin' to sail a boat race
+you wouldn't commence at t'other end of the course, would you?"
+
+"_I_ might; practical people wouldn't, I suppose. But--what IS the
+beginning? Suppose there were a lot of beginnings and you didn't know
+which to choose."
+
+"Oh, we-ll, in that case I'd just sort of--of edge around till I found
+one that--that was a beginnin' of SOMETHIN' and I'd start there. You
+understand, don't you? Take that yarn I was spinnin' just now--that one
+about Josiah Dimick's great uncle's pig on his mother's side. I mean
+his uncle on his mother's side, not the pig, of course. Now I hadn't no
+intention of tellin' about that hog; hadn't thought of it for a thousand
+year, as you might say. I just commenced to tell about Angie Phinney,
+about how fast she could talk, and that reminded me of a parrot
+that belonged to Sylvanus Cahoon's sister--Violet, the sister's name
+was--loony name, too, if you ask ME, 'cause she was a plaguey sight
+nigher bein' a sunflower than she was a violet--weighed two hundred and
+ten and had a face on her as red as--"
+
+"Just a minute, Ase. About that pig?"
+
+"Oh, yes! Well, the pig reminded me of Violet's parrot and the parrot
+reminded me of a Plymouth Rock rooster I had that used to roost in the
+pigpen nights--wouldn't use the henhouse no more'n you nor I would--and
+that, naturally, made me think of pigs, and pigs fetched Josiah's
+uncle's pig to mind and there I was all ready to start on the yarn. It
+pretty often works out that way. When you want to start a yarn and you
+can't start--you've forgot it, or somethin'--just begin somewhere, get
+goin' somehow. Edge around and keep edgin' around and pretty soon you'll
+fetch up at the right place TO start. See, don't you, Kent?"
+
+I saw--that is, I saw enough. I came home and this morning I began the
+"edging around" process. I don't seem to have "fetched up" anywhere in
+particular, but I shall keep on with the edging until I do. As Asaph
+says, I must begin somewhere, so I shall begin with the Saturday morning
+of last April when Jim Campbell, my publisher and my friend--which is
+by no means such an unusual combination as many people think--sat on the
+veranda of my boathouse overlooking Cape Cod Bay and discussed my past,
+present and, more particularly, my future.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Which Repeats, for the Most Part, What Jim Campbell Said to Me and What
+I Said to Him
+
+
+"Jim," said I, "what is the matter with me?"
+
+Jim, who was seated in the ancient and dilapidated arm-chair which
+was the finest piece of furniture in the boathouse and which I always
+offered to visitors, looked at me over the collar of my sweater. I used
+the sweater as I did the arm-chair when I did not have visitors. He was
+using it then because, like an idiot, he had come to Cape Cod in April
+with nothing warmer than a very natty suit and a light overcoat. Of
+course one may go clamming and fishing in a light overcoat, but--one
+doesn't.
+
+Jim looked at me over the collar of my sweater. Then he crossed
+his oilskinned and rubber-booted legs--they were my oilskins and my
+boots--and answered promptly.
+
+"Indigestion," he said. "You ate nine of those biscuits this morning; I
+saw you."
+
+"I did not," I retorted, "because you saw them first. MY interior is in
+its normal condition. As for yours--"
+
+"Mine," he interrupted, filling his pipe from my tobacco pouch, "being
+accustomed to a breakfast, not a gorge, is abnormal but satisfactory,
+thank you--quite satisfactory."
+
+"That," said I, "we will discuss later, when I have you out back of the
+bar in my catboat. Judging from present indications there will be some
+sea-running. The 'Hephzy' is a good, capable craft, but a bit cranky,
+like the lady she is named for. I imagine she will roll."
+
+He didn't like that. You see, I had sailed with him before and I
+remembered.
+
+"Ho-se-a," he drawled, "you have a vivid imagination. It is a pity you
+don't use more of it in those stories of yours."
+
+"Humph! I am obliged to use the most of it on the royalty statements you
+send me. If you call me 'Hosea' again I will take the 'Hephzy' across
+the Point Rip. The waves there are fifteen feet high at low tide. See
+here, I asked you a serious question and I should like a serious answer.
+Jim, what IS the matter with me? Have I written out or what is the
+trouble?"
+
+He looked at me again.
+
+"Are you in earnest?" he asked.
+
+"I am, very much in earnest."
+
+"And you really want to talk shop after a breakfast like that and on a
+morning like this?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Was that why you asked me to come to Bayport and spend the week-end?"
+
+"No-o. No, of course not."
+
+"You're another; it was. When you met me at the railroad station
+yesterday I could see there was something wrong with you. All this
+morning you've had something on your chest. I thought it was the
+biscuits, of course; but it wasn't, eh?"
+
+"It was not."
+
+"Then what was it? Aren't we paying you a large enough royalty?"
+
+"You are paying me a good deal larger one than I deserve. I don't see
+why you do it."
+
+"Oh," with a wave of the hand, "that's all right. The publishing of
+books is a pure philanthropy. We are in business for our health, and--"
+
+"Shut up. You know as well as I do that the last two yarns of mine which
+your house published have not done as well as the others."
+
+I had caught him now. Anything remotely approaching a reflection upon
+the business house of which he was the head was sufficient to stir
+up Jim Campbell. That business, its methods and its success, were his
+idols.
+
+"I don't know any such thing," he protested, hotly. "We sold--"
+
+"Hang the sale! You sold quite enough. It is an everlasting miracle
+to me that you are able to sell a single copy. Why a self-respecting
+person, possessed of any intelligence whatever, should wish to read the
+stuff I write, to say nothing of paying money for the privilege, I can't
+understand."
+
+"You don't have to understand. No one expects an author to understand
+anything. All you are expected to do is to write; we'll attend to the
+rest of it. And as for sales--why, 'The Black Brig'--that was the last
+one, wasn't it?--beat the 'Omelet' by eight thousand or more."
+
+"The Omelet" was our pet name for "The Queen's Amulet," my first offence
+in the literary line. It was a highly seasoned concoction of revolution
+and adventure in a mythical kingdom where life was not dull, to say the
+least. The humblest character in it was a viscount. Living in Bayport
+had, naturally, made me familiar with the doings of viscounts.
+
+"Eight thousand more than the last isn't so bad, is it?" demanded Jim
+Campbell combatively.
+
+"It isn't. It is astonishingly good. It is the books themselves that
+are bad. The 'Omelet' was bad enough, but I wrote it more as a joke than
+anything else. I didn't take it seriously at all. Every time I called
+a duke by his Christian name I grinned. But nowadays I don't grin--I
+swear. I hate the things, Jim. They're no good. And the reviewers are
+beginning to tumble to the fact that they're no good, too. You saw the
+press notices yourself. 'Another Thriller by the Indefatigable Knowles'
+'Barnacles, Buccaneers and Blood, not to Mention Beauty and the
+Bourbons.' That's the way two writers headed their articles about 'The
+Black Brig.' And a third said that I must be getting tired; I wrote as
+if I was. THAT fellow was right. I am tired, Jim. I'm tired and sick
+of writing slush. I can't write any more of it. And yet I can't write
+anything else."
+
+Jim's pipe had gone out. Now he relit it and tossed the match over the
+veranda rail.
+
+"How do you know you can't?" he demanded.
+
+"Can't what?"
+
+"Can't write anything but slush?"
+
+"Ah ha! Then it is slush. You admit it."
+
+"I don't admit anything of the kind. You may not be a William
+Shakespeare or even a George Meredith, but you have written some mighty
+interesting stories. Why, I know a chap who sits up till morning to
+finish a book of yours. Can't sleep until he has finished it."
+
+"What's the matter with him; insomnia?"
+
+"No; he's a night watchman. Does that satisfy you, you crossgrained
+old shellfish? Come on, let's dig clams--some of your own blood
+relations--and forget it."
+
+"I don't want to forget it and there is plenty of time for clamming. The
+tide won't cover the flats for two hours yet. I tell you I'm serious,
+Jim. I can't write any more. I know it. The stuff I've been writing
+makes me sick. I hate it, I tell you. What the devil I'm going to do for
+a living I can't see--but I can't write another story."
+
+Jim put his pipe in his pocket. I think at last he was convinced that I
+meant what I said, which I certainly did. The last year had been a year
+of torment to me. I had finished the 'Brig,' as a matter of duty, but if
+that piratical craft had sunk with all hands, including its creator, I
+should not have cared. I drove myself to my desk each day, as a horse
+might be driven to a treadmill, but the animal could have taken no less
+interest in his work than I had taken in mine. It was bad--bad--bad;
+worthless and hateful. There wasn't a new idea in it and I hadn't one
+in my head. I, who had taken up writing as a last resort, a gamble which
+might, on a hundred-to-one chance, win where everything else had failed,
+had now reached the point where that had failed, too. Campbell's surmise
+was correct; with the pretence of asking him to the Cape for a
+week-end of fishing and sailing I had lured him there to tell him of my
+discouragement and my determination to quit.
+
+He took his feet from the rail and hitched his chair about until he
+faced me.
+
+"So you're not going to write any more," he said.
+
+"I'm not. I can't."
+
+"What are you going to do; live on back royalties and clams?"
+
+"I may have to live on the clams; my back royalties won't keep me very
+long."
+
+"Humph! I should think they might keep you a good while down here. You
+must have something in the stocking. You can't have wasted very much in
+riotous living on this sand-heap. What have you done with your money,
+for the last ten years; been leading a double life?"
+
+"I've found leading a single one hard enough. I have saved something, of
+course. It isn't the money that worries me, Jim; I told you that. It's
+myself; I'm no good. Every author, sometime or other, reaches the point
+where he knows perfectly well he has done all the real work he can
+ever do, that he has written himself out. That's what's the matter with
+me--I'm written out."
+
+Jim snorted. "For Heaven's sake, Kent Knowles," he demanded, "how old
+are you?"
+
+"I'm thirty-eight, according to the almanac, but--"
+
+"Thirty-eight! Why, Thackeray wrote--"
+
+"Drop it! I know when Thackeray wrote 'Vanity Fair' as well as you do.
+I'm no Thackeray to begin with, and, besides, I am older at thirty-eight
+than he was when he died--yes, older than he would have been if he had
+lived twice as long. So far as feeling and all the rest of it go, I'm a
+second Methusaleh."
+
+"My soul! hear the man! And I'm forty-two myself. Well, Grandpa, what do
+you expect me to do; get you admitted to the Old Man's Home?"
+
+"I expect--" I began, "I expect--" and I concluded with the lame
+admission that I didn't expect him to do anything. It was up to me to do
+whatever must be done, I imagined.
+
+He smiled grimly.
+
+"Glad your senility has not affected that remnant of your common-sense,"
+he declared. "You're dead right, my boy; it IS up to you. You ought to
+be ashamed of yourself."
+
+"I am, but that doesn't help me a whole lot."
+
+"Nothing will help you as long as you think and speak as you have this
+morning. See here, Kent! answer me a question or two, will you? They may
+be personal questions, but will you answer them?"
+
+"I guess so. There has been what a disinterested listener might call
+a slightly personal flavor to your remarks so far. Do your worst. Fire
+away."
+
+"All right. You've lived in Bayport ten years or so, I know that. What
+have you done in all that time--besides write?"
+
+"Well, I've continued to live."
+
+"Doubted. You've continued to exist; but how? I've been here before.
+This isn't my first visit, by a good deal. Each time I have been
+here your daily routine--leaving out the exciting clam hunts and the
+excursions in quest of the ferocious flounder, like the one we're
+supposed--mind, I say supposed--to be on at the present moment--you
+have put in the day about like this: Get up, bathe, eat, walk to the
+post-office, walk home, sit about, talk a little, read some, walk some
+more, eat again, smoke, talk, read, eat for the third time, smoke, talk,
+read and go to bed. That's the program, isn't it?"
+
+"Not exactly. I play tennis in summer--when there is anyone to play with
+me--and golf, after a fashion. I used to play both a good deal, when I
+was younger. I swim, and I shoot a little, and--and--"
+
+"How about society? Have any, do you?"
+
+"In the summer, when the city people are here, there is a good deal
+going on, if you care for it--picnics and clam bakes and teas and lawn
+parties and such."
+
+"Heavens! what reckless dissipation! Do you indulge?"
+
+"Why, no--not very much. Hang it all, Jim! you know I'm no society man.
+I used to do the usual round of fool stunts when I was younger, but--"
+
+"But now you're too antique, I suppose. Wonder that someone hasn't
+collected you as a genuine Chippendale or something. So you don't 'tea'
+much?"
+
+"Not much. I'm not often invited, to tell you the truth. The summer
+crowd doesn't take kindly to me, I'm afraid."
+
+"Astonishing! You're such a chatty, entertaining, communicative cuss on
+first acquaintance, too. So captivatingly loquacious to strangers. I can
+imagine how you'd shine at a 'tea.' Every summer girl that tried to talk
+to you would be frost-bitten. Do you accept invitations when they do
+come?"
+
+"Not often nowadays. You see, I know they don't really want me."
+
+"How do you know it?"
+
+"Why--well, why should they? Everybody else calls me--"
+
+"They call you a clam and so you try to live up to your reputation. I
+know you, Kent. You think yourself a tough old bivalve, but the most
+serious complaint you suffer from is ingrowing sensitiveness. They do
+want you. They'd invite you if you gave them half a chance. Oh, I know
+you won't, of course; but if I had my way I'd have you dragged by main
+strength to every picnic and tea and feminine talk-fest within twenty
+miles. You might meet some persevering female who would propose
+marriage. YOU never would, but SHE might."
+
+I rose to my feet in disgust.
+
+"We'll go clamming," said I.
+
+He did not move.
+
+"We will--later on," he answered. "We haven't got to the last page
+of the catechism yet. I mentioned matrimony because a good, capable,
+managing wife would be my first prescription in your case. I have one
+or two more up my sleeve. Tell me this: How often do you get away from
+Bayport? How often do you get to--well, to Boston, we'll say? How many
+times have you been there in the last year?"
+
+"I don't know. A dozen, perhaps."
+
+"What did you do when you went?"
+
+"Various things. Shopped some, went to the theater occasionally, if
+there happened to be anything on that I cared to see. Bought a good many
+books. Saw the new Sargent pictures at the library. And--and--"
+
+"And shook hands with your brother fossils at the museum, I suppose.
+Wild life you lead, Kent. Did you visit anybody? Meet any friends or
+acquaintances--any live ones?"
+
+"Not many. I haven't many friends, Jim; you know that. As for the wild
+life--well, I made two visits to New York this year."
+
+"Yes," drily; "and we saw Sothern and Marlowe and had dinner at the
+Holland. The rest of the time we talked shop. That was the first visit.
+The second was more exciting still; we talked shop ALL the time and you
+took the six o'clock train home again."
+
+"You're wrong there. I saw the new loan collections at the Metropolitan
+and heard Ysaye play at Carnegie Hall. I didn't start for home until the
+next day."
+
+"Is that so. That's news to me. You said you were going that afternoon.
+That was to put the kibosh on my intention of taking you home to my wife
+and her bridge party, I suppose. Was it?"
+
+"Well--well, you see, Jim, I--I don't play bridge and I AM such a
+stick in a crowd like that. I wanted to stay and you were mighty kind,
+but--but--"
+
+"All right. All right, my boy. Next time it will be Bustanoby's, the
+Winter Garden and a three A. M. cabaret for yours. My time is coming.
+Now--Well, now we'll go clamming."
+
+He swung out of the arm-chair and walked to the top of the steps leading
+down to the beach. I was surprised, of course; I have known Jim Campbell
+a long time, but he can surprise me even yet.
+
+"Here! hold on!" I protested. "How about the rest of that catechism?"
+
+"You've had it."
+
+"Were those all the questions you wanted to ask?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Humph! And that is all the advice and encouragement I'm to get from
+you! How about those prescriptions you had up your sleeve?"
+
+"You'll get those by and by. Before I leave this gay and festive scene
+to-morrow I'm going to talk to you, Ho-se-a. And you're going to listen.
+You'll listen to old Doctor Campbell; HE'LL prescribe for you, don't
+you worry. And now," beginning to descend the steps, "now for clams and
+flounders."
+
+"And the Point Rip," I added, maliciously, for his frivolous treatment
+of what was to me a very serious matter, was disappointing and
+provoking. "Don't forget the Point Rip."
+
+We dug the clams--they were for bait--we boarded the "Hephzy," sailed
+out to the fishing grounds, and caught flounders. I caught the most of
+them; Jim was not interested in fishing during the greater part of the
+time. Then we sailed home again and walked up to the house. Hephzibah,
+for whom my boat is named, met us at the back door. As usual her
+greeting was not to the point and practical.
+
+"Leave your rubber boots right outside on the porch," she said. "Here,
+give me those flatfish; I'll take care of 'em. Hosy, you'll find dry
+things ready in your room. Here's your shoes; I've been warmin' 'em. Mr.
+Campbell I've put a suit of Hosy's and some flannels on your bed. They
+may not fit you, but they'll be lots better than the damp ones you've
+got on. You needn't hurry; dinner won't be ready till you are."
+
+I did not say anything; I knew Hephzy--had known her all my life. Jim,
+who, naturally enough, didn't know her as well, protested.
+
+"We're not wet, Miss Cahoon," he declared. "At least, I'm not, and I
+don't see how Kent can be. We both wore oilskins."
+
+"That doesn't make any difference. You ought to change your clothes
+anyhow. Been out in that boat, haven't you?"
+
+"Yes, but--"
+
+"Well, then! Don't say another word. I'll have a fire in the
+sittin'-room and somethin' hot ready when you come down. Hosy, be
+sure and put on BOTH the socks I darned for you. Don't get thinkin' of
+somethin' else and come down with one whole and one holey, same as you
+did last time. You must excuse me, Mr. Campbell. I've got saleratus
+biscuits in the oven."
+
+She hastened into the kitchen. When Jim and I, having obeyed orders
+to the extent of leaving our boots on the porch, passed through that
+kitchen she was busy with the tea-kettle. I led the way through the
+dining-room and up the front stairs. My visitor did not speak until we
+reached the second story. Then he expressed his feelings.
+
+"Say, Kent" he demanded, "are you going to change your clothes?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why? You're no wetter than I am, are you?"
+
+"Not a bit, but I'm going to change, just the same. It's the easier
+way."
+
+"It is, is it! What's the other way?"
+
+"The other way is to keep on those you're wearing and take the
+consequences."
+
+"What consequences?"
+
+"Jamaica ginger, hot water bottles and an afternoon's roast in front of
+the sitting-room fire. Hephzibah went out sailing with me last October
+and caught cold. That was enough; no one else shall have the experience
+if she can help it."
+
+"But--but good heavens! Kent, do you mean to say you always have to
+change when you come in from sailing?"
+
+"Except in summer, yes."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"Because Hephzy tells me to."
+
+"Do you always do what she tells you?"
+
+"Generally. It's the easiest way, as I said before."
+
+"Good--heavens! And she darns your socks and tells you what--er lingerie
+to wear and--does she wash your face and wipe your nose and scrub behind
+your ears?"
+
+"Not exactly, but she probably would if I didn't do it."
+
+"Well, I'll be hanged! And she extends the same treatment to all your
+guests?"
+
+"I don't have any guests but you. No doubt she would if I did. She
+mothers every stray cat and sick chicken in the neighborhood. There,
+Jim, you trot along and do as you're told like a nice little boy. I'll
+join you in the sitting-room."
+
+"Humph! perhaps I'd better. I may be spanked and put to bed if I don't.
+Well, well! and you are the author of 'The Black Brig!' 'Buccaneers and
+Blood!' 'Bibs and Butterscotch' it should be! Don't stand out here in
+the cold hall, Hosy darling; you may get the croup if you do."
+
+I was waiting in the sitting-room when he came down. There was a roaring
+fire in the big, old-fashioned fireplace. That fireplace had been
+bricked up in the days when people used those abominations, stoves. As a
+boy I was well acquainted with the old "gas burner" with the iron urn
+on top and the nickeled ornaments and handles which Mother polished so
+assiduously. But the gas burner had long since gone to the junk dealer.
+Among the improvements which my first royalty checks made possible were
+steam heat and the restoration of the fireplace.
+
+Jim found me sitting before the fire in one of the two big "wing" chairs
+which I had purchased when Darius Barlay's household effects were sold
+at auction. I should not have acquired them as cheaply if Captain Cyrus
+Whittaker had been at home when the auction took place. Captain Cy loves
+old-fashioned things as much as I do and, as he has often told me since,
+he meant to land those chairs some day if he had to run his bank account
+high and dry in consequence. But the Captain and his wife--who used to
+be Phoebe Dawes, our school-teacher here in Bayport--were away visiting
+their adopted daughter, Emily, who is married and living in Boston, and
+I got the chairs.
+
+At the Barclay auction I bought also the oil painting of the bark
+"Freedom"--a command of Captain Elkanah Barclay, uncle of the late
+Darius--and the set--two volumes missing--of The Spectator, bound in
+sheepskin. The "Freedom" is depicted "Entering the Port of Genoa, July
+10th, 1848," and if the port is somewhat wavy and uncertain, the
+bark's canvas and rigging are definite and rigid enough to make up.
+The Spectator set is chiefly remarkable for its marginal notes; Captain
+Elkanah bought the books in London and read and annotated at spare
+intervals during subsequent voyages. His opinions were decided and his
+notes nautical and emphatic. Hephzibah read a few pages of the
+notes when the books first came into the house and then went to
+prayer-meeting. As she had announced her intention of remaining at home
+that evening I was surprised--until I read them myself.
+
+Jim came downstairs, arrayed in the suit which Hephzy had laid out for
+him. I made no comment upon his appearance. To do so would have been
+superfluous; he looked all the comments necessary.
+
+I waved my hand towards the unoccupied wing chair and he sat down. Two
+glasses, one empty and the other half full of a steaming mixture, were
+on the little table beside us.
+
+"Help yourself, Jim," I said, indicating the glasses. He took up the one
+containing the mixture and regarded it hopefully.
+
+"What?" he asked.
+
+"A Cahoon toddy," said I. "Warranted to keep off chills, rheumatism,
+lumbago and kindred miseries. Good for what ails you. Don't wait; I've
+had mine."
+
+He took a sniff and then a very small sip. His face expressed genuine
+emotion.
+
+"Whew!" he gasped, choking. "What in blazes--?"
+
+"Jamaica ginger, sugar and hot water," I explained blandly. "It
+won't hurt you--longer than five minutes. It is Hephzy's invariable
+prescription."
+
+"Good Lord! Did you drink yours?"
+
+"No--I never do, unless she watches me."
+
+"But your glass is empty. What did you do with it?"
+
+"Emptied it behind the back log. Of course, if you prefer to drink it--"
+
+"Drink it!" His "toddy" splashed the back log, causing a tremendous
+sizzle.
+
+Before he could relieve his mind further, Hephzy appeared to announce
+that dinner was ready if we were. We were, most emphatically, so we went
+into the dining-room.
+
+Hephzy and Jim did most of the talking during the meal. I had talked
+more that forenoon than I had for a week--I am not a chatty person,
+ordinarily, which, in part, explains my nickname--and I was very willing
+to eat and listen. Hephzy, who was garbed in her best gown--best weekday
+gown, that is; she kept her black silk for Sundays--talked a good deal,
+mostly about dreams and presentiments. Susanna Wixon, Tobias Wixon's
+oldest daughter, waited on table, when she happened to think of it, and
+listened when she did not. Susanna had been hired to do the waiting and
+the dish-washing during Campbell's brief visit. It was I who hired
+her. If I had had my way she would have been a permanent fixture in the
+household, but Hephzy scoffed at the idea. "Pity if I can't do housework
+for two folks," she declared. "I don't care if you can afford it.
+Keepin' hired help in a family no bigger than this, is a sinful
+extravagance." As Susanna's services had been already engaged for the
+weekend she could not discharge her, but she insisted on doing all the
+cooking herself.
+
+Her conversation, as I said, dealt mainly with dreams and presentiments.
+Hephzibah is not what I should call a superstitious person. She doesn't
+believe in "signs," although she might feel uncomfortable if she broke a
+looking-glass or saw the new moon over her left shoulder. She has a most
+amazing fund of common-sense and is "down" on Spiritualism to a degree.
+It is one of Bayport's pet yarns, that at the Harniss Spiritualist
+camp-meeting when the "test medium" announced from the platform that he
+had a message for a lady named Hephzibah C--he "seemed to get the name
+Hephzibah C"--Hephzy got up and walked out. "Any dead relations I've
+got," she declared, "who send messages through a longhaired idiot like
+that one up there"--meaning the medium,--"can't have much to say that's
+worth listenin' to. They can talk to themselves if they want to, but
+they shan't waste MY time."
+
+In but one particular was Hephzy superstitious. Whenever she dreamed of
+"Little Frank" she was certain something was going to happen. She had
+dreamed of "Little Frank" the night before and, if she had not been
+headed off, she would have talked of nothing else.
+
+"I saw him just as plain as I see you this minute, Hosy," she said to
+me. "I was somewhere, in a strange place--a foreign place, I should say
+'twas--and there I saw him. He didn't know me; at least I don't think he
+did."
+
+"Considering that he never saw you that isn't so surprising," I
+interrupted. "I think Mr. Campbell would have another cup of coffee if
+you urged him. Susanna, take Mr. Campbell's cup."
+
+Jim declined the coffee; said he hadn't finished his first cup yet. I
+knew that, of course, but I was trying to head off Hephzy. She refused
+to be headed, just then.
+
+"But I knew HIM," she went on. "He looked just the same as he has when
+I've seen him before--in the other dreams, you know. The very image of
+his mother. Isn't it wonderful, Hosy!"
+
+"Yes; but don't resurrect the family skeletons, Hephzy. Mr. Campbell
+isn't interested in anatomy."
+
+"Skeletons! I don't know what you're talkin' about. He wasn't a
+skeleton. I saw him just as plain! And I said to myself, 'It's little
+Frank!' Now what do you suppose he came to me for? What do you suppose
+it means? It means somethin', I know that."
+
+"Means that you weren't sleeping well, probably," I answered. "Jim,
+here, will dream of cross-seas and the Point Rip to-night, I have no
+doubt."
+
+Jim promptly declared that if he thought that likely he shouldn't mind
+so much. What he feared most was a nightmare session with an author.
+
+Hephzibah was interested at once. "Oh, do you dream about authors, Mr.
+Campbell?" she demanded. "I presume likely you do, they're so mixed up
+with your business. Do your dreams ever come true?"
+
+"Not often," was the solemn reply. "Most of my dream-authors are
+rational and almost human."
+
+Hephzy, of course, did not understand this, but it did have the effect
+for which I had been striving, that of driving "Little Frank" from her
+mind for the time.
+
+"I don't care," she declared, "I s'pose it's awful foolish and silly of
+me, but it does seem sometimes as if there was somethin' in dreams, some
+kind of dreams. Hosy laughs at me and maybe I ought to laugh at myself,
+but some dreams come true, or awfully near to true; now don't they.
+Angeline Phinney was in here the other day and she was tellin' about her
+second cousin that was--he's dead now--Abednego Small. He was constable
+here in Bayport for years; everybody called him 'Uncle Bedny.' Uncle
+Bedny had been keepin' company with a woman named Dimick--Josiah
+Dimick's niece--lots younger than he, she was. He'd been thinkin' of
+marryin' her, so Angie said, but his folks had been talkin' to him,
+tellin' him he was too old to take such a young woman for his third
+wife, so he had made up his mind to throw her over, to write a letter
+sayin' it was all off between 'em. Well, he'd begun the letter but
+he never finished it, for three nights runnin' he dreamed that awful
+trouble was hangin' over him. That dream made such an impression on him
+that he tore the letter up and married the Dimick woman after all. And
+then--I didn't know this until Angie told me--it turned out that she
+had heard he was goin' to give her the go-by and had made all her
+arrangements to sue him for breach of promise if he did. That was the
+awful trouble, you see, and the dream saved him from it."
+
+I smiled. "The fault there was in the interpretation of the dream," I
+said. "The 'awful trouble' of the breach of promise suit wouldn't have
+been a circumstance to the trouble poor Uncle Bedny got into by marrying
+Ann Dimick. THAT trouble lasted till he died."
+
+Hephzibah laughed and said she guessed that was so, she hadn't thought
+of it in that way.
+
+"Probably dreams are all nonsense," she admitted. "Usually, I don't pay
+much attention to 'em. But when I dream of poor 'Little Frank,' away off
+there, I--"
+
+"Come into the sitting-room, Jim," I put in hastily. "I have a cigar or
+two there. I don't buy them in Bayport, either."
+
+"And who," asked Jim, as we sat smoking by the fire, "is Little Frank?"
+
+"He is a mythical relative of ours," I explained, shortly. "He was born
+twenty years ago or so--at least we heard that he was; and we haven't
+heard anything of him since, except by the dream route, which is not
+entirely convincing. He is Hephzy's pet obsession. Kindly forget him, to
+oblige me."
+
+He looked puzzled, but he did not mention "Little Frank" again, for
+which I was thankful.
+
+That afternoon we walked up to the village, stopping in at Simmons's
+store, which is also the post-office, for the mail. Captain Cyrus
+Whittaker happened to be there, also Asaph Tidditt and Bailey Bangs and
+Sylvanus Cahoon and several others. I introduced Campbell to the crowd
+and he seemed to be enjoying himself. When we came out and were walking
+home again, he observed:
+
+"That Whittaker is an interesting chap, isn't he?"
+
+"Yes," I said. "He is all right. Been everywhere and seen everything."
+
+"And that," with an odd significance in his tone, "may possibly help to
+make him interesting, don't you think?"
+
+"I suppose so. He lives here in Bayport now, though."
+
+"So I gathered. Popular, is he?"
+
+"Very."
+
+"Satisfied with life?"
+
+"Seems to be."
+
+"Hum! No one calls HIM a--what is it--quahaug?"
+
+"No, I'm the only human clam in this neighborhood."
+
+He did not say any more, nor did I. My fit of the blues was on again
+and his silence on the subject in which I was interested, my work and my
+future, troubled me and made me more despondent. I began to lose faith
+in the "prescription" which he had promised so emphatically. How could
+he, or anyone else, help me? No one could write my stories but myself,
+and I knew, only too well, that I could not write them.
+
+The only mail matter in our box was a letter addressed to Hephzibah.
+I forgot it until after supper and then I gave it to her. Jim retired
+early; the salt air made him sleepy, so he said, and he went upstairs
+shortly after nine. He had not mentioned our talk of the morning, nor
+did he until I left him at the door of his room. Then he said:
+
+"Kent, I've got one of the answers to your conundrum. I've diagnosed one
+of your troubles. You're blind."
+
+"Blind?"
+
+"Yes, blind. Or, if not blind altogether you're suffering from the worse
+case of far-sightedness I ever saw. All your literary--we'll call it
+that for compliment's sake--all your literary life you've spent writing
+about people and things so far off you don't know anything about them.
+You and your dukes and your earls and your titled ladies! What do you
+know of that crowd? You never saw a lord in your life. Why don't you
+write of something near by, something or somebody you are acquainted
+with?"
+
+"Acquainted with! You're crazy, man. What am I acquainted with, except
+this house, and myself and my books and--and Bayport?"
+
+"That's enough. Why, there is material in that gang at the post-office
+to make a dozen books. Write about them."
+
+"Tut! tut! tut! You ARE crazy. What shall I write; the life of Ase
+Tidditt in four volumes, beginning with 'I swan to man' and ending with
+'By godfrey'?"
+
+"You might do worse. If the book were as funny as its hero I'd undertake
+to sell a few copies."
+
+"Funny! _I_ couldn't write a funny book."
+
+"Not an intentionally funny one, you mean. But there! There's no use to
+talk to you."
+
+"There is not, if you talk like an imbecile. Is this your brilliant
+'prescription'?"
+
+"No. It might be; it would be, if you would take it, but you won't--not
+now. You need something else first and I'll give it to you. But I'll
+tell you this, and I mean it: Downstairs, in that dining-room of yours,
+there's one mighty good story, at least."
+
+"The dining-room? A story in the dining-room?"
+
+"Yes. Or it was there when we passed the door just now."
+
+I looked at him. He seemed to be serious, but I knew he was not. I hate
+riddles.
+
+"Oh, go to blazes!" I retorted, and turned away.
+
+I looked into the dining-room as I went by. There was no story in sight
+there, so far as I could see. Hephzy was seated by the table, mending
+something, something of mine, of course. She looked up.
+
+"Oh, Hosy," she said, "that letter you brought was a travel book from
+the Raymond and Whitcomb folks. I sent a stamp for it. It's awfully
+interesting! All about tours through England and France and Switzerland
+and everywhere. So cheap they are! I'm pickin' out the ones I'm goin' on
+some day. The pictures are lovely. Don't you want to see 'em?"
+
+"Not now," I replied. Another obsession of Hephzy's was travel. She,
+who had never been further from Bayport than Hartford, Connecticut, was
+forever dreaming of globe-trotting. It was not a new disease with her,
+by any means; she had been dreaming the same things ever since I had
+known her, and that is since I knew anything. Some day, SOME day she
+was going to this, that and the other place. She knew all about these
+places, because she had read about them over and over again. Her
+knowledge, derived as it was from so many sources, was curiously mixed,
+but it was comprehensive, of its kind. She was continually sending
+for Cook's circulars and booklets advertising personally conducted
+excursions. And, with the arrival of each new circular or booklet, she
+picked out, as she had just done, the particular tours she would go on
+when her "some day" came. It was funny, this queer habit of hers, but
+not half as funny as the thought of her really going would have been. I
+would have as soon thought of our front door leaving home and starting
+on its travels as of Hephzy's doing it. The door was no more a part and
+fixture of that home than she was.
+
+I went into my study, which adjoins the sitting-room, and sat down at my
+desk. Not with the intention of writing anything, or even of considering
+something to write about. That I made up my mind to forget for this
+night, at least. My desk chair was my usual seat in that room and I took
+that seat as a matter of habit.
+
+As a matter of habit also I looked about for a book. I did not have to
+look far. Books were my extravagance--almost my only one. They filled
+the shelves to the ceiling on three sides of the study and overflowed in
+untidy heaps on the floor. They were Hephzy's bugbear, for I refused to
+permit their being "straightened out" or arranged.
+
+I looked about for a book and selected several, but, although they were
+old favorites, I could not interest myself in any of them. I tried and
+tried, but even Mr. Pepys, that dependable solace of a lonely hour,
+failed to interest me with his chatter. Perhaps Campbell's pointed
+remarks concerning lords and ladies had its effect here. Old Samuel
+loved to write of such people, having a wide acquaintance with them, and
+perhaps that very acquaintance made me jealous. At any rate I threw the
+volume back upon its pile and began to think of myself, and of my work,
+the very thing I had expressly determined not to do when I came into the
+room.
+
+Jim's foolish and impossible advice to write of places and people I knew
+haunted and irritated me. I did know Bayport--yes, and it might be true
+that the group at the post-office contained possible material for many
+books; but, if so, it was material for the other man, not for me. "Write
+of what you know," said Jim. And I knew so little. There was at least
+one good yarn in the dining-room at that moment, he had declared. He
+must have meant Hephzibah, but, if he did, what was there in Hephzibah's
+dull, gray life-story to interest an outside reader? Her story and mine
+were interwoven and neither contained anything worth writing about. His
+fancy had been caught, probably, by her odd combination of the romantic
+and the practical, and in her dream of "Little Frank" he had scented a
+mystery. There was no mystery there, nothing but the most commonplace
+record of misplaced trust and ingratitude. Similar things happen in so
+many families.
+
+However, I began to think of Hephzy and, as I said, of myself, and to
+review my life since Ardelia Cahoon and Strickland Morley changed its
+course so completely. And now it seems to me that, in the course of
+my "edging around" for the beginning of this present chronicle--so
+different from anything I have ever written before or ever expected to
+write--the time has come when the reader--provided, of course, the
+said chronicle is ever finished or ever reaches a reader--should know
+something of that life; should know a little of the family history of
+the Knowles and the Cahoons and the Morleys.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+Which, Although It Is Largely Family History, Should Not Be Skipped by
+the Reader
+
+
+Let us take the Knowleses first. My name is Hosea Kent Knowles--I said
+that before--and my father was Captain Philander Kent Knowles. He was
+lost in the wreck of the steamer "Monarch of the Sea," off Hatteras. The
+steamer caught fire in the middle of the night, a howling gale blowing
+and the thermometer a few degrees above zero. The passengers and crew
+took to the boats and were saved. My father stuck by his ship and went
+down with her, as did also her first mate, another Cape-Codder. I was
+a baby at the time, and was at Bayport with my mother, Emily Knowles,
+formerly Emily Cahoon, Captain Barnabas Cahoon's niece. Mother had a
+little money of her own and Father's life was insured for a moderate
+sum. Her small fortune was invested for her by her uncle, Captain
+Barnabas, who was the Bayport magnate and man of affairs in those days.
+Mother and I continued to live in the old house in Bayport and I went
+to school in the village until I was fourteen, when I went away to a
+preparatory school near Boston. Mother died a year later. I was an only
+child, but Hephzibah, who had always seemed like an older sister to me,
+now began to "mother" me, the process which she has kept up ever since.
+
+Hephzibah was the daughter of Captain Barnabas by his first wife. Hephzy
+was born in 1859, so she is well over fifty now, although no one would
+guess it. Her mother died when she was a little girl and ten years later
+Captain Barnabas married again. His second wife was Susan Hammond, of
+Ostable, and by her he had one daughter, Ardelia. Hephzy has always
+declared "Ardelia" to be a pretty name. I have my own opinion on that
+subject, but I keep it to myself.
+
+At any rate, Ardelia herself was pretty enough. She was pretty when a
+baby and prettier still as a schoolgirl. Her mother--while she lived,
+which was not long--spoiled her, and her half-sister, Hephzy, assisted
+in the petting and spoiling. Ardelia grew up with the idea that most
+things in this world were hers for the asking. Whatever took her fancy
+she asked for and, if Captain Barnabas did not give it to her, she
+considered herself ill-used. She was the young lady of the family and
+Hephzibah was the housekeeper and drudge, an uncomplaining one, be
+it understood. For her, as for the Captain, the business of life was
+keeping Ardelia contented and happy, and they gloried in the task.
+Hephzy might have married well at least twice, but she wouldn't think
+of such a thing. "Pa and Ardelia need me," she said; that was reason
+sufficient.
+
+In 1888 Captain Barnabas went to Philadelphia on business. He had
+retired from active sea-going years before, but he retained an interest
+in a certain line of coasting schooners. The Captain, as I said, went to
+Philadelphia on business connected with these schooners and Ardelia
+went with him. Hephzibah stayed at home, of course; she always stayed
+at home, never expected to do anything else, although even then her
+favorite reading were books of travel, and pictures of the Alps, and of
+St. Peter's at Rome, and the Tower of London were tacked up about her
+room. She, too, might have gone to Philadelphia, doubtless, if she had
+asked, but she did not ask. Her father did not think of inviting her.
+He loved his oldest daughter, although he did not worship her as he did
+Ardelia, but it never occurred to him that she, too, might enjoy the
+trip. Hephzy was always at home, she WAS home; so at home she remained.
+
+In Philadelphia Ardelia met Strickland Morley.
+
+I give that statement a line all by itself, for it is by far the most
+important I have set down so far. The whole story of the Cahoons and the
+Knowleses--that is, all of their story which is the foundation of this
+history of mine--hinges on just that. If those two had not met I should
+not be writing this to-day, I might not be writing at all; instead of
+having become a Bayport "quahaug" I might have been the Lord knows what.
+
+However, they did meet, at the home of a wealthy shipping merchant named
+Osgood who was a lifelong friend of Captain Barnabas. This shipping
+merchant had a daughter and that daughter was giving a party at her
+father's home. Barnabas and Ardelia were invited. Strickland Morley was
+invited also.
+
+Morley, at that time--I saw a good deal of him afterward, when he was
+at Bayport and when I was at the Cahoon house on holidays and
+vacations--was a handsome, aristocratic young Englishman. He was
+twenty-eight, but he looked younger. He was the second son in a
+Leicestershire family which had once been wealthy and influential but
+which had, in its later generations, gone to seed. He was educated, in
+a general sort of way, was a good dancer, played the violin fairly well,
+sang fairly well, had an attractive presence, and was one of the most
+plausible and fascinating talkers I ever listened to. He had studied
+medicine--studied it after a fashion, that is; he never applied himself
+to anything--and was then, in '88, "ship's doctor" aboard a British
+steamer, which ran between Philadelphia and Glasgow. Miss Osgood had met
+him at the home of a friend of hers who had traveled on that steamer.
+
+Hephzy and I do not agree as to whether or not he actually fell in love
+with Ardelia Cahoon. Hephzy, of course, to whom Ardelia was the most
+wonderfully beautiful creature on earth, is certain that he did--he
+could not help it, she says. I am not so sure. It is very hard for me to
+believe that Strickland Morley was ever in love with anyone but himself.
+Captain Barnabas was well-to-do and had the reputation of being much
+richer than he really was. And Ardelia WAS beautiful, there is no doubt
+of that. At all events, Ardelia fell in love, with him, violently,
+desperately, head over heels in love, the very moment the two were
+introduced. They danced practically every dance together that evening,
+met surreptitiously the next day and for five days thereafter, and
+on the sixth day Captain Barnabas received a letter from his daughter
+announcing that she and Morley were married and had gone to New York
+together. "We will meet you there, Pa," wrote Ardelia. "I know you will
+forgive me for marrying Strickland. He is the most wonderful man in the
+wide world. You will love him, Pa, as I do."
+
+There was very little love expressed by the Captain when he read the
+note. According to Mr. Osgood's account, Barnabas's language was a
+throwback from the days when he was first mate on a Liverpool packet.
+That his idolized daughter had married without asking his consent
+was bad enough; that she had married an Englishman was worse. Captain
+Barnabas hated all Englishmen. A ship of his had been captured and
+burned, in the war time, by the "Alabama," a British built privateer,
+and the very mildest of the terms he applied to a "John Bull" will not
+bear repetition in respectable society. He would not forgive Ardelia.
+She and her "Cockney husband" might sail together to the most tropical
+of tropics, or words to that effect.
+
+But he did forgive her, of course. Likewise he forgave his son-in-law.
+When the Captain returned to Bayport he brought the newly wedded pair
+with him. I was not present at that homecoming. I was away at prep
+school, digging at my examinations, trying hard to forget that I was
+an orphan, but with the dull ache caused by my mother's death always
+grinding at my heart. Many years ago she died, but the ache comes back
+now, as I think of her. There is more self-reproach in it than
+there used to be, more vain regrets for impatient words and wasted
+opportunities. Ah, if some of us--boys grown older--might have our
+mothers back again, would we be as impatient and selfish now? Would we
+neglect the opportunities? I think not; I hope not.
+
+Hephzibah, after she got over the shock of the surprise and the pain
+of sharing her beloved sister with another, welcomed that other for
+Ardelia's sake. She determined to like him very much indeed. This wasn't
+so hard, at first. Everyone liked and trusted Strickland Morley at first
+sight. Afterward, when they came to know him better, they were not--if
+they were as wise and discerning as Hephzy--so sure of the trust. The
+wise and discerning were not, I say; Captain Barnabas, though wise and
+shrewd enough in other things, trusted him to the end.
+
+Morley made it a point to win the affection and goodwill of his
+father-in-law. For the first month or two after the return to Bayport
+the new member of the family was always speaking of his plans for the
+future, of his profession and how he intended soon, very soon, to look
+up a good location and settle down to practice. Whenever he spoke
+thus, Captain Barnabas and Ardelia begged him not to do it yet, to wait
+awhile. "I am so happy with you and Pa and Hephzy," declared Ardelia.
+"I can't bear to go away yet, Strickland. And Pa doesn't want us to; do
+you, Pa?"
+
+Of course Captain Barnabas agreed with her, he always did, and so the
+Morleys remained at Bayport in the old house. Then came the first of the
+paralytic shocks--a very slight one--which rendered Captain Barnabas,
+the hitherto hale, active old seaman, unfit for exertion or the cares of
+business. He was not bedridden by any means; he could still take short
+walks, attend town meetings and those of the parish committee, but he
+must not, so Dr. Parker said, be allowed to worry about anything.
+
+And Morley took it upon himself to prevent that worry. He spoke no more
+of leaving Bayport and settling down to practice his profession. Instead
+he settled down in Bayport and took the Captain's business cares upon
+his own shoulders. Little by little he increased his influence over the
+old man. He attended to the latter's investments, took charge of
+his bank account, collected his dividends, became, so to speak, his
+financial guardian. Captain Barnabas, at first rebellious--"I've always
+bossed my own ship," he declared, "and I ain't so darned feeble-headed
+that I can't do it yet"--gradually grew reconciled and then contented.
+He, too, began to worship his daughter's husband as the daughter herself
+did.
+
+"He's a wonder," said the Captain. "I never saw such a fellow for money
+matters. He's handled my stocks and things a whole lot better'n I ever
+did. I used to cal'late if I got six per cent. interest I was doin'
+well. He ain't satisfied with anything short of eight, and he gets it,
+too. Whatever that boy wants and I own he can have. Sometimes I think
+this consarned palsy of mine is a judgment on me for bein' so sot
+against him in the beginnin'. Why, just look at how he runs this house,
+to say nothing of the rest of it! He's a skipper here; the rest of us
+ain't anything but fo'most hands."
+
+Which was not the exact truth. Morley was skipper of the Cahoon house,
+Ardelia first mate, her father a passenger, and the foremast hand
+was Hephzy. And yet, so far as "running" that house was concerned the
+foremast hand ran it, as she always had done. The Captain and Ardelia
+were Morley's willing slaves; Hephzy was, and continued to be, a free
+woman. She worked from morning until night, but she obeyed only such
+orders as she saw fit.
+
+She alone did not take the new skipper at his face value.
+
+"I don't know what there was about him that made me uneasy," she has
+told me since. "Maybe there wasn't anything; perhaps that was just the
+reason. When a person is SO good and SO smart and SO polite--maybe the
+average sinful common mortal like me gets jealous; I don't know. But
+I do know that, to save my life, I couldn't swallow him whole the way
+Ardelia and Father did. I wanted to look him over first; and the more I
+looked him over, and the smoother and smoother he looked, the more sure
+I felt he'd give us all dyspepsy before he got through. Unreasonable,
+wasn't it?"
+
+For Ardelia's sake she concealed her distrust and did her best to get
+on with the new head of the family. Only one thing she did, and that
+against Motley's and her father's protest. She withdrew her own little
+fortune, left her by her mother, from Captain Barnabas's care and
+deposited it in the Ostable savings bank and in equally secure places.
+Of course she told the Captain of her determination to do this before
+she did it and the telling was the cause of the only disagreement,
+almost a quarrel, which she and her father ever had. The Captain was
+very angry and demanded reasons. Hephzibah declared she didn't know that
+she had any reasons, but she was going to do it, nevertheless. And
+she did do it. For months thereafter relations between the two were
+strained; Barnabas scarcely spoke to his older daughter and Hephzy shed
+tears in the solitude of her bedroom. They were hard months for her.
+
+At the end of them came the crash. Morley had developed a habit
+of running up to Boston on business trips connected with his
+father-in-law's investments. Of late these little trips had become more
+frequent. Also, so it seemed to Hephzy, he was losing something of
+his genial sweetness and suavity, and becoming more moody and less
+entertaining. Telegrams and letters came frequently and these he read
+and destroyed at once. He seldom played the violin now unless Captain
+Barnabas--who was fond of music of the simpler sort--requested him to do
+so and he seemed uneasy and, for him, surprisingly disinclined to talk.
+
+Hephzy was not the only one who noticed the change in him. Ardelia
+noticed it also and, as she always did when troubled or perplexed,
+sought her sister's advice.
+
+"I sha'n't ever forget that night when she came to me for the last
+time," Hephzy has told me over and over again. "She came up to my room,
+poor thing, and set down on the side of my bed and told me how worried
+she was about her husband. Father had turned in and HE was out, gone
+to the post-office or somewheres. I had Ardelia all to myself, for a
+wonder, and we sat and talked just the same as we used to before she was
+married. I'm glad it happened so. I shall always have that to remember,
+anyhow.
+
+"Of course, all her worry was about Strickland. She was afraid he was
+makin' himself sick. He worked so hard; didn't I think so? Well, so far
+as that was concerned, I had come to believe that almost any kind of
+work was liable to make HIM sick, but of course I didn't say that to
+her. That somethin' was troublin' him was plain, though I was far enough
+from guessin' what that somethin' was.
+
+"We set and talked, about Strickland and about Father and about
+ourselves. Mainly Ardelia's talk was a praise service with her husband
+for the subject of worship; she was so happy with him and idolized
+him so that she couldn't spare time for much else. But she did speak a
+little about herself and, before she went away, she whispered somethin'
+in my ear which was a dead secret. Even Father didn't know it yet,
+she said. Of course I was as pleased as she was, almost--and a little
+frightened too, although I didn't say so to her. She was always a frail
+little thing, delicate as she was pretty; not a strapping, rugged,
+homely body like me. We wasn't a bit alike.
+
+"So we talked and when she went away to bed she gave me an extra hug and
+kiss; came back to give 'em to me, just as she used to when she was a
+little girl. I wondered since if she had any inklin' of what was goin'
+to happen. I'm sure she didn't; I'm sure of it as I am that it did
+happen. She couldn't have kept it from me if she had known--not that
+night. She went away to bed and I went to bed, too. I was a long while
+gettin' to sleep and after I did I dreamed my first dream about 'Little
+Frank.' I didn't call him 'Little Frank' then, though. I don't seem to
+remember what I did call him or just how he looked except that he looked
+like Ardelia. And the next afternoon she and Strickland went away--to
+Boston, he told us."
+
+From that trip they never returned. Morley's influence over his wife
+must have been greater even than any of us thought to induce her to
+desert her father and Hephzy without even a written word of explanation
+or farewell. It is possible that she did write and that her husband
+destroyed the letter. I am as sure as Hephzy is that Ardelia did not
+know what Morley had done. But, at all events, they never came back
+to Bayport and within the week the truth became known. Morley had
+speculated, had lost and lost again and again. All of Captain Barnabas's
+own money and all intrusted to his care, including my little nest-egg,
+had gone as margins to the brokers who had bought for Morley his
+worthless eight per cent. wildcats. Hephzy's few thousands in the
+savings bank and elsewhere were all that was left.
+
+I shall condense the rest of the miserable business as much as I can.
+Captain Barnabas traced his daughter and her husband as far as the
+steamer which sailed for England. Farther he would not trace them,
+although he might easily have cabled and caused his son-in-law's arrest.
+For a month he went about in a sort of daze, speaking to almost no
+one and sitting for hours alone in his room. The doctor feared for
+his sanity, but when the breakdown came it was in the form of a second
+paralytic stroke which left him a helpless, crippled dependent, weak and
+shattered in body and mind.
+
+He lived nine years longer. Meanwhile various things happened. I managed
+to finish my preparatory school term and, then, instead of entering
+college as Mother and I had planned, I went into business--save the
+mark--taking the exalted position of entry clerk in a wholesale drygoods
+house in Boston. As entry clerk I did not shine, but I continued to keep
+the place until the firm failed--whether or not because of my connection
+with it I am not sure, though I doubt if my services were sufficiently
+important to contribute toward even this result. A month later I
+obtained another position and, after that, another. I was never
+discharged; I declare that with a sort of negative pride; but when I
+announced to my second employer my intention of resigning he bore the
+shock with--to say the least--philosophic fortitude.
+
+"We shall miss you, Knowles," he observed.
+
+"Thank you, sir," said I.
+
+"I doubt if we ever have another bookkeeper just like you."
+
+I thanked him again, fighting down my blushes with heroic modesty.
+
+"Oh, I guess you can find one if you try," I said, lightly, wishing to
+comfort him.
+
+He shook his head. "I sha'n't try," he declared. "I am not as young and
+as strong as I was and--well, there is always the chance that we might
+succeed."
+
+It was a mean thing to say--to a boy, for I was scarcely more than that.
+And yet, looking back at it now, I am much more disposed to smile and
+forgive than I was then. My bookkeeping must have been a trial to his
+orderly, pigeon-holed soul. Why in the world he and his partner put up
+with it so long is a miracle. When, after my first novel appeared,
+he wrote me to say that the consciousness of having had a part, small
+though it might be, in training my young mind upward toward the success
+it had achieved would always be a great gratification to him, I did not
+send the letter I wrote in answer. Instead I tore up my letter and his
+and grinned. I WAS a bad bookkeeper; I was, and still am, a bad business
+man. Now I don't care so much; that is the difference.
+
+Then I cared a great deal, but I kept on at my hated task. What else was
+there for me to do? My salary was so small that, as Charlie Burns, one
+of my fellow-clerks, said of his, I was afraid to count it over a bare
+floor for fear that it might drop in a crack and be lost. It was my only
+revenue, however, and I continued to live upon it somehow. I had a
+small room in a boarding-house on Shawmut Avenue and I spent most of my
+evenings there or in the reading-room at the public library. I was not
+popular at the boarding-house. Most of the young fellows there went
+out a good deal, to call upon young ladies or to dance or to go to the
+theater. I had learned to dance when I was at school and I was fond of
+the theater, but I did not dance well and on the rare occasions when
+I did accompany the other fellows to the play and they laughed and
+applauded and tried to flirt with the chorus girls, I fidgeted in my
+seat and was uncomfortable. Not that I disapproved of their conduct; I
+rather envied them, in fact. But if I laughed too heartily I was sure
+that everyone was looking at me, and though I should have liked to
+flirt, I didn't know how.
+
+The few attempts I made were not encouraging. One evening--I was
+nineteen then, or thereabouts--Charlie Burns, the clerk whom I have
+mentioned, suggested that we get dinner downtown at a restaurant and "go
+somewhere" afterward. I agreed--it happened to be Saturday night and I
+had my pay in my pocket--so we feasted on oyster stew and ice cream and
+then started for what my companion called a "variety show." Burns, who
+cherished the fond hope that he was a true sport, ordered beer with his
+oyster stew and insisted that I should do the same. My acquaintance with
+beer was limited and I never did like the stuff, but I drank it with
+reckless abandon, following each sip with a mouthful of something else
+to get rid of the taste. On the way to the "show" we met two young
+women of Burns' acquaintance and stopped to converse with them. Charlie
+offered his arm to one, the best looking; I offered mine to the discard,
+and we proceeded to stroll two by two along the Tremont Street mall of
+the Common. We had strolled for perhaps ten minutes, most of which
+time I had spent trying to think of something to say, when Burns'
+charmer--she was a waitress in one of Mr. Wyman's celebrated "sandwich
+depots," I believe--turned and, looking back at my fair one and myself,
+observed with some sarcasm: "What's the matter with your silent partner,
+Mame? Got the lock-jaw, has he?"
+
+I left them soon after that. There was no "variety show" for me that
+night. Humiliated and disgusted with myself I returned to my room at the
+boarding-house, realizing in bitterness of spirit that the gentlemanly
+dissipations of a true sport were never to be mine.
+
+As I grew older I kept more and more to myself. My work at the office
+must have been a little better done, I fancy, for my salary was raised
+twice in four years, but I detested the work and the office and all
+connected with it. I read more and more at the public library and began
+to spend the few dollars I could spare for luxuries on books. Among my
+acquaintances at the boarding-house and elsewhere I had the reputation
+of being "queer."
+
+My only periods of real pleasure were my annual vacations in summer.
+These glorious fortnights were spent at Bayport. There, at our old home,
+for Hephzibah had sold the big Cahoon house and she and her father were
+living in mine, for which they paid a very small rent, I was happy.
+I spent the two weeks in sailing and fishing, and tramping along the
+waved-washed beaches and over the pine-sprinkled hills. Even in Bayport
+I had few associates of my own age. Even then they began to call me "The
+Quahaug." Hephzy hugged me when I came and wept over me when I went away
+and mended my clothes and cooked my favorite dishes in the interval.
+Captain Barnabas sat in the big arm-chair by the sitting-room window,
+looking out or sleeping. He took little interest in me or anyone
+else and spoke but seldom. Occasionally I spent the Fourth of July or
+Christmas at Bayport; not often, but as often as I could.
+
+One morning--I was twenty-five at the time, and the day was Sunday--I
+read a story in one of the low-priced magazines. It was not much of a
+story, and, as I read it, I kept thinking that I could write as good
+a one. I had had such ideas before, but nothing had come of them. This
+time, however, I determined to try. In half an hour I had evolved a
+plot, such as it was, and at a quarter to twelve that night the story
+was finished. A highwayman was its hero and its scene the great North
+Road in England. My conceptions of highwaymen and the North Road--of
+England, too, for that matter--were derived from something I had read
+at some time or other, I suppose; they must have been. At any rate,
+I finished that story, addressed the envelope to the editor of the
+magazine and dropped the envelope and its inclosure in the corner
+mail-box before I went to bed. Next morning I went to the office as
+usual. I had not the faintest hope that the story would be accepted. The
+writing of it had been fun and the sending it to the magazine a joke.
+
+But the story was accepted and the check which I received--forty
+dollars--was far from a joke to a man whose weekly wage was half that
+amount. The encouraging letter which accompanied the check was best of
+all. Before the week ended I had written another thriller and this, too,
+was accepted.
+
+Thereafter, for a year or more, my Sundays and the most of my evenings
+were riots of ink and blood. The ink was real enough and the blood
+purely imaginary. My heroes spilled the latter and I the former.
+Sometimes my yarns were refused, but the most of them were accepted and
+paid for. Editors of other periodicals began to write to me requesting
+contributions. My price rose. For one particularly harrowing and
+romantic tale I was paid seventy-five dollars. I dressed in my best that
+evening, dined at the Adams House, gave the waiter a quarter, and saw
+Joseph Jefferson from an orchestra seat.
+
+Then came the letter from Jim Campbell requesting me to come to New York
+and see him concerning a possible book, a romance, to be written by me
+and published by the firm of which he was the head. I saw my employer,
+obtained a Saturday off, and spent that Saturday and Sunday in New York,
+my first visit.
+
+As a result of that visit began my friendship with Campbell and my first
+long story, "The Queen's Amulet." The "Amulet," or the "Omelet," just as
+you like, was a financial success. It sold a good many thousand copies.
+Six months later I broke to my employers the distressing news that their
+business must henceforth worry on as best it could without my aid; I was
+going to devote my valuable time and effort to literature.
+
+My fellow-clerks were surprised. Charlie Burns, head bookkeeper now, and
+a married man and a father, was much concerned.
+
+"But, great Scott, Kent!" he protested, "you're going to do something
+besides write books, ain't you? You ain't going to make your whole
+living that way?"
+
+"I am going to try," I said.
+
+"Great Scott! Why, you'll starve! All those fellows live in garrets and
+starve to death, don't they?"
+
+"Not all," I told him. "Only real geniuses do that."
+
+He shook his head and his good-by was anything but cheerful.
+
+My plans were made and I put them into execution at once. I shipped my
+goods and chattels, the latter for the most part books, to Bayport and
+went there to live and write in the old house where I was born. Hephzy
+was engaged as my housekeeper. She was alone now; Captain Barnabas had
+died nearly two years before.
+
+Among the Captain's papers and discovered by his daughter after his
+death was a letter from Strickland Morley. It was written from a town in
+France and was dated six years after Morley's flight and the disclosure
+of his crookedness. Captain Barnabas had never, apparently, answered the
+letter; certainly he had never told anyone of its receipt by him. The
+old man never mentioned Morley's name and only spoke of Ardelia during
+his last hours, when his mind was wandering. Then he spoke of and asked
+for her continually, driving poor Hephzibah to distraction, for her love
+for her lost sister was as great as his.
+
+The letter was the complaining whine of a thoroughly selfish man. I can
+scarcely refer to it without losing patience, even now when I understand
+more completely the circumstances under which it was written. It was not
+too plainly written or coherent and seemed to imply that other letters
+had preceded it. Morley begged for money. He was in "pitiful straits,"
+he declared, compelled to live as no gentleman of birth and breeding
+should live. As a matter of fact, the remnant of his resources, the
+little cash left from the Captain's fortune which he had taken with him
+had gone and he was earning a precarious living by playing the violin in
+a second-rate orchestra. "For poor dead Ardelia's sake," he wrote, "and
+for the sake of little Francis, your grandchild, I ask you to extend
+the financial help which I, as your heir-in-law, might demand. You may
+consider that I have wronged you, but, as you should know and must know,
+the wrong was unintentional and due solely to the sudden collapse of
+the worthless American investments which the scoundrelly Yankee brokers
+inveigled me into making."
+
+If the money was sent at once, he added, it might reach him in time to
+prevent his yielding to despondency and committing suicide.
+
+"Suicide! HE commit suicide!" sniffed Hephzy when she read me the
+letter. "He thinks too much of his miserable self ever to hurt it. But,
+oh dear! I wish Pa had told me of this letter instead of hidin' it away.
+I might have sent somethin', not to him, but to poor, motherless Little
+Frank."
+
+She had tried; that is, she had written to the French address, but
+her letter had been returned. Morley and the child of whom this letter
+furnished the only information were no longer in that locality. Hephzy
+had talked of "Little Frank" and dreamed about him at intervals ever
+since. He had come to be a reality to her, and she even cut a child's
+picture from a magazine and fastened it to the wall of her room beneath
+the engraving of Westminster Abbey, because there was something about
+the child in the picture which reminded her of "Little Frank" as he
+looked in her dreams.
+
+She and I had lived together ever since, I continuing to turn out, each
+with less enthusiasm and more labor, my stories of persons and places of
+which, as Campbell said but too truly, I knew nothing whatever. Finally
+I had reached my determination to write no more "slush," profitable
+though it might be. I invited Jim to visit me; he had come and the
+conversation at the boathouse and his remarks at the bedroom door were
+all the satisfaction that visit had brought me so far.
+
+I sat there in my study, going over all this, not so fully as I have
+set it down here, but fully nevertheless, and the possibility of
+finding even a glimmer of interest or a hint of fictional foundation in
+Hephzibah or her life or mine was as remote at the end of my thinking as
+it had been at the beginning. There might be a story there, or a part of
+a story, but I could not write it. The real trouble was that I could not
+write anything. With which, conclusion, exactly what I started with, I
+blew out the lamp and went upstairs to bed.
+
+Next morning Jim and I went for another sail from which we did not
+return until nearly dinner-time. During that whole forenoon he did not
+mention the promised "prescription," although I offered him plenty of
+opportunities and threw out various hints by way of bait.
+
+He ignored the bait altogether and, though he talked a great deal and
+asked a good many questions, both talk and questions had no bearing on
+the all-important problem which had been my real reason for inviting
+him to Bayport. He questioned me again concerning my way of spending my
+time, about my savings, how much money I had put by, and the like, but
+I was not particularly interested in these matters and they were not his
+business, to put it plainly. At least, I could not see that they were.
+
+I answered him as briefly as possible and, I am afraid, behaved rather
+boorishly to one, who next to Hephzy, was perhaps the best friend I had
+in the world. His apparent lack of interest hurt and disappointed me
+and I did not care if he knew it. My impatience must have been apparent
+enough, but if so it did not trouble him; he chatted and laughed and
+told stories all the way from the landing to the house and announced to
+Hephzy, who had stayed at home from church in order to prepare and
+cook clam chowder and chicken pie and a "Queen pudding," that he had an
+appetite like a starved shark.
+
+When, at last, that appetite was satisfied, he and I adjourned to the
+sitting-room for a farewell smoke. His train left at three-thirty and
+it lacked but an hour of that time. He had worn my suit, the one which
+Hephzibah had laid out for him the day before, but had changed to his
+own again and packed his bag before dinner.
+
+We camped in the wing chairs and he lighted his cigar. Then, to my
+astonishment, he rose and shut the door.
+
+"What did you do that for?" I asked.
+
+He came back to his chair.
+
+"Because I'm going to talk to you like a Dutch uncle," he replied, "and
+I don't want anyone, not even a Cape Cod cousin, butting in. Kent, I
+told you that before I went I was going to prescribe for you, didn't I?
+Well, I'm going to do it now. Are you ready for the prescription?"
+
+"I have been ready for it for some time," I retorted. "I began to think
+you had forgotten it altogether."
+
+"I hadn't. But I wanted it to be the last word you should hear from me
+and I didn't want to give you time to think up a lot of fool objections
+to spring on me before I left. Look here, I'm your doctor now; do you
+understand? You called me in as a specialist and what I say goes. Is
+that understood?"
+
+"I hear you."
+
+"You've got to do more than hear me. You've got to do what I tell you.
+I know what ails you. You've buried yourself in the mud down here. Wake
+up, you clam! Come out of your shell. Stir around. Stop thinking about
+yourself and think of something worth while."
+
+"Dear! dear! hark to the voice of the oracle. And what is the something
+worth while I am to think about; you?"
+
+"Yes, by George! me! Me and the dear public! Here are thirty-five
+thousand seekers after the--the higher literature, panting open-mouthed
+for another Knowles classic. And you sit back here and cover yourself
+with sand and seaweed and say you won't give it to them."
+
+"You're wrong. I say I can't."
+
+"You will, though."
+
+"I won't. You can bet high on that."
+
+"You will, and I'll bet higher. YOU write no more stories! You! Why,
+confound you, you couldn't help it if you tried. You needn't write
+another 'Black Brig' unless you want to. You needn't--you mustn't write
+anything UNTIL you want to. But, by George! you'll get up and open your
+eyes and stir around, and keep stirring until the time comes when you've
+found something or someone you DO want to write about. THEN you'll
+write; you will, for I know you. It may turn out to be what you call
+'slush,' or it may not, but you'll write it, mark my words."
+
+He was serious now, serious enough even to suit me. But what he had said
+did not suit me.
+
+"Don't talk nonsense, Jim," I said. "Don't you suppose I have thought--"
+
+"Thought! that's just it; you do nothing but think. Stop thinking.
+Stop being a quahaug--a dead one, anyway. Drop the whole business, drop
+Bayport, drop America, if you like. Get up, clear out, go to China, go
+to Europe, go to--Well, never mind, but go somewhere. Go somewhere and
+forget it. Travel, take a long trip, start for one place and, if you
+change your mind before you get there, go somewhere else. It doesn't
+make much difference where, so that you go, and see different things.
+I'm talking now, Kent Knowles, and it isn't altogether because it pays
+us to publish your books, either. You drop Bayport and drop writing. Go
+out and pick up and go. Stay six months, stay a year, stay two years,
+but keep alive and meet people and give what you flatter yourself is
+a brain house-cleaning. Confound you, you've kept it shut like one of
+these best front parlors down here. Open the windows and air out. Let
+the outside light in. An idea may come with it; it is barely possible,
+even to you!"
+
+He was out of breath by this time. I was in a somewhat similar condition
+for his tirade had taken mine away. However, I managed to express my
+feelings.
+
+"Humph!" I grunted. "And so this is your wonderful prescription. I am to
+travel, am I?"
+
+"You are. You can afford it, and I'll see that you do."
+
+"And just what port would you recommend?"
+
+"I don't care, I tell you, except that it ought to be a long way off.
+I'm not joking, Kent; this is straight. A good long jaunt around the
+world would do you a barrel of good. Don't stop to think about it, just
+start, that's all. Will you?"
+
+I laughed. The idea of my starting on a pleasure trip was ridiculous. If
+ever there was a home-loving and home-staying person it was I. The bare
+thought of leaving my comfort and my books and Hephzy made me shudder. I
+hadn't the least desire to see other countries and meet other people. I
+hated sleeping cars and railway trains and traveling acquaintances. So I
+laughed.
+
+"Sorry, Jim," I said, "but I'm afraid I can't take your prescription."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"For one reason because I don't want to."
+
+"That's no reason at all. It doesn't make any difference what you want.
+Anything else?"
+
+"Yes. I would no more wander about creation all alone than--"
+
+"Take someone with you."
+
+"Who? Will you go, yourself?"
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"I wish I could," he said, and I think he meant it. "I'd like nothing
+better. I'D keep you alive, you can bet on that. But I can't leave the
+literature works just now. I'll do my best to find someone who will,
+though. I know a lot of good fellows who travel--"
+
+I held up my hand. "That's enough," I interrupted. "They can't travel
+with me. They wouldn't be good fellows long if they did."
+
+He struck the chair arm with his fist.
+
+"You're as near impossible as you can be, aren't you," he exclaimed.
+"Never mind; you're going to do as I tell you. I never gave you bad
+advice yet, now did I?"
+
+"No--o. No, but--"
+
+"I'm not giving it to you now. You'll go and you'll go in a hurry. I'll
+give you a week to think the idea over. At the end of that time if I
+don't hear from you I'll be down here again, and I'll worry you every
+minute until you'll go anywhere to get rid of me. Kent, you must do it.
+You aren't written out, as you call it, but you are rusting out, fast.
+If you don't get away and polish up you'll never do a thing worth while.
+You'll be another what's-his-name--Ase Tidditt; that's what you'll be. I
+can see it coming on. You're ossifying; you're narrowing; you're--"
+
+I broke in here. I didn't like to be called narrow and I did not like
+to be paired with Asaph Tidditt, although our venerable town clerk is a
+good citizen and all right, in his way. But I had flattered myself that
+way was not mine.
+
+"Stop it, Jim!" I ordered. "Don't blow off any more steam in this
+ridiculous fashion. If this is all you have to say to me, you may as
+well stop."
+
+"Stop! I've only begun. I'll stop when you start, and not before. Will
+you go?"
+
+"I can't, Jim. You know I can't."
+
+"I know you can and I know you're going to. There!" rising and laying a
+hand on my shoulder, "it is time for ME to be starting. Kent, old man, I
+want you to promise me that you will do as I tell you. Will you?"
+
+"I can't, Jim. I would if I could, but--"
+
+"Will you promise me to think the idea over? Think it over carefully;
+don't think of anything else for the rest of the week? Will you promise
+me to do that?"
+
+I hesitated. I was perfectly sure that all my thinking would but
+strengthen my determination to remain at home, but I did not like to
+appear too stubborn.
+
+"Why, yes, Jim," I said, doubtfully, "I promise so much, if that is any
+satisfaction to you."
+
+"All right. I'll give you until Friday to make up your mind. If I don't
+hear from you by that time I shall take it for granted that you have
+made it up in the wrong way and I'll be here on Saturday. I'll keep the
+process up week in and week out until you give in. That's MY promise.
+Come on. We must be moving."
+
+He said good-by to Hephzy and we walked together to the station. His
+last words as we shook hands by the car steps were: "Remember--think.
+But don't you dare think of anything else." My answer was a dubious
+shake of the head. Then the train pulled out.
+
+I believe that afternoon and evening to have been the "bluest" of all my
+blue periods, and I had had some blue ones prior to Jim's visit. I was
+dreadfully disappointed. Of course I should have realized that no advice
+or "prescription" could help me. As Campbell had said, "It was up to
+me;" I must help myself; but I had been trying to help myself for months
+and I had not succeeded. I had--foolishly, I admit--relied upon him to
+give me a new idea, a fresh inspiration, and he had not done it. I was
+disappointed and more discouraged than ever.
+
+My state of mind may seem ridiculous. Perhaps it was. I was in good
+health, not very old--except in my feelings--and my stories, even the
+"Black Brig," had not been failures, by any means. But I am sure that
+every man or woman who writes, or paints, or does creative work of any
+kind, will understand and sympathize with me. I had "gone stale," that
+is the technical name for my disease, and to "go stale" is no joke. If
+you doubt it ask the writer or painter of your acquaintance. Ask him if
+he ever has felt that he could write or paint no more, and then ask
+him how he liked the feeling. The fact that he has written or painted a
+great deal since has no bearing on the matter. "Staleness" is purely a
+mental ailment, and the confident assurance of would-be doctors that its
+attacks are seldom fatal doesn't help the sufferer at the time. He knows
+he is dead, and that is no better, then, than being dead in earnest.
+
+I knew I was dead, so far as my writing was concerned, and the advice
+to go away and bury myself in a strange country did not appeal to me. It
+might be true that I was already buried in Bayport, but that was my
+home cemetery, at all events. The more I thought of Jim Campbell's
+prescription the less I felt like taking it.
+
+However, I kept on with the thinking; I had promised to do that. On
+Wednesday came a postcard from Jim, himself, demanding information.
+"When and where are you going?" he wrote. "Wire answer." I did not wire
+answer. I was not going anywhere.
+
+I thrust the card into my pocket and, turning away from the frame of
+letter boxes, faced Captain Cyrus Whittaker, who, like myself, had come
+to Simmons's for his mail. He greeted me cordially.
+
+"Hello, Kent," he hailed. "How are you?"
+
+"About the same as usual, Captain," I answered, shortly.
+
+"That's pretty fair, by the looks. You don't look too happy, though,
+come to notice it. What's the matter; got bad news?"
+
+"No. I haven't any news, good or bad."
+
+"That so? Then I'll give you some. Phoebe and I are going to start for
+California to-morrow."
+
+"You are? To California? Why?"
+
+"Oh, just for instance, that's all. Time's come when I have to go
+somewhere, and the Yosemite and the big trees look good to me. It's this
+way, Kent; I like Bayport, you know that. Nobody's more in love with
+this old town than I am; it's my home and I mean to live and die here,
+if I have luck. But it don't do for me to stay here all the time. If I
+do I begin to be no good, like a strawberry plant that's been kept in
+one place too long and has quit bearin.' The only thing to do with that
+plant is to transplant it and let it get nourishment in a new spot. Then
+you can move it back by and by and it's all right. Same way with me.
+Every once in a while I have to be transplanted so's to freshen up. My
+brains need somethin' besides post-office talk and sewin'-circle gossip
+to keep them from shrivelin'. I was commencin' to feel the shrivel,
+so it's California for Phoebe and me. Better come along, Kent. You're
+beginnin' to shrivel a little, ain't you?"
+
+Was it as apparent as all that? I was indignant.
+
+"Do I look it?" I demanded.
+
+"No--o, but I ain't sure that you don't act it. No offence, you
+understand. Just a little ground bait to coax you to come on the
+California cruise along with Phoebe and me, that's all."
+
+It was not likely that I should accept. Two are company and three a
+crowd, and if ever two were company Captain Cy and his wife were those
+two. I thanked him and declined, but I asked a question.
+
+"You believe in travel as a restorative, you do?" I asked.
+
+"Hey? I sartin do. Change your course once in awhile, same as you change
+your clothes. Wearin' the same suit and cruisin' in the same puddle all
+the time ain't healthy. You're too apt to get sick of the clothes and
+puddle both."
+
+"But you don't believe in traveling alone, do you?"
+
+"No," emphatically, "I don't, generally speakin.' If you go off by
+yourself you're too likely to keep thinkin' ABOUT yourself. Take
+somebody with you; somebody you're used to and know well and like,
+though. Travelin' with strangers is a little mite worse than travelin'
+alone. You want to be mighty sure of your shipmate."
+
+I walked home. Hephzibah was in the sitting-room, reading and knitting
+a stocking, a stocking for me. She did not need to use her eyes for the
+knitting; I am quite sure she could have knit in her sleep.
+
+"Hello, Hosy," she said, "been up to the office, have you? Any mail?"
+
+"Nothing much. Humph! Still reading that Raymond and Whitcomb circular?"
+
+"No, not that one. This is one I got last year. I've been sittin' here
+plannin' out just where I'd go and what I'd see if I could. It's the
+next best thing to really goin'."
+
+I looked at her. All at once a new idea began to crystallize in my mind.
+It was a curious idea, a ridiculous idea, and yet--and yet it seemed--
+
+"Hephzy," said I, suddenly, "would you really like to go abroad?"
+
+"WOULD I? Hosy, how you talk! You know I've been crazy to go ever since
+I was a little girl. I don't know what makes me so. Perhaps it's the
+salt water in my blood. All our folks were sailors and ship captains.
+They went everywhere. I presume likely it takes more than one generation
+to kill off that sort of thing."
+
+"And you really want to go?"
+
+"Of course I do."
+
+"Then why haven't you gone? You could afford to take a moderate-priced
+tour."
+
+Hephzy laughed over her knitting.
+
+"I guess," she said, "I haven't gone for the reason you haven't, Hosy.
+You could afford, it, too--you know you could. But how could I go and
+leave you? Why, I shouldn't sleep a minute wonderin' if you were wearin'
+clothes without holes in 'em and if you changed your flannels when the
+weather changed and ate what you ought to, and all that. You've been
+so--so sort of dependent on me and I've been so used to takin' care of
+you that I don't believe either of us would be happy anywhere without
+the other. I know certain sure _I_ shouldn't."
+
+I did not answer immediately. The idea, the amazing, ridiculous
+idea which had burst upon me suddenly began to lose something of its
+absurdity. Somehow it began to look like the answer to my riddle. I
+realized that my main objection to the Campbell prescription had been
+that I must take it alone or with strangers. And now--
+
+"Hephzy," I demanded, "would you go away--on a trip abroad--with me?"
+
+She put down the knitting.
+
+"Hosy Knowles!" she exclaimed. "WHAT are you talkin' about?"
+
+"But would you?"
+
+"I presume likely I would, if I had the chance; but it isn't likely
+that--where are you goin'?"
+
+I did not answer. I hurried out of the sitting-room and out of the
+house.
+
+When I returned I found her still knitting. The circular lay on the
+floor at her feet. She regarded me anxiously.
+
+"Hosy," she demanded, "where--"
+
+I interrupted. "Hephzy," said I, "I have been to the station to send a
+telegram."
+
+"A telegram? A TELEGRAM! For mercy sakes, who's dead?"
+
+Telegrams in Bayport usually mean death or desperate illness. I laughed.
+
+"No one is dead, Hephzy," I replied. "In fact it is barely possible that
+someone is coming to life. I telegraphed Mr. Campbell to engage passage
+for you and me on some steamer leaving for Europe next week."
+
+Hephzibah turned pale. The partially knitted sock dropped beside the
+circular.
+
+"Why--why--what--?" she gasped.
+
+"On a steamer leaving next week," I repeated. "You want to travel,
+Hephzy. Jim says I must. So we'll travel together."
+
+She did not believe I meant it, of course, and it took a long time to
+convince her. But when at last she began to believe--at least to the
+extent of believing that I had sent the telegram--her next remark was
+characteristic.
+
+"But I--I can't go, Hosy," declared Hephzibah. "I CAN'T. Who--who would
+take care of the cat and the hens?"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+In Which Hephzy and I and the Plutonia Sail Together
+
+
+The week which began that Wednesday afternoon seems, as I look back to
+it now, a bit of the remote past, instead of seven days of a year ago.
+Its happenings, important and wonderful as they were, seem trivial and
+tame compared with those which came afterward. And yet, at the time,
+that week was a season of wild excitement and delightful anticipation
+for Hephzibah, and of excitement not unmingled with doubts and
+misgivings for me. For us both it was a busy week, to put it mildly.
+
+Once convinced that I meant what I said and that I was not "raving
+distracted," which I think was her first diagnosis of my case, Hephzy's
+practical mind began to unearth objections, first to her going at all
+and, second, to going on such short notice.
+
+"I don't think I'd better, Hosy," she said. "You're awful good to ask me
+and I know you think you mean it, but I don't believe I ought to do it,
+even if I felt as if I could leave the house and everything alone. You
+see, I've lived here in Bayport so long that I'm old-fashioned and funny
+and countrified, I guess. You'd be ashamed of me."
+
+I smiled. "When I am ashamed of you, Hephzy," I replied, "I shall be on
+my way to the insane asylum, not to Europe. You are much more likely to
+be ashamed of me."
+
+"The idea! And you the pride of this town! The only author that ever
+lived in it--unless you call Joshua Snow an author, and he lived in the
+poorhouse and nobody but himself was proud of HIM."
+
+Josh Snow was Bayport's Homer, its only native poet. He wrote the
+immortal ballad of the scallop industry, which begins:
+
+
+     "On a fine morning at break of day,
+      When the ice has all gone out of the bay,
+      And the sun is shining nice and it is like spring,
+      Then all hands start to go scallop-ING."
+
+
+In order to get the fullest measure of music from this lyric gem you
+should put a strong emphasis on the final "ing." Joshua always did and
+the summer people never seemed to tire of hearing him recite it. There
+are eighteen more verses.
+
+"I shall not be ashamed of you, Hephzy," I repeated. "You know it
+perfectly well. And I shall not go unless you go."
+
+"But I can't go, Hosy. I couldn't leave the hens and the cat. They'd
+starve; you know they would."
+
+"Susanna will look after them. I'll leave money for their provender. And
+I will pay Susanna for taking care of them. She has fallen in love with
+the cat; she'll be only too glad to adopt it."
+
+"And I haven't got a single thing fit to wear."
+
+"Neither have I. We will buy complete fit-outs in Boston or New York."
+
+"But--"
+
+There were innumerable "buts." I answered them as best I could. Also
+I reiterated my determination not to go unless she did. I told of
+Campbell's advice and laid strong emphasis on the fact that he had said
+travel was my only hope. Unless she wished me to die of despair she must
+agree to travel with me.
+
+"And you have said over and over again that your one desire was to go
+abroad," I added, as a final clincher.
+
+"I know it. I know I have. But--but now when it comes to really
+goin' I'm not so sure. Uncle Bedny Small was always declarin' in
+prayer-meetin' that he wanted to die so as to get to Heaven, but when he
+was taken down with influenza he made his folks call both doctors here
+in town and one from Harniss. I don't know whether I want to go or not,
+Hosy. I--I'm frightened, I guess."
+
+Jim's answer to my telegram arrived the very next day.
+
+"Have engaged two staterooms for ship sailing Wednesday the tenth," it
+read. "Hearty congratulations on your good sense. Who is your companion?
+Write particulars."
+
+The telegram quashed the last of Hephzy's objections. The fares had been
+paid and she was certain they must be "dreadful expensive." All that
+money could not be wasted, so she accepted the inevitable and began
+preparations.
+
+I did not write the "particulars" requested. I had a feeling that
+Campbell might consider my choice of a traveling companion a queer one
+and, although my mind was made up and his opinion could not change it,
+I thought it just as well to wait until our arrival in New York before
+telling him. So I wrote a brief note stating that my friend and I would
+reach New York on the morning of the tenth and that I would see him
+there. Also I asked, for my part, the name of the steamer he had
+selected.
+
+His answer was as vague as mine. He congratulated me once more upon my
+decision, prophesied great things as the result of what he called my
+"foreign junket," and gave some valuable advice concerning the necessary
+outfit, clothes, trunks and the like. "Travel light," he wrote. "You can
+buy whatever else you may need on the other side. 'Phone as soon as you
+reach New York." But he did not tell me the name of the ship, nor for
+what port she was to sail.
+
+So Hephzy and I were obliged to turn to the newspapers for information
+upon those more or less important subjects, and we speculated and
+guessed not a little. The New York dailies were not obtainable in
+Bayport except during the summer months and the Boston publications did
+not give the New York sailings. I wrote to a friend in Boston and he
+sent me the leading journals of the former city and, as soon as they
+arrived, Hephzy sat down upon the sitting-room carpet--which she had
+insisted upon having taken up to be packed away in moth balls--to look
+at the maritime advertisements. I am quite certain it was the only time
+she sat down, except at meals, that day.
+
+I selected one of the papers and she another. We reached the same
+conclusion simultaneously.
+
+"Why, it must be--" she began.
+
+"The Princess Eulalie," I finished.
+
+"It is the only one that sails on the tenth. There is one on the
+eleventh, though."
+
+"Yes, but that one is the 'Plutonia,' one of the fastest and most
+expensive liners afloat. It isn't likely that Jim had booked us for the
+'Plutonia.' She would scarcely be in our--in my class."
+
+"Humph! I guess she isn't any too good for a famous man like you, Hosy.
+But I would look funny on her, I give in. I've read about her. She's
+always full of lords and ladies and millionaires and things. Just the
+sort of folks you write about. She'd be just the one for you."
+
+I shook my head. "My lords and ladies are only paper dolls, Hephzy," I
+said, ruefully. "I should be as lost as you among the flesh and blood
+variety. No, the 'Princess Eulalie' must be ours. She runs to Amsterdam,
+though. Odd that Jim should send me to Holland."
+
+Hephzy nodded and then offered a solution.
+
+"I don't doubt he did it on purpose," she declared. "He knew neither you
+nor I was anxious to go to England. He knows we don't think much of the
+English, after our experience with that Morley brute."
+
+"No, he doesn't know any such thing. I've never told him a word about
+Morley. And he doesn't know you're going, Hephzy. I've kept that as
+a--as a surprise for him."
+
+"Well, never mind. I'd rather go to Amsterdam than England. It's nearer
+to France."
+
+I was surprised. "Nearer to France?" I repeated. "What difference does
+that make? We don't know anyone in France."
+
+Hephzibah was plainly shocked. "Why, Hosy!" she protested. "Have you
+forgotten Little Frank? He is in France somewhere, or he was at last
+accounts."
+
+"Good Lord!" I groaned. Then I got up and went out. I had forgotten
+"Little Frank" and hoped that she had. If she was to flit about Europe
+seeing "Little Frank" on every corner I foresaw trouble. "Little Frank"
+was likely to be the bane of my existence.
+
+We left Bayport on Monday morning. The house was cleaned and swept
+and scoured and moth-proofed from top to bottom. Every door was
+double-locked and every window nailed. Burglars are unknown in Bayport,
+but that didn't make any difference. "You can't be too careful," said
+Hephzy. I was of the opinion that you could.
+
+The cat had been "farmed out" with Susanna's people and Susanna herself
+was to feed the hens twice a day, lock them in each night and let them
+out each morning. Their keeper had a carefully prepared schedule as to
+quantity and quality of food; Hephzy had prepared and furnished it.
+
+"And don't you give 'em any fish," ordered Hephzy. "I ate a chicken once
+that had been fed on fish, and--my soul!"
+
+There was quite an assemblage at the station to see us off. Captain
+Whittaker and his wife were not there, of course; they were near
+California by this time. But Mr. Partridge, the minister, was there and
+so was his wife; and Asaph Tidditt and Mr. and Mrs. Bailey Bangs and
+Captain Josiah Dimick and HIS wife, and several others. Oh, yes! and
+Angeline Phinney. Angeline was there, of course. If anything happened in
+Bayport and Angeline was not there to help it happen, then--I don't know
+what then; the experiment had never been tried in my lifetime.
+
+Everyone said pleasant things to us. They really seemed sorry to have us
+leave Bayport, but for our sakes they expressed themselves as glad. It
+would be such a glorious trip; we would have so much to tell when we got
+back. Mr. Partridge said he should plan for me to give a little talk to
+the Sunday school upon my return. It would be a wonderful thing for the
+children. To my mind the most wonderful part of the idea was that he
+should take my consent for granted. _I_ talk to the Sunday school! I,
+the Quahaug! My knees shook even at the thought.
+
+Keturah Bangs hoped we would have a "lovely time." She declared that it
+had been the one ambition of her life to go sight-seeing. But she should
+never do it--no, no! Such things wasn't for her. If she had a husband
+like some women it might be, but not as 'twas. She had long ago given up
+hopin' to do anything but keep boarders, and she had to do that all by
+herself.
+
+Bailey, her husband, grinned sheepishly but, for a wonder, he did not
+attempt defence. I gathered that Bailey was learning wisdom. It was
+time; he had attended his wife's academy a long while.
+
+Captain Dimick brought a bag of apples, greenings, some he had kept in
+the cellar over winter. "Nice to eat on the cars," he told us. Everyone
+asked us to send postcards. Miss Phinney was especially solicitous.
+
+"It'll be just lovely to know where you be and what you're doin," she
+declared.
+
+When the train had started and we had waved the last good-bys from the
+window Hephzibah expressed her opinion concerning Angeline's request.
+
+"I send HER postcards!" she snapped. "I think I see myself doin' it! All
+she cares about 'em is so she can run from Dan to Beersheba showin' 'em
+to everybody and talkin' about how extravagant we are and wonderin' if
+we borrowed the money. But there! it won't make any difference. If I
+don't send 'em to her she'll read all I send to other folks. She
+and Rebecca Simmons are close as two peas in a pod and Becky reads
+everything that comes through her husband's post-office. All that aren't
+sealed, that is--yes, and some that are, I shouldn't wonder, if they're
+not sealed tight."
+
+Her next remark was a surprising one.
+
+"Hosy," she said, "how much they all think of you, don't they. Isn't it
+nice to know you're so popular."
+
+I turned in the seat to stare at her.
+
+"Popular!" I repeated. "Hephzy, I have a good deal of respect for your
+brain, generally speaking, but there are times when I think it shows
+signs of softening."
+
+She did not resent my candor; she paid absolutely no attention to it.
+
+"I don't mean popular with everybody, rag, tag and bobtail and all,
+like--well, Eben Salters," she went on. "But the folks that count all
+respect and like you, Hosy. I know they do."
+
+Mr. Salters is our leading local statesman--since the departure of the
+Honorable Heman Atkins. He has filled every office in his native village
+and he has served one term as representative in the State House at
+Boston. He IS popular.
+
+"It is marvelous how affection can be concealed," I observed, with
+sarcasm. Hephzy was back at me like a flash.
+
+"Of course they don't tell you of it," she said. "If they did you'd
+probably tell 'em to their faces that they were fibbin' and not speak to
+'em again. But they do like you, and I know it."
+
+It was useless to carry the argument further. When Hephzy begins
+chanting my praises I find it easier to surrender--and change the
+subject.
+
+In Boston we shopped. It seems to me that we did nothing else. I
+bought what I needed the very first day, clothes, hat, steamer coat and
+traveling cap included. It did not take me long; fortunately I am of the
+average height and shape and the salesmen found me easy to please. My
+shopping tour was ended by three o'clock and I spent the remainder
+of the afternoon at a bookseller's. There was a set of "Early English
+Poets" there, nineteen little, fat, chunky volumes, not new and shiny
+and grand, but middle-aged and shabby and comfortable, which appealed to
+me. The price, however, was high; I had the uneasy feeling that I ought
+not to afford it. Then the bookseller himself, who also was fat and
+comfortably shabby, and who had beguiled from me the information that I
+was about to travel, suggested that the "Poets" would make very pleasant
+reading en route.
+
+"I have found," he said, beaming over his spectacles, "that a little
+book of this kind," patting one of the volumes, "which may be carried in
+the pocket, is a rare traveling companion. When you wish his society
+he is there, and when you tire of him you can shut him up. You can't do
+that with all traveling companions, you know. Ha! ha!"
+
+He chuckled over his joke and I chuckled with him. Humor of that kind is
+expensive, for I bought the "English Poets" and ordered them sent to my
+hotel. It was not until they were delivered, an hour later, that I
+began to wonder what I should do with them. Our trunks were likely to be
+crowded and I could not carry all of the nineteen volumes in my pockets.
+
+Hephzibah, who had been shopping on her own hook, did not return until
+nearly seven. She returned weary and almost empty-handed.
+
+"But didn't you buy ANYTHING?" I asked. "Where in the world have you
+been?"
+
+She had been everywhere, so she said. This wasn't entirely true, but I
+gathered that she had visited about every department store in the city.
+She had found ever so many things she liked, but oh dear! they did cost
+so much.
+
+"There was one traveling coat that I did want dreadfully," she said.
+"It was a dark brown, not too dark, but just light enough so it wouldn't
+show water spots. I've been out sailing enough times to know how your
+things get water-spotted. It fitted me real nice; there wouldn't have to
+be a thing done to it. But it cost thirty-one dollars! 'My soul!' says
+I, 'I can't afford THAT!' But they didn't have anything cheaper that
+wouldn't have made me look like one of those awful play-actin' girls
+that came to Bayport with the Uncle Tom's Cabin show. And I tried
+everywhere and nothin' pleased me so well."
+
+"So you didn't buy the coat?"
+
+"BUY it? My soul Hosy, didn't I tell you it cost--"
+
+"I know. What else did you see that you didn't buy?"
+
+"Hey? Oh, I saw a suit, a nice lady-like suit, and I tried it on. That
+fitted me, too, only the sleeves would have to be shortened. And it
+would have gone SO well with that coat. But the suit cost FORTY dollars.
+'Good land!' I said, 'haven't you got ANYTHING for poor folks?' And you
+ought to have seen the look that girl gave me! And a hat--oh, yes, I saw
+a hat! It was--"
+
+There was a great deal more. Summed up it amounted to something like
+this: All that suited her had been too high-priced and all that she
+considered within her means hadn't suited her at all. So she had bought
+practically nothing but a few non-essentials. And we were to leave for
+New York the following night and sail for Europe the day after.
+
+"Hephzy," said I, "you will go shopping again to-morrow morning and I'll
+go with you."
+
+Go we did, and we bought the coat and the hat and the suit and various
+other things. With each purchase Hephzy's groans and protests at my
+reckless extravagance grew louder. At last I had an inspiration.
+
+"Hephzy," said I, "when we meet Little Frank over there in France, or
+wherever he may be, you will want him to be favorably impressed with
+your appearance, won't you? These things cost money of course, but we
+must think of Little Frank. He has never seen his American relatives and
+so much depends on a first impression."
+
+Hephzy regarded me with suspicion. "Humph!" she sniffed, "that's the
+first time I ever knew you to give in that there WAS a Little Frank.
+All right, I sha'n't say any more, but I hope the foreign poorhouses are
+more comfortable than ours, that's all. If you make me keep on this way,
+I'll fetch up in one before the first month's over."
+
+We left for New York on the five o'clock train. Packing those "Early
+English Poets" was a confounded nuisance. They had to be stuffed here,
+there and everywhere amid my wearing apparel and Hephzibah prophesied
+evil to come.
+
+"Books are the worse things goin' to make creases," she declared.
+"They're all sharp edges."
+
+I had to carry two of the volumes in my pockets, even then, at the very
+start. They might prove delightful traveling companions, as the bookman
+had said, but they were most uncomfortable things to sit on.
+
+We reached the Grand Central station on time and went to a nearby hotel.
+I should have sent the heavier baggage directly to the steamer, but I
+was not sure--absolutely sure--which steamer it was to be. The "Princess
+Eulalie" almost certainly, but I did not dare take the risk.
+
+Hephzy called to me from the room adjoining mine at twelve that night.
+
+"Just think, Hosy!" she cried, "this is the last night either of us will
+spend on dry land."
+
+"Heavens! I hope it won't be as bad as that," I retorted. "Holland is
+pretty wet, so they say, but we should be able to find some dry spots."
+
+She did not laugh. "You know what I mean," she observed. "To-morrow
+night at twelve o'clock we shall be far out on the vasty deep."
+
+"We shall be on the 'Princess Eulalie,'" I answered. "Go to sleep."
+
+Neither of us spoke the truth. At twelve the following night we were
+neither "far out on the vasty deep" nor on the "Princess Eulalie."
+
+My first move after breakfast was to telephone Campbell at his city
+home. He hailed me joyfully and ordered me to stay where I was, that is,
+at the hotel. He would be there in an hour, he said.
+
+He was five minutes ahead of his promise. We shook hands heartily.
+
+"You are going to take my prescription, after all," he crowed. "Didn't
+I tell you I was the only real doctor for sick authors? Bully for you!
+Wish I was going with you. Who is?"
+
+"Come to my room and I'll show you," said I. "You may be surprised."
+
+"See here! you haven't gone and dug up another fossilized bookworm like
+yourself, have you? If you have, I refuse--"
+
+"Come and see."
+
+We took the elevator to the fourth floor and walked to my room. I opened
+the door.
+
+"Hephzy," said I, "here is someone you know."
+
+Hephzy, who had been looking out of the window of her room, hurried in.
+
+"Well, Mr. Campbell!" she exclaimed, holding out her hand, "how do you
+do? We got here all right, you see. But the way Hosy has been wastin'
+money, his and mine, buyin' things we didn't need, I began to think one
+spell we'd never get any further. Is it time to start for the steamer
+yet?"
+
+Jim's face was worth looking at. He shook Hephzibah's hand mechanically,
+but he did not speak. Instead he looked at her and at me. I didn't speak
+either; I was having a thoroughly good time.
+
+"Had we ought to start now?" repeated Hephzibah. "I'm all ready but
+puttin' on my things."
+
+Jim came out of his trance. He dropped the hand and came to me.
+
+"Are you--is she--" he stammered.
+
+"Yes," said I. "Miss Cahoon is going with me. I wrote you I had selected
+a good traveling companion. I have, haven't I?"
+
+"He would have it so, Mr. Campbell," put in Hephzy. "I said no and kept
+on sayin' it, but he vowed and declared he wouldn't go unless I did.
+I know you must think it's queer my taggin' along, but it isn't any
+queerer to you than it is to me."
+
+Jim behaved very well, considering. He did not laugh. For a moment I
+thought he was going to; if he had I don't know what I should have done,
+said things for which I might have been sorry later on, probably. But he
+did not laugh. He didn't even express the tremendous surprise which he
+must have felt. Instead he shook hands again with both of us and said it
+was fine, bully, just the thing.
+
+"To tell the truth, Miss Cahoon," he declared, "I have been rather
+fearful of this pet infant of ours. I didn't know what sort of helpless
+creature he might have coaxed into roaming loose with him in the wilds
+of Europe. I expected another babe in the woods and I was contemplating
+cabling the police to look out for them and shoo away the wolves. But
+he'll be all right now. Yes, indeed! he'll be looked out for now."
+
+"Then you approve?" I asked.
+
+He shot a side-long glance at me. "Approve!" he repeated. "I'm crazy
+about the whole business."
+
+I judged he considered me crazy, hopelessly so. I did not care. I agreed
+with him in this--the whole business was insane and Hephzibah's going
+was the only sensible thing about it, so far.
+
+His next question was concerning our baggage. I told him I had left it
+at the railway station because I was not sure where it should be sent.
+
+"What time does the 'Princess Eulalie' sail?" I asked.
+
+He looked at me oddly. "What?" he queried. "The 'Princess Eulalie'?
+Twelve o'clock, I believe, I'm not sure."
+
+"You're not sure! And it is after nine now. It strikes me that--"
+
+"Never mind what strikes you. So long as it isn't lightning you
+shouldn't complain. Have you the baggage checks? Give them to me."
+
+I handed him the checks, obediently, and he stepped to the telephone
+and gave a number. A short conversation followed. Then he hung up the
+receiver.
+
+"One of the men from the office will be here soon," he said. "He will
+attend to all your baggage, get it aboard the ship and see that it is
+put in your staterooms. Now, then, tell me all about it. What have you
+been doing since I saw you? When did you arrive? How did you happen to
+think of taking--er--Miss Cahoon with you? Tell me the whole."
+
+I told him. Hephzy assisted, sitting on the edge of a rocking chair
+and asking me what time it was at intervals of ten minutes. She was
+decidedly fidgety. When she went to Boston she usually reached the
+station half an hour before train time, and to sit calmly in a hotel
+room, when the ship that was to take us to the ends of the earth was to
+sail in two hours, was a reckless gamble with Fate, to her mind.
+
+The man from the office came and the baggage checks were turned over to
+him. So also were our bags and our umbrellas. Campbell stepped into
+the hall and the pair held a whispered conversation. Hephzy seized the
+opportunity to express to me her perturbation.
+
+"My soul, Hosy!" she whispered. "Mr. Campbell's out of his head, ain't
+he? Here we are a sittin' and sittin' and time's goin' by. We'll be too
+late. Can't you make him hurry?"
+
+I was almost as nervous as she was, but I would not have let our
+guardian know it for the world. If we lost a dozen steamers I shouldn't
+call his attention to the fact. I might be a "Babe in the Wood," but he
+should not have the satisfaction of hearing me whimper.
+
+He came back to the room a moment later and began asking more questions.
+Our answers, particularly Hephzy's, seemed to please him a great deal.
+At some of them he laughed uproariously. At last he looked at his watch.
+
+"Almost eleven," he observed. "I must be getting around to the office.
+Miss Cahoon will you excuse Kent and me for an hour or so? I have his
+letters of credit and the tickets in our safe and he had better come
+around with me and get them. If you have any last bits of shopping to
+do, now is your opportunity. Or you might wait here if you prefer. We
+will be back at half-past twelve and lunch together."
+
+I started. Hephzy sprang from the chair.
+
+"Half-past twelve!" I cried.
+
+"Lunch together!" gasped Hephzy. "Why, Mr. Campbell! the 'Princess
+Eulalie' sails at noon. You said so yourself!"
+
+Jim smiled. "I know I did," he replied, "but that is immaterial. You are
+not concerned with the 'Princess Eulalie.' Your passages are booked
+on the 'Plutonia' and she doesn't leave her dock until one o'clock
+to-morrow morning. We will meet here for lunch at twelve-thirty. Come,
+Kent."
+
+I didn't attempt an answer. I am not exactly sure what I did. A few
+minutes later I walked out of that room with Campbell and I have a hazy
+recollection of leaving Hephzy seated in the rocker and of hearing her
+voice, as the door closed, repeating over and over:
+
+"The 'Plutonia'! My soul and body! The 'Plutonia'! Me--ME on the
+'Plutonia'!"
+
+What I said and did afterwards doesn't make much difference. I know I
+called my publisher a number of disrespectful names not one of which he
+deserved.
+
+"Confound you!" I cried. "You know I wouldn't have dreamed of taking a
+passage on a ship like that. She's a floating Waldorf, everyone says so.
+Dress and swagger society and--Oh, you idiot! I wanted quiet! I wanted
+to be alone! I wanted--"
+
+Jim interrupted me.
+
+"I know you did," he said. "But you're not going to have them. You've
+been alone too much. You need a change. If I know the 'Plutonia'--and
+I've crossed on her four times--you're going to have it."
+
+He burst into a roar of laughter. We were in a cab, fortunately, or his
+behavior would have attracted attention. I could have choked him.
+
+"You imbecile!" I cried. "I have a good mind to throw the whole thing up
+and go home to Bayport. By George, I will!"
+
+He continued to chuckle.
+
+"I see you doing it!" he observed. "How about your--what's her
+name?--Hephzibah? Going to tell her that it's all off, are you? Going
+to tell her that you will forfeit your passage money and hers? Why, man,
+haven't you a heart? If she was booked for Paradise instead of Paris
+she couldn't be any happier. Don't be foolish! Your trunks are on the
+'Plutonia' and on the 'Plutonia' you'll be to-night. It's the best thing
+that can happen to you. I did it on purpose. You'll thank me come day."
+
+I didn't thank him then.
+
+We returned to the hotel at twelve-thirty, my pocket-book loaded with
+tickets and letters of credit and unfamiliar white paper notes bearing
+the name of the Bank of England. Hephzibah was still in the rocking
+chair. I am sure she had not left it.
+
+We lunched in the hotel dining-room. Campbell ordered the luncheon and
+paid for it while Hephzibah exclaimed at his extravagance. She was
+too excited to eat much and too worried concerning the extent of her
+wardrobe to talk of less important matters.
+
+"Oh dear, Hosy!" she wailed, "WHY didn't I buy another best dress. DO
+you suppose my black one will be good enough? All those lords and
+ladies and millionaires on the 'Plutonia'! Won't they think I'm dreadful
+poverty-stricken. I saw a dress I wanted awfully--in one of those Boston
+stores it was; but I didn't buy it because it was so dear. And I didn't
+tell you I wanted it because I knew if I did you'd buy it. You're so
+reckless with money. But now I wish I'd bought it myself. What WILL all
+those rich people think of me?"
+
+"About what they think of me, Hephzy, I imagine," I answered, ruefully.
+"Jim here has put up a joke on us. He is the only one who is getting any
+fun out of it."
+
+Jim, for a wonder, was serious. "Miss Cahoon," he declared, earnestly,
+"don't worry. I'm sure the black silk is all right; but if it wasn't
+it wouldn't make any difference. On the 'Plutonia' nobody notices other
+people's clothes. Most of them are too busy noticing their own. If Kent
+has his evening togs and you have the black silk you'll pass muster.
+You'll have a gorgeous time. I only wish I was going with you."
+
+He repeated the wish several times during the afternoon. He insisted on
+taking us to a matinee and Hephzy's comments on the performance seemed
+to amuse him hugely. It had been eleven years, so she said, since she
+went to the theater.
+
+"Unless you count 'Uncle Tom' or 'Ten Nights in a Barroom,' or some
+of those other plays that come to Bayport," she added. "I suppose I'm
+making a perfect fool of myself laughin' and cryin' over what's nothin'
+but make-believe, but I can't help it. Isn't it splendid, Hosy! I wonder
+what Father would say if he could know that his daughter was really
+travelin'--just goin' to Europe! He used to worry a good deal, in his
+last years, about me. Seemed to feel that he hadn't taken me around and
+done as much for me as he ought to in the days when he could. 'Twas just
+nonsense, his feelin' that way, and I told him so. But I wonder if he
+knows now how happy I am. I hope he does. My goodness! I can't realize
+it myself. Oh, there goes the curtain up again! Oh, ain't that pretty! I
+AM actin' ridiculous, I know, Mr. Campbell,' but you mustn't mind. Laugh
+at me all you want to; I sha'n't care a bit."
+
+Jim didn't laugh--then. Neither did I. He and I looked at each other
+and I think the same thought was in both our minds. Good, kind,
+whole-souled, self-sacrificing Hephzibah! The last misgiving, the last
+doubt as to the wisdom of my choice of a traveling companion vanished
+from my thoughts. For the first time I was actually glad I was going,
+glad because of the happiness it would mean to her.
+
+When we came out of the theater Campbell reached down in the crowd to
+shake my hand.
+
+"Congratulations, old man," he whispered; "you did exactly the right
+thing. You surprised me, I admit, but you were dead right. She's a
+brick. But don't I wish I was going along! Oh my! oh my! to think of you
+two wandering about Europe together! If only I might be there to see and
+hear! Kent, keep a diary; for my sake, promise me you'll keep a diary.
+Put down everything she says and read it to me when you get home."
+
+He left us soon afterward. He had given up the entire day to me and
+would, I know, have cheerfully given the evening as well, but I would
+not hear of it. A messenger from the office had brought him word of the
+presence in New York of a distinguished scientist who was preparing a
+manuscript for publication and the scientist had requested an interview
+that night. Campbell was very anxious to obtain that manuscript and I
+knew it. Therefore I insisted that he leave us. He was loathe to do so.
+
+"I hate to, Kent," he declared. "I had set my heart on seeing you on
+board and seeing you safely started. But I do want to nail Scheinfeldt,
+I must admit. The book is one that he has been at work on for years and
+two other publishing houses are as anxious as ours to get it. To-night
+is my chance, and to-morrow may be too late."
+
+"Then you must not miss the chance. You must go, and go now."
+
+"I don't like to. Sure you've got everything you need? Your tickets and
+your letters of credit and all? Sure you have money enough to carry you
+across comfortably?"
+
+"Yes, and more than enough, even on the 'Plutonia.'"
+
+"Well, all right, then. When you reach London go to our English
+branch--you have the address, Camford Street, just off the Strand--and
+whatever help you may need they'll give you. I've cabled them
+instructions. Think you can get down to the ship all right?"
+
+I laughed. "I think it fairly possible," I said. "If I lose my way, or
+Hephzy is kidnapped, I'll speak to the police or telephone you."
+
+"The latter would be safer and much less expensive. Well, good-by,
+Kent. Remember now, you're going for a good time and you're to forget
+literature. Write often and keep in touch with me. Good-by, Miss Cahoon.
+Take care of this--er--clam of ours, won't you. Don't let anyone eat him
+on the half-shell, or anything like that."
+
+Hephzy smiled. "They'd have to eat me first," she said, "and I'm pretty
+old and tough. I'll look after him, Mr. Campbell, don't you worry."
+
+"I don't. Good luck to you both--and good-by."
+
+A final handshake and he was gone. Hephzy looked after him.
+
+"There!" she exclaimed; "I really begin to believe I'm goin'. Somehow
+I feel as if the last rope had been cast off. We've got to depend on
+ourselves now, Hosy, dear. Mercy! how silly I am talkin'. A body would
+think I was homesick before I started."
+
+I did not answer, for I WAS homesick. We dined together at the hotel.
+There remained three long hours before it would be time for us to take
+the cab for the 'Plutonia's' wharf. I suggested another theater, but
+Hephzy, to my surprise, declined the invitation.
+
+"If you don't mind, Hosy," she said, "I guess I'd rather stay right here
+in the room. I--I feel sort of solemn and as if I wanted to sit still
+and think. Perhaps it's just as well. After waitin' eleven years to go
+to one theater, maybe two in the same day would be more than I could
+stand."
+
+So we sat together in the room at the hotel--sat and thought. The
+minutes dragged by. Outside beneath the windows, New York blazed and
+roared. I looked down at the hurrying little black manikins on the
+sidewalks, each, apparently, bound somewhere on business or pleasure of
+its own, and I wondered vaguely what that business or pleasure might
+be and why they hurried so. There were many single ones, of course,
+and occasionally groups of three or four, but couples were the most
+numerous. Husbands and wives, lovers and sweethearts, each with his or
+her life and interests bound up in the life and interests of the other.
+I envied them. Mine had been a solitary life, an unusual, abnormal kind
+of life. No one had shared its interests and ambitions with me, no one
+had spurred me on to higher endeavor, had loved with me and suffered
+with me, helping me through the shadows and laughing with me in the
+sunshine. No one, since Mother's death, except Hephzy and Hephzy's love
+and care and sacrifice, fine as they were, were different. I had missed
+something, I had missed a great deal, and now it was too late. Youth and
+high endeavor and ambition had gone by; I had left them behind. I was
+a solitary, queer, self-centered old bachelor, a "quahaug," as my
+fellow-Bayporters called me. And to ship a quahaug around the world is
+not likely to do the creature a great deal of good. If he lives through
+it he is likely to be shipped home again tougher and drier and more
+useless to the rest of creation than ever.
+
+Hephzibah, too, had evidently been thinking, for she interrupted my
+dismal meditations with a long sigh. I started and turned toward her.
+
+"What's the matter?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, nothin'," was the solemn answer. "I was wonderin', that's all. Just
+wonderin' if he would talk English. It would be a terrible thing if
+he could speak nothin' but French or a foreign language and I couldn't
+understand him. But Ardelia was American and that brute of a Morley
+spoke plain enough, so I suppose--"
+
+I judged it high time to interrupt.
+
+"Come, Hephzy," said I. "It is half-past ten. We may as well start at
+once."
+
+Broadway, seen through the cab windows, was bright enough, a blaze of
+flashing signs and illuminated shop windows. But --th street, at the
+foot of which the wharves of the Trans-Atlantic Steamship Company were
+located, was black and dismal. It was by no means deserted, however.
+Before and behind and beside us were other cabs and automobiles bound in
+the same direction. Hephzy peered out at them in amazement.
+
+"Mercy on us, Hosy!" she exclaimed. "I never saw such a procession of
+carriages. They're as far ahead and as far back of us as you can see. It
+is like the biggest funeral that ever was, except that they don't crawl
+along the way a funeral does. I'm glad of that, anyhow. I wish I didn't
+FEEL so much as if I was goin' to be buried. I don't know why I do. I
+hope it isn't a presentiment."
+
+If it was she forgot it a few minutes later. The cab stopped before a
+mammoth doorway in a long, low building and a person in uniform opened
+the door. The wide street was crowded with vehicles and from them were
+descending people attired as if for a party rather than an ocean voyage.
+I helped Hephzy to alight and, while I was paying the cab driver, she
+looked about her.
+
+"Hosy! Hosy!" she whispered, seizing my arm tight, "we've made a
+mistake. This isn't the steamboat; this is--is a weddin' or somethin'.
+Look! look!"
+
+I looked, looked at the silk hats, the opera cloaks, the jewels and
+those who wore them. For a moment I, too, was certain there must be a
+mistake. Then I looked upward and saw above the big doorway the flashing
+electric sign of the "Trans-Atlantic Navigation Company."
+
+"No, Hephzy," said I; "I guess it is the right place. Come."
+
+I gave her my arm--that is, she continued to clutch it with both
+hands--and we moved forward with the crowd, through the doorway, past
+a long, moving inclined plane up which bags, valises, bundles of golf
+sticks and all sorts of lighter baggage were gliding, and faced another
+and smaller door.
+
+"Lift this way! This way to the lift!" bawled a voice.
+
+"What's a lift?" whispered Hephzy, tremulously, "Hosy, what's a lift?"
+
+"An elevator," I whispered in reply.
+
+"But we can't go on board a steamboat in an elevator, can we? I never
+heard--"
+
+I don't know what she never heard. The sentence was not finished. Into
+the lift we went. On either side of us were men in evening dress and
+directly in front was a large woman, hatless and opera-cloaked, with
+diamonds in her ears and a rustle of silk at every point of her persons.
+The car reeked with perfume.
+
+The large woman wriggled uneasily.
+
+"George," she said, in a loud whisper, "why do they crowd these lifts
+in this disgusting way? And WHY," with another wriggle, "do they permit
+PERSONS with packages to use them?"
+
+As we emerged from the elevator Hephzy whispered again.
+
+"She meant us, Hosy," she said. "I've got three of those books of yours
+in this bundle under my arm. I COULDN'T squeeze 'em into either of the
+valises. But she needn't have been so disagreeable about it, need she."
+
+Still following the crowd, we passed through more wide doorways and into
+a huge loft where, through mammoth openings at our left, the cool air
+from the river blew upon our faces. Beyond these openings loomed an
+enormous something with rows of railed walks leading up its sides.
+Hephzibah and I, moving in a sort of bewildered dream, found ourselves
+ascending one of these walks. At its end was another doorway and,
+beyond, a great room, with more elevators and a mosaic floor, and
+mahogany and gilt and gorgeousness, and silk and broadcloth and satin.
+
+Hephzy gasped and stopped short.
+
+"It IS a mistake, Hosy!" she cried. "Where is the steamer?"
+
+I smiled. I felt almost as "green" and bewildered as she, but I tried
+not to show my feelings.
+
+"It is all right, Hephzy," I answered. "This is the steamer. I know it
+doesn't look like one, but it is. This is the 'Plutonia' and we are on
+board at last."
+
+Two hours later we leaned together over the rail and watched the lights
+of New York grow fainter behind us.
+
+Hephzibah drew a deep breath.
+
+"It is so," she said. "It is really so. We ARE, aren't we, Hosy."
+
+"We are," said I. "There is no doubt of it."
+
+"I wonder what will happen to us before we see those lights again."
+
+"I wonder."
+
+"Do you think HE--Do you think Little Frank--"
+
+"Hephzy," I interrupted, "if we are going to bed at all before morning,
+we had better start now."
+
+"All right, Hosy. But you mustn't say 'go to bed.' Say 'turn in.'
+Everyone calls going to bed 'turning in' aboard a vessel."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+In Which We View, and Even Mingle Slightly with, the Upper Classes
+
+
+It is astonishing--the ease with which the human mind can accustom
+itself to the unfamiliar and hitherto strange. Nothing could have been
+more unfamiliar or strange to Hephzibah and me than an ocean voyage and
+the "Plutonia." And yet before three days of that voyage were at an end
+we were accustomed to both--to a degree. We had learned to do certain
+things and not to do others. Some pet illusions had been shattered,
+and new and, at first, surprising items of information had lost their
+newness and come to be accepted as everyday facts.
+
+For example, we learned that people in real life actually wore monocles,
+something, which I, of course, had known to be true but which had seemed
+nevertheless an unreality, part of a stage play, a "dress-up" game for
+children and amateur actors. The "English swell" in the performances of
+the Bayport Dramatic Society always wore a single eyeglass, but he also
+wore Dundreary whiskers and clothes which would have won him admittance
+to the Home for Feeble-Minded Youth without the formality of an
+examination. His "English accent" was a combination of the East Bayport
+twang and an Irish brogue and he was a blithering idiot in appearance
+and behavior. No one in his senses could have accepted him as anything
+human and the eyeglass had been but a part of his unreal absurdity.
+
+And yet, here on the "Plutonia," were at least a dozen men, men of
+dignity and manner, who sported monocles and acted as if they were
+used to them. The first evening before we left port, one or two were in
+evidence; the next afternoon, in the Lounge, there were more. The
+fact that they were on an English ship, bound for England, brought the
+monocles out of their concealment, as Hephzy said, "like hoptoads after
+the first spring thaw." Her amazed comments were unique.
+
+"But what good are they, Hosy?" she demanded. "Can they see with 'em?"
+
+"I suppose they can," I answered. "You can see better with your
+spectacles than you can without them."
+
+"Humph! I can see better with two eyes than I can with one, as far as
+that goes. I don't believe they wear 'em for seein' at all. Take that
+man there," pointing to a long, lank Canadian in a yellow ulster,
+whom the irreverent smoking-room had already christened "The Duke
+of Labrador." "Look at him! He didn't wear a sign of one until this
+mornin'. If he needed it to see with he'd have worn it before, wouldn't
+he? Don't tell me! He wears it because he wants people to think he's a
+regular boarder at Windsor Castle. And he isn't; he comes from Toronto,
+and that's only a few miles from the United States. Ugh! You foolish
+thing!" as the "Duke of Labrador" strutted by our deck-chairs; "I
+suppose you think you're pretty, don't you? Well, you're not. You look
+for all the world like a lighthouse with one window in it and the lamp
+out."
+
+I laughed. "Hephzy," said I, "every nation has its peculiarities and the
+monocle is an English national institution, like--well, like tea, for
+instance."
+
+"Institution! Don't talk to me about institutions! I know the
+institution I'd put HIM in."
+
+She didn't fancy the "Duke of Labrador." Neither did she fancy tea at
+breakfast and coffee at dinner. But she learned to accept the first. Two
+sessions with the "Plutonia's" breakfast coffee completed her education.
+
+"Bring me tea," she said to our table steward on the third morning.
+"I've tried most every kind of coffee and lived through it, but I'm
+gettin' too old to keep on experimentin' with my health. Bring me tea
+and I'll try to forget what time it is."
+
+We had tea at breakfast, therefore, and tea at four in the afternoon.
+Hephzibah and I learned to take it with the rest. She watched her
+fellow-passengers, however, and as usual had something to say concerning
+their behavior.
+
+"Did you hear that, Hosy?" she whispered, as we sat together in the
+"Lounge," sipping tea and nibbling thin bread and butter and the
+inevitable plum cake. "Did you hear what that woman said about her
+husband?"
+
+I had not heard, and said so.
+
+"Well, judgin' by her actions, I thought her husband was lost and she
+was sure he had been washed overboard. 'Where is Edward?' she kept
+askin'. 'Poor Edward! What WILL he do? Where is he?' I was gettin' real
+anxious, and then it turned out that she was afraid that, if he didn't
+come soon, he'd miss his tea. My soul! Hosy, I've been thinkin' and do
+you know the conclusion I've come to?"
+
+"No," I replied. "What is it?"
+
+"Well, it sounds awfully irreverent, but I've come to the conclusion
+that the first part of the Genesis in the English scriptures must be
+different than ours. I'm sure they think that the earth was created in
+six days and, on the seventh, Adam and Eve had tea. I believe it for an
+absolute fact."
+
+The pet illusion, the loss of which caused her the most severe shock,
+was that concerning the nobility. On the morning of our first day afloat
+the passenger lists were distributed. Hephzibah was early on deck.
+Fortunately neither she nor I were in the least discomfited by the
+motion of the ship, then or at any time. We proved to be good sailors;
+Hephzibah declared it was in the blood.
+
+"For a Knowles or a Cahoon to be seasick," she announced, "would be a
+disgrace. Our men folks for four generations would turn over in their
+graves."
+
+She was early on deck that first morning and, at breakfast she and I had
+the table to ourselves. She had the passenger list propped against the
+sugar bowl and was reading the names.
+
+"My gracious, Hosy!" she exclaimed. "What, do you think! There are five
+'Sirs' on board and one 'Lord'! Just think of it! Where do you suppose
+they are?"
+
+"In their berths, probably, at this hour," I answered.
+
+"Then I'm goin' to stay right here till they come out. I'm goin' to see
+'em and know what they look like if I sit at this table all day."
+
+I smiled. "I wouldn't do that, Hephzy," said I. "We can see them at
+lunch."
+
+"Oh! O--Oh! And there's a Princess here! Princess
+B-e-r-g-e-n-s-t-e-i-n--Bergenstein. Princess Bergenstein. What do you
+suppose she's Princess of?"
+
+"Princess of Jerusalem, I should imagine," I answered. "Oh, I see!
+You've skipped a line, Hephzy. Bergenstein belongs to another person.
+The Princess's name is Berkovitchky. Russian or Polish, perhaps."
+
+"I don't care if she's Chinese; I mean to see her. I never expected to
+look at a live Princess in MY life."
+
+We stopped in the hall at the entrance to the dining-saloon to examine
+the table chart. Hephzibah made careful notes of the tables at which the
+knights and the lord and the Princess were seated and their locations.
+At lunch she consulted the notes.
+
+"The lord sits right behind us at that little table there," she said,
+excitedly. "That table for two is marked 'Lord and Lady Erkskine.' Now
+we must watch when they come in."
+
+A few minutes later a gray-haired little man, accompanied by a
+middle-aged woman entered the saloon and were seated at the small table
+by an obsequious steward. Hephzy gasped.
+
+"Why--why, Hosy!" she exclaimed. "That isn't the lord, is it? THAT?"
+
+"I suppose it must be," I answered. When our own Steward came I asked
+him.
+
+"Yes, sir," he answered, with unction. "Yes, sir, that is Lord and Lady
+Erkskine, sir, thank you, sir."
+
+Hephzy stared at Lord and Lady Erkskine. I gave our luncheon order,
+and the steward departed. Then her indignant disgust and disappointment
+burst forth.
+
+"Well! well!" she exclaimed. "And that is a real live lord! That is!
+Why, Hosy, he's the livin' image of Asaph Tidditt back in Bayport. If
+Ase could afford clothes like that he might be his twin brother. Well! I
+guess that's enough. I don't want to see that Princess any more. Just as
+like as not she'd look like Susanna Wixon."
+
+Her criticisms were not confined to passengers of other nationalities.
+Some of our own came in for comment quite as severe.
+
+"Look at those girls at that table over there," she whispered. "The two
+in red, I mean. One of 'em has got a little flag pinned on her dress.
+What do you suppose that is for?"
+
+I looked at the young ladies in red. They were vivacious damsels and
+their conversation and laughter were by no means subdued. A middle-aged
+man and woman and two young fellows were their table-mates and the group
+attracted a great deal of attention.
+
+"What has she got that flag pinned on her for?" repeated Hephzy.
+
+"She wishes everyone to know she's an American exportation, I suppose,"
+I answered. "She is evidently proud of her country."
+
+"Humph! Her country wouldn't be proud of her, if it had to listen to
+her the way we do. There's some exports it doesn't pay to advertise, I
+guess, and she and her sister are that kind. Every time they laugh I
+can see that Lady Erkskine shrivel up like a sensitive plant. I hope she
+don't think all American girls are like those two."
+
+"She probably does."
+
+"Well, IF she does she's makin' a big mistake. I might as well believe
+all Englishmen were like this specimen comin' now, and I don't believe
+that, even if I do hail from Bayport."
+
+The specimen was the "Duke of Labrador," who sauntered by, monocle in
+eye, hands in pockets and an elaborate affection of the "Oxford stoop"
+which he must have spent time and effort in acquiring. Hephzibah shook
+her head.
+
+"I wish Toronto was further from home than it is," she declared. "But
+there! I shan't worry about him. I'll leave him for Lord Erkskine and
+his wife to be ashamed of. He's their countryman, or he hopes he is.
+I've got enough to do bein' ashamed of those two American girls."
+
+It may be gathered from these conversations that Hephzy and I had been
+so fortunate as to obtain a table by ourselves. This was not the case.
+There were four seats at our table and, according to the chart of the
+dining-saloon, one of them should be occupied by a "Miss Rutledge of New
+York" and the other by "A. Carleton Heathcroft of London." Miss Rutledge
+we had not seen at all. Our table steward informed us that the lady was
+"hindisposed" and confined to her room. She was an actress, he added.
+Hephzy, whose New England training had imbued her with the conviction
+that all people connected with the stage must be highly undesirable
+as acquaintances, was quite satisfied. "Of course I'm sorry she isn't
+well," she confided to me "but I'm awfully glad she won't be at our
+table. I shouldn't want to hurt her feelin's, but I couldn't talk to her
+as I would to an ordinary person. I COULDN'T! All I should be able to
+think of was what she wore, or didn't wear, when she was actin' her
+parts. I expect I'm old-fashioned, but when I think of those girls
+in the pictures outside that theater--the one we didn't go
+to--I--well--mercy!"
+
+The "pictures" were the posters advertising a popular musical comedy
+which Campbell had at first suggested our witnessing the afternoon of
+our stay in New York. Hephzibah's shocked expression and my whispered
+advice had brought about a change of plans. We saw a perfectly
+respectable, though thrilling, melodrama instead. I might have
+relieved my relative's mind by assuring her that all actresses were not
+necessarily attired as "merry villagers," but the probable result of my
+assurance seemed scarcely worth the effort.
+
+A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire, was not acquainted with the stage, in
+a professional way, at any rate. He was a slim and elegant gentleman,
+dressed with elaborate care, who appeared profoundly bored with life
+in general and our society in particular. He sported one of Hephzibah's
+detestations, a monocle, and spoke, when he spoke at all, with a languid
+drawl and what I learned later was a Piccadilly accent. He favored us
+with his company during our first day afloat; after that we saw him
+amid the select group at that much sought--by some--center of shipboard
+prominence, "the Captain's table."
+
+Oddly enough Hephzibah did not resent the Heathcroft condescension and
+single eyeglass as much as I had expected. She explained her feeling in
+this way.
+
+"I know he's dreadfully high and mighty and all that," she said. "And
+the way he said 'Really?' when you and I spoke to him was enough to
+squelch even an Angelina Phinney. But I didn't care so much. Anybody,
+even a body as green as I am, can see that he actually IS somebody when
+he's at home, not a make-believe, like that Toronto man. And I'm glad
+for our waiter's sake that he's gone somewhere else. The poor thing
+bowed so low when he came in and was so terribly humble every time Mr.
+Heathcroft spoke to him. I should hate to feel I must say 'Thank you'
+when I was told that the food was 'rotten bad.' I never thought 'rotten'
+was a nice word, but all these English folks say it. I heard that pretty
+English girl over there tell her father that it was a 'jolly rotten
+mornin',' and she's as nice and sweet as she can be. Well, I'm
+learnin' fast, Hosy. I can see a woman smoke a cigarette now and not
+shiver--much. Old Bridget Doyle up in West Bayport, used to smoke a
+pipe and the whole town talked about it. She'd be right at home in that
+sittin'-room they call a 'Lounge' after dinner, wouldn't she?"
+
+My acquaintance with A. Carleton Heathcroft, which appeared to have
+ended almost as soon as it began, was renewed in an odd way. I was in
+the "Smoke-Room" after dinner the third evening out, enjoying a cigar
+and idly listening to the bidding for pools on the ship's run, that
+time-honored custom which helps the traveling gentleman of sporting
+proclivities to kill time and lose money. On board the "Plutonia," with
+its unusually large quota of millionaires and personages, the bidding
+was lively and the prices paid for favored numbers high. Needless to say
+I was not one of the bidders. My interest was merely casual.
+
+The auctioneer that evening was a famous comedian with an international
+reputation and his chatter, as he urged his hearers to higher bids, was
+clever and amusing. I was listening to it and smiling at the jokes when
+a voice at my elbow said:
+
+"Five pounds."
+
+I turned and saw that the speaker was Heathcroft. His monocle was in his
+eye, a cigarette was between his fingers and he looked as if he had
+been newly washed and ironed and pressed from head to foot. He nodded
+carelessly and I bowed in return.
+
+"Five pounds," repeated Mr. Heathcroft.
+
+The auctioneer acknowledged the bid and proceeded to urge his audience
+on to higher flights. The flights were made and my companion capped each
+with one more lofty. Eight, nine, ten pounds were bid. Heathcroft bid
+eleven. Someone at the opposite side of the room bid twelve. It seemed
+ridiculous to me. Possibly my face expressed my feeling; at any rate
+something caused the immaculate gentleman in the next chair to address
+me instead of the auctioneer.
+
+"I say," he said, "that's running a bit high, isn't it?"
+
+"It seems so to me," I replied. "The number is five hundred and
+eighty-six and I think we shall do better than that."
+
+"Oh, do you! Really! And why do you think so, may I ask?"
+
+"Because we are having a remarkably smooth sea and a favorable wind."
+
+"Oh, but you forget the fog. There's quite a bit of fog about us now,
+isn't there."
+
+I wish I could describe the Heathcroft manner of saying "Isn't there." I
+can't, however; there is no use trying.
+
+"It will amount to nothing," I answered. "The glass is high and there
+is no indication of bad weather. Our run this noon was five hundred and
+ninety-one, you remember."
+
+"Yes. But we did have extraordinarily good weather for that."
+
+"Why, not particularly good. We slowed down about midnight. There was
+a real fog then and the glass was low. The second officer told me it
+dropped very suddenly and there was a heavy sea running. For an hour
+between twelve and one we were making not much more than half our usual
+speed."
+
+"Really! That's interesting. May I ask if you and the second officer are
+friends?"
+
+"Scarcely that. He and I exchanged a few words on deck this morning,
+that's all."
+
+"But he told you about the fog and the--what is it--the glass, and all
+that. Fancy! that's extremely odd. I'm acquainted with the captain in
+a trifling sort of way; I sit at his table, I mean to say. And I assure
+you he doesn't tell us a word. And, by Jove, we cross-question him, too!
+Rather!"
+
+I smiled. I could imagine the cross-questioning.
+
+"I suppose the captain is obliged to be non-committal," I observed.
+"That's part of his job. The second officer meant to be, I have no
+doubt, but perhaps my remarks showed that I was really interested in
+ships and the sea. My father and grandfather, too, for that matter were
+seafaring men, both captains. That may have made the second officer more
+communicative. Not that he said anything of importance, of course."
+
+Mr. Heathcroft seemed very interested. He actually removed his eyeglass.
+
+"Oh!" he exclaimed. "You know something about it, then. I thought it was
+extraordinary, but now I see. And you think our run will be better than
+five hundred and eighty?"
+
+"It should be, unless there is a remarkable change. This ship makes over
+six hundred, day after day, in good weather. She should do at least six
+hundred by to-morrow noon, unless there is a sudden change, as I said."
+
+"But six hundred would be--it would be the high field, by Jove!"
+
+"Anything over five hundred and ninety-four would be that. The numbers
+are very low to-night. Far too low, I should say."
+
+Heathcroft was silent. The auctioneer, having forced the bid on number
+five hundred and eighty-six up to thirteen pounds ten, was imploring his
+hearers not to permit a certain winner to be sacrificed at this absurd
+figure.
+
+"Fourteen pounds, gentlemen," he begged. "For the sake of the wife
+and children, for the honor of the star spangled banner and the union
+jack,--DON'T hesitate--don't even stammer--below fourteen pounds."
+
+He looked in our direction as he said it. Mr. Heathcroft made no sign.
+He produced a gold cigarette box and extended it in my direction.
+
+"Will you?" he inquired.
+
+"No, thank you," I replied. "I will smoke a cigar, if you don't mind."
+
+He did not appear to mind. He lighted his cigarette, readjusted his
+monocle, and stared stonily at the gesticulating auctioneer.
+
+The bidding went on. One by one the numbers were sold until all were
+gone. Then the auctioneer announced that bids for the "high field," that
+is, any number above five hundred and ninety-four, were in order. My
+companion suddenly came to life.
+
+"Ten pounds," he called.
+
+I started. "For mercy sake, Mr. Heathcroft," I protested, "don't let
+anything I have said influence your bidding. I may be entirely wrong."
+
+He turned and surveyed me through the eyeglass.
+
+"You may wish to bid yourself," he drawled. "Careless of me. So sorry.
+Shall I withdraw the bid?"
+
+"No, no. I'm not going to bid. I only--"
+
+"Eleven pounds I am offered, gentlemen," shouted the auctioneer. "Eleven
+pounds! It would be like robbing an orphan asylum. Do I hear twelve?"
+
+He heard twelve immediately--from Mr. Heathcroft.
+
+Thirteen pounds were bid. Evidently others shared my opinion concerning
+the value of the "high field." Heathcroft promptly raised it to
+fourteen. I ventured another protest. So far as effect was concerned I
+might as well have been talking to one of the smoke-stacks. The bidding
+was lively and lengthy. At last the "high field" went to Mr. A. Carleton
+Heathcroft for twenty-one pounds, approximately one hundred and five
+dollars. I thought it time for me to make my escape. I was wondering
+where I should hide next day, when the run was announced.
+
+"Greatly obliged to you, I'm sure," drawled the fortunate bidder. "Won't
+you join me in a whisky and soda or something?"
+
+I declined the whisky and soda.
+
+"Sorry," said Mr. Heathcroft. "Jolly grateful for putting me right,
+Mr.--er--"
+
+"Knowles is my name," I said. He might have remembered it; I remembered
+his perfectly.
+
+"Of course--Knowles. Thank you so much, Knowles. Thank you and the
+second officer. Nothing like having professional information--eh, what?
+Rather!"
+
+There seemed to be no doubt in his mind that he was going to win. There
+was more than a doubt in mine. I told Hephzy of my experience when I
+joined her in the Lounge. My attempts to say "Really" and "Isn't it" and
+"Rather" in the Heathcroft manner and with the Heathcroft accent pleased
+her very much. As to the result of my unpremeditated "tip" she was quite
+indifferent.
+
+"If he loses it will serve him good and right," she declared. "Gamblin's
+poor business and I sha'n't care if he does lose."
+
+"I shall," I observed. "I feel responsible in a way and I shall be
+sorry."
+
+"'SO sorry,' you mean, Hosy. That's what that blunderin' steward said
+when he stepped on my skirt and tore the gatherin' all loose. I told him
+he wasn't half as sorry as I was."
+
+But at noon next day, when the observation was taken and the run posted
+on the bulletin board the figure was six hundred and two. My "tip"
+had been a good one after all and A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire,
+was richer by some seven hundred dollars, even after the expenses of
+treating the "smoke-room" and feeing the smoke-room steward had been
+deducted. I did not visit the smoke-room to share in the treat. I feared
+I might be expected to furnish more professional information. But that
+evening a bottle of vintage champagne was produced by our obsequious
+table steward. "With Mr. 'Eathcroft's compliments, sir, thank you, sir,"
+announced the latter.
+
+Hephzibah looked at the gilt-topped bottle.
+
+"WHAT in the world will we do with it, Hosy?" she demanded.
+
+"Why, drink it, I suppose," I answered. "It is the only thing we can do.
+We can't send it back."
+
+"But you can't drink the whole of it, and I'm sure I sha'n't start in to
+be a drunkard at my age. I'll take the least little bit of a drop, just
+to see what it tastes like. I've read about champagne, just as I've read
+about lords and ladies, all my life, but I never expected to see either
+of 'em. Well there!" after a very small sip from the glass, "there's
+another pet idea gone to smash. A lord looks like Ase Tidditt, and
+champagne tastes like vinegar and soda. Tut! tut! tut! if I had to drink
+that sour stuff all my life I'd probably look like Asaph, too. No wonder
+that Erkskine man is such a shriveled-up thing."
+
+I glanced toward the captain's table. Mr. Heathcroft raised his glass.
+I bowed and raised mine. The group at that table, the captain included,
+were looking in my direction. I judged that my smoke-room acquaintance
+had told them of my wonderful "tip." I imagined I could see the
+sarcastic smile upon the captain's face. I did not care for that kind of
+celebrity.
+
+But the affair had one quite unexpected result. The next forenoon as
+Hephzibah and I were reclining in our deck-chairs the captain himself,
+florid-faced, gray-bearded, gold-laced and grand, halted before us.
+
+"I believe your name is Knowles, sir," he said, raising his cap.
+
+"It is," I replied. I wondered what in the world was coming next. Was he
+going to take me to task for talking with his second officer?
+
+"Your home is in Bayport, Massachusetts, I see by the passenger list,"
+he went on. "Is that Bayport on Cape Cod, may I ask?"
+
+"Yes," I replied, more puzzled than ever.
+
+"I once knew a Knowles from your town, sir. He was a seafaring man
+like myself. His name was Philander Knowles, and when I knew him he was
+commander of the bark 'Ranger.'"
+
+"He was my father," I said.
+
+Captain Stone extended his hand.
+
+"Mr. Knowles," he declared, "this is a great pleasure, sir. I knew
+your father years ago when I was a young man, mate of one of our ships
+engaged in the Italian fruit trade. He was very kind to me at that time.
+I have never forgotten it. May I sit down?"
+
+The chair next to ours happened to be unoccupied at the moment and
+he took it. I introduced Hephzibah and we chatted for some time. The
+captain appeared delighted to meet the son of his old acquaintance.
+Father and he had met in Messina--Father's ship was in the fruit trade
+also at that time--and something or other he had done to help young
+Stone had made a great impression on the latter. I don't know what the
+something was, whether it was monetary help or assistance in getting out
+of a serious scrape; Stone did not tell me and I didn't ask. But, at any
+rate, the pair had become very friendly there and at subsequent meetings
+in the Mediterranean ports. The captain asked all sorts of questions
+about Father, his life, his family and his death aboard the sinking
+"Monarch of the Seas." Hephzibah furnished most of the particulars. She
+remembered them well.
+
+Captain Stone nodded solemnly.
+
+"That is the way the master of a ship should die," he declared. "Your
+father, Mr. Knowles, was a man and he died like one. He was my first
+American acquaintance and he gave me a new idea of Yankees--if you'll
+excuse my calling them that, sir."
+
+Hephzy had a comment to make.
+
+"There are SOME pretty fair Yankees," she observed, drily. "ALL the good
+folks haven't moved back to England yet."
+
+The captain solemnly assured her that he was certain of it.
+
+"Though two of the best are on their way," I added, with a wink at
+Hephzy. This attempt at humor was entirely lost. Our companion said he
+presumed I referred to Mr. and Mrs. Van Hook, who sat next him at table.
+
+"And that leads me to ask if Miss Cahoon and yourself will not join us,"
+he went on. "I could easily arrange for two places."
+
+I looked at Hephzy. Her face expressed decided disapproval and she shook
+her head.
+
+"Thank you, Captain Stone," I said; "but we have a table to ourselves
+and are very comfortable. We should not think of troubling you to that
+extent."
+
+He assured us it would not be a trouble, but a pleasure. We were firm in
+our refusal, however, and he ceased to urge. He declared his intention
+of seeing that our quarters were adequate, offered to accompany us
+through the engine-rooms and the working portions of the ship whenever
+we wished, ordered the deck steward, who was all but standing on his
+head in obsequious desire to oblige, to take good care of us, shook
+hands once more, and went away. Hephzibah drew a long breath.
+
+"My goodness!" she exclaimed; "sit at HIS table! I guess not! There's
+another lord and his wife there, to say nothin' of the Van Hooks. I'd
+look pretty, in my Cape Cod clothes, perched up there, wouldn't I! A hen
+is all right in her place, but she don't belong in a peacock cage. And
+they drink champagne ALL the time there; I've watched 'em. No thank you,
+I'll stay in the henyard along with the everyday fowls."
+
+"Odd that he should have known Father," I observed. "Well, I suppose the
+proper remark to make, under the circumstances, is that this is a small
+world. That is what nine-tenths of Bayport would say."
+
+"It's what I say, too," declared Hephzy, with emphasis. "Well, it's
+awful encouraging for us, isn't it."
+
+"Encouraging? What do you mean?"
+
+"Why, I mean about Little Frank. It makes me feel surer than ever that
+we shall run across him."
+
+I suppressed a groan. "Hephzy," said I, "why on earth should the fact
+that Captain Stone knew my father encourage you to believe that we shall
+meet a person we never knew at all?"
+
+"Hosy, how you do talk! If you and I, just cruisin' this way across
+the broadside of creation, run across a man that knew Cousin Philander
+thirty-nine years ago, isn't it just as reasonable to suppose we'll meet
+a child who was born twenty-one years ago? I should say 'twas! Hosy,
+I've had a presentiment about this cruise of ours: We're SENT on it;
+that's what I think--we're sent. Oh, you can laugh! You'll see by and
+by. THEN you won't laugh."
+
+"No, Hephzy," I admitted, resignedly, "I won't laugh then, I promise
+you. If _I_ ever reach the stage where I see a Little Frank I promise
+you I sha'n't laugh. I'll believe diseases of the brain are contagious,
+like the measles, and I'll send for a doctor."
+
+The captain met us again in the dining-room that evening. He came
+over to our table and chatted for some time. His visit caused quite a
+sensation. Shipboard society is a little world by itself and the ship's
+captain is the head of it. Persons who would, very likely, have passed
+Captain Stone on Fifth Avenue or Piccadilly without recognizing him now
+toadied to him as if he were a Czar, which, in a way, I suppose he is
+when afloat. His familiarity with us shed a sort of reflected glory upon
+Hephzy and me. Several of our fellow-passengers spoke to us that evening
+for the first time.
+
+A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire, was not among the Lounge habitues; the
+smoke-room was his accustomed haunt. But the next forenoon as I leaned
+over the rail of the after promenade deck watching the antics of the
+"Stokers' Band" which was performing for the benefit of the second-class
+with an eye toward pennies and small silver from all classes, Heathcroft
+sauntered up and leaned beside me. We exchanged good-mornings. I thanked
+him for the wine.
+
+"Quite unnecessary, Knowles," he said. "Least I could do, it seems to
+me. I pulled quite a tidy bit from that inside information of yours;
+I did really. Awfully obliged, and all that. You seem to have a wide
+acquaintance among the officers. That captain chap tells us he knew your
+father--the sailor one you told me of, you understand."
+
+Having had but one father I understood perfectly. We chatted in a
+inconsequential way for a short time. In the course of our conversation
+I happened to mention that I wrote, professionally. To my surprise
+Heathcroft was impressed.
+
+"Do you, really!" he exclaimed. "That's interesting, isn't it now! I
+have a cousin who writes. Don't know why she does it; she doesn't get
+her writings printed, but she keeps on. It is a habit of hers. Curious
+dissipation--eh, what? Does that--er--Miss--that companion of yours,
+write also?"
+
+I laughed and informed him that writing was not one of Hephzibah's bad
+habits.
+
+"Extraordinary woman, isn't she," he said. "I met her just now, walking
+about, and I happened to mention that I was taking the air. She said she
+wouldn't quarrel with me because of that. The more I took the better
+she would like it; she could spare about a gale and a quarter and not
+feel--What did she call it? Oh yes, 'scrimped.' What is 'scrimped,' may
+I ask?"
+
+I explained the meaning of "scrimped." Heathcroft was much amused.
+
+"It WAS blowing a bit strong up forward there," he declared. "That was a
+clever way of putting it, wasn't it?"
+
+"She is a clever woman," I said, shortly.
+
+Heathcroft did not enthuse.
+
+"Oh," he said dubiously. "A relative of yours, I suppose."
+
+"A cousin, that's all."
+
+"One's relatives, particularly the feminine relatives, incline toward
+eccentricity as they grow older, don't you think. I have an aunt down in
+Sussex, who is queer. A good sort, too, no end of money, a big place
+and all that, but odd. She and I get on well together--I am her pet, I
+suppose I may say--but, by Jove, she has quarreled with everyone else in
+the family. I let her have her own way and it has convinced her that I
+am the only rational Heathcroft in existence. Do you golf, Knowles?"
+
+"I attempt something in that line. I doubt if my efforts should be
+called golf."
+
+"It is a rotten game when one is off form, isn't it. If you are down
+in Sussex and I chance to be there I should be glad to have you play an
+eighteen with me. Burglestone Bogs is the village. Anyone will direct
+you to the Manor. If I'm not there, introduce yourself to my aunt. Lady
+Kent Carey is the name. She'll be jolly glad to welcome you if you
+tell her you know me. I'm her sole interest in life, the greenhouses
+excepted, of course. Cultivating roses and rearing me are her hobbies."
+
+I thought it improbable that the golfers of Burglestone Bogs would ever
+be put to shame by the brilliancy of my game. I thanked him, however.
+I was surprised at the invitation. I had been under the impression,
+derived from my reading, that the average Englishman required an
+acquaintance of several months before proffering hospitality. No doubt
+Mr. Heathcroft was not an average Englishman.
+
+"Will you be in London long?" he asked. "I suppose not. You're probably
+off on a hurricane jaunt from one end of the Continent to the other. Two
+hours at Stratford, bowing before Shakespeare's tomb, a Derby through
+the cathedral towns, and then the Channel boat, eh? That's the American
+way, isn't it?"
+
+"It is not our way," I replied. "We have no itinerary. I don't know
+where we may go or how long we shall stay."
+
+Evidently I rose again in his estimation.
+
+"Have you picked your hotel in London?" he inquired.
+
+"No. I shall be glad of any help you may be kind enough to give along
+that line."
+
+He reflected. "There's a decent little hotel in Mayfair," he said, after
+a moment. "A private sort of shop. I don't use it myself; generally put
+up at the club, I mean to say. But my aunt and my sisters do. They're
+quite mad about it. It is--Ah--Bancroft's--that's it, Bancroft's Hotel.
+I'll give you the address before I leave."
+
+I thanked him again. He was certainly trying to be kind. No doubt the
+kindness was due to his sense of obligation engendered by what he called
+my "professional information," but it was kindness all the same.
+
+The first bugle for luncheon sounded. Mr. Heathcroft turned to go.
+
+"I'll see you again, Knowles," he said, "and give you the hotel street
+and number and all that. Hope you'll like it. If you shouldn't the
+Langham is not bad--quiet and old-fashioned, but really very fair.
+And if you care for something more public and--Ah--American, there are
+always the Savoy and the Cecil. Here is my card. If I can be of any
+service to you while you are in town drop me a line at my clubs, either
+of them. I must be toddling. By, by."
+
+He "toddled" and I sought my room to prepare for luncheon.
+
+Two days more and our voyage was at an end. We saw more of our friend
+the captain during those days and of Heathcroft as well. The former
+fulfilled his promise of showing us through the ship, and Hephzy and I,
+descending greasy iron stairways and twisting through narrow passages,
+saw great rooms full of mighty machinery, and a cavern where perspiring,
+grimy men, looking but half-human in the red light from the furnace
+mouths, toiled ceaselessly with pokers and shovels.
+
+We stood at the forward end of the promenade deck at night, looking out
+into the blackness, and heard the clang of four bells from the shadows
+at the bow, the answering clang from the crow's-nest on the foremast,
+and the weird cry of "All's well" from the lookouts. This experience
+made a great impression on us both. Hephzy expressed my feeling exactly
+when she said in a hushed whisper:
+
+"There, Hosy! for the first time I feel as if I really was on board a
+ship at sea. My father and your father and all our men-folks for ever
+so far back have heard that 'All's well'--yes, and called it, too,
+when they first went as sailors. Just think of it! Why Father was only
+sixteen when he shipped; just a boy, that's all. I've heard him say
+'All's well' over and over again; 'twas a kind of byword with him. This
+whole thing seems like somethin' callin' to me out of the past and gone.
+Don't you feel it?"
+
+I felt it, as she did. The black night, the quiet, the loneliness, the
+salt spray on our faces and the wash of the waves alongside, the high
+singsong wail from lookout to lookout--it WAS a voice from the past, the
+call of generations of sea-beaten, weather-worn, brave old Cape Codders
+to their descendants, reminding the latter of a dead and gone profession
+and of thousands of fine, old ships which had plowed the ocean in the
+days when "Plutonias" were unknown.
+
+We attended the concert in the Lounge, and the ball on the promenade
+deck which followed. Mr. Heathcroft, who seemed to have made the
+acquaintance of most of the pretty girls on board, informed us in the
+intervals between a two-step and a tango, that he had been "dancing
+madly."
+
+"You Americans are extraordinary people," he added. "Your dances are
+as extraordinary as your food. That Mrs. Van Hook, who sits near me
+at table, was indulging in--what do you call them?--oh, yes, griddle
+cakes--this morning. Begged me to try them. I declined. Horrid things
+they were. Round, like a--like a washing-flannel, and swimming in
+treacle. Frightful!"
+
+"And that man," commented Hephzy, "eats cold toast and strawberry
+preserves for breakfast and washes 'em down with three cups of tea. And
+he calls nice hot pancakes frightful!"
+
+At ten o'clock in the morning of the sixth day we sighted the Irish
+coast through the dripping haze which shrouded it and at four we dropped
+anchor abreast the breakwater of the little Welsh village which was to
+be our landing place. The sun was shining dimly by this time and the
+rounded hills and the mountains beyond them, the green slopes dotted
+with farms and checkered with hedges and stone walls, the gray stone
+fort with its white-washed barrack buildings, the spires and chimneys
+of the village in the hollow--all these combined to make a picture which
+was homelike and yet not like home, foreign and yet strangely familiar.
+
+We leaned over the rail and watched the trunks and boxes and bags and
+bundles shoot down the slide into the baggage and mail-boat which lay
+alongside. Hephzy was nervous.
+
+"They'll smash everything to pieces--they surely will!" she declared.
+"Either that or smash themselves, I don't know which is liable to happen
+first. Mercy on us! Did you see that? That box hit the man right in the
+back!"
+
+"It didn't hurt him," I said, reassuringly. "It was nothing but a
+hat-box."
+
+"Hurt HIM--no! But I guess likely it didn't do the hat much good. I
+thought baggage smashin' was an American institution, but they've got
+some experts over here. Oh, my soul and body! there goes MY trunk--end
+over end, of course. Well, I'm glad there's no eggs in it, anyway.
+Josiah Dimick always used to carry two dozen eggs to his daughter-in-law
+every time he went to Boston. He had 'em in a box once and put the box
+on the seat alongside of him and a big fat woman came and sat--Oh! that
+was your trunk, Hosy! Did you hear it hit? I expect every one of those
+'English Poets' went from top to bottom then, right through all your
+clothes. Never mind, I suppose it's all part of travelin'."
+
+Mr. Heathcroft, looking more English than ever in his natty top coat,
+and hat at the back of his head, sauntered up. He was, for him, almost
+enthusiastic.
+
+"Looking at the water, were you?" he queried. "Glorious color, isn't it.
+One never sees a sea like that or a sky like that anywhere but here at
+home."
+
+Hephzy looked at the sea and sky. It was plain that she wished to
+admire, for his sake, but her admiration was qualified.
+
+"Don't you think if they were a little brighter and bluer they'd be
+prettier?" she asked.
+
+Heathcroft stared at her through his monocle.
+
+"Bluer?" he repeated. "My dear woman, there are no skies as blue as the
+English skies. They are quite celebrated--really."
+
+He sauntered on again, evidently disgusted at our lack of appreciation.
+
+"He must be color-blind," I observed. Hephzy was more charitable.
+
+"I guess likely everybody's home things are best," she said. "I suppose
+this green-streaked water and those gray clouds do look bright and blue
+to him. We must make allowances, Hosy. He never saw an August mornin' at
+Bayport, with a northwest wind blowin' and the bay white and blue to the
+edge of all creation. That's been denied him. He means well, poor thing;
+he don't know any better."
+
+An hour later we landed from the passenger tender at a stone pier
+covered with substantial stone buildings. Uniformed custom officers and
+uniformed policemen stood in line as we came up the gang-plank. Behind
+them, funny little locomotives attached to queer cars which appeared to
+be all doors, puffed and panted.
+
+Hephzibah looked about her.
+
+"Yes," she said, with conviction. "I'm believin' it more and more all
+the time. It is England, just like the pictures. How many times I've
+seen engines like that in pictures, and cars like that, too. I never
+thought I'd ride in 'em. My goodness me? Hephzibah Jane Cahoon, you're
+in England--YOU are! You needn't be afraid to turn over for fear of
+wakin' up, either. You're awake and alive and in England! Hosy," with a
+sudden burst of exuberance, "hold on to me tight. I'm just as likely to
+wave my hat and hurrah as I am to do anything. Hold on to me--tight."
+
+We got through the perfunctory customs examination without trouble. Our
+tickets provided by Campbell, included those for the railway journey to
+London. I secured a first-class compartment at the booking-office and
+a guard conducted us to it and closed the door. Another short delay and
+then, with a whistle as queer and unfamiliar as its own appearance, the
+little locomotive began to pull our train out of the station.
+
+Hephzy leaned back against the cushions with a sigh of supreme content.
+
+"And now," said I, "for London. London! think of it, Hephzy!"
+
+Hephzy shook her head.
+
+"I'm thinkin' of it," she said. "London--the biggest city in the world!
+Who knows, Hosy? France is such a little ways off; probably Little Frank
+has been to London a hundred times. He may even be there now. Who knows?
+I shouldn't be surprised if we met him right in London. I sha'n't be
+surprised at anything anymore. I'm in England and on my way to London;
+that's surprise enough. NOTHIN' could be more wonderful than that."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+In Which We Are Received at Bancroft's Hotel and I Receive a Letter
+
+
+It was late when we reached London, nearly eleven o'clock. The long
+train journey was a delight. During the few hours of daylight and dusk
+we peered through the car windows at the scenery flying past; at the
+villages, the green fields, the hedges, the neat, trim farms.
+
+"Everything looks as if it has been swept and dusted," declared Hephzy.
+"There aren't any waste places at all. What do they do with their spare
+land?"
+
+"They haven't any," I answered. "Land is too valuable to waste. There's
+another thatched roof. It looks like those in the pictures, doesn't it."
+
+Hephzy nodded. "Just exactly," she said. "Everything looks like the
+pictures. I feel as if I'd seen it all before. If that engine didn't
+toot so much like a tin whistle I should almost think it was a picture.
+But it isn't--it isn't; it's real, and you and I are part of it."
+
+We dined on the train. Night came and our window-pictures changed
+to glimpses of flashing lights interspersed with shadowy blotches of
+darkness. At length the lights became more and more frequent and began
+to string out in long lines marking suburban streets. Then the little
+locomotive tooted its tin whistle frantically and we rolled slowly under
+a great train shed--Paddington Station and London itself.
+
+Amid the crowd on the platform Hephzy and I stood, two lone wanderers
+not exactly sure what we should do next. About us the busy crowd jostled
+and pushed. Relatives met relatives and fathers and mothers met sons and
+daughters returning home after long separations. No one met us, no
+one was interested in us at all, except the porters and the cabmen.
+I selected a red-faced chunky porter who was a decidedly able person,
+apparently capable of managing anything except the letter h. The
+acrobatics which he performed with that defenceless consonant were
+marvelous. I have said that I selected him; that he selected me would be
+nearer the truth.
+
+"Cab, sir. Yes, sir, thank you, sir," he said. "Leave that to me, sir.
+Will you 'ave a fourwheeler or a hordinary cab, sir?"
+
+I wasn't exactly certain what a fourwheeler might be. I had read about
+them often enough, but I had never seen one pictured and properly
+labeled. For the matter of that, all the vehicles in sight appeared to
+have four wheels. So I said, at a venture, that I thought an ordinary
+cab would do.
+
+"Yes, sir; 'ere you are, sir. Your boxes are in the luggage van, I
+suppose, sir."
+
+I took it for granted he meant my trunks and those were in what I, in my
+ignorance, would have called a baggage car:
+
+"Yes, sir," said the porter. "If the lidy will be good enough to wait
+'ere, sir, you and I will go hafter the boxes, sir."
+
+Cautioning Hephzy not to stir from her moorings on any account I
+followed my guide to the "luggage van." This crowded car disgorged
+our two steamer trunks and, my particular porter having corraled a
+fellow-craftsman to help him, the trunks were dragged to the waiting
+cab.
+
+I found Hephzy waiting, outwardly calm, but inwardly excited.
+
+"I saw one at last," she declared. "I'd about come to believe there
+wasn't such a thing, but there is; I just saw one."
+
+"One--what?" I asked, puzzled.
+
+"An Englishman with side-whiskers. They wasn't as big and long as those
+in the pictures, but they were side-whiskers. I feel better. When you've
+been brought up to believe every Englishman wore 'em, it was kind of
+humiliatin' not to see one single set."
+
+I paid my porters--I learned afterward that, like most Americans, I had
+given them altogether too much--and we climbed into the cab with our
+bags. The "boxes," or trunks, were on the driver's seat and on the roof.
+
+"Where to, sir?" asked the driver.
+
+I hesitated. Even at this late date I had not made up my mind exactly
+"where to." My decision was a hasty one.
+
+"Why--er--to--to Bancroft's Hotel," I said. "Blithe Street, just off
+Piccadilly."
+
+I think the driver was somewhat astonished. Very few of his American
+passengers selected Bancroft's as a stopping place, I imagine. However,
+his answer was prompt.
+
+"Yes, sir, thank you, sir," he said. The cab rolled out of the station.
+
+"I suppose," said Hephzy, reflectively, "if you had told him or that
+porter man that they were everlastin' idiots they'd have thanked you
+just the same and called you 'sir' four times besides."
+
+"No doubt they would."
+
+"Yes, sir, I'm perfectly sure they would--thank you, sir. So this is
+London. It doesn't look such an awful lot different from Boston or New
+York so far."
+
+But Bancroft's, when we reached it, was as unlike a Boston or New
+York hotel as anything could be. A short, quiet, eminently respectable
+street, leading from Piccadilly; a street fenced in, on both sides, by
+three-story, solid, eminently respectable houses of brick and stone. No
+signs, no street cars, no crowds, no glaring lights. Merely a gas
+lamp burning over the fanlight of a spotless white door, and the words
+"Bancroft's Hotel" in mosaic lettering set in a white stone slab in the
+pavement.
+
+The cab pulled up before the white door and Hephzy and I looked out of
+the window. The same thought was in both our minds.
+
+"This can't be the place," said I.
+
+"This isn't a hotel, is it, Hosy?" asked Hephzy.
+
+The white door opened and a brisk, red-cheeked English boy in uniform
+hastened to the cab. Before he reached it I had seen the lettering in
+the pavement and knew that, in spite of appearances, we had reached our
+destination.
+
+"This is it, Hephzy," I said. "Come."
+
+The boy opened the cab door and we alighted. Then in the doorway of
+"Bancroft's" appeared a stout, red-faced and very dignified person, also
+in uniform. This person wore short "mutton-chop" whiskers and had the
+air of a member of the Royal Family; that is to say, the air which a
+member of the Royal Family might be expected to have.
+
+"Good evening, sir," said the personage, bowing respectfully. The bow
+was a triumph in itself; not too low, not abject in the least, not
+familiar; a bow which implied much, but promised nothing; a bow which
+seemed to demand references, but was far from repellant or bullying.
+Altogether a wonderful bow.
+
+"Good evening," said I. "This is Bancroft's Hotel, is it not?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"I wish to secure rooms for this lady and myself, if possible."
+
+"Yes, sir. This way, sir, if you please. Richard," this to the boy and
+in a tone entirely different--the tone of a commanding officer to a
+private--"see to the gentleman's luggage. This way, sir; thank you,
+sir."
+
+I hesitated. "The cabman has not been paid," I stammered. I was a trifle
+overawed by the grandeur of the mutton-chops and the "sir."
+
+"I will attend to that, sir. If you will be good enough to come in,
+sir."
+
+We entered and found ourselves in a narrow hall, old-fashioned, homelike
+and as spotless as the white door. Two more uniforms bowed before us.
+
+"Thank you, sir," said the member of the Royal Family. It was with
+difficulty that I repressed the desire to tell him he was quite welcome.
+His manner of thanking me seemed to imply that we had conferred a favor.
+
+"I will speak to Mr. Jameson," he went on, with another bow. Then he
+left us.
+
+"Is--is that Mr. Bancroft?" whispered Hephzy.
+
+I shook my head. "It must be the Prince of Wales, at least," I whispered
+in return. "I infer that there is no Mr. Bancroft."
+
+It developed that I was right. Mr. Jameson was the proprietor of the
+hotel, and Mr. Jameson was a pleasant, refined, quiet man of middle age.
+He appeared from somewhere or other, ascertained our wants, stated that
+he had a few vacant rooms and could accommodate us.
+
+"Do you wish a sitting-room?" he asked.
+
+I was not sure. I wanted comfort, that I knew, and I said so. I
+mentioned, as an afterthought, that Mr. Heathcroft had recommended
+Bancroft's to me.
+
+The Heathcroft name seemed to settle everything. Mr. Jameson summoned
+the representative of royalty and spoke to him in a low tone. The
+representative--his name, I learned later, was Henry and he was butler
+and major-domo at Bancroft's--bowed once more. A few minutes later we
+were shown to an apartment on the second floor front, a room large,
+old-fashioned, furnished with easy-chairs, tables and a big, comfortable
+sofa. Sofa and easy-chairs were covered with figured, glazed chintz.
+
+"Your sitting-room, sir," said Henry. "Your bedrooms open hoff it, sir.
+The chambermaid will 'ave them ready in a moment, sir. Richard and the
+porter will bring up your luggage and the boxes. Will you and the lady
+wish supper, sir? Thank you, sir. Very good, sir. Will you require a
+fire, sir?"
+
+The room was a trifle chilly. There was a small iron grate at its
+end, and a coal fire ready to kindle. I answered that a fire might be
+enjoyable.
+
+"Yes, sir," said Henry. "Himmediately, sir."
+
+Soon Hephzy and I were drinking hot tea and eating bread and butter and
+plum cake before a snapping fire. George, the waiter, had brought us the
+tea and accessories and set the table; the chambermaid had prepared the
+bedrooms; Henry had supervised everything.
+
+"Well," observed Hephzy, with a sigh of content, "I feel better
+satisfied every minute. When we were in the hack--cab, I mean--I
+couldn't realize we weren't ridin' through an American city. The houses
+and sidewalks and everything--what I could see of 'em--looked so much
+like Boston that I was sort of disappointed. I wanted it to be more
+different, some way. But this IS different. This may be a hotel--I
+suppose likely 'tis--but it don't seem like one, does it? If it wasn't
+for the Henry and that Richard and that--what's his name? George--and
+all the rest, I should think I was in Cap'n Cyrus Whittaker's
+settin-room back home. The furniture looks like Cap'n Cy's and the
+pictures look like those he has, and--and everything looks as stiff and
+starched and old-fashioned as can be. But the Cap'n never had a Henry.
+No, sirree, Henry don't belong on Cape Cod! Hosy," with a sudden burst
+of confidence, "it's a good thing I saw that Lord Erskine first. If I
+hadn't found out what a live lord looked like I'd have thought Henry
+was one sure. Do you really think it's right for me to call him by his
+Christian name? It seems sort of--sort of irreverent, somehow."
+
+I wish it were possible for me to describe in detail our first days at
+Bancroft's. If it were not for the fact that so many really important
+events and happenings remain to be described--if it were not that the
+most momentous event of my life, the event that was the beginning of the
+great change in that life--if that event were not so close at hand, I
+should be tempted to linger upon those first few days. They were strange
+and wonderful and funny to Hephzibah and me. The strangeness and the
+wonder wore off gradually; the fun still sticks in my memory.
+
+To have one's bedroom invaded at an early hour by a chambermaid who,
+apparently quite oblivious of the fact that the bed was still occupied
+by a male, proceeded to draw the curtains, bring the hot water and fill
+the tin tub for my bath, was astonishing and funny enough, Hephzibah's
+comments on the proceeding were funnier still.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me," she demanded, "that that hussy was brazen
+enough to march right in here before you got up?"
+
+"Yes," I said. "I am only thankful that I HADN'T got up."
+
+"Well! I must say! Did she fetch the water in a garden waterin'-pot,
+same as she did to me?"
+
+"Just the same."
+
+"And did she pour it into that--that flat dishpan on the floor and tell
+you your 'bawth' was ready?"
+
+"She did."
+
+"Humph! Of all the--I hope she cleared out THEN?"
+
+"She did."
+
+"That's a mercy, anyhow. Did you take a bath in that dishpan?"
+
+"I tried."
+
+"Well, I didn't. I'd as soon try to bathe in a saucer. I'd have felt as
+if I'd needed a teaspoon to dip up the half pint of water and pour
+it over me. Don't these English folks have real bathtubs for grown-up
+people?"
+
+I did not know, then. Later I learned that Bancroft's Hotel possessed
+several bathrooms, and that I might use one if I preferred. Being an
+American I did so prefer. Most of the guests, being English, preferred
+the "dishpans."
+
+We learned to accept the early morning visits of the chambermaid as
+matters of course. We learned to order breakfast the night before and
+to eat it in our sitting-room. We tasted a "grilled sole" for the
+first time, and although Hephzy persisted in referring to it as "fried
+flatfish" we liked the taste. We became accustomed to being waited upon,
+to do next to nothing for ourselves, and I found that a valet who
+laid out my evening clothes, put the studs in my shirts, selected my
+neckties, and saw that my shoes were polished, was a rather convenient
+person to have about. Hephzy fumed a good deal at first; she declared
+that she felt ashamed, an able-bodied woman like her, to sit around
+with her hands folded and do nothing. She asked her maid a great many
+questions, and the answers she received explained some of her puzzles.
+
+"Do you know what that poor thing gets a week?" she observed, referring
+to the maid. "Eight shillin's--two dollars a week, that's what she gets.
+And your valet man doesn't get any more. I can see now how Mr. Jameson
+can afford to keep so much help at the board he charges. I pay that
+Susanna Wixon thing at Bayport three dollars and she doesn't know enough
+to boil water without burnin' it on, scarcely. And Peters--why in the
+world do they call women by their last names?--Peters, she's the maid,
+says it's a real nice place and she's quite satisfied. Well, where
+ignorance is bliss it's foolish to be sensible, I suppose; but _I_
+wouldn't fetch and carry for the President's wife, to say nothin' of an
+everyday body like me, for two dollars a week."
+
+We learned that the hotel dining-room was a "Coffee Room."
+
+"Nobody with sense would take coffee there--not more'n once, they
+wouldn't," declared Hephzy. "I asked Peters why they didn't call it the
+'Tea Room' and be done with it. She said because it was the Coffee Room.
+I suppose likely that was an answer, but I felt a good deal as if I'd
+come out of the same hole I went in at. She thanked me for askin' her,
+though; she never forgets that."
+
+We became accustomed to addressing the lordly Henry by his Christian
+name and found him a most obliging person. He, like everyone else,
+had instantly recognized us as Americans, and, consequently, was
+condescendingly kind to strangers from a distant and barbarous country.
+
+"What SORT of place do they think the States are?" asked Hephzy. "That's
+what they always call home--'the States'--and they seem to think it's
+about as big as a pocket handkerchief. That Henry asked me if the red
+Indians were numerous where we lived. I said no--as soon as I could say
+anything; I told him there was only one tribe of Red Men in town and
+they were white. I guess he thought I was crazy, but it don't make any
+difference. And Peters said she had a cousin in a place called Chicago
+and did I know him. What do you think of that?"
+
+"What did you tell her?" I inquired.
+
+"Hey? Oh, I told her that, bein' as Chicago was a thousand miles from
+Bayport, I hadn't had time to do much visitin' there. I told her the
+truth, but she didn't believe it. I could see she didn't. She thinks
+Chicago and San Francisco and New York and Boston are nests of wigwams
+in the same patch of woods and all hands that live there have been
+scalped at least once. SUCH ignorance!"
+
+Henry, at my request, procured seats for us at one of the London
+theaters. There we saw a good play, splendidly acted, and Hephzy laughed
+and wept at the performance. As usual, however, she had a characteristic
+comment to make.
+
+"Why do they call the front seats the 'stalls'?" she whispered to me
+between the acts. "Stalls! The idea! I'm no horse. Perhaps they call 'em
+that because folks are donkeys enough to pay two dollars and a half
+for the privilege of sittin' in 'em. Don't YOU be so extravagant again,
+Hosy."
+
+One of the characters in the play was supposed to be an American
+gentleman, and his behavior and dress and speech stirred me to
+indignation. I asked the question which every American asks under
+similar circumstances.
+
+"Why on earth," I demanded, "do they permit that fellow to make such
+a fool of himself? He yells and drawls and whines through his nose and
+wears clothes which would make an American cry. That last scene was
+supposed to be a reception and he wore an outing suit and no waistcoat.
+Do they suppose such a fellow would be tolerated in respectable society
+in the United States?"
+
+And now it was Hephzy's turn to be philosophical.
+
+"I guess likely the answer to that is simple enough," she said. "He's
+what they think an American ought to be, even if he isn't. If he behaved
+like a human bein' he wouldn't be the kind of American they expect on
+the stage. After all, he isn't any worse than the Englishmen we have in
+the Dramatic Society's plays at home. I haven't seen one of that kind
+since I got here; and I've given up expectin' to--unless you and I go to
+some crazy asylum--which isn't likely."
+
+We rode on the tops of busses, we visited the Tower, and Westminster
+Abbey, and Saint Paul's. We saw the Horse Guard sentinels on duty in
+Whitehall, and watched the ceremony of guard changing at St. James's.
+Hephzy was impressed, in her own way, by the uniforms of the "Cold
+Streams."
+
+"There!" she exclaimed, "I've seen 'em walk. Now I feel better. When
+they stood there, with those red jackets and with the fur hats on their
+heads, I couldn't make myself believe they hadn't been taken out of a
+box for children to play with. I wanted to get up close so as to see if
+their feet were glued to round pieces of wood like Noah's and Ham's and
+Japhet's in the Ark. But they aren't wood, they're alive. They're men,
+not toys. I'm glad I've seen 'em. THEY are satisfyin'. They make me more
+reconciled to a King with a Derby hat on."
+
+She and I had stood in the crowd fringing the park mall and seen King
+George trot by on horseback. His Majesty's lack of crown and robes and
+scepter had been a great disappointment to Hephzy; I think she expected
+the crown at least.
+
+I had, of course, visited the London office of my publishers, in Camford
+Street and had found Mr. Matthews, the manager, expecting me. Jim
+Campbell had cabled and written of my coming and Matthews' welcome was a
+warm one. He was kindness itself. All my financial responsibilities were
+to be shifted to his shoulders. I was to use the office as a bank, as a
+tourist agency, even as a guide's headquarters. He put his clerks at my
+disposal; they would conduct us on sight-seeing expeditions whenever
+and wherever we wished. He even made out a list of places in and about
+London which we, as strangers, should see.
+
+His cordiality and thoughtfulness were appreciated. They made me feel
+less alone and less dependent upon my own resources. Campbell had
+arranged that all letters addressed to me in America should be forwarded
+to the Camford Street office, and Matthews insisted that I should write
+my own letters there. I began to make it a practice to drop in at
+the office almost every morning before starting on the day's round of
+sight-seeing.
+
+Bancroft's Hotel also began to seem less strange and more homelike.
+Mr. Jameson, the proprietor, was a fine fellow--quiet, refined, and
+pleasant. He, too, tried to help us in every possible way. His wife, a
+sweet-faced Englishwoman, made Hephzy's acquaintance and Hephzy liked
+her extremely.
+
+"She's as nice as she can be," declared Hephzy. "If it wasn't that she
+says 'Fancy!' and 'Really!' instead of 'My gracious!' and 'I want to
+know!' I should think I was talking to a Cape Codder, the best kind
+of one. She's got sense, too. SHE don't ask about 'red Indians' in
+Bayport."
+
+Among the multitude of our new experiences we learned the value of
+a judicious "tip." We had learned something concerning tips on the
+"Plutonia"; Campbell had coached us concerning those, and we were
+provided with a schedule of rates--so much to the bedroom steward, so
+much to the stewardess, to the deck steward, to the "boots," and all the
+rest. But tipping in London we were obliged to adjust for ourselves, and
+the result of our education was surprising.
+
+At Saint Paul's an elderly and impressively haughty person in a black
+robe showed us through the Crypt and delivered learned lectures before
+the tombs of Nelson and Wellington. His appearance and manner were
+somewhat awe-inspiring, especially to Hephzy, who asked me, in a
+whisper, if I thought likely he was a bishop or a canon or something.
+When the round was ended and we were leaving the Crypt she saw me put a
+hand in my pocket.
+
+"Mercy sakes, Hosy," she whispered. "You aren't goin' to offer him
+money, are you? He'll be insulted. I'd as soon think of givin' Mr.
+Partridge, our minister, money for takin' us to the cemetery to see the
+first settlers' gravestones. Don't you do it. He'll throw it back at
+you. I'll be so ashamed."
+
+But I had been watching our fellow-sight-seers as they filed out,
+and when our time came I dropped two shillings in the hand of the
+black-robed dignitary. The hand did not spurn the coins, which I--rather
+timidly, I confess--dropped into it. Instead it closed upon them tightly
+and the haughty lips thanked me, not profusely, not even smilingly, but
+thanked me, nevertheless.
+
+At our visit to the Law Courts a similar experience awaited us. Another
+dignified and elderly person, who, judging by his appearance, should
+have been a judge at least, not only accepted the shilling I gave him,
+but bowed, smiled and offered to conduct us to the divorce court.
+
+"A very interesting case there, sir, just now," he murmured,
+confidingly. "Very interesting and sensational indeed, sir. You and the
+lady will enjoy it, I'm sure, sir. All Americans do."
+
+Hephzy was indignant.
+
+"Well!" she exclaimed, as we emerged upon the Strand. "Well! I must say!
+What sort of folks does he think we are, I'd like to know. Divorce
+case! I'd be ashamed to hear one. And that old man bein' so wicked and
+ridiculous for twenty-five cents! Hosy, I do believe if you'd given him
+another shillin' he'd have introduced us to that man in the red robe and
+cotton wool wig--What did he call him?--Oh, yes, the Lord Chief Justice.
+And I suppose you'd have had to tip HIM, too."
+
+The first two weeks of our stay in London came to an end. Our plans were
+still as indefinite as ever. How long we should stay, where we should go
+next, what we should do when we decided where that "next" was to be--all
+these questions we had not considered at all. I, for my part, was
+curiously uninterested in the future. I was enjoying myself in an idle,
+irresponsible way, and I could not seem to concentrate my thoughts upon
+a definite course of action. If I did permit myself to think I found my
+thoughts straying to my work and there they faced the same impassable
+wall. I felt no inclination to write; I was just as certain as ever that
+I should never write again. Thinking along this line only brought back
+the old feeling of despondency. So I refused to think and, taking Jim's
+advice, put work and responsibility from my mind. We would remain in
+London as long as we were contented there. When the spirit moved we
+would move with it--somewhere--either about England or to the Continent.
+I did not know which and I did not care; I did not seem to care much
+about anything.
+
+Hephzy was perfectly happy. London to her was as wonderful as ever. She
+never tired of sight-seeing, and on occasions when I felt disinclined
+to leave the hotel she went out alone, shopping or wandering about the
+streets.
+
+She scarcely mentioned "Little Frank" and I took care not to remind her
+of that mythical youth. I had expected her to see him on every street
+corner, to be brought face to face with unsuspecting young Englishmen
+and made to ask ridiculous questions which might lead to our being taken
+in charge as a pair of demented foreigners. But my forebodings were not
+realized. London was so huge and the crowds so great that even Hephzy's
+courage faltered. To select Little Frank from the multitude was a task
+too great, even for her, I imagine. At any rate, she did not make the
+attempt, and the belief that we were "sent" upon our pilgrimage for that
+express purpose she had not expressed since our evening on the train.
+
+The third week passed. I was growing tired of trotting about. Not tired
+of London in particular. The gray, dingy, historic, wonderful old city
+was still fascinating. It is hard to conceive of an intelligent person's
+ever growing weary of the narrow streets with the familiar names--Fleet
+Street, Fetter Lane, Pudding Lane and all the rest--names as familiar
+to a reader of history or English fiction as that of his own town. To
+wander into an unknown street and to learn that it is Shoreditch, or to
+look up at an ancient building and discover it to be the Charterhouse,
+were ever fresh miracles to me, as I am sure they must be to every
+book-loving American. No, I was not tired of London. Had I come there
+under other circumstances I should have been as happy and content
+as Hephzy herself. But, now that the novelty was wearing off, I was
+beginning to think again, to think of myself--the very thing I had
+determined, and still meant, not to do.
+
+One afternoon I drifted into the Camford Street office. Hephzy had left
+me at Piccadilly Circus and was now, it was safe to presume, enjoying a
+delightful sojourn amid the shops of Regent and Oxford Streets. When she
+returned she would have a half-dozen purchases to display, a two-and-six
+glove bargain from Robinson's, a bit of lace from Selfridge's, a
+knick-knack from Liberty's--"All so MUCH cheaper than you can get 'em in
+Boston, Hosy." She would have had a glorious time.
+
+Matthews, the manager at Camford Street, was out, but Holton, the head
+clerk--I was learning to speak of him as a "clark"--was in.
+
+"There are some American letters for you, sir," he said. "I was about to
+send them to your hotel."
+
+He gave me the letters--four of them altogether--and I went into the
+private office to look them over. My first batch of mail from home;
+it gave me a small thrill to see two-cent stamps in the corners of the
+envelopes.
+
+One of the letters was from Campbell. I opened it first of all. Jim
+wrote a rambling, good-humored letter, a mixture of business, news,
+advice and nonsense. "The Black Brig" had gone into another edition.
+Considering my opinion of such "slush" I should be ashamed to accept
+the royalties, but he would continue to give my account credit for them
+until I cabled to the contrary. He trusted we were behaving ourselves in
+a manner which would reflect credit upon our country. I was to be sure
+not to let Hephzy marry a title. And so on, for six pages. The letter
+was almost like a chat with Jim himself, and I read it with chuckles and
+a pang of homesickness.
+
+One of the envelopes bore Hephzy's name and I, of course, did not
+open it. It was postmarked "Bayport" and I thought I recognized the
+handwriting as Susanna Wixon's. The third letter turned out to be not
+a letter at all, but a bill from Sylvanus Cahoon, who took care of our
+"lots" in the Bayport cemetery. It had been my intention to pay all
+bills before leaving home, but, somehow or other, Sylvanus's had been
+overlooked. I must send him a check at once.
+
+The fourth and last envelope was stained and crumpled. It had traveled
+a long way. To my surprise I noticed that the stamp in the corner was
+English and the postmark "London." The address, moreover, was "Captain
+Barnabas Cahoon, Bayport, Massachusetts, U. S. A." The letter had
+obviously been mailed in London, had journeyed to Bayport, from there
+to New York, and had then been forwarded to London again. Someone,
+presumably Simmons, the postmaster, had written "Care Hosea Knowles"
+and my publisher's New York address in the lower corner. This had been
+scratched out and "28 Camford Street, London, England," added.
+
+I looked at the envelope. Who in the world, or in England, could have
+written Captain Barnabas--Captain Barnabas Cahoon, my great-uncle, dead
+so many years? At first I was inclined to hand the letter, unopened, to
+Hephzy. She was Captain Barnabas's daughter and it belonged to her
+by right. But I knew Hephzy had no secrets from me and, besides,
+my curiosity was great. At length I yielded to it and tore open the
+envelope.
+
+Inside was a sheet of thin foreign paper, both sides covered with
+writing. I read the first line.
+
+
+"Captain Barnabas Cahoon.
+
+"Sir:
+
+"You are my nearest relative, my mother's father, and I--"
+
+"I uttered an exclamation. Then I stepped to the door of the private
+office, made sure that it was shut, came back, sat down in the chair
+before the desk which Mr. Matthews had put at my disposal, and read the
+letter from beginning to end. This is what I read:
+
+
+"Captain Barnabas Cahoon.
+
+"Sir:
+
+"You are my nearest relative, my mother's father, and I, therefore,
+address this letter to you. I know little concerning you. I do not know
+even that you are still living in Bayport, or that you are living at
+all. (N.B. In case Captain Cahoon is not living this letter is to be
+read and acted upon by his heirs, upon whose estate I have an equal
+claim.) My mother, Ardelia Cahoon Morley, died in Liverpool in 1896. My
+father, Strickland Morley, died in Paris in December, 1908. I, as their
+only child, am their heir, and I am writing to you asking what I might
+demand--that is, a portion of the money which was my mother's and which
+you kept from her and from my father all these years. My father told me
+the whole story before he died, and he also told me that he had written
+you several times, but that his letters had been ignored. My father was
+an English gentleman and he was proud; that is why he did not take legal
+steps against you for the recovery of what was his by law in England
+OR ANY CIVILISED COUNTRY, one may presume. He would not STOOP to
+such measures even against those who, as you know well, so meanly and
+fraudulently deprived him and his of their inheritance. He is dead
+now. He died lacking the comforts and luxuries with which you might
+and SHOULD have provided him. His forbearance was wonderful and
+characteristic, but had I known of it sooner I should have insisted
+upon demanding from you the money which was his. I am now demanding it
+myself. Not BEGGING; that I wish THOROUGHLY understood. I am giving you
+the opportunity to make a partial restitution, that is all. It is what
+he would have wished, and his wish ALONE prevents my putting the whole
+matter in my solicitor's hands. If I do not hear from you within a
+reasonable time I shall know what to do. You may address me care Mrs.
+Briggs, 218 ---- Street, London, England.
+
+"Awaiting your reply, I am, sir,
+
+"Yours,
+
+"FRANCIS STRICKLAND MORLEY.
+
+"P. S.
+
+"I am not to be considered under ANY circumstances a subject for
+charity. I am NOT begging. You, I am given to understand, are a wealthy
+man. I demand my share of that wealth--that is all."
+
+
+I read this amazing epistle through once. Then, after rising and walking
+about the office to make sure that I was thoroughly awake, I sat down
+and read it again. There was no mistake. I had read it correctly. The
+writing was somewhat illegible in spots and the signature was blotted,
+but it was from Francis Strickland Morley. From "Little Frank!" I think
+my first and greatest sensation was of tremendous surprise that there
+really was a "Little Frank." Hephzy had been right. Once more I should
+have to take off my hat to Hephzy.
+
+The surprise remained, but other sensations came to keep it company. The
+extraordinary fact of the letter's reaching me when and where it did,
+in London, the city from which it was written and where, doubtless, the
+writer still was. If I chose I might, perhaps, that very afternoon, meet
+and talk with Ardelia Cahoon's son, with "Little Frank" himself. I could
+scarcely realize it. Hephzy had declared that our coming to London was
+the result of a special dispensation--we had been "sent" there. In the
+face of this miracle I was not disposed to contradict her.
+
+The letter itself was more extraordinary than all else. It was that of
+a young person, of a hot-headed boy. But WHAT a boy he must be! What an
+unlicked, impudent, arrogant young cub! The boyishness was evident in
+every line, in the underscored words, the pitiful attempt at dignity and
+the silly veiled threats. He was so insistent upon the statement that he
+was not a beggar. And yet he could write a begging letter like this. He
+did not ask for charity, not he, he demanded it. Demanded it--he, the
+son of a thief, demanded, from those whom his father had robbed, his
+"rights." He should have his rights; I would see to that.
+
+I was angry enough but, as I read the letter for the third time, the
+pitifulness of it became more apparent. I imagined Francis Strickland
+Morley to be the replica of the Strickland Morley whom I remembered, the
+useless, incompetent, inadequate son of a good-for-nothing father. No
+doubt the father was responsible for such a letter as this having been
+written. Doubtless he HAD told the boy all sorts of tales; perhaps he
+HAD declared himself to be the defrauded instead of the defrauder; he
+was quite capable of it. Possibly the youngster did believe he had a
+claim upon the wealthy relatives in that "uncivilized" country, America.
+The wealthy relatives! I thought of Captain Barnabas's last years, of
+Hephzibah's plucky fight against poverty, of my own lost opportunities,
+of the college course which I had been obliged to forego. My indignation
+returned. I would not go back at once to Hephzy with the letter. I
+would, myself, seek out the writer of that letter, and, if I found him,
+he and I would have a heart to heart talk which should disabuse his mind
+of a few illusions. We would have a full and complete understanding.
+
+I hastily made a memorandum of the address, "Care Mrs. Briggs," thrust
+the letter back into the envelope, put it and my other mail into my
+pocket, and walked out into the main office. Holton, the clerk, looked
+up from his desk. Probably my feelings showed in my face, for he said:
+
+"What is it, Mr. Knowles? No bad news, I trust, sir."
+
+"No," I answered, shortly. "Where is ---- Street? Is it far from here?"
+
+It was rather far from there, in Camberwell, on the Surrey side of the
+river. I might take a bus at such a corner and change again at so and
+so. It sounded like a journey and I was impatient. I suggested that I
+might take a cab. Certainly I could do that. William, the boy, would
+call a cab at once.
+
+William did so and I gave the driver the address from my memoranda.
+Through the Strand I was whirled, across Blackfriars Bridge and on
+through the intricate web of avenues and streets on the Surrey side. The
+locality did not impress me favorably. There was an abundance of "pubs"
+and of fried-fish shops where "jellied eels" seemed to be a viand much
+in demand.
+
+---- Street, when I reached it, was dingy and third rate. Three-storied
+old brick houses, with shops on their first floors, predominated. Number
+218 was one of these. The signs "Lodgings" over the tarnished bell-pull
+and the name "Briggs" on the plate beside it proved that I had located
+the house from which the letter had been sent.
+
+I paid my cabman, dismissed him, and rang the bell. A slouchy
+maid-servant answered the ring.
+
+"Is Mr. Francis Morley in?" I asked.
+
+The maid looked at me.
+
+"Wat, sir?" she said.
+
+"Does Mr. Francis Morley live here?" I asked, raising my voice. "Is he
+in?"
+
+The maid's face was as wooden as the door-post. Her mouth, already open,
+opened still wider and she continued to stare. A step sounded in the
+dark hall behind her and another voice said, sharply:
+
+"'Oo is it, 'Arriet? And w'at does 'e want?"
+
+The maid grinned. "'E wants to see MISTER Morley, ma'am," she said, with
+a giggle.
+
+She was pushed aside and a red-faced woman, with thin lips and scowl,
+took her place.
+
+"'OO do you want to see?" she demanded.
+
+"Francis Morley. Does he live here?"
+
+"'OO?"
+
+"Francis Morley." My answer was sharp enough this time. I began to think
+I had invaded a colony of imbeciles--or owls; their conversation seemed
+limited to "oos."
+
+"W'at do you want to see--to see Morley for?" demanded the red-faced
+female.
+
+"On business. Is Mrs. Briggs in?"
+
+"I'm Mrs. Briggs."
+
+"Good! I'm glad of that. Now will you tell me if Mr. Morley is in?"
+
+"There ain't no Mr. Morley. There's a--"
+
+She was interrupted. From the hall, apparently from the top of the
+flight of stairs, another was heard, a feminine voice like the others,
+but unlike them--decidedly unlike.
+
+"Who is it, Mrs. Briggs?" said this voice. "Does the gentleman wish to
+see me?"
+
+"No, 'e don't," declared Mrs. Briggs, with emphasis. "'E wants to see
+Mister Morley and I'm telling 'im there ain't none such."
+
+"But are you sure he doesn't mean Miss Morley? Ask him, please."
+
+Before the Briggs woman could reply I spoke again.
+
+"I want to see a Francis Morley," I repeated, loudly. "I have come here
+in answer to a letter. The letter gave this as his address. If he isn't
+here, will you be good enough to tell me where he is? I--"
+
+There was another interruption, an exclamation from the darkness behind
+Mrs. Briggs and the maid.
+
+"Oh!" said the third voice, with a little catch in it. "Who is it,
+please? Who is it? What is the person's name?"
+
+Mrs. Briggs scowled at me.
+
+"Wat's your name?" she snapped.
+
+"My name is Knowles. I am an American relative of Mr. Morley's and I'm
+here in answer to a letter written by Mr. Morley himself."
+
+There was a moment's silence. Then the third voice said:
+
+"Ask--ask him to come up. Show him up, Mrs. Briggs, if you please."
+
+Mrs. Briggs grunted and stepped aside. I entered the hall.
+
+"First floor back," mumbled the landlady. "Straight as you go. You won't
+need any showin'."
+
+I mounted the stairs. The landing at the top was dark, but the door
+at the rear was ajar. I knocked. A voice, the same voice I had heard
+before, bade me come in. I entered the room.
+
+It was a dingy little room, sparely furnished, with a bed and two
+chairs, a dilapidated washstand and a battered bureau. I noticed these
+afterwards. Just then my attention was centered upon the occupant of the
+room, a young woman, scarcely more than a girl, dark-haired, dark-eyed,
+slender and graceful. She was standing by the bureau, resting one hand
+upon it, and gazing at me, with a strange expression, a curious compound
+of fright, surprise and defiance. She did not speak. I was embarrassed.
+
+"I beg your pardon," I stammered. "I am afraid there is some mistake.
+I came here in answer to a letter written by a Francis Morley, who
+is--well, I suppose he is a distant relative of mine."
+
+She stepped forward and closed the door by which I had entered. Then she
+turned and faced me.
+
+"You are an American," she said.
+
+"Yes, I am an American. I--"
+
+She interrupted me.
+
+"Do you--do you come from--from Bayport, Massachusetts?" she faltered.
+
+I stared at her. "Why, yes," I admitted. "I do come from Bayport. How in
+the world did you--"
+
+"Was the letter you speak of addressed to Captain Barnabas Cahoon?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then--then there isn't any mistake. I wrote it."
+
+I imagine that my mouth opened as wide as the maid's had done.
+
+"You!" I exclaimed. "Why--why--it was written by Francis Morley--Francis
+Strickland Morley."
+
+"I am Frances Strickland Morley."
+
+I heard this, of course, but I did not comprehend it. I had been working
+along the lines of a fixed idea. Now that idea had been knocked into a
+cocked hat, and my intellect had been knocked with it.
+
+"Why--why, no," I repeated, stupidly. "Francis Morley is the son of
+Strickland Morley."
+
+"There was no son," impatiently. "I am Frances Morley, I tell you. I am
+Strickland Morley's daughter. I wrote that letter."
+
+I sat down upon the nearest of the two chairs. I was obliged to sit.
+I could not stand and face the fact which, at least, even my benumbed
+brain was beginning to comprehend. The mistake was a simple one, merely
+the difference between an "i" and an "e" in a name, that was all.
+And yet that mistake--that slight difference between "Francis" and
+"Frances"--explained the amazing difference between the Little Frank of
+Hephzibah's fancy and the reality before me.
+
+The real Little Frank was a girl.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+In Which a Dream Becomes a Reality
+
+
+I said nothing immediately. I could not. It was "Little Frank" who
+resumed the conversation. "Who are you?" she asked.
+
+"Who--I beg your pardon? I am rather upset, I'm afraid. I didn't
+expect--that is, I expected.... Well, I didn't expect THIS! What was it
+you asked me?"
+
+"I asked you who you were."
+
+"My name is Knowles--Kent Knowles. I am Captain Cahoon's grand-nephew."
+
+"His grand-nephew. Then--Did Captain Cahoon send you to me?"
+
+"Send me! I beg your pardon once more. No.... No. Captain Cahoon is
+dead. He has been dead nearly ten years. No one sent me."
+
+"Then why did you come? You have my letter; you said so."
+
+"Yes; I--I have your letter. I received it about an hour ago. It was
+forwarded to me--to my cousin and me--here in London."
+
+"Here in London! Then you did not come to London in answer to that
+letter?"
+
+"No. My cousin and I--"
+
+"What cousin? What is his name?"
+
+"His name? It isn't a--That is, the cousin is a woman. She is Miss
+Hephzibah Cahoon, your--your mother's half-sister. She is--Why, she is
+your aunt!"
+
+It was a fact; Hephzibah was this young lady's aunt. I don't know why
+that seemed so impossible and ridiculous, but it did. The young lady
+herself seemed to find it so.
+
+"My aunt?" she repeated. "I didn't know--But--but, why is my--my aunt
+here with you?"
+
+"We are on a pleasure trip. We--I beg your pardon. What have I been
+thinking of? Don't stand. Please sit down."
+
+She accepted the invitation. As she walked toward the chair it seemed to
+me that she staggered a little. I noticed then for the first time, how
+very slender she was, almost emaciated. There were dark hollows beneath
+her eyes and her face was as white as the bed-linen--No, I am wrong; it
+was whiter than Mrs. Briggs' bed-linen.
+
+"Are you ill?" I asked involuntarily.
+
+She did not answer. She seated herself in the chair and fixed her dark
+eyes upon me. They were large eyes and very dark. Hephzy said, when
+she first saw them, that they looked like "burnt holes in a blanket."
+Perhaps they did; that simile did not occur to me.
+
+"You have read my letter?" she asked.
+
+It was evident that I must have read the letter or I should not have
+learned where to find her, but I did not call attention to this. I said
+simply that I had read the letter.
+
+"Then what do you propose?" she asked.
+
+"Propose?"
+
+"Yes," impatiently. "What proposition do you make me? If you have read
+the letter you must know what I mean. You must have come here for the
+purpose of saying something, of making some offer. What is it?"
+
+I was speechless. I had come there to find an impudent young blackguard
+and tell him what I thought of him. That was as near a definite reason
+for my coming as any. If I had not acted upon impulse, if I had stopped
+to consider, it is quite likely that I should not have come at all. But
+the blackguard was--was--well, he was not and never had been. In his
+place was this white-faced, frail girl. I couldn't tell her what I
+thought of her. I didn't know what to think.
+
+She waited for me to answer and, as I continued to play the dumb idiot,
+her impatience grew. Her brows--very dark brown they were, almost black
+against the pallor of her face--drew together and her foot began to pat
+the faded carpet. "I am waiting," she said.
+
+I realized that I must say something, so I said the only thing which
+occurred to me. It was a question.
+
+"Your father is dead?" I asked.
+
+She nodded. "My letter told you that," she answered. "He died in Paris
+three years ago."
+
+"And--and had he no relatives here in England?"
+
+She hesitated before replying. "No near relatives whom he cared to
+recognize," she answered haughtily. "My father, Mr. Knowles was a
+gentleman and, having been most unjustly treated by his own family,
+as well as by OTHERS"--with a marked emphasis on the word--"he did not
+stoop, even in his illness and distress, to beg where he should have
+commanded."
+
+"Oh! Oh, I see," I said, feebly.
+
+"There is no reason why you should see. My father was the second son
+and--But this is quite irrelevant. You, an American, can scarcely be
+expected to understand English family customs. It is sufficient that,
+for reasons of his own, my father had for years been estranged from his
+own people."
+
+The air with which this was delivered was quite overwhelming. If I had
+not known Strickland Morley, and a little of his history, I should have
+been crushed.
+
+"Then you have been quite alone since his death?" I asked.
+
+Again she hesitated. "For a time," she said, after a moment. "I lived
+with a married cousin of his in one of the London suburbs. Then I--But
+really, Mr. Knowles, I cannot see that my private affairs need interest
+you. As I understand it, this interview of ours is quite impersonal, in
+a sense. You understand, of course--you must understand--that in writing
+as I did I was not seeking the acquaintance of my mother's relatives. I
+do not desire their friendship. I am not asking them for anything. I am
+giving them the opportunity to do justice, to give me what is my own--my
+OWN. If you don't understand this I--I--Oh, you MUST understand it!"
+
+She rose from the chair. Her eyes were flashing and she was trembling
+from head to foot. Again I realized how weak and frail she was.
+
+"You must understand," she repeated. "You MUST!"
+
+"Yes, yes," I said hastily. "I think I--I suppose I understand your
+feelings. But--"
+
+"There are no buts. Don't pretend there are. Do you think for one
+instant that I am begging, asking you for HELP? YOU--of all the world!"
+
+This seemed personal enough, in spite of her protestations.
+
+"But you never met me before," I said, involuntarily.
+
+"You never knew of my existence."
+
+She stamped her foot. "I knew of my American relatives," she cried,
+scornfully. "I knew of them and their--Oh, I cannot say the word!"
+
+"Your father told you--" I began. She burst out at me like a flame.
+
+"My father," she declared, "was a brave, kind, noble man. Don't mention
+his name to me. I won't have you speak of him. If it were not for his
+forbearance and self-sacrifice you--all of you--would be--would be--Oh,
+don't speak of my father! Don't!"
+
+To my amazement and utter discomfort she sank into the chair and burst
+into tears. I was completely demoralized.
+
+"Don't, Miss Morley," I begged. "Please don't."
+
+She continued to sob hysterically. To make matters worse sounds from
+behind the closed door led me to think that someone--presumably that
+confounded Mrs. Briggs--was listening at the keyhole.
+
+"Don't, Miss Morley," I pleaded. "Don't!"
+
+My pleas were unavailing. The young lady sobbed and sobbed. I fidgeted
+on the edge of my chair in an agony of mortified embarrassment. "Don'ts"
+were quite useless and I could think of nothing else to say except
+"Compose yourself" and that, somehow or other, was too ridiculously
+reminiscent of Mr. Pickwick and Mrs. Bardell. It was an idiotic
+situation for me to be in. Some men--men of experience with
+woman-kind--might have known how to handle it, but I had had no such
+experience. It was all my fault, of course; I should not have mentioned
+her father. But how was I to know that Strickland Morley was a
+persecuted saint? I should have called him everything but that.
+
+At last I had an inspiration.
+
+"You are ill," I said, rising. "I will call someone."
+
+That had the desired effect. My newly found third--or was it fourth or
+fifth--cousin made a move in protest. She fought down her emotion, her
+sobs ceased, and she leaned back in her chair looking paler and weaker
+than ever. I should have pitied her if she had not been so superior and
+insultingly scornful in her manner toward me. I--Well, yes, I did pity
+her, even as it was.
+
+"Don't," she said, in her turn. "Don't call anyone. I am not ill--not
+now."
+
+"But you have been," I put in, I don't know why.
+
+"I have not been well for some time. But I am not ill. I am quite strong
+enough to hear what you have to say."
+
+This might have been satisfactory if I had had anything to say. I had
+not. She evidently expected me to express repentance for something or
+other and make some sort of proposition. I was not repentant and I had
+no proposition to make. But how was I to tell her that without bringing
+on another storm? Oh, if I had had time to consider. If I had not come
+alone. If Hephzy,--cool-headed, sensible Hephzy--were only with me.
+
+"I--I--" I began. Then desperately: "I scarcely know what to say, Miss
+Morley," I faltered. "I came here, as I told you, expecting to find
+a--a--"
+
+"What, pray?" with a haughty lift of the dark eyebrows. "What did you
+expect to find, may I ask?"
+
+"Nothing--that is, I--Well, never mind that. I came on the spur of the
+moment, immediately after receiving your letter. I have had no time to
+think, to consult my--your aunt--"
+
+"What has my--AUNT" with withering emphasis, "to do with it? Why should
+you consult her?"
+
+"Well, she is your mother's nearest relative, I suppose. She is Captain
+Cahoon's daughter and at least as much interested as I. I must consult
+her, of course. But, frankly, Miss Morley, I think I ought to tell you
+that you are under a misapprehension. There are matters which you don't
+understand."
+
+"I understand everything. I understand only too well. What do you mean
+by a misapprehension? Do you mean--do you dare to insinuate that my
+father did not tell me the truth?"
+
+"Oh, no, no," I interrupted. That was exactly what I did mean, but I was
+not going to let the shade of the departed Strickland appear again until
+I was out of that room and house. "I am not insinuating anything."
+
+"I am very glad to hear it. I wish you to know that I perfectly
+understand EVERYTHING."
+
+That seemed to settle it; at any rate it settled me for the time. I took
+up my hat.
+
+"Miss Morley," I said, "I can't discuss this matter further just now. I
+must consult my cousin first. She and I will call upon you to-morrow at
+any hour you may name."
+
+She was disappointed; that was plain. I thought for the moment that
+she was going to break down again. But she did not; she controlled her
+feelings and faced me firmly and pluckily.
+
+"At nine--no, at ten to-morrow, then," she said. "I shall expect your
+final answer then."
+
+"Very well."
+
+"You will come? Of course; I am forgetting. You said you would."
+
+"We will be here at ten. Here is my address."
+
+I gave her my card, scribbling the street and number of Bancroft's in
+pencil in the corner. She took the card.
+
+"Thank you. Good afternoon," she said.
+
+I said "Good afternoon" and opened the door. The hall outside was empty,
+but someone was descending the stairs in a great hurry. I descended
+also. At the top step I glanced once more into the room I had just left.
+Frances Strickland Morley--Little Frank--was seated in the chair, one
+hand before her eyes. Her attitude expressed complete weariness and
+utter collapse. She had said she was not sick, but she looked sick--she
+did indeed.
+
+Harriet, the slouchy maid, was not in evidence, so I opened the street
+door for myself. As I reached the sidewalk--I suppose, as this was
+England, I should call it the "pavement"--I was accosted by Mrs. Briggs.
+She was out of breath; I am quite sure she had reached that pavement but
+the moment before.
+
+"'Ow is she?" demanded Mrs. Briggs.
+
+"Who?" I asked, not too politely.
+
+"That Morley one. Is she goin' to be hill again?"
+
+"How do I know? Has she been sick--ill, I mean?"
+
+"Huh! Hill! 'Er? Now, now, sir! I give you my word she's been hill
+hever since she came 'ere. I thought one time she was goin' to die on my
+'ands. And 'oo was to pay for 'er buryin', I'd like to know? That's w'at
+it is! 'Oo's goin' to pay for 'er buryin' and the food she eats; to
+say nothin' of 'er room money, and that's been owin' me for a matter of
+three weeks?"
+
+"How should I know who is going to pay for it? She will, I suppose."
+
+"She! W'at with? She ain't got a bob to bless 'erself with, she ain't.
+She's broke, stony broke. Honly for my kind 'eart she'd a been out on
+the street afore this. That and 'er tellin' me she was expectin' money
+from 'er rich friends in the States. You're from the States, ain't you,
+sir?"
+
+"Yes. But do you mean to tell me that Miss Morley has no money of her
+own?"
+
+"Of course I mean it. W'en she come 'ere she told me she was on the
+stage. A hopera singer, she said she was. She 'ad money then, enough to
+pay 'er way, she 'ad. She was expectin' to go with some troupe or other,
+but she never 'as. Oh, them stage people! Don't I know 'em? Ain't I
+'ad experience of 'em? A woman as 'as let lodgin's as long as me? If it
+wasn't for them rich friends in the States I 'ave never put up with 'er
+the way I 'ave. You're from the States, ain't you, sir?"
+
+"Yes, yes, I'm from the States. Now, see here, Mrs. Briggs; I'm coming
+back here to-morrow. If--Well, if Miss Morley needs anything, food or
+medicines or anything, in the meantime, you see that she has them. I'll
+pay you when I come."
+
+Mrs. Briggs actually smiled. She would have patted my arm if I had not
+jerked it out of the way.
+
+"You trust me, sir," she whispered, confidingly. "You trust my kind
+'eart. I'll look after 'er like she was my own daughter."
+
+I should have hated to trust even my worst enemy--if I had one--to Mrs.
+Briggs' "kind heart." I walked off in disgust. I found a cab at the next
+corner and, bidding the driver take me to Bancroft's, threw myself back
+on the cushions. This was a lovely mess! This was a beautiful climax to
+the first act--no, merely the prologue--of the drama of Hephzy's and my
+pilgrimage. What would Jim Campbell say to this? I was to be absolutely
+care-free; I was not to worry about myself or anyone else. That was the
+essential part of his famous "prescription." And now, here I was, with
+this impossible situation and more impossible young woman on my hands.
+If Little Frank had been a boy, a healthy boy, it would be bad enough.
+But Little Frank was a girl--a sick girl, without a penny. And a girl
+thoroughly convinced that she was the rightful heir to goodness knows
+how much wealth--wealth of which we, the uncivilized, unprincipled
+natives of an unprincipled, uncivilized country, had robbed her parents
+and herself. Little Frank had been a dream before; now he--she, I
+mean--was a nightmare; worse than that, for one wakes from a nightmare.
+And I was on my way to tell Hephzy!
+
+Well, I told her. She was in our sitting-room when I reached the hotel
+and I told her the whole story. I began by reading the letter. Before
+she had recovered from the shock of the reading, I told her that I had
+actually met and talked with Little Frank; and while this astounding bit
+of news was, so to speak, soaking into her bewildered brain, I went on
+to impart the crowning item of information--namely, that Little Frank
+was Miss Frances. Then I sat back and awaited what might follow.
+
+Her first coherent remark was one which I had not expected--and I had
+expected almost anything.
+
+"Oh, Hosy," gasped Hephzy, "tell me--tell me before you say anything
+else. Does he--she, I mean--look like Ardelia?"
+
+"Eh? What?" I stammered. "Look like--look like what?"
+
+"Not what--who. Does she look like Ardelia? Like her mother? Oh, I HOPE
+she doesn't favor her father's side! I did so want our Little Frank to
+look like his--her--I CAN'T get used to it--like my poor Ardelia. Does
+she?"
+
+"Goodness knows! I don't know who she looks like. I didn't notice."
+
+"You didn't! I should have noticed that before anything else. What kind
+of a girl is she? Is she pretty?"
+
+"I don't know. She isn't ugly, I should say. I wasn't particularly
+interested in her looks. The fact that she was at all was enough; I
+haven't gotten over that yet. What are we going to do with her? Or are
+we going to do anything? Those are the questions I should like to have
+answered. For heaven's sake, Hephzy, don't talk about her personal
+appearance. There she is and here are we. What are we going to do?"
+
+Hephzy shook her head. "I don't know, Hosy," she admitted. "I don't
+know, I'm sure. This is--this is--Oh, didn't I tell you we were
+SENT--sent by Providence!"
+
+I was silent. If we had been "sent," as she called it, I was far from
+certain that Providence was responsible. I was more inclined to place
+the responsibility in a totally different quarter.
+
+"I think," she continued, "I think you'd better tell me the whole thing
+all over again, Hosy. Tell it slow and don't leave out a word. Tell me
+what sort of place she was in and what she said and how she looked, as
+near as you can remember. I'll try and pay attention; I'll try as hard
+as I can. It'll be a job. All I can think of now is that
+to-morrow mornin'--only to-morrow mornin'--I'm going to see Little
+Frank--Ardelia's Little Frank."
+
+I complied with her request, giving every detail of my afternoon's
+experience. I reread the letter, and handed it to her, that she might
+read it herself. I described Mrs. Briggs and what I had seen of Mrs.
+Briggs' lodging-house. I described Miss Morley as best I could, dark
+eyes, dark hair and the look of weakness and frailty. I repeated our
+conversation word for word; I had forgotten nothing of that. Hephzy
+listened in silence. When I had finished she sighed.
+
+"The poor thing," she said. "I do pity her so."
+
+"Pity her!" I exclaimed. "Well, perhaps I pity her, too, in a way. But
+my pity and yours don't alter the situation. She doesn't want pity. She
+doesn't want help. She flew at me like a wildcat when I asked if she was
+ill. Her personal affairs, she says, are not ours; she doesn't want our
+acquaintance or our friendship. She has gotten some crazy notion in
+her head that you and I and Uncle Barnabas have cheated her out of
+an inheritance, and she wants that! Inheritance! Good Lord! A fine
+inheritance hers is! Daughter of the man who robbed us of everything we
+had."
+
+"I know--I know. But SHE doesn't know, does she, Hosy. Her father must
+have told her--"
+
+"He told her a barrel of lies, of course. What they were I can't
+imagine, but that fellow was capable of anything. Know! No, she doesn't
+know now, but she will have to know."
+
+"Are you goin' to tell her, Hosy?"
+
+I stared in amazement.
+
+"Tell her!" I repeated. "What do you mean? You don't intend letting her
+think that WE are the thieves, do you? That's what she thinks now. Of
+course I shall tell her."
+
+"It will be awful hard to tell. She worshipped her father, I guess. He
+was a dreadful fascinatin' man, when he wanted to be. He could make a
+body believe black was white. Poor Ardelia thought he was--"
+
+"I can't help that. I'm not Ardelia."
+
+"I know, but she is Ardelia's child. Hosy, if you are so set on tellin'
+her why didn't you tell her this afternoon? It would have been just as
+easy then as to-morrow."
+
+This was a staggerer. A truthful answer would be so humiliating. I had
+not told Frances Morley that her father was a thief and a liar because I
+couldn't muster courage to do it. She had seemed so alone and friendless
+and ill. I lacked the pluck to face the situation. But I could not tell
+Hephzy this.
+
+"Why didn't you tell her?" she repeated.
+
+"Oh, bosh!" I exclaimed, impatiently. "This is nonsense and you know it,
+Hephzy. She'll have to be told and you and I must tell her. DON'T look
+at me like that. What else are we to do?"
+
+Another shake of the head.
+
+"I don't know. I can't decide any more than you can, Hosy. What do YOU
+think we should do?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+With which unsatisfactory remark this particular conversation ended. I
+went to my room to dress for dinner. I had no appetite and dinner was
+not appealing; but I did not want to discuss Little Frank any longer. I
+mentally cursed Jim Campbell a good many times that evening and during
+the better part of a sleepless night. If it were not for him I should be
+in Bayport instead of London. From a distance of three thousand miles I
+could, without the least hesitancy, have told Strickland Morley's "heir"
+what to do.
+
+Hephzy did not come down to dinner at all. From behind the door of her
+room she told me, in a peculiar tone, that she could not eat. I could
+not eat, either, but I made the pretence of doing so. The next morning,
+at breakfast in the sitting-room, we were a silent pair. I don't know
+what George, the waiter, thought of us.
+
+At a quarter after nine I turned away from the window through which I
+had been moodily regarding the donkey cart of a flower huckster in the
+street below.
+
+"You'd better get on your things," I said. "It is time for us to go."
+
+Hephzy donned her hat and wrap. Then she came over to me.
+
+"Don't be cross, Hosy," she pleaded. "I've been thinkin' it over all
+night long and I've come to the conclusion that you are probably right.
+She hasn't any real claim on us, of course; it's the other way around,
+if anything. You do just as you think best and I'll back you up."
+
+"Then you agree that we should tell her the truth."
+
+"Yes, if you think so. I'm goin' to leave it all in your hands. Whatever
+you do will be right. I'll trust you as I always have."
+
+It was a big responsibility, it seemed to me. I did wish she had been
+more emphatic. However, I set my teeth and resolved upon a course of
+action. Pity and charity and all the rest of it I would not consider.
+Right was right, and justice was justice. I would end a disagreeable
+business as quickly as I could.
+
+Mrs. Briggs' lodging-house, viewed from the outside, was no more
+inviting at ten in the morning than it had been at four in the
+afternoon. I expected Hephzy to make some comment upon the dirty steps
+and the still dirtier front door. She did neither. We stood together
+upon the steps and I rang the bell.
+
+Mrs. Briggs herself opened the door. I think she had been watching from
+behind the curtains and had seen our cab draw up at the curb. She was
+in a state of great agitation, a combination of relieved anxiety,
+excitement and overdone politeness.
+
+"Good mornin', sir," she said; "and good mornin', lady. I've been
+expectin' you, and so 'as she, poor dear. I thought one w'ile she was
+that hill she couldn't see you, but Lor' bless you, I've nursed 'er same
+as if she was my own daughter. I told you I would sir, now didn't I."
+
+One word in this harangue caught my attention.
+
+"Ill?" I repeated. "What do you mean? Is she worse than she was
+yesterday?"
+
+Mrs. Briggs held up her hands. "Worse!" she cried. "Why, bless your
+'art, sir, she was quite well yesterday. Quite 'erself, she was, when
+you come. But after you went away she seemed to go all to pieces like.
+W'en I went hup to 'er, to carry 'er 'er tea--She always 'as 'er tea;
+I've been a mother to 'er, I 'ave--she'll tell you so. W'en I went hup
+with the tea there she was in a faint. W'ite as if she was dead. My
+word, sir, I was frightened. And all night she's been tossin' about,
+a-cryin' out and--"
+
+"Where is she now?" put in Hephzy, sharply.
+
+"She's in 'er room ma'am. Dressed she is; she would dress, knowin' of
+your comin', though I told 'er she shouldn't. She's dressed, but she's
+lyin' down. She would 'ave tried to sit hup, but THAT I wouldn't 'ave,
+ma'am. 'Now, dearie,' I told 'er--"
+
+But I would not hear any more. As for Hephzy she was in the dingy front
+hall already.
+
+"Shall we go up?" I asked, impatiently.
+
+"Of COURSE you're to go hup. She's a-waitin' for you. But sir--sir," she
+caught my sleeve; "if you think she's goin' to be ill and needin' the
+doctor, just pass the word to me. A doctor she shall 'ave, the best
+there is in London. All I ask you is to pay--"
+
+I heard no more. Hephzy was on her way up the stairs and I followed. The
+door of the first floor back was closed. I rapped upon it.
+
+"Come in," said the voice I remembered, but now it sounded weaker than
+before.
+
+Hephzy looked at me. I nodded.
+
+"You go first," I whispered. "You can call me when you are ready."
+
+Hephzy opened the door and entered the room. I closed the door behind
+her.
+
+Silence for what seemed a long, long time. Then the door opened again
+and Hephzy appeared. Her cheeks were wet with tears. She put her arms
+about my neck.
+
+"Oh, Hosy," she whispered, "she's real sick. And--and--Oh, Hosy, how
+COULD you see her and not see! She's the very image of Ardelia. The very
+image! Come."
+
+I followed her into the room. It was no brighter now, in the middle of
+a--for London--bright forenoon, than it had been on my previous visit.
+Just as dingy and forbidding and forlorn as ever. But now there was no
+defiant figure erect to meet me. The figure was lying upon the bed, and
+the pale cheeks of yesterday were flushed with fever. Miss Morley had
+looked far from well when I first saw her; now she looked very ill
+indeed.
+
+She acknowledged my good-morning with a distant bow. Her illness had not
+quenched her spirit, that was plain. She attempted to rise, but Hephzy
+gently pushed her back upon the pillow.
+
+"You stay right there," she urged. "Stay right there. We can talk just
+as well, and Mr. Knowles won't mind; will you, Hosy."
+
+I stammered something or other. My errand, difficult as it had been
+from the first, now seemed impossible. I had come there to say certain
+things--I had made up my mind to say them; but how was I to say such
+things to a girl as ill as this one was. I would not have said them to
+Strickland Morley himself, under such circumstances.
+
+"I--I am very sorry you are not well, Miss Morley," I faltered.
+
+She thanked me, but there was no warmth in the thanks.
+
+"I am not well," she said; "but that need make no difference. I presume
+you and this--this lady are prepared to make a definite proposition to
+me. I am well enough to hear it."
+
+Hephzy and I looked at each other. I looked for help, but Hephzy's
+expression was not helpful at all. It might have meant anything--or
+nothing.
+
+"Miss Morley," I began. "Miss Morley, I--I--"
+
+"Well, sir?"
+
+"Miss Morley, I--I don't know what to say to you."
+
+She rose to a sitting posture. Hephzy again tried to restrain her, but
+this time she would not be restrained.
+
+"Don't know what to say?" she repeated. "Don't know what to say? Then
+why did you come here?"
+
+"I came--we came because--because I promised we would come."
+
+"But WHY did you come?"
+
+Hephzy leaned toward her.
+
+"Please, please," she begged. "Don't get all excited like this. You
+mustn't. You'll make yourself sicker, you know. You must lie down and be
+quiet. Hosy--oh, please, Hosy, be careful."
+
+Miss Morley paid no attention. She was regarding me with eyes which
+looked me through and through. Her thin hands clutched the bedclothes.
+
+"WHY did you come?" she demanded. "My letter was plain enough,
+certainly. What I said yesterday was perfectly plain. I told you I did
+not wish your acquaintance or your friendship. Friendship--" with a
+blaze of scorn, "from YOU! I--I told you--I--"
+
+"Hush! hush! please don't," begged Hephzy. "You mustn't. You're too weak
+and sick. Oh, Hosy, do be careful."
+
+I was quite willing to be careful--if I had known how.
+
+"I think," I said, "that this interview had better be postponed. Really,
+Miss Morley, you are not in a condition to--"
+
+She sprang to her feet and stood there trembling.
+
+"My condition has nothing to do with it," she cried. "Oh, CAN'T I make
+you understand! I am trying to be lenient, to be--to be--And you come
+here, you and this woman, and try to--to--You MUST understand! I don't
+want to know you. I don't want your pity! After your treatment of my
+mother and my father, I--I--I... Oh!"
+
+She staggered, put her hands to her head, sank upon the bed, and then
+collapsed in a dead faint.
+
+Hephzy was at her side in a moment. She knew what to do if I did not.
+
+"Quick!" she cried, turning to me. "Send for the doctor; she has
+fainted. Hurry! And send that--that Briggs woman to me. Don't stand
+there like that. HURRY!"
+
+I found the Briggs woman in the lower hall. From her I learned the name
+and address of the nearest physician, also the nearest public telephone.
+Mrs. Briggs went up to Hephzy and I hastened out to telephone.
+
+Oh, those London telephones! After innumerable rings and "Hellos" from
+me, and "Are you theres" from Central, I, at last, was connected with
+the doctor's office and, by great good luck, with the doctor himself.
+He promised to come at once. In ten minutes I met him at the door and
+conducted him to the room above.
+
+He was in that room a long time. Meanwhile, I waited in the hall, pacing
+up and down, trying to think my way through this maze. I had succeeded
+in thinking myself still deeper into it when the physician reappeared.
+
+"How is she?" I asked.
+
+"She is conscious again, but weak, of course. If she can be kept quiet
+and have proper care and nourishment and freedom from worry she will,
+probably, gain strength and health. There is nothing seriously wrong
+physically, so far as I can see."
+
+I was glad to hear that and said so.
+
+"Of course," he went on, "her nerves are completely unstrung. She seems
+to have been under a great mental strain and her surroundings are not--"
+He paused, and then added, "Is the young lady a relative of yours?"
+
+"Ye--es, I suppose--She is a distant relative, yes."
+
+"Humph! Has she no near relatives? Here in England, I mean. You and the
+lady with you are Americans, I judge."
+
+I ignored the last sentence. I could not see that our being Americans
+concerned him.
+
+"She has no near relatives in England, so far as I know," I answered.
+"Why do you ask?"
+
+"Merely because--Well, to be frank, because if she had such relatives I
+should strongly recommend their taking charge of her. She is very weak
+and in a condition where she knight become seriously ill."
+
+"I see. You mean that she should not remain here."
+
+"I do mean that, decidedly. This," with a wave of the hand and a glance
+about the bare, dirty, dark hall, "is not--Well, she seems to be a young
+person of some refinement and--"
+
+He did not finish the sentence, but I understood.
+
+"I see," I interrupted. "And yet she is not seriously ill."
+
+"Not now--no. Her weakness is due to mental strain and--well, to a lack
+of nutrition as much as anything."
+
+"Lack of nutrition? You mean she hasn't had enough to eat!"
+
+"Yes. Of course I can't be certain, but that would be my opinion if I
+were forced to give one. At all events, she should be taken from here as
+soon as possible."
+
+I reflected. "A hospital?" I suggested.
+
+"She might be taken to a hospital, of course. But she is scarcely ill
+enough for that. A good, comfortable home would be better. Somewhere
+where she might have quiet and rest. If she had relatives I should
+strongly urge her going to them. She should not be left to herself; I
+would not be responsible for the consequences if she were. A person in
+her condition might--might be capable of any rash act."
+
+This was plain enough, but it did not make my course of action plainer
+to me.
+
+"Is she well enough to be moved--now?" I asked.
+
+"Yes. If she is not moved she is likely to be less well."
+
+I paid him for the visit; he gave me a prescription--"To quiet the
+nerves," he explained--and went away. I was to send for him whenever his
+services were needed. Then I entered the room.
+
+Hephzy and Mrs. Briggs were sitting beside the bed. The face upon the
+pillow looked whiter and more pitiful than ever. The dark eyes were
+closed.
+
+Hephzy signaled me to silence. She rose and tiptoed over to me. I led
+her out into the hall.
+
+"She's sort of dozin' now," she whispered. "The poor thing is worn out.
+What did the doctor say?"
+
+I told her what the doctor had said.
+
+"He's just right," she declared. "She's half starved, that's what's the
+matter with her. That and frettin' and worryin' have just about killed
+her. What are you goin' to do, Hosy?"
+
+"How do I know!" I answered, impatiently. "I don't see exactly why we
+are called upon to do anything. Do you?"
+
+"No--o, I--I don't know as we are called on. No--o. I--"
+
+"Well, do you?"
+
+"No. I know how you feel, Hosy. Considerin' how her father treated us, I
+won't blame you no matter what you do."
+
+"Confound her father! I only wish it were he we had to deal with."
+
+Hephzy was silent. I took a turn up and down the hall.
+
+"The doctor says she should be taken away from here at once," I
+observed.
+
+Hephzy nodded. "There's no doubt about that," she declared with
+emphasis. "I wouldn't trust a sick cat to that Briggs woman. She's
+a--well, she's what she is."
+
+"I suggested a hospital, but he didn't approve," I went on. "He
+recommended some comfortable home with care and quiet and all the rest
+of it. Her relatives should look after her, he said. She hasn't any
+relatives that we know of, or any home to go to."
+
+Again Hephzy was silent. I waited, growing momentarily more nervous and
+fretful. Of all impossible situations this was the most impossible. And
+to make it worse, Hephzy, the usually prompt, reliable Hephzy, was of no
+use at all.
+
+"Do say something," I snapped. "What shall we do?"
+
+"I don't know, Hosy, dear. Why!... Where are you going?"
+
+"I'm going to the drug-store to get this prescription filled. I'll be
+back soon."
+
+The drug-store--it was a "chemist's shop" of course--was at the corner.
+It was the chemist's telephone that I had used when I called the doctor.
+I gave the clerk the prescription and, while he was busy with it, I
+paced up and down the floor of the shop. At length I sat down before the
+telephone and demanded a number.
+
+When I returned to the lodging-house I gave Hephzy the powders which the
+chemist's clerk had prepared.
+
+"Is she any better?" I asked.
+
+"She's just about the same."
+
+"What does she say?"
+
+"She's too weak and sick to say anything. I don't imagine she knows or
+cares what is happening to her."
+
+"Is she strong enough to get downstairs to a cab, or to ride in one
+afterward?"
+
+"I guess so. We could help her, you know. But, Hosy, what cab? What do
+you mean? What are you going to do?"
+
+"I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm going to take her away from this
+hole. I must. I don't want to; there's no reason why I should and every
+reason why I shouldn't; but--Oh, well, confound it! I've got to. We
+CAN'T let her starve and die here."
+
+"But where are you going to take her?"
+
+"There's only one place to take her; that's to Bancroft's. I've 'phoned
+and engaged a room next to ours. She'll have to stay with us for the
+present. Oh, I don't like it any better than you do."
+
+To my intense surprise, Hephzy threw her arms about my neck and hugged
+me.
+
+"I knew you would, Hosy!" she sobbed. "I knew you would. I was dyin' to
+have you, but I wouldn't have asked for the world. You're the best man
+that ever lived. I knew you wouldn't leave poor Ardelia's little girl
+to--to--Oh, I'm so grateful. You're the best man in the world."
+
+I freed myself from the embrace as soon as I could. I didn't feel like
+the best man in the world. I felt like a Quixotic fool.
+
+Fortunately I was too busy for the next hour to think of my feelings.
+Hephzy went in to arrange for the transfer of the invalid to the cab and
+to collect and pack her most necessary belongings. I spent my time in a
+financial wrangle with Mrs. Briggs. The number of items which that woman
+wished included in her bill was surprising. Candles and soap--the bill
+itself was the sole evidence of soap's ever having made its appearance
+in that house--and washing and tea and food and goodness knows what. The
+total was amazing. I verified the addition, or, rather, corrected it,
+and then offered half of the sum demanded. This offer was received with
+protestations, tears and voluble demands to know if I 'ad the 'art to
+rob a lone widow who couldn't protect herself. Finally we compromised on
+a three-quarter basis and Mrs. Briggs receipted the bill. She said her
+kind disposition would be the undoing of her and she knew it. She was
+too silly and soft-'arted to let lodgings.
+
+We had very little trouble in carrying or leading Little Frank to the
+cab. The effect of the doctor's powders--they must have contained some
+sort of opiate--was to render the girl only partially conscious of what
+was going on and we got her to and into the vehicle without difficulty.
+During the drive to Bancroft's she dozed on Hephzy's shoulder.
+
+Her room--it was next to Hephzy's, with a connecting door--was ready
+and we led her up the stairs. Mr. and Mrs. Jameson were very kind and
+sympathetic. They asked surprisingly few questions.
+
+"Poor young lady," said Mr. Jameson, when he and I were together in our
+sitting-room. "She is quite ill, isn't she."
+
+"Yes," I admitted. "It is not a serious illness, however. She needs
+quiet and care more than anything else."
+
+"Yes, sir. We will do our best to see that she has both. A relative of
+yours, sir, I think you said."
+
+"A--a--my niece," I answered, on the spur of the moment. She was
+Hephzy's niece, of course. As a matter of fact, she was scarcely related
+to me. However, it seemed useless to explain.
+
+"I didn't know you had English relatives, Mr. Knowles. I had been under
+the impression that you and Miss Cahoon were strangers here."
+
+So had I, but I did not explain that, either. Mrs. Jameson joined us.
+
+"She will sleep now, I think," she said. "She is quite quiet and
+peaceful. A near relative of yours, Mr. Knowles?"
+
+"She is Mr. Knowles's niece," explained her husband.
+
+"Oh, yes. A sweet girl she seems. And very pretty, isn't she."
+
+I did not answer. Mr. Jameson and his wife turned to go.
+
+"I presume you will wish to communicate with her people," said the
+former. "Shall I send you telegram forms?"
+
+"Not now," I stammered. Telegrams! Her people! She had no people. We
+were her people. We had taken her in charge and were responsible. And
+how and when would that responsibility be shifted!
+
+What on earth should we do with her?
+
+Hephzy tiptoed in. Her expression was a curious one. She was very
+solemn, but not sad; the solemnity was not that of sorrow, but appeared
+to be a sort of spiritual uplift, a kind of reverent joy.
+
+"She's asleep," she said, gravely; "she's asleep, Hosy."
+
+There was precious little comfort in that.
+
+"She'll wake up by and by," I said. "And then--what?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Neither do I--now. But we shall have to know pretty soon."
+
+"I suppose we shall, but I can't--I can't seem to think of anything
+that's ahead of us. All I can think is that my Little Frank--my
+Ardelia's Little Frank--is here, here with us, at last."
+
+"And TO last, so far as I can see. Hephzy, for heaven's sake, do try
+to be sensible. Do you realize what this means? As soon as she is
+well enough to understand what has happened she will want to know what
+'proposition' we have to make. And when we tell her we have none to
+make, she'll probably collapse again. And then--and then--what shall we
+do?"
+
+"I don't know, Hosy. I declare I don't know."
+
+I strode into my own room and slammed the door.
+
+"Damn!" said I, with enthusiasm.
+
+"What?" queried Hephzy, from the sitting-room. "What did you say, Hosy?"
+
+I did not tell her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+In Which the Pilgrims Become Tenants
+
+
+Two weeks later we left Bancroft's and went to Mayberry. Two weeks only,
+and yet in that two weeks all our plans--if our indefinite visions of
+irresponsible flitting about Great Britain and the continent might
+be called plans--had changed utterly. Our pilgrimage was, apparently,
+ended--it had become an indefinite stay. We were no longer pilgrims, but
+tenants, tenants in an English rectory, of all places in the world.
+I, the Cape Cod quahaug, had become an English country gentleman--or a
+country gentleman in England--for the summer, at least.
+
+Little Frank--Miss Frances Morley--was responsible for the change, of
+course. Her sudden materialization and the freak of fortune which
+had thrown her, weak and ill, upon our hands, were responsible for
+everything. For how much more, how many other changes, she would be
+responsible the future only could answer. And the future would answer in
+its own good, or bad, time. My conundrum "What are we going to do
+with her?" was as much of a puzzle as ever. For my part I gave it up.
+Sufficient unto the day was the evil thereof--much more than sufficient.
+
+For the first twenty-four hours following the arrival of "my niece" at
+Bancroft's Hotel the situation regarding that niece remained as it
+was. Miss Morley--or Frances--or Frank as Hephzy persisted in calling
+her--was too ill to care what had happened, or, at least, to speak of
+it. She spoke very little, was confined to her room and bed and slept
+the greater part of the time. The doctor whom I called, on Mr. Jameson's
+recommendation, confirmed his fellow practitioner's diagnosis; the young
+lady, he said, was suffering from general weakness and the effect of
+nervous strain. She needed absolute rest, care and quiet. There was no
+organic disease.
+
+But on the morning of the second day she was much better and willing,
+even anxious to talk. She assailed Hephzy with questions and Hephzy,
+although she tried to avoid answering most, was obliged to answer some
+of them. She reported the interview to me during luncheon.
+
+"She didn't seem to remember much about comin' here, or what happened
+before or afterward," said Hephzy. "But she wanted to know it all. I
+told her the best I could. 'You couldn't stay there,' I said. 'That
+Briggs hyena wasn't fit to take care of any human bein' and neither Hosy
+nor I could leave you in her hands. So we brought you here to the hotel
+where we're stoppin'.' She thought this over a spell and then she wanted
+to know whose idea bringin' her here was, yours or mine. I said 'twas
+yours, and just like you, too; you were the kindest-hearted man in the
+world, I said. Oh, you needn't look at me like that, Hosy. It's the
+plain truth, and you know it."
+
+"Humph!" I grunted. "If the young lady were a mind-reader she
+might--well, never mind. What else did she say?"
+
+"Oh, a good many things. Wanted to know if her bill at Mrs. Briggs' was
+paid. I said it was. She thought about that and then she gave me orders
+that you and I were to keep account of every cent--no, penny--we spent
+for her. She should insist upon that. If we had the idea that she was a
+subject of charity we were mistaken. She fairly withered me with a look
+from those big eyes of hers. Ardelia's eyes all over again! Or they
+would be if they were blue instead of brown. I remember--"
+
+I cut short the reminiscence. I was in no mood to listen to the praises
+of any Morley.
+
+"What answer did you make to that?" I asked.
+
+"What could I say? I didn't want any more faintin' spells or hysterics,
+either. I said we weren't thinkin' of offerin' charity and if it would
+please her to have us run an expense book we'd do it, of course. She
+asked what the doctor said about her condition. I told her he said she
+must keep absolutely quiet and not fret about anything or she'd have an
+awful relapse. That was pretty strong but I meant it that way. Answerin'
+questions that haven't got any answer to 'em is too much of a strain for
+ME. You try it some time yourself and see."
+
+"I have tried it, thank you. Well, is that all? Did she tell you
+anything about herself; where she has been or what she has been or what
+she has been doing since her precious father died?"
+
+"No, not a word. I was dyin' to ask her, but I didn't. She says she
+wants to talk with the doctor next time he comes, that's all."
+
+She did talk with the doctor, although not during his next call. Several
+days passed before he would permit her to talk with him. Meanwhile he
+and I had several talks. What he told me brought my conundrum no nearer
+its answer.
+
+She was recovering rapidly, he said, but for weeks at least her delicate
+nervous organism must be handled with care. The slightest set-back
+would be disastrous. He asked if we intended remaining at Bancroft's
+indefinitely. I had no intentions--those I had had were wiped off my
+mental slate--so I said I did not know, our future plans were vague. He
+suggested a sojourn in the country, in some pleasant retired spot in the
+rural districts.
+
+"An out-of-door life, walks, rides and sports of all sorts would do your
+niece a world of good, Mr. Knowles," he declared. "She needs just that.
+A very attractive young lady, sir, if you'll pardon my saying so," he
+went on. "Were her people Londoners, may I ask?"
+
+He might ask but I had no intention of telling him. What I knew
+concerning my "niece's" people were things not usually told to
+strangers. I evaded the question.
+
+"Has she had a recent bereavement?" he queried. "I hope you'll not
+think me merely idly inquisitive. I cannot understand how a young woman,
+normally healthy and well, should have been brought to such a strait.
+Our English girls, Mr. Knowles, do not suffer from nerves, as I am told
+your American young women so frequently do. Has your niece been in the
+States with you?"
+
+I said she had not. Incidentally I informed him that American young
+women did NOT frequently suffer from nerves. He said "Really," but he
+did not believe me, I'm certain. He was a good fellow, and intelligent,
+but his ideas of "the States" had been gathered, largely, I think,
+from newspapers and novels. He was convinced that most Americans were
+confirmed neurotics and dyspeptics, just as Hephzy had believed all
+Englishmen wore side-whiskers.
+
+I changed the conversation as soon as I could. I could tell him
+so little concerning my newly found "niece." I knew about as much
+concerning her life as he did. It is distinctly unpleasant to be uncle
+to someone you know nothing at all about. I devoutly wished I had not
+said she was my niece. I repeated that wish many times afterward.
+
+Miss Morley's talk with the physician had definite results, surprising
+results. Following that talk she sent word by the doctor that she wished
+to see Hephzy and me. We went into her room. She was sitting in a chair
+by the window, and was wearing a rather pretty wrapper, or kimono, or
+whatever that sort of garment is called. At any rate, it was becoming. I
+was obliged to admit that the general opinion expressed by the Jamesons
+and Hephzy and the doctor--that she was pretty, was correct enough. She
+was pretty, but that did not help matters any.
+
+She asked us--no, she commanded us to sit down. Her manner was decidedly
+business-like. She wasted no time in preliminaries, but came straight to
+the point, and that point was the one which I had dreaded. She asked us
+what decision we had reached concerning her.
+
+"Have you decided what your offer is to be?" she asked.
+
+I looked at Hephzy and she at me. Neither of us derived comfort from
+the exchange of looks. However, something must be done, or said, and I
+braced myself to say it.
+
+"Miss Morley," I began, "before I answer that question I should like to
+ask you one. What do you expect us to do?"
+
+She regarded me coldly. "I expect," she said, "that you and this--that
+you and Miss Cahoon will arrange to pay me the money which was my
+mother's and which my grandfather should have turned over to her while
+he lived."
+
+Again I looked at Hephzy and again I braced myself for the scene which I
+was certain would follow.
+
+"It is your impression then," I said, "that your mother had money of her
+own and that Captain Barnabas, your grandfather, kept that money for his
+own use."
+
+"It is not an impression," haughtily; "I know it to be a fact."
+
+"How do you know it?"
+
+"My father told me so, during his last illness."
+
+"Was--pardon me--was your father himself at the time? Was
+he--er--rational?"
+
+"Rational! My father?"
+
+"I mean--I mean was he himself--mentally? He was not delirious when he
+told you?"
+
+"Delirious! Mr. Knowles, I am trying to be patient, but for the last
+time I warn you that I will not listen to insinuations against my
+father."
+
+"I am not insinuating anything. I am seeking information. Were you and
+your father together a great deal? Did you know him well? Just what did
+he tell you?"
+
+She hesitated before replying. When she spoke it was with an exaggerated
+air of patient toleration, as if she were addressing an unreasonable
+child.
+
+"I will answer you," she said. "I will answer you because, so far, I
+have no fault to find with your behavior toward me. You and my--and my
+aunt have been as reasonable as I, perhaps, should expect, everything
+considered. Your bringing me here and providing for me was even kind,
+I suppose. So I will answer your questions. My father and I were not
+together a great deal. I attended a convent school in France and saw
+Father only at intervals. I supposed him to possess an independent
+income. It was only when he was--was unable to work," with a quiver in
+her voice, "that I learned how he lived. He had been obliged to depend
+upon his music, upon his violin playing, to earn money enough to keep us
+both alive. Then he told me of--of his life in America and how my mother
+and he had been--been cheated and defrauded by those who--who--Oh, DON'T
+ask me any more! Don't!"
+
+"I must ask you. I must ask you to tell me this: How was he defrauded,
+as you call it?"
+
+"I have told you, already. My mother's fortune--"
+
+"But your mother had no fortune."
+
+The anticipated scene was imminent. She sprang to her feet, but being
+too weak to stand, sank back again. Hephzy looked appealingly at me.
+
+"Hosy," she cautioned; "Oh, Hosy, be careful! Think how sick she has
+been."
+
+"I am thinking, Hephzy. I mean to be careful. But what I said is the
+truth, and you know it."
+
+Hephzy would have replied, but Little Frank motioned her to be silent.
+
+"Hush!" she commanded. "Mr. Knowles, what do you mean? My mother had
+money, a great deal of money. I don't know the exact sum, but my father
+said--You know it! You MUST know it. It was in my grandfather's care
+and--"
+
+"Your grandfather had no money. He--well, he lost every dollar he had.
+He died as poor as a church rat."
+
+Another interval of silence, during which I endured a piercing scrutiny
+from the dark eyes. Then Miss Morley's tone changed.
+
+"Indeed!" she said, sarcastically. "You surprise me, Mr. Knowles. What
+became of the money, may I ask? I understand that my grandfather was a
+wealthy man."
+
+"He was fairly well-to-do at one time, but he lost his money and died
+poor."
+
+"How did he lose it?"
+
+The question was a plain one and demanded a plain and satisfying answer.
+But how could I give that answer--then? Hephzy was shaking her head
+violently. I stammered and faltered and looked guilty, I have no doubt.
+
+"Well?" said Miss Morley.
+
+"He--he lost it, that is sufficient. You must take my word for it.
+Captain Cahoon died without a dollar of his own."
+
+"When did he LOSE his wealth?" with sarcastic emphasis.
+
+"Years ago. About the time your parents left the United States. There,
+there, Hephzy! I know. I'm doing my best."
+
+"Indeed! When did he die?"
+
+"Long ago--more than ten years ago."
+
+"But my parents left America long before that. If my grandfather was
+penniless how did he manage to live all those years? What supported
+him?"
+
+"Your aunt--Miss Cahoon here--had money in her own right."
+
+"SHE had money and my mother had not. Yet both were Captain Cahoon's
+daughters. How did that happen?"
+
+It seemed to me that it was Hephzy's time to play the target. I turned
+to her.
+
+"Miss Cahoon will probably answer that herself," I observed,
+maliciously.
+
+Hephzibah appeared more embarrassed than I.
+
+"I--I--Oh, what difference does all this make?" she faltered. "Hosy has
+told you the truth, Frances. Really and truly he has. Father was poor
+as poverty when he died and all his last years, too. All his money had
+gone."
+
+"Yes, so I have heard Mr. Knowles say. But how did it go?"
+
+"In--in--well, it was invested in stocks and things and--and--"
+
+"Do you mean that he speculated in shares?"
+
+"Well, not--not--"
+
+"I see. Oh, I see. Father told me a little concerning those
+speculations. He warned Captain Cahoon before he left the States, but
+his warnings were not heeded, I presume. And you wish me to believe that
+ALL the money was lost--my mother's and all. Is that what you mean?"
+
+"Your mother HAD no money," I put in, desperately, "I have told you--"
+
+"You have told me many things, Mr. Knowles. Even admitting that my
+grandfather lost his money, as you say, why should I suffer because of
+his folly? I am not asking for HIS money. I am demanding money that was
+my mother's and is now mine. That I expected from him and now I expect
+it from you, his heirs."
+
+"But your mother had no--"
+
+"I do not care to hear that again. I know she had money."
+
+"But how do you know?"
+
+"Because my father told me she had, and my father did not lie."
+
+There we were again--just where we started. The doctor re-entered the
+room and insisted upon his patient's being left to herself. She must lie
+down and rest, he said. His manner was one of distinct disapproval. It
+was evident that he considered Hephzy and me disturbers of the peace; in
+fact he intimated as much when he joined us in the sitting-room in a few
+minutes.
+
+"I am afraid I made a mistake in permitting the conference," he said.
+"The young lady seems much agitated, Mr. Knowles. If she is, complete
+nervous prostration may follow. She may be an invalid for months or even
+years. I strongly recommend her being taken into the country as soon as
+possible."
+
+This speech and the manner in which it was made were impressive and
+alarming. The possibilities at which it hinted were more alarming still.
+We made no attempt to discuss family matters with Little Frank that day
+nor the next.
+
+But on the day following, when I returned from my morning visit to
+Camford Street, I found Hephzy awaiting me in the sitting-room. She was
+very solemn.
+
+"Hosy," she said, "sit down. I've got somethin' to tell you."
+
+"About her?" I asked, apprehensively.
+
+"Yes. She's just been talkin' to me."
+
+"She has! I thought we agreed not to talk with her at all."
+
+"We did, and I tried not to. But when I went in to see her just now she
+was waitin' for me. She had somethin' to say, she said, and she said
+it--Oh, my goodness, yes! she said it."
+
+"What did she say? Has she sent for her lawyer--her solicitor, or
+whatever he is?"
+
+"No, she hasn't done that. I don't know but I 'most wish she had. He
+wouldn't be any harder to talk to than she is. Hosy, she's made up her
+mind."
+
+"Made up her mind! I thought HER mind was already made up."
+
+"It was, but she's made it up again. That doctor has been talkin' to her
+and she's really frightened about her health, I think. Anyhow, she has
+decided that her principal business just now is to get well. She told
+me she had decided not to press her claim upon us for the present. If we
+wished to make an offer of what she calls restitution, she'll listen to
+it; but she judges we are not ready to make one."
+
+"Humph! her judgment is correct so far."
+
+"Yes, but that isn't all. While she is waitin' for that offer she
+expects us to take care of her. She has been thinkin', she says, and she
+has come to the conclusion that our providin' for her as we have done
+isn't charity--or needn't be considered as charity--at all. She is
+willin' to consider it a part of that precious restitution she's forever
+talkin' about. We are to take care of her, and pay her doctor's bills,
+and take her into the country as he recommends, and--"
+
+I interrupted. "Great Scott!" I cried, "does she expect us to ADOPT
+her?"
+
+"I don't know what she expects; I'm tryin' to tell you what she said.
+We're to do all this and keep a strict account of all it costs, and
+then when we are ready to make a--a proposition, as she calls it, this
+account can be subtracted from the money she thinks we've got that
+belongs to her."
+
+"But there isn't any money belonging to her. I told her so, and so did
+you."
+
+"I know, but we might tell her a thousand times and it wouldn't affect
+her father's tellin' her once. Oh, that Strickland Morley! If only--"
+
+"Hush! hush, Hephzy... Well, by George! of all the--this thing has gone
+far enough. It has gone too far. We made a great mistake in bringing
+her here, in having anything to do with her at all--but we shan't go on
+making mistakes. We must stop where we are. She must be told the truth
+now--to-day."
+
+"I know--I know, Hosy; but who'll tell her?"
+
+"I will."
+
+"She won't believe you."
+
+"Then she must disbelieve. She can call in her solicitor and I'll make
+him believe."
+
+Hephzy was silent. Her silence annoyed me.
+
+"Why don't you say something?" I demanded. "You know what I say is plain
+common-sense."
+
+"I suppose it is--I suppose 'tis. But, Hosy, if you start in tellin' her
+again you know what'll happen. The doctor said the least little thing
+would bring on nervous prostration. And if she has that, WHAT will
+become of her?"
+
+It was my turn to hesitate.
+
+"You couldn't--we couldn't turn her out into the street if she was
+nervous prostrated, could we," pleaded Hephzy. "After all, she's
+Ardelia's daughter and--"
+
+"She's Strickland Morley's daughter. There is no doubt of that.
+Hereditary influence is plain enough in her case."
+
+"I know, but she is Ardelia's daughter, too. I don't see how we can tell
+her, Hosy; not until she's well and strong again."
+
+I was never more thoroughly angry in my life. My patience was exhausted.
+
+"Look here, Hephzy," I cried: "what is it you are leading up to? You're
+not proposing--actually proposing that we adopt this girl, are you?"
+
+"No--no--o. Not exactly that, of course. But we might take her into the
+country somewhere and--"
+
+"Oh, DO be sensible! Do you realize what that would mean? We should have
+to give up our trip, stop sightseeing, stop everything we had planned to
+do, and turn ourselves into nurses running a sanitarium for the benefit
+of a girl whose father's rascality made your father a pauper. And, not
+only do this, but be treated by her as if--as if--"
+
+"There, there, Hosy! I know what it will mean. I know what it would mean
+to you and I don't mean for you to do it. You've done enough and more
+than enough. But with me it's different. _I_ could do it."
+
+"You?"
+
+"Yes. I've got some money of my own. I could find a nice, cheap, quiet
+boardin'-house in the country round here somewhere and she and I could
+go there and stay until she got well. You needn't go at all; you could
+go off travelin' by yourself and--"
+
+"Hephzy, what are you talking about?"
+
+"I mean it. I've thought it all out, Hosy. Ever since Ardelia and I
+had that last talk together and she whispered to me that--that--well,
+especially ever since I knew there was a Little Frank I've been thinkin'
+and plannin' about that Little Frank; you know I have. He--she isn't
+the kind of Little Frank I expected, but she's, my sister's baby and
+I can't--I CAN'T, turn her away to be sick and die. I can't do it. I
+shouldn't dare face Ardelia in--on the other side if I did. No, I
+guess it's my duty and I'm goin' to go on with it. But with you it's
+different. She isn't any real relation to you. You've done enough--and
+more than enough--as it is."
+
+This was the climax. Of course I might have expected it, but of course
+I didn't. As soon as I recovered, or partially recovered, from my
+stupefaction I expostulated and scolded and argued. Hephzy was quiet but
+firm. She hated to part from me--she couldn't bear to think of it; but
+on the other hand she couldn't abandon her Ardelia's little girl. The
+interview ended by my walking out of the room and out of Bancroft's in
+disgust.
+
+I did not return until late in the afternoon. I was in better humor
+then. Hephzy was still in the sitting-room; she looked as if she had
+been crying.
+
+"Hosy," she said, as I entered, "I--I hope you don't think I'm too
+ungrateful. I'm not. Really I'm not. And I care as much for you as if
+you was my own boy. I can't leave you; I sha'n't. If you say for us
+to--"
+
+I interrupted.
+
+"Hephzy," I said, "I shan't say anything. I know perfectly well that you
+couldn't leave me any more than I could leave you. I have arranged with
+Matthews to set about house-hunting at once. As soon as rural England is
+ready for us, we shall be ready for it. After all, what difference does
+it make? I was ordered to get fresh experience. I might as well get it
+by becoming keeper of a sanitarium as any other way."
+
+Hephzy looked at me. She rose from her chair.
+
+"Hosy," she cried, "what--a sanitarium?"
+
+"We'll keep it together," I said, smiling. "You and I and Little Frank.
+And it is likely to be a wonderful establishment."
+
+Hephzy said--she said a great deal, principally concerning my generosity
+and goodness and kindness and self-sacrifice. I tried to shut off the
+flow, but it was not until I began to laugh that it ceased.
+
+"Why!" cried Hephzy. "You're laughin'! What in the world? I don't see
+anything to laugh at."
+
+"Don't you? I do. Oh, dear me! I--I, the Bayport quahaug to--Ho! ho!
+Hephzy, let me laugh. If there is any fun in this perfectly devilish
+situation let me enjoy it while I can."
+
+And that is how and why I decided to become a country gentleman
+instead of a traveler. When I told Matthews of my intention he had been
+petrified with astonishment. I had written Campbell of that intention. I
+devoutly wished I might see his face when he read my letter.
+
+For days and days Hephzy and I "house-hunted." We engaged a nurse to
+look after the future patient of the "sanitarium" while we did our best
+to look for the sanitarium itself. Mr. Matthews gave us the addresses
+of real estate agents and we journeyed from suburb to suburb and from
+seashore to hills. We saw several "semi-detached villas." The name
+"semi-detached villa" had an appealing sound, especially to Hephzy, but
+the villas themselves did not appeal. They turned out to be what we, in
+America, would have called "two-family houses."
+
+"And I never did like the idea of livin' in a two-family house,"
+declared Hephzy. "I've known plenty of real nice folks who did live in
+'em, or one-half of one of 'em, but it usually happened that the folks
+in the other half was a dreadful mean set. They let their dog chase your
+cat and if your hens scratched up their flower garden they were real
+unlikely about it. I've heard Father tell about Cap'n Noah Doane and
+Cap'n Elkanah Howes who used to live in Bayport. They'd been chums all
+their lives and when they retired from the sea they thought 'twould be
+lovely to build a double house so's they would be right close together
+all the time. Well, they did it and they hadn't been settled more'n a
+month when they began quarrelin'. Cap'n Noah's wife wanted the house
+painted yellow and Mrs. Cap'n Elkanah, she wanted it green. They
+started the fuss and it ended by one-half bein' yellow and t'other half
+green--such an outrage you never saw--and a big fence down the middle
+of the front yard, and the two families not speakin', and law-suits and
+land knows what all. They wouldn't even go to the same church nor be
+buried in the same graveyard. No sir-ee! no two-family house for us if
+I can help it. We've got troubles enough inside the family without
+fightin' the neighbors."
+
+"But think of the beautiful names," I observed. "Those names ought to
+appeal to your poetic soul, Hephzy. We haven't seen a villa yet, no
+matter how dingy, or small, that wasn't christened 'Rosemary Terrace'
+or 'Sunnylawn' or something. That last one--the shack with the broken
+windows--was labeled 'Broadview' and it faced an alley ending at a brick
+stable."
+
+"I know it," she said. "If they'd called it 'Narrowview' or 'Cow
+Prospect' 'twould have been more fittin', I should say. But I think
+givin' names to homes is sort of pretty, just the same. We might call
+our house at home 'Writer's Rest.' A writer lives in it, you know."
+
+"And he has rested more than he has written of late," I observed.
+"'Quahaug Stew' or 'The Tureen' would be better, I should say."
+
+When we expressed disapproval of the semi-detached villas our real
+estate brokers flew to the other extremity and proceeded to show
+us "estates." These estates comprised acres of ground, mansions,
+game-keepers' and lodge-keepers' houses, and goodness knows what. Some,
+so the brokers were particular to inform us, were celebrated for their
+"shooting."
+
+The villas were not good enough; the estates were altogether too good.
+We inspected but one and then declined to see more.
+
+"Shootin'!" sniffed Hephzy. "I should feel like shootin' myself every
+time I paid the rent. I'd HAVE to do it the second time. 'Twould be a
+quicker end than starvin', 'and the first month would bring us to that."
+
+We found one pleasant cottage in a suburb bearing the euphonious name of
+"Leatherhead"--that is, the village was named "Leatherhead"; the cottage
+was "Ash Clump." I teased Hephzy by referring to it as "Ash Dump," but
+it really was a pretty, roomy house, with gardens and flowers. For the
+matter of that, every cottage we visited, even the smallest, was bowered
+in flowers.
+
+Hephzy's romantic spirit objected strongly to "Leatherhead," but I told
+her nothing could be more appropriate.
+
+"This whole proposition--Beg pardon; I didn't mean to use that word;
+we've heard enough concerning 'propositions'--but really, Hephzy,
+'Leatherhead' is very appropriate for us. If we weren't leather-headed
+and deserving of leather medals we should not be hunting houses at all.
+We should have left Little Frank and her affairs in a lawyer's hands and
+be enjoying ourselves as we intended. Leatherhead for the leather-heads;
+it's another dispensation of Providence."
+
+"Ash Dump"--"Clump," I mean--was owned by a person named Cripps, Solomon
+Cripps. Mr. Cripps was a stout, mutton-chopped individual, strongly
+suggestive of Bancroft's "Henry." He was rather pompous and surly when I
+first knocked at the door of his residence, but when he learned we were
+house-hunting and had our eyes upon the "Clump," he became very
+polite indeed. "A 'eavenly spot," he declared it to be. "A beautiful
+neighborhood. Near the shops and not far from the Primitive Wesleyan
+chapel." He and Mrs. Cripps attended the chapel, he informed us.
+
+I did not fancy Mr. Cripps; he was too--too something, I was not sure
+what. And Mrs. Cripps, whom we met later, was of a similar type. They,
+like everyone else, recognized us as Americans at once and they spoke
+highly of the "States."
+
+"A very fine country, I am informed," said Mr. Cripps. "New, of course,
+but very fine indeed. Young men make money there. Much money--yes."
+
+Mrs. Cripps wished to know if Americans were a religious people, as a
+rule. Religion, true spiritual religion was on the wane in England.
+
+I gathered that she and her husband were doing their best to keep it up
+to the standard. I had read, in books by English writers, of the British
+middle-class Pharisee. I judged the Crippses to be Pharisees.
+
+Hephzy's opinion was like mine.
+
+"If ever there was a sanctimonious hypocrite it's that Mrs. Cripps," she
+declared. "And her husband ain't any better. They remind me of Deacon
+Hardy and his wife back home. He always passed the plate in church and
+she was head of the sewin' circle, but when it came to lettin' go of
+an extry cent for the minister's salary they had glue on their fingers.
+Father used to say that the Deacon passed the plate himself so nobody
+could see how little he put in it. They were the ones that always
+brought a stick of salt herrin' to the donation parties."
+
+We didn't like the Crippses, but we did like "Ash Clump." We had almost
+decided to take it when our plans were quashed by the member of our
+party on whose account we had planned solely. Miss Morley flatly refused
+to go to Leatherhead.
+
+"Don't ask ME why," said Hephzy, to whom the refusal had been made. "I
+don't know. All I know is that the very name 'Leatherhead' turned her
+whiter than she has been for a week. She just put that little foot of
+hers down and said no. I said 'Why not?' and she said 'Never mind.' So I
+guess we sha'n't be Leatherheaded--in that way--this summer."
+
+I was angry and impatient, but when I tried to reason with the young
+lady I met a crushing refusal and a decided snub.
+
+"I do not care," said Little Frank, calmly and coldly, "to explain my
+reasons. I have them, and that is sufficient. I shall not go to--that
+town or that place."
+
+"But why?" I begged, restraining my desire to shake her.
+
+"I have my reasons. You may go there, if you wish. That is your right.
+But I shall not. And before you go I shall insist upon a settlement of
+my claim."
+
+The "claim" could neither be settled nor discussed; the doctor's warning
+was no less insistent although his patient was steadily improving. I
+faced the alternative of my compliance or her nervous prostration and I
+chose the former. My desire to shake her remained.
+
+So "Ash Clump" was given up. Hephzy and I speculated much concerning
+Little Frank's aversion to Leatherhead.
+
+"It must be," said Hephzy, "that she knows somebody there, or somethin'
+like that. That's likely, I suppose. You know we don't know much about
+her or what she's done since her father died, Hosy. I've tried to ask
+her but she won't tell. I wish we did know."
+
+"I don't," I snarled. "I wish to heaven we had never known her at all."
+
+Hephzy sighed. "It IS awful hard for you," she said. "And yet, if we had
+come to know her in another way you--we might have been glad. I--I think
+she could be as sweet as she is pretty to folks she didn't consider
+thieves--and Americans. She does hate Americans. That's her precious
+pa's doin's, I suppose likely."
+
+The next afternoon we saw the advertisement in the Standard. George,
+the waiter, brought two of the London dailies to our room each day. The
+advertisement read as follows:
+
+
+"To Let for the Summer Months--Furnished. A Rectory in Mayberry, Sussex.
+Ten rooms, servants' quarters, vegetable gardens, small fruit, tennis
+court, etc., etc. Water and gas laid on. Golf near by. Terms low.
+Rector--Mayberry, Sussex."
+
+
+"I answered it, Hosy," said Hephzy.
+
+"You did!"
+
+"Yes. It sounded so nice I couldn't help it. It would be lovely to live
+in a rectory, wouldn't it."
+
+"Lovely--and expensive," I answered. "I'm afraid a rectory with tennis
+courts and servants' quarters and all the rest of it will prove too
+grand for a pair of Bayporters like you and me. However, your answering
+the ad does no harm; it doesn't commit us to anything."
+
+But when the answer to the answer came it was even more appealing than
+the advertisement itself. And the terms, although a trifle higher
+than we had planned to pay, were not entirely beyond our means. The
+rector--his name was Cole--urged us to visit Mayberry and see the place
+for ourselves. We were to take the train for Haddington on Hill where
+the trap would meet us. Mayberry was two miles from Haddington on Hill,
+it appeared.
+
+We decided to go, but before writing of our intention, Hephzy consulted
+the most particular member of our party.
+
+"It's no use doing anything until we ask her," she said. "She may be as
+down on Mayberry as she was on Leatherhead."
+
+But she was not. She had no objections to Mayberry. So, after writing
+and making the necessary arrangements, we took the train one bright,
+sunny morning, and after a ride of an hour or more, alighted at
+Haddington on Hill.
+
+Haddington on Hill was not on a hill at all, unless a knoll in the
+middle of a wide flat meadow be called that. There were no houses near
+the railway station, either rectories or any other sort. We were the
+only passengers to leave the train there.
+
+The trap, however, was waiting. The horse which drew it was a black,
+plump little animal, and the driver was a neat English lad who touched
+his hat and assisted Hephzy to the back seat of the vehicle. I climbed
+up beside her.
+
+The road wound over the knoll and away across the meadow. On either side
+were farm lands, fields of young grain, or pastures with flocks of sheep
+grazing contentedly. In the distance, in every direction, one caught
+glimpses of little villages with gray church towers rising amid the
+foliage. Each field and pasture was bordered with a hedge instead of
+a fence, and over all hung the soft, light blue haze which is so
+characteristic of good weather in England.
+
+Birds which we took to be crows, but which we learned afterward were
+rooks, whirled and circled. As we turned a corner a smaller bird rose
+from the grass beside the road and soared upward, singing with all its
+little might until it was a fluttering speck against the sky. Hephzy
+watched it, her eyes shining.
+
+"I believe," she cried, excitedly, "I do believe that is a skylark. Do
+you suppose it is?"
+
+"A lark, yes, lady," said our driver.
+
+"A lark, a real skylark! Just think of it, Hosy. I've heard a real lark.
+Well, Hephzibah Cahoon, you may never get into a book, but you're livin'
+among book things every day of your life. 'And singin' ever soars and
+soarin' ever singest.' I'd sing, too, if I knew how. You needn't be
+frightened--I sha'n't try."
+
+The meadows ended at the foot of another hill, a real one this time.
+At our left, crowning the hill, a big house, a mansion with towers and
+turrets, rose above the trees. Hephzy whispered to me.
+
+"You don't suppose THAT is the rectory, do you, Hosy?" she asked, in an
+awestricken tone.
+
+"If it is we may as well go back to London," I answered. "But it
+isn't. Nothing lower in churchly rank than a bishop could keep up that
+establishment."
+
+The driver settled our doubts for us.
+
+"The Manor House, sir," he said, pointing with his whip. "The estate
+begins here, sir."
+
+The "estate" was bordered by a high iron fence, stretching as far as
+we could see. Beside that fence we rode for some distance. Then another
+turn in the road and we entered the street of a little village, a
+village of picturesque little houses, brick or stone always--not a frame
+house among them. Many of the roofs were thatched. Flowers and climbing
+vines and little gardens everywhere. The village looked as if it had
+been there, just as it was, for centuries.
+
+"This is Mayberry, sir," said our driver. "That is the rectory, next the
+church."
+
+We could see the church tower and the roof, but the rectory was not yet
+visible to our eyes. We turned in between two of the houses, larger and
+more pretentious than the rest. The driver alighted and opened a big
+wooden gate. Before us was a driveway, shaded by great elms and bordered
+by rose hedges. At the end of the driveway was an old-fashioned,
+comfortable looking, brick house. Vines hid the most of the bricks.
+Flower beds covered its foundations. A gray-haired old gentleman stood
+in the doorway.
+
+This was the rectory we had come to see and the gray-haired gentleman
+was the Reverend Mr. Cole, the rector.
+
+"My soul!" whispered Hephzy, looking aghast at the spacious grounds, "we
+can never hire THIS. This is too expensive and grand for us, Hosy. Look
+at the grass to cut and the flowers to attend to, and the house to run.
+No wonder the servants have 'quarters.' My soul and body! I thought a
+rector was a kind of minister, and a rectory was a sort of parsonage,
+but I guess I'm off my course, as Father used to say. Either that or
+ministers' wages are higher than they are in Bayport. No, this place
+isn't for you and me, Hosy."
+
+But it was. Before we left that rectory in the afternoon I had agreed
+to lease it until the middle of September, servants--there were five
+of them, groom and gardener included--horse and trap, tennis court,
+vegetable garden, fruit, flowers and all. It developed that the terms,
+which I had considered rather too high for my purse, included the
+servants' wages, vegetables from the garden, strawberries and other
+"small fruit"--everything. Even food for the horse was included in that
+all-embracing rent.
+
+As Hephzy said, everything considered, the rent of Mayberry Rectory was
+lower than that of a fair-sized summer cottage at Bayport.
+
+The Reverend Mr. Cole was a delightful gentleman. His wife was equally
+kind and agreeable. I think they were, at first, rather unpleasantly
+surprised to find that their prospective tenants were from the "States";
+but Hephzy and I managed to behave as unlike savages as we could, and
+the Cole manner grew less and less reserved. Mr. Cole and his wife were
+planning to spend a long vacation in Switzerland and his "living," or
+parish, was to be left in charge of his two curates. There was a son at
+Oxford who was to join them on their vacation.
+
+Mr. Cole and I walked about the grounds and visited the church, the
+yard of which, with its weather-beaten gravestones and fine old trees,
+adjoined the rectory on the western side, behind the tall hedge.
+
+The church was built of stone, of course, and a portion of it was
+older than the Norman conquest. Before the altar steps were two ancient
+effigies of knights in armor, with crossed gauntlets and their feet
+supported by crouching lions. These old fellows were scratched and
+scarred and initialed. Upon one noble nose were the letters "A. H. N.
+1694." I decided that vandalism was not a modern innovation.
+
+While the rector and I were inspecting the church, Mrs. Cole and Hephzy
+were making a tour of the house. They met us at the door. Mrs. Cole's
+eyes were twinkling; I judged that she had found Hephzy amusing. If this
+was true it had not warped her judgment, however, for, a moment later
+when she and I were alone, she said:
+
+"Your cousin, Miss Cahoon, is a good housekeeper, I imagine."
+
+"She is all of that," I said, decidedly.
+
+"Yes, she was very particular concerning the kitchen and scullery and
+the maids' rooms. Are all American housekeepers as particular?"
+
+"Not all. Miss Cahoon is unique in many ways; but she is a remarkable
+woman in all."
+
+"Yes. I am sure of it. And she has such a typical American accent,
+hasn't she."
+
+We were to take possession on the following Monday. We lunched at the
+"Red Cow," the village inn, where the meal was served in the parlor and
+the landlord's daughter waited upon us. The plump black horse drew us to
+the railway station, and we took the train for London.
+
+We have learned, by this time, that second, or even third-class travel
+was quite good enough for short journeys and that very few English
+people paid for first-class compartments. We were fortunate enough to
+have a second-class compartment to ourselves this time, and, when we
+were seated, Hephzy asked a question.
+
+"Did you think to speak about the golf, Hosy?" she said. "You will want
+to play some, won't you?"
+
+"Yes," said I. "I did ask about it. It seems that the golf course is a
+private one, on the big estate we passed on the way from the station.
+Permission is always given the rectory tenants."
+
+"Oh! my gracious, isn't that grand! That estate isn't in Mayberry. The
+Mayberry bounds--that's what Mrs. Cole called them--and just this
+side. The estate is in the village of--of Burgleston Bogs. Burgleston
+Bogs--it's a funny name. Seem's if I'd heard it before."
+
+"You have," said I, in surprise. "Burgleston Bogs is where that
+Heathcroft chap whom we met on the steamer visits occasionally. His aunt
+has a big place there. By George! you don't suppose that estate belongs
+to his aunt, do you?"
+
+Hephzy gasped. "I wouldn't wonder," she cried. "I wouldn't wonder if it
+did. And his aunt was Lady Somebody, wasn't she. Maybe you'll meet him
+there. Goodness sakes! just think of your playin' golf with a Lady's
+nephew."
+
+"I doubt if we need to think of it," I observed. "Mr. Carleton
+Heathcroft on board ship may be friendly with American plebeians, but on
+shore, and when visiting his aunt, he may be quite different. I fancy he
+and I will not play many holes together."
+
+Hephzy laughed. "You 'fancy,'" she repeated. "You'll be sayin' 'My word'
+next. My! Hosy, you ARE gettin' English."
+
+"Indeed I'm not!" I declared, with emphasis. "My experience with an
+English relative is sufficient of itself to prevent that. Miss Frances
+Morley and I are compatriots for the summer only."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+In Which We Make the Acquaintance of Mayberry and a Portion of
+Burgleston Bogs
+
+
+We migrated to Mayberry the following Monday, as we had agreed to do.
+Miss Morley went with us, of course. I secured a first-class apartment
+for our party and the journey was a comfortable and quiet one. Our
+invalid was too weak to talk a great deal even if she had wished, which
+she apparently did not. Johnson, the groom, met us at Haddington on Hill
+and we drove to the rectory. There Miss Morley, very tired and worn out,
+was escorted to her room by Hephzy and Charlotte, the housemaid. She was
+perfectly willing to remain in that room, in fact she did not leave it
+for several days.
+
+Meanwhile Hephzy and I were doing our best to become acquainted with our
+new and novel mode of life. Hephzy took charge of the household and was,
+in a way, quite in her element; in another way she was distinctly out of
+it.
+
+"I did think I was gettin' used to bein' waited on, Hosy," she confided,
+"but it looks as if I'll have to begin all over again. Managin' one
+hired girl like Susanna was a job and I tell you I thought managin'
+three, same as we've got here, would be a staggerer. But it isn't.
+Somehow the kind of help over here don't seem to need managin'. They
+manage me more than I do them. There's Mrs. Wigham, the cook. Mrs. Cole
+told me she was a 'superior' person and I guess she is--at any rate,
+she's superior to me in some things. She knows what a 'gooseberry fool'
+is and I'm sure I don't. I felt like another kind of fool when she told
+me she was goin' to make one, as a 'sweet,' for dinner to-night. As nigh
+as I can make out it's a sort of gooseberry pie, but _I_ should never
+have called a gooseberry pie a 'sweet'; a 'sour' would have been better,
+accordin' to my reckonin'. However, all desserts over here are 'sweets'
+and fruit is dessert. Then there's Charlotte, the housemaid, and Baker,
+the 'between-maid'--between upstairs and down, I suppose that means--and
+Grimmer, the gardener, and Johnson, the boy that takes care of the
+horse. Each one of 'em seems to know exactly what their own job is and
+just as exactly where it leaves off and t'other's job begins. I never
+saw such obligin' but independent folks in my life. As for my own job,
+that seems to be settin' still with my hands folded. Well, it's a brand
+new one and it's goin' to take me one spell to get used to it."
+
+It seemed likely to be a "spell" before I became accustomed to my own
+"job," that of being a country gentleman with nothing to do but play the
+part. When I went out to walk about the rectory garden, Grimmer touched
+his hat. When, however, I ventured to pick a few flowers in that garden,
+his expression of shocked disapproval was so marked that I felt I must
+have made a dreadful mistake. I had, of course. Grimmer was in charge of
+those flowers and if I wished any picked I was expected to tell him to
+pick them. Picking them myself was equivalent to admitting that I was
+not accustomed to having a gardener in my employ, in other words that
+I was not a real gentleman at all. I might wait an hour for Johnson to
+return from some errand or other and harness the horse; but I must on
+no account save time by harnessing the animal myself. That sort of labor
+was not done by the "gentry." I should have lost caste with the servants
+a dozen times during my first few days in the rectory were it not for
+one saving grace; I was an American, and almost any peculiar thing was
+expected of an American.
+
+When I strolled along the village street the male villagers, especially
+the older ones, touched their hats to me. The old women bowed or
+courtesied. Also they invariably paused, when I had passed, to stare
+after me. The group at the blacksmith shop--where the stone coping of
+the low wall was worn in hollows by the generations of idlers who had
+sat upon it, just as their descendants were sitting upon it
+now--turned, after I had passed, to stare. There would be a pause in the
+conversation, then an outburst of talk and laughter. They were talking
+about the "foreigner" of course, and laughing at him. At the
+tailor's, where I sent my clothes to be pressed, the tailor himself, a
+gray-haired, round-shouldered antique, ventured an opinion concerning
+those clothes. "That coat was not made in England, sir," he said. "We
+don't make 'em that way 'ere, sir. That's a bit foreign, that coat,
+sir."
+
+Yes, I was a foreigner. It was hard to realize. In a way everything was
+so homelike; the people looked like people I had known at home, their
+faces were New England faces quite as much as they were old England.
+But their clothes were just a little different, and their ways were
+different, and a dry-goods store was a "draper's shop," and a drug-store
+was a "chemist's," and candies were "sweeties" and a public school was a
+"board school" and a boarding-school was a "public school." And I might
+be polite and pleasant to these people--persons out of my "class"--but I
+must not be too cordial, for if I did, in the eyes of these very people,
+I lost caste and they would despise me.
+
+Yes, I was a foreigner; it was a queer feeling.
+
+Coming from America and particularly from democratic Bayport, where
+everyone is as good as anyone else provided he behaves himself, the
+class distinction in Mayberry was strange at first. I do not mean that
+there was not independence there; there was, among the poorest as well
+as the richer element. Every male Mayberryite voted as he thought, I am
+sure; and was self-respecting and independent. He would have resented
+any infringement of his rights just as Englishmen have resented such
+infringements and fought against them since history began. But what I am
+trying to make plain is that political equality and social equality were
+by no means synonymous. A man was a man for 'a' that, but when he was
+a gentleman he was 'a' that' and more. And when he was possessed of
+a title he was revered because of that title, or the title itself was
+revered. The hatter in London where I purchased a new "bowler," had
+a row of shelves upon which were boxes containing, so I was told, the
+spare titles of eminent customers. And those hat-boxes were lettered
+like this: "The Right Hon. Col. Wainwright, V.C.," "His Grace the Duke
+of Leicester," "Sir George Tupman, K.C.B.," etc., etc. It was my first
+impression that the hatter was responsible for thus proclaiming his
+customers' titles, but one day I saw Richard, convoyed by Henry,
+reverently bearing a suitcase into Bancroft's Hotel. And that suitcase
+bore upon its side the inscription, in very large letters, "Lord Eustace
+Stairs." Then I realized that Lord Eustace, like the owners of the
+hat-boxes, recognizing the value of a title, advertised it accordingly.
+
+I laughed when I saw the suitcase and the hat-boxes. When I told Hephzy
+about the latter she laughed, too.
+
+"That's funny, isn't it," she said. "Suppose the folks that have their
+names on the mugs in the barber shop back home had 'em lettered 'Cap'n
+Elkanah Crowell,' 'Judge the Hon. Ezra Salters,' 'The Grand Exalted
+Sachem Order of Red Men George Kendrick.' How everybody would laugh,
+wouldn't they. Why they'd laugh Cap'n Elkanah and Ezra and Kendrick out
+of town."
+
+So they would have done--in Bayport--but not in Mayberry or London.
+Titles and rank and class in England are established and accepted
+institutions, and are not laughed at, for where institutions of that
+kind are laughed at they soon cease to be. Hephzy summed it up pretty
+well when she said:
+
+"After all, it all depends on what you've been brought up to, doesn't
+it, Hosy. Your coat don't look funny to you because you've always worn
+that kind of coat, but that tailor man thought 'twas funny because he
+never saw one made like it. And a lord takin' his lordship seriously
+seems funny to us, but it doesn't seem so to him or to the tailor.
+They've been brought up to it, same as you have to the coat."
+
+On one point she and I had agreed before coming to Mayberry, that was
+that we must not expect calls from the neighbors or social intercourse
+with the people of Mayberry.
+
+"They don't know anything about us," said I, "except that we are
+Americans, and that may or may not be a recommendation, according to the
+kind of Americans they have previously met. The Englishman, so all the
+books tell us, is reserved and distant at first. He requires a long
+acquaintance before admitting strangers to his home life and we shall
+probably have no opportunity to make that acquaintance. If we were to
+stay in Mayberry a year, and behaved ourselves, we might in time be
+accepted as desirable, but not during the first summer. So if they leave
+us to ourselves we must make the best of it."
+
+Hephzy agreed thoroughly. "You're right," she said. "And, after all,
+it's just what would happen anywhere. You remember when that Portygee
+family came to Bayport and lived in the Solon Blodgett house. Nobody
+would have anything to do with 'em for a long time because they were
+foreigners, but they turned out to be real nice folks after all. We're
+foreigners here and you can't blame the Mayberry people for not takin'
+chances; it looks as if nobody in it ever had taken a chance, as if it
+had been just the way it is since Noah came out of the Ark. I never felt
+so new and shiny in my life as I do around this old rectory and this old
+town."
+
+Which was all perfectly true and yet the fact remains that, "new and
+shiny" as we were, the Mayberry people--those of our "class"--began to
+call upon us almost immediately, to invite us to their homes, to show us
+little kindnesses, and to be whole-souled and hospitable and friendly as
+if we had known them and they us for years. It was one of the greatest
+surprises, and remains one of the most pleasant recollections, of my
+brief career as a resident in England, the kindly cordiality of these
+neighbors in Mayberry.
+
+The first caller was Dr. Bayliss, who occupied "Jasmine Gables," the
+pretty house next door. He dropped in one morning, introduced himself,
+shook hands and chatted for an hour. That afternoon his wife called upon
+Hephzy. The next day I played a round of golf upon the private course
+on the Manor House grounds, the Burgleston Bogs grounds--with the doctor
+and his son, young Herbert Bayliss, just through Cambridge and the
+medical college at London. Young Bayliss was a pleasant, good-looking
+young chap and I liked him as I did his father. He was at present
+acting as his father's assistant in caring for the former's practice, a
+practice which embraced three or four villages and a ten-mile stretch of
+country.
+
+Naturally I was interested in the Manor estate and its owner. The
+grounds were beautiful, three square miles in extent and cared for, so
+Bayliss, Senior, told me, by some hundred and fifty men, seventy of
+whom were gardeners. Of the Manor House itself I caught a glimpse,
+gray-turreted and huge, set at the end of lawns and flower beds, with
+fountains playing and statues gleaming white amid the foliage. I asked
+some questions concerning its owner. Yes, she was Lady Kent Carey and
+she had a nephew named Heathcroft. So there was a chance, after all,
+that I might again meet my ship acquaintance who abhorred "griddle
+cakes." I imagined he would be somewhat surprised at that meeting. It
+was an odd coincidence.
+
+As for the game of golf, my part of it, the least said the better.
+Doctor Bayliss, who, it developed, was an enthusiast at the game, was
+kind enough to tell me I had a "topping" drive. I thanked him, but there
+was altogether too much "topping" connected with my play that forenoon
+to make my thanks enthusiastic. I determined to practice assiduously
+before attempting another match. Somehow I felt responsible for the
+golfing honor of my country.
+
+Other callers came to the rectory. The two curates, their names were
+Judson and Worcester, visited us; young men, both of them, and good
+fellows, Worcester particularly. Although they wore clerical garb
+they were not in the least "preachy." Hephzy, although she liked them,
+expressed surprise.
+
+"They didn't act a bit like ministers," she said. "They didn't ask us
+to come to meetin' nor hint at prayin' with the family or anything, yet
+they looked for all the while like two Methodist parsons, young ones. A
+curate is a kind of new-hatched rector, isn't he?"
+
+"Not exactly," I answered. "He is only partially hatched. But, whatever
+you do, don't tell them they look like Methodists; they wouldn't
+consider it a compliment."
+
+Hephzy was a Methodist herself and she resented the slur. "Well, I guess
+a Methodist is as good as an Episcopalian," she declared. "And they
+don't ACT like Methodists. Why, one of 'em smoked a pipe. Just imagine
+Mr. Partridge smokin' a pipe!"
+
+Mr. Judson and I played eighteen holes of golf together. He played a
+little worse than I did and I felt better. The honor of Bayport's golf
+had been partially vindicated.
+
+While all this was going on our patient remained, for the greater part
+of the time, in her room. She was improving steadily. Doctor Bayliss,
+whom I had asked to attend her, declared, as his London associates had
+done, that all she needed was rest, quiet and the good air and food
+which she was certain to get in Mayberry. He, too, like the physician at
+Bancroft's, seemed impressed by her appearance and manner. And he also
+asked similar embarrassing questions.
+
+"Delightful young lady, Miss Morley," he observed. "One of our English
+girls, Knowles. She informs me that she IS English."
+
+"Partly English," I could not help saying. "Her mother was an American."
+
+"Oh, indeed! You know she didn't tell me that, now did she."
+
+"Perhaps not."
+
+"No, by Jove, she didn't. But she has lived all her life in England?"
+
+"Yes--in England and France."
+
+"Your niece, I think you said."
+
+I had said it, unfortunately, and it could not be unsaid now without
+many explanations. So I nodded.
+
+"She doesn't--er--behave like an American. She hasn't the American
+manner, I mean to say. Now Miss Cahoon has--er--she has--"
+
+"Miss Cahoon's manner is American. So is mine; we ARE Americans, you
+see."
+
+"Yes, yes, of course," hastily. "When are you and I to have the nine
+holes you promised, Knowles?"
+
+One fine afternoon the invalid came downstairs. The "between-maid" had
+arranged chairs and the table on the lawn. We were to have tea there; we
+had tea every day, of course--were getting quite accustomed to it.
+
+Frances--I may as well begin calling her that--looked in better health
+then than at any time since our meeting. She was becomingly, although
+simply gowned, and there was a dash of color in her cheeks. Hephzibah
+escorted her to the tea table. I rose to meet them.
+
+"Frank--Frances, I mean--is goin' to join us to-day," said Hephzy.
+"She's beginnin' to look real well again, isn't she."
+
+I said she was. Frances nodded to me and took one of the chairs, the
+most comfortable one. She appeared perfectly self-possessed, which I was
+sure I did not. I was embarrassed, of course. Each time I met the
+girl the impossible situation in which she had placed us became more
+impossible, to my mind. And the question, "What on earth shall we do
+with her?" more insistent.
+
+Hephzy poured the tea. Frances, cup in hand, looked about her.
+
+"This is rather a nice place, after all," she observed, "isn't it."
+
+"It's a real lovely place," declared Hephzy with enthusiasm.
+
+The young lady cast another appraising glance at our surroundings.
+
+"Yes," she repeated, "it's a jolly old house and the grounds are not bad
+at all."
+
+Her tone nettled me. Everything considered I thought she might have
+shown a little more enthusiasm.
+
+"I infer that you expected something much worse," I observed.
+
+"Oh, of course I didn't know what to expect. How should I? I had no hand
+in selecting it, you know."
+
+"She's hardly seen it," put in Hephzy. "She was too sick when she came
+to notice much, I guess, and this is the first time she has been out
+doors."
+
+"I am glad you approve," I observed, drily.
+
+My sarcasm was wasted. Miss Morley said again that she did approve, of
+what she had seen, and added that we seemed to have chosen very well.
+
+"I don't suppose," said Hephzy, complacently, "that there are many much
+prettier places in England than this one."
+
+"Oh, indeed there are. But all England is beautiful, of course."
+
+I thought of Mrs. Briggs' lodging-house, but I did not refer to it. Our
+guest--or my "niece"--or our ward--it was hard to classify her--changed
+the subject.
+
+"Have you met any of the people about here?" she asked.
+
+Hephzy burst into enthusiastic praise of the Baylisses and the curates
+and the Coles.
+
+"They're all just as nice as they can be," she declared. "I never met
+nicer folks, at home or anywhere."
+
+Frances nodded. "All English people are nice," she said.
+
+Again I thought of Mrs. Briggs and again I kept my thoughts to myself.
+Hephzy went on rhapsodizing. I paid little attention until I heard her
+speak my name.
+
+"And Hosy thinks so, too. Don't you, Hosy?" she said.
+
+I answered yes, on the chance. Frances regarded me oddly.
+
+"I thought--I understood that your name was Kent, Mr. Knowles," she
+said.
+
+"It is."
+
+"Then why does Miss Cahoon always--"
+
+Hephzy interrupted. "Oh, I always call him Hosy," she explained. "It's a
+kind of pet name of mine. It's short for Hosea. His whole name is Hosea
+Kent Knowles, but 'most everybody but me does call him Kent. I don't
+think he likes Hosea very well."
+
+Our companion looked very much as if she did not wonder at my dislike.
+Her eyes twinkled.
+
+"Hosea," she repeated. "That is an odd name. The original Hosea was a
+prophet, wasn't he? Are you a prophet, Mr. Knowles?"
+
+"Far from it," I answered, with decision. If I had been a prophet I
+should have been forewarned and, consequently, forearmed.
+
+She smiled and against my will I was forced to admit that her smile was
+attractive; she was prettier than ever when she smiled.
+
+"I remember now," she said; "all Americans have Scriptural names. I have
+read about them in books."
+
+"Hosy writes books," said Hephzy, proudly. "That's his profession; he's
+an author."
+
+"Oh, really, is he! How interesting!"
+
+"Yes, he is. He has written ever so many books; haven't you, Hosy."
+
+I didn't answer. My self and my "profession" were the last subjects I
+cared to discuss. The young lady's smile broadened.
+
+"And where do you write your books, Mr. Knowles?" she asked.
+"In--er--Bayport?"
+
+"Yes," I answered, shortly. "Hephzy, Miss Morley will have another cup
+of tea, I think."
+
+"Oh, no, thank you. But tell me about your books, Mr. Knowles. Are they
+stories of Bayport?"
+
+"No indeed!" Hephzy would do my talking for me, and I could not order
+her to be quiet. "No indeed!" she declared. "He writes about lords and
+ladies and counts and such. He hardly ever writes about everyday people
+like the ones in Bayport. You would like his books, Frances. You would
+enjoy readin' 'em, I know."
+
+"I am sure I should. They must be delightful. I do hope you brought some
+with you, Mr. Knowles."
+
+"He didn't, but I did. I'll lend you some, Frances. I'll lend you 'The
+Queen's Amulet.' That's a splendid story."
+
+"I am sure it must be. So you write about queens, too, Mr. Knowles. I
+thought Americans scorned royalty. And what is his queen's name, Miss
+Cahoon? Is it Scriptural?"
+
+"Oh, no indeed! Besides, all Americans' names aren't out of the Bible,
+any more than the names in England are. That man who wanted to let us
+his house in Copperhead--no, Leatherhead--funny I should forget THAT
+awful name--he was named Solomon--Solomon Cripps... Why, what is it?"
+
+Miss Morley's smile and the mischievous twinkle had vanished. She looked
+startled, and even frightened, it seemed to me.
+
+"What is it, Frances?" repeated Hephzy, anxiously.
+
+"Nothing--nothing. Solomon--what was it? Solomon Cripps. That is an odd
+name. And you met this Mr.--er--Cripps?"
+
+"Yes, we met him. He had a house he wanted to let us, and I guess we'd
+have taken it, too, only you seemed to hate the name of Leatherhead so.
+Don't you remember you did? I don't blame you. Of the things to call a
+pretty town that's about the worst."
+
+"Yes, it is rather frightful. But this, Mr.--er--Cripps; was he as bad
+as his name? Did you talk with him?"
+
+"Only about the house. Hosy and I didn't like him well enough to
+talk about anything else, except religion. He and his wife gave us
+to understand they were awful pious. I'm afraid we wouldn't have been
+churchy enough to suit them, anyway. Hosy, here, doesn't go to meetin'
+as often as he ought to."
+
+"I am glad of it." The young lady's tone was emphatic and she looked as
+if she meant it. We were surprised.
+
+"You're glad of it!" repeated Hephzy, in amazement. "Why?"
+
+"Because I hate persons who go to church all the time and boast of it,
+who do all sorts of mean things, but preach, preach, preach continually.
+They are hypocritical and false and cruel. I HATE them."
+
+She looked now as she had in the room at Mrs. Briggs's when I had
+questioned her concerning her father. I could not imagine the reason for
+this sudden squall from a clear sky. Hephzy drew a long breath.
+
+"Well," she said, after a moment, "then Hosy and you ought to get along
+first-rate together. He's down on hypocrites and make-believe piety
+as bad as you are. The only time he and Mr. Partridge, our minister
+in Bayport, ever quarreled--'twasn't a real quarrel, but more of a
+disagreement--was over what sort of a place Heaven was. Mr. Partridge
+was certain sure that nobody but church members would be there, and Hosy
+said if some of the church members in Bayport were sure of a ticket, the
+other place had strong recommendations. 'Twas an awful thing to say, and
+I was almost as shocked as the minister was; that is I should have been
+if I hadn't known he didn't mean it."
+
+Miss Morley regarded me with a new interest, or at least I thought she
+did.
+
+"Did you mean it?" she asked.
+
+I smiled. "Yes," I answered.
+
+"Now, Hosy," cried Hephzy. "What a way that is to talk! What do you know
+about the hereafter?"
+
+"Not much, but," remembering the old story, "I know Bayport. Humph!
+speaking of ministers, here is one now."
+
+Judson, the curate, was approaching across the lawn. Hephzy hastily
+removed the lid of the teapot. "Yes," she said, with a sigh of relief,
+"there's enough tea left, though you mustn't have any more, Hosy. Mr.
+Judson always takes three cups."
+
+Judson was introduced and, the "between-maid" having brought another
+chair, he joined our party. He accepted the first of the three cups and
+observed.
+
+"I hope I haven't interrupted an important conversation. You appeared to
+be talking very earnestly."
+
+I should have answered, but Hephzy's look of horrified expostulation
+warned me to be silent. Frances, although she must have seen the look,
+answered instead.
+
+"We were discussing Heaven," she said, calmly. "Mr. Knowles doesn't
+approve of it."
+
+Hephzy bounced on her chair. "Why!" she cried; "why, what a--why, WHAT
+will Mr. Judson think! Now, Frances, you know--"
+
+"That was what you said, Mr. Knowles, wasn't it. You said if Paradise
+was exclusively for church members you preferred--well, another
+locality. That was what I understood you to say."
+
+Mr. Judson looked at me. He was a very good and very orthodox and a very
+young man and his feelings showed in his face.
+
+"I--I can scarcely think Mr. Knowles said that, Miss Morley," he
+protested. "You must have misunderstood him."
+
+"Oh, but I didn't misunderstand. That was what he said."
+
+Again Mr. Judson looked at me. It seemed time for me to say something.
+
+"What I said, or meant to say, was that I doubted if the future life,
+the--er--pleasant part of it, was confined exclusively to--er--professed
+church members," I explained.
+
+The curate's ruffled feelings were evidently not soothed by this
+explanation.
+
+"But--but, Mr. Knowles," he stammered, "really, I--I am at a loss to
+understand your meaning. Surely you do not mean that--that--"
+
+"Of course he didn't mean that," put in Hephzy. "What he said was that
+some of the ones who talk the loudest and oftenest in prayer-meetin' at
+our Methodist church in Bayport weren't as good as they pretended to be.
+And that's so, too."
+
+Mr. Judson seemed relieved. "Oh," he exclaimed. "Oh, yes, I quite
+comprehend. Methodists--er--dissenters--that is quite different--quite."
+
+"Mr. Judson knows that no one except communicants in the Church of
+England are certain of happiness," observed Frances, very gravely.
+
+Our caller turned his attention to her. He was not a joker, but I think
+he was a trifle suspicious. The young lady met his gaze with one of
+serene simplicity and, although he reddened, he returned to the charge.
+
+"I should--I should scarcely go as far as that, Miss Morley," he
+said. "But I understand Mr. Knowles to refer to--er--church members;
+and--er--dissenters--Methodists and others--are not--are not--"
+
+"Well," broke in Hephzibah, with decision, "I'm a Methodist, myself, and
+_I_ don't expect to go to perdition."
+
+Judson's guns were spiked. He turned redder than ever and changed the
+subject to the weather.
+
+The remainder of the conversation was confined for the most part to
+Frances and the curate. They discussed the village and the people in it
+and the church and its activities. At length Judson mentioned golf.
+
+"Mr. Knowles and I are to have another round shortly, I trust," he said.
+"You owe me a revenge, you know, Mr. Knowles."
+
+"Oh," exclaimed the young lady, in apparent surprise, "does Mr. Knowles
+play golf?"
+
+"Not real golf," I observed.
+
+"Oh, but he does," protested Mr. Judson, "he does. Rather! He plays a
+very good game indeed. He beat me quite badly the other day."
+
+Which, according to my reckoning, was by no means a proof of
+extraordinary ability. Frances seemed amused, for some unexplained
+reason.
+
+"I should never have thought it," she observed.
+
+"Why not?" asked Judson.
+
+"Oh, I don't know. Golf is a game, and Mr. Knowles doesn't look as if he
+played games. I should have expected nothing so frivolous from him."
+
+"My golf is anything but frivolous," I said. "It's too seriously bad."
+
+"Do you golf, Miss Morley, may I ask?" inquired the curate.
+
+"I have occasionally, after a fashion. I am sure I should like to
+learn."
+
+"I shall be delighted to teach you. It would be a great pleasure,
+really."
+
+He looked as if it would be a pleasure. Frances smiled.
+
+"Thank you so much," she said. "You and I and Mr. Knowles will have a
+threesome."
+
+Judson's joy at her acceptance was tempered, it seemed to me.
+
+"Oh, of course," he said. "It will be a great pleasure to have your
+uncle with us. A great pleasure, of course."
+
+"My--uncle?"
+
+"Why, yes--Mr. Knowles, you know. By the way, Miss Morley--excuse
+my mentioning it, but I notice you always address your uncle as Mr.
+Knowles. That seems a bit curious, if you'll pardon my saying so. A bit
+distant and--er--formal to our English habit. Do all nieces and nephews
+in your country do that? Is it an American custom?"
+
+Hephzy and I looked at each other and my "niece" looked at both of us. I
+could feel the blood tingling in my cheeks and forehead.
+
+"Is it an American custom?" repeated Mr. Judson.
+
+"I don't know," with chilling deliberation. "I am NOT an American."
+
+The curate said "Indeed!" and had the astonishing good sense not to say
+any more. Shortly afterward he said good-by.
+
+"But I shall look forward to our threesome, Miss Morley," he declared.
+"I shall count upon it in the near future."
+
+After his departure there was a most embarrassing interval of silence.
+Hephzy spoke first.
+
+"Don't you think you had better go in now, Frances," she said. "Seems to
+me you had. It's the first time you've been out at all, you know."
+
+The young lady rose. "I am going," she said. "I am going, if you and--my
+uncle--will excuse me."
+
+That evening, after dinner, Hephzy joined me in the drawing-room. It was
+a beautiful summer evening, but every shade was drawn and every shutter
+tightly closed. We had, on our second evening in the rectory, suggested
+leaving them open, but the housemaid had shown such shocked surprise
+and disapproval that we had not pressed the point. By this time we had
+learned that "privacy" was another sacred and inviolable English custom.
+The rectory sat in its own ground, surrounded by high hedges; no
+one, without extraordinary pains, could spy upon its inmates, but,
+nevertheless, the privacy of those inmates must be guaranteed. So the
+shutters were closed and the shades drawn.
+
+"Well?" said I to Hephzy.
+
+"Well," said Hephzy, "it's better than I was afraid it was goin' to be.
+I explained that you told the folks at Bancroft's she was your niece
+because 'twas the handiest thing to tell 'em, and you HAD to tell 'em
+somethin'. And down here in Mayberry the same way. She understood, I
+guess; at any rate she didn't make any great objection. I thought at the
+last that she was laughin', but I guess she wasn't. Only what she said
+sounded funny."
+
+"What did she say?"
+
+"Why, she wanted to know if she should call you 'Uncle Hosea.' She
+supposed it should be that--'Uncle Hosy' sounded a little irreverent."
+
+I did not answer. "Uncle Hosea!" a beautiful title, truly.
+
+"She acted so different to-day, didn't she," observed Hephzy. "It's
+because she's gettin' well, I suppose. She was real full of fun, wasn't
+she."
+
+"Confound her--yes," I snarled. "All the fun is on her side. Well, she
+should make the best of it while it lasts. When she learns the truth she
+may not find it so amusing."
+
+Hephzy sighed. "Yes," she said, slowly, "I'm afraid that's so, poor
+thing. When--when are you goin' to tell her?"
+
+"I don't know," I answered. "But pretty soon, that's certain."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+In Which I Break All Previous Resolutions and Make a New One
+
+
+That afternoon tea on the lawn was the beginning of the great change
+in our life at the rectory. Prior to that Hephzy and I had, golfly
+speaking, been playing it as a twosome. Now it became a threesome, with
+other players added at frequent intervals. At luncheon next day our
+invalid, a real invalid no longer, joined us at table in the pleasant
+dining-room, the broad window of which opened upon the formal garden
+with the sundial in the center. She was in good spirits, and, as Hephzy
+confided to me afterward, was "gettin' a real nice appetite." In gaining
+this appetite she appeared to have lost some of her dignity and chilling
+condescension; at all events, she treated her American relatives as if
+she considered them human beings. She addressed most of her conversation
+to Hephzy, always speaking of and to her as "Miss Cahoon." She still
+addressed me as "Mr. Knowles," and I was duly thankful; I had feared
+being hailed as "Uncle Hosy."
+
+After lunch Mr. Judson called again. He was passing, he explained, on
+his round of parish calls, and had dropped in casually. Mr. Worcester
+also came; his really was a casual stop, I think. He and his brother
+curate were very brotherly indeed, but I noticed an apparent reluctance
+on the part of each to leave before the other. They left together, but
+Mr. Judson again hinted at the promised golf game, and Mr. Worcester,
+having learned from Miss Morley that she played and sang, expressed
+great interest in music and begged permission to bring some "favorite
+songs," which he felt sure Miss Morley might like to run over.
+
+Miss Morley herself was impartially gracious and affable to both the
+clerical gentlemen; she was looking forward to the golf, she said, and
+the songs she was certain would be jolly. Hephzy and I had very little
+to say, and no one seemed particularly anxious to hear that little.
+
+The curates had scarcely disappeared down the driveway when Doctor
+Bayliss and his son strolled in from next door. Doctor Bayliss, Senior,
+was much pleased to find his patient up and about, and Herbert, the
+son, even more pleased to find her at all, I judge. Young Bayliss was
+evidently very favorably impressed with his new neighbor. He was a big,
+healthy, broad-shouldered fellow, a grown-up boy, whose laugh was a
+pleasure to hear, and who possessed the faculty, envied by me, the
+quahaug, of chatting entertainingly on all subjects from tennis and
+the new American dances to Lloyd-George and old-age pensions. Frances
+declared a strong aversion to the dances, principally because they were
+American, I suspected.
+
+Doctor Bayliss, the old gentleman, then turned to me.
+
+"What is the American opinion of the Liberal measures?" he asked.
+
+"I should say," I answered, "that, so far as they are understood in
+America, opinion concerning them is divided, much as it is here."
+
+"Really! But you haven't the Liberal and Conservative parties as we
+have, you know."
+
+"We have liberals and conservatives, however, although our political
+parties are not so named."
+
+"We call 'em Republicans and Democrats," explained Hephzy. "Hosy is a
+Republican," she added, proudly.
+
+"I am not certain what I am," I observed. "I have voted a split ticket
+of late."
+
+Young Bayliss asked a question.
+
+"Are you a--what is it--Republican, Miss Morley?" he inquired.
+
+Miss Morley's eyes dropped disdainfully.
+
+"I am neither," she said. "My father was a Conservative, of course."
+
+"Oh, I say! That's odd, isn't it. Your uncle here is--"
+
+"Uncle Hosea, you mean?" sweetly. "Oh, Uncle Hosea is an American. I am
+English."
+
+She did not add "Thank heaven," but she might as well. "Uncle Hosea"
+shuddered at the name. Young Bayliss grinned behind his blonde mustache.
+When he left, in company with his father, Hephzy invited him to "run in
+any time."
+
+"We're next-door neighbors," she said, "so we mustn't be formal."
+
+I was fairly certain that the invitation was superfluous. If I knew
+human nature at all I knew that Bayliss, Junior, did not intend to let
+formality stand in the way of frequent calls at the rectory.
+
+My intuition was correct. The following afternoon he called again.
+So did Mr. Judson. Both calls were casual, of course. So was Mr.
+Worcester's that evening. He came to bring the "favorite songs" and was
+much surprised to find Miss Morley in the drawing-room. He said so.
+
+Hephzy and I knew little of our relative's history. She had volunteered
+no particulars other than those given on the occasion of our first
+meeting, but we did know, because Mrs. Briggs had told us, that she had
+been a member of an opera troupe. This evening we heard her sing for the
+first time. She sang well; her voice was not a strong one, but it was
+clear and sweet and she knew how to use it. Worcester sang well also,
+and the little concert was very enjoyable.
+
+It was the first of many. Almost every evening after dinner Frances sat
+down at the old-fashioned piano, with the candle brackets at each side
+of the music rack, and sang. Occasionally we were her only auditors,
+but more often one or both of the curates or Doctor and Mrs. Bayliss or
+Bayliss, Junior, dropped in. We made other acquaintances--Mrs. Griggson,
+the widow in "reduced circumstances," whose husband had been killed in
+the Boer war, and who occupied the little cottage next to the draper's
+shop; Mr. and Mrs. Samson, of Burgleston Bogs, friends of the Baylisses,
+and others. They were pleasant, kindly, unaffected people and we enjoyed
+their society.
+
+Each day Frances gained in health and strength. The care-free,
+wholesome, out-of-door life at Mayberry seemed to suit her. She seemed
+to consider herself a member of the family now; at all events she
+did not speak of leaving nor hint at the prompt settlement of her
+preposterous "claim." Hephzy and I did not mention it, even to each
+other. Hephzy, I think, was quite satisfied with things as they were,
+and I, in spite of my threats and repeated declarations that the present
+state of affairs was ridiculous and could not last, put off telling
+"my niece" the truth. I, too, was growing more accustomed to the
+"threesome."
+
+The cloud was always there, hanging over our heads and threatening a
+storm at any moment, but I was learning to forget it. The situation
+had its pleasant side; it was not all bad. For instance, meals in the
+pleasant dining-room, with Hephzy at one end of the table, I at the
+other, and Frances between us, were more social and chatty than they had
+been. To have the young lady come down to breakfast, her hair prettily
+arranged, her cheeks rosy with health, and her eyes shining with youth
+and the joy of life, was almost a tonic. I found myself taking more
+pains with my morning toilet, choosing my tie with greater care and
+being more careful concerning the condition of my boots. I even began to
+dress for dinner, a concession to English custom which was odd enough
+in one of my easy-going habits and Bayport rearing. I imagine that
+the immaculate appearance of young Bayliss, when he dropped in for the
+"sing" in the drawing-room, was responsible for the resurrection of my
+dinner coat. He did look so disgustingly young and handsome and at ease.
+I was conscious of each one of my thirty-eight years whenever I looked
+at him.
+
+I was rejuvenating in other ways. It had been my custom at Bayport to
+retire to my study and my books each evening. Here, where callers
+were so frequent, I found it difficult to do this and, although the
+temptation was to sit quietly in a corner and let the others do the
+talking, I was not allowed to yield. The younger callers, particularly
+the masculine portion, would not have objected to my silence, I am
+sure, but "my niece" seemed to take mischievous pleasure in drawing the
+quahaug out of his shell. She had a disconcerting habit of asking me
+unexpected questions at times when my attention was wandering, and, if
+I happened to state a definite opinion, taking the opposite side with
+promptness. After a time I decided not to express opinions, but to agree
+with whatever was said as the simplest way of avoiding controversy and
+being left to myself.
+
+This procedure should, it seemed to me, have satisfied her, but
+apparently it did not. On one occasion, Judson and Herbert Bayliss being
+present, the conversation turned to the subject of American athletic
+sports. The curate and Bayliss took the ground, the prevailing thought
+in England apparently, that all American games were not games, but
+fights in which the true sporting spirit was sacrificed to the desire
+to win at any cost. I had said nothing, keeping silent for two reasons.
+First, that I had given my views on the subject before, and, second,
+because argument from me was, in that company, fruitless effort. The
+simplest way to end discussion of a disagreeable topic was to pay no
+attention to it.
+
+But I was not allowed to escape so easily. Bayliss asked me a question.
+
+"Isn't it true, Mr. Knowles," he asked, "that the American football
+player wears a sort of armor to prevent his being killed?"
+
+My thoughts had been drifting anywhere and everywhere. Just then they
+were centered about "my niece's" hands. She had very pretty hands and
+a most graceful way of using them. At the moment they were idly turning
+some sheets of music, but the way the slim fingers moved in and out
+between the pages was pretty and fascinating. Her foot, glimpsed beneath
+her skirt, was slender and graceful, too. She had an attractive trick of
+swinging it as she sat upon the piano stool.
+
+Recalled from these and other pleasing observations by Bayliss's mention
+of my name, I looked up.
+
+"I beg pardon?" said I.
+
+Bayliss repeated his question.
+
+"Oh, yes," said I, and looked down again at the foot.
+
+"So I have been told," said the questioner, triumphantly. "And without
+that--er--armor many of the players would be killed, would they not?"
+
+"What? Oh, yes; yes, of course."
+
+"And many are killed or badly injured as it is?"
+
+"Oh, yes."
+
+"How many during a season, may I ask?"
+
+"Eh? Oh--I don't know."
+
+"A hundred?"
+
+The foot was swinging more rapidly now. It was such a small foot. My own
+looked so enormous and clumsy and uncouth by comparison.
+
+"A--oh, thousands," said I, at random. If the number were large enough
+to satisfy him he might cease to worry me.
+
+"A beastly game," declared Judson, with conviction. "How can a civilized
+country countenance such brutality! Do you countenance it, Mr. Knowles?"
+
+"Yes--er--that is, no."
+
+"You agree, then, that it is brutal?"
+
+"Certainly, certainly." Would the fellow never stop?
+
+"Then--"
+
+"Nonsense!" It was Frances who spoke and her tone was emphatic and
+impatient. We all looked at her; her cheeks were flushed and she
+appeared highly indignant. "Nonsense!" she said again. "He doesn't agree
+to any such thing. I've heard him say that American football was not as
+brutal as our fox-hunting and that fewer people were killed or injured.
+We play polo and we ride in steeplechases and the papers are full of
+accidents. I don't believe Americans are more brutal or less civilized
+in their sports than we are, not in the least."
+
+Considering that she had at the beginning of the conversation apparently
+agreed with all that had been said, and, moreover, had often, in
+speaking to Hephzy and me, referred to the "States" as an uncivilized
+country, this declaration was astonishing. I was astonished for one.
+Hephzy clapped her hands.
+
+"Of course they aren't," she declared. "Hosy--Mr. Knowles--didn't mean
+that they were, either."
+
+Our callers looked at each other and Herbert Bayliss hastily changed the
+subject. After they had gone I ventured to thank my champion for coming
+to the rescue of my sporting countrymen. She flashed an indignant glance
+at me.
+
+"Why do you say such things?" she demanded. "You know they weren't
+true."
+
+"What was the use of saying anything else? They have read the accounts
+of football games which American penny-a-line correspondents send to the
+London papers and nothing I could say would change their convictions."
+
+"It doesn't make any difference. You should say what you think. To sit
+there and let them--Oh, it is ridiculous!"
+
+"My feelings were not hurt. Their ideas will broaden by and by, when
+they are as old as I am. They're young now."
+
+This charitable remark seemed to have the effect of making her more
+indignant than ever.
+
+"Nonsense!" she cried. "You speak as if you were an Old Testament
+patriarch."
+
+Hephzy put in a word.
+
+"Why, Frances," she said, "I thought you didn't like America."
+
+"I don't. Of course I don't. But it makes me lose patience to have him
+sit there and agree to everything those boys say. Why didn't he answer
+them as he should? If I were an American no one--NO one should rag me
+about my country without getting as good as they gave."
+
+I was amused. "What would you have me do?" I asked. "Rise and sing the
+'Star Spangled Banner'?"
+
+"I would have you speak your mind like a man. Not sit there like a--like
+a rabbit. And I wouldn't act and think like a Methusaleh until I was
+one."
+
+It was quite evident that "my niece" was a young person of whims. The
+next time the "States" were mentioned and I ventured to speak in their
+defence, she calmly espoused the other side and "ragged" as mercilessly
+as the rest. I found myself continually on the defensive, and this state
+of affairs had one good effect at least--that of waking me up.
+
+Toward Hephzy her manner was quite different. She now, especially when
+we three were alone, occasionally addressed her as "Auntie." And she
+would not permit "Auntie" to be made fun of. At the least hint of such a
+thing she snubbed the would-be humorist thoroughly. She and Hephzy
+were becoming really friendly. I felt certain she was beginning to like
+her--to discern the real woman beneath the odd exterior. But when I
+expressed this thought to Hephzy herself she shook her head doubtfully.
+
+"Sometimes I've almost thought so, Hosy," she said, "but only this
+mornin' when I said somethin' about her mother and how much she looked
+like her, she almost took my head off. And she's got her pa's picture
+right in the middle of her bureau. No, Hosy, she's nicer to us than she
+was at first because it's her nature to be nice. So long as she forgets
+who and what we are, or what her scamp of a father told her we were, she
+treats us like her own folks. But when she remembers we're receivers of
+stolen goods, livin' on money that belongs to her, then it's different.
+You can't blame her for that, I suppose. But--but how is it all goin' to
+end? _I_ don't know."
+
+I didn't know either.
+
+"I had hoped," I said, "that, living with us as she does, she might come
+to know and understand us--to learn that we couldn't be the sort she has
+believed us to be. Then it seems to me we might tell her and she would
+listen to reason."
+
+"I--I'm afraid we can't wait long. You see, there's another thing, Hosy.
+She needs clothes and--and lots of things. She realizes it. Yesterday
+she told me she must go up to London, shopping, pretty soon. She asked
+me to go with her. I put her off; said I was awful busy around the
+house just now, but she'll ask me again, and if I don't go she'll go by
+herself."
+
+"Humph! I don't see how she can do much shopping. She hasn't a penny, so
+far as I know."
+
+"You don't understand. She thinks she has got a good many pennies, or
+we've got 'em for her. She's just as liable to buy all creation and send
+us the bills."
+
+I whistled. "Well," I said, decidedly, "when that happens we must put
+our foot down. Neither you nor I are millionaires, Hephzy, and she must
+understand that regardless of consequences."
+
+"You mean you'll tell her--everything?"
+
+"I shall have to. Why do you look at me like that? Are we to use
+common-sense or aren't we? Are we in a position to adopt a young woman
+of expensive tastes--actually adopt her? And not only that, but give her
+carte blanche--let her buy whatever she pleases and charge it to us?"
+
+"I suppose not. But--"
+
+"But what?"
+
+"Well, I--I don't see how we can stop her buying whatever she pleases
+with what she thinks is her own money."
+
+"I do. We can tell her she has no money. I shall do it. My mind is made
+up."
+
+Hephzy said nothing, but her expression was one of doubt. I stalked off
+in a bad temper. Discussions of the kind always ended in just this way.
+However, I swore a solemn oath to keep my word this time. There were
+limits and they had been reached. Besides, as I had said, the situation
+was changed in one way; we no longer had an invalid to deal with. No, my
+mind was made up. True, this was at least the tenth time I had made it
+up, but this time I meant it.
+
+The test came two days later and was the result of a call on the
+Samsons. The Samsons lived at Burgleston Bogs, and we drove to their
+house in the trap behind "Pet," the plump black horse. Mrs. Samson
+seemed very glad to see us, urged us to remain for tea, and invited
+us to attend a tennis tournament on their lawn the following week. She
+asked if Miss Morley played tennis. Frances said she had played, but not
+recently. She intended to practice, however, and would be delighted to
+witness the tournament, although, of course, she could not take part in
+it.
+
+"Hosy--Mr. Knowles, I mean--plays tennis," observed Hephzy, seizing the
+opportunity, as usual, to speak a good word for me. "He used to play
+real well."
+
+"Really!" exclaimed Mrs. Samson, "how interesting. If we had only known.
+No doubt Mr. Knowles would have liked to enter. I'm so sorry."
+
+I hastened to protest. "My tennis is decidedly rusty," I said. "I
+shouldn't think of displaying it in public. In fact, I don't play at all
+now."
+
+On the way home Frances was rather quiet. The next morning she announced
+that she intended going to Wrayton that afternoon. "Johnson will drive
+me over," she said. "I shall be glad if Auntie will go with me."
+
+Wrayton was the county-seat, a good-sized town five miles from Mayberry.
+Hephzy declined the invitation. She had promised to "tea" with Mrs.
+Griggson that afternoon.
+
+"Then I must go alone," said Frances. "That is unless--er--Uncle Hosea
+cares to go."
+
+"Uncle Hosea" declined. The name of itself was sufficient to make him
+decline; besides Worcester and I were scheduled for golf.
+
+"I shall go alone then," said "my niece," with decision. "Johnson will
+look after me."
+
+But after luncheon, when I visited the stable to order Johnson to
+harness "Pet," I met with an unexpected difficulty. Johnson, it
+appeared, was ill, had been indisposed the day before and was now at
+home in bed. I hesitated. If this were Bayport I should have bade
+the gardener harness "Pet" or have harnessed him myself. But this was
+Mayberry, not Bayport.
+
+The gardener, deprived of his assistant's help--Johnson worked about the
+garden when not driving--was not in good humor. I decided not to ask
+him to harness, but to risk a fall in the estimation of the servants by
+doing it myself.
+
+The gardener watched me for a moment in shocked disapproval. Then he
+interfered.
+
+"If you please, Mr. Knowles, sir," he said, "I'll 'arness, but I can't
+drive, sir. I am netting the gooseberries. Perhaps you might get a man
+from the Inn stables, unless you or the young lady might wish to drive
+yourselves."
+
+I did not wish to drive, having the golf engagement; but when I walked
+to the Inn I found no driver available. So, rather than be disagreeable,
+I sent word to the curate that our match was postponed, and accepted the
+alternative.
+
+Frances, rather to my surprise, seemed more pleased than otherwise to
+find that I was to be her coachman. Instead of occupying the rear seat
+she climbed to that beside me.
+
+"Good-by, Auntie," she called to Hephzy, who was standing in
+the doorway. "Sorry you're not going. I'll take good care of Mr.
+Knowles--Uncle Hosea, I mean. I'll see that he behaves himself and,"
+with a glance at my, I fear, not too radiant visage, "doesn't break any
+of his venerable bones."
+
+The road, like all English roads which I traveled, was as firm and
+smooth as a table, the day was fine, the hedges were green and fragrant,
+the larks sang, and the flocks of sheep in the wayside pastures were
+picturesque as always. "Pet," who had led an easy life since we came to
+the rectory, was in high spirits and stepped along in lively fashion. My
+companion, too, was in good spirits and chatted and laughed as she had
+not done with me since I knew her.
+
+Altogether it was a delightful ride. I found myself emerging from my
+shell and chatting and joking quite unlike the elderly quahaug I was
+supposed to be. We passed a party of young fellows on a walking tour,
+knapsacked and knickerbockered, and the admiring glances they passed
+at my passenger were flattering. They envied me, that was plain. Well,
+under different circumstances, I could conceive myself an object of
+envy. A dozen years younger, with the heart of youth and the comeliness
+of youth, I might have thought myself lucky to be driving along such a
+road with such a vision by my side. And, the best of it was, the vision
+treated me as if I really were her own age. I squared my shoulders and
+as Hephzy would have said, "perked up" amazingly.
+
+We entered Wrayton and moved along the main street between the rows of
+ancient buildings, past the old stone church with its inevitable and
+always welcome gray, ivy-draped tower, to the quaint old square with the
+statue of William Pitt in its center. My companion, all at once, seemed
+to become aware of her surroundings.
+
+"Why!" she exclaimed, "we are here, aren't we? Fancy! I expected a
+longer drive."
+
+"So did I," I agreed. "We haven't hurried, either. Where has the time
+gone."
+
+"I don't know. We have been so busy talking that I have thought of
+nothing else. Really, I didn't know you could be so entertaining--Uncle
+Hosea."
+
+The detested title brought me to myself.
+
+"We are here," I said, shortly. "And now where shall we go? Have you any
+stopping place in particular?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"Yes," she said, "I want to stop now. Please pull up over there, in
+front of that shop with the cricket bats in the window."
+
+The shop was what we, in America, would have called a "sporting-goods
+store." I piloted "Pet" to the curb and pulled up.
+
+"I am going in," said Miss Morley. "Oh, don't trouble to help me. I can
+get down quite well."
+
+She was down, springing from the step as lightly as a dandelion fluff
+before I could scramble down on the other side.
+
+"I won't be long," she said, and went into the shop. I, not being
+invited, remained on the pavement. Two or three small boys appeared from
+somewhere and, scenting possible pennies, volunteered to hold the horse.
+I declined their services.
+
+Five minutes passed, then ten. My passenger was still in the shop. I
+could not imagine what she was doing there. If it had been a shop of a
+different kind, and in view of Hephzy's recent statement concerning the
+buying of clothes, I might have been suspicious. But no clothes were on
+sale at that shop and, besides, it never occurred to me that she would
+buy anything of importance without mentioning her intention to me
+beforehand. I had taken it for granted that she would mention the
+subject and, when she did, I intended to be firm. But as the
+minutes went by my suspicions grew. She must be buying something--or
+contemplating buying, at least. But she had said nothing to me
+concerning money; HAD she money of her own after all? It might be
+possible that she had a very little, and was making some trifling
+purchase.
+
+She reappeared in the doorway of the shop, followed by a very polite
+young man with a blonde mustache. The young man was bowing and smiling.
+
+"Yes, miss," he said, "I'll have them wrapped immediately. They shall be
+ready when you return, miss. Thank you, miss."
+
+Frances nodded acknowledgment of the thanks. Then she favored me with
+another nod and a most bewitching smile.
+
+"That's over," she announced, "and now I'm going to the draper's for a
+moment. It is near here, you say?"
+
+The young man bowed again.
+
+"Yes, miss, on the next corner, next the chemist's."
+
+She turned to me. "You may wait here, Mr. Knowles," she said. "I shall
+be back very soon."
+
+She hurried away. I looked after her, and then, with all sorts of
+forebodings surging in my brain, strode into that "sporting-goods
+store."
+
+The blond young man was at my elbow.
+
+"Yes, sir," he said, ingratiatingly.
+
+"Did--did that young lady make some purchases here?" I asked.
+
+"Yes, sir. Here they are, sir."
+
+There on the counter lay a tennis racket, a racket press and waterproof
+case, a pair of canvas tennis shoes and a jaunty white felt hat. I
+stared at the collection. The clerk took up the racket.
+
+"Not a Slazenger," he observed, regretfully. "I did my best to persuade
+her to buy a Slazenger; that is the best racket we have. But she decided
+the Slazenger was a bit high in price, sir. However, sir, this one is
+not bad. A very fine racket for lady's use; very light and strong, sir,
+considering the cost--only sixteen and six, sir."
+
+"Sixteen and six. Four dollars and--Did she pay for it?"
+
+"Oh no, sir. She said you would do that, sir. The total is two pound
+eight and thruppence, sir. Shall I give you a bill, sir? Thank you,
+sir."
+
+His thanks were wasted. I pushed him to one side and walked out of
+that shop. I could not answer; if I answered as I felt I might be sorry
+later. After all, it wasn't his fault. My business was not with him, but
+with her.
+
+It was not the amount of the purchase that angered and alarmed me. Two
+pounds eight--twelve dollars--was not so much. If she had asked me, if
+she had said she desired the racket and the rest of it during the drive
+over, I think, feeling as I did during that drive, I should have bought
+them for her. But she had not asked; she had calmly bought them without
+consulting me at all. She had come to Wrayton for that very purpose. And
+then had told the clerk that I would pay.
+
+The brazen presumption of it! I was merely a convenience, a sort of
+walking bank account, to be drawn upon as she saw fit, at her imperial
+will, if you please. It made no difference, to her mind, whether I liked
+it or not--whether I could afford it or not. I could, of course, afford
+this trifling sum, but this was only the beginning. If I permitted this
+there was no telling to what extent she might go on, buying and buying
+and buying. This was a precedent--that was what it was, a precedent;
+and a precedent once established... It should not be established. I had
+vowed to Hephzy that it should not. I would prove to this girl that I
+had a will of my own. The time had come.
+
+One of the boys who had been so anxious to hold the horse was performing
+that entirely unnecessary duty.
+
+"Stay here until I come back," I ordered and hurried to the draper's.
+
+She was there standing before the counter, and an elderly man was
+displaying cloths--white flannels and serges they appeared to be. She
+was not in the least perturbed at my entrance.
+
+"So you came, after all," she said. "I wondered if you would. Now you
+must help me. I don't know what your taste in tennis flannels may
+be, but I hope it is good. I shall have these made up at Mayberry, of
+course. My other frocks--and I need so many of them--I shall buy in
+London. Do you fancy this, now?"
+
+I don't know whether I fancied it or not. I am quite sure I could not
+remember what it was if I were asked.
+
+"Well?" she asked, after an instant. "Do you?"
+
+"I--I don't know," I said. "May I ask you to step outside one moment.
+I--I have something I wish to say."
+
+She regarded me curiously.
+
+"Something you wish to say?" she repeated. "What is it?"
+
+"I--I can't tell you here."
+
+"Why not, pray?"
+
+"Because I can't."
+
+She looked at me still more intently. I was conscious of the salesman's
+regard also. My tone, I am sure, was anything but gracious, and I
+imagine I appeared as disgusted and embarrassed as I felt. She turned
+away.
+
+"I think I will choose this one," she said, addressing the clerk. "You
+may give me five yards. Oh, yes; and I may as well take the same amount
+of the other. You may wrap it for me."
+
+"Yes, miss, yes. Thank you, miss. Is there anything else?"
+
+She hesitated. Then, after another sidelong glance at me, she said:
+"Yes, I believe there is. I wish to see some buttons, some braid,
+and--oh, ever so many things. Please show them to me."
+
+"Yes, miss, certainly. This way, if you please."
+
+She turned to me.
+
+"Will you assist in the selection, Uncle Hosea?" she inquired, with
+suspicious sweetness. "I am sure your opinion will be invaluable. No?
+Then I must ask you to wait."
+
+And wait I did, for I could do nothing else. That draper's shop was not
+the place for a scene, with a half-dozen clerks to enjoy it. I waited,
+fuming, while she wandered about, taking a great deal of time, and
+lingering over each purchase in a maddening manner. At last she seemed
+able to think of no more possibilities and strolled to where I was
+standing, followed by the salesman, whose hands were full.
+
+"You may wrap these with the others," she said. "I have my trap here and
+will take them with me. The trap is here, isn't it--er--Uncle Hosea?"
+
+"It is just above here," I answered, sulkily. "But--"
+
+"But you will get it. Thank you so much."
+
+The salesman noticed my hesitation, put his own interpretation upon it
+and hastened to oblige.
+
+"I shall be glad to have the purchases carried there," he said. "Our boy
+will do it, miss. It will be no trouble."
+
+Miss Morley thanked him so much. I was hoping she might leave the shop
+then, but she did not. The various packages were wrapped, handed to
+the boy, and she accompanied the latter to the door and showed him our
+equipage standing before the sporting-goods dealer's. Then she sauntered
+back.
+
+"Thank you," she said, addressing the clerk. "That is all, I believe."
+
+The clerk looked at her and at me.
+
+"Yes, miss, thank you," he said, in return. "I--I--would you be wishing
+to pay at once, miss, or shall I--"
+
+"Oh, this gentleman will pay. Do you wish to pay now--Uncle Hosea?"
+
+Again I was stumped. The salesman was regarding me expectantly; the
+other clerks were near by; if I made a scene there--No, I could not do
+it. I would pay this time. But this should be the end.
+
+Fortunately, I had money in my pocket--two five-pound notes and some
+silver. I paid the bill. Then, and at last, my niece led the way to the
+pavement. We walked together a few steps in silence. The sporting-goods
+shop was just ahead, and if ever I was determined not to do a thing that
+thing was to pay for the tennis racket and the rest.
+
+"Frances," I began.
+
+"Well--Mr. Knowles?" calmly.
+
+"Frances, I have decided to speak with you frankly. You appear to take
+certain things for granted in your--your dealings with Miss Cahoon and
+myself, things which--which I cannot countenance or permit."
+
+She had been walking slowly. Now she stopped short. I stopped, too,
+because she did.
+
+"What do you mean?" she asked. "What things?"
+
+She was looking me through and through. Again I hesitated, and my
+hesitation did not help matters.
+
+"What do you mean?" she repeated. "What is it you cannot countenance
+or"--scornfully--"permit concerning me?"
+
+"I--well, I cannot permit you to do as you have done to-day. You did not
+tell your aunt or me your purpose in coming to Wrayton. You did not tell
+us you were coming here to buy--to buy various things for yourself."
+
+"Why should I tell you? They were for myself. Is it your idea that I
+should ask YOUR permission before buying what I choose?"
+
+"Considering that you ask me to pay, I--"
+
+"I most distinctly did NOT ask you. I TOLD you to pay. Certainly you
+will pay. Why not?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Yes, why not. So this was what you wished to speak to me about. This
+was why you were so--so boorish and disagreeable in that shop. Tell
+me--was that the reason? Was that why you followed me there? Did you
+think--did you presume to think of preventing my buying what I pleased
+with my money?"
+
+"If it had been your money I should not have presumed, certainly. If you
+had mentioned your intention to me beforehand I might even have paid for
+your purchases and said nothing. I should--I should have been glad to do
+so. I am not unreasonable."
+
+"Indeed! Indeed! Do you mean that you would have condescended to make
+me a present of them? And was it your idea that I would accept presents
+from you?"
+
+It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that she had already accepted
+a good deal; but somehow the place, a public sidewalk, seemed hardly
+fitting for the discussion of weighty personal matters. Passers-by were
+regarding us curiously, and in the door of the draper's shop which we
+had just left I noticed the elderly clerk standing and looking in our
+direction. I temporized.
+
+"You don't understand, Miss Morley," I said. "Neither your aunt nor
+I are wealthy. Surely, it is not too much to ask that you consult us
+before--before--"
+
+She interrupted me. "I shall not consult you at all," she declared,
+fiercely. "Wealthy! Am _I_ wealthy? Was my father wealthy? He should
+have been and so should I. Oh, WHAT do you mean? Are you trying to tell
+me that you cannot afford to pay for the few trifles I have bought this
+afternoon?"
+
+"I can afford those, of course. But you don't understand."
+
+"Understand? YOU do not understand. The agreement under which I came
+to Mayberry was that you were to provide for me. I consented to forego
+pressing my claim against you until--until you were ready to--to--Oh,
+but why should we go into this again? I thought--I thought you
+understood. I thought you understood and appreciated my forbearance. You
+seemed to understand and to be grateful and kind. I am all alone in the
+world. I haven't a friend. I have been almost happy for a little while.
+I was beginning to--"
+
+She stopped. The dark eyes which had been flashing lightnings in my
+direction suddenly filled with tears. My heart smote me. After all, she
+did not understand. Another plea of that kind and I should have--Well,
+I'm not sure what I should have done. But the plea was not spoken.
+
+"Oh, what a fool I am!" she cried, fiercely. "Mr. Knowles," pointing to
+the sporting-goods store, "I have made some purchases in that shop also.
+I expect you to pay for those as well. Will you or will you not?"
+
+I was hesitating, weakly. She did not wait for me to reply.
+
+"You WILL pay for them," she declared, "and you will pay for others that
+I may make. I shall buy what I please and do what I please with my money
+which you are keeping from me. You will pay or take the consequences."
+
+That was enough. "I will not pay," I said, firmly, "under any such
+arrangement."
+
+"You will NOT?"
+
+"No, I will not."
+
+She looked as if--Well, if she had been a man I should have expected a
+blow. Her breast heaved and her fingers clenched. Then she turned and
+walked toward the shop with the cricket bats in the window.
+
+"Where are you going?" I asked.
+
+"I am going to tell the man to send the things I have bought to Mayberry
+by carrier and I shall tell him to send the bill to you."
+
+"If you do I shall tell him to do nothing of the kind. Miss Morley, I
+don't mean to be ungenerous or unreasonable, but--"
+
+"Stop! Stop! Oh!" with a sobbing breath, "how I hate you!"
+
+"I'm sorry. When I explain, as I mean to, you will understand, I think.
+If you will go back to the rectory with me now--"
+
+"I shall not go back with you. I shall never speak to you again."
+
+"Miss Morley, be reasonable. You must go back with me. There is no other
+way."
+
+"I will not."
+
+Here was more cheer in an already cheerful situation. She could not get
+to Mayberry that night unless she rode with me. She had no money to take
+her there or anywhere else. I could hardly carry her to the trap by main
+strength. And the curiosity of the passers-by was more marked than ever;
+two or three of them had stopped to watch us.
+
+I don't know how it might have ended, but the end came in an unexpected
+manner.
+
+"Why, Miss Morley," cried a voice from the street behind me. "Oh, I say,
+it IS you, isn't it. How do you do?"
+
+I turned. A trim little motor car was standing there and Herbert Bayliss
+was at the wheel.
+
+"Ah, Knowles, how do you do?" said Bayliss.
+
+I acknowledged the greeting in an embarrassed fashion. I wondered how
+long he had been there and what he had heard. He alighted from the car
+and shook hands with us.
+
+"Didn't see you, Knowles, at first," he said. "Saw Miss Morley here and
+thought she was alone. Was going to beg the privilege of taking her home
+in my car."
+
+Miss Morley answered promptly. "You may have the privilege, Doctor
+Bayliss," she said. "I accept with pleasure."
+
+Young Bayliss looked pleased, but rather puzzled.
+
+"Thanks, awfully," he said. "But my car holds but two and your uncle--"
+
+"Oh, he has the dogcart. It is quite all right, really. I should love
+the motor ride. May I get in?"
+
+He helped her into the car. "Sure you don't mind, Knowles," he asked.
+"Sorry there's not more room; but you couldn't leave the horse, though,
+could you? Quite comfy, Miss Morley? Then we're off."
+
+The car turned from the curb. I caught Miss Morley's eye for an instant;
+there was withering contempt in its look--also triumph.
+
+Left alone, I walked to the trap, gave the horse-holding boy sixpence,
+climbed to the seat and took up the reins. "Pet" jogged lazily up the
+street. The ride over had been very, very pleasant; the homeward journey
+was likely to be anything but that.
+
+To begin with, I was thoroughly dissatisfied with myself. I had bungled
+the affair dreadfully. This was not the time for explanations; I should
+not have attempted them. It would have been better, much better, to have
+accepted the inevitable as gracefully as I could, paid the bills, and
+then, after we reached home, have made the situation plain and "have put
+my foot down" once and for all. But I had not done that. I had lost my
+temper and acted like an eighteen-year-old boy instead of a middle-aged
+man.
+
+She did not understand, of course. In her eyes I must have appeared
+stingy and mean and--and goodness knows what. The money I had refused to
+pay she did consider hers, of course. It was not hers, and some day she
+would know that it was not, but the town square at Wrayton was not the
+place in which to impart knowledge of that kind.
+
+She was so young, too, and so charming--that is, she could be when she
+chose. And she had chosen to be so during our drive together. And I
+had enjoyed that drive; I had enjoyed nothing as thoroughly since our
+arrival in England. She had enjoyed it, too; she had said so.
+
+Well, there would be no more enjoyment of that kind. This was the end,
+of course. And all because I had refused to pay for a tennis racket and
+a few other things. They were things she wanted--yes, needed, if she
+were to remain at the rectory. And, expecting to remain as she did, it
+was but natural that she should wish to play tennis and dress as did
+other young players of her sex. Her life had not been a pleasant one;
+after all, a little happiness added, even though it did cost me some
+money, was not much. And it must end soon. It seemed a pity to end it in
+order to save two pounds eight and threepence.
+
+There is no use cataloguing all my thoughts. Some I have catalogued and
+the others were similar. The memory of her face and of the choke in her
+voice as she said she had been almost happy haunted me. My reason told
+me that, so far as principle and precedent went, I had acted rightly;
+but my conscience, which was quite unreasonable, told me I had acted
+like a boor. I stood it as long as I could, then I shouted at "Pet," who
+was jogging on, apparently half asleep.
+
+"Whoa!" I shouted.
+
+"Pet" stopped short in the middle of the road. I hesitated. The
+principle of the thing--
+
+"Hang the principle!" said I, aloud. Then I turned the trap around and
+drove back to Wrayton. The blond young man in the sporting-goods store
+was evidently glad to see me. He must have seen me drive away and have
+judged that his sale was canceled. His judgment had been very near to
+right, but now I proved it wrong.
+
+I paid for the racket and the press and the shoes and the rest. They
+were wrapped and ready.
+
+"Thank you, sir," said the clerk. "I trust everything will be quite
+satisfactory. I'm sorry the young lady did not take the Slazenger, but
+the one she chose is not at all bad."
+
+I was on my way to the door. I stopped and turned.
+
+"Is the--the what is it--'Slazenger' so much better?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, very much so, sir. Infinitely better, sir. Here it is; judge for
+yourself. The very best racket made. And only thirty-two shillings,
+sir."
+
+It was a better racket, much better. And, after all, when one is hanging
+principle the execution may as well be complete.
+
+"You may give me that one instead of the other," I said, and paid the
+difference.
+
+On my arrival at the rectory Hephzy met me at the door. The between-maid
+took the packages from the trap. I entered the drawing-room and Hephzy
+followed me. She looked very grave.
+
+"Frances is here, I suppose," I said.
+
+"Yes, she came an hour ago. Doctor Bayliss, the younger one, brought
+her in his auto. She hardly spoke to me, Hosy, and went straight to her
+room. Hosy, what happened? What is the matter?"
+
+"Nothing," said I, curtly. "Nothing unusual, that is. I made a fool of
+myself once more, that's all."
+
+The between-maid knocked and entered. "Where would you wish the parcels,
+sir?" she asked.
+
+"These are Miss Morley's. Take them to her room."
+
+The maid retired to obey orders. Hephzy again turned to me.
+
+"Now, Hosy, what is it?" she asked.
+
+I told her the whole story. When I had finished Hephzy nodded
+understandingly. She did not say "I told you so," but if she had it
+would have been quite excusable.
+
+"I think--I think, perhaps, I had better go up and see her," she said.
+
+"All right. I have no objection."
+
+"But she'll ask questions, of course. What shall I tell her?"
+
+"Tell her I changed my mind. Tell her--oh, tell her anything you like.
+Don't bother me. I'm sick of the whole business."
+
+She left me and I went into the Reverend Cole's study and closed the
+door. There were books enough there, but the majority of them were
+theological works or bulky volumes dealing with questions of religion.
+Most of my own books were in my room. These did not appeal to me; I was
+not religiously inclined just then.
+
+So I sat dumbly in the rector's desk chair and looked out of the window.
+After a time there was a knock at the door.
+
+"Come in," said I, expecting Hephzy. It was not Hephzy who came,
+however, but Miss Morley herself. And she closed the door behind her.
+
+I did not speak. She walked over and stood beside me. I did not know
+what she was going to say and the expression did not help me to guess.
+
+For a moment she did not say anything. Then:
+
+"So you changed your mind," she said.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"You don't know. Yet you changed it."
+
+"Yes. Oh yes, I changed it."
+
+"But why? Was it--was it because you were ashamed of yourself?"
+
+"I guess so. As much that as anything."
+
+"You realize that you treated me shamefully. You realize that?"
+
+"Yes," wearily. "Yes, I realize everything."
+
+"And you felt sorry, after I had gone, and so you changed your mind. Was
+that it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+There was no use in attempting justification. For the absolute surrender
+I had made there was no justification. I might as well agree to
+everything.
+
+"And you will never, never treat me in that way again?"
+
+"No."
+
+"And you realize that I was right and understand that I am to do as I
+please with my money?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you beg my pardon?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Very well. Then I beg yours. I'm sorry, too."
+
+Now I WAS surprised. I turned in my chair and looked at her.
+
+"You beg my pardon?" I repeated. "For what?"
+
+"Oh, for everything. I suppose I should have spoken to you before buying
+those things. You might not have been prepared to pay then and--and that
+would have been unpleasant for you. But--well, you see, I didn't think,
+and you were so queer and cross when you followed me to the draper's
+shop, that--that I--well, I was disagreeable, too. I am sorry."
+
+"That's all right."
+
+"Thank you. Is there anything else you wish to say?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You're sure?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why did you buy the Slazenger racket instead of the other one?"
+
+I had forgotten the "Slazenger" for the moment. She had caught me
+unawares.
+
+"Oh--oh," I stammered, "well, it was a much better racket and--and, as
+you were buying one, it seemed foolish not to get the best."
+
+"I know. I wanted the better one very much, but I thought it too
+expensive. I did not feel that I should spend so much money."
+
+"That's all right. The difference wasn't so much and I made the change
+on my own responsibility. I--well, just consider that I bought the
+racket and you bought none."
+
+She regarded me intently. "You mean that you bought it as a present for
+me?" she said slowly.
+
+"Yes; yes, if you will accept it as such."
+
+She was silent. I remembered perfectly well what she had said concerning
+presents from me and I wondered what I should do with that racket when
+she threw it back on my hands.
+
+"Thank you," she said. "I will accept it. Thank you very much."
+
+I was staggered, but I recovered sufficiently to tell her she was quite
+welcome.
+
+She turned to go. Then she turned back.
+
+"Doctor Bayliss asked me to play tennis with him tomorrow morning," she
+said. "May I?"
+
+"May you? Why, of course you may, if you wish, I suppose. Why in the
+world do you ask my permission?"
+
+"Oh, don't you wish me to ask? I inferred from what you said at Wrayton
+that you did wish me to ask permission concerning many things."
+
+"I wished--I said--oh, don't be silly, please! Haven't we had silliness
+enough for one afternoon, Miss Morley."
+
+"My Christian name is Frances. May I play tennis with Doctor Bayliss
+to-morrow morning, Uncle Hosea?"
+
+"Of course you may. How could I prevent it, even if I wished, which I
+don't."
+
+"Thank you, Uncle Hosea. Mr. Worcester is going to play also. We need
+a fourth. I can borrow another racket. Will you be my partner, Uncle
+Hosea?"
+
+"_I_? Your partner?"
+
+"Yes. You play tennis; Auntie says so. Will you play to-morrow morning
+as my partner?"
+
+"But I play an atrocious game and--"
+
+"So do I. We shall match beautifully. Thank you, Uncle Hosea."
+
+Once more she turned to go, and again she turned.
+
+"Is there anything else you wish me to do, Uncle Hosea?" she asked.
+
+The repetition repeated was too much.
+
+"Yes," I declared. "Stop calling me Uncle Hosea. I'm not your uncle."
+
+"Oh, I know that; but you have told everyone that you were, haven't
+you?"
+
+I had, unfortunately, so I could make no better reply than to state
+emphatically that I didn't like the title.
+
+"Oh, very well," she said. "But 'Mr. Knowles' sounds so formal, don't
+you think. What shall I call you? Never mind, perhaps I can think while
+I am dressing for dinner. I will see you at dinner, won't I. Au revoir,
+and thank you again for the racket--Cousin Hosy."
+
+"I'm not your cousin, either--at least not more than a nineteenth
+cousin. And if you begin calling me 'Hosy' I shall--I don't know what I
+shall do."
+
+"Dear me, how particular you are! Well then, au revoir--Kent."
+
+When Hephzy came to the study I was still seated in the rector's chair.
+She was brimful full of curiosity, I know, and ready to ask a dozen
+questions at once. But I headed off the first of the dozen.
+
+"Hephzy," I observed, "I have made no less than fifty solemn resolutions
+since we met that girl--that Little Frank of yours. You've heard me make
+them, haven't you."
+
+"Why, yes, I suppose I have. If you mean resolutions to tell her the
+truth about her father and put an end to the scrape we're in, I have,
+certain."
+
+"Yes; well, I've made another one now. Never, no matter what happens,
+will I attempt to tell her a word concerning Strickland Morley or
+her 'inheritance' or anything else. Every time I've tried I've made
+a blessed idiot of myself and now I'm through. She can stay with us
+forever and run us into debt to her heart's desire--I don't care. If
+she ever learns the truth she sha'n't learn it from me. I'm incapable
+of telling it. I haven't the sand of a yellow dog and I'm not going to
+worry about it. I'm through, do you hear--through."
+
+That was my newest resolution. It was a comfort to realize that THIS
+resolution I should probably stick to.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+In Which Complications Become More Complicated
+
+
+And stick to it I did. From that day--the day of our drive to
+Wrayton--on through those wonderful summer days in which she and
+Hephzy and I were together at the rectory, not once did I attempt to
+remonstrate with my "niece" concerning her presumption in inflicting her
+presence upon us or in spending her money, as she thought it--our money
+as I knew it to be--as she saw fit. Having learned and relearned my
+lesson--namely, that I lacked the courage to tell her the truth I had
+so often declared must be told, having shifted the responsibility to
+Hephzy's shoulders, having admitted and proclaimed myself, in that
+respect at least, a yellow dog, I proceeded to take life as I found it,
+as yellow dogs are supposed to do.
+
+And, having thus weakly rid myself of care and responsibility, I began
+to enjoy that life. To enjoy the freedom of it, and the novelty of
+the surroundings, and the friendship of the good people who were our
+neighbors. Yes, and to enjoy the home life, the afternoons on the tennis
+court or the golf course, the evenings in the drawing-room, the "teas"
+on the lawn--either our lawn or someone else's--the chats together
+across the dinner-table; to enjoy it all; and, more astonishing still,
+to accept the companionship of the young person who was responsible for
+our living in that way as a regular and understood part of that life.
+
+Not that I understood the young person herself; no Bayport quahaug, who
+had shunned female companionship as I had for so long, could be expected
+to understand the whims and changing moods of a girl like Frances
+Morley. At times she charmed and attracted me, at others she tormented
+and irritated me. She argued with me one moment and disagreed the next.
+She laughed at Hephzy's and my American accent and idioms, but when
+Bayliss, Junior, or one of the curates ventured to criticize an
+"Americanism" she was quite as likely to declare that she thought it
+"jolly" and "so expressive." Against my will I was obliged to join in
+conversations, to take sides in arguments, to be present when callers
+came, to make calls. I, who had avoided the society of young people
+because, being no longer young, I felt out of place among them, was now
+dragged into such society every day and almost every evening. I did
+not want to be, but Little Frank seemed to find mischievous pleasure in
+keeping me there.
+
+"It is good for you," she said, on one occasion, when I had sneaked
+off to my room and the company of the "British Poets." "Auntie says you
+started on your travels in order to find something new to write about.
+You'll never find it in those musty books; every poem in them is at
+least seventy years old. If you are going to write of England and my
+people you must know something about those that are alive."
+
+"But, my dear young lady," I said, "I have no intention of writing of
+your people, as you call them."
+
+"You write of knights and lords and ladies and queens. You do--or you
+did--and you certainly know nothing about THEM."
+
+I was quite a bit ruffled. "Indeed!" said I. "You are quite sure of
+that, are you?"
+
+"I am," decidedly. "I have read 'The Queen's Amulet' and no queen
+on earth--in England, surely--ever acted or spoke like that one. An
+American queen might, if there was such a thing."
+
+She laughed and, provoked as I was, I could not help laughing with her.
+She had a most infectious laugh.
+
+"My dear young lady--" I began again, but she interrupted me.
+
+"Don't call me that," she protested. "You're not the Archbishop of
+Canterbury visiting a girl's school and making a speech. You asked me
+not to call you 'Uncle Hosea.' If you say 'dear young lady' to me again
+I shall address you publicly as 'dear old Nunky.' Don't be silly."
+
+I laughed again. "But you ARE young," I said.
+
+"Well, what of it. Perhaps neither of us likes to be reminded of our
+age. I'm sure you don't; I never saw anyone more sensitive on the
+subject. There! there! put away those silly old books and come down to
+the drawing-room. I'm going to sing. Mr. Worcester has brought in a lot
+of new music."
+
+Reluctantly I closed the volume I had in my hand.
+
+"Very well," I said; "I'll come if you wish. But I shall only be in the
+way, as I always am. Mr. Worcester didn't plead for my company, did he?
+Do you know I think he will bear up manfully if I don't appear."
+
+She regarded me with disapproval.
+
+"Don't be childish in your old age," she snapped, "Are you coming?"
+
+I went, of course, and--it may have been by way of reward--she sang
+several old-fashioned, simple ballads which I had found in a dog's-eared
+portfolio in the music cabinet and which I liked because my mother used
+to sing them when I was a little chap. I had asked for them before and
+she had ignored the request.
+
+This time she sang them and Hephzy, sitting beside me in the darkest
+corner reached over and laid a hand on mine.
+
+"Her mother all over again," she whispered. "Ardelia used to sing
+those."
+
+Next day, on the tennis court, she played with Herbert Bayliss against
+Worcester and me, and seemed to enjoy beating us six to one. The only
+regret she expressed was that she and her partner had not made it a
+"love set."
+
+Altogether she was a decidedly vitalizing influence, an influence that
+was, I began to admit to myself, a good one for me. I needed to be kept
+alive and active, and here, in this wide-awake household, I couldn't be
+anything else. The future did not look as dull and hopeless as it had
+when I left Bayport. I even began to consider the possibilities
+of another novel, to hope that I might write one. Jim Campbell's
+"prescription," although working in quite a different way from that
+which he and I had planned, was working nevertheless.
+
+Matthews, at the Camford Street office, was forwarding my letters and
+honoring my drafts with promptness. I received a note each week from
+Campbell. I had written him all particulars concerning Little Frank and
+our move to the rectory, and he professed to see in it only a huge joke.
+
+"Tell your Miss Cahoon," he wrote, "that I am going to turn Spiritualist
+right away. I believe in dreams now, and presentiments and all sorts
+of things. I am trying to dream out a plot for a novel by you. Had a
+roof-garden supper the other night and that gave me a fine start, but
+I'll have to tackle another one before I get sufficient thrills to
+furnish forth one of your gems. Seriously though, old man, this whole
+thing will do you a world of good. Nothing short of an earthquake would
+have shaken you out of your Cape Cod dumps and it looks to me as if you
+and--what's her name--Hephzibah, had had the quake. What are you going
+to do with the Little Frank person in the end? Can't you marry her off
+to a wealthy Englishman? Or, if not that, why not marry her yourself?
+She'd turn a dead quahaug into a live lobster, I should imagine, if
+anyone could. Great idea! What?"
+
+His "great idea" was received with the contempt it deserved. I tore up
+the letter and threw it into the waste basket.
+
+But Hephzy herself spoke of matrimony and Little Frank soon after
+this. We were alone together; Frances had gone on a horseback ride with
+Herbert Bayliss and a female cousin who was spending the day at "Jasmine
+Gables."
+
+"Hosy," said Hephzy, "do you realize the summer is half over? It's the
+middle of July now."
+
+So it was, although it seemed scarcely possible.
+
+"Yes," she went on. "Our lease of this place is up the first of October.
+We shall be startin' for home then, I presume likely, sha'n't we."
+
+"I suppose so. We can't stay over here indefinitely. Life isn't all
+skittles and--and tea."
+
+"That's so. I don't know what skittles are, but I know what tea is. Land
+sakes! I should say I did. They tell me the English national flower is
+a rose. It ought to be a tea-plant blossom, if there is such a thing.
+Hosy," with a sudden return to seriousness, "what are we goin' to do
+with--with HER when the time comes for us to go?"
+
+"I don't know," I answered.
+
+"Are you going to take her to America with us?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Humph! Well, we'll have to know then."
+
+"I suppose we shall; but," defiantly, "I'm not going to worry about it
+till the time comes."
+
+"Humph! Well, you've changed, that's all I've got to say. 'Twan't so
+long ago that you did nothin' BUT worry. I never saw anybody change the
+way you have anyway."
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"In every way. You aren't like the same person you used to be. Why,
+through that last year of ours in Bayport I used to think sometimes you
+were older than I was--older in the way you thought and acted, I mean.
+Now you act as if you were twenty-one. Cavortin' around, playin' tennis
+and golf and everything! What has got into you?"
+
+"I don't know. Jim Campbell's prescription is taking effect, I guess.
+He said the change of air and environment would do me good. I tell you,
+Hephzy, I have made up my mind to enjoy life while I can. I realize as
+well as you do that the trouble is bound to come, but I'm not going to
+let it trouble me beforehand. And I advise you to do the same."
+
+"Well, I've been tryin' to, but sometimes I can't help wonderin' and
+dreadin'. Perhaps I'm havin' my dread for nothin'. It may be that, by
+the time we're ready to start for Bayport, Little Frank will be provided
+for."
+
+"Provided for? What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean provided for by somebody else. There's at least two candidates
+for the job: Don't you think so?"
+
+"You mean--"
+
+"I mean Mr. Worcester and Herbert Bayliss. That Worcester man is a gone
+case, or I'm no judge. He's keepin' company with Frances, or would, if
+she'd let him. 'Twould be funny if she married a curate, wouldn't it."
+
+"Not very," I answered. "Married life on a curate's salary is not my
+idea of humor."
+
+"I suppose likely that's so. And I can't imagine her a minister's wife,
+can you?"
+
+I could not; nor, unless I was greatly mistaken, could the young lady
+herself. In fact, anything as serious as marriage was far from her
+thoughts at present, I judged. But Hephzy did not seem so sure.
+
+"No," she went on, "I don't think the curate's got much chance. But
+young Doctor Bayliss is different. He's good-lookin' and smart and he's
+got prospects. I like him first-rate and I think Frances likes him,
+too. I shouldn't wonder if THAT affair came to somethin'. Wouldn't it be
+splendid if it did!"
+
+I said that it would. And yet, even as I said it, I was conscious of a
+peculiar feeling of insincerity. I liked young Bayliss. He was all that
+Hephzy had said, and more. He would, doubtless, make a good husband for
+any girl. And his engagement to Frances Morley might make easier the
+explanation which was bound to come. I believed I could tell Herbert
+Bayliss the truth concerning the ridiculous "claim." A man would be
+susceptible to reason and proof; I could convince him. I should have
+welcomed the possibility, but, somehow or other, I did not. Somehow or
+other, the idea of her marrying anyone was repugnant to me. I did not
+like to think of it.
+
+"Oh dear!" sighed Hephzy; "if only things were different. If only she
+knew all about her father and his rascality and was livin' with us
+because she wanted to--if that was the way of it, it would be so
+different. If you and I had really adopted her! If she only was your
+niece."
+
+"Nonsense!" I snapped. "She isn't my niece."
+
+"I know it. That's what makes your goodness to her seem so wonderful
+to me. You treat her as if you cared as much as I do. And of course you
+don't. It isn't natural you should. She's my sister's child, and she's
+hardly any relation to you at all. You're awful good, Hosy. She's
+noticed it, too. I think she likes you now a lot better than she did;
+she as much as said so. She's beginning to understand you."
+
+"Nonsense!" I said again. Understand me! I didn't understand myself.
+Nevertheless I was foolishly pleased to hear that she liked me. It was
+pleasant to be liked even by one who was destined to hate me later on.
+
+"I hope she won't feel too hard against us," continued Hephzy. "I can't
+bear to think of her doin' that. She--she seems so near and dear to me
+now. We--I shall miss her dreadfully when it's all over."
+
+I think she hoped that I might say that I should miss her, also. But I
+did not say anything of the kind.
+
+I was resolved not to permit myself to miss her. Hadn't I been scheming
+and planning to get rid of her ever since she thrust herself upon us? To
+be sorry when she, at last, was gotten rid of would be too idiotic.
+
+"Well," observed Hephzy, in conclusion, "perhaps she and Doctor Bayliss
+will make a match after all. We ought to help it all we can, I suppose."
+
+This conversation had various effects upon me. One was to make me
+unaccountably "blue" for the rest of that day. Another was that I
+regarded the visits of Worcester and Herbert Bayliss with a different
+eye. I speculated foolishly concerning those visits and watched both
+young gentlemen more closely.
+
+I did not have to watch the curate long. Suddenly he ceased calling at
+the rectory. Not altogether, of course, but he called only occasionally
+and his manner toward my "niece" was oddly formal and constrained. She
+was very kind to him, kinder than before, I thought, but there was a
+difference in their manner. Hephzy, of course, had an explanation ready.
+
+"She's given him his clearance papers," was her way of expressing it.
+"She's told him that it's no use so far as he's concerned. Well, I never
+did think she cared for him. And that leaves the course clear for the
+doctor, doesn't it."
+
+The doctor took advantage of the clear course. His calls and invitations
+for rides and tennis and golf were more frequent than ever. She must
+have understood; but, being a normal young woman, as well as a very,
+very pretty one, she was a bit of a coquette and kept the boy--for,
+after all, he was scarcely more than that--at arm's length and in a
+state of alternate hope and despair. I shared his varying moods. If he
+could not be sure of her feelings toward him, neither could I, and I
+found myself wondering, wondering constantly. It was foolish for me
+to wonder, of course. Why should I waste time in speculation on that
+subject? Why should I care whether she married or not? What difference
+did it make to me whom she married? I resolved not to think of her at
+all. And that resolution, like so many I had made, amounted to nothing,
+for I did think of her constantly.
+
+And then to add a new complication to the already over-complicated
+situation, came A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire.
+
+Frances and Herbert Bayliss were scheduled for nine holes of golf on the
+Manor House course that morning. I had had no intention of playing. My
+projected novel had reached the stage where, plot building completed, I
+had really begun the writing. The first chapter was finished and I had
+intended beginning the second one that day. But, just as I seated myself
+at the desk in the Reverend Cole's study, the young lady appeared and
+insisted that the twosome become a threesome, that I leave my "stupid
+old papers and pencils" and come for a round on the links. I protested,
+of course, but she was in one of her wilful moods that morning and
+declared that she would not play unless I did.
+
+"It will do you good," she said. "You'll write all the better this
+afternoon. Now, come along."
+
+"Is Doctor Bayliss as anxious for my company as you seem to be?" I asked
+maliciously.
+
+She tossed her head. "Of course he is," she retorted. "Besides it
+doesn't make any difference whether he is or not. _I_ want you to play,
+and that is enough."
+
+"Humph! he may not agree with you."
+
+"Then he can play by himself. It will do him good, too. He takes
+altogether too much for granted. Come! I am waiting."
+
+So, after a few more fruitless protests, I reluctantly laid aside the
+paper and pencils, changed to golfing regalia and, with my bag of clubs
+on my shoulder, joined the two young people on the lawn.
+
+Frances greeted me very cordially indeed. Her clubs--I had bought them
+myself on one of my trips to London: having once yielded, in the matter
+of the tennis outfit, I now bought various little things which I thought
+would please her--were carried by Herbert Bayliss, who, of course, also
+carried his own. His greeting was not as enthusiastic. He seemed rather
+glum and out of sorts. Frances addressed most of her conversation to me
+and I was inclined to think the pair had had some sort of disagreement,
+what Hephzy would have called a "lover's quarrel," perhaps.
+
+We walked across the main street of Mayberry, through the lane past the
+cricket field, on by the path over the pastures, and entered the great
+gate of the Manor, the gate with the Carey arms emblazoned above it.
+Then a quarter of a mile over rolling hills, with rare shrubs and
+flowers everywhere, brought us to the top of the hill at the edge of the
+little wood which these English people persisted in calling a "forest."
+The first tee was there. You drove--if you were skillful or lucky--down
+the long slope to the green two hundred yards away. If you were neither
+skillful nor lucky you were quite as likely to drive into the long grass
+on either side of the fair green. Then you hunted for your ball and,
+having found it, wasted more or less labor and temper in pounding it out
+of the "rough."
+
+At the first tee a man arrayed in the perfection of natty golfing togs
+was practicing his "swing." A caddy was carrying his bag. This of itself
+argued the swinger a person of privilege and consequence, for caddies on
+those links were strictly forbidden by the Lady of the Manor. Why they
+were forbidden she alone knew.
+
+As we approached the tee the player turned to look at us. He was not a
+Mayberryite and yet there was something familiar in his appearance. He
+regarded us for a moment and then, dropping his driver, lounged toward
+me and extended his hand.
+
+"Oh, I say!" he exclaimed. "It is you, isn't it! How do you do?"
+
+"Why, Mr. Heathcroft!" I said. "This is a surprise."
+
+We shook hands. He, apparently, was not at all surprised.
+
+"Heard about your being here, Knowles," he drawled. "My aunt told me;
+that is, she said there were Americans at the rectory and when she
+mentioned the name I knew, of course, it must be you. Odd you should
+have located here, isn't it! Jolly glad to see you."
+
+I said I was glad to see him. Then I introduced my companions.
+
+"Bayliss and I have met before," observed Heathcroft. "Played a round
+with him in the tournament last year. How do, Bayliss? Don't think
+Miss Morley and I have met, though. Great pleasure, really. Are you a
+resident of Mayberry, Miss Morley?"
+
+Frances said that she was a temporary resident.
+
+"Ah! visiting here, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes. Yes, I am visiting. I am living at the rectory, also."
+
+"Miss Morley is Mr. Knowles's niece," explained Bayliss.
+
+Heathcroft seemed surprised.
+
+"Indeed!" he drawled. "Didn't know you had a niece, Knowles. She wasn't
+with you on the ship, now was she."
+
+"Miss Morley had been living in England--here and on the Continent," I
+answered. I could have kicked Bayliss for his officious explanation of
+kinship. Now I should have that ridiculous "uncle" business to contend
+with, in our acquaintance with Heathcroft as with the Baylisses and the
+rest. Frances, I am sure, read my thoughts, for the corners of her mouth
+twitched and she looked away over the course.
+
+"Won't you ask Mr. Heathcroft to join our game--Uncle?" she said. She
+had dropped the hated "Hosea," I am happy to say, but in the presence
+of those outside the family she still addressed me as "Uncle." Of course
+she could not do otherwise without arousing comment, but I did not like
+it. Uncle! there was a venerable, antique quality in the term which
+I resented more and more each time I heard it. It emphasized the
+difference in our ages--and that difference needed no emphasis.
+
+Heathcroft looked pleased at the invitation, but he hesitated in
+accepting it.
+
+"Oh, I shouldn't do that, really," he declared. "I should be in the way,
+now shouldn't I."
+
+Bayliss, to whom the remark was addressed, made no answer. I judged that
+he did not care for the honor of the Heathcroft company. But Frances,
+after a glance in his direction, answered for him.
+
+"Oh, not in the least," she said. "A foursome is ever so much more
+sporting than a threesome. Mr. Heathcroft, you and I will play Doctor
+Bayliss and--Uncle. Shall we?"
+
+Heathcroft declared himself delighted and honored. He looked the
+former. He had scarcely taken his eyes from Miss Morley since their
+introduction.
+
+That match was hard fought. Our new acquaintance was a fair player
+and he played to win. Frances was learning to play and had a natural
+aptitude for the game. I played better than my usual form and I needed
+to, for Bayliss played wretchedly. He "dubbed" his approaches and
+missed easy putts. If he had kept his eye on the ball instead of on
+his opponents he might have done better, but that he would not do. He
+watched Heathcroft and Miss Morley continually, and the more he watched
+the less he seemed to like what he saw.
+
+Perhaps he was not altogether to blame, everything considered. Frances
+was quite aware of the scrutiny and apparently enjoyed his discomfiture.
+She--well, perhaps she did not precisely flirt with A. Carleton
+Heathcroft, but she was very, very agreeable to him and exulted over the
+winning of each hole without regard to the feelings of the losers. As
+for Heathcroft, himself, he was quite as agreeable to her, complimented
+her on her playing, insisted on his caddy's carrying her clubs, assisted
+her over the rough places on the course, and generally acted the gallant
+in a most polished manner. Bayliss and I were beaten three down.
+
+Heathcroft walked with us as far as the lodge gate. Then he said good-by
+with evident reluctance.
+
+"Thank you so much for the game, Miss Morley," he said. "Enjoyed it
+hugely. You play remarkably well, if you don't mind my saying so."
+
+Frances was pleased. "Thank you," she answered. "I know it isn't
+true--that about my playing--but it is awfully nice of you to say it. I
+hope we may play together again. Are you staying here long?"
+
+"Don't know, I'm sure. I am visiting my aunt and she will keep me as
+long as she can. Seems to think I have neglected her of late. Of course
+we must play again. By the way, Knowles, why don't you run over and meet
+Lady Carey? She'll be awfully pleased to meet any friends of mine. Bring
+Miss Morley with you. Perhaps she would care to see the greenhouses.
+They're quite worth looking over, really. Like to have you, too,
+Bayliss, of course."
+
+Bayliss's thanks were not effusive. Frances, however, declared that
+she should love to see the greenhouses. For my part, common politeness
+demanded my asking Mr. Heathcroft to call at the rectory. He accepted
+the invitation at once and heartily.
+
+He called the very next day and joined us at tea. The following
+afternoon we, Hephzy, Frances and I, visited the greenhouses. On this
+occasion we met, for the first time, the lady of the Manor herself. Lady
+Kent Carey was a stout, gray-haired person, of very decided manner and
+a mannish taste in dress. She was gracious and affable, although I
+suspected that much of her affability toward the American visitors was
+assumed because she wished to please her nephew. A. Carleton Heathcroft,
+Esquire, was plainly her ladyship's pride and pet. She called him
+"Carleton, dear," and "Carleton, dear" was, in his aunt's estimation,
+the model of everything desirable in man.
+
+The greenhouses were spacious and the display of rare plants and flowers
+more varied and beautiful than any I had ever seen. We walked through
+the grounds surrounding the mansion, and viewed with becoming reverence
+the trees planted by various distinguished personages, His Royal
+Highness the Prince of Wales, Her late Majesty Queen Victoria,
+Ex-President Carnot of France, and others. Hephzy whispered to me as we
+were standing before the Queen Victoria specimen:
+
+"I don't believe Queen Victoria ever planted that in the world, do
+you, Hosy. She'd look pretty, a fleshy old lady like her, puffin' away
+diggin' holes with a spade, now would she!"
+
+I hastily explained the probability that the hole was dug by someone
+else.
+
+Hephzy nodded.
+
+"I guess so," she added. "And the tree was put in by someone else and
+the dirt put back by the same one. Queen Victoria planted that tree the
+way Susanna Wixon said she broke my best platter, by not doin' a single
+thing to it. I could plant a whole grove that way and not get a bit
+tired."
+
+Lady Carey bade us farewell at the fish-ponds and asked us to come
+again. Her nephew, however, accompanied us all the way home--that is, he
+accompanied Frances, while Hephzy and I made up the rear guard. The next
+day he dropped in for some tennis. Herbert Bayliss was there before
+him, so the tennis was abandoned, and a three-cornered chat on the
+lawn substituted. Heathcroft treated the young doctor with a polite
+condescension which would have irritated me exceedingly.
+
+From then on, during the fortnight which followed, there was a great
+deal of Heathcroft in the rectory social circle. And when he was
+not there, it was fairly certain that he and Frances were together
+somewhere, golfing, walking or riding. Sometimes I accompanied them,
+sometimes Herbert Bayliss made one of the party. Frances' behavior to
+the young doctor was tantalizingly contradictory. At times she was very
+cordial and kind, at others almost cold and repellent. She kept the
+young fellow in a state of uncertainty most of the time. She treated
+Heathcroft much the same, but there was this difference between
+them--Heathcroft didn't seem to mind; her whims appeared to amuse rather
+than to annoy him. Bayliss, on the contrary, was either in the seventh
+heaven of bliss or the subcellar of despair. I sympathized with him, to
+an extent; the young lady's attitude toward me had an effect which, in
+my case, was ridiculous. My reason told me that I should not care at
+all whether she liked me or whether she didn't, whether I pleased or
+displeased her. But I did care, I couldn't help it, I cared altogether
+too much. A middle-aged quahaug should be phlegmatic and philosophical;
+I once had a reputation for both qualities, but I seemed to possess
+neither now.
+
+I found myself speculating and wondering more than ever concerning the
+outcome of all this. Was there anything serious in the wind at all?
+Herbert Bayliss was in love with Frances Morley, that was obvious now.
+But was she in love with him? I doubted it. Did she care in the least
+for him? I did not know. She seemed to enjoy his society. I did not want
+her to fall in love with A. Carleton Heathcroft, certainly. Nor, to be
+perfectly honest, did I wish her to marry Bayliss, although I like him
+much better than I did Lady Carey's blas� nephew. Somehow, I didn't
+like the idea of her falling in love with anyone. The present state
+of affairs in our household was pleasant enough. We three were happy
+together. Why could not that happiness continue just as it was?
+
+The answer was obvious: It could not continue. Each day that passed
+brought the inevitable end nearer. My determination to put the thought
+of that end from my mind and enjoy the present was shaken. In the
+solitude of the study, in the midst of my writing, after I had gone to
+my room for the night, I found my thoughts drifting toward the day in
+October when, our lease of the rectory ended, we must pack up and go
+somewhere. And when we went, would she go with us? Hardly. She
+would demand the promised "settlement," and then--What then?
+Explanations--quarrels--parting. A parting for all time. I had reached
+a point where, like Hephzy, I would have gladly suggested a real
+"adoption," the permanent addition to our family of Strickland Morley's
+daughter, but she would not consent to that. She was proud--very proud.
+And she idolized her father's memory. No, she would not remain under any
+such conditions--I knew it. And the certainty of that knowledge
+brought with it a pang which I could not analyze. A man of my age and
+temperament should not have such feelings.
+
+Hephzy did not fancy Heathcroft. She had liked him well enough during
+our first acquaintance aboard the steamer, but now, when she knew him
+better, she did not fancy him. His lofty, condescending manner irritated
+her and, as he seemed to enjoy joking at her expense, the pair had some
+amusing set-tos. I will say this for Hephzy: In the most of these she
+gave at least as good as she received.
+
+For example: we were sitting about the tea-table on the lawn, Hephzy,
+Frances, Doctor and Mrs. Bayliss, their son, and Heathcroft. The
+conversation had drifted to the subject of eatables, a topic suggested,
+doubtless, by the plum cake and cookies on the table. Mr. Heathcroft was
+amusing himself by poking fun at the American custom of serving cereals
+at breakfast.
+
+"And the variety is amazing," he declared. "Oats and wheat and corn!
+My word! I felt like some sort of animal--a horse, by Jove! We feed our
+horses that sort of thing over here, Miss Cahoon."
+
+Hephzy sniffed. "So do we," she admitted, "but we eat 'em ourselves,
+sometimes, when they're cooked as they ought to be. I think some
+breakfast foods are fine."
+
+"Do you indeed? What an extraordinary taste! Do you eat hay as well, may
+I ask?"
+
+"No, of course we don't."
+
+"Why not? Why draw the line? I should think a bit of hay might be
+the--ah--the crowning tit-bit to a breakfasting American. Your horses
+and donkeys enjoy it quite as much as they do oats, don't they?"
+
+"Don't know, I'm sure. I'm neither a horse nor a donkey, I hope."
+
+"Yes. Oh, yes. But I assure you, Miss Morley, I had extraordinary
+experiences on the other side. I visited in a place called Milwaukee and
+my host there insisted on my trying a new cereal each morning. We did
+the oats and the corn and all the rest and, upon my word, I expected
+the hay. It was the only donkey food he didn't have in the house, and I
+don't see why he hadn't provided a supply of that."
+
+"Perhaps he didn't know you were comin'," observed Hephzy, cheerfully.
+"Won't you have another cup, Mrs. Bayliss? Or a cooky or somethin'?"
+
+The doctor's wife consented to the refilling of her cup.
+
+"I suppose--what do you call them?--cereals, are an American custom,"
+she said, evidently aware that her hostess's feelings were ruffled.
+"Every country has its customs, so travelers say. Even our own has some,
+doubtless, though I can't recall any at the moment."
+
+Heathcroft stroked his mustache.
+
+"Oh," he drawled, "we have some, possibly; but our breakfasts are not as
+queer as the American breakfasts. You mustn't mind my fun, Miss Cahoon,
+I hope you're not offended."
+
+"Not a bit," was the calm reply. "We humans ARE animals, after all, I
+suppose, and some like one kind of food and some another. Donkeys like
+hay and pigs like sweets, and I don't know as I hadn't just as soon live
+in a stable as a sty. Do help yourself to the cake, Mr. Heathcroft."
+
+No, our aristocratic acquaintance did not, as a general rule, come out
+ahead in these little encounters and I more than once was obliged to
+suppress a chuckle at my plucky relative's spirited retorts. Frances,
+too, seemed to appreciate and enjoy the Yankee victories. Her prejudice
+against America had, so far as outward expression went, almost
+disappeared. She was more likely to champion than criticize our ways and
+habits now.
+
+But, in spite of all this, she seemed to enjoy the Heathcroft society.
+The two were together a great deal. The village people noticed the
+intimacy and comments reached my ears which were not intended for them.
+Hephzy and I had some discussions on the subject.
+
+"You don't suppose he means anything serious, do you, Hosy?" she asked.
+"Or that she thinks he does?"
+
+"I don't know," I answered. I didn't like the idea any better than she
+did.
+
+"I hope not. Of course he's a big man around here. When his aunt dies
+he'll come in for the estate and the money, so everybody says. And
+if Frances should marry him she'd be--I don't know whether she'd be a
+'Lady' or not, but she'd have an awful high place in society."
+
+"I suppose she would. But I hope she won't do it."
+
+"So do I, for poor young Doctor Bayliss's sake, if nothin' else. He's so
+good and so patient with it all. And he's just eaten up with jealousy;
+anybody can see that. I'm scared to death that he and this Heathcroft
+man will have some sort of--of a fight or somethin'. That would be
+awful, wouldn't it!"
+
+I did not answer. My apprehensions were not on Herbert Bayliss's
+account. He could look out for himself. It was Frances' happiness I was
+thinking of.
+
+"Hosy," said Hephzy, very seriously indeed, "there's somethin' else. I'm
+not sure that Mr. Heathcroft is serious at all. Somethin' Mrs. Bayliss
+said to me makes me feel a little mite anxious. She said Carleton
+Heathcroft was a great lady's man. She told me some things about him
+that--that--Well, I wish Frances wasn't so friendly with him, that's
+all."
+
+I shrugged my shoulders, pretending more indifference than I felt.
+
+"She's a sensible girl," said I. "She doesn't need a guardian."
+
+"I know, but--but he's way up in society, Lady Carey's heir and all
+that. She can't help bein' flattered by his attentions to her. Any girl
+would be, especially an English girl that thinks as much of class and
+all that as they do over here and as she does. I wish I knew how she did
+feel toward him."
+
+"Why don't you ask her?"
+
+Hephzy shook her head. "I wouldn't dare," she said. "She'd take my head
+off. We're on awful thin ice, you and I, with her, as it is. She treats
+us real nicely now, but that's because we don't interfere. If I should
+try just once to tell her what she ought to do she'd flare up like a
+bonfire. And then do the other thing to show her independence."
+
+"I suppose she would," I admitted, gloomily.
+
+"I know she would. No, we mustn't say anything to her. But--but you
+might say somethin' to him, mightn't you. Just hint around and find
+out what he does mean by bein' with her so much. Couldn't you do that,
+Hosy?"
+
+I smiled. "Possibly I could, but I sha'n't," I answered. "He would tell
+me to go to perdition, probably, and I shouldn't blame him."
+
+"Why no, he wouldn't. He thinks you're her uncle, her guardian, you
+know. You'd have a right to do it."
+
+I did not propose to exercise that right, and I said so, emphatically.
+And yet, before that week was ended, I did do what amounted to that very
+thing. The reason which led to this rash act on my part was a talk I had
+with Lady Kent Carey.
+
+I met her ladyship on the putting green of the ninth hole of the golf
+course. I was playing a round alone. She came strolling over the green,
+dressed as mannishly as usual, but carrying a very feminine parasol,
+which by comparison with the rest of her get-up, looked as out of place
+as a silk hat on the head of a girl in a ball dress. She greeted me very
+affably, waited until I putted out, and then sat beside me on the bench
+under the big oak and chatted for some time.
+
+The subject of her conversation was her nephew. She was, apparently,
+only too glad to talk about him at any time. He was her dead sister's
+child and practically the only relative she had. He seemed like a son to
+her. Such a charming fellow, wasn't he, now? And so considerate and kind
+to her. Everyone liked him; he was a great favorite.
+
+"And he is very fond of you, Mr. Knowles," she said. "He enjoys your
+acquaintance so much. He says that there is a freshness and novelty
+about you Americans which is quite delightfully amusing. This
+Miss--ah--Cahoon--your cousin, I think she is--is a constant joy to him.
+He never tires of repeating her speeches. He does it very well, don't
+you think. He mimics the American accent wonderfully."
+
+I agreed that the Heathcroft American accent was wonderful indeed. It
+was all that and more. Lady Carey went on.
+
+"And this Miss Morley, your niece," she said, poking holes in the turf
+with the tip of her parasol, "she is a charming girl, isn't she. She and
+Carleton are quite friendly, really."
+
+"Yes," I admitted, "they seem to be."
+
+"Yes. Tell me about your niece, Mr. Knowles. Has she lived in England
+long? Who were her parents?"
+
+I dodged the ticklish subject as best I could, told her that Frances'
+father was an Englishman, her mother an American, and that most of the
+young lady's life had been spent in France. I feared more searching
+questions, but she did not ask them.
+
+"I see," she said, nodding, and was silent for a moment. Then she
+changed the subject, returning once more to her beloved Carleton.
+
+"He's a dear boy," she declared. "I am planning great things for him.
+Some day he will have the estate here, of course. And I am hoping to
+get him the seat in Parliament when our party returns to power, as it
+is sure to do before long. He will marry then; in fact everything is
+arranged, so far as that goes. Of course there is no actual engagement
+as yet, but we all understand."
+
+I had been rather bored, now I was interested.
+
+"Indeed!" said I. "And may I ask who is the fortunate young lady?"
+
+"A daughter of an old friend of ours in Warwickshire--a fine family, one
+of the oldest in England. She and Carleton have always been so fond of
+each other. Her parents and I have considered the affair settled for
+years. The young people will be so happy together."
+
+Here was news. I offered congratulations.
+
+"Thank you so much," she said. "It is pleasant to know that his future
+is provided for. Margaret will make him a good wife. She worships him.
+If anything should happen to--ah--disturb the arrangement her heart
+would break, I am sure. Of course nothing will happen. I should not
+permit it."
+
+I made some comment, I don't remember what. She rose from the bench.
+
+"I have been chatting about family affairs and matchmaking like a
+garrulous old woman, haven't I," she observed, smiling. "So silly of me.
+You have been charmingly kind to listen, Mr. Knowles. Forgive me, won't
+you. Carleton dear is my one interest in life and I talk of him on the
+least excuse, or without any. So sorry to have inflicted my garrulity
+upon you. I may count upon you entering our invitation golf tournament
+next month, may I not? Oh, do say yes. Thank you so much. Au revoir."
+
+She moved off, as imposing and majestic as a frigate under full sail. I
+walked slowly toward home, thinking hard.
+
+I should have been flattered, perhaps, at her taking me into confidence
+concerning her nephew's matrimonial projects. If I had believed the
+"garrulity," as she called it, to have been unintentional, I might have
+been flattered. But I did not so believe. I was pretty certain there was
+intention in it and that she expected Frances and Hephzy and me to take
+it as a warning. Carleton dear was, in her eyes, altogether too friendly
+with the youngest tenant in Mayberry rectory. The "garrulity" was a
+notice to keep hands off.
+
+I was not incensed at her; she amused me, rather. But with Heathcroft I
+was growing more incensed every moment. Engaged to be married, was he!
+He and this Warwickshire girl of "fine family" had been "so fond" of
+each other for years. Everything was understood, was it? Then what did
+he mean by his attentions to Frances, attentions which half of Mayberry
+was probably discussing at the moment? The more I considered his conduct
+the angrier I became. It was the worst time possible for a meeting with
+A. Carleton Heathcroft, and yet meet him I did at the loneliest and most
+secluded spot in the hedged lane leading to the lodge gate.
+
+He greeted me cordially enough, if his languid drawl could be called
+cordial.
+
+"Ah, Knowles," he said. "Been doing the round I see. A bit stupid by
+oneself, I should think. What? Miss Morley and I have been riding. Had a
+ripping canter together."
+
+It was an unfortunate remark, just at that time. It had the effect of
+spurring my determination to the striking point. I would have it out
+with him then and there.
+
+"Heathcroft," I said, bluntly, "I am not sure that I approve of Miss
+Morley's riding with you so often."
+
+He regarded me with astonishment.
+
+"You don't approve!" he repeated. "And why not? There's no danger. She
+rides extremely well."
+
+"It's not a question of danger. It is one of proprieties, if I must
+put it that way. She is a young woman, hardly more than a girl, and she
+probably does not realize that being seen in your company so frequently
+is likely to cause comment and gossip. Her aunt and I realize it,
+however."
+
+His expression of surprise was changing to one of languid amusement.
+
+"Really!" he drawled. "By Jove! I say, Knowles, am I such a dangerously
+fascinating character? You flatter me."
+
+"I don't know anything concerning your character. I do know that there
+is gossip. I am not accusing you of anything. I have no doubt you have
+been merely careless. Your intentions may have been--"
+
+He interrupted me. "My intentions?" he repeated. "My dear fellow, I have
+no intentions. None whatever concerning your niece, if that is what you
+mean. She is a jolly pretty girl and jolly good company. I like her and
+she seems to like me. That is all, upon my word it is."
+
+He was quite sincere, I was convinced of it. But I had gone too far to
+back out.
+
+"Then you have been thoughtless--or careless," I said. "It seems to me
+that you should have considered her."
+
+"Considered her! Oh, I say now! Why should I consider her pray?"
+
+"Why shouldn't you? You are much older than she is and a man of the
+world besides. And you are engaged to be married, or so I am told."
+
+His smile disappeared.
+
+"Now who the devil told you that?" he demanded.
+
+"I was told, by one who should know, that you were engaged, or what
+amounts to the same thing. It is true, isn't it?"
+
+"Of course it's true! But--but--why, good God, man! you weren't under
+the impression that I was planning to marry your niece, were you? Oh, I
+say! that would be TOO good!"
+
+He laughed heartily. He did not appear in the least annoyed or angry,
+but seemed to consider the whole affair a huge joke. I failed to see the
+joke, myself.
+
+"Oh, no," he went on, before I could reply, "not that, I assure you. One
+can't afford luxuries of that kind, unless one is a luckier beggar than
+I am. Auntie is attending to all that sort of thing. She has me booked,
+you know, and I can't afford to play the high-spirited independent with
+her. I should say not! Rather!"
+
+He laughed again.
+
+"So you think I've been a bit too prevalent in your niece's
+neighborhood, do you?" he observed. "Sorry. I'd best keep off the lawn a
+bit, you mean to say, I suppose. Very well! I'll mind the notice boards,
+of course. Very glad you spoke. Possibly I have been a bit careless. No
+offence meant, Knowles, and none taken, I trust."
+
+"No," I said, with some reluctance. "I'm glad you understand my--our
+position, and take my--my hint so well. I disliked to give it, but I
+thought it best that we have a clear understanding."
+
+"Of course! Stern uncle and pretty niece, and all that sort of thing.
+You Americans are queer beggars. You don't strike me as the usual type
+of stern uncle at all, Knowles. Oh, by the way, does the niece know that
+uncle is putting up the notice boards?"
+
+"Of course she doesn't," I replied, hastily.
+
+His smile broadened. "I wonder what she'll say when she finds it out,"
+he observed. "She has never struck me as being greatly in awe of
+her relatives. I should call HER independent, if I was asked. Well,
+farewell. You and I may have some golf together still, I presume? Good!
+By-by."
+
+He sauntered on, his serene coolness and calm condescension apparently
+unruffled. I continued on my way also. But my serenity had vanished. I
+had the feeling that I had come off second-best in the encounter. I had
+made a fool of myself, I feared. And more than all, I wondered, as he
+did, what Frances Morley would say when she learned of my interference
+in her personal affairs.
+
+I foresaw trouble--more trouble.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+In Which the Truth Is Told at Last
+
+
+I said nothing to Hephzibah or Frances of my talk with Lady Carey or
+with Heathcroft. I was not proud of my share in the putting up of "the
+notice boards." I did not mention meeting either the titled aunt or the
+favored nephew. I kept quiet concerning them both and nervously awaited
+developments.
+
+There were none immediately. That day and the next passed and nothing of
+importance happened. It did seem to me, however, that Frances was rather
+quiet during luncheon on the third day. She said very little and
+several times I found her regarding me with an odd expression. My guilty
+conscience smote me and I expected to be asked questions answering which
+would be difficult. But the questions were not asked--then. I went to my
+study and attempted to write; the attempt was a failure.
+
+For an hour or so I stared hopelessly at the blank paper. I hadn't an
+idea in my head, apparently. At last I threw down the pencil and gave up
+the battle for the day. I was not in a writing mood. I lit my pipe, and,
+moving to the arm-chair by the window, sat there, looking out at the
+lawn and flower beds. No one was in sight except Grimmer, the gardener,
+who was trimming a hedge.
+
+I sat there for some time, smoking and thinking. Hephzy dressed in her
+best, passed the window on her way to the gate. She was going for a call
+in the village and had asked me to accompany her, but I declined. I did
+not feel like calling.
+
+My pipe, smoked out, I put in my pocket. If I could have gotten rid of
+my thoughts as easily I should have been happier, but that I could
+not do. They were strange thoughts, hopeless thoughts, ridiculous,
+unavailing thoughts. For me, Kent Knowles, quahaug, to permit myself to
+think in that way was worse than ridiculous; it was pitiful. This was a
+stern reality, this summer of mine in England, not a chapter in one of
+my romances. They ended happily; it was easy to make them end in that
+way. But this--this was no romance, or, if it was, I was but the comic
+relief in the story, the queer old bachelor who had made a fool of
+himself. That was what I was, an old fool. Well, I must stop being
+a fool before it was too late. No one knew I was such a fool. No one
+should know--now or ever.
+
+And having reached this philosophical conclusion I proceeded to dream
+of dark eyes looking into mine across a breakfast table--our table; of a
+home in Bayport--our home; of someone always with me, to share my life,
+my hopes, to spur me on to a work worth while, to glory in my triumphs
+and comfort me in my reverses; to dream of what might have been if--if
+it were not absolutely impossible. Oh, fool, fool, fool!
+
+A quick step sounded on the gravel walk outside the window. I knew the
+step, should have recognized it anywhere. She was walking rapidly toward
+the house, her head bent and her eyes fixed upon the path before
+her. Grimmer touched his hat and said "Good afternoon, miss," but she
+apparently did not hear him. She passed on and I heard her enter the
+hall. A moment later she knocked at the study door.
+
+She entered the room in answer to my invitation and closed the door
+behind her. She was dressed in her golfing costume, a plain white
+shirtwaist--blouse, she would have called it--a short, dark skirt and
+stout boots. The light garden hat was set upon her dark hair and her
+cheeks were flushed from rapid walking. The hat and waist and skirt were
+extremely becoming. She was pretty--yes, beautiful--and young. I was far
+from beautiful and far from young. I make this obvious statement because
+it was my thought at the moment.
+
+She did not apologize for interrupting me, as she usually did when she
+entered the study during my supposed working periods. This was strange,
+of itself, and my sense of guilt caused me to fear all sorts of things.
+But she smiled and answered my greeting pleasantly enough and, for the
+moment, I experienced relief. Perhaps, after all, she had not learned of
+my interview with Heathcroft.
+
+"I have come to talk with you," she began. "May I sit down?"
+
+"Certainly. Of course you may," I answered, smiling as cheerfully as I
+could. "Was it necessary to ask permission?"
+
+She took a chair and I seated myself in the one from which I had just
+risen. For a moment she was silent. I ventured a remark.
+
+"This begins very solemnly," I said. "Is the talk to be so very
+serious?"
+
+She was serious enough and my apprehensions returned.
+
+"I don't know," she answered. "I hope it may not be serious at all, Mr.
+Knowles."
+
+I interrupted. "Mr. Knowles!" I repeated. "Whew! this IS a formal
+interview. I thought the 'Mr. Knowles' had been banished along with
+'Uncle Hosea'."
+
+She smiled slightly then. "Perhaps it has," she said. "I am just a
+little troubled--or puzzled--and I have come to you for advice."
+
+"Advice?" I repeated. "I'm afraid my advice isn't worth much. What sort
+of advice do you want?"
+
+"I wanted to know what I should do in regard to an invitation I have
+received to motor with Doctor Bayliss--Doctor Herbert Bayliss. He has
+asked me to go with him to Edgeboro to-morrow. Should I accept?"
+
+I hesitated. Then: "Alone?" I asked.
+
+"No. His cousin, Miss Tomlinson, will go also."
+
+"I see no reason why you should not, if you wish to go."
+
+"Thank you. But suppose it was alone?"
+
+"Then--Well, I presume that would be all right, too. You have motored
+with him before, you know."
+
+As a matter of fact, I couldn't see why she asked my opinion in such a
+matter. She had never asked it before. Her next remark was more puzzling
+still.
+
+"You approve of Doctor Bayliss, don't you," she said. It did seem to me
+there was a hint of sarcasm in her tone.
+
+"Yes--certainly," I answered. I did approve of young Bayliss, generally
+speaking; there was no sane reason why I should not have approved of him
+absolutely.
+
+"And you trust me? You believe me capable of judging what is right or
+wrong?"
+
+"Of course I do."
+
+"If you didn't you would not presume to interfere in my personal
+affairs? You would not think of doing that, of course?"
+
+"No--o," more slowly.
+
+"Why do you hesitate? Of course you realize that you have no shadow of
+right to interfere. You know perfectly well why I consented to remain
+here for the present and why I have remained?"
+
+"Yes, yes, I know that."
+
+"And you wouldn't presume to interfere?"
+
+"Doctor Herbert Bayliss is--"
+
+She sprang to her feet. She was not smiling now.
+
+"Stop!" she interrupted, sharply. "Stop! I did not come to discuss
+Doctor Bayliss. I have asked you a question. I ask you if you would
+presume to interfere in my personal affairs. Would you?"
+
+"Why, no. That is, I--"
+
+"You say that to me! YOU!"
+
+"Frances, if you mean that I have interfered between you and the Doctor,
+I--"
+
+She stamped her foot.
+
+"Stop! Oh, stop!" she cried. "You know what I mean. What did you say to
+Mr. Heathcroft? Do you dare tell me you have not interfered there?"
+
+It had come, the expected. Her smile and the asking for "advice" had
+been apparently but traps to catch me off my guard. I had been prepared
+for some such scene as this, but, in spite of my preparations,
+I hesitated and faltered. I must have looked like the meanest of
+pickpockets caught in the act.
+
+"Frances," I stammered, "Frances--"
+
+Her fury took my breath away.
+
+"Don't call me Frances," she cried. "How dare you call me that?"
+
+Perturbed as I was I couldn't resist making the obvious retort.
+
+"You asked me to," I said.
+
+"I asked you! Yes, I did. You had been kind to me, or I thought you
+had, and I--I was foolish. Oh, how I hate myself for doing it! But I
+was beginning to think you a gentleman. In spite of everything, I was
+beginning to--And now! Oh, at least I thought you wouldn't LIE to me."
+
+I rose now.
+
+"Frances--Miss Morley," I said, "do you realize what you are saying?"
+
+"Realize it! Oh," with a scornful laugh, "I realize it quite well; you
+may be sure of that. Don't you like the word? What else do you call a
+denial of what we both know to be the truth. You did see Mr. Heathcroft.
+You did speak with him."
+
+"Yes, I did."
+
+"You did! You admit it!"
+
+"I admit it. But did he tell you what I said?"
+
+"He did not. Mr. Heathcroft IS a gentleman. He told me very little and
+that only in answer to my questions. I knew you and he met the other
+day. You did not mention it, but you were seen together, and when he did
+not come for the ride to which he had invited me I thought it strange.
+And his note to me was stranger still. I began to suspect then, and when
+we next met I asked him some questions. He told me next to nothing, but
+he is honorable and he does not LIE. I learned enough, quite enough."
+
+I wondered if she had learned of the essential thing, of Heathcroft's
+engagement.
+
+"Did he tell you why I objected to his intimacy with you?" I asked.
+
+"He told me nothing! Nothing! The very fact that you had objected, as
+you call it, was sufficient. Object! YOU object to my doing as I please!
+YOU meddle with my affairs! And humiliate me in the eyes of my friends!
+I could--I could die of shame! I... And as if I did not know your
+reasons. As if they were not perfectly plain."
+
+The real reason could not be plain to her. Heathcroft evidently had not
+told her of the Warwickshire heiress.
+
+"I don't understand," I said, trying my hardest to speak calmly. "What
+reasons?"
+
+"Must I tell you? Did you OBJECT to my friendship with Doctor Bayliss,
+pray?"
+
+"Doctor Bayliss! Why, Doctor Bayliss is quite different. He is a fine
+young fellow, and--"
+
+"Yes," with scornful sarcasm, "so it would appear. You and my aunt and
+he have the most evident of understandings. You need not praise him
+for my benefit. It is quite apparent how you both feel toward Doctor
+Bayliss. I am not blind. I have seen how you have thrown him in my
+company, and made opportunities for me to meet him. Oh, of course, I can
+see! I did not believe it at first. It was too absurd, too outrageously
+impertinent. I COULDN'T believe it. But now I know."
+
+This was a little too much. The idea that I--_I_ had been playing the
+matchmaker for Bayliss's benefit made me almost as angry as she was.
+
+"Nonsense!" I declared. "Miss Morley, this is too ridiculous to go on.
+I did speak to Mr. Heathcroft. There was a reason, a good reason, for my
+doing so."
+
+"I do not wish to hear your reason, as you call it. The fact that you
+did speak to him concerning me is enough. Mr. Knowles, this arrangement
+of ours, my living here with you, has gone on too long. I should have
+known it was impossible in the beginning. But I did not know. I was
+alone--and ill--and I did need friends--I was SO alone. I had been
+through so much. I had struggled and suffered and--"
+
+Again, as in our quarrel at Wrayton, she was on the verge of tears. And
+again that unreasonable conscience of mine smote me. I longed to--Well,
+to prove myself the fool I was.
+
+But she did not give me the opportunity. Before I could speak or move
+she was on her way to the door.
+
+"This ends it," she said. "I shall go away from here at once. I
+shall put the whole matter in my solicitor's hands. This is an end of
+forbearance and all the rest. I am going. You have made me hate you and
+despise you. I only hope that--that some day you will despise yourself
+as much. But you won't," scornfully. "You are not that sort."
+
+The door closed. She was gone. Gone! And soon--the next day at the
+latest--she would have been gone for good. This WAS the end.
+
+I walked many miles that day, how many I do not know. Dinner was waiting
+for me when I returned, but I could not eat. I rose from the table, went
+to the study and sat there, alone with my misery. I was torn with the
+wildest longings and desires. One, I think, was to kill Heathcroft
+forthwith. Another was to kill myself.
+
+There came another knock at the door. This time I made no answer. I did
+not want to see anyone.
+
+But the door opened, nevertheless, and Hephzy came in. She crossed the
+room and stood by my chair.
+
+"What is it, Hosy?" she said, gently. "You must tell me all about it."
+
+I made some answer, told her to go away and leave me, I think. If that
+was it she did not heed. She put her hand upon my shoulder.
+
+"You must tell me, Hosy," she said. "What has happened? You and Frances
+have had some fallin' out, I know. She wouldn't come to dinner, either,
+and she won't see me. She's up in her room with the door shut. Tell me,
+Hosy; you and I have fought each other's battles for a good many years.
+You can't fight this one alone; I've got to do my share. Tell me,
+dearie, please."
+
+And tell her I did. I did not mean to, and yet somehow the thought that
+she was there, so strong and quiet and big-hearted and sensible, was, if
+not a comfort to me, at least a marvelous help. I began by telling her a
+little and then went on to tell her all, of my talk with Lady Carey, my
+meeting with Heathcroft, the scene with Frances--everything, word for
+word.
+
+When it was over she patted my shoulder.
+
+"You did just right, Hosy," she said. "There was nothin' else you could
+do. I never liked that Heathcroft man. And to think of him, engaged to
+another girl, trottin' around with Frances the way he has. I'D like to
+talk with him. He'd get a piece of MY mind."
+
+"He's all right enough," I admitted grudgingly. "He took my warning in a
+very good sort, I must say. He has never meant anything serious. It was
+just his way, that's all. He was amusing himself in her company,
+and doubtless thought she would be flattered with his aristocratic
+attentions."
+
+"Humph! Well, I guess she wouldn't be if she'd known of that other girl.
+You didn't tell her that, you say."
+
+"I couldn't. I think I should, perhaps, if she would have listened. I'm
+glad I didn't. It isn't a thing for me to tell her."
+
+"I understand. But she ought to know it, just the same. And she ought to
+know how good you've been to her. Nobody could be better. She must know
+it. Whether she goes or whether she doesn't she must know that."
+
+I seized her arm. "You mustn't tell her a word," I cried. "She mustn't
+know. It is better she should go. Better for her and for me--My God,
+yes! so much better for me."
+
+I could feel the arm on my shoulder start. Hephzy bent down and looked
+into my face. I tried to avoid the scrutiny, but she looked and looked.
+Then she drew a long breath.
+
+"Hosy!" she exclaimed. "Hosy!"
+
+"Don't speak to me. Oh, Hephzy," with a bitter laugh, "did you ever
+dream there could be such a hopeless lunatic as I am! You needn't say
+it. I know the answer."
+
+"Hosy! Hosy! you poor boy!"
+
+She kissed me, soothing me as she had when I came home to our empty
+house at the time of my mother's death. That memory came back to me even
+then.
+
+"Forgive me, Hephzy," I said. "I am ashamed of myself, of course. And
+don't worry. Nobody knows this but you and I, and nobody else shall. I'm
+going to behave and I'm going to be sensible. Just forget all this for
+my sake. I mean to forget it, too."
+
+But Hephzy shook her head.
+
+"It's all my fault," she said. "I'm to blame more than anybody else.
+It was me that brought her here in the first place and me that kept you
+from tellin' her the truth in the beginnin'. So it's me who must tell
+her now."
+
+"Hephzy!"
+
+"Oh, I don't mean the truth about--about what you and I have just said,
+Hosy. She'll never know that, perhaps. Certainly she'll never know it
+from me. But the rest of it she must know. This has gone far enough. She
+sha'n't go away from this house misjudgin' you, thinkin' you're a thief,
+as well as all the rest of it. That she sha'n't do. I shall see to
+that--now."
+
+"Hephzy, I forbid you to--"
+
+"You can't forbid me, Hosy. It's my duty, and I've been a silly, wicked
+old woman and shirked that duty long enough. Now don't worry any more.
+Go to your room, dearie, and lay down. If you get to sleep so much the
+better. Though I guess," with a sigh, "we sha'n't either of us sleep
+much this night."
+
+Before I could prevent her she had left the room. I sprang after her, to
+call her back, to order her not to do the thing she had threatened.
+But, in the drawing-room, Charlotte, the housemaid, met me with an
+announcement.
+
+"Doctor Bayliss--Doctor Herbert Bayliss--is here, sir," she said. "He
+has called to see you."
+
+"To see me?" I repeated, trying hard to recover some measure of
+composure. "To see Miss Frances, you mean."
+
+"No, sir. He says he wants to see you alone. He's in the hall now, sir."
+
+He was; I could hear him. Certainly I never wished to see anyone less,
+but I could not refuse.
+
+"Ask him to come into the study, Charlotte," said I.
+
+The young doctor found me sitting in the chair by the desk. The long
+English twilight was almost over and the room was in deep shadow.
+Charlotte entered and lighted the lamp. I was strongly tempted to order
+her to desist, but I could scarcely ask my visitor to sit in the dark,
+however much I might prefer to do so. I compromised by moving to a seat
+farther from the lamp where my face would be less plainly visible. Then,
+Bayliss having, on my invitation, also taken a chair, I waited for him
+to state his business.
+
+It was not easy to state, that was plain. Ordinarily Herbert Bayliss was
+cool and self-possessed. I had never before seen him as embarrassed as
+he seemed to be now. He fidgeted on the edge of the chair, crossed and
+recrossed his legs, and, finally, offered the original remark that it
+had been an extremely pleasant day. I admitted the fact and again there
+was an interval of silence. I should have helped him, I suppose. It
+was quite apparent that his was no casual call and, under ordinary
+circumstances, I should have been interested and curious. Now I did
+not care. If he would say his say and go away and leave me I should be
+grateful.
+
+And, at last, he said it. His next speech was very much nearer the
+point.
+
+"Mr. Knowles," he said, "I have called to--to see you concerning your
+niece, Miss Morley. I--I have come to ask your consent to my asking her
+to marry me."
+
+I was not greatly surprised. I had vaguely suspected his purpose when
+he entered the room. I had long foreseen the likelihood of some such
+interview as this, had considered what I should say when the time came.
+But now it had come, I could say nothing. I sat in silence, looking at
+him.
+
+Perhaps he thought I did not understand. At any rate he hastened to
+explain.
+
+"I wish your permission to marry your niece," he repeated. "I have no
+doubt you are surprised. Perhaps you fancy I am a bit hasty. I suppose
+you do. But I--I care a great deal for her, Mr. Knowles. I will try
+to make her a good husband. Not that I am good enough for her, of
+course--no one could be that, you know; but I'll try and--and--"
+
+He was very red in the face and floundered, amid his jerky sentences,
+like a newly-landed fish, but he stuck to it manfully. I could not help
+admiring the young fellow. He was so young and handsome and so honest
+and boyishly eager in his embarrassment. I admired him--yes, but I
+hated him, too, hated him for his youth and all that it meant, I was
+jealous--bitterly, wickedly jealous, and of all jealousy, hopeless,
+unreasonable jealousy is the worst, I imagine.
+
+He went on to speak of his ambitions and prospects. He did not intend to
+remain always in Mayberry as his father's assistant, not he. He should
+remain for a time, of course, but then he intended to go back to London.
+There were opportunities there. A fellow with the right stuff in him
+could get on there. He had friends in the London hospitals and they had
+promised to put chances his way. He should not presume to marry Frances
+at once, of course. He would not be such a selfish goat as that. All he
+asked was that, my permission granted, she would be patient and wait a
+bit until he got on his feet, professionally he meant to say, and then--
+
+I interrupted.
+
+"One moment," said I, trying to appear calm and succeeding remarkably
+well, considering the turmoil in my brain; "just a moment, Bayliss, if
+you please. Have you spoken to Miss Morley yet? Do you know her feelings
+toward you?"
+
+No, he had not. Of course he wouldn't do that until he and I had had our
+understanding. He had tried to be honorable and all that. But--but he
+thought she did not object to him. She--well, she had seemed to like him
+well enough. There had been times when he thought she--she--
+
+"Well, you see, sir," he said, "she's a girl, of course, and a fellow
+never knows just what a girl is going to say or do. There are times when
+one is sure everything is quite right and then that it is all wrong. But
+I have hoped--I believe--She's such a ripping girl, you know. She would
+not flirt with a chap and--I don't mean flirt exactly, she isn't a
+flirt, of course--but--don't you think she likes me, now?"
+
+"I have no reason to suppose she doesn't," I answered grudgingly. After
+all, he was acting very honorably; I could scarcely do less.
+
+He seemed to find much comfort in my equivocal reply.
+
+"Thanks, thanks awfully," he exclaimed. "I--I--by Jove, you know, I
+can't tell you how I like to hear you say that! I'm awfully grateful
+to you, Knowles, I am really. And you'll give me permission to speak to
+her?"
+
+I smiled; it was not a happy smile, but there was a certain ironic humor
+in the situation. The idea of anyone's seeking my "permission" in any
+matter concerning Frances Morley. He noticed the smile and was, I think,
+inclined to be offended.
+
+"Is it a joke?" he asked. "I say, now! it isn't a joke to me."
+
+"Nor to me, I assure you," I answered, seriously. "If I gave that
+impression it was a mistaken one. I never felt less like joking."
+
+He put his own interpretation on the last sentence. "I'm sorry," he
+said, quickly. "I beg your pardon. I understand, of course. You're very
+fond of her; no one could help being that, could they. And she is your
+niece."
+
+I hesitated. I was minded to blurt out the fact that she was not my
+niece at all; that I had no authority over her in any way. But what
+would be the use? It would lead only to explanations and I did not
+wish to make explanations. I wanted to get through with the whole inane
+business and be left alone.
+
+"But you haven't said yes, have you," he urged. "You will say it, won't
+you?"
+
+I nodded. "You have my permission, so far as that goes," I answered.
+
+He sprang to his feet and seized my hand.
+
+"That's topping!" he cried, his face radiant. "I can't thank you
+enough."
+
+"That's all right. But there is one thing more. Perhaps it isn't my
+affair, and you needn't answer unless you wish. Have you consulted your
+parents? How do they feel about your--your intentions?"
+
+His expression changed. My question was answered before he spoke.
+
+"No," he admitted, "I haven't told them yet. I--Well, you see, the Mater
+and Father have been making plans about my future, naturally. They have
+some silly ideas about a friend of the family that--Oh, she's a nice
+enough girl; I like her jolly well, but she isn't Miss Morley. Well,
+hardly! They'll take it quite well. By Jove!" excitedly, "they must.
+They've GOT to. Oh, they will. And they're very fond of--of Frances."
+
+There seemed nothing more for me to say, nothing at that time, at any
+rate. I, too, rose. He shook my hand again.
+
+"You've been a trump to me, Knowles," he declared. "I appreciate it, you
+know; I do indeed. I'm jolly grateful."
+
+"You needn't be. It is all right. I--I suppose I should wish you luck
+and happiness. I do. Yes, why shouldn't you be happy, even if--"
+
+"Even if--what? Oh, but you don't think she will turn me off, do you?
+You don't think that?"
+
+"I've told you that I see no reason why she should."
+
+"Thank you. Thank you so much. Is there anything else that you might
+wish to say to me?"
+
+"Not now. Perhaps some day I--But not now. No, there's nothing else.
+Good night, Bayliss; good night and--and good luck."
+
+"Good night. I--She's not in now, I suppose, is she?"
+
+"She is in, but--Well, I scarcely think you had better see her to-night.
+She has gone to her room."
+
+"Oh, I say! it's very early. She's not ill, is she?"
+
+"No, but I think you had best not see her to-night."
+
+He was disappointed, that was plain, but he yielded. He would have
+agreed, doubtless, with any opinion of mine just then.
+
+"No doubt you're right," he said. "Good night. And thank you again."
+
+He left the room. I did not accompany him to the door. Instead I
+returned to my chair. I did not occupy it long, I could not. I could not
+sit still. I rose and went out on the lawn. There, in the night mist, I
+paced up and down, up and down. I had longed to be alone; now that I was
+alone I was more miserable than ever.
+
+Charlotte, the maid, called to me from the doorway.
+
+"Would you wish the light in the study any longer, sir?" she asked.
+
+"No," said I, curtly. "You may put it out."
+
+"And shall I lock up, sir; all but this door, I mean?"
+
+"Yes. Where is Miss Cahoon?"
+
+"She's above, sir. With Miss Morley, I think, sir."
+
+"Very well, Charlotte. That is all. Good night."
+
+"Good night, sir."
+
+She went into the house. The lamp in the study was extinguished. I
+continued my pacing up and down. Occasionally I glanced at the upper
+story of the rectory. There was a lighted window there, the window of
+Frances' room. She and Hephzy were together in that room. What was going
+on there? What had Hephzy said to her? What--Oh, WHAT would happen next?
+
+Some time later--I don't know how much later it may have been--I heard
+someone calling me again.
+
+"Hosy!" called Hephzy in a loud whisper; "Hosy, where are you?"
+
+"Here I am," I answered.
+
+She came to me across the lawn. I could not, of course, see her face,
+but her tone was very anxious.
+
+"Hosy," she whispered, putting her hand on my arm, "what are you doin'
+out here all alone?"
+
+I laughed. "I'm taking the air," I answered. "It is good for me. I am
+enjoying the glorious English air old Doctor Bayliss is always talking
+about. Fresh air and exercise--those will cure anything, so he says.
+Perhaps they will cure me. God knows I need curing."
+
+"Sshh! shh, Hosy! Don't talk that way. I don't like to hear you. Out
+here bareheaded and in all this damp! You'll get your death."
+
+"Will I? Well, that will be a complete cure, then."
+
+"Hush! I tell you. Come in the house with me. I want to talk to you.
+Come!"
+
+Still holding my arm she led me toward the house. I hung back.
+
+"You have been up there with her?" I said, with a nod toward the lighted
+window of the room above. "What has happened? What have you said and
+done?"
+
+"Hush! I'll tell you; I'll tell you all about it. Only come in now. I
+sha'n't feel safe until I get you inside. Oh, Hosy, DON'T act this way!
+Do you want to frighten me to death?"
+
+That appeal had an effect. I was ashamed of myself.
+
+"Forgive me, Hephzy," I said. "I'll try to be decent. You needn't worry
+about me. I'm a fool, of course, but now that I realize it I shall try
+to stop behaving like one. Come along; I'm ready."
+
+In the drawing-room she closed the door.
+
+"Shall I light the lamp?" she asked.
+
+"No. Oh, for heaven's sake, can't you see that I'm crazy to know what
+you said to that girl and what she said to you? Tell me, and hurry up,
+will you!"
+
+She did not resent my sudden burst of temper and impatience. Instead she
+put her arm about me.
+
+"Sit down, Hosy," she pleaded. "Sit down and I'll tell you all about it.
+Do sit down."
+
+I refused to sit.
+
+"Tell me now," I commanded. "What did you say to her? You didn't--you
+didn't--"
+
+"I did. I told her everything."
+
+"EVERYTHING! You don't mean--"
+
+"I mean everything. 'Twas time she knew it. I went to that room meanin'
+to tell her and I did. At first she didn't want to listen, didn't want
+to see me at all or even let me in. But I made her let me in and then
+she and I had it out."
+
+"Hephzy!"
+
+"Don't say it that way, Hosy. The good Lord knows I hate myself for
+doin' it, hated myself while I was doin' it, but it had to be done.
+Every word I spoke cut me as bad as it must have cut her. I kept
+thinkin', 'This is Little Frank I'm talkin' to. This is Ardelia's
+daughter I'm makin' miserable.' A dozen times I stopped and thought I
+couldn't go on, but every time I thought of you and what you'd put up
+with and been through, and I went on."
+
+"Hephzy! you told her--"
+
+"I said it was time she understood just the plain truth about her father
+and mother and grandfather and the money, and everything. She must know
+it, I said; things couldn't go on as they have been. I told it all. At
+first she wouldn't listen, said I was--well, everything that was mean
+and lyin' and bad. If she could she'd have put me out of her room, I
+presume likely, but I wouldn't go. And, of course, at first she wouldn't
+believe, but I made her believe."
+
+"Made her believe! Made her believe her father was a thief! How could
+you do that! No one could."
+
+"I did it. I don't know how exactly. I just went on tellin' it all
+straight from the beginnin', and pretty soon I could see she was
+commencin' to believe. And she believes now, Hosy; she does, I know it."
+
+"Did she say so?"
+
+"No, she didn't say anything, scarcely--not at the last. She didn't cry,
+either; I almost wish she had. Oh, Hosy, don't ask me any more questions
+than you have to. I can't bear to answer 'em."
+
+She paused and turned away.
+
+"How she must hate us!" I said, after a moment.
+
+"Why, no--why, no, Hosy, I don't think she does; at least I'm tryin' to
+hope she doesn't. I softened it all I could. I told her why we took her
+with us in the first place; how we couldn't tell her the truth at first,
+or leave her, either, when she was so sick and alone. I told her why
+we brought her here, hopin' it would make her well and strong, and how,
+after she got that way, we put off tellin' her because it was such a
+dreadful hard thing to do. Hard! When I think of her sittin' there,
+white as a sheet, and lookin' at me with those big eyes of hers, her
+fingers twistin' and untwistin' in her lap--a way her mother used to
+have when she was troubled--and every word I spoke soundin' so cruel
+and--and--"
+
+She paused once more. I did not speak. Soon she recovered and went on.
+
+"I told her that I was tellin' her these things now because the
+misunderstandin's and all the rest had to stop and there was no use
+puttin' off any longer. I told her I loved her as if she was my very own
+and that this needn't make the least bit of difference unless she wanted
+it to. I said you felt just the same. I told her your speakin' to that
+Heathcroft man was only for her good and for no other reason. You'd
+learned that he was engaged to be married--"
+
+"You told her that?" I interrupted, involuntarily. "What did she say?"
+
+"Nothin', nothin' at all. I think she heard me and understood, but she
+didn't say anything. Just sat there, white and trembling and crushed,
+sort of, and looked and looked at me. I wanted to put my arms around
+her and ask her pardon and beg her to love me as I did her, but I didn't
+dare--I didn't dare. I did say that you and I would be only too glad to
+have her stay with us always, as one of the family, you know. If she'd
+only forget all the bad part that had gone and do that, I said--but she
+interrupted me. She said 'Forget!' and the way she said it made me
+sure she never would forget. And then--and then she asked me if I would
+please go away and leave her. Would I PLEASE not say any more now, but
+just leave her, only leave her alone. So I came away and--and that's
+all."
+
+"That's all," I repeated. "It is enough, I should say. Oh, Hephzy, why
+did you do it? Why couldn't it have gone on as it has been going? Why
+did you do it?"
+
+It was an unthinking, wicked speech. But Hephzy did not resent it. Her
+reply was as patient and kind as if she had been answering a child.
+
+"I had to do it, Hosy," she said. "After our talk this evenin' there
+was only one thing to do. It had to be done--for your sake, if nothin'
+else--and so I did it. But--but--" with a choking sob, "it was SO hard
+to do! My Ardelia's baby!"
+
+And at last, I am glad to say, I began to realize how very hard it had
+been for her. To understand what she had gone through for my sake and
+what a selfish brute I had been. I put my hands on her shoulders and
+kissed her almost reverently.
+
+"Hephzy," said I, "you're a saint and a martyr and I am--what I am.
+Please forgive me."
+
+"There isn't anything to forgive, Hosy. And," with a shake of the head,
+"I'm an awful poor kind of saint, I guess. They'd never put my image up
+in the churches over here--not if they knew how I felt this minute. And
+a saint from Cape Cod wouldn't be very welcome anyway, I'm afraid. I
+meant well, but that's a poor sort of recommendation. Oh, Hosy, you DO
+think I did for the best, don't you?"
+
+"You did the only thing to be done," I answered, with decision. "You did
+what I lacked the courage to do. Of course it was best."
+
+"You're awful good to say so, but I don't know. What'll come of it
+goodness knows. When I think of you and--and--"
+
+"Don't think of me. I'm going to be a man if I can--a quahaug, if
+I can't. At least I'm not going to be what I have been for the last
+month."
+
+"I know. But when I think of to-morrow and what she'll say to me, then,
+I--"
+
+"You mustn't think. You must go to bed and so must I. To-morrow will
+take care of itself. Come. Let's both sleep and forget it."
+
+Which was the very best of advice, but, like much good advice,
+impossible to follow. I did not sleep at all that night, nor did I
+forget. God help me! I was realizing that I never could forget.
+
+At six o'clock I came downstairs, made a pretence at eating some
+biscuits and cheese which I found on the sideboard, scribbled a brief
+note to Hephzy stating that I had gone for a walk and should not be back
+to breakfast, and started out. The walk developed into a long one and
+I did not return to the rectory until nearly eleven in the forenoon. By
+that time I was in a better mood, more reconciled to the inevitable--or
+I thought I was. I believed I could play the man, could even see her
+married to Herbert Bayliss and still behave like a man. I vowed and
+revowed it. No one--no one but Hephzy and I should ever know what we
+knew.
+
+Charlotte, the maid, seemed greatly relieved to see me. She hastened to
+the drawing-room.
+
+"Here he is, Miss Cahoon," she said. "He's come back, ma'am. He's here."
+
+"Of course I'm here, Charlotte," I said. "You didn't suppose I had run
+away, did you?... Why--why, Hephzy, what is the matter?"
+
+For Hephzy was coming to meet me, her hands outstretched and on her face
+an expression which I did not understand--sorrow, agitation--yes, and
+pity--were in that expression, or so it seemed to me.
+
+"Oh, Hosy!" she cried, "I'm so glad you've come. I wanted you so."
+
+"Wanted me?" I repeated. "Why, what do you mean? Has anything happened?"
+
+She nodded, solemnly.
+
+"Yes," she said, "somethin' has happened. Somethin' we might have
+expected, perhaps, but--but--Hosy, read that."
+
+I took what she handed me. It was a sheet of note paper, folded across,
+and with Hephzibah's name written upon one side. I recognized the
+writing and, with a sinking heart, unfolded it. Upon the other side was
+written in pencil this:
+
+
+"I am going away. I could not stay, of course. When I think how I have
+stayed and how I have treated you both, who have been so very, very
+kind to me, I feel--I can't tell you how I feel. You must not think me
+ungrateful. You must not think of me at all. And you must not try to
+find me, even if you should wish to do such a thing. I have the money
+which I intended using for my new frocks and I shall use it to pay
+my expenses and my fare to the place I am going. It is your money, of
+course, and some day I shall send it to you. And someday, if I can,
+I shall repay all that you have spent on my account. But you must not
+follow me and you must not think of asking me to come back. That I shall
+never do. I do thank you for all that you have done for me, both of you.
+I cannot understand why you did it, but I shall always remember. Don't
+worry about me. I know what I am going to do and I shall not starve or
+be in want. Good-by. Please try to forget me.
+
+"FRANCES MORLEY.
+
+"Please tell Mr. Knowles that I am sorry for what I said to him this
+afternoon and so many times before. How he could have been so kind and
+patient I can't understand. I shall always remember it--always. Perhaps
+he may forgive me some day. I shall try and hope that he may."
+
+
+I read to the end. Then, without speaking, I looked at Hephzy. Her eyes
+were brimming with tears.
+
+"She has gone," she said, in answer to my unspoken question. "She must
+have gone some time in the night. The man at the inn stable drove her
+to the depot at Haddington on Hill. She took the early train for London.
+That is all we know."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+In Which Hephzy and I Agree to Live for Each Other
+
+
+I shall condense the record of that day as much as possible. I should
+omit it altogether, if I could. We tried to trace her, of course. That
+is, I tried and Hephzy did not dissuade me, although she realized, I am
+sure, the hopelessness of the quest. Frances had left the rectory very
+early in the morning. The hostler at the inn had been much surprised to
+find her awaiting him when he came down to the yard at five o'clock.
+She was obliged to go to London, she said, and must take the very
+first train: Would he drive her to Haddington on Hill at once? He did
+so--probably she had offered him a great deal more than the regular
+fare--and she had taken the train.
+
+Questioning the hostler, who was a surly, uncommunicative lout, resulted
+in my learning very little in addition to this. The young lady seemed
+about as usual, so far as he could see. She might 'ave been a bit
+nervous, impatient like, but he attributed that to her anxiety to make
+the train. Yes, she had a bag with her, but no other luggage. No, she
+didn't talk on the way to the station: Why should she? He wasn't the man
+to ask a lady questions about what wasn't his affair. She minded her own
+business and he minded his. No, he didn't know nothin' more about it.
+What was I a-pumpin' him for, anyway?
+
+I gave up the "pumping" and hurried back to the rectory. There Hephzy
+told me a few additional facts. Frances had taken with her only the
+barest necessities, for the most part those which she had when she
+came to us. Her new frocks, those which she had bought with what she
+considered her money, she had left behind. All the presents which we had
+given her were in her room, or so we thought at the time. As she came,
+so she had gone, and the thought that she had gone, that I should never
+see her again, was driving me insane.
+
+And like an insane man I must have behaved, at first. The things I
+did and said, and the way in which I treated Hephzy shame me now, as I
+remember them. I was going to London at once. I would find her and bring
+her back. I would seek help from the police, I would employ detectives,
+I would do anything--everything. She was almost without money; so far as
+I knew without friends. What would she do? What would become of her? I
+must find her. I must bring her back.
+
+I stormed up and down the room, incoherently declaring my intentions and
+upbraiding Hephzy for not having sent the groom or the gardener to find
+me, for allowing all the precious time to elapse. Hephzy offered no
+excuse. She did not attempt justification. Instead she brought the
+railway time-table, gave orders that the horse be harnessed, helped me
+in every way. She would have prepared a meal for me with her own hands,
+would have fed me like a baby, if I had permitted it. One thing she did
+insist upon.
+
+"You must rest a few minutes, Hosy," she said. "You must, or you'll
+be down sick. You haven't slept a wink all night. You haven't eaten
+anything to speak of since yesterday noon. You can't go this way. You
+must go to your room and rest a few minutes. Lie down and rest, if you
+can."
+
+"Rest!"
+
+"You must. The train doesn't leave Haddington for pretty nigh two hours,
+and we've got lots of time. I'll fetch you up some tea and toast or
+somethin' by and by and I'll be all ready to start when you are. Now go
+and lie down, Hosy dear, to please me."
+
+I ignored the last sentence. "You will be ready?" I repeated. "Do you
+mean you're going with me?"
+
+"Of course I am. It isn't likely I'll let you start off all alone, when
+you're in a state like this. Of course I'm goin' with you. Now go and
+lie down. You're so worn out, poor boy."
+
+I must have had a glimmer of reason then, a trace of decency and
+unselfishness. For the first time I thought of her. I remembered that
+she, too, had loved Little Frank; that she, too, must be suffering.
+
+"I am no more tired than you are," I said. "You have slept and eaten no
+more than I. You are the one who must rest. I sha'n't let you go with
+me."
+
+"It isn't a question of lettin'. I shall go if you do, Hosy. And a woman
+don't need rest like a man. Please go upstairs and lie down, Hosy. Oh,"
+with a sudden burst of feeling, "don't you see I've got about all I can
+bear as it is? I can't--I can't have YOU to worry about too."
+
+My conscience smote me. "I'll go, Hephzy," said I. "I'll do whatever you
+wish; it is the least I can do."
+
+She thanked me. Then she said, hesitatingly:
+
+"Here is--here is her letter, Hosy. You may like to read it again.
+Perhaps it may help you to decide what is best to do."
+
+She handed me the letter. I took it and went to my room. There I read it
+again and again. And, as I read, the meaning of Hephzy's last sentence,
+that the letter might help me to decide what was best to do, began to
+force itself upon my overwrought brain. I began to understand what she
+had understood from the first, that my trip to London was hopeless,
+absolutely useless--yes, worse than useless.
+
+"You must not try to find me... You must not follow me or think of
+asking me to come back. That I shall never do."
+
+I was understanding, at last. I might go to London; I might even,
+through the help of the police, or by other means, find Frances Morley.
+But, having found her, what then? What claim had I upon her? What right
+had I to pursue her and force my presence upon her? I knew the shock she
+had undergone, the shattering of her belief in her father, the knowledge
+that she had--as she must feel--forced herself upon our kindness and
+charity. I knew how proud she was and how fiercely she had relented the
+slightest hint that she was in any way dependent upon us or under
+the least obligation to us. I knew all this and I was beginning to
+comprehend what her feelings toward us and toward herself must be--now.
+
+I might find her--yes; but as for convincing her that she should return
+to Mayberry, to live with us as she had been doing, that was so clearly
+impossible as to seem ridiculous even to me. My following her, my
+hunting her down against her expressed wish, would almost surely make
+matters worse. She would probably refuse to see me. She would consider
+my following her a persecution and the result might be to drive her
+still further away. I must not do it, for her sake I must not. She had
+gone and, because I loved her, I must not follow her; I must not add to
+her misery. No, against my will I was forcing myself to realize that my
+duty was to make no attempt to see her again, but to face the situation
+as it was, to cover the running away with a lie, to pretend she had
+gone--gone somewhere or other with our permission and understanding; to
+protect her name from scandal and to conceal my own feelings from all
+the world. That was my duty; that was the situation I must face. But how
+could I face it!
+
+That hour was the worst I have ever spent and I trust I may never be
+called upon to face such another. But, at last, I am glad to say, I
+had made up my mind, and when Hephzy came with the tea and toast I was
+measurably composed and ready to express my determination.
+
+"Hephzy," said I, "I am not going to London. I have been thinking, and
+I'm not going."
+
+Hephzy put down the tray she was carrying. She did seem surprised, but I
+am sure she was relieved.
+
+"You're not goin'!" she exclaimed. "Why, Hosy!"
+
+"No, I am not going. I've been crazy, Hephzy, I think, but I am fairly
+sane now. I have reached the conclusion that you reached sometime ago,
+I am certain. We have no right to follow her. Our finding her would only
+make it harder for her and no good could come of it. She went, of her
+own accord, and we must let her go."
+
+"Let her go? And not try--"
+
+"No. We have no right to try. You know it as well as I do. Now, be
+honest, won't you?"
+
+Hephzy hesitated.
+
+"Why," she faltered; "well, I--Oh, Hosy, I guess likely you're right. At
+first I was all for goin' after her right away and bringin' her back
+by main strength, if I had to. But the more I thought of it the more
+I--I--"
+
+"Of course," I interrupted. "It is the only thing we can do. You must
+have been ashamed of me this morning. Well, I'll try and give you no
+cause to be ashamed again. That part of our lives is over. Now we'll
+start afresh."
+
+Hephzy, after a long look at my face, covered her own with her hands
+and began to cry. I stepped to her side, but she recovered almost
+immediately.
+
+"There! there!" she said, "don't mind me, Hosy. I've been holdin' that
+cry back for a long spell. Now I've had it and it's over and done with.
+After all, you and I have got each other left and we'll start fresh,
+just as you say. And the first thing is for you to eat that toast and
+drink that tea."
+
+I smiled, or tried to smile.
+
+"The first thing," I declared, "is for us to decide what story we shall
+tell young Bayliss and the rest of the people to account for her leaving
+so suddenly. I expect Herbert Bayliss here any moment. He came to see me
+about--about her last evening."
+
+Hephzy nodded.
+
+"I guessed as much," she said. "I knew he came and I guessed what 'twas
+about. Poor fellow, 'twill be dreadful hard for him, too. He was here
+this mornin' and I said Frances had been called away sudden and wouldn't
+be back to-day. And I said you would be away all day, too, Hosy. It was
+a fib, I guess, but I can't help it if it was. You mustn't see him now
+and you mustn't talk with me either. You must clear off that tray the
+first thing. We'll have our talk to-morrow, maybe. We'll--we'll see the
+course plainer then, perhaps. Now be a good boy and mind me. You ARE
+my boy, you know, and always will be, no matter how old and famous you
+get."
+
+Herbert Bayliss called again that afternoon. I did not see him, but
+Hephzy did. The young fellow was frightfully disappointed at Frances'
+sudden departure and asked all sorts of questions as to when she would
+return, her London address and the like. Hephzy dodged the questions as
+best she could, but we both foresaw that soon he would have to be told
+some portion of the truth--not the whole truth; he need never know that,
+but something--and that something would be very hard to tell.
+
+The servants, too, must not know or surmise what had happened or the
+reason for it. Hephzy had already given them some excuse, fabricated on
+the spur of the moment. They knew Miss Morley had gone away and might
+not return for some time. But we realized that upon our behavior
+depended a great deal and so we agreed to appear as much like our
+ordinary selves as possible.
+
+It was a hard task. I shall never forget those first meals when we
+two were alone. We did not mention her name, but the shadow was always
+there--the vacant place at the table where she used to sit, the roses
+she had picked the morning before; and, afterward, in the drawing-room,
+the piano with her music upon the rack--the hundred and one little
+reminders that were like so many poisoned needles to aggravate my
+suffering and to remind me of the torture of the days to come. She had
+bade me forget her. Forget! I might forget when I was dead, but not
+before. If I could only die then and there it would seem so easy by
+comparison.
+
+The next forenoon Hephzy and I had our talk. We discussed our future.
+Should we leave the rectory and England and go back to Bayport where
+we belonged? I was in favor of this, but Hephzy seemed reluctant. She,
+apparently, had some reason which made her wish to remain for a time, at
+least. At last the reason was disclosed.
+
+"I supposed you'll laugh at me when I say it, Hosy," she said; "or at
+any rate you'll think I'm awful silly. But I know--I just KNOW that
+this isn't the end. We shall see her again, you and I. She'll come to us
+again or we'll go to her. I know it; somethin' inside me tells me so."
+
+ I shook my head.
+
+"It's true," she went on. "You don't believe it, but it's true. It's a
+presentiment and you haven't believed in my presentiments before, but
+they've come true. Why, you didn't believe we'd ever find Little Frank
+at all, but we did. And do you suppose all that has happened so far has
+been just for nothin'? Indeed and indeed it hasn't. No, this isn't the
+end; it's only the beginnin'."
+
+Her conviction was so strong that I hadn't the heart to contradict her.
+I said nothing.
+
+"And that's why," she went on, "I don't like to have us leave here right
+away. She knows we're here, here in England, and if--if she ever should
+be in trouble and need our help she could find us here waitin' to give
+it. If we was away off on the Cape, way on the other side of the ocean,
+she couldn't reach us, or not until 'twas too late anyhow. That's why
+I'd like to stay here a while longer, Hosy. But," she hastened to add,
+"I wouldn't stay a minute if you really wanted to go."
+
+I was silent for a moment. The temptation was to go, to get as far from
+the scene of my trouble as I could; but, after all, what did it matter?
+I could never flee from that trouble.
+
+"All right, Hephzy," I said. "I'll stay, if it pleases you."
+
+"Thank you, Hosy. It may be foolish, our stayin', but I don't believe
+it is. And--and there's somethin' else. I don't know whether I ought to
+tell you or not. I don't know whether it will make you feel better or
+worse. But I've heard you say that she must hate you. She doesn't--I
+know she doesn't. I've been lookin' over her things, those she left in
+her room. Everythin' we've given her or bought for her since she's been
+here, she left behind--every single thing except one. That little pin
+you bought for her in London the last time you was there and gave her to
+wear at the Samsons' lawn party, I can't find it anywhere. She must have
+taken it with her. Now why should she take that and leave all the rest?"
+
+"Probably she forgot it," I said.
+
+"Humph! Queer she should forget that and nothin' else. I don't believe
+she forgot it. _I_ think she took it because you gave it to her and she
+wanted to keep it to remind her of you."
+
+I dismissed the idea as absurd, but I found a ray of comfort in it which
+I should have been ashamed to confess. The idea that she wished to be
+reminded of me was foolish, but--but I was glad she had forgotten to
+leave the pin. It MIGHT remind her of me, even against her will.
+
+A day or two later Herbert Bayliss and I had our delayed interview. He
+had called several times, but Hephzy had kept him out of my way. This
+time our meeting was in the main street of Mayberry, when dodging him
+was an impossibility. He hurried up to me and seized my hand.
+
+"So you're back, Knowles," he said. "When did you return?"
+
+For the moment I was at a loss to understand his meaning. I had
+forgotten Hephzy's "fib" concerning my going away. Fortunately he did
+not wait for an answer.
+
+"Did Frances--did Miss Morley return with you?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"No," said I.
+
+His smile vanished.
+
+"Oh!" he said, soberly. "She is still in London, then?"
+
+"I--I presume she is."
+
+"You presume--? Why, I say! don't you know?"
+
+"I am not sure."
+
+He seemed puzzled and troubled, but he was too well bred to ask why I
+was not sure. Instead he asked when she would return. I announced that I
+did not know that either.
+
+"You don't know when she is coming back?" he repeated.
+
+"No."
+
+He regarded me keenly. There was a change in the tone of his next
+remark.
+
+"You are not sure that she is in London and you don't know when she is
+coming back," he said, slowly. "Would you mind telling me why she left
+Mayberry so suddenly? She had not intended going; at least she did not
+mention her intention to me."
+
+"She did not mention it to anyone," I answered. "It was a very sudden
+determination on her part."
+
+He considered this.
+
+"It would seem so," he said. "Knowles, you'll excuse my saying it, but
+this whole matter seems deucedly odd to me. There is something which
+I don't understand. You haven't answered my question. Under the
+circumstances, considering our talk the other evening, I think I have a
+right to ask it. Why did she leave so suddenly?"
+
+I hesitated. Mayberry's principal thoroughfare was far from crowded, but
+it was scarcely the place for an interview like this.
+
+"She had a reason for leaving," I answered, slowly. "I will tell you
+later, perhaps, what it was. Just now I cannot."
+
+"You cannot!" he repeated. He was evidently struggling with his
+impatience and growing suspicious. "You cannot! But I think I have a
+right to know."
+
+"I appreciate your feelings, but I cannot tell you now."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because--Well, because I don't think it would be fair to her. She would
+not wish me to tell you."
+
+"She would not wish it? Was it because of me she left?"
+
+"No; not in the least."
+
+"Was it--was it because of someone else? By Jove! it wasn't because of
+that Heathcroft cad? Don't tell me that! My God! she--she didn't--"
+
+I interrupted. His suspicion angered me. I should have understood his
+feelings, should have realized that he had been and was disappointed
+and agitated and that my answers to his questions must have aroused all
+sorts of fears and forebodings in his mind. I should have pitied him,
+but just then I had little pity for others.
+
+"She did nothing but what she considered right," I said sharply. "Her
+leaving had nothing to do with Heathcroft or with you. I doubt if she
+thought of either of you at all."
+
+It was a brutal speech, and he took it like a man. I saw him turn pale
+and bite his lips, but when he next spoke it was in a calmer tone.
+
+"I'm sorry," he said. "I was a silly ass even to think such a thing.
+But--but you see, Knowles, I--I--this means so much to me. I'm sorry,
+though. I ask her pardon and yours."
+
+I was sorry, too. "Of course I didn't mean that, exactly," I said. "Her
+feelings toward you are of the kindest, I have no doubt, but her reason
+for leaving was a purely personal one. You were not concerned in it."
+
+He reflected. He was far from satisfied, naturally, and his next speech
+showed it.
+
+"It is extraordinary, all this," he said. "You are quite sure you don't
+know when she is coming back?"
+
+"Quite."
+
+"Would you mind giving me her London address?"
+
+"I don't know it."
+
+"You don't KNOW it! Oh, I say! that's damned nonsense! You don't know
+when she is coming back and you don't know her address! Do you mean you
+don't know where she has gone?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What--? Are you trying to tell me she is not coming back at all?"
+
+"I am afraid not."
+
+He was very pale. He seized my arm.
+
+"What is all this?" he demanded, fiercely. "What has happened? Tell me;
+I want to know. Where is she? Why did she go? Tell me!"
+
+"I can tell you nothing," I said, as calmly as I could. "She left us
+very suddenly and she is not coming back. Her reason for leaving I can't
+tell you, now. I don't know where she is and I have no right to try and
+find out. She has asked that no one follow her or interfere with her in
+any way. I respect her wish and I advise you, if you wish to remain her
+friend, to do the same, for the present, at least. That is all I can
+tell you."
+
+He shook my arm savagely.
+
+"By George!" he cried, "you must tell me. I'll make you! I--I--Do you
+think me a fool? Do you suppose I believe such rot as that? You tell me
+she has gone--has left Mayberry--and you don't know where she has gone
+and don't intend trying to find out. Why--"
+
+"There, Bayliss! that is enough. This is not the place for us to
+quarrel. And there is no reason why we should quarrel at all. I have
+told you all that I can tell you now. Some day I may tell you more, but
+until then you must be patient, for her sake. Her leaving Mayberry had
+no connection with you whatever. You must be contented with that."
+
+"Contented! Why, man, you're mad. She is your niece. You are her
+guardian and--"
+
+"I am not her guardian. Neither is she my niece."
+
+I had spoken involuntarily. Certainly I had not intended telling him
+that. The speech had the effect of causing him to drop my arm and step
+back. He stared at me blankly. No doubt he did think me crazy, then.
+
+"I have no authority over her in any way," I went on. "She is Miss
+Cahoon's niece, but we are not her guardians. She has left our home of
+her own free will and neither I nor you nor anyone else shall follow
+her if I can help it. I am sorry to have deceived you. The deceit was
+unavoidable, or seemed to be. I am very, very sorry for you. That is all
+I can say now. Good morning."
+
+I left him standing there in the street and walked away. He called after
+me, but I did not turn back. He would have followed me, of course, but
+when I did look back I saw that the landlord of the inn was trying to
+talk with him and was detaining him. I was glad that the landlord had
+appeared so opportunely. I had said too much already. I had bungled this
+interview as I had that with Heathcroft.
+
+I told Hephzy all about it. She appeared to think that, after all,
+perhaps it was best.
+
+"When you've got a toothache," she said, "you might as well go to the
+dentist's right off. The old thing will go on growlin' and grumblin' and
+it's always there to keep you in misery. You'd have had to tell him some
+time. Well, you've told him now, the worst of it, anyhow. The tooth's
+out; though," with a one-sided smile, "I must say you didn't give the
+poor chap any ether to help along."
+
+"I'm afraid it isn't out," I said, truthfully. "He won't be satisfied
+with one operation."
+
+"Then I'll be on hand to help with the next one. And, between us, I
+cal'late we can make that final. Poor boy! Well, he's young, that's one
+comfort. You get over things quicker when you're young."
+
+I nodded. "That is true," I said, "but there is something else, Hephzy.
+You say I have acted for the best. Have I? I don't know. We know he
+cares for her, but--but does she--"
+
+"Does she care for him, you mean? I don't think so, Hosy. For a spell
+I thought she did, but now I doubt it. I think--Well, never mind what
+I think. I think a lot of foolish things. My brain's softenin' up, I
+shouldn't wonder. It's a longshore brain, anyhow, and it needs the
+salt to keep it from spoilin'. I wish you and I could go clammin'.
+When you're diggin' clams you're too full of backache to worry about
+toothaches--or heartaches, either."
+
+I expected a visit from young Bayliss that very evening, but he did not
+come to the rectory. Instead Doctor Bayliss, Senior, came and requested
+an interview with me. Hephzy announced the visitor.
+
+"He acts pretty solemn, Hosy," she said. "I wouldn't wonder if his son
+had told him. I guess it's another toothache. Would you like to have me
+stay and help?"
+
+I said I should be glad of her help. So, when the old gentleman was
+shown into the study, he found her there with me. The doctor was very
+grave and his usually ruddy, pleasant face was haggard and careworn. He
+took the chair which I offered him and, without preliminaries, began to
+speak of the subject which had brought him there.
+
+It was as Hephzy had surmised. His son had told him everything, of his
+love for Frances, of his asking my permission to marry her, and of our
+talk before the inn.
+
+"I am sure I don't need to tell you, Knowles," he said, "that all this
+has shaken the boy's mother and me dreadfully. We knew, of course, that
+the young people liked each other, were together a great deal, and all
+that. But we had not dreamed of any serious attachment between them."
+
+Hephzy put in a word.
+
+"We don't know as there has been any attachment between them," she said.
+"Your boy cared for her--we know that--but whether she cared for him or
+not we don't know."
+
+Our visitor straightened in his chair. The idea that his son could love
+anyone and not be loved in return was plainly quite inconceivable.
+
+"I think we may take that for granted, madame," he said. "The news was,
+as I say, a great shock to my wife and myself. Herbert is our only child
+and we had, naturally, planned somewhat concerning his future. The--the
+overthrow of our plans was and is a great grief and disappointment
+to us. Not, please understand, that we question your niece's worth or
+anything of that sort. She is a very attractive young woman and would
+doubtless make my son a good wife. But, if you will pardon my saying
+so, we know very little about her or her family. You are comparative
+strangers to us and although we have enjoyed your--ah--society
+and--ah--"
+
+Hephzy interrupted.
+
+"I beg your pardon for saying it, Doctor Bayliss," she said, "but you
+know as much about us as we do about you."
+
+The doctor's composure was ruffled still more. He regarded Hephzy
+through his spectacles and then said, with dignity.
+
+"Madame, I have resided in this vicinity for nearly forty years. I think
+my record and that of my family will bear inspection."
+
+"I don't doubt it a bit. But, as far as that goes, I have lived in
+Bayport for fifty-odd years myself and our folks have lived there for
+a hundred and fifty. I'm not questionin' you or your family, Doctor
+Bayliss. If I had questioned 'em I could easily have looked up the
+record. All I'm sayin' is that I haven't thought of questionin', and I
+don't just see why you shouldn't take as much for granted as I have."
+
+The old gentleman was a bit disconcerted. He cleared his throat and
+fidgeted in his seat.
+
+"I do--I do, Miss Cahoon, of course," he said. "But--ah--Well, to
+return to the subject of my son and Miss Morley. The boy is dreadfully
+agitated, Mr. Knowles. He is quite mad about the girl and his mother
+and I are much concerned about him. We would--I assure you we would do
+anything and sacrifice anything for his sake. We like your niece,
+and, although, as I say, we had planned otherwise, nevertheless we
+will--provided all is as it should be--give our consent to--to the
+arrangement, for his sake."
+
+I did not answer. The idea that marrying Frances Morley would entail a
+sacrifice upon anyone's part except hers angered me and I did not trust
+myself to speak. But Hephzy spoke for me.
+
+"What do you mean by providin' everything is as it should be?" she
+asked.
+
+"Why, I mean--I mean provided we learn that she is--is--That is,--Well,
+one naturally likes to know something concerning his prospective
+daughter-in-law's history, you know. That is to be expected, now isn't
+it."
+
+Hephzy looked at me and I looked at her.
+
+"Doctor," she said. "I wonder if your son told you about some things
+Hosy--Mr. Knowles, I mean--told him this mornin'. Did he tell you that?"
+
+The doctor colored slightly. "Yes--yes, he did," he admitted. "He said
+he had a most extraordinary sort of interview with Mr. Knowles and
+was told by him some quite extraordinary things. Of course, we could
+scarcely believe that he had heard aright. There was some mistake, of
+course."
+
+"There was no mistake, Doctor Bayliss," said I. "I told your son the
+truth, a very little of the truth."
+
+"The truth! But it couldn't be true, you know, as Herbert reported it
+to me. He said Miss Morley had left Mayberry, had gone away for some
+unexplained reason, and was not coming back--that you did not know
+where she had gone, that she had asked not to be hindered or followed or
+something. And he said--My word! he even said you, Knowles, had declared
+yourself to be neither her uncle nor her guardian. THAT couldn't be
+true, now could it!"
+
+Again Hephzy and I looked at each other. Without speaking we reached the
+same conclusion. Hephzy voiced that conclusion.
+
+"I guess, Doctor Bayliss," she said, "that the time has come when you
+had better be told the whole truth, or as much of the whole truth about
+Frances as Hosy and I know. I'm goin' to tell it to you. It's a kind of
+long story, but I guess likely you ought to know it."
+
+She began to tell that story, beginning at the very beginning, with
+Ardelia and Strickland Morley and continuing on, through the history of
+the latter's rascality and the fleeing of the pair from America, to
+our own pilgrimage, the finding of Little Frank and the astonishing
+happenings since.
+
+"She's gone," she said. "She found out what sort of man her father
+really was and, bein' a high-spirited, proud girl--as proud and
+high-spirited as she is clever and pretty and good--she ran away and
+left us. We don't blame her, Hosy and I. We understand just how she
+feels and we've made up our minds to do as she asks and not try to
+follow her or try to bring her back to us against her will. We think
+the world of her. We haven't known her but a little while, but we've
+come--that is," with a sudden glance in my direction, "I've come to love
+her as if she was my own. It pretty nigh kills me to have her go. When
+I think of her strugglin' along tryin' to earn her own way by singin'
+and--and all, I have to hold myself by main strength to keep from goin'
+after her and beggin' her on my knees to come back. But I sha'n't do it,
+because she doesn't want me to. Of course I hope and believe that some
+day she will come back, but until she does and of her own accord, I'm
+goin' to wait. And, if your son really cares for her as much as we--as I
+do, he'll wait, too."
+
+She paused and hastily dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief.
+I turned in order that the Doctor might not see my face. It was an
+unnecessary precaution. Doctor Bayliss' mind was busy, apparently, with
+but one thought.
+
+"An opera singer!" he exclaimed, under his breath. "An opera singer!
+Herbert to marry an opera singer! The granddaughter of a Yankee sailor
+and--and--"
+
+"And the daughter of an English thief," put in Hephzy, sharply. "Maybe
+we'd better leave nationalities out, Doctor Bayliss. The Yankees have
+the best end of it, 'cordin' to my notion."
+
+He paid no attention to this.
+
+He was greatly upset. "It is impossible!" he declared. "Absolutely
+impossible! Why haven't we known of this before? Why did not Herbert
+know of it? Mr. Knowles, I must say that--that you have been most
+unthinking in this matter."
+
+"I have been thinking of her," I answered, curtly. "It was and is her
+secret and we rely upon you to keep it as such. We trust to your honor
+to tell no one, not even your son."
+
+"My son! Herbert? Why I must tell him! I must tell my wife."
+
+"You may tell your wife. And your son as much as you think necessary.
+Further than that it must not go."
+
+"Of course, of course. I understand. But an opera singer!"
+
+"She isn't a real opera singer," said Hephzy. "That is, not one of those
+great ones. And she told me once that she realized now that she never
+could be. She has a real sweet voice, a beautiful voice, but it isn't
+powerful enough to make her a place in the big companies. She tried and
+tried, she said, but all the managers said the same thing."
+
+"Hephzy," I said, "when did she tell you this? I didn't know of it."
+
+"I know you didn't, Hosy. She told me one day when we were alone. It was
+the only time she ever spoke of herself and she didn't say much then.
+She spoke about her livin' with her relatives here in England and what
+awful, mean, hard people they were. She didn't say who they were nor
+where they lived, but she did say she ran away from them to go on
+the stage as a singer and what trials and troubles she went through
+afterward. She told me that much and then she seemed sorry that she had.
+She made me promise not to tell anyone, not even you. I haven't, until
+now."
+
+Doctor Bayliss was sitting with a hand to his forehead.
+
+"A provincial opera singer," he repeated. "Oh, impossible! Quite
+impossible!"
+
+"It may seem impossible to you," I couldn't help observing, "but I
+question if it will seem so to your son. I doubt if her being an opera
+singer will make much difference to him."
+
+The doctor groaned. "The boy is mad about her, quite mad," he admitted.
+
+I was sorry for him. Perhaps if I were in his position I might feel as
+he did.
+
+"I will say this," I said: "In no way, so far as I know, has Miss Morley
+given your son encouragement. He told me himself that he had never
+spoken to her of his feelings and we have no reason to think that she
+regards him as anything more than a friend. She left no message for him
+when she went away."
+
+He seemed to find some ground for hope in this. He rose from the chair
+and extended his hand.
+
+"Knowles," he said, "if I have said anything to hurt your feelings or
+those of Miss Cahoon I am very sorry. I trust it will make no difference
+in our friendship. My wife and I respect and like you both and I think I
+understand how deeply you must feel the loss of your--of Miss Morley. I
+hope she--I hope you may be reunited some day. No doubt you will be. As
+for Herbert--he is our son and if you ever have a son of your own, Mr.
+Knowles, you may appreciate his mother's feelings and mine. We have
+planned and--and--Even now I should not stand in the way of his
+happiness if--if I believed happiness could come of it. But such
+marriages are never happy. And," with a sudden burst of hope, "as you
+say, she may not be aware of his attachment. The boy is young. He may
+forget."
+
+"Yes," said I, with a sigh. "He IS young, and he may forget."
+
+After he had gone Hephzy turned to me.
+
+"If I hadn't understood that old man's feelin's," she declared, "I'd
+have given him one talkin' to. The idea of his speakin' as if Frances
+wouldn't be a wife anybody, a lord or anybody else, might be proud of!
+But he didn't know. He's been brought up that way, and he doesn't know.
+And, of course, his son IS the only person on earth to him. Well, that's
+over! We haven't got to worry about them any more. We'll begin to live
+for each other now, Hosy, same as we used to do. And we'll wait for the
+rest. It'll come and come right for all of us. Just you see."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+In Which I Play Golf and Cross the Channel
+
+
+And so we began "to live for each other again," Hephzy and I. This
+meant, of course, that Hephzy forgot herself entirely and spent the
+greater part of her time trying to find ways to make my living more
+comfortable, just as she had always done. And I--well, I did my best to
+appear, if not happy, at least reasonably calm and companionable. It was
+a hard job for both of us; certainly my part of it was hard enough.
+
+Appearances had to be considered and so we invented a tale of a visit
+to relatives in another part of England to account for the unannounced
+departure of Miss Morley. This excuse served with the neighbors and
+friends not in the secret and, for the benefit of the servants, Hephzy
+elaborated the deceit by pretending eagerness at the arrival of the
+mails and by certain vague remarks at table concerning letters she was
+writing.
+
+"I AM writing 'em, too, Hosy," she said. "I write to her every few days.
+Of course I don't mail the letters, but it sort of squares things with
+my conscience to really write after talking so much about it. As for her
+visitin' relatives--well, she's got relatives somewhere in England, we
+know that much, and she MAY be visitin' 'em. At any rate I try to think
+she is. Oh, dear, I 'most wish I'd had more experience in tellin' lies;
+then I wouldn't have to invent so many extra ones to make me believe
+those I told at the beginnin'. I wish I'd been brought up a book agent
+or a weather prophet or somethin' like that; then I'd have been in
+trainin'."
+
+Without any definite agreement we had fallen into the habit of not
+mentioning the name of Little Frank, even when we were alone together.
+In consequence, on these occasions, there would be long intervals
+of silence suddenly broken by Hephzy's bursting out with a surmise
+concerning what was happening in Bayport, whether they had painted the
+public library building yet, or how Susanna was getting on with the cat
+and hens. She had received three letters from Miss Wixon and, as news
+bearers, they were far from satisfactory.
+
+"That girl makes me so provoked," sniffed Hephzy, dropping the most
+recent letter in her lap with a gesture of disgust. "She says she's got
+a cold in the head and she's scared to death for fear it'll get 'set
+onto her,' whatever that is. Two pages of this letter is nothin' but
+cold in the head and t'other two is about a new hat she's goin' to have
+and she don't know whether to trim it with roses or forget-me-nots. If
+she trimmed it with cabbage 'twould match her head better'n anything
+else. I declare! she ought to be thankful she's got a cold in a head
+like hers; it must be comfortin' to know there's SOMETHIN' there. You've
+got a letter, too, Hosy. Who is it from?"
+
+"From Campbell," I answered, wearily. "He wants to know how the novel is
+getting on, of course."
+
+"Humph! Well, you write him that it's gettin' on the way a squid gets
+ahead--by goin' backwards. Don't let him pester you one bit, Hosy. You
+write that novel just as fast or slow as you feel like. He told you to
+take a vacation, anyway."
+
+I smiled. Mine was a delightful vacation.
+
+The summer dragged on. The days passed. Pleasant days they were, so far
+as the weather was concerned. I spent them somehow, walking, riding,
+golfing, reading. I gave up trying to work; the half-written novel
+remained half written. I could not concentrate my thoughts upon it and I
+lacked the courage to force myself to try. I wrote Campbell that he must
+be patient, I was doing the best I could. He answered by telling me not
+to worry, to enjoy myself. "Why do you stay there in England?" he wrote.
+"I ordered you to travel, not to plant yourself in one place and die
+of dry rot. A British oyster is mighty little improvement on a Cape Cod
+quahaug. You have been in that rectory about long enough. Go to Monte
+Carlo for change. You'll find it there--or lose it."
+
+It may have been good advice--or bad--according to the way in which
+it was understood, but, good or bad, it didn't appeal to me. I had no
+desire to travel, unless it were to travel back to Bayport, where I
+belonged. I felt no interest in Monte Carlo--for the matter of that, I
+felt no interest in Mayberry or anywhere else. I was not interested in
+anything or anybody--except one, and that one had gone out of my life.
+Night after night I went to sleep determining to forget and morning
+after morning I awoke only to remember, and with the same dull, hopeless
+heartache and longing.
+
+July passed, August was half gone. Still we remained at the rectory. Our
+lease was up on the first of October. The Coles would return then and we
+should be obliged to go elsewhere, whether we wished to or not. Hephzy,
+although she did not say much about it, was willing to go, I think. Her
+"presentiment" had remained only a presentiment so far; no word came
+from Little Frank. We had heard or learned nothing concerning her or her
+whereabouts.
+
+Our neighbors and friends in Mayberry were as kind and neighborly as
+ever. For the first few days after our interview with Doctor Bayliss,
+Senior, Hephzy and I saw nothing of him or his family. Then the doctor
+called again. He seemed in better spirits. His son had yielded to his
+parents' entreaties and had departed for a walking tour through the
+Black Forest with some friends.
+
+"The invitation came at exactly the right time," said the old gentleman.
+"Herbert was ready to go anywhere or do anything. The poor boy was in
+the depths and when his mother and I urged him to accept he did so. We
+are hoping that when he returns he will have forgotten, or, if not that,
+at least be more reconciled."
+
+Heathcroft came and went at various times during the summer. I met him
+on the golf course and he was condescendingly friendly as ever. Our talk
+concerning Frances, which had brought such momentous consequences to
+her and to Hephzy and to me, had, apparently, not disturbed him in the
+least. He greeted me blandly and cheerfully, asked how we all were, said
+he had been given to understand that "my charming little niece" was no
+longer with us, and proceeded to beat me two down in eighteen holes.
+I played several times with him afterward and, under different
+circumstances, should have enjoyed doing so, for we were pretty evenly
+matched.
+
+His aunt, the Lady of the Manor, I also met. She went out of her way to
+be as sweetly gracious as possible. I presume she inferred from Frances'
+departure that I had taken her hint and had removed the disturbing
+influence from her nephew's primrose-bordered path. At each of our
+meetings she spoke of the "invitation golf tournament," several times
+postponed and now to be played within a fortnight. She insisted that
+I must take part in it. At last, having done everything except decline
+absolutely, I finally consented to enter the tournament. It is not
+easy to refuse to obey an imperial decree and Lady Carey was Empress of
+Mayberry.
+
+After accepting I returned to the rectory to find that Hephzy also had
+received an invitation. Not to play golf, of course; her invitation was
+of a totally different kind.
+
+"What do you think, Hosy!" she cried. "I've got a letter and you can't
+guess who it's from."
+
+"From Susanna?" I ventured.
+
+"Susanna! You don't suppose I'd be as excited as all this over a letter
+from Susanna Wixon, do you? No indeed! I've got a letter from Mrs.
+Hepton, who had the Nickerson cottage last summer. She and her husband
+are in Paris and they want us to meet 'em there in a couple of weeks and
+go for a short trip through Switzerland. They got our address from Mr.
+Campbell before they left home. Mrs. Hepton writes that they're countin'
+on our company. They're goin' to Lake Lucerne and to Mont Blanc and
+everywhere. Wouldn't it be splendid!"
+
+The Heptons had been summer neighbors of ours on the Cape for several
+seasons. They were friends of Jim Campbell's and had first come to
+Bayport on his recommendation. I liked them very well, and, oddly
+enough, for I was not popular with the summer colony, they had seemed to
+like me.
+
+"It was very kind of them to think of us," I said. "Campbell shouldn't
+have given them our address, of course, but their invitation was well
+meant. You must write them at once. Make our refusal as polite as
+possible."
+
+Hephzy seemed disappointed, I thought.
+
+"Then you think I'd better say no?" she observed.
+
+"Why, of course. You weren't thinking of accepting, were you?"
+
+"Well, I didn't know. I'm not sure that our goin' wouldn't be the right
+thing. I've been considerin' for some time, Hosy, and I've about come to
+the conclusion that stayin' here is bad for you. Maybe it's bad for both
+of us. Perhaps a change would do us both good."
+
+I was astonished. "Humph!" I exclaimed; "this is a change of heart,
+Hephzy. A while ago, when I suggested going back to Bayport, you
+wouldn't hear of it. You wanted to stay here and--and wait."
+
+"I know I did. And I've been waitin', but nothin' has come of it. I've
+still got my presentiment, Hosy. I believe just as strong as I ever did
+that some time or other she and you and I will be together again. But
+stayin' here and seein' nobody but each other and broodin' don't do us
+any good. It's doin' you harm; that's plain enough. You don't write and
+you don't eat--that is, not much--and you're gettin' bluer and more thin
+and peaked every day. You have just got to go away from here, no matter
+whether I do or not. And I've reached the point where I'm willin' to go,
+too. Not for good, maybe. We'll come back here again. Our lease isn't
+up until October and we can leave the servants here and give them our
+address to have mail forwarded. If--if she--that is, if a letter or--or
+anything--SHOULD come we could hurry right back. The Heptons are real
+nice folks; you always liked 'em, Hosy. And you always wanted to see
+Switzerland; you used to say so. Why don't we say yes and go along?"
+
+I did not answer. I believed I understood the reason for Campbell's
+giving our address to the Heptons; also the reason for the invitation.
+Jim was very anxious to have me leave Mayberry; he believed travel and
+change of scene were what I needed. Doubtless he had put the Heptons up
+to asking us to join them on their trip. It was merely an addition to
+his precious prescription.
+
+"Why don't we go?" urged Hephzy.
+
+"Not much!" I answered, decidedly. "I should be poor company on a
+pleasure trip like that. But you might go, Hephzy. There is no reason in
+the world why you shouldn't go. I'll stay here until you return. Go, by
+all means, and enjoy yourself."
+
+Hephzy shook her head.
+
+"I'd do a lot of enjoyin' without you, wouldn't I," she observed.
+"While I was lookin' at the scenery I'd be wonderin' what you had for
+breakfast. Every mite of rain would set me to thinkin' of your gettin'
+your feet wet and when I laid eyes on a snow peak I'd wonder if you had
+blankets enough on your bed. I'd be like that yellow cat we used to have
+back in the time when Father was alive. That cat had kittens and Father
+had 'em all drowned but one. After that you never saw the cat anywhere
+unless the kitten was there, too. She wouldn't eat unless it were with
+her and between bites she'd sit down on it so it couldn't run off. She
+lugged it around in her mouth until Father used to vow he'd have eyelet
+holes punched in the scruff of its neck for her teeth to fit into and
+make it easier for both of 'em. It died, finally; she wore it out,
+I guess likely. Then she adopted a chicken and started luggin' that
+around. She had the habit, you see. I'm a good deal like her, Hosy. I've
+took care of you so long that I've got the habit. No, I shouldn't go
+unless you did."
+
+No amount of urging moved her, so we dropped the subject.
+
+The morning of the golf tournament was clear and fine. I shouldered my
+bag of clubs and walked through the lane toward the first tee. I never
+felt less like playing or more inclined to feign illness and remain at
+home. But I had promised Lady Carey and the promise must be kept.
+
+There was a group of people, players and guests, awaiting me at the tee.
+Her ladyship was there, of course; so also was her nephew, Mr. Carleton
+Heathcroft, whom I had not seen for some time. Heathcroft was in
+conversation with a young fellow who, when he turned in my direction,
+I recognized as Herbert Bayliss. I was surprised to see him; I had not
+heard of his return from the Black Forest trip.
+
+Lady Carey was affable and gracious, also very important and busy. She
+welcomed me absent-mindedly, introduced me to several of her guests,
+ladies and gentlemen from London down for the week-end, and then bustled
+away to confer with Mr. Handliss, steward of the estate, concerning the
+arrangements for the tournament. I felt a touch on my arm and, turning,
+found Doctor Bayliss standing beside me. He was smiling and in apparent
+good humor.
+
+"The boy is back, Knowles," he said. "Have you seen him?"
+
+"Yes," said I, "I have seen him, although we haven't met yet. I was
+surprised to find him here. When did he return?"
+
+"Only yesterday. His mother and I were surprised also. We hadn't
+expected him so soon. He's looking very fit, don't you think?"
+
+"Very." I had not noticed that young Bayliss was looking either more or
+less fit than usual, but I answered as I did because the old gentleman
+seemed so very anxious that I should. He was evidently gratified. "Yes,"
+he said, "he's looking very fit indeed. I think his trip has benefited
+him hugely. And I think--Yes, I think he is beginning to forget
+his--that is to say, I believe he does not dwell upon the--the recent
+happenings as he did. I think he is forgetting; I really think he is."
+
+"Indeed," said I. It struck me that, if Herbert Bayliss was forgetting,
+his memory must be remarkably short. I imagined that his father's wish
+was parent to the thought.
+
+"He has--ah--scarcely mentioned our--our young friend's name since his
+return," went on the doctor. "He did ask if you had heard--ah--by the
+way, Knowles, you haven't heard, have you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Dear me! dear me! That's very odd, now isn't it."
+
+He did not say he was sorry. If he had said it I should not have
+believed him. If ever anything was plain it was that the longer we
+remained without news of Frances Morley the better pleased Herbert
+Bayliss's parents would be.
+
+"But I say, Knowles," he added, "you and he must meet, you know. He
+doesn't hold any ill-feeling or--or resentment toward you. Really he
+doesn't. Herbert! Oh, I say, Herbert! Come here, will you."
+
+Young Bayliss turned. The doctor whispered in my ear.
+
+"Perhaps it would be just as well not to refer to--to--You understand
+me, Knowles. Better let sleeping dogs lie, eh? Oh, Herbert, here is
+Knowles waiting to shake hands with you."
+
+We shook hands. The shake, on his part, was cordial enough, perhaps, but
+not too cordial. It struck me that young Bayliss was neither as "fit"
+nor as forgetful as his fond parents wished to believe. He looked rather
+worn and nervous, it seemed to me. I asked him about his tramping trip
+and we chatted for a few moments. Then Bayliss, Senior, was called by
+Lady Carey and Handliss to join the discussion concerning the tournament
+rules and the young man and I were left alone together.
+
+"Knowles," he asked, the moment after his father's departure, "have you
+heard anything? Anything concerning--her?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You're sure? You're not--"
+
+"I am quite sure. We haven't heard nor do we expect to."
+
+He looked away across the course and I heard him draw a long breath.
+
+"It's deucedly odd, this," he said. "How she could disappear so entirely
+I don't understand. And you have no idea where she may be?"
+
+"No."
+
+"But--but, confound it, man, aren't you trying to find her?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You're not! Why not?"
+
+"You know why not as well as I. She left us of her own free will and her
+parting request was that we should not follow her. That is sufficient
+for us. Pardon me, but I think it should be for all her friends."
+
+He was silent for a moment. Then his teeth snapped together.
+
+"I'll find her," he declared, fiercely. "I'll find her some day."
+
+"In spite of her request?"
+
+"Yes. In spite of the devil."
+
+He turned on his heel and walked off. Mr. Handliss stepped to the first
+tee, clapped his hands to attract attention and began a little speech.
+
+The tournament, he said, was about to begin. Play would be, owing to the
+length and difficulty of the course, but eighteen holes instead of the
+usual thirty-six. This meant that each pair of contestants would play
+the nine holes twice. Handicaps had been fixed as equitably as possible
+according to each player's previous record, and players having
+similar handicaps were to play against each other. A light lunch and
+refreshments would be served after the first round had been completed
+by all. Prizes would be distributed by her ladyship when the final round
+was finished. Her ladyship bade us all welcome and was gratified by our
+acceptance of her invitation. He would now proceed to read the names
+of those who were to play against each other, stating handicaps and the
+like. He read accordingly, and I learned that my opponent was to be Mr.
+Heathcroft, each of us having a handicap of two.
+
+Considering everything I thought my particular handicap a stiff one.
+Heathcroft had been in the habit of beating me in two out of three
+of our matches. However, I determined to play my best. Being the only
+outlander on the course I couldn't help feeling that the sporting
+reputation of Yankeeland rested, for this day at least, upon my
+shoulders.
+
+The players were sent off in pairs, the less skilled first. Heathcroft
+and I were next to the last. A London attorney by the name of Jaynes
+and a Wrayton divine named Wilson followed us. Their rating was one plus
+and, judging by the conversation of the "gallery," they were looked upon
+as winners of the first and second prizes respectively. The Reverend Mr.
+Wilson was called, behind his back, "the sporting curate." In gorgeous
+tweeds and a shepherd's plaid cap he looked the part.
+
+The first nine went to me. An usually long drive and a lucky putt on the
+eighth gave me the round by one. I played with care and tried my
+hardest to keep my mind on the game. Heathcroft was, as always, calm and
+careful, but between tees he was pleased to be chatty and affable.
+
+"And how is the aunt with the odd name, Knowles?" he inquired. "Does she
+still devour her--er--washing flannels and treacle for breakfast?"
+
+"She does when she cares to," I replied. "She is an independent lady, as
+I think you know."
+
+"My word! I believe you. And how are the literary labors progressing? I
+had my bookselling fellow look up a novel of yours the other day. Began
+it that same night, by Jove! It was quite interesting, really. I should
+have finished it, I think, but some of the chaps at the club telephoned
+me to join them for a bit of bridge and of course that ended literature
+for the time. My respected aunt tells me I'm quite dotty on bridge. She
+foresees a gambler's end for me, stony broke, languishing in dungeons
+and all that sort of thing. I am to die of starvation, I think. Is it
+starvation gamblers die of? 'Pon my soul, I should say most of those I
+know would be more likely to die of thirst. Rather!"
+
+Later on he asked another question.
+
+"And how is the pretty niece, Knowles?" he inquired. "When is she coming
+back to the monastery or the nunnery or rectory, or whatever it is?"
+
+"I don't know," I replied, curtly.
+
+"Oh, I say! Isn't she coming at all? That would be a calamity, now
+wouldn't it? Not to me in particular. I should mind your notice boards,
+of course. But if I were condemned, as you are, to spend a summer among
+the feminine beauties of Mayberry, a face like hers would be like a
+whisky and soda in a thirsty land, as a chap I know is fond of saying.
+Oh, and by the way, speaking of your niece, I had a curious experience
+in Paris a week ago. Most extraordinary thing. For the moment I began
+to believe I really was going dotty, as Auntie fears. I... Your drive,
+Knowles. I'll tell you the story later."
+
+He did not tell it during that round, forgot it probably. I did not
+remind him. The longer he kept clear of the subject of my "niece" the
+more satisfied I was. We lunched in the pavilion by the first tee. There
+were sandwiches and biscuits--crackers, of course--and cakes and sweets
+galore. Also thirst-quenching materials sufficient to satisfy even the
+gamblers of Mr. Heathcroft's acquaintance. The "sporting curate," behind
+a huge Scotch and soda, was relating his mishaps in approaching the
+seventh hole for the benefit of his brother churchmen, Messrs. Judson
+and Worcester. Lady Carey was dilating upon her pet subject, the talents
+and virtues of "Carleton, dear," for the benefit of the London attorney,
+who was pretending to listen with the respectful interest due blood and
+title, but who was thinking of something else, I am sure. "Carleton,
+dear," himself, was chatting languidly with young Bayliss. The latter
+seemed greatly interested. There was a curious expression on his face.
+I was surprised to see him so cordial to Heathcroft; I knew he did not
+like Lady Carey's nephew.
+
+The second and final round of the tournament began. For six holes
+Heathcroft and I broke even. The seventh he won, making us square for
+the match so far and, with an equal number of strokes. The eighth we
+halved. All depended on the ninth. Halving there would mean a drawn
+match between us and a drawing for choice of prizes, provided we were in
+the prize-winning class. A win for either of us meant the match itself.
+
+Heathcroft, in spite of the close play, was as bland and unconcerned as
+ever. I tried to appear likewise. As a matter of fact, I wanted to win.
+Not because of the possible prize, I cared little for that, but for the
+pleasure of winning against him. We drove from the ninth tee, each got
+a long brassy shot which put us on the edge of the green, and then
+strolled up the hill together.
+
+"I say, Knowles," he observed; "I haven't finished telling you of my
+Paris experience, have I. Odd coincidence, by Jove! I was telling young
+Bayliss about it just now and he thought it odd, too. I was--some other
+chaps and I drifted into the Abbey over in Paris a week or so ago and
+while we were there a girl came out and sang. She was an extremely
+pretty girl, you understand, but that wasn't the extraordinary part of
+it. She was the image--my word! the very picture of your niece, Miss
+Morley. It quite staggered me for the moment. Upon my soul I thought it
+was she! She sang extremely well, but not for long. I tried to get near
+her--meant to speak to her, you know, but she had gone before I reached
+her. Eh! What did you say?"
+
+I had not said anything--at least I think I had not. He misinterpreted
+my silence.
+
+"Oh, you mustn't be offended," he said, laughing. "Of course I knew
+it wasn't she--that is, I should have known it if I hadn't been so
+staggered by the resemblance. It was amazing, that resemblance. The
+face, the voice--everything was like hers. I was so dotty about it that
+I even hunted up one of the chaps in charge and asked him who the
+girl was. He said she was an Austrian--Mademoiselle Juno or Junotte or
+something. That ended it, of course. I was a fool to imagine anything
+else, of course. But you would have been a bit staggered if you had
+seen her. And she didn't look Austrian, either. She looked English or
+American--rather! I say, I hope I haven't hurt your feelings, old chap.
+I apologize to you and Miss Morley, you understand. I couldn't help
+telling you; it was extraordinary now, wasn't it."
+
+I made some answer. He rattled on about that sort of thing making one
+believe in the Prisoner of Zenda stuff, doubles and all that. We reached
+the green. My ball lay nearest the pin and it was his putt. He made
+it, a beauty, the ball halting just at the edge of the cup. My putt
+was wild. He holed out on the next shot. It took me two and I had to
+concentrate my thought by main strength even then. The hole and match
+were his.
+
+He was very decent about it, proclaimed himself lucky, declared I had,
+generally speaking, played much the better game and should have won
+easily. I paid little attention to what he said although I did, of
+course, congratulate him and laughed at the idea that luck had anything
+to do with the result. I no longer cared about the match or the
+tournament in general or anything connected with them. His story of the
+girl who was singing in Paris was what I was interested in now. I wanted
+him to tell me more, to give me particulars. I wanted to ask him a dozen
+questions; and, yet, excited as I was, I realized that those questions
+must be asked carefully. His suspicions must not be aroused.
+
+Before I could ask the first of the dozen Mr. Handliss bustled over to
+us to learn the result of our play and to announce that the distribution
+of prizes would take place in a few moments; also that Lady Carey wished
+to speak with her nephew. The latter sauntered off to join the group by
+the pavilion and my opportunity for questioning had gone, for the time.
+
+Of the distribution of prizes, with its accompanying ceremony, I seem
+to recall very little. Lady Carey made a little speech, I remember that,
+but just what she said I have forgotten. "Much pleasure in rewarding
+skill," "Dear old Scottish game," "English sportsmanship," "Race not to
+the swift"--I must have been splashed with these drops from the fountain
+of oratory, for they stick in my memory. Then, in turn, the winners were
+called up to select their prizes. Wilson, the London attorney, headed
+the list; the sporting curate came next; Heathcroft next; and then I.
+It had not occurred to me that I should win a prize. In fact I had not
+thought anything about it. My thoughts were far from the golf course
+just then. They were in Paris, in a cathedral--Heathcroft had called it
+an abbey, but cathedral he must have meant--where a girl who looked like
+Frances Morley was singing.
+
+However, when Mr. Handliss called my name I answered and stepped
+forward. Her Ladyship said something or other about "our cousin from
+across the sea" and "Anglo-Saxon blood" and her especial pleasure in
+awarding the prize. I stammered thanks, rather incoherently expressed
+they were, I fear, selected the first article that came to hand--it
+happened to be a cigarette case; I never smoke cigarettes--and retired
+to the outer circle. The other winners--Herbert Bayliss and Worcester
+among them--selected their prizes and then Mr. Wilson, winner of the
+tournament, speaking in behalf of us all, thanked the hostess for her
+kindness and hospitality.
+
+Her gracious invitation to play upon the Manor-House course Mr. Wilson
+mentioned feelingly. Also the gracious condescension in presenting the
+prizes with her own hand. They would be cherished, not only for their
+own sake, but for that of the donor. He begged the liberty of proposing
+her ladyship's health.
+
+The "liberty" was, apparently, expected, for Mr. Handliss had full
+glasses ready and waiting. The health was drunk. Lady Carey drank ours
+in return, and the ceremony was over.
+
+I tried in vain to get another word with Heathcroft. He was in
+conversation with his aunt and several of the feminine friends and,
+although I waited for some time, I, at last, gave up the attempt and
+walked home. The Reverend Judson would have accompanied me, but I
+avoided him. I did not wish to listen to Mayberry gossip; I wanted to be
+alone.
+
+Heathcroft's tale had made a great impression upon me--a most
+unreasonable impression, unwarranted by the scant facts as he related
+them. The girl whom he had seen resembled Frances--yes; but she was an
+Austrian, her name was not Morley. And resemblances were common enough.
+That Frances should be singing in a Paris church was most improbable;
+but, so far as that went, the fact of A. Carleton Heathcroft's attending
+a church service I should, ordinarily, have considered improbable.
+Improbable things did happen. Suppose the girl he had seen was Frances.
+My heart leaped at the thought.
+
+But even supposing it was she, what difference did it make--to me? None,
+of course. She had asked us not to follow her, to make no attempt to
+find her. I had preached compliance with her wish to Hephzy, to Doctor
+Bayliss--yes, to Herbert Bayliss that very afternoon. But Herbert
+Bayliss was sworn to find her, in spite of me, in spite of the Evil One.
+And Heathcroft had told young Bayliss the same story he had told me. HE
+would not be deterred by scruples; her wish would not prevent his going
+to Paris in search of her.
+
+I reached the rectory, to be welcomed by Hephzy with questions
+concerning the outcome of the tournament and triumphant gloatings over
+my perfectly useless prize. I did not tell her of Heathcroft's story.
+I merely said I had met that gentleman and that Herbert Bayliss had
+returned to Mayberry. And I asked a question.
+
+"Hephzy," I asked, "when do the Heptons leave Paris for their trip
+through Switzerland?"
+
+Hephzy considered. "Let me see," she said. "Today is the eighteenth,
+isn't it. They start on the twenty-second; that's four days from now."
+
+"Of course you have written them that we cannot accept their invitation
+to go along?"
+
+She hesitated. "Why, no," she admitted, "I haven't. That is, I have
+written 'em, but I haven't posted the letter. Humph! did you notice
+that 'posted'? Shows what livin' in a different place'll do even to
+as settled a body as I am. In Bayport I should have said 'mailed' the
+letter, same as anybody else. I must be careful or I'll go back home
+and call the expressman a 'carrier' and a pie a 'tart' and a cracker a
+'biscuit.' Land sakes! I remember readin' how David Copperfield's aunt
+always used to eat biscuits soaked in port wine before she went to bed.
+I used to think 'twas dreadful dissipated business and that the old
+lady must have been ready for bed by the time she got through. You see
+I always had riz biscuits in mind. A cracker's different; crackers don't
+soak up much. We'd ought to be careful how we judge folks, hadn't we,
+Hosy."
+
+"Yes," said I, absently. "So you haven't posted the letter to the
+Heptons. Why not?"
+
+"Well--well, to tell you the truth, Hosy, I was kind of hopin' you might
+change your mind and decide to go, after all. I wish you would; 'twould
+do you good. And," wistfully, "Switzerland must be lovely. But there! I
+know just how you feel, you poor boy. I'll mail the letter to-night."
+
+"Give it to me," said I. "I'll--I'll see to it."
+
+Hephzy handed me the letter. I put it in my pocket, but I did not
+post it that evening. A plan--or the possible beginning of a plan--was
+forming in my mind.
+
+That night was another of my bad ones. The little sleep I had was filled
+with dreams, dreams from which I awoke to toss restlessly. I rose and
+walked the floor, calling myself a fool, a silly old fool, over and
+over again. But when morning came my plan, a ridiculous, wild plan from
+which, even if it succeeded--which was most unlikely--nothing but added
+trouble and despair could possibly come, my plan was nearer its ultimate
+formation.
+
+At eleven o'clock that forenoon I walked up the marble steps of the
+Manor House and rang the bell. The butler, an exalted personage in
+livery, answered my ring. Mr. Heathcroft? No, sir. Mr. Heathcroft had
+left for London by the morning train. Her ladyship was in her boudoir.
+She did not see anyone in the morning, sir. I had no wish to see her
+ladyship, but Heathcroft's departure was a distinct disappointment. I
+thanked the butler and, remembering that even cathedral ushers accepted
+tips, slipped a shilling into his hand. His dignity thawed at the silver
+touch, and he expressed regret at Mr. Heathcroft's absence.
+
+"You're not the only gentleman who has been here to see him this
+morning, sir," he said. "Doctor Bayliss, the younger one, called about
+an hour ago. He seemed quite as sorry to find him gone as you are, sir."
+
+I think that settled it. When I again entered the rectory my mind was
+made up. The decision was foolish, insane, even dishonorable perhaps,
+but the decision was made.
+
+"Hephzy," said I, "I have changed my mind. Travel may do me good. I have
+telegraphed the Heptons that we will join them in Paris on the evening
+of the twenty-first. After that--Well, we'll see."
+
+Hephzy's delight was as great as her surprise. She said I was a dear,
+unselfish boy. Considering what I intended doing I felt decidedly mean;
+but I did not tell her what that intention was.
+
+We took the two-twenty train from Charing Cross on the afternoon of the
+twenty-first. The servants had been left in charge of the rectory. We
+would return in a fortnight, so we told them.
+
+It was a beautiful day, bright and sunshiny, but, after smoky, grimy
+London had been left behind and we were whizzing through the Kentish
+countryside, between the hop fields and the pastures where the sheep
+were feeding, we noticed that a stiff breeze was blowing. Further on,
+as we wound amid the downs near Folkestone, the bending trees and shrubs
+proved that the breeze was a miniature gale. And when we came in sight
+of the Channel, it was thickly sprinkled with whitecaps from beach to
+horizon.
+
+"I imagine we shall have a rather rough passage, Hephzy," said I.
+
+Hephzy's attention was otherwise engaged.
+
+"Why do they call a hill a 'down' over here?" she asked. "I should think
+an 'up' would be better. What did you say, Hosy? A rough passage? I
+guess that won't bother you and me much. This little mite of water can't
+seem very much stirred up to folks who have sailed clear across the
+Atlantic Ocean. But there! I mustn't put on airs. I used to think Cape
+Cod Bay was about all the water there was. Travelin' does make such
+a difference in a person's ideas. Do you remember the Englishwoman at
+Bancroft's who told me that she supposed the Thames must remind us of
+our own Mississippi?"
+
+"So that's the famous English Channel, is it," she observed, a moment
+later. "How wide is it, Hosy?"
+
+"About twenty miles at the narrowest point, I believe," I said.
+
+"Twenty miles! About as far as Bayport to Provincetown. Well, I don't
+know whether any of your ancestors or mine came over with William the
+Conquerer or not, but if they did, they didn't have far to come. I
+cal'late I'll be contented with having my folks cross in the Mayflower.
+They came three thousand miles anyway."
+
+She was inclined to regard the Channel rather contemptuously just then.
+A half hour later she was more respectful.
+
+The steamer was awaiting us at the pier. As the throng of passengers
+filed up the gang-plank she suddenly squeezed my arm.
+
+"Look! Hosy!" she cried. "Look! Isn't that him?"
+
+I looked where she was pointing.
+
+"Him? Who?" I asked.
+
+"Look! There he goes now. No, he's gone. I can't see him any more. And
+yet I was almost certain 'twas him."
+
+"Who?" I asked again. "Did you see someone you knew?"
+
+"I thought I did, but I guess I was mistaken. He's just got home; he
+wouldn't be startin' off again so soon. No, it couldn't have been him,
+but I did think--"
+
+I stopped short. "Who did you think you saw?" I demanded.
+
+"I thought I saw Doctor Herbert Bayliss goin' up those stairs to the
+steamboat. It looked like him enough to be his twin brother, if he had
+one."
+
+I did not answer. I looked about as we stepped aboard the boat, but
+if young Bayliss was there he was not in sight. Hephzy rattled on
+excitedly.
+
+"You can't tell much by seein' folks's backs," she declared. "I remember
+one time your cousin Hezekiah Knowles--You don't remember him, Hosy; he
+died when you was little--One time Cousin Hezzy was up to Boston with
+his wife and they was shoppin' in one of the big stores. That is, Martha
+Ann--the wife--was shoppin' and he was taggin' along and complainin',
+same as men generally do. He was kind of nearsighted, Hezzy was, and
+when Martha was fightin' to get a place in front of a bargain counter he
+stayed astern and kept his eyes fixed on a hat she was wearin'. 'Twas a
+new hat with blue and yellow flowers on it. Hezzy always said, when he
+told the yarn afterward, that he never once figured that there could
+be another hat like that one. I saw it myself and, if I'd been in his
+place, I'd have HOPED there wasn't anyway. Well, he followed that hat
+from one counter to another and, at last, he stepped up and said, 'Look
+here, dearie,' he says--They hadn't been married very long, not long
+enough to get out of the mushy stage--'Look here, dearie,' he says,
+'hadn't we better be gettin' on home? You'll tire those little feet of
+yours all out trottin' around this way.' And when the hat turned around
+there was a face under it as black as a crow. He'd been followin' a
+darkey woman for ten minutes. She thought he was makin' fun of her feet
+and was awful mad, and when Martha came along and found who he'd taken
+for her she was madder still. Hezzy said, 'I couldn't help it, Martha.
+Nobody could. I never saw two craft look more alike from twenty foot
+astern. And she wears that hat just the way you do.' That didn't help
+matters any, of course, and--Why, Hosy, where are you goin'? Why don't
+you say somethin'? Hadn't we better sit down? All the good seats will be
+gone if we don't."
+
+I had been struggling through the crowd, trying my best to get a glimpse
+of the man she had thought to be Herbert Bayliss. If it was he then my
+suspicions were confirmed. Heathcroft's story of the girl who sang in
+Paris had impressed him as it had me and he was on his way to see for
+himself. But the man, whoever he might be, had disappeared.
+
+"How the wind does blow," said Hephzy. "What are the people doin' with
+those black tarpaulins?"
+
+Sailors in uniform were passing among the seated passengers distributing
+large squares of black waterproof canvas. I watched the use to which the
+tarpaulins were put and I understood. I beckoned to the nearest sailor
+and rented two of the canvases for use during the voyage.
+
+"How much?" I asked.
+
+"One franc each," said the man, curtly.
+
+I had visited the money-changers near the Charing Cross station and was
+prepared. Hephzy's eyes opened.
+
+"A franc," she repeated. "That's French money, isn't it. Is he a
+Frenchman?"
+
+"Yes," said I. "This is a French boat, I think."
+
+She watched the sailor for a moment. Then she sighed.
+
+"And he's a Frenchman," she said. "I thought Frenchmen wore mustaches
+and goatees and were awful polite. He was about as polite as a pig.
+And all he needs is a hand-organ and a monkey to be an Italian. A body
+couldn't tell the difference without specs. What did you get those
+tarpaulins for, Hosy?"
+
+I covered our traveling bags with one of the tarpaulins, as I saw our
+fellow-passengers doing, and the other I tucked about Hephzy, enveloping
+her from her waist down.
+
+"I don't need that," she protested. "It isn't cold and it isn't rainin',
+either. I tell you I don't need it, Hosy. Don't tuck me in any more. I
+feel as if I was goin' to France in a baby carriage, not a steamboat.
+And what are they passin' round those--those tin dippers for?"
+
+"They may be useful later on," I said, watching the seas leap and
+foam against the stone breakwater. "You'll probably understand later,
+Hephzy."
+
+She understood. The breakwater was scarcely passed when our boat, which
+had seemed so large and steady and substantial, began to manifest a
+desire to stand on both ends at once and to roll like a log in a rapid.
+The sun was shining brightly overhead, the verandas of the hotels along
+the beach were crowded with gaily dressed people, the surf fringing
+that beach was dotted with bathers, everything on shore wore a look of
+holiday and joy--and yet out here, on the edge of the Channel, there was
+anything but calm and anything but joy.
+
+How that blessed boat did toss and rock and dip and leap and pitch! And
+how the spray began to fly as we pushed farther and farther from land!
+It came over the bows in sheets; it swept before the wind in showers,
+in torrents. Hephzy hastily removed her hat and thrust it beneath the
+tarpaulin. I turned up the collar of my steamer coat and slid as far
+down into that collar as I could.
+
+"My soul!" exclaimed Hephzy, the salt water running down her face. "My
+soul and body!"
+
+"I agree with you," said I.
+
+On we went, over the waves or through them. Our fellow-passengers curled
+up beneath their tarpaulins, smiled stoically or groaned dismally,
+according to their dispositions--or digestions. A huge wave--the upper
+third of it, at least--swept across the deck and spilled a gallon or two
+of cold water upon us. A sturdy, red-faced Englishman, sitting next me,
+grinned cheerfully and observed:
+
+"Trickles down one's neck a bit, doesn't it, sir."
+
+I agreed that it did. Hephzy, huddled under the lee of my shoulder,
+sputtered.
+
+"Trickles!" she whispered. "My heavens and earth! If this is a trickle
+then Noah's flood couldn't have been more than a splash. Trickles!
+There's a Niagara Falls back of both of my ears this minute."
+
+Another passenger, also English, but gray-haired and elderly, came
+tacking down the deck, bound somewhere or other. His was a zig-zag
+transit. He dove for the rail, caught it, steadied himself, took a fresh
+start, swooped to the row of chairs by the deck house, carromed from
+them, and, in company with a barrel or two of flying brine, came head
+first into my lap. I expected profanity and temper. I did get a little
+of the former.
+
+"This damned French boat!" he observed, rising with difficulty. "She
+absolutely WON'T be still."
+
+"The sea is pretty rough."
+
+"Oh, the sea is all right. A bit damp, that's all. It's the blessed
+boat. Foreigners are such wretched sailors."
+
+He was off on another tack. Hephzy watched him wonderingly.
+
+"A bit damp," she repeated. "Yes, I shouldn't wonder if 'twas. I suppose
+likely he wouldn't call it wet if he fell overboard."
+
+"Not on this side of the Channel," I answered. "This side is English
+water, therefore it is all right."
+
+A few minutes later Hephzy spoke again.
+
+"Look at those poor women," she said.
+
+Opposite us were two English ladies, middle-aged, wretchedly ill and so
+wet that the feathers on their hats hung down in strings.
+
+"Just like drowned cats' tails," observed Hephzy. "Ain't it awful!
+And they're too miserable to care. You poor thing," she said, leaning
+forward and addressing the nearest, "can't I fix you so you're more
+comfortable?"
+
+The woman addressed looked up and tried her best to smile.
+
+"Oh, no, thank you," she said, weakly but cheerfully. "We're doing quite
+well. It will soon be over."
+
+Hephzy shook her head.
+
+"Did you hear that, Hosy?" she whispered. "I declare! if it wasn't off
+already, and that's a mercy, I'd take off my hat to England and the
+English people. Not a whimper, not a complaint, just sit still and soak
+and tumble around and grin and say it's 'a bit damp.' Whenever I read
+about the grumblin', fault-findin' Englishman I'll think of the folks on
+this boat. It may be patriotism or it may be the race pride and reserve
+we hear so much about--but, whatever it is, it's fine. They've all got
+it, men and women and children. I presume likely the boy that stood on
+the burnin' deck would have said 'twas a bit sultry, and that's all....
+What is it, Hosy?"
+
+I had uttered an exclamation. A young man had just reeled by us on his
+way forward. His cap was pulled down over his eyes and his coat collar
+was turned up, but I recognized him. He was Herbert Bayliss.
+
+We were three hours crossing from Folkestone to Boulogne, instead of the
+usual scant two. We entered the harbor, where the great crucifix on the
+hill above the town attracted Hephzy's attention and the French signs
+over the doors of hotels and shops by the quay made her realize, so she
+said, that we really were in a foreign country.
+
+"Somehow England never did seem so very foreign," she said. "And the
+Mayberry folks were so nice and homey and kind I've come to think of 'em
+as, not just neighbors, but friends. But this--THIS is foreign enough,
+goodness knows! Let go of my arm!" to the smiling, gesticulating porter
+who was proffering his services. "DON'T wave your hands like that; you
+make me dizzy. Keep 'em still, man! I could understand you just as well
+if they was tied. Hosy, you'll have to be skipper from now on. Now I
+KNOW Cape Cod is three thousand miles off."
+
+We got through the customs without trouble, found our places in the
+train, and the train, after backing and fussing and fidgeting and
+tooting in a manner thoroughly French, rolled out of the station.
+
+We ate our dinner, and a very good dinner it was, in the dining-car.
+Hephzy, having asked me to translate the heading "Compagnie
+Internationale des Wagon Lits" on the bill of fare, declared she
+couldn't see why a dining-car should be called a "wagon bed." "There's
+enough to eat to put you to sleep," she declared, "but you couldn't
+stay asleep any more than you could in the nail factory up to Tremont. I
+never heard such a rattlin' and slambangin' in my life."
+
+We whizzed through the French country, catching glimpses of little
+towns, with red-roofed cottages clustered about the inevitable church
+and chateau, until night came and looking out of the window was no
+longer profitable. At nine, or thereabouts, we alighted from the train
+at Paris.
+
+In the cab, on the way to the hotel where we were to meet the Heptons,
+Hephzy talked incessantly.
+
+"Paris!" she said, over and over again. "Paris! where they had the Three
+Musketeers and Notre Dame and Henry of Navarre and Saint Bartholomew and
+Napoleon and the guillotine and Innocents Abroad and--and everything.
+Paris! And I'm in it!"
+
+At the door of the hotel Mr. Hepton met us.
+
+Before we retired that night I told Hephzy what I had deferred telling
+until then, namely, that I did not intend leaving for Switzerland with
+her and with the Heptons the following day. I did not tell her my real
+reason for staying; I had invented a reason and told her that instead.
+
+"I want to be alone here in Paris for a few days," I said. "I think I
+may find some material here which will help me with my novel. You and
+the Heptons must go, just as you have planned, and I will join you at
+Lucerne or Interlaken."
+
+Hephzy stared at me.
+
+"I sha'n't stir one step without you," she declared. "If I'd known you
+had such an idea as that in your head I--"
+
+"You wouldn't have come," I interrupted. "I know that; that's why I
+didn't tell you. Of course you will go and of course you will leave me
+here. We will be separated only two or three days. I'll ask Hepton to
+give me an itinerary of the trip and I will wire when and where I will
+join you. You must go, Hephzy; I insist upon it."
+
+In spite of my insisting Hephzy still declared she should not go. It was
+nearly midnight before she gave in.
+
+"And if you DON'T come in three days at the longest," she said, "you'll
+find me back here huntin' you up. I mean that, Hosy, so you'd better
+understand it. And now," rising from her chair, "I'm goin' to see about
+the things you're to wear while we're separated. If I don't you're
+liable to keep on wet stockin's and shoes and things all the time and
+forget to change 'em. You needn't say you won't, for I know you too
+well. Mercy sakes! do you suppose I've taken care of you all these years
+and DON'T know?"
+
+The next forenoon I said good-by to her and the Heptons at the railway
+station. Hephzy's last words to me were these:
+
+"Remember," she said, "if you do get caught in the rain, there's dry
+things in the lower tray of your trunk. Collars and neckties and shirts
+are in the upper tray. I've hung your dress suit in the closet in case
+you want it, though that isn't likely. And be careful what you eat, and
+don't smoke too much, and--Yes, Mr. Hepton, I'm comin'--and don't spend
+ALL your money in book-stores; you'll need some of it in Switzerland.
+And--Oh, dear, Hosy! do be a good boy. I know you're always good, but,
+from all I've heard, this Paris is an awful place and--good-by. Good-by.
+In Lucerne in two days or Interlaken in three. It's got to be that,
+or back I come, remember. I HATE to leave you all alone amongst these
+jabberin' foreigners. I'm glad you can jabber, too, that's one comfort.
+If it was me, all I could do would be to holler United States language
+at 'em, and if they didn't understand that, just holler louder. I--Yes,
+Mr. Hepton, I AM comin' now. Good-by, Hosy, dear."
+
+The train rolled out of the station. I watched it go. Then I turned and
+walked to the street. So far my scheme had worked well. I was alone
+in Paris as I had planned to be. And now--and now to find where a girl
+sang, a girl who looked like Frances Morley.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+In Which I Learn that All Abbeys Are Not Churches
+
+
+And that, now that I really stopped to consider it, began to appear more
+and more of a task. Paris must be full of churches; to visit each of
+them in turn would take weeks at least. Hephzy had given me three days.
+I must join her at Interlaken in three days or there would be trouble.
+And how was I to make even the most superficial search in three days?
+
+Of course I had realized something of this before. Even in the state of
+mind which Heathcroft's story had left me, I had realized that my errand
+in Paris was a difficult one. I realized that I had set out on the
+wildest of wild goose chases and that, even in the improbable event
+of the singer's being Frances, my finding her was most unlikely. The
+chances of success were a hundred to one against me. But I was in the
+mood to take the hundredth chance. I should have taken it if the odds
+were higher still. My plan--if it could be called a plan--was first of
+all to buy a Paris Baedeker and look over the list of churches. This I
+did, and, back in the hotel room, I consulted that list. It staggered
+me. There were churches enough--there were far too many. Cathedrals and
+chapels and churches galore--Catholic and Protestant. But there was no
+church calling itself an abbey. I closed the Baedeker, lit a cigar, and
+settled myself for further reflection.
+
+The girl was singing somewhere and she called herself Mademoiselle Juno
+or Junotte, so Heathcroft had said. So much I knew and that was all.
+It was very, very little. But Herbert Bayliss had come to Paris, I
+believed, because of what Heathcroft had told him. Did he know more
+than I? It was possible. At any rate he had come. I had seen him on
+the steamer, and I believed he had seen and recognized me. Of course
+he might not be in Paris now; he might have gone elsewhere. I did not
+believe it, however. I believed he had crossed the Channel on the same
+errand as I. There was a possible chance. I might, if the other means
+proved profitless, discover at which hotel Bayliss was staying and
+question him. He might tell me nothing, even if he knew, but I could
+keep him in sight, I could follow him and discover where he went.
+It would be dishonorable, perhaps, but I was desperate and doggedly
+regardless of scruples. I was set upon one thing--to find her, to see
+her and speak with her again.
+
+Shadowing Bayliss, however, I set aside as a last resort. Before that I
+would search on my own hook. And, tossing aside the useless Baedeker,
+I tried to think of someone whose advice might be of value. At last,
+I resolved to question the concierge of the hotel. Concierges, I
+knew, were the ever present helps of travelers in trouble. They knew
+everything, spoke all languages, and expected to be asked all sorts of
+unreasonable questions.
+
+The concierge at my hotel was a transcendant specimen of his talented
+class. His name and title was Monsieur Louis--at least that is what I
+had heard the other guests call him. And the questions which he had been
+called upon to answer, in my hearing, ranged in subject from the hour of
+closing the Luxemburg galleries to that of opening the Bal Tabarin, with
+various interruptions during which he settled squabbles over cab fares,
+took orders for theater and opera tickets, and explained why fruit at
+the tables of the Cafe des Ambassadeurs was so very expensive.
+
+Monsieur Louis received me politely, listened, with every appearance of
+interest, to my tale of a young lady, a relative, who was singing at one
+of the Paris churches and whose name was Juno or Junotte, but, when I
+had finished, reluctantly shook his head. There were many, many churches
+in Paris--yes, and, at some of them, young ladies sang; but these were,
+for the most part, the Protestant churches. At the larger churches, the
+Catholic churches, most of the singers were men or boys. He could recall
+none where a lady of that name sang. Monsieur had not been told the name
+of the church?
+
+"The person who told me referred to it as an abbey," I said.
+
+Louis raised his shoulders. "I am sorry, Monsieur," he said, "but there
+is no abbey, where ladies sing, in Paris. It is, alas, regrettable, but
+it is so."
+
+He announced it as he might have broken to me the news of the death of
+a friend. Incidentally, having heard a few sentences of my French, he
+spoke in English, very good English.
+
+"I will, however, make inquiries, Monsieur," he went on. "Possibly I may
+discover something which will be of help to Monsieur in his difficulty."
+In the meantime there was to be a parade of troops at the Champ de
+Mars at four, and the evening performance at the Folies Bergeres was
+unusually good and English and American gentlemen always enjoyed it. It
+would give him pleasure to book a place for me.
+
+I thanked him but I declined the offer, so far as the Folies were
+concerned. I did ask him, however, to give me the name of a few churches
+at which ladies sang. This he did and I set out to find them, in a cab
+which whizzed through the Paris streets as if the driver was bent upon
+suicide and manslaughter.
+
+I visited four places of worship that afternoon and two more that
+evening. Those in charge--for I attended no services--knew nothing of
+Mademoiselle Junotte or Juno. I retired at ten, somewhat discouraged,
+but stubbornly determined to keep on, for my three days at least.
+
+The next morning I consulted Baedeker again, this time for the list of
+hotels, a list which I found quite as lengthy as that of the churches.
+Then I once more sought the help of Monsieur Louis. Could he tell me a
+few of the hotels where English visitors were most likely to stay.
+
+He could do more than that, apparently. Would I be so good as to inform
+him if the lady or gentleman--being Parisian he put the lady first--whom
+I wished to find had recently arrived in Paris. I told him that the
+gentleman had arrived the same evening as I. Whereupon he produced
+a list of guests at all the prominent hotels. Herbert Bayliss was
+registered at the Continental.
+
+To the Continental I went and made inquiries of the concierge there.
+Mr. Bayliss was there, he was in his room, so the concierge believed. He
+would be pleased to ascertain. Would I give my name? I declined to give
+the name, saying that I did not wish to disturb Mr. Bayliss. If he was
+in his room I would wait until he came down. He was in his room, had not
+yet breakfasted, although it was nearly ten in the forenoon. I sat down
+in a chair from which I could command a good view of the elevators, and
+waited.
+
+The concierge strolled over and chatted. Was I a friend of Mr. Bayliss?
+Ah, a charming young gentleman, was he not. This was not his first visit
+to Paris, no indeed; he came frequently--though not as frequently of
+late--and he invariably stayed at the Continental. He had been out late
+the evening before, which doubtless explained his non-appearance. Ah,
+he was breakfasting now; had ordered his "cafe complete." Doubtless he
+would be down very soon? Would I wish to send up my name now?
+
+Again I declined, to the polite astonishment of the concierge, who
+evidently considered me a queer sort of a friend. He was called to his
+desk by a guest, who wished to ask questions, of course, and I waited
+where I was. At a quarter to eleven Herbert Bayliss emerged from the
+elevator.
+
+His appearance almost shocked me. Out late the night before! He looked
+as if he had been out all night for many nights. He was pale and solemn.
+I stepped forward to greet him and the start he gave when he saw me
+was evidence of the state of his nerves. I had never thought of him as
+possessing any nerves.
+
+"Eh? Why, Knowles!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Good morning, Bayliss," said I.
+
+We both were embarrassed, he more than I, for I had expected to see him
+and he had not expected to see me. I made a move to shake hands but he
+did not respond. His manner toward me was formal and, I thought, colder
+than it had been at our meeting the day of the golf tournament.
+
+"I called," I said, "to see you, Bayliss. If you are not engaged I
+should like to talk with you for a few moments."
+
+His answer was a question.
+
+"How did you know I was here?" he asked.
+
+"I saw your name in the list of recent arrivals at the Continental," I
+answered.
+
+"I mean how did you know I was in Paris?"
+
+"I didn't know. I thought I caught a glimpse of you on the boat. I was
+almost sure it was you, but you did not appear to recognize me and I had
+no opportunity to speak then."
+
+He did not speak at once, he did not even attempt denial of having seen
+and recognized me during the Channel crossing. He regarded me intently
+and, I thought, suspiciously.
+
+"Who sent you here?" he asked, suddenly.
+
+"Sent me! No one sent me. I don't understand you."
+
+"Why did you follow me?"
+
+"Follow you?"
+
+"Yes. Why did you follow me to Paris? No one knew I was coming here,
+not even my own people. They think I am--Well, they don't know that I am
+here."
+
+His speech and his manner were decidedly irritating. I had made a firm
+resolve to keep my temper, no matter what the result of this interview
+might be, but I could not help answering rather sharply.
+
+"I had no intention of following you--here or anywhere else," I said.
+"Your action and whereabouts, generally speaking, are of no particular
+interest to me. I did not follow you to Paris, Doctor Bayliss."
+
+He reddened and hesitated. Then he led the way to a divan in a retired
+corner of the lobby and motioned to me to be seated. There he sat down
+beside me and waited for me to speak. I, in turn, waited for him to
+speak.
+
+At last he spoke.
+
+"I'm sorry, Knowles," he said. "I am not myself today. I've had a devil
+of a night and I feel like a beast this morning. I should probably have
+insulted my own father, had he appeared suddenly, as you did. Of course
+I should have known you did not follow me to Paris. But--but why did you
+come?"
+
+I hesitated now. "I came," I said, "to--to--Well, to be perfectly honest
+with you, I came because of something I heard concerning--concerning--"
+
+He interrupted me. "Then Heathcroft did tell you!" he exclaimed. "I
+thought as much."
+
+"He told you, I know. He said he did."
+
+"Yes. He did. My God, man, isn't it awful! Have you seen her?"
+
+His manner convinced me that he had seen her. In my eagerness I forgot
+to be careful.
+
+"No," I answered, breathlessly; "I have not seen her. Where is she?"
+
+He turned and stared at me.
+
+"Don't you know where she is?" he asked, slowly.
+
+"I know nothing. I have been told that she--or someone very like her--is
+singing in a Paris church. Heathcroft told me that and then we were
+interrupted. I--What is the matter?"
+
+He was staring at me more oddly than ever. There was the strangest
+expression on his face.
+
+"In a church!" he repeated. "Heathcroft told you--"
+
+"He told me that he had seen a girl, whose resemblance to Miss Morley
+was so striking as to be marvelous, singing in a Paris church. He called
+it an abbey, but of course it couldn't be that. Do you know anything
+more definite? What did he tell you?"
+
+He did not answer.
+
+"In a church!" he said again. "You thought--Oh, good heavens!"
+
+He began to laugh. It was not a pleasant laugh to hear. Moreover, it
+angered me.
+
+"This may be very humorous," I said, brusquely. "Perhaps it is--to you.
+But--Bayliss, you know more of this than I. I am certain now that you
+do. I want you to tell me what you know. Is that girl Frances Morley?
+Have you seen her? Where is she?"
+
+He had stopped laughing. Now he seemed to be considering.
+
+"Then you did come over here to find her," he said, more slowly still.
+"You were following her, why?"
+
+"WHY?"
+
+"Yes, why. She is nothing to you. You told my father that. You told me
+that she was not your niece. You told Father that you had no claim upon
+her whatever and that she had asked you not to try to trace her or to
+learn where she was. You said all that and preached about respecting her
+wish and all that sort of thing. And yet you are here now trying to find
+her."
+
+The only answer I could make to this was a rather childish retort.
+
+"And so are you," I said.
+
+His fists clinched.
+
+"I!" he cried, fiercely. "I! Did _I_ ever say she was nothing to me? Did
+_I_ ever tell anyone I should not try to find her? I told you, only
+the other day, that I would find her in spite of the devil. I meant it.
+Knowles, I don't understand you. When I came to you thinking you her
+uncle and guardian, and asked your permission to ask her to marry me,
+you gave that permission. You did. You didn't tell me that she was
+nothing to you. I don't understand you at all. You told my father a lot
+of rot--"
+
+"I told your father the truth. And, when I told you that she had left
+no message for you, that was the truth also. I have no reason to believe
+she cares for you--"
+
+"And none to think that she doesn't. At all events she did not tell ME
+not to follow her. She did tell you. Why are you following her?"
+
+It was a question I could not answer--to him. That reason no one should
+know. And yet what excuse could I give, after all my protestations?
+
+"I--I feel that I have the right, everything considered," I stammered.
+"She is not my niece, but she is Miss Cahoon's."
+
+"And she ran away from both of you, asking, as a last request, that you
+both make no attempt to learn where she was. The whole affair is beyond
+understanding. What the truth may be--"
+
+"Are you hinting that I have lied to you?"
+
+"I am not hinting at anything. All I can say is that it is deuced queer,
+all of it. And I sha'n't say more."
+
+"Will you tell me--"
+
+"I shall tell you nothing. That would be her wish, according to your own
+statement and I will respect that wish, if you don't."
+
+I rose to my feet. There was little use in an open quarrel between us
+and I was by far the older man. Yes, and his position was infinitely
+stronger than mine, as he understood it. But I never was more strongly
+tempted. He knew where she was. He had seen her. The thought was
+maddening.
+
+He had risen also and was facing me defiantly.
+
+"Good morning, Doctor Bayliss," said I, and walked away. I turned as I
+reached the entrance of the hotel and looked back. He was still standing
+there, staring at me.
+
+That afternoon I spent in my room. There is little use describing my
+feelings. That she was in Paris I was sure now. That Bayliss had seen
+her I was equally sure. But why had he spoken and looked as he did
+when I first spoke of Heathcroft's story? What had he meant by saying
+something or other was "awful?" And why had he seemed so astonished, why
+had he laughed in that strange way when I had said she was singing in a
+church?
+
+That evening I sought Monsieur Louis, the concierge, once more.
+
+"Is there any building here in Paris," I asked, "a building in which
+people sing, which is called an abbey? One that is not a church or an
+abbey, but is called that?"
+
+Louis looked at me in an odd way. He seemed a bit embarrassed, an
+embarrassment I should not have expected from him.
+
+"Monsieur asks the question," he said, smiling. "It was in my mind last
+night, the thought, but Monsieur asked for a church. There is a place
+called L'Abbaye and there young women sing, but--" he hesitated,
+shrugged and then added, "but L'Abbaye is not a church. No, it is not
+that."
+
+"What is it?" I asked.
+
+"A restaurant, Monsieur. A cafe chantant at Montmartre."
+
+Montmartre at ten that evening was just beginning to awaken. At the hour
+when respectable Paris, home-loving, domestic Paris, the Paris of which
+the tourist sees so little, is thinking of retiring, Montmartre--or that
+section of it in which L'Abbaye is situated--begins to open its eyes. At
+ten-thirty, as my cab buzzed into the square and pulled up at the curb,
+the electric signs were blazing, the sidewalks were, if not yet crowded,
+at least well filled, and the sounds of music from the open windows of
+The Dead Rat and the other cafes with the cheerful names were mingling
+with noises of the street.
+
+Monsieur Louis had given me my sailing orders, so to speak. He had
+told me that arriving at L'Abbaye before ten-thirty was quite useless.
+Midnight was the accepted hour, he said; prior to that I would find it
+rather dull, triste. But after that--Ah, Monsieur would, at least, be
+entertained.
+
+"But of course Monsieur does not expect to find the young lady of whom
+he is in search there," he said. "A relative is she not?"
+
+Remembering that I had, when I first mentioned the object of my quest to
+him, referred to her as a relative, I nodded.
+
+He smiled and shrugged.
+
+"A relative of Monsieur's would scarcely be found singing at L'Abbaye,"
+he said. "But it is a most interesting place, entertaining and chic.
+Many English and American gentlemen sup there after the theater."
+
+I smiled and intimated that the desire to pass a pleasant evening was my
+sole reason for visiting the place. He was certain I would be pleased.
+
+The doorway of L'Abbaye was not deserted, even at the "triste" hour of
+ten-thirty. Other cabs were drawn up at the curb and, upon the stairs
+leading to the upper floors, were several gaily dressed couples bound,
+as I had proclaimed myself to be, in search of supper and entertainment.
+I had, acting upon the concierge's hint, arrayed myself in my evening
+clothes and I handed my silk hat, purchased in London--where, as
+Hephzy said, "a man without a tall hat is like a rooster without tail
+feathers"--to a polite and busy attendant. Then a personage with a
+very straight beard and a very curly mustache, ushered me into the main
+dining-room.
+
+"Monsieur would wish seats for how many?" he asked, in French.
+
+"For myself only," I answered, also in French. His next remark was in
+English. I was beginning to notice that when I addressed a Parisian in
+his native language, he usually answered in mine. This may have been
+because of a desire to please me, or in self-defence; I am inclined to
+think the latter.
+
+"Ah, for one only. This way, Monsieur."
+
+I was given a seat at one end of a long table, and in a corner. There
+were plenty of small tables yet unoccupied, but my guide was apparently
+reserving these for couples or quartettes; at any rate he did not offer
+one to me. I took the seat indicated.
+
+"I shall wish to remain here for some time?" I said. "Probably the
+entire--" I hesitated; considering the hour I scarcely knew whether to
+say "evening" or "morning." At last I said "night" as a compromise.
+
+The bearded person seemed doubtful.
+
+"There will be a great demand later," he said. "To oblige Monsieur is of
+course our desire, but.... Ah, merci, Monsieur, I will see that Monsieur
+is not disturbed."
+
+The reason for his change of heart was the universal one in restaurants.
+He put the reason in his pocket and summoned a waiter to take my order.
+
+I gave the order, a modest one, which dropped me a mile or two in the
+waiter's estimation. However, after a glance at my fellow-diners at
+nearby tables, I achieved a partial uplift by ordering a bottle of
+extremely expensive wine. I had had the idea that, being in France, the
+home of champagne, that beverage would be cheap or, at least, moderately
+priced. But in L'Abbaye the idea seemed to be erroneous.
+
+The wine was brought immediately; the supper was somewhat delayed. I
+did not care. I had not come there to eat--or to drink, either, for that
+matter. I had come--I scarcely knew why I had come. That Frances Morley
+would be singing in a place like this I did not believe. This was the
+sort of "abbey" that A. Carleton Heathcroft would be most likely to
+visit, that was true, but that he had seen her here was most improbable.
+The coincidence of the "abbey" name would not have brought me there, of
+itself. Herbert Bayliss had given me to understand, although he had not
+said it, that she was not singing in a church and he had found the idea
+of her being where she was "awful." It was because of what he had said
+that I had come, as a sort of last chance, a forlorn hope. Of course she
+would not be here, a hired singer in a Paris night restaurant; that was
+impossible.
+
+How impossible it was likely to be I realized more fully during the
+next hour. There was nothing particularly "awful" about L'Abbaye of
+itself--at first, nor, perhaps, even later; at least the awfulness was
+well covered. The program of entertainment was awful enough, if deadly
+mediocrity is awful. A big darkey, dressed in a suit which reminded me
+of the "end man" at an old-time minstrel show, sang "My Alabama Coon,"
+accompanying himself, more or less intimately, on the banjo. I could
+have heard the same thing, better done, at a ten cent theater in the
+States, where this chap had doubtless served an apprenticeship. However,
+the audience, which was growing larger every minute, seemed to find the
+bellowing enjoyable and applauded loudly. Then a feminine person did a
+Castilian dance between the tables. I was ready to declare a second war
+with Spain when she had finished. Then there was an orchestral interval,
+during which the tables filled.
+
+The impossibility of Frances singing in a place like this became more
+certain each minute, to my mind. I called the waiter.
+
+"Does Mademoiselle Juno sing here this evening?" I asked, in my lame
+French.
+
+He shook his head. "Non, Monsieur," he answered, absently, and hastened
+on with the bottle he was carrying.
+
+Apparently that settled it. I might as well go. Then I decided to remain
+a little longer. After all, I was there, and I, or Heathcroft, might
+have misunderstood the name. I would stay for a while.
+
+The long table at which I sat was now occupied from end to end. There
+were several couples, male and female, and a number of unattached
+young ladies, well-dressed, pretty for the most part, and vivacious
+and inclined to be companionable. They chatted with their neighbors and
+would have chatted with me if I had been in the mood. For the matter of
+that everyone talked with everyone else, in French or English, good, bad
+and indifferent, and there was much laughter and gaiety. L'Abbaye was
+wide awake by this time.
+
+The bearded personage who had shown me to my seat, appeared, followed
+by a dozen attendants bearing paper parasols and bags containing little
+celluloid balls, red, white, and blue. They were distributed among the
+feminine guests. The parasols, it developed, were to be waved and the
+balls to be thrown. You were supposed to catch as many as were thrown
+at you and throw them back. It was wonderful fun--or would have been for
+children--and very, very amusing--after the second bottle.
+
+For my part I found it very stupid. As I have said at least once in this
+history I am not what is called a "good mixer" and in an assemblage like
+this I was as out of place as a piece of ice on a hot stove. Worse than
+that, for the ice would have melted and I congealed the more. My bottle
+of champagne remained almost untouched and when a celluloid ball bounced
+on the top of my head I did not scream "Whoopee! Bullseye!" as my
+American neighbors did or "Voila! Touche!" like the French. There were
+plenty of Americans and English there, and they seemed to be having a
+good time, but their good time was incomprehensible to me. This was "gay
+Paris," of course, but somehow the gaiety seemed forced and artificial
+and silly, except to the proprietors of L'Abbaye. If I had been getting
+the price for food and liquids which they received I might, perhaps,
+have been gay.
+
+The young Frenchman at my right was gay enough. He had early discovered
+my nationality and did his best to be entertaining. When a performer
+from the Olympia, the music hall on the Boulevard des Italiens, sang a
+distressing love ballad in a series of shrieks like those of a circular
+saw in a lumber mill, this person shouted his "Bravos" with the rest and
+then, waving his hands before my face, called for, "De cheer Americain!
+One, two, tree--Heep! Heep! Heep! Oo--ray-y-y!" I did not join in "the
+cheer Americain," but I did burst out laughing, a proceeding which
+caused the young lady at my left to pat my arm and nod delighted
+approval. She evidently thought I was becoming gay and lighthearted at
+last. She was never more mistaken.
+
+It was nearly two o'clock and I had had quite enough of L'Abbaye. I had
+not enjoyed myself--had not expected to, so far as that went. I hope I
+am not a prig, and, whatever I am or am not, priggishness had no part in
+my feelings then. Under ordinary circumstances I should not have enjoyed
+myself in a place like that. Mine is not the temperament--I shouldn't
+know how. I must have appeared the most solemn ass in creation, and if I
+had come there with the idea of amusement, I should have felt like one.
+As it was, my feeling was not disgust, but unreasonable disappointment.
+Certainly I did not wish--now that I had seen L'Abbaye--to find Frances
+Morley there; but just as certainly I was disappointed.
+
+I called for my bill, paid it, and stood up. I gave one look about the
+crowded, noisy place, and then I started violently and sat down again. I
+had seen Herbert Bayliss. He had, apparently, just entered and a waiter
+was finding a seat for him at a table some distance away and on the
+opposite side of the great room.
+
+There was no doubt about it; it was he. My heart gave a bound that
+almost choked me and all sorts of possibilities surged through my brain.
+He had come to Paris to find her, he had found her--in our conversation
+he had intimated as much. And now, he was here at the "Abbey." Why? Was
+it here that he had found her? Was she singing here after all?
+
+Bayliss glanced in my direction and I sank lower in my chair. I did
+not wish him to see me. Fortunately the lady opposite waved her paper
+parasol just then and I went into eclipse, so far as he was concerned.
+When the eclipse was over he was looking elsewhere.
+
+The black-bearded Frenchman, who seemed to be, if not one of the
+proprietors, at least one of the managers of L'Abbaye, appeared in the
+clear space at the center of the room between the tables and waved
+his hands. He was either much excited or wished to seem so. He shouted
+something in French which I could not understand. There was a buzz of
+interest all about me; then the place grew still--or stiller. Something
+was going to happen, that was evident. I leaned toward my voluble
+neighbor, the French gentleman who had called for "de cheer Americain."
+
+"What is it?" I asked. "What is the matter?"
+
+He ignored, or did not hear, my question. The bearded person was still
+waving his hands. The orchestra burst into a sort of triumphal march and
+then into the open space between the tables came--Frances Morley.
+
+She was dressed in a simple evening gown, she was not painted or
+powdered to the extent that women who had sung before her had been, her
+hair was simply dressed. She looked thinner than she had when I last saw
+her, but otherwise she was unchanged. In that place, amid the lights and
+the riot of color, the silks and satins and jewels, the flushed faces of
+the crowd, she stood and bowed, a white rose in a bed of tiger lilies,
+and the crowd rose and shouted at her.
+
+The orchestra broke off its triumphal march and the leader stood up, his
+violin at his shoulder. He played a bar or two and she began to sing.
+
+She sang a simple, almost childish, love song in French. There was
+nothing sensational about it, nothing risque, certainly nothing which
+should have appealed to the frequenters of L'Abbaye. And her voice,
+although sweet and clear and pure, was not extraordinary. And yet, when
+she had finished, there was a perfect storm of "Bravos." Parasols waved,
+flowers were thrown, and a roar of applause lasted for minutes. Why this
+should have been is a puzzle to me even now. Perhaps it was because of
+her clean, girlish beauty; perhaps because it was so unexpected and so
+different; perhaps because of the mystery concerning her. I don't know.
+Then I did not ask. I sat in my chair at the table, trembling from head
+to foot, and looking at her. I had never expected to see her again and
+now she was before my eyes--here in this place.
+
+She sang again; this time a jolly little ballad of soldiers and glory
+and the victory of the Tri-Color. And again she swept them off their
+feet. She bowed and smiled in answer to their applause and, motioning
+to the orchestra leader, began without accompaniment, "Loch Lomond," in
+English. It was one of the songs I had asked her to sing at the rectory,
+one I had found in the music cabinet, one that her mother and mine had
+sung years before.
+
+
+     "Ye'll take the high road
+      And I'll take the low road,
+      And I'll be in Scotland afore ye--"
+
+
+I was on my feet. I have no remembrance of having risen, but I was
+standing, leaning across the table, looking at her. There were cries of
+"Sit down" in English and other cries in French. There were tugs at my
+coat tails.
+
+
+     "But me and my true love
+      Shall never meet again,
+      By the bonny, bonny banks
+      Of Loch--"
+
+
+She saw me. The song stopped. I saw her turn white, so white that the
+rouge on her cheeks looked like fever spots. She looked at me and I at
+her. Then she raised her hand to her throat, turned and almost ran from
+the room.
+
+I should have followed her, then and there, I think. I was on my way
+around the end of the table, regardless of masculine boots and feminine
+skirts. But a stout Englishman got in my way and detained me and the
+crowd was so dense that I could not push through it. It was an excited
+crowd, too. For a moment there had been a surprised silence, but now
+everyone was exclaiming and talking in his or her native language.
+
+"Oh, I say! What happened? What made her do that?" demanded the stout
+Englishman. Then he politely requested me to get off his foot.
+
+The bearded manager--or proprietor--was waving his hands once more and
+begging attention and silence. He got both, in a measure. Then he made
+his announcement.
+
+He begged ten thousand pardons, but Mademoiselle Guinot--That was it,
+Guinot, not Juno or Junotte--had been seized with a most regrettable
+illness. She had been unable to continue her performance. It was not
+serious, but she could sing no more that evening. To-morrow evening--ah,
+yes. Most certainly. But to-night--no. Monsieur Hairee Opkins, the
+most famous Engleesh comedy artiste would now entertain the patrons of
+L'Abbaye. He begged, he entreated attention for Monsieur Opkins.
+
+I did not wait for "Monsieur Hairee." I forced my way to the door. As I
+passed out I cast a glance in the direction of young Bayliss. He was
+on his feet, loudly shouting for a waiter and his bill. I had so much
+start, at all events.
+
+Through the waiters and uniformed attendants I elbowed. Another man with
+a beard--he looked enough like the other to be his brother, and perhaps
+he was--got in my way at last. A million or more pardons, but Monsieur
+could not go in that direction. The exit was there, pointing.
+
+As patiently and carefully as I could, considering my agitation, I
+explained that I did not wish to find the exit. I was a friend, a--yes,
+a--er--relative of the young lady who had just sung and who had been
+taken ill. I wanted to go to her.
+
+Another million pardons, but that was impossible. I did not understand,
+Mademoiselle was--well, she did not see gentlemen. She was--with
+the most expressive of shrugs--peculiar. She desired no friends. It
+was--ah--quite impossible.
+
+I found my pocketbook and pressed my card into his hand. Would he give
+Mademoiselle my card? Would he tell her that I must see her, if only for
+a minute? Just give her the card and tell her that.
+
+He shook his head, smiling but firm. I could have punched him for the
+smile, but instead I took other measures. I reached into my
+pocket, found some gold pieces--I have no idea how many or of what
+denomination--and squeezed them in the hand with the card. He still
+smiled and shook his head, but his firmness was shaken.
+
+"I will give the card," he said, "but I warn Monsieur it is quite
+useless. She will not see him."
+
+The waiter with whom I had seen Herbert Bayliss in altercation was
+hurrying by me. I caught his arm.
+
+"Pardon, Monsieur," he protested, "but I must go. The gentleman yonder
+desires his bill."
+
+"Don't give it to him," I whispered, trying hard to think of the French
+words. "Don't give it to him yet. Keep him where he is for a time."
+
+I backed the demand with another gold piece, the last in my pocket. The
+waiter seemed surprised.
+
+"Not give the bill?" he repeated.
+
+"No, not yet." I did my best to look wicked and knowing--"He and I wish
+to meet the same young lady and I prefer to be first."
+
+That was sufficient--in Paris. The waiter bowed low.
+
+"Rest in peace, Monsieur," he said. "The gentleman shall wait."
+
+I waited also, for what seemed a long time. Then the bearded one
+reappeared. He looked surprised but pleased.
+
+"Bon, Monsieur," he whispered, patting my arm. "She will see you. You
+are to wait at the private door. I will conduct you there. It is most
+unusual. Monsieur is a most fortunate gentleman."
+
+At the door, at the foot of a narrow staircase--decidedly lacking in the
+white and gold of the other, the public one--I waited, for another age.
+The staircase was lighted by one sickly gas jet and the street outside
+was dark and dirty. I waited on the narrow sidewalk, listening to the
+roar of nocturnal Montmartre around the corner, to the beating of my own
+heart, and for her footstep on the stairs.
+
+At last I heard it. The door opened and she came out. She wore a cloak
+over her street costume and her hat was one that she had bought in
+London with my money. She wore a veil and I could not see her face.
+
+I seized her hands with both of mine.
+
+"Frances!" I cried, chokingly. "Oh, Frances!"
+
+She withdrew her hands. When she spoke her tone was quiet but very firm.
+
+"Why did you come here?" she asked.
+
+"Why did I come? Why--"
+
+"Yes. Why did you come? Was it to find me? Did you know I was here?"
+
+"I did not know. I had heard--"
+
+"Did Doctor Bayliss tell you?"
+
+I hesitated. So she HAD seen Bayliss and spoken with him.
+
+"No," I answered, after a moment, "he did not tell me, exactly. But I
+had heard that someone who resembled you was singing here in Paris."
+
+"And you followed me. In spite of my letter begging you, for my sake,
+not to try to find me. Did you get that letter?"
+
+"Yes, I got it."
+
+"Then why did you do it? Oh, WHY did you?"
+
+For the first time there was a break in her voice. We were standing
+before the door. The street, it was little more than an alley, was
+almost deserted, but I felt it was not the place for explanations. I
+wanted to get her away from there, as far from that dreadful "Abbey" as
+possible. I took her arm.
+
+"Come," I said, "I will tell you as we go. Come with me now."
+
+She freed her arm.
+
+"I am not coming with you," she said. "Why did you come here?"
+
+"I came--I came--Why did YOU come? Why did you leave us as you did?
+Without a word!"
+
+She turned and faced me.
+
+"You know why I left you," she said. "You know. You knew all the
+time. And yet you let me believe--You let me think--I lived upon your
+money--I--I--Oh, don't speak of it! Go away! please go away and leave
+me."
+
+"I am not going away--without you. I came to get you to go back with me.
+You don't understand. Your aunt and I want you to come with us. We want
+you to come and live with us again. We--"
+
+She interrupted. I doubt if she had comprehended more than the first few
+words of what I was saying.
+
+"Please go away," she begged. "I know I owe you money, so much money.
+I shall pay it. I mean to pay it all. At first I could not. I could not
+earn it. I tried. Oh, I tried SO hard! In London I tried and tried, but
+all the companies were filled, it was late in the season and I--no one
+would have me. Then I got this chance through an agency. I am succeeding
+here. I am earning the money at last. I am saving--I have saved--And now
+you come to--Oh, PLEASE go and leave me!"
+
+Her firmness had gone. She was on the verge of tears. I tried to take
+her hands again, but she would not permit it.
+
+"I shall not go," I persisted, as gently as I could. "Or when I go you
+must go with me. You don't understand."
+
+"But I do understand. My aunt--Miss Cahoon told me. I understand it all.
+Oh, if I had only understood at first."
+
+"But you don't understand--now. Your aunt and I knew the truth from the
+beginning. That made no difference. We were glad to have you with us. We
+want you to come back. You are our relative--"
+
+"I am not. I am not really related to you in any way. You know I am
+not."
+
+"You are related to Miss Cahoon. You are her sister's daughter. She
+wants you to come. She wants you to live with us again, just as you did
+before."
+
+"She wants that! She--But it was your money that paid for the very
+clothes I wore. Your money--not hers; she said so."
+
+"That doesn't make any difference. She wants you and--"
+
+I was about to add "and so do I," but she did not permit me to finish
+the sentence. She interrupted again, and there was a change in her tone.
+
+"Stop! Oh, stop!" she cried. "She wanted me and--and so you--Did you
+think I would consent? To live upon your charity?"
+
+"There is no charity about it."
+
+"There is. You know there is. And you believed that I--knowing what I
+know--that my father--my own father--"
+
+"Hush! hush! That is all past and done with."
+
+"It may be for you, but not for me. Mr. Knowles, your opinion of me
+must be a very poor one. Or your desire to please your aunt as great as
+your--your charity to me. I thank you both, but I shall stay here. You
+must go and you must not try to see me again."
+
+There was firmness enough in this speech; altogether too much. But I was
+as firm as she was.
+
+"I shall not go," I reiterated. "I shall not leave you--in a place like
+this. It isn't a fit place for you to be in. You know it is not. Good
+heavens! you MUST know it?"
+
+"I know what the place is," she said quietly.
+
+"You know! And yet you stay here! Why? You can't like it!"
+
+It was a foolish speech, and I blurted it without thought. She did not
+answer. Instead she began to walk toward the corner. I followed her.
+
+"I beg your pardon," I stammered, contritely. "I did not mean that, of
+course. But I cannot think of your singing night after night in such a
+place--before those men and women. It isn't right; it isn't--you shall
+not do it."
+
+She answered without halting in her walk.
+
+"I shall do it," she said. "They pay me well, very well, and I--I need
+the money. When I have earned and saved what I need I shall give it up,
+of course. As for liking the work--Like it! Oh, how can you!"
+
+"I beg your pardon. Forgive me. I ought to be shot for saying that. I
+know you can't like it. But you must not stay here. You must come with
+me."
+
+"No, Mr. Knowles, I am not coming with you. And you must leave me and
+never come back. My sole reason for seeing you to-night was to tell you
+that. But--" she hesitated and then said, with quiet emphasis, "you may
+tell my aunt not to worry about me. In spite of my singing in a cafe
+chantant I shall keep my self-respect. I shall not be--like those
+others. And when I have paid my debt--I can't pay my father's; I wish I
+could--I shall send you the money. When I do that you will know that
+I have resigned my present position and am trying to find a more
+respectable one. Good-by."
+
+We had reached the corner. Beyond was the square, with its lights and
+its crowds of people and vehicles. I seized her arm.
+
+"It shall not be good-by," I cried, desperately. "I shall not let you
+go."
+
+"You must."
+
+"I sha'n't. I shall come here night after night until you consent to
+come back to Mayberry."
+
+She stopped then. But when she spoke her tone was firmer than ever.
+
+"Then you will force me to give it up," she said. "Before I came here I
+was very close to--There were days when I had little or nothing to eat,
+and, with no prospects, no hope, I--if you don't leave me, Mr. Knowles,
+if you do come here night after night, as you say, you may force me to
+that again. You can, of course, if you choose; I can't prevent you. But
+I shall NOT go back to Mayberry. Now, will you say good-by?"
+
+She meant it. If I persisted in my determination she would do as she
+said; I was sure of it.
+
+"I am sure my aunt would not wish you to continue to see me, against my
+will," she went on. "If she cares for me at all she would not wish that.
+You have done your best to please her. I--I thank you both. Good-by."
+
+What could I do, or say?
+
+"Good-by," I faltered.
+
+She turned and started across the square. A flying cab shut her from my
+view. And then I realized what was happening, realized it and realized,
+too, what it meant. She should not go; I would not let her leave me nor
+would I leave her. I sprang after her.
+
+The square was thronged with cabs and motor cars. The Abbey and The Dead
+Rat and all the rest were emptying their patrons into the street. Paris
+traffic regulations are lax and uncertain. I dodged between a limousine
+and a hansom and caught a glimpse of her just as she reached the
+opposite sidewalk.
+
+"Frances!" I called. "Frances!"
+
+She turned and saw me. Then I heard my own name shouted from the
+sidewalk I had just left.
+
+"Knowles! Knowles!"
+
+I looked over my shoulder. Herbert Bayliss was at the curb. He was
+shaking a hand, it may have been a fist, in my direction.
+
+"Knowles!" he shouted. "Stop! I want to see you."
+
+I did not reply. Instead I ran on. I saw her face among the crowd and
+upon it was a curious expression, of fear, of frantic entreaty.
+
+"Kent! Kent!" she cried. "Oh, be careful! KENT!"
+
+There was a roar, a shout; I have a jumbled recollection of being thrown
+into the air, and rolling over and over upon the stones of the street.
+And there my recollections end, for the time.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+In Which I Take My Turn at Playing the Invalid
+
+
+Not for a very long time. They begin again--those recollections--a
+few minutes later, break off once more, and then return and break off
+alternately, over and over again.
+
+The first thing I remember, after my whirligig flight over the Paris
+pavement, is a crowd of faces above me and someone pawing at my collar
+and holding my wrist. This someone, a man, a stranger, said in French:
+
+"He is not dead, Mademoiselle."
+
+And then a voice, a voice that I seemed to recognize, said:
+
+"You are sure, Doctor? You are sure? Oh, thank God!"
+
+I tried to turn my head toward the last speaker--whom I decided, for
+some unexplainable reason, must be Hephzy--and to tell her that of
+course I wasn't dead, and then all faded away and there was another
+blank.
+
+The next interval of remembrance begins with a sense of pain, a
+throbbing, savage pain, in my head and chest principally, and a wish
+that the buzzing in my ears would stop. It did not stop, on the contrary
+it grew louder and there was a squeak and rumble and rattle along with
+it. A head--particularly a head bumped as hard as mine had been--might
+be expected to buzz, but it should not rattle, or squeak either.
+Gradually I began to understand that the rattle and squeak were external
+and I was in some sort of vehicle, a sleeping car apparently, for I
+seemed to be lying down. I tried to rise and ask a question and a hand
+was laid on my forehead and a voice--the voice which I had decided was
+Hephzy's--said, gently:
+
+"Lie still. You mustn't move. Lie still, please. We shall be there
+soon."
+
+Where "there" might be I had no idea and it was too much trouble to ask,
+so I drifted off again.
+
+Next I was being lifted out of the car; men were lifting me--or trying
+to. And, being wider awake by this time, I protested.
+
+"Here! What are you doing?" I asked. "I am all right. Let go of me. Let
+go, I tell you."
+
+Again the voice--it sounded less and less like Hephzy's--saying:
+
+"Don't! Please don't! You mustn't move."
+
+But I kept on moving, although moving was a decidedly uncomfortable
+process.
+
+"What are they doing to me?" I asked. "Where am I? Hephzy, where am I?"
+
+"You are at the hospital. You have been hurt and we are taking you to
+the hospital. Lie still and they will carry you in."
+
+That woke me more thoroughly.
+
+"Nonsense!" I said, as forcefully as I could. "Nonsense! I'm not badly
+hurt. I am all right now. I don't want to go to a hospital. I won't go
+there. Take me to the hotel. I am all right, I tell you."
+
+The man's voice--the doctor's, I learned afterward--broke in, ordering
+me to be quiet. But I refused to be quiet. I was not going to be taken
+to any hospital.
+
+"I am all right," I declared. "Or I shall be in a little while. Take me
+to my hotel. I will be looked after, there. Hephzy will look after me."
+
+The doctor continued to protest--in French--and I to affirm--in English.
+Also I tried to stand. At length my declarations of independence seemed
+to have some effect, for they ceased trying to lift me. A dialogue in
+French followed. I heard it with growing impatience.
+
+"Hephzy," I said, fretfully. "Hephzy, make them take me to my hotel. I
+insist upon it."
+
+"Which hotel is it? Kent--Kent, answer me. What is the name of the
+hotel?"
+
+I gave the name; goodness knows how I remembered it. There was more
+argument, and, after a time, the rattle and buzz and squeak began again.
+The next thing I remember distinctly is being carried to my room and
+hearing the voice of Monsieur Louis in excited questioning and command.
+
+After that my recollections are clearer. But it was broad daylight when
+I became my normal self and realized thoroughly where I was. I was in
+my room at the hotel, the sunlight was streaming in at the window and
+Hephzy--I still supposed it was Hephzy--was sitting by that window.
+And for the first time it occurred to me that she should not have been
+there; by all that was right and proper she should be waiting for me in
+Interlaken.
+
+"Hephzy," I said, weakly, "when did you get here?"
+
+The figure at the window rose and came to the bedside. It was not
+Hephzy. With a thrill I realized who it was.
+
+"Frances!" I cried. "Frances! Why--what--"
+
+"Hush! You mustn't talk. You mustn't. You must be quiet and keep
+perfectly still. The doctor said so."
+
+"But what happened? How did I get here? What--?"
+
+"Hush! There was an accident; you were hurt. We brought you here in a
+carriage. Don't you remember?"
+
+What I remembered was provokingly little.
+
+"I seem to remember something," I said. "Something about a hospital.
+Someone was going to take me to a hospital and I wouldn't go.
+Hephzy--No, it couldn't have been Hephzy. Was it--was it you?"
+
+"Yes. We were taking you to the hospital. We did take you there, but as
+they were taking you from the ambulance you--"
+
+"Ambulance! Was I in an ambulance? What happened to me? What sort of an
+accident was it?"
+
+"Please don't try to talk. You must not talk."
+
+"I won't if you tell me that. What happened?"
+
+"Don't you remember? I left you and crossed the street. You followed me
+and then--and then you stopped. And then--Oh, don't ask me! Don't!"
+
+"I know. Now I do remember. It was that big motor car. I saw it coming.
+But who brought me here? You--I remember you; I thought you were Hephzy.
+And there was someone else."
+
+"Yes, the doctor--the doctor they called--and Doctor Bayliss."
+
+"Doctor Bayliss! Herbert Bayliss, do you mean? Yes, I saw him at the
+'Abbey'--and afterward. Did he come here with me?"
+
+"Yes. He was very kind. I don't know what I should have done if it had
+not been for him. Now you MUST not speak another word."
+
+I did not, for a few moments. I lay there, feebly trying to think,
+and looking at her. I was grateful to young Bayliss, of course, but I
+wished--even then I wished someone else and not he had helped me. I did
+not like to be under obligations to him. I liked him, too; he was a good
+fellow and I had always liked him, but I did not like THAT.
+
+She rose from the chair by the bed and walked across the room.
+
+"Don't go," I said.
+
+She came back almost immediately.
+
+"It is time for your medicine," she said.
+
+I took the medicine. She turned away once more.
+
+"Don't go," I repeated.
+
+"I am not going. Not for the present."
+
+I was quite contented with the present. The future had no charms just
+then. I lay there, looking at her. She was paler and thinner than she
+had been when she left Mayberry, almost as pale and thin as when I first
+met her in the back room of Mrs. Briggs' lodging house. And there
+was another change, a subtle, undefinable change in her manner and
+appearance that puzzled me. Then I realized what it was; she had grown
+older, more mature. In Mayberry she had been an extraordinarily pretty
+girl. Now she was a beautiful woman. These last weeks had worked the
+change. And I began to understand what she had undergone during those
+weeks.
+
+"Have you been with me ever since it happened--since I was hurt?" I
+asked, suddenly.
+
+"Yes, of course."
+
+"All night?"
+
+She smiled. "There was very little of the night left," she answered.
+
+"But you have had no rest at all. You must be worn out."
+
+"Oh, no; I am used to it. My--" with a slight pause before the
+word--"work of late has accustomed me to resting in the daytime. And I
+shall rest by and by, when my aunt--when Miss Cahoon comes."
+
+"Miss Cahoon? Hephzy? Have you sent for her?"
+
+My tone of surprise startled her, I think. She looked at me.
+
+"Sent for her?" she repeated. "Isn't she here--in Paris?"
+
+"She is in Interlaken, at the Victoria. Didn't the concierge tell you?"
+
+"He told us she was not here, at this hotel, at present. He said she
+had gone away with some friends. But we took it for granted she was in
+Paris. I told them I would stay until she came. I--"
+
+I interrupted.
+
+"Stay until she comes!" I repeated. "Stay--! Why you can't do that! You
+can't! You must not!"
+
+"Hush! hush! Remember you are ill. Think of yourself!"
+
+"Of myself! I am thinking of you. You mustn't stay here--with me. What
+will they think? What--"
+
+"Hush! hush, please. Think! It makes no difference what they think. If I
+had cared what people thought I should not be singing at--Hush! you must
+not excite yourself in this way."
+
+But I refused to hush.
+
+"You must not!" I cried. "You shall not! Why did you do it? They could
+have found a nurse, if one was needed. Bayliss--"
+
+"Doctor Bayliss does not know. If he did I should not care. As for the
+others--" she colored, slightly,
+
+"Well, I told the concierge that you were my uncle. It was only a white
+lie; you used to say you were, you know."
+
+"Say! Oh, Frances, for your own sake, please--"
+
+"Hush! Do you suppose," her cheeks reddened and her eyes flashed as I
+had seen them flash before, "do you suppose I would go away and leave
+you now? Now, when you are hurt and ill and--and--after all that you
+have done! After I treated you as I did! Oh, let me do something! Let me
+do a little, the veriest little in return. I--Oh, stop! stop! What are
+you doing?"
+
+I suppose I was trying to sit up; I remember raising myself on my elbow.
+Then came the pain again, the throbbing in my head and the agonizing
+pain in my side. And after that there is another long interval in my
+recollections.
+
+For a week--of course I did not know it was a week then--my memories
+consist only of a series of flashes like the memory of the hours
+immediately following the accident. I remember people talking, but not
+what they said; I remember her voice, or I think I do, and the touch
+of her hand on my forehead. And afterward, other voices, Hephzy's in
+particular. But when I came to myself, weak and shaky, but to remain
+myself for good and all, Hephzy--the real Hephzy--was in the room with
+me.
+
+Even then they would not let me ask questions. Another day dragged by
+before I was permitted to do that. Then Hephzy told me I had a cracked
+rib and a variety of assorted bruises, that I had suffered slight
+concussion of the brain, and that my immediate job was to behave myself
+and get well.
+
+"Land sakes!" she exclaimed, "there was a time when I thought you never
+was goin' to get well. Hour after hour I've set here and listened
+to your gabblin' away about everything under the sun and nothin' in
+particular, as crazy as a kitten in a patch of catnip, and thought and
+thought, what should I do, what SHOULD I do. And now I KNOW what I'm
+goin' to do. I'm goin' to keep you in that bed till you're strong and
+well enough to get out of it, if I have to sit on you to hold you down.
+And I'm no hummin'-bird when it comes to perchin', either."
+
+She had received the telegram which Frances sent and had come from
+Interlaken post haste.
+
+"And I don't know," she declared, "which part of that telegram upset me
+most--what there was in it or the name signed at the bottom of it. HER
+name! I couldn't believe my eyes. I didn't stop to believe 'em long. I
+just came. And then I found you like this."
+
+"Was she here?" I asked.
+
+"Who--Frances! My, yes, she was here. So pale and tired lookin' that I
+thought she was goin' to collapse. But she wouldn't give in to it.
+She told me all about how it happened and what the doctor said and
+everything. I didn't pay much attention to it then. All I could think of
+was you. Oh, Hosy! my poor boy! I--I--"
+
+"There! there!" I broke in, gently. "I'm all right now, or I'm going to
+be. You will have the quahaug on your hands for a while longer. But,"
+returning to the subject which interested me most, "what else did she
+tell you? Did she tell you how I met her--and where?"
+
+"Why, yes. She's singin' somewhere--she didn't say where exactly, but it
+is in some kind of opera-house, I judged. There's a perfectly beautiful
+opera-house a little ways from here on the Avenue de L'Opera, right by
+the Boulevard des Italiens, though there's precious few Italians there,
+far's I can see. And why an opera is a l'opera I--"
+
+"Wait a moment, Hephzy. Did she tell you of our meeting? And how I found
+her?"
+
+"Why, not so dreadful much, Hosy. She's acted kind of queer about that,
+seemed to me. She said you went to this opera-house, wherever it was,
+and saw her there. Then you and she were crossin' the road and one of
+these dreadful French automobiles--the way they let the things tear
+round is a disgrace--ran into you. I declare! It almost made ME sick
+to hear about it. And to think of me away off amongst those mountains,
+enjoyin' myself and not knowin' a thing! Oh, it makes me ashamed to look
+in the glass. I NEVER ought to have left you alone, and I knew it. It's
+a judgment on me, what's happened is."
+
+"Or on me, I should rather say," I added. Frances had not told Hephzy of
+L'Abbaye, that was evident. Well, I would keep silence also.
+
+"Where is she now?" I asked. I asked it with as much indifference as I
+could assume, but Hephzy smiled and patted my hand.
+
+"Oh, she comes every day to ask about you," she said. "And Doctor
+Bayliss comes too. He's been real kind."
+
+"Bayliss!" I exclaimed. "Is he with--Does he come here?"
+
+"Yes, he comes real often, mostly about the time she does. He hasn't
+been here for two days now, though. Hosy, do you suppose he has spoken
+to her about--about what he spoke to you?"
+
+"I don't know," I answered, curtly. Then I changed the subject.
+
+"Has she said anything to you about coming back to Mayberry?" I asked.
+"Have you told her how we feel toward her?"
+
+Hephzy's manner changed. "Yes," she said, reluctantly, "I've told her.
+I've told her everything."
+
+"Not everything? Hephzy, you haven't told her--"
+
+"No, no. Of course I didn't tell her THAT. You know I wouldn't, Hosy.
+But I told her that her money havin' turned out to be our money didn't
+make a mite of difference. I told her how much we come to think of her
+and how we wanted her to come with us and be the same as she had always
+been. I begged her to come. I said everything I could say."
+
+"And she said?"
+
+"She said no, Hosy. She wouldn't consider it at all. She asked me not to
+talk about it. It was settled, she said. She must go her way and we ours
+and we must forget her. She was more grateful than she could tell--she
+most cried when she said that--but she won't come back and if I asked
+her again she declared she should have to go away for good."
+
+"I know. That is what she said to me."
+
+"Yes. I can't make it out exactly. It's her pride, I suppose. Her mother
+was just as proud. Oh, dear! When I saw her here for the first time,
+after I raced back from Interlaken, I thought--I almost hoped--but I
+guess it can't be."
+
+I did not answer. I knew only too well that it could not be.
+
+"Does she seem happy?" I asked.
+
+"Why, no; I don't think she is happy. There are times, especially when
+you began to get better, when she seemed happier, but the last few times
+she was here she was--well, different."
+
+"How different?"
+
+"It's hard to tell you. She looked sort of worn and sad and discouraged.
+Hosy, what sort of a place is it she is singin' in?"
+
+"Why do you ask that?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know. Some things you said when you were out of your head
+made me wonder. That, and some talk I overheard her and Doctor Bayliss
+havin' one time when they were in the other room--my room--together. I
+had stepped out for a minute and when I came back, I came in this door
+instead of the other. They were in the other room talkin' and he was
+beggin' her not to stay somewhere any more. It wasn't a fit place for
+her to be, he said; her reputation would be ruined. She cut him short
+by sayin' that her reputation was her own and that she should do as she
+thought best, or somethin' like that. Then I coughed, so they would know
+I was around, and they commenced talkin' of somethin' else. But it set
+me thinkin' and when you said--"
+
+She paused. "What did I say?" I asked.
+
+"Why, 'twas when she and I were here. You had been quiet for a while and
+all at once you broke out--delirious you was--beggin' somebody or other
+not to do somethin'. For your sake, for their own sake, they mustn't do
+it. 'Twas awful to hear you. A mixed-up jumble about Abbie, whoever
+she is--not much, by the way you went on about her--and please, please,
+please, for the Lord's sake, give it up. I tried to quiet you, but you
+wouldn't be quieted. And finally you said: 'Frances! Oh, Frances! don't!
+Say that you won't any more.' I gave you your sleepin' drops then; I
+thought 'twas time. I was afraid you'd say somethin' that you wouldn't
+want her to hear. You understand, don't you, Hosy?"
+
+"I understand. Thank you, Hephzy."
+
+"Yes. Well, _I_ didn't understand and I asked her if she did. She said
+no, but she was dreadfully upset and I think she did understand, in
+spite of her sayin' it. What sort of a place is it, this opera-house
+where she sings?"
+
+I dodged the question as best I could. I doubt if Hephzy's suspicions
+were allayed, but she did not press the subject. Instead she told me I
+had talked enough for that afternoon and must rest.
+
+That evening I saw Bayliss for the first time since the accident.
+He congratulated me on my recovery and I thanked him for his help in
+bringing me to the hotel. He waved my thanks aside.
+
+"Quite unnecessary, thanking me," he said, shortly. "I couldn't do
+anything else, of course. Well, I must be going. Glad you're feeling
+more fit, Knowles, I'm sure."
+
+"And you?" I asked. "How are you?"
+
+"I? Oh, I'm fit enough, I suppose. Good-by."
+
+He didn't look fit. He looked more haggard and worn and moody than ever.
+And his manner was absent and distrait. Hephzy noticed it; there were
+few things she did not notice.
+
+"Either that boy's meals don't agree with him," she announced, "or
+somethin's weighin' on his mind. He looks as if he'd lost his last
+friend. Hosy, do you suppose he's spoken to--to her about what he spoke
+of to you?"
+
+"I don't know. I suppose he has. He was only too anxious to speak, there
+in Mayberry."
+
+"Humph! Well, IF he has, then--Hosy, sometimes I think this, all this
+pilgrimage of ours--that's what you used to call it, a pilgrimage--is
+goin' to turn out right, after all. Don't it remind you of a book, this
+last part of it?"
+
+"A dismal sort of book," I said, gloomily.
+
+"Well, I don't know. Here are you, the hero, and here's she, the
+heroine. And the hero is sick and the heroine comes to take care of
+him--she WAS takin' care of you afore I came, you know; and she falls in
+love with him and--"
+
+"Yes," I observed, sarcastically. "She always does--in books. But in
+those books the hero is not a middle-aged quahaug. Suppose we stick to
+real life and possibilities, Hephzy."
+
+Hephzy was unconvinced. "I don't care," she said. "She ought to even if
+she doesn't. _I_ fell in love with you long ago, Hosy. And she DID bring
+you here after you were hurt and took care of you."
+
+"Hush! hush!" I broke in. "She took care of me, as you call it, because
+she thought it was her duty. She thinks she is under great obligation to
+us because we did not pitch her into the street when we first met her.
+She insists that she owes us money and gratitude. Her kindness to me and
+her care are part payment of the debt. She told me so, herself."
+
+"But--"
+
+"There aren't any 'buts.' You mustn't be an idiot because I have been
+one, Hephzy. We agreed not to speak of that again. Don't remind me of
+it."
+
+Hephzy sighed. "All right," she said. "I suppose you are right, Hosy.
+But--but how is all this goin' to end? She won't go with us. Are we
+goin' to leave her here alone?"
+
+I was silent. The same question was in my mind, but I had answered it. I
+was NOT going to leave her there alone. And yet--
+
+"If I was sure," mused Hephzy, "that she was in love with Herbert
+Bayliss, then 'twould be all right, I suppose. They would get married
+and it would be all right--or near right--wouldn't it, Hosy."
+
+I said nothing.
+
+The next morning I saw her. She came to inquire for me and Hephzy
+brought her into my room for a stay of a minute or two. She seemed glad
+to find me so much improved in health and well on the road to recovery.
+I tried to thank her for her care of me, for her sending for Hephzy and
+all the rest of it, but she would not listen. She chatted about Paris
+and the French people, about Monsieur Louis, the concierge, and joked
+with Hephzy about that gentleman's admiration for "the wonderful
+American lady," meaning Hephzy herself.
+
+"He calls you 'Madame Cay-hoo-on,'" she said, "and he thinks you a
+miracle of decision and management. I think he is almost afraid of you,
+I really do."
+
+Hephzy smiled, grimly. "He'd better be," she declared. "The way
+everybody was flyin' around when I first got here after comin' from
+Interlaken, and the way the help jabbered and hunched up their shoulders
+when I asked questions made me so fidgety I couldn't keep still. I
+wanted an egg for breakfast, that first mornin' and when the waiter
+brought it, it was in the shell, the way they eat eggs over here. I
+can't eat 'em that way--I'm no weasel--and I told the waiter I wanted an
+egg cup. Nigh as I could make out from his pigeon English he was
+tellin' me there was a cup there. Well, there was, one of those little,
+two-for-a-cent contraptions, just big enough to stick one end of the
+egg into. 'I want a big one,' says I. 'We, Madame,' says he, and off
+he trotted. When he came back he brought me a big EGG, a duck's egg, I
+guess 'twas. Then I scolded and he jabbered some more and by and by he
+went and fetched this Monsieur Louis man. He could speak English, thank
+goodness, and he was real nice, in his French way. He begged my pardon
+for the waiter's stupidness, said he was a new hand, and the like of
+that, and went on apologizin' and bowin' and smilin' till I almost had a
+fit.
+
+"'For mercy sakes!' I says, 'don't say any more about it. If that last
+egg hadn't been boiled 'twould have hatched out an--an ostrich, or
+somethin' or other, by this time. And it's stone cold, of course.
+Have this--this jumpin'-jack of yours bring me a hot egg--a hen's
+egg--opened, in a cup big enough to see without spectacles, and tell
+him to bring some cream with the coffee. At any rate, if there isn't
+any cream, have him bring some real milk instead of this watery stuff.
+I might wash clothes with that, for I declare I think there's bluin'
+in it, but I sha'n't drink it; I'd be afraid of swallowin' a fish by
+accident. And do hurry!'
+
+"He went away then, hurryin' accordin' to orders, and ever since then
+he's been bobbin' up to ask if 'Madame finds everything satisfactory.' I
+suppose likely I shouldn't have spoken as I did, he means well--it isn't
+his fault, or the waiter's either, that they can't talk without wavin'
+their hands as if they were givin' three cheers--but I was terribly
+nervous that mornin' and I barked like a tied-up dog. Oh dear, Hosy! if
+ever I missed you and your help it's in this blessed country."
+
+Frances laughed at all this; she seemed just then to be in high spirits;
+but I thought, or imagined, that her high spirits were assumed for our
+benefit. At the first hint of questioning concerning her own life, where
+she lodged or what her plans might be, she rose and announced that she
+must go.
+
+Each morning of that week she came, remaining but a short time, and
+always refusing to speak of herself or her plans. Hephzy and I, finding
+that a reference to those plans meant the abrupt termination of the
+call, ceased trying to question. And we did not mention our life at the
+rectory, either; that, too, she seemed unwilling to discuss. Once,
+when I spoke of our drive to Wrayton, she began a reply, stopped in the
+middle of a sentence, and then left the room.
+
+Hephzy hastened after her. She returned alone.
+
+"She was cryin', Hosy," she said. "She said she wasn't, but she was. The
+poor thing! she's unhappy and I know it; she's miserable. But she's so
+proud she won't own it and, although I'm dyin' to put my arms around her
+and comfort her, I know if I did she'd go away and never come back.
+Do you notice she hasn't called me 'Auntie' once. And she always used
+to--at the rectory. I'm afraid--I'm afraid she's just as determined as
+she was when she ran away, never to live with us again. What SHALL we
+do?"
+
+I did not know and I did not dare to think. I was as certain that these
+visits would cease very soon as I was that they were the only things
+which made my life bearable. How I did look forward to them! And while
+she was there, with us, how short the time seemed and how it dragged
+when she had gone. The worst thing possible for me, this seeing her and
+being with her; I knew it. I knew it perfectly well. But, knowing it,
+and realizing that it could not last and that it was but the prelude to
+a worse loneliness which was sure to come, made no difference. I dreaded
+to be well again, fearing that would mean the end of those visits.
+
+But I was getting well and rapidly. I sat up for longer and longer
+periods each day. I began to read my letters now, instead of having
+Hephzy read them to me, letters from Matthews at the London office and
+from Jim Campbell at home. Matthews had cabled Jim of the accident and
+later that I was recovering. So Jim wrote, professing to find material
+gain in the affair.
+
+"Great stuff," he wrote. "Two chapters at least. The hero, pursuing the
+villain through the streets of Paris at midnight, is run down by an
+auto driven by said villain. 'Ah ha!' says the villain: 'Now will you be
+good?' or words to that effect. 'Desmond,' says the hero, unflinchingly,
+as they extract the cobble-stones from his cuticle, 'you triumph for the
+moment, but beware! there will be something doing later on.' See? If
+it wasn't for the cracked rib and the rest I should be almost glad it
+happened. All you need is the beautiful heroine nursing you to recovery.
+Can't you find her?"
+
+He did not know that I had found her, or that the hoped-for novel was
+less likely to be finished than ever.
+
+Hephzy was now able to leave me occasionally, to take the walks which I
+insisted upon. She had some queer experiences in these walks.
+
+"Lost again to-day, Hosy," she said, cheerfully, removing her bonnet. "I
+went cruisin' through the streets over to the south'ard and they were so
+narrow and so crooked--to say nothin' of bein' dirty and smelly--that I
+thought I never should get out. Of course I could have hired a hack
+and let it bring me to the hotel but I wouldn't do that. I was set on
+findin' my own way. I'd walked in and I was goin' to walk out, that was
+all there was to it. 'Twasn't the first time I'd been lost in this Paris
+place and I've got a system of my own. When I get to the square 'Place
+delay Concorde,' they call it, I know where I am. And 'Concorde' is
+enough like Concord, Mass., to make me remember the name. So I walk up
+to a nice appearin' Frenchman with a tall hat and whiskers--I didn't
+know there was so many chin whiskers outside of East Harniss, or some
+other back number place--and I say, 'Pardon, Monseer. Place delay
+Concorde?' Just like that with a question mark after it. After I say it
+two or three times he begins to get a floatin' sniff of what I'm drivin'
+at and says he: 'Place delay Concorde? Oh, we, we, we, Madame!' Then a
+whole string of jabber and arm wavin', with some countin' in the middle
+of it. Now I've learned 'one, two, three' in French and I know he
+means for me to keep on for two or three more streets in the way he's
+pointin'. So I keep on, and, when I get there, I go through the whole
+rigamarole with another Frenchman. About the third session and I'm back
+on the Concord Place. THERE I am all right. No, I don't propose to stay
+lost long. My father and grandfather and all my men folks spent their
+lives cruisin' through crooked passages and crowded shoals and I guess
+I've inherited some of the knack."
+
+At last I was strong enough to take a short outing in Hephzy's company.
+I returned to the hotel, where Hephzy left me. She was going to do a
+little shopping by herself. I went to my room and sat down to rest.
+A bell boy--at least that is what we should have called him in the
+States--knocked at the door.
+
+"A lady to see Monsieur," he said.
+
+The lady was Frances.
+
+She entered the room and I rose to greet her.
+
+"Why, you are alone!" she exclaimed. "Where is Miss Cahoon?"
+
+"She is out, on a shopping expedition," I explained. "She will be back
+soon. I have been out too. We have been driving together. What do you
+think of that!"
+
+She seemed pleased at the news but when I urged her to sit and wait
+for Hephzy's return she hesitated. Her hesitation, however, was only
+momentary. She took the chair by the window and we chatted together,
+of my newly-gained strength, of Hephzy's adventures as a pathfinder in
+Paris, of the weather, of a dozen inconsequential things. I found it
+difficult to sustain my part in the conversation. There was so much
+of real importance which I wanted to say. I wanted to ask her about
+herself, where she lodged, if she was still singing at L'Abbaye, what
+her plans for the future might be. And I did not dare.
+
+My remarks became more and more disjointed and she, too, seemed uneasy
+and absent-minded. At length there was an interval of silence. She broke
+that silence.
+
+"I suppose," she said, "you will be going back to Mayberry soon."
+
+"Back to Mayberry?" I repeated.
+
+"Yes. You and Miss Cahoon will go back there, of course, now that you
+are strong enough to travel. She told me that the American friends with
+whom you and she were to visit Switzerland had changed their plans and
+were going on to Italy. She said that she had written them that your
+proposed Continental trip was abandoned."
+
+"Yes. Yes, that was given up, of course."
+
+"Then you will go back to England, will you not?"
+
+"I don't know. We have made no plans as yet."
+
+"But you will go back. Miss Cahoon said you would. And, when your lease
+of the rectory expires, you will sail for America."
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"But you must know," with a momentary impatience. "Surely you don't
+intend to remain here in Paris."
+
+"I don't know that, either. I haven't considered what I shall do. It
+depends--that is--"
+
+I did not finish the sentence. I had said more than I intended and it
+was high time I stopped. But I had said too much, as it was. She asked
+more questions.
+
+"Upon what does it depend?" she asked.
+
+"Oh, nothing. I did not mean that it depended upon anything in
+particular. I--"
+
+"You must have meant something. Tell me--answer me truthfully, please:
+Does it depend upon me?"
+
+Of course that was just what it did depend upon. And suddenly I
+determined to tell her so.
+
+"Frances," I demanded, "are you still there--at that place?"
+
+"At L'Abbaye. Yes."
+
+"You sing there every night?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why do you do it? You know--"
+
+"I know everything. But you know, too. I told you I sang there because
+I must earn my living in some way and that seems to be the only place
+where I can earn it. They pay me well there, and the people--the
+proprietors--are considerate and kind, in their way."
+
+"But it isn't a fit place for you. And you don't like it; I know you
+don't."
+
+"No," quietly. "I don't like it."
+
+"Then don't do it. Give it up."
+
+"If I give it up what shall I do?"
+
+"You know. Come back with us and live with us as you did before. I want
+you; Hephzy is crazy to have you. We--she has missed you dreadfully. She
+grieves for you and worries about you. We offer you a home and--"
+
+She interrupted. "Please don't," she said. "I have told you that that is
+impossible. It is. I shall never go back to Mayberry."
+
+"But why? Your aunt--"
+
+"Don't! My aunt is very kind--she has been so kind that I cannot bear to
+speak of her. Her kindness and--and yours are the few pleasant memories
+that I have--of this last dreadful year. To please you both I would do
+anything--anything--except--"
+
+"Don't make any exceptions. Come with us. If not to Mayberry, then
+somewhere else. Come to America with us."
+
+"No."
+
+"Frances--"
+
+"Don't! My mind is made up. Please don't speak of that again."
+
+Again I realized the finality in her tone. The same finality was in mine
+as I answered.
+
+"Then I shall stay here," I declared. "I shall not leave you alone,
+without friends or a protector of any kind, to sing night after night in
+that place. I shall not do it. I shall stay here as long as you do."
+
+She was silent. I wondered what was coming next. I expected her to
+say, as she had said before, that I was forcing her to give up her one
+opportunity. I expected reproaches and was doggedly prepared to meet
+them. But she did not reproach me. She said nothing; instead she seemed
+to be thinking, to be making up her mind.
+
+"Don't do it, Frances," I pleaded. "Don't sing there any longer. Give it
+up. You don't like the work; it isn't fit work for you. Give it up."
+
+She rose from her chair and standing by the window looked out into the
+street. Suddenly she turned and looked at me.
+
+"Would it please you if I gave up singing at L'Abbaye?" she asked
+quietly. "You know it would."
+
+"And if I did would you and Miss Cahoon go back to England--at once?"
+
+Here was another question, one that I found very hard to answer. I tried
+to temporize.
+
+"We want you to come with us," I said, earnestly. "We want you.
+Hephzy--"
+
+"Oh, don't, don't, don't! Why will you persist? Can't you understand
+that you hurt me? I am trying to believe I have some self-respect left,
+even after all that has happened. And you--What CAN you think of me! No,
+I tell you! NO!"
+
+"But for Hephzy's sake. She is your only relative."
+
+She looked at me oddly. And when she spoke her answer surprised me.
+
+"You are mistaken," she said. "I have other--relatives. Good-by, Mr.
+Knowles."
+
+She was on her way to the door.
+
+"But, Frances," I cried, "you are not going. Wait. Hephzy will be here
+any moment. Don't go."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"I must go," she said. At the door she turned and looked back.
+
+"Good-by," she said, again. "Good-by, Kent."
+
+She had gone and when I reached the door she had turned the corner of
+the corridor.
+
+When Hephzy came I told her of the visit and what had taken place.
+
+"That's queer," said Hephzy. "I can't think what she meant. I don't know
+of any other relatives she's got except Strickland Morley's tribe. And
+they threw him overboard long, long ago. I can't understand who she
+meant; can you, Hosy?"
+
+I had been thinking.
+
+"Wasn't there someone else--some English cousins of hers with whom she
+lived for a time after her father's death? Didn't she tell you about
+them?"
+
+Hephzy nodded vigorously. "That's so," she declared. "There was. And
+she did live with 'em, too. She never told me their names or where they
+lived, but I know she despised and hated 'em. She gave me to understand
+that. And she ran away from 'em, too, just as she did from us. I don't
+see why she should have meant them. I don't believe she did. Perhaps
+she'll tell us more next time she comes. That'll be tomorrow, most
+likely."
+
+I hoped that it might be to-morrow, but I was fearful. The way in which
+she had said good-by made me so. Her look, her manner, seemed to imply
+more than a good-by for a day. And, though this I did not tell Hephzy,
+she had called me "Kent" for the first time since the happy days at the
+rectory. I feared--all sorts of things.
+
+She did not come on the morrow, or the following day, or the day after
+that. Another week passed and she did not come, nor had we received any
+word from her. By that time Hephzy was as anxious and fretful as I.
+And, when I proposed going in search of her, Hephzy, for a wonder,
+considering how very, very careful she was of my precious health, did
+not say no.
+
+"You're pretty close to bein' as well as ever you was, Hosy," she said.
+"And I know how terribly worried you are. If you do go out at night
+you may be sick again, but if you don't go and lay awake frettin' and
+frettin' about her I KNOW you'll be sick. So perhaps you'd better do it.
+Shall I--Sha'n't I go with you?"
+
+"I think you had better not," I said.
+
+"Well, perhaps you're right. You never would tell me much about this
+opera-house, or whatever 'tis, but I shouldn't wonder if, bein' a
+Yankee, I'd guessed considerable. Go, Hosy, and bring her back if you
+can. Find her anyhow. There! there run along. The hack's down at the
+door waitin'. Is your head feelin' all right? You're sure? And you
+haven't any pain? And you'll keep wrapped up? All right? Good-by,
+dearie. Hurry back! Do hurry back, for my sake. And I hope--Oh, I do
+hope you'll bring no bad news."
+
+L'Abbaye, at eight-thirty in the evening was a deserted place compared
+to what it had been when I visited it at midnight. The waiters and
+attendants were there, of course, and a few early bird patrons, but not
+many. The bearded proprietors, or managers, were flying about, and I
+caught one of them in the middle of a flight.
+
+He did not recognize me at first, but when I stated my errand, he did.
+Out went his hands and up went his shoulders.
+
+"The Mademoiselle," he said. "Ah, yes! You are her friend, Monsieur; I
+remember perfectly. Oh, no, no, no! she is not here any more. She
+has left us. She sings no longer at L'Abbaye. We are desolate; we are
+inconsolable. We pleaded, but she was firm. She has gone. Where? Ah,
+Monsieur, so many ask that; but alas! we do not know."
+
+"But you do know where she lives," I urged. "You must know her home
+address. Give me that. It is of the greatest importance that I see her
+at once."
+
+At first he declared that he did not know her address, the address where
+she lodged. I persisted and, at last, he admitted that he did know it,
+but that he was bound by the most solemn promise to reveal it to no one.
+
+"It was her wish, Monsieur. It was a part of the agreement under which
+she sang for us. No one should know who she was or where she lived. And
+I--I am an honorable man, Monsieur. I have promised and--" the business
+of shoulders and hands again--"my pledged word to a lady, how shall it
+be broken?"
+
+I found a way to break it, nevertheless. A trio of gold pieces and the
+statement that I was her uncle did the trick. An uncle! Ah, that was
+different. And, Mademoiselle had consented to see me when I came before,
+that was true. She had seen the young English gentleman also--but we
+two only. Was the young English Monsieur--"the Doctor Baylees"--was he a
+relative also?
+
+I did not answer that question. It was not his business and, beside, I
+did not wish to speak of Herbert Bayliss.
+
+The address which the manager of L'Abbaye gave me, penciled on a card,
+was a number in a street in Montmartre, and not far away. I might easily
+have walked there, I was quite strong enough for walking now, but I
+preferred a cab. Paris motor cabs, as I knew from experience, moved
+rapidly. This one bore me to my destination in a few minutes.
+
+A stout middle-aged French woman answered my ring. But her answer to my
+inquiries was most unsatisfactory. And, worse than all, I was certain
+she was telling me the truth.
+
+The Mademoiselle was no longer there, she said. She had given up
+her room three days ago and had gone away. Where? That, alas, was a
+question. She had told no one. She had gone and she was not coming back.
+Was it not a pity, a great pity! Such a beautiful Mademoiselle! such an
+artiste! who sang so sweetly! Ah, the success she had made. And such a
+good young lady, too! Not like the others--oh, no, no, no! No one was to
+know she lodged there; she would see no one. Ah, a good girl, Monsieur,
+if ever one lived.
+
+"Did she--did she go alone?" I asked.
+
+The stout lady hesitated. Was Monsieur a very close friend? Perhaps a
+relative?
+
+"An uncle," I said, telling the old lie once more.
+
+Ah, an uncle! It was all right then. No, Mademoiselle had not gone
+alone. A young gentleman, a young English gentleman had gone with her,
+or, at least, had brought the cab in which she went and had driven
+off in it with her. A young English gentleman with a yellow mustache.
+Perhaps I knew him.
+
+I recognized the description. She had left the house with Herbert
+Bayliss. What did that mean? Had she said yes to him? Were they married?
+I dreaded to know, but know I must.
+
+And, as the one possible chance of settling the question, I bade my cab
+driver take me to the Hotel Continental. There, at the desk, I asked if
+Doctor Bayliss was still in the hotel. They said he was. I think I must
+have appeared strange or the gasp of relief with which I received the
+news was audible, for the concierge asked me if I was ill. I said no,
+and then he told me that Bayliss was planning to leave the next day, but
+was just then in his room. Did I wish to see him? I said I did and gave
+them my card.
+
+He came down soon afterward. I had not seen him for a fortnight, for his
+calls had ceased even before Frances' last visit. Hephzy had said that,
+in her opinion, his meals must be disagreeing with him. Judging by his
+appearance his digestion was still very much impaired. He was in evening
+dress, of course; being an English gentleman he would have dressed for
+his own execution, if it was scheduled to take place after six o'clock.
+But his tie was carelessly arranged, his shirt bosom was slightly
+crumpled and there was a general "don't care" look about his raiment
+which was, for him, most unusual. And he was very solemn. I decided at
+once, whatever might have happened, it was not what I surmised. He was
+neither a happy bridegroom nor a prospective one.
+
+"Good evening, Bayliss," said I, and extended my hand.
+
+"Good evening, Knowles," he said, but he kept his own hands in his
+pockets. And he did not ask me to be seated.
+
+"Well?" he said, after a moment.
+
+"I came to you," I began--mine was a delicate errand and hard to
+state--"I came to you to ask if you could tell me where Miss Morley has
+gone. She has left L'Abbaye and has given up her room at her lodgings.
+She has gone--somewhere. Do you know where she is?"
+
+It was quite evident that he did know. I could see it in his face. He
+did not answer, however. Instead he glanced about uneasily and then,
+turning, led the way toward a small reception room adjoining the lobby.
+This room was, save for ourselves, unoccupied.
+
+"We can be more private here," he explained, briefly. "What did you
+ask?"
+
+"I asked if you knew where Miss Morley had gone and where she was at the
+present time?"
+
+He hesitated, pulling at his mustache, and frowning. "I don't see why
+you should ask me that?" he said, after a moment.
+
+"But I do ask it. Do you know where she is?"
+
+Another pause. "Well, if I did," he said, stiffly, "I see no reason
+why I should tell you. To be perfectly frank, and as I have said to you
+before, I don't consider myself bound to tell you anything concerning
+her."
+
+His manner was most offensive. Again, as at the time I came to him at
+that very hotel on a similar errand, after my arrival in Paris, I found
+it hard to keep my temper.
+
+"Don't misunderstand me," I said, as calmly as I could. "I am not
+pretending now to have a claim upon Miss Morley. I am not asking you to
+tell me just where she is, if you don't wish to tell. And it is not for
+my sake--that is, not primarily for that--that I am anxious about her.
+It is for hers. I wish you might tell me this: Is she safe? Is she among
+friends? Is she--is she quite safe and in a respectable place and likely
+to be happy? Will you tell me that?"
+
+He hesitated again. "She is quite safe," he said, after a moment. "And
+she is among friends, or I suppose they are friends. As to her being
+happy--well, you ought to know that better than I, it seems to me."
+
+I was puzzled. "_I_ ought to know?" I repeated. "I ought to know whether
+she is happy or not? I don't understand."
+
+He looked at me intently. "Don't you?" he asked. "You are certain you
+don't? Humph! Well, if I were in your place I would jolly well find out;
+you may be sure of that."
+
+"What are you driving at, Bayliss? I tell you I don't know what you
+mean."
+
+He did not answer. He was frowning and kicking the corner of a rug with
+his foot.
+
+"I don't understand what you mean," I repeated. "You are saying too much
+or too little for my comprehension."
+
+"I've said too much," he muttered. "At all events, I have said all
+I shall say. Was there any other subject you wished to see me about,
+Knowles? If not I must be going. I'm rather busy this evening."
+
+"There was no subject but that one. And you will tell me nothing more
+concerning Miss Morley?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Good night," I said, and turned away. Then I turned back.
+
+"Bayliss," said I, "I think perhaps I had better say this: I have only
+the kindest feelings toward you. You may have misunderstood my attitude
+in all this. I have said nothing to prejudice her--Miss Morley against
+you. I never shall. You care for her, I know. If she cares for you that
+is enough, so far as I am concerned. Her happiness is my sole wish. I
+want you to consider me your friend--and hers."
+
+Once more I extended my hand. For an instant I thought he was going to
+take it, but he did not.
+
+"No," he said, sullenly. "I won't shake hands with you. Why should I?
+You don't mean what you say. At least I don't think you do. I--I--By
+Jove! you can't!"
+
+"But I do," I said, patiently.
+
+"You can't! Look here! you say I care for her. God knows I do! But
+you--suppose you knew where she was, what would you do? Would you go to
+her?"
+
+I had been considering this very thing, during my ride to the lodgings
+and on the way to the hotel; and I had reached a conclusion.
+
+"No," I answered, slowly. "I think I should not. I know she does not
+wish me to follow her. I suppose she went away to avoid me. If I were
+convinced that she was among friends, in a respectable place, and quite
+safe, I should try to respect her wish. I think I should not follow her
+there."
+
+He stared at me, wide-eyed.
+
+"You wouldn't!" he repeated. "You wouldn't! And you--Oh, I say! And you
+talked of her happiness!"
+
+"It is her happiness I am thinking of. If it were my own I should--"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Nothing, nothing. She will be happier if I do not follow her, I
+suppose. That is enough for me."
+
+He regarded me with the same intent stare.
+
+"Knowles," he said, suddenly, "she is at the home of a relative of
+hers--Cripps is the name--in Leatherhead, England. There! I have told
+you. Why I should be such a fool I don't know. And now you will go
+there, I suppose. What?"
+
+"No," I answered. "No. I thank you for telling me, Bayliss, but it shall
+make no difference. I will respect her wish. I will not go there."
+
+"You won't!"
+
+"No, I will not trouble her again."
+
+To my surprise he laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh, there was more
+sarcasm than mirth in it, or so it seemed, but why he should laugh at
+all I could not understand.
+
+"Knowles," he said, "you're a good fellow, but--"
+
+"But what?" I asked, stiffly.
+
+"You're no end of a silly ass in some ways. Good night."
+
+He turned on his heel and walked off.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+In Which I, as Well as Mr. Solomon Cripps, Am Surprised
+
+
+"And to think," cried Hephzy, for at least the fifth time since I told
+her, "that those Crippses are her people, the cousins she lived with
+after her pa's death! No wonder she was surprised when I told her how
+you and I went to Leatherhead and looked at their 'Ash Dump'--'Ash
+Chump,' I mean. And we came just as near hirin' it, too; we would have
+hired it if she hadn't put her foot down and said she wouldn't go there.
+A good many queer things have happened on this pilgrimage of ours, Hosy,
+but I do believe our goin' straight to those Crippses, of all the folks
+in England, is about the strangest. Seems as if we was sent there with a
+purpose, don't it?"
+
+"It is a strange coincidence," I admitted.
+
+"It's more'n that. And her goin' back to them is queerer still. She
+hates 'em, I know she does. She as much as said so, not mention' their
+names, of course. Why did she do it?"
+
+I knew why she had done it, or I believed I did.
+
+"She did it to please you and me, Hephzy," I said. "And to get rid of
+us. She said she would do anything to please us, and she knew I did not
+want her to remain here in Paris. I told her I should stay here as long
+as she did, or at least as long as she sang at--at the place where she
+was singing. And she asked if, provided she gave up singing there, you
+and I would go back to England--or America?"
+
+"Yes, I know; you told me that, Hosy. But you said you didn't promise to
+do it."
+
+"I didn't promise anything. I couldn't promise not to follow her. I
+didn't believe I could keep the promise. But I sha'n't follow her,
+Hephzy. I shall not go to Leatherhead."
+
+Hephzy was silent for a moment. Then she said: "Why not?"
+
+"You know why. That night when I first met her, the night after you had
+gone to Lucerne, she told me that if I persisted in following her and
+trying to see her I would force her to give up the only means of earning
+a living she had been able to find. Well, I have forced her to do that.
+She has been obliged to run away once more in order to get rid of us.
+I am not going to persecute her further. I am going to try and be
+unselfish and decent, if I can. Now that we know she is safe and among
+friends--"
+
+"Friends! A healthy lot of friends they are--that Solomon Cripps and his
+wife! If ever I ran afoul of a sanctimonious pair of hypocrites they're
+the pair. Oh, they were sweet and buttery enough to us, I give in, but
+that was because they thought we was goin' to hire their Dump or Chump,
+or whatever 'twas. I'll bet they could be hard as nails to anybody they
+had under their thumbs. Whenever I see a woman or a man with a mouth
+that shuts up like a crack in a plate, the way theirs do, it takes more
+than Scriptur' texts from that mouth to make me believe it won't bite
+when it has the chance. Safe! poor Little Frank may be safe enough at
+Leatherhead, but I'll bet she's miserable. WHAT made her go there?"
+
+"Because she had no other place to go, I suppose," I said. "And
+there, among her relatives, she thought she would be free from our
+persecution."
+
+"There's some things worse than persecution," Hephzy declared; "and,
+so far as that goes, there are different kinds of persecution. But what
+makes those Crippses willin' to take her in and look after her is what
+_I_ can't understand. They MAY be generous and forgivin' and kind, but,
+if they are, then I miss my guess. The whole business is awful queer.
+Tell me all about your talk with Doctor Bayliss, Hosy. What did he say?
+And how did he look when he said it?"
+
+I told her, repeating our conversation word for word, as near as I could
+remember it. She listened intently and when I had finished there was an
+odd expression on her face.
+
+"Humph!" she exclaimed. "He seemed surprised to think you weren't goin'
+to Leatherhead, you say?"
+
+"Yes. At least I thought he was surprised. He knew I had chased her from
+Mayberry to Paris and was there at the hotel trying to learn from him
+where she was. And he knows you are her aunt. I suppose he thought it
+strange that we were not going to follow her any further."
+
+"Maybe so... maybe so. But why did he call you a--what was it?--a silly
+donkey?"
+
+"Because I am one, I imagine," I answered, bitterly. "It's my natural
+state. I was born one."
+
+"Humph! Well, 'twould take more than that boy's word to make me believe
+it. No there's something!--I wish I could see that young fellow myself.
+He's at the Continental Hotel, you say?"
+
+"Yes; but he leaves to-morrow. There, Hephzy, that's enough. Don't talk
+about it. Change the subject. I am ready to go back to England--yes,
+or America either, whenever you say the word. The sooner the better for
+me."
+
+Hephzy obediently changed the subject and we decided to leave Paris the
+following afternoon. We would go back to the rectory, of course, and
+leave there for home as soon as the necessary arrangements could be
+made. Hephzy agreed to everything, she offered no objections, in fact
+it seemed to me that she was paying very little attention. Her lack of
+interest--yes, and apparent lack of sympathy, for I knew she must know
+what my decision meant to me--hurt and irritated me.
+
+I rose.
+
+"Good night," I said, curtly. "I'm going to bed."
+
+"That's right, Hosy. You ought to go. You'll be sick again if you sit up
+any longer. Good night, dearie."
+
+"And you?" I asked. "What are you going to do?"
+
+"I'm going to set up a spell longer. I want to think."
+
+"I don't. I wish I might never think again. Or dream, either. I am awake
+at last. God knows I wish I wasn't!"
+
+She moved toward me. There was the same odd expression on her face and a
+queer, excited look in her eyes.
+
+"Perhaps you aren't really awake, Hosy," she said, gently. "Perhaps this
+is the final dream and when you do wake you'll find--"
+
+"Oh, bosh!" I interrupted. "Don't tell me you have another presentiment.
+If you have keep it to yourself. Good night."
+
+I was weak from my recent illness and I had been under a great nervous
+strain all that evening. These are my only excuses and they are poor
+ones. I spoke and acted abominably and I was sorry for it afterward. I
+have told Hephzy so a good many times since, but I think she understood
+without my telling her.
+
+"Well," she said, quietly, "dreams are somethin', after all. It's
+somethin' to have had dreams. I sha'n't forget mine. Good night, Hosy."
+
+The next morning after breakfast she announced that she had an errand
+or two to do. She would run out and do them, she said, but she would be
+gone only a little while. She was gone nearly two hours during which I
+paced the floor or sat by the window looking out. The crowded boulevard
+was below me, but I did not see it. All I saw was a future as desolate
+and blank as the Bayport flats at low tide, and I, a quahaug on those
+flats, doomed to live, or exist, forever and ever and ever, with nothing
+to live for.
+
+Hephzy, when she did return to the hotel, was surprisingly chatty and
+good-humored. She talked, talked, talked all the time, about nothing in
+particular, laughed a good deal, and flew about, packing our belongings
+and humming to herself. She acted more like the Hephzy of old than she
+had for weeks. There was an air of suppressed excitement about her which
+I could not understand. I attributed it to the fact of our leaving for
+America in the near future and her good humor irritated me. My spirits
+were lower than ever.
+
+"You seem to be remarkably happy," I observed, fretfully.
+
+"What makes you think so, Hosy? Because I was singin'? Father used
+to say my singin' was the most doleful noise he ever heard, except
+a fog-horn on a lee shore. I'm glad if you think it's a proof of
+happiness: I'm much obliged for the compliment."
+
+"Well, you are happy, or you are trying to appear so. If you are
+pretending for my benefit, don't. I'M not happy."
+
+"I know, Hosy; I know. Well, perhaps you--"
+
+She didn't finish the sentence.
+
+"Perhaps what?"
+
+"Oh, nothin', nothin'. How many shirts did you bring with you? is this
+all?"
+
+She sang no more, probably because she saw that the "fog-horn" annoyed
+me, but her manner was just as strange and her nervous energy as
+pronounced. I began to doubt if my surmise, that her excitement and
+exaltation were due to the anticipation of an early return to Bayport,
+was a correct one. I began to thing there must be some other course and
+to speculate concerning it. And I, too, grew a bit excited.
+
+"Hephzy," I said, suddenly, "where did you go when you went out this
+morning? What sort of 'errands' were those of yours?"
+
+She was folding my ties, her back toward me, and she answered without
+turning.
+
+"Oh, I had some odds and ends of things to do," she said. "This plaid
+necktie of yours is gettin' pretty shabby, Hosy. I guess you can't
+wear it again. There! I mustn't stop to talk. I've got my own things to
+pack."
+
+She hurried to her own room and I asked no more questions just then.
+But I was more suspicious than ever. I remembered a question of hers
+the previous evening and I believed.... But, if she had gone to the
+Continental and seen Herbert Bayliss, what could he have told her to
+make her happy?
+
+We took the train for Calais and crossed the Channel to Dover. This time
+the eccentric strip of water was as calm as a pond at sunset. No jumpy,
+white-capped billows, no flying spray, no seasick passengers. Tarpaulins
+were a drag on the market.
+
+"I wouldn't believe," declared Hephzy, "that this lookin'-glass was
+the same as that churned-up tub of suds we slopped through before. It
+doesn't trickle down one's neck now, does it, Hosy. A 'nahsty' cross-in'
+comin' and a smooth one comin' back. I wonder if that's a sign."
+
+"Oh, don't talk about signs, Hephzy," I pleaded, wearily. "You'll begin
+to dream again, I suppose, pretty soon."
+
+"No, I won't. I think you and I have stopped dreamin', Hosy. Maybe we're
+just wakin' up, same as I told you."
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+"Mean? Oh, I guess I didn't mean anything. Good-by, old France! You're a
+lovely country and a lively one, but I sha'n't cry at sayin' good-by to
+you this time. And there's England dead ahead. Won't it seem good to
+be where they talk instead of jabber! I sha'n't have to navigate by the
+'one-two-three' chart over there."
+
+Dover, a flying trip through the customs, the train again, an English
+dinner in an English restaurant car--not a "wagon bed," as Hephzy said,
+exultantly--and then London.
+
+We took a cab to the hotel, not Bancroft's this time, but a modern
+downtown hostelry where there were at least as many Americans as
+English. In our rooms I would have cross-questioned Hephzy, but she
+would not be questioned, declaring that she was tired and sleepy. I was
+tired, also, but not sleepy. I was almost as excited as she seemed to
+be by this time. I was sure she had learned something that morning in
+Paris, something which pleased her greatly. What that something might
+be I could not imagine; but I believed she had learned it from Herbert
+Bayliss.
+
+And the next morning, after breakfast, she announced that she had
+arranged for a cab and we must start for the station at once. I said
+nothing then, but when the cab pulled up before a railway station, a
+station which was not our accustomed one but another, I said a great
+deal.
+
+"What in the world, Hephzy!" I exclaimed. "We can't go to Mayberry from
+here."
+
+"Hush, hush, Hosy. Wait a minute--wait till I've paid the driver. Yes,
+I'm doin' it myself. I'm skipper on this cruise. You're an invalid,
+didn't you know it. Invalids have to obey orders."
+
+The cabman paid, she took my arm and led me into the station.
+
+"And now, Hosy," she said, "let me tell you. We aren't goin' to
+Mayberry--not yet. We're going to Leatherhead."
+
+"To Leatherhead!" I repeated. "To Leatherhead! To--her? We certainly
+will do no such thing."
+
+"Yes, we will, Hosy," quietly. "I haven't said anything about it before,
+but I've made up my mind. It's our duty to see her just once more, once
+more before--before we say good-by for good. It's our duty."
+
+"Duty! Our duty is to let her alone, to leave her in peace, as she asked
+us."
+
+"How do you know she is in peace? Suppose she isn't. Suppose she's
+miserable and unhappy. Isn't it our duty to find out? I think it is?"
+
+I looked her full in the face. "Hephzy," I said, sharply, "you know
+something about her, something that I don't know. What is it?"
+
+"I don't know as I know anything, Hosy. I can't say that I do. But--"
+
+"You saw Herbert Bayliss yesterday. That was the 'errand' you went upon
+yesterday morning in Paris. Wasn't it?"
+
+She was very much taken aback. She has told me since that she had no
+idea I suspected the truth.
+
+"Wasn't it?" I repeated.
+
+"Why--why, yes, it was, Hosy. I did go to see him, there at his hotel.
+When you told me how he acted and what he said to you I thought 'twas
+awfully funny, and the more I thought it over the funnier it seemed. So
+I made up my mind to see him and talk with him myself. And I did."
+
+"What did he tell you?" I asked.
+
+"He told me--he told me--Well, he didn't tell me so much, maybe, but he
+gave me to understand a whole lot. She's gone to those Crippses, Hosy,
+just as I suspicioned, not because she likes 'em--she hates 'em--or
+because she wanted to go, but because she thought 'twould please us if
+she did. It doesn't please us; it doesn't please me, anyway. She sha'n't
+be miserable for our sake, not without a word from us. No, we must go
+there and see her and--and tell her once more just how we feel about it.
+It's our duty to go and we must. And," with decision, "we're goin' now."
+
+She had poured out this explanation breathlessly, hurrying as if fearful
+that I might interrupt and ask more questions. I asked one of them the
+moment she paused.
+
+"We knew all that before," I said. "That is, we were practically sure
+she had left Paris to get rid of us and had gone to her cousins, the
+Crippses, because of her half-promise to me not to sing at places like
+the Abbey again. We knew all that. And she asked me to promise that we
+would not follow her. I didn't promise, but that makes no difference.
+Was that all Bayliss told you?"
+
+Hephzy was still embarrassed and confused, though she answered promptly
+enough.
+
+"He told me he knew she didn't want to go to--to those Leatherheaded
+folks," she declared. "We guessed she didn't, but we didn't know it for
+sure. And he said we ought to go to her. He said that."
+
+"But why did he say it? Our going will not alter her determination to
+stay and our seeing her again will only make it harder for her."
+
+"No, it won't--no it won't," hastily. "Besides I want to see that Cripps
+man and have a talk with him, myself. I want to know why a man like
+him--I'm pretty well along in years; I've met folks and bargained and
+dealt with 'em all my grown-up life and I KNOW he isn't the kind to do
+things for nothin' for ANYBODY--I want to know why he and his wife are
+so generous to her. There's somethin' behind it."
+
+"There's something behind you, Hephzy. Some other reason that you
+haven't told me. Was that all Bayliss said?"
+
+She hesitated. "Yes," she said, after a moment, "that's all, all I can
+tell you now, anyway. But I want you to go with me to that Ash Dump and
+see her once more."
+
+"I shall not, Hephzy."
+
+"Well, then I'll have to go by myself. And if you don't go, too, I
+think you'll be awfully sorry. I think you will. Oh, Hosy," pleadingly,
+"please go with me. I don't ask you to do many things, now do I? I do
+ask you to do this."
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"I would do almost anything for your sake, Hephzy," I began.
+
+"But this isn't for my sake. It's for hers. For hers. I'm sure--I'm
+ALMOST sure you and she will both be glad you did it."
+
+I could not understand it at all. I had never seen her more earnest. She
+was not the one to ask unreasonable things and yet where her sister's
+child was concerned she could be obstinate enough--I knew that.
+
+"I shall go whether you do or not," she said, as I stood looking at her.
+
+"You mean that, Hephzy?"
+
+"I surely do. I'm goin' to see her this very forenoon. And I do hope
+you'll go with me."
+
+I reflected. If she went alone it would be almost as hard for Frances
+as if I went with her. And the temptation was very strong. The desire to
+see her once more, only once....
+
+"I'll go, Hephzy," I said. I didn't mean to say it; the words seemed to
+come of themselves.
+
+"You will! Oh, I'm so glad! I'm so glad! And I think--I think you'll be
+glad, too, Hosy. I'm hopin' you will."
+
+"I'll go," I said. "But this is the last time you and I must trouble
+her. I'll go--not because of any reason you have given me, Hephzy, but
+because I believe there must be some other and stronger reason, which
+you haven't told me."
+
+Hephzy drew a long breath. She seemed to be struggling between a desire
+to tell me more--whatever that more might be--and a determination not to
+tell.
+
+"Maybe there is, Hosy," she said, slowly. "Maybe there is. I--I--Well,
+there! I must go and buy the tickets. You sit down and wait. I'm skipper
+of this craft to-day, you know. I'm in command on this voyage."
+
+Leatherhead looked exactly as it had on our previous visit. "Ash Clump,"
+the villa which the Crippses had been so anxious for us to hire, was
+still untenanted, or looked to be. We walked on until we reached the
+Cripps home and entered the Cripps gate. I rang the bell and the maid
+answered the ring.
+
+In answer to our inquiries she told us that Mr. Cripps was not in. He
+and Mrs. Cripps had gone to chapel. I remembered then that the day was
+Sunday. I had actually forgotten it.
+
+"Is Miss Morley in?" asked Hephzy.
+
+The maid shook her head.
+
+"No, ma'am," she said. "Miss Morley ain't in, either. I think she's gone
+to chapel, too. I ain't sure, ma'am, but I think she 'as. She's not in."
+
+She asked if we would leave cards. Hephzy said no.
+
+"It's 'most noon," she said. "They'll be back pretty soon. We'll wait.
+No, we won't come in. We'll wait out here, I guess."
+
+There was a rustic seat on the lawn near the house and Hephzy seated
+herself upon it. I walked up and down. I was in a state of what Hephzy
+would have called "nerves." I had determined to be very calm when I
+met her, to show no emotion, to be very calm and cool, no matter what
+happened. But this waiting was hard. I grew more nervous every minute.
+
+"I'm going to stroll about, Hephzy," I said. "About the garden and
+grounds. I sha'n't go far and I'll return soon. I shall be within call.
+Send one of the servants for me if she--if the Crippses come before I
+get back."
+
+Hephzy did not urge me to remain. Nor did she offer to accompany me. As
+usual she seemed to read my thoughts and understand them.
+
+"All right, Hosy," she said. "You go and have your walk. I'll wait here.
+But don't be long, will you."
+
+I promised not to be long. The Cripps gardens and grounds were not
+extensive, but they were well kept even if the beds were geometrically
+ugly and the color masses jarring and in bad taste. The birds sang, the
+breeze stirred the leaves and petals, and there was a Sunday quiet, the
+restful hush of an English Sunday, everywhere.
+
+I strolled on along the paths, through the gap in the hedge dividing
+the kitchen garden from the purely ornamental section, past the stables,
+until I emerged from the shrubbery at the top of a little hill. There
+was a pleasant view from this hill, the customary view of hedged fields
+and meadows, flocks of sheep and groups of grazing cattle, and over all
+the soft blue haze and misty sky.
+
+I paused. And then close beside me, I heard a startled exclamation.
+
+I turned. In a nook of the shrubbery was another rustic seat. Rising
+from that seat and gazing at me with a look of amazed incredulity,
+was--Frances Morley.
+
+I did not speak. I could not, for the moment. She spoke first.
+
+"You!" she exclaimed. "You--here!"
+
+And still I did not speak. Where was the calm with which I was to meet
+her? Where were the carefully planned sentences which were to explain
+how I had come and why? I don't know where they were; I seemed to
+know only that she was there, that I was alone with her as I had never
+thought or meant to be again, and that if I spoke I should say things
+far different from those I had intended.
+
+She was recovering from her surprise. She came toward me.
+
+"What are you doing here?" she asked. "Why did you come?"
+
+I stammered a word or two, some incoherences to the effect that I had
+not expected to find her there, that I had been told she was at church.
+She shook her head, impatiently.
+
+"I mean why did you come here--to Leatherhead?" she asked. "Why did you
+come? Did you know--"
+
+I interrupted her. If ever I was to explain, or attempt to explain, I
+realized that it must be at that moment. She might listen to me then,
+before she had had time to think. Later I knew she would not.
+
+"I knew you were here," I broke in, quickly. "I--we--your aunt knew and
+we came."
+
+"But HOW did you know? Who told you?"
+
+"The--we learned," I answered. "And we came."
+
+It was a poor explanation--or none at all. She seemed to think it so.
+And yet she seemed more hurt than offended.
+
+"You came--yes," she said. "And you knew that I left Paris because--Oh,
+you knew that! I asked you not to follow me. You promised you would
+not."
+
+I was ashamed, thoroughly ashamed and disgusted with myself for yielding
+to Hephzy's entreaties.
+
+"No, no," I protested, "I did not promise. I did not promise, Frances."
+
+"But you know I did not wish you to do it. I did not wish you to follow
+me to Paris, but you did it. I told you you would force me to give up my
+only means of earning money. You did force me to give it up. I gave it
+up to please you, for your sake, and now--"
+
+"Did you?" I cried, eagerly. "Did you give it up for my sake, Frances?
+Did you?"
+
+"You know I did. You must know it. And now that I have done it, now that
+I have given up my opportunity and my--my self-respect and my one chance
+and come here to this--to this place, you--you--Oh, how could you!
+Wasn't I unhappy enough before? And unhappy enough now? Oh, how could
+you!"
+
+I was more ashamed than ever. I tried desperately to justify my action.
+
+"But that was it," I persisted. "Don't you see? It was your happiness,
+the thought that you were unhappy which brought me here. I know--you
+told your aunt how unhappy you had been when you were with these people
+before. I know how much you disliked them. That was why I came. To ask
+you to give this up as you did the other. To come with us and BE happy.
+I want you to come, Frances. Think! Think how much I must want you."
+
+And, for the moment I thought this appeal had some effect. It seemed to
+me that her resolution was shaken, that she was wavering.
+
+"You--you really want me?" she repeated.
+
+"Yes. Yes, I can't tell you--I must not tell you how much I want you.
+And your aunt--she wants you to come. She is here, too. She will tell
+you."
+
+Her manner changed once more. The tone in which she spoke was different.
+There were no signs of the wavering which I had noticed--or hoped I
+noticed.
+
+"No," she said. "No. I shall not see my aunt. And I must not talk with
+you any longer. I asked you not to follow me here. You did it, in spite
+of my asking. Now, unless you wish to drive me away from here, as you
+did from Paris, you will leave me and not try to see me again. Oh, don't
+you see--CAN'T you see how miserable you are making me? And yet you
+talk of my happiness!"
+
+"But you aren't happy here. ARE you happy?"
+
+"I am happy enough. Yes, I am happy."
+
+"I don't believe it. Are these Crippses kind to you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+I didn't believe that, either, but I did not say so. Instead I said what
+I had determined to say, the same thing that I should have said before,
+in Mayberry and in Paris--if I could have mustered the courage and
+decency to say it.
+
+"Frances," I said, "there is something else, something which may have
+a bearing on your happiness, or may not, I don't know. The night before
+you left us, at Mayberry, Herbert Bayliss came to me and asked my
+permission to marry you, if you were willing. He thought you were my
+niece--then. I said that--I said that, although of course I had no
+shadow of authority over you, I did care for your happiness. I cared for
+that a great deal. If you loved him I should certainly--"
+
+"I see," she broke in, scornfully. "I see. He told you I was here. That
+is why you came. Did he send you to me to say--what you are trying to
+say?"
+
+"Oh, no, no! You are mistaken. You wrong him, Frances. He did not do
+that. He's not that sort. He's a good fellow, an honorable man. And he
+does care for you. I know it. He cares greatly. He would, I am sure,
+make you a good husband, and if you care for him, he would do his best
+to make you happy, I--"
+
+Again she interrupted. "One moment," she said, "Let me understand. Are
+you urging me to marry Herbert Bayliss?"
+
+"No. I am not urging you, of course. But if you do care for him--"
+
+"I do not."
+
+"Oh, you don't love him?"
+
+I wonder if there was relief in my tone. There should not have been, of
+course, but I fear there was.
+
+"No, I do not--love him. He is a gentleman and I like him well enough,
+but not in that way. Please don't say any more."
+
+"Very well. I only meant--Tell me this, if you will: Is there someone
+you do care for?"
+
+She did not answer. I had offended her again. She had cause to be
+offended. What business was it of mine?
+
+"I beg your pardon," I said, humbly. "I should not have asked that. I
+have no right to ask it. But if there is someone for whom you care in
+that way and he cares for you, it--"
+
+"Oh, don't, don't! He doesn't."
+
+"Then there is someone?"
+
+She was silent. I tried to speak like a man, like the man I was
+pretending to be.
+
+"I am glad to know it," I said. "If you care for him he must care for
+you. He cannot help it. I am sure you will be happy by and by. I can
+leave you here now with more--with less reluctance. I--"
+
+I could not trust myself to go on, although I tried to do so. She
+answered, without looking at me.
+
+"Yes," she said, "you can leave me now. I am safe and--and happy.
+Good-by."
+
+I took her hand.
+
+"Good-by," I said. "Forgive me for coming. I shall not trouble you
+again. This time I promise. You may not wish to write us, but we shall
+write you. And I--I hope you won't forget us."
+
+It was a lame conclusion and trite enough. She must have thought so.
+
+"I shall not forget you," she said, simply. "And I will try to write
+occasionally. Yes, I will try. Now please go. Good-by."
+
+I went, without looking back. I strode along the paths, scarcely
+noticing where I was going. As I neared the corner of the house I heard
+voices, loud voices. One of them, though it was not as loud as the
+others, was Hephzy's.
+
+"I knew it," she was saying, as I turned the corner. "I knew it. I knew
+there was some reason, some mean selfish reason why you were willin' to
+take that girl under your wing. I knew it wasn't kind-heartedness and
+relationship. I knew it."
+
+It was Solomon Cripps who answered. Mr. and Mrs. Cripps, arrayed in
+their Sabbath black and white, were standing by the door of their villa.
+Hephzy was standing before them. Her face was set and determined and she
+looked highly indignant. Mr. Cripps' face was red and frowning and he
+gesticulated with a red hand, which clasped a Testament. His English was
+by no means as pure and undefiled as when he had endeavored to persuade
+us into hiring "Ash Clump."
+
+"Look 'ere," he snarled. "Don't you talk to me like that. Don't you
+suppose I know what I'm doing. You Yankees may be clever at your tricks,
+but you can't trick me. Don't I know about the money you stole from 'er
+father? Don't I, eh? You can tell 'er your lies about it being stolen by
+someone else, but I can see a 'ole through a millstone. You can't trick
+me, I tell you. They're giving that girl a good 'ome and care and all
+that, but we're goin' to see she 'as 'er rights. You've filled 'er silly
+'ead with your stories. You've made 'er think you're all that's good
+and--"
+
+I was at hand by this time.
+
+"What's all this, Hephzy?" I asked.
+
+Before Hephzy could reply Mrs. Cripps spoke.
+
+"It's him!" she cried, seizing her husband's arm with one hand and
+pointing at me with the other. "It's him," she cried, venomously. "He's
+here, too."
+
+The sight of me appeared to upset what little self-control Mr. Cripps
+had left.
+
+"You!" he shouted, "I might 'ave known you were 'ere. You're the one
+that's done it. You're responsible. Filling her silly 'ead with lies
+about your goodness and all that. Making her fall in love with you
+and--"
+
+I sprang forward.
+
+"WHAT?" I cried. "What are you saying?"
+
+Hephzy was frightened.
+
+"Hosy," she cried, "don't look so. Don't! You frighten me."
+
+I scarcely heard her.
+
+"WHAT did you say?" I demanded, addressing Cripps, who shrank back,
+rather alarmed apparently. "Why, you scoundrel! What do you mean by
+saying that? Speak up! What do you mean by it?"
+
+If Mr. Cripps was alarmed his wife was not. She stepped forward and
+faced me defiantly.
+
+"He means just what he says," she declared, her shrill voice quivering
+with vindictive spite. "And you know what he means perfectly well. You
+ought to be ashamed of yourself, a man as old as you and she an innocent
+young girl! You've hypnotized her--that is what you've done, hypnotized
+her. All those ridiculous stories about her having no money she believes
+because you told them to her. She would believe the moon was made of
+green cheese if you said so. She's mad about you--the poor little fool!
+She won't hear a word against you--says you're the best, noblest man in
+the world! You! Why she won't even deny that she's in love with you; she
+was brazen enough to tell me she was proud of it. Oh.... Stop! Where are
+you going? Solomon, stop him!"
+
+Solomon did not stop me. I am very glad he didn't try. No one could have
+stopped me then. I was on my way back along the garden path, and if I
+did not keep to that path, but plunged ruthlessly through flower beds
+and shrubbery I did not care, nor do I care now.
+
+She was sitting on the rustic seat where I had left her. There were
+tears on her cheeks. She had heard me coming--a deaf person would have
+heard that--and she rose as I burst into view.
+
+"What is it?" she cried, in alarm. "Oh, what is it?"
+
+At the sight of her I paused. I had not meant to pause; I had intended
+to take her in my arms, to ask her if what I had just heard was true, to
+make her answer me. But now, as she stood there before me, so young, so
+girlish, so beautiful, the hopeless idiocy of the thing struck me with
+overwhelming force. It WAS idiocy. It couldn't be true.
+
+"What is it?" she repeated. "Oh, Kent! what is the matter? Why did you
+come back? What has happened?"
+
+I stepped forward. True or false I must know. I must know then and
+there. It was now or never for me.
+
+"Frances," I stammered, "I came back because--I--I have just
+heard--Frances, you told me you loved someone--not Bayliss, but someone
+else. Who is that someone?"
+
+She had been pale. My sudden and unexpected appearance had frightened
+her. Now as we faced each other, as I stood looking down into her face,
+I saw the color rise and spread over that face from throat to brow.
+
+"Who is it?" I repeated.
+
+She drew back.
+
+"I--I can't tell you," she faltered. "You mustn't ask me."
+
+"But I do ask. You must tell me, Frances--Frances, it isn't--it can't be
+that you love ME. Do you?"
+
+She drew back still further. If there had been a way of escape I think
+she would have taken it. But there was none. The thick shrubbery was
+behind her and I was between her and the path. And I would not let her
+pass.
+
+"Oh, Frances, do you?" I repeated. "I never meant to ask you. I never
+meant that you should know. I am so much older, and so--so unworthy--it
+has seemed so hopeless and ridiculous. But I love you, Frances, I have
+loved you from the very beginning, although at first I didn't realize
+it. I--If you do--if you can--I--I--"
+
+I faltered, hesitated, and stopped. She did not answer for a moment, a
+long, long moment. Then:
+
+"Mr. Knowles," she said, "you surprise me. I didn't suspect--I didn't
+think--"
+
+I sighed. I had had my answer. Of course it was idiotic. I should have
+known; I did know.
+
+"I see," I said. "I understand. Forgive me, please. I was a fool to even
+think of such a thing. I didn't think it. I didn't dare until--until
+just now. Then I was told--your cousin said--I might have known he
+didn't mean what he said. But he said it and--and--"
+
+"What did he say? Mr. Cripps, do you mean? What did he say?"
+
+"He said--he said you--you cared for me--in that way. Of course you
+don't--you can't. I know better. But for the moment I dared to hope. I
+was crazy, of course. Forgive me, Frances."
+
+She looked up and then down again.
+
+"There is nothing to forgive," she said.
+
+"Yes, there is. There is a great deal. An old--"
+
+"Hush! hush, please. Don't speak like that. I--I thank you. I--you
+mustn't suppose I am not grateful. I know you pity me. I know how
+generous you are. But your pity--"
+
+"It isn't pity. I should pity myself, if that were all. I love you
+Frances, and I shall always love you. I am not ashamed of it. I shall
+have that love to comfort me till I die. I am ashamed of having told
+you, of troubling you again, that is all."
+
+I was turning away, but I heard her step beside me and felt her hand
+upon my sleeve. I turned back again. She was looking me full in the face
+now and her eyes were shining.
+
+"What Mr. Cripps said was true," she said.
+
+I could not believe it. I did not believe it even then.
+
+"True!" I repeated. "No, no! You don't mean--"
+
+"I do mean it. I told him that I loved you."
+
+I don't know what more she would have said. I did not wait to hear. She
+was in my arms at last and all England was whirling about me like a top.
+
+"But you can't!" I found myself saying over and over. I must have
+said other things before, but I don't remember them. "You can't! it is
+impossible. You! marry an old fossil like me! Oh, Frances, are you sure?
+Are you sure?"
+
+"Yes, Kent," softly, "I am sure."
+
+"But you can't love me. You are sure that your--You have no reason to be
+grateful to me, but you have said you were, you know. You are sure you
+are not doing this because--"
+
+"I am sure. It is not because I am grateful."
+
+"But, my dear--think! Think what it means, I am--"
+
+"I know what you are," tenderly. "No one knows as well. But, Kent--Kent,
+are YOU sure? It isn't pity for me?"
+
+I think I convinced her that it was not pity. I know I tried. And I was
+still trying when the sound of steps and voices on the other side of
+the shrubbery caused us--or caused her; I doubt if I should have heard
+anything except her voice just then--to start and exclaim:
+
+"Someone is coming! Don't, dear, don't! Someone is coming."
+
+It was the Crippses who were coming, of course. Mr. and Mrs. Cripps and
+Hephzy. They would have come sooner, I learned afterwards, but Hephzy
+had prevented it.
+
+Solomon's red face was redder still when he saw us together. And Mrs.
+Cripps' mouth looked more like "a crack in a plate" than ever.
+
+"So!" she exclaimed. "Here's where you are! I thought as much. And
+you--you brazen creature!"
+
+I objected strongly to "brazen creature" as a term applied to my future
+wife. I intended saying so, but Mr. Cripps got ahead of me.
+
+"You get off my grounds," he blurted, waving his fist. "You get out of
+'ere now or I'll 'ave you put off. Do you 'ear?"
+
+I should have answered him as he deserved to be answered, but Frances
+would not let me.
+
+"Don't, Kent," she whispered. "Don't quarrel with him, please. He is
+going, Mr. Cripps. We are going--now."
+
+Mrs. Cripps fairly shrieked. "WE are going?" she repeated. "Do you mean
+you are going with him?"
+
+Hephzy joined in, but in a quite different tone.
+
+"You are goin'?" she said, joyfully. "Oh, Frances, are you comin' with
+us?"
+
+It was my turn now and I rejoiced in the prospect. An entire brigade of
+Crippses would not have daunted me then. I should have enjoyed defying
+them all.
+
+"Yes," said I, "she is coming with us, Hephzy. Mr. Cripps, will you be
+good enough to stand out of the way? Come, Frances."
+
+It is not worth while repeating what Mr. and Mrs. Cripps said. They said
+a good deal, threatened all sorts of things, lawsuits among the rest.
+Hephzy fired the last guns for our side.
+
+"Yes, yes," she retorted, impatiently. "I know you're goin' to sue. Go
+ahead and sue and prosecute yourselves to death, if you want to. The
+lawyers'll get their fees out of you, and that's some comfort--though
+I shouldn't wonder if THEY had to sue to get even that. And I tell you
+this: If you don't send Little Frank's--Miss Morley's trunks to Mayberry
+inside of two days we'll come and get 'em and we'll come with the
+sheriff and the police."
+
+Mrs. Cripps, standing by the gate, fell back upon her last line of
+intrenchments, the line of piety.
+
+"And to think," she declared, with upturned eyes, "that this is the 'oly
+Sabbath! Never mind, Solomon. The Lord will punish 'em. I shall pray to
+Him not to curse them too hard."
+
+Hephzy's retort was to the point.
+
+"I wouldn't," she said. "If I had been doin' what you two have been up
+to, pretendin' to care for a young girl and offerin' to give her a home,
+and all the time doin' it just because I thought I could squeeze money
+out of her, I shouldn't trouble the Lord much. I wouldn't take the risk
+of callin' His attention to me."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+In Which the Pilgrimage Ends Where It Began
+
+
+We did not go to Mayberry that day. We went to London and to the hotel;
+not Bancroft's, but the hotel where Hephzy and I had stayed the previous
+night. It was Frances' wish that we should not go to Bancroft's.
+
+"I don't think that I could go there, Kent," she whispered to me, on the
+train. "Mr. and Mrs Jameson were very kind, and I liked them so much,
+but--but they would ask questions; they wouldn't understand. It would be
+hard to make them understand. Don't you see, Kent?"
+
+I saw perfectly. Considering that the Jamesons believed Miss Morley to
+be my niece, it would indeed be hard to make them understand. I was not
+inclined to try. I had had quite enough of the uncle and niece business.
+
+So we went to the other hotel and if the clerk was surprised to see us
+again so soon he said nothing about it. Perhaps he was not surprised. It
+must take a good deal to surprise a hotel clerk.
+
+On the train, in our compartment--a first-class compartment, you may be
+sure; I would have hired the whole train if it had been necessary; there
+was nothing too good or too expensive for us that afternoon--on the
+train, discussing the ride to London, Hephzy did most of the talking.
+I was too happy to talk much and Frances, sitting in her corner and
+pretending to look out of the window, was silent also. I should have
+been fearful that she was not happy, that she was already repenting her
+rashness in promising to marry the Bayport "quahaug," but occasionally
+she looked at me, and, whenever she did, the wireless message our eyes
+exchanged, sent that quahaug aloft on a flight through paradise. A
+flying clam is an unusual specimen, I admit, but no other quahaug in
+this wide, wide world had an excuse like mine for developing wings.
+
+Hephzy did not appear to notice our silence. She chatted and laughed
+continuously. We had not told her our secret--the great secret--and if
+she suspected it she kept her suspicions to herself. Her chatter was a
+curious mixture: triumph over the detached Crippses; joy because, after
+all, "Little Frank" had consented to come with us, to live with us
+again; and triumph over me because her dreams and presentiments had come
+true.
+
+"I told you, Hosy," she kept saying. "I told you! I said it would all
+come out in the end. He wouldn't believe it, Frances. He said I was an
+old lunatic and--"
+
+"I didn't say anything of the kind," I broke in.
+
+"You said what amounted to that and I don't know as I blame you. But
+I knew--I just KNEW he and I had been 'sent' on this course and that
+we--all three of us--would make the right port in the end. And we
+have--we have, haven't we, Frances?"
+
+"Yes," said Frances, simply. "We have, Auntie--"
+
+"There! do you hear that, Hosy? Isn't it good to hear her call
+me 'Auntie' again! Now I'm satisfied; or"--with a momentary
+hesitation--"pretty nearly satisfied, anyway."
+
+"Oh, then you're not quite satisfied, after all," I observed. "What more
+do you want?"
+
+"I want just one thing more; just one, that's all."
+
+I believed I know what that one thing was, but I asked her. She shot a
+look at me, a look of indignant meaning.
+
+"Never mind," she said, decidedly. "That's my affair. Oh, Ho!" with a
+reminiscent chuckle, "how that Cripps woman did glare at me when I said
+'twas pretty risky her callin' the Almighty's attention to their doin's.
+I hope it did her good. Maybe she'll think of it next time she goes to
+chapel. But I suppose she won't. All such folks care for is money. They
+wouldn't be so anxious to get to Heaven if they hadn't read about the
+golden streets."
+
+That evening, at the hotel, Frances told us her story, the story
+of which we had guessed a good deal, but of which she had told so
+little--how, after her father's death, she had gone to live with the
+Crippses because, as she thought, they wished her to do so from motives
+of generosity and kindness.
+
+"They are not really relatives of mine," she said. "I am glad of that.
+Mrs. Cripps married a cousin of my father's; he died and then she
+married Mr. Cripps. After Father's death they wrote me a very kind
+letter, or I thought it kind at the time. They said all sorts of kindly
+things, they offered me a home, they said I should be like their own
+daughter. So, having nowhere else to go, I went to them. I lived there
+nearly two years. Oh, what a life it was! They are very churchly people,
+they call themselves religious, but I don't. They pretend to be--perhaps
+they think they are--good, very good. But they aren't--they aren't. They
+are hard and cruel. Mr. Cripps owns several tenements where poor people
+live. I have heard things from those people that--Oh, I can't tell you!
+I ran away because I had learned what they really were."
+
+Hephzy nodded. "What I can't understand," she said, "is why they offered
+you a home in the first place. It was because they thought you had money
+comin' to you, that's plain enough now; but how did they know?"
+
+Frances colored. "I'm afraid--I'm afraid Father must have written them,"
+she said. "He needed money very much in his later years and he may have
+written them asking--asking for loans and offering my 'inheritance' as
+security. I think now that that was it. But I did not think so then.
+And--and, Oh, Auntie, you mustn't think too harshly of Father. He was
+very good to me, he really was. And DON'T you think he believed--he had
+made himself believe--that there was money of his there in America? I
+can't believe he--he would lie to me."
+
+"Of course he didn't lie," said Hephzy, promptly. I could have hugged
+her for saying it. "He was sick and--and sort of out of his head, poor
+man, and I don't doubt he made himself believe all sorts of things. Of
+course he didn't lie--to his own daughter. But why," she added, quickly,
+before Frances could ask another question, "did you go back to those
+precious Cripps critters after you left Paris?"
+
+Frances looked at me. "I thought it would please you," she said, simply.
+"I knew you didn't want me to sing in public. Kent had said he would be
+happier if he knew I had given up that life and was among friends. And
+they--they had called themselves my friends. When I went back to them
+they welcomed me. Mr. Cripps called me his 'prodigal daughter,' and
+Mrs. Cripps prayed over me. It wasn't until I told them I had no
+'inheritance,' except one of debt, that they began to show me what they
+really were. They wouldn't believe it. They said you were trying to
+defraud me. It was dreadful. I--I think I should have run away again
+if--if you had not come."
+
+"Well, we did come," said Hephzy, cheerfully, "and I thank the good Lord
+for it. Now we won't talk any more about THAT."
+
+She left us alone soon afterward, going to my room--we were in hers,
+hers and Frances'--to unpack my trunk once more. She wouldn't hear of my
+unpacking it. When she was gone Frances turned to me.
+
+"You--you haven't told her," she faltered.
+
+"No," said I, "not yet. I wanted to speak with you first. I can't
+believe it is true. Or, if it is, that it is right. Oh, my dear, do you
+realize what you are doing? I am--I am ever so much older than you. I am
+not worthy of you. You could have made a so much better marriage."
+
+She looked at me. She was smiling, but there was a tiny wrinkle between
+her brows.
+
+"Meaning," she said, "I suppose, that I might have married Doctor
+Bayliss. I might perhaps marry him even yet, if I wished. I--I think he
+would have me, if I threw myself at his head."
+
+"Yes," I admitted, grudgingly. "Yes, he loves you, Frances."
+
+"Kent, when we were there in Mayberry it seemed to me that my aunt and
+you were almost anxious that I should marry him. It seemed to me that
+you took every opportunity to throw me in his way; you refused my
+invitations for golf and tennis and suggested that I play with him
+instead. It used to annoy me. I resented it. I thought you were eager to
+get rid of me. I did not know then the truth about Father and--and the
+money. And I thought you hoped I might marry him and--and not trouble
+you any more. But I think I understand now. You--you did not care for me
+so much then. Was that it?"
+
+I shook my head. "Care for you!" I repeated. "I cared for you so much
+that I did not dare trust myself with you. I did not dare to think of
+you, and yet I could think of no one else. I know now that I fell in
+love with you when I first met you at that horrible Briggs woman's
+lodging-house. Don't you see? That was the very reason why. Don't you
+see?"
+
+"No, I'm afraid I don't quite see. If you cared for me like that how
+could you be willing for me to marry him? That is what puzzles me. I
+don't understand it."
+
+"It was because I did care for you. It was because I cared so much, I
+wanted you to be happy. I never dreamed that you could care for an old,
+staid, broken-down bookworm like me. It wasn't thinkable. I can scarcely
+think it now. Oh, Frances, are you SURE you are not making a mistake?
+Are you sure it isn't gratitude which makes you--"
+
+She rose from her chair and came to me. Her eyes were wet, but there was
+a light in them like the sunlight behind a summer shower.
+
+"Don't, please don't!" she begged. "And caring for me like that you
+could still come to me as you did this morning and suggest my marrying
+him."
+
+"Yes, yes, I came because--because I knew he loved you and I
+thought that you might not know it. And if you did know it I
+thought--perhaps--you might be happier and--"
+
+I faltered and stopped. She was standing beside me, looking up into my
+face.
+
+"I did know it," she said. "He told me, there in Paris. And I told
+him--"
+
+"You told him--?"
+
+"I told him that I liked him; I do, I do; he is a good man. But I told
+him--" she rose on tiptoe and kissed me--"I told him that I loved you,
+dear. See! here is the pin you gave me. It is the one thing I could
+not leave behind when I ran away from Mayberry. I meant to keep that
+always--and I always shall."
+
+After a time we remembered Hephzy. It would be more truthful to say that
+Frances remembered her. I had forgotten Hephzy altogether, I am ashamed
+to say.
+
+"Kent," she said; "don't you think we should tell Auntie now? She will
+be pleased, I hope."
+
+"Pleased! She will be--I can't think of a word to describe it. She loves
+you, too, dear."
+
+"I know. I hope she will love me more now. She worships you, Kent."
+
+"I am afraid she does. She doesn't realize what a tinsel god I am. And
+I fear you don't either. I am not a great man. I am not even a famous
+author. I--Are you SURE, Frances?"
+
+She laughed lightly. "Kent," she whispered, "what was it Doctor Bayliss
+called you when you offered to promise not to follow me to Leatherhead?"
+
+I had told her the whole story of my last interview with Bayliss at the
+Continental.
+
+"He called me a silly ass," I answered promptly. "I don't care."
+
+"Neither do I; but don't you think you are one, just a little bit of
+one, in some things? You mustn't ask me if I am sure again. Come! we
+will go to Auntie."
+
+Hephzy had finished unpacking my trunk and was standing by the closet
+door, shaking the wrinkles out of my dinner coat. She heard us enter and
+turned.
+
+"I never saw clothes in such a mess in my life," she announced. "And I
+packed this trunk, too. I guess the trembles in my head must have got
+into my fingers when I did it. I--"
+
+She stopped at the beginning of the sentence. I had taken Frances by the
+hand and led her up to where she was standing. Hephzy said nothing, she
+stood there and stared at us, but the coat fell to the floor.
+
+"Hephzy," said I, "I've come to make an apology. I believe in dreams
+and presentiments and Spiritualism and all the rest of it now. You were
+right. Our pilgrimage has ended just as you declared it would. I know
+now that we were 'sent' upon it. Frances has said--"
+
+Hephzy didn't wait to hear any more. She threw her arms about
+Frances' neck, then about mine, hugged us both, and then, to my utter
+astonishment, sat down upon the closed trunk and burst into tears. When
+we tried to comfort her she waved us away.
+
+"Don't touch me," she commanded. "Don't say anything to me. Just let me
+be. I've done all kinds of loony things in my life and this attack
+is just natural, that's all. I--I'll get over it in a minute. There!"
+rising and dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief, "I'm over it now.
+Hosy Knowles, I've cried about a million times since--since that awful
+mornin' in Mayberry. You didn't know it, but I have. I'm through now.
+I'm never goin' to cry any more. I'm goin' to laugh! I'm going to sing!
+I declare if you don't grab me and hold me down I shall dance! Oh, Oh,
+OH! I'm so glad! I'm so glad!"
+
+We sat up until the early morning hours, talking and planning. We were
+to go back to America as soon as we could secure passage; upon that we
+all agreed in the end. I was the only one who hesitated. I had a vague
+feeling of uneasiness, a dread, that Frances might not wish it, that her
+saying she would love to go was merely to please me. I remembered how
+she had hated America and Americans, or professed to hate them, in the
+days of our first acquaintanceship. I thought of quiet, sleepy, humdrum
+old Bayport and the fear that she might be disappointed when she saw it,
+that she might be lonely and unhappy there, was strong. So when Hephzy
+talked of our going straight to the steamship offices next day I
+demurred. I suggested a Continental trip, to Switzerland, to the
+Mediterranean--anywhere. I forgot that my means were limited, that I had
+been idle for longer than I should have been, and that I absolutely must
+work soon. I forgot everything, and talked, as Hephzy said afterward,
+"regardless, like a whole kerosene oil company."
+
+But, to my surprise, it was Frances herself who was most insistent upon
+our going to America. She wanted to go, she said. Of course she did
+not mean to be selfish, and if Auntie and I really wished to go to the
+Continent or remain in England she would be quite content.
+
+"But, Oh Kent," she said, "if you are suggesting all this merely because
+you think I will like it, please don't. I have lived in France and I
+have been very unhappy there. I have been happier here in England, but
+I have been unhappy here, too. I have no friends here now. I have no
+friends anywhere except you. I know you both want to see your home
+again--you must. And--and your home will be mine now."
+
+So we decided to sail for America, and that without delay. And the
+next morning, before breakfast, Hephzy came to my room with another
+suggestion.
+
+"Hosy," she said, "I've been thinkin'. All our things, or most of 'em,
+are at Mayberry. Somebody's got to go there, of course, to pack up and
+make arrangements for our leavin'. She--Frances, I mean--would go, too,
+if we asked her, I suppose likely; she'd do anything you asked, now. But
+it would be awful hard for her. She'd meet all the people she used to
+know there and they wouldn't understand and 'twould be hard to explain.
+The Baylisses know the real truth, but the rest of 'em don't. You'd have
+all that niece and uncle mess again, and I don't suppose you want any
+more of THAT."
+
+"I should say I didn't!" I exclaimed, fervently.
+
+"Yes, that's the way it seemed to me. So she hadn't ought to go
+to Mayberry. And we can't leave her here alone in London. She'd be
+lonesome, for one thing, and those everlastin' Crippses might find out
+where she was, for another. It may be that that Solomon and his wife
+will let her go and say nothin', but I doubt it. So long as they think
+she's got a cent comin' to her they'll pester her in every way they can,
+I believe. That woman's nose can smell money as far as a cat can smell
+fish. No, we can't leave Little Frank here alone. Of course, I might
+stay with her and you might go by yourself, but--"
+
+This way out of the difficulty had occurred to me; so when she seemed to
+hesitate, I asked: "But what?"
+
+"But it won't be very pleasant for you in Mayberry. You'd have
+considerable explainin' to do. And, more'n that, Hosy, there's all that
+packin' up to do and I've seen you try to pack a trunk too often before.
+You're just as likely to pack a flat-iron on top of a lookin' glass as
+to do the other thing. No, I'm the one to go to Mayberry. I must go by
+myself and you must stay here in London with her."
+
+"I can't do that, Hephzy," I said. "How could I?"
+
+"You couldn't, as things are, of course. But if they were different.
+If she was your wife you could. And then if that Solomon thing came you
+could--"
+
+I interrupted. "My wife!" I repeated. "Hephzy, what are you talking
+about? Do you mean--"
+
+"I mean that you and she might be married right off, to-day perhaps.
+Then everything would be all right."
+
+I stared at her.
+
+"But--but she wouldn't consent," I stammered. "It is impossible. She
+wouldn't think of such a thing."
+
+Hephzy nodded. "Oh, yes, she would," she said. "She is thinkin' of it
+now. She and I have just had a long talk. She's a sensible girl, Hosy,
+and she listened to reason. If she was sure that you wanted to marry her
+so soon she--"
+
+"Wanted to!" I cried. "Hephzy!"
+
+Hephzy nodded again. "Then that's settled," she said. "It's a big
+disappointment to me, I give in. I'd set my heart on your bein' married
+at our meetin'-house in Bayport, with Mr. Partridge to do the marryin',
+and a weddin' reception at our house and--and everything. But I guess
+this is the best, and I know it's the most sensible. But, Oh Hosy,
+there's one thing I can't give up. I want you to be married at the
+American Ambassador's or somewhere like it and by an American minister.
+I sha'n't feel safe if it's done anywhere else and by a foreigner, even
+if he's English, which don't seem foreign to me at all any more.
+No, he's got to be an American and--and, Oh, Hosy! DO try to get a
+Methodist."
+
+I couldn't get a Methodist, but by consulting the hotel register I found
+an American clergyman, a Congregationalist, who was a fine fellow and
+consented to perform the ceremony. And, if we were not married at
+the American Embassy, we were at the rooms of the London consul,
+whom Matthews, at the Camford Street office, knew and who was another
+splendid chap and glad to oblige a fellow-countryman, particularly after
+seeing the lady he was to marry.
+
+The consul and his wife and Hephzy were our only witnesses. Frances'
+wedding gown was not new, but it was very becoming--the consul's wife
+said so, and she should know. Also she said she had never seen a
+sweeter or more beautiful bride. No one said anything concerning the
+bridegroom's appearance, but he did not care. It was a drizzly, foggy
+day, but that made no difference. A Kansas cyclone and a Bayport
+no'theaster combined could not have cast a damper on that day.
+
+When it was over, Hephzy, who had been heroically struggling to keep her
+vow not to shed another tear during our pilgrimage, hugged us both.
+
+"I--I--" she faltered, "I--I can't say it, but you know how I feel.
+There's nothin' I sha'n't believe after this. I used to believe I'd
+never travel, but I have. And there in Mayberry I believed I'd never
+be happy again, but I am. HAPPY! hap--hap--Oh dear! WHAT a fool I am!
+I ca--I can't help it! I expect I look like the most miserable thing on
+earth, but that's because I AM so happy. God bless you both! Now--now
+don't so much as look at me for a few minutes."
+
+That afternoon she left for Mayberry to do the "packing up" and my wife
+and I were alone--and together.
+
+I saw London again during the next few days. We rode on the tops of
+busses, we visited Kew Gardens and Hampton Court and Windsor. We took
+long trips up and down the Thames on the little steamers. Frances called
+them our honeymoon trips. The time flew by. Then I received a note
+from Hephzy that the "packing up" was finished at last and that she was
+returning to London.
+
+It was raining hard, the morning of her arrival, and I went alone to
+meet her at the railway station. I was early there and, as I was walking
+up, awaiting the train, I heard someone speak my name. I turned
+and there, immaculate, serene and debonair as ever, was A. Carleton
+Heathcroft.
+
+"Ah, Knowles," he said, cheerfully. "Thought it was you. Haven't seen
+you of late. Missed you at Burgleston, on the course. How are you?"
+
+I told him I was quite well, and inquired concerning his own health.
+
+"Topping," he replied. "Rotten weather, eh--what? And how's Miss--Oh,
+dear me, always forget the name! The eccentric aunt who is so intensely
+patriotic and American--How is she?"
+
+"She is well, too," I answered.
+
+"Couldn't think of her being ill, somehow," he observed. "And where have
+you been, may I ask?"
+
+I said I had been on the Continent for a short stay.
+
+"Oh, yes! I remember now. Someone said you had gone. That reminds me:
+Did you go to Paris? Did you see the girl who sang at the Abbey--the one
+I told you of, who looked so like that pretty niece of yours? Hope you
+did. The resemblance was quite extraordinary. Did you see her?"
+
+I dodged the question. I asked him what he had been doing since the day
+of the golf tournament.
+
+"I--Oh, by Jove!" he exclaimed, "now I am going to surprise you. I have
+been getting ready to take the fatal step. I'm going to be married."
+
+"Married!" I repeated. "Really? The--the Warwickshire young lady, I
+presume."
+
+"Yes. How did you know of her?"
+
+"Your aunt--Lady Carey--mentioned that your--your affections were
+somewhat engaged in that quarter."
+
+"Did she? Really! Yes, she would mention it, I suppose. She mentions it
+to everybody; it's a sort of hobby of hers, like my humble self, and the
+roses. She has been more insistent of late and at last I consented to
+oblige her. Do you know, Knowles, I think she was rather fearful that I
+might be smitten by your Miss Morley. Shared your fears, eh?"
+
+I smiled, but I said nothing. A train which I believed to be the one
+upon which Hephzy was expected, was drawing into the station.
+
+"A remarkably attractive girl, your niece," he went on. "Have you heard
+from her?"
+
+"Yes," I said, absently. "I must say good-by, Heathcroft. That is the
+train I have been waiting for."
+
+"Oh, is it. Then, au revoir, Knowles. By the way, kindly remember me to
+your niece when you see her, will you."
+
+"I will. But--" I could not resist the temptation; "but she isn't my
+niece," I said.
+
+"Oh, I say! What? Not your niece? What is she then?"
+
+"She is my wife--now," I said. "Good-by, Mr. Heathcroft."
+
+I hurried away before he could do more than gasp. I think I shook even
+his serene composure at last.
+
+I told Hephzy about it as we rode to the hotel in the cab.
+
+"It was silly, I suppose," I said. "I told him on the spur of the
+moment. I imagine all Mayberry, not to mention Burgleston Bogs, will
+have something to talk about now. They expect almost anything of
+Americans, or some of them do, but the marriage of an uncle and niece
+ought to be a surprise, I should think."
+
+Hephzy laughed. "The Baylisses will explain," she said. "I told the old
+doctor and his wife all about it. They were very much pleased, that was
+plain enough. They knew she wasn't your niece and they'll tell the other
+folks. That'll be all right, Hosy. Yes, Doctor and Mrs. Bayliss were
+tickled almost to death. It stops all their worry about their son and
+Frances, of course. He is in Switzerland now, poor chap. They'll write
+him and he'll come home again by and by where he ought to be. And he'll
+forget by and by, too. He's only a boy and he'll forget. So THAT'S all
+right.
+
+"Everybody sent their love to you," she went on. "The curates and the
+Samsons and everybody. Mr. Cole and his wife are comin' back next week
+and the servants'll take care of the rectory till they come. Everybody
+was so glad to see me, and they're goin' to write and everything. I
+declare! I felt real bad to leave 'em. They're SUCH nice people, these
+English folks. Aren't they, Hosy."
+
+They were and are. I hope that some day I may have, in my own country,
+the opportunity to repay a little of the hospitality and kindness that
+my Mayberry friends bestowed on me in theirs.
+
+We sailed for home two days later. A pleasant voyage it was, on a good
+ship and with agreeable fellow-passengers. And, at last, one bright,
+cloudless morning, a stiff breeze blowing and the green and white
+waves leaping and tossing in the sunlight, we saw ahead of us a little
+speck--the South Shoal lightship. Everyone crowded to the rail, of
+course. Hephzy sighed, a sigh of pure happiness.
+
+"Nantucket!" she said, reading the big letters on the side of the little
+vessel. "Nantucket! Don't that sound like home, Hosy! Nantucket and
+Cape Cod are next-door neighbors, as you might say! My! the air seems
+different already. I believe I can almost smell the Bayport flats. Do
+you know what I am goin' to do as soon as I get into my kitchen? After
+I've seen some of my neighbors and the cat and the hens, of course. I'm
+going to make a clam chowder. I've been just dyin' for a clam chowder
+ever since we left England."
+
+And the next morning we landed at New York. Jim Campbell was at the
+wharf to meet us. His handshake was a welcome home which was good to
+feel. He welcomed Hephzy just as heartily. But I saw him looking
+at Frances with curiosity and I flattered myself, admiration, and I
+chuckled as I thought of the surprise which I was about to give him.
+It would be a surprise, sure enough. I had written him nothing of the
+recent wonderful happenings in Paris and in London, and I had sworn
+Matthews to secrecy likewise. No, he did not know, he did not suspect,
+and I gloried in the opportunity which was mine.
+
+"Jim," I said, "there is one member of our party whom you have not met.
+Frances, you have heard me speak of Mr. Campbell very often. Here he is.
+Jim, I have the pleasure of presenting you to Mrs. Knowles, my wife."
+
+Jim stood the shock remarkably well, considering. He gave me one glance,
+a glance which expressed a portion of his feelings, and then he and
+Frances shook hands.
+
+"Mrs. Knowles," he said, "I--you'll excuse my apparent lack of
+intellect, but--but this husband of yours has--I've known him a good
+while and I thought I had lost all capacity for surprise at anything
+he might do, but--but I hadn't. I--I--Please don't mind me; I'm really
+quite sane at times. I am very, very glad. May we shake hands again?"
+
+He insisted upon our breakfasting with him at a near-by hotel. When he
+and I were alone together he seized my arm.
+
+"Confound you!" he exclaimed. "You old chump! What do you mean by
+springing this thing on me without a word of warning? I never was as
+nearly knocked out in my life. What do you mean by it?"
+
+I laughed. "It is all part of your prescription," I said. "You told me I
+should marry, you know. Do you approve of my selection?"
+
+"Approve of it! Why, man, she's--she's wonderful. Approve of YOUR
+selection! How about hers? You durned quahaug! How did you do it?"
+
+I gave him a condensed and hurried resume of the whole story. He did
+not interrupt once--a perfectly amazing feat for him--and when I had
+finished he shook his head.
+
+"It's no use," he said. "I'm too good for the business I am in. I am
+wasting my talents. _I_ sent you over there. _I_ told you to go. _I_
+prescribed travel and a wife and all the rest. _I_ did it. I'm going to
+quit the publishing game. I'm going to set up as a specialist, a brain
+specialist, for clams. And I'll use your face as a testimonial: 'Kent
+Knowles, Quahaug. Before and After Taking.' Man, you look ten years
+younger than you did when you went away."
+
+"You must not take all the credit," I told him. "You forget Hephzy and
+her dreams, the dream she told us about that day at Bayport. That dream
+has come true; do you realize it?"
+
+He nodded. "I admit it," he said. "She is a better specialist than I.
+I shall have to take her into partnership. 'Campbell and Cahoon.
+Prescribers and Predictors. Authors Made Human.' I'll speak to her about
+it."
+
+As he said good-by to us at the Grand Central Station he asked me
+another question.
+
+"Kent," he whispered, "what are you going to do now? What are you going
+to do with her? Are you and she going back to Bayport to be Mr. and Mrs.
+Quahaug? Is that your idea?"
+
+I shook my head. "We're going back to Bayport," I said, "but how long
+we shall stay there I don't know. One thing you may be sure of, Jim; I
+shall be a quahaug no more."
+
+He nodded. "I think you're right," he declared. "She'll see to that, or
+I miss my guess. No, my boy, your quahaug days are over. There's nothing
+of the shellfish about her; she's a live woman, as well as a mighty
+pretty one, and she cares enough about you to keep you awake and in the
+game. I congratulate you, Kent, and I'm almost as happy as you are. Also
+I shall play the optimist at our next directors' meeting; I see signs
+of a boom in the literature factory. Go to it, my son. You have my
+blessing."
+
+We took the one o'clock train for Boston, remained there over night, and
+left on the early morning "accommodation"--so called, I think, because
+it accommodates the train hands--for Cape Cod. As we neared Buzzard's
+Bay my spirits, which had been at topnotch, began to sink. When the sand
+dunes of Barnstable harbor hove in sight they sank lower and lower.
+It was October, the summer people, most of them, had gone, the station
+platforms were almost deserted, the more pretentious cottages were
+closed. The Cape looked bare and brown and wind-swept. I thought of
+the English fields and hedges, of the verdant beauty of the Mayberry
+pastures. What SORT of a place would she think this, the home to which I
+was bringing her?
+
+She had been very much excited and very much interested. New York,
+with its sky-scrapers and trolleys, its electric signs and clean white
+buildings, the latter so different from the grimy, gray dwellings and
+shops of London, had been a wonderland to her. She had liked the Pullman
+and the dining-car and the Boston hotel. But this, this was different.
+How would she like sleepy, old Bayport and the people of Bayport.
+
+Well, I should soon know. Even the morning "accommodation" reaches
+Bayport some time or other. We were the only passengers to alight at the
+station, and Elmer Snow, the station agent, and Gabe Lumley, who drives
+the depot wagon, were the only ones to welcome us. Their welcome was
+hearty enough, I admit. Gabe would have asked a hundred questions if I
+had answered the first of the hundred, but he seemed strangely reluctant
+to answer those I asked him.
+
+Bayport was gettin' along first-rate, he told me. Tad Simpson's youngest
+child had diphtheria, but was sittin' up now and the fish weirs had
+caught consider'ble mackerel that summer. So much he was willing to say,
+but he said little more. I asked how the house and garden were looking
+and he cal'lated they were all right. Pumping Gabe Lumley was a new
+experience for me. Ordinarily he doesn't need pumping. I could not
+understand it. I saw Hephzy and he in consultation on the station
+platform and I wondered if she had been able to get more news than I.
+
+We rattled along the main road, up the hill by the Whittaker place--I
+looked eagerly for a glimpse of Captain Cy himself, but I didn't see
+him--and on until we reached our gate. Frances said very little during
+our progress through the village. I did not dare speak to her; I was
+afraid of asking her how she liked what she had seen of Bayport. And
+Hephzy, too, was silent, although she kept her head out of the window
+most of the time.
+
+But when the depot wagon entered the big gate and stopped before the
+side door I felt that I must say something. I must not appear fearful or
+uneasy.
+
+"Here we are!" I cried, springing out and helping her and Hephzy to
+alight. "Here we are at last. This is home, dear."
+
+And then the door opened and I saw that the dining-room was filled
+with people, people whom I had known all my life. Mr. Partridge, the
+minister, was there, and his wife, and Captain Whittaker and his wife,
+and the Dimicks and the Salterses and more. Before I could recover from
+my surprise Mr. Partridge stepped forward.
+
+"Mr. Knowles," he said, "on this happy occasion it is our privilege
+to--"
+
+But Captain Cy interrupted him.
+
+"Good Lord!" he exclaimed, "don't make a speech to him now, Mr.
+Partridge. Welcome home, Kent! We're all mighty glad to see you back
+again safe and sound. And Hephzy, too. By the big dipper, Hephzy, the
+sight of you is good for sore eyes! And I suppose this is your wife,
+Kent. Well, we--Hey! I might have known Phoebe would get ahead of me."
+
+For Mrs. Whittaker and Frances were shaking hands. Others were
+crowding forward to do so. And the table was set and there were flowers
+everywhere and, in the background, was Susanna Wixon, grinning from ear
+to ear, with the cat--our cat--who seemed the least happy of the party,
+in her arms.
+
+Hephzy had written Mrs. Whittaker from London, telling her of my
+marriage; she had telegraphed from New York the day before, announcing
+the hour of our return. And this was the result.
+
+When it was all over and they had gone--they would not remain for
+dinner, although we begged them to do so--when they had gone and Hephzy
+had fled to the yard to inspect the hens, I turned to my wife.
+
+"Frances," I said, "this is home. Here is where Hephzy and I have lived
+for so long. I--I hope you may be happy here. It is a rather crude
+place, but--"
+
+She came to me and put her arms about my neck.
+
+"Don't, my dear, don't!" she said. "It is beautiful. It is home.
+And--and you know I have never had a home, a real home before."
+
+"Then you like it?" I cried. "You really like it? It is so different
+from England. The people--"
+
+"They are dear, kind people. And they like you and respect you, Kent.
+How could you say they didn't! I know I shall love them all."
+
+I made a dash for the kitchen. "Hephzy!" I shouted. "Hephzy! She does
+like it. She likes Bayport and the people and everything."
+
+Hephzy was just entering at the back door. She did not seem in the least
+surprised.
+
+"Of course she likes it," she said, with decision. "How could anybody
+help likin' Bayport?"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+Which Treats of Quahaugs in General
+
+
+Asaph Tidditt helped me to begin this long chronicle of a quahaug's
+pilgrimage. Perhaps it is fitting that Asaph should end it. He dropped
+in for a call the other afternoon and, as I had finished my day's
+"stunt" at the desk, I assisted in entertaining him. Frances was in the
+sitting-room also and Hephzy joined us soon afterward. Mr. Tidditt had
+stopped at the post-office on his way down and he had the Boston morning
+paper in his hand. Of course he was filled to the brim with war news. We
+discuss little else in Bayport now; even the new baby at the parsonage
+has to play second fiddle.
+
+"My godfreys!" exclaimed Asaph, as soon as he sat down in the rocking
+chair and put his cap on the floor beneath it. "My godfreys, but they're
+havin' awful times over across, now ain't they. Killin' and fightin' and
+battlin' and slaughterin'! It don't seem human to me somehow."
+
+"It is human, I'm afraid," I said, with a sigh. "Altogether too human.
+We're a poor lot, we, humans, after all. We pride ourselves on our
+civilization, but after all, it takes very little to send us back to
+savagery."
+
+"That's so," said Asaph, with conviction. "That's true about everybody
+but us folks in the United States. We are awful fortunate, we are. We
+ain't savages. We was born in a free country, and we've been brought up
+right, I declare! I beg your pardon, Mrs. Knowles; I forgot you wasn't
+born in Bayport."
+
+Frances smiled. "No apology is needed, Mr. Tidditt," she said. "I
+confess to having been born a--savage."
+
+"But you're all right now," said Asaph, hastily, trying to cover his
+slip. "You're all right now. You're just as American as the rest of us.
+Kent, suppose this war in Europe is goin' to hurt your trade any? It's
+goin' to hurt a good many folks's. They tell me groceries and such like
+is goin' way up. Lucky we've got fish and clams to depend on. Clams
+and quahaugs'll keep us from starvin' for a spell. Oh," with a chuckle,
+"speakin' of quahaugs reminds me. Did you know they used to call your
+husband a quahaug, Mrs. Knowles? That's what they used to call him round
+here--'The Quahaug.' They called him that 'count of his keepin' inside
+his shell all the time and not mixin' with folks, not toadyin' up to the
+summer crowd and all. I always respected him for it. _I_ don't toady to
+nobody neither."
+
+Hephzy had come in by this time and now she took a part in the
+conversation.
+
+"They don't call him 'The Quahaug' any more," she declared, indignantly.
+"He's been out of his shell more and seen more than most of the folks in
+this town."
+
+"I know it; I know it. And he's kept goin' ever since. Runnin' to
+New York, he and you," with a nod toward Frances, "and travelin' to
+Washin'ton and Niagary Falls and all. Wonder to me how he does as much
+writin' as he does. That last book of yours is sellin' first-rate, they
+tell me, Kent."
+
+He referred to the novel I began in Mayberry. I have rewritten and
+finished it since, and it has had a surprising sale. The critics seem to
+think I have achieved my first genuine success.
+
+"What are you writin' now?" asked Asaph. "More of them yarns about
+pirates and such? Land sakes! when I go by this house nights and see a
+light in your library window there, Kent, and know you're pluggin' along
+amongst all them adventures, I wonder how you can stand it. 'Twould give
+me the shivers. Godfreys! the last time I read one of them yarns--that
+about the 'Black Brig' 'twas--I hardly dast to go to bed. And I DIDN'T
+dast to put out the light. I see a pirate in every corner, grittin' his
+teeth. Writin' another of that kind, are you?"
+
+"No," I said; "this one is quite different. You will have no trouble in
+sleeping over this one, Ase."
+
+"That's a comfort. Got a little Bayport in it? Seems to me you ought to
+put a little Bayport in, for a change."
+
+I smiled. "There is a little in this," I answered. "A little at the
+beginning, and, perhaps, at the end."
+
+"You don't say! You ain't got me in it, have you? I'd--I'd look kind of
+funny in a book, wouldn't I?"
+
+I laughed, but I did not answer.
+
+"Not that I ain't seen things in my life," went on Asaph, hopefully. "A
+man can't be town clerk in a live town like this and not see things. But
+I hope you won't put any more foreigners in. This we're readin' now,"
+rapping the newspaper with his knuckles, "gives us all we want to know
+about foreigners. Just savages, they be, as you say, and nothin' more. I
+pity 'em."
+
+I laughed again.
+
+"Asaph," said I, "what would you say if I told you that the English and
+French--yes, and the Germans, too, though I haven't seen them at home as
+I have the others--were no more savages than we are?"
+
+"I'd say you was crazy," was the prompt answer.
+
+"Well, I'm not. And you're not very complimentary. You're forgetting
+again. You forget that I married one of those savages."
+
+Asaph was taken aback, but he recovered promptly, as he had before.
+
+"She ain't any savage," he announced. "Her mother was born right here in
+Bayport. And she knows, just as I do, that Bayport's the best place in
+the world; don't you, Mrs. Knowles?"
+
+"Yes," said Frances, "I am sure of it, Mr. Tidditt."
+
+So Asaph went away triumphantly happy. After he had gone I apologized
+for him.
+
+"He's a fair sample," I said. "He is a quahaug, although he doesn't know
+it. He is a certain type, an exaggerated type, of American."
+
+Frances smiled. "He's not much worse than I used to be," she said. "I
+used to call America an uncivilized country, you remember. I suppose
+I--and Mr. Heathcroft--were exaggerated types of a certain kind of
+English. We were English quahaugs, weren't we?"
+
+Hephzy nodded. "We're all quahaugs," she declared. "Most of us, anyhow.
+That's the trouble with all the folks of all the nations; they stay in
+their shells and they don't try to know and understand their neighbors.
+Kent, you used to be a quahaug--a different kind of one--but that kind,
+too. I was a quahaug afore I lived in Mayberry. That's who makes wars
+like this dreadful one--quahaugs. We know better now--you and Frances
+and I. We've found out that, down underneath, there's precious little
+difference. Humans are humans."
+
+She paused and then, as a final summing up, added:
+
+"I guess that's it: American or German or French or anything--nice folks
+are nice folks anywhere."
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Kent Knowles: Quahaug, by Joseph C. Lincoln
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Kent Knowles: Quahaug, by Joseph C. Lincoln
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Kent Knowles: Quahaug
+
+Author: Joseph C. Lincoln
+
+Release Date: June 6, 2006 [EBook #5980]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KENT KNOWLES: QUAHAUG ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Don Lainson
+
+
+
+
+
+KENT KNOWLES: QUAHAUG
+
+
+By Joseph C. Lincoln
+
+
+
+1914
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+I.     Which is not a chapter at all
+
+II.    Which repeats, for the most part, what Jim Campbell said to me and
+       what I said to him
+
+III.   Which, although it is largely family history, should not be skipped
+       by the reader
+
+IV.    In which Hephzy and I and the Plutonia sail together
+
+V.     In which we view, and even mingle slightly with, the upper classes
+
+VI.    In which we are received at Bancroft's Hotel and I receive a letter
+
+VII.   In which a dream becomes a reality
+
+VIII.  In which the pilgrims become tenants
+
+IX.    In which we make the acquaintance of Mayberry and a portion of
+       Burgleston Bogs
+
+X.     In which I break all previous resolutions and make a new one
+
+XI.    In which complications become more complicated
+
+XII.   In which the truth is told at last
+
+XIII.  In which Hephzy and I agree to live for each other
+
+XIV.   In which I play golf and cross the channel
+
+XV.    In which I learn that all abbeys are not churches
+
+XVI.   In which I take my turn at playing the invalid
+
+XVII.  In which I, as well as Mr. Solomon Cripps, am surprised
+
+XVIII. In which the pilgrimage ends where it began
+
+XIX.   Which treats of quahaugs in general
+
+
+
+
+
+KENT KNOWLES: QUAHAUG
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Which is Not a Chapter at All
+
+
+It was Asaph Tidditt who told me how to begin this history. Perhaps I
+should be very much obliged to Asaph; perhaps I shouldn't. He has gotten
+me out of a difficulty--or into one; I am far from certain which.
+
+Ordinarily--I am speaking now of the writing of swashbuckling
+romances, which is, or was, my trade--I swear I never have called it
+a profession--the beginning of a story is the least of the troubles
+connected with its manufacture. Given a character or two and a
+situation, the beginning of one of those romances is, or was, pretty
+likely to be something like this:
+
+"It was a black night. Heavy clouds had obscured the setting sun and
+now, as the clock in the great stone tower boomed twelve, the darkness
+was pitchy."
+
+That is a good safe beginning. Midnight, a stone tower, a booming clock,
+and darkness make an appeal to the imagination. On a night like that
+almost anything may happen. A reader of one of my romances--and
+readers there must be, for the things did, and still do, sell to some
+extent--might be fairly certain that something WOULD happen before the
+end of the second page. After that the somethings continued to happen as
+fast as I could invent them.
+
+But this story was different. The weather or the time had nothing to do
+with its beginning. There were no solitary horsemen or strange wayfarers
+on lonely roads, no unexpected knocks at the doors of taverns, no
+cloaked personages landing from boats rowed by black-browed seamen with
+red handkerchiefs knotted about their heads and knives in their
+belts. The hero was not addressed as "My Lord"; he was not "Sir
+Somebody-or-other" in disguise. He was not young and handsome; there was
+not even "a certain something in his manner and bearing which hinted of
+an eventful past." Indeed there was not. For, if this particular yarn or
+history or chronicle which I had made up my mind to write, and which I
+am writing now, had or has a hero, I am he. And I am Hosea Kent Knowles,
+of Bayport, Massachusetts, the latter the village in which I was born
+and in which I have lived most of the time since I was twenty-seven
+years old. Nobody calls me "My Lord." Hephzy has always called me
+"Hosy"--a name which I despise--and the others, most of them, "Kent" to
+my face and "The Quahaug" behind my back, a quahaug being a very common
+form of clam which is supposed to lead a solitary existence and to
+keep its shell tightly shut. If anything in my manner had hinted at a
+mysterious past no one in Bayport would have taken the hint. Bayporters
+know my past and that of my ancestors only too well.
+
+As for being young and handsome--well, I was thirty-eight years old last
+March. Which is quite enough on THAT subject.
+
+But I had determined to write the story, so I sat down to begin it. And
+immediately I got into difficulties. How should I begin? I might begin
+at any one of a dozen places--with Hephzy's receiving the Raymond and
+Whitcomb circular; with our arrival in London; with Jim Campbell's visit
+to me here in Bayport; with the curious way in which the letter reached
+us, after crossing the ocean twice. Any one of these might serve as a
+beginning--but which? I made I don't know how many attempts, but not
+one was satisfactory. I, who had begun I am ashamed to tell you how many
+stories--yes, and had finished them and seen them in print as well--was
+stumped at the very beginning of this one. Like Sim Phinney I had
+worked at my job "a long spell" and "cal'lated" I knew it, but here
+was something I didn't know. As Sim said, when he faced his problem, "I
+couldn't seem to get steerage way on her."
+
+Simeon, you see--He is Angeline Phinney's second cousin and lives in
+the third house beyond the Holiness Bethel on the right-hand side of the
+road--Simeon has "done carpentering" here in Bayport all his life. He
+built practically every henhouse now gracing or disgracing the backyards
+of our village. He is our "henhouse specialist," so to speak. He has
+even been known to boast of his skill. "Henhouses!" snorted Sim; "land
+of love! I can build a henhouse with my eyes shut. Nowadays when another
+one of them foolheads that's been readin' 'How to Make a Million Poultry
+Raisin'' in the Farm Gazette comes to me and says 'Henhouse,' I say,
+'Yes sir. Fifteen dollars if you pay me cash now and a hundred and
+fifteen if you want to wait and pay me out of your egg profits. That's
+all there is to it.'"
+
+And yet, when Captain Darius Nickerson, who made the most of his money
+selling fifty-foot lots of sand, beachgrass and ticks to summer
+people for bungalow sites--when Captain Darius, grown purse-proud and
+vainglorious, expressed a desire for a henhouse with a mansard roof and
+a cupola, the latter embellishments to match those surmounting his own
+dwelling, Simeon was set aback with his canvas flapping. At the end of
+a week he had not driven a nail. "Godfrey's mighty!" he is reported to
+have exclaimed. "I don't know whether to build the average cupola and
+trust to a hen's fittin' it, or take an average hen and build a cupola
+round her. Maybe I'll be all right after I get started, but it's where
+to start that beats me."
+
+Where to start beat me, also, and it might be beating me yet, if I
+hadn't dropped in at the post-office and heard Asaph Tidditt telling
+a story to the group around the stove. After he had finished, and,
+the mail being sorted, we were walking homeward together, I asked a
+question.
+
+"Asaph," said I, "when you start to spin a yarn how do you begin?"
+
+"Hey?" he exclaimed. "How do I begin? Why, I just heave to and go to
+work and begin, that's all."
+
+"Yes, I know, but where do you begin?"
+
+"At the beginnin', naturally. If you was cal'latin' to sail a boat race
+you wouldn't commence at t'other end of the course, would you?"
+
+"_I_ might; practical people wouldn't, I suppose. But--what IS the
+beginning? Suppose there were a lot of beginnings and you didn't know
+which to choose."
+
+"Oh, we-ll, in that case I'd just sort of--of edge around till I found
+one that--that was a beginnin' of SOMETHIN' and I'd start there. You
+understand, don't you? Take that yarn I was spinnin' just now--that one
+about Josiah Dimick's great uncle's pig on his mother's side. I mean
+his uncle on his mother's side, not the pig, of course. Now I hadn't no
+intention of tellin' about that hog; hadn't thought of it for a thousand
+year, as you might say. I just commenced to tell about Angie Phinney,
+about how fast she could talk, and that reminded me of a parrot
+that belonged to Sylvanus Cahoon's sister--Violet, the sister's name
+was--loony name, too, if you ask ME, 'cause she was a plaguey sight
+nigher bein' a sunflower than she was a violet--weighed two hundred and
+ten and had a face on her as red as--"
+
+"Just a minute, Ase. About that pig?"
+
+"Oh, yes! Well, the pig reminded me of Violet's parrot and the parrot
+reminded me of a Plymouth Rock rooster I had that used to roost in the
+pigpen nights--wouldn't use the henhouse no more'n you nor I would--and
+that, naturally, made me think of pigs, and pigs fetched Josiah's
+uncle's pig to mind and there I was all ready to start on the yarn. It
+pretty often works out that way. When you want to start a yarn and you
+can't start--you've forgot it, or somethin'--just begin somewhere, get
+goin' somehow. Edge around and keep edgin' around and pretty soon you'll
+fetch up at the right place TO start. See, don't you, Kent?"
+
+I saw--that is, I saw enough. I came home and this morning I began the
+"edging around" process. I don't seem to have "fetched up" anywhere in
+particular, but I shall keep on with the edging until I do. As Asaph
+says, I must begin somewhere, so I shall begin with the Saturday morning
+of last April when Jim Campbell, my publisher and my friend--which is
+by no means such an unusual combination as many people think--sat on the
+veranda of my boathouse overlooking Cape Cod Bay and discussed my past,
+present and, more particularly, my future.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Which Repeats, for the Most Part, What Jim Campbell Said to Me and What
+I Said to Him
+
+
+"Jim," said I, "what is the matter with me?"
+
+Jim, who was seated in the ancient and dilapidated arm-chair which
+was the finest piece of furniture in the boathouse and which I always
+offered to visitors, looked at me over the collar of my sweater. I used
+the sweater as I did the arm-chair when I did not have visitors. He was
+using it then because, like an idiot, he had come to Cape Cod in April
+with nothing warmer than a very natty suit and a light overcoat. Of
+course one may go clamming and fishing in a light overcoat, but--one
+doesn't.
+
+Jim looked at me over the collar of my sweater. Then he crossed
+his oilskinned and rubber-booted legs--they were my oilskins and my
+boots--and answered promptly.
+
+"Indigestion," he said. "You ate nine of those biscuits this morning; I
+saw you."
+
+"I did not," I retorted, "because you saw them first. MY interior is in
+its normal condition. As for yours--"
+
+"Mine," he interrupted, filling his pipe from my tobacco pouch, "being
+accustomed to a breakfast, not a gorge, is abnormal but satisfactory,
+thank you--quite satisfactory."
+
+"That," said I, "we will discuss later, when I have you out back of the
+bar in my catboat. Judging from present indications there will be some
+sea-running. The 'Hephzy' is a good, capable craft, but a bit cranky,
+like the lady she is named for. I imagine she will roll."
+
+He didn't like that. You see, I had sailed with him before and I
+remembered.
+
+"Ho-se-a," he drawled, "you have a vivid imagination. It is a pity you
+don't use more of it in those stories of yours."
+
+"Humph! I am obliged to use the most of it on the royalty statements you
+send me. If you call me 'Hosea' again I will take the 'Hephzy' across
+the Point Rip. The waves there are fifteen feet high at low tide. See
+here, I asked you a serious question and I should like a serious answer.
+Jim, what IS the matter with me? Have I written out or what is the
+trouble?"
+
+He looked at me again.
+
+"Are you in earnest?" he asked.
+
+"I am, very much in earnest."
+
+"And you really want to talk shop after a breakfast like that and on a
+morning like this?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Was that why you asked me to come to Bayport and spend the week-end?"
+
+"No-o. No, of course not."
+
+"You're another; it was. When you met me at the railroad station
+yesterday I could see there was something wrong with you. All this
+morning you've had something on your chest. I thought it was the
+biscuits, of course; but it wasn't, eh?"
+
+"It was not."
+
+"Then what was it? Aren't we paying you a large enough royalty?"
+
+"You are paying me a good deal larger one than I deserve. I don't see
+why you do it."
+
+"Oh," with a wave of the hand, "that's all right. The publishing of
+books is a pure philanthropy. We are in business for our health, and--"
+
+"Shut up. You know as well as I do that the last two yarns of mine which
+your house published have not done as well as the others."
+
+I had caught him now. Anything remotely approaching a reflection upon
+the business house of which he was the head was sufficient to stir
+up Jim Campbell. That business, its methods and its success, were his
+idols.
+
+"I don't know any such thing," he protested, hotly. "We sold--"
+
+"Hang the sale! You sold quite enough. It is an everlasting miracle
+to me that you are able to sell a single copy. Why a self-respecting
+person, possessed of any intelligence whatever, should wish to read the
+stuff I write, to say nothing of paying money for the privilege, I can't
+understand."
+
+"You don't have to understand. No one expects an author to understand
+anything. All you are expected to do is to write; we'll attend to the
+rest of it. And as for sales--why, 'The Black Brig'--that was the last
+one, wasn't it?--beat the 'Omelet' by eight thousand or more."
+
+"The Omelet" was our pet name for "The Queen's Amulet," my first offence
+in the literary line. It was a highly seasoned concoction of revolution
+and adventure in a mythical kingdom where life was not dull, to say the
+least. The humblest character in it was a viscount. Living in Bayport
+had, naturally, made me familiar with the doings of viscounts.
+
+"Eight thousand more than the last isn't so bad, is it?" demanded Jim
+Campbell combatively.
+
+"It isn't. It is astonishingly good. It is the books themselves that
+are bad. The 'Omelet' was bad enough, but I wrote it more as a joke than
+anything else. I didn't take it seriously at all. Every time I called
+a duke by his Christian name I grinned. But nowadays I don't grin--I
+swear. I hate the things, Jim. They're no good. And the reviewers are
+beginning to tumble to the fact that they're no good, too. You saw the
+press notices yourself. 'Another Thriller by the Indefatigable Knowles'
+'Barnacles, Buccaneers and Blood, not to Mention Beauty and the
+Bourbons.' That's the way two writers headed their articles about 'The
+Black Brig.' And a third said that I must be getting tired; I wrote as
+if I was. THAT fellow was right. I am tired, Jim. I'm tired and sick
+of writing slush. I can't write any more of it. And yet I can't write
+anything else."
+
+Jim's pipe had gone out. Now he relit it and tossed the match over the
+veranda rail.
+
+"How do you know you can't?" he demanded.
+
+"Can't what?"
+
+"Can't write anything but slush?"
+
+"Ah ha! Then it is slush. You admit it."
+
+"I don't admit anything of the kind. You may not be a William
+Shakespeare or even a George Meredith, but you have written some mighty
+interesting stories. Why, I know a chap who sits up till morning to
+finish a book of yours. Can't sleep until he has finished it."
+
+"What's the matter with him; insomnia?"
+
+"No; he's a night watchman. Does that satisfy you, you crossgrained
+old shellfish? Come on, let's dig clams--some of your own blood
+relations--and forget it."
+
+"I don't want to forget it and there is plenty of time for clamming. The
+tide won't cover the flats for two hours yet. I tell you I'm serious,
+Jim. I can't write any more. I know it. The stuff I've been writing
+makes me sick. I hate it, I tell you. What the devil I'm going to do for
+a living I can't see--but I can't write another story."
+
+Jim put his pipe in his pocket. I think at last he was convinced that I
+meant what I said, which I certainly did. The last year had been a year
+of torment to me. I had finished the 'Brig,' as a matter of duty, but if
+that piratical craft had sunk with all hands, including its creator, I
+should not have cared. I drove myself to my desk each day, as a horse
+might be driven to a treadmill, but the animal could have taken no less
+interest in his work than I had taken in mine. It was bad--bad--bad;
+worthless and hateful. There wasn't a new idea in it and I hadn't one
+in my head. I, who had taken up writing as a last resort, a gamble which
+might, on a hundred-to-one chance, win where everything else had failed,
+had now reached the point where that had failed, too. Campbell's surmise
+was correct; with the pretence of asking him to the Cape for a
+week-end of fishing and sailing I had lured him there to tell him of my
+discouragement and my determination to quit.
+
+He took his feet from the rail and hitched his chair about until he
+faced me.
+
+"So you're not going to write any more," he said.
+
+"I'm not. I can't."
+
+"What are you going to do; live on back royalties and clams?"
+
+"I may have to live on the clams; my back royalties won't keep me very
+long."
+
+"Humph! I should think they might keep you a good while down here. You
+must have something in the stocking. You can't have wasted very much in
+riotous living on this sand-heap. What have you done with your money,
+for the last ten years; been leading a double life?"
+
+"I've found leading a single one hard enough. I have saved something, of
+course. It isn't the money that worries me, Jim; I told you that. It's
+myself; I'm no good. Every author, sometime or other, reaches the point
+where he knows perfectly well he has done all the real work he can
+ever do, that he has written himself out. That's what's the matter with
+me--I'm written out."
+
+Jim snorted. "For Heaven's sake, Kent Knowles," he demanded, "how old
+are you?"
+
+"I'm thirty-eight, according to the almanac, but--"
+
+"Thirty-eight! Why, Thackeray wrote--"
+
+"Drop it! I know when Thackeray wrote 'Vanity Fair' as well as you do.
+I'm no Thackeray to begin with, and, besides, I am older at thirty-eight
+than he was when he died--yes, older than he would have been if he had
+lived twice as long. So far as feeling and all the rest of it go, I'm a
+second Methusaleh."
+
+"My soul! hear the man! And I'm forty-two myself. Well, Grandpa, what do
+you expect me to do; get you admitted to the Old Man's Home?"
+
+"I expect--" I began, "I expect--" and I concluded with the lame
+admission that I didn't expect him to do anything. It was up to me to do
+whatever must be done, I imagined.
+
+He smiled grimly.
+
+"Glad your senility has not affected that remnant of your common-sense,"
+he declared. "You're dead right, my boy; it IS up to you. You ought to
+be ashamed of yourself."
+
+"I am, but that doesn't help me a whole lot."
+
+"Nothing will help you as long as you think and speak as you have this
+morning. See here, Kent! answer me a question or two, will you? They may
+be personal questions, but will you answer them?"
+
+"I guess so. There has been what a disinterested listener might call
+a slightly personal flavor to your remarks so far. Do your worst. Fire
+away."
+
+"All right. You've lived in Bayport ten years or so, I know that. What
+have you done in all that time--besides write?"
+
+"Well, I've continued to live."
+
+"Doubted. You've continued to exist; but how? I've been here before.
+This isn't my first visit, by a good deal. Each time I have been
+here your daily routine--leaving out the exciting clam hunts and the
+excursions in quest of the ferocious flounder, like the one we're
+supposed--mind, I say supposed--to be on at the present moment--you
+have put in the day about like this: Get up, bathe, eat, walk to the
+post-office, walk home, sit about, talk a little, read some, walk some
+more, eat again, smoke, talk, read, eat for the third time, smoke, talk,
+read and go to bed. That's the program, isn't it?"
+
+"Not exactly. I play tennis in summer--when there is anyone to play with
+me--and golf, after a fashion. I used to play both a good deal, when I
+was younger. I swim, and I shoot a little, and--and--"
+
+"How about society? Have any, do you?"
+
+"In the summer, when the city people are here, there is a good deal
+going on, if you care for it--picnics and clam bakes and teas and lawn
+parties and such."
+
+"Heavens! what reckless dissipation! Do you indulge?"
+
+"Why, no--not very much. Hang it all, Jim! you know I'm no society man.
+I used to do the usual round of fool stunts when I was younger, but--"
+
+"But now you're too antique, I suppose. Wonder that someone hasn't
+collected you as a genuine Chippendale or something. So you don't 'tea'
+much?"
+
+"Not much. I'm not often invited, to tell you the truth. The summer
+crowd doesn't take kindly to me, I'm afraid."
+
+"Astonishing! You're such a chatty, entertaining, communicative cuss on
+first acquaintance, too. So captivatingly loquacious to strangers. I can
+imagine how you'd shine at a 'tea.' Every summer girl that tried to talk
+to you would be frost-bitten. Do you accept invitations when they do
+come?"
+
+"Not often nowadays. You see, I know they don't really want me."
+
+"How do you know it?"
+
+"Why--well, why should they? Everybody else calls me--"
+
+"They call you a clam and so you try to live up to your reputation. I
+know you, Kent. You think yourself a tough old bivalve, but the most
+serious complaint you suffer from is ingrowing sensitiveness. They do
+want you. They'd invite you if you gave them half a chance. Oh, I know
+you won't, of course; but if I had my way I'd have you dragged by main
+strength to every picnic and tea and feminine talk-fest within twenty
+miles. You might meet some persevering female who would propose
+marriage. YOU never would, but SHE might."
+
+I rose to my feet in disgust.
+
+"We'll go clamming," said I.
+
+He did not move.
+
+"We will--later on," he answered. "We haven't got to the last page
+of the catechism yet. I mentioned matrimony because a good, capable,
+managing wife would be my first prescription in your case. I have one
+or two more up my sleeve. Tell me this: How often do you get away from
+Bayport? How often do you get to--well, to Boston, we'll say? How many
+times have you been there in the last year?"
+
+"I don't know. A dozen, perhaps."
+
+"What did you do when you went?"
+
+"Various things. Shopped some, went to the theater occasionally, if
+there happened to be anything on that I cared to see. Bought a good many
+books. Saw the new Sargent pictures at the library. And--and--"
+
+"And shook hands with your brother fossils at the museum, I suppose.
+Wild life you lead, Kent. Did you visit anybody? Meet any friends or
+acquaintances--any live ones?"
+
+"Not many. I haven't many friends, Jim; you know that. As for the wild
+life--well, I made two visits to New York this year."
+
+"Yes," drily; "and we saw Sothern and Marlowe and had dinner at the
+Holland. The rest of the time we talked shop. That was the first visit.
+The second was more exciting still; we talked shop ALL the time and you
+took the six o'clock train home again."
+
+"You're wrong there. I saw the new loan collections at the Metropolitan
+and heard Ysaye play at Carnegie Hall. I didn't start for home until the
+next day."
+
+"Is that so. That's news to me. You said you were going that afternoon.
+That was to put the kibosh on my intention of taking you home to my wife
+and her bridge party, I suppose. Was it?"
+
+"Well--well, you see, Jim, I--I don't play bridge and I AM such a
+stick in a crowd like that. I wanted to stay and you were mighty kind,
+but--but--"
+
+"All right. All right, my boy. Next time it will be Bustanoby's, the
+Winter Garden and a three A. M. cabaret for yours. My time is coming.
+Now--Well, now we'll go clamming."
+
+He swung out of the arm-chair and walked to the top of the steps leading
+down to the beach. I was surprised, of course; I have known Jim Campbell
+a long time, but he can surprise me even yet.
+
+"Here! hold on!" I protested. "How about the rest of that catechism?"
+
+"You've had it."
+
+"Were those all the questions you wanted to ask?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Humph! And that is all the advice and encouragement I'm to get from
+you! How about those prescriptions you had up your sleeve?"
+
+"You'll get those by and by. Before I leave this gay and festive scene
+to-morrow I'm going to talk to you, Ho-se-a. And you're going to listen.
+You'll listen to old Doctor Campbell; HE'LL prescribe for you, don't
+you worry. And now," beginning to descend the steps, "now for clams and
+flounders."
+
+"And the Point Rip," I added, maliciously, for his frivolous treatment
+of what was to me a very serious matter, was disappointing and
+provoking. "Don't forget the Point Rip."
+
+We dug the clams--they were for bait--we boarded the "Hephzy," sailed
+out to the fishing grounds, and caught flounders. I caught the most of
+them; Jim was not interested in fishing during the greater part of the
+time. Then we sailed home again and walked up to the house. Hephzibah,
+for whom my boat is named, met us at the back door. As usual her
+greeting was not to the point and practical.
+
+"Leave your rubber boots right outside on the porch," she said. "Here,
+give me those flatfish; I'll take care of 'em. Hosy, you'll find dry
+things ready in your room. Here's your shoes; I've been warmin' 'em. Mr.
+Campbell I've put a suit of Hosy's and some flannels on your bed. They
+may not fit you, but they'll be lots better than the damp ones you've
+got on. You needn't hurry; dinner won't be ready till you are."
+
+I did not say anything; I knew Hephzy--had known her all my life. Jim,
+who, naturally enough, didn't know her as well, protested.
+
+"We're not wet, Miss Cahoon," he declared. "At least, I'm not, and I
+don't see how Kent can be. We both wore oilskins."
+
+"That doesn't make any difference. You ought to change your clothes
+anyhow. Been out in that boat, haven't you?"
+
+"Yes, but--"
+
+"Well, then! Don't say another word. I'll have a fire in the
+sittin'-room and somethin' hot ready when you come down. Hosy, be
+sure and put on BOTH the socks I darned for you. Don't get thinkin' of
+somethin' else and come down with one whole and one holey, same as you
+did last time. You must excuse me, Mr. Campbell. I've got saleratus
+biscuits in the oven."
+
+She hastened into the kitchen. When Jim and I, having obeyed orders
+to the extent of leaving our boots on the porch, passed through that
+kitchen she was busy with the tea-kettle. I led the way through the
+dining-room and up the front stairs. My visitor did not speak until we
+reached the second story. Then he expressed his feelings.
+
+"Say, Kent" he demanded, "are you going to change your clothes?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why? You're no wetter than I am, are you?"
+
+"Not a bit, but I'm going to change, just the same. It's the easier
+way."
+
+"It is, is it! What's the other way?"
+
+"The other way is to keep on those you're wearing and take the
+consequences."
+
+"What consequences?"
+
+"Jamaica ginger, hot water bottles and an afternoon's roast in front of
+the sitting-room fire. Hephzibah went out sailing with me last October
+and caught cold. That was enough; no one else shall have the experience
+if she can help it."
+
+"But--but good heavens! Kent, do you mean to say you always have to
+change when you come in from sailing?"
+
+"Except in summer, yes."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"Because Hephzy tells me to."
+
+"Do you always do what she tells you?"
+
+"Generally. It's the easiest way, as I said before."
+
+"Good--heavens! And she darns your socks and tells you what--er lingerie
+to wear and--does she wash your face and wipe your nose and scrub behind
+your ears?"
+
+"Not exactly, but she probably would if I didn't do it."
+
+"Well, I'll be hanged! And she extends the same treatment to all your
+guests?"
+
+"I don't have any guests but you. No doubt she would if I did. She
+mothers every stray cat and sick chicken in the neighborhood. There,
+Jim, you trot along and do as you're told like a nice little boy. I'll
+join you in the sitting-room."
+
+"Humph! perhaps I'd better. I may be spanked and put to bed if I don't.
+Well, well! and you are the author of 'The Black Brig!' 'Buccaneers and
+Blood!' 'Bibs and Butterscotch' it should be! Don't stand out here in
+the cold hall, Hosy darling; you may get the croup if you do."
+
+I was waiting in the sitting-room when he came down. There was a roaring
+fire in the big, old-fashioned fireplace. That fireplace had been
+bricked up in the days when people used those abominations, stoves. As a
+boy I was well acquainted with the old "gas burner" with the iron urn
+on top and the nickeled ornaments and handles which Mother polished so
+assiduously. But the gas burner had long since gone to the junk dealer.
+Among the improvements which my first royalty checks made possible were
+steam heat and the restoration of the fireplace.
+
+Jim found me sitting before the fire in one of the two big "wing" chairs
+which I had purchased when Darius Barlay's household effects were sold
+at auction. I should not have acquired them as cheaply if Captain Cyrus
+Whittaker had been at home when the auction took place. Captain Cy loves
+old-fashioned things as much as I do and, as he has often told me since,
+he meant to land those chairs some day if he had to run his bank account
+high and dry in consequence. But the Captain and his wife--who used to
+be Phoebe Dawes, our school-teacher here in Bayport--were away visiting
+their adopted daughter, Emily, who is married and living in Boston, and
+I got the chairs.
+
+At the Barclay auction I bought also the oil painting of the bark
+"Freedom"--a command of Captain Elkanah Barclay, uncle of the late
+Darius--and the set--two volumes missing--of The Spectator, bound in
+sheepskin. The "Freedom" is depicted "Entering the Port of Genoa, July
+10th, 1848," and if the port is somewhat wavy and uncertain, the
+bark's canvas and rigging are definite and rigid enough to make up.
+The Spectator set is chiefly remarkable for its marginal notes; Captain
+Elkanah bought the books in London and read and annotated at spare
+intervals during subsequent voyages. His opinions were decided and his
+notes nautical and emphatic. Hephzibah read a few pages of the
+notes when the books first came into the house and then went to
+prayer-meeting. As she had announced her intention of remaining at home
+that evening I was surprised--until I read them myself.
+
+Jim came downstairs, arrayed in the suit which Hephzy had laid out for
+him. I made no comment upon his appearance. To do so would have been
+superfluous; he looked all the comments necessary.
+
+I waved my hand towards the unoccupied wing chair and he sat down. Two
+glasses, one empty and the other half full of a steaming mixture, were
+on the little table beside us.
+
+"Help yourself, Jim," I said, indicating the glasses. He took up the one
+containing the mixture and regarded it hopefully.
+
+"What?" he asked.
+
+"A Cahoon toddy," said I. "Warranted to keep off chills, rheumatism,
+lumbago and kindred miseries. Good for what ails you. Don't wait; I've
+had mine."
+
+He took a sniff and then a very small sip. His face expressed genuine
+emotion.
+
+"Whew!" he gasped, choking. "What in blazes--?"
+
+"Jamaica ginger, sugar and hot water," I explained blandly. "It
+won't hurt you--longer than five minutes. It is Hephzy's invariable
+prescription."
+
+"Good Lord! Did you drink yours?"
+
+"No--I never do, unless she watches me."
+
+"But your glass is empty. What did you do with it?"
+
+"Emptied it behind the back log. Of course, if you prefer to drink it--"
+
+"Drink it!" His "toddy" splashed the back log, causing a tremendous
+sizzle.
+
+Before he could relieve his mind further, Hephzy appeared to announce
+that dinner was ready if we were. We were, most emphatically, so we went
+into the dining-room.
+
+Hephzy and Jim did most of the talking during the meal. I had talked
+more that forenoon than I had for a week--I am not a chatty person,
+ordinarily, which, in part, explains my nickname--and I was very willing
+to eat and listen. Hephzy, who was garbed in her best gown--best weekday
+gown, that is; she kept her black silk for Sundays--talked a good deal,
+mostly about dreams and presentiments. Susanna Wixon, Tobias Wixon's
+oldest daughter, waited on table, when she happened to think of it, and
+listened when she did not. Susanna had been hired to do the waiting and
+the dish-washing during Campbell's brief visit. It was I who hired
+her. If I had had my way she would have been a permanent fixture in the
+household, but Hephzy scoffed at the idea. "Pity if I can't do housework
+for two folks," she declared. "I don't care if you can afford it.
+Keepin' hired help in a family no bigger than this, is a sinful
+extravagance." As Susanna's services had been already engaged for the
+weekend she could not discharge her, but she insisted on doing all the
+cooking herself.
+
+Her conversation, as I said, dealt mainly with dreams and presentiments.
+Hephzibah is not what I should call a superstitious person. She doesn't
+believe in "signs," although she might feel uncomfortable if she broke a
+looking-glass or saw the new moon over her left shoulder. She has a most
+amazing fund of common-sense and is "down" on Spiritualism to a degree.
+It is one of Bayport's pet yarns, that at the Harniss Spiritualist
+camp-meeting when the "test medium" announced from the platform that he
+had a message for a lady named Hephzibah C--he "seemed to get the name
+Hephzibah C"--Hephzy got up and walked out. "Any dead relations I've
+got," she declared, "who send messages through a longhaired idiot like
+that one up there"--meaning the medium,--"can't have much to say that's
+worth listenin' to. They can talk to themselves if they want to, but
+they shan't waste MY time."
+
+In but one particular was Hephzy superstitious. Whenever she dreamed of
+"Little Frank" she was certain something was going to happen. She had
+dreamed of "Little Frank" the night before and, if she had not been
+headed off, she would have talked of nothing else.
+
+"I saw him just as plain as I see you this minute, Hosy," she said to
+me. "I was somewhere, in a strange place--a foreign place, I should say
+'twas--and there I saw him. He didn't know me; at least I don't think he
+did."
+
+"Considering that he never saw you that isn't so surprising," I
+interrupted. "I think Mr. Campbell would have another cup of coffee if
+you urged him. Susanna, take Mr. Campbell's cup."
+
+Jim declined the coffee; said he hadn't finished his first cup yet. I
+knew that, of course, but I was trying to head off Hephzy. She refused
+to be headed, just then.
+
+"But I knew HIM," she went on. "He looked just the same as he has when
+I've seen him before--in the other dreams, you know. The very image of
+his mother. Isn't it wonderful, Hosy!"
+
+"Yes; but don't resurrect the family skeletons, Hephzy. Mr. Campbell
+isn't interested in anatomy."
+
+"Skeletons! I don't know what you're talkin' about. He wasn't a
+skeleton. I saw him just as plain! And I said to myself, 'It's little
+Frank!' Now what do you suppose he came to me for? What do you suppose
+it means? It means somethin', I know that."
+
+"Means that you weren't sleeping well, probably," I answered. "Jim,
+here, will dream of cross-seas and the Point Rip to-night, I have no
+doubt."
+
+Jim promptly declared that if he thought that likely he shouldn't mind
+so much. What he feared most was a nightmare session with an author.
+
+Hephzibah was interested at once. "Oh, do you dream about authors, Mr.
+Campbell?" she demanded. "I presume likely you do, they're so mixed up
+with your business. Do your dreams ever come true?"
+
+"Not often," was the solemn reply. "Most of my dream-authors are
+rational and almost human."
+
+Hephzy, of course, did not understand this, but it did have the effect
+for which I had been striving, that of driving "Little Frank" from her
+mind for the time.
+
+"I don't care," she declared, "I s'pose it's awful foolish and silly of
+me, but it does seem sometimes as if there was somethin' in dreams, some
+kind of dreams. Hosy laughs at me and maybe I ought to laugh at myself,
+but some dreams come true, or awfully near to true; now don't they.
+Angeline Phinney was in here the other day and she was tellin' about her
+second cousin that was--he's dead now--Abednego Small. He was constable
+here in Bayport for years; everybody called him 'Uncle Bedny.' Uncle
+Bedny had been keepin' company with a woman named Dimick--Josiah
+Dimick's niece--lots younger than he, she was. He'd been thinkin' of
+marryin' her, so Angie said, but his folks had been talkin' to him,
+tellin' him he was too old to take such a young woman for his third
+wife, so he had made up his mind to throw her over, to write a letter
+sayin' it was all off between 'em. Well, he'd begun the letter but
+he never finished it, for three nights runnin' he dreamed that awful
+trouble was hangin' over him. That dream made such an impression on him
+that he tore the letter up and married the Dimick woman after all. And
+then--I didn't know this until Angie told me--it turned out that she
+had heard he was goin' to give her the go-by and had made all her
+arrangements to sue him for breach of promise if he did. That was the
+awful trouble, you see, and the dream saved him from it."
+
+I smiled. "The fault there was in the interpretation of the dream," I
+said. "The 'awful trouble' of the breach of promise suit wouldn't have
+been a circumstance to the trouble poor Uncle Bedny got into by marrying
+Ann Dimick. THAT trouble lasted till he died."
+
+Hephzibah laughed and said she guessed that was so, she hadn't thought
+of it in that way.
+
+"Probably dreams are all nonsense," she admitted. "Usually, I don't pay
+much attention to 'em. But when I dream of poor 'Little Frank,' away off
+there, I--"
+
+"Come into the sitting-room, Jim," I put in hastily. "I have a cigar or
+two there. I don't buy them in Bayport, either."
+
+"And who," asked Jim, as we sat smoking by the fire, "is Little Frank?"
+
+"He is a mythical relative of ours," I explained, shortly. "He was born
+twenty years ago or so--at least we heard that he was; and we haven't
+heard anything of him since, except by the dream route, which is not
+entirely convincing. He is Hephzy's pet obsession. Kindly forget him, to
+oblige me."
+
+He looked puzzled, but he did not mention "Little Frank" again, for
+which I was thankful.
+
+That afternoon we walked up to the village, stopping in at Simmons's
+store, which is also the post-office, for the mail. Captain Cyrus
+Whittaker happened to be there, also Asaph Tidditt and Bailey Bangs and
+Sylvanus Cahoon and several others. I introduced Campbell to the crowd
+and he seemed to be enjoying himself. When we came out and were walking
+home again, he observed:
+
+"That Whittaker is an interesting chap, isn't he?"
+
+"Yes," I said. "He is all right. Been everywhere and seen everything."
+
+"And that," with an odd significance in his tone, "may possibly help to
+make him interesting, don't you think?"
+
+"I suppose so. He lives here in Bayport now, though."
+
+"So I gathered. Popular, is he?"
+
+"Very."
+
+"Satisfied with life?"
+
+"Seems to be."
+
+"Hum! No one calls HIM a--what is it--quahaug?"
+
+"No, I'm the only human clam in this neighborhood."
+
+He did not say any more, nor did I. My fit of the blues was on again
+and his silence on the subject in which I was interested, my work and my
+future, troubled me and made me more despondent. I began to lose faith
+in the "prescription" which he had promised so emphatically. How could
+he, or anyone else, help me? No one could write my stories but myself,
+and I knew, only too well, that I could not write them.
+
+The only mail matter in our box was a letter addressed to Hephzibah.
+I forgot it until after supper and then I gave it to her. Jim retired
+early; the salt air made him sleepy, so he said, and he went upstairs
+shortly after nine. He had not mentioned our talk of the morning, nor
+did he until I left him at the door of his room. Then he said:
+
+"Kent, I've got one of the answers to your conundrum. I've diagnosed one
+of your troubles. You're blind."
+
+"Blind?"
+
+"Yes, blind. Or, if not blind altogether you're suffering from the worse
+case of far-sightedness I ever saw. All your literary--we'll call it
+that for compliment's sake--all your literary life you've spent writing
+about people and things so far off you don't know anything about them.
+You and your dukes and your earls and your titled ladies! What do you
+know of that crowd? You never saw a lord in your life. Why don't you
+write of something near by, something or somebody you are acquainted
+with?"
+
+"Acquainted with! You're crazy, man. What am I acquainted with, except
+this house, and myself and my books and--and Bayport?"
+
+"That's enough. Why, there is material in that gang at the post-office
+to make a dozen books. Write about them."
+
+"Tut! tut! tut! You ARE crazy. What shall I write; the life of Ase
+Tidditt in four volumes, beginning with 'I swan to man' and ending with
+'By godfrey'?"
+
+"You might do worse. If the book were as funny as its hero I'd undertake
+to sell a few copies."
+
+"Funny! _I_ couldn't write a funny book."
+
+"Not an intentionally funny one, you mean. But there! There's no use to
+talk to you."
+
+"There is not, if you talk like an imbecile. Is this your brilliant
+'prescription'?"
+
+"No. It might be; it would be, if you would take it, but you won't--not
+now. You need something else first and I'll give it to you. But I'll
+tell you this, and I mean it: Downstairs, in that dining-room of yours,
+there's one mighty good story, at least."
+
+"The dining-room? A story in the dining-room?"
+
+"Yes. Or it was there when we passed the door just now."
+
+I looked at him. He seemed to be serious, but I knew he was not. I hate
+riddles.
+
+"Oh, go to blazes!" I retorted, and turned away.
+
+I looked into the dining-room as I went by. There was no story in sight
+there, so far as I could see. Hephzy was seated by the table, mending
+something, something of mine, of course. She looked up.
+
+"Oh, Hosy," she said, "that letter you brought was a travel book from
+the Raymond and Whitcomb folks. I sent a stamp for it. It's awfully
+interesting! All about tours through England and France and Switzerland
+and everywhere. So cheap they are! I'm pickin' out the ones I'm goin' on
+some day. The pictures are lovely. Don't you want to see 'em?"
+
+"Not now," I replied. Another obsession of Hephzy's was travel. She,
+who had never been further from Bayport than Hartford, Connecticut, was
+forever dreaming of globe-trotting. It was not a new disease with her,
+by any means; she had been dreaming the same things ever since I had
+known her, and that is since I knew anything. Some day, SOME day she
+was going to this, that and the other place. She knew all about these
+places, because she had read about them over and over again. Her
+knowledge, derived as it was from so many sources, was curiously mixed,
+but it was comprehensive, of its kind. She was continually sending
+for Cook's circulars and booklets advertising personally conducted
+excursions. And, with the arrival of each new circular or booklet, she
+picked out, as she had just done, the particular tours she would go on
+when her "some day" came. It was funny, this queer habit of hers, but
+not half as funny as the thought of her really going would have been. I
+would have as soon thought of our front door leaving home and starting
+on its travels as of Hephzy's doing it. The door was no more a part and
+fixture of that home than she was.
+
+I went into my study, which adjoins the sitting-room, and sat down at my
+desk. Not with the intention of writing anything, or even of considering
+something to write about. That I made up my mind to forget for this
+night, at least. My desk chair was my usual seat in that room and I took
+that seat as a matter of habit.
+
+As a matter of habit also I looked about for a book. I did not have to
+look far. Books were my extravagance--almost my only one. They filled
+the shelves to the ceiling on three sides of the study and overflowed in
+untidy heaps on the floor. They were Hephzy's bugbear, for I refused to
+permit their being "straightened out" or arranged.
+
+I looked about for a book and selected several, but, although they were
+old favorites, I could not interest myself in any of them. I tried and
+tried, but even Mr. Pepys, that dependable solace of a lonely hour,
+failed to interest me with his chatter. Perhaps Campbell's pointed
+remarks concerning lords and ladies had its effect here. Old Samuel
+loved to write of such people, having a wide acquaintance with them, and
+perhaps that very acquaintance made me jealous. At any rate I threw the
+volume back upon its pile and began to think of myself, and of my work,
+the very thing I had expressly determined not to do when I came into the
+room.
+
+Jim's foolish and impossible advice to write of places and people I knew
+haunted and irritated me. I did know Bayport--yes, and it might be true
+that the group at the post-office contained possible material for many
+books; but, if so, it was material for the other man, not for me. "Write
+of what you know," said Jim. And I knew so little. There was at least
+one good yarn in the dining-room at that moment, he had declared. He
+must have meant Hephzibah, but, if he did, what was there in Hephzibah's
+dull, gray life-story to interest an outside reader? Her story and mine
+were interwoven and neither contained anything worth writing about. His
+fancy had been caught, probably, by her odd combination of the romantic
+and the practical, and in her dream of "Little Frank" he had scented a
+mystery. There was no mystery there, nothing but the most commonplace
+record of misplaced trust and ingratitude. Similar things happen in so
+many families.
+
+However, I began to think of Hephzy and, as I said, of myself, and to
+review my life since Ardelia Cahoon and Strickland Morley changed its
+course so completely. And now it seems to me that, in the course of
+my "edging around" for the beginning of this present chronicle--so
+different from anything I have ever written before or ever expected to
+write--the time has come when the reader--provided, of course, the
+said chronicle is ever finished or ever reaches a reader--should know
+something of that life; should know a little of the family history of
+the Knowles and the Cahoons and the Morleys.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+Which, Although It Is Largely Family History, Should Not Be Skipped by
+the Reader
+
+
+Let us take the Knowleses first. My name is Hosea Kent Knowles--I said
+that before--and my father was Captain Philander Kent Knowles. He was
+lost in the wreck of the steamer "Monarch of the Sea," off Hatteras. The
+steamer caught fire in the middle of the night, a howling gale blowing
+and the thermometer a few degrees above zero. The passengers and crew
+took to the boats and were saved. My father stuck by his ship and went
+down with her, as did also her first mate, another Cape-Codder. I was
+a baby at the time, and was at Bayport with my mother, Emily Knowles,
+formerly Emily Cahoon, Captain Barnabas Cahoon's niece. Mother had a
+little money of her own and Father's life was insured for a moderate
+sum. Her small fortune was invested for her by her uncle, Captain
+Barnabas, who was the Bayport magnate and man of affairs in those days.
+Mother and I continued to live in the old house in Bayport and I went
+to school in the village until I was fourteen, when I went away to a
+preparatory school near Boston. Mother died a year later. I was an only
+child, but Hephzibah, who had always seemed like an older sister to me,
+now began to "mother" me, the process which she has kept up ever since.
+
+Hephzibah was the daughter of Captain Barnabas by his first wife. Hephzy
+was born in 1859, so she is well over fifty now, although no one would
+guess it. Her mother died when she was a little girl and ten years later
+Captain Barnabas married again. His second wife was Susan Hammond, of
+Ostable, and by her he had one daughter, Ardelia. Hephzy has always
+declared "Ardelia" to be a pretty name. I have my own opinion on that
+subject, but I keep it to myself.
+
+At any rate, Ardelia herself was pretty enough. She was pretty when a
+baby and prettier still as a schoolgirl. Her mother--while she lived,
+which was not long--spoiled her, and her half-sister, Hephzy, assisted
+in the petting and spoiling. Ardelia grew up with the idea that most
+things in this world were hers for the asking. Whatever took her fancy
+she asked for and, if Captain Barnabas did not give it to her, she
+considered herself ill-used. She was the young lady of the family and
+Hephzibah was the housekeeper and drudge, an uncomplaining one, be
+it understood. For her, as for the Captain, the business of life was
+keeping Ardelia contented and happy, and they gloried in the task.
+Hephzy might have married well at least twice, but she wouldn't think
+of such a thing. "Pa and Ardelia need me," she said; that was reason
+sufficient.
+
+In 1888 Captain Barnabas went to Philadelphia on business. He had
+retired from active sea-going years before, but he retained an interest
+in a certain line of coasting schooners. The Captain, as I said, went to
+Philadelphia on business connected with these schooners and Ardelia
+went with him. Hephzibah stayed at home, of course; she always stayed
+at home, never expected to do anything else, although even then her
+favorite reading were books of travel, and pictures of the Alps, and of
+St. Peter's at Rome, and the Tower of London were tacked up about her
+room. She, too, might have gone to Philadelphia, doubtless, if she had
+asked, but she did not ask. Her father did not think of inviting her.
+He loved his oldest daughter, although he did not worship her as he did
+Ardelia, but it never occurred to him that she, too, might enjoy the
+trip. Hephzy was always at home, she WAS home; so at home she remained.
+
+In Philadelphia Ardelia met Strickland Morley.
+
+I give that statement a line all by itself, for it is by far the most
+important I have set down so far. The whole story of the Cahoons and the
+Knowleses--that is, all of their story which is the foundation of this
+history of mine--hinges on just that. If those two had not met I should
+not be writing this to-day, I might not be writing at all; instead of
+having become a Bayport "quahaug" I might have been the Lord knows what.
+
+However, they did meet, at the home of a wealthy shipping merchant named
+Osgood who was a lifelong friend of Captain Barnabas. This shipping
+merchant had a daughter and that daughter was giving a party at her
+father's home. Barnabas and Ardelia were invited. Strickland Morley was
+invited also.
+
+Morley, at that time--I saw a good deal of him afterward, when he was
+at Bayport and when I was at the Cahoon house on holidays and
+vacations--was a handsome, aristocratic young Englishman. He was
+twenty-eight, but he looked younger. He was the second son in a
+Leicestershire family which had once been wealthy and influential but
+which had, in its later generations, gone to seed. He was educated, in
+a general sort of way, was a good dancer, played the violin fairly well,
+sang fairly well, had an attractive presence, and was one of the most
+plausible and fascinating talkers I ever listened to. He had studied
+medicine--studied it after a fashion, that is; he never applied himself
+to anything--and was then, in '88, "ship's doctor" aboard a British
+steamer, which ran between Philadelphia and Glasgow. Miss Osgood had met
+him at the home of a friend of hers who had traveled on that steamer.
+
+Hephzy and I do not agree as to whether or not he actually fell in love
+with Ardelia Cahoon. Hephzy, of course, to whom Ardelia was the most
+wonderfully beautiful creature on earth, is certain that he did--he
+could not help it, she says. I am not so sure. It is very hard for me to
+believe that Strickland Morley was ever in love with anyone but himself.
+Captain Barnabas was well-to-do and had the reputation of being much
+richer than he really was. And Ardelia WAS beautiful, there is no doubt
+of that. At all events, Ardelia fell in love, with him, violently,
+desperately, head over heels in love, the very moment the two were
+introduced. They danced practically every dance together that evening,
+met surreptitiously the next day and for five days thereafter, and
+on the sixth day Captain Barnabas received a letter from his daughter
+announcing that she and Morley were married and had gone to New York
+together. "We will meet you there, Pa," wrote Ardelia. "I know you will
+forgive me for marrying Strickland. He is the most wonderful man in the
+wide world. You will love him, Pa, as I do."
+
+There was very little love expressed by the Captain when he read the
+note. According to Mr. Osgood's account, Barnabas's language was a
+throwback from the days when he was first mate on a Liverpool packet.
+That his idolized daughter had married without asking his consent
+was bad enough; that she had married an Englishman was worse. Captain
+Barnabas hated all Englishmen. A ship of his had been captured and
+burned, in the war time, by the "Alabama," a British built privateer,
+and the very mildest of the terms he applied to a "John Bull" will not
+bear repetition in respectable society. He would not forgive Ardelia.
+She and her "Cockney husband" might sail together to the most tropical
+of tropics, or words to that effect.
+
+But he did forgive her, of course. Likewise he forgave his son-in-law.
+When the Captain returned to Bayport he brought the newly wedded pair
+with him. I was not present at that homecoming. I was away at prep
+school, digging at my examinations, trying hard to forget that I was
+an orphan, but with the dull ache caused by my mother's death always
+grinding at my heart. Many years ago she died, but the ache comes back
+now, as I think of her. There is more self-reproach in it than
+there used to be, more vain regrets for impatient words and wasted
+opportunities. Ah, if some of us--boys grown older--might have our
+mothers back again, would we be as impatient and selfish now? Would we
+neglect the opportunities? I think not; I hope not.
+
+Hephzibah, after she got over the shock of the surprise and the pain
+of sharing her beloved sister with another, welcomed that other for
+Ardelia's sake. She determined to like him very much indeed. This wasn't
+so hard, at first. Everyone liked and trusted Strickland Morley at first
+sight. Afterward, when they came to know him better, they were not--if
+they were as wise and discerning as Hephzy--so sure of the trust. The
+wise and discerning were not, I say; Captain Barnabas, though wise and
+shrewd enough in other things, trusted him to the end.
+
+Morley made it a point to win the affection and goodwill of his
+father-in-law. For the first month or two after the return to Bayport
+the new member of the family was always speaking of his plans for the
+future, of his profession and how he intended soon, very soon, to look
+up a good location and settle down to practice. Whenever he spoke
+thus, Captain Barnabas and Ardelia begged him not to do it yet, to wait
+awhile. "I am so happy with you and Pa and Hephzy," declared Ardelia.
+"I can't bear to go away yet, Strickland. And Pa doesn't want us to; do
+you, Pa?"
+
+Of course Captain Barnabas agreed with her, he always did, and so the
+Morleys remained at Bayport in the old house. Then came the first of the
+paralytic shocks--a very slight one--which rendered Captain Barnabas,
+the hitherto hale, active old seaman, unfit for exertion or the cares of
+business. He was not bedridden by any means; he could still take short
+walks, attend town meetings and those of the parish committee, but he
+must not, so Dr. Parker said, be allowed to worry about anything.
+
+And Morley took it upon himself to prevent that worry. He spoke no more
+of leaving Bayport and settling down to practice his profession. Instead
+he settled down in Bayport and took the Captain's business cares upon
+his own shoulders. Little by little he increased his influence over the
+old man. He attended to the latter's investments, took charge of
+his bank account, collected his dividends, became, so to speak, his
+financial guardian. Captain Barnabas, at first rebellious--"I've always
+bossed my own ship," he declared, "and I ain't so darned feeble-headed
+that I can't do it yet"--gradually grew reconciled and then contented.
+He, too, began to worship his daughter's husband as the daughter herself
+did.
+
+"He's a wonder," said the Captain. "I never saw such a fellow for money
+matters. He's handled my stocks and things a whole lot better'n I ever
+did. I used to cal'late if I got six per cent. interest I was doin'
+well. He ain't satisfied with anything short of eight, and he gets it,
+too. Whatever that boy wants and I own he can have. Sometimes I think
+this consarned palsy of mine is a judgment on me for bein' so sot
+against him in the beginnin'. Why, just look at how he runs this house,
+to say nothing of the rest of it! He's a skipper here; the rest of us
+ain't anything but fo'most hands."
+
+Which was not the exact truth. Morley was skipper of the Cahoon house,
+Ardelia first mate, her father a passenger, and the foremast hand
+was Hephzy. And yet, so far as "running" that house was concerned the
+foremast hand ran it, as she always had done. The Captain and Ardelia
+were Morley's willing slaves; Hephzy was, and continued to be, a free
+woman. She worked from morning until night, but she obeyed only such
+orders as she saw fit.
+
+She alone did not take the new skipper at his face value.
+
+"I don't know what there was about him that made me uneasy," she has
+told me since. "Maybe there wasn't anything; perhaps that was just the
+reason. When a person is SO good and SO smart and SO polite--maybe the
+average sinful common mortal like me gets jealous; I don't know. But
+I do know that, to save my life, I couldn't swallow him whole the way
+Ardelia and Father did. I wanted to look him over first; and the more I
+looked him over, and the smoother and smoother he looked, the more sure
+I felt he'd give us all dyspepsy before he got through. Unreasonable,
+wasn't it?"
+
+For Ardelia's sake she concealed her distrust and did her best to get
+on with the new head of the family. Only one thing she did, and that
+against Motley's and her father's protest. She withdrew her own little
+fortune, left her by her mother, from Captain Barnabas's care and
+deposited it in the Ostable savings bank and in equally secure places.
+Of course she told the Captain of her determination to do this before
+she did it and the telling was the cause of the only disagreement,
+almost a quarrel, which she and her father ever had. The Captain was
+very angry and demanded reasons. Hephzibah declared she didn't know that
+she had any reasons, but she was going to do it, nevertheless. And
+she did do it. For months thereafter relations between the two were
+strained; Barnabas scarcely spoke to his older daughter and Hephzy shed
+tears in the solitude of her bedroom. They were hard months for her.
+
+At the end of them came the crash. Morley had developed a habit
+of running up to Boston on business trips connected with his
+father-in-law's investments. Of late these little trips had become more
+frequent. Also, so it seemed to Hephzy, he was losing something of
+his genial sweetness and suavity, and becoming more moody and less
+entertaining. Telegrams and letters came frequently and these he read
+and destroyed at once. He seldom played the violin now unless Captain
+Barnabas--who was fond of music of the simpler sort--requested him to do
+so and he seemed uneasy and, for him, surprisingly disinclined to talk.
+
+Hephzy was not the only one who noticed the change in him. Ardelia
+noticed it also and, as she always did when troubled or perplexed,
+sought her sister's advice.
+
+"I sha'n't ever forget that night when she came to me for the last
+time," Hephzy has told me over and over again. "She came up to my room,
+poor thing, and set down on the side of my bed and told me how worried
+she was about her husband. Father had turned in and HE was out, gone
+to the post-office or somewheres. I had Ardelia all to myself, for a
+wonder, and we sat and talked just the same as we used to before she was
+married. I'm glad it happened so. I shall always have that to remember,
+anyhow.
+
+"Of course, all her worry was about Strickland. She was afraid he was
+makin' himself sick. He worked so hard; didn't I think so? Well, so far
+as that was concerned, I had come to believe that almost any kind of
+work was liable to make HIM sick, but of course I didn't say that to
+her. That somethin' was troublin' him was plain, though I was far enough
+from guessin' what that somethin' was.
+
+"We set and talked, about Strickland and about Father and about
+ourselves. Mainly Ardelia's talk was a praise service with her husband
+for the subject of worship; she was so happy with him and idolized
+him so that she couldn't spare time for much else. But she did speak a
+little about herself and, before she went away, she whispered somethin'
+in my ear which was a dead secret. Even Father didn't know it yet,
+she said. Of course I was as pleased as she was, almost--and a little
+frightened too, although I didn't say so to her. She was always a frail
+little thing, delicate as she was pretty; not a strapping, rugged,
+homely body like me. We wasn't a bit alike.
+
+"So we talked and when she went away to bed she gave me an extra hug and
+kiss; came back to give 'em to me, just as she used to when she was a
+little girl. I wondered since if she had any inklin' of what was goin'
+to happen. I'm sure she didn't; I'm sure of it as I am that it did
+happen. She couldn't have kept it from me if she had known--not that
+night. She went away to bed and I went to bed, too. I was a long while
+gettin' to sleep and after I did I dreamed my first dream about 'Little
+Frank.' I didn't call him 'Little Frank' then, though. I don't seem to
+remember what I did call him or just how he looked except that he looked
+like Ardelia. And the next afternoon she and Strickland went away--to
+Boston, he told us."
+
+From that trip they never returned. Morley's influence over his wife
+must have been greater even than any of us thought to induce her to
+desert her father and Hephzy without even a written word of explanation
+or farewell. It is possible that she did write and that her husband
+destroyed the letter. I am as sure as Hephzy is that Ardelia did not
+know what Morley had done. But, at all events, they never came back
+to Bayport and within the week the truth became known. Morley had
+speculated, had lost and lost again and again. All of Captain Barnabas's
+own money and all intrusted to his care, including my little nest-egg,
+had gone as margins to the brokers who had bought for Morley his
+worthless eight per cent. wildcats. Hephzy's few thousands in the
+savings bank and elsewhere were all that was left.
+
+I shall condense the rest of the miserable business as much as I can.
+Captain Barnabas traced his daughter and her husband as far as the
+steamer which sailed for England. Farther he would not trace them,
+although he might easily have cabled and caused his son-in-law's arrest.
+For a month he went about in a sort of daze, speaking to almost no
+one and sitting for hours alone in his room. The doctor feared for
+his sanity, but when the breakdown came it was in the form of a second
+paralytic stroke which left him a helpless, crippled dependent, weak and
+shattered in body and mind.
+
+He lived nine years longer. Meanwhile various things happened. I managed
+to finish my preparatory school term and, then, instead of entering
+college as Mother and I had planned, I went into business--save the
+mark--taking the exalted position of entry clerk in a wholesale drygoods
+house in Boston. As entry clerk I did not shine, but I continued to keep
+the place until the firm failed--whether or not because of my connection
+with it I am not sure, though I doubt if my services were sufficiently
+important to contribute toward even this result. A month later I
+obtained another position and, after that, another. I was never
+discharged; I declare that with a sort of negative pride; but when I
+announced to my second employer my intention of resigning he bore the
+shock with--to say the least--philosophic fortitude.
+
+"We shall miss you, Knowles," he observed.
+
+"Thank you, sir," said I.
+
+"I doubt if we ever have another bookkeeper just like you."
+
+I thanked him again, fighting down my blushes with heroic modesty.
+
+"Oh, I guess you can find one if you try," I said, lightly, wishing to
+comfort him.
+
+He shook his head. "I sha'n't try," he declared. "I am not as young and
+as strong as I was and--well, there is always the chance that we might
+succeed."
+
+It was a mean thing to say--to a boy, for I was scarcely more than that.
+And yet, looking back at it now, I am much more disposed to smile and
+forgive than I was then. My bookkeeping must have been a trial to his
+orderly, pigeon-holed soul. Why in the world he and his partner put up
+with it so long is a miracle. When, after my first novel appeared,
+he wrote me to say that the consciousness of having had a part, small
+though it might be, in training my young mind upward toward the success
+it had achieved would always be a great gratification to him, I did not
+send the letter I wrote in answer. Instead I tore up my letter and his
+and grinned. I WAS a bad bookkeeper; I was, and still am, a bad business
+man. Now I don't care so much; that is the difference.
+
+Then I cared a great deal, but I kept on at my hated task. What else was
+there for me to do? My salary was so small that, as Charlie Burns, one
+of my fellow-clerks, said of his, I was afraid to count it over a bare
+floor for fear that it might drop in a crack and be lost. It was my only
+revenue, however, and I continued to live upon it somehow. I had a
+small room in a boarding-house on Shawmut Avenue and I spent most of my
+evenings there or in the reading-room at the public library. I was not
+popular at the boarding-house. Most of the young fellows there went
+out a good deal, to call upon young ladies or to dance or to go to the
+theater. I had learned to dance when I was at school and I was fond of
+the theater, but I did not dance well and on the rare occasions when
+I did accompany the other fellows to the play and they laughed and
+applauded and tried to flirt with the chorus girls, I fidgeted in my
+seat and was uncomfortable. Not that I disapproved of their conduct; I
+rather envied them, in fact. But if I laughed too heartily I was sure
+that everyone was looking at me, and though I should have liked to
+flirt, I didn't know how.
+
+The few attempts I made were not encouraging. One evening--I was
+nineteen then, or thereabouts--Charlie Burns, the clerk whom I have
+mentioned, suggested that we get dinner downtown at a restaurant and "go
+somewhere" afterward. I agreed--it happened to be Saturday night and I
+had my pay in my pocket--so we feasted on oyster stew and ice cream and
+then started for what my companion called a "variety show." Burns, who
+cherished the fond hope that he was a true sport, ordered beer with his
+oyster stew and insisted that I should do the same. My acquaintance with
+beer was limited and I never did like the stuff, but I drank it with
+reckless abandon, following each sip with a mouthful of something else
+to get rid of the taste. On the way to the "show" we met two young
+women of Burns' acquaintance and stopped to converse with them. Charlie
+offered his arm to one, the best looking; I offered mine to the discard,
+and we proceeded to stroll two by two along the Tremont Street mall of
+the Common. We had strolled for perhaps ten minutes, most of which
+time I had spent trying to think of something to say, when Burns'
+charmer--she was a waitress in one of Mr. Wyman's celebrated "sandwich
+depots," I believe--turned and, looking back at my fair one and myself,
+observed with some sarcasm: "What's the matter with your silent partner,
+Mame? Got the lock-jaw, has he?"
+
+I left them soon after that. There was no "variety show" for me that
+night. Humiliated and disgusted with myself I returned to my room at the
+boarding-house, realizing in bitterness of spirit that the gentlemanly
+dissipations of a true sport were never to be mine.
+
+As I grew older I kept more and more to myself. My work at the office
+must have been a little better done, I fancy, for my salary was raised
+twice in four years, but I detested the work and the office and all
+connected with it. I read more and more at the public library and began
+to spend the few dollars I could spare for luxuries on books. Among my
+acquaintances at the boarding-house and elsewhere I had the reputation
+of being "queer."
+
+My only periods of real pleasure were my annual vacations in summer.
+These glorious fortnights were spent at Bayport. There, at our old home,
+for Hephzibah had sold the big Cahoon house and she and her father were
+living in mine, for which they paid a very small rent, I was happy.
+I spent the two weeks in sailing and fishing, and tramping along the
+waved-washed beaches and over the pine-sprinkled hills. Even in Bayport
+I had few associates of my own age. Even then they began to call me "The
+Quahaug." Hephzy hugged me when I came and wept over me when I went away
+and mended my clothes and cooked my favorite dishes in the interval.
+Captain Barnabas sat in the big arm-chair by the sitting-room window,
+looking out or sleeping. He took little interest in me or anyone
+else and spoke but seldom. Occasionally I spent the Fourth of July or
+Christmas at Bayport; not often, but as often as I could.
+
+One morning--I was twenty-five at the time, and the day was Sunday--I
+read a story in one of the low-priced magazines. It was not much of a
+story, and, as I read it, I kept thinking that I could write as good
+a one. I had had such ideas before, but nothing had come of them. This
+time, however, I determined to try. In half an hour I had evolved a
+plot, such as it was, and at a quarter to twelve that night the story
+was finished. A highwayman was its hero and its scene the great North
+Road in England. My conceptions of highwaymen and the North Road--of
+England, too, for that matter--were derived from something I had read
+at some time or other, I suppose; they must have been. At any rate,
+I finished that story, addressed the envelope to the editor of the
+magazine and dropped the envelope and its inclosure in the corner
+mail-box before I went to bed. Next morning I went to the office as
+usual. I had not the faintest hope that the story would be accepted. The
+writing of it had been fun and the sending it to the magazine a joke.
+
+But the story was accepted and the check which I received--forty
+dollars--was far from a joke to a man whose weekly wage was half that
+amount. The encouraging letter which accompanied the check was best of
+all. Before the week ended I had written another thriller and this, too,
+was accepted.
+
+Thereafter, for a year or more, my Sundays and the most of my evenings
+were riots of ink and blood. The ink was real enough and the blood
+purely imaginary. My heroes spilled the latter and I the former.
+Sometimes my yarns were refused, but the most of them were accepted and
+paid for. Editors of other periodicals began to write to me requesting
+contributions. My price rose. For one particularly harrowing and
+romantic tale I was paid seventy-five dollars. I dressed in my best that
+evening, dined at the Adams House, gave the waiter a quarter, and saw
+Joseph Jefferson from an orchestra seat.
+
+Then came the letter from Jim Campbell requesting me to come to New York
+and see him concerning a possible book, a romance, to be written by me
+and published by the firm of which he was the head. I saw my employer,
+obtained a Saturday off, and spent that Saturday and Sunday in New York,
+my first visit.
+
+As a result of that visit began my friendship with Campbell and my first
+long story, "The Queen's Amulet." The "Amulet," or the "Omelet," just as
+you like, was a financial success. It sold a good many thousand copies.
+Six months later I broke to my employers the distressing news that their
+business must henceforth worry on as best it could without my aid; I was
+going to devote my valuable time and effort to literature.
+
+My fellow-clerks were surprised. Charlie Burns, head bookkeeper now, and
+a married man and a father, was much concerned.
+
+"But, great Scott, Kent!" he protested, "you're going to do something
+besides write books, ain't you? You ain't going to make your whole
+living that way?"
+
+"I am going to try," I said.
+
+"Great Scott! Why, you'll starve! All those fellows live in garrets and
+starve to death, don't they?"
+
+"Not all," I told him. "Only real geniuses do that."
+
+He shook his head and his good-by was anything but cheerful.
+
+My plans were made and I put them into execution at once. I shipped my
+goods and chattels, the latter for the most part books, to Bayport and
+went there to live and write in the old house where I was born. Hephzy
+was engaged as my housekeeper. She was alone now; Captain Barnabas had
+died nearly two years before.
+
+Among the Captain's papers and discovered by his daughter after his
+death was a letter from Strickland Morley. It was written from a town in
+France and was dated six years after Morley's flight and the disclosure
+of his crookedness. Captain Barnabas had never, apparently, answered the
+letter; certainly he had never told anyone of its receipt by him. The
+old man never mentioned Morley's name and only spoke of Ardelia during
+his last hours, when his mind was wandering. Then he spoke of and asked
+for her continually, driving poor Hephzibah to distraction, for her love
+for her lost sister was as great as his.
+
+The letter was the complaining whine of a thoroughly selfish man. I can
+scarcely refer to it without losing patience, even now when I understand
+more completely the circumstances under which it was written. It was not
+too plainly written or coherent and seemed to imply that other letters
+had preceded it. Morley begged for money. He was in "pitiful straits,"
+he declared, compelled to live as no gentleman of birth and breeding
+should live. As a matter of fact, the remnant of his resources, the
+little cash left from the Captain's fortune which he had taken with him
+had gone and he was earning a precarious living by playing the violin in
+a second-rate orchestra. "For poor dead Ardelia's sake," he wrote, "and
+for the sake of little Francis, your grandchild, I ask you to extend
+the financial help which I, as your heir-in-law, might demand. You may
+consider that I have wronged you, but, as you should know and must know,
+the wrong was unintentional and due solely to the sudden collapse of
+the worthless American investments which the scoundrelly Yankee brokers
+inveigled me into making."
+
+If the money was sent at once, he added, it might reach him in time to
+prevent his yielding to despondency and committing suicide.
+
+"Suicide! HE commit suicide!" sniffed Hephzy when she read me the
+letter. "He thinks too much of his miserable self ever to hurt it. But,
+oh dear! I wish Pa had told me of this letter instead of hidin' it away.
+I might have sent somethin', not to him, but to poor, motherless Little
+Frank."
+
+She had tried; that is, she had written to the French address, but
+her letter had been returned. Morley and the child of whom this letter
+furnished the only information were no longer in that locality. Hephzy
+had talked of "Little Frank" and dreamed about him at intervals ever
+since. He had come to be a reality to her, and she even cut a child's
+picture from a magazine and fastened it to the wall of her room beneath
+the engraving of Westminster Abbey, because there was something about
+the child in the picture which reminded her of "Little Frank" as he
+looked in her dreams.
+
+She and I had lived together ever since, I continuing to turn out, each
+with less enthusiasm and more labor, my stories of persons and places of
+which, as Campbell said but too truly, I knew nothing whatever. Finally
+I had reached my determination to write no more "slush," profitable
+though it might be. I invited Jim to visit me; he had come and the
+conversation at the boathouse and his remarks at the bedroom door were
+all the satisfaction that visit had brought me so far.
+
+I sat there in my study, going over all this, not so fully as I have
+set it down here, but fully nevertheless, and the possibility of
+finding even a glimmer of interest or a hint of fictional foundation in
+Hephzibah or her life or mine was as remote at the end of my thinking as
+it had been at the beginning. There might be a story there, or a part of
+a story, but I could not write it. The real trouble was that I could not
+write anything. With which, conclusion, exactly what I started with, I
+blew out the lamp and went upstairs to bed.
+
+Next morning Jim and I went for another sail from which we did not
+return until nearly dinner-time. During that whole forenoon he did not
+mention the promised "prescription," although I offered him plenty of
+opportunities and threw out various hints by way of bait.
+
+He ignored the bait altogether and, though he talked a great deal and
+asked a good many questions, both talk and questions had no bearing on
+the all-important problem which had been my real reason for inviting
+him to Bayport. He questioned me again concerning my way of spending my
+time, about my savings, how much money I had put by, and the like, but
+I was not particularly interested in these matters and they were not his
+business, to put it plainly. At least, I could not see that they were.
+
+I answered him as briefly as possible and, I am afraid, behaved rather
+boorishly to one, who next to Hephzy, was perhaps the best friend I had
+in the world. His apparent lack of interest hurt and disappointed me
+and I did not care if he knew it. My impatience must have been apparent
+enough, but if so it did not trouble him; he chatted and laughed and
+told stories all the way from the landing to the house and announced to
+Hephzy, who had stayed at home from church in order to prepare and
+cook clam chowder and chicken pie and a "Queen pudding," that he had an
+appetite like a starved shark.
+
+When, at last, that appetite was satisfied, he and I adjourned to the
+sitting-room for a farewell smoke. His train left at three-thirty and
+it lacked but an hour of that time. He had worn my suit, the one which
+Hephzibah had laid out for him the day before, but had changed to his
+own again and packed his bag before dinner.
+
+We camped in the wing chairs and he lighted his cigar. Then, to my
+astonishment, he rose and shut the door.
+
+"What did you do that for?" I asked.
+
+He came back to his chair.
+
+"Because I'm going to talk to you like a Dutch uncle," he replied, "and
+I don't want anyone, not even a Cape Cod cousin, butting in. Kent, I
+told you that before I went I was going to prescribe for you, didn't I?
+Well, I'm going to do it now. Are you ready for the prescription?"
+
+"I have been ready for it for some time," I retorted. "I began to think
+you had forgotten it altogether."
+
+"I hadn't. But I wanted it to be the last word you should hear from me
+and I didn't want to give you time to think up a lot of fool objections
+to spring on me before I left. Look here, I'm your doctor now; do you
+understand? You called me in as a specialist and what I say goes. Is
+that understood?"
+
+"I hear you."
+
+"You've got to do more than hear me. You've got to do what I tell you.
+I know what ails you. You've buried yourself in the mud down here. Wake
+up, you clam! Come out of your shell. Stir around. Stop thinking about
+yourself and think of something worth while."
+
+"Dear! dear! hark to the voice of the oracle. And what is the something
+worth while I am to think about; you?"
+
+"Yes, by George! me! Me and the dear public! Here are thirty-five
+thousand seekers after the--the higher literature, panting open-mouthed
+for another Knowles classic. And you sit back here and cover yourself
+with sand and seaweed and say you won't give it to them."
+
+"You're wrong. I say I can't."
+
+"You will, though."
+
+"I won't. You can bet high on that."
+
+"You will, and I'll bet higher. YOU write no more stories! You! Why,
+confound you, you couldn't help it if you tried. You needn't write
+another 'Black Brig' unless you want to. You needn't--you mustn't write
+anything UNTIL you want to. But, by George! you'll get up and open your
+eyes and stir around, and keep stirring until the time comes when you've
+found something or someone you DO want to write about. THEN you'll
+write; you will, for I know you. It may turn out to be what you call
+'slush,' or it may not, but you'll write it, mark my words."
+
+He was serious now, serious enough even to suit me. But what he had said
+did not suit me.
+
+"Don't talk nonsense, Jim," I said. "Don't you suppose I have thought--"
+
+"Thought! that's just it; you do nothing but think. Stop thinking.
+Stop being a quahaug--a dead one, anyway. Drop the whole business, drop
+Bayport, drop America, if you like. Get up, clear out, go to China, go
+to Europe, go to--Well, never mind, but go somewhere. Go somewhere and
+forget it. Travel, take a long trip, start for one place and, if you
+change your mind before you get there, go somewhere else. It doesn't
+make much difference where, so that you go, and see different things.
+I'm talking now, Kent Knowles, and it isn't altogether because it pays
+us to publish your books, either. You drop Bayport and drop writing. Go
+out and pick up and go. Stay six months, stay a year, stay two years,
+but keep alive and meet people and give what you flatter yourself is
+a brain house-cleaning. Confound you, you've kept it shut like one of
+these best front parlors down here. Open the windows and air out. Let
+the outside light in. An idea may come with it; it is barely possible,
+even to you!"
+
+He was out of breath by this time. I was in a somewhat similar condition
+for his tirade had taken mine away. However, I managed to express my
+feelings.
+
+"Humph!" I grunted. "And so this is your wonderful prescription. I am to
+travel, am I?"
+
+"You are. You can afford it, and I'll see that you do."
+
+"And just what port would you recommend?"
+
+"I don't care, I tell you, except that it ought to be a long way off.
+I'm not joking, Kent; this is straight. A good long jaunt around the
+world would do you a barrel of good. Don't stop to think about it, just
+start, that's all. Will you?"
+
+I laughed. The idea of my starting on a pleasure trip was ridiculous. If
+ever there was a home-loving and home-staying person it was I. The bare
+thought of leaving my comfort and my books and Hephzy made me shudder. I
+hadn't the least desire to see other countries and meet other people. I
+hated sleeping cars and railway trains and traveling acquaintances. So I
+laughed.
+
+"Sorry, Jim," I said, "but I'm afraid I can't take your prescription."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"For one reason because I don't want to."
+
+"That's no reason at all. It doesn't make any difference what you want.
+Anything else?"
+
+"Yes. I would no more wander about creation all alone than--"
+
+"Take someone with you."
+
+"Who? Will you go, yourself?"
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"I wish I could," he said, and I think he meant it. "I'd like nothing
+better. I'D keep you alive, you can bet on that. But I can't leave the
+literature works just now. I'll do my best to find someone who will,
+though. I know a lot of good fellows who travel--"
+
+I held up my hand. "That's enough," I interrupted. "They can't travel
+with me. They wouldn't be good fellows long if they did."
+
+He struck the chair arm with his fist.
+
+"You're as near impossible as you can be, aren't you," he exclaimed.
+"Never mind; you're going to do as I tell you. I never gave you bad
+advice yet, now did I?"
+
+"No--o. No, but--"
+
+"I'm not giving it to you now. You'll go and you'll go in a hurry. I'll
+give you a week to think the idea over. At the end of that time if I
+don't hear from you I'll be down here again, and I'll worry you every
+minute until you'll go anywhere to get rid of me. Kent, you must do it.
+You aren't written out, as you call it, but you are rusting out, fast.
+If you don't get away and polish up you'll never do a thing worth while.
+You'll be another what's-his-name--Ase Tidditt; that's what you'll be. I
+can see it coming on. You're ossifying; you're narrowing; you're--"
+
+I broke in here. I didn't like to be called narrow and I did not like
+to be paired with Asaph Tidditt, although our venerable town clerk is a
+good citizen and all right, in his way. But I had flattered myself that
+way was not mine.
+
+"Stop it, Jim!" I ordered. "Don't blow off any more steam in this
+ridiculous fashion. If this is all you have to say to me, you may as
+well stop."
+
+"Stop! I've only begun. I'll stop when you start, and not before. Will
+you go?"
+
+"I can't, Jim. You know I can't."
+
+"I know you can and I know you're going to. There!" rising and laying a
+hand on my shoulder, "it is time for ME to be starting. Kent, old man, I
+want you to promise me that you will do as I tell you. Will you?"
+
+"I can't, Jim. I would if I could, but--"
+
+"Will you promise me to think the idea over? Think it over carefully;
+don't think of anything else for the rest of the week? Will you promise
+me to do that?"
+
+I hesitated. I was perfectly sure that all my thinking would but
+strengthen my determination to remain at home, but I did not like to
+appear too stubborn.
+
+"Why, yes, Jim," I said, doubtfully, "I promise so much, if that is any
+satisfaction to you."
+
+"All right. I'll give you until Friday to make up your mind. If I don't
+hear from you by that time I shall take it for granted that you have
+made it up in the wrong way and I'll be here on Saturday. I'll keep the
+process up week in and week out until you give in. That's MY promise.
+Come on. We must be moving."
+
+He said good-by to Hephzy and we walked together to the station. His
+last words as we shook hands by the car steps were: "Remember--think.
+But don't you dare think of anything else." My answer was a dubious
+shake of the head. Then the train pulled out.
+
+I believe that afternoon and evening to have been the "bluest" of all my
+blue periods, and I had had some blue ones prior to Jim's visit. I was
+dreadfully disappointed. Of course I should have realized that no advice
+or "prescription" could help me. As Campbell had said, "It was up to
+me;" I must help myself; but I had been trying to help myself for months
+and I had not succeeded. I had--foolishly, I admit--relied upon him to
+give me a new idea, a fresh inspiration, and he had not done it. I was
+disappointed and more discouraged than ever.
+
+My state of mind may seem ridiculous. Perhaps it was. I was in good
+health, not very old--except in my feelings--and my stories, even the
+"Black Brig," had not been failures, by any means. But I am sure that
+every man or woman who writes, or paints, or does creative work of any
+kind, will understand and sympathize with me. I had "gone stale," that
+is the technical name for my disease, and to "go stale" is no joke. If
+you doubt it ask the writer or painter of your acquaintance. Ask him if
+he ever has felt that he could write or paint no more, and then ask
+him how he liked the feeling. The fact that he has written or painted a
+great deal since has no bearing on the matter. "Staleness" is purely a
+mental ailment, and the confident assurance of would-be doctors that its
+attacks are seldom fatal doesn't help the sufferer at the time. He knows
+he is dead, and that is no better, then, than being dead in earnest.
+
+I knew I was dead, so far as my writing was concerned, and the advice
+to go away and bury myself in a strange country did not appeal to me. It
+might be true that I was already buried in Bayport, but that was my
+home cemetery, at all events. The more I thought of Jim Campbell's
+prescription the less I felt like taking it.
+
+However, I kept on with the thinking; I had promised to do that. On
+Wednesday came a postcard from Jim, himself, demanding information.
+"When and where are you going?" he wrote. "Wire answer." I did not wire
+answer. I was not going anywhere.
+
+I thrust the card into my pocket and, turning away from the frame of
+letter boxes, faced Captain Cyrus Whittaker, who, like myself, had come
+to Simmons's for his mail. He greeted me cordially.
+
+"Hello, Kent," he hailed. "How are you?"
+
+"About the same as usual, Captain," I answered, shortly.
+
+"That's pretty fair, by the looks. You don't look too happy, though,
+come to notice it. What's the matter; got bad news?"
+
+"No. I haven't any news, good or bad."
+
+"That so? Then I'll give you some. Phoebe and I are going to start for
+California to-morrow."
+
+"You are? To California? Why?"
+
+"Oh, just for instance, that's all. Time's come when I have to go
+somewhere, and the Yosemite and the big trees look good to me. It's this
+way, Kent; I like Bayport, you know that. Nobody's more in love with
+this old town than I am; it's my home and I mean to live and die here,
+if I have luck. But it don't do for me to stay here all the time. If I
+do I begin to be no good, like a strawberry plant that's been kept in
+one place too long and has quit bearin.' The only thing to do with that
+plant is to transplant it and let it get nourishment in a new spot. Then
+you can move it back by and by and it's all right. Same way with me.
+Every once in a while I have to be transplanted so's to freshen up. My
+brains need somethin' besides post-office talk and sewin'-circle gossip
+to keep them from shrivelin'. I was commencin' to feel the shrivel,
+so it's California for Phoebe and me. Better come along, Kent. You're
+beginnin' to shrivel a little, ain't you?"
+
+Was it as apparent as all that? I was indignant.
+
+"Do I look it?" I demanded.
+
+"No--o, but I ain't sure that you don't act it. No offence, you
+understand. Just a little ground bait to coax you to come on the
+California cruise along with Phoebe and me, that's all."
+
+It was not likely that I should accept. Two are company and three a
+crowd, and if ever two were company Captain Cy and his wife were those
+two. I thanked him and declined, but I asked a question.
+
+"You believe in travel as a restorative, you do?" I asked.
+
+"Hey? I sartin do. Change your course once in awhile, same as you change
+your clothes. Wearin' the same suit and cruisin' in the same puddle all
+the time ain't healthy. You're too apt to get sick of the clothes and
+puddle both."
+
+"But you don't believe in traveling alone, do you?"
+
+"No," emphatically, "I don't, generally speakin.' If you go off by
+yourself you're too likely to keep thinkin' ABOUT yourself. Take
+somebody with you; somebody you're used to and know well and like,
+though. Travelin' with strangers is a little mite worse than travelin'
+alone. You want to be mighty sure of your shipmate."
+
+I walked home. Hephzibah was in the sitting-room, reading and knitting
+a stocking, a stocking for me. She did not need to use her eyes for the
+knitting; I am quite sure she could have knit in her sleep.
+
+"Hello, Hosy," she said, "been up to the office, have you? Any mail?"
+
+"Nothing much. Humph! Still reading that Raymond and Whitcomb circular?"
+
+"No, not that one. This is one I got last year. I've been sittin' here
+plannin' out just where I'd go and what I'd see if I could. It's the
+next best thing to really goin'."
+
+I looked at her. All at once a new idea began to crystallize in my mind.
+It was a curious idea, a ridiculous idea, and yet--and yet it seemed--
+
+"Hephzy," said I, suddenly, "would you really like to go abroad?"
+
+"WOULD I? Hosy, how you talk! You know I've been crazy to go ever since
+I was a little girl. I don't know what makes me so. Perhaps it's the
+salt water in my blood. All our folks were sailors and ship captains.
+They went everywhere. I presume likely it takes more than one generation
+to kill off that sort of thing."
+
+"And you really want to go?"
+
+"Of course I do."
+
+"Then why haven't you gone? You could afford to take a moderate-priced
+tour."
+
+Hephzy laughed over her knitting.
+
+"I guess," she said, "I haven't gone for the reason you haven't, Hosy.
+You could afford, it, too--you know you could. But how could I go and
+leave you? Why, I shouldn't sleep a minute wonderin' if you were wearin'
+clothes without holes in 'em and if you changed your flannels when the
+weather changed and ate what you ought to, and all that. You've been
+so--so sort of dependent on me and I've been so used to takin' care of
+you that I don't believe either of us would be happy anywhere without
+the other. I know certain sure _I_ shouldn't."
+
+I did not answer immediately. The idea, the amazing, ridiculous
+idea which had burst upon me suddenly began to lose something of its
+absurdity. Somehow it began to look like the answer to my riddle. I
+realized that my main objection to the Campbell prescription had been
+that I must take it alone or with strangers. And now--
+
+"Hephzy," I demanded, "would you go away--on a trip abroad--with me?"
+
+She put down the knitting.
+
+"Hosy Knowles!" she exclaimed. "WHAT are you talkin' about?"
+
+"But would you?"
+
+"I presume likely I would, if I had the chance; but it isn't likely
+that--where are you goin'?"
+
+I did not answer. I hurried out of the sitting-room and out of the
+house.
+
+When I returned I found her still knitting. The circular lay on the
+floor at her feet. She regarded me anxiously.
+
+"Hosy," she demanded, "where--"
+
+I interrupted. "Hephzy," said I, "I have been to the station to send a
+telegram."
+
+"A telegram? A TELEGRAM! For mercy sakes, who's dead?"
+
+Telegrams in Bayport usually mean death or desperate illness. I laughed.
+
+"No one is dead, Hephzy," I replied. "In fact it is barely possible that
+someone is coming to life. I telegraphed Mr. Campbell to engage passage
+for you and me on some steamer leaving for Europe next week."
+
+Hephzibah turned pale. The partially knitted sock dropped beside the
+circular.
+
+"Why--why--what--?" she gasped.
+
+"On a steamer leaving next week," I repeated. "You want to travel,
+Hephzy. Jim says I must. So we'll travel together."
+
+She did not believe I meant it, of course, and it took a long time to
+convince her. But when at last she began to believe--at least to the
+extent of believing that I had sent the telegram--her next remark was
+characteristic.
+
+"But I--I can't go, Hosy," declared Hephzibah. "I CAN'T. Who--who would
+take care of the cat and the hens?"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+In Which Hephzy and I and the Plutonia Sail Together
+
+
+The week which began that Wednesday afternoon seems, as I look back to
+it now, a bit of the remote past, instead of seven days of a year ago.
+Its happenings, important and wonderful as they were, seem trivial and
+tame compared with those which came afterward. And yet, at the time,
+that week was a season of wild excitement and delightful anticipation
+for Hephzibah, and of excitement not unmingled with doubts and
+misgivings for me. For us both it was a busy week, to put it mildly.
+
+Once convinced that I meant what I said and that I was not "raving
+distracted," which I think was her first diagnosis of my case, Hephzy's
+practical mind began to unearth objections, first to her going at all
+and, second, to going on such short notice.
+
+"I don't think I'd better, Hosy," she said. "You're awful good to ask me
+and I know you think you mean it, but I don't believe I ought to do it,
+even if I felt as if I could leave the house and everything alone. You
+see, I've lived here in Bayport so long that I'm old-fashioned and funny
+and countrified, I guess. You'd be ashamed of me."
+
+I smiled. "When I am ashamed of you, Hephzy," I replied, "I shall be on
+my way to the insane asylum, not to Europe. You are much more likely to
+be ashamed of me."
+
+"The idea! And you the pride of this town! The only author that ever
+lived in it--unless you call Joshua Snow an author, and he lived in the
+poorhouse and nobody but himself was proud of HIM."
+
+Josh Snow was Bayport's Homer, its only native poet. He wrote the
+immortal ballad of the scallop industry, which begins:
+
+
+     "On a fine morning at break of day,
+      When the ice has all gone out of the bay,
+      And the sun is shining nice and it is like spring,
+      Then all hands start to go scallop-ING."
+
+
+In order to get the fullest measure of music from this lyric gem you
+should put a strong emphasis on the final "ing." Joshua always did and
+the summer people never seemed to tire of hearing him recite it. There
+are eighteen more verses.
+
+"I shall not be ashamed of you, Hephzy," I repeated. "You know it
+perfectly well. And I shall not go unless you go."
+
+"But I can't go, Hosy. I couldn't leave the hens and the cat. They'd
+starve; you know they would."
+
+"Susanna will look after them. I'll leave money for their provender. And
+I will pay Susanna for taking care of them. She has fallen in love with
+the cat; she'll be only too glad to adopt it."
+
+"And I haven't got a single thing fit to wear."
+
+"Neither have I. We will buy complete fit-outs in Boston or New York."
+
+"But--"
+
+There were innumerable "buts." I answered them as best I could. Also
+I reiterated my determination not to go unless she did. I told of
+Campbell's advice and laid strong emphasis on the fact that he had said
+travel was my only hope. Unless she wished me to die of despair she must
+agree to travel with me.
+
+"And you have said over and over again that your one desire was to go
+abroad," I added, as a final clincher.
+
+"I know it. I know I have. But--but now when it comes to really
+goin' I'm not so sure. Uncle Bedny Small was always declarin' in
+prayer-meetin' that he wanted to die so as to get to Heaven, but when he
+was taken down with influenza he made his folks call both doctors here
+in town and one from Harniss. I don't know whether I want to go or not,
+Hosy. I--I'm frightened, I guess."
+
+Jim's answer to my telegram arrived the very next day.
+
+"Have engaged two staterooms for ship sailing Wednesday the tenth," it
+read. "Hearty congratulations on your good sense. Who is your companion?
+Write particulars."
+
+The telegram quashed the last of Hephzy's objections. The fares had been
+paid and she was certain they must be "dreadful expensive." All that
+money could not be wasted, so she accepted the inevitable and began
+preparations.
+
+I did not write the "particulars" requested. I had a feeling that
+Campbell might consider my choice of a traveling companion a queer one
+and, although my mind was made up and his opinion could not change it,
+I thought it just as well to wait until our arrival in New York before
+telling him. So I wrote a brief note stating that my friend and I would
+reach New York on the morning of the tenth and that I would see him
+there. Also I asked, for my part, the name of the steamer he had
+selected.
+
+His answer was as vague as mine. He congratulated me once more upon my
+decision, prophesied great things as the result of what he called my
+"foreign junket," and gave some valuable advice concerning the necessary
+outfit, clothes, trunks and the like. "Travel light," he wrote. "You can
+buy whatever else you may need on the other side. 'Phone as soon as you
+reach New York." But he did not tell me the name of the ship, nor for
+what port she was to sail.
+
+So Hephzy and I were obliged to turn to the newspapers for information
+upon those more or less important subjects, and we speculated and
+guessed not a little. The New York dailies were not obtainable in
+Bayport except during the summer months and the Boston publications did
+not give the New York sailings. I wrote to a friend in Boston and he
+sent me the leading journals of the former city and, as soon as they
+arrived, Hephzy sat down upon the sitting-room carpet--which she had
+insisted upon having taken up to be packed away in moth balls--to look
+at the maritime advertisements. I am quite certain it was the only time
+she sat down, except at meals, that day.
+
+I selected one of the papers and she another. We reached the same
+conclusion simultaneously.
+
+"Why, it must be--" she began.
+
+"The Princess Eulalie," I finished.
+
+"It is the only one that sails on the tenth. There is one on the
+eleventh, though."
+
+"Yes, but that one is the 'Plutonia,' one of the fastest and most
+expensive liners afloat. It isn't likely that Jim had booked us for the
+'Plutonia.' She would scarcely be in our--in my class."
+
+"Humph! I guess she isn't any too good for a famous man like you, Hosy.
+But I would look funny on her, I give in. I've read about her. She's
+always full of lords and ladies and millionaires and things. Just the
+sort of folks you write about. She'd be just the one for you."
+
+I shook my head. "My lords and ladies are only paper dolls, Hephzy," I
+said, ruefully. "I should be as lost as you among the flesh and blood
+variety. No, the 'Princess Eulalie' must be ours. She runs to Amsterdam,
+though. Odd that Jim should send me to Holland."
+
+Hephzy nodded and then offered a solution.
+
+"I don't doubt he did it on purpose," she declared. "He knew neither you
+nor I was anxious to go to England. He knows we don't think much of the
+English, after our experience with that Morley brute."
+
+"No, he doesn't know any such thing. I've never told him a word about
+Morley. And he doesn't know you're going, Hephzy. I've kept that as
+a--as a surprise for him."
+
+"Well, never mind. I'd rather go to Amsterdam than England. It's nearer
+to France."
+
+I was surprised. "Nearer to France?" I repeated. "What difference does
+that make? We don't know anyone in France."
+
+Hephzibah was plainly shocked. "Why, Hosy!" she protested. "Have you
+forgotten Little Frank? He is in France somewhere, or he was at last
+accounts."
+
+"Good Lord!" I groaned. Then I got up and went out. I had forgotten
+"Little Frank" and hoped that she had. If she was to flit about Europe
+seeing "Little Frank" on every corner I foresaw trouble. "Little Frank"
+was likely to be the bane of my existence.
+
+We left Bayport on Monday morning. The house was cleaned and swept
+and scoured and moth-proofed from top to bottom. Every door was
+double-locked and every window nailed. Burglars are unknown in Bayport,
+but that didn't make any difference. "You can't be too careful," said
+Hephzy. I was of the opinion that you could.
+
+The cat had been "farmed out" with Susanna's people and Susanna herself
+was to feed the hens twice a day, lock them in each night and let them
+out each morning. Their keeper had a carefully prepared schedule as to
+quantity and quality of food; Hephzy had prepared and furnished it.
+
+"And don't you give 'em any fish," ordered Hephzy. "I ate a chicken once
+that had been fed on fish, and--my soul!"
+
+There was quite an assemblage at the station to see us off. Captain
+Whittaker and his wife were not there, of course; they were near
+California by this time. But Mr. Partridge, the minister, was there and
+so was his wife; and Asaph Tidditt and Mr. and Mrs. Bailey Bangs and
+Captain Josiah Dimick and HIS wife, and several others. Oh, yes! and
+Angeline Phinney. Angeline was there, of course. If anything happened in
+Bayport and Angeline was not there to help it happen, then--I don't know
+what then; the experiment had never been tried in my lifetime.
+
+Everyone said pleasant things to us. They really seemed sorry to have us
+leave Bayport, but for our sakes they expressed themselves as glad. It
+would be such a glorious trip; we would have so much to tell when we got
+back. Mr. Partridge said he should plan for me to give a little talk to
+the Sunday school upon my return. It would be a wonderful thing for the
+children. To my mind the most wonderful part of the idea was that he
+should take my consent for granted. _I_ talk to the Sunday school! I,
+the Quahaug! My knees shook even at the thought.
+
+Keturah Bangs hoped we would have a "lovely time." She declared that it
+had been the one ambition of her life to go sight-seeing. But she should
+never do it--no, no! Such things wasn't for her. If she had a husband
+like some women it might be, but not as 'twas. She had long ago given up
+hopin' to do anything but keep boarders, and she had to do that all by
+herself.
+
+Bailey, her husband, grinned sheepishly but, for a wonder, he did not
+attempt defence. I gathered that Bailey was learning wisdom. It was
+time; he had attended his wife's academy a long while.
+
+Captain Dimick brought a bag of apples, greenings, some he had kept in
+the cellar over winter. "Nice to eat on the cars," he told us. Everyone
+asked us to send postcards. Miss Phinney was especially solicitous.
+
+"It'll be just lovely to know where you be and what you're doin," she
+declared.
+
+When the train had started and we had waved the last good-bys from the
+window Hephzibah expressed her opinion concerning Angeline's request.
+
+"I send HER postcards!" she snapped. "I think I see myself doin' it! All
+she cares about 'em is so she can run from Dan to Beersheba showin' 'em
+to everybody and talkin' about how extravagant we are and wonderin' if
+we borrowed the money. But there! it won't make any difference. If I
+don't send 'em to her she'll read all I send to other folks. She
+and Rebecca Simmons are close as two peas in a pod and Becky reads
+everything that comes through her husband's post-office. All that aren't
+sealed, that is--yes, and some that are, I shouldn't wonder, if they're
+not sealed tight."
+
+Her next remark was a surprising one.
+
+"Hosy," she said, "how much they all think of you, don't they. Isn't it
+nice to know you're so popular."
+
+I turned in the seat to stare at her.
+
+"Popular!" I repeated. "Hephzy, I have a good deal of respect for your
+brain, generally speaking, but there are times when I think it shows
+signs of softening."
+
+She did not resent my candor; she paid absolutely no attention to it.
+
+"I don't mean popular with everybody, rag, tag and bobtail and all,
+like--well, Eben Salters," she went on. "But the folks that count all
+respect and like you, Hosy. I know they do."
+
+Mr. Salters is our leading local statesman--since the departure of the
+Honorable Heman Atkins. He has filled every office in his native village
+and he has served one term as representative in the State House at
+Boston. He IS popular.
+
+"It is marvelous how affection can be concealed," I observed, with
+sarcasm. Hephzy was back at me like a flash.
+
+"Of course they don't tell you of it," she said. "If they did you'd
+probably tell 'em to their faces that they were fibbin' and not speak to
+'em again. But they do like you, and I know it."
+
+It was useless to carry the argument further. When Hephzy begins
+chanting my praises I find it easier to surrender--and change the
+subject.
+
+In Boston we shopped. It seems to me that we did nothing else. I
+bought what I needed the very first day, clothes, hat, steamer coat and
+traveling cap included. It did not take me long; fortunately I am of the
+average height and shape and the salesmen found me easy to please. My
+shopping tour was ended by three o'clock and I spent the remainder
+of the afternoon at a bookseller's. There was a set of "Early English
+Poets" there, nineteen little, fat, chunky volumes, not new and shiny
+and grand, but middle-aged and shabby and comfortable, which appealed to
+me. The price, however, was high; I had the uneasy feeling that I ought
+not to afford it. Then the bookseller himself, who also was fat and
+comfortably shabby, and who had beguiled from me the information that I
+was about to travel, suggested that the "Poets" would make very pleasant
+reading en route.
+
+"I have found," he said, beaming over his spectacles, "that a little
+book of this kind," patting one of the volumes, "which may be carried in
+the pocket, is a rare traveling companion. When you wish his society
+he is there, and when you tire of him you can shut him up. You can't do
+that with all traveling companions, you know. Ha! ha!"
+
+He chuckled over his joke and I chuckled with him. Humor of that kind is
+expensive, for I bought the "English Poets" and ordered them sent to my
+hotel. It was not until they were delivered, an hour later, that I
+began to wonder what I should do with them. Our trunks were likely to be
+crowded and I could not carry all of the nineteen volumes in my pockets.
+
+Hephzibah, who had been shopping on her own hook, did not return until
+nearly seven. She returned weary and almost empty-handed.
+
+"But didn't you buy ANYTHING?" I asked. "Where in the world have you
+been?"
+
+She had been everywhere, so she said. This wasn't entirely true, but I
+gathered that she had visited about every department store in the city.
+She had found ever so many things she liked, but oh dear! they did cost
+so much.
+
+"There was one traveling coat that I did want dreadfully," she said.
+"It was a dark brown, not too dark, but just light enough so it wouldn't
+show water spots. I've been out sailing enough times to know how your
+things get water-spotted. It fitted me real nice; there wouldn't have to
+be a thing done to it. But it cost thirty-one dollars! 'My soul!' says
+I, 'I can't afford THAT!' But they didn't have anything cheaper that
+wouldn't have made me look like one of those awful play-actin' girls
+that came to Bayport with the Uncle Tom's Cabin show. And I tried
+everywhere and nothin' pleased me so well."
+
+"So you didn't buy the coat?"
+
+"BUY it? My soul Hosy, didn't I tell you it cost--"
+
+"I know. What else did you see that you didn't buy?"
+
+"Hey? Oh, I saw a suit, a nice lady-like suit, and I tried it on. That
+fitted me, too, only the sleeves would have to be shortened. And it
+would have gone SO well with that coat. But the suit cost FORTY dollars.
+'Good land!' I said, 'haven't you got ANYTHING for poor folks?' And you
+ought to have seen the look that girl gave me! And a hat--oh, yes, I saw
+a hat! It was--"
+
+There was a great deal more. Summed up it amounted to something like
+this: All that suited her had been too high-priced and all that she
+considered within her means hadn't suited her at all. So she had bought
+practically nothing but a few non-essentials. And we were to leave for
+New York the following night and sail for Europe the day after.
+
+"Hephzy," said I, "you will go shopping again to-morrow morning and I'll
+go with you."
+
+Go we did, and we bought the coat and the hat and the suit and various
+other things. With each purchase Hephzy's groans and protests at my
+reckless extravagance grew louder. At last I had an inspiration.
+
+"Hephzy," said I, "when we meet Little Frank over there in France, or
+wherever he may be, you will want him to be favorably impressed with
+your appearance, won't you? These things cost money of course, but we
+must think of Little Frank. He has never seen his American relatives and
+so much depends on a first impression."
+
+Hephzy regarded me with suspicion. "Humph!" she sniffed, "that's the
+first time I ever knew you to give in that there WAS a Little Frank.
+All right, I sha'n't say any more, but I hope the foreign poorhouses are
+more comfortable than ours, that's all. If you make me keep on this way,
+I'll fetch up in one before the first month's over."
+
+We left for New York on the five o'clock train. Packing those "Early
+English Poets" was a confounded nuisance. They had to be stuffed here,
+there and everywhere amid my wearing apparel and Hephzibah prophesied
+evil to come.
+
+"Books are the worse things goin' to make creases," she declared.
+"They're all sharp edges."
+
+I had to carry two of the volumes in my pockets, even then, at the very
+start. They might prove delightful traveling companions, as the bookman
+had said, but they were most uncomfortable things to sit on.
+
+We reached the Grand Central station on time and went to a nearby hotel.
+I should have sent the heavier baggage directly to the steamer, but I
+was not sure--absolutely sure--which steamer it was to be. The "Princess
+Eulalie" almost certainly, but I did not dare take the risk.
+
+Hephzy called to me from the room adjoining mine at twelve that night.
+
+"Just think, Hosy!" she cried, "this is the last night either of us will
+spend on dry land."
+
+"Heavens! I hope it won't be as bad as that," I retorted. "Holland is
+pretty wet, so they say, but we should be able to find some dry spots."
+
+She did not laugh. "You know what I mean," she observed. "To-morrow
+night at twelve o'clock we shall be far out on the vasty deep."
+
+"We shall be on the 'Princess Eulalie,'" I answered. "Go to sleep."
+
+Neither of us spoke the truth. At twelve the following night we were
+neither "far out on the vasty deep" nor on the "Princess Eulalie."
+
+My first move after breakfast was to telephone Campbell at his city
+home. He hailed me joyfully and ordered me to stay where I was, that is,
+at the hotel. He would be there in an hour, he said.
+
+He was five minutes ahead of his promise. We shook hands heartily.
+
+"You are going to take my prescription, after all," he crowed. "Didn't
+I tell you I was the only real doctor for sick authors? Bully for you!
+Wish I was going with you. Who is?"
+
+"Come to my room and I'll show you," said I. "You may be surprised."
+
+"See here! you haven't gone and dug up another fossilized bookworm like
+yourself, have you? If you have, I refuse--"
+
+"Come and see."
+
+We took the elevator to the fourth floor and walked to my room. I opened
+the door.
+
+"Hephzy," said I, "here is someone you know."
+
+Hephzy, who had been looking out of the window of her room, hurried in.
+
+"Well, Mr. Campbell!" she exclaimed, holding out her hand, "how do you
+do? We got here all right, you see. But the way Hosy has been wastin'
+money, his and mine, buyin' things we didn't need, I began to think one
+spell we'd never get any further. Is it time to start for the steamer
+yet?"
+
+Jim's face was worth looking at. He shook Hephzibah's hand mechanically,
+but he did not speak. Instead he looked at her and at me. I didn't speak
+either; I was having a thoroughly good time.
+
+"Had we ought to start now?" repeated Hephzibah. "I'm all ready but
+puttin' on my things."
+
+Jim came out of his trance. He dropped the hand and came to me.
+
+"Are you--is she--" he stammered.
+
+"Yes," said I. "Miss Cahoon is going with me. I wrote you I had selected
+a good traveling companion. I have, haven't I?"
+
+"He would have it so, Mr. Campbell," put in Hephzy. "I said no and kept
+on sayin' it, but he vowed and declared he wouldn't go unless I did.
+I know you must think it's queer my taggin' along, but it isn't any
+queerer to you than it is to me."
+
+Jim behaved very well, considering. He did not laugh. For a moment I
+thought he was going to; if he had I don't know what I should have done,
+said things for which I might have been sorry later on, probably. But he
+did not laugh. He didn't even express the tremendous surprise which he
+must have felt. Instead he shook hands again with both of us and said it
+was fine, bully, just the thing.
+
+"To tell the truth, Miss Cahoon," he declared, "I have been rather
+fearful of this pet infant of ours. I didn't know what sort of helpless
+creature he might have coaxed into roaming loose with him in the wilds
+of Europe. I expected another babe in the woods and I was contemplating
+cabling the police to look out for them and shoo away the wolves. But
+he'll be all right now. Yes, indeed! he'll be looked out for now."
+
+"Then you approve?" I asked.
+
+He shot a side-long glance at me. "Approve!" he repeated. "I'm crazy
+about the whole business."
+
+I judged he considered me crazy, hopelessly so. I did not care. I agreed
+with him in this--the whole business was insane and Hephzibah's going
+was the only sensible thing about it, so far.
+
+His next question was concerning our baggage. I told him I had left it
+at the railway station because I was not sure where it should be sent.
+
+"What time does the 'Princess Eulalie' sail?" I asked.
+
+He looked at me oddly. "What?" he queried. "The 'Princess Eulalie'?
+Twelve o'clock, I believe, I'm not sure."
+
+"You're not sure! And it is after nine now. It strikes me that--"
+
+"Never mind what strikes you. So long as it isn't lightning you
+shouldn't complain. Have you the baggage checks? Give them to me."
+
+I handed him the checks, obediently, and he stepped to the telephone
+and gave a number. A short conversation followed. Then he hung up the
+receiver.
+
+"One of the men from the office will be here soon," he said. "He will
+attend to all your baggage, get it aboard the ship and see that it is
+put in your staterooms. Now, then, tell me all about it. What have you
+been doing since I saw you? When did you arrive? How did you happen to
+think of taking--er--Miss Cahoon with you? Tell me the whole."
+
+I told him. Hephzy assisted, sitting on the edge of a rocking chair
+and asking me what time it was at intervals of ten minutes. She was
+decidedly fidgety. When she went to Boston she usually reached the
+station half an hour before train time, and to sit calmly in a hotel
+room, when the ship that was to take us to the ends of the earth was to
+sail in two hours, was a reckless gamble with Fate, to her mind.
+
+The man from the office came and the baggage checks were turned over to
+him. So also were our bags and our umbrellas. Campbell stepped into
+the hall and the pair held a whispered conversation. Hephzy seized the
+opportunity to express to me her perturbation.
+
+"My soul, Hosy!" she whispered. "Mr. Campbell's out of his head, ain't
+he? Here we are a sittin' and sittin' and time's goin' by. We'll be too
+late. Can't you make him hurry?"
+
+I was almost as nervous as she was, but I would not have let our
+guardian know it for the world. If we lost a dozen steamers I shouldn't
+call his attention to the fact. I might be a "Babe in the Wood," but he
+should not have the satisfaction of hearing me whimper.
+
+He came back to the room a moment later and began asking more questions.
+Our answers, particularly Hephzy's, seemed to please him a great deal.
+At some of them he laughed uproariously. At last he looked at his watch.
+
+"Almost eleven," he observed. "I must be getting around to the office.
+Miss Cahoon will you excuse Kent and me for an hour or so? I have his
+letters of credit and the tickets in our safe and he had better come
+around with me and get them. If you have any last bits of shopping to
+do, now is your opportunity. Or you might wait here if you prefer. We
+will be back at half-past twelve and lunch together."
+
+I started. Hephzy sprang from the chair.
+
+"Half-past twelve!" I cried.
+
+"Lunch together!" gasped Hephzy. "Why, Mr. Campbell! the 'Princess
+Eulalie' sails at noon. You said so yourself!"
+
+Jim smiled. "I know I did," he replied, "but that is immaterial. You are
+not concerned with the 'Princess Eulalie.' Your passages are booked
+on the 'Plutonia' and she doesn't leave her dock until one o'clock
+to-morrow morning. We will meet here for lunch at twelve-thirty. Come,
+Kent."
+
+I didn't attempt an answer. I am not exactly sure what I did. A few
+minutes later I walked out of that room with Campbell and I have a hazy
+recollection of leaving Hephzy seated in the rocker and of hearing her
+voice, as the door closed, repeating over and over:
+
+"The 'Plutonia'! My soul and body! The 'Plutonia'! Me--ME on the
+'Plutonia'!"
+
+What I said and did afterwards doesn't make much difference. I know I
+called my publisher a number of disrespectful names not one of which he
+deserved.
+
+"Confound you!" I cried. "You know I wouldn't have dreamed of taking a
+passage on a ship like that. She's a floating Waldorf, everyone says so.
+Dress and swagger society and--Oh, you idiot! I wanted quiet! I wanted
+to be alone! I wanted--"
+
+Jim interrupted me.
+
+"I know you did," he said. "But you're not going to have them. You've
+been alone too much. You need a change. If I know the 'Plutonia'--and
+I've crossed on her four times--you're going to have it."
+
+He burst into a roar of laughter. We were in a cab, fortunately, or his
+behavior would have attracted attention. I could have choked him.
+
+"You imbecile!" I cried. "I have a good mind to throw the whole thing up
+and go home to Bayport. By George, I will!"
+
+He continued to chuckle.
+
+"I see you doing it!" he observed. "How about your--what's her
+name?--Hephzibah? Going to tell her that it's all off, are you? Going
+to tell her that you will forfeit your passage money and hers? Why, man,
+haven't you a heart? If she was booked for Paradise instead of Paris
+she couldn't be any happier. Don't be foolish! Your trunks are on the
+'Plutonia' and on the 'Plutonia' you'll be to-night. It's the best thing
+that can happen to you. I did it on purpose. You'll thank me come day."
+
+I didn't thank him then.
+
+We returned to the hotel at twelve-thirty, my pocket-book loaded with
+tickets and letters of credit and unfamiliar white paper notes bearing
+the name of the Bank of England. Hephzibah was still in the rocking
+chair. I am sure she had not left it.
+
+We lunched in the hotel dining-room. Campbell ordered the luncheon and
+paid for it while Hephzibah exclaimed at his extravagance. She was
+too excited to eat much and too worried concerning the extent of her
+wardrobe to talk of less important matters.
+
+"Oh dear, Hosy!" she wailed, "WHY didn't I buy another best dress. DO
+you suppose my black one will be good enough? All those lords and
+ladies and millionaires on the 'Plutonia'! Won't they think I'm dreadful
+poverty-stricken. I saw a dress I wanted awfully--in one of those Boston
+stores it was; but I didn't buy it because it was so dear. And I didn't
+tell you I wanted it because I knew if I did you'd buy it. You're so
+reckless with money. But now I wish I'd bought it myself. What WILL all
+those rich people think of me?"
+
+"About what they think of me, Hephzy, I imagine," I answered, ruefully.
+"Jim here has put up a joke on us. He is the only one who is getting any
+fun out of it."
+
+Jim, for a wonder, was serious. "Miss Cahoon," he declared, earnestly,
+"don't worry. I'm sure the black silk is all right; but if it wasn't
+it wouldn't make any difference. On the 'Plutonia' nobody notices other
+people's clothes. Most of them are too busy noticing their own. If Kent
+has his evening togs and you have the black silk you'll pass muster.
+You'll have a gorgeous time. I only wish I was going with you."
+
+He repeated the wish several times during the afternoon. He insisted on
+taking us to a matinee and Hephzy's comments on the performance seemed
+to amuse him hugely. It had been eleven years, so she said, since she
+went to the theater.
+
+"Unless you count 'Uncle Tom' or 'Ten Nights in a Barroom,' or some
+of those other plays that come to Bayport," she added. "I suppose I'm
+making a perfect fool of myself laughin' and cryin' over what's nothin'
+but make-believe, but I can't help it. Isn't it splendid, Hosy! I wonder
+what Father would say if he could know that his daughter was really
+travelin'--just goin' to Europe! He used to worry a good deal, in his
+last years, about me. Seemed to feel that he hadn't taken me around and
+done as much for me as he ought to in the days when he could. 'Twas just
+nonsense, his feelin' that way, and I told him so. But I wonder if he
+knows now how happy I am. I hope he does. My goodness! I can't realize
+it myself. Oh, there goes the curtain up again! Oh, ain't that pretty! I
+AM actin' ridiculous, I know, Mr. Campbell,' but you mustn't mind. Laugh
+at me all you want to; I sha'n't care a bit."
+
+Jim didn't laugh--then. Neither did I. He and I looked at each other
+and I think the same thought was in both our minds. Good, kind,
+whole-souled, self-sacrificing Hephzibah! The last misgiving, the last
+doubt as to the wisdom of my choice of a traveling companion vanished
+from my thoughts. For the first time I was actually glad I was going,
+glad because of the happiness it would mean to her.
+
+When we came out of the theater Campbell reached down in the crowd to
+shake my hand.
+
+"Congratulations, old man," he whispered; "you did exactly the right
+thing. You surprised me, I admit, but you were dead right. She's a
+brick. But don't I wish I was going along! Oh my! oh my! to think of you
+two wandering about Europe together! If only I might be there to see and
+hear! Kent, keep a diary; for my sake, promise me you'll keep a diary.
+Put down everything she says and read it to me when you get home."
+
+He left us soon afterward. He had given up the entire day to me and
+would, I know, have cheerfully given the evening as well, but I would
+not hear of it. A messenger from the office had brought him word of the
+presence in New York of a distinguished scientist who was preparing a
+manuscript for publication and the scientist had requested an interview
+that night. Campbell was very anxious to obtain that manuscript and I
+knew it. Therefore I insisted that he leave us. He was loathe to do so.
+
+"I hate to, Kent," he declared. "I had set my heart on seeing you on
+board and seeing you safely started. But I do want to nail Scheinfeldt,
+I must admit. The book is one that he has been at work on for years and
+two other publishing houses are as anxious as ours to get it. To-night
+is my chance, and to-morrow may be too late."
+
+"Then you must not miss the chance. You must go, and go now."
+
+"I don't like to. Sure you've got everything you need? Your tickets and
+your letters of credit and all? Sure you have money enough to carry you
+across comfortably?"
+
+"Yes, and more than enough, even on the 'Plutonia.'"
+
+"Well, all right, then. When you reach London go to our English
+branch--you have the address, Camford Street, just off the Strand--and
+whatever help you may need they'll give you. I've cabled them
+instructions. Think you can get down to the ship all right?"
+
+I laughed. "I think it fairly possible," I said. "If I lose my way, or
+Hephzy is kidnapped, I'll speak to the police or telephone you."
+
+"The latter would be safer and much less expensive. Well, good-by,
+Kent. Remember now, you're going for a good time and you're to forget
+literature. Write often and keep in touch with me. Good-by, Miss Cahoon.
+Take care of this--er--clam of ours, won't you. Don't let anyone eat him
+on the half-shell, or anything like that."
+
+Hephzy smiled. "They'd have to eat me first," she said, "and I'm pretty
+old and tough. I'll look after him, Mr. Campbell, don't you worry."
+
+"I don't. Good luck to you both--and good-by."
+
+A final handshake and he was gone. Hephzy looked after him.
+
+"There!" she exclaimed; "I really begin to believe I'm goin'. Somehow
+I feel as if the last rope had been cast off. We've got to depend on
+ourselves now, Hosy, dear. Mercy! how silly I am talkin'. A body would
+think I was homesick before I started."
+
+I did not answer, for I WAS homesick. We dined together at the hotel.
+There remained three long hours before it would be time for us to take
+the cab for the 'Plutonia's' wharf. I suggested another theater, but
+Hephzy, to my surprise, declined the invitation.
+
+"If you don't mind, Hosy," she said, "I guess I'd rather stay right here
+in the room. I--I feel sort of solemn and as if I wanted to sit still
+and think. Perhaps it's just as well. After waitin' eleven years to go
+to one theater, maybe two in the same day would be more than I could
+stand."
+
+So we sat together in the room at the hotel--sat and thought. The
+minutes dragged by. Outside beneath the windows, New York blazed and
+roared. I looked down at the hurrying little black manikins on the
+sidewalks, each, apparently, bound somewhere on business or pleasure of
+its own, and I wondered vaguely what that business or pleasure might
+be and why they hurried so. There were many single ones, of course,
+and occasionally groups of three or four, but couples were the most
+numerous. Husbands and wives, lovers and sweethearts, each with his or
+her life and interests bound up in the life and interests of the other.
+I envied them. Mine had been a solitary life, an unusual, abnormal kind
+of life. No one had shared its interests and ambitions with me, no one
+had spurred me on to higher endeavor, had loved with me and suffered
+with me, helping me through the shadows and laughing with me in the
+sunshine. No one, since Mother's death, except Hephzy and Hephzy's love
+and care and sacrifice, fine as they were, were different. I had missed
+something, I had missed a great deal, and now it was too late. Youth and
+high endeavor and ambition had gone by; I had left them behind. I was
+a solitary, queer, self-centered old bachelor, a "quahaug," as my
+fellow-Bayporters called me. And to ship a quahaug around the world is
+not likely to do the creature a great deal of good. If he lives through
+it he is likely to be shipped home again tougher and drier and more
+useless to the rest of creation than ever.
+
+Hephzibah, too, had evidently been thinking, for she interrupted my
+dismal meditations with a long sigh. I started and turned toward her.
+
+"What's the matter?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, nothin'," was the solemn answer. "I was wonderin', that's all. Just
+wonderin' if he would talk English. It would be a terrible thing if
+he could speak nothin' but French or a foreign language and I couldn't
+understand him. But Ardelia was American and that brute of a Morley
+spoke plain enough, so I suppose--"
+
+I judged it high time to interrupt.
+
+"Come, Hephzy," said I. "It is half-past ten. We may as well start at
+once."
+
+Broadway, seen through the cab windows, was bright enough, a blaze of
+flashing signs and illuminated shop windows. But --th street, at the
+foot of which the wharves of the Trans-Atlantic Steamship Company were
+located, was black and dismal. It was by no means deserted, however.
+Before and behind and beside us were other cabs and automobiles bound in
+the same direction. Hephzy peered out at them in amazement.
+
+"Mercy on us, Hosy!" she exclaimed. "I never saw such a procession of
+carriages. They're as far ahead and as far back of us as you can see. It
+is like the biggest funeral that ever was, except that they don't crawl
+along the way a funeral does. I'm glad of that, anyhow. I wish I didn't
+FEEL so much as if I was goin' to be buried. I don't know why I do. I
+hope it isn't a presentiment."
+
+If it was she forgot it a few minutes later. The cab stopped before a
+mammoth doorway in a long, low building and a person in uniform opened
+the door. The wide street was crowded with vehicles and from them were
+descending people attired as if for a party rather than an ocean voyage.
+I helped Hephzy to alight and, while I was paying the cab driver, she
+looked about her.
+
+"Hosy! Hosy!" she whispered, seizing my arm tight, "we've made a
+mistake. This isn't the steamboat; this is--is a weddin' or somethin'.
+Look! look!"
+
+I looked, looked at the silk hats, the opera cloaks, the jewels and
+those who wore them. For a moment I, too, was certain there must be a
+mistake. Then I looked upward and saw above the big doorway the flashing
+electric sign of the "Trans-Atlantic Navigation Company."
+
+"No, Hephzy," said I; "I guess it is the right place. Come."
+
+I gave her my arm--that is, she continued to clutch it with both
+hands--and we moved forward with the crowd, through the doorway, past
+a long, moving inclined plane up which bags, valises, bundles of golf
+sticks and all sorts of lighter baggage were gliding, and faced another
+and smaller door.
+
+"Lift this way! This way to the lift!" bawled a voice.
+
+"What's a lift?" whispered Hephzy, tremulously, "Hosy, what's a lift?"
+
+"An elevator," I whispered in reply.
+
+"But we can't go on board a steamboat in an elevator, can we? I never
+heard--"
+
+I don't know what she never heard. The sentence was not finished. Into
+the lift we went. On either side of us were men in evening dress and
+directly in front was a large woman, hatless and opera-cloaked, with
+diamonds in her ears and a rustle of silk at every point of her persons.
+The car reeked with perfume.
+
+The large woman wriggled uneasily.
+
+"George," she said, in a loud whisper, "why do they crowd these lifts
+in this disgusting way? And WHY," with another wriggle, "do they permit
+PERSONS with packages to use them?"
+
+As we emerged from the elevator Hephzy whispered again.
+
+"She meant us, Hosy," she said. "I've got three of those books of yours
+in this bundle under my arm. I COULDN'T squeeze 'em into either of the
+valises. But she needn't have been so disagreeable about it, need she."
+
+Still following the crowd, we passed through more wide doorways and into
+a huge loft where, through mammoth openings at our left, the cool air
+from the river blew upon our faces. Beyond these openings loomed an
+enormous something with rows of railed walks leading up its sides.
+Hephzibah and I, moving in a sort of bewildered dream, found ourselves
+ascending one of these walks. At its end was another doorway and,
+beyond, a great room, with more elevators and a mosaic floor, and
+mahogany and gilt and gorgeousness, and silk and broadcloth and satin.
+
+Hephzy gasped and stopped short.
+
+"It IS a mistake, Hosy!" she cried. "Where is the steamer?"
+
+I smiled. I felt almost as "green" and bewildered as she, but I tried
+not to show my feelings.
+
+"It is all right, Hephzy," I answered. "This is the steamer. I know it
+doesn't look like one, but it is. This is the 'Plutonia' and we are on
+board at last."
+
+Two hours later we leaned together over the rail and watched the lights
+of New York grow fainter behind us.
+
+Hephzibah drew a deep breath.
+
+"It is so," she said. "It is really so. We ARE, aren't we, Hosy."
+
+"We are," said I. "There is no doubt of it."
+
+"I wonder what will happen to us before we see those lights again."
+
+"I wonder."
+
+"Do you think HE--Do you think Little Frank--"
+
+"Hephzy," I interrupted, "if we are going to bed at all before morning,
+we had better start now."
+
+"All right, Hosy. But you mustn't say 'go to bed.' Say 'turn in.'
+Everyone calls going to bed 'turning in' aboard a vessel."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+In Which We View, and Even Mingle Slightly with, the Upper Classes
+
+
+It is astonishing--the ease with which the human mind can accustom
+itself to the unfamiliar and hitherto strange. Nothing could have been
+more unfamiliar or strange to Hephzibah and me than an ocean voyage and
+the "Plutonia." And yet before three days of that voyage were at an end
+we were accustomed to both--to a degree. We had learned to do certain
+things and not to do others. Some pet illusions had been shattered,
+and new and, at first, surprising items of information had lost their
+newness and come to be accepted as everyday facts.
+
+For example, we learned that people in real life actually wore monocles,
+something, which I, of course, had known to be true but which had seemed
+nevertheless an unreality, part of a stage play, a "dress-up" game for
+children and amateur actors. The "English swell" in the performances of
+the Bayport Dramatic Society always wore a single eyeglass, but he also
+wore Dundreary whiskers and clothes which would have won him admittance
+to the Home for Feeble-Minded Youth without the formality of an
+examination. His "English accent" was a combination of the East Bayport
+twang and an Irish brogue and he was a blithering idiot in appearance
+and behavior. No one in his senses could have accepted him as anything
+human and the eyeglass had been but a part of his unreal absurdity.
+
+And yet, here on the "Plutonia," were at least a dozen men, men of
+dignity and manner, who sported monocles and acted as if they were
+used to them. The first evening before we left port, one or two were in
+evidence; the next afternoon, in the Lounge, there were more. The
+fact that they were on an English ship, bound for England, brought the
+monocles out of their concealment, as Hephzy said, "like hoptoads after
+the first spring thaw." Her amazed comments were unique.
+
+"But what good are they, Hosy?" she demanded. "Can they see with 'em?"
+
+"I suppose they can," I answered. "You can see better with your
+spectacles than you can without them."
+
+"Humph! I can see better with two eyes than I can with one, as far as
+that goes. I don't believe they wear 'em for seein' at all. Take that
+man there," pointing to a long, lank Canadian in a yellow ulster,
+whom the irreverent smoking-room had already christened "The Duke
+of Labrador." "Look at him! He didn't wear a sign of one until this
+mornin'. If he needed it to see with he'd have worn it before, wouldn't
+he? Don't tell me! He wears it because he wants people to think he's a
+regular boarder at Windsor Castle. And he isn't; he comes from Toronto,
+and that's only a few miles from the United States. Ugh! You foolish
+thing!" as the "Duke of Labrador" strutted by our deck-chairs; "I
+suppose you think you're pretty, don't you? Well, you're not. You look
+for all the world like a lighthouse with one window in it and the lamp
+out."
+
+I laughed. "Hephzy," said I, "every nation has its peculiarities and the
+monocle is an English national institution, like--well, like tea, for
+instance."
+
+"Institution! Don't talk to me about institutions! I know the
+institution I'd put HIM in."
+
+She didn't fancy the "Duke of Labrador." Neither did she fancy tea at
+breakfast and coffee at dinner. But she learned to accept the first. Two
+sessions with the "Plutonia's" breakfast coffee completed her education.
+
+"Bring me tea," she said to our table steward on the third morning.
+"I've tried most every kind of coffee and lived through it, but I'm
+gettin' too old to keep on experimentin' with my health. Bring me tea
+and I'll try to forget what time it is."
+
+We had tea at breakfast, therefore, and tea at four in the afternoon.
+Hephzibah and I learned to take it with the rest. She watched her
+fellow-passengers, however, and as usual had something to say concerning
+their behavior.
+
+"Did you hear that, Hosy?" she whispered, as we sat together in the
+"Lounge," sipping tea and nibbling thin bread and butter and the
+inevitable plum cake. "Did you hear what that woman said about her
+husband?"
+
+I had not heard, and said so.
+
+"Well, judgin' by her actions, I thought her husband was lost and she
+was sure he had been washed overboard. 'Where is Edward?' she kept
+askin'. 'Poor Edward! What WILL he do? Where is he?' I was gettin' real
+anxious, and then it turned out that she was afraid that, if he didn't
+come soon, he'd miss his tea. My soul! Hosy, I've been thinkin' and do
+you know the conclusion I've come to?"
+
+"No," I replied. "What is it?"
+
+"Well, it sounds awfully irreverent, but I've come to the conclusion
+that the first part of the Genesis in the English scriptures must be
+different than ours. I'm sure they think that the earth was created in
+six days and, on the seventh, Adam and Eve had tea. I believe it for an
+absolute fact."
+
+The pet illusion, the loss of which caused her the most severe shock,
+was that concerning the nobility. On the morning of our first day afloat
+the passenger lists were distributed. Hephzibah was early on deck.
+Fortunately neither she nor I were in the least discomfited by the
+motion of the ship, then or at any time. We proved to be good sailors;
+Hephzibah declared it was in the blood.
+
+"For a Knowles or a Cahoon to be seasick," she announced, "would be a
+disgrace. Our men folks for four generations would turn over in their
+graves."
+
+She was early on deck that first morning and, at breakfast she and I had
+the table to ourselves. She had the passenger list propped against the
+sugar bowl and was reading the names.
+
+"My gracious, Hosy!" she exclaimed. "What, do you think! There are five
+'Sirs' on board and one 'Lord'! Just think of it! Where do you suppose
+they are?"
+
+"In their berths, probably, at this hour," I answered.
+
+"Then I'm goin' to stay right here till they come out. I'm goin' to see
+'em and know what they look like if I sit at this table all day."
+
+I smiled. "I wouldn't do that, Hephzy," said I. "We can see them at
+lunch."
+
+"Oh! O--Oh! And there's a Princess here! Princess
+B-e-r-g-e-n-s-t-e-i-n--Bergenstein. Princess Bergenstein. What do you
+suppose she's Princess of?"
+
+"Princess of Jerusalem, I should imagine," I answered. "Oh, I see!
+You've skipped a line, Hephzy. Bergenstein belongs to another person.
+The Princess's name is Berkovitchky. Russian or Polish, perhaps."
+
+"I don't care if she's Chinese; I mean to see her. I never expected to
+look at a live Princess in MY life."
+
+We stopped in the hall at the entrance to the dining-saloon to examine
+the table chart. Hephzibah made careful notes of the tables at which the
+knights and the lord and the Princess were seated and their locations.
+At lunch she consulted the notes.
+
+"The lord sits right behind us at that little table there," she said,
+excitedly. "That table for two is marked 'Lord and Lady Erkskine.' Now
+we must watch when they come in."
+
+A few minutes later a gray-haired little man, accompanied by a
+middle-aged woman entered the saloon and were seated at the small table
+by an obsequious steward. Hephzy gasped.
+
+"Why--why, Hosy!" she exclaimed. "That isn't the lord, is it? THAT?"
+
+"I suppose it must be," I answered. When our own Steward came I asked
+him.
+
+"Yes, sir," he answered, with unction. "Yes, sir, that is Lord and Lady
+Erkskine, sir, thank you, sir."
+
+Hephzy stared at Lord and Lady Erkskine. I gave our luncheon order,
+and the steward departed. Then her indignant disgust and disappointment
+burst forth.
+
+"Well! well!" she exclaimed. "And that is a real live lord! That is!
+Why, Hosy, he's the livin' image of Asaph Tidditt back in Bayport. If
+Ase could afford clothes like that he might be his twin brother. Well! I
+guess that's enough. I don't want to see that Princess any more. Just as
+like as not she'd look like Susanna Wixon."
+
+Her criticisms were not confined to passengers of other nationalities.
+Some of our own came in for comment quite as severe.
+
+"Look at those girls at that table over there," she whispered. "The two
+in red, I mean. One of 'em has got a little flag pinned on her dress.
+What do you suppose that is for?"
+
+I looked at the young ladies in red. They were vivacious damsels and
+their conversation and laughter were by no means subdued. A middle-aged
+man and woman and two young fellows were their table-mates and the group
+attracted a great deal of attention.
+
+"What has she got that flag pinned on her for?" repeated Hephzy.
+
+"She wishes everyone to know she's an American exportation, I suppose,"
+I answered. "She is evidently proud of her country."
+
+"Humph! Her country wouldn't be proud of her, if it had to listen to
+her the way we do. There's some exports it doesn't pay to advertise, I
+guess, and she and her sister are that kind. Every time they laugh I
+can see that Lady Erkskine shrivel up like a sensitive plant. I hope she
+don't think all American girls are like those two."
+
+"She probably does."
+
+"Well, IF she does she's makin' a big mistake. I might as well believe
+all Englishmen were like this specimen comin' now, and I don't believe
+that, even if I do hail from Bayport."
+
+The specimen was the "Duke of Labrador," who sauntered by, monocle in
+eye, hands in pockets and an elaborate affection of the "Oxford stoop"
+which he must have spent time and effort in acquiring. Hephzibah shook
+her head.
+
+"I wish Toronto was further from home than it is," she declared. "But
+there! I shan't worry about him. I'll leave him for Lord Erkskine and
+his wife to be ashamed of. He's their countryman, or he hopes he is.
+I've got enough to do bein' ashamed of those two American girls."
+
+It may be gathered from these conversations that Hephzy and I had been
+so fortunate as to obtain a table by ourselves. This was not the case.
+There were four seats at our table and, according to the chart of the
+dining-saloon, one of them should be occupied by a "Miss Rutledge of New
+York" and the other by "A. Carleton Heathcroft of London." Miss Rutledge
+we had not seen at all. Our table steward informed us that the lady was
+"hindisposed" and confined to her room. She was an actress, he added.
+Hephzy, whose New England training had imbued her with the conviction
+that all people connected with the stage must be highly undesirable
+as acquaintances, was quite satisfied. "Of course I'm sorry she isn't
+well," she confided to me "but I'm awfully glad she won't be at our
+table. I shouldn't want to hurt her feelin's, but I couldn't talk to her
+as I would to an ordinary person. I COULDN'T! All I should be able to
+think of was what she wore, or didn't wear, when she was actin' her
+parts. I expect I'm old-fashioned, but when I think of those girls
+in the pictures outside that theater--the one we didn't go
+to--I--well--mercy!"
+
+The "pictures" were the posters advertising a popular musical comedy
+which Campbell had at first suggested our witnessing the afternoon of
+our stay in New York. Hephzibah's shocked expression and my whispered
+advice had brought about a change of plans. We saw a perfectly
+respectable, though thrilling, melodrama instead. I might have
+relieved my relative's mind by assuring her that all actresses were not
+necessarily attired as "merry villagers," but the probable result of my
+assurance seemed scarcely worth the effort.
+
+A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire, was not acquainted with the stage, in
+a professional way, at any rate. He was a slim and elegant gentleman,
+dressed with elaborate care, who appeared profoundly bored with life
+in general and our society in particular. He sported one of Hephzibah's
+detestations, a monocle, and spoke, when he spoke at all, with a languid
+drawl and what I learned later was a Piccadilly accent. He favored us
+with his company during our first day afloat; after that we saw him
+amid the select group at that much sought--by some--center of shipboard
+prominence, "the Captain's table."
+
+Oddly enough Hephzibah did not resent the Heathcroft condescension and
+single eyeglass as much as I had expected. She explained her feeling in
+this way.
+
+"I know he's dreadfully high and mighty and all that," she said. "And
+the way he said 'Really?' when you and I spoke to him was enough to
+squelch even an Angelina Phinney. But I didn't care so much. Anybody,
+even a body as green as I am, can see that he actually IS somebody when
+he's at home, not a make-believe, like that Toronto man. And I'm glad
+for our waiter's sake that he's gone somewhere else. The poor thing
+bowed so low when he came in and was so terribly humble every time Mr.
+Heathcroft spoke to him. I should hate to feel I must say 'Thank you'
+when I was told that the food was 'rotten bad.' I never thought 'rotten'
+was a nice word, but all these English folks say it. I heard that pretty
+English girl over there tell her father that it was a 'jolly rotten
+mornin',' and she's as nice and sweet as she can be. Well, I'm
+learnin' fast, Hosy. I can see a woman smoke a cigarette now and not
+shiver--much. Old Bridget Doyle up in West Bayport, used to smoke a
+pipe and the whole town talked about it. She'd be right at home in that
+sittin'-room they call a 'Lounge' after dinner, wouldn't she?"
+
+My acquaintance with A. Carleton Heathcroft, which appeared to have
+ended almost as soon as it began, was renewed in an odd way. I was in
+the "Smoke-Room" after dinner the third evening out, enjoying a cigar
+and idly listening to the bidding for pools on the ship's run, that
+time-honored custom which helps the traveling gentleman of sporting
+proclivities to kill time and lose money. On board the "Plutonia," with
+its unusually large quota of millionaires and personages, the bidding
+was lively and the prices paid for favored numbers high. Needless to say
+I was not one of the bidders. My interest was merely casual.
+
+The auctioneer that evening was a famous comedian with an international
+reputation and his chatter, as he urged his hearers to higher bids, was
+clever and amusing. I was listening to it and smiling at the jokes when
+a voice at my elbow said:
+
+"Five pounds."
+
+I turned and saw that the speaker was Heathcroft. His monocle was in his
+eye, a cigarette was between his fingers and he looked as if he had
+been newly washed and ironed and pressed from head to foot. He nodded
+carelessly and I bowed in return.
+
+"Five pounds," repeated Mr. Heathcroft.
+
+The auctioneer acknowledged the bid and proceeded to urge his audience
+on to higher flights. The flights were made and my companion capped each
+with one more lofty. Eight, nine, ten pounds were bid. Heathcroft bid
+eleven. Someone at the opposite side of the room bid twelve. It seemed
+ridiculous to me. Possibly my face expressed my feeling; at any rate
+something caused the immaculate gentleman in the next chair to address
+me instead of the auctioneer.
+
+"I say," he said, "that's running a bit high, isn't it?"
+
+"It seems so to me," I replied. "The number is five hundred and
+eighty-six and I think we shall do better than that."
+
+"Oh, do you! Really! And why do you think so, may I ask?"
+
+"Because we are having a remarkably smooth sea and a favorable wind."
+
+"Oh, but you forget the fog. There's quite a bit of fog about us now,
+isn't there."
+
+I wish I could describe the Heathcroft manner of saying "Isn't there." I
+can't, however; there is no use trying.
+
+"It will amount to nothing," I answered. "The glass is high and there
+is no indication of bad weather. Our run this noon was five hundred and
+ninety-one, you remember."
+
+"Yes. But we did have extraordinarily good weather for that."
+
+"Why, not particularly good. We slowed down about midnight. There was
+a real fog then and the glass was low. The second officer told me it
+dropped very suddenly and there was a heavy sea running. For an hour
+between twelve and one we were making not much more than half our usual
+speed."
+
+"Really! That's interesting. May I ask if you and the second officer are
+friends?"
+
+"Scarcely that. He and I exchanged a few words on deck this morning,
+that's all."
+
+"But he told you about the fog and the--what is it--the glass, and all
+that. Fancy! that's extremely odd. I'm acquainted with the captain in
+a trifling sort of way; I sit at his table, I mean to say. And I assure
+you he doesn't tell us a word. And, by Jove, we cross-question him, too!
+Rather!"
+
+I smiled. I could imagine the cross-questioning.
+
+"I suppose the captain is obliged to be non-committal," I observed.
+"That's part of his job. The second officer meant to be, I have no
+doubt, but perhaps my remarks showed that I was really interested in
+ships and the sea. My father and grandfather, too, for that matter were
+seafaring men, both captains. That may have made the second officer more
+communicative. Not that he said anything of importance, of course."
+
+Mr. Heathcroft seemed very interested. He actually removed his eyeglass.
+
+"Oh!" he exclaimed. "You know something about it, then. I thought it was
+extraordinary, but now I see. And you think our run will be better than
+five hundred and eighty?"
+
+"It should be, unless there is a remarkable change. This ship makes over
+six hundred, day after day, in good weather. She should do at least six
+hundred by to-morrow noon, unless there is a sudden change, as I said."
+
+"But six hundred would be--it would be the high field, by Jove!"
+
+"Anything over five hundred and ninety-four would be that. The numbers
+are very low to-night. Far too low, I should say."
+
+Heathcroft was silent. The auctioneer, having forced the bid on number
+five hundred and eighty-six up to thirteen pounds ten, was imploring his
+hearers not to permit a certain winner to be sacrificed at this absurd
+figure.
+
+"Fourteen pounds, gentlemen," he begged. "For the sake of the wife
+and children, for the honor of the star spangled banner and the union
+jack,--DON'T hesitate--don't even stammer--below fourteen pounds."
+
+He looked in our direction as he said it. Mr. Heathcroft made no sign.
+He produced a gold cigarette box and extended it in my direction.
+
+"Will you?" he inquired.
+
+"No, thank you," I replied. "I will smoke a cigar, if you don't mind."
+
+He did not appear to mind. He lighted his cigarette, readjusted his
+monocle, and stared stonily at the gesticulating auctioneer.
+
+The bidding went on. One by one the numbers were sold until all were
+gone. Then the auctioneer announced that bids for the "high field," that
+is, any number above five hundred and ninety-four, were in order. My
+companion suddenly came to life.
+
+"Ten pounds," he called.
+
+I started. "For mercy sake, Mr. Heathcroft," I protested, "don't let
+anything I have said influence your bidding. I may be entirely wrong."
+
+He turned and surveyed me through the eyeglass.
+
+"You may wish to bid yourself," he drawled. "Careless of me. So sorry.
+Shall I withdraw the bid?"
+
+"No, no. I'm not going to bid. I only--"
+
+"Eleven pounds I am offered, gentlemen," shouted the auctioneer. "Eleven
+pounds! It would be like robbing an orphan asylum. Do I hear twelve?"
+
+He heard twelve immediately--from Mr. Heathcroft.
+
+Thirteen pounds were bid. Evidently others shared my opinion concerning
+the value of the "high field." Heathcroft promptly raised it to
+fourteen. I ventured another protest. So far as effect was concerned I
+might as well have been talking to one of the smoke-stacks. The bidding
+was lively and lengthy. At last the "high field" went to Mr. A. Carleton
+Heathcroft for twenty-one pounds, approximately one hundred and five
+dollars. I thought it time for me to make my escape. I was wondering
+where I should hide next day, when the run was announced.
+
+"Greatly obliged to you, I'm sure," drawled the fortunate bidder. "Won't
+you join me in a whisky and soda or something?"
+
+I declined the whisky and soda.
+
+"Sorry," said Mr. Heathcroft. "Jolly grateful for putting me right,
+Mr.--er--"
+
+"Knowles is my name," I said. He might have remembered it; I remembered
+his perfectly.
+
+"Of course--Knowles. Thank you so much, Knowles. Thank you and the
+second officer. Nothing like having professional information--eh, what?
+Rather!"
+
+There seemed to be no doubt in his mind that he was going to win. There
+was more than a doubt in mine. I told Hephzy of my experience when I
+joined her in the Lounge. My attempts to say "Really" and "Isn't it" and
+"Rather" in the Heathcroft manner and with the Heathcroft accent pleased
+her very much. As to the result of my unpremeditated "tip" she was quite
+indifferent.
+
+"If he loses it will serve him good and right," she declared. "Gamblin's
+poor business and I sha'n't care if he does lose."
+
+"I shall," I observed. "I feel responsible in a way and I shall be
+sorry."
+
+"'SO sorry,' you mean, Hosy. That's what that blunderin' steward said
+when he stepped on my skirt and tore the gatherin' all loose. I told him
+he wasn't half as sorry as I was."
+
+But at noon next day, when the observation was taken and the run posted
+on the bulletin board the figure was six hundred and two. My "tip"
+had been a good one after all and A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire,
+was richer by some seven hundred dollars, even after the expenses of
+treating the "smoke-room" and feeing the smoke-room steward had been
+deducted. I did not visit the smoke-room to share in the treat. I feared
+I might be expected to furnish more professional information. But that
+evening a bottle of vintage champagne was produced by our obsequious
+table steward. "With Mr. 'Eathcroft's compliments, sir, thank you, sir,"
+announced the latter.
+
+Hephzibah looked at the gilt-topped bottle.
+
+"WHAT in the world will we do with it, Hosy?" she demanded.
+
+"Why, drink it, I suppose," I answered. "It is the only thing we can do.
+We can't send it back."
+
+"But you can't drink the whole of it, and I'm sure I sha'n't start in to
+be a drunkard at my age. I'll take the least little bit of a drop, just
+to see what it tastes like. I've read about champagne, just as I've read
+about lords and ladies, all my life, but I never expected to see either
+of 'em. Well there!" after a very small sip from the glass, "there's
+another pet idea gone to smash. A lord looks like Ase Tidditt, and
+champagne tastes like vinegar and soda. Tut! tut! tut! if I had to drink
+that sour stuff all my life I'd probably look like Asaph, too. No wonder
+that Erkskine man is such a shriveled-up thing."
+
+I glanced toward the captain's table. Mr. Heathcroft raised his glass.
+I bowed and raised mine. The group at that table, the captain included,
+were looking in my direction. I judged that my smoke-room acquaintance
+had told them of my wonderful "tip." I imagined I could see the
+sarcastic smile upon the captain's face. I did not care for that kind of
+celebrity.
+
+But the affair had one quite unexpected result. The next forenoon as
+Hephzibah and I were reclining in our deck-chairs the captain himself,
+florid-faced, gray-bearded, gold-laced and grand, halted before us.
+
+"I believe your name is Knowles, sir," he said, raising his cap.
+
+"It is," I replied. I wondered what in the world was coming next. Was he
+going to take me to task for talking with his second officer?
+
+"Your home is in Bayport, Massachusetts, I see by the passenger list,"
+he went on. "Is that Bayport on Cape Cod, may I ask?"
+
+"Yes," I replied, more puzzled than ever.
+
+"I once knew a Knowles from your town, sir. He was a seafaring man
+like myself. His name was Philander Knowles, and when I knew him he was
+commander of the bark 'Ranger.'"
+
+"He was my father," I said.
+
+Captain Stone extended his hand.
+
+"Mr. Knowles," he declared, "this is a great pleasure, sir. I knew
+your father years ago when I was a young man, mate of one of our ships
+engaged in the Italian fruit trade. He was very kind to me at that time.
+I have never forgotten it. May I sit down?"
+
+The chair next to ours happened to be unoccupied at the moment and
+he took it. I introduced Hephzibah and we chatted for some time. The
+captain appeared delighted to meet the son of his old acquaintance.
+Father and he had met in Messina--Father's ship was in the fruit trade
+also at that time--and something or other he had done to help young
+Stone had made a great impression on the latter. I don't know what the
+something was, whether it was monetary help or assistance in getting out
+of a serious scrape; Stone did not tell me and I didn't ask. But, at any
+rate, the pair had become very friendly there and at subsequent meetings
+in the Mediterranean ports. The captain asked all sorts of questions
+about Father, his life, his family and his death aboard the sinking
+"Monarch of the Seas." Hephzibah furnished most of the particulars. She
+remembered them well.
+
+Captain Stone nodded solemnly.
+
+"That is the way the master of a ship should die," he declared. "Your
+father, Mr. Knowles, was a man and he died like one. He was my first
+American acquaintance and he gave me a new idea of Yankees--if you'll
+excuse my calling them that, sir."
+
+Hephzy had a comment to make.
+
+"There are SOME pretty fair Yankees," she observed, drily. "ALL the good
+folks haven't moved back to England yet."
+
+The captain solemnly assured her that he was certain of it.
+
+"Though two of the best are on their way," I added, with a wink at
+Hephzy. This attempt at humor was entirely lost. Our companion said he
+presumed I referred to Mr. and Mrs. Van Hook, who sat next him at table.
+
+"And that leads me to ask if Miss Cahoon and yourself will not join us,"
+he went on. "I could easily arrange for two places."
+
+I looked at Hephzy. Her face expressed decided disapproval and she shook
+her head.
+
+"Thank you, Captain Stone," I said; "but we have a table to ourselves
+and are very comfortable. We should not think of troubling you to that
+extent."
+
+He assured us it would not be a trouble, but a pleasure. We were firm in
+our refusal, however, and he ceased to urge. He declared his intention
+of seeing that our quarters were adequate, offered to accompany us
+through the engine-rooms and the working portions of the ship whenever
+we wished, ordered the deck steward, who was all but standing on his
+head in obsequious desire to oblige, to take good care of us, shook
+hands once more, and went away. Hephzibah drew a long breath.
+
+"My goodness!" she exclaimed; "sit at HIS table! I guess not! There's
+another lord and his wife there, to say nothin' of the Van Hooks. I'd
+look pretty, in my Cape Cod clothes, perched up there, wouldn't I! A hen
+is all right in her place, but she don't belong in a peacock cage. And
+they drink champagne ALL the time there; I've watched 'em. No thank you,
+I'll stay in the henyard along with the everyday fowls."
+
+"Odd that he should have known Father," I observed. "Well, I suppose the
+proper remark to make, under the circumstances, is that this is a small
+world. That is what nine-tenths of Bayport would say."
+
+"It's what I say, too," declared Hephzy, with emphasis. "Well, it's
+awful encouraging for us, isn't it."
+
+"Encouraging? What do you mean?"
+
+"Why, I mean about Little Frank. It makes me feel surer than ever that
+we shall run across him."
+
+I suppressed a groan. "Hephzy," said I, "why on earth should the fact
+that Captain Stone knew my father encourage you to believe that we shall
+meet a person we never knew at all?"
+
+"Hosy, how you do talk! If you and I, just cruisin' this way across
+the broadside of creation, run across a man that knew Cousin Philander
+thirty-nine years ago, isn't it just as reasonable to suppose we'll meet
+a child who was born twenty-one years ago? I should say 'twas! Hosy,
+I've had a presentiment about this cruise of ours: We're SENT on it;
+that's what I think--we're sent. Oh, you can laugh! You'll see by and
+by. THEN you won't laugh."
+
+"No, Hephzy," I admitted, resignedly, "I won't laugh then, I promise
+you. If _I_ ever reach the stage where I see a Little Frank I promise
+you I sha'n't laugh. I'll believe diseases of the brain are contagious,
+like the measles, and I'll send for a doctor."
+
+The captain met us again in the dining-room that evening. He came
+over to our table and chatted for some time. His visit caused quite a
+sensation. Shipboard society is a little world by itself and the ship's
+captain is the head of it. Persons who would, very likely, have passed
+Captain Stone on Fifth Avenue or Piccadilly without recognizing him now
+toadied to him as if he were a Czar, which, in a way, I suppose he is
+when afloat. His familiarity with us shed a sort of reflected glory upon
+Hephzy and me. Several of our fellow-passengers spoke to us that evening
+for the first time.
+
+A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire, was not among the Lounge habitues; the
+smoke-room was his accustomed haunt. But the next forenoon as I leaned
+over the rail of the after promenade deck watching the antics of the
+"Stokers' Band" which was performing for the benefit of the second-class
+with an eye toward pennies and small silver from all classes, Heathcroft
+sauntered up and leaned beside me. We exchanged good-mornings. I thanked
+him for the wine.
+
+"Quite unnecessary, Knowles," he said. "Least I could do, it seems to
+me. I pulled quite a tidy bit from that inside information of yours;
+I did really. Awfully obliged, and all that. You seem to have a wide
+acquaintance among the officers. That captain chap tells us he knew your
+father--the sailor one you told me of, you understand."
+
+Having had but one father I understood perfectly. We chatted in a
+inconsequential way for a short time. In the course of our conversation
+I happened to mention that I wrote, professionally. To my surprise
+Heathcroft was impressed.
+
+"Do you, really!" he exclaimed. "That's interesting, isn't it now! I
+have a cousin who writes. Don't know why she does it; she doesn't get
+her writings printed, but she keeps on. It is a habit of hers. Curious
+dissipation--eh, what? Does that--er--Miss--that companion of yours,
+write also?"
+
+I laughed and informed him that writing was not one of Hephzibah's bad
+habits.
+
+"Extraordinary woman, isn't she," he said. "I met her just now, walking
+about, and I happened to mention that I was taking the air. She said she
+wouldn't quarrel with me because of that. The more I took the better
+she would like it; she could spare about a gale and a quarter and not
+feel--What did she call it? Oh yes, 'scrimped.' What is 'scrimped,' may
+I ask?"
+
+I explained the meaning of "scrimped." Heathcroft was much amused.
+
+"It WAS blowing a bit strong up forward there," he declared. "That was a
+clever way of putting it, wasn't it?"
+
+"She is a clever woman," I said, shortly.
+
+Heathcroft did not enthuse.
+
+"Oh," he said dubiously. "A relative of yours, I suppose."
+
+"A cousin, that's all."
+
+"One's relatives, particularly the feminine relatives, incline toward
+eccentricity as they grow older, don't you think. I have an aunt down in
+Sussex, who is queer. A good sort, too, no end of money, a big place
+and all that, but odd. She and I get on well together--I am her pet, I
+suppose I may say--but, by Jove, she has quarreled with everyone else in
+the family. I let her have her own way and it has convinced her that I
+am the only rational Heathcroft in existence. Do you golf, Knowles?"
+
+"I attempt something in that line. I doubt if my efforts should be
+called golf."
+
+"It is a rotten game when one is off form, isn't it. If you are down
+in Sussex and I chance to be there I should be glad to have you play an
+eighteen with me. Burglestone Bogs is the village. Anyone will direct
+you to the Manor. If I'm not there, introduce yourself to my aunt. Lady
+Kent Carey is the name. She'll be jolly glad to welcome you if you
+tell her you know me. I'm her sole interest in life, the greenhouses
+excepted, of course. Cultivating roses and rearing me are her hobbies."
+
+I thought it improbable that the golfers of Burglestone Bogs would ever
+be put to shame by the brilliancy of my game. I thanked him, however.
+I was surprised at the invitation. I had been under the impression,
+derived from my reading, that the average Englishman required an
+acquaintance of several months before proffering hospitality. No doubt
+Mr. Heathcroft was not an average Englishman.
+
+"Will you be in London long?" he asked. "I suppose not. You're probably
+off on a hurricane jaunt from one end of the Continent to the other. Two
+hours at Stratford, bowing before Shakespeare's tomb, a Derby through
+the cathedral towns, and then the Channel boat, eh? That's the American
+way, isn't it?"
+
+"It is not our way," I replied. "We have no itinerary. I don't know
+where we may go or how long we shall stay."
+
+Evidently I rose again in his estimation.
+
+"Have you picked your hotel in London?" he inquired.
+
+"No. I shall be glad of any help you may be kind enough to give along
+that line."
+
+He reflected. "There's a decent little hotel in Mayfair," he said, after
+a moment. "A private sort of shop. I don't use it myself; generally put
+up at the club, I mean to say. But my aunt and my sisters do. They're
+quite mad about it. It is--Ah--Bancroft's--that's it, Bancroft's Hotel.
+I'll give you the address before I leave."
+
+I thanked him again. He was certainly trying to be kind. No doubt the
+kindness was due to his sense of obligation engendered by what he called
+my "professional information," but it was kindness all the same.
+
+The first bugle for luncheon sounded. Mr. Heathcroft turned to go.
+
+"I'll see you again, Knowles," he said, "and give you the hotel street
+and number and all that. Hope you'll like it. If you shouldn't the
+Langham is not bad--quiet and old-fashioned, but really very fair.
+And if you care for something more public and--Ah--American, there are
+always the Savoy and the Cecil. Here is my card. If I can be of any
+service to you while you are in town drop me a line at my clubs, either
+of them. I must be toddling. By, by."
+
+He "toddled" and I sought my room to prepare for luncheon.
+
+Two days more and our voyage was at an end. We saw more of our friend
+the captain during those days and of Heathcroft as well. The former
+fulfilled his promise of showing us through the ship, and Hephzy and I,
+descending greasy iron stairways and twisting through narrow passages,
+saw great rooms full of mighty machinery, and a cavern where perspiring,
+grimy men, looking but half-human in the red light from the furnace
+mouths, toiled ceaselessly with pokers and shovels.
+
+We stood at the forward end of the promenade deck at night, looking out
+into the blackness, and heard the clang of four bells from the shadows
+at the bow, the answering clang from the crow's-nest on the foremast,
+and the weird cry of "All's well" from the lookouts. This experience
+made a great impression on us both. Hephzy expressed my feeling exactly
+when she said in a hushed whisper:
+
+"There, Hosy! for the first time I feel as if I really was on board a
+ship at sea. My father and your father and all our men-folks for ever
+so far back have heard that 'All's well'--yes, and called it, too,
+when they first went as sailors. Just think of it! Why Father was only
+sixteen when he shipped; just a boy, that's all. I've heard him say
+'All's well' over and over again; 'twas a kind of byword with him. This
+whole thing seems like somethin' callin' to me out of the past and gone.
+Don't you feel it?"
+
+I felt it, as she did. The black night, the quiet, the loneliness, the
+salt spray on our faces and the wash of the waves alongside, the high
+singsong wail from lookout to lookout--it WAS a voice from the past, the
+call of generations of sea-beaten, weather-worn, brave old Cape Codders
+to their descendants, reminding the latter of a dead and gone profession
+and of thousands of fine, old ships which had plowed the ocean in the
+days when "Plutonias" were unknown.
+
+We attended the concert in the Lounge, and the ball on the promenade
+deck which followed. Mr. Heathcroft, who seemed to have made the
+acquaintance of most of the pretty girls on board, informed us in the
+intervals between a two-step and a tango, that he had been "dancing
+madly."
+
+"You Americans are extraordinary people," he added. "Your dances are
+as extraordinary as your food. That Mrs. Van Hook, who sits near me
+at table, was indulging in--what do you call them?--oh, yes, griddle
+cakes--this morning. Begged me to try them. I declined. Horrid things
+they were. Round, like a--like a washing-flannel, and swimming in
+treacle. Frightful!"
+
+"And that man," commented Hephzy, "eats cold toast and strawberry
+preserves for breakfast and washes 'em down with three cups of tea. And
+he calls nice hot pancakes frightful!"
+
+At ten o'clock in the morning of the sixth day we sighted the Irish
+coast through the dripping haze which shrouded it and at four we dropped
+anchor abreast the breakwater of the little Welsh village which was to
+be our landing place. The sun was shining dimly by this time and the
+rounded hills and the mountains beyond them, the green slopes dotted
+with farms and checkered with hedges and stone walls, the gray stone
+fort with its white-washed barrack buildings, the spires and chimneys
+of the village in the hollow--all these combined to make a picture which
+was homelike and yet not like home, foreign and yet strangely familiar.
+
+We leaned over the rail and watched the trunks and boxes and bags and
+bundles shoot down the slide into the baggage and mail-boat which lay
+alongside. Hephzy was nervous.
+
+"They'll smash everything to pieces--they surely will!" she declared.
+"Either that or smash themselves, I don't know which is liable to happen
+first. Mercy on us! Did you see that? That box hit the man right in the
+back!"
+
+"It didn't hurt him," I said, reassuringly. "It was nothing but a
+hat-box."
+
+"Hurt HIM--no! But I guess likely it didn't do the hat much good. I
+thought baggage smashin' was an American institution, but they've got
+some experts over here. Oh, my soul and body! there goes MY trunk--end
+over end, of course. Well, I'm glad there's no eggs in it, anyway.
+Josiah Dimick always used to carry two dozen eggs to his daughter-in-law
+every time he went to Boston. He had 'em in a box once and put the box
+on the seat alongside of him and a big fat woman came and sat--Oh! that
+was your trunk, Hosy! Did you hear it hit? I expect every one of those
+'English Poets' went from top to bottom then, right through all your
+clothes. Never mind, I suppose it's all part of travelin'."
+
+Mr. Heathcroft, looking more English than ever in his natty top coat,
+and hat at the back of his head, sauntered up. He was, for him, almost
+enthusiastic.
+
+"Looking at the water, were you?" he queried. "Glorious color, isn't it.
+One never sees a sea like that or a sky like that anywhere but here at
+home."
+
+Hephzy looked at the sea and sky. It was plain that she wished to
+admire, for his sake, but her admiration was qualified.
+
+"Don't you think if they were a little brighter and bluer they'd be
+prettier?" she asked.
+
+Heathcroft stared at her through his monocle.
+
+"Bluer?" he repeated. "My dear woman, there are no skies as blue as the
+English skies. They are quite celebrated--really."
+
+He sauntered on again, evidently disgusted at our lack of appreciation.
+
+"He must be color-blind," I observed. Hephzy was more charitable.
+
+"I guess likely everybody's home things are best," she said. "I suppose
+this green-streaked water and those gray clouds do look bright and blue
+to him. We must make allowances, Hosy. He never saw an August mornin' at
+Bayport, with a northwest wind blowin' and the bay white and blue to the
+edge of all creation. That's been denied him. He means well, poor thing;
+he don't know any better."
+
+An hour later we landed from the passenger tender at a stone pier
+covered with substantial stone buildings. Uniformed custom officers and
+uniformed policemen stood in line as we came up the gang-plank. Behind
+them, funny little locomotives attached to queer cars which appeared to
+be all doors, puffed and panted.
+
+Hephzibah looked about her.
+
+"Yes," she said, with conviction. "I'm believin' it more and more all
+the time. It is England, just like the pictures. How many times I've
+seen engines like that in pictures, and cars like that, too. I never
+thought I'd ride in 'em. My goodness me? Hephzibah Jane Cahoon, you're
+in England--YOU are! You needn't be afraid to turn over for fear of
+wakin' up, either. You're awake and alive and in England! Hosy," with a
+sudden burst of exuberance, "hold on to me tight. I'm just as likely to
+wave my hat and hurrah as I am to do anything. Hold on to me--tight."
+
+We got through the perfunctory customs examination without trouble. Our
+tickets provided by Campbell, included those for the railway journey to
+London. I secured a first-class compartment at the booking-office and
+a guard conducted us to it and closed the door. Another short delay and
+then, with a whistle as queer and unfamiliar as its own appearance, the
+little locomotive began to pull our train out of the station.
+
+Hephzy leaned back against the cushions with a sigh of supreme content.
+
+"And now," said I, "for London. London! think of it, Hephzy!"
+
+Hephzy shook her head.
+
+"I'm thinkin' of it," she said. "London--the biggest city in the world!
+Who knows, Hosy? France is such a little ways off; probably Little Frank
+has been to London a hundred times. He may even be there now. Who knows?
+I shouldn't be surprised if we met him right in London. I sha'n't be
+surprised at anything anymore. I'm in England and on my way to London;
+that's surprise enough. NOTHIN' could be more wonderful than that."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+In Which We Are Received at Bancroft's Hotel and I Receive a Letter
+
+
+It was late when we reached London, nearly eleven o'clock. The long
+train journey was a delight. During the few hours of daylight and dusk
+we peered through the car windows at the scenery flying past; at the
+villages, the green fields, the hedges, the neat, trim farms.
+
+"Everything looks as if it has been swept and dusted," declared Hephzy.
+"There aren't any waste places at all. What do they do with their spare
+land?"
+
+"They haven't any," I answered. "Land is too valuable to waste. There's
+another thatched roof. It looks like those in the pictures, doesn't it."
+
+Hephzy nodded. "Just exactly," she said. "Everything looks like the
+pictures. I feel as if I'd seen it all before. If that engine didn't
+toot so much like a tin whistle I should almost think it was a picture.
+But it isn't--it isn't; it's real, and you and I are part of it."
+
+We dined on the train. Night came and our window-pictures changed
+to glimpses of flashing lights interspersed with shadowy blotches of
+darkness. At length the lights became more and more frequent and began
+to string out in long lines marking suburban streets. Then the little
+locomotive tooted its tin whistle frantically and we rolled slowly under
+a great train shed--Paddington Station and London itself.
+
+Amid the crowd on the platform Hephzy and I stood, two lone wanderers
+not exactly sure what we should do next. About us the busy crowd jostled
+and pushed. Relatives met relatives and fathers and mothers met sons and
+daughters returning home after long separations. No one met us, no
+one was interested in us at all, except the porters and the cabmen.
+I selected a red-faced chunky porter who was a decidedly able person,
+apparently capable of managing anything except the letter h. The
+acrobatics which he performed with that defenceless consonant were
+marvelous. I have said that I selected him; that he selected me would be
+nearer the truth.
+
+"Cab, sir. Yes, sir, thank you, sir," he said. "Leave that to me, sir.
+Will you 'ave a fourwheeler or a hordinary cab, sir?"
+
+I wasn't exactly certain what a fourwheeler might be. I had read about
+them often enough, but I had never seen one pictured and properly
+labeled. For the matter of that, all the vehicles in sight appeared to
+have four wheels. So I said, at a venture, that I thought an ordinary
+cab would do.
+
+"Yes, sir; 'ere you are, sir. Your boxes are in the luggage van, I
+suppose, sir."
+
+I took it for granted he meant my trunks and those were in what I, in my
+ignorance, would have called a baggage car:
+
+"Yes, sir," said the porter. "If the lidy will be good enough to wait
+'ere, sir, you and I will go hafter the boxes, sir."
+
+Cautioning Hephzy not to stir from her moorings on any account I
+followed my guide to the "luggage van." This crowded car disgorged
+our two steamer trunks and, my particular porter having corraled a
+fellow-craftsman to help him, the trunks were dragged to the waiting
+cab.
+
+I found Hephzy waiting, outwardly calm, but inwardly excited.
+
+"I saw one at last," she declared. "I'd about come to believe there
+wasn't such a thing, but there is; I just saw one."
+
+"One--what?" I asked, puzzled.
+
+"An Englishman with side-whiskers. They wasn't as big and long as those
+in the pictures, but they were side-whiskers. I feel better. When you've
+been brought up to believe every Englishman wore 'em, it was kind of
+humiliatin' not to see one single set."
+
+I paid my porters--I learned afterward that, like most Americans, I had
+given them altogether too much--and we climbed into the cab with our
+bags. The "boxes," or trunks, were on the driver's seat and on the roof.
+
+"Where to, sir?" asked the driver.
+
+I hesitated. Even at this late date I had not made up my mind exactly
+"where to." My decision was a hasty one.
+
+"Why--er--to--to Bancroft's Hotel," I said. "Blithe Street, just off
+Piccadilly."
+
+I think the driver was somewhat astonished. Very few of his American
+passengers selected Bancroft's as a stopping place, I imagine. However,
+his answer was prompt.
+
+"Yes, sir, thank you, sir," he said. The cab rolled out of the station.
+
+"I suppose," said Hephzy, reflectively, "if you had told him or that
+porter man that they were everlastin' idiots they'd have thanked you
+just the same and called you 'sir' four times besides."
+
+"No doubt they would."
+
+"Yes, sir, I'm perfectly sure they would--thank you, sir. So this is
+London. It doesn't look such an awful lot different from Boston or New
+York so far."
+
+But Bancroft's, when we reached it, was as unlike a Boston or New
+York hotel as anything could be. A short, quiet, eminently respectable
+street, leading from Piccadilly; a street fenced in, on both sides, by
+three-story, solid, eminently respectable houses of brick and stone. No
+signs, no street cars, no crowds, no glaring lights. Merely a gas
+lamp burning over the fanlight of a spotless white door, and the words
+"Bancroft's Hotel" in mosaic lettering set in a white stone slab in the
+pavement.
+
+The cab pulled up before the white door and Hephzy and I looked out of
+the window. The same thought was in both our minds.
+
+"This can't be the place," said I.
+
+"This isn't a hotel, is it, Hosy?" asked Hephzy.
+
+The white door opened and a brisk, red-cheeked English boy in uniform
+hastened to the cab. Before he reached it I had seen the lettering in
+the pavement and knew that, in spite of appearances, we had reached our
+destination.
+
+"This is it, Hephzy," I said. "Come."
+
+The boy opened the cab door and we alighted. Then in the doorway of
+"Bancroft's" appeared a stout, red-faced and very dignified person, also
+in uniform. This person wore short "mutton-chop" whiskers and had the
+air of a member of the Royal Family; that is to say, the air which a
+member of the Royal Family might be expected to have.
+
+"Good evening, sir," said the personage, bowing respectfully. The bow
+was a triumph in itself; not too low, not abject in the least, not
+familiar; a bow which implied much, but promised nothing; a bow which
+seemed to demand references, but was far from repellant or bullying.
+Altogether a wonderful bow.
+
+"Good evening," said I. "This is Bancroft's Hotel, is it not?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"I wish to secure rooms for this lady and myself, if possible."
+
+"Yes, sir. This way, sir, if you please. Richard," this to the boy and
+in a tone entirely different--the tone of a commanding officer to a
+private--"see to the gentleman's luggage. This way, sir; thank you,
+sir."
+
+I hesitated. "The cabman has not been paid," I stammered. I was a trifle
+overawed by the grandeur of the mutton-chops and the "sir."
+
+"I will attend to that, sir. If you will be good enough to come in,
+sir."
+
+We entered and found ourselves in a narrow hall, old-fashioned, homelike
+and as spotless as the white door. Two more uniforms bowed before us.
+
+"Thank you, sir," said the member of the Royal Family. It was with
+difficulty that I repressed the desire to tell him he was quite welcome.
+His manner of thanking me seemed to imply that we had conferred a favor.
+
+"I will speak to Mr. Jameson," he went on, with another bow. Then he
+left us.
+
+"Is--is that Mr. Bancroft?" whispered Hephzy.
+
+I shook my head. "It must be the Prince of Wales, at least," I whispered
+in return. "I infer that there is no Mr. Bancroft."
+
+It developed that I was right. Mr. Jameson was the proprietor of the
+hotel, and Mr. Jameson was a pleasant, refined, quiet man of middle age.
+He appeared from somewhere or other, ascertained our wants, stated that
+he had a few vacant rooms and could accommodate us.
+
+"Do you wish a sitting-room?" he asked.
+
+I was not sure. I wanted comfort, that I knew, and I said so. I
+mentioned, as an afterthought, that Mr. Heathcroft had recommended
+Bancroft's to me.
+
+The Heathcroft name seemed to settle everything. Mr. Jameson summoned
+the representative of royalty and spoke to him in a low tone. The
+representative--his name, I learned later, was Henry and he was butler
+and major-domo at Bancroft's--bowed once more. A few minutes later we
+were shown to an apartment on the second floor front, a room large,
+old-fashioned, furnished with easy-chairs, tables and a big, comfortable
+sofa. Sofa and easy-chairs were covered with figured, glazed chintz.
+
+"Your sitting-room, sir," said Henry. "Your bedrooms open hoff it, sir.
+The chambermaid will 'ave them ready in a moment, sir. Richard and the
+porter will bring up your luggage and the boxes. Will you and the lady
+wish supper, sir? Thank you, sir. Very good, sir. Will you require a
+fire, sir?"
+
+The room was a trifle chilly. There was a small iron grate at its
+end, and a coal fire ready to kindle. I answered that a fire might be
+enjoyable.
+
+"Yes, sir," said Henry. "Himmediately, sir."
+
+Soon Hephzy and I were drinking hot tea and eating bread and butter and
+plum cake before a snapping fire. George, the waiter, had brought us the
+tea and accessories and set the table; the chambermaid had prepared the
+bedrooms; Henry had supervised everything.
+
+"Well," observed Hephzy, with a sigh of content, "I feel better
+satisfied every minute. When we were in the hack--cab, I mean--I
+couldn't realize we weren't ridin' through an American city. The houses
+and sidewalks and everything--what I could see of 'em--looked so much
+like Boston that I was sort of disappointed. I wanted it to be more
+different, some way. But this IS different. This may be a hotel--I
+suppose likely 'tis--but it don't seem like one, does it? If it wasn't
+for the Henry and that Richard and that--what's his name? George--and
+all the rest, I should think I was in Cap'n Cyrus Whittaker's
+settin-room back home. The furniture looks like Cap'n Cy's and the
+pictures look like those he has, and--and everything looks as stiff and
+starched and old-fashioned as can be. But the Cap'n never had a Henry.
+No, sirree, Henry don't belong on Cape Cod! Hosy," with a sudden burst
+of confidence, "it's a good thing I saw that Lord Erskine first. If I
+hadn't found out what a live lord looked like I'd have thought Henry
+was one sure. Do you really think it's right for me to call him by his
+Christian name? It seems sort of--sort of irreverent, somehow."
+
+I wish it were possible for me to describe in detail our first days at
+Bancroft's. If it were not for the fact that so many really important
+events and happenings remain to be described--if it were not that the
+most momentous event of my life, the event that was the beginning of the
+great change in that life--if that event were not so close at hand, I
+should be tempted to linger upon those first few days. They were strange
+and wonderful and funny to Hephzibah and me. The strangeness and the
+wonder wore off gradually; the fun still sticks in my memory.
+
+To have one's bedroom invaded at an early hour by a chambermaid who,
+apparently quite oblivious of the fact that the bed was still occupied
+by a male, proceeded to draw the curtains, bring the hot water and fill
+the tin tub for my bath, was astonishing and funny enough, Hephzibah's
+comments on the proceeding were funnier still.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me," she demanded, "that that hussy was brazen
+enough to march right in here before you got up?"
+
+"Yes," I said. "I am only thankful that I HADN'T got up."
+
+"Well! I must say! Did she fetch the water in a garden waterin'-pot,
+same as she did to me?"
+
+"Just the same."
+
+"And did she pour it into that--that flat dishpan on the floor and tell
+you your 'bawth' was ready?"
+
+"She did."
+
+"Humph! Of all the--I hope she cleared out THEN?"
+
+"She did."
+
+"That's a mercy, anyhow. Did you take a bath in that dishpan?"
+
+"I tried."
+
+"Well, I didn't. I'd as soon try to bathe in a saucer. I'd have felt as
+if I'd needed a teaspoon to dip up the half pint of water and pour
+it over me. Don't these English folks have real bathtubs for grown-up
+people?"
+
+I did not know, then. Later I learned that Bancroft's Hotel possessed
+several bathrooms, and that I might use one if I preferred. Being an
+American I did so prefer. Most of the guests, being English, preferred
+the "dishpans."
+
+We learned to accept the early morning visits of the chambermaid as
+matters of course. We learned to order breakfast the night before and
+to eat it in our sitting-room. We tasted a "grilled sole" for the
+first time, and although Hephzy persisted in referring to it as "fried
+flatfish" we liked the taste. We became accustomed to being waited upon,
+to do next to nothing for ourselves, and I found that a valet who
+laid out my evening clothes, put the studs in my shirts, selected my
+neckties, and saw that my shoes were polished, was a rather convenient
+person to have about. Hephzy fumed a good deal at first; she declared
+that she felt ashamed, an able-bodied woman like her, to sit around
+with her hands folded and do nothing. She asked her maid a great many
+questions, and the answers she received explained some of her puzzles.
+
+"Do you know what that poor thing gets a week?" she observed, referring
+to the maid. "Eight shillin's--two dollars a week, that's what she gets.
+And your valet man doesn't get any more. I can see now how Mr. Jameson
+can afford to keep so much help at the board he charges. I pay that
+Susanna Wixon thing at Bayport three dollars and she doesn't know enough
+to boil water without burnin' it on, scarcely. And Peters--why in the
+world do they call women by their last names?--Peters, she's the maid,
+says it's a real nice place and she's quite satisfied. Well, where
+ignorance is bliss it's foolish to be sensible, I suppose; but _I_
+wouldn't fetch and carry for the President's wife, to say nothin' of an
+everyday body like me, for two dollars a week."
+
+We learned that the hotel dining-room was a "Coffee Room."
+
+"Nobody with sense would take coffee there--not more'n once, they
+wouldn't," declared Hephzy. "I asked Peters why they didn't call it the
+'Tea Room' and be done with it. She said because it was the Coffee Room.
+I suppose likely that was an answer, but I felt a good deal as if I'd
+come out of the same hole I went in at. She thanked me for askin' her,
+though; she never forgets that."
+
+We became accustomed to addressing the lordly Henry by his Christian
+name and found him a most obliging person. He, like everyone else,
+had instantly recognized us as Americans, and, consequently, was
+condescendingly kind to strangers from a distant and barbarous country.
+
+"What SORT of place do they think the States are?" asked Hephzy. "That's
+what they always call home--'the States'--and they seem to think it's
+about as big as a pocket handkerchief. That Henry asked me if the red
+Indians were numerous where we lived. I said no--as soon as I could say
+anything; I told him there was only one tribe of Red Men in town and
+they were white. I guess he thought I was crazy, but it don't make any
+difference. And Peters said she had a cousin in a place called Chicago
+and did I know him. What do you think of that?"
+
+"What did you tell her?" I inquired.
+
+"Hey? Oh, I told her that, bein' as Chicago was a thousand miles from
+Bayport, I hadn't had time to do much visitin' there. I told her the
+truth, but she didn't believe it. I could see she didn't. She thinks
+Chicago and San Francisco and New York and Boston are nests of wigwams
+in the same patch of woods and all hands that live there have been
+scalped at least once. SUCH ignorance!"
+
+Henry, at my request, procured seats for us at one of the London
+theaters. There we saw a good play, splendidly acted, and Hephzy laughed
+and wept at the performance. As usual, however, she had a characteristic
+comment to make.
+
+"Why do they call the front seats the 'stalls'?" she whispered to me
+between the acts. "Stalls! The idea! I'm no horse. Perhaps they call 'em
+that because folks are donkeys enough to pay two dollars and a half
+for the privilege of sittin' in 'em. Don't YOU be so extravagant again,
+Hosy."
+
+One of the characters in the play was supposed to be an American
+gentleman, and his behavior and dress and speech stirred me to
+indignation. I asked the question which every American asks under
+similar circumstances.
+
+"Why on earth," I demanded, "do they permit that fellow to make such
+a fool of himself? He yells and drawls and whines through his nose and
+wears clothes which would make an American cry. That last scene was
+supposed to be a reception and he wore an outing suit and no waistcoat.
+Do they suppose such a fellow would be tolerated in respectable society
+in the United States?"
+
+And now it was Hephzy's turn to be philosophical.
+
+"I guess likely the answer to that is simple enough," she said. "He's
+what they think an American ought to be, even if he isn't. If he behaved
+like a human bein' he wouldn't be the kind of American they expect on
+the stage. After all, he isn't any worse than the Englishmen we have in
+the Dramatic Society's plays at home. I haven't seen one of that kind
+since I got here; and I've given up expectin' to--unless you and I go to
+some crazy asylum--which isn't likely."
+
+We rode on the tops of busses, we visited the Tower, and Westminster
+Abbey, and Saint Paul's. We saw the Horse Guard sentinels on duty in
+Whitehall, and watched the ceremony of guard changing at St. James's.
+Hephzy was impressed, in her own way, by the uniforms of the "Cold
+Streams."
+
+"There!" she exclaimed, "I've seen 'em walk. Now I feel better. When
+they stood there, with those red jackets and with the fur hats on their
+heads, I couldn't make myself believe they hadn't been taken out of a
+box for children to play with. I wanted to get up close so as to see if
+their feet were glued to round pieces of wood like Noah's and Ham's and
+Japhet's in the Ark. But they aren't wood, they're alive. They're men,
+not toys. I'm glad I've seen 'em. THEY are satisfyin'. They make me more
+reconciled to a King with a Derby hat on."
+
+She and I had stood in the crowd fringing the park mall and seen King
+George trot by on horseback. His Majesty's lack of crown and robes and
+scepter had been a great disappointment to Hephzy; I think she expected
+the crown at least.
+
+I had, of course, visited the London office of my publishers, in Camford
+Street and had found Mr. Matthews, the manager, expecting me. Jim
+Campbell had cabled and written of my coming and Matthews' welcome was a
+warm one. He was kindness itself. All my financial responsibilities were
+to be shifted to his shoulders. I was to use the office as a bank, as a
+tourist agency, even as a guide's headquarters. He put his clerks at my
+disposal; they would conduct us on sight-seeing expeditions whenever
+and wherever we wished. He even made out a list of places in and about
+London which we, as strangers, should see.
+
+His cordiality and thoughtfulness were appreciated. They made me feel
+less alone and less dependent upon my own resources. Campbell had
+arranged that all letters addressed to me in America should be forwarded
+to the Camford Street office, and Matthews insisted that I should write
+my own letters there. I began to make it a practice to drop in at
+the office almost every morning before starting on the day's round of
+sight-seeing.
+
+Bancroft's Hotel also began to seem less strange and more homelike.
+Mr. Jameson, the proprietor, was a fine fellow--quiet, refined, and
+pleasant. He, too, tried to help us in every possible way. His wife, a
+sweet-faced Englishwoman, made Hephzy's acquaintance and Hephzy liked
+her extremely.
+
+"She's as nice as she can be," declared Hephzy. "If it wasn't that she
+says 'Fancy!' and 'Really!' instead of 'My gracious!' and 'I want to
+know!' I should think I was talking to a Cape Codder, the best kind
+of one. She's got sense, too. SHE don't ask about 'red Indians' in
+Bayport."
+
+Among the multitude of our new experiences we learned the value of
+a judicious "tip." We had learned something concerning tips on the
+"Plutonia"; Campbell had coached us concerning those, and we were
+provided with a schedule of rates--so much to the bedroom steward, so
+much to the stewardess, to the deck steward, to the "boots," and all the
+rest. But tipping in London we were obliged to adjust for ourselves, and
+the result of our education was surprising.
+
+At Saint Paul's an elderly and impressively haughty person in a black
+robe showed us through the Crypt and delivered learned lectures before
+the tombs of Nelson and Wellington. His appearance and manner were
+somewhat awe-inspiring, especially to Hephzy, who asked me, in a
+whisper, if I thought likely he was a bishop or a canon or something.
+When the round was ended and we were leaving the Crypt she saw me put a
+hand in my pocket.
+
+"Mercy sakes, Hosy," she whispered. "You aren't goin' to offer him
+money, are you? He'll be insulted. I'd as soon think of givin' Mr.
+Partridge, our minister, money for takin' us to the cemetery to see the
+first settlers' gravestones. Don't you do it. He'll throw it back at
+you. I'll be so ashamed."
+
+But I had been watching our fellow-sight-seers as they filed out,
+and when our time came I dropped two shillings in the hand of the
+black-robed dignitary. The hand did not spurn the coins, which I--rather
+timidly, I confess--dropped into it. Instead it closed upon them tightly
+and the haughty lips thanked me, not profusely, not even smilingly, but
+thanked me, nevertheless.
+
+At our visit to the Law Courts a similar experience awaited us. Another
+dignified and elderly person, who, judging by his appearance, should
+have been a judge at least, not only accepted the shilling I gave him,
+but bowed, smiled and offered to conduct us to the divorce court.
+
+"A very interesting case there, sir, just now," he murmured,
+confidingly. "Very interesting and sensational indeed, sir. You and the
+lady will enjoy it, I'm sure, sir. All Americans do."
+
+Hephzy was indignant.
+
+"Well!" she exclaimed, as we emerged upon the Strand. "Well! I must say!
+What sort of folks does he think we are, I'd like to know. Divorce
+case! I'd be ashamed to hear one. And that old man bein' so wicked and
+ridiculous for twenty-five cents! Hosy, I do believe if you'd given him
+another shillin' he'd have introduced us to that man in the red robe and
+cotton wool wig--What did he call him?--Oh, yes, the Lord Chief Justice.
+And I suppose you'd have had to tip HIM, too."
+
+The first two weeks of our stay in London came to an end. Our plans were
+still as indefinite as ever. How long we should stay, where we should go
+next, what we should do when we decided where that "next" was to be--all
+these questions we had not considered at all. I, for my part, was
+curiously uninterested in the future. I was enjoying myself in an idle,
+irresponsible way, and I could not seem to concentrate my thoughts upon
+a definite course of action. If I did permit myself to think I found my
+thoughts straying to my work and there they faced the same impassable
+wall. I felt no inclination to write; I was just as certain as ever that
+I should never write again. Thinking along this line only brought back
+the old feeling of despondency. So I refused to think and, taking Jim's
+advice, put work and responsibility from my mind. We would remain in
+London as long as we were contented there. When the spirit moved we
+would move with it--somewhere--either about England or to the Continent.
+I did not know which and I did not care; I did not seem to care much
+about anything.
+
+Hephzy was perfectly happy. London to her was as wonderful as ever. She
+never tired of sight-seeing, and on occasions when I felt disinclined
+to leave the hotel she went out alone, shopping or wandering about the
+streets.
+
+She scarcely mentioned "Little Frank" and I took care not to remind her
+of that mythical youth. I had expected her to see him on every street
+corner, to be brought face to face with unsuspecting young Englishmen
+and made to ask ridiculous questions which might lead to our being taken
+in charge as a pair of demented foreigners. But my forebodings were not
+realized. London was so huge and the crowds so great that even Hephzy's
+courage faltered. To select Little Frank from the multitude was a task
+too great, even for her, I imagine. At any rate, she did not make the
+attempt, and the belief that we were "sent" upon our pilgrimage for that
+express purpose she had not expressed since our evening on the train.
+
+The third week passed. I was growing tired of trotting about. Not tired
+of London in particular. The gray, dingy, historic, wonderful old city
+was still fascinating. It is hard to conceive of an intelligent person's
+ever growing weary of the narrow streets with the familiar names--Fleet
+Street, Fetter Lane, Pudding Lane and all the rest--names as familiar
+to a reader of history or English fiction as that of his own town. To
+wander into an unknown street and to learn that it is Shoreditch, or to
+look up at an ancient building and discover it to be the Charterhouse,
+were ever fresh miracles to me, as I am sure they must be to every
+book-loving American. No, I was not tired of London. Had I come there
+under other circumstances I should have been as happy and content
+as Hephzy herself. But, now that the novelty was wearing off, I was
+beginning to think again, to think of myself--the very thing I had
+determined, and still meant, not to do.
+
+One afternoon I drifted into the Camford Street office. Hephzy had left
+me at Piccadilly Circus and was now, it was safe to presume, enjoying a
+delightful sojourn amid the shops of Regent and Oxford Streets. When she
+returned she would have a half-dozen purchases to display, a two-and-six
+glove bargain from Robinson's, a bit of lace from Selfridge's, a
+knick-knack from Liberty's--"All so MUCH cheaper than you can get 'em in
+Boston, Hosy." She would have had a glorious time.
+
+Matthews, the manager at Camford Street, was out, but Holton, the head
+clerk--I was learning to speak of him as a "clark"--was in.
+
+"There are some American letters for you, sir," he said. "I was about to
+send them to your hotel."
+
+He gave me the letters--four of them altogether--and I went into the
+private office to look them over. My first batch of mail from home;
+it gave me a small thrill to see two-cent stamps in the corners of the
+envelopes.
+
+One of the letters was from Campbell. I opened it first of all. Jim
+wrote a rambling, good-humored letter, a mixture of business, news,
+advice and nonsense. "The Black Brig" had gone into another edition.
+Considering my opinion of such "slush" I should be ashamed to accept
+the royalties, but he would continue to give my account credit for them
+until I cabled to the contrary. He trusted we were behaving ourselves in
+a manner which would reflect credit upon our country. I was to be sure
+not to let Hephzy marry a title. And so on, for six pages. The letter
+was almost like a chat with Jim himself, and I read it with chuckles and
+a pang of homesickness.
+
+One of the envelopes bore Hephzy's name and I, of course, did not
+open it. It was postmarked "Bayport" and I thought I recognized the
+handwriting as Susanna Wixon's. The third letter turned out to be not
+a letter at all, but a bill from Sylvanus Cahoon, who took care of our
+"lots" in the Bayport cemetery. It had been my intention to pay all
+bills before leaving home, but, somehow or other, Sylvanus's had been
+overlooked. I must send him a check at once.
+
+The fourth and last envelope was stained and crumpled. It had traveled
+a long way. To my surprise I noticed that the stamp in the corner was
+English and the postmark "London." The address, moreover, was "Captain
+Barnabas Cahoon, Bayport, Massachusetts, U. S. A." The letter had
+obviously been mailed in London, had journeyed to Bayport, from there
+to New York, and had then been forwarded to London again. Someone,
+presumably Simmons, the postmaster, had written "Care Hosea Knowles"
+and my publisher's New York address in the lower corner. This had been
+scratched out and "28 Camford Street, London, England," added.
+
+I looked at the envelope. Who in the world, or in England, could have
+written Captain Barnabas--Captain Barnabas Cahoon, my great-uncle, dead
+so many years? At first I was inclined to hand the letter, unopened, to
+Hephzy. She was Captain Barnabas's daughter and it belonged to her
+by right. But I knew Hephzy had no secrets from me and, besides,
+my curiosity was great. At length I yielded to it and tore open the
+envelope.
+
+Inside was a sheet of thin foreign paper, both sides covered with
+writing. I read the first line.
+
+
+"Captain Barnabas Cahoon.
+
+"Sir:
+
+"You are my nearest relative, my mother's father, and I--"
+
+"I uttered an exclamation. Then I stepped to the door of the private
+office, made sure that it was shut, came back, sat down in the chair
+before the desk which Mr. Matthews had put at my disposal, and read the
+letter from beginning to end. This is what I read:
+
+
+"Captain Barnabas Cahoon.
+
+"Sir:
+
+"You are my nearest relative, my mother's father, and I, therefore,
+address this letter to you. I know little concerning you. I do not know
+even that you are still living in Bayport, or that you are living at
+all. (N.B. In case Captain Cahoon is not living this letter is to be
+read and acted upon by his heirs, upon whose estate I have an equal
+claim.) My mother, Ardelia Cahoon Morley, died in Liverpool in 1896. My
+father, Strickland Morley, died in Paris in December, 1908. I, as their
+only child, am their heir, and I am writing to you asking what I might
+demand--that is, a portion of the money which was my mother's and which
+you kept from her and from my father all these years. My father told me
+the whole story before he died, and he also told me that he had written
+you several times, but that his letters had been ignored. My father was
+an English gentleman and he was proud; that is why he did not take legal
+steps against you for the recovery of what was his by law in England
+OR ANY CIVILISED COUNTRY, one may presume. He would not STOOP to
+such measures even against those who, as you know well, so meanly and
+fraudulently deprived him and his of their inheritance. He is dead
+now. He died lacking the comforts and luxuries with which you might
+and SHOULD have provided him. His forbearance was wonderful and
+characteristic, but had I known of it sooner I should have insisted
+upon demanding from you the money which was his. I am now demanding it
+myself. Not BEGGING; that I wish THOROUGHLY understood. I am giving you
+the opportunity to make a partial restitution, that is all. It is what
+he would have wished, and his wish ALONE prevents my putting the whole
+matter in my solicitor's hands. If I do not hear from you within a
+reasonable time I shall know what to do. You may address me care Mrs.
+Briggs, 218 ---- Street, London, England.
+
+"Awaiting your reply, I am, sir,
+
+"Yours,
+
+"FRANCIS STRICKLAND MORLEY.
+
+"P. S.
+
+"I am not to be considered under ANY circumstances a subject for
+charity. I am NOT begging. You, I am given to understand, are a wealthy
+man. I demand my share of that wealth--that is all."
+
+
+I read this amazing epistle through once. Then, after rising and walking
+about the office to make sure that I was thoroughly awake, I sat down
+and read it again. There was no mistake. I had read it correctly. The
+writing was somewhat illegible in spots and the signature was blotted,
+but it was from Francis Strickland Morley. From "Little Frank!" I think
+my first and greatest sensation was of tremendous surprise that there
+really was a "Little Frank." Hephzy had been right. Once more I should
+have to take off my hat to Hephzy.
+
+The surprise remained, but other sensations came to keep it company. The
+extraordinary fact of the letter's reaching me when and where it did,
+in London, the city from which it was written and where, doubtless, the
+writer still was. If I chose I might, perhaps, that very afternoon, meet
+and talk with Ardelia Cahoon's son, with "Little Frank" himself. I could
+scarcely realize it. Hephzy had declared that our coming to London was
+the result of a special dispensation--we had been "sent" there. In the
+face of this miracle I was not disposed to contradict her.
+
+The letter itself was more extraordinary than all else. It was that of
+a young person, of a hot-headed boy. But WHAT a boy he must be! What an
+unlicked, impudent, arrogant young cub! The boyishness was evident in
+every line, in the underscored words, the pitiful attempt at dignity and
+the silly veiled threats. He was so insistent upon the statement that he
+was not a beggar. And yet he could write a begging letter like this. He
+did not ask for charity, not he, he demanded it. Demanded it--he, the
+son of a thief, demanded, from those whom his father had robbed, his
+"rights." He should have his rights; I would see to that.
+
+I was angry enough but, as I read the letter for the third time, the
+pitifulness of it became more apparent. I imagined Francis Strickland
+Morley to be the replica of the Strickland Morley whom I remembered, the
+useless, incompetent, inadequate son of a good-for-nothing father. No
+doubt the father was responsible for such a letter as this having been
+written. Doubtless he HAD told the boy all sorts of tales; perhaps he
+HAD declared himself to be the defrauded instead of the defrauder; he
+was quite capable of it. Possibly the youngster did believe he had a
+claim upon the wealthy relatives in that "uncivilized" country, America.
+The wealthy relatives! I thought of Captain Barnabas's last years, of
+Hephzibah's plucky fight against poverty, of my own lost opportunities,
+of the college course which I had been obliged to forego. My indignation
+returned. I would not go back at once to Hephzy with the letter. I
+would, myself, seek out the writer of that letter, and, if I found him,
+he and I would have a heart to heart talk which should disabuse his mind
+of a few illusions. We would have a full and complete understanding.
+
+I hastily made a memorandum of the address, "Care Mrs. Briggs," thrust
+the letter back into the envelope, put it and my other mail into my
+pocket, and walked out into the main office. Holton, the clerk, looked
+up from his desk. Probably my feelings showed in my face, for he said:
+
+"What is it, Mr. Knowles? No bad news, I trust, sir."
+
+"No," I answered, shortly. "Where is ---- Street? Is it far from here?"
+
+It was rather far from there, in Camberwell, on the Surrey side of the
+river. I might take a bus at such a corner and change again at so and
+so. It sounded like a journey and I was impatient. I suggested that I
+might take a cab. Certainly I could do that. William, the boy, would
+call a cab at once.
+
+William did so and I gave the driver the address from my memoranda.
+Through the Strand I was whirled, across Blackfriars Bridge and on
+through the intricate web of avenues and streets on the Surrey side. The
+locality did not impress me favorably. There was an abundance of "pubs"
+and of fried-fish shops where "jellied eels" seemed to be a viand much
+in demand.
+
+---- Street, when I reached it, was dingy and third rate. Three-storied
+old brick houses, with shops on their first floors, predominated. Number
+218 was one of these. The signs "Lodgings" over the tarnished bell-pull
+and the name "Briggs" on the plate beside it proved that I had located
+the house from which the letter had been sent.
+
+I paid my cabman, dismissed him, and rang the bell. A slouchy
+maid-servant answered the ring.
+
+"Is Mr. Francis Morley in?" I asked.
+
+The maid looked at me.
+
+"Wat, sir?" she said.
+
+"Does Mr. Francis Morley live here?" I asked, raising my voice. "Is he
+in?"
+
+The maid's face was as wooden as the door-post. Her mouth, already open,
+opened still wider and she continued to stare. A step sounded in the
+dark hall behind her and another voice said, sharply:
+
+"'Oo is it, 'Arriet? And w'at does 'e want?"
+
+The maid grinned. "'E wants to see MISTER Morley, ma'am," she said, with
+a giggle.
+
+She was pushed aside and a red-faced woman, with thin lips and scowl,
+took her place.
+
+"'OO do you want to see?" she demanded.
+
+"Francis Morley. Does he live here?"
+
+"'OO?"
+
+"Francis Morley." My answer was sharp enough this time. I began to think
+I had invaded a colony of imbeciles--or owls; their conversation seemed
+limited to "oos."
+
+"W'at do you want to see--to see Morley for?" demanded the red-faced
+female.
+
+"On business. Is Mrs. Briggs in?"
+
+"I'm Mrs. Briggs."
+
+"Good! I'm glad of that. Now will you tell me if Mr. Morley is in?"
+
+"There ain't no Mr. Morley. There's a--"
+
+She was interrupted. From the hall, apparently from the top of the
+flight of stairs, another was heard, a feminine voice like the others,
+but unlike them--decidedly unlike.
+
+"Who is it, Mrs. Briggs?" said this voice. "Does the gentleman wish to
+see me?"
+
+"No, 'e don't," declared Mrs. Briggs, with emphasis. "'E wants to see
+Mister Morley and I'm telling 'im there ain't none such."
+
+"But are you sure he doesn't mean Miss Morley? Ask him, please."
+
+Before the Briggs woman could reply I spoke again.
+
+"I want to see a Francis Morley," I repeated, loudly. "I have come here
+in answer to a letter. The letter gave this as his address. If he isn't
+here, will you be good enough to tell me where he is? I--"
+
+There was another interruption, an exclamation from the darkness behind
+Mrs. Briggs and the maid.
+
+"Oh!" said the third voice, with a little catch in it. "Who is it,
+please? Who is it? What is the person's name?"
+
+Mrs. Briggs scowled at me.
+
+"Wat's your name?" she snapped.
+
+"My name is Knowles. I am an American relative of Mr. Morley's and I'm
+here in answer to a letter written by Mr. Morley himself."
+
+There was a moment's silence. Then the third voice said:
+
+"Ask--ask him to come up. Show him up, Mrs. Briggs, if you please."
+
+Mrs. Briggs grunted and stepped aside. I entered the hall.
+
+"First floor back," mumbled the landlady. "Straight as you go. You won't
+need any showin'."
+
+I mounted the stairs. The landing at the top was dark, but the door
+at the rear was ajar. I knocked. A voice, the same voice I had heard
+before, bade me come in. I entered the room.
+
+It was a dingy little room, sparely furnished, with a bed and two
+chairs, a dilapidated washstand and a battered bureau. I noticed these
+afterwards. Just then my attention was centered upon the occupant of the
+room, a young woman, scarcely more than a girl, dark-haired, dark-eyed,
+slender and graceful. She was standing by the bureau, resting one hand
+upon it, and gazing at me, with a strange expression, a curious compound
+of fright, surprise and defiance. She did not speak. I was embarrassed.
+
+"I beg your pardon," I stammered. "I am afraid there is some mistake.
+I came here in answer to a letter written by a Francis Morley, who
+is--well, I suppose he is a distant relative of mine."
+
+She stepped forward and closed the door by which I had entered. Then she
+turned and faced me.
+
+"You are an American," she said.
+
+"Yes, I am an American. I--"
+
+She interrupted me.
+
+"Do you--do you come from--from Bayport, Massachusetts?" she faltered.
+
+I stared at her. "Why, yes," I admitted. "I do come from Bayport. How in
+the world did you--"
+
+"Was the letter you speak of addressed to Captain Barnabas Cahoon?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then--then there isn't any mistake. I wrote it."
+
+I imagine that my mouth opened as wide as the maid's had done.
+
+"You!" I exclaimed. "Why--why--it was written by Francis Morley--Francis
+Strickland Morley."
+
+"I am Frances Strickland Morley."
+
+I heard this, of course, but I did not comprehend it. I had been working
+along the lines of a fixed idea. Now that idea had been knocked into a
+cocked hat, and my intellect had been knocked with it.
+
+"Why--why, no," I repeated, stupidly. "Francis Morley is the son of
+Strickland Morley."
+
+"There was no son," impatiently. "I am Frances Morley, I tell you. I am
+Strickland Morley's daughter. I wrote that letter."
+
+I sat down upon the nearest of the two chairs. I was obliged to sit.
+I could not stand and face the fact which, at least, even my benumbed
+brain was beginning to comprehend. The mistake was a simple one, merely
+the difference between an "i" and an "e" in a name, that was all.
+And yet that mistake--that slight difference between "Francis" and
+"Frances"--explained the amazing difference between the Little Frank of
+Hephzibah's fancy and the reality before me.
+
+The real Little Frank was a girl.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+In Which a Dream Becomes a Reality
+
+
+I said nothing immediately. I could not. It was "Little Frank" who
+resumed the conversation. "Who are you?" she asked.
+
+"Who--I beg your pardon? I am rather upset, I'm afraid. I didn't
+expect--that is, I expected.... Well, I didn't expect THIS! What was it
+you asked me?"
+
+"I asked you who you were."
+
+"My name is Knowles--Kent Knowles. I am Captain Cahoon's grand-nephew."
+
+"His grand-nephew. Then--Did Captain Cahoon send you to me?"
+
+"Send me! I beg your pardon once more. No.... No. Captain Cahoon is
+dead. He has been dead nearly ten years. No one sent me."
+
+"Then why did you come? You have my letter; you said so."
+
+"Yes; I--I have your letter. I received it about an hour ago. It was
+forwarded to me--to my cousin and me--here in London."
+
+"Here in London! Then you did not come to London in answer to that
+letter?"
+
+"No. My cousin and I--"
+
+"What cousin? What is his name?"
+
+"His name? It isn't a--That is, the cousin is a woman. She is Miss
+Hephzibah Cahoon, your--your mother's half-sister. She is--Why, she is
+your aunt!"
+
+It was a fact; Hephzibah was this young lady's aunt. I don't know why
+that seemed so impossible and ridiculous, but it did. The young lady
+herself seemed to find it so.
+
+"My aunt?" she repeated. "I didn't know--But--but, why is my--my aunt
+here with you?"
+
+"We are on a pleasure trip. We--I beg your pardon. What have I been
+thinking of? Don't stand. Please sit down."
+
+She accepted the invitation. As she walked toward the chair it seemed to
+me that she staggered a little. I noticed then for the first time, how
+very slender she was, almost emaciated. There were dark hollows beneath
+her eyes and her face was as white as the bed-linen--No, I am wrong; it
+was whiter than Mrs. Briggs' bed-linen.
+
+"Are you ill?" I asked involuntarily.
+
+She did not answer. She seated herself in the chair and fixed her dark
+eyes upon me. They were large eyes and very dark. Hephzy said, when
+she first saw them, that they looked like "burnt holes in a blanket."
+Perhaps they did; that simile did not occur to me.
+
+"You have read my letter?" she asked.
+
+It was evident that I must have read the letter or I should not have
+learned where to find her, but I did not call attention to this. I said
+simply that I had read the letter.
+
+"Then what do you propose?" she asked.
+
+"Propose?"
+
+"Yes," impatiently. "What proposition do you make me? If you have read
+the letter you must know what I mean. You must have come here for the
+purpose of saying something, of making some offer. What is it?"
+
+I was speechless. I had come there to find an impudent young blackguard
+and tell him what I thought of him. That was as near a definite reason
+for my coming as any. If I had not acted upon impulse, if I had stopped
+to consider, it is quite likely that I should not have come at all. But
+the blackguard was--was--well, he was not and never had been. In his
+place was this white-faced, frail girl. I couldn't tell her what I
+thought of her. I didn't know what to think.
+
+She waited for me to answer and, as I continued to play the dumb idiot,
+her impatience grew. Her brows--very dark brown they were, almost black
+against the pallor of her face--drew together and her foot began to pat
+the faded carpet. "I am waiting," she said.
+
+I realized that I must say something, so I said the only thing which
+occurred to me. It was a question.
+
+"Your father is dead?" I asked.
+
+She nodded. "My letter told you that," she answered. "He died in Paris
+three years ago."
+
+"And--and had he no relatives here in England?"
+
+She hesitated before replying. "No near relatives whom he cared to
+recognize," she answered haughtily. "My father, Mr. Knowles was a
+gentleman and, having been most unjustly treated by his own family,
+as well as by OTHERS"--with a marked emphasis on the word--"he did not
+stoop, even in his illness and distress, to beg where he should have
+commanded."
+
+"Oh! Oh, I see," I said, feebly.
+
+"There is no reason why you should see. My father was the second son
+and--But this is quite irrelevant. You, an American, can scarcely be
+expected to understand English family customs. It is sufficient that,
+for reasons of his own, my father had for years been estranged from his
+own people."
+
+The air with which this was delivered was quite overwhelming. If I had
+not known Strickland Morley, and a little of his history, I should have
+been crushed.
+
+"Then you have been quite alone since his death?" I asked.
+
+Again she hesitated. "For a time," she said, after a moment. "I lived
+with a married cousin of his in one of the London suburbs. Then I--But
+really, Mr. Knowles, I cannot see that my private affairs need interest
+you. As I understand it, this interview of ours is quite impersonal, in
+a sense. You understand, of course--you must understand--that in writing
+as I did I was not seeking the acquaintance of my mother's relatives. I
+do not desire their friendship. I am not asking them for anything. I am
+giving them the opportunity to do justice, to give me what is my own--my
+OWN. If you don't understand this I--I--Oh, you MUST understand it!"
+
+She rose from the chair. Her eyes were flashing and she was trembling
+from head to foot. Again I realized how weak and frail she was.
+
+"You must understand," she repeated. "You MUST!"
+
+"Yes, yes," I said hastily. "I think I--I suppose I understand your
+feelings. But--"
+
+"There are no buts. Don't pretend there are. Do you think for one
+instant that I am begging, asking you for HELP? YOU--of all the world!"
+
+This seemed personal enough, in spite of her protestations.
+
+"But you never met me before," I said, involuntarily.
+
+"You never knew of my existence."
+
+She stamped her foot. "I knew of my American relatives," she cried,
+scornfully. "I knew of them and their--Oh, I cannot say the word!"
+
+"Your father told you--" I began. She burst out at me like a flame.
+
+"My father," she declared, "was a brave, kind, noble man. Don't mention
+his name to me. I won't have you speak of him. If it were not for his
+forbearance and self-sacrifice you--all of you--would be--would be--Oh,
+don't speak of my father! Don't!"
+
+To my amazement and utter discomfort she sank into the chair and burst
+into tears. I was completely demoralized.
+
+"Don't, Miss Morley," I begged. "Please don't."
+
+She continued to sob hysterically. To make matters worse sounds from
+behind the closed door led me to think that someone--presumably that
+confounded Mrs. Briggs--was listening at the keyhole.
+
+"Don't, Miss Morley," I pleaded. "Don't!"
+
+My pleas were unavailing. The young lady sobbed and sobbed. I fidgeted
+on the edge of my chair in an agony of mortified embarrassment. "Don'ts"
+were quite useless and I could think of nothing else to say except
+"Compose yourself" and that, somehow or other, was too ridiculously
+reminiscent of Mr. Pickwick and Mrs. Bardell. It was an idiotic
+situation for me to be in. Some men--men of experience with
+woman-kind--might have known how to handle it, but I had had no such
+experience. It was all my fault, of course; I should not have mentioned
+her father. But how was I to know that Strickland Morley was a
+persecuted saint? I should have called him everything but that.
+
+At last I had an inspiration.
+
+"You are ill," I said, rising. "I will call someone."
+
+That had the desired effect. My newly found third--or was it fourth or
+fifth--cousin made a move in protest. She fought down her emotion, her
+sobs ceased, and she leaned back in her chair looking paler and weaker
+than ever. I should have pitied her if she had not been so superior and
+insultingly scornful in her manner toward me. I--Well, yes, I did pity
+her, even as it was.
+
+"Don't," she said, in her turn. "Don't call anyone. I am not ill--not
+now."
+
+"But you have been," I put in, I don't know why.
+
+"I have not been well for some time. But I am not ill. I am quite strong
+enough to hear what you have to say."
+
+This might have been satisfactory if I had had anything to say. I had
+not. She evidently expected me to express repentance for something or
+other and make some sort of proposition. I was not repentant and I had
+no proposition to make. But how was I to tell her that without bringing
+on another storm? Oh, if I had had time to consider. If I had not come
+alone. If Hephzy,--cool-headed, sensible Hephzy--were only with me.
+
+"I--I--" I began. Then desperately: "I scarcely know what to say, Miss
+Morley," I faltered. "I came here, as I told you, expecting to find
+a--a--"
+
+"What, pray?" with a haughty lift of the dark eyebrows. "What did you
+expect to find, may I ask?"
+
+"Nothing--that is, I--Well, never mind that. I came on the spur of the
+moment, immediately after receiving your letter. I have had no time to
+think, to consult my--your aunt--"
+
+"What has my--AUNT" with withering emphasis, "to do with it? Why should
+you consult her?"
+
+"Well, she is your mother's nearest relative, I suppose. She is Captain
+Cahoon's daughter and at least as much interested as I. I must consult
+her, of course. But, frankly, Miss Morley, I think I ought to tell you
+that you are under a misapprehension. There are matters which you don't
+understand."
+
+"I understand everything. I understand only too well. What do you mean
+by a misapprehension? Do you mean--do you dare to insinuate that my
+father did not tell me the truth?"
+
+"Oh, no, no," I interrupted. That was exactly what I did mean, but I was
+not going to let the shade of the departed Strickland appear again until
+I was out of that room and house. "I am not insinuating anything."
+
+"I am very glad to hear it. I wish you to know that I perfectly
+understand EVERYTHING."
+
+That seemed to settle it; at any rate it settled me for the time. I took
+up my hat.
+
+"Miss Morley," I said, "I can't discuss this matter further just now. I
+must consult my cousin first. She and I will call upon you to-morrow at
+any hour you may name."
+
+She was disappointed; that was plain. I thought for the moment that
+she was going to break down again. But she did not; she controlled her
+feelings and faced me firmly and pluckily.
+
+"At nine--no, at ten to-morrow, then," she said. "I shall expect your
+final answer then."
+
+"Very well."
+
+"You will come? Of course; I am forgetting. You said you would."
+
+"We will be here at ten. Here is my address."
+
+I gave her my card, scribbling the street and number of Bancroft's in
+pencil in the corner. She took the card.
+
+"Thank you. Good afternoon," she said.
+
+I said "Good afternoon" and opened the door. The hall outside was empty,
+but someone was descending the stairs in a great hurry. I descended
+also. At the top step I glanced once more into the room I had just left.
+Frances Strickland Morley--Little Frank--was seated in the chair, one
+hand before her eyes. Her attitude expressed complete weariness and
+utter collapse. She had said she was not sick, but she looked sick--she
+did indeed.
+
+Harriet, the slouchy maid, was not in evidence, so I opened the street
+door for myself. As I reached the sidewalk--I suppose, as this was
+England, I should call it the "pavement"--I was accosted by Mrs. Briggs.
+She was out of breath; I am quite sure she had reached that pavement but
+the moment before.
+
+"'Ow is she?" demanded Mrs. Briggs.
+
+"Who?" I asked, not too politely.
+
+"That Morley one. Is she goin' to be hill again?"
+
+"How do I know? Has she been sick--ill, I mean?"
+
+"Huh! Hill! 'Er? Now, now, sir! I give you my word she's been hill
+hever since she came 'ere. I thought one time she was goin' to die on my
+'ands. And 'oo was to pay for 'er buryin', I'd like to know? That's w'at
+it is! 'Oo's goin' to pay for 'er buryin' and the food she eats; to
+say nothin' of 'er room money, and that's been owin' me for a matter of
+three weeks?"
+
+"How should I know who is going to pay for it? She will, I suppose."
+
+"She! W'at with? She ain't got a bob to bless 'erself with, she ain't.
+She's broke, stony broke. Honly for my kind 'eart she'd a been out on
+the street afore this. That and 'er tellin' me she was expectin' money
+from 'er rich friends in the States. You're from the States, ain't you,
+sir?"
+
+"Yes. But do you mean to tell me that Miss Morley has no money of her
+own?"
+
+"Of course I mean it. W'en she come 'ere she told me she was on the
+stage. A hopera singer, she said she was. She 'ad money then, enough to
+pay 'er way, she 'ad. She was expectin' to go with some troupe or other,
+but she never 'as. Oh, them stage people! Don't I know 'em? Ain't I
+'ad experience of 'em? A woman as 'as let lodgin's as long as me? If it
+wasn't for them rich friends in the States I 'ave never put up with 'er
+the way I 'ave. You're from the States, ain't you, sir?"
+
+"Yes, yes, I'm from the States. Now, see here, Mrs. Briggs; I'm coming
+back here to-morrow. If--Well, if Miss Morley needs anything, food or
+medicines or anything, in the meantime, you see that she has them. I'll
+pay you when I come."
+
+Mrs. Briggs actually smiled. She would have patted my arm if I had not
+jerked it out of the way.
+
+"You trust me, sir," she whispered, confidingly. "You trust my kind
+'eart. I'll look after 'er like she was my own daughter."
+
+I should have hated to trust even my worst enemy--if I had one--to Mrs.
+Briggs' "kind heart." I walked off in disgust. I found a cab at the next
+corner and, bidding the driver take me to Bancroft's, threw myself back
+on the cushions. This was a lovely mess! This was a beautiful climax to
+the first act--no, merely the prologue--of the drama of Hephzy's and my
+pilgrimage. What would Jim Campbell say to this? I was to be absolutely
+care-free; I was not to worry about myself or anyone else. That was the
+essential part of his famous "prescription." And now, here I was, with
+this impossible situation and more impossible young woman on my hands.
+If Little Frank had been a boy, a healthy boy, it would be bad enough.
+But Little Frank was a girl--a sick girl, without a penny. And a girl
+thoroughly convinced that she was the rightful heir to goodness knows
+how much wealth--wealth of which we, the uncivilized, unprincipled
+natives of an unprincipled, uncivilized country, had robbed her parents
+and herself. Little Frank had been a dream before; now he--she, I
+mean--was a nightmare; worse than that, for one wakes from a nightmare.
+And I was on my way to tell Hephzy!
+
+Well, I told her. She was in our sitting-room when I reached the hotel
+and I told her the whole story. I began by reading the letter. Before
+she had recovered from the shock of the reading, I told her that I had
+actually met and talked with Little Frank; and while this astounding bit
+of news was, so to speak, soaking into her bewildered brain, I went on
+to impart the crowning item of information--namely, that Little Frank
+was Miss Frances. Then I sat back and awaited what might follow.
+
+Her first coherent remark was one which I had not expected--and I had
+expected almost anything.
+
+"Oh, Hosy," gasped Hephzy, "tell me--tell me before you say anything
+else. Does he--she, I mean--look like Ardelia?"
+
+"Eh? What?" I stammered. "Look like--look like what?"
+
+"Not what--who. Does she look like Ardelia? Like her mother? Oh, I HOPE
+she doesn't favor her father's side! I did so want our Little Frank to
+look like his--her--I CAN'T get used to it--like my poor Ardelia. Does
+she?"
+
+"Goodness knows! I don't know who she looks like. I didn't notice."
+
+"You didn't! I should have noticed that before anything else. What kind
+of a girl is she? Is she pretty?"
+
+"I don't know. She isn't ugly, I should say. I wasn't particularly
+interested in her looks. The fact that she was at all was enough; I
+haven't gotten over that yet. What are we going to do with her? Or are
+we going to do anything? Those are the questions I should like to have
+answered. For heaven's sake, Hephzy, don't talk about her personal
+appearance. There she is and here are we. What are we going to do?"
+
+Hephzy shook her head. "I don't know, Hosy," she admitted. "I don't
+know, I'm sure. This is--this is--Oh, didn't I tell you we were
+SENT--sent by Providence!"
+
+I was silent. If we had been "sent," as she called it, I was far from
+certain that Providence was responsible. I was more inclined to place
+the responsibility in a totally different quarter.
+
+"I think," she continued, "I think you'd better tell me the whole thing
+all over again, Hosy. Tell it slow and don't leave out a word. Tell me
+what sort of place she was in and what she said and how she looked, as
+near as you can remember. I'll try and pay attention; I'll try as hard
+as I can. It'll be a job. All I can think of now is that
+to-morrow mornin'--only to-morrow mornin'--I'm going to see Little
+Frank--Ardelia's Little Frank."
+
+I complied with her request, giving every detail of my afternoon's
+experience. I reread the letter, and handed it to her, that she might
+read it herself. I described Mrs. Briggs and what I had seen of Mrs.
+Briggs' lodging-house. I described Miss Morley as best I could, dark
+eyes, dark hair and the look of weakness and frailty. I repeated our
+conversation word for word; I had forgotten nothing of that. Hephzy
+listened in silence. When I had finished she sighed.
+
+"The poor thing," she said. "I do pity her so."
+
+"Pity her!" I exclaimed. "Well, perhaps I pity her, too, in a way. But
+my pity and yours don't alter the situation. She doesn't want pity. She
+doesn't want help. She flew at me like a wildcat when I asked if she was
+ill. Her personal affairs, she says, are not ours; she doesn't want our
+acquaintance or our friendship. She has gotten some crazy notion in
+her head that you and I and Uncle Barnabas have cheated her out of
+an inheritance, and she wants that! Inheritance! Good Lord! A fine
+inheritance hers is! Daughter of the man who robbed us of everything we
+had."
+
+"I know--I know. But SHE doesn't know, does she, Hosy. Her father must
+have told her--"
+
+"He told her a barrel of lies, of course. What they were I can't
+imagine, but that fellow was capable of anything. Know! No, she doesn't
+know now, but she will have to know."
+
+"Are you goin' to tell her, Hosy?"
+
+I stared in amazement.
+
+"Tell her!" I repeated. "What do you mean? You don't intend letting her
+think that WE are the thieves, do you? That's what she thinks now. Of
+course I shall tell her."
+
+"It will be awful hard to tell. She worshipped her father, I guess. He
+was a dreadful fascinatin' man, when he wanted to be. He could make a
+body believe black was white. Poor Ardelia thought he was--"
+
+"I can't help that. I'm not Ardelia."
+
+"I know, but she is Ardelia's child. Hosy, if you are so set on tellin'
+her why didn't you tell her this afternoon? It would have been just as
+easy then as to-morrow."
+
+This was a staggerer. A truthful answer would be so humiliating. I had
+not told Frances Morley that her father was a thief and a liar because I
+couldn't muster courage to do it. She had seemed so alone and friendless
+and ill. I lacked the pluck to face the situation. But I could not tell
+Hephzy this.
+
+"Why didn't you tell her?" she repeated.
+
+"Oh, bosh!" I exclaimed, impatiently. "This is nonsense and you know it,
+Hephzy. She'll have to be told and you and I must tell her. DON'T look
+at me like that. What else are we to do?"
+
+Another shake of the head.
+
+"I don't know. I can't decide any more than you can, Hosy. What do YOU
+think we should do?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+With which unsatisfactory remark this particular conversation ended. I
+went to my room to dress for dinner. I had no appetite and dinner was
+not appealing; but I did not want to discuss Little Frank any longer. I
+mentally cursed Jim Campbell a good many times that evening and during
+the better part of a sleepless night. If it were not for him I should be
+in Bayport instead of London. From a distance of three thousand miles I
+could, without the least hesitancy, have told Strickland Morley's "heir"
+what to do.
+
+Hephzy did not come down to dinner at all. From behind the door of her
+room she told me, in a peculiar tone, that she could not eat. I could
+not eat, either, but I made the pretence of doing so. The next morning,
+at breakfast in the sitting-room, we were a silent pair. I don't know
+what George, the waiter, thought of us.
+
+At a quarter after nine I turned away from the window through which I
+had been moodily regarding the donkey cart of a flower huckster in the
+street below.
+
+"You'd better get on your things," I said. "It is time for us to go."
+
+Hephzy donned her hat and wrap. Then she came over to me.
+
+"Don't be cross, Hosy," she pleaded. "I've been thinkin' it over all
+night long and I've come to the conclusion that you are probably right.
+She hasn't any real claim on us, of course; it's the other way around,
+if anything. You do just as you think best and I'll back you up."
+
+"Then you agree that we should tell her the truth."
+
+"Yes, if you think so. I'm goin' to leave it all in your hands. Whatever
+you do will be right. I'll trust you as I always have."
+
+It was a big responsibility, it seemed to me. I did wish she had been
+more emphatic. However, I set my teeth and resolved upon a course of
+action. Pity and charity and all the rest of it I would not consider.
+Right was right, and justice was justice. I would end a disagreeable
+business as quickly as I could.
+
+Mrs. Briggs' lodging-house, viewed from the outside, was no more
+inviting at ten in the morning than it had been at four in the
+afternoon. I expected Hephzy to make some comment upon the dirty steps
+and the still dirtier front door. She did neither. We stood together
+upon the steps and I rang the bell.
+
+Mrs. Briggs herself opened the door. I think she had been watching from
+behind the curtains and had seen our cab draw up at the curb. She was
+in a state of great agitation, a combination of relieved anxiety,
+excitement and overdone politeness.
+
+"Good mornin', sir," she said; "and good mornin', lady. I've been
+expectin' you, and so 'as she, poor dear. I thought one w'ile she was
+that hill she couldn't see you, but Lor' bless you, I've nursed 'er same
+as if she was my own daughter. I told you I would sir, now didn't I."
+
+One word in this harangue caught my attention.
+
+"Ill?" I repeated. "What do you mean? Is she worse than she was
+yesterday?"
+
+Mrs. Briggs held up her hands. "Worse!" she cried. "Why, bless your
+'art, sir, she was quite well yesterday. Quite 'erself, she was, when
+you come. But after you went away she seemed to go all to pieces like.
+W'en I went hup to 'er, to carry 'er 'er tea--She always 'as 'er tea;
+I've been a mother to 'er, I 'ave--she'll tell you so. W'en I went hup
+with the tea there she was in a faint. W'ite as if she was dead. My
+word, sir, I was frightened. And all night she's been tossin' about,
+a-cryin' out and--"
+
+"Where is she now?" put in Hephzy, sharply.
+
+"She's in 'er room ma'am. Dressed she is; she would dress, knowin' of
+your comin', though I told 'er she shouldn't. She's dressed, but she's
+lyin' down. She would 'ave tried to sit hup, but THAT I wouldn't 'ave,
+ma'am. 'Now, dearie,' I told 'er--"
+
+But I would not hear any more. As for Hephzy she was in the dingy front
+hall already.
+
+"Shall we go up?" I asked, impatiently.
+
+"Of COURSE you're to go hup. She's a-waitin' for you. But sir--sir," she
+caught my sleeve; "if you think she's goin' to be ill and needin' the
+doctor, just pass the word to me. A doctor she shall 'ave, the best
+there is in London. All I ask you is to pay--"
+
+I heard no more. Hephzy was on her way up the stairs and I followed. The
+door of the first floor back was closed. I rapped upon it.
+
+"Come in," said the voice I remembered, but now it sounded weaker than
+before.
+
+Hephzy looked at me. I nodded.
+
+"You go first," I whispered. "You can call me when you are ready."
+
+Hephzy opened the door and entered the room. I closed the door behind
+her.
+
+Silence for what seemed a long, long time. Then the door opened again
+and Hephzy appeared. Her cheeks were wet with tears. She put her arms
+about my neck.
+
+"Oh, Hosy," she whispered, "she's real sick. And--and--Oh, Hosy, how
+COULD you see her and not see! She's the very image of Ardelia. The very
+image! Come."
+
+I followed her into the room. It was no brighter now, in the middle of
+a--for London--bright forenoon, than it had been on my previous visit.
+Just as dingy and forbidding and forlorn as ever. But now there was no
+defiant figure erect to meet me. The figure was lying upon the bed, and
+the pale cheeks of yesterday were flushed with fever. Miss Morley had
+looked far from well when I first saw her; now she looked very ill
+indeed.
+
+She acknowledged my good-morning with a distant bow. Her illness had not
+quenched her spirit, that was plain. She attempted to rise, but Hephzy
+gently pushed her back upon the pillow.
+
+"You stay right there," she urged. "Stay right there. We can talk just
+as well, and Mr. Knowles won't mind; will you, Hosy."
+
+I stammered something or other. My errand, difficult as it had been
+from the first, now seemed impossible. I had come there to say certain
+things--I had made up my mind to say them; but how was I to say such
+things to a girl as ill as this one was. I would not have said them to
+Strickland Morley himself, under such circumstances.
+
+"I--I am very sorry you are not well, Miss Morley," I faltered.
+
+She thanked me, but there was no warmth in the thanks.
+
+"I am not well," she said; "but that need make no difference. I presume
+you and this--this lady are prepared to make a definite proposition to
+me. I am well enough to hear it."
+
+Hephzy and I looked at each other. I looked for help, but Hephzy's
+expression was not helpful at all. It might have meant anything--or
+nothing.
+
+"Miss Morley," I began. "Miss Morley, I--I--"
+
+"Well, sir?"
+
+"Miss Morley, I--I don't know what to say to you."
+
+She rose to a sitting posture. Hephzy again tried to restrain her, but
+this time she would not be restrained.
+
+"Don't know what to say?" she repeated. "Don't know what to say? Then
+why did you come here?"
+
+"I came--we came because--because I promised we would come."
+
+"But WHY did you come?"
+
+Hephzy leaned toward her.
+
+"Please, please," she begged. "Don't get all excited like this. You
+mustn't. You'll make yourself sicker, you know. You must lie down and be
+quiet. Hosy--oh, please, Hosy, be careful."
+
+Miss Morley paid no attention. She was regarding me with eyes which
+looked me through and through. Her thin hands clutched the bedclothes.
+
+"WHY did you come?" she demanded. "My letter was plain enough,
+certainly. What I said yesterday was perfectly plain. I told you I did
+not wish your acquaintance or your friendship. Friendship--" with a
+blaze of scorn, "from YOU! I--I told you--I--"
+
+"Hush! hush! please don't," begged Hephzy. "You mustn't. You're too weak
+and sick. Oh, Hosy, do be careful."
+
+I was quite willing to be careful--if I had known how.
+
+"I think," I said, "that this interview had better be postponed. Really,
+Miss Morley, you are not in a condition to--"
+
+She sprang to her feet and stood there trembling.
+
+"My condition has nothing to do with it," she cried. "Oh, CAN'T I make
+you understand! I am trying to be lenient, to be--to be--And you come
+here, you and this woman, and try to--to--You MUST understand! I don't
+want to know you. I don't want your pity! After your treatment of my
+mother and my father, I--I--I... Oh!"
+
+She staggered, put her hands to her head, sank upon the bed, and then
+collapsed in a dead faint.
+
+Hephzy was at her side in a moment. She knew what to do if I did not.
+
+"Quick!" she cried, turning to me. "Send for the doctor; she has
+fainted. Hurry! And send that--that Briggs woman to me. Don't stand
+there like that. HURRY!"
+
+I found the Briggs woman in the lower hall. From her I learned the name
+and address of the nearest physician, also the nearest public telephone.
+Mrs. Briggs went up to Hephzy and I hastened out to telephone.
+
+Oh, those London telephones! After innumerable rings and "Hellos" from
+me, and "Are you theres" from Central, I, at last, was connected with
+the doctor's office and, by great good luck, with the doctor himself.
+He promised to come at once. In ten minutes I met him at the door and
+conducted him to the room above.
+
+He was in that room a long time. Meanwhile, I waited in the hall, pacing
+up and down, trying to think my way through this maze. I had succeeded
+in thinking myself still deeper into it when the physician reappeared.
+
+"How is she?" I asked.
+
+"She is conscious again, but weak, of course. If she can be kept quiet
+and have proper care and nourishment and freedom from worry she will,
+probably, gain strength and health. There is nothing seriously wrong
+physically, so far as I can see."
+
+I was glad to hear that and said so.
+
+"Of course," he went on, "her nerves are completely unstrung. She seems
+to have been under a great mental strain and her surroundings are not--"
+He paused, and then added, "Is the young lady a relative of yours?"
+
+"Ye--es, I suppose--She is a distant relative, yes."
+
+"Humph! Has she no near relatives? Here in England, I mean. You and the
+lady with you are Americans, I judge."
+
+I ignored the last sentence. I could not see that our being Americans
+concerned him.
+
+"She has no near relatives in England, so far as I know," I answered.
+"Why do you ask?"
+
+"Merely because--Well, to be frank, because if she had such relatives I
+should strongly recommend their taking charge of her. She is very weak
+and in a condition where she knight become seriously ill."
+
+"I see. You mean that she should not remain here."
+
+"I do mean that, decidedly. This," with a wave of the hand and a glance
+about the bare, dirty, dark hall, "is not--Well, she seems to be a young
+person of some refinement and--"
+
+He did not finish the sentence, but I understood.
+
+"I see," I interrupted. "And yet she is not seriously ill."
+
+"Not now--no. Her weakness is due to mental strain and--well, to a lack
+of nutrition as much as anything."
+
+"Lack of nutrition? You mean she hasn't had enough to eat!"
+
+"Yes. Of course I can't be certain, but that would be my opinion if I
+were forced to give one. At all events, she should be taken from here as
+soon as possible."
+
+I reflected. "A hospital?" I suggested.
+
+"She might be taken to a hospital, of course. But she is scarcely ill
+enough for that. A good, comfortable home would be better. Somewhere
+where she might have quiet and rest. If she had relatives I should
+strongly urge her going to them. She should not be left to herself; I
+would not be responsible for the consequences if she were. A person in
+her condition might--might be capable of any rash act."
+
+This was plain enough, but it did not make my course of action plainer
+to me.
+
+"Is she well enough to be moved--now?" I asked.
+
+"Yes. If she is not moved she is likely to be less well."
+
+I paid him for the visit; he gave me a prescription--"To quiet the
+nerves," he explained--and went away. I was to send for him whenever his
+services were needed. Then I entered the room.
+
+Hephzy and Mrs. Briggs were sitting beside the bed. The face upon the
+pillow looked whiter and more pitiful than ever. The dark eyes were
+closed.
+
+Hephzy signaled me to silence. She rose and tiptoed over to me. I led
+her out into the hall.
+
+"She's sort of dozin' now," she whispered. "The poor thing is worn out.
+What did the doctor say?"
+
+I told her what the doctor had said.
+
+"He's just right," she declared. "She's half starved, that's what's the
+matter with her. That and frettin' and worryin' have just about killed
+her. What are you goin' to do, Hosy?"
+
+"How do I know!" I answered, impatiently. "I don't see exactly why we
+are called upon to do anything. Do you?"
+
+"No--o, I--I don't know as we are called on. No--o. I--"
+
+"Well, do you?"
+
+"No. I know how you feel, Hosy. Considerin' how her father treated us, I
+won't blame you no matter what you do."
+
+"Confound her father! I only wish it were he we had to deal with."
+
+Hephzy was silent. I took a turn up and down the hall.
+
+"The doctor says she should be taken away from here at once," I
+observed.
+
+Hephzy nodded. "There's no doubt about that," she declared with
+emphasis. "I wouldn't trust a sick cat to that Briggs woman. She's
+a--well, she's what she is."
+
+"I suggested a hospital, but he didn't approve," I went on. "He
+recommended some comfortable home with care and quiet and all the rest
+of it. Her relatives should look after her, he said. She hasn't any
+relatives that we know of, or any home to go to."
+
+Again Hephzy was silent. I waited, growing momentarily more nervous and
+fretful. Of all impossible situations this was the most impossible. And
+to make it worse, Hephzy, the usually prompt, reliable Hephzy, was of no
+use at all.
+
+"Do say something," I snapped. "What shall we do?"
+
+"I don't know, Hosy, dear. Why!... Where are you going?"
+
+"I'm going to the drug-store to get this prescription filled. I'll be
+back soon."
+
+The drug-store--it was a "chemist's shop" of course--was at the corner.
+It was the chemist's telephone that I had used when I called the doctor.
+I gave the clerk the prescription and, while he was busy with it, I
+paced up and down the floor of the shop. At length I sat down before the
+telephone and demanded a number.
+
+When I returned to the lodging-house I gave Hephzy the powders which the
+chemist's clerk had prepared.
+
+"Is she any better?" I asked.
+
+"She's just about the same."
+
+"What does she say?"
+
+"She's too weak and sick to say anything. I don't imagine she knows or
+cares what is happening to her."
+
+"Is she strong enough to get downstairs to a cab, or to ride in one
+afterward?"
+
+"I guess so. We could help her, you know. But, Hosy, what cab? What do
+you mean? What are you going to do?"
+
+"I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm going to take her away from this
+hole. I must. I don't want to; there's no reason why I should and every
+reason why I shouldn't; but--Oh, well, confound it! I've got to. We
+CAN'T let her starve and die here."
+
+"But where are you going to take her?"
+
+"There's only one place to take her; that's to Bancroft's. I've 'phoned
+and engaged a room next to ours. She'll have to stay with us for the
+present. Oh, I don't like it any better than you do."
+
+To my intense surprise, Hephzy threw her arms about my neck and hugged
+me.
+
+"I knew you would, Hosy!" she sobbed. "I knew you would. I was dyin' to
+have you, but I wouldn't have asked for the world. You're the best man
+that ever lived. I knew you wouldn't leave poor Ardelia's little girl
+to--to--Oh, I'm so grateful. You're the best man in the world."
+
+I freed myself from the embrace as soon as I could. I didn't feel like
+the best man in the world. I felt like a Quixotic fool.
+
+Fortunately I was too busy for the next hour to think of my feelings.
+Hephzy went in to arrange for the transfer of the invalid to the cab and
+to collect and pack her most necessary belongings. I spent my time in a
+financial wrangle with Mrs. Briggs. The number of items which that woman
+wished included in her bill was surprising. Candles and soap--the bill
+itself was the sole evidence of soap's ever having made its appearance
+in that house--and washing and tea and food and goodness knows what. The
+total was amazing. I verified the addition, or, rather, corrected it,
+and then offered half of the sum demanded. This offer was received with
+protestations, tears and voluble demands to know if I 'ad the 'art to
+rob a lone widow who couldn't protect herself. Finally we compromised on
+a three-quarter basis and Mrs. Briggs receipted the bill. She said her
+kind disposition would be the undoing of her and she knew it. She was
+too silly and soft-'arted to let lodgings.
+
+We had very little trouble in carrying or leading Little Frank to the
+cab. The effect of the doctor's powders--they must have contained some
+sort of opiate--was to render the girl only partially conscious of what
+was going on and we got her to and into the vehicle without difficulty.
+During the drive to Bancroft's she dozed on Hephzy's shoulder.
+
+Her room--it was next to Hephzy's, with a connecting door--was ready
+and we led her up the stairs. Mr. and Mrs. Jameson were very kind and
+sympathetic. They asked surprisingly few questions.
+
+"Poor young lady," said Mr. Jameson, when he and I were together in our
+sitting-room. "She is quite ill, isn't she."
+
+"Yes," I admitted. "It is not a serious illness, however. She needs
+quiet and care more than anything else."
+
+"Yes, sir. We will do our best to see that she has both. A relative of
+yours, sir, I think you said."
+
+"A--a--my niece," I answered, on the spur of the moment. She was
+Hephzy's niece, of course. As a matter of fact, she was scarcely related
+to me. However, it seemed useless to explain.
+
+"I didn't know you had English relatives, Mr. Knowles. I had been under
+the impression that you and Miss Cahoon were strangers here."
+
+So had I, but I did not explain that, either. Mrs. Jameson joined us.
+
+"She will sleep now, I think," she said. "She is quite quiet and
+peaceful. A near relative of yours, Mr. Knowles?"
+
+"She is Mr. Knowles's niece," explained her husband.
+
+"Oh, yes. A sweet girl she seems. And very pretty, isn't she."
+
+I did not answer. Mr. Jameson and his wife turned to go.
+
+"I presume you will wish to communicate with her people," said the
+former. "Shall I send you telegram forms?"
+
+"Not now," I stammered. Telegrams! Her people! She had no people. We
+were her people. We had taken her in charge and were responsible. And
+how and when would that responsibility be shifted!
+
+What on earth should we do with her?
+
+Hephzy tiptoed in. Her expression was a curious one. She was very
+solemn, but not sad; the solemnity was not that of sorrow, but appeared
+to be a sort of spiritual uplift, a kind of reverent joy.
+
+"She's asleep," she said, gravely; "she's asleep, Hosy."
+
+There was precious little comfort in that.
+
+"She'll wake up by and by," I said. "And then--what?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Neither do I--now. But we shall have to know pretty soon."
+
+"I suppose we shall, but I can't--I can't seem to think of anything
+that's ahead of us. All I can think is that my Little Frank--my
+Ardelia's Little Frank--is here, here with us, at last."
+
+"And TO last, so far as I can see. Hephzy, for heaven's sake, do try
+to be sensible. Do you realize what this means? As soon as she is
+well enough to understand what has happened she will want to know what
+'proposition' we have to make. And when we tell her we have none to
+make, she'll probably collapse again. And then--and then--what shall we
+do?"
+
+"I don't know, Hosy. I declare I don't know."
+
+I strode into my own room and slammed the door.
+
+"Damn!" said I, with enthusiasm.
+
+"What?" queried Hephzy, from the sitting-room. "What did you say, Hosy?"
+
+I did not tell her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+In Which the Pilgrims Become Tenants
+
+
+Two weeks later we left Bancroft's and went to Mayberry. Two weeks only,
+and yet in that two weeks all our plans--if our indefinite visions of
+irresponsible flitting about Great Britain and the continent might
+be called plans--had changed utterly. Our pilgrimage was, apparently,
+ended--it had become an indefinite stay. We were no longer pilgrims, but
+tenants, tenants in an English rectory, of all places in the world.
+I, the Cape Cod quahaug, had become an English country gentleman--or a
+country gentleman in England--for the summer, at least.
+
+Little Frank--Miss Frances Morley--was responsible for the change, of
+course. Her sudden materialization and the freak of fortune which
+had thrown her, weak and ill, upon our hands, were responsible for
+everything. For how much more, how many other changes, she would be
+responsible the future only could answer. And the future would answer in
+its own good, or bad, time. My conundrum "What are we going to do
+with her?" was as much of a puzzle as ever. For my part I gave it up.
+Sufficient unto the day was the evil thereof--much more than sufficient.
+
+For the first twenty-four hours following the arrival of "my niece" at
+Bancroft's Hotel the situation regarding that niece remained as it
+was. Miss Morley--or Frances--or Frank as Hephzy persisted in calling
+her--was too ill to care what had happened, or, at least, to speak of
+it. She spoke very little, was confined to her room and bed and slept
+the greater part of the time. The doctor whom I called, on Mr. Jameson's
+recommendation, confirmed his fellow practitioner's diagnosis; the young
+lady, he said, was suffering from general weakness and the effect of
+nervous strain. She needed absolute rest, care and quiet. There was no
+organic disease.
+
+But on the morning of the second day she was much better and willing,
+even anxious to talk. She assailed Hephzy with questions and Hephzy,
+although she tried to avoid answering most, was obliged to answer some
+of them. She reported the interview to me during luncheon.
+
+"She didn't seem to remember much about comin' here, or what happened
+before or afterward," said Hephzy. "But she wanted to know it all. I
+told her the best I could. 'You couldn't stay there,' I said. 'That
+Briggs hyena wasn't fit to take care of any human bein' and neither Hosy
+nor I could leave you in her hands. So we brought you here to the hotel
+where we're stoppin'.' She thought this over a spell and then she wanted
+to know whose idea bringin' her here was, yours or mine. I said 'twas
+yours, and just like you, too; you were the kindest-hearted man in the
+world, I said. Oh, you needn't look at me like that, Hosy. It's the
+plain truth, and you know it."
+
+"Humph!" I grunted. "If the young lady were a mind-reader she
+might--well, never mind. What else did she say?"
+
+"Oh, a good many things. Wanted to know if her bill at Mrs. Briggs' was
+paid. I said it was. She thought about that and then she gave me orders
+that you and I were to keep account of every cent--no, penny--we spent
+for her. She should insist upon that. If we had the idea that she was a
+subject of charity we were mistaken. She fairly withered me with a look
+from those big eyes of hers. Ardelia's eyes all over again! Or they
+would be if they were blue instead of brown. I remember--"
+
+I cut short the reminiscence. I was in no mood to listen to the praises
+of any Morley.
+
+"What answer did you make to that?" I asked.
+
+"What could I say? I didn't want any more faintin' spells or hysterics,
+either. I said we weren't thinkin' of offerin' charity and if it would
+please her to have us run an expense book we'd do it, of course. She
+asked what the doctor said about her condition. I told her he said she
+must keep absolutely quiet and not fret about anything or she'd have an
+awful relapse. That was pretty strong but I meant it that way. Answerin'
+questions that haven't got any answer to 'em is too much of a strain for
+ME. You try it some time yourself and see."
+
+"I have tried it, thank you. Well, is that all? Did she tell you
+anything about herself; where she has been or what she has been or what
+she has been doing since her precious father died?"
+
+"No, not a word. I was dyin' to ask her, but I didn't. She says she
+wants to talk with the doctor next time he comes, that's all."
+
+She did talk with the doctor, although not during his next call. Several
+days passed before he would permit her to talk with him. Meanwhile he
+and I had several talks. What he told me brought my conundrum no nearer
+its answer.
+
+She was recovering rapidly, he said, but for weeks at least her delicate
+nervous organism must be handled with care. The slightest set-back
+would be disastrous. He asked if we intended remaining at Bancroft's
+indefinitely. I had no intentions--those I had had were wiped off my
+mental slate--so I said I did not know, our future plans were vague. He
+suggested a sojourn in the country, in some pleasant retired spot in the
+rural districts.
+
+"An out-of-door life, walks, rides and sports of all sorts would do your
+niece a world of good, Mr. Knowles," he declared. "She needs just that.
+A very attractive young lady, sir, if you'll pardon my saying so," he
+went on. "Were her people Londoners, may I ask?"
+
+He might ask but I had no intention of telling him. What I knew
+concerning my "niece's" people were things not usually told to
+strangers. I evaded the question.
+
+"Has she had a recent bereavement?" he queried. "I hope you'll not
+think me merely idly inquisitive. I cannot understand how a young woman,
+normally healthy and well, should have been brought to such a strait.
+Our English girls, Mr. Knowles, do not suffer from nerves, as I am told
+your American young women so frequently do. Has your niece been in the
+States with you?"
+
+I said she had not. Incidentally I informed him that American young
+women did NOT frequently suffer from nerves. He said "Really," but he
+did not believe me, I'm certain. He was a good fellow, and intelligent,
+but his ideas of "the States" had been gathered, largely, I think,
+from newspapers and novels. He was convinced that most Americans were
+confirmed neurotics and dyspeptics, just as Hephzy had believed all
+Englishmen wore side-whiskers.
+
+I changed the conversation as soon as I could. I could tell him
+so little concerning my newly found "niece." I knew about as much
+concerning her life as he did. It is distinctly unpleasant to be uncle
+to someone you know nothing at all about. I devoutly wished I had not
+said she was my niece. I repeated that wish many times afterward.
+
+Miss Morley's talk with the physician had definite results, surprising
+results. Following that talk she sent word by the doctor that she wished
+to see Hephzy and me. We went into her room. She was sitting in a chair
+by the window, and was wearing a rather pretty wrapper, or kimono, or
+whatever that sort of garment is called. At any rate, it was becoming. I
+was obliged to admit that the general opinion expressed by the Jamesons
+and Hephzy and the doctor--that she was pretty, was correct enough. She
+was pretty, but that did not help matters any.
+
+She asked us--no, she commanded us to sit down. Her manner was decidedly
+business-like. She wasted no time in preliminaries, but came straight to
+the point, and that point was the one which I had dreaded. She asked us
+what decision we had reached concerning her.
+
+"Have you decided what your offer is to be?" she asked.
+
+I looked at Hephzy and she at me. Neither of us derived comfort from
+the exchange of looks. However, something must be done, or said, and I
+braced myself to say it.
+
+"Miss Morley," I began, "before I answer that question I should like to
+ask you one. What do you expect us to do?"
+
+She regarded me coldly. "I expect," she said, "that you and this--that
+you and Miss Cahoon will arrange to pay me the money which was my
+mother's and which my grandfather should have turned over to her while
+he lived."
+
+Again I looked at Hephzy and again I braced myself for the scene which I
+was certain would follow.
+
+"It is your impression then," I said, "that your mother had money of her
+own and that Captain Barnabas, your grandfather, kept that money for his
+own use."
+
+"It is not an impression," haughtily; "I know it to be a fact."
+
+"How do you know it?"
+
+"My father told me so, during his last illness."
+
+"Was--pardon me--was your father himself at the time? Was
+he--er--rational?"
+
+"Rational! My father?"
+
+"I mean--I mean was he himself--mentally? He was not delirious when he
+told you?"
+
+"Delirious! Mr. Knowles, I am trying to be patient, but for the last
+time I warn you that I will not listen to insinuations against my
+father."
+
+"I am not insinuating anything. I am seeking information. Were you and
+your father together a great deal? Did you know him well? Just what did
+he tell you?"
+
+She hesitated before replying. When she spoke it was with an exaggerated
+air of patient toleration, as if she were addressing an unreasonable
+child.
+
+"I will answer you," she said. "I will answer you because, so far, I
+have no fault to find with your behavior toward me. You and my--and my
+aunt have been as reasonable as I, perhaps, should expect, everything
+considered. Your bringing me here and providing for me was even kind,
+I suppose. So I will answer your questions. My father and I were not
+together a great deal. I attended a convent school in France and saw
+Father only at intervals. I supposed him to possess an independent
+income. It was only when he was--was unable to work," with a quiver in
+her voice, "that I learned how he lived. He had been obliged to depend
+upon his music, upon his violin playing, to earn money enough to keep us
+both alive. Then he told me of--of his life in America and how my mother
+and he had been--been cheated and defrauded by those who--who--Oh, DON'T
+ask me any more! Don't!"
+
+"I must ask you. I must ask you to tell me this: How was he defrauded,
+as you call it?"
+
+"I have told you, already. My mother's fortune--"
+
+"But your mother had no fortune."
+
+The anticipated scene was imminent. She sprang to her feet, but being
+too weak to stand, sank back again. Hephzy looked appealingly at me.
+
+"Hosy," she cautioned; "Oh, Hosy, be careful! Think how sick she has
+been."
+
+"I am thinking, Hephzy. I mean to be careful. But what I said is the
+truth, and you know it."
+
+Hephzy would have replied, but Little Frank motioned her to be silent.
+
+"Hush!" she commanded. "Mr. Knowles, what do you mean? My mother had
+money, a great deal of money. I don't know the exact sum, but my father
+said--You know it! You MUST know it. It was in my grandfather's care
+and--"
+
+"Your grandfather had no money. He--well, he lost every dollar he had.
+He died as poor as a church rat."
+
+Another interval of silence, during which I endured a piercing scrutiny
+from the dark eyes. Then Miss Morley's tone changed.
+
+"Indeed!" she said, sarcastically. "You surprise me, Mr. Knowles. What
+became of the money, may I ask? I understand that my grandfather was a
+wealthy man."
+
+"He was fairly well-to-do at one time, but he lost his money and died
+poor."
+
+"How did he lose it?"
+
+The question was a plain one and demanded a plain and satisfying answer.
+But how could I give that answer--then? Hephzy was shaking her head
+violently. I stammered and faltered and looked guilty, I have no doubt.
+
+"Well?" said Miss Morley.
+
+"He--he lost it, that is sufficient. You must take my word for it.
+Captain Cahoon died without a dollar of his own."
+
+"When did he LOSE his wealth?" with sarcastic emphasis.
+
+"Years ago. About the time your parents left the United States. There,
+there, Hephzy! I know. I'm doing my best."
+
+"Indeed! When did he die?"
+
+"Long ago--more than ten years ago."
+
+"But my parents left America long before that. If my grandfather was
+penniless how did he manage to live all those years? What supported
+him?"
+
+"Your aunt--Miss Cahoon here--had money in her own right."
+
+"SHE had money and my mother had not. Yet both were Captain Cahoon's
+daughters. How did that happen?"
+
+It seemed to me that it was Hephzy's time to play the target. I turned
+to her.
+
+"Miss Cahoon will probably answer that herself," I observed,
+maliciously.
+
+Hephzibah appeared more embarrassed than I.
+
+"I--I--Oh, what difference does all this make?" she faltered. "Hosy has
+told you the truth, Frances. Really and truly he has. Father was poor
+as poverty when he died and all his last years, too. All his money had
+gone."
+
+"Yes, so I have heard Mr. Knowles say. But how did it go?"
+
+"In--in--well, it was invested in stocks and things and--and--"
+
+"Do you mean that he speculated in shares?"
+
+"Well, not--not--"
+
+"I see. Oh, I see. Father told me a little concerning those
+speculations. He warned Captain Cahoon before he left the States, but
+his warnings were not heeded, I presume. And you wish me to believe that
+ALL the money was lost--my mother's and all. Is that what you mean?"
+
+"Your mother HAD no money," I put in, desperately, "I have told you--"
+
+"You have told me many things, Mr. Knowles. Even admitting that my
+grandfather lost his money, as you say, why should I suffer because of
+his folly? I am not asking for HIS money. I am demanding money that was
+my mother's and is now mine. That I expected from him and now I expect
+it from you, his heirs."
+
+"But your mother had no--"
+
+"I do not care to hear that again. I know she had money."
+
+"But how do you know?"
+
+"Because my father told me she had, and my father did not lie."
+
+There we were again--just where we started. The doctor re-entered the
+room and insisted upon his patient's being left to herself. She must lie
+down and rest, he said. His manner was one of distinct disapproval. It
+was evident that he considered Hephzy and me disturbers of the peace; in
+fact he intimated as much when he joined us in the sitting-room in a few
+minutes.
+
+"I am afraid I made a mistake in permitting the conference," he said.
+"The young lady seems much agitated, Mr. Knowles. If she is, complete
+nervous prostration may follow. She may be an invalid for months or even
+years. I strongly recommend her being taken into the country as soon as
+possible."
+
+This speech and the manner in which it was made were impressive and
+alarming. The possibilities at which it hinted were more alarming still.
+We made no attempt to discuss family matters with Little Frank that day
+nor the next.
+
+But on the day following, when I returned from my morning visit to
+Camford Street, I found Hephzy awaiting me in the sitting-room. She was
+very solemn.
+
+"Hosy," she said, "sit down. I've got somethin' to tell you."
+
+"About her?" I asked, apprehensively.
+
+"Yes. She's just been talkin' to me."
+
+"She has! I thought we agreed not to talk with her at all."
+
+"We did, and I tried not to. But when I went in to see her just now she
+was waitin' for me. She had somethin' to say, she said, and she said
+it--Oh, my goodness, yes! she said it."
+
+"What did she say? Has she sent for her lawyer--her solicitor, or
+whatever he is?"
+
+"No, she hasn't done that. I don't know but I 'most wish she had. He
+wouldn't be any harder to talk to than she is. Hosy, she's made up her
+mind."
+
+"Made up her mind! I thought HER mind was already made up."
+
+"It was, but she's made it up again. That doctor has been talkin' to her
+and she's really frightened about her health, I think. Anyhow, she has
+decided that her principal business just now is to get well. She told
+me she had decided not to press her claim upon us for the present. If we
+wished to make an offer of what she calls restitution, she'll listen to
+it; but she judges we are not ready to make one."
+
+"Humph! her judgment is correct so far."
+
+"Yes, but that isn't all. While she is waitin' for that offer she
+expects us to take care of her. She has been thinkin', she says, and she
+has come to the conclusion that our providin' for her as we have done
+isn't charity--or needn't be considered as charity--at all. She is
+willin' to consider it a part of that precious restitution she's forever
+talkin' about. We are to take care of her, and pay her doctor's bills,
+and take her into the country as he recommends, and--"
+
+I interrupted. "Great Scott!" I cried, "does she expect us to ADOPT
+her?"
+
+"I don't know what she expects; I'm tryin' to tell you what she said.
+We're to do all this and keep a strict account of all it costs, and
+then when we are ready to make a--a proposition, as she calls it, this
+account can be subtracted from the money she thinks we've got that
+belongs to her."
+
+"But there isn't any money belonging to her. I told her so, and so did
+you."
+
+"I know, but we might tell her a thousand times and it wouldn't affect
+her father's tellin' her once. Oh, that Strickland Morley! If only--"
+
+"Hush! hush, Hephzy... Well, by George! of all the--this thing has gone
+far enough. It has gone too far. We made a great mistake in bringing
+her here, in having anything to do with her at all--but we shan't go on
+making mistakes. We must stop where we are. She must be told the truth
+now--to-day."
+
+"I know--I know, Hosy; but who'll tell her?"
+
+"I will."
+
+"She won't believe you."
+
+"Then she must disbelieve. She can call in her solicitor and I'll make
+him believe."
+
+Hephzy was silent. Her silence annoyed me.
+
+"Why don't you say something?" I demanded. "You know what I say is plain
+common-sense."
+
+"I suppose it is--I suppose 'tis. But, Hosy, if you start in tellin' her
+again you know what'll happen. The doctor said the least little thing
+would bring on nervous prostration. And if she has that, WHAT will
+become of her?"
+
+It was my turn to hesitate.
+
+"You couldn't--we couldn't turn her out into the street if she was
+nervous prostrated, could we," pleaded Hephzy. "After all, she's
+Ardelia's daughter and--"
+
+"She's Strickland Morley's daughter. There is no doubt of that.
+Hereditary influence is plain enough in her case."
+
+"I know, but she is Ardelia's daughter, too. I don't see how we can tell
+her, Hosy; not until she's well and strong again."
+
+I was never more thoroughly angry in my life. My patience was exhausted.
+
+"Look here, Hephzy," I cried: "what is it you are leading up to? You're
+not proposing--actually proposing that we adopt this girl, are you?"
+
+"No--no--o. Not exactly that, of course. But we might take her into the
+country somewhere and--"
+
+"Oh, DO be sensible! Do you realize what that would mean? We should have
+to give up our trip, stop sightseeing, stop everything we had planned to
+do, and turn ourselves into nurses running a sanitarium for the benefit
+of a girl whose father's rascality made your father a pauper. And, not
+only do this, but be treated by her as if--as if--"
+
+"There, there, Hosy! I know what it will mean. I know what it would mean
+to you and I don't mean for you to do it. You've done enough and more
+than enough. But with me it's different. _I_ could do it."
+
+"You?"
+
+"Yes. I've got some money of my own. I could find a nice, cheap, quiet
+boardin'-house in the country round here somewhere and she and I could
+go there and stay until she got well. You needn't go at all; you could
+go off travelin' by yourself and--"
+
+"Hephzy, what are you talking about?"
+
+"I mean it. I've thought it all out, Hosy. Ever since Ardelia and I
+had that last talk together and she whispered to me that--that--well,
+especially ever since I knew there was a Little Frank I've been thinkin'
+and plannin' about that Little Frank; you know I have. He--she isn't
+the kind of Little Frank I expected, but she's, my sister's baby and
+I can't--I CAN'T, turn her away to be sick and die. I can't do it. I
+shouldn't dare face Ardelia in--on the other side if I did. No, I
+guess it's my duty and I'm goin' to go on with it. But with you it's
+different. She isn't any real relation to you. You've done enough--and
+more than enough--as it is."
+
+This was the climax. Of course I might have expected it, but of course
+I didn't. As soon as I recovered, or partially recovered, from my
+stupefaction I expostulated and scolded and argued. Hephzy was quiet but
+firm. She hated to part from me--she couldn't bear to think of it; but
+on the other hand she couldn't abandon her Ardelia's little girl. The
+interview ended by my walking out of the room and out of Bancroft's in
+disgust.
+
+I did not return until late in the afternoon. I was in better humor
+then. Hephzy was still in the sitting-room; she looked as if she had
+been crying.
+
+"Hosy," she said, as I entered, "I--I hope you don't think I'm too
+ungrateful. I'm not. Really I'm not. And I care as much for you as if
+you was my own boy. I can't leave you; I sha'n't. If you say for us
+to--"
+
+I interrupted.
+
+"Hephzy," I said, "I shan't say anything. I know perfectly well that you
+couldn't leave me any more than I could leave you. I have arranged with
+Matthews to set about house-hunting at once. As soon as rural England is
+ready for us, we shall be ready for it. After all, what difference does
+it make? I was ordered to get fresh experience. I might as well get it
+by becoming keeper of a sanitarium as any other way."
+
+Hephzy looked at me. She rose from her chair.
+
+"Hosy," she cried, "what--a sanitarium?"
+
+"We'll keep it together," I said, smiling. "You and I and Little Frank.
+And it is likely to be a wonderful establishment."
+
+Hephzy said--she said a great deal, principally concerning my generosity
+and goodness and kindness and self-sacrifice. I tried to shut off the
+flow, but it was not until I began to laugh that it ceased.
+
+"Why!" cried Hephzy. "You're laughin'! What in the world? I don't see
+anything to laugh at."
+
+"Don't you? I do. Oh, dear me! I--I, the Bayport quahaug to--Ho! ho!
+Hephzy, let me laugh. If there is any fun in this perfectly devilish
+situation let me enjoy it while I can."
+
+And that is how and why I decided to become a country gentleman
+instead of a traveler. When I told Matthews of my intention he had been
+petrified with astonishment. I had written Campbell of that intention. I
+devoutly wished I might see his face when he read my letter.
+
+For days and days Hephzy and I "house-hunted." We engaged a nurse to
+look after the future patient of the "sanitarium" while we did our best
+to look for the sanitarium itself. Mr. Matthews gave us the addresses
+of real estate agents and we journeyed from suburb to suburb and from
+seashore to hills. We saw several "semi-detached villas." The name
+"semi-detached villa" had an appealing sound, especially to Hephzy, but
+the villas themselves did not appeal. They turned out to be what we, in
+America, would have called "two-family houses."
+
+"And I never did like the idea of livin' in a two-family house,"
+declared Hephzy. "I've known plenty of real nice folks who did live in
+'em, or one-half of one of 'em, but it usually happened that the folks
+in the other half was a dreadful mean set. They let their dog chase your
+cat and if your hens scratched up their flower garden they were real
+unlikely about it. I've heard Father tell about Cap'n Noah Doane and
+Cap'n Elkanah Howes who used to live in Bayport. They'd been chums all
+their lives and when they retired from the sea they thought 'twould be
+lovely to build a double house so's they would be right close together
+all the time. Well, they did it and they hadn't been settled more'n a
+month when they began quarrelin'. Cap'n Noah's wife wanted the house
+painted yellow and Mrs. Cap'n Elkanah, she wanted it green. They
+started the fuss and it ended by one-half bein' yellow and t'other half
+green--such an outrage you never saw--and a big fence down the middle
+of the front yard, and the two families not speakin', and law-suits and
+land knows what all. They wouldn't even go to the same church nor be
+buried in the same graveyard. No sir-ee! no two-family house for us if
+I can help it. We've got troubles enough inside the family without
+fightin' the neighbors."
+
+"But think of the beautiful names," I observed. "Those names ought to
+appeal to your poetic soul, Hephzy. We haven't seen a villa yet, no
+matter how dingy, or small, that wasn't christened 'Rosemary Terrace'
+or 'Sunnylawn' or something. That last one--the shack with the broken
+windows--was labeled 'Broadview' and it faced an alley ending at a brick
+stable."
+
+"I know it," she said. "If they'd called it 'Narrowview' or 'Cow
+Prospect' 'twould have been more fittin', I should say. But I think
+givin' names to homes is sort of pretty, just the same. We might call
+our house at home 'Writer's Rest.' A writer lives in it, you know."
+
+"And he has rested more than he has written of late," I observed.
+"'Quahaug Stew' or 'The Tureen' would be better, I should say."
+
+When we expressed disapproval of the semi-detached villas our real
+estate brokers flew to the other extremity and proceeded to show
+us "estates." These estates comprised acres of ground, mansions,
+game-keepers' and lodge-keepers' houses, and goodness knows what. Some,
+so the brokers were particular to inform us, were celebrated for their
+"shooting."
+
+The villas were not good enough; the estates were altogether too good.
+We inspected but one and then declined to see more.
+
+"Shootin'!" sniffed Hephzy. "I should feel like shootin' myself every
+time I paid the rent. I'd HAVE to do it the second time. 'Twould be a
+quicker end than starvin', 'and the first month would bring us to that."
+
+We found one pleasant cottage in a suburb bearing the euphonious name of
+"Leatherhead"--that is, the village was named "Leatherhead"; the cottage
+was "Ash Clump." I teased Hephzy by referring to it as "Ash Dump," but
+it really was a pretty, roomy house, with gardens and flowers. For the
+matter of that, every cottage we visited, even the smallest, was bowered
+in flowers.
+
+Hephzy's romantic spirit objected strongly to "Leatherhead," but I told
+her nothing could be more appropriate.
+
+"This whole proposition--Beg pardon; I didn't mean to use that word;
+we've heard enough concerning 'propositions'--but really, Hephzy,
+'Leatherhead' is very appropriate for us. If we weren't leather-headed
+and deserving of leather medals we should not be hunting houses at all.
+We should have left Little Frank and her affairs in a lawyer's hands and
+be enjoying ourselves as we intended. Leatherhead for the leather-heads;
+it's another dispensation of Providence."
+
+"Ash Dump"--"Clump," I mean--was owned by a person named Cripps, Solomon
+Cripps. Mr. Cripps was a stout, mutton-chopped individual, strongly
+suggestive of Bancroft's "Henry." He was rather pompous and surly when I
+first knocked at the door of his residence, but when he learned we were
+house-hunting and had our eyes upon the "Clump," he became very
+polite indeed. "A 'eavenly spot," he declared it to be. "A beautiful
+neighborhood. Near the shops and not far from the Primitive Wesleyan
+chapel." He and Mrs. Cripps attended the chapel, he informed us.
+
+I did not fancy Mr. Cripps; he was too--too something, I was not sure
+what. And Mrs. Cripps, whom we met later, was of a similar type. They,
+like everyone else, recognized us as Americans at once and they spoke
+highly of the "States."
+
+"A very fine country, I am informed," said Mr. Cripps. "New, of course,
+but very fine indeed. Young men make money there. Much money--yes."
+
+Mrs. Cripps wished to know if Americans were a religious people, as a
+rule. Religion, true spiritual religion was on the wane in England.
+
+I gathered that she and her husband were doing their best to keep it up
+to the standard. I had read, in books by English writers, of the British
+middle-class Pharisee. I judged the Crippses to be Pharisees.
+
+Hephzy's opinion was like mine.
+
+"If ever there was a sanctimonious hypocrite it's that Mrs. Cripps," she
+declared. "And her husband ain't any better. They remind me of Deacon
+Hardy and his wife back home. He always passed the plate in church and
+she was head of the sewin' circle, but when it came to lettin' go of
+an extry cent for the minister's salary they had glue on their fingers.
+Father used to say that the Deacon passed the plate himself so nobody
+could see how little he put in it. They were the ones that always
+brought a stick of salt herrin' to the donation parties."
+
+We didn't like the Crippses, but we did like "Ash Clump." We had almost
+decided to take it when our plans were quashed by the member of our
+party on whose account we had planned solely. Miss Morley flatly refused
+to go to Leatherhead.
+
+"Don't ask ME why," said Hephzy, to whom the refusal had been made. "I
+don't know. All I know is that the very name 'Leatherhead' turned her
+whiter than she has been for a week. She just put that little foot of
+hers down and said no. I said 'Why not?' and she said 'Never mind.' So I
+guess we sha'n't be Leatherheaded--in that way--this summer."
+
+I was angry and impatient, but when I tried to reason with the young
+lady I met a crushing refusal and a decided snub.
+
+"I do not care," said Little Frank, calmly and coldly, "to explain my
+reasons. I have them, and that is sufficient. I shall not go to--that
+town or that place."
+
+"But why?" I begged, restraining my desire to shake her.
+
+"I have my reasons. You may go there, if you wish. That is your right.
+But I shall not. And before you go I shall insist upon a settlement of
+my claim."
+
+The "claim" could neither be settled nor discussed; the doctor's warning
+was no less insistent although his patient was steadily improving. I
+faced the alternative of my compliance or her nervous prostration and I
+chose the former. My desire to shake her remained.
+
+So "Ash Clump" was given up. Hephzy and I speculated much concerning
+Little Frank's aversion to Leatherhead.
+
+"It must be," said Hephzy, "that she knows somebody there, or somethin'
+like that. That's likely, I suppose. You know we don't know much about
+her or what she's done since her father died, Hosy. I've tried to ask
+her but she won't tell. I wish we did know."
+
+"I don't," I snarled. "I wish to heaven we had never known her at all."
+
+Hephzy sighed. "It IS awful hard for you," she said. "And yet, if we had
+come to know her in another way you--we might have been glad. I--I think
+she could be as sweet as she is pretty to folks she didn't consider
+thieves--and Americans. She does hate Americans. That's her precious
+pa's doin's, I suppose likely."
+
+The next afternoon we saw the advertisement in the Standard. George,
+the waiter, brought two of the London dailies to our room each day. The
+advertisement read as follows:
+
+
+"To Let for the Summer Months--Furnished. A Rectory in Mayberry, Sussex.
+Ten rooms, servants' quarters, vegetable gardens, small fruit, tennis
+court, etc., etc. Water and gas laid on. Golf near by. Terms low.
+Rector--Mayberry, Sussex."
+
+
+"I answered it, Hosy," said Hephzy.
+
+"You did!"
+
+"Yes. It sounded so nice I couldn't help it. It would be lovely to live
+in a rectory, wouldn't it."
+
+"Lovely--and expensive," I answered. "I'm afraid a rectory with tennis
+courts and servants' quarters and all the rest of it will prove too
+grand for a pair of Bayporters like you and me. However, your answering
+the ad does no harm; it doesn't commit us to anything."
+
+But when the answer to the answer came it was even more appealing than
+the advertisement itself. And the terms, although a trifle higher
+than we had planned to pay, were not entirely beyond our means. The
+rector--his name was Cole--urged us to visit Mayberry and see the place
+for ourselves. We were to take the train for Haddington on Hill where
+the trap would meet us. Mayberry was two miles from Haddington on Hill,
+it appeared.
+
+We decided to go, but before writing of our intention, Hephzy consulted
+the most particular member of our party.
+
+"It's no use doing anything until we ask her," she said. "She may be as
+down on Mayberry as she was on Leatherhead."
+
+But she was not. She had no objections to Mayberry. So, after writing
+and making the necessary arrangements, we took the train one bright,
+sunny morning, and after a ride of an hour or more, alighted at
+Haddington on Hill.
+
+Haddington on Hill was not on a hill at all, unless a knoll in the
+middle of a wide flat meadow be called that. There were no houses near
+the railway station, either rectories or any other sort. We were the
+only passengers to leave the train there.
+
+The trap, however, was waiting. The horse which drew it was a black,
+plump little animal, and the driver was a neat English lad who touched
+his hat and assisted Hephzy to the back seat of the vehicle. I climbed
+up beside her.
+
+The road wound over the knoll and away across the meadow. On either side
+were farm lands, fields of young grain, or pastures with flocks of sheep
+grazing contentedly. In the distance, in every direction, one caught
+glimpses of little villages with gray church towers rising amid the
+foliage. Each field and pasture was bordered with a hedge instead of
+a fence, and over all hung the soft, light blue haze which is so
+characteristic of good weather in England.
+
+Birds which we took to be crows, but which we learned afterward were
+rooks, whirled and circled. As we turned a corner a smaller bird rose
+from the grass beside the road and soared upward, singing with all its
+little might until it was a fluttering speck against the sky. Hephzy
+watched it, her eyes shining.
+
+"I believe," she cried, excitedly, "I do believe that is a skylark. Do
+you suppose it is?"
+
+"A lark, yes, lady," said our driver.
+
+"A lark, a real skylark! Just think of it, Hosy. I've heard a real lark.
+Well, Hephzibah Cahoon, you may never get into a book, but you're livin'
+among book things every day of your life. 'And singin' ever soars and
+soarin' ever singest.' I'd sing, too, if I knew how. You needn't be
+frightened--I sha'n't try."
+
+The meadows ended at the foot of another hill, a real one this time.
+At our left, crowning the hill, a big house, a mansion with towers and
+turrets, rose above the trees. Hephzy whispered to me.
+
+"You don't suppose THAT is the rectory, do you, Hosy?" she asked, in an
+awestricken tone.
+
+"If it is we may as well go back to London," I answered. "But it
+isn't. Nothing lower in churchly rank than a bishop could keep up that
+establishment."
+
+The driver settled our doubts for us.
+
+"The Manor House, sir," he said, pointing with his whip. "The estate
+begins here, sir."
+
+The "estate" was bordered by a high iron fence, stretching as far as
+we could see. Beside that fence we rode for some distance. Then another
+turn in the road and we entered the street of a little village, a
+village of picturesque little houses, brick or stone always--not a frame
+house among them. Many of the roofs were thatched. Flowers and climbing
+vines and little gardens everywhere. The village looked as if it had
+been there, just as it was, for centuries.
+
+"This is Mayberry, sir," said our driver. "That is the rectory, next the
+church."
+
+We could see the church tower and the roof, but the rectory was not yet
+visible to our eyes. We turned in between two of the houses, larger and
+more pretentious than the rest. The driver alighted and opened a big
+wooden gate. Before us was a driveway, shaded by great elms and bordered
+by rose hedges. At the end of the driveway was an old-fashioned,
+comfortable looking, brick house. Vines hid the most of the bricks.
+Flower beds covered its foundations. A gray-haired old gentleman stood
+in the doorway.
+
+This was the rectory we had come to see and the gray-haired gentleman
+was the Reverend Mr. Cole, the rector.
+
+"My soul!" whispered Hephzy, looking aghast at the spacious grounds, "we
+can never hire THIS. This is too expensive and grand for us, Hosy. Look
+at the grass to cut and the flowers to attend to, and the house to run.
+No wonder the servants have 'quarters.' My soul and body! I thought a
+rector was a kind of minister, and a rectory was a sort of parsonage,
+but I guess I'm off my course, as Father used to say. Either that or
+ministers' wages are higher than they are in Bayport. No, this place
+isn't for you and me, Hosy."
+
+But it was. Before we left that rectory in the afternoon I had agreed
+to lease it until the middle of September, servants--there were five
+of them, groom and gardener included--horse and trap, tennis court,
+vegetable garden, fruit, flowers and all. It developed that the terms,
+which I had considered rather too high for my purse, included the
+servants' wages, vegetables from the garden, strawberries and other
+"small fruit"--everything. Even food for the horse was included in that
+all-embracing rent.
+
+As Hephzy said, everything considered, the rent of Mayberry Rectory was
+lower than that of a fair-sized summer cottage at Bayport.
+
+The Reverend Mr. Cole was a delightful gentleman. His wife was equally
+kind and agreeable. I think they were, at first, rather unpleasantly
+surprised to find that their prospective tenants were from the "States";
+but Hephzy and I managed to behave as unlike savages as we could, and
+the Cole manner grew less and less reserved. Mr. Cole and his wife were
+planning to spend a long vacation in Switzerland and his "living," or
+parish, was to be left in charge of his two curates. There was a son at
+Oxford who was to join them on their vacation.
+
+Mr. Cole and I walked about the grounds and visited the church, the
+yard of which, with its weather-beaten gravestones and fine old trees,
+adjoined the rectory on the western side, behind the tall hedge.
+
+The church was built of stone, of course, and a portion of it was
+older than the Norman conquest. Before the altar steps were two ancient
+effigies of knights in armor, with crossed gauntlets and their feet
+supported by crouching lions. These old fellows were scratched and
+scarred and initialed. Upon one noble nose were the letters "A. H. N.
+1694." I decided that vandalism was not a modern innovation.
+
+While the rector and I were inspecting the church, Mrs. Cole and Hephzy
+were making a tour of the house. They met us at the door. Mrs. Cole's
+eyes were twinkling; I judged that she had found Hephzy amusing. If this
+was true it had not warped her judgment, however, for, a moment later
+when she and I were alone, she said:
+
+"Your cousin, Miss Cahoon, is a good housekeeper, I imagine."
+
+"She is all of that," I said, decidedly.
+
+"Yes, she was very particular concerning the kitchen and scullery and
+the maids' rooms. Are all American housekeepers as particular?"
+
+"Not all. Miss Cahoon is unique in many ways; but she is a remarkable
+woman in all."
+
+"Yes. I am sure of it. And she has such a typical American accent,
+hasn't she."
+
+We were to take possession on the following Monday. We lunched at the
+"Red Cow," the village inn, where the meal was served in the parlor and
+the landlord's daughter waited upon us. The plump black horse drew us to
+the railway station, and we took the train for London.
+
+We have learned, by this time, that second, or even third-class travel
+was quite good enough for short journeys and that very few English
+people paid for first-class compartments. We were fortunate enough to
+have a second-class compartment to ourselves this time, and, when we
+were seated, Hephzy asked a question.
+
+"Did you think to speak about the golf, Hosy?" she said. "You will want
+to play some, won't you?"
+
+"Yes," said I. "I did ask about it. It seems that the golf course is a
+private one, on the big estate we passed on the way from the station.
+Permission is always given the rectory tenants."
+
+"Oh! my gracious, isn't that grand! That estate isn't in Mayberry. The
+Mayberry bounds--that's what Mrs. Cole called them--and just this
+side. The estate is in the village of--of Burgleston Bogs. Burgleston
+Bogs--it's a funny name. Seem's if I'd heard it before."
+
+"You have," said I, in surprise. "Burgleston Bogs is where that
+Heathcroft chap whom we met on the steamer visits occasionally. His aunt
+has a big place there. By George! you don't suppose that estate belongs
+to his aunt, do you?"
+
+Hephzy gasped. "I wouldn't wonder," she cried. "I wouldn't wonder if it
+did. And his aunt was Lady Somebody, wasn't she. Maybe you'll meet him
+there. Goodness sakes! just think of your playin' golf with a Lady's
+nephew."
+
+"I doubt if we need to think of it," I observed. "Mr. Carleton
+Heathcroft on board ship may be friendly with American plebeians, but on
+shore, and when visiting his aunt, he may be quite different. I fancy he
+and I will not play many holes together."
+
+Hephzy laughed. "You 'fancy,'" she repeated. "You'll be sayin' 'My word'
+next. My! Hosy, you ARE gettin' English."
+
+"Indeed I'm not!" I declared, with emphasis. "My experience with an
+English relative is sufficient of itself to prevent that. Miss Frances
+Morley and I are compatriots for the summer only."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+In Which We Make the Acquaintance of Mayberry and a Portion of
+Burgleston Bogs
+
+
+We migrated to Mayberry the following Monday, as we had agreed to do.
+Miss Morley went with us, of course. I secured a first-class apartment
+for our party and the journey was a comfortable and quiet one. Our
+invalid was too weak to talk a great deal even if she had wished, which
+she apparently did not. Johnson, the groom, met us at Haddington on Hill
+and we drove to the rectory. There Miss Morley, very tired and worn out,
+was escorted to her room by Hephzy and Charlotte, the housemaid. She was
+perfectly willing to remain in that room, in fact she did not leave it
+for several days.
+
+Meanwhile Hephzy and I were doing our best to become acquainted with our
+new and novel mode of life. Hephzy took charge of the household and was,
+in a way, quite in her element; in another way she was distinctly out of
+it.
+
+"I did think I was gettin' used to bein' waited on, Hosy," she confided,
+"but it looks as if I'll have to begin all over again. Managin' one
+hired girl like Susanna was a job and I tell you I thought managin'
+three, same as we've got here, would be a staggerer. But it isn't.
+Somehow the kind of help over here don't seem to need managin'. They
+manage me more than I do them. There's Mrs. Wigham, the cook. Mrs. Cole
+told me she was a 'superior' person and I guess she is--at any rate,
+she's superior to me in some things. She knows what a 'gooseberry fool'
+is and I'm sure I don't. I felt like another kind of fool when she told
+me she was goin' to make one, as a 'sweet,' for dinner to-night. As nigh
+as I can make out it's a sort of gooseberry pie, but _I_ should never
+have called a gooseberry pie a 'sweet'; a 'sour' would have been better,
+accordin' to my reckonin'. However, all desserts over here are 'sweets'
+and fruit is dessert. Then there's Charlotte, the housemaid, and Baker,
+the 'between-maid'--between upstairs and down, I suppose that means--and
+Grimmer, the gardener, and Johnson, the boy that takes care of the
+horse. Each one of 'em seems to know exactly what their own job is and
+just as exactly where it leaves off and t'other's job begins. I never
+saw such obligin' but independent folks in my life. As for my own job,
+that seems to be settin' still with my hands folded. Well, it's a brand
+new one and it's goin' to take me one spell to get used to it."
+
+It seemed likely to be a "spell" before I became accustomed to my own
+"job," that of being a country gentleman with nothing to do but play the
+part. When I went out to walk about the rectory garden, Grimmer touched
+his hat. When, however, I ventured to pick a few flowers in that garden,
+his expression of shocked disapproval was so marked that I felt I must
+have made a dreadful mistake. I had, of course. Grimmer was in charge of
+those flowers and if I wished any picked I was expected to tell him to
+pick them. Picking them myself was equivalent to admitting that I was
+not accustomed to having a gardener in my employ, in other words that
+I was not a real gentleman at all. I might wait an hour for Johnson to
+return from some errand or other and harness the horse; but I must on
+no account save time by harnessing the animal myself. That sort of labor
+was not done by the "gentry." I should have lost caste with the servants
+a dozen times during my first few days in the rectory were it not for
+one saving grace; I was an American, and almost any peculiar thing was
+expected of an American.
+
+When I strolled along the village street the male villagers, especially
+the older ones, touched their hats to me. The old women bowed or
+courtesied. Also they invariably paused, when I had passed, to stare
+after me. The group at the blacksmith shop--where the stone coping of
+the low wall was worn in hollows by the generations of idlers who had
+sat upon it, just as their descendants were sitting upon it
+now--turned, after I had passed, to stare. There would be a pause in the
+conversation, then an outburst of talk and laughter. They were talking
+about the "foreigner" of course, and laughing at him. At the
+tailor's, where I sent my clothes to be pressed, the tailor himself, a
+gray-haired, round-shouldered antique, ventured an opinion concerning
+those clothes. "That coat was not made in England, sir," he said. "We
+don't make 'em that way 'ere, sir. That's a bit foreign, that coat,
+sir."
+
+Yes, I was a foreigner. It was hard to realize. In a way everything was
+so homelike; the people looked like people I had known at home, their
+faces were New England faces quite as much as they were old England.
+But their clothes were just a little different, and their ways were
+different, and a dry-goods store was a "draper's shop," and a drug-store
+was a "chemist's," and candies were "sweeties" and a public school was a
+"board school" and a boarding-school was a "public school." And I might
+be polite and pleasant to these people--persons out of my "class"--but I
+must not be too cordial, for if I did, in the eyes of these very people,
+I lost caste and they would despise me.
+
+Yes, I was a foreigner; it was a queer feeling.
+
+Coming from America and particularly from democratic Bayport, where
+everyone is as good as anyone else provided he behaves himself, the
+class distinction in Mayberry was strange at first. I do not mean that
+there was not independence there; there was, among the poorest as well
+as the richer element. Every male Mayberryite voted as he thought, I am
+sure; and was self-respecting and independent. He would have resented
+any infringement of his rights just as Englishmen have resented such
+infringements and fought against them since history began. But what I am
+trying to make plain is that political equality and social equality were
+by no means synonymous. A man was a man for 'a' that, but when he was
+a gentleman he was 'a' that' and more. And when he was possessed of
+a title he was revered because of that title, or the title itself was
+revered. The hatter in London where I purchased a new "bowler," had
+a row of shelves upon which were boxes containing, so I was told, the
+spare titles of eminent customers. And those hat-boxes were lettered
+like this: "The Right Hon. Col. Wainwright, V.C.," "His Grace the Duke
+of Leicester," "Sir George Tupman, K.C.B.," etc., etc. It was my first
+impression that the hatter was responsible for thus proclaiming his
+customers' titles, but one day I saw Richard, convoyed by Henry,
+reverently bearing a suitcase into Bancroft's Hotel. And that suitcase
+bore upon its side the inscription, in very large letters, "Lord Eustace
+Stairs." Then I realized that Lord Eustace, like the owners of the
+hat-boxes, recognizing the value of a title, advertised it accordingly.
+
+I laughed when I saw the suitcase and the hat-boxes. When I told Hephzy
+about the latter she laughed, too.
+
+"That's funny, isn't it," she said. "Suppose the folks that have their
+names on the mugs in the barber shop back home had 'em lettered 'Cap'n
+Elkanah Crowell,' 'Judge the Hon. Ezra Salters,' 'The Grand Exalted
+Sachem Order of Red Men George Kendrick.' How everybody would laugh,
+wouldn't they. Why they'd laugh Cap'n Elkanah and Ezra and Kendrick out
+of town."
+
+So they would have done--in Bayport--but not in Mayberry or London.
+Titles and rank and class in England are established and accepted
+institutions, and are not laughed at, for where institutions of that
+kind are laughed at they soon cease to be. Hephzy summed it up pretty
+well when she said:
+
+"After all, it all depends on what you've been brought up to, doesn't
+it, Hosy. Your coat don't look funny to you because you've always worn
+that kind of coat, but that tailor man thought 'twas funny because he
+never saw one made like it. And a lord takin' his lordship seriously
+seems funny to us, but it doesn't seem so to him or to the tailor.
+They've been brought up to it, same as you have to the coat."
+
+On one point she and I had agreed before coming to Mayberry, that was
+that we must not expect calls from the neighbors or social intercourse
+with the people of Mayberry.
+
+"They don't know anything about us," said I, "except that we are
+Americans, and that may or may not be a recommendation, according to the
+kind of Americans they have previously met. The Englishman, so all the
+books tell us, is reserved and distant at first. He requires a long
+acquaintance before admitting strangers to his home life and we shall
+probably have no opportunity to make that acquaintance. If we were to
+stay in Mayberry a year, and behaved ourselves, we might in time be
+accepted as desirable, but not during the first summer. So if they leave
+us to ourselves we must make the best of it."
+
+Hephzy agreed thoroughly. "You're right," she said. "And, after all,
+it's just what would happen anywhere. You remember when that Portygee
+family came to Bayport and lived in the Solon Blodgett house. Nobody
+would have anything to do with 'em for a long time because they were
+foreigners, but they turned out to be real nice folks after all. We're
+foreigners here and you can't blame the Mayberry people for not takin'
+chances; it looks as if nobody in it ever had taken a chance, as if it
+had been just the way it is since Noah came out of the Ark. I never felt
+so new and shiny in my life as I do around this old rectory and this old
+town."
+
+Which was all perfectly true and yet the fact remains that, "new and
+shiny" as we were, the Mayberry people--those of our "class"--began to
+call upon us almost immediately, to invite us to their homes, to show us
+little kindnesses, and to be whole-souled and hospitable and friendly as
+if we had known them and they us for years. It was one of the greatest
+surprises, and remains one of the most pleasant recollections, of my
+brief career as a resident in England, the kindly cordiality of these
+neighbors in Mayberry.
+
+The first caller was Dr. Bayliss, who occupied "Jasmine Gables," the
+pretty house next door. He dropped in one morning, introduced himself,
+shook hands and chatted for an hour. That afternoon his wife called upon
+Hephzy. The next day I played a round of golf upon the private course
+on the Manor House grounds, the Burgleston Bogs grounds--with the doctor
+and his son, young Herbert Bayliss, just through Cambridge and the
+medical college at London. Young Bayliss was a pleasant, good-looking
+young chap and I liked him as I did his father. He was at present
+acting as his father's assistant in caring for the former's practice, a
+practice which embraced three or four villages and a ten-mile stretch of
+country.
+
+Naturally I was interested in the Manor estate and its owner. The
+grounds were beautiful, three square miles in extent and cared for, so
+Bayliss, Senior, told me, by some hundred and fifty men, seventy of
+whom were gardeners. Of the Manor House itself I caught a glimpse,
+gray-turreted and huge, set at the end of lawns and flower beds, with
+fountains playing and statues gleaming white amid the foliage. I asked
+some questions concerning its owner. Yes, she was Lady Kent Carey and
+she had a nephew named Heathcroft. So there was a chance, after all,
+that I might again meet my ship acquaintance who abhorred "griddle
+cakes." I imagined he would be somewhat surprised at that meeting. It
+was an odd coincidence.
+
+As for the game of golf, my part of it, the least said the better.
+Doctor Bayliss, who, it developed, was an enthusiast at the game, was
+kind enough to tell me I had a "topping" drive. I thanked him, but there
+was altogether too much "topping" connected with my play that forenoon
+to make my thanks enthusiastic. I determined to practice assiduously
+before attempting another match. Somehow I felt responsible for the
+golfing honor of my country.
+
+Other callers came to the rectory. The two curates, their names were
+Judson and Worcester, visited us; young men, both of them, and good
+fellows, Worcester particularly. Although they wore clerical garb
+they were not in the least "preachy." Hephzy, although she liked them,
+expressed surprise.
+
+"They didn't act a bit like ministers," she said. "They didn't ask us
+to come to meetin' nor hint at prayin' with the family or anything, yet
+they looked for all the while like two Methodist parsons, young ones. A
+curate is a kind of new-hatched rector, isn't he?"
+
+"Not exactly," I answered. "He is only partially hatched. But, whatever
+you do, don't tell them they look like Methodists; they wouldn't
+consider it a compliment."
+
+Hephzy was a Methodist herself and she resented the slur. "Well, I guess
+a Methodist is as good as an Episcopalian," she declared. "And they
+don't ACT like Methodists. Why, one of 'em smoked a pipe. Just imagine
+Mr. Partridge smokin' a pipe!"
+
+Mr. Judson and I played eighteen holes of golf together. He played a
+little worse than I did and I felt better. The honor of Bayport's golf
+had been partially vindicated.
+
+While all this was going on our patient remained, for the greater part
+of the time, in her room. She was improving steadily. Doctor Bayliss,
+whom I had asked to attend her, declared, as his London associates had
+done, that all she needed was rest, quiet and the good air and food
+which she was certain to get in Mayberry. He, too, like the physician at
+Bancroft's, seemed impressed by her appearance and manner. And he also
+asked similar embarrassing questions.
+
+"Delightful young lady, Miss Morley," he observed. "One of our English
+girls, Knowles. She informs me that she IS English."
+
+"Partly English," I could not help saying. "Her mother was an American."
+
+"Oh, indeed! You know she didn't tell me that, now did she."
+
+"Perhaps not."
+
+"No, by Jove, she didn't. But she has lived all her life in England?"
+
+"Yes--in England and France."
+
+"Your niece, I think you said."
+
+I had said it, unfortunately, and it could not be unsaid now without
+many explanations. So I nodded.
+
+"She doesn't--er--behave like an American. She hasn't the American
+manner, I mean to say. Now Miss Cahoon has--er--she has--"
+
+"Miss Cahoon's manner is American. So is mine; we ARE Americans, you
+see."
+
+"Yes, yes, of course," hastily. "When are you and I to have the nine
+holes you promised, Knowles?"
+
+One fine afternoon the invalid came downstairs. The "between-maid" had
+arranged chairs and the table on the lawn. We were to have tea there; we
+had tea every day, of course--were getting quite accustomed to it.
+
+Frances--I may as well begin calling her that--looked in better health
+then than at any time since our meeting. She was becomingly, although
+simply gowned, and there was a dash of color in her cheeks. Hephzibah
+escorted her to the tea table. I rose to meet them.
+
+"Frank--Frances, I mean--is goin' to join us to-day," said Hephzy.
+"She's beginnin' to look real well again, isn't she."
+
+I said she was. Frances nodded to me and took one of the chairs, the
+most comfortable one. She appeared perfectly self-possessed, which I was
+sure I did not. I was embarrassed, of course. Each time I met the
+girl the impossible situation in which she had placed us became more
+impossible, to my mind. And the question, "What on earth shall we do
+with her?" more insistent.
+
+Hephzy poured the tea. Frances, cup in hand, looked about her.
+
+"This is rather a nice place, after all," she observed, "isn't it."
+
+"It's a real lovely place," declared Hephzy with enthusiasm.
+
+The young lady cast another appraising glance at our surroundings.
+
+"Yes," she repeated, "it's a jolly old house and the grounds are not bad
+at all."
+
+Her tone nettled me. Everything considered I thought she might have
+shown a little more enthusiasm.
+
+"I infer that you expected something much worse," I observed.
+
+"Oh, of course I didn't know what to expect. How should I? I had no hand
+in selecting it, you know."
+
+"She's hardly seen it," put in Hephzy. "She was too sick when she came
+to notice much, I guess, and this is the first time she has been out
+doors."
+
+"I am glad you approve," I observed, drily.
+
+My sarcasm was wasted. Miss Morley said again that she did approve, of
+what she had seen, and added that we seemed to have chosen very well.
+
+"I don't suppose," said Hephzy, complacently, "that there are many much
+prettier places in England than this one."
+
+"Oh, indeed there are. But all England is beautiful, of course."
+
+I thought of Mrs. Briggs' lodging-house, but I did not refer to it. Our
+guest--or my "niece"--or our ward--it was hard to classify her--changed
+the subject.
+
+"Have you met any of the people about here?" she asked.
+
+Hephzy burst into enthusiastic praise of the Baylisses and the curates
+and the Coles.
+
+"They're all just as nice as they can be," she declared. "I never met
+nicer folks, at home or anywhere."
+
+Frances nodded. "All English people are nice," she said.
+
+Again I thought of Mrs. Briggs and again I kept my thoughts to myself.
+Hephzy went on rhapsodizing. I paid little attention until I heard her
+speak my name.
+
+"And Hosy thinks so, too. Don't you, Hosy?" she said.
+
+I answered yes, on the chance. Frances regarded me oddly.
+
+"I thought--I understood that your name was Kent, Mr. Knowles," she
+said.
+
+"It is."
+
+"Then why does Miss Cahoon always--"
+
+Hephzy interrupted. "Oh, I always call him Hosy," she explained. "It's a
+kind of pet name of mine. It's short for Hosea. His whole name is Hosea
+Kent Knowles, but 'most everybody but me does call him Kent. I don't
+think he likes Hosea very well."
+
+Our companion looked very much as if she did not wonder at my dislike.
+Her eyes twinkled.
+
+"Hosea," she repeated. "That is an odd name. The original Hosea was a
+prophet, wasn't he? Are you a prophet, Mr. Knowles?"
+
+"Far from it," I answered, with decision. If I had been a prophet I
+should have been forewarned and, consequently, forearmed.
+
+She smiled and against my will I was forced to admit that her smile was
+attractive; she was prettier than ever when she smiled.
+
+"I remember now," she said; "all Americans have Scriptural names. I have
+read about them in books."
+
+"Hosy writes books," said Hephzy, proudly. "That's his profession; he's
+an author."
+
+"Oh, really, is he! How interesting!"
+
+"Yes, he is. He has written ever so many books; haven't you, Hosy."
+
+I didn't answer. My self and my "profession" were the last subjects I
+cared to discuss. The young lady's smile broadened.
+
+"And where do you write your books, Mr. Knowles?" she asked.
+"In--er--Bayport?"
+
+"Yes," I answered, shortly. "Hephzy, Miss Morley will have another cup
+of tea, I think."
+
+"Oh, no, thank you. But tell me about your books, Mr. Knowles. Are they
+stories of Bayport?"
+
+"No indeed!" Hephzy would do my talking for me, and I could not order
+her to be quiet. "No indeed!" she declared. "He writes about lords and
+ladies and counts and such. He hardly ever writes about everyday people
+like the ones in Bayport. You would like his books, Frances. You would
+enjoy readin' 'em, I know."
+
+"I am sure I should. They must be delightful. I do hope you brought some
+with you, Mr. Knowles."
+
+"He didn't, but I did. I'll lend you some, Frances. I'll lend you 'The
+Queen's Amulet.' That's a splendid story."
+
+"I am sure it must be. So you write about queens, too, Mr. Knowles. I
+thought Americans scorned royalty. And what is his queen's name, Miss
+Cahoon? Is it Scriptural?"
+
+"Oh, no indeed! Besides, all Americans' names aren't out of the Bible,
+any more than the names in England are. That man who wanted to let us
+his house in Copperhead--no, Leatherhead--funny I should forget THAT
+awful name--he was named Solomon--Solomon Cripps... Why, what is it?"
+
+Miss Morley's smile and the mischievous twinkle had vanished. She looked
+startled, and even frightened, it seemed to me.
+
+"What is it, Frances?" repeated Hephzy, anxiously.
+
+"Nothing--nothing. Solomon--what was it? Solomon Cripps. That is an odd
+name. And you met this Mr.--er--Cripps?"
+
+"Yes, we met him. He had a house he wanted to let us, and I guess we'd
+have taken it, too, only you seemed to hate the name of Leatherhead so.
+Don't you remember you did? I don't blame you. Of the things to call a
+pretty town that's about the worst."
+
+"Yes, it is rather frightful. But this, Mr.--er--Cripps; was he as bad
+as his name? Did you talk with him?"
+
+"Only about the house. Hosy and I didn't like him well enough to
+talk about anything else, except religion. He and his wife gave us
+to understand they were awful pious. I'm afraid we wouldn't have been
+churchy enough to suit them, anyway. Hosy, here, doesn't go to meetin'
+as often as he ought to."
+
+"I am glad of it." The young lady's tone was emphatic and she looked as
+if she meant it. We were surprised.
+
+"You're glad of it!" repeated Hephzy, in amazement. "Why?"
+
+"Because I hate persons who go to church all the time and boast of it,
+who do all sorts of mean things, but preach, preach, preach continually.
+They are hypocritical and false and cruel. I HATE them."
+
+She looked now as she had in the room at Mrs. Briggs's when I had
+questioned her concerning her father. I could not imagine the reason for
+this sudden squall from a clear sky. Hephzy drew a long breath.
+
+"Well," she said, after a moment, "then Hosy and you ought to get along
+first-rate together. He's down on hypocrites and make-believe piety
+as bad as you are. The only time he and Mr. Partridge, our minister
+in Bayport, ever quarreled--'twasn't a real quarrel, but more of a
+disagreement--was over what sort of a place Heaven was. Mr. Partridge
+was certain sure that nobody but church members would be there, and Hosy
+said if some of the church members in Bayport were sure of a ticket, the
+other place had strong recommendations. 'Twas an awful thing to say, and
+I was almost as shocked as the minister was; that is I should have been
+if I hadn't known he didn't mean it."
+
+Miss Morley regarded me with a new interest, or at least I thought she
+did.
+
+"Did you mean it?" she asked.
+
+I smiled. "Yes," I answered.
+
+"Now, Hosy," cried Hephzy. "What a way that is to talk! What do you know
+about the hereafter?"
+
+"Not much, but," remembering the old story, "I know Bayport. Humph!
+speaking of ministers, here is one now."
+
+Judson, the curate, was approaching across the lawn. Hephzy hastily
+removed the lid of the teapot. "Yes," she said, with a sigh of relief,
+"there's enough tea left, though you mustn't have any more, Hosy. Mr.
+Judson always takes three cups."
+
+Judson was introduced and, the "between-maid" having brought another
+chair, he joined our party. He accepted the first of the three cups and
+observed.
+
+"I hope I haven't interrupted an important conversation. You appeared to
+be talking very earnestly."
+
+I should have answered, but Hephzy's look of horrified expostulation
+warned me to be silent. Frances, although she must have seen the look,
+answered instead.
+
+"We were discussing Heaven," she said, calmly. "Mr. Knowles doesn't
+approve of it."
+
+Hephzy bounced on her chair. "Why!" she cried; "why, what a--why, WHAT
+will Mr. Judson think! Now, Frances, you know--"
+
+"That was what you said, Mr. Knowles, wasn't it. You said if Paradise
+was exclusively for church members you preferred--well, another
+locality. That was what I understood you to say."
+
+Mr. Judson looked at me. He was a very good and very orthodox and a very
+young man and his feelings showed in his face.
+
+"I--I can scarcely think Mr. Knowles said that, Miss Morley," he
+protested. "You must have misunderstood him."
+
+"Oh, but I didn't misunderstand. That was what he said."
+
+Again Mr. Judson looked at me. It seemed time for me to say something.
+
+"What I said, or meant to say, was that I doubted if the future life,
+the--er--pleasant part of it, was confined exclusively to--er--professed
+church members," I explained.
+
+The curate's ruffled feelings were evidently not soothed by this
+explanation.
+
+"But--but, Mr. Knowles," he stammered, "really, I--I am at a loss to
+understand your meaning. Surely you do not mean that--that--"
+
+"Of course he didn't mean that," put in Hephzy. "What he said was that
+some of the ones who talk the loudest and oftenest in prayer-meetin' at
+our Methodist church in Bayport weren't as good as they pretended to be.
+And that's so, too."
+
+Mr. Judson seemed relieved. "Oh," he exclaimed. "Oh, yes, I quite
+comprehend. Methodists--er--dissenters--that is quite different--quite."
+
+"Mr. Judson knows that no one except communicants in the Church of
+England are certain of happiness," observed Frances, very gravely.
+
+Our caller turned his attention to her. He was not a joker, but I think
+he was a trifle suspicious. The young lady met his gaze with one of
+serene simplicity and, although he reddened, he returned to the charge.
+
+"I should--I should scarcely go as far as that, Miss Morley," he
+said. "But I understand Mr. Knowles to refer to--er--church members;
+and--er--dissenters--Methodists and others--are not--are not--"
+
+"Well," broke in Hephzibah, with decision, "I'm a Methodist, myself, and
+_I_ don't expect to go to perdition."
+
+Judson's guns were spiked. He turned redder than ever and changed the
+subject to the weather.
+
+The remainder of the conversation was confined for the most part to
+Frances and the curate. They discussed the village and the people in it
+and the church and its activities. At length Judson mentioned golf.
+
+"Mr. Knowles and I are to have another round shortly, I trust," he said.
+"You owe me a revenge, you know, Mr. Knowles."
+
+"Oh," exclaimed the young lady, in apparent surprise, "does Mr. Knowles
+play golf?"
+
+"Not real golf," I observed.
+
+"Oh, but he does," protested Mr. Judson, "he does. Rather! He plays a
+very good game indeed. He beat me quite badly the other day."
+
+Which, according to my reckoning, was by no means a proof of
+extraordinary ability. Frances seemed amused, for some unexplained
+reason.
+
+"I should never have thought it," she observed.
+
+"Why not?" asked Judson.
+
+"Oh, I don't know. Golf is a game, and Mr. Knowles doesn't look as if he
+played games. I should have expected nothing so frivolous from him."
+
+"My golf is anything but frivolous," I said. "It's too seriously bad."
+
+"Do you golf, Miss Morley, may I ask?" inquired the curate.
+
+"I have occasionally, after a fashion. I am sure I should like to
+learn."
+
+"I shall be delighted to teach you. It would be a great pleasure,
+really."
+
+He looked as if it would be a pleasure. Frances smiled.
+
+"Thank you so much," she said. "You and I and Mr. Knowles will have a
+threesome."
+
+Judson's joy at her acceptance was tempered, it seemed to me.
+
+"Oh, of course," he said. "It will be a great pleasure to have your
+uncle with us. A great pleasure, of course."
+
+"My--uncle?"
+
+"Why, yes--Mr. Knowles, you know. By the way, Miss Morley--excuse
+my mentioning it, but I notice you always address your uncle as Mr.
+Knowles. That seems a bit curious, if you'll pardon my saying so. A bit
+distant and--er--formal to our English habit. Do all nieces and nephews
+in your country do that? Is it an American custom?"
+
+Hephzy and I looked at each other and my "niece" looked at both of us. I
+could feel the blood tingling in my cheeks and forehead.
+
+"Is it an American custom?" repeated Mr. Judson.
+
+"I don't know," with chilling deliberation. "I am NOT an American."
+
+The curate said "Indeed!" and had the astonishing good sense not to say
+any more. Shortly afterward he said good-by.
+
+"But I shall look forward to our threesome, Miss Morley," he declared.
+"I shall count upon it in the near future."
+
+After his departure there was a most embarrassing interval of silence.
+Hephzy spoke first.
+
+"Don't you think you had better go in now, Frances," she said. "Seems to
+me you had. It's the first time you've been out at all, you know."
+
+The young lady rose. "I am going," she said. "I am going, if you and--my
+uncle--will excuse me."
+
+That evening, after dinner, Hephzy joined me in the drawing-room. It was
+a beautiful summer evening, but every shade was drawn and every shutter
+tightly closed. We had, on our second evening in the rectory, suggested
+leaving them open, but the housemaid had shown such shocked surprise
+and disapproval that we had not pressed the point. By this time we had
+learned that "privacy" was another sacred and inviolable English custom.
+The rectory sat in its own ground, surrounded by high hedges; no
+one, without extraordinary pains, could spy upon its inmates, but,
+nevertheless, the privacy of those inmates must be guaranteed. So the
+shutters were closed and the shades drawn.
+
+"Well?" said I to Hephzy.
+
+"Well," said Hephzy, "it's better than I was afraid it was goin' to be.
+I explained that you told the folks at Bancroft's she was your niece
+because 'twas the handiest thing to tell 'em, and you HAD to tell 'em
+somethin'. And down here in Mayberry the same way. She understood, I
+guess; at any rate she didn't make any great objection. I thought at the
+last that she was laughin', but I guess she wasn't. Only what she said
+sounded funny."
+
+"What did she say?"
+
+"Why, she wanted to know if she should call you 'Uncle Hosea.' She
+supposed it should be that--'Uncle Hosy' sounded a little irreverent."
+
+I did not answer. "Uncle Hosea!" a beautiful title, truly.
+
+"She acted so different to-day, didn't she," observed Hephzy. "It's
+because she's gettin' well, I suppose. She was real full of fun, wasn't
+she."
+
+"Confound her--yes," I snarled. "All the fun is on her side. Well, she
+should make the best of it while it lasts. When she learns the truth she
+may not find it so amusing."
+
+Hephzy sighed. "Yes," she said, slowly, "I'm afraid that's so, poor
+thing. When--when are you goin' to tell her?"
+
+"I don't know," I answered. "But pretty soon, that's certain."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+In Which I Break All Previous Resolutions and Make a New One
+
+
+That afternoon tea on the lawn was the beginning of the great change
+in our life at the rectory. Prior to that Hephzy and I had, golfly
+speaking, been playing it as a twosome. Now it became a threesome, with
+other players added at frequent intervals. At luncheon next day our
+invalid, a real invalid no longer, joined us at table in the pleasant
+dining-room, the broad window of which opened upon the formal garden
+with the sundial in the center. She was in good spirits, and, as Hephzy
+confided to me afterward, was "gettin' a real nice appetite." In gaining
+this appetite she appeared to have lost some of her dignity and chilling
+condescension; at all events, she treated her American relatives as if
+she considered them human beings. She addressed most of her conversation
+to Hephzy, always speaking of and to her as "Miss Cahoon." She still
+addressed me as "Mr. Knowles," and I was duly thankful; I had feared
+being hailed as "Uncle Hosy."
+
+After lunch Mr. Judson called again. He was passing, he explained, on
+his round of parish calls, and had dropped in casually. Mr. Worcester
+also came; his really was a casual stop, I think. He and his brother
+curate were very brotherly indeed, but I noticed an apparent reluctance
+on the part of each to leave before the other. They left together, but
+Mr. Judson again hinted at the promised golf game, and Mr. Worcester,
+having learned from Miss Morley that she played and sang, expressed
+great interest in music and begged permission to bring some "favorite
+songs," which he felt sure Miss Morley might like to run over.
+
+Miss Morley herself was impartially gracious and affable to both the
+clerical gentlemen; she was looking forward to the golf, she said, and
+the songs she was certain would be jolly. Hephzy and I had very little
+to say, and no one seemed particularly anxious to hear that little.
+
+The curates had scarcely disappeared down the driveway when Doctor
+Bayliss and his son strolled in from next door. Doctor Bayliss, Senior,
+was much pleased to find his patient up and about, and Herbert, the
+son, even more pleased to find her at all, I judge. Young Bayliss was
+evidently very favorably impressed with his new neighbor. He was a big,
+healthy, broad-shouldered fellow, a grown-up boy, whose laugh was a
+pleasure to hear, and who possessed the faculty, envied by me, the
+quahaug, of chatting entertainingly on all subjects from tennis and
+the new American dances to Lloyd-George and old-age pensions. Frances
+declared a strong aversion to the dances, principally because they were
+American, I suspected.
+
+Doctor Bayliss, the old gentleman, then turned to me.
+
+"What is the American opinion of the Liberal measures?" he asked.
+
+"I should say," I answered, "that, so far as they are understood in
+America, opinion concerning them is divided, much as it is here."
+
+"Really! But you haven't the Liberal and Conservative parties as we
+have, you know."
+
+"We have liberals and conservatives, however, although our political
+parties are not so named."
+
+"We call 'em Republicans and Democrats," explained Hephzy. "Hosy is a
+Republican," she added, proudly.
+
+"I am not certain what I am," I observed. "I have voted a split ticket
+of late."
+
+Young Bayliss asked a question.
+
+"Are you a--what is it--Republican, Miss Morley?" he inquired.
+
+Miss Morley's eyes dropped disdainfully.
+
+"I am neither," she said. "My father was a Conservative, of course."
+
+"Oh, I say! That's odd, isn't it. Your uncle here is--"
+
+"Uncle Hosea, you mean?" sweetly. "Oh, Uncle Hosea is an American. I am
+English."
+
+She did not add "Thank heaven," but she might as well. "Uncle Hosea"
+shuddered at the name. Young Bayliss grinned behind his blonde mustache.
+When he left, in company with his father, Hephzy invited him to "run in
+any time."
+
+"We're next-door neighbors," she said, "so we mustn't be formal."
+
+I was fairly certain that the invitation was superfluous. If I knew
+human nature at all I knew that Bayliss, Junior, did not intend to let
+formality stand in the way of frequent calls at the rectory.
+
+My intuition was correct. The following afternoon he called again.
+So did Mr. Judson. Both calls were casual, of course. So was Mr.
+Worcester's that evening. He came to bring the "favorite songs" and was
+much surprised to find Miss Morley in the drawing-room. He said so.
+
+Hephzy and I knew little of our relative's history. She had volunteered
+no particulars other than those given on the occasion of our first
+meeting, but we did know, because Mrs. Briggs had told us, that she had
+been a member of an opera troupe. This evening we heard her sing for the
+first time. She sang well; her voice was not a strong one, but it was
+clear and sweet and she knew how to use it. Worcester sang well also,
+and the little concert was very enjoyable.
+
+It was the first of many. Almost every evening after dinner Frances sat
+down at the old-fashioned piano, with the candle brackets at each side
+of the music rack, and sang. Occasionally we were her only auditors,
+but more often one or both of the curates or Doctor and Mrs. Bayliss or
+Bayliss, Junior, dropped in. We made other acquaintances--Mrs. Griggson,
+the widow in "reduced circumstances," whose husband had been killed in
+the Boer war, and who occupied the little cottage next to the draper's
+shop; Mr. and Mrs. Samson, of Burgleston Bogs, friends of the Baylisses,
+and others. They were pleasant, kindly, unaffected people and we enjoyed
+their society.
+
+Each day Frances gained in health and strength. The care-free,
+wholesome, out-of-door life at Mayberry seemed to suit her. She seemed
+to consider herself a member of the family now; at all events she
+did not speak of leaving nor hint at the prompt settlement of her
+preposterous "claim." Hephzy and I did not mention it, even to each
+other. Hephzy, I think, was quite satisfied with things as they were,
+and I, in spite of my threats and repeated declarations that the present
+state of affairs was ridiculous and could not last, put off telling
+"my niece" the truth. I, too, was growing more accustomed to the
+"threesome."
+
+The cloud was always there, hanging over our heads and threatening a
+storm at any moment, but I was learning to forget it. The situation
+had its pleasant side; it was not all bad. For instance, meals in the
+pleasant dining-room, with Hephzy at one end of the table, I at the
+other, and Frances between us, were more social and chatty than they had
+been. To have the young lady come down to breakfast, her hair prettily
+arranged, her cheeks rosy with health, and her eyes shining with youth
+and the joy of life, was almost a tonic. I found myself taking more
+pains with my morning toilet, choosing my tie with greater care and
+being more careful concerning the condition of my boots. I even began to
+dress for dinner, a concession to English custom which was odd enough
+in one of my easy-going habits and Bayport rearing. I imagine that
+the immaculate appearance of young Bayliss, when he dropped in for the
+"sing" in the drawing-room, was responsible for the resurrection of my
+dinner coat. He did look so disgustingly young and handsome and at ease.
+I was conscious of each one of my thirty-eight years whenever I looked
+at him.
+
+I was rejuvenating in other ways. It had been my custom at Bayport to
+retire to my study and my books each evening. Here, where callers
+were so frequent, I found it difficult to do this and, although the
+temptation was to sit quietly in a corner and let the others do the
+talking, I was not allowed to yield. The younger callers, particularly
+the masculine portion, would not have objected to my silence, I am
+sure, but "my niece" seemed to take mischievous pleasure in drawing the
+quahaug out of his shell. She had a disconcerting habit of asking me
+unexpected questions at times when my attention was wandering, and, if
+I happened to state a definite opinion, taking the opposite side with
+promptness. After a time I decided not to express opinions, but to agree
+with whatever was said as the simplest way of avoiding controversy and
+being left to myself.
+
+This procedure should, it seemed to me, have satisfied her, but
+apparently it did not. On one occasion, Judson and Herbert Bayliss being
+present, the conversation turned to the subject of American athletic
+sports. The curate and Bayliss took the ground, the prevailing thought
+in England apparently, that all American games were not games, but
+fights in which the true sporting spirit was sacrificed to the desire
+to win at any cost. I had said nothing, keeping silent for two reasons.
+First, that I had given my views on the subject before, and, second,
+because argument from me was, in that company, fruitless effort. The
+simplest way to end discussion of a disagreeable topic was to pay no
+attention to it.
+
+But I was not allowed to escape so easily. Bayliss asked me a question.
+
+"Isn't it true, Mr. Knowles," he asked, "that the American football
+player wears a sort of armor to prevent his being killed?"
+
+My thoughts had been drifting anywhere and everywhere. Just then they
+were centered about "my niece's" hands. She had very pretty hands and
+a most graceful way of using them. At the moment they were idly turning
+some sheets of music, but the way the slim fingers moved in and out
+between the pages was pretty and fascinating. Her foot, glimpsed beneath
+her skirt, was slender and graceful, too. She had an attractive trick of
+swinging it as she sat upon the piano stool.
+
+Recalled from these and other pleasing observations by Bayliss's mention
+of my name, I looked up.
+
+"I beg pardon?" said I.
+
+Bayliss repeated his question.
+
+"Oh, yes," said I, and looked down again at the foot.
+
+"So I have been told," said the questioner, triumphantly. "And without
+that--er--armor many of the players would be killed, would they not?"
+
+"What? Oh, yes; yes, of course."
+
+"And many are killed or badly injured as it is?"
+
+"Oh, yes."
+
+"How many during a season, may I ask?"
+
+"Eh? Oh--I don't know."
+
+"A hundred?"
+
+The foot was swinging more rapidly now. It was such a small foot. My own
+looked so enormous and clumsy and uncouth by comparison.
+
+"A--oh, thousands," said I, at random. If the number were large enough
+to satisfy him he might cease to worry me.
+
+"A beastly game," declared Judson, with conviction. "How can a civilized
+country countenance such brutality! Do you countenance it, Mr. Knowles?"
+
+"Yes--er--that is, no."
+
+"You agree, then, that it is brutal?"
+
+"Certainly, certainly." Would the fellow never stop?
+
+"Then--"
+
+"Nonsense!" It was Frances who spoke and her tone was emphatic and
+impatient. We all looked at her; her cheeks were flushed and she
+appeared highly indignant. "Nonsense!" she said again. "He doesn't agree
+to any such thing. I've heard him say that American football was not as
+brutal as our fox-hunting and that fewer people were killed or injured.
+We play polo and we ride in steeplechases and the papers are full of
+accidents. I don't believe Americans are more brutal or less civilized
+in their sports than we are, not in the least."
+
+Considering that she had at the beginning of the conversation apparently
+agreed with all that had been said, and, moreover, had often, in
+speaking to Hephzy and me, referred to the "States" as an uncivilized
+country, this declaration was astonishing. I was astonished for one.
+Hephzy clapped her hands.
+
+"Of course they aren't," she declared. "Hosy--Mr. Knowles--didn't mean
+that they were, either."
+
+Our callers looked at each other and Herbert Bayliss hastily changed the
+subject. After they had gone I ventured to thank my champion for coming
+to the rescue of my sporting countrymen. She flashed an indignant glance
+at me.
+
+"Why do you say such things?" she demanded. "You know they weren't
+true."
+
+"What was the use of saying anything else? They have read the accounts
+of football games which American penny-a-line correspondents send to the
+London papers and nothing I could say would change their convictions."
+
+"It doesn't make any difference. You should say what you think. To sit
+there and let them--Oh, it is ridiculous!"
+
+"My feelings were not hurt. Their ideas will broaden by and by, when
+they are as old as I am. They're young now."
+
+This charitable remark seemed to have the effect of making her more
+indignant than ever.
+
+"Nonsense!" she cried. "You speak as if you were an Old Testament
+patriarch."
+
+Hephzy put in a word.
+
+"Why, Frances," she said, "I thought you didn't like America."
+
+"I don't. Of course I don't. But it makes me lose patience to have him
+sit there and agree to everything those boys say. Why didn't he answer
+them as he should? If I were an American no one--NO one should rag me
+about my country without getting as good as they gave."
+
+I was amused. "What would you have me do?" I asked. "Rise and sing the
+'Star Spangled Banner'?"
+
+"I would have you speak your mind like a man. Not sit there like a--like
+a rabbit. And I wouldn't act and think like a Methusaleh until I was
+one."
+
+It was quite evident that "my niece" was a young person of whims. The
+next time the "States" were mentioned and I ventured to speak in their
+defence, she calmly espoused the other side and "ragged" as mercilessly
+as the rest. I found myself continually on the defensive, and this state
+of affairs had one good effect at least--that of waking me up.
+
+Toward Hephzy her manner was quite different. She now, especially when
+we three were alone, occasionally addressed her as "Auntie." And she
+would not permit "Auntie" to be made fun of. At the least hint of such a
+thing she snubbed the would-be humorist thoroughly. She and Hephzy
+were becoming really friendly. I felt certain she was beginning to like
+her--to discern the real woman beneath the odd exterior. But when I
+expressed this thought to Hephzy herself she shook her head doubtfully.
+
+"Sometimes I've almost thought so, Hosy," she said, "but only this
+mornin' when I said somethin' about her mother and how much she looked
+like her, she almost took my head off. And she's got her pa's picture
+right in the middle of her bureau. No, Hosy, she's nicer to us than she
+was at first because it's her nature to be nice. So long as she forgets
+who and what we are, or what her scamp of a father told her we were, she
+treats us like her own folks. But when she remembers we're receivers of
+stolen goods, livin' on money that belongs to her, then it's different.
+You can't blame her for that, I suppose. But--but how is it all goin' to
+end? _I_ don't know."
+
+I didn't know either.
+
+"I had hoped," I said, "that, living with us as she does, she might come
+to know and understand us--to learn that we couldn't be the sort she has
+believed us to be. Then it seems to me we might tell her and she would
+listen to reason."
+
+"I--I'm afraid we can't wait long. You see, there's another thing, Hosy.
+She needs clothes and--and lots of things. She realizes it. Yesterday
+she told me she must go up to London, shopping, pretty soon. She asked
+me to go with her. I put her off; said I was awful busy around the
+house just now, but she'll ask me again, and if I don't go she'll go by
+herself."
+
+"Humph! I don't see how she can do much shopping. She hasn't a penny, so
+far as I know."
+
+"You don't understand. She thinks she has got a good many pennies, or
+we've got 'em for her. She's just as liable to buy all creation and send
+us the bills."
+
+I whistled. "Well," I said, decidedly, "when that happens we must put
+our foot down. Neither you nor I are millionaires, Hephzy, and she must
+understand that regardless of consequences."
+
+"You mean you'll tell her--everything?"
+
+"I shall have to. Why do you look at me like that? Are we to use
+common-sense or aren't we? Are we in a position to adopt a young woman
+of expensive tastes--actually adopt her? And not only that, but give her
+carte blanche--let her buy whatever she pleases and charge it to us?"
+
+"I suppose not. But--"
+
+"But what?"
+
+"Well, I--I don't see how we can stop her buying whatever she pleases
+with what she thinks is her own money."
+
+"I do. We can tell her she has no money. I shall do it. My mind is made
+up."
+
+Hephzy said nothing, but her expression was one of doubt. I stalked off
+in a bad temper. Discussions of the kind always ended in just this way.
+However, I swore a solemn oath to keep my word this time. There were
+limits and they had been reached. Besides, as I had said, the situation
+was changed in one way; we no longer had an invalid to deal with. No, my
+mind was made up. True, this was at least the tenth time I had made it
+up, but this time I meant it.
+
+The test came two days later and was the result of a call on the
+Samsons. The Samsons lived at Burgleston Bogs, and we drove to their
+house in the trap behind "Pet," the plump black horse. Mrs. Samson
+seemed very glad to see us, urged us to remain for tea, and invited
+us to attend a tennis tournament on their lawn the following week. She
+asked if Miss Morley played tennis. Frances said she had played, but not
+recently. She intended to practice, however, and would be delighted to
+witness the tournament, although, of course, she could not take part in
+it.
+
+"Hosy--Mr. Knowles, I mean--plays tennis," observed Hephzy, seizing the
+opportunity, as usual, to speak a good word for me. "He used to play
+real well."
+
+"Really!" exclaimed Mrs. Samson, "how interesting. If we had only known.
+No doubt Mr. Knowles would have liked to enter. I'm so sorry."
+
+I hastened to protest. "My tennis is decidedly rusty," I said. "I
+shouldn't think of displaying it in public. In fact, I don't play at all
+now."
+
+On the way home Frances was rather quiet. The next morning she announced
+that she intended going to Wrayton that afternoon. "Johnson will drive
+me over," she said. "I shall be glad if Auntie will go with me."
+
+Wrayton was the county-seat, a good-sized town five miles from Mayberry.
+Hephzy declined the invitation. She had promised to "tea" with Mrs.
+Griggson that afternoon.
+
+"Then I must go alone," said Frances. "That is unless--er--Uncle Hosea
+cares to go."
+
+"Uncle Hosea" declined. The name of itself was sufficient to make him
+decline; besides Worcester and I were scheduled for golf.
+
+"I shall go alone then," said "my niece," with decision. "Johnson will
+look after me."
+
+But after luncheon, when I visited the stable to order Johnson to
+harness "Pet," I met with an unexpected difficulty. Johnson, it
+appeared, was ill, had been indisposed the day before and was now at
+home in bed. I hesitated. If this were Bayport I should have bade
+the gardener harness "Pet" or have harnessed him myself. But this was
+Mayberry, not Bayport.
+
+The gardener, deprived of his assistant's help--Johnson worked about the
+garden when not driving--was not in good humor. I decided not to ask
+him to harness, but to risk a fall in the estimation of the servants by
+doing it myself.
+
+The gardener watched me for a moment in shocked disapproval. Then he
+interfered.
+
+"If you please, Mr. Knowles, sir," he said, "I'll 'arness, but I can't
+drive, sir. I am netting the gooseberries. Perhaps you might get a man
+from the Inn stables, unless you or the young lady might wish to drive
+yourselves."
+
+I did not wish to drive, having the golf engagement; but when I walked
+to the Inn I found no driver available. So, rather than be disagreeable,
+I sent word to the curate that our match was postponed, and accepted the
+alternative.
+
+Frances, rather to my surprise, seemed more pleased than otherwise to
+find that I was to be her coachman. Instead of occupying the rear seat
+she climbed to that beside me.
+
+"Good-by, Auntie," she called to Hephzy, who was standing in
+the doorway. "Sorry you're not going. I'll take good care of Mr.
+Knowles--Uncle Hosea, I mean. I'll see that he behaves himself and,"
+with a glance at my, I fear, not too radiant visage, "doesn't break any
+of his venerable bones."
+
+The road, like all English roads which I traveled, was as firm and
+smooth as a table, the day was fine, the hedges were green and fragrant,
+the larks sang, and the flocks of sheep in the wayside pastures were
+picturesque as always. "Pet," who had led an easy life since we came to
+the rectory, was in high spirits and stepped along in lively fashion. My
+companion, too, was in good spirits and chatted and laughed as she had
+not done with me since I knew her.
+
+Altogether it was a delightful ride. I found myself emerging from my
+shell and chatting and joking quite unlike the elderly quahaug I was
+supposed to be. We passed a party of young fellows on a walking tour,
+knapsacked and knickerbockered, and the admiring glances they passed
+at my passenger were flattering. They envied me, that was plain. Well,
+under different circumstances, I could conceive myself an object of
+envy. A dozen years younger, with the heart of youth and the comeliness
+of youth, I might have thought myself lucky to be driving along such a
+road with such a vision by my side. And, the best of it was, the vision
+treated me as if I really were her own age. I squared my shoulders and
+as Hephzy would have said, "perked up" amazingly.
+
+We entered Wrayton and moved along the main street between the rows of
+ancient buildings, past the old stone church with its inevitable and
+always welcome gray, ivy-draped tower, to the quaint old square with the
+statue of William Pitt in its center. My companion, all at once, seemed
+to become aware of her surroundings.
+
+"Why!" she exclaimed, "we are here, aren't we? Fancy! I expected a
+longer drive."
+
+"So did I," I agreed. "We haven't hurried, either. Where has the time
+gone."
+
+"I don't know. We have been so busy talking that I have thought of
+nothing else. Really, I didn't know you could be so entertaining--Uncle
+Hosea."
+
+The detested title brought me to myself.
+
+"We are here," I said, shortly. "And now where shall we go? Have you any
+stopping place in particular?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"Yes," she said, "I want to stop now. Please pull up over there, in
+front of that shop with the cricket bats in the window."
+
+The shop was what we, in America, would have called a "sporting-goods
+store." I piloted "Pet" to the curb and pulled up.
+
+"I am going in," said Miss Morley. "Oh, don't trouble to help me. I can
+get down quite well."
+
+She was down, springing from the step as lightly as a dandelion fluff
+before I could scramble down on the other side.
+
+"I won't be long," she said, and went into the shop. I, not being
+invited, remained on the pavement. Two or three small boys appeared from
+somewhere and, scenting possible pennies, volunteered to hold the horse.
+I declined their services.
+
+Five minutes passed, then ten. My passenger was still in the shop. I
+could not imagine what she was doing there. If it had been a shop of a
+different kind, and in view of Hephzy's recent statement concerning the
+buying of clothes, I might have been suspicious. But no clothes were on
+sale at that shop and, besides, it never occurred to me that she would
+buy anything of importance without mentioning her intention to me
+beforehand. I had taken it for granted that she would mention the
+subject and, when she did, I intended to be firm. But as the
+minutes went by my suspicions grew. She must be buying something--or
+contemplating buying, at least. But she had said nothing to me
+concerning money; HAD she money of her own after all? It might be
+possible that she had a very little, and was making some trifling
+purchase.
+
+She reappeared in the doorway of the shop, followed by a very polite
+young man with a blonde mustache. The young man was bowing and smiling.
+
+"Yes, miss," he said, "I'll have them wrapped immediately. They shall be
+ready when you return, miss. Thank you, miss."
+
+Frances nodded acknowledgment of the thanks. Then she favored me with
+another nod and a most bewitching smile.
+
+"That's over," she announced, "and now I'm going to the draper's for a
+moment. It is near here, you say?"
+
+The young man bowed again.
+
+"Yes, miss, on the next corner, next the chemist's."
+
+She turned to me. "You may wait here, Mr. Knowles," she said. "I shall
+be back very soon."
+
+She hurried away. I looked after her, and then, with all sorts of
+forebodings surging in my brain, strode into that "sporting-goods
+store."
+
+The blond young man was at my elbow.
+
+"Yes, sir," he said, ingratiatingly.
+
+"Did--did that young lady make some purchases here?" I asked.
+
+"Yes, sir. Here they are, sir."
+
+There on the counter lay a tennis racket, a racket press and waterproof
+case, a pair of canvas tennis shoes and a jaunty white felt hat. I
+stared at the collection. The clerk took up the racket.
+
+"Not a Slazenger," he observed, regretfully. "I did my best to persuade
+her to buy a Slazenger; that is the best racket we have. But she decided
+the Slazenger was a bit high in price, sir. However, sir, this one is
+not bad. A very fine racket for lady's use; very light and strong, sir,
+considering the cost--only sixteen and six, sir."
+
+"Sixteen and six. Four dollars and--Did she pay for it?"
+
+"Oh no, sir. She said you would do that, sir. The total is two pound
+eight and thruppence, sir. Shall I give you a bill, sir? Thank you,
+sir."
+
+His thanks were wasted. I pushed him to one side and walked out of
+that shop. I could not answer; if I answered as I felt I might be sorry
+later. After all, it wasn't his fault. My business was not with him, but
+with her.
+
+It was not the amount of the purchase that angered and alarmed me. Two
+pounds eight--twelve dollars--was not so much. If she had asked me, if
+she had said she desired the racket and the rest of it during the drive
+over, I think, feeling as I did during that drive, I should have bought
+them for her. But she had not asked; she had calmly bought them without
+consulting me at all. She had come to Wrayton for that very purpose. And
+then had told the clerk that I would pay.
+
+The brazen presumption of it! I was merely a convenience, a sort of
+walking bank account, to be drawn upon as she saw fit, at her imperial
+will, if you please. It made no difference, to her mind, whether I liked
+it or not--whether I could afford it or not. I could, of course, afford
+this trifling sum, but this was only the beginning. If I permitted this
+there was no telling to what extent she might go on, buying and buying
+and buying. This was a precedent--that was what it was, a precedent;
+and a precedent once established... It should not be established. I had
+vowed to Hephzy that it should not. I would prove to this girl that I
+had a will of my own. The time had come.
+
+One of the boys who had been so anxious to hold the horse was performing
+that entirely unnecessary duty.
+
+"Stay here until I come back," I ordered and hurried to the draper's.
+
+She was there standing before the counter, and an elderly man was
+displaying cloths--white flannels and serges they appeared to be. She
+was not in the least perturbed at my entrance.
+
+"So you came, after all," she said. "I wondered if you would. Now you
+must help me. I don't know what your taste in tennis flannels may
+be, but I hope it is good. I shall have these made up at Mayberry, of
+course. My other frocks--and I need so many of them--I shall buy in
+London. Do you fancy this, now?"
+
+I don't know whether I fancied it or not. I am quite sure I could not
+remember what it was if I were asked.
+
+"Well?" she asked, after an instant. "Do you?"
+
+"I--I don't know," I said. "May I ask you to step outside one moment.
+I--I have something I wish to say."
+
+She regarded me curiously.
+
+"Something you wish to say?" she repeated. "What is it?"
+
+"I--I can't tell you here."
+
+"Why not, pray?"
+
+"Because I can't."
+
+She looked at me still more intently. I was conscious of the salesman's
+regard also. My tone, I am sure, was anything but gracious, and I
+imagine I appeared as disgusted and embarrassed as I felt. She turned
+away.
+
+"I think I will choose this one," she said, addressing the clerk. "You
+may give me five yards. Oh, yes; and I may as well take the same amount
+of the other. You may wrap it for me."
+
+"Yes, miss, yes. Thank you, miss. Is there anything else?"
+
+She hesitated. Then, after another sidelong glance at me, she said:
+"Yes, I believe there is. I wish to see some buttons, some braid,
+and--oh, ever so many things. Please show them to me."
+
+"Yes, miss, certainly. This way, if you please."
+
+She turned to me.
+
+"Will you assist in the selection, Uncle Hosea?" she inquired, with
+suspicious sweetness. "I am sure your opinion will be invaluable. No?
+Then I must ask you to wait."
+
+And wait I did, for I could do nothing else. That draper's shop was not
+the place for a scene, with a half-dozen clerks to enjoy it. I waited,
+fuming, while she wandered about, taking a great deal of time, and
+lingering over each purchase in a maddening manner. At last she seemed
+able to think of no more possibilities and strolled to where I was
+standing, followed by the salesman, whose hands were full.
+
+"You may wrap these with the others," she said. "I have my trap here and
+will take them with me. The trap is here, isn't it--er--Uncle Hosea?"
+
+"It is just above here," I answered, sulkily. "But--"
+
+"But you will get it. Thank you so much."
+
+The salesman noticed my hesitation, put his own interpretation upon it
+and hastened to oblige.
+
+"I shall be glad to have the purchases carried there," he said. "Our boy
+will do it, miss. It will be no trouble."
+
+Miss Morley thanked him so much. I was hoping she might leave the shop
+then, but she did not. The various packages were wrapped, handed to
+the boy, and she accompanied the latter to the door and showed him our
+equipage standing before the sporting-goods dealer's. Then she sauntered
+back.
+
+"Thank you," she said, addressing the clerk. "That is all, I believe."
+
+The clerk looked at her and at me.
+
+"Yes, miss, thank you," he said, in return. "I--I--would you be wishing
+to pay at once, miss, or shall I--"
+
+"Oh, this gentleman will pay. Do you wish to pay now--Uncle Hosea?"
+
+Again I was stumped. The salesman was regarding me expectantly; the
+other clerks were near by; if I made a scene there--No, I could not do
+it. I would pay this time. But this should be the end.
+
+Fortunately, I had money in my pocket--two five-pound notes and some
+silver. I paid the bill. Then, and at last, my niece led the way to the
+pavement. We walked together a few steps in silence. The sporting-goods
+shop was just ahead, and if ever I was determined not to do a thing that
+thing was to pay for the tennis racket and the rest.
+
+"Frances," I began.
+
+"Well--Mr. Knowles?" calmly.
+
+"Frances, I have decided to speak with you frankly. You appear to take
+certain things for granted in your--your dealings with Miss Cahoon and
+myself, things which--which I cannot countenance or permit."
+
+She had been walking slowly. Now she stopped short. I stopped, too,
+because she did.
+
+"What do you mean?" she asked. "What things?"
+
+She was looking me through and through. Again I hesitated, and my
+hesitation did not help matters.
+
+"What do you mean?" she repeated. "What is it you cannot countenance
+or"--scornfully--"permit concerning me?"
+
+"I--well, I cannot permit you to do as you have done to-day. You did not
+tell your aunt or me your purpose in coming to Wrayton. You did not tell
+us you were coming here to buy--to buy various things for yourself."
+
+"Why should I tell you? They were for myself. Is it your idea that I
+should ask YOUR permission before buying what I choose?"
+
+"Considering that you ask me to pay, I--"
+
+"I most distinctly did NOT ask you. I TOLD you to pay. Certainly you
+will pay. Why not?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Yes, why not. So this was what you wished to speak to me about. This
+was why you were so--so boorish and disagreeable in that shop. Tell
+me--was that the reason? Was that why you followed me there? Did you
+think--did you presume to think of preventing my buying what I pleased
+with my money?"
+
+"If it had been your money I should not have presumed, certainly. If you
+had mentioned your intention to me beforehand I might even have paid for
+your purchases and said nothing. I should--I should have been glad to do
+so. I am not unreasonable."
+
+"Indeed! Indeed! Do you mean that you would have condescended to make
+me a present of them? And was it your idea that I would accept presents
+from you?"
+
+It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that she had already accepted
+a good deal; but somehow the place, a public sidewalk, seemed hardly
+fitting for the discussion of weighty personal matters. Passers-by were
+regarding us curiously, and in the door of the draper's shop which we
+had just left I noticed the elderly clerk standing and looking in our
+direction. I temporized.
+
+"You don't understand, Miss Morley," I said. "Neither your aunt nor
+I are wealthy. Surely, it is not too much to ask that you consult us
+before--before--"
+
+She interrupted me. "I shall not consult you at all," she declared,
+fiercely. "Wealthy! Am _I_ wealthy? Was my father wealthy? He should
+have been and so should I. Oh, WHAT do you mean? Are you trying to tell
+me that you cannot afford to pay for the few trifles I have bought this
+afternoon?"
+
+"I can afford those, of course. But you don't understand."
+
+"Understand? YOU do not understand. The agreement under which I came
+to Mayberry was that you were to provide for me. I consented to forego
+pressing my claim against you until--until you were ready to--to--Oh,
+but why should we go into this again? I thought--I thought you
+understood. I thought you understood and appreciated my forbearance. You
+seemed to understand and to be grateful and kind. I am all alone in the
+world. I haven't a friend. I have been almost happy for a little while.
+I was beginning to--"
+
+She stopped. The dark eyes which had been flashing lightnings in my
+direction suddenly filled with tears. My heart smote me. After all, she
+did not understand. Another plea of that kind and I should have--Well,
+I'm not sure what I should have done. But the plea was not spoken.
+
+"Oh, what a fool I am!" she cried, fiercely. "Mr. Knowles," pointing to
+the sporting-goods store, "I have made some purchases in that shop also.
+I expect you to pay for those as well. Will you or will you not?"
+
+I was hesitating, weakly. She did not wait for me to reply.
+
+"You WILL pay for them," she declared, "and you will pay for others that
+I may make. I shall buy what I please and do what I please with my money
+which you are keeping from me. You will pay or take the consequences."
+
+That was enough. "I will not pay," I said, firmly, "under any such
+arrangement."
+
+"You will NOT?"
+
+"No, I will not."
+
+She looked as if--Well, if she had been a man I should have expected a
+blow. Her breast heaved and her fingers clenched. Then she turned and
+walked toward the shop with the cricket bats in the window.
+
+"Where are you going?" I asked.
+
+"I am going to tell the man to send the things I have bought to Mayberry
+by carrier and I shall tell him to send the bill to you."
+
+"If you do I shall tell him to do nothing of the kind. Miss Morley, I
+don't mean to be ungenerous or unreasonable, but--"
+
+"Stop! Stop! Oh!" with a sobbing breath, "how I hate you!"
+
+"I'm sorry. When I explain, as I mean to, you will understand, I think.
+If you will go back to the rectory with me now--"
+
+"I shall not go back with you. I shall never speak to you again."
+
+"Miss Morley, be reasonable. You must go back with me. There is no other
+way."
+
+"I will not."
+
+Here was more cheer in an already cheerful situation. She could not get
+to Mayberry that night unless she rode with me. She had no money to take
+her there or anywhere else. I could hardly carry her to the trap by main
+strength. And the curiosity of the passers-by was more marked than ever;
+two or three of them had stopped to watch us.
+
+I don't know how it might have ended, but the end came in an unexpected
+manner.
+
+"Why, Miss Morley," cried a voice from the street behind me. "Oh, I say,
+it IS you, isn't it. How do you do?"
+
+I turned. A trim little motor car was standing there and Herbert Bayliss
+was at the wheel.
+
+"Ah, Knowles, how do you do?" said Bayliss.
+
+I acknowledged the greeting in an embarrassed fashion. I wondered how
+long he had been there and what he had heard. He alighted from the car
+and shook hands with us.
+
+"Didn't see you, Knowles, at first," he said. "Saw Miss Morley here and
+thought she was alone. Was going to beg the privilege of taking her home
+in my car."
+
+Miss Morley answered promptly. "You may have the privilege, Doctor
+Bayliss," she said. "I accept with pleasure."
+
+Young Bayliss looked pleased, but rather puzzled.
+
+"Thanks, awfully," he said. "But my car holds but two and your uncle--"
+
+"Oh, he has the dogcart. It is quite all right, really. I should love
+the motor ride. May I get in?"
+
+He helped her into the car. "Sure you don't mind, Knowles," he asked.
+"Sorry there's not more room; but you couldn't leave the horse, though,
+could you? Quite comfy, Miss Morley? Then we're off."
+
+The car turned from the curb. I caught Miss Morley's eye for an instant;
+there was withering contempt in its look--also triumph.
+
+Left alone, I walked to the trap, gave the horse-holding boy sixpence,
+climbed to the seat and took up the reins. "Pet" jogged lazily up the
+street. The ride over had been very, very pleasant; the homeward journey
+was likely to be anything but that.
+
+To begin with, I was thoroughly dissatisfied with myself. I had bungled
+the affair dreadfully. This was not the time for explanations; I should
+not have attempted them. It would have been better, much better, to have
+accepted the inevitable as gracefully as I could, paid the bills, and
+then, after we reached home, have made the situation plain and "have put
+my foot down" once and for all. But I had not done that. I had lost my
+temper and acted like an eighteen-year-old boy instead of a middle-aged
+man.
+
+She did not understand, of course. In her eyes I must have appeared
+stingy and mean and--and goodness knows what. The money I had refused to
+pay she did consider hers, of course. It was not hers, and some day she
+would know that it was not, but the town square at Wrayton was not the
+place in which to impart knowledge of that kind.
+
+She was so young, too, and so charming--that is, she could be when she
+chose. And she had chosen to be so during our drive together. And I
+had enjoyed that drive; I had enjoyed nothing as thoroughly since our
+arrival in England. She had enjoyed it, too; she had said so.
+
+Well, there would be no more enjoyment of that kind. This was the end,
+of course. And all because I had refused to pay for a tennis racket and
+a few other things. They were things she wanted--yes, needed, if she
+were to remain at the rectory. And, expecting to remain as she did, it
+was but natural that she should wish to play tennis and dress as did
+other young players of her sex. Her life had not been a pleasant one;
+after all, a little happiness added, even though it did cost me some
+money, was not much. And it must end soon. It seemed a pity to end it in
+order to save two pounds eight and threepence.
+
+There is no use cataloguing all my thoughts. Some I have catalogued and
+the others were similar. The memory of her face and of the choke in her
+voice as she said she had been almost happy haunted me. My reason told
+me that, so far as principle and precedent went, I had acted rightly;
+but my conscience, which was quite unreasonable, told me I had acted
+like a boor. I stood it as long as I could, then I shouted at "Pet," who
+was jogging on, apparently half asleep.
+
+"Whoa!" I shouted.
+
+"Pet" stopped short in the middle of the road. I hesitated. The
+principle of the thing--
+
+"Hang the principle!" said I, aloud. Then I turned the trap around and
+drove back to Wrayton. The blond young man in the sporting-goods store
+was evidently glad to see me. He must have seen me drive away and have
+judged that his sale was canceled. His judgment had been very near to
+right, but now I proved it wrong.
+
+I paid for the racket and the press and the shoes and the rest. They
+were wrapped and ready.
+
+"Thank you, sir," said the clerk. "I trust everything will be quite
+satisfactory. I'm sorry the young lady did not take the Slazenger, but
+the one she chose is not at all bad."
+
+I was on my way to the door. I stopped and turned.
+
+"Is the--the what is it--'Slazenger' so much better?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, very much so, sir. Infinitely better, sir. Here it is; judge for
+yourself. The very best racket made. And only thirty-two shillings,
+sir."
+
+It was a better racket, much better. And, after all, when one is hanging
+principle the execution may as well be complete.
+
+"You may give me that one instead of the other," I said, and paid the
+difference.
+
+On my arrival at the rectory Hephzy met me at the door. The between-maid
+took the packages from the trap. I entered the drawing-room and Hephzy
+followed me. She looked very grave.
+
+"Frances is here, I suppose," I said.
+
+"Yes, she came an hour ago. Doctor Bayliss, the younger one, brought
+her in his auto. She hardly spoke to me, Hosy, and went straight to her
+room. Hosy, what happened? What is the matter?"
+
+"Nothing," said I, curtly. "Nothing unusual, that is. I made a fool of
+myself once more, that's all."
+
+The between-maid knocked and entered. "Where would you wish the parcels,
+sir?" she asked.
+
+"These are Miss Morley's. Take them to her room."
+
+The maid retired to obey orders. Hephzy again turned to me.
+
+"Now, Hosy, what is it?" she asked.
+
+I told her the whole story. When I had finished Hephzy nodded
+understandingly. She did not say "I told you so," but if she had it
+would have been quite excusable.
+
+"I think--I think, perhaps, I had better go up and see her," she said.
+
+"All right. I have no objection."
+
+"But she'll ask questions, of course. What shall I tell her?"
+
+"Tell her I changed my mind. Tell her--oh, tell her anything you like.
+Don't bother me. I'm sick of the whole business."
+
+She left me and I went into the Reverend Cole's study and closed the
+door. There were books enough there, but the majority of them were
+theological works or bulky volumes dealing with questions of religion.
+Most of my own books were in my room. These did not appeal to me; I was
+not religiously inclined just then.
+
+So I sat dumbly in the rector's desk chair and looked out of the window.
+After a time there was a knock at the door.
+
+"Come in," said I, expecting Hephzy. It was not Hephzy who came,
+however, but Miss Morley herself. And she closed the door behind her.
+
+I did not speak. She walked over and stood beside me. I did not know
+what she was going to say and the expression did not help me to guess.
+
+For a moment she did not say anything. Then:
+
+"So you changed your mind," she said.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"You don't know. Yet you changed it."
+
+"Yes. Oh yes, I changed it."
+
+"But why? Was it--was it because you were ashamed of yourself?"
+
+"I guess so. As much that as anything."
+
+"You realize that you treated me shamefully. You realize that?"
+
+"Yes," wearily. "Yes, I realize everything."
+
+"And you felt sorry, after I had gone, and so you changed your mind. Was
+that it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+There was no use in attempting justification. For the absolute surrender
+I had made there was no justification. I might as well agree to
+everything.
+
+"And you will never, never treat me in that way again?"
+
+"No."
+
+"And you realize that I was right and understand that I am to do as I
+please with my money?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you beg my pardon?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Very well. Then I beg yours. I'm sorry, too."
+
+Now I WAS surprised. I turned in my chair and looked at her.
+
+"You beg my pardon?" I repeated. "For what?"
+
+"Oh, for everything. I suppose I should have spoken to you before buying
+those things. You might not have been prepared to pay then and--and that
+would have been unpleasant for you. But--well, you see, I didn't think,
+and you were so queer and cross when you followed me to the draper's
+shop, that--that I--well, I was disagreeable, too. I am sorry."
+
+"That's all right."
+
+"Thank you. Is there anything else you wish to say?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You're sure?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why did you buy the Slazenger racket instead of the other one?"
+
+I had forgotten the "Slazenger" for the moment. She had caught me
+unawares.
+
+"Oh--oh," I stammered, "well, it was a much better racket and--and, as
+you were buying one, it seemed foolish not to get the best."
+
+"I know. I wanted the better one very much, but I thought it too
+expensive. I did not feel that I should spend so much money."
+
+"That's all right. The difference wasn't so much and I made the change
+on my own responsibility. I--well, just consider that I bought the
+racket and you bought none."
+
+She regarded me intently. "You mean that you bought it as a present for
+me?" she said slowly.
+
+"Yes; yes, if you will accept it as such."
+
+She was silent. I remembered perfectly well what she had said concerning
+presents from me and I wondered what I should do with that racket when
+she threw it back on my hands.
+
+"Thank you," she said. "I will accept it. Thank you very much."
+
+I was staggered, but I recovered sufficiently to tell her she was quite
+welcome.
+
+She turned to go. Then she turned back.
+
+"Doctor Bayliss asked me to play tennis with him tomorrow morning," she
+said. "May I?"
+
+"May you? Why, of course you may, if you wish, I suppose. Why in the
+world do you ask my permission?"
+
+"Oh, don't you wish me to ask? I inferred from what you said at Wrayton
+that you did wish me to ask permission concerning many things."
+
+"I wished--I said--oh, don't be silly, please! Haven't we had silliness
+enough for one afternoon, Miss Morley."
+
+"My Christian name is Frances. May I play tennis with Doctor Bayliss
+to-morrow morning, Uncle Hosea?"
+
+"Of course you may. How could I prevent it, even if I wished, which I
+don't."
+
+"Thank you, Uncle Hosea. Mr. Worcester is going to play also. We need
+a fourth. I can borrow another racket. Will you be my partner, Uncle
+Hosea?"
+
+"_I_? Your partner?"
+
+"Yes. You play tennis; Auntie says so. Will you play to-morrow morning
+as my partner?"
+
+"But I play an atrocious game and--"
+
+"So do I. We shall match beautifully. Thank you, Uncle Hosea."
+
+Once more she turned to go, and again she turned.
+
+"Is there anything else you wish me to do, Uncle Hosea?" she asked.
+
+The repetition repeated was too much.
+
+"Yes," I declared. "Stop calling me Uncle Hosea. I'm not your uncle."
+
+"Oh, I know that; but you have told everyone that you were, haven't
+you?"
+
+I had, unfortunately, so I could make no better reply than to state
+emphatically that I didn't like the title.
+
+"Oh, very well," she said. "But 'Mr. Knowles' sounds so formal, don't
+you think. What shall I call you? Never mind, perhaps I can think while
+I am dressing for dinner. I will see you at dinner, won't I. Au revoir,
+and thank you again for the racket--Cousin Hosy."
+
+"I'm not your cousin, either--at least not more than a nineteenth
+cousin. And if you begin calling me 'Hosy' I shall--I don't know what I
+shall do."
+
+"Dear me, how particular you are! Well then, au revoir--Kent."
+
+When Hephzy came to the study I was still seated in the rector's chair.
+She was brimful full of curiosity, I know, and ready to ask a dozen
+questions at once. But I headed off the first of the dozen.
+
+"Hephzy," I observed, "I have made no less than fifty solemn resolutions
+since we met that girl--that Little Frank of yours. You've heard me make
+them, haven't you."
+
+"Why, yes, I suppose I have. If you mean resolutions to tell her the
+truth about her father and put an end to the scrape we're in, I have,
+certain."
+
+"Yes; well, I've made another one now. Never, no matter what happens,
+will I attempt to tell her a word concerning Strickland Morley or
+her 'inheritance' or anything else. Every time I've tried I've made
+a blessed idiot of myself and now I'm through. She can stay with us
+forever and run us into debt to her heart's desire--I don't care. If
+she ever learns the truth she sha'n't learn it from me. I'm incapable
+of telling it. I haven't the sand of a yellow dog and I'm not going to
+worry about it. I'm through, do you hear--through."
+
+That was my newest resolution. It was a comfort to realize that THIS
+resolution I should probably stick to.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+In Which Complications Become More Complicated
+
+
+And stick to it I did. From that day--the day of our drive to
+Wrayton--on through those wonderful summer days in which she and
+Hephzy and I were together at the rectory, not once did I attempt to
+remonstrate with my "niece" concerning her presumption in inflicting her
+presence upon us or in spending her money, as she thought it--our money
+as I knew it to be--as she saw fit. Having learned and relearned my
+lesson--namely, that I lacked the courage to tell her the truth I had
+so often declared must be told, having shifted the responsibility to
+Hephzy's shoulders, having admitted and proclaimed myself, in that
+respect at least, a yellow dog, I proceeded to take life as I found it,
+as yellow dogs are supposed to do.
+
+And, having thus weakly rid myself of care and responsibility, I began
+to enjoy that life. To enjoy the freedom of it, and the novelty of
+the surroundings, and the friendship of the good people who were our
+neighbors. Yes, and to enjoy the home life, the afternoons on the tennis
+court or the golf course, the evenings in the drawing-room, the "teas"
+on the lawn--either our lawn or someone else's--the chats together
+across the dinner-table; to enjoy it all; and, more astonishing still,
+to accept the companionship of the young person who was responsible for
+our living in that way as a regular and understood part of that life.
+
+Not that I understood the young person herself; no Bayport quahaug, who
+had shunned female companionship as I had for so long, could be expected
+to understand the whims and changing moods of a girl like Frances
+Morley. At times she charmed and attracted me, at others she tormented
+and irritated me. She argued with me one moment and disagreed the next.
+She laughed at Hephzy's and my American accent and idioms, but when
+Bayliss, Junior, or one of the curates ventured to criticize an
+"Americanism" she was quite as likely to declare that she thought it
+"jolly" and "so expressive." Against my will I was obliged to join in
+conversations, to take sides in arguments, to be present when callers
+came, to make calls. I, who had avoided the society of young people
+because, being no longer young, I felt out of place among them, was now
+dragged into such society every day and almost every evening. I did
+not want to be, but Little Frank seemed to find mischievous pleasure in
+keeping me there.
+
+"It is good for you," she said, on one occasion, when I had sneaked
+off to my room and the company of the "British Poets." "Auntie says you
+started on your travels in order to find something new to write about.
+You'll never find it in those musty books; every poem in them is at
+least seventy years old. If you are going to write of England and my
+people you must know something about those that are alive."
+
+"But, my dear young lady," I said, "I have no intention of writing of
+your people, as you call them."
+
+"You write of knights and lords and ladies and queens. You do--or you
+did--and you certainly know nothing about THEM."
+
+I was quite a bit ruffled. "Indeed!" said I. "You are quite sure of
+that, are you?"
+
+"I am," decidedly. "I have read 'The Queen's Amulet' and no queen
+on earth--in England, surely--ever acted or spoke like that one. An
+American queen might, if there was such a thing."
+
+She laughed and, provoked as I was, I could not help laughing with her.
+She had a most infectious laugh.
+
+"My dear young lady--" I began again, but she interrupted me.
+
+"Don't call me that," she protested. "You're not the Archbishop of
+Canterbury visiting a girl's school and making a speech. You asked me
+not to call you 'Uncle Hosea.' If you say 'dear young lady' to me again
+I shall address you publicly as 'dear old Nunky.' Don't be silly."
+
+I laughed again. "But you ARE young," I said.
+
+"Well, what of it. Perhaps neither of us likes to be reminded of our
+age. I'm sure you don't; I never saw anyone more sensitive on the
+subject. There! there! put away those silly old books and come down to
+the drawing-room. I'm going to sing. Mr. Worcester has brought in a lot
+of new music."
+
+Reluctantly I closed the volume I had in my hand.
+
+"Very well," I said; "I'll come if you wish. But I shall only be in the
+way, as I always am. Mr. Worcester didn't plead for my company, did he?
+Do you know I think he will bear up manfully if I don't appear."
+
+She regarded me with disapproval.
+
+"Don't be childish in your old age," she snapped, "Are you coming?"
+
+I went, of course, and--it may have been by way of reward--she sang
+several old-fashioned, simple ballads which I had found in a dog's-eared
+portfolio in the music cabinet and which I liked because my mother used
+to sing them when I was a little chap. I had asked for them before and
+she had ignored the request.
+
+This time she sang them and Hephzy, sitting beside me in the darkest
+corner reached over and laid a hand on mine.
+
+"Her mother all over again," she whispered. "Ardelia used to sing
+those."
+
+Next day, on the tennis court, she played with Herbert Bayliss against
+Worcester and me, and seemed to enjoy beating us six to one. The only
+regret she expressed was that she and her partner had not made it a
+"love set."
+
+Altogether she was a decidedly vitalizing influence, an influence that
+was, I began to admit to myself, a good one for me. I needed to be kept
+alive and active, and here, in this wide-awake household, I couldn't be
+anything else. The future did not look as dull and hopeless as it had
+when I left Bayport. I even began to consider the possibilities
+of another novel, to hope that I might write one. Jim Campbell's
+"prescription," although working in quite a different way from that
+which he and I had planned, was working nevertheless.
+
+Matthews, at the Camford Street office, was forwarding my letters and
+honoring my drafts with promptness. I received a note each week from
+Campbell. I had written him all particulars concerning Little Frank and
+our move to the rectory, and he professed to see in it only a huge joke.
+
+"Tell your Miss Cahoon," he wrote, "that I am going to turn Spiritualist
+right away. I believe in dreams now, and presentiments and all sorts
+of things. I am trying to dream out a plot for a novel by you. Had a
+roof-garden supper the other night and that gave me a fine start, but
+I'll have to tackle another one before I get sufficient thrills to
+furnish forth one of your gems. Seriously though, old man, this whole
+thing will do you a world of good. Nothing short of an earthquake would
+have shaken you out of your Cape Cod dumps and it looks to me as if you
+and--what's her name--Hephzibah, had had the quake. What are you going
+to do with the Little Frank person in the end? Can't you marry her off
+to a wealthy Englishman? Or, if not that, why not marry her yourself?
+She'd turn a dead quahaug into a live lobster, I should imagine, if
+anyone could. Great idea! What?"
+
+His "great idea" was received with the contempt it deserved. I tore up
+the letter and threw it into the waste basket.
+
+But Hephzy herself spoke of matrimony and Little Frank soon after
+this. We were alone together; Frances had gone on a horseback ride with
+Herbert Bayliss and a female cousin who was spending the day at "Jasmine
+Gables."
+
+"Hosy," said Hephzy, "do you realize the summer is half over? It's the
+middle of July now."
+
+So it was, although it seemed scarcely possible.
+
+"Yes," she went on. "Our lease of this place is up the first of October.
+We shall be startin' for home then, I presume likely, sha'n't we."
+
+"I suppose so. We can't stay over here indefinitely. Life isn't all
+skittles and--and tea."
+
+"That's so. I don't know what skittles are, but I know what tea is. Land
+sakes! I should say I did. They tell me the English national flower is
+a rose. It ought to be a tea-plant blossom, if there is such a thing.
+Hosy," with a sudden return to seriousness, "what are we goin' to do
+with--with HER when the time comes for us to go?"
+
+"I don't know," I answered.
+
+"Are you going to take her to America with us?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Humph! Well, we'll have to know then."
+
+"I suppose we shall; but," defiantly, "I'm not going to worry about it
+till the time comes."
+
+"Humph! Well, you've changed, that's all I've got to say. 'Twan't so
+long ago that you did nothin' BUT worry. I never saw anybody change the
+way you have anyway."
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"In every way. You aren't like the same person you used to be. Why,
+through that last year of ours in Bayport I used to think sometimes you
+were older than I was--older in the way you thought and acted, I mean.
+Now you act as if you were twenty-one. Cavortin' around, playin' tennis
+and golf and everything! What has got into you?"
+
+"I don't know. Jim Campbell's prescription is taking effect, I guess.
+He said the change of air and environment would do me good. I tell you,
+Hephzy, I have made up my mind to enjoy life while I can. I realize as
+well as you do that the trouble is bound to come, but I'm not going to
+let it trouble me beforehand. And I advise you to do the same."
+
+"Well, I've been tryin' to, but sometimes I can't help wonderin' and
+dreadin'. Perhaps I'm havin' my dread for nothin'. It may be that, by
+the time we're ready to start for Bayport, Little Frank will be provided
+for."
+
+"Provided for? What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean provided for by somebody else. There's at least two candidates
+for the job: Don't you think so?"
+
+"You mean--"
+
+"I mean Mr. Worcester and Herbert Bayliss. That Worcester man is a gone
+case, or I'm no judge. He's keepin' company with Frances, or would, if
+she'd let him. 'Twould be funny if she married a curate, wouldn't it."
+
+"Not very," I answered. "Married life on a curate's salary is not my
+idea of humor."
+
+"I suppose likely that's so. And I can't imagine her a minister's wife,
+can you?"
+
+I could not; nor, unless I was greatly mistaken, could the young lady
+herself. In fact, anything as serious as marriage was far from her
+thoughts at present, I judged. But Hephzy did not seem so sure.
+
+"No," she went on, "I don't think the curate's got much chance. But
+young Doctor Bayliss is different. He's good-lookin' and smart and he's
+got prospects. I like him first-rate and I think Frances likes him,
+too. I shouldn't wonder if THAT affair came to somethin'. Wouldn't it be
+splendid if it did!"
+
+I said that it would. And yet, even as I said it, I was conscious of a
+peculiar feeling of insincerity. I liked young Bayliss. He was all that
+Hephzy had said, and more. He would, doubtless, make a good husband for
+any girl. And his engagement to Frances Morley might make easier the
+explanation which was bound to come. I believed I could tell Herbert
+Bayliss the truth concerning the ridiculous "claim." A man would be
+susceptible to reason and proof; I could convince him. I should have
+welcomed the possibility, but, somehow or other, I did not. Somehow or
+other, the idea of her marrying anyone was repugnant to me. I did not
+like to think of it.
+
+"Oh dear!" sighed Hephzy; "if only things were different. If only she
+knew all about her father and his rascality and was livin' with us
+because she wanted to--if that was the way of it, it would be so
+different. If you and I had really adopted her! If she only was your
+niece."
+
+"Nonsense!" I snapped. "She isn't my niece."
+
+"I know it. That's what makes your goodness to her seem so wonderful
+to me. You treat her as if you cared as much as I do. And of course you
+don't. It isn't natural you should. She's my sister's child, and she's
+hardly any relation to you at all. You're awful good, Hosy. She's
+noticed it, too. I think she likes you now a lot better than she did;
+she as much as said so. She's beginning to understand you."
+
+"Nonsense!" I said again. Understand me! I didn't understand myself.
+Nevertheless I was foolishly pleased to hear that she liked me. It was
+pleasant to be liked even by one who was destined to hate me later on.
+
+"I hope she won't feel too hard against us," continued Hephzy. "I can't
+bear to think of her doin' that. She--she seems so near and dear to me
+now. We--I shall miss her dreadfully when it's all over."
+
+I think she hoped that I might say that I should miss her, also. But I
+did not say anything of the kind.
+
+I was resolved not to permit myself to miss her. Hadn't I been scheming
+and planning to get rid of her ever since she thrust herself upon us? To
+be sorry when she, at last, was gotten rid of would be too idiotic.
+
+"Well," observed Hephzy, in conclusion, "perhaps she and Doctor Bayliss
+will make a match after all. We ought to help it all we can, I suppose."
+
+This conversation had various effects upon me. One was to make me
+unaccountably "blue" for the rest of that day. Another was that I
+regarded the visits of Worcester and Herbert Bayliss with a different
+eye. I speculated foolishly concerning those visits and watched both
+young gentlemen more closely.
+
+I did not have to watch the curate long. Suddenly he ceased calling at
+the rectory. Not altogether, of course, but he called only occasionally
+and his manner toward my "niece" was oddly formal and constrained. She
+was very kind to him, kinder than before, I thought, but there was a
+difference in their manner. Hephzy, of course, had an explanation ready.
+
+"She's given him his clearance papers," was her way of expressing it.
+"She's told him that it's no use so far as he's concerned. Well, I never
+did think she cared for him. And that leaves the course clear for the
+doctor, doesn't it."
+
+The doctor took advantage of the clear course. His calls and invitations
+for rides and tennis and golf were more frequent than ever. She must
+have understood; but, being a normal young woman, as well as a very,
+very pretty one, she was a bit of a coquette and kept the boy--for,
+after all, he was scarcely more than that--at arm's length and in a
+state of alternate hope and despair. I shared his varying moods. If he
+could not be sure of her feelings toward him, neither could I, and I
+found myself wondering, wondering constantly. It was foolish for me
+to wonder, of course. Why should I waste time in speculation on that
+subject? Why should I care whether she married or not? What difference
+did it make to me whom she married? I resolved not to think of her at
+all. And that resolution, like so many I had made, amounted to nothing,
+for I did think of her constantly.
+
+And then to add a new complication to the already over-complicated
+situation, came A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire.
+
+Frances and Herbert Bayliss were scheduled for nine holes of golf on the
+Manor House course that morning. I had had no intention of playing. My
+projected novel had reached the stage where, plot building completed, I
+had really begun the writing. The first chapter was finished and I had
+intended beginning the second one that day. But, just as I seated myself
+at the desk in the Reverend Cole's study, the young lady appeared and
+insisted that the twosome become a threesome, that I leave my "stupid
+old papers and pencils" and come for a round on the links. I protested,
+of course, but she was in one of her wilful moods that morning and
+declared that she would not play unless I did.
+
+"It will do you good," she said. "You'll write all the better this
+afternoon. Now, come along."
+
+"Is Doctor Bayliss as anxious for my company as you seem to be?" I asked
+maliciously.
+
+She tossed her head. "Of course he is," she retorted. "Besides it
+doesn't make any difference whether he is or not. _I_ want you to play,
+and that is enough."
+
+"Humph! he may not agree with you."
+
+"Then he can play by himself. It will do him good, too. He takes
+altogether too much for granted. Come! I am waiting."
+
+So, after a few more fruitless protests, I reluctantly laid aside the
+paper and pencils, changed to golfing regalia and, with my bag of clubs
+on my shoulder, joined the two young people on the lawn.
+
+Frances greeted me very cordially indeed. Her clubs--I had bought them
+myself on one of my trips to London: having once yielded, in the matter
+of the tennis outfit, I now bought various little things which I thought
+would please her--were carried by Herbert Bayliss, who, of course, also
+carried his own. His greeting was not as enthusiastic. He seemed rather
+glum and out of sorts. Frances addressed most of her conversation to me
+and I was inclined to think the pair had had some sort of disagreement,
+what Hephzy would have called a "lover's quarrel," perhaps.
+
+We walked across the main street of Mayberry, through the lane past the
+cricket field, on by the path over the pastures, and entered the great
+gate of the Manor, the gate with the Carey arms emblazoned above it.
+Then a quarter of a mile over rolling hills, with rare shrubs and
+flowers everywhere, brought us to the top of the hill at the edge of the
+little wood which these English people persisted in calling a "forest."
+The first tee was there. You drove--if you were skillful or lucky--down
+the long slope to the green two hundred yards away. If you were neither
+skillful nor lucky you were quite as likely to drive into the long grass
+on either side of the fair green. Then you hunted for your ball and,
+having found it, wasted more or less labor and temper in pounding it out
+of the "rough."
+
+At the first tee a man arrayed in the perfection of natty golfing togs
+was practicing his "swing." A caddy was carrying his bag. This of itself
+argued the swinger a person of privilege and consequence, for caddies on
+those links were strictly forbidden by the Lady of the Manor. Why they
+were forbidden she alone knew.
+
+As we approached the tee the player turned to look at us. He was not a
+Mayberryite and yet there was something familiar in his appearance. He
+regarded us for a moment and then, dropping his driver, lounged toward
+me and extended his hand.
+
+"Oh, I say!" he exclaimed. "It is you, isn't it! How do you do?"
+
+"Why, Mr. Heathcroft!" I said. "This is a surprise."
+
+We shook hands. He, apparently, was not at all surprised.
+
+"Heard about your being here, Knowles," he drawled. "My aunt told me;
+that is, she said there were Americans at the rectory and when she
+mentioned the name I knew, of course, it must be you. Odd you should
+have located here, isn't it! Jolly glad to see you."
+
+I said I was glad to see him. Then I introduced my companions.
+
+"Bayliss and I have met before," observed Heathcroft. "Played a round
+with him in the tournament last year. How do, Bayliss? Don't think
+Miss Morley and I have met, though. Great pleasure, really. Are you a
+resident of Mayberry, Miss Morley?"
+
+Frances said that she was a temporary resident.
+
+"Ah! visiting here, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes. Yes, I am visiting. I am living at the rectory, also."
+
+"Miss Morley is Mr. Knowles's niece," explained Bayliss.
+
+Heathcroft seemed surprised.
+
+"Indeed!" he drawled. "Didn't know you had a niece, Knowles. She wasn't
+with you on the ship, now was she."
+
+"Miss Morley had been living in England--here and on the Continent," I
+answered. I could have kicked Bayliss for his officious explanation of
+kinship. Now I should have that ridiculous "uncle" business to contend
+with, in our acquaintance with Heathcroft as with the Baylisses and the
+rest. Frances, I am sure, read my thoughts, for the corners of her mouth
+twitched and she looked away over the course.
+
+"Won't you ask Mr. Heathcroft to join our game--Uncle?" she said. She
+had dropped the hated "Hosea," I am happy to say, but in the presence
+of those outside the family she still addressed me as "Uncle." Of course
+she could not do otherwise without arousing comment, but I did not like
+it. Uncle! there was a venerable, antique quality in the term which
+I resented more and more each time I heard it. It emphasized the
+difference in our ages--and that difference needed no emphasis.
+
+Heathcroft looked pleased at the invitation, but he hesitated in
+accepting it.
+
+"Oh, I shouldn't do that, really," he declared. "I should be in the way,
+now shouldn't I."
+
+Bayliss, to whom the remark was addressed, made no answer. I judged that
+he did not care for the honor of the Heathcroft company. But Frances,
+after a glance in his direction, answered for him.
+
+"Oh, not in the least," she said. "A foursome is ever so much more
+sporting than a threesome. Mr. Heathcroft, you and I will play Doctor
+Bayliss and--Uncle. Shall we?"
+
+Heathcroft declared himself delighted and honored. He looked the
+former. He had scarcely taken his eyes from Miss Morley since their
+introduction.
+
+That match was hard fought. Our new acquaintance was a fair player
+and he played to win. Frances was learning to play and had a natural
+aptitude for the game. I played better than my usual form and I needed
+to, for Bayliss played wretchedly. He "dubbed" his approaches and
+missed easy putts. If he had kept his eye on the ball instead of on
+his opponents he might have done better, but that he would not do. He
+watched Heathcroft and Miss Morley continually, and the more he watched
+the less he seemed to like what he saw.
+
+Perhaps he was not altogether to blame, everything considered. Frances
+was quite aware of the scrutiny and apparently enjoyed his discomfiture.
+She--well, perhaps she did not precisely flirt with A. Carleton
+Heathcroft, but she was very, very agreeable to him and exulted over the
+winning of each hole without regard to the feelings of the losers. As
+for Heathcroft, himself, he was quite as agreeable to her, complimented
+her on her playing, insisted on his caddy's carrying her clubs, assisted
+her over the rough places on the course, and generally acted the gallant
+in a most polished manner. Bayliss and I were beaten three down.
+
+Heathcroft walked with us as far as the lodge gate. Then he said good-by
+with evident reluctance.
+
+"Thank you so much for the game, Miss Morley," he said. "Enjoyed it
+hugely. You play remarkably well, if you don't mind my saying so."
+
+Frances was pleased. "Thank you," she answered. "I know it isn't
+true--that about my playing--but it is awfully nice of you to say it. I
+hope we may play together again. Are you staying here long?"
+
+"Don't know, I'm sure. I am visiting my aunt and she will keep me as
+long as she can. Seems to think I have neglected her of late. Of course
+we must play again. By the way, Knowles, why don't you run over and meet
+Lady Carey? She'll be awfully pleased to meet any friends of mine. Bring
+Miss Morley with you. Perhaps she would care to see the greenhouses.
+They're quite worth looking over, really. Like to have you, too,
+Bayliss, of course."
+
+Bayliss's thanks were not effusive. Frances, however, declared that
+she should love to see the greenhouses. For my part, common politeness
+demanded my asking Mr. Heathcroft to call at the rectory. He accepted
+the invitation at once and heartily.
+
+He called the very next day and joined us at tea. The following
+afternoon we, Hephzy, Frances and I, visited the greenhouses. On this
+occasion we met, for the first time, the lady of the Manor herself. Lady
+Kent Carey was a stout, gray-haired person, of very decided manner and
+a mannish taste in dress. She was gracious and affable, although I
+suspected that much of her affability toward the American visitors was
+assumed because she wished to please her nephew. A. Carleton Heathcroft,
+Esquire, was plainly her ladyship's pride and pet. She called him
+"Carleton, dear," and "Carleton, dear" was, in his aunt's estimation,
+the model of everything desirable in man.
+
+The greenhouses were spacious and the display of rare plants and flowers
+more varied and beautiful than any I had ever seen. We walked through
+the grounds surrounding the mansion, and viewed with becoming reverence
+the trees planted by various distinguished personages, His Royal
+Highness the Prince of Wales, Her late Majesty Queen Victoria,
+Ex-President Carnot of France, and others. Hephzy whispered to me as we
+were standing before the Queen Victoria specimen:
+
+"I don't believe Queen Victoria ever planted that in the world, do
+you, Hosy. She'd look pretty, a fleshy old lady like her, puffin' away
+diggin' holes with a spade, now would she!"
+
+I hastily explained the probability that the hole was dug by someone
+else.
+
+Hephzy nodded.
+
+"I guess so," she added. "And the tree was put in by someone else and
+the dirt put back by the same one. Queen Victoria planted that tree the
+way Susanna Wixon said she broke my best platter, by not doin' a single
+thing to it. I could plant a whole grove that way and not get a bit
+tired."
+
+Lady Carey bade us farewell at the fish-ponds and asked us to come
+again. Her nephew, however, accompanied us all the way home--that is, he
+accompanied Frances, while Hephzy and I made up the rear guard. The next
+day he dropped in for some tennis. Herbert Bayliss was there before
+him, so the tennis was abandoned, and a three-cornered chat on the
+lawn substituted. Heathcroft treated the young doctor with a polite
+condescension which would have irritated me exceedingly.
+
+From then on, during the fortnight which followed, there was a great
+deal of Heathcroft in the rectory social circle. And when he was
+not there, it was fairly certain that he and Frances were together
+somewhere, golfing, walking or riding. Sometimes I accompanied them,
+sometimes Herbert Bayliss made one of the party. Frances' behavior to
+the young doctor was tantalizingly contradictory. At times she was very
+cordial and kind, at others almost cold and repellent. She kept the
+young fellow in a state of uncertainty most of the time. She treated
+Heathcroft much the same, but there was this difference between
+them--Heathcroft didn't seem to mind; her whims appeared to amuse rather
+than to annoy him. Bayliss, on the contrary, was either in the seventh
+heaven of bliss or the subcellar of despair. I sympathized with him, to
+an extent; the young lady's attitude toward me had an effect which, in
+my case, was ridiculous. My reason told me that I should not care at
+all whether she liked me or whether she didn't, whether I pleased or
+displeased her. But I did care, I couldn't help it, I cared altogether
+too much. A middle-aged quahaug should be phlegmatic and philosophical;
+I once had a reputation for both qualities, but I seemed to possess
+neither now.
+
+I found myself speculating and wondering more than ever concerning the
+outcome of all this. Was there anything serious in the wind at all?
+Herbert Bayliss was in love with Frances Morley, that was obvious now.
+But was she in love with him? I doubted it. Did she care in the least
+for him? I did not know. She seemed to enjoy his society. I did not want
+her to fall in love with A. Carleton Heathcroft, certainly. Nor, to be
+perfectly honest, did I wish her to marry Bayliss, although I like him
+much better than I did Lady Carey's blase nephew. Somehow, I didn't
+like the idea of her falling in love with anyone. The present state
+of affairs in our household was pleasant enough. We three were happy
+together. Why could not that happiness continue just as it was?
+
+The answer was obvious: It could not continue. Each day that passed
+brought the inevitable end nearer. My determination to put the thought
+of that end from my mind and enjoy the present was shaken. In the
+solitude of the study, in the midst of my writing, after I had gone to
+my room for the night, I found my thoughts drifting toward the day in
+October when, our lease of the rectory ended, we must pack up and go
+somewhere. And when we went, would she go with us? Hardly. She
+would demand the promised "settlement," and then--What then?
+Explanations--quarrels--parting. A parting for all time. I had reached
+a point where, like Hephzy, I would have gladly suggested a real
+"adoption," the permanent addition to our family of Strickland Morley's
+daughter, but she would not consent to that. She was proud--very proud.
+And she idolized her father's memory. No, she would not remain under any
+such conditions--I knew it. And the certainty of that knowledge
+brought with it a pang which I could not analyze. A man of my age and
+temperament should not have such feelings.
+
+Hephzy did not fancy Heathcroft. She had liked him well enough during
+our first acquaintance aboard the steamer, but now, when she knew him
+better, she did not fancy him. His lofty, condescending manner irritated
+her and, as he seemed to enjoy joking at her expense, the pair had some
+amusing set-tos. I will say this for Hephzy: In the most of these she
+gave at least as good as she received.
+
+For example: we were sitting about the tea-table on the lawn, Hephzy,
+Frances, Doctor and Mrs. Bayliss, their son, and Heathcroft. The
+conversation had drifted to the subject of eatables, a topic suggested,
+doubtless, by the plum cake and cookies on the table. Mr. Heathcroft was
+amusing himself by poking fun at the American custom of serving cereals
+at breakfast.
+
+"And the variety is amazing," he declared. "Oats and wheat and corn!
+My word! I felt like some sort of animal--a horse, by Jove! We feed our
+horses that sort of thing over here, Miss Cahoon."
+
+Hephzy sniffed. "So do we," she admitted, "but we eat 'em ourselves,
+sometimes, when they're cooked as they ought to be. I think some
+breakfast foods are fine."
+
+"Do you indeed? What an extraordinary taste! Do you eat hay as well, may
+I ask?"
+
+"No, of course we don't."
+
+"Why not? Why draw the line? I should think a bit of hay might be
+the--ah--the crowning tit-bit to a breakfasting American. Your horses
+and donkeys enjoy it quite as much as they do oats, don't they?"
+
+"Don't know, I'm sure. I'm neither a horse nor a donkey, I hope."
+
+"Yes. Oh, yes. But I assure you, Miss Morley, I had extraordinary
+experiences on the other side. I visited in a place called Milwaukee and
+my host there insisted on my trying a new cereal each morning. We did
+the oats and the corn and all the rest and, upon my word, I expected
+the hay. It was the only donkey food he didn't have in the house, and I
+don't see why he hadn't provided a supply of that."
+
+"Perhaps he didn't know you were comin'," observed Hephzy, cheerfully.
+"Won't you have another cup, Mrs. Bayliss? Or a cooky or somethin'?"
+
+The doctor's wife consented to the refilling of her cup.
+
+"I suppose--what do you call them?--cereals, are an American custom,"
+she said, evidently aware that her hostess's feelings were ruffled.
+"Every country has its customs, so travelers say. Even our own has some,
+doubtless, though I can't recall any at the moment."
+
+Heathcroft stroked his mustache.
+
+"Oh," he drawled, "we have some, possibly; but our breakfasts are not as
+queer as the American breakfasts. You mustn't mind my fun, Miss Cahoon,
+I hope you're not offended."
+
+"Not a bit," was the calm reply. "We humans ARE animals, after all, I
+suppose, and some like one kind of food and some another. Donkeys like
+hay and pigs like sweets, and I don't know as I hadn't just as soon live
+in a stable as a sty. Do help yourself to the cake, Mr. Heathcroft."
+
+No, our aristocratic acquaintance did not, as a general rule, come out
+ahead in these little encounters and I more than once was obliged to
+suppress a chuckle at my plucky relative's spirited retorts. Frances,
+too, seemed to appreciate and enjoy the Yankee victories. Her prejudice
+against America had, so far as outward expression went, almost
+disappeared. She was more likely to champion than criticize our ways and
+habits now.
+
+But, in spite of all this, she seemed to enjoy the Heathcroft society.
+The two were together a great deal. The village people noticed the
+intimacy and comments reached my ears which were not intended for them.
+Hephzy and I had some discussions on the subject.
+
+"You don't suppose he means anything serious, do you, Hosy?" she asked.
+"Or that she thinks he does?"
+
+"I don't know," I answered. I didn't like the idea any better than she
+did.
+
+"I hope not. Of course he's a big man around here. When his aunt dies
+he'll come in for the estate and the money, so everybody says. And
+if Frances should marry him she'd be--I don't know whether she'd be a
+'Lady' or not, but she'd have an awful high place in society."
+
+"I suppose she would. But I hope she won't do it."
+
+"So do I, for poor young Doctor Bayliss's sake, if nothin' else. He's so
+good and so patient with it all. And he's just eaten up with jealousy;
+anybody can see that. I'm scared to death that he and this Heathcroft
+man will have some sort of--of a fight or somethin'. That would be
+awful, wouldn't it!"
+
+I did not answer. My apprehensions were not on Herbert Bayliss's
+account. He could look out for himself. It was Frances' happiness I was
+thinking of.
+
+"Hosy," said Hephzy, very seriously indeed, "there's somethin' else. I'm
+not sure that Mr. Heathcroft is serious at all. Somethin' Mrs. Bayliss
+said to me makes me feel a little mite anxious. She said Carleton
+Heathcroft was a great lady's man. She told me some things about him
+that--that--Well, I wish Frances wasn't so friendly with him, that's
+all."
+
+I shrugged my shoulders, pretending more indifference than I felt.
+
+"She's a sensible girl," said I. "She doesn't need a guardian."
+
+"I know, but--but he's way up in society, Lady Carey's heir and all
+that. She can't help bein' flattered by his attentions to her. Any girl
+would be, especially an English girl that thinks as much of class and
+all that as they do over here and as she does. I wish I knew how she did
+feel toward him."
+
+"Why don't you ask her?"
+
+Hephzy shook her head. "I wouldn't dare," she said. "She'd take my head
+off. We're on awful thin ice, you and I, with her, as it is. She treats
+us real nicely now, but that's because we don't interfere. If I should
+try just once to tell her what she ought to do she'd flare up like a
+bonfire. And then do the other thing to show her independence."
+
+"I suppose she would," I admitted, gloomily.
+
+"I know she would. No, we mustn't say anything to her. But--but you
+might say somethin' to him, mightn't you. Just hint around and find
+out what he does mean by bein' with her so much. Couldn't you do that,
+Hosy?"
+
+I smiled. "Possibly I could, but I sha'n't," I answered. "He would tell
+me to go to perdition, probably, and I shouldn't blame him."
+
+"Why no, he wouldn't. He thinks you're her uncle, her guardian, you
+know. You'd have a right to do it."
+
+I did not propose to exercise that right, and I said so, emphatically.
+And yet, before that week was ended, I did do what amounted to that very
+thing. The reason which led to this rash act on my part was a talk I had
+with Lady Kent Carey.
+
+I met her ladyship on the putting green of the ninth hole of the golf
+course. I was playing a round alone. She came strolling over the green,
+dressed as mannishly as usual, but carrying a very feminine parasol,
+which by comparison with the rest of her get-up, looked as out of place
+as a silk hat on the head of a girl in a ball dress. She greeted me very
+affably, waited until I putted out, and then sat beside me on the bench
+under the big oak and chatted for some time.
+
+The subject of her conversation was her nephew. She was, apparently,
+only too glad to talk about him at any time. He was her dead sister's
+child and practically the only relative she had. He seemed like a son to
+her. Such a charming fellow, wasn't he, now? And so considerate and kind
+to her. Everyone liked him; he was a great favorite.
+
+"And he is very fond of you, Mr. Knowles," she said. "He enjoys your
+acquaintance so much. He says that there is a freshness and novelty
+about you Americans which is quite delightfully amusing. This
+Miss--ah--Cahoon--your cousin, I think she is--is a constant joy to him.
+He never tires of repeating her speeches. He does it very well, don't
+you think. He mimics the American accent wonderfully."
+
+I agreed that the Heathcroft American accent was wonderful indeed. It
+was all that and more. Lady Carey went on.
+
+"And this Miss Morley, your niece," she said, poking holes in the turf
+with the tip of her parasol, "she is a charming girl, isn't she. She and
+Carleton are quite friendly, really."
+
+"Yes," I admitted, "they seem to be."
+
+"Yes. Tell me about your niece, Mr. Knowles. Has she lived in England
+long? Who were her parents?"
+
+I dodged the ticklish subject as best I could, told her that Frances'
+father was an Englishman, her mother an American, and that most of the
+young lady's life had been spent in France. I feared more searching
+questions, but she did not ask them.
+
+"I see," she said, nodding, and was silent for a moment. Then she
+changed the subject, returning once more to her beloved Carleton.
+
+"He's a dear boy," she declared. "I am planning great things for him.
+Some day he will have the estate here, of course. And I am hoping to
+get him the seat in Parliament when our party returns to power, as it
+is sure to do before long. He will marry then; in fact everything is
+arranged, so far as that goes. Of course there is no actual engagement
+as yet, but we all understand."
+
+I had been rather bored, now I was interested.
+
+"Indeed!" said I. "And may I ask who is the fortunate young lady?"
+
+"A daughter of an old friend of ours in Warwickshire--a fine family, one
+of the oldest in England. She and Carleton have always been so fond of
+each other. Her parents and I have considered the affair settled for
+years. The young people will be so happy together."
+
+Here was news. I offered congratulations.
+
+"Thank you so much," she said. "It is pleasant to know that his future
+is provided for. Margaret will make him a good wife. She worships him.
+If anything should happen to--ah--disturb the arrangement her heart
+would break, I am sure. Of course nothing will happen. I should not
+permit it."
+
+I made some comment, I don't remember what. She rose from the bench.
+
+"I have been chatting about family affairs and matchmaking like a
+garrulous old woman, haven't I," she observed, smiling. "So silly of me.
+You have been charmingly kind to listen, Mr. Knowles. Forgive me, won't
+you. Carleton dear is my one interest in life and I talk of him on the
+least excuse, or without any. So sorry to have inflicted my garrulity
+upon you. I may count upon you entering our invitation golf tournament
+next month, may I not? Oh, do say yes. Thank you so much. Au revoir."
+
+She moved off, as imposing and majestic as a frigate under full sail. I
+walked slowly toward home, thinking hard.
+
+I should have been flattered, perhaps, at her taking me into confidence
+concerning her nephew's matrimonial projects. If I had believed the
+"garrulity," as she called it, to have been unintentional, I might have
+been flattered. But I did not so believe. I was pretty certain there was
+intention in it and that she expected Frances and Hephzy and me to take
+it as a warning. Carleton dear was, in her eyes, altogether too friendly
+with the youngest tenant in Mayberry rectory. The "garrulity" was a
+notice to keep hands off.
+
+I was not incensed at her; she amused me, rather. But with Heathcroft I
+was growing more incensed every moment. Engaged to be married, was he!
+He and this Warwickshire girl of "fine family" had been "so fond" of
+each other for years. Everything was understood, was it? Then what did
+he mean by his attentions to Frances, attentions which half of Mayberry
+was probably discussing at the moment? The more I considered his conduct
+the angrier I became. It was the worst time possible for a meeting with
+A. Carleton Heathcroft, and yet meet him I did at the loneliest and most
+secluded spot in the hedged lane leading to the lodge gate.
+
+He greeted me cordially enough, if his languid drawl could be called
+cordial.
+
+"Ah, Knowles," he said. "Been doing the round I see. A bit stupid by
+oneself, I should think. What? Miss Morley and I have been riding. Had a
+ripping canter together."
+
+It was an unfortunate remark, just at that time. It had the effect of
+spurring my determination to the striking point. I would have it out
+with him then and there.
+
+"Heathcroft," I said, bluntly, "I am not sure that I approve of Miss
+Morley's riding with you so often."
+
+He regarded me with astonishment.
+
+"You don't approve!" he repeated. "And why not? There's no danger. She
+rides extremely well."
+
+"It's not a question of danger. It is one of proprieties, if I must
+put it that way. She is a young woman, hardly more than a girl, and she
+probably does not realize that being seen in your company so frequently
+is likely to cause comment and gossip. Her aunt and I realize it,
+however."
+
+His expression of surprise was changing to one of languid amusement.
+
+"Really!" he drawled. "By Jove! I say, Knowles, am I such a dangerously
+fascinating character? You flatter me."
+
+"I don't know anything concerning your character. I do know that there
+is gossip. I am not accusing you of anything. I have no doubt you have
+been merely careless. Your intentions may have been--"
+
+He interrupted me. "My intentions?" he repeated. "My dear fellow, I have
+no intentions. None whatever concerning your niece, if that is what you
+mean. She is a jolly pretty girl and jolly good company. I like her and
+she seems to like me. That is all, upon my word it is."
+
+He was quite sincere, I was convinced of it. But I had gone too far to
+back out.
+
+"Then you have been thoughtless--or careless," I said. "It seems to me
+that you should have considered her."
+
+"Considered her! Oh, I say now! Why should I consider her pray?"
+
+"Why shouldn't you? You are much older than she is and a man of the
+world besides. And you are engaged to be married, or so I am told."
+
+His smile disappeared.
+
+"Now who the devil told you that?" he demanded.
+
+"I was told, by one who should know, that you were engaged, or what
+amounts to the same thing. It is true, isn't it?"
+
+"Of course it's true! But--but--why, good God, man! you weren't under
+the impression that I was planning to marry your niece, were you? Oh, I
+say! that would be TOO good!"
+
+He laughed heartily. He did not appear in the least annoyed or angry,
+but seemed to consider the whole affair a huge joke. I failed to see the
+joke, myself.
+
+"Oh, no," he went on, before I could reply, "not that, I assure you. One
+can't afford luxuries of that kind, unless one is a luckier beggar than
+I am. Auntie is attending to all that sort of thing. She has me booked,
+you know, and I can't afford to play the high-spirited independent with
+her. I should say not! Rather!"
+
+He laughed again.
+
+"So you think I've been a bit too prevalent in your niece's
+neighborhood, do you?" he observed. "Sorry. I'd best keep off the lawn a
+bit, you mean to say, I suppose. Very well! I'll mind the notice boards,
+of course. Very glad you spoke. Possibly I have been a bit careless. No
+offence meant, Knowles, and none taken, I trust."
+
+"No," I said, with some reluctance. "I'm glad you understand my--our
+position, and take my--my hint so well. I disliked to give it, but I
+thought it best that we have a clear understanding."
+
+"Of course! Stern uncle and pretty niece, and all that sort of thing.
+You Americans are queer beggars. You don't strike me as the usual type
+of stern uncle at all, Knowles. Oh, by the way, does the niece know that
+uncle is putting up the notice boards?"
+
+"Of course she doesn't," I replied, hastily.
+
+His smile broadened. "I wonder what she'll say when she finds it out,"
+he observed. "She has never struck me as being greatly in awe of
+her relatives. I should call HER independent, if I was asked. Well,
+farewell. You and I may have some golf together still, I presume? Good!
+By-by."
+
+He sauntered on, his serene coolness and calm condescension apparently
+unruffled. I continued on my way also. But my serenity had vanished. I
+had the feeling that I had come off second-best in the encounter. I had
+made a fool of myself, I feared. And more than all, I wondered, as he
+did, what Frances Morley would say when she learned of my interference
+in her personal affairs.
+
+I foresaw trouble--more trouble.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+In Which the Truth Is Told at Last
+
+
+I said nothing to Hephzibah or Frances of my talk with Lady Carey or
+with Heathcroft. I was not proud of my share in the putting up of "the
+notice boards." I did not mention meeting either the titled aunt or the
+favored nephew. I kept quiet concerning them both and nervously awaited
+developments.
+
+There were none immediately. That day and the next passed and nothing of
+importance happened. It did seem to me, however, that Frances was rather
+quiet during luncheon on the third day. She said very little and
+several times I found her regarding me with an odd expression. My guilty
+conscience smote me and I expected to be asked questions answering which
+would be difficult. But the questions were not asked--then. I went to my
+study and attempted to write; the attempt was a failure.
+
+For an hour or so I stared hopelessly at the blank paper. I hadn't an
+idea in my head, apparently. At last I threw down the pencil and gave up
+the battle for the day. I was not in a writing mood. I lit my pipe, and,
+moving to the arm-chair by the window, sat there, looking out at the
+lawn and flower beds. No one was in sight except Grimmer, the gardener,
+who was trimming a hedge.
+
+I sat there for some time, smoking and thinking. Hephzy dressed in her
+best, passed the window on her way to the gate. She was going for a call
+in the village and had asked me to accompany her, but I declined. I did
+not feel like calling.
+
+My pipe, smoked out, I put in my pocket. If I could have gotten rid of
+my thoughts as easily I should have been happier, but that I could
+not do. They were strange thoughts, hopeless thoughts, ridiculous,
+unavailing thoughts. For me, Kent Knowles, quahaug, to permit myself to
+think in that way was worse than ridiculous; it was pitiful. This was a
+stern reality, this summer of mine in England, not a chapter in one of
+my romances. They ended happily; it was easy to make them end in that
+way. But this--this was no romance, or, if it was, I was but the comic
+relief in the story, the queer old bachelor who had made a fool of
+himself. That was what I was, an old fool. Well, I must stop being
+a fool before it was too late. No one knew I was such a fool. No one
+should know--now or ever.
+
+And having reached this philosophical conclusion I proceeded to dream
+of dark eyes looking into mine across a breakfast table--our table; of a
+home in Bayport--our home; of someone always with me, to share my life,
+my hopes, to spur me on to a work worth while, to glory in my triumphs
+and comfort me in my reverses; to dream of what might have been if--if
+it were not absolutely impossible. Oh, fool, fool, fool!
+
+A quick step sounded on the gravel walk outside the window. I knew the
+step, should have recognized it anywhere. She was walking rapidly toward
+the house, her head bent and her eyes fixed upon the path before
+her. Grimmer touched his hat and said "Good afternoon, miss," but she
+apparently did not hear him. She passed on and I heard her enter the
+hall. A moment later she knocked at the study door.
+
+She entered the room in answer to my invitation and closed the door
+behind her. She was dressed in her golfing costume, a plain white
+shirtwaist--blouse, she would have called it--a short, dark skirt and
+stout boots. The light garden hat was set upon her dark hair and her
+cheeks were flushed from rapid walking. The hat and waist and skirt were
+extremely becoming. She was pretty--yes, beautiful--and young. I was far
+from beautiful and far from young. I make this obvious statement because
+it was my thought at the moment.
+
+She did not apologize for interrupting me, as she usually did when she
+entered the study during my supposed working periods. This was strange,
+of itself, and my sense of guilt caused me to fear all sorts of things.
+But she smiled and answered my greeting pleasantly enough and, for the
+moment, I experienced relief. Perhaps, after all, she had not learned of
+my interview with Heathcroft.
+
+"I have come to talk with you," she began. "May I sit down?"
+
+"Certainly. Of course you may," I answered, smiling as cheerfully as I
+could. "Was it necessary to ask permission?"
+
+She took a chair and I seated myself in the one from which I had just
+risen. For a moment she was silent. I ventured a remark.
+
+"This begins very solemnly," I said. "Is the talk to be so very
+serious?"
+
+She was serious enough and my apprehensions returned.
+
+"I don't know," she answered. "I hope it may not be serious at all, Mr.
+Knowles."
+
+I interrupted. "Mr. Knowles!" I repeated. "Whew! this IS a formal
+interview. I thought the 'Mr. Knowles' had been banished along with
+'Uncle Hosea'."
+
+She smiled slightly then. "Perhaps it has," she said. "I am just a
+little troubled--or puzzled--and I have come to you for advice."
+
+"Advice?" I repeated. "I'm afraid my advice isn't worth much. What sort
+of advice do you want?"
+
+"I wanted to know what I should do in regard to an invitation I have
+received to motor with Doctor Bayliss--Doctor Herbert Bayliss. He has
+asked me to go with him to Edgeboro to-morrow. Should I accept?"
+
+I hesitated. Then: "Alone?" I asked.
+
+"No. His cousin, Miss Tomlinson, will go also."
+
+"I see no reason why you should not, if you wish to go."
+
+"Thank you. But suppose it was alone?"
+
+"Then--Well, I presume that would be all right, too. You have motored
+with him before, you know."
+
+As a matter of fact, I couldn't see why she asked my opinion in such a
+matter. She had never asked it before. Her next remark was more puzzling
+still.
+
+"You approve of Doctor Bayliss, don't you," she said. It did seem to me
+there was a hint of sarcasm in her tone.
+
+"Yes--certainly," I answered. I did approve of young Bayliss, generally
+speaking; there was no sane reason why I should not have approved of him
+absolutely.
+
+"And you trust me? You believe me capable of judging what is right or
+wrong?"
+
+"Of course I do."
+
+"If you didn't you would not presume to interfere in my personal
+affairs? You would not think of doing that, of course?"
+
+"No--o," more slowly.
+
+"Why do you hesitate? Of course you realize that you have no shadow of
+right to interfere. You know perfectly well why I consented to remain
+here for the present and why I have remained?"
+
+"Yes, yes, I know that."
+
+"And you wouldn't presume to interfere?"
+
+"Doctor Herbert Bayliss is--"
+
+She sprang to her feet. She was not smiling now.
+
+"Stop!" she interrupted, sharply. "Stop! I did not come to discuss
+Doctor Bayliss. I have asked you a question. I ask you if you would
+presume to interfere in my personal affairs. Would you?"
+
+"Why, no. That is, I--"
+
+"You say that to me! YOU!"
+
+"Frances, if you mean that I have interfered between you and the Doctor,
+I--"
+
+She stamped her foot.
+
+"Stop! Oh, stop!" she cried. "You know what I mean. What did you say to
+Mr. Heathcroft? Do you dare tell me you have not interfered there?"
+
+It had come, the expected. Her smile and the asking for "advice" had
+been apparently but traps to catch me off my guard. I had been prepared
+for some such scene as this, but, in spite of my preparations,
+I hesitated and faltered. I must have looked like the meanest of
+pickpockets caught in the act.
+
+"Frances," I stammered, "Frances--"
+
+Her fury took my breath away.
+
+"Don't call me Frances," she cried. "How dare you call me that?"
+
+Perturbed as I was I couldn't resist making the obvious retort.
+
+"You asked me to," I said.
+
+"I asked you! Yes, I did. You had been kind to me, or I thought you
+had, and I--I was foolish. Oh, how I hate myself for doing it! But I
+was beginning to think you a gentleman. In spite of everything, I was
+beginning to--And now! Oh, at least I thought you wouldn't LIE to me."
+
+I rose now.
+
+"Frances--Miss Morley," I said, "do you realize what you are saying?"
+
+"Realize it! Oh," with a scornful laugh, "I realize it quite well; you
+may be sure of that. Don't you like the word? What else do you call a
+denial of what we both know to be the truth. You did see Mr. Heathcroft.
+You did speak with him."
+
+"Yes, I did."
+
+"You did! You admit it!"
+
+"I admit it. But did he tell you what I said?"
+
+"He did not. Mr. Heathcroft IS a gentleman. He told me very little and
+that only in answer to my questions. I knew you and he met the other
+day. You did not mention it, but you were seen together, and when he did
+not come for the ride to which he had invited me I thought it strange.
+And his note to me was stranger still. I began to suspect then, and when
+we next met I asked him some questions. He told me next to nothing, but
+he is honorable and he does not LIE. I learned enough, quite enough."
+
+I wondered if she had learned of the essential thing, of Heathcroft's
+engagement.
+
+"Did he tell you why I objected to his intimacy with you?" I asked.
+
+"He told me nothing! Nothing! The very fact that you had objected, as
+you call it, was sufficient. Object! YOU object to my doing as I please!
+YOU meddle with my affairs! And humiliate me in the eyes of my friends!
+I could--I could die of shame! I... And as if I did not know your
+reasons. As if they were not perfectly plain."
+
+The real reason could not be plain to her. Heathcroft evidently had not
+told her of the Warwickshire heiress.
+
+"I don't understand," I said, trying my hardest to speak calmly. "What
+reasons?"
+
+"Must I tell you? Did you OBJECT to my friendship with Doctor Bayliss,
+pray?"
+
+"Doctor Bayliss! Why, Doctor Bayliss is quite different. He is a fine
+young fellow, and--"
+
+"Yes," with scornful sarcasm, "so it would appear. You and my aunt and
+he have the most evident of understandings. You need not praise him
+for my benefit. It is quite apparent how you both feel toward Doctor
+Bayliss. I am not blind. I have seen how you have thrown him in my
+company, and made opportunities for me to meet him. Oh, of course, I can
+see! I did not believe it at first. It was too absurd, too outrageously
+impertinent. I COULDN'T believe it. But now I know."
+
+This was a little too much. The idea that I--_I_ had been playing the
+matchmaker for Bayliss's benefit made me almost as angry as she was.
+
+"Nonsense!" I declared. "Miss Morley, this is too ridiculous to go on.
+I did speak to Mr. Heathcroft. There was a reason, a good reason, for my
+doing so."
+
+"I do not wish to hear your reason, as you call it. The fact that you
+did speak to him concerning me is enough. Mr. Knowles, this arrangement
+of ours, my living here with you, has gone on too long. I should have
+known it was impossible in the beginning. But I did not know. I was
+alone--and ill--and I did need friends--I was SO alone. I had been
+through so much. I had struggled and suffered and--"
+
+Again, as in our quarrel at Wrayton, she was on the verge of tears. And
+again that unreasonable conscience of mine smote me. I longed to--Well,
+to prove myself the fool I was.
+
+But she did not give me the opportunity. Before I could speak or move
+she was on her way to the door.
+
+"This ends it," she said. "I shall go away from here at once. I
+shall put the whole matter in my solicitor's hands. This is an end of
+forbearance and all the rest. I am going. You have made me hate you and
+despise you. I only hope that--that some day you will despise yourself
+as much. But you won't," scornfully. "You are not that sort."
+
+The door closed. She was gone. Gone! And soon--the next day at the
+latest--she would have been gone for good. This WAS the end.
+
+I walked many miles that day, how many I do not know. Dinner was waiting
+for me when I returned, but I could not eat. I rose from the table, went
+to the study and sat there, alone with my misery. I was torn with the
+wildest longings and desires. One, I think, was to kill Heathcroft
+forthwith. Another was to kill myself.
+
+There came another knock at the door. This time I made no answer. I did
+not want to see anyone.
+
+But the door opened, nevertheless, and Hephzy came in. She crossed the
+room and stood by my chair.
+
+"What is it, Hosy?" she said, gently. "You must tell me all about it."
+
+I made some answer, told her to go away and leave me, I think. If that
+was it she did not heed. She put her hand upon my shoulder.
+
+"You must tell me, Hosy," she said. "What has happened? You and Frances
+have had some fallin' out, I know. She wouldn't come to dinner, either,
+and she won't see me. She's up in her room with the door shut. Tell me,
+Hosy; you and I have fought each other's battles for a good many years.
+You can't fight this one alone; I've got to do my share. Tell me,
+dearie, please."
+
+And tell her I did. I did not mean to, and yet somehow the thought that
+she was there, so strong and quiet and big-hearted and sensible, was, if
+not a comfort to me, at least a marvelous help. I began by telling her a
+little and then went on to tell her all, of my talk with Lady Carey, my
+meeting with Heathcroft, the scene with Frances--everything, word for
+word.
+
+When it was over she patted my shoulder.
+
+"You did just right, Hosy," she said. "There was nothin' else you could
+do. I never liked that Heathcroft man. And to think of him, engaged to
+another girl, trottin' around with Frances the way he has. I'D like to
+talk with him. He'd get a piece of MY mind."
+
+"He's all right enough," I admitted grudgingly. "He took my warning in a
+very good sort, I must say. He has never meant anything serious. It was
+just his way, that's all. He was amusing himself in her company,
+and doubtless thought she would be flattered with his aristocratic
+attentions."
+
+"Humph! Well, I guess she wouldn't be if she'd known of that other girl.
+You didn't tell her that, you say."
+
+"I couldn't. I think I should, perhaps, if she would have listened. I'm
+glad I didn't. It isn't a thing for me to tell her."
+
+"I understand. But she ought to know it, just the same. And she ought to
+know how good you've been to her. Nobody could be better. She must know
+it. Whether she goes or whether she doesn't she must know that."
+
+I seized her arm. "You mustn't tell her a word," I cried. "She mustn't
+know. It is better she should go. Better for her and for me--My God,
+yes! so much better for me."
+
+I could feel the arm on my shoulder start. Hephzy bent down and looked
+into my face. I tried to avoid the scrutiny, but she looked and looked.
+Then she drew a long breath.
+
+"Hosy!" she exclaimed. "Hosy!"
+
+"Don't speak to me. Oh, Hephzy," with a bitter laugh, "did you ever
+dream there could be such a hopeless lunatic as I am! You needn't say
+it. I know the answer."
+
+"Hosy! Hosy! you poor boy!"
+
+She kissed me, soothing me as she had when I came home to our empty
+house at the time of my mother's death. That memory came back to me even
+then.
+
+"Forgive me, Hephzy," I said. "I am ashamed of myself, of course. And
+don't worry. Nobody knows this but you and I, and nobody else shall. I'm
+going to behave and I'm going to be sensible. Just forget all this for
+my sake. I mean to forget it, too."
+
+But Hephzy shook her head.
+
+"It's all my fault," she said. "I'm to blame more than anybody else.
+It was me that brought her here in the first place and me that kept you
+from tellin' her the truth in the beginnin'. So it's me who must tell
+her now."
+
+"Hephzy!"
+
+"Oh, I don't mean the truth about--about what you and I have just said,
+Hosy. She'll never know that, perhaps. Certainly she'll never know it
+from me. But the rest of it she must know. This has gone far enough. She
+sha'n't go away from this house misjudgin' you, thinkin' you're a thief,
+as well as all the rest of it. That she sha'n't do. I shall see to
+that--now."
+
+"Hephzy, I forbid you to--"
+
+"You can't forbid me, Hosy. It's my duty, and I've been a silly, wicked
+old woman and shirked that duty long enough. Now don't worry any more.
+Go to your room, dearie, and lay down. If you get to sleep so much the
+better. Though I guess," with a sigh, "we sha'n't either of us sleep
+much this night."
+
+Before I could prevent her she had left the room. I sprang after her, to
+call her back, to order her not to do the thing she had threatened.
+But, in the drawing-room, Charlotte, the housemaid, met me with an
+announcement.
+
+"Doctor Bayliss--Doctor Herbert Bayliss--is here, sir," she said. "He
+has called to see you."
+
+"To see me?" I repeated, trying hard to recover some measure of
+composure. "To see Miss Frances, you mean."
+
+"No, sir. He says he wants to see you alone. He's in the hall now, sir."
+
+He was; I could hear him. Certainly I never wished to see anyone less,
+but I could not refuse.
+
+"Ask him to come into the study, Charlotte," said I.
+
+The young doctor found me sitting in the chair by the desk. The long
+English twilight was almost over and the room was in deep shadow.
+Charlotte entered and lighted the lamp. I was strongly tempted to order
+her to desist, but I could scarcely ask my visitor to sit in the dark,
+however much I might prefer to do so. I compromised by moving to a seat
+farther from the lamp where my face would be less plainly visible. Then,
+Bayliss having, on my invitation, also taken a chair, I waited for him
+to state his business.
+
+It was not easy to state, that was plain. Ordinarily Herbert Bayliss was
+cool and self-possessed. I had never before seen him as embarrassed as
+he seemed to be now. He fidgeted on the edge of the chair, crossed and
+recrossed his legs, and, finally, offered the original remark that it
+had been an extremely pleasant day. I admitted the fact and again there
+was an interval of silence. I should have helped him, I suppose. It
+was quite apparent that his was no casual call and, under ordinary
+circumstances, I should have been interested and curious. Now I did
+not care. If he would say his say and go away and leave me I should be
+grateful.
+
+And, at last, he said it. His next speech was very much nearer the
+point.
+
+"Mr. Knowles," he said, "I have called to--to see you concerning your
+niece, Miss Morley. I--I have come to ask your consent to my asking her
+to marry me."
+
+I was not greatly surprised. I had vaguely suspected his purpose when
+he entered the room. I had long foreseen the likelihood of some such
+interview as this, had considered what I should say when the time came.
+But now it had come, I could say nothing. I sat in silence, looking at
+him.
+
+Perhaps he thought I did not understand. At any rate he hastened to
+explain.
+
+"I wish your permission to marry your niece," he repeated. "I have no
+doubt you are surprised. Perhaps you fancy I am a bit hasty. I suppose
+you do. But I--I care a great deal for her, Mr. Knowles. I will try
+to make her a good husband. Not that I am good enough for her, of
+course--no one could be that, you know; but I'll try and--and--"
+
+He was very red in the face and floundered, amid his jerky sentences,
+like a newly-landed fish, but he stuck to it manfully. I could not help
+admiring the young fellow. He was so young and handsome and so honest
+and boyishly eager in his embarrassment. I admired him--yes, but I
+hated him, too, hated him for his youth and all that it meant, I was
+jealous--bitterly, wickedly jealous, and of all jealousy, hopeless,
+unreasonable jealousy is the worst, I imagine.
+
+He went on to speak of his ambitions and prospects. He did not intend to
+remain always in Mayberry as his father's assistant, not he. He should
+remain for a time, of course, but then he intended to go back to London.
+There were opportunities there. A fellow with the right stuff in him
+could get on there. He had friends in the London hospitals and they had
+promised to put chances his way. He should not presume to marry Frances
+at once, of course. He would not be such a selfish goat as that. All he
+asked was that, my permission granted, she would be patient and wait a
+bit until he got on his feet, professionally he meant to say, and then--
+
+I interrupted.
+
+"One moment," said I, trying to appear calm and succeeding remarkably
+well, considering the turmoil in my brain; "just a moment, Bayliss, if
+you please. Have you spoken to Miss Morley yet? Do you know her feelings
+toward you?"
+
+No, he had not. Of course he wouldn't do that until he and I had had our
+understanding. He had tried to be honorable and all that. But--but he
+thought she did not object to him. She--well, she had seemed to like him
+well enough. There had been times when he thought she--she--
+
+"Well, you see, sir," he said, "she's a girl, of course, and a fellow
+never knows just what a girl is going to say or do. There are times when
+one is sure everything is quite right and then that it is all wrong. But
+I have hoped--I believe--She's such a ripping girl, you know. She would
+not flirt with a chap and--I don't mean flirt exactly, she isn't a
+flirt, of course--but--don't you think she likes me, now?"
+
+"I have no reason to suppose she doesn't," I answered grudgingly. After
+all, he was acting very honorably; I could scarcely do less.
+
+He seemed to find much comfort in my equivocal reply.
+
+"Thanks, thanks awfully," he exclaimed. "I--I--by Jove, you know, I
+can't tell you how I like to hear you say that! I'm awfully grateful
+to you, Knowles, I am really. And you'll give me permission to speak to
+her?"
+
+I smiled; it was not a happy smile, but there was a certain ironic humor
+in the situation. The idea of anyone's seeking my "permission" in any
+matter concerning Frances Morley. He noticed the smile and was, I think,
+inclined to be offended.
+
+"Is it a joke?" he asked. "I say, now! it isn't a joke to me."
+
+"Nor to me, I assure you," I answered, seriously. "If I gave that
+impression it was a mistaken one. I never felt less like joking."
+
+He put his own interpretation on the last sentence. "I'm sorry," he
+said, quickly. "I beg your pardon. I understand, of course. You're very
+fond of her; no one could help being that, could they. And she is your
+niece."
+
+I hesitated. I was minded to blurt out the fact that she was not my
+niece at all; that I had no authority over her in any way. But what
+would be the use? It would lead only to explanations and I did not
+wish to make explanations. I wanted to get through with the whole inane
+business and be left alone.
+
+"But you haven't said yes, have you," he urged. "You will say it, won't
+you?"
+
+I nodded. "You have my permission, so far as that goes," I answered.
+
+He sprang to his feet and seized my hand.
+
+"That's topping!" he cried, his face radiant. "I can't thank you
+enough."
+
+"That's all right. But there is one thing more. Perhaps it isn't my
+affair, and you needn't answer unless you wish. Have you consulted your
+parents? How do they feel about your--your intentions?"
+
+His expression changed. My question was answered before he spoke.
+
+"No," he admitted, "I haven't told them yet. I--Well, you see, the Mater
+and Father have been making plans about my future, naturally. They have
+some silly ideas about a friend of the family that--Oh, she's a nice
+enough girl; I like her jolly well, but she isn't Miss Morley. Well,
+hardly! They'll take it quite well. By Jove!" excitedly, "they must.
+They've GOT to. Oh, they will. And they're very fond of--of Frances."
+
+There seemed nothing more for me to say, nothing at that time, at any
+rate. I, too, rose. He shook my hand again.
+
+"You've been a trump to me, Knowles," he declared. "I appreciate it, you
+know; I do indeed. I'm jolly grateful."
+
+"You needn't be. It is all right. I--I suppose I should wish you luck
+and happiness. I do. Yes, why shouldn't you be happy, even if--"
+
+"Even if--what? Oh, but you don't think she will turn me off, do you?
+You don't think that?"
+
+"I've told you that I see no reason why she should."
+
+"Thank you. Thank you so much. Is there anything else that you might
+wish to say to me?"
+
+"Not now. Perhaps some day I--But not now. No, there's nothing else.
+Good night, Bayliss; good night and--and good luck."
+
+"Good night. I--She's not in now, I suppose, is she?"
+
+"She is in, but--Well, I scarcely think you had better see her to-night.
+She has gone to her room."
+
+"Oh, I say! it's very early. She's not ill, is she?"
+
+"No, but I think you had best not see her to-night."
+
+He was disappointed, that was plain, but he yielded. He would have
+agreed, doubtless, with any opinion of mine just then.
+
+"No doubt you're right," he said. "Good night. And thank you again."
+
+He left the room. I did not accompany him to the door. Instead I
+returned to my chair. I did not occupy it long, I could not. I could not
+sit still. I rose and went out on the lawn. There, in the night mist, I
+paced up and down, up and down. I had longed to be alone; now that I was
+alone I was more miserable than ever.
+
+Charlotte, the maid, called to me from the doorway.
+
+"Would you wish the light in the study any longer, sir?" she asked.
+
+"No," said I, curtly. "You may put it out."
+
+"And shall I lock up, sir; all but this door, I mean?"
+
+"Yes. Where is Miss Cahoon?"
+
+"She's above, sir. With Miss Morley, I think, sir."
+
+"Very well, Charlotte. That is all. Good night."
+
+"Good night, sir."
+
+She went into the house. The lamp in the study was extinguished. I
+continued my pacing up and down. Occasionally I glanced at the upper
+story of the rectory. There was a lighted window there, the window of
+Frances' room. She and Hephzy were together in that room. What was going
+on there? What had Hephzy said to her? What--Oh, WHAT would happen next?
+
+Some time later--I don't know how much later it may have been--I heard
+someone calling me again.
+
+"Hosy!" called Hephzy in a loud whisper; "Hosy, where are you?"
+
+"Here I am," I answered.
+
+She came to me across the lawn. I could not, of course, see her face,
+but her tone was very anxious.
+
+"Hosy," she whispered, putting her hand on my arm, "what are you doin'
+out here all alone?"
+
+I laughed. "I'm taking the air," I answered. "It is good for me. I am
+enjoying the glorious English air old Doctor Bayliss is always talking
+about. Fresh air and exercise--those will cure anything, so he says.
+Perhaps they will cure me. God knows I need curing."
+
+"Sshh! shh, Hosy! Don't talk that way. I don't like to hear you. Out
+here bareheaded and in all this damp! You'll get your death."
+
+"Will I? Well, that will be a complete cure, then."
+
+"Hush! I tell you. Come in the house with me. I want to talk to you.
+Come!"
+
+Still holding my arm she led me toward the house. I hung back.
+
+"You have been up there with her?" I said, with a nod toward the lighted
+window of the room above. "What has happened? What have you said and
+done?"
+
+"Hush! I'll tell you; I'll tell you all about it. Only come in now. I
+sha'n't feel safe until I get you inside. Oh, Hosy, DON'T act this way!
+Do you want to frighten me to death?"
+
+That appeal had an effect. I was ashamed of myself.
+
+"Forgive me, Hephzy," I said. "I'll try to be decent. You needn't worry
+about me. I'm a fool, of course, but now that I realize it I shall try
+to stop behaving like one. Come along; I'm ready."
+
+In the drawing-room she closed the door.
+
+"Shall I light the lamp?" she asked.
+
+"No. Oh, for heaven's sake, can't you see that I'm crazy to know what
+you said to that girl and what she said to you? Tell me, and hurry up,
+will you!"
+
+She did not resent my sudden burst of temper and impatience. Instead she
+put her arm about me.
+
+"Sit down, Hosy," she pleaded. "Sit down and I'll tell you all about it.
+Do sit down."
+
+I refused to sit.
+
+"Tell me now," I commanded. "What did you say to her? You didn't--you
+didn't--"
+
+"I did. I told her everything."
+
+"EVERYTHING! You don't mean--"
+
+"I mean everything. 'Twas time she knew it. I went to that room meanin'
+to tell her and I did. At first she didn't want to listen, didn't want
+to see me at all or even let me in. But I made her let me in and then
+she and I had it out."
+
+"Hephzy!"
+
+"Don't say it that way, Hosy. The good Lord knows I hate myself for
+doin' it, hated myself while I was doin' it, but it had to be done.
+Every word I spoke cut me as bad as it must have cut her. I kept
+thinkin', 'This is Little Frank I'm talkin' to. This is Ardelia's
+daughter I'm makin' miserable.' A dozen times I stopped and thought I
+couldn't go on, but every time I thought of you and what you'd put up
+with and been through, and I went on."
+
+"Hephzy! you told her--"
+
+"I said it was time she understood just the plain truth about her father
+and mother and grandfather and the money, and everything. She must know
+it, I said; things couldn't go on as they have been. I told it all. At
+first she wouldn't listen, said I was--well, everything that was mean
+and lyin' and bad. If she could she'd have put me out of her room, I
+presume likely, but I wouldn't go. And, of course, at first she wouldn't
+believe, but I made her believe."
+
+"Made her believe! Made her believe her father was a thief! How could
+you do that! No one could."
+
+"I did it. I don't know how exactly. I just went on tellin' it all
+straight from the beginnin', and pretty soon I could see she was
+commencin' to believe. And she believes now, Hosy; she does, I know it."
+
+"Did she say so?"
+
+"No, she didn't say anything, scarcely--not at the last. She didn't cry,
+either; I almost wish she had. Oh, Hosy, don't ask me any more questions
+than you have to. I can't bear to answer 'em."
+
+She paused and turned away.
+
+"How she must hate us!" I said, after a moment.
+
+"Why, no--why, no, Hosy, I don't think she does; at least I'm tryin' to
+hope she doesn't. I softened it all I could. I told her why we took her
+with us in the first place; how we couldn't tell her the truth at first,
+or leave her, either, when she was so sick and alone. I told her why
+we brought her here, hopin' it would make her well and strong, and how,
+after she got that way, we put off tellin' her because it was such a
+dreadful hard thing to do. Hard! When I think of her sittin' there,
+white as a sheet, and lookin' at me with those big eyes of hers, her
+fingers twistin' and untwistin' in her lap--a way her mother used to
+have when she was troubled--and every word I spoke soundin' so cruel
+and--and--"
+
+She paused once more. I did not speak. Soon she recovered and went on.
+
+"I told her that I was tellin' her these things now because the
+misunderstandin's and all the rest had to stop and there was no use
+puttin' off any longer. I told her I loved her as if she was my very own
+and that this needn't make the least bit of difference unless she wanted
+it to. I said you felt just the same. I told her your speakin' to that
+Heathcroft man was only for her good and for no other reason. You'd
+learned that he was engaged to be married--"
+
+"You told her that?" I interrupted, involuntarily. "What did she say?"
+
+"Nothin', nothin' at all. I think she heard me and understood, but she
+didn't say anything. Just sat there, white and trembling and crushed,
+sort of, and looked and looked at me. I wanted to put my arms around
+her and ask her pardon and beg her to love me as I did her, but I didn't
+dare--I didn't dare. I did say that you and I would be only too glad to
+have her stay with us always, as one of the family, you know. If she'd
+only forget all the bad part that had gone and do that, I said--but she
+interrupted me. She said 'Forget!' and the way she said it made me
+sure she never would forget. And then--and then she asked me if I would
+please go away and leave her. Would I PLEASE not say any more now, but
+just leave her, only leave her alone. So I came away and--and that's
+all."
+
+"That's all," I repeated. "It is enough, I should say. Oh, Hephzy, why
+did you do it? Why couldn't it have gone on as it has been going? Why
+did you do it?"
+
+It was an unthinking, wicked speech. But Hephzy did not resent it. Her
+reply was as patient and kind as if she had been answering a child.
+
+"I had to do it, Hosy," she said. "After our talk this evenin' there
+was only one thing to do. It had to be done--for your sake, if nothin'
+else--and so I did it. But--but--" with a choking sob, "it was SO hard
+to do! My Ardelia's baby!"
+
+And at last, I am glad to say, I began to realize how very hard it had
+been for her. To understand what she had gone through for my sake and
+what a selfish brute I had been. I put my hands on her shoulders and
+kissed her almost reverently.
+
+"Hephzy," said I, "you're a saint and a martyr and I am--what I am.
+Please forgive me."
+
+"There isn't anything to forgive, Hosy. And," with a shake of the head,
+"I'm an awful poor kind of saint, I guess. They'd never put my image up
+in the churches over here--not if they knew how I felt this minute. And
+a saint from Cape Cod wouldn't be very welcome anyway, I'm afraid. I
+meant well, but that's a poor sort of recommendation. Oh, Hosy, you DO
+think I did for the best, don't you?"
+
+"You did the only thing to be done," I answered, with decision. "You did
+what I lacked the courage to do. Of course it was best."
+
+"You're awful good to say so, but I don't know. What'll come of it
+goodness knows. When I think of you and--and--"
+
+"Don't think of me. I'm going to be a man if I can--a quahaug, if
+I can't. At least I'm not going to be what I have been for the last
+month."
+
+"I know. But when I think of to-morrow and what she'll say to me, then,
+I--"
+
+"You mustn't think. You must go to bed and so must I. To-morrow will
+take care of itself. Come. Let's both sleep and forget it."
+
+Which was the very best of advice, but, like much good advice,
+impossible to follow. I did not sleep at all that night, nor did I
+forget. God help me! I was realizing that I never could forget.
+
+At six o'clock I came downstairs, made a pretence at eating some
+biscuits and cheese which I found on the sideboard, scribbled a brief
+note to Hephzy stating that I had gone for a walk and should not be back
+to breakfast, and started out. The walk developed into a long one and
+I did not return to the rectory until nearly eleven in the forenoon. By
+that time I was in a better mood, more reconciled to the inevitable--or
+I thought I was. I believed I could play the man, could even see her
+married to Herbert Bayliss and still behave like a man. I vowed and
+revowed it. No one--no one but Hephzy and I should ever know what we
+knew.
+
+Charlotte, the maid, seemed greatly relieved to see me. She hastened to
+the drawing-room.
+
+"Here he is, Miss Cahoon," she said. "He's come back, ma'am. He's here."
+
+"Of course I'm here, Charlotte," I said. "You didn't suppose I had run
+away, did you?... Why--why, Hephzy, what is the matter?"
+
+For Hephzy was coming to meet me, her hands outstretched and on her face
+an expression which I did not understand--sorrow, agitation--yes, and
+pity--were in that expression, or so it seemed to me.
+
+"Oh, Hosy!" she cried, "I'm so glad you've come. I wanted you so."
+
+"Wanted me?" I repeated. "Why, what do you mean? Has anything happened?"
+
+She nodded, solemnly.
+
+"Yes," she said, "somethin' has happened. Somethin' we might have
+expected, perhaps, but--but--Hosy, read that."
+
+I took what she handed me. It was a sheet of note paper, folded across,
+and with Hephzibah's name written upon one side. I recognized the
+writing and, with a sinking heart, unfolded it. Upon the other side was
+written in pencil this:
+
+
+"I am going away. I could not stay, of course. When I think how I have
+stayed and how I have treated you both, who have been so very, very
+kind to me, I feel--I can't tell you how I feel. You must not think me
+ungrateful. You must not think of me at all. And you must not try to
+find me, even if you should wish to do such a thing. I have the money
+which I intended using for my new frocks and I shall use it to pay
+my expenses and my fare to the place I am going. It is your money, of
+course, and some day I shall send it to you. And someday, if I can,
+I shall repay all that you have spent on my account. But you must not
+follow me and you must not think of asking me to come back. That I shall
+never do. I do thank you for all that you have done for me, both of you.
+I cannot understand why you did it, but I shall always remember. Don't
+worry about me. I know what I am going to do and I shall not starve or
+be in want. Good-by. Please try to forget me.
+
+"FRANCES MORLEY.
+
+"Please tell Mr. Knowles that I am sorry for what I said to him this
+afternoon and so many times before. How he could have been so kind and
+patient I can't understand. I shall always remember it--always. Perhaps
+he may forgive me some day. I shall try and hope that he may."
+
+
+I read to the end. Then, without speaking, I looked at Hephzy. Her eyes
+were brimming with tears.
+
+"She has gone," she said, in answer to my unspoken question. "She must
+have gone some time in the night. The man at the inn stable drove her
+to the depot at Haddington on Hill. She took the early train for London.
+That is all we know."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+In Which Hephzy and I Agree to Live for Each Other
+
+
+I shall condense the record of that day as much as possible. I should
+omit it altogether, if I could. We tried to trace her, of course. That
+is, I tried and Hephzy did not dissuade me, although she realized, I am
+sure, the hopelessness of the quest. Frances had left the rectory very
+early in the morning. The hostler at the inn had been much surprised to
+find her awaiting him when he came down to the yard at five o'clock.
+She was obliged to go to London, she said, and must take the very
+first train: Would he drive her to Haddington on Hill at once? He did
+so--probably she had offered him a great deal more than the regular
+fare--and she had taken the train.
+
+Questioning the hostler, who was a surly, uncommunicative lout, resulted
+in my learning very little in addition to this. The young lady seemed
+about as usual, so far as he could see. She might 'ave been a bit
+nervous, impatient like, but he attributed that to her anxiety to make
+the train. Yes, she had a bag with her, but no other luggage. No, she
+didn't talk on the way to the station: Why should she? He wasn't the man
+to ask a lady questions about what wasn't his affair. She minded her own
+business and he minded his. No, he didn't know nothin' more about it.
+What was I a-pumpin' him for, anyway?
+
+I gave up the "pumping" and hurried back to the rectory. There Hephzy
+told me a few additional facts. Frances had taken with her only the
+barest necessities, for the most part those which she had when she
+came to us. Her new frocks, those which she had bought with what she
+considered her money, she had left behind. All the presents which we had
+given her were in her room, or so we thought at the time. As she came,
+so she had gone, and the thought that she had gone, that I should never
+see her again, was driving me insane.
+
+And like an insane man I must have behaved, at first. The things I
+did and said, and the way in which I treated Hephzy shame me now, as I
+remember them. I was going to London at once. I would find her and bring
+her back. I would seek help from the police, I would employ detectives,
+I would do anything--everything. She was almost without money; so far as
+I knew without friends. What would she do? What would become of her? I
+must find her. I must bring her back.
+
+I stormed up and down the room, incoherently declaring my intentions and
+upbraiding Hephzy for not having sent the groom or the gardener to find
+me, for allowing all the precious time to elapse. Hephzy offered no
+excuse. She did not attempt justification. Instead she brought the
+railway time-table, gave orders that the horse be harnessed, helped me
+in every way. She would have prepared a meal for me with her own hands,
+would have fed me like a baby, if I had permitted it. One thing she did
+insist upon.
+
+"You must rest a few minutes, Hosy," she said. "You must, or you'll
+be down sick. You haven't slept a wink all night. You haven't eaten
+anything to speak of since yesterday noon. You can't go this way. You
+must go to your room and rest a few minutes. Lie down and rest, if you
+can."
+
+"Rest!"
+
+"You must. The train doesn't leave Haddington for pretty nigh two hours,
+and we've got lots of time. I'll fetch you up some tea and toast or
+somethin' by and by and I'll be all ready to start when you are. Now go
+and lie down, Hosy dear, to please me."
+
+I ignored the last sentence. "You will be ready?" I repeated. "Do you
+mean you're going with me?"
+
+"Of course I am. It isn't likely I'll let you start off all alone, when
+you're in a state like this. Of course I'm goin' with you. Now go and
+lie down. You're so worn out, poor boy."
+
+I must have had a glimmer of reason then, a trace of decency and
+unselfishness. For the first time I thought of her. I remembered that
+she, too, had loved Little Frank; that she, too, must be suffering.
+
+"I am no more tired than you are," I said. "You have slept and eaten no
+more than I. You are the one who must rest. I sha'n't let you go with
+me."
+
+"It isn't a question of lettin'. I shall go if you do, Hosy. And a woman
+don't need rest like a man. Please go upstairs and lie down, Hosy. Oh,"
+with a sudden burst of feeling, "don't you see I've got about all I can
+bear as it is? I can't--I can't have YOU to worry about too."
+
+My conscience smote me. "I'll go, Hephzy," said I. "I'll do whatever you
+wish; it is the least I can do."
+
+She thanked me. Then she said, hesitatingly:
+
+"Here is--here is her letter, Hosy. You may like to read it again.
+Perhaps it may help you to decide what is best to do."
+
+She handed me the letter. I took it and went to my room. There I read it
+again and again. And, as I read, the meaning of Hephzy's last sentence,
+that the letter might help me to decide what was best to do, began to
+force itself upon my overwrought brain. I began to understand what she
+had understood from the first, that my trip to London was hopeless,
+absolutely useless--yes, worse than useless.
+
+"You must not try to find me... You must not follow me or think of
+asking me to come back. That I shall never do."
+
+I was understanding, at last. I might go to London; I might even,
+through the help of the police, or by other means, find Frances Morley.
+But, having found her, what then? What claim had I upon her? What right
+had I to pursue her and force my presence upon her? I knew the shock she
+had undergone, the shattering of her belief in her father, the knowledge
+that she had--as she must feel--forced herself upon our kindness and
+charity. I knew how proud she was and how fiercely she had relented the
+slightest hint that she was in any way dependent upon us or under
+the least obligation to us. I knew all this and I was beginning to
+comprehend what her feelings toward us and toward herself must be--now.
+
+I might find her--yes; but as for convincing her that she should return
+to Mayberry, to live with us as she had been doing, that was so clearly
+impossible as to seem ridiculous even to me. My following her, my
+hunting her down against her expressed wish, would almost surely make
+matters worse. She would probably refuse to see me. She would consider
+my following her a persecution and the result might be to drive her
+still further away. I must not do it, for her sake I must not. She had
+gone and, because I loved her, I must not follow her; I must not add to
+her misery. No, against my will I was forcing myself to realize that my
+duty was to make no attempt to see her again, but to face the situation
+as it was, to cover the running away with a lie, to pretend she had
+gone--gone somewhere or other with our permission and understanding; to
+protect her name from scandal and to conceal my own feelings from all
+the world. That was my duty; that was the situation I must face. But how
+could I face it!
+
+That hour was the worst I have ever spent and I trust I may never be
+called upon to face such another. But, at last, I am glad to say, I
+had made up my mind, and when Hephzy came with the tea and toast I was
+measurably composed and ready to express my determination.
+
+"Hephzy," said I, "I am not going to London. I have been thinking, and
+I'm not going."
+
+Hephzy put down the tray she was carrying. She did seem surprised, but I
+am sure she was relieved.
+
+"You're not goin'!" she exclaimed. "Why, Hosy!"
+
+"No, I am not going. I've been crazy, Hephzy, I think, but I am fairly
+sane now. I have reached the conclusion that you reached sometime ago,
+I am certain. We have no right to follow her. Our finding her would only
+make it harder for her and no good could come of it. She went, of her
+own accord, and we must let her go."
+
+"Let her go? And not try--"
+
+"No. We have no right to try. You know it as well as I do. Now, be
+honest, won't you?"
+
+Hephzy hesitated.
+
+"Why," she faltered; "well, I--Oh, Hosy, I guess likely you're right. At
+first I was all for goin' after her right away and bringin' her back
+by main strength, if I had to. But the more I thought of it the more
+I--I--"
+
+"Of course," I interrupted. "It is the only thing we can do. You must
+have been ashamed of me this morning. Well, I'll try and give you no
+cause to be ashamed again. That part of our lives is over. Now we'll
+start afresh."
+
+Hephzy, after a long look at my face, covered her own with her hands
+and began to cry. I stepped to her side, but she recovered almost
+immediately.
+
+"There! there!" she said, "don't mind me, Hosy. I've been holdin' that
+cry back for a long spell. Now I've had it and it's over and done with.
+After all, you and I have got each other left and we'll start fresh,
+just as you say. And the first thing is for you to eat that toast and
+drink that tea."
+
+I smiled, or tried to smile.
+
+"The first thing," I declared, "is for us to decide what story we shall
+tell young Bayliss and the rest of the people to account for her leaving
+so suddenly. I expect Herbert Bayliss here any moment. He came to see me
+about--about her last evening."
+
+Hephzy nodded.
+
+"I guessed as much," she said. "I knew he came and I guessed what 'twas
+about. Poor fellow, 'twill be dreadful hard for him, too. He was here
+this mornin' and I said Frances had been called away sudden and wouldn't
+be back to-day. And I said you would be away all day, too, Hosy. It was
+a fib, I guess, but I can't help it if it was. You mustn't see him now
+and you mustn't talk with me either. You must clear off that tray the
+first thing. We'll have our talk to-morrow, maybe. We'll--we'll see the
+course plainer then, perhaps. Now be a good boy and mind me. You ARE
+my boy, you know, and always will be, no matter how old and famous you
+get."
+
+Herbert Bayliss called again that afternoon. I did not see him, but
+Hephzy did. The young fellow was frightfully disappointed at Frances'
+sudden departure and asked all sorts of questions as to when she would
+return, her London address and the like. Hephzy dodged the questions as
+best she could, but we both foresaw that soon he would have to be told
+some portion of the truth--not the whole truth; he need never know that,
+but something--and that something would be very hard to tell.
+
+The servants, too, must not know or surmise what had happened or the
+reason for it. Hephzy had already given them some excuse, fabricated on
+the spur of the moment. They knew Miss Morley had gone away and might
+not return for some time. But we realized that upon our behavior
+depended a great deal and so we agreed to appear as much like our
+ordinary selves as possible.
+
+It was a hard task. I shall never forget those first meals when we
+two were alone. We did not mention her name, but the shadow was always
+there--the vacant place at the table where she used to sit, the roses
+she had picked the morning before; and, afterward, in the drawing-room,
+the piano with her music upon the rack--the hundred and one little
+reminders that were like so many poisoned needles to aggravate my
+suffering and to remind me of the torture of the days to come. She had
+bade me forget her. Forget! I might forget when I was dead, but not
+before. If I could only die then and there it would seem so easy by
+comparison.
+
+The next forenoon Hephzy and I had our talk. We discussed our future.
+Should we leave the rectory and England and go back to Bayport where
+we belonged? I was in favor of this, but Hephzy seemed reluctant. She,
+apparently, had some reason which made her wish to remain for a time, at
+least. At last the reason was disclosed.
+
+"I supposed you'll laugh at me when I say it, Hosy," she said; "or at
+any rate you'll think I'm awful silly. But I know--I just KNOW that
+this isn't the end. We shall see her again, you and I. She'll come to us
+again or we'll go to her. I know it; somethin' inside me tells me so."
+
+ I shook my head.
+
+"It's true," she went on. "You don't believe it, but it's true. It's a
+presentiment and you haven't believed in my presentiments before, but
+they've come true. Why, you didn't believe we'd ever find Little Frank
+at all, but we did. And do you suppose all that has happened so far has
+been just for nothin'? Indeed and indeed it hasn't. No, this isn't the
+end; it's only the beginnin'."
+
+Her conviction was so strong that I hadn't the heart to contradict her.
+I said nothing.
+
+"And that's why," she went on, "I don't like to have us leave here right
+away. She knows we're here, here in England, and if--if she ever should
+be in trouble and need our help she could find us here waitin' to give
+it. If we was away off on the Cape, way on the other side of the ocean,
+she couldn't reach us, or not until 'twas too late anyhow. That's why
+I'd like to stay here a while longer, Hosy. But," she hastened to add,
+"I wouldn't stay a minute if you really wanted to go."
+
+I was silent for a moment. The temptation was to go, to get as far from
+the scene of my trouble as I could; but, after all, what did it matter?
+I could never flee from that trouble.
+
+"All right, Hephzy," I said. "I'll stay, if it pleases you."
+
+"Thank you, Hosy. It may be foolish, our stayin', but I don't believe
+it is. And--and there's somethin' else. I don't know whether I ought to
+tell you or not. I don't know whether it will make you feel better or
+worse. But I've heard you say that she must hate you. She doesn't--I
+know she doesn't. I've been lookin' over her things, those she left in
+her room. Everythin' we've given her or bought for her since she's been
+here, she left behind--every single thing except one. That little pin
+you bought for her in London the last time you was there and gave her to
+wear at the Samsons' lawn party, I can't find it anywhere. She must have
+taken it with her. Now why should she take that and leave all the rest?"
+
+"Probably she forgot it," I said.
+
+"Humph! Queer she should forget that and nothin' else. I don't believe
+she forgot it. _I_ think she took it because you gave it to her and she
+wanted to keep it to remind her of you."
+
+I dismissed the idea as absurd, but I found a ray of comfort in it which
+I should have been ashamed to confess. The idea that she wished to be
+reminded of me was foolish, but--but I was glad she had forgotten to
+leave the pin. It MIGHT remind her of me, even against her will.
+
+A day or two later Herbert Bayliss and I had our delayed interview. He
+had called several times, but Hephzy had kept him out of my way. This
+time our meeting was in the main street of Mayberry, when dodging him
+was an impossibility. He hurried up to me and seized my hand.
+
+"So you're back, Knowles," he said. "When did you return?"
+
+For the moment I was at a loss to understand his meaning. I had
+forgotten Hephzy's "fib" concerning my going away. Fortunately he did
+not wait for an answer.
+
+"Did Frances--did Miss Morley return with you?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"No," said I.
+
+His smile vanished.
+
+"Oh!" he said, soberly. "She is still in London, then?"
+
+"I--I presume she is."
+
+"You presume--? Why, I say! don't you know?"
+
+"I am not sure."
+
+He seemed puzzled and troubled, but he was too well bred to ask why I
+was not sure. Instead he asked when she would return. I announced that I
+did not know that either.
+
+"You don't know when she is coming back?" he repeated.
+
+"No."
+
+He regarded me keenly. There was a change in the tone of his next
+remark.
+
+"You are not sure that she is in London and you don't know when she is
+coming back," he said, slowly. "Would you mind telling me why she left
+Mayberry so suddenly? She had not intended going; at least she did not
+mention her intention to me."
+
+"She did not mention it to anyone," I answered. "It was a very sudden
+determination on her part."
+
+He considered this.
+
+"It would seem so," he said. "Knowles, you'll excuse my saying it, but
+this whole matter seems deucedly odd to me. There is something which
+I don't understand. You haven't answered my question. Under the
+circumstances, considering our talk the other evening, I think I have a
+right to ask it. Why did she leave so suddenly?"
+
+I hesitated. Mayberry's principal thoroughfare was far from crowded, but
+it was scarcely the place for an interview like this.
+
+"She had a reason for leaving," I answered, slowly. "I will tell you
+later, perhaps, what it was. Just now I cannot."
+
+"You cannot!" he repeated. He was evidently struggling with his
+impatience and growing suspicious. "You cannot! But I think I have a
+right to know."
+
+"I appreciate your feelings, but I cannot tell you now."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because--Well, because I don't think it would be fair to her. She would
+not wish me to tell you."
+
+"She would not wish it? Was it because of me she left?"
+
+"No; not in the least."
+
+"Was it--was it because of someone else? By Jove! it wasn't because of
+that Heathcroft cad? Don't tell me that! My God! she--she didn't--"
+
+I interrupted. His suspicion angered me. I should have understood his
+feelings, should have realized that he had been and was disappointed
+and agitated and that my answers to his questions must have aroused all
+sorts of fears and forebodings in his mind. I should have pitied him,
+but just then I had little pity for others.
+
+"She did nothing but what she considered right," I said sharply. "Her
+leaving had nothing to do with Heathcroft or with you. I doubt if she
+thought of either of you at all."
+
+It was a brutal speech, and he took it like a man. I saw him turn pale
+and bite his lips, but when he next spoke it was in a calmer tone.
+
+"I'm sorry," he said. "I was a silly ass even to think such a thing.
+But--but you see, Knowles, I--I--this means so much to me. I'm sorry,
+though. I ask her pardon and yours."
+
+I was sorry, too. "Of course I didn't mean that, exactly," I said. "Her
+feelings toward you are of the kindest, I have no doubt, but her reason
+for leaving was a purely personal one. You were not concerned in it."
+
+He reflected. He was far from satisfied, naturally, and his next speech
+showed it.
+
+"It is extraordinary, all this," he said. "You are quite sure you don't
+know when she is coming back?"
+
+"Quite."
+
+"Would you mind giving me her London address?"
+
+"I don't know it."
+
+"You don't KNOW it! Oh, I say! that's damned nonsense! You don't know
+when she is coming back and you don't know her address! Do you mean you
+don't know where she has gone?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What--? Are you trying to tell me she is not coming back at all?"
+
+"I am afraid not."
+
+He was very pale. He seized my arm.
+
+"What is all this?" he demanded, fiercely. "What has happened? Tell me;
+I want to know. Where is she? Why did she go? Tell me!"
+
+"I can tell you nothing," I said, as calmly as I could. "She left us
+very suddenly and she is not coming back. Her reason for leaving I can't
+tell you, now. I don't know where she is and I have no right to try and
+find out. She has asked that no one follow her or interfere with her in
+any way. I respect her wish and I advise you, if you wish to remain her
+friend, to do the same, for the present, at least. That is all I can
+tell you."
+
+He shook my arm savagely.
+
+"By George!" he cried, "you must tell me. I'll make you! I--I--Do you
+think me a fool? Do you suppose I believe such rot as that? You tell me
+she has gone--has left Mayberry--and you don't know where she has gone
+and don't intend trying to find out. Why--"
+
+"There, Bayliss! that is enough. This is not the place for us to
+quarrel. And there is no reason why we should quarrel at all. I have
+told you all that I can tell you now. Some day I may tell you more, but
+until then you must be patient, for her sake. Her leaving Mayberry had
+no connection with you whatever. You must be contented with that."
+
+"Contented! Why, man, you're mad. She is your niece. You are her
+guardian and--"
+
+"I am not her guardian. Neither is she my niece."
+
+I had spoken involuntarily. Certainly I had not intended telling him
+that. The speech had the effect of causing him to drop my arm and step
+back. He stared at me blankly. No doubt he did think me crazy, then.
+
+"I have no authority over her in any way," I went on. "She is Miss
+Cahoon's niece, but we are not her guardians. She has left our home of
+her own free will and neither I nor you nor anyone else shall follow
+her if I can help it. I am sorry to have deceived you. The deceit was
+unavoidable, or seemed to be. I am very, very sorry for you. That is all
+I can say now. Good morning."
+
+I left him standing there in the street and walked away. He called after
+me, but I did not turn back. He would have followed me, of course, but
+when I did look back I saw that the landlord of the inn was trying to
+talk with him and was detaining him. I was glad that the landlord had
+appeared so opportunely. I had said too much already. I had bungled this
+interview as I had that with Heathcroft.
+
+I told Hephzy all about it. She appeared to think that, after all,
+perhaps it was best.
+
+"When you've got a toothache," she said, "you might as well go to the
+dentist's right off. The old thing will go on growlin' and grumblin' and
+it's always there to keep you in misery. You'd have had to tell him some
+time. Well, you've told him now, the worst of it, anyhow. The tooth's
+out; though," with a one-sided smile, "I must say you didn't give the
+poor chap any ether to help along."
+
+"I'm afraid it isn't out," I said, truthfully. "He won't be satisfied
+with one operation."
+
+"Then I'll be on hand to help with the next one. And, between us, I
+cal'late we can make that final. Poor boy! Well, he's young, that's one
+comfort. You get over things quicker when you're young."
+
+I nodded. "That is true," I said, "but there is something else, Hephzy.
+You say I have acted for the best. Have I? I don't know. We know he
+cares for her, but--but does she--"
+
+"Does she care for him, you mean? I don't think so, Hosy. For a spell
+I thought she did, but now I doubt it. I think--Well, never mind what
+I think. I think a lot of foolish things. My brain's softenin' up, I
+shouldn't wonder. It's a longshore brain, anyhow, and it needs the
+salt to keep it from spoilin'. I wish you and I could go clammin'.
+When you're diggin' clams you're too full of backache to worry about
+toothaches--or heartaches, either."
+
+I expected a visit from young Bayliss that very evening, but he did not
+come to the rectory. Instead Doctor Bayliss, Senior, came and requested
+an interview with me. Hephzy announced the visitor.
+
+"He acts pretty solemn, Hosy," she said. "I wouldn't wonder if his son
+had told him. I guess it's another toothache. Would you like to have me
+stay and help?"
+
+I said I should be glad of her help. So, when the old gentleman was
+shown into the study, he found her there with me. The doctor was very
+grave and his usually ruddy, pleasant face was haggard and careworn. He
+took the chair which I offered him and, without preliminaries, began to
+speak of the subject which had brought him there.
+
+It was as Hephzy had surmised. His son had told him everything, of his
+love for Frances, of his asking my permission to marry her, and of our
+talk before the inn.
+
+"I am sure I don't need to tell you, Knowles," he said, "that all this
+has shaken the boy's mother and me dreadfully. We knew, of course, that
+the young people liked each other, were together a great deal, and all
+that. But we had not dreamed of any serious attachment between them."
+
+Hephzy put in a word.
+
+"We don't know as there has been any attachment between them," she said.
+"Your boy cared for her--we know that--but whether she cared for him or
+not we don't know."
+
+Our visitor straightened in his chair. The idea that his son could love
+anyone and not be loved in return was plainly quite inconceivable.
+
+"I think we may take that for granted, madame," he said. "The news was,
+as I say, a great shock to my wife and myself. Herbert is our only child
+and we had, naturally, planned somewhat concerning his future. The--the
+overthrow of our plans was and is a great grief and disappointment
+to us. Not, please understand, that we question your niece's worth or
+anything of that sort. She is a very attractive young woman and would
+doubtless make my son a good wife. But, if you will pardon my saying
+so, we know very little about her or her family. You are comparative
+strangers to us and although we have enjoyed your--ah--society
+and--ah--"
+
+Hephzy interrupted.
+
+"I beg your pardon for saying it, Doctor Bayliss," she said, "but you
+know as much about us as we do about you."
+
+The doctor's composure was ruffled still more. He regarded Hephzy
+through his spectacles and then said, with dignity.
+
+"Madame, I have resided in this vicinity for nearly forty years. I think
+my record and that of my family will bear inspection."
+
+"I don't doubt it a bit. But, as far as that goes, I have lived in
+Bayport for fifty-odd years myself and our folks have lived there for
+a hundred and fifty. I'm not questionin' you or your family, Doctor
+Bayliss. If I had questioned 'em I could easily have looked up the
+record. All I'm sayin' is that I haven't thought of questionin', and I
+don't just see why you shouldn't take as much for granted as I have."
+
+The old gentleman was a bit disconcerted. He cleared his throat and
+fidgeted in his seat.
+
+"I do--I do, Miss Cahoon, of course," he said. "But--ah--Well, to
+return to the subject of my son and Miss Morley. The boy is dreadfully
+agitated, Mr. Knowles. He is quite mad about the girl and his mother
+and I are much concerned about him. We would--I assure you we would do
+anything and sacrifice anything for his sake. We like your niece,
+and, although, as I say, we had planned otherwise, nevertheless we
+will--provided all is as it should be--give our consent to--to the
+arrangement, for his sake."
+
+I did not answer. The idea that marrying Frances Morley would entail a
+sacrifice upon anyone's part except hers angered me and I did not trust
+myself to speak. But Hephzy spoke for me.
+
+"What do you mean by providin' everything is as it should be?" she
+asked.
+
+"Why, I mean--I mean provided we learn that she is--is--That is,--Well,
+one naturally likes to know something concerning his prospective
+daughter-in-law's history, you know. That is to be expected, now isn't
+it."
+
+Hephzy looked at me and I looked at her.
+
+"Doctor," she said. "I wonder if your son told you about some things
+Hosy--Mr. Knowles, I mean--told him this mornin'. Did he tell you that?"
+
+The doctor colored slightly. "Yes--yes, he did," he admitted. "He said
+he had a most extraordinary sort of interview with Mr. Knowles and
+was told by him some quite extraordinary things. Of course, we could
+scarcely believe that he had heard aright. There was some mistake, of
+course."
+
+"There was no mistake, Doctor Bayliss," said I. "I told your son the
+truth, a very little of the truth."
+
+"The truth! But it couldn't be true, you know, as Herbert reported it
+to me. He said Miss Morley had left Mayberry, had gone away for some
+unexplained reason, and was not coming back--that you did not know
+where she had gone, that she had asked not to be hindered or followed or
+something. And he said--My word! he even said you, Knowles, had declared
+yourself to be neither her uncle nor her guardian. THAT couldn't be
+true, now could it!"
+
+Again Hephzy and I looked at each other. Without speaking we reached the
+same conclusion. Hephzy voiced that conclusion.
+
+"I guess, Doctor Bayliss," she said, "that the time has come when you
+had better be told the whole truth, or as much of the whole truth about
+Frances as Hosy and I know. I'm goin' to tell it to you. It's a kind of
+long story, but I guess likely you ought to know it."
+
+She began to tell that story, beginning at the very beginning, with
+Ardelia and Strickland Morley and continuing on, through the history of
+the latter's rascality and the fleeing of the pair from America, to
+our own pilgrimage, the finding of Little Frank and the astonishing
+happenings since.
+
+"She's gone," she said. "She found out what sort of man her father
+really was and, bein' a high-spirited, proud girl--as proud and
+high-spirited as she is clever and pretty and good--she ran away and
+left us. We don't blame her, Hosy and I. We understand just how she
+feels and we've made up our minds to do as she asks and not try to
+follow her or try to bring her back to us against her will. We think
+the world of her. We haven't known her but a little while, but we've
+come--that is," with a sudden glance in my direction, "I've come to love
+her as if she was my own. It pretty nigh kills me to have her go. When
+I think of her strugglin' along tryin' to earn her own way by singin'
+and--and all, I have to hold myself by main strength to keep from goin'
+after her and beggin' her on my knees to come back. But I sha'n't do it,
+because she doesn't want me to. Of course I hope and believe that some
+day she will come back, but until she does and of her own accord, I'm
+goin' to wait. And, if your son really cares for her as much as we--as I
+do, he'll wait, too."
+
+She paused and hastily dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief.
+I turned in order that the Doctor might not see my face. It was an
+unnecessary precaution. Doctor Bayliss' mind was busy, apparently, with
+but one thought.
+
+"An opera singer!" he exclaimed, under his breath. "An opera singer!
+Herbert to marry an opera singer! The granddaughter of a Yankee sailor
+and--and--"
+
+"And the daughter of an English thief," put in Hephzy, sharply. "Maybe
+we'd better leave nationalities out, Doctor Bayliss. The Yankees have
+the best end of it, 'cordin' to my notion."
+
+He paid no attention to this.
+
+He was greatly upset. "It is impossible!" he declared. "Absolutely
+impossible! Why haven't we known of this before? Why did not Herbert
+know of it? Mr. Knowles, I must say that--that you have been most
+unthinking in this matter."
+
+"I have been thinking of her," I answered, curtly. "It was and is her
+secret and we rely upon you to keep it as such. We trust to your honor
+to tell no one, not even your son."
+
+"My son! Herbert? Why I must tell him! I must tell my wife."
+
+"You may tell your wife. And your son as much as you think necessary.
+Further than that it must not go."
+
+"Of course, of course. I understand. But an opera singer!"
+
+"She isn't a real opera singer," said Hephzy. "That is, not one of those
+great ones. And she told me once that she realized now that she never
+could be. She has a real sweet voice, a beautiful voice, but it isn't
+powerful enough to make her a place in the big companies. She tried and
+tried, she said, but all the managers said the same thing."
+
+"Hephzy," I said, "when did she tell you this? I didn't know of it."
+
+"I know you didn't, Hosy. She told me one day when we were alone. It was
+the only time she ever spoke of herself and she didn't say much then.
+She spoke about her livin' with her relatives here in England and what
+awful, mean, hard people they were. She didn't say who they were nor
+where they lived, but she did say she ran away from them to go on
+the stage as a singer and what trials and troubles she went through
+afterward. She told me that much and then she seemed sorry that she had.
+She made me promise not to tell anyone, not even you. I haven't, until
+now."
+
+Doctor Bayliss was sitting with a hand to his forehead.
+
+"A provincial opera singer," he repeated. "Oh, impossible! Quite
+impossible!"
+
+"It may seem impossible to you," I couldn't help observing, "but I
+question if it will seem so to your son. I doubt if her being an opera
+singer will make much difference to him."
+
+The doctor groaned. "The boy is mad about her, quite mad," he admitted.
+
+I was sorry for him. Perhaps if I were in his position I might feel as
+he did.
+
+"I will say this," I said: "In no way, so far as I know, has Miss Morley
+given your son encouragement. He told me himself that he had never
+spoken to her of his feelings and we have no reason to think that she
+regards him as anything more than a friend. She left no message for him
+when she went away."
+
+He seemed to find some ground for hope in this. He rose from the chair
+and extended his hand.
+
+"Knowles," he said, "if I have said anything to hurt your feelings or
+those of Miss Cahoon I am very sorry. I trust it will make no difference
+in our friendship. My wife and I respect and like you both and I think I
+understand how deeply you must feel the loss of your--of Miss Morley. I
+hope she--I hope you may be reunited some day. No doubt you will be. As
+for Herbert--he is our son and if you ever have a son of your own, Mr.
+Knowles, you may appreciate his mother's feelings and mine. We have
+planned and--and--Even now I should not stand in the way of his
+happiness if--if I believed happiness could come of it. But such
+marriages are never happy. And," with a sudden burst of hope, "as you
+say, she may not be aware of his attachment. The boy is young. He may
+forget."
+
+"Yes," said I, with a sigh. "He IS young, and he may forget."
+
+After he had gone Hephzy turned to me.
+
+"If I hadn't understood that old man's feelin's," she declared, "I'd
+have given him one talkin' to. The idea of his speakin' as if Frances
+wouldn't be a wife anybody, a lord or anybody else, might be proud of!
+But he didn't know. He's been brought up that way, and he doesn't know.
+And, of course, his son IS the only person on earth to him. Well, that's
+over! We haven't got to worry about them any more. We'll begin to live
+for each other now, Hosy, same as we used to do. And we'll wait for the
+rest. It'll come and come right for all of us. Just you see."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+In Which I Play Golf and Cross the Channel
+
+
+And so we began "to live for each other again," Hephzy and I. This
+meant, of course, that Hephzy forgot herself entirely and spent the
+greater part of her time trying to find ways to make my living more
+comfortable, just as she had always done. And I--well, I did my best to
+appear, if not happy, at least reasonably calm and companionable. It was
+a hard job for both of us; certainly my part of it was hard enough.
+
+Appearances had to be considered and so we invented a tale of a visit
+to relatives in another part of England to account for the unannounced
+departure of Miss Morley. This excuse served with the neighbors and
+friends not in the secret and, for the benefit of the servants, Hephzy
+elaborated the deceit by pretending eagerness at the arrival of the
+mails and by certain vague remarks at table concerning letters she was
+writing.
+
+"I AM writing 'em, too, Hosy," she said. "I write to her every few days.
+Of course I don't mail the letters, but it sort of squares things with
+my conscience to really write after talking so much about it. As for her
+visitin' relatives--well, she's got relatives somewhere in England, we
+know that much, and she MAY be visitin' 'em. At any rate I try to think
+she is. Oh, dear, I 'most wish I'd had more experience in tellin' lies;
+then I wouldn't have to invent so many extra ones to make me believe
+those I told at the beginnin'. I wish I'd been brought up a book agent
+or a weather prophet or somethin' like that; then I'd have been in
+trainin'."
+
+Without any definite agreement we had fallen into the habit of not
+mentioning the name of Little Frank, even when we were alone together.
+In consequence, on these occasions, there would be long intervals
+of silence suddenly broken by Hephzy's bursting out with a surmise
+concerning what was happening in Bayport, whether they had painted the
+public library building yet, or how Susanna was getting on with the cat
+and hens. She had received three letters from Miss Wixon and, as news
+bearers, they were far from satisfactory.
+
+"That girl makes me so provoked," sniffed Hephzy, dropping the most
+recent letter in her lap with a gesture of disgust. "She says she's got
+a cold in the head and she's scared to death for fear it'll get 'set
+onto her,' whatever that is. Two pages of this letter is nothin' but
+cold in the head and t'other two is about a new hat she's goin' to have
+and she don't know whether to trim it with roses or forget-me-nots. If
+she trimmed it with cabbage 'twould match her head better'n anything
+else. I declare! she ought to be thankful she's got a cold in a head
+like hers; it must be comfortin' to know there's SOMETHIN' there. You've
+got a letter, too, Hosy. Who is it from?"
+
+"From Campbell," I answered, wearily. "He wants to know how the novel is
+getting on, of course."
+
+"Humph! Well, you write him that it's gettin' on the way a squid gets
+ahead--by goin' backwards. Don't let him pester you one bit, Hosy. You
+write that novel just as fast or slow as you feel like. He told you to
+take a vacation, anyway."
+
+I smiled. Mine was a delightful vacation.
+
+The summer dragged on. The days passed. Pleasant days they were, so far
+as the weather was concerned. I spent them somehow, walking, riding,
+golfing, reading. I gave up trying to work; the half-written novel
+remained half written. I could not concentrate my thoughts upon it and I
+lacked the courage to force myself to try. I wrote Campbell that he must
+be patient, I was doing the best I could. He answered by telling me not
+to worry, to enjoy myself. "Why do you stay there in England?" he wrote.
+"I ordered you to travel, not to plant yourself in one place and die
+of dry rot. A British oyster is mighty little improvement on a Cape Cod
+quahaug. You have been in that rectory about long enough. Go to Monte
+Carlo for change. You'll find it there--or lose it."
+
+It may have been good advice--or bad--according to the way in which
+it was understood, but, good or bad, it didn't appeal to me. I had no
+desire to travel, unless it were to travel back to Bayport, where I
+belonged. I felt no interest in Monte Carlo--for the matter of that, I
+felt no interest in Mayberry or anywhere else. I was not interested in
+anything or anybody--except one, and that one had gone out of my life.
+Night after night I went to sleep determining to forget and morning
+after morning I awoke only to remember, and with the same dull, hopeless
+heartache and longing.
+
+July passed, August was half gone. Still we remained at the rectory. Our
+lease was up on the first of October. The Coles would return then and we
+should be obliged to go elsewhere, whether we wished to or not. Hephzy,
+although she did not say much about it, was willing to go, I think. Her
+"presentiment" had remained only a presentiment so far; no word came
+from Little Frank. We had heard or learned nothing concerning her or her
+whereabouts.
+
+Our neighbors and friends in Mayberry were as kind and neighborly as
+ever. For the first few days after our interview with Doctor Bayliss,
+Senior, Hephzy and I saw nothing of him or his family. Then the doctor
+called again. He seemed in better spirits. His son had yielded to his
+parents' entreaties and had departed for a walking tour through the
+Black Forest with some friends.
+
+"The invitation came at exactly the right time," said the old gentleman.
+"Herbert was ready to go anywhere or do anything. The poor boy was in
+the depths and when his mother and I urged him to accept he did so. We
+are hoping that when he returns he will have forgotten, or, if not that,
+at least be more reconciled."
+
+Heathcroft came and went at various times during the summer. I met him
+on the golf course and he was condescendingly friendly as ever. Our talk
+concerning Frances, which had brought such momentous consequences to
+her and to Hephzy and to me, had, apparently, not disturbed him in the
+least. He greeted me blandly and cheerfully, asked how we all were, said
+he had been given to understand that "my charming little niece" was no
+longer with us, and proceeded to beat me two down in eighteen holes.
+I played several times with him afterward and, under different
+circumstances, should have enjoyed doing so, for we were pretty evenly
+matched.
+
+His aunt, the Lady of the Manor, I also met. She went out of her way to
+be as sweetly gracious as possible. I presume she inferred from Frances'
+departure that I had taken her hint and had removed the disturbing
+influence from her nephew's primrose-bordered path. At each of our
+meetings she spoke of the "invitation golf tournament," several times
+postponed and now to be played within a fortnight. She insisted that
+I must take part in it. At last, having done everything except decline
+absolutely, I finally consented to enter the tournament. It is not
+easy to refuse to obey an imperial decree and Lady Carey was Empress of
+Mayberry.
+
+After accepting I returned to the rectory to find that Hephzy also had
+received an invitation. Not to play golf, of course; her invitation was
+of a totally different kind.
+
+"What do you think, Hosy!" she cried. "I've got a letter and you can't
+guess who it's from."
+
+"From Susanna?" I ventured.
+
+"Susanna! You don't suppose I'd be as excited as all this over a letter
+from Susanna Wixon, do you? No indeed! I've got a letter from Mrs.
+Hepton, who had the Nickerson cottage last summer. She and her husband
+are in Paris and they want us to meet 'em there in a couple of weeks and
+go for a short trip through Switzerland. They got our address from Mr.
+Campbell before they left home. Mrs. Hepton writes that they're countin'
+on our company. They're goin' to Lake Lucerne and to Mont Blanc and
+everywhere. Wouldn't it be splendid!"
+
+The Heptons had been summer neighbors of ours on the Cape for several
+seasons. They were friends of Jim Campbell's and had first come to
+Bayport on his recommendation. I liked them very well, and, oddly
+enough, for I was not popular with the summer colony, they had seemed to
+like me.
+
+"It was very kind of them to think of us," I said. "Campbell shouldn't
+have given them our address, of course, but their invitation was well
+meant. You must write them at once. Make our refusal as polite as
+possible."
+
+Hephzy seemed disappointed, I thought.
+
+"Then you think I'd better say no?" she observed.
+
+"Why, of course. You weren't thinking of accepting, were you?"
+
+"Well, I didn't know. I'm not sure that our goin' wouldn't be the right
+thing. I've been considerin' for some time, Hosy, and I've about come to
+the conclusion that stayin' here is bad for you. Maybe it's bad for both
+of us. Perhaps a change would do us both good."
+
+I was astonished. "Humph!" I exclaimed; "this is a change of heart,
+Hephzy. A while ago, when I suggested going back to Bayport, you
+wouldn't hear of it. You wanted to stay here and--and wait."
+
+"I know I did. And I've been waitin', but nothin' has come of it. I've
+still got my presentiment, Hosy. I believe just as strong as I ever did
+that some time or other she and you and I will be together again. But
+stayin' here and seein' nobody but each other and broodin' don't do us
+any good. It's doin' you harm; that's plain enough. You don't write and
+you don't eat--that is, not much--and you're gettin' bluer and more thin
+and peaked every day. You have just got to go away from here, no matter
+whether I do or not. And I've reached the point where I'm willin' to go,
+too. Not for good, maybe. We'll come back here again. Our lease isn't
+up until October and we can leave the servants here and give them our
+address to have mail forwarded. If--if she--that is, if a letter or--or
+anything--SHOULD come we could hurry right back. The Heptons are real
+nice folks; you always liked 'em, Hosy. And you always wanted to see
+Switzerland; you used to say so. Why don't we say yes and go along?"
+
+I did not answer. I believed I understood the reason for Campbell's
+giving our address to the Heptons; also the reason for the invitation.
+Jim was very anxious to have me leave Mayberry; he believed travel and
+change of scene were what I needed. Doubtless he had put the Heptons up
+to asking us to join them on their trip. It was merely an addition to
+his precious prescription.
+
+"Why don't we go?" urged Hephzy.
+
+"Not much!" I answered, decidedly. "I should be poor company on a
+pleasure trip like that. But you might go, Hephzy. There is no reason in
+the world why you shouldn't go. I'll stay here until you return. Go, by
+all means, and enjoy yourself."
+
+Hephzy shook her head.
+
+"I'd do a lot of enjoyin' without you, wouldn't I," she observed.
+"While I was lookin' at the scenery I'd be wonderin' what you had for
+breakfast. Every mite of rain would set me to thinkin' of your gettin'
+your feet wet and when I laid eyes on a snow peak I'd wonder if you had
+blankets enough on your bed. I'd be like that yellow cat we used to have
+back in the time when Father was alive. That cat had kittens and Father
+had 'em all drowned but one. After that you never saw the cat anywhere
+unless the kitten was there, too. She wouldn't eat unless it were with
+her and between bites she'd sit down on it so it couldn't run off. She
+lugged it around in her mouth until Father used to vow he'd have eyelet
+holes punched in the scruff of its neck for her teeth to fit into and
+make it easier for both of 'em. It died, finally; she wore it out,
+I guess likely. Then she adopted a chicken and started luggin' that
+around. She had the habit, you see. I'm a good deal like her, Hosy. I've
+took care of you so long that I've got the habit. No, I shouldn't go
+unless you did."
+
+No amount of urging moved her, so we dropped the subject.
+
+The morning of the golf tournament was clear and fine. I shouldered my
+bag of clubs and walked through the lane toward the first tee. I never
+felt less like playing or more inclined to feign illness and remain at
+home. But I had promised Lady Carey and the promise must be kept.
+
+There was a group of people, players and guests, awaiting me at the tee.
+Her ladyship was there, of course; so also was her nephew, Mr. Carleton
+Heathcroft, whom I had not seen for some time. Heathcroft was in
+conversation with a young fellow who, when he turned in my direction,
+I recognized as Herbert Bayliss. I was surprised to see him; I had not
+heard of his return from the Black Forest trip.
+
+Lady Carey was affable and gracious, also very important and busy. She
+welcomed me absent-mindedly, introduced me to several of her guests,
+ladies and gentlemen from London down for the week-end, and then bustled
+away to confer with Mr. Handliss, steward of the estate, concerning the
+arrangements for the tournament. I felt a touch on my arm and, turning,
+found Doctor Bayliss standing beside me. He was smiling and in apparent
+good humor.
+
+"The boy is back, Knowles," he said. "Have you seen him?"
+
+"Yes," said I, "I have seen him, although we haven't met yet. I was
+surprised to find him here. When did he return?"
+
+"Only yesterday. His mother and I were surprised also. We hadn't
+expected him so soon. He's looking very fit, don't you think?"
+
+"Very." I had not noticed that young Bayliss was looking either more or
+less fit than usual, but I answered as I did because the old gentleman
+seemed so very anxious that I should. He was evidently gratified. "Yes,"
+he said, "he's looking very fit indeed. I think his trip has benefited
+him hugely. And I think--Yes, I think he is beginning to forget
+his--that is to say, I believe he does not dwell upon the--the recent
+happenings as he did. I think he is forgetting; I really think he is."
+
+"Indeed," said I. It struck me that, if Herbert Bayliss was forgetting,
+his memory must be remarkably short. I imagined that his father's wish
+was parent to the thought.
+
+"He has--ah--scarcely mentioned our--our young friend's name since his
+return," went on the doctor. "He did ask if you had heard--ah--by the
+way, Knowles, you haven't heard, have you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Dear me! dear me! That's very odd, now isn't it."
+
+He did not say he was sorry. If he had said it I should not have
+believed him. If ever anything was plain it was that the longer we
+remained without news of Frances Morley the better pleased Herbert
+Bayliss's parents would be.
+
+"But I say, Knowles," he added, "you and he must meet, you know. He
+doesn't hold any ill-feeling or--or resentment toward you. Really he
+doesn't. Herbert! Oh, I say, Herbert! Come here, will you."
+
+Young Bayliss turned. The doctor whispered in my ear.
+
+"Perhaps it would be just as well not to refer to--to--You understand
+me, Knowles. Better let sleeping dogs lie, eh? Oh, Herbert, here is
+Knowles waiting to shake hands with you."
+
+We shook hands. The shake, on his part, was cordial enough, perhaps, but
+not too cordial. It struck me that young Bayliss was neither as "fit"
+nor as forgetful as his fond parents wished to believe. He looked rather
+worn and nervous, it seemed to me. I asked him about his tramping trip
+and we chatted for a few moments. Then Bayliss, Senior, was called by
+Lady Carey and Handliss to join the discussion concerning the tournament
+rules and the young man and I were left alone together.
+
+"Knowles," he asked, the moment after his father's departure, "have you
+heard anything? Anything concerning--her?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You're sure? You're not--"
+
+"I am quite sure. We haven't heard nor do we expect to."
+
+He looked away across the course and I heard him draw a long breath.
+
+"It's deucedly odd, this," he said. "How she could disappear so entirely
+I don't understand. And you have no idea where she may be?"
+
+"No."
+
+"But--but, confound it, man, aren't you trying to find her?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You're not! Why not?"
+
+"You know why not as well as I. She left us of her own free will and her
+parting request was that we should not follow her. That is sufficient
+for us. Pardon me, but I think it should be for all her friends."
+
+He was silent for a moment. Then his teeth snapped together.
+
+"I'll find her," he declared, fiercely. "I'll find her some day."
+
+"In spite of her request?"
+
+"Yes. In spite of the devil."
+
+He turned on his heel and walked off. Mr. Handliss stepped to the first
+tee, clapped his hands to attract attention and began a little speech.
+
+The tournament, he said, was about to begin. Play would be, owing to the
+length and difficulty of the course, but eighteen holes instead of the
+usual thirty-six. This meant that each pair of contestants would play
+the nine holes twice. Handicaps had been fixed as equitably as possible
+according to each player's previous record, and players having
+similar handicaps were to play against each other. A light lunch and
+refreshments would be served after the first round had been completed
+by all. Prizes would be distributed by her ladyship when the final round
+was finished. Her ladyship bade us all welcome and was gratified by our
+acceptance of her invitation. He would now proceed to read the names
+of those who were to play against each other, stating handicaps and the
+like. He read accordingly, and I learned that my opponent was to be Mr.
+Heathcroft, each of us having a handicap of two.
+
+Considering everything I thought my particular handicap a stiff one.
+Heathcroft had been in the habit of beating me in two out of three
+of our matches. However, I determined to play my best. Being the only
+outlander on the course I couldn't help feeling that the sporting
+reputation of Yankeeland rested, for this day at least, upon my
+shoulders.
+
+The players were sent off in pairs, the less skilled first. Heathcroft
+and I were next to the last. A London attorney by the name of Jaynes
+and a Wrayton divine named Wilson followed us. Their rating was one plus
+and, judging by the conversation of the "gallery," they were looked upon
+as winners of the first and second prizes respectively. The Reverend Mr.
+Wilson was called, behind his back, "the sporting curate." In gorgeous
+tweeds and a shepherd's plaid cap he looked the part.
+
+The first nine went to me. An usually long drive and a lucky putt on the
+eighth gave me the round by one. I played with care and tried my
+hardest to keep my mind on the game. Heathcroft was, as always, calm and
+careful, but between tees he was pleased to be chatty and affable.
+
+"And how is the aunt with the odd name, Knowles?" he inquired. "Does she
+still devour her--er--washing flannels and treacle for breakfast?"
+
+"She does when she cares to," I replied. "She is an independent lady, as
+I think you know."
+
+"My word! I believe you. And how are the literary labors progressing? I
+had my bookselling fellow look up a novel of yours the other day. Began
+it that same night, by Jove! It was quite interesting, really. I should
+have finished it, I think, but some of the chaps at the club telephoned
+me to join them for a bit of bridge and of course that ended literature
+for the time. My respected aunt tells me I'm quite dotty on bridge. She
+foresees a gambler's end for me, stony broke, languishing in dungeons
+and all that sort of thing. I am to die of starvation, I think. Is it
+starvation gamblers die of? 'Pon my soul, I should say most of those I
+know would be more likely to die of thirst. Rather!"
+
+Later on he asked another question.
+
+"And how is the pretty niece, Knowles?" he inquired. "When is she coming
+back to the monastery or the nunnery or rectory, or whatever it is?"
+
+"I don't know," I replied, curtly.
+
+"Oh, I say! Isn't she coming at all? That would be a calamity, now
+wouldn't it? Not to me in particular. I should mind your notice boards,
+of course. But if I were condemned, as you are, to spend a summer among
+the feminine beauties of Mayberry, a face like hers would be like a
+whisky and soda in a thirsty land, as a chap I know is fond of saying.
+Oh, and by the way, speaking of your niece, I had a curious experience
+in Paris a week ago. Most extraordinary thing. For the moment I began
+to believe I really was going dotty, as Auntie fears. I... Your drive,
+Knowles. I'll tell you the story later."
+
+He did not tell it during that round, forgot it probably. I did not
+remind him. The longer he kept clear of the subject of my "niece" the
+more satisfied I was. We lunched in the pavilion by the first tee. There
+were sandwiches and biscuits--crackers, of course--and cakes and sweets
+galore. Also thirst-quenching materials sufficient to satisfy even the
+gamblers of Mr. Heathcroft's acquaintance. The "sporting curate," behind
+a huge Scotch and soda, was relating his mishaps in approaching the
+seventh hole for the benefit of his brother churchmen, Messrs. Judson
+and Worcester. Lady Carey was dilating upon her pet subject, the talents
+and virtues of "Carleton, dear," for the benefit of the London attorney,
+who was pretending to listen with the respectful interest due blood and
+title, but who was thinking of something else, I am sure. "Carleton,
+dear," himself, was chatting languidly with young Bayliss. The latter
+seemed greatly interested. There was a curious expression on his face.
+I was surprised to see him so cordial to Heathcroft; I knew he did not
+like Lady Carey's nephew.
+
+The second and final round of the tournament began. For six holes
+Heathcroft and I broke even. The seventh he won, making us square for
+the match so far and, with an equal number of strokes. The eighth we
+halved. All depended on the ninth. Halving there would mean a drawn
+match between us and a drawing for choice of prizes, provided we were in
+the prize-winning class. A win for either of us meant the match itself.
+
+Heathcroft, in spite of the close play, was as bland and unconcerned as
+ever. I tried to appear likewise. As a matter of fact, I wanted to win.
+Not because of the possible prize, I cared little for that, but for the
+pleasure of winning against him. We drove from the ninth tee, each got
+a long brassy shot which put us on the edge of the green, and then
+strolled up the hill together.
+
+"I say, Knowles," he observed; "I haven't finished telling you of my
+Paris experience, have I. Odd coincidence, by Jove! I was telling young
+Bayliss about it just now and he thought it odd, too. I was--some other
+chaps and I drifted into the Abbey over in Paris a week or so ago and
+while we were there a girl came out and sang. She was an extremely
+pretty girl, you understand, but that wasn't the extraordinary part of
+it. She was the image--my word! the very picture of your niece, Miss
+Morley. It quite staggered me for the moment. Upon my soul I thought it
+was she! She sang extremely well, but not for long. I tried to get near
+her--meant to speak to her, you know, but she had gone before I reached
+her. Eh! What did you say?"
+
+I had not said anything--at least I think I had not. He misinterpreted
+my silence.
+
+"Oh, you mustn't be offended," he said, laughing. "Of course I knew
+it wasn't she--that is, I should have known it if I hadn't been so
+staggered by the resemblance. It was amazing, that resemblance. The
+face, the voice--everything was like hers. I was so dotty about it that
+I even hunted up one of the chaps in charge and asked him who the
+girl was. He said she was an Austrian--Mademoiselle Juno or Junotte or
+something. That ended it, of course. I was a fool to imagine anything
+else, of course. But you would have been a bit staggered if you had
+seen her. And she didn't look Austrian, either. She looked English or
+American--rather! I say, I hope I haven't hurt your feelings, old chap.
+I apologize to you and Miss Morley, you understand. I couldn't help
+telling you; it was extraordinary now, wasn't it."
+
+I made some answer. He rattled on about that sort of thing making one
+believe in the Prisoner of Zenda stuff, doubles and all that. We reached
+the green. My ball lay nearest the pin and it was his putt. He made
+it, a beauty, the ball halting just at the edge of the cup. My putt
+was wild. He holed out on the next shot. It took me two and I had to
+concentrate my thought by main strength even then. The hole and match
+were his.
+
+He was very decent about it, proclaimed himself lucky, declared I had,
+generally speaking, played much the better game and should have won
+easily. I paid little attention to what he said although I did, of
+course, congratulate him and laughed at the idea that luck had anything
+to do with the result. I no longer cared about the match or the
+tournament in general or anything connected with them. His story of the
+girl who was singing in Paris was what I was interested in now. I wanted
+him to tell me more, to give me particulars. I wanted to ask him a dozen
+questions; and, yet, excited as I was, I realized that those questions
+must be asked carefully. His suspicions must not be aroused.
+
+Before I could ask the first of the dozen Mr. Handliss bustled over to
+us to learn the result of our play and to announce that the distribution
+of prizes would take place in a few moments; also that Lady Carey wished
+to speak with her nephew. The latter sauntered off to join the group by
+the pavilion and my opportunity for questioning had gone, for the time.
+
+Of the distribution of prizes, with its accompanying ceremony, I seem
+to recall very little. Lady Carey made a little speech, I remember that,
+but just what she said I have forgotten. "Much pleasure in rewarding
+skill," "Dear old Scottish game," "English sportsmanship," "Race not to
+the swift"--I must have been splashed with these drops from the fountain
+of oratory, for they stick in my memory. Then, in turn, the winners were
+called up to select their prizes. Wilson, the London attorney, headed
+the list; the sporting curate came next; Heathcroft next; and then I.
+It had not occurred to me that I should win a prize. In fact I had not
+thought anything about it. My thoughts were far from the golf course
+just then. They were in Paris, in a cathedral--Heathcroft had called it
+an abbey, but cathedral he must have meant--where a girl who looked like
+Frances Morley was singing.
+
+However, when Mr. Handliss called my name I answered and stepped
+forward. Her Ladyship said something or other about "our cousin from
+across the sea" and "Anglo-Saxon blood" and her especial pleasure in
+awarding the prize. I stammered thanks, rather incoherently expressed
+they were, I fear, selected the first article that came to hand--it
+happened to be a cigarette case; I never smoke cigarettes--and retired
+to the outer circle. The other winners--Herbert Bayliss and Worcester
+among them--selected their prizes and then Mr. Wilson, winner of the
+tournament, speaking in behalf of us all, thanked the hostess for her
+kindness and hospitality.
+
+Her gracious invitation to play upon the Manor-House course Mr. Wilson
+mentioned feelingly. Also the gracious condescension in presenting the
+prizes with her own hand. They would be cherished, not only for their
+own sake, but for that of the donor. He begged the liberty of proposing
+her ladyship's health.
+
+The "liberty" was, apparently, expected, for Mr. Handliss had full
+glasses ready and waiting. The health was drunk. Lady Carey drank ours
+in return, and the ceremony was over.
+
+I tried in vain to get another word with Heathcroft. He was in
+conversation with his aunt and several of the feminine friends and,
+although I waited for some time, I, at last, gave up the attempt and
+walked home. The Reverend Judson would have accompanied me, but I
+avoided him. I did not wish to listen to Mayberry gossip; I wanted to be
+alone.
+
+Heathcroft's tale had made a great impression upon me--a most
+unreasonable impression, unwarranted by the scant facts as he related
+them. The girl whom he had seen resembled Frances--yes; but she was an
+Austrian, her name was not Morley. And resemblances were common enough.
+That Frances should be singing in a Paris church was most improbable;
+but, so far as that went, the fact of A. Carleton Heathcroft's attending
+a church service I should, ordinarily, have considered improbable.
+Improbable things did happen. Suppose the girl he had seen was Frances.
+My heart leaped at the thought.
+
+But even supposing it was she, what difference did it make--to me? None,
+of course. She had asked us not to follow her, to make no attempt to
+find her. I had preached compliance with her wish to Hephzy, to Doctor
+Bayliss--yes, to Herbert Bayliss that very afternoon. But Herbert
+Bayliss was sworn to find her, in spite of me, in spite of the Evil One.
+And Heathcroft had told young Bayliss the same story he had told me. HE
+would not be deterred by scruples; her wish would not prevent his going
+to Paris in search of her.
+
+I reached the rectory, to be welcomed by Hephzy with questions
+concerning the outcome of the tournament and triumphant gloatings over
+my perfectly useless prize. I did not tell her of Heathcroft's story.
+I merely said I had met that gentleman and that Herbert Bayliss had
+returned to Mayberry. And I asked a question.
+
+"Hephzy," I asked, "when do the Heptons leave Paris for their trip
+through Switzerland?"
+
+Hephzy considered. "Let me see," she said. "Today is the eighteenth,
+isn't it. They start on the twenty-second; that's four days from now."
+
+"Of course you have written them that we cannot accept their invitation
+to go along?"
+
+She hesitated. "Why, no," she admitted, "I haven't. That is, I have
+written 'em, but I haven't posted the letter. Humph! did you notice
+that 'posted'? Shows what livin' in a different place'll do even to
+as settled a body as I am. In Bayport I should have said 'mailed' the
+letter, same as anybody else. I must be careful or I'll go back home
+and call the expressman a 'carrier' and a pie a 'tart' and a cracker a
+'biscuit.' Land sakes! I remember readin' how David Copperfield's aunt
+always used to eat biscuits soaked in port wine before she went to bed.
+I used to think 'twas dreadful dissipated business and that the old
+lady must have been ready for bed by the time she got through. You see
+I always had riz biscuits in mind. A cracker's different; crackers don't
+soak up much. We'd ought to be careful how we judge folks, hadn't we,
+Hosy."
+
+"Yes," said I, absently. "So you haven't posted the letter to the
+Heptons. Why not?"
+
+"Well--well, to tell you the truth, Hosy, I was kind of hopin' you might
+change your mind and decide to go, after all. I wish you would; 'twould
+do you good. And," wistfully, "Switzerland must be lovely. But there! I
+know just how you feel, you poor boy. I'll mail the letter to-night."
+
+"Give it to me," said I. "I'll--I'll see to it."
+
+Hephzy handed me the letter. I put it in my pocket, but I did not
+post it that evening. A plan--or the possible beginning of a plan--was
+forming in my mind.
+
+That night was another of my bad ones. The little sleep I had was filled
+with dreams, dreams from which I awoke to toss restlessly. I rose and
+walked the floor, calling myself a fool, a silly old fool, over and
+over again. But when morning came my plan, a ridiculous, wild plan from
+which, even if it succeeded--which was most unlikely--nothing but added
+trouble and despair could possibly come, my plan was nearer its ultimate
+formation.
+
+At eleven o'clock that forenoon I walked up the marble steps of the
+Manor House and rang the bell. The butler, an exalted personage in
+livery, answered my ring. Mr. Heathcroft? No, sir. Mr. Heathcroft had
+left for London by the morning train. Her ladyship was in her boudoir.
+She did not see anyone in the morning, sir. I had no wish to see her
+ladyship, but Heathcroft's departure was a distinct disappointment. I
+thanked the butler and, remembering that even cathedral ushers accepted
+tips, slipped a shilling into his hand. His dignity thawed at the silver
+touch, and he expressed regret at Mr. Heathcroft's absence.
+
+"You're not the only gentleman who has been here to see him this
+morning, sir," he said. "Doctor Bayliss, the younger one, called about
+an hour ago. He seemed quite as sorry to find him gone as you are, sir."
+
+I think that settled it. When I again entered the rectory my mind was
+made up. The decision was foolish, insane, even dishonorable perhaps,
+but the decision was made.
+
+"Hephzy," said I, "I have changed my mind. Travel may do me good. I have
+telegraphed the Heptons that we will join them in Paris on the evening
+of the twenty-first. After that--Well, we'll see."
+
+Hephzy's delight was as great as her surprise. She said I was a dear,
+unselfish boy. Considering what I intended doing I felt decidedly mean;
+but I did not tell her what that intention was.
+
+We took the two-twenty train from Charing Cross on the afternoon of the
+twenty-first. The servants had been left in charge of the rectory. We
+would return in a fortnight, so we told them.
+
+It was a beautiful day, bright and sunshiny, but, after smoky, grimy
+London had been left behind and we were whizzing through the Kentish
+countryside, between the hop fields and the pastures where the sheep
+were feeding, we noticed that a stiff breeze was blowing. Further on,
+as we wound amid the downs near Folkestone, the bending trees and shrubs
+proved that the breeze was a miniature gale. And when we came in sight
+of the Channel, it was thickly sprinkled with whitecaps from beach to
+horizon.
+
+"I imagine we shall have a rather rough passage, Hephzy," said I.
+
+Hephzy's attention was otherwise engaged.
+
+"Why do they call a hill a 'down' over here?" she asked. "I should think
+an 'up' would be better. What did you say, Hosy? A rough passage? I
+guess that won't bother you and me much. This little mite of water can't
+seem very much stirred up to folks who have sailed clear across the
+Atlantic Ocean. But there! I mustn't put on airs. I used to think Cape
+Cod Bay was about all the water there was. Travelin' does make such
+a difference in a person's ideas. Do you remember the Englishwoman at
+Bancroft's who told me that she supposed the Thames must remind us of
+our own Mississippi?"
+
+"So that's the famous English Channel, is it," she observed, a moment
+later. "How wide is it, Hosy?"
+
+"About twenty miles at the narrowest point, I believe," I said.
+
+"Twenty miles! About as far as Bayport to Provincetown. Well, I don't
+know whether any of your ancestors or mine came over with William the
+Conquerer or not, but if they did, they didn't have far to come. I
+cal'late I'll be contented with having my folks cross in the Mayflower.
+They came three thousand miles anyway."
+
+She was inclined to regard the Channel rather contemptuously just then.
+A half hour later she was more respectful.
+
+The steamer was awaiting us at the pier. As the throng of passengers
+filed up the gang-plank she suddenly squeezed my arm.
+
+"Look! Hosy!" she cried. "Look! Isn't that him?"
+
+I looked where she was pointing.
+
+"Him? Who?" I asked.
+
+"Look! There he goes now. No, he's gone. I can't see him any more. And
+yet I was almost certain 'twas him."
+
+"Who?" I asked again. "Did you see someone you knew?"
+
+"I thought I did, but I guess I was mistaken. He's just got home; he
+wouldn't be startin' off again so soon. No, it couldn't have been him,
+but I did think--"
+
+I stopped short. "Who did you think you saw?" I demanded.
+
+"I thought I saw Doctor Herbert Bayliss goin' up those stairs to the
+steamboat. It looked like him enough to be his twin brother, if he had
+one."
+
+I did not answer. I looked about as we stepped aboard the boat, but
+if young Bayliss was there he was not in sight. Hephzy rattled on
+excitedly.
+
+"You can't tell much by seein' folks's backs," she declared. "I remember
+one time your cousin Hezekiah Knowles--You don't remember him, Hosy; he
+died when you was little--One time Cousin Hezzy was up to Boston with
+his wife and they was shoppin' in one of the big stores. That is, Martha
+Ann--the wife--was shoppin' and he was taggin' along and complainin',
+same as men generally do. He was kind of nearsighted, Hezzy was, and
+when Martha was fightin' to get a place in front of a bargain counter he
+stayed astern and kept his eyes fixed on a hat she was wearin'. 'Twas a
+new hat with blue and yellow flowers on it. Hezzy always said, when he
+told the yarn afterward, that he never once figured that there could
+be another hat like that one. I saw it myself and, if I'd been in his
+place, I'd have HOPED there wasn't anyway. Well, he followed that hat
+from one counter to another and, at last, he stepped up and said, 'Look
+here, dearie,' he says--They hadn't been married very long, not long
+enough to get out of the mushy stage--'Look here, dearie,' he says,
+'hadn't we better be gettin' on home? You'll tire those little feet of
+yours all out trottin' around this way.' And when the hat turned around
+there was a face under it as black as a crow. He'd been followin' a
+darkey woman for ten minutes. She thought he was makin' fun of her feet
+and was awful mad, and when Martha came along and found who he'd taken
+for her she was madder still. Hezzy said, 'I couldn't help it, Martha.
+Nobody could. I never saw two craft look more alike from twenty foot
+astern. And she wears that hat just the way you do.' That didn't help
+matters any, of course, and--Why, Hosy, where are you goin'? Why don't
+you say somethin'? Hadn't we better sit down? All the good seats will be
+gone if we don't."
+
+I had been struggling through the crowd, trying my best to get a glimpse
+of the man she had thought to be Herbert Bayliss. If it was he then my
+suspicions were confirmed. Heathcroft's story of the girl who sang in
+Paris had impressed him as it had me and he was on his way to see for
+himself. But the man, whoever he might be, had disappeared.
+
+"How the wind does blow," said Hephzy. "What are the people doin' with
+those black tarpaulins?"
+
+Sailors in uniform were passing among the seated passengers distributing
+large squares of black waterproof canvas. I watched the use to which the
+tarpaulins were put and I understood. I beckoned to the nearest sailor
+and rented two of the canvases for use during the voyage.
+
+"How much?" I asked.
+
+"One franc each," said the man, curtly.
+
+I had visited the money-changers near the Charing Cross station and was
+prepared. Hephzy's eyes opened.
+
+"A franc," she repeated. "That's French money, isn't it. Is he a
+Frenchman?"
+
+"Yes," said I. "This is a French boat, I think."
+
+She watched the sailor for a moment. Then she sighed.
+
+"And he's a Frenchman," she said. "I thought Frenchmen wore mustaches
+and goatees and were awful polite. He was about as polite as a pig.
+And all he needs is a hand-organ and a monkey to be an Italian. A body
+couldn't tell the difference without specs. What did you get those
+tarpaulins for, Hosy?"
+
+I covered our traveling bags with one of the tarpaulins, as I saw our
+fellow-passengers doing, and the other I tucked about Hephzy, enveloping
+her from her waist down.
+
+"I don't need that," she protested. "It isn't cold and it isn't rainin',
+either. I tell you I don't need it, Hosy. Don't tuck me in any more. I
+feel as if I was goin' to France in a baby carriage, not a steamboat.
+And what are they passin' round those--those tin dippers for?"
+
+"They may be useful later on," I said, watching the seas leap and
+foam against the stone breakwater. "You'll probably understand later,
+Hephzy."
+
+She understood. The breakwater was scarcely passed when our boat, which
+had seemed so large and steady and substantial, began to manifest a
+desire to stand on both ends at once and to roll like a log in a rapid.
+The sun was shining brightly overhead, the verandas of the hotels along
+the beach were crowded with gaily dressed people, the surf fringing
+that beach was dotted with bathers, everything on shore wore a look of
+holiday and joy--and yet out here, on the edge of the Channel, there was
+anything but calm and anything but joy.
+
+How that blessed boat did toss and rock and dip and leap and pitch! And
+how the spray began to fly as we pushed farther and farther from land!
+It came over the bows in sheets; it swept before the wind in showers,
+in torrents. Hephzy hastily removed her hat and thrust it beneath the
+tarpaulin. I turned up the collar of my steamer coat and slid as far
+down into that collar as I could.
+
+"My soul!" exclaimed Hephzy, the salt water running down her face. "My
+soul and body!"
+
+"I agree with you," said I.
+
+On we went, over the waves or through them. Our fellow-passengers curled
+up beneath their tarpaulins, smiled stoically or groaned dismally,
+according to their dispositions--or digestions. A huge wave--the upper
+third of it, at least--swept across the deck and spilled a gallon or two
+of cold water upon us. A sturdy, red-faced Englishman, sitting next me,
+grinned cheerfully and observed:
+
+"Trickles down one's neck a bit, doesn't it, sir."
+
+I agreed that it did. Hephzy, huddled under the lee of my shoulder,
+sputtered.
+
+"Trickles!" she whispered. "My heavens and earth! If this is a trickle
+then Noah's flood couldn't have been more than a splash. Trickles!
+There's a Niagara Falls back of both of my ears this minute."
+
+Another passenger, also English, but gray-haired and elderly, came
+tacking down the deck, bound somewhere or other. His was a zig-zag
+transit. He dove for the rail, caught it, steadied himself, took a fresh
+start, swooped to the row of chairs by the deck house, carromed from
+them, and, in company with a barrel or two of flying brine, came head
+first into my lap. I expected profanity and temper. I did get a little
+of the former.
+
+"This damned French boat!" he observed, rising with difficulty. "She
+absolutely WON'T be still."
+
+"The sea is pretty rough."
+
+"Oh, the sea is all right. A bit damp, that's all. It's the blessed
+boat. Foreigners are such wretched sailors."
+
+He was off on another tack. Hephzy watched him wonderingly.
+
+"A bit damp," she repeated. "Yes, I shouldn't wonder if 'twas. I suppose
+likely he wouldn't call it wet if he fell overboard."
+
+"Not on this side of the Channel," I answered. "This side is English
+water, therefore it is all right."
+
+A few minutes later Hephzy spoke again.
+
+"Look at those poor women," she said.
+
+Opposite us were two English ladies, middle-aged, wretchedly ill and so
+wet that the feathers on their hats hung down in strings.
+
+"Just like drowned cats' tails," observed Hephzy. "Ain't it awful!
+And they're too miserable to care. You poor thing," she said, leaning
+forward and addressing the nearest, "can't I fix you so you're more
+comfortable?"
+
+The woman addressed looked up and tried her best to smile.
+
+"Oh, no, thank you," she said, weakly but cheerfully. "We're doing quite
+well. It will soon be over."
+
+Hephzy shook her head.
+
+"Did you hear that, Hosy?" she whispered. "I declare! if it wasn't off
+already, and that's a mercy, I'd take off my hat to England and the
+English people. Not a whimper, not a complaint, just sit still and soak
+and tumble around and grin and say it's 'a bit damp.' Whenever I read
+about the grumblin', fault-findin' Englishman I'll think of the folks on
+this boat. It may be patriotism or it may be the race pride and reserve
+we hear so much about--but, whatever it is, it's fine. They've all got
+it, men and women and children. I presume likely the boy that stood on
+the burnin' deck would have said 'twas a bit sultry, and that's all....
+What is it, Hosy?"
+
+I had uttered an exclamation. A young man had just reeled by us on his
+way forward. His cap was pulled down over his eyes and his coat collar
+was turned up, but I recognized him. He was Herbert Bayliss.
+
+We were three hours crossing from Folkestone to Boulogne, instead of the
+usual scant two. We entered the harbor, where the great crucifix on the
+hill above the town attracted Hephzy's attention and the French signs
+over the doors of hotels and shops by the quay made her realize, so she
+said, that we really were in a foreign country.
+
+"Somehow England never did seem so very foreign," she said. "And the
+Mayberry folks were so nice and homey and kind I've come to think of 'em
+as, not just neighbors, but friends. But this--THIS is foreign enough,
+goodness knows! Let go of my arm!" to the smiling, gesticulating porter
+who was proffering his services. "DON'T wave your hands like that; you
+make me dizzy. Keep 'em still, man! I could understand you just as well
+if they was tied. Hosy, you'll have to be skipper from now on. Now I
+KNOW Cape Cod is three thousand miles off."
+
+We got through the customs without trouble, found our places in the
+train, and the train, after backing and fussing and fidgeting and
+tooting in a manner thoroughly French, rolled out of the station.
+
+We ate our dinner, and a very good dinner it was, in the dining-car.
+Hephzy, having asked me to translate the heading "Compagnie
+Internationale des Wagon Lits" on the bill of fare, declared she
+couldn't see why a dining-car should be called a "wagon bed." "There's
+enough to eat to put you to sleep," she declared, "but you couldn't
+stay asleep any more than you could in the nail factory up to Tremont. I
+never heard such a rattlin' and slambangin' in my life."
+
+We whizzed through the French country, catching glimpses of little
+towns, with red-roofed cottages clustered about the inevitable church
+and chateau, until night came and looking out of the window was no
+longer profitable. At nine, or thereabouts, we alighted from the train
+at Paris.
+
+In the cab, on the way to the hotel where we were to meet the Heptons,
+Hephzy talked incessantly.
+
+"Paris!" she said, over and over again. "Paris! where they had the Three
+Musketeers and Notre Dame and Henry of Navarre and Saint Bartholomew and
+Napoleon and the guillotine and Innocents Abroad and--and everything.
+Paris! And I'm in it!"
+
+At the door of the hotel Mr. Hepton met us.
+
+Before we retired that night I told Hephzy what I had deferred telling
+until then, namely, that I did not intend leaving for Switzerland with
+her and with the Heptons the following day. I did not tell her my real
+reason for staying; I had invented a reason and told her that instead.
+
+"I want to be alone here in Paris for a few days," I said. "I think I
+may find some material here which will help me with my novel. You and
+the Heptons must go, just as you have planned, and I will join you at
+Lucerne or Interlaken."
+
+Hephzy stared at me.
+
+"I sha'n't stir one step without you," she declared. "If I'd known you
+had such an idea as that in your head I--"
+
+"You wouldn't have come," I interrupted. "I know that; that's why I
+didn't tell you. Of course you will go and of course you will leave me
+here. We will be separated only two or three days. I'll ask Hepton to
+give me an itinerary of the trip and I will wire when and where I will
+join you. You must go, Hephzy; I insist upon it."
+
+In spite of my insisting Hephzy still declared she should not go. It was
+nearly midnight before she gave in.
+
+"And if you DON'T come in three days at the longest," she said, "you'll
+find me back here huntin' you up. I mean that, Hosy, so you'd better
+understand it. And now," rising from her chair, "I'm goin' to see about
+the things you're to wear while we're separated. If I don't you're
+liable to keep on wet stockin's and shoes and things all the time and
+forget to change 'em. You needn't say you won't, for I know you too
+well. Mercy sakes! do you suppose I've taken care of you all these years
+and DON'T know?"
+
+The next forenoon I said good-by to her and the Heptons at the railway
+station. Hephzy's last words to me were these:
+
+"Remember," she said, "if you do get caught in the rain, there's dry
+things in the lower tray of your trunk. Collars and neckties and shirts
+are in the upper tray. I've hung your dress suit in the closet in case
+you want it, though that isn't likely. And be careful what you eat, and
+don't smoke too much, and--Yes, Mr. Hepton, I'm comin'--and don't spend
+ALL your money in book-stores; you'll need some of it in Switzerland.
+And--Oh, dear, Hosy! do be a good boy. I know you're always good, but,
+from all I've heard, this Paris is an awful place and--good-by. Good-by.
+In Lucerne in two days or Interlaken in three. It's got to be that,
+or back I come, remember. I HATE to leave you all alone amongst these
+jabberin' foreigners. I'm glad you can jabber, too, that's one comfort.
+If it was me, all I could do would be to holler United States language
+at 'em, and if they didn't understand that, just holler louder. I--Yes,
+Mr. Hepton, I AM comin' now. Good-by, Hosy, dear."
+
+The train rolled out of the station. I watched it go. Then I turned and
+walked to the street. So far my scheme had worked well. I was alone
+in Paris as I had planned to be. And now--and now to find where a girl
+sang, a girl who looked like Frances Morley.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+In Which I Learn that All Abbeys Are Not Churches
+
+
+And that, now that I really stopped to consider it, began to appear more
+and more of a task. Paris must be full of churches; to visit each of
+them in turn would take weeks at least. Hephzy had given me three days.
+I must join her at Interlaken in three days or there would be trouble.
+And how was I to make even the most superficial search in three days?
+
+Of course I had realized something of this before. Even in the state of
+mind which Heathcroft's story had left me, I had realized that my errand
+in Paris was a difficult one. I realized that I had set out on the
+wildest of wild goose chases and that, even in the improbable event
+of the singer's being Frances, my finding her was most unlikely. The
+chances of success were a hundred to one against me. But I was in the
+mood to take the hundredth chance. I should have taken it if the odds
+were higher still. My plan--if it could be called a plan--was first of
+all to buy a Paris Baedeker and look over the list of churches. This I
+did, and, back in the hotel room, I consulted that list. It staggered
+me. There were churches enough--there were far too many. Cathedrals and
+chapels and churches galore--Catholic and Protestant. But there was no
+church calling itself an abbey. I closed the Baedeker, lit a cigar, and
+settled myself for further reflection.
+
+The girl was singing somewhere and she called herself Mademoiselle Juno
+or Junotte, so Heathcroft had said. So much I knew and that was all.
+It was very, very little. But Herbert Bayliss had come to Paris, I
+believed, because of what Heathcroft had told him. Did he know more
+than I? It was possible. At any rate he had come. I had seen him on
+the steamer, and I believed he had seen and recognized me. Of course
+he might not be in Paris now; he might have gone elsewhere. I did not
+believe it, however. I believed he had crossed the Channel on the same
+errand as I. There was a possible chance. I might, if the other means
+proved profitless, discover at which hotel Bayliss was staying and
+question him. He might tell me nothing, even if he knew, but I could
+keep him in sight, I could follow him and discover where he went.
+It would be dishonorable, perhaps, but I was desperate and doggedly
+regardless of scruples. I was set upon one thing--to find her, to see
+her and speak with her again.
+
+Shadowing Bayliss, however, I set aside as a last resort. Before that I
+would search on my own hook. And, tossing aside the useless Baedeker,
+I tried to think of someone whose advice might be of value. At last,
+I resolved to question the concierge of the hotel. Concierges, I
+knew, were the ever present helps of travelers in trouble. They knew
+everything, spoke all languages, and expected to be asked all sorts of
+unreasonable questions.
+
+The concierge at my hotel was a transcendant specimen of his talented
+class. His name and title was Monsieur Louis--at least that is what I
+had heard the other guests call him. And the questions which he had been
+called upon to answer, in my hearing, ranged in subject from the hour of
+closing the Luxemburg galleries to that of opening the Bal Tabarin, with
+various interruptions during which he settled squabbles over cab fares,
+took orders for theater and opera tickets, and explained why fruit at
+the tables of the Cafe des Ambassadeurs was so very expensive.
+
+Monsieur Louis received me politely, listened, with every appearance of
+interest, to my tale of a young lady, a relative, who was singing at one
+of the Paris churches and whose name was Juno or Junotte, but, when I
+had finished, reluctantly shook his head. There were many, many churches
+in Paris--yes, and, at some of them, young ladies sang; but these were,
+for the most part, the Protestant churches. At the larger churches, the
+Catholic churches, most of the singers were men or boys. He could recall
+none where a lady of that name sang. Monsieur had not been told the name
+of the church?
+
+"The person who told me referred to it as an abbey," I said.
+
+Louis raised his shoulders. "I am sorry, Monsieur," he said, "but there
+is no abbey, where ladies sing, in Paris. It is, alas, regrettable, but
+it is so."
+
+He announced it as he might have broken to me the news of the death of
+a friend. Incidentally, having heard a few sentences of my French, he
+spoke in English, very good English.
+
+"I will, however, make inquiries, Monsieur," he went on. "Possibly I may
+discover something which will be of help to Monsieur in his difficulty."
+In the meantime there was to be a parade of troops at the Champ de
+Mars at four, and the evening performance at the Folies Bergeres was
+unusually good and English and American gentlemen always enjoyed it. It
+would give him pleasure to book a place for me.
+
+I thanked him but I declined the offer, so far as the Folies were
+concerned. I did ask him, however, to give me the name of a few churches
+at which ladies sang. This he did and I set out to find them, in a cab
+which whizzed through the Paris streets as if the driver was bent upon
+suicide and manslaughter.
+
+I visited four places of worship that afternoon and two more that
+evening. Those in charge--for I attended no services--knew nothing of
+Mademoiselle Junotte or Juno. I retired at ten, somewhat discouraged,
+but stubbornly determined to keep on, for my three days at least.
+
+The next morning I consulted Baedeker again, this time for the list of
+hotels, a list which I found quite as lengthy as that of the churches.
+Then I once more sought the help of Monsieur Louis. Could he tell me a
+few of the hotels where English visitors were most likely to stay.
+
+He could do more than that, apparently. Would I be so good as to inform
+him if the lady or gentleman--being Parisian he put the lady first--whom
+I wished to find had recently arrived in Paris. I told him that the
+gentleman had arrived the same evening as I. Whereupon he produced
+a list of guests at all the prominent hotels. Herbert Bayliss was
+registered at the Continental.
+
+To the Continental I went and made inquiries of the concierge there.
+Mr. Bayliss was there, he was in his room, so the concierge believed. He
+would be pleased to ascertain. Would I give my name? I declined to give
+the name, saying that I did not wish to disturb Mr. Bayliss. If he was
+in his room I would wait until he came down. He was in his room, had not
+yet breakfasted, although it was nearly ten in the forenoon. I sat down
+in a chair from which I could command a good view of the elevators, and
+waited.
+
+The concierge strolled over and chatted. Was I a friend of Mr. Bayliss?
+Ah, a charming young gentleman, was he not. This was not his first visit
+to Paris, no indeed; he came frequently--though not as frequently of
+late--and he invariably stayed at the Continental. He had been out late
+the evening before, which doubtless explained his non-appearance. Ah,
+he was breakfasting now; had ordered his "cafe complete." Doubtless he
+would be down very soon? Would I wish to send up my name now?
+
+Again I declined, to the polite astonishment of the concierge, who
+evidently considered me a queer sort of a friend. He was called to his
+desk by a guest, who wished to ask questions, of course, and I waited
+where I was. At a quarter to eleven Herbert Bayliss emerged from the
+elevator.
+
+His appearance almost shocked me. Out late the night before! He looked
+as if he had been out all night for many nights. He was pale and solemn.
+I stepped forward to greet him and the start he gave when he saw me
+was evidence of the state of his nerves. I had never thought of him as
+possessing any nerves.
+
+"Eh? Why, Knowles!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Good morning, Bayliss," said I.
+
+We both were embarrassed, he more than I, for I had expected to see him
+and he had not expected to see me. I made a move to shake hands but he
+did not respond. His manner toward me was formal and, I thought, colder
+than it had been at our meeting the day of the golf tournament.
+
+"I called," I said, "to see you, Bayliss. If you are not engaged I
+should like to talk with you for a few moments."
+
+His answer was a question.
+
+"How did you know I was here?" he asked.
+
+"I saw your name in the list of recent arrivals at the Continental," I
+answered.
+
+"I mean how did you know I was in Paris?"
+
+"I didn't know. I thought I caught a glimpse of you on the boat. I was
+almost sure it was you, but you did not appear to recognize me and I had
+no opportunity to speak then."
+
+He did not speak at once, he did not even attempt denial of having seen
+and recognized me during the Channel crossing. He regarded me intently
+and, I thought, suspiciously.
+
+"Who sent you here?" he asked, suddenly.
+
+"Sent me! No one sent me. I don't understand you."
+
+"Why did you follow me?"
+
+"Follow you?"
+
+"Yes. Why did you follow me to Paris? No one knew I was coming here,
+not even my own people. They think I am--Well, they don't know that I am
+here."
+
+His speech and his manner were decidedly irritating. I had made a firm
+resolve to keep my temper, no matter what the result of this interview
+might be, but I could not help answering rather sharply.
+
+"I had no intention of following you--here or anywhere else," I said.
+"Your action and whereabouts, generally speaking, are of no particular
+interest to me. I did not follow you to Paris, Doctor Bayliss."
+
+He reddened and hesitated. Then he led the way to a divan in a retired
+corner of the lobby and motioned to me to be seated. There he sat down
+beside me and waited for me to speak. I, in turn, waited for him to
+speak.
+
+At last he spoke.
+
+"I'm sorry, Knowles," he said. "I am not myself today. I've had a devil
+of a night and I feel like a beast this morning. I should probably have
+insulted my own father, had he appeared suddenly, as you did. Of course
+I should have known you did not follow me to Paris. But--but why did you
+come?"
+
+I hesitated now. "I came," I said, "to--to--Well, to be perfectly honest
+with you, I came because of something I heard concerning--concerning--"
+
+He interrupted me. "Then Heathcroft did tell you!" he exclaimed. "I
+thought as much."
+
+"He told you, I know. He said he did."
+
+"Yes. He did. My God, man, isn't it awful! Have you seen her?"
+
+His manner convinced me that he had seen her. In my eagerness I forgot
+to be careful.
+
+"No," I answered, breathlessly; "I have not seen her. Where is she?"
+
+He turned and stared at me.
+
+"Don't you know where she is?" he asked, slowly.
+
+"I know nothing. I have been told that she--or someone very like her--is
+singing in a Paris church. Heathcroft told me that and then we were
+interrupted. I--What is the matter?"
+
+He was staring at me more oddly than ever. There was the strangest
+expression on his face.
+
+"In a church!" he repeated. "Heathcroft told you--"
+
+"He told me that he had seen a girl, whose resemblance to Miss Morley
+was so striking as to be marvelous, singing in a Paris church. He called
+it an abbey, but of course it couldn't be that. Do you know anything
+more definite? What did he tell you?"
+
+He did not answer.
+
+"In a church!" he said again. "You thought--Oh, good heavens!"
+
+He began to laugh. It was not a pleasant laugh to hear. Moreover, it
+angered me.
+
+"This may be very humorous," I said, brusquely. "Perhaps it is--to you.
+But--Bayliss, you know more of this than I. I am certain now that you
+do. I want you to tell me what you know. Is that girl Frances Morley?
+Have you seen her? Where is she?"
+
+He had stopped laughing. Now he seemed to be considering.
+
+"Then you did come over here to find her," he said, more slowly still.
+"You were following her, why?"
+
+"WHY?"
+
+"Yes, why. She is nothing to you. You told my father that. You told me
+that she was not your niece. You told Father that you had no claim upon
+her whatever and that she had asked you not to try to trace her or to
+learn where she was. You said all that and preached about respecting her
+wish and all that sort of thing. And yet you are here now trying to find
+her."
+
+The only answer I could make to this was a rather childish retort.
+
+"And so are you," I said.
+
+His fists clinched.
+
+"I!" he cried, fiercely. "I! Did _I_ ever say she was nothing to me? Did
+_I_ ever tell anyone I should not try to find her? I told you, only
+the other day, that I would find her in spite of the devil. I meant it.
+Knowles, I don't understand you. When I came to you thinking you her
+uncle and guardian, and asked your permission to ask her to marry me,
+you gave that permission. You did. You didn't tell me that she was
+nothing to you. I don't understand you at all. You told my father a lot
+of rot--"
+
+"I told your father the truth. And, when I told you that she had left
+no message for you, that was the truth also. I have no reason to believe
+she cares for you--"
+
+"And none to think that she doesn't. At all events she did not tell ME
+not to follow her. She did tell you. Why are you following her?"
+
+It was a question I could not answer--to him. That reason no one should
+know. And yet what excuse could I give, after all my protestations?
+
+"I--I feel that I have the right, everything considered," I stammered.
+"She is not my niece, but she is Miss Cahoon's."
+
+"And she ran away from both of you, asking, as a last request, that you
+both make no attempt to learn where she was. The whole affair is beyond
+understanding. What the truth may be--"
+
+"Are you hinting that I have lied to you?"
+
+"I am not hinting at anything. All I can say is that it is deuced queer,
+all of it. And I sha'n't say more."
+
+"Will you tell me--"
+
+"I shall tell you nothing. That would be her wish, according to your own
+statement and I will respect that wish, if you don't."
+
+I rose to my feet. There was little use in an open quarrel between us
+and I was by far the older man. Yes, and his position was infinitely
+stronger than mine, as he understood it. But I never was more strongly
+tempted. He knew where she was. He had seen her. The thought was
+maddening.
+
+He had risen also and was facing me defiantly.
+
+"Good morning, Doctor Bayliss," said I, and walked away. I turned as I
+reached the entrance of the hotel and looked back. He was still standing
+there, staring at me.
+
+That afternoon I spent in my room. There is little use describing my
+feelings. That she was in Paris I was sure now. That Bayliss had seen
+her I was equally sure. But why had he spoken and looked as he did
+when I first spoke of Heathcroft's story? What had he meant by saying
+something or other was "awful?" And why had he seemed so astonished, why
+had he laughed in that strange way when I had said she was singing in a
+church?
+
+That evening I sought Monsieur Louis, the concierge, once more.
+
+"Is there any building here in Paris," I asked, "a building in which
+people sing, which is called an abbey? One that is not a church or an
+abbey, but is called that?"
+
+Louis looked at me in an odd way. He seemed a bit embarrassed, an
+embarrassment I should not have expected from him.
+
+"Monsieur asks the question," he said, smiling. "It was in my mind last
+night, the thought, but Monsieur asked for a church. There is a place
+called L'Abbaye and there young women sing, but--" he hesitated,
+shrugged and then added, "but L'Abbaye is not a church. No, it is not
+that."
+
+"What is it?" I asked.
+
+"A restaurant, Monsieur. A cafe chantant at Montmartre."
+
+Montmartre at ten that evening was just beginning to awaken. At the hour
+when respectable Paris, home-loving, domestic Paris, the Paris of which
+the tourist sees so little, is thinking of retiring, Montmartre--or that
+section of it in which L'Abbaye is situated--begins to open its eyes. At
+ten-thirty, as my cab buzzed into the square and pulled up at the curb,
+the electric signs were blazing, the sidewalks were, if not yet crowded,
+at least well filled, and the sounds of music from the open windows of
+The Dead Rat and the other cafes with the cheerful names were mingling
+with noises of the street.
+
+Monsieur Louis had given me my sailing orders, so to speak. He had
+told me that arriving at L'Abbaye before ten-thirty was quite useless.
+Midnight was the accepted hour, he said; prior to that I would find it
+rather dull, triste. But after that--Ah, Monsieur would, at least, be
+entertained.
+
+"But of course Monsieur does not expect to find the young lady of whom
+he is in search there," he said. "A relative is she not?"
+
+Remembering that I had, when I first mentioned the object of my quest to
+him, referred to her as a relative, I nodded.
+
+He smiled and shrugged.
+
+"A relative of Monsieur's would scarcely be found singing at L'Abbaye,"
+he said. "But it is a most interesting place, entertaining and chic.
+Many English and American gentlemen sup there after the theater."
+
+I smiled and intimated that the desire to pass a pleasant evening was my
+sole reason for visiting the place. He was certain I would be pleased.
+
+The doorway of L'Abbaye was not deserted, even at the "triste" hour of
+ten-thirty. Other cabs were drawn up at the curb and, upon the stairs
+leading to the upper floors, were several gaily dressed couples bound,
+as I had proclaimed myself to be, in search of supper and entertainment.
+I had, acting upon the concierge's hint, arrayed myself in my evening
+clothes and I handed my silk hat, purchased in London--where, as
+Hephzy said, "a man without a tall hat is like a rooster without tail
+feathers"--to a polite and busy attendant. Then a personage with a
+very straight beard and a very curly mustache, ushered me into the main
+dining-room.
+
+"Monsieur would wish seats for how many?" he asked, in French.
+
+"For myself only," I answered, also in French. His next remark was in
+English. I was beginning to notice that when I addressed a Parisian in
+his native language, he usually answered in mine. This may have been
+because of a desire to please me, or in self-defence; I am inclined to
+think the latter.
+
+"Ah, for one only. This way, Monsieur."
+
+I was given a seat at one end of a long table, and in a corner. There
+were plenty of small tables yet unoccupied, but my guide was apparently
+reserving these for couples or quartettes; at any rate he did not offer
+one to me. I took the seat indicated.
+
+"I shall wish to remain here for some time?" I said. "Probably the
+entire--" I hesitated; considering the hour I scarcely knew whether to
+say "evening" or "morning." At last I said "night" as a compromise.
+
+The bearded person seemed doubtful.
+
+"There will be a great demand later," he said. "To oblige Monsieur is of
+course our desire, but.... Ah, merci, Monsieur, I will see that Monsieur
+is not disturbed."
+
+The reason for his change of heart was the universal one in restaurants.
+He put the reason in his pocket and summoned a waiter to take my order.
+
+I gave the order, a modest one, which dropped me a mile or two in the
+waiter's estimation. However, after a glance at my fellow-diners at
+nearby tables, I achieved a partial uplift by ordering a bottle of
+extremely expensive wine. I had had the idea that, being in France, the
+home of champagne, that beverage would be cheap or, at least, moderately
+priced. But in L'Abbaye the idea seemed to be erroneous.
+
+The wine was brought immediately; the supper was somewhat delayed. I
+did not care. I had not come there to eat--or to drink, either, for that
+matter. I had come--I scarcely knew why I had come. That Frances Morley
+would be singing in a place like this I did not believe. This was the
+sort of "abbey" that A. Carleton Heathcroft would be most likely to
+visit, that was true, but that he had seen her here was most improbable.
+The coincidence of the "abbey" name would not have brought me there, of
+itself. Herbert Bayliss had given me to understand, although he had not
+said it, that she was not singing in a church and he had found the idea
+of her being where she was "awful." It was because of what he had said
+that I had come, as a sort of last chance, a forlorn hope. Of course she
+would not be here, a hired singer in a Paris night restaurant; that was
+impossible.
+
+How impossible it was likely to be I realized more fully during the
+next hour. There was nothing particularly "awful" about L'Abbaye of
+itself--at first, nor, perhaps, even later; at least the awfulness was
+well covered. The program of entertainment was awful enough, if deadly
+mediocrity is awful. A big darkey, dressed in a suit which reminded me
+of the "end man" at an old-time minstrel show, sang "My Alabama Coon,"
+accompanying himself, more or less intimately, on the banjo. I could
+have heard the same thing, better done, at a ten cent theater in the
+States, where this chap had doubtless served an apprenticeship. However,
+the audience, which was growing larger every minute, seemed to find the
+bellowing enjoyable and applauded loudly. Then a feminine person did a
+Castilian dance between the tables. I was ready to declare a second war
+with Spain when she had finished. Then there was an orchestral interval,
+during which the tables filled.
+
+The impossibility of Frances singing in a place like this became more
+certain each minute, to my mind. I called the waiter.
+
+"Does Mademoiselle Juno sing here this evening?" I asked, in my lame
+French.
+
+He shook his head. "Non, Monsieur," he answered, absently, and hastened
+on with the bottle he was carrying.
+
+Apparently that settled it. I might as well go. Then I decided to remain
+a little longer. After all, I was there, and I, or Heathcroft, might
+have misunderstood the name. I would stay for a while.
+
+The long table at which I sat was now occupied from end to end. There
+were several couples, male and female, and a number of unattached
+young ladies, well-dressed, pretty for the most part, and vivacious
+and inclined to be companionable. They chatted with their neighbors and
+would have chatted with me if I had been in the mood. For the matter of
+that everyone talked with everyone else, in French or English, good, bad
+and indifferent, and there was much laughter and gaiety. L'Abbaye was
+wide awake by this time.
+
+The bearded personage who had shown me to my seat, appeared, followed
+by a dozen attendants bearing paper parasols and bags containing little
+celluloid balls, red, white, and blue. They were distributed among the
+feminine guests. The parasols, it developed, were to be waved and the
+balls to be thrown. You were supposed to catch as many as were thrown
+at you and throw them back. It was wonderful fun--or would have been for
+children--and very, very amusing--after the second bottle.
+
+For my part I found it very stupid. As I have said at least once in this
+history I am not what is called a "good mixer" and in an assemblage like
+this I was as out of place as a piece of ice on a hot stove. Worse than
+that, for the ice would have melted and I congealed the more. My bottle
+of champagne remained almost untouched and when a celluloid ball bounced
+on the top of my head I did not scream "Whoopee! Bullseye!" as my
+American neighbors did or "Voila! Touche!" like the French. There were
+plenty of Americans and English there, and they seemed to be having a
+good time, but their good time was incomprehensible to me. This was "gay
+Paris," of course, but somehow the gaiety seemed forced and artificial
+and silly, except to the proprietors of L'Abbaye. If I had been getting
+the price for food and liquids which they received I might, perhaps,
+have been gay.
+
+The young Frenchman at my right was gay enough. He had early discovered
+my nationality and did his best to be entertaining. When a performer
+from the Olympia, the music hall on the Boulevard des Italiens, sang a
+distressing love ballad in a series of shrieks like those of a circular
+saw in a lumber mill, this person shouted his "Bravos" with the rest and
+then, waving his hands before my face, called for, "De cheer Americain!
+One, two, tree--Heep! Heep! Heep! Oo--ray-y-y!" I did not join in "the
+cheer Americain," but I did burst out laughing, a proceeding which
+caused the young lady at my left to pat my arm and nod delighted
+approval. She evidently thought I was becoming gay and lighthearted at
+last. She was never more mistaken.
+
+It was nearly two o'clock and I had had quite enough of L'Abbaye. I had
+not enjoyed myself--had not expected to, so far as that went. I hope I
+am not a prig, and, whatever I am or am not, priggishness had no part in
+my feelings then. Under ordinary circumstances I should not have enjoyed
+myself in a place like that. Mine is not the temperament--I shouldn't
+know how. I must have appeared the most solemn ass in creation, and if I
+had come there with the idea of amusement, I should have felt like one.
+As it was, my feeling was not disgust, but unreasonable disappointment.
+Certainly I did not wish--now that I had seen L'Abbaye--to find Frances
+Morley there; but just as certainly I was disappointed.
+
+I called for my bill, paid it, and stood up. I gave one look about the
+crowded, noisy place, and then I started violently and sat down again. I
+had seen Herbert Bayliss. He had, apparently, just entered and a waiter
+was finding a seat for him at a table some distance away and on the
+opposite side of the great room.
+
+There was no doubt about it; it was he. My heart gave a bound that
+almost choked me and all sorts of possibilities surged through my brain.
+He had come to Paris to find her, he had found her--in our conversation
+he had intimated as much. And now, he was here at the "Abbey." Why? Was
+it here that he had found her? Was she singing here after all?
+
+Bayliss glanced in my direction and I sank lower in my chair. I did
+not wish him to see me. Fortunately the lady opposite waved her paper
+parasol just then and I went into eclipse, so far as he was concerned.
+When the eclipse was over he was looking elsewhere.
+
+The black-bearded Frenchman, who seemed to be, if not one of the
+proprietors, at least one of the managers of L'Abbaye, appeared in the
+clear space at the center of the room between the tables and waved
+his hands. He was either much excited or wished to seem so. He shouted
+something in French which I could not understand. There was a buzz of
+interest all about me; then the place grew still--or stiller. Something
+was going to happen, that was evident. I leaned toward my voluble
+neighbor, the French gentleman who had called for "de cheer Americain."
+
+"What is it?" I asked. "What is the matter?"
+
+He ignored, or did not hear, my question. The bearded person was still
+waving his hands. The orchestra burst into a sort of triumphal march and
+then into the open space between the tables came--Frances Morley.
+
+She was dressed in a simple evening gown, she was not painted or
+powdered to the extent that women who had sung before her had been, her
+hair was simply dressed. She looked thinner than she had when I last saw
+her, but otherwise she was unchanged. In that place, amid the lights and
+the riot of color, the silks and satins and jewels, the flushed faces of
+the crowd, she stood and bowed, a white rose in a bed of tiger lilies,
+and the crowd rose and shouted at her.
+
+The orchestra broke off its triumphal march and the leader stood up, his
+violin at his shoulder. He played a bar or two and she began to sing.
+
+She sang a simple, almost childish, love song in French. There was
+nothing sensational about it, nothing risque, certainly nothing which
+should have appealed to the frequenters of L'Abbaye. And her voice,
+although sweet and clear and pure, was not extraordinary. And yet, when
+she had finished, there was a perfect storm of "Bravos." Parasols waved,
+flowers were thrown, and a roar of applause lasted for minutes. Why this
+should have been is a puzzle to me even now. Perhaps it was because of
+her clean, girlish beauty; perhaps because it was so unexpected and so
+different; perhaps because of the mystery concerning her. I don't know.
+Then I did not ask. I sat in my chair at the table, trembling from head
+to foot, and looking at her. I had never expected to see her again and
+now she was before my eyes--here in this place.
+
+She sang again; this time a jolly little ballad of soldiers and glory
+and the victory of the Tri-Color. And again she swept them off their
+feet. She bowed and smiled in answer to their applause and, motioning
+to the orchestra leader, began without accompaniment, "Loch Lomond," in
+English. It was one of the songs I had asked her to sing at the rectory,
+one I had found in the music cabinet, one that her mother and mine had
+sung years before.
+
+
+     "Ye'll take the high road
+      And I'll take the low road,
+      And I'll be in Scotland afore ye--"
+
+
+I was on my feet. I have no remembrance of having risen, but I was
+standing, leaning across the table, looking at her. There were cries of
+"Sit down" in English and other cries in French. There were tugs at my
+coat tails.
+
+
+     "But me and my true love
+      Shall never meet again,
+      By the bonny, bonny banks
+      Of Loch--"
+
+
+She saw me. The song stopped. I saw her turn white, so white that the
+rouge on her cheeks looked like fever spots. She looked at me and I at
+her. Then she raised her hand to her throat, turned and almost ran from
+the room.
+
+I should have followed her, then and there, I think. I was on my way
+around the end of the table, regardless of masculine boots and feminine
+skirts. But a stout Englishman got in my way and detained me and the
+crowd was so dense that I could not push through it. It was an excited
+crowd, too. For a moment there had been a surprised silence, but now
+everyone was exclaiming and talking in his or her native language.
+
+"Oh, I say! What happened? What made her do that?" demanded the stout
+Englishman. Then he politely requested me to get off his foot.
+
+The bearded manager--or proprietor--was waving his hands once more and
+begging attention and silence. He got both, in a measure. Then he made
+his announcement.
+
+He begged ten thousand pardons, but Mademoiselle Guinot--That was it,
+Guinot, not Juno or Junotte--had been seized with a most regrettable
+illness. She had been unable to continue her performance. It was not
+serious, but she could sing no more that evening. To-morrow evening--ah,
+yes. Most certainly. But to-night--no. Monsieur Hairee Opkins, the
+most famous Engleesh comedy artiste would now entertain the patrons of
+L'Abbaye. He begged, he entreated attention for Monsieur Opkins.
+
+I did not wait for "Monsieur Hairee." I forced my way to the door. As I
+passed out I cast a glance in the direction of young Bayliss. He was
+on his feet, loudly shouting for a waiter and his bill. I had so much
+start, at all events.
+
+Through the waiters and uniformed attendants I elbowed. Another man with
+a beard--he looked enough like the other to be his brother, and perhaps
+he was--got in my way at last. A million or more pardons, but Monsieur
+could not go in that direction. The exit was there, pointing.
+
+As patiently and carefully as I could, considering my agitation, I
+explained that I did not wish to find the exit. I was a friend, a--yes,
+a--er--relative of the young lady who had just sung and who had been
+taken ill. I wanted to go to her.
+
+Another million pardons, but that was impossible. I did not understand,
+Mademoiselle was--well, she did not see gentlemen. She was--with
+the most expressive of shrugs--peculiar. She desired no friends. It
+was--ah--quite impossible.
+
+I found my pocketbook and pressed my card into his hand. Would he give
+Mademoiselle my card? Would he tell her that I must see her, if only for
+a minute? Just give her the card and tell her that.
+
+He shook his head, smiling but firm. I could have punched him for the
+smile, but instead I took other measures. I reached into my
+pocket, found some gold pieces--I have no idea how many or of what
+denomination--and squeezed them in the hand with the card. He still
+smiled and shook his head, but his firmness was shaken.
+
+"I will give the card," he said, "but I warn Monsieur it is quite
+useless. She will not see him."
+
+The waiter with whom I had seen Herbert Bayliss in altercation was
+hurrying by me. I caught his arm.
+
+"Pardon, Monsieur," he protested, "but I must go. The gentleman yonder
+desires his bill."
+
+"Don't give it to him," I whispered, trying hard to think of the French
+words. "Don't give it to him yet. Keep him where he is for a time."
+
+I backed the demand with another gold piece, the last in my pocket. The
+waiter seemed surprised.
+
+"Not give the bill?" he repeated.
+
+"No, not yet." I did my best to look wicked and knowing--"He and I wish
+to meet the same young lady and I prefer to be first."
+
+That was sufficient--in Paris. The waiter bowed low.
+
+"Rest in peace, Monsieur," he said. "The gentleman shall wait."
+
+I waited also, for what seemed a long time. Then the bearded one
+reappeared. He looked surprised but pleased.
+
+"Bon, Monsieur," he whispered, patting my arm. "She will see you. You
+are to wait at the private door. I will conduct you there. It is most
+unusual. Monsieur is a most fortunate gentleman."
+
+At the door, at the foot of a narrow staircase--decidedly lacking in the
+white and gold of the other, the public one--I waited, for another age.
+The staircase was lighted by one sickly gas jet and the street outside
+was dark and dirty. I waited on the narrow sidewalk, listening to the
+roar of nocturnal Montmartre around the corner, to the beating of my own
+heart, and for her footstep on the stairs.
+
+At last I heard it. The door opened and she came out. She wore a cloak
+over her street costume and her hat was one that she had bought in
+London with my money. She wore a veil and I could not see her face.
+
+I seized her hands with both of mine.
+
+"Frances!" I cried, chokingly. "Oh, Frances!"
+
+She withdrew her hands. When she spoke her tone was quiet but very firm.
+
+"Why did you come here?" she asked.
+
+"Why did I come? Why--"
+
+"Yes. Why did you come? Was it to find me? Did you know I was here?"
+
+"I did not know. I had heard--"
+
+"Did Doctor Bayliss tell you?"
+
+I hesitated. So she HAD seen Bayliss and spoken with him.
+
+"No," I answered, after a moment, "he did not tell me, exactly. But I
+had heard that someone who resembled you was singing here in Paris."
+
+"And you followed me. In spite of my letter begging you, for my sake,
+not to try to find me. Did you get that letter?"
+
+"Yes, I got it."
+
+"Then why did you do it? Oh, WHY did you?"
+
+For the first time there was a break in her voice. We were standing
+before the door. The street, it was little more than an alley, was
+almost deserted, but I felt it was not the place for explanations. I
+wanted to get her away from there, as far from that dreadful "Abbey" as
+possible. I took her arm.
+
+"Come," I said, "I will tell you as we go. Come with me now."
+
+She freed her arm.
+
+"I am not coming with you," she said. "Why did you come here?"
+
+"I came--I came--Why did YOU come? Why did you leave us as you did?
+Without a word!"
+
+She turned and faced me.
+
+"You know why I left you," she said. "You know. You knew all the
+time. And yet you let me believe--You let me think--I lived upon your
+money--I--I--Oh, don't speak of it! Go away! please go away and leave
+me."
+
+"I am not going away--without you. I came to get you to go back with me.
+You don't understand. Your aunt and I want you to come with us. We want
+you to come and live with us again. We--"
+
+She interrupted. I doubt if she had comprehended more than the first few
+words of what I was saying.
+
+"Please go away," she begged. "I know I owe you money, so much money.
+I shall pay it. I mean to pay it all. At first I could not. I could not
+earn it. I tried. Oh, I tried SO hard! In London I tried and tried, but
+all the companies were filled, it was late in the season and I--no one
+would have me. Then I got this chance through an agency. I am succeeding
+here. I am earning the money at last. I am saving--I have saved--And now
+you come to--Oh, PLEASE go and leave me!"
+
+Her firmness had gone. She was on the verge of tears. I tried to take
+her hands again, but she would not permit it.
+
+"I shall not go," I persisted, as gently as I could. "Or when I go you
+must go with me. You don't understand."
+
+"But I do understand. My aunt--Miss Cahoon told me. I understand it all.
+Oh, if I had only understood at first."
+
+"But you don't understand--now. Your aunt and I knew the truth from the
+beginning. That made no difference. We were glad to have you with us. We
+want you to come back. You are our relative--"
+
+"I am not. I am not really related to you in any way. You know I am
+not."
+
+"You are related to Miss Cahoon. You are her sister's daughter. She
+wants you to come. She wants you to live with us again, just as you did
+before."
+
+"She wants that! She--But it was your money that paid for the very
+clothes I wore. Your money--not hers; she said so."
+
+"That doesn't make any difference. She wants you and--"
+
+I was about to add "and so do I," but she did not permit me to finish
+the sentence. She interrupted again, and there was a change in her tone.
+
+"Stop! Oh, stop!" she cried. "She wanted me and--and so you--Did you
+think I would consent? To live upon your charity?"
+
+"There is no charity about it."
+
+"There is. You know there is. And you believed that I--knowing what I
+know--that my father--my own father--"
+
+"Hush! hush! That is all past and done with."
+
+"It may be for you, but not for me. Mr. Knowles, your opinion of me
+must be a very poor one. Or your desire to please your aunt as great as
+your--your charity to me. I thank you both, but I shall stay here. You
+must go and you must not try to see me again."
+
+There was firmness enough in this speech; altogether too much. But I was
+as firm as she was.
+
+"I shall not go," I reiterated. "I shall not leave you--in a place like
+this. It isn't a fit place for you to be in. You know it is not. Good
+heavens! you MUST know it?"
+
+"I know what the place is," she said quietly.
+
+"You know! And yet you stay here! Why? You can't like it!"
+
+It was a foolish speech, and I blurted it without thought. She did not
+answer. Instead she began to walk toward the corner. I followed her.
+
+"I beg your pardon," I stammered, contritely. "I did not mean that, of
+course. But I cannot think of your singing night after night in such a
+place--before those men and women. It isn't right; it isn't--you shall
+not do it."
+
+She answered without halting in her walk.
+
+"I shall do it," she said. "They pay me well, very well, and I--I need
+the money. When I have earned and saved what I need I shall give it up,
+of course. As for liking the work--Like it! Oh, how can you!"
+
+"I beg your pardon. Forgive me. I ought to be shot for saying that. I
+know you can't like it. But you must not stay here. You must come with
+me."
+
+"No, Mr. Knowles, I am not coming with you. And you must leave me and
+never come back. My sole reason for seeing you to-night was to tell you
+that. But--" she hesitated and then said, with quiet emphasis, "you may
+tell my aunt not to worry about me. In spite of my singing in a cafe
+chantant I shall keep my self-respect. I shall not be--like those
+others. And when I have paid my debt--I can't pay my father's; I wish I
+could--I shall send you the money. When I do that you will know that
+I have resigned my present position and am trying to find a more
+respectable one. Good-by."
+
+We had reached the corner. Beyond was the square, with its lights and
+its crowds of people and vehicles. I seized her arm.
+
+"It shall not be good-by," I cried, desperately. "I shall not let you
+go."
+
+"You must."
+
+"I sha'n't. I shall come here night after night until you consent to
+come back to Mayberry."
+
+She stopped then. But when she spoke her tone was firmer than ever.
+
+"Then you will force me to give it up," she said. "Before I came here I
+was very close to--There were days when I had little or nothing to eat,
+and, with no prospects, no hope, I--if you don't leave me, Mr. Knowles,
+if you do come here night after night, as you say, you may force me to
+that again. You can, of course, if you choose; I can't prevent you. But
+I shall NOT go back to Mayberry. Now, will you say good-by?"
+
+She meant it. If I persisted in my determination she would do as she
+said; I was sure of it.
+
+"I am sure my aunt would not wish you to continue to see me, against my
+will," she went on. "If she cares for me at all she would not wish that.
+You have done your best to please her. I--I thank you both. Good-by."
+
+What could I do, or say?
+
+"Good-by," I faltered.
+
+She turned and started across the square. A flying cab shut her from my
+view. And then I realized what was happening, realized it and realized,
+too, what it meant. She should not go; I would not let her leave me nor
+would I leave her. I sprang after her.
+
+The square was thronged with cabs and motor cars. The Abbey and The Dead
+Rat and all the rest were emptying their patrons into the street. Paris
+traffic regulations are lax and uncertain. I dodged between a limousine
+and a hansom and caught a glimpse of her just as she reached the
+opposite sidewalk.
+
+"Frances!" I called. "Frances!"
+
+She turned and saw me. Then I heard my own name shouted from the
+sidewalk I had just left.
+
+"Knowles! Knowles!"
+
+I looked over my shoulder. Herbert Bayliss was at the curb. He was
+shaking a hand, it may have been a fist, in my direction.
+
+"Knowles!" he shouted. "Stop! I want to see you."
+
+I did not reply. Instead I ran on. I saw her face among the crowd and
+upon it was a curious expression, of fear, of frantic entreaty.
+
+"Kent! Kent!" she cried. "Oh, be careful! KENT!"
+
+There was a roar, a shout; I have a jumbled recollection of being thrown
+into the air, and rolling over and over upon the stones of the street.
+And there my recollections end, for the time.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+In Which I Take My Turn at Playing the Invalid
+
+
+Not for a very long time. They begin again--those recollections--a
+few minutes later, break off once more, and then return and break off
+alternately, over and over again.
+
+The first thing I remember, after my whirligig flight over the Paris
+pavement, is a crowd of faces above me and someone pawing at my collar
+and holding my wrist. This someone, a man, a stranger, said in French:
+
+"He is not dead, Mademoiselle."
+
+And then a voice, a voice that I seemed to recognize, said:
+
+"You are sure, Doctor? You are sure? Oh, thank God!"
+
+I tried to turn my head toward the last speaker--whom I decided, for
+some unexplainable reason, must be Hephzy--and to tell her that of
+course I wasn't dead, and then all faded away and there was another
+blank.
+
+The next interval of remembrance begins with a sense of pain, a
+throbbing, savage pain, in my head and chest principally, and a wish
+that the buzzing in my ears would stop. It did not stop, on the contrary
+it grew louder and there was a squeak and rumble and rattle along with
+it. A head--particularly a head bumped as hard as mine had been--might
+be expected to buzz, but it should not rattle, or squeak either.
+Gradually I began to understand that the rattle and squeak were external
+and I was in some sort of vehicle, a sleeping car apparently, for I
+seemed to be lying down. I tried to rise and ask a question and a hand
+was laid on my forehead and a voice--the voice which I had decided was
+Hephzy's--said, gently:
+
+"Lie still. You mustn't move. Lie still, please. We shall be there
+soon."
+
+Where "there" might be I had no idea and it was too much trouble to ask,
+so I drifted off again.
+
+Next I was being lifted out of the car; men were lifting me--or trying
+to. And, being wider awake by this time, I protested.
+
+"Here! What are you doing?" I asked. "I am all right. Let go of me. Let
+go, I tell you."
+
+Again the voice--it sounded less and less like Hephzy's--saying:
+
+"Don't! Please don't! You mustn't move."
+
+But I kept on moving, although moving was a decidedly uncomfortable
+process.
+
+"What are they doing to me?" I asked. "Where am I? Hephzy, where am I?"
+
+"You are at the hospital. You have been hurt and we are taking you to
+the hospital. Lie still and they will carry you in."
+
+That woke me more thoroughly.
+
+"Nonsense!" I said, as forcefully as I could. "Nonsense! I'm not badly
+hurt. I am all right now. I don't want to go to a hospital. I won't go
+there. Take me to the hotel. I am all right, I tell you."
+
+The man's voice--the doctor's, I learned afterward--broke in, ordering
+me to be quiet. But I refused to be quiet. I was not going to be taken
+to any hospital.
+
+"I am all right," I declared. "Or I shall be in a little while. Take me
+to my hotel. I will be looked after, there. Hephzy will look after me."
+
+The doctor continued to protest--in French--and I to affirm--in English.
+Also I tried to stand. At length my declarations of independence seemed
+to have some effect, for they ceased trying to lift me. A dialogue in
+French followed. I heard it with growing impatience.
+
+"Hephzy," I said, fretfully. "Hephzy, make them take me to my hotel. I
+insist upon it."
+
+"Which hotel is it? Kent--Kent, answer me. What is the name of the
+hotel?"
+
+I gave the name; goodness knows how I remembered it. There was more
+argument, and, after a time, the rattle and buzz and squeak began again.
+The next thing I remember distinctly is being carried to my room and
+hearing the voice of Monsieur Louis in excited questioning and command.
+
+After that my recollections are clearer. But it was broad daylight when
+I became my normal self and realized thoroughly where I was. I was in
+my room at the hotel, the sunlight was streaming in at the window and
+Hephzy--I still supposed it was Hephzy--was sitting by that window.
+And for the first time it occurred to me that she should not have been
+there; by all that was right and proper she should be waiting for me in
+Interlaken.
+
+"Hephzy," I said, weakly, "when did you get here?"
+
+The figure at the window rose and came to the bedside. It was not
+Hephzy. With a thrill I realized who it was.
+
+"Frances!" I cried. "Frances! Why--what--"
+
+"Hush! You mustn't talk. You mustn't. You must be quiet and keep
+perfectly still. The doctor said so."
+
+"But what happened? How did I get here? What--?"
+
+"Hush! There was an accident; you were hurt. We brought you here in a
+carriage. Don't you remember?"
+
+What I remembered was provokingly little.
+
+"I seem to remember something," I said. "Something about a hospital.
+Someone was going to take me to a hospital and I wouldn't go.
+Hephzy--No, it couldn't have been Hephzy. Was it--was it you?"
+
+"Yes. We were taking you to the hospital. We did take you there, but as
+they were taking you from the ambulance you--"
+
+"Ambulance! Was I in an ambulance? What happened to me? What sort of an
+accident was it?"
+
+"Please don't try to talk. You must not talk."
+
+"I won't if you tell me that. What happened?"
+
+"Don't you remember? I left you and crossed the street. You followed me
+and then--and then you stopped. And then--Oh, don't ask me! Don't!"
+
+"I know. Now I do remember. It was that big motor car. I saw it coming.
+But who brought me here? You--I remember you; I thought you were Hephzy.
+And there was someone else."
+
+"Yes, the doctor--the doctor they called--and Doctor Bayliss."
+
+"Doctor Bayliss! Herbert Bayliss, do you mean? Yes, I saw him at the
+'Abbey'--and afterward. Did he come here with me?"
+
+"Yes. He was very kind. I don't know what I should have done if it had
+not been for him. Now you MUST not speak another word."
+
+I did not, for a few moments. I lay there, feebly trying to think,
+and looking at her. I was grateful to young Bayliss, of course, but I
+wished--even then I wished someone else and not he had helped me. I did
+not like to be under obligations to him. I liked him, too; he was a good
+fellow and I had always liked him, but I did not like THAT.
+
+She rose from the chair by the bed and walked across the room.
+
+"Don't go," I said.
+
+She came back almost immediately.
+
+"It is time for your medicine," she said.
+
+I took the medicine. She turned away once more.
+
+"Don't go," I repeated.
+
+"I am not going. Not for the present."
+
+I was quite contented with the present. The future had no charms just
+then. I lay there, looking at her. She was paler and thinner than she
+had been when she left Mayberry, almost as pale and thin as when I first
+met her in the back room of Mrs. Briggs' lodging house. And there
+was another change, a subtle, undefinable change in her manner and
+appearance that puzzled me. Then I realized what it was; she had grown
+older, more mature. In Mayberry she had been an extraordinarily pretty
+girl. Now she was a beautiful woman. These last weeks had worked the
+change. And I began to understand what she had undergone during those
+weeks.
+
+"Have you been with me ever since it happened--since I was hurt?" I
+asked, suddenly.
+
+"Yes, of course."
+
+"All night?"
+
+She smiled. "There was very little of the night left," she answered.
+
+"But you have had no rest at all. You must be worn out."
+
+"Oh, no; I am used to it. My--" with a slight pause before the
+word--"work of late has accustomed me to resting in the daytime. And I
+shall rest by and by, when my aunt--when Miss Cahoon comes."
+
+"Miss Cahoon? Hephzy? Have you sent for her?"
+
+My tone of surprise startled her, I think. She looked at me.
+
+"Sent for her?" she repeated. "Isn't she here--in Paris?"
+
+"She is in Interlaken, at the Victoria. Didn't the concierge tell you?"
+
+"He told us she was not here, at this hotel, at present. He said she
+had gone away with some friends. But we took it for granted she was in
+Paris. I told them I would stay until she came. I--"
+
+I interrupted.
+
+"Stay until she comes!" I repeated. "Stay--! Why you can't do that! You
+can't! You must not!"
+
+"Hush! hush! Remember you are ill. Think of yourself!"
+
+"Of myself! I am thinking of you. You mustn't stay here--with me. What
+will they think? What--"
+
+"Hush! hush, please. Think! It makes no difference what they think. If I
+had cared what people thought I should not be singing at--Hush! you must
+not excite yourself in this way."
+
+But I refused to hush.
+
+"You must not!" I cried. "You shall not! Why did you do it? They could
+have found a nurse, if one was needed. Bayliss--"
+
+"Doctor Bayliss does not know. If he did I should not care. As for the
+others--" she colored, slightly,
+
+"Well, I told the concierge that you were my uncle. It was only a white
+lie; you used to say you were, you know."
+
+"Say! Oh, Frances, for your own sake, please--"
+
+"Hush! Do you suppose," her cheeks reddened and her eyes flashed as I
+had seen them flash before, "do you suppose I would go away and leave
+you now? Now, when you are hurt and ill and--and--after all that you
+have done! After I treated you as I did! Oh, let me do something! Let me
+do a little, the veriest little in return. I--Oh, stop! stop! What are
+you doing?"
+
+I suppose I was trying to sit up; I remember raising myself on my elbow.
+Then came the pain again, the throbbing in my head and the agonizing
+pain in my side. And after that there is another long interval in my
+recollections.
+
+For a week--of course I did not know it was a week then--my memories
+consist only of a series of flashes like the memory of the hours
+immediately following the accident. I remember people talking, but not
+what they said; I remember her voice, or I think I do, and the touch
+of her hand on my forehead. And afterward, other voices, Hephzy's in
+particular. But when I came to myself, weak and shaky, but to remain
+myself for good and all, Hephzy--the real Hephzy--was in the room with
+me.
+
+Even then they would not let me ask questions. Another day dragged by
+before I was permitted to do that. Then Hephzy told me I had a cracked
+rib and a variety of assorted bruises, that I had suffered slight
+concussion of the brain, and that my immediate job was to behave myself
+and get well.
+
+"Land sakes!" she exclaimed, "there was a time when I thought you never
+was goin' to get well. Hour after hour I've set here and listened
+to your gabblin' away about everything under the sun and nothin' in
+particular, as crazy as a kitten in a patch of catnip, and thought and
+thought, what should I do, what SHOULD I do. And now I KNOW what I'm
+goin' to do. I'm goin' to keep you in that bed till you're strong and
+well enough to get out of it, if I have to sit on you to hold you down.
+And I'm no hummin'-bird when it comes to perchin', either."
+
+She had received the telegram which Frances sent and had come from
+Interlaken post haste.
+
+"And I don't know," she declared, "which part of that telegram upset me
+most--what there was in it or the name signed at the bottom of it. HER
+name! I couldn't believe my eyes. I didn't stop to believe 'em long. I
+just came. And then I found you like this."
+
+"Was she here?" I asked.
+
+"Who--Frances! My, yes, she was here. So pale and tired lookin' that I
+thought she was goin' to collapse. But she wouldn't give in to it.
+She told me all about how it happened and what the doctor said and
+everything. I didn't pay much attention to it then. All I could think of
+was you. Oh, Hosy! my poor boy! I--I--"
+
+"There! there!" I broke in, gently. "I'm all right now, or I'm going to
+be. You will have the quahaug on your hands for a while longer. But,"
+returning to the subject which interested me most, "what else did she
+tell you? Did she tell you how I met her--and where?"
+
+"Why, yes. She's singin' somewhere--she didn't say where exactly, but it
+is in some kind of opera-house, I judged. There's a perfectly beautiful
+opera-house a little ways from here on the Avenue de L'Opera, right by
+the Boulevard des Italiens, though there's precious few Italians there,
+far's I can see. And why an opera is a l'opera I--"
+
+"Wait a moment, Hephzy. Did she tell you of our meeting? And how I found
+her?"
+
+"Why, not so dreadful much, Hosy. She's acted kind of queer about that,
+seemed to me. She said you went to this opera-house, wherever it was,
+and saw her there. Then you and she were crossin' the road and one of
+these dreadful French automobiles--the way they let the things tear
+round is a disgrace--ran into you. I declare! It almost made ME sick
+to hear about it. And to think of me away off amongst those mountains,
+enjoyin' myself and not knowin' a thing! Oh, it makes me ashamed to look
+in the glass. I NEVER ought to have left you alone, and I knew it. It's
+a judgment on me, what's happened is."
+
+"Or on me, I should rather say," I added. Frances had not told Hephzy of
+L'Abbaye, that was evident. Well, I would keep silence also.
+
+"Where is she now?" I asked. I asked it with as much indifference as I
+could assume, but Hephzy smiled and patted my hand.
+
+"Oh, she comes every day to ask about you," she said. "And Doctor
+Bayliss comes too. He's been real kind."
+
+"Bayliss!" I exclaimed. "Is he with--Does he come here?"
+
+"Yes, he comes real often, mostly about the time she does. He hasn't
+been here for two days now, though. Hosy, do you suppose he has spoken
+to her about--about what he spoke to you?"
+
+"I don't know," I answered, curtly. Then I changed the subject.
+
+"Has she said anything to you about coming back to Mayberry?" I asked.
+"Have you told her how we feel toward her?"
+
+Hephzy's manner changed. "Yes," she said, reluctantly, "I've told her.
+I've told her everything."
+
+"Not everything? Hephzy, you haven't told her--"
+
+"No, no. Of course I didn't tell her THAT. You know I wouldn't, Hosy.
+But I told her that her money havin' turned out to be our money didn't
+make a mite of difference. I told her how much we come to think of her
+and how we wanted her to come with us and be the same as she had always
+been. I begged her to come. I said everything I could say."
+
+"And she said?"
+
+"She said no, Hosy. She wouldn't consider it at all. She asked me not to
+talk about it. It was settled, she said. She must go her way and we ours
+and we must forget her. She was more grateful than she could tell--she
+most cried when she said that--but she won't come back and if I asked
+her again she declared she should have to go away for good."
+
+"I know. That is what she said to me."
+
+"Yes. I can't make it out exactly. It's her pride, I suppose. Her mother
+was just as proud. Oh, dear! When I saw her here for the first time,
+after I raced back from Interlaken, I thought--I almost hoped--but I
+guess it can't be."
+
+I did not answer. I knew only too well that it could not be.
+
+"Does she seem happy?" I asked.
+
+"Why, no; I don't think she is happy. There are times, especially when
+you began to get better, when she seemed happier, but the last few times
+she was here she was--well, different."
+
+"How different?"
+
+"It's hard to tell you. She looked sort of worn and sad and discouraged.
+Hosy, what sort of a place is it she is singin' in?"
+
+"Why do you ask that?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know. Some things you said when you were out of your head
+made me wonder. That, and some talk I overheard her and Doctor Bayliss
+havin' one time when they were in the other room--my room--together. I
+had stepped out for a minute and when I came back, I came in this door
+instead of the other. They were in the other room talkin' and he was
+beggin' her not to stay somewhere any more. It wasn't a fit place for
+her to be, he said; her reputation would be ruined. She cut him short
+by sayin' that her reputation was her own and that she should do as she
+thought best, or somethin' like that. Then I coughed, so they would know
+I was around, and they commenced talkin' of somethin' else. But it set
+me thinkin' and when you said--"
+
+She paused. "What did I say?" I asked.
+
+"Why, 'twas when she and I were here. You had been quiet for a while and
+all at once you broke out--delirious you was--beggin' somebody or other
+not to do somethin'. For your sake, for their own sake, they mustn't do
+it. 'Twas awful to hear you. A mixed-up jumble about Abbie, whoever
+she is--not much, by the way you went on about her--and please, please,
+please, for the Lord's sake, give it up. I tried to quiet you, but you
+wouldn't be quieted. And finally you said: 'Frances! Oh, Frances! don't!
+Say that you won't any more.' I gave you your sleepin' drops then; I
+thought 'twas time. I was afraid you'd say somethin' that you wouldn't
+want her to hear. You understand, don't you, Hosy?"
+
+"I understand. Thank you, Hephzy."
+
+"Yes. Well, _I_ didn't understand and I asked her if she did. She said
+no, but she was dreadfully upset and I think she did understand, in
+spite of her sayin' it. What sort of a place is it, this opera-house
+where she sings?"
+
+I dodged the question as best I could. I doubt if Hephzy's suspicions
+were allayed, but she did not press the subject. Instead she told me I
+had talked enough for that afternoon and must rest.
+
+That evening I saw Bayliss for the first time since the accident.
+He congratulated me on my recovery and I thanked him for his help in
+bringing me to the hotel. He waved my thanks aside.
+
+"Quite unnecessary, thanking me," he said, shortly. "I couldn't do
+anything else, of course. Well, I must be going. Glad you're feeling
+more fit, Knowles, I'm sure."
+
+"And you?" I asked. "How are you?"
+
+"I? Oh, I'm fit enough, I suppose. Good-by."
+
+He didn't look fit. He looked more haggard and worn and moody than ever.
+And his manner was absent and distrait. Hephzy noticed it; there were
+few things she did not notice.
+
+"Either that boy's meals don't agree with him," she announced, "or
+somethin's weighin' on his mind. He looks as if he'd lost his last
+friend. Hosy, do you suppose he's spoken to--to her about what he spoke
+of to you?"
+
+"I don't know. I suppose he has. He was only too anxious to speak, there
+in Mayberry."
+
+"Humph! Well, IF he has, then--Hosy, sometimes I think this, all this
+pilgrimage of ours--that's what you used to call it, a pilgrimage--is
+goin' to turn out right, after all. Don't it remind you of a book, this
+last part of it?"
+
+"A dismal sort of book," I said, gloomily.
+
+"Well, I don't know. Here are you, the hero, and here's she, the
+heroine. And the hero is sick and the heroine comes to take care of
+him--she WAS takin' care of you afore I came, you know; and she falls in
+love with him and--"
+
+"Yes," I observed, sarcastically. "She always does--in books. But in
+those books the hero is not a middle-aged quahaug. Suppose we stick to
+real life and possibilities, Hephzy."
+
+Hephzy was unconvinced. "I don't care," she said. "She ought to even if
+she doesn't. _I_ fell in love with you long ago, Hosy. And she DID bring
+you here after you were hurt and took care of you."
+
+"Hush! hush!" I broke in. "She took care of me, as you call it, because
+she thought it was her duty. She thinks she is under great obligation to
+us because we did not pitch her into the street when we first met her.
+She insists that she owes us money and gratitude. Her kindness to me and
+her care are part payment of the debt. She told me so, herself."
+
+"But--"
+
+"There aren't any 'buts.' You mustn't be an idiot because I have been
+one, Hephzy. We agreed not to speak of that again. Don't remind me of
+it."
+
+Hephzy sighed. "All right," she said. "I suppose you are right, Hosy.
+But--but how is all this goin' to end? She won't go with us. Are we
+goin' to leave her here alone?"
+
+I was silent. The same question was in my mind, but I had answered it. I
+was NOT going to leave her there alone. And yet--
+
+"If I was sure," mused Hephzy, "that she was in love with Herbert
+Bayliss, then 'twould be all right, I suppose. They would get married
+and it would be all right--or near right--wouldn't it, Hosy."
+
+I said nothing.
+
+The next morning I saw her. She came to inquire for me and Hephzy
+brought her into my room for a stay of a minute or two. She seemed glad
+to find me so much improved in health and well on the road to recovery.
+I tried to thank her for her care of me, for her sending for Hephzy and
+all the rest of it, but she would not listen. She chatted about Paris
+and the French people, about Monsieur Louis, the concierge, and joked
+with Hephzy about that gentleman's admiration for "the wonderful
+American lady," meaning Hephzy herself.
+
+"He calls you 'Madame Cay-hoo-on,'" she said, "and he thinks you a
+miracle of decision and management. I think he is almost afraid of you,
+I really do."
+
+Hephzy smiled, grimly. "He'd better be," she declared. "The way
+everybody was flyin' around when I first got here after comin' from
+Interlaken, and the way the help jabbered and hunched up their shoulders
+when I asked questions made me so fidgety I couldn't keep still. I
+wanted an egg for breakfast, that first mornin' and when the waiter
+brought it, it was in the shell, the way they eat eggs over here. I
+can't eat 'em that way--I'm no weasel--and I told the waiter I wanted an
+egg cup. Nigh as I could make out from his pigeon English he was
+tellin' me there was a cup there. Well, there was, one of those little,
+two-for-a-cent contraptions, just big enough to stick one end of the
+egg into. 'I want a big one,' says I. 'We, Madame,' says he, and off
+he trotted. When he came back he brought me a big EGG, a duck's egg, I
+guess 'twas. Then I scolded and he jabbered some more and by and by he
+went and fetched this Monsieur Louis man. He could speak English, thank
+goodness, and he was real nice, in his French way. He begged my pardon
+for the waiter's stupidness, said he was a new hand, and the like of
+that, and went on apologizin' and bowin' and smilin' till I almost had a
+fit.
+
+"'For mercy sakes!' I says, 'don't say any more about it. If that last
+egg hadn't been boiled 'twould have hatched out an--an ostrich, or
+somethin' or other, by this time. And it's stone cold, of course.
+Have this--this jumpin'-jack of yours bring me a hot egg--a hen's
+egg--opened, in a cup big enough to see without spectacles, and tell
+him to bring some cream with the coffee. At any rate, if there isn't
+any cream, have him bring some real milk instead of this watery stuff.
+I might wash clothes with that, for I declare I think there's bluin'
+in it, but I sha'n't drink it; I'd be afraid of swallowin' a fish by
+accident. And do hurry!'
+
+"He went away then, hurryin' accordin' to orders, and ever since then
+he's been bobbin' up to ask if 'Madame finds everything satisfactory.' I
+suppose likely I shouldn't have spoken as I did, he means well--it isn't
+his fault, or the waiter's either, that they can't talk without wavin'
+their hands as if they were givin' three cheers--but I was terribly
+nervous that mornin' and I barked like a tied-up dog. Oh dear, Hosy! if
+ever I missed you and your help it's in this blessed country."
+
+Frances laughed at all this; she seemed just then to be in high spirits;
+but I thought, or imagined, that her high spirits were assumed for our
+benefit. At the first hint of questioning concerning her own life, where
+she lodged or what her plans might be, she rose and announced that she
+must go.
+
+Each morning of that week she came, remaining but a short time, and
+always refusing to speak of herself or her plans. Hephzy and I, finding
+that a reference to those plans meant the abrupt termination of the
+call, ceased trying to question. And we did not mention our life at the
+rectory, either; that, too, she seemed unwilling to discuss. Once,
+when I spoke of our drive to Wrayton, she began a reply, stopped in the
+middle of a sentence, and then left the room.
+
+Hephzy hastened after her. She returned alone.
+
+"She was cryin', Hosy," she said. "She said she wasn't, but she was. The
+poor thing! she's unhappy and I know it; she's miserable. But she's so
+proud she won't own it and, although I'm dyin' to put my arms around her
+and comfort her, I know if I did she'd go away and never come back.
+Do you notice she hasn't called me 'Auntie' once. And she always used
+to--at the rectory. I'm afraid--I'm afraid she's just as determined as
+she was when she ran away, never to live with us again. What SHALL we
+do?"
+
+I did not know and I did not dare to think. I was as certain that these
+visits would cease very soon as I was that they were the only things
+which made my life bearable. How I did look forward to them! And while
+she was there, with us, how short the time seemed and how it dragged
+when she had gone. The worst thing possible for me, this seeing her and
+being with her; I knew it. I knew it perfectly well. But, knowing it,
+and realizing that it could not last and that it was but the prelude to
+a worse loneliness which was sure to come, made no difference. I dreaded
+to be well again, fearing that would mean the end of those visits.
+
+But I was getting well and rapidly. I sat up for longer and longer
+periods each day. I began to read my letters now, instead of having
+Hephzy read them to me, letters from Matthews at the London office and
+from Jim Campbell at home. Matthews had cabled Jim of the accident and
+later that I was recovering. So Jim wrote, professing to find material
+gain in the affair.
+
+"Great stuff," he wrote. "Two chapters at least. The hero, pursuing the
+villain through the streets of Paris at midnight, is run down by an
+auto driven by said villain. 'Ah ha!' says the villain: 'Now will you be
+good?' or words to that effect. 'Desmond,' says the hero, unflinchingly,
+as they extract the cobble-stones from his cuticle, 'you triumph for the
+moment, but beware! there will be something doing later on.' See? If
+it wasn't for the cracked rib and the rest I should be almost glad it
+happened. All you need is the beautiful heroine nursing you to recovery.
+Can't you find her?"
+
+He did not know that I had found her, or that the hoped-for novel was
+less likely to be finished than ever.
+
+Hephzy was now able to leave me occasionally, to take the walks which I
+insisted upon. She had some queer experiences in these walks.
+
+"Lost again to-day, Hosy," she said, cheerfully, removing her bonnet. "I
+went cruisin' through the streets over to the south'ard and they were so
+narrow and so crooked--to say nothin' of bein' dirty and smelly--that I
+thought I never should get out. Of course I could have hired a hack
+and let it bring me to the hotel but I wouldn't do that. I was set on
+findin' my own way. I'd walked in and I was goin' to walk out, that was
+all there was to it. 'Twasn't the first time I'd been lost in this Paris
+place and I've got a system of my own. When I get to the square 'Place
+delay Concorde,' they call it, I know where I am. And 'Concorde' is
+enough like Concord, Mass., to make me remember the name. So I walk up
+to a nice appearin' Frenchman with a tall hat and whiskers--I didn't
+know there was so many chin whiskers outside of East Harniss, or some
+other back number place--and I say, 'Pardon, Monseer. Place delay
+Concorde?' Just like that with a question mark after it. After I say it
+two or three times he begins to get a floatin' sniff of what I'm drivin'
+at and says he: 'Place delay Concorde? Oh, we, we, we, Madame!' Then a
+whole string of jabber and arm wavin', with some countin' in the middle
+of it. Now I've learned 'one, two, three' in French and I know he
+means for me to keep on for two or three more streets in the way he's
+pointin'. So I keep on, and, when I get there, I go through the whole
+rigamarole with another Frenchman. About the third session and I'm back
+on the Concord Place. THERE I am all right. No, I don't propose to stay
+lost long. My father and grandfather and all my men folks spent their
+lives cruisin' through crooked passages and crowded shoals and I guess
+I've inherited some of the knack."
+
+At last I was strong enough to take a short outing in Hephzy's company.
+I returned to the hotel, where Hephzy left me. She was going to do a
+little shopping by herself. I went to my room and sat down to rest.
+A bell boy--at least that is what we should have called him in the
+States--knocked at the door.
+
+"A lady to see Monsieur," he said.
+
+The lady was Frances.
+
+She entered the room and I rose to greet her.
+
+"Why, you are alone!" she exclaimed. "Where is Miss Cahoon?"
+
+"She is out, on a shopping expedition," I explained. "She will be back
+soon. I have been out too. We have been driving together. What do you
+think of that!"
+
+She seemed pleased at the news but when I urged her to sit and wait
+for Hephzy's return she hesitated. Her hesitation, however, was only
+momentary. She took the chair by the window and we chatted together,
+of my newly-gained strength, of Hephzy's adventures as a pathfinder in
+Paris, of the weather, of a dozen inconsequential things. I found it
+difficult to sustain my part in the conversation. There was so much
+of real importance which I wanted to say. I wanted to ask her about
+herself, where she lodged, if she was still singing at L'Abbaye, what
+her plans for the future might be. And I did not dare.
+
+My remarks became more and more disjointed and she, too, seemed uneasy
+and absent-minded. At length there was an interval of silence. She broke
+that silence.
+
+"I suppose," she said, "you will be going back to Mayberry soon."
+
+"Back to Mayberry?" I repeated.
+
+"Yes. You and Miss Cahoon will go back there, of course, now that you
+are strong enough to travel. She told me that the American friends with
+whom you and she were to visit Switzerland had changed their plans and
+were going on to Italy. She said that she had written them that your
+proposed Continental trip was abandoned."
+
+"Yes. Yes, that was given up, of course."
+
+"Then you will go back to England, will you not?"
+
+"I don't know. We have made no plans as yet."
+
+"But you will go back. Miss Cahoon said you would. And, when your lease
+of the rectory expires, you will sail for America."
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"But you must know," with a momentary impatience. "Surely you don't
+intend to remain here in Paris."
+
+"I don't know that, either. I haven't considered what I shall do. It
+depends--that is--"
+
+I did not finish the sentence. I had said more than I intended and it
+was high time I stopped. But I had said too much, as it was. She asked
+more questions.
+
+"Upon what does it depend?" she asked.
+
+"Oh, nothing. I did not mean that it depended upon anything in
+particular. I--"
+
+"You must have meant something. Tell me--answer me truthfully, please:
+Does it depend upon me?"
+
+Of course that was just what it did depend upon. And suddenly I
+determined to tell her so.
+
+"Frances," I demanded, "are you still there--at that place?"
+
+"At L'Abbaye. Yes."
+
+"You sing there every night?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why do you do it? You know--"
+
+"I know everything. But you know, too. I told you I sang there because
+I must earn my living in some way and that seems to be the only place
+where I can earn it. They pay me well there, and the people--the
+proprietors--are considerate and kind, in their way."
+
+"But it isn't a fit place for you. And you don't like it; I know you
+don't."
+
+"No," quietly. "I don't like it."
+
+"Then don't do it. Give it up."
+
+"If I give it up what shall I do?"
+
+"You know. Come back with us and live with us as you did before. I want
+you; Hephzy is crazy to have you. We--she has missed you dreadfully. She
+grieves for you and worries about you. We offer you a home and--"
+
+She interrupted. "Please don't," she said. "I have told you that that is
+impossible. It is. I shall never go back to Mayberry."
+
+"But why? Your aunt--"
+
+"Don't! My aunt is very kind--she has been so kind that I cannot bear to
+speak of her. Her kindness and--and yours are the few pleasant memories
+that I have--of this last dreadful year. To please you both I would do
+anything--anything--except--"
+
+"Don't make any exceptions. Come with us. If not to Mayberry, then
+somewhere else. Come to America with us."
+
+"No."
+
+"Frances--"
+
+"Don't! My mind is made up. Please don't speak of that again."
+
+Again I realized the finality in her tone. The same finality was in mine
+as I answered.
+
+"Then I shall stay here," I declared. "I shall not leave you alone,
+without friends or a protector of any kind, to sing night after night in
+that place. I shall not do it. I shall stay here as long as you do."
+
+She was silent. I wondered what was coming next. I expected her to
+say, as she had said before, that I was forcing her to give up her one
+opportunity. I expected reproaches and was doggedly prepared to meet
+them. But she did not reproach me. She said nothing; instead she seemed
+to be thinking, to be making up her mind.
+
+"Don't do it, Frances," I pleaded. "Don't sing there any longer. Give it
+up. You don't like the work; it isn't fit work for you. Give it up."
+
+She rose from her chair and standing by the window looked out into the
+street. Suddenly she turned and looked at me.
+
+"Would it please you if I gave up singing at L'Abbaye?" she asked
+quietly. "You know it would."
+
+"And if I did would you and Miss Cahoon go back to England--at once?"
+
+Here was another question, one that I found very hard to answer. I tried
+to temporize.
+
+"We want you to come with us," I said, earnestly. "We want you.
+Hephzy--"
+
+"Oh, don't, don't, don't! Why will you persist? Can't you understand
+that you hurt me? I am trying to believe I have some self-respect left,
+even after all that has happened. And you--What CAN you think of me! No,
+I tell you! NO!"
+
+"But for Hephzy's sake. She is your only relative."
+
+She looked at me oddly. And when she spoke her answer surprised me.
+
+"You are mistaken," she said. "I have other--relatives. Good-by, Mr.
+Knowles."
+
+She was on her way to the door.
+
+"But, Frances," I cried, "you are not going. Wait. Hephzy will be here
+any moment. Don't go."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"I must go," she said. At the door she turned and looked back.
+
+"Good-by," she said, again. "Good-by, Kent."
+
+She had gone and when I reached the door she had turned the corner of
+the corridor.
+
+When Hephzy came I told her of the visit and what had taken place.
+
+"That's queer," said Hephzy. "I can't think what she meant. I don't know
+of any other relatives she's got except Strickland Morley's tribe. And
+they threw him overboard long, long ago. I can't understand who she
+meant; can you, Hosy?"
+
+I had been thinking.
+
+"Wasn't there someone else--some English cousins of hers with whom she
+lived for a time after her father's death? Didn't she tell you about
+them?"
+
+Hephzy nodded vigorously. "That's so," she declared. "There was. And
+she did live with 'em, too. She never told me their names or where they
+lived, but I know she despised and hated 'em. She gave me to understand
+that. And she ran away from 'em, too, just as she did from us. I don't
+see why she should have meant them. I don't believe she did. Perhaps
+she'll tell us more next time she comes. That'll be tomorrow, most
+likely."
+
+I hoped that it might be to-morrow, but I was fearful. The way in which
+she had said good-by made me so. Her look, her manner, seemed to imply
+more than a good-by for a day. And, though this I did not tell Hephzy,
+she had called me "Kent" for the first time since the happy days at the
+rectory. I feared--all sorts of things.
+
+She did not come on the morrow, or the following day, or the day after
+that. Another week passed and she did not come, nor had we received any
+word from her. By that time Hephzy was as anxious and fretful as I.
+And, when I proposed going in search of her, Hephzy, for a wonder,
+considering how very, very careful she was of my precious health, did
+not say no.
+
+"You're pretty close to bein' as well as ever you was, Hosy," she said.
+"And I know how terribly worried you are. If you do go out at night
+you may be sick again, but if you don't go and lay awake frettin' and
+frettin' about her I KNOW you'll be sick. So perhaps you'd better do it.
+Shall I--Sha'n't I go with you?"
+
+"I think you had better not," I said.
+
+"Well, perhaps you're right. You never would tell me much about this
+opera-house, or whatever 'tis, but I shouldn't wonder if, bein' a
+Yankee, I'd guessed considerable. Go, Hosy, and bring her back if you
+can. Find her anyhow. There! there run along. The hack's down at the
+door waitin'. Is your head feelin' all right? You're sure? And you
+haven't any pain? And you'll keep wrapped up? All right? Good-by,
+dearie. Hurry back! Do hurry back, for my sake. And I hope--Oh, I do
+hope you'll bring no bad news."
+
+L'Abbaye, at eight-thirty in the evening was a deserted place compared
+to what it had been when I visited it at midnight. The waiters and
+attendants were there, of course, and a few early bird patrons, but not
+many. The bearded proprietors, or managers, were flying about, and I
+caught one of them in the middle of a flight.
+
+He did not recognize me at first, but when I stated my errand, he did.
+Out went his hands and up went his shoulders.
+
+"The Mademoiselle," he said. "Ah, yes! You are her friend, Monsieur; I
+remember perfectly. Oh, no, no, no! she is not here any more. She
+has left us. She sings no longer at L'Abbaye. We are desolate; we are
+inconsolable. We pleaded, but she was firm. She has gone. Where? Ah,
+Monsieur, so many ask that; but alas! we do not know."
+
+"But you do know where she lives," I urged. "You must know her home
+address. Give me that. It is of the greatest importance that I see her
+at once."
+
+At first he declared that he did not know her address, the address where
+she lodged. I persisted and, at last, he admitted that he did know it,
+but that he was bound by the most solemn promise to reveal it to no one.
+
+"It was her wish, Monsieur. It was a part of the agreement under which
+she sang for us. No one should know who she was or where she lived. And
+I--I am an honorable man, Monsieur. I have promised and--" the business
+of shoulders and hands again--"my pledged word to a lady, how shall it
+be broken?"
+
+I found a way to break it, nevertheless. A trio of gold pieces and the
+statement that I was her uncle did the trick. An uncle! Ah, that was
+different. And, Mademoiselle had consented to see me when I came before,
+that was true. She had seen the young English gentleman also--but we
+two only. Was the young English Monsieur--"the Doctor Baylees"--was he a
+relative also?
+
+I did not answer that question. It was not his business and, beside, I
+did not wish to speak of Herbert Bayliss.
+
+The address which the manager of L'Abbaye gave me, penciled on a card,
+was a number in a street in Montmartre, and not far away. I might easily
+have walked there, I was quite strong enough for walking now, but I
+preferred a cab. Paris motor cabs, as I knew from experience, moved
+rapidly. This one bore me to my destination in a few minutes.
+
+A stout middle-aged French woman answered my ring. But her answer to my
+inquiries was most unsatisfactory. And, worse than all, I was certain
+she was telling me the truth.
+
+The Mademoiselle was no longer there, she said. She had given up
+her room three days ago and had gone away. Where? That, alas, was a
+question. She had told no one. She had gone and she was not coming back.
+Was it not a pity, a great pity! Such a beautiful Mademoiselle! such an
+artiste! who sang so sweetly! Ah, the success she had made. And such a
+good young lady, too! Not like the others--oh, no, no, no! No one was to
+know she lodged there; she would see no one. Ah, a good girl, Monsieur,
+if ever one lived.
+
+"Did she--did she go alone?" I asked.
+
+The stout lady hesitated. Was Monsieur a very close friend? Perhaps a
+relative?
+
+"An uncle," I said, telling the old lie once more.
+
+Ah, an uncle! It was all right then. No, Mademoiselle had not gone
+alone. A young gentleman, a young English gentleman had gone with her,
+or, at least, had brought the cab in which she went and had driven
+off in it with her. A young English gentleman with a yellow mustache.
+Perhaps I knew him.
+
+I recognized the description. She had left the house with Herbert
+Bayliss. What did that mean? Had she said yes to him? Were they married?
+I dreaded to know, but know I must.
+
+And, as the one possible chance of settling the question, I bade my cab
+driver take me to the Hotel Continental. There, at the desk, I asked if
+Doctor Bayliss was still in the hotel. They said he was. I think I must
+have appeared strange or the gasp of relief with which I received the
+news was audible, for the concierge asked me if I was ill. I said no,
+and then he told me that Bayliss was planning to leave the next day, but
+was just then in his room. Did I wish to see him? I said I did and gave
+them my card.
+
+He came down soon afterward. I had not seen him for a fortnight, for his
+calls had ceased even before Frances' last visit. Hephzy had said that,
+in her opinion, his meals must be disagreeing with him. Judging by his
+appearance his digestion was still very much impaired. He was in evening
+dress, of course; being an English gentleman he would have dressed for
+his own execution, if it was scheduled to take place after six o'clock.
+But his tie was carelessly arranged, his shirt bosom was slightly
+crumpled and there was a general "don't care" look about his raiment
+which was, for him, most unusual. And he was very solemn. I decided at
+once, whatever might have happened, it was not what I surmised. He was
+neither a happy bridegroom nor a prospective one.
+
+"Good evening, Bayliss," said I, and extended my hand.
+
+"Good evening, Knowles," he said, but he kept his own hands in his
+pockets. And he did not ask me to be seated.
+
+"Well?" he said, after a moment.
+
+"I came to you," I began--mine was a delicate errand and hard to
+state--"I came to you to ask if you could tell me where Miss Morley has
+gone. She has left L'Abbaye and has given up her room at her lodgings.
+She has gone--somewhere. Do you know where she is?"
+
+It was quite evident that he did know. I could see it in his face. He
+did not answer, however. Instead he glanced about uneasily and then,
+turning, led the way toward a small reception room adjoining the lobby.
+This room was, save for ourselves, unoccupied.
+
+"We can be more private here," he explained, briefly. "What did you
+ask?"
+
+"I asked if you knew where Miss Morley had gone and where she was at the
+present time?"
+
+He hesitated, pulling at his mustache, and frowning. "I don't see why
+you should ask me that?" he said, after a moment.
+
+"But I do ask it. Do you know where she is?"
+
+Another pause. "Well, if I did," he said, stiffly, "I see no reason
+why I should tell you. To be perfectly frank, and as I have said to you
+before, I don't consider myself bound to tell you anything concerning
+her."
+
+His manner was most offensive. Again, as at the time I came to him at
+that very hotel on a similar errand, after my arrival in Paris, I found
+it hard to keep my temper.
+
+"Don't misunderstand me," I said, as calmly as I could. "I am not
+pretending now to have a claim upon Miss Morley. I am not asking you to
+tell me just where she is, if you don't wish to tell. And it is not for
+my sake--that is, not primarily for that--that I am anxious about her.
+It is for hers. I wish you might tell me this: Is she safe? Is she among
+friends? Is she--is she quite safe and in a respectable place and likely
+to be happy? Will you tell me that?"
+
+He hesitated again. "She is quite safe," he said, after a moment. "And
+she is among friends, or I suppose they are friends. As to her being
+happy--well, you ought to know that better than I, it seems to me."
+
+I was puzzled. "_I_ ought to know?" I repeated. "I ought to know whether
+she is happy or not? I don't understand."
+
+He looked at me intently. "Don't you?" he asked. "You are certain you
+don't? Humph! Well, if I were in your place I would jolly well find out;
+you may be sure of that."
+
+"What are you driving at, Bayliss? I tell you I don't know what you
+mean."
+
+He did not answer. He was frowning and kicking the corner of a rug with
+his foot.
+
+"I don't understand what you mean," I repeated. "You are saying too much
+or too little for my comprehension."
+
+"I've said too much," he muttered. "At all events, I have said all
+I shall say. Was there any other subject you wished to see me about,
+Knowles? If not I must be going. I'm rather busy this evening."
+
+"There was no subject but that one. And you will tell me nothing more
+concerning Miss Morley?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Good night," I said, and turned away. Then I turned back.
+
+"Bayliss," said I, "I think perhaps I had better say this: I have only
+the kindest feelings toward you. You may have misunderstood my attitude
+in all this. I have said nothing to prejudice her--Miss Morley against
+you. I never shall. You care for her, I know. If she cares for you that
+is enough, so far as I am concerned. Her happiness is my sole wish. I
+want you to consider me your friend--and hers."
+
+Once more I extended my hand. For an instant I thought he was going to
+take it, but he did not.
+
+"No," he said, sullenly. "I won't shake hands with you. Why should I?
+You don't mean what you say. At least I don't think you do. I--I--By
+Jove! you can't!"
+
+"But I do," I said, patiently.
+
+"You can't! Look here! you say I care for her. God knows I do! But
+you--suppose you knew where she was, what would you do? Would you go to
+her?"
+
+I had been considering this very thing, during my ride to the lodgings
+and on the way to the hotel; and I had reached a conclusion.
+
+"No," I answered, slowly. "I think I should not. I know she does not
+wish me to follow her. I suppose she went away to avoid me. If I were
+convinced that she was among friends, in a respectable place, and quite
+safe, I should try to respect her wish. I think I should not follow her
+there."
+
+He stared at me, wide-eyed.
+
+"You wouldn't!" he repeated. "You wouldn't! And you--Oh, I say! And you
+talked of her happiness!"
+
+"It is her happiness I am thinking of. If it were my own I should--"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Nothing, nothing. She will be happier if I do not follow her, I
+suppose. That is enough for me."
+
+He regarded me with the same intent stare.
+
+"Knowles," he said, suddenly, "she is at the home of a relative of
+hers--Cripps is the name--in Leatherhead, England. There! I have told
+you. Why I should be such a fool I don't know. And now you will go
+there, I suppose. What?"
+
+"No," I answered. "No. I thank you for telling me, Bayliss, but it shall
+make no difference. I will respect her wish. I will not go there."
+
+"You won't!"
+
+"No, I will not trouble her again."
+
+To my surprise he laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh, there was more
+sarcasm than mirth in it, or so it seemed, but why he should laugh at
+all I could not understand.
+
+"Knowles," he said, "you're a good fellow, but--"
+
+"But what?" I asked, stiffly.
+
+"You're no end of a silly ass in some ways. Good night."
+
+He turned on his heel and walked off.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+In Which I, as Well as Mr. Solomon Cripps, Am Surprised
+
+
+"And to think," cried Hephzy, for at least the fifth time since I told
+her, "that those Crippses are her people, the cousins she lived with
+after her pa's death! No wonder she was surprised when I told her how
+you and I went to Leatherhead and looked at their 'Ash Dump'--'Ash
+Chump,' I mean. And we came just as near hirin' it, too; we would have
+hired it if she hadn't put her foot down and said she wouldn't go there.
+A good many queer things have happened on this pilgrimage of ours, Hosy,
+but I do believe our goin' straight to those Crippses, of all the folks
+in England, is about the strangest. Seems as if we was sent there with a
+purpose, don't it?"
+
+"It is a strange coincidence," I admitted.
+
+"It's more'n that. And her goin' back to them is queerer still. She
+hates 'em, I know she does. She as much as said so, not mention' their
+names, of course. Why did she do it?"
+
+I knew why she had done it, or I believed I did.
+
+"She did it to please you and me, Hephzy," I said. "And to get rid of
+us. She said she would do anything to please us, and she knew I did not
+want her to remain here in Paris. I told her I should stay here as long
+as she did, or at least as long as she sang at--at the place where she
+was singing. And she asked if, provided she gave up singing there, you
+and I would go back to England--or America?"
+
+"Yes, I know; you told me that, Hosy. But you said you didn't promise to
+do it."
+
+"I didn't promise anything. I couldn't promise not to follow her. I
+didn't believe I could keep the promise. But I sha'n't follow her,
+Hephzy. I shall not go to Leatherhead."
+
+Hephzy was silent for a moment. Then she said: "Why not?"
+
+"You know why. That night when I first met her, the night after you had
+gone to Lucerne, she told me that if I persisted in following her and
+trying to see her I would force her to give up the only means of earning
+a living she had been able to find. Well, I have forced her to do that.
+She has been obliged to run away once more in order to get rid of us.
+I am not going to persecute her further. I am going to try and be
+unselfish and decent, if I can. Now that we know she is safe and among
+friends--"
+
+"Friends! A healthy lot of friends they are--that Solomon Cripps and his
+wife! If ever I ran afoul of a sanctimonious pair of hypocrites they're
+the pair. Oh, they were sweet and buttery enough to us, I give in, but
+that was because they thought we was goin' to hire their Dump or Chump,
+or whatever 'twas. I'll bet they could be hard as nails to anybody they
+had under their thumbs. Whenever I see a woman or a man with a mouth
+that shuts up like a crack in a plate, the way theirs do, it takes more
+than Scriptur' texts from that mouth to make me believe it won't bite
+when it has the chance. Safe! poor Little Frank may be safe enough at
+Leatherhead, but I'll bet she's miserable. WHAT made her go there?"
+
+"Because she had no other place to go, I suppose," I said. "And
+there, among her relatives, she thought she would be free from our
+persecution."
+
+"There's some things worse than persecution," Hephzy declared; "and,
+so far as that goes, there are different kinds of persecution. But what
+makes those Crippses willin' to take her in and look after her is what
+_I_ can't understand. They MAY be generous and forgivin' and kind, but,
+if they are, then I miss my guess. The whole business is awful queer.
+Tell me all about your talk with Doctor Bayliss, Hosy. What did he say?
+And how did he look when he said it?"
+
+I told her, repeating our conversation word for word, as near as I could
+remember it. She listened intently and when I had finished there was an
+odd expression on her face.
+
+"Humph!" she exclaimed. "He seemed surprised to think you weren't goin'
+to Leatherhead, you say?"
+
+"Yes. At least I thought he was surprised. He knew I had chased her from
+Mayberry to Paris and was there at the hotel trying to learn from him
+where she was. And he knows you are her aunt. I suppose he thought it
+strange that we were not going to follow her any further."
+
+"Maybe so... maybe so. But why did he call you a--what was it?--a silly
+donkey?"
+
+"Because I am one, I imagine," I answered, bitterly. "It's my natural
+state. I was born one."
+
+"Humph! Well, 'twould take more than that boy's word to make me believe
+it. No there's something!--I wish I could see that young fellow myself.
+He's at the Continental Hotel, you say?"
+
+"Yes; but he leaves to-morrow. There, Hephzy, that's enough. Don't talk
+about it. Change the subject. I am ready to go back to England--yes,
+or America either, whenever you say the word. The sooner the better for
+me."
+
+Hephzy obediently changed the subject and we decided to leave Paris the
+following afternoon. We would go back to the rectory, of course, and
+leave there for home as soon as the necessary arrangements could be
+made. Hephzy agreed to everything, she offered no objections, in fact
+it seemed to me that she was paying very little attention. Her lack of
+interest--yes, and apparent lack of sympathy, for I knew she must know
+what my decision meant to me--hurt and irritated me.
+
+I rose.
+
+"Good night," I said, curtly. "I'm going to bed."
+
+"That's right, Hosy. You ought to go. You'll be sick again if you sit up
+any longer. Good night, dearie."
+
+"And you?" I asked. "What are you going to do?"
+
+"I'm going to set up a spell longer. I want to think."
+
+"I don't. I wish I might never think again. Or dream, either. I am awake
+at last. God knows I wish I wasn't!"
+
+She moved toward me. There was the same odd expression on her face and a
+queer, excited look in her eyes.
+
+"Perhaps you aren't really awake, Hosy," she said, gently. "Perhaps this
+is the final dream and when you do wake you'll find--"
+
+"Oh, bosh!" I interrupted. "Don't tell me you have another presentiment.
+If you have keep it to yourself. Good night."
+
+I was weak from my recent illness and I had been under a great nervous
+strain all that evening. These are my only excuses and they are poor
+ones. I spoke and acted abominably and I was sorry for it afterward. I
+have told Hephzy so a good many times since, but I think she understood
+without my telling her.
+
+"Well," she said, quietly, "dreams are somethin', after all. It's
+somethin' to have had dreams. I sha'n't forget mine. Good night, Hosy."
+
+The next morning after breakfast she announced that she had an errand
+or two to do. She would run out and do them, she said, but she would be
+gone only a little while. She was gone nearly two hours during which I
+paced the floor or sat by the window looking out. The crowded boulevard
+was below me, but I did not see it. All I saw was a future as desolate
+and blank as the Bayport flats at low tide, and I, a quahaug on those
+flats, doomed to live, or exist, forever and ever and ever, with nothing
+to live for.
+
+Hephzy, when she did return to the hotel, was surprisingly chatty and
+good-humored. She talked, talked, talked all the time, about nothing in
+particular, laughed a good deal, and flew about, packing our belongings
+and humming to herself. She acted more like the Hephzy of old than she
+had for weeks. There was an air of suppressed excitement about her which
+I could not understand. I attributed it to the fact of our leaving for
+America in the near future and her good humor irritated me. My spirits
+were lower than ever.
+
+"You seem to be remarkably happy," I observed, fretfully.
+
+"What makes you think so, Hosy? Because I was singin'? Father used
+to say my singin' was the most doleful noise he ever heard, except
+a fog-horn on a lee shore. I'm glad if you think it's a proof of
+happiness: I'm much obliged for the compliment."
+
+"Well, you are happy, or you are trying to appear so. If you are
+pretending for my benefit, don't. I'M not happy."
+
+"I know, Hosy; I know. Well, perhaps you--"
+
+She didn't finish the sentence.
+
+"Perhaps what?"
+
+"Oh, nothin', nothin'. How many shirts did you bring with you? is this
+all?"
+
+She sang no more, probably because she saw that the "fog-horn" annoyed
+me, but her manner was just as strange and her nervous energy as
+pronounced. I began to doubt if my surmise, that her excitement and
+exaltation were due to the anticipation of an early return to Bayport,
+was a correct one. I began to thing there must be some other course and
+to speculate concerning it. And I, too, grew a bit excited.
+
+"Hephzy," I said, suddenly, "where did you go when you went out this
+morning? What sort of 'errands' were those of yours?"
+
+She was folding my ties, her back toward me, and she answered without
+turning.
+
+"Oh, I had some odds and ends of things to do," she said. "This plaid
+necktie of yours is gettin' pretty shabby, Hosy. I guess you can't
+wear it again. There! I mustn't stop to talk. I've got my own things to
+pack."
+
+She hurried to her own room and I asked no more questions just then.
+But I was more suspicious than ever. I remembered a question of hers
+the previous evening and I believed.... But, if she had gone to the
+Continental and seen Herbert Bayliss, what could he have told her to
+make her happy?
+
+We took the train for Calais and crossed the Channel to Dover. This time
+the eccentric strip of water was as calm as a pond at sunset. No jumpy,
+white-capped billows, no flying spray, no seasick passengers. Tarpaulins
+were a drag on the market.
+
+"I wouldn't believe," declared Hephzy, "that this lookin'-glass was
+the same as that churned-up tub of suds we slopped through before. It
+doesn't trickle down one's neck now, does it, Hosy. A 'nahsty' cross-in'
+comin' and a smooth one comin' back. I wonder if that's a sign."
+
+"Oh, don't talk about signs, Hephzy," I pleaded, wearily. "You'll begin
+to dream again, I suppose, pretty soon."
+
+"No, I won't. I think you and I have stopped dreamin', Hosy. Maybe we're
+just wakin' up, same as I told you."
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+"Mean? Oh, I guess I didn't mean anything. Good-by, old France! You're a
+lovely country and a lively one, but I sha'n't cry at sayin' good-by to
+you this time. And there's England dead ahead. Won't it seem good to
+be where they talk instead of jabber! I sha'n't have to navigate by the
+'one-two-three' chart over there."
+
+Dover, a flying trip through the customs, the train again, an English
+dinner in an English restaurant car--not a "wagon bed," as Hephzy said,
+exultantly--and then London.
+
+We took a cab to the hotel, not Bancroft's this time, but a modern
+downtown hostelry where there were at least as many Americans as
+English. In our rooms I would have cross-questioned Hephzy, but she
+would not be questioned, declaring that she was tired and sleepy. I was
+tired, also, but not sleepy. I was almost as excited as she seemed to
+be by this time. I was sure she had learned something that morning in
+Paris, something which pleased her greatly. What that something might
+be I could not imagine; but I believed she had learned it from Herbert
+Bayliss.
+
+And the next morning, after breakfast, she announced that she had
+arranged for a cab and we must start for the station at once. I said
+nothing then, but when the cab pulled up before a railway station, a
+station which was not our accustomed one but another, I said a great
+deal.
+
+"What in the world, Hephzy!" I exclaimed. "We can't go to Mayberry from
+here."
+
+"Hush, hush, Hosy. Wait a minute--wait till I've paid the driver. Yes,
+I'm doin' it myself. I'm skipper on this cruise. You're an invalid,
+didn't you know it. Invalids have to obey orders."
+
+The cabman paid, she took my arm and led me into the station.
+
+"And now, Hosy," she said, "let me tell you. We aren't goin' to
+Mayberry--not yet. We're going to Leatherhead."
+
+"To Leatherhead!" I repeated. "To Leatherhead! To--her? We certainly
+will do no such thing."
+
+"Yes, we will, Hosy," quietly. "I haven't said anything about it before,
+but I've made up my mind. It's our duty to see her just once more, once
+more before--before we say good-by for good. It's our duty."
+
+"Duty! Our duty is to let her alone, to leave her in peace, as she asked
+us."
+
+"How do you know she is in peace? Suppose she isn't. Suppose she's
+miserable and unhappy. Isn't it our duty to find out? I think it is?"
+
+I looked her full in the face. "Hephzy," I said, sharply, "you know
+something about her, something that I don't know. What is it?"
+
+"I don't know as I know anything, Hosy. I can't say that I do. But--"
+
+"You saw Herbert Bayliss yesterday. That was the 'errand' you went upon
+yesterday morning in Paris. Wasn't it?"
+
+She was very much taken aback. She has told me since that she had no
+idea I suspected the truth.
+
+"Wasn't it?" I repeated.
+
+"Why--why, yes, it was, Hosy. I did go to see him, there at his hotel.
+When you told me how he acted and what he said to you I thought 'twas
+awfully funny, and the more I thought it over the funnier it seemed. So
+I made up my mind to see him and talk with him myself. And I did."
+
+"What did he tell you?" I asked.
+
+"He told me--he told me--Well, he didn't tell me so much, maybe, but he
+gave me to understand a whole lot. She's gone to those Crippses, Hosy,
+just as I suspicioned, not because she likes 'em--she hates 'em--or
+because she wanted to go, but because she thought 'twould please us if
+she did. It doesn't please us; it doesn't please me, anyway. She sha'n't
+be miserable for our sake, not without a word from us. No, we must go
+there and see her and--and tell her once more just how we feel about it.
+It's our duty to go and we must. And," with decision, "we're goin' now."
+
+She had poured out this explanation breathlessly, hurrying as if fearful
+that I might interrupt and ask more questions. I asked one of them the
+moment she paused.
+
+"We knew all that before," I said. "That is, we were practically sure
+she had left Paris to get rid of us and had gone to her cousins, the
+Crippses, because of her half-promise to me not to sing at places like
+the Abbey again. We knew all that. And she asked me to promise that we
+would not follow her. I didn't promise, but that makes no difference.
+Was that all Bayliss told you?"
+
+Hephzy was still embarrassed and confused, though she answered promptly
+enough.
+
+"He told me he knew she didn't want to go to--to those Leatherheaded
+folks," she declared. "We guessed she didn't, but we didn't know it for
+sure. And he said we ought to go to her. He said that."
+
+"But why did he say it? Our going will not alter her determination to
+stay and our seeing her again will only make it harder for her."
+
+"No, it won't--no it won't," hastily. "Besides I want to see that Cripps
+man and have a talk with him, myself. I want to know why a man like
+him--I'm pretty well along in years; I've met folks and bargained and
+dealt with 'em all my grown-up life and I KNOW he isn't the kind to do
+things for nothin' for ANYBODY--I want to know why he and his wife are
+so generous to her. There's somethin' behind it."
+
+"There's something behind you, Hephzy. Some other reason that you
+haven't told me. Was that all Bayliss said?"
+
+She hesitated. "Yes," she said, after a moment, "that's all, all I can
+tell you now, anyway. But I want you to go with me to that Ash Dump and
+see her once more."
+
+"I shall not, Hephzy."
+
+"Well, then I'll have to go by myself. And if you don't go, too, I
+think you'll be awfully sorry. I think you will. Oh, Hosy," pleadingly,
+"please go with me. I don't ask you to do many things, now do I? I do
+ask you to do this."
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"I would do almost anything for your sake, Hephzy," I began.
+
+"But this isn't for my sake. It's for hers. For hers. I'm sure--I'm
+ALMOST sure you and she will both be glad you did it."
+
+I could not understand it at all. I had never seen her more earnest. She
+was not the one to ask unreasonable things and yet where her sister's
+child was concerned she could be obstinate enough--I knew that.
+
+"I shall go whether you do or not," she said, as I stood looking at her.
+
+"You mean that, Hephzy?"
+
+"I surely do. I'm goin' to see her this very forenoon. And I do hope
+you'll go with me."
+
+I reflected. If she went alone it would be almost as hard for Frances
+as if I went with her. And the temptation was very strong. The desire to
+see her once more, only once....
+
+"I'll go, Hephzy," I said. I didn't mean to say it; the words seemed to
+come of themselves.
+
+"You will! Oh, I'm so glad! I'm so glad! And I think--I think you'll be
+glad, too, Hosy. I'm hopin' you will."
+
+"I'll go," I said. "But this is the last time you and I must trouble
+her. I'll go--not because of any reason you have given me, Hephzy, but
+because I believe there must be some other and stronger reason, which
+you haven't told me."
+
+Hephzy drew a long breath. She seemed to be struggling between a desire
+to tell me more--whatever that more might be--and a determination not to
+tell.
+
+"Maybe there is, Hosy," she said, slowly. "Maybe there is. I--I--Well,
+there! I must go and buy the tickets. You sit down and wait. I'm skipper
+of this craft to-day, you know. I'm in command on this voyage."
+
+Leatherhead looked exactly as it had on our previous visit. "Ash Clump,"
+the villa which the Crippses had been so anxious for us to hire, was
+still untenanted, or looked to be. We walked on until we reached the
+Cripps home and entered the Cripps gate. I rang the bell and the maid
+answered the ring.
+
+In answer to our inquiries she told us that Mr. Cripps was not in. He
+and Mrs. Cripps had gone to chapel. I remembered then that the day was
+Sunday. I had actually forgotten it.
+
+"Is Miss Morley in?" asked Hephzy.
+
+The maid shook her head.
+
+"No, ma'am," she said. "Miss Morley ain't in, either. I think she's gone
+to chapel, too. I ain't sure, ma'am, but I think she 'as. She's not in."
+
+She asked if we would leave cards. Hephzy said no.
+
+"It's 'most noon," she said. "They'll be back pretty soon. We'll wait.
+No, we won't come in. We'll wait out here, I guess."
+
+There was a rustic seat on the lawn near the house and Hephzy seated
+herself upon it. I walked up and down. I was in a state of what Hephzy
+would have called "nerves." I had determined to be very calm when I
+met her, to show no emotion, to be very calm and cool, no matter what
+happened. But this waiting was hard. I grew more nervous every minute.
+
+"I'm going to stroll about, Hephzy," I said. "About the garden and
+grounds. I sha'n't go far and I'll return soon. I shall be within call.
+Send one of the servants for me if she--if the Crippses come before I
+get back."
+
+Hephzy did not urge me to remain. Nor did she offer to accompany me. As
+usual she seemed to read my thoughts and understand them.
+
+"All right, Hosy," she said. "You go and have your walk. I'll wait here.
+But don't be long, will you."
+
+I promised not to be long. The Cripps gardens and grounds were not
+extensive, but they were well kept even if the beds were geometrically
+ugly and the color masses jarring and in bad taste. The birds sang, the
+breeze stirred the leaves and petals, and there was a Sunday quiet, the
+restful hush of an English Sunday, everywhere.
+
+I strolled on along the paths, through the gap in the hedge dividing
+the kitchen garden from the purely ornamental section, past the stables,
+until I emerged from the shrubbery at the top of a little hill. There
+was a pleasant view from this hill, the customary view of hedged fields
+and meadows, flocks of sheep and groups of grazing cattle, and over all
+the soft blue haze and misty sky.
+
+I paused. And then close beside me, I heard a startled exclamation.
+
+I turned. In a nook of the shrubbery was another rustic seat. Rising
+from that seat and gazing at me with a look of amazed incredulity,
+was--Frances Morley.
+
+I did not speak. I could not, for the moment. She spoke first.
+
+"You!" she exclaimed. "You--here!"
+
+And still I did not speak. Where was the calm with which I was to meet
+her? Where were the carefully planned sentences which were to explain
+how I had come and why? I don't know where they were; I seemed to
+know only that she was there, that I was alone with her as I had never
+thought or meant to be again, and that if I spoke I should say things
+far different from those I had intended.
+
+She was recovering from her surprise. She came toward me.
+
+"What are you doing here?" she asked. "Why did you come?"
+
+I stammered a word or two, some incoherences to the effect that I had
+not expected to find her there, that I had been told she was at church.
+She shook her head, impatiently.
+
+"I mean why did you come here--to Leatherhead?" she asked. "Why did you
+come? Did you know--"
+
+I interrupted her. If ever I was to explain, or attempt to explain, I
+realized that it must be at that moment. She might listen to me then,
+before she had had time to think. Later I knew she would not.
+
+"I knew you were here," I broke in, quickly. "I--we--your aunt knew and
+we came."
+
+"But HOW did you know? Who told you?"
+
+"The--we learned," I answered. "And we came."
+
+It was a poor explanation--or none at all. She seemed to think it so.
+And yet she seemed more hurt than offended.
+
+"You came--yes," she said. "And you knew that I left Paris because--Oh,
+you knew that! I asked you not to follow me. You promised you would
+not."
+
+I was ashamed, thoroughly ashamed and disgusted with myself for yielding
+to Hephzy's entreaties.
+
+"No, no," I protested, "I did not promise. I did not promise, Frances."
+
+"But you know I did not wish you to do it. I did not wish you to follow
+me to Paris, but you did it. I told you you would force me to give up my
+only means of earning money. You did force me to give it up. I gave it
+up to please you, for your sake, and now--"
+
+"Did you?" I cried, eagerly. "Did you give it up for my sake, Frances?
+Did you?"
+
+"You know I did. You must know it. And now that I have done it, now that
+I have given up my opportunity and my--my self-respect and my one chance
+and come here to this--to this place, you--you--Oh, how could you!
+Wasn't I unhappy enough before? And unhappy enough now? Oh, how could
+you!"
+
+I was more ashamed than ever. I tried desperately to justify my action.
+
+"But that was it," I persisted. "Don't you see? It was your happiness,
+the thought that you were unhappy which brought me here. I know--you
+told your aunt how unhappy you had been when you were with these people
+before. I know how much you disliked them. That was why I came. To ask
+you to give this up as you did the other. To come with us and BE happy.
+I want you to come, Frances. Think! Think how much I must want you."
+
+And, for the moment I thought this appeal had some effect. It seemed to
+me that her resolution was shaken, that she was wavering.
+
+"You--you really want me?" she repeated.
+
+"Yes. Yes, I can't tell you--I must not tell you how much I want you.
+And your aunt--she wants you to come. She is here, too. She will tell
+you."
+
+Her manner changed once more. The tone in which she spoke was different.
+There were no signs of the wavering which I had noticed--or hoped I
+noticed.
+
+"No," she said. "No. I shall not see my aunt. And I must not talk with
+you any longer. I asked you not to follow me here. You did it, in spite
+of my asking. Now, unless you wish to drive me away from here, as you
+did from Paris, you will leave me and not try to see me again. Oh, don't
+you see--CAN'T you see how miserable you are making me? And yet you
+talk of my happiness!"
+
+"But you aren't happy here. ARE you happy?"
+
+"I am happy enough. Yes, I am happy."
+
+"I don't believe it. Are these Crippses kind to you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+I didn't believe that, either, but I did not say so. Instead I said what
+I had determined to say, the same thing that I should have said before,
+in Mayberry and in Paris--if I could have mustered the courage and
+decency to say it.
+
+"Frances," I said, "there is something else, something which may have
+a bearing on your happiness, or may not, I don't know. The night before
+you left us, at Mayberry, Herbert Bayliss came to me and asked my
+permission to marry you, if you were willing. He thought you were my
+niece--then. I said that--I said that, although of course I had no
+shadow of authority over you, I did care for your happiness. I cared for
+that a great deal. If you loved him I should certainly--"
+
+"I see," she broke in, scornfully. "I see. He told you I was here. That
+is why you came. Did he send you to me to say--what you are trying to
+say?"
+
+"Oh, no, no! You are mistaken. You wrong him, Frances. He did not do
+that. He's not that sort. He's a good fellow, an honorable man. And he
+does care for you. I know it. He cares greatly. He would, I am sure,
+make you a good husband, and if you care for him, he would do his best
+to make you happy, I--"
+
+Again she interrupted. "One moment," she said, "Let me understand. Are
+you urging me to marry Herbert Bayliss?"
+
+"No. I am not urging you, of course. But if you do care for him--"
+
+"I do not."
+
+"Oh, you don't love him?"
+
+I wonder if there was relief in my tone. There should not have been, of
+course, but I fear there was.
+
+"No, I do not--love him. He is a gentleman and I like him well enough,
+but not in that way. Please don't say any more."
+
+"Very well. I only meant--Tell me this, if you will: Is there someone
+you do care for?"
+
+She did not answer. I had offended her again. She had cause to be
+offended. What business was it of mine?
+
+"I beg your pardon," I said, humbly. "I should not have asked that. I
+have no right to ask it. But if there is someone for whom you care in
+that way and he cares for you, it--"
+
+"Oh, don't, don't! He doesn't."
+
+"Then there is someone?"
+
+She was silent. I tried to speak like a man, like the man I was
+pretending to be.
+
+"I am glad to know it," I said. "If you care for him he must care for
+you. He cannot help it. I am sure you will be happy by and by. I can
+leave you here now with more--with less reluctance. I--"
+
+I could not trust myself to go on, although I tried to do so. She
+answered, without looking at me.
+
+"Yes," she said, "you can leave me now. I am safe and--and happy.
+Good-by."
+
+I took her hand.
+
+"Good-by," I said. "Forgive me for coming. I shall not trouble you
+again. This time I promise. You may not wish to write us, but we shall
+write you. And I--I hope you won't forget us."
+
+It was a lame conclusion and trite enough. She must have thought so.
+
+"I shall not forget you," she said, simply. "And I will try to write
+occasionally. Yes, I will try. Now please go. Good-by."
+
+I went, without looking back. I strode along the paths, scarcely
+noticing where I was going. As I neared the corner of the house I heard
+voices, loud voices. One of them, though it was not as loud as the
+others, was Hephzy's.
+
+"I knew it," she was saying, as I turned the corner. "I knew it. I knew
+there was some reason, some mean selfish reason why you were willin' to
+take that girl under your wing. I knew it wasn't kind-heartedness and
+relationship. I knew it."
+
+It was Solomon Cripps who answered. Mr. and Mrs. Cripps, arrayed in
+their Sabbath black and white, were standing by the door of their villa.
+Hephzy was standing before them. Her face was set and determined and she
+looked highly indignant. Mr. Cripps' face was red and frowning and he
+gesticulated with a red hand, which clasped a Testament. His English was
+by no means as pure and undefiled as when he had endeavored to persuade
+us into hiring "Ash Clump."
+
+"Look 'ere," he snarled. "Don't you talk to me like that. Don't you
+suppose I know what I'm doing. You Yankees may be clever at your tricks,
+but you can't trick me. Don't I know about the money you stole from 'er
+father? Don't I, eh? You can tell 'er your lies about it being stolen by
+someone else, but I can see a 'ole through a millstone. You can't trick
+me, I tell you. They're giving that girl a good 'ome and care and all
+that, but we're goin' to see she 'as 'er rights. You've filled 'er silly
+'ead with your stories. You've made 'er think you're all that's good
+and--"
+
+I was at hand by this time.
+
+"What's all this, Hephzy?" I asked.
+
+Before Hephzy could reply Mrs. Cripps spoke.
+
+"It's him!" she cried, seizing her husband's arm with one hand and
+pointing at me with the other. "It's him," she cried, venomously. "He's
+here, too."
+
+The sight of me appeared to upset what little self-control Mr. Cripps
+had left.
+
+"You!" he shouted, "I might 'ave known you were 'ere. You're the one
+that's done it. You're responsible. Filling her silly 'ead with lies
+about your goodness and all that. Making her fall in love with you
+and--"
+
+I sprang forward.
+
+"WHAT?" I cried. "What are you saying?"
+
+Hephzy was frightened.
+
+"Hosy," she cried, "don't look so. Don't! You frighten me."
+
+I scarcely heard her.
+
+"WHAT did you say?" I demanded, addressing Cripps, who shrank back,
+rather alarmed apparently. "Why, you scoundrel! What do you mean by
+saying that? Speak up! What do you mean by it?"
+
+If Mr. Cripps was alarmed his wife was not. She stepped forward and
+faced me defiantly.
+
+"He means just what he says," she declared, her shrill voice quivering
+with vindictive spite. "And you know what he means perfectly well. You
+ought to be ashamed of yourself, a man as old as you and she an innocent
+young girl! You've hypnotized her--that is what you've done, hypnotized
+her. All those ridiculous stories about her having no money she believes
+because you told them to her. She would believe the moon was made of
+green cheese if you said so. She's mad about you--the poor little fool!
+She won't hear a word against you--says you're the best, noblest man in
+the world! You! Why she won't even deny that she's in love with you; she
+was brazen enough to tell me she was proud of it. Oh.... Stop! Where are
+you going? Solomon, stop him!"
+
+Solomon did not stop me. I am very glad he didn't try. No one could have
+stopped me then. I was on my way back along the garden path, and if I
+did not keep to that path, but plunged ruthlessly through flower beds
+and shrubbery I did not care, nor do I care now.
+
+She was sitting on the rustic seat where I had left her. There were
+tears on her cheeks. She had heard me coming--a deaf person would have
+heard that--and she rose as I burst into view.
+
+"What is it?" she cried, in alarm. "Oh, what is it?"
+
+At the sight of her I paused. I had not meant to pause; I had intended
+to take her in my arms, to ask her if what I had just heard was true, to
+make her answer me. But now, as she stood there before me, so young, so
+girlish, so beautiful, the hopeless idiocy of the thing struck me with
+overwhelming force. It WAS idiocy. It couldn't be true.
+
+"What is it?" she repeated. "Oh, Kent! what is the matter? Why did you
+come back? What has happened?"
+
+I stepped forward. True or false I must know. I must know then and
+there. It was now or never for me.
+
+"Frances," I stammered, "I came back because--I--I have just
+heard--Frances, you told me you loved someone--not Bayliss, but someone
+else. Who is that someone?"
+
+She had been pale. My sudden and unexpected appearance had frightened
+her. Now as we faced each other, as I stood looking down into her face,
+I saw the color rise and spread over that face from throat to brow.
+
+"Who is it?" I repeated.
+
+She drew back.
+
+"I--I can't tell you," she faltered. "You mustn't ask me."
+
+"But I do ask. You must tell me, Frances--Frances, it isn't--it can't be
+that you love ME. Do you?"
+
+She drew back still further. If there had been a way of escape I think
+she would have taken it. But there was none. The thick shrubbery was
+behind her and I was between her and the path. And I would not let her
+pass.
+
+"Oh, Frances, do you?" I repeated. "I never meant to ask you. I never
+meant that you should know. I am so much older, and so--so unworthy--it
+has seemed so hopeless and ridiculous. But I love you, Frances, I have
+loved you from the very beginning, although at first I didn't realize
+it. I--If you do--if you can--I--I--"
+
+I faltered, hesitated, and stopped. She did not answer for a moment, a
+long, long moment. Then:
+
+"Mr. Knowles," she said, "you surprise me. I didn't suspect--I didn't
+think--"
+
+I sighed. I had had my answer. Of course it was idiotic. I should have
+known; I did know.
+
+"I see," I said. "I understand. Forgive me, please. I was a fool to even
+think of such a thing. I didn't think it. I didn't dare until--until
+just now. Then I was told--your cousin said--I might have known he
+didn't mean what he said. But he said it and--and--"
+
+"What did he say? Mr. Cripps, do you mean? What did he say?"
+
+"He said--he said you--you cared for me--in that way. Of course you
+don't--you can't. I know better. But for the moment I dared to hope. I
+was crazy, of course. Forgive me, Frances."
+
+She looked up and then down again.
+
+"There is nothing to forgive," she said.
+
+"Yes, there is. There is a great deal. An old--"
+
+"Hush! hush, please. Don't speak like that. I--I thank you. I--you
+mustn't suppose I am not grateful. I know you pity me. I know how
+generous you are. But your pity--"
+
+"It isn't pity. I should pity myself, if that were all. I love you
+Frances, and I shall always love you. I am not ashamed of it. I shall
+have that love to comfort me till I die. I am ashamed of having told
+you, of troubling you again, that is all."
+
+I was turning away, but I heard her step beside me and felt her hand
+upon my sleeve. I turned back again. She was looking me full in the face
+now and her eyes were shining.
+
+"What Mr. Cripps said was true," she said.
+
+I could not believe it. I did not believe it even then.
+
+"True!" I repeated. "No, no! You don't mean--"
+
+"I do mean it. I told him that I loved you."
+
+I don't know what more she would have said. I did not wait to hear. She
+was in my arms at last and all England was whirling about me like a top.
+
+"But you can't!" I found myself saying over and over. I must have
+said other things before, but I don't remember them. "You can't! it is
+impossible. You! marry an old fossil like me! Oh, Frances, are you sure?
+Are you sure?"
+
+"Yes, Kent," softly, "I am sure."
+
+"But you can't love me. You are sure that your--You have no reason to be
+grateful to me, but you have said you were, you know. You are sure you
+are not doing this because--"
+
+"I am sure. It is not because I am grateful."
+
+"But, my dear--think! Think what it means, I am--"
+
+"I know what you are," tenderly. "No one knows as well. But, Kent--Kent,
+are YOU sure? It isn't pity for me?"
+
+I think I convinced her that it was not pity. I know I tried. And I was
+still trying when the sound of steps and voices on the other side of
+the shrubbery caused us--or caused her; I doubt if I should have heard
+anything except her voice just then--to start and exclaim:
+
+"Someone is coming! Don't, dear, don't! Someone is coming."
+
+It was the Crippses who were coming, of course. Mr. and Mrs. Cripps and
+Hephzy. They would have come sooner, I learned afterwards, but Hephzy
+had prevented it.
+
+Solomon's red face was redder still when he saw us together. And Mrs.
+Cripps' mouth looked more like "a crack in a plate" than ever.
+
+"So!" she exclaimed. "Here's where you are! I thought as much. And
+you--you brazen creature!"
+
+I objected strongly to "brazen creature" as a term applied to my future
+wife. I intended saying so, but Mr. Cripps got ahead of me.
+
+"You get off my grounds," he blurted, waving his fist. "You get out of
+'ere now or I'll 'ave you put off. Do you 'ear?"
+
+I should have answered him as he deserved to be answered, but Frances
+would not let me.
+
+"Don't, Kent," she whispered. "Don't quarrel with him, please. He is
+going, Mr. Cripps. We are going--now."
+
+Mrs. Cripps fairly shrieked. "WE are going?" she repeated. "Do you mean
+you are going with him?"
+
+Hephzy joined in, but in a quite different tone.
+
+"You are goin'?" she said, joyfully. "Oh, Frances, are you comin' with
+us?"
+
+It was my turn now and I rejoiced in the prospect. An entire brigade of
+Crippses would not have daunted me then. I should have enjoyed defying
+them all.
+
+"Yes," said I, "she is coming with us, Hephzy. Mr. Cripps, will you be
+good enough to stand out of the way? Come, Frances."
+
+It is not worth while repeating what Mr. and Mrs. Cripps said. They said
+a good deal, threatened all sorts of things, lawsuits among the rest.
+Hephzy fired the last guns for our side.
+
+"Yes, yes," she retorted, impatiently. "I know you're goin' to sue. Go
+ahead and sue and prosecute yourselves to death, if you want to. The
+lawyers'll get their fees out of you, and that's some comfort--though
+I shouldn't wonder if THEY had to sue to get even that. And I tell you
+this: If you don't send Little Frank's--Miss Morley's trunks to Mayberry
+inside of two days we'll come and get 'em and we'll come with the
+sheriff and the police."
+
+Mrs. Cripps, standing by the gate, fell back upon her last line of
+intrenchments, the line of piety.
+
+"And to think," she declared, with upturned eyes, "that this is the 'oly
+Sabbath! Never mind, Solomon. The Lord will punish 'em. I shall pray to
+Him not to curse them too hard."
+
+Hephzy's retort was to the point.
+
+"I wouldn't," she said. "If I had been doin' what you two have been up
+to, pretendin' to care for a young girl and offerin' to give her a home,
+and all the time doin' it just because I thought I could squeeze money
+out of her, I shouldn't trouble the Lord much. I wouldn't take the risk
+of callin' His attention to me."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+In Which the Pilgrimage Ends Where It Began
+
+
+We did not go to Mayberry that day. We went to London and to the hotel;
+not Bancroft's, but the hotel where Hephzy and I had stayed the previous
+night. It was Frances' wish that we should not go to Bancroft's.
+
+"I don't think that I could go there, Kent," she whispered to me, on the
+train. "Mr. and Mrs Jameson were very kind, and I liked them so much,
+but--but they would ask questions; they wouldn't understand. It would be
+hard to make them understand. Don't you see, Kent?"
+
+I saw perfectly. Considering that the Jamesons believed Miss Morley to
+be my niece, it would indeed be hard to make them understand. I was not
+inclined to try. I had had quite enough of the uncle and niece business.
+
+So we went to the other hotel and if the clerk was surprised to see us
+again so soon he said nothing about it. Perhaps he was not surprised. It
+must take a good deal to surprise a hotel clerk.
+
+On the train, in our compartment--a first-class compartment, you may be
+sure; I would have hired the whole train if it had been necessary; there
+was nothing too good or too expensive for us that afternoon--on the
+train, discussing the ride to London, Hephzy did most of the talking.
+I was too happy to talk much and Frances, sitting in her corner and
+pretending to look out of the window, was silent also. I should have
+been fearful that she was not happy, that she was already repenting her
+rashness in promising to marry the Bayport "quahaug," but occasionally
+she looked at me, and, whenever she did, the wireless message our eyes
+exchanged, sent that quahaug aloft on a flight through paradise. A
+flying clam is an unusual specimen, I admit, but no other quahaug in
+this wide, wide world had an excuse like mine for developing wings.
+
+Hephzy did not appear to notice our silence. She chatted and laughed
+continuously. We had not told her our secret--the great secret--and if
+she suspected it she kept her suspicions to herself. Her chatter was a
+curious mixture: triumph over the detached Crippses; joy because, after
+all, "Little Frank" had consented to come with us, to live with us
+again; and triumph over me because her dreams and presentiments had come
+true.
+
+"I told you, Hosy," she kept saying. "I told you! I said it would all
+come out in the end. He wouldn't believe it, Frances. He said I was an
+old lunatic and--"
+
+"I didn't say anything of the kind," I broke in.
+
+"You said what amounted to that and I don't know as I blame you. But
+I knew--I just KNEW he and I had been 'sent' on this course and that
+we--all three of us--would make the right port in the end. And we
+have--we have, haven't we, Frances?"
+
+"Yes," said Frances, simply. "We have, Auntie--"
+
+"There! do you hear that, Hosy? Isn't it good to hear her call
+me 'Auntie' again! Now I'm satisfied; or"--with a momentary
+hesitation--"pretty nearly satisfied, anyway."
+
+"Oh, then you're not quite satisfied, after all," I observed. "What more
+do you want?"
+
+"I want just one thing more; just one, that's all."
+
+I believed I know what that one thing was, but I asked her. She shot a
+look at me, a look of indignant meaning.
+
+"Never mind," she said, decidedly. "That's my affair. Oh, Ho!" with a
+reminiscent chuckle, "how that Cripps woman did glare at me when I said
+'twas pretty risky her callin' the Almighty's attention to their doin's.
+I hope it did her good. Maybe she'll think of it next time she goes to
+chapel. But I suppose she won't. All such folks care for is money. They
+wouldn't be so anxious to get to Heaven if they hadn't read about the
+golden streets."
+
+That evening, at the hotel, Frances told us her story, the story
+of which we had guessed a good deal, but of which she had told so
+little--how, after her father's death, she had gone to live with the
+Crippses because, as she thought, they wished her to do so from motives
+of generosity and kindness.
+
+"They are not really relatives of mine," she said. "I am glad of that.
+Mrs. Cripps married a cousin of my father's; he died and then she
+married Mr. Cripps. After Father's death they wrote me a very kind
+letter, or I thought it kind at the time. They said all sorts of kindly
+things, they offered me a home, they said I should be like their own
+daughter. So, having nowhere else to go, I went to them. I lived there
+nearly two years. Oh, what a life it was! They are very churchly people,
+they call themselves religious, but I don't. They pretend to be--perhaps
+they think they are--good, very good. But they aren't--they aren't. They
+are hard and cruel. Mr. Cripps owns several tenements where poor people
+live. I have heard things from those people that--Oh, I can't tell you!
+I ran away because I had learned what they really were."
+
+Hephzy nodded. "What I can't understand," she said, "is why they offered
+you a home in the first place. It was because they thought you had money
+comin' to you, that's plain enough now; but how did they know?"
+
+Frances colored. "I'm afraid--I'm afraid Father must have written them,"
+she said. "He needed money very much in his later years and he may have
+written them asking--asking for loans and offering my 'inheritance' as
+security. I think now that that was it. But I did not think so then.
+And--and, Oh, Auntie, you mustn't think too harshly of Father. He was
+very good to me, he really was. And DON'T you think he believed--he had
+made himself believe--that there was money of his there in America? I
+can't believe he--he would lie to me."
+
+"Of course he didn't lie," said Hephzy, promptly. I could have hugged
+her for saying it. "He was sick and--and sort of out of his head, poor
+man, and I don't doubt he made himself believe all sorts of things. Of
+course he didn't lie--to his own daughter. But why," she added, quickly,
+before Frances could ask another question, "did you go back to those
+precious Cripps critters after you left Paris?"
+
+Frances looked at me. "I thought it would please you," she said, simply.
+"I knew you didn't want me to sing in public. Kent had said he would be
+happier if he knew I had given up that life and was among friends. And
+they--they had called themselves my friends. When I went back to them
+they welcomed me. Mr. Cripps called me his 'prodigal daughter,' and
+Mrs. Cripps prayed over me. It wasn't until I told them I had no
+'inheritance,' except one of debt, that they began to show me what they
+really were. They wouldn't believe it. They said you were trying to
+defraud me. It was dreadful. I--I think I should have run away again
+if--if you had not come."
+
+"Well, we did come," said Hephzy, cheerfully, "and I thank the good Lord
+for it. Now we won't talk any more about THAT."
+
+She left us alone soon afterward, going to my room--we were in hers,
+hers and Frances'--to unpack my trunk once more. She wouldn't hear of my
+unpacking it. When she was gone Frances turned to me.
+
+"You--you haven't told her," she faltered.
+
+"No," said I, "not yet. I wanted to speak with you first. I can't
+believe it is true. Or, if it is, that it is right. Oh, my dear, do you
+realize what you are doing? I am--I am ever so much older than you. I am
+not worthy of you. You could have made a so much better marriage."
+
+She looked at me. She was smiling, but there was a tiny wrinkle between
+her brows.
+
+"Meaning," she said, "I suppose, that I might have married Doctor
+Bayliss. I might perhaps marry him even yet, if I wished. I--I think he
+would have me, if I threw myself at his head."
+
+"Yes," I admitted, grudgingly. "Yes, he loves you, Frances."
+
+"Kent, when we were there in Mayberry it seemed to me that my aunt and
+you were almost anxious that I should marry him. It seemed to me that
+you took every opportunity to throw me in his way; you refused my
+invitations for golf and tennis and suggested that I play with him
+instead. It used to annoy me. I resented it. I thought you were eager to
+get rid of me. I did not know then the truth about Father and--and the
+money. And I thought you hoped I might marry him and--and not trouble
+you any more. But I think I understand now. You--you did not care for me
+so much then. Was that it?"
+
+I shook my head. "Care for you!" I repeated. "I cared for you so much
+that I did not dare trust myself with you. I did not dare to think of
+you, and yet I could think of no one else. I know now that I fell in
+love with you when I first met you at that horrible Briggs woman's
+lodging-house. Don't you see? That was the very reason why. Don't you
+see?"
+
+"No, I'm afraid I don't quite see. If you cared for me like that how
+could you be willing for me to marry him? That is what puzzles me. I
+don't understand it."
+
+"It was because I did care for you. It was because I cared so much, I
+wanted you to be happy. I never dreamed that you could care for an old,
+staid, broken-down bookworm like me. It wasn't thinkable. I can scarcely
+think it now. Oh, Frances, are you SURE you are not making a mistake?
+Are you sure it isn't gratitude which makes you--"
+
+She rose from her chair and came to me. Her eyes were wet, but there was
+a light in them like the sunlight behind a summer shower.
+
+"Don't, please don't!" she begged. "And caring for me like that you
+could still come to me as you did this morning and suggest my marrying
+him."
+
+"Yes, yes, I came because--because I knew he loved you and I
+thought that you might not know it. And if you did know it I
+thought--perhaps--you might be happier and--"
+
+I faltered and stopped. She was standing beside me, looking up into my
+face.
+
+"I did know it," she said. "He told me, there in Paris. And I told
+him--"
+
+"You told him--?"
+
+"I told him that I liked him; I do, I do; he is a good man. But I told
+him--" she rose on tiptoe and kissed me--"I told him that I loved you,
+dear. See! here is the pin you gave me. It is the one thing I could
+not leave behind when I ran away from Mayberry. I meant to keep that
+always--and I always shall."
+
+After a time we remembered Hephzy. It would be more truthful to say that
+Frances remembered her. I had forgotten Hephzy altogether, I am ashamed
+to say.
+
+"Kent," she said; "don't you think we should tell Auntie now? She will
+be pleased, I hope."
+
+"Pleased! She will be--I can't think of a word to describe it. She loves
+you, too, dear."
+
+"I know. I hope she will love me more now. She worships you, Kent."
+
+"I am afraid she does. She doesn't realize what a tinsel god I am. And
+I fear you don't either. I am not a great man. I am not even a famous
+author. I--Are you SURE, Frances?"
+
+She laughed lightly. "Kent," she whispered, "what was it Doctor Bayliss
+called you when you offered to promise not to follow me to Leatherhead?"
+
+I had told her the whole story of my last interview with Bayliss at the
+Continental.
+
+"He called me a silly ass," I answered promptly. "I don't care."
+
+"Neither do I; but don't you think you are one, just a little bit of
+one, in some things? You mustn't ask me if I am sure again. Come! we
+will go to Auntie."
+
+Hephzy had finished unpacking my trunk and was standing by the closet
+door, shaking the wrinkles out of my dinner coat. She heard us enter and
+turned.
+
+"I never saw clothes in such a mess in my life," she announced. "And I
+packed this trunk, too. I guess the trembles in my head must have got
+into my fingers when I did it. I--"
+
+She stopped at the beginning of the sentence. I had taken Frances by the
+hand and led her up to where she was standing. Hephzy said nothing, she
+stood there and stared at us, but the coat fell to the floor.
+
+"Hephzy," said I, "I've come to make an apology. I believe in dreams
+and presentiments and Spiritualism and all the rest of it now. You were
+right. Our pilgrimage has ended just as you declared it would. I know
+now that we were 'sent' upon it. Frances has said--"
+
+Hephzy didn't wait to hear any more. She threw her arms about
+Frances' neck, then about mine, hugged us both, and then, to my utter
+astonishment, sat down upon the closed trunk and burst into tears. When
+we tried to comfort her she waved us away.
+
+"Don't touch me," she commanded. "Don't say anything to me. Just let me
+be. I've done all kinds of loony things in my life and this attack
+is just natural, that's all. I--I'll get over it in a minute. There!"
+rising and dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief, "I'm over it now.
+Hosy Knowles, I've cried about a million times since--since that awful
+mornin' in Mayberry. You didn't know it, but I have. I'm through now.
+I'm never goin' to cry any more. I'm goin' to laugh! I'm going to sing!
+I declare if you don't grab me and hold me down I shall dance! Oh, Oh,
+OH! I'm so glad! I'm so glad!"
+
+We sat up until the early morning hours, talking and planning. We were
+to go back to America as soon as we could secure passage; upon that we
+all agreed in the end. I was the only one who hesitated. I had a vague
+feeling of uneasiness, a dread, that Frances might not wish it, that her
+saying she would love to go was merely to please me. I remembered how
+she had hated America and Americans, or professed to hate them, in the
+days of our first acquaintanceship. I thought of quiet, sleepy, humdrum
+old Bayport and the fear that she might be disappointed when she saw it,
+that she might be lonely and unhappy there, was strong. So when Hephzy
+talked of our going straight to the steamship offices next day I
+demurred. I suggested a Continental trip, to Switzerland, to the
+Mediterranean--anywhere. I forgot that my means were limited, that I had
+been idle for longer than I should have been, and that I absolutely must
+work soon. I forgot everything, and talked, as Hephzy said afterward,
+"regardless, like a whole kerosene oil company."
+
+But, to my surprise, it was Frances herself who was most insistent upon
+our going to America. She wanted to go, she said. Of course she did
+not mean to be selfish, and if Auntie and I really wished to go to the
+Continent or remain in England she would be quite content.
+
+"But, Oh Kent," she said, "if you are suggesting all this merely because
+you think I will like it, please don't. I have lived in France and I
+have been very unhappy there. I have been happier here in England, but
+I have been unhappy here, too. I have no friends here now. I have no
+friends anywhere except you. I know you both want to see your home
+again--you must. And--and your home will be mine now."
+
+So we decided to sail for America, and that without delay. And the
+next morning, before breakfast, Hephzy came to my room with another
+suggestion.
+
+"Hosy," she said, "I've been thinkin'. All our things, or most of 'em,
+are at Mayberry. Somebody's got to go there, of course, to pack up and
+make arrangements for our leavin'. She--Frances, I mean--would go, too,
+if we asked her, I suppose likely; she'd do anything you asked, now. But
+it would be awful hard for her. She'd meet all the people she used to
+know there and they wouldn't understand and 'twould be hard to explain.
+The Baylisses know the real truth, but the rest of 'em don't. You'd have
+all that niece and uncle mess again, and I don't suppose you want any
+more of THAT."
+
+"I should say I didn't!" I exclaimed, fervently.
+
+"Yes, that's the way it seemed to me. So she hadn't ought to go
+to Mayberry. And we can't leave her here alone in London. She'd be
+lonesome, for one thing, and those everlastin' Crippses might find out
+where she was, for another. It may be that that Solomon and his wife
+will let her go and say nothin', but I doubt it. So long as they think
+she's got a cent comin' to her they'll pester her in every way they can,
+I believe. That woman's nose can smell money as far as a cat can smell
+fish. No, we can't leave Little Frank here alone. Of course, I might
+stay with her and you might go by yourself, but--"
+
+This way out of the difficulty had occurred to me; so when she seemed to
+hesitate, I asked: "But what?"
+
+"But it won't be very pleasant for you in Mayberry. You'd have
+considerable explainin' to do. And, more'n that, Hosy, there's all that
+packin' up to do and I've seen you try to pack a trunk too often before.
+You're just as likely to pack a flat-iron on top of a lookin' glass as
+to do the other thing. No, I'm the one to go to Mayberry. I must go by
+myself and you must stay here in London with her."
+
+"I can't do that, Hephzy," I said. "How could I?"
+
+"You couldn't, as things are, of course. But if they were different.
+If she was your wife you could. And then if that Solomon thing came you
+could--"
+
+I interrupted. "My wife!" I repeated. "Hephzy, what are you talking
+about? Do you mean--"
+
+"I mean that you and she might be married right off, to-day perhaps.
+Then everything would be all right."
+
+I stared at her.
+
+"But--but she wouldn't consent," I stammered. "It is impossible. She
+wouldn't think of such a thing."
+
+Hephzy nodded. "Oh, yes, she would," she said. "She is thinkin' of it
+now. She and I have just had a long talk. She's a sensible girl, Hosy,
+and she listened to reason. If she was sure that you wanted to marry her
+so soon she--"
+
+"Wanted to!" I cried. "Hephzy!"
+
+Hephzy nodded again. "Then that's settled," she said. "It's a big
+disappointment to me, I give in. I'd set my heart on your bein' married
+at our meetin'-house in Bayport, with Mr. Partridge to do the marryin',
+and a weddin' reception at our house and--and everything. But I guess
+this is the best, and I know it's the most sensible. But, Oh Hosy,
+there's one thing I can't give up. I want you to be married at the
+American Ambassador's or somewhere like it and by an American minister.
+I sha'n't feel safe if it's done anywhere else and by a foreigner, even
+if he's English, which don't seem foreign to me at all any more.
+No, he's got to be an American and--and, Oh, Hosy! DO try to get a
+Methodist."
+
+I couldn't get a Methodist, but by consulting the hotel register I found
+an American clergyman, a Congregationalist, who was a fine fellow and
+consented to perform the ceremony. And, if we were not married at
+the American Embassy, we were at the rooms of the London consul,
+whom Matthews, at the Camford Street office, knew and who was another
+splendid chap and glad to oblige a fellow-countryman, particularly after
+seeing the lady he was to marry.
+
+The consul and his wife and Hephzy were our only witnesses. Frances'
+wedding gown was not new, but it was very becoming--the consul's wife
+said so, and she should know. Also she said she had never seen a
+sweeter or more beautiful bride. No one said anything concerning the
+bridegroom's appearance, but he did not care. It was a drizzly, foggy
+day, but that made no difference. A Kansas cyclone and a Bayport
+no'theaster combined could not have cast a damper on that day.
+
+When it was over, Hephzy, who had been heroically struggling to keep her
+vow not to shed another tear during our pilgrimage, hugged us both.
+
+"I--I--" she faltered, "I--I can't say it, but you know how I feel.
+There's nothin' I sha'n't believe after this. I used to believe I'd
+never travel, but I have. And there in Mayberry I believed I'd never
+be happy again, but I am. HAPPY! hap--hap--Oh dear! WHAT a fool I am!
+I ca--I can't help it! I expect I look like the most miserable thing on
+earth, but that's because I AM so happy. God bless you both! Now--now
+don't so much as look at me for a few minutes."
+
+That afternoon she left for Mayberry to do the "packing up" and my wife
+and I were alone--and together.
+
+I saw London again during the next few days. We rode on the tops of
+busses, we visited Kew Gardens and Hampton Court and Windsor. We took
+long trips up and down the Thames on the little steamers. Frances called
+them our honeymoon trips. The time flew by. Then I received a note
+from Hephzy that the "packing up" was finished at last and that she was
+returning to London.
+
+It was raining hard, the morning of her arrival, and I went alone to
+meet her at the railway station. I was early there and, as I was walking
+up, awaiting the train, I heard someone speak my name. I turned
+and there, immaculate, serene and debonair as ever, was A. Carleton
+Heathcroft.
+
+"Ah, Knowles," he said, cheerfully. "Thought it was you. Haven't seen
+you of late. Missed you at Burgleston, on the course. How are you?"
+
+I told him I was quite well, and inquired concerning his own health.
+
+"Topping," he replied. "Rotten weather, eh--what? And how's Miss--Oh,
+dear me, always forget the name! The eccentric aunt who is so intensely
+patriotic and American--How is she?"
+
+"She is well, too," I answered.
+
+"Couldn't think of her being ill, somehow," he observed. "And where have
+you been, may I ask?"
+
+I said I had been on the Continent for a short stay.
+
+"Oh, yes! I remember now. Someone said you had gone. That reminds me:
+Did you go to Paris? Did you see the girl who sang at the Abbey--the one
+I told you of, who looked so like that pretty niece of yours? Hope you
+did. The resemblance was quite extraordinary. Did you see her?"
+
+I dodged the question. I asked him what he had been doing since the day
+of the golf tournament.
+
+"I--Oh, by Jove!" he exclaimed, "now I am going to surprise you. I have
+been getting ready to take the fatal step. I'm going to be married."
+
+"Married!" I repeated. "Really? The--the Warwickshire young lady, I
+presume."
+
+"Yes. How did you know of her?"
+
+"Your aunt--Lady Carey--mentioned that your--your affections were
+somewhat engaged in that quarter."
+
+"Did she? Really! Yes, she would mention it, I suppose. She mentions it
+to everybody; it's a sort of hobby of hers, like my humble self, and the
+roses. She has been more insistent of late and at last I consented to
+oblige her. Do you know, Knowles, I think she was rather fearful that I
+might be smitten by your Miss Morley. Shared your fears, eh?"
+
+I smiled, but I said nothing. A train which I believed to be the one
+upon which Hephzy was expected, was drawing into the station.
+
+"A remarkably attractive girl, your niece," he went on. "Have you heard
+from her?"
+
+"Yes," I said, absently. "I must say good-by, Heathcroft. That is the
+train I have been waiting for."
+
+"Oh, is it. Then, au revoir, Knowles. By the way, kindly remember me to
+your niece when you see her, will you."
+
+"I will. But--" I could not resist the temptation; "but she isn't my
+niece," I said.
+
+"Oh, I say! What? Not your niece? What is she then?"
+
+"She is my wife--now," I said. "Good-by, Mr. Heathcroft."
+
+I hurried away before he could do more than gasp. I think I shook even
+his serene composure at last.
+
+I told Hephzy about it as we rode to the hotel in the cab.
+
+"It was silly, I suppose," I said. "I told him on the spur of the
+moment. I imagine all Mayberry, not to mention Burgleston Bogs, will
+have something to talk about now. They expect almost anything of
+Americans, or some of them do, but the marriage of an uncle and niece
+ought to be a surprise, I should think."
+
+Hephzy laughed. "The Baylisses will explain," she said. "I told the old
+doctor and his wife all about it. They were very much pleased, that was
+plain enough. They knew she wasn't your niece and they'll tell the other
+folks. That'll be all right, Hosy. Yes, Doctor and Mrs. Bayliss were
+tickled almost to death. It stops all their worry about their son and
+Frances, of course. He is in Switzerland now, poor chap. They'll write
+him and he'll come home again by and by where he ought to be. And he'll
+forget by and by, too. He's only a boy and he'll forget. So THAT'S all
+right.
+
+"Everybody sent their love to you," she went on. "The curates and the
+Samsons and everybody. Mr. Cole and his wife are comin' back next week
+and the servants'll take care of the rectory till they come. Everybody
+was so glad to see me, and they're goin' to write and everything. I
+declare! I felt real bad to leave 'em. They're SUCH nice people, these
+English folks. Aren't they, Hosy."
+
+They were and are. I hope that some day I may have, in my own country,
+the opportunity to repay a little of the hospitality and kindness that
+my Mayberry friends bestowed on me in theirs.
+
+We sailed for home two days later. A pleasant voyage it was, on a good
+ship and with agreeable fellow-passengers. And, at last, one bright,
+cloudless morning, a stiff breeze blowing and the green and white
+waves leaping and tossing in the sunlight, we saw ahead of us a little
+speck--the South Shoal lightship. Everyone crowded to the rail, of
+course. Hephzy sighed, a sigh of pure happiness.
+
+"Nantucket!" she said, reading the big letters on the side of the little
+vessel. "Nantucket! Don't that sound like home, Hosy! Nantucket and
+Cape Cod are next-door neighbors, as you might say! My! the air seems
+different already. I believe I can almost smell the Bayport flats. Do
+you know what I am goin' to do as soon as I get into my kitchen? After
+I've seen some of my neighbors and the cat and the hens, of course. I'm
+going to make a clam chowder. I've been just dyin' for a clam chowder
+ever since we left England."
+
+And the next morning we landed at New York. Jim Campbell was at the
+wharf to meet us. His handshake was a welcome home which was good to
+feel. He welcomed Hephzy just as heartily. But I saw him looking
+at Frances with curiosity and I flattered myself, admiration, and I
+chuckled as I thought of the surprise which I was about to give him.
+It would be a surprise, sure enough. I had written him nothing of the
+recent wonderful happenings in Paris and in London, and I had sworn
+Matthews to secrecy likewise. No, he did not know, he did not suspect,
+and I gloried in the opportunity which was mine.
+
+"Jim," I said, "there is one member of our party whom you have not met.
+Frances, you have heard me speak of Mr. Campbell very often. Here he is.
+Jim, I have the pleasure of presenting you to Mrs. Knowles, my wife."
+
+Jim stood the shock remarkably well, considering. He gave me one glance,
+a glance which expressed a portion of his feelings, and then he and
+Frances shook hands.
+
+"Mrs. Knowles," he said, "I--you'll excuse my apparent lack of
+intellect, but--but this husband of yours has--I've known him a good
+while and I thought I had lost all capacity for surprise at anything
+he might do, but--but I hadn't. I--I--Please don't mind me; I'm really
+quite sane at times. I am very, very glad. May we shake hands again?"
+
+He insisted upon our breakfasting with him at a near-by hotel. When he
+and I were alone together he seized my arm.
+
+"Confound you!" he exclaimed. "You old chump! What do you mean by
+springing this thing on me without a word of warning? I never was as
+nearly knocked out in my life. What do you mean by it?"
+
+I laughed. "It is all part of your prescription," I said. "You told me I
+should marry, you know. Do you approve of my selection?"
+
+"Approve of it! Why, man, she's--she's wonderful. Approve of YOUR
+selection! How about hers? You durned quahaug! How did you do it?"
+
+I gave him a condensed and hurried resume of the whole story. He did
+not interrupt once--a perfectly amazing feat for him--and when I had
+finished he shook his head.
+
+"It's no use," he said. "I'm too good for the business I am in. I am
+wasting my talents. _I_ sent you over there. _I_ told you to go. _I_
+prescribed travel and a wife and all the rest. _I_ did it. I'm going to
+quit the publishing game. I'm going to set up as a specialist, a brain
+specialist, for clams. And I'll use your face as a testimonial: 'Kent
+Knowles, Quahaug. Before and After Taking.' Man, you look ten years
+younger than you did when you went away."
+
+"You must not take all the credit," I told him. "You forget Hephzy and
+her dreams, the dream she told us about that day at Bayport. That dream
+has come true; do you realize it?"
+
+He nodded. "I admit it," he said. "She is a better specialist than I.
+I shall have to take her into partnership. 'Campbell and Cahoon.
+Prescribers and Predictors. Authors Made Human.' I'll speak to her about
+it."
+
+As he said good-by to us at the Grand Central Station he asked me
+another question.
+
+"Kent," he whispered, "what are you going to do now? What are you going
+to do with her? Are you and she going back to Bayport to be Mr. and Mrs.
+Quahaug? Is that your idea?"
+
+I shook my head. "We're going back to Bayport," I said, "but how long
+we shall stay there I don't know. One thing you may be sure of, Jim; I
+shall be a quahaug no more."
+
+He nodded. "I think you're right," he declared. "She'll see to that, or
+I miss my guess. No, my boy, your quahaug days are over. There's nothing
+of the shellfish about her; she's a live woman, as well as a mighty
+pretty one, and she cares enough about you to keep you awake and in the
+game. I congratulate you, Kent, and I'm almost as happy as you are. Also
+I shall play the optimist at our next directors' meeting; I see signs
+of a boom in the literature factory. Go to it, my son. You have my
+blessing."
+
+We took the one o'clock train for Boston, remained there over night, and
+left on the early morning "accommodation"--so called, I think, because
+it accommodates the train hands--for Cape Cod. As we neared Buzzard's
+Bay my spirits, which had been at topnotch, began to sink. When the sand
+dunes of Barnstable harbor hove in sight they sank lower and lower.
+It was October, the summer people, most of them, had gone, the station
+platforms were almost deserted, the more pretentious cottages were
+closed. The Cape looked bare and brown and wind-swept. I thought of
+the English fields and hedges, of the verdant beauty of the Mayberry
+pastures. What SORT of a place would she think this, the home to which I
+was bringing her?
+
+She had been very much excited and very much interested. New York,
+with its sky-scrapers and trolleys, its electric signs and clean white
+buildings, the latter so different from the grimy, gray dwellings and
+shops of London, had been a wonderland to her. She had liked the Pullman
+and the dining-car and the Boston hotel. But this, this was different.
+How would she like sleepy, old Bayport and the people of Bayport.
+
+Well, I should soon know. Even the morning "accommodation" reaches
+Bayport some time or other. We were the only passengers to alight at the
+station, and Elmer Snow, the station agent, and Gabe Lumley, who drives
+the depot wagon, were the only ones to welcome us. Their welcome was
+hearty enough, I admit. Gabe would have asked a hundred questions if I
+had answered the first of the hundred, but he seemed strangely reluctant
+to answer those I asked him.
+
+Bayport was gettin' along first-rate, he told me. Tad Simpson's youngest
+child had diphtheria, but was sittin' up now and the fish weirs had
+caught consider'ble mackerel that summer. So much he was willing to say,
+but he said little more. I asked how the house and garden were looking
+and he cal'lated they were all right. Pumping Gabe Lumley was a new
+experience for me. Ordinarily he doesn't need pumping. I could not
+understand it. I saw Hephzy and he in consultation on the station
+platform and I wondered if she had been able to get more news than I.
+
+We rattled along the main road, up the hill by the Whittaker place--I
+looked eagerly for a glimpse of Captain Cy himself, but I didn't see
+him--and on until we reached our gate. Frances said very little during
+our progress through the village. I did not dare speak to her; I was
+afraid of asking her how she liked what she had seen of Bayport. And
+Hephzy, too, was silent, although she kept her head out of the window
+most of the time.
+
+But when the depot wagon entered the big gate and stopped before the
+side door I felt that I must say something. I must not appear fearful or
+uneasy.
+
+"Here we are!" I cried, springing out and helping her and Hephzy to
+alight. "Here we are at last. This is home, dear."
+
+And then the door opened and I saw that the dining-room was filled
+with people, people whom I had known all my life. Mr. Partridge, the
+minister, was there, and his wife, and Captain Whittaker and his wife,
+and the Dimicks and the Salterses and more. Before I could recover from
+my surprise Mr. Partridge stepped forward.
+
+"Mr. Knowles," he said, "on this happy occasion it is our privilege
+to--"
+
+But Captain Cy interrupted him.
+
+"Good Lord!" he exclaimed, "don't make a speech to him now, Mr.
+Partridge. Welcome home, Kent! We're all mighty glad to see you back
+again safe and sound. And Hephzy, too. By the big dipper, Hephzy, the
+sight of you is good for sore eyes! And I suppose this is your wife,
+Kent. Well, we--Hey! I might have known Phoebe would get ahead of me."
+
+For Mrs. Whittaker and Frances were shaking hands. Others were
+crowding forward to do so. And the table was set and there were flowers
+everywhere and, in the background, was Susanna Wixon, grinning from ear
+to ear, with the cat--our cat--who seemed the least happy of the party,
+in her arms.
+
+Hephzy had written Mrs. Whittaker from London, telling her of my
+marriage; she had telegraphed from New York the day before, announcing
+the hour of our return. And this was the result.
+
+When it was all over and they had gone--they would not remain for
+dinner, although we begged them to do so--when they had gone and Hephzy
+had fled to the yard to inspect the hens, I turned to my wife.
+
+"Frances," I said, "this is home. Here is where Hephzy and I have lived
+for so long. I--I hope you may be happy here. It is a rather crude
+place, but--"
+
+She came to me and put her arms about my neck.
+
+"Don't, my dear, don't!" she said. "It is beautiful. It is home.
+And--and you know I have never had a home, a real home before."
+
+"Then you like it?" I cried. "You really like it? It is so different
+from England. The people--"
+
+"They are dear, kind people. And they like you and respect you, Kent.
+How could you say they didn't! I know I shall love them all."
+
+I made a dash for the kitchen. "Hephzy!" I shouted. "Hephzy! She does
+like it. She likes Bayport and the people and everything."
+
+Hephzy was just entering at the back door. She did not seem in the least
+surprised.
+
+"Of course she likes it," she said, with decision. "How could anybody
+help likin' Bayport?"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+Which Treats of Quahaugs in General
+
+
+Asaph Tidditt helped me to begin this long chronicle of a quahaug's
+pilgrimage. Perhaps it is fitting that Asaph should end it. He dropped
+in for a call the other afternoon and, as I had finished my day's
+"stunt" at the desk, I assisted in entertaining him. Frances was in the
+sitting-room also and Hephzy joined us soon afterward. Mr. Tidditt had
+stopped at the post-office on his way down and he had the Boston morning
+paper in his hand. Of course he was filled to the brim with war news. We
+discuss little else in Bayport now; even the new baby at the parsonage
+has to play second fiddle.
+
+"My godfreys!" exclaimed Asaph, as soon as he sat down in the rocking
+chair and put his cap on the floor beneath it. "My godfreys, but they're
+havin' awful times over across, now ain't they. Killin' and fightin' and
+battlin' and slaughterin'! It don't seem human to me somehow."
+
+"It is human, I'm afraid," I said, with a sigh. "Altogether too human.
+We're a poor lot, we, humans, after all. We pride ourselves on our
+civilization, but after all, it takes very little to send us back to
+savagery."
+
+"That's so," said Asaph, with conviction. "That's true about everybody
+but us folks in the United States. We are awful fortunate, we are. We
+ain't savages. We was born in a free country, and we've been brought up
+right, I declare! I beg your pardon, Mrs. Knowles; I forgot you wasn't
+born in Bayport."
+
+Frances smiled. "No apology is needed, Mr. Tidditt," she said. "I
+confess to having been born a--savage."
+
+"But you're all right now," said Asaph, hastily, trying to cover his
+slip. "You're all right now. You're just as American as the rest of us.
+Kent, suppose this war in Europe is goin' to hurt your trade any? It's
+goin' to hurt a good many folks's. They tell me groceries and such like
+is goin' way up. Lucky we've got fish and clams to depend on. Clams
+and quahaugs'll keep us from starvin' for a spell. Oh," with a chuckle,
+"speakin' of quahaugs reminds me. Did you know they used to call your
+husband a quahaug, Mrs. Knowles? That's what they used to call him round
+here--'The Quahaug.' They called him that 'count of his keepin' inside
+his shell all the time and not mixin' with folks, not toadyin' up to the
+summer crowd and all. I always respected him for it. _I_ don't toady to
+nobody neither."
+
+Hephzy had come in by this time and now she took a part in the
+conversation.
+
+"They don't call him 'The Quahaug' any more," she declared, indignantly.
+"He's been out of his shell more and seen more than most of the folks in
+this town."
+
+"I know it; I know it. And he's kept goin' ever since. Runnin' to
+New York, he and you," with a nod toward Frances, "and travelin' to
+Washin'ton and Niagary Falls and all. Wonder to me how he does as much
+writin' as he does. That last book of yours is sellin' first-rate, they
+tell me, Kent."
+
+He referred to the novel I began in Mayberry. I have rewritten and
+finished it since, and it has had a surprising sale. The critics seem to
+think I have achieved my first genuine success.
+
+"What are you writin' now?" asked Asaph. "More of them yarns about
+pirates and such? Land sakes! when I go by this house nights and see a
+light in your library window there, Kent, and know you're pluggin' along
+amongst all them adventures, I wonder how you can stand it. 'Twould give
+me the shivers. Godfreys! the last time I read one of them yarns--that
+about the 'Black Brig' 'twas--I hardly dast to go to bed. And I DIDN'T
+dast to put out the light. I see a pirate in every corner, grittin' his
+teeth. Writin' another of that kind, are you?"
+
+"No," I said; "this one is quite different. You will have no trouble in
+sleeping over this one, Ase."
+
+"That's a comfort. Got a little Bayport in it? Seems to me you ought to
+put a little Bayport in, for a change."
+
+I smiled. "There is a little in this," I answered. "A little at the
+beginning, and, perhaps, at the end."
+
+"You don't say! You ain't got me in it, have you? I'd--I'd look kind of
+funny in a book, wouldn't I?"
+
+I laughed, but I did not answer.
+
+"Not that I ain't seen things in my life," went on Asaph, hopefully. "A
+man can't be town clerk in a live town like this and not see things. But
+I hope you won't put any more foreigners in. This we're readin' now,"
+rapping the newspaper with his knuckles, "gives us all we want to know
+about foreigners. Just savages, they be, as you say, and nothin' more. I
+pity 'em."
+
+I laughed again.
+
+"Asaph," said I, "what would you say if I told you that the English and
+French--yes, and the Germans, too, though I haven't seen them at home as
+I have the others--were no more savages than we are?"
+
+"I'd say you was crazy," was the prompt answer.
+
+"Well, I'm not. And you're not very complimentary. You're forgetting
+again. You forget that I married one of those savages."
+
+Asaph was taken aback, but he recovered promptly, as he had before.
+
+"She ain't any savage," he announced. "Her mother was born right here in
+Bayport. And she knows, just as I do, that Bayport's the best place in
+the world; don't you, Mrs. Knowles?"
+
+"Yes," said Frances, "I am sure of it, Mr. Tidditt."
+
+So Asaph went away triumphantly happy. After he had gone I apologized
+for him.
+
+"He's a fair sample," I said. "He is a quahaug, although he doesn't know
+it. He is a certain type, an exaggerated type, of American."
+
+Frances smiled. "He's not much worse than I used to be," she said. "I
+used to call America an uncivilized country, you remember. I suppose
+I--and Mr. Heathcroft--were exaggerated types of a certain kind of
+English. We were English quahaugs, weren't we?"
+
+Hephzy nodded. "We're all quahaugs," she declared. "Most of us, anyhow.
+That's the trouble with all the folks of all the nations; they stay in
+their shells and they don't try to know and understand their neighbors.
+Kent, you used to be a quahaug--a different kind of one--but that kind,
+too. I was a quahaug afore I lived in Mayberry. That's who makes wars
+like this dreadful one--quahaugs. We know better now--you and Frances
+and I. We've found out that, down underneath, there's precious little
+difference. Humans are humans."
+
+She paused and then, as a final summing up, added:
+
+"I guess that's it: American or German or French or anything--nice folks
+are nice folks anywhere."
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Kent Knowles: Quahaug, by Joseph C. Lincoln
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" />
+    <title>
+      Kent Knowles: Quahaug, by Joseph C. Lincoln
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
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+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
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+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Kent Knowles: Quahaug, by Joseph C. Lincoln
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Kent Knowles: Quahaug
+
+Author: Joseph C. Lincoln
+
+Release Date: June 6, 2006 [EBook #5980]
+Last Updated: March 4, 2019
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KENT KNOWLES: QUAHAUG ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Don Lainson; David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      KENT KNOWLES: QUAHAUG
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By Joseph C. Lincoln <br /> <br /> 1914
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <big><b>KENT KNOWLES: QUAHAUG</b></big>
+        </a> <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I </a> -- Which is Not a Chapter at All<br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II </a> -- Which Repeats, for the Most Part, What Jim Campbell Said to Me and What I Said to Him<br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III </a> -- Which, Although It Is Largely Family History, Should Not Be Skipped by the Reader<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0004">
+        CHAPTER IV </a> -- In Which Hephzy and I and the Plutonia Sail Together<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V </a> -- In Which We View, and Even Mingle Slightly with, the Upper Classes<br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI </a> -- In Which We Are Received at Bancroft's Hotel and I Receive a Letter<br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII </a> -- In Which a Dream Becomes a Reality<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0008">
+        CHAPTER VIII </a> -- In Which the Pilgrims Become Tenants<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX </a> -- In Which We Make the Acquaintance of Mayberry and a Portion of Burgleston Bogs<br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X </a> -- In Which I Break All Previous Resolutions and Make a New One<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0011">
+        CHAPTER XI </a> -- In Which Complications Become More Complicated<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII </a> -- In Which the Truth Is Told at Last<br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII </a> -- In Which Hephzy and I Agree to Live for Each Other<br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV </a> -- In Which I Play Golf and Cross the Channel<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0015">
+        CHAPTER XV </a> -- In Which I Learn that All Abbeys Are Not Churches<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI </a> -- In Which I Take My Turn at Playing the Invalid<br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII </a> -- In Which I, as Well as Mr. Solomon Cripps, Am Surprised<br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII </a> -- In Which the Pilgrimage Ends Where It Began<br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX </a> -- Which Treats of Quahaugs in General
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      KENT KNOWLES: QUAHAUG
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Which is Not a Chapter at All
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      It was Asaph Tidditt who told me how to begin this history. Perhaps I
+      should be very much obliged to Asaph; perhaps I shouldn't. He has gotten
+      me out of a difficulty&mdash;or into one; I am far from certain which.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ordinarily&mdash;I am speaking now of the writing of swashbuckling
+      romances, which is, or was, my trade&mdash;I swear I never have called it
+      a profession&mdash;the beginning of a story is the least of the troubles
+      connected with its manufacture. Given a character or two and a situation,
+      the beginning of one of those romances is, or was, pretty likely to be
+      something like this:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was a black night. Heavy clouds had obscured the setting sun and now,
+      as the clock in the great stone tower boomed twelve, the darkness was
+      pitchy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That is a good safe beginning. Midnight, a stone tower, a booming clock,
+      and darkness make an appeal to the imagination. On a night like that
+      almost anything may happen. A reader of one of my romances&mdash;and
+      readers there must be, for the things did, and still do, sell to some
+      extent&mdash;might be fairly certain that something WOULD happen before
+      the end of the second page. After that the somethings continued to happen
+      as fast as I could invent them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this story was different. The weather or the time had nothing to do
+      with its beginning. There were no solitary horsemen or strange wayfarers
+      on lonely roads, no unexpected knocks at the doors of taverns, no cloaked
+      personages landing from boats rowed by black-browed seamen with red
+      handkerchiefs knotted about their heads and knives in their belts. The
+      hero was not addressed as &ldquo;My Lord&rdquo;; he was not &ldquo;Sir Somebody-or-other&rdquo; in
+      disguise. He was not young and handsome; there was not even &ldquo;a certain
+      something in his manner and bearing which hinted of an eventful past.&rdquo;
+       Indeed there was not. For, if this particular yarn or history or chronicle
+      which I had made up my mind to write, and which I am writing now, had or
+      has a hero, I am he. And I am Hosea Kent Knowles, of Bayport,
+      Massachusetts, the latter the village in which I was born and in which I
+      have lived most of the time since I was twenty-seven years old. Nobody
+      calls me &ldquo;My Lord.&rdquo; Hephzy has always called me &ldquo;Hosy&rdquo;&mdash;a name which
+      I despise&mdash;and the others, most of them, &ldquo;Kent&rdquo; to my face and &ldquo;The
+      Quahaug&rdquo; behind my back, a quahaug being a very common form of clam which
+      is supposed to lead a solitary existence and to keep its shell tightly
+      shut. If anything in my manner had hinted at a mysterious past no one in
+      Bayport would have taken the hint. Bayporters know my past and that of my
+      ancestors only too well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for being young and handsome&mdash;well, I was thirty-eight years old
+      last March. Which is quite enough on THAT subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I had determined to write the story, so I sat down to begin it. And
+      immediately I got into difficulties. How should I begin? I might begin at
+      any one of a dozen places&mdash;with Hephzy's receiving the Raymond and
+      Whitcomb circular; with our arrival in London; with Jim Campbell's visit
+      to me here in Bayport; with the curious way in which the letter reached
+      us, after crossing the ocean twice. Any one of these might serve as a
+      beginning&mdash;but which? I made I don't know how many attempts, but not
+      one was satisfactory. I, who had begun I am ashamed to tell you how many
+      stories&mdash;yes, and had finished them and seen them in print as well&mdash;was
+      stumped at the very beginning of this one. Like Sim Phinney I had worked
+      at my job &ldquo;a long spell&rdquo; and &ldquo;cal'lated&rdquo; I knew it, but here was something
+      I didn't know. As Sim said, when he faced his problem, &ldquo;I couldn't seem to
+      get steerage way on her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Simeon, you see&mdash;He is Angeline Phinney's second cousin and lives in
+      the third house beyond the Holiness Bethel on the right-hand side of the
+      road&mdash;Simeon has &ldquo;done carpentering&rdquo; here in Bayport all his life. He
+      built practically every henhouse now gracing or disgracing the backyards
+      of our village. He is our &ldquo;henhouse specialist,&rdquo; so to speak. He has even
+      been known to boast of his skill. &ldquo;Henhouses!&rdquo; snorted Sim; &ldquo;land of love!
+      I can build a henhouse with my eyes shut. Nowadays when another one of
+      them foolheads that's been readin' 'How to Make a Million Poultry Raisin''
+      in the Farm Gazette comes to me and says 'Henhouse,' I say, 'Yes sir.
+      Fifteen dollars if you pay me cash now and a hundred and fifteen if you
+      want to wait and pay me out of your egg profits. That's all there is to
+      it.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet, when Captain Darius Nickerson, who made the most of his money
+      selling fifty-foot lots of sand, beachgrass and ticks to summer people for
+      bungalow sites&mdash;when Captain Darius, grown purse-proud and
+      vainglorious, expressed a desire for a henhouse with a mansard roof and a
+      cupola, the latter embellishments to match those surmounting his own
+      dwelling, Simeon was set aback with his canvas flapping. At the end of a
+      week he had not driven a nail. &ldquo;Godfrey's mighty!&rdquo; he is reported to have
+      exclaimed. &ldquo;I don't know whether to build the average cupola and trust to
+      a hen's fittin' it, or take an average hen and build a cupola round her.
+      Maybe I'll be all right after I get started, but it's where to start that
+      beats me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Where to start beat me, also, and it might be beating me yet, if I hadn't
+      dropped in at the post-office and heard Asaph Tidditt telling a story to
+      the group around the stove. After he had finished, and, the mail being
+      sorted, we were walking homeward together, I asked a question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Asaph,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;when you start to spin a yarn how do you begin?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hey?&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;How do I begin? Why, I just heave to and go to work
+      and begin, that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I know, but where do you begin?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At the beginnin', naturally. If you was cal'latin' to sail a boat race
+      you wouldn't commence at t'other end of the course, would you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;<i>I</i> might; practical people wouldn't, I suppose. But&mdash;what IS
+      the beginning? Suppose there were a lot of beginnings and you didn't know
+      which to choose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, we-ll, in that case I'd just sort of&mdash;of edge around till I
+      found one that&mdash;that was a beginnin' of SOMETHIN' and I'd start
+      there. You understand, don't you? Take that yarn I was spinnin' just now&mdash;that
+      one about Josiah Dimick's great uncle's pig on his mother's side. I mean
+      his uncle on his mother's side, not the pig, of course. Now I hadn't no
+      intention of tellin' about that hog; hadn't thought of it for a thousand
+      year, as you might say. I just commenced to tell about Angie Phinney,
+      about how fast she could talk, and that reminded me of a parrot that
+      belonged to Sylvanus Cahoon's sister&mdash;Violet, the sister's name was&mdash;loony
+      name, too, if you ask ME, 'cause she was a plaguey sight nigher bein' a
+      sunflower than she was a violet&mdash;weighed two hundred and ten and had
+      a face on her as red as&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just a minute, Ase. About that pig?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes! Well, the pig reminded me of Violet's parrot and the parrot
+      reminded me of a Plymouth Rock rooster I had that used to roost in the
+      pigpen nights&mdash;wouldn't use the henhouse no more'n you nor I would&mdash;and
+      that, naturally, made me think of pigs, and pigs fetched Josiah's uncle's
+      pig to mind and there I was all ready to start on the yarn. It pretty
+      often works out that way. When you want to start a yarn and you can't
+      start&mdash;you've forgot it, or somethin'&mdash;just begin somewhere, get
+      goin' somehow. Edge around and keep edgin' around and pretty soon you'll
+      fetch up at the right place TO start. See, don't you, Kent?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I saw&mdash;that is, I saw enough. I came home and this morning I began
+      the &ldquo;edging around&rdquo; process. I don't seem to have &ldquo;fetched up&rdquo; anywhere in
+      particular, but I shall keep on with the edging until I do. As Asaph says,
+      I must begin somewhere, so I shall begin with the Saturday morning of last
+      April when Jim Campbell, my publisher and my friend&mdash;which is by no
+      means such an unusual combination as many people think&mdash;sat on the
+      veranda of my boathouse overlooking Cape Cod Bay and discussed my past,
+      present and, more particularly, my future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Which Repeats, for the Most Part, What Jim Campbell Said to Me and What I
+      Said to Him
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jim,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;what is the matter with me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim, who was seated in the ancient and dilapidated arm-chair which was the
+      finest piece of furniture in the boathouse and which I always offered to
+      visitors, looked at me over the collar of my sweater. I used the sweater
+      as I did the arm-chair when I did not have visitors. He was using it then
+      because, like an idiot, he had come to Cape Cod in April with nothing
+      warmer than a very natty suit and a light overcoat. Of course one may go
+      clamming and fishing in a light overcoat, but&mdash;one doesn't.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim looked at me over the collar of my sweater. Then he crossed his
+      oilskinned and rubber-booted legs&mdash;they were my oilskins and my boots&mdash;and
+      answered promptly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indigestion,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You ate nine of those biscuits this morning; I
+      saw you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not,&rdquo; I retorted, &ldquo;because you saw them first. MY interior is in
+      its normal condition. As for yours&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mine,&rdquo; he interrupted, filling his pipe from my tobacco pouch, &ldquo;being
+      accustomed to a breakfast, not a gorge, is abnormal but satisfactory,
+      thank you&mdash;quite satisfactory.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;we will discuss later, when I have you out back of the
+      bar in my catboat. Judging from present indications there will be some
+      sea-running. The 'Hephzy' is a good, capable craft, but a bit cranky, like
+      the lady she is named for. I imagine she will roll.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He didn't like that. You see, I had sailed with him before and I
+      remembered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ho-se-a,&rdquo; he drawled, &ldquo;you have a vivid imagination. It is a pity you
+      don't use more of it in those stories of yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! I am obliged to use the most of it on the royalty statements you
+      send me. If you call me 'Hosea' again I will take the 'Hephzy' across the
+      Point Rip. The waves there are fifteen feet high at low tide. See here, I
+      asked you a serious question and I should like a serious answer. Jim, what
+      IS the matter with me? Have I written out or what is the trouble?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at me again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you in earnest?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am, very much in earnest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you really want to talk shop after a breakfast like that and on a
+      morning like this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was that why you asked me to come to Bayport and spend the week-end?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No-o. No, of course not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're another; it was. When you met me at the railroad station yesterday
+      I could see there was something wrong with you. All this morning you've
+      had something on your chest. I thought it was the biscuits, of course; but
+      it wasn't, eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then what was it? Aren't we paying you a large enough royalty?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are paying me a good deal larger one than I deserve. I don't see why
+      you do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; with a wave of the hand, &ldquo;that's all right. The publishing of books
+      is a pure philanthropy. We are in business for our health, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shut up. You know as well as I do that the last two yarns of mine which
+      your house published have not done as well as the others.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had caught him now. Anything remotely approaching a reflection upon the
+      business house of which he was the head was sufficient to stir up Jim
+      Campbell. That business, its methods and its success, were his idols.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know any such thing,&rdquo; he protested, hotly. &ldquo;We sold&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hang the sale! You sold quite enough. It is an everlasting miracle to me
+      that you are able to sell a single copy. Why a self-respecting person,
+      possessed of any intelligence whatever, should wish to read the stuff I
+      write, to say nothing of paying money for the privilege, I can't
+      understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't have to understand. No one expects an author to understand
+      anything. All you are expected to do is to write; we'll attend to the rest
+      of it. And as for sales&mdash;why, 'The Black Brig'&mdash;that was the
+      last one, wasn't it?&mdash;beat the 'Omelet' by eight thousand or more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Omelet&rdquo; was our pet name for &ldquo;The Queen's Amulet,&rdquo; my first offence
+      in the literary line. It was a highly seasoned concoction of revolution
+      and adventure in a mythical kingdom where life was not dull, to say the
+      least. The humblest character in it was a viscount. Living in Bayport had,
+      naturally, made me familiar with the doings of viscounts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eight thousand more than the last isn't so bad, is it?&rdquo; demanded Jim
+      Campbell combatively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It isn't. It is astonishingly good. It is the books themselves that are
+      bad. The 'Omelet' was bad enough, but I wrote it more as a joke than
+      anything else. I didn't take it seriously at all. Every time I called a
+      duke by his Christian name I grinned. But nowadays I don't grin&mdash;I
+      swear. I hate the things, Jim. They're no good. And the reviewers are
+      beginning to tumble to the fact that they're no good, too. You saw the
+      press notices yourself. 'Another Thriller by the Indefatigable Knowles'
+      'Barnacles, Buccaneers and Blood, not to Mention Beauty and the Bourbons.'
+      That's the way two writers headed their articles about 'The Black Brig.'
+      And a third said that I must be getting tired; I wrote as if I was. THAT
+      fellow was right. I am tired, Jim. I'm tired and sick of writing slush. I
+      can't write any more of it. And yet I can't write anything else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim's pipe had gone out. Now he relit it and tossed the match over the
+      veranda rail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you know you can't?&rdquo; he demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can't what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can't write anything but slush?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah ha! Then it is slush. You admit it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't admit anything of the kind. You may not be a William Shakespeare
+      or even a George Meredith, but you have written some mighty interesting
+      stories. Why, I know a chap who sits up till morning to finish a book of
+      yours. Can't sleep until he has finished it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the matter with him; insomnia?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; he's a night watchman. Does that satisfy you, you crossgrained old
+      shellfish? Come on, let's dig clams&mdash;some of your own blood relations&mdash;and
+      forget it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't want to forget it and there is plenty of time for clamming. The
+      tide won't cover the flats for two hours yet. I tell you I'm serious, Jim.
+      I can't write any more. I know it. The stuff I've been writing makes me
+      sick. I hate it, I tell you. What the devil I'm going to do for a living I
+      can't see&mdash;but I can't write another story.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim put his pipe in his pocket. I think at last he was convinced that I
+      meant what I said, which I certainly did. The last year had been a year of
+      torment to me. I had finished the 'Brig,' as a matter of duty, but if that
+      piratical craft had sunk with all hands, including its creator, I should
+      not have cared. I drove myself to my desk each day, as a horse might be
+      driven to a treadmill, but the animal could have taken no less interest in
+      his work than I had taken in mine. It was bad&mdash;bad&mdash;bad;
+      worthless and hateful. There wasn't a new idea in it and I hadn't one in
+      my head. I, who had taken up writing as a last resort, a gamble which
+      might, on a hundred-to-one chance, win where everything else had failed,
+      had now reached the point where that had failed, too. Campbell's surmise
+      was correct; with the pretence of asking him to the Cape for a week-end of
+      fishing and sailing I had lured him there to tell him of my discouragement
+      and my determination to quit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took his feet from the rail and hitched his chair about until he faced
+      me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you're not going to write any more,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not. I can't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you going to do; live on back royalties and clams?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I may have to live on the clams; my back royalties won't keep me very
+      long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! I should think they might keep you a good while down here. You
+      must have something in the stocking. You can't have wasted very much in
+      riotous living on this sand-heap. What have you done with your money, for
+      the last ten years; been leading a double life?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've found leading a single one hard enough. I have saved something, of
+      course. It isn't the money that worries me, Jim; I told you that. It's
+      myself; I'm no good. Every author, sometime or other, reaches the point
+      where he knows perfectly well he has done all the real work he can ever
+      do, that he has written himself out. That's what's the matter with me&mdash;I'm
+      written out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim snorted. &ldquo;For Heaven's sake, Kent Knowles,&rdquo; he demanded, &ldquo;how old are
+      you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm thirty-eight, according to the almanac, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thirty-eight! Why, Thackeray wrote&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Drop it! I know when Thackeray wrote 'Vanity Fair' as well as you do. I'm
+      no Thackeray to begin with, and, besides, I am older at thirty-eight than
+      he was when he died&mdash;yes, older than he would have been if he had
+      lived twice as long. So far as feeling and all the rest of it go, I'm a
+      second Methusaleh.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My soul! hear the man! And I'm forty-two myself. Well, Grandpa, what do
+      you expect me to do; get you admitted to the Old Man's Home?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I expect&mdash;&rdquo; I began, &ldquo;I expect&mdash;&rdquo; and I concluded with the lame
+      admission that I didn't expect him to do anything. It was up to me to do
+      whatever must be done, I imagined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled grimly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Glad your senility has not affected that remnant of your common-sense,&rdquo;
+       he declared. &ldquo;You're dead right, my boy; it IS up to you. You ought to be
+      ashamed of yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am, but that doesn't help me a whole lot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing will help you as long as you think and speak as you have this
+      morning. See here, Kent! answer me a question or two, will you? They may
+      be personal questions, but will you answer them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess so. There has been what a disinterested listener might call a
+      slightly personal flavor to your remarks so far. Do your worst. Fire
+      away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right. You've lived in Bayport ten years or so, I know that. What
+      have you done in all that time&mdash;besides write?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I've continued to live.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doubted. You've continued to exist; but how? I've been here before. This
+      isn't my first visit, by a good deal. Each time I have been here your
+      daily routine&mdash;leaving out the exciting clam hunts and the excursions
+      in quest of the ferocious flounder, like the one we're supposed&mdash;mind,
+      I say supposed&mdash;to be on at the present moment&mdash;you have put in
+      the day about like this: Get up, bathe, eat, walk to the post-office, walk
+      home, sit about, talk a little, read some, walk some more, eat again,
+      smoke, talk, read, eat for the third time, smoke, talk, read and go to
+      bed. That's the program, isn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not exactly. I play tennis in summer&mdash;when there is anyone to play
+      with me&mdash;and golf, after a fashion. I used to play both a good deal,
+      when I was younger. I swim, and I shoot a little, and&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How about society? Have any, do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the summer, when the city people are here, there is a good deal going
+      on, if you care for it&mdash;picnics and clam bakes and teas and lawn
+      parties and such.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heavens! what reckless dissipation! Do you indulge?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, no&mdash;not very much. Hang it all, Jim! you know I'm no society
+      man. I used to do the usual round of fool stunts when I was younger, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But now you're too antique, I suppose. Wonder that someone hasn't
+      collected you as a genuine Chippendale or something. So you don't 'tea'
+      much?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not much. I'm not often invited, to tell you the truth. The summer crowd
+      doesn't take kindly to me, I'm afraid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Astonishing! You're such a chatty, entertaining, communicative cuss on
+      first acquaintance, too. So captivatingly loquacious to strangers. I can
+      imagine how you'd shine at a 'tea.' Every summer girl that tried to talk
+      to you would be frost-bitten. Do you accept invitations when they do
+      come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not often nowadays. You see, I know they don't really want me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you know it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why&mdash;well, why should they? Everybody else calls me&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They call you a clam and so you try to live up to your reputation. I know
+      you, Kent. You think yourself a tough old bivalve, but the most serious
+      complaint you suffer from is ingrowing sensitiveness. They do want you.
+      They'd invite you if you gave them half a chance. Oh, I know you won't, of
+      course; but if I had my way I'd have you dragged by main strength to every
+      picnic and tea and feminine talk-fest within twenty miles. You might meet
+      some persevering female who would propose marriage. YOU never would, but
+      SHE might.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I rose to my feet in disgust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'll go clamming,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not move.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will&mdash;later on,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;We haven't got to the last page of
+      the catechism yet. I mentioned matrimony because a good, capable, managing
+      wife would be my first prescription in your case. I have one or two more
+      up my sleeve. Tell me this: How often do you get away from Bayport? How
+      often do you get to&mdash;well, to Boston, we'll say? How many times have
+      you been there in the last year?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know. A dozen, perhaps.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you do when you went?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Various things. Shopped some, went to the theater occasionally, if there
+      happened to be anything on that I cared to see. Bought a good many books.
+      Saw the new Sargent pictures at the library. And&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And shook hands with your brother fossils at the museum, I suppose. Wild
+      life you lead, Kent. Did you visit anybody? Meet any friends or
+      acquaintances&mdash;any live ones?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not many. I haven't many friends, Jim; you know that. As for the wild
+      life&mdash;well, I made two visits to New York this year.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; drily; &ldquo;and we saw Sothern and Marlowe and had dinner at the
+      Holland. The rest of the time we talked shop. That was the first visit.
+      The second was more exciting still; we talked shop ALL the time and you
+      took the six o'clock train home again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're wrong there. I saw the new loan collections at the Metropolitan
+      and heard Ysaye play at Carnegie Hall. I didn't start for home until the
+      next day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that so. That's news to me. You said you were going that afternoon.
+      That was to put the kibosh on my intention of taking you home to my wife
+      and her bridge party, I suppose. Was it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well&mdash;well, you see, Jim, I&mdash;I don't play bridge and I AM such
+      a stick in a crowd like that. I wanted to stay and you were mighty kind,
+      but&mdash;but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right. All right, my boy. Next time it will be Bustanoby's, the
+      Winter Garden and a three A. M. cabaret for yours. My time is coming. Now&mdash;Well,
+      now we'll go clamming.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He swung out of the arm-chair and walked to the top of the steps leading
+      down to the beach. I was surprised, of course; I have known Jim Campbell a
+      long time, but he can surprise me even yet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here! hold on!&rdquo; I protested. &ldquo;How about the rest of that catechism?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've had it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Were those all the questions you wanted to ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! And that is all the advice and encouragement I'm to get from you!
+      How about those prescriptions you had up your sleeve?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll get those by and by. Before I leave this gay and festive scene
+      to-morrow I'm going to talk to you, Ho-se-a. And you're going to listen.
+      You'll listen to old Doctor Campbell; HE'LL prescribe for you, don't you
+      worry. And now,&rdquo; beginning to descend the steps, &ldquo;now for clams and
+      flounders.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the Point Rip,&rdquo; I added, maliciously, for his frivolous treatment of
+      what was to me a very serious matter, was disappointing and provoking.
+      &ldquo;Don't forget the Point Rip.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We dug the clams&mdash;they were for bait&mdash;we boarded the &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo;
+       sailed out to the fishing grounds, and caught flounders. I caught the most
+      of them; Jim was not interested in fishing during the greater part of the
+      time. Then we sailed home again and walked up to the house. Hephzibah, for
+      whom my boat is named, met us at the back door. As usual her greeting was
+      not to the point and practical.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Leave your rubber boots right outside on the porch,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Here,
+      give me those flatfish; I'll take care of 'em. Hosy, you'll find dry
+      things ready in your room. Here's your shoes; I've been warmin' 'em. Mr.
+      Campbell I've put a suit of Hosy's and some flannels on your bed. They may
+      not fit you, but they'll be lots better than the damp ones you've got on.
+      You needn't hurry; dinner won't be ready till you are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not say anything; I knew Hephzy&mdash;had known her all my life.
+      Jim, who, naturally enough, didn't know her as well, protested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We're not wet, Miss Cahoon,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;At least, I'm not, and I don't
+      see how Kent can be. We both wore oilskins.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That doesn't make any difference. You ought to change your clothes
+      anyhow. Been out in that boat, haven't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then! Don't say another word. I'll have a fire in the sittin'-room
+      and somethin' hot ready when you come down. Hosy, be sure and put on BOTH
+      the socks I darned for you. Don't get thinkin' of somethin' else and come
+      down with one whole and one holey, same as you did last time. You must
+      excuse me, Mr. Campbell. I've got saleratus biscuits in the oven.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hastened into the kitchen. When Jim and I, having obeyed orders to the
+      extent of leaving our boots on the porch, passed through that kitchen she
+      was busy with the tea-kettle. I led the way through the dining-room and up
+      the front stairs. My visitor did not speak until we reached the second
+      story. Then he expressed his feelings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Kent&rdquo; he demanded, &ldquo;are you going to change your clothes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why? You're no wetter than I am, are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a bit, but I'm going to change, just the same. It's the easier way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is, is it! What's the other way?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The other way is to keep on those you're wearing and take the
+      consequences.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What consequences?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jamaica ginger, hot water bottles and an afternoon's roast in front of
+      the sitting-room fire. Hephzibah went out sailing with me last October and
+      caught cold. That was enough; no one else shall have the experience if she
+      can help it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But&mdash;but good heavens! Kent, do you mean to say you always have to
+      change when you come in from sailing?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Except in summer, yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because Hephzy tells me to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you always do what she tells you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Generally. It's the easiest way, as I said before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good&mdash;heavens! And she darns your socks and tells you what&mdash;er
+      lingerie to wear and&mdash;does she wash your face and wipe your nose and
+      scrub behind your ears?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not exactly, but she probably would if I didn't do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I'll be hanged! And she extends the same treatment to all your
+      guests?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't have any guests but you. No doubt she would if I did. She mothers
+      every stray cat and sick chicken in the neighborhood. There, Jim, you trot
+      along and do as you're told like a nice little boy. I'll join you in the
+      sitting-room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! perhaps I'd better. I may be spanked and put to bed if I don't.
+      Well, well! and you are the author of 'The Black Brig!' 'Buccaneers and
+      Blood!' 'Bibs and Butterscotch' it should be! Don't stand out here in the
+      cold hall, Hosy darling; you may get the croup if you do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was waiting in the sitting-room when he came down. There was a roaring
+      fire in the big, old-fashioned fireplace. That fireplace had been bricked
+      up in the days when people used those abominations, stoves. As a boy I was
+      well acquainted with the old &ldquo;gas burner&rdquo; with the iron urn on top and the
+      nickeled ornaments and handles which Mother polished so assiduously. But
+      the gas burner had long since gone to the junk dealer. Among the
+      improvements which my first royalty checks made possible were steam heat
+      and the restoration of the fireplace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim found me sitting before the fire in one of the two big &ldquo;wing&rdquo; chairs
+      which I had purchased when Darius Barlay's household effects were sold at
+      auction. I should not have acquired them as cheaply if Captain Cyrus
+      Whittaker had been at home when the auction took place. Captain Cy loves
+      old-fashioned things as much as I do and, as he has often told me since,
+      he meant to land those chairs some day if he had to run his bank account
+      high and dry in consequence. But the Captain and his wife&mdash;who used
+      to be Phoebe Dawes, our school-teacher here in Bayport&mdash;were away
+      visiting their adopted daughter, Emily, who is married and living in
+      Boston, and I got the chairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the Barclay auction I bought also the oil painting of the bark
+      &ldquo;Freedom&rdquo;&mdash;a command of Captain Elkanah Barclay, uncle of the late
+      Darius&mdash;and the set&mdash;two volumes missing&mdash;of The Spectator,
+      bound in sheepskin. The &ldquo;Freedom&rdquo; is depicted &ldquo;Entering the Port of Genoa,
+      July 10th, 1848,&rdquo; and if the port is somewhat wavy and uncertain, the
+      bark's canvas and rigging are definite and rigid enough to make up. The
+      Spectator set is chiefly remarkable for its marginal notes; Captain
+      Elkanah bought the books in London and read and annotated at spare
+      intervals during subsequent voyages. His opinions were decided and his
+      notes nautical and emphatic. Hephzibah read a few pages of the notes when
+      the books first came into the house and then went to prayer-meeting. As
+      she had announced her intention of remaining at home that evening I was
+      surprised&mdash;until I read them myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim came downstairs, arrayed in the suit which Hephzy had laid out for
+      him. I made no comment upon his appearance. To do so would have been
+      superfluous; he looked all the comments necessary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I waved my hand towards the unoccupied wing chair and he sat down. Two
+      glasses, one empty and the other half full of a steaming mixture, were on
+      the little table beside us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Help yourself, Jim,&rdquo; I said, indicating the glasses. He took up the one
+      containing the mixture and regarded it hopefully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A Cahoon toddy,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Warranted to keep off chills, rheumatism,
+      lumbago and kindred miseries. Good for what ails you. Don't wait; I've had
+      mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took a sniff and then a very small sip. His face expressed genuine
+      emotion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whew!&rdquo; he gasped, choking. &ldquo;What in blazes&mdash;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jamaica ginger, sugar and hot water,&rdquo; I explained blandly. &ldquo;It won't hurt
+      you&mdash;longer than five minutes. It is Hephzy's invariable
+      prescription.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good Lord! Did you drink yours?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;I never do, unless she watches me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But your glass is empty. What did you do with it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Emptied it behind the back log. Of course, if you prefer to drink it&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Drink it!&rdquo; His &ldquo;toddy&rdquo; splashed the back log, causing a tremendous
+      sizzle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before he could relieve his mind further, Hephzy appeared to announce that
+      dinner was ready if we were. We were, most emphatically, so we went into
+      the dining-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy and Jim did most of the talking during the meal. I had talked more
+      that forenoon than I had for a week&mdash;I am not a chatty person,
+      ordinarily, which, in part, explains my nickname&mdash;and I was very
+      willing to eat and listen. Hephzy, who was garbed in her best gown&mdash;best
+      weekday gown, that is; she kept her black silk for Sundays&mdash;talked a
+      good deal, mostly about dreams and presentiments. Susanna Wixon, Tobias
+      Wixon's oldest daughter, waited on table, when she happened to think of
+      it, and listened when she did not. Susanna had been hired to do the
+      waiting and the dish-washing during Campbell's brief visit. It was I who
+      hired her. If I had had my way she would have been a permanent fixture in
+      the household, but Hephzy scoffed at the idea. &ldquo;Pity if I can't do
+      housework for two folks,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;I don't care if you can afford
+      it. Keepin' hired help in a family no bigger than this, is a sinful
+      extravagance.&rdquo; As Susanna's services had been already engaged for the
+      weekend she could not discharge her, but she insisted on doing all the
+      cooking herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her conversation, as I said, dealt mainly with dreams and presentiments.
+      Hephzibah is not what I should call a superstitious person. She doesn't
+      believe in &ldquo;signs,&rdquo; although she might feel uncomfortable if she broke a
+      looking-glass or saw the new moon over her left shoulder. She has a most
+      amazing fund of common-sense and is &ldquo;down&rdquo; on Spiritualism to a degree. It
+      is one of Bayport's pet yarns, that at the Harniss Spiritualist
+      camp-meeting when the &ldquo;test medium&rdquo; announced from the platform that he
+      had a message for a lady named Hephzibah C&mdash;he &ldquo;seemed to get the
+      name Hephzibah C&rdquo;&mdash;Hephzy got up and walked out. &ldquo;Any dead relations
+      I've got,&rdquo; she declared, &ldquo;who send messages through a longhaired idiot
+      like that one up there&rdquo;&mdash;meaning the medium,&mdash;&ldquo;can't have much
+      to say that's worth listenin' to. They can talk to themselves if they want
+      to, but they shan't waste MY time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In but one particular was Hephzy superstitious. Whenever she dreamed of
+      &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; she was certain something was going to happen. She had
+      dreamed of &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; the night before and, if she had not been headed
+      off, she would have talked of nothing else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw him just as plain as I see you this minute, Hosy,&rdquo; she said to me.
+      &ldquo;I was somewhere, in a strange place&mdash;a foreign place, I should say
+      'twas&mdash;and there I saw him. He didn't know me; at least I don't think
+      he did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Considering that he never saw you that isn't so surprising,&rdquo; I
+      interrupted. &ldquo;I think Mr. Campbell would have another cup of coffee if you
+      urged him. Susanna, take Mr. Campbell's cup.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim declined the coffee; said he hadn't finished his first cup yet. I knew
+      that, of course, but I was trying to head off Hephzy. She refused to be
+      headed, just then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I knew HIM,&rdquo; she went on. &ldquo;He looked just the same as he has when
+      I've seen him before&mdash;in the other dreams, you know. The very image
+      of his mother. Isn't it wonderful, Hosy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; but don't resurrect the family skeletons, Hephzy. Mr. Campbell isn't
+      interested in anatomy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Skeletons! I don't know what you're talkin' about. He wasn't a skeleton.
+      I saw him just as plain! And I said to myself, 'It's little Frank!' Now
+      what do you suppose he came to me for? What do you suppose it means? It
+      means somethin', I know that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Means that you weren't sleeping well, probably,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;Jim, here,
+      will dream of cross-seas and the Point Rip to-night, I have no doubt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim promptly declared that if he thought that likely he shouldn't mind so
+      much. What he feared most was a nightmare session with an author.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah was interested at once. &ldquo;Oh, do you dream about authors, Mr.
+      Campbell?&rdquo; she demanded. &ldquo;I presume likely you do, they're so mixed up
+      with your business. Do your dreams ever come true?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not often,&rdquo; was the solemn reply. &ldquo;Most of my dream-authors are rational
+      and almost human.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy, of course, did not understand this, but it did have the effect for
+      which I had been striving, that of driving &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; from her mind
+      for the time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't care,&rdquo; she declared, &ldquo;I s'pose it's awful foolish and silly of
+      me, but it does seem sometimes as if there was somethin' in dreams, some
+      kind of dreams. Hosy laughs at me and maybe I ought to laugh at myself,
+      but some dreams come true, or awfully near to true; now don't they.
+      Angeline Phinney was in here the other day and she was tellin' about her
+      second cousin that was&mdash;he's dead now&mdash;Abednego Small. He was
+      constable here in Bayport for years; everybody called him 'Uncle Bedny.'
+      Uncle Bedny had been keepin' company with a woman named Dimick&mdash;Josiah
+      Dimick's niece&mdash;lots younger than he, she was. He'd been thinkin' of
+      marryin' her, so Angie said, but his folks had been talkin' to him,
+      tellin' him he was too old to take such a young woman for his third wife,
+      so he had made up his mind to throw her over, to write a letter sayin' it
+      was all off between 'em. Well, he'd begun the letter but he never finished
+      it, for three nights runnin' he dreamed that awful trouble was hangin'
+      over him. That dream made such an impression on him that he tore the
+      letter up and married the Dimick woman after all. And then&mdash;I didn't
+      know this until Angie told me&mdash;it turned out that she had heard he
+      was goin' to give her the go-by and had made all her arrangements to sue
+      him for breach of promise if he did. That was the awful trouble, you see,
+      and the dream saved him from it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled. &ldquo;The fault there was in the interpretation of the dream,&rdquo; I
+      said. &ldquo;The 'awful trouble' of the breach of promise suit wouldn't have
+      been a circumstance to the trouble poor Uncle Bedny got into by marrying
+      Ann Dimick. THAT trouble lasted till he died.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah laughed and said she guessed that was so, she hadn't thought of
+      it in that way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Probably dreams are all nonsense,&rdquo; she admitted. &ldquo;Usually, I don't pay
+      much attention to 'em. But when I dream of poor 'Little Frank,' away off
+      there, I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come into the sitting-room, Jim,&rdquo; I put in hastily. &ldquo;I have a cigar or
+      two there. I don't buy them in Bayport, either.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And who,&rdquo; asked Jim, as we sat smoking by the fire, &ldquo;is Little Frank?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is a mythical relative of ours,&rdquo; I explained, shortly. &ldquo;He was born
+      twenty years ago or so&mdash;at least we heard that he was; and we haven't
+      heard anything of him since, except by the dream route, which is not
+      entirely convincing. He is Hephzy's pet obsession. Kindly forget him, to
+      oblige me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked puzzled, but he did not mention &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; again, for which
+      I was thankful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That afternoon we walked up to the village, stopping in at Simmons's
+      store, which is also the post-office, for the mail. Captain Cyrus
+      Whittaker happened to be there, also Asaph Tidditt and Bailey Bangs and
+      Sylvanus Cahoon and several others. I introduced Campbell to the crowd and
+      he seemed to be enjoying himself. When we came out and were walking home
+      again, he observed:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That Whittaker is an interesting chap, isn't he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;He is all right. Been everywhere and seen everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that,&rdquo; with an odd significance in his tone, &ldquo;may possibly help to
+      make him interesting, don't you think?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose so. He lives here in Bayport now, though.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So I gathered. Popular, is he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Satisfied with life?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seems to be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hum! No one calls HIM a&mdash;what is it&mdash;quahaug?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I'm the only human clam in this neighborhood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not say any more, nor did I. My fit of the blues was on again and
+      his silence on the subject in which I was interested, my work and my
+      future, troubled me and made me more despondent. I began to lose faith in
+      the &ldquo;prescription&rdquo; which he had promised so emphatically. How could he, or
+      anyone else, help me? No one could write my stories but myself, and I
+      knew, only too well, that I could not write them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The only mail matter in our box was a letter addressed to Hephzibah. I
+      forgot it until after supper and then I gave it to her. Jim retired early;
+      the salt air made him sleepy, so he said, and he went upstairs shortly
+      after nine. He had not mentioned our talk of the morning, nor did he until
+      I left him at the door of his room. Then he said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kent, I've got one of the answers to your conundrum. I've diagnosed one
+      of your troubles. You're blind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Blind?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, blind. Or, if not blind altogether you're suffering from the worse
+      case of far-sightedness I ever saw. All your literary&mdash;we'll call it
+      that for compliment's sake&mdash;all your literary life you've spent
+      writing about people and things so far off you don't know anything about
+      them. You and your dukes and your earls and your titled ladies! What do
+      you know of that crowd? You never saw a lord in your life. Why don't you
+      write of something near by, something or somebody you are acquainted
+      with?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Acquainted with! You're crazy, man. What am I acquainted with, except
+      this house, and myself and my books and&mdash;and Bayport?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's enough. Why, there is material in that gang at the post-office to
+      make a dozen books. Write about them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tut! tut! tut! You ARE crazy. What shall I write; the life of Ase Tidditt
+      in four volumes, beginning with 'I swan to man' and ending with 'By
+      godfrey'?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You might do worse. If the book were as funny as its hero I'd undertake
+      to sell a few copies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Funny! <i>I</i> couldn't write a funny book.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not an intentionally funny one, you mean. But there! There's no use to
+      talk to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is not, if you talk like an imbecile. Is this your brilliant
+      'prescription'?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. It might be; it would be, if you would take it, but you won't&mdash;not
+      now. You need something else first and I'll give it to you. But I'll tell
+      you this, and I mean it: Downstairs, in that dining-room of yours, there's
+      one mighty good story, at least.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The dining-room? A story in the dining-room?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Or it was there when we passed the door just now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at him. He seemed to be serious, but I knew he was not. I hate
+      riddles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, go to blazes!&rdquo; I retorted, and turned away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked into the dining-room as I went by. There was no story in sight
+      there, so far as I could see. Hephzy was seated by the table, mending
+      something, something of mine, of course. She looked up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Hosy,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;that letter you brought was a travel book from the
+      Raymond and Whitcomb folks. I sent a stamp for it. It's awfully
+      interesting! All about tours through England and France and Switzerland
+      and everywhere. So cheap they are! I'm pickin' out the ones I'm goin' on
+      some day. The pictures are lovely. Don't you want to see 'em?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not now,&rdquo; I replied. Another obsession of Hephzy's was travel. She, who
+      had never been further from Bayport than Hartford, Connecticut, was
+      forever dreaming of globe-trotting. It was not a new disease with her, by
+      any means; she had been dreaming the same things ever since I had known
+      her, and that is since I knew anything. Some day, SOME day she was going
+      to this, that and the other place. She knew all about these places,
+      because she had read about them over and over again. Her knowledge,
+      derived as it was from so many sources, was curiously mixed, but it was
+      comprehensive, of its kind. She was continually sending for Cook's
+      circulars and booklets advertising personally conducted excursions. And,
+      with the arrival of each new circular or booklet, she picked out, as she
+      had just done, the particular tours she would go on when her &ldquo;some day&rdquo;
+       came. It was funny, this queer habit of hers, but not half as funny as the
+      thought of her really going would have been. I would have as soon thought
+      of our front door leaving home and starting on its travels as of Hephzy's
+      doing it. The door was no more a part and fixture of that home than she
+      was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I went into my study, which adjoins the sitting-room, and sat down at my
+      desk. Not with the intention of writing anything, or even of considering
+      something to write about. That I made up my mind to forget for this night,
+      at least. My desk chair was my usual seat in that room and I took that
+      seat as a matter of habit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a matter of habit also I looked about for a book. I did not have to
+      look far. Books were my extravagance&mdash;almost my only one. They filled
+      the shelves to the ceiling on three sides of the study and overflowed in
+      untidy heaps on the floor. They were Hephzy's bugbear, for I refused to
+      permit their being &ldquo;straightened out&rdquo; or arranged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked about for a book and selected several, but, although they were
+      old favorites, I could not interest myself in any of them. I tried and
+      tried, but even Mr. Pepys, that dependable solace of a lonely hour, failed
+      to interest me with his chatter. Perhaps Campbell's pointed remarks
+      concerning lords and ladies had its effect here. Old Samuel loved to write
+      of such people, having a wide acquaintance with them, and perhaps that
+      very acquaintance made me jealous. At any rate I threw the volume back
+      upon its pile and began to think of myself, and of my work, the very thing
+      I had expressly determined not to do when I came into the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim's foolish and impossible advice to write of places and people I knew
+      haunted and irritated me. I did know Bayport&mdash;yes, and it might be
+      true that the group at the post-office contained possible material for
+      many books; but, if so, it was material for the other man, not for me.
+      &ldquo;Write of what you know,&rdquo; said Jim. And I knew so little. There was at
+      least one good yarn in the dining-room at that moment, he had declared. He
+      must have meant Hephzibah, but, if he did, what was there in Hephzibah's
+      dull, gray life-story to interest an outside reader? Her story and mine
+      were interwoven and neither contained anything worth writing about. His
+      fancy had been caught, probably, by her odd combination of the romantic
+      and the practical, and in her dream of &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; he had scented a
+      mystery. There was no mystery there, nothing but the most commonplace
+      record of misplaced trust and ingratitude. Similar things happen in so
+      many families.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, I began to think of Hephzy and, as I said, of myself, and to
+      review my life since Ardelia Cahoon and Strickland Morley changed its
+      course so completely. And now it seems to me that, in the course of my
+      &ldquo;edging around&rdquo; for the beginning of this present chronicle&mdash;so
+      different from anything I have ever written before or ever expected to
+      write&mdash;the time has come when the reader&mdash;provided, of course,
+      the said chronicle is ever finished or ever reaches a reader&mdash;should
+      know something of that life; should know a little of the family history of
+      the Knowles and the Cahoons and the Morleys.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Which, Although It Is Largely Family History, Should Not Be Skipped by the
+      Reader
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Let us take the Knowleses first. My name is Hosea Kent Knowles&mdash;I
+      said that before&mdash;and my father was Captain Philander Kent Knowles.
+      He was lost in the wreck of the steamer &ldquo;Monarch of the Sea,&rdquo; off
+      Hatteras. The steamer caught fire in the middle of the night, a howling
+      gale blowing and the thermometer a few degrees above zero. The passengers
+      and crew took to the boats and were saved. My father stuck by his ship and
+      went down with her, as did also her first mate, another Cape-Codder. I was
+      a baby at the time, and was at Bayport with my mother, Emily Knowles,
+      formerly Emily Cahoon, Captain Barnabas Cahoon's niece. Mother had a
+      little money of her own and Father's life was insured for a moderate sum.
+      Her small fortune was invested for her by her uncle, Captain Barnabas, who
+      was the Bayport magnate and man of affairs in those days. Mother and I
+      continued to live in the old house in Bayport and I went to school in the
+      village until I was fourteen, when I went away to a preparatory school
+      near Boston. Mother died a year later. I was an only child, but Hephzibah,
+      who had always seemed like an older sister to me, now began to &ldquo;mother&rdquo;
+       me, the process which she has kept up ever since.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah was the daughter of Captain Barnabas by his first wife. Hephzy
+      was born in 1859, so she is well over fifty now, although no one would
+      guess it. Her mother died when she was a little girl and ten years later
+      Captain Barnabas married again. His second wife was Susan Hammond, of
+      Ostable, and by her he had one daughter, Ardelia. Hephzy has always
+      declared &ldquo;Ardelia&rdquo; to be a pretty name. I have my own opinion on that
+      subject, but I keep it to myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At any rate, Ardelia herself was pretty enough. She was pretty when a baby
+      and prettier still as a schoolgirl. Her mother&mdash;while she lived,
+      which was not long&mdash;spoiled her, and her half-sister, Hephzy,
+      assisted in the petting and spoiling. Ardelia grew up with the idea that
+      most things in this world were hers for the asking. Whatever took her
+      fancy she asked for and, if Captain Barnabas did not give it to her, she
+      considered herself ill-used. She was the young lady of the family and
+      Hephzibah was the housekeeper and drudge, an uncomplaining one, be it
+      understood. For her, as for the Captain, the business of life was keeping
+      Ardelia contented and happy, and they gloried in the task. Hephzy might
+      have married well at least twice, but she wouldn't think of such a thing.
+      &ldquo;Pa and Ardelia need me,&rdquo; she said; that was reason sufficient.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In 1888 Captain Barnabas went to Philadelphia on business. He had retired
+      from active sea-going years before, but he retained an interest in a
+      certain line of coasting schooners. The Captain, as I said, went to
+      Philadelphia on business connected with these schooners and Ardelia went
+      with him. Hephzibah stayed at home, of course; she always stayed at home,
+      never expected to do anything else, although even then her favorite
+      reading were books of travel, and pictures of the Alps, and of St. Peter's
+      at Rome, and the Tower of London were tacked up about her room. She, too,
+      might have gone to Philadelphia, doubtless, if she had asked, but she did
+      not ask. Her father did not think of inviting her. He loved his oldest
+      daughter, although he did not worship her as he did Ardelia, but it never
+      occurred to him that she, too, might enjoy the trip. Hephzy was always at
+      home, she WAS home; so at home she remained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Philadelphia Ardelia met Strickland Morley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I give that statement a line all by itself, for it is by far the most
+      important I have set down so far. The whole story of the Cahoons and the
+      Knowleses&mdash;that is, all of their story which is the foundation of
+      this history of mine&mdash;hinges on just that. If those two had not met I
+      should not be writing this to-day, I might not be writing at all; instead
+      of having become a Bayport &ldquo;quahaug&rdquo; I might have been the Lord knows
+      what.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, they did meet, at the home of a wealthy shipping merchant named
+      Osgood who was a lifelong friend of Captain Barnabas. This shipping
+      merchant had a daughter and that daughter was giving a party at her
+      father's home. Barnabas and Ardelia were invited. Strickland Morley was
+      invited also.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Morley, at that time&mdash;I saw a good deal of him afterward, when he was
+      at Bayport and when I was at the Cahoon house on holidays and vacations&mdash;was
+      a handsome, aristocratic young Englishman. He was twenty-eight, but he
+      looked younger. He was the second son in a Leicestershire family which had
+      once been wealthy and influential but which had, in its later generations,
+      gone to seed. He was educated, in a general sort of way, was a good
+      dancer, played the violin fairly well, sang fairly well, had an attractive
+      presence, and was one of the most plausible and fascinating talkers I ever
+      listened to. He had studied medicine&mdash;studied it after a fashion,
+      that is; he never applied himself to anything&mdash;and was then, in '88,
+      &ldquo;ship's doctor&rdquo; aboard a British steamer, which ran between Philadelphia
+      and Glasgow. Miss Osgood had met him at the home of a friend of hers who
+      had traveled on that steamer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy and I do not agree as to whether or not he actually fell in love
+      with Ardelia Cahoon. Hephzy, of course, to whom Ardelia was the most
+      wonderfully beautiful creature on earth, is certain that he did&mdash;he
+      could not help it, she says. I am not so sure. It is very hard for me to
+      believe that Strickland Morley was ever in love with anyone but himself.
+      Captain Barnabas was well-to-do and had the reputation of being much
+      richer than he really was. And Ardelia WAS beautiful, there is no doubt of
+      that. At all events, Ardelia fell in love, with him, violently,
+      desperately, head over heels in love, the very moment the two were
+      introduced. They danced practically every dance together that evening, met
+      surreptitiously the next day and for five days thereafter, and on the
+      sixth day Captain Barnabas received a letter from his daughter announcing
+      that she and Morley were married and had gone to New York together. &ldquo;We
+      will meet you there, Pa,&rdquo; wrote Ardelia. &ldquo;I know you will forgive me for
+      marrying Strickland. He is the most wonderful man in the wide world. You
+      will love him, Pa, as I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was very little love expressed by the Captain when he read the note.
+      According to Mr. Osgood's account, Barnabas's language was a throwback
+      from the days when he was first mate on a Liverpool packet. That his
+      idolized daughter had married without asking his consent was bad enough;
+      that she had married an Englishman was worse. Captain Barnabas hated all
+      Englishmen. A ship of his had been captured and burned, in the war time,
+      by the &ldquo;Alabama,&rdquo; a British built privateer, and the very mildest of the
+      terms he applied to a &ldquo;John Bull&rdquo; will not bear repetition in respectable
+      society. He would not forgive Ardelia. She and her &ldquo;Cockney husband&rdquo; might
+      sail together to the most tropical of tropics, or words to that effect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he did forgive her, of course. Likewise he forgave his son-in-law.
+      When the Captain returned to Bayport he brought the newly wedded pair with
+      him. I was not present at that homecoming. I was away at prep school,
+      digging at my examinations, trying hard to forget that I was an orphan,
+      but with the dull ache caused by my mother's death always grinding at my
+      heart. Many years ago she died, but the ache comes back now, as I think of
+      her. There is more self-reproach in it than there used to be, more vain
+      regrets for impatient words and wasted opportunities. Ah, if some of us&mdash;boys
+      grown older&mdash;might have our mothers back again, would we be as
+      impatient and selfish now? Would we neglect the opportunities? I think
+      not; I hope not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah, after she got over the shock of the surprise and the pain of
+      sharing her beloved sister with another, welcomed that other for Ardelia's
+      sake. She determined to like him very much indeed. This wasn't so hard, at
+      first. Everyone liked and trusted Strickland Morley at first sight.
+      Afterward, when they came to know him better, they were not&mdash;if they
+      were as wise and discerning as Hephzy&mdash;so sure of the trust. The wise
+      and discerning were not, I say; Captain Barnabas, though wise and shrewd
+      enough in other things, trusted him to the end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Morley made it a point to win the affection and goodwill of his
+      father-in-law. For the first month or two after the return to Bayport the
+      new member of the family was always speaking of his plans for the future,
+      of his profession and how he intended soon, very soon, to look up a good
+      location and settle down to practice. Whenever he spoke thus, Captain
+      Barnabas and Ardelia begged him not to do it yet, to wait awhile. &ldquo;I am so
+      happy with you and Pa and Hephzy,&rdquo; declared Ardelia. &ldquo;I can't bear to go
+      away yet, Strickland. And Pa doesn't want us to; do you, Pa?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Of course Captain Barnabas agreed with her, he always did, and so the
+      Morleys remained at Bayport in the old house. Then came the first of the
+      paralytic shocks&mdash;a very slight one&mdash;which rendered Captain
+      Barnabas, the hitherto hale, active old seaman, unfit for exertion or the
+      cares of business. He was not bedridden by any means; he could still take
+      short walks, attend town meetings and those of the parish committee, but
+      he must not, so Dr. Parker said, be allowed to worry about anything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Morley took it upon himself to prevent that worry. He spoke no more of
+      leaving Bayport and settling down to practice his profession. Instead he
+      settled down in Bayport and took the Captain's business cares upon his own
+      shoulders. Little by little he increased his influence over the old man.
+      He attended to the latter's investments, took charge of his bank account,
+      collected his dividends, became, so to speak, his financial guardian.
+      Captain Barnabas, at first rebellious&mdash;&ldquo;I've always bossed my own
+      ship,&rdquo; he declared, &ldquo;and I ain't so darned feeble-headed that I can't do
+      it yet&rdquo;&mdash;gradually grew reconciled and then contented. He, too, began
+      to worship his daughter's husband as the daughter herself did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's a wonder,&rdquo; said the Captain. &ldquo;I never saw such a fellow for money
+      matters. He's handled my stocks and things a whole lot better'n I ever
+      did. I used to cal'late if I got six per cent. interest I was doin' well.
+      He ain't satisfied with anything short of eight, and he gets it, too.
+      Whatever that boy wants and I own he can have. Sometimes I think this
+      consarned palsy of mine is a judgment on me for bein' so sot against him
+      in the beginnin'. Why, just look at how he runs this house, to say nothing
+      of the rest of it! He's a skipper here; the rest of us ain't anything but
+      fo'most hands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Which was not the exact truth. Morley was skipper of the Cahoon house,
+      Ardelia first mate, her father a passenger, and the foremast hand was
+      Hephzy. And yet, so far as &ldquo;running&rdquo; that house was concerned the foremast
+      hand ran it, as she always had done. The Captain and Ardelia were Morley's
+      willing slaves; Hephzy was, and continued to be, a free woman. She worked
+      from morning until night, but she obeyed only such orders as she saw fit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She alone did not take the new skipper at his face value.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know what there was about him that made me uneasy,&rdquo; she has told
+      me since. &ldquo;Maybe there wasn't anything; perhaps that was just the reason.
+      When a person is SO good and SO smart and SO polite&mdash;maybe the
+      average sinful common mortal like me gets jealous; I don't know. But I do
+      know that, to save my life, I couldn't swallow him whole the way Ardelia
+      and Father did. I wanted to look him over first; and the more I looked him
+      over, and the smoother and smoother he looked, the more sure I felt he'd
+      give us all dyspepsy before he got through. Unreasonable, wasn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For Ardelia's sake she concealed her distrust and did her best to get on
+      with the new head of the family. Only one thing she did, and that against
+      Motley's and her father's protest. She withdrew her own little fortune,
+      left her by her mother, from Captain Barnabas's care and deposited it in
+      the Ostable savings bank and in equally secure places. Of course she told
+      the Captain of her determination to do this before she did it and the
+      telling was the cause of the only disagreement, almost a quarrel, which
+      she and her father ever had. The Captain was very angry and demanded
+      reasons. Hephzibah declared she didn't know that she had any reasons, but
+      she was going to do it, nevertheless. And she did do it. For months
+      thereafter relations between the two were strained; Barnabas scarcely
+      spoke to his older daughter and Hephzy shed tears in the solitude of her
+      bedroom. They were hard months for her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the end of them came the crash. Morley had developed a habit of running
+      up to Boston on business trips connected with his father-in-law's
+      investments. Of late these little trips had become more frequent. Also, so
+      it seemed to Hephzy, he was losing something of his genial sweetness and
+      suavity, and becoming more moody and less entertaining. Telegrams and
+      letters came frequently and these he read and destroyed at once. He seldom
+      played the violin now unless Captain Barnabas&mdash;who was fond of music
+      of the simpler sort&mdash;requested him to do so and he seemed uneasy and,
+      for him, surprisingly disinclined to talk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was not the only one who noticed the change in him. Ardelia noticed
+      it also and, as she always did when troubled or perplexed, sought her
+      sister's advice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I sha'n't ever forget that night when she came to me for the last time,&rdquo;
+       Hephzy has told me over and over again. &ldquo;She came up to my room, poor
+      thing, and set down on the side of my bed and told me how worried she was
+      about her husband. Father had turned in and HE was out, gone to the
+      post-office or somewheres. I had Ardelia all to myself, for a wonder, and
+      we sat and talked just the same as we used to before she was married. I'm
+      glad it happened so. I shall always have that to remember, anyhow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course, all her worry was about Strickland. She was afraid he was
+      makin' himself sick. He worked so hard; didn't I think so? Well, so far as
+      that was concerned, I had come to believe that almost any kind of work was
+      liable to make HIM sick, but of course I didn't say that to her. That
+      somethin' was troublin' him was plain, though I was far enough from
+      guessin' what that somethin' was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We set and talked, about Strickland and about Father and about ourselves.
+      Mainly Ardelia's talk was a praise service with her husband for the
+      subject of worship; she was so happy with him and idolized him so that she
+      couldn't spare time for much else. But she did speak a little about
+      herself and, before she went away, she whispered somethin' in my ear which
+      was a dead secret. Even Father didn't know it yet, she said. Of course I
+      was as pleased as she was, almost&mdash;and a little frightened too,
+      although I didn't say so to her. She was always a frail little thing,
+      delicate as she was pretty; not a strapping, rugged, homely body like me.
+      We wasn't a bit alike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So we talked and when she went away to bed she gave me an extra hug and
+      kiss; came back to give 'em to me, just as she used to when she was a
+      little girl. I wondered since if she had any inklin' of what was goin' to
+      happen. I'm sure she didn't; I'm sure of it as I am that it did happen.
+      She couldn't have kept it from me if she had known&mdash;not that night.
+      She went away to bed and I went to bed, too. I was a long while gettin' to
+      sleep and after I did I dreamed my first dream about 'Little Frank.' I
+      didn't call him 'Little Frank' then, though. I don't seem to remember what
+      I did call him or just how he looked except that he looked like Ardelia.
+      And the next afternoon she and Strickland went away&mdash;to Boston, he
+      told us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      From that trip they never returned. Morley's influence over his wife must
+      have been greater even than any of us thought to induce her to desert her
+      father and Hephzy without even a written word of explanation or farewell.
+      It is possible that she did write and that her husband destroyed the
+      letter. I am as sure as Hephzy is that Ardelia did not know what Morley
+      had done. But, at all events, they never came back to Bayport and within
+      the week the truth became known. Morley had speculated, had lost and lost
+      again and again. All of Captain Barnabas's own money and all intrusted to
+      his care, including my little nest-egg, had gone as margins to the brokers
+      who had bought for Morley his worthless eight per cent. wildcats. Hephzy's
+      few thousands in the savings bank and elsewhere were all that was left.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shall condense the rest of the miserable business as much as I can.
+      Captain Barnabas traced his daughter and her husband as far as the steamer
+      which sailed for England. Farther he would not trace them, although he
+      might easily have cabled and caused his son-in-law's arrest. For a month
+      he went about in a sort of daze, speaking to almost no one and sitting for
+      hours alone in his room. The doctor feared for his sanity, but when the
+      breakdown came it was in the form of a second paralytic stroke which left
+      him a helpless, crippled dependent, weak and shattered in body and mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He lived nine years longer. Meanwhile various things happened. I managed
+      to finish my preparatory school term and, then, instead of entering
+      college as Mother and I had planned, I went into business&mdash;save the
+      mark&mdash;taking the exalted position of entry clerk in a wholesale
+      drygoods house in Boston. As entry clerk I did not shine, but I continued
+      to keep the place until the firm failed&mdash;whether or not because of my
+      connection with it I am not sure, though I doubt if my services were
+      sufficiently important to contribute toward even this result. A month
+      later I obtained another position and, after that, another. I was never
+      discharged; I declare that with a sort of negative pride; but when I
+      announced to my second employer my intention of resigning he bore the
+      shock with&mdash;to say the least&mdash;philosophic fortitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall miss you, Knowles,&rdquo; he observed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, sir,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I doubt if we ever have another bookkeeper just like you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I thanked him again, fighting down my blushes with heroic modesty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I guess you can find one if you try,&rdquo; I said, lightly, wishing to
+      comfort him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook his head. &ldquo;I sha'n't try,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;I am not as young and as
+      strong as I was and&mdash;well, there is always the chance that we might
+      succeed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a mean thing to say&mdash;to a boy, for I was scarcely more than
+      that. And yet, looking back at it now, I am much more disposed to smile
+      and forgive than I was then. My bookkeeping must have been a trial to his
+      orderly, pigeon-holed soul. Why in the world he and his partner put up
+      with it so long is a miracle. When, after my first novel appeared, he
+      wrote me to say that the consciousness of having had a part, small though
+      it might be, in training my young mind upward toward the success it had
+      achieved would always be a great gratification to him, I did not send the
+      letter I wrote in answer. Instead I tore up my letter and his and grinned.
+      I WAS a bad bookkeeper; I was, and still am, a bad business man. Now I
+      don't care so much; that is the difference.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then I cared a great deal, but I kept on at my hated task. What else was
+      there for me to do? My salary was so small that, as Charlie Burns, one of
+      my fellow-clerks, said of his, I was afraid to count it over a bare floor
+      for fear that it might drop in a crack and be lost. It was my only
+      revenue, however, and I continued to live upon it somehow. I had a small
+      room in a boarding-house on Shawmut Avenue and I spent most of my evenings
+      there or in the reading-room at the public library. I was not popular at
+      the boarding-house. Most of the young fellows there went out a good deal,
+      to call upon young ladies or to dance or to go to the theater. I had
+      learned to dance when I was at school and I was fond of the theater, but I
+      did not dance well and on the rare occasions when I did accompany the
+      other fellows to the play and they laughed and applauded and tried to
+      flirt with the chorus girls, I fidgeted in my seat and was uncomfortable.
+      Not that I disapproved of their conduct; I rather envied them, in fact.
+      But if I laughed too heartily I was sure that everyone was looking at me,
+      and though I should have liked to flirt, I didn't know how.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The few attempts I made were not encouraging. One evening&mdash;I was
+      nineteen then, or thereabouts&mdash;Charlie Burns, the clerk whom I have
+      mentioned, suggested that we get dinner downtown at a restaurant and &ldquo;go
+      somewhere&rdquo; afterward. I agreed&mdash;it happened to be Saturday night and
+      I had my pay in my pocket&mdash;so we feasted on oyster stew and ice cream
+      and then started for what my companion called a &ldquo;variety show.&rdquo; Burns, who
+      cherished the fond hope that he was a true sport, ordered beer with his
+      oyster stew and insisted that I should do the same. My acquaintance with
+      beer was limited and I never did like the stuff, but I drank it with
+      reckless abandon, following each sip with a mouthful of something else to
+      get rid of the taste. On the way to the &ldquo;show&rdquo; we met two young women of
+      Burns' acquaintance and stopped to converse with them. Charlie offered his
+      arm to one, the best looking; I offered mine to the discard, and we
+      proceeded to stroll two by two along the Tremont Street mall of the
+      Common. We had strolled for perhaps ten minutes, most of which time I had
+      spent trying to think of something to say, when Burns' charmer&mdash;she
+      was a waitress in one of Mr. Wyman's celebrated &ldquo;sandwich depots,&rdquo; I
+      believe&mdash;turned and, looking back at my fair one and myself, observed
+      with some sarcasm: &ldquo;What's the matter with your silent partner, Mame? Got
+      the lock-jaw, has he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I left them soon after that. There was no &ldquo;variety show&rdquo; for me that
+      night. Humiliated and disgusted with myself I returned to my room at the
+      boarding-house, realizing in bitterness of spirit that the gentlemanly
+      dissipations of a true sport were never to be mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I grew older I kept more and more to myself. My work at the office must
+      have been a little better done, I fancy, for my salary was raised twice in
+      four years, but I detested the work and the office and all connected with
+      it. I read more and more at the public library and began to spend the few
+      dollars I could spare for luxuries on books. Among my acquaintances at the
+      boarding-house and elsewhere I had the reputation of being &ldquo;queer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My only periods of real pleasure were my annual vacations in summer. These
+      glorious fortnights were spent at Bayport. There, at our old home, for
+      Hephzibah had sold the big Cahoon house and she and her father were living
+      in mine, for which they paid a very small rent, I was happy. I spent the
+      two weeks in sailing and fishing, and tramping along the waved-washed
+      beaches and over the pine-sprinkled hills. Even in Bayport I had few
+      associates of my own age. Even then they began to call me &ldquo;The Quahaug.&rdquo;
+       Hephzy hugged me when I came and wept over me when I went away and mended
+      my clothes and cooked my favorite dishes in the interval. Captain Barnabas
+      sat in the big arm-chair by the sitting-room window, looking out or
+      sleeping. He took little interest in me or anyone else and spoke but
+      seldom. Occasionally I spent the Fourth of July or Christmas at Bayport;
+      not often, but as often as I could.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One morning&mdash;I was twenty-five at the time, and the day was Sunday&mdash;I
+      read a story in one of the low-priced magazines. It was not much of a
+      story, and, as I read it, I kept thinking that I could write as good a
+      one. I had had such ideas before, but nothing had come of them. This time,
+      however, I determined to try. In half an hour I had evolved a plot, such
+      as it was, and at a quarter to twelve that night the story was finished. A
+      highwayman was its hero and its scene the great North Road in England. My
+      conceptions of highwaymen and the North Road&mdash;of England, too, for
+      that matter&mdash;were derived from something I had read at some time or
+      other, I suppose; they must have been. At any rate, I finished that story,
+      addressed the envelope to the editor of the magazine and dropped the
+      envelope and its inclosure in the corner mail-box before I went to bed.
+      Next morning I went to the office as usual. I had not the faintest hope
+      that the story would be accepted. The writing of it had been fun and the
+      sending it to the magazine a joke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the story was accepted and the check which I received&mdash;forty
+      dollars&mdash;was far from a joke to a man whose weekly wage was half that
+      amount. The encouraging letter which accompanied the check was best of
+      all. Before the week ended I had written another thriller and this, too,
+      was accepted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thereafter, for a year or more, my Sundays and the most of my evenings
+      were riots of ink and blood. The ink was real enough and the blood purely
+      imaginary. My heroes spilled the latter and I the former. Sometimes my
+      yarns were refused, but the most of them were accepted and paid for.
+      Editors of other periodicals began to write to me requesting
+      contributions. My price rose. For one particularly harrowing and romantic
+      tale I was paid seventy-five dollars. I dressed in my best that evening,
+      dined at the Adams House, gave the waiter a quarter, and saw Joseph
+      Jefferson from an orchestra seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then came the letter from Jim Campbell requesting me to come to New York
+      and see him concerning a possible book, a romance, to be written by me and
+      published by the firm of which he was the head. I saw my employer,
+      obtained a Saturday off, and spent that Saturday and Sunday in New York,
+      my first visit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a result of that visit began my friendship with Campbell and my first
+      long story, &ldquo;The Queen's Amulet.&rdquo; The &ldquo;Amulet,&rdquo; or the &ldquo;Omelet,&rdquo; just as
+      you like, was a financial success. It sold a good many thousand copies.
+      Six months later I broke to my employers the distressing news that their
+      business must henceforth worry on as best it could without my aid; I was
+      going to devote my valuable time and effort to literature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My fellow-clerks were surprised. Charlie Burns, head bookkeeper now, and a
+      married man and a father, was much concerned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, great Scott, Kent!&rdquo; he protested, &ldquo;you're going to do something
+      besides write books, ain't you? You ain't going to make your whole living
+      that way?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to try,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Great Scott! Why, you'll starve! All those fellows live in garrets and
+      starve to death, don't they?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not all,&rdquo; I told him. &ldquo;Only real geniuses do that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook his head and his good-by was anything but cheerful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My plans were made and I put them into execution at once. I shipped my
+      goods and chattels, the latter for the most part books, to Bayport and
+      went there to live and write in the old house where I was born. Hephzy was
+      engaged as my housekeeper. She was alone now; Captain Barnabas had died
+      nearly two years before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the Captain's papers and discovered by his daughter after his death
+      was a letter from Strickland Morley. It was written from a town in France
+      and was dated six years after Morley's flight and the disclosure of his
+      crookedness. Captain Barnabas had never, apparently, answered the letter;
+      certainly he had never told anyone of its receipt by him. The old man
+      never mentioned Morley's name and only spoke of Ardelia during his last
+      hours, when his mind was wandering. Then he spoke of and asked for her
+      continually, driving poor Hephzibah to distraction, for her love for her
+      lost sister was as great as his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The letter was the complaining whine of a thoroughly selfish man. I can
+      scarcely refer to it without losing patience, even now when I understand
+      more completely the circumstances under which it was written. It was not
+      too plainly written or coherent and seemed to imply that other letters had
+      preceded it. Morley begged for money. He was in &ldquo;pitiful straits,&rdquo; he
+      declared, compelled to live as no gentleman of birth and breeding should
+      live. As a matter of fact, the remnant of his resources, the little cash
+      left from the Captain's fortune which he had taken with him had gone and
+      he was earning a precarious living by playing the violin in a second-rate
+      orchestra. &ldquo;For poor dead Ardelia's sake,&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;and for the sake of
+      little Francis, your grandchild, I ask you to extend the financial help
+      which I, as your heir-in-law, might demand. You may consider that I have
+      wronged you, but, as you should know and must know, the wrong was
+      unintentional and due solely to the sudden collapse of the worthless
+      American investments which the scoundrelly Yankee brokers inveigled me
+      into making.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      If the money was sent at once, he added, it might reach him in time to
+      prevent his yielding to despondency and committing suicide.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Suicide! HE commit suicide!&rdquo; sniffed Hephzy when she read me the letter.
+      &ldquo;He thinks too much of his miserable self ever to hurt it. But, oh dear! I
+      wish Pa had told me of this letter instead of hidin' it away. I might have
+      sent somethin', not to him, but to poor, motherless Little Frank.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had tried; that is, she had written to the French address, but her
+      letter had been returned. Morley and the child of whom this letter
+      furnished the only information were no longer in that locality. Hephzy had
+      talked of &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; and dreamed about him at intervals ever since. He
+      had come to be a reality to her, and she even cut a child's picture from a
+      magazine and fastened it to the wall of her room beneath the engraving of
+      Westminster Abbey, because there was something about the child in the
+      picture which reminded her of &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; as he looked in her dreams.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She and I had lived together ever since, I continuing to turn out, each
+      with less enthusiasm and more labor, my stories of persons and places of
+      which, as Campbell said but too truly, I knew nothing whatever. Finally I
+      had reached my determination to write no more &ldquo;slush,&rdquo; profitable though
+      it might be. I invited Jim to visit me; he had come and the conversation
+      at the boathouse and his remarks at the bedroom door were all the
+      satisfaction that visit had brought me so far.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I sat there in my study, going over all this, not so fully as I have set
+      it down here, but fully nevertheless, and the possibility of finding even
+      a glimmer of interest or a hint of fictional foundation in Hephzibah or
+      her life or mine was as remote at the end of my thinking as it had been at
+      the beginning. There might be a story there, or a part of a story, but I
+      could not write it. The real trouble was that I could not write anything.
+      With which, conclusion, exactly what I started with, I blew out the lamp
+      and went upstairs to bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next morning Jim and I went for another sail from which we did not return
+      until nearly dinner-time. During that whole forenoon he did not mention
+      the promised &ldquo;prescription,&rdquo; although I offered him plenty of
+      opportunities and threw out various hints by way of bait.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He ignored the bait altogether and, though he talked a great deal and
+      asked a good many questions, both talk and questions had no bearing on the
+      all-important problem which had been my real reason for inviting him to
+      Bayport. He questioned me again concerning my way of spending my time,
+      about my savings, how much money I had put by, and the like, but I was not
+      particularly interested in these matters and they were not his business,
+      to put it plainly. At least, I could not see that they were.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I answered him as briefly as possible and, I am afraid, behaved rather
+      boorishly to one, who next to Hephzy, was perhaps the best friend I had in
+      the world. His apparent lack of interest hurt and disappointed me and I
+      did not care if he knew it. My impatience must have been apparent enough,
+      but if so it did not trouble him; he chatted and laughed and told stories
+      all the way from the landing to the house and announced to Hephzy, who had
+      stayed at home from church in order to prepare and cook clam chowder and
+      chicken pie and a &ldquo;Queen pudding,&rdquo; that he had an appetite like a starved
+      shark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When, at last, that appetite was satisfied, he and I adjourned to the
+      sitting-room for a farewell smoke. His train left at three-thirty and it
+      lacked but an hour of that time. He had worn my suit, the one which
+      Hephzibah had laid out for him the day before, but had changed to his own
+      again and packed his bag before dinner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We camped in the wing chairs and he lighted his cigar. Then, to my
+      astonishment, he rose and shut the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you do that for?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He came back to his chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I'm going to talk to you like a Dutch uncle,&rdquo; he replied, &ldquo;and I
+      don't want anyone, not even a Cape Cod cousin, butting in. Kent, I told
+      you that before I went I was going to prescribe for you, didn't I? Well,
+      I'm going to do it now. Are you ready for the prescription?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been ready for it for some time,&rdquo; I retorted. &ldquo;I began to think
+      you had forgotten it altogether.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hadn't. But I wanted it to be the last word you should hear from me and
+      I didn't want to give you time to think up a lot of fool objections to
+      spring on me before I left. Look here, I'm your doctor now; do you
+      understand? You called me in as a specialist and what I say goes. Is that
+      understood?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hear you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've got to do more than hear me. You've got to do what I tell you. I
+      know what ails you. You've buried yourself in the mud down here. Wake up,
+      you clam! Come out of your shell. Stir around. Stop thinking about
+      yourself and think of something worth while.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear! dear! hark to the voice of the oracle. And what is the something
+      worth while I am to think about; you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, by George! me! Me and the dear public! Here are thirty-five thousand
+      seekers after the&mdash;the higher literature, panting open-mouthed for
+      another Knowles classic. And you sit back here and cover yourself with
+      sand and seaweed and say you won't give it to them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're wrong. I say I can't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will, though.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I won't. You can bet high on that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will, and I'll bet higher. YOU write no more stories! You! Why,
+      confound you, you couldn't help it if you tried. You needn't write another
+      'Black Brig' unless you want to. You needn't&mdash;you mustn't write
+      anything UNTIL you want to. But, by George! you'll get up and open your
+      eyes and stir around, and keep stirring until the time comes when you've
+      found something or someone you DO want to write about. THEN you'll write;
+      you will, for I know you. It may turn out to be what you call 'slush,' or
+      it may not, but you'll write it, mark my words.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was serious now, serious enough even to suit me. But what he had said
+      did not suit me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't talk nonsense, Jim,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Don't you suppose I have thought&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thought! that's just it; you do nothing but think. Stop thinking. Stop
+      being a quahaug&mdash;a dead one, anyway. Drop the whole business, drop
+      Bayport, drop America, if you like. Get up, clear out, go to China, go to
+      Europe, go to&mdash;Well, never mind, but go somewhere. Go somewhere and
+      forget it. Travel, take a long trip, start for one place and, if you
+      change your mind before you get there, go somewhere else. It doesn't make
+      much difference where, so that you go, and see different things. I'm
+      talking now, Kent Knowles, and it isn't altogether because it pays us to
+      publish your books, either. You drop Bayport and drop writing. Go out and
+      pick up and go. Stay six months, stay a year, stay two years, but keep
+      alive and meet people and give what you flatter yourself is a brain
+      house-cleaning. Confound you, you've kept it shut like one of these best
+      front parlors down here. Open the windows and air out. Let the outside
+      light in. An idea may come with it; it is barely possible, even to you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was out of breath by this time. I was in a somewhat similar condition
+      for his tirade had taken mine away. However, I managed to express my
+      feelings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph!&rdquo; I grunted. &ldquo;And so this is your wonderful prescription. I am to
+      travel, am I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are. You can afford it, and I'll see that you do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And just what port would you recommend?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't care, I tell you, except that it ought to be a long way off. I'm
+      not joking, Kent; this is straight. A good long jaunt around the world
+      would do you a barrel of good. Don't stop to think about it, just start,
+      that's all. Will you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed. The idea of my starting on a pleasure trip was ridiculous. If
+      ever there was a home-loving and home-staying person it was I. The bare
+      thought of leaving my comfort and my books and Hephzy made me shudder. I
+      hadn't the least desire to see other countries and meet other people. I
+      hated sleeping cars and railway trains and traveling acquaintances. So I
+      laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sorry, Jim,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;but I'm afraid I can't take your prescription.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For one reason because I don't want to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's no reason at all. It doesn't make any difference what you want.
+      Anything else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. I would no more wander about creation all alone than&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take someone with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who? Will you go, yourself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish I could,&rdquo; he said, and I think he meant it. &ldquo;I'd like nothing
+      better. I'D keep you alive, you can bet on that. But I can't leave the
+      literature works just now. I'll do my best to find someone who will,
+      though. I know a lot of good fellows who travel&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I held up my hand. &ldquo;That's enough,&rdquo; I interrupted. &ldquo;They can't travel with
+      me. They wouldn't be good fellows long if they did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He struck the chair arm with his fist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're as near impossible as you can be, aren't you,&rdquo; he exclaimed.
+      &ldquo;Never mind; you're going to do as I tell you. I never gave you bad advice
+      yet, now did I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;o. No, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not giving it to you now. You'll go and you'll go in a hurry. I'll
+      give you a week to think the idea over. At the end of that time if I don't
+      hear from you I'll be down here again, and I'll worry you every minute
+      until you'll go anywhere to get rid of me. Kent, you must do it. You
+      aren't written out, as you call it, but you are rusting out, fast. If you
+      don't get away and polish up you'll never do a thing worth while. You'll
+      be another what's-his-name&mdash;Ase Tidditt; that's what you'll be. I can
+      see it coming on. You're ossifying; you're narrowing; you're&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I broke in here. I didn't like to be called narrow and I did not like to
+      be paired with Asaph Tidditt, although our venerable town clerk is a good
+      citizen and all right, in his way. But I had flattered myself that way was
+      not mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop it, Jim!&rdquo; I ordered. &ldquo;Don't blow off any more steam in this
+      ridiculous fashion. If this is all you have to say to me, you may as well
+      stop.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop! I've only begun. I'll stop when you start, and not before. Will you
+      go?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't, Jim. You know I can't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know you can and I know you're going to. There!&rdquo; rising and laying a
+      hand on my shoulder, &ldquo;it is time for ME to be starting. Kent, old man, I
+      want you to promise me that you will do as I tell you. Will you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't, Jim. I would if I could, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you promise me to think the idea over? Think it over carefully;
+      don't think of anything else for the rest of the week? Will you promise me
+      to do that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hesitated. I was perfectly sure that all my thinking would but
+      strengthen my determination to remain at home, but I did not like to
+      appear too stubborn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, yes, Jim,&rdquo; I said, doubtfully, &ldquo;I promise so much, if that is any
+      satisfaction to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right. I'll give you until Friday to make up your mind. If I don't
+      hear from you by that time I shall take it for granted that you have made
+      it up in the wrong way and I'll be here on Saturday. I'll keep the process
+      up week in and week out until you give in. That's MY promise. Come on. We
+      must be moving.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He said good-by to Hephzy and we walked together to the station. His last
+      words as we shook hands by the car steps were: &ldquo;Remember&mdash;think. But
+      don't you dare think of anything else.&rdquo; My answer was a dubious shake of
+      the head. Then the train pulled out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I believe that afternoon and evening to have been the &ldquo;bluest&rdquo; of all my
+      blue periods, and I had had some blue ones prior to Jim's visit. I was
+      dreadfully disappointed. Of course I should have realized that no advice
+      or &ldquo;prescription&rdquo; could help me. As Campbell had said, &ldquo;It was up to me;&rdquo;
+       I must help myself; but I had been trying to help myself for months and I
+      had not succeeded. I had&mdash;foolishly, I admit&mdash;relied upon him to
+      give me a new idea, a fresh inspiration, and he had not done it. I was
+      disappointed and more discouraged than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My state of mind may seem ridiculous. Perhaps it was. I was in good
+      health, not very old&mdash;except in my feelings&mdash;and my stories,
+      even the &ldquo;Black Brig,&rdquo; had not been failures, by any means. But I am sure
+      that every man or woman who writes, or paints, or does creative work of
+      any kind, will understand and sympathize with me. I had &ldquo;gone stale,&rdquo; that
+      is the technical name for my disease, and to &ldquo;go stale&rdquo; is no joke. If you
+      doubt it ask the writer or painter of your acquaintance. Ask him if he
+      ever has felt that he could write or paint no more, and then ask him how
+      he liked the feeling. The fact that he has written or painted a great deal
+      since has no bearing on the matter. &ldquo;Staleness&rdquo; is purely a mental
+      ailment, and the confident assurance of would-be doctors that its attacks
+      are seldom fatal doesn't help the sufferer at the time. He knows he is
+      dead, and that is no better, then, than being dead in earnest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I knew I was dead, so far as my writing was concerned, and the advice to
+      go away and bury myself in a strange country did not appeal to me. It
+      might be true that I was already buried in Bayport, but that was my home
+      cemetery, at all events. The more I thought of Jim Campbell's prescription
+      the less I felt like taking it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, I kept on with the thinking; I had promised to do that. On
+      Wednesday came a postcard from Jim, himself, demanding information. &ldquo;When
+      and where are you going?&rdquo; he wrote. &ldquo;Wire answer.&rdquo; I did not wire answer.
+      I was not going anywhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I thrust the card into my pocket and, turning away from the frame of
+      letter boxes, faced Captain Cyrus Whittaker, who, like myself, had come to
+      Simmons's for his mail. He greeted me cordially.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello, Kent,&rdquo; he hailed. &ldquo;How are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About the same as usual, Captain,&rdquo; I answered, shortly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's pretty fair, by the looks. You don't look too happy, though, come
+      to notice it. What's the matter; got bad news?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. I haven't any news, good or bad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That so? Then I'll give you some. Phoebe and I are going to start for
+      California to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are? To California? Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, just for instance, that's all. Time's come when I have to go
+      somewhere, and the Yosemite and the big trees look good to me. It's this
+      way, Kent; I like Bayport, you know that. Nobody's more in love with this
+      old town than I am; it's my home and I mean to live and die here, if I
+      have luck. But it don't do for me to stay here all the time. If I do I
+      begin to be no good, like a strawberry plant that's been kept in one place
+      too long and has quit bearin.' The only thing to do with that plant is to
+      transplant it and let it get nourishment in a new spot. Then you can move
+      it back by and by and it's all right. Same way with me. Every once in a
+      while I have to be transplanted so's to freshen up. My brains need
+      somethin' besides post-office talk and sewin'-circle gossip to keep them
+      from shrivelin'. I was commencin' to feel the shrivel, so it's California
+      for Phoebe and me. Better come along, Kent. You're beginnin' to shrivel a
+      little, ain't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Was it as apparent as all that? I was indignant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do I look it?&rdquo; I demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;o, but I ain't sure that you don't act it. No offence, you
+      understand. Just a little ground bait to coax you to come on the
+      California cruise along with Phoebe and me, that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not likely that I should accept. Two are company and three a crowd,
+      and if ever two were company Captain Cy and his wife were those two. I
+      thanked him and declined, but I asked a question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You believe in travel as a restorative, you do?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hey? I sartin do. Change your course once in awhile, same as you change
+      your clothes. Wearin' the same suit and cruisin' in the same puddle all
+      the time ain't healthy. You're too apt to get sick of the clothes and
+      puddle both.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you don't believe in traveling alone, do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; emphatically, &ldquo;I don't, generally speakin.' If you go off by
+      yourself you're too likely to keep thinkin' ABOUT yourself. Take somebody
+      with you; somebody you're used to and know well and like, though.
+      Travelin' with strangers is a little mite worse than travelin' alone. You
+      want to be mighty sure of your shipmate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I walked home. Hephzibah was in the sitting-room, reading and knitting a
+      stocking, a stocking for me. She did not need to use her eyes for the
+      knitting; I am quite sure she could have knit in her sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello, Hosy,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;been up to the office, have you? Any mail?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing much. Humph! Still reading that Raymond and Whitcomb circular?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, not that one. This is one I got last year. I've been sittin' here
+      plannin' out just where I'd go and what I'd see if I could. It's the next
+      best thing to really goin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at her. All at once a new idea began to crystallize in my mind.
+      It was a curious idea, a ridiculous idea, and yet&mdash;and yet it seemed&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; said I, suddenly, &ldquo;would you really like to go abroad?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;WOULD I? Hosy, how you talk! You know I've been crazy to go ever since I
+      was a little girl. I don't know what makes me so. Perhaps it's the salt
+      water in my blood. All our folks were sailors and ship captains. They went
+      everywhere. I presume likely it takes more than one generation to kill off
+      that sort of thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you really want to go?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then why haven't you gone? You could afford to take a moderate-priced
+      tour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy laughed over her knitting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I haven't gone for the reason you haven't, Hosy. You
+      could afford, it, too&mdash;you know you could. But how could I go and
+      leave you? Why, I shouldn't sleep a minute wonderin' if you were wearin'
+      clothes without holes in 'em and if you changed your flannels when the
+      weather changed and ate what you ought to, and all that. You've been so&mdash;so
+      sort of dependent on me and I've been so used to takin' care of you that I
+      don't believe either of us would be happy anywhere without the other. I
+      know certain sure <i>I</i> shouldn't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not answer immediately. The idea, the amazing, ridiculous idea which
+      had burst upon me suddenly began to lose something of its absurdity.
+      Somehow it began to look like the answer to my riddle. I realized that my
+      main objection to the Campbell prescription had been that I must take it
+      alone or with strangers. And now&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; I demanded, &ldquo;would you go away&mdash;on a trip abroad&mdash;with
+      me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She put down the knitting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy Knowles!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;WHAT are you talkin' about?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But would you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I presume likely I would, if I had the chance; but it isn't likely that&mdash;where
+      are you goin'?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not answer. I hurried out of the sitting-room and out of the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I returned I found her still knitting. The circular lay on the floor
+      at her feet. She regarded me anxiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy,&rdquo; she demanded, &ldquo;where&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I interrupted. &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I have been to the station to send a
+      telegram.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A telegram? A TELEGRAM! For mercy sakes, who's dead?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Telegrams in Bayport usually mean death or desperate illness. I laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No one is dead, Hephzy,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;In fact it is barely possible that
+      someone is coming to life. I telegraphed Mr. Campbell to engage passage
+      for you and me on some steamer leaving for Europe next week.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah turned pale. The partially knitted sock dropped beside the
+      circular.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why&mdash;why&mdash;what&mdash;?&rdquo; she gasped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On a steamer leaving next week,&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;You want to travel, Hephzy.
+      Jim says I must. So we'll travel together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not believe I meant it, of course, and it took a long time to
+      convince her. But when at last she began to believe&mdash;at least to the
+      extent of believing that I had sent the telegram&mdash;her next remark was
+      characteristic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I&mdash;I can't go, Hosy,&rdquo; declared Hephzibah. &ldquo;I CAN'T. Who&mdash;who
+      would take care of the cat and the hens?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which Hephzy and I and the Plutonia Sail Together
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The week which began that Wednesday afternoon seems, as I look back to it
+      now, a bit of the remote past, instead of seven days of a year ago. Its
+      happenings, important and wonderful as they were, seem trivial and tame
+      compared with those which came afterward. And yet, at the time, that week
+      was a season of wild excitement and delightful anticipation for Hephzibah,
+      and of excitement not unmingled with doubts and misgivings for me. For us
+      both it was a busy week, to put it mildly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once convinced that I meant what I said and that I was not &ldquo;raving
+      distracted,&rdquo; which I think was her first diagnosis of my case, Hephzy's
+      practical mind began to unearth objections, first to her going at all and,
+      second, to going on such short notice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't think I'd better, Hosy,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You're awful good to ask me
+      and I know you think you mean it, but I don't believe I ought to do it,
+      even if I felt as if I could leave the house and everything alone. You
+      see, I've lived here in Bayport so long that I'm old-fashioned and funny
+      and countrified, I guess. You'd be ashamed of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled. &ldquo;When I am ashamed of you, Hephzy,&rdquo; I replied, &ldquo;I shall be on my
+      way to the insane asylum, not to Europe. You are much more likely to be
+      ashamed of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The idea! And you the pride of this town! The only author that ever lived
+      in it&mdash;unless you call Joshua Snow an author, and he lived in the
+      poorhouse and nobody but himself was proud of HIM.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Josh Snow was Bayport's Homer, its only native poet. He wrote the immortal
+      ballad of the scallop industry, which begins:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;On a fine morning at break of day,
+      When the ice has all gone out of the bay,
+      And the sun is shining nice and it is like spring,
+      Then all hands start to go scallop-ING.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      In order to get the fullest measure of music from this lyric gem you
+      should put a strong emphasis on the final &ldquo;ing.&rdquo; Joshua always did and the
+      summer people never seemed to tire of hearing him recite it. There are
+      eighteen more verses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not be ashamed of you, Hephzy,&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;You know it
+      perfectly well. And I shall not go unless you go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I can't go, Hosy. I couldn't leave the hens and the cat. They'd
+      starve; you know they would.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Susanna will look after them. I'll leave money for their provender. And I
+      will pay Susanna for taking care of them. She has fallen in love with the
+      cat; she'll be only too glad to adopt it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I haven't got a single thing fit to wear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Neither have I. We will buy complete fit-outs in Boston or New York.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There were innumerable &ldquo;buts.&rdquo; I answered them as best I could. Also I
+      reiterated my determination not to go unless she did. I told of Campbell's
+      advice and laid strong emphasis on the fact that he had said travel was my
+      only hope. Unless she wished me to die of despair she must agree to travel
+      with me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you have said over and over again that your one desire was to go
+      abroad,&rdquo; I added, as a final clincher.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know it. I know I have. But&mdash;but now when it comes to really goin'
+      I'm not so sure. Uncle Bedny Small was always declarin' in prayer-meetin'
+      that he wanted to die so as to get to Heaven, but when he was taken down
+      with influenza he made his folks call both doctors here in town and one
+      from Harniss. I don't know whether I want to go or not, Hosy. I&mdash;I'm
+      frightened, I guess.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim's answer to my telegram arrived the very next day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have engaged two staterooms for ship sailing Wednesday the tenth,&rdquo; it
+      read. &ldquo;Hearty congratulations on your good sense. Who is your companion?
+      Write particulars.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The telegram quashed the last of Hephzy's objections. The fares had been
+      paid and she was certain they must be &ldquo;dreadful expensive.&rdquo; All that money
+      could not be wasted, so she accepted the inevitable and began
+      preparations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not write the &ldquo;particulars&rdquo; requested. I had a feeling that Campbell
+      might consider my choice of a traveling companion a queer one and,
+      although my mind was made up and his opinion could not change it, I
+      thought it just as well to wait until our arrival in New York before
+      telling him. So I wrote a brief note stating that my friend and I would
+      reach New York on the morning of the tenth and that I would see him there.
+      Also I asked, for my part, the name of the steamer he had selected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His answer was as vague as mine. He congratulated me once more upon my
+      decision, prophesied great things as the result of what he called my
+      &ldquo;foreign junket,&rdquo; and gave some valuable advice concerning the necessary
+      outfit, clothes, trunks and the like. &ldquo;Travel light,&rdquo; he wrote. &ldquo;You can
+      buy whatever else you may need on the other side. 'Phone as soon as you
+      reach New York.&rdquo; But he did not tell me the name of the ship, nor for what
+      port she was to sail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So Hephzy and I were obliged to turn to the newspapers for information
+      upon those more or less important subjects, and we speculated and guessed
+      not a little. The New York dailies were not obtainable in Bayport except
+      during the summer months and the Boston publications did not give the New
+      York sailings. I wrote to a friend in Boston and he sent me the leading
+      journals of the former city and, as soon as they arrived, Hephzy sat down
+      upon the sitting-room carpet&mdash;which she had insisted upon having
+      taken up to be packed away in moth balls&mdash;to look at the maritime
+      advertisements. I am quite certain it was the only time she sat down,
+      except at meals, that day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I selected one of the papers and she another. We reached the same
+      conclusion simultaneously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, it must be&mdash;&rdquo; she began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Princess Eulalie,&rdquo; I finished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the only one that sails on the tenth. There is one on the eleventh,
+      though.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but that one is the 'Plutonia,' one of the fastest and most
+      expensive liners afloat. It isn't likely that Jim had booked us for the
+      'Plutonia.' She would scarcely be in our&mdash;in my class.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! I guess she isn't any too good for a famous man like you, Hosy.
+      But I would look funny on her, I give in. I've read about her. She's
+      always full of lords and ladies and millionaires and things. Just the sort
+      of folks you write about. She'd be just the one for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I shook my head. &ldquo;My lords and ladies are only paper dolls, Hephzy,&rdquo; I
+      said, ruefully. &ldquo;I should be as lost as you among the flesh and blood
+      variety. No, the 'Princess Eulalie' must be ours. She runs to Amsterdam,
+      though. Odd that Jim should send me to Holland.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy nodded and then offered a solution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't doubt he did it on purpose,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;He knew neither you
+      nor I was anxious to go to England. He knows we don't think much of the
+      English, after our experience with that Morley brute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, he doesn't know any such thing. I've never told him a word about
+      Morley. And he doesn't know you're going, Hephzy. I've kept that as a&mdash;as
+      a surprise for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, never mind. I'd rather go to Amsterdam than England. It's nearer to
+      France.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was surprised. &ldquo;Nearer to France?&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;What difference does
+      that make? We don't know anyone in France.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah was plainly shocked. &ldquo;Why, Hosy!&rdquo; she protested. &ldquo;Have you
+      forgotten Little Frank? He is in France somewhere, or he was at last
+      accounts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good Lord!&rdquo; I groaned. Then I got up and went out. I had forgotten
+      &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; and hoped that she had. If she was to flit about Europe
+      seeing &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; on every corner I foresaw trouble. &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo;
+       was likely to be the bane of my existence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We left Bayport on Monday morning. The house was cleaned and swept and
+      scoured and moth-proofed from top to bottom. Every door was double-locked
+      and every window nailed. Burglars are unknown in Bayport, but that didn't
+      make any difference. &ldquo;You can't be too careful,&rdquo; said Hephzy. I was of the
+      opinion that you could.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cat had been &ldquo;farmed out&rdquo; with Susanna's people and Susanna herself
+      was to feed the hens twice a day, lock them in each night and let them out
+      each morning. Their keeper had a carefully prepared schedule as to
+      quantity and quality of food; Hephzy had prepared and furnished it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And don't you give 'em any fish,&rdquo; ordered Hephzy. &ldquo;I ate a chicken once
+      that had been fed on fish, and&mdash;my soul!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was quite an assemblage at the station to see us off. Captain
+      Whittaker and his wife were not there, of course; they were near
+      California by this time. But Mr. Partridge, the minister, was there and so
+      was his wife; and Asaph Tidditt and Mr. and Mrs. Bailey Bangs and Captain
+      Josiah Dimick and HIS wife, and several others. Oh, yes! and Angeline
+      Phinney. Angeline was there, of course. If anything happened in Bayport
+      and Angeline was not there to help it happen, then&mdash;I don't know what
+      then; the experiment had never been tried in my lifetime.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everyone said pleasant things to us. They really seemed sorry to have us
+      leave Bayport, but for our sakes they expressed themselves as glad. It
+      would be such a glorious trip; we would have so much to tell when we got
+      back. Mr. Partridge said he should plan for me to give a little talk to
+      the Sunday school upon my return. It would be a wonderful thing for the
+      children. To my mind the most wonderful part of the idea was that he
+      should take my consent for granted. <i>I</i> talk to the Sunday school! I,
+      the Quahaug! My knees shook even at the thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Keturah Bangs hoped we would have a &ldquo;lovely time.&rdquo; She declared that it
+      had been the one ambition of her life to go sight-seeing. But she should
+      never do it&mdash;no, no! Such things wasn't for her. If she had a husband
+      like some women it might be, but not as 'twas. She had long ago given up
+      hopin' to do anything but keep boarders, and she had to do that all by
+      herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bailey, her husband, grinned sheepishly but, for a wonder, he did not
+      attempt defence. I gathered that Bailey was learning wisdom. It was time;
+      he had attended his wife's academy a long while.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Captain Dimick brought a bag of apples, greenings, some he had kept in the
+      cellar over winter. &ldquo;Nice to eat on the cars,&rdquo; he told us. Everyone asked
+      us to send postcards. Miss Phinney was especially solicitous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It'll be just lovely to know where you be and what you're doin,&rdquo; she
+      declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the train had started and we had waved the last good-bys from the
+      window Hephzibah expressed her opinion concerning Angeline's request.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I send HER postcards!&rdquo; she snapped. &ldquo;I think I see myself doin' it! All
+      she cares about 'em is so she can run from Dan to Beersheba showin' 'em to
+      everybody and talkin' about how extravagant we are and wonderin' if we
+      borrowed the money. But there! it won't make any difference. If I don't
+      send 'em to her she'll read all I send to other folks. She and Rebecca
+      Simmons are close as two peas in a pod and Becky reads everything that
+      comes through her husband's post-office. All that aren't sealed, that is&mdash;yes,
+      and some that are, I shouldn't wonder, if they're not sealed tight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her next remark was a surprising one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;how much they all think of you, don't they. Isn't it
+      nice to know you're so popular.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I turned in the seat to stare at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Popular!&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;Hephzy, I have a good deal of respect for your
+      brain, generally speaking, but there are times when I think it shows signs
+      of softening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not resent my candor; she paid absolutely no attention to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't mean popular with everybody, rag, tag and bobtail and all, like&mdash;well,
+      Eben Salters,&rdquo; she went on. &ldquo;But the folks that count all respect and like
+      you, Hosy. I know they do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Salters is our leading local statesman&mdash;since the departure of
+      the Honorable Heman Atkins. He has filled every office in his native
+      village and he has served one term as representative in the State House at
+      Boston. He IS popular.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is marvelous how affection can be concealed,&rdquo; I observed, with
+      sarcasm. Hephzy was back at me like a flash.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course they don't tell you of it,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;If they did you'd
+      probably tell 'em to their faces that they were fibbin' and not speak to
+      'em again. But they do like you, and I know it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was useless to carry the argument further. When Hephzy begins chanting
+      my praises I find it easier to surrender&mdash;and change the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Boston we shopped. It seems to me that we did nothing else. I bought
+      what I needed the very first day, clothes, hat, steamer coat and traveling
+      cap included. It did not take me long; fortunately I am of the average
+      height and shape and the salesmen found me easy to please. My shopping
+      tour was ended by three o'clock and I spent the remainder of the afternoon
+      at a bookseller's. There was a set of &ldquo;Early English Poets&rdquo; there,
+      nineteen little, fat, chunky volumes, not new and shiny and grand, but
+      middle-aged and shabby and comfortable, which appealed to me. The price,
+      however, was high; I had the uneasy feeling that I ought not to afford it.
+      Then the bookseller himself, who also was fat and comfortably shabby, and
+      who had beguiled from me the information that I was about to travel,
+      suggested that the &ldquo;Poets&rdquo; would make very pleasant reading en route.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have found,&rdquo; he said, beaming over his spectacles, &ldquo;that a little book
+      of this kind,&rdquo; patting one of the volumes, &ldquo;which may be carried in the
+      pocket, is a rare traveling companion. When you wish his society he is
+      there, and when you tire of him you can shut him up. You can't do that
+      with all traveling companions, you know. Ha! ha!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He chuckled over his joke and I chuckled with him. Humor of that kind is
+      expensive, for I bought the &ldquo;English Poets&rdquo; and ordered them sent to my
+      hotel. It was not until they were delivered, an hour later, that I began
+      to wonder what I should do with them. Our trunks were likely to be crowded
+      and I could not carry all of the nineteen volumes in my pockets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah, who had been shopping on her own hook, did not return until
+      nearly seven. She returned weary and almost empty-handed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But didn't you buy ANYTHING?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;Where in the world have you
+      been?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had been everywhere, so she said. This wasn't entirely true, but I
+      gathered that she had visited about every department store in the city.
+      She had found ever so many things she liked, but oh dear! they did cost so
+      much.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was one traveling coat that I did want dreadfully,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It
+      was a dark brown, not too dark, but just light enough so it wouldn't show
+      water spots. I've been out sailing enough times to know how your things
+      get water-spotted. It fitted me real nice; there wouldn't have to be a
+      thing done to it. But it cost thirty-one dollars! 'My soul!' says I, 'I
+      can't afford THAT!' But they didn't have anything cheaper that wouldn't
+      have made me look like one of those awful play-actin' girls that came to
+      Bayport with the Uncle Tom's Cabin show. And I tried everywhere and
+      nothin' pleased me so well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you didn't buy the coat?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;BUY it? My soul Hosy, didn't I tell you it cost&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know. What else did you see that you didn't buy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hey? Oh, I saw a suit, a nice lady-like suit, and I tried it on. That
+      fitted me, too, only the sleeves would have to be shortened. And it would
+      have gone SO well with that coat. But the suit cost FORTY dollars. 'Good
+      land!' I said, 'haven't you got ANYTHING for poor folks?' And you ought to
+      have seen the look that girl gave me! And a hat&mdash;oh, yes, I saw a
+      hat! It was&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a great deal more. Summed up it amounted to something like this:
+      All that suited her had been too high-priced and all that she considered
+      within her means hadn't suited her at all. So she had bought practically
+      nothing but a few non-essentials. And we were to leave for New York the
+      following night and sail for Europe the day after.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;you will go shopping again to-morrow morning and I'll
+      go with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Go we did, and we bought the coat and the hat and the suit and various
+      other things. With each purchase Hephzy's groans and protests at my
+      reckless extravagance grew louder. At last I had an inspiration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;when we meet Little Frank over there in France, or
+      wherever he may be, you will want him to be favorably impressed with your
+      appearance, won't you? These things cost money of course, but we must
+      think of Little Frank. He has never seen his American relatives and so
+      much depends on a first impression.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy regarded me with suspicion. &ldquo;Humph!&rdquo; she sniffed, &ldquo;that's the first
+      time I ever knew you to give in that there WAS a Little Frank. All right,
+      I sha'n't say any more, but I hope the foreign poorhouses are more
+      comfortable than ours, that's all. If you make me keep on this way, I'll
+      fetch up in one before the first month's over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We left for New York on the five o'clock train. Packing those &ldquo;Early
+      English Poets&rdquo; was a confounded nuisance. They had to be stuffed here,
+      there and everywhere amid my wearing apparel and Hephzibah prophesied evil
+      to come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Books are the worse things goin' to make creases,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;They're
+      all sharp edges.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had to carry two of the volumes in my pockets, even then, at the very
+      start. They might prove delightful traveling companions, as the bookman
+      had said, but they were most uncomfortable things to sit on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We reached the Grand Central station on time and went to a nearby hotel. I
+      should have sent the heavier baggage directly to the steamer, but I was
+      not sure&mdash;absolutely sure&mdash;which steamer it was to be. The
+      &ldquo;Princess Eulalie&rdquo; almost certainly, but I did not dare take the risk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy called to me from the room adjoining mine at twelve that night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just think, Hosy!&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;this is the last night either of us will
+      spend on dry land.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heavens! I hope it won't be as bad as that,&rdquo; I retorted. &ldquo;Holland is
+      pretty wet, so they say, but we should be able to find some dry spots.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not laugh. &ldquo;You know what I mean,&rdquo; she observed. &ldquo;To-morrow night
+      at twelve o'clock we shall be far out on the vasty deep.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall be on the 'Princess Eulalie,'&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;Go to sleep.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Neither of us spoke the truth. At twelve the following night we were
+      neither &ldquo;far out on the vasty deep&rdquo; nor on the &ldquo;Princess Eulalie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My first move after breakfast was to telephone Campbell at his city home.
+      He hailed me joyfully and ordered me to stay where I was, that is, at the
+      hotel. He would be there in an hour, he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was five minutes ahead of his promise. We shook hands heartily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are going to take my prescription, after all,&rdquo; he crowed. &ldquo;Didn't I
+      tell you I was the only real doctor for sick authors? Bully for you! Wish
+      I was going with you. Who is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come to my room and I'll show you,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;You may be surprised.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;See here! you haven't gone and dug up another fossilized bookworm like
+      yourself, have you? If you have, I refuse&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come and see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We took the elevator to the fourth floor and walked to my room. I opened
+      the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;here is someone you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy, who had been looking out of the window of her room, hurried in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Mr. Campbell!&rdquo; she exclaimed, holding out her hand, &ldquo;how do you do?
+      We got here all right, you see. But the way Hosy has been wastin' money,
+      his and mine, buyin' things we didn't need, I began to think one spell
+      we'd never get any further. Is it time to start for the steamer yet?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim's face was worth looking at. He shook Hephzibah's hand mechanically,
+      but he did not speak. Instead he looked at her and at me. I didn't speak
+      either; I was having a thoroughly good time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Had we ought to start now?&rdquo; repeated Hephzibah. &ldquo;I'm all ready but
+      puttin' on my things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim came out of his trance. He dropped the hand and came to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you&mdash;is she&mdash;&rdquo; he stammered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Miss Cahoon is going with me. I wrote you I had selected a
+      good traveling companion. I have, haven't I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He would have it so, Mr. Campbell,&rdquo; put in Hephzy. &ldquo;I said no and kept on
+      sayin' it, but he vowed and declared he wouldn't go unless I did. I know
+      you must think it's queer my taggin' along, but it isn't any queerer to
+      you than it is to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim behaved very well, considering. He did not laugh. For a moment I
+      thought he was going to; if he had I don't know what I should have done,
+      said things for which I might have been sorry later on, probably. But he
+      did not laugh. He didn't even express the tremendous surprise which he
+      must have felt. Instead he shook hands again with both of us and said it
+      was fine, bully, just the thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To tell the truth, Miss Cahoon,&rdquo; he declared, &ldquo;I have been rather fearful
+      of this pet infant of ours. I didn't know what sort of helpless creature
+      he might have coaxed into roaming loose with him in the wilds of Europe. I
+      expected another babe in the woods and I was contemplating cabling the
+      police to look out for them and shoo away the wolves. But he'll be all
+      right now. Yes, indeed! he'll be looked out for now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you approve?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He shot a side-long glance at me. &ldquo;Approve!&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;I'm crazy about
+      the whole business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I judged he considered me crazy, hopelessly so. I did not care. I agreed
+      with him in this&mdash;the whole business was insane and Hephzibah's going
+      was the only sensible thing about it, so far.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His next question was concerning our baggage. I told him I had left it at
+      the railway station because I was not sure where it should be sent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What time does the 'Princess Eulalie' sail?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at me oddly. &ldquo;What?&rdquo; he queried. &ldquo;The 'Princess Eulalie'? Twelve
+      o'clock, I believe, I'm not sure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're not sure! And it is after nine now. It strikes me that&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind what strikes you. So long as it isn't lightning you shouldn't
+      complain. Have you the baggage checks? Give them to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I handed him the checks, obediently, and he stepped to the telephone and
+      gave a number. A short conversation followed. Then he hung up the
+      receiver.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One of the men from the office will be here soon,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;He will
+      attend to all your baggage, get it aboard the ship and see that it is put
+      in your staterooms. Now, then, tell me all about it. What have you been
+      doing since I saw you? When did you arrive? How did you happen to think of
+      taking&mdash;er&mdash;Miss Cahoon with you? Tell me the whole.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I told him. Hephzy assisted, sitting on the edge of a rocking chair and
+      asking me what time it was at intervals of ten minutes. She was decidedly
+      fidgety. When she went to Boston she usually reached the station half an
+      hour before train time, and to sit calmly in a hotel room, when the ship
+      that was to take us to the ends of the earth was to sail in two hours, was
+      a reckless gamble with Fate, to her mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man from the office came and the baggage checks were turned over to
+      him. So also were our bags and our umbrellas. Campbell stepped into the
+      hall and the pair held a whispered conversation. Hephzy seized the
+      opportunity to express to me her perturbation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My soul, Hosy!&rdquo; she whispered. &ldquo;Mr. Campbell's out of his head, ain't he?
+      Here we are a sittin' and sittin' and time's goin' by. We'll be too late.
+      Can't you make him hurry?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was almost as nervous as she was, but I would not have let our guardian
+      know it for the world. If we lost a dozen steamers I shouldn't call his
+      attention to the fact. I might be a &ldquo;Babe in the Wood,&rdquo; but he should not
+      have the satisfaction of hearing me whimper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He came back to the room a moment later and began asking more questions.
+      Our answers, particularly Hephzy's, seemed to please him a great deal. At
+      some of them he laughed uproariously. At last he looked at his watch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Almost eleven,&rdquo; he observed. &ldquo;I must be getting around to the office.
+      Miss Cahoon will you excuse Kent and me for an hour or so? I have his
+      letters of credit and the tickets in our safe and he had better come
+      around with me and get them. If you have any last bits of shopping to do,
+      now is your opportunity. Or you might wait here if you prefer. We will be
+      back at half-past twelve and lunch together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I started. Hephzy sprang from the chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Half-past twelve!&rdquo; I cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lunch together!&rdquo; gasped Hephzy. &ldquo;Why, Mr. Campbell! the 'Princess
+      Eulalie' sails at noon. You said so yourself!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim smiled. &ldquo;I know I did,&rdquo; he replied, &ldquo;but that is immaterial. You are
+      not concerned with the 'Princess Eulalie.' Your passages are booked on the
+      'Plutonia' and she doesn't leave her dock until one o'clock to-morrow
+      morning. We will meet here for lunch at twelve-thirty. Come, Kent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I didn't attempt an answer. I am not exactly sure what I did. A few
+      minutes later I walked out of that room with Campbell and I have a hazy
+      recollection of leaving Hephzy seated in the rocker and of hearing her
+      voice, as the door closed, repeating over and over:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The 'Plutonia'! My soul and body! The 'Plutonia'! Me&mdash;ME on the
+      'Plutonia'!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      What I said and did afterwards doesn't make much difference. I know I
+      called my publisher a number of disrespectful names not one of which he
+      deserved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Confound you!&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;You know I wouldn't have dreamed of taking a
+      passage on a ship like that. She's a floating Waldorf, everyone says so.
+      Dress and swagger society and&mdash;Oh, you idiot! I wanted quiet! I
+      wanted to be alone! I wanted&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim interrupted me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know you did,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But you're not going to have them. You've been
+      alone too much. You need a change. If I know the 'Plutonia'&mdash;and I've
+      crossed on her four times&mdash;you're going to have it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He burst into a roar of laughter. We were in a cab, fortunately, or his
+      behavior would have attracted attention. I could have choked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You imbecile!&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;I have a good mind to throw the whole thing up
+      and go home to Bayport. By George, I will!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He continued to chuckle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see you doing it!&rdquo; he observed. &ldquo;How about your&mdash;what's her name?&mdash;Hephzibah?
+      Going to tell her that it's all off, are you? Going to tell her that you
+      will forfeit your passage money and hers? Why, man, haven't you a heart?
+      If she was booked for Paradise instead of Paris she couldn't be any
+      happier. Don't be foolish! Your trunks are on the 'Plutonia' and on the
+      'Plutonia' you'll be to-night. It's the best thing that can happen to you.
+      I did it on purpose. You'll thank me come day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I didn't thank him then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We returned to the hotel at twelve-thirty, my pocket-book loaded with
+      tickets and letters of credit and unfamiliar white paper notes bearing the
+      name of the Bank of England. Hephzibah was still in the rocking chair. I
+      am sure she had not left it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We lunched in the hotel dining-room. Campbell ordered the luncheon and
+      paid for it while Hephzibah exclaimed at his extravagance. She was too
+      excited to eat much and too worried concerning the extent of her wardrobe
+      to talk of less important matters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh dear, Hosy!&rdquo; she wailed, &ldquo;WHY didn't I buy another best dress. DO you
+      suppose my black one will be good enough? All those lords and ladies and
+      millionaires on the 'Plutonia'! Won't they think I'm dreadful
+      poverty-stricken. I saw a dress I wanted awfully&mdash;in one of those
+      Boston stores it was; but I didn't buy it because it was so dear. And I
+      didn't tell you I wanted it because I knew if I did you'd buy it. You're
+      so reckless with money. But now I wish I'd bought it myself. What WILL all
+      those rich people think of me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About what they think of me, Hephzy, I imagine,&rdquo; I answered, ruefully.
+      &ldquo;Jim here has put up a joke on us. He is the only one who is getting any
+      fun out of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim, for a wonder, was serious. &ldquo;Miss Cahoon,&rdquo; he declared, earnestly,
+      &ldquo;don't worry. I'm sure the black silk is all right; but if it wasn't it
+      wouldn't make any difference. On the 'Plutonia' nobody notices other
+      people's clothes. Most of them are too busy noticing their own. If Kent
+      has his evening togs and you have the black silk you'll pass muster.
+      You'll have a gorgeous time. I only wish I was going with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He repeated the wish several times during the afternoon. He insisted on
+      taking us to a matinee and Hephzy's comments on the performance seemed to
+      amuse him hugely. It had been eleven years, so she said, since she went to
+      the theater.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Unless you count 'Uncle Tom' or 'Ten Nights in a Barroom,' or some of
+      those other plays that come to Bayport,&rdquo; she added. &ldquo;I suppose I'm making
+      a perfect fool of myself laughin' and cryin' over what's nothin' but
+      make-believe, but I can't help it. Isn't it splendid, Hosy! I wonder what
+      Father would say if he could know that his daughter was really travelin'&mdash;just
+      goin' to Europe! He used to worry a good deal, in his last years, about
+      me. Seemed to feel that he hadn't taken me around and done as much for me
+      as he ought to in the days when he could. 'Twas just nonsense, his feelin'
+      that way, and I told him so. But I wonder if he knows now how happy I am.
+      I hope he does. My goodness! I can't realize it myself. Oh, there goes the
+      curtain up again! Oh, ain't that pretty! I AM actin' ridiculous, I know,
+      Mr. Campbell,' but you mustn't mind. Laugh at me all you want to; I
+      sha'n't care a bit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim didn't laugh&mdash;then. Neither did I. He and I looked at each other
+      and I think the same thought was in both our minds. Good, kind,
+      whole-souled, self-sacrificing Hephzibah! The last misgiving, the last
+      doubt as to the wisdom of my choice of a traveling companion vanished from
+      my thoughts. For the first time I was actually glad I was going, glad
+      because of the happiness it would mean to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When we came out of the theater Campbell reached down in the crowd to
+      shake my hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Congratulations, old man,&rdquo; he whispered; &ldquo;you did exactly the right
+      thing. You surprised me, I admit, but you were dead right. She's a brick.
+      But don't I wish I was going along! Oh my! oh my! to think of you two
+      wandering about Europe together! If only I might be there to see and hear!
+      Kent, keep a diary; for my sake, promise me you'll keep a diary. Put down
+      everything she says and read it to me when you get home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He left us soon afterward. He had given up the entire day to me and would,
+      I know, have cheerfully given the evening as well, but I would not hear of
+      it. A messenger from the office had brought him word of the presence in
+      New York of a distinguished scientist who was preparing a manuscript for
+      publication and the scientist had requested an interview that night.
+      Campbell was very anxious to obtain that manuscript and I knew it.
+      Therefore I insisted that he leave us. He was loathe to do so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hate to, Kent,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;I had set my heart on seeing you on board
+      and seeing you safely started. But I do want to nail Scheinfeldt, I must
+      admit. The book is one that he has been at work on for years and two other
+      publishing houses are as anxious as ours to get it. To-night is my chance,
+      and to-morrow may be too late.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you must not miss the chance. You must go, and go now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't like to. Sure you've got everything you need? Your tickets and
+      your letters of credit and all? Sure you have money enough to carry you
+      across comfortably?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, and more than enough, even on the 'Plutonia.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, all right, then. When you reach London go to our English branch&mdash;you
+      have the address, Camford Street, just off the Strand&mdash;and whatever
+      help you may need they'll give you. I've cabled them instructions. Think
+      you can get down to the ship all right?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed. &ldquo;I think it fairly possible,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;If I lose my way, or
+      Hephzy is kidnapped, I'll speak to the police or telephone you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The latter would be safer and much less expensive. Well, good-by, Kent.
+      Remember now, you're going for a good time and you're to forget
+      literature. Write often and keep in touch with me. Good-by, Miss Cahoon.
+      Take care of this&mdash;er&mdash;clam of ours, won't you. Don't let anyone
+      eat him on the half-shell, or anything like that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy smiled. &ldquo;They'd have to eat me first,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and I'm pretty
+      old and tough. I'll look after him, Mr. Campbell, don't you worry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't. Good luck to you both&mdash;and good-by.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A final handshake and he was gone. Hephzy looked after him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There!&rdquo; she exclaimed; &ldquo;I really begin to believe I'm goin'. Somehow I
+      feel as if the last rope had been cast off. We've got to depend on
+      ourselves now, Hosy, dear. Mercy! how silly I am talkin'. A body would
+      think I was homesick before I started.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not answer, for I WAS homesick. We dined together at the hotel.
+      There remained three long hours before it would be time for us to take the
+      cab for the 'Plutonia's' wharf. I suggested another theater, but Hephzy,
+      to my surprise, declined the invitation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you don't mind, Hosy,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I guess I'd rather stay right here
+      in the room. I&mdash;I feel sort of solemn and as if I wanted to sit still
+      and think. Perhaps it's just as well. After waitin' eleven years to go to
+      one theater, maybe two in the same day would be more than I could stand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So we sat together in the room at the hotel&mdash;sat and thought. The
+      minutes dragged by. Outside beneath the windows, New York blazed and
+      roared. I looked down at the hurrying little black manikins on the
+      sidewalks, each, apparently, bound somewhere on business or pleasure of
+      its own, and I wondered vaguely what that business or pleasure might be
+      and why they hurried so. There were many single ones, of course, and
+      occasionally groups of three or four, but couples were the most numerous.
+      Husbands and wives, lovers and sweethearts, each with his or her life and
+      interests bound up in the life and interests of the other. I envied them.
+      Mine had been a solitary life, an unusual, abnormal kind of life. No one
+      had shared its interests and ambitions with me, no one had spurred me on
+      to higher endeavor, had loved with me and suffered with me, helping me
+      through the shadows and laughing with me in the sunshine. No one, since
+      Mother's death, except Hephzy and Hephzy's love and care and sacrifice,
+      fine as they were, were different. I had missed something, I had missed a
+      great deal, and now it was too late. Youth and high endeavor and ambition
+      had gone by; I had left them behind. I was a solitary, queer,
+      self-centered old bachelor, a &ldquo;quahaug,&rdquo; as my fellow-Bayporters called
+      me. And to ship a quahaug around the world is not likely to do the
+      creature a great deal of good. If he lives through it he is likely to be
+      shipped home again tougher and drier and more useless to the rest of
+      creation than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah, too, had evidently been thinking, for she interrupted my dismal
+      meditations with a long sigh. I started and turned toward her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the matter?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, nothin',&rdquo; was the solemn answer. &ldquo;I was wonderin', that's all. Just
+      wonderin' if he would talk English. It would be a terrible thing if he
+      could speak nothin' but French or a foreign language and I couldn't
+      understand him. But Ardelia was American and that brute of a Morley spoke
+      plain enough, so I suppose&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I judged it high time to interrupt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, Hephzy,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;It is half-past ten. We may as well start at
+      once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Broadway, seen through the cab windows, was bright enough, a blaze of
+      flashing signs and illuminated shop windows. But &mdash;th street, at the
+      foot of which the wharves of the Trans-Atlantic Steamship Company were
+      located, was black and dismal. It was by no means deserted, however.
+      Before and behind and beside us were other cabs and automobiles bound in
+      the same direction. Hephzy peered out at them in amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mercy on us, Hosy!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;I never saw such a procession of
+      carriages. They're as far ahead and as far back of us as you can see. It
+      is like the biggest funeral that ever was, except that they don't crawl
+      along the way a funeral does. I'm glad of that, anyhow. I wish I didn't
+      FEEL so much as if I was goin' to be buried. I don't know why I do. I hope
+      it isn't a presentiment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      If it was she forgot it a few minutes later. The cab stopped before a
+      mammoth doorway in a long, low building and a person in uniform opened the
+      door. The wide street was crowded with vehicles and from them were
+      descending people attired as if for a party rather than an ocean voyage. I
+      helped Hephzy to alight and, while I was paying the cab driver, she looked
+      about her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy! Hosy!&rdquo; she whispered, seizing my arm tight, &ldquo;we've made a mistake.
+      This isn't the steamboat; this is&mdash;is a weddin' or somethin'. Look!
+      look!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked, looked at the silk hats, the opera cloaks, the jewels and those
+      who wore them. For a moment I, too, was certain there must be a mistake.
+      Then I looked upward and saw above the big doorway the flashing electric
+      sign of the &ldquo;Trans-Atlantic Navigation Company.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Hephzy,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;I guess it is the right place. Come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I gave her my arm&mdash;that is, she continued to clutch it with both
+      hands&mdash;and we moved forward with the crowd, through the doorway, past
+      a long, moving inclined plane up which bags, valises, bundles of golf
+      sticks and all sorts of lighter baggage were gliding, and faced another
+      and smaller door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lift this way! This way to the lift!&rdquo; bawled a voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's a lift?&rdquo; whispered Hephzy, tremulously, &ldquo;Hosy, what's a lift?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An elevator,&rdquo; I whispered in reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But we can't go on board a steamboat in an elevator, can we? I never
+      heard&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I don't know what she never heard. The sentence was not finished. Into the
+      lift we went. On either side of us were men in evening dress and directly
+      in front was a large woman, hatless and opera-cloaked, with diamonds in
+      her ears and a rustle of silk at every point of her persons. The car
+      reeked with perfume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The large woman wriggled uneasily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;George,&rdquo; she said, in a loud whisper, &ldquo;why do they crowd these lifts in
+      this disgusting way? And WHY,&rdquo; with another wriggle, &ldquo;do they permit
+      PERSONS with packages to use them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As we emerged from the elevator Hephzy whispered again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She meant us, Hosy,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I've got three of those books of yours in
+      this bundle under my arm. I COULDN'T squeeze 'em into either of the
+      valises. But she needn't have been so disagreeable about it, need she.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Still following the crowd, we passed through more wide doorways and into a
+      huge loft where, through mammoth openings at our left, the cool air from
+      the river blew upon our faces. Beyond these openings loomed an enormous
+      something with rows of railed walks leading up its sides. Hephzibah and I,
+      moving in a sort of bewildered dream, found ourselves ascending one of
+      these walks. At its end was another doorway and, beyond, a great room,
+      with more elevators and a mosaic floor, and mahogany and gilt and
+      gorgeousness, and silk and broadcloth and satin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy gasped and stopped short.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It IS a mistake, Hosy!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Where is the steamer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled. I felt almost as &ldquo;green&rdquo; and bewildered as she, but I tried not
+      to show my feelings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is all right, Hephzy,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;This is the steamer. I know it
+      doesn't look like one, but it is. This is the 'Plutonia' and we are on
+      board at last.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Two hours later we leaned together over the rail and watched the lights of
+      New York grow fainter behind us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah drew a deep breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is so,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It is really so. We ARE, aren't we, Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;There is no doubt of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder what will happen to us before we see those lights again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think HE&mdash;Do you think Little Frank&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; I interrupted, &ldquo;if we are going to bed at all before morning, we
+      had better start now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, Hosy. But you mustn't say 'go to bed.' Say 'turn in.' Everyone
+      calls going to bed 'turning in' aboard a vessel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which We View, and Even Mingle Slightly with, the Upper Classes
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      It is astonishing&mdash;the ease with which the human mind can accustom
+      itself to the unfamiliar and hitherto strange. Nothing could have been
+      more unfamiliar or strange to Hephzibah and me than an ocean voyage and
+      the &ldquo;Plutonia.&rdquo; And yet before three days of that voyage were at an end we
+      were accustomed to both&mdash;to a degree. We had learned to do certain
+      things and not to do others. Some pet illusions had been shattered, and
+      new and, at first, surprising items of information had lost their newness
+      and come to be accepted as everyday facts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For example, we learned that people in real life actually wore monocles,
+      something, which I, of course, had known to be true but which had seemed
+      nevertheless an unreality, part of a stage play, a &ldquo;dress-up&rdquo; game for
+      children and amateur actors. The &ldquo;English swell&rdquo; in the performances of
+      the Bayport Dramatic Society always wore a single eyeglass, but he also
+      wore Dundreary whiskers and clothes which would have won him admittance to
+      the Home for Feeble-Minded Youth without the formality of an examination.
+      His &ldquo;English accent&rdquo; was a combination of the East Bayport twang and an
+      Irish brogue and he was a blithering idiot in appearance and behavior. No
+      one in his senses could have accepted him as anything human and the
+      eyeglass had been but a part of his unreal absurdity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet, here on the &ldquo;Plutonia,&rdquo; were at least a dozen men, men of dignity
+      and manner, who sported monocles and acted as if they were used to them.
+      The first evening before we left port, one or two were in evidence; the
+      next afternoon, in the Lounge, there were more. The fact that they were on
+      an English ship, bound for England, brought the monocles out of their
+      concealment, as Hephzy said, &ldquo;like hoptoads after the first spring thaw.&rdquo;
+       Her amazed comments were unique.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what good are they, Hosy?&rdquo; she demanded. &ldquo;Can they see with 'em?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose they can,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;You can see better with your spectacles
+      than you can without them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! I can see better with two eyes than I can with one, as far as that
+      goes. I don't believe they wear 'em for seein' at all. Take that man
+      there,&rdquo; pointing to a long, lank Canadian in a yellow ulster, whom the
+      irreverent smoking-room had already christened &ldquo;The Duke of Labrador.&rdquo;
+       &ldquo;Look at him! He didn't wear a sign of one until this mornin'. If he
+      needed it to see with he'd have worn it before, wouldn't he? Don't tell
+      me! He wears it because he wants people to think he's a regular boarder at
+      Windsor Castle. And he isn't; he comes from Toronto, and that's only a few
+      miles from the United States. Ugh! You foolish thing!&rdquo; as the &ldquo;Duke of
+      Labrador&rdquo; strutted by our deck-chairs; &ldquo;I suppose you think you're pretty,
+      don't you? Well, you're not. You look for all the world like a lighthouse
+      with one window in it and the lamp out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed. &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;every nation has its peculiarities and the
+      monocle is an English national institution, like&mdash;well, like tea, for
+      instance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Institution! Don't talk to me about institutions! I know the institution
+      I'd put HIM in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She didn't fancy the &ldquo;Duke of Labrador.&rdquo; Neither did she fancy tea at
+      breakfast and coffee at dinner. But she learned to accept the first. Two
+      sessions with the &ldquo;Plutonia's&rdquo; breakfast coffee completed her education.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bring me tea,&rdquo; she said to our table steward on the third morning. &ldquo;I've
+      tried most every kind of coffee and lived through it, but I'm gettin' too
+      old to keep on experimentin' with my health. Bring me tea and I'll try to
+      forget what time it is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We had tea at breakfast, therefore, and tea at four in the afternoon.
+      Hephzibah and I learned to take it with the rest. She watched her
+      fellow-passengers, however, and as usual had something to say concerning
+      their behavior.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you hear that, Hosy?&rdquo; she whispered, as we sat together in the
+      &ldquo;Lounge,&rdquo; sipping tea and nibbling thin bread and butter and the
+      inevitable plum cake. &ldquo;Did you hear what that woman said about her
+      husband?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had not heard, and said so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, judgin' by her actions, I thought her husband was lost and she was
+      sure he had been washed overboard. 'Where is Edward?' she kept askin'.
+      'Poor Edward! What WILL he do? Where is he?' I was gettin' real anxious,
+      and then it turned out that she was afraid that, if he didn't come soon,
+      he'd miss his tea. My soul! Hosy, I've been thinkin' and do you know the
+      conclusion I've come to?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, it sounds awfully irreverent, but I've come to the conclusion that
+      the first part of the Genesis in the English scriptures must be different
+      than ours. I'm sure they think that the earth was created in six days and,
+      on the seventh, Adam and Eve had tea. I believe it for an absolute fact.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The pet illusion, the loss of which caused her the most severe shock, was
+      that concerning the nobility. On the morning of our first day afloat the
+      passenger lists were distributed. Hephzibah was early on deck. Fortunately
+      neither she nor I were in the least discomfited by the motion of the ship,
+      then or at any time. We proved to be good sailors; Hephzibah declared it
+      was in the blood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For a Knowles or a Cahoon to be seasick,&rdquo; she announced, &ldquo;would be a
+      disgrace. Our men folks for four generations would turn over in their
+      graves.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was early on deck that first morning and, at breakfast she and I had
+      the table to ourselves. She had the passenger list propped against the
+      sugar bowl and was reading the names.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My gracious, Hosy!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;What, do you think! There are five
+      'Sirs' on board and one 'Lord'! Just think of it! Where do you suppose
+      they are?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In their berths, probably, at this hour,&rdquo; I answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I'm goin' to stay right here till they come out. I'm goin' to see
+      'em and know what they look like if I sit at this table all day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled. &ldquo;I wouldn't do that, Hephzy,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;We can see them at
+      lunch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! O&mdash;Oh! And there's a Princess here! Princess
+      B-e-r-g-e-n-s-t-e-i-n&mdash;Bergenstein. Princess Bergenstein. What do you
+      suppose she's Princess of?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Princess of Jerusalem, I should imagine,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;Oh, I see! You've
+      skipped a line, Hephzy. Bergenstein belongs to another person. The
+      Princess's name is Berkovitchky. Russian or Polish, perhaps.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't care if she's Chinese; I mean to see her. I never expected to
+      look at a live Princess in MY life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We stopped in the hall at the entrance to the dining-saloon to examine the
+      table chart. Hephzibah made careful notes of the tables at which the
+      knights and the lord and the Princess were seated and their locations. At
+      lunch she consulted the notes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The lord sits right behind us at that little table there,&rdquo; she said,
+      excitedly. &ldquo;That table for two is marked 'Lord and Lady Erkskine.' Now we
+      must watch when they come in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A few minutes later a gray-haired little man, accompanied by a middle-aged
+      woman entered the saloon and were seated at the small table by an
+      obsequious steward. Hephzy gasped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why&mdash;why, Hosy!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;That isn't the lord, is it? THAT?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose it must be,&rdquo; I answered. When our own Steward came I asked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; he answered, with unction. &ldquo;Yes, sir, that is Lord and Lady
+      Erkskine, sir, thank you, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy stared at Lord and Lady Erkskine. I gave our luncheon order, and
+      the steward departed. Then her indignant disgust and disappointment burst
+      forth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well! well!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;And that is a real live lord! That is! Why,
+      Hosy, he's the livin' image of Asaph Tidditt back in Bayport. If Ase could
+      afford clothes like that he might be his twin brother. Well! I guess
+      that's enough. I don't want to see that Princess any more. Just as like as
+      not she'd look like Susanna Wixon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her criticisms were not confined to passengers of other nationalities.
+      Some of our own came in for comment quite as severe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look at those girls at that table over there,&rdquo; she whispered. &ldquo;The two in
+      red, I mean. One of 'em has got a little flag pinned on her dress. What do
+      you suppose that is for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at the young ladies in red. They were vivacious damsels and their
+      conversation and laughter were by no means subdued. A middle-aged man and
+      woman and two young fellows were their table-mates and the group attracted
+      a great deal of attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What has she got that flag pinned on her for?&rdquo; repeated Hephzy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She wishes everyone to know she's an American exportation, I suppose,&rdquo; I
+      answered. &ldquo;She is evidently proud of her country.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! Her country wouldn't be proud of her, if it had to listen to her
+      the way we do. There's some exports it doesn't pay to advertise, I guess,
+      and she and her sister are that kind. Every time they laugh I can see that
+      Lady Erkskine shrivel up like a sensitive plant. I hope she don't think
+      all American girls are like those two.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She probably does.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, IF she does she's makin' a big mistake. I might as well believe all
+      Englishmen were like this specimen comin' now, and I don't believe that,
+      even if I do hail from Bayport.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The specimen was the &ldquo;Duke of Labrador,&rdquo; who sauntered by, monocle in eye,
+      hands in pockets and an elaborate affection of the &ldquo;Oxford stoop&rdquo; which he
+      must have spent time and effort in acquiring. Hephzibah shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish Toronto was further from home than it is,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;But
+      there! I shan't worry about him. I'll leave him for Lord Erkskine and his
+      wife to be ashamed of. He's their countryman, or he hopes he is. I've got
+      enough to do bein' ashamed of those two American girls.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It may be gathered from these conversations that Hephzy and I had been so
+      fortunate as to obtain a table by ourselves. This was not the case. There
+      were four seats at our table and, according to the chart of the
+      dining-saloon, one of them should be occupied by a &ldquo;Miss Rutledge of New
+      York&rdquo; and the other by &ldquo;A. Carleton Heathcroft of London.&rdquo; Miss Rutledge
+      we had not seen at all. Our table steward informed us that the lady was
+      &ldquo;hindisposed&rdquo; and confined to her room. She was an actress, he added.
+      Hephzy, whose New England training had imbued her with the conviction that
+      all people connected with the stage must be highly undesirable as
+      acquaintances, was quite satisfied. &ldquo;Of course I'm sorry she isn't well,&rdquo;
+       she confided to me &ldquo;but I'm awfully glad she won't be at our table. I
+      shouldn't want to hurt her feelin's, but I couldn't talk to her as I would
+      to an ordinary person. I COULDN'T! All I should be able to think of was
+      what she wore, or didn't wear, when she was actin' her parts. I expect I'm
+      old-fashioned, but when I think of those girls in the pictures outside
+      that theater&mdash;the one we didn't go to&mdash;I&mdash;well&mdash;mercy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The &ldquo;pictures&rdquo; were the posters advertising a popular musical comedy which
+      Campbell had at first suggested our witnessing the afternoon of our stay
+      in New York. Hephzibah's shocked expression and my whispered advice had
+      brought about a change of plans. We saw a perfectly respectable, though
+      thrilling, melodrama instead. I might have relieved my relative's mind by
+      assuring her that all actresses were not necessarily attired as &ldquo;merry
+      villagers,&rdquo; but the probable result of my assurance seemed scarcely worth
+      the effort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire, was not acquainted with the stage, in a
+      professional way, at any rate. He was a slim and elegant gentleman,
+      dressed with elaborate care, who appeared profoundly bored with life in
+      general and our society in particular. He sported one of Hephzibah's
+      detestations, a monocle, and spoke, when he spoke at all, with a languid
+      drawl and what I learned later was a Piccadilly accent. He favored us with
+      his company during our first day afloat; after that we saw him amid the
+      select group at that much sought&mdash;by some&mdash;center of shipboard
+      prominence, &ldquo;the Captain's table.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Oddly enough Hephzibah did not resent the Heathcroft condescension and
+      single eyeglass as much as I had expected. She explained her feeling in
+      this way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know he's dreadfully high and mighty and all that,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;And the
+      way he said 'Really?' when you and I spoke to him was enough to squelch
+      even an Angelina Phinney. But I didn't care so much. Anybody, even a body
+      as green as I am, can see that he actually IS somebody when he's at home,
+      not a make-believe, like that Toronto man. And I'm glad for our waiter's
+      sake that he's gone somewhere else. The poor thing bowed so low when he
+      came in and was so terribly humble every time Mr. Heathcroft spoke to him.
+      I should hate to feel I must say 'Thank you' when I was told that the food
+      was 'rotten bad.' I never thought 'rotten' was a nice word, but all these
+      English folks say it. I heard that pretty English girl over there tell her
+      father that it was a 'jolly rotten mornin',' and she's as nice and sweet
+      as she can be. Well, I'm learnin' fast, Hosy. I can see a woman smoke a
+      cigarette now and not shiver&mdash;much. Old Bridget Doyle up in West
+      Bayport, used to smoke a pipe and the whole town talked about it. She'd be
+      right at home in that sittin'-room they call a 'Lounge' after dinner,
+      wouldn't she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My acquaintance with A. Carleton Heathcroft, which appeared to have ended
+      almost as soon as it began, was renewed in an odd way. I was in the
+      &ldquo;Smoke-Room&rdquo; after dinner the third evening out, enjoying a cigar and idly
+      listening to the bidding for pools on the ship's run, that time-honored
+      custom which helps the traveling gentleman of sporting proclivities to
+      kill time and lose money. On board the &ldquo;Plutonia,&rdquo; with its unusually
+      large quota of millionaires and personages, the bidding was lively and the
+      prices paid for favored numbers high. Needless to say I was not one of the
+      bidders. My interest was merely casual.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The auctioneer that evening was a famous comedian with an international
+      reputation and his chatter, as he urged his hearers to higher bids, was
+      clever and amusing. I was listening to it and smiling at the jokes when a
+      voice at my elbow said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Five pounds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I turned and saw that the speaker was Heathcroft. His monocle was in his
+      eye, a cigarette was between his fingers and he looked as if he had been
+      newly washed and ironed and pressed from head to foot. He nodded
+      carelessly and I bowed in return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Five pounds,&rdquo; repeated Mr. Heathcroft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The auctioneer acknowledged the bid and proceeded to urge his audience on
+      to higher flights. The flights were made and my companion capped each with
+      one more lofty. Eight, nine, ten pounds were bid. Heathcroft bid eleven.
+      Someone at the opposite side of the room bid twelve. It seemed ridiculous
+      to me. Possibly my face expressed my feeling; at any rate something caused
+      the immaculate gentleman in the next chair to address me instead of the
+      auctioneer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that's running a bit high, isn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It seems so to me,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;The number is five hundred and eighty-six
+      and I think we shall do better than that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, do you! Really! And why do you think so, may I ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because we are having a remarkably smooth sea and a favorable wind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, but you forget the fog. There's quite a bit of fog about us now,
+      isn't there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I wish I could describe the Heathcroft manner of saying &ldquo;Isn't there.&rdquo; I
+      can't, however; there is no use trying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will amount to nothing,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;The glass is high and there is
+      no indication of bad weather. Our run this noon was five hundred and
+      ninety-one, you remember.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. But we did have extraordinarily good weather for that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, not particularly good. We slowed down about midnight. There was a
+      real fog then and the glass was low. The second officer told me it dropped
+      very suddenly and there was a heavy sea running. For an hour between
+      twelve and one we were making not much more than half our usual speed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really! That's interesting. May I ask if you and the second officer are
+      friends?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Scarcely that. He and I exchanged a few words on deck this morning,
+      that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he told you about the fog and the&mdash;what is it&mdash;the glass,
+      and all that. Fancy! that's extremely odd. I'm acquainted with the captain
+      in a trifling sort of way; I sit at his table, I mean to say. And I assure
+      you he doesn't tell us a word. And, by Jove, we cross-question him, too!
+      Rather!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled. I could imagine the cross-questioning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose the captain is obliged to be non-committal,&rdquo; I observed.
+      &ldquo;That's part of his job. The second officer meant to be, I have no doubt,
+      but perhaps my remarks showed that I was really interested in ships and
+      the sea. My father and grandfather, too, for that matter were seafaring
+      men, both captains. That may have made the second officer more
+      communicative. Not that he said anything of importance, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Heathcroft seemed very interested. He actually removed his eyeglass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;You know something about it, then. I thought it was
+      extraordinary, but now I see. And you think our run will be better than
+      five hundred and eighty?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It should be, unless there is a remarkable change. This ship makes over
+      six hundred, day after day, in good weather. She should do at least six
+      hundred by to-morrow noon, unless there is a sudden change, as I said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But six hundred would be&mdash;it would be the high field, by Jove!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anything over five hundred and ninety-four would be that. The numbers are
+      very low to-night. Far too low, I should say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Heathcroft was silent. The auctioneer, having forced the bid on number
+      five hundred and eighty-six up to thirteen pounds ten, was imploring his
+      hearers not to permit a certain winner to be sacrificed at this absurd
+      figure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fourteen pounds, gentlemen,&rdquo; he begged. &ldquo;For the sake of the wife and
+      children, for the honor of the star spangled banner and the union jack,&mdash;DON'T
+      hesitate&mdash;don't even stammer&mdash;below fourteen pounds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked in our direction as he said it. Mr. Heathcroft made no sign. He
+      produced a gold cigarette box and extended it in my direction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you?&rdquo; he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, thank you,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;I will smoke a cigar, if you don't mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not appear to mind. He lighted his cigarette, readjusted his
+      monocle, and stared stonily at the gesticulating auctioneer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bidding went on. One by one the numbers were sold until all were gone.
+      Then the auctioneer announced that bids for the &ldquo;high field,&rdquo; that is, any
+      number above five hundred and ninety-four, were in order. My companion
+      suddenly came to life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ten pounds,&rdquo; he called.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I started. &ldquo;For mercy sake, Mr. Heathcroft,&rdquo; I protested, &ldquo;don't let
+      anything I have said influence your bidding. I may be entirely wrong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned and surveyed me through the eyeglass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may wish to bid yourself,&rdquo; he drawled. &ldquo;Careless of me. So sorry.
+      Shall I withdraw the bid?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no. I'm not going to bid. I only&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eleven pounds I am offered, gentlemen,&rdquo; shouted the auctioneer. &ldquo;Eleven
+      pounds! It would be like robbing an orphan asylum. Do I hear twelve?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He heard twelve immediately&mdash;from Mr. Heathcroft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thirteen pounds were bid. Evidently others shared my opinion concerning
+      the value of the &ldquo;high field.&rdquo; Heathcroft promptly raised it to fourteen.
+      I ventured another protest. So far as effect was concerned I might as well
+      have been talking to one of the smoke-stacks. The bidding was lively and
+      lengthy. At last the &ldquo;high field&rdquo; went to Mr. A. Carleton Heathcroft for
+      twenty-one pounds, approximately one hundred and five dollars. I thought
+      it time for me to make my escape. I was wondering where I should hide next
+      day, when the run was announced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Greatly obliged to you, I'm sure,&rdquo; drawled the fortunate bidder. &ldquo;Won't
+      you join me in a whisky and soda or something?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I declined the whisky and soda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sorry,&rdquo; said Mr. Heathcroft. &ldquo;Jolly grateful for putting me right, Mr.&mdash;er&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Knowles is my name,&rdquo; I said. He might have remembered it; I remembered
+      his perfectly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course&mdash;Knowles. Thank you so much, Knowles. Thank you and the
+      second officer. Nothing like having professional information&mdash;eh,
+      what? Rather!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There seemed to be no doubt in his mind that he was going to win. There
+      was more than a doubt in mine. I told Hephzy of my experience when I
+      joined her in the Lounge. My attempts to say &ldquo;Really&rdquo; and &ldquo;Isn't it&rdquo; and
+      &ldquo;Rather&rdquo; in the Heathcroft manner and with the Heathcroft accent pleased
+      her very much. As to the result of my unpremeditated &ldquo;tip&rdquo; she was quite
+      indifferent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If he loses it will serve him good and right,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;Gamblin's
+      poor business and I sha'n't care if he does lose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall,&rdquo; I observed. &ldquo;I feel responsible in a way and I shall be sorry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'SO sorry,' you mean, Hosy. That's what that blunderin' steward said when
+      he stepped on my skirt and tore the gatherin' all loose. I told him he
+      wasn't half as sorry as I was.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But at noon next day, when the observation was taken and the run posted on
+      the bulletin board the figure was six hundred and two. My &ldquo;tip&rdquo; had been a
+      good one after all and A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire, was richer by some
+      seven hundred dollars, even after the expenses of treating the
+      &ldquo;smoke-room&rdquo; and feeing the smoke-room steward had been deducted. I did
+      not visit the smoke-room to share in the treat. I feared I might be
+      expected to furnish more professional information. But that evening a
+      bottle of vintage champagne was produced by our obsequious table steward.
+      &ldquo;With Mr. 'Eathcroft's compliments, sir, thank you, sir,&rdquo; announced the
+      latter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah looked at the gilt-topped bottle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;WHAT in the world will we do with it, Hosy?&rdquo; she demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, drink it, I suppose,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;It is the only thing we can do.
+      We can't send it back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you can't drink the whole of it, and I'm sure I sha'n't start in to
+      be a drunkard at my age. I'll take the least little bit of a drop, just to
+      see what it tastes like. I've read about champagne, just as I've read
+      about lords and ladies, all my life, but I never expected to see either of
+      'em. Well there!&rdquo; after a very small sip from the glass, &ldquo;there's another
+      pet idea gone to smash. A lord looks like Ase Tidditt, and champagne
+      tastes like vinegar and soda. Tut! tut! tut! if I had to drink that sour
+      stuff all my life I'd probably look like Asaph, too. No wonder that
+      Erkskine man is such a shriveled-up thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I glanced toward the captain's table. Mr. Heathcroft raised his glass. I
+      bowed and raised mine. The group at that table, the captain included, were
+      looking in my direction. I judged that my smoke-room acquaintance had told
+      them of my wonderful &ldquo;tip.&rdquo; I imagined I could see the sarcastic smile
+      upon the captain's face. I did not care for that kind of celebrity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the affair had one quite unexpected result. The next forenoon as
+      Hephzibah and I were reclining in our deck-chairs the captain himself,
+      florid-faced, gray-bearded, gold-laced and grand, halted before us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe your name is Knowles, sir,&rdquo; he said, raising his cap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is,&rdquo; I replied. I wondered what in the world was coming next. Was he
+      going to take me to task for talking with his second officer?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your home is in Bayport, Massachusetts, I see by the passenger list,&rdquo; he
+      went on. &ldquo;Is that Bayport on Cape Cod, may I ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I replied, more puzzled than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I once knew a Knowles from your town, sir. He was a seafaring man like
+      myself. His name was Philander Knowles, and when I knew him he was
+      commander of the bark 'Ranger.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was my father,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Captain Stone extended his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; he declared, &ldquo;this is a great pleasure, sir. I knew your
+      father years ago when I was a young man, mate of one of our ships engaged
+      in the Italian fruit trade. He was very kind to me at that time. I have
+      never forgotten it. May I sit down?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The chair next to ours happened to be unoccupied at the moment and he took
+      it. I introduced Hephzibah and we chatted for some time. The captain
+      appeared delighted to meet the son of his old acquaintance. Father and he
+      had met in Messina&mdash;Father's ship was in the fruit trade also at that
+      time&mdash;and something or other he had done to help young Stone had made
+      a great impression on the latter. I don't know what the something was,
+      whether it was monetary help or assistance in getting out of a serious
+      scrape; Stone did not tell me and I didn't ask. But, at any rate, the pair
+      had become very friendly there and at subsequent meetings in the
+      Mediterranean ports. The captain asked all sorts of questions about
+      Father, his life, his family and his death aboard the sinking &ldquo;Monarch of
+      the Seas.&rdquo; Hephzibah furnished most of the particulars. She remembered
+      them well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Captain Stone nodded solemnly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is the way the master of a ship should die,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;Your
+      father, Mr. Knowles, was a man and he died like one. He was my first
+      American acquaintance and he gave me a new idea of Yankees&mdash;if you'll
+      excuse my calling them that, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy had a comment to make.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are SOME pretty fair Yankees,&rdquo; she observed, drily. &ldquo;ALL the good
+      folks haven't moved back to England yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The captain solemnly assured her that he was certain of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Though two of the best are on their way,&rdquo; I added, with a wink at Hephzy.
+      This attempt at humor was entirely lost. Our companion said he presumed I
+      referred to Mr. and Mrs. Van Hook, who sat next him at table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that leads me to ask if Miss Cahoon and yourself will not join us,&rdquo;
+       he went on. &ldquo;I could easily arrange for two places.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at Hephzy. Her face expressed decided disapproval and she shook
+      her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, Captain Stone,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;but we have a table to ourselves and
+      are very comfortable. We should not think of troubling you to that
+      extent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He assured us it would not be a trouble, but a pleasure. We were firm in
+      our refusal, however, and he ceased to urge. He declared his intention of
+      seeing that our quarters were adequate, offered to accompany us through
+      the engine-rooms and the working portions of the ship whenever we wished,
+      ordered the deck steward, who was all but standing on his head in
+      obsequious desire to oblige, to take good care of us, shook hands once
+      more, and went away. Hephzibah drew a long breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My goodness!&rdquo; she exclaimed; &ldquo;sit at HIS table! I guess not! There's
+      another lord and his wife there, to say nothin' of the Van Hooks. I'd look
+      pretty, in my Cape Cod clothes, perched up there, wouldn't I! A hen is all
+      right in her place, but she don't belong in a peacock cage. And they drink
+      champagne ALL the time there; I've watched 'em. No thank you, I'll stay in
+      the henyard along with the everyday fowls.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Odd that he should have known Father,&rdquo; I observed. &ldquo;Well, I suppose the
+      proper remark to make, under the circumstances, is that this is a small
+      world. That is what nine-tenths of Bayport would say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's what I say, too,&rdquo; declared Hephzy, with emphasis. &ldquo;Well, it's awful
+      encouraging for us, isn't it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Encouraging? What do you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, I mean about Little Frank. It makes me feel surer than ever that we
+      shall run across him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I suppressed a groan. &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;why on earth should the fact that
+      Captain Stone knew my father encourage you to believe that we shall meet a
+      person we never knew at all?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy, how you do talk! If you and I, just cruisin' this way across the
+      broadside of creation, run across a man that knew Cousin Philander
+      thirty-nine years ago, isn't it just as reasonable to suppose we'll meet a
+      child who was born twenty-one years ago? I should say 'twas! Hosy, I've
+      had a presentiment about this cruise of ours: We're SENT on it; that's
+      what I think&mdash;we're sent. Oh, you can laugh! You'll see by and by.
+      THEN you won't laugh.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Hephzy,&rdquo; I admitted, resignedly, &ldquo;I won't laugh then, I promise you.
+      If <i>I</i> ever reach the stage where I see a Little Frank I promise you
+      I sha'n't laugh. I'll believe diseases of the brain are contagious, like
+      the measles, and I'll send for a doctor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The captain met us again in the dining-room that evening. He came over to
+      our table and chatted for some time. His visit caused quite a sensation.
+      Shipboard society is a little world by itself and the ship's captain is
+      the head of it. Persons who would, very likely, have passed Captain Stone
+      on Fifth Avenue or Piccadilly without recognizing him now toadied to him
+      as if he were a Czar, which, in a way, I suppose he is when afloat. His
+      familiarity with us shed a sort of reflected glory upon Hephzy and me.
+      Several of our fellow-passengers spoke to us that evening for the first
+      time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire, was not among the Lounge habitues; the
+      smoke-room was his accustomed haunt. But the next forenoon as I leaned
+      over the rail of the after promenade deck watching the antics of the
+      &ldquo;Stokers' Band&rdquo; which was performing for the benefit of the second-class
+      with an eye toward pennies and small silver from all classes, Heathcroft
+      sauntered up and leaned beside me. We exchanged good-mornings. I thanked
+      him for the wine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite unnecessary, Knowles,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Least I could do, it seems to me.
+      I pulled quite a tidy bit from that inside information of yours; I did
+      really. Awfully obliged, and all that. You seem to have a wide
+      acquaintance among the officers. That captain chap tells us he knew your
+      father&mdash;the sailor one you told me of, you understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Having had but one father I understood perfectly. We chatted in a
+      inconsequential way for a short time. In the course of our conversation I
+      happened to mention that I wrote, professionally. To my surprise
+      Heathcroft was impressed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you, really!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;That's interesting, isn't it now! I have
+      a cousin who writes. Don't know why she does it; she doesn't get her
+      writings printed, but she keeps on. It is a habit of hers. Curious
+      dissipation&mdash;eh, what? Does that&mdash;er&mdash;Miss&mdash;that
+      companion of yours, write also?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed and informed him that writing was not one of Hephzibah's bad
+      habits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Extraordinary woman, isn't she,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I met her just now, walking
+      about, and I happened to mention that I was taking the air. She said she
+      wouldn't quarrel with me because of that. The more I took the better she
+      would like it; she could spare about a gale and a quarter and not feel&mdash;What
+      did she call it? Oh yes, 'scrimped.' What is 'scrimped,' may I ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I explained the meaning of &ldquo;scrimped.&rdquo; Heathcroft was much amused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It WAS blowing a bit strong up forward there,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;That was a
+      clever way of putting it, wasn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is a clever woman,&rdquo; I said, shortly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Heathcroft did not enthuse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; he said dubiously. &ldquo;A relative of yours, I suppose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A cousin, that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One's relatives, particularly the feminine relatives, incline toward
+      eccentricity as they grow older, don't you think. I have an aunt down in
+      Sussex, who is queer. A good sort, too, no end of money, a big place and
+      all that, but odd. She and I get on well together&mdash;I am her pet, I
+      suppose I may say&mdash;but, by Jove, she has quarreled with everyone else
+      in the family. I let her have her own way and it has convinced her that I
+      am the only rational Heathcroft in existence. Do you golf, Knowles?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I attempt something in that line. I doubt if my efforts should be called
+      golf.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a rotten game when one is off form, isn't it. If you are down in
+      Sussex and I chance to be there I should be glad to have you play an
+      eighteen with me. Burglestone Bogs is the village. Anyone will direct you
+      to the Manor. If I'm not there, introduce yourself to my aunt. Lady Kent
+      Carey is the name. She'll be jolly glad to welcome you if you tell her you
+      know me. I'm her sole interest in life, the greenhouses excepted, of
+      course. Cultivating roses and rearing me are her hobbies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I thought it improbable that the golfers of Burglestone Bogs would ever be
+      put to shame by the brilliancy of my game. I thanked him, however. I was
+      surprised at the invitation. I had been under the impression, derived from
+      my reading, that the average Englishman required an acquaintance of
+      several months before proffering hospitality. No doubt Mr. Heathcroft was
+      not an average Englishman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you be in London long?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;I suppose not. You're probably
+      off on a hurricane jaunt from one end of the Continent to the other. Two
+      hours at Stratford, bowing before Shakespeare's tomb, a Derby through the
+      cathedral towns, and then the Channel boat, eh? That's the American way,
+      isn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not our way,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;We have no itinerary. I don't know where
+      we may go or how long we shall stay.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Evidently I rose again in his estimation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you picked your hotel in London?&rdquo; he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. I shall be glad of any help you may be kind enough to give along that
+      line.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He reflected. &ldquo;There's a decent little hotel in Mayfair,&rdquo; he said, after a
+      moment. &ldquo;A private sort of shop. I don't use it myself; generally put up
+      at the club, I mean to say. But my aunt and my sisters do. They're quite
+      mad about it. It is&mdash;Ah&mdash;Bancroft's&mdash;that's it, Bancroft's
+      Hotel. I'll give you the address before I leave.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I thanked him again. He was certainly trying to be kind. No doubt the
+      kindness was due to his sense of obligation engendered by what he called
+      my &ldquo;professional information,&rdquo; but it was kindness all the same.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first bugle for luncheon sounded. Mr. Heathcroft turned to go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll see you again, Knowles,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and give you the hotel street and
+      number and all that. Hope you'll like it. If you shouldn't the Langham is
+      not bad&mdash;quiet and old-fashioned, but really very fair. And if you
+      care for something more public and&mdash;Ah&mdash;American, there are
+      always the Savoy and the Cecil. Here is my card. If I can be of any
+      service to you while you are in town drop me a line at my clubs, either of
+      them. I must be toddling. By, by.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He &ldquo;toddled&rdquo; and I sought my room to prepare for luncheon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two days more and our voyage was at an end. We saw more of our friend the
+      captain during those days and of Heathcroft as well. The former fulfilled
+      his promise of showing us through the ship, and Hephzy and I, descending
+      greasy iron stairways and twisting through narrow passages, saw great
+      rooms full of mighty machinery, and a cavern where perspiring, grimy men,
+      looking but half-human in the red light from the furnace mouths, toiled
+      ceaselessly with pokers and shovels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We stood at the forward end of the promenade deck at night, looking out
+      into the blackness, and heard the clang of four bells from the shadows at
+      the bow, the answering clang from the crow's-nest on the foremast, and the
+      weird cry of &ldquo;All's well&rdquo; from the lookouts. This experience made a great
+      impression on us both. Hephzy expressed my feeling exactly when she said
+      in a hushed whisper:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, Hosy! for the first time I feel as if I really was on board a ship
+      at sea. My father and your father and all our men-folks for ever so far
+      back have heard that 'All's well'&mdash;yes, and called it, too, when they
+      first went as sailors. Just think of it! Why Father was only sixteen when
+      he shipped; just a boy, that's all. I've heard him say 'All's well' over
+      and over again; 'twas a kind of byword with him. This whole thing seems
+      like somethin' callin' to me out of the past and gone. Don't you feel it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I felt it, as she did. The black night, the quiet, the loneliness, the
+      salt spray on our faces and the wash of the waves alongside, the high
+      singsong wail from lookout to lookout&mdash;it WAS a voice from the past,
+      the call of generations of sea-beaten, weather-worn, brave old Cape
+      Codders to their descendants, reminding the latter of a dead and gone
+      profession and of thousands of fine, old ships which had plowed the ocean
+      in the days when &ldquo;Plutonias&rdquo; were unknown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We attended the concert in the Lounge, and the ball on the promenade deck
+      which followed. Mr. Heathcroft, who seemed to have made the acquaintance
+      of most of the pretty girls on board, informed us in the intervals between
+      a two-step and a tango, that he had been &ldquo;dancing madly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You Americans are extraordinary people,&rdquo; he added. &ldquo;Your dances are as
+      extraordinary as your food. That Mrs. Van Hook, who sits near me at table,
+      was indulging in&mdash;what do you call them?&mdash;oh, yes, griddle cakes&mdash;this
+      morning. Begged me to try them. I declined. Horrid things they were.
+      Round, like a&mdash;like a washing-flannel, and swimming in treacle.
+      Frightful!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that man,&rdquo; commented Hephzy, &ldquo;eats cold toast and strawberry
+      preserves for breakfast and washes 'em down with three cups of tea. And he
+      calls nice hot pancakes frightful!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At ten o'clock in the morning of the sixth day we sighted the Irish coast
+      through the dripping haze which shrouded it and at four we dropped anchor
+      abreast the breakwater of the little Welsh village which was to be our
+      landing place. The sun was shining dimly by this time and the rounded
+      hills and the mountains beyond them, the green slopes dotted with farms
+      and checkered with hedges and stone walls, the gray stone fort with its
+      white-washed barrack buildings, the spires and chimneys of the village in
+      the hollow&mdash;all these combined to make a picture which was homelike
+      and yet not like home, foreign and yet strangely familiar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We leaned over the rail and watched the trunks and boxes and bags and
+      bundles shoot down the slide into the baggage and mail-boat which lay
+      alongside. Hephzy was nervous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They'll smash everything to pieces&mdash;they surely will!&rdquo; she declared.
+      &ldquo;Either that or smash themselves, I don't know which is liable to happen
+      first. Mercy on us! Did you see that? That box hit the man right in the
+      back!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It didn't hurt him,&rdquo; I said, reassuringly. &ldquo;It was nothing but a
+      hat-box.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hurt HIM&mdash;no! But I guess likely it didn't do the hat much good. I
+      thought baggage smashin' was an American institution, but they've got some
+      experts over here. Oh, my soul and body! there goes MY trunk&mdash;end
+      over end, of course. Well, I'm glad there's no eggs in it, anyway. Josiah
+      Dimick always used to carry two dozen eggs to his daughter-in-law every
+      time he went to Boston. He had 'em in a box once and put the box on the
+      seat alongside of him and a big fat woman came and sat&mdash;Oh! that was
+      your trunk, Hosy! Did you hear it hit? I expect every one of those
+      'English Poets' went from top to bottom then, right through all your
+      clothes. Never mind, I suppose it's all part of travelin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Heathcroft, looking more English than ever in his natty top coat, and
+      hat at the back of his head, sauntered up. He was, for him, almost
+      enthusiastic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Looking at the water, were you?&rdquo; he queried. &ldquo;Glorious color, isn't it.
+      One never sees a sea like that or a sky like that anywhere but here at
+      home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy looked at the sea and sky. It was plain that she wished to admire,
+      for his sake, but her admiration was qualified.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you think if they were a little brighter and bluer they'd be
+      prettier?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Heathcroft stared at her through his monocle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bluer?&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;My dear woman, there are no skies as blue as the
+      English skies. They are quite celebrated&mdash;really.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He sauntered on again, evidently disgusted at our lack of appreciation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He must be color-blind,&rdquo; I observed. Hephzy was more charitable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess likely everybody's home things are best,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I suppose
+      this green-streaked water and those gray clouds do look bright and blue to
+      him. We must make allowances, Hosy. He never saw an August mornin' at
+      Bayport, with a northwest wind blowin' and the bay white and blue to the
+      edge of all creation. That's been denied him. He means well, poor thing;
+      he don't know any better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      An hour later we landed from the passenger tender at a stone pier covered
+      with substantial stone buildings. Uniformed custom officers and uniformed
+      policemen stood in line as we came up the gang-plank. Behind them, funny
+      little locomotives attached to queer cars which appeared to be all doors,
+      puffed and panted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah looked about her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, with conviction. &ldquo;I'm believin' it more and more all the
+      time. It is England, just like the pictures. How many times I've seen
+      engines like that in pictures, and cars like that, too. I never thought
+      I'd ride in 'em. My goodness me? Hephzibah Jane Cahoon, you're in England&mdash;YOU
+      are! You needn't be afraid to turn over for fear of wakin' up, either.
+      You're awake and alive and in England! Hosy,&rdquo; with a sudden burst of
+      exuberance, &ldquo;hold on to me tight. I'm just as likely to wave my hat and
+      hurrah as I am to do anything. Hold on to me&mdash;tight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We got through the perfunctory customs examination without trouble. Our
+      tickets provided by Campbell, included those for the railway journey to
+      London. I secured a first-class compartment at the booking-office and a
+      guard conducted us to it and closed the door. Another short delay and
+      then, with a whistle as queer and unfamiliar as its own appearance, the
+      little locomotive began to pull our train out of the station.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy leaned back against the cushions with a sigh of supreme content.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;for London. London! think of it, Hephzy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm thinkin' of it,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;London&mdash;the biggest city in the
+      world! Who knows, Hosy? France is such a little ways off; probably Little
+      Frank has been to London a hundred times. He may even be there now. Who
+      knows? I shouldn't be surprised if we met him right in London. I sha'n't
+      be surprised at anything anymore. I'm in England and on my way to London;
+      that's surprise enough. NOTHIN' could be more wonderful than that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which We Are Received at Bancroft's Hotel and I Receive a Letter
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      It was late when we reached London, nearly eleven o'clock. The long train
+      journey was a delight. During the few hours of daylight and dusk we peered
+      through the car windows at the scenery flying past; at the villages, the
+      green fields, the hedges, the neat, trim farms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Everything looks as if it has been swept and dusted,&rdquo; declared Hephzy.
+      &ldquo;There aren't any waste places at all. What do they do with their spare
+      land?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They haven't any,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;Land is too valuable to waste. There's
+      another thatched roof. It looks like those in the pictures, doesn't it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy nodded. &ldquo;Just exactly,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Everything looks like the
+      pictures. I feel as if I'd seen it all before. If that engine didn't toot
+      so much like a tin whistle I should almost think it was a picture. But it
+      isn't&mdash;it isn't; it's real, and you and I are part of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We dined on the train. Night came and our window-pictures changed to
+      glimpses of flashing lights interspersed with shadowy blotches of
+      darkness. At length the lights became more and more frequent and began to
+      string out in long lines marking suburban streets. Then the little
+      locomotive tooted its tin whistle frantically and we rolled slowly under a
+      great train shed&mdash;Paddington Station and London itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Amid the crowd on the platform Hephzy and I stood, two lone wanderers not
+      exactly sure what we should do next. About us the busy crowd jostled and
+      pushed. Relatives met relatives and fathers and mothers met sons and
+      daughters returning home after long separations. No one met us, no one was
+      interested in us at all, except the porters and the cabmen. I selected a
+      red-faced chunky porter who was a decidedly able person, apparently
+      capable of managing anything except the letter h. The acrobatics which he
+      performed with that defenceless consonant were marvelous. I have said that
+      I selected him; that he selected me would be nearer the truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cab, sir. Yes, sir, thank you, sir,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Leave that to me, sir.
+      Will you 'ave a fourwheeler or a hordinary cab, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I wasn't exactly certain what a fourwheeler might be. I had read about
+      them often enough, but I had never seen one pictured and properly labeled.
+      For the matter of that, all the vehicles in sight appeared to have four
+      wheels. So I said, at a venture, that I thought an ordinary cab would do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir; 'ere you are, sir. Your boxes are in the luggage van, I
+      suppose, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I took it for granted he meant my trunks and those were in what I, in my
+      ignorance, would have called a baggage car:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; said the porter. &ldquo;If the lidy will be good enough to wait
+      'ere, sir, you and I will go hafter the boxes, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Cautioning Hephzy not to stir from her moorings on any account I followed
+      my guide to the &ldquo;luggage van.&rdquo; This crowded car disgorged our two steamer
+      trunks and, my particular porter having corraled a fellow-craftsman to
+      help him, the trunks were dragged to the waiting cab.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I found Hephzy waiting, outwardly calm, but inwardly excited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw one at last,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;I'd about come to believe there wasn't
+      such a thing, but there is; I just saw one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One&mdash;what?&rdquo; I asked, puzzled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An Englishman with side-whiskers. They wasn't as big and long as those in
+      the pictures, but they were side-whiskers. I feel better. When you've been
+      brought up to believe every Englishman wore 'em, it was kind of
+      humiliatin' not to see one single set.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I paid my porters&mdash;I learned afterward that, like most Americans, I
+      had given them altogether too much&mdash;and we climbed into the cab with
+      our bags. The &ldquo;boxes,&rdquo; or trunks, were on the driver's seat and on the
+      roof.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where to, sir?&rdquo; asked the driver.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hesitated. Even at this late date I had not made up my mind exactly
+      &ldquo;where to.&rdquo; My decision was a hasty one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why&mdash;er&mdash;to&mdash;to Bancroft's Hotel,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Blithe Street,
+      just off Piccadilly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I think the driver was somewhat astonished. Very few of his American
+      passengers selected Bancroft's as a stopping place, I imagine. However,
+      his answer was prompt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir, thank you, sir,&rdquo; he said. The cab rolled out of the station.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose,&rdquo; said Hephzy, reflectively, &ldquo;if you had told him or that
+      porter man that they were everlastin' idiots they'd have thanked you just
+      the same and called you 'sir' four times besides.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No doubt they would.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir, I'm perfectly sure they would&mdash;thank you, sir. So this is
+      London. It doesn't look such an awful lot different from Boston or New
+      York so far.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Bancroft's, when we reached it, was as unlike a Boston or New York
+      hotel as anything could be. A short, quiet, eminently respectable street,
+      leading from Piccadilly; a street fenced in, on both sides, by
+      three-story, solid, eminently respectable houses of brick and stone. No
+      signs, no street cars, no crowds, no glaring lights. Merely a gas lamp
+      burning over the fanlight of a spotless white door, and the words
+      &ldquo;Bancroft's Hotel&rdquo; in mosaic lettering set in a white stone slab in the
+      pavement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cab pulled up before the white door and Hephzy and I looked out of the
+      window. The same thought was in both our minds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This can't be the place,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This isn't a hotel, is it, Hosy?&rdquo; asked Hephzy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The white door opened and a brisk, red-cheeked English boy in uniform
+      hastened to the cab. Before he reached it I had seen the lettering in the
+      pavement and knew that, in spite of appearances, we had reached our
+      destination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is it, Hephzy,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy opened the cab door and we alighted. Then in the doorway of
+      &ldquo;Bancroft's&rdquo; appeared a stout, red-faced and very dignified person, also
+      in uniform. This person wore short &ldquo;mutton-chop&rdquo; whiskers and had the air
+      of a member of the Royal Family; that is to say, the air which a member of
+      the Royal Family might be expected to have.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good evening, sir,&rdquo; said the personage, bowing respectfully. The bow was
+      a triumph in itself; not too low, not abject in the least, not familiar; a
+      bow which implied much, but promised nothing; a bow which seemed to demand
+      references, but was far from repellant or bullying. Altogether a wonderful
+      bow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good evening,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;This is Bancroft's Hotel, is it not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish to secure rooms for this lady and myself, if possible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir. This way, sir, if you please. Richard,&rdquo; this to the boy and in
+      a tone entirely different&mdash;the tone of a commanding officer to a
+      private&mdash;&ldquo;see to the gentleman's luggage. This way, sir; thank you,
+      sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hesitated. &ldquo;The cabman has not been paid,&rdquo; I stammered. I was a trifle
+      overawed by the grandeur of the mutton-chops and the &ldquo;sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will attend to that, sir. If you will be good enough to come in, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We entered and found ourselves in a narrow hall, old-fashioned, homelike
+      and as spotless as the white door. Two more uniforms bowed before us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, sir,&rdquo; said the member of the Royal Family. It was with
+      difficulty that I repressed the desire to tell him he was quite welcome.
+      His manner of thanking me seemed to imply that we had conferred a favor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will speak to Mr. Jameson,&rdquo; he went on, with another bow. Then he left
+      us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is&mdash;is that Mr. Bancroft?&rdquo; whispered Hephzy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shook my head. &ldquo;It must be the Prince of Wales, at least,&rdquo; I whispered
+      in return. &ldquo;I infer that there is no Mr. Bancroft.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It developed that I was right. Mr. Jameson was the proprietor of the
+      hotel, and Mr. Jameson was a pleasant, refined, quiet man of middle age.
+      He appeared from somewhere or other, ascertained our wants, stated that he
+      had a few vacant rooms and could accommodate us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you wish a sitting-room?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was not sure. I wanted comfort, that I knew, and I said so. I mentioned,
+      as an afterthought, that Mr. Heathcroft had recommended Bancroft's to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Heathcroft name seemed to settle everything. Mr. Jameson summoned the
+      representative of royalty and spoke to him in a low tone. The
+      representative&mdash;his name, I learned later, was Henry and he was
+      butler and major-domo at Bancroft's&mdash;bowed once more. A few minutes
+      later we were shown to an apartment on the second floor front, a room
+      large, old-fashioned, furnished with easy-chairs, tables and a big,
+      comfortable sofa. Sofa and easy-chairs were covered with figured, glazed
+      chintz.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your sitting-room, sir,&rdquo; said Henry. &ldquo;Your bedrooms open hoff it, sir.
+      The chambermaid will 'ave them ready in a moment, sir. Richard and the
+      porter will bring up your luggage and the boxes. Will you and the lady
+      wish supper, sir? Thank you, sir. Very good, sir. Will you require a fire,
+      sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The room was a trifle chilly. There was a small iron grate at its end, and
+      a coal fire ready to kindle. I answered that a fire might be enjoyable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; said Henry. &ldquo;Himmediately, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon Hephzy and I were drinking hot tea and eating bread and butter and
+      plum cake before a snapping fire. George, the waiter, had brought us the
+      tea and accessories and set the table; the chambermaid had prepared the
+      bedrooms; Henry had supervised everything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; observed Hephzy, with a sigh of content, &ldquo;I feel better satisfied
+      every minute. When we were in the hack&mdash;cab, I mean&mdash;I couldn't
+      realize we weren't ridin' through an American city. The houses and
+      sidewalks and everything&mdash;what I could see of 'em&mdash;looked so
+      much like Boston that I was sort of disappointed. I wanted it to be more
+      different, some way. But this IS different. This may be a hotel&mdash;I
+      suppose likely 'tis&mdash;but it don't seem like one, does it? If it
+      wasn't for the Henry and that Richard and that&mdash;what's his name?
+      George&mdash;and all the rest, I should think I was in Cap'n Cyrus
+      Whittaker's settin-room back home. The furniture looks like Cap'n Cy's and
+      the pictures look like those he has, and&mdash;and everything looks as
+      stiff and starched and old-fashioned as can be. But the Cap'n never had a
+      Henry. No, sirree, Henry don't belong on Cape Cod! Hosy,&rdquo; with a sudden
+      burst of confidence, &ldquo;it's a good thing I saw that Lord Erskine first. If
+      I hadn't found out what a live lord looked like I'd have thought Henry was
+      one sure. Do you really think it's right for me to call him by his
+      Christian name? It seems sort of&mdash;sort of irreverent, somehow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I wish it were possible for me to describe in detail our first days at
+      Bancroft's. If it were not for the fact that so many really important
+      events and happenings remain to be described&mdash;if it were not that the
+      most momentous event of my life, the event that was the beginning of the
+      great change in that life&mdash;if that event were not so close at hand, I
+      should be tempted to linger upon those first few days. They were strange
+      and wonderful and funny to Hephzibah and me. The strangeness and the
+      wonder wore off gradually; the fun still sticks in my memory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To have one's bedroom invaded at an early hour by a chambermaid who,
+      apparently quite oblivious of the fact that the bed was still occupied by
+      a male, proceeded to draw the curtains, bring the hot water and fill the
+      tin tub for my bath, was astonishing and funny enough, Hephzibah's
+      comments on the proceeding were funnier still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean to tell me,&rdquo; she demanded, &ldquo;that that hussy was brazen enough
+      to march right in here before you got up?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I am only thankful that I HADN'T got up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well! I must say! Did she fetch the water in a garden waterin'-pot, same
+      as she did to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just the same.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And did she pour it into that&mdash;that flat dishpan on the floor and
+      tell you your 'bawth' was ready?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! Of all the&mdash;I hope she cleared out THEN?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's a mercy, anyhow. Did you take a bath in that dishpan?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tried.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I didn't. I'd as soon try to bathe in a saucer. I'd have felt as if
+      I'd needed a teaspoon to dip up the half pint of water and pour it over
+      me. Don't these English folks have real bathtubs for grown-up people?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not know, then. Later I learned that Bancroft's Hotel possessed
+      several bathrooms, and that I might use one if I preferred. Being an
+      American I did so prefer. Most of the guests, being English, preferred the
+      &ldquo;dishpans.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We learned to accept the early morning visits of the chambermaid as
+      matters of course. We learned to order breakfast the night before and to
+      eat it in our sitting-room. We tasted a &ldquo;grilled sole&rdquo; for the first time,
+      and although Hephzy persisted in referring to it as &ldquo;fried flatfish&rdquo; we
+      liked the taste. We became accustomed to being waited upon, to do next to
+      nothing for ourselves, and I found that a valet who laid out my evening
+      clothes, put the studs in my shirts, selected my neckties, and saw that my
+      shoes were polished, was a rather convenient person to have about. Hephzy
+      fumed a good deal at first; she declared that she felt ashamed, an
+      able-bodied woman like her, to sit around with her hands folded and do
+      nothing. She asked her maid a great many questions, and the answers she
+      received explained some of her puzzles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know what that poor thing gets a week?&rdquo; she observed, referring to
+      the maid. &ldquo;Eight shillin's&mdash;two dollars a week, that's what she gets.
+      And your valet man doesn't get any more. I can see now how Mr. Jameson can
+      afford to keep so much help at the board he charges. I pay that Susanna
+      Wixon thing at Bayport three dollars and she doesn't know enough to boil
+      water without burnin' it on, scarcely. And Peters&mdash;why in the world
+      do they call women by their last names?&mdash;Peters, she's the maid, says
+      it's a real nice place and she's quite satisfied. Well, where ignorance is
+      bliss it's foolish to be sensible, I suppose; but <i>I</i> wouldn't fetch
+      and carry for the President's wife, to say nothin' of an everyday body
+      like me, for two dollars a week.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We learned that the hotel dining-room was a &ldquo;Coffee Room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nobody with sense would take coffee there&mdash;not more'n once, they
+      wouldn't,&rdquo; declared Hephzy. &ldquo;I asked Peters why they didn't call it the
+      'Tea Room' and be done with it. She said because it was the Coffee Room. I
+      suppose likely that was an answer, but I felt a good deal as if I'd come
+      out of the same hole I went in at. She thanked me for askin' her, though;
+      she never forgets that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We became accustomed to addressing the lordly Henry by his Christian name
+      and found him a most obliging person. He, like everyone else, had
+      instantly recognized us as Americans, and, consequently, was
+      condescendingly kind to strangers from a distant and barbarous country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What SORT of place do they think the States are?&rdquo; asked Hephzy. &ldquo;That's
+      what they always call home&mdash;'the States'&mdash;and they seem to think
+      it's about as big as a pocket handkerchief. That Henry asked me if the red
+      Indians were numerous where we lived. I said no&mdash;as soon as I could
+      say anything; I told him there was only one tribe of Red Men in town and
+      they were white. I guess he thought I was crazy, but it don't make any
+      difference. And Peters said she had a cousin in a place called Chicago and
+      did I know him. What do you think of that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you tell her?&rdquo; I inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hey? Oh, I told her that, bein' as Chicago was a thousand miles from
+      Bayport, I hadn't had time to do much visitin' there. I told her the
+      truth, but she didn't believe it. I could see she didn't. She thinks
+      Chicago and San Francisco and New York and Boston are nests of wigwams in
+      the same patch of woods and all hands that live there have been scalped at
+      least once. SUCH ignorance!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry, at my request, procured seats for us at one of the London theaters.
+      There we saw a good play, splendidly acted, and Hephzy laughed and wept at
+      the performance. As usual, however, she had a characteristic comment to
+      make.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do they call the front seats the 'stalls'?&rdquo; she whispered to me
+      between the acts. &ldquo;Stalls! The idea! I'm no horse. Perhaps they call 'em
+      that because folks are donkeys enough to pay two dollars and a half for
+      the privilege of sittin' in 'em. Don't YOU be so extravagant again, Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the characters in the play was supposed to be an American
+      gentleman, and his behavior and dress and speech stirred me to
+      indignation. I asked the question which every American asks under similar
+      circumstances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why on earth,&rdquo; I demanded, &ldquo;do they permit that fellow to make such a
+      fool of himself? He yells and drawls and whines through his nose and wears
+      clothes which would make an American cry. That last scene was supposed to
+      be a reception and he wore an outing suit and no waistcoat. Do they
+      suppose such a fellow would be tolerated in respectable society in the
+      United States?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And now it was Hephzy's turn to be philosophical.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess likely the answer to that is simple enough,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;He's what
+      they think an American ought to be, even if he isn't. If he behaved like a
+      human bein' he wouldn't be the kind of American they expect on the stage.
+      After all, he isn't any worse than the Englishmen we have in the Dramatic
+      Society's plays at home. I haven't seen one of that kind since I got here;
+      and I've given up expectin' to&mdash;unless you and I go to some crazy
+      asylum&mdash;which isn't likely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We rode on the tops of busses, we visited the Tower, and Westminster
+      Abbey, and Saint Paul's. We saw the Horse Guard sentinels on duty in
+      Whitehall, and watched the ceremony of guard changing at St. James's.
+      Hephzy was impressed, in her own way, by the uniforms of the &ldquo;Cold
+      Streams.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There!&rdquo; she exclaimed, &ldquo;I've seen 'em walk. Now I feel better. When they
+      stood there, with those red jackets and with the fur hats on their heads,
+      I couldn't make myself believe they hadn't been taken out of a box for
+      children to play with. I wanted to get up close so as to see if their feet
+      were glued to round pieces of wood like Noah's and Ham's and Japhet's in
+      the Ark. But they aren't wood, they're alive. They're men, not toys. I'm
+      glad I've seen 'em. THEY are satisfyin'. They make me more reconciled to a
+      King with a Derby hat on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She and I had stood in the crowd fringing the park mall and seen King
+      George trot by on horseback. His Majesty's lack of crown and robes and
+      scepter had been a great disappointment to Hephzy; I think she expected
+      the crown at least.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had, of course, visited the London office of my publishers, in Camford
+      Street and had found Mr. Matthews, the manager, expecting me. Jim Campbell
+      had cabled and written of my coming and Matthews' welcome was a warm one.
+      He was kindness itself. All my financial responsibilities were to be
+      shifted to his shoulders. I was to use the office as a bank, as a tourist
+      agency, even as a guide's headquarters. He put his clerks at my disposal;
+      they would conduct us on sight-seeing expeditions whenever and wherever we
+      wished. He even made out a list of places in and about London which we, as
+      strangers, should see.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His cordiality and thoughtfulness were appreciated. They made me feel less
+      alone and less dependent upon my own resources. Campbell had arranged that
+      all letters addressed to me in America should be forwarded to the Camford
+      Street office, and Matthews insisted that I should write my own letters
+      there. I began to make it a practice to drop in at the office almost every
+      morning before starting on the day's round of sight-seeing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bancroft's Hotel also began to seem less strange and more homelike. Mr.
+      Jameson, the proprietor, was a fine fellow&mdash;quiet, refined, and
+      pleasant. He, too, tried to help us in every possible way. His wife, a
+      sweet-faced Englishwoman, made Hephzy's acquaintance and Hephzy liked her
+      extremely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's as nice as she can be,&rdquo; declared Hephzy. &ldquo;If it wasn't that she
+      says 'Fancy!' and 'Really!' instead of 'My gracious!' and 'I want to
+      know!' I should think I was talking to a Cape Codder, the best kind of
+      one. She's got sense, too. SHE don't ask about 'red Indians' in Bayport.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the multitude of our new experiences we learned the value of a
+      judicious &ldquo;tip.&rdquo; We had learned something concerning tips on the
+      &ldquo;Plutonia&rdquo;; Campbell had coached us concerning those, and we were provided
+      with a schedule of rates&mdash;so much to the bedroom steward, so much to
+      the stewardess, to the deck steward, to the &ldquo;boots,&rdquo; and all the rest. But
+      tipping in London we were obliged to adjust for ourselves, and the result
+      of our education was surprising.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At Saint Paul's an elderly and impressively haughty person in a black robe
+      showed us through the Crypt and delivered learned lectures before the
+      tombs of Nelson and Wellington. His appearance and manner were somewhat
+      awe-inspiring, especially to Hephzy, who asked me, in a whisper, if I
+      thought likely he was a bishop or a canon or something. When the round was
+      ended and we were leaving the Crypt she saw me put a hand in my pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mercy sakes, Hosy,&rdquo; she whispered. &ldquo;You aren't goin' to offer him money,
+      are you? He'll be insulted. I'd as soon think of givin' Mr. Partridge, our
+      minister, money for takin' us to the cemetery to see the first settlers'
+      gravestones. Don't you do it. He'll throw it back at you. I'll be so
+      ashamed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But I had been watching our fellow-sight-seers as they filed out, and when
+      our time came I dropped two shillings in the hand of the black-robed
+      dignitary. The hand did not spurn the coins, which I&mdash;rather timidly,
+      I confess&mdash;dropped into it. Instead it closed upon them tightly and
+      the haughty lips thanked me, not profusely, not even smilingly, but
+      thanked me, nevertheless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At our visit to the Law Courts a similar experience awaited us. Another
+      dignified and elderly person, who, judging by his appearance, should have
+      been a judge at least, not only accepted the shilling I gave him, but
+      bowed, smiled and offered to conduct us to the divorce court.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A very interesting case there, sir, just now,&rdquo; he murmured, confidingly.
+      &ldquo;Very interesting and sensational indeed, sir. You and the lady will enjoy
+      it, I'm sure, sir. All Americans do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was indignant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well!&rdquo; she exclaimed, as we emerged upon the Strand. &ldquo;Well! I must say!
+      What sort of folks does he think we are, I'd like to know. Divorce case!
+      I'd be ashamed to hear one. And that old man bein' so wicked and
+      ridiculous for twenty-five cents! Hosy, I do believe if you'd given him
+      another shillin' he'd have introduced us to that man in the red robe and
+      cotton wool wig&mdash;What did he call him?&mdash;Oh, yes, the Lord Chief
+      Justice. And I suppose you'd have had to tip HIM, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The first two weeks of our stay in London came to an end. Our plans were
+      still as indefinite as ever. How long we should stay, where we should go
+      next, what we should do when we decided where that &ldquo;next&rdquo; was to be&mdash;all
+      these questions we had not considered at all. I, for my part, was
+      curiously uninterested in the future. I was enjoying myself in an idle,
+      irresponsible way, and I could not seem to concentrate my thoughts upon a
+      definite course of action. If I did permit myself to think I found my
+      thoughts straying to my work and there they faced the same impassable
+      wall. I felt no inclination to write; I was just as certain as ever that I
+      should never write again. Thinking along this line only brought back the
+      old feeling of despondency. So I refused to think and, taking Jim's
+      advice, put work and responsibility from my mind. We would remain in
+      London as long as we were contented there. When the spirit moved we would
+      move with it&mdash;somewhere&mdash;either about England or to the
+      Continent. I did not know which and I did not care; I did not seem to care
+      much about anything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was perfectly happy. London to her was as wonderful as ever. She
+      never tired of sight-seeing, and on occasions when I felt disinclined to
+      leave the hotel she went out alone, shopping or wandering about the
+      streets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She scarcely mentioned &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; and I took care not to remind her of
+      that mythical youth. I had expected her to see him on every street corner,
+      to be brought face to face with unsuspecting young Englishmen and made to
+      ask ridiculous questions which might lead to our being taken in charge as
+      a pair of demented foreigners. But my forebodings were not realized.
+      London was so huge and the crowds so great that even Hephzy's courage
+      faltered. To select Little Frank from the multitude was a task too great,
+      even for her, I imagine. At any rate, she did not make the attempt, and
+      the belief that we were &ldquo;sent&rdquo; upon our pilgrimage for that express
+      purpose she had not expressed since our evening on the train.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The third week passed. I was growing tired of trotting about. Not tired of
+      London in particular. The gray, dingy, historic, wonderful old city was
+      still fascinating. It is hard to conceive of an intelligent person's ever
+      growing weary of the narrow streets with the familiar names&mdash;Fleet
+      Street, Fetter Lane, Pudding Lane and all the rest&mdash;names as familiar
+      to a reader of history or English fiction as that of his own town. To
+      wander into an unknown street and to learn that it is Shoreditch, or to
+      look up at an ancient building and discover it to be the Charterhouse,
+      were ever fresh miracles to me, as I am sure they must be to every
+      book-loving American. No, I was not tired of London. Had I come there
+      under other circumstances I should have been as happy and content as
+      Hephzy herself. But, now that the novelty was wearing off, I was beginning
+      to think again, to think of myself&mdash;the very thing I had determined,
+      and still meant, not to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One afternoon I drifted into the Camford Street office. Hephzy had left me
+      at Piccadilly Circus and was now, it was safe to presume, enjoying a
+      delightful sojourn amid the shops of Regent and Oxford Streets. When she
+      returned she would have a half-dozen purchases to display, a two-and-six
+      glove bargain from Robinson's, a bit of lace from Selfridge's, a
+      knick-knack from Liberty's&mdash;&ldquo;All so MUCH cheaper than you can get 'em
+      in Boston, Hosy.&rdquo; She would have had a glorious time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Matthews, the manager at Camford Street, was out, but Holton, the head
+      clerk&mdash;I was learning to speak of him as a &ldquo;clark&rdquo;&mdash;was in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are some American letters for you, sir,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I was about to
+      send them to your hotel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He gave me the letters&mdash;four of them altogether&mdash;and I went into
+      the private office to look them over. My first batch of mail from home; it
+      gave me a small thrill to see two-cent stamps in the corners of the
+      envelopes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the letters was from Campbell. I opened it first of all. Jim wrote
+      a rambling, good-humored letter, a mixture of business, news, advice and
+      nonsense. &ldquo;The Black Brig&rdquo; had gone into another edition. Considering my
+      opinion of such &ldquo;slush&rdquo; I should be ashamed to accept the royalties, but
+      he would continue to give my account credit for them until I cabled to the
+      contrary. He trusted we were behaving ourselves in a manner which would
+      reflect credit upon our country. I was to be sure not to let Hephzy marry
+      a title. And so on, for six pages. The letter was almost like a chat with
+      Jim himself, and I read it with chuckles and a pang of homesickness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the envelopes bore Hephzy's name and I, of course, did not open it.
+      It was postmarked &ldquo;Bayport&rdquo; and I thought I recognized the handwriting as
+      Susanna Wixon's. The third letter turned out to be not a letter at all,
+      but a bill from Sylvanus Cahoon, who took care of our &ldquo;lots&rdquo; in the
+      Bayport cemetery. It had been my intention to pay all bills before leaving
+      home, but, somehow or other, Sylvanus's had been overlooked. I must send
+      him a check at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fourth and last envelope was stained and crumpled. It had traveled a
+      long way. To my surprise I noticed that the stamp in the corner was
+      English and the postmark &ldquo;London.&rdquo; The address, moreover, was &ldquo;Captain
+      Barnabas Cahoon, Bayport, Massachusetts, U. S. A.&rdquo; The letter had
+      obviously been mailed in London, had journeyed to Bayport, from there to
+      New York, and had then been forwarded to London again. Someone, presumably
+      Simmons, the postmaster, had written &ldquo;Care Hosea Knowles&rdquo; and my
+      publisher's New York address in the lower corner. This had been scratched
+      out and &ldquo;28 Camford Street, London, England,&rdquo; added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at the envelope. Who in the world, or in England, could have
+      written Captain Barnabas&mdash;Captain Barnabas Cahoon, my great-uncle,
+      dead so many years? At first I was inclined to hand the letter, unopened,
+      to Hephzy. She was Captain Barnabas's daughter and it belonged to her by
+      right. But I knew Hephzy had no secrets from me and, besides, my curiosity
+      was great. At length I yielded to it and tore open the envelope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Inside was a sheet of thin foreign paper, both sides covered with writing.
+      I read the first line.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Captain Barnabas Cahoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are my nearest relative, my mother's father, and I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I uttered an exclamation. Then I stepped to the door of the private
+      office, made sure that it was shut, came back, sat down in the chair
+      before the desk which Mr. Matthews had put at my disposal, and read the
+      letter from beginning to end. This is what I read:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Captain Barnabas Cahoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are my nearest relative, my mother's father, and I, therefore,
+      address this letter to you. I know little concerning you. I do not know
+      even that you are still living in Bayport, or that you are living at all.
+      (N.B. In case Captain Cahoon is not living this letter is to be read and
+      acted upon by his heirs, upon whose estate I have an equal claim.) My
+      mother, Ardelia Cahoon Morley, died in Liverpool in 1896. My father,
+      Strickland Morley, died in Paris in December, 1908. I, as their only
+      child, am their heir, and I am writing to you asking what I might demand&mdash;that
+      is, a portion of the money which was my mother's and which you kept from
+      her and from my father all these years. My father told me the whole story
+      before he died, and he also told me that he had written you several times,
+      but that his letters had been ignored. My father was an English gentleman
+      and he was proud; that is why he did not take legal steps against you for
+      the recovery of what was his by law in England OR ANY CIVILISED COUNTRY,
+      one may presume. He would not STOOP to such measures even against those
+      who, as you know well, so meanly and fraudulently deprived him and his of
+      their inheritance. He is dead now. He died lacking the comforts and
+      luxuries with which you might and SHOULD have provided him. His
+      forbearance was wonderful and characteristic, but had I known of it sooner
+      I should have insisted upon demanding from you the money which was his. I
+      am now demanding it myself. Not BEGGING; that I wish THOROUGHLY
+      understood. I am giving you the opportunity to make a partial restitution,
+      that is all. It is what he would have wished, and his wish ALONE prevents
+      my putting the whole matter in my solicitor's hands. If I do not hear from
+      you within a reasonable time I shall know what to do. You may address me
+      care Mrs. Briggs, 218 &mdash;&mdash; Street, London, England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Awaiting your reply, I am, sir,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yours,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;FRANCIS STRICKLAND MORLEY. &ldquo;P. S.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not to be considered under ANY circumstances a subject for charity.
+      I am NOT begging. You, I am given to understand, are a wealthy man. I
+      demand my share of that wealth&mdash;that is all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I read this amazing epistle through once. Then, after rising and walking
+      about the office to make sure that I was thoroughly awake, I sat down and
+      read it again. There was no mistake. I had read it correctly. The writing
+      was somewhat illegible in spots and the signature was blotted, but it was
+      from Francis Strickland Morley. From &ldquo;Little Frank!&rdquo; I think my first and
+      greatest sensation was of tremendous surprise that there really was a
+      &ldquo;Little Frank.&rdquo; Hephzy had been right. Once more I should have to take off
+      my hat to Hephzy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The surprise remained, but other sensations came to keep it company. The
+      extraordinary fact of the letter's reaching me when and where it did, in
+      London, the city from which it was written and where, doubtless, the
+      writer still was. If I chose I might, perhaps, that very afternoon, meet
+      and talk with Ardelia Cahoon's son, with &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; himself. I could
+      scarcely realize it. Hephzy had declared that our coming to London was the
+      result of a special dispensation&mdash;we had been &ldquo;sent&rdquo; there. In the
+      face of this miracle I was not disposed to contradict her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The letter itself was more extraordinary than all else. It was that of a
+      young person, of a hot-headed boy. But WHAT a boy he must be! What an
+      unlicked, impudent, arrogant young cub! The boyishness was evident in
+      every line, in the underscored words, the pitiful attempt at dignity and
+      the silly veiled threats. He was so insistent upon the statement that he
+      was not a beggar. And yet he could write a begging letter like this. He
+      did not ask for charity, not he, he demanded it. Demanded it&mdash;he, the
+      son of a thief, demanded, from those whom his father had robbed, his
+      &ldquo;rights.&rdquo; He should have his rights; I would see to that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was angry enough but, as I read the letter for the third time, the
+      pitifulness of it became more apparent. I imagined Francis Strickland
+      Morley to be the replica of the Strickland Morley whom I remembered, the
+      useless, incompetent, inadequate son of a good-for-nothing father. No
+      doubt the father was responsible for such a letter as this having been
+      written. Doubtless he HAD told the boy all sorts of tales; perhaps he HAD
+      declared himself to be the defrauded instead of the defrauder; he was
+      quite capable of it. Possibly the youngster did believe he had a claim
+      upon the wealthy relatives in that &ldquo;uncivilized&rdquo; country, America. The
+      wealthy relatives! I thought of Captain Barnabas's last years, of
+      Hephzibah's plucky fight against poverty, of my own lost opportunities, of
+      the college course which I had been obliged to forego. My indignation
+      returned. I would not go back at once to Hephzy with the letter. I would,
+      myself, seek out the writer of that letter, and, if I found him, he and I
+      would have a heart to heart talk which should disabuse his mind of a few
+      illusions. We would have a full and complete understanding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hastily made a memorandum of the address, &ldquo;Care Mrs. Briggs,&rdquo; thrust the
+      letter back into the envelope, put it and my other mail into my pocket,
+      and walked out into the main office. Holton, the clerk, looked up from his
+      desk. Probably my feelings showed in my face, for he said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it, Mr. Knowles? No bad news, I trust, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; I answered, shortly. &ldquo;Where is &mdash;&mdash; Street? Is it far from
+      here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was rather far from there, in Camberwell, on the Surrey side of the
+      river. I might take a bus at such a corner and change again at so and so.
+      It sounded like a journey and I was impatient. I suggested that I might
+      take a cab. Certainly I could do that. William, the boy, would call a cab
+      at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      William did so and I gave the driver the address from my memoranda.
+      Through the Strand I was whirled, across Blackfriars Bridge and on through
+      the intricate web of avenues and streets on the Surrey side. The locality
+      did not impress me favorably. There was an abundance of &ldquo;pubs&rdquo; and of
+      fried-fish shops where &ldquo;jellied eels&rdquo; seemed to be a viand much in demand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &mdash;&mdash; Street, when I reached it, was dingy and third rate.
+      Three-storied old brick houses, with shops on their first floors,
+      predominated. Number 218 was one of these. The signs &ldquo;Lodgings&rdquo; over the
+      tarnished bell-pull and the name &ldquo;Briggs&rdquo; on the plate beside it proved
+      that I had located the house from which the letter had been sent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I paid my cabman, dismissed him, and rang the bell. A slouchy maid-servant
+      answered the ring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is Mr. Francis Morley in?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The maid looked at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wat, sir?&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does Mr. Francis Morley live here?&rdquo; I asked, raising my voice. &ldquo;Is he
+      in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The maid's face was as wooden as the door-post. Her mouth, already open,
+      opened still wider and she continued to stare. A step sounded in the dark
+      hall behind her and another voice said, sharply:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Oo is it, 'Arriet? And w'at does 'e want?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The maid grinned. &ldquo;'E wants to see MISTER Morley, ma'am,&rdquo; she said, with a
+      giggle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was pushed aside and a red-faced woman, with thin lips and scowl, took
+      her place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'OO do you want to see?&rdquo; she demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Francis Morley. Does he live here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'OO?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Francis Morley.&rdquo; My answer was sharp enough this time. I began to think I
+      had invaded a colony of imbeciles&mdash;or owls; their conversation seemed
+      limited to &ldquo;oos.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;W'at do you want to see&mdash;to see Morley for?&rdquo; demanded the red-faced
+      female.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On business. Is Mrs. Briggs in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm Mrs. Briggs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good! I'm glad of that. Now will you tell me if Mr. Morley is in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There ain't no Mr. Morley. There's a&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was interrupted. From the hall, apparently from the top of the flight
+      of stairs, another was heard, a feminine voice like the others, but unlike
+      them&mdash;decidedly unlike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is it, Mrs. Briggs?&rdquo; said this voice. &ldquo;Does the gentleman wish to see
+      me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, 'e don't,&rdquo; declared Mrs. Briggs, with emphasis. &ldquo;'E wants to see
+      Mister Morley and I'm telling 'im there ain't none such.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But are you sure he doesn't mean Miss Morley? Ask him, please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Before the Briggs woman could reply I spoke again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to see a Francis Morley,&rdquo; I repeated, loudly. &ldquo;I have come here in
+      answer to a letter. The letter gave this as his address. If he isn't here,
+      will you be good enough to tell me where he is? I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was another interruption, an exclamation from the darkness behind
+      Mrs. Briggs and the maid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; said the third voice, with a little catch in it. &ldquo;Who is it, please?
+      Who is it? What is the person's name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Briggs scowled at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wat's your name?&rdquo; she snapped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My name is Knowles. I am an American relative of Mr. Morley's and I'm
+      here in answer to a letter written by Mr. Morley himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a moment's silence. Then the third voice said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ask&mdash;ask him to come up. Show him up, Mrs. Briggs, if you please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Briggs grunted and stepped aside. I entered the hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;First floor back,&rdquo; mumbled the landlady. &ldquo;Straight as you go. You won't
+      need any showin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I mounted the stairs. The landing at the top was dark, but the door at the
+      rear was ajar. I knocked. A voice, the same voice I had heard before, bade
+      me come in. I entered the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a dingy little room, sparely furnished, with a bed and two chairs,
+      a dilapidated washstand and a battered bureau. I noticed these afterwards.
+      Just then my attention was centered upon the occupant of the room, a young
+      woman, scarcely more than a girl, dark-haired, dark-eyed, slender and
+      graceful. She was standing by the bureau, resting one hand upon it, and
+      gazing at me, with a strange expression, a curious compound of fright,
+      surprise and defiance. She did not speak. I was embarrassed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon,&rdquo; I stammered. &ldquo;I am afraid there is some mistake. I
+      came here in answer to a letter written by a Francis Morley, who is&mdash;well,
+      I suppose he is a distant relative of mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stepped forward and closed the door by which I had entered. Then she
+      turned and faced me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are an American,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I am an American. I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She interrupted me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you&mdash;do you come from&mdash;from Bayport, Massachusetts?&rdquo; she
+      faltered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I stared at her. &ldquo;Why, yes,&rdquo; I admitted. &ldquo;I do come from Bayport. How in
+      the world did you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was the letter you speak of addressed to Captain Barnabas Cahoon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then&mdash;then there isn't any mistake. I wrote it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I imagine that my mouth opened as wide as the maid's had done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You!&rdquo; I exclaimed. &ldquo;Why&mdash;why&mdash;it was written by Francis Morley&mdash;Francis
+      Strickland Morley.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am Frances Strickland Morley.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I heard this, of course, but I did not comprehend it. I had been working
+      along the lines of a fixed idea. Now that idea had been knocked into a
+      cocked hat, and my intellect had been knocked with it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why&mdash;why, no,&rdquo; I repeated, stupidly. &ldquo;Francis Morley is the son of
+      Strickland Morley.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was no son,&rdquo; impatiently. &ldquo;I am Frances Morley, I tell you. I am
+      Strickland Morley's daughter. I wrote that letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I sat down upon the nearest of the two chairs. I was obliged to sit. I
+      could not stand and face the fact which, at least, even my benumbed brain
+      was beginning to comprehend. The mistake was a simple one, merely the
+      difference between an &ldquo;i&rdquo; and an &ldquo;e&rdquo; in a name, that was all. And yet that
+      mistake&mdash;that slight difference between &ldquo;Francis&rdquo; and &ldquo;Frances&rdquo;&mdash;explained
+      the amazing difference between the Little Frank of Hephzibah's fancy and
+      the reality before me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The real Little Frank was a girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which a Dream Becomes a Reality
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      I said nothing immediately. I could not. It was &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; who resumed
+      the conversation. &ldquo;Who are you?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who&mdash;I beg your pardon? I am rather upset, I'm afraid. I didn't
+      expect&mdash;that is, I expected.... Well, I didn't expect THIS! What was
+      it you asked me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I asked you who you were.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My name is Knowles&mdash;Kent Knowles. I am Captain Cahoon's
+      grand-nephew.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His grand-nephew. Then&mdash;Did Captain Cahoon send you to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Send me! I beg your pardon once more. No.... No. Captain Cahoon is dead.
+      He has been dead nearly ten years. No one sent me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then why did you come? You have my letter; you said so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; I&mdash;I have your letter. I received it about an hour ago. It was
+      forwarded to me&mdash;to my cousin and me&mdash;here in London.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here in London! Then you did not come to London in answer to that
+      letter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. My cousin and I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What cousin? What is his name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His name? It isn't a&mdash;That is, the cousin is a woman. She is Miss
+      Hephzibah Cahoon, your&mdash;your mother's half-sister. She is&mdash;Why,
+      she is your aunt!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a fact; Hephzibah was this young lady's aunt. I don't know why that
+      seemed so impossible and ridiculous, but it did. The young lady herself
+      seemed to find it so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My aunt?&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;I didn't know&mdash;But&mdash;but, why is my&mdash;my
+      aunt here with you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are on a pleasure trip. We&mdash;I beg your pardon. What have I been
+      thinking of? Don't stand. Please sit down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She accepted the invitation. As she walked toward the chair it seemed to
+      me that she staggered a little. I noticed then for the first time, how
+      very slender she was, almost emaciated. There were dark hollows beneath
+      her eyes and her face was as white as the bed-linen&mdash;No, I am wrong;
+      it was whiter than Mrs. Briggs' bed-linen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you ill?&rdquo; I asked involuntarily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not answer. She seated herself in the chair and fixed her dark
+      eyes upon me. They were large eyes and very dark. Hephzy said, when she
+      first saw them, that they looked like &ldquo;burnt holes in a blanket.&rdquo; Perhaps
+      they did; that simile did not occur to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have read my letter?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was evident that I must have read the letter or I should not have
+      learned where to find her, but I did not call attention to this. I said
+      simply that I had read the letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then what do you propose?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Propose?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; impatiently. &ldquo;What proposition do you make me? If you have read the
+      letter you must know what I mean. You must have come here for the purpose
+      of saying something, of making some offer. What is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was speechless. I had come there to find an impudent young blackguard
+      and tell him what I thought of him. That was as near a definite reason for
+      my coming as any. If I had not acted upon impulse, if I had stopped to
+      consider, it is quite likely that I should not have come at all. But the
+      blackguard was&mdash;was&mdash;well, he was not and never had been. In his
+      place was this white-faced, frail girl. I couldn't tell her what I thought
+      of her. I didn't know what to think.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She waited for me to answer and, as I continued to play the dumb idiot,
+      her impatience grew. Her brows&mdash;very dark brown they were, almost
+      black against the pallor of her face&mdash;drew together and her foot
+      began to pat the faded carpet. &ldquo;I am waiting,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I realized that I must say something, so I said the only thing which
+      occurred to me. It was a question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your father is dead?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She nodded. &ldquo;My letter told you that,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;He died in Paris
+      three years ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And&mdash;and had he no relatives here in England?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hesitated before replying. &ldquo;No near relatives whom he cared to
+      recognize,&rdquo; she answered haughtily. &ldquo;My father, Mr. Knowles was a
+      gentleman and, having been most unjustly treated by his own family, as
+      well as by OTHERS&rdquo;&mdash;with a marked emphasis on the word&mdash;&ldquo;he did
+      not stoop, even in his illness and distress, to beg where he should have
+      commanded.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! Oh, I see,&rdquo; I said, feebly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no reason why you should see. My father was the second son and&mdash;But
+      this is quite irrelevant. You, an American, can scarcely be expected to
+      understand English family customs. It is sufficient that, for reasons of
+      his own, my father had for years been estranged from his own people.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The air with which this was delivered was quite overwhelming. If I had not
+      known Strickland Morley, and a little of his history, I should have been
+      crushed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you have been quite alone since his death?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again she hesitated. &ldquo;For a time,&rdquo; she said, after a moment. &ldquo;I lived with
+      a married cousin of his in one of the London suburbs. Then I&mdash;But
+      really, Mr. Knowles, I cannot see that my private affairs need interest
+      you. As I understand it, this interview of ours is quite impersonal, in a
+      sense. You understand, of course&mdash;you must understand&mdash;that in
+      writing as I did I was not seeking the acquaintance of my mother's
+      relatives. I do not desire their friendship. I am not asking them for
+      anything. I am giving them the opportunity to do justice, to give me what
+      is my own&mdash;my OWN. If you don't understand this I&mdash;I&mdash;Oh,
+      you MUST understand it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose from the chair. Her eyes were flashing and she was trembling from
+      head to foot. Again I realized how weak and frail she was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must understand,&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;You MUST!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes,&rdquo; I said hastily. &ldquo;I think I&mdash;I suppose I understand your
+      feelings. But&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are no buts. Don't pretend there are. Do you think for one instant
+      that I am begging, asking you for HELP? YOU&mdash;of all the world!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This seemed personal enough, in spite of her protestations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you never met me before,&rdquo; I said, involuntarily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You never knew of my existence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stamped her foot. &ldquo;I knew of my American relatives,&rdquo; she cried,
+      scornfully. &ldquo;I knew of them and their&mdash;Oh, I cannot say the word!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your father told you&mdash;&rdquo; I began. She burst out at me like a flame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My father,&rdquo; she declared, &ldquo;was a brave, kind, noble man. Don't mention
+      his name to me. I won't have you speak of him. If it were not for his
+      forbearance and self-sacrifice you&mdash;all of you&mdash;would be&mdash;would
+      be&mdash;Oh, don't speak of my father! Don't!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To my amazement and utter discomfort she sank into the chair and burst
+      into tears. I was completely demoralized.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't, Miss Morley,&rdquo; I begged. &ldquo;Please don't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She continued to sob hysterically. To make matters worse sounds from
+      behind the closed door led me to think that someone&mdash;presumably that
+      confounded Mrs. Briggs&mdash;was listening at the keyhole.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't, Miss Morley,&rdquo; I pleaded. &ldquo;Don't!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My pleas were unavailing. The young lady sobbed and sobbed. I fidgeted on
+      the edge of my chair in an agony of mortified embarrassment. &ldquo;Don'ts&rdquo; were
+      quite useless and I could think of nothing else to say except &ldquo;Compose
+      yourself&rdquo; and that, somehow or other, was too ridiculously reminiscent of
+      Mr. Pickwick and Mrs. Bardell. It was an idiotic situation for me to be
+      in. Some men&mdash;men of experience with woman-kind&mdash;might have
+      known how to handle it, but I had had no such experience. It was all my
+      fault, of course; I should not have mentioned her father. But how was I to
+      know that Strickland Morley was a persecuted saint? I should have called
+      him everything but that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last I had an inspiration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are ill,&rdquo; I said, rising. &ldquo;I will call someone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That had the desired effect. My newly found third&mdash;or was it fourth
+      or fifth&mdash;cousin made a move in protest. She fought down her emotion,
+      her sobs ceased, and she leaned back in her chair looking paler and weaker
+      than ever. I should have pitied her if she had not been so superior and
+      insultingly scornful in her manner toward me. I&mdash;Well, yes, I did
+      pity her, even as it was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't,&rdquo; she said, in her turn. &ldquo;Don't call anyone. I am not ill&mdash;not
+      now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you have been,&rdquo; I put in, I don't know why.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have not been well for some time. But I am not ill. I am quite strong
+      enough to hear what you have to say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This might have been satisfactory if I had had anything to say. I had not.
+      She evidently expected me to express repentance for something or other and
+      make some sort of proposition. I was not repentant and I had no
+      proposition to make. But how was I to tell her that without bringing on
+      another storm? Oh, if I had had time to consider. If I had not come alone.
+      If Hephzy,&mdash;cool-headed, sensible Hephzy&mdash;were only with me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo; I began. Then desperately: &ldquo;I scarcely know what to
+      say, Miss Morley,&rdquo; I faltered. &ldquo;I came here, as I told you, expecting to
+      find a&mdash;a&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, pray?&rdquo; with a haughty lift of the dark eyebrows. &ldquo;What did you
+      expect to find, may I ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing&mdash;that is, I&mdash;Well, never mind that. I came on the spur
+      of the moment, immediately after receiving your letter. I have had no time
+      to think, to consult my&mdash;your aunt&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What has my&mdash;AUNT&rdquo; with withering emphasis, &ldquo;to do with it? Why
+      should you consult her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, she is your mother's nearest relative, I suppose. She is Captain
+      Cahoon's daughter and at least as much interested as I. I must consult
+      her, of course. But, frankly, Miss Morley, I think I ought to tell you
+      that you are under a misapprehension. There are matters which you don't
+      understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I understand everything. I understand only too well. What do you mean by
+      a misapprehension? Do you mean&mdash;do you dare to insinuate that my
+      father did not tell me the truth?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no, no,&rdquo; I interrupted. That was exactly what I did mean, but I was
+      not going to let the shade of the departed Strickland appear again until I
+      was out of that room and house. &ldquo;I am not insinuating anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am very glad to hear it. I wish you to know that I perfectly understand
+      EVERYTHING.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That seemed to settle it; at any rate it settled me for the time. I took
+      up my hat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Morley,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;I can't discuss this matter further just now. I
+      must consult my cousin first. She and I will call upon you to-morrow at
+      any hour you may name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was disappointed; that was plain. I thought for the moment that she
+      was going to break down again. But she did not; she controlled her
+      feelings and faced me firmly and pluckily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At nine&mdash;no, at ten to-morrow, then,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I shall expect your
+      final answer then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will come? Of course; I am forgetting. You said you would.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will be here at ten. Here is my address.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I gave her my card, scribbling the street and number of Bancroft's in
+      pencil in the corner. She took the card.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you. Good afternoon,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I said &ldquo;Good afternoon&rdquo; and opened the door. The hall outside was empty,
+      but someone was descending the stairs in a great hurry. I descended also.
+      At the top step I glanced once more into the room I had just left. Frances
+      Strickland Morley&mdash;Little Frank&mdash;was seated in the chair, one
+      hand before her eyes. Her attitude expressed complete weariness and utter
+      collapse. She had said she was not sick, but she looked sick&mdash;she did
+      indeed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Harriet, the slouchy maid, was not in evidence, so I opened the street
+      door for myself. As I reached the sidewalk&mdash;I suppose, as this was
+      England, I should call it the &ldquo;pavement&rdquo;&mdash;I was accosted by Mrs.
+      Briggs. She was out of breath; I am quite sure she had reached that
+      pavement but the moment before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Ow is she?&rdquo; demanded Mrs. Briggs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who?&rdquo; I asked, not too politely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That Morley one. Is she goin' to be hill again?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do I know? Has she been sick&mdash;ill, I mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Huh! Hill! 'Er? Now, now, sir! I give you my word she's been hill hever
+      since she came 'ere. I thought one time she was goin' to die on my 'ands.
+      And 'oo was to pay for 'er buryin', I'd like to know? That's w'at it is!
+      'Oo's goin' to pay for 'er buryin' and the food she eats; to say nothin'
+      of 'er room money, and that's been owin' me for a matter of three weeks?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How should I know who is going to pay for it? She will, I suppose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She! W'at with? She ain't got a bob to bless 'erself with, she ain't.
+      She's broke, stony broke. Honly for my kind 'eart she'd a been out on the
+      street afore this. That and 'er tellin' me she was expectin' money from
+      'er rich friends in the States. You're from the States, ain't you, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. But do you mean to tell me that Miss Morley has no money of her
+      own?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I mean it. W'en she come 'ere she told me she was on the stage.
+      A hopera singer, she said she was. She 'ad money then, enough to pay 'er
+      way, she 'ad. She was expectin' to go with some troupe or other, but she
+      never 'as. Oh, them stage people! Don't I know 'em? Ain't I 'ad experience
+      of 'em? A woman as 'as let lodgin's as long as me? If it wasn't for them
+      rich friends in the States I 'ave never put up with 'er the way I 'ave.
+      You're from the States, ain't you, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes, I'm from the States. Now, see here, Mrs. Briggs; I'm coming
+      back here to-morrow. If&mdash;Well, if Miss Morley needs anything, food or
+      medicines or anything, in the meantime, you see that she has them. I'll
+      pay you when I come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Briggs actually smiled. She would have patted my arm if I had not
+      jerked it out of the way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You trust me, sir,&rdquo; she whispered, confidingly. &ldquo;You trust my kind 'eart.
+      I'll look after 'er like she was my own daughter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I should have hated to trust even my worst enemy&mdash;if I had one&mdash;to
+      Mrs. Briggs' &ldquo;kind heart.&rdquo; I walked off in disgust. I found a cab at the
+      next corner and, bidding the driver take me to Bancroft's, threw myself
+      back on the cushions. This was a lovely mess! This was a beautiful climax
+      to the first act&mdash;no, merely the prologue&mdash;of the drama of
+      Hephzy's and my pilgrimage. What would Jim Campbell say to this? I was to
+      be absolutely care-free; I was not to worry about myself or anyone else.
+      That was the essential part of his famous &ldquo;prescription.&rdquo; And now, here I
+      was, with this impossible situation and more impossible young woman on my
+      hands. If Little Frank had been a boy, a healthy boy, it would be bad
+      enough. But Little Frank was a girl&mdash;a sick girl, without a penny.
+      And a girl thoroughly convinced that she was the rightful heir to goodness
+      knows how much wealth&mdash;wealth of which we, the uncivilized,
+      unprincipled natives of an unprincipled, uncivilized country, had robbed
+      her parents and herself. Little Frank had been a dream before; now he&mdash;she,
+      I mean&mdash;was a nightmare; worse than that, for one wakes from a
+      nightmare. And I was on my way to tell Hephzy!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, I told her. She was in our sitting-room when I reached the hotel and
+      I told her the whole story. I began by reading the letter. Before she had
+      recovered from the shock of the reading, I told her that I had actually
+      met and talked with Little Frank; and while this astounding bit of news
+      was, so to speak, soaking into her bewildered brain, I went on to impart
+      the crowning item of information&mdash;namely, that Little Frank was Miss
+      Frances. Then I sat back and awaited what might follow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her first coherent remark was one which I had not expected&mdash;and I had
+      expected almost anything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Hosy,&rdquo; gasped Hephzy, &ldquo;tell me&mdash;tell me before you say anything
+      else. Does he&mdash;she, I mean&mdash;look like Ardelia?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh? What?&rdquo; I stammered. &ldquo;Look like&mdash;look like what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not what&mdash;who. Does she look like Ardelia? Like her mother? Oh, I
+      HOPE she doesn't favor her father's side! I did so want our Little Frank
+      to look like his&mdash;her&mdash;I CAN'T get used to it&mdash;like my poor
+      Ardelia. Does she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Goodness knows! I don't know who she looks like. I didn't notice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You didn't! I should have noticed that before anything else. What kind of
+      a girl is she? Is she pretty?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know. She isn't ugly, I should say. I wasn't particularly
+      interested in her looks. The fact that she was at all was enough; I
+      haven't gotten over that yet. What are we going to do with her? Or are we
+      going to do anything? Those are the questions I should like to have
+      answered. For heaven's sake, Hephzy, don't talk about her personal
+      appearance. There she is and here are we. What are we going to do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy shook her head. &ldquo;I don't know, Hosy,&rdquo; she admitted. &ldquo;I don't know,
+      I'm sure. This is&mdash;this is&mdash;Oh, didn't I tell you we were SENT&mdash;sent
+      by Providence!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was silent. If we had been &ldquo;sent,&rdquo; as she called it, I was far from
+      certain that Providence was responsible. I was more inclined to place the
+      responsibility in a totally different quarter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; she continued, &ldquo;I think you'd better tell me the whole thing
+      all over again, Hosy. Tell it slow and don't leave out a word. Tell me
+      what sort of place she was in and what she said and how she looked, as
+      near as you can remember. I'll try and pay attention; I'll try as hard as
+      I can. It'll be a job. All I can think of now is that to-morrow mornin'&mdash;only
+      to-morrow mornin'&mdash;I'm going to see Little Frank&mdash;Ardelia's
+      Little Frank.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I complied with her request, giving every detail of my afternoon's
+      experience. I reread the letter, and handed it to her, that she might read
+      it herself. I described Mrs. Briggs and what I had seen of Mrs. Briggs'
+      lodging-house. I described Miss Morley as best I could, dark eyes, dark
+      hair and the look of weakness and frailty. I repeated our conversation
+      word for word; I had forgotten nothing of that. Hephzy listened in
+      silence. When I had finished she sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The poor thing,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I do pity her so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pity her!&rdquo; I exclaimed. &ldquo;Well, perhaps I pity her, too, in a way. But my
+      pity and yours don't alter the situation. She doesn't want pity. She
+      doesn't want help. She flew at me like a wildcat when I asked if she was
+      ill. Her personal affairs, she says, are not ours; she doesn't want our
+      acquaintance or our friendship. She has gotten some crazy notion in her
+      head that you and I and Uncle Barnabas have cheated her out of an
+      inheritance, and she wants that! Inheritance! Good Lord! A fine
+      inheritance hers is! Daughter of the man who robbed us of everything we
+      had.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know&mdash;I know. But SHE doesn't know, does she, Hosy. Her father
+      must have told her&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He told her a barrel of lies, of course. What they were I can't imagine,
+      but that fellow was capable of anything. Know! No, she doesn't know now,
+      but she will have to know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you goin' to tell her, Hosy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I stared in amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell her!&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;What do you mean? You don't intend letting her
+      think that WE are the thieves, do you? That's what she thinks now. Of
+      course I shall tell her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will be awful hard to tell. She worshipped her father, I guess. He was
+      a dreadful fascinatin' man, when he wanted to be. He could make a body
+      believe black was white. Poor Ardelia thought he was&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't help that. I'm not Ardelia.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know, but she is Ardelia's child. Hosy, if you are so set on tellin'
+      her why didn't you tell her this afternoon? It would have been just as
+      easy then as to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was a staggerer. A truthful answer would be so humiliating. I had not
+      told Frances Morley that her father was a thief and a liar because I
+      couldn't muster courage to do it. She had seemed so alone and friendless
+      and ill. I lacked the pluck to face the situation. But I could not tell
+      Hephzy this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why didn't you tell her?&rdquo; she repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, bosh!&rdquo; I exclaimed, impatiently. &ldquo;This is nonsense and you know it,
+      Hephzy. She'll have to be told and you and I must tell her. DON'T look at
+      me like that. What else are we to do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Another shake of the head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know. I can't decide any more than you can, Hosy. What do YOU
+      think we should do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With which unsatisfactory remark this particular conversation ended. I
+      went to my room to dress for dinner. I had no appetite and dinner was not
+      appealing; but I did not want to discuss Little Frank any longer. I
+      mentally cursed Jim Campbell a good many times that evening and during the
+      better part of a sleepless night. If it were not for him I should be in
+      Bayport instead of London. From a distance of three thousand miles I
+      could, without the least hesitancy, have told Strickland Morley's &ldquo;heir&rdquo;
+       what to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy did not come down to dinner at all. From behind the door of her
+      room she told me, in a peculiar tone, that she could not eat. I could not
+      eat, either, but I made the pretence of doing so. The next morning, at
+      breakfast in the sitting-room, we were a silent pair. I don't know what
+      George, the waiter, thought of us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At a quarter after nine I turned away from the window through which I had
+      been moodily regarding the donkey cart of a flower huckster in the street
+      below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'd better get on your things,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;It is time for us to go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy donned her hat and wrap. Then she came over to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't be cross, Hosy,&rdquo; she pleaded. &ldquo;I've been thinkin' it over all night
+      long and I've come to the conclusion that you are probably right. She
+      hasn't any real claim on us, of course; it's the other way around, if
+      anything. You do just as you think best and I'll back you up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you agree that we should tell her the truth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, if you think so. I'm goin' to leave it all in your hands. Whatever
+      you do will be right. I'll trust you as I always have.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a big responsibility, it seemed to me. I did wish she had been more
+      emphatic. However, I set my teeth and resolved upon a course of action.
+      Pity and charity and all the rest of it I would not consider. Right was
+      right, and justice was justice. I would end a disagreeable business as
+      quickly as I could.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Briggs' lodging-house, viewed from the outside, was no more inviting
+      at ten in the morning than it had been at four in the afternoon. I
+      expected Hephzy to make some comment upon the dirty steps and the still
+      dirtier front door. She did neither. We stood together upon the steps and
+      I rang the bell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Briggs herself opened the door. I think she had been watching from
+      behind the curtains and had seen our cab draw up at the curb. She was in a
+      state of great agitation, a combination of relieved anxiety, excitement
+      and overdone politeness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good mornin', sir,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;and good mornin', lady. I've been
+      expectin' you, and so 'as she, poor dear. I thought one w'ile she was that
+      hill she couldn't see you, but Lor' bless you, I've nursed 'er same as if
+      she was my own daughter. I told you I would sir, now didn't I.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      One word in this harangue caught my attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ill?&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;What do you mean? Is she worse than she was
+      yesterday?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Briggs held up her hands. &ldquo;Worse!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Why, bless your 'art,
+      sir, she was quite well yesterday. Quite 'erself, she was, when you come.
+      But after you went away she seemed to go all to pieces like. W'en I went
+      hup to 'er, to carry 'er 'er tea&mdash;She always 'as 'er tea; I've been a
+      mother to 'er, I 'ave&mdash;she'll tell you so. W'en I went hup with the
+      tea there she was in a faint. W'ite as if she was dead. My word, sir, I
+      was frightened. And all night she's been tossin' about, a-cryin' out and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is she now?&rdquo; put in Hephzy, sharply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's in 'er room ma'am. Dressed she is; she would dress, knowin' of your
+      comin', though I told 'er she shouldn't. She's dressed, but she's lyin'
+      down. She would 'ave tried to sit hup, but THAT I wouldn't 'ave, ma'am.
+      'Now, dearie,' I told 'er&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But I would not hear any more. As for Hephzy she was in the dingy front
+      hall already.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall we go up?&rdquo; I asked, impatiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of COURSE you're to go hup. She's a-waitin' for you. But sir&mdash;sir,&rdquo;
+       she caught my sleeve; &ldquo;if you think she's goin' to be ill and needin' the
+      doctor, just pass the word to me. A doctor she shall 'ave, the best there
+      is in London. All I ask you is to pay&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I heard no more. Hephzy was on her way up the stairs and I followed. The
+      door of the first floor back was closed. I rapped upon it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come in,&rdquo; said the voice I remembered, but now it sounded weaker than
+      before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy looked at me. I nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You go first,&rdquo; I whispered. &ldquo;You can call me when you are ready.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy opened the door and entered the room. I closed the door behind her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Silence for what seemed a long, long time. Then the door opened again and
+      Hephzy appeared. Her cheeks were wet with tears. She put her arms about my
+      neck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Hosy,&rdquo; she whispered, &ldquo;she's real sick. And&mdash;and&mdash;Oh, Hosy,
+      how COULD you see her and not see! She's the very image of Ardelia. The
+      very image! Come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I followed her into the room. It was no brighter now, in the middle of a&mdash;for
+      London&mdash;bright forenoon, than it had been on my previous visit. Just
+      as dingy and forbidding and forlorn as ever. But now there was no defiant
+      figure erect to meet me. The figure was lying upon the bed, and the pale
+      cheeks of yesterday were flushed with fever. Miss Morley had looked far
+      from well when I first saw her; now she looked very ill indeed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She acknowledged my good-morning with a distant bow. Her illness had not
+      quenched her spirit, that was plain. She attempted to rise, but Hephzy
+      gently pushed her back upon the pillow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You stay right there,&rdquo; she urged. &ldquo;Stay right there. We can talk just as
+      well, and Mr. Knowles won't mind; will you, Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I stammered something or other. My errand, difficult as it had been from
+      the first, now seemed impossible. I had come there to say certain things&mdash;I
+      had made up my mind to say them; but how was I to say such things to a
+      girl as ill as this one was. I would not have said them to Strickland
+      Morley himself, under such circumstances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I am very sorry you are not well, Miss Morley,&rdquo; I faltered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She thanked me, but there was no warmth in the thanks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not well,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;but that need make no difference. I presume
+      you and this&mdash;this lady are prepared to make a definite proposition
+      to me. I am well enough to hear it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy and I looked at each other. I looked for help, but Hephzy's
+      expression was not helpful at all. It might have meant anything&mdash;or
+      nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Morley,&rdquo; I began. &ldquo;Miss Morley, I&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Morley, I&mdash;I don't know what to say to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose to a sitting posture. Hephzy again tried to restrain her, but
+      this time she would not be restrained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't know what to say?&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;Don't know what to say? Then why
+      did you come here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I came&mdash;we came because&mdash;because I promised we would come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But WHY did you come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy leaned toward her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please, please,&rdquo; she begged. &ldquo;Don't get all excited like this. You
+      mustn't. You'll make yourself sicker, you know. You must lie down and be
+      quiet. Hosy&mdash;oh, please, Hosy, be careful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Morley paid no attention. She was regarding me with eyes which looked
+      me through and through. Her thin hands clutched the bedclothes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;WHY did you come?&rdquo; she demanded. &ldquo;My letter was plain enough, certainly.
+      What I said yesterday was perfectly plain. I told you I did not wish your
+      acquaintance or your friendship. Friendship&mdash;&rdquo; with a blaze of scorn,
+      &ldquo;from YOU! I&mdash;I told you&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! hush! please don't,&rdquo; begged Hephzy. &ldquo;You mustn't. You're too weak
+      and sick. Oh, Hosy, do be careful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was quite willing to be careful&mdash;if I had known how.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;that this interview had better be postponed. Really,
+      Miss Morley, you are not in a condition to&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She sprang to her feet and stood there trembling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My condition has nothing to do with it,&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Oh, CAN'T I make you
+      understand! I am trying to be lenient, to be&mdash;to be&mdash;And you
+      come here, you and this woman, and try to&mdash;to&mdash;You MUST
+      understand! I don't want to know you. I don't want your pity! After your
+      treatment of my mother and my father, I&mdash;I&mdash;I... Oh!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She staggered, put her hands to her head, sank upon the bed, and then
+      collapsed in a dead faint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was at her side in a moment. She knew what to do if I did not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quick!&rdquo; she cried, turning to me. &ldquo;Send for the doctor; she has fainted.
+      Hurry! And send that&mdash;that Briggs woman to me. Don't stand there like
+      that. HURRY!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I found the Briggs woman in the lower hall. From her I learned the name
+      and address of the nearest physician, also the nearest public telephone.
+      Mrs. Briggs went up to Hephzy and I hastened out to telephone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Oh, those London telephones! After innumerable rings and &ldquo;Hellos&rdquo; from me,
+      and &ldquo;Are you theres&rdquo; from Central, I, at last, was connected with the
+      doctor's office and, by great good luck, with the doctor himself. He
+      promised to come at once. In ten minutes I met him at the door and
+      conducted him to the room above.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was in that room a long time. Meanwhile, I waited in the hall, pacing
+      up and down, trying to think my way through this maze. I had succeeded in
+      thinking myself still deeper into it when the physician reappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How is she?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is conscious again, but weak, of course. If she can be kept quiet and
+      have proper care and nourishment and freedom from worry she will,
+      probably, gain strength and health. There is nothing seriously wrong
+      physically, so far as I can see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was glad to hear that and said so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; he went on, &ldquo;her nerves are completely unstrung. She seems to
+      have been under a great mental strain and her surroundings are not&mdash;&rdquo;
+       He paused, and then added, &ldquo;Is the young lady a relative of yours?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye&mdash;es, I suppose&mdash;She is a distant relative, yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! Has she no near relatives? Here in England, I mean. You and the
+      lady with you are Americans, I judge.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I ignored the last sentence. I could not see that our being Americans
+      concerned him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has no near relatives in England, so far as I know,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;Why
+      do you ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Merely because&mdash;Well, to be frank, because if she had such relatives
+      I should strongly recommend their taking charge of her. She is very weak
+      and in a condition where she knight become seriously ill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see. You mean that she should not remain here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do mean that, decidedly. This,&rdquo; with a wave of the hand and a glance
+      about the bare, dirty, dark hall, &ldquo;is not&mdash;Well, she seems to be a
+      young person of some refinement and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not finish the sentence, but I understood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see,&rdquo; I interrupted. &ldquo;And yet she is not seriously ill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not now&mdash;no. Her weakness is due to mental strain and&mdash;well, to
+      a lack of nutrition as much as anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lack of nutrition? You mean she hasn't had enough to eat!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Of course I can't be certain, but that would be my opinion if I were
+      forced to give one. At all events, she should be taken from here as soon
+      as possible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I reflected. &ldquo;A hospital?&rdquo; I suggested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She might be taken to a hospital, of course. But she is scarcely ill
+      enough for that. A good, comfortable home would be better. Somewhere where
+      she might have quiet and rest. If she had relatives I should strongly urge
+      her going to them. She should not be left to herself; I would not be
+      responsible for the consequences if she were. A person in her condition
+      might&mdash;might be capable of any rash act.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was plain enough, but it did not make my course of action plainer to
+      me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is she well enough to be moved&mdash;now?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. If she is not moved she is likely to be less well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I paid him for the visit; he gave me a prescription&mdash;&ldquo;To quiet the
+      nerves,&rdquo; he explained&mdash;and went away. I was to send for him whenever
+      his services were needed. Then I entered the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy and Mrs. Briggs were sitting beside the bed. The face upon the
+      pillow looked whiter and more pitiful than ever. The dark eyes were
+      closed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy signaled me to silence. She rose and tiptoed over to me. I led her
+      out into the hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's sort of dozin' now,&rdquo; she whispered. &ldquo;The poor thing is worn out.
+      What did the doctor say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I told her what the doctor had said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's just right,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;She's half starved, that's what's the
+      matter with her. That and frettin' and worryin' have just about killed
+      her. What are you goin' to do, Hosy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do I know!&rdquo; I answered, impatiently. &ldquo;I don't see exactly why we are
+      called upon to do anything. Do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;o, I&mdash;I don't know as we are called on. No&mdash;o. I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. I know how you feel, Hosy. Considerin' how her father treated us, I
+      won't blame you no matter what you do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Confound her father! I only wish it were he we had to deal with.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was silent. I took a turn up and down the hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The doctor says she should be taken away from here at once,&rdquo; I observed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy nodded. &ldquo;There's no doubt about that,&rdquo; she declared with emphasis.
+      &ldquo;I wouldn't trust a sick cat to that Briggs woman. She's a&mdash;well,
+      she's what she is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suggested a hospital, but he didn't approve,&rdquo; I went on. &ldquo;He
+      recommended some comfortable home with care and quiet and all the rest of
+      it. Her relatives should look after her, he said. She hasn't any relatives
+      that we know of, or any home to go to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again Hephzy was silent. I waited, growing momentarily more nervous and
+      fretful. Of all impossible situations this was the most impossible. And to
+      make it worse, Hephzy, the usually prompt, reliable Hephzy, was of no use
+      at all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do say something,&rdquo; I snapped. &ldquo;What shall we do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know, Hosy, dear. Why!... Where are you going?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm going to the drug-store to get this prescription filled. I'll be back
+      soon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The drug-store&mdash;it was a &ldquo;chemist's shop&rdquo; of course&mdash;was at the
+      corner. It was the chemist's telephone that I had used when I called the
+      doctor. I gave the clerk the prescription and, while he was busy with it,
+      I paced up and down the floor of the shop. At length I sat down before the
+      telephone and demanded a number.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I returned to the lodging-house I gave Hephzy the powders which the
+      chemist's clerk had prepared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is she any better?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's just about the same.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does she say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's too weak and sick to say anything. I don't imagine she knows or
+      cares what is happening to her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is she strong enough to get downstairs to a cab, or to ride in one
+      afterward?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess so. We could help her, you know. But, Hosy, what cab? What do you
+      mean? What are you going to do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm going to take her away from this
+      hole. I must. I don't want to; there's no reason why I should and every
+      reason why I shouldn't; but&mdash;Oh, well, confound it! I've got to. We
+      CAN'T let her starve and die here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But where are you going to take her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's only one place to take her; that's to Bancroft's. I've 'phoned
+      and engaged a room next to ours. She'll have to stay with us for the
+      present. Oh, I don't like it any better than you do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To my intense surprise, Hephzy threw her arms about my neck and hugged me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew you would, Hosy!&rdquo; she sobbed. &ldquo;I knew you would. I was dyin' to
+      have you, but I wouldn't have asked for the world. You're the best man
+      that ever lived. I knew you wouldn't leave poor Ardelia's little girl to&mdash;to&mdash;Oh,
+      I'm so grateful. You're the best man in the world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I freed myself from the embrace as soon as I could. I didn't feel like the
+      best man in the world. I felt like a Quixotic fool.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fortunately I was too busy for the next hour to think of my feelings.
+      Hephzy went in to arrange for the transfer of the invalid to the cab and
+      to collect and pack her most necessary belongings. I spent my time in a
+      financial wrangle with Mrs. Briggs. The number of items which that woman
+      wished included in her bill was surprising. Candles and soap&mdash;the
+      bill itself was the sole evidence of soap's ever having made its
+      appearance in that house&mdash;and washing and tea and food and goodness
+      knows what. The total was amazing. I verified the addition, or, rather,
+      corrected it, and then offered half of the sum demanded. This offer was
+      received with protestations, tears and voluble demands to know if I 'ad
+      the 'art to rob a lone widow who couldn't protect herself. Finally we
+      compromised on a three-quarter basis and Mrs. Briggs receipted the bill.
+      She said her kind disposition would be the undoing of her and she knew it.
+      She was too silly and soft-'arted to let lodgings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We had very little trouble in carrying or leading Little Frank to the cab.
+      The effect of the doctor's powders&mdash;they must have contained some
+      sort of opiate&mdash;was to render the girl only partially conscious of
+      what was going on and we got her to and into the vehicle without
+      difficulty. During the drive to Bancroft's she dozed on Hephzy's shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her room&mdash;it was next to Hephzy's, with a connecting door&mdash;was
+      ready and we led her up the stairs. Mr. and Mrs. Jameson were very kind
+      and sympathetic. They asked surprisingly few questions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor young lady,&rdquo; said Mr. Jameson, when he and I were together in our
+      sitting-room. &ldquo;She is quite ill, isn't she.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I admitted. &ldquo;It is not a serious illness, however. She needs quiet
+      and care more than anything else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir. We will do our best to see that she has both. A relative of
+      yours, sir, I think you said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A&mdash;a&mdash;my niece,&rdquo; I answered, on the spur of the moment. She was
+      Hephzy's niece, of course. As a matter of fact, she was scarcely related
+      to me. However, it seemed useless to explain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn't know you had English relatives, Mr. Knowles. I had been under
+      the impression that you and Miss Cahoon were strangers here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So had I, but I did not explain that, either. Mrs. Jameson joined us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She will sleep now, I think,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;She is quite quiet and peaceful.
+      A near relative of yours, Mr. Knowles?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is Mr. Knowles's niece,&rdquo; explained her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes. A sweet girl she seems. And very pretty, isn't she.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not answer. Mr. Jameson and his wife turned to go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I presume you will wish to communicate with her people,&rdquo; said the former.
+      &ldquo;Shall I send you telegram forms?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not now,&rdquo; I stammered. Telegrams! Her people! She had no people. We were
+      her people. We had taken her in charge and were responsible. And how and
+      when would that responsibility be shifted!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What on earth should we do with her?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy tiptoed in. Her expression was a curious one. She was very solemn,
+      but not sad; the solemnity was not that of sorrow, but appeared to be a
+      sort of spiritual uplift, a kind of reverent joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's asleep,&rdquo; she said, gravely; &ldquo;she's asleep, Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was precious little comfort in that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She'll wake up by and by,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;And then&mdash;what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Neither do I&mdash;now. But we shall have to know pretty soon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose we shall, but I can't&mdash;I can't seem to think of anything
+      that's ahead of us. All I can think is that my Little Frank&mdash;my
+      Ardelia's Little Frank&mdash;is here, here with us, at last.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And TO last, so far as I can see. Hephzy, for heaven's sake, do try to be
+      sensible. Do you realize what this means? As soon as she is well enough to
+      understand what has happened she will want to know what 'proposition' we
+      have to make. And when we tell her we have none to make, she'll probably
+      collapse again. And then&mdash;and then&mdash;what shall we do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know, Hosy. I declare I don't know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I strode into my own room and slammed the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damn!&rdquo; said I, with enthusiasm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo; queried Hephzy, from the sitting-room. &ldquo;What did you say, Hosy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not tell her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which the Pilgrims Become Tenants
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Two weeks later we left Bancroft's and went to Mayberry. Two weeks only,
+      and yet in that two weeks all our plans&mdash;if our indefinite visions of
+      irresponsible flitting about Great Britain and the continent might be
+      called plans&mdash;had changed utterly. Our pilgrimage was, apparently,
+      ended&mdash;it had become an indefinite stay. We were no longer pilgrims,
+      but tenants, tenants in an English rectory, of all places in the world. I,
+      the Cape Cod quahaug, had become an English country gentleman&mdash;or a
+      country gentleman in England&mdash;for the summer, at least.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Little Frank&mdash;Miss Frances Morley&mdash;was responsible for the
+      change, of course. Her sudden materialization and the freak of fortune
+      which had thrown her, weak and ill, upon our hands, were responsible for
+      everything. For how much more, how many other changes, she would be
+      responsible the future only could answer. And the future would answer in
+      its own good, or bad, time. My conundrum &ldquo;What are we going to do with
+      her?&rdquo; was as much of a puzzle as ever. For my part I gave it up.
+      Sufficient unto the day was the evil thereof&mdash;much more than
+      sufficient.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the first twenty-four hours following the arrival of &ldquo;my niece&rdquo; at
+      Bancroft's Hotel the situation regarding that niece remained as it was.
+      Miss Morley&mdash;or Frances&mdash;or Frank as Hephzy persisted in calling
+      her&mdash;was too ill to care what had happened, or, at least, to speak of
+      it. She spoke very little, was confined to her room and bed and slept the
+      greater part of the time. The doctor whom I called, on Mr. Jameson's
+      recommendation, confirmed his fellow practitioner's diagnosis; the young
+      lady, he said, was suffering from general weakness and the effect of
+      nervous strain. She needed absolute rest, care and quiet. There was no
+      organic disease.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But on the morning of the second day she was much better and willing, even
+      anxious to talk. She assailed Hephzy with questions and Hephzy, although
+      she tried to avoid answering most, was obliged to answer some of them. She
+      reported the interview to me during luncheon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She didn't seem to remember much about comin' here, or what happened
+      before or afterward,&rdquo; said Hephzy. &ldquo;But she wanted to know it all. I told
+      her the best I could. 'You couldn't stay there,' I said. 'That Briggs
+      hyena wasn't fit to take care of any human bein' and neither Hosy nor I
+      could leave you in her hands. So we brought you here to the hotel where
+      we're stoppin'.' She thought this over a spell and then she wanted to know
+      whose idea bringin' her here was, yours or mine. I said 'twas yours, and
+      just like you, too; you were the kindest-hearted man in the world, I said.
+      Oh, you needn't look at me like that, Hosy. It's the plain truth, and you
+      know it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph!&rdquo; I grunted. &ldquo;If the young lady were a mind-reader she might&mdash;well,
+      never mind. What else did she say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, a good many things. Wanted to know if her bill at Mrs. Briggs' was
+      paid. I said it was. She thought about that and then she gave me orders
+      that you and I were to keep account of every cent&mdash;no, penny&mdash;we
+      spent for her. She should insist upon that. If we had the idea that she
+      was a subject of charity we were mistaken. She fairly withered me with a
+      look from those big eyes of hers. Ardelia's eyes all over again! Or they
+      would be if they were blue instead of brown. I remember&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I cut short the reminiscence. I was in no mood to listen to the praises of
+      any Morley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What answer did you make to that?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What could I say? I didn't want any more faintin' spells or hysterics,
+      either. I said we weren't thinkin' of offerin' charity and if it would
+      please her to have us run an expense book we'd do it, of course. She asked
+      what the doctor said about her condition. I told her he said she must keep
+      absolutely quiet and not fret about anything or she'd have an awful
+      relapse. That was pretty strong but I meant it that way. Answerin'
+      questions that haven't got any answer to 'em is too much of a strain for
+      ME. You try it some time yourself and see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have tried it, thank you. Well, is that all? Did she tell you anything
+      about herself; where she has been or what she has been or what she has
+      been doing since her precious father died?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, not a word. I was dyin' to ask her, but I didn't. She says she wants
+      to talk with the doctor next time he comes, that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did talk with the doctor, although not during his next call. Several
+      days passed before he would permit her to talk with him. Meanwhile he and
+      I had several talks. What he told me brought my conundrum no nearer its
+      answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was recovering rapidly, he said, but for weeks at least her delicate
+      nervous organism must be handled with care. The slightest set-back would
+      be disastrous. He asked if we intended remaining at Bancroft's
+      indefinitely. I had no intentions&mdash;those I had had were wiped off my
+      mental slate&mdash;so I said I did not know, our future plans were vague.
+      He suggested a sojourn in the country, in some pleasant retired spot in
+      the rural districts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An out-of-door life, walks, rides and sports of all sorts would do your
+      niece a world of good, Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;She needs just that. A
+      very attractive young lady, sir, if you'll pardon my saying so,&rdquo; he went
+      on. &ldquo;Were her people Londoners, may I ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He might ask but I had no intention of telling him. What I knew concerning
+      my &ldquo;niece's&rdquo; people were things not usually told to strangers. I evaded
+      the question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has she had a recent bereavement?&rdquo; he queried. &ldquo;I hope you'll not think
+      me merely idly inquisitive. I cannot understand how a young woman,
+      normally healthy and well, should have been brought to such a strait. Our
+      English girls, Mr. Knowles, do not suffer from nerves, as I am told your
+      American young women so frequently do. Has your niece been in the States
+      with you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I said she had not. Incidentally I informed him that American young women
+      did NOT frequently suffer from nerves. He said &ldquo;Really,&rdquo; but he did not
+      believe me, I'm certain. He was a good fellow, and intelligent, but his
+      ideas of &ldquo;the States&rdquo; had been gathered, largely, I think, from newspapers
+      and novels. He was convinced that most Americans were confirmed neurotics
+      and dyspeptics, just as Hephzy had believed all Englishmen wore
+      side-whiskers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I changed the conversation as soon as I could. I could tell him so little
+      concerning my newly found &ldquo;niece.&rdquo; I knew about as much concerning her
+      life as he did. It is distinctly unpleasant to be uncle to someone you
+      know nothing at all about. I devoutly wished I had not said she was my
+      niece. I repeated that wish many times afterward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Morley's talk with the physician had definite results, surprising
+      results. Following that talk she sent word by the doctor that she wished
+      to see Hephzy and me. We went into her room. She was sitting in a chair by
+      the window, and was wearing a rather pretty wrapper, or kimono, or
+      whatever that sort of garment is called. At any rate, it was becoming. I
+      was obliged to admit that the general opinion expressed by the Jamesons
+      and Hephzy and the doctor&mdash;that she was pretty, was correct enough.
+      She was pretty, but that did not help matters any.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She asked us&mdash;no, she commanded us to sit down. Her manner was
+      decidedly business-like. She wasted no time in preliminaries, but came
+      straight to the point, and that point was the one which I had dreaded. She
+      asked us what decision we had reached concerning her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you decided what your offer is to be?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at Hephzy and she at me. Neither of us derived comfort from the
+      exchange of looks. However, something must be done, or said, and I braced
+      myself to say it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Morley,&rdquo; I began, &ldquo;before I answer that question I should like to
+      ask you one. What do you expect us to do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She regarded me coldly. &ldquo;I expect,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;that you and this&mdash;that
+      you and Miss Cahoon will arrange to pay me the money which was my mother's
+      and which my grandfather should have turned over to her while he lived.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again I looked at Hephzy and again I braced myself for the scene which I
+      was certain would follow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is your impression then,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;that your mother had money of her
+      own and that Captain Barnabas, your grandfather, kept that money for his
+      own use.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not an impression,&rdquo; haughtily; &ldquo;I know it to be a fact.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you know it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My father told me so, during his last illness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was&mdash;pardon me&mdash;was your father himself at the time? Was he&mdash;er&mdash;rational?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rational! My father?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean&mdash;I mean was he himself&mdash;mentally? He was not delirious
+      when he told you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Delirious! Mr. Knowles, I am trying to be patient, but for the last time
+      I warn you that I will not listen to insinuations against my father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not insinuating anything. I am seeking information. Were you and
+      your father together a great deal? Did you know him well? Just what did he
+      tell you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hesitated before replying. When she spoke it was with an exaggerated
+      air of patient toleration, as if she were addressing an unreasonable
+      child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will answer you,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I will answer you because, so far, I have
+      no fault to find with your behavior toward me. You and my&mdash;and my
+      aunt have been as reasonable as I, perhaps, should expect, everything
+      considered. Your bringing me here and providing for me was even kind, I
+      suppose. So I will answer your questions. My father and I were not
+      together a great deal. I attended a convent school in France and saw
+      Father only at intervals. I supposed him to possess an independent income.
+      It was only when he was&mdash;was unable to work,&rdquo; with a quiver in her
+      voice, &ldquo;that I learned how he lived. He had been obliged to depend upon
+      his music, upon his violin playing, to earn money enough to keep us both
+      alive. Then he told me of&mdash;of his life in America and how my mother
+      and he had been&mdash;been cheated and defrauded by those who&mdash;who&mdash;Oh,
+      DON'T ask me any more! Don't!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must ask you. I must ask you to tell me this: How was he defrauded, as
+      you call it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have told you, already. My mother's fortune&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But your mother had no fortune.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The anticipated scene was imminent. She sprang to her feet, but being too
+      weak to stand, sank back again. Hephzy looked appealingly at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy,&rdquo; she cautioned; &ldquo;Oh, Hosy, be careful! Think how sick she has
+      been.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am thinking, Hephzy. I mean to be careful. But what I said is the
+      truth, and you know it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy would have replied, but Little Frank motioned her to be silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush!&rdquo; she commanded. &ldquo;Mr. Knowles, what do you mean? My mother had
+      money, a great deal of money. I don't know the exact sum, but my father
+      said&mdash;You know it! You MUST know it. It was in my grandfather's care
+      and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your grandfather had no money. He&mdash;well, he lost every dollar he
+      had. He died as poor as a church rat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Another interval of silence, during which I endured a piercing scrutiny
+      from the dark eyes. Then Miss Morley's tone changed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; she said, sarcastically. &ldquo;You surprise me, Mr. Knowles. What
+      became of the money, may I ask? I understand that my grandfather was a
+      wealthy man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was fairly well-to-do at one time, but he lost his money and died
+      poor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How did he lose it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The question was a plain one and demanded a plain and satisfying answer.
+      But how could I give that answer&mdash;then? Hephzy was shaking her head
+      violently. I stammered and faltered and looked guilty, I have no doubt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; said Miss Morley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&mdash;he lost it, that is sufficient. You must take my word for it.
+      Captain Cahoon died without a dollar of his own.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When did he LOSE his wealth?&rdquo; with sarcastic emphasis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Years ago. About the time your parents left the United States. There,
+      there, Hephzy! I know. I'm doing my best.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed! When did he die?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Long ago&mdash;more than ten years ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But my parents left America long before that. If my grandfather was
+      penniless how did he manage to live all those years? What supported him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your aunt&mdash;Miss Cahoon here&mdash;had money in her own right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;SHE had money and my mother had not. Yet both were Captain Cahoon's
+      daughters. How did that happen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed to me that it was Hephzy's time to play the target. I turned to
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Cahoon will probably answer that herself,&rdquo; I observed, maliciously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah appeared more embarrassed than I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I&mdash;Oh, what difference does all this make?&rdquo; she faltered.
+      &ldquo;Hosy has told you the truth, Frances. Really and truly he has. Father was
+      poor as poverty when he died and all his last years, too. All his money
+      had gone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, so I have heard Mr. Knowles say. But how did it go?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In&mdash;in&mdash;well, it was invested in stocks and things and&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean that he speculated in shares?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, not&mdash;not&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see. Oh, I see. Father told me a little concerning those speculations.
+      He warned Captain Cahoon before he left the States, but his warnings were
+      not heeded, I presume. And you wish me to believe that ALL the money was
+      lost&mdash;my mother's and all. Is that what you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your mother HAD no money,&rdquo; I put in, desperately, &ldquo;I have told you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have told me many things, Mr. Knowles. Even admitting that my
+      grandfather lost his money, as you say, why should I suffer because of his
+      folly? I am not asking for HIS money. I am demanding money that was my
+      mother's and is now mine. That I expected from him and now I expect it
+      from you, his heirs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But your mother had no&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not care to hear that again. I know she had money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But how do you know?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because my father told me she had, and my father did not lie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There we were again&mdash;just where we started. The doctor re-entered the
+      room and insisted upon his patient's being left to herself. She must lie
+      down and rest, he said. His manner was one of distinct disapproval. It was
+      evident that he considered Hephzy and me disturbers of the peace; in fact
+      he intimated as much when he joined us in the sitting-room in a few
+      minutes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid I made a mistake in permitting the conference,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The
+      young lady seems much agitated, Mr. Knowles. If she is, complete nervous
+      prostration may follow. She may be an invalid for months or even years. I
+      strongly recommend her being taken into the country as soon as possible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This speech and the manner in which it was made were impressive and
+      alarming. The possibilities at which it hinted were more alarming still.
+      We made no attempt to discuss family matters with Little Frank that day
+      nor the next.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But on the day following, when I returned from my morning visit to Camford
+      Street, I found Hephzy awaiting me in the sitting-room. She was very
+      solemn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;sit down. I've got somethin' to tell you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About her?&rdquo; I asked, apprehensively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. She's just been talkin' to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has! I thought we agreed not to talk with her at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We did, and I tried not to. But when I went in to see her just now she
+      was waitin' for me. She had somethin' to say, she said, and she said it&mdash;Oh,
+      my goodness, yes! she said it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did she say? Has she sent for her lawyer&mdash;her solicitor, or
+      whatever he is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, she hasn't done that. I don't know but I 'most wish she had. He
+      wouldn't be any harder to talk to than she is. Hosy, she's made up her
+      mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Made up her mind! I thought HER mind was already made up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was, but she's made it up again. That doctor has been talkin' to her
+      and she's really frightened about her health, I think. Anyhow, she has
+      decided that her principal business just now is to get well. She told me
+      she had decided not to press her claim upon us for the present. If we
+      wished to make an offer of what she calls restitution, she'll listen to
+      it; but she judges we are not ready to make one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! her judgment is correct so far.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but that isn't all. While she is waitin' for that offer she expects
+      us to take care of her. She has been thinkin', she says, and she has come
+      to the conclusion that our providin' for her as we have done isn't charity&mdash;or
+      needn't be considered as charity&mdash;at all. She is willin' to consider
+      it a part of that precious restitution she's forever talkin' about. We are
+      to take care of her, and pay her doctor's bills, and take her into the
+      country as he recommends, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I interrupted. &ldquo;Great Scott!&rdquo; I cried, &ldquo;does she expect us to ADOPT her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know what she expects; I'm tryin' to tell you what she said.
+      We're to do all this and keep a strict account of all it costs, and then
+      when we are ready to make a&mdash;a proposition, as she calls it, this
+      account can be subtracted from the money she thinks we've got that belongs
+      to her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But there isn't any money belonging to her. I told her so, and so did
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know, but we might tell her a thousand times and it wouldn't affect her
+      father's tellin' her once. Oh, that Strickland Morley! If only&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! hush, Hephzy... Well, by George! of all the&mdash;this thing has
+      gone far enough. It has gone too far. We made a great mistake in bringing
+      her here, in having anything to do with her at all&mdash;but we shan't go
+      on making mistakes. We must stop where we are. She must be told the truth
+      now&mdash;to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know&mdash;I know, Hosy; but who'll tell her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She won't believe you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then she must disbelieve. She can call in her solicitor and I'll make him
+      believe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was silent. Her silence annoyed me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don't you say something?&rdquo; I demanded. &ldquo;You know what I say is plain
+      common-sense.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose it is&mdash;I suppose 'tis. But, Hosy, if you start in tellin'
+      her again you know what'll happen. The doctor said the least little thing
+      would bring on nervous prostration. And if she has that, WHAT will become
+      of her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was my turn to hesitate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You couldn't&mdash;we couldn't turn her out into the street if she was
+      nervous prostrated, could we,&rdquo; pleaded Hephzy. &ldquo;After all, she's Ardelia's
+      daughter and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's Strickland Morley's daughter. There is no doubt of that. Hereditary
+      influence is plain enough in her case.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know, but she is Ardelia's daughter, too. I don't see how we can tell
+      her, Hosy; not until she's well and strong again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was never more thoroughly angry in my life. My patience was exhausted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look here, Hephzy,&rdquo; I cried: &ldquo;what is it you are leading up to? You're
+      not proposing&mdash;actually proposing that we adopt this girl, are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;no&mdash;o. Not exactly that, of course. But we might take her
+      into the country somewhere and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, DO be sensible! Do you realize what that would mean? We should have
+      to give up our trip, stop sightseeing, stop everything we had planned to
+      do, and turn ourselves into nurses running a sanitarium for the benefit of
+      a girl whose father's rascality made your father a pauper. And, not only
+      do this, but be treated by her as if&mdash;as if&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, there, Hosy! I know what it will mean. I know what it would mean
+      to you and I don't mean for you to do it. You've done enough and more than
+      enough. But with me it's different. <i>I</i> could do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. I've got some money of my own. I could find a nice, cheap, quiet
+      boardin'-house in the country round here somewhere and she and I could go
+      there and stay until she got well. You needn't go at all; you could go off
+      travelin' by yourself and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy, what are you talking about?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean it. I've thought it all out, Hosy. Ever since Ardelia and I had
+      that last talk together and she whispered to me that&mdash;that&mdash;well,
+      especially ever since I knew there was a Little Frank I've been thinkin'
+      and plannin' about that Little Frank; you know I have. He&mdash;she isn't
+      the kind of Little Frank I expected, but she's, my sister's baby and I
+      can't&mdash;I CAN'T, turn her away to be sick and die. I can't do it. I
+      shouldn't dare face Ardelia in&mdash;on the other side if I did. No, I
+      guess it's my duty and I'm goin' to go on with it. But with you it's
+      different. She isn't any real relation to you. You've done enough&mdash;and
+      more than enough&mdash;as it is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the climax. Of course I might have expected it, but of course I
+      didn't. As soon as I recovered, or partially recovered, from my
+      stupefaction I expostulated and scolded and argued. Hephzy was quiet but
+      firm. She hated to part from me&mdash;she couldn't bear to think of it;
+      but on the other hand she couldn't abandon her Ardelia's little girl. The
+      interview ended by my walking out of the room and out of Bancroft's in
+      disgust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not return until late in the afternoon. I was in better humor then.
+      Hephzy was still in the sitting-room; she looked as if she had been
+      crying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy,&rdquo; she said, as I entered, &ldquo;I&mdash;I hope you don't think I'm too
+      ungrateful. I'm not. Really I'm not. And I care as much for you as if you
+      was my own boy. I can't leave you; I sha'n't. If you say for us to&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I interrupted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;I shan't say anything. I know perfectly well that you
+      couldn't leave me any more than I could leave you. I have arranged with
+      Matthews to set about house-hunting at once. As soon as rural England is
+      ready for us, we shall be ready for it. After all, what difference does it
+      make? I was ordered to get fresh experience. I might as well get it by
+      becoming keeper of a sanitarium as any other way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy looked at me. She rose from her chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy,&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;what&mdash;a sanitarium?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'll keep it together,&rdquo; I said, smiling. &ldquo;You and I and Little Frank.
+      And it is likely to be a wonderful establishment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy said&mdash;she said a great deal, principally concerning my
+      generosity and goodness and kindness and self-sacrifice. I tried to shut
+      off the flow, but it was not until I began to laugh that it ceased.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why!&rdquo; cried Hephzy. &ldquo;You're laughin'! What in the world? I don't see
+      anything to laugh at.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you? I do. Oh, dear me! I&mdash;I, the Bayport quahaug to&mdash;Ho!
+      ho! Hephzy, let me laugh. If there is any fun in this perfectly devilish
+      situation let me enjoy it while I can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And that is how and why I decided to become a country gentleman instead of
+      a traveler. When I told Matthews of my intention he had been petrified
+      with astonishment. I had written Campbell of that intention. I devoutly
+      wished I might see his face when he read my letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For days and days Hephzy and I &ldquo;house-hunted.&rdquo; We engaged a nurse to look
+      after the future patient of the &ldquo;sanitarium&rdquo; while we did our best to look
+      for the sanitarium itself. Mr. Matthews gave us the addresses of real
+      estate agents and we journeyed from suburb to suburb and from seashore to
+      hills. We saw several &ldquo;semi-detached villas.&rdquo; The name &ldquo;semi-detached
+      villa&rdquo; had an appealing sound, especially to Hephzy, but the villas
+      themselves did not appeal. They turned out to be what we, in America,
+      would have called &ldquo;two-family houses.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I never did like the idea of livin' in a two-family house,&rdquo; declared
+      Hephzy. &ldquo;I've known plenty of real nice folks who did live in 'em, or
+      one-half of one of 'em, but it usually happened that the folks in the
+      other half was a dreadful mean set. They let their dog chase your cat and
+      if your hens scratched up their flower garden they were real unlikely
+      about it. I've heard Father tell about Cap'n Noah Doane and Cap'n Elkanah
+      Howes who used to live in Bayport. They'd been chums all their lives and
+      when they retired from the sea they thought 'twould be lovely to build a
+      double house so's they would be right close together all the time. Well,
+      they did it and they hadn't been settled more'n a month when they began
+      quarrelin'. Cap'n Noah's wife wanted the house painted yellow and Mrs.
+      Cap'n Elkanah, she wanted it green. They started the fuss and it ended by
+      one-half bein' yellow and t'other half green&mdash;such an outrage you
+      never saw&mdash;and a big fence down the middle of the front yard, and the
+      two families not speakin', and law-suits and land knows what all. They
+      wouldn't even go to the same church nor be buried in the same graveyard.
+      No sir-ee! no two-family house for us if I can help it. We've got troubles
+      enough inside the family without fightin' the neighbors.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But think of the beautiful names,&rdquo; I observed. &ldquo;Those names ought to
+      appeal to your poetic soul, Hephzy. We haven't seen a villa yet, no matter
+      how dingy, or small, that wasn't christened 'Rosemary Terrace' or
+      'Sunnylawn' or something. That last one&mdash;the shack with the broken
+      windows&mdash;was labeled 'Broadview' and it faced an alley ending at a
+      brick stable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know it,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;If they'd called it 'Narrowview' or 'Cow Prospect'
+      'twould have been more fittin', I should say. But I think givin' names to
+      homes is sort of pretty, just the same. We might call our house at home
+      'Writer's Rest.' A writer lives in it, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he has rested more than he has written of late,&rdquo; I observed.
+      &ldquo;'Quahaug Stew' or 'The Tureen' would be better, I should say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When we expressed disapproval of the semi-detached villas our real estate
+      brokers flew to the other extremity and proceeded to show us &ldquo;estates.&rdquo;
+       These estates comprised acres of ground, mansions, game-keepers' and
+      lodge-keepers' houses, and goodness knows what. Some, so the brokers were
+      particular to inform us, were celebrated for their &ldquo;shooting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The villas were not good enough; the estates were altogether too good. We
+      inspected but one and then declined to see more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shootin'!&rdquo; sniffed Hephzy. &ldquo;I should feel like shootin' myself every time
+      I paid the rent. I'd HAVE to do it the second time. 'Twould be a quicker
+      end than starvin', 'and the first month would bring us to that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We found one pleasant cottage in a suburb bearing the euphonious name of
+      &ldquo;Leatherhead&rdquo;&mdash;that is, the village was named &ldquo;Leatherhead&rdquo;; the
+      cottage was &ldquo;Ash Clump.&rdquo; I teased Hephzy by referring to it as &ldquo;Ash Dump,&rdquo;
+       but it really was a pretty, roomy house, with gardens and flowers. For the
+      matter of that, every cottage we visited, even the smallest, was bowered
+      in flowers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy's romantic spirit objected strongly to &ldquo;Leatherhead,&rdquo; but I told
+      her nothing could be more appropriate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This whole proposition&mdash;Beg pardon; I didn't mean to use that word;
+      we've heard enough concerning 'propositions'&mdash;but really, Hephzy,
+      'Leatherhead' is very appropriate for us. If we weren't leather-headed and
+      deserving of leather medals we should not be hunting houses at all. We
+      should have left Little Frank and her affairs in a lawyer's hands and be
+      enjoying ourselves as we intended. Leatherhead for the leather-heads; it's
+      another dispensation of Providence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ash Dump&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Clump,&rdquo; I mean&mdash;was owned by a person named Cripps,
+      Solomon Cripps. Mr. Cripps was a stout, mutton-chopped individual,
+      strongly suggestive of Bancroft's &ldquo;Henry.&rdquo; He was rather pompous and surly
+      when I first knocked at the door of his residence, but when he learned we
+      were house-hunting and had our eyes upon the &ldquo;Clump,&rdquo; he became very
+      polite indeed. &ldquo;A 'eavenly spot,&rdquo; he declared it to be. &ldquo;A beautiful
+      neighborhood. Near the shops and not far from the Primitive Wesleyan
+      chapel.&rdquo; He and Mrs. Cripps attended the chapel, he informed us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not fancy Mr. Cripps; he was too&mdash;too something, I was not sure
+      what. And Mrs. Cripps, whom we met later, was of a similar type. They,
+      like everyone else, recognized us as Americans at once and they spoke
+      highly of the &ldquo;States.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A very fine country, I am informed,&rdquo; said Mr. Cripps. &ldquo;New, of course,
+      but very fine indeed. Young men make money there. Much money&mdash;yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Cripps wished to know if Americans were a religious people, as a
+      rule. Religion, true spiritual religion was on the wane in England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I gathered that she and her husband were doing their best to keep it up to
+      the standard. I had read, in books by English writers, of the British
+      middle-class Pharisee. I judged the Crippses to be Pharisees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy's opinion was like mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If ever there was a sanctimonious hypocrite it's that Mrs. Cripps,&rdquo; she
+      declared. &ldquo;And her husband ain't any better. They remind me of Deacon
+      Hardy and his wife back home. He always passed the plate in church and she
+      was head of the sewin' circle, but when it came to lettin' go of an extry
+      cent for the minister's salary they had glue on their fingers. Father used
+      to say that the Deacon passed the plate himself so nobody could see how
+      little he put in it. They were the ones that always brought a stick of
+      salt herrin' to the donation parties.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We didn't like the Crippses, but we did like &ldquo;Ash Clump.&rdquo; We had almost
+      decided to take it when our plans were quashed by the member of our party
+      on whose account we had planned solely. Miss Morley flatly refused to go
+      to Leatherhead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't ask ME why,&rdquo; said Hephzy, to whom the refusal had been made. &ldquo;I
+      don't know. All I know is that the very name 'Leatherhead' turned her
+      whiter than she has been for a week. She just put that little foot of hers
+      down and said no. I said 'Why not?' and she said 'Never mind.' So I guess
+      we sha'n't be Leatherheaded&mdash;in that way&mdash;this summer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was angry and impatient, but when I tried to reason with the young lady
+      I met a crushing refusal and a decided snub.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not care,&rdquo; said Little Frank, calmly and coldly, &ldquo;to explain my
+      reasons. I have them, and that is sufficient. I shall not go to&mdash;that
+      town or that place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But why?&rdquo; I begged, restraining my desire to shake her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have my reasons. You may go there, if you wish. That is your right. But
+      I shall not. And before you go I shall insist upon a settlement of my
+      claim.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The &ldquo;claim&rdquo; could neither be settled nor discussed; the doctor's warning
+      was no less insistent although his patient was steadily improving. I faced
+      the alternative of my compliance or her nervous prostration and I chose
+      the former. My desire to shake her remained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So &ldquo;Ash Clump&rdquo; was given up. Hephzy and I speculated much concerning
+      Little Frank's aversion to Leatherhead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It must be,&rdquo; said Hephzy, &ldquo;that she knows somebody there, or somethin'
+      like that. That's likely, I suppose. You know we don't know much about her
+      or what she's done since her father died, Hosy. I've tried to ask her but
+      she won't tell. I wish we did know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't,&rdquo; I snarled. &ldquo;I wish to heaven we had never known her at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy sighed. &ldquo;It IS awful hard for you,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;And yet, if we had
+      come to know her in another way you&mdash;we might have been glad. I&mdash;I
+      think she could be as sweet as she is pretty to folks she didn't consider
+      thieves&mdash;and Americans. She does hate Americans. That's her precious
+      pa's doin's, I suppose likely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The next afternoon we saw the advertisement in the Standard. George, the
+      waiter, brought two of the London dailies to our room each day. The
+      advertisement read as follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To Let for the Summer Months&mdash;Furnished. A Rectory in Mayberry,
+      Sussex. Ten rooms, servants' quarters, vegetable gardens, small fruit,
+      tennis court, etc., etc. Water and gas laid on. Golf near by. Terms low.
+      Rector&mdash;Mayberry, Sussex.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I answered it, Hosy,&rdquo; said Hephzy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You did!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. It sounded so nice I couldn't help it. It would be lovely to live in
+      a rectory, wouldn't it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lovely&mdash;and expensive,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;I'm afraid a rectory with
+      tennis courts and servants' quarters and all the rest of it will prove too
+      grand for a pair of Bayporters like you and me. However, your answering
+      the ad does no harm; it doesn't commit us to anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But when the answer to the answer came it was even more appealing than the
+      advertisement itself. And the terms, although a trifle higher than we had
+      planned to pay, were not entirely beyond our means. The rector&mdash;his
+      name was Cole&mdash;urged us to visit Mayberry and see the place for
+      ourselves. We were to take the train for Haddington on Hill where the trap
+      would meet us. Mayberry was two miles from Haddington on Hill, it
+      appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We decided to go, but before writing of our intention, Hephzy consulted
+      the most particular member of our party.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's no use doing anything until we ask her,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;She may be as
+      down on Mayberry as she was on Leatherhead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But she was not. She had no objections to Mayberry. So, after writing and
+      making the necessary arrangements, we took the train one bright, sunny
+      morning, and after a ride of an hour or more, alighted at Haddington on
+      Hill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Haddington on Hill was not on a hill at all, unless a knoll in the middle
+      of a wide flat meadow be called that. There were no houses near the
+      railway station, either rectories or any other sort. We were the only
+      passengers to leave the train there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The trap, however, was waiting. The horse which drew it was a black, plump
+      little animal, and the driver was a neat English lad who touched his hat
+      and assisted Hephzy to the back seat of the vehicle. I climbed up beside
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The road wound over the knoll and away across the meadow. On either side
+      were farm lands, fields of young grain, or pastures with flocks of sheep
+      grazing contentedly. In the distance, in every direction, one caught
+      glimpses of little villages with gray church towers rising amid the
+      foliage. Each field and pasture was bordered with a hedge instead of a
+      fence, and over all hung the soft, light blue haze which is so
+      characteristic of good weather in England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Birds which we took to be crows, but which we learned afterward were
+      rooks, whirled and circled. As we turned a corner a smaller bird rose from
+      the grass beside the road and soared upward, singing with all its little
+      might until it was a fluttering speck against the sky. Hephzy watched it,
+      her eyes shining.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe,&rdquo; she cried, excitedly, &ldquo;I do believe that is a skylark. Do you
+      suppose it is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A lark, yes, lady,&rdquo; said our driver.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A lark, a real skylark! Just think of it, Hosy. I've heard a real lark.
+      Well, Hephzibah Cahoon, you may never get into a book, but you're livin'
+      among book things every day of your life. 'And singin' ever soars and
+      soarin' ever singest.' I'd sing, too, if I knew how. You needn't be
+      frightened&mdash;I sha'n't try.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The meadows ended at the foot of another hill, a real one this time. At
+      our left, crowning the hill, a big house, a mansion with towers and
+      turrets, rose above the trees. Hephzy whispered to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't suppose THAT is the rectory, do you, Hosy?&rdquo; she asked, in an
+      awestricken tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it is we may as well go back to London,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;But it isn't.
+      Nothing lower in churchly rank than a bishop could keep up that
+      establishment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The driver settled our doubts for us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Manor House, sir,&rdquo; he said, pointing with his whip. &ldquo;The estate
+      begins here, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The &ldquo;estate&rdquo; was bordered by a high iron fence, stretching as far as we
+      could see. Beside that fence we rode for some distance. Then another turn
+      in the road and we entered the street of a little village, a village of
+      picturesque little houses, brick or stone always&mdash;not a frame house
+      among them. Many of the roofs were thatched. Flowers and climbing vines
+      and little gardens everywhere. The village looked as if it had been there,
+      just as it was, for centuries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is Mayberry, sir,&rdquo; said our driver. &ldquo;That is the rectory, next the
+      church.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We could see the church tower and the roof, but the rectory was not yet
+      visible to our eyes. We turned in between two of the houses, larger and
+      more pretentious than the rest. The driver alighted and opened a big
+      wooden gate. Before us was a driveway, shaded by great elms and bordered
+      by rose hedges. At the end of the driveway was an old-fashioned,
+      comfortable looking, brick house. Vines hid the most of the bricks. Flower
+      beds covered its foundations. A gray-haired old gentleman stood in the
+      doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the rectory we had come to see and the gray-haired gentleman was
+      the Reverend Mr. Cole, the rector.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My soul!&rdquo; whispered Hephzy, looking aghast at the spacious grounds, &ldquo;we
+      can never hire THIS. This is too expensive and grand for us, Hosy. Look at
+      the grass to cut and the flowers to attend to, and the house to run. No
+      wonder the servants have 'quarters.' My soul and body! I thought a rector
+      was a kind of minister, and a rectory was a sort of parsonage, but I guess
+      I'm off my course, as Father used to say. Either that or ministers' wages
+      are higher than they are in Bayport. No, this place isn't for you and me,
+      Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But it was. Before we left that rectory in the afternoon I had agreed to
+      lease it until the middle of September, servants&mdash;there were five of
+      them, groom and gardener included&mdash;horse and trap, tennis court,
+      vegetable garden, fruit, flowers and all. It developed that the terms,
+      which I had considered rather too high for my purse, included the
+      servants' wages, vegetables from the garden, strawberries and other &ldquo;small
+      fruit&rdquo;&mdash;everything. Even food for the horse was included in that
+      all-embracing rent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Hephzy said, everything considered, the rent of Mayberry Rectory was
+      lower than that of a fair-sized summer cottage at Bayport.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Reverend Mr. Cole was a delightful gentleman. His wife was equally
+      kind and agreeable. I think they were, at first, rather unpleasantly
+      surprised to find that their prospective tenants were from the &ldquo;States&rdquo;;
+      but Hephzy and I managed to behave as unlike savages as we could, and the
+      Cole manner grew less and less reserved. Mr. Cole and his wife were
+      planning to spend a long vacation in Switzerland and his &ldquo;living,&rdquo; or
+      parish, was to be left in charge of his two curates. There was a son at
+      Oxford who was to join them on their vacation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Cole and I walked about the grounds and visited the church, the yard
+      of which, with its weather-beaten gravestones and fine old trees, adjoined
+      the rectory on the western side, behind the tall hedge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The church was built of stone, of course, and a portion of it was older
+      than the Norman conquest. Before the altar steps were two ancient effigies
+      of knights in armor, with crossed gauntlets and their feet supported by
+      crouching lions. These old fellows were scratched and scarred and
+      initialed. Upon one noble nose were the letters &ldquo;A. H. N. 1694.&rdquo; I decided
+      that vandalism was not a modern innovation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While the rector and I were inspecting the church, Mrs. Cole and Hephzy
+      were making a tour of the house. They met us at the door. Mrs. Cole's eyes
+      were twinkling; I judged that she had found Hephzy amusing. If this was
+      true it had not warped her judgment, however, for, a moment later when she
+      and I were alone, she said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your cousin, Miss Cahoon, is a good housekeeper, I imagine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is all of that,&rdquo; I said, decidedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, she was very particular concerning the kitchen and scullery and the
+      maids' rooms. Are all American housekeepers as particular?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not all. Miss Cahoon is unique in many ways; but she is a remarkable
+      woman in all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. I am sure of it. And she has such a typical American accent, hasn't
+      she.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We were to take possession on the following Monday. We lunched at the &ldquo;Red
+      Cow,&rdquo; the village inn, where the meal was served in the parlor and the
+      landlord's daughter waited upon us. The plump black horse drew us to the
+      railway station, and we took the train for London.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We have learned, by this time, that second, or even third-class travel was
+      quite good enough for short journeys and that very few English people paid
+      for first-class compartments. We were fortunate enough to have a
+      second-class compartment to ourselves this time, and, when we were seated,
+      Hephzy asked a question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you think to speak about the golf, Hosy?&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You will want to
+      play some, won't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I did ask about it. It seems that the golf course is a
+      private one, on the big estate we passed on the way from the station.
+      Permission is always given the rectory tenants.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! my gracious, isn't that grand! That estate isn't in Mayberry. The
+      Mayberry bounds&mdash;that's what Mrs. Cole called them&mdash;and just
+      this side. The estate is in the village of&mdash;of Burgleston Bogs.
+      Burgleston Bogs&mdash;it's a funny name. Seem's if I'd heard it before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have,&rdquo; said I, in surprise. &ldquo;Burgleston Bogs is where that Heathcroft
+      chap whom we met on the steamer visits occasionally. His aunt has a big
+      place there. By George! you don't suppose that estate belongs to his aunt,
+      do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy gasped. &ldquo;I wouldn't wonder,&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;I wouldn't wonder if it
+      did. And his aunt was Lady Somebody, wasn't she. Maybe you'll meet him
+      there. Goodness sakes! just think of your playin' golf with a Lady's
+      nephew.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I doubt if we need to think of it,&rdquo; I observed. &ldquo;Mr. Carleton Heathcroft
+      on board ship may be friendly with American plebeians, but on shore, and
+      when visiting his aunt, he may be quite different. I fancy he and I will
+      not play many holes together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy laughed. &ldquo;You 'fancy,'&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;You'll be sayin' 'My word'
+      next. My! Hosy, you ARE gettin' English.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed I'm not!&rdquo; I declared, with emphasis. &ldquo;My experience with an
+      English relative is sufficient of itself to prevent that. Miss Frances
+      Morley and I are compatriots for the summer only.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which We Make the Acquaintance of Mayberry and a Portion of Burgleston
+      Bogs
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      We migrated to Mayberry the following Monday, as we had agreed to do. Miss
+      Morley went with us, of course. I secured a first-class apartment for our
+      party and the journey was a comfortable and quiet one. Our invalid was too
+      weak to talk a great deal even if she had wished, which she apparently did
+      not. Johnson, the groom, met us at Haddington on Hill and we drove to the
+      rectory. There Miss Morley, very tired and worn out, was escorted to her
+      room by Hephzy and Charlotte, the housemaid. She was perfectly willing to
+      remain in that room, in fact she did not leave it for several days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Hephzy and I were doing our best to become acquainted with our
+      new and novel mode of life. Hephzy took charge of the household and was,
+      in a way, quite in her element; in another way she was distinctly out of
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did think I was gettin' used to bein' waited on, Hosy,&rdquo; she confided,
+      &ldquo;but it looks as if I'll have to begin all over again. Managin' one hired
+      girl like Susanna was a job and I tell you I thought managin' three, same
+      as we've got here, would be a staggerer. But it isn't. Somehow the kind of
+      help over here don't seem to need managin'. They manage me more than I do
+      them. There's Mrs. Wigham, the cook. Mrs. Cole told me she was a
+      'superior' person and I guess she is&mdash;at any rate, she's superior to
+      me in some things. She knows what a 'gooseberry fool' is and I'm sure I
+      don't. I felt like another kind of fool when she told me she was goin' to
+      make one, as a 'sweet,' for dinner to-night. As nigh as I can make out
+      it's a sort of gooseberry pie, but <i>I</i> should never have called a
+      gooseberry pie a 'sweet'; a 'sour' would have been better, accordin' to my
+      reckonin'. However, all desserts over here are 'sweets' and fruit is
+      dessert. Then there's Charlotte, the housemaid, and Baker, the
+      'between-maid'&mdash;between upstairs and down, I suppose that means&mdash;and
+      Grimmer, the gardener, and Johnson, the boy that takes care of the horse.
+      Each one of 'em seems to know exactly what their own job is and just as
+      exactly where it leaves off and t'other's job begins. I never saw such
+      obligin' but independent folks in my life. As for my own job, that seems
+      to be settin' still with my hands folded. Well, it's a brand new one and
+      it's goin' to take me one spell to get used to it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed likely to be a &ldquo;spell&rdquo; before I became accustomed to my own
+      &ldquo;job,&rdquo; that of being a country gentleman with nothing to do but play the
+      part. When I went out to walk about the rectory garden, Grimmer touched
+      his hat. When, however, I ventured to pick a few flowers in that garden,
+      his expression of shocked disapproval was so marked that I felt I must
+      have made a dreadful mistake. I had, of course. Grimmer was in charge of
+      those flowers and if I wished any picked I was expected to tell him to
+      pick them. Picking them myself was equivalent to admitting that I was not
+      accustomed to having a gardener in my employ, in other words that I was
+      not a real gentleman at all. I might wait an hour for Johnson to return
+      from some errand or other and harness the horse; but I must on no account
+      save time by harnessing the animal myself. That sort of labor was not done
+      by the &ldquo;gentry.&rdquo; I should have lost caste with the servants a dozen times
+      during my first few days in the rectory were it not for one saving grace;
+      I was an American, and almost any peculiar thing was expected of an
+      American.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I strolled along the village street the male villagers, especially
+      the older ones, touched their hats to me. The old women bowed or
+      courtesied. Also they invariably paused, when I had passed, to stare after
+      me. The group at the blacksmith shop&mdash;where the stone coping of the
+      low wall was worn in hollows by the generations of idlers who had sat upon
+      it, just as their descendants were sitting upon it now&mdash;turned, after
+      I had passed, to stare. There would be a pause in the conversation, then
+      an outburst of talk and laughter. They were talking about the &ldquo;foreigner&rdquo;
+       of course, and laughing at him. At the tailor's, where I sent my clothes
+      to be pressed, the tailor himself, a gray-haired, round-shouldered
+      antique, ventured an opinion concerning those clothes. &ldquo;That coat was not
+      made in England, sir,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We don't make 'em that way 'ere, sir.
+      That's a bit foreign, that coat, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, I was a foreigner. It was hard to realize. In a way everything was so
+      homelike; the people looked like people I had known at home, their faces
+      were New England faces quite as much as they were old England. But their
+      clothes were just a little different, and their ways were different, and a
+      dry-goods store was a &ldquo;draper's shop,&rdquo; and a drug-store was a &ldquo;chemist's,&rdquo;
+       and candies were &ldquo;sweeties&rdquo; and a public school was a &ldquo;board school&rdquo; and a
+      boarding-school was a &ldquo;public school.&rdquo; And I might be polite and pleasant
+      to these people&mdash;persons out of my &ldquo;class&rdquo;&mdash;but I must not be
+      too cordial, for if I did, in the eyes of these very people, I lost caste
+      and they would despise me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, I was a foreigner; it was a queer feeling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Coming from America and particularly from democratic Bayport, where
+      everyone is as good as anyone else provided he behaves himself, the class
+      distinction in Mayberry was strange at first. I do not mean that there was
+      not independence there; there was, among the poorest as well as the richer
+      element. Every male Mayberryite voted as he thought, I am sure; and was
+      self-respecting and independent. He would have resented any infringement
+      of his rights just as Englishmen have resented such infringements and
+      fought against them since history began. But what I am trying to make
+      plain is that political equality and social equality were by no means
+      synonymous. A man was a man for 'a' that, but when he was a gentleman he
+      was 'a' that' and more. And when he was possessed of a title he was
+      revered because of that title, or the title itself was revered. The hatter
+      in London where I purchased a new &ldquo;bowler,&rdquo; had a row of shelves upon
+      which were boxes containing, so I was told, the spare titles of eminent
+      customers. And those hat-boxes were lettered like this: &ldquo;The Right Hon.
+      Col. Wainwright, V.C.,&rdquo; &ldquo;His Grace the Duke of Leicester,&rdquo; &ldquo;Sir George
+      Tupman, K.C.B.,&rdquo; etc., etc. It was my first impression that the hatter was
+      responsible for thus proclaiming his customers' titles, but one day I saw
+      Richard, convoyed by Henry, reverently bearing a suitcase into Bancroft's
+      Hotel. And that suitcase bore upon its side the inscription, in very large
+      letters, &ldquo;Lord Eustace Stairs.&rdquo; Then I realized that Lord Eustace, like
+      the owners of the hat-boxes, recognizing the value of a title, advertised
+      it accordingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed when I saw the suitcase and the hat-boxes. When I told Hephzy
+      about the latter she laughed, too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's funny, isn't it,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Suppose the folks that have their
+      names on the mugs in the barber shop back home had 'em lettered 'Cap'n
+      Elkanah Crowell,' 'Judge the Hon. Ezra Salters,' 'The Grand Exalted Sachem
+      Order of Red Men George Kendrick.' How everybody would laugh, wouldn't
+      they. Why they'd laugh Cap'n Elkanah and Ezra and Kendrick out of town.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So they would have done&mdash;in Bayport&mdash;but not in Mayberry or
+      London. Titles and rank and class in England are established and accepted
+      institutions, and are not laughed at, for where institutions of that kind
+      are laughed at they soon cease to be. Hephzy summed it up pretty well when
+      she said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After all, it all depends on what you've been brought up to, doesn't it,
+      Hosy. Your coat don't look funny to you because you've always worn that
+      kind of coat, but that tailor man thought 'twas funny because he never saw
+      one made like it. And a lord takin' his lordship seriously seems funny to
+      us, but it doesn't seem so to him or to the tailor. They've been brought
+      up to it, same as you have to the coat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On one point she and I had agreed before coming to Mayberry, that was that
+      we must not expect calls from the neighbors or social intercourse with the
+      people of Mayberry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They don't know anything about us,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;except that we are
+      Americans, and that may or may not be a recommendation, according to the
+      kind of Americans they have previously met. The Englishman, so all the
+      books tell us, is reserved and distant at first. He requires a long
+      acquaintance before admitting strangers to his home life and we shall
+      probably have no opportunity to make that acquaintance. If we were to stay
+      in Mayberry a year, and behaved ourselves, we might in time be accepted as
+      desirable, but not during the first summer. So if they leave us to
+      ourselves we must make the best of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy agreed thoroughly. &ldquo;You're right,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;And, after all, it's
+      just what would happen anywhere. You remember when that Portygee family
+      came to Bayport and lived in the Solon Blodgett house. Nobody would have
+      anything to do with 'em for a long time because they were foreigners, but
+      they turned out to be real nice folks after all. We're foreigners here and
+      you can't blame the Mayberry people for not takin' chances; it looks as if
+      nobody in it ever had taken a chance, as if it had been just the way it is
+      since Noah came out of the Ark. I never felt so new and shiny in my life
+      as I do around this old rectory and this old town.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Which was all perfectly true and yet the fact remains that, &ldquo;new and
+      shiny&rdquo; as we were, the Mayberry people&mdash;those of our &ldquo;class&rdquo;&mdash;began
+      to call upon us almost immediately, to invite us to their homes, to show
+      us little kindnesses, and to be whole-souled and hospitable and friendly
+      as if we had known them and they us for years. It was one of the greatest
+      surprises, and remains one of the most pleasant recollections, of my brief
+      career as a resident in England, the kindly cordiality of these neighbors
+      in Mayberry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first caller was Dr. Bayliss, who occupied &ldquo;Jasmine Gables,&rdquo; the
+      pretty house next door. He dropped in one morning, introduced himself,
+      shook hands and chatted for an hour. That afternoon his wife called upon
+      Hephzy. The next day I played a round of golf upon the private course on
+      the Manor House grounds, the Burgleston Bogs grounds&mdash;with the doctor
+      and his son, young Herbert Bayliss, just through Cambridge and the medical
+      college at London. Young Bayliss was a pleasant, good-looking young chap
+      and I liked him as I did his father. He was at present acting as his
+      father's assistant in caring for the former's practice, a practice which
+      embraced three or four villages and a ten-mile stretch of country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Naturally I was interested in the Manor estate and its owner. The grounds
+      were beautiful, three square miles in extent and cared for, so Bayliss,
+      Senior, told me, by some hundred and fifty men, seventy of whom were
+      gardeners. Of the Manor House itself I caught a glimpse, gray-turreted and
+      huge, set at the end of lawns and flower beds, with fountains playing and
+      statues gleaming white amid the foliage. I asked some questions concerning
+      its owner. Yes, she was Lady Kent Carey and she had a nephew named
+      Heathcroft. So there was a chance, after all, that I might again meet my
+      ship acquaintance who abhorred &ldquo;griddle cakes.&rdquo; I imagined he would be
+      somewhat surprised at that meeting. It was an odd coincidence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for the game of golf, my part of it, the least said the better. Doctor
+      Bayliss, who, it developed, was an enthusiast at the game, was kind enough
+      to tell me I had a &ldquo;topping&rdquo; drive. I thanked him, but there was
+      altogether too much &ldquo;topping&rdquo; connected with my play that forenoon to make
+      my thanks enthusiastic. I determined to practice assiduously before
+      attempting another match. Somehow I felt responsible for the golfing honor
+      of my country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Other callers came to the rectory. The two curates, their names were
+      Judson and Worcester, visited us; young men, both of them, and good
+      fellows, Worcester particularly. Although they wore clerical garb they
+      were not in the least &ldquo;preachy.&rdquo; Hephzy, although she liked them,
+      expressed surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They didn't act a bit like ministers,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;They didn't ask us to
+      come to meetin' nor hint at prayin' with the family or anything, yet they
+      looked for all the while like two Methodist parsons, young ones. A curate
+      is a kind of new-hatched rector, isn't he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not exactly,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;He is only partially hatched. But, whatever
+      you do, don't tell them they look like Methodists; they wouldn't consider
+      it a compliment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was a Methodist herself and she resented the slur. &ldquo;Well, I guess a
+      Methodist is as good as an Episcopalian,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;And they don't
+      ACT like Methodists. Why, one of 'em smoked a pipe. Just imagine Mr.
+      Partridge smokin' a pipe!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Judson and I played eighteen holes of golf together. He played a
+      little worse than I did and I felt better. The honor of Bayport's golf had
+      been partially vindicated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While all this was going on our patient remained, for the greater part of
+      the time, in her room. She was improving steadily. Doctor Bayliss, whom I
+      had asked to attend her, declared, as his London associates had done, that
+      all she needed was rest, quiet and the good air and food which she was
+      certain to get in Mayberry. He, too, like the physician at Bancroft's,
+      seemed impressed by her appearance and manner. And he also asked similar
+      embarrassing questions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Delightful young lady, Miss Morley,&rdquo; he observed. &ldquo;One of our English
+      girls, Knowles. She informs me that she IS English.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Partly English,&rdquo; I could not help saying. &ldquo;Her mother was an American.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, indeed! You know she didn't tell me that, now did she.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, by Jove, she didn't. But she has lived all her life in England?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;in England and France.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your niece, I think you said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had said it, unfortunately, and it could not be unsaid now without many
+      explanations. So I nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She doesn't&mdash;er&mdash;behave like an American. She hasn't the
+      American manner, I mean to say. Now Miss Cahoon has&mdash;er&mdash;she has&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Cahoon's manner is American. So is mine; we ARE Americans, you see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes, of course,&rdquo; hastily. &ldquo;When are you and I to have the nine holes
+      you promised, Knowles?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      One fine afternoon the invalid came downstairs. The &ldquo;between-maid&rdquo; had
+      arranged chairs and the table on the lawn. We were to have tea there; we
+      had tea every day, of course&mdash;were getting quite accustomed to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances&mdash;I may as well begin calling her that&mdash;looked in better
+      health then than at any time since our meeting. She was becomingly,
+      although simply gowned, and there was a dash of color in her cheeks.
+      Hephzibah escorted her to the tea table. I rose to meet them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frank&mdash;Frances, I mean&mdash;is goin' to join us to-day,&rdquo; said
+      Hephzy. &ldquo;She's beginnin' to look real well again, isn't she.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I said she was. Frances nodded to me and took one of the chairs, the most
+      comfortable one. She appeared perfectly self-possessed, which I was sure I
+      did not. I was embarrassed, of course. Each time I met the girl the
+      impossible situation in which she had placed us became more impossible, to
+      my mind. And the question, &ldquo;What on earth shall we do with her?&rdquo; more
+      insistent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy poured the tea. Frances, cup in hand, looked about her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is rather a nice place, after all,&rdquo; she observed, &ldquo;isn't it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's a real lovely place,&rdquo; declared Hephzy with enthusiasm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young lady cast another appraising glance at our surroundings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she repeated, &ldquo;it's a jolly old house and the grounds are not bad
+      at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her tone nettled me. Everything considered I thought she might have shown
+      a little more enthusiasm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I infer that you expected something much worse,&rdquo; I observed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, of course I didn't know what to expect. How should I? I had no hand
+      in selecting it, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's hardly seen it,&rdquo; put in Hephzy. &ldquo;She was too sick when she came to
+      notice much, I guess, and this is the first time she has been out doors.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad you approve,&rdquo; I observed, drily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My sarcasm was wasted. Miss Morley said again that she did approve, of
+      what she had seen, and added that we seemed to have chosen very well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't suppose,&rdquo; said Hephzy, complacently, &ldquo;that there are many much
+      prettier places in England than this one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, indeed there are. But all England is beautiful, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I thought of Mrs. Briggs' lodging-house, but I did not refer to it. Our
+      guest&mdash;or my &ldquo;niece&rdquo;&mdash;or our ward&mdash;it was hard to classify
+      her&mdash;changed the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you met any of the people about here?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy burst into enthusiastic praise of the Baylisses and the curates and
+      the Coles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They're all just as nice as they can be,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;I never met
+      nicer folks, at home or anywhere.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances nodded. &ldquo;All English people are nice,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again I thought of Mrs. Briggs and again I kept my thoughts to myself.
+      Hephzy went on rhapsodizing. I paid little attention until I heard her
+      speak my name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And Hosy thinks so, too. Don't you, Hosy?&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I answered yes, on the chance. Frances regarded me oddly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought&mdash;I understood that your name was Kent, Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; she
+      said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then why does Miss Cahoon always&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy interrupted. &ldquo;Oh, I always call him Hosy,&rdquo; she explained. &ldquo;It's a
+      kind of pet name of mine. It's short for Hosea. His whole name is Hosea
+      Kent Knowles, but 'most everybody but me does call him Kent. I don't think
+      he likes Hosea very well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Our companion looked very much as if she did not wonder at my dislike. Her
+      eyes twinkled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosea,&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;That is an odd name. The original Hosea was a
+      prophet, wasn't he? Are you a prophet, Mr. Knowles?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Far from it,&rdquo; I answered, with decision. If I had been a prophet I should
+      have been forewarned and, consequently, forearmed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She smiled and against my will I was forced to admit that her smile was
+      attractive; she was prettier than ever when she smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I remember now,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;all Americans have Scriptural names. I have
+      read about them in books.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy writes books,&rdquo; said Hephzy, proudly. &ldquo;That's his profession; he's an
+      author.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, really, is he! How interesting!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, he is. He has written ever so many books; haven't you, Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I didn't answer. My self and my &ldquo;profession&rdquo; were the last subjects I
+      cared to discuss. The young lady's smile broadened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And where do you write your books, Mr. Knowles?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;In&mdash;er&mdash;Bayport?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I answered, shortly. &ldquo;Hephzy, Miss Morley will have another cup of
+      tea, I think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no, thank you. But tell me about your books, Mr. Knowles. Are they
+      stories of Bayport?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No indeed!&rdquo; Hephzy would do my talking for me, and I could not order her
+      to be quiet. &ldquo;No indeed!&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;He writes about lords and ladies
+      and counts and such. He hardly ever writes about everyday people like the
+      ones in Bayport. You would like his books, Frances. You would enjoy
+      readin' 'em, I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sure I should. They must be delightful. I do hope you brought some
+      with you, Mr. Knowles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He didn't, but I did. I'll lend you some, Frances. I'll lend you 'The
+      Queen's Amulet.' That's a splendid story.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sure it must be. So you write about queens, too, Mr. Knowles. I
+      thought Americans scorned royalty. And what is his queen's name, Miss
+      Cahoon? Is it Scriptural?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no indeed! Besides, all Americans' names aren't out of the Bible, any
+      more than the names in England are. That man who wanted to let us his
+      house in Copperhead&mdash;no, Leatherhead&mdash;funny I should forget THAT
+      awful name&mdash;he was named Solomon&mdash;Solomon Cripps... Why, what is
+      it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Morley's smile and the mischievous twinkle had vanished. She looked
+      startled, and even frightened, it seemed to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it, Frances?&rdquo; repeated Hephzy, anxiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing&mdash;nothing. Solomon&mdash;what was it? Solomon Cripps. That is
+      an odd name. And you met this Mr.&mdash;er&mdash;Cripps?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, we met him. He had a house he wanted to let us, and I guess we'd
+      have taken it, too, only you seemed to hate the name of Leatherhead so.
+      Don't you remember you did? I don't blame you. Of the things to call a
+      pretty town that's about the worst.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, it is rather frightful. But this, Mr.&mdash;er&mdash;Cripps; was he
+      as bad as his name? Did you talk with him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only about the house. Hosy and I didn't like him well enough to talk
+      about anything else, except religion. He and his wife gave us to
+      understand they were awful pious. I'm afraid we wouldn't have been churchy
+      enough to suit them, anyway. Hosy, here, doesn't go to meetin' as often as
+      he ought to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad of it.&rdquo; The young lady's tone was emphatic and she looked as if
+      she meant it. We were surprised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're glad of it!&rdquo; repeated Hephzy, in amazement. &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I hate persons who go to church all the time and boast of it, who
+      do all sorts of mean things, but preach, preach, preach continually. They
+      are hypocritical and false and cruel. I HATE them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked now as she had in the room at Mrs. Briggs's when I had
+      questioned her concerning her father. I could not imagine the reason for
+      this sudden squall from a clear sky. Hephzy drew a long breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; she said, after a moment, &ldquo;then Hosy and you ought to get along
+      first-rate together. He's down on hypocrites and make-believe piety as bad
+      as you are. The only time he and Mr. Partridge, our minister in Bayport,
+      ever quarreled&mdash;'twasn't a real quarrel, but more of a disagreement&mdash;was
+      over what sort of a place Heaven was. Mr. Partridge was certain sure that
+      nobody but church members would be there, and Hosy said if some of the
+      church members in Bayport were sure of a ticket, the other place had
+      strong recommendations. 'Twas an awful thing to say, and I was almost as
+      shocked as the minister was; that is I should have been if I hadn't known
+      he didn't mean it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Morley regarded me with a new interest, or at least I thought she
+      did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you mean it?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Hosy,&rdquo; cried Hephzy. &ldquo;What a way that is to talk! What do you know
+      about the hereafter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not much, but,&rdquo; remembering the old story, &ldquo;I know Bayport. Humph!
+      speaking of ministers, here is one now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Judson, the curate, was approaching across the lawn. Hephzy hastily
+      removed the lid of the teapot. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, with a sigh of relief,
+      &ldquo;there's enough tea left, though you mustn't have any more, Hosy. Mr.
+      Judson always takes three cups.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Judson was introduced and, the &ldquo;between-maid&rdquo; having brought another
+      chair, he joined our party. He accepted the first of the three cups and
+      observed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope I haven't interrupted an important conversation. You appeared to
+      be talking very earnestly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I should have answered, but Hephzy's look of horrified expostulation
+      warned me to be silent. Frances, although she must have seen the look,
+      answered instead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We were discussing Heaven,&rdquo; she said, calmly. &ldquo;Mr. Knowles doesn't
+      approve of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy bounced on her chair. &ldquo;Why!&rdquo; she cried; &ldquo;why, what a&mdash;why,
+      WHAT will Mr. Judson think! Now, Frances, you know&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That was what you said, Mr. Knowles, wasn't it. You said if Paradise was
+      exclusively for church members you preferred&mdash;well, another locality.
+      That was what I understood you to say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Judson looked at me. He was a very good and very orthodox and a very
+      young man and his feelings showed in his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I can scarcely think Mr. Knowles said that, Miss Morley,&rdquo; he
+      protested. &ldquo;You must have misunderstood him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, but I didn't misunderstand. That was what he said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again Mr. Judson looked at me. It seemed time for me to say something.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What I said, or meant to say, was that I doubted if the future life, the&mdash;er&mdash;pleasant
+      part of it, was confined exclusively to&mdash;er&mdash;professed church
+      members,&rdquo; I explained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The curate's ruffled feelings were evidently not soothed by this
+      explanation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But&mdash;but, Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; he stammered, &ldquo;really, I&mdash;I am at a
+      loss to understand your meaning. Surely you do not mean that&mdash;that&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course he didn't mean that,&rdquo; put in Hephzy. &ldquo;What he said was that
+      some of the ones who talk the loudest and oftenest in prayer-meetin' at
+      our Methodist church in Bayport weren't as good as they pretended to be.
+      And that's so, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Judson seemed relieved. &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;Oh, yes, I quite
+      comprehend. Methodists&mdash;er&mdash;dissenters&mdash;that is quite
+      different&mdash;quite.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Judson knows that no one except communicants in the Church of England
+      are certain of happiness,&rdquo; observed Frances, very gravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our caller turned his attention to her. He was not a joker, but I think he
+      was a trifle suspicious. The young lady met his gaze with one of serene
+      simplicity and, although he reddened, he returned to the charge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should&mdash;I should scarcely go as far as that, Miss Morley,&rdquo; he
+      said. &ldquo;But I understand Mr. Knowles to refer to&mdash;er&mdash;church
+      members; and&mdash;er&mdash;dissenters&mdash;Methodists and others&mdash;are
+      not&mdash;are not&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; broke in Hephzibah, with decision, &ldquo;I'm a Methodist, myself, and
+      <i>I</i> don't expect to go to perdition.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Judson's guns were spiked. He turned redder than ever and changed the
+      subject to the weather.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The remainder of the conversation was confined for the most part to
+      Frances and the curate. They discussed the village and the people in it
+      and the church and its activities. At length Judson mentioned golf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Knowles and I are to have another round shortly, I trust,&rdquo; he said.
+      &ldquo;You owe me a revenge, you know, Mr. Knowles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; exclaimed the young lady, in apparent surprise, &ldquo;does Mr. Knowles
+      play golf?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not real golf,&rdquo; I observed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, but he does,&rdquo; protested Mr. Judson, &ldquo;he does. Rather! He plays a very
+      good game indeed. He beat me quite badly the other day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Which, according to my reckoning, was by no means a proof of extraordinary
+      ability. Frances seemed amused, for some unexplained reason.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should never have thought it,&rdquo; she observed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo; asked Judson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I don't know. Golf is a game, and Mr. Knowles doesn't look as if he
+      played games. I should have expected nothing so frivolous from him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My golf is anything but frivolous,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;It's too seriously bad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you golf, Miss Morley, may I ask?&rdquo; inquired the curate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have occasionally, after a fashion. I am sure I should like to learn.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall be delighted to teach you. It would be a great pleasure, really.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked as if it would be a pleasure. Frances smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you so much,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You and I and Mr. Knowles will have a
+      threesome.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Judson's joy at her acceptance was tempered, it seemed to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, of course,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It will be a great pleasure to have your uncle
+      with us. A great pleasure, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My&mdash;uncle?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, yes&mdash;Mr. Knowles, you know. By the way, Miss Morley&mdash;excuse
+      my mentioning it, but I notice you always address your uncle as Mr.
+      Knowles. That seems a bit curious, if you'll pardon my saying so. A bit
+      distant and&mdash;er&mdash;formal to our English habit. Do all nieces and
+      nephews in your country do that? Is it an American custom?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy and I looked at each other and my &ldquo;niece&rdquo; looked at both of us. I
+      could feel the blood tingling in my cheeks and forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it an American custom?&rdquo; repeated Mr. Judson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; with chilling deliberation. &ldquo;I am NOT an American.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The curate said &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; and had the astonishing good sense not to say
+      any more. Shortly afterward he said good-by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I shall look forward to our threesome, Miss Morley,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;I
+      shall count upon it in the near future.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After his departure there was a most embarrassing interval of silence.
+      Hephzy spoke first.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you think you had better go in now, Frances,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Seems to
+      me you had. It's the first time you've been out at all, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young lady rose. &ldquo;I am going,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I am going, if you and&mdash;my
+      uncle&mdash;will excuse me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That evening, after dinner, Hephzy joined me in the drawing-room. It was a
+      beautiful summer evening, but every shade was drawn and every shutter
+      tightly closed. We had, on our second evening in the rectory, suggested
+      leaving them open, but the housemaid had shown such shocked surprise and
+      disapproval that we had not pressed the point. By this time we had learned
+      that &ldquo;privacy&rdquo; was another sacred and inviolable English custom. The
+      rectory sat in its own ground, surrounded by high hedges; no one, without
+      extraordinary pains, could spy upon its inmates, but, nevertheless, the
+      privacy of those inmates must be guaranteed. So the shutters were closed
+      and the shades drawn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; said I to Hephzy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Hephzy, &ldquo;it's better than I was afraid it was goin' to be. I
+      explained that you told the folks at Bancroft's she was your niece because
+      'twas the handiest thing to tell 'em, and you HAD to tell 'em somethin'.
+      And down here in Mayberry the same way. She understood, I guess; at any
+      rate she didn't make any great objection. I thought at the last that she
+      was laughin', but I guess she wasn't. Only what she said sounded funny.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did she say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, she wanted to know if she should call you 'Uncle Hosea.' She
+      supposed it should be that&mdash;'Uncle Hosy' sounded a little
+      irreverent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not answer. &ldquo;Uncle Hosea!&rdquo; a beautiful title, truly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She acted so different to-day, didn't she,&rdquo; observed Hephzy. &ldquo;It's
+      because she's gettin' well, I suppose. She was real full of fun, wasn't
+      she.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Confound her&mdash;yes,&rdquo; I snarled. &ldquo;All the fun is on her side. Well,
+      she should make the best of it while it lasts. When she learns the truth
+      she may not find it so amusing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy sighed. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, slowly, &ldquo;I'm afraid that's so, poor thing.
+      When&mdash;when are you goin' to tell her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;But pretty soon, that's certain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which I Break All Previous Resolutions and Make a New One
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      That afternoon tea on the lawn was the beginning of the great change in
+      our life at the rectory. Prior to that Hephzy and I had, golfly speaking,
+      been playing it as a twosome. Now it became a threesome, with other
+      players added at frequent intervals. At luncheon next day our invalid, a
+      real invalid no longer, joined us at table in the pleasant dining-room,
+      the broad window of which opened upon the formal garden with the sundial
+      in the center. She was in good spirits, and, as Hephzy confided to me
+      afterward, was &ldquo;gettin' a real nice appetite.&rdquo; In gaining this appetite
+      she appeared to have lost some of her dignity and chilling condescension;
+      at all events, she treated her American relatives as if she considered
+      them human beings. She addressed most of her conversation to Hephzy,
+      always speaking of and to her as &ldquo;Miss Cahoon.&rdquo; She still addressed me as
+      &ldquo;Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; and I was duly thankful; I had feared being hailed as
+      &ldquo;Uncle Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After lunch Mr. Judson called again. He was passing, he explained, on his
+      round of parish calls, and had dropped in casually. Mr. Worcester also
+      came; his really was a casual stop, I think. He and his brother curate
+      were very brotherly indeed, but I noticed an apparent reluctance on the
+      part of each to leave before the other. They left together, but Mr. Judson
+      again hinted at the promised golf game, and Mr. Worcester, having learned
+      from Miss Morley that she played and sang, expressed great interest in
+      music and begged permission to bring some &ldquo;favorite songs,&rdquo; which he felt
+      sure Miss Morley might like to run over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Morley herself was impartially gracious and affable to both the
+      clerical gentlemen; she was looking forward to the golf, she said, and the
+      songs she was certain would be jolly. Hephzy and I had very little to say,
+      and no one seemed particularly anxious to hear that little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The curates had scarcely disappeared down the driveway when Doctor Bayliss
+      and his son strolled in from next door. Doctor Bayliss, Senior, was much
+      pleased to find his patient up and about, and Herbert, the son, even more
+      pleased to find her at all, I judge. Young Bayliss was evidently very
+      favorably impressed with his new neighbor. He was a big, healthy,
+      broad-shouldered fellow, a grown-up boy, whose laugh was a pleasure to
+      hear, and who possessed the faculty, envied by me, the quahaug, of
+      chatting entertainingly on all subjects from tennis and the new American
+      dances to Lloyd-George and old-age pensions. Frances declared a strong
+      aversion to the dances, principally because they were American, I
+      suspected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Doctor Bayliss, the old gentleman, then turned to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is the American opinion of the Liberal measures?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should say,&rdquo; I answered, &ldquo;that, so far as they are understood in
+      America, opinion concerning them is divided, much as it is here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really! But you haven't the Liberal and Conservative parties as we have,
+      you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have liberals and conservatives, however, although our political
+      parties are not so named.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We call 'em Republicans and Democrats,&rdquo; explained Hephzy. &ldquo;Hosy is a
+      Republican,&rdquo; she added, proudly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not certain what I am,&rdquo; I observed. &ldquo;I have voted a split ticket of
+      late.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Young Bayliss asked a question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you a&mdash;what is it&mdash;Republican, Miss Morley?&rdquo; he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Morley's eyes dropped disdainfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am neither,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;My father was a Conservative, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I say! That's odd, isn't it. Your uncle here is&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle Hosea, you mean?&rdquo; sweetly. &ldquo;Oh, Uncle Hosea is an American. I am
+      English.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not add &ldquo;Thank heaven,&rdquo; but she might as well. &ldquo;Uncle Hosea&rdquo;
+       shuddered at the name. Young Bayliss grinned behind his blonde mustache.
+      When he left, in company with his father, Hephzy invited him to &ldquo;run in
+      any time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We're next-door neighbors,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;so we mustn't be formal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was fairly certain that the invitation was superfluous. If I knew human
+      nature at all I knew that Bayliss, Junior, did not intend to let formality
+      stand in the way of frequent calls at the rectory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My intuition was correct. The following afternoon he called again. So did
+      Mr. Judson. Both calls were casual, of course. So was Mr. Worcester's that
+      evening. He came to bring the &ldquo;favorite songs&rdquo; and was much surprised to
+      find Miss Morley in the drawing-room. He said so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy and I knew little of our relative's history. She had volunteered no
+      particulars other than those given on the occasion of our first meeting,
+      but we did know, because Mrs. Briggs had told us, that she had been a
+      member of an opera troupe. This evening we heard her sing for the first
+      time. She sang well; her voice was not a strong one, but it was clear and
+      sweet and she knew how to use it. Worcester sang well also, and the little
+      concert was very enjoyable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the first of many. Almost every evening after dinner Frances sat
+      down at the old-fashioned piano, with the candle brackets at each side of
+      the music rack, and sang. Occasionally we were her only auditors, but more
+      often one or both of the curates or Doctor and Mrs. Bayliss or Bayliss,
+      Junior, dropped in. We made other acquaintances&mdash;Mrs. Griggson, the
+      widow in &ldquo;reduced circumstances,&rdquo; whose husband had been killed in the
+      Boer war, and who occupied the little cottage next to the draper's shop;
+      Mr. and Mrs. Samson, of Burgleston Bogs, friends of the Baylisses, and
+      others. They were pleasant, kindly, unaffected people and we enjoyed their
+      society.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Each day Frances gained in health and strength. The care-free, wholesome,
+      out-of-door life at Mayberry seemed to suit her. She seemed to consider
+      herself a member of the family now; at all events she did not speak of
+      leaving nor hint at the prompt settlement of her preposterous &ldquo;claim.&rdquo;
+       Hephzy and I did not mention it, even to each other. Hephzy, I think, was
+      quite satisfied with things as they were, and I, in spite of my threats
+      and repeated declarations that the present state of affairs was ridiculous
+      and could not last, put off telling &ldquo;my niece&rdquo; the truth. I, too, was
+      growing more accustomed to the &ldquo;threesome.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The cloud was always there, hanging over our heads and threatening a storm
+      at any moment, but I was learning to forget it. The situation had its
+      pleasant side; it was not all bad. For instance, meals in the pleasant
+      dining-room, with Hephzy at one end of the table, I at the other, and
+      Frances between us, were more social and chatty than they had been. To
+      have the young lady come down to breakfast, her hair prettily arranged,
+      her cheeks rosy with health, and her eyes shining with youth and the joy
+      of life, was almost a tonic. I found myself taking more pains with my
+      morning toilet, choosing my tie with greater care and being more careful
+      concerning the condition of my boots. I even began to dress for dinner, a
+      concession to English custom which was odd enough in one of my easy-going
+      habits and Bayport rearing. I imagine that the immaculate appearance of
+      young Bayliss, when he dropped in for the &ldquo;sing&rdquo; in the drawing-room, was
+      responsible for the resurrection of my dinner coat. He did look so
+      disgustingly young and handsome and at ease. I was conscious of each one
+      of my thirty-eight years whenever I looked at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was rejuvenating in other ways. It had been my custom at Bayport to
+      retire to my study and my books each evening. Here, where callers were so
+      frequent, I found it difficult to do this and, although the temptation was
+      to sit quietly in a corner and let the others do the talking, I was not
+      allowed to yield. The younger callers, particularly the masculine portion,
+      would not have objected to my silence, I am sure, but &ldquo;my niece&rdquo; seemed to
+      take mischievous pleasure in drawing the quahaug out of his shell. She had
+      a disconcerting habit of asking me unexpected questions at times when my
+      attention was wandering, and, if I happened to state a definite opinion,
+      taking the opposite side with promptness. After a time I decided not to
+      express opinions, but to agree with whatever was said as the simplest way
+      of avoiding controversy and being left to myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This procedure should, it seemed to me, have satisfied her, but apparently
+      it did not. On one occasion, Judson and Herbert Bayliss being present, the
+      conversation turned to the subject of American athletic sports. The curate
+      and Bayliss took the ground, the prevailing thought in England apparently,
+      that all American games were not games, but fights in which the true
+      sporting spirit was sacrificed to the desire to win at any cost. I had
+      said nothing, keeping silent for two reasons. First, that I had given my
+      views on the subject before, and, second, because argument from me was, in
+      that company, fruitless effort. The simplest way to end discussion of a
+      disagreeable topic was to pay no attention to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I was not allowed to escape so easily. Bayliss asked me a question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn't it true, Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; he asked, &ldquo;that the American football player
+      wears a sort of armor to prevent his being killed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My thoughts had been drifting anywhere and everywhere. Just then they were
+      centered about &ldquo;my niece's&rdquo; hands. She had very pretty hands and a most
+      graceful way of using them. At the moment they were idly turning some
+      sheets of music, but the way the slim fingers moved in and out between the
+      pages was pretty and fascinating. Her foot, glimpsed beneath her skirt,
+      was slender and graceful, too. She had an attractive trick of swinging it
+      as she sat upon the piano stool.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Recalled from these and other pleasing observations by Bayliss's mention
+      of my name, I looked up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg pardon?&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bayliss repeated his question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes,&rdquo; said I, and looked down again at the foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So I have been told,&rdquo; said the questioner, triumphantly. &ldquo;And without
+      that&mdash;er&mdash;armor many of the players would be killed, would they
+      not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What? Oh, yes; yes, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And many are killed or badly injured as it is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How many during a season, may I ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh? Oh&mdash;I don't know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A hundred?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The foot was swinging more rapidly now. It was such a small foot. My own
+      looked so enormous and clumsy and uncouth by comparison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A&mdash;oh, thousands,&rdquo; said I, at random. If the number were large
+      enough to satisfy him he might cease to worry me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A beastly game,&rdquo; declared Judson, with conviction. &ldquo;How can a civilized
+      country countenance such brutality! Do you countenance it, Mr. Knowles?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;er&mdash;that is, no.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You agree, then, that it is brutal?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly, certainly.&rdquo; Would the fellow never stop?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo; It was Frances who spoke and her tone was emphatic and
+      impatient. We all looked at her; her cheeks were flushed and she appeared
+      highly indignant. &ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo; she said again. &ldquo;He doesn't agree to any
+      such thing. I've heard him say that American football was not as brutal as
+      our fox-hunting and that fewer people were killed or injured. We play polo
+      and we ride in steeplechases and the papers are full of accidents. I don't
+      believe Americans are more brutal or less civilized in their sports than
+      we are, not in the least.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Considering that she had at the beginning of the conversation apparently
+      agreed with all that had been said, and, moreover, had often, in speaking
+      to Hephzy and me, referred to the &ldquo;States&rdquo; as an uncivilized country, this
+      declaration was astonishing. I was astonished for one. Hephzy clapped her
+      hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course they aren't,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;Hosy&mdash;Mr. Knowles&mdash;didn't
+      mean that they were, either.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Our callers looked at each other and Herbert Bayliss hastily changed the
+      subject. After they had gone I ventured to thank my champion for coming to
+      the rescue of my sporting countrymen. She flashed an indignant glance at
+      me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you say such things?&rdquo; she demanded. &ldquo;You know they weren't true.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What was the use of saying anything else? They have read the accounts of
+      football games which American penny-a-line correspondents send to the
+      London papers and nothing I could say would change their convictions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It doesn't make any difference. You should say what you think. To sit
+      there and let them&mdash;Oh, it is ridiculous!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My feelings were not hurt. Their ideas will broaden by and by, when they
+      are as old as I am. They're young now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This charitable remark seemed to have the effect of making her more
+      indignant than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;You speak as if you were an Old Testament
+      patriarch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy put in a word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Frances,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I thought you didn't like America.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't. Of course I don't. But it makes me lose patience to have him sit
+      there and agree to everything those boys say. Why didn't he answer them as
+      he should? If I were an American no one&mdash;NO one should rag me about
+      my country without getting as good as they gave.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was amused. &ldquo;What would you have me do?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;Rise and sing the
+      'Star Spangled Banner'?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would have you speak your mind like a man. Not sit there like a&mdash;like
+      a rabbit. And I wouldn't act and think like a Methusaleh until I was one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was quite evident that &ldquo;my niece&rdquo; was a young person of whims. The next
+      time the &ldquo;States&rdquo; were mentioned and I ventured to speak in their defence,
+      she calmly espoused the other side and &ldquo;ragged&rdquo; as mercilessly as the
+      rest. I found myself continually on the defensive, and this state of
+      affairs had one good effect at least&mdash;that of waking me up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Toward Hephzy her manner was quite different. She now, especially when we
+      three were alone, occasionally addressed her as &ldquo;Auntie.&rdquo; And she would
+      not permit &ldquo;Auntie&rdquo; to be made fun of. At the least hint of such a thing
+      she snubbed the would-be humorist thoroughly. She and Hephzy were becoming
+      really friendly. I felt certain she was beginning to like her&mdash;to
+      discern the real woman beneath the odd exterior. But when I expressed this
+      thought to Hephzy herself she shook her head doubtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sometimes I've almost thought so, Hosy,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;but only this mornin'
+      when I said somethin' about her mother and how much she looked like her,
+      she almost took my head off. And she's got her pa's picture right in the
+      middle of her bureau. No, Hosy, she's nicer to us than she was at first
+      because it's her nature to be nice. So long as she forgets who and what we
+      are, or what her scamp of a father told her we were, she treats us like
+      her own folks. But when she remembers we're receivers of stolen goods,
+      livin' on money that belongs to her, then it's different. You can't blame
+      her for that, I suppose. But&mdash;but how is it all goin' to end? <i>I</i>
+      don't know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I didn't know either.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had hoped,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;that, living with us as she does, she might come
+      to know and understand us&mdash;to learn that we couldn't be the sort she
+      has believed us to be. Then it seems to me we might tell her and she would
+      listen to reason.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I'm afraid we can't wait long. You see, there's another thing,
+      Hosy. She needs clothes and&mdash;and lots of things. She realizes it.
+      Yesterday she told me she must go up to London, shopping, pretty soon. She
+      asked me to go with her. I put her off; said I was awful busy around the
+      house just now, but she'll ask me again, and if I don't go she'll go by
+      herself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! I don't see how she can do much shopping. She hasn't a penny, so
+      far as I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't understand. She thinks she has got a good many pennies, or
+      we've got 'em for her. She's just as liable to buy all creation and send
+      us the bills.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I whistled. &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; I said, decidedly, &ldquo;when that happens we must put our
+      foot down. Neither you nor I are millionaires, Hephzy, and she must
+      understand that regardless of consequences.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean you'll tell her&mdash;everything?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall have to. Why do you look at me like that? Are we to use
+      common-sense or aren't we? Are we in a position to adopt a young woman of
+      expensive tastes&mdash;actually adopt her? And not only that, but give her
+      carte blanche&mdash;let her buy whatever she pleases and charge it to us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose not. But&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I&mdash;I don't see how we can stop her buying whatever she pleases
+      with what she thinks is her own money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do. We can tell her she has no money. I shall do it. My mind is made
+      up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy said nothing, but her expression was one of doubt. I stalked off in
+      a bad temper. Discussions of the kind always ended in just this way.
+      However, I swore a solemn oath to keep my word this time. There were
+      limits and they had been reached. Besides, as I had said, the situation
+      was changed in one way; we no longer had an invalid to deal with. No, my
+      mind was made up. True, this was at least the tenth time I had made it up,
+      but this time I meant it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The test came two days later and was the result of a call on the Samsons.
+      The Samsons lived at Burgleston Bogs, and we drove to their house in the
+      trap behind &ldquo;Pet,&rdquo; the plump black horse. Mrs. Samson seemed very glad to
+      see us, urged us to remain for tea, and invited us to attend a tennis
+      tournament on their lawn the following week. She asked if Miss Morley
+      played tennis. Frances said she had played, but not recently. She intended
+      to practice, however, and would be delighted to witness the tournament,
+      although, of course, she could not take part in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy&mdash;Mr. Knowles, I mean&mdash;plays tennis,&rdquo; observed Hephzy,
+      seizing the opportunity, as usual, to speak a good word for me. &ldquo;He used
+      to play real well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really!&rdquo; exclaimed Mrs. Samson, &ldquo;how interesting. If we had only known.
+      No doubt Mr. Knowles would have liked to enter. I'm so sorry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hastened to protest. &ldquo;My tennis is decidedly rusty,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I
+      shouldn't think of displaying it in public. In fact, I don't play at all
+      now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On the way home Frances was rather quiet. The next morning she announced
+      that she intended going to Wrayton that afternoon. &ldquo;Johnson will drive me
+      over,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I shall be glad if Auntie will go with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wrayton was the county-seat, a good-sized town five miles from Mayberry.
+      Hephzy declined the invitation. She had promised to &ldquo;tea&rdquo; with Mrs.
+      Griggson that afternoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I must go alone,&rdquo; said Frances. &ldquo;That is unless&mdash;er&mdash;Uncle
+      Hosea cares to go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle Hosea&rdquo; declined. The name of itself was sufficient to make him
+      decline; besides Worcester and I were scheduled for golf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall go alone then,&rdquo; said &ldquo;my niece,&rdquo; with decision. &ldquo;Johnson will
+      look after me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But after luncheon, when I visited the stable to order Johnson to harness
+      &ldquo;Pet,&rdquo; I met with an unexpected difficulty. Johnson, it appeared, was ill,
+      had been indisposed the day before and was now at home in bed. I
+      hesitated. If this were Bayport I should have bade the gardener harness
+      &ldquo;Pet&rdquo; or have harnessed him myself. But this was Mayberry, not Bayport.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gardener, deprived of his assistant's help&mdash;Johnson worked about
+      the garden when not driving&mdash;was not in good humor. I decided not to
+      ask him to harness, but to risk a fall in the estimation of the servants
+      by doing it myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gardener watched me for a moment in shocked disapproval. Then he
+      interfered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you please, Mr. Knowles, sir,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I'll 'arness, but I can't
+      drive, sir. I am netting the gooseberries. Perhaps you might get a man
+      from the Inn stables, unless you or the young lady might wish to drive
+      yourselves.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not wish to drive, having the golf engagement; but when I walked to
+      the Inn I found no driver available. So, rather than be disagreeable, I
+      sent word to the curate that our match was postponed, and accepted the
+      alternative.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances, rather to my surprise, seemed more pleased than otherwise to find
+      that I was to be her coachman. Instead of occupying the rear seat she
+      climbed to that beside me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-by, Auntie,&rdquo; she called to Hephzy, who was standing in the doorway.
+      &ldquo;Sorry you're not going. I'll take good care of Mr. Knowles&mdash;Uncle
+      Hosea, I mean. I'll see that he behaves himself and,&rdquo; with a glance at my,
+      I fear, not too radiant visage, &ldquo;doesn't break any of his venerable
+      bones.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The road, like all English roads which I traveled, was as firm and smooth
+      as a table, the day was fine, the hedges were green and fragrant, the
+      larks sang, and the flocks of sheep in the wayside pastures were
+      picturesque as always. &ldquo;Pet,&rdquo; who had led an easy life since we came to
+      the rectory, was in high spirits and stepped along in lively fashion. My
+      companion, too, was in good spirits and chatted and laughed as she had not
+      done with me since I knew her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Altogether it was a delightful ride. I found myself emerging from my shell
+      and chatting and joking quite unlike the elderly quahaug I was supposed to
+      be. We passed a party of young fellows on a walking tour, knapsacked and
+      knickerbockered, and the admiring glances they passed at my passenger were
+      flattering. They envied me, that was plain. Well, under different
+      circumstances, I could conceive myself an object of envy. A dozen years
+      younger, with the heart of youth and the comeliness of youth, I might have
+      thought myself lucky to be driving along such a road with such a vision by
+      my side. And, the best of it was, the vision treated me as if I really
+      were her own age. I squared my shoulders and as Hephzy would have said,
+      &ldquo;perked up&rdquo; amazingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We entered Wrayton and moved along the main street between the rows of
+      ancient buildings, past the old stone church with its inevitable and
+      always welcome gray, ivy-draped tower, to the quaint old square with the
+      statue of William Pitt in its center. My companion, all at once, seemed to
+      become aware of her surroundings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why!&rdquo; she exclaimed, &ldquo;we are here, aren't we? Fancy! I expected a longer
+      drive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So did I,&rdquo; I agreed. &ldquo;We haven't hurried, either. Where has the time
+      gone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know. We have been so busy talking that I have thought of nothing
+      else. Really, I didn't know you could be so entertaining&mdash;Uncle
+      Hosea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The detested title brought me to myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are here,&rdquo; I said, shortly. &ldquo;And now where shall we go? Have you any
+      stopping place in particular?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I want to stop now. Please pull up over there, in front
+      of that shop with the cricket bats in the window.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The shop was what we, in America, would have called a &ldquo;sporting-goods
+      store.&rdquo; I piloted &ldquo;Pet&rdquo; to the curb and pulled up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going in,&rdquo; said Miss Morley. &ldquo;Oh, don't trouble to help me. I can
+      get down quite well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was down, springing from the step as lightly as a dandelion fluff
+      before I could scramble down on the other side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I won't be long,&rdquo; she said, and went into the shop. I, not being invited,
+      remained on the pavement. Two or three small boys appeared from somewhere
+      and, scenting possible pennies, volunteered to hold the horse. I declined
+      their services.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Five minutes passed, then ten. My passenger was still in the shop. I could
+      not imagine what she was doing there. If it had been a shop of a different
+      kind, and in view of Hephzy's recent statement concerning the buying of
+      clothes, I might have been suspicious. But no clothes were on sale at that
+      shop and, besides, it never occurred to me that she would buy anything of
+      importance without mentioning her intention to me beforehand. I had taken
+      it for granted that she would mention the subject and, when she did, I
+      intended to be firm. But as the minutes went by my suspicions grew. She
+      must be buying something&mdash;or contemplating buying, at least. But she
+      had said nothing to me concerning money; HAD she money of her own after
+      all? It might be possible that she had a very little, and was making some
+      trifling purchase.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She reappeared in the doorway of the shop, followed by a very polite young
+      man with a blonde mustache. The young man was bowing and smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, miss,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I'll have them wrapped immediately. They shall be
+      ready when you return, miss. Thank you, miss.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances nodded acknowledgment of the thanks. Then she favored me with
+      another nod and a most bewitching smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's over,&rdquo; she announced, &ldquo;and now I'm going to the draper's for a
+      moment. It is near here, you say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man bowed again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, miss, on the next corner, next the chemist's.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned to me. &ldquo;You may wait here, Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I shall be
+      back very soon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hurried away. I looked after her, and then, with all sorts of
+      forebodings surging in my brain, strode into that &ldquo;sporting-goods store.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The blond young man was at my elbow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; he said, ingratiatingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did&mdash;did that young lady make some purchases here?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir. Here they are, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There on the counter lay a tennis racket, a racket press and waterproof
+      case, a pair of canvas tennis shoes and a jaunty white felt hat. I stared
+      at the collection. The clerk took up the racket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a Slazenger,&rdquo; he observed, regretfully. &ldquo;I did my best to persuade
+      her to buy a Slazenger; that is the best racket we have. But she decided
+      the Slazenger was a bit high in price, sir. However, sir, this one is not
+      bad. A very fine racket for lady's use; very light and strong, sir,
+      considering the cost&mdash;only sixteen and six, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sixteen and six. Four dollars and&mdash;Did she pay for it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh no, sir. She said you would do that, sir. The total is two pound eight
+      and thruppence, sir. Shall I give you a bill, sir? Thank you, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His thanks were wasted. I pushed him to one side and walked out of that
+      shop. I could not answer; if I answered as I felt I might be sorry later.
+      After all, it wasn't his fault. My business was not with him, but with
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not the amount of the purchase that angered and alarmed me. Two
+      pounds eight&mdash;twelve dollars&mdash;was not so much. If she had asked
+      me, if she had said she desired the racket and the rest of it during the
+      drive over, I think, feeling as I did during that drive, I should have
+      bought them for her. But she had not asked; she had calmly bought them
+      without consulting me at all. She had come to Wrayton for that very
+      purpose. And then had told the clerk that I would pay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The brazen presumption of it! I was merely a convenience, a sort of
+      walking bank account, to be drawn upon as she saw fit, at her imperial
+      will, if you please. It made no difference, to her mind, whether I liked
+      it or not&mdash;whether I could afford it or not. I could, of course,
+      afford this trifling sum, but this was only the beginning. If I permitted
+      this there was no telling to what extent she might go on, buying and
+      buying and buying. This was a precedent&mdash;that was what it was, a
+      precedent; and a precedent once established... It should not be
+      established. I had vowed to Hephzy that it should not. I would prove to
+      this girl that I had a will of my own. The time had come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the boys who had been so anxious to hold the horse was performing
+      that entirely unnecessary duty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay here until I come back,&rdquo; I ordered and hurried to the draper's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was there standing before the counter, and an elderly man was
+      displaying cloths&mdash;white flannels and serges they appeared to be. She
+      was not in the least perturbed at my entrance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you came, after all,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I wondered if you would. Now you must
+      help me. I don't know what your taste in tennis flannels may be, but I
+      hope it is good. I shall have these made up at Mayberry, of course. My
+      other frocks&mdash;and I need so many of them&mdash;I shall buy in London.
+      Do you fancy this, now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I don't know whether I fancied it or not. I am quite sure I could not
+      remember what it was if I were asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; she asked, after an instant. &ldquo;Do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I don't know,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;May I ask you to step outside one moment.
+      I&mdash;I have something I wish to say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She regarded me curiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Something you wish to say?&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I can't tell you here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not, pray?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I can't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at me still more intently. I was conscious of the salesman's
+      regard also. My tone, I am sure, was anything but gracious, and I imagine
+      I appeared as disgusted and embarrassed as I felt. She turned away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I will choose this one,&rdquo; she said, addressing the clerk. &ldquo;You may
+      give me five yards. Oh, yes; and I may as well take the same amount of the
+      other. You may wrap it for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, miss, yes. Thank you, miss. Is there anything else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hesitated. Then, after another sidelong glance at me, she said: &ldquo;Yes,
+      I believe there is. I wish to see some buttons, some braid, and&mdash;oh,
+      ever so many things. Please show them to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, miss, certainly. This way, if you please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you assist in the selection, Uncle Hosea?&rdquo; she inquired, with
+      suspicious sweetness. &ldquo;I am sure your opinion will be invaluable. No? Then
+      I must ask you to wait.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And wait I did, for I could do nothing else. That draper's shop was not
+      the place for a scene, with a half-dozen clerks to enjoy it. I waited,
+      fuming, while she wandered about, taking a great deal of time, and
+      lingering over each purchase in a maddening manner. At last she seemed
+      able to think of no more possibilities and strolled to where I was
+      standing, followed by the salesman, whose hands were full.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may wrap these with the others,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I have my trap here and
+      will take them with me. The trap is here, isn't it&mdash;er&mdash;Uncle
+      Hosea?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is just above here,&rdquo; I answered, sulkily. &ldquo;But&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you will get it. Thank you so much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The salesman noticed my hesitation, put his own interpretation upon it and
+      hastened to oblige.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall be glad to have the purchases carried there,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Our boy
+      will do it, miss. It will be no trouble.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Morley thanked him so much. I was hoping she might leave the shop
+      then, but she did not. The various packages were wrapped, handed to the
+      boy, and she accompanied the latter to the door and showed him our
+      equipage standing before the sporting-goods dealer's. Then she sauntered
+      back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; she said, addressing the clerk. &ldquo;That is all, I believe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The clerk looked at her and at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, miss, thank you,&rdquo; he said, in return. &ldquo;I&mdash;I&mdash;would you be
+      wishing to pay at once, miss, or shall I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, this gentleman will pay. Do you wish to pay now&mdash;Uncle Hosea?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again I was stumped. The salesman was regarding me expectantly; the other
+      clerks were near by; if I made a scene there&mdash;No, I could not do it.
+      I would pay this time. But this should be the end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fortunately, I had money in my pocket&mdash;two five-pound notes and some
+      silver. I paid the bill. Then, and at last, my niece led the way to the
+      pavement. We walked together a few steps in silence. The sporting-goods
+      shop was just ahead, and if ever I was determined not to do a thing that
+      thing was to pay for the tennis racket and the rest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances,&rdquo; I began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well&mdash;Mr. Knowles?&rdquo; calmly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances, I have decided to speak with you frankly. You appear to take
+      certain things for granted in your&mdash;your dealings with Miss Cahoon
+      and myself, things which&mdash;which I cannot countenance or permit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had been walking slowly. Now she stopped short. I stopped, too,
+      because she did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;What things?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was looking me through and through. Again I hesitated, and my
+      hesitation did not help matters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;What is it you cannot countenance or&rdquo;&mdash;scornfully&mdash;&ldquo;permit
+      concerning me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;well, I cannot permit you to do as you have done to-day. You did
+      not tell your aunt or me your purpose in coming to Wrayton. You did not
+      tell us you were coming here to buy&mdash;to buy various things for
+      yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why should I tell you? They were for myself. Is it your idea that I
+      should ask YOUR permission before buying what I choose?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Considering that you ask me to pay, I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I most distinctly did NOT ask you. I TOLD you to pay. Certainly you will
+      pay. Why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, why not. So this was what you wished to speak to me about. This was
+      why you were so&mdash;so boorish and disagreeable in that shop. Tell me&mdash;was
+      that the reason? Was that why you followed me there? Did you think&mdash;did
+      you presume to think of preventing my buying what I pleased with my
+      money?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it had been your money I should not have presumed, certainly. If you
+      had mentioned your intention to me beforehand I might even have paid for
+      your purchases and said nothing. I should&mdash;I should have been glad to
+      do so. I am not unreasonable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed! Indeed! Do you mean that you would have condescended to make me a
+      present of them? And was it your idea that I would accept presents from
+      you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that she had already accepted a
+      good deal; but somehow the place, a public sidewalk, seemed hardly fitting
+      for the discussion of weighty personal matters. Passers-by were regarding
+      us curiously, and in the door of the draper's shop which we had just left
+      I noticed the elderly clerk standing and looking in our direction. I
+      temporized.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't understand, Miss Morley,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Neither your aunt nor I are
+      wealthy. Surely, it is not too much to ask that you consult us before&mdash;before&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She interrupted me. &ldquo;I shall not consult you at all,&rdquo; she declared,
+      fiercely. &ldquo;Wealthy! Am <i>I</i> wealthy? Was my father wealthy? He should
+      have been and so should I. Oh, WHAT do you mean? Are you trying to tell me
+      that you cannot afford to pay for the few trifles I have bought this
+      afternoon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can afford those, of course. But you don't understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Understand? YOU do not understand. The agreement under which I came to
+      Mayberry was that you were to provide for me. I consented to forego
+      pressing my claim against you until&mdash;until you were ready to&mdash;to&mdash;Oh,
+      but why should we go into this again? I thought&mdash;I thought you
+      understood. I thought you understood and appreciated my forbearance. You
+      seemed to understand and to be grateful and kind. I am all alone in the
+      world. I haven't a friend. I have been almost happy for a little while. I
+      was beginning to&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stopped. The dark eyes which had been flashing lightnings in my
+      direction suddenly filled with tears. My heart smote me. After all, she
+      did not understand. Another plea of that kind and I should have&mdash;Well,
+      I'm not sure what I should have done. But the plea was not spoken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, what a fool I am!&rdquo; she cried, fiercely. &ldquo;Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; pointing to
+      the sporting-goods store, &ldquo;I have made some purchases in that shop also. I
+      expect you to pay for those as well. Will you or will you not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was hesitating, weakly. She did not wait for me to reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You WILL pay for them,&rdquo; she declared, &ldquo;and you will pay for others that I
+      may make. I shall buy what I please and do what I please with my money
+      which you are keeping from me. You will pay or take the consequences.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was enough. &ldquo;I will not pay,&rdquo; I said, firmly, &ldquo;under any such
+      arrangement.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will NOT?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I will not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked as if&mdash;Well, if she had been a man I should have expected
+      a blow. Her breast heaved and her fingers clenched. Then she turned and
+      walked toward the shop with the cricket bats in the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are you going?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to tell the man to send the things I have bought to Mayberry
+      by carrier and I shall tell him to send the bill to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you do I shall tell him to do nothing of the kind. Miss Morley, I
+      don't mean to be ungenerous or unreasonable, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop! Stop! Oh!&rdquo; with a sobbing breath, &ldquo;how I hate you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm sorry. When I explain, as I mean to, you will understand, I think. If
+      you will go back to the rectory with me now&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not go back with you. I shall never speak to you again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Morley, be reasonable. You must go back with me. There is no other
+      way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here was more cheer in an already cheerful situation. She could not get to
+      Mayberry that night unless she rode with me. She had no money to take her
+      there or anywhere else. I could hardly carry her to the trap by main
+      strength. And the curiosity of the passers-by was more marked than ever;
+      two or three of them had stopped to watch us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I don't know how it might have ended, but the end came in an unexpected
+      manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Miss Morley,&rdquo; cried a voice from the street behind me. &ldquo;Oh, I say,
+      it IS you, isn't it. How do you do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I turned. A trim little motor car was standing there and Herbert Bayliss
+      was at the wheel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, Knowles, how do you do?&rdquo; said Bayliss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I acknowledged the greeting in an embarrassed fashion. I wondered how long
+      he had been there and what he had heard. He alighted from the car and
+      shook hands with us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Didn't see you, Knowles, at first,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Saw Miss Morley here and
+      thought she was alone. Was going to beg the privilege of taking her home
+      in my car.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Morley answered promptly. &ldquo;You may have the privilege, Doctor
+      Bayliss,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I accept with pleasure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Young Bayliss looked pleased, but rather puzzled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thanks, awfully,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But my car holds but two and your uncle&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, he has the dogcart. It is quite all right, really. I should love the
+      motor ride. May I get in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He helped her into the car. &ldquo;Sure you don't mind, Knowles,&rdquo; he asked.
+      &ldquo;Sorry there's not more room; but you couldn't leave the horse, though,
+      could you? Quite comfy, Miss Morley? Then we're off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The car turned from the curb. I caught Miss Morley's eye for an instant;
+      there was withering contempt in its look&mdash;also triumph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Left alone, I walked to the trap, gave the horse-holding boy sixpence,
+      climbed to the seat and took up the reins. &ldquo;Pet&rdquo; jogged lazily up the
+      street. The ride over had been very, very pleasant; the homeward journey
+      was likely to be anything but that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To begin with, I was thoroughly dissatisfied with myself. I had bungled
+      the affair dreadfully. This was not the time for explanations; I should
+      not have attempted them. It would have been better, much better, to have
+      accepted the inevitable as gracefully as I could, paid the bills, and
+      then, after we reached home, have made the situation plain and &ldquo;have put
+      my foot down&rdquo; once and for all. But I had not done that. I had lost my
+      temper and acted like an eighteen-year-old boy instead of a middle-aged
+      man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not understand, of course. In her eyes I must have appeared stingy
+      and mean and&mdash;and goodness knows what. The money I had refused to pay
+      she did consider hers, of course. It was not hers, and some day she would
+      know that it was not, but the town square at Wrayton was not the place in
+      which to impart knowledge of that kind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was so young, too, and so charming&mdash;that is, she could be when
+      she chose. And she had chosen to be so during our drive together. And I
+      had enjoyed that drive; I had enjoyed nothing as thoroughly since our
+      arrival in England. She had enjoyed it, too; she had said so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, there would be no more enjoyment of that kind. This was the end, of
+      course. And all because I had refused to pay for a tennis racket and a few
+      other things. They were things she wanted&mdash;yes, needed, if she were
+      to remain at the rectory. And, expecting to remain as she did, it was but
+      natural that she should wish to play tennis and dress as did other young
+      players of her sex. Her life had not been a pleasant one; after all, a
+      little happiness added, even though it did cost me some money, was not
+      much. And it must end soon. It seemed a pity to end it in order to save
+      two pounds eight and threepence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is no use cataloguing all my thoughts. Some I have catalogued and
+      the others were similar. The memory of her face and of the choke in her
+      voice as she said she had been almost happy haunted me. My reason told me
+      that, so far as principle and precedent went, I had acted rightly; but my
+      conscience, which was quite unreasonable, told me I had acted like a boor.
+      I stood it as long as I could, then I shouted at &ldquo;Pet,&rdquo; who was jogging
+      on, apparently half asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whoa!&rdquo; I shouted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pet&rdquo; stopped short in the middle of the road. I hesitated. The principle
+      of the thing&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hang the principle!&rdquo; said I, aloud. Then I turned the trap around and
+      drove back to Wrayton. The blond young man in the sporting-goods store was
+      evidently glad to see me. He must have seen me drive away and have judged
+      that his sale was canceled. His judgment had been very near to right, but
+      now I proved it wrong.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I paid for the racket and the press and the shoes and the rest. They were
+      wrapped and ready.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, sir,&rdquo; said the clerk. &ldquo;I trust everything will be quite
+      satisfactory. I'm sorry the young lady did not take the Slazenger, but the
+      one she chose is not at all bad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was on my way to the door. I stopped and turned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is the&mdash;the what is it&mdash;'Slazenger' so much better?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, very much so, sir. Infinitely better, sir. Here it is; judge for
+      yourself. The very best racket made. And only thirty-two shillings, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a better racket, much better. And, after all, when one is hanging
+      principle the execution may as well be complete.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may give me that one instead of the other,&rdquo; I said, and paid the
+      difference.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On my arrival at the rectory Hephzy met me at the door. The between-maid
+      took the packages from the trap. I entered the drawing-room and Hephzy
+      followed me. She looked very grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances is here, I suppose,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, she came an hour ago. Doctor Bayliss, the younger one, brought her
+      in his auto. She hardly spoke to me, Hosy, and went straight to her room.
+      Hosy, what happened? What is the matter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo; said I, curtly. &ldquo;Nothing unusual, that is. I made a fool of
+      myself once more, that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The between-maid knocked and entered. &ldquo;Where would you wish the parcels,
+      sir?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These are Miss Morley's. Take them to her room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The maid retired to obey orders. Hephzy again turned to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Hosy, what is it?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I told her the whole story. When I had finished Hephzy nodded
+      understandingly. She did not say &ldquo;I told you so,&rdquo; but if she had it would
+      have been quite excusable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think&mdash;I think, perhaps, I had better go up and see her,&rdquo; she
+      said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right. I have no objection.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But she'll ask questions, of course. What shall I tell her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell her I changed my mind. Tell her&mdash;oh, tell her anything you
+      like. Don't bother me. I'm sick of the whole business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She left me and I went into the Reverend Cole's study and closed the door.
+      There were books enough there, but the majority of them were theological
+      works or bulky volumes dealing with questions of religion. Most of my own
+      books were in my room. These did not appeal to me; I was not religiously
+      inclined just then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So I sat dumbly in the rector's desk chair and looked out of the window.
+      After a time there was a knock at the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come in,&rdquo; said I, expecting Hephzy. It was not Hephzy who came, however,
+      but Miss Morley herself. And she closed the door behind her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not speak. She walked over and stood beside me. I did not know what
+      she was going to say and the expression did not help me to guess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a moment she did not say anything. Then:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you changed your mind,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't know. Yet you changed it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Oh yes, I changed it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But why? Was it&mdash;was it because you were ashamed of yourself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess so. As much that as anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You realize that you treated me shamefully. You realize that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; wearily. &ldquo;Yes, I realize everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you felt sorry, after I had gone, and so you changed your mind. Was
+      that it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no use in attempting justification. For the absolute surrender I
+      had made there was no justification. I might as well agree to everything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you will never, never treat me in that way again?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you realize that I was right and understand that I am to do as I
+      please with my money?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you beg my pardon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well. Then I beg yours. I'm sorry, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now I WAS surprised. I turned in my chair and looked at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You beg my pardon?&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;For what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, for everything. I suppose I should have spoken to you before buying
+      those things. You might not have been prepared to pay then and&mdash;and
+      that would have been unpleasant for you. But&mdash;well, you see, I didn't
+      think, and you were so queer and cross when you followed me to the
+      draper's shop, that&mdash;that I&mdash;well, I was disagreeable, too. I am
+      sorry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's all right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you. Is there anything else you wish to say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're sure?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did you buy the Slazenger racket instead of the other one?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had forgotten the &ldquo;Slazenger&rdquo; for the moment. She had caught me
+      unawares.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh&mdash;oh,&rdquo; I stammered, &ldquo;well, it was a much better racket and&mdash;and,
+      as you were buying one, it seemed foolish not to get the best.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know. I wanted the better one very much, but I thought it too
+      expensive. I did not feel that I should spend so much money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's all right. The difference wasn't so much and I made the change on
+      my own responsibility. I&mdash;well, just consider that I bought the
+      racket and you bought none.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She regarded me intently. &ldquo;You mean that you bought it as a present for
+      me?&rdquo; she said slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; yes, if you will accept it as such.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was silent. I remembered perfectly well what she had said concerning
+      presents from me and I wondered what I should do with that racket when she
+      threw it back on my hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I will accept it. Thank you very much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was staggered, but I recovered sufficiently to tell her she was quite
+      welcome.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned to go. Then she turned back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doctor Bayliss asked me to play tennis with him tomorrow morning,&rdquo; she
+      said. &ldquo;May I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May you? Why, of course you may, if you wish, I suppose. Why in the world
+      do you ask my permission?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, don't you wish me to ask? I inferred from what you said at Wrayton
+      that you did wish me to ask permission concerning many things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wished&mdash;I said&mdash;oh, don't be silly, please! Haven't we had
+      silliness enough for one afternoon, Miss Morley.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My Christian name is Frances. May I play tennis with Doctor Bayliss
+      to-morrow morning, Uncle Hosea?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course you may. How could I prevent it, even if I wished, which I
+      don't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, Uncle Hosea. Mr. Worcester is going to play also. We need a
+      fourth. I can borrow another racket. Will you be my partner, Uncle Hosea?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;<i>I</i>? Your partner?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. You play tennis; Auntie says so. Will you play to-morrow morning as
+      my partner?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I play an atrocious game and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So do I. We shall match beautifully. Thank you, Uncle Hosea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Once more she turned to go, and again she turned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is there anything else you wish me to do, Uncle Hosea?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The repetition repeated was too much.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I declared. &ldquo;Stop calling me Uncle Hosea. I'm not your uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I know that; but you have told everyone that you were, haven't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had, unfortunately, so I could make no better reply than to state
+      emphatically that I didn't like the title.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, very well,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;But 'Mr. Knowles' sounds so formal, don't you
+      think. What shall I call you? Never mind, perhaps I can think while I am
+      dressing for dinner. I will see you at dinner, won't I. Au revoir, and
+      thank you again for the racket&mdash;Cousin Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not your cousin, either&mdash;at least not more than a nineteenth
+      cousin. And if you begin calling me 'Hosy' I shall&mdash;I don't know what
+      I shall do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear me, how particular you are! Well then, au revoir&mdash;Kent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When Hephzy came to the study I was still seated in the rector's chair.
+      She was brimful full of curiosity, I know, and ready to ask a dozen
+      questions at once. But I headed off the first of the dozen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; I observed, &ldquo;I have made no less than fifty solemn resolutions
+      since we met that girl&mdash;that Little Frank of yours. You've heard me
+      make them, haven't you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, yes, I suppose I have. If you mean resolutions to tell her the truth
+      about her father and put an end to the scrape we're in, I have, certain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; well, I've made another one now. Never, no matter what happens, will
+      I attempt to tell her a word concerning Strickland Morley or her
+      'inheritance' or anything else. Every time I've tried I've made a blessed
+      idiot of myself and now I'm through. She can stay with us forever and run
+      us into debt to her heart's desire&mdash;I don't care. If she ever learns
+      the truth she sha'n't learn it from me. I'm incapable of telling it. I
+      haven't the sand of a yellow dog and I'm not going to worry about it. I'm
+      through, do you hear&mdash;through.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was my newest resolution. It was a comfort to realize that THIS
+      resolution I should probably stick to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which Complications Become More Complicated
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      And stick to it I did. From that day&mdash;the day of our drive to Wrayton&mdash;on
+      through those wonderful summer days in which she and Hephzy and I were
+      together at the rectory, not once did I attempt to remonstrate with my
+      &ldquo;niece&rdquo; concerning her presumption in inflicting her presence upon us or
+      in spending her money, as she thought it&mdash;our money as I knew it to
+      be&mdash;as she saw fit. Having learned and relearned my lesson&mdash;namely,
+      that I lacked the courage to tell her the truth I had so often declared
+      must be told, having shifted the responsibility to Hephzy's shoulders,
+      having admitted and proclaimed myself, in that respect at least, a yellow
+      dog, I proceeded to take life as I found it, as yellow dogs are supposed
+      to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And, having thus weakly rid myself of care and responsibility, I began to
+      enjoy that life. To enjoy the freedom of it, and the novelty of the
+      surroundings, and the friendship of the good people who were our
+      neighbors. Yes, and to enjoy the home life, the afternoons on the tennis
+      court or the golf course, the evenings in the drawing-room, the &ldquo;teas&rdquo; on
+      the lawn&mdash;either our lawn or someone else's&mdash;the chats together
+      across the dinner-table; to enjoy it all; and, more astonishing still, to
+      accept the companionship of the young person who was responsible for our
+      living in that way as a regular and understood part of that life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not that I understood the young person herself; no Bayport quahaug, who
+      had shunned female companionship as I had for so long, could be expected
+      to understand the whims and changing moods of a girl like Frances Morley.
+      At times she charmed and attracted me, at others she tormented and
+      irritated me. She argued with me one moment and disagreed the next. She
+      laughed at Hephzy's and my American accent and idioms, but when Bayliss,
+      Junior, or one of the curates ventured to criticize an &ldquo;Americanism&rdquo; she
+      was quite as likely to declare that she thought it &ldquo;jolly&rdquo; and &ldquo;so
+      expressive.&rdquo; Against my will I was obliged to join in conversations, to
+      take sides in arguments, to be present when callers came, to make calls.
+      I, who had avoided the society of young people because, being no longer
+      young, I felt out of place among them, was now dragged into such society
+      every day and almost every evening. I did not want to be, but Little Frank
+      seemed to find mischievous pleasure in keeping me there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is good for you,&rdquo; she said, on one occasion, when I had sneaked off to
+      my room and the company of the &ldquo;British Poets.&rdquo; &ldquo;Auntie says you started
+      on your travels in order to find something new to write about. You'll
+      never find it in those musty books; every poem in them is at least seventy
+      years old. If you are going to write of England and my people you must
+      know something about those that are alive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, my dear young lady,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;I have no intention of writing of your
+      people, as you call them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You write of knights and lords and ladies and queens. You do&mdash;or you
+      did&mdash;and you certainly know nothing about THEM.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was quite a bit ruffled. &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;You are quite sure of that,
+      are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am,&rdquo; decidedly. &ldquo;I have read 'The Queen's Amulet' and no queen on earth&mdash;in
+      England, surely&mdash;ever acted or spoke like that one. An American queen
+      might, if there was such a thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She laughed and, provoked as I was, I could not help laughing with her.
+      She had a most infectious laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear young lady&mdash;&rdquo; I began again, but she interrupted me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't call me that,&rdquo; she protested. &ldquo;You're not the Archbishop of
+      Canterbury visiting a girl's school and making a speech. You asked me not
+      to call you 'Uncle Hosea.' If you say 'dear young lady' to me again I
+      shall address you publicly as 'dear old Nunky.' Don't be silly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed again. &ldquo;But you ARE young,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what of it. Perhaps neither of us likes to be reminded of our age.
+      I'm sure you don't; I never saw anyone more sensitive on the subject.
+      There! there! put away those silly old books and come down to the
+      drawing-room. I'm going to sing. Mr. Worcester has brought in a lot of new
+      music.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Reluctantly I closed the volume I had in my hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;I'll come if you wish. But I shall only be in the
+      way, as I always am. Mr. Worcester didn't plead for my company, did he? Do
+      you know I think he will bear up manfully if I don't appear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She regarded me with disapproval.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't be childish in your old age,&rdquo; she snapped, &ldquo;Are you coming?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I went, of course, and&mdash;it may have been by way of reward&mdash;she
+      sang several old-fashioned, simple ballads which I had found in a
+      dog's-eared portfolio in the music cabinet and which I liked because my
+      mother used to sing them when I was a little chap. I had asked for them
+      before and she had ignored the request.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This time she sang them and Hephzy, sitting beside me in the darkest
+      corner reached over and laid a hand on mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her mother all over again,&rdquo; she whispered. &ldquo;Ardelia used to sing those.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Next day, on the tennis court, she played with Herbert Bayliss against
+      Worcester and me, and seemed to enjoy beating us six to one. The only
+      regret she expressed was that she and her partner had not made it a &ldquo;love
+      set.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Altogether she was a decidedly vitalizing influence, an influence that
+      was, I began to admit to myself, a good one for me. I needed to be kept
+      alive and active, and here, in this wide-awake household, I couldn't be
+      anything else. The future did not look as dull and hopeless as it had when
+      I left Bayport. I even began to consider the possibilities of another
+      novel, to hope that I might write one. Jim Campbell's &ldquo;prescription,&rdquo;
+       although working in quite a different way from that which he and I had
+      planned, was working nevertheless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Matthews, at the Camford Street office, was forwarding my letters and
+      honoring my drafts with promptness. I received a note each week from
+      Campbell. I had written him all particulars concerning Little Frank and
+      our move to the rectory, and he professed to see in it only a huge joke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell your Miss Cahoon,&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;that I am going to turn Spiritualist
+      right away. I believe in dreams now, and presentiments and all sorts of
+      things. I am trying to dream out a plot for a novel by you. Had a
+      roof-garden supper the other night and that gave me a fine start, but I'll
+      have to tackle another one before I get sufficient thrills to furnish
+      forth one of your gems. Seriously though, old man, this whole thing will
+      do you a world of good. Nothing short of an earthquake would have shaken
+      you out of your Cape Cod dumps and it looks to me as if you and&mdash;what's
+      her name&mdash;Hephzibah, had had the quake. What are you going to do with
+      the Little Frank person in the end? Can't you marry her off to a wealthy
+      Englishman? Or, if not that, why not marry her yourself? She'd turn a dead
+      quahaug into a live lobster, I should imagine, if anyone could. Great
+      idea! What?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His &ldquo;great idea&rdquo; was received with the contempt it deserved. I tore up the
+      letter and threw it into the waste basket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Hephzy herself spoke of matrimony and Little Frank soon after this. We
+      were alone together; Frances had gone on a horseback ride with Herbert
+      Bayliss and a female cousin who was spending the day at &ldquo;Jasmine Gables.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy,&rdquo; said Hephzy, &ldquo;do you realize the summer is half over? It's the
+      middle of July now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So it was, although it seemed scarcely possible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she went on. &ldquo;Our lease of this place is up the first of October.
+      We shall be startin' for home then, I presume likely, sha'n't we.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose so. We can't stay over here indefinitely. Life isn't all
+      skittles and&mdash;and tea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's so. I don't know what skittles are, but I know what tea is. Land
+      sakes! I should say I did. They tell me the English national flower is a
+      rose. It ought to be a tea-plant blossom, if there is such a thing. Hosy,&rdquo;
+       with a sudden return to seriousness, &ldquo;what are we goin' to do with&mdash;with
+      HER when the time comes for us to go?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; I answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you going to take her to America with us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! Well, we'll have to know then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose we shall; but,&rdquo; defiantly, &ldquo;I'm not going to worry about it
+      till the time comes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! Well, you've changed, that's all I've got to say. 'Twan't so long
+      ago that you did nothin' BUT worry. I never saw anybody change the way you
+      have anyway.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In what way?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In every way. You aren't like the same person you used to be. Why,
+      through that last year of ours in Bayport I used to think sometimes you
+      were older than I was&mdash;older in the way you thought and acted, I
+      mean. Now you act as if you were twenty-one. Cavortin' around, playin'
+      tennis and golf and everything! What has got into you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know. Jim Campbell's prescription is taking effect, I guess. He
+      said the change of air and environment would do me good. I tell you,
+      Hephzy, I have made up my mind to enjoy life while I can. I realize as
+      well as you do that the trouble is bound to come, but I'm not going to let
+      it trouble me beforehand. And I advise you to do the same.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I've been tryin' to, but sometimes I can't help wonderin' and
+      dreadin'. Perhaps I'm havin' my dread for nothin'. It may be that, by the
+      time we're ready to start for Bayport, Little Frank will be provided for.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Provided for? What do you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean provided for by somebody else. There's at least two candidates for
+      the job: Don't you think so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean Mr. Worcester and Herbert Bayliss. That Worcester man is a gone
+      case, or I'm no judge. He's keepin' company with Frances, or would, if
+      she'd let him. 'Twould be funny if she married a curate, wouldn't it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not very,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;Married life on a curate's salary is not my idea
+      of humor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose likely that's so. And I can't imagine her a minister's wife,
+      can you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I could not; nor, unless I was greatly mistaken, could the young lady
+      herself. In fact, anything as serious as marriage was far from her
+      thoughts at present, I judged. But Hephzy did not seem so sure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she went on, &ldquo;I don't think the curate's got much chance. But young
+      Doctor Bayliss is different. He's good-lookin' and smart and he's got
+      prospects. I like him first-rate and I think Frances likes him, too. I
+      shouldn't wonder if THAT affair came to somethin'. Wouldn't it be splendid
+      if it did!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I said that it would. And yet, even as I said it, I was conscious of a
+      peculiar feeling of insincerity. I liked young Bayliss. He was all that
+      Hephzy had said, and more. He would, doubtless, make a good husband for
+      any girl. And his engagement to Frances Morley might make easier the
+      explanation which was bound to come. I believed I could tell Herbert
+      Bayliss the truth concerning the ridiculous &ldquo;claim.&rdquo; A man would be
+      susceptible to reason and proof; I could convince him. I should have
+      welcomed the possibility, but, somehow or other, I did not. Somehow or
+      other, the idea of her marrying anyone was repugnant to me. I did not like
+      to think of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh dear!&rdquo; sighed Hephzy; &ldquo;if only things were different. If only she knew
+      all about her father and his rascality and was livin' with us because she
+      wanted to&mdash;if that was the way of it, it would be so different. If
+      you and I had really adopted her! If she only was your niece.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo; I snapped. &ldquo;She isn't my niece.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know it. That's what makes your goodness to her seem so wonderful to
+      me. You treat her as if you cared as much as I do. And of course you
+      don't. It isn't natural you should. She's my sister's child, and she's
+      hardly any relation to you at all. You're awful good, Hosy. She's noticed
+      it, too. I think she likes you now a lot better than she did; she as much
+      as said so. She's beginning to understand you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo; I said again. Understand me! I didn't understand myself.
+      Nevertheless I was foolishly pleased to hear that she liked me. It was
+      pleasant to be liked even by one who was destined to hate me later on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope she won't feel too hard against us,&rdquo; continued Hephzy. &ldquo;I can't
+      bear to think of her doin' that. She&mdash;she seems so near and dear to
+      me now. We&mdash;I shall miss her dreadfully when it's all over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I think she hoped that I might say that I should miss her, also. But I did
+      not say anything of the kind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was resolved not to permit myself to miss her. Hadn't I been scheming
+      and planning to get rid of her ever since she thrust herself upon us? To
+      be sorry when she, at last, was gotten rid of would be too idiotic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; observed Hephzy, in conclusion, &ldquo;perhaps she and Doctor Bayliss
+      will make a match after all. We ought to help it all we can, I suppose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This conversation had various effects upon me. One was to make me
+      unaccountably &ldquo;blue&rdquo; for the rest of that day. Another was that I regarded
+      the visits of Worcester and Herbert Bayliss with a different eye. I
+      speculated foolishly concerning those visits and watched both young
+      gentlemen more closely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not have to watch the curate long. Suddenly he ceased calling at the
+      rectory. Not altogether, of course, but he called only occasionally and
+      his manner toward my &ldquo;niece&rdquo; was oddly formal and constrained. She was
+      very kind to him, kinder than before, I thought, but there was a
+      difference in their manner. Hephzy, of course, had an explanation ready.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's given him his clearance papers,&rdquo; was her way of expressing it.
+      &ldquo;She's told him that it's no use so far as he's concerned. Well, I never
+      did think she cared for him. And that leaves the course clear for the
+      doctor, doesn't it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor took advantage of the clear course. His calls and invitations
+      for rides and tennis and golf were more frequent than ever. She must have
+      understood; but, being a normal young woman, as well as a very, very
+      pretty one, she was a bit of a coquette and kept the boy&mdash;for, after
+      all, he was scarcely more than that&mdash;at arm's length and in a state
+      of alternate hope and despair. I shared his varying moods. If he could not
+      be sure of her feelings toward him, neither could I, and I found myself
+      wondering, wondering constantly. It was foolish for me to wonder, of
+      course. Why should I waste time in speculation on that subject? Why should
+      I care whether she married or not? What difference did it make to me whom
+      she married? I resolved not to think of her at all. And that resolution,
+      like so many I had made, amounted to nothing, for I did think of her
+      constantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then to add a new complication to the already over-complicated
+      situation, came A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances and Herbert Bayliss were scheduled for nine holes of golf on the
+      Manor House course that morning. I had had no intention of playing. My
+      projected novel had reached the stage where, plot building completed, I
+      had really begun the writing. The first chapter was finished and I had
+      intended beginning the second one that day. But, just as I seated myself
+      at the desk in the Reverend Cole's study, the young lady appeared and
+      insisted that the twosome become a threesome, that I leave my &ldquo;stupid old
+      papers and pencils&rdquo; and come for a round on the links. I protested, of
+      course, but she was in one of her wilful moods that morning and declared
+      that she would not play unless I did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will do you good,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You'll write all the better this
+      afternoon. Now, come along.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is Doctor Bayliss as anxious for my company as you seem to be?&rdquo; I asked
+      maliciously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She tossed her head. &ldquo;Of course he is,&rdquo; she retorted. &ldquo;Besides it doesn't
+      make any difference whether he is or not. <i>I</i> want you to play, and
+      that is enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! he may not agree with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then he can play by himself. It will do him good, too. He takes
+      altogether too much for granted. Come! I am waiting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So, after a few more fruitless protests, I reluctantly laid aside the
+      paper and pencils, changed to golfing regalia and, with my bag of clubs on
+      my shoulder, joined the two young people on the lawn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances greeted me very cordially indeed. Her clubs&mdash;I had bought
+      them myself on one of my trips to London: having once yielded, in the
+      matter of the tennis outfit, I now bought various little things which I
+      thought would please her&mdash;were carried by Herbert Bayliss, who, of
+      course, also carried his own. His greeting was not as enthusiastic. He
+      seemed rather glum and out of sorts. Frances addressed most of her
+      conversation to me and I was inclined to think the pair had had some sort
+      of disagreement, what Hephzy would have called a &ldquo;lover's quarrel,&rdquo;
+       perhaps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We walked across the main street of Mayberry, through the lane past the
+      cricket field, on by the path over the pastures, and entered the great
+      gate of the Manor, the gate with the Carey arms emblazoned above it. Then
+      a quarter of a mile over rolling hills, with rare shrubs and flowers
+      everywhere, brought us to the top of the hill at the edge of the little
+      wood which these English people persisted in calling a &ldquo;forest.&rdquo; The first
+      tee was there. You drove&mdash;if you were skillful or lucky&mdash;down
+      the long slope to the green two hundred yards away. If you were neither
+      skillful nor lucky you were quite as likely to drive into the long grass
+      on either side of the fair green. Then you hunted for your ball and,
+      having found it, wasted more or less labor and temper in pounding it out
+      of the &ldquo;rough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the first tee a man arrayed in the perfection of natty golfing togs was
+      practicing his &ldquo;swing.&rdquo; A caddy was carrying his bag. This of itself
+      argued the swinger a person of privilege and consequence, for caddies on
+      those links were strictly forbidden by the Lady of the Manor. Why they
+      were forbidden she alone knew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As we approached the tee the player turned to look at us. He was not a
+      Mayberryite and yet there was something familiar in his appearance. He
+      regarded us for a moment and then, dropping his driver, lounged toward me
+      and extended his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I say!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;It is you, isn't it! How do you do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Mr. Heathcroft!&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;This is a surprise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We shook hands. He, apparently, was not at all surprised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heard about your being here, Knowles,&rdquo; he drawled. &ldquo;My aunt told me; that
+      is, she said there were Americans at the rectory and when she mentioned
+      the name I knew, of course, it must be you. Odd you should have located
+      here, isn't it! Jolly glad to see you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I said I was glad to see him. Then I introduced my companions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bayliss and I have met before,&rdquo; observed Heathcroft. &ldquo;Played a round with
+      him in the tournament last year. How do, Bayliss? Don't think Miss Morley
+      and I have met, though. Great pleasure, really. Are you a resident of
+      Mayberry, Miss Morley?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances said that she was a temporary resident.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! visiting here, I suppose?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Yes, I am visiting. I am living at the rectory, also.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Morley is Mr. Knowles's niece,&rdquo; explained Bayliss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Heathcroft seemed surprised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; he drawled. &ldquo;Didn't know you had a niece, Knowles. She wasn't
+      with you on the ship, now was she.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Morley had been living in England&mdash;here and on the Continent,&rdquo;
+       I answered. I could have kicked Bayliss for his officious explanation of
+      kinship. Now I should have that ridiculous &ldquo;uncle&rdquo; business to contend
+      with, in our acquaintance with Heathcroft as with the Baylisses and the
+      rest. Frances, I am sure, read my thoughts, for the corners of her mouth
+      twitched and she looked away over the course.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Won't you ask Mr. Heathcroft to join our game&mdash;Uncle?&rdquo; she said. She
+      had dropped the hated &ldquo;Hosea,&rdquo; I am happy to say, but in the presence of
+      those outside the family she still addressed me as &ldquo;Uncle.&rdquo; Of course she
+      could not do otherwise without arousing comment, but I did not like it.
+      Uncle! there was a venerable, antique quality in the term which I resented
+      more and more each time I heard it. It emphasized the difference in our
+      ages&mdash;and that difference needed no emphasis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Heathcroft looked pleased at the invitation, but he hesitated in accepting
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I shouldn't do that, really,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;I should be in the way,
+      now shouldn't I.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bayliss, to whom the remark was addressed, made no answer. I judged that
+      he did not care for the honor of the Heathcroft company. But Frances,
+      after a glance in his direction, answered for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, not in the least,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;A foursome is ever so much more
+      sporting than a threesome. Mr. Heathcroft, you and I will play Doctor
+      Bayliss and&mdash;Uncle. Shall we?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Heathcroft declared himself delighted and honored. He looked the former.
+      He had scarcely taken his eyes from Miss Morley since their introduction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That match was hard fought. Our new acquaintance was a fair player and he
+      played to win. Frances was learning to play and had a natural aptitude for
+      the game. I played better than my usual form and I needed to, for Bayliss
+      played wretchedly. He &ldquo;dubbed&rdquo; his approaches and missed easy putts. If he
+      had kept his eye on the ball instead of on his opponents he might have
+      done better, but that he would not do. He watched Heathcroft and Miss
+      Morley continually, and the more he watched the less he seemed to like
+      what he saw.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps he was not altogether to blame, everything considered. Frances was
+      quite aware of the scrutiny and apparently enjoyed his discomfiture. She&mdash;well,
+      perhaps she did not precisely flirt with A. Carleton Heathcroft, but she
+      was very, very agreeable to him and exulted over the winning of each hole
+      without regard to the feelings of the losers. As for Heathcroft, himself,
+      he was quite as agreeable to her, complimented her on her playing,
+      insisted on his caddy's carrying her clubs, assisted her over the rough
+      places on the course, and generally acted the gallant in a most polished
+      manner. Bayliss and I were beaten three down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Heathcroft walked with us as far as the lodge gate. Then he said good-by
+      with evident reluctance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you so much for the game, Miss Morley,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Enjoyed it
+      hugely. You play remarkably well, if you don't mind my saying so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances was pleased. &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;I know it isn't true&mdash;that
+      about my playing&mdash;but it is awfully nice of you to say it. I hope we
+      may play together again. Are you staying here long?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't know, I'm sure. I am visiting my aunt and she will keep me as long
+      as she can. Seems to think I have neglected her of late. Of course we must
+      play again. By the way, Knowles, why don't you run over and meet Lady
+      Carey? She'll be awfully pleased to meet any friends of mine. Bring Miss
+      Morley with you. Perhaps she would care to see the greenhouses. They're
+      quite worth looking over, really. Like to have you, too, Bayliss, of
+      course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bayliss's thanks were not effusive. Frances, however, declared that she
+      should love to see the greenhouses. For my part, common politeness
+      demanded my asking Mr. Heathcroft to call at the rectory. He accepted the
+      invitation at once and heartily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He called the very next day and joined us at tea. The following afternoon
+      we, Hephzy, Frances and I, visited the greenhouses. On this occasion we
+      met, for the first time, the lady of the Manor herself. Lady Kent Carey
+      was a stout, gray-haired person, of very decided manner and a mannish
+      taste in dress. She was gracious and affable, although I suspected that
+      much of her affability toward the American visitors was assumed because
+      she wished to please her nephew. A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire, was
+      plainly her ladyship's pride and pet. She called him &ldquo;Carleton, dear,&rdquo; and
+      &ldquo;Carleton, dear&rdquo; was, in his aunt's estimation, the model of everything
+      desirable in man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The greenhouses were spacious and the display of rare plants and flowers
+      more varied and beautiful than any I had ever seen. We walked through the
+      grounds surrounding the mansion, and viewed with becoming reverence the
+      trees planted by various distinguished personages, His Royal Highness the
+      Prince of Wales, Her late Majesty Queen Victoria, Ex-President Carnot of
+      France, and others. Hephzy whispered to me as we were standing before the
+      Queen Victoria specimen:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't believe Queen Victoria ever planted that in the world, do you,
+      Hosy. She'd look pretty, a fleshy old lady like her, puffin' away diggin'
+      holes with a spade, now would she!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hastily explained the probability that the hole was dug by someone else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess so,&rdquo; she added. &ldquo;And the tree was put in by someone else and the
+      dirt put back by the same one. Queen Victoria planted that tree the way
+      Susanna Wixon said she broke my best platter, by not doin' a single thing
+      to it. I could plant a whole grove that way and not get a bit tired.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Carey bade us farewell at the fish-ponds and asked us to come again.
+      Her nephew, however, accompanied us all the way home&mdash;that is, he
+      accompanied Frances, while Hephzy and I made up the rear guard. The next
+      day he dropped in for some tennis. Herbert Bayliss was there before him,
+      so the tennis was abandoned, and a three-cornered chat on the lawn
+      substituted. Heathcroft treated the young doctor with a polite
+      condescension which would have irritated me exceedingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From then on, during the fortnight which followed, there was a great deal
+      of Heathcroft in the rectory social circle. And when he was not there, it
+      was fairly certain that he and Frances were together somewhere, golfing,
+      walking or riding. Sometimes I accompanied them, sometimes Herbert Bayliss
+      made one of the party. Frances' behavior to the young doctor was
+      tantalizingly contradictory. At times she was very cordial and kind, at
+      others almost cold and repellent. She kept the young fellow in a state of
+      uncertainty most of the time. She treated Heathcroft much the same, but
+      there was this difference between them&mdash;Heathcroft didn't seem to
+      mind; her whims appeared to amuse rather than to annoy him. Bayliss, on
+      the contrary, was either in the seventh heaven of bliss or the subcellar
+      of despair. I sympathized with him, to an extent; the young lady's
+      attitude toward me had an effect which, in my case, was ridiculous. My
+      reason told me that I should not care at all whether she liked me or
+      whether she didn't, whether I pleased or displeased her. But I did care, I
+      couldn't help it, I cared altogether too much. A middle-aged quahaug
+      should be phlegmatic and philosophical; I once had a reputation for both
+      qualities, but I seemed to possess neither now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I found myself speculating and wondering more than ever concerning the
+      outcome of all this. Was there anything serious in the wind at all?
+      Herbert Bayliss was in love with Frances Morley, that was obvious now. But
+      was she in love with him? I doubted it. Did she care in the least for him?
+      I did not know. She seemed to enjoy his society. I did not want her to
+      fall in love with A. Carleton Heathcroft, certainly. Nor, to be perfectly
+      honest, did I wish her to marry Bayliss, although I like him much better
+      than I did Lady Carey's blasé nephew. Somehow, I didn't like the idea of
+      her falling in love with anyone. The present state of affairs in our
+      household was pleasant enough. We three were happy together. Why could not
+      that happiness continue just as it was?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The answer was obvious: It could not continue. Each day that passed
+      brought the inevitable end nearer. My determination to put the thought of
+      that end from my mind and enjoy the present was shaken. In the solitude of
+      the study, in the midst of my writing, after I had gone to my room for the
+      night, I found my thoughts drifting toward the day in October when, our
+      lease of the rectory ended, we must pack up and go somewhere. And when we
+      went, would she go with us? Hardly. She would demand the promised
+      &ldquo;settlement,&rdquo; and then&mdash;What then? Explanations&mdash;quarrels&mdash;parting.
+      A parting for all time. I had reached a point where, like Hephzy, I would
+      have gladly suggested a real &ldquo;adoption,&rdquo; the permanent addition to our
+      family of Strickland Morley's daughter, but she would not consent to that.
+      She was proud&mdash;very proud. And she idolized her father's memory. No,
+      she would not remain under any such conditions&mdash;I knew it. And the
+      certainty of that knowledge brought with it a pang which I could not
+      analyze. A man of my age and temperament should not have such feelings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy did not fancy Heathcroft. She had liked him well enough during our
+      first acquaintance aboard the steamer, but now, when she knew him better,
+      she did not fancy him. His lofty, condescending manner irritated her and,
+      as he seemed to enjoy joking at her expense, the pair had some amusing
+      set-tos. I will say this for Hephzy: In the most of these she gave at
+      least as good as she received.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For example: we were sitting about the tea-table on the lawn, Hephzy,
+      Frances, Doctor and Mrs. Bayliss, their son, and Heathcroft. The
+      conversation had drifted to the subject of eatables, a topic suggested,
+      doubtless, by the plum cake and cookies on the table. Mr. Heathcroft was
+      amusing himself by poking fun at the American custom of serving cereals at
+      breakfast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the variety is amazing,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;Oats and wheat and corn! My
+      word! I felt like some sort of animal&mdash;a horse, by Jove! We feed our
+      horses that sort of thing over here, Miss Cahoon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy sniffed. &ldquo;So do we,&rdquo; she admitted, &ldquo;but we eat 'em ourselves,
+      sometimes, when they're cooked as they ought to be. I think some breakfast
+      foods are fine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you indeed? What an extraordinary taste! Do you eat hay as well, may I
+      ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, of course we don't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not? Why draw the line? I should think a bit of hay might be the&mdash;ah&mdash;the
+      crowning tit-bit to a breakfasting American. Your horses and donkeys enjoy
+      it quite as much as they do oats, don't they?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't know, I'm sure. I'm neither a horse nor a donkey, I hope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Oh, yes. But I assure you, Miss Morley, I had extraordinary
+      experiences on the other side. I visited in a place called Milwaukee and
+      my host there insisted on my trying a new cereal each morning. We did the
+      oats and the corn and all the rest and, upon my word, I expected the hay.
+      It was the only donkey food he didn't have in the house, and I don't see
+      why he hadn't provided a supply of that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps he didn't know you were comin',&rdquo; observed Hephzy, cheerfully.
+      &ldquo;Won't you have another cup, Mrs. Bayliss? Or a cooky or somethin'?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor's wife consented to the refilling of her cup.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose&mdash;what do you call them?&mdash;cereals, are an American
+      custom,&rdquo; she said, evidently aware that her hostess's feelings were
+      ruffled. &ldquo;Every country has its customs, so travelers say. Even our own
+      has some, doubtless, though I can't recall any at the moment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Heathcroft stroked his mustache.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; he drawled, &ldquo;we have some, possibly; but our breakfasts are not as
+      queer as the American breakfasts. You mustn't mind my fun, Miss Cahoon, I
+      hope you're not offended.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a bit,&rdquo; was the calm reply. &ldquo;We humans ARE animals, after all, I
+      suppose, and some like one kind of food and some another. Donkeys like hay
+      and pigs like sweets, and I don't know as I hadn't just as soon live in a
+      stable as a sty. Do help yourself to the cake, Mr. Heathcroft.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      No, our aristocratic acquaintance did not, as a general rule, come out
+      ahead in these little encounters and I more than once was obliged to
+      suppress a chuckle at my plucky relative's spirited retorts. Frances, too,
+      seemed to appreciate and enjoy the Yankee victories. Her prejudice against
+      America had, so far as outward expression went, almost disappeared. She
+      was more likely to champion than criticize our ways and habits now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, in spite of all this, she seemed to enjoy the Heathcroft society. The
+      two were together a great deal. The village people noticed the intimacy
+      and comments reached my ears which were not intended for them. Hephzy and
+      I had some discussions on the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't suppose he means anything serious, do you, Hosy?&rdquo; she asked.
+      &ldquo;Or that she thinks he does?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; I answered. I didn't like the idea any better than she
+      did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope not. Of course he's a big man around here. When his aunt dies
+      he'll come in for the estate and the money, so everybody says. And if
+      Frances should marry him she'd be&mdash;I don't know whether she'd be a
+      'Lady' or not, but she'd have an awful high place in society.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose she would. But I hope she won't do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So do I, for poor young Doctor Bayliss's sake, if nothin' else. He's so
+      good and so patient with it all. And he's just eaten up with jealousy;
+      anybody can see that. I'm scared to death that he and this Heathcroft man
+      will have some sort of&mdash;of a fight or somethin'. That would be awful,
+      wouldn't it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not answer. My apprehensions were not on Herbert Bayliss's account.
+      He could look out for himself. It was Frances' happiness I was thinking
+      of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy,&rdquo; said Hephzy, very seriously indeed, &ldquo;there's somethin' else. I'm
+      not sure that Mr. Heathcroft is serious at all. Somethin' Mrs. Bayliss
+      said to me makes me feel a little mite anxious. She said Carleton
+      Heathcroft was a great lady's man. She told me some things about him that&mdash;that&mdash;Well,
+      I wish Frances wasn't so friendly with him, that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I shrugged my shoulders, pretending more indifference than I felt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's a sensible girl,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;She doesn't need a guardian.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know, but&mdash;but he's way up in society, Lady Carey's heir and all
+      that. She can't help bein' flattered by his attentions to her. Any girl
+      would be, especially an English girl that thinks as much of class and all
+      that as they do over here and as she does. I wish I knew how she did feel
+      toward him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don't you ask her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy shook her head. &ldquo;I wouldn't dare,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;She'd take my head
+      off. We're on awful thin ice, you and I, with her, as it is. She treats us
+      real nicely now, but that's because we don't interfere. If I should try
+      just once to tell her what she ought to do she'd flare up like a bonfire.
+      And then do the other thing to show her independence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose she would,&rdquo; I admitted, gloomily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know she would. No, we mustn't say anything to her. But&mdash;but you
+      might say somethin' to him, mightn't you. Just hint around and find out
+      what he does mean by bein' with her so much. Couldn't you do that, Hosy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled. &ldquo;Possibly I could, but I sha'n't,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;He would tell me
+      to go to perdition, probably, and I shouldn't blame him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why no, he wouldn't. He thinks you're her uncle, her guardian, you know.
+      You'd have a right to do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not propose to exercise that right, and I said so, emphatically. And
+      yet, before that week was ended, I did do what amounted to that very
+      thing. The reason which led to this rash act on my part was a talk I had
+      with Lady Kent Carey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I met her ladyship on the putting green of the ninth hole of the golf
+      course. I was playing a round alone. She came strolling over the green,
+      dressed as mannishly as usual, but carrying a very feminine parasol, which
+      by comparison with the rest of her get-up, looked as out of place as a
+      silk hat on the head of a girl in a ball dress. She greeted me very
+      affably, waited until I putted out, and then sat beside me on the bench
+      under the big oak and chatted for some time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The subject of her conversation was her nephew. She was, apparently, only
+      too glad to talk about him at any time. He was her dead sister's child and
+      practically the only relative she had. He seemed like a son to her. Such a
+      charming fellow, wasn't he, now? And so considerate and kind to her.
+      Everyone liked him; he was a great favorite.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he is very fond of you, Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;He enjoys your
+      acquaintance so much. He says that there is a freshness and novelty about
+      you Americans which is quite delightfully amusing. This Miss&mdash;ah&mdash;Cahoon&mdash;your
+      cousin, I think she is&mdash;is a constant joy to him. He never tires of
+      repeating her speeches. He does it very well, don't you think. He mimics
+      the American accent wonderfully.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I agreed that the Heathcroft American accent was wonderful indeed. It was
+      all that and more. Lady Carey went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And this Miss Morley, your niece,&rdquo; she said, poking holes in the turf
+      with the tip of her parasol, &ldquo;she is a charming girl, isn't she. She and
+      Carleton are quite friendly, really.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I admitted, &ldquo;they seem to be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Tell me about your niece, Mr. Knowles. Has she lived in England long?
+      Who were her parents?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I dodged the ticklish subject as best I could, told her that Frances'
+      father was an Englishman, her mother an American, and that most of the
+      young lady's life had been spent in France. I feared more searching
+      questions, but she did not ask them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see,&rdquo; she said, nodding, and was silent for a moment. Then she changed
+      the subject, returning once more to her beloved Carleton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's a dear boy,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;I am planning great things for him. Some
+      day he will have the estate here, of course. And I am hoping to get him
+      the seat in Parliament when our party returns to power, as it is sure to
+      do before long. He will marry then; in fact everything is arranged, so far
+      as that goes. Of course there is no actual engagement as yet, but we all
+      understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had been rather bored, now I was interested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;And may I ask who is the fortunate young lady?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A daughter of an old friend of ours in Warwickshire&mdash;a fine family,
+      one of the oldest in England. She and Carleton have always been so fond of
+      each other. Her parents and I have considered the affair settled for
+      years. The young people will be so happy together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here was news. I offered congratulations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you so much,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It is pleasant to know that his future is
+      provided for. Margaret will make him a good wife. She worships him. If
+      anything should happen to&mdash;ah&mdash;disturb the arrangement her heart
+      would break, I am sure. Of course nothing will happen. I should not permit
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I made some comment, I don't remember what. She rose from the bench.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been chatting about family affairs and matchmaking like a
+      garrulous old woman, haven't I,&rdquo; she observed, smiling. &ldquo;So silly of me.
+      You have been charmingly kind to listen, Mr. Knowles. Forgive me, won't
+      you. Carleton dear is my one interest in life and I talk of him on the
+      least excuse, or without any. So sorry to have inflicted my garrulity upon
+      you. I may count upon you entering our invitation golf tournament next
+      month, may I not? Oh, do say yes. Thank you so much. Au revoir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She moved off, as imposing and majestic as a frigate under full sail. I
+      walked slowly toward home, thinking hard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I should have been flattered, perhaps, at her taking me into confidence
+      concerning her nephew's matrimonial projects. If I had believed the
+      &ldquo;garrulity,&rdquo; as she called it, to have been unintentional, I might have
+      been flattered. But I did not so believe. I was pretty certain there was
+      intention in it and that she expected Frances and Hephzy and me to take it
+      as a warning. Carleton dear was, in her eyes, altogether too friendly with
+      the youngest tenant in Mayberry rectory. The &ldquo;garrulity&rdquo; was a notice to
+      keep hands off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was not incensed at her; she amused me, rather. But with Heathcroft I
+      was growing more incensed every moment. Engaged to be married, was he! He
+      and this Warwickshire girl of &ldquo;fine family&rdquo; had been &ldquo;so fond&rdquo; of each
+      other for years. Everything was understood, was it? Then what did he mean
+      by his attentions to Frances, attentions which half of Mayberry was
+      probably discussing at the moment? The more I considered his conduct the
+      angrier I became. It was the worst time possible for a meeting with A.
+      Carleton Heathcroft, and yet meet him I did at the loneliest and most
+      secluded spot in the hedged lane leading to the lodge gate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He greeted me cordially enough, if his languid drawl could be called
+      cordial.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, Knowles,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Been doing the round I see. A bit stupid by
+      oneself, I should think. What? Miss Morley and I have been riding. Had a
+      ripping canter together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was an unfortunate remark, just at that time. It had the effect of
+      spurring my determination to the striking point. I would have it out with
+      him then and there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heathcroft,&rdquo; I said, bluntly, &ldquo;I am not sure that I approve of Miss
+      Morley's riding with you so often.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He regarded me with astonishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't approve!&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;And why not? There's no danger. She
+      rides extremely well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's not a question of danger. It is one of proprieties, if I must put it
+      that way. She is a young woman, hardly more than a girl, and she probably
+      does not realize that being seen in your company so frequently is likely
+      to cause comment and gossip. Her aunt and I realize it, however.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His expression of surprise was changing to one of languid amusement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really!&rdquo; he drawled. &ldquo;By Jove! I say, Knowles, am I such a dangerously
+      fascinating character? You flatter me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know anything concerning your character. I do know that there is
+      gossip. I am not accusing you of anything. I have no doubt you have been
+      merely careless. Your intentions may have been&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He interrupted me. &ldquo;My intentions?&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;My dear fellow, I have
+      no intentions. None whatever concerning your niece, if that is what you
+      mean. She is a jolly pretty girl and jolly good company. I like her and
+      she seems to like me. That is all, upon my word it is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was quite sincere, I was convinced of it. But I had gone too far to
+      back out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you have been thoughtless&mdash;or careless,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;It seems to
+      me that you should have considered her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Considered her! Oh, I say now! Why should I consider her pray?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why shouldn't you? You are much older than she is and a man of the world
+      besides. And you are engaged to be married, or so I am told.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His smile disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now who the devil told you that?&rdquo; he demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was told, by one who should know, that you were engaged, or what
+      amounts to the same thing. It is true, isn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course it's true! But&mdash;but&mdash;why, good God, man! you weren't
+      under the impression that I was planning to marry your niece, were you?
+      Oh, I say! that would be TOO good!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed heartily. He did not appear in the least annoyed or angry, but
+      seemed to consider the whole affair a huge joke. I failed to see the joke,
+      myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no,&rdquo; he went on, before I could reply, &ldquo;not that, I assure you. One
+      can't afford luxuries of that kind, unless one is a luckier beggar than I
+      am. Auntie is attending to all that sort of thing. She has me booked, you
+      know, and I can't afford to play the high-spirited independent with her. I
+      should say not! Rather!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you think I've been a bit too prevalent in your niece's neighborhood,
+      do you?&rdquo; he observed. &ldquo;Sorry. I'd best keep off the lawn a bit, you mean
+      to say, I suppose. Very well! I'll mind the notice boards, of course. Very
+      glad you spoke. Possibly I have been a bit careless. No offence meant,
+      Knowles, and none taken, I trust.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; I said, with some reluctance. &ldquo;I'm glad you understand my&mdash;our
+      position, and take my&mdash;my hint so well. I disliked to give it, but I
+      thought it best that we have a clear understanding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course! Stern uncle and pretty niece, and all that sort of thing. You
+      Americans are queer beggars. You don't strike me as the usual type of
+      stern uncle at all, Knowles. Oh, by the way, does the niece know that
+      uncle is putting up the notice boards?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course she doesn't,&rdquo; I replied, hastily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His smile broadened. &ldquo;I wonder what she'll say when she finds it out,&rdquo; he
+      observed. &ldquo;She has never struck me as being greatly in awe of her
+      relatives. I should call HER independent, if I was asked. Well, farewell.
+      You and I may have some golf together still, I presume? Good! By-by.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He sauntered on, his serene coolness and calm condescension apparently
+      unruffled. I continued on my way also. But my serenity had vanished. I had
+      the feeling that I had come off second-best in the encounter. I had made a
+      fool of myself, I feared. And more than all, I wondered, as he did, what
+      Frances Morley would say when she learned of my interference in her
+      personal affairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I foresaw trouble&mdash;more trouble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which the Truth Is Told at Last
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      I said nothing to Hephzibah or Frances of my talk with Lady Carey or with
+      Heathcroft. I was not proud of my share in the putting up of &ldquo;the notice
+      boards.&rdquo; I did not mention meeting either the titled aunt or the favored
+      nephew. I kept quiet concerning them both and nervously awaited
+      developments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were none immediately. That day and the next passed and nothing of
+      importance happened. It did seem to me, however, that Frances was rather
+      quiet during luncheon on the third day. She said very little and several
+      times I found her regarding me with an odd expression. My guilty
+      conscience smote me and I expected to be asked questions answering which
+      would be difficult. But the questions were not asked&mdash;then. I went to
+      my study and attempted to write; the attempt was a failure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For an hour or so I stared hopelessly at the blank paper. I hadn't an idea
+      in my head, apparently. At last I threw down the pencil and gave up the
+      battle for the day. I was not in a writing mood. I lit my pipe, and,
+      moving to the arm-chair by the window, sat there, looking out at the lawn
+      and flower beds. No one was in sight except Grimmer, the gardener, who was
+      trimming a hedge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I sat there for some time, smoking and thinking. Hephzy dressed in her
+      best, passed the window on her way to the gate. She was going for a call
+      in the village and had asked me to accompany her, but I declined. I did
+      not feel like calling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My pipe, smoked out, I put in my pocket. If I could have gotten rid of my
+      thoughts as easily I should have been happier, but that I could not do.
+      They were strange thoughts, hopeless thoughts, ridiculous, unavailing
+      thoughts. For me, Kent Knowles, quahaug, to permit myself to think in that
+      way was worse than ridiculous; it was pitiful. This was a stern reality,
+      this summer of mine in England, not a chapter in one of my romances. They
+      ended happily; it was easy to make them end in that way. But this&mdash;this
+      was no romance, or, if it was, I was but the comic relief in the story,
+      the queer old bachelor who had made a fool of himself. That was what I
+      was, an old fool. Well, I must stop being a fool before it was too late.
+      No one knew I was such a fool. No one should know&mdash;now or ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And having reached this philosophical conclusion I proceeded to dream of
+      dark eyes looking into mine across a breakfast table&mdash;our table; of a
+      home in Bayport&mdash;our home; of someone always with me, to share my
+      life, my hopes, to spur me on to a work worth while, to glory in my
+      triumphs and comfort me in my reverses; to dream of what might have been
+      if&mdash;if it were not absolutely impossible. Oh, fool, fool, fool!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A quick step sounded on the gravel walk outside the window. I knew the
+      step, should have recognized it anywhere. She was walking rapidly toward
+      the house, her head bent and her eyes fixed upon the path before her.
+      Grimmer touched his hat and said &ldquo;Good afternoon, miss,&rdquo; but she
+      apparently did not hear him. She passed on and I heard her enter the hall.
+      A moment later she knocked at the study door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She entered the room in answer to my invitation and closed the door behind
+      her. She was dressed in her golfing costume, a plain white shirtwaist&mdash;blouse,
+      she would have called it&mdash;a short, dark skirt and stout boots. The
+      light garden hat was set upon her dark hair and her cheeks were flushed
+      from rapid walking. The hat and waist and skirt were extremely becoming.
+      She was pretty&mdash;yes, beautiful&mdash;and young. I was far from
+      beautiful and far from young. I make this obvious statement because it was
+      my thought at the moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not apologize for interrupting me, as she usually did when she
+      entered the study during my supposed working periods. This was strange, of
+      itself, and my sense of guilt caused me to fear all sorts of things. But
+      she smiled and answered my greeting pleasantly enough and, for the moment,
+      I experienced relief. Perhaps, after all, she had not learned of my
+      interview with Heathcroft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have come to talk with you,&rdquo; she began. &ldquo;May I sit down?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly. Of course you may,&rdquo; I answered, smiling as cheerfully as I
+      could. &ldquo;Was it necessary to ask permission?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She took a chair and I seated myself in the one from which I had just
+      risen. For a moment she was silent. I ventured a remark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This begins very solemnly,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Is the talk to be so very serious?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was serious enough and my apprehensions returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;I hope it may not be serious at all, Mr.
+      Knowles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I interrupted. &ldquo;Mr. Knowles!&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;Whew! this IS a formal
+      interview. I thought the 'Mr. Knowles' had been banished along with 'Uncle
+      Hosea'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She smiled slightly then. &ldquo;Perhaps it has,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I am just a little
+      troubled&mdash;or puzzled&mdash;and I have come to you for advice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Advice?&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;I'm afraid my advice isn't worth much. What sort of
+      advice do you want?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wanted to know what I should do in regard to an invitation I have
+      received to motor with Doctor Bayliss&mdash;Doctor Herbert Bayliss. He has
+      asked me to go with him to Edgeboro to-morrow. Should I accept?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hesitated. Then: &ldquo;Alone?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. His cousin, Miss Tomlinson, will go also.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see no reason why you should not, if you wish to go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you. But suppose it was alone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then&mdash;Well, I presume that would be all right, too. You have motored
+      with him before, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As a matter of fact, I couldn't see why she asked my opinion in such a
+      matter. She had never asked it before. Her next remark was more puzzling
+      still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You approve of Doctor Bayliss, don't you,&rdquo; she said. It did seem to me
+      there was a hint of sarcasm in her tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;certainly,&rdquo; I answered. I did approve of young Bayliss,
+      generally speaking; there was no sane reason why I should not have
+      approved of him absolutely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you trust me? You believe me capable of judging what is right or
+      wrong?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you didn't you would not presume to interfere in my personal affairs?
+      You would not think of doing that, of course?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;o,&rdquo; more slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you hesitate? Of course you realize that you have no shadow of
+      right to interfere. You know perfectly well why I consented to remain here
+      for the present and why I have remained?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes, I know that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you wouldn't presume to interfere?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doctor Herbert Bayliss is&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She sprang to her feet. She was not smiling now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop!&rdquo; she interrupted, sharply. &ldquo;Stop! I did not come to discuss Doctor
+      Bayliss. I have asked you a question. I ask you if you would presume to
+      interfere in my personal affairs. Would you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, no. That is, I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You say that to me! YOU!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances, if you mean that I have interfered between you and the Doctor, I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stamped her foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop! Oh, stop!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;You know what I mean. What did you say to
+      Mr. Heathcroft? Do you dare tell me you have not interfered there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It had come, the expected. Her smile and the asking for &ldquo;advice&rdquo; had been
+      apparently but traps to catch me off my guard. I had been prepared for
+      some such scene as this, but, in spite of my preparations, I hesitated and
+      faltered. I must have looked like the meanest of pickpockets caught in the
+      act.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances,&rdquo; I stammered, &ldquo;Frances&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her fury took my breath away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't call me Frances,&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;How dare you call me that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Perturbed as I was I couldn't resist making the obvious retort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You asked me to,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I asked you! Yes, I did. You had been kind to me, or I thought you had,
+      and I&mdash;I was foolish. Oh, how I hate myself for doing it! But I was
+      beginning to think you a gentleman. In spite of everything, I was
+      beginning to&mdash;And now! Oh, at least I thought you wouldn't LIE to
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I rose now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances&mdash;Miss Morley,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;do you realize what you are saying?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Realize it! Oh,&rdquo; with a scornful laugh, &ldquo;I realize it quite well; you may
+      be sure of that. Don't you like the word? What else do you call a denial
+      of what we both know to be the truth. You did see Mr. Heathcroft. You did
+      speak with him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You did! You admit it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I admit it. But did he tell you what I said?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He did not. Mr. Heathcroft IS a gentleman. He told me very little and
+      that only in answer to my questions. I knew you and he met the other day.
+      You did not mention it, but you were seen together, and when he did not
+      come for the ride to which he had invited me I thought it strange. And his
+      note to me was stranger still. I began to suspect then, and when we next
+      met I asked him some questions. He told me next to nothing, but he is
+      honorable and he does not LIE. I learned enough, quite enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I wondered if she had learned of the essential thing, of Heathcroft's
+      engagement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did he tell you why I objected to his intimacy with you?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He told me nothing! Nothing! The very fact that you had objected, as you
+      call it, was sufficient. Object! YOU object to my doing as I please! YOU
+      meddle with my affairs! And humiliate me in the eyes of my friends! I
+      could&mdash;I could die of shame! I... And as if I did not know your
+      reasons. As if they were not perfectly plain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The real reason could not be plain to her. Heathcroft evidently had not
+      told her of the Warwickshire heiress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't understand,&rdquo; I said, trying my hardest to speak calmly. &ldquo;What
+      reasons?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Must I tell you? Did you OBJECT to my friendship with Doctor Bayliss,
+      pray?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doctor Bayliss! Why, Doctor Bayliss is quite different. He is a fine
+      young fellow, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; with scornful sarcasm, &ldquo;so it would appear. You and my aunt and he
+      have the most evident of understandings. You need not praise him for my
+      benefit. It is quite apparent how you both feel toward Doctor Bayliss. I
+      am not blind. I have seen how you have thrown him in my company, and made
+      opportunities for me to meet him. Oh, of course, I can see! I did not
+      believe it at first. It was too absurd, too outrageously impertinent. I
+      COULDN'T believe it. But now I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was a little too much. The idea that I&mdash;<i>I</i> had been
+      playing the matchmaker for Bayliss's benefit made me almost as angry as
+      she was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo; I declared. &ldquo;Miss Morley, this is too ridiculous to go on. I
+      did speak to Mr. Heathcroft. There was a reason, a good reason, for my
+      doing so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not wish to hear your reason, as you call it. The fact that you did
+      speak to him concerning me is enough. Mr. Knowles, this arrangement of
+      ours, my living here with you, has gone on too long. I should have known
+      it was impossible in the beginning. But I did not know. I was alone&mdash;and
+      ill&mdash;and I did need friends&mdash;I was SO alone. I had been through
+      so much. I had struggled and suffered and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again, as in our quarrel at Wrayton, she was on the verge of tears. And
+      again that unreasonable conscience of mine smote me. I longed to&mdash;Well,
+      to prove myself the fool I was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she did not give me the opportunity. Before I could speak or move she
+      was on her way to the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This ends it,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I shall go away from here at once. I shall put
+      the whole matter in my solicitor's hands. This is an end of forbearance
+      and all the rest. I am going. You have made me hate you and despise you. I
+      only hope that&mdash;that some day you will despise yourself as much. But
+      you won't,&rdquo; scornfully. &ldquo;You are not that sort.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The door closed. She was gone. Gone! And soon&mdash;the next day at the
+      latest&mdash;she would have been gone for good. This WAS the end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I walked many miles that day, how many I do not know. Dinner was waiting
+      for me when I returned, but I could not eat. I rose from the table, went
+      to the study and sat there, alone with my misery. I was torn with the
+      wildest longings and desires. One, I think, was to kill Heathcroft
+      forthwith. Another was to kill myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There came another knock at the door. This time I made no answer. I did
+      not want to see anyone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the door opened, nevertheless, and Hephzy came in. She crossed the
+      room and stood by my chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it, Hosy?&rdquo; she said, gently. &ldquo;You must tell me all about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I made some answer, told her to go away and leave me, I think. If that was
+      it she did not heed. She put her hand upon my shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must tell me, Hosy,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;What has happened? You and Frances
+      have had some fallin' out, I know. She wouldn't come to dinner, either,
+      and she won't see me. She's up in her room with the door shut. Tell me,
+      Hosy; you and I have fought each other's battles for a good many years.
+      You can't fight this one alone; I've got to do my share. Tell me, dearie,
+      please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And tell her I did. I did not mean to, and yet somehow the thought that
+      she was there, so strong and quiet and big-hearted and sensible, was, if
+      not a comfort to me, at least a marvelous help. I began by telling her a
+      little and then went on to tell her all, of my talk with Lady Carey, my
+      meeting with Heathcroft, the scene with Frances&mdash;everything, word for
+      word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When it was over she patted my shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You did just right, Hosy,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;There was nothin' else you could
+      do. I never liked that Heathcroft man. And to think of him, engaged to
+      another girl, trottin' around with Frances the way he has. I'D like to
+      talk with him. He'd get a piece of MY mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's all right enough,&rdquo; I admitted grudgingly. &ldquo;He took my warning in a
+      very good sort, I must say. He has never meant anything serious. It was
+      just his way, that's all. He was amusing himself in her company, and
+      doubtless thought she would be flattered with his aristocratic
+      attentions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! Well, I guess she wouldn't be if she'd known of that other girl.
+      You didn't tell her that, you say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I couldn't. I think I should, perhaps, if she would have listened. I'm
+      glad I didn't. It isn't a thing for me to tell her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I understand. But she ought to know it, just the same. And she ought to
+      know how good you've been to her. Nobody could be better. She must know
+      it. Whether she goes or whether she doesn't she must know that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I seized her arm. &ldquo;You mustn't tell her a word,&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;She mustn't
+      know. It is better she should go. Better for her and for me&mdash;My God,
+      yes! so much better for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I could feel the arm on my shoulder start. Hephzy bent down and looked
+      into my face. I tried to avoid the scrutiny, but she looked and looked.
+      Then she drew a long breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;Hosy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't speak to me. Oh, Hephzy,&rdquo; with a bitter laugh, &ldquo;did you ever dream
+      there could be such a hopeless lunatic as I am! You needn't say it. I know
+      the answer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy! Hosy! you poor boy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She kissed me, soothing me as she had when I came home to our empty house
+      at the time of my mother's death. That memory came back to me even then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forgive me, Hephzy,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I am ashamed of myself, of course. And
+      don't worry. Nobody knows this but you and I, and nobody else shall. I'm
+      going to behave and I'm going to be sensible. Just forget all this for my
+      sake. I mean to forget it, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Hephzy shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's all my fault,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I'm to blame more than anybody else. It
+      was me that brought her here in the first place and me that kept you from
+      tellin' her the truth in the beginnin'. So it's me who must tell her now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I don't mean the truth about&mdash;about what you and I have just
+      said, Hosy. She'll never know that, perhaps. Certainly she'll never know
+      it from me. But the rest of it she must know. This has gone far enough.
+      She sha'n't go away from this house misjudgin' you, thinkin' you're a
+      thief, as well as all the rest of it. That she sha'n't do. I shall see to
+      that&mdash;now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy, I forbid you to&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can't forbid me, Hosy. It's my duty, and I've been a silly, wicked
+      old woman and shirked that duty long enough. Now don't worry any more. Go
+      to your room, dearie, and lay down. If you get to sleep so much the
+      better. Though I guess,&rdquo; with a sigh, &ldquo;we sha'n't either of us sleep much
+      this night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Before I could prevent her she had left the room. I sprang after her, to
+      call her back, to order her not to do the thing she had threatened. But,
+      in the drawing-room, Charlotte, the housemaid, met me with an
+      announcement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doctor Bayliss&mdash;Doctor Herbert Bayliss&mdash;is here, sir,&rdquo; she
+      said. &ldquo;He has called to see you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To see me?&rdquo; I repeated, trying hard to recover some measure of composure.
+      &ldquo;To see Miss Frances, you mean.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, sir. He says he wants to see you alone. He's in the hall now, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was; I could hear him. Certainly I never wished to see anyone less, but
+      I could not refuse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ask him to come into the study, Charlotte,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young doctor found me sitting in the chair by the desk. The long
+      English twilight was almost over and the room was in deep shadow.
+      Charlotte entered and lighted the lamp. I was strongly tempted to order
+      her to desist, but I could scarcely ask my visitor to sit in the dark,
+      however much I might prefer to do so. I compromised by moving to a seat
+      farther from the lamp where my face would be less plainly visible. Then,
+      Bayliss having, on my invitation, also taken a chair, I waited for him to
+      state his business.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not easy to state, that was plain. Ordinarily Herbert Bayliss was
+      cool and self-possessed. I had never before seen him as embarrassed as he
+      seemed to be now. He fidgeted on the edge of the chair, crossed and
+      recrossed his legs, and, finally, offered the original remark that it had
+      been an extremely pleasant day. I admitted the fact and again there was an
+      interval of silence. I should have helped him, I suppose. It was quite
+      apparent that his was no casual call and, under ordinary circumstances, I
+      should have been interested and curious. Now I did not care. If he would
+      say his say and go away and leave me I should be grateful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And, at last, he said it. His next speech was very much nearer the point.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I have called to&mdash;to see you concerning your
+      niece, Miss Morley. I&mdash;I have come to ask your consent to my asking
+      her to marry me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was not greatly surprised. I had vaguely suspected his purpose when he
+      entered the room. I had long foreseen the likelihood of some such
+      interview as this, had considered what I should say when the time came.
+      But now it had come, I could say nothing. I sat in silence, looking at
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps he thought I did not understand. At any rate he hastened to
+      explain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish your permission to marry your niece,&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;I have no
+      doubt you are surprised. Perhaps you fancy I am a bit hasty. I suppose you
+      do. But I&mdash;I care a great deal for her, Mr. Knowles. I will try to
+      make her a good husband. Not that I am good enough for her, of course&mdash;no
+      one could be that, you know; but I'll try and&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was very red in the face and floundered, amid his jerky sentences, like
+      a newly-landed fish, but he stuck to it manfully. I could not help
+      admiring the young fellow. He was so young and handsome and so honest and
+      boyishly eager in his embarrassment. I admired him&mdash;yes, but I hated
+      him, too, hated him for his youth and all that it meant, I was jealous&mdash;bitterly,
+      wickedly jealous, and of all jealousy, hopeless, unreasonable jealousy is
+      the worst, I imagine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He went on to speak of his ambitions and prospects. He did not intend to
+      remain always in Mayberry as his father's assistant, not he. He should
+      remain for a time, of course, but then he intended to go back to London.
+      There were opportunities there. A fellow with the right stuff in him could
+      get on there. He had friends in the London hospitals and they had promised
+      to put chances his way. He should not presume to marry Frances at once, of
+      course. He would not be such a selfish goat as that. All he asked was
+      that, my permission granted, she would be patient and wait a bit until he
+      got on his feet, professionally he meant to say, and then&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I interrupted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One moment,&rdquo; said I, trying to appear calm and succeeding remarkably
+      well, considering the turmoil in my brain; &ldquo;just a moment, Bayliss, if you
+      please. Have you spoken to Miss Morley yet? Do you know her feelings
+      toward you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      No, he had not. Of course he wouldn't do that until he and I had had our
+      understanding. He had tried to be honorable and all that. But&mdash;but he
+      thought she did not object to him. She&mdash;well, she had seemed to like
+      him well enough. There had been times when he thought she&mdash;she&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you see, sir,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;she's a girl, of course, and a fellow
+      never knows just what a girl is going to say or do. There are times when
+      one is sure everything is quite right and then that it is all wrong. But I
+      have hoped&mdash;I believe&mdash;She's such a ripping girl, you know. She
+      would not flirt with a chap and&mdash;I don't mean flirt exactly, she
+      isn't a flirt, of course&mdash;but&mdash;don't you think she likes me,
+      now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no reason to suppose she doesn't,&rdquo; I answered grudgingly. After
+      all, he was acting very honorably; I could scarcely do less.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He seemed to find much comfort in my equivocal reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thanks, thanks awfully,&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;I&mdash;I&mdash;by Jove, you
+      know, I can't tell you how I like to hear you say that! I'm awfully
+      grateful to you, Knowles, I am really. And you'll give me permission to
+      speak to her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled; it was not a happy smile, but there was a certain ironic humor
+      in the situation. The idea of anyone's seeking my &ldquo;permission&rdquo; in any
+      matter concerning Frances Morley. He noticed the smile and was, I think,
+      inclined to be offended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it a joke?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;I say, now! it isn't a joke to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nor to me, I assure you,&rdquo; I answered, seriously. &ldquo;If I gave that
+      impression it was a mistaken one. I never felt less like joking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He put his own interpretation on the last sentence. &ldquo;I'm sorry,&rdquo; he said,
+      quickly. &ldquo;I beg your pardon. I understand, of course. You're very fond of
+      her; no one could help being that, could they. And she is your niece.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hesitated. I was minded to blurt out the fact that she was not my niece
+      at all; that I had no authority over her in any way. But what would be the
+      use? It would lead only to explanations and I did not wish to make
+      explanations. I wanted to get through with the whole inane business and be
+      left alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you haven't said yes, have you,&rdquo; he urged. &ldquo;You will say it, won't
+      you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I nodded. &ldquo;You have my permission, so far as that goes,&rdquo; I answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sprang to his feet and seized my hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's topping!&rdquo; he cried, his face radiant. &ldquo;I can't thank you enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's all right. But there is one thing more. Perhaps it isn't my
+      affair, and you needn't answer unless you wish. Have you consulted your
+      parents? How do they feel about your&mdash;your intentions?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His expression changed. My question was answered before he spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he admitted, &ldquo;I haven't told them yet. I&mdash;Well, you see, the
+      Mater and Father have been making plans about my future, naturally. They
+      have some silly ideas about a friend of the family that&mdash;Oh, she's a
+      nice enough girl; I like her jolly well, but she isn't Miss Morley. Well,
+      hardly! They'll take it quite well. By Jove!&rdquo; excitedly, &ldquo;they must.
+      They've GOT to. Oh, they will. And they're very fond of&mdash;of Frances.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There seemed nothing more for me to say, nothing at that time, at any
+      rate. I, too, rose. He shook my hand again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've been a trump to me, Knowles,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;I appreciate it, you
+      know; I do indeed. I'm jolly grateful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You needn't be. It is all right. I&mdash;I suppose I should wish you luck
+      and happiness. I do. Yes, why shouldn't you be happy, even if&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even if&mdash;what? Oh, but you don't think she will turn me off, do you?
+      You don't think that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've told you that I see no reason why she should.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you. Thank you so much. Is there anything else that you might wish
+      to say to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not now. Perhaps some day I&mdash;But not now. No, there's nothing else.
+      Good night, Bayliss; good night and&mdash;and good luck.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good night. I&mdash;She's not in now, I suppose, is she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is in, but&mdash;Well, I scarcely think you had better see her
+      to-night. She has gone to her room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I say! it's very early. She's not ill, is she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, but I think you had best not see her to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was disappointed, that was plain, but he yielded. He would have agreed,
+      doubtless, with any opinion of mine just then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No doubt you're right,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Good night. And thank you again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He left the room. I did not accompany him to the door. Instead I returned
+      to my chair. I did not occupy it long, I could not. I could not sit still.
+      I rose and went out on the lawn. There, in the night mist, I paced up and
+      down, up and down. I had longed to be alone; now that I was alone I was
+      more miserable than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charlotte, the maid, called to me from the doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you wish the light in the study any longer, sir?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said I, curtly. &ldquo;You may put it out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And shall I lock up, sir; all but this door, I mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Where is Miss Cahoon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's above, sir. With Miss Morley, I think, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well, Charlotte. That is all. Good night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good night, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She went into the house. The lamp in the study was extinguished. I
+      continued my pacing up and down. Occasionally I glanced at the upper story
+      of the rectory. There was a lighted window there, the window of Frances'
+      room. She and Hephzy were together in that room. What was going on there?
+      What had Hephzy said to her? What&mdash;Oh, WHAT would happen next?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some time later&mdash;I don't know how much later it may have been&mdash;I
+      heard someone calling me again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy!&rdquo; called Hephzy in a loud whisper; &ldquo;Hosy, where are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here I am,&rdquo; I answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She came to me across the lawn. I could not, of course, see her face, but
+      her tone was very anxious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy,&rdquo; she whispered, putting her hand on my arm, &ldquo;what are you doin' out
+      here all alone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed. &ldquo;I'm taking the air,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;It is good for me. I am
+      enjoying the glorious English air old Doctor Bayliss is always talking
+      about. Fresh air and exercise&mdash;those will cure anything, so he says.
+      Perhaps they will cure me. God knows I need curing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sshh! shh, Hosy! Don't talk that way. I don't like to hear you. Out here
+      bareheaded and in all this damp! You'll get your death.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will I? Well, that will be a complete cure, then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! I tell you. Come in the house with me. I want to talk to you.
+      Come!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Still holding my arm she led me toward the house. I hung back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have been up there with her?&rdquo; I said, with a nod toward the lighted
+      window of the room above. &ldquo;What has happened? What have you said and
+      done?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! I'll tell you; I'll tell you all about it. Only come in now. I
+      sha'n't feel safe until I get you inside. Oh, Hosy, DON'T act this way! Do
+      you want to frighten me to death?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That appeal had an effect. I was ashamed of myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forgive me, Hephzy,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I'll try to be decent. You needn't worry
+      about me. I'm a fool, of course, but now that I realize it I shall try to
+      stop behaving like one. Come along; I'm ready.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the drawing-room she closed the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I light the lamp?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. Oh, for heaven's sake, can't you see that I'm crazy to know what you
+      said to that girl and what she said to you? Tell me, and hurry up, will
+      you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not resent my sudden burst of temper and impatience. Instead she
+      put her arm about me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sit down, Hosy,&rdquo; she pleaded. &ldquo;Sit down and I'll tell you all about it.
+      Do sit down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I refused to sit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me now,&rdquo; I commanded. &ldquo;What did you say to her? You didn't&mdash;you
+      didn't&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did. I told her everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;EVERYTHING! You don't mean&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean everything. 'Twas time she knew it. I went to that room meanin' to
+      tell her and I did. At first she didn't want to listen, didn't want to see
+      me at all or even let me in. But I made her let me in and then she and I
+      had it out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't say it that way, Hosy. The good Lord knows I hate myself for doin'
+      it, hated myself while I was doin' it, but it had to be done. Every word I
+      spoke cut me as bad as it must have cut her. I kept thinkin', 'This is
+      Little Frank I'm talkin' to. This is Ardelia's daughter I'm makin'
+      miserable.' A dozen times I stopped and thought I couldn't go on, but
+      every time I thought of you and what you'd put up with and been through,
+      and I went on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy! you told her&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I said it was time she understood just the plain truth about her father
+      and mother and grandfather and the money, and everything. She must know
+      it, I said; things couldn't go on as they have been. I told it all. At
+      first she wouldn't listen, said I was&mdash;well, everything that was mean
+      and lyin' and bad. If she could she'd have put me out of her room, I
+      presume likely, but I wouldn't go. And, of course, at first she wouldn't
+      believe, but I made her believe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Made her believe! Made her believe her father was a thief! How could you
+      do that! No one could.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did it. I don't know how exactly. I just went on tellin' it all
+      straight from the beginnin', and pretty soon I could see she was
+      commencin' to believe. And she believes now, Hosy; she does, I know it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did she say so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, she didn't say anything, scarcely&mdash;not at the last. She didn't
+      cry, either; I almost wish she had. Oh, Hosy, don't ask me any more
+      questions than you have to. I can't bear to answer 'em.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She paused and turned away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How she must hate us!&rdquo; I said, after a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, no&mdash;why, no, Hosy, I don't think she does; at least I'm tryin'
+      to hope she doesn't. I softened it all I could. I told her why we took her
+      with us in the first place; how we couldn't tell her the truth at first,
+      or leave her, either, when she was so sick and alone. I told her why we
+      brought her here, hopin' it would make her well and strong, and how, after
+      she got that way, we put off tellin' her because it was such a dreadful
+      hard thing to do. Hard! When I think of her sittin' there, white as a
+      sheet, and lookin' at me with those big eyes of hers, her fingers twistin'
+      and untwistin' in her lap&mdash;a way her mother used to have when she was
+      troubled&mdash;and every word I spoke soundin' so cruel and&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She paused once more. I did not speak. Soon she recovered and went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told her that I was tellin' her these things now because the
+      misunderstandin's and all the rest had to stop and there was no use
+      puttin' off any longer. I told her I loved her as if she was my very own
+      and that this needn't make the least bit of difference unless she wanted
+      it to. I said you felt just the same. I told her your speakin' to that
+      Heathcroft man was only for her good and for no other reason. You'd
+      learned that he was engaged to be married&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You told her that?&rdquo; I interrupted, involuntarily. &ldquo;What did she say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothin', nothin' at all. I think she heard me and understood, but she
+      didn't say anything. Just sat there, white and trembling and crushed, sort
+      of, and looked and looked at me. I wanted to put my arms around her and
+      ask her pardon and beg her to love me as I did her, but I didn't dare&mdash;I
+      didn't dare. I did say that you and I would be only too glad to have her
+      stay with us always, as one of the family, you know. If she'd only forget
+      all the bad part that had gone and do that, I said&mdash;but she
+      interrupted me. She said 'Forget!' and the way she said it made me sure
+      she never would forget. And then&mdash;and then she asked me if I would
+      please go away and leave her. Would I PLEASE not say any more now, but
+      just leave her, only leave her alone. So I came away and&mdash;and that's
+      all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's all,&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;It is enough, I should say. Oh, Hephzy, why did
+      you do it? Why couldn't it have gone on as it has been going? Why did you
+      do it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was an unthinking, wicked speech. But Hephzy did not resent it. Her
+      reply was as patient and kind as if she had been answering a child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had to do it, Hosy,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;After our talk this evenin' there was
+      only one thing to do. It had to be done&mdash;for your sake, if nothin'
+      else&mdash;and so I did it. But&mdash;but&mdash;&rdquo; with a choking sob, &ldquo;it
+      was SO hard to do! My Ardelia's baby!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And at last, I am glad to say, I began to realize how very hard it had
+      been for her. To understand what she had gone through for my sake and what
+      a selfish brute I had been. I put my hands on her shoulders and kissed her
+      almost reverently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;you're a saint and a martyr and I am&mdash;what I am.
+      Please forgive me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There isn't anything to forgive, Hosy. And,&rdquo; with a shake of the head,
+      &ldquo;I'm an awful poor kind of saint, I guess. They'd never put my image up in
+      the churches over here&mdash;not if they knew how I felt this minute. And
+      a saint from Cape Cod wouldn't be very welcome anyway, I'm afraid. I meant
+      well, but that's a poor sort of recommendation. Oh, Hosy, you DO think I
+      did for the best, don't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You did the only thing to be done,&rdquo; I answered, with decision. &ldquo;You did
+      what I lacked the courage to do. Of course it was best.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're awful good to say so, but I don't know. What'll come of it
+      goodness knows. When I think of you and&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't think of me. I'm going to be a man if I can&mdash;a quahaug, if I
+      can't. At least I'm not going to be what I have been for the last month.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know. But when I think of to-morrow and what she'll say to me, then, I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mustn't think. You must go to bed and so must I. To-morrow will take
+      care of itself. Come. Let's both sleep and forget it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Which was the very best of advice, but, like much good advice, impossible
+      to follow. I did not sleep at all that night, nor did I forget. God help
+      me! I was realizing that I never could forget.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At six o'clock I came downstairs, made a pretence at eating some biscuits
+      and cheese which I found on the sideboard, scribbled a brief note to
+      Hephzy stating that I had gone for a walk and should not be back to
+      breakfast, and started out. The walk developed into a long one and I did
+      not return to the rectory until nearly eleven in the forenoon. By that
+      time I was in a better mood, more reconciled to the inevitable&mdash;or I
+      thought I was. I believed I could play the man, could even see her married
+      to Herbert Bayliss and still behave like a man. I vowed and revowed it. No
+      one&mdash;no one but Hephzy and I should ever know what we knew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charlotte, the maid, seemed greatly relieved to see me. She hastened to
+      the drawing-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here he is, Miss Cahoon,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;He's come back, ma'am. He's here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I'm here, Charlotte,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;You didn't suppose I had run
+      away, did you?... Why&mdash;why, Hephzy, what is the matter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For Hephzy was coming to meet me, her hands outstretched and on her face
+      an expression which I did not understand&mdash;sorrow, agitation&mdash;yes,
+      and pity&mdash;were in that expression, or so it seemed to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Hosy!&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;I'm so glad you've come. I wanted you so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wanted me?&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;Why, what do you mean? Has anything happened?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She nodded, solemnly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;somethin' has happened. Somethin' we might have
+      expected, perhaps, but&mdash;but&mdash;Hosy, read that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I took what she handed me. It was a sheet of note paper, folded across,
+      and with Hephzibah's name written upon one side. I recognized the writing
+      and, with a sinking heart, unfolded it. Upon the other side was written in
+      pencil this:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going away. I could not stay, of course. When I think how I have
+      stayed and how I have treated you both, who have been so very, very kind
+      to me, I feel&mdash;I can't tell you how I feel. You must not think me
+      ungrateful. You must not think of me at all. And you must not try to find
+      me, even if you should wish to do such a thing. I have the money which I
+      intended using for my new frocks and I shall use it to pay my expenses and
+      my fare to the place I am going. It is your money, of course, and some day
+      I shall send it to you. And someday, if I can, I shall repay all that you
+      have spent on my account. But you must not follow me and you must not
+      think of asking me to come back. That I shall never do. I do thank you for
+      all that you have done for me, both of you. I cannot understand why you
+      did it, but I shall always remember. Don't worry about me. I know what I
+      am going to do and I shall not starve or be in want. Good-by. Please try
+      to forget me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;FRANCES MORLEY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please tell Mr. Knowles that I am sorry for what I said to him this
+      afternoon and so many times before. How he could have been so kind and
+      patient I can't understand. I shall always remember it&mdash;always.
+      Perhaps he may forgive me some day. I shall try and hope that he may.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I read to the end. Then, without speaking, I looked at Hephzy. Her eyes
+      were brimming with tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has gone,&rdquo; she said, in answer to my unspoken question. &ldquo;She must
+      have gone some time in the night. The man at the inn stable drove her to
+      the depot at Haddington on Hill. She took the early train for London. That
+      is all we know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which Hephzy and I Agree to Live for Each Other
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      I shall condense the record of that day as much as possible. I should omit
+      it altogether, if I could. We tried to trace her, of course. That is, I
+      tried and Hephzy did not dissuade me, although she realized, I am sure,
+      the hopelessness of the quest. Frances had left the rectory very early in
+      the morning. The hostler at the inn had been much surprised to find her
+      awaiting him when he came down to the yard at five o'clock. She was
+      obliged to go to London, she said, and must take the very first train:
+      Would he drive her to Haddington on Hill at once? He did so&mdash;probably
+      she had offered him a great deal more than the regular fare&mdash;and she
+      had taken the train.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Questioning the hostler, who was a surly, uncommunicative lout, resulted
+      in my learning very little in addition to this. The young lady seemed
+      about as usual, so far as he could see. She might 'ave been a bit nervous,
+      impatient like, but he attributed that to her anxiety to make the train.
+      Yes, she had a bag with her, but no other luggage. No, she didn't talk on
+      the way to the station: Why should she? He wasn't the man to ask a lady
+      questions about what wasn't his affair. She minded her own business and he
+      minded his. No, he didn't know nothin' more about it. What was I a-pumpin'
+      him for, anyway?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I gave up the &ldquo;pumping&rdquo; and hurried back to the rectory. There Hephzy told
+      me a few additional facts. Frances had taken with her only the barest
+      necessities, for the most part those which she had when she came to us.
+      Her new frocks, those which she had bought with what she considered her
+      money, she had left behind. All the presents which we had given her were
+      in her room, or so we thought at the time. As she came, so she had gone,
+      and the thought that she had gone, that I should never see her again, was
+      driving me insane.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And like an insane man I must have behaved, at first. The things I did and
+      said, and the way in which I treated Hephzy shame me now, as I remember
+      them. I was going to London at once. I would find her and bring her back.
+      I would seek help from the police, I would employ detectives, I would do
+      anything&mdash;everything. She was almost without money; so far as I knew
+      without friends. What would she do? What would become of her? I must find
+      her. I must bring her back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I stormed up and down the room, incoherently declaring my intentions and
+      upbraiding Hephzy for not having sent the groom or the gardener to find
+      me, for allowing all the precious time to elapse. Hephzy offered no
+      excuse. She did not attempt justification. Instead she brought the railway
+      time-table, gave orders that the horse be harnessed, helped me in every
+      way. She would have prepared a meal for me with her own hands, would have
+      fed me like a baby, if I had permitted it. One thing she did insist upon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must rest a few minutes, Hosy,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You must, or you'll be
+      down sick. You haven't slept a wink all night. You haven't eaten anything
+      to speak of since yesterday noon. You can't go this way. You must go to
+      your room and rest a few minutes. Lie down and rest, if you can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rest!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must. The train doesn't leave Haddington for pretty nigh two hours,
+      and we've got lots of time. I'll fetch you up some tea and toast or
+      somethin' by and by and I'll be all ready to start when you are. Now go
+      and lie down, Hosy dear, to please me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I ignored the last sentence. &ldquo;You will be ready?&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;Do you mean
+      you're going with me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I am. It isn't likely I'll let you start off all alone, when
+      you're in a state like this. Of course I'm goin' with you. Now go and lie
+      down. You're so worn out, poor boy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I must have had a glimmer of reason then, a trace of decency and
+      unselfishness. For the first time I thought of her. I remembered that she,
+      too, had loved Little Frank; that she, too, must be suffering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am no more tired than you are,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;You have slept and eaten no
+      more than I. You are the one who must rest. I sha'n't let you go with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It isn't a question of lettin'. I shall go if you do, Hosy. And a woman
+      don't need rest like a man. Please go upstairs and lie down, Hosy. Oh,&rdquo;
+       with a sudden burst of feeling, &ldquo;don't you see I've got about all I can
+      bear as it is? I can't&mdash;I can't have YOU to worry about too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My conscience smote me. &ldquo;I'll go, Hephzy,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I'll do whatever you
+      wish; it is the least I can do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She thanked me. Then she said, hesitatingly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here is&mdash;here is her letter, Hosy. You may like to read it again.
+      Perhaps it may help you to decide what is best to do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She handed me the letter. I took it and went to my room. There I read it
+      again and again. And, as I read, the meaning of Hephzy's last sentence,
+      that the letter might help me to decide what was best to do, began to
+      force itself upon my overwrought brain. I began to understand what she had
+      understood from the first, that my trip to London was hopeless, absolutely
+      useless&mdash;yes, worse than useless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must not try to find me... You must not follow me or think of asking
+      me to come back. That I shall never do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was understanding, at last. I might go to London; I might even, through
+      the help of the police, or by other means, find Frances Morley. But,
+      having found her, what then? What claim had I upon her? What right had I
+      to pursue her and force my presence upon her? I knew the shock she had
+      undergone, the shattering of her belief in her father, the knowledge that
+      she had&mdash;as she must feel&mdash;forced herself upon our kindness and
+      charity. I knew how proud she was and how fiercely she had relented the
+      slightest hint that she was in any way dependent upon us or under the
+      least obligation to us. I knew all this and I was beginning to comprehend
+      what her feelings toward us and toward herself must be&mdash;now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I might find her&mdash;yes; but as for convincing her that she should
+      return to Mayberry, to live with us as she had been doing, that was so
+      clearly impossible as to seem ridiculous even to me. My following her, my
+      hunting her down against her expressed wish, would almost surely make
+      matters worse. She would probably refuse to see me. She would consider my
+      following her a persecution and the result might be to drive her still
+      further away. I must not do it, for her sake I must not. She had gone and,
+      because I loved her, I must not follow her; I must not add to her misery.
+      No, against my will I was forcing myself to realize that my duty was to
+      make no attempt to see her again, but to face the situation as it was, to
+      cover the running away with a lie, to pretend she had gone&mdash;gone
+      somewhere or other with our permission and understanding; to protect her
+      name from scandal and to conceal my own feelings from all the world. That
+      was my duty; that was the situation I must face. But how could I face it!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That hour was the worst I have ever spent and I trust I may never be
+      called upon to face such another. But, at last, I am glad to say, I had
+      made up my mind, and when Hephzy came with the tea and toast I was
+      measurably composed and ready to express my determination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I am not going to London. I have been thinking, and I'm
+      not going.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy put down the tray she was carrying. She did seem surprised, but I
+      am sure she was relieved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're not goin'!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;Why, Hosy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I am not going. I've been crazy, Hephzy, I think, but I am fairly
+      sane now. I have reached the conclusion that you reached sometime ago, I
+      am certain. We have no right to follow her. Our finding her would only
+      make it harder for her and no good could come of it. She went, of her own
+      accord, and we must let her go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let her go? And not try&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. We have no right to try. You know it as well as I do. Now, be honest,
+      won't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy hesitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; she faltered; &ldquo;well, I&mdash;Oh, Hosy, I guess likely you're right.
+      At first I was all for goin' after her right away and bringin' her back by
+      main strength, if I had to. But the more I thought of it the more I&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; I interrupted. &ldquo;It is the only thing we can do. You must have
+      been ashamed of me this morning. Well, I'll try and give you no cause to
+      be ashamed again. That part of our lives is over. Now we'll start afresh.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy, after a long look at my face, covered her own with her hands and
+      began to cry. I stepped to her side, but she recovered almost immediately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There! there!&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;don't mind me, Hosy. I've been holdin' that cry
+      back for a long spell. Now I've had it and it's over and done with. After
+      all, you and I have got each other left and we'll start fresh, just as you
+      say. And the first thing is for you to eat that toast and drink that tea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled, or tried to smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The first thing,&rdquo; I declared, &ldquo;is for us to decide what story we shall
+      tell young Bayliss and the rest of the people to account for her leaving
+      so suddenly. I expect Herbert Bayliss here any moment. He came to see me
+      about&mdash;about her last evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guessed as much,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I knew he came and I guessed what 'twas
+      about. Poor fellow, 'twill be dreadful hard for him, too. He was here this
+      mornin' and I said Frances had been called away sudden and wouldn't be
+      back to-day. And I said you would be away all day, too, Hosy. It was a
+      fib, I guess, but I can't help it if it was. You mustn't see him now and
+      you mustn't talk with me either. You must clear off that tray the first
+      thing. We'll have our talk to-morrow, maybe. We'll&mdash;we'll see the
+      course plainer then, perhaps. Now be a good boy and mind me. You ARE my
+      boy, you know, and always will be, no matter how old and famous you get.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Herbert Bayliss called again that afternoon. I did not see him, but Hephzy
+      did. The young fellow was frightfully disappointed at Frances' sudden
+      departure and asked all sorts of questions as to when she would return,
+      her London address and the like. Hephzy dodged the questions as best she
+      could, but we both foresaw that soon he would have to be told some portion
+      of the truth&mdash;not the whole truth; he need never know that, but
+      something&mdash;and that something would be very hard to tell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The servants, too, must not know or surmise what had happened or the
+      reason for it. Hephzy had already given them some excuse, fabricated on
+      the spur of the moment. They knew Miss Morley had gone away and might not
+      return for some time. But we realized that upon our behavior depended a
+      great deal and so we agreed to appear as much like our ordinary selves as
+      possible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a hard task. I shall never forget those first meals when we two
+      were alone. We did not mention her name, but the shadow was always there&mdash;the
+      vacant place at the table where she used to sit, the roses she had picked
+      the morning before; and, afterward, in the drawing-room, the piano with
+      her music upon the rack&mdash;the hundred and one little reminders that
+      were like so many poisoned needles to aggravate my suffering and to remind
+      me of the torture of the days to come. She had bade me forget her. Forget!
+      I might forget when I was dead, but not before. If I could only die then
+      and there it would seem so easy by comparison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next forenoon Hephzy and I had our talk. We discussed our future.
+      Should we leave the rectory and England and go back to Bayport where we
+      belonged? I was in favor of this, but Hephzy seemed reluctant. She,
+      apparently, had some reason which made her wish to remain for a time, at
+      least. At last the reason was disclosed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I supposed you'll laugh at me when I say it, Hosy,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;or at any
+      rate you'll think I'm awful silly. But I know&mdash;I just KNOW that this
+      isn't the end. We shall see her again, you and I. She'll come to us again
+      or we'll go to her. I know it; somethin' inside me tells me so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ I shook my head.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's true,&rdquo; she went on. &ldquo;You don't believe it, but it's true. It's a
+      presentiment and you haven't believed in my presentiments before, but
+      they've come true. Why, you didn't believe we'd ever find Little Frank at
+      all, but we did. And do you suppose all that has happened so far has been
+      just for nothin'? Indeed and indeed it hasn't. No, this isn't the end;
+      it's only the beginnin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her conviction was so strong that I hadn't the heart to contradict her. I
+      said nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that's why,&rdquo; she went on, &ldquo;I don't like to have us leave here right
+      away. She knows we're here, here in England, and if&mdash;if she ever
+      should be in trouble and need our help she could find us here waitin' to
+      give it. If we was away off on the Cape, way on the other side of the
+      ocean, she couldn't reach us, or not until 'twas too late anyhow. That's
+      why I'd like to stay here a while longer, Hosy. But,&rdquo; she hastened to add,
+      &ldquo;I wouldn't stay a minute if you really wanted to go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was silent for a moment. The temptation was to go, to get as far from
+      the scene of my trouble as I could; but, after all, what did it matter? I
+      could never flee from that trouble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, Hephzy,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I'll stay, if it pleases you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, Hosy. It may be foolish, our stayin', but I don't believe it
+      is. And&mdash;and there's somethin' else. I don't know whether I ought to
+      tell you or not. I don't know whether it will make you feel better or
+      worse. But I've heard you say that she must hate you. She doesn't&mdash;I
+      know she doesn't. I've been lookin' over her things, those she left in her
+      room. Everythin' we've given her or bought for her since she's been here,
+      she left behind&mdash;every single thing except one. That little pin you
+      bought for her in London the last time you was there and gave her to wear
+      at the Samsons' lawn party, I can't find it anywhere. She must have taken
+      it with her. Now why should she take that and leave all the rest?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Probably she forgot it,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! Queer she should forget that and nothin' else. I don't believe she
+      forgot it. <i>I</i> think she took it because you gave it to her and she
+      wanted to keep it to remind her of you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I dismissed the idea as absurd, but I found a ray of comfort in it which I
+      should have been ashamed to confess. The idea that she wished to be
+      reminded of me was foolish, but&mdash;but I was glad she had forgotten to
+      leave the pin. It MIGHT remind her of me, even against her will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A day or two later Herbert Bayliss and I had our delayed interview. He had
+      called several times, but Hephzy had kept him out of my way. This time our
+      meeting was in the main street of Mayberry, when dodging him was an
+      impossibility. He hurried up to me and seized my hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you're back, Knowles,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;When did you return?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For the moment I was at a loss to understand his meaning. I had forgotten
+      Hephzy's &ldquo;fib&rdquo; concerning my going away. Fortunately he did not wait for
+      an answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did Frances&mdash;did Miss Morley return with you?&rdquo; he asked eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His smile vanished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; he said, soberly. &ldquo;She is still in London, then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I presume she is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You presume&mdash;? Why, I say! don't you know?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not sure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He seemed puzzled and troubled, but he was too well bred to ask why I was
+      not sure. Instead he asked when she would return. I announced that I did
+      not know that either.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't know when she is coming back?&rdquo; he repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He regarded me keenly. There was a change in the tone of his next remark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not sure that she is in London and you don't know when she is
+      coming back,&rdquo; he said, slowly. &ldquo;Would you mind telling me why she left
+      Mayberry so suddenly? She had not intended going; at least she did not
+      mention her intention to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She did not mention it to anyone,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;It was a very sudden
+      determination on her part.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He considered this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would seem so,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Knowles, you'll excuse my saying it, but
+      this whole matter seems deucedly odd to me. There is something which I
+      don't understand. You haven't answered my question. Under the
+      circumstances, considering our talk the other evening, I think I have a
+      right to ask it. Why did she leave so suddenly?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hesitated. Mayberry's principal thoroughfare was far from crowded, but
+      it was scarcely the place for an interview like this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She had a reason for leaving,&rdquo; I answered, slowly. &ldquo;I will tell you
+      later, perhaps, what it was. Just now I cannot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You cannot!&rdquo; he repeated. He was evidently struggling with his impatience
+      and growing suspicious. &ldquo;You cannot! But I think I have a right to know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I appreciate your feelings, but I cannot tell you now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because&mdash;Well, because I don't think it would be fair to her. She
+      would not wish me to tell you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She would not wish it? Was it because of me she left?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; not in the least.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was it&mdash;was it because of someone else? By Jove! it wasn't because
+      of that Heathcroft cad? Don't tell me that! My God! she&mdash;she didn't&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I interrupted. His suspicion angered me. I should have understood his
+      feelings, should have realized that he had been and was disappointed and
+      agitated and that my answers to his questions must have aroused all sorts
+      of fears and forebodings in his mind. I should have pitied him, but just
+      then I had little pity for others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She did nothing but what she considered right,&rdquo; I said sharply. &ldquo;Her
+      leaving had nothing to do with Heathcroft or with you. I doubt if she
+      thought of either of you at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a brutal speech, and he took it like a man. I saw him turn pale and
+      bite his lips, but when he next spoke it was in a calmer tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm sorry,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I was a silly ass even to think such a thing. But&mdash;but
+      you see, Knowles, I&mdash;I&mdash;this means so much to me. I'm sorry,
+      though. I ask her pardon and yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was sorry, too. &ldquo;Of course I didn't mean that, exactly,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Her
+      feelings toward you are of the kindest, I have no doubt, but her reason
+      for leaving was a purely personal one. You were not concerned in it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He reflected. He was far from satisfied, naturally, and his next speech
+      showed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is extraordinary, all this,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You are quite sure you don't
+      know when she is coming back?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you mind giving me her London address?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't KNOW it! Oh, I say! that's damned nonsense! You don't know when
+      she is coming back and you don't know her address! Do you mean you don't
+      know where she has gone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&mdash;? Are you trying to tell me she is not coming back at all?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was very pale. He seized my arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is all this?&rdquo; he demanded, fiercely. &ldquo;What has happened? Tell me; I
+      want to know. Where is she? Why did she go? Tell me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can tell you nothing,&rdquo; I said, as calmly as I could. &ldquo;She left us very
+      suddenly and she is not coming back. Her reason for leaving I can't tell
+      you, now. I don't know where she is and I have no right to try and find
+      out. She has asked that no one follow her or interfere with her in any
+      way. I respect her wish and I advise you, if you wish to remain her
+      friend, to do the same, for the present, at least. That is all I can tell
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook my arm savagely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By George!&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;you must tell me. I'll make you! I&mdash;I&mdash;Do
+      you think me a fool? Do you suppose I believe such rot as that? You tell
+      me she has gone&mdash;has left Mayberry&mdash;and you don't know where she
+      has gone and don't intend trying to find out. Why&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, Bayliss! that is enough. This is not the place for us to quarrel.
+      And there is no reason why we should quarrel at all. I have told you all
+      that I can tell you now. Some day I may tell you more, but until then you
+      must be patient, for her sake. Her leaving Mayberry had no connection with
+      you whatever. You must be contented with that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Contented! Why, man, you're mad. She is your niece. You are her guardian
+      and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not her guardian. Neither is she my niece.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had spoken involuntarily. Certainly I had not intended telling him that.
+      The speech had the effect of causing him to drop my arm and step back. He
+      stared at me blankly. No doubt he did think me crazy, then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no authority over her in any way,&rdquo; I went on. &ldquo;She is Miss
+      Cahoon's niece, but we are not her guardians. She has left our home of her
+      own free will and neither I nor you nor anyone else shall follow her if I
+      can help it. I am sorry to have deceived you. The deceit was unavoidable,
+      or seemed to be. I am very, very sorry for you. That is all I can say now.
+      Good morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I left him standing there in the street and walked away. He called after
+      me, but I did not turn back. He would have followed me, of course, but
+      when I did look back I saw that the landlord of the inn was trying to talk
+      with him and was detaining him. I was glad that the landlord had appeared
+      so opportunely. I had said too much already. I had bungled this interview
+      as I had that with Heathcroft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I told Hephzy all about it. She appeared to think that, after all, perhaps
+      it was best.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When you've got a toothache,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you might as well go to the
+      dentist's right off. The old thing will go on growlin' and grumblin' and
+      it's always there to keep you in misery. You'd have had to tell him some
+      time. Well, you've told him now, the worst of it, anyhow. The tooth's out;
+      though,&rdquo; with a one-sided smile, &ldquo;I must say you didn't give the poor chap
+      any ether to help along.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm afraid it isn't out,&rdquo; I said, truthfully. &ldquo;He won't be satisfied with
+      one operation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I'll be on hand to help with the next one. And, between us, I
+      cal'late we can make that final. Poor boy! Well, he's young, that's one
+      comfort. You get over things quicker when you're young.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I nodded. &ldquo;That is true,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;but there is something else, Hephzy.
+      You say I have acted for the best. Have I? I don't know. We know he cares
+      for her, but&mdash;but does she&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does she care for him, you mean? I don't think so, Hosy. For a spell I
+      thought she did, but now I doubt it. I think&mdash;Well, never mind what I
+      think. I think a lot of foolish things. My brain's softenin' up, I
+      shouldn't wonder. It's a longshore brain, anyhow, and it needs the salt to
+      keep it from spoilin'. I wish you and I could go clammin'. When you're
+      diggin' clams you're too full of backache to worry about toothaches&mdash;or
+      heartaches, either.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I expected a visit from young Bayliss that very evening, but he did not
+      come to the rectory. Instead Doctor Bayliss, Senior, came and requested an
+      interview with me. Hephzy announced the visitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He acts pretty solemn, Hosy,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I wouldn't wonder if his son had
+      told him. I guess it's another toothache. Would you like to have me stay
+      and help?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I said I should be glad of her help. So, when the old gentleman was shown
+      into the study, he found her there with me. The doctor was very grave and
+      his usually ruddy, pleasant face was haggard and careworn. He took the
+      chair which I offered him and, without preliminaries, began to speak of
+      the subject which had brought him there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was as Hephzy had surmised. His son had told him everything, of his
+      love for Frances, of his asking my permission to marry her, and of our
+      talk before the inn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sure I don't need to tell you, Knowles,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that all this has
+      shaken the boy's mother and me dreadfully. We knew, of course, that the
+      young people liked each other, were together a great deal, and all that.
+      But we had not dreamed of any serious attachment between them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy put in a word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We don't know as there has been any attachment between them,&rdquo; she said.
+      &ldquo;Your boy cared for her&mdash;we know that&mdash;but whether she cared for
+      him or not we don't know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Our visitor straightened in his chair. The idea that his son could love
+      anyone and not be loved in return was plainly quite inconceivable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think we may take that for granted, madame,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The news was, as
+      I say, a great shock to my wife and myself. Herbert is our only child and
+      we had, naturally, planned somewhat concerning his future. The&mdash;the
+      overthrow of our plans was and is a great grief and disappointment to us.
+      Not, please understand, that we question your niece's worth or anything of
+      that sort. She is a very attractive young woman and would doubtless make
+      my son a good wife. But, if you will pardon my saying so, we know very
+      little about her or her family. You are comparative strangers to us and
+      although we have enjoyed your&mdash;ah&mdash;society and&mdash;ah&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy interrupted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon for saying it, Doctor Bayliss,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;but you know
+      as much about us as we do about you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor's composure was ruffled still more. He regarded Hephzy through
+      his spectacles and then said, with dignity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame, I have resided in this vicinity for nearly forty years. I think
+      my record and that of my family will bear inspection.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't doubt it a bit. But, as far as that goes, I have lived in Bayport
+      for fifty-odd years myself and our folks have lived there for a hundred
+      and fifty. I'm not questionin' you or your family, Doctor Bayliss. If I
+      had questioned 'em I could easily have looked up the record. All I'm
+      sayin' is that I haven't thought of questionin', and I don't just see why
+      you shouldn't take as much for granted as I have.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old gentleman was a bit disconcerted. He cleared his throat and
+      fidgeted in his seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do&mdash;I do, Miss Cahoon, of course,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But&mdash;ah&mdash;Well,
+      to return to the subject of my son and Miss Morley. The boy is dreadfully
+      agitated, Mr. Knowles. He is quite mad about the girl and his mother and I
+      are much concerned about him. We would&mdash;I assure you we would do
+      anything and sacrifice anything for his sake. We like your niece, and,
+      although, as I say, we had planned otherwise, nevertheless we will&mdash;provided
+      all is as it should be&mdash;give our consent to&mdash;to the arrangement,
+      for his sake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not answer. The idea that marrying Frances Morley would entail a
+      sacrifice upon anyone's part except hers angered me and I did not trust
+      myself to speak. But Hephzy spoke for me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean by providin' everything is as it should be?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, I mean&mdash;I mean provided we learn that she is&mdash;is&mdash;That
+      is,&mdash;Well, one naturally likes to know something concerning his
+      prospective daughter-in-law's history, you know. That is to be expected,
+      now isn't it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy looked at me and I looked at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doctor,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I wonder if your son told you about some things Hosy&mdash;Mr.
+      Knowles, I mean&mdash;told him this mornin'. Did he tell you that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor colored slightly. &ldquo;Yes&mdash;yes, he did,&rdquo; he admitted. &ldquo;He
+      said he had a most extraordinary sort of interview with Mr. Knowles and
+      was told by him some quite extraordinary things. Of course, we could
+      scarcely believe that he had heard aright. There was some mistake, of
+      course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was no mistake, Doctor Bayliss,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I told your son the
+      truth, a very little of the truth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The truth! But it couldn't be true, you know, as Herbert reported it to
+      me. He said Miss Morley had left Mayberry, had gone away for some
+      unexplained reason, and was not coming back&mdash;that you did not know
+      where she had gone, that she had asked not to be hindered or followed or
+      something. And he said&mdash;My word! he even said you, Knowles, had
+      declared yourself to be neither her uncle nor her guardian. THAT couldn't
+      be true, now could it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again Hephzy and I looked at each other. Without speaking we reached the
+      same conclusion. Hephzy voiced that conclusion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess, Doctor Bayliss,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;that the time has come when you had
+      better be told the whole truth, or as much of the whole truth about
+      Frances as Hosy and I know. I'm goin' to tell it to you. It's a kind of
+      long story, but I guess likely you ought to know it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She began to tell that story, beginning at the very beginning, with
+      Ardelia and Strickland Morley and continuing on, through the history of
+      the latter's rascality and the fleeing of the pair from America, to our
+      own pilgrimage, the finding of Little Frank and the astonishing happenings
+      since.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's gone,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;She found out what sort of man her father really
+      was and, bein' a high-spirited, proud girl&mdash;as proud and
+      high-spirited as she is clever and pretty and good&mdash;she ran away and
+      left us. We don't blame her, Hosy and I. We understand just how she feels
+      and we've made up our minds to do as she asks and not try to follow her or
+      try to bring her back to us against her will. We think the world of her.
+      We haven't known her but a little while, but we've come&mdash;that is,&rdquo;
+       with a sudden glance in my direction, &ldquo;I've come to love her as if she was
+      my own. It pretty nigh kills me to have her go. When I think of her
+      strugglin' along tryin' to earn her own way by singin' and&mdash;and all,
+      I have to hold myself by main strength to keep from goin' after her and
+      beggin' her on my knees to come back. But I sha'n't do it, because she
+      doesn't want me to. Of course I hope and believe that some day she will
+      come back, but until she does and of her own accord, I'm goin' to wait.
+      And, if your son really cares for her as much as we&mdash;as I do, he'll
+      wait, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She paused and hastily dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief. I turned
+      in order that the Doctor might not see my face. It was an unnecessary
+      precaution. Doctor Bayliss' mind was busy, apparently, with but one
+      thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An opera singer!&rdquo; he exclaimed, under his breath. &ldquo;An opera singer!
+      Herbert to marry an opera singer! The granddaughter of a Yankee sailor and&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the daughter of an English thief,&rdquo; put in Hephzy, sharply. &ldquo;Maybe
+      we'd better leave nationalities out, Doctor Bayliss. The Yankees have the
+      best end of it, 'cordin' to my notion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paid no attention to this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was greatly upset. &ldquo;It is impossible!&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;Absolutely
+      impossible! Why haven't we known of this before? Why did not Herbert know
+      of it? Mr. Knowles, I must say that&mdash;that you have been most
+      unthinking in this matter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been thinking of her,&rdquo; I answered, curtly. &ldquo;It was and is her
+      secret and we rely upon you to keep it as such. We trust to your honor to
+      tell no one, not even your son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My son! Herbert? Why I must tell him! I must tell my wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may tell your wife. And your son as much as you think necessary.
+      Further than that it must not go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course, of course. I understand. But an opera singer!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She isn't a real opera singer,&rdquo; said Hephzy. &ldquo;That is, not one of those
+      great ones. And she told me once that she realized now that she never
+      could be. She has a real sweet voice, a beautiful voice, but it isn't
+      powerful enough to make her a place in the big companies. She tried and
+      tried, she said, but all the managers said the same thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;when did she tell you this? I didn't know of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know you didn't, Hosy. She told me one day when we were alone. It was
+      the only time she ever spoke of herself and she didn't say much then. She
+      spoke about her livin' with her relatives here in England and what awful,
+      mean, hard people they were. She didn't say who they were nor where they
+      lived, but she did say she ran away from them to go on the stage as a
+      singer and what trials and troubles she went through afterward. She told
+      me that much and then she seemed sorry that she had. She made me promise
+      not to tell anyone, not even you. I haven't, until now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Doctor Bayliss was sitting with a hand to his forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A provincial opera singer,&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;Oh, impossible! Quite
+      impossible!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It may seem impossible to you,&rdquo; I couldn't help observing, &ldquo;but I
+      question if it will seem so to your son. I doubt if her being an opera
+      singer will make much difference to him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor groaned. &ldquo;The boy is mad about her, quite mad,&rdquo; he admitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was sorry for him. Perhaps if I were in his position I might feel as he
+      did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will say this,&rdquo; I said: &ldquo;In no way, so far as I know, has Miss Morley
+      given your son encouragement. He told me himself that he had never spoken
+      to her of his feelings and we have no reason to think that she regards him
+      as anything more than a friend. She left no message for him when she went
+      away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He seemed to find some ground for hope in this. He rose from the chair and
+      extended his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Knowles,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;if I have said anything to hurt your feelings or
+      those of Miss Cahoon I am very sorry. I trust it will make no difference
+      in our friendship. My wife and I respect and like you both and I think I
+      understand how deeply you must feel the loss of your&mdash;of Miss Morley.
+      I hope she&mdash;I hope you may be reunited some day. No doubt you will
+      be. As for Herbert&mdash;he is our son and if you ever have a son of your
+      own, Mr. Knowles, you may appreciate his mother's feelings and mine. We
+      have planned and&mdash;and&mdash;Even now I should not stand in the way of
+      his happiness if&mdash;if I believed happiness could come of it. But such
+      marriages are never happy. And,&rdquo; with a sudden burst of hope, &ldquo;as you say,
+      she may not be aware of his attachment. The boy is young. He may forget.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said I, with a sigh. &ldquo;He IS young, and he may forget.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After he had gone Hephzy turned to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I hadn't understood that old man's feelin's,&rdquo; she declared, &ldquo;I'd have
+      given him one talkin' to. The idea of his speakin' as if Frances wouldn't
+      be a wife anybody, a lord or anybody else, might be proud of! But he
+      didn't know. He's been brought up that way, and he doesn't know. And, of
+      course, his son IS the only person on earth to him. Well, that's over! We
+      haven't got to worry about them any more. We'll begin to live for each
+      other now, Hosy, same as we used to do. And we'll wait for the rest. It'll
+      come and come right for all of us. Just you see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which I Play Golf and Cross the Channel
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      And so we began &ldquo;to live for each other again,&rdquo; Hephzy and I. This meant,
+      of course, that Hephzy forgot herself entirely and spent the greater part
+      of her time trying to find ways to make my living more comfortable, just
+      as she had always done. And I&mdash;well, I did my best to appear, if not
+      happy, at least reasonably calm and companionable. It was a hard job for
+      both of us; certainly my part of it was hard enough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Appearances had to be considered and so we invented a tale of a visit to
+      relatives in another part of England to account for the unannounced
+      departure of Miss Morley. This excuse served with the neighbors and
+      friends not in the secret and, for the benefit of the servants, Hephzy
+      elaborated the deceit by pretending eagerness at the arrival of the mails
+      and by certain vague remarks at table concerning letters she was writing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I AM writing 'em, too, Hosy,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I write to her every few days.
+      Of course I don't mail the letters, but it sort of squares things with my
+      conscience to really write after talking so much about it. As for her
+      visitin' relatives&mdash;well, she's got relatives somewhere in England,
+      we know that much, and she MAY be visitin' 'em. At any rate I try to think
+      she is. Oh, dear, I 'most wish I'd had more experience in tellin' lies;
+      then I wouldn't have to invent so many extra ones to make me believe those
+      I told at the beginnin'. I wish I'd been brought up a book agent or a
+      weather prophet or somethin' like that; then I'd have been in trainin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Without any definite agreement we had fallen into the habit of not
+      mentioning the name of Little Frank, even when we were alone together. In
+      consequence, on these occasions, there would be long intervals of silence
+      suddenly broken by Hephzy's bursting out with a surmise concerning what
+      was happening in Bayport, whether they had painted the public library
+      building yet, or how Susanna was getting on with the cat and hens. She had
+      received three letters from Miss Wixon and, as news bearers, they were far
+      from satisfactory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That girl makes me so provoked,&rdquo; sniffed Hephzy, dropping the most recent
+      letter in her lap with a gesture of disgust. &ldquo;She says she's got a cold in
+      the head and she's scared to death for fear it'll get 'set onto her,'
+      whatever that is. Two pages of this letter is nothin' but cold in the head
+      and t'other two is about a new hat she's goin' to have and she don't know
+      whether to trim it with roses or forget-me-nots. If she trimmed it with
+      cabbage 'twould match her head better'n anything else. I declare! she
+      ought to be thankful she's got a cold in a head like hers; it must be
+      comfortin' to know there's SOMETHIN' there. You've got a letter, too,
+      Hosy. Who is it from?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From Campbell,&rdquo; I answered, wearily. &ldquo;He wants to know how the novel is
+      getting on, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! Well, you write him that it's gettin' on the way a squid gets
+      ahead&mdash;by goin' backwards. Don't let him pester you one bit, Hosy.
+      You write that novel just as fast or slow as you feel like. He told you to
+      take a vacation, anyway.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled. Mine was a delightful vacation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The summer dragged on. The days passed. Pleasant days they were, so far as
+      the weather was concerned. I spent them somehow, walking, riding, golfing,
+      reading. I gave up trying to work; the half-written novel remained half
+      written. I could not concentrate my thoughts upon it and I lacked the
+      courage to force myself to try. I wrote Campbell that he must be patient,
+      I was doing the best I could. He answered by telling me not to worry, to
+      enjoy myself. &ldquo;Why do you stay there in England?&rdquo; he wrote. &ldquo;I ordered you
+      to travel, not to plant yourself in one place and die of dry rot. A
+      British oyster is mighty little improvement on a Cape Cod quahaug. You
+      have been in that rectory about long enough. Go to Monte Carlo for change.
+      You'll find it there&mdash;or lose it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It may have been good advice&mdash;or bad&mdash;according to the way in
+      which it was understood, but, good or bad, it didn't appeal to me. I had
+      no desire to travel, unless it were to travel back to Bayport, where I
+      belonged. I felt no interest in Monte Carlo&mdash;for the matter of that,
+      I felt no interest in Mayberry or anywhere else. I was not interested in
+      anything or anybody&mdash;except one, and that one had gone out of my
+      life. Night after night I went to sleep determining to forget and morning
+      after morning I awoke only to remember, and with the same dull, hopeless
+      heartache and longing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      July passed, August was half gone. Still we remained at the rectory. Our
+      lease was up on the first of October. The Coles would return then and we
+      should be obliged to go elsewhere, whether we wished to or not. Hephzy,
+      although she did not say much about it, was willing to go, I think. Her
+      &ldquo;presentiment&rdquo; had remained only a presentiment so far; no word came from
+      Little Frank. We had heard or learned nothing concerning her or her
+      whereabouts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our neighbors and friends in Mayberry were as kind and neighborly as ever.
+      For the first few days after our interview with Doctor Bayliss, Senior,
+      Hephzy and I saw nothing of him or his family. Then the doctor called
+      again. He seemed in better spirits. His son had yielded to his parents'
+      entreaties and had departed for a walking tour through the Black Forest
+      with some friends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The invitation came at exactly the right time,&rdquo; said the old gentleman.
+      &ldquo;Herbert was ready to go anywhere or do anything. The poor boy was in the
+      depths and when his mother and I urged him to accept he did so. We are
+      hoping that when he returns he will have forgotten, or, if not that, at
+      least be more reconciled.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Heathcroft came and went at various times during the summer. I met him on
+      the golf course and he was condescendingly friendly as ever. Our talk
+      concerning Frances, which had brought such momentous consequences to her
+      and to Hephzy and to me, had, apparently, not disturbed him in the least.
+      He greeted me blandly and cheerfully, asked how we all were, said he had
+      been given to understand that &ldquo;my charming little niece&rdquo; was no longer
+      with us, and proceeded to beat me two down in eighteen holes. I played
+      several times with him afterward and, under different circumstances,
+      should have enjoyed doing so, for we were pretty evenly matched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His aunt, the Lady of the Manor, I also met. She went out of her way to be
+      as sweetly gracious as possible. I presume she inferred from Frances'
+      departure that I had taken her hint and had removed the disturbing
+      influence from her nephew's primrose-bordered path. At each of our
+      meetings she spoke of the &ldquo;invitation golf tournament,&rdquo; several times
+      postponed and now to be played within a fortnight. She insisted that I
+      must take part in it. At last, having done everything except decline
+      absolutely, I finally consented to enter the tournament. It is not easy to
+      refuse to obey an imperial decree and Lady Carey was Empress of Mayberry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After accepting I returned to the rectory to find that Hephzy also had
+      received an invitation. Not to play golf, of course; her invitation was of
+      a totally different kind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you think, Hosy!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;I've got a letter and you can't
+      guess who it's from.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From Susanna?&rdquo; I ventured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Susanna! You don't suppose I'd be as excited as all this over a letter
+      from Susanna Wixon, do you? No indeed! I've got a letter from Mrs. Hepton,
+      who had the Nickerson cottage last summer. She and her husband are in
+      Paris and they want us to meet 'em there in a couple of weeks and go for a
+      short trip through Switzerland. They got our address from Mr. Campbell
+      before they left home. Mrs. Hepton writes that they're countin' on our
+      company. They're goin' to Lake Lucerne and to Mont Blanc and everywhere.
+      Wouldn't it be splendid!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Heptons had been summer neighbors of ours on the Cape for several
+      seasons. They were friends of Jim Campbell's and had first come to Bayport
+      on his recommendation. I liked them very well, and, oddly enough, for I
+      was not popular with the summer colony, they had seemed to like me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was very kind of them to think of us,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Campbell shouldn't
+      have given them our address, of course, but their invitation was well
+      meant. You must write them at once. Make our refusal as polite as
+      possible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy seemed disappointed, I thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you think I'd better say no?&rdquo; she observed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, of course. You weren't thinking of accepting, were you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I didn't know. I'm not sure that our goin' wouldn't be the right
+      thing. I've been considerin' for some time, Hosy, and I've about come to
+      the conclusion that stayin' here is bad for you. Maybe it's bad for both
+      of us. Perhaps a change would do us both good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was astonished. &ldquo;Humph!&rdquo; I exclaimed; &ldquo;this is a change of heart,
+      Hephzy. A while ago, when I suggested going back to Bayport, you wouldn't
+      hear of it. You wanted to stay here and&mdash;and wait.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know I did. And I've been waitin', but nothin' has come of it. I've
+      still got my presentiment, Hosy. I believe just as strong as I ever did
+      that some time or other she and you and I will be together again. But
+      stayin' here and seein' nobody but each other and broodin' don't do us any
+      good. It's doin' you harm; that's plain enough. You don't write and you
+      don't eat&mdash;that is, not much&mdash;and you're gettin' bluer and more
+      thin and peaked every day. You have just got to go away from here, no
+      matter whether I do or not. And I've reached the point where I'm willin'
+      to go, too. Not for good, maybe. We'll come back here again. Our lease
+      isn't up until October and we can leave the servants here and give them
+      our address to have mail forwarded. If&mdash;if she&mdash;that is, if a
+      letter or&mdash;or anything&mdash;SHOULD come we could hurry right back.
+      The Heptons are real nice folks; you always liked 'em, Hosy. And you
+      always wanted to see Switzerland; you used to say so. Why don't we say yes
+      and go along?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not answer. I believed I understood the reason for Campbell's giving
+      our address to the Heptons; also the reason for the invitation. Jim was
+      very anxious to have me leave Mayberry; he believed travel and change of
+      scene were what I needed. Doubtless he had put the Heptons up to asking us
+      to join them on their trip. It was merely an addition to his precious
+      prescription.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don't we go?&rdquo; urged Hephzy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not much!&rdquo; I answered, decidedly. &ldquo;I should be poor company on a pleasure
+      trip like that. But you might go, Hephzy. There is no reason in the world
+      why you shouldn't go. I'll stay here until you return. Go, by all means,
+      and enjoy yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'd do a lot of enjoyin' without you, wouldn't I,&rdquo; she observed. &ldquo;While I
+      was lookin' at the scenery I'd be wonderin' what you had for breakfast.
+      Every mite of rain would set me to thinkin' of your gettin' your feet wet
+      and when I laid eyes on a snow peak I'd wonder if you had blankets enough
+      on your bed. I'd be like that yellow cat we used to have back in the time
+      when Father was alive. That cat had kittens and Father had 'em all drowned
+      but one. After that you never saw the cat anywhere unless the kitten was
+      there, too. She wouldn't eat unless it were with her and between bites
+      she'd sit down on it so it couldn't run off. She lugged it around in her
+      mouth until Father used to vow he'd have eyelet holes punched in the
+      scruff of its neck for her teeth to fit into and make it easier for both
+      of 'em. It died, finally; she wore it out, I guess likely. Then she
+      adopted a chicken and started luggin' that around. She had the habit, you
+      see. I'm a good deal like her, Hosy. I've took care of you so long that
+      I've got the habit. No, I shouldn't go unless you did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      No amount of urging moved her, so we dropped the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The morning of the golf tournament was clear and fine. I shouldered my bag
+      of clubs and walked through the lane toward the first tee. I never felt
+      less like playing or more inclined to feign illness and remain at home.
+      But I had promised Lady Carey and the promise must be kept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a group of people, players and guests, awaiting me at the tee.
+      Her ladyship was there, of course; so also was her nephew, Mr. Carleton
+      Heathcroft, whom I had not seen for some time. Heathcroft was in
+      conversation with a young fellow who, when he turned in my direction, I
+      recognized as Herbert Bayliss. I was surprised to see him; I had not heard
+      of his return from the Black Forest trip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Carey was affable and gracious, also very important and busy. She
+      welcomed me absent-mindedly, introduced me to several of her guests,
+      ladies and gentlemen from London down for the week-end, and then bustled
+      away to confer with Mr. Handliss, steward of the estate, concerning the
+      arrangements for the tournament. I felt a touch on my arm and, turning,
+      found Doctor Bayliss standing beside me. He was smiling and in apparent
+      good humor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The boy is back, Knowles,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Have you seen him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I have seen him, although we haven't met yet. I was
+      surprised to find him here. When did he return?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only yesterday. His mother and I were surprised also. We hadn't expected
+      him so soon. He's looking very fit, don't you think?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very.&rdquo; I had not noticed that young Bayliss was looking either more or
+      less fit than usual, but I answered as I did because the old gentleman
+      seemed so very anxious that I should. He was evidently gratified. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo;
+       he said, &ldquo;he's looking very fit indeed. I think his trip has benefited him
+      hugely. And I think&mdash;Yes, I think he is beginning to forget his&mdash;that
+      is to say, I believe he does not dwell upon the&mdash;the recent
+      happenings as he did. I think he is forgetting; I really think he is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed,&rdquo; said I. It struck me that, if Herbert Bayliss was forgetting,
+      his memory must be remarkably short. I imagined that his father's wish was
+      parent to the thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has&mdash;ah&mdash;scarcely mentioned our&mdash;our young friend's
+      name since his return,&rdquo; went on the doctor. &ldquo;He did ask if you had heard&mdash;ah&mdash;by
+      the way, Knowles, you haven't heard, have you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear me! dear me! That's very odd, now isn't it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not say he was sorry. If he had said it I should not have believed
+      him. If ever anything was plain it was that the longer we remained without
+      news of Frances Morley the better pleased Herbert Bayliss's parents would
+      be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I say, Knowles,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;you and he must meet, you know. He
+      doesn't hold any ill-feeling or&mdash;or resentment toward you. Really he
+      doesn't. Herbert! Oh, I say, Herbert! Come here, will you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Young Bayliss turned. The doctor whispered in my ear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps it would be just as well not to refer to&mdash;to&mdash;You
+      understand me, Knowles. Better let sleeping dogs lie, eh? Oh, Herbert,
+      here is Knowles waiting to shake hands with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We shook hands. The shake, on his part, was cordial enough, perhaps, but
+      not too cordial. It struck me that young Bayliss was neither as &ldquo;fit&rdquo; nor
+      as forgetful as his fond parents wished to believe. He looked rather worn
+      and nervous, it seemed to me. I asked him about his tramping trip and we
+      chatted for a few moments. Then Bayliss, Senior, was called by Lady Carey
+      and Handliss to join the discussion concerning the tournament rules and
+      the young man and I were left alone together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Knowles,&rdquo; he asked, the moment after his father's departure, &ldquo;have you
+      heard anything? Anything concerning&mdash;her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're sure? You're not&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am quite sure. We haven't heard nor do we expect to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked away across the course and I heard him draw a long breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's deucedly odd, this,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;How she could disappear so entirely I
+      don't understand. And you have no idea where she may be?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But&mdash;but, confound it, man, aren't you trying to find her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're not! Why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know why not as well as I. She left us of her own free will and her
+      parting request was that we should not follow her. That is sufficient for
+      us. Pardon me, but I think it should be for all her friends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was silent for a moment. Then his teeth snapped together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll find her,&rdquo; he declared, fiercely. &ldquo;I'll find her some day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In spite of her request?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. In spite of the devil.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned on his heel and walked off. Mr. Handliss stepped to the first
+      tee, clapped his hands to attract attention and began a little speech.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tournament, he said, was about to begin. Play would be, owing to the
+      length and difficulty of the course, but eighteen holes instead of the
+      usual thirty-six. This meant that each pair of contestants would play the
+      nine holes twice. Handicaps had been fixed as equitably as possible
+      according to each player's previous record, and players having similar
+      handicaps were to play against each other. A light lunch and refreshments
+      would be served after the first round had been completed by all. Prizes
+      would be distributed by her ladyship when the final round was finished.
+      Her ladyship bade us all welcome and was gratified by our acceptance of
+      her invitation. He would now proceed to read the names of those who were
+      to play against each other, stating handicaps and the like. He read
+      accordingly, and I learned that my opponent was to be Mr. Heathcroft, each
+      of us having a handicap of two.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Considering everything I thought my particular handicap a stiff one.
+      Heathcroft had been in the habit of beating me in two out of three of our
+      matches. However, I determined to play my best. Being the only outlander
+      on the course I couldn't help feeling that the sporting reputation of
+      Yankeeland rested, for this day at least, upon my shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The players were sent off in pairs, the less skilled first. Heathcroft and
+      I were next to the last. A London attorney by the name of Jaynes and a
+      Wrayton divine named Wilson followed us. Their rating was one plus and,
+      judging by the conversation of the &ldquo;gallery,&rdquo; they were looked upon as
+      winners of the first and second prizes respectively. The Reverend Mr.
+      Wilson was called, behind his back, &ldquo;the sporting curate.&rdquo; In gorgeous
+      tweeds and a shepherd's plaid cap he looked the part.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first nine went to me. An usually long drive and a lucky putt on the
+      eighth gave me the round by one. I played with care and tried my hardest
+      to keep my mind on the game. Heathcroft was, as always, calm and careful,
+      but between tees he was pleased to be chatty and affable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how is the aunt with the odd name, Knowles?&rdquo; he inquired. &ldquo;Does she
+      still devour her&mdash;er&mdash;washing flannels and treacle for
+      breakfast?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She does when she cares to,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;She is an independent lady, as I
+      think you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My word! I believe you. And how are the literary labors progressing? I
+      had my bookselling fellow look up a novel of yours the other day. Began it
+      that same night, by Jove! It was quite interesting, really. I should have
+      finished it, I think, but some of the chaps at the club telephoned me to
+      join them for a bit of bridge and of course that ended literature for the
+      time. My respected aunt tells me I'm quite dotty on bridge. She foresees a
+      gambler's end for me, stony broke, languishing in dungeons and all that
+      sort of thing. I am to die of starvation, I think. Is it starvation
+      gamblers die of? 'Pon my soul, I should say most of those I know would be
+      more likely to die of thirst. Rather!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Later on he asked another question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how is the pretty niece, Knowles?&rdquo; he inquired. &ldquo;When is she coming
+      back to the monastery or the nunnery or rectory, or whatever it is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; I replied, curtly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I say! Isn't she coming at all? That would be a calamity, now
+      wouldn't it? Not to me in particular. I should mind your notice boards, of
+      course. But if I were condemned, as you are, to spend a summer among the
+      feminine beauties of Mayberry, a face like hers would be like a whisky and
+      soda in a thirsty land, as a chap I know is fond of saying. Oh, and by the
+      way, speaking of your niece, I had a curious experience in Paris a week
+      ago. Most extraordinary thing. For the moment I began to believe I really
+      was going dotty, as Auntie fears. I... Your drive, Knowles. I'll tell you
+      the story later.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not tell it during that round, forgot it probably. I did not remind
+      him. The longer he kept clear of the subject of my &ldquo;niece&rdquo; the more
+      satisfied I was. We lunched in the pavilion by the first tee. There were
+      sandwiches and biscuits&mdash;crackers, of course&mdash;and cakes and
+      sweets galore. Also thirst-quenching materials sufficient to satisfy even
+      the gamblers of Mr. Heathcroft's acquaintance. The &ldquo;sporting curate,&rdquo;
+       behind a huge Scotch and soda, was relating his mishaps in approaching the
+      seventh hole for the benefit of his brother churchmen, Messrs. Judson and
+      Worcester. Lady Carey was dilating upon her pet subject, the talents and
+      virtues of &ldquo;Carleton, dear,&rdquo; for the benefit of the London attorney, who
+      was pretending to listen with the respectful interest due blood and title,
+      but who was thinking of something else, I am sure. &ldquo;Carleton, dear,&rdquo;
+       himself, was chatting languidly with young Bayliss. The latter seemed
+      greatly interested. There was a curious expression on his face. I was
+      surprised to see him so cordial to Heathcroft; I knew he did not like Lady
+      Carey's nephew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The second and final round of the tournament began. For six holes
+      Heathcroft and I broke even. The seventh he won, making us square for the
+      match so far and, with an equal number of strokes. The eighth we halved.
+      All depended on the ninth. Halving there would mean a drawn match between
+      us and a drawing for choice of prizes, provided we were in the
+      prize-winning class. A win for either of us meant the match itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Heathcroft, in spite of the close play, was as bland and unconcerned as
+      ever. I tried to appear likewise. As a matter of fact, I wanted to win.
+      Not because of the possible prize, I cared little for that, but for the
+      pleasure of winning against him. We drove from the ninth tee, each got a
+      long brassy shot which put us on the edge of the green, and then strolled
+      up the hill together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say, Knowles,&rdquo; he observed; &ldquo;I haven't finished telling you of my Paris
+      experience, have I. Odd coincidence, by Jove! I was telling young Bayliss
+      about it just now and he thought it odd, too. I was&mdash;some other chaps
+      and I drifted into the Abbey over in Paris a week or so ago and while we
+      were there a girl came out and sang. She was an extremely pretty girl, you
+      understand, but that wasn't the extraordinary part of it. She was the
+      image&mdash;my word! the very picture of your niece, Miss Morley. It quite
+      staggered me for the moment. Upon my soul I thought it was she! She sang
+      extremely well, but not for long. I tried to get near her&mdash;meant to
+      speak to her, you know, but she had gone before I reached her. Eh! What
+      did you say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had not said anything&mdash;at least I think I had not. He
+      misinterpreted my silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you mustn't be offended,&rdquo; he said, laughing. &ldquo;Of course I knew it
+      wasn't she&mdash;that is, I should have known it if I hadn't been so
+      staggered by the resemblance. It was amazing, that resemblance. The face,
+      the voice&mdash;everything was like hers. I was so dotty about it that I
+      even hunted up one of the chaps in charge and asked him who the girl was.
+      He said she was an Austrian&mdash;Mademoiselle Juno or Junotte or
+      something. That ended it, of course. I was a fool to imagine anything
+      else, of course. But you would have been a bit staggered if you had seen
+      her. And she didn't look Austrian, either. She looked English or American&mdash;rather!
+      I say, I hope I haven't hurt your feelings, old chap. I apologize to you
+      and Miss Morley, you understand. I couldn't help telling you; it was
+      extraordinary now, wasn't it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I made some answer. He rattled on about that sort of thing making one
+      believe in the Prisoner of Zenda stuff, doubles and all that. We reached
+      the green. My ball lay nearest the pin and it was his putt. He made it, a
+      beauty, the ball halting just at the edge of the cup. My putt was wild. He
+      holed out on the next shot. It took me two and I had to concentrate my
+      thought by main strength even then. The hole and match were his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was very decent about it, proclaimed himself lucky, declared I had,
+      generally speaking, played much the better game and should have won
+      easily. I paid little attention to what he said although I did, of course,
+      congratulate him and laughed at the idea that luck had anything to do with
+      the result. I no longer cared about the match or the tournament in general
+      or anything connected with them. His story of the girl who was singing in
+      Paris was what I was interested in now. I wanted him to tell me more, to
+      give me particulars. I wanted to ask him a dozen questions; and, yet,
+      excited as I was, I realized that those questions must be asked carefully.
+      His suspicions must not be aroused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before I could ask the first of the dozen Mr. Handliss bustled over to us
+      to learn the result of our play and to announce that the distribution of
+      prizes would take place in a few moments; also that Lady Carey wished to
+      speak with her nephew. The latter sauntered off to join the group by the
+      pavilion and my opportunity for questioning had gone, for the time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the distribution of prizes, with its accompanying ceremony, I seem to
+      recall very little. Lady Carey made a little speech, I remember that, but
+      just what she said I have forgotten. &ldquo;Much pleasure in rewarding skill,&rdquo;
+       &ldquo;Dear old Scottish game,&rdquo; &ldquo;English sportsmanship,&rdquo; &ldquo;Race not to the swift&rdquo;&mdash;I
+      must have been splashed with these drops from the fountain of oratory, for
+      they stick in my memory. Then, in turn, the winners were called up to
+      select their prizes. Wilson, the London attorney, headed the list; the
+      sporting curate came next; Heathcroft next; and then I. It had not
+      occurred to me that I should win a prize. In fact I had not thought
+      anything about it. My thoughts were far from the golf course just then.
+      They were in Paris, in a cathedral&mdash;Heathcroft had called it an
+      abbey, but cathedral he must have meant&mdash;where a girl who looked like
+      Frances Morley was singing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, when Mr. Handliss called my name I answered and stepped forward.
+      Her Ladyship said something or other about &ldquo;our cousin from across the
+      sea&rdquo; and &ldquo;Anglo-Saxon blood&rdquo; and her especial pleasure in awarding the
+      prize. I stammered thanks, rather incoherently expressed they were, I
+      fear, selected the first article that came to hand&mdash;it happened to be
+      a cigarette case; I never smoke cigarettes&mdash;and retired to the outer
+      circle. The other winners&mdash;Herbert Bayliss and Worcester among them&mdash;selected
+      their prizes and then Mr. Wilson, winner of the tournament, speaking in
+      behalf of us all, thanked the hostess for her kindness and hospitality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her gracious invitation to play upon the Manor-House course Mr. Wilson
+      mentioned feelingly. Also the gracious condescension in presenting the
+      prizes with her own hand. They would be cherished, not only for their own
+      sake, but for that of the donor. He begged the liberty of proposing her
+      ladyship's health.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The &ldquo;liberty&rdquo; was, apparently, expected, for Mr. Handliss had full glasses
+      ready and waiting. The health was drunk. Lady Carey drank ours in return,
+      and the ceremony was over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I tried in vain to get another word with Heathcroft. He was in
+      conversation with his aunt and several of the feminine friends and,
+      although I waited for some time, I, at last, gave up the attempt and
+      walked home. The Reverend Judson would have accompanied me, but I avoided
+      him. I did not wish to listen to Mayberry gossip; I wanted to be alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Heathcroft's tale had made a great impression upon me&mdash;a most
+      unreasonable impression, unwarranted by the scant facts as he related
+      them. The girl whom he had seen resembled Frances&mdash;yes; but she was
+      an Austrian, her name was not Morley. And resemblances were common enough.
+      That Frances should be singing in a Paris church was most improbable; but,
+      so far as that went, the fact of A. Carleton Heathcroft's attending a
+      church service I should, ordinarily, have considered improbable.
+      Improbable things did happen. Suppose the girl he had seen was Frances. My
+      heart leaped at the thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But even supposing it was she, what difference did it make&mdash;to me?
+      None, of course. She had asked us not to follow her, to make no attempt to
+      find her. I had preached compliance with her wish to Hephzy, to Doctor
+      Bayliss&mdash;yes, to Herbert Bayliss that very afternoon. But Herbert
+      Bayliss was sworn to find her, in spite of me, in spite of the Evil One.
+      And Heathcroft had told young Bayliss the same story he had told me. HE
+      would not be deterred by scruples; her wish would not prevent his going to
+      Paris in search of her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I reached the rectory, to be welcomed by Hephzy with questions concerning
+      the outcome of the tournament and triumphant gloatings over my perfectly
+      useless prize. I did not tell her of Heathcroft's story. I merely said I
+      had met that gentleman and that Herbert Bayliss had returned to Mayberry.
+      And I asked a question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; I asked, &ldquo;when do the Heptons leave Paris for their trip through
+      Switzerland?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy considered. &ldquo;Let me see,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Today is the eighteenth, isn't
+      it. They start on the twenty-second; that's four days from now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course you have written them that we cannot accept their invitation to
+      go along?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hesitated. &ldquo;Why, no,&rdquo; she admitted, &ldquo;I haven't. That is, I have
+      written 'em, but I haven't posted the letter. Humph! did you notice that
+      'posted'? Shows what livin' in a different place'll do even to as settled
+      a body as I am. In Bayport I should have said 'mailed' the letter, same as
+      anybody else. I must be careful or I'll go back home and call the
+      expressman a 'carrier' and a pie a 'tart' and a cracker a 'biscuit.' Land
+      sakes! I remember readin' how David Copperfield's aunt always used to eat
+      biscuits soaked in port wine before she went to bed. I used to think 'twas
+      dreadful dissipated business and that the old lady must have been ready
+      for bed by the time she got through. You see I always had riz biscuits in
+      mind. A cracker's different; crackers don't soak up much. We'd ought to be
+      careful how we judge folks, hadn't we, Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said I, absently. &ldquo;So you haven't posted the letter to the Heptons.
+      Why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well&mdash;well, to tell you the truth, Hosy, I was kind of hopin' you
+      might change your mind and decide to go, after all. I wish you would;
+      'twould do you good. And,&rdquo; wistfully, &ldquo;Switzerland must be lovely. But
+      there! I know just how you feel, you poor boy. I'll mail the letter
+      to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give it to me,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I'll&mdash;I'll see to it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy handed me the letter. I put it in my pocket, but I did not post it
+      that evening. A plan&mdash;or the possible beginning of a plan&mdash;was
+      forming in my mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That night was another of my bad ones. The little sleep I had was filled
+      with dreams, dreams from which I awoke to toss restlessly. I rose and
+      walked the floor, calling myself a fool, a silly old fool, over and over
+      again. But when morning came my plan, a ridiculous, wild plan from which,
+      even if it succeeded&mdash;which was most unlikely&mdash;nothing but added
+      trouble and despair could possibly come, my plan was nearer its ultimate
+      formation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At eleven o'clock that forenoon I walked up the marble steps of the Manor
+      House and rang the bell. The butler, an exalted personage in livery,
+      answered my ring. Mr. Heathcroft? No, sir. Mr. Heathcroft had left for
+      London by the morning train. Her ladyship was in her boudoir. She did not
+      see anyone in the morning, sir. I had no wish to see her ladyship, but
+      Heathcroft's departure was a distinct disappointment. I thanked the butler
+      and, remembering that even cathedral ushers accepted tips, slipped a
+      shilling into his hand. His dignity thawed at the silver touch, and he
+      expressed regret at Mr. Heathcroft's absence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're not the only gentleman who has been here to see him this morning,
+      sir,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Doctor Bayliss, the younger one, called about an hour ago.
+      He seemed quite as sorry to find him gone as you are, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I think that settled it. When I again entered the rectory my mind was made
+      up. The decision was foolish, insane, even dishonorable perhaps, but the
+      decision was made.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I have changed my mind. Travel may do me good. I have
+      telegraphed the Heptons that we will join them in Paris on the evening of
+      the twenty-first. After that&mdash;Well, we'll see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy's delight was as great as her surprise. She said I was a dear,
+      unselfish boy. Considering what I intended doing I felt decidedly mean;
+      but I did not tell her what that intention was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We took the two-twenty train from Charing Cross on the afternoon of the
+      twenty-first. The servants had been left in charge of the rectory. We
+      would return in a fortnight, so we told them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a beautiful day, bright and sunshiny, but, after smoky, grimy
+      London had been left behind and we were whizzing through the Kentish
+      countryside, between the hop fields and the pastures where the sheep were
+      feeding, we noticed that a stiff breeze was blowing. Further on, as we
+      wound amid the downs near Folkestone, the bending trees and shrubs proved
+      that the breeze was a miniature gale. And when we came in sight of the
+      Channel, it was thickly sprinkled with whitecaps from beach to horizon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I imagine we shall have a rather rough passage, Hephzy,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy's attention was otherwise engaged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do they call a hill a 'down' over here?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;I should think
+      an 'up' would be better. What did you say, Hosy? A rough passage? I guess
+      that won't bother you and me much. This little mite of water can't seem
+      very much stirred up to folks who have sailed clear across the Atlantic
+      Ocean. But there! I mustn't put on airs. I used to think Cape Cod Bay was
+      about all the water there was. Travelin' does make such a difference in a
+      person's ideas. Do you remember the Englishwoman at Bancroft's who told me
+      that she supposed the Thames must remind us of our own Mississippi?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So that's the famous English Channel, is it,&rdquo; she observed, a moment
+      later. &ldquo;How wide is it, Hosy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About twenty miles at the narrowest point, I believe,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Twenty miles! About as far as Bayport to Provincetown. Well, I don't know
+      whether any of your ancestors or mine came over with William the Conquerer
+      or not, but if they did, they didn't have far to come. I cal'late I'll be
+      contented with having my folks cross in the Mayflower. They came three
+      thousand miles anyway.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was inclined to regard the Channel rather contemptuously just then. A
+      half hour later she was more respectful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The steamer was awaiting us at the pier. As the throng of passengers filed
+      up the gang-plank she suddenly squeezed my arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look! Hosy!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Look! Isn't that him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked where she was pointing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Him? Who?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look! There he goes now. No, he's gone. I can't see him any more. And yet
+      I was almost certain 'twas him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who?&rdquo; I asked again. &ldquo;Did you see someone you knew?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought I did, but I guess I was mistaken. He's just got home; he
+      wouldn't be startin' off again so soon. No, it couldn't have been him, but
+      I did think&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I stopped short. &ldquo;Who did you think you saw?&rdquo; I demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought I saw Doctor Herbert Bayliss goin' up those stairs to the
+      steamboat. It looked like him enough to be his twin brother, if he had
+      one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not answer. I looked about as we stepped aboard the boat, but if
+      young Bayliss was there he was not in sight. Hephzy rattled on excitedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can't tell much by seein' folks's backs,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;I remember
+      one time your cousin Hezekiah Knowles&mdash;You don't remember him, Hosy;
+      he died when you was little&mdash;One time Cousin Hezzy was up to Boston
+      with his wife and they was shoppin' in one of the big stores. That is,
+      Martha Ann&mdash;the wife&mdash;was shoppin' and he was taggin' along and
+      complainin', same as men generally do. He was kind of nearsighted, Hezzy
+      was, and when Martha was fightin' to get a place in front of a bargain
+      counter he stayed astern and kept his eyes fixed on a hat she was wearin'.
+      'Twas a new hat with blue and yellow flowers on it. Hezzy always said,
+      when he told the yarn afterward, that he never once figured that there
+      could be another hat like that one. I saw it myself and, if I'd been in
+      his place, I'd have HOPED there wasn't anyway. Well, he followed that hat
+      from one counter to another and, at last, he stepped up and said, 'Look
+      here, dearie,' he says&mdash;They hadn't been married very long, not long
+      enough to get out of the mushy stage&mdash;'Look here, dearie,' he says,
+      'hadn't we better be gettin' on home? You'll tire those little feet of
+      yours all out trottin' around this way.' And when the hat turned around
+      there was a face under it as black as a crow. He'd been followin' a darkey
+      woman for ten minutes. She thought he was makin' fun of her feet and was
+      awful mad, and when Martha came along and found who he'd taken for her she
+      was madder still. Hezzy said, 'I couldn't help it, Martha. Nobody could. I
+      never saw two craft look more alike from twenty foot astern. And she wears
+      that hat just the way you do.' That didn't help matters any, of course,
+      and&mdash;Why, Hosy, where are you goin'? Why don't you say somethin'?
+      Hadn't we better sit down? All the good seats will be gone if we don't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had been struggling through the crowd, trying my best to get a glimpse
+      of the man she had thought to be Herbert Bayliss. If it was he then my
+      suspicions were confirmed. Heathcroft's story of the girl who sang in
+      Paris had impressed him as it had me and he was on his way to see for
+      himself. But the man, whoever he might be, had disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How the wind does blow,&rdquo; said Hephzy. &ldquo;What are the people doin' with
+      those black tarpaulins?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sailors in uniform were passing among the seated passengers distributing
+      large squares of black waterproof canvas. I watched the use to which the
+      tarpaulins were put and I understood. I beckoned to the nearest sailor and
+      rented two of the canvases for use during the voyage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How much?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One franc each,&rdquo; said the man, curtly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had visited the money-changers near the Charing Cross station and was
+      prepared. Hephzy's eyes opened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A franc,&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;That's French money, isn't it. Is he a
+      Frenchman?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;This is a French boat, I think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She watched the sailor for a moment. Then she sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he's a Frenchman,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I thought Frenchmen wore mustaches and
+      goatees and were awful polite. He was about as polite as a pig. And all he
+      needs is a hand-organ and a monkey to be an Italian. A body couldn't tell
+      the difference without specs. What did you get those tarpaulins for,
+      Hosy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I covered our traveling bags with one of the tarpaulins, as I saw our
+      fellow-passengers doing, and the other I tucked about Hephzy, enveloping
+      her from her waist down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't need that,&rdquo; she protested. &ldquo;It isn't cold and it isn't rainin',
+      either. I tell you I don't need it, Hosy. Don't tuck me in any more. I
+      feel as if I was goin' to France in a baby carriage, not a steamboat. And
+      what are they passin' round those&mdash;those tin dippers for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They may be useful later on,&rdquo; I said, watching the seas leap and foam
+      against the stone breakwater. &ldquo;You'll probably understand later, Hephzy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She understood. The breakwater was scarcely passed when our boat, which
+      had seemed so large and steady and substantial, began to manifest a desire
+      to stand on both ends at once and to roll like a log in a rapid. The sun
+      was shining brightly overhead, the verandas of the hotels along the beach
+      were crowded with gaily dressed people, the surf fringing that beach was
+      dotted with bathers, everything on shore wore a look of holiday and joy&mdash;and
+      yet out here, on the edge of the Channel, there was anything but calm and
+      anything but joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How that blessed boat did toss and rock and dip and leap and pitch! And
+      how the spray began to fly as we pushed farther and farther from land! It
+      came over the bows in sheets; it swept before the wind in showers, in
+      torrents. Hephzy hastily removed her hat and thrust it beneath the
+      tarpaulin. I turned up the collar of my steamer coat and slid as far down
+      into that collar as I could.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My soul!&rdquo; exclaimed Hephzy, the salt water running down her face. &ldquo;My
+      soul and body!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I agree with you,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On we went, over the waves or through them. Our fellow-passengers curled
+      up beneath their tarpaulins, smiled stoically or groaned dismally,
+      according to their dispositions&mdash;or digestions. A huge wave&mdash;the
+      upper third of it, at least&mdash;swept across the deck and spilled a
+      gallon or two of cold water upon us. A sturdy, red-faced Englishman,
+      sitting next me, grinned cheerfully and observed:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Trickles down one's neck a bit, doesn't it, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I agreed that it did. Hephzy, huddled under the lee of my shoulder,
+      sputtered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Trickles!&rdquo; she whispered. &ldquo;My heavens and earth! If this is a trickle
+      then Noah's flood couldn't have been more than a splash. Trickles! There's
+      a Niagara Falls back of both of my ears this minute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Another passenger, also English, but gray-haired and elderly, came tacking
+      down the deck, bound somewhere or other. His was a zig-zag transit. He
+      dove for the rail, caught it, steadied himself, took a fresh start,
+      swooped to the row of chairs by the deck house, carromed from them, and,
+      in company with a barrel or two of flying brine, came head first into my
+      lap. I expected profanity and temper. I did get a little of the former.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This damned French boat!&rdquo; he observed, rising with difficulty. &ldquo;She
+      absolutely WON'T be still.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The sea is pretty rough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, the sea is all right. A bit damp, that's all. It's the blessed boat.
+      Foreigners are such wretched sailors.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was off on another tack. Hephzy watched him wonderingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A bit damp,&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;Yes, I shouldn't wonder if 'twas. I suppose
+      likely he wouldn't call it wet if he fell overboard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not on this side of the Channel,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;This side is English
+      water, therefore it is all right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A few minutes later Hephzy spoke again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look at those poor women,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Opposite us were two English ladies, middle-aged, wretchedly ill and so
+      wet that the feathers on their hats hung down in strings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just like drowned cats' tails,&rdquo; observed Hephzy. &ldquo;Ain't it awful! And
+      they're too miserable to care. You poor thing,&rdquo; she said, leaning forward
+      and addressing the nearest, &ldquo;can't I fix you so you're more comfortable?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The woman addressed looked up and tried her best to smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no, thank you,&rdquo; she said, weakly but cheerfully. &ldquo;We're doing quite
+      well. It will soon be over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you hear that, Hosy?&rdquo; she whispered. &ldquo;I declare! if it wasn't off
+      already, and that's a mercy, I'd take off my hat to England and the
+      English people. Not a whimper, not a complaint, just sit still and soak
+      and tumble around and grin and say it's 'a bit damp.' Whenever I read
+      about the grumblin', fault-findin' Englishman I'll think of the folks on
+      this boat. It may be patriotism or it may be the race pride and reserve we
+      hear so much about&mdash;but, whatever it is, it's fine. They've all got
+      it, men and women and children. I presume likely the boy that stood on the
+      burnin' deck would have said 'twas a bit sultry, and that's all.... What
+      is it, Hosy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had uttered an exclamation. A young man had just reeled by us on his way
+      forward. His cap was pulled down over his eyes and his coat collar was
+      turned up, but I recognized him. He was Herbert Bayliss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We were three hours crossing from Folkestone to Boulogne, instead of the
+      usual scant two. We entered the harbor, where the great crucifix on the
+      hill above the town attracted Hephzy's attention and the French signs over
+      the doors of hotels and shops by the quay made her realize, so she said,
+      that we really were in a foreign country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Somehow England never did seem so very foreign,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;And the
+      Mayberry folks were so nice and homey and kind I've come to think of 'em
+      as, not just neighbors, but friends. But this&mdash;THIS is foreign
+      enough, goodness knows! Let go of my arm!&rdquo; to the smiling, gesticulating
+      porter who was proffering his services. &ldquo;DON'T wave your hands like that;
+      you make me dizzy. Keep 'em still, man! I could understand you just as
+      well if they was tied. Hosy, you'll have to be skipper from now on. Now I
+      KNOW Cape Cod is three thousand miles off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We got through the customs without trouble, found our places in the train,
+      and the train, after backing and fussing and fidgeting and tooting in a
+      manner thoroughly French, rolled out of the station.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We ate our dinner, and a very good dinner it was, in the dining-car.
+      Hephzy, having asked me to translate the heading &ldquo;Compagnie Internationale
+      des Wagon Lits&rdquo; on the bill of fare, declared she couldn't see why a
+      dining-car should be called a &ldquo;wagon bed.&rdquo; &ldquo;There's enough to eat to put
+      you to sleep,&rdquo; she declared, &ldquo;but you couldn't stay asleep any more than
+      you could in the nail factory up to Tremont. I never heard such a rattlin'
+      and slambangin' in my life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We whizzed through the French country, catching glimpses of little towns,
+      with red-roofed cottages clustered about the inevitable church and
+      chateau, until night came and looking out of the window was no longer
+      profitable. At nine, or thereabouts, we alighted from the train at Paris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the cab, on the way to the hotel where we were to meet the Heptons,
+      Hephzy talked incessantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Paris!&rdquo; she said, over and over again. &ldquo;Paris! where they had the Three
+      Musketeers and Notre Dame and Henry of Navarre and Saint Bartholomew and
+      Napoleon and the guillotine and Innocents Abroad and&mdash;and everything.
+      Paris! And I'm in it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the door of the hotel Mr. Hepton met us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before we retired that night I told Hephzy what I had deferred telling
+      until then, namely, that I did not intend leaving for Switzerland with her
+      and with the Heptons the following day. I did not tell her my real reason
+      for staying; I had invented a reason and told her that instead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to be alone here in Paris for a few days,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I think I may
+      find some material here which will help me with my novel. You and the
+      Heptons must go, just as you have planned, and I will join you at Lucerne
+      or Interlaken.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy stared at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I sha'n't stir one step without you,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;If I'd known you had
+      such an idea as that in your head I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You wouldn't have come,&rdquo; I interrupted. &ldquo;I know that; that's why I didn't
+      tell you. Of course you will go and of course you will leave me here. We
+      will be separated only two or three days. I'll ask Hepton to give me an
+      itinerary of the trip and I will wire when and where I will join you. You
+      must go, Hephzy; I insist upon it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of my insisting Hephzy still declared she should not go. It was
+      nearly midnight before she gave in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if you DON'T come in three days at the longest,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you'll
+      find me back here huntin' you up. I mean that, Hosy, so you'd better
+      understand it. And now,&rdquo; rising from her chair, &ldquo;I'm goin' to see about
+      the things you're to wear while we're separated. If I don't you're liable
+      to keep on wet stockin's and shoes and things all the time and forget to
+      change 'em. You needn't say you won't, for I know you too well. Mercy
+      sakes! do you suppose I've taken care of you all these years and DON'T
+      know?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The next forenoon I said good-by to her and the Heptons at the railway
+      station. Hephzy's last words to me were these:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Remember,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;if you do get caught in the rain, there's dry
+      things in the lower tray of your trunk. Collars and neckties and shirts
+      are in the upper tray. I've hung your dress suit in the closet in case you
+      want it, though that isn't likely. And be careful what you eat, and don't
+      smoke too much, and&mdash;Yes, Mr. Hepton, I'm comin'&mdash;and don't
+      spend ALL your money in book-stores; you'll need some of it in
+      Switzerland. And&mdash;Oh, dear, Hosy! do be a good boy. I know you're
+      always good, but, from all I've heard, this Paris is an awful place and&mdash;good-by.
+      Good-by. In Lucerne in two days or Interlaken in three. It's got to be
+      that, or back I come, remember. I HATE to leave you all alone amongst
+      these jabberin' foreigners. I'm glad you can jabber, too, that's one
+      comfort. If it was me, all I could do would be to holler United States
+      language at 'em, and if they didn't understand that, just holler louder. I&mdash;Yes,
+      Mr. Hepton, I AM comin' now. Good-by, Hosy, dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The train rolled out of the station. I watched it go. Then I turned and
+      walked to the street. So far my scheme had worked well. I was alone in
+      Paris as I had planned to be. And now&mdash;and now to find where a girl
+      sang, a girl who looked like Frances Morley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XV
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which I Learn that All Abbeys Are Not Churches
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      And that, now that I really stopped to consider it, began to appear more
+      and more of a task. Paris must be full of churches; to visit each of them
+      in turn would take weeks at least. Hephzy had given me three days. I must
+      join her at Interlaken in three days or there would be trouble. And how
+      was I to make even the most superficial search in three days?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of course I had realized something of this before. Even in the state of
+      mind which Heathcroft's story had left me, I had realized that my errand
+      in Paris was a difficult one. I realized that I had set out on the wildest
+      of wild goose chases and that, even in the improbable event of the
+      singer's being Frances, my finding her was most unlikely. The chances of
+      success were a hundred to one against me. But I was in the mood to take
+      the hundredth chance. I should have taken it if the odds were higher
+      still. My plan&mdash;if it could be called a plan&mdash;was first of all
+      to buy a Paris Baedeker and look over the list of churches. This I did,
+      and, back in the hotel room, I consulted that list. It staggered me. There
+      were churches enough&mdash;there were far too many. Cathedrals and chapels
+      and churches galore&mdash;Catholic and Protestant. But there was no church
+      calling itself an abbey. I closed the Baedeker, lit a cigar, and settled
+      myself for further reflection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl was singing somewhere and she called herself Mademoiselle Juno or
+      Junotte, so Heathcroft had said. So much I knew and that was all. It was
+      very, very little. But Herbert Bayliss had come to Paris, I believed,
+      because of what Heathcroft had told him. Did he know more than I? It was
+      possible. At any rate he had come. I had seen him on the steamer, and I
+      believed he had seen and recognized me. Of course he might not be in Paris
+      now; he might have gone elsewhere. I did not believe it, however. I
+      believed he had crossed the Channel on the same errand as I. There was a
+      possible chance. I might, if the other means proved profitless, discover
+      at which hotel Bayliss was staying and question him. He might tell me
+      nothing, even if he knew, but I could keep him in sight, I could follow
+      him and discover where he went. It would be dishonorable, perhaps, but I
+      was desperate and doggedly regardless of scruples. I was set upon one
+      thing&mdash;to find her, to see her and speak with her again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shadowing Bayliss, however, I set aside as a last resort. Before that I
+      would search on my own hook. And, tossing aside the useless Baedeker, I
+      tried to think of someone whose advice might be of value. At last, I
+      resolved to question the concierge of the hotel. Concierges, I knew, were
+      the ever present helps of travelers in trouble. They knew everything,
+      spoke all languages, and expected to be asked all sorts of unreasonable
+      questions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The concierge at my hotel was a transcendant specimen of his talented
+      class. His name and title was Monsieur Louis&mdash;at least that is what I
+      had heard the other guests call him. And the questions which he had been
+      called upon to answer, in my hearing, ranged in subject from the hour of
+      closing the Luxemburg galleries to that of opening the Bal Tabarin, with
+      various interruptions during which he settled squabbles over cab fares,
+      took orders for theater and opera tickets, and explained why fruit at the
+      tables of the Cafe des Ambassadeurs was so very expensive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monsieur Louis received me politely, listened, with every appearance of
+      interest, to my tale of a young lady, a relative, who was singing at one
+      of the Paris churches and whose name was Juno or Junotte, but, when I had
+      finished, reluctantly shook his head. There were many, many churches in
+      Paris&mdash;yes, and, at some of them, young ladies sang; but these were,
+      for the most part, the Protestant churches. At the larger churches, the
+      Catholic churches, most of the singers were men or boys. He could recall
+      none where a lady of that name sang. Monsieur had not been told the name
+      of the church?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The person who told me referred to it as an abbey,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Louis raised his shoulders. &ldquo;I am sorry, Monsieur,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but there is
+      no abbey, where ladies sing, in Paris. It is, alas, regrettable, but it is
+      so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He announced it as he might have broken to me the news of the death of a
+      friend. Incidentally, having heard a few sentences of my French, he spoke
+      in English, very good English.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will, however, make inquiries, Monsieur,&rdquo; he went on. &ldquo;Possibly I may
+      discover something which will be of help to Monsieur in his difficulty.&rdquo;
+       In the meantime there was to be a parade of troops at the Champ de Mars at
+      four, and the evening performance at the Folies Bergeres was unusually
+      good and English and American gentlemen always enjoyed it. It would give
+      him pleasure to book a place for me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I thanked him but I declined the offer, so far as the Folies were
+      concerned. I did ask him, however, to give me the name of a few churches
+      at which ladies sang. This he did and I set out to find them, in a cab
+      which whizzed through the Paris streets as if the driver was bent upon
+      suicide and manslaughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I visited four places of worship that afternoon and two more that evening.
+      Those in charge&mdash;for I attended no services&mdash;knew nothing of
+      Mademoiselle Junotte or Juno. I retired at ten, somewhat discouraged, but
+      stubbornly determined to keep on, for my three days at least.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next morning I consulted Baedeker again, this time for the list of
+      hotels, a list which I found quite as lengthy as that of the churches.
+      Then I once more sought the help of Monsieur Louis. Could he tell me a few
+      of the hotels where English visitors were most likely to stay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He could do more than that, apparently. Would I be so good as to inform
+      him if the lady or gentleman&mdash;being Parisian he put the lady first&mdash;whom
+      I wished to find had recently arrived in Paris. I told him that the
+      gentleman had arrived the same evening as I. Whereupon he produced a list
+      of guests at all the prominent hotels. Herbert Bayliss was registered at
+      the Continental.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To the Continental I went and made inquiries of the concierge there. Mr.
+      Bayliss was there, he was in his room, so the concierge believed. He would
+      be pleased to ascertain. Would I give my name? I declined to give the
+      name, saying that I did not wish to disturb Mr. Bayliss. If he was in his
+      room I would wait until he came down. He was in his room, had not yet
+      breakfasted, although it was nearly ten in the forenoon. I sat down in a
+      chair from which I could command a good view of the elevators, and waited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The concierge strolled over and chatted. Was I a friend of Mr. Bayliss?
+      Ah, a charming young gentleman, was he not. This was not his first visit
+      to Paris, no indeed; he came frequently&mdash;though not as frequently of
+      late&mdash;and he invariably stayed at the Continental. He had been out
+      late the evening before, which doubtless explained his non-appearance. Ah,
+      he was breakfasting now; had ordered his &ldquo;cafe complete.&rdquo; Doubtless he
+      would be down very soon? Would I wish to send up my name now?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again I declined, to the polite astonishment of the concierge, who
+      evidently considered me a queer sort of a friend. He was called to his
+      desk by a guest, who wished to ask questions, of course, and I waited
+      where I was. At a quarter to eleven Herbert Bayliss emerged from the
+      elevator.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His appearance almost shocked me. Out late the night before! He looked as
+      if he had been out all night for many nights. He was pale and solemn. I
+      stepped forward to greet him and the start he gave when he saw me was
+      evidence of the state of his nerves. I had never thought of him as
+      possessing any nerves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh? Why, Knowles!&rdquo; he exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good morning, Bayliss,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We both were embarrassed, he more than I, for I had expected to see him
+      and he had not expected to see me. I made a move to shake hands but he did
+      not respond. His manner toward me was formal and, I thought, colder than
+      it had been at our meeting the day of the golf tournament.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I called,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;to see you, Bayliss. If you are not engaged I should
+      like to talk with you for a few moments.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His answer was a question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How did you know I was here?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw your name in the list of recent arrivals at the Continental,&rdquo; I
+      answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean how did you know I was in Paris?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn't know. I thought I caught a glimpse of you on the boat. I was
+      almost sure it was you, but you did not appear to recognize me and I had
+      no opportunity to speak then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not speak at once, he did not even attempt denial of having seen
+      and recognized me during the Channel crossing. He regarded me intently
+      and, I thought, suspiciously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who sent you here?&rdquo; he asked, suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sent me! No one sent me. I don't understand you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did you follow me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Follow you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Why did you follow me to Paris? No one knew I was coming here, not
+      even my own people. They think I am&mdash;Well, they don't know that I am
+      here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His speech and his manner were decidedly irritating. I had made a firm
+      resolve to keep my temper, no matter what the result of this interview
+      might be, but I could not help answering rather sharply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had no intention of following you&mdash;here or anywhere else,&rdquo; I said.
+      &ldquo;Your action and whereabouts, generally speaking, are of no particular
+      interest to me. I did not follow you to Paris, Doctor Bayliss.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He reddened and hesitated. Then he led the way to a divan in a retired
+      corner of the lobby and motioned to me to be seated. There he sat down
+      beside me and waited for me to speak. I, in turn, waited for him to speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last he spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm sorry, Knowles,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I am not myself today. I've had a devil of
+      a night and I feel like a beast this morning. I should probably have
+      insulted my own father, had he appeared suddenly, as you did. Of course I
+      should have known you did not follow me to Paris. But&mdash;but why did
+      you come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hesitated now. &ldquo;I came,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;to&mdash;to&mdash;Well, to be
+      perfectly honest with you, I came because of something I heard concerning&mdash;concerning&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He interrupted me. &ldquo;Then Heathcroft did tell you!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;I
+      thought as much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He told you, I know. He said he did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. He did. My God, man, isn't it awful! Have you seen her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His manner convinced me that he had seen her. In my eagerness I forgot to
+      be careful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; I answered, breathlessly; &ldquo;I have not seen her. Where is she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned and stared at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you know where she is?&rdquo; he asked, slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know nothing. I have been told that she&mdash;or someone very like her&mdash;is
+      singing in a Paris church. Heathcroft told me that and then we were
+      interrupted. I&mdash;What is the matter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was staring at me more oddly than ever. There was the strangest
+      expression on his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In a church!&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;Heathcroft told you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He told me that he had seen a girl, whose resemblance to Miss Morley was
+      so striking as to be marvelous, singing in a Paris church. He called it an
+      abbey, but of course it couldn't be that. Do you know anything more
+      definite? What did he tell you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In a church!&rdquo; he said again. &ldquo;You thought&mdash;Oh, good heavens!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He began to laugh. It was not a pleasant laugh to hear. Moreover, it
+      angered me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This may be very humorous,&rdquo; I said, brusquely. &ldquo;Perhaps it is&mdash;to
+      you. But&mdash;Bayliss, you know more of this than I. I am certain now
+      that you do. I want you to tell me what you know. Is that girl Frances
+      Morley? Have you seen her? Where is she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had stopped laughing. Now he seemed to be considering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you did come over here to find her,&rdquo; he said, more slowly still.
+      &ldquo;You were following her, why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;WHY?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, why. She is nothing to you. You told my father that. You told me
+      that she was not your niece. You told Father that you had no claim upon
+      her whatever and that she had asked you not to try to trace her or to
+      learn where she was. You said all that and preached about respecting her
+      wish and all that sort of thing. And yet you are here now trying to find
+      her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The only answer I could make to this was a rather childish retort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so are you,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His fists clinched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I!&rdquo; he cried, fiercely. &ldquo;I! Did <i>I</i> ever say she was nothing to me?
+      Did <i>I</i> ever tell anyone I should not try to find her? I told you,
+      only the other day, that I would find her in spite of the devil. I meant
+      it. Knowles, I don't understand you. When I came to you thinking you her
+      uncle and guardian, and asked your permission to ask her to marry me, you
+      gave that permission. You did. You didn't tell me that she was nothing to
+      you. I don't understand you at all. You told my father a lot of rot&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told your father the truth. And, when I told you that she had left no
+      message for you, that was the truth also. I have no reason to believe she
+      cares for you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And none to think that she doesn't. At all events she did not tell ME not
+      to follow her. She did tell you. Why are you following her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a question I could not answer&mdash;to him. That reason no one
+      should know. And yet what excuse could I give, after all my protestations?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I feel that I have the right, everything considered,&rdquo; I
+      stammered. &ldquo;She is not my niece, but she is Miss Cahoon's.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And she ran away from both of you, asking, as a last request, that you
+      both make no attempt to learn where she was. The whole affair is beyond
+      understanding. What the truth may be&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you hinting that I have lied to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not hinting at anything. All I can say is that it is deuced queer,
+      all of it. And I sha'n't say more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you tell me&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall tell you nothing. That would be her wish, according to your own
+      statement and I will respect that wish, if you don't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I rose to my feet. There was little use in an open quarrel between us and
+      I was by far the older man. Yes, and his position was infinitely stronger
+      than mine, as he understood it. But I never was more strongly tempted. He
+      knew where she was. He had seen her. The thought was maddening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had risen also and was facing me defiantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good morning, Doctor Bayliss,&rdquo; said I, and walked away. I turned as I
+      reached the entrance of the hotel and looked back. He was still standing
+      there, staring at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That afternoon I spent in my room. There is little use describing my
+      feelings. That she was in Paris I was sure now. That Bayliss had seen her
+      I was equally sure. But why had he spoken and looked as he did when I
+      first spoke of Heathcroft's story? What had he meant by saying something
+      or other was &ldquo;awful?&rdquo; And why had he seemed so astonished, why had he
+      laughed in that strange way when I had said she was singing in a church?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That evening I sought Monsieur Louis, the concierge, once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is there any building here in Paris,&rdquo; I asked, &ldquo;a building in which
+      people sing, which is called an abbey? One that is not a church or an
+      abbey, but is called that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Louis looked at me in an odd way. He seemed a bit embarrassed, an
+      embarrassment I should not have expected from him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur asks the question,&rdquo; he said, smiling. &ldquo;It was in my mind last
+      night, the thought, but Monsieur asked for a church. There is a place
+      called L'Abbaye and there young women sing, but&mdash;&rdquo; he hesitated,
+      shrugged and then added, &ldquo;but L'Abbaye is not a church. No, it is not
+      that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A restaurant, Monsieur. A cafe chantant at Montmartre.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Montmartre at ten that evening was just beginning to awaken. At the hour
+      when respectable Paris, home-loving, domestic Paris, the Paris of which
+      the tourist sees so little, is thinking of retiring, Montmartre&mdash;or
+      that section of it in which L'Abbaye is situated&mdash;begins to open its
+      eyes. At ten-thirty, as my cab buzzed into the square and pulled up at the
+      curb, the electric signs were blazing, the sidewalks were, if not yet
+      crowded, at least well filled, and the sounds of music from the open
+      windows of The Dead Rat and the other cafes with the cheerful names were
+      mingling with noises of the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monsieur Louis had given me my sailing orders, so to speak. He had told me
+      that arriving at L'Abbaye before ten-thirty was quite useless. Midnight
+      was the accepted hour, he said; prior to that I would find it rather dull,
+      triste. But after that&mdash;Ah, Monsieur would, at least, be entertained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But of course Monsieur does not expect to find the young lady of whom he
+      is in search there,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;A relative is she not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Remembering that I had, when I first mentioned the object of my quest to
+      him, referred to her as a relative, I nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled and shrugged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A relative of Monsieur's would scarcely be found singing at L'Abbaye,&rdquo; he
+      said. &ldquo;But it is a most interesting place, entertaining and chic. Many
+      English and American gentlemen sup there after the theater.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled and intimated that the desire to pass a pleasant evening was my
+      sole reason for visiting the place. He was certain I would be pleased.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doorway of L'Abbaye was not deserted, even at the &ldquo;triste&rdquo; hour of
+      ten-thirty. Other cabs were drawn up at the curb and, upon the stairs
+      leading to the upper floors, were several gaily dressed couples bound, as
+      I had proclaimed myself to be, in search of supper and entertainment. I
+      had, acting upon the concierge's hint, arrayed myself in my evening
+      clothes and I handed my silk hat, purchased in London&mdash;where, as
+      Hephzy said, &ldquo;a man without a tall hat is like a rooster without tail
+      feathers&rdquo;&mdash;to a polite and busy attendant. Then a personage with a
+      very straight beard and a very curly mustache, ushered me into the main
+      dining-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur would wish seats for how many?&rdquo; he asked, in French.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For myself only,&rdquo; I answered, also in French. His next remark was in
+      English. I was beginning to notice that when I addressed a Parisian in his
+      native language, he usually answered in mine. This may have been because
+      of a desire to please me, or in self-defence; I am inclined to think the
+      latter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, for one only. This way, Monsieur.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was given a seat at one end of a long table, and in a corner. There were
+      plenty of small tables yet unoccupied, but my guide was apparently
+      reserving these for couples or quartettes; at any rate he did not offer
+      one to me. I took the seat indicated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall wish to remain here for some time?&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Probably the entire&mdash;&rdquo;
+       I hesitated; considering the hour I scarcely knew whether to say &ldquo;evening&rdquo;
+       or &ldquo;morning.&rdquo; At last I said &ldquo;night&rdquo; as a compromise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bearded person seemed doubtful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There will be a great demand later,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;To oblige Monsieur is of
+      course our desire, but.... Ah, merci, Monsieur, I will see that Monsieur
+      is not disturbed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The reason for his change of heart was the universal one in restaurants.
+      He put the reason in his pocket and summoned a waiter to take my order.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I gave the order, a modest one, which dropped me a mile or two in the
+      waiter's estimation. However, after a glance at my fellow-diners at nearby
+      tables, I achieved a partial uplift by ordering a bottle of extremely
+      expensive wine. I had had the idea that, being in France, the home of
+      champagne, that beverage would be cheap or, at least, moderately priced.
+      But in L'Abbaye the idea seemed to be erroneous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wine was brought immediately; the supper was somewhat delayed. I did
+      not care. I had not come there to eat&mdash;or to drink, either, for that
+      matter. I had come&mdash;I scarcely knew why I had come. That Frances
+      Morley would be singing in a place like this I did not believe. This was
+      the sort of &ldquo;abbey&rdquo; that A. Carleton Heathcroft would be most likely to
+      visit, that was true, but that he had seen her here was most improbable.
+      The coincidence of the &ldquo;abbey&rdquo; name would not have brought me there, of
+      itself. Herbert Bayliss had given me to understand, although he had not
+      said it, that she was not singing in a church and he had found the idea of
+      her being where she was &ldquo;awful.&rdquo; It was because of what he had said that I
+      had come, as a sort of last chance, a forlorn hope. Of course she would
+      not be here, a hired singer in a Paris night restaurant; that was
+      impossible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How impossible it was likely to be I realized more fully during the next
+      hour. There was nothing particularly &ldquo;awful&rdquo; about L'Abbaye of itself&mdash;at
+      first, nor, perhaps, even later; at least the awfulness was well covered.
+      The program of entertainment was awful enough, if deadly mediocrity is
+      awful. A big darkey, dressed in a suit which reminded me of the &ldquo;end man&rdquo;
+       at an old-time minstrel show, sang &ldquo;My Alabama Coon,&rdquo; accompanying
+      himself, more or less intimately, on the banjo. I could have heard the
+      same thing, better done, at a ten cent theater in the States, where this
+      chap had doubtless served an apprenticeship. However, the audience, which
+      was growing larger every minute, seemed to find the bellowing enjoyable
+      and applauded loudly. Then a feminine person did a Castilian dance between
+      the tables. I was ready to declare a second war with Spain when she had
+      finished. Then there was an orchestral interval, during which the tables
+      filled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The impossibility of Frances singing in a place like this became more
+      certain each minute, to my mind. I called the waiter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does Mademoiselle Juno sing here this evening?&rdquo; I asked, in my lame
+      French.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook his head. &ldquo;Non, Monsieur,&rdquo; he answered, absently, and hastened on
+      with the bottle he was carrying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Apparently that settled it. I might as well go. Then I decided to remain a
+      little longer. After all, I was there, and I, or Heathcroft, might have
+      misunderstood the name. I would stay for a while.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The long table at which I sat was now occupied from end to end. There were
+      several couples, male and female, and a number of unattached young ladies,
+      well-dressed, pretty for the most part, and vivacious and inclined to be
+      companionable. They chatted with their neighbors and would have chatted
+      with me if I had been in the mood. For the matter of that everyone talked
+      with everyone else, in French or English, good, bad and indifferent, and
+      there was much laughter and gaiety. L'Abbaye was wide awake by this time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bearded personage who had shown me to my seat, appeared, followed by a
+      dozen attendants bearing paper parasols and bags containing little
+      celluloid balls, red, white, and blue. They were distributed among the
+      feminine guests. The parasols, it developed, were to be waved and the
+      balls to be thrown. You were supposed to catch as many as were thrown at
+      you and throw them back. It was wonderful fun&mdash;or would have been for
+      children&mdash;and very, very amusing&mdash;after the second bottle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For my part I found it very stupid. As I have said at least once in this
+      history I am not what is called a &ldquo;good mixer&rdquo; and in an assemblage like
+      this I was as out of place as a piece of ice on a hot stove. Worse than
+      that, for the ice would have melted and I congealed the more. My bottle of
+      champagne remained almost untouched and when a celluloid ball bounced on
+      the top of my head I did not scream &ldquo;Whoopee! Bullseye!&rdquo; as my American
+      neighbors did or &ldquo;Voila! Touche!&rdquo; like the French. There were plenty of
+      Americans and English there, and they seemed to be having a good time, but
+      their good time was incomprehensible to me. This was &ldquo;gay Paris,&rdquo; of
+      course, but somehow the gaiety seemed forced and artificial and silly,
+      except to the proprietors of L'Abbaye. If I had been getting the price for
+      food and liquids which they received I might, perhaps, have been gay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young Frenchman at my right was gay enough. He had early discovered my
+      nationality and did his best to be entertaining. When a performer from the
+      Olympia, the music hall on the Boulevard des Italiens, sang a distressing
+      love ballad in a series of shrieks like those of a circular saw in a
+      lumber mill, this person shouted his &ldquo;Bravos&rdquo; with the rest and then,
+      waving his hands before my face, called for, &ldquo;De cheer Americain! One,
+      two, tree&mdash;Heep! Heep! Heep! Oo&mdash;ray-y-y!&rdquo; I did not join in
+      &ldquo;the cheer Americain,&rdquo; but I did burst out laughing, a proceeding which
+      caused the young lady at my left to pat my arm and nod delighted approval.
+      She evidently thought I was becoming gay and lighthearted at last. She was
+      never more mistaken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was nearly two o'clock and I had had quite enough of L'Abbaye. I had
+      not enjoyed myself&mdash;had not expected to, so far as that went. I hope
+      I am not a prig, and, whatever I am or am not, priggishness had no part in
+      my feelings then. Under ordinary circumstances I should not have enjoyed
+      myself in a place like that. Mine is not the temperament&mdash;I shouldn't
+      know how. I must have appeared the most solemn ass in creation, and if I
+      had come there with the idea of amusement, I should have felt like one. As
+      it was, my feeling was not disgust, but unreasonable disappointment.
+      Certainly I did not wish&mdash;now that I had seen L'Abbaye&mdash;to find
+      Frances Morley there; but just as certainly I was disappointed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I called for my bill, paid it, and stood up. I gave one look about the
+      crowded, noisy place, and then I started violently and sat down again. I
+      had seen Herbert Bayliss. He had, apparently, just entered and a waiter
+      was finding a seat for him at a table some distance away and on the
+      opposite side of the great room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no doubt about it; it was he. My heart gave a bound that almost
+      choked me and all sorts of possibilities surged through my brain. He had
+      come to Paris to find her, he had found her&mdash;in our conversation he
+      had intimated as much. And now, he was here at the &ldquo;Abbey.&rdquo; Why? Was it
+      here that he had found her? Was she singing here after all?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bayliss glanced in my direction and I sank lower in my chair. I did not
+      wish him to see me. Fortunately the lady opposite waved her paper parasol
+      just then and I went into eclipse, so far as he was concerned. When the
+      eclipse was over he was looking elsewhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The black-bearded Frenchman, who seemed to be, if not one of the
+      proprietors, at least one of the managers of L'Abbaye, appeared in the
+      clear space at the center of the room between the tables and waved his
+      hands. He was either much excited or wished to seem so. He shouted
+      something in French which I could not understand. There was a buzz of
+      interest all about me; then the place grew still&mdash;or stiller.
+      Something was going to happen, that was evident. I leaned toward my
+      voluble neighbor, the French gentleman who had called for &ldquo;de cheer
+      Americain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;What is the matter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He ignored, or did not hear, my question. The bearded person was still
+      waving his hands. The orchestra burst into a sort of triumphal march and
+      then into the open space between the tables came&mdash;Frances Morley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was dressed in a simple evening gown, she was not painted or powdered
+      to the extent that women who had sung before her had been, her hair was
+      simply dressed. She looked thinner than she had when I last saw her, but
+      otherwise she was unchanged. In that place, amid the lights and the riot
+      of color, the silks and satins and jewels, the flushed faces of the crowd,
+      she stood and bowed, a white rose in a bed of tiger lilies, and the crowd
+      rose and shouted at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The orchestra broke off its triumphal march and the leader stood up, his
+      violin at his shoulder. He played a bar or two and she began to sing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sang a simple, almost childish, love song in French. There was nothing
+      sensational about it, nothing risque, certainly nothing which should have
+      appealed to the frequenters of L'Abbaye. And her voice, although sweet and
+      clear and pure, was not extraordinary. And yet, when she had finished,
+      there was a perfect storm of &ldquo;Bravos.&rdquo; Parasols waved, flowers were
+      thrown, and a roar of applause lasted for minutes. Why this should have
+      been is a puzzle to me even now. Perhaps it was because of her clean,
+      girlish beauty; perhaps because it was so unexpected and so different;
+      perhaps because of the mystery concerning her. I don't know. Then I did
+      not ask. I sat in my chair at the table, trembling from head to foot, and
+      looking at her. I had never expected to see her again and now she was
+      before my eyes&mdash;here in this place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sang again; this time a jolly little ballad of soldiers and glory and
+      the victory of the Tri-Color. And again she swept them off their feet. She
+      bowed and smiled in answer to their applause and, motioning to the
+      orchestra leader, began without accompaniment, &ldquo;Loch Lomond,&rdquo; in English.
+      It was one of the songs I had asked her to sing at the rectory, one I had
+      found in the music cabinet, one that her mother and mine had sung years
+      before.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Ye'll take the high road
+      And I'll take the low road,
+      And I'll be in Scotland afore ye&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      I was on my feet. I have no remembrance of having risen, but I was
+      standing, leaning across the table, looking at her. There were cries of
+      &ldquo;Sit down&rdquo; in English and other cries in French. There were tugs at my
+      coat tails.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;But me and my true love
+      Shall never meet again,
+      By the bonny, bonny banks
+      Of Loch&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      She saw me. The song stopped. I saw her turn white, so white that the
+      rouge on her cheeks looked like fever spots. She looked at me and I at
+      her. Then she raised her hand to her throat, turned and almost ran from
+      the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I should have followed her, then and there, I think. I was on my way
+      around the end of the table, regardless of masculine boots and feminine
+      skirts. But a stout Englishman got in my way and detained me and the crowd
+      was so dense that I could not push through it. It was an excited crowd,
+      too. For a moment there had been a surprised silence, but now everyone was
+      exclaiming and talking in his or her native language.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I say! What happened? What made her do that?&rdquo; demanded the stout
+      Englishman. Then he politely requested me to get off his foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bearded manager&mdash;or proprietor&mdash;was waving his hands once
+      more and begging attention and silence. He got both, in a measure. Then he
+      made his announcement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He begged ten thousand pardons, but Mademoiselle Guinot&mdash;That was it,
+      Guinot, not Juno or Junotte&mdash;had been seized with a most regrettable
+      illness. She had been unable to continue her performance. It was not
+      serious, but she could sing no more that evening. To-morrow evening&mdash;ah,
+      yes. Most certainly. But to-night&mdash;no. Monsieur Hairee Opkins, the
+      most famous Engleesh comedy artiste would now entertain the patrons of
+      L'Abbaye. He begged, he entreated attention for Monsieur Opkins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not wait for &ldquo;Monsieur Hairee.&rdquo; I forced my way to the door. As I
+      passed out I cast a glance in the direction of young Bayliss. He was on
+      his feet, loudly shouting for a waiter and his bill. I had so much start,
+      at all events.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Through the waiters and uniformed attendants I elbowed. Another man with a
+      beard&mdash;he looked enough like the other to be his brother, and perhaps
+      he was&mdash;got in my way at last. A million or more pardons, but
+      Monsieur could not go in that direction. The exit was there, pointing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As patiently and carefully as I could, considering my agitation, I
+      explained that I did not wish to find the exit. I was a friend, a&mdash;yes,
+      a&mdash;er&mdash;relative of the young lady who had just sung and who had
+      been taken ill. I wanted to go to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another million pardons, but that was impossible. I did not understand,
+      Mademoiselle was&mdash;well, she did not see gentlemen. She was&mdash;with
+      the most expressive of shrugs&mdash;peculiar. She desired no friends. It
+      was&mdash;ah&mdash;quite impossible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I found my pocketbook and pressed my card into his hand. Would he give
+      Mademoiselle my card? Would he tell her that I must see her, if only for a
+      minute? Just give her the card and tell her that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook his head, smiling but firm. I could have punched him for the
+      smile, but instead I took other measures. I reached into my pocket, found
+      some gold pieces&mdash;I have no idea how many or of what denomination&mdash;and
+      squeezed them in the hand with the card. He still smiled and shook his
+      head, but his firmness was shaken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will give the card,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but I warn Monsieur it is quite useless.
+      She will not see him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The waiter with whom I had seen Herbert Bayliss in altercation was
+      hurrying by me. I caught his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pardon, Monsieur,&rdquo; he protested, &ldquo;but I must go. The gentleman yonder
+      desires his bill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't give it to him,&rdquo; I whispered, trying hard to think of the French
+      words. &ldquo;Don't give it to him yet. Keep him where he is for a time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I backed the demand with another gold piece, the last in my pocket. The
+      waiter seemed surprised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not give the bill?&rdquo; he repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, not yet.&rdquo; I did my best to look wicked and knowing&mdash;&ldquo;He and I
+      wish to meet the same young lady and I prefer to be first.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was sufficient&mdash;in Paris. The waiter bowed low.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rest in peace, Monsieur,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The gentleman shall wait.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I waited also, for what seemed a long time. Then the bearded one
+      reappeared. He looked surprised but pleased.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bon, Monsieur,&rdquo; he whispered, patting my arm. &ldquo;She will see you. You are
+      to wait at the private door. I will conduct you there. It is most unusual.
+      Monsieur is a most fortunate gentleman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the door, at the foot of a narrow staircase&mdash;decidedly lacking in
+      the white and gold of the other, the public one&mdash;I waited, for
+      another age. The staircase was lighted by one sickly gas jet and the
+      street outside was dark and dirty. I waited on the narrow sidewalk,
+      listening to the roar of nocturnal Montmartre around the corner, to the
+      beating of my own heart, and for her footstep on the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last I heard it. The door opened and she came out. She wore a cloak
+      over her street costume and her hat was one that she had bought in London
+      with my money. She wore a veil and I could not see her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I seized her hands with both of mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances!&rdquo; I cried, chokingly. &ldquo;Oh, Frances!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She withdrew her hands. When she spoke her tone was quiet but very firm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did you come here?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did I come? Why&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Why did you come? Was it to find me? Did you know I was here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not know. I had heard&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did Doctor Bayliss tell you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hesitated. So she HAD seen Bayliss and spoken with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; I answered, after a moment, &ldquo;he did not tell me, exactly. But I had
+      heard that someone who resembled you was singing here in Paris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you followed me. In spite of my letter begging you, for my sake, not
+      to try to find me. Did you get that letter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I got it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then why did you do it? Oh, WHY did you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For the first time there was a break in her voice. We were standing before
+      the door. The street, it was little more than an alley, was almost
+      deserted, but I felt it was not the place for explanations. I wanted to
+      get her away from there, as far from that dreadful &ldquo;Abbey&rdquo; as possible. I
+      took her arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;I will tell you as we go. Come with me now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She freed her arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not coming with you,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Why did you come here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I came&mdash;I came&mdash;Why did YOU come? Why did you leave us as you
+      did? Without a word!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned and faced me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know why I left you,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You know. You knew all the time. And
+      yet you let me believe&mdash;You let me think&mdash;I lived upon your
+      money&mdash;I&mdash;I&mdash;Oh, don't speak of it! Go away! please go away
+      and leave me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not going away&mdash;without you. I came to get you to go back with
+      me. You don't understand. Your aunt and I want you to come with us. We
+      want you to come and live with us again. We&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She interrupted. I doubt if she had comprehended more than the first few
+      words of what I was saying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please go away,&rdquo; she begged. &ldquo;I know I owe you money, so much money. I
+      shall pay it. I mean to pay it all. At first I could not. I could not earn
+      it. I tried. Oh, I tried SO hard! In London I tried and tried, but all the
+      companies were filled, it was late in the season and I&mdash;no one would
+      have me. Then I got this chance through an agency. I am succeeding here. I
+      am earning the money at last. I am saving&mdash;I have saved&mdash;And now
+      you come to&mdash;Oh, PLEASE go and leave me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her firmness had gone. She was on the verge of tears. I tried to take her
+      hands again, but she would not permit it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not go,&rdquo; I persisted, as gently as I could. &ldquo;Or when I go you
+      must go with me. You don't understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I do understand. My aunt&mdash;Miss Cahoon told me. I understand it
+      all. Oh, if I had only understood at first.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you don't understand&mdash;now. Your aunt and I knew the truth from
+      the beginning. That made no difference. We were glad to have you with us.
+      We want you to come back. You are our relative&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not. I am not really related to you in any way. You know I am not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are related to Miss Cahoon. You are her sister's daughter. She wants
+      you to come. She wants you to live with us again, just as you did before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She wants that! She&mdash;But it was your money that paid for the very
+      clothes I wore. Your money&mdash;not hers; she said so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That doesn't make any difference. She wants you and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was about to add &ldquo;and so do I,&rdquo; but she did not permit me to finish the
+      sentence. She interrupted again, and there was a change in her tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop! Oh, stop!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;She wanted me and&mdash;and so you&mdash;Did
+      you think I would consent? To live upon your charity?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no charity about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is. You know there is. And you believed that I&mdash;knowing what I
+      know&mdash;that my father&mdash;my own father&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! hush! That is all past and done with.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It may be for you, but not for me. Mr. Knowles, your opinion of me must
+      be a very poor one. Or your desire to please your aunt as great as your&mdash;your
+      charity to me. I thank you both, but I shall stay here. You must go and
+      you must not try to see me again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was firmness enough in this speech; altogether too much. But I was
+      as firm as she was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not go,&rdquo; I reiterated. &ldquo;I shall not leave you&mdash;in a place
+      like this. It isn't a fit place for you to be in. You know it is not. Good
+      heavens! you MUST know it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know what the place is,&rdquo; she said quietly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know! And yet you stay here! Why? You can't like it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a foolish speech, and I blurted it without thought. She did not
+      answer. Instead she began to walk toward the corner. I followed her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon,&rdquo; I stammered, contritely. &ldquo;I did not mean that, of
+      course. But I cannot think of your singing night after night in such a
+      place&mdash;before those men and women. It isn't right; it isn't&mdash;you
+      shall not do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She answered without halting in her walk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall do it,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;They pay me well, very well, and I&mdash;I
+      need the money. When I have earned and saved what I need I shall give it
+      up, of course. As for liking the work&mdash;Like it! Oh, how can you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon. Forgive me. I ought to be shot for saying that. I know
+      you can't like it. But you must not stay here. You must come with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Mr. Knowles, I am not coming with you. And you must leave me and
+      never come back. My sole reason for seeing you to-night was to tell you
+      that. But&mdash;&rdquo; she hesitated and then said, with quiet emphasis, &ldquo;you
+      may tell my aunt not to worry about me. In spite of my singing in a cafe
+      chantant I shall keep my self-respect. I shall not be&mdash;like those
+      others. And when I have paid my debt&mdash;I can't pay my father's; I wish
+      I could&mdash;I shall send you the money. When I do that you will know
+      that I have resigned my present position and am trying to find a more
+      respectable one. Good-by.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We had reached the corner. Beyond was the square, with its lights and its
+      crowds of people and vehicles. I seized her arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It shall not be good-by,&rdquo; I cried, desperately. &ldquo;I shall not let you go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I sha'n't. I shall come here night after night until you consent to come
+      back to Mayberry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stopped then. But when she spoke her tone was firmer than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you will force me to give it up,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Before I came here I
+      was very close to&mdash;There were days when I had little or nothing to
+      eat, and, with no prospects, no hope, I&mdash;if you don't leave me, Mr.
+      Knowles, if you do come here night after night, as you say, you may force
+      me to that again. You can, of course, if you choose; I can't prevent you.
+      But I shall NOT go back to Mayberry. Now, will you say good-by?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She meant it. If I persisted in my determination she would do as she said;
+      I was sure of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sure my aunt would not wish you to continue to see me, against my
+      will,&rdquo; she went on. &ldquo;If she cares for me at all she would not wish that.
+      You have done your best to please her. I&mdash;I thank you both. Good-by.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      What could I do, or say?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-by,&rdquo; I faltered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned and started across the square. A flying cab shut her from my
+      view. And then I realized what was happening, realized it and realized,
+      too, what it meant. She should not go; I would not let her leave me nor
+      would I leave her. I sprang after her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The square was thronged with cabs and motor cars. The Abbey and The Dead
+      Rat and all the rest were emptying their patrons into the street. Paris
+      traffic regulations are lax and uncertain. I dodged between a limousine
+      and a hansom and caught a glimpse of her just as she reached the opposite
+      sidewalk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances!&rdquo; I called. &ldquo;Frances!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned and saw me. Then I heard my own name shouted from the sidewalk
+      I had just left.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Knowles! Knowles!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked over my shoulder. Herbert Bayliss was at the curb. He was shaking
+      a hand, it may have been a fist, in my direction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Knowles!&rdquo; he shouted. &ldquo;Stop! I want to see you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not reply. Instead I ran on. I saw her face among the crowd and upon
+      it was a curious expression, of fear, of frantic entreaty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kent! Kent!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Oh, be careful! KENT!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a roar, a shout; I have a jumbled recollection of being thrown
+      into the air, and rolling over and over upon the stones of the street. And
+      there my recollections end, for the time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVI
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which I Take My Turn at Playing the Invalid
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Not for a very long time. They begin again&mdash;those recollections&mdash;a
+      few minutes later, break off once more, and then return and break off
+      alternately, over and over again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first thing I remember, after my whirligig flight over the Paris
+      pavement, is a crowd of faces above me and someone pawing at my collar and
+      holding my wrist. This someone, a man, a stranger, said in French:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is not dead, Mademoiselle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then a voice, a voice that I seemed to recognize, said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are sure, Doctor? You are sure? Oh, thank God!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I tried to turn my head toward the last speaker&mdash;whom I decided, for
+      some unexplainable reason, must be Hephzy&mdash;and to tell her that of
+      course I wasn't dead, and then all faded away and there was another blank.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next interval of remembrance begins with a sense of pain, a throbbing,
+      savage pain, in my head and chest principally, and a wish that the buzzing
+      in my ears would stop. It did not stop, on the contrary it grew louder and
+      there was a squeak and rumble and rattle along with it. A head&mdash;particularly
+      a head bumped as hard as mine had been&mdash;might be expected to buzz,
+      but it should not rattle, or squeak either. Gradually I began to
+      understand that the rattle and squeak were external and I was in some sort
+      of vehicle, a sleeping car apparently, for I seemed to be lying down. I
+      tried to rise and ask a question and a hand was laid on my forehead and a
+      voice&mdash;the voice which I had decided was Hephzy's&mdash;said, gently:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lie still. You mustn't move. Lie still, please. We shall be there soon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Where &ldquo;there&rdquo; might be I had no idea and it was too much trouble to ask,
+      so I drifted off again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next I was being lifted out of the car; men were lifting me&mdash;or
+      trying to. And, being wider awake by this time, I protested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here! What are you doing?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;I am all right. Let go of me. Let
+      go, I tell you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again the voice&mdash;it sounded less and less like Hephzy's&mdash;saying:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't! Please don't! You mustn't move.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But I kept on moving, although moving was a decidedly uncomfortable
+      process.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are they doing to me?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;Where am I? Hephzy, where am I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are at the hospital. You have been hurt and we are taking you to the
+      hospital. Lie still and they will carry you in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That woke me more thoroughly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo; I said, as forcefully as I could. &ldquo;Nonsense! I'm not badly
+      hurt. I am all right now. I don't want to go to a hospital. I won't go
+      there. Take me to the hotel. I am all right, I tell you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man's voice&mdash;the doctor's, I learned afterward&mdash;broke in,
+      ordering me to be quiet. But I refused to be quiet. I was not going to be
+      taken to any hospital.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am all right,&rdquo; I declared. &ldquo;Or I shall be in a little while. Take me to
+      my hotel. I will be looked after, there. Hephzy will look after me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor continued to protest&mdash;in French&mdash;and I to affirm&mdash;in
+      English. Also I tried to stand. At length my declarations of independence
+      seemed to have some effect, for they ceased trying to lift me. A dialogue
+      in French followed. I heard it with growing impatience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; I said, fretfully. &ldquo;Hephzy, make them take me to my hotel. I
+      insist upon it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Which hotel is it? Kent&mdash;Kent, answer me. What is the name of the
+      hotel?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I gave the name; goodness knows how I remembered it. There was more
+      argument, and, after a time, the rattle and buzz and squeak began again.
+      The next thing I remember distinctly is being carried to my room and
+      hearing the voice of Monsieur Louis in excited questioning and command.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After that my recollections are clearer. But it was broad daylight when I
+      became my normal self and realized thoroughly where I was. I was in my
+      room at the hotel, the sunlight was streaming in at the window and Hephzy&mdash;I
+      still supposed it was Hephzy&mdash;was sitting by that window. And for the
+      first time it occurred to me that she should not have been there; by all
+      that was right and proper she should be waiting for me in Interlaken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; I said, weakly, &ldquo;when did you get here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The figure at the window rose and came to the bedside. It was not Hephzy.
+      With a thrill I realized who it was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances!&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;Frances! Why&mdash;what&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! You mustn't talk. You mustn't. You must be quiet and keep perfectly
+      still. The doctor said so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what happened? How did I get here? What&mdash;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! There was an accident; you were hurt. We brought you here in a
+      carriage. Don't you remember?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      What I remembered was provokingly little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I seem to remember something,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Something about a hospital.
+      Someone was going to take me to a hospital and I wouldn't go. Hephzy&mdash;No,
+      it couldn't have been Hephzy. Was it&mdash;was it you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. We were taking you to the hospital. We did take you there, but as
+      they were taking you from the ambulance you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ambulance! Was I in an ambulance? What happened to me? What sort of an
+      accident was it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please don't try to talk. You must not talk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I won't if you tell me that. What happened?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you remember? I left you and crossed the street. You followed me
+      and then&mdash;and then you stopped. And then&mdash;Oh, don't ask me!
+      Don't!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know. Now I do remember. It was that big motor car. I saw it coming.
+      But who brought me here? You&mdash;I remember you; I thought you were
+      Hephzy. And there was someone else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, the doctor&mdash;the doctor they called&mdash;and Doctor Bayliss.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doctor Bayliss! Herbert Bayliss, do you mean? Yes, I saw him at the
+      'Abbey'&mdash;and afterward. Did he come here with me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. He was very kind. I don't know what I should have done if it had not
+      been for him. Now you MUST not speak another word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not, for a few moments. I lay there, feebly trying to think, and
+      looking at her. I was grateful to young Bayliss, of course, but I wished&mdash;even
+      then I wished someone else and not he had helped me. I did not like to be
+      under obligations to him. I liked him, too; he was a good fellow and I had
+      always liked him, but I did not like THAT.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose from the chair by the bed and walked across the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't go,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She came back almost immediately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is time for your medicine,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I took the medicine. She turned away once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't go,&rdquo; I repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not going. Not for the present.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was quite contented with the present. The future had no charms just
+      then. I lay there, looking at her. She was paler and thinner than she had
+      been when she left Mayberry, almost as pale and thin as when I first met
+      her in the back room of Mrs. Briggs' lodging house. And there was another
+      change, a subtle, undefinable change in her manner and appearance that
+      puzzled me. Then I realized what it was; she had grown older, more mature.
+      In Mayberry she had been an extraordinarily pretty girl. Now she was a
+      beautiful woman. These last weeks had worked the change. And I began to
+      understand what she had undergone during those weeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you been with me ever since it happened&mdash;since I was hurt?&rdquo; I
+      asked, suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All night?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She smiled. &ldquo;There was very little of the night left,&rdquo; she answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you have had no rest at all. You must be worn out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no; I am used to it. My&mdash;&rdquo; with a slight pause before the word&mdash;&ldquo;work
+      of late has accustomed me to resting in the daytime. And I shall rest by
+      and by, when my aunt&mdash;when Miss Cahoon comes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Cahoon? Hephzy? Have you sent for her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My tone of surprise startled her, I think. She looked at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sent for her?&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;Isn't she here&mdash;in Paris?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is in Interlaken, at the Victoria. Didn't the concierge tell you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He told us she was not here, at this hotel, at present. He said she had
+      gone away with some friends. But we took it for granted she was in Paris.
+      I told them I would stay until she came. I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I interrupted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay until she comes!&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;Stay&mdash;! Why you can't do that!
+      You can't! You must not!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! hush! Remember you are ill. Think of yourself!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of myself! I am thinking of you. You mustn't stay here&mdash;with me.
+      What will they think? What&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! hush, please. Think! It makes no difference what they think. If I
+      had cared what people thought I should not be singing at&mdash;Hush! you
+      must not excite yourself in this way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But I refused to hush.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must not!&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;You shall not! Why did you do it? They could
+      have found a nurse, if one was needed. Bayliss&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doctor Bayliss does not know. If he did I should not care. As for the
+      others&mdash;&rdquo; she colored, slightly,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I told the concierge that you were my uncle. It was only a white
+      lie; you used to say you were, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say! Oh, Frances, for your own sake, please&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! Do you suppose,&rdquo; her cheeks reddened and her eyes flashed as I had
+      seen them flash before, &ldquo;do you suppose I would go away and leave you now?
+      Now, when you are hurt and ill and&mdash;and&mdash;after all that you have
+      done! After I treated you as I did! Oh, let me do something! Let me do a
+      little, the veriest little in return. I&mdash;Oh, stop! stop! What are you
+      doing?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I suppose I was trying to sit up; I remember raising myself on my elbow.
+      Then came the pain again, the throbbing in my head and the agonizing pain
+      in my side. And after that there is another long interval in my
+      recollections.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a week&mdash;of course I did not know it was a week then&mdash;my
+      memories consist only of a series of flashes like the memory of the hours
+      immediately following the accident. I remember people talking, but not
+      what they said; I remember her voice, or I think I do, and the touch of
+      her hand on my forehead. And afterward, other voices, Hephzy's in
+      particular. But when I came to myself, weak and shaky, but to remain
+      myself for good and all, Hephzy&mdash;the real Hephzy&mdash;was in the
+      room with me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even then they would not let me ask questions. Another day dragged by
+      before I was permitted to do that. Then Hephzy told me I had a cracked rib
+      and a variety of assorted bruises, that I had suffered slight concussion
+      of the brain, and that my immediate job was to behave myself and get well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Land sakes!&rdquo; she exclaimed, &ldquo;there was a time when I thought you never
+      was goin' to get well. Hour after hour I've set here and listened to your
+      gabblin' away about everything under the sun and nothin' in particular, as
+      crazy as a kitten in a patch of catnip, and thought and thought, what
+      should I do, what SHOULD I do. And now I KNOW what I'm goin' to do. I'm
+      goin' to keep you in that bed till you're strong and well enough to get
+      out of it, if I have to sit on you to hold you down. And I'm no
+      hummin'-bird when it comes to perchin', either.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had received the telegram which Frances sent and had come from
+      Interlaken post haste.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I don't know,&rdquo; she declared, &ldquo;which part of that telegram upset me
+      most&mdash;what there was in it or the name signed at the bottom of it.
+      HER name! I couldn't believe my eyes. I didn't stop to believe 'em long. I
+      just came. And then I found you like this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was she here?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who&mdash;Frances! My, yes, she was here. So pale and tired lookin' that
+      I thought she was goin' to collapse. But she wouldn't give in to it. She
+      told me all about how it happened and what the doctor said and everything.
+      I didn't pay much attention to it then. All I could think of was you. Oh,
+      Hosy! my poor boy! I&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There! there!&rdquo; I broke in, gently. &ldquo;I'm all right now, or I'm going to
+      be. You will have the quahaug on your hands for a while longer. But,&rdquo;
+       returning to the subject which interested me most, &ldquo;what else did she tell
+      you? Did she tell you how I met her&mdash;and where?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, yes. She's singin' somewhere&mdash;she didn't say where exactly, but
+      it is in some kind of opera-house, I judged. There's a perfectly beautiful
+      opera-house a little ways from here on the Avenue de L'Opera, right by the
+      Boulevard des Italiens, though there's precious few Italians there, far's
+      I can see. And why an opera is a l'opera I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait a moment, Hephzy. Did she tell you of our meeting? And how I found
+      her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, not so dreadful much, Hosy. She's acted kind of queer about that,
+      seemed to me. She said you went to this opera-house, wherever it was, and
+      saw her there. Then you and she were crossin' the road and one of these
+      dreadful French automobiles&mdash;the way they let the things tear round
+      is a disgrace&mdash;ran into you. I declare! It almost made ME sick to
+      hear about it. And to think of me away off amongst those mountains,
+      enjoyin' myself and not knowin' a thing! Oh, it makes me ashamed to look
+      in the glass. I NEVER ought to have left you alone, and I knew it. It's a
+      judgment on me, what's happened is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Or on me, I should rather say,&rdquo; I added. Frances had not told Hephzy of
+      L'Abbaye, that was evident. Well, I would keep silence also.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is she now?&rdquo; I asked. I asked it with as much indifference as I
+      could assume, but Hephzy smiled and patted my hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, she comes every day to ask about you,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;And Doctor Bayliss
+      comes too. He's been real kind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bayliss!&rdquo; I exclaimed. &ldquo;Is he with&mdash;Does he come here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, he comes real often, mostly about the time she does. He hasn't been
+      here for two days now, though. Hosy, do you suppose he has spoken to her
+      about&mdash;about what he spoke to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; I answered, curtly. Then I changed the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has she said anything to you about coming back to Mayberry?&rdquo; I asked.
+      &ldquo;Have you told her how we feel toward her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy's manner changed. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, reluctantly, &ldquo;I've told her.
+      I've told her everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not everything? Hephzy, you haven't told her&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no. Of course I didn't tell her THAT. You know I wouldn't, Hosy. But
+      I told her that her money havin' turned out to be our money didn't make a
+      mite of difference. I told her how much we come to think of her and how we
+      wanted her to come with us and be the same as she had always been. I
+      begged her to come. I said everything I could say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And she said?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She said no, Hosy. She wouldn't consider it at all. She asked me not to
+      talk about it. It was settled, she said. She must go her way and we ours
+      and we must forget her. She was more grateful than she could tell&mdash;she
+      most cried when she said that&mdash;but she won't come back and if I asked
+      her again she declared she should have to go away for good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know. That is what she said to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. I can't make it out exactly. It's her pride, I suppose. Her mother
+      was just as proud. Oh, dear! When I saw her here for the first time, after
+      I raced back from Interlaken, I thought&mdash;I almost hoped&mdash;but I
+      guess it can't be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not answer. I knew only too well that it could not be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does she seem happy?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, no; I don't think she is happy. There are times, especially when you
+      began to get better, when she seemed happier, but the last few times she
+      was here she was&mdash;well, different.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How different?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's hard to tell you. She looked sort of worn and sad and discouraged.
+      Hosy, what sort of a place is it she is singin' in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you ask that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I don't know. Some things you said when you were out of your head
+      made me wonder. That, and some talk I overheard her and Doctor Bayliss
+      havin' one time when they were in the other room&mdash;my room&mdash;together.
+      I had stepped out for a minute and when I came back, I came in this door
+      instead of the other. They were in the other room talkin' and he was
+      beggin' her not to stay somewhere any more. It wasn't a fit place for her
+      to be, he said; her reputation would be ruined. She cut him short by
+      sayin' that her reputation was her own and that she should do as she
+      thought best, or somethin' like that. Then I coughed, so they would know I
+      was around, and they commenced talkin' of somethin' else. But it set me
+      thinkin' and when you said&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She paused. &ldquo;What did I say?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, 'twas when she and I were here. You had been quiet for a while and
+      all at once you broke out&mdash;delirious you was&mdash;beggin' somebody
+      or other not to do somethin'. For your sake, for their own sake, they
+      mustn't do it. 'Twas awful to hear you. A mixed-up jumble about Abbie,
+      whoever she is&mdash;not much, by the way you went on about her&mdash;and
+      please, please, please, for the Lord's sake, give it up. I tried to quiet
+      you, but you wouldn't be quieted. And finally you said: 'Frances! Oh,
+      Frances! don't! Say that you won't any more.' I gave you your sleepin'
+      drops then; I thought 'twas time. I was afraid you'd say somethin' that
+      you wouldn't want her to hear. You understand, don't you, Hosy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I understand. Thank you, Hephzy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Well, <i>I</i> didn't understand and I asked her if she did. She
+      said no, but she was dreadfully upset and I think she did understand, in
+      spite of her sayin' it. What sort of a place is it, this opera-house where
+      she sings?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I dodged the question as best I could. I doubt if Hephzy's suspicions were
+      allayed, but she did not press the subject. Instead she told me I had
+      talked enough for that afternoon and must rest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That evening I saw Bayliss for the first time since the accident. He
+      congratulated me on my recovery and I thanked him for his help in bringing
+      me to the hotel. He waved my thanks aside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite unnecessary, thanking me,&rdquo; he said, shortly. &ldquo;I couldn't do
+      anything else, of course. Well, I must be going. Glad you're feeling more
+      fit, Knowles, I'm sure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;How are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I? Oh, I'm fit enough, I suppose. Good-by.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He didn't look fit. He looked more haggard and worn and moody than ever.
+      And his manner was absent and distrait. Hephzy noticed it; there were few
+      things she did not notice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Either that boy's meals don't agree with him,&rdquo; she announced, &ldquo;or
+      somethin's weighin' on his mind. He looks as if he'd lost his last friend.
+      Hosy, do you suppose he's spoken to&mdash;to her about what he spoke of to
+      you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know. I suppose he has. He was only too anxious to speak, there
+      in Mayberry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! Well, IF he has, then&mdash;Hosy, sometimes I think this, all this
+      pilgrimage of ours&mdash;that's what you used to call it, a pilgrimage&mdash;is
+      goin' to turn out right, after all. Don't it remind you of a book, this
+      last part of it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A dismal sort of book,&rdquo; I said, gloomily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I don't know. Here are you, the hero, and here's she, the heroine.
+      And the hero is sick and the heroine comes to take care of him&mdash;she
+      WAS takin' care of you afore I came, you know; and she falls in love with
+      him and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I observed, sarcastically. &ldquo;She always does&mdash;in books. But in
+      those books the hero is not a middle-aged quahaug. Suppose we stick to
+      real life and possibilities, Hephzy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was unconvinced. &ldquo;I don't care,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;She ought to even if
+      she doesn't. <i>I</i> fell in love with you long ago, Hosy. And she DID
+      bring you here after you were hurt and took care of you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! hush!&rdquo; I broke in. &ldquo;She took care of me, as you call it, because
+      she thought it was her duty. She thinks she is under great obligation to
+      us because we did not pitch her into the street when we first met her. She
+      insists that she owes us money and gratitude. Her kindness to me and her
+      care are part payment of the debt. She told me so, herself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There aren't any 'buts.' You mustn't be an idiot because I have been one,
+      Hephzy. We agreed not to speak of that again. Don't remind me of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy sighed. &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I suppose you are right, Hosy. But&mdash;but
+      how is all this goin' to end? She won't go with us. Are we goin' to leave
+      her here alone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was silent. The same question was in my mind, but I had answered it. I
+      was NOT going to leave her there alone. And yet&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I was sure,&rdquo; mused Hephzy, &ldquo;that she was in love with Herbert Bayliss,
+      then 'twould be all right, I suppose. They would get married and it would
+      be all right&mdash;or near right&mdash;wouldn't it, Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I said nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next morning I saw her. She came to inquire for me and Hephzy brought
+      her into my room for a stay of a minute or two. She seemed glad to find me
+      so much improved in health and well on the road to recovery. I tried to
+      thank her for her care of me, for her sending for Hephzy and all the rest
+      of it, but she would not listen. She chatted about Paris and the French
+      people, about Monsieur Louis, the concierge, and joked with Hephzy about
+      that gentleman's admiration for &ldquo;the wonderful American lady,&rdquo; meaning
+      Hephzy herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He calls you 'Madame Cay-hoo-on,'&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and he thinks you a miracle
+      of decision and management. I think he is almost afraid of you, I really
+      do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy smiled, grimly. &ldquo;He'd better be,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;The way everybody
+      was flyin' around when I first got here after comin' from Interlaken, and
+      the way the help jabbered and hunched up their shoulders when I asked
+      questions made me so fidgety I couldn't keep still. I wanted an egg for
+      breakfast, that first mornin' and when the waiter brought it, it was in
+      the shell, the way they eat eggs over here. I can't eat 'em that way&mdash;I'm
+      no weasel&mdash;and I told the waiter I wanted an egg cup. Nigh as I could
+      make out from his pigeon English he was tellin' me there was a cup there.
+      Well, there was, one of those little, two-for-a-cent contraptions, just
+      big enough to stick one end of the egg into. 'I want a big one,' says I.
+      'We, Madame,' says he, and off he trotted. When he came back he brought me
+      a big EGG, a duck's egg, I guess 'twas. Then I scolded and he jabbered
+      some more and by and by he went and fetched this Monsieur Louis man. He
+      could speak English, thank goodness, and he was real nice, in his French
+      way. He begged my pardon for the waiter's stupidness, said he was a new
+      hand, and the like of that, and went on apologizin' and bowin' and smilin'
+      till I almost had a fit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'For mercy sakes!' I says, 'don't say any more about it. If that last egg
+      hadn't been boiled 'twould have hatched out an&mdash;an ostrich, or
+      somethin' or other, by this time. And it's stone cold, of course. Have
+      this&mdash;this jumpin'-jack of yours bring me a hot egg&mdash;a hen's egg&mdash;opened,
+      in a cup big enough to see without spectacles, and tell him to bring some
+      cream with the coffee. At any rate, if there isn't any cream, have him
+      bring some real milk instead of this watery stuff. I might wash clothes
+      with that, for I declare I think there's bluin' in it, but I sha'n't drink
+      it; I'd be afraid of swallowin' a fish by accident. And do hurry!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He went away then, hurryin' accordin' to orders, and ever since then he's
+      been bobbin' up to ask if 'Madame finds everything satisfactory.' I
+      suppose likely I shouldn't have spoken as I did, he means well&mdash;it
+      isn't his fault, or the waiter's either, that they can't talk without
+      wavin' their hands as if they were givin' three cheers&mdash;but I was
+      terribly nervous that mornin' and I barked like a tied-up dog. Oh dear,
+      Hosy! if ever I missed you and your help it's in this blessed country.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances laughed at all this; she seemed just then to be in high spirits;
+      but I thought, or imagined, that her high spirits were assumed for our
+      benefit. At the first hint of questioning concerning her own life, where
+      she lodged or what her plans might be, she rose and announced that she
+      must go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Each morning of that week she came, remaining but a short time, and always
+      refusing to speak of herself or her plans. Hephzy and I, finding that a
+      reference to those plans meant the abrupt termination of the call, ceased
+      trying to question. And we did not mention our life at the rectory,
+      either; that, too, she seemed unwilling to discuss. Once, when I spoke of
+      our drive to Wrayton, she began a reply, stopped in the middle of a
+      sentence, and then left the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy hastened after her. She returned alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She was cryin', Hosy,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;She said she wasn't, but she was. The
+      poor thing! she's unhappy and I know it; she's miserable. But she's so
+      proud she won't own it and, although I'm dyin' to put my arms around her
+      and comfort her, I know if I did she'd go away and never come back. Do you
+      notice she hasn't called me 'Auntie' once. And she always used to&mdash;at
+      the rectory. I'm afraid&mdash;I'm afraid she's just as determined as she
+      was when she ran away, never to live with us again. What SHALL we do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not know and I did not dare to think. I was as certain that these
+      visits would cease very soon as I was that they were the only things which
+      made my life bearable. How I did look forward to them! And while she was
+      there, with us, how short the time seemed and how it dragged when she had
+      gone. The worst thing possible for me, this seeing her and being with her;
+      I knew it. I knew it perfectly well. But, knowing it, and realizing that
+      it could not last and that it was but the prelude to a worse loneliness
+      which was sure to come, made no difference. I dreaded to be well again,
+      fearing that would mean the end of those visits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I was getting well and rapidly. I sat up for longer and longer periods
+      each day. I began to read my letters now, instead of having Hephzy read
+      them to me, letters from Matthews at the London office and from Jim
+      Campbell at home. Matthews had cabled Jim of the accident and later that I
+      was recovering. So Jim wrote, professing to find material gain in the
+      affair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Great stuff,&rdquo; he wrote. &ldquo;Two chapters at least. The hero, pursuing the
+      villain through the streets of Paris at midnight, is run down by an auto
+      driven by said villain. 'Ah ha!' says the villain: 'Now will you be good?'
+      or words to that effect. 'Desmond,' says the hero, unflinchingly, as they
+      extract the cobble-stones from his cuticle, 'you triumph for the moment,
+      but beware! there will be something doing later on.' See? If it wasn't for
+      the cracked rib and the rest I should be almost glad it happened. All you
+      need is the beautiful heroine nursing you to recovery. Can't you find
+      her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not know that I had found her, or that the hoped-for novel was less
+      likely to be finished than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was now able to leave me occasionally, to take the walks which I
+      insisted upon. She had some queer experiences in these walks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lost again to-day, Hosy,&rdquo; she said, cheerfully, removing her bonnet. &ldquo;I
+      went cruisin' through the streets over to the south'ard and they were so
+      narrow and so crooked&mdash;to say nothin' of bein' dirty and smelly&mdash;that
+      I thought I never should get out. Of course I could have hired a hack and
+      let it bring me to the hotel but I wouldn't do that. I was set on findin'
+      my own way. I'd walked in and I was goin' to walk out, that was all there
+      was to it. 'Twasn't the first time I'd been lost in this Paris place and
+      I've got a system of my own. When I get to the square 'Place delay
+      Concorde,' they call it, I know where I am. And 'Concorde' is enough like
+      Concord, Mass., to make me remember the name. So I walk up to a nice
+      appearin' Frenchman with a tall hat and whiskers&mdash;I didn't know there
+      was so many chin whiskers outside of East Harniss, or some other back
+      number place&mdash;and I say, 'Pardon, Monseer. Place delay Concorde?'
+      Just like that with a question mark after it. After I say it two or three
+      times he begins to get a floatin' sniff of what I'm drivin' at and says
+      he: 'Place delay Concorde? Oh, we, we, we, Madame!' Then a whole string of
+      jabber and arm wavin', with some countin' in the middle of it. Now I've
+      learned 'one, two, three' in French and I know he means for me to keep on
+      for two or three more streets in the way he's pointin'. So I keep on, and,
+      when I get there, I go through the whole rigamarole with another
+      Frenchman. About the third session and I'm back on the Concord Place.
+      THERE I am all right. No, I don't propose to stay lost long. My father and
+      grandfather and all my men folks spent their lives cruisin' through
+      crooked passages and crowded shoals and I guess I've inherited some of the
+      knack.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At last I was strong enough to take a short outing in Hephzy's company. I
+      returned to the hotel, where Hephzy left me. She was going to do a little
+      shopping by herself. I went to my room and sat down to rest. A bell boy&mdash;at
+      least that is what we should have called him in the States&mdash;knocked
+      at the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A lady to see Monsieur,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lady was Frances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She entered the room and I rose to greet her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, you are alone!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;Where is Miss Cahoon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is out, on a shopping expedition,&rdquo; I explained. &ldquo;She will be back
+      soon. I have been out too. We have been driving together. What do you
+      think of that!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She seemed pleased at the news but when I urged her to sit and wait for
+      Hephzy's return she hesitated. Her hesitation, however, was only
+      momentary. She took the chair by the window and we chatted together, of my
+      newly-gained strength, of Hephzy's adventures as a pathfinder in Paris, of
+      the weather, of a dozen inconsequential things. I found it difficult to
+      sustain my part in the conversation. There was so much of real importance
+      which I wanted to say. I wanted to ask her about herself, where she
+      lodged, if she was still singing at L'Abbaye, what her plans for the
+      future might be. And I did not dare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My remarks became more and more disjointed and she, too, seemed uneasy and
+      absent-minded. At length there was an interval of silence. She broke that
+      silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you will be going back to Mayberry soon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Back to Mayberry?&rdquo; I repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. You and Miss Cahoon will go back there, of course, now that you are
+      strong enough to travel. She told me that the American friends with whom
+      you and she were to visit Switzerland had changed their plans and were
+      going on to Italy. She said that she had written them that your proposed
+      Continental trip was abandoned.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Yes, that was given up, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you will go back to England, will you not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know. We have made no plans as yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you will go back. Miss Cahoon said you would. And, when your lease of
+      the rectory expires, you will sail for America.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you must know,&rdquo; with a momentary impatience. &ldquo;Surely you don't intend
+      to remain here in Paris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know that, either. I haven't considered what I shall do. It
+      depends&mdash;that is&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not finish the sentence. I had said more than I intended and it was
+      high time I stopped. But I had said too much, as it was. She asked more
+      questions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Upon what does it depend?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, nothing. I did not mean that it depended upon anything in particular.
+      I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must have meant something. Tell me&mdash;answer me truthfully,
+      please: Does it depend upon me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Of course that was just what it did depend upon. And suddenly I determined
+      to tell her so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances,&rdquo; I demanded, &ldquo;are you still there&mdash;at that place?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At L'Abbaye. Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You sing there every night?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you do it? You know&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know everything. But you know, too. I told you I sang there because I
+      must earn my living in some way and that seems to be the only place where
+      I can earn it. They pay me well there, and the people&mdash;the
+      proprietors&mdash;are considerate and kind, in their way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it isn't a fit place for you. And you don't like it; I know you
+      don't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; quietly. &ldquo;I don't like it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then don't do it. Give it up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I give it up what shall I do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know. Come back with us and live with us as you did before. I want
+      you; Hephzy is crazy to have you. We&mdash;she has missed you dreadfully.
+      She grieves for you and worries about you. We offer you a home and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She interrupted. &ldquo;Please don't,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I have told you that that is
+      impossible. It is. I shall never go back to Mayberry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But why? Your aunt&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't! My aunt is very kind&mdash;she has been so kind that I cannot bear
+      to speak of her. Her kindness and&mdash;and yours are the few pleasant
+      memories that I have&mdash;of this last dreadful year. To please you both
+      I would do anything&mdash;anything&mdash;except&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't make any exceptions. Come with us. If not to Mayberry, then
+      somewhere else. Come to America with us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't! My mind is made up. Please don't speak of that again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again I realized the finality in her tone. The same finality was in mine
+      as I answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I shall stay here,&rdquo; I declared. &ldquo;I shall not leave you alone,
+      without friends or a protector of any kind, to sing night after night in
+      that place. I shall not do it. I shall stay here as long as you do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was silent. I wondered what was coming next. I expected her to say, as
+      she had said before, that I was forcing her to give up her one
+      opportunity. I expected reproaches and was doggedly prepared to meet them.
+      But she did not reproach me. She said nothing; instead she seemed to be
+      thinking, to be making up her mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't do it, Frances,&rdquo; I pleaded. &ldquo;Don't sing there any longer. Give it
+      up. You don't like the work; it isn't fit work for you. Give it up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose from her chair and standing by the window looked out into the
+      street. Suddenly she turned and looked at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would it please you if I gave up singing at L'Abbaye?&rdquo; she asked quietly.
+      &ldquo;You know it would.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if I did would you and Miss Cahoon go back to England&mdash;at once?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here was another question, one that I found very hard to answer. I tried
+      to temporize.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We want you to come with us,&rdquo; I said, earnestly. &ldquo;We want you. Hephzy&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, don't, don't, don't! Why will you persist? Can't you understand that
+      you hurt me? I am trying to believe I have some self-respect left, even
+      after all that has happened. And you&mdash;What CAN you think of me! No, I
+      tell you! NO!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But for Hephzy's sake. She is your only relative.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at me oddly. And when she spoke her answer surprised me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are mistaken,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I have other&mdash;relatives. Good-by, Mr.
+      Knowles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was on her way to the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Frances,&rdquo; I cried, &ldquo;you are not going. Wait. Hephzy will be here any
+      moment. Don't go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must go,&rdquo; she said. At the door she turned and looked back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-by,&rdquo; she said, again. &ldquo;Good-by, Kent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had gone and when I reached the door she had turned the corner of the
+      corridor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Hephzy came I told her of the visit and what had taken place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's queer,&rdquo; said Hephzy. &ldquo;I can't think what she meant. I don't know
+      of any other relatives she's got except Strickland Morley's tribe. And
+      they threw him overboard long, long ago. I can't understand who she meant;
+      can you, Hosy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had been thinking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wasn't there someone else&mdash;some English cousins of hers with whom
+      she lived for a time after her father's death? Didn't she tell you about
+      them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy nodded vigorously. &ldquo;That's so,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;There was. And she
+      did live with 'em, too. She never told me their names or where they lived,
+      but I know she despised and hated 'em. She gave me to understand that. And
+      she ran away from 'em, too, just as she did from us. I don't see why she
+      should have meant them. I don't believe she did. Perhaps she'll tell us
+      more next time she comes. That'll be tomorrow, most likely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hoped that it might be to-morrow, but I was fearful. The way in which
+      she had said good-by made me so. Her look, her manner, seemed to imply
+      more than a good-by for a day. And, though this I did not tell Hephzy, she
+      had called me &ldquo;Kent&rdquo; for the first time since the happy days at the
+      rectory. I feared&mdash;all sorts of things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not come on the morrow, or the following day, or the day after
+      that. Another week passed and she did not come, nor had we received any
+      word from her. By that time Hephzy was as anxious and fretful as I. And,
+      when I proposed going in search of her, Hephzy, for a wonder, considering
+      how very, very careful she was of my precious health, did not say no.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're pretty close to bein' as well as ever you was, Hosy,&rdquo; she said.
+      &ldquo;And I know how terribly worried you are. If you do go out at night you
+      may be sick again, but if you don't go and lay awake frettin' and frettin'
+      about her I KNOW you'll be sick. So perhaps you'd better do it. Shall I&mdash;Sha'n't
+      I go with you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you had better not,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, perhaps you're right. You never would tell me much about this
+      opera-house, or whatever 'tis, but I shouldn't wonder if, bein' a Yankee,
+      I'd guessed considerable. Go, Hosy, and bring her back if you can. Find
+      her anyhow. There! there run along. The hack's down at the door waitin'.
+      Is your head feelin' all right? You're sure? And you haven't any pain? And
+      you'll keep wrapped up? All right? Good-by, dearie. Hurry back! Do hurry
+      back, for my sake. And I hope&mdash;Oh, I do hope you'll bring no bad
+      news.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      L'Abbaye, at eight-thirty in the evening was a deserted place compared to
+      what it had been when I visited it at midnight. The waiters and attendants
+      were there, of course, and a few early bird patrons, but not many. The
+      bearded proprietors, or managers, were flying about, and I caught one of
+      them in the middle of a flight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not recognize me at first, but when I stated my errand, he did. Out
+      went his hands and up went his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Mademoiselle,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Ah, yes! You are her friend, Monsieur; I
+      remember perfectly. Oh, no, no, no! she is not here any more. She has left
+      us. She sings no longer at L'Abbaye. We are desolate; we are inconsolable.
+      We pleaded, but she was firm. She has gone. Where? Ah, Monsieur, so many
+      ask that; but alas! we do not know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you do know where she lives,&rdquo; I urged. &ldquo;You must know her home
+      address. Give me that. It is of the greatest importance that I see her at
+      once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At first he declared that he did not know her address, the address where
+      she lodged. I persisted and, at last, he admitted that he did know it, but
+      that he was bound by the most solemn promise to reveal it to no one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was her wish, Monsieur. It was a part of the agreement under which she
+      sang for us. No one should know who she was or where she lived. And I&mdash;I
+      am an honorable man, Monsieur. I have promised and&mdash;&rdquo; the business of
+      shoulders and hands again&mdash;&ldquo;my pledged word to a lady, how shall it
+      be broken?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I found a way to break it, nevertheless. A trio of gold pieces and the
+      statement that I was her uncle did the trick. An uncle! Ah, that was
+      different. And, Mademoiselle had consented to see me when I came before,
+      that was true. She had seen the young English gentleman also&mdash;but we
+      two only. Was the young English Monsieur&mdash;&ldquo;the Doctor Baylees&rdquo;&mdash;was
+      he a relative also?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not answer that question. It was not his business and, beside, I did
+      not wish to speak of Herbert Bayliss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The address which the manager of L'Abbaye gave me, penciled on a card, was
+      a number in a street in Montmartre, and not far away. I might easily have
+      walked there, I was quite strong enough for walking now, but I preferred a
+      cab. Paris motor cabs, as I knew from experience, moved rapidly. This one
+      bore me to my destination in a few minutes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A stout middle-aged French woman answered my ring. But her answer to my
+      inquiries was most unsatisfactory. And, worse than all, I was certain she
+      was telling me the truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Mademoiselle was no longer there, she said. She had given up her room
+      three days ago and had gone away. Where? That, alas, was a question. She
+      had told no one. She had gone and she was not coming back. Was it not a
+      pity, a great pity! Such a beautiful Mademoiselle! such an artiste! who
+      sang so sweetly! Ah, the success she had made. And such a good young lady,
+      too! Not like the others&mdash;oh, no, no, no! No one was to know she
+      lodged there; she would see no one. Ah, a good girl, Monsieur, if ever one
+      lived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did she&mdash;did she go alone?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The stout lady hesitated. Was Monsieur a very close friend? Perhaps a
+      relative?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An uncle,&rdquo; I said, telling the old lie once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ah, an uncle! It was all right then. No, Mademoiselle had not gone alone.
+      A young gentleman, a young English gentleman had gone with her, or, at
+      least, had brought the cab in which she went and had driven off in it with
+      her. A young English gentleman with a yellow mustache. Perhaps I knew him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I recognized the description. She had left the house with Herbert Bayliss.
+      What did that mean? Had she said yes to him? Were they married? I dreaded
+      to know, but know I must.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And, as the one possible chance of settling the question, I bade my cab
+      driver take me to the Hotel Continental. There, at the desk, I asked if
+      Doctor Bayliss was still in the hotel. They said he was. I think I must
+      have appeared strange or the gasp of relief with which I received the news
+      was audible, for the concierge asked me if I was ill. I said no, and then
+      he told me that Bayliss was planning to leave the next day, but was just
+      then in his room. Did I wish to see him? I said I did and gave them my
+      card.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He came down soon afterward. I had not seen him for a fortnight, for his
+      calls had ceased even before Frances' last visit. Hephzy had said that, in
+      her opinion, his meals must be disagreeing with him. Judging by his
+      appearance his digestion was still very much impaired. He was in evening
+      dress, of course; being an English gentleman he would have dressed for his
+      own execution, if it was scheduled to take place after six o'clock. But
+      his tie was carelessly arranged, his shirt bosom was slightly crumpled and
+      there was a general &ldquo;don't care&rdquo; look about his raiment which was, for
+      him, most unusual. And he was very solemn. I decided at once, whatever
+      might have happened, it was not what I surmised. He was neither a happy
+      bridegroom nor a prospective one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good evening, Bayliss,&rdquo; said I, and extended my hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good evening, Knowles,&rdquo; he said, but he kept his own hands in his
+      pockets. And he did not ask me to be seated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; he said, after a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I came to you,&rdquo; I began&mdash;mine was a delicate errand and hard to
+      state&mdash;&ldquo;I came to you to ask if you could tell me where Miss Morley
+      has gone. She has left L'Abbaye and has given up her room at her lodgings.
+      She has gone&mdash;somewhere. Do you know where she is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was quite evident that he did know. I could see it in his face. He did
+      not answer, however. Instead he glanced about uneasily and then, turning,
+      led the way toward a small reception room adjoining the lobby. This room
+      was, save for ourselves, unoccupied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We can be more private here,&rdquo; he explained, briefly. &ldquo;What did you ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I asked if you knew where Miss Morley had gone and where she was at the
+      present time?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He hesitated, pulling at his mustache, and frowning. &ldquo;I don't see why you
+      should ask me that?&rdquo; he said, after a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I do ask it. Do you know where she is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Another pause. &ldquo;Well, if I did,&rdquo; he said, stiffly, &ldquo;I see no reason why I
+      should tell you. To be perfectly frank, and as I have said to you before,
+      I don't consider myself bound to tell you anything concerning her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His manner was most offensive. Again, as at the time I came to him at that
+      very hotel on a similar errand, after my arrival in Paris, I found it hard
+      to keep my temper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't misunderstand me,&rdquo; I said, as calmly as I could. &ldquo;I am not
+      pretending now to have a claim upon Miss Morley. I am not asking you to
+      tell me just where she is, if you don't wish to tell. And it is not for my
+      sake&mdash;that is, not primarily for that&mdash;that I am anxious about
+      her. It is for hers. I wish you might tell me this: Is she safe? Is she
+      among friends? Is she&mdash;is she quite safe and in a respectable place
+      and likely to be happy? Will you tell me that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He hesitated again. &ldquo;She is quite safe,&rdquo; he said, after a moment. &ldquo;And she
+      is among friends, or I suppose they are friends. As to her being happy&mdash;well,
+      you ought to know that better than I, it seems to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was puzzled. &ldquo;<i>I</i> ought to know?&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;I ought to know
+      whether she is happy or not? I don't understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at me intently. &ldquo;Don't you?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;You are certain you
+      don't? Humph! Well, if I were in your place I would jolly well find out;
+      you may be sure of that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you driving at, Bayliss? I tell you I don't know what you mean.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not answer. He was frowning and kicking the corner of a rug with
+      his foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't understand what you mean,&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;You are saying too much
+      or too little for my comprehension.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've said too much,&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;At all events, I have said all I shall
+      say. Was there any other subject you wished to see me about, Knowles? If
+      not I must be going. I'm rather busy this evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was no subject but that one. And you will tell me nothing more
+      concerning Miss Morley?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good night,&rdquo; I said, and turned away. Then I turned back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bayliss,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I think perhaps I had better say this: I have only the
+      kindest feelings toward you. You may have misunderstood my attitude in all
+      this. I have said nothing to prejudice her&mdash;Miss Morley against you.
+      I never shall. You care for her, I know. If she cares for you that is
+      enough, so far as I am concerned. Her happiness is my sole wish. I want
+      you to consider me your friend&mdash;and hers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Once more I extended my hand. For an instant I thought he was going to
+      take it, but he did not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said, sullenly. &ldquo;I won't shake hands with you. Why should I? You
+      don't mean what you say. At least I don't think you do. I&mdash;I&mdash;By
+      Jove! you can't!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I do,&rdquo; I said, patiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can't! Look here! you say I care for her. God knows I do! But you&mdash;suppose
+      you knew where she was, what would you do? Would you go to her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had been considering this very thing, during my ride to the lodgings and
+      on the way to the hotel; and I had reached a conclusion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; I answered, slowly. &ldquo;I think I should not. I know she does not wish
+      me to follow her. I suppose she went away to avoid me. If I were convinced
+      that she was among friends, in a respectable place, and quite safe, I
+      should try to respect her wish. I think I should not follow her there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stared at me, wide-eyed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You wouldn't!&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;You wouldn't! And you&mdash;Oh, I say! And
+      you talked of her happiness!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is her happiness I am thinking of. If it were my own I should&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing, nothing. She will be happier if I do not follow her, I suppose.
+      That is enough for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He regarded me with the same intent stare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Knowles,&rdquo; he said, suddenly, &ldquo;she is at the home of a relative of hers&mdash;Cripps
+      is the name&mdash;in Leatherhead, England. There! I have told you. Why I
+      should be such a fool I don't know. And now you will go there, I suppose.
+      What?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;No. I thank you for telling me, Bayliss, but it shall
+      make no difference. I will respect her wish. I will not go there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You won't!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I will not trouble her again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To my surprise he laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh, there was more
+      sarcasm than mirth in it, or so it seemed, but why he should laugh at all
+      I could not understand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Knowles,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you're a good fellow, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what?&rdquo; I asked, stiffly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're no end of a silly ass in some ways. Good night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned on his heel and walked off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which I, as Well as Mr. Solomon Cripps, Am Surprised
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And to think,&rdquo; cried Hephzy, for at least the fifth time since I told
+      her, &ldquo;that those Crippses are her people, the cousins she lived with after
+      her pa's death! No wonder she was surprised when I told her how you and I
+      went to Leatherhead and looked at their 'Ash Dump'&mdash;'Ash Chump,' I
+      mean. And we came just as near hirin' it, too; we would have hired it if
+      she hadn't put her foot down and said she wouldn't go there. A good many
+      queer things have happened on this pilgrimage of ours, Hosy, but I do
+      believe our goin' straight to those Crippses, of all the folks in England,
+      is about the strangest. Seems as if we was sent there with a purpose,
+      don't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a strange coincidence,&rdquo; I admitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's more'n that. And her goin' back to them is queerer still. She hates
+      'em, I know she does. She as much as said so, not mention' their names, of
+      course. Why did she do it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I knew why she had done it, or I believed I did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She did it to please you and me, Hephzy,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;And to get rid of us.
+      She said she would do anything to please us, and she knew I did not want
+      her to remain here in Paris. I told her I should stay here as long as she
+      did, or at least as long as she sang at&mdash;at the place where she was
+      singing. And she asked if, provided she gave up singing there, you and I
+      would go back to England&mdash;or America?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I know; you told me that, Hosy. But you said you didn't promise to
+      do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn't promise anything. I couldn't promise not to follow her. I didn't
+      believe I could keep the promise. But I sha'n't follow her, Hephzy. I
+      shall not go to Leatherhead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was silent for a moment. Then she said: &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know why. That night when I first met her, the night after you had
+      gone to Lucerne, she told me that if I persisted in following her and
+      trying to see her I would force her to give up the only means of earning a
+      living she had been able to find. Well, I have forced her to do that. She
+      has been obliged to run away once more in order to get rid of us. I am not
+      going to persecute her further. I am going to try and be unselfish and
+      decent, if I can. Now that we know she is safe and among friends&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Friends! A healthy lot of friends they are&mdash;that Solomon Cripps and
+      his wife! If ever I ran afoul of a sanctimonious pair of hypocrites
+      they're the pair. Oh, they were sweet and buttery enough to us, I give in,
+      but that was because they thought we was goin' to hire their Dump or
+      Chump, or whatever 'twas. I'll bet they could be hard as nails to anybody
+      they had under their thumbs. Whenever I see a woman or a man with a mouth
+      that shuts up like a crack in a plate, the way theirs do, it takes more
+      than Scriptur' texts from that mouth to make me believe it won't bite when
+      it has the chance. Safe! poor Little Frank may be safe enough at
+      Leatherhead, but I'll bet she's miserable. WHAT made her go there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because she had no other place to go, I suppose,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;And there,
+      among her relatives, she thought she would be free from our persecution.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's some things worse than persecution,&rdquo; Hephzy declared; &ldquo;and, so
+      far as that goes, there are different kinds of persecution. But what makes
+      those Crippses willin' to take her in and look after her is what <i>I</i>
+      can't understand. They MAY be generous and forgivin' and kind, but, if
+      they are, then I miss my guess. The whole business is awful queer. Tell me
+      all about your talk with Doctor Bayliss, Hosy. What did he say? And how
+      did he look when he said it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I told her, repeating our conversation word for word, as near as I could
+      remember it. She listened intently and when I had finished there was an
+      odd expression on her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;He seemed surprised to think you weren't goin' to
+      Leatherhead, you say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. At least I thought he was surprised. He knew I had chased her from
+      Mayberry to Paris and was there at the hotel trying to learn from him
+      where she was. And he knows you are her aunt. I suppose he thought it
+      strange that we were not going to follow her any further.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Maybe so... maybe so. But why did he call you a&mdash;what was it?&mdash;a
+      silly donkey?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I am one, I imagine,&rdquo; I answered, bitterly. &ldquo;It's my natural
+      state. I was born one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! Well, 'twould take more than that boy's word to make me believe
+      it. No there's something!&mdash;I wish I could see that young fellow
+      myself. He's at the Continental Hotel, you say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; but he leaves to-morrow. There, Hephzy, that's enough. Don't talk
+      about it. Change the subject. I am ready to go back to England&mdash;yes,
+      or America either, whenever you say the word. The sooner the better for
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy obediently changed the subject and we decided to leave Paris the
+      following afternoon. We would go back to the rectory, of course, and leave
+      there for home as soon as the necessary arrangements could be made. Hephzy
+      agreed to everything, she offered no objections, in fact it seemed to me
+      that she was paying very little attention. Her lack of interest&mdash;yes,
+      and apparent lack of sympathy, for I knew she must know what my decision
+      meant to me&mdash;hurt and irritated me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I rose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good night,&rdquo; I said, curtly. &ldquo;I'm going to bed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's right, Hosy. You ought to go. You'll be sick again if you sit up
+      any longer. Good night, dearie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;What are you going to do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm going to set up a spell longer. I want to think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't. I wish I might never think again. Or dream, either. I am awake
+      at last. God knows I wish I wasn't!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She moved toward me. There was the same odd expression on her face and a
+      queer, excited look in her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps you aren't really awake, Hosy,&rdquo; she said, gently. &ldquo;Perhaps this
+      is the final dream and when you do wake you'll find&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, bosh!&rdquo; I interrupted. &ldquo;Don't tell me you have another presentiment.
+      If you have keep it to yourself. Good night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was weak from my recent illness and I had been under a great nervous
+      strain all that evening. These are my only excuses and they are poor ones.
+      I spoke and acted abominably and I was sorry for it afterward. I have told
+      Hephzy so a good many times since, but I think she understood without my
+      telling her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; she said, quietly, &ldquo;dreams are somethin', after all. It's
+      somethin' to have had dreams. I sha'n't forget mine. Good night, Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The next morning after breakfast she announced that she had an errand or
+      two to do. She would run out and do them, she said, but she would be gone
+      only a little while. She was gone nearly two hours during which I paced
+      the floor or sat by the window looking out. The crowded boulevard was
+      below me, but I did not see it. All I saw was a future as desolate and
+      blank as the Bayport flats at low tide, and I, a quahaug on those flats,
+      doomed to live, or exist, forever and ever and ever, with nothing to live
+      for.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy, when she did return to the hotel, was surprisingly chatty and
+      good-humored. She talked, talked, talked all the time, about nothing in
+      particular, laughed a good deal, and flew about, packing our belongings
+      and humming to herself. She acted more like the Hephzy of old than she had
+      for weeks. There was an air of suppressed excitement about her which I
+      could not understand. I attributed it to the fact of our leaving for
+      America in the near future and her good humor irritated me. My spirits
+      were lower than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You seem to be remarkably happy,&rdquo; I observed, fretfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What makes you think so, Hosy? Because I was singin'? Father used to say
+      my singin' was the most doleful noise he ever heard, except a fog-horn on
+      a lee shore. I'm glad if you think it's a proof of happiness: I'm much
+      obliged for the compliment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you are happy, or you are trying to appear so. If you are
+      pretending for my benefit, don't. I'M not happy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know, Hosy; I know. Well, perhaps you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She didn't finish the sentence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, nothin', nothin'. How many shirts did you bring with you? is this
+      all?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She sang no more, probably because she saw that the &ldquo;fog-horn&rdquo; annoyed me,
+      but her manner was just as strange and her nervous energy as pronounced. I
+      began to doubt if my surmise, that her excitement and exaltation were due
+      to the anticipation of an early return to Bayport, was a correct one. I
+      began to thing there must be some other course and to speculate concerning
+      it. And I, too, grew a bit excited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; I said, suddenly, &ldquo;where did you go when you went out this
+      morning? What sort of 'errands' were those of yours?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was folding my ties, her back toward me, and she answered without
+      turning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I had some odds and ends of things to do,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;This plaid
+      necktie of yours is gettin' pretty shabby, Hosy. I guess you can't wear it
+      again. There! I mustn't stop to talk. I've got my own things to pack.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hurried to her own room and I asked no more questions just then. But I
+      was more suspicious than ever. I remembered a question of hers the
+      previous evening and I believed.... But, if she had gone to the
+      Continental and seen Herbert Bayliss, what could he have told her to make
+      her happy?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We took the train for Calais and crossed the Channel to Dover. This time
+      the eccentric strip of water was as calm as a pond at sunset. No jumpy,
+      white-capped billows, no flying spray, no seasick passengers. Tarpaulins
+      were a drag on the market.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wouldn't believe,&rdquo; declared Hephzy, &ldquo;that this lookin'-glass was the
+      same as that churned-up tub of suds we slopped through before. It doesn't
+      trickle down one's neck now, does it, Hosy. A 'nahsty' cross-in' comin'
+      and a smooth one comin' back. I wonder if that's a sign.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, don't talk about signs, Hephzy,&rdquo; I pleaded, wearily. &ldquo;You'll begin to
+      dream again, I suppose, pretty soon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I won't. I think you and I have stopped dreamin', Hosy. Maybe we're
+      just wakin' up, same as I told you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean by that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mean? Oh, I guess I didn't mean anything. Good-by, old France! You're a
+      lovely country and a lively one, but I sha'n't cry at sayin' good-by to
+      you this time. And there's England dead ahead. Won't it seem good to be
+      where they talk instead of jabber! I sha'n't have to navigate by the
+      'one-two-three' chart over there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dover, a flying trip through the customs, the train again, an English
+      dinner in an English restaurant car&mdash;not a &ldquo;wagon bed,&rdquo; as Hephzy
+      said, exultantly&mdash;and then London.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We took a cab to the hotel, not Bancroft's this time, but a modern
+      downtown hostelry where there were at least as many Americans as English.
+      In our rooms I would have cross-questioned Hephzy, but she would not be
+      questioned, declaring that she was tired and sleepy. I was tired, also,
+      but not sleepy. I was almost as excited as she seemed to be by this time.
+      I was sure she had learned something that morning in Paris, something
+      which pleased her greatly. What that something might be I could not
+      imagine; but I believed she had learned it from Herbert Bayliss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the next morning, after breakfast, she announced that she had arranged
+      for a cab and we must start for the station at once. I said nothing then,
+      but when the cab pulled up before a railway station, a station which was
+      not our accustomed one but another, I said a great deal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What in the world, Hephzy!&rdquo; I exclaimed. &ldquo;We can't go to Mayberry from
+      here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush, hush, Hosy. Wait a minute&mdash;wait till I've paid the driver.
+      Yes, I'm doin' it myself. I'm skipper on this cruise. You're an invalid,
+      didn't you know it. Invalids have to obey orders.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The cabman paid, she took my arm and led me into the station.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now, Hosy,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;let me tell you. We aren't goin' to Mayberry&mdash;not
+      yet. We're going to Leatherhead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To Leatherhead!&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;To Leatherhead! To&mdash;her? We certainly
+      will do no such thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, we will, Hosy,&rdquo; quietly. &ldquo;I haven't said anything about it before,
+      but I've made up my mind. It's our duty to see her just once more, once
+      more before&mdash;before we say good-by for good. It's our duty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Duty! Our duty is to let her alone, to leave her in peace, as she asked
+      us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you know she is in peace? Suppose she isn't. Suppose she's
+      miserable and unhappy. Isn't it our duty to find out? I think it is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked her full in the face. &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; I said, sharply, &ldquo;you know
+      something about her, something that I don't know. What is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know as I know anything, Hosy. I can't say that I do. But&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You saw Herbert Bayliss yesterday. That was the 'errand' you went upon
+      yesterday morning in Paris. Wasn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was very much taken aback. She has told me since that she had no idea
+      I suspected the truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wasn't it?&rdquo; I repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why&mdash;why, yes, it was, Hosy. I did go to see him, there at his
+      hotel. When you told me how he acted and what he said to you I thought
+      'twas awfully funny, and the more I thought it over the funnier it seemed.
+      So I made up my mind to see him and talk with him myself. And I did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did he tell you?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He told me&mdash;he told me&mdash;Well, he didn't tell me so much, maybe,
+      but he gave me to understand a whole lot. She's gone to those Crippses,
+      Hosy, just as I suspicioned, not because she likes 'em&mdash;she hates 'em&mdash;or
+      because she wanted to go, but because she thought 'twould please us if she
+      did. It doesn't please us; it doesn't please me, anyway. She sha'n't be
+      miserable for our sake, not without a word from us. No, we must go there
+      and see her and&mdash;and tell her once more just how we feel about it.
+      It's our duty to go and we must. And,&rdquo; with decision, &ldquo;we're goin' now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had poured out this explanation breathlessly, hurrying as if fearful
+      that I might interrupt and ask more questions. I asked one of them the
+      moment she paused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We knew all that before,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;That is, we were practically sure she
+      had left Paris to get rid of us and had gone to her cousins, the Crippses,
+      because of her half-promise to me not to sing at places like the Abbey
+      again. We knew all that. And she asked me to promise that we would not
+      follow her. I didn't promise, but that makes no difference. Was that all
+      Bayliss told you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was still embarrassed and confused, though she answered promptly
+      enough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He told me he knew she didn't want to go to&mdash;to those Leatherheaded
+      folks,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;We guessed she didn't, but we didn't know it for
+      sure. And he said we ought to go to her. He said that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But why did he say it? Our going will not alter her determination to stay
+      and our seeing her again will only make it harder for her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, it won't&mdash;no it won't,&rdquo; hastily. &ldquo;Besides I want to see that
+      Cripps man and have a talk with him, myself. I want to know why a man like
+      him&mdash;I'm pretty well along in years; I've met folks and bargained and
+      dealt with 'em all my grown-up life and I KNOW he isn't the kind to do
+      things for nothin' for ANYBODY&mdash;I want to know why he and his wife
+      are so generous to her. There's somethin' behind it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's something behind you, Hephzy. Some other reason that you haven't
+      told me. Was that all Bayliss said?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hesitated. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, after a moment, &ldquo;that's all, all I can
+      tell you now, anyway. But I want you to go with me to that Ash Dump and
+      see her once more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not, Hephzy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then I'll have to go by myself. And if you don't go, too, I think
+      you'll be awfully sorry. I think you will. Oh, Hosy,&rdquo; pleadingly, &ldquo;please
+      go with me. I don't ask you to do many things, now do I? I do ask you to
+      do this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I shook my head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would do almost anything for your sake, Hephzy,&rdquo; I began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But this isn't for my sake. It's for hers. For hers. I'm sure&mdash;I'm
+      ALMOST sure you and she will both be glad you did it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I could not understand it at all. I had never seen her more earnest. She
+      was not the one to ask unreasonable things and yet where her sister's
+      child was concerned she could be obstinate enough&mdash;I knew that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall go whether you do or not,&rdquo; she said, as I stood looking at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean that, Hephzy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I surely do. I'm goin' to see her this very forenoon. And I do hope
+      you'll go with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I reflected. If she went alone it would be almost as hard for Frances as
+      if I went with her. And the temptation was very strong. The desire to see
+      her once more, only once....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll go, Hephzy,&rdquo; I said. I didn't mean to say it; the words seemed to
+      come of themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will! Oh, I'm so glad! I'm so glad! And I think&mdash;I think you'll
+      be glad, too, Hosy. I'm hopin' you will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll go,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;But this is the last time you and I must trouble her.
+      I'll go&mdash;not because of any reason you have given me, Hephzy, but
+      because I believe there must be some other and stronger reason, which you
+      haven't told me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy drew a long breath. She seemed to be struggling between a desire to
+      tell me more&mdash;whatever that more might be&mdash;and a determination
+      not to tell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Maybe there is, Hosy,&rdquo; she said, slowly. &ldquo;Maybe there is. I&mdash;I&mdash;Well,
+      there! I must go and buy the tickets. You sit down and wait. I'm skipper
+      of this craft to-day, you know. I'm in command on this voyage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Leatherhead looked exactly as it had on our previous visit. &ldquo;Ash Clump,&rdquo;
+       the villa which the Crippses had been so anxious for us to hire, was still
+      untenanted, or looked to be. We walked on until we reached the Cripps home
+      and entered the Cripps gate. I rang the bell and the maid answered the
+      ring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In answer to our inquiries she told us that Mr. Cripps was not in. He and
+      Mrs. Cripps had gone to chapel. I remembered then that the day was Sunday.
+      I had actually forgotten it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is Miss Morley in?&rdquo; asked Hephzy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The maid shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, ma'am,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Miss Morley ain't in, either. I think she's gone
+      to chapel, too. I ain't sure, ma'am, but I think she 'as. She's not in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She asked if we would leave cards. Hephzy said no.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's 'most noon,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;They'll be back pretty soon. We'll wait. No,
+      we won't come in. We'll wait out here, I guess.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a rustic seat on the lawn near the house and Hephzy seated
+      herself upon it. I walked up and down. I was in a state of what Hephzy
+      would have called &ldquo;nerves.&rdquo; I had determined to be very calm when I met
+      her, to show no emotion, to be very calm and cool, no matter what
+      happened. But this waiting was hard. I grew more nervous every minute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm going to stroll about, Hephzy,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;About the garden and
+      grounds. I sha'n't go far and I'll return soon. I shall be within call.
+      Send one of the servants for me if she&mdash;if the Crippses come before I
+      get back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy did not urge me to remain. Nor did she offer to accompany me. As
+      usual she seemed to read my thoughts and understand them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, Hosy,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You go and have your walk. I'll wait here.
+      But don't be long, will you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I promised not to be long. The Cripps gardens and grounds were not
+      extensive, but they were well kept even if the beds were geometrically
+      ugly and the color masses jarring and in bad taste. The birds sang, the
+      breeze stirred the leaves and petals, and there was a Sunday quiet, the
+      restful hush of an English Sunday, everywhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I strolled on along the paths, through the gap in the hedge dividing the
+      kitchen garden from the purely ornamental section, past the stables, until
+      I emerged from the shrubbery at the top of a little hill. There was a
+      pleasant view from this hill, the customary view of hedged fields and
+      meadows, flocks of sheep and groups of grazing cattle, and over all the
+      soft blue haze and misty sky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I paused. And then close beside me, I heard a startled exclamation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I turned. In a nook of the shrubbery was another rustic seat. Rising from
+      that seat and gazing at me with a look of amazed incredulity, was&mdash;Frances
+      Morley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not speak. I could not, for the moment. She spoke first.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;You&mdash;here!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And still I did not speak. Where was the calm with which I was to meet
+      her? Where were the carefully planned sentences which were to explain how
+      I had come and why? I don't know where they were; I seemed to know only
+      that she was there, that I was alone with her as I had never thought or
+      meant to be again, and that if I spoke I should say things far different
+      from those I had intended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was recovering from her surprise. She came toward me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you doing here?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;Why did you come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I stammered a word or two, some incoherences to the effect that I had not
+      expected to find her there, that I had been told she was at church. She
+      shook her head, impatiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean why did you come here&mdash;to Leatherhead?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;Why did
+      you come? Did you know&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I interrupted her. If ever I was to explain, or attempt to explain, I
+      realized that it must be at that moment. She might listen to me then,
+      before she had had time to think. Later I knew she would not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew you were here,&rdquo; I broke in, quickly. &ldquo;I&mdash;we&mdash;your aunt
+      knew and we came.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But HOW did you know? Who told you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The&mdash;we learned,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;And we came.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a poor explanation&mdash;or none at all. She seemed to think it so.
+      And yet she seemed more hurt than offended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You came&mdash;yes,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;And you knew that I left Paris because&mdash;Oh,
+      you knew that! I asked you not to follow me. You promised you would not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was ashamed, thoroughly ashamed and disgusted with myself for yielding
+      to Hephzy's entreaties.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; I protested, &ldquo;I did not promise. I did not promise, Frances.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you know I did not wish you to do it. I did not wish you to follow me
+      to Paris, but you did it. I told you you would force me to give up my only
+      means of earning money. You did force me to give it up. I gave it up to
+      please you, for your sake, and now&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you?&rdquo; I cried, eagerly. &ldquo;Did you give it up for my sake, Frances? Did
+      you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know I did. You must know it. And now that I have done it, now that I
+      have given up my opportunity and my&mdash;my self-respect and my one
+      chance and come here to this&mdash;to this place, you&mdash;you&mdash;Oh,
+      how could you! Wasn't I unhappy enough before? And unhappy enough now? Oh,
+      how could you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was more ashamed than ever. I tried desperately to justify my action.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But that was it,&rdquo; I persisted. &ldquo;Don't you see? It was your happiness, the
+      thought that you were unhappy which brought me here. I know&mdash;you told
+      your aunt how unhappy you had been when you were with these people before.
+      I know how much you disliked them. That was why I came. To ask you to give
+      this up as you did the other. To come with us and BE happy. I want you to
+      come, Frances. Think! Think how much I must want you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And, for the moment I thought this appeal had some effect. It seemed to me
+      that her resolution was shaken, that she was wavering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&mdash;you really want me?&rdquo; she repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Yes, I can't tell you&mdash;I must not tell you how much I want you.
+      And your aunt&mdash;she wants you to come. She is here, too. She will tell
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her manner changed once more. The tone in which she spoke was different.
+      There were no signs of the wavering which I had noticed&mdash;or hoped I
+      noticed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;No. I shall not see my aunt. And I must not talk with you
+      any longer. I asked you not to follow me here. You did it, in spite of my
+      asking. Now, unless you wish to drive me away from here, as you did from
+      Paris, you will leave me and not try to see me again. Oh, don't you see&mdash;CAN'T
+      you see how miserable you are making me? And yet you talk of my
+      happiness!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you aren't happy here. ARE you happy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am happy enough. Yes, I am happy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't believe it. Are these Crippses kind to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I didn't believe that, either, but I did not say so. Instead I said what I
+      had determined to say, the same thing that I should have said before, in
+      Mayberry and in Paris&mdash;if I could have mustered the courage and
+      decency to say it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;there is something else, something which may have a
+      bearing on your happiness, or may not, I don't know. The night before you
+      left us, at Mayberry, Herbert Bayliss came to me and asked my permission
+      to marry you, if you were willing. He thought you were my niece&mdash;then.
+      I said that&mdash;I said that, although of course I had no shadow of
+      authority over you, I did care for your happiness. I cared for that a
+      great deal. If you loved him I should certainly&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see,&rdquo; she broke in, scornfully. &ldquo;I see. He told you I was here. That is
+      why you came. Did he send you to me to say&mdash;what you are trying to
+      say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no, no! You are mistaken. You wrong him, Frances. He did not do that.
+      He's not that sort. He's a good fellow, an honorable man. And he does care
+      for you. I know it. He cares greatly. He would, I am sure, make you a good
+      husband, and if you care for him, he would do his best to make you happy,
+      I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again she interrupted. &ldquo;One moment,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;Let me understand. Are you
+      urging me to marry Herbert Bayliss?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. I am not urging you, of course. But if you do care for him&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you don't love him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I wonder if there was relief in my tone. There should not have been, of
+      course, but I fear there was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I do not&mdash;love him. He is a gentleman and I like him well
+      enough, but not in that way. Please don't say any more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well. I only meant&mdash;Tell me this, if you will: Is there someone
+      you do care for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not answer. I had offended her again. She had cause to be
+      offended. What business was it of mine?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon,&rdquo; I said, humbly. &ldquo;I should not have asked that. I have
+      no right to ask it. But if there is someone for whom you care in that way
+      and he cares for you, it&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, don't, don't! He doesn't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then there is someone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was silent. I tried to speak like a man, like the man I was pretending
+      to be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad to know it,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;If you care for him he must care for you.
+      He cannot help it. I am sure you will be happy by and by. I can leave you
+      here now with more&mdash;with less reluctance. I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I could not trust myself to go on, although I tried to do so. She
+      answered, without looking at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you can leave me now. I am safe and&mdash;and happy.
+      Good-by.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I took her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-by,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Forgive me for coming. I shall not trouble you again.
+      This time I promise. You may not wish to write us, but we shall write you.
+      And I&mdash;I hope you won't forget us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a lame conclusion and trite enough. She must have thought so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not forget you,&rdquo; she said, simply. &ldquo;And I will try to write
+      occasionally. Yes, I will try. Now please go. Good-by.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I went, without looking back. I strode along the paths, scarcely noticing
+      where I was going. As I neared the corner of the house I heard voices,
+      loud voices. One of them, though it was not as loud as the others, was
+      Hephzy's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew it,&rdquo; she was saying, as I turned the corner. &ldquo;I knew it. I knew
+      there was some reason, some mean selfish reason why you were willin' to
+      take that girl under your wing. I knew it wasn't kind-heartedness and
+      relationship. I knew it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Solomon Cripps who answered. Mr. and Mrs. Cripps, arrayed in their
+      Sabbath black and white, were standing by the door of their villa. Hephzy
+      was standing before them. Her face was set and determined and she looked
+      highly indignant. Mr. Cripps' face was red and frowning and he
+      gesticulated with a red hand, which clasped a Testament. His English was
+      by no means as pure and undefiled as when he had endeavored to persuade us
+      into hiring &ldquo;Ash Clump.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look 'ere,&rdquo; he snarled. &ldquo;Don't you talk to me like that. Don't you
+      suppose I know what I'm doing. You Yankees may be clever at your tricks,
+      but you can't trick me. Don't I know about the money you stole from 'er
+      father? Don't I, eh? You can tell 'er your lies about it being stolen by
+      someone else, but I can see a 'ole through a millstone. You can't trick
+      me, I tell you. They're giving that girl a good 'ome and care and all
+      that, but we're goin' to see she 'as 'er rights. You've filled 'er silly
+      'ead with your stories. You've made 'er think you're all that's good and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was at hand by this time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's all this, Hephzy?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before Hephzy could reply Mrs. Cripps spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's him!&rdquo; she cried, seizing her husband's arm with one hand and
+      pointing at me with the other. &ldquo;It's him,&rdquo; she cried, venomously. &ldquo;He's
+      here, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sight of me appeared to upset what little self-control Mr. Cripps had
+      left.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You!&rdquo; he shouted, &ldquo;I might 'ave known you were 'ere. You're the one
+      that's done it. You're responsible. Filling her silly 'ead with lies about
+      your goodness and all that. Making her fall in love with you and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I sprang forward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;WHAT?&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;What are you saying?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was frightened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy,&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;don't look so. Don't! You frighten me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I scarcely heard her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;WHAT did you say?&rdquo; I demanded, addressing Cripps, who shrank back, rather
+      alarmed apparently. &ldquo;Why, you scoundrel! What do you mean by saying that?
+      Speak up! What do you mean by it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      If Mr. Cripps was alarmed his wife was not. She stepped forward and faced
+      me defiantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He means just what he says,&rdquo; she declared, her shrill voice quivering
+      with vindictive spite. &ldquo;And you know what he means perfectly well. You
+      ought to be ashamed of yourself, a man as old as you and she an innocent
+      young girl! You've hypnotized her&mdash;that is what you've done,
+      hypnotized her. All those ridiculous stories about her having no money she
+      believes because you told them to her. She would believe the moon was made
+      of green cheese if you said so. She's mad about you&mdash;the poor little
+      fool! She won't hear a word against you&mdash;says you're the best,
+      noblest man in the world! You! Why she won't even deny that she's in love
+      with you; she was brazen enough to tell me she was proud of it. Oh....
+      Stop! Where are you going? Solomon, stop him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Solomon did not stop me. I am very glad he didn't try. No one could have
+      stopped me then. I was on my way back along the garden path, and if I did
+      not keep to that path, but plunged ruthlessly through flower beds and
+      shrubbery I did not care, nor do I care now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was sitting on the rustic seat where I had left her. There were tears
+      on her cheeks. She had heard me coming&mdash;a deaf person would have
+      heard that&mdash;and she rose as I burst into view.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; she cried, in alarm. &ldquo;Oh, what is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the sight of her I paused. I had not meant to pause; I had intended to
+      take her in my arms, to ask her if what I had just heard was true, to make
+      her answer me. But now, as she stood there before me, so young, so
+      girlish, so beautiful, the hopeless idiocy of the thing struck me with
+      overwhelming force. It WAS idiocy. It couldn't be true.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;Oh, Kent! what is the matter? Why did you
+      come back? What has happened?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I stepped forward. True or false I must know. I must know then and there.
+      It was now or never for me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances,&rdquo; I stammered, &ldquo;I came back because&mdash;I&mdash;I have just
+      heard&mdash;Frances, you told me you loved someone&mdash;not Bayliss, but
+      someone else. Who is that someone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had been pale. My sudden and unexpected appearance had frightened her.
+      Now as we faced each other, as I stood looking down into her face, I saw
+      the color rise and spread over that face from throat to brow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is it?&rdquo; I repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She drew back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I can't tell you,&rdquo; she faltered. &ldquo;You mustn't ask me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I do ask. You must tell me, Frances&mdash;Frances, it isn't&mdash;it
+      can't be that you love ME. Do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She drew back still further. If there had been a way of escape I think she
+      would have taken it. But there was none. The thick shrubbery was behind
+      her and I was between her and the path. And I would not let her pass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Frances, do you?&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;I never meant to ask you. I never
+      meant that you should know. I am so much older, and so&mdash;so unworthy&mdash;it
+      has seemed so hopeless and ridiculous. But I love you, Frances, I have
+      loved you from the very beginning, although at first I didn't realize it.
+      I&mdash;If you do&mdash;if you can&mdash;I&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I faltered, hesitated, and stopped. She did not answer for a moment, a
+      long, long moment. Then:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you surprise me. I didn't suspect&mdash;I didn't
+      think&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I sighed. I had had my answer. Of course it was idiotic. I should have
+      known; I did know.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I understand. Forgive me, please. I was a fool to even
+      think of such a thing. I didn't think it. I didn't dare until&mdash;until
+      just now. Then I was told&mdash;your cousin said&mdash;I might have known
+      he didn't mean what he said. But he said it and&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did he say? Mr. Cripps, do you mean? What did he say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He said&mdash;he said you&mdash;you cared for me&mdash;in that way. Of
+      course you don't&mdash;you can't. I know better. But for the moment I
+      dared to hope. I was crazy, of course. Forgive me, Frances.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked up and then down again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is nothing to forgive,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, there is. There is a great deal. An old&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! hush, please. Don't speak like that. I&mdash;I thank you. I&mdash;you
+      mustn't suppose I am not grateful. I know you pity me. I know how generous
+      you are. But your pity&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It isn't pity. I should pity myself, if that were all. I love you
+      Frances, and I shall always love you. I am not ashamed of it. I shall have
+      that love to comfort me till I die. I am ashamed of having told you, of
+      troubling you again, that is all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was turning away, but I heard her step beside me and felt her hand upon
+      my sleeve. I turned back again. She was looking me full in the face now
+      and her eyes were shining.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What Mr. Cripps said was true,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I could not believe it. I did not believe it even then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;True!&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;No, no! You don't mean&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do mean it. I told him that I loved you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I don't know what more she would have said. I did not wait to hear. She
+      was in my arms at last and all England was whirling about me like a top.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you can't!&rdquo; I found myself saying over and over. I must have said
+      other things before, but I don't remember them. &ldquo;You can't! it is
+      impossible. You! marry an old fossil like me! Oh, Frances, are you sure?
+      Are you sure?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Kent,&rdquo; softly, &ldquo;I am sure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you can't love me. You are sure that your&mdash;You have no reason to
+      be grateful to me, but you have said you were, you know. You are sure you
+      are not doing this because&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sure. It is not because I am grateful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, my dear&mdash;think! Think what it means, I am&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know what you are,&rdquo; tenderly. &ldquo;No one knows as well. But, Kent&mdash;Kent,
+      are YOU sure? It isn't pity for me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I think I convinced her that it was not pity. I know I tried. And I was
+      still trying when the sound of steps and voices on the other side of the
+      shrubbery caused us&mdash;or caused her; I doubt if I should have heard
+      anything except her voice just then&mdash;to start and exclaim:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Someone is coming! Don't, dear, don't! Someone is coming.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the Crippses who were coming, of course. Mr. and Mrs. Cripps and
+      Hephzy. They would have come sooner, I learned afterwards, but Hephzy had
+      prevented it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Solomon's red face was redder still when he saw us together. And Mrs.
+      Cripps' mouth looked more like &ldquo;a crack in a plate&rdquo; than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;Here's where you are! I thought as much. And you&mdash;you
+      brazen creature!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I objected strongly to &ldquo;brazen creature&rdquo; as a term applied to my future
+      wife. I intended saying so, but Mr. Cripps got ahead of me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You get off my grounds,&rdquo; he blurted, waving his fist. &ldquo;You get out of
+      'ere now or I'll 'ave you put off. Do you 'ear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I should have answered him as he deserved to be answered, but Frances
+      would not let me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't, Kent,&rdquo; she whispered. &ldquo;Don't quarrel with him, please. He is
+      going, Mr. Cripps. We are going&mdash;now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Cripps fairly shrieked. &ldquo;WE are going?&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;Do you mean
+      you are going with him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy joined in, but in a quite different tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are goin'?&rdquo; she said, joyfully. &ldquo;Oh, Frances, are you comin' with
+      us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was my turn now and I rejoiced in the prospect. An entire brigade of
+      Crippses would not have daunted me then. I should have enjoyed defying
+      them all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;she is coming with us, Hephzy. Mr. Cripps, will you be
+      good enough to stand out of the way? Come, Frances.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It is not worth while repeating what Mr. and Mrs. Cripps said. They said a
+      good deal, threatened all sorts of things, lawsuits among the rest. Hephzy
+      fired the last guns for our side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes,&rdquo; she retorted, impatiently. &ldquo;I know you're goin' to sue. Go
+      ahead and sue and prosecute yourselves to death, if you want to. The
+      lawyers'll get their fees out of you, and that's some comfort&mdash;though
+      I shouldn't wonder if THEY had to sue to get even that. And I tell you
+      this: If you don't send Little Frank's&mdash;Miss Morley's trunks to
+      Mayberry inside of two days we'll come and get 'em and we'll come with the
+      sheriff and the police.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Cripps, standing by the gate, fell back upon her last line of
+      intrenchments, the line of piety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And to think,&rdquo; she declared, with upturned eyes, &ldquo;that this is the 'oly
+      Sabbath! Never mind, Solomon. The Lord will punish 'em. I shall pray to
+      Him not to curse them too hard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy's retort was to the point.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wouldn't,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;If I had been doin' what you two have been up to,
+      pretendin' to care for a young girl and offerin' to give her a home, and
+      all the time doin' it just because I thought I could squeeze money out of
+      her, I shouldn't trouble the Lord much. I wouldn't take the risk of
+      callin' His attention to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVIII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which the Pilgrimage Ends Where It Began
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      We did not go to Mayberry that day. We went to London and to the hotel;
+      not Bancroft's, but the hotel where Hephzy and I had stayed the previous
+      night. It was Frances' wish that we should not go to Bancroft's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't think that I could go there, Kent,&rdquo; she whispered to me, on the
+      train. &ldquo;Mr. and Mrs Jameson were very kind, and I liked them so much, but&mdash;but
+      they would ask questions; they wouldn't understand. It would be hard to
+      make them understand. Don't you see, Kent?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I saw perfectly. Considering that the Jamesons believed Miss Morley to be
+      my niece, it would indeed be hard to make them understand. I was not
+      inclined to try. I had had quite enough of the uncle and niece business.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So we went to the other hotel and if the clerk was surprised to see us
+      again so soon he said nothing about it. Perhaps he was not surprised. It
+      must take a good deal to surprise a hotel clerk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the train, in our compartment&mdash;a first-class compartment, you may
+      be sure; I would have hired the whole train if it had been necessary;
+      there was nothing too good or too expensive for us that afternoon&mdash;on
+      the train, discussing the ride to London, Hephzy did most of the talking.
+      I was too happy to talk much and Frances, sitting in her corner and
+      pretending to look out of the window, was silent also. I should have been
+      fearful that she was not happy, that she was already repenting her
+      rashness in promising to marry the Bayport &ldquo;quahaug,&rdquo; but occasionally she
+      looked at me, and, whenever she did, the wireless message our eyes
+      exchanged, sent that quahaug aloft on a flight through paradise. A flying
+      clam is an unusual specimen, I admit, but no other quahaug in this wide,
+      wide world had an excuse like mine for developing wings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy did not appear to notice our silence. She chatted and laughed
+      continuously. We had not told her our secret&mdash;the great secret&mdash;and
+      if she suspected it she kept her suspicions to herself. Her chatter was a
+      curious mixture: triumph over the detached Crippses; joy because, after
+      all, &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; had consented to come with us, to live with us again;
+      and triumph over me because her dreams and presentiments had come true.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told you, Hosy,&rdquo; she kept saying. &ldquo;I told you! I said it would all come
+      out in the end. He wouldn't believe it, Frances. He said I was an old
+      lunatic and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn't say anything of the kind,&rdquo; I broke in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You said what amounted to that and I don't know as I blame you. But I
+      knew&mdash;I just KNEW he and I had been 'sent' on this course and that we&mdash;all
+      three of us&mdash;would make the right port in the end. And we have&mdash;we
+      have, haven't we, Frances?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Frances, simply. &ldquo;We have, Auntie&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There! do you hear that, Hosy? Isn't it good to hear her call me 'Auntie'
+      again! Now I'm satisfied; or&rdquo;&mdash;with a momentary hesitation&mdash;&ldquo;pretty
+      nearly satisfied, anyway.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, then you're not quite satisfied, after all,&rdquo; I observed. &ldquo;What more
+      do you want?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want just one thing more; just one, that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I believed I know what that one thing was, but I asked her. She shot a
+      look at me, a look of indignant meaning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind,&rdquo; she said, decidedly. &ldquo;That's my affair. Oh, Ho!&rdquo; with a
+      reminiscent chuckle, &ldquo;how that Cripps woman did glare at me when I said
+      'twas pretty risky her callin' the Almighty's attention to their doin's. I
+      hope it did her good. Maybe she'll think of it next time she goes to
+      chapel. But I suppose she won't. All such folks care for is money. They
+      wouldn't be so anxious to get to Heaven if they hadn't read about the
+      golden streets.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That evening, at the hotel, Frances told us her story, the story of which
+      we had guessed a good deal, but of which she had told so little&mdash;how,
+      after her father's death, she had gone to live with the Crippses because,
+      as she thought, they wished her to do so from motives of generosity and
+      kindness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are not really relatives of mine,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I am glad of that.
+      Mrs. Cripps married a cousin of my father's; he died and then she married
+      Mr. Cripps. After Father's death they wrote me a very kind letter, or I
+      thought it kind at the time. They said all sorts of kindly things, they
+      offered me a home, they said I should be like their own daughter. So,
+      having nowhere else to go, I went to them. I lived there nearly two years.
+      Oh, what a life it was! They are very churchly people, they call
+      themselves religious, but I don't. They pretend to be&mdash;perhaps they
+      think they are&mdash;good, very good. But they aren't&mdash;they aren't.
+      They are hard and cruel. Mr. Cripps owns several tenements where poor
+      people live. I have heard things from those people that&mdash;Oh, I can't
+      tell you! I ran away because I had learned what they really were.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy nodded. &ldquo;What I can't understand,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;is why they offered
+      you a home in the first place. It was because they thought you had money
+      comin' to you, that's plain enough now; but how did they know?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances colored. &ldquo;I'm afraid&mdash;I'm afraid Father must have written
+      them,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;He needed money very much in his later years and he may
+      have written them asking&mdash;asking for loans and offering my
+      'inheritance' as security. I think now that that was it. But I did not
+      think so then. And&mdash;and, Oh, Auntie, you mustn't think too harshly of
+      Father. He was very good to me, he really was. And DON'T you think he
+      believed&mdash;he had made himself believe&mdash;that there was money of
+      his there in America? I can't believe he&mdash;he would lie to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course he didn't lie,&rdquo; said Hephzy, promptly. I could have hugged her
+      for saying it. &ldquo;He was sick and&mdash;and sort of out of his head, poor
+      man, and I don't doubt he made himself believe all sorts of things. Of
+      course he didn't lie&mdash;to his own daughter. But why,&rdquo; she added,
+      quickly, before Frances could ask another question, &ldquo;did you go back to
+      those precious Cripps critters after you left Paris?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances looked at me. &ldquo;I thought it would please you,&rdquo; she said, simply.
+      &ldquo;I knew you didn't want me to sing in public. Kent had said he would be
+      happier if he knew I had given up that life and was among friends. And
+      they&mdash;they had called themselves my friends. When I went back to them
+      they welcomed me. Mr. Cripps called me his 'prodigal daughter,' and Mrs.
+      Cripps prayed over me. It wasn't until I told them I had no 'inheritance,'
+      except one of debt, that they began to show me what they really were. They
+      wouldn't believe it. They said you were trying to defraud me. It was
+      dreadful. I&mdash;I think I should have run away again if&mdash;if you had
+      not come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, we did come,&rdquo; said Hephzy, cheerfully, &ldquo;and I thank the good Lord
+      for it. Now we won't talk any more about THAT.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She left us alone soon afterward, going to my room&mdash;we were in hers,
+      hers and Frances'&mdash;to unpack my trunk once more. She wouldn't hear of
+      my unpacking it. When she was gone Frances turned to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&mdash;you haven't told her,&rdquo; she faltered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;not yet. I wanted to speak with you first. I can't believe
+      it is true. Or, if it is, that it is right. Oh, my dear, do you realize
+      what you are doing? I am&mdash;I am ever so much older than you. I am not
+      worthy of you. You could have made a so much better marriage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at me. She was smiling, but there was a tiny wrinkle between
+      her brows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Meaning,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I suppose, that I might have married Doctor Bayliss.
+      I might perhaps marry him even yet, if I wished. I&mdash;I think he would
+      have me, if I threw myself at his head.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I admitted, grudgingly. &ldquo;Yes, he loves you, Frances.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kent, when we were there in Mayberry it seemed to me that my aunt and you
+      were almost anxious that I should marry him. It seemed to me that you took
+      every opportunity to throw me in his way; you refused my invitations for
+      golf and tennis and suggested that I play with him instead. It used to
+      annoy me. I resented it. I thought you were eager to get rid of me. I did
+      not know then the truth about Father and&mdash;and the money. And I
+      thought you hoped I might marry him and&mdash;and not trouble you any
+      more. But I think I understand now. You&mdash;you did not care for me so
+      much then. Was that it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I shook my head. &ldquo;Care for you!&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;I cared for you so much that
+      I did not dare trust myself with you. I did not dare to think of you, and
+      yet I could think of no one else. I know now that I fell in love with you
+      when I first met you at that horrible Briggs woman's lodging-house. Don't
+      you see? That was the very reason why. Don't you see?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I'm afraid I don't quite see. If you cared for me like that how could
+      you be willing for me to marry him? That is what puzzles me. I don't
+      understand it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was because I did care for you. It was because I cared so much, I
+      wanted you to be happy. I never dreamed that you could care for an old,
+      staid, broken-down bookworm like me. It wasn't thinkable. I can scarcely
+      think it now. Oh, Frances, are you SURE you are not making a mistake? Are
+      you sure it isn't gratitude which makes you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose from her chair and came to me. Her eyes were wet, but there was a
+      light in them like the sunlight behind a summer shower.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't, please don't!&rdquo; she begged. &ldquo;And caring for me like that you could
+      still come to me as you did this morning and suggest my marrying him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes, I came because&mdash;because I knew he loved you and I thought
+      that you might not know it. And if you did know it I thought&mdash;perhaps&mdash;you
+      might be happier and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I faltered and stopped. She was standing beside me, looking up into my
+      face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did know it,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;He told me, there in Paris. And I told him&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You told him&mdash;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told him that I liked him; I do, I do; he is a good man. But I told him&mdash;&rdquo;
+       she rose on tiptoe and kissed me&mdash;&ldquo;I told him that I loved you, dear.
+      See! here is the pin you gave me. It is the one thing I could not leave
+      behind when I ran away from Mayberry. I meant to keep that always&mdash;and
+      I always shall.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After a time we remembered Hephzy. It would be more truthful to say that
+      Frances remembered her. I had forgotten Hephzy altogether, I am ashamed to
+      say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kent,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;don't you think we should tell Auntie now? She will be
+      pleased, I hope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pleased! She will be&mdash;I can't think of a word to describe it. She
+      loves you, too, dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know. I hope she will love me more now. She worships you, Kent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid she does. She doesn't realize what a tinsel god I am. And I
+      fear you don't either. I am not a great man. I am not even a famous
+      author. I&mdash;Are you SURE, Frances?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She laughed lightly. &ldquo;Kent,&rdquo; she whispered, &ldquo;what was it Doctor Bayliss
+      called you when you offered to promise not to follow me to Leatherhead?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had told her the whole story of my last interview with Bayliss at the
+      Continental.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He called me a silly ass,&rdquo; I answered promptly. &ldquo;I don't care.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Neither do I; but don't you think you are one, just a little bit of one,
+      in some things? You mustn't ask me if I am sure again. Come! we will go to
+      Auntie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy had finished unpacking my trunk and was standing by the closet
+      door, shaking the wrinkles out of my dinner coat. She heard us enter and
+      turned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never saw clothes in such a mess in my life,&rdquo; she announced. &ldquo;And I
+      packed this trunk, too. I guess the trembles in my head must have got into
+      my fingers when I did it. I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stopped at the beginning of the sentence. I had taken Frances by the
+      hand and led her up to where she was standing. Hephzy said nothing, she
+      stood there and stared at us, but the coat fell to the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I've come to make an apology. I believe in dreams and
+      presentiments and Spiritualism and all the rest of it now. You were right.
+      Our pilgrimage has ended just as you declared it would. I know now that we
+      were 'sent' upon it. Frances has said&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy didn't wait to hear any more. She threw her arms about Frances'
+      neck, then about mine, hugged us both, and then, to my utter astonishment,
+      sat down upon the closed trunk and burst into tears. When we tried to
+      comfort her she waved us away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't touch me,&rdquo; she commanded. &ldquo;Don't say anything to me. Just let me
+      be. I've done all kinds of loony things in my life and this attack is just
+      natural, that's all. I&mdash;I'll get over it in a minute. There!&rdquo; rising
+      and dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief, &ldquo;I'm over it now. Hosy
+      Knowles, I've cried about a million times since&mdash;since that awful
+      mornin' in Mayberry. You didn't know it, but I have. I'm through now. I'm
+      never goin' to cry any more. I'm goin' to laugh! I'm going to sing! I
+      declare if you don't grab me and hold me down I shall dance! Oh, Oh, OH!
+      I'm so glad! I'm so glad!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We sat up until the early morning hours, talking and planning. We were to
+      go back to America as soon as we could secure passage; upon that we all
+      agreed in the end. I was the only one who hesitated. I had a vague feeling
+      of uneasiness, a dread, that Frances might not wish it, that her saying
+      she would love to go was merely to please me. I remembered how she had
+      hated America and Americans, or professed to hate them, in the days of our
+      first acquaintanceship. I thought of quiet, sleepy, humdrum old Bayport
+      and the fear that she might be disappointed when she saw it, that she
+      might be lonely and unhappy there, was strong. So when Hephzy talked of
+      our going straight to the steamship offices next day I demurred. I
+      suggested a Continental trip, to Switzerland, to the Mediterranean&mdash;anywhere.
+      I forgot that my means were limited, that I had been idle for longer than
+      I should have been, and that I absolutely must work soon. I forgot
+      everything, and talked, as Hephzy said afterward, &ldquo;regardless, like a
+      whole kerosene oil company.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But, to my surprise, it was Frances herself who was most insistent upon
+      our going to America. She wanted to go, she said. Of course she did not
+      mean to be selfish, and if Auntie and I really wished to go to the
+      Continent or remain in England she would be quite content.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Oh Kent,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;if you are suggesting all this merely because
+      you think I will like it, please don't. I have lived in France and I have
+      been very unhappy there. I have been happier here in England, but I have
+      been unhappy here, too. I have no friends here now. I have no friends
+      anywhere except you. I know you both want to see your home again&mdash;you
+      must. And&mdash;and your home will be mine now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So we decided to sail for America, and that without delay. And the next
+      morning, before breakfast, Hephzy came to my room with another suggestion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I've been thinkin'. All our things, or most of 'em, are
+      at Mayberry. Somebody's got to go there, of course, to pack up and make
+      arrangements for our leavin'. She&mdash;Frances, I mean&mdash;would go,
+      too, if we asked her, I suppose likely; she'd do anything you asked, now.
+      But it would be awful hard for her. She'd meet all the people she used to
+      know there and they wouldn't understand and 'twould be hard to explain.
+      The Baylisses know the real truth, but the rest of 'em don't. You'd have
+      all that niece and uncle mess again, and I don't suppose you want any more
+      of THAT.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should say I didn't!&rdquo; I exclaimed, fervently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, that's the way it seemed to me. So she hadn't ought to go to
+      Mayberry. And we can't leave her here alone in London. She'd be lonesome,
+      for one thing, and those everlastin' Crippses might find out where she
+      was, for another. It may be that that Solomon and his wife will let her go
+      and say nothin', but I doubt it. So long as they think she's got a cent
+      comin' to her they'll pester her in every way they can, I believe. That
+      woman's nose can smell money as far as a cat can smell fish. No, we can't
+      leave Little Frank here alone. Of course, I might stay with her and you
+      might go by yourself, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This way out of the difficulty had occurred to me; so when she seemed to
+      hesitate, I asked: &ldquo;But what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it won't be very pleasant for you in Mayberry. You'd have
+      considerable explainin' to do. And, more'n that, Hosy, there's all that
+      packin' up to do and I've seen you try to pack a trunk too often before.
+      You're just as likely to pack a flat-iron on top of a lookin' glass as to
+      do the other thing. No, I'm the one to go to Mayberry. I must go by myself
+      and you must stay here in London with her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't do that, Hephzy,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;How could I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You couldn't, as things are, of course. But if they were different. If
+      she was your wife you could. And then if that Solomon thing came you could&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I interrupted. &ldquo;My wife!&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;Hephzy, what are you talking about?
+      Do you mean&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean that you and she might be married right off, to-day perhaps. Then
+      everything would be all right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I stared at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But&mdash;but she wouldn't consent,&rdquo; I stammered. &ldquo;It is impossible. She
+      wouldn't think of such a thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy nodded. &ldquo;Oh, yes, she would,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;She is thinkin' of it now.
+      She and I have just had a long talk. She's a sensible girl, Hosy, and she
+      listened to reason. If she was sure that you wanted to marry her so soon
+      she&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wanted to!&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;Hephzy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy nodded again. &ldquo;Then that's settled,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It's a big
+      disappointment to me, I give in. I'd set my heart on your bein' married at
+      our meetin'-house in Bayport, with Mr. Partridge to do the marryin', and a
+      weddin' reception at our house and&mdash;and everything. But I guess this
+      is the best, and I know it's the most sensible. But, Oh Hosy, there's one
+      thing I can't give up. I want you to be married at the American
+      Ambassador's or somewhere like it and by an American minister. I sha'n't
+      feel safe if it's done anywhere else and by a foreigner, even if he's
+      English, which don't seem foreign to me at all any more. No, he's got to
+      be an American and&mdash;and, Oh, Hosy! DO try to get a Methodist.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I couldn't get a Methodist, but by consulting the hotel register I found
+      an American clergyman, a Congregationalist, who was a fine fellow and
+      consented to perform the ceremony. And, if we were not married at the
+      American Embassy, we were at the rooms of the London consul, whom
+      Matthews, at the Camford Street office, knew and who was another splendid
+      chap and glad to oblige a fellow-countryman, particularly after seeing the
+      lady he was to marry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The consul and his wife and Hephzy were our only witnesses. Frances'
+      wedding gown was not new, but it was very becoming&mdash;the consul's wife
+      said so, and she should know. Also she said she had never seen a sweeter
+      or more beautiful bride. No one said anything concerning the bridegroom's
+      appearance, but he did not care. It was a drizzly, foggy day, but that
+      made no difference. A Kansas cyclone and a Bayport no'theaster combined
+      could not have cast a damper on that day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When it was over, Hephzy, who had been heroically struggling to keep her
+      vow not to shed another tear during our pilgrimage, hugged us both.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo; she faltered, &ldquo;I&mdash;I can't say it, but you know how
+      I feel. There's nothin' I sha'n't believe after this. I used to believe
+      I'd never travel, but I have. And there in Mayberry I believed I'd never
+      be happy again, but I am. HAPPY! hap&mdash;hap&mdash;Oh dear! WHAT a fool
+      I am! I ca&mdash;I can't help it! I expect I look like the most miserable
+      thing on earth, but that's because I AM so happy. God bless you both! Now&mdash;now
+      don't so much as look at me for a few minutes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That afternoon she left for Mayberry to do the &ldquo;packing up&rdquo; and my wife
+      and I were alone&mdash;and together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I saw London again during the next few days. We rode on the tops of
+      busses, we visited Kew Gardens and Hampton Court and Windsor. We took long
+      trips up and down the Thames on the little steamers. Frances called them
+      our honeymoon trips. The time flew by. Then I received a note from Hephzy
+      that the &ldquo;packing up&rdquo; was finished at last and that she was returning to
+      London.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was raining hard, the morning of her arrival, and I went alone to meet
+      her at the railway station. I was early there and, as I was walking up,
+      awaiting the train, I heard someone speak my name. I turned and there,
+      immaculate, serene and debonair as ever, was A. Carleton Heathcroft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, Knowles,&rdquo; he said, cheerfully. &ldquo;Thought it was you. Haven't seen you
+      of late. Missed you at Burgleston, on the course. How are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I told him I was quite well, and inquired concerning his own health.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Topping,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;Rotten weather, eh&mdash;what? And how's Miss&mdash;Oh,
+      dear me, always forget the name! The eccentric aunt who is so intensely
+      patriotic and American&mdash;How is she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is well, too,&rdquo; I answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Couldn't think of her being ill, somehow,&rdquo; he observed. &ldquo;And where have
+      you been, may I ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I said I had been on the Continent for a short stay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes! I remember now. Someone said you had gone. That reminds me: Did
+      you go to Paris? Did you see the girl who sang at the Abbey&mdash;the one
+      I told you of, who looked so like that pretty niece of yours? Hope you
+      did. The resemblance was quite extraordinary. Did you see her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I dodged the question. I asked him what he had been doing since the day of
+      the golf tournament.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;Oh, by Jove!&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;now I am going to surprise you. I
+      have been getting ready to take the fatal step. I'm going to be married.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Married!&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;Really? The&mdash;the Warwickshire young lady, I
+      presume.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. How did you know of her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your aunt&mdash;Lady Carey&mdash;mentioned that your&mdash;your
+      affections were somewhat engaged in that quarter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did she? Really! Yes, she would mention it, I suppose. She mentions it to
+      everybody; it's a sort of hobby of hers, like my humble self, and the
+      roses. She has been more insistent of late and at last I consented to
+      oblige her. Do you know, Knowles, I think she was rather fearful that I
+      might be smitten by your Miss Morley. Shared your fears, eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled, but I said nothing. A train which I believed to be the one upon
+      which Hephzy was expected, was drawing into the station.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A remarkably attractive girl, your niece,&rdquo; he went on. &ldquo;Have you heard
+      from her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I said, absently. &ldquo;I must say good-by, Heathcroft. That is the
+      train I have been waiting for.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, is it. Then, au revoir, Knowles. By the way, kindly remember me to
+      your niece when you see her, will you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will. But&mdash;&rdquo; I could not resist the temptation; &ldquo;but she isn't my
+      niece,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I say! What? Not your niece? What is she then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is my wife&mdash;now,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Good-by, Mr. Heathcroft.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hurried away before he could do more than gasp. I think I shook even his
+      serene composure at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I told Hephzy about it as we rode to the hotel in the cab.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was silly, I suppose,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I told him on the spur of the moment.
+      I imagine all Mayberry, not to mention Burgleston Bogs, will have
+      something to talk about now. They expect almost anything of Americans, or
+      some of them do, but the marriage of an uncle and niece ought to be a
+      surprise, I should think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy laughed. &ldquo;The Baylisses will explain,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I told the old
+      doctor and his wife all about it. They were very much pleased, that was
+      plain enough. They knew she wasn't your niece and they'll tell the other
+      folks. That'll be all right, Hosy. Yes, Doctor and Mrs. Bayliss were
+      tickled almost to death. It stops all their worry about their son and
+      Frances, of course. He is in Switzerland now, poor chap. They'll write him
+      and he'll come home again by and by where he ought to be. And he'll forget
+      by and by, too. He's only a boy and he'll forget. So THAT'S all right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Everybody sent their love to you,&rdquo; she went on. &ldquo;The curates and the
+      Samsons and everybody. Mr. Cole and his wife are comin' back next week and
+      the servants'll take care of the rectory till they come. Everybody was so
+      glad to see me, and they're goin' to write and everything. I declare! I
+      felt real bad to leave 'em. They're SUCH nice people, these English folks.
+      Aren't they, Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were and are. I hope that some day I may have, in my own country, the
+      opportunity to repay a little of the hospitality and kindness that my
+      Mayberry friends bestowed on me in theirs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We sailed for home two days later. A pleasant voyage it was, on a good
+      ship and with agreeable fellow-passengers. And, at last, one bright,
+      cloudless morning, a stiff breeze blowing and the green and white waves
+      leaping and tossing in the sunlight, we saw ahead of us a little speck&mdash;the
+      South Shoal lightship. Everyone crowded to the rail, of course. Hephzy
+      sighed, a sigh of pure happiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nantucket!&rdquo; she said, reading the big letters on the side of the little
+      vessel. &ldquo;Nantucket! Don't that sound like home, Hosy! Nantucket and Cape
+      Cod are next-door neighbors, as you might say! My! the air seems different
+      already. I believe I can almost smell the Bayport flats. Do you know what
+      I am goin' to do as soon as I get into my kitchen? After I've seen some of
+      my neighbors and the cat and the hens, of course. I'm going to make a clam
+      chowder. I've been just dyin' for a clam chowder ever since we left
+      England.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the next morning we landed at New York. Jim Campbell was at the wharf
+      to meet us. His handshake was a welcome home which was good to feel. He
+      welcomed Hephzy just as heartily. But I saw him looking at Frances with
+      curiosity and I flattered myself, admiration, and I chuckled as I thought
+      of the surprise which I was about to give him. It would be a surprise,
+      sure enough. I had written him nothing of the recent wonderful happenings
+      in Paris and in London, and I had sworn Matthews to secrecy likewise. No,
+      he did not know, he did not suspect, and I gloried in the opportunity
+      which was mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jim,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;there is one member of our party whom you have not met.
+      Frances, you have heard me speak of Mr. Campbell very often. Here he is.
+      Jim, I have the pleasure of presenting you to Mrs. Knowles, my wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim stood the shock remarkably well, considering. He gave me one glance, a
+      glance which expressed a portion of his feelings, and then he and Frances
+      shook hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mrs. Knowles,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I&mdash;you'll excuse my apparent lack of
+      intellect, but&mdash;but this husband of yours has&mdash;I've known him a
+      good while and I thought I had lost all capacity for surprise at anything
+      he might do, but&mdash;but I hadn't. I&mdash;I&mdash;Please don't mind me;
+      I'm really quite sane at times. I am very, very glad. May we shake hands
+      again?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He insisted upon our breakfasting with him at a near-by hotel. When he and
+      I were alone together he seized my arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Confound you!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;You old chump! What do you mean by
+      springing this thing on me without a word of warning? I never was as
+      nearly knocked out in my life. What do you mean by it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed. &ldquo;It is all part of your prescription,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;You told me I
+      should marry, you know. Do you approve of my selection?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Approve of it! Why, man, she's&mdash;she's wonderful. Approve of YOUR
+      selection! How about hers? You durned quahaug! How did you do it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I gave him a condensed and hurried resume of the whole story. He did not
+      interrupt once&mdash;a perfectly amazing feat for him&mdash;and when I had
+      finished he shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's no use,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I'm too good for the business I am in. I am
+      wasting my talents. <i>I</i> sent you over there. <i>I</i> told you to go.
+      <i>I</i> prescribed travel and a wife and all the rest. <i>I</i> did it.
+      I'm going to quit the publishing game. I'm going to set up as a
+      specialist, a brain specialist, for clams. And I'll use your face as a
+      testimonial: 'Kent Knowles, Quahaug. Before and After Taking.' Man, you
+      look ten years younger than you did when you went away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must not take all the credit,&rdquo; I told him. &ldquo;You forget Hephzy and her
+      dreams, the dream she told us about that day at Bayport. That dream has
+      come true; do you realize it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He nodded. &ldquo;I admit it,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;She is a better specialist than I. I
+      shall have to take her into partnership. 'Campbell and Cahoon. Prescribers
+      and Predictors. Authors Made Human.' I'll speak to her about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he said good-by to us at the Grand Central Station he asked me another
+      question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kent,&rdquo; he whispered, &ldquo;what are you going to do now? What are you going to
+      do with her? Are you and she going back to Bayport to be Mr. and Mrs.
+      Quahaug? Is that your idea?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I shook my head. &ldquo;We're going back to Bayport,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;but how long we
+      shall stay there I don't know. One thing you may be sure of, Jim; I shall
+      be a quahaug no more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He nodded. &ldquo;I think you're right,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;She'll see to that, or I
+      miss my guess. No, my boy, your quahaug days are over. There's nothing of
+      the shellfish about her; she's a live woman, as well as a mighty pretty
+      one, and she cares enough about you to keep you awake and in the game. I
+      congratulate you, Kent, and I'm almost as happy as you are. Also I shall
+      play the optimist at our next directors' meeting; I see signs of a boom in
+      the literature factory. Go to it, my son. You have my blessing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We took the one o'clock train for Boston, remained there over night, and
+      left on the early morning &ldquo;accommodation&rdquo;&mdash;so called, I think,
+      because it accommodates the train hands&mdash;for Cape Cod. As we neared
+      Buzzard's Bay my spirits, which had been at topnotch, began to sink. When
+      the sand dunes of Barnstable harbor hove in sight they sank lower and
+      lower. It was October, the summer people, most of them, had gone, the
+      station platforms were almost deserted, the more pretentious cottages were
+      closed. The Cape looked bare and brown and wind-swept. I thought of the
+      English fields and hedges, of the verdant beauty of the Mayberry pastures.
+      What SORT of a place would she think this, the home to which I was
+      bringing her?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had been very much excited and very much interested. New York, with
+      its sky-scrapers and trolleys, its electric signs and clean white
+      buildings, the latter so different from the grimy, gray dwellings and
+      shops of London, had been a wonderland to her. She had liked the Pullman
+      and the dining-car and the Boston hotel. But this, this was different. How
+      would she like sleepy, old Bayport and the people of Bayport.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, I should soon know. Even the morning &ldquo;accommodation&rdquo; reaches Bayport
+      some time or other. We were the only passengers to alight at the station,
+      and Elmer Snow, the station agent, and Gabe Lumley, who drives the depot
+      wagon, were the only ones to welcome us. Their welcome was hearty enough,
+      I admit. Gabe would have asked a hundred questions if I had answered the
+      first of the hundred, but he seemed strangely reluctant to answer those I
+      asked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bayport was gettin' along first-rate, he told me. Tad Simpson's youngest
+      child had diphtheria, but was sittin' up now and the fish weirs had caught
+      consider'ble mackerel that summer. So much he was willing to say, but he
+      said little more. I asked how the house and garden were looking and he
+      cal'lated they were all right. Pumping Gabe Lumley was a new experience
+      for me. Ordinarily he doesn't need pumping. I could not understand it. I
+      saw Hephzy and he in consultation on the station platform and I wondered
+      if she had been able to get more news than I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We rattled along the main road, up the hill by the Whittaker place&mdash;I
+      looked eagerly for a glimpse of Captain Cy himself, but I didn't see him&mdash;and
+      on until we reached our gate. Frances said very little during our progress
+      through the village. I did not dare speak to her; I was afraid of asking
+      her how she liked what she had seen of Bayport. And Hephzy, too, was
+      silent, although she kept her head out of the window most of the time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But when the depot wagon entered the big gate and stopped before the side
+      door I felt that I must say something. I must not appear fearful or
+      uneasy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here we are!&rdquo; I cried, springing out and helping her and Hephzy to
+      alight. &ldquo;Here we are at last. This is home, dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then the door opened and I saw that the dining-room was filled with
+      people, people whom I had known all my life. Mr. Partridge, the minister,
+      was there, and his wife, and Captain Whittaker and his wife, and the
+      Dimicks and the Salterses and more. Before I could recover from my
+      surprise Mr. Partridge stepped forward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;on this happy occasion it is our privilege to&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Captain Cy interrupted him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good Lord!&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;don't make a speech to him now, Mr. Partridge.
+      Welcome home, Kent! We're all mighty glad to see you back again safe and
+      sound. And Hephzy, too. By the big dipper, Hephzy, the sight of you is
+      good for sore eyes! And I suppose this is your wife, Kent. Well, we&mdash;Hey!
+      I might have known Phoebe would get ahead of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For Mrs. Whittaker and Frances were shaking hands. Others were crowding
+      forward to do so. And the table was set and there were flowers everywhere
+      and, in the background, was Susanna Wixon, grinning from ear to ear, with
+      the cat&mdash;our cat&mdash;who seemed the least happy of the party, in
+      her arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy had written Mrs. Whittaker from London, telling her of my marriage;
+      she had telegraphed from New York the day before, announcing the hour of
+      our return. And this was the result.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When it was all over and they had gone&mdash;they would not remain for
+      dinner, although we begged them to do so&mdash;when they had gone and
+      Hephzy had fled to the yard to inspect the hens, I turned to my wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;this is home. Here is where Hephzy and I have lived
+      for so long. I&mdash;I hope you may be happy here. It is a rather crude
+      place, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She came to me and put her arms about my neck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't, my dear, don't!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It is beautiful. It is home. And&mdash;and
+      you know I have never had a home, a real home before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you like it?&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;You really like it? It is so different from
+      England. The people&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are dear, kind people. And they like you and respect you, Kent. How
+      could you say they didn't! I know I shall love them all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I made a dash for the kitchen. &ldquo;Hephzy!&rdquo; I shouted. &ldquo;Hephzy! She does like
+      it. She likes Bayport and the people and everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was just entering at the back door. She did not seem in the least
+      surprised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course she likes it,&rdquo; she said, with decision. &ldquo;How could anybody help
+      likin' Bayport?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIX
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Which Treats of Quahaugs in General
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Asaph Tidditt helped me to begin this long chronicle of a quahaug's
+      pilgrimage. Perhaps it is fitting that Asaph should end it. He dropped in
+      for a call the other afternoon and, as I had finished my day's &ldquo;stunt&rdquo; at
+      the desk, I assisted in entertaining him. Frances was in the sitting-room
+      also and Hephzy joined us soon afterward. Mr. Tidditt had stopped at the
+      post-office on his way down and he had the Boston morning paper in his
+      hand. Of course he was filled to the brim with war news. We discuss little
+      else in Bayport now; even the new baby at the parsonage has to play second
+      fiddle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My godfreys!&rdquo; exclaimed Asaph, as soon as he sat down in the rocking
+      chair and put his cap on the floor beneath it. &ldquo;My godfreys, but they're
+      havin' awful times over across, now ain't they. Killin' and fightin' and
+      battlin' and slaughterin'! It don't seem human to me somehow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is human, I'm afraid,&rdquo; I said, with a sigh. &ldquo;Altogether too human.
+      We're a poor lot, we, humans, after all. We pride ourselves on our
+      civilization, but after all, it takes very little to send us back to
+      savagery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's so,&rdquo; said Asaph, with conviction. &ldquo;That's true about everybody but
+      us folks in the United States. We are awful fortunate, we are. We ain't
+      savages. We was born in a free country, and we've been brought up right, I
+      declare! I beg your pardon, Mrs. Knowles; I forgot you wasn't born in
+      Bayport.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances smiled. &ldquo;No apology is needed, Mr. Tidditt,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I confess
+      to having been born a&mdash;savage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you're all right now,&rdquo; said Asaph, hastily, trying to cover his slip.
+      &ldquo;You're all right now. You're just as American as the rest of us. Kent,
+      suppose this war in Europe is goin' to hurt your trade any? It's goin' to
+      hurt a good many folks's. They tell me groceries and such like is goin'
+      way up. Lucky we've got fish and clams to depend on. Clams and quahaugs'll
+      keep us from starvin' for a spell. Oh,&rdquo; with a chuckle, &ldquo;speakin' of
+      quahaugs reminds me. Did you know they used to call your husband a
+      quahaug, Mrs. Knowles? That's what they used to call him round here&mdash;'The
+      Quahaug.' They called him that 'count of his keepin' inside his shell all
+      the time and not mixin' with folks, not toadyin' up to the summer crowd
+      and all. I always respected him for it. <i>I</i> don't toady to nobody
+      neither.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy had come in by this time and now she took a part in the
+      conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They don't call him 'The Quahaug' any more,&rdquo; she declared, indignantly.
+      &ldquo;He's been out of his shell more and seen more than most of the folks in
+      this town.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know it; I know it. And he's kept goin' ever since. Runnin' to New
+      York, he and you,&rdquo; with a nod toward Frances, &ldquo;and travelin' to Washin'ton
+      and Niagary Falls and all. Wonder to me how he does as much writin' as he
+      does. That last book of yours is sellin' first-rate, they tell me, Kent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He referred to the novel I began in Mayberry. I have rewritten and
+      finished it since, and it has had a surprising sale. The critics seem to
+      think I have achieved my first genuine success.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you writin' now?&rdquo; asked Asaph. &ldquo;More of them yarns about pirates
+      and such? Land sakes! when I go by this house nights and see a light in
+      your library window there, Kent, and know you're pluggin' along amongst
+      all them adventures, I wonder how you can stand it. 'Twould give me the
+      shivers. Godfreys! the last time I read one of them yarns&mdash;that about
+      the 'Black Brig' 'twas&mdash;I hardly dast to go to bed. And I DIDN'T dast
+      to put out the light. I see a pirate in every corner, grittin' his teeth.
+      Writin' another of that kind, are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;this one is quite different. You will have no trouble in
+      sleeping over this one, Ase.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's a comfort. Got a little Bayport in it? Seems to me you ought to
+      put a little Bayport in, for a change.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled. &ldquo;There is a little in this,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;A little at the
+      beginning, and, perhaps, at the end.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't say! You ain't got me in it, have you? I'd&mdash;I'd look kind
+      of funny in a book, wouldn't I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed, but I did not answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not that I ain't seen things in my life,&rdquo; went on Asaph, hopefully. &ldquo;A
+      man can't be town clerk in a live town like this and not see things. But I
+      hope you won't put any more foreigners in. This we're readin' now,&rdquo;
+       rapping the newspaper with his knuckles, &ldquo;gives us all we want to know
+      about foreigners. Just savages, they be, as you say, and nothin' more. I
+      pity 'em.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Asaph,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;what would you say if I told you that the English and
+      French&mdash;yes, and the Germans, too, though I haven't seen them at home
+      as I have the others&mdash;were no more savages than we are?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'd say you was crazy,&rdquo; was the prompt answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I'm not. And you're not very complimentary. You're forgetting
+      again. You forget that I married one of those savages.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Asaph was taken aback, but he recovered promptly, as he had before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She ain't any savage,&rdquo; he announced. &ldquo;Her mother was born right here in
+      Bayport. And she knows, just as I do, that Bayport's the best place in the
+      world; don't you, Mrs. Knowles?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Frances, &ldquo;I am sure of it, Mr. Tidditt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So Asaph went away triumphantly happy. After he had gone I apologized for
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's a fair sample,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;He is a quahaug, although he doesn't know
+      it. He is a certain type, an exaggerated type, of American.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances smiled. &ldquo;He's not much worse than I used to be,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I used
+      to call America an uncivilized country, you remember. I suppose I&mdash;and
+      Mr. Heathcroft&mdash;were exaggerated types of a certain kind of English.
+      We were English quahaugs, weren't we?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy nodded. &ldquo;We're all quahaugs,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;Most of us, anyhow.
+      That's the trouble with all the folks of all the nations; they stay in
+      their shells and they don't try to know and understand their neighbors.
+      Kent, you used to be a quahaug&mdash;a different kind of one&mdash;but
+      that kind, too. I was a quahaug afore I lived in Mayberry. That's who
+      makes wars like this dreadful one&mdash;quahaugs. We know better now&mdash;you
+      and Frances and I. We've found out that, down underneath, there's precious
+      little difference. Humans are humans.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She paused and then, as a final summing up, added:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess that's it: American or German or French or anything&mdash;nice
+      folks are nice folks anywhere.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      THE END <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Kent Knowles: Quahaug, by Joseph C. Lincoln
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+</pre>
+  </body>
+</html>
diff --git a/old/5980-h.htm.2021-01-28 b/old/5980-h.htm.2021-01-28
new file mode 100644
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--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/5980-h.htm.2021-01-28
@@ -0,0 +1,19068 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      Kent Knowles: Quahaug, by Joseph C. Lincoln
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Kent Knowles: Quahaug, by Joseph C. Lincoln
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Kent Knowles: Quahaug
+
+Author: Joseph C. Lincoln
+
+Release Date: June 6, 2006 [EBook #5980]
+Last Updated: March 4, 2019
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KENT KNOWLES: QUAHAUG ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Don Lainson; David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      KENT KNOWLES: QUAHAUG
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By Joseph C. Lincoln <br /> <br /> 1914
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <big><b>KENT KNOWLES: QUAHAUG</b></big>
+        </a> <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I </a> -- Which is Not a Chapter at All<br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II </a> -- Which Repeats, for the Most Part, What Jim Campbell Said to Me and What I Said to Him<br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III </a> -- Which, Although It Is Largely Family History, Should Not Be Skipped by the Reader<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0004">
+        CHAPTER IV </a> -- In Which Hephzy and I and the Plutonia Sail Together<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V </a> -- In Which We View, and Even Mingle Slightly with, the Upper Classes<br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI </a> -- In Which We Are Received at Bancroft's Hotel and I Receive a Letter<br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII </a> -- In Which a Dream Becomes a Reality<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0008">
+        CHAPTER VIII </a> -- In Which the Pilgrims Become Tenants<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX </a> -- In Which We Make the Acquaintance of Mayberry and a Portion of Burgleston Bogs<br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X </a> -- In Which I Break All Previous Resolutions and Make a New One<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0011">
+        CHAPTER XI </a> -- In Which Complications Become More Complicated<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII </a> -- In Which the Truth Is Told at Last<br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII </a> -- In Which Hephzy and I Agree to Live for Each Other<br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV </a> -- In Which I Play Golf and Cross the Channel<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0015">
+        CHAPTER XV </a> -- In Which I Learn that All Abbeys Are Not Churches<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI </a> -- In Which I Take My Turn at Playing the Invalid<br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII </a> -- In Which I, as Well as Mr. Solomon Cripps, Am Surprised<br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII </a> -- In Which the Pilgrimage Ends Where It Began<br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX </a> -- Which Treats of Quahaugs in General
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      KENT KNOWLES: QUAHAUG
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Which is Not a Chapter at All
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      It was Asaph Tidditt who told me how to begin this history. Perhaps I
+      should be very much obliged to Asaph; perhaps I shouldn't. He has gotten
+      me out of a difficulty&mdash;or into one; I am far from certain which.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ordinarily&mdash;I am speaking now of the writing of swashbuckling
+      romances, which is, or was, my trade&mdash;I swear I never have called it
+      a profession&mdash;the beginning of a story is the least of the troubles
+      connected with its manufacture. Given a character or two and a situation,
+      the beginning of one of those romances is, or was, pretty likely to be
+      something like this:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was a black night. Heavy clouds had obscured the setting sun and now,
+      as the clock in the great stone tower boomed twelve, the darkness was
+      pitchy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That is a good safe beginning. Midnight, a stone tower, a booming clock,
+      and darkness make an appeal to the imagination. On a night like that
+      almost anything may happen. A reader of one of my romances&mdash;and
+      readers there must be, for the things did, and still do, sell to some
+      extent&mdash;might be fairly certain that something WOULD happen before
+      the end of the second page. After that the somethings continued to happen
+      as fast as I could invent them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this story was different. The weather or the time had nothing to do
+      with its beginning. There were no solitary horsemen or strange wayfarers
+      on lonely roads, no unexpected knocks at the doors of taverns, no cloaked
+      personages landing from boats rowed by black-browed seamen with red
+      handkerchiefs knotted about their heads and knives in their belts. The
+      hero was not addressed as &ldquo;My Lord&rdquo;; he was not &ldquo;Sir Somebody-or-other&rdquo; in
+      disguise. He was not young and handsome; there was not even &ldquo;a certain
+      something in his manner and bearing which hinted of an eventful past.&rdquo;
+       Indeed there was not. For, if this particular yarn or history or chronicle
+      which I had made up my mind to write, and which I am writing now, had or
+      has a hero, I am he. And I am Hosea Kent Knowles, of Bayport,
+      Massachusetts, the latter the village in which I was born and in which I
+      have lived most of the time since I was twenty-seven years old. Nobody
+      calls me &ldquo;My Lord.&rdquo; Hephzy has always called me &ldquo;Hosy&rdquo;&mdash;a name which
+      I despise&mdash;and the others, most of them, &ldquo;Kent&rdquo; to my face and &ldquo;The
+      Quahaug&rdquo; behind my back, a quahaug being a very common form of clam which
+      is supposed to lead a solitary existence and to keep its shell tightly
+      shut. If anything in my manner had hinted at a mysterious past no one in
+      Bayport would have taken the hint. Bayporters know my past and that of my
+      ancestors only too well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for being young and handsome&mdash;well, I was thirty-eight years old
+      last March. Which is quite enough on THAT subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I had determined to write the story, so I sat down to begin it. And
+      immediately I got into difficulties. How should I begin? I might begin at
+      any one of a dozen places&mdash;with Hephzy's receiving the Raymond and
+      Whitcomb circular; with our arrival in London; with Jim Campbell's visit
+      to me here in Bayport; with the curious way in which the letter reached
+      us, after crossing the ocean twice. Any one of these might serve as a
+      beginning&mdash;but which? I made I don't know how many attempts, but not
+      one was satisfactory. I, who had begun I am ashamed to tell you how many
+      stories&mdash;yes, and had finished them and seen them in print as well&mdash;was
+      stumped at the very beginning of this one. Like Sim Phinney I had worked
+      at my job &ldquo;a long spell&rdquo; and &ldquo;cal'lated&rdquo; I knew it, but here was something
+      I didn't know. As Sim said, when he faced his problem, &ldquo;I couldn't seem to
+      get steerage way on her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Simeon, you see&mdash;He is Angeline Phinney's second cousin and lives in
+      the third house beyond the Holiness Bethel on the right-hand side of the
+      road&mdash;Simeon has &ldquo;done carpentering&rdquo; here in Bayport all his life. He
+      built practically every henhouse now gracing or disgracing the backyards
+      of our village. He is our &ldquo;henhouse specialist,&rdquo; so to speak. He has even
+      been known to boast of his skill. &ldquo;Henhouses!&rdquo; snorted Sim; &ldquo;land of love!
+      I can build a henhouse with my eyes shut. Nowadays when another one of
+      them foolheads that's been readin' 'How to Make a Million Poultry Raisin''
+      in the Farm Gazette comes to me and says 'Henhouse,' I say, 'Yes sir.
+      Fifteen dollars if you pay me cash now and a hundred and fifteen if you
+      want to wait and pay me out of your egg profits. That's all there is to
+      it.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet, when Captain Darius Nickerson, who made the most of his money
+      selling fifty-foot lots of sand, beachgrass and ticks to summer people for
+      bungalow sites&mdash;when Captain Darius, grown purse-proud and
+      vainglorious, expressed a desire for a henhouse with a mansard roof and a
+      cupola, the latter embellishments to match those surmounting his own
+      dwelling, Simeon was set aback with his canvas flapping. At the end of a
+      week he had not driven a nail. &ldquo;Godfrey's mighty!&rdquo; he is reported to have
+      exclaimed. &ldquo;I don't know whether to build the average cupola and trust to
+      a hen's fittin' it, or take an average hen and build a cupola round her.
+      Maybe I'll be all right after I get started, but it's where to start that
+      beats me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Where to start beat me, also, and it might be beating me yet, if I hadn't
+      dropped in at the post-office and heard Asaph Tidditt telling a story to
+      the group around the stove. After he had finished, and, the mail being
+      sorted, we were walking homeward together, I asked a question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Asaph,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;when you start to spin a yarn how do you begin?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hey?&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;How do I begin? Why, I just heave to and go to work
+      and begin, that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I know, but where do you begin?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At the beginnin', naturally. If you was cal'latin' to sail a boat race
+      you wouldn't commence at t'other end of the course, would you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;<i>I</i> might; practical people wouldn't, I suppose. But&mdash;what IS
+      the beginning? Suppose there were a lot of beginnings and you didn't know
+      which to choose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, we-ll, in that case I'd just sort of&mdash;of edge around till I
+      found one that&mdash;that was a beginnin' of SOMETHIN' and I'd start
+      there. You understand, don't you? Take that yarn I was spinnin' just now&mdash;that
+      one about Josiah Dimick's great uncle's pig on his mother's side. I mean
+      his uncle on his mother's side, not the pig, of course. Now I hadn't no
+      intention of tellin' about that hog; hadn't thought of it for a thousand
+      year, as you might say. I just commenced to tell about Angie Phinney,
+      about how fast she could talk, and that reminded me of a parrot that
+      belonged to Sylvanus Cahoon's sister&mdash;Violet, the sister's name was&mdash;loony
+      name, too, if you ask ME, 'cause she was a plaguey sight nigher bein' a
+      sunflower than she was a violet&mdash;weighed two hundred and ten and had
+      a face on her as red as&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just a minute, Ase. About that pig?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes! Well, the pig reminded me of Violet's parrot and the parrot
+      reminded me of a Plymouth Rock rooster I had that used to roost in the
+      pigpen nights&mdash;wouldn't use the henhouse no more'n you nor I would&mdash;and
+      that, naturally, made me think of pigs, and pigs fetched Josiah's uncle's
+      pig to mind and there I was all ready to start on the yarn. It pretty
+      often works out that way. When you want to start a yarn and you can't
+      start&mdash;you've forgot it, or somethin'&mdash;just begin somewhere, get
+      goin' somehow. Edge around and keep edgin' around and pretty soon you'll
+      fetch up at the right place TO start. See, don't you, Kent?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I saw&mdash;that is, I saw enough. I came home and this morning I began
+      the &ldquo;edging around&rdquo; process. I don't seem to have &ldquo;fetched up&rdquo; anywhere in
+      particular, but I shall keep on with the edging until I do. As Asaph says,
+      I must begin somewhere, so I shall begin with the Saturday morning of last
+      April when Jim Campbell, my publisher and my friend&mdash;which is by no
+      means such an unusual combination as many people think&mdash;sat on the
+      veranda of my boathouse overlooking Cape Cod Bay and discussed my past,
+      present and, more particularly, my future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Which Repeats, for the Most Part, What Jim Campbell Said to Me and What I
+      Said to Him
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jim,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;what is the matter with me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim, who was seated in the ancient and dilapidated arm-chair which was the
+      finest piece of furniture in the boathouse and which I always offered to
+      visitors, looked at me over the collar of my sweater. I used the sweater
+      as I did the arm-chair when I did not have visitors. He was using it then
+      because, like an idiot, he had come to Cape Cod in April with nothing
+      warmer than a very natty suit and a light overcoat. Of course one may go
+      clamming and fishing in a light overcoat, but&mdash;one doesn't.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim looked at me over the collar of my sweater. Then he crossed his
+      oilskinned and rubber-booted legs&mdash;they were my oilskins and my boots&mdash;and
+      answered promptly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indigestion,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You ate nine of those biscuits this morning; I
+      saw you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not,&rdquo; I retorted, &ldquo;because you saw them first. MY interior is in
+      its normal condition. As for yours&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mine,&rdquo; he interrupted, filling his pipe from my tobacco pouch, &ldquo;being
+      accustomed to a breakfast, not a gorge, is abnormal but satisfactory,
+      thank you&mdash;quite satisfactory.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;we will discuss later, when I have you out back of the
+      bar in my catboat. Judging from present indications there will be some
+      sea-running. The 'Hephzy' is a good, capable craft, but a bit cranky, like
+      the lady she is named for. I imagine she will roll.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He didn't like that. You see, I had sailed with him before and I
+      remembered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ho-se-a,&rdquo; he drawled, &ldquo;you have a vivid imagination. It is a pity you
+      don't use more of it in those stories of yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! I am obliged to use the most of it on the royalty statements you
+      send me. If you call me 'Hosea' again I will take the 'Hephzy' across the
+      Point Rip. The waves there are fifteen feet high at low tide. See here, I
+      asked you a serious question and I should like a serious answer. Jim, what
+      IS the matter with me? Have I written out or what is the trouble?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at me again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you in earnest?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am, very much in earnest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you really want to talk shop after a breakfast like that and on a
+      morning like this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was that why you asked me to come to Bayport and spend the week-end?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No-o. No, of course not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're another; it was. When you met me at the railroad station yesterday
+      I could see there was something wrong with you. All this morning you've
+      had something on your chest. I thought it was the biscuits, of course; but
+      it wasn't, eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then what was it? Aren't we paying you a large enough royalty?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are paying me a good deal larger one than I deserve. I don't see why
+      you do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; with a wave of the hand, &ldquo;that's all right. The publishing of books
+      is a pure philanthropy. We are in business for our health, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shut up. You know as well as I do that the last two yarns of mine which
+      your house published have not done as well as the others.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had caught him now. Anything remotely approaching a reflection upon the
+      business house of which he was the head was sufficient to stir up Jim
+      Campbell. That business, its methods and its success, were his idols.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know any such thing,&rdquo; he protested, hotly. &ldquo;We sold&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hang the sale! You sold quite enough. It is an everlasting miracle to me
+      that you are able to sell a single copy. Why a self-respecting person,
+      possessed of any intelligence whatever, should wish to read the stuff I
+      write, to say nothing of paying money for the privilege, I can't
+      understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't have to understand. No one expects an author to understand
+      anything. All you are expected to do is to write; we'll attend to the rest
+      of it. And as for sales&mdash;why, 'The Black Brig'&mdash;that was the
+      last one, wasn't it?&mdash;beat the 'Omelet' by eight thousand or more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Omelet&rdquo; was our pet name for &ldquo;The Queen's Amulet,&rdquo; my first offence
+      in the literary line. It was a highly seasoned concoction of revolution
+      and adventure in a mythical kingdom where life was not dull, to say the
+      least. The humblest character in it was a viscount. Living in Bayport had,
+      naturally, made me familiar with the doings of viscounts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eight thousand more than the last isn't so bad, is it?&rdquo; demanded Jim
+      Campbell combatively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It isn't. It is astonishingly good. It is the books themselves that are
+      bad. The 'Omelet' was bad enough, but I wrote it more as a joke than
+      anything else. I didn't take it seriously at all. Every time I called a
+      duke by his Christian name I grinned. But nowadays I don't grin&mdash;I
+      swear. I hate the things, Jim. They're no good. And the reviewers are
+      beginning to tumble to the fact that they're no good, too. You saw the
+      press notices yourself. 'Another Thriller by the Indefatigable Knowles'
+      'Barnacles, Buccaneers and Blood, not to Mention Beauty and the Bourbons.'
+      That's the way two writers headed their articles about 'The Black Brig.'
+      And a third said that I must be getting tired; I wrote as if I was. THAT
+      fellow was right. I am tired, Jim. I'm tired and sick of writing slush. I
+      can't write any more of it. And yet I can't write anything else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim's pipe had gone out. Now he relit it and tossed the match over the
+      veranda rail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you know you can't?&rdquo; he demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can't what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can't write anything but slush?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah ha! Then it is slush. You admit it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't admit anything of the kind. You may not be a William Shakespeare
+      or even a George Meredith, but you have written some mighty interesting
+      stories. Why, I know a chap who sits up till morning to finish a book of
+      yours. Can't sleep until he has finished it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the matter with him; insomnia?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; he's a night watchman. Does that satisfy you, you crossgrained old
+      shellfish? Come on, let's dig clams&mdash;some of your own blood relations&mdash;and
+      forget it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't want to forget it and there is plenty of time for clamming. The
+      tide won't cover the flats for two hours yet. I tell you I'm serious, Jim.
+      I can't write any more. I know it. The stuff I've been writing makes me
+      sick. I hate it, I tell you. What the devil I'm going to do for a living I
+      can't see&mdash;but I can't write another story.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim put his pipe in his pocket. I think at last he was convinced that I
+      meant what I said, which I certainly did. The last year had been a year of
+      torment to me. I had finished the 'Brig,' as a matter of duty, but if that
+      piratical craft had sunk with all hands, including its creator, I should
+      not have cared. I drove myself to my desk each day, as a horse might be
+      driven to a treadmill, but the animal could have taken no less interest in
+      his work than I had taken in mine. It was bad&mdash;bad&mdash;bad;
+      worthless and hateful. There wasn't a new idea in it and I hadn't one in
+      my head. I, who had taken up writing as a last resort, a gamble which
+      might, on a hundred-to-one chance, win where everything else had failed,
+      had now reached the point where that had failed, too. Campbell's surmise
+      was correct; with the pretence of asking him to the Cape for a week-end of
+      fishing and sailing I had lured him there to tell him of my discouragement
+      and my determination to quit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took his feet from the rail and hitched his chair about until he faced
+      me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you're not going to write any more,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not. I can't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you going to do; live on back royalties and clams?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I may have to live on the clams; my back royalties won't keep me very
+      long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! I should think they might keep you a good while down here. You
+      must have something in the stocking. You can't have wasted very much in
+      riotous living on this sand-heap. What have you done with your money, for
+      the last ten years; been leading a double life?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've found leading a single one hard enough. I have saved something, of
+      course. It isn't the money that worries me, Jim; I told you that. It's
+      myself; I'm no good. Every author, sometime or other, reaches the point
+      where he knows perfectly well he has done all the real work he can ever
+      do, that he has written himself out. That's what's the matter with me&mdash;I'm
+      written out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim snorted. &ldquo;For Heaven's sake, Kent Knowles,&rdquo; he demanded, &ldquo;how old are
+      you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm thirty-eight, according to the almanac, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thirty-eight! Why, Thackeray wrote&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Drop it! I know when Thackeray wrote 'Vanity Fair' as well as you do. I'm
+      no Thackeray to begin with, and, besides, I am older at thirty-eight than
+      he was when he died&mdash;yes, older than he would have been if he had
+      lived twice as long. So far as feeling and all the rest of it go, I'm a
+      second Methusaleh.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My soul! hear the man! And I'm forty-two myself. Well, Grandpa, what do
+      you expect me to do; get you admitted to the Old Man's Home?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I expect&mdash;&rdquo; I began, &ldquo;I expect&mdash;&rdquo; and I concluded with the lame
+      admission that I didn't expect him to do anything. It was up to me to do
+      whatever must be done, I imagined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled grimly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Glad your senility has not affected that remnant of your common-sense,&rdquo;
+       he declared. &ldquo;You're dead right, my boy; it IS up to you. You ought to be
+      ashamed of yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am, but that doesn't help me a whole lot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing will help you as long as you think and speak as you have this
+      morning. See here, Kent! answer me a question or two, will you? They may
+      be personal questions, but will you answer them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess so. There has been what a disinterested listener might call a
+      slightly personal flavor to your remarks so far. Do your worst. Fire
+      away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right. You've lived in Bayport ten years or so, I know that. What
+      have you done in all that time&mdash;besides write?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I've continued to live.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doubted. You've continued to exist; but how? I've been here before. This
+      isn't my first visit, by a good deal. Each time I have been here your
+      daily routine&mdash;leaving out the exciting clam hunts and the excursions
+      in quest of the ferocious flounder, like the one we're supposed&mdash;mind,
+      I say supposed&mdash;to be on at the present moment&mdash;you have put in
+      the day about like this: Get up, bathe, eat, walk to the post-office, walk
+      home, sit about, talk a little, read some, walk some more, eat again,
+      smoke, talk, read, eat for the third time, smoke, talk, read and go to
+      bed. That's the program, isn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not exactly. I play tennis in summer&mdash;when there is anyone to play
+      with me&mdash;and golf, after a fashion. I used to play both a good deal,
+      when I was younger. I swim, and I shoot a little, and&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How about society? Have any, do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the summer, when the city people are here, there is a good deal going
+      on, if you care for it&mdash;picnics and clam bakes and teas and lawn
+      parties and such.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heavens! what reckless dissipation! Do you indulge?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, no&mdash;not very much. Hang it all, Jim! you know I'm no society
+      man. I used to do the usual round of fool stunts when I was younger, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But now you're too antique, I suppose. Wonder that someone hasn't
+      collected you as a genuine Chippendale or something. So you don't 'tea'
+      much?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not much. I'm not often invited, to tell you the truth. The summer crowd
+      doesn't take kindly to me, I'm afraid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Astonishing! You're such a chatty, entertaining, communicative cuss on
+      first acquaintance, too. So captivatingly loquacious to strangers. I can
+      imagine how you'd shine at a 'tea.' Every summer girl that tried to talk
+      to you would be frost-bitten. Do you accept invitations when they do
+      come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not often nowadays. You see, I know they don't really want me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you know it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why&mdash;well, why should they? Everybody else calls me&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They call you a clam and so you try to live up to your reputation. I know
+      you, Kent. You think yourself a tough old bivalve, but the most serious
+      complaint you suffer from is ingrowing sensitiveness. They do want you.
+      They'd invite you if you gave them half a chance. Oh, I know you won't, of
+      course; but if I had my way I'd have you dragged by main strength to every
+      picnic and tea and feminine talk-fest within twenty miles. You might meet
+      some persevering female who would propose marriage. YOU never would, but
+      SHE might.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I rose to my feet in disgust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'll go clamming,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not move.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will&mdash;later on,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;We haven't got to the last page of
+      the catechism yet. I mentioned matrimony because a good, capable, managing
+      wife would be my first prescription in your case. I have one or two more
+      up my sleeve. Tell me this: How often do you get away from Bayport? How
+      often do you get to&mdash;well, to Boston, we'll say? How many times have
+      you been there in the last year?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know. A dozen, perhaps.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you do when you went?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Various things. Shopped some, went to the theater occasionally, if there
+      happened to be anything on that I cared to see. Bought a good many books.
+      Saw the new Sargent pictures at the library. And&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And shook hands with your brother fossils at the museum, I suppose. Wild
+      life you lead, Kent. Did you visit anybody? Meet any friends or
+      acquaintances&mdash;any live ones?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not many. I haven't many friends, Jim; you know that. As for the wild
+      life&mdash;well, I made two visits to New York this year.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; drily; &ldquo;and we saw Sothern and Marlowe and had dinner at the
+      Holland. The rest of the time we talked shop. That was the first visit.
+      The second was more exciting still; we talked shop ALL the time and you
+      took the six o'clock train home again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're wrong there. I saw the new loan collections at the Metropolitan
+      and heard Ysaye play at Carnegie Hall. I didn't start for home until the
+      next day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that so. That's news to me. You said you were going that afternoon.
+      That was to put the kibosh on my intention of taking you home to my wife
+      and her bridge party, I suppose. Was it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well&mdash;well, you see, Jim, I&mdash;I don't play bridge and I AM such
+      a stick in a crowd like that. I wanted to stay and you were mighty kind,
+      but&mdash;but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right. All right, my boy. Next time it will be Bustanoby's, the
+      Winter Garden and a three A. M. cabaret for yours. My time is coming. Now&mdash;Well,
+      now we'll go clamming.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He swung out of the arm-chair and walked to the top of the steps leading
+      down to the beach. I was surprised, of course; I have known Jim Campbell a
+      long time, but he can surprise me even yet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here! hold on!&rdquo; I protested. &ldquo;How about the rest of that catechism?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've had it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Were those all the questions you wanted to ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! And that is all the advice and encouragement I'm to get from you!
+      How about those prescriptions you had up your sleeve?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll get those by and by. Before I leave this gay and festive scene
+      to-morrow I'm going to talk to you, Ho-se-a. And you're going to listen.
+      You'll listen to old Doctor Campbell; HE'LL prescribe for you, don't you
+      worry. And now,&rdquo; beginning to descend the steps, &ldquo;now for clams and
+      flounders.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the Point Rip,&rdquo; I added, maliciously, for his frivolous treatment of
+      what was to me a very serious matter, was disappointing and provoking.
+      &ldquo;Don't forget the Point Rip.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We dug the clams&mdash;they were for bait&mdash;we boarded the &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo;
+       sailed out to the fishing grounds, and caught flounders. I caught the most
+      of them; Jim was not interested in fishing during the greater part of the
+      time. Then we sailed home again and walked up to the house. Hephzibah, for
+      whom my boat is named, met us at the back door. As usual her greeting was
+      not to the point and practical.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Leave your rubber boots right outside on the porch,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Here,
+      give me those flatfish; I'll take care of 'em. Hosy, you'll find dry
+      things ready in your room. Here's your shoes; I've been warmin' 'em. Mr.
+      Campbell I've put a suit of Hosy's and some flannels on your bed. They may
+      not fit you, but they'll be lots better than the damp ones you've got on.
+      You needn't hurry; dinner won't be ready till you are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not say anything; I knew Hephzy&mdash;had known her all my life.
+      Jim, who, naturally enough, didn't know her as well, protested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We're not wet, Miss Cahoon,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;At least, I'm not, and I don't
+      see how Kent can be. We both wore oilskins.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That doesn't make any difference. You ought to change your clothes
+      anyhow. Been out in that boat, haven't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then! Don't say another word. I'll have a fire in the sittin'-room
+      and somethin' hot ready when you come down. Hosy, be sure and put on BOTH
+      the socks I darned for you. Don't get thinkin' of somethin' else and come
+      down with one whole and one holey, same as you did last time. You must
+      excuse me, Mr. Campbell. I've got saleratus biscuits in the oven.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hastened into the kitchen. When Jim and I, having obeyed orders to the
+      extent of leaving our boots on the porch, passed through that kitchen she
+      was busy with the tea-kettle. I led the way through the dining-room and up
+      the front stairs. My visitor did not speak until we reached the second
+      story. Then he expressed his feelings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say, Kent&rdquo; he demanded, &ldquo;are you going to change your clothes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why? You're no wetter than I am, are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a bit, but I'm going to change, just the same. It's the easier way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is, is it! What's the other way?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The other way is to keep on those you're wearing and take the
+      consequences.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What consequences?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jamaica ginger, hot water bottles and an afternoon's roast in front of
+      the sitting-room fire. Hephzibah went out sailing with me last October and
+      caught cold. That was enough; no one else shall have the experience if she
+      can help it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But&mdash;but good heavens! Kent, do you mean to say you always have to
+      change when you come in from sailing?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Except in summer, yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because Hephzy tells me to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you always do what she tells you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Generally. It's the easiest way, as I said before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good&mdash;heavens! And she darns your socks and tells you what&mdash;er
+      lingerie to wear and&mdash;does she wash your face and wipe your nose and
+      scrub behind your ears?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not exactly, but she probably would if I didn't do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I'll be hanged! And she extends the same treatment to all your
+      guests?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't have any guests but you. No doubt she would if I did. She mothers
+      every stray cat and sick chicken in the neighborhood. There, Jim, you trot
+      along and do as you're told like a nice little boy. I'll join you in the
+      sitting-room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! perhaps I'd better. I may be spanked and put to bed if I don't.
+      Well, well! and you are the author of 'The Black Brig!' 'Buccaneers and
+      Blood!' 'Bibs and Butterscotch' it should be! Don't stand out here in the
+      cold hall, Hosy darling; you may get the croup if you do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was waiting in the sitting-room when he came down. There was a roaring
+      fire in the big, old-fashioned fireplace. That fireplace had been bricked
+      up in the days when people used those abominations, stoves. As a boy I was
+      well acquainted with the old &ldquo;gas burner&rdquo; with the iron urn on top and the
+      nickeled ornaments and handles which Mother polished so assiduously. But
+      the gas burner had long since gone to the junk dealer. Among the
+      improvements which my first royalty checks made possible were steam heat
+      and the restoration of the fireplace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim found me sitting before the fire in one of the two big &ldquo;wing&rdquo; chairs
+      which I had purchased when Darius Barlay's household effects were sold at
+      auction. I should not have acquired them as cheaply if Captain Cyrus
+      Whittaker had been at home when the auction took place. Captain Cy loves
+      old-fashioned things as much as I do and, as he has often told me since,
+      he meant to land those chairs some day if he had to run his bank account
+      high and dry in consequence. But the Captain and his wife&mdash;who used
+      to be Phoebe Dawes, our school-teacher here in Bayport&mdash;were away
+      visiting their adopted daughter, Emily, who is married and living in
+      Boston, and I got the chairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the Barclay auction I bought also the oil painting of the bark
+      &ldquo;Freedom&rdquo;&mdash;a command of Captain Elkanah Barclay, uncle of the late
+      Darius&mdash;and the set&mdash;two volumes missing&mdash;of The Spectator,
+      bound in sheepskin. The &ldquo;Freedom&rdquo; is depicted &ldquo;Entering the Port of Genoa,
+      July 10th, 1848,&rdquo; and if the port is somewhat wavy and uncertain, the
+      bark's canvas and rigging are definite and rigid enough to make up. The
+      Spectator set is chiefly remarkable for its marginal notes; Captain
+      Elkanah bought the books in London and read and annotated at spare
+      intervals during subsequent voyages. His opinions were decided and his
+      notes nautical and emphatic. Hephzibah read a few pages of the notes when
+      the books first came into the house and then went to prayer-meeting. As
+      she had announced her intention of remaining at home that evening I was
+      surprised&mdash;until I read them myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim came downstairs, arrayed in the suit which Hephzy had laid out for
+      him. I made no comment upon his appearance. To do so would have been
+      superfluous; he looked all the comments necessary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I waved my hand towards the unoccupied wing chair and he sat down. Two
+      glasses, one empty and the other half full of a steaming mixture, were on
+      the little table beside us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Help yourself, Jim,&rdquo; I said, indicating the glasses. He took up the one
+      containing the mixture and regarded it hopefully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A Cahoon toddy,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Warranted to keep off chills, rheumatism,
+      lumbago and kindred miseries. Good for what ails you. Don't wait; I've had
+      mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took a sniff and then a very small sip. His face expressed genuine
+      emotion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whew!&rdquo; he gasped, choking. &ldquo;What in blazes&mdash;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jamaica ginger, sugar and hot water,&rdquo; I explained blandly. &ldquo;It won't hurt
+      you&mdash;longer than five minutes. It is Hephzy's invariable
+      prescription.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good Lord! Did you drink yours?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;I never do, unless she watches me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But your glass is empty. What did you do with it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Emptied it behind the back log. Of course, if you prefer to drink it&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Drink it!&rdquo; His &ldquo;toddy&rdquo; splashed the back log, causing a tremendous
+      sizzle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before he could relieve his mind further, Hephzy appeared to announce that
+      dinner was ready if we were. We were, most emphatically, so we went into
+      the dining-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy and Jim did most of the talking during the meal. I had talked more
+      that forenoon than I had for a week&mdash;I am not a chatty person,
+      ordinarily, which, in part, explains my nickname&mdash;and I was very
+      willing to eat and listen. Hephzy, who was garbed in her best gown&mdash;best
+      weekday gown, that is; she kept her black silk for Sundays&mdash;talked a
+      good deal, mostly about dreams and presentiments. Susanna Wixon, Tobias
+      Wixon's oldest daughter, waited on table, when she happened to think of
+      it, and listened when she did not. Susanna had been hired to do the
+      waiting and the dish-washing during Campbell's brief visit. It was I who
+      hired her. If I had had my way she would have been a permanent fixture in
+      the household, but Hephzy scoffed at the idea. &ldquo;Pity if I can't do
+      housework for two folks,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;I don't care if you can afford
+      it. Keepin' hired help in a family no bigger than this, is a sinful
+      extravagance.&rdquo; As Susanna's services had been already engaged for the
+      weekend she could not discharge her, but she insisted on doing all the
+      cooking herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her conversation, as I said, dealt mainly with dreams and presentiments.
+      Hephzibah is not what I should call a superstitious person. She doesn't
+      believe in &ldquo;signs,&rdquo; although she might feel uncomfortable if she broke a
+      looking-glass or saw the new moon over her left shoulder. She has a most
+      amazing fund of common-sense and is &ldquo;down&rdquo; on Spiritualism to a degree. It
+      is one of Bayport's pet yarns, that at the Harniss Spiritualist
+      camp-meeting when the &ldquo;test medium&rdquo; announced from the platform that he
+      had a message for a lady named Hephzibah C&mdash;he &ldquo;seemed to get the
+      name Hephzibah C&rdquo;&mdash;Hephzy got up and walked out. &ldquo;Any dead relations
+      I've got,&rdquo; she declared, &ldquo;who send messages through a longhaired idiot
+      like that one up there&rdquo;&mdash;meaning the medium,&mdash;&ldquo;can't have much
+      to say that's worth listenin' to. They can talk to themselves if they want
+      to, but they shan't waste MY time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In but one particular was Hephzy superstitious. Whenever she dreamed of
+      &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; she was certain something was going to happen. She had
+      dreamed of &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; the night before and, if she had not been headed
+      off, she would have talked of nothing else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw him just as plain as I see you this minute, Hosy,&rdquo; she said to me.
+      &ldquo;I was somewhere, in a strange place&mdash;a foreign place, I should say
+      'twas&mdash;and there I saw him. He didn't know me; at least I don't think
+      he did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Considering that he never saw you that isn't so surprising,&rdquo; I
+      interrupted. &ldquo;I think Mr. Campbell would have another cup of coffee if you
+      urged him. Susanna, take Mr. Campbell's cup.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim declined the coffee; said he hadn't finished his first cup yet. I knew
+      that, of course, but I was trying to head off Hephzy. She refused to be
+      headed, just then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I knew HIM,&rdquo; she went on. &ldquo;He looked just the same as he has when
+      I've seen him before&mdash;in the other dreams, you know. The very image
+      of his mother. Isn't it wonderful, Hosy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; but don't resurrect the family skeletons, Hephzy. Mr. Campbell isn't
+      interested in anatomy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Skeletons! I don't know what you're talkin' about. He wasn't a skeleton.
+      I saw him just as plain! And I said to myself, 'It's little Frank!' Now
+      what do you suppose he came to me for? What do you suppose it means? It
+      means somethin', I know that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Means that you weren't sleeping well, probably,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;Jim, here,
+      will dream of cross-seas and the Point Rip to-night, I have no doubt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim promptly declared that if he thought that likely he shouldn't mind so
+      much. What he feared most was a nightmare session with an author.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah was interested at once. &ldquo;Oh, do you dream about authors, Mr.
+      Campbell?&rdquo; she demanded. &ldquo;I presume likely you do, they're so mixed up
+      with your business. Do your dreams ever come true?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not often,&rdquo; was the solemn reply. &ldquo;Most of my dream-authors are rational
+      and almost human.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy, of course, did not understand this, but it did have the effect for
+      which I had been striving, that of driving &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; from her mind
+      for the time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't care,&rdquo; she declared, &ldquo;I s'pose it's awful foolish and silly of
+      me, but it does seem sometimes as if there was somethin' in dreams, some
+      kind of dreams. Hosy laughs at me and maybe I ought to laugh at myself,
+      but some dreams come true, or awfully near to true; now don't they.
+      Angeline Phinney was in here the other day and she was tellin' about her
+      second cousin that was&mdash;he's dead now&mdash;Abednego Small. He was
+      constable here in Bayport for years; everybody called him 'Uncle Bedny.'
+      Uncle Bedny had been keepin' company with a woman named Dimick&mdash;Josiah
+      Dimick's niece&mdash;lots younger than he, she was. He'd been thinkin' of
+      marryin' her, so Angie said, but his folks had been talkin' to him,
+      tellin' him he was too old to take such a young woman for his third wife,
+      so he had made up his mind to throw her over, to write a letter sayin' it
+      was all off between 'em. Well, he'd begun the letter but he never finished
+      it, for three nights runnin' he dreamed that awful trouble was hangin'
+      over him. That dream made such an impression on him that he tore the
+      letter up and married the Dimick woman after all. And then&mdash;I didn't
+      know this until Angie told me&mdash;it turned out that she had heard he
+      was goin' to give her the go-by and had made all her arrangements to sue
+      him for breach of promise if he did. That was the awful trouble, you see,
+      and the dream saved him from it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled. &ldquo;The fault there was in the interpretation of the dream,&rdquo; I
+      said. &ldquo;The 'awful trouble' of the breach of promise suit wouldn't have
+      been a circumstance to the trouble poor Uncle Bedny got into by marrying
+      Ann Dimick. THAT trouble lasted till he died.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah laughed and said she guessed that was so, she hadn't thought of
+      it in that way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Probably dreams are all nonsense,&rdquo; she admitted. &ldquo;Usually, I don't pay
+      much attention to 'em. But when I dream of poor 'Little Frank,' away off
+      there, I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come into the sitting-room, Jim,&rdquo; I put in hastily. &ldquo;I have a cigar or
+      two there. I don't buy them in Bayport, either.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And who,&rdquo; asked Jim, as we sat smoking by the fire, &ldquo;is Little Frank?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is a mythical relative of ours,&rdquo; I explained, shortly. &ldquo;He was born
+      twenty years ago or so&mdash;at least we heard that he was; and we haven't
+      heard anything of him since, except by the dream route, which is not
+      entirely convincing. He is Hephzy's pet obsession. Kindly forget him, to
+      oblige me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked puzzled, but he did not mention &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; again, for which
+      I was thankful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That afternoon we walked up to the village, stopping in at Simmons's
+      store, which is also the post-office, for the mail. Captain Cyrus
+      Whittaker happened to be there, also Asaph Tidditt and Bailey Bangs and
+      Sylvanus Cahoon and several others. I introduced Campbell to the crowd and
+      he seemed to be enjoying himself. When we came out and were walking home
+      again, he observed:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That Whittaker is an interesting chap, isn't he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;He is all right. Been everywhere and seen everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that,&rdquo; with an odd significance in his tone, &ldquo;may possibly help to
+      make him interesting, don't you think?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose so. He lives here in Bayport now, though.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So I gathered. Popular, is he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Satisfied with life?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seems to be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hum! No one calls HIM a&mdash;what is it&mdash;quahaug?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I'm the only human clam in this neighborhood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not say any more, nor did I. My fit of the blues was on again and
+      his silence on the subject in which I was interested, my work and my
+      future, troubled me and made me more despondent. I began to lose faith in
+      the &ldquo;prescription&rdquo; which he had promised so emphatically. How could he, or
+      anyone else, help me? No one could write my stories but myself, and I
+      knew, only too well, that I could not write them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The only mail matter in our box was a letter addressed to Hephzibah. I
+      forgot it until after supper and then I gave it to her. Jim retired early;
+      the salt air made him sleepy, so he said, and he went upstairs shortly
+      after nine. He had not mentioned our talk of the morning, nor did he until
+      I left him at the door of his room. Then he said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kent, I've got one of the answers to your conundrum. I've diagnosed one
+      of your troubles. You're blind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Blind?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, blind. Or, if not blind altogether you're suffering from the worse
+      case of far-sightedness I ever saw. All your literary&mdash;we'll call it
+      that for compliment's sake&mdash;all your literary life you've spent
+      writing about people and things so far off you don't know anything about
+      them. You and your dukes and your earls and your titled ladies! What do
+      you know of that crowd? You never saw a lord in your life. Why don't you
+      write of something near by, something or somebody you are acquainted
+      with?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Acquainted with! You're crazy, man. What am I acquainted with, except
+      this house, and myself and my books and&mdash;and Bayport?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's enough. Why, there is material in that gang at the post-office to
+      make a dozen books. Write about them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tut! tut! tut! You ARE crazy. What shall I write; the life of Ase Tidditt
+      in four volumes, beginning with 'I swan to man' and ending with 'By
+      godfrey'?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You might do worse. If the book were as funny as its hero I'd undertake
+      to sell a few copies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Funny! <i>I</i> couldn't write a funny book.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not an intentionally funny one, you mean. But there! There's no use to
+      talk to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is not, if you talk like an imbecile. Is this your brilliant
+      'prescription'?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. It might be; it would be, if you would take it, but you won't&mdash;not
+      now. You need something else first and I'll give it to you. But I'll tell
+      you this, and I mean it: Downstairs, in that dining-room of yours, there's
+      one mighty good story, at least.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The dining-room? A story in the dining-room?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Or it was there when we passed the door just now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at him. He seemed to be serious, but I knew he was not. I hate
+      riddles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, go to blazes!&rdquo; I retorted, and turned away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked into the dining-room as I went by. There was no story in sight
+      there, so far as I could see. Hephzy was seated by the table, mending
+      something, something of mine, of course. She looked up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Hosy,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;that letter you brought was a travel book from the
+      Raymond and Whitcomb folks. I sent a stamp for it. It's awfully
+      interesting! All about tours through England and France and Switzerland
+      and everywhere. So cheap they are! I'm pickin' out the ones I'm goin' on
+      some day. The pictures are lovely. Don't you want to see 'em?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not now,&rdquo; I replied. Another obsession of Hephzy's was travel. She, who
+      had never been further from Bayport than Hartford, Connecticut, was
+      forever dreaming of globe-trotting. It was not a new disease with her, by
+      any means; she had been dreaming the same things ever since I had known
+      her, and that is since I knew anything. Some day, SOME day she was going
+      to this, that and the other place. She knew all about these places,
+      because she had read about them over and over again. Her knowledge,
+      derived as it was from so many sources, was curiously mixed, but it was
+      comprehensive, of its kind. She was continually sending for Cook's
+      circulars and booklets advertising personally conducted excursions. And,
+      with the arrival of each new circular or booklet, she picked out, as she
+      had just done, the particular tours she would go on when her &ldquo;some day&rdquo;
+       came. It was funny, this queer habit of hers, but not half as funny as the
+      thought of her really going would have been. I would have as soon thought
+      of our front door leaving home and starting on its travels as of Hephzy's
+      doing it. The door was no more a part and fixture of that home than she
+      was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I went into my study, which adjoins the sitting-room, and sat down at my
+      desk. Not with the intention of writing anything, or even of considering
+      something to write about. That I made up my mind to forget for this night,
+      at least. My desk chair was my usual seat in that room and I took that
+      seat as a matter of habit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a matter of habit also I looked about for a book. I did not have to
+      look far. Books were my extravagance&mdash;almost my only one. They filled
+      the shelves to the ceiling on three sides of the study and overflowed in
+      untidy heaps on the floor. They were Hephzy's bugbear, for I refused to
+      permit their being &ldquo;straightened out&rdquo; or arranged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked about for a book and selected several, but, although they were
+      old favorites, I could not interest myself in any of them. I tried and
+      tried, but even Mr. Pepys, that dependable solace of a lonely hour, failed
+      to interest me with his chatter. Perhaps Campbell's pointed remarks
+      concerning lords and ladies had its effect here. Old Samuel loved to write
+      of such people, having a wide acquaintance with them, and perhaps that
+      very acquaintance made me jealous. At any rate I threw the volume back
+      upon its pile and began to think of myself, and of my work, the very thing
+      I had expressly determined not to do when I came into the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim's foolish and impossible advice to write of places and people I knew
+      haunted and irritated me. I did know Bayport&mdash;yes, and it might be
+      true that the group at the post-office contained possible material for
+      many books; but, if so, it was material for the other man, not for me.
+      &ldquo;Write of what you know,&rdquo; said Jim. And I knew so little. There was at
+      least one good yarn in the dining-room at that moment, he had declared. He
+      must have meant Hephzibah, but, if he did, what was there in Hephzibah's
+      dull, gray life-story to interest an outside reader? Her story and mine
+      were interwoven and neither contained anything worth writing about. His
+      fancy had been caught, probably, by her odd combination of the romantic
+      and the practical, and in her dream of &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; he had scented a
+      mystery. There was no mystery there, nothing but the most commonplace
+      record of misplaced trust and ingratitude. Similar things happen in so
+      many families.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, I began to think of Hephzy and, as I said, of myself, and to
+      review my life since Ardelia Cahoon and Strickland Morley changed its
+      course so completely. And now it seems to me that, in the course of my
+      &ldquo;edging around&rdquo; for the beginning of this present chronicle&mdash;so
+      different from anything I have ever written before or ever expected to
+      write&mdash;the time has come when the reader&mdash;provided, of course,
+      the said chronicle is ever finished or ever reaches a reader&mdash;should
+      know something of that life; should know a little of the family history of
+      the Knowles and the Cahoons and the Morleys.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Which, Although It Is Largely Family History, Should Not Be Skipped by the
+      Reader
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Let us take the Knowleses first. My name is Hosea Kent Knowles&mdash;I
+      said that before&mdash;and my father was Captain Philander Kent Knowles.
+      He was lost in the wreck of the steamer &ldquo;Monarch of the Sea,&rdquo; off
+      Hatteras. The steamer caught fire in the middle of the night, a howling
+      gale blowing and the thermometer a few degrees above zero. The passengers
+      and crew took to the boats and were saved. My father stuck by his ship and
+      went down with her, as did also her first mate, another Cape-Codder. I was
+      a baby at the time, and was at Bayport with my mother, Emily Knowles,
+      formerly Emily Cahoon, Captain Barnabas Cahoon's niece. Mother had a
+      little money of her own and Father's life was insured for a moderate sum.
+      Her small fortune was invested for her by her uncle, Captain Barnabas, who
+      was the Bayport magnate and man of affairs in those days. Mother and I
+      continued to live in the old house in Bayport and I went to school in the
+      village until I was fourteen, when I went away to a preparatory school
+      near Boston. Mother died a year later. I was an only child, but Hephzibah,
+      who had always seemed like an older sister to me, now began to &ldquo;mother&rdquo;
+       me, the process which she has kept up ever since.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah was the daughter of Captain Barnabas by his first wife. Hephzy
+      was born in 1859, so she is well over fifty now, although no one would
+      guess it. Her mother died when she was a little girl and ten years later
+      Captain Barnabas married again. His second wife was Susan Hammond, of
+      Ostable, and by her he had one daughter, Ardelia. Hephzy has always
+      declared &ldquo;Ardelia&rdquo; to be a pretty name. I have my own opinion on that
+      subject, but I keep it to myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At any rate, Ardelia herself was pretty enough. She was pretty when a baby
+      and prettier still as a schoolgirl. Her mother&mdash;while she lived,
+      which was not long&mdash;spoiled her, and her half-sister, Hephzy,
+      assisted in the petting and spoiling. Ardelia grew up with the idea that
+      most things in this world were hers for the asking. Whatever took her
+      fancy she asked for and, if Captain Barnabas did not give it to her, she
+      considered herself ill-used. She was the young lady of the family and
+      Hephzibah was the housekeeper and drudge, an uncomplaining one, be it
+      understood. For her, as for the Captain, the business of life was keeping
+      Ardelia contented and happy, and they gloried in the task. Hephzy might
+      have married well at least twice, but she wouldn't think of such a thing.
+      &ldquo;Pa and Ardelia need me,&rdquo; she said; that was reason sufficient.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In 1888 Captain Barnabas went to Philadelphia on business. He had retired
+      from active sea-going years before, but he retained an interest in a
+      certain line of coasting schooners. The Captain, as I said, went to
+      Philadelphia on business connected with these schooners and Ardelia went
+      with him. Hephzibah stayed at home, of course; she always stayed at home,
+      never expected to do anything else, although even then her favorite
+      reading were books of travel, and pictures of the Alps, and of St. Peter's
+      at Rome, and the Tower of London were tacked up about her room. She, too,
+      might have gone to Philadelphia, doubtless, if she had asked, but she did
+      not ask. Her father did not think of inviting her. He loved his oldest
+      daughter, although he did not worship her as he did Ardelia, but it never
+      occurred to him that she, too, might enjoy the trip. Hephzy was always at
+      home, she WAS home; so at home she remained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Philadelphia Ardelia met Strickland Morley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I give that statement a line all by itself, for it is by far the most
+      important I have set down so far. The whole story of the Cahoons and the
+      Knowleses&mdash;that is, all of their story which is the foundation of
+      this history of mine&mdash;hinges on just that. If those two had not met I
+      should not be writing this to-day, I might not be writing at all; instead
+      of having become a Bayport &ldquo;quahaug&rdquo; I might have been the Lord knows
+      what.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, they did meet, at the home of a wealthy shipping merchant named
+      Osgood who was a lifelong friend of Captain Barnabas. This shipping
+      merchant had a daughter and that daughter was giving a party at her
+      father's home. Barnabas and Ardelia were invited. Strickland Morley was
+      invited also.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Morley, at that time&mdash;I saw a good deal of him afterward, when he was
+      at Bayport and when I was at the Cahoon house on holidays and vacations&mdash;was
+      a handsome, aristocratic young Englishman. He was twenty-eight, but he
+      looked younger. He was the second son in a Leicestershire family which had
+      once been wealthy and influential but which had, in its later generations,
+      gone to seed. He was educated, in a general sort of way, was a good
+      dancer, played the violin fairly well, sang fairly well, had an attractive
+      presence, and was one of the most plausible and fascinating talkers I ever
+      listened to. He had studied medicine&mdash;studied it after a fashion,
+      that is; he never applied himself to anything&mdash;and was then, in '88,
+      &ldquo;ship's doctor&rdquo; aboard a British steamer, which ran between Philadelphia
+      and Glasgow. Miss Osgood had met him at the home of a friend of hers who
+      had traveled on that steamer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy and I do not agree as to whether or not he actually fell in love
+      with Ardelia Cahoon. Hephzy, of course, to whom Ardelia was the most
+      wonderfully beautiful creature on earth, is certain that he did&mdash;he
+      could not help it, she says. I am not so sure. It is very hard for me to
+      believe that Strickland Morley was ever in love with anyone but himself.
+      Captain Barnabas was well-to-do and had the reputation of being much
+      richer than he really was. And Ardelia WAS beautiful, there is no doubt of
+      that. At all events, Ardelia fell in love, with him, violently,
+      desperately, head over heels in love, the very moment the two were
+      introduced. They danced practically every dance together that evening, met
+      surreptitiously the next day and for five days thereafter, and on the
+      sixth day Captain Barnabas received a letter from his daughter announcing
+      that she and Morley were married and had gone to New York together. &ldquo;We
+      will meet you there, Pa,&rdquo; wrote Ardelia. &ldquo;I know you will forgive me for
+      marrying Strickland. He is the most wonderful man in the wide world. You
+      will love him, Pa, as I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was very little love expressed by the Captain when he read the note.
+      According to Mr. Osgood's account, Barnabas's language was a throwback
+      from the days when he was first mate on a Liverpool packet. That his
+      idolized daughter had married without asking his consent was bad enough;
+      that she had married an Englishman was worse. Captain Barnabas hated all
+      Englishmen. A ship of his had been captured and burned, in the war time,
+      by the &ldquo;Alabama,&rdquo; a British built privateer, and the very mildest of the
+      terms he applied to a &ldquo;John Bull&rdquo; will not bear repetition in respectable
+      society. He would not forgive Ardelia. She and her &ldquo;Cockney husband&rdquo; might
+      sail together to the most tropical of tropics, or words to that effect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he did forgive her, of course. Likewise he forgave his son-in-law.
+      When the Captain returned to Bayport he brought the newly wedded pair with
+      him. I was not present at that homecoming. I was away at prep school,
+      digging at my examinations, trying hard to forget that I was an orphan,
+      but with the dull ache caused by my mother's death always grinding at my
+      heart. Many years ago she died, but the ache comes back now, as I think of
+      her. There is more self-reproach in it than there used to be, more vain
+      regrets for impatient words and wasted opportunities. Ah, if some of us&mdash;boys
+      grown older&mdash;might have our mothers back again, would we be as
+      impatient and selfish now? Would we neglect the opportunities? I think
+      not; I hope not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah, after she got over the shock of the surprise and the pain of
+      sharing her beloved sister with another, welcomed that other for Ardelia's
+      sake. She determined to like him very much indeed. This wasn't so hard, at
+      first. Everyone liked and trusted Strickland Morley at first sight.
+      Afterward, when they came to know him better, they were not&mdash;if they
+      were as wise and discerning as Hephzy&mdash;so sure of the trust. The wise
+      and discerning were not, I say; Captain Barnabas, though wise and shrewd
+      enough in other things, trusted him to the end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Morley made it a point to win the affection and goodwill of his
+      father-in-law. For the first month or two after the return to Bayport the
+      new member of the family was always speaking of his plans for the future,
+      of his profession and how he intended soon, very soon, to look up a good
+      location and settle down to practice. Whenever he spoke thus, Captain
+      Barnabas and Ardelia begged him not to do it yet, to wait awhile. &ldquo;I am so
+      happy with you and Pa and Hephzy,&rdquo; declared Ardelia. &ldquo;I can't bear to go
+      away yet, Strickland. And Pa doesn't want us to; do you, Pa?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Of course Captain Barnabas agreed with her, he always did, and so the
+      Morleys remained at Bayport in the old house. Then came the first of the
+      paralytic shocks&mdash;a very slight one&mdash;which rendered Captain
+      Barnabas, the hitherto hale, active old seaman, unfit for exertion or the
+      cares of business. He was not bedridden by any means; he could still take
+      short walks, attend town meetings and those of the parish committee, but
+      he must not, so Dr. Parker said, be allowed to worry about anything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And Morley took it upon himself to prevent that worry. He spoke no more of
+      leaving Bayport and settling down to practice his profession. Instead he
+      settled down in Bayport and took the Captain's business cares upon his own
+      shoulders. Little by little he increased his influence over the old man.
+      He attended to the latter's investments, took charge of his bank account,
+      collected his dividends, became, so to speak, his financial guardian.
+      Captain Barnabas, at first rebellious&mdash;&ldquo;I've always bossed my own
+      ship,&rdquo; he declared, &ldquo;and I ain't so darned feeble-headed that I can't do
+      it yet&rdquo;&mdash;gradually grew reconciled and then contented. He, too, began
+      to worship his daughter's husband as the daughter herself did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's a wonder,&rdquo; said the Captain. &ldquo;I never saw such a fellow for money
+      matters. He's handled my stocks and things a whole lot better'n I ever
+      did. I used to cal'late if I got six per cent. interest I was doin' well.
+      He ain't satisfied with anything short of eight, and he gets it, too.
+      Whatever that boy wants and I own he can have. Sometimes I think this
+      consarned palsy of mine is a judgment on me for bein' so sot against him
+      in the beginnin'. Why, just look at how he runs this house, to say nothing
+      of the rest of it! He's a skipper here; the rest of us ain't anything but
+      fo'most hands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Which was not the exact truth. Morley was skipper of the Cahoon house,
+      Ardelia first mate, her father a passenger, and the foremast hand was
+      Hephzy. And yet, so far as &ldquo;running&rdquo; that house was concerned the foremast
+      hand ran it, as she always had done. The Captain and Ardelia were Morley's
+      willing slaves; Hephzy was, and continued to be, a free woman. She worked
+      from morning until night, but she obeyed only such orders as she saw fit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She alone did not take the new skipper at his face value.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know what there was about him that made me uneasy,&rdquo; she has told
+      me since. &ldquo;Maybe there wasn't anything; perhaps that was just the reason.
+      When a person is SO good and SO smart and SO polite&mdash;maybe the
+      average sinful common mortal like me gets jealous; I don't know. But I do
+      know that, to save my life, I couldn't swallow him whole the way Ardelia
+      and Father did. I wanted to look him over first; and the more I looked him
+      over, and the smoother and smoother he looked, the more sure I felt he'd
+      give us all dyspepsy before he got through. Unreasonable, wasn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For Ardelia's sake she concealed her distrust and did her best to get on
+      with the new head of the family. Only one thing she did, and that against
+      Motley's and her father's protest. She withdrew her own little fortune,
+      left her by her mother, from Captain Barnabas's care and deposited it in
+      the Ostable savings bank and in equally secure places. Of course she told
+      the Captain of her determination to do this before she did it and the
+      telling was the cause of the only disagreement, almost a quarrel, which
+      she and her father ever had. The Captain was very angry and demanded
+      reasons. Hephzibah declared she didn't know that she had any reasons, but
+      she was going to do it, nevertheless. And she did do it. For months
+      thereafter relations between the two were strained; Barnabas scarcely
+      spoke to his older daughter and Hephzy shed tears in the solitude of her
+      bedroom. They were hard months for her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the end of them came the crash. Morley had developed a habit of running
+      up to Boston on business trips connected with his father-in-law's
+      investments. Of late these little trips had become more frequent. Also, so
+      it seemed to Hephzy, he was losing something of his genial sweetness and
+      suavity, and becoming more moody and less entertaining. Telegrams and
+      letters came frequently and these he read and destroyed at once. He seldom
+      played the violin now unless Captain Barnabas&mdash;who was fond of music
+      of the simpler sort&mdash;requested him to do so and he seemed uneasy and,
+      for him, surprisingly disinclined to talk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was not the only one who noticed the change in him. Ardelia noticed
+      it also and, as she always did when troubled or perplexed, sought her
+      sister's advice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I sha'n't ever forget that night when she came to me for the last time,&rdquo;
+       Hephzy has told me over and over again. &ldquo;She came up to my room, poor
+      thing, and set down on the side of my bed and told me how worried she was
+      about her husband. Father had turned in and HE was out, gone to the
+      post-office or somewheres. I had Ardelia all to myself, for a wonder, and
+      we sat and talked just the same as we used to before she was married. I'm
+      glad it happened so. I shall always have that to remember, anyhow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course, all her worry was about Strickland. She was afraid he was
+      makin' himself sick. He worked so hard; didn't I think so? Well, so far as
+      that was concerned, I had come to believe that almost any kind of work was
+      liable to make HIM sick, but of course I didn't say that to her. That
+      somethin' was troublin' him was plain, though I was far enough from
+      guessin' what that somethin' was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We set and talked, about Strickland and about Father and about ourselves.
+      Mainly Ardelia's talk was a praise service with her husband for the
+      subject of worship; she was so happy with him and idolized him so that she
+      couldn't spare time for much else. But she did speak a little about
+      herself and, before she went away, she whispered somethin' in my ear which
+      was a dead secret. Even Father didn't know it yet, she said. Of course I
+      was as pleased as she was, almost&mdash;and a little frightened too,
+      although I didn't say so to her. She was always a frail little thing,
+      delicate as she was pretty; not a strapping, rugged, homely body like me.
+      We wasn't a bit alike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So we talked and when she went away to bed she gave me an extra hug and
+      kiss; came back to give 'em to me, just as she used to when she was a
+      little girl. I wondered since if she had any inklin' of what was goin' to
+      happen. I'm sure she didn't; I'm sure of it as I am that it did happen.
+      She couldn't have kept it from me if she had known&mdash;not that night.
+      She went away to bed and I went to bed, too. I was a long while gettin' to
+      sleep and after I did I dreamed my first dream about 'Little Frank.' I
+      didn't call him 'Little Frank' then, though. I don't seem to remember what
+      I did call him or just how he looked except that he looked like Ardelia.
+      And the next afternoon she and Strickland went away&mdash;to Boston, he
+      told us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      From that trip they never returned. Morley's influence over his wife must
+      have been greater even than any of us thought to induce her to desert her
+      father and Hephzy without even a written word of explanation or farewell.
+      It is possible that she did write and that her husband destroyed the
+      letter. I am as sure as Hephzy is that Ardelia did not know what Morley
+      had done. But, at all events, they never came back to Bayport and within
+      the week the truth became known. Morley had speculated, had lost and lost
+      again and again. All of Captain Barnabas's own money and all intrusted to
+      his care, including my little nest-egg, had gone as margins to the brokers
+      who had bought for Morley his worthless eight per cent. wildcats. Hephzy's
+      few thousands in the savings bank and elsewhere were all that was left.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shall condense the rest of the miserable business as much as I can.
+      Captain Barnabas traced his daughter and her husband as far as the steamer
+      which sailed for England. Farther he would not trace them, although he
+      might easily have cabled and caused his son-in-law's arrest. For a month
+      he went about in a sort of daze, speaking to almost no one and sitting for
+      hours alone in his room. The doctor feared for his sanity, but when the
+      breakdown came it was in the form of a second paralytic stroke which left
+      him a helpless, crippled dependent, weak and shattered in body and mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He lived nine years longer. Meanwhile various things happened. I managed
+      to finish my preparatory school term and, then, instead of entering
+      college as Mother and I had planned, I went into business&mdash;save the
+      mark&mdash;taking the exalted position of entry clerk in a wholesale
+      drygoods house in Boston. As entry clerk I did not shine, but I continued
+      to keep the place until the firm failed&mdash;whether or not because of my
+      connection with it I am not sure, though I doubt if my services were
+      sufficiently important to contribute toward even this result. A month
+      later I obtained another position and, after that, another. I was never
+      discharged; I declare that with a sort of negative pride; but when I
+      announced to my second employer my intention of resigning he bore the
+      shock with&mdash;to say the least&mdash;philosophic fortitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall miss you, Knowles,&rdquo; he observed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, sir,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I doubt if we ever have another bookkeeper just like you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I thanked him again, fighting down my blushes with heroic modesty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I guess you can find one if you try,&rdquo; I said, lightly, wishing to
+      comfort him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook his head. &ldquo;I sha'n't try,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;I am not as young and as
+      strong as I was and&mdash;well, there is always the chance that we might
+      succeed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a mean thing to say&mdash;to a boy, for I was scarcely more than
+      that. And yet, looking back at it now, I am much more disposed to smile
+      and forgive than I was then. My bookkeeping must have been a trial to his
+      orderly, pigeon-holed soul. Why in the world he and his partner put up
+      with it so long is a miracle. When, after my first novel appeared, he
+      wrote me to say that the consciousness of having had a part, small though
+      it might be, in training my young mind upward toward the success it had
+      achieved would always be a great gratification to him, I did not send the
+      letter I wrote in answer. Instead I tore up my letter and his and grinned.
+      I WAS a bad bookkeeper; I was, and still am, a bad business man. Now I
+      don't care so much; that is the difference.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then I cared a great deal, but I kept on at my hated task. What else was
+      there for me to do? My salary was so small that, as Charlie Burns, one of
+      my fellow-clerks, said of his, I was afraid to count it over a bare floor
+      for fear that it might drop in a crack and be lost. It was my only
+      revenue, however, and I continued to live upon it somehow. I had a small
+      room in a boarding-house on Shawmut Avenue and I spent most of my evenings
+      there or in the reading-room at the public library. I was not popular at
+      the boarding-house. Most of the young fellows there went out a good deal,
+      to call upon young ladies or to dance or to go to the theater. I had
+      learned to dance when I was at school and I was fond of the theater, but I
+      did not dance well and on the rare occasions when I did accompany the
+      other fellows to the play and they laughed and applauded and tried to
+      flirt with the chorus girls, I fidgeted in my seat and was uncomfortable.
+      Not that I disapproved of their conduct; I rather envied them, in fact.
+      But if I laughed too heartily I was sure that everyone was looking at me,
+      and though I should have liked to flirt, I didn't know how.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The few attempts I made were not encouraging. One evening&mdash;I was
+      nineteen then, or thereabouts&mdash;Charlie Burns, the clerk whom I have
+      mentioned, suggested that we get dinner downtown at a restaurant and &ldquo;go
+      somewhere&rdquo; afterward. I agreed&mdash;it happened to be Saturday night and
+      I had my pay in my pocket&mdash;so we feasted on oyster stew and ice cream
+      and then started for what my companion called a &ldquo;variety show.&rdquo; Burns, who
+      cherished the fond hope that he was a true sport, ordered beer with his
+      oyster stew and insisted that I should do the same. My acquaintance with
+      beer was limited and I never did like the stuff, but I drank it with
+      reckless abandon, following each sip with a mouthful of something else to
+      get rid of the taste. On the way to the &ldquo;show&rdquo; we met two young women of
+      Burns' acquaintance and stopped to converse with them. Charlie offered his
+      arm to one, the best looking; I offered mine to the discard, and we
+      proceeded to stroll two by two along the Tremont Street mall of the
+      Common. We had strolled for perhaps ten minutes, most of which time I had
+      spent trying to think of something to say, when Burns' charmer&mdash;she
+      was a waitress in one of Mr. Wyman's celebrated &ldquo;sandwich depots,&rdquo; I
+      believe&mdash;turned and, looking back at my fair one and myself, observed
+      with some sarcasm: &ldquo;What's the matter with your silent partner, Mame? Got
+      the lock-jaw, has he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I left them soon after that. There was no &ldquo;variety show&rdquo; for me that
+      night. Humiliated and disgusted with myself I returned to my room at the
+      boarding-house, realizing in bitterness of spirit that the gentlemanly
+      dissipations of a true sport were never to be mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I grew older I kept more and more to myself. My work at the office must
+      have been a little better done, I fancy, for my salary was raised twice in
+      four years, but I detested the work and the office and all connected with
+      it. I read more and more at the public library and began to spend the few
+      dollars I could spare for luxuries on books. Among my acquaintances at the
+      boarding-house and elsewhere I had the reputation of being &ldquo;queer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My only periods of real pleasure were my annual vacations in summer. These
+      glorious fortnights were spent at Bayport. There, at our old home, for
+      Hephzibah had sold the big Cahoon house and she and her father were living
+      in mine, for which they paid a very small rent, I was happy. I spent the
+      two weeks in sailing and fishing, and tramping along the waved-washed
+      beaches and over the pine-sprinkled hills. Even in Bayport I had few
+      associates of my own age. Even then they began to call me &ldquo;The Quahaug.&rdquo;
+       Hephzy hugged me when I came and wept over me when I went away and mended
+      my clothes and cooked my favorite dishes in the interval. Captain Barnabas
+      sat in the big arm-chair by the sitting-room window, looking out or
+      sleeping. He took little interest in me or anyone else and spoke but
+      seldom. Occasionally I spent the Fourth of July or Christmas at Bayport;
+      not often, but as often as I could.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One morning&mdash;I was twenty-five at the time, and the day was Sunday&mdash;I
+      read a story in one of the low-priced magazines. It was not much of a
+      story, and, as I read it, I kept thinking that I could write as good a
+      one. I had had such ideas before, but nothing had come of them. This time,
+      however, I determined to try. In half an hour I had evolved a plot, such
+      as it was, and at a quarter to twelve that night the story was finished. A
+      highwayman was its hero and its scene the great North Road in England. My
+      conceptions of highwaymen and the North Road&mdash;of England, too, for
+      that matter&mdash;were derived from something I had read at some time or
+      other, I suppose; they must have been. At any rate, I finished that story,
+      addressed the envelope to the editor of the magazine and dropped the
+      envelope and its inclosure in the corner mail-box before I went to bed.
+      Next morning I went to the office as usual. I had not the faintest hope
+      that the story would be accepted. The writing of it had been fun and the
+      sending it to the magazine a joke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the story was accepted and the check which I received&mdash;forty
+      dollars&mdash;was far from a joke to a man whose weekly wage was half that
+      amount. The encouraging letter which accompanied the check was best of
+      all. Before the week ended I had written another thriller and this, too,
+      was accepted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thereafter, for a year or more, my Sundays and the most of my evenings
+      were riots of ink and blood. The ink was real enough and the blood purely
+      imaginary. My heroes spilled the latter and I the former. Sometimes my
+      yarns were refused, but the most of them were accepted and paid for.
+      Editors of other periodicals began to write to me requesting
+      contributions. My price rose. For one particularly harrowing and romantic
+      tale I was paid seventy-five dollars. I dressed in my best that evening,
+      dined at the Adams House, gave the waiter a quarter, and saw Joseph
+      Jefferson from an orchestra seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then came the letter from Jim Campbell requesting me to come to New York
+      and see him concerning a possible book, a romance, to be written by me and
+      published by the firm of which he was the head. I saw my employer,
+      obtained a Saturday off, and spent that Saturday and Sunday in New York,
+      my first visit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a result of that visit began my friendship with Campbell and my first
+      long story, &ldquo;The Queen's Amulet.&rdquo; The &ldquo;Amulet,&rdquo; or the &ldquo;Omelet,&rdquo; just as
+      you like, was a financial success. It sold a good many thousand copies.
+      Six months later I broke to my employers the distressing news that their
+      business must henceforth worry on as best it could without my aid; I was
+      going to devote my valuable time and effort to literature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My fellow-clerks were surprised. Charlie Burns, head bookkeeper now, and a
+      married man and a father, was much concerned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, great Scott, Kent!&rdquo; he protested, &ldquo;you're going to do something
+      besides write books, ain't you? You ain't going to make your whole living
+      that way?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to try,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Great Scott! Why, you'll starve! All those fellows live in garrets and
+      starve to death, don't they?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not all,&rdquo; I told him. &ldquo;Only real geniuses do that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook his head and his good-by was anything but cheerful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My plans were made and I put them into execution at once. I shipped my
+      goods and chattels, the latter for the most part books, to Bayport and
+      went there to live and write in the old house where I was born. Hephzy was
+      engaged as my housekeeper. She was alone now; Captain Barnabas had died
+      nearly two years before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the Captain's papers and discovered by his daughter after his death
+      was a letter from Strickland Morley. It was written from a town in France
+      and was dated six years after Morley's flight and the disclosure of his
+      crookedness. Captain Barnabas had never, apparently, answered the letter;
+      certainly he had never told anyone of its receipt by him. The old man
+      never mentioned Morley's name and only spoke of Ardelia during his last
+      hours, when his mind was wandering. Then he spoke of and asked for her
+      continually, driving poor Hephzibah to distraction, for her love for her
+      lost sister was as great as his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The letter was the complaining whine of a thoroughly selfish man. I can
+      scarcely refer to it without losing patience, even now when I understand
+      more completely the circumstances under which it was written. It was not
+      too plainly written or coherent and seemed to imply that other letters had
+      preceded it. Morley begged for money. He was in &ldquo;pitiful straits,&rdquo; he
+      declared, compelled to live as no gentleman of birth and breeding should
+      live. As a matter of fact, the remnant of his resources, the little cash
+      left from the Captain's fortune which he had taken with him had gone and
+      he was earning a precarious living by playing the violin in a second-rate
+      orchestra. &ldquo;For poor dead Ardelia's sake,&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;and for the sake of
+      little Francis, your grandchild, I ask you to extend the financial help
+      which I, as your heir-in-law, might demand. You may consider that I have
+      wronged you, but, as you should know and must know, the wrong was
+      unintentional and due solely to the sudden collapse of the worthless
+      American investments which the scoundrelly Yankee brokers inveigled me
+      into making.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      If the money was sent at once, he added, it might reach him in time to
+      prevent his yielding to despondency and committing suicide.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Suicide! HE commit suicide!&rdquo; sniffed Hephzy when she read me the letter.
+      &ldquo;He thinks too much of his miserable self ever to hurt it. But, oh dear! I
+      wish Pa had told me of this letter instead of hidin' it away. I might have
+      sent somethin', not to him, but to poor, motherless Little Frank.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had tried; that is, she had written to the French address, but her
+      letter had been returned. Morley and the child of whom this letter
+      furnished the only information were no longer in that locality. Hephzy had
+      talked of &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; and dreamed about him at intervals ever since. He
+      had come to be a reality to her, and she even cut a child's picture from a
+      magazine and fastened it to the wall of her room beneath the engraving of
+      Westminster Abbey, because there was something about the child in the
+      picture which reminded her of &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; as he looked in her dreams.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She and I had lived together ever since, I continuing to turn out, each
+      with less enthusiasm and more labor, my stories of persons and places of
+      which, as Campbell said but too truly, I knew nothing whatever. Finally I
+      had reached my determination to write no more &ldquo;slush,&rdquo; profitable though
+      it might be. I invited Jim to visit me; he had come and the conversation
+      at the boathouse and his remarks at the bedroom door were all the
+      satisfaction that visit had brought me so far.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I sat there in my study, going over all this, not so fully as I have set
+      it down here, but fully nevertheless, and the possibility of finding even
+      a glimmer of interest or a hint of fictional foundation in Hephzibah or
+      her life or mine was as remote at the end of my thinking as it had been at
+      the beginning. There might be a story there, or a part of a story, but I
+      could not write it. The real trouble was that I could not write anything.
+      With which, conclusion, exactly what I started with, I blew out the lamp
+      and went upstairs to bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next morning Jim and I went for another sail from which we did not return
+      until nearly dinner-time. During that whole forenoon he did not mention
+      the promised &ldquo;prescription,&rdquo; although I offered him plenty of
+      opportunities and threw out various hints by way of bait.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He ignored the bait altogether and, though he talked a great deal and
+      asked a good many questions, both talk and questions had no bearing on the
+      all-important problem which had been my real reason for inviting him to
+      Bayport. He questioned me again concerning my way of spending my time,
+      about my savings, how much money I had put by, and the like, but I was not
+      particularly interested in these matters and they were not his business,
+      to put it plainly. At least, I could not see that they were.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I answered him as briefly as possible and, I am afraid, behaved rather
+      boorishly to one, who next to Hephzy, was perhaps the best friend I had in
+      the world. His apparent lack of interest hurt and disappointed me and I
+      did not care if he knew it. My impatience must have been apparent enough,
+      but if so it did not trouble him; he chatted and laughed and told stories
+      all the way from the landing to the house and announced to Hephzy, who had
+      stayed at home from church in order to prepare and cook clam chowder and
+      chicken pie and a &ldquo;Queen pudding,&rdquo; that he had an appetite like a starved
+      shark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When, at last, that appetite was satisfied, he and I adjourned to the
+      sitting-room for a farewell smoke. His train left at three-thirty and it
+      lacked but an hour of that time. He had worn my suit, the one which
+      Hephzibah had laid out for him the day before, but had changed to his own
+      again and packed his bag before dinner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We camped in the wing chairs and he lighted his cigar. Then, to my
+      astonishment, he rose and shut the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you do that for?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He came back to his chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I'm going to talk to you like a Dutch uncle,&rdquo; he replied, &ldquo;and I
+      don't want anyone, not even a Cape Cod cousin, butting in. Kent, I told
+      you that before I went I was going to prescribe for you, didn't I? Well,
+      I'm going to do it now. Are you ready for the prescription?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been ready for it for some time,&rdquo; I retorted. &ldquo;I began to think
+      you had forgotten it altogether.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hadn't. But I wanted it to be the last word you should hear from me and
+      I didn't want to give you time to think up a lot of fool objections to
+      spring on me before I left. Look here, I'm your doctor now; do you
+      understand? You called me in as a specialist and what I say goes. Is that
+      understood?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hear you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've got to do more than hear me. You've got to do what I tell you. I
+      know what ails you. You've buried yourself in the mud down here. Wake up,
+      you clam! Come out of your shell. Stir around. Stop thinking about
+      yourself and think of something worth while.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear! dear! hark to the voice of the oracle. And what is the something
+      worth while I am to think about; you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, by George! me! Me and the dear public! Here are thirty-five thousand
+      seekers after the&mdash;the higher literature, panting open-mouthed for
+      another Knowles classic. And you sit back here and cover yourself with
+      sand and seaweed and say you won't give it to them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're wrong. I say I can't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will, though.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I won't. You can bet high on that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will, and I'll bet higher. YOU write no more stories! You! Why,
+      confound you, you couldn't help it if you tried. You needn't write another
+      'Black Brig' unless you want to. You needn't&mdash;you mustn't write
+      anything UNTIL you want to. But, by George! you'll get up and open your
+      eyes and stir around, and keep stirring until the time comes when you've
+      found something or someone you DO want to write about. THEN you'll write;
+      you will, for I know you. It may turn out to be what you call 'slush,' or
+      it may not, but you'll write it, mark my words.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was serious now, serious enough even to suit me. But what he had said
+      did not suit me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't talk nonsense, Jim,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Don't you suppose I have thought&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thought! that's just it; you do nothing but think. Stop thinking. Stop
+      being a quahaug&mdash;a dead one, anyway. Drop the whole business, drop
+      Bayport, drop America, if you like. Get up, clear out, go to China, go to
+      Europe, go to&mdash;Well, never mind, but go somewhere. Go somewhere and
+      forget it. Travel, take a long trip, start for one place and, if you
+      change your mind before you get there, go somewhere else. It doesn't make
+      much difference where, so that you go, and see different things. I'm
+      talking now, Kent Knowles, and it isn't altogether because it pays us to
+      publish your books, either. You drop Bayport and drop writing. Go out and
+      pick up and go. Stay six months, stay a year, stay two years, but keep
+      alive and meet people and give what you flatter yourself is a brain
+      house-cleaning. Confound you, you've kept it shut like one of these best
+      front parlors down here. Open the windows and air out. Let the outside
+      light in. An idea may come with it; it is barely possible, even to you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was out of breath by this time. I was in a somewhat similar condition
+      for his tirade had taken mine away. However, I managed to express my
+      feelings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph!&rdquo; I grunted. &ldquo;And so this is your wonderful prescription. I am to
+      travel, am I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are. You can afford it, and I'll see that you do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And just what port would you recommend?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't care, I tell you, except that it ought to be a long way off. I'm
+      not joking, Kent; this is straight. A good long jaunt around the world
+      would do you a barrel of good. Don't stop to think about it, just start,
+      that's all. Will you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed. The idea of my starting on a pleasure trip was ridiculous. If
+      ever there was a home-loving and home-staying person it was I. The bare
+      thought of leaving my comfort and my books and Hephzy made me shudder. I
+      hadn't the least desire to see other countries and meet other people. I
+      hated sleeping cars and railway trains and traveling acquaintances. So I
+      laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sorry, Jim,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;but I'm afraid I can't take your prescription.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For one reason because I don't want to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's no reason at all. It doesn't make any difference what you want.
+      Anything else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. I would no more wander about creation all alone than&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take someone with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who? Will you go, yourself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish I could,&rdquo; he said, and I think he meant it. &ldquo;I'd like nothing
+      better. I'D keep you alive, you can bet on that. But I can't leave the
+      literature works just now. I'll do my best to find someone who will,
+      though. I know a lot of good fellows who travel&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I held up my hand. &ldquo;That's enough,&rdquo; I interrupted. &ldquo;They can't travel with
+      me. They wouldn't be good fellows long if they did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He struck the chair arm with his fist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're as near impossible as you can be, aren't you,&rdquo; he exclaimed.
+      &ldquo;Never mind; you're going to do as I tell you. I never gave you bad advice
+      yet, now did I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;o. No, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not giving it to you now. You'll go and you'll go in a hurry. I'll
+      give you a week to think the idea over. At the end of that time if I don't
+      hear from you I'll be down here again, and I'll worry you every minute
+      until you'll go anywhere to get rid of me. Kent, you must do it. You
+      aren't written out, as you call it, but you are rusting out, fast. If you
+      don't get away and polish up you'll never do a thing worth while. You'll
+      be another what's-his-name&mdash;Ase Tidditt; that's what you'll be. I can
+      see it coming on. You're ossifying; you're narrowing; you're&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I broke in here. I didn't like to be called narrow and I did not like to
+      be paired with Asaph Tidditt, although our venerable town clerk is a good
+      citizen and all right, in his way. But I had flattered myself that way was
+      not mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop it, Jim!&rdquo; I ordered. &ldquo;Don't blow off any more steam in this
+      ridiculous fashion. If this is all you have to say to me, you may as well
+      stop.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop! I've only begun. I'll stop when you start, and not before. Will you
+      go?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't, Jim. You know I can't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know you can and I know you're going to. There!&rdquo; rising and laying a
+      hand on my shoulder, &ldquo;it is time for ME to be starting. Kent, old man, I
+      want you to promise me that you will do as I tell you. Will you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't, Jim. I would if I could, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you promise me to think the idea over? Think it over carefully;
+      don't think of anything else for the rest of the week? Will you promise me
+      to do that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hesitated. I was perfectly sure that all my thinking would but
+      strengthen my determination to remain at home, but I did not like to
+      appear too stubborn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, yes, Jim,&rdquo; I said, doubtfully, &ldquo;I promise so much, if that is any
+      satisfaction to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right. I'll give you until Friday to make up your mind. If I don't
+      hear from you by that time I shall take it for granted that you have made
+      it up in the wrong way and I'll be here on Saturday. I'll keep the process
+      up week in and week out until you give in. That's MY promise. Come on. We
+      must be moving.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He said good-by to Hephzy and we walked together to the station. His last
+      words as we shook hands by the car steps were: &ldquo;Remember&mdash;think. But
+      don't you dare think of anything else.&rdquo; My answer was a dubious shake of
+      the head. Then the train pulled out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I believe that afternoon and evening to have been the &ldquo;bluest&rdquo; of all my
+      blue periods, and I had had some blue ones prior to Jim's visit. I was
+      dreadfully disappointed. Of course I should have realized that no advice
+      or &ldquo;prescription&rdquo; could help me. As Campbell had said, &ldquo;It was up to me;&rdquo;
+       I must help myself; but I had been trying to help myself for months and I
+      had not succeeded. I had&mdash;foolishly, I admit&mdash;relied upon him to
+      give me a new idea, a fresh inspiration, and he had not done it. I was
+      disappointed and more discouraged than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My state of mind may seem ridiculous. Perhaps it was. I was in good
+      health, not very old&mdash;except in my feelings&mdash;and my stories,
+      even the &ldquo;Black Brig,&rdquo; had not been failures, by any means. But I am sure
+      that every man or woman who writes, or paints, or does creative work of
+      any kind, will understand and sympathize with me. I had &ldquo;gone stale,&rdquo; that
+      is the technical name for my disease, and to &ldquo;go stale&rdquo; is no joke. If you
+      doubt it ask the writer or painter of your acquaintance. Ask him if he
+      ever has felt that he could write or paint no more, and then ask him how
+      he liked the feeling. The fact that he has written or painted a great deal
+      since has no bearing on the matter. &ldquo;Staleness&rdquo; is purely a mental
+      ailment, and the confident assurance of would-be doctors that its attacks
+      are seldom fatal doesn't help the sufferer at the time. He knows he is
+      dead, and that is no better, then, than being dead in earnest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I knew I was dead, so far as my writing was concerned, and the advice to
+      go away and bury myself in a strange country did not appeal to me. It
+      might be true that I was already buried in Bayport, but that was my home
+      cemetery, at all events. The more I thought of Jim Campbell's prescription
+      the less I felt like taking it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, I kept on with the thinking; I had promised to do that. On
+      Wednesday came a postcard from Jim, himself, demanding information. &ldquo;When
+      and where are you going?&rdquo; he wrote. &ldquo;Wire answer.&rdquo; I did not wire answer.
+      I was not going anywhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I thrust the card into my pocket and, turning away from the frame of
+      letter boxes, faced Captain Cyrus Whittaker, who, like myself, had come to
+      Simmons's for his mail. He greeted me cordially.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello, Kent,&rdquo; he hailed. &ldquo;How are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About the same as usual, Captain,&rdquo; I answered, shortly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's pretty fair, by the looks. You don't look too happy, though, come
+      to notice it. What's the matter; got bad news?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. I haven't any news, good or bad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That so? Then I'll give you some. Phoebe and I are going to start for
+      California to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are? To California? Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, just for instance, that's all. Time's come when I have to go
+      somewhere, and the Yosemite and the big trees look good to me. It's this
+      way, Kent; I like Bayport, you know that. Nobody's more in love with this
+      old town than I am; it's my home and I mean to live and die here, if I
+      have luck. But it don't do for me to stay here all the time. If I do I
+      begin to be no good, like a strawberry plant that's been kept in one place
+      too long and has quit bearin.' The only thing to do with that plant is to
+      transplant it and let it get nourishment in a new spot. Then you can move
+      it back by and by and it's all right. Same way with me. Every once in a
+      while I have to be transplanted so's to freshen up. My brains need
+      somethin' besides post-office talk and sewin'-circle gossip to keep them
+      from shrivelin'. I was commencin' to feel the shrivel, so it's California
+      for Phoebe and me. Better come along, Kent. You're beginnin' to shrivel a
+      little, ain't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Was it as apparent as all that? I was indignant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do I look it?&rdquo; I demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;o, but I ain't sure that you don't act it. No offence, you
+      understand. Just a little ground bait to coax you to come on the
+      California cruise along with Phoebe and me, that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not likely that I should accept. Two are company and three a crowd,
+      and if ever two were company Captain Cy and his wife were those two. I
+      thanked him and declined, but I asked a question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You believe in travel as a restorative, you do?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hey? I sartin do. Change your course once in awhile, same as you change
+      your clothes. Wearin' the same suit and cruisin' in the same puddle all
+      the time ain't healthy. You're too apt to get sick of the clothes and
+      puddle both.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you don't believe in traveling alone, do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; emphatically, &ldquo;I don't, generally speakin.' If you go off by
+      yourself you're too likely to keep thinkin' ABOUT yourself. Take somebody
+      with you; somebody you're used to and know well and like, though.
+      Travelin' with strangers is a little mite worse than travelin' alone. You
+      want to be mighty sure of your shipmate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I walked home. Hephzibah was in the sitting-room, reading and knitting a
+      stocking, a stocking for me. She did not need to use her eyes for the
+      knitting; I am quite sure she could have knit in her sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hello, Hosy,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;been up to the office, have you? Any mail?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing much. Humph! Still reading that Raymond and Whitcomb circular?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, not that one. This is one I got last year. I've been sittin' here
+      plannin' out just where I'd go and what I'd see if I could. It's the next
+      best thing to really goin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at her. All at once a new idea began to crystallize in my mind.
+      It was a curious idea, a ridiculous idea, and yet&mdash;and yet it seemed&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; said I, suddenly, &ldquo;would you really like to go abroad?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;WOULD I? Hosy, how you talk! You know I've been crazy to go ever since I
+      was a little girl. I don't know what makes me so. Perhaps it's the salt
+      water in my blood. All our folks were sailors and ship captains. They went
+      everywhere. I presume likely it takes more than one generation to kill off
+      that sort of thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you really want to go?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then why haven't you gone? You could afford to take a moderate-priced
+      tour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy laughed over her knitting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I haven't gone for the reason you haven't, Hosy. You
+      could afford, it, too&mdash;you know you could. But how could I go and
+      leave you? Why, I shouldn't sleep a minute wonderin' if you were wearin'
+      clothes without holes in 'em and if you changed your flannels when the
+      weather changed and ate what you ought to, and all that. You've been so&mdash;so
+      sort of dependent on me and I've been so used to takin' care of you that I
+      don't believe either of us would be happy anywhere without the other. I
+      know certain sure <i>I</i> shouldn't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not answer immediately. The idea, the amazing, ridiculous idea which
+      had burst upon me suddenly began to lose something of its absurdity.
+      Somehow it began to look like the answer to my riddle. I realized that my
+      main objection to the Campbell prescription had been that I must take it
+      alone or with strangers. And now&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; I demanded, &ldquo;would you go away&mdash;on a trip abroad&mdash;with
+      me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She put down the knitting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy Knowles!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;WHAT are you talkin' about?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But would you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I presume likely I would, if I had the chance; but it isn't likely that&mdash;where
+      are you goin'?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not answer. I hurried out of the sitting-room and out of the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I returned I found her still knitting. The circular lay on the floor
+      at her feet. She regarded me anxiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy,&rdquo; she demanded, &ldquo;where&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I interrupted. &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I have been to the station to send a
+      telegram.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A telegram? A TELEGRAM! For mercy sakes, who's dead?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Telegrams in Bayport usually mean death or desperate illness. I laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No one is dead, Hephzy,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;In fact it is barely possible that
+      someone is coming to life. I telegraphed Mr. Campbell to engage passage
+      for you and me on some steamer leaving for Europe next week.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah turned pale. The partially knitted sock dropped beside the
+      circular.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why&mdash;why&mdash;what&mdash;?&rdquo; she gasped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On a steamer leaving next week,&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;You want to travel, Hephzy.
+      Jim says I must. So we'll travel together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not believe I meant it, of course, and it took a long time to
+      convince her. But when at last she began to believe&mdash;at least to the
+      extent of believing that I had sent the telegram&mdash;her next remark was
+      characteristic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I&mdash;I can't go, Hosy,&rdquo; declared Hephzibah. &ldquo;I CAN'T. Who&mdash;who
+      would take care of the cat and the hens?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which Hephzy and I and the Plutonia Sail Together
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The week which began that Wednesday afternoon seems, as I look back to it
+      now, a bit of the remote past, instead of seven days of a year ago. Its
+      happenings, important and wonderful as they were, seem trivial and tame
+      compared with those which came afterward. And yet, at the time, that week
+      was a season of wild excitement and delightful anticipation for Hephzibah,
+      and of excitement not unmingled with doubts and misgivings for me. For us
+      both it was a busy week, to put it mildly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Once convinced that I meant what I said and that I was not &ldquo;raving
+      distracted,&rdquo; which I think was her first diagnosis of my case, Hephzy's
+      practical mind began to unearth objections, first to her going at all and,
+      second, to going on such short notice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't think I'd better, Hosy,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You're awful good to ask me
+      and I know you think you mean it, but I don't believe I ought to do it,
+      even if I felt as if I could leave the house and everything alone. You
+      see, I've lived here in Bayport so long that I'm old-fashioned and funny
+      and countrified, I guess. You'd be ashamed of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled. &ldquo;When I am ashamed of you, Hephzy,&rdquo; I replied, &ldquo;I shall be on my
+      way to the insane asylum, not to Europe. You are much more likely to be
+      ashamed of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The idea! And you the pride of this town! The only author that ever lived
+      in it&mdash;unless you call Joshua Snow an author, and he lived in the
+      poorhouse and nobody but himself was proud of HIM.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Josh Snow was Bayport's Homer, its only native poet. He wrote the immortal
+      ballad of the scallop industry, which begins:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;On a fine morning at break of day,
+      When the ice has all gone out of the bay,
+      And the sun is shining nice and it is like spring,
+      Then all hands start to go scallop-ING.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      In order to get the fullest measure of music from this lyric gem you
+      should put a strong emphasis on the final &ldquo;ing.&rdquo; Joshua always did and the
+      summer people never seemed to tire of hearing him recite it. There are
+      eighteen more verses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not be ashamed of you, Hephzy,&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;You know it
+      perfectly well. And I shall not go unless you go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I can't go, Hosy. I couldn't leave the hens and the cat. They'd
+      starve; you know they would.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Susanna will look after them. I'll leave money for their provender. And I
+      will pay Susanna for taking care of them. She has fallen in love with the
+      cat; she'll be only too glad to adopt it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I haven't got a single thing fit to wear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Neither have I. We will buy complete fit-outs in Boston or New York.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There were innumerable &ldquo;buts.&rdquo; I answered them as best I could. Also I
+      reiterated my determination not to go unless she did. I told of Campbell's
+      advice and laid strong emphasis on the fact that he had said travel was my
+      only hope. Unless she wished me to die of despair she must agree to travel
+      with me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you have said over and over again that your one desire was to go
+      abroad,&rdquo; I added, as a final clincher.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know it. I know I have. But&mdash;but now when it comes to really goin'
+      I'm not so sure. Uncle Bedny Small was always declarin' in prayer-meetin'
+      that he wanted to die so as to get to Heaven, but when he was taken down
+      with influenza he made his folks call both doctors here in town and one
+      from Harniss. I don't know whether I want to go or not, Hosy. I&mdash;I'm
+      frightened, I guess.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim's answer to my telegram arrived the very next day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have engaged two staterooms for ship sailing Wednesday the tenth,&rdquo; it
+      read. &ldquo;Hearty congratulations on your good sense. Who is your companion?
+      Write particulars.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The telegram quashed the last of Hephzy's objections. The fares had been
+      paid and she was certain they must be &ldquo;dreadful expensive.&rdquo; All that money
+      could not be wasted, so she accepted the inevitable and began
+      preparations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not write the &ldquo;particulars&rdquo; requested. I had a feeling that Campbell
+      might consider my choice of a traveling companion a queer one and,
+      although my mind was made up and his opinion could not change it, I
+      thought it just as well to wait until our arrival in New York before
+      telling him. So I wrote a brief note stating that my friend and I would
+      reach New York on the morning of the tenth and that I would see him there.
+      Also I asked, for my part, the name of the steamer he had selected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His answer was as vague as mine. He congratulated me once more upon my
+      decision, prophesied great things as the result of what he called my
+      &ldquo;foreign junket,&rdquo; and gave some valuable advice concerning the necessary
+      outfit, clothes, trunks and the like. &ldquo;Travel light,&rdquo; he wrote. &ldquo;You can
+      buy whatever else you may need on the other side. 'Phone as soon as you
+      reach New York.&rdquo; But he did not tell me the name of the ship, nor for what
+      port she was to sail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So Hephzy and I were obliged to turn to the newspapers for information
+      upon those more or less important subjects, and we speculated and guessed
+      not a little. The New York dailies were not obtainable in Bayport except
+      during the summer months and the Boston publications did not give the New
+      York sailings. I wrote to a friend in Boston and he sent me the leading
+      journals of the former city and, as soon as they arrived, Hephzy sat down
+      upon the sitting-room carpet&mdash;which she had insisted upon having
+      taken up to be packed away in moth balls&mdash;to look at the maritime
+      advertisements. I am quite certain it was the only time she sat down,
+      except at meals, that day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I selected one of the papers and she another. We reached the same
+      conclusion simultaneously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, it must be&mdash;&rdquo; she began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Princess Eulalie,&rdquo; I finished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the only one that sails on the tenth. There is one on the eleventh,
+      though.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but that one is the 'Plutonia,' one of the fastest and most
+      expensive liners afloat. It isn't likely that Jim had booked us for the
+      'Plutonia.' She would scarcely be in our&mdash;in my class.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! I guess she isn't any too good for a famous man like you, Hosy.
+      But I would look funny on her, I give in. I've read about her. She's
+      always full of lords and ladies and millionaires and things. Just the sort
+      of folks you write about. She'd be just the one for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I shook my head. &ldquo;My lords and ladies are only paper dolls, Hephzy,&rdquo; I
+      said, ruefully. &ldquo;I should be as lost as you among the flesh and blood
+      variety. No, the 'Princess Eulalie' must be ours. She runs to Amsterdam,
+      though. Odd that Jim should send me to Holland.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy nodded and then offered a solution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't doubt he did it on purpose,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;He knew neither you
+      nor I was anxious to go to England. He knows we don't think much of the
+      English, after our experience with that Morley brute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, he doesn't know any such thing. I've never told him a word about
+      Morley. And he doesn't know you're going, Hephzy. I've kept that as a&mdash;as
+      a surprise for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, never mind. I'd rather go to Amsterdam than England. It's nearer to
+      France.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was surprised. &ldquo;Nearer to France?&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;What difference does
+      that make? We don't know anyone in France.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah was plainly shocked. &ldquo;Why, Hosy!&rdquo; she protested. &ldquo;Have you
+      forgotten Little Frank? He is in France somewhere, or he was at last
+      accounts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good Lord!&rdquo; I groaned. Then I got up and went out. I had forgotten
+      &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; and hoped that she had. If she was to flit about Europe
+      seeing &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; on every corner I foresaw trouble. &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo;
+       was likely to be the bane of my existence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We left Bayport on Monday morning. The house was cleaned and swept and
+      scoured and moth-proofed from top to bottom. Every door was double-locked
+      and every window nailed. Burglars are unknown in Bayport, but that didn't
+      make any difference. &ldquo;You can't be too careful,&rdquo; said Hephzy. I was of the
+      opinion that you could.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cat had been &ldquo;farmed out&rdquo; with Susanna's people and Susanna herself
+      was to feed the hens twice a day, lock them in each night and let them out
+      each morning. Their keeper had a carefully prepared schedule as to
+      quantity and quality of food; Hephzy had prepared and furnished it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And don't you give 'em any fish,&rdquo; ordered Hephzy. &ldquo;I ate a chicken once
+      that had been fed on fish, and&mdash;my soul!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was quite an assemblage at the station to see us off. Captain
+      Whittaker and his wife were not there, of course; they were near
+      California by this time. But Mr. Partridge, the minister, was there and so
+      was his wife; and Asaph Tidditt and Mr. and Mrs. Bailey Bangs and Captain
+      Josiah Dimick and HIS wife, and several others. Oh, yes! and Angeline
+      Phinney. Angeline was there, of course. If anything happened in Bayport
+      and Angeline was not there to help it happen, then&mdash;I don't know what
+      then; the experiment had never been tried in my lifetime.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everyone said pleasant things to us. They really seemed sorry to have us
+      leave Bayport, but for our sakes they expressed themselves as glad. It
+      would be such a glorious trip; we would have so much to tell when we got
+      back. Mr. Partridge said he should plan for me to give a little talk to
+      the Sunday school upon my return. It would be a wonderful thing for the
+      children. To my mind the most wonderful part of the idea was that he
+      should take my consent for granted. <i>I</i> talk to the Sunday school! I,
+      the Quahaug! My knees shook even at the thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Keturah Bangs hoped we would have a &ldquo;lovely time.&rdquo; She declared that it
+      had been the one ambition of her life to go sight-seeing. But she should
+      never do it&mdash;no, no! Such things wasn't for her. If she had a husband
+      like some women it might be, but not as 'twas. She had long ago given up
+      hopin' to do anything but keep boarders, and she had to do that all by
+      herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bailey, her husband, grinned sheepishly but, for a wonder, he did not
+      attempt defence. I gathered that Bailey was learning wisdom. It was time;
+      he had attended his wife's academy a long while.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Captain Dimick brought a bag of apples, greenings, some he had kept in the
+      cellar over winter. &ldquo;Nice to eat on the cars,&rdquo; he told us. Everyone asked
+      us to send postcards. Miss Phinney was especially solicitous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It'll be just lovely to know where you be and what you're doin,&rdquo; she
+      declared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the train had started and we had waved the last good-bys from the
+      window Hephzibah expressed her opinion concerning Angeline's request.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I send HER postcards!&rdquo; she snapped. &ldquo;I think I see myself doin' it! All
+      she cares about 'em is so she can run from Dan to Beersheba showin' 'em to
+      everybody and talkin' about how extravagant we are and wonderin' if we
+      borrowed the money. But there! it won't make any difference. If I don't
+      send 'em to her she'll read all I send to other folks. She and Rebecca
+      Simmons are close as two peas in a pod and Becky reads everything that
+      comes through her husband's post-office. All that aren't sealed, that is&mdash;yes,
+      and some that are, I shouldn't wonder, if they're not sealed tight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her next remark was a surprising one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;how much they all think of you, don't they. Isn't it
+      nice to know you're so popular.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I turned in the seat to stare at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Popular!&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;Hephzy, I have a good deal of respect for your
+      brain, generally speaking, but there are times when I think it shows signs
+      of softening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not resent my candor; she paid absolutely no attention to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't mean popular with everybody, rag, tag and bobtail and all, like&mdash;well,
+      Eben Salters,&rdquo; she went on. &ldquo;But the folks that count all respect and like
+      you, Hosy. I know they do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Salters is our leading local statesman&mdash;since the departure of
+      the Honorable Heman Atkins. He has filled every office in his native
+      village and he has served one term as representative in the State House at
+      Boston. He IS popular.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is marvelous how affection can be concealed,&rdquo; I observed, with
+      sarcasm. Hephzy was back at me like a flash.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course they don't tell you of it,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;If they did you'd
+      probably tell 'em to their faces that they were fibbin' and not speak to
+      'em again. But they do like you, and I know it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was useless to carry the argument further. When Hephzy begins chanting
+      my praises I find it easier to surrender&mdash;and change the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Boston we shopped. It seems to me that we did nothing else. I bought
+      what I needed the very first day, clothes, hat, steamer coat and traveling
+      cap included. It did not take me long; fortunately I am of the average
+      height and shape and the salesmen found me easy to please. My shopping
+      tour was ended by three o'clock and I spent the remainder of the afternoon
+      at a bookseller's. There was a set of &ldquo;Early English Poets&rdquo; there,
+      nineteen little, fat, chunky volumes, not new and shiny and grand, but
+      middle-aged and shabby and comfortable, which appealed to me. The price,
+      however, was high; I had the uneasy feeling that I ought not to afford it.
+      Then the bookseller himself, who also was fat and comfortably shabby, and
+      who had beguiled from me the information that I was about to travel,
+      suggested that the &ldquo;Poets&rdquo; would make very pleasant reading en route.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have found,&rdquo; he said, beaming over his spectacles, &ldquo;that a little book
+      of this kind,&rdquo; patting one of the volumes, &ldquo;which may be carried in the
+      pocket, is a rare traveling companion. When you wish his society he is
+      there, and when you tire of him you can shut him up. You can't do that
+      with all traveling companions, you know. Ha! ha!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He chuckled over his joke and I chuckled with him. Humor of that kind is
+      expensive, for I bought the &ldquo;English Poets&rdquo; and ordered them sent to my
+      hotel. It was not until they were delivered, an hour later, that I began
+      to wonder what I should do with them. Our trunks were likely to be crowded
+      and I could not carry all of the nineteen volumes in my pockets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah, who had been shopping on her own hook, did not return until
+      nearly seven. She returned weary and almost empty-handed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But didn't you buy ANYTHING?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;Where in the world have you
+      been?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had been everywhere, so she said. This wasn't entirely true, but I
+      gathered that she had visited about every department store in the city.
+      She had found ever so many things she liked, but oh dear! they did cost so
+      much.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was one traveling coat that I did want dreadfully,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It
+      was a dark brown, not too dark, but just light enough so it wouldn't show
+      water spots. I've been out sailing enough times to know how your things
+      get water-spotted. It fitted me real nice; there wouldn't have to be a
+      thing done to it. But it cost thirty-one dollars! 'My soul!' says I, 'I
+      can't afford THAT!' But they didn't have anything cheaper that wouldn't
+      have made me look like one of those awful play-actin' girls that came to
+      Bayport with the Uncle Tom's Cabin show. And I tried everywhere and
+      nothin' pleased me so well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you didn't buy the coat?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;BUY it? My soul Hosy, didn't I tell you it cost&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know. What else did you see that you didn't buy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hey? Oh, I saw a suit, a nice lady-like suit, and I tried it on. That
+      fitted me, too, only the sleeves would have to be shortened. And it would
+      have gone SO well with that coat. But the suit cost FORTY dollars. 'Good
+      land!' I said, 'haven't you got ANYTHING for poor folks?' And you ought to
+      have seen the look that girl gave me! And a hat&mdash;oh, yes, I saw a
+      hat! It was&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a great deal more. Summed up it amounted to something like this:
+      All that suited her had been too high-priced and all that she considered
+      within her means hadn't suited her at all. So she had bought practically
+      nothing but a few non-essentials. And we were to leave for New York the
+      following night and sail for Europe the day after.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;you will go shopping again to-morrow morning and I'll
+      go with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Go we did, and we bought the coat and the hat and the suit and various
+      other things. With each purchase Hephzy's groans and protests at my
+      reckless extravagance grew louder. At last I had an inspiration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;when we meet Little Frank over there in France, or
+      wherever he may be, you will want him to be favorably impressed with your
+      appearance, won't you? These things cost money of course, but we must
+      think of Little Frank. He has never seen his American relatives and so
+      much depends on a first impression.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy regarded me with suspicion. &ldquo;Humph!&rdquo; she sniffed, &ldquo;that's the first
+      time I ever knew you to give in that there WAS a Little Frank. All right,
+      I sha'n't say any more, but I hope the foreign poorhouses are more
+      comfortable than ours, that's all. If you make me keep on this way, I'll
+      fetch up in one before the first month's over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We left for New York on the five o'clock train. Packing those &ldquo;Early
+      English Poets&rdquo; was a confounded nuisance. They had to be stuffed here,
+      there and everywhere amid my wearing apparel and Hephzibah prophesied evil
+      to come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Books are the worse things goin' to make creases,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;They're
+      all sharp edges.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had to carry two of the volumes in my pockets, even then, at the very
+      start. They might prove delightful traveling companions, as the bookman
+      had said, but they were most uncomfortable things to sit on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We reached the Grand Central station on time and went to a nearby hotel. I
+      should have sent the heavier baggage directly to the steamer, but I was
+      not sure&mdash;absolutely sure&mdash;which steamer it was to be. The
+      &ldquo;Princess Eulalie&rdquo; almost certainly, but I did not dare take the risk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy called to me from the room adjoining mine at twelve that night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just think, Hosy!&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;this is the last night either of us will
+      spend on dry land.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heavens! I hope it won't be as bad as that,&rdquo; I retorted. &ldquo;Holland is
+      pretty wet, so they say, but we should be able to find some dry spots.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not laugh. &ldquo;You know what I mean,&rdquo; she observed. &ldquo;To-morrow night
+      at twelve o'clock we shall be far out on the vasty deep.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall be on the 'Princess Eulalie,'&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;Go to sleep.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Neither of us spoke the truth. At twelve the following night we were
+      neither &ldquo;far out on the vasty deep&rdquo; nor on the &ldquo;Princess Eulalie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My first move after breakfast was to telephone Campbell at his city home.
+      He hailed me joyfully and ordered me to stay where I was, that is, at the
+      hotel. He would be there in an hour, he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was five minutes ahead of his promise. We shook hands heartily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are going to take my prescription, after all,&rdquo; he crowed. &ldquo;Didn't I
+      tell you I was the only real doctor for sick authors? Bully for you! Wish
+      I was going with you. Who is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come to my room and I'll show you,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;You may be surprised.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;See here! you haven't gone and dug up another fossilized bookworm like
+      yourself, have you? If you have, I refuse&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come and see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We took the elevator to the fourth floor and walked to my room. I opened
+      the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;here is someone you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy, who had been looking out of the window of her room, hurried in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Mr. Campbell!&rdquo; she exclaimed, holding out her hand, &ldquo;how do you do?
+      We got here all right, you see. But the way Hosy has been wastin' money,
+      his and mine, buyin' things we didn't need, I began to think one spell
+      we'd never get any further. Is it time to start for the steamer yet?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim's face was worth looking at. He shook Hephzibah's hand mechanically,
+      but he did not speak. Instead he looked at her and at me. I didn't speak
+      either; I was having a thoroughly good time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Had we ought to start now?&rdquo; repeated Hephzibah. &ldquo;I'm all ready but
+      puttin' on my things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim came out of his trance. He dropped the hand and came to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you&mdash;is she&mdash;&rdquo; he stammered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Miss Cahoon is going with me. I wrote you I had selected a
+      good traveling companion. I have, haven't I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He would have it so, Mr. Campbell,&rdquo; put in Hephzy. &ldquo;I said no and kept on
+      sayin' it, but he vowed and declared he wouldn't go unless I did. I know
+      you must think it's queer my taggin' along, but it isn't any queerer to
+      you than it is to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim behaved very well, considering. He did not laugh. For a moment I
+      thought he was going to; if he had I don't know what I should have done,
+      said things for which I might have been sorry later on, probably. But he
+      did not laugh. He didn't even express the tremendous surprise which he
+      must have felt. Instead he shook hands again with both of us and said it
+      was fine, bully, just the thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To tell the truth, Miss Cahoon,&rdquo; he declared, &ldquo;I have been rather fearful
+      of this pet infant of ours. I didn't know what sort of helpless creature
+      he might have coaxed into roaming loose with him in the wilds of Europe. I
+      expected another babe in the woods and I was contemplating cabling the
+      police to look out for them and shoo away the wolves. But he'll be all
+      right now. Yes, indeed! he'll be looked out for now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you approve?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He shot a side-long glance at me. &ldquo;Approve!&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;I'm crazy about
+      the whole business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I judged he considered me crazy, hopelessly so. I did not care. I agreed
+      with him in this&mdash;the whole business was insane and Hephzibah's going
+      was the only sensible thing about it, so far.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His next question was concerning our baggage. I told him I had left it at
+      the railway station because I was not sure where it should be sent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What time does the 'Princess Eulalie' sail?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at me oddly. &ldquo;What?&rdquo; he queried. &ldquo;The 'Princess Eulalie'? Twelve
+      o'clock, I believe, I'm not sure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're not sure! And it is after nine now. It strikes me that&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind what strikes you. So long as it isn't lightning you shouldn't
+      complain. Have you the baggage checks? Give them to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I handed him the checks, obediently, and he stepped to the telephone and
+      gave a number. A short conversation followed. Then he hung up the
+      receiver.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One of the men from the office will be here soon,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;He will
+      attend to all your baggage, get it aboard the ship and see that it is put
+      in your staterooms. Now, then, tell me all about it. What have you been
+      doing since I saw you? When did you arrive? How did you happen to think of
+      taking&mdash;er&mdash;Miss Cahoon with you? Tell me the whole.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I told him. Hephzy assisted, sitting on the edge of a rocking chair and
+      asking me what time it was at intervals of ten minutes. She was decidedly
+      fidgety. When she went to Boston she usually reached the station half an
+      hour before train time, and to sit calmly in a hotel room, when the ship
+      that was to take us to the ends of the earth was to sail in two hours, was
+      a reckless gamble with Fate, to her mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man from the office came and the baggage checks were turned over to
+      him. So also were our bags and our umbrellas. Campbell stepped into the
+      hall and the pair held a whispered conversation. Hephzy seized the
+      opportunity to express to me her perturbation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My soul, Hosy!&rdquo; she whispered. &ldquo;Mr. Campbell's out of his head, ain't he?
+      Here we are a sittin' and sittin' and time's goin' by. We'll be too late.
+      Can't you make him hurry?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was almost as nervous as she was, but I would not have let our guardian
+      know it for the world. If we lost a dozen steamers I shouldn't call his
+      attention to the fact. I might be a &ldquo;Babe in the Wood,&rdquo; but he should not
+      have the satisfaction of hearing me whimper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He came back to the room a moment later and began asking more questions.
+      Our answers, particularly Hephzy's, seemed to please him a great deal. At
+      some of them he laughed uproariously. At last he looked at his watch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Almost eleven,&rdquo; he observed. &ldquo;I must be getting around to the office.
+      Miss Cahoon will you excuse Kent and me for an hour or so? I have his
+      letters of credit and the tickets in our safe and he had better come
+      around with me and get them. If you have any last bits of shopping to do,
+      now is your opportunity. Or you might wait here if you prefer. We will be
+      back at half-past twelve and lunch together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I started. Hephzy sprang from the chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Half-past twelve!&rdquo; I cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lunch together!&rdquo; gasped Hephzy. &ldquo;Why, Mr. Campbell! the 'Princess
+      Eulalie' sails at noon. You said so yourself!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim smiled. &ldquo;I know I did,&rdquo; he replied, &ldquo;but that is immaterial. You are
+      not concerned with the 'Princess Eulalie.' Your passages are booked on the
+      'Plutonia' and she doesn't leave her dock until one o'clock to-morrow
+      morning. We will meet here for lunch at twelve-thirty. Come, Kent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I didn't attempt an answer. I am not exactly sure what I did. A few
+      minutes later I walked out of that room with Campbell and I have a hazy
+      recollection of leaving Hephzy seated in the rocker and of hearing her
+      voice, as the door closed, repeating over and over:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The 'Plutonia'! My soul and body! The 'Plutonia'! Me&mdash;ME on the
+      'Plutonia'!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      What I said and did afterwards doesn't make much difference. I know I
+      called my publisher a number of disrespectful names not one of which he
+      deserved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Confound you!&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;You know I wouldn't have dreamed of taking a
+      passage on a ship like that. She's a floating Waldorf, everyone says so.
+      Dress and swagger society and&mdash;Oh, you idiot! I wanted quiet! I
+      wanted to be alone! I wanted&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim interrupted me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know you did,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But you're not going to have them. You've been
+      alone too much. You need a change. If I know the 'Plutonia'&mdash;and I've
+      crossed on her four times&mdash;you're going to have it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He burst into a roar of laughter. We were in a cab, fortunately, or his
+      behavior would have attracted attention. I could have choked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You imbecile!&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;I have a good mind to throw the whole thing up
+      and go home to Bayport. By George, I will!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He continued to chuckle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see you doing it!&rdquo; he observed. &ldquo;How about your&mdash;what's her name?&mdash;Hephzibah?
+      Going to tell her that it's all off, are you? Going to tell her that you
+      will forfeit your passage money and hers? Why, man, haven't you a heart?
+      If she was booked for Paradise instead of Paris she couldn't be any
+      happier. Don't be foolish! Your trunks are on the 'Plutonia' and on the
+      'Plutonia' you'll be to-night. It's the best thing that can happen to you.
+      I did it on purpose. You'll thank me come day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I didn't thank him then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We returned to the hotel at twelve-thirty, my pocket-book loaded with
+      tickets and letters of credit and unfamiliar white paper notes bearing the
+      name of the Bank of England. Hephzibah was still in the rocking chair. I
+      am sure she had not left it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We lunched in the hotel dining-room. Campbell ordered the luncheon and
+      paid for it while Hephzibah exclaimed at his extravagance. She was too
+      excited to eat much and too worried concerning the extent of her wardrobe
+      to talk of less important matters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh dear, Hosy!&rdquo; she wailed, &ldquo;WHY didn't I buy another best dress. DO you
+      suppose my black one will be good enough? All those lords and ladies and
+      millionaires on the 'Plutonia'! Won't they think I'm dreadful
+      poverty-stricken. I saw a dress I wanted awfully&mdash;in one of those
+      Boston stores it was; but I didn't buy it because it was so dear. And I
+      didn't tell you I wanted it because I knew if I did you'd buy it. You're
+      so reckless with money. But now I wish I'd bought it myself. What WILL all
+      those rich people think of me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About what they think of me, Hephzy, I imagine,&rdquo; I answered, ruefully.
+      &ldquo;Jim here has put up a joke on us. He is the only one who is getting any
+      fun out of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim, for a wonder, was serious. &ldquo;Miss Cahoon,&rdquo; he declared, earnestly,
+      &ldquo;don't worry. I'm sure the black silk is all right; but if it wasn't it
+      wouldn't make any difference. On the 'Plutonia' nobody notices other
+      people's clothes. Most of them are too busy noticing their own. If Kent
+      has his evening togs and you have the black silk you'll pass muster.
+      You'll have a gorgeous time. I only wish I was going with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He repeated the wish several times during the afternoon. He insisted on
+      taking us to a matinee and Hephzy's comments on the performance seemed to
+      amuse him hugely. It had been eleven years, so she said, since she went to
+      the theater.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Unless you count 'Uncle Tom' or 'Ten Nights in a Barroom,' or some of
+      those other plays that come to Bayport,&rdquo; she added. &ldquo;I suppose I'm making
+      a perfect fool of myself laughin' and cryin' over what's nothin' but
+      make-believe, but I can't help it. Isn't it splendid, Hosy! I wonder what
+      Father would say if he could know that his daughter was really travelin'&mdash;just
+      goin' to Europe! He used to worry a good deal, in his last years, about
+      me. Seemed to feel that he hadn't taken me around and done as much for me
+      as he ought to in the days when he could. 'Twas just nonsense, his feelin'
+      that way, and I told him so. But I wonder if he knows now how happy I am.
+      I hope he does. My goodness! I can't realize it myself. Oh, there goes the
+      curtain up again! Oh, ain't that pretty! I AM actin' ridiculous, I know,
+      Mr. Campbell,' but you mustn't mind. Laugh at me all you want to; I
+      sha'n't care a bit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim didn't laugh&mdash;then. Neither did I. He and I looked at each other
+      and I think the same thought was in both our minds. Good, kind,
+      whole-souled, self-sacrificing Hephzibah! The last misgiving, the last
+      doubt as to the wisdom of my choice of a traveling companion vanished from
+      my thoughts. For the first time I was actually glad I was going, glad
+      because of the happiness it would mean to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When we came out of the theater Campbell reached down in the crowd to
+      shake my hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Congratulations, old man,&rdquo; he whispered; &ldquo;you did exactly the right
+      thing. You surprised me, I admit, but you were dead right. She's a brick.
+      But don't I wish I was going along! Oh my! oh my! to think of you two
+      wandering about Europe together! If only I might be there to see and hear!
+      Kent, keep a diary; for my sake, promise me you'll keep a diary. Put down
+      everything she says and read it to me when you get home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He left us soon afterward. He had given up the entire day to me and would,
+      I know, have cheerfully given the evening as well, but I would not hear of
+      it. A messenger from the office had brought him word of the presence in
+      New York of a distinguished scientist who was preparing a manuscript for
+      publication and the scientist had requested an interview that night.
+      Campbell was very anxious to obtain that manuscript and I knew it.
+      Therefore I insisted that he leave us. He was loathe to do so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hate to, Kent,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;I had set my heart on seeing you on board
+      and seeing you safely started. But I do want to nail Scheinfeldt, I must
+      admit. The book is one that he has been at work on for years and two other
+      publishing houses are as anxious as ours to get it. To-night is my chance,
+      and to-morrow may be too late.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you must not miss the chance. You must go, and go now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't like to. Sure you've got everything you need? Your tickets and
+      your letters of credit and all? Sure you have money enough to carry you
+      across comfortably?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, and more than enough, even on the 'Plutonia.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, all right, then. When you reach London go to our English branch&mdash;you
+      have the address, Camford Street, just off the Strand&mdash;and whatever
+      help you may need they'll give you. I've cabled them instructions. Think
+      you can get down to the ship all right?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed. &ldquo;I think it fairly possible,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;If I lose my way, or
+      Hephzy is kidnapped, I'll speak to the police or telephone you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The latter would be safer and much less expensive. Well, good-by, Kent.
+      Remember now, you're going for a good time and you're to forget
+      literature. Write often and keep in touch with me. Good-by, Miss Cahoon.
+      Take care of this&mdash;er&mdash;clam of ours, won't you. Don't let anyone
+      eat him on the half-shell, or anything like that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy smiled. &ldquo;They'd have to eat me first,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and I'm pretty
+      old and tough. I'll look after him, Mr. Campbell, don't you worry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't. Good luck to you both&mdash;and good-by.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A final handshake and he was gone. Hephzy looked after him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There!&rdquo; she exclaimed; &ldquo;I really begin to believe I'm goin'. Somehow I
+      feel as if the last rope had been cast off. We've got to depend on
+      ourselves now, Hosy, dear. Mercy! how silly I am talkin'. A body would
+      think I was homesick before I started.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not answer, for I WAS homesick. We dined together at the hotel.
+      There remained three long hours before it would be time for us to take the
+      cab for the 'Plutonia's' wharf. I suggested another theater, but Hephzy,
+      to my surprise, declined the invitation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you don't mind, Hosy,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I guess I'd rather stay right here
+      in the room. I&mdash;I feel sort of solemn and as if I wanted to sit still
+      and think. Perhaps it's just as well. After waitin' eleven years to go to
+      one theater, maybe two in the same day would be more than I could stand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So we sat together in the room at the hotel&mdash;sat and thought. The
+      minutes dragged by. Outside beneath the windows, New York blazed and
+      roared. I looked down at the hurrying little black manikins on the
+      sidewalks, each, apparently, bound somewhere on business or pleasure of
+      its own, and I wondered vaguely what that business or pleasure might be
+      and why they hurried so. There were many single ones, of course, and
+      occasionally groups of three or four, but couples were the most numerous.
+      Husbands and wives, lovers and sweethearts, each with his or her life and
+      interests bound up in the life and interests of the other. I envied them.
+      Mine had been a solitary life, an unusual, abnormal kind of life. No one
+      had shared its interests and ambitions with me, no one had spurred me on
+      to higher endeavor, had loved with me and suffered with me, helping me
+      through the shadows and laughing with me in the sunshine. No one, since
+      Mother's death, except Hephzy and Hephzy's love and care and sacrifice,
+      fine as they were, were different. I had missed something, I had missed a
+      great deal, and now it was too late. Youth and high endeavor and ambition
+      had gone by; I had left them behind. I was a solitary, queer,
+      self-centered old bachelor, a &ldquo;quahaug,&rdquo; as my fellow-Bayporters called
+      me. And to ship a quahaug around the world is not likely to do the
+      creature a great deal of good. If he lives through it he is likely to be
+      shipped home again tougher and drier and more useless to the rest of
+      creation than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah, too, had evidently been thinking, for she interrupted my dismal
+      meditations with a long sigh. I started and turned toward her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the matter?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, nothin',&rdquo; was the solemn answer. &ldquo;I was wonderin', that's all. Just
+      wonderin' if he would talk English. It would be a terrible thing if he
+      could speak nothin' but French or a foreign language and I couldn't
+      understand him. But Ardelia was American and that brute of a Morley spoke
+      plain enough, so I suppose&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I judged it high time to interrupt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, Hephzy,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;It is half-past ten. We may as well start at
+      once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Broadway, seen through the cab windows, was bright enough, a blaze of
+      flashing signs and illuminated shop windows. But &mdash;th street, at the
+      foot of which the wharves of the Trans-Atlantic Steamship Company were
+      located, was black and dismal. It was by no means deserted, however.
+      Before and behind and beside us were other cabs and automobiles bound in
+      the same direction. Hephzy peered out at them in amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mercy on us, Hosy!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;I never saw such a procession of
+      carriages. They're as far ahead and as far back of us as you can see. It
+      is like the biggest funeral that ever was, except that they don't crawl
+      along the way a funeral does. I'm glad of that, anyhow. I wish I didn't
+      FEEL so much as if I was goin' to be buried. I don't know why I do. I hope
+      it isn't a presentiment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      If it was she forgot it a few minutes later. The cab stopped before a
+      mammoth doorway in a long, low building and a person in uniform opened the
+      door. The wide street was crowded with vehicles and from them were
+      descending people attired as if for a party rather than an ocean voyage. I
+      helped Hephzy to alight and, while I was paying the cab driver, she looked
+      about her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy! Hosy!&rdquo; she whispered, seizing my arm tight, &ldquo;we've made a mistake.
+      This isn't the steamboat; this is&mdash;is a weddin' or somethin'. Look!
+      look!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked, looked at the silk hats, the opera cloaks, the jewels and those
+      who wore them. For a moment I, too, was certain there must be a mistake.
+      Then I looked upward and saw above the big doorway the flashing electric
+      sign of the &ldquo;Trans-Atlantic Navigation Company.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Hephzy,&rdquo; said I; &ldquo;I guess it is the right place. Come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I gave her my arm&mdash;that is, she continued to clutch it with both
+      hands&mdash;and we moved forward with the crowd, through the doorway, past
+      a long, moving inclined plane up which bags, valises, bundles of golf
+      sticks and all sorts of lighter baggage were gliding, and faced another
+      and smaller door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lift this way! This way to the lift!&rdquo; bawled a voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's a lift?&rdquo; whispered Hephzy, tremulously, &ldquo;Hosy, what's a lift?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An elevator,&rdquo; I whispered in reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But we can't go on board a steamboat in an elevator, can we? I never
+      heard&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I don't know what she never heard. The sentence was not finished. Into the
+      lift we went. On either side of us were men in evening dress and directly
+      in front was a large woman, hatless and opera-cloaked, with diamonds in
+      her ears and a rustle of silk at every point of her persons. The car
+      reeked with perfume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The large woman wriggled uneasily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;George,&rdquo; she said, in a loud whisper, &ldquo;why do they crowd these lifts in
+      this disgusting way? And WHY,&rdquo; with another wriggle, &ldquo;do they permit
+      PERSONS with packages to use them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As we emerged from the elevator Hephzy whispered again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She meant us, Hosy,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I've got three of those books of yours in
+      this bundle under my arm. I COULDN'T squeeze 'em into either of the
+      valises. But she needn't have been so disagreeable about it, need she.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Still following the crowd, we passed through more wide doorways and into a
+      huge loft where, through mammoth openings at our left, the cool air from
+      the river blew upon our faces. Beyond these openings loomed an enormous
+      something with rows of railed walks leading up its sides. Hephzibah and I,
+      moving in a sort of bewildered dream, found ourselves ascending one of
+      these walks. At its end was another doorway and, beyond, a great room,
+      with more elevators and a mosaic floor, and mahogany and gilt and
+      gorgeousness, and silk and broadcloth and satin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy gasped and stopped short.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It IS a mistake, Hosy!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Where is the steamer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled. I felt almost as &ldquo;green&rdquo; and bewildered as she, but I tried not
+      to show my feelings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is all right, Hephzy,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;This is the steamer. I know it
+      doesn't look like one, but it is. This is the 'Plutonia' and we are on
+      board at last.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Two hours later we leaned together over the rail and watched the lights of
+      New York grow fainter behind us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah drew a deep breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is so,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It is really so. We ARE, aren't we, Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;There is no doubt of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder what will happen to us before we see those lights again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wonder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think HE&mdash;Do you think Little Frank&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; I interrupted, &ldquo;if we are going to bed at all before morning, we
+      had better start now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, Hosy. But you mustn't say 'go to bed.' Say 'turn in.' Everyone
+      calls going to bed 'turning in' aboard a vessel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which We View, and Even Mingle Slightly with, the Upper Classes
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      It is astonishing&mdash;the ease with which the human mind can accustom
+      itself to the unfamiliar and hitherto strange. Nothing could have been
+      more unfamiliar or strange to Hephzibah and me than an ocean voyage and
+      the &ldquo;Plutonia.&rdquo; And yet before three days of that voyage were at an end we
+      were accustomed to both&mdash;to a degree. We had learned to do certain
+      things and not to do others. Some pet illusions had been shattered, and
+      new and, at first, surprising items of information had lost their newness
+      and come to be accepted as everyday facts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For example, we learned that people in real life actually wore monocles,
+      something, which I, of course, had known to be true but which had seemed
+      nevertheless an unreality, part of a stage play, a &ldquo;dress-up&rdquo; game for
+      children and amateur actors. The &ldquo;English swell&rdquo; in the performances of
+      the Bayport Dramatic Society always wore a single eyeglass, but he also
+      wore Dundreary whiskers and clothes which would have won him admittance to
+      the Home for Feeble-Minded Youth without the formality of an examination.
+      His &ldquo;English accent&rdquo; was a combination of the East Bayport twang and an
+      Irish brogue and he was a blithering idiot in appearance and behavior. No
+      one in his senses could have accepted him as anything human and the
+      eyeglass had been but a part of his unreal absurdity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet, here on the &ldquo;Plutonia,&rdquo; were at least a dozen men, men of dignity
+      and manner, who sported monocles and acted as if they were used to them.
+      The first evening before we left port, one or two were in evidence; the
+      next afternoon, in the Lounge, there were more. The fact that they were on
+      an English ship, bound for England, brought the monocles out of their
+      concealment, as Hephzy said, &ldquo;like hoptoads after the first spring thaw.&rdquo;
+       Her amazed comments were unique.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what good are they, Hosy?&rdquo; she demanded. &ldquo;Can they see with 'em?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose they can,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;You can see better with your spectacles
+      than you can without them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! I can see better with two eyes than I can with one, as far as that
+      goes. I don't believe they wear 'em for seein' at all. Take that man
+      there,&rdquo; pointing to a long, lank Canadian in a yellow ulster, whom the
+      irreverent smoking-room had already christened &ldquo;The Duke of Labrador.&rdquo;
+       &ldquo;Look at him! He didn't wear a sign of one until this mornin'. If he
+      needed it to see with he'd have worn it before, wouldn't he? Don't tell
+      me! He wears it because he wants people to think he's a regular boarder at
+      Windsor Castle. And he isn't; he comes from Toronto, and that's only a few
+      miles from the United States. Ugh! You foolish thing!&rdquo; as the &ldquo;Duke of
+      Labrador&rdquo; strutted by our deck-chairs; &ldquo;I suppose you think you're pretty,
+      don't you? Well, you're not. You look for all the world like a lighthouse
+      with one window in it and the lamp out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed. &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;every nation has its peculiarities and the
+      monocle is an English national institution, like&mdash;well, like tea, for
+      instance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Institution! Don't talk to me about institutions! I know the institution
+      I'd put HIM in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She didn't fancy the &ldquo;Duke of Labrador.&rdquo; Neither did she fancy tea at
+      breakfast and coffee at dinner. But she learned to accept the first. Two
+      sessions with the &ldquo;Plutonia's&rdquo; breakfast coffee completed her education.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bring me tea,&rdquo; she said to our table steward on the third morning. &ldquo;I've
+      tried most every kind of coffee and lived through it, but I'm gettin' too
+      old to keep on experimentin' with my health. Bring me tea and I'll try to
+      forget what time it is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We had tea at breakfast, therefore, and tea at four in the afternoon.
+      Hephzibah and I learned to take it with the rest. She watched her
+      fellow-passengers, however, and as usual had something to say concerning
+      their behavior.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you hear that, Hosy?&rdquo; she whispered, as we sat together in the
+      &ldquo;Lounge,&rdquo; sipping tea and nibbling thin bread and butter and the
+      inevitable plum cake. &ldquo;Did you hear what that woman said about her
+      husband?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had not heard, and said so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, judgin' by her actions, I thought her husband was lost and she was
+      sure he had been washed overboard. 'Where is Edward?' she kept askin'.
+      'Poor Edward! What WILL he do? Where is he?' I was gettin' real anxious,
+      and then it turned out that she was afraid that, if he didn't come soon,
+      he'd miss his tea. My soul! Hosy, I've been thinkin' and do you know the
+      conclusion I've come to?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, it sounds awfully irreverent, but I've come to the conclusion that
+      the first part of the Genesis in the English scriptures must be different
+      than ours. I'm sure they think that the earth was created in six days and,
+      on the seventh, Adam and Eve had tea. I believe it for an absolute fact.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The pet illusion, the loss of which caused her the most severe shock, was
+      that concerning the nobility. On the morning of our first day afloat the
+      passenger lists were distributed. Hephzibah was early on deck. Fortunately
+      neither she nor I were in the least discomfited by the motion of the ship,
+      then or at any time. We proved to be good sailors; Hephzibah declared it
+      was in the blood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For a Knowles or a Cahoon to be seasick,&rdquo; she announced, &ldquo;would be a
+      disgrace. Our men folks for four generations would turn over in their
+      graves.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was early on deck that first morning and, at breakfast she and I had
+      the table to ourselves. She had the passenger list propped against the
+      sugar bowl and was reading the names.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My gracious, Hosy!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;What, do you think! There are five
+      'Sirs' on board and one 'Lord'! Just think of it! Where do you suppose
+      they are?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In their berths, probably, at this hour,&rdquo; I answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I'm goin' to stay right here till they come out. I'm goin' to see
+      'em and know what they look like if I sit at this table all day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled. &ldquo;I wouldn't do that, Hephzy,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;We can see them at
+      lunch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! O&mdash;Oh! And there's a Princess here! Princess
+      B-e-r-g-e-n-s-t-e-i-n&mdash;Bergenstein. Princess Bergenstein. What do you
+      suppose she's Princess of?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Princess of Jerusalem, I should imagine,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;Oh, I see! You've
+      skipped a line, Hephzy. Bergenstein belongs to another person. The
+      Princess's name is Berkovitchky. Russian or Polish, perhaps.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't care if she's Chinese; I mean to see her. I never expected to
+      look at a live Princess in MY life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We stopped in the hall at the entrance to the dining-saloon to examine the
+      table chart. Hephzibah made careful notes of the tables at which the
+      knights and the lord and the Princess were seated and their locations. At
+      lunch she consulted the notes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The lord sits right behind us at that little table there,&rdquo; she said,
+      excitedly. &ldquo;That table for two is marked 'Lord and Lady Erkskine.' Now we
+      must watch when they come in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A few minutes later a gray-haired little man, accompanied by a middle-aged
+      woman entered the saloon and were seated at the small table by an
+      obsequious steward. Hephzy gasped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why&mdash;why, Hosy!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;That isn't the lord, is it? THAT?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose it must be,&rdquo; I answered. When our own Steward came I asked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; he answered, with unction. &ldquo;Yes, sir, that is Lord and Lady
+      Erkskine, sir, thank you, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy stared at Lord and Lady Erkskine. I gave our luncheon order, and
+      the steward departed. Then her indignant disgust and disappointment burst
+      forth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well! well!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;And that is a real live lord! That is! Why,
+      Hosy, he's the livin' image of Asaph Tidditt back in Bayport. If Ase could
+      afford clothes like that he might be his twin brother. Well! I guess
+      that's enough. I don't want to see that Princess any more. Just as like as
+      not she'd look like Susanna Wixon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her criticisms were not confined to passengers of other nationalities.
+      Some of our own came in for comment quite as severe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look at those girls at that table over there,&rdquo; she whispered. &ldquo;The two in
+      red, I mean. One of 'em has got a little flag pinned on her dress. What do
+      you suppose that is for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at the young ladies in red. They were vivacious damsels and their
+      conversation and laughter were by no means subdued. A middle-aged man and
+      woman and two young fellows were their table-mates and the group attracted
+      a great deal of attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What has she got that flag pinned on her for?&rdquo; repeated Hephzy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She wishes everyone to know she's an American exportation, I suppose,&rdquo; I
+      answered. &ldquo;She is evidently proud of her country.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! Her country wouldn't be proud of her, if it had to listen to her
+      the way we do. There's some exports it doesn't pay to advertise, I guess,
+      and she and her sister are that kind. Every time they laugh I can see that
+      Lady Erkskine shrivel up like a sensitive plant. I hope she don't think
+      all American girls are like those two.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She probably does.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, IF she does she's makin' a big mistake. I might as well believe all
+      Englishmen were like this specimen comin' now, and I don't believe that,
+      even if I do hail from Bayport.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The specimen was the &ldquo;Duke of Labrador,&rdquo; who sauntered by, monocle in eye,
+      hands in pockets and an elaborate affection of the &ldquo;Oxford stoop&rdquo; which he
+      must have spent time and effort in acquiring. Hephzibah shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish Toronto was further from home than it is,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;But
+      there! I shan't worry about him. I'll leave him for Lord Erkskine and his
+      wife to be ashamed of. He's their countryman, or he hopes he is. I've got
+      enough to do bein' ashamed of those two American girls.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It may be gathered from these conversations that Hephzy and I had been so
+      fortunate as to obtain a table by ourselves. This was not the case. There
+      were four seats at our table and, according to the chart of the
+      dining-saloon, one of them should be occupied by a &ldquo;Miss Rutledge of New
+      York&rdquo; and the other by &ldquo;A. Carleton Heathcroft of London.&rdquo; Miss Rutledge
+      we had not seen at all. Our table steward informed us that the lady was
+      &ldquo;hindisposed&rdquo; and confined to her room. She was an actress, he added.
+      Hephzy, whose New England training had imbued her with the conviction that
+      all people connected with the stage must be highly undesirable as
+      acquaintances, was quite satisfied. &ldquo;Of course I'm sorry she isn't well,&rdquo;
+       she confided to me &ldquo;but I'm awfully glad she won't be at our table. I
+      shouldn't want to hurt her feelin's, but I couldn't talk to her as I would
+      to an ordinary person. I COULDN'T! All I should be able to think of was
+      what she wore, or didn't wear, when she was actin' her parts. I expect I'm
+      old-fashioned, but when I think of those girls in the pictures outside
+      that theater&mdash;the one we didn't go to&mdash;I&mdash;well&mdash;mercy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The &ldquo;pictures&rdquo; were the posters advertising a popular musical comedy which
+      Campbell had at first suggested our witnessing the afternoon of our stay
+      in New York. Hephzibah's shocked expression and my whispered advice had
+      brought about a change of plans. We saw a perfectly respectable, though
+      thrilling, melodrama instead. I might have relieved my relative's mind by
+      assuring her that all actresses were not necessarily attired as &ldquo;merry
+      villagers,&rdquo; but the probable result of my assurance seemed scarcely worth
+      the effort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire, was not acquainted with the stage, in a
+      professional way, at any rate. He was a slim and elegant gentleman,
+      dressed with elaborate care, who appeared profoundly bored with life in
+      general and our society in particular. He sported one of Hephzibah's
+      detestations, a monocle, and spoke, when he spoke at all, with a languid
+      drawl and what I learned later was a Piccadilly accent. He favored us with
+      his company during our first day afloat; after that we saw him amid the
+      select group at that much sought&mdash;by some&mdash;center of shipboard
+      prominence, &ldquo;the Captain's table.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Oddly enough Hephzibah did not resent the Heathcroft condescension and
+      single eyeglass as much as I had expected. She explained her feeling in
+      this way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know he's dreadfully high and mighty and all that,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;And the
+      way he said 'Really?' when you and I spoke to him was enough to squelch
+      even an Angelina Phinney. But I didn't care so much. Anybody, even a body
+      as green as I am, can see that he actually IS somebody when he's at home,
+      not a make-believe, like that Toronto man. And I'm glad for our waiter's
+      sake that he's gone somewhere else. The poor thing bowed so low when he
+      came in and was so terribly humble every time Mr. Heathcroft spoke to him.
+      I should hate to feel I must say 'Thank you' when I was told that the food
+      was 'rotten bad.' I never thought 'rotten' was a nice word, but all these
+      English folks say it. I heard that pretty English girl over there tell her
+      father that it was a 'jolly rotten mornin',' and she's as nice and sweet
+      as she can be. Well, I'm learnin' fast, Hosy. I can see a woman smoke a
+      cigarette now and not shiver&mdash;much. Old Bridget Doyle up in West
+      Bayport, used to smoke a pipe and the whole town talked about it. She'd be
+      right at home in that sittin'-room they call a 'Lounge' after dinner,
+      wouldn't she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My acquaintance with A. Carleton Heathcroft, which appeared to have ended
+      almost as soon as it began, was renewed in an odd way. I was in the
+      &ldquo;Smoke-Room&rdquo; after dinner the third evening out, enjoying a cigar and idly
+      listening to the bidding for pools on the ship's run, that time-honored
+      custom which helps the traveling gentleman of sporting proclivities to
+      kill time and lose money. On board the &ldquo;Plutonia,&rdquo; with its unusually
+      large quota of millionaires and personages, the bidding was lively and the
+      prices paid for favored numbers high. Needless to say I was not one of the
+      bidders. My interest was merely casual.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The auctioneer that evening was a famous comedian with an international
+      reputation and his chatter, as he urged his hearers to higher bids, was
+      clever and amusing. I was listening to it and smiling at the jokes when a
+      voice at my elbow said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Five pounds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I turned and saw that the speaker was Heathcroft. His monocle was in his
+      eye, a cigarette was between his fingers and he looked as if he had been
+      newly washed and ironed and pressed from head to foot. He nodded
+      carelessly and I bowed in return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Five pounds,&rdquo; repeated Mr. Heathcroft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The auctioneer acknowledged the bid and proceeded to urge his audience on
+      to higher flights. The flights were made and my companion capped each with
+      one more lofty. Eight, nine, ten pounds were bid. Heathcroft bid eleven.
+      Someone at the opposite side of the room bid twelve. It seemed ridiculous
+      to me. Possibly my face expressed my feeling; at any rate something caused
+      the immaculate gentleman in the next chair to address me instead of the
+      auctioneer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that's running a bit high, isn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It seems so to me,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;The number is five hundred and eighty-six
+      and I think we shall do better than that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, do you! Really! And why do you think so, may I ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because we are having a remarkably smooth sea and a favorable wind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, but you forget the fog. There's quite a bit of fog about us now,
+      isn't there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I wish I could describe the Heathcroft manner of saying &ldquo;Isn't there.&rdquo; I
+      can't, however; there is no use trying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will amount to nothing,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;The glass is high and there is
+      no indication of bad weather. Our run this noon was five hundred and
+      ninety-one, you remember.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. But we did have extraordinarily good weather for that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, not particularly good. We slowed down about midnight. There was a
+      real fog then and the glass was low. The second officer told me it dropped
+      very suddenly and there was a heavy sea running. For an hour between
+      twelve and one we were making not much more than half our usual speed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really! That's interesting. May I ask if you and the second officer are
+      friends?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Scarcely that. He and I exchanged a few words on deck this morning,
+      that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he told you about the fog and the&mdash;what is it&mdash;the glass,
+      and all that. Fancy! that's extremely odd. I'm acquainted with the captain
+      in a trifling sort of way; I sit at his table, I mean to say. And I assure
+      you he doesn't tell us a word. And, by Jove, we cross-question him, too!
+      Rather!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled. I could imagine the cross-questioning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose the captain is obliged to be non-committal,&rdquo; I observed.
+      &ldquo;That's part of his job. The second officer meant to be, I have no doubt,
+      but perhaps my remarks showed that I was really interested in ships and
+      the sea. My father and grandfather, too, for that matter were seafaring
+      men, both captains. That may have made the second officer more
+      communicative. Not that he said anything of importance, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Heathcroft seemed very interested. He actually removed his eyeglass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;You know something about it, then. I thought it was
+      extraordinary, but now I see. And you think our run will be better than
+      five hundred and eighty?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It should be, unless there is a remarkable change. This ship makes over
+      six hundred, day after day, in good weather. She should do at least six
+      hundred by to-morrow noon, unless there is a sudden change, as I said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But six hundred would be&mdash;it would be the high field, by Jove!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Anything over five hundred and ninety-four would be that. The numbers are
+      very low to-night. Far too low, I should say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Heathcroft was silent. The auctioneer, having forced the bid on number
+      five hundred and eighty-six up to thirteen pounds ten, was imploring his
+      hearers not to permit a certain winner to be sacrificed at this absurd
+      figure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fourteen pounds, gentlemen,&rdquo; he begged. &ldquo;For the sake of the wife and
+      children, for the honor of the star spangled banner and the union jack,&mdash;DON'T
+      hesitate&mdash;don't even stammer&mdash;below fourteen pounds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked in our direction as he said it. Mr. Heathcroft made no sign. He
+      produced a gold cigarette box and extended it in my direction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you?&rdquo; he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, thank you,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;I will smoke a cigar, if you don't mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not appear to mind. He lighted his cigarette, readjusted his
+      monocle, and stared stonily at the gesticulating auctioneer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bidding went on. One by one the numbers were sold until all were gone.
+      Then the auctioneer announced that bids for the &ldquo;high field,&rdquo; that is, any
+      number above five hundred and ninety-four, were in order. My companion
+      suddenly came to life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ten pounds,&rdquo; he called.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I started. &ldquo;For mercy sake, Mr. Heathcroft,&rdquo; I protested, &ldquo;don't let
+      anything I have said influence your bidding. I may be entirely wrong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned and surveyed me through the eyeglass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may wish to bid yourself,&rdquo; he drawled. &ldquo;Careless of me. So sorry.
+      Shall I withdraw the bid?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no. I'm not going to bid. I only&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eleven pounds I am offered, gentlemen,&rdquo; shouted the auctioneer. &ldquo;Eleven
+      pounds! It would be like robbing an orphan asylum. Do I hear twelve?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He heard twelve immediately&mdash;from Mr. Heathcroft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thirteen pounds were bid. Evidently others shared my opinion concerning
+      the value of the &ldquo;high field.&rdquo; Heathcroft promptly raised it to fourteen.
+      I ventured another protest. So far as effect was concerned I might as well
+      have been talking to one of the smoke-stacks. The bidding was lively and
+      lengthy. At last the &ldquo;high field&rdquo; went to Mr. A. Carleton Heathcroft for
+      twenty-one pounds, approximately one hundred and five dollars. I thought
+      it time for me to make my escape. I was wondering where I should hide next
+      day, when the run was announced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Greatly obliged to you, I'm sure,&rdquo; drawled the fortunate bidder. &ldquo;Won't
+      you join me in a whisky and soda or something?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I declined the whisky and soda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sorry,&rdquo; said Mr. Heathcroft. &ldquo;Jolly grateful for putting me right, Mr.&mdash;er&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Knowles is my name,&rdquo; I said. He might have remembered it; I remembered
+      his perfectly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course&mdash;Knowles. Thank you so much, Knowles. Thank you and the
+      second officer. Nothing like having professional information&mdash;eh,
+      what? Rather!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There seemed to be no doubt in his mind that he was going to win. There
+      was more than a doubt in mine. I told Hephzy of my experience when I
+      joined her in the Lounge. My attempts to say &ldquo;Really&rdquo; and &ldquo;Isn't it&rdquo; and
+      &ldquo;Rather&rdquo; in the Heathcroft manner and with the Heathcroft accent pleased
+      her very much. As to the result of my unpremeditated &ldquo;tip&rdquo; she was quite
+      indifferent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If he loses it will serve him good and right,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;Gamblin's
+      poor business and I sha'n't care if he does lose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall,&rdquo; I observed. &ldquo;I feel responsible in a way and I shall be sorry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'SO sorry,' you mean, Hosy. That's what that blunderin' steward said when
+      he stepped on my skirt and tore the gatherin' all loose. I told him he
+      wasn't half as sorry as I was.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But at noon next day, when the observation was taken and the run posted on
+      the bulletin board the figure was six hundred and two. My &ldquo;tip&rdquo; had been a
+      good one after all and A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire, was richer by some
+      seven hundred dollars, even after the expenses of treating the
+      &ldquo;smoke-room&rdquo; and feeing the smoke-room steward had been deducted. I did
+      not visit the smoke-room to share in the treat. I feared I might be
+      expected to furnish more professional information. But that evening a
+      bottle of vintage champagne was produced by our obsequious table steward.
+      &ldquo;With Mr. 'Eathcroft's compliments, sir, thank you, sir,&rdquo; announced the
+      latter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah looked at the gilt-topped bottle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;WHAT in the world will we do with it, Hosy?&rdquo; she demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, drink it, I suppose,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;It is the only thing we can do.
+      We can't send it back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you can't drink the whole of it, and I'm sure I sha'n't start in to
+      be a drunkard at my age. I'll take the least little bit of a drop, just to
+      see what it tastes like. I've read about champagne, just as I've read
+      about lords and ladies, all my life, but I never expected to see either of
+      'em. Well there!&rdquo; after a very small sip from the glass, &ldquo;there's another
+      pet idea gone to smash. A lord looks like Ase Tidditt, and champagne
+      tastes like vinegar and soda. Tut! tut! tut! if I had to drink that sour
+      stuff all my life I'd probably look like Asaph, too. No wonder that
+      Erkskine man is such a shriveled-up thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I glanced toward the captain's table. Mr. Heathcroft raised his glass. I
+      bowed and raised mine. The group at that table, the captain included, were
+      looking in my direction. I judged that my smoke-room acquaintance had told
+      them of my wonderful &ldquo;tip.&rdquo; I imagined I could see the sarcastic smile
+      upon the captain's face. I did not care for that kind of celebrity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the affair had one quite unexpected result. The next forenoon as
+      Hephzibah and I were reclining in our deck-chairs the captain himself,
+      florid-faced, gray-bearded, gold-laced and grand, halted before us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe your name is Knowles, sir,&rdquo; he said, raising his cap.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is,&rdquo; I replied. I wondered what in the world was coming next. Was he
+      going to take me to task for talking with his second officer?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your home is in Bayport, Massachusetts, I see by the passenger list,&rdquo; he
+      went on. &ldquo;Is that Bayport on Cape Cod, may I ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I replied, more puzzled than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I once knew a Knowles from your town, sir. He was a seafaring man like
+      myself. His name was Philander Knowles, and when I knew him he was
+      commander of the bark 'Ranger.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was my father,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Captain Stone extended his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; he declared, &ldquo;this is a great pleasure, sir. I knew your
+      father years ago when I was a young man, mate of one of our ships engaged
+      in the Italian fruit trade. He was very kind to me at that time. I have
+      never forgotten it. May I sit down?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The chair next to ours happened to be unoccupied at the moment and he took
+      it. I introduced Hephzibah and we chatted for some time. The captain
+      appeared delighted to meet the son of his old acquaintance. Father and he
+      had met in Messina&mdash;Father's ship was in the fruit trade also at that
+      time&mdash;and something or other he had done to help young Stone had made
+      a great impression on the latter. I don't know what the something was,
+      whether it was monetary help or assistance in getting out of a serious
+      scrape; Stone did not tell me and I didn't ask. But, at any rate, the pair
+      had become very friendly there and at subsequent meetings in the
+      Mediterranean ports. The captain asked all sorts of questions about
+      Father, his life, his family and his death aboard the sinking &ldquo;Monarch of
+      the Seas.&rdquo; Hephzibah furnished most of the particulars. She remembered
+      them well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Captain Stone nodded solemnly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is the way the master of a ship should die,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;Your
+      father, Mr. Knowles, was a man and he died like one. He was my first
+      American acquaintance and he gave me a new idea of Yankees&mdash;if you'll
+      excuse my calling them that, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy had a comment to make.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are SOME pretty fair Yankees,&rdquo; she observed, drily. &ldquo;ALL the good
+      folks haven't moved back to England yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The captain solemnly assured her that he was certain of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Though two of the best are on their way,&rdquo; I added, with a wink at Hephzy.
+      This attempt at humor was entirely lost. Our companion said he presumed I
+      referred to Mr. and Mrs. Van Hook, who sat next him at table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that leads me to ask if Miss Cahoon and yourself will not join us,&rdquo;
+       he went on. &ldquo;I could easily arrange for two places.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at Hephzy. Her face expressed decided disapproval and she shook
+      her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, Captain Stone,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;but we have a table to ourselves and
+      are very comfortable. We should not think of troubling you to that
+      extent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He assured us it would not be a trouble, but a pleasure. We were firm in
+      our refusal, however, and he ceased to urge. He declared his intention of
+      seeing that our quarters were adequate, offered to accompany us through
+      the engine-rooms and the working portions of the ship whenever we wished,
+      ordered the deck steward, who was all but standing on his head in
+      obsequious desire to oblige, to take good care of us, shook hands once
+      more, and went away. Hephzibah drew a long breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My goodness!&rdquo; she exclaimed; &ldquo;sit at HIS table! I guess not! There's
+      another lord and his wife there, to say nothin' of the Van Hooks. I'd look
+      pretty, in my Cape Cod clothes, perched up there, wouldn't I! A hen is all
+      right in her place, but she don't belong in a peacock cage. And they drink
+      champagne ALL the time there; I've watched 'em. No thank you, I'll stay in
+      the henyard along with the everyday fowls.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Odd that he should have known Father,&rdquo; I observed. &ldquo;Well, I suppose the
+      proper remark to make, under the circumstances, is that this is a small
+      world. That is what nine-tenths of Bayport would say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's what I say, too,&rdquo; declared Hephzy, with emphasis. &ldquo;Well, it's awful
+      encouraging for us, isn't it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Encouraging? What do you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, I mean about Little Frank. It makes me feel surer than ever that we
+      shall run across him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I suppressed a groan. &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;why on earth should the fact that
+      Captain Stone knew my father encourage you to believe that we shall meet a
+      person we never knew at all?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy, how you do talk! If you and I, just cruisin' this way across the
+      broadside of creation, run across a man that knew Cousin Philander
+      thirty-nine years ago, isn't it just as reasonable to suppose we'll meet a
+      child who was born twenty-one years ago? I should say 'twas! Hosy, I've
+      had a presentiment about this cruise of ours: We're SENT on it; that's
+      what I think&mdash;we're sent. Oh, you can laugh! You'll see by and by.
+      THEN you won't laugh.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Hephzy,&rdquo; I admitted, resignedly, &ldquo;I won't laugh then, I promise you.
+      If <i>I</i> ever reach the stage where I see a Little Frank I promise you
+      I sha'n't laugh. I'll believe diseases of the brain are contagious, like
+      the measles, and I'll send for a doctor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The captain met us again in the dining-room that evening. He came over to
+      our table and chatted for some time. His visit caused quite a sensation.
+      Shipboard society is a little world by itself and the ship's captain is
+      the head of it. Persons who would, very likely, have passed Captain Stone
+      on Fifth Avenue or Piccadilly without recognizing him now toadied to him
+      as if he were a Czar, which, in a way, I suppose he is when afloat. His
+      familiarity with us shed a sort of reflected glory upon Hephzy and me.
+      Several of our fellow-passengers spoke to us that evening for the first
+      time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire, was not among the Lounge habitues; the
+      smoke-room was his accustomed haunt. But the next forenoon as I leaned
+      over the rail of the after promenade deck watching the antics of the
+      &ldquo;Stokers' Band&rdquo; which was performing for the benefit of the second-class
+      with an eye toward pennies and small silver from all classes, Heathcroft
+      sauntered up and leaned beside me. We exchanged good-mornings. I thanked
+      him for the wine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite unnecessary, Knowles,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Least I could do, it seems to me.
+      I pulled quite a tidy bit from that inside information of yours; I did
+      really. Awfully obliged, and all that. You seem to have a wide
+      acquaintance among the officers. That captain chap tells us he knew your
+      father&mdash;the sailor one you told me of, you understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Having had but one father I understood perfectly. We chatted in a
+      inconsequential way for a short time. In the course of our conversation I
+      happened to mention that I wrote, professionally. To my surprise
+      Heathcroft was impressed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you, really!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;That's interesting, isn't it now! I have
+      a cousin who writes. Don't know why she does it; she doesn't get her
+      writings printed, but she keeps on. It is a habit of hers. Curious
+      dissipation&mdash;eh, what? Does that&mdash;er&mdash;Miss&mdash;that
+      companion of yours, write also?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed and informed him that writing was not one of Hephzibah's bad
+      habits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Extraordinary woman, isn't she,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I met her just now, walking
+      about, and I happened to mention that I was taking the air. She said she
+      wouldn't quarrel with me because of that. The more I took the better she
+      would like it; she could spare about a gale and a quarter and not feel&mdash;What
+      did she call it? Oh yes, 'scrimped.' What is 'scrimped,' may I ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I explained the meaning of &ldquo;scrimped.&rdquo; Heathcroft was much amused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It WAS blowing a bit strong up forward there,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;That was a
+      clever way of putting it, wasn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is a clever woman,&rdquo; I said, shortly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Heathcroft did not enthuse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; he said dubiously. &ldquo;A relative of yours, I suppose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A cousin, that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One's relatives, particularly the feminine relatives, incline toward
+      eccentricity as they grow older, don't you think. I have an aunt down in
+      Sussex, who is queer. A good sort, too, no end of money, a big place and
+      all that, but odd. She and I get on well together&mdash;I am her pet, I
+      suppose I may say&mdash;but, by Jove, she has quarreled with everyone else
+      in the family. I let her have her own way and it has convinced her that I
+      am the only rational Heathcroft in existence. Do you golf, Knowles?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I attempt something in that line. I doubt if my efforts should be called
+      golf.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a rotten game when one is off form, isn't it. If you are down in
+      Sussex and I chance to be there I should be glad to have you play an
+      eighteen with me. Burglestone Bogs is the village. Anyone will direct you
+      to the Manor. If I'm not there, introduce yourself to my aunt. Lady Kent
+      Carey is the name. She'll be jolly glad to welcome you if you tell her you
+      know me. I'm her sole interest in life, the greenhouses excepted, of
+      course. Cultivating roses and rearing me are her hobbies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I thought it improbable that the golfers of Burglestone Bogs would ever be
+      put to shame by the brilliancy of my game. I thanked him, however. I was
+      surprised at the invitation. I had been under the impression, derived from
+      my reading, that the average Englishman required an acquaintance of
+      several months before proffering hospitality. No doubt Mr. Heathcroft was
+      not an average Englishman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you be in London long?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;I suppose not. You're probably
+      off on a hurricane jaunt from one end of the Continent to the other. Two
+      hours at Stratford, bowing before Shakespeare's tomb, a Derby through the
+      cathedral towns, and then the Channel boat, eh? That's the American way,
+      isn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not our way,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;We have no itinerary. I don't know where
+      we may go or how long we shall stay.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Evidently I rose again in his estimation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you picked your hotel in London?&rdquo; he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. I shall be glad of any help you may be kind enough to give along that
+      line.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He reflected. &ldquo;There's a decent little hotel in Mayfair,&rdquo; he said, after a
+      moment. &ldquo;A private sort of shop. I don't use it myself; generally put up
+      at the club, I mean to say. But my aunt and my sisters do. They're quite
+      mad about it. It is&mdash;Ah&mdash;Bancroft's&mdash;that's it, Bancroft's
+      Hotel. I'll give you the address before I leave.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I thanked him again. He was certainly trying to be kind. No doubt the
+      kindness was due to his sense of obligation engendered by what he called
+      my &ldquo;professional information,&rdquo; but it was kindness all the same.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first bugle for luncheon sounded. Mr. Heathcroft turned to go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll see you again, Knowles,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and give you the hotel street and
+      number and all that. Hope you'll like it. If you shouldn't the Langham is
+      not bad&mdash;quiet and old-fashioned, but really very fair. And if you
+      care for something more public and&mdash;Ah&mdash;American, there are
+      always the Savoy and the Cecil. Here is my card. If I can be of any
+      service to you while you are in town drop me a line at my clubs, either of
+      them. I must be toddling. By, by.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He &ldquo;toddled&rdquo; and I sought my room to prepare for luncheon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two days more and our voyage was at an end. We saw more of our friend the
+      captain during those days and of Heathcroft as well. The former fulfilled
+      his promise of showing us through the ship, and Hephzy and I, descending
+      greasy iron stairways and twisting through narrow passages, saw great
+      rooms full of mighty machinery, and a cavern where perspiring, grimy men,
+      looking but half-human in the red light from the furnace mouths, toiled
+      ceaselessly with pokers and shovels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We stood at the forward end of the promenade deck at night, looking out
+      into the blackness, and heard the clang of four bells from the shadows at
+      the bow, the answering clang from the crow's-nest on the foremast, and the
+      weird cry of &ldquo;All's well&rdquo; from the lookouts. This experience made a great
+      impression on us both. Hephzy expressed my feeling exactly when she said
+      in a hushed whisper:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, Hosy! for the first time I feel as if I really was on board a ship
+      at sea. My father and your father and all our men-folks for ever so far
+      back have heard that 'All's well'&mdash;yes, and called it, too, when they
+      first went as sailors. Just think of it! Why Father was only sixteen when
+      he shipped; just a boy, that's all. I've heard him say 'All's well' over
+      and over again; 'twas a kind of byword with him. This whole thing seems
+      like somethin' callin' to me out of the past and gone. Don't you feel it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I felt it, as she did. The black night, the quiet, the loneliness, the
+      salt spray on our faces and the wash of the waves alongside, the high
+      singsong wail from lookout to lookout&mdash;it WAS a voice from the past,
+      the call of generations of sea-beaten, weather-worn, brave old Cape
+      Codders to their descendants, reminding the latter of a dead and gone
+      profession and of thousands of fine, old ships which had plowed the ocean
+      in the days when &ldquo;Plutonias&rdquo; were unknown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We attended the concert in the Lounge, and the ball on the promenade deck
+      which followed. Mr. Heathcroft, who seemed to have made the acquaintance
+      of most of the pretty girls on board, informed us in the intervals between
+      a two-step and a tango, that he had been &ldquo;dancing madly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You Americans are extraordinary people,&rdquo; he added. &ldquo;Your dances are as
+      extraordinary as your food. That Mrs. Van Hook, who sits near me at table,
+      was indulging in&mdash;what do you call them?&mdash;oh, yes, griddle cakes&mdash;this
+      morning. Begged me to try them. I declined. Horrid things they were.
+      Round, like a&mdash;like a washing-flannel, and swimming in treacle.
+      Frightful!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that man,&rdquo; commented Hephzy, &ldquo;eats cold toast and strawberry
+      preserves for breakfast and washes 'em down with three cups of tea. And he
+      calls nice hot pancakes frightful!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At ten o'clock in the morning of the sixth day we sighted the Irish coast
+      through the dripping haze which shrouded it and at four we dropped anchor
+      abreast the breakwater of the little Welsh village which was to be our
+      landing place. The sun was shining dimly by this time and the rounded
+      hills and the mountains beyond them, the green slopes dotted with farms
+      and checkered with hedges and stone walls, the gray stone fort with its
+      white-washed barrack buildings, the spires and chimneys of the village in
+      the hollow&mdash;all these combined to make a picture which was homelike
+      and yet not like home, foreign and yet strangely familiar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We leaned over the rail and watched the trunks and boxes and bags and
+      bundles shoot down the slide into the baggage and mail-boat which lay
+      alongside. Hephzy was nervous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They'll smash everything to pieces&mdash;they surely will!&rdquo; she declared.
+      &ldquo;Either that or smash themselves, I don't know which is liable to happen
+      first. Mercy on us! Did you see that? That box hit the man right in the
+      back!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It didn't hurt him,&rdquo; I said, reassuringly. &ldquo;It was nothing but a
+      hat-box.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hurt HIM&mdash;no! But I guess likely it didn't do the hat much good. I
+      thought baggage smashin' was an American institution, but they've got some
+      experts over here. Oh, my soul and body! there goes MY trunk&mdash;end
+      over end, of course. Well, I'm glad there's no eggs in it, anyway. Josiah
+      Dimick always used to carry two dozen eggs to his daughter-in-law every
+      time he went to Boston. He had 'em in a box once and put the box on the
+      seat alongside of him and a big fat woman came and sat&mdash;Oh! that was
+      your trunk, Hosy! Did you hear it hit? I expect every one of those
+      'English Poets' went from top to bottom then, right through all your
+      clothes. Never mind, I suppose it's all part of travelin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Heathcroft, looking more English than ever in his natty top coat, and
+      hat at the back of his head, sauntered up. He was, for him, almost
+      enthusiastic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Looking at the water, were you?&rdquo; he queried. &ldquo;Glorious color, isn't it.
+      One never sees a sea like that or a sky like that anywhere but here at
+      home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy looked at the sea and sky. It was plain that she wished to admire,
+      for his sake, but her admiration was qualified.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you think if they were a little brighter and bluer they'd be
+      prettier?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Heathcroft stared at her through his monocle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bluer?&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;My dear woman, there are no skies as blue as the
+      English skies. They are quite celebrated&mdash;really.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He sauntered on again, evidently disgusted at our lack of appreciation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He must be color-blind,&rdquo; I observed. Hephzy was more charitable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess likely everybody's home things are best,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I suppose
+      this green-streaked water and those gray clouds do look bright and blue to
+      him. We must make allowances, Hosy. He never saw an August mornin' at
+      Bayport, with a northwest wind blowin' and the bay white and blue to the
+      edge of all creation. That's been denied him. He means well, poor thing;
+      he don't know any better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      An hour later we landed from the passenger tender at a stone pier covered
+      with substantial stone buildings. Uniformed custom officers and uniformed
+      policemen stood in line as we came up the gang-plank. Behind them, funny
+      little locomotives attached to queer cars which appeared to be all doors,
+      puffed and panted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah looked about her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, with conviction. &ldquo;I'm believin' it more and more all the
+      time. It is England, just like the pictures. How many times I've seen
+      engines like that in pictures, and cars like that, too. I never thought
+      I'd ride in 'em. My goodness me? Hephzibah Jane Cahoon, you're in England&mdash;YOU
+      are! You needn't be afraid to turn over for fear of wakin' up, either.
+      You're awake and alive and in England! Hosy,&rdquo; with a sudden burst of
+      exuberance, &ldquo;hold on to me tight. I'm just as likely to wave my hat and
+      hurrah as I am to do anything. Hold on to me&mdash;tight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We got through the perfunctory customs examination without trouble. Our
+      tickets provided by Campbell, included those for the railway journey to
+      London. I secured a first-class compartment at the booking-office and a
+      guard conducted us to it and closed the door. Another short delay and
+      then, with a whistle as queer and unfamiliar as its own appearance, the
+      little locomotive began to pull our train out of the station.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy leaned back against the cushions with a sigh of supreme content.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;for London. London! think of it, Hephzy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm thinkin' of it,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;London&mdash;the biggest city in the
+      world! Who knows, Hosy? France is such a little ways off; probably Little
+      Frank has been to London a hundred times. He may even be there now. Who
+      knows? I shouldn't be surprised if we met him right in London. I sha'n't
+      be surprised at anything anymore. I'm in England and on my way to London;
+      that's surprise enough. NOTHIN' could be more wonderful than that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which We Are Received at Bancroft's Hotel and I Receive a Letter
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      It was late when we reached London, nearly eleven o'clock. The long train
+      journey was a delight. During the few hours of daylight and dusk we peered
+      through the car windows at the scenery flying past; at the villages, the
+      green fields, the hedges, the neat, trim farms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Everything looks as if it has been swept and dusted,&rdquo; declared Hephzy.
+      &ldquo;There aren't any waste places at all. What do they do with their spare
+      land?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They haven't any,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;Land is too valuable to waste. There's
+      another thatched roof. It looks like those in the pictures, doesn't it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy nodded. &ldquo;Just exactly,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Everything looks like the
+      pictures. I feel as if I'd seen it all before. If that engine didn't toot
+      so much like a tin whistle I should almost think it was a picture. But it
+      isn't&mdash;it isn't; it's real, and you and I are part of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We dined on the train. Night came and our window-pictures changed to
+      glimpses of flashing lights interspersed with shadowy blotches of
+      darkness. At length the lights became more and more frequent and began to
+      string out in long lines marking suburban streets. Then the little
+      locomotive tooted its tin whistle frantically and we rolled slowly under a
+      great train shed&mdash;Paddington Station and London itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Amid the crowd on the platform Hephzy and I stood, two lone wanderers not
+      exactly sure what we should do next. About us the busy crowd jostled and
+      pushed. Relatives met relatives and fathers and mothers met sons and
+      daughters returning home after long separations. No one met us, no one was
+      interested in us at all, except the porters and the cabmen. I selected a
+      red-faced chunky porter who was a decidedly able person, apparently
+      capable of managing anything except the letter h. The acrobatics which he
+      performed with that defenceless consonant were marvelous. I have said that
+      I selected him; that he selected me would be nearer the truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cab, sir. Yes, sir, thank you, sir,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Leave that to me, sir.
+      Will you 'ave a fourwheeler or a hordinary cab, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I wasn't exactly certain what a fourwheeler might be. I had read about
+      them often enough, but I had never seen one pictured and properly labeled.
+      For the matter of that, all the vehicles in sight appeared to have four
+      wheels. So I said, at a venture, that I thought an ordinary cab would do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir; 'ere you are, sir. Your boxes are in the luggage van, I
+      suppose, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I took it for granted he meant my trunks and those were in what I, in my
+      ignorance, would have called a baggage car:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; said the porter. &ldquo;If the lidy will be good enough to wait
+      'ere, sir, you and I will go hafter the boxes, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Cautioning Hephzy not to stir from her moorings on any account I followed
+      my guide to the &ldquo;luggage van.&rdquo; This crowded car disgorged our two steamer
+      trunks and, my particular porter having corraled a fellow-craftsman to
+      help him, the trunks were dragged to the waiting cab.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I found Hephzy waiting, outwardly calm, but inwardly excited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw one at last,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;I'd about come to believe there wasn't
+      such a thing, but there is; I just saw one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One&mdash;what?&rdquo; I asked, puzzled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An Englishman with side-whiskers. They wasn't as big and long as those in
+      the pictures, but they were side-whiskers. I feel better. When you've been
+      brought up to believe every Englishman wore 'em, it was kind of
+      humiliatin' not to see one single set.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I paid my porters&mdash;I learned afterward that, like most Americans, I
+      had given them altogether too much&mdash;and we climbed into the cab with
+      our bags. The &ldquo;boxes,&rdquo; or trunks, were on the driver's seat and on the
+      roof.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where to, sir?&rdquo; asked the driver.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hesitated. Even at this late date I had not made up my mind exactly
+      &ldquo;where to.&rdquo; My decision was a hasty one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why&mdash;er&mdash;to&mdash;to Bancroft's Hotel,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Blithe Street,
+      just off Piccadilly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I think the driver was somewhat astonished. Very few of his American
+      passengers selected Bancroft's as a stopping place, I imagine. However,
+      his answer was prompt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir, thank you, sir,&rdquo; he said. The cab rolled out of the station.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose,&rdquo; said Hephzy, reflectively, &ldquo;if you had told him or that
+      porter man that they were everlastin' idiots they'd have thanked you just
+      the same and called you 'sir' four times besides.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No doubt they would.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir, I'm perfectly sure they would&mdash;thank you, sir. So this is
+      London. It doesn't look such an awful lot different from Boston or New
+      York so far.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Bancroft's, when we reached it, was as unlike a Boston or New York
+      hotel as anything could be. A short, quiet, eminently respectable street,
+      leading from Piccadilly; a street fenced in, on both sides, by
+      three-story, solid, eminently respectable houses of brick and stone. No
+      signs, no street cars, no crowds, no glaring lights. Merely a gas lamp
+      burning over the fanlight of a spotless white door, and the words
+      &ldquo;Bancroft's Hotel&rdquo; in mosaic lettering set in a white stone slab in the
+      pavement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cab pulled up before the white door and Hephzy and I looked out of the
+      window. The same thought was in both our minds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This can't be the place,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This isn't a hotel, is it, Hosy?&rdquo; asked Hephzy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The white door opened and a brisk, red-cheeked English boy in uniform
+      hastened to the cab. Before he reached it I had seen the lettering in the
+      pavement and knew that, in spite of appearances, we had reached our
+      destination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is it, Hephzy,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy opened the cab door and we alighted. Then in the doorway of
+      &ldquo;Bancroft's&rdquo; appeared a stout, red-faced and very dignified person, also
+      in uniform. This person wore short &ldquo;mutton-chop&rdquo; whiskers and had the air
+      of a member of the Royal Family; that is to say, the air which a member of
+      the Royal Family might be expected to have.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good evening, sir,&rdquo; said the personage, bowing respectfully. The bow was
+      a triumph in itself; not too low, not abject in the least, not familiar; a
+      bow which implied much, but promised nothing; a bow which seemed to demand
+      references, but was far from repellant or bullying. Altogether a wonderful
+      bow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good evening,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;This is Bancroft's Hotel, is it not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish to secure rooms for this lady and myself, if possible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir. This way, sir, if you please. Richard,&rdquo; this to the boy and in
+      a tone entirely different&mdash;the tone of a commanding officer to a
+      private&mdash;&ldquo;see to the gentleman's luggage. This way, sir; thank you,
+      sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hesitated. &ldquo;The cabman has not been paid,&rdquo; I stammered. I was a trifle
+      overawed by the grandeur of the mutton-chops and the &ldquo;sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will attend to that, sir. If you will be good enough to come in, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We entered and found ourselves in a narrow hall, old-fashioned, homelike
+      and as spotless as the white door. Two more uniforms bowed before us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, sir,&rdquo; said the member of the Royal Family. It was with
+      difficulty that I repressed the desire to tell him he was quite welcome.
+      His manner of thanking me seemed to imply that we had conferred a favor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will speak to Mr. Jameson,&rdquo; he went on, with another bow. Then he left
+      us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is&mdash;is that Mr. Bancroft?&rdquo; whispered Hephzy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shook my head. &ldquo;It must be the Prince of Wales, at least,&rdquo; I whispered
+      in return. &ldquo;I infer that there is no Mr. Bancroft.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It developed that I was right. Mr. Jameson was the proprietor of the
+      hotel, and Mr. Jameson was a pleasant, refined, quiet man of middle age.
+      He appeared from somewhere or other, ascertained our wants, stated that he
+      had a few vacant rooms and could accommodate us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you wish a sitting-room?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was not sure. I wanted comfort, that I knew, and I said so. I mentioned,
+      as an afterthought, that Mr. Heathcroft had recommended Bancroft's to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Heathcroft name seemed to settle everything. Mr. Jameson summoned the
+      representative of royalty and spoke to him in a low tone. The
+      representative&mdash;his name, I learned later, was Henry and he was
+      butler and major-domo at Bancroft's&mdash;bowed once more. A few minutes
+      later we were shown to an apartment on the second floor front, a room
+      large, old-fashioned, furnished with easy-chairs, tables and a big,
+      comfortable sofa. Sofa and easy-chairs were covered with figured, glazed
+      chintz.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your sitting-room, sir,&rdquo; said Henry. &ldquo;Your bedrooms open hoff it, sir.
+      The chambermaid will 'ave them ready in a moment, sir. Richard and the
+      porter will bring up your luggage and the boxes. Will you and the lady
+      wish supper, sir? Thank you, sir. Very good, sir. Will you require a fire,
+      sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The room was a trifle chilly. There was a small iron grate at its end, and
+      a coal fire ready to kindle. I answered that a fire might be enjoyable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; said Henry. &ldquo;Himmediately, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon Hephzy and I were drinking hot tea and eating bread and butter and
+      plum cake before a snapping fire. George, the waiter, had brought us the
+      tea and accessories and set the table; the chambermaid had prepared the
+      bedrooms; Henry had supervised everything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; observed Hephzy, with a sigh of content, &ldquo;I feel better satisfied
+      every minute. When we were in the hack&mdash;cab, I mean&mdash;I couldn't
+      realize we weren't ridin' through an American city. The houses and
+      sidewalks and everything&mdash;what I could see of 'em&mdash;looked so
+      much like Boston that I was sort of disappointed. I wanted it to be more
+      different, some way. But this IS different. This may be a hotel&mdash;I
+      suppose likely 'tis&mdash;but it don't seem like one, does it? If it
+      wasn't for the Henry and that Richard and that&mdash;what's his name?
+      George&mdash;and all the rest, I should think I was in Cap'n Cyrus
+      Whittaker's settin-room back home. The furniture looks like Cap'n Cy's and
+      the pictures look like those he has, and&mdash;and everything looks as
+      stiff and starched and old-fashioned as can be. But the Cap'n never had a
+      Henry. No, sirree, Henry don't belong on Cape Cod! Hosy,&rdquo; with a sudden
+      burst of confidence, &ldquo;it's a good thing I saw that Lord Erskine first. If
+      I hadn't found out what a live lord looked like I'd have thought Henry was
+      one sure. Do you really think it's right for me to call him by his
+      Christian name? It seems sort of&mdash;sort of irreverent, somehow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I wish it were possible for me to describe in detail our first days at
+      Bancroft's. If it were not for the fact that so many really important
+      events and happenings remain to be described&mdash;if it were not that the
+      most momentous event of my life, the event that was the beginning of the
+      great change in that life&mdash;if that event were not so close at hand, I
+      should be tempted to linger upon those first few days. They were strange
+      and wonderful and funny to Hephzibah and me. The strangeness and the
+      wonder wore off gradually; the fun still sticks in my memory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To have one's bedroom invaded at an early hour by a chambermaid who,
+      apparently quite oblivious of the fact that the bed was still occupied by
+      a male, proceeded to draw the curtains, bring the hot water and fill the
+      tin tub for my bath, was astonishing and funny enough, Hephzibah's
+      comments on the proceeding were funnier still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean to tell me,&rdquo; she demanded, &ldquo;that that hussy was brazen enough
+      to march right in here before you got up?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I am only thankful that I HADN'T got up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well! I must say! Did she fetch the water in a garden waterin'-pot, same
+      as she did to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just the same.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And did she pour it into that&mdash;that flat dishpan on the floor and
+      tell you your 'bawth' was ready?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! Of all the&mdash;I hope she cleared out THEN?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's a mercy, anyhow. Did you take a bath in that dishpan?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tried.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I didn't. I'd as soon try to bathe in a saucer. I'd have felt as if
+      I'd needed a teaspoon to dip up the half pint of water and pour it over
+      me. Don't these English folks have real bathtubs for grown-up people?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not know, then. Later I learned that Bancroft's Hotel possessed
+      several bathrooms, and that I might use one if I preferred. Being an
+      American I did so prefer. Most of the guests, being English, preferred the
+      &ldquo;dishpans.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We learned to accept the early morning visits of the chambermaid as
+      matters of course. We learned to order breakfast the night before and to
+      eat it in our sitting-room. We tasted a &ldquo;grilled sole&rdquo; for the first time,
+      and although Hephzy persisted in referring to it as &ldquo;fried flatfish&rdquo; we
+      liked the taste. We became accustomed to being waited upon, to do next to
+      nothing for ourselves, and I found that a valet who laid out my evening
+      clothes, put the studs in my shirts, selected my neckties, and saw that my
+      shoes were polished, was a rather convenient person to have about. Hephzy
+      fumed a good deal at first; she declared that she felt ashamed, an
+      able-bodied woman like her, to sit around with her hands folded and do
+      nothing. She asked her maid a great many questions, and the answers she
+      received explained some of her puzzles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know what that poor thing gets a week?&rdquo; she observed, referring to
+      the maid. &ldquo;Eight shillin's&mdash;two dollars a week, that's what she gets.
+      And your valet man doesn't get any more. I can see now how Mr. Jameson can
+      afford to keep so much help at the board he charges. I pay that Susanna
+      Wixon thing at Bayport three dollars and she doesn't know enough to boil
+      water without burnin' it on, scarcely. And Peters&mdash;why in the world
+      do they call women by their last names?&mdash;Peters, she's the maid, says
+      it's a real nice place and she's quite satisfied. Well, where ignorance is
+      bliss it's foolish to be sensible, I suppose; but <i>I</i> wouldn't fetch
+      and carry for the President's wife, to say nothin' of an everyday body
+      like me, for two dollars a week.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We learned that the hotel dining-room was a &ldquo;Coffee Room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nobody with sense would take coffee there&mdash;not more'n once, they
+      wouldn't,&rdquo; declared Hephzy. &ldquo;I asked Peters why they didn't call it the
+      'Tea Room' and be done with it. She said because it was the Coffee Room. I
+      suppose likely that was an answer, but I felt a good deal as if I'd come
+      out of the same hole I went in at. She thanked me for askin' her, though;
+      she never forgets that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We became accustomed to addressing the lordly Henry by his Christian name
+      and found him a most obliging person. He, like everyone else, had
+      instantly recognized us as Americans, and, consequently, was
+      condescendingly kind to strangers from a distant and barbarous country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What SORT of place do they think the States are?&rdquo; asked Hephzy. &ldquo;That's
+      what they always call home&mdash;'the States'&mdash;and they seem to think
+      it's about as big as a pocket handkerchief. That Henry asked me if the red
+      Indians were numerous where we lived. I said no&mdash;as soon as I could
+      say anything; I told him there was only one tribe of Red Men in town and
+      they were white. I guess he thought I was crazy, but it don't make any
+      difference. And Peters said she had a cousin in a place called Chicago and
+      did I know him. What do you think of that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you tell her?&rdquo; I inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hey? Oh, I told her that, bein' as Chicago was a thousand miles from
+      Bayport, I hadn't had time to do much visitin' there. I told her the
+      truth, but she didn't believe it. I could see she didn't. She thinks
+      Chicago and San Francisco and New York and Boston are nests of wigwams in
+      the same patch of woods and all hands that live there have been scalped at
+      least once. SUCH ignorance!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Henry, at my request, procured seats for us at one of the London theaters.
+      There we saw a good play, splendidly acted, and Hephzy laughed and wept at
+      the performance. As usual, however, she had a characteristic comment to
+      make.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do they call the front seats the 'stalls'?&rdquo; she whispered to me
+      between the acts. &ldquo;Stalls! The idea! I'm no horse. Perhaps they call 'em
+      that because folks are donkeys enough to pay two dollars and a half for
+      the privilege of sittin' in 'em. Don't YOU be so extravagant again, Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the characters in the play was supposed to be an American
+      gentleman, and his behavior and dress and speech stirred me to
+      indignation. I asked the question which every American asks under similar
+      circumstances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why on earth,&rdquo; I demanded, &ldquo;do they permit that fellow to make such a
+      fool of himself? He yells and drawls and whines through his nose and wears
+      clothes which would make an American cry. That last scene was supposed to
+      be a reception and he wore an outing suit and no waistcoat. Do they
+      suppose such a fellow would be tolerated in respectable society in the
+      United States?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And now it was Hephzy's turn to be philosophical.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess likely the answer to that is simple enough,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;He's what
+      they think an American ought to be, even if he isn't. If he behaved like a
+      human bein' he wouldn't be the kind of American they expect on the stage.
+      After all, he isn't any worse than the Englishmen we have in the Dramatic
+      Society's plays at home. I haven't seen one of that kind since I got here;
+      and I've given up expectin' to&mdash;unless you and I go to some crazy
+      asylum&mdash;which isn't likely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We rode on the tops of busses, we visited the Tower, and Westminster
+      Abbey, and Saint Paul's. We saw the Horse Guard sentinels on duty in
+      Whitehall, and watched the ceremony of guard changing at St. James's.
+      Hephzy was impressed, in her own way, by the uniforms of the &ldquo;Cold
+      Streams.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There!&rdquo; she exclaimed, &ldquo;I've seen 'em walk. Now I feel better. When they
+      stood there, with those red jackets and with the fur hats on their heads,
+      I couldn't make myself believe they hadn't been taken out of a box for
+      children to play with. I wanted to get up close so as to see if their feet
+      were glued to round pieces of wood like Noah's and Ham's and Japhet's in
+      the Ark. But they aren't wood, they're alive. They're men, not toys. I'm
+      glad I've seen 'em. THEY are satisfyin'. They make me more reconciled to a
+      King with a Derby hat on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She and I had stood in the crowd fringing the park mall and seen King
+      George trot by on horseback. His Majesty's lack of crown and robes and
+      scepter had been a great disappointment to Hephzy; I think she expected
+      the crown at least.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had, of course, visited the London office of my publishers, in Camford
+      Street and had found Mr. Matthews, the manager, expecting me. Jim Campbell
+      had cabled and written of my coming and Matthews' welcome was a warm one.
+      He was kindness itself. All my financial responsibilities were to be
+      shifted to his shoulders. I was to use the office as a bank, as a tourist
+      agency, even as a guide's headquarters. He put his clerks at my disposal;
+      they would conduct us on sight-seeing expeditions whenever and wherever we
+      wished. He even made out a list of places in and about London which we, as
+      strangers, should see.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His cordiality and thoughtfulness were appreciated. They made me feel less
+      alone and less dependent upon my own resources. Campbell had arranged that
+      all letters addressed to me in America should be forwarded to the Camford
+      Street office, and Matthews insisted that I should write my own letters
+      there. I began to make it a practice to drop in at the office almost every
+      morning before starting on the day's round of sight-seeing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bancroft's Hotel also began to seem less strange and more homelike. Mr.
+      Jameson, the proprietor, was a fine fellow&mdash;quiet, refined, and
+      pleasant. He, too, tried to help us in every possible way. His wife, a
+      sweet-faced Englishwoman, made Hephzy's acquaintance and Hephzy liked her
+      extremely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's as nice as she can be,&rdquo; declared Hephzy. &ldquo;If it wasn't that she
+      says 'Fancy!' and 'Really!' instead of 'My gracious!' and 'I want to
+      know!' I should think I was talking to a Cape Codder, the best kind of
+      one. She's got sense, too. SHE don't ask about 'red Indians' in Bayport.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the multitude of our new experiences we learned the value of a
+      judicious &ldquo;tip.&rdquo; We had learned something concerning tips on the
+      &ldquo;Plutonia&rdquo;; Campbell had coached us concerning those, and we were provided
+      with a schedule of rates&mdash;so much to the bedroom steward, so much to
+      the stewardess, to the deck steward, to the &ldquo;boots,&rdquo; and all the rest. But
+      tipping in London we were obliged to adjust for ourselves, and the result
+      of our education was surprising.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At Saint Paul's an elderly and impressively haughty person in a black robe
+      showed us through the Crypt and delivered learned lectures before the
+      tombs of Nelson and Wellington. His appearance and manner were somewhat
+      awe-inspiring, especially to Hephzy, who asked me, in a whisper, if I
+      thought likely he was a bishop or a canon or something. When the round was
+      ended and we were leaving the Crypt she saw me put a hand in my pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mercy sakes, Hosy,&rdquo; she whispered. &ldquo;You aren't goin' to offer him money,
+      are you? He'll be insulted. I'd as soon think of givin' Mr. Partridge, our
+      minister, money for takin' us to the cemetery to see the first settlers'
+      gravestones. Don't you do it. He'll throw it back at you. I'll be so
+      ashamed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But I had been watching our fellow-sight-seers as they filed out, and when
+      our time came I dropped two shillings in the hand of the black-robed
+      dignitary. The hand did not spurn the coins, which I&mdash;rather timidly,
+      I confess&mdash;dropped into it. Instead it closed upon them tightly and
+      the haughty lips thanked me, not profusely, not even smilingly, but
+      thanked me, nevertheless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At our visit to the Law Courts a similar experience awaited us. Another
+      dignified and elderly person, who, judging by his appearance, should have
+      been a judge at least, not only accepted the shilling I gave him, but
+      bowed, smiled and offered to conduct us to the divorce court.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A very interesting case there, sir, just now,&rdquo; he murmured, confidingly.
+      &ldquo;Very interesting and sensational indeed, sir. You and the lady will enjoy
+      it, I'm sure, sir. All Americans do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was indignant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well!&rdquo; she exclaimed, as we emerged upon the Strand. &ldquo;Well! I must say!
+      What sort of folks does he think we are, I'd like to know. Divorce case!
+      I'd be ashamed to hear one. And that old man bein' so wicked and
+      ridiculous for twenty-five cents! Hosy, I do believe if you'd given him
+      another shillin' he'd have introduced us to that man in the red robe and
+      cotton wool wig&mdash;What did he call him?&mdash;Oh, yes, the Lord Chief
+      Justice. And I suppose you'd have had to tip HIM, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The first two weeks of our stay in London came to an end. Our plans were
+      still as indefinite as ever. How long we should stay, where we should go
+      next, what we should do when we decided where that &ldquo;next&rdquo; was to be&mdash;all
+      these questions we had not considered at all. I, for my part, was
+      curiously uninterested in the future. I was enjoying myself in an idle,
+      irresponsible way, and I could not seem to concentrate my thoughts upon a
+      definite course of action. If I did permit myself to think I found my
+      thoughts straying to my work and there they faced the same impassable
+      wall. I felt no inclination to write; I was just as certain as ever that I
+      should never write again. Thinking along this line only brought back the
+      old feeling of despondency. So I refused to think and, taking Jim's
+      advice, put work and responsibility from my mind. We would remain in
+      London as long as we were contented there. When the spirit moved we would
+      move with it&mdash;somewhere&mdash;either about England or to the
+      Continent. I did not know which and I did not care; I did not seem to care
+      much about anything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was perfectly happy. London to her was as wonderful as ever. She
+      never tired of sight-seeing, and on occasions when I felt disinclined to
+      leave the hotel she went out alone, shopping or wandering about the
+      streets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She scarcely mentioned &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; and I took care not to remind her of
+      that mythical youth. I had expected her to see him on every street corner,
+      to be brought face to face with unsuspecting young Englishmen and made to
+      ask ridiculous questions which might lead to our being taken in charge as
+      a pair of demented foreigners. But my forebodings were not realized.
+      London was so huge and the crowds so great that even Hephzy's courage
+      faltered. To select Little Frank from the multitude was a task too great,
+      even for her, I imagine. At any rate, she did not make the attempt, and
+      the belief that we were &ldquo;sent&rdquo; upon our pilgrimage for that express
+      purpose she had not expressed since our evening on the train.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The third week passed. I was growing tired of trotting about. Not tired of
+      London in particular. The gray, dingy, historic, wonderful old city was
+      still fascinating. It is hard to conceive of an intelligent person's ever
+      growing weary of the narrow streets with the familiar names&mdash;Fleet
+      Street, Fetter Lane, Pudding Lane and all the rest&mdash;names as familiar
+      to a reader of history or English fiction as that of his own town. To
+      wander into an unknown street and to learn that it is Shoreditch, or to
+      look up at an ancient building and discover it to be the Charterhouse,
+      were ever fresh miracles to me, as I am sure they must be to every
+      book-loving American. No, I was not tired of London. Had I come there
+      under other circumstances I should have been as happy and content as
+      Hephzy herself. But, now that the novelty was wearing off, I was beginning
+      to think again, to think of myself&mdash;the very thing I had determined,
+      and still meant, not to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One afternoon I drifted into the Camford Street office. Hephzy had left me
+      at Piccadilly Circus and was now, it was safe to presume, enjoying a
+      delightful sojourn amid the shops of Regent and Oxford Streets. When she
+      returned she would have a half-dozen purchases to display, a two-and-six
+      glove bargain from Robinson's, a bit of lace from Selfridge's, a
+      knick-knack from Liberty's&mdash;&ldquo;All so MUCH cheaper than you can get 'em
+      in Boston, Hosy.&rdquo; She would have had a glorious time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Matthews, the manager at Camford Street, was out, but Holton, the head
+      clerk&mdash;I was learning to speak of him as a &ldquo;clark&rdquo;&mdash;was in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are some American letters for you, sir,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I was about to
+      send them to your hotel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He gave me the letters&mdash;four of them altogether&mdash;and I went into
+      the private office to look them over. My first batch of mail from home; it
+      gave me a small thrill to see two-cent stamps in the corners of the
+      envelopes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the letters was from Campbell. I opened it first of all. Jim wrote
+      a rambling, good-humored letter, a mixture of business, news, advice and
+      nonsense. &ldquo;The Black Brig&rdquo; had gone into another edition. Considering my
+      opinion of such &ldquo;slush&rdquo; I should be ashamed to accept the royalties, but
+      he would continue to give my account credit for them until I cabled to the
+      contrary. He trusted we were behaving ourselves in a manner which would
+      reflect credit upon our country. I was to be sure not to let Hephzy marry
+      a title. And so on, for six pages. The letter was almost like a chat with
+      Jim himself, and I read it with chuckles and a pang of homesickness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the envelopes bore Hephzy's name and I, of course, did not open it.
+      It was postmarked &ldquo;Bayport&rdquo; and I thought I recognized the handwriting as
+      Susanna Wixon's. The third letter turned out to be not a letter at all,
+      but a bill from Sylvanus Cahoon, who took care of our &ldquo;lots&rdquo; in the
+      Bayport cemetery. It had been my intention to pay all bills before leaving
+      home, but, somehow or other, Sylvanus's had been overlooked. I must send
+      him a check at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fourth and last envelope was stained and crumpled. It had traveled a
+      long way. To my surprise I noticed that the stamp in the corner was
+      English and the postmark &ldquo;London.&rdquo; The address, moreover, was &ldquo;Captain
+      Barnabas Cahoon, Bayport, Massachusetts, U. S. A.&rdquo; The letter had
+      obviously been mailed in London, had journeyed to Bayport, from there to
+      New York, and had then been forwarded to London again. Someone, presumably
+      Simmons, the postmaster, had written &ldquo;Care Hosea Knowles&rdquo; and my
+      publisher's New York address in the lower corner. This had been scratched
+      out and &ldquo;28 Camford Street, London, England,&rdquo; added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at the envelope. Who in the world, or in England, could have
+      written Captain Barnabas&mdash;Captain Barnabas Cahoon, my great-uncle,
+      dead so many years? At first I was inclined to hand the letter, unopened,
+      to Hephzy. She was Captain Barnabas's daughter and it belonged to her by
+      right. But I knew Hephzy had no secrets from me and, besides, my curiosity
+      was great. At length I yielded to it and tore open the envelope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Inside was a sheet of thin foreign paper, both sides covered with writing.
+      I read the first line.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Captain Barnabas Cahoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are my nearest relative, my mother's father, and I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I uttered an exclamation. Then I stepped to the door of the private
+      office, made sure that it was shut, came back, sat down in the chair
+      before the desk which Mr. Matthews had put at my disposal, and read the
+      letter from beginning to end. This is what I read:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Captain Barnabas Cahoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are my nearest relative, my mother's father, and I, therefore,
+      address this letter to you. I know little concerning you. I do not know
+      even that you are still living in Bayport, or that you are living at all.
+      (N.B. In case Captain Cahoon is not living this letter is to be read and
+      acted upon by his heirs, upon whose estate I have an equal claim.) My
+      mother, Ardelia Cahoon Morley, died in Liverpool in 1896. My father,
+      Strickland Morley, died in Paris in December, 1908. I, as their only
+      child, am their heir, and I am writing to you asking what I might demand&mdash;that
+      is, a portion of the money which was my mother's and which you kept from
+      her and from my father all these years. My father told me the whole story
+      before he died, and he also told me that he had written you several times,
+      but that his letters had been ignored. My father was an English gentleman
+      and he was proud; that is why he did not take legal steps against you for
+      the recovery of what was his by law in England OR ANY CIVILISED COUNTRY,
+      one may presume. He would not STOOP to such measures even against those
+      who, as you know well, so meanly and fraudulently deprived him and his of
+      their inheritance. He is dead now. He died lacking the comforts and
+      luxuries with which you might and SHOULD have provided him. His
+      forbearance was wonderful and characteristic, but had I known of it sooner
+      I should have insisted upon demanding from you the money which was his. I
+      am now demanding it myself. Not BEGGING; that I wish THOROUGHLY
+      understood. I am giving you the opportunity to make a partial restitution,
+      that is all. It is what he would have wished, and his wish ALONE prevents
+      my putting the whole matter in my solicitor's hands. If I do not hear from
+      you within a reasonable time I shall know what to do. You may address me
+      care Mrs. Briggs, 218 &mdash;&mdash; Street, London, England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Awaiting your reply, I am, sir,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yours,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;FRANCIS STRICKLAND MORLEY. &ldquo;P. S.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not to be considered under ANY circumstances a subject for charity.
+      I am NOT begging. You, I am given to understand, are a wealthy man. I
+      demand my share of that wealth&mdash;that is all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I read this amazing epistle through once. Then, after rising and walking
+      about the office to make sure that I was thoroughly awake, I sat down and
+      read it again. There was no mistake. I had read it correctly. The writing
+      was somewhat illegible in spots and the signature was blotted, but it was
+      from Francis Strickland Morley. From &ldquo;Little Frank!&rdquo; I think my first and
+      greatest sensation was of tremendous surprise that there really was a
+      &ldquo;Little Frank.&rdquo; Hephzy had been right. Once more I should have to take off
+      my hat to Hephzy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The surprise remained, but other sensations came to keep it company. The
+      extraordinary fact of the letter's reaching me when and where it did, in
+      London, the city from which it was written and where, doubtless, the
+      writer still was. If I chose I might, perhaps, that very afternoon, meet
+      and talk with Ardelia Cahoon's son, with &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; himself. I could
+      scarcely realize it. Hephzy had declared that our coming to London was the
+      result of a special dispensation&mdash;we had been &ldquo;sent&rdquo; there. In the
+      face of this miracle I was not disposed to contradict her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The letter itself was more extraordinary than all else. It was that of a
+      young person, of a hot-headed boy. But WHAT a boy he must be! What an
+      unlicked, impudent, arrogant young cub! The boyishness was evident in
+      every line, in the underscored words, the pitiful attempt at dignity and
+      the silly veiled threats. He was so insistent upon the statement that he
+      was not a beggar. And yet he could write a begging letter like this. He
+      did not ask for charity, not he, he demanded it. Demanded it&mdash;he, the
+      son of a thief, demanded, from those whom his father had robbed, his
+      &ldquo;rights.&rdquo; He should have his rights; I would see to that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was angry enough but, as I read the letter for the third time, the
+      pitifulness of it became more apparent. I imagined Francis Strickland
+      Morley to be the replica of the Strickland Morley whom I remembered, the
+      useless, incompetent, inadequate son of a good-for-nothing father. No
+      doubt the father was responsible for such a letter as this having been
+      written. Doubtless he HAD told the boy all sorts of tales; perhaps he HAD
+      declared himself to be the defrauded instead of the defrauder; he was
+      quite capable of it. Possibly the youngster did believe he had a claim
+      upon the wealthy relatives in that &ldquo;uncivilized&rdquo; country, America. The
+      wealthy relatives! I thought of Captain Barnabas's last years, of
+      Hephzibah's plucky fight against poverty, of my own lost opportunities, of
+      the college course which I had been obliged to forego. My indignation
+      returned. I would not go back at once to Hephzy with the letter. I would,
+      myself, seek out the writer of that letter, and, if I found him, he and I
+      would have a heart to heart talk which should disabuse his mind of a few
+      illusions. We would have a full and complete understanding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hastily made a memorandum of the address, &ldquo;Care Mrs. Briggs,&rdquo; thrust the
+      letter back into the envelope, put it and my other mail into my pocket,
+      and walked out into the main office. Holton, the clerk, looked up from his
+      desk. Probably my feelings showed in my face, for he said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it, Mr. Knowles? No bad news, I trust, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; I answered, shortly. &ldquo;Where is &mdash;&mdash; Street? Is it far from
+      here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was rather far from there, in Camberwell, on the Surrey side of the
+      river. I might take a bus at such a corner and change again at so and so.
+      It sounded like a journey and I was impatient. I suggested that I might
+      take a cab. Certainly I could do that. William, the boy, would call a cab
+      at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      William did so and I gave the driver the address from my memoranda.
+      Through the Strand I was whirled, across Blackfriars Bridge and on through
+      the intricate web of avenues and streets on the Surrey side. The locality
+      did not impress me favorably. There was an abundance of &ldquo;pubs&rdquo; and of
+      fried-fish shops where &ldquo;jellied eels&rdquo; seemed to be a viand much in demand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &mdash;&mdash; Street, when I reached it, was dingy and third rate.
+      Three-storied old brick houses, with shops on their first floors,
+      predominated. Number 218 was one of these. The signs &ldquo;Lodgings&rdquo; over the
+      tarnished bell-pull and the name &ldquo;Briggs&rdquo; on the plate beside it proved
+      that I had located the house from which the letter had been sent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I paid my cabman, dismissed him, and rang the bell. A slouchy maid-servant
+      answered the ring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is Mr. Francis Morley in?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The maid looked at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wat, sir?&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does Mr. Francis Morley live here?&rdquo; I asked, raising my voice. &ldquo;Is he
+      in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The maid's face was as wooden as the door-post. Her mouth, already open,
+      opened still wider and she continued to stare. A step sounded in the dark
+      hall behind her and another voice said, sharply:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Oo is it, 'Arriet? And w'at does 'e want?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The maid grinned. &ldquo;'E wants to see MISTER Morley, ma'am,&rdquo; she said, with a
+      giggle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was pushed aside and a red-faced woman, with thin lips and scowl, took
+      her place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'OO do you want to see?&rdquo; she demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Francis Morley. Does he live here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'OO?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Francis Morley.&rdquo; My answer was sharp enough this time. I began to think I
+      had invaded a colony of imbeciles&mdash;or owls; their conversation seemed
+      limited to &ldquo;oos.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;W'at do you want to see&mdash;to see Morley for?&rdquo; demanded the red-faced
+      female.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On business. Is Mrs. Briggs in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm Mrs. Briggs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good! I'm glad of that. Now will you tell me if Mr. Morley is in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There ain't no Mr. Morley. There's a&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was interrupted. From the hall, apparently from the top of the flight
+      of stairs, another was heard, a feminine voice like the others, but unlike
+      them&mdash;decidedly unlike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is it, Mrs. Briggs?&rdquo; said this voice. &ldquo;Does the gentleman wish to see
+      me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, 'e don't,&rdquo; declared Mrs. Briggs, with emphasis. &ldquo;'E wants to see
+      Mister Morley and I'm telling 'im there ain't none such.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But are you sure he doesn't mean Miss Morley? Ask him, please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Before the Briggs woman could reply I spoke again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to see a Francis Morley,&rdquo; I repeated, loudly. &ldquo;I have come here in
+      answer to a letter. The letter gave this as his address. If he isn't here,
+      will you be good enough to tell me where he is? I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was another interruption, an exclamation from the darkness behind
+      Mrs. Briggs and the maid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; said the third voice, with a little catch in it. &ldquo;Who is it, please?
+      Who is it? What is the person's name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Briggs scowled at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wat's your name?&rdquo; she snapped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My name is Knowles. I am an American relative of Mr. Morley's and I'm
+      here in answer to a letter written by Mr. Morley himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a moment's silence. Then the third voice said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ask&mdash;ask him to come up. Show him up, Mrs. Briggs, if you please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Briggs grunted and stepped aside. I entered the hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;First floor back,&rdquo; mumbled the landlady. &ldquo;Straight as you go. You won't
+      need any showin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I mounted the stairs. The landing at the top was dark, but the door at the
+      rear was ajar. I knocked. A voice, the same voice I had heard before, bade
+      me come in. I entered the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a dingy little room, sparely furnished, with a bed and two chairs,
+      a dilapidated washstand and a battered bureau. I noticed these afterwards.
+      Just then my attention was centered upon the occupant of the room, a young
+      woman, scarcely more than a girl, dark-haired, dark-eyed, slender and
+      graceful. She was standing by the bureau, resting one hand upon it, and
+      gazing at me, with a strange expression, a curious compound of fright,
+      surprise and defiance. She did not speak. I was embarrassed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon,&rdquo; I stammered. &ldquo;I am afraid there is some mistake. I
+      came here in answer to a letter written by a Francis Morley, who is&mdash;well,
+      I suppose he is a distant relative of mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stepped forward and closed the door by which I had entered. Then she
+      turned and faced me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are an American,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I am an American. I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She interrupted me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you&mdash;do you come from&mdash;from Bayport, Massachusetts?&rdquo; she
+      faltered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I stared at her. &ldquo;Why, yes,&rdquo; I admitted. &ldquo;I do come from Bayport. How in
+      the world did you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was the letter you speak of addressed to Captain Barnabas Cahoon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then&mdash;then there isn't any mistake. I wrote it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I imagine that my mouth opened as wide as the maid's had done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You!&rdquo; I exclaimed. &ldquo;Why&mdash;why&mdash;it was written by Francis Morley&mdash;Francis
+      Strickland Morley.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am Frances Strickland Morley.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I heard this, of course, but I did not comprehend it. I had been working
+      along the lines of a fixed idea. Now that idea had been knocked into a
+      cocked hat, and my intellect had been knocked with it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why&mdash;why, no,&rdquo; I repeated, stupidly. &ldquo;Francis Morley is the son of
+      Strickland Morley.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was no son,&rdquo; impatiently. &ldquo;I am Frances Morley, I tell you. I am
+      Strickland Morley's daughter. I wrote that letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I sat down upon the nearest of the two chairs. I was obliged to sit. I
+      could not stand and face the fact which, at least, even my benumbed brain
+      was beginning to comprehend. The mistake was a simple one, merely the
+      difference between an &ldquo;i&rdquo; and an &ldquo;e&rdquo; in a name, that was all. And yet that
+      mistake&mdash;that slight difference between &ldquo;Francis&rdquo; and &ldquo;Frances&rdquo;&mdash;explained
+      the amazing difference between the Little Frank of Hephzibah's fancy and
+      the reality before me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The real Little Frank was a girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which a Dream Becomes a Reality
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      I said nothing immediately. I could not. It was &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; who resumed
+      the conversation. &ldquo;Who are you?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who&mdash;I beg your pardon? I am rather upset, I'm afraid. I didn't
+      expect&mdash;that is, I expected.... Well, I didn't expect THIS! What was
+      it you asked me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I asked you who you were.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My name is Knowles&mdash;Kent Knowles. I am Captain Cahoon's
+      grand-nephew.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His grand-nephew. Then&mdash;Did Captain Cahoon send you to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Send me! I beg your pardon once more. No.... No. Captain Cahoon is dead.
+      He has been dead nearly ten years. No one sent me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then why did you come? You have my letter; you said so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; I&mdash;I have your letter. I received it about an hour ago. It was
+      forwarded to me&mdash;to my cousin and me&mdash;here in London.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here in London! Then you did not come to London in answer to that
+      letter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. My cousin and I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What cousin? What is his name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His name? It isn't a&mdash;That is, the cousin is a woman. She is Miss
+      Hephzibah Cahoon, your&mdash;your mother's half-sister. She is&mdash;Why,
+      she is your aunt!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a fact; Hephzibah was this young lady's aunt. I don't know why that
+      seemed so impossible and ridiculous, but it did. The young lady herself
+      seemed to find it so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My aunt?&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;I didn't know&mdash;But&mdash;but, why is my&mdash;my
+      aunt here with you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are on a pleasure trip. We&mdash;I beg your pardon. What have I been
+      thinking of? Don't stand. Please sit down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She accepted the invitation. As she walked toward the chair it seemed to
+      me that she staggered a little. I noticed then for the first time, how
+      very slender she was, almost emaciated. There were dark hollows beneath
+      her eyes and her face was as white as the bed-linen&mdash;No, I am wrong;
+      it was whiter than Mrs. Briggs' bed-linen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you ill?&rdquo; I asked involuntarily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not answer. She seated herself in the chair and fixed her dark
+      eyes upon me. They were large eyes and very dark. Hephzy said, when she
+      first saw them, that they looked like &ldquo;burnt holes in a blanket.&rdquo; Perhaps
+      they did; that simile did not occur to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have read my letter?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was evident that I must have read the letter or I should not have
+      learned where to find her, but I did not call attention to this. I said
+      simply that I had read the letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then what do you propose?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Propose?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; impatiently. &ldquo;What proposition do you make me? If you have read the
+      letter you must know what I mean. You must have come here for the purpose
+      of saying something, of making some offer. What is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was speechless. I had come there to find an impudent young blackguard
+      and tell him what I thought of him. That was as near a definite reason for
+      my coming as any. If I had not acted upon impulse, if I had stopped to
+      consider, it is quite likely that I should not have come at all. But the
+      blackguard was&mdash;was&mdash;well, he was not and never had been. In his
+      place was this white-faced, frail girl. I couldn't tell her what I thought
+      of her. I didn't know what to think.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She waited for me to answer and, as I continued to play the dumb idiot,
+      her impatience grew. Her brows&mdash;very dark brown they were, almost
+      black against the pallor of her face&mdash;drew together and her foot
+      began to pat the faded carpet. &ldquo;I am waiting,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I realized that I must say something, so I said the only thing which
+      occurred to me. It was a question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your father is dead?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She nodded. &ldquo;My letter told you that,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;He died in Paris
+      three years ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And&mdash;and had he no relatives here in England?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hesitated before replying. &ldquo;No near relatives whom he cared to
+      recognize,&rdquo; she answered haughtily. &ldquo;My father, Mr. Knowles was a
+      gentleman and, having been most unjustly treated by his own family, as
+      well as by OTHERS&rdquo;&mdash;with a marked emphasis on the word&mdash;&ldquo;he did
+      not stoop, even in his illness and distress, to beg where he should have
+      commanded.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! Oh, I see,&rdquo; I said, feebly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no reason why you should see. My father was the second son and&mdash;But
+      this is quite irrelevant. You, an American, can scarcely be expected to
+      understand English family customs. It is sufficient that, for reasons of
+      his own, my father had for years been estranged from his own people.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The air with which this was delivered was quite overwhelming. If I had not
+      known Strickland Morley, and a little of his history, I should have been
+      crushed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you have been quite alone since his death?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again she hesitated. &ldquo;For a time,&rdquo; she said, after a moment. &ldquo;I lived with
+      a married cousin of his in one of the London suburbs. Then I&mdash;But
+      really, Mr. Knowles, I cannot see that my private affairs need interest
+      you. As I understand it, this interview of ours is quite impersonal, in a
+      sense. You understand, of course&mdash;you must understand&mdash;that in
+      writing as I did I was not seeking the acquaintance of my mother's
+      relatives. I do not desire their friendship. I am not asking them for
+      anything. I am giving them the opportunity to do justice, to give me what
+      is my own&mdash;my OWN. If you don't understand this I&mdash;I&mdash;Oh,
+      you MUST understand it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose from the chair. Her eyes were flashing and she was trembling from
+      head to foot. Again I realized how weak and frail she was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must understand,&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;You MUST!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes,&rdquo; I said hastily. &ldquo;I think I&mdash;I suppose I understand your
+      feelings. But&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are no buts. Don't pretend there are. Do you think for one instant
+      that I am begging, asking you for HELP? YOU&mdash;of all the world!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This seemed personal enough, in spite of her protestations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you never met me before,&rdquo; I said, involuntarily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You never knew of my existence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stamped her foot. &ldquo;I knew of my American relatives,&rdquo; she cried,
+      scornfully. &ldquo;I knew of them and their&mdash;Oh, I cannot say the word!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your father told you&mdash;&rdquo; I began. She burst out at me like a flame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My father,&rdquo; she declared, &ldquo;was a brave, kind, noble man. Don't mention
+      his name to me. I won't have you speak of him. If it were not for his
+      forbearance and self-sacrifice you&mdash;all of you&mdash;would be&mdash;would
+      be&mdash;Oh, don't speak of my father! Don't!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To my amazement and utter discomfort she sank into the chair and burst
+      into tears. I was completely demoralized.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't, Miss Morley,&rdquo; I begged. &ldquo;Please don't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She continued to sob hysterically. To make matters worse sounds from
+      behind the closed door led me to think that someone&mdash;presumably that
+      confounded Mrs. Briggs&mdash;was listening at the keyhole.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't, Miss Morley,&rdquo; I pleaded. &ldquo;Don't!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My pleas were unavailing. The young lady sobbed and sobbed. I fidgeted on
+      the edge of my chair in an agony of mortified embarrassment. &ldquo;Don'ts&rdquo; were
+      quite useless and I could think of nothing else to say except &ldquo;Compose
+      yourself&rdquo; and that, somehow or other, was too ridiculously reminiscent of
+      Mr. Pickwick and Mrs. Bardell. It was an idiotic situation for me to be
+      in. Some men&mdash;men of experience with woman-kind&mdash;might have
+      known how to handle it, but I had had no such experience. It was all my
+      fault, of course; I should not have mentioned her father. But how was I to
+      know that Strickland Morley was a persecuted saint? I should have called
+      him everything but that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last I had an inspiration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are ill,&rdquo; I said, rising. &ldquo;I will call someone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That had the desired effect. My newly found third&mdash;or was it fourth
+      or fifth&mdash;cousin made a move in protest. She fought down her emotion,
+      her sobs ceased, and she leaned back in her chair looking paler and weaker
+      than ever. I should have pitied her if she had not been so superior and
+      insultingly scornful in her manner toward me. I&mdash;Well, yes, I did
+      pity her, even as it was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't,&rdquo; she said, in her turn. &ldquo;Don't call anyone. I am not ill&mdash;not
+      now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you have been,&rdquo; I put in, I don't know why.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have not been well for some time. But I am not ill. I am quite strong
+      enough to hear what you have to say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This might have been satisfactory if I had had anything to say. I had not.
+      She evidently expected me to express repentance for something or other and
+      make some sort of proposition. I was not repentant and I had no
+      proposition to make. But how was I to tell her that without bringing on
+      another storm? Oh, if I had had time to consider. If I had not come alone.
+      If Hephzy,&mdash;cool-headed, sensible Hephzy&mdash;were only with me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo; I began. Then desperately: &ldquo;I scarcely know what to
+      say, Miss Morley,&rdquo; I faltered. &ldquo;I came here, as I told you, expecting to
+      find a&mdash;a&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, pray?&rdquo; with a haughty lift of the dark eyebrows. &ldquo;What did you
+      expect to find, may I ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing&mdash;that is, I&mdash;Well, never mind that. I came on the spur
+      of the moment, immediately after receiving your letter. I have had no time
+      to think, to consult my&mdash;your aunt&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What has my&mdash;AUNT&rdquo; with withering emphasis, &ldquo;to do with it? Why
+      should you consult her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, she is your mother's nearest relative, I suppose. She is Captain
+      Cahoon's daughter and at least as much interested as I. I must consult
+      her, of course. But, frankly, Miss Morley, I think I ought to tell you
+      that you are under a misapprehension. There are matters which you don't
+      understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I understand everything. I understand only too well. What do you mean by
+      a misapprehension? Do you mean&mdash;do you dare to insinuate that my
+      father did not tell me the truth?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no, no,&rdquo; I interrupted. That was exactly what I did mean, but I was
+      not going to let the shade of the departed Strickland appear again until I
+      was out of that room and house. &ldquo;I am not insinuating anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am very glad to hear it. I wish you to know that I perfectly understand
+      EVERYTHING.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That seemed to settle it; at any rate it settled me for the time. I took
+      up my hat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Morley,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;I can't discuss this matter further just now. I
+      must consult my cousin first. She and I will call upon you to-morrow at
+      any hour you may name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was disappointed; that was plain. I thought for the moment that she
+      was going to break down again. But she did not; she controlled her
+      feelings and faced me firmly and pluckily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At nine&mdash;no, at ten to-morrow, then,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I shall expect your
+      final answer then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will come? Of course; I am forgetting. You said you would.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will be here at ten. Here is my address.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I gave her my card, scribbling the street and number of Bancroft's in
+      pencil in the corner. She took the card.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you. Good afternoon,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I said &ldquo;Good afternoon&rdquo; and opened the door. The hall outside was empty,
+      but someone was descending the stairs in a great hurry. I descended also.
+      At the top step I glanced once more into the room I had just left. Frances
+      Strickland Morley&mdash;Little Frank&mdash;was seated in the chair, one
+      hand before her eyes. Her attitude expressed complete weariness and utter
+      collapse. She had said she was not sick, but she looked sick&mdash;she did
+      indeed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Harriet, the slouchy maid, was not in evidence, so I opened the street
+      door for myself. As I reached the sidewalk&mdash;I suppose, as this was
+      England, I should call it the &ldquo;pavement&rdquo;&mdash;I was accosted by Mrs.
+      Briggs. She was out of breath; I am quite sure she had reached that
+      pavement but the moment before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Ow is she?&rdquo; demanded Mrs. Briggs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who?&rdquo; I asked, not too politely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That Morley one. Is she goin' to be hill again?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do I know? Has she been sick&mdash;ill, I mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Huh! Hill! 'Er? Now, now, sir! I give you my word she's been hill hever
+      since she came 'ere. I thought one time she was goin' to die on my 'ands.
+      And 'oo was to pay for 'er buryin', I'd like to know? That's w'at it is!
+      'Oo's goin' to pay for 'er buryin' and the food she eats; to say nothin'
+      of 'er room money, and that's been owin' me for a matter of three weeks?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How should I know who is going to pay for it? She will, I suppose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She! W'at with? She ain't got a bob to bless 'erself with, she ain't.
+      She's broke, stony broke. Honly for my kind 'eart she'd a been out on the
+      street afore this. That and 'er tellin' me she was expectin' money from
+      'er rich friends in the States. You're from the States, ain't you, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. But do you mean to tell me that Miss Morley has no money of her
+      own?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I mean it. W'en she come 'ere she told me she was on the stage.
+      A hopera singer, she said she was. She 'ad money then, enough to pay 'er
+      way, she 'ad. She was expectin' to go with some troupe or other, but she
+      never 'as. Oh, them stage people! Don't I know 'em? Ain't I 'ad experience
+      of 'em? A woman as 'as let lodgin's as long as me? If it wasn't for them
+      rich friends in the States I 'ave never put up with 'er the way I 'ave.
+      You're from the States, ain't you, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes, I'm from the States. Now, see here, Mrs. Briggs; I'm coming
+      back here to-morrow. If&mdash;Well, if Miss Morley needs anything, food or
+      medicines or anything, in the meantime, you see that she has them. I'll
+      pay you when I come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Briggs actually smiled. She would have patted my arm if I had not
+      jerked it out of the way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You trust me, sir,&rdquo; she whispered, confidingly. &ldquo;You trust my kind 'eart.
+      I'll look after 'er like she was my own daughter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I should have hated to trust even my worst enemy&mdash;if I had one&mdash;to
+      Mrs. Briggs' &ldquo;kind heart.&rdquo; I walked off in disgust. I found a cab at the
+      next corner and, bidding the driver take me to Bancroft's, threw myself
+      back on the cushions. This was a lovely mess! This was a beautiful climax
+      to the first act&mdash;no, merely the prologue&mdash;of the drama of
+      Hephzy's and my pilgrimage. What would Jim Campbell say to this? I was to
+      be absolutely care-free; I was not to worry about myself or anyone else.
+      That was the essential part of his famous &ldquo;prescription.&rdquo; And now, here I
+      was, with this impossible situation and more impossible young woman on my
+      hands. If Little Frank had been a boy, a healthy boy, it would be bad
+      enough. But Little Frank was a girl&mdash;a sick girl, without a penny.
+      And a girl thoroughly convinced that she was the rightful heir to goodness
+      knows how much wealth&mdash;wealth of which we, the uncivilized,
+      unprincipled natives of an unprincipled, uncivilized country, had robbed
+      her parents and herself. Little Frank had been a dream before; now he&mdash;she,
+      I mean&mdash;was a nightmare; worse than that, for one wakes from a
+      nightmare. And I was on my way to tell Hephzy!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, I told her. She was in our sitting-room when I reached the hotel and
+      I told her the whole story. I began by reading the letter. Before she had
+      recovered from the shock of the reading, I told her that I had actually
+      met and talked with Little Frank; and while this astounding bit of news
+      was, so to speak, soaking into her bewildered brain, I went on to impart
+      the crowning item of information&mdash;namely, that Little Frank was Miss
+      Frances. Then I sat back and awaited what might follow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her first coherent remark was one which I had not expected&mdash;and I had
+      expected almost anything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Hosy,&rdquo; gasped Hephzy, &ldquo;tell me&mdash;tell me before you say anything
+      else. Does he&mdash;she, I mean&mdash;look like Ardelia?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh? What?&rdquo; I stammered. &ldquo;Look like&mdash;look like what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not what&mdash;who. Does she look like Ardelia? Like her mother? Oh, I
+      HOPE she doesn't favor her father's side! I did so want our Little Frank
+      to look like his&mdash;her&mdash;I CAN'T get used to it&mdash;like my poor
+      Ardelia. Does she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Goodness knows! I don't know who she looks like. I didn't notice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You didn't! I should have noticed that before anything else. What kind of
+      a girl is she? Is she pretty?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know. She isn't ugly, I should say. I wasn't particularly
+      interested in her looks. The fact that she was at all was enough; I
+      haven't gotten over that yet. What are we going to do with her? Or are we
+      going to do anything? Those are the questions I should like to have
+      answered. For heaven's sake, Hephzy, don't talk about her personal
+      appearance. There she is and here are we. What are we going to do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy shook her head. &ldquo;I don't know, Hosy,&rdquo; she admitted. &ldquo;I don't know,
+      I'm sure. This is&mdash;this is&mdash;Oh, didn't I tell you we were SENT&mdash;sent
+      by Providence!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was silent. If we had been &ldquo;sent,&rdquo; as she called it, I was far from
+      certain that Providence was responsible. I was more inclined to place the
+      responsibility in a totally different quarter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; she continued, &ldquo;I think you'd better tell me the whole thing
+      all over again, Hosy. Tell it slow and don't leave out a word. Tell me
+      what sort of place she was in and what she said and how she looked, as
+      near as you can remember. I'll try and pay attention; I'll try as hard as
+      I can. It'll be a job. All I can think of now is that to-morrow mornin'&mdash;only
+      to-morrow mornin'&mdash;I'm going to see Little Frank&mdash;Ardelia's
+      Little Frank.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I complied with her request, giving every detail of my afternoon's
+      experience. I reread the letter, and handed it to her, that she might read
+      it herself. I described Mrs. Briggs and what I had seen of Mrs. Briggs'
+      lodging-house. I described Miss Morley as best I could, dark eyes, dark
+      hair and the look of weakness and frailty. I repeated our conversation
+      word for word; I had forgotten nothing of that. Hephzy listened in
+      silence. When I had finished she sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The poor thing,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I do pity her so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pity her!&rdquo; I exclaimed. &ldquo;Well, perhaps I pity her, too, in a way. But my
+      pity and yours don't alter the situation. She doesn't want pity. She
+      doesn't want help. She flew at me like a wildcat when I asked if she was
+      ill. Her personal affairs, she says, are not ours; she doesn't want our
+      acquaintance or our friendship. She has gotten some crazy notion in her
+      head that you and I and Uncle Barnabas have cheated her out of an
+      inheritance, and she wants that! Inheritance! Good Lord! A fine
+      inheritance hers is! Daughter of the man who robbed us of everything we
+      had.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know&mdash;I know. But SHE doesn't know, does she, Hosy. Her father
+      must have told her&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He told her a barrel of lies, of course. What they were I can't imagine,
+      but that fellow was capable of anything. Know! No, she doesn't know now,
+      but she will have to know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you goin' to tell her, Hosy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I stared in amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell her!&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;What do you mean? You don't intend letting her
+      think that WE are the thieves, do you? That's what she thinks now. Of
+      course I shall tell her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will be awful hard to tell. She worshipped her father, I guess. He was
+      a dreadful fascinatin' man, when he wanted to be. He could make a body
+      believe black was white. Poor Ardelia thought he was&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't help that. I'm not Ardelia.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know, but she is Ardelia's child. Hosy, if you are so set on tellin'
+      her why didn't you tell her this afternoon? It would have been just as
+      easy then as to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was a staggerer. A truthful answer would be so humiliating. I had not
+      told Frances Morley that her father was a thief and a liar because I
+      couldn't muster courage to do it. She had seemed so alone and friendless
+      and ill. I lacked the pluck to face the situation. But I could not tell
+      Hephzy this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why didn't you tell her?&rdquo; she repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, bosh!&rdquo; I exclaimed, impatiently. &ldquo;This is nonsense and you know it,
+      Hephzy. She'll have to be told and you and I must tell her. DON'T look at
+      me like that. What else are we to do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Another shake of the head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know. I can't decide any more than you can, Hosy. What do YOU
+      think we should do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With which unsatisfactory remark this particular conversation ended. I
+      went to my room to dress for dinner. I had no appetite and dinner was not
+      appealing; but I did not want to discuss Little Frank any longer. I
+      mentally cursed Jim Campbell a good many times that evening and during the
+      better part of a sleepless night. If it were not for him I should be in
+      Bayport instead of London. From a distance of three thousand miles I
+      could, without the least hesitancy, have told Strickland Morley's &ldquo;heir&rdquo;
+       what to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy did not come down to dinner at all. From behind the door of her
+      room she told me, in a peculiar tone, that she could not eat. I could not
+      eat, either, but I made the pretence of doing so. The next morning, at
+      breakfast in the sitting-room, we were a silent pair. I don't know what
+      George, the waiter, thought of us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At a quarter after nine I turned away from the window through which I had
+      been moodily regarding the donkey cart of a flower huckster in the street
+      below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'd better get on your things,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;It is time for us to go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy donned her hat and wrap. Then she came over to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't be cross, Hosy,&rdquo; she pleaded. &ldquo;I've been thinkin' it over all night
+      long and I've come to the conclusion that you are probably right. She
+      hasn't any real claim on us, of course; it's the other way around, if
+      anything. You do just as you think best and I'll back you up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you agree that we should tell her the truth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, if you think so. I'm goin' to leave it all in your hands. Whatever
+      you do will be right. I'll trust you as I always have.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a big responsibility, it seemed to me. I did wish she had been more
+      emphatic. However, I set my teeth and resolved upon a course of action.
+      Pity and charity and all the rest of it I would not consider. Right was
+      right, and justice was justice. I would end a disagreeable business as
+      quickly as I could.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Briggs' lodging-house, viewed from the outside, was no more inviting
+      at ten in the morning than it had been at four in the afternoon. I
+      expected Hephzy to make some comment upon the dirty steps and the still
+      dirtier front door. She did neither. We stood together upon the steps and
+      I rang the bell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Briggs herself opened the door. I think she had been watching from
+      behind the curtains and had seen our cab draw up at the curb. She was in a
+      state of great agitation, a combination of relieved anxiety, excitement
+      and overdone politeness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good mornin', sir,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;and good mornin', lady. I've been
+      expectin' you, and so 'as she, poor dear. I thought one w'ile she was that
+      hill she couldn't see you, but Lor' bless you, I've nursed 'er same as if
+      she was my own daughter. I told you I would sir, now didn't I.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      One word in this harangue caught my attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ill?&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;What do you mean? Is she worse than she was
+      yesterday?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Briggs held up her hands. &ldquo;Worse!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Why, bless your 'art,
+      sir, she was quite well yesterday. Quite 'erself, she was, when you come.
+      But after you went away she seemed to go all to pieces like. W'en I went
+      hup to 'er, to carry 'er 'er tea&mdash;She always 'as 'er tea; I've been a
+      mother to 'er, I 'ave&mdash;she'll tell you so. W'en I went hup with the
+      tea there she was in a faint. W'ite as if she was dead. My word, sir, I
+      was frightened. And all night she's been tossin' about, a-cryin' out and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is she now?&rdquo; put in Hephzy, sharply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's in 'er room ma'am. Dressed she is; she would dress, knowin' of your
+      comin', though I told 'er she shouldn't. She's dressed, but she's lyin'
+      down. She would 'ave tried to sit hup, but THAT I wouldn't 'ave, ma'am.
+      'Now, dearie,' I told 'er&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But I would not hear any more. As for Hephzy she was in the dingy front
+      hall already.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall we go up?&rdquo; I asked, impatiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of COURSE you're to go hup. She's a-waitin' for you. But sir&mdash;sir,&rdquo;
+       she caught my sleeve; &ldquo;if you think she's goin' to be ill and needin' the
+      doctor, just pass the word to me. A doctor she shall 'ave, the best there
+      is in London. All I ask you is to pay&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I heard no more. Hephzy was on her way up the stairs and I followed. The
+      door of the first floor back was closed. I rapped upon it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come in,&rdquo; said the voice I remembered, but now it sounded weaker than
+      before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy looked at me. I nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You go first,&rdquo; I whispered. &ldquo;You can call me when you are ready.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy opened the door and entered the room. I closed the door behind her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Silence for what seemed a long, long time. Then the door opened again and
+      Hephzy appeared. Her cheeks were wet with tears. She put her arms about my
+      neck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Hosy,&rdquo; she whispered, &ldquo;she's real sick. And&mdash;and&mdash;Oh, Hosy,
+      how COULD you see her and not see! She's the very image of Ardelia. The
+      very image! Come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I followed her into the room. It was no brighter now, in the middle of a&mdash;for
+      London&mdash;bright forenoon, than it had been on my previous visit. Just
+      as dingy and forbidding and forlorn as ever. But now there was no defiant
+      figure erect to meet me. The figure was lying upon the bed, and the pale
+      cheeks of yesterday were flushed with fever. Miss Morley had looked far
+      from well when I first saw her; now she looked very ill indeed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She acknowledged my good-morning with a distant bow. Her illness had not
+      quenched her spirit, that was plain. She attempted to rise, but Hephzy
+      gently pushed her back upon the pillow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You stay right there,&rdquo; she urged. &ldquo;Stay right there. We can talk just as
+      well, and Mr. Knowles won't mind; will you, Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I stammered something or other. My errand, difficult as it had been from
+      the first, now seemed impossible. I had come there to say certain things&mdash;I
+      had made up my mind to say them; but how was I to say such things to a
+      girl as ill as this one was. I would not have said them to Strickland
+      Morley himself, under such circumstances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I am very sorry you are not well, Miss Morley,&rdquo; I faltered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She thanked me, but there was no warmth in the thanks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not well,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;but that need make no difference. I presume
+      you and this&mdash;this lady are prepared to make a definite proposition
+      to me. I am well enough to hear it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy and I looked at each other. I looked for help, but Hephzy's
+      expression was not helpful at all. It might have meant anything&mdash;or
+      nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Morley,&rdquo; I began. &ldquo;Miss Morley, I&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Morley, I&mdash;I don't know what to say to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose to a sitting posture. Hephzy again tried to restrain her, but
+      this time she would not be restrained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't know what to say?&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;Don't know what to say? Then why
+      did you come here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I came&mdash;we came because&mdash;because I promised we would come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But WHY did you come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy leaned toward her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please, please,&rdquo; she begged. &ldquo;Don't get all excited like this. You
+      mustn't. You'll make yourself sicker, you know. You must lie down and be
+      quiet. Hosy&mdash;oh, please, Hosy, be careful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Morley paid no attention. She was regarding me with eyes which looked
+      me through and through. Her thin hands clutched the bedclothes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;WHY did you come?&rdquo; she demanded. &ldquo;My letter was plain enough, certainly.
+      What I said yesterday was perfectly plain. I told you I did not wish your
+      acquaintance or your friendship. Friendship&mdash;&rdquo; with a blaze of scorn,
+      &ldquo;from YOU! I&mdash;I told you&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! hush! please don't,&rdquo; begged Hephzy. &ldquo;You mustn't. You're too weak
+      and sick. Oh, Hosy, do be careful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was quite willing to be careful&mdash;if I had known how.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;that this interview had better be postponed. Really,
+      Miss Morley, you are not in a condition to&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She sprang to her feet and stood there trembling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My condition has nothing to do with it,&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Oh, CAN'T I make you
+      understand! I am trying to be lenient, to be&mdash;to be&mdash;And you
+      come here, you and this woman, and try to&mdash;to&mdash;You MUST
+      understand! I don't want to know you. I don't want your pity! After your
+      treatment of my mother and my father, I&mdash;I&mdash;I... Oh!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She staggered, put her hands to her head, sank upon the bed, and then
+      collapsed in a dead faint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was at her side in a moment. She knew what to do if I did not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quick!&rdquo; she cried, turning to me. &ldquo;Send for the doctor; she has fainted.
+      Hurry! And send that&mdash;that Briggs woman to me. Don't stand there like
+      that. HURRY!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I found the Briggs woman in the lower hall. From her I learned the name
+      and address of the nearest physician, also the nearest public telephone.
+      Mrs. Briggs went up to Hephzy and I hastened out to telephone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Oh, those London telephones! After innumerable rings and &ldquo;Hellos&rdquo; from me,
+      and &ldquo;Are you theres&rdquo; from Central, I, at last, was connected with the
+      doctor's office and, by great good luck, with the doctor himself. He
+      promised to come at once. In ten minutes I met him at the door and
+      conducted him to the room above.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was in that room a long time. Meanwhile, I waited in the hall, pacing
+      up and down, trying to think my way through this maze. I had succeeded in
+      thinking myself still deeper into it when the physician reappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How is she?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is conscious again, but weak, of course. If she can be kept quiet and
+      have proper care and nourishment and freedom from worry she will,
+      probably, gain strength and health. There is nothing seriously wrong
+      physically, so far as I can see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was glad to hear that and said so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; he went on, &ldquo;her nerves are completely unstrung. She seems to
+      have been under a great mental strain and her surroundings are not&mdash;&rdquo;
+       He paused, and then added, &ldquo;Is the young lady a relative of yours?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ye&mdash;es, I suppose&mdash;She is a distant relative, yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! Has she no near relatives? Here in England, I mean. You and the
+      lady with you are Americans, I judge.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I ignored the last sentence. I could not see that our being Americans
+      concerned him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has no near relatives in England, so far as I know,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;Why
+      do you ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Merely because&mdash;Well, to be frank, because if she had such relatives
+      I should strongly recommend their taking charge of her. She is very weak
+      and in a condition where she knight become seriously ill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see. You mean that she should not remain here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do mean that, decidedly. This,&rdquo; with a wave of the hand and a glance
+      about the bare, dirty, dark hall, &ldquo;is not&mdash;Well, she seems to be a
+      young person of some refinement and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not finish the sentence, but I understood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see,&rdquo; I interrupted. &ldquo;And yet she is not seriously ill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not now&mdash;no. Her weakness is due to mental strain and&mdash;well, to
+      a lack of nutrition as much as anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lack of nutrition? You mean she hasn't had enough to eat!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Of course I can't be certain, but that would be my opinion if I were
+      forced to give one. At all events, she should be taken from here as soon
+      as possible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I reflected. &ldquo;A hospital?&rdquo; I suggested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She might be taken to a hospital, of course. But she is scarcely ill
+      enough for that. A good, comfortable home would be better. Somewhere where
+      she might have quiet and rest. If she had relatives I should strongly urge
+      her going to them. She should not be left to herself; I would not be
+      responsible for the consequences if she were. A person in her condition
+      might&mdash;might be capable of any rash act.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was plain enough, but it did not make my course of action plainer to
+      me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is she well enough to be moved&mdash;now?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. If she is not moved she is likely to be less well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I paid him for the visit; he gave me a prescription&mdash;&ldquo;To quiet the
+      nerves,&rdquo; he explained&mdash;and went away. I was to send for him whenever
+      his services were needed. Then I entered the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy and Mrs. Briggs were sitting beside the bed. The face upon the
+      pillow looked whiter and more pitiful than ever. The dark eyes were
+      closed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy signaled me to silence. She rose and tiptoed over to me. I led her
+      out into the hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's sort of dozin' now,&rdquo; she whispered. &ldquo;The poor thing is worn out.
+      What did the doctor say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I told her what the doctor had said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's just right,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;She's half starved, that's what's the
+      matter with her. That and frettin' and worryin' have just about killed
+      her. What are you goin' to do, Hosy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do I know!&rdquo; I answered, impatiently. &ldquo;I don't see exactly why we are
+      called upon to do anything. Do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;o, I&mdash;I don't know as we are called on. No&mdash;o. I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. I know how you feel, Hosy. Considerin' how her father treated us, I
+      won't blame you no matter what you do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Confound her father! I only wish it were he we had to deal with.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was silent. I took a turn up and down the hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The doctor says she should be taken away from here at once,&rdquo; I observed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy nodded. &ldquo;There's no doubt about that,&rdquo; she declared with emphasis.
+      &ldquo;I wouldn't trust a sick cat to that Briggs woman. She's a&mdash;well,
+      she's what she is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suggested a hospital, but he didn't approve,&rdquo; I went on. &ldquo;He
+      recommended some comfortable home with care and quiet and all the rest of
+      it. Her relatives should look after her, he said. She hasn't any relatives
+      that we know of, or any home to go to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again Hephzy was silent. I waited, growing momentarily more nervous and
+      fretful. Of all impossible situations this was the most impossible. And to
+      make it worse, Hephzy, the usually prompt, reliable Hephzy, was of no use
+      at all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do say something,&rdquo; I snapped. &ldquo;What shall we do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know, Hosy, dear. Why!... Where are you going?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm going to the drug-store to get this prescription filled. I'll be back
+      soon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The drug-store&mdash;it was a &ldquo;chemist's shop&rdquo; of course&mdash;was at the
+      corner. It was the chemist's telephone that I had used when I called the
+      doctor. I gave the clerk the prescription and, while he was busy with it,
+      I paced up and down the floor of the shop. At length I sat down before the
+      telephone and demanded a number.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I returned to the lodging-house I gave Hephzy the powders which the
+      chemist's clerk had prepared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is she any better?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's just about the same.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does she say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's too weak and sick to say anything. I don't imagine she knows or
+      cares what is happening to her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is she strong enough to get downstairs to a cab, or to ride in one
+      afterward?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess so. We could help her, you know. But, Hosy, what cab? What do you
+      mean? What are you going to do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm going to take her away from this
+      hole. I must. I don't want to; there's no reason why I should and every
+      reason why I shouldn't; but&mdash;Oh, well, confound it! I've got to. We
+      CAN'T let her starve and die here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But where are you going to take her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's only one place to take her; that's to Bancroft's. I've 'phoned
+      and engaged a room next to ours. She'll have to stay with us for the
+      present. Oh, I don't like it any better than you do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To my intense surprise, Hephzy threw her arms about my neck and hugged me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew you would, Hosy!&rdquo; she sobbed. &ldquo;I knew you would. I was dyin' to
+      have you, but I wouldn't have asked for the world. You're the best man
+      that ever lived. I knew you wouldn't leave poor Ardelia's little girl to&mdash;to&mdash;Oh,
+      I'm so grateful. You're the best man in the world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I freed myself from the embrace as soon as I could. I didn't feel like the
+      best man in the world. I felt like a Quixotic fool.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fortunately I was too busy for the next hour to think of my feelings.
+      Hephzy went in to arrange for the transfer of the invalid to the cab and
+      to collect and pack her most necessary belongings. I spent my time in a
+      financial wrangle with Mrs. Briggs. The number of items which that woman
+      wished included in her bill was surprising. Candles and soap&mdash;the
+      bill itself was the sole evidence of soap's ever having made its
+      appearance in that house&mdash;and washing and tea and food and goodness
+      knows what. The total was amazing. I verified the addition, or, rather,
+      corrected it, and then offered half of the sum demanded. This offer was
+      received with protestations, tears and voluble demands to know if I 'ad
+      the 'art to rob a lone widow who couldn't protect herself. Finally we
+      compromised on a three-quarter basis and Mrs. Briggs receipted the bill.
+      She said her kind disposition would be the undoing of her and she knew it.
+      She was too silly and soft-'arted to let lodgings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We had very little trouble in carrying or leading Little Frank to the cab.
+      The effect of the doctor's powders&mdash;they must have contained some
+      sort of opiate&mdash;was to render the girl only partially conscious of
+      what was going on and we got her to and into the vehicle without
+      difficulty. During the drive to Bancroft's she dozed on Hephzy's shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her room&mdash;it was next to Hephzy's, with a connecting door&mdash;was
+      ready and we led her up the stairs. Mr. and Mrs. Jameson were very kind
+      and sympathetic. They asked surprisingly few questions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor young lady,&rdquo; said Mr. Jameson, when he and I were together in our
+      sitting-room. &ldquo;She is quite ill, isn't she.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I admitted. &ldquo;It is not a serious illness, however. She needs quiet
+      and care more than anything else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir. We will do our best to see that she has both. A relative of
+      yours, sir, I think you said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A&mdash;a&mdash;my niece,&rdquo; I answered, on the spur of the moment. She was
+      Hephzy's niece, of course. As a matter of fact, she was scarcely related
+      to me. However, it seemed useless to explain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn't know you had English relatives, Mr. Knowles. I had been under
+      the impression that you and Miss Cahoon were strangers here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So had I, but I did not explain that, either. Mrs. Jameson joined us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She will sleep now, I think,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;She is quite quiet and peaceful.
+      A near relative of yours, Mr. Knowles?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is Mr. Knowles's niece,&rdquo; explained her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes. A sweet girl she seems. And very pretty, isn't she.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not answer. Mr. Jameson and his wife turned to go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I presume you will wish to communicate with her people,&rdquo; said the former.
+      &ldquo;Shall I send you telegram forms?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not now,&rdquo; I stammered. Telegrams! Her people! She had no people. We were
+      her people. We had taken her in charge and were responsible. And how and
+      when would that responsibility be shifted!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What on earth should we do with her?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy tiptoed in. Her expression was a curious one. She was very solemn,
+      but not sad; the solemnity was not that of sorrow, but appeared to be a
+      sort of spiritual uplift, a kind of reverent joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's asleep,&rdquo; she said, gravely; &ldquo;she's asleep, Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was precious little comfort in that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She'll wake up by and by,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;And then&mdash;what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Neither do I&mdash;now. But we shall have to know pretty soon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose we shall, but I can't&mdash;I can't seem to think of anything
+      that's ahead of us. All I can think is that my Little Frank&mdash;my
+      Ardelia's Little Frank&mdash;is here, here with us, at last.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And TO last, so far as I can see. Hephzy, for heaven's sake, do try to be
+      sensible. Do you realize what this means? As soon as she is well enough to
+      understand what has happened she will want to know what 'proposition' we
+      have to make. And when we tell her we have none to make, she'll probably
+      collapse again. And then&mdash;and then&mdash;what shall we do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know, Hosy. I declare I don't know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I strode into my own room and slammed the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damn!&rdquo; said I, with enthusiasm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo; queried Hephzy, from the sitting-room. &ldquo;What did you say, Hosy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not tell her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which the Pilgrims Become Tenants
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Two weeks later we left Bancroft's and went to Mayberry. Two weeks only,
+      and yet in that two weeks all our plans&mdash;if our indefinite visions of
+      irresponsible flitting about Great Britain and the continent might be
+      called plans&mdash;had changed utterly. Our pilgrimage was, apparently,
+      ended&mdash;it had become an indefinite stay. We were no longer pilgrims,
+      but tenants, tenants in an English rectory, of all places in the world. I,
+      the Cape Cod quahaug, had become an English country gentleman&mdash;or a
+      country gentleman in England&mdash;for the summer, at least.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Little Frank&mdash;Miss Frances Morley&mdash;was responsible for the
+      change, of course. Her sudden materialization and the freak of fortune
+      which had thrown her, weak and ill, upon our hands, were responsible for
+      everything. For how much more, how many other changes, she would be
+      responsible the future only could answer. And the future would answer in
+      its own good, or bad, time. My conundrum &ldquo;What are we going to do with
+      her?&rdquo; was as much of a puzzle as ever. For my part I gave it up.
+      Sufficient unto the day was the evil thereof&mdash;much more than
+      sufficient.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the first twenty-four hours following the arrival of &ldquo;my niece&rdquo; at
+      Bancroft's Hotel the situation regarding that niece remained as it was.
+      Miss Morley&mdash;or Frances&mdash;or Frank as Hephzy persisted in calling
+      her&mdash;was too ill to care what had happened, or, at least, to speak of
+      it. She spoke very little, was confined to her room and bed and slept the
+      greater part of the time. The doctor whom I called, on Mr. Jameson's
+      recommendation, confirmed his fellow practitioner's diagnosis; the young
+      lady, he said, was suffering from general weakness and the effect of
+      nervous strain. She needed absolute rest, care and quiet. There was no
+      organic disease.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But on the morning of the second day she was much better and willing, even
+      anxious to talk. She assailed Hephzy with questions and Hephzy, although
+      she tried to avoid answering most, was obliged to answer some of them. She
+      reported the interview to me during luncheon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She didn't seem to remember much about comin' here, or what happened
+      before or afterward,&rdquo; said Hephzy. &ldquo;But she wanted to know it all. I told
+      her the best I could. 'You couldn't stay there,' I said. 'That Briggs
+      hyena wasn't fit to take care of any human bein' and neither Hosy nor I
+      could leave you in her hands. So we brought you here to the hotel where
+      we're stoppin'.' She thought this over a spell and then she wanted to know
+      whose idea bringin' her here was, yours or mine. I said 'twas yours, and
+      just like you, too; you were the kindest-hearted man in the world, I said.
+      Oh, you needn't look at me like that, Hosy. It's the plain truth, and you
+      know it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph!&rdquo; I grunted. &ldquo;If the young lady were a mind-reader she might&mdash;well,
+      never mind. What else did she say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, a good many things. Wanted to know if her bill at Mrs. Briggs' was
+      paid. I said it was. She thought about that and then she gave me orders
+      that you and I were to keep account of every cent&mdash;no, penny&mdash;we
+      spent for her. She should insist upon that. If we had the idea that she
+      was a subject of charity we were mistaken. She fairly withered me with a
+      look from those big eyes of hers. Ardelia's eyes all over again! Or they
+      would be if they were blue instead of brown. I remember&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I cut short the reminiscence. I was in no mood to listen to the praises of
+      any Morley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What answer did you make to that?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What could I say? I didn't want any more faintin' spells or hysterics,
+      either. I said we weren't thinkin' of offerin' charity and if it would
+      please her to have us run an expense book we'd do it, of course. She asked
+      what the doctor said about her condition. I told her he said she must keep
+      absolutely quiet and not fret about anything or she'd have an awful
+      relapse. That was pretty strong but I meant it that way. Answerin'
+      questions that haven't got any answer to 'em is too much of a strain for
+      ME. You try it some time yourself and see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have tried it, thank you. Well, is that all? Did she tell you anything
+      about herself; where she has been or what she has been or what she has
+      been doing since her precious father died?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, not a word. I was dyin' to ask her, but I didn't. She says she wants
+      to talk with the doctor next time he comes, that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did talk with the doctor, although not during his next call. Several
+      days passed before he would permit her to talk with him. Meanwhile he and
+      I had several talks. What he told me brought my conundrum no nearer its
+      answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was recovering rapidly, he said, but for weeks at least her delicate
+      nervous organism must be handled with care. The slightest set-back would
+      be disastrous. He asked if we intended remaining at Bancroft's
+      indefinitely. I had no intentions&mdash;those I had had were wiped off my
+      mental slate&mdash;so I said I did not know, our future plans were vague.
+      He suggested a sojourn in the country, in some pleasant retired spot in
+      the rural districts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An out-of-door life, walks, rides and sports of all sorts would do your
+      niece a world of good, Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;She needs just that. A
+      very attractive young lady, sir, if you'll pardon my saying so,&rdquo; he went
+      on. &ldquo;Were her people Londoners, may I ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He might ask but I had no intention of telling him. What I knew concerning
+      my &ldquo;niece's&rdquo; people were things not usually told to strangers. I evaded
+      the question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has she had a recent bereavement?&rdquo; he queried. &ldquo;I hope you'll not think
+      me merely idly inquisitive. I cannot understand how a young woman,
+      normally healthy and well, should have been brought to such a strait. Our
+      English girls, Mr. Knowles, do not suffer from nerves, as I am told your
+      American young women so frequently do. Has your niece been in the States
+      with you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I said she had not. Incidentally I informed him that American young women
+      did NOT frequently suffer from nerves. He said &ldquo;Really,&rdquo; but he did not
+      believe me, I'm certain. He was a good fellow, and intelligent, but his
+      ideas of &ldquo;the States&rdquo; had been gathered, largely, I think, from newspapers
+      and novels. He was convinced that most Americans were confirmed neurotics
+      and dyspeptics, just as Hephzy had believed all Englishmen wore
+      side-whiskers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I changed the conversation as soon as I could. I could tell him so little
+      concerning my newly found &ldquo;niece.&rdquo; I knew about as much concerning her
+      life as he did. It is distinctly unpleasant to be uncle to someone you
+      know nothing at all about. I devoutly wished I had not said she was my
+      niece. I repeated that wish many times afterward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Morley's talk with the physician had definite results, surprising
+      results. Following that talk she sent word by the doctor that she wished
+      to see Hephzy and me. We went into her room. She was sitting in a chair by
+      the window, and was wearing a rather pretty wrapper, or kimono, or
+      whatever that sort of garment is called. At any rate, it was becoming. I
+      was obliged to admit that the general opinion expressed by the Jamesons
+      and Hephzy and the doctor&mdash;that she was pretty, was correct enough.
+      She was pretty, but that did not help matters any.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She asked us&mdash;no, she commanded us to sit down. Her manner was
+      decidedly business-like. She wasted no time in preliminaries, but came
+      straight to the point, and that point was the one which I had dreaded. She
+      asked us what decision we had reached concerning her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you decided what your offer is to be?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked at Hephzy and she at me. Neither of us derived comfort from the
+      exchange of looks. However, something must be done, or said, and I braced
+      myself to say it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Morley,&rdquo; I began, &ldquo;before I answer that question I should like to
+      ask you one. What do you expect us to do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She regarded me coldly. &ldquo;I expect,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;that you and this&mdash;that
+      you and Miss Cahoon will arrange to pay me the money which was my mother's
+      and which my grandfather should have turned over to her while he lived.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again I looked at Hephzy and again I braced myself for the scene which I
+      was certain would follow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is your impression then,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;that your mother had money of her
+      own and that Captain Barnabas, your grandfather, kept that money for his
+      own use.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not an impression,&rdquo; haughtily; &ldquo;I know it to be a fact.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you know it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My father told me so, during his last illness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was&mdash;pardon me&mdash;was your father himself at the time? Was he&mdash;er&mdash;rational?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rational! My father?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean&mdash;I mean was he himself&mdash;mentally? He was not delirious
+      when he told you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Delirious! Mr. Knowles, I am trying to be patient, but for the last time
+      I warn you that I will not listen to insinuations against my father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not insinuating anything. I am seeking information. Were you and
+      your father together a great deal? Did you know him well? Just what did he
+      tell you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hesitated before replying. When she spoke it was with an exaggerated
+      air of patient toleration, as if she were addressing an unreasonable
+      child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will answer you,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I will answer you because, so far, I have
+      no fault to find with your behavior toward me. You and my&mdash;and my
+      aunt have been as reasonable as I, perhaps, should expect, everything
+      considered. Your bringing me here and providing for me was even kind, I
+      suppose. So I will answer your questions. My father and I were not
+      together a great deal. I attended a convent school in France and saw
+      Father only at intervals. I supposed him to possess an independent income.
+      It was only when he was&mdash;was unable to work,&rdquo; with a quiver in her
+      voice, &ldquo;that I learned how he lived. He had been obliged to depend upon
+      his music, upon his violin playing, to earn money enough to keep us both
+      alive. Then he told me of&mdash;of his life in America and how my mother
+      and he had been&mdash;been cheated and defrauded by those who&mdash;who&mdash;Oh,
+      DON'T ask me any more! Don't!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must ask you. I must ask you to tell me this: How was he defrauded, as
+      you call it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have told you, already. My mother's fortune&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But your mother had no fortune.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The anticipated scene was imminent. She sprang to her feet, but being too
+      weak to stand, sank back again. Hephzy looked appealingly at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy,&rdquo; she cautioned; &ldquo;Oh, Hosy, be careful! Think how sick she has
+      been.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am thinking, Hephzy. I mean to be careful. But what I said is the
+      truth, and you know it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy would have replied, but Little Frank motioned her to be silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush!&rdquo; she commanded. &ldquo;Mr. Knowles, what do you mean? My mother had
+      money, a great deal of money. I don't know the exact sum, but my father
+      said&mdash;You know it! You MUST know it. It was in my grandfather's care
+      and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your grandfather had no money. He&mdash;well, he lost every dollar he
+      had. He died as poor as a church rat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Another interval of silence, during which I endured a piercing scrutiny
+      from the dark eyes. Then Miss Morley's tone changed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; she said, sarcastically. &ldquo;You surprise me, Mr. Knowles. What
+      became of the money, may I ask? I understand that my grandfather was a
+      wealthy man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was fairly well-to-do at one time, but he lost his money and died
+      poor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How did he lose it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The question was a plain one and demanded a plain and satisfying answer.
+      But how could I give that answer&mdash;then? Hephzy was shaking her head
+      violently. I stammered and faltered and looked guilty, I have no doubt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; said Miss Morley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&mdash;he lost it, that is sufficient. You must take my word for it.
+      Captain Cahoon died without a dollar of his own.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When did he LOSE his wealth?&rdquo; with sarcastic emphasis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Years ago. About the time your parents left the United States. There,
+      there, Hephzy! I know. I'm doing my best.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed! When did he die?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Long ago&mdash;more than ten years ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But my parents left America long before that. If my grandfather was
+      penniless how did he manage to live all those years? What supported him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your aunt&mdash;Miss Cahoon here&mdash;had money in her own right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;SHE had money and my mother had not. Yet both were Captain Cahoon's
+      daughters. How did that happen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed to me that it was Hephzy's time to play the target. I turned to
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Cahoon will probably answer that herself,&rdquo; I observed, maliciously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzibah appeared more embarrassed than I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I&mdash;Oh, what difference does all this make?&rdquo; she faltered.
+      &ldquo;Hosy has told you the truth, Frances. Really and truly he has. Father was
+      poor as poverty when he died and all his last years, too. All his money
+      had gone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, so I have heard Mr. Knowles say. But how did it go?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In&mdash;in&mdash;well, it was invested in stocks and things and&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean that he speculated in shares?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, not&mdash;not&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see. Oh, I see. Father told me a little concerning those speculations.
+      He warned Captain Cahoon before he left the States, but his warnings were
+      not heeded, I presume. And you wish me to believe that ALL the money was
+      lost&mdash;my mother's and all. Is that what you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your mother HAD no money,&rdquo; I put in, desperately, &ldquo;I have told you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have told me many things, Mr. Knowles. Even admitting that my
+      grandfather lost his money, as you say, why should I suffer because of his
+      folly? I am not asking for HIS money. I am demanding money that was my
+      mother's and is now mine. That I expected from him and now I expect it
+      from you, his heirs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But your mother had no&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not care to hear that again. I know she had money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But how do you know?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because my father told me she had, and my father did not lie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There we were again&mdash;just where we started. The doctor re-entered the
+      room and insisted upon his patient's being left to herself. She must lie
+      down and rest, he said. His manner was one of distinct disapproval. It was
+      evident that he considered Hephzy and me disturbers of the peace; in fact
+      he intimated as much when he joined us in the sitting-room in a few
+      minutes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid I made a mistake in permitting the conference,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The
+      young lady seems much agitated, Mr. Knowles. If she is, complete nervous
+      prostration may follow. She may be an invalid for months or even years. I
+      strongly recommend her being taken into the country as soon as possible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This speech and the manner in which it was made were impressive and
+      alarming. The possibilities at which it hinted were more alarming still.
+      We made no attempt to discuss family matters with Little Frank that day
+      nor the next.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But on the day following, when I returned from my morning visit to Camford
+      Street, I found Hephzy awaiting me in the sitting-room. She was very
+      solemn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;sit down. I've got somethin' to tell you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About her?&rdquo; I asked, apprehensively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. She's just been talkin' to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has! I thought we agreed not to talk with her at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We did, and I tried not to. But when I went in to see her just now she
+      was waitin' for me. She had somethin' to say, she said, and she said it&mdash;Oh,
+      my goodness, yes! she said it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did she say? Has she sent for her lawyer&mdash;her solicitor, or
+      whatever he is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, she hasn't done that. I don't know but I 'most wish she had. He
+      wouldn't be any harder to talk to than she is. Hosy, she's made up her
+      mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Made up her mind! I thought HER mind was already made up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was, but she's made it up again. That doctor has been talkin' to her
+      and she's really frightened about her health, I think. Anyhow, she has
+      decided that her principal business just now is to get well. She told me
+      she had decided not to press her claim upon us for the present. If we
+      wished to make an offer of what she calls restitution, she'll listen to
+      it; but she judges we are not ready to make one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! her judgment is correct so far.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but that isn't all. While she is waitin' for that offer she expects
+      us to take care of her. She has been thinkin', she says, and she has come
+      to the conclusion that our providin' for her as we have done isn't charity&mdash;or
+      needn't be considered as charity&mdash;at all. She is willin' to consider
+      it a part of that precious restitution she's forever talkin' about. We are
+      to take care of her, and pay her doctor's bills, and take her into the
+      country as he recommends, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I interrupted. &ldquo;Great Scott!&rdquo; I cried, &ldquo;does she expect us to ADOPT her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know what she expects; I'm tryin' to tell you what she said.
+      We're to do all this and keep a strict account of all it costs, and then
+      when we are ready to make a&mdash;a proposition, as she calls it, this
+      account can be subtracted from the money she thinks we've got that belongs
+      to her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But there isn't any money belonging to her. I told her so, and so did
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know, but we might tell her a thousand times and it wouldn't affect her
+      father's tellin' her once. Oh, that Strickland Morley! If only&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! hush, Hephzy... Well, by George! of all the&mdash;this thing has
+      gone far enough. It has gone too far. We made a great mistake in bringing
+      her here, in having anything to do with her at all&mdash;but we shan't go
+      on making mistakes. We must stop where we are. She must be told the truth
+      now&mdash;to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know&mdash;I know, Hosy; but who'll tell her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She won't believe you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then she must disbelieve. She can call in her solicitor and I'll make him
+      believe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was silent. Her silence annoyed me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don't you say something?&rdquo; I demanded. &ldquo;You know what I say is plain
+      common-sense.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose it is&mdash;I suppose 'tis. But, Hosy, if you start in tellin'
+      her again you know what'll happen. The doctor said the least little thing
+      would bring on nervous prostration. And if she has that, WHAT will become
+      of her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was my turn to hesitate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You couldn't&mdash;we couldn't turn her out into the street if she was
+      nervous prostrated, could we,&rdquo; pleaded Hephzy. &ldquo;After all, she's Ardelia's
+      daughter and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's Strickland Morley's daughter. There is no doubt of that. Hereditary
+      influence is plain enough in her case.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know, but she is Ardelia's daughter, too. I don't see how we can tell
+      her, Hosy; not until she's well and strong again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was never more thoroughly angry in my life. My patience was exhausted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look here, Hephzy,&rdquo; I cried: &ldquo;what is it you are leading up to? You're
+      not proposing&mdash;actually proposing that we adopt this girl, are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;no&mdash;o. Not exactly that, of course. But we might take her
+      into the country somewhere and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, DO be sensible! Do you realize what that would mean? We should have
+      to give up our trip, stop sightseeing, stop everything we had planned to
+      do, and turn ourselves into nurses running a sanitarium for the benefit of
+      a girl whose father's rascality made your father a pauper. And, not only
+      do this, but be treated by her as if&mdash;as if&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, there, Hosy! I know what it will mean. I know what it would mean
+      to you and I don't mean for you to do it. You've done enough and more than
+      enough. But with me it's different. <i>I</i> could do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. I've got some money of my own. I could find a nice, cheap, quiet
+      boardin'-house in the country round here somewhere and she and I could go
+      there and stay until she got well. You needn't go at all; you could go off
+      travelin' by yourself and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy, what are you talking about?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean it. I've thought it all out, Hosy. Ever since Ardelia and I had
+      that last talk together and she whispered to me that&mdash;that&mdash;well,
+      especially ever since I knew there was a Little Frank I've been thinkin'
+      and plannin' about that Little Frank; you know I have. He&mdash;she isn't
+      the kind of Little Frank I expected, but she's, my sister's baby and I
+      can't&mdash;I CAN'T, turn her away to be sick and die. I can't do it. I
+      shouldn't dare face Ardelia in&mdash;on the other side if I did. No, I
+      guess it's my duty and I'm goin' to go on with it. But with you it's
+      different. She isn't any real relation to you. You've done enough&mdash;and
+      more than enough&mdash;as it is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the climax. Of course I might have expected it, but of course I
+      didn't. As soon as I recovered, or partially recovered, from my
+      stupefaction I expostulated and scolded and argued. Hephzy was quiet but
+      firm. She hated to part from me&mdash;she couldn't bear to think of it;
+      but on the other hand she couldn't abandon her Ardelia's little girl. The
+      interview ended by my walking out of the room and out of Bancroft's in
+      disgust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not return until late in the afternoon. I was in better humor then.
+      Hephzy was still in the sitting-room; she looked as if she had been
+      crying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy,&rdquo; she said, as I entered, &ldquo;I&mdash;I hope you don't think I'm too
+      ungrateful. I'm not. Really I'm not. And I care as much for you as if you
+      was my own boy. I can't leave you; I sha'n't. If you say for us to&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I interrupted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;I shan't say anything. I know perfectly well that you
+      couldn't leave me any more than I could leave you. I have arranged with
+      Matthews to set about house-hunting at once. As soon as rural England is
+      ready for us, we shall be ready for it. After all, what difference does it
+      make? I was ordered to get fresh experience. I might as well get it by
+      becoming keeper of a sanitarium as any other way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy looked at me. She rose from her chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy,&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;what&mdash;a sanitarium?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We'll keep it together,&rdquo; I said, smiling. &ldquo;You and I and Little Frank.
+      And it is likely to be a wonderful establishment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy said&mdash;she said a great deal, principally concerning my
+      generosity and goodness and kindness and self-sacrifice. I tried to shut
+      off the flow, but it was not until I began to laugh that it ceased.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why!&rdquo; cried Hephzy. &ldquo;You're laughin'! What in the world? I don't see
+      anything to laugh at.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you? I do. Oh, dear me! I&mdash;I, the Bayport quahaug to&mdash;Ho!
+      ho! Hephzy, let me laugh. If there is any fun in this perfectly devilish
+      situation let me enjoy it while I can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And that is how and why I decided to become a country gentleman instead of
+      a traveler. When I told Matthews of my intention he had been petrified
+      with astonishment. I had written Campbell of that intention. I devoutly
+      wished I might see his face when he read my letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For days and days Hephzy and I &ldquo;house-hunted.&rdquo; We engaged a nurse to look
+      after the future patient of the &ldquo;sanitarium&rdquo; while we did our best to look
+      for the sanitarium itself. Mr. Matthews gave us the addresses of real
+      estate agents and we journeyed from suburb to suburb and from seashore to
+      hills. We saw several &ldquo;semi-detached villas.&rdquo; The name &ldquo;semi-detached
+      villa&rdquo; had an appealing sound, especially to Hephzy, but the villas
+      themselves did not appeal. They turned out to be what we, in America,
+      would have called &ldquo;two-family houses.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I never did like the idea of livin' in a two-family house,&rdquo; declared
+      Hephzy. &ldquo;I've known plenty of real nice folks who did live in 'em, or
+      one-half of one of 'em, but it usually happened that the folks in the
+      other half was a dreadful mean set. They let their dog chase your cat and
+      if your hens scratched up their flower garden they were real unlikely
+      about it. I've heard Father tell about Cap'n Noah Doane and Cap'n Elkanah
+      Howes who used to live in Bayport. They'd been chums all their lives and
+      when they retired from the sea they thought 'twould be lovely to build a
+      double house so's they would be right close together all the time. Well,
+      they did it and they hadn't been settled more'n a month when they began
+      quarrelin'. Cap'n Noah's wife wanted the house painted yellow and Mrs.
+      Cap'n Elkanah, she wanted it green. They started the fuss and it ended by
+      one-half bein' yellow and t'other half green&mdash;such an outrage you
+      never saw&mdash;and a big fence down the middle of the front yard, and the
+      two families not speakin', and law-suits and land knows what all. They
+      wouldn't even go to the same church nor be buried in the same graveyard.
+      No sir-ee! no two-family house for us if I can help it. We've got troubles
+      enough inside the family without fightin' the neighbors.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But think of the beautiful names,&rdquo; I observed. &ldquo;Those names ought to
+      appeal to your poetic soul, Hephzy. We haven't seen a villa yet, no matter
+      how dingy, or small, that wasn't christened 'Rosemary Terrace' or
+      'Sunnylawn' or something. That last one&mdash;the shack with the broken
+      windows&mdash;was labeled 'Broadview' and it faced an alley ending at a
+      brick stable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know it,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;If they'd called it 'Narrowview' or 'Cow Prospect'
+      'twould have been more fittin', I should say. But I think givin' names to
+      homes is sort of pretty, just the same. We might call our house at home
+      'Writer's Rest.' A writer lives in it, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he has rested more than he has written of late,&rdquo; I observed.
+      &ldquo;'Quahaug Stew' or 'The Tureen' would be better, I should say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When we expressed disapproval of the semi-detached villas our real estate
+      brokers flew to the other extremity and proceeded to show us &ldquo;estates.&rdquo;
+       These estates comprised acres of ground, mansions, game-keepers' and
+      lodge-keepers' houses, and goodness knows what. Some, so the brokers were
+      particular to inform us, were celebrated for their &ldquo;shooting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The villas were not good enough; the estates were altogether too good. We
+      inspected but one and then declined to see more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shootin'!&rdquo; sniffed Hephzy. &ldquo;I should feel like shootin' myself every time
+      I paid the rent. I'd HAVE to do it the second time. 'Twould be a quicker
+      end than starvin', 'and the first month would bring us to that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We found one pleasant cottage in a suburb bearing the euphonious name of
+      &ldquo;Leatherhead&rdquo;&mdash;that is, the village was named &ldquo;Leatherhead&rdquo;; the
+      cottage was &ldquo;Ash Clump.&rdquo; I teased Hephzy by referring to it as &ldquo;Ash Dump,&rdquo;
+       but it really was a pretty, roomy house, with gardens and flowers. For the
+      matter of that, every cottage we visited, even the smallest, was bowered
+      in flowers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy's romantic spirit objected strongly to &ldquo;Leatherhead,&rdquo; but I told
+      her nothing could be more appropriate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This whole proposition&mdash;Beg pardon; I didn't mean to use that word;
+      we've heard enough concerning 'propositions'&mdash;but really, Hephzy,
+      'Leatherhead' is very appropriate for us. If we weren't leather-headed and
+      deserving of leather medals we should not be hunting houses at all. We
+      should have left Little Frank and her affairs in a lawyer's hands and be
+      enjoying ourselves as we intended. Leatherhead for the leather-heads; it's
+      another dispensation of Providence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ash Dump&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Clump,&rdquo; I mean&mdash;was owned by a person named Cripps,
+      Solomon Cripps. Mr. Cripps was a stout, mutton-chopped individual,
+      strongly suggestive of Bancroft's &ldquo;Henry.&rdquo; He was rather pompous and surly
+      when I first knocked at the door of his residence, but when he learned we
+      were house-hunting and had our eyes upon the &ldquo;Clump,&rdquo; he became very
+      polite indeed. &ldquo;A 'eavenly spot,&rdquo; he declared it to be. &ldquo;A beautiful
+      neighborhood. Near the shops and not far from the Primitive Wesleyan
+      chapel.&rdquo; He and Mrs. Cripps attended the chapel, he informed us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not fancy Mr. Cripps; he was too&mdash;too something, I was not sure
+      what. And Mrs. Cripps, whom we met later, was of a similar type. They,
+      like everyone else, recognized us as Americans at once and they spoke
+      highly of the &ldquo;States.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A very fine country, I am informed,&rdquo; said Mr. Cripps. &ldquo;New, of course,
+      but very fine indeed. Young men make money there. Much money&mdash;yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Cripps wished to know if Americans were a religious people, as a
+      rule. Religion, true spiritual religion was on the wane in England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I gathered that she and her husband were doing their best to keep it up to
+      the standard. I had read, in books by English writers, of the British
+      middle-class Pharisee. I judged the Crippses to be Pharisees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy's opinion was like mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If ever there was a sanctimonious hypocrite it's that Mrs. Cripps,&rdquo; she
+      declared. &ldquo;And her husband ain't any better. They remind me of Deacon
+      Hardy and his wife back home. He always passed the plate in church and she
+      was head of the sewin' circle, but when it came to lettin' go of an extry
+      cent for the minister's salary they had glue on their fingers. Father used
+      to say that the Deacon passed the plate himself so nobody could see how
+      little he put in it. They were the ones that always brought a stick of
+      salt herrin' to the donation parties.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We didn't like the Crippses, but we did like &ldquo;Ash Clump.&rdquo; We had almost
+      decided to take it when our plans were quashed by the member of our party
+      on whose account we had planned solely. Miss Morley flatly refused to go
+      to Leatherhead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't ask ME why,&rdquo; said Hephzy, to whom the refusal had been made. &ldquo;I
+      don't know. All I know is that the very name 'Leatherhead' turned her
+      whiter than she has been for a week. She just put that little foot of hers
+      down and said no. I said 'Why not?' and she said 'Never mind.' So I guess
+      we sha'n't be Leatherheaded&mdash;in that way&mdash;this summer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was angry and impatient, but when I tried to reason with the young lady
+      I met a crushing refusal and a decided snub.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not care,&rdquo; said Little Frank, calmly and coldly, &ldquo;to explain my
+      reasons. I have them, and that is sufficient. I shall not go to&mdash;that
+      town or that place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But why?&rdquo; I begged, restraining my desire to shake her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have my reasons. You may go there, if you wish. That is your right. But
+      I shall not. And before you go I shall insist upon a settlement of my
+      claim.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The &ldquo;claim&rdquo; could neither be settled nor discussed; the doctor's warning
+      was no less insistent although his patient was steadily improving. I faced
+      the alternative of my compliance or her nervous prostration and I chose
+      the former. My desire to shake her remained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So &ldquo;Ash Clump&rdquo; was given up. Hephzy and I speculated much concerning
+      Little Frank's aversion to Leatherhead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It must be,&rdquo; said Hephzy, &ldquo;that she knows somebody there, or somethin'
+      like that. That's likely, I suppose. You know we don't know much about her
+      or what she's done since her father died, Hosy. I've tried to ask her but
+      she won't tell. I wish we did know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't,&rdquo; I snarled. &ldquo;I wish to heaven we had never known her at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy sighed. &ldquo;It IS awful hard for you,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;And yet, if we had
+      come to know her in another way you&mdash;we might have been glad. I&mdash;I
+      think she could be as sweet as she is pretty to folks she didn't consider
+      thieves&mdash;and Americans. She does hate Americans. That's her precious
+      pa's doin's, I suppose likely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The next afternoon we saw the advertisement in the Standard. George, the
+      waiter, brought two of the London dailies to our room each day. The
+      advertisement read as follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To Let for the Summer Months&mdash;Furnished. A Rectory in Mayberry,
+      Sussex. Ten rooms, servants' quarters, vegetable gardens, small fruit,
+      tennis court, etc., etc. Water and gas laid on. Golf near by. Terms low.
+      Rector&mdash;Mayberry, Sussex.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I answered it, Hosy,&rdquo; said Hephzy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You did!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. It sounded so nice I couldn't help it. It would be lovely to live in
+      a rectory, wouldn't it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lovely&mdash;and expensive,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;I'm afraid a rectory with
+      tennis courts and servants' quarters and all the rest of it will prove too
+      grand for a pair of Bayporters like you and me. However, your answering
+      the ad does no harm; it doesn't commit us to anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But when the answer to the answer came it was even more appealing than the
+      advertisement itself. And the terms, although a trifle higher than we had
+      planned to pay, were not entirely beyond our means. The rector&mdash;his
+      name was Cole&mdash;urged us to visit Mayberry and see the place for
+      ourselves. We were to take the train for Haddington on Hill where the trap
+      would meet us. Mayberry was two miles from Haddington on Hill, it
+      appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We decided to go, but before writing of our intention, Hephzy consulted
+      the most particular member of our party.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's no use doing anything until we ask her,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;She may be as
+      down on Mayberry as she was on Leatherhead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But she was not. She had no objections to Mayberry. So, after writing and
+      making the necessary arrangements, we took the train one bright, sunny
+      morning, and after a ride of an hour or more, alighted at Haddington on
+      Hill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Haddington on Hill was not on a hill at all, unless a knoll in the middle
+      of a wide flat meadow be called that. There were no houses near the
+      railway station, either rectories or any other sort. We were the only
+      passengers to leave the train there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The trap, however, was waiting. The horse which drew it was a black, plump
+      little animal, and the driver was a neat English lad who touched his hat
+      and assisted Hephzy to the back seat of the vehicle. I climbed up beside
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The road wound over the knoll and away across the meadow. On either side
+      were farm lands, fields of young grain, or pastures with flocks of sheep
+      grazing contentedly. In the distance, in every direction, one caught
+      glimpses of little villages with gray church towers rising amid the
+      foliage. Each field and pasture was bordered with a hedge instead of a
+      fence, and over all hung the soft, light blue haze which is so
+      characteristic of good weather in England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Birds which we took to be crows, but which we learned afterward were
+      rooks, whirled and circled. As we turned a corner a smaller bird rose from
+      the grass beside the road and soared upward, singing with all its little
+      might until it was a fluttering speck against the sky. Hephzy watched it,
+      her eyes shining.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe,&rdquo; she cried, excitedly, &ldquo;I do believe that is a skylark. Do you
+      suppose it is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A lark, yes, lady,&rdquo; said our driver.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A lark, a real skylark! Just think of it, Hosy. I've heard a real lark.
+      Well, Hephzibah Cahoon, you may never get into a book, but you're livin'
+      among book things every day of your life. 'And singin' ever soars and
+      soarin' ever singest.' I'd sing, too, if I knew how. You needn't be
+      frightened&mdash;I sha'n't try.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The meadows ended at the foot of another hill, a real one this time. At
+      our left, crowning the hill, a big house, a mansion with towers and
+      turrets, rose above the trees. Hephzy whispered to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't suppose THAT is the rectory, do you, Hosy?&rdquo; she asked, in an
+      awestricken tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it is we may as well go back to London,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;But it isn't.
+      Nothing lower in churchly rank than a bishop could keep up that
+      establishment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The driver settled our doubts for us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Manor House, sir,&rdquo; he said, pointing with his whip. &ldquo;The estate
+      begins here, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The &ldquo;estate&rdquo; was bordered by a high iron fence, stretching as far as we
+      could see. Beside that fence we rode for some distance. Then another turn
+      in the road and we entered the street of a little village, a village of
+      picturesque little houses, brick or stone always&mdash;not a frame house
+      among them. Many of the roofs were thatched. Flowers and climbing vines
+      and little gardens everywhere. The village looked as if it had been there,
+      just as it was, for centuries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is Mayberry, sir,&rdquo; said our driver. &ldquo;That is the rectory, next the
+      church.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We could see the church tower and the roof, but the rectory was not yet
+      visible to our eyes. We turned in between two of the houses, larger and
+      more pretentious than the rest. The driver alighted and opened a big
+      wooden gate. Before us was a driveway, shaded by great elms and bordered
+      by rose hedges. At the end of the driveway was an old-fashioned,
+      comfortable looking, brick house. Vines hid the most of the bricks. Flower
+      beds covered its foundations. A gray-haired old gentleman stood in the
+      doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the rectory we had come to see and the gray-haired gentleman was
+      the Reverend Mr. Cole, the rector.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My soul!&rdquo; whispered Hephzy, looking aghast at the spacious grounds, &ldquo;we
+      can never hire THIS. This is too expensive and grand for us, Hosy. Look at
+      the grass to cut and the flowers to attend to, and the house to run. No
+      wonder the servants have 'quarters.' My soul and body! I thought a rector
+      was a kind of minister, and a rectory was a sort of parsonage, but I guess
+      I'm off my course, as Father used to say. Either that or ministers' wages
+      are higher than they are in Bayport. No, this place isn't for you and me,
+      Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But it was. Before we left that rectory in the afternoon I had agreed to
+      lease it until the middle of September, servants&mdash;there were five of
+      them, groom and gardener included&mdash;horse and trap, tennis court,
+      vegetable garden, fruit, flowers and all. It developed that the terms,
+      which I had considered rather too high for my purse, included the
+      servants' wages, vegetables from the garden, strawberries and other &ldquo;small
+      fruit&rdquo;&mdash;everything. Even food for the horse was included in that
+      all-embracing rent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As Hephzy said, everything considered, the rent of Mayberry Rectory was
+      lower than that of a fair-sized summer cottage at Bayport.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Reverend Mr. Cole was a delightful gentleman. His wife was equally
+      kind and agreeable. I think they were, at first, rather unpleasantly
+      surprised to find that their prospective tenants were from the &ldquo;States&rdquo;;
+      but Hephzy and I managed to behave as unlike savages as we could, and the
+      Cole manner grew less and less reserved. Mr. Cole and his wife were
+      planning to spend a long vacation in Switzerland and his &ldquo;living,&rdquo; or
+      parish, was to be left in charge of his two curates. There was a son at
+      Oxford who was to join them on their vacation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Cole and I walked about the grounds and visited the church, the yard
+      of which, with its weather-beaten gravestones and fine old trees, adjoined
+      the rectory on the western side, behind the tall hedge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The church was built of stone, of course, and a portion of it was older
+      than the Norman conquest. Before the altar steps were two ancient effigies
+      of knights in armor, with crossed gauntlets and their feet supported by
+      crouching lions. These old fellows were scratched and scarred and
+      initialed. Upon one noble nose were the letters &ldquo;A. H. N. 1694.&rdquo; I decided
+      that vandalism was not a modern innovation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While the rector and I were inspecting the church, Mrs. Cole and Hephzy
+      were making a tour of the house. They met us at the door. Mrs. Cole's eyes
+      were twinkling; I judged that she had found Hephzy amusing. If this was
+      true it had not warped her judgment, however, for, a moment later when she
+      and I were alone, she said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your cousin, Miss Cahoon, is a good housekeeper, I imagine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is all of that,&rdquo; I said, decidedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, she was very particular concerning the kitchen and scullery and the
+      maids' rooms. Are all American housekeepers as particular?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not all. Miss Cahoon is unique in many ways; but she is a remarkable
+      woman in all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. I am sure of it. And she has such a typical American accent, hasn't
+      she.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We were to take possession on the following Monday. We lunched at the &ldquo;Red
+      Cow,&rdquo; the village inn, where the meal was served in the parlor and the
+      landlord's daughter waited upon us. The plump black horse drew us to the
+      railway station, and we took the train for London.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We have learned, by this time, that second, or even third-class travel was
+      quite good enough for short journeys and that very few English people paid
+      for first-class compartments. We were fortunate enough to have a
+      second-class compartment to ourselves this time, and, when we were seated,
+      Hephzy asked a question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you think to speak about the golf, Hosy?&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You will want to
+      play some, won't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I did ask about it. It seems that the golf course is a
+      private one, on the big estate we passed on the way from the station.
+      Permission is always given the rectory tenants.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! my gracious, isn't that grand! That estate isn't in Mayberry. The
+      Mayberry bounds&mdash;that's what Mrs. Cole called them&mdash;and just
+      this side. The estate is in the village of&mdash;of Burgleston Bogs.
+      Burgleston Bogs&mdash;it's a funny name. Seem's if I'd heard it before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have,&rdquo; said I, in surprise. &ldquo;Burgleston Bogs is where that Heathcroft
+      chap whom we met on the steamer visits occasionally. His aunt has a big
+      place there. By George! you don't suppose that estate belongs to his aunt,
+      do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy gasped. &ldquo;I wouldn't wonder,&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;I wouldn't wonder if it
+      did. And his aunt was Lady Somebody, wasn't she. Maybe you'll meet him
+      there. Goodness sakes! just think of your playin' golf with a Lady's
+      nephew.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I doubt if we need to think of it,&rdquo; I observed. &ldquo;Mr. Carleton Heathcroft
+      on board ship may be friendly with American plebeians, but on shore, and
+      when visiting his aunt, he may be quite different. I fancy he and I will
+      not play many holes together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy laughed. &ldquo;You 'fancy,'&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;You'll be sayin' 'My word'
+      next. My! Hosy, you ARE gettin' English.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed I'm not!&rdquo; I declared, with emphasis. &ldquo;My experience with an
+      English relative is sufficient of itself to prevent that. Miss Frances
+      Morley and I are compatriots for the summer only.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which We Make the Acquaintance of Mayberry and a Portion of Burgleston
+      Bogs
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      We migrated to Mayberry the following Monday, as we had agreed to do. Miss
+      Morley went with us, of course. I secured a first-class apartment for our
+      party and the journey was a comfortable and quiet one. Our invalid was too
+      weak to talk a great deal even if she had wished, which she apparently did
+      not. Johnson, the groom, met us at Haddington on Hill and we drove to the
+      rectory. There Miss Morley, very tired and worn out, was escorted to her
+      room by Hephzy and Charlotte, the housemaid. She was perfectly willing to
+      remain in that room, in fact she did not leave it for several days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Hephzy and I were doing our best to become acquainted with our
+      new and novel mode of life. Hephzy took charge of the household and was,
+      in a way, quite in her element; in another way she was distinctly out of
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did think I was gettin' used to bein' waited on, Hosy,&rdquo; she confided,
+      &ldquo;but it looks as if I'll have to begin all over again. Managin' one hired
+      girl like Susanna was a job and I tell you I thought managin' three, same
+      as we've got here, would be a staggerer. But it isn't. Somehow the kind of
+      help over here don't seem to need managin'. They manage me more than I do
+      them. There's Mrs. Wigham, the cook. Mrs. Cole told me she was a
+      'superior' person and I guess she is&mdash;at any rate, she's superior to
+      me in some things. She knows what a 'gooseberry fool' is and I'm sure I
+      don't. I felt like another kind of fool when she told me she was goin' to
+      make one, as a 'sweet,' for dinner to-night. As nigh as I can make out
+      it's a sort of gooseberry pie, but <i>I</i> should never have called a
+      gooseberry pie a 'sweet'; a 'sour' would have been better, accordin' to my
+      reckonin'. However, all desserts over here are 'sweets' and fruit is
+      dessert. Then there's Charlotte, the housemaid, and Baker, the
+      'between-maid'&mdash;between upstairs and down, I suppose that means&mdash;and
+      Grimmer, the gardener, and Johnson, the boy that takes care of the horse.
+      Each one of 'em seems to know exactly what their own job is and just as
+      exactly where it leaves off and t'other's job begins. I never saw such
+      obligin' but independent folks in my life. As for my own job, that seems
+      to be settin' still with my hands folded. Well, it's a brand new one and
+      it's goin' to take me one spell to get used to it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It seemed likely to be a &ldquo;spell&rdquo; before I became accustomed to my own
+      &ldquo;job,&rdquo; that of being a country gentleman with nothing to do but play the
+      part. When I went out to walk about the rectory garden, Grimmer touched
+      his hat. When, however, I ventured to pick a few flowers in that garden,
+      his expression of shocked disapproval was so marked that I felt I must
+      have made a dreadful mistake. I had, of course. Grimmer was in charge of
+      those flowers and if I wished any picked I was expected to tell him to
+      pick them. Picking them myself was equivalent to admitting that I was not
+      accustomed to having a gardener in my employ, in other words that I was
+      not a real gentleman at all. I might wait an hour for Johnson to return
+      from some errand or other and harness the horse; but I must on no account
+      save time by harnessing the animal myself. That sort of labor was not done
+      by the &ldquo;gentry.&rdquo; I should have lost caste with the servants a dozen times
+      during my first few days in the rectory were it not for one saving grace;
+      I was an American, and almost any peculiar thing was expected of an
+      American.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I strolled along the village street the male villagers, especially
+      the older ones, touched their hats to me. The old women bowed or
+      courtesied. Also they invariably paused, when I had passed, to stare after
+      me. The group at the blacksmith shop&mdash;where the stone coping of the
+      low wall was worn in hollows by the generations of idlers who had sat upon
+      it, just as their descendants were sitting upon it now&mdash;turned, after
+      I had passed, to stare. There would be a pause in the conversation, then
+      an outburst of talk and laughter. They were talking about the &ldquo;foreigner&rdquo;
+       of course, and laughing at him. At the tailor's, where I sent my clothes
+      to be pressed, the tailor himself, a gray-haired, round-shouldered
+      antique, ventured an opinion concerning those clothes. &ldquo;That coat was not
+      made in England, sir,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We don't make 'em that way 'ere, sir.
+      That's a bit foreign, that coat, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, I was a foreigner. It was hard to realize. In a way everything was so
+      homelike; the people looked like people I had known at home, their faces
+      were New England faces quite as much as they were old England. But their
+      clothes were just a little different, and their ways were different, and a
+      dry-goods store was a &ldquo;draper's shop,&rdquo; and a drug-store was a &ldquo;chemist's,&rdquo;
+       and candies were &ldquo;sweeties&rdquo; and a public school was a &ldquo;board school&rdquo; and a
+      boarding-school was a &ldquo;public school.&rdquo; And I might be polite and pleasant
+      to these people&mdash;persons out of my &ldquo;class&rdquo;&mdash;but I must not be
+      too cordial, for if I did, in the eyes of these very people, I lost caste
+      and they would despise me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, I was a foreigner; it was a queer feeling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Coming from America and particularly from democratic Bayport, where
+      everyone is as good as anyone else provided he behaves himself, the class
+      distinction in Mayberry was strange at first. I do not mean that there was
+      not independence there; there was, among the poorest as well as the richer
+      element. Every male Mayberryite voted as he thought, I am sure; and was
+      self-respecting and independent. He would have resented any infringement
+      of his rights just as Englishmen have resented such infringements and
+      fought against them since history began. But what I am trying to make
+      plain is that political equality and social equality were by no means
+      synonymous. A man was a man for 'a' that, but when he was a gentleman he
+      was 'a' that' and more. And when he was possessed of a title he was
+      revered because of that title, or the title itself was revered. The hatter
+      in London where I purchased a new &ldquo;bowler,&rdquo; had a row of shelves upon
+      which were boxes containing, so I was told, the spare titles of eminent
+      customers. And those hat-boxes were lettered like this: &ldquo;The Right Hon.
+      Col. Wainwright, V.C.,&rdquo; &ldquo;His Grace the Duke of Leicester,&rdquo; &ldquo;Sir George
+      Tupman, K.C.B.,&rdquo; etc., etc. It was my first impression that the hatter was
+      responsible for thus proclaiming his customers' titles, but one day I saw
+      Richard, convoyed by Henry, reverently bearing a suitcase into Bancroft's
+      Hotel. And that suitcase bore upon its side the inscription, in very large
+      letters, &ldquo;Lord Eustace Stairs.&rdquo; Then I realized that Lord Eustace, like
+      the owners of the hat-boxes, recognizing the value of a title, advertised
+      it accordingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed when I saw the suitcase and the hat-boxes. When I told Hephzy
+      about the latter she laughed, too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's funny, isn't it,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Suppose the folks that have their
+      names on the mugs in the barber shop back home had 'em lettered 'Cap'n
+      Elkanah Crowell,' 'Judge the Hon. Ezra Salters,' 'The Grand Exalted Sachem
+      Order of Red Men George Kendrick.' How everybody would laugh, wouldn't
+      they. Why they'd laugh Cap'n Elkanah and Ezra and Kendrick out of town.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So they would have done&mdash;in Bayport&mdash;but not in Mayberry or
+      London. Titles and rank and class in England are established and accepted
+      institutions, and are not laughed at, for where institutions of that kind
+      are laughed at they soon cease to be. Hephzy summed it up pretty well when
+      she said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After all, it all depends on what you've been brought up to, doesn't it,
+      Hosy. Your coat don't look funny to you because you've always worn that
+      kind of coat, but that tailor man thought 'twas funny because he never saw
+      one made like it. And a lord takin' his lordship seriously seems funny to
+      us, but it doesn't seem so to him or to the tailor. They've been brought
+      up to it, same as you have to the coat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On one point she and I had agreed before coming to Mayberry, that was that
+      we must not expect calls from the neighbors or social intercourse with the
+      people of Mayberry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They don't know anything about us,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;except that we are
+      Americans, and that may or may not be a recommendation, according to the
+      kind of Americans they have previously met. The Englishman, so all the
+      books tell us, is reserved and distant at first. He requires a long
+      acquaintance before admitting strangers to his home life and we shall
+      probably have no opportunity to make that acquaintance. If we were to stay
+      in Mayberry a year, and behaved ourselves, we might in time be accepted as
+      desirable, but not during the first summer. So if they leave us to
+      ourselves we must make the best of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy agreed thoroughly. &ldquo;You're right,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;And, after all, it's
+      just what would happen anywhere. You remember when that Portygee family
+      came to Bayport and lived in the Solon Blodgett house. Nobody would have
+      anything to do with 'em for a long time because they were foreigners, but
+      they turned out to be real nice folks after all. We're foreigners here and
+      you can't blame the Mayberry people for not takin' chances; it looks as if
+      nobody in it ever had taken a chance, as if it had been just the way it is
+      since Noah came out of the Ark. I never felt so new and shiny in my life
+      as I do around this old rectory and this old town.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Which was all perfectly true and yet the fact remains that, &ldquo;new and
+      shiny&rdquo; as we were, the Mayberry people&mdash;those of our &ldquo;class&rdquo;&mdash;began
+      to call upon us almost immediately, to invite us to their homes, to show
+      us little kindnesses, and to be whole-souled and hospitable and friendly
+      as if we had known them and they us for years. It was one of the greatest
+      surprises, and remains one of the most pleasant recollections, of my brief
+      career as a resident in England, the kindly cordiality of these neighbors
+      in Mayberry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first caller was Dr. Bayliss, who occupied &ldquo;Jasmine Gables,&rdquo; the
+      pretty house next door. He dropped in one morning, introduced himself,
+      shook hands and chatted for an hour. That afternoon his wife called upon
+      Hephzy. The next day I played a round of golf upon the private course on
+      the Manor House grounds, the Burgleston Bogs grounds&mdash;with the doctor
+      and his son, young Herbert Bayliss, just through Cambridge and the medical
+      college at London. Young Bayliss was a pleasant, good-looking young chap
+      and I liked him as I did his father. He was at present acting as his
+      father's assistant in caring for the former's practice, a practice which
+      embraced three or four villages and a ten-mile stretch of country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Naturally I was interested in the Manor estate and its owner. The grounds
+      were beautiful, three square miles in extent and cared for, so Bayliss,
+      Senior, told me, by some hundred and fifty men, seventy of whom were
+      gardeners. Of the Manor House itself I caught a glimpse, gray-turreted and
+      huge, set at the end of lawns and flower beds, with fountains playing and
+      statues gleaming white amid the foliage. I asked some questions concerning
+      its owner. Yes, she was Lady Kent Carey and she had a nephew named
+      Heathcroft. So there was a chance, after all, that I might again meet my
+      ship acquaintance who abhorred &ldquo;griddle cakes.&rdquo; I imagined he would be
+      somewhat surprised at that meeting. It was an odd coincidence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for the game of golf, my part of it, the least said the better. Doctor
+      Bayliss, who, it developed, was an enthusiast at the game, was kind enough
+      to tell me I had a &ldquo;topping&rdquo; drive. I thanked him, but there was
+      altogether too much &ldquo;topping&rdquo; connected with my play that forenoon to make
+      my thanks enthusiastic. I determined to practice assiduously before
+      attempting another match. Somehow I felt responsible for the golfing honor
+      of my country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Other callers came to the rectory. The two curates, their names were
+      Judson and Worcester, visited us; young men, both of them, and good
+      fellows, Worcester particularly. Although they wore clerical garb they
+      were not in the least &ldquo;preachy.&rdquo; Hephzy, although she liked them,
+      expressed surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They didn't act a bit like ministers,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;They didn't ask us to
+      come to meetin' nor hint at prayin' with the family or anything, yet they
+      looked for all the while like two Methodist parsons, young ones. A curate
+      is a kind of new-hatched rector, isn't he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not exactly,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;He is only partially hatched. But, whatever
+      you do, don't tell them they look like Methodists; they wouldn't consider
+      it a compliment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was a Methodist herself and she resented the slur. &ldquo;Well, I guess a
+      Methodist is as good as an Episcopalian,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;And they don't
+      ACT like Methodists. Why, one of 'em smoked a pipe. Just imagine Mr.
+      Partridge smokin' a pipe!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Judson and I played eighteen holes of golf together. He played a
+      little worse than I did and I felt better. The honor of Bayport's golf had
+      been partially vindicated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While all this was going on our patient remained, for the greater part of
+      the time, in her room. She was improving steadily. Doctor Bayliss, whom I
+      had asked to attend her, declared, as his London associates had done, that
+      all she needed was rest, quiet and the good air and food which she was
+      certain to get in Mayberry. He, too, like the physician at Bancroft's,
+      seemed impressed by her appearance and manner. And he also asked similar
+      embarrassing questions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Delightful young lady, Miss Morley,&rdquo; he observed. &ldquo;One of our English
+      girls, Knowles. She informs me that she IS English.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Partly English,&rdquo; I could not help saying. &ldquo;Her mother was an American.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, indeed! You know she didn't tell me that, now did she.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, by Jove, she didn't. But she has lived all her life in England?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;in England and France.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your niece, I think you said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had said it, unfortunately, and it could not be unsaid now without many
+      explanations. So I nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She doesn't&mdash;er&mdash;behave like an American. She hasn't the
+      American manner, I mean to say. Now Miss Cahoon has&mdash;er&mdash;she has&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Cahoon's manner is American. So is mine; we ARE Americans, you see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes, of course,&rdquo; hastily. &ldquo;When are you and I to have the nine holes
+      you promised, Knowles?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      One fine afternoon the invalid came downstairs. The &ldquo;between-maid&rdquo; had
+      arranged chairs and the table on the lawn. We were to have tea there; we
+      had tea every day, of course&mdash;were getting quite accustomed to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances&mdash;I may as well begin calling her that&mdash;looked in better
+      health then than at any time since our meeting. She was becomingly,
+      although simply gowned, and there was a dash of color in her cheeks.
+      Hephzibah escorted her to the tea table. I rose to meet them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frank&mdash;Frances, I mean&mdash;is goin' to join us to-day,&rdquo; said
+      Hephzy. &ldquo;She's beginnin' to look real well again, isn't she.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I said she was. Frances nodded to me and took one of the chairs, the most
+      comfortable one. She appeared perfectly self-possessed, which I was sure I
+      did not. I was embarrassed, of course. Each time I met the girl the
+      impossible situation in which she had placed us became more impossible, to
+      my mind. And the question, &ldquo;What on earth shall we do with her?&rdquo; more
+      insistent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy poured the tea. Frances, cup in hand, looked about her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is rather a nice place, after all,&rdquo; she observed, &ldquo;isn't it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's a real lovely place,&rdquo; declared Hephzy with enthusiasm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young lady cast another appraising glance at our surroundings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she repeated, &ldquo;it's a jolly old house and the grounds are not bad
+      at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her tone nettled me. Everything considered I thought she might have shown
+      a little more enthusiasm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I infer that you expected something much worse,&rdquo; I observed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, of course I didn't know what to expect. How should I? I had no hand
+      in selecting it, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's hardly seen it,&rdquo; put in Hephzy. &ldquo;She was too sick when she came to
+      notice much, I guess, and this is the first time she has been out doors.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad you approve,&rdquo; I observed, drily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My sarcasm was wasted. Miss Morley said again that she did approve, of
+      what she had seen, and added that we seemed to have chosen very well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't suppose,&rdquo; said Hephzy, complacently, &ldquo;that there are many much
+      prettier places in England than this one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, indeed there are. But all England is beautiful, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I thought of Mrs. Briggs' lodging-house, but I did not refer to it. Our
+      guest&mdash;or my &ldquo;niece&rdquo;&mdash;or our ward&mdash;it was hard to classify
+      her&mdash;changed the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you met any of the people about here?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy burst into enthusiastic praise of the Baylisses and the curates and
+      the Coles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They're all just as nice as they can be,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;I never met
+      nicer folks, at home or anywhere.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances nodded. &ldquo;All English people are nice,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again I thought of Mrs. Briggs and again I kept my thoughts to myself.
+      Hephzy went on rhapsodizing. I paid little attention until I heard her
+      speak my name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And Hosy thinks so, too. Don't you, Hosy?&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I answered yes, on the chance. Frances regarded me oddly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought&mdash;I understood that your name was Kent, Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; she
+      said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then why does Miss Cahoon always&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy interrupted. &ldquo;Oh, I always call him Hosy,&rdquo; she explained. &ldquo;It's a
+      kind of pet name of mine. It's short for Hosea. His whole name is Hosea
+      Kent Knowles, but 'most everybody but me does call him Kent. I don't think
+      he likes Hosea very well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Our companion looked very much as if she did not wonder at my dislike. Her
+      eyes twinkled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosea,&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;That is an odd name. The original Hosea was a
+      prophet, wasn't he? Are you a prophet, Mr. Knowles?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Far from it,&rdquo; I answered, with decision. If I had been a prophet I should
+      have been forewarned and, consequently, forearmed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She smiled and against my will I was forced to admit that her smile was
+      attractive; she was prettier than ever when she smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I remember now,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;all Americans have Scriptural names. I have
+      read about them in books.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy writes books,&rdquo; said Hephzy, proudly. &ldquo;That's his profession; he's an
+      author.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, really, is he! How interesting!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, he is. He has written ever so many books; haven't you, Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I didn't answer. My self and my &ldquo;profession&rdquo; were the last subjects I
+      cared to discuss. The young lady's smile broadened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And where do you write your books, Mr. Knowles?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;In&mdash;er&mdash;Bayport?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I answered, shortly. &ldquo;Hephzy, Miss Morley will have another cup of
+      tea, I think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no, thank you. But tell me about your books, Mr. Knowles. Are they
+      stories of Bayport?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No indeed!&rdquo; Hephzy would do my talking for me, and I could not order her
+      to be quiet. &ldquo;No indeed!&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;He writes about lords and ladies
+      and counts and such. He hardly ever writes about everyday people like the
+      ones in Bayport. You would like his books, Frances. You would enjoy
+      readin' 'em, I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sure I should. They must be delightful. I do hope you brought some
+      with you, Mr. Knowles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He didn't, but I did. I'll lend you some, Frances. I'll lend you 'The
+      Queen's Amulet.' That's a splendid story.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sure it must be. So you write about queens, too, Mr. Knowles. I
+      thought Americans scorned royalty. And what is his queen's name, Miss
+      Cahoon? Is it Scriptural?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no indeed! Besides, all Americans' names aren't out of the Bible, any
+      more than the names in England are. That man who wanted to let us his
+      house in Copperhead&mdash;no, Leatherhead&mdash;funny I should forget THAT
+      awful name&mdash;he was named Solomon&mdash;Solomon Cripps... Why, what is
+      it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Morley's smile and the mischievous twinkle had vanished. She looked
+      startled, and even frightened, it seemed to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it, Frances?&rdquo; repeated Hephzy, anxiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing&mdash;nothing. Solomon&mdash;what was it? Solomon Cripps. That is
+      an odd name. And you met this Mr.&mdash;er&mdash;Cripps?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, we met him. He had a house he wanted to let us, and I guess we'd
+      have taken it, too, only you seemed to hate the name of Leatherhead so.
+      Don't you remember you did? I don't blame you. Of the things to call a
+      pretty town that's about the worst.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, it is rather frightful. But this, Mr.&mdash;er&mdash;Cripps; was he
+      as bad as his name? Did you talk with him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only about the house. Hosy and I didn't like him well enough to talk
+      about anything else, except religion. He and his wife gave us to
+      understand they were awful pious. I'm afraid we wouldn't have been churchy
+      enough to suit them, anyway. Hosy, here, doesn't go to meetin' as often as
+      he ought to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad of it.&rdquo; The young lady's tone was emphatic and she looked as if
+      she meant it. We were surprised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're glad of it!&rdquo; repeated Hephzy, in amazement. &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I hate persons who go to church all the time and boast of it, who
+      do all sorts of mean things, but preach, preach, preach continually. They
+      are hypocritical and false and cruel. I HATE them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked now as she had in the room at Mrs. Briggs's when I had
+      questioned her concerning her father. I could not imagine the reason for
+      this sudden squall from a clear sky. Hephzy drew a long breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; she said, after a moment, &ldquo;then Hosy and you ought to get along
+      first-rate together. He's down on hypocrites and make-believe piety as bad
+      as you are. The only time he and Mr. Partridge, our minister in Bayport,
+      ever quarreled&mdash;'twasn't a real quarrel, but more of a disagreement&mdash;was
+      over what sort of a place Heaven was. Mr. Partridge was certain sure that
+      nobody but church members would be there, and Hosy said if some of the
+      church members in Bayport were sure of a ticket, the other place had
+      strong recommendations. 'Twas an awful thing to say, and I was almost as
+      shocked as the minister was; that is I should have been if I hadn't known
+      he didn't mean it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Morley regarded me with a new interest, or at least I thought she
+      did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you mean it?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Hosy,&rdquo; cried Hephzy. &ldquo;What a way that is to talk! What do you know
+      about the hereafter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not much, but,&rdquo; remembering the old story, &ldquo;I know Bayport. Humph!
+      speaking of ministers, here is one now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Judson, the curate, was approaching across the lawn. Hephzy hastily
+      removed the lid of the teapot. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, with a sigh of relief,
+      &ldquo;there's enough tea left, though you mustn't have any more, Hosy. Mr.
+      Judson always takes three cups.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Judson was introduced and, the &ldquo;between-maid&rdquo; having brought another
+      chair, he joined our party. He accepted the first of the three cups and
+      observed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope I haven't interrupted an important conversation. You appeared to
+      be talking very earnestly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I should have answered, but Hephzy's look of horrified expostulation
+      warned me to be silent. Frances, although she must have seen the look,
+      answered instead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We were discussing Heaven,&rdquo; she said, calmly. &ldquo;Mr. Knowles doesn't
+      approve of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy bounced on her chair. &ldquo;Why!&rdquo; she cried; &ldquo;why, what a&mdash;why,
+      WHAT will Mr. Judson think! Now, Frances, you know&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That was what you said, Mr. Knowles, wasn't it. You said if Paradise was
+      exclusively for church members you preferred&mdash;well, another locality.
+      That was what I understood you to say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Judson looked at me. He was a very good and very orthodox and a very
+      young man and his feelings showed in his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I can scarcely think Mr. Knowles said that, Miss Morley,&rdquo; he
+      protested. &ldquo;You must have misunderstood him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, but I didn't misunderstand. That was what he said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again Mr. Judson looked at me. It seemed time for me to say something.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What I said, or meant to say, was that I doubted if the future life, the&mdash;er&mdash;pleasant
+      part of it, was confined exclusively to&mdash;er&mdash;professed church
+      members,&rdquo; I explained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The curate's ruffled feelings were evidently not soothed by this
+      explanation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But&mdash;but, Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; he stammered, &ldquo;really, I&mdash;I am at a
+      loss to understand your meaning. Surely you do not mean that&mdash;that&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course he didn't mean that,&rdquo; put in Hephzy. &ldquo;What he said was that
+      some of the ones who talk the loudest and oftenest in prayer-meetin' at
+      our Methodist church in Bayport weren't as good as they pretended to be.
+      And that's so, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Judson seemed relieved. &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;Oh, yes, I quite
+      comprehend. Methodists&mdash;er&mdash;dissenters&mdash;that is quite
+      different&mdash;quite.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Judson knows that no one except communicants in the Church of England
+      are certain of happiness,&rdquo; observed Frances, very gravely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our caller turned his attention to her. He was not a joker, but I think he
+      was a trifle suspicious. The young lady met his gaze with one of serene
+      simplicity and, although he reddened, he returned to the charge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should&mdash;I should scarcely go as far as that, Miss Morley,&rdquo; he
+      said. &ldquo;But I understand Mr. Knowles to refer to&mdash;er&mdash;church
+      members; and&mdash;er&mdash;dissenters&mdash;Methodists and others&mdash;are
+      not&mdash;are not&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; broke in Hephzibah, with decision, &ldquo;I'm a Methodist, myself, and
+      <i>I</i> don't expect to go to perdition.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Judson's guns were spiked. He turned redder than ever and changed the
+      subject to the weather.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The remainder of the conversation was confined for the most part to
+      Frances and the curate. They discussed the village and the people in it
+      and the church and its activities. At length Judson mentioned golf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Knowles and I are to have another round shortly, I trust,&rdquo; he said.
+      &ldquo;You owe me a revenge, you know, Mr. Knowles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; exclaimed the young lady, in apparent surprise, &ldquo;does Mr. Knowles
+      play golf?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not real golf,&rdquo; I observed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, but he does,&rdquo; protested Mr. Judson, &ldquo;he does. Rather! He plays a very
+      good game indeed. He beat me quite badly the other day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Which, according to my reckoning, was by no means a proof of extraordinary
+      ability. Frances seemed amused, for some unexplained reason.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should never have thought it,&rdquo; she observed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo; asked Judson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I don't know. Golf is a game, and Mr. Knowles doesn't look as if he
+      played games. I should have expected nothing so frivolous from him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My golf is anything but frivolous,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;It's too seriously bad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you golf, Miss Morley, may I ask?&rdquo; inquired the curate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have occasionally, after a fashion. I am sure I should like to learn.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall be delighted to teach you. It would be a great pleasure, really.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked as if it would be a pleasure. Frances smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you so much,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You and I and Mr. Knowles will have a
+      threesome.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Judson's joy at her acceptance was tempered, it seemed to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, of course,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It will be a great pleasure to have your uncle
+      with us. A great pleasure, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My&mdash;uncle?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, yes&mdash;Mr. Knowles, you know. By the way, Miss Morley&mdash;excuse
+      my mentioning it, but I notice you always address your uncle as Mr.
+      Knowles. That seems a bit curious, if you'll pardon my saying so. A bit
+      distant and&mdash;er&mdash;formal to our English habit. Do all nieces and
+      nephews in your country do that? Is it an American custom?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy and I looked at each other and my &ldquo;niece&rdquo; looked at both of us. I
+      could feel the blood tingling in my cheeks and forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it an American custom?&rdquo; repeated Mr. Judson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; with chilling deliberation. &ldquo;I am NOT an American.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The curate said &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; and had the astonishing good sense not to say
+      any more. Shortly afterward he said good-by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I shall look forward to our threesome, Miss Morley,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;I
+      shall count upon it in the near future.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After his departure there was a most embarrassing interval of silence.
+      Hephzy spoke first.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you think you had better go in now, Frances,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Seems to
+      me you had. It's the first time you've been out at all, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young lady rose. &ldquo;I am going,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I am going, if you and&mdash;my
+      uncle&mdash;will excuse me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That evening, after dinner, Hephzy joined me in the drawing-room. It was a
+      beautiful summer evening, but every shade was drawn and every shutter
+      tightly closed. We had, on our second evening in the rectory, suggested
+      leaving them open, but the housemaid had shown such shocked surprise and
+      disapproval that we had not pressed the point. By this time we had learned
+      that &ldquo;privacy&rdquo; was another sacred and inviolable English custom. The
+      rectory sat in its own ground, surrounded by high hedges; no one, without
+      extraordinary pains, could spy upon its inmates, but, nevertheless, the
+      privacy of those inmates must be guaranteed. So the shutters were closed
+      and the shades drawn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; said I to Hephzy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Hephzy, &ldquo;it's better than I was afraid it was goin' to be. I
+      explained that you told the folks at Bancroft's she was your niece because
+      'twas the handiest thing to tell 'em, and you HAD to tell 'em somethin'.
+      And down here in Mayberry the same way. She understood, I guess; at any
+      rate she didn't make any great objection. I thought at the last that she
+      was laughin', but I guess she wasn't. Only what she said sounded funny.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did she say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, she wanted to know if she should call you 'Uncle Hosea.' She
+      supposed it should be that&mdash;'Uncle Hosy' sounded a little
+      irreverent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not answer. &ldquo;Uncle Hosea!&rdquo; a beautiful title, truly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She acted so different to-day, didn't she,&rdquo; observed Hephzy. &ldquo;It's
+      because she's gettin' well, I suppose. She was real full of fun, wasn't
+      she.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Confound her&mdash;yes,&rdquo; I snarled. &ldquo;All the fun is on her side. Well,
+      she should make the best of it while it lasts. When she learns the truth
+      she may not find it so amusing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy sighed. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, slowly, &ldquo;I'm afraid that's so, poor thing.
+      When&mdash;when are you goin' to tell her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;But pretty soon, that's certain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which I Break All Previous Resolutions and Make a New One
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      That afternoon tea on the lawn was the beginning of the great change in
+      our life at the rectory. Prior to that Hephzy and I had, golfly speaking,
+      been playing it as a twosome. Now it became a threesome, with other
+      players added at frequent intervals. At luncheon next day our invalid, a
+      real invalid no longer, joined us at table in the pleasant dining-room,
+      the broad window of which opened upon the formal garden with the sundial
+      in the center. She was in good spirits, and, as Hephzy confided to me
+      afterward, was &ldquo;gettin' a real nice appetite.&rdquo; In gaining this appetite
+      she appeared to have lost some of her dignity and chilling condescension;
+      at all events, she treated her American relatives as if she considered
+      them human beings. She addressed most of her conversation to Hephzy,
+      always speaking of and to her as &ldquo;Miss Cahoon.&rdquo; She still addressed me as
+      &ldquo;Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; and I was duly thankful; I had feared being hailed as
+      &ldquo;Uncle Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After lunch Mr. Judson called again. He was passing, he explained, on his
+      round of parish calls, and had dropped in casually. Mr. Worcester also
+      came; his really was a casual stop, I think. He and his brother curate
+      were very brotherly indeed, but I noticed an apparent reluctance on the
+      part of each to leave before the other. They left together, but Mr. Judson
+      again hinted at the promised golf game, and Mr. Worcester, having learned
+      from Miss Morley that she played and sang, expressed great interest in
+      music and begged permission to bring some &ldquo;favorite songs,&rdquo; which he felt
+      sure Miss Morley might like to run over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Morley herself was impartially gracious and affable to both the
+      clerical gentlemen; she was looking forward to the golf, she said, and the
+      songs she was certain would be jolly. Hephzy and I had very little to say,
+      and no one seemed particularly anxious to hear that little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The curates had scarcely disappeared down the driveway when Doctor Bayliss
+      and his son strolled in from next door. Doctor Bayliss, Senior, was much
+      pleased to find his patient up and about, and Herbert, the son, even more
+      pleased to find her at all, I judge. Young Bayliss was evidently very
+      favorably impressed with his new neighbor. He was a big, healthy,
+      broad-shouldered fellow, a grown-up boy, whose laugh was a pleasure to
+      hear, and who possessed the faculty, envied by me, the quahaug, of
+      chatting entertainingly on all subjects from tennis and the new American
+      dances to Lloyd-George and old-age pensions. Frances declared a strong
+      aversion to the dances, principally because they were American, I
+      suspected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Doctor Bayliss, the old gentleman, then turned to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is the American opinion of the Liberal measures?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should say,&rdquo; I answered, &ldquo;that, so far as they are understood in
+      America, opinion concerning them is divided, much as it is here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really! But you haven't the Liberal and Conservative parties as we have,
+      you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have liberals and conservatives, however, although our political
+      parties are not so named.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We call 'em Republicans and Democrats,&rdquo; explained Hephzy. &ldquo;Hosy is a
+      Republican,&rdquo; she added, proudly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not certain what I am,&rdquo; I observed. &ldquo;I have voted a split ticket of
+      late.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Young Bayliss asked a question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you a&mdash;what is it&mdash;Republican, Miss Morley?&rdquo; he inquired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Morley's eyes dropped disdainfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am neither,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;My father was a Conservative, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I say! That's odd, isn't it. Your uncle here is&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle Hosea, you mean?&rdquo; sweetly. &ldquo;Oh, Uncle Hosea is an American. I am
+      English.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not add &ldquo;Thank heaven,&rdquo; but she might as well. &ldquo;Uncle Hosea&rdquo;
+       shuddered at the name. Young Bayliss grinned behind his blonde mustache.
+      When he left, in company with his father, Hephzy invited him to &ldquo;run in
+      any time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We're next-door neighbors,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;so we mustn't be formal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was fairly certain that the invitation was superfluous. If I knew human
+      nature at all I knew that Bayliss, Junior, did not intend to let formality
+      stand in the way of frequent calls at the rectory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My intuition was correct. The following afternoon he called again. So did
+      Mr. Judson. Both calls were casual, of course. So was Mr. Worcester's that
+      evening. He came to bring the &ldquo;favorite songs&rdquo; and was much surprised to
+      find Miss Morley in the drawing-room. He said so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy and I knew little of our relative's history. She had volunteered no
+      particulars other than those given on the occasion of our first meeting,
+      but we did know, because Mrs. Briggs had told us, that she had been a
+      member of an opera troupe. This evening we heard her sing for the first
+      time. She sang well; her voice was not a strong one, but it was clear and
+      sweet and she knew how to use it. Worcester sang well also, and the little
+      concert was very enjoyable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the first of many. Almost every evening after dinner Frances sat
+      down at the old-fashioned piano, with the candle brackets at each side of
+      the music rack, and sang. Occasionally we were her only auditors, but more
+      often one or both of the curates or Doctor and Mrs. Bayliss or Bayliss,
+      Junior, dropped in. We made other acquaintances&mdash;Mrs. Griggson, the
+      widow in &ldquo;reduced circumstances,&rdquo; whose husband had been killed in the
+      Boer war, and who occupied the little cottage next to the draper's shop;
+      Mr. and Mrs. Samson, of Burgleston Bogs, friends of the Baylisses, and
+      others. They were pleasant, kindly, unaffected people and we enjoyed their
+      society.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Each day Frances gained in health and strength. The care-free, wholesome,
+      out-of-door life at Mayberry seemed to suit her. She seemed to consider
+      herself a member of the family now; at all events she did not speak of
+      leaving nor hint at the prompt settlement of her preposterous &ldquo;claim.&rdquo;
+       Hephzy and I did not mention it, even to each other. Hephzy, I think, was
+      quite satisfied with things as they were, and I, in spite of my threats
+      and repeated declarations that the present state of affairs was ridiculous
+      and could not last, put off telling &ldquo;my niece&rdquo; the truth. I, too, was
+      growing more accustomed to the &ldquo;threesome.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The cloud was always there, hanging over our heads and threatening a storm
+      at any moment, but I was learning to forget it. The situation had its
+      pleasant side; it was not all bad. For instance, meals in the pleasant
+      dining-room, with Hephzy at one end of the table, I at the other, and
+      Frances between us, were more social and chatty than they had been. To
+      have the young lady come down to breakfast, her hair prettily arranged,
+      her cheeks rosy with health, and her eyes shining with youth and the joy
+      of life, was almost a tonic. I found myself taking more pains with my
+      morning toilet, choosing my tie with greater care and being more careful
+      concerning the condition of my boots. I even began to dress for dinner, a
+      concession to English custom which was odd enough in one of my easy-going
+      habits and Bayport rearing. I imagine that the immaculate appearance of
+      young Bayliss, when he dropped in for the &ldquo;sing&rdquo; in the drawing-room, was
+      responsible for the resurrection of my dinner coat. He did look so
+      disgustingly young and handsome and at ease. I was conscious of each one
+      of my thirty-eight years whenever I looked at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was rejuvenating in other ways. It had been my custom at Bayport to
+      retire to my study and my books each evening. Here, where callers were so
+      frequent, I found it difficult to do this and, although the temptation was
+      to sit quietly in a corner and let the others do the talking, I was not
+      allowed to yield. The younger callers, particularly the masculine portion,
+      would not have objected to my silence, I am sure, but &ldquo;my niece&rdquo; seemed to
+      take mischievous pleasure in drawing the quahaug out of his shell. She had
+      a disconcerting habit of asking me unexpected questions at times when my
+      attention was wandering, and, if I happened to state a definite opinion,
+      taking the opposite side with promptness. After a time I decided not to
+      express opinions, but to agree with whatever was said as the simplest way
+      of avoiding controversy and being left to myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This procedure should, it seemed to me, have satisfied her, but apparently
+      it did not. On one occasion, Judson and Herbert Bayliss being present, the
+      conversation turned to the subject of American athletic sports. The curate
+      and Bayliss took the ground, the prevailing thought in England apparently,
+      that all American games were not games, but fights in which the true
+      sporting spirit was sacrificed to the desire to win at any cost. I had
+      said nothing, keeping silent for two reasons. First, that I had given my
+      views on the subject before, and, second, because argument from me was, in
+      that company, fruitless effort. The simplest way to end discussion of a
+      disagreeable topic was to pay no attention to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I was not allowed to escape so easily. Bayliss asked me a question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn't it true, Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; he asked, &ldquo;that the American football player
+      wears a sort of armor to prevent his being killed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My thoughts had been drifting anywhere and everywhere. Just then they were
+      centered about &ldquo;my niece's&rdquo; hands. She had very pretty hands and a most
+      graceful way of using them. At the moment they were idly turning some
+      sheets of music, but the way the slim fingers moved in and out between the
+      pages was pretty and fascinating. Her foot, glimpsed beneath her skirt,
+      was slender and graceful, too. She had an attractive trick of swinging it
+      as she sat upon the piano stool.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Recalled from these and other pleasing observations by Bayliss's mention
+      of my name, I looked up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg pardon?&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bayliss repeated his question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes,&rdquo; said I, and looked down again at the foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So I have been told,&rdquo; said the questioner, triumphantly. &ldquo;And without
+      that&mdash;er&mdash;armor many of the players would be killed, would they
+      not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What? Oh, yes; yes, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And many are killed or badly injured as it is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How many during a season, may I ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh? Oh&mdash;I don't know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A hundred?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The foot was swinging more rapidly now. It was such a small foot. My own
+      looked so enormous and clumsy and uncouth by comparison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A&mdash;oh, thousands,&rdquo; said I, at random. If the number were large
+      enough to satisfy him he might cease to worry me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A beastly game,&rdquo; declared Judson, with conviction. &ldquo;How can a civilized
+      country countenance such brutality! Do you countenance it, Mr. Knowles?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;er&mdash;that is, no.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You agree, then, that it is brutal?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly, certainly.&rdquo; Would the fellow never stop?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo; It was Frances who spoke and her tone was emphatic and
+      impatient. We all looked at her; her cheeks were flushed and she appeared
+      highly indignant. &ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo; she said again. &ldquo;He doesn't agree to any
+      such thing. I've heard him say that American football was not as brutal as
+      our fox-hunting and that fewer people were killed or injured. We play polo
+      and we ride in steeplechases and the papers are full of accidents. I don't
+      believe Americans are more brutal or less civilized in their sports than
+      we are, not in the least.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Considering that she had at the beginning of the conversation apparently
+      agreed with all that had been said, and, moreover, had often, in speaking
+      to Hephzy and me, referred to the &ldquo;States&rdquo; as an uncivilized country, this
+      declaration was astonishing. I was astonished for one. Hephzy clapped her
+      hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course they aren't,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;Hosy&mdash;Mr. Knowles&mdash;didn't
+      mean that they were, either.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Our callers looked at each other and Herbert Bayliss hastily changed the
+      subject. After they had gone I ventured to thank my champion for coming to
+      the rescue of my sporting countrymen. She flashed an indignant glance at
+      me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you say such things?&rdquo; she demanded. &ldquo;You know they weren't true.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What was the use of saying anything else? They have read the accounts of
+      football games which American penny-a-line correspondents send to the
+      London papers and nothing I could say would change their convictions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It doesn't make any difference. You should say what you think. To sit
+      there and let them&mdash;Oh, it is ridiculous!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My feelings were not hurt. Their ideas will broaden by and by, when they
+      are as old as I am. They're young now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This charitable remark seemed to have the effect of making her more
+      indignant than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;You speak as if you were an Old Testament
+      patriarch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy put in a word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Frances,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I thought you didn't like America.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't. Of course I don't. But it makes me lose patience to have him sit
+      there and agree to everything those boys say. Why didn't he answer them as
+      he should? If I were an American no one&mdash;NO one should rag me about
+      my country without getting as good as they gave.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was amused. &ldquo;What would you have me do?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;Rise and sing the
+      'Star Spangled Banner'?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would have you speak your mind like a man. Not sit there like a&mdash;like
+      a rabbit. And I wouldn't act and think like a Methusaleh until I was one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was quite evident that &ldquo;my niece&rdquo; was a young person of whims. The next
+      time the &ldquo;States&rdquo; were mentioned and I ventured to speak in their defence,
+      she calmly espoused the other side and &ldquo;ragged&rdquo; as mercilessly as the
+      rest. I found myself continually on the defensive, and this state of
+      affairs had one good effect at least&mdash;that of waking me up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Toward Hephzy her manner was quite different. She now, especially when we
+      three were alone, occasionally addressed her as &ldquo;Auntie.&rdquo; And she would
+      not permit &ldquo;Auntie&rdquo; to be made fun of. At the least hint of such a thing
+      she snubbed the would-be humorist thoroughly. She and Hephzy were becoming
+      really friendly. I felt certain she was beginning to like her&mdash;to
+      discern the real woman beneath the odd exterior. But when I expressed this
+      thought to Hephzy herself she shook her head doubtfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sometimes I've almost thought so, Hosy,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;but only this mornin'
+      when I said somethin' about her mother and how much she looked like her,
+      she almost took my head off. And she's got her pa's picture right in the
+      middle of her bureau. No, Hosy, she's nicer to us than she was at first
+      because it's her nature to be nice. So long as she forgets who and what we
+      are, or what her scamp of a father told her we were, she treats us like
+      her own folks. But when she remembers we're receivers of stolen goods,
+      livin' on money that belongs to her, then it's different. You can't blame
+      her for that, I suppose. But&mdash;but how is it all goin' to end? <i>I</i>
+      don't know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I didn't know either.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had hoped,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;that, living with us as she does, she might come
+      to know and understand us&mdash;to learn that we couldn't be the sort she
+      has believed us to be. Then it seems to me we might tell her and she would
+      listen to reason.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I'm afraid we can't wait long. You see, there's another thing,
+      Hosy. She needs clothes and&mdash;and lots of things. She realizes it.
+      Yesterday she told me she must go up to London, shopping, pretty soon. She
+      asked me to go with her. I put her off; said I was awful busy around the
+      house just now, but she'll ask me again, and if I don't go she'll go by
+      herself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! I don't see how she can do much shopping. She hasn't a penny, so
+      far as I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't understand. She thinks she has got a good many pennies, or
+      we've got 'em for her. She's just as liable to buy all creation and send
+      us the bills.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I whistled. &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; I said, decidedly, &ldquo;when that happens we must put our
+      foot down. Neither you nor I are millionaires, Hephzy, and she must
+      understand that regardless of consequences.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean you'll tell her&mdash;everything?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall have to. Why do you look at me like that? Are we to use
+      common-sense or aren't we? Are we in a position to adopt a young woman of
+      expensive tastes&mdash;actually adopt her? And not only that, but give her
+      carte blanche&mdash;let her buy whatever she pleases and charge it to us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose not. But&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I&mdash;I don't see how we can stop her buying whatever she pleases
+      with what she thinks is her own money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do. We can tell her she has no money. I shall do it. My mind is made
+      up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy said nothing, but her expression was one of doubt. I stalked off in
+      a bad temper. Discussions of the kind always ended in just this way.
+      However, I swore a solemn oath to keep my word this time. There were
+      limits and they had been reached. Besides, as I had said, the situation
+      was changed in one way; we no longer had an invalid to deal with. No, my
+      mind was made up. True, this was at least the tenth time I had made it up,
+      but this time I meant it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The test came two days later and was the result of a call on the Samsons.
+      The Samsons lived at Burgleston Bogs, and we drove to their house in the
+      trap behind &ldquo;Pet,&rdquo; the plump black horse. Mrs. Samson seemed very glad to
+      see us, urged us to remain for tea, and invited us to attend a tennis
+      tournament on their lawn the following week. She asked if Miss Morley
+      played tennis. Frances said she had played, but not recently. She intended
+      to practice, however, and would be delighted to witness the tournament,
+      although, of course, she could not take part in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy&mdash;Mr. Knowles, I mean&mdash;plays tennis,&rdquo; observed Hephzy,
+      seizing the opportunity, as usual, to speak a good word for me. &ldquo;He used
+      to play real well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really!&rdquo; exclaimed Mrs. Samson, &ldquo;how interesting. If we had only known.
+      No doubt Mr. Knowles would have liked to enter. I'm so sorry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hastened to protest. &ldquo;My tennis is decidedly rusty,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I
+      shouldn't think of displaying it in public. In fact, I don't play at all
+      now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On the way home Frances was rather quiet. The next morning she announced
+      that she intended going to Wrayton that afternoon. &ldquo;Johnson will drive me
+      over,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I shall be glad if Auntie will go with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Wrayton was the county-seat, a good-sized town five miles from Mayberry.
+      Hephzy declined the invitation. She had promised to &ldquo;tea&rdquo; with Mrs.
+      Griggson that afternoon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I must go alone,&rdquo; said Frances. &ldquo;That is unless&mdash;er&mdash;Uncle
+      Hosea cares to go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle Hosea&rdquo; declined. The name of itself was sufficient to make him
+      decline; besides Worcester and I were scheduled for golf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall go alone then,&rdquo; said &ldquo;my niece,&rdquo; with decision. &ldquo;Johnson will
+      look after me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But after luncheon, when I visited the stable to order Johnson to harness
+      &ldquo;Pet,&rdquo; I met with an unexpected difficulty. Johnson, it appeared, was ill,
+      had been indisposed the day before and was now at home in bed. I
+      hesitated. If this were Bayport I should have bade the gardener harness
+      &ldquo;Pet&rdquo; or have harnessed him myself. But this was Mayberry, not Bayport.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gardener, deprived of his assistant's help&mdash;Johnson worked about
+      the garden when not driving&mdash;was not in good humor. I decided not to
+      ask him to harness, but to risk a fall in the estimation of the servants
+      by doing it myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gardener watched me for a moment in shocked disapproval. Then he
+      interfered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you please, Mr. Knowles, sir,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I'll 'arness, but I can't
+      drive, sir. I am netting the gooseberries. Perhaps you might get a man
+      from the Inn stables, unless you or the young lady might wish to drive
+      yourselves.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not wish to drive, having the golf engagement; but when I walked to
+      the Inn I found no driver available. So, rather than be disagreeable, I
+      sent word to the curate that our match was postponed, and accepted the
+      alternative.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances, rather to my surprise, seemed more pleased than otherwise to find
+      that I was to be her coachman. Instead of occupying the rear seat she
+      climbed to that beside me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-by, Auntie,&rdquo; she called to Hephzy, who was standing in the doorway.
+      &ldquo;Sorry you're not going. I'll take good care of Mr. Knowles&mdash;Uncle
+      Hosea, I mean. I'll see that he behaves himself and,&rdquo; with a glance at my,
+      I fear, not too radiant visage, &ldquo;doesn't break any of his venerable
+      bones.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The road, like all English roads which I traveled, was as firm and smooth
+      as a table, the day was fine, the hedges were green and fragrant, the
+      larks sang, and the flocks of sheep in the wayside pastures were
+      picturesque as always. &ldquo;Pet,&rdquo; who had led an easy life since we came to
+      the rectory, was in high spirits and stepped along in lively fashion. My
+      companion, too, was in good spirits and chatted and laughed as she had not
+      done with me since I knew her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Altogether it was a delightful ride. I found myself emerging from my shell
+      and chatting and joking quite unlike the elderly quahaug I was supposed to
+      be. We passed a party of young fellows on a walking tour, knapsacked and
+      knickerbockered, and the admiring glances they passed at my passenger were
+      flattering. They envied me, that was plain. Well, under different
+      circumstances, I could conceive myself an object of envy. A dozen years
+      younger, with the heart of youth and the comeliness of youth, I might have
+      thought myself lucky to be driving along such a road with such a vision by
+      my side. And, the best of it was, the vision treated me as if I really
+      were her own age. I squared my shoulders and as Hephzy would have said,
+      &ldquo;perked up&rdquo; amazingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We entered Wrayton and moved along the main street between the rows of
+      ancient buildings, past the old stone church with its inevitable and
+      always welcome gray, ivy-draped tower, to the quaint old square with the
+      statue of William Pitt in its center. My companion, all at once, seemed to
+      become aware of her surroundings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why!&rdquo; she exclaimed, &ldquo;we are here, aren't we? Fancy! I expected a longer
+      drive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So did I,&rdquo; I agreed. &ldquo;We haven't hurried, either. Where has the time
+      gone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know. We have been so busy talking that I have thought of nothing
+      else. Really, I didn't know you could be so entertaining&mdash;Uncle
+      Hosea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The detested title brought me to myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are here,&rdquo; I said, shortly. &ldquo;And now where shall we go? Have you any
+      stopping place in particular?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I want to stop now. Please pull up over there, in front
+      of that shop with the cricket bats in the window.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The shop was what we, in America, would have called a &ldquo;sporting-goods
+      store.&rdquo; I piloted &ldquo;Pet&rdquo; to the curb and pulled up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going in,&rdquo; said Miss Morley. &ldquo;Oh, don't trouble to help me. I can
+      get down quite well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was down, springing from the step as lightly as a dandelion fluff
+      before I could scramble down on the other side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I won't be long,&rdquo; she said, and went into the shop. I, not being invited,
+      remained on the pavement. Two or three small boys appeared from somewhere
+      and, scenting possible pennies, volunteered to hold the horse. I declined
+      their services.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Five minutes passed, then ten. My passenger was still in the shop. I could
+      not imagine what she was doing there. If it had been a shop of a different
+      kind, and in view of Hephzy's recent statement concerning the buying of
+      clothes, I might have been suspicious. But no clothes were on sale at that
+      shop and, besides, it never occurred to me that she would buy anything of
+      importance without mentioning her intention to me beforehand. I had taken
+      it for granted that she would mention the subject and, when she did, I
+      intended to be firm. But as the minutes went by my suspicions grew. She
+      must be buying something&mdash;or contemplating buying, at least. But she
+      had said nothing to me concerning money; HAD she money of her own after
+      all? It might be possible that she had a very little, and was making some
+      trifling purchase.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She reappeared in the doorway of the shop, followed by a very polite young
+      man with a blonde mustache. The young man was bowing and smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, miss,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I'll have them wrapped immediately. They shall be
+      ready when you return, miss. Thank you, miss.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances nodded acknowledgment of the thanks. Then she favored me with
+      another nod and a most bewitching smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's over,&rdquo; she announced, &ldquo;and now I'm going to the draper's for a
+      moment. It is near here, you say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man bowed again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, miss, on the next corner, next the chemist's.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned to me. &ldquo;You may wait here, Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I shall be
+      back very soon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hurried away. I looked after her, and then, with all sorts of
+      forebodings surging in my brain, strode into that &ldquo;sporting-goods store.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The blond young man was at my elbow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; he said, ingratiatingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did&mdash;did that young lady make some purchases here?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir. Here they are, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There on the counter lay a tennis racket, a racket press and waterproof
+      case, a pair of canvas tennis shoes and a jaunty white felt hat. I stared
+      at the collection. The clerk took up the racket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a Slazenger,&rdquo; he observed, regretfully. &ldquo;I did my best to persuade
+      her to buy a Slazenger; that is the best racket we have. But she decided
+      the Slazenger was a bit high in price, sir. However, sir, this one is not
+      bad. A very fine racket for lady's use; very light and strong, sir,
+      considering the cost&mdash;only sixteen and six, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sixteen and six. Four dollars and&mdash;Did she pay for it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh no, sir. She said you would do that, sir. The total is two pound eight
+      and thruppence, sir. Shall I give you a bill, sir? Thank you, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His thanks were wasted. I pushed him to one side and walked out of that
+      shop. I could not answer; if I answered as I felt I might be sorry later.
+      After all, it wasn't his fault. My business was not with him, but with
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not the amount of the purchase that angered and alarmed me. Two
+      pounds eight&mdash;twelve dollars&mdash;was not so much. If she had asked
+      me, if she had said she desired the racket and the rest of it during the
+      drive over, I think, feeling as I did during that drive, I should have
+      bought them for her. But she had not asked; she had calmly bought them
+      without consulting me at all. She had come to Wrayton for that very
+      purpose. And then had told the clerk that I would pay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The brazen presumption of it! I was merely a convenience, a sort of
+      walking bank account, to be drawn upon as she saw fit, at her imperial
+      will, if you please. It made no difference, to her mind, whether I liked
+      it or not&mdash;whether I could afford it or not. I could, of course,
+      afford this trifling sum, but this was only the beginning. If I permitted
+      this there was no telling to what extent she might go on, buying and
+      buying and buying. This was a precedent&mdash;that was what it was, a
+      precedent; and a precedent once established... It should not be
+      established. I had vowed to Hephzy that it should not. I would prove to
+      this girl that I had a will of my own. The time had come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the boys who had been so anxious to hold the horse was performing
+      that entirely unnecessary duty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay here until I come back,&rdquo; I ordered and hurried to the draper's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was there standing before the counter, and an elderly man was
+      displaying cloths&mdash;white flannels and serges they appeared to be. She
+      was not in the least perturbed at my entrance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you came, after all,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I wondered if you would. Now you must
+      help me. I don't know what your taste in tennis flannels may be, but I
+      hope it is good. I shall have these made up at Mayberry, of course. My
+      other frocks&mdash;and I need so many of them&mdash;I shall buy in London.
+      Do you fancy this, now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I don't know whether I fancied it or not. I am quite sure I could not
+      remember what it was if I were asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; she asked, after an instant. &ldquo;Do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I don't know,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;May I ask you to step outside one moment.
+      I&mdash;I have something I wish to say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She regarded me curiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Something you wish to say?&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I can't tell you here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not, pray?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I can't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at me still more intently. I was conscious of the salesman's
+      regard also. My tone, I am sure, was anything but gracious, and I imagine
+      I appeared as disgusted and embarrassed as I felt. She turned away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I will choose this one,&rdquo; she said, addressing the clerk. &ldquo;You may
+      give me five yards. Oh, yes; and I may as well take the same amount of the
+      other. You may wrap it for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, miss, yes. Thank you, miss. Is there anything else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hesitated. Then, after another sidelong glance at me, she said: &ldquo;Yes,
+      I believe there is. I wish to see some buttons, some braid, and&mdash;oh,
+      ever so many things. Please show them to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, miss, certainly. This way, if you please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you assist in the selection, Uncle Hosea?&rdquo; she inquired, with
+      suspicious sweetness. &ldquo;I am sure your opinion will be invaluable. No? Then
+      I must ask you to wait.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And wait I did, for I could do nothing else. That draper's shop was not
+      the place for a scene, with a half-dozen clerks to enjoy it. I waited,
+      fuming, while she wandered about, taking a great deal of time, and
+      lingering over each purchase in a maddening manner. At last she seemed
+      able to think of no more possibilities and strolled to where I was
+      standing, followed by the salesman, whose hands were full.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may wrap these with the others,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I have my trap here and
+      will take them with me. The trap is here, isn't it&mdash;er&mdash;Uncle
+      Hosea?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is just above here,&rdquo; I answered, sulkily. &ldquo;But&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you will get it. Thank you so much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The salesman noticed my hesitation, put his own interpretation upon it and
+      hastened to oblige.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall be glad to have the purchases carried there,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Our boy
+      will do it, miss. It will be no trouble.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Morley thanked him so much. I was hoping she might leave the shop
+      then, but she did not. The various packages were wrapped, handed to the
+      boy, and she accompanied the latter to the door and showed him our
+      equipage standing before the sporting-goods dealer's. Then she sauntered
+      back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; she said, addressing the clerk. &ldquo;That is all, I believe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The clerk looked at her and at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, miss, thank you,&rdquo; he said, in return. &ldquo;I&mdash;I&mdash;would you be
+      wishing to pay at once, miss, or shall I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, this gentleman will pay. Do you wish to pay now&mdash;Uncle Hosea?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again I was stumped. The salesman was regarding me expectantly; the other
+      clerks were near by; if I made a scene there&mdash;No, I could not do it.
+      I would pay this time. But this should be the end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fortunately, I had money in my pocket&mdash;two five-pound notes and some
+      silver. I paid the bill. Then, and at last, my niece led the way to the
+      pavement. We walked together a few steps in silence. The sporting-goods
+      shop was just ahead, and if ever I was determined not to do a thing that
+      thing was to pay for the tennis racket and the rest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances,&rdquo; I began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well&mdash;Mr. Knowles?&rdquo; calmly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances, I have decided to speak with you frankly. You appear to take
+      certain things for granted in your&mdash;your dealings with Miss Cahoon
+      and myself, things which&mdash;which I cannot countenance or permit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had been walking slowly. Now she stopped short. I stopped, too,
+      because she did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;What things?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was looking me through and through. Again I hesitated, and my
+      hesitation did not help matters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;What is it you cannot countenance or&rdquo;&mdash;scornfully&mdash;&ldquo;permit
+      concerning me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;well, I cannot permit you to do as you have done to-day. You did
+      not tell your aunt or me your purpose in coming to Wrayton. You did not
+      tell us you were coming here to buy&mdash;to buy various things for
+      yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why should I tell you? They were for myself. Is it your idea that I
+      should ask YOUR permission before buying what I choose?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Considering that you ask me to pay, I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I most distinctly did NOT ask you. I TOLD you to pay. Certainly you will
+      pay. Why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, why not. So this was what you wished to speak to me about. This was
+      why you were so&mdash;so boorish and disagreeable in that shop. Tell me&mdash;was
+      that the reason? Was that why you followed me there? Did you think&mdash;did
+      you presume to think of preventing my buying what I pleased with my
+      money?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it had been your money I should not have presumed, certainly. If you
+      had mentioned your intention to me beforehand I might even have paid for
+      your purchases and said nothing. I should&mdash;I should have been glad to
+      do so. I am not unreasonable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed! Indeed! Do you mean that you would have condescended to make me a
+      present of them? And was it your idea that I would accept presents from
+      you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that she had already accepted a
+      good deal; but somehow the place, a public sidewalk, seemed hardly fitting
+      for the discussion of weighty personal matters. Passers-by were regarding
+      us curiously, and in the door of the draper's shop which we had just left
+      I noticed the elderly clerk standing and looking in our direction. I
+      temporized.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't understand, Miss Morley,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Neither your aunt nor I are
+      wealthy. Surely, it is not too much to ask that you consult us before&mdash;before&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She interrupted me. &ldquo;I shall not consult you at all,&rdquo; she declared,
+      fiercely. &ldquo;Wealthy! Am <i>I</i> wealthy? Was my father wealthy? He should
+      have been and so should I. Oh, WHAT do you mean? Are you trying to tell me
+      that you cannot afford to pay for the few trifles I have bought this
+      afternoon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can afford those, of course. But you don't understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Understand? YOU do not understand. The agreement under which I came to
+      Mayberry was that you were to provide for me. I consented to forego
+      pressing my claim against you until&mdash;until you were ready to&mdash;to&mdash;Oh,
+      but why should we go into this again? I thought&mdash;I thought you
+      understood. I thought you understood and appreciated my forbearance. You
+      seemed to understand and to be grateful and kind. I am all alone in the
+      world. I haven't a friend. I have been almost happy for a little while. I
+      was beginning to&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stopped. The dark eyes which had been flashing lightnings in my
+      direction suddenly filled with tears. My heart smote me. After all, she
+      did not understand. Another plea of that kind and I should have&mdash;Well,
+      I'm not sure what I should have done. But the plea was not spoken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, what a fool I am!&rdquo; she cried, fiercely. &ldquo;Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; pointing to
+      the sporting-goods store, &ldquo;I have made some purchases in that shop also. I
+      expect you to pay for those as well. Will you or will you not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was hesitating, weakly. She did not wait for me to reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You WILL pay for them,&rdquo; she declared, &ldquo;and you will pay for others that I
+      may make. I shall buy what I please and do what I please with my money
+      which you are keeping from me. You will pay or take the consequences.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was enough. &ldquo;I will not pay,&rdquo; I said, firmly, &ldquo;under any such
+      arrangement.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will NOT?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I will not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked as if&mdash;Well, if she had been a man I should have expected
+      a blow. Her breast heaved and her fingers clenched. Then she turned and
+      walked toward the shop with the cricket bats in the window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are you going?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going to tell the man to send the things I have bought to Mayberry
+      by carrier and I shall tell him to send the bill to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you do I shall tell him to do nothing of the kind. Miss Morley, I
+      don't mean to be ungenerous or unreasonable, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop! Stop! Oh!&rdquo; with a sobbing breath, &ldquo;how I hate you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm sorry. When I explain, as I mean to, you will understand, I think. If
+      you will go back to the rectory with me now&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not go back with you. I shall never speak to you again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Morley, be reasonable. You must go back with me. There is no other
+      way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here was more cheer in an already cheerful situation. She could not get to
+      Mayberry that night unless she rode with me. She had no money to take her
+      there or anywhere else. I could hardly carry her to the trap by main
+      strength. And the curiosity of the passers-by was more marked than ever;
+      two or three of them had stopped to watch us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I don't know how it might have ended, but the end came in an unexpected
+      manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Miss Morley,&rdquo; cried a voice from the street behind me. &ldquo;Oh, I say,
+      it IS you, isn't it. How do you do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I turned. A trim little motor car was standing there and Herbert Bayliss
+      was at the wheel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, Knowles, how do you do?&rdquo; said Bayliss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I acknowledged the greeting in an embarrassed fashion. I wondered how long
+      he had been there and what he had heard. He alighted from the car and
+      shook hands with us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Didn't see you, Knowles, at first,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Saw Miss Morley here and
+      thought she was alone. Was going to beg the privilege of taking her home
+      in my car.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Morley answered promptly. &ldquo;You may have the privilege, Doctor
+      Bayliss,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I accept with pleasure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Young Bayliss looked pleased, but rather puzzled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thanks, awfully,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But my car holds but two and your uncle&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, he has the dogcart. It is quite all right, really. I should love the
+      motor ride. May I get in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He helped her into the car. &ldquo;Sure you don't mind, Knowles,&rdquo; he asked.
+      &ldquo;Sorry there's not more room; but you couldn't leave the horse, though,
+      could you? Quite comfy, Miss Morley? Then we're off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The car turned from the curb. I caught Miss Morley's eye for an instant;
+      there was withering contempt in its look&mdash;also triumph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Left alone, I walked to the trap, gave the horse-holding boy sixpence,
+      climbed to the seat and took up the reins. &ldquo;Pet&rdquo; jogged lazily up the
+      street. The ride over had been very, very pleasant; the homeward journey
+      was likely to be anything but that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To begin with, I was thoroughly dissatisfied with myself. I had bungled
+      the affair dreadfully. This was not the time for explanations; I should
+      not have attempted them. It would have been better, much better, to have
+      accepted the inevitable as gracefully as I could, paid the bills, and
+      then, after we reached home, have made the situation plain and &ldquo;have put
+      my foot down&rdquo; once and for all. But I had not done that. I had lost my
+      temper and acted like an eighteen-year-old boy instead of a middle-aged
+      man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not understand, of course. In her eyes I must have appeared stingy
+      and mean and&mdash;and goodness knows what. The money I had refused to pay
+      she did consider hers, of course. It was not hers, and some day she would
+      know that it was not, but the town square at Wrayton was not the place in
+      which to impart knowledge of that kind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was so young, too, and so charming&mdash;that is, she could be when
+      she chose. And she had chosen to be so during our drive together. And I
+      had enjoyed that drive; I had enjoyed nothing as thoroughly since our
+      arrival in England. She had enjoyed it, too; she had said so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, there would be no more enjoyment of that kind. This was the end, of
+      course. And all because I had refused to pay for a tennis racket and a few
+      other things. They were things she wanted&mdash;yes, needed, if she were
+      to remain at the rectory. And, expecting to remain as she did, it was but
+      natural that she should wish to play tennis and dress as did other young
+      players of her sex. Her life had not been a pleasant one; after all, a
+      little happiness added, even though it did cost me some money, was not
+      much. And it must end soon. It seemed a pity to end it in order to save
+      two pounds eight and threepence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is no use cataloguing all my thoughts. Some I have catalogued and
+      the others were similar. The memory of her face and of the choke in her
+      voice as she said she had been almost happy haunted me. My reason told me
+      that, so far as principle and precedent went, I had acted rightly; but my
+      conscience, which was quite unreasonable, told me I had acted like a boor.
+      I stood it as long as I could, then I shouted at &ldquo;Pet,&rdquo; who was jogging
+      on, apparently half asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whoa!&rdquo; I shouted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pet&rdquo; stopped short in the middle of the road. I hesitated. The principle
+      of the thing&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hang the principle!&rdquo; said I, aloud. Then I turned the trap around and
+      drove back to Wrayton. The blond young man in the sporting-goods store was
+      evidently glad to see me. He must have seen me drive away and have judged
+      that his sale was canceled. His judgment had been very near to right, but
+      now I proved it wrong.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I paid for the racket and the press and the shoes and the rest. They were
+      wrapped and ready.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, sir,&rdquo; said the clerk. &ldquo;I trust everything will be quite
+      satisfactory. I'm sorry the young lady did not take the Slazenger, but the
+      one she chose is not at all bad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was on my way to the door. I stopped and turned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is the&mdash;the what is it&mdash;'Slazenger' so much better?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, very much so, sir. Infinitely better, sir. Here it is; judge for
+      yourself. The very best racket made. And only thirty-two shillings, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a better racket, much better. And, after all, when one is hanging
+      principle the execution may as well be complete.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may give me that one instead of the other,&rdquo; I said, and paid the
+      difference.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On my arrival at the rectory Hephzy met me at the door. The between-maid
+      took the packages from the trap. I entered the drawing-room and Hephzy
+      followed me. She looked very grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances is here, I suppose,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, she came an hour ago. Doctor Bayliss, the younger one, brought her
+      in his auto. She hardly spoke to me, Hosy, and went straight to her room.
+      Hosy, what happened? What is the matter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo; said I, curtly. &ldquo;Nothing unusual, that is. I made a fool of
+      myself once more, that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The between-maid knocked and entered. &ldquo;Where would you wish the parcels,
+      sir?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These are Miss Morley's. Take them to her room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The maid retired to obey orders. Hephzy again turned to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Hosy, what is it?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I told her the whole story. When I had finished Hephzy nodded
+      understandingly. She did not say &ldquo;I told you so,&rdquo; but if she had it would
+      have been quite excusable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think&mdash;I think, perhaps, I had better go up and see her,&rdquo; she
+      said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right. I have no objection.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But she'll ask questions, of course. What shall I tell her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell her I changed my mind. Tell her&mdash;oh, tell her anything you
+      like. Don't bother me. I'm sick of the whole business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She left me and I went into the Reverend Cole's study and closed the door.
+      There were books enough there, but the majority of them were theological
+      works or bulky volumes dealing with questions of religion. Most of my own
+      books were in my room. These did not appeal to me; I was not religiously
+      inclined just then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So I sat dumbly in the rector's desk chair and looked out of the window.
+      After a time there was a knock at the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come in,&rdquo; said I, expecting Hephzy. It was not Hephzy who came, however,
+      but Miss Morley herself. And she closed the door behind her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not speak. She walked over and stood beside me. I did not know what
+      she was going to say and the expression did not help me to guess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a moment she did not say anything. Then:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you changed your mind,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't know. Yet you changed it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Oh yes, I changed it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But why? Was it&mdash;was it because you were ashamed of yourself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess so. As much that as anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You realize that you treated me shamefully. You realize that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; wearily. &ldquo;Yes, I realize everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you felt sorry, after I had gone, and so you changed your mind. Was
+      that it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no use in attempting justification. For the absolute surrender I
+      had made there was no justification. I might as well agree to everything.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you will never, never treat me in that way again?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you realize that I was right and understand that I am to do as I
+      please with my money?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you beg my pardon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well. Then I beg yours. I'm sorry, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now I WAS surprised. I turned in my chair and looked at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You beg my pardon?&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;For what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, for everything. I suppose I should have spoken to you before buying
+      those things. You might not have been prepared to pay then and&mdash;and
+      that would have been unpleasant for you. But&mdash;well, you see, I didn't
+      think, and you were so queer and cross when you followed me to the
+      draper's shop, that&mdash;that I&mdash;well, I was disagreeable, too. I am
+      sorry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's all right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you. Is there anything else you wish to say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're sure?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did you buy the Slazenger racket instead of the other one?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had forgotten the &ldquo;Slazenger&rdquo; for the moment. She had caught me
+      unawares.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh&mdash;oh,&rdquo; I stammered, &ldquo;well, it was a much better racket and&mdash;and,
+      as you were buying one, it seemed foolish not to get the best.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know. I wanted the better one very much, but I thought it too
+      expensive. I did not feel that I should spend so much money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's all right. The difference wasn't so much and I made the change on
+      my own responsibility. I&mdash;well, just consider that I bought the
+      racket and you bought none.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She regarded me intently. &ldquo;You mean that you bought it as a present for
+      me?&rdquo; she said slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; yes, if you will accept it as such.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was silent. I remembered perfectly well what she had said concerning
+      presents from me and I wondered what I should do with that racket when she
+      threw it back on my hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I will accept it. Thank you very much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was staggered, but I recovered sufficiently to tell her she was quite
+      welcome.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned to go. Then she turned back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doctor Bayliss asked me to play tennis with him tomorrow morning,&rdquo; she
+      said. &ldquo;May I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May you? Why, of course you may, if you wish, I suppose. Why in the world
+      do you ask my permission?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, don't you wish me to ask? I inferred from what you said at Wrayton
+      that you did wish me to ask permission concerning many things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wished&mdash;I said&mdash;oh, don't be silly, please! Haven't we had
+      silliness enough for one afternoon, Miss Morley.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My Christian name is Frances. May I play tennis with Doctor Bayliss
+      to-morrow morning, Uncle Hosea?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course you may. How could I prevent it, even if I wished, which I
+      don't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, Uncle Hosea. Mr. Worcester is going to play also. We need a
+      fourth. I can borrow another racket. Will you be my partner, Uncle Hosea?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;<i>I</i>? Your partner?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. You play tennis; Auntie says so. Will you play to-morrow morning as
+      my partner?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I play an atrocious game and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So do I. We shall match beautifully. Thank you, Uncle Hosea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Once more she turned to go, and again she turned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is there anything else you wish me to do, Uncle Hosea?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The repetition repeated was too much.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I declared. &ldquo;Stop calling me Uncle Hosea. I'm not your uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I know that; but you have told everyone that you were, haven't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had, unfortunately, so I could make no better reply than to state
+      emphatically that I didn't like the title.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, very well,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;But 'Mr. Knowles' sounds so formal, don't you
+      think. What shall I call you? Never mind, perhaps I can think while I am
+      dressing for dinner. I will see you at dinner, won't I. Au revoir, and
+      thank you again for the racket&mdash;Cousin Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not your cousin, either&mdash;at least not more than a nineteenth
+      cousin. And if you begin calling me 'Hosy' I shall&mdash;I don't know what
+      I shall do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear me, how particular you are! Well then, au revoir&mdash;Kent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When Hephzy came to the study I was still seated in the rector's chair.
+      She was brimful full of curiosity, I know, and ready to ask a dozen
+      questions at once. But I headed off the first of the dozen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; I observed, &ldquo;I have made no less than fifty solemn resolutions
+      since we met that girl&mdash;that Little Frank of yours. You've heard me
+      make them, haven't you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, yes, I suppose I have. If you mean resolutions to tell her the truth
+      about her father and put an end to the scrape we're in, I have, certain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; well, I've made another one now. Never, no matter what happens, will
+      I attempt to tell her a word concerning Strickland Morley or her
+      'inheritance' or anything else. Every time I've tried I've made a blessed
+      idiot of myself and now I'm through. She can stay with us forever and run
+      us into debt to her heart's desire&mdash;I don't care. If she ever learns
+      the truth she sha'n't learn it from me. I'm incapable of telling it. I
+      haven't the sand of a yellow dog and I'm not going to worry about it. I'm
+      through, do you hear&mdash;through.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was my newest resolution. It was a comfort to realize that THIS
+      resolution I should probably stick to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which Complications Become More Complicated
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      And stick to it I did. From that day&mdash;the day of our drive to Wrayton&mdash;on
+      through those wonderful summer days in which she and Hephzy and I were
+      together at the rectory, not once did I attempt to remonstrate with my
+      &ldquo;niece&rdquo; concerning her presumption in inflicting her presence upon us or
+      in spending her money, as she thought it&mdash;our money as I knew it to
+      be&mdash;as she saw fit. Having learned and relearned my lesson&mdash;namely,
+      that I lacked the courage to tell her the truth I had so often declared
+      must be told, having shifted the responsibility to Hephzy's shoulders,
+      having admitted and proclaimed myself, in that respect at least, a yellow
+      dog, I proceeded to take life as I found it, as yellow dogs are supposed
+      to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And, having thus weakly rid myself of care and responsibility, I began to
+      enjoy that life. To enjoy the freedom of it, and the novelty of the
+      surroundings, and the friendship of the good people who were our
+      neighbors. Yes, and to enjoy the home life, the afternoons on the tennis
+      court or the golf course, the evenings in the drawing-room, the &ldquo;teas&rdquo; on
+      the lawn&mdash;either our lawn or someone else's&mdash;the chats together
+      across the dinner-table; to enjoy it all; and, more astonishing still, to
+      accept the companionship of the young person who was responsible for our
+      living in that way as a regular and understood part of that life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not that I understood the young person herself; no Bayport quahaug, who
+      had shunned female companionship as I had for so long, could be expected
+      to understand the whims and changing moods of a girl like Frances Morley.
+      At times she charmed and attracted me, at others she tormented and
+      irritated me. She argued with me one moment and disagreed the next. She
+      laughed at Hephzy's and my American accent and idioms, but when Bayliss,
+      Junior, or one of the curates ventured to criticize an &ldquo;Americanism&rdquo; she
+      was quite as likely to declare that she thought it &ldquo;jolly&rdquo; and &ldquo;so
+      expressive.&rdquo; Against my will I was obliged to join in conversations, to
+      take sides in arguments, to be present when callers came, to make calls.
+      I, who had avoided the society of young people because, being no longer
+      young, I felt out of place among them, was now dragged into such society
+      every day and almost every evening. I did not want to be, but Little Frank
+      seemed to find mischievous pleasure in keeping me there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is good for you,&rdquo; she said, on one occasion, when I had sneaked off to
+      my room and the company of the &ldquo;British Poets.&rdquo; &ldquo;Auntie says you started
+      on your travels in order to find something new to write about. You'll
+      never find it in those musty books; every poem in them is at least seventy
+      years old. If you are going to write of England and my people you must
+      know something about those that are alive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, my dear young lady,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;I have no intention of writing of your
+      people, as you call them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You write of knights and lords and ladies and queens. You do&mdash;or you
+      did&mdash;and you certainly know nothing about THEM.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was quite a bit ruffled. &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;You are quite sure of that,
+      are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am,&rdquo; decidedly. &ldquo;I have read 'The Queen's Amulet' and no queen on earth&mdash;in
+      England, surely&mdash;ever acted or spoke like that one. An American queen
+      might, if there was such a thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She laughed and, provoked as I was, I could not help laughing with her.
+      She had a most infectious laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear young lady&mdash;&rdquo; I began again, but she interrupted me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't call me that,&rdquo; she protested. &ldquo;You're not the Archbishop of
+      Canterbury visiting a girl's school and making a speech. You asked me not
+      to call you 'Uncle Hosea.' If you say 'dear young lady' to me again I
+      shall address you publicly as 'dear old Nunky.' Don't be silly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed again. &ldquo;But you ARE young,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what of it. Perhaps neither of us likes to be reminded of our age.
+      I'm sure you don't; I never saw anyone more sensitive on the subject.
+      There! there! put away those silly old books and come down to the
+      drawing-room. I'm going to sing. Mr. Worcester has brought in a lot of new
+      music.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Reluctantly I closed the volume I had in my hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;I'll come if you wish. But I shall only be in the
+      way, as I always am. Mr. Worcester didn't plead for my company, did he? Do
+      you know I think he will bear up manfully if I don't appear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She regarded me with disapproval.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't be childish in your old age,&rdquo; she snapped, &ldquo;Are you coming?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I went, of course, and&mdash;it may have been by way of reward&mdash;she
+      sang several old-fashioned, simple ballads which I had found in a
+      dog's-eared portfolio in the music cabinet and which I liked because my
+      mother used to sing them when I was a little chap. I had asked for them
+      before and she had ignored the request.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This time she sang them and Hephzy, sitting beside me in the darkest
+      corner reached over and laid a hand on mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her mother all over again,&rdquo; she whispered. &ldquo;Ardelia used to sing those.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Next day, on the tennis court, she played with Herbert Bayliss against
+      Worcester and me, and seemed to enjoy beating us six to one. The only
+      regret she expressed was that she and her partner had not made it a &ldquo;love
+      set.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Altogether she was a decidedly vitalizing influence, an influence that
+      was, I began to admit to myself, a good one for me. I needed to be kept
+      alive and active, and here, in this wide-awake household, I couldn't be
+      anything else. The future did not look as dull and hopeless as it had when
+      I left Bayport. I even began to consider the possibilities of another
+      novel, to hope that I might write one. Jim Campbell's &ldquo;prescription,&rdquo;
+       although working in quite a different way from that which he and I had
+      planned, was working nevertheless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Matthews, at the Camford Street office, was forwarding my letters and
+      honoring my drafts with promptness. I received a note each week from
+      Campbell. I had written him all particulars concerning Little Frank and
+      our move to the rectory, and he professed to see in it only a huge joke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell your Miss Cahoon,&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;that I am going to turn Spiritualist
+      right away. I believe in dreams now, and presentiments and all sorts of
+      things. I am trying to dream out a plot for a novel by you. Had a
+      roof-garden supper the other night and that gave me a fine start, but I'll
+      have to tackle another one before I get sufficient thrills to furnish
+      forth one of your gems. Seriously though, old man, this whole thing will
+      do you a world of good. Nothing short of an earthquake would have shaken
+      you out of your Cape Cod dumps and it looks to me as if you and&mdash;what's
+      her name&mdash;Hephzibah, had had the quake. What are you going to do with
+      the Little Frank person in the end? Can't you marry her off to a wealthy
+      Englishman? Or, if not that, why not marry her yourself? She'd turn a dead
+      quahaug into a live lobster, I should imagine, if anyone could. Great
+      idea! What?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His &ldquo;great idea&rdquo; was received with the contempt it deserved. I tore up the
+      letter and threw it into the waste basket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Hephzy herself spoke of matrimony and Little Frank soon after this. We
+      were alone together; Frances had gone on a horseback ride with Herbert
+      Bayliss and a female cousin who was spending the day at &ldquo;Jasmine Gables.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy,&rdquo; said Hephzy, &ldquo;do you realize the summer is half over? It's the
+      middle of July now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So it was, although it seemed scarcely possible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she went on. &ldquo;Our lease of this place is up the first of October.
+      We shall be startin' for home then, I presume likely, sha'n't we.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose so. We can't stay over here indefinitely. Life isn't all
+      skittles and&mdash;and tea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's so. I don't know what skittles are, but I know what tea is. Land
+      sakes! I should say I did. They tell me the English national flower is a
+      rose. It ought to be a tea-plant blossom, if there is such a thing. Hosy,&rdquo;
+       with a sudden return to seriousness, &ldquo;what are we goin' to do with&mdash;with
+      HER when the time comes for us to go?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; I answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you going to take her to America with us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! Well, we'll have to know then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose we shall; but,&rdquo; defiantly, &ldquo;I'm not going to worry about it
+      till the time comes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! Well, you've changed, that's all I've got to say. 'Twan't so long
+      ago that you did nothin' BUT worry. I never saw anybody change the way you
+      have anyway.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In what way?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In every way. You aren't like the same person you used to be. Why,
+      through that last year of ours in Bayport I used to think sometimes you
+      were older than I was&mdash;older in the way you thought and acted, I
+      mean. Now you act as if you were twenty-one. Cavortin' around, playin'
+      tennis and golf and everything! What has got into you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know. Jim Campbell's prescription is taking effect, I guess. He
+      said the change of air and environment would do me good. I tell you,
+      Hephzy, I have made up my mind to enjoy life while I can. I realize as
+      well as you do that the trouble is bound to come, but I'm not going to let
+      it trouble me beforehand. And I advise you to do the same.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I've been tryin' to, but sometimes I can't help wonderin' and
+      dreadin'. Perhaps I'm havin' my dread for nothin'. It may be that, by the
+      time we're ready to start for Bayport, Little Frank will be provided for.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Provided for? What do you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean provided for by somebody else. There's at least two candidates for
+      the job: Don't you think so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean Mr. Worcester and Herbert Bayliss. That Worcester man is a gone
+      case, or I'm no judge. He's keepin' company with Frances, or would, if
+      she'd let him. 'Twould be funny if she married a curate, wouldn't it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not very,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;Married life on a curate's salary is not my idea
+      of humor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose likely that's so. And I can't imagine her a minister's wife,
+      can you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I could not; nor, unless I was greatly mistaken, could the young lady
+      herself. In fact, anything as serious as marriage was far from her
+      thoughts at present, I judged. But Hephzy did not seem so sure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she went on, &ldquo;I don't think the curate's got much chance. But young
+      Doctor Bayliss is different. He's good-lookin' and smart and he's got
+      prospects. I like him first-rate and I think Frances likes him, too. I
+      shouldn't wonder if THAT affair came to somethin'. Wouldn't it be splendid
+      if it did!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I said that it would. And yet, even as I said it, I was conscious of a
+      peculiar feeling of insincerity. I liked young Bayliss. He was all that
+      Hephzy had said, and more. He would, doubtless, make a good husband for
+      any girl. And his engagement to Frances Morley might make easier the
+      explanation which was bound to come. I believed I could tell Herbert
+      Bayliss the truth concerning the ridiculous &ldquo;claim.&rdquo; A man would be
+      susceptible to reason and proof; I could convince him. I should have
+      welcomed the possibility, but, somehow or other, I did not. Somehow or
+      other, the idea of her marrying anyone was repugnant to me. I did not like
+      to think of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh dear!&rdquo; sighed Hephzy; &ldquo;if only things were different. If only she knew
+      all about her father and his rascality and was livin' with us because she
+      wanted to&mdash;if that was the way of it, it would be so different. If
+      you and I had really adopted her! If she only was your niece.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo; I snapped. &ldquo;She isn't my niece.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know it. That's what makes your goodness to her seem so wonderful to
+      me. You treat her as if you cared as much as I do. And of course you
+      don't. It isn't natural you should. She's my sister's child, and she's
+      hardly any relation to you at all. You're awful good, Hosy. She's noticed
+      it, too. I think she likes you now a lot better than she did; she as much
+      as said so. She's beginning to understand you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo; I said again. Understand me! I didn't understand myself.
+      Nevertheless I was foolishly pleased to hear that she liked me. It was
+      pleasant to be liked even by one who was destined to hate me later on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope she won't feel too hard against us,&rdquo; continued Hephzy. &ldquo;I can't
+      bear to think of her doin' that. She&mdash;she seems so near and dear to
+      me now. We&mdash;I shall miss her dreadfully when it's all over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I think she hoped that I might say that I should miss her, also. But I did
+      not say anything of the kind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was resolved not to permit myself to miss her. Hadn't I been scheming
+      and planning to get rid of her ever since she thrust herself upon us? To
+      be sorry when she, at last, was gotten rid of would be too idiotic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; observed Hephzy, in conclusion, &ldquo;perhaps she and Doctor Bayliss
+      will make a match after all. We ought to help it all we can, I suppose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This conversation had various effects upon me. One was to make me
+      unaccountably &ldquo;blue&rdquo; for the rest of that day. Another was that I regarded
+      the visits of Worcester and Herbert Bayliss with a different eye. I
+      speculated foolishly concerning those visits and watched both young
+      gentlemen more closely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not have to watch the curate long. Suddenly he ceased calling at the
+      rectory. Not altogether, of course, but he called only occasionally and
+      his manner toward my &ldquo;niece&rdquo; was oddly formal and constrained. She was
+      very kind to him, kinder than before, I thought, but there was a
+      difference in their manner. Hephzy, of course, had an explanation ready.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's given him his clearance papers,&rdquo; was her way of expressing it.
+      &ldquo;She's told him that it's no use so far as he's concerned. Well, I never
+      did think she cared for him. And that leaves the course clear for the
+      doctor, doesn't it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor took advantage of the clear course. His calls and invitations
+      for rides and tennis and golf were more frequent than ever. She must have
+      understood; but, being a normal young woman, as well as a very, very
+      pretty one, she was a bit of a coquette and kept the boy&mdash;for, after
+      all, he was scarcely more than that&mdash;at arm's length and in a state
+      of alternate hope and despair. I shared his varying moods. If he could not
+      be sure of her feelings toward him, neither could I, and I found myself
+      wondering, wondering constantly. It was foolish for me to wonder, of
+      course. Why should I waste time in speculation on that subject? Why should
+      I care whether she married or not? What difference did it make to me whom
+      she married? I resolved not to think of her at all. And that resolution,
+      like so many I had made, amounted to nothing, for I did think of her
+      constantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then to add a new complication to the already over-complicated
+      situation, came A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances and Herbert Bayliss were scheduled for nine holes of golf on the
+      Manor House course that morning. I had had no intention of playing. My
+      projected novel had reached the stage where, plot building completed, I
+      had really begun the writing. The first chapter was finished and I had
+      intended beginning the second one that day. But, just as I seated myself
+      at the desk in the Reverend Cole's study, the young lady appeared and
+      insisted that the twosome become a threesome, that I leave my &ldquo;stupid old
+      papers and pencils&rdquo; and come for a round on the links. I protested, of
+      course, but she was in one of her wilful moods that morning and declared
+      that she would not play unless I did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will do you good,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You'll write all the better this
+      afternoon. Now, come along.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is Doctor Bayliss as anxious for my company as you seem to be?&rdquo; I asked
+      maliciously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She tossed her head. &ldquo;Of course he is,&rdquo; she retorted. &ldquo;Besides it doesn't
+      make any difference whether he is or not. <i>I</i> want you to play, and
+      that is enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! he may not agree with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then he can play by himself. It will do him good, too. He takes
+      altogether too much for granted. Come! I am waiting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So, after a few more fruitless protests, I reluctantly laid aside the
+      paper and pencils, changed to golfing regalia and, with my bag of clubs on
+      my shoulder, joined the two young people on the lawn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances greeted me very cordially indeed. Her clubs&mdash;I had bought
+      them myself on one of my trips to London: having once yielded, in the
+      matter of the tennis outfit, I now bought various little things which I
+      thought would please her&mdash;were carried by Herbert Bayliss, who, of
+      course, also carried his own. His greeting was not as enthusiastic. He
+      seemed rather glum and out of sorts. Frances addressed most of her
+      conversation to me and I was inclined to think the pair had had some sort
+      of disagreement, what Hephzy would have called a &ldquo;lover's quarrel,&rdquo;
+       perhaps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We walked across the main street of Mayberry, through the lane past the
+      cricket field, on by the path over the pastures, and entered the great
+      gate of the Manor, the gate with the Carey arms emblazoned above it. Then
+      a quarter of a mile over rolling hills, with rare shrubs and flowers
+      everywhere, brought us to the top of the hill at the edge of the little
+      wood which these English people persisted in calling a &ldquo;forest.&rdquo; The first
+      tee was there. You drove&mdash;if you were skillful or lucky&mdash;down
+      the long slope to the green two hundred yards away. If you were neither
+      skillful nor lucky you were quite as likely to drive into the long grass
+      on either side of the fair green. Then you hunted for your ball and,
+      having found it, wasted more or less labor and temper in pounding it out
+      of the &ldquo;rough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the first tee a man arrayed in the perfection of natty golfing togs was
+      practicing his &ldquo;swing.&rdquo; A caddy was carrying his bag. This of itself
+      argued the swinger a person of privilege and consequence, for caddies on
+      those links were strictly forbidden by the Lady of the Manor. Why they
+      were forbidden she alone knew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As we approached the tee the player turned to look at us. He was not a
+      Mayberryite and yet there was something familiar in his appearance. He
+      regarded us for a moment and then, dropping his driver, lounged toward me
+      and extended his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I say!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;It is you, isn't it! How do you do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Mr. Heathcroft!&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;This is a surprise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We shook hands. He, apparently, was not at all surprised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heard about your being here, Knowles,&rdquo; he drawled. &ldquo;My aunt told me; that
+      is, she said there were Americans at the rectory and when she mentioned
+      the name I knew, of course, it must be you. Odd you should have located
+      here, isn't it! Jolly glad to see you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I said I was glad to see him. Then I introduced my companions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bayliss and I have met before,&rdquo; observed Heathcroft. &ldquo;Played a round with
+      him in the tournament last year. How do, Bayliss? Don't think Miss Morley
+      and I have met, though. Great pleasure, really. Are you a resident of
+      Mayberry, Miss Morley?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances said that she was a temporary resident.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! visiting here, I suppose?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Yes, I am visiting. I am living at the rectory, also.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Morley is Mr. Knowles's niece,&rdquo; explained Bayliss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Heathcroft seemed surprised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; he drawled. &ldquo;Didn't know you had a niece, Knowles. She wasn't
+      with you on the ship, now was she.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Morley had been living in England&mdash;here and on the Continent,&rdquo;
+       I answered. I could have kicked Bayliss for his officious explanation of
+      kinship. Now I should have that ridiculous &ldquo;uncle&rdquo; business to contend
+      with, in our acquaintance with Heathcroft as with the Baylisses and the
+      rest. Frances, I am sure, read my thoughts, for the corners of her mouth
+      twitched and she looked away over the course.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Won't you ask Mr. Heathcroft to join our game&mdash;Uncle?&rdquo; she said. She
+      had dropped the hated &ldquo;Hosea,&rdquo; I am happy to say, but in the presence of
+      those outside the family she still addressed me as &ldquo;Uncle.&rdquo; Of course she
+      could not do otherwise without arousing comment, but I did not like it.
+      Uncle! there was a venerable, antique quality in the term which I resented
+      more and more each time I heard it. It emphasized the difference in our
+      ages&mdash;and that difference needed no emphasis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Heathcroft looked pleased at the invitation, but he hesitated in accepting
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I shouldn't do that, really,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;I should be in the way,
+      now shouldn't I.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bayliss, to whom the remark was addressed, made no answer. I judged that
+      he did not care for the honor of the Heathcroft company. But Frances,
+      after a glance in his direction, answered for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, not in the least,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;A foursome is ever so much more
+      sporting than a threesome. Mr. Heathcroft, you and I will play Doctor
+      Bayliss and&mdash;Uncle. Shall we?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Heathcroft declared himself delighted and honored. He looked the former.
+      He had scarcely taken his eyes from Miss Morley since their introduction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That match was hard fought. Our new acquaintance was a fair player and he
+      played to win. Frances was learning to play and had a natural aptitude for
+      the game. I played better than my usual form and I needed to, for Bayliss
+      played wretchedly. He &ldquo;dubbed&rdquo; his approaches and missed easy putts. If he
+      had kept his eye on the ball instead of on his opponents he might have
+      done better, but that he would not do. He watched Heathcroft and Miss
+      Morley continually, and the more he watched the less he seemed to like
+      what he saw.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps he was not altogether to blame, everything considered. Frances was
+      quite aware of the scrutiny and apparently enjoyed his discomfiture. She&mdash;well,
+      perhaps she did not precisely flirt with A. Carleton Heathcroft, but she
+      was very, very agreeable to him and exulted over the winning of each hole
+      without regard to the feelings of the losers. As for Heathcroft, himself,
+      he was quite as agreeable to her, complimented her on her playing,
+      insisted on his caddy's carrying her clubs, assisted her over the rough
+      places on the course, and generally acted the gallant in a most polished
+      manner. Bayliss and I were beaten three down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Heathcroft walked with us as far as the lodge gate. Then he said good-by
+      with evident reluctance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you so much for the game, Miss Morley,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Enjoyed it
+      hugely. You play remarkably well, if you don't mind my saying so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances was pleased. &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;I know it isn't true&mdash;that
+      about my playing&mdash;but it is awfully nice of you to say it. I hope we
+      may play together again. Are you staying here long?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't know, I'm sure. I am visiting my aunt and she will keep me as long
+      as she can. Seems to think I have neglected her of late. Of course we must
+      play again. By the way, Knowles, why don't you run over and meet Lady
+      Carey? She'll be awfully pleased to meet any friends of mine. Bring Miss
+      Morley with you. Perhaps she would care to see the greenhouses. They're
+      quite worth looking over, really. Like to have you, too, Bayliss, of
+      course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bayliss's thanks were not effusive. Frances, however, declared that she
+      should love to see the greenhouses. For my part, common politeness
+      demanded my asking Mr. Heathcroft to call at the rectory. He accepted the
+      invitation at once and heartily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He called the very next day and joined us at tea. The following afternoon
+      we, Hephzy, Frances and I, visited the greenhouses. On this occasion we
+      met, for the first time, the lady of the Manor herself. Lady Kent Carey
+      was a stout, gray-haired person, of very decided manner and a mannish
+      taste in dress. She was gracious and affable, although I suspected that
+      much of her affability toward the American visitors was assumed because
+      she wished to please her nephew. A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire, was
+      plainly her ladyship's pride and pet. She called him &ldquo;Carleton, dear,&rdquo; and
+      &ldquo;Carleton, dear&rdquo; was, in his aunt's estimation, the model of everything
+      desirable in man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The greenhouses were spacious and the display of rare plants and flowers
+      more varied and beautiful than any I had ever seen. We walked through the
+      grounds surrounding the mansion, and viewed with becoming reverence the
+      trees planted by various distinguished personages, His Royal Highness the
+      Prince of Wales, Her late Majesty Queen Victoria, Ex-President Carnot of
+      France, and others. Hephzy whispered to me as we were standing before the
+      Queen Victoria specimen:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't believe Queen Victoria ever planted that in the world, do you,
+      Hosy. She'd look pretty, a fleshy old lady like her, puffin' away diggin'
+      holes with a spade, now would she!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hastily explained the probability that the hole was dug by someone else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess so,&rdquo; she added. &ldquo;And the tree was put in by someone else and the
+      dirt put back by the same one. Queen Victoria planted that tree the way
+      Susanna Wixon said she broke my best platter, by not doin' a single thing
+      to it. I could plant a whole grove that way and not get a bit tired.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Carey bade us farewell at the fish-ponds and asked us to come again.
+      Her nephew, however, accompanied us all the way home&mdash;that is, he
+      accompanied Frances, while Hephzy and I made up the rear guard. The next
+      day he dropped in for some tennis. Herbert Bayliss was there before him,
+      so the tennis was abandoned, and a three-cornered chat on the lawn
+      substituted. Heathcroft treated the young doctor with a polite
+      condescension which would have irritated me exceedingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From then on, during the fortnight which followed, there was a great deal
+      of Heathcroft in the rectory social circle. And when he was not there, it
+      was fairly certain that he and Frances were together somewhere, golfing,
+      walking or riding. Sometimes I accompanied them, sometimes Herbert Bayliss
+      made one of the party. Frances' behavior to the young doctor was
+      tantalizingly contradictory. At times she was very cordial and kind, at
+      others almost cold and repellent. She kept the young fellow in a state of
+      uncertainty most of the time. She treated Heathcroft much the same, but
+      there was this difference between them&mdash;Heathcroft didn't seem to
+      mind; her whims appeared to amuse rather than to annoy him. Bayliss, on
+      the contrary, was either in the seventh heaven of bliss or the subcellar
+      of despair. I sympathized with him, to an extent; the young lady's
+      attitude toward me had an effect which, in my case, was ridiculous. My
+      reason told me that I should not care at all whether she liked me or
+      whether she didn't, whether I pleased or displeased her. But I did care, I
+      couldn't help it, I cared altogether too much. A middle-aged quahaug
+      should be phlegmatic and philosophical; I once had a reputation for both
+      qualities, but I seemed to possess neither now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I found myself speculating and wondering more than ever concerning the
+      outcome of all this. Was there anything serious in the wind at all?
+      Herbert Bayliss was in love with Frances Morley, that was obvious now. But
+      was she in love with him? I doubted it. Did she care in the least for him?
+      I did not know. She seemed to enjoy his society. I did not want her to
+      fall in love with A. Carleton Heathcroft, certainly. Nor, to be perfectly
+      honest, did I wish her to marry Bayliss, although I like him much better
+      than I did Lady Carey's blasé nephew. Somehow, I didn't like the idea of
+      her falling in love with anyone. The present state of affairs in our
+      household was pleasant enough. We three were happy together. Why could not
+      that happiness continue just as it was?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The answer was obvious: It could not continue. Each day that passed
+      brought the inevitable end nearer. My determination to put the thought of
+      that end from my mind and enjoy the present was shaken. In the solitude of
+      the study, in the midst of my writing, after I had gone to my room for the
+      night, I found my thoughts drifting toward the day in October when, our
+      lease of the rectory ended, we must pack up and go somewhere. And when we
+      went, would she go with us? Hardly. She would demand the promised
+      &ldquo;settlement,&rdquo; and then&mdash;What then? Explanations&mdash;quarrels&mdash;parting.
+      A parting for all time. I had reached a point where, like Hephzy, I would
+      have gladly suggested a real &ldquo;adoption,&rdquo; the permanent addition to our
+      family of Strickland Morley's daughter, but she would not consent to that.
+      She was proud&mdash;very proud. And she idolized her father's memory. No,
+      she would not remain under any such conditions&mdash;I knew it. And the
+      certainty of that knowledge brought with it a pang which I could not
+      analyze. A man of my age and temperament should not have such feelings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy did not fancy Heathcroft. She had liked him well enough during our
+      first acquaintance aboard the steamer, but now, when she knew him better,
+      she did not fancy him. His lofty, condescending manner irritated her and,
+      as he seemed to enjoy joking at her expense, the pair had some amusing
+      set-tos. I will say this for Hephzy: In the most of these she gave at
+      least as good as she received.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For example: we were sitting about the tea-table on the lawn, Hephzy,
+      Frances, Doctor and Mrs. Bayliss, their son, and Heathcroft. The
+      conversation had drifted to the subject of eatables, a topic suggested,
+      doubtless, by the plum cake and cookies on the table. Mr. Heathcroft was
+      amusing himself by poking fun at the American custom of serving cereals at
+      breakfast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the variety is amazing,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;Oats and wheat and corn! My
+      word! I felt like some sort of animal&mdash;a horse, by Jove! We feed our
+      horses that sort of thing over here, Miss Cahoon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy sniffed. &ldquo;So do we,&rdquo; she admitted, &ldquo;but we eat 'em ourselves,
+      sometimes, when they're cooked as they ought to be. I think some breakfast
+      foods are fine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you indeed? What an extraordinary taste! Do you eat hay as well, may I
+      ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, of course we don't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not? Why draw the line? I should think a bit of hay might be the&mdash;ah&mdash;the
+      crowning tit-bit to a breakfasting American. Your horses and donkeys enjoy
+      it quite as much as they do oats, don't they?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't know, I'm sure. I'm neither a horse nor a donkey, I hope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Oh, yes. But I assure you, Miss Morley, I had extraordinary
+      experiences on the other side. I visited in a place called Milwaukee and
+      my host there insisted on my trying a new cereal each morning. We did the
+      oats and the corn and all the rest and, upon my word, I expected the hay.
+      It was the only donkey food he didn't have in the house, and I don't see
+      why he hadn't provided a supply of that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps he didn't know you were comin',&rdquo; observed Hephzy, cheerfully.
+      &ldquo;Won't you have another cup, Mrs. Bayliss? Or a cooky or somethin'?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor's wife consented to the refilling of her cup.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose&mdash;what do you call them?&mdash;cereals, are an American
+      custom,&rdquo; she said, evidently aware that her hostess's feelings were
+      ruffled. &ldquo;Every country has its customs, so travelers say. Even our own
+      has some, doubtless, though I can't recall any at the moment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Heathcroft stroked his mustache.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; he drawled, &ldquo;we have some, possibly; but our breakfasts are not as
+      queer as the American breakfasts. You mustn't mind my fun, Miss Cahoon, I
+      hope you're not offended.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a bit,&rdquo; was the calm reply. &ldquo;We humans ARE animals, after all, I
+      suppose, and some like one kind of food and some another. Donkeys like hay
+      and pigs like sweets, and I don't know as I hadn't just as soon live in a
+      stable as a sty. Do help yourself to the cake, Mr. Heathcroft.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      No, our aristocratic acquaintance did not, as a general rule, come out
+      ahead in these little encounters and I more than once was obliged to
+      suppress a chuckle at my plucky relative's spirited retorts. Frances, too,
+      seemed to appreciate and enjoy the Yankee victories. Her prejudice against
+      America had, so far as outward expression went, almost disappeared. She
+      was more likely to champion than criticize our ways and habits now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, in spite of all this, she seemed to enjoy the Heathcroft society. The
+      two were together a great deal. The village people noticed the intimacy
+      and comments reached my ears which were not intended for them. Hephzy and
+      I had some discussions on the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't suppose he means anything serious, do you, Hosy?&rdquo; she asked.
+      &ldquo;Or that she thinks he does?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; I answered. I didn't like the idea any better than she
+      did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope not. Of course he's a big man around here. When his aunt dies
+      he'll come in for the estate and the money, so everybody says. And if
+      Frances should marry him she'd be&mdash;I don't know whether she'd be a
+      'Lady' or not, but she'd have an awful high place in society.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose she would. But I hope she won't do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So do I, for poor young Doctor Bayliss's sake, if nothin' else. He's so
+      good and so patient with it all. And he's just eaten up with jealousy;
+      anybody can see that. I'm scared to death that he and this Heathcroft man
+      will have some sort of&mdash;of a fight or somethin'. That would be awful,
+      wouldn't it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not answer. My apprehensions were not on Herbert Bayliss's account.
+      He could look out for himself. It was Frances' happiness I was thinking
+      of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy,&rdquo; said Hephzy, very seriously indeed, &ldquo;there's somethin' else. I'm
+      not sure that Mr. Heathcroft is serious at all. Somethin' Mrs. Bayliss
+      said to me makes me feel a little mite anxious. She said Carleton
+      Heathcroft was a great lady's man. She told me some things about him that&mdash;that&mdash;Well,
+      I wish Frances wasn't so friendly with him, that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I shrugged my shoulders, pretending more indifference than I felt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's a sensible girl,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;She doesn't need a guardian.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know, but&mdash;but he's way up in society, Lady Carey's heir and all
+      that. She can't help bein' flattered by his attentions to her. Any girl
+      would be, especially an English girl that thinks as much of class and all
+      that as they do over here and as she does. I wish I knew how she did feel
+      toward him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don't you ask her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy shook her head. &ldquo;I wouldn't dare,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;She'd take my head
+      off. We're on awful thin ice, you and I, with her, as it is. She treats us
+      real nicely now, but that's because we don't interfere. If I should try
+      just once to tell her what she ought to do she'd flare up like a bonfire.
+      And then do the other thing to show her independence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose she would,&rdquo; I admitted, gloomily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know she would. No, we mustn't say anything to her. But&mdash;but you
+      might say somethin' to him, mightn't you. Just hint around and find out
+      what he does mean by bein' with her so much. Couldn't you do that, Hosy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled. &ldquo;Possibly I could, but I sha'n't,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;He would tell me
+      to go to perdition, probably, and I shouldn't blame him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why no, he wouldn't. He thinks you're her uncle, her guardian, you know.
+      You'd have a right to do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not propose to exercise that right, and I said so, emphatically. And
+      yet, before that week was ended, I did do what amounted to that very
+      thing. The reason which led to this rash act on my part was a talk I had
+      with Lady Kent Carey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I met her ladyship on the putting green of the ninth hole of the golf
+      course. I was playing a round alone. She came strolling over the green,
+      dressed as mannishly as usual, but carrying a very feminine parasol, which
+      by comparison with the rest of her get-up, looked as out of place as a
+      silk hat on the head of a girl in a ball dress. She greeted me very
+      affably, waited until I putted out, and then sat beside me on the bench
+      under the big oak and chatted for some time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The subject of her conversation was her nephew. She was, apparently, only
+      too glad to talk about him at any time. He was her dead sister's child and
+      practically the only relative she had. He seemed like a son to her. Such a
+      charming fellow, wasn't he, now? And so considerate and kind to her.
+      Everyone liked him; he was a great favorite.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he is very fond of you, Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;He enjoys your
+      acquaintance so much. He says that there is a freshness and novelty about
+      you Americans which is quite delightfully amusing. This Miss&mdash;ah&mdash;Cahoon&mdash;your
+      cousin, I think she is&mdash;is a constant joy to him. He never tires of
+      repeating her speeches. He does it very well, don't you think. He mimics
+      the American accent wonderfully.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I agreed that the Heathcroft American accent was wonderful indeed. It was
+      all that and more. Lady Carey went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And this Miss Morley, your niece,&rdquo; she said, poking holes in the turf
+      with the tip of her parasol, &ldquo;she is a charming girl, isn't she. She and
+      Carleton are quite friendly, really.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I admitted, &ldquo;they seem to be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Tell me about your niece, Mr. Knowles. Has she lived in England long?
+      Who were her parents?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I dodged the ticklish subject as best I could, told her that Frances'
+      father was an Englishman, her mother an American, and that most of the
+      young lady's life had been spent in France. I feared more searching
+      questions, but she did not ask them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see,&rdquo; she said, nodding, and was silent for a moment. Then she changed
+      the subject, returning once more to her beloved Carleton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's a dear boy,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;I am planning great things for him. Some
+      day he will have the estate here, of course. And I am hoping to get him
+      the seat in Parliament when our party returns to power, as it is sure to
+      do before long. He will marry then; in fact everything is arranged, so far
+      as that goes. Of course there is no actual engagement as yet, but we all
+      understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had been rather bored, now I was interested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;And may I ask who is the fortunate young lady?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A daughter of an old friend of ours in Warwickshire&mdash;a fine family,
+      one of the oldest in England. She and Carleton have always been so fond of
+      each other. Her parents and I have considered the affair settled for
+      years. The young people will be so happy together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here was news. I offered congratulations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you so much,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It is pleasant to know that his future is
+      provided for. Margaret will make him a good wife. She worships him. If
+      anything should happen to&mdash;ah&mdash;disturb the arrangement her heart
+      would break, I am sure. Of course nothing will happen. I should not permit
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I made some comment, I don't remember what. She rose from the bench.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been chatting about family affairs and matchmaking like a
+      garrulous old woman, haven't I,&rdquo; she observed, smiling. &ldquo;So silly of me.
+      You have been charmingly kind to listen, Mr. Knowles. Forgive me, won't
+      you. Carleton dear is my one interest in life and I talk of him on the
+      least excuse, or without any. So sorry to have inflicted my garrulity upon
+      you. I may count upon you entering our invitation golf tournament next
+      month, may I not? Oh, do say yes. Thank you so much. Au revoir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She moved off, as imposing and majestic as a frigate under full sail. I
+      walked slowly toward home, thinking hard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I should have been flattered, perhaps, at her taking me into confidence
+      concerning her nephew's matrimonial projects. If I had believed the
+      &ldquo;garrulity,&rdquo; as she called it, to have been unintentional, I might have
+      been flattered. But I did not so believe. I was pretty certain there was
+      intention in it and that she expected Frances and Hephzy and me to take it
+      as a warning. Carleton dear was, in her eyes, altogether too friendly with
+      the youngest tenant in Mayberry rectory. The &ldquo;garrulity&rdquo; was a notice to
+      keep hands off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was not incensed at her; she amused me, rather. But with Heathcroft I
+      was growing more incensed every moment. Engaged to be married, was he! He
+      and this Warwickshire girl of &ldquo;fine family&rdquo; had been &ldquo;so fond&rdquo; of each
+      other for years. Everything was understood, was it? Then what did he mean
+      by his attentions to Frances, attentions which half of Mayberry was
+      probably discussing at the moment? The more I considered his conduct the
+      angrier I became. It was the worst time possible for a meeting with A.
+      Carleton Heathcroft, and yet meet him I did at the loneliest and most
+      secluded spot in the hedged lane leading to the lodge gate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He greeted me cordially enough, if his languid drawl could be called
+      cordial.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, Knowles,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Been doing the round I see. A bit stupid by
+      oneself, I should think. What? Miss Morley and I have been riding. Had a
+      ripping canter together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was an unfortunate remark, just at that time. It had the effect of
+      spurring my determination to the striking point. I would have it out with
+      him then and there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heathcroft,&rdquo; I said, bluntly, &ldquo;I am not sure that I approve of Miss
+      Morley's riding with you so often.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He regarded me with astonishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't approve!&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;And why not? There's no danger. She
+      rides extremely well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's not a question of danger. It is one of proprieties, if I must put it
+      that way. She is a young woman, hardly more than a girl, and she probably
+      does not realize that being seen in your company so frequently is likely
+      to cause comment and gossip. Her aunt and I realize it, however.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His expression of surprise was changing to one of languid amusement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Really!&rdquo; he drawled. &ldquo;By Jove! I say, Knowles, am I such a dangerously
+      fascinating character? You flatter me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know anything concerning your character. I do know that there is
+      gossip. I am not accusing you of anything. I have no doubt you have been
+      merely careless. Your intentions may have been&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He interrupted me. &ldquo;My intentions?&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;My dear fellow, I have
+      no intentions. None whatever concerning your niece, if that is what you
+      mean. She is a jolly pretty girl and jolly good company. I like her and
+      she seems to like me. That is all, upon my word it is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was quite sincere, I was convinced of it. But I had gone too far to
+      back out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you have been thoughtless&mdash;or careless,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;It seems to
+      me that you should have considered her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Considered her! Oh, I say now! Why should I consider her pray?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why shouldn't you? You are much older than she is and a man of the world
+      besides. And you are engaged to be married, or so I am told.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His smile disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now who the devil told you that?&rdquo; he demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was told, by one who should know, that you were engaged, or what
+      amounts to the same thing. It is true, isn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course it's true! But&mdash;but&mdash;why, good God, man! you weren't
+      under the impression that I was planning to marry your niece, were you?
+      Oh, I say! that would be TOO good!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed heartily. He did not appear in the least annoyed or angry, but
+      seemed to consider the whole affair a huge joke. I failed to see the joke,
+      myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no,&rdquo; he went on, before I could reply, &ldquo;not that, I assure you. One
+      can't afford luxuries of that kind, unless one is a luckier beggar than I
+      am. Auntie is attending to all that sort of thing. She has me booked, you
+      know, and I can't afford to play the high-spirited independent with her. I
+      should say not! Rather!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you think I've been a bit too prevalent in your niece's neighborhood,
+      do you?&rdquo; he observed. &ldquo;Sorry. I'd best keep off the lawn a bit, you mean
+      to say, I suppose. Very well! I'll mind the notice boards, of course. Very
+      glad you spoke. Possibly I have been a bit careless. No offence meant,
+      Knowles, and none taken, I trust.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; I said, with some reluctance. &ldquo;I'm glad you understand my&mdash;our
+      position, and take my&mdash;my hint so well. I disliked to give it, but I
+      thought it best that we have a clear understanding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course! Stern uncle and pretty niece, and all that sort of thing. You
+      Americans are queer beggars. You don't strike me as the usual type of
+      stern uncle at all, Knowles. Oh, by the way, does the niece know that
+      uncle is putting up the notice boards?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course she doesn't,&rdquo; I replied, hastily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His smile broadened. &ldquo;I wonder what she'll say when she finds it out,&rdquo; he
+      observed. &ldquo;She has never struck me as being greatly in awe of her
+      relatives. I should call HER independent, if I was asked. Well, farewell.
+      You and I may have some golf together still, I presume? Good! By-by.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He sauntered on, his serene coolness and calm condescension apparently
+      unruffled. I continued on my way also. But my serenity had vanished. I had
+      the feeling that I had come off second-best in the encounter. I had made a
+      fool of myself, I feared. And more than all, I wondered, as he did, what
+      Frances Morley would say when she learned of my interference in her
+      personal affairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I foresaw trouble&mdash;more trouble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which the Truth Is Told at Last
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      I said nothing to Hephzibah or Frances of my talk with Lady Carey or with
+      Heathcroft. I was not proud of my share in the putting up of &ldquo;the notice
+      boards.&rdquo; I did not mention meeting either the titled aunt or the favored
+      nephew. I kept quiet concerning them both and nervously awaited
+      developments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were none immediately. That day and the next passed and nothing of
+      importance happened. It did seem to me, however, that Frances was rather
+      quiet during luncheon on the third day. She said very little and several
+      times I found her regarding me with an odd expression. My guilty
+      conscience smote me and I expected to be asked questions answering which
+      would be difficult. But the questions were not asked&mdash;then. I went to
+      my study and attempted to write; the attempt was a failure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For an hour or so I stared hopelessly at the blank paper. I hadn't an idea
+      in my head, apparently. At last I threw down the pencil and gave up the
+      battle for the day. I was not in a writing mood. I lit my pipe, and,
+      moving to the arm-chair by the window, sat there, looking out at the lawn
+      and flower beds. No one was in sight except Grimmer, the gardener, who was
+      trimming a hedge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I sat there for some time, smoking and thinking. Hephzy dressed in her
+      best, passed the window on her way to the gate. She was going for a call
+      in the village and had asked me to accompany her, but I declined. I did
+      not feel like calling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My pipe, smoked out, I put in my pocket. If I could have gotten rid of my
+      thoughts as easily I should have been happier, but that I could not do.
+      They were strange thoughts, hopeless thoughts, ridiculous, unavailing
+      thoughts. For me, Kent Knowles, quahaug, to permit myself to think in that
+      way was worse than ridiculous; it was pitiful. This was a stern reality,
+      this summer of mine in England, not a chapter in one of my romances. They
+      ended happily; it was easy to make them end in that way. But this&mdash;this
+      was no romance, or, if it was, I was but the comic relief in the story,
+      the queer old bachelor who had made a fool of himself. That was what I
+      was, an old fool. Well, I must stop being a fool before it was too late.
+      No one knew I was such a fool. No one should know&mdash;now or ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And having reached this philosophical conclusion I proceeded to dream of
+      dark eyes looking into mine across a breakfast table&mdash;our table; of a
+      home in Bayport&mdash;our home; of someone always with me, to share my
+      life, my hopes, to spur me on to a work worth while, to glory in my
+      triumphs and comfort me in my reverses; to dream of what might have been
+      if&mdash;if it were not absolutely impossible. Oh, fool, fool, fool!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A quick step sounded on the gravel walk outside the window. I knew the
+      step, should have recognized it anywhere. She was walking rapidly toward
+      the house, her head bent and her eyes fixed upon the path before her.
+      Grimmer touched his hat and said &ldquo;Good afternoon, miss,&rdquo; but she
+      apparently did not hear him. She passed on and I heard her enter the hall.
+      A moment later she knocked at the study door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She entered the room in answer to my invitation and closed the door behind
+      her. She was dressed in her golfing costume, a plain white shirtwaist&mdash;blouse,
+      she would have called it&mdash;a short, dark skirt and stout boots. The
+      light garden hat was set upon her dark hair and her cheeks were flushed
+      from rapid walking. The hat and waist and skirt were extremely becoming.
+      She was pretty&mdash;yes, beautiful&mdash;and young. I was far from
+      beautiful and far from young. I make this obvious statement because it was
+      my thought at the moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not apologize for interrupting me, as she usually did when she
+      entered the study during my supposed working periods. This was strange, of
+      itself, and my sense of guilt caused me to fear all sorts of things. But
+      she smiled and answered my greeting pleasantly enough and, for the moment,
+      I experienced relief. Perhaps, after all, she had not learned of my
+      interview with Heathcroft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have come to talk with you,&rdquo; she began. &ldquo;May I sit down?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly. Of course you may,&rdquo; I answered, smiling as cheerfully as I
+      could. &ldquo;Was it necessary to ask permission?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She took a chair and I seated myself in the one from which I had just
+      risen. For a moment she was silent. I ventured a remark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This begins very solemnly,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Is the talk to be so very serious?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was serious enough and my apprehensions returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;I hope it may not be serious at all, Mr.
+      Knowles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I interrupted. &ldquo;Mr. Knowles!&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;Whew! this IS a formal
+      interview. I thought the 'Mr. Knowles' had been banished along with 'Uncle
+      Hosea'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She smiled slightly then. &ldquo;Perhaps it has,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I am just a little
+      troubled&mdash;or puzzled&mdash;and I have come to you for advice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Advice?&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;I'm afraid my advice isn't worth much. What sort of
+      advice do you want?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wanted to know what I should do in regard to an invitation I have
+      received to motor with Doctor Bayliss&mdash;Doctor Herbert Bayliss. He has
+      asked me to go with him to Edgeboro to-morrow. Should I accept?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hesitated. Then: &ldquo;Alone?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. His cousin, Miss Tomlinson, will go also.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see no reason why you should not, if you wish to go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you. But suppose it was alone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then&mdash;Well, I presume that would be all right, too. You have motored
+      with him before, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As a matter of fact, I couldn't see why she asked my opinion in such a
+      matter. She had never asked it before. Her next remark was more puzzling
+      still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You approve of Doctor Bayliss, don't you,&rdquo; she said. It did seem to me
+      there was a hint of sarcasm in her tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;certainly,&rdquo; I answered. I did approve of young Bayliss,
+      generally speaking; there was no sane reason why I should not have
+      approved of him absolutely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you trust me? You believe me capable of judging what is right or
+      wrong?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you didn't you would not presume to interfere in my personal affairs?
+      You would not think of doing that, of course?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No&mdash;o,&rdquo; more slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you hesitate? Of course you realize that you have no shadow of
+      right to interfere. You know perfectly well why I consented to remain here
+      for the present and why I have remained?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes, I know that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you wouldn't presume to interfere?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doctor Herbert Bayliss is&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She sprang to her feet. She was not smiling now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop!&rdquo; she interrupted, sharply. &ldquo;Stop! I did not come to discuss Doctor
+      Bayliss. I have asked you a question. I ask you if you would presume to
+      interfere in my personal affairs. Would you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, no. That is, I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You say that to me! YOU!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances, if you mean that I have interfered between you and the Doctor, I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stamped her foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop! Oh, stop!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;You know what I mean. What did you say to
+      Mr. Heathcroft? Do you dare tell me you have not interfered there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It had come, the expected. Her smile and the asking for &ldquo;advice&rdquo; had been
+      apparently but traps to catch me off my guard. I had been prepared for
+      some such scene as this, but, in spite of my preparations, I hesitated and
+      faltered. I must have looked like the meanest of pickpockets caught in the
+      act.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances,&rdquo; I stammered, &ldquo;Frances&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her fury took my breath away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't call me Frances,&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;How dare you call me that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Perturbed as I was I couldn't resist making the obvious retort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You asked me to,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I asked you! Yes, I did. You had been kind to me, or I thought you had,
+      and I&mdash;I was foolish. Oh, how I hate myself for doing it! But I was
+      beginning to think you a gentleman. In spite of everything, I was
+      beginning to&mdash;And now! Oh, at least I thought you wouldn't LIE to
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I rose now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances&mdash;Miss Morley,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;do you realize what you are saying?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Realize it! Oh,&rdquo; with a scornful laugh, &ldquo;I realize it quite well; you may
+      be sure of that. Don't you like the word? What else do you call a denial
+      of what we both know to be the truth. You did see Mr. Heathcroft. You did
+      speak with him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You did! You admit it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I admit it. But did he tell you what I said?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He did not. Mr. Heathcroft IS a gentleman. He told me very little and
+      that only in answer to my questions. I knew you and he met the other day.
+      You did not mention it, but you were seen together, and when he did not
+      come for the ride to which he had invited me I thought it strange. And his
+      note to me was stranger still. I began to suspect then, and when we next
+      met I asked him some questions. He told me next to nothing, but he is
+      honorable and he does not LIE. I learned enough, quite enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I wondered if she had learned of the essential thing, of Heathcroft's
+      engagement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did he tell you why I objected to his intimacy with you?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He told me nothing! Nothing! The very fact that you had objected, as you
+      call it, was sufficient. Object! YOU object to my doing as I please! YOU
+      meddle with my affairs! And humiliate me in the eyes of my friends! I
+      could&mdash;I could die of shame! I... And as if I did not know your
+      reasons. As if they were not perfectly plain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The real reason could not be plain to her. Heathcroft evidently had not
+      told her of the Warwickshire heiress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't understand,&rdquo; I said, trying my hardest to speak calmly. &ldquo;What
+      reasons?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Must I tell you? Did you OBJECT to my friendship with Doctor Bayliss,
+      pray?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doctor Bayliss! Why, Doctor Bayliss is quite different. He is a fine
+      young fellow, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; with scornful sarcasm, &ldquo;so it would appear. You and my aunt and he
+      have the most evident of understandings. You need not praise him for my
+      benefit. It is quite apparent how you both feel toward Doctor Bayliss. I
+      am not blind. I have seen how you have thrown him in my company, and made
+      opportunities for me to meet him. Oh, of course, I can see! I did not
+      believe it at first. It was too absurd, too outrageously impertinent. I
+      COULDN'T believe it. But now I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was a little too much. The idea that I&mdash;<i>I</i> had been
+      playing the matchmaker for Bayliss's benefit made me almost as angry as
+      she was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo; I declared. &ldquo;Miss Morley, this is too ridiculous to go on. I
+      did speak to Mr. Heathcroft. There was a reason, a good reason, for my
+      doing so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not wish to hear your reason, as you call it. The fact that you did
+      speak to him concerning me is enough. Mr. Knowles, this arrangement of
+      ours, my living here with you, has gone on too long. I should have known
+      it was impossible in the beginning. But I did not know. I was alone&mdash;and
+      ill&mdash;and I did need friends&mdash;I was SO alone. I had been through
+      so much. I had struggled and suffered and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again, as in our quarrel at Wrayton, she was on the verge of tears. And
+      again that unreasonable conscience of mine smote me. I longed to&mdash;Well,
+      to prove myself the fool I was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she did not give me the opportunity. Before I could speak or move she
+      was on her way to the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This ends it,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I shall go away from here at once. I shall put
+      the whole matter in my solicitor's hands. This is an end of forbearance
+      and all the rest. I am going. You have made me hate you and despise you. I
+      only hope that&mdash;that some day you will despise yourself as much. But
+      you won't,&rdquo; scornfully. &ldquo;You are not that sort.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The door closed. She was gone. Gone! And soon&mdash;the next day at the
+      latest&mdash;she would have been gone for good. This WAS the end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I walked many miles that day, how many I do not know. Dinner was waiting
+      for me when I returned, but I could not eat. I rose from the table, went
+      to the study and sat there, alone with my misery. I was torn with the
+      wildest longings and desires. One, I think, was to kill Heathcroft
+      forthwith. Another was to kill myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There came another knock at the door. This time I made no answer. I did
+      not want to see anyone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the door opened, nevertheless, and Hephzy came in. She crossed the
+      room and stood by my chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it, Hosy?&rdquo; she said, gently. &ldquo;You must tell me all about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I made some answer, told her to go away and leave me, I think. If that was
+      it she did not heed. She put her hand upon my shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must tell me, Hosy,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;What has happened? You and Frances
+      have had some fallin' out, I know. She wouldn't come to dinner, either,
+      and she won't see me. She's up in her room with the door shut. Tell me,
+      Hosy; you and I have fought each other's battles for a good many years.
+      You can't fight this one alone; I've got to do my share. Tell me, dearie,
+      please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And tell her I did. I did not mean to, and yet somehow the thought that
+      she was there, so strong and quiet and big-hearted and sensible, was, if
+      not a comfort to me, at least a marvelous help. I began by telling her a
+      little and then went on to tell her all, of my talk with Lady Carey, my
+      meeting with Heathcroft, the scene with Frances&mdash;everything, word for
+      word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When it was over she patted my shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You did just right, Hosy,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;There was nothin' else you could
+      do. I never liked that Heathcroft man. And to think of him, engaged to
+      another girl, trottin' around with Frances the way he has. I'D like to
+      talk with him. He'd get a piece of MY mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's all right enough,&rdquo; I admitted grudgingly. &ldquo;He took my warning in a
+      very good sort, I must say. He has never meant anything serious. It was
+      just his way, that's all. He was amusing himself in her company, and
+      doubtless thought she would be flattered with his aristocratic
+      attentions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! Well, I guess she wouldn't be if she'd known of that other girl.
+      You didn't tell her that, you say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I couldn't. I think I should, perhaps, if she would have listened. I'm
+      glad I didn't. It isn't a thing for me to tell her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I understand. But she ought to know it, just the same. And she ought to
+      know how good you've been to her. Nobody could be better. She must know
+      it. Whether she goes or whether she doesn't she must know that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I seized her arm. &ldquo;You mustn't tell her a word,&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;She mustn't
+      know. It is better she should go. Better for her and for me&mdash;My God,
+      yes! so much better for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I could feel the arm on my shoulder start. Hephzy bent down and looked
+      into my face. I tried to avoid the scrutiny, but she looked and looked.
+      Then she drew a long breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;Hosy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't speak to me. Oh, Hephzy,&rdquo; with a bitter laugh, &ldquo;did you ever dream
+      there could be such a hopeless lunatic as I am! You needn't say it. I know
+      the answer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy! Hosy! you poor boy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She kissed me, soothing me as she had when I came home to our empty house
+      at the time of my mother's death. That memory came back to me even then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forgive me, Hephzy,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I am ashamed of myself, of course. And
+      don't worry. Nobody knows this but you and I, and nobody else shall. I'm
+      going to behave and I'm going to be sensible. Just forget all this for my
+      sake. I mean to forget it, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Hephzy shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's all my fault,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I'm to blame more than anybody else. It
+      was me that brought her here in the first place and me that kept you from
+      tellin' her the truth in the beginnin'. So it's me who must tell her now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I don't mean the truth about&mdash;about what you and I have just
+      said, Hosy. She'll never know that, perhaps. Certainly she'll never know
+      it from me. But the rest of it she must know. This has gone far enough.
+      She sha'n't go away from this house misjudgin' you, thinkin' you're a
+      thief, as well as all the rest of it. That she sha'n't do. I shall see to
+      that&mdash;now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy, I forbid you to&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can't forbid me, Hosy. It's my duty, and I've been a silly, wicked
+      old woman and shirked that duty long enough. Now don't worry any more. Go
+      to your room, dearie, and lay down. If you get to sleep so much the
+      better. Though I guess,&rdquo; with a sigh, &ldquo;we sha'n't either of us sleep much
+      this night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Before I could prevent her she had left the room. I sprang after her, to
+      call her back, to order her not to do the thing she had threatened. But,
+      in the drawing-room, Charlotte, the housemaid, met me with an
+      announcement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doctor Bayliss&mdash;Doctor Herbert Bayliss&mdash;is here, sir,&rdquo; she
+      said. &ldquo;He has called to see you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To see me?&rdquo; I repeated, trying hard to recover some measure of composure.
+      &ldquo;To see Miss Frances, you mean.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, sir. He says he wants to see you alone. He's in the hall now, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was; I could hear him. Certainly I never wished to see anyone less, but
+      I could not refuse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ask him to come into the study, Charlotte,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young doctor found me sitting in the chair by the desk. The long
+      English twilight was almost over and the room was in deep shadow.
+      Charlotte entered and lighted the lamp. I was strongly tempted to order
+      her to desist, but I could scarcely ask my visitor to sit in the dark,
+      however much I might prefer to do so. I compromised by moving to a seat
+      farther from the lamp where my face would be less plainly visible. Then,
+      Bayliss having, on my invitation, also taken a chair, I waited for him to
+      state his business.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not easy to state, that was plain. Ordinarily Herbert Bayliss was
+      cool and self-possessed. I had never before seen him as embarrassed as he
+      seemed to be now. He fidgeted on the edge of the chair, crossed and
+      recrossed his legs, and, finally, offered the original remark that it had
+      been an extremely pleasant day. I admitted the fact and again there was an
+      interval of silence. I should have helped him, I suppose. It was quite
+      apparent that his was no casual call and, under ordinary circumstances, I
+      should have been interested and curious. Now I did not care. If he would
+      say his say and go away and leave me I should be grateful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And, at last, he said it. His next speech was very much nearer the point.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I have called to&mdash;to see you concerning your
+      niece, Miss Morley. I&mdash;I have come to ask your consent to my asking
+      her to marry me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was not greatly surprised. I had vaguely suspected his purpose when he
+      entered the room. I had long foreseen the likelihood of some such
+      interview as this, had considered what I should say when the time came.
+      But now it had come, I could say nothing. I sat in silence, looking at
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps he thought I did not understand. At any rate he hastened to
+      explain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish your permission to marry your niece,&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;I have no
+      doubt you are surprised. Perhaps you fancy I am a bit hasty. I suppose you
+      do. But I&mdash;I care a great deal for her, Mr. Knowles. I will try to
+      make her a good husband. Not that I am good enough for her, of course&mdash;no
+      one could be that, you know; but I'll try and&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was very red in the face and floundered, amid his jerky sentences, like
+      a newly-landed fish, but he stuck to it manfully. I could not help
+      admiring the young fellow. He was so young and handsome and so honest and
+      boyishly eager in his embarrassment. I admired him&mdash;yes, but I hated
+      him, too, hated him for his youth and all that it meant, I was jealous&mdash;bitterly,
+      wickedly jealous, and of all jealousy, hopeless, unreasonable jealousy is
+      the worst, I imagine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He went on to speak of his ambitions and prospects. He did not intend to
+      remain always in Mayberry as his father's assistant, not he. He should
+      remain for a time, of course, but then he intended to go back to London.
+      There were opportunities there. A fellow with the right stuff in him could
+      get on there. He had friends in the London hospitals and they had promised
+      to put chances his way. He should not presume to marry Frances at once, of
+      course. He would not be such a selfish goat as that. All he asked was
+      that, my permission granted, she would be patient and wait a bit until he
+      got on his feet, professionally he meant to say, and then&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I interrupted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One moment,&rdquo; said I, trying to appear calm and succeeding remarkably
+      well, considering the turmoil in my brain; &ldquo;just a moment, Bayliss, if you
+      please. Have you spoken to Miss Morley yet? Do you know her feelings
+      toward you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      No, he had not. Of course he wouldn't do that until he and I had had our
+      understanding. He had tried to be honorable and all that. But&mdash;but he
+      thought she did not object to him. She&mdash;well, she had seemed to like
+      him well enough. There had been times when he thought she&mdash;she&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you see, sir,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;she's a girl, of course, and a fellow
+      never knows just what a girl is going to say or do. There are times when
+      one is sure everything is quite right and then that it is all wrong. But I
+      have hoped&mdash;I believe&mdash;She's such a ripping girl, you know. She
+      would not flirt with a chap and&mdash;I don't mean flirt exactly, she
+      isn't a flirt, of course&mdash;but&mdash;don't you think she likes me,
+      now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no reason to suppose she doesn't,&rdquo; I answered grudgingly. After
+      all, he was acting very honorably; I could scarcely do less.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He seemed to find much comfort in my equivocal reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thanks, thanks awfully,&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;I&mdash;I&mdash;by Jove, you
+      know, I can't tell you how I like to hear you say that! I'm awfully
+      grateful to you, Knowles, I am really. And you'll give me permission to
+      speak to her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled; it was not a happy smile, but there was a certain ironic humor
+      in the situation. The idea of anyone's seeking my &ldquo;permission&rdquo; in any
+      matter concerning Frances Morley. He noticed the smile and was, I think,
+      inclined to be offended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it a joke?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;I say, now! it isn't a joke to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nor to me, I assure you,&rdquo; I answered, seriously. &ldquo;If I gave that
+      impression it was a mistaken one. I never felt less like joking.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He put his own interpretation on the last sentence. &ldquo;I'm sorry,&rdquo; he said,
+      quickly. &ldquo;I beg your pardon. I understand, of course. You're very fond of
+      her; no one could help being that, could they. And she is your niece.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hesitated. I was minded to blurt out the fact that she was not my niece
+      at all; that I had no authority over her in any way. But what would be the
+      use? It would lead only to explanations and I did not wish to make
+      explanations. I wanted to get through with the whole inane business and be
+      left alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you haven't said yes, have you,&rdquo; he urged. &ldquo;You will say it, won't
+      you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I nodded. &ldquo;You have my permission, so far as that goes,&rdquo; I answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He sprang to his feet and seized my hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's topping!&rdquo; he cried, his face radiant. &ldquo;I can't thank you enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's all right. But there is one thing more. Perhaps it isn't my
+      affair, and you needn't answer unless you wish. Have you consulted your
+      parents? How do they feel about your&mdash;your intentions?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His expression changed. My question was answered before he spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he admitted, &ldquo;I haven't told them yet. I&mdash;Well, you see, the
+      Mater and Father have been making plans about my future, naturally. They
+      have some silly ideas about a friend of the family that&mdash;Oh, she's a
+      nice enough girl; I like her jolly well, but she isn't Miss Morley. Well,
+      hardly! They'll take it quite well. By Jove!&rdquo; excitedly, &ldquo;they must.
+      They've GOT to. Oh, they will. And they're very fond of&mdash;of Frances.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There seemed nothing more for me to say, nothing at that time, at any
+      rate. I, too, rose. He shook my hand again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've been a trump to me, Knowles,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;I appreciate it, you
+      know; I do indeed. I'm jolly grateful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You needn't be. It is all right. I&mdash;I suppose I should wish you luck
+      and happiness. I do. Yes, why shouldn't you be happy, even if&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Even if&mdash;what? Oh, but you don't think she will turn me off, do you?
+      You don't think that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've told you that I see no reason why she should.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you. Thank you so much. Is there anything else that you might wish
+      to say to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not now. Perhaps some day I&mdash;But not now. No, there's nothing else.
+      Good night, Bayliss; good night and&mdash;and good luck.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good night. I&mdash;She's not in now, I suppose, is she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is in, but&mdash;Well, I scarcely think you had better see her
+      to-night. She has gone to her room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I say! it's very early. She's not ill, is she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, but I think you had best not see her to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was disappointed, that was plain, but he yielded. He would have agreed,
+      doubtless, with any opinion of mine just then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No doubt you're right,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Good night. And thank you again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He left the room. I did not accompany him to the door. Instead I returned
+      to my chair. I did not occupy it long, I could not. I could not sit still.
+      I rose and went out on the lawn. There, in the night mist, I paced up and
+      down, up and down. I had longed to be alone; now that I was alone I was
+      more miserable than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charlotte, the maid, called to me from the doorway.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you wish the light in the study any longer, sir?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said I, curtly. &ldquo;You may put it out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And shall I lock up, sir; all but this door, I mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Where is Miss Cahoon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's above, sir. With Miss Morley, I think, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well, Charlotte. That is all. Good night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good night, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She went into the house. The lamp in the study was extinguished. I
+      continued my pacing up and down. Occasionally I glanced at the upper story
+      of the rectory. There was a lighted window there, the window of Frances'
+      room. She and Hephzy were together in that room. What was going on there?
+      What had Hephzy said to her? What&mdash;Oh, WHAT would happen next?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some time later&mdash;I don't know how much later it may have been&mdash;I
+      heard someone calling me again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy!&rdquo; called Hephzy in a loud whisper; &ldquo;Hosy, where are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here I am,&rdquo; I answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She came to me across the lawn. I could not, of course, see her face, but
+      her tone was very anxious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy,&rdquo; she whispered, putting her hand on my arm, &ldquo;what are you doin' out
+      here all alone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed. &ldquo;I'm taking the air,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;It is good for me. I am
+      enjoying the glorious English air old Doctor Bayliss is always talking
+      about. Fresh air and exercise&mdash;those will cure anything, so he says.
+      Perhaps they will cure me. God knows I need curing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sshh! shh, Hosy! Don't talk that way. I don't like to hear you. Out here
+      bareheaded and in all this damp! You'll get your death.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will I? Well, that will be a complete cure, then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! I tell you. Come in the house with me. I want to talk to you.
+      Come!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Still holding my arm she led me toward the house. I hung back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have been up there with her?&rdquo; I said, with a nod toward the lighted
+      window of the room above. &ldquo;What has happened? What have you said and
+      done?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! I'll tell you; I'll tell you all about it. Only come in now. I
+      sha'n't feel safe until I get you inside. Oh, Hosy, DON'T act this way! Do
+      you want to frighten me to death?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That appeal had an effect. I was ashamed of myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forgive me, Hephzy,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I'll try to be decent. You needn't worry
+      about me. I'm a fool, of course, but now that I realize it I shall try to
+      stop behaving like one. Come along; I'm ready.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the drawing-room she closed the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I light the lamp?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. Oh, for heaven's sake, can't you see that I'm crazy to know what you
+      said to that girl and what she said to you? Tell me, and hurry up, will
+      you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not resent my sudden burst of temper and impatience. Instead she
+      put her arm about me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sit down, Hosy,&rdquo; she pleaded. &ldquo;Sit down and I'll tell you all about it.
+      Do sit down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I refused to sit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me now,&rdquo; I commanded. &ldquo;What did you say to her? You didn't&mdash;you
+      didn't&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did. I told her everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;EVERYTHING! You don't mean&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean everything. 'Twas time she knew it. I went to that room meanin' to
+      tell her and I did. At first she didn't want to listen, didn't want to see
+      me at all or even let me in. But I made her let me in and then she and I
+      had it out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't say it that way, Hosy. The good Lord knows I hate myself for doin'
+      it, hated myself while I was doin' it, but it had to be done. Every word I
+      spoke cut me as bad as it must have cut her. I kept thinkin', 'This is
+      Little Frank I'm talkin' to. This is Ardelia's daughter I'm makin'
+      miserable.' A dozen times I stopped and thought I couldn't go on, but
+      every time I thought of you and what you'd put up with and been through,
+      and I went on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy! you told her&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I said it was time she understood just the plain truth about her father
+      and mother and grandfather and the money, and everything. She must know
+      it, I said; things couldn't go on as they have been. I told it all. At
+      first she wouldn't listen, said I was&mdash;well, everything that was mean
+      and lyin' and bad. If she could she'd have put me out of her room, I
+      presume likely, but I wouldn't go. And, of course, at first she wouldn't
+      believe, but I made her believe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Made her believe! Made her believe her father was a thief! How could you
+      do that! No one could.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did it. I don't know how exactly. I just went on tellin' it all
+      straight from the beginnin', and pretty soon I could see she was
+      commencin' to believe. And she believes now, Hosy; she does, I know it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did she say so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, she didn't say anything, scarcely&mdash;not at the last. She didn't
+      cry, either; I almost wish she had. Oh, Hosy, don't ask me any more
+      questions than you have to. I can't bear to answer 'em.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She paused and turned away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How she must hate us!&rdquo; I said, after a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, no&mdash;why, no, Hosy, I don't think she does; at least I'm tryin'
+      to hope she doesn't. I softened it all I could. I told her why we took her
+      with us in the first place; how we couldn't tell her the truth at first,
+      or leave her, either, when she was so sick and alone. I told her why we
+      brought her here, hopin' it would make her well and strong, and how, after
+      she got that way, we put off tellin' her because it was such a dreadful
+      hard thing to do. Hard! When I think of her sittin' there, white as a
+      sheet, and lookin' at me with those big eyes of hers, her fingers twistin'
+      and untwistin' in her lap&mdash;a way her mother used to have when she was
+      troubled&mdash;and every word I spoke soundin' so cruel and&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She paused once more. I did not speak. Soon she recovered and went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told her that I was tellin' her these things now because the
+      misunderstandin's and all the rest had to stop and there was no use
+      puttin' off any longer. I told her I loved her as if she was my very own
+      and that this needn't make the least bit of difference unless she wanted
+      it to. I said you felt just the same. I told her your speakin' to that
+      Heathcroft man was only for her good and for no other reason. You'd
+      learned that he was engaged to be married&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You told her that?&rdquo; I interrupted, involuntarily. &ldquo;What did she say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothin', nothin' at all. I think she heard me and understood, but she
+      didn't say anything. Just sat there, white and trembling and crushed, sort
+      of, and looked and looked at me. I wanted to put my arms around her and
+      ask her pardon and beg her to love me as I did her, but I didn't dare&mdash;I
+      didn't dare. I did say that you and I would be only too glad to have her
+      stay with us always, as one of the family, you know. If she'd only forget
+      all the bad part that had gone and do that, I said&mdash;but she
+      interrupted me. She said 'Forget!' and the way she said it made me sure
+      she never would forget. And then&mdash;and then she asked me if I would
+      please go away and leave her. Would I PLEASE not say any more now, but
+      just leave her, only leave her alone. So I came away and&mdash;and that's
+      all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's all,&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;It is enough, I should say. Oh, Hephzy, why did
+      you do it? Why couldn't it have gone on as it has been going? Why did you
+      do it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was an unthinking, wicked speech. But Hephzy did not resent it. Her
+      reply was as patient and kind as if she had been answering a child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had to do it, Hosy,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;After our talk this evenin' there was
+      only one thing to do. It had to be done&mdash;for your sake, if nothin'
+      else&mdash;and so I did it. But&mdash;but&mdash;&rdquo; with a choking sob, &ldquo;it
+      was SO hard to do! My Ardelia's baby!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And at last, I am glad to say, I began to realize how very hard it had
+      been for her. To understand what she had gone through for my sake and what
+      a selfish brute I had been. I put my hands on her shoulders and kissed her
+      almost reverently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;you're a saint and a martyr and I am&mdash;what I am.
+      Please forgive me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There isn't anything to forgive, Hosy. And,&rdquo; with a shake of the head,
+      &ldquo;I'm an awful poor kind of saint, I guess. They'd never put my image up in
+      the churches over here&mdash;not if they knew how I felt this minute. And
+      a saint from Cape Cod wouldn't be very welcome anyway, I'm afraid. I meant
+      well, but that's a poor sort of recommendation. Oh, Hosy, you DO think I
+      did for the best, don't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You did the only thing to be done,&rdquo; I answered, with decision. &ldquo;You did
+      what I lacked the courage to do. Of course it was best.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're awful good to say so, but I don't know. What'll come of it
+      goodness knows. When I think of you and&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't think of me. I'm going to be a man if I can&mdash;a quahaug, if I
+      can't. At least I'm not going to be what I have been for the last month.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know. But when I think of to-morrow and what she'll say to me, then, I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mustn't think. You must go to bed and so must I. To-morrow will take
+      care of itself. Come. Let's both sleep and forget it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Which was the very best of advice, but, like much good advice, impossible
+      to follow. I did not sleep at all that night, nor did I forget. God help
+      me! I was realizing that I never could forget.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At six o'clock I came downstairs, made a pretence at eating some biscuits
+      and cheese which I found on the sideboard, scribbled a brief note to
+      Hephzy stating that I had gone for a walk and should not be back to
+      breakfast, and started out. The walk developed into a long one and I did
+      not return to the rectory until nearly eleven in the forenoon. By that
+      time I was in a better mood, more reconciled to the inevitable&mdash;or I
+      thought I was. I believed I could play the man, could even see her married
+      to Herbert Bayliss and still behave like a man. I vowed and revowed it. No
+      one&mdash;no one but Hephzy and I should ever know what we knew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Charlotte, the maid, seemed greatly relieved to see me. She hastened to
+      the drawing-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here he is, Miss Cahoon,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;He's come back, ma'am. He's here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I'm here, Charlotte,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;You didn't suppose I had run
+      away, did you?... Why&mdash;why, Hephzy, what is the matter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For Hephzy was coming to meet me, her hands outstretched and on her face
+      an expression which I did not understand&mdash;sorrow, agitation&mdash;yes,
+      and pity&mdash;were in that expression, or so it seemed to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Hosy!&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;I'm so glad you've come. I wanted you so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wanted me?&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;Why, what do you mean? Has anything happened?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She nodded, solemnly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;somethin' has happened. Somethin' we might have
+      expected, perhaps, but&mdash;but&mdash;Hosy, read that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I took what she handed me. It was a sheet of note paper, folded across,
+      and with Hephzibah's name written upon one side. I recognized the writing
+      and, with a sinking heart, unfolded it. Upon the other side was written in
+      pencil this:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am going away. I could not stay, of course. When I think how I have
+      stayed and how I have treated you both, who have been so very, very kind
+      to me, I feel&mdash;I can't tell you how I feel. You must not think me
+      ungrateful. You must not think of me at all. And you must not try to find
+      me, even if you should wish to do such a thing. I have the money which I
+      intended using for my new frocks and I shall use it to pay my expenses and
+      my fare to the place I am going. It is your money, of course, and some day
+      I shall send it to you. And someday, if I can, I shall repay all that you
+      have spent on my account. But you must not follow me and you must not
+      think of asking me to come back. That I shall never do. I do thank you for
+      all that you have done for me, both of you. I cannot understand why you
+      did it, but I shall always remember. Don't worry about me. I know what I
+      am going to do and I shall not starve or be in want. Good-by. Please try
+      to forget me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;FRANCES MORLEY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please tell Mr. Knowles that I am sorry for what I said to him this
+      afternoon and so many times before. How he could have been so kind and
+      patient I can't understand. I shall always remember it&mdash;always.
+      Perhaps he may forgive me some day. I shall try and hope that he may.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I read to the end. Then, without speaking, I looked at Hephzy. Her eyes
+      were brimming with tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has gone,&rdquo; she said, in answer to my unspoken question. &ldquo;She must
+      have gone some time in the night. The man at the inn stable drove her to
+      the depot at Haddington on Hill. She took the early train for London. That
+      is all we know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which Hephzy and I Agree to Live for Each Other
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      I shall condense the record of that day as much as possible. I should omit
+      it altogether, if I could. We tried to trace her, of course. That is, I
+      tried and Hephzy did not dissuade me, although she realized, I am sure,
+      the hopelessness of the quest. Frances had left the rectory very early in
+      the morning. The hostler at the inn had been much surprised to find her
+      awaiting him when he came down to the yard at five o'clock. She was
+      obliged to go to London, she said, and must take the very first train:
+      Would he drive her to Haddington on Hill at once? He did so&mdash;probably
+      she had offered him a great deal more than the regular fare&mdash;and she
+      had taken the train.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Questioning the hostler, who was a surly, uncommunicative lout, resulted
+      in my learning very little in addition to this. The young lady seemed
+      about as usual, so far as he could see. She might 'ave been a bit nervous,
+      impatient like, but he attributed that to her anxiety to make the train.
+      Yes, she had a bag with her, but no other luggage. No, she didn't talk on
+      the way to the station: Why should she? He wasn't the man to ask a lady
+      questions about what wasn't his affair. She minded her own business and he
+      minded his. No, he didn't know nothin' more about it. What was I a-pumpin'
+      him for, anyway?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I gave up the &ldquo;pumping&rdquo; and hurried back to the rectory. There Hephzy told
+      me a few additional facts. Frances had taken with her only the barest
+      necessities, for the most part those which she had when she came to us.
+      Her new frocks, those which she had bought with what she considered her
+      money, she had left behind. All the presents which we had given her were
+      in her room, or so we thought at the time. As she came, so she had gone,
+      and the thought that she had gone, that I should never see her again, was
+      driving me insane.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And like an insane man I must have behaved, at first. The things I did and
+      said, and the way in which I treated Hephzy shame me now, as I remember
+      them. I was going to London at once. I would find her and bring her back.
+      I would seek help from the police, I would employ detectives, I would do
+      anything&mdash;everything. She was almost without money; so far as I knew
+      without friends. What would she do? What would become of her? I must find
+      her. I must bring her back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I stormed up and down the room, incoherently declaring my intentions and
+      upbraiding Hephzy for not having sent the groom or the gardener to find
+      me, for allowing all the precious time to elapse. Hephzy offered no
+      excuse. She did not attempt justification. Instead she brought the railway
+      time-table, gave orders that the horse be harnessed, helped me in every
+      way. She would have prepared a meal for me with her own hands, would have
+      fed me like a baby, if I had permitted it. One thing she did insist upon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must rest a few minutes, Hosy,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You must, or you'll be
+      down sick. You haven't slept a wink all night. You haven't eaten anything
+      to speak of since yesterday noon. You can't go this way. You must go to
+      your room and rest a few minutes. Lie down and rest, if you can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rest!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must. The train doesn't leave Haddington for pretty nigh two hours,
+      and we've got lots of time. I'll fetch you up some tea and toast or
+      somethin' by and by and I'll be all ready to start when you are. Now go
+      and lie down, Hosy dear, to please me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I ignored the last sentence. &ldquo;You will be ready?&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;Do you mean
+      you're going with me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I am. It isn't likely I'll let you start off all alone, when
+      you're in a state like this. Of course I'm goin' with you. Now go and lie
+      down. You're so worn out, poor boy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I must have had a glimmer of reason then, a trace of decency and
+      unselfishness. For the first time I thought of her. I remembered that she,
+      too, had loved Little Frank; that she, too, must be suffering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am no more tired than you are,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;You have slept and eaten no
+      more than I. You are the one who must rest. I sha'n't let you go with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It isn't a question of lettin'. I shall go if you do, Hosy. And a woman
+      don't need rest like a man. Please go upstairs and lie down, Hosy. Oh,&rdquo;
+       with a sudden burst of feeling, &ldquo;don't you see I've got about all I can
+      bear as it is? I can't&mdash;I can't have YOU to worry about too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My conscience smote me. &ldquo;I'll go, Hephzy,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I'll do whatever you
+      wish; it is the least I can do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She thanked me. Then she said, hesitatingly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here is&mdash;here is her letter, Hosy. You may like to read it again.
+      Perhaps it may help you to decide what is best to do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She handed me the letter. I took it and went to my room. There I read it
+      again and again. And, as I read, the meaning of Hephzy's last sentence,
+      that the letter might help me to decide what was best to do, began to
+      force itself upon my overwrought brain. I began to understand what she had
+      understood from the first, that my trip to London was hopeless, absolutely
+      useless&mdash;yes, worse than useless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must not try to find me... You must not follow me or think of asking
+      me to come back. That I shall never do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was understanding, at last. I might go to London; I might even, through
+      the help of the police, or by other means, find Frances Morley. But,
+      having found her, what then? What claim had I upon her? What right had I
+      to pursue her and force my presence upon her? I knew the shock she had
+      undergone, the shattering of her belief in her father, the knowledge that
+      she had&mdash;as she must feel&mdash;forced herself upon our kindness and
+      charity. I knew how proud she was and how fiercely she had relented the
+      slightest hint that she was in any way dependent upon us or under the
+      least obligation to us. I knew all this and I was beginning to comprehend
+      what her feelings toward us and toward herself must be&mdash;now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I might find her&mdash;yes; but as for convincing her that she should
+      return to Mayberry, to live with us as she had been doing, that was so
+      clearly impossible as to seem ridiculous even to me. My following her, my
+      hunting her down against her expressed wish, would almost surely make
+      matters worse. She would probably refuse to see me. She would consider my
+      following her a persecution and the result might be to drive her still
+      further away. I must not do it, for her sake I must not. She had gone and,
+      because I loved her, I must not follow her; I must not add to her misery.
+      No, against my will I was forcing myself to realize that my duty was to
+      make no attempt to see her again, but to face the situation as it was, to
+      cover the running away with a lie, to pretend she had gone&mdash;gone
+      somewhere or other with our permission and understanding; to protect her
+      name from scandal and to conceal my own feelings from all the world. That
+      was my duty; that was the situation I must face. But how could I face it!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That hour was the worst I have ever spent and I trust I may never be
+      called upon to face such another. But, at last, I am glad to say, I had
+      made up my mind, and when Hephzy came with the tea and toast I was
+      measurably composed and ready to express my determination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I am not going to London. I have been thinking, and I'm
+      not going.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy put down the tray she was carrying. She did seem surprised, but I
+      am sure she was relieved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're not goin'!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;Why, Hosy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I am not going. I've been crazy, Hephzy, I think, but I am fairly
+      sane now. I have reached the conclusion that you reached sometime ago, I
+      am certain. We have no right to follow her. Our finding her would only
+      make it harder for her and no good could come of it. She went, of her own
+      accord, and we must let her go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let her go? And not try&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. We have no right to try. You know it as well as I do. Now, be honest,
+      won't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy hesitated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; she faltered; &ldquo;well, I&mdash;Oh, Hosy, I guess likely you're right.
+      At first I was all for goin' after her right away and bringin' her back by
+      main strength, if I had to. But the more I thought of it the more I&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; I interrupted. &ldquo;It is the only thing we can do. You must have
+      been ashamed of me this morning. Well, I'll try and give you no cause to
+      be ashamed again. That part of our lives is over. Now we'll start afresh.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy, after a long look at my face, covered her own with her hands and
+      began to cry. I stepped to her side, but she recovered almost immediately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There! there!&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;don't mind me, Hosy. I've been holdin' that cry
+      back for a long spell. Now I've had it and it's over and done with. After
+      all, you and I have got each other left and we'll start fresh, just as you
+      say. And the first thing is for you to eat that toast and drink that tea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled, or tried to smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The first thing,&rdquo; I declared, &ldquo;is for us to decide what story we shall
+      tell young Bayliss and the rest of the people to account for her leaving
+      so suddenly. I expect Herbert Bayliss here any moment. He came to see me
+      about&mdash;about her last evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guessed as much,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I knew he came and I guessed what 'twas
+      about. Poor fellow, 'twill be dreadful hard for him, too. He was here this
+      mornin' and I said Frances had been called away sudden and wouldn't be
+      back to-day. And I said you would be away all day, too, Hosy. It was a
+      fib, I guess, but I can't help it if it was. You mustn't see him now and
+      you mustn't talk with me either. You must clear off that tray the first
+      thing. We'll have our talk to-morrow, maybe. We'll&mdash;we'll see the
+      course plainer then, perhaps. Now be a good boy and mind me. You ARE my
+      boy, you know, and always will be, no matter how old and famous you get.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Herbert Bayliss called again that afternoon. I did not see him, but Hephzy
+      did. The young fellow was frightfully disappointed at Frances' sudden
+      departure and asked all sorts of questions as to when she would return,
+      her London address and the like. Hephzy dodged the questions as best she
+      could, but we both foresaw that soon he would have to be told some portion
+      of the truth&mdash;not the whole truth; he need never know that, but
+      something&mdash;and that something would be very hard to tell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The servants, too, must not know or surmise what had happened or the
+      reason for it. Hephzy had already given them some excuse, fabricated on
+      the spur of the moment. They knew Miss Morley had gone away and might not
+      return for some time. But we realized that upon our behavior depended a
+      great deal and so we agreed to appear as much like our ordinary selves as
+      possible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a hard task. I shall never forget those first meals when we two
+      were alone. We did not mention her name, but the shadow was always there&mdash;the
+      vacant place at the table where she used to sit, the roses she had picked
+      the morning before; and, afterward, in the drawing-room, the piano with
+      her music upon the rack&mdash;the hundred and one little reminders that
+      were like so many poisoned needles to aggravate my suffering and to remind
+      me of the torture of the days to come. She had bade me forget her. Forget!
+      I might forget when I was dead, but not before. If I could only die then
+      and there it would seem so easy by comparison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next forenoon Hephzy and I had our talk. We discussed our future.
+      Should we leave the rectory and England and go back to Bayport where we
+      belonged? I was in favor of this, but Hephzy seemed reluctant. She,
+      apparently, had some reason which made her wish to remain for a time, at
+      least. At last the reason was disclosed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I supposed you'll laugh at me when I say it, Hosy,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;or at any
+      rate you'll think I'm awful silly. But I know&mdash;I just KNOW that this
+      isn't the end. We shall see her again, you and I. She'll come to us again
+      or we'll go to her. I know it; somethin' inside me tells me so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+ I shook my head.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's true,&rdquo; she went on. &ldquo;You don't believe it, but it's true. It's a
+      presentiment and you haven't believed in my presentiments before, but
+      they've come true. Why, you didn't believe we'd ever find Little Frank at
+      all, but we did. And do you suppose all that has happened so far has been
+      just for nothin'? Indeed and indeed it hasn't. No, this isn't the end;
+      it's only the beginnin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her conviction was so strong that I hadn't the heart to contradict her. I
+      said nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that's why,&rdquo; she went on, &ldquo;I don't like to have us leave here right
+      away. She knows we're here, here in England, and if&mdash;if she ever
+      should be in trouble and need our help she could find us here waitin' to
+      give it. If we was away off on the Cape, way on the other side of the
+      ocean, she couldn't reach us, or not until 'twas too late anyhow. That's
+      why I'd like to stay here a while longer, Hosy. But,&rdquo; she hastened to add,
+      &ldquo;I wouldn't stay a minute if you really wanted to go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was silent for a moment. The temptation was to go, to get as far from
+      the scene of my trouble as I could; but, after all, what did it matter? I
+      could never flee from that trouble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, Hephzy,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I'll stay, if it pleases you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, Hosy. It may be foolish, our stayin', but I don't believe it
+      is. And&mdash;and there's somethin' else. I don't know whether I ought to
+      tell you or not. I don't know whether it will make you feel better or
+      worse. But I've heard you say that she must hate you. She doesn't&mdash;I
+      know she doesn't. I've been lookin' over her things, those she left in her
+      room. Everythin' we've given her or bought for her since she's been here,
+      she left behind&mdash;every single thing except one. That little pin you
+      bought for her in London the last time you was there and gave her to wear
+      at the Samsons' lawn party, I can't find it anywhere. She must have taken
+      it with her. Now why should she take that and leave all the rest?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Probably she forgot it,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! Queer she should forget that and nothin' else. I don't believe she
+      forgot it. <i>I</i> think she took it because you gave it to her and she
+      wanted to keep it to remind her of you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I dismissed the idea as absurd, but I found a ray of comfort in it which I
+      should have been ashamed to confess. The idea that she wished to be
+      reminded of me was foolish, but&mdash;but I was glad she had forgotten to
+      leave the pin. It MIGHT remind her of me, even against her will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A day or two later Herbert Bayliss and I had our delayed interview. He had
+      called several times, but Hephzy had kept him out of my way. This time our
+      meeting was in the main street of Mayberry, when dodging him was an
+      impossibility. He hurried up to me and seized my hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you're back, Knowles,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;When did you return?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For the moment I was at a loss to understand his meaning. I had forgotten
+      Hephzy's &ldquo;fib&rdquo; concerning my going away. Fortunately he did not wait for
+      an answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did Frances&mdash;did Miss Morley return with you?&rdquo; he asked eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His smile vanished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; he said, soberly. &ldquo;She is still in London, then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I presume she is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You presume&mdash;? Why, I say! don't you know?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not sure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He seemed puzzled and troubled, but he was too well bred to ask why I was
+      not sure. Instead he asked when she would return. I announced that I did
+      not know that either.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't know when she is coming back?&rdquo; he repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He regarded me keenly. There was a change in the tone of his next remark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not sure that she is in London and you don't know when she is
+      coming back,&rdquo; he said, slowly. &ldquo;Would you mind telling me why she left
+      Mayberry so suddenly? She had not intended going; at least she did not
+      mention her intention to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She did not mention it to anyone,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;It was a very sudden
+      determination on her part.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He considered this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would seem so,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Knowles, you'll excuse my saying it, but
+      this whole matter seems deucedly odd to me. There is something which I
+      don't understand. You haven't answered my question. Under the
+      circumstances, considering our talk the other evening, I think I have a
+      right to ask it. Why did she leave so suddenly?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hesitated. Mayberry's principal thoroughfare was far from crowded, but
+      it was scarcely the place for an interview like this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She had a reason for leaving,&rdquo; I answered, slowly. &ldquo;I will tell you
+      later, perhaps, what it was. Just now I cannot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You cannot!&rdquo; he repeated. He was evidently struggling with his impatience
+      and growing suspicious. &ldquo;You cannot! But I think I have a right to know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I appreciate your feelings, but I cannot tell you now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because&mdash;Well, because I don't think it would be fair to her. She
+      would not wish me to tell you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She would not wish it? Was it because of me she left?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; not in the least.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was it&mdash;was it because of someone else? By Jove! it wasn't because
+      of that Heathcroft cad? Don't tell me that! My God! she&mdash;she didn't&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I interrupted. His suspicion angered me. I should have understood his
+      feelings, should have realized that he had been and was disappointed and
+      agitated and that my answers to his questions must have aroused all sorts
+      of fears and forebodings in his mind. I should have pitied him, but just
+      then I had little pity for others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She did nothing but what she considered right,&rdquo; I said sharply. &ldquo;Her
+      leaving had nothing to do with Heathcroft or with you. I doubt if she
+      thought of either of you at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a brutal speech, and he took it like a man. I saw him turn pale and
+      bite his lips, but when he next spoke it was in a calmer tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm sorry,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I was a silly ass even to think such a thing. But&mdash;but
+      you see, Knowles, I&mdash;I&mdash;this means so much to me. I'm sorry,
+      though. I ask her pardon and yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was sorry, too. &ldquo;Of course I didn't mean that, exactly,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Her
+      feelings toward you are of the kindest, I have no doubt, but her reason
+      for leaving was a purely personal one. You were not concerned in it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He reflected. He was far from satisfied, naturally, and his next speech
+      showed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is extraordinary, all this,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You are quite sure you don't
+      know when she is coming back?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you mind giving me her London address?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't KNOW it! Oh, I say! that's damned nonsense! You don't know when
+      she is coming back and you don't know her address! Do you mean you don't
+      know where she has gone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&mdash;? Are you trying to tell me she is not coming back at all?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was very pale. He seized my arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is all this?&rdquo; he demanded, fiercely. &ldquo;What has happened? Tell me; I
+      want to know. Where is she? Why did she go? Tell me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can tell you nothing,&rdquo; I said, as calmly as I could. &ldquo;She left us very
+      suddenly and she is not coming back. Her reason for leaving I can't tell
+      you, now. I don't know where she is and I have no right to try and find
+      out. She has asked that no one follow her or interfere with her in any
+      way. I respect her wish and I advise you, if you wish to remain her
+      friend, to do the same, for the present, at least. That is all I can tell
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook my arm savagely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By George!&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;you must tell me. I'll make you! I&mdash;I&mdash;Do
+      you think me a fool? Do you suppose I believe such rot as that? You tell
+      me she has gone&mdash;has left Mayberry&mdash;and you don't know where she
+      has gone and don't intend trying to find out. Why&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, Bayliss! that is enough. This is not the place for us to quarrel.
+      And there is no reason why we should quarrel at all. I have told you all
+      that I can tell you now. Some day I may tell you more, but until then you
+      must be patient, for her sake. Her leaving Mayberry had no connection with
+      you whatever. You must be contented with that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Contented! Why, man, you're mad. She is your niece. You are her guardian
+      and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not her guardian. Neither is she my niece.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had spoken involuntarily. Certainly I had not intended telling him that.
+      The speech had the effect of causing him to drop my arm and step back. He
+      stared at me blankly. No doubt he did think me crazy, then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no authority over her in any way,&rdquo; I went on. &ldquo;She is Miss
+      Cahoon's niece, but we are not her guardians. She has left our home of her
+      own free will and neither I nor you nor anyone else shall follow her if I
+      can help it. I am sorry to have deceived you. The deceit was unavoidable,
+      or seemed to be. I am very, very sorry for you. That is all I can say now.
+      Good morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I left him standing there in the street and walked away. He called after
+      me, but I did not turn back. He would have followed me, of course, but
+      when I did look back I saw that the landlord of the inn was trying to talk
+      with him and was detaining him. I was glad that the landlord had appeared
+      so opportunely. I had said too much already. I had bungled this interview
+      as I had that with Heathcroft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I told Hephzy all about it. She appeared to think that, after all, perhaps
+      it was best.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When you've got a toothache,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you might as well go to the
+      dentist's right off. The old thing will go on growlin' and grumblin' and
+      it's always there to keep you in misery. You'd have had to tell him some
+      time. Well, you've told him now, the worst of it, anyhow. The tooth's out;
+      though,&rdquo; with a one-sided smile, &ldquo;I must say you didn't give the poor chap
+      any ether to help along.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm afraid it isn't out,&rdquo; I said, truthfully. &ldquo;He won't be satisfied with
+      one operation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I'll be on hand to help with the next one. And, between us, I
+      cal'late we can make that final. Poor boy! Well, he's young, that's one
+      comfort. You get over things quicker when you're young.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I nodded. &ldquo;That is true,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;but there is something else, Hephzy.
+      You say I have acted for the best. Have I? I don't know. We know he cares
+      for her, but&mdash;but does she&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does she care for him, you mean? I don't think so, Hosy. For a spell I
+      thought she did, but now I doubt it. I think&mdash;Well, never mind what I
+      think. I think a lot of foolish things. My brain's softenin' up, I
+      shouldn't wonder. It's a longshore brain, anyhow, and it needs the salt to
+      keep it from spoilin'. I wish you and I could go clammin'. When you're
+      diggin' clams you're too full of backache to worry about toothaches&mdash;or
+      heartaches, either.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I expected a visit from young Bayliss that very evening, but he did not
+      come to the rectory. Instead Doctor Bayliss, Senior, came and requested an
+      interview with me. Hephzy announced the visitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He acts pretty solemn, Hosy,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I wouldn't wonder if his son had
+      told him. I guess it's another toothache. Would you like to have me stay
+      and help?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I said I should be glad of her help. So, when the old gentleman was shown
+      into the study, he found her there with me. The doctor was very grave and
+      his usually ruddy, pleasant face was haggard and careworn. He took the
+      chair which I offered him and, without preliminaries, began to speak of
+      the subject which had brought him there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was as Hephzy had surmised. His son had told him everything, of his
+      love for Frances, of his asking my permission to marry her, and of our
+      talk before the inn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sure I don't need to tell you, Knowles,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that all this has
+      shaken the boy's mother and me dreadfully. We knew, of course, that the
+      young people liked each other, were together a great deal, and all that.
+      But we had not dreamed of any serious attachment between them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy put in a word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We don't know as there has been any attachment between them,&rdquo; she said.
+      &ldquo;Your boy cared for her&mdash;we know that&mdash;but whether she cared for
+      him or not we don't know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Our visitor straightened in his chair. The idea that his son could love
+      anyone and not be loved in return was plainly quite inconceivable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think we may take that for granted, madame,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The news was, as
+      I say, a great shock to my wife and myself. Herbert is our only child and
+      we had, naturally, planned somewhat concerning his future. The&mdash;the
+      overthrow of our plans was and is a great grief and disappointment to us.
+      Not, please understand, that we question your niece's worth or anything of
+      that sort. She is a very attractive young woman and would doubtless make
+      my son a good wife. But, if you will pardon my saying so, we know very
+      little about her or her family. You are comparative strangers to us and
+      although we have enjoyed your&mdash;ah&mdash;society and&mdash;ah&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy interrupted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon for saying it, Doctor Bayliss,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;but you know
+      as much about us as we do about you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor's composure was ruffled still more. He regarded Hephzy through
+      his spectacles and then said, with dignity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame, I have resided in this vicinity for nearly forty years. I think
+      my record and that of my family will bear inspection.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't doubt it a bit. But, as far as that goes, I have lived in Bayport
+      for fifty-odd years myself and our folks have lived there for a hundred
+      and fifty. I'm not questionin' you or your family, Doctor Bayliss. If I
+      had questioned 'em I could easily have looked up the record. All I'm
+      sayin' is that I haven't thought of questionin', and I don't just see why
+      you shouldn't take as much for granted as I have.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old gentleman was a bit disconcerted. He cleared his throat and
+      fidgeted in his seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do&mdash;I do, Miss Cahoon, of course,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But&mdash;ah&mdash;Well,
+      to return to the subject of my son and Miss Morley. The boy is dreadfully
+      agitated, Mr. Knowles. He is quite mad about the girl and his mother and I
+      are much concerned about him. We would&mdash;I assure you we would do
+      anything and sacrifice anything for his sake. We like your niece, and,
+      although, as I say, we had planned otherwise, nevertheless we will&mdash;provided
+      all is as it should be&mdash;give our consent to&mdash;to the arrangement,
+      for his sake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not answer. The idea that marrying Frances Morley would entail a
+      sacrifice upon anyone's part except hers angered me and I did not trust
+      myself to speak. But Hephzy spoke for me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean by providin' everything is as it should be?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, I mean&mdash;I mean provided we learn that she is&mdash;is&mdash;That
+      is,&mdash;Well, one naturally likes to know something concerning his
+      prospective daughter-in-law's history, you know. That is to be expected,
+      now isn't it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy looked at me and I looked at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doctor,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I wonder if your son told you about some things Hosy&mdash;Mr.
+      Knowles, I mean&mdash;told him this mornin'. Did he tell you that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor colored slightly. &ldquo;Yes&mdash;yes, he did,&rdquo; he admitted. &ldquo;He
+      said he had a most extraordinary sort of interview with Mr. Knowles and
+      was told by him some quite extraordinary things. Of course, we could
+      scarcely believe that he had heard aright. There was some mistake, of
+      course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was no mistake, Doctor Bayliss,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I told your son the
+      truth, a very little of the truth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The truth! But it couldn't be true, you know, as Herbert reported it to
+      me. He said Miss Morley had left Mayberry, had gone away for some
+      unexplained reason, and was not coming back&mdash;that you did not know
+      where she had gone, that she had asked not to be hindered or followed or
+      something. And he said&mdash;My word! he even said you, Knowles, had
+      declared yourself to be neither her uncle nor her guardian. THAT couldn't
+      be true, now could it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again Hephzy and I looked at each other. Without speaking we reached the
+      same conclusion. Hephzy voiced that conclusion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess, Doctor Bayliss,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;that the time has come when you had
+      better be told the whole truth, or as much of the whole truth about
+      Frances as Hosy and I know. I'm goin' to tell it to you. It's a kind of
+      long story, but I guess likely you ought to know it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She began to tell that story, beginning at the very beginning, with
+      Ardelia and Strickland Morley and continuing on, through the history of
+      the latter's rascality and the fleeing of the pair from America, to our
+      own pilgrimage, the finding of Little Frank and the astonishing happenings
+      since.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's gone,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;She found out what sort of man her father really
+      was and, bein' a high-spirited, proud girl&mdash;as proud and
+      high-spirited as she is clever and pretty and good&mdash;she ran away and
+      left us. We don't blame her, Hosy and I. We understand just how she feels
+      and we've made up our minds to do as she asks and not try to follow her or
+      try to bring her back to us against her will. We think the world of her.
+      We haven't known her but a little while, but we've come&mdash;that is,&rdquo;
+       with a sudden glance in my direction, &ldquo;I've come to love her as if she was
+      my own. It pretty nigh kills me to have her go. When I think of her
+      strugglin' along tryin' to earn her own way by singin' and&mdash;and all,
+      I have to hold myself by main strength to keep from goin' after her and
+      beggin' her on my knees to come back. But I sha'n't do it, because she
+      doesn't want me to. Of course I hope and believe that some day she will
+      come back, but until she does and of her own accord, I'm goin' to wait.
+      And, if your son really cares for her as much as we&mdash;as I do, he'll
+      wait, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She paused and hastily dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief. I turned
+      in order that the Doctor might not see my face. It was an unnecessary
+      precaution. Doctor Bayliss' mind was busy, apparently, with but one
+      thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An opera singer!&rdquo; he exclaimed, under his breath. &ldquo;An opera singer!
+      Herbert to marry an opera singer! The granddaughter of a Yankee sailor and&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the daughter of an English thief,&rdquo; put in Hephzy, sharply. &ldquo;Maybe
+      we'd better leave nationalities out, Doctor Bayliss. The Yankees have the
+      best end of it, 'cordin' to my notion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He paid no attention to this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was greatly upset. &ldquo;It is impossible!&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;Absolutely
+      impossible! Why haven't we known of this before? Why did not Herbert know
+      of it? Mr. Knowles, I must say that&mdash;that you have been most
+      unthinking in this matter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have been thinking of her,&rdquo; I answered, curtly. &ldquo;It was and is her
+      secret and we rely upon you to keep it as such. We trust to your honor to
+      tell no one, not even your son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My son! Herbert? Why I must tell him! I must tell my wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may tell your wife. And your son as much as you think necessary.
+      Further than that it must not go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course, of course. I understand. But an opera singer!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She isn't a real opera singer,&rdquo; said Hephzy. &ldquo;That is, not one of those
+      great ones. And she told me once that she realized now that she never
+      could be. She has a real sweet voice, a beautiful voice, but it isn't
+      powerful enough to make her a place in the big companies. She tried and
+      tried, she said, but all the managers said the same thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;when did she tell you this? I didn't know of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know you didn't, Hosy. She told me one day when we were alone. It was
+      the only time she ever spoke of herself and she didn't say much then. She
+      spoke about her livin' with her relatives here in England and what awful,
+      mean, hard people they were. She didn't say who they were nor where they
+      lived, but she did say she ran away from them to go on the stage as a
+      singer and what trials and troubles she went through afterward. She told
+      me that much and then she seemed sorry that she had. She made me promise
+      not to tell anyone, not even you. I haven't, until now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Doctor Bayliss was sitting with a hand to his forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A provincial opera singer,&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;Oh, impossible! Quite
+      impossible!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It may seem impossible to you,&rdquo; I couldn't help observing, &ldquo;but I
+      question if it will seem so to your son. I doubt if her being an opera
+      singer will make much difference to him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor groaned. &ldquo;The boy is mad about her, quite mad,&rdquo; he admitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was sorry for him. Perhaps if I were in his position I might feel as he
+      did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will say this,&rdquo; I said: &ldquo;In no way, so far as I know, has Miss Morley
+      given your son encouragement. He told me himself that he had never spoken
+      to her of his feelings and we have no reason to think that she regards him
+      as anything more than a friend. She left no message for him when she went
+      away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He seemed to find some ground for hope in this. He rose from the chair and
+      extended his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Knowles,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;if I have said anything to hurt your feelings or
+      those of Miss Cahoon I am very sorry. I trust it will make no difference
+      in our friendship. My wife and I respect and like you both and I think I
+      understand how deeply you must feel the loss of your&mdash;of Miss Morley.
+      I hope she&mdash;I hope you may be reunited some day. No doubt you will
+      be. As for Herbert&mdash;he is our son and if you ever have a son of your
+      own, Mr. Knowles, you may appreciate his mother's feelings and mine. We
+      have planned and&mdash;and&mdash;Even now I should not stand in the way of
+      his happiness if&mdash;if I believed happiness could come of it. But such
+      marriages are never happy. And,&rdquo; with a sudden burst of hope, &ldquo;as you say,
+      she may not be aware of his attachment. The boy is young. He may forget.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said I, with a sigh. &ldquo;He IS young, and he may forget.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After he had gone Hephzy turned to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I hadn't understood that old man's feelin's,&rdquo; she declared, &ldquo;I'd have
+      given him one talkin' to. The idea of his speakin' as if Frances wouldn't
+      be a wife anybody, a lord or anybody else, might be proud of! But he
+      didn't know. He's been brought up that way, and he doesn't know. And, of
+      course, his son IS the only person on earth to him. Well, that's over! We
+      haven't got to worry about them any more. We'll begin to live for each
+      other now, Hosy, same as we used to do. And we'll wait for the rest. It'll
+      come and come right for all of us. Just you see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which I Play Golf and Cross the Channel
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      And so we began &ldquo;to live for each other again,&rdquo; Hephzy and I. This meant,
+      of course, that Hephzy forgot herself entirely and spent the greater part
+      of her time trying to find ways to make my living more comfortable, just
+      as she had always done. And I&mdash;well, I did my best to appear, if not
+      happy, at least reasonably calm and companionable. It was a hard job for
+      both of us; certainly my part of it was hard enough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Appearances had to be considered and so we invented a tale of a visit to
+      relatives in another part of England to account for the unannounced
+      departure of Miss Morley. This excuse served with the neighbors and
+      friends not in the secret and, for the benefit of the servants, Hephzy
+      elaborated the deceit by pretending eagerness at the arrival of the mails
+      and by certain vague remarks at table concerning letters she was writing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I AM writing 'em, too, Hosy,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I write to her every few days.
+      Of course I don't mail the letters, but it sort of squares things with my
+      conscience to really write after talking so much about it. As for her
+      visitin' relatives&mdash;well, she's got relatives somewhere in England,
+      we know that much, and she MAY be visitin' 'em. At any rate I try to think
+      she is. Oh, dear, I 'most wish I'd had more experience in tellin' lies;
+      then I wouldn't have to invent so many extra ones to make me believe those
+      I told at the beginnin'. I wish I'd been brought up a book agent or a
+      weather prophet or somethin' like that; then I'd have been in trainin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Without any definite agreement we had fallen into the habit of not
+      mentioning the name of Little Frank, even when we were alone together. In
+      consequence, on these occasions, there would be long intervals of silence
+      suddenly broken by Hephzy's bursting out with a surmise concerning what
+      was happening in Bayport, whether they had painted the public library
+      building yet, or how Susanna was getting on with the cat and hens. She had
+      received three letters from Miss Wixon and, as news bearers, they were far
+      from satisfactory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That girl makes me so provoked,&rdquo; sniffed Hephzy, dropping the most recent
+      letter in her lap with a gesture of disgust. &ldquo;She says she's got a cold in
+      the head and she's scared to death for fear it'll get 'set onto her,'
+      whatever that is. Two pages of this letter is nothin' but cold in the head
+      and t'other two is about a new hat she's goin' to have and she don't know
+      whether to trim it with roses or forget-me-nots. If she trimmed it with
+      cabbage 'twould match her head better'n anything else. I declare! she
+      ought to be thankful she's got a cold in a head like hers; it must be
+      comfortin' to know there's SOMETHIN' there. You've got a letter, too,
+      Hosy. Who is it from?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From Campbell,&rdquo; I answered, wearily. &ldquo;He wants to know how the novel is
+      getting on, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! Well, you write him that it's gettin' on the way a squid gets
+      ahead&mdash;by goin' backwards. Don't let him pester you one bit, Hosy.
+      You write that novel just as fast or slow as you feel like. He told you to
+      take a vacation, anyway.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled. Mine was a delightful vacation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The summer dragged on. The days passed. Pleasant days they were, so far as
+      the weather was concerned. I spent them somehow, walking, riding, golfing,
+      reading. I gave up trying to work; the half-written novel remained half
+      written. I could not concentrate my thoughts upon it and I lacked the
+      courage to force myself to try. I wrote Campbell that he must be patient,
+      I was doing the best I could. He answered by telling me not to worry, to
+      enjoy myself. &ldquo;Why do you stay there in England?&rdquo; he wrote. &ldquo;I ordered you
+      to travel, not to plant yourself in one place and die of dry rot. A
+      British oyster is mighty little improvement on a Cape Cod quahaug. You
+      have been in that rectory about long enough. Go to Monte Carlo for change.
+      You'll find it there&mdash;or lose it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It may have been good advice&mdash;or bad&mdash;according to the way in
+      which it was understood, but, good or bad, it didn't appeal to me. I had
+      no desire to travel, unless it were to travel back to Bayport, where I
+      belonged. I felt no interest in Monte Carlo&mdash;for the matter of that,
+      I felt no interest in Mayberry or anywhere else. I was not interested in
+      anything or anybody&mdash;except one, and that one had gone out of my
+      life. Night after night I went to sleep determining to forget and morning
+      after morning I awoke only to remember, and with the same dull, hopeless
+      heartache and longing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      July passed, August was half gone. Still we remained at the rectory. Our
+      lease was up on the first of October. The Coles would return then and we
+      should be obliged to go elsewhere, whether we wished to or not. Hephzy,
+      although she did not say much about it, was willing to go, I think. Her
+      &ldquo;presentiment&rdquo; had remained only a presentiment so far; no word came from
+      Little Frank. We had heard or learned nothing concerning her or her
+      whereabouts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our neighbors and friends in Mayberry were as kind and neighborly as ever.
+      For the first few days after our interview with Doctor Bayliss, Senior,
+      Hephzy and I saw nothing of him or his family. Then the doctor called
+      again. He seemed in better spirits. His son had yielded to his parents'
+      entreaties and had departed for a walking tour through the Black Forest
+      with some friends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The invitation came at exactly the right time,&rdquo; said the old gentleman.
+      &ldquo;Herbert was ready to go anywhere or do anything. The poor boy was in the
+      depths and when his mother and I urged him to accept he did so. We are
+      hoping that when he returns he will have forgotten, or, if not that, at
+      least be more reconciled.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Heathcroft came and went at various times during the summer. I met him on
+      the golf course and he was condescendingly friendly as ever. Our talk
+      concerning Frances, which had brought such momentous consequences to her
+      and to Hephzy and to me, had, apparently, not disturbed him in the least.
+      He greeted me blandly and cheerfully, asked how we all were, said he had
+      been given to understand that &ldquo;my charming little niece&rdquo; was no longer
+      with us, and proceeded to beat me two down in eighteen holes. I played
+      several times with him afterward and, under different circumstances,
+      should have enjoyed doing so, for we were pretty evenly matched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His aunt, the Lady of the Manor, I also met. She went out of her way to be
+      as sweetly gracious as possible. I presume she inferred from Frances'
+      departure that I had taken her hint and had removed the disturbing
+      influence from her nephew's primrose-bordered path. At each of our
+      meetings she spoke of the &ldquo;invitation golf tournament,&rdquo; several times
+      postponed and now to be played within a fortnight. She insisted that I
+      must take part in it. At last, having done everything except decline
+      absolutely, I finally consented to enter the tournament. It is not easy to
+      refuse to obey an imperial decree and Lady Carey was Empress of Mayberry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After accepting I returned to the rectory to find that Hephzy also had
+      received an invitation. Not to play golf, of course; her invitation was of
+      a totally different kind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you think, Hosy!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;I've got a letter and you can't
+      guess who it's from.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From Susanna?&rdquo; I ventured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Susanna! You don't suppose I'd be as excited as all this over a letter
+      from Susanna Wixon, do you? No indeed! I've got a letter from Mrs. Hepton,
+      who had the Nickerson cottage last summer. She and her husband are in
+      Paris and they want us to meet 'em there in a couple of weeks and go for a
+      short trip through Switzerland. They got our address from Mr. Campbell
+      before they left home. Mrs. Hepton writes that they're countin' on our
+      company. They're goin' to Lake Lucerne and to Mont Blanc and everywhere.
+      Wouldn't it be splendid!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Heptons had been summer neighbors of ours on the Cape for several
+      seasons. They were friends of Jim Campbell's and had first come to Bayport
+      on his recommendation. I liked them very well, and, oddly enough, for I
+      was not popular with the summer colony, they had seemed to like me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was very kind of them to think of us,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Campbell shouldn't
+      have given them our address, of course, but their invitation was well
+      meant. You must write them at once. Make our refusal as polite as
+      possible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy seemed disappointed, I thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you think I'd better say no?&rdquo; she observed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, of course. You weren't thinking of accepting, were you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I didn't know. I'm not sure that our goin' wouldn't be the right
+      thing. I've been considerin' for some time, Hosy, and I've about come to
+      the conclusion that stayin' here is bad for you. Maybe it's bad for both
+      of us. Perhaps a change would do us both good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was astonished. &ldquo;Humph!&rdquo; I exclaimed; &ldquo;this is a change of heart,
+      Hephzy. A while ago, when I suggested going back to Bayport, you wouldn't
+      hear of it. You wanted to stay here and&mdash;and wait.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know I did. And I've been waitin', but nothin' has come of it. I've
+      still got my presentiment, Hosy. I believe just as strong as I ever did
+      that some time or other she and you and I will be together again. But
+      stayin' here and seein' nobody but each other and broodin' don't do us any
+      good. It's doin' you harm; that's plain enough. You don't write and you
+      don't eat&mdash;that is, not much&mdash;and you're gettin' bluer and more
+      thin and peaked every day. You have just got to go away from here, no
+      matter whether I do or not. And I've reached the point where I'm willin'
+      to go, too. Not for good, maybe. We'll come back here again. Our lease
+      isn't up until October and we can leave the servants here and give them
+      our address to have mail forwarded. If&mdash;if she&mdash;that is, if a
+      letter or&mdash;or anything&mdash;SHOULD come we could hurry right back.
+      The Heptons are real nice folks; you always liked 'em, Hosy. And you
+      always wanted to see Switzerland; you used to say so. Why don't we say yes
+      and go along?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not answer. I believed I understood the reason for Campbell's giving
+      our address to the Heptons; also the reason for the invitation. Jim was
+      very anxious to have me leave Mayberry; he believed travel and change of
+      scene were what I needed. Doubtless he had put the Heptons up to asking us
+      to join them on their trip. It was merely an addition to his precious
+      prescription.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don't we go?&rdquo; urged Hephzy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not much!&rdquo; I answered, decidedly. &ldquo;I should be poor company on a pleasure
+      trip like that. But you might go, Hephzy. There is no reason in the world
+      why you shouldn't go. I'll stay here until you return. Go, by all means,
+      and enjoy yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'd do a lot of enjoyin' without you, wouldn't I,&rdquo; she observed. &ldquo;While I
+      was lookin' at the scenery I'd be wonderin' what you had for breakfast.
+      Every mite of rain would set me to thinkin' of your gettin' your feet wet
+      and when I laid eyes on a snow peak I'd wonder if you had blankets enough
+      on your bed. I'd be like that yellow cat we used to have back in the time
+      when Father was alive. That cat had kittens and Father had 'em all drowned
+      but one. After that you never saw the cat anywhere unless the kitten was
+      there, too. She wouldn't eat unless it were with her and between bites
+      she'd sit down on it so it couldn't run off. She lugged it around in her
+      mouth until Father used to vow he'd have eyelet holes punched in the
+      scruff of its neck for her teeth to fit into and make it easier for both
+      of 'em. It died, finally; she wore it out, I guess likely. Then she
+      adopted a chicken and started luggin' that around. She had the habit, you
+      see. I'm a good deal like her, Hosy. I've took care of you so long that
+      I've got the habit. No, I shouldn't go unless you did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      No amount of urging moved her, so we dropped the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The morning of the golf tournament was clear and fine. I shouldered my bag
+      of clubs and walked through the lane toward the first tee. I never felt
+      less like playing or more inclined to feign illness and remain at home.
+      But I had promised Lady Carey and the promise must be kept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a group of people, players and guests, awaiting me at the tee.
+      Her ladyship was there, of course; so also was her nephew, Mr. Carleton
+      Heathcroft, whom I had not seen for some time. Heathcroft was in
+      conversation with a young fellow who, when he turned in my direction, I
+      recognized as Herbert Bayliss. I was surprised to see him; I had not heard
+      of his return from the Black Forest trip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Carey was affable and gracious, also very important and busy. She
+      welcomed me absent-mindedly, introduced me to several of her guests,
+      ladies and gentlemen from London down for the week-end, and then bustled
+      away to confer with Mr. Handliss, steward of the estate, concerning the
+      arrangements for the tournament. I felt a touch on my arm and, turning,
+      found Doctor Bayliss standing beside me. He was smiling and in apparent
+      good humor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The boy is back, Knowles,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Have you seen him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I have seen him, although we haven't met yet. I was
+      surprised to find him here. When did he return?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only yesterday. His mother and I were surprised also. We hadn't expected
+      him so soon. He's looking very fit, don't you think?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very.&rdquo; I had not noticed that young Bayliss was looking either more or
+      less fit than usual, but I answered as I did because the old gentleman
+      seemed so very anxious that I should. He was evidently gratified. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo;
+       he said, &ldquo;he's looking very fit indeed. I think his trip has benefited him
+      hugely. And I think&mdash;Yes, I think he is beginning to forget his&mdash;that
+      is to say, I believe he does not dwell upon the&mdash;the recent
+      happenings as he did. I think he is forgetting; I really think he is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed,&rdquo; said I. It struck me that, if Herbert Bayliss was forgetting,
+      his memory must be remarkably short. I imagined that his father's wish was
+      parent to the thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has&mdash;ah&mdash;scarcely mentioned our&mdash;our young friend's
+      name since his return,&rdquo; went on the doctor. &ldquo;He did ask if you had heard&mdash;ah&mdash;by
+      the way, Knowles, you haven't heard, have you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear me! dear me! That's very odd, now isn't it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not say he was sorry. If he had said it I should not have believed
+      him. If ever anything was plain it was that the longer we remained without
+      news of Frances Morley the better pleased Herbert Bayliss's parents would
+      be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I say, Knowles,&rdquo; he added, &ldquo;you and he must meet, you know. He
+      doesn't hold any ill-feeling or&mdash;or resentment toward you. Really he
+      doesn't. Herbert! Oh, I say, Herbert! Come here, will you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Young Bayliss turned. The doctor whispered in my ear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps it would be just as well not to refer to&mdash;to&mdash;You
+      understand me, Knowles. Better let sleeping dogs lie, eh? Oh, Herbert,
+      here is Knowles waiting to shake hands with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We shook hands. The shake, on his part, was cordial enough, perhaps, but
+      not too cordial. It struck me that young Bayliss was neither as &ldquo;fit&rdquo; nor
+      as forgetful as his fond parents wished to believe. He looked rather worn
+      and nervous, it seemed to me. I asked him about his tramping trip and we
+      chatted for a few moments. Then Bayliss, Senior, was called by Lady Carey
+      and Handliss to join the discussion concerning the tournament rules and
+      the young man and I were left alone together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Knowles,&rdquo; he asked, the moment after his father's departure, &ldquo;have you
+      heard anything? Anything concerning&mdash;her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're sure? You're not&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am quite sure. We haven't heard nor do we expect to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked away across the course and I heard him draw a long breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's deucedly odd, this,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;How she could disappear so entirely I
+      don't understand. And you have no idea where she may be?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But&mdash;but, confound it, man, aren't you trying to find her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're not! Why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know why not as well as I. She left us of her own free will and her
+      parting request was that we should not follow her. That is sufficient for
+      us. Pardon me, but I think it should be for all her friends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was silent for a moment. Then his teeth snapped together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll find her,&rdquo; he declared, fiercely. &ldquo;I'll find her some day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In spite of her request?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. In spite of the devil.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned on his heel and walked off. Mr. Handliss stepped to the first
+      tee, clapped his hands to attract attention and began a little speech.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tournament, he said, was about to begin. Play would be, owing to the
+      length and difficulty of the course, but eighteen holes instead of the
+      usual thirty-six. This meant that each pair of contestants would play the
+      nine holes twice. Handicaps had been fixed as equitably as possible
+      according to each player's previous record, and players having similar
+      handicaps were to play against each other. A light lunch and refreshments
+      would be served after the first round had been completed by all. Prizes
+      would be distributed by her ladyship when the final round was finished.
+      Her ladyship bade us all welcome and was gratified by our acceptance of
+      her invitation. He would now proceed to read the names of those who were
+      to play against each other, stating handicaps and the like. He read
+      accordingly, and I learned that my opponent was to be Mr. Heathcroft, each
+      of us having a handicap of two.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Considering everything I thought my particular handicap a stiff one.
+      Heathcroft had been in the habit of beating me in two out of three of our
+      matches. However, I determined to play my best. Being the only outlander
+      on the course I couldn't help feeling that the sporting reputation of
+      Yankeeland rested, for this day at least, upon my shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The players were sent off in pairs, the less skilled first. Heathcroft and
+      I were next to the last. A London attorney by the name of Jaynes and a
+      Wrayton divine named Wilson followed us. Their rating was one plus and,
+      judging by the conversation of the &ldquo;gallery,&rdquo; they were looked upon as
+      winners of the first and second prizes respectively. The Reverend Mr.
+      Wilson was called, behind his back, &ldquo;the sporting curate.&rdquo; In gorgeous
+      tweeds and a shepherd's plaid cap he looked the part.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first nine went to me. An usually long drive and a lucky putt on the
+      eighth gave me the round by one. I played with care and tried my hardest
+      to keep my mind on the game. Heathcroft was, as always, calm and careful,
+      but between tees he was pleased to be chatty and affable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how is the aunt with the odd name, Knowles?&rdquo; he inquired. &ldquo;Does she
+      still devour her&mdash;er&mdash;washing flannels and treacle for
+      breakfast?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She does when she cares to,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;She is an independent lady, as I
+      think you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My word! I believe you. And how are the literary labors progressing? I
+      had my bookselling fellow look up a novel of yours the other day. Began it
+      that same night, by Jove! It was quite interesting, really. I should have
+      finished it, I think, but some of the chaps at the club telephoned me to
+      join them for a bit of bridge and of course that ended literature for the
+      time. My respected aunt tells me I'm quite dotty on bridge. She foresees a
+      gambler's end for me, stony broke, languishing in dungeons and all that
+      sort of thing. I am to die of starvation, I think. Is it starvation
+      gamblers die of? 'Pon my soul, I should say most of those I know would be
+      more likely to die of thirst. Rather!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Later on he asked another question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how is the pretty niece, Knowles?&rdquo; he inquired. &ldquo;When is she coming
+      back to the monastery or the nunnery or rectory, or whatever it is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; I replied, curtly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I say! Isn't she coming at all? That would be a calamity, now
+      wouldn't it? Not to me in particular. I should mind your notice boards, of
+      course. But if I were condemned, as you are, to spend a summer among the
+      feminine beauties of Mayberry, a face like hers would be like a whisky and
+      soda in a thirsty land, as a chap I know is fond of saying. Oh, and by the
+      way, speaking of your niece, I had a curious experience in Paris a week
+      ago. Most extraordinary thing. For the moment I began to believe I really
+      was going dotty, as Auntie fears. I... Your drive, Knowles. I'll tell you
+      the story later.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not tell it during that round, forgot it probably. I did not remind
+      him. The longer he kept clear of the subject of my &ldquo;niece&rdquo; the more
+      satisfied I was. We lunched in the pavilion by the first tee. There were
+      sandwiches and biscuits&mdash;crackers, of course&mdash;and cakes and
+      sweets galore. Also thirst-quenching materials sufficient to satisfy even
+      the gamblers of Mr. Heathcroft's acquaintance. The &ldquo;sporting curate,&rdquo;
+       behind a huge Scotch and soda, was relating his mishaps in approaching the
+      seventh hole for the benefit of his brother churchmen, Messrs. Judson and
+      Worcester. Lady Carey was dilating upon her pet subject, the talents and
+      virtues of &ldquo;Carleton, dear,&rdquo; for the benefit of the London attorney, who
+      was pretending to listen with the respectful interest due blood and title,
+      but who was thinking of something else, I am sure. &ldquo;Carleton, dear,&rdquo;
+       himself, was chatting languidly with young Bayliss. The latter seemed
+      greatly interested. There was a curious expression on his face. I was
+      surprised to see him so cordial to Heathcroft; I knew he did not like Lady
+      Carey's nephew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The second and final round of the tournament began. For six holes
+      Heathcroft and I broke even. The seventh he won, making us square for the
+      match so far and, with an equal number of strokes. The eighth we halved.
+      All depended on the ninth. Halving there would mean a drawn match between
+      us and a drawing for choice of prizes, provided we were in the
+      prize-winning class. A win for either of us meant the match itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Heathcroft, in spite of the close play, was as bland and unconcerned as
+      ever. I tried to appear likewise. As a matter of fact, I wanted to win.
+      Not because of the possible prize, I cared little for that, but for the
+      pleasure of winning against him. We drove from the ninth tee, each got a
+      long brassy shot which put us on the edge of the green, and then strolled
+      up the hill together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say, Knowles,&rdquo; he observed; &ldquo;I haven't finished telling you of my Paris
+      experience, have I. Odd coincidence, by Jove! I was telling young Bayliss
+      about it just now and he thought it odd, too. I was&mdash;some other chaps
+      and I drifted into the Abbey over in Paris a week or so ago and while we
+      were there a girl came out and sang. She was an extremely pretty girl, you
+      understand, but that wasn't the extraordinary part of it. She was the
+      image&mdash;my word! the very picture of your niece, Miss Morley. It quite
+      staggered me for the moment. Upon my soul I thought it was she! She sang
+      extremely well, but not for long. I tried to get near her&mdash;meant to
+      speak to her, you know, but she had gone before I reached her. Eh! What
+      did you say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had not said anything&mdash;at least I think I had not. He
+      misinterpreted my silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you mustn't be offended,&rdquo; he said, laughing. &ldquo;Of course I knew it
+      wasn't she&mdash;that is, I should have known it if I hadn't been so
+      staggered by the resemblance. It was amazing, that resemblance. The face,
+      the voice&mdash;everything was like hers. I was so dotty about it that I
+      even hunted up one of the chaps in charge and asked him who the girl was.
+      He said she was an Austrian&mdash;Mademoiselle Juno or Junotte or
+      something. That ended it, of course. I was a fool to imagine anything
+      else, of course. But you would have been a bit staggered if you had seen
+      her. And she didn't look Austrian, either. She looked English or American&mdash;rather!
+      I say, I hope I haven't hurt your feelings, old chap. I apologize to you
+      and Miss Morley, you understand. I couldn't help telling you; it was
+      extraordinary now, wasn't it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I made some answer. He rattled on about that sort of thing making one
+      believe in the Prisoner of Zenda stuff, doubles and all that. We reached
+      the green. My ball lay nearest the pin and it was his putt. He made it, a
+      beauty, the ball halting just at the edge of the cup. My putt was wild. He
+      holed out on the next shot. It took me two and I had to concentrate my
+      thought by main strength even then. The hole and match were his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was very decent about it, proclaimed himself lucky, declared I had,
+      generally speaking, played much the better game and should have won
+      easily. I paid little attention to what he said although I did, of course,
+      congratulate him and laughed at the idea that luck had anything to do with
+      the result. I no longer cared about the match or the tournament in general
+      or anything connected with them. His story of the girl who was singing in
+      Paris was what I was interested in now. I wanted him to tell me more, to
+      give me particulars. I wanted to ask him a dozen questions; and, yet,
+      excited as I was, I realized that those questions must be asked carefully.
+      His suspicions must not be aroused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before I could ask the first of the dozen Mr. Handliss bustled over to us
+      to learn the result of our play and to announce that the distribution of
+      prizes would take place in a few moments; also that Lady Carey wished to
+      speak with her nephew. The latter sauntered off to join the group by the
+      pavilion and my opportunity for questioning had gone, for the time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the distribution of prizes, with its accompanying ceremony, I seem to
+      recall very little. Lady Carey made a little speech, I remember that, but
+      just what she said I have forgotten. &ldquo;Much pleasure in rewarding skill,&rdquo;
+       &ldquo;Dear old Scottish game,&rdquo; &ldquo;English sportsmanship,&rdquo; &ldquo;Race not to the swift&rdquo;&mdash;I
+      must have been splashed with these drops from the fountain of oratory, for
+      they stick in my memory. Then, in turn, the winners were called up to
+      select their prizes. Wilson, the London attorney, headed the list; the
+      sporting curate came next; Heathcroft next; and then I. It had not
+      occurred to me that I should win a prize. In fact I had not thought
+      anything about it. My thoughts were far from the golf course just then.
+      They were in Paris, in a cathedral&mdash;Heathcroft had called it an
+      abbey, but cathedral he must have meant&mdash;where a girl who looked like
+      Frances Morley was singing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, when Mr. Handliss called my name I answered and stepped forward.
+      Her Ladyship said something or other about &ldquo;our cousin from across the
+      sea&rdquo; and &ldquo;Anglo-Saxon blood&rdquo; and her especial pleasure in awarding the
+      prize. I stammered thanks, rather incoherently expressed they were, I
+      fear, selected the first article that came to hand&mdash;it happened to be
+      a cigarette case; I never smoke cigarettes&mdash;and retired to the outer
+      circle. The other winners&mdash;Herbert Bayliss and Worcester among them&mdash;selected
+      their prizes and then Mr. Wilson, winner of the tournament, speaking in
+      behalf of us all, thanked the hostess for her kindness and hospitality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her gracious invitation to play upon the Manor-House course Mr. Wilson
+      mentioned feelingly. Also the gracious condescension in presenting the
+      prizes with her own hand. They would be cherished, not only for their own
+      sake, but for that of the donor. He begged the liberty of proposing her
+      ladyship's health.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The &ldquo;liberty&rdquo; was, apparently, expected, for Mr. Handliss had full glasses
+      ready and waiting. The health was drunk. Lady Carey drank ours in return,
+      and the ceremony was over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I tried in vain to get another word with Heathcroft. He was in
+      conversation with his aunt and several of the feminine friends and,
+      although I waited for some time, I, at last, gave up the attempt and
+      walked home. The Reverend Judson would have accompanied me, but I avoided
+      him. I did not wish to listen to Mayberry gossip; I wanted to be alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Heathcroft's tale had made a great impression upon me&mdash;a most
+      unreasonable impression, unwarranted by the scant facts as he related
+      them. The girl whom he had seen resembled Frances&mdash;yes; but she was
+      an Austrian, her name was not Morley. And resemblances were common enough.
+      That Frances should be singing in a Paris church was most improbable; but,
+      so far as that went, the fact of A. Carleton Heathcroft's attending a
+      church service I should, ordinarily, have considered improbable.
+      Improbable things did happen. Suppose the girl he had seen was Frances. My
+      heart leaped at the thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But even supposing it was she, what difference did it make&mdash;to me?
+      None, of course. She had asked us not to follow her, to make no attempt to
+      find her. I had preached compliance with her wish to Hephzy, to Doctor
+      Bayliss&mdash;yes, to Herbert Bayliss that very afternoon. But Herbert
+      Bayliss was sworn to find her, in spite of me, in spite of the Evil One.
+      And Heathcroft had told young Bayliss the same story he had told me. HE
+      would not be deterred by scruples; her wish would not prevent his going to
+      Paris in search of her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I reached the rectory, to be welcomed by Hephzy with questions concerning
+      the outcome of the tournament and triumphant gloatings over my perfectly
+      useless prize. I did not tell her of Heathcroft's story. I merely said I
+      had met that gentleman and that Herbert Bayliss had returned to Mayberry.
+      And I asked a question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; I asked, &ldquo;when do the Heptons leave Paris for their trip through
+      Switzerland?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy considered. &ldquo;Let me see,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Today is the eighteenth, isn't
+      it. They start on the twenty-second; that's four days from now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course you have written them that we cannot accept their invitation to
+      go along?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hesitated. &ldquo;Why, no,&rdquo; she admitted, &ldquo;I haven't. That is, I have
+      written 'em, but I haven't posted the letter. Humph! did you notice that
+      'posted'? Shows what livin' in a different place'll do even to as settled
+      a body as I am. In Bayport I should have said 'mailed' the letter, same as
+      anybody else. I must be careful or I'll go back home and call the
+      expressman a 'carrier' and a pie a 'tart' and a cracker a 'biscuit.' Land
+      sakes! I remember readin' how David Copperfield's aunt always used to eat
+      biscuits soaked in port wine before she went to bed. I used to think 'twas
+      dreadful dissipated business and that the old lady must have been ready
+      for bed by the time she got through. You see I always had riz biscuits in
+      mind. A cracker's different; crackers don't soak up much. We'd ought to be
+      careful how we judge folks, hadn't we, Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said I, absently. &ldquo;So you haven't posted the letter to the Heptons.
+      Why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well&mdash;well, to tell you the truth, Hosy, I was kind of hopin' you
+      might change your mind and decide to go, after all. I wish you would;
+      'twould do you good. And,&rdquo; wistfully, &ldquo;Switzerland must be lovely. But
+      there! I know just how you feel, you poor boy. I'll mail the letter
+      to-night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give it to me,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;I'll&mdash;I'll see to it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy handed me the letter. I put it in my pocket, but I did not post it
+      that evening. A plan&mdash;or the possible beginning of a plan&mdash;was
+      forming in my mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That night was another of my bad ones. The little sleep I had was filled
+      with dreams, dreams from which I awoke to toss restlessly. I rose and
+      walked the floor, calling myself a fool, a silly old fool, over and over
+      again. But when morning came my plan, a ridiculous, wild plan from which,
+      even if it succeeded&mdash;which was most unlikely&mdash;nothing but added
+      trouble and despair could possibly come, my plan was nearer its ultimate
+      formation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At eleven o'clock that forenoon I walked up the marble steps of the Manor
+      House and rang the bell. The butler, an exalted personage in livery,
+      answered my ring. Mr. Heathcroft? No, sir. Mr. Heathcroft had left for
+      London by the morning train. Her ladyship was in her boudoir. She did not
+      see anyone in the morning, sir. I had no wish to see her ladyship, but
+      Heathcroft's departure was a distinct disappointment. I thanked the butler
+      and, remembering that even cathedral ushers accepted tips, slipped a
+      shilling into his hand. His dignity thawed at the silver touch, and he
+      expressed regret at Mr. Heathcroft's absence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're not the only gentleman who has been here to see him this morning,
+      sir,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Doctor Bayliss, the younger one, called about an hour ago.
+      He seemed quite as sorry to find him gone as you are, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I think that settled it. When I again entered the rectory my mind was made
+      up. The decision was foolish, insane, even dishonorable perhaps, but the
+      decision was made.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I have changed my mind. Travel may do me good. I have
+      telegraphed the Heptons that we will join them in Paris on the evening of
+      the twenty-first. After that&mdash;Well, we'll see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy's delight was as great as her surprise. She said I was a dear,
+      unselfish boy. Considering what I intended doing I felt decidedly mean;
+      but I did not tell her what that intention was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We took the two-twenty train from Charing Cross on the afternoon of the
+      twenty-first. The servants had been left in charge of the rectory. We
+      would return in a fortnight, so we told them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a beautiful day, bright and sunshiny, but, after smoky, grimy
+      London had been left behind and we were whizzing through the Kentish
+      countryside, between the hop fields and the pastures where the sheep were
+      feeding, we noticed that a stiff breeze was blowing. Further on, as we
+      wound amid the downs near Folkestone, the bending trees and shrubs proved
+      that the breeze was a miniature gale. And when we came in sight of the
+      Channel, it was thickly sprinkled with whitecaps from beach to horizon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I imagine we shall have a rather rough passage, Hephzy,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy's attention was otherwise engaged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do they call a hill a 'down' over here?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;I should think
+      an 'up' would be better. What did you say, Hosy? A rough passage? I guess
+      that won't bother you and me much. This little mite of water can't seem
+      very much stirred up to folks who have sailed clear across the Atlantic
+      Ocean. But there! I mustn't put on airs. I used to think Cape Cod Bay was
+      about all the water there was. Travelin' does make such a difference in a
+      person's ideas. Do you remember the Englishwoman at Bancroft's who told me
+      that she supposed the Thames must remind us of our own Mississippi?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So that's the famous English Channel, is it,&rdquo; she observed, a moment
+      later. &ldquo;How wide is it, Hosy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About twenty miles at the narrowest point, I believe,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Twenty miles! About as far as Bayport to Provincetown. Well, I don't know
+      whether any of your ancestors or mine came over with William the Conquerer
+      or not, but if they did, they didn't have far to come. I cal'late I'll be
+      contented with having my folks cross in the Mayflower. They came three
+      thousand miles anyway.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was inclined to regard the Channel rather contemptuously just then. A
+      half hour later she was more respectful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The steamer was awaiting us at the pier. As the throng of passengers filed
+      up the gang-plank she suddenly squeezed my arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look! Hosy!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Look! Isn't that him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked where she was pointing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Him? Who?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look! There he goes now. No, he's gone. I can't see him any more. And yet
+      I was almost certain 'twas him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who?&rdquo; I asked again. &ldquo;Did you see someone you knew?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought I did, but I guess I was mistaken. He's just got home; he
+      wouldn't be startin' off again so soon. No, it couldn't have been him, but
+      I did think&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I stopped short. &ldquo;Who did you think you saw?&rdquo; I demanded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought I saw Doctor Herbert Bayliss goin' up those stairs to the
+      steamboat. It looked like him enough to be his twin brother, if he had
+      one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not answer. I looked about as we stepped aboard the boat, but if
+      young Bayliss was there he was not in sight. Hephzy rattled on excitedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can't tell much by seein' folks's backs,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;I remember
+      one time your cousin Hezekiah Knowles&mdash;You don't remember him, Hosy;
+      he died when you was little&mdash;One time Cousin Hezzy was up to Boston
+      with his wife and they was shoppin' in one of the big stores. That is,
+      Martha Ann&mdash;the wife&mdash;was shoppin' and he was taggin' along and
+      complainin', same as men generally do. He was kind of nearsighted, Hezzy
+      was, and when Martha was fightin' to get a place in front of a bargain
+      counter he stayed astern and kept his eyes fixed on a hat she was wearin'.
+      'Twas a new hat with blue and yellow flowers on it. Hezzy always said,
+      when he told the yarn afterward, that he never once figured that there
+      could be another hat like that one. I saw it myself and, if I'd been in
+      his place, I'd have HOPED there wasn't anyway. Well, he followed that hat
+      from one counter to another and, at last, he stepped up and said, 'Look
+      here, dearie,' he says&mdash;They hadn't been married very long, not long
+      enough to get out of the mushy stage&mdash;'Look here, dearie,' he says,
+      'hadn't we better be gettin' on home? You'll tire those little feet of
+      yours all out trottin' around this way.' And when the hat turned around
+      there was a face under it as black as a crow. He'd been followin' a darkey
+      woman for ten minutes. She thought he was makin' fun of her feet and was
+      awful mad, and when Martha came along and found who he'd taken for her she
+      was madder still. Hezzy said, 'I couldn't help it, Martha. Nobody could. I
+      never saw two craft look more alike from twenty foot astern. And she wears
+      that hat just the way you do.' That didn't help matters any, of course,
+      and&mdash;Why, Hosy, where are you goin'? Why don't you say somethin'?
+      Hadn't we better sit down? All the good seats will be gone if we don't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had been struggling through the crowd, trying my best to get a glimpse
+      of the man she had thought to be Herbert Bayliss. If it was he then my
+      suspicions were confirmed. Heathcroft's story of the girl who sang in
+      Paris had impressed him as it had me and he was on his way to see for
+      himself. But the man, whoever he might be, had disappeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How the wind does blow,&rdquo; said Hephzy. &ldquo;What are the people doin' with
+      those black tarpaulins?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Sailors in uniform were passing among the seated passengers distributing
+      large squares of black waterproof canvas. I watched the use to which the
+      tarpaulins were put and I understood. I beckoned to the nearest sailor and
+      rented two of the canvases for use during the voyage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How much?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One franc each,&rdquo; said the man, curtly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had visited the money-changers near the Charing Cross station and was
+      prepared. Hephzy's eyes opened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A franc,&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;That's French money, isn't it. Is he a
+      Frenchman?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;This is a French boat, I think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She watched the sailor for a moment. Then she sighed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he's a Frenchman,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I thought Frenchmen wore mustaches and
+      goatees and were awful polite. He was about as polite as a pig. And all he
+      needs is a hand-organ and a monkey to be an Italian. A body couldn't tell
+      the difference without specs. What did you get those tarpaulins for,
+      Hosy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I covered our traveling bags with one of the tarpaulins, as I saw our
+      fellow-passengers doing, and the other I tucked about Hephzy, enveloping
+      her from her waist down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't need that,&rdquo; she protested. &ldquo;It isn't cold and it isn't rainin',
+      either. I tell you I don't need it, Hosy. Don't tuck me in any more. I
+      feel as if I was goin' to France in a baby carriage, not a steamboat. And
+      what are they passin' round those&mdash;those tin dippers for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They may be useful later on,&rdquo; I said, watching the seas leap and foam
+      against the stone breakwater. &ldquo;You'll probably understand later, Hephzy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She understood. The breakwater was scarcely passed when our boat, which
+      had seemed so large and steady and substantial, began to manifest a desire
+      to stand on both ends at once and to roll like a log in a rapid. The sun
+      was shining brightly overhead, the verandas of the hotels along the beach
+      were crowded with gaily dressed people, the surf fringing that beach was
+      dotted with bathers, everything on shore wore a look of holiday and joy&mdash;and
+      yet out here, on the edge of the Channel, there was anything but calm and
+      anything but joy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How that blessed boat did toss and rock and dip and leap and pitch! And
+      how the spray began to fly as we pushed farther and farther from land! It
+      came over the bows in sheets; it swept before the wind in showers, in
+      torrents. Hephzy hastily removed her hat and thrust it beneath the
+      tarpaulin. I turned up the collar of my steamer coat and slid as far down
+      into that collar as I could.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My soul!&rdquo; exclaimed Hephzy, the salt water running down her face. &ldquo;My
+      soul and body!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I agree with you,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On we went, over the waves or through them. Our fellow-passengers curled
+      up beneath their tarpaulins, smiled stoically or groaned dismally,
+      according to their dispositions&mdash;or digestions. A huge wave&mdash;the
+      upper third of it, at least&mdash;swept across the deck and spilled a
+      gallon or two of cold water upon us. A sturdy, red-faced Englishman,
+      sitting next me, grinned cheerfully and observed:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Trickles down one's neck a bit, doesn't it, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I agreed that it did. Hephzy, huddled under the lee of my shoulder,
+      sputtered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Trickles!&rdquo; she whispered. &ldquo;My heavens and earth! If this is a trickle
+      then Noah's flood couldn't have been more than a splash. Trickles! There's
+      a Niagara Falls back of both of my ears this minute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Another passenger, also English, but gray-haired and elderly, came tacking
+      down the deck, bound somewhere or other. His was a zig-zag transit. He
+      dove for the rail, caught it, steadied himself, took a fresh start,
+      swooped to the row of chairs by the deck house, carromed from them, and,
+      in company with a barrel or two of flying brine, came head first into my
+      lap. I expected profanity and temper. I did get a little of the former.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This damned French boat!&rdquo; he observed, rising with difficulty. &ldquo;She
+      absolutely WON'T be still.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The sea is pretty rough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, the sea is all right. A bit damp, that's all. It's the blessed boat.
+      Foreigners are such wretched sailors.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was off on another tack. Hephzy watched him wonderingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A bit damp,&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;Yes, I shouldn't wonder if 'twas. I suppose
+      likely he wouldn't call it wet if he fell overboard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not on this side of the Channel,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;This side is English
+      water, therefore it is all right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A few minutes later Hephzy spoke again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look at those poor women,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Opposite us were two English ladies, middle-aged, wretchedly ill and so
+      wet that the feathers on their hats hung down in strings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just like drowned cats' tails,&rdquo; observed Hephzy. &ldquo;Ain't it awful! And
+      they're too miserable to care. You poor thing,&rdquo; she said, leaning forward
+      and addressing the nearest, &ldquo;can't I fix you so you're more comfortable?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The woman addressed looked up and tried her best to smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no, thank you,&rdquo; she said, weakly but cheerfully. &ldquo;We're doing quite
+      well. It will soon be over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you hear that, Hosy?&rdquo; she whispered. &ldquo;I declare! if it wasn't off
+      already, and that's a mercy, I'd take off my hat to England and the
+      English people. Not a whimper, not a complaint, just sit still and soak
+      and tumble around and grin and say it's 'a bit damp.' Whenever I read
+      about the grumblin', fault-findin' Englishman I'll think of the folks on
+      this boat. It may be patriotism or it may be the race pride and reserve we
+      hear so much about&mdash;but, whatever it is, it's fine. They've all got
+      it, men and women and children. I presume likely the boy that stood on the
+      burnin' deck would have said 'twas a bit sultry, and that's all.... What
+      is it, Hosy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had uttered an exclamation. A young man had just reeled by us on his way
+      forward. His cap was pulled down over his eyes and his coat collar was
+      turned up, but I recognized him. He was Herbert Bayliss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We were three hours crossing from Folkestone to Boulogne, instead of the
+      usual scant two. We entered the harbor, where the great crucifix on the
+      hill above the town attracted Hephzy's attention and the French signs over
+      the doors of hotels and shops by the quay made her realize, so she said,
+      that we really were in a foreign country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Somehow England never did seem so very foreign,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;And the
+      Mayberry folks were so nice and homey and kind I've come to think of 'em
+      as, not just neighbors, but friends. But this&mdash;THIS is foreign
+      enough, goodness knows! Let go of my arm!&rdquo; to the smiling, gesticulating
+      porter who was proffering his services. &ldquo;DON'T wave your hands like that;
+      you make me dizzy. Keep 'em still, man! I could understand you just as
+      well if they was tied. Hosy, you'll have to be skipper from now on. Now I
+      KNOW Cape Cod is three thousand miles off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We got through the customs without trouble, found our places in the train,
+      and the train, after backing and fussing and fidgeting and tooting in a
+      manner thoroughly French, rolled out of the station.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We ate our dinner, and a very good dinner it was, in the dining-car.
+      Hephzy, having asked me to translate the heading &ldquo;Compagnie Internationale
+      des Wagon Lits&rdquo; on the bill of fare, declared she couldn't see why a
+      dining-car should be called a &ldquo;wagon bed.&rdquo; &ldquo;There's enough to eat to put
+      you to sleep,&rdquo; she declared, &ldquo;but you couldn't stay asleep any more than
+      you could in the nail factory up to Tremont. I never heard such a rattlin'
+      and slambangin' in my life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We whizzed through the French country, catching glimpses of little towns,
+      with red-roofed cottages clustered about the inevitable church and
+      chateau, until night came and looking out of the window was no longer
+      profitable. At nine, or thereabouts, we alighted from the train at Paris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the cab, on the way to the hotel where we were to meet the Heptons,
+      Hephzy talked incessantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Paris!&rdquo; she said, over and over again. &ldquo;Paris! where they had the Three
+      Musketeers and Notre Dame and Henry of Navarre and Saint Bartholomew and
+      Napoleon and the guillotine and Innocents Abroad and&mdash;and everything.
+      Paris! And I'm in it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the door of the hotel Mr. Hepton met us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before we retired that night I told Hephzy what I had deferred telling
+      until then, namely, that I did not intend leaving for Switzerland with her
+      and with the Heptons the following day. I did not tell her my real reason
+      for staying; I had invented a reason and told her that instead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to be alone here in Paris for a few days,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I think I may
+      find some material here which will help me with my novel. You and the
+      Heptons must go, just as you have planned, and I will join you at Lucerne
+      or Interlaken.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy stared at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I sha'n't stir one step without you,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;If I'd known you had
+      such an idea as that in your head I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You wouldn't have come,&rdquo; I interrupted. &ldquo;I know that; that's why I didn't
+      tell you. Of course you will go and of course you will leave me here. We
+      will be separated only two or three days. I'll ask Hepton to give me an
+      itinerary of the trip and I will wire when and where I will join you. You
+      must go, Hephzy; I insist upon it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of my insisting Hephzy still declared she should not go. It was
+      nearly midnight before she gave in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if you DON'T come in three days at the longest,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you'll
+      find me back here huntin' you up. I mean that, Hosy, so you'd better
+      understand it. And now,&rdquo; rising from her chair, &ldquo;I'm goin' to see about
+      the things you're to wear while we're separated. If I don't you're liable
+      to keep on wet stockin's and shoes and things all the time and forget to
+      change 'em. You needn't say you won't, for I know you too well. Mercy
+      sakes! do you suppose I've taken care of you all these years and DON'T
+      know?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The next forenoon I said good-by to her and the Heptons at the railway
+      station. Hephzy's last words to me were these:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Remember,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;if you do get caught in the rain, there's dry
+      things in the lower tray of your trunk. Collars and neckties and shirts
+      are in the upper tray. I've hung your dress suit in the closet in case you
+      want it, though that isn't likely. And be careful what you eat, and don't
+      smoke too much, and&mdash;Yes, Mr. Hepton, I'm comin'&mdash;and don't
+      spend ALL your money in book-stores; you'll need some of it in
+      Switzerland. And&mdash;Oh, dear, Hosy! do be a good boy. I know you're
+      always good, but, from all I've heard, this Paris is an awful place and&mdash;good-by.
+      Good-by. In Lucerne in two days or Interlaken in three. It's got to be
+      that, or back I come, remember. I HATE to leave you all alone amongst
+      these jabberin' foreigners. I'm glad you can jabber, too, that's one
+      comfort. If it was me, all I could do would be to holler United States
+      language at 'em, and if they didn't understand that, just holler louder. I&mdash;Yes,
+      Mr. Hepton, I AM comin' now. Good-by, Hosy, dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The train rolled out of the station. I watched it go. Then I turned and
+      walked to the street. So far my scheme had worked well. I was alone in
+      Paris as I had planned to be. And now&mdash;and now to find where a girl
+      sang, a girl who looked like Frances Morley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XV
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which I Learn that All Abbeys Are Not Churches
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      And that, now that I really stopped to consider it, began to appear more
+      and more of a task. Paris must be full of churches; to visit each of them
+      in turn would take weeks at least. Hephzy had given me three days. I must
+      join her at Interlaken in three days or there would be trouble. And how
+      was I to make even the most superficial search in three days?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of course I had realized something of this before. Even in the state of
+      mind which Heathcroft's story had left me, I had realized that my errand
+      in Paris was a difficult one. I realized that I had set out on the wildest
+      of wild goose chases and that, even in the improbable event of the
+      singer's being Frances, my finding her was most unlikely. The chances of
+      success were a hundred to one against me. But I was in the mood to take
+      the hundredth chance. I should have taken it if the odds were higher
+      still. My plan&mdash;if it could be called a plan&mdash;was first of all
+      to buy a Paris Baedeker and look over the list of churches. This I did,
+      and, back in the hotel room, I consulted that list. It staggered me. There
+      were churches enough&mdash;there were far too many. Cathedrals and chapels
+      and churches galore&mdash;Catholic and Protestant. But there was no church
+      calling itself an abbey. I closed the Baedeker, lit a cigar, and settled
+      myself for further reflection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl was singing somewhere and she called herself Mademoiselle Juno or
+      Junotte, so Heathcroft had said. So much I knew and that was all. It was
+      very, very little. But Herbert Bayliss had come to Paris, I believed,
+      because of what Heathcroft had told him. Did he know more than I? It was
+      possible. At any rate he had come. I had seen him on the steamer, and I
+      believed he had seen and recognized me. Of course he might not be in Paris
+      now; he might have gone elsewhere. I did not believe it, however. I
+      believed he had crossed the Channel on the same errand as I. There was a
+      possible chance. I might, if the other means proved profitless, discover
+      at which hotel Bayliss was staying and question him. He might tell me
+      nothing, even if he knew, but I could keep him in sight, I could follow
+      him and discover where he went. It would be dishonorable, perhaps, but I
+      was desperate and doggedly regardless of scruples. I was set upon one
+      thing&mdash;to find her, to see her and speak with her again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shadowing Bayliss, however, I set aside as a last resort. Before that I
+      would search on my own hook. And, tossing aside the useless Baedeker, I
+      tried to think of someone whose advice might be of value. At last, I
+      resolved to question the concierge of the hotel. Concierges, I knew, were
+      the ever present helps of travelers in trouble. They knew everything,
+      spoke all languages, and expected to be asked all sorts of unreasonable
+      questions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The concierge at my hotel was a transcendant specimen of his talented
+      class. His name and title was Monsieur Louis&mdash;at least that is what I
+      had heard the other guests call him. And the questions which he had been
+      called upon to answer, in my hearing, ranged in subject from the hour of
+      closing the Luxemburg galleries to that of opening the Bal Tabarin, with
+      various interruptions during which he settled squabbles over cab fares,
+      took orders for theater and opera tickets, and explained why fruit at the
+      tables of the Cafe des Ambassadeurs was so very expensive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monsieur Louis received me politely, listened, with every appearance of
+      interest, to my tale of a young lady, a relative, who was singing at one
+      of the Paris churches and whose name was Juno or Junotte, but, when I had
+      finished, reluctantly shook his head. There were many, many churches in
+      Paris&mdash;yes, and, at some of them, young ladies sang; but these were,
+      for the most part, the Protestant churches. At the larger churches, the
+      Catholic churches, most of the singers were men or boys. He could recall
+      none where a lady of that name sang. Monsieur had not been told the name
+      of the church?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The person who told me referred to it as an abbey,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Louis raised his shoulders. &ldquo;I am sorry, Monsieur,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but there is
+      no abbey, where ladies sing, in Paris. It is, alas, regrettable, but it is
+      so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He announced it as he might have broken to me the news of the death of a
+      friend. Incidentally, having heard a few sentences of my French, he spoke
+      in English, very good English.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will, however, make inquiries, Monsieur,&rdquo; he went on. &ldquo;Possibly I may
+      discover something which will be of help to Monsieur in his difficulty.&rdquo;
+       In the meantime there was to be a parade of troops at the Champ de Mars at
+      four, and the evening performance at the Folies Bergeres was unusually
+      good and English and American gentlemen always enjoyed it. It would give
+      him pleasure to book a place for me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I thanked him but I declined the offer, so far as the Folies were
+      concerned. I did ask him, however, to give me the name of a few churches
+      at which ladies sang. This he did and I set out to find them, in a cab
+      which whizzed through the Paris streets as if the driver was bent upon
+      suicide and manslaughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I visited four places of worship that afternoon and two more that evening.
+      Those in charge&mdash;for I attended no services&mdash;knew nothing of
+      Mademoiselle Junotte or Juno. I retired at ten, somewhat discouraged, but
+      stubbornly determined to keep on, for my three days at least.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next morning I consulted Baedeker again, this time for the list of
+      hotels, a list which I found quite as lengthy as that of the churches.
+      Then I once more sought the help of Monsieur Louis. Could he tell me a few
+      of the hotels where English visitors were most likely to stay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He could do more than that, apparently. Would I be so good as to inform
+      him if the lady or gentleman&mdash;being Parisian he put the lady first&mdash;whom
+      I wished to find had recently arrived in Paris. I told him that the
+      gentleman had arrived the same evening as I. Whereupon he produced a list
+      of guests at all the prominent hotels. Herbert Bayliss was registered at
+      the Continental.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To the Continental I went and made inquiries of the concierge there. Mr.
+      Bayliss was there, he was in his room, so the concierge believed. He would
+      be pleased to ascertain. Would I give my name? I declined to give the
+      name, saying that I did not wish to disturb Mr. Bayliss. If he was in his
+      room I would wait until he came down. He was in his room, had not yet
+      breakfasted, although it was nearly ten in the forenoon. I sat down in a
+      chair from which I could command a good view of the elevators, and waited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The concierge strolled over and chatted. Was I a friend of Mr. Bayliss?
+      Ah, a charming young gentleman, was he not. This was not his first visit
+      to Paris, no indeed; he came frequently&mdash;though not as frequently of
+      late&mdash;and he invariably stayed at the Continental. He had been out
+      late the evening before, which doubtless explained his non-appearance. Ah,
+      he was breakfasting now; had ordered his &ldquo;cafe complete.&rdquo; Doubtless he
+      would be down very soon? Would I wish to send up my name now?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again I declined, to the polite astonishment of the concierge, who
+      evidently considered me a queer sort of a friend. He was called to his
+      desk by a guest, who wished to ask questions, of course, and I waited
+      where I was. At a quarter to eleven Herbert Bayliss emerged from the
+      elevator.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His appearance almost shocked me. Out late the night before! He looked as
+      if he had been out all night for many nights. He was pale and solemn. I
+      stepped forward to greet him and the start he gave when he saw me was
+      evidence of the state of his nerves. I had never thought of him as
+      possessing any nerves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh? Why, Knowles!&rdquo; he exclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good morning, Bayliss,&rdquo; said I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We both were embarrassed, he more than I, for I had expected to see him
+      and he had not expected to see me. I made a move to shake hands but he did
+      not respond. His manner toward me was formal and, I thought, colder than
+      it had been at our meeting the day of the golf tournament.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I called,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;to see you, Bayliss. If you are not engaged I should
+      like to talk with you for a few moments.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His answer was a question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How did you know I was here?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw your name in the list of recent arrivals at the Continental,&rdquo; I
+      answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean how did you know I was in Paris?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn't know. I thought I caught a glimpse of you on the boat. I was
+      almost sure it was you, but you did not appear to recognize me and I had
+      no opportunity to speak then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not speak at once, he did not even attempt denial of having seen
+      and recognized me during the Channel crossing. He regarded me intently
+      and, I thought, suspiciously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who sent you here?&rdquo; he asked, suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sent me! No one sent me. I don't understand you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did you follow me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Follow you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Why did you follow me to Paris? No one knew I was coming here, not
+      even my own people. They think I am&mdash;Well, they don't know that I am
+      here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His speech and his manner were decidedly irritating. I had made a firm
+      resolve to keep my temper, no matter what the result of this interview
+      might be, but I could not help answering rather sharply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had no intention of following you&mdash;here or anywhere else,&rdquo; I said.
+      &ldquo;Your action and whereabouts, generally speaking, are of no particular
+      interest to me. I did not follow you to Paris, Doctor Bayliss.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He reddened and hesitated. Then he led the way to a divan in a retired
+      corner of the lobby and motioned to me to be seated. There he sat down
+      beside me and waited for me to speak. I, in turn, waited for him to speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last he spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm sorry, Knowles,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I am not myself today. I've had a devil of
+      a night and I feel like a beast this morning. I should probably have
+      insulted my own father, had he appeared suddenly, as you did. Of course I
+      should have known you did not follow me to Paris. But&mdash;but why did
+      you come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hesitated now. &ldquo;I came,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;to&mdash;to&mdash;Well, to be
+      perfectly honest with you, I came because of something I heard concerning&mdash;concerning&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He interrupted me. &ldquo;Then Heathcroft did tell you!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;I
+      thought as much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He told you, I know. He said he did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. He did. My God, man, isn't it awful! Have you seen her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His manner convinced me that he had seen her. In my eagerness I forgot to
+      be careful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; I answered, breathlessly; &ldquo;I have not seen her. Where is she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned and stared at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you know where she is?&rdquo; he asked, slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know nothing. I have been told that she&mdash;or someone very like her&mdash;is
+      singing in a Paris church. Heathcroft told me that and then we were
+      interrupted. I&mdash;What is the matter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was staring at me more oddly than ever. There was the strangest
+      expression on his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In a church!&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;Heathcroft told you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He told me that he had seen a girl, whose resemblance to Miss Morley was
+      so striking as to be marvelous, singing in a Paris church. He called it an
+      abbey, but of course it couldn't be that. Do you know anything more
+      definite? What did he tell you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In a church!&rdquo; he said again. &ldquo;You thought&mdash;Oh, good heavens!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He began to laugh. It was not a pleasant laugh to hear. Moreover, it
+      angered me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This may be very humorous,&rdquo; I said, brusquely. &ldquo;Perhaps it is&mdash;to
+      you. But&mdash;Bayliss, you know more of this than I. I am certain now
+      that you do. I want you to tell me what you know. Is that girl Frances
+      Morley? Have you seen her? Where is she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had stopped laughing. Now he seemed to be considering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you did come over here to find her,&rdquo; he said, more slowly still.
+      &ldquo;You were following her, why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;WHY?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, why. She is nothing to you. You told my father that. You told me
+      that she was not your niece. You told Father that you had no claim upon
+      her whatever and that she had asked you not to try to trace her or to
+      learn where she was. You said all that and preached about respecting her
+      wish and all that sort of thing. And yet you are here now trying to find
+      her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The only answer I could make to this was a rather childish retort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so are you,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His fists clinched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I!&rdquo; he cried, fiercely. &ldquo;I! Did <i>I</i> ever say she was nothing to me?
+      Did <i>I</i> ever tell anyone I should not try to find her? I told you,
+      only the other day, that I would find her in spite of the devil. I meant
+      it. Knowles, I don't understand you. When I came to you thinking you her
+      uncle and guardian, and asked your permission to ask her to marry me, you
+      gave that permission. You did. You didn't tell me that she was nothing to
+      you. I don't understand you at all. You told my father a lot of rot&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told your father the truth. And, when I told you that she had left no
+      message for you, that was the truth also. I have no reason to believe she
+      cares for you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And none to think that she doesn't. At all events she did not tell ME not
+      to follow her. She did tell you. Why are you following her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a question I could not answer&mdash;to him. That reason no one
+      should know. And yet what excuse could I give, after all my protestations?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I feel that I have the right, everything considered,&rdquo; I
+      stammered. &ldquo;She is not my niece, but she is Miss Cahoon's.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And she ran away from both of you, asking, as a last request, that you
+      both make no attempt to learn where she was. The whole affair is beyond
+      understanding. What the truth may be&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you hinting that I have lied to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not hinting at anything. All I can say is that it is deuced queer,
+      all of it. And I sha'n't say more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you tell me&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall tell you nothing. That would be her wish, according to your own
+      statement and I will respect that wish, if you don't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I rose to my feet. There was little use in an open quarrel between us and
+      I was by far the older man. Yes, and his position was infinitely stronger
+      than mine, as he understood it. But I never was more strongly tempted. He
+      knew where she was. He had seen her. The thought was maddening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had risen also and was facing me defiantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good morning, Doctor Bayliss,&rdquo; said I, and walked away. I turned as I
+      reached the entrance of the hotel and looked back. He was still standing
+      there, staring at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That afternoon I spent in my room. There is little use describing my
+      feelings. That she was in Paris I was sure now. That Bayliss had seen her
+      I was equally sure. But why had he spoken and looked as he did when I
+      first spoke of Heathcroft's story? What had he meant by saying something
+      or other was &ldquo;awful?&rdquo; And why had he seemed so astonished, why had he
+      laughed in that strange way when I had said she was singing in a church?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That evening I sought Monsieur Louis, the concierge, once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is there any building here in Paris,&rdquo; I asked, &ldquo;a building in which
+      people sing, which is called an abbey? One that is not a church or an
+      abbey, but is called that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Louis looked at me in an odd way. He seemed a bit embarrassed, an
+      embarrassment I should not have expected from him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur asks the question,&rdquo; he said, smiling. &ldquo;It was in my mind last
+      night, the thought, but Monsieur asked for a church. There is a place
+      called L'Abbaye and there young women sing, but&mdash;&rdquo; he hesitated,
+      shrugged and then added, &ldquo;but L'Abbaye is not a church. No, it is not
+      that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A restaurant, Monsieur. A cafe chantant at Montmartre.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Montmartre at ten that evening was just beginning to awaken. At the hour
+      when respectable Paris, home-loving, domestic Paris, the Paris of which
+      the tourist sees so little, is thinking of retiring, Montmartre&mdash;or
+      that section of it in which L'Abbaye is situated&mdash;begins to open its
+      eyes. At ten-thirty, as my cab buzzed into the square and pulled up at the
+      curb, the electric signs were blazing, the sidewalks were, if not yet
+      crowded, at least well filled, and the sounds of music from the open
+      windows of The Dead Rat and the other cafes with the cheerful names were
+      mingling with noises of the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monsieur Louis had given me my sailing orders, so to speak. He had told me
+      that arriving at L'Abbaye before ten-thirty was quite useless. Midnight
+      was the accepted hour, he said; prior to that I would find it rather dull,
+      triste. But after that&mdash;Ah, Monsieur would, at least, be entertained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But of course Monsieur does not expect to find the young lady of whom he
+      is in search there,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;A relative is she not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Remembering that I had, when I first mentioned the object of my quest to
+      him, referred to her as a relative, I nodded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He smiled and shrugged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A relative of Monsieur's would scarcely be found singing at L'Abbaye,&rdquo; he
+      said. &ldquo;But it is a most interesting place, entertaining and chic. Many
+      English and American gentlemen sup there after the theater.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled and intimated that the desire to pass a pleasant evening was my
+      sole reason for visiting the place. He was certain I would be pleased.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doorway of L'Abbaye was not deserted, even at the &ldquo;triste&rdquo; hour of
+      ten-thirty. Other cabs were drawn up at the curb and, upon the stairs
+      leading to the upper floors, were several gaily dressed couples bound, as
+      I had proclaimed myself to be, in search of supper and entertainment. I
+      had, acting upon the concierge's hint, arrayed myself in my evening
+      clothes and I handed my silk hat, purchased in London&mdash;where, as
+      Hephzy said, &ldquo;a man without a tall hat is like a rooster without tail
+      feathers&rdquo;&mdash;to a polite and busy attendant. Then a personage with a
+      very straight beard and a very curly mustache, ushered me into the main
+      dining-room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur would wish seats for how many?&rdquo; he asked, in French.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For myself only,&rdquo; I answered, also in French. His next remark was in
+      English. I was beginning to notice that when I addressed a Parisian in his
+      native language, he usually answered in mine. This may have been because
+      of a desire to please me, or in self-defence; I am inclined to think the
+      latter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, for one only. This way, Monsieur.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was given a seat at one end of a long table, and in a corner. There were
+      plenty of small tables yet unoccupied, but my guide was apparently
+      reserving these for couples or quartettes; at any rate he did not offer
+      one to me. I took the seat indicated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall wish to remain here for some time?&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Probably the entire&mdash;&rdquo;
+       I hesitated; considering the hour I scarcely knew whether to say &ldquo;evening&rdquo;
+       or &ldquo;morning.&rdquo; At last I said &ldquo;night&rdquo; as a compromise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bearded person seemed doubtful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There will be a great demand later,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;To oblige Monsieur is of
+      course our desire, but.... Ah, merci, Monsieur, I will see that Monsieur
+      is not disturbed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The reason for his change of heart was the universal one in restaurants.
+      He put the reason in his pocket and summoned a waiter to take my order.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I gave the order, a modest one, which dropped me a mile or two in the
+      waiter's estimation. However, after a glance at my fellow-diners at nearby
+      tables, I achieved a partial uplift by ordering a bottle of extremely
+      expensive wine. I had had the idea that, being in France, the home of
+      champagne, that beverage would be cheap or, at least, moderately priced.
+      But in L'Abbaye the idea seemed to be erroneous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wine was brought immediately; the supper was somewhat delayed. I did
+      not care. I had not come there to eat&mdash;or to drink, either, for that
+      matter. I had come&mdash;I scarcely knew why I had come. That Frances
+      Morley would be singing in a place like this I did not believe. This was
+      the sort of &ldquo;abbey&rdquo; that A. Carleton Heathcroft would be most likely to
+      visit, that was true, but that he had seen her here was most improbable.
+      The coincidence of the &ldquo;abbey&rdquo; name would not have brought me there, of
+      itself. Herbert Bayliss had given me to understand, although he had not
+      said it, that she was not singing in a church and he had found the idea of
+      her being where she was &ldquo;awful.&rdquo; It was because of what he had said that I
+      had come, as a sort of last chance, a forlorn hope. Of course she would
+      not be here, a hired singer in a Paris night restaurant; that was
+      impossible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How impossible it was likely to be I realized more fully during the next
+      hour. There was nothing particularly &ldquo;awful&rdquo; about L'Abbaye of itself&mdash;at
+      first, nor, perhaps, even later; at least the awfulness was well covered.
+      The program of entertainment was awful enough, if deadly mediocrity is
+      awful. A big darkey, dressed in a suit which reminded me of the &ldquo;end man&rdquo;
+       at an old-time minstrel show, sang &ldquo;My Alabama Coon,&rdquo; accompanying
+      himself, more or less intimately, on the banjo. I could have heard the
+      same thing, better done, at a ten cent theater in the States, where this
+      chap had doubtless served an apprenticeship. However, the audience, which
+      was growing larger every minute, seemed to find the bellowing enjoyable
+      and applauded loudly. Then a feminine person did a Castilian dance between
+      the tables. I was ready to declare a second war with Spain when she had
+      finished. Then there was an orchestral interval, during which the tables
+      filled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The impossibility of Frances singing in a place like this became more
+      certain each minute, to my mind. I called the waiter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does Mademoiselle Juno sing here this evening?&rdquo; I asked, in my lame
+      French.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook his head. &ldquo;Non, Monsieur,&rdquo; he answered, absently, and hastened on
+      with the bottle he was carrying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Apparently that settled it. I might as well go. Then I decided to remain a
+      little longer. After all, I was there, and I, or Heathcroft, might have
+      misunderstood the name. I would stay for a while.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The long table at which I sat was now occupied from end to end. There were
+      several couples, male and female, and a number of unattached young ladies,
+      well-dressed, pretty for the most part, and vivacious and inclined to be
+      companionable. They chatted with their neighbors and would have chatted
+      with me if I had been in the mood. For the matter of that everyone talked
+      with everyone else, in French or English, good, bad and indifferent, and
+      there was much laughter and gaiety. L'Abbaye was wide awake by this time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bearded personage who had shown me to my seat, appeared, followed by a
+      dozen attendants bearing paper parasols and bags containing little
+      celluloid balls, red, white, and blue. They were distributed among the
+      feminine guests. The parasols, it developed, were to be waved and the
+      balls to be thrown. You were supposed to catch as many as were thrown at
+      you and throw them back. It was wonderful fun&mdash;or would have been for
+      children&mdash;and very, very amusing&mdash;after the second bottle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For my part I found it very stupid. As I have said at least once in this
+      history I am not what is called a &ldquo;good mixer&rdquo; and in an assemblage like
+      this I was as out of place as a piece of ice on a hot stove. Worse than
+      that, for the ice would have melted and I congealed the more. My bottle of
+      champagne remained almost untouched and when a celluloid ball bounced on
+      the top of my head I did not scream &ldquo;Whoopee! Bullseye!&rdquo; as my American
+      neighbors did or &ldquo;Voila! Touche!&rdquo; like the French. There were plenty of
+      Americans and English there, and they seemed to be having a good time, but
+      their good time was incomprehensible to me. This was &ldquo;gay Paris,&rdquo; of
+      course, but somehow the gaiety seemed forced and artificial and silly,
+      except to the proprietors of L'Abbaye. If I had been getting the price for
+      food and liquids which they received I might, perhaps, have been gay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young Frenchman at my right was gay enough. He had early discovered my
+      nationality and did his best to be entertaining. When a performer from the
+      Olympia, the music hall on the Boulevard des Italiens, sang a distressing
+      love ballad in a series of shrieks like those of a circular saw in a
+      lumber mill, this person shouted his &ldquo;Bravos&rdquo; with the rest and then,
+      waving his hands before my face, called for, &ldquo;De cheer Americain! One,
+      two, tree&mdash;Heep! Heep! Heep! Oo&mdash;ray-y-y!&rdquo; I did not join in
+      &ldquo;the cheer Americain,&rdquo; but I did burst out laughing, a proceeding which
+      caused the young lady at my left to pat my arm and nod delighted approval.
+      She evidently thought I was becoming gay and lighthearted at last. She was
+      never more mistaken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was nearly two o'clock and I had had quite enough of L'Abbaye. I had
+      not enjoyed myself&mdash;had not expected to, so far as that went. I hope
+      I am not a prig, and, whatever I am or am not, priggishness had no part in
+      my feelings then. Under ordinary circumstances I should not have enjoyed
+      myself in a place like that. Mine is not the temperament&mdash;I shouldn't
+      know how. I must have appeared the most solemn ass in creation, and if I
+      had come there with the idea of amusement, I should have felt like one. As
+      it was, my feeling was not disgust, but unreasonable disappointment.
+      Certainly I did not wish&mdash;now that I had seen L'Abbaye&mdash;to find
+      Frances Morley there; but just as certainly I was disappointed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I called for my bill, paid it, and stood up. I gave one look about the
+      crowded, noisy place, and then I started violently and sat down again. I
+      had seen Herbert Bayliss. He had, apparently, just entered and a waiter
+      was finding a seat for him at a table some distance away and on the
+      opposite side of the great room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no doubt about it; it was he. My heart gave a bound that almost
+      choked me and all sorts of possibilities surged through my brain. He had
+      come to Paris to find her, he had found her&mdash;in our conversation he
+      had intimated as much. And now, he was here at the &ldquo;Abbey.&rdquo; Why? Was it
+      here that he had found her? Was she singing here after all?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bayliss glanced in my direction and I sank lower in my chair. I did not
+      wish him to see me. Fortunately the lady opposite waved her paper parasol
+      just then and I went into eclipse, so far as he was concerned. When the
+      eclipse was over he was looking elsewhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The black-bearded Frenchman, who seemed to be, if not one of the
+      proprietors, at least one of the managers of L'Abbaye, appeared in the
+      clear space at the center of the room between the tables and waved his
+      hands. He was either much excited or wished to seem so. He shouted
+      something in French which I could not understand. There was a buzz of
+      interest all about me; then the place grew still&mdash;or stiller.
+      Something was going to happen, that was evident. I leaned toward my
+      voluble neighbor, the French gentleman who had called for &ldquo;de cheer
+      Americain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;What is the matter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He ignored, or did not hear, my question. The bearded person was still
+      waving his hands. The orchestra burst into a sort of triumphal march and
+      then into the open space between the tables came&mdash;Frances Morley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was dressed in a simple evening gown, she was not painted or powdered
+      to the extent that women who had sung before her had been, her hair was
+      simply dressed. She looked thinner than she had when I last saw her, but
+      otherwise she was unchanged. In that place, amid the lights and the riot
+      of color, the silks and satins and jewels, the flushed faces of the crowd,
+      she stood and bowed, a white rose in a bed of tiger lilies, and the crowd
+      rose and shouted at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The orchestra broke off its triumphal march and the leader stood up, his
+      violin at his shoulder. He played a bar or two and she began to sing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sang a simple, almost childish, love song in French. There was nothing
+      sensational about it, nothing risque, certainly nothing which should have
+      appealed to the frequenters of L'Abbaye. And her voice, although sweet and
+      clear and pure, was not extraordinary. And yet, when she had finished,
+      there was a perfect storm of &ldquo;Bravos.&rdquo; Parasols waved, flowers were
+      thrown, and a roar of applause lasted for minutes. Why this should have
+      been is a puzzle to me even now. Perhaps it was because of her clean,
+      girlish beauty; perhaps because it was so unexpected and so different;
+      perhaps because of the mystery concerning her. I don't know. Then I did
+      not ask. I sat in my chair at the table, trembling from head to foot, and
+      looking at her. I had never expected to see her again and now she was
+      before my eyes&mdash;here in this place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She sang again; this time a jolly little ballad of soldiers and glory and
+      the victory of the Tri-Color. And again she swept them off their feet. She
+      bowed and smiled in answer to their applause and, motioning to the
+      orchestra leader, began without accompaniment, &ldquo;Loch Lomond,&rdquo; in English.
+      It was one of the songs I had asked her to sing at the rectory, one I had
+      found in the music cabinet, one that her mother and mine had sung years
+      before.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Ye'll take the high road
+      And I'll take the low road,
+      And I'll be in Scotland afore ye&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      I was on my feet. I have no remembrance of having risen, but I was
+      standing, leaning across the table, looking at her. There were cries of
+      &ldquo;Sit down&rdquo; in English and other cries in French. There were tugs at my
+      coat tails.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;But me and my true love
+      Shall never meet again,
+      By the bonny, bonny banks
+      Of Loch&mdash;&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      She saw me. The song stopped. I saw her turn white, so white that the
+      rouge on her cheeks looked like fever spots. She looked at me and I at
+      her. Then she raised her hand to her throat, turned and almost ran from
+      the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I should have followed her, then and there, I think. I was on my way
+      around the end of the table, regardless of masculine boots and feminine
+      skirts. But a stout Englishman got in my way and detained me and the crowd
+      was so dense that I could not push through it. It was an excited crowd,
+      too. For a moment there had been a surprised silence, but now everyone was
+      exclaiming and talking in his or her native language.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I say! What happened? What made her do that?&rdquo; demanded the stout
+      Englishman. Then he politely requested me to get off his foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bearded manager&mdash;or proprietor&mdash;was waving his hands once
+      more and begging attention and silence. He got both, in a measure. Then he
+      made his announcement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He begged ten thousand pardons, but Mademoiselle Guinot&mdash;That was it,
+      Guinot, not Juno or Junotte&mdash;had been seized with a most regrettable
+      illness. She had been unable to continue her performance. It was not
+      serious, but she could sing no more that evening. To-morrow evening&mdash;ah,
+      yes. Most certainly. But to-night&mdash;no. Monsieur Hairee Opkins, the
+      most famous Engleesh comedy artiste would now entertain the patrons of
+      L'Abbaye. He begged, he entreated attention for Monsieur Opkins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not wait for &ldquo;Monsieur Hairee.&rdquo; I forced my way to the door. As I
+      passed out I cast a glance in the direction of young Bayliss. He was on
+      his feet, loudly shouting for a waiter and his bill. I had so much start,
+      at all events.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Through the waiters and uniformed attendants I elbowed. Another man with a
+      beard&mdash;he looked enough like the other to be his brother, and perhaps
+      he was&mdash;got in my way at last. A million or more pardons, but
+      Monsieur could not go in that direction. The exit was there, pointing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As patiently and carefully as I could, considering my agitation, I
+      explained that I did not wish to find the exit. I was a friend, a&mdash;yes,
+      a&mdash;er&mdash;relative of the young lady who had just sung and who had
+      been taken ill. I wanted to go to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another million pardons, but that was impossible. I did not understand,
+      Mademoiselle was&mdash;well, she did not see gentlemen. She was&mdash;with
+      the most expressive of shrugs&mdash;peculiar. She desired no friends. It
+      was&mdash;ah&mdash;quite impossible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I found my pocketbook and pressed my card into his hand. Would he give
+      Mademoiselle my card? Would he tell her that I must see her, if only for a
+      minute? Just give her the card and tell her that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook his head, smiling but firm. I could have punched him for the
+      smile, but instead I took other measures. I reached into my pocket, found
+      some gold pieces&mdash;I have no idea how many or of what denomination&mdash;and
+      squeezed them in the hand with the card. He still smiled and shook his
+      head, but his firmness was shaken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will give the card,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;but I warn Monsieur it is quite useless.
+      She will not see him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The waiter with whom I had seen Herbert Bayliss in altercation was
+      hurrying by me. I caught his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pardon, Monsieur,&rdquo; he protested, &ldquo;but I must go. The gentleman yonder
+      desires his bill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't give it to him,&rdquo; I whispered, trying hard to think of the French
+      words. &ldquo;Don't give it to him yet. Keep him where he is for a time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I backed the demand with another gold piece, the last in my pocket. The
+      waiter seemed surprised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not give the bill?&rdquo; he repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, not yet.&rdquo; I did my best to look wicked and knowing&mdash;&ldquo;He and I
+      wish to meet the same young lady and I prefer to be first.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That was sufficient&mdash;in Paris. The waiter bowed low.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rest in peace, Monsieur,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The gentleman shall wait.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I waited also, for what seemed a long time. Then the bearded one
+      reappeared. He looked surprised but pleased.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bon, Monsieur,&rdquo; he whispered, patting my arm. &ldquo;She will see you. You are
+      to wait at the private door. I will conduct you there. It is most unusual.
+      Monsieur is a most fortunate gentleman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the door, at the foot of a narrow staircase&mdash;decidedly lacking in
+      the white and gold of the other, the public one&mdash;I waited, for
+      another age. The staircase was lighted by one sickly gas jet and the
+      street outside was dark and dirty. I waited on the narrow sidewalk,
+      listening to the roar of nocturnal Montmartre around the corner, to the
+      beating of my own heart, and for her footstep on the stairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last I heard it. The door opened and she came out. She wore a cloak
+      over her street costume and her hat was one that she had bought in London
+      with my money. She wore a veil and I could not see her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I seized her hands with both of mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances!&rdquo; I cried, chokingly. &ldquo;Oh, Frances!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She withdrew her hands. When she spoke her tone was quiet but very firm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did you come here?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did I come? Why&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Why did you come? Was it to find me? Did you know I was here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not know. I had heard&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did Doctor Bayliss tell you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hesitated. So she HAD seen Bayliss and spoken with him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; I answered, after a moment, &ldquo;he did not tell me, exactly. But I had
+      heard that someone who resembled you was singing here in Paris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you followed me. In spite of my letter begging you, for my sake, not
+      to try to find me. Did you get that letter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I got it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then why did you do it? Oh, WHY did you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For the first time there was a break in her voice. We were standing before
+      the door. The street, it was little more than an alley, was almost
+      deserted, but I felt it was not the place for explanations. I wanted to
+      get her away from there, as far from that dreadful &ldquo;Abbey&rdquo; as possible. I
+      took her arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;I will tell you as we go. Come with me now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She freed her arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not coming with you,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Why did you come here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I came&mdash;I came&mdash;Why did YOU come? Why did you leave us as you
+      did? Without a word!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned and faced me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know why I left you,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You know. You knew all the time. And
+      yet you let me believe&mdash;You let me think&mdash;I lived upon your
+      money&mdash;I&mdash;I&mdash;Oh, don't speak of it! Go away! please go away
+      and leave me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not going away&mdash;without you. I came to get you to go back with
+      me. You don't understand. Your aunt and I want you to come with us. We
+      want you to come and live with us again. We&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She interrupted. I doubt if she had comprehended more than the first few
+      words of what I was saying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please go away,&rdquo; she begged. &ldquo;I know I owe you money, so much money. I
+      shall pay it. I mean to pay it all. At first I could not. I could not earn
+      it. I tried. Oh, I tried SO hard! In London I tried and tried, but all the
+      companies were filled, it was late in the season and I&mdash;no one would
+      have me. Then I got this chance through an agency. I am succeeding here. I
+      am earning the money at last. I am saving&mdash;I have saved&mdash;And now
+      you come to&mdash;Oh, PLEASE go and leave me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her firmness had gone. She was on the verge of tears. I tried to take her
+      hands again, but she would not permit it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not go,&rdquo; I persisted, as gently as I could. &ldquo;Or when I go you
+      must go with me. You don't understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I do understand. My aunt&mdash;Miss Cahoon told me. I understand it
+      all. Oh, if I had only understood at first.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you don't understand&mdash;now. Your aunt and I knew the truth from
+      the beginning. That made no difference. We were glad to have you with us.
+      We want you to come back. You are our relative&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not. I am not really related to you in any way. You know I am not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are related to Miss Cahoon. You are her sister's daughter. She wants
+      you to come. She wants you to live with us again, just as you did before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She wants that! She&mdash;But it was your money that paid for the very
+      clothes I wore. Your money&mdash;not hers; she said so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That doesn't make any difference. She wants you and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was about to add &ldquo;and so do I,&rdquo; but she did not permit me to finish the
+      sentence. She interrupted again, and there was a change in her tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop! Oh, stop!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;She wanted me and&mdash;and so you&mdash;Did
+      you think I would consent? To live upon your charity?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no charity about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is. You know there is. And you believed that I&mdash;knowing what I
+      know&mdash;that my father&mdash;my own father&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! hush! That is all past and done with.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It may be for you, but not for me. Mr. Knowles, your opinion of me must
+      be a very poor one. Or your desire to please your aunt as great as your&mdash;your
+      charity to me. I thank you both, but I shall stay here. You must go and
+      you must not try to see me again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was firmness enough in this speech; altogether too much. But I was
+      as firm as she was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not go,&rdquo; I reiterated. &ldquo;I shall not leave you&mdash;in a place
+      like this. It isn't a fit place for you to be in. You know it is not. Good
+      heavens! you MUST know it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know what the place is,&rdquo; she said quietly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know! And yet you stay here! Why? You can't like it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a foolish speech, and I blurted it without thought. She did not
+      answer. Instead she began to walk toward the corner. I followed her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon,&rdquo; I stammered, contritely. &ldquo;I did not mean that, of
+      course. But I cannot think of your singing night after night in such a
+      place&mdash;before those men and women. It isn't right; it isn't&mdash;you
+      shall not do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She answered without halting in her walk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall do it,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;They pay me well, very well, and I&mdash;I
+      need the money. When I have earned and saved what I need I shall give it
+      up, of course. As for liking the work&mdash;Like it! Oh, how can you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon. Forgive me. I ought to be shot for saying that. I know
+      you can't like it. But you must not stay here. You must come with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Mr. Knowles, I am not coming with you. And you must leave me and
+      never come back. My sole reason for seeing you to-night was to tell you
+      that. But&mdash;&rdquo; she hesitated and then said, with quiet emphasis, &ldquo;you
+      may tell my aunt not to worry about me. In spite of my singing in a cafe
+      chantant I shall keep my self-respect. I shall not be&mdash;like those
+      others. And when I have paid my debt&mdash;I can't pay my father's; I wish
+      I could&mdash;I shall send you the money. When I do that you will know
+      that I have resigned my present position and am trying to find a more
+      respectable one. Good-by.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We had reached the corner. Beyond was the square, with its lights and its
+      crowds of people and vehicles. I seized her arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It shall not be good-by,&rdquo; I cried, desperately. &ldquo;I shall not let you go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I sha'n't. I shall come here night after night until you consent to come
+      back to Mayberry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stopped then. But when she spoke her tone was firmer than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you will force me to give it up,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Before I came here I
+      was very close to&mdash;There were days when I had little or nothing to
+      eat, and, with no prospects, no hope, I&mdash;if you don't leave me, Mr.
+      Knowles, if you do come here night after night, as you say, you may force
+      me to that again. You can, of course, if you choose; I can't prevent you.
+      But I shall NOT go back to Mayberry. Now, will you say good-by?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She meant it. If I persisted in my determination she would do as she said;
+      I was sure of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sure my aunt would not wish you to continue to see me, against my
+      will,&rdquo; she went on. &ldquo;If she cares for me at all she would not wish that.
+      You have done your best to please her. I&mdash;I thank you both. Good-by.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      What could I do, or say?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-by,&rdquo; I faltered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned and started across the square. A flying cab shut her from my
+      view. And then I realized what was happening, realized it and realized,
+      too, what it meant. She should not go; I would not let her leave me nor
+      would I leave her. I sprang after her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The square was thronged with cabs and motor cars. The Abbey and The Dead
+      Rat and all the rest were emptying their patrons into the street. Paris
+      traffic regulations are lax and uncertain. I dodged between a limousine
+      and a hansom and caught a glimpse of her just as she reached the opposite
+      sidewalk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances!&rdquo; I called. &ldquo;Frances!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned and saw me. Then I heard my own name shouted from the sidewalk
+      I had just left.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Knowles! Knowles!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked over my shoulder. Herbert Bayliss was at the curb. He was shaking
+      a hand, it may have been a fist, in my direction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Knowles!&rdquo; he shouted. &ldquo;Stop! I want to see you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not reply. Instead I ran on. I saw her face among the crowd and upon
+      it was a curious expression, of fear, of frantic entreaty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kent! Kent!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Oh, be careful! KENT!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a roar, a shout; I have a jumbled recollection of being thrown
+      into the air, and rolling over and over upon the stones of the street. And
+      there my recollections end, for the time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVI
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which I Take My Turn at Playing the Invalid
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Not for a very long time. They begin again&mdash;those recollections&mdash;a
+      few minutes later, break off once more, and then return and break off
+      alternately, over and over again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first thing I remember, after my whirligig flight over the Paris
+      pavement, is a crowd of faces above me and someone pawing at my collar and
+      holding my wrist. This someone, a man, a stranger, said in French:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is not dead, Mademoiselle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then a voice, a voice that I seemed to recognize, said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are sure, Doctor? You are sure? Oh, thank God!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I tried to turn my head toward the last speaker&mdash;whom I decided, for
+      some unexplainable reason, must be Hephzy&mdash;and to tell her that of
+      course I wasn't dead, and then all faded away and there was another blank.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next interval of remembrance begins with a sense of pain, a throbbing,
+      savage pain, in my head and chest principally, and a wish that the buzzing
+      in my ears would stop. It did not stop, on the contrary it grew louder and
+      there was a squeak and rumble and rattle along with it. A head&mdash;particularly
+      a head bumped as hard as mine had been&mdash;might be expected to buzz,
+      but it should not rattle, or squeak either. Gradually I began to
+      understand that the rattle and squeak were external and I was in some sort
+      of vehicle, a sleeping car apparently, for I seemed to be lying down. I
+      tried to rise and ask a question and a hand was laid on my forehead and a
+      voice&mdash;the voice which I had decided was Hephzy's&mdash;said, gently:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lie still. You mustn't move. Lie still, please. We shall be there soon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Where &ldquo;there&rdquo; might be I had no idea and it was too much trouble to ask,
+      so I drifted off again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next I was being lifted out of the car; men were lifting me&mdash;or
+      trying to. And, being wider awake by this time, I protested.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here! What are you doing?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;I am all right. Let go of me. Let
+      go, I tell you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again the voice&mdash;it sounded less and less like Hephzy's&mdash;saying:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't! Please don't! You mustn't move.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But I kept on moving, although moving was a decidedly uncomfortable
+      process.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are they doing to me?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;Where am I? Hephzy, where am I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are at the hospital. You have been hurt and we are taking you to the
+      hospital. Lie still and they will carry you in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That woke me more thoroughly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense!&rdquo; I said, as forcefully as I could. &ldquo;Nonsense! I'm not badly
+      hurt. I am all right now. I don't want to go to a hospital. I won't go
+      there. Take me to the hotel. I am all right, I tell you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man's voice&mdash;the doctor's, I learned afterward&mdash;broke in,
+      ordering me to be quiet. But I refused to be quiet. I was not going to be
+      taken to any hospital.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am all right,&rdquo; I declared. &ldquo;Or I shall be in a little while. Take me to
+      my hotel. I will be looked after, there. Hephzy will look after me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor continued to protest&mdash;in French&mdash;and I to affirm&mdash;in
+      English. Also I tried to stand. At length my declarations of independence
+      seemed to have some effect, for they ceased trying to lift me. A dialogue
+      in French followed. I heard it with growing impatience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; I said, fretfully. &ldquo;Hephzy, make them take me to my hotel. I
+      insist upon it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Which hotel is it? Kent&mdash;Kent, answer me. What is the name of the
+      hotel?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I gave the name; goodness knows how I remembered it. There was more
+      argument, and, after a time, the rattle and buzz and squeak began again.
+      The next thing I remember distinctly is being carried to my room and
+      hearing the voice of Monsieur Louis in excited questioning and command.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After that my recollections are clearer. But it was broad daylight when I
+      became my normal self and realized thoroughly where I was. I was in my
+      room at the hotel, the sunlight was streaming in at the window and Hephzy&mdash;I
+      still supposed it was Hephzy&mdash;was sitting by that window. And for the
+      first time it occurred to me that she should not have been there; by all
+      that was right and proper she should be waiting for me in Interlaken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; I said, weakly, &ldquo;when did you get here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The figure at the window rose and came to the bedside. It was not Hephzy.
+      With a thrill I realized who it was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances!&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;Frances! Why&mdash;what&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! You mustn't talk. You mustn't. You must be quiet and keep perfectly
+      still. The doctor said so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what happened? How did I get here? What&mdash;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! There was an accident; you were hurt. We brought you here in a
+      carriage. Don't you remember?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      What I remembered was provokingly little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I seem to remember something,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Something about a hospital.
+      Someone was going to take me to a hospital and I wouldn't go. Hephzy&mdash;No,
+      it couldn't have been Hephzy. Was it&mdash;was it you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. We were taking you to the hospital. We did take you there, but as
+      they were taking you from the ambulance you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ambulance! Was I in an ambulance? What happened to me? What sort of an
+      accident was it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please don't try to talk. You must not talk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I won't if you tell me that. What happened?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you remember? I left you and crossed the street. You followed me
+      and then&mdash;and then you stopped. And then&mdash;Oh, don't ask me!
+      Don't!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know. Now I do remember. It was that big motor car. I saw it coming.
+      But who brought me here? You&mdash;I remember you; I thought you were
+      Hephzy. And there was someone else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, the doctor&mdash;the doctor they called&mdash;and Doctor Bayliss.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doctor Bayliss! Herbert Bayliss, do you mean? Yes, I saw him at the
+      'Abbey'&mdash;and afterward. Did he come here with me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. He was very kind. I don't know what I should have done if it had not
+      been for him. Now you MUST not speak another word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not, for a few moments. I lay there, feebly trying to think, and
+      looking at her. I was grateful to young Bayliss, of course, but I wished&mdash;even
+      then I wished someone else and not he had helped me. I did not like to be
+      under obligations to him. I liked him, too; he was a good fellow and I had
+      always liked him, but I did not like THAT.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose from the chair by the bed and walked across the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't go,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She came back almost immediately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is time for your medicine,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I took the medicine. She turned away once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't go,&rdquo; I repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not going. Not for the present.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was quite contented with the present. The future had no charms just
+      then. I lay there, looking at her. She was paler and thinner than she had
+      been when she left Mayberry, almost as pale and thin as when I first met
+      her in the back room of Mrs. Briggs' lodging house. And there was another
+      change, a subtle, undefinable change in her manner and appearance that
+      puzzled me. Then I realized what it was; she had grown older, more mature.
+      In Mayberry she had been an extraordinarily pretty girl. Now she was a
+      beautiful woman. These last weeks had worked the change. And I began to
+      understand what she had undergone during those weeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you been with me ever since it happened&mdash;since I was hurt?&rdquo; I
+      asked, suddenly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All night?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She smiled. &ldquo;There was very little of the night left,&rdquo; she answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you have had no rest at all. You must be worn out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no; I am used to it. My&mdash;&rdquo; with a slight pause before the word&mdash;&ldquo;work
+      of late has accustomed me to resting in the daytime. And I shall rest by
+      and by, when my aunt&mdash;when Miss Cahoon comes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Cahoon? Hephzy? Have you sent for her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My tone of surprise startled her, I think. She looked at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sent for her?&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;Isn't she here&mdash;in Paris?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is in Interlaken, at the Victoria. Didn't the concierge tell you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He told us she was not here, at this hotel, at present. He said she had
+      gone away with some friends. But we took it for granted she was in Paris.
+      I told them I would stay until she came. I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I interrupted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay until she comes!&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;Stay&mdash;! Why you can't do that!
+      You can't! You must not!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! hush! Remember you are ill. Think of yourself!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of myself! I am thinking of you. You mustn't stay here&mdash;with me.
+      What will they think? What&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! hush, please. Think! It makes no difference what they think. If I
+      had cared what people thought I should not be singing at&mdash;Hush! you
+      must not excite yourself in this way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But I refused to hush.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must not!&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;You shall not! Why did you do it? They could
+      have found a nurse, if one was needed. Bayliss&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doctor Bayliss does not know. If he did I should not care. As for the
+      others&mdash;&rdquo; she colored, slightly,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I told the concierge that you were my uncle. It was only a white
+      lie; you used to say you were, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say! Oh, Frances, for your own sake, please&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! Do you suppose,&rdquo; her cheeks reddened and her eyes flashed as I had
+      seen them flash before, &ldquo;do you suppose I would go away and leave you now?
+      Now, when you are hurt and ill and&mdash;and&mdash;after all that you have
+      done! After I treated you as I did! Oh, let me do something! Let me do a
+      little, the veriest little in return. I&mdash;Oh, stop! stop! What are you
+      doing?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I suppose I was trying to sit up; I remember raising myself on my elbow.
+      Then came the pain again, the throbbing in my head and the agonizing pain
+      in my side. And after that there is another long interval in my
+      recollections.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a week&mdash;of course I did not know it was a week then&mdash;my
+      memories consist only of a series of flashes like the memory of the hours
+      immediately following the accident. I remember people talking, but not
+      what they said; I remember her voice, or I think I do, and the touch of
+      her hand on my forehead. And afterward, other voices, Hephzy's in
+      particular. But when I came to myself, weak and shaky, but to remain
+      myself for good and all, Hephzy&mdash;the real Hephzy&mdash;was in the
+      room with me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even then they would not let me ask questions. Another day dragged by
+      before I was permitted to do that. Then Hephzy told me I had a cracked rib
+      and a variety of assorted bruises, that I had suffered slight concussion
+      of the brain, and that my immediate job was to behave myself and get well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Land sakes!&rdquo; she exclaimed, &ldquo;there was a time when I thought you never
+      was goin' to get well. Hour after hour I've set here and listened to your
+      gabblin' away about everything under the sun and nothin' in particular, as
+      crazy as a kitten in a patch of catnip, and thought and thought, what
+      should I do, what SHOULD I do. And now I KNOW what I'm goin' to do. I'm
+      goin' to keep you in that bed till you're strong and well enough to get
+      out of it, if I have to sit on you to hold you down. And I'm no
+      hummin'-bird when it comes to perchin', either.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had received the telegram which Frances sent and had come from
+      Interlaken post haste.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I don't know,&rdquo; she declared, &ldquo;which part of that telegram upset me
+      most&mdash;what there was in it or the name signed at the bottom of it.
+      HER name! I couldn't believe my eyes. I didn't stop to believe 'em long. I
+      just came. And then I found you like this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was she here?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who&mdash;Frances! My, yes, she was here. So pale and tired lookin' that
+      I thought she was goin' to collapse. But she wouldn't give in to it. She
+      told me all about how it happened and what the doctor said and everything.
+      I didn't pay much attention to it then. All I could think of was you. Oh,
+      Hosy! my poor boy! I&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There! there!&rdquo; I broke in, gently. &ldquo;I'm all right now, or I'm going to
+      be. You will have the quahaug on your hands for a while longer. But,&rdquo;
+       returning to the subject which interested me most, &ldquo;what else did she tell
+      you? Did she tell you how I met her&mdash;and where?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, yes. She's singin' somewhere&mdash;she didn't say where exactly, but
+      it is in some kind of opera-house, I judged. There's a perfectly beautiful
+      opera-house a little ways from here on the Avenue de L'Opera, right by the
+      Boulevard des Italiens, though there's precious few Italians there, far's
+      I can see. And why an opera is a l'opera I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait a moment, Hephzy. Did she tell you of our meeting? And how I found
+      her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, not so dreadful much, Hosy. She's acted kind of queer about that,
+      seemed to me. She said you went to this opera-house, wherever it was, and
+      saw her there. Then you and she were crossin' the road and one of these
+      dreadful French automobiles&mdash;the way they let the things tear round
+      is a disgrace&mdash;ran into you. I declare! It almost made ME sick to
+      hear about it. And to think of me away off amongst those mountains,
+      enjoyin' myself and not knowin' a thing! Oh, it makes me ashamed to look
+      in the glass. I NEVER ought to have left you alone, and I knew it. It's a
+      judgment on me, what's happened is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Or on me, I should rather say,&rdquo; I added. Frances had not told Hephzy of
+      L'Abbaye, that was evident. Well, I would keep silence also.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is she now?&rdquo; I asked. I asked it with as much indifference as I
+      could assume, but Hephzy smiled and patted my hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, she comes every day to ask about you,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;And Doctor Bayliss
+      comes too. He's been real kind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bayliss!&rdquo; I exclaimed. &ldquo;Is he with&mdash;Does he come here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, he comes real often, mostly about the time she does. He hasn't been
+      here for two days now, though. Hosy, do you suppose he has spoken to her
+      about&mdash;about what he spoke to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; I answered, curtly. Then I changed the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has she said anything to you about coming back to Mayberry?&rdquo; I asked.
+      &ldquo;Have you told her how we feel toward her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy's manner changed. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, reluctantly, &ldquo;I've told her.
+      I've told her everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not everything? Hephzy, you haven't told her&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no. Of course I didn't tell her THAT. You know I wouldn't, Hosy. But
+      I told her that her money havin' turned out to be our money didn't make a
+      mite of difference. I told her how much we come to think of her and how we
+      wanted her to come with us and be the same as she had always been. I
+      begged her to come. I said everything I could say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And she said?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She said no, Hosy. She wouldn't consider it at all. She asked me not to
+      talk about it. It was settled, she said. She must go her way and we ours
+      and we must forget her. She was more grateful than she could tell&mdash;she
+      most cried when she said that&mdash;but she won't come back and if I asked
+      her again she declared she should have to go away for good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know. That is what she said to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. I can't make it out exactly. It's her pride, I suppose. Her mother
+      was just as proud. Oh, dear! When I saw her here for the first time, after
+      I raced back from Interlaken, I thought&mdash;I almost hoped&mdash;but I
+      guess it can't be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not answer. I knew only too well that it could not be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does she seem happy?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, no; I don't think she is happy. There are times, especially when you
+      began to get better, when she seemed happier, but the last few times she
+      was here she was&mdash;well, different.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How different?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's hard to tell you. She looked sort of worn and sad and discouraged.
+      Hosy, what sort of a place is it she is singin' in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you ask that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I don't know. Some things you said when you were out of your head
+      made me wonder. That, and some talk I overheard her and Doctor Bayliss
+      havin' one time when they were in the other room&mdash;my room&mdash;together.
+      I had stepped out for a minute and when I came back, I came in this door
+      instead of the other. They were in the other room talkin' and he was
+      beggin' her not to stay somewhere any more. It wasn't a fit place for her
+      to be, he said; her reputation would be ruined. She cut him short by
+      sayin' that her reputation was her own and that she should do as she
+      thought best, or somethin' like that. Then I coughed, so they would know I
+      was around, and they commenced talkin' of somethin' else. But it set me
+      thinkin' and when you said&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She paused. &ldquo;What did I say?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, 'twas when she and I were here. You had been quiet for a while and
+      all at once you broke out&mdash;delirious you was&mdash;beggin' somebody
+      or other not to do somethin'. For your sake, for their own sake, they
+      mustn't do it. 'Twas awful to hear you. A mixed-up jumble about Abbie,
+      whoever she is&mdash;not much, by the way you went on about her&mdash;and
+      please, please, please, for the Lord's sake, give it up. I tried to quiet
+      you, but you wouldn't be quieted. And finally you said: 'Frances! Oh,
+      Frances! don't! Say that you won't any more.' I gave you your sleepin'
+      drops then; I thought 'twas time. I was afraid you'd say somethin' that
+      you wouldn't want her to hear. You understand, don't you, Hosy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I understand. Thank you, Hephzy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Well, <i>I</i> didn't understand and I asked her if she did. She
+      said no, but she was dreadfully upset and I think she did understand, in
+      spite of her sayin' it. What sort of a place is it, this opera-house where
+      she sings?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I dodged the question as best I could. I doubt if Hephzy's suspicions were
+      allayed, but she did not press the subject. Instead she told me I had
+      talked enough for that afternoon and must rest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That evening I saw Bayliss for the first time since the accident. He
+      congratulated me on my recovery and I thanked him for his help in bringing
+      me to the hotel. He waved my thanks aside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite unnecessary, thanking me,&rdquo; he said, shortly. &ldquo;I couldn't do
+      anything else, of course. Well, I must be going. Glad you're feeling more
+      fit, Knowles, I'm sure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;How are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I? Oh, I'm fit enough, I suppose. Good-by.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He didn't look fit. He looked more haggard and worn and moody than ever.
+      And his manner was absent and distrait. Hephzy noticed it; there were few
+      things she did not notice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Either that boy's meals don't agree with him,&rdquo; she announced, &ldquo;or
+      somethin's weighin' on his mind. He looks as if he'd lost his last friend.
+      Hosy, do you suppose he's spoken to&mdash;to her about what he spoke of to
+      you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know. I suppose he has. He was only too anxious to speak, there
+      in Mayberry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! Well, IF he has, then&mdash;Hosy, sometimes I think this, all this
+      pilgrimage of ours&mdash;that's what you used to call it, a pilgrimage&mdash;is
+      goin' to turn out right, after all. Don't it remind you of a book, this
+      last part of it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A dismal sort of book,&rdquo; I said, gloomily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I don't know. Here are you, the hero, and here's she, the heroine.
+      And the hero is sick and the heroine comes to take care of him&mdash;she
+      WAS takin' care of you afore I came, you know; and she falls in love with
+      him and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I observed, sarcastically. &ldquo;She always does&mdash;in books. But in
+      those books the hero is not a middle-aged quahaug. Suppose we stick to
+      real life and possibilities, Hephzy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was unconvinced. &ldquo;I don't care,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;She ought to even if
+      she doesn't. <i>I</i> fell in love with you long ago, Hosy. And she DID
+      bring you here after you were hurt and took care of you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! hush!&rdquo; I broke in. &ldquo;She took care of me, as you call it, because
+      she thought it was her duty. She thinks she is under great obligation to
+      us because we did not pitch her into the street when we first met her. She
+      insists that she owes us money and gratitude. Her kindness to me and her
+      care are part payment of the debt. She told me so, herself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There aren't any 'buts.' You mustn't be an idiot because I have been one,
+      Hephzy. We agreed not to speak of that again. Don't remind me of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy sighed. &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I suppose you are right, Hosy. But&mdash;but
+      how is all this goin' to end? She won't go with us. Are we goin' to leave
+      her here alone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was silent. The same question was in my mind, but I had answered it. I
+      was NOT going to leave her there alone. And yet&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I was sure,&rdquo; mused Hephzy, &ldquo;that she was in love with Herbert Bayliss,
+      then 'twould be all right, I suppose. They would get married and it would
+      be all right&mdash;or near right&mdash;wouldn't it, Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I said nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next morning I saw her. She came to inquire for me and Hephzy brought
+      her into my room for a stay of a minute or two. She seemed glad to find me
+      so much improved in health and well on the road to recovery. I tried to
+      thank her for her care of me, for her sending for Hephzy and all the rest
+      of it, but she would not listen. She chatted about Paris and the French
+      people, about Monsieur Louis, the concierge, and joked with Hephzy about
+      that gentleman's admiration for &ldquo;the wonderful American lady,&rdquo; meaning
+      Hephzy herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He calls you 'Madame Cay-hoo-on,'&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and he thinks you a miracle
+      of decision and management. I think he is almost afraid of you, I really
+      do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy smiled, grimly. &ldquo;He'd better be,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;The way everybody
+      was flyin' around when I first got here after comin' from Interlaken, and
+      the way the help jabbered and hunched up their shoulders when I asked
+      questions made me so fidgety I couldn't keep still. I wanted an egg for
+      breakfast, that first mornin' and when the waiter brought it, it was in
+      the shell, the way they eat eggs over here. I can't eat 'em that way&mdash;I'm
+      no weasel&mdash;and I told the waiter I wanted an egg cup. Nigh as I could
+      make out from his pigeon English he was tellin' me there was a cup there.
+      Well, there was, one of those little, two-for-a-cent contraptions, just
+      big enough to stick one end of the egg into. 'I want a big one,' says I.
+      'We, Madame,' says he, and off he trotted. When he came back he brought me
+      a big EGG, a duck's egg, I guess 'twas. Then I scolded and he jabbered
+      some more and by and by he went and fetched this Monsieur Louis man. He
+      could speak English, thank goodness, and he was real nice, in his French
+      way. He begged my pardon for the waiter's stupidness, said he was a new
+      hand, and the like of that, and went on apologizin' and bowin' and smilin'
+      till I almost had a fit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'For mercy sakes!' I says, 'don't say any more about it. If that last egg
+      hadn't been boiled 'twould have hatched out an&mdash;an ostrich, or
+      somethin' or other, by this time. And it's stone cold, of course. Have
+      this&mdash;this jumpin'-jack of yours bring me a hot egg&mdash;a hen's egg&mdash;opened,
+      in a cup big enough to see without spectacles, and tell him to bring some
+      cream with the coffee. At any rate, if there isn't any cream, have him
+      bring some real milk instead of this watery stuff. I might wash clothes
+      with that, for I declare I think there's bluin' in it, but I sha'n't drink
+      it; I'd be afraid of swallowin' a fish by accident. And do hurry!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He went away then, hurryin' accordin' to orders, and ever since then he's
+      been bobbin' up to ask if 'Madame finds everything satisfactory.' I
+      suppose likely I shouldn't have spoken as I did, he means well&mdash;it
+      isn't his fault, or the waiter's either, that they can't talk without
+      wavin' their hands as if they were givin' three cheers&mdash;but I was
+      terribly nervous that mornin' and I barked like a tied-up dog. Oh dear,
+      Hosy! if ever I missed you and your help it's in this blessed country.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances laughed at all this; she seemed just then to be in high spirits;
+      but I thought, or imagined, that her high spirits were assumed for our
+      benefit. At the first hint of questioning concerning her own life, where
+      she lodged or what her plans might be, she rose and announced that she
+      must go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Each morning of that week she came, remaining but a short time, and always
+      refusing to speak of herself or her plans. Hephzy and I, finding that a
+      reference to those plans meant the abrupt termination of the call, ceased
+      trying to question. And we did not mention our life at the rectory,
+      either; that, too, she seemed unwilling to discuss. Once, when I spoke of
+      our drive to Wrayton, she began a reply, stopped in the middle of a
+      sentence, and then left the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy hastened after her. She returned alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She was cryin', Hosy,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;She said she wasn't, but she was. The
+      poor thing! she's unhappy and I know it; she's miserable. But she's so
+      proud she won't own it and, although I'm dyin' to put my arms around her
+      and comfort her, I know if I did she'd go away and never come back. Do you
+      notice she hasn't called me 'Auntie' once. And she always used to&mdash;at
+      the rectory. I'm afraid&mdash;I'm afraid she's just as determined as she
+      was when she ran away, never to live with us again. What SHALL we do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not know and I did not dare to think. I was as certain that these
+      visits would cease very soon as I was that they were the only things which
+      made my life bearable. How I did look forward to them! And while she was
+      there, with us, how short the time seemed and how it dragged when she had
+      gone. The worst thing possible for me, this seeing her and being with her;
+      I knew it. I knew it perfectly well. But, knowing it, and realizing that
+      it could not last and that it was but the prelude to a worse loneliness
+      which was sure to come, made no difference. I dreaded to be well again,
+      fearing that would mean the end of those visits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I was getting well and rapidly. I sat up for longer and longer periods
+      each day. I began to read my letters now, instead of having Hephzy read
+      them to me, letters from Matthews at the London office and from Jim
+      Campbell at home. Matthews had cabled Jim of the accident and later that I
+      was recovering. So Jim wrote, professing to find material gain in the
+      affair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Great stuff,&rdquo; he wrote. &ldquo;Two chapters at least. The hero, pursuing the
+      villain through the streets of Paris at midnight, is run down by an auto
+      driven by said villain. 'Ah ha!' says the villain: 'Now will you be good?'
+      or words to that effect. 'Desmond,' says the hero, unflinchingly, as they
+      extract the cobble-stones from his cuticle, 'you triumph for the moment,
+      but beware! there will be something doing later on.' See? If it wasn't for
+      the cracked rib and the rest I should be almost glad it happened. All you
+      need is the beautiful heroine nursing you to recovery. Can't you find
+      her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not know that I had found her, or that the hoped-for novel was less
+      likely to be finished than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was now able to leave me occasionally, to take the walks which I
+      insisted upon. She had some queer experiences in these walks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lost again to-day, Hosy,&rdquo; she said, cheerfully, removing her bonnet. &ldquo;I
+      went cruisin' through the streets over to the south'ard and they were so
+      narrow and so crooked&mdash;to say nothin' of bein' dirty and smelly&mdash;that
+      I thought I never should get out. Of course I could have hired a hack and
+      let it bring me to the hotel but I wouldn't do that. I was set on findin'
+      my own way. I'd walked in and I was goin' to walk out, that was all there
+      was to it. 'Twasn't the first time I'd been lost in this Paris place and
+      I've got a system of my own. When I get to the square 'Place delay
+      Concorde,' they call it, I know where I am. And 'Concorde' is enough like
+      Concord, Mass., to make me remember the name. So I walk up to a nice
+      appearin' Frenchman with a tall hat and whiskers&mdash;I didn't know there
+      was so many chin whiskers outside of East Harniss, or some other back
+      number place&mdash;and I say, 'Pardon, Monseer. Place delay Concorde?'
+      Just like that with a question mark after it. After I say it two or three
+      times he begins to get a floatin' sniff of what I'm drivin' at and says
+      he: 'Place delay Concorde? Oh, we, we, we, Madame!' Then a whole string of
+      jabber and arm wavin', with some countin' in the middle of it. Now I've
+      learned 'one, two, three' in French and I know he means for me to keep on
+      for two or three more streets in the way he's pointin'. So I keep on, and,
+      when I get there, I go through the whole rigamarole with another
+      Frenchman. About the third session and I'm back on the Concord Place.
+      THERE I am all right. No, I don't propose to stay lost long. My father and
+      grandfather and all my men folks spent their lives cruisin' through
+      crooked passages and crowded shoals and I guess I've inherited some of the
+      knack.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At last I was strong enough to take a short outing in Hephzy's company. I
+      returned to the hotel, where Hephzy left me. She was going to do a little
+      shopping by herself. I went to my room and sat down to rest. A bell boy&mdash;at
+      least that is what we should have called him in the States&mdash;knocked
+      at the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A lady to see Monsieur,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lady was Frances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She entered the room and I rose to greet her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, you are alone!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;Where is Miss Cahoon?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is out, on a shopping expedition,&rdquo; I explained. &ldquo;She will be back
+      soon. I have been out too. We have been driving together. What do you
+      think of that!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She seemed pleased at the news but when I urged her to sit and wait for
+      Hephzy's return she hesitated. Her hesitation, however, was only
+      momentary. She took the chair by the window and we chatted together, of my
+      newly-gained strength, of Hephzy's adventures as a pathfinder in Paris, of
+      the weather, of a dozen inconsequential things. I found it difficult to
+      sustain my part in the conversation. There was so much of real importance
+      which I wanted to say. I wanted to ask her about herself, where she
+      lodged, if she was still singing at L'Abbaye, what her plans for the
+      future might be. And I did not dare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My remarks became more and more disjointed and she, too, seemed uneasy and
+      absent-minded. At length there was an interval of silence. She broke that
+      silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suppose,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you will be going back to Mayberry soon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Back to Mayberry?&rdquo; I repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. You and Miss Cahoon will go back there, of course, now that you are
+      strong enough to travel. She told me that the American friends with whom
+      you and she were to visit Switzerland had changed their plans and were
+      going on to Italy. She said that she had written them that your proposed
+      Continental trip was abandoned.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Yes, that was given up, of course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you will go back to England, will you not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know. We have made no plans as yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you will go back. Miss Cahoon said you would. And, when your lease of
+      the rectory expires, you will sail for America.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you must know,&rdquo; with a momentary impatience. &ldquo;Surely you don't intend
+      to remain here in Paris.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know that, either. I haven't considered what I shall do. It
+      depends&mdash;that is&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not finish the sentence. I had said more than I intended and it was
+      high time I stopped. But I had said too much, as it was. She asked more
+      questions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Upon what does it depend?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, nothing. I did not mean that it depended upon anything in particular.
+      I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must have meant something. Tell me&mdash;answer me truthfully,
+      please: Does it depend upon me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Of course that was just what it did depend upon. And suddenly I determined
+      to tell her so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances,&rdquo; I demanded, &ldquo;are you still there&mdash;at that place?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At L'Abbaye. Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You sing there every night?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you do it? You know&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know everything. But you know, too. I told you I sang there because I
+      must earn my living in some way and that seems to be the only place where
+      I can earn it. They pay me well there, and the people&mdash;the
+      proprietors&mdash;are considerate and kind, in their way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it isn't a fit place for you. And you don't like it; I know you
+      don't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; quietly. &ldquo;I don't like it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then don't do it. Give it up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I give it up what shall I do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know. Come back with us and live with us as you did before. I want
+      you; Hephzy is crazy to have you. We&mdash;she has missed you dreadfully.
+      She grieves for you and worries about you. We offer you a home and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She interrupted. &ldquo;Please don't,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I have told you that that is
+      impossible. It is. I shall never go back to Mayberry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But why? Your aunt&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't! My aunt is very kind&mdash;she has been so kind that I cannot bear
+      to speak of her. Her kindness and&mdash;and yours are the few pleasant
+      memories that I have&mdash;of this last dreadful year. To please you both
+      I would do anything&mdash;anything&mdash;except&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't make any exceptions. Come with us. If not to Mayberry, then
+      somewhere else. Come to America with us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't! My mind is made up. Please don't speak of that again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again I realized the finality in her tone. The same finality was in mine
+      as I answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I shall stay here,&rdquo; I declared. &ldquo;I shall not leave you alone,
+      without friends or a protector of any kind, to sing night after night in
+      that place. I shall not do it. I shall stay here as long as you do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was silent. I wondered what was coming next. I expected her to say, as
+      she had said before, that I was forcing her to give up her one
+      opportunity. I expected reproaches and was doggedly prepared to meet them.
+      But she did not reproach me. She said nothing; instead she seemed to be
+      thinking, to be making up her mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't do it, Frances,&rdquo; I pleaded. &ldquo;Don't sing there any longer. Give it
+      up. You don't like the work; it isn't fit work for you. Give it up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose from her chair and standing by the window looked out into the
+      street. Suddenly she turned and looked at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would it please you if I gave up singing at L'Abbaye?&rdquo; she asked quietly.
+      &ldquo;You know it would.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if I did would you and Miss Cahoon go back to England&mdash;at once?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here was another question, one that I found very hard to answer. I tried
+      to temporize.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We want you to come with us,&rdquo; I said, earnestly. &ldquo;We want you. Hephzy&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, don't, don't, don't! Why will you persist? Can't you understand that
+      you hurt me? I am trying to believe I have some self-respect left, even
+      after all that has happened. And you&mdash;What CAN you think of me! No, I
+      tell you! NO!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But for Hephzy's sake. She is your only relative.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at me oddly. And when she spoke her answer surprised me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are mistaken,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I have other&mdash;relatives. Good-by, Mr.
+      Knowles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was on her way to the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Frances,&rdquo; I cried, &ldquo;you are not going. Wait. Hephzy will be here any
+      moment. Don't go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must go,&rdquo; she said. At the door she turned and looked back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-by,&rdquo; she said, again. &ldquo;Good-by, Kent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had gone and when I reached the door she had turned the corner of the
+      corridor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Hephzy came I told her of the visit and what had taken place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's queer,&rdquo; said Hephzy. &ldquo;I can't think what she meant. I don't know
+      of any other relatives she's got except Strickland Morley's tribe. And
+      they threw him overboard long, long ago. I can't understand who she meant;
+      can you, Hosy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had been thinking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wasn't there someone else&mdash;some English cousins of hers with whom
+      she lived for a time after her father's death? Didn't she tell you about
+      them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy nodded vigorously. &ldquo;That's so,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;There was. And she
+      did live with 'em, too. She never told me their names or where they lived,
+      but I know she despised and hated 'em. She gave me to understand that. And
+      she ran away from 'em, too, just as she did from us. I don't see why she
+      should have meant them. I don't believe she did. Perhaps she'll tell us
+      more next time she comes. That'll be tomorrow, most likely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hoped that it might be to-morrow, but I was fearful. The way in which
+      she had said good-by made me so. Her look, her manner, seemed to imply
+      more than a good-by for a day. And, though this I did not tell Hephzy, she
+      had called me &ldquo;Kent&rdquo; for the first time since the happy days at the
+      rectory. I feared&mdash;all sorts of things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not come on the morrow, or the following day, or the day after
+      that. Another week passed and she did not come, nor had we received any
+      word from her. By that time Hephzy was as anxious and fretful as I. And,
+      when I proposed going in search of her, Hephzy, for a wonder, considering
+      how very, very careful she was of my precious health, did not say no.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're pretty close to bein' as well as ever you was, Hosy,&rdquo; she said.
+      &ldquo;And I know how terribly worried you are. If you do go out at night you
+      may be sick again, but if you don't go and lay awake frettin' and frettin'
+      about her I KNOW you'll be sick. So perhaps you'd better do it. Shall I&mdash;Sha'n't
+      I go with you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you had better not,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, perhaps you're right. You never would tell me much about this
+      opera-house, or whatever 'tis, but I shouldn't wonder if, bein' a Yankee,
+      I'd guessed considerable. Go, Hosy, and bring her back if you can. Find
+      her anyhow. There! there run along. The hack's down at the door waitin'.
+      Is your head feelin' all right? You're sure? And you haven't any pain? And
+      you'll keep wrapped up? All right? Good-by, dearie. Hurry back! Do hurry
+      back, for my sake. And I hope&mdash;Oh, I do hope you'll bring no bad
+      news.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      L'Abbaye, at eight-thirty in the evening was a deserted place compared to
+      what it had been when I visited it at midnight. The waiters and attendants
+      were there, of course, and a few early bird patrons, but not many. The
+      bearded proprietors, or managers, were flying about, and I caught one of
+      them in the middle of a flight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not recognize me at first, but when I stated my errand, he did. Out
+      went his hands and up went his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Mademoiselle,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Ah, yes! You are her friend, Monsieur; I
+      remember perfectly. Oh, no, no, no! she is not here any more. She has left
+      us. She sings no longer at L'Abbaye. We are desolate; we are inconsolable.
+      We pleaded, but she was firm. She has gone. Where? Ah, Monsieur, so many
+      ask that; but alas! we do not know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you do know where she lives,&rdquo; I urged. &ldquo;You must know her home
+      address. Give me that. It is of the greatest importance that I see her at
+      once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At first he declared that he did not know her address, the address where
+      she lodged. I persisted and, at last, he admitted that he did know it, but
+      that he was bound by the most solemn promise to reveal it to no one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was her wish, Monsieur. It was a part of the agreement under which she
+      sang for us. No one should know who she was or where she lived. And I&mdash;I
+      am an honorable man, Monsieur. I have promised and&mdash;&rdquo; the business of
+      shoulders and hands again&mdash;&ldquo;my pledged word to a lady, how shall it
+      be broken?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I found a way to break it, nevertheless. A trio of gold pieces and the
+      statement that I was her uncle did the trick. An uncle! Ah, that was
+      different. And, Mademoiselle had consented to see me when I came before,
+      that was true. She had seen the young English gentleman also&mdash;but we
+      two only. Was the young English Monsieur&mdash;&ldquo;the Doctor Baylees&rdquo;&mdash;was
+      he a relative also?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not answer that question. It was not his business and, beside, I did
+      not wish to speak of Herbert Bayliss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The address which the manager of L'Abbaye gave me, penciled on a card, was
+      a number in a street in Montmartre, and not far away. I might easily have
+      walked there, I was quite strong enough for walking now, but I preferred a
+      cab. Paris motor cabs, as I knew from experience, moved rapidly. This one
+      bore me to my destination in a few minutes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A stout middle-aged French woman answered my ring. But her answer to my
+      inquiries was most unsatisfactory. And, worse than all, I was certain she
+      was telling me the truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Mademoiselle was no longer there, she said. She had given up her room
+      three days ago and had gone away. Where? That, alas, was a question. She
+      had told no one. She had gone and she was not coming back. Was it not a
+      pity, a great pity! Such a beautiful Mademoiselle! such an artiste! who
+      sang so sweetly! Ah, the success she had made. And such a good young lady,
+      too! Not like the others&mdash;oh, no, no, no! No one was to know she
+      lodged there; she would see no one. Ah, a good girl, Monsieur, if ever one
+      lived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did she&mdash;did she go alone?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The stout lady hesitated. Was Monsieur a very close friend? Perhaps a
+      relative?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An uncle,&rdquo; I said, telling the old lie once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ah, an uncle! It was all right then. No, Mademoiselle had not gone alone.
+      A young gentleman, a young English gentleman had gone with her, or, at
+      least, had brought the cab in which she went and had driven off in it with
+      her. A young English gentleman with a yellow mustache. Perhaps I knew him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I recognized the description. She had left the house with Herbert Bayliss.
+      What did that mean? Had she said yes to him? Were they married? I dreaded
+      to know, but know I must.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And, as the one possible chance of settling the question, I bade my cab
+      driver take me to the Hotel Continental. There, at the desk, I asked if
+      Doctor Bayliss was still in the hotel. They said he was. I think I must
+      have appeared strange or the gasp of relief with which I received the news
+      was audible, for the concierge asked me if I was ill. I said no, and then
+      he told me that Bayliss was planning to leave the next day, but was just
+      then in his room. Did I wish to see him? I said I did and gave them my
+      card.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He came down soon afterward. I had not seen him for a fortnight, for his
+      calls had ceased even before Frances' last visit. Hephzy had said that, in
+      her opinion, his meals must be disagreeing with him. Judging by his
+      appearance his digestion was still very much impaired. He was in evening
+      dress, of course; being an English gentleman he would have dressed for his
+      own execution, if it was scheduled to take place after six o'clock. But
+      his tie was carelessly arranged, his shirt bosom was slightly crumpled and
+      there was a general &ldquo;don't care&rdquo; look about his raiment which was, for
+      him, most unusual. And he was very solemn. I decided at once, whatever
+      might have happened, it was not what I surmised. He was neither a happy
+      bridegroom nor a prospective one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good evening, Bayliss,&rdquo; said I, and extended my hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good evening, Knowles,&rdquo; he said, but he kept his own hands in his
+      pockets. And he did not ask me to be seated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; he said, after a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I came to you,&rdquo; I began&mdash;mine was a delicate errand and hard to
+      state&mdash;&ldquo;I came to you to ask if you could tell me where Miss Morley
+      has gone. She has left L'Abbaye and has given up her room at her lodgings.
+      She has gone&mdash;somewhere. Do you know where she is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was quite evident that he did know. I could see it in his face. He did
+      not answer, however. Instead he glanced about uneasily and then, turning,
+      led the way toward a small reception room adjoining the lobby. This room
+      was, save for ourselves, unoccupied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We can be more private here,&rdquo; he explained, briefly. &ldquo;What did you ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I asked if you knew where Miss Morley had gone and where she was at the
+      present time?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He hesitated, pulling at his mustache, and frowning. &ldquo;I don't see why you
+      should ask me that?&rdquo; he said, after a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I do ask it. Do you know where she is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Another pause. &ldquo;Well, if I did,&rdquo; he said, stiffly, &ldquo;I see no reason why I
+      should tell you. To be perfectly frank, and as I have said to you before,
+      I don't consider myself bound to tell you anything concerning her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His manner was most offensive. Again, as at the time I came to him at that
+      very hotel on a similar errand, after my arrival in Paris, I found it hard
+      to keep my temper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't misunderstand me,&rdquo; I said, as calmly as I could. &ldquo;I am not
+      pretending now to have a claim upon Miss Morley. I am not asking you to
+      tell me just where she is, if you don't wish to tell. And it is not for my
+      sake&mdash;that is, not primarily for that&mdash;that I am anxious about
+      her. It is for hers. I wish you might tell me this: Is she safe? Is she
+      among friends? Is she&mdash;is she quite safe and in a respectable place
+      and likely to be happy? Will you tell me that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He hesitated again. &ldquo;She is quite safe,&rdquo; he said, after a moment. &ldquo;And she
+      is among friends, or I suppose they are friends. As to her being happy&mdash;well,
+      you ought to know that better than I, it seems to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was puzzled. &ldquo;<i>I</i> ought to know?&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;I ought to know
+      whether she is happy or not? I don't understand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at me intently. &ldquo;Don't you?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;You are certain you
+      don't? Humph! Well, if I were in your place I would jolly well find out;
+      you may be sure of that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you driving at, Bayliss? I tell you I don't know what you mean.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not answer. He was frowning and kicking the corner of a rug with
+      his foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't understand what you mean,&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;You are saying too much
+      or too little for my comprehension.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've said too much,&rdquo; he muttered. &ldquo;At all events, I have said all I shall
+      say. Was there any other subject you wished to see me about, Knowles? If
+      not I must be going. I'm rather busy this evening.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was no subject but that one. And you will tell me nothing more
+      concerning Miss Morley?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good night,&rdquo; I said, and turned away. Then I turned back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bayliss,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I think perhaps I had better say this: I have only the
+      kindest feelings toward you. You may have misunderstood my attitude in all
+      this. I have said nothing to prejudice her&mdash;Miss Morley against you.
+      I never shall. You care for her, I know. If she cares for you that is
+      enough, so far as I am concerned. Her happiness is my sole wish. I want
+      you to consider me your friend&mdash;and hers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Once more I extended my hand. For an instant I thought he was going to
+      take it, but he did not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; he said, sullenly. &ldquo;I won't shake hands with you. Why should I? You
+      don't mean what you say. At least I don't think you do. I&mdash;I&mdash;By
+      Jove! you can't!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I do,&rdquo; I said, patiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can't! Look here! you say I care for her. God knows I do! But you&mdash;suppose
+      you knew where she was, what would you do? Would you go to her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had been considering this very thing, during my ride to the lodgings and
+      on the way to the hotel; and I had reached a conclusion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; I answered, slowly. &ldquo;I think I should not. I know she does not wish
+      me to follow her. I suppose she went away to avoid me. If I were convinced
+      that she was among friends, in a respectable place, and quite safe, I
+      should try to respect her wish. I think I should not follow her there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stared at me, wide-eyed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You wouldn't!&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;You wouldn't! And you&mdash;Oh, I say! And
+      you talked of her happiness!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is her happiness I am thinking of. If it were my own I should&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing, nothing. She will be happier if I do not follow her, I suppose.
+      That is enough for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He regarded me with the same intent stare.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Knowles,&rdquo; he said, suddenly, &ldquo;she is at the home of a relative of hers&mdash;Cripps
+      is the name&mdash;in Leatherhead, England. There! I have told you. Why I
+      should be such a fool I don't know. And now you will go there, I suppose.
+      What?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;No. I thank you for telling me, Bayliss, but it shall
+      make no difference. I will respect her wish. I will not go there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You won't!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I will not trouble her again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To my surprise he laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh, there was more
+      sarcasm than mirth in it, or so it seemed, but why he should laugh at all
+      I could not understand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Knowles,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you're a good fellow, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what?&rdquo; I asked, stiffly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You're no end of a silly ass in some ways. Good night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned on his heel and walked off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which I, as Well as Mr. Solomon Cripps, Am Surprised
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And to think,&rdquo; cried Hephzy, for at least the fifth time since I told
+      her, &ldquo;that those Crippses are her people, the cousins she lived with after
+      her pa's death! No wonder she was surprised when I told her how you and I
+      went to Leatherhead and looked at their 'Ash Dump'&mdash;'Ash Chump,' I
+      mean. And we came just as near hirin' it, too; we would have hired it if
+      she hadn't put her foot down and said she wouldn't go there. A good many
+      queer things have happened on this pilgrimage of ours, Hosy, but I do
+      believe our goin' straight to those Crippses, of all the folks in England,
+      is about the strangest. Seems as if we was sent there with a purpose,
+      don't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a strange coincidence,&rdquo; I admitted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's more'n that. And her goin' back to them is queerer still. She hates
+      'em, I know she does. She as much as said so, not mention' their names, of
+      course. Why did she do it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I knew why she had done it, or I believed I did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She did it to please you and me, Hephzy,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;And to get rid of us.
+      She said she would do anything to please us, and she knew I did not want
+      her to remain here in Paris. I told her I should stay here as long as she
+      did, or at least as long as she sang at&mdash;at the place where she was
+      singing. And she asked if, provided she gave up singing there, you and I
+      would go back to England&mdash;or America?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I know; you told me that, Hosy. But you said you didn't promise to
+      do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn't promise anything. I couldn't promise not to follow her. I didn't
+      believe I could keep the promise. But I sha'n't follow her, Hephzy. I
+      shall not go to Leatherhead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was silent for a moment. Then she said: &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know why. That night when I first met her, the night after you had
+      gone to Lucerne, she told me that if I persisted in following her and
+      trying to see her I would force her to give up the only means of earning a
+      living she had been able to find. Well, I have forced her to do that. She
+      has been obliged to run away once more in order to get rid of us. I am not
+      going to persecute her further. I am going to try and be unselfish and
+      decent, if I can. Now that we know she is safe and among friends&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Friends! A healthy lot of friends they are&mdash;that Solomon Cripps and
+      his wife! If ever I ran afoul of a sanctimonious pair of hypocrites
+      they're the pair. Oh, they were sweet and buttery enough to us, I give in,
+      but that was because they thought we was goin' to hire their Dump or
+      Chump, or whatever 'twas. I'll bet they could be hard as nails to anybody
+      they had under their thumbs. Whenever I see a woman or a man with a mouth
+      that shuts up like a crack in a plate, the way theirs do, it takes more
+      than Scriptur' texts from that mouth to make me believe it won't bite when
+      it has the chance. Safe! poor Little Frank may be safe enough at
+      Leatherhead, but I'll bet she's miserable. WHAT made her go there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because she had no other place to go, I suppose,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;And there,
+      among her relatives, she thought she would be free from our persecution.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's some things worse than persecution,&rdquo; Hephzy declared; &ldquo;and, so
+      far as that goes, there are different kinds of persecution. But what makes
+      those Crippses willin' to take her in and look after her is what <i>I</i>
+      can't understand. They MAY be generous and forgivin' and kind, but, if
+      they are, then I miss my guess. The whole business is awful queer. Tell me
+      all about your talk with Doctor Bayliss, Hosy. What did he say? And how
+      did he look when he said it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I told her, repeating our conversation word for word, as near as I could
+      remember it. She listened intently and when I had finished there was an
+      odd expression on her face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;He seemed surprised to think you weren't goin' to
+      Leatherhead, you say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. At least I thought he was surprised. He knew I had chased her from
+      Mayberry to Paris and was there at the hotel trying to learn from him
+      where she was. And he knows you are her aunt. I suppose he thought it
+      strange that we were not going to follow her any further.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Maybe so... maybe so. But why did he call you a&mdash;what was it?&mdash;a
+      silly donkey?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I am one, I imagine,&rdquo; I answered, bitterly. &ldquo;It's my natural
+      state. I was born one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Humph! Well, 'twould take more than that boy's word to make me believe
+      it. No there's something!&mdash;I wish I could see that young fellow
+      myself. He's at the Continental Hotel, you say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; but he leaves to-morrow. There, Hephzy, that's enough. Don't talk
+      about it. Change the subject. I am ready to go back to England&mdash;yes,
+      or America either, whenever you say the word. The sooner the better for
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy obediently changed the subject and we decided to leave Paris the
+      following afternoon. We would go back to the rectory, of course, and leave
+      there for home as soon as the necessary arrangements could be made. Hephzy
+      agreed to everything, she offered no objections, in fact it seemed to me
+      that she was paying very little attention. Her lack of interest&mdash;yes,
+      and apparent lack of sympathy, for I knew she must know what my decision
+      meant to me&mdash;hurt and irritated me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I rose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good night,&rdquo; I said, curtly. &ldquo;I'm going to bed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's right, Hosy. You ought to go. You'll be sick again if you sit up
+      any longer. Good night, dearie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;What are you going to do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm going to set up a spell longer. I want to think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't. I wish I might never think again. Or dream, either. I am awake
+      at last. God knows I wish I wasn't!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She moved toward me. There was the same odd expression on her face and a
+      queer, excited look in her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps you aren't really awake, Hosy,&rdquo; she said, gently. &ldquo;Perhaps this
+      is the final dream and when you do wake you'll find&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, bosh!&rdquo; I interrupted. &ldquo;Don't tell me you have another presentiment.
+      If you have keep it to yourself. Good night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was weak from my recent illness and I had been under a great nervous
+      strain all that evening. These are my only excuses and they are poor ones.
+      I spoke and acted abominably and I was sorry for it afterward. I have told
+      Hephzy so a good many times since, but I think she understood without my
+      telling her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; she said, quietly, &ldquo;dreams are somethin', after all. It's
+      somethin' to have had dreams. I sha'n't forget mine. Good night, Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The next morning after breakfast she announced that she had an errand or
+      two to do. She would run out and do them, she said, but she would be gone
+      only a little while. She was gone nearly two hours during which I paced
+      the floor or sat by the window looking out. The crowded boulevard was
+      below me, but I did not see it. All I saw was a future as desolate and
+      blank as the Bayport flats at low tide, and I, a quahaug on those flats,
+      doomed to live, or exist, forever and ever and ever, with nothing to live
+      for.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy, when she did return to the hotel, was surprisingly chatty and
+      good-humored. She talked, talked, talked all the time, about nothing in
+      particular, laughed a good deal, and flew about, packing our belongings
+      and humming to herself. She acted more like the Hephzy of old than she had
+      for weeks. There was an air of suppressed excitement about her which I
+      could not understand. I attributed it to the fact of our leaving for
+      America in the near future and her good humor irritated me. My spirits
+      were lower than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You seem to be remarkably happy,&rdquo; I observed, fretfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What makes you think so, Hosy? Because I was singin'? Father used to say
+      my singin' was the most doleful noise he ever heard, except a fog-horn on
+      a lee shore. I'm glad if you think it's a proof of happiness: I'm much
+      obliged for the compliment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you are happy, or you are trying to appear so. If you are
+      pretending for my benefit, don't. I'M not happy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know, Hosy; I know. Well, perhaps you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She didn't finish the sentence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, nothin', nothin'. How many shirts did you bring with you? is this
+      all?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She sang no more, probably because she saw that the &ldquo;fog-horn&rdquo; annoyed me,
+      but her manner was just as strange and her nervous energy as pronounced. I
+      began to doubt if my surmise, that her excitement and exaltation were due
+      to the anticipation of an early return to Bayport, was a correct one. I
+      began to thing there must be some other course and to speculate concerning
+      it. And I, too, grew a bit excited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; I said, suddenly, &ldquo;where did you go when you went out this
+      morning? What sort of 'errands' were those of yours?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was folding my ties, her back toward me, and she answered without
+      turning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I had some odds and ends of things to do,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;This plaid
+      necktie of yours is gettin' pretty shabby, Hosy. I guess you can't wear it
+      again. There! I mustn't stop to talk. I've got my own things to pack.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hurried to her own room and I asked no more questions just then. But I
+      was more suspicious than ever. I remembered a question of hers the
+      previous evening and I believed.... But, if she had gone to the
+      Continental and seen Herbert Bayliss, what could he have told her to make
+      her happy?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We took the train for Calais and crossed the Channel to Dover. This time
+      the eccentric strip of water was as calm as a pond at sunset. No jumpy,
+      white-capped billows, no flying spray, no seasick passengers. Tarpaulins
+      were a drag on the market.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wouldn't believe,&rdquo; declared Hephzy, &ldquo;that this lookin'-glass was the
+      same as that churned-up tub of suds we slopped through before. It doesn't
+      trickle down one's neck now, does it, Hosy. A 'nahsty' cross-in' comin'
+      and a smooth one comin' back. I wonder if that's a sign.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, don't talk about signs, Hephzy,&rdquo; I pleaded, wearily. &ldquo;You'll begin to
+      dream again, I suppose, pretty soon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I won't. I think you and I have stopped dreamin', Hosy. Maybe we're
+      just wakin' up, same as I told you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean by that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mean? Oh, I guess I didn't mean anything. Good-by, old France! You're a
+      lovely country and a lively one, but I sha'n't cry at sayin' good-by to
+      you this time. And there's England dead ahead. Won't it seem good to be
+      where they talk instead of jabber! I sha'n't have to navigate by the
+      'one-two-three' chart over there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dover, a flying trip through the customs, the train again, an English
+      dinner in an English restaurant car&mdash;not a &ldquo;wagon bed,&rdquo; as Hephzy
+      said, exultantly&mdash;and then London.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We took a cab to the hotel, not Bancroft's this time, but a modern
+      downtown hostelry where there were at least as many Americans as English.
+      In our rooms I would have cross-questioned Hephzy, but she would not be
+      questioned, declaring that she was tired and sleepy. I was tired, also,
+      but not sleepy. I was almost as excited as she seemed to be by this time.
+      I was sure she had learned something that morning in Paris, something
+      which pleased her greatly. What that something might be I could not
+      imagine; but I believed she had learned it from Herbert Bayliss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the next morning, after breakfast, she announced that she had arranged
+      for a cab and we must start for the station at once. I said nothing then,
+      but when the cab pulled up before a railway station, a station which was
+      not our accustomed one but another, I said a great deal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What in the world, Hephzy!&rdquo; I exclaimed. &ldquo;We can't go to Mayberry from
+      here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush, hush, Hosy. Wait a minute&mdash;wait till I've paid the driver.
+      Yes, I'm doin' it myself. I'm skipper on this cruise. You're an invalid,
+      didn't you know it. Invalids have to obey orders.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The cabman paid, she took my arm and led me into the station.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now, Hosy,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;let me tell you. We aren't goin' to Mayberry&mdash;not
+      yet. We're going to Leatherhead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To Leatherhead!&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;To Leatherhead! To&mdash;her? We certainly
+      will do no such thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, we will, Hosy,&rdquo; quietly. &ldquo;I haven't said anything about it before,
+      but I've made up my mind. It's our duty to see her just once more, once
+      more before&mdash;before we say good-by for good. It's our duty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Duty! Our duty is to let her alone, to leave her in peace, as she asked
+      us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you know she is in peace? Suppose she isn't. Suppose she's
+      miserable and unhappy. Isn't it our duty to find out? I think it is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked her full in the face. &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; I said, sharply, &ldquo;you know
+      something about her, something that I don't know. What is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know as I know anything, Hosy. I can't say that I do. But&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You saw Herbert Bayliss yesterday. That was the 'errand' you went upon
+      yesterday morning in Paris. Wasn't it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was very much taken aback. She has told me since that she had no idea
+      I suspected the truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wasn't it?&rdquo; I repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why&mdash;why, yes, it was, Hosy. I did go to see him, there at his
+      hotel. When you told me how he acted and what he said to you I thought
+      'twas awfully funny, and the more I thought it over the funnier it seemed.
+      So I made up my mind to see him and talk with him myself. And I did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did he tell you?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He told me&mdash;he told me&mdash;Well, he didn't tell me so much, maybe,
+      but he gave me to understand a whole lot. She's gone to those Crippses,
+      Hosy, just as I suspicioned, not because she likes 'em&mdash;she hates 'em&mdash;or
+      because she wanted to go, but because she thought 'twould please us if she
+      did. It doesn't please us; it doesn't please me, anyway. She sha'n't be
+      miserable for our sake, not without a word from us. No, we must go there
+      and see her and&mdash;and tell her once more just how we feel about it.
+      It's our duty to go and we must. And,&rdquo; with decision, &ldquo;we're goin' now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had poured out this explanation breathlessly, hurrying as if fearful
+      that I might interrupt and ask more questions. I asked one of them the
+      moment she paused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We knew all that before,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;That is, we were practically sure she
+      had left Paris to get rid of us and had gone to her cousins, the Crippses,
+      because of her half-promise to me not to sing at places like the Abbey
+      again. We knew all that. And she asked me to promise that we would not
+      follow her. I didn't promise, but that makes no difference. Was that all
+      Bayliss told you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was still embarrassed and confused, though she answered promptly
+      enough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He told me he knew she didn't want to go to&mdash;to those Leatherheaded
+      folks,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;We guessed she didn't, but we didn't know it for
+      sure. And he said we ought to go to her. He said that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But why did he say it? Our going will not alter her determination to stay
+      and our seeing her again will only make it harder for her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, it won't&mdash;no it won't,&rdquo; hastily. &ldquo;Besides I want to see that
+      Cripps man and have a talk with him, myself. I want to know why a man like
+      him&mdash;I'm pretty well along in years; I've met folks and bargained and
+      dealt with 'em all my grown-up life and I KNOW he isn't the kind to do
+      things for nothin' for ANYBODY&mdash;I want to know why he and his wife
+      are so generous to her. There's somethin' behind it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's something behind you, Hephzy. Some other reason that you haven't
+      told me. Was that all Bayliss said?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She hesitated. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, after a moment, &ldquo;that's all, all I can
+      tell you now, anyway. But I want you to go with me to that Ash Dump and
+      see her once more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not, Hephzy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then I'll have to go by myself. And if you don't go, too, I think
+      you'll be awfully sorry. I think you will. Oh, Hosy,&rdquo; pleadingly, &ldquo;please
+      go with me. I don't ask you to do many things, now do I? I do ask you to
+      do this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I shook my head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would do almost anything for your sake, Hephzy,&rdquo; I began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But this isn't for my sake. It's for hers. For hers. I'm sure&mdash;I'm
+      ALMOST sure you and she will both be glad you did it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I could not understand it at all. I had never seen her more earnest. She
+      was not the one to ask unreasonable things and yet where her sister's
+      child was concerned she could be obstinate enough&mdash;I knew that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall go whether you do or not,&rdquo; she said, as I stood looking at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean that, Hephzy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I surely do. I'm goin' to see her this very forenoon. And I do hope
+      you'll go with me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I reflected. If she went alone it would be almost as hard for Frances as
+      if I went with her. And the temptation was very strong. The desire to see
+      her once more, only once....
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll go, Hephzy,&rdquo; I said. I didn't mean to say it; the words seemed to
+      come of themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will! Oh, I'm so glad! I'm so glad! And I think&mdash;I think you'll
+      be glad, too, Hosy. I'm hopin' you will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll go,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;But this is the last time you and I must trouble her.
+      I'll go&mdash;not because of any reason you have given me, Hephzy, but
+      because I believe there must be some other and stronger reason, which you
+      haven't told me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy drew a long breath. She seemed to be struggling between a desire to
+      tell me more&mdash;whatever that more might be&mdash;and a determination
+      not to tell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Maybe there is, Hosy,&rdquo; she said, slowly. &ldquo;Maybe there is. I&mdash;I&mdash;Well,
+      there! I must go and buy the tickets. You sit down and wait. I'm skipper
+      of this craft to-day, you know. I'm in command on this voyage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Leatherhead looked exactly as it had on our previous visit. &ldquo;Ash Clump,&rdquo;
+       the villa which the Crippses had been so anxious for us to hire, was still
+      untenanted, or looked to be. We walked on until we reached the Cripps home
+      and entered the Cripps gate. I rang the bell and the maid answered the
+      ring.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In answer to our inquiries she told us that Mr. Cripps was not in. He and
+      Mrs. Cripps had gone to chapel. I remembered then that the day was Sunday.
+      I had actually forgotten it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is Miss Morley in?&rdquo; asked Hephzy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The maid shook her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, ma'am,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Miss Morley ain't in, either. I think she's gone
+      to chapel, too. I ain't sure, ma'am, but I think she 'as. She's not in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She asked if we would leave cards. Hephzy said no.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's 'most noon,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;They'll be back pretty soon. We'll wait. No,
+      we won't come in. We'll wait out here, I guess.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a rustic seat on the lawn near the house and Hephzy seated
+      herself upon it. I walked up and down. I was in a state of what Hephzy
+      would have called &ldquo;nerves.&rdquo; I had determined to be very calm when I met
+      her, to show no emotion, to be very calm and cool, no matter what
+      happened. But this waiting was hard. I grew more nervous every minute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm going to stroll about, Hephzy,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;About the garden and
+      grounds. I sha'n't go far and I'll return soon. I shall be within call.
+      Send one of the servants for me if she&mdash;if the Crippses come before I
+      get back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy did not urge me to remain. Nor did she offer to accompany me. As
+      usual she seemed to read my thoughts and understand them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, Hosy,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;You go and have your walk. I'll wait here.
+      But don't be long, will you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I promised not to be long. The Cripps gardens and grounds were not
+      extensive, but they were well kept even if the beds were geometrically
+      ugly and the color masses jarring and in bad taste. The birds sang, the
+      breeze stirred the leaves and petals, and there was a Sunday quiet, the
+      restful hush of an English Sunday, everywhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I strolled on along the paths, through the gap in the hedge dividing the
+      kitchen garden from the purely ornamental section, past the stables, until
+      I emerged from the shrubbery at the top of a little hill. There was a
+      pleasant view from this hill, the customary view of hedged fields and
+      meadows, flocks of sheep and groups of grazing cattle, and over all the
+      soft blue haze and misty sky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I paused. And then close beside me, I heard a startled exclamation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I turned. In a nook of the shrubbery was another rustic seat. Rising from
+      that seat and gazing at me with a look of amazed incredulity, was&mdash;Frances
+      Morley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not speak. I could not, for the moment. She spoke first.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;You&mdash;here!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And still I did not speak. Where was the calm with which I was to meet
+      her? Where were the carefully planned sentences which were to explain how
+      I had come and why? I don't know where they were; I seemed to know only
+      that she was there, that I was alone with her as I had never thought or
+      meant to be again, and that if I spoke I should say things far different
+      from those I had intended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was recovering from her surprise. She came toward me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you doing here?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;Why did you come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I stammered a word or two, some incoherences to the effect that I had not
+      expected to find her there, that I had been told she was at church. She
+      shook her head, impatiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean why did you come here&mdash;to Leatherhead?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;Why did
+      you come? Did you know&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I interrupted her. If ever I was to explain, or attempt to explain, I
+      realized that it must be at that moment. She might listen to me then,
+      before she had had time to think. Later I knew she would not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew you were here,&rdquo; I broke in, quickly. &ldquo;I&mdash;we&mdash;your aunt
+      knew and we came.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But HOW did you know? Who told you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The&mdash;we learned,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;And we came.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a poor explanation&mdash;or none at all. She seemed to think it so.
+      And yet she seemed more hurt than offended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You came&mdash;yes,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;And you knew that I left Paris because&mdash;Oh,
+      you knew that! I asked you not to follow me. You promised you would not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was ashamed, thoroughly ashamed and disgusted with myself for yielding
+      to Hephzy's entreaties.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; I protested, &ldquo;I did not promise. I did not promise, Frances.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you know I did not wish you to do it. I did not wish you to follow me
+      to Paris, but you did it. I told you you would force me to give up my only
+      means of earning money. You did force me to give it up. I gave it up to
+      please you, for your sake, and now&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you?&rdquo; I cried, eagerly. &ldquo;Did you give it up for my sake, Frances? Did
+      you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know I did. You must know it. And now that I have done it, now that I
+      have given up my opportunity and my&mdash;my self-respect and my one
+      chance and come here to this&mdash;to this place, you&mdash;you&mdash;Oh,
+      how could you! Wasn't I unhappy enough before? And unhappy enough now? Oh,
+      how could you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was more ashamed than ever. I tried desperately to justify my action.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But that was it,&rdquo; I persisted. &ldquo;Don't you see? It was your happiness, the
+      thought that you were unhappy which brought me here. I know&mdash;you told
+      your aunt how unhappy you had been when you were with these people before.
+      I know how much you disliked them. That was why I came. To ask you to give
+      this up as you did the other. To come with us and BE happy. I want you to
+      come, Frances. Think! Think how much I must want you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And, for the moment I thought this appeal had some effect. It seemed to me
+      that her resolution was shaken, that she was wavering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&mdash;you really want me?&rdquo; she repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. Yes, I can't tell you&mdash;I must not tell you how much I want you.
+      And your aunt&mdash;she wants you to come. She is here, too. She will tell
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her manner changed once more. The tone in which she spoke was different.
+      There were no signs of the wavering which I had noticed&mdash;or hoped I
+      noticed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;No. I shall not see my aunt. And I must not talk with you
+      any longer. I asked you not to follow me here. You did it, in spite of my
+      asking. Now, unless you wish to drive me away from here, as you did from
+      Paris, you will leave me and not try to see me again. Oh, don't you see&mdash;CAN'T
+      you see how miserable you are making me? And yet you talk of my
+      happiness!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you aren't happy here. ARE you happy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am happy enough. Yes, I am happy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't believe it. Are these Crippses kind to you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I didn't believe that, either, but I did not say so. Instead I said what I
+      had determined to say, the same thing that I should have said before, in
+      Mayberry and in Paris&mdash;if I could have mustered the courage and
+      decency to say it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;there is something else, something which may have a
+      bearing on your happiness, or may not, I don't know. The night before you
+      left us, at Mayberry, Herbert Bayliss came to me and asked my permission
+      to marry you, if you were willing. He thought you were my niece&mdash;then.
+      I said that&mdash;I said that, although of course I had no shadow of
+      authority over you, I did care for your happiness. I cared for that a
+      great deal. If you loved him I should certainly&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see,&rdquo; she broke in, scornfully. &ldquo;I see. He told you I was here. That is
+      why you came. Did he send you to me to say&mdash;what you are trying to
+      say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, no, no! You are mistaken. You wrong him, Frances. He did not do that.
+      He's not that sort. He's a good fellow, an honorable man. And he does care
+      for you. I know it. He cares greatly. He would, I am sure, make you a good
+      husband, and if you care for him, he would do his best to make you happy,
+      I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again she interrupted. &ldquo;One moment,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;Let me understand. Are you
+      urging me to marry Herbert Bayliss?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. I am not urging you, of course. But if you do care for him&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you don't love him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I wonder if there was relief in my tone. There should not have been, of
+      course, but I fear there was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I do not&mdash;love him. He is a gentleman and I like him well
+      enough, but not in that way. Please don't say any more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well. I only meant&mdash;Tell me this, if you will: Is there someone
+      you do care for?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She did not answer. I had offended her again. She had cause to be
+      offended. What business was it of mine?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon,&rdquo; I said, humbly. &ldquo;I should not have asked that. I have
+      no right to ask it. But if there is someone for whom you care in that way
+      and he cares for you, it&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, don't, don't! He doesn't.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then there is someone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She was silent. I tried to speak like a man, like the man I was pretending
+      to be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad to know it,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;If you care for him he must care for you.
+      He cannot help it. I am sure you will be happy by and by. I can leave you
+      here now with more&mdash;with less reluctance. I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I could not trust myself to go on, although I tried to do so. She
+      answered, without looking at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you can leave me now. I am safe and&mdash;and happy.
+      Good-by.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I took her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-by,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Forgive me for coming. I shall not trouble you again.
+      This time I promise. You may not wish to write us, but we shall write you.
+      And I&mdash;I hope you won't forget us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a lame conclusion and trite enough. She must have thought so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not forget you,&rdquo; she said, simply. &ldquo;And I will try to write
+      occasionally. Yes, I will try. Now please go. Good-by.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I went, without looking back. I strode along the paths, scarcely noticing
+      where I was going. As I neared the corner of the house I heard voices,
+      loud voices. One of them, though it was not as loud as the others, was
+      Hephzy's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew it,&rdquo; she was saying, as I turned the corner. &ldquo;I knew it. I knew
+      there was some reason, some mean selfish reason why you were willin' to
+      take that girl under your wing. I knew it wasn't kind-heartedness and
+      relationship. I knew it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Solomon Cripps who answered. Mr. and Mrs. Cripps, arrayed in their
+      Sabbath black and white, were standing by the door of their villa. Hephzy
+      was standing before them. Her face was set and determined and she looked
+      highly indignant. Mr. Cripps' face was red and frowning and he
+      gesticulated with a red hand, which clasped a Testament. His English was
+      by no means as pure and undefiled as when he had endeavored to persuade us
+      into hiring &ldquo;Ash Clump.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look 'ere,&rdquo; he snarled. &ldquo;Don't you talk to me like that. Don't you
+      suppose I know what I'm doing. You Yankees may be clever at your tricks,
+      but you can't trick me. Don't I know about the money you stole from 'er
+      father? Don't I, eh? You can tell 'er your lies about it being stolen by
+      someone else, but I can see a 'ole through a millstone. You can't trick
+      me, I tell you. They're giving that girl a good 'ome and care and all
+      that, but we're goin' to see she 'as 'er rights. You've filled 'er silly
+      'ead with your stories. You've made 'er think you're all that's good and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was at hand by this time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's all this, Hephzy?&rdquo; I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before Hephzy could reply Mrs. Cripps spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's him!&rdquo; she cried, seizing her husband's arm with one hand and
+      pointing at me with the other. &ldquo;It's him,&rdquo; she cried, venomously. &ldquo;He's
+      here, too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sight of me appeared to upset what little self-control Mr. Cripps had
+      left.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You!&rdquo; he shouted, &ldquo;I might 'ave known you were 'ere. You're the one
+      that's done it. You're responsible. Filling her silly 'ead with lies about
+      your goodness and all that. Making her fall in love with you and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I sprang forward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;WHAT?&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;What are you saying?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was frightened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy,&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;don't look so. Don't! You frighten me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I scarcely heard her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;WHAT did you say?&rdquo; I demanded, addressing Cripps, who shrank back, rather
+      alarmed apparently. &ldquo;Why, you scoundrel! What do you mean by saying that?
+      Speak up! What do you mean by it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      If Mr. Cripps was alarmed his wife was not. She stepped forward and faced
+      me defiantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He means just what he says,&rdquo; she declared, her shrill voice quivering
+      with vindictive spite. &ldquo;And you know what he means perfectly well. You
+      ought to be ashamed of yourself, a man as old as you and she an innocent
+      young girl! You've hypnotized her&mdash;that is what you've done,
+      hypnotized her. All those ridiculous stories about her having no money she
+      believes because you told them to her. She would believe the moon was made
+      of green cheese if you said so. She's mad about you&mdash;the poor little
+      fool! She won't hear a word against you&mdash;says you're the best,
+      noblest man in the world! You! Why she won't even deny that she's in love
+      with you; she was brazen enough to tell me she was proud of it. Oh....
+      Stop! Where are you going? Solomon, stop him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Solomon did not stop me. I am very glad he didn't try. No one could have
+      stopped me then. I was on my way back along the garden path, and if I did
+      not keep to that path, but plunged ruthlessly through flower beds and
+      shrubbery I did not care, nor do I care now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was sitting on the rustic seat where I had left her. There were tears
+      on her cheeks. She had heard me coming&mdash;a deaf person would have
+      heard that&mdash;and she rose as I burst into view.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; she cried, in alarm. &ldquo;Oh, what is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the sight of her I paused. I had not meant to pause; I had intended to
+      take her in my arms, to ask her if what I had just heard was true, to make
+      her answer me. But now, as she stood there before me, so young, so
+      girlish, so beautiful, the hopeless idiocy of the thing struck me with
+      overwhelming force. It WAS idiocy. It couldn't be true.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;Oh, Kent! what is the matter? Why did you
+      come back? What has happened?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I stepped forward. True or false I must know. I must know then and there.
+      It was now or never for me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances,&rdquo; I stammered, &ldquo;I came back because&mdash;I&mdash;I have just
+      heard&mdash;Frances, you told me you loved someone&mdash;not Bayliss, but
+      someone else. Who is that someone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had been pale. My sudden and unexpected appearance had frightened her.
+      Now as we faced each other, as I stood looking down into her face, I saw
+      the color rise and spread over that face from throat to brow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is it?&rdquo; I repeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She drew back.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I can't tell you,&rdquo; she faltered. &ldquo;You mustn't ask me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I do ask. You must tell me, Frances&mdash;Frances, it isn't&mdash;it
+      can't be that you love ME. Do you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She drew back still further. If there had been a way of escape I think she
+      would have taken it. But there was none. The thick shrubbery was behind
+      her and I was between her and the path. And I would not let her pass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Frances, do you?&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;I never meant to ask you. I never
+      meant that you should know. I am so much older, and so&mdash;so unworthy&mdash;it
+      has seemed so hopeless and ridiculous. But I love you, Frances, I have
+      loved you from the very beginning, although at first I didn't realize it.
+      I&mdash;If you do&mdash;if you can&mdash;I&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I faltered, hesitated, and stopped. She did not answer for a moment, a
+      long, long moment. Then:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you surprise me. I didn't suspect&mdash;I didn't
+      think&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I sighed. I had had my answer. Of course it was idiotic. I should have
+      known; I did know.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I understand. Forgive me, please. I was a fool to even
+      think of such a thing. I didn't think it. I didn't dare until&mdash;until
+      just now. Then I was told&mdash;your cousin said&mdash;I might have known
+      he didn't mean what he said. But he said it and&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did he say? Mr. Cripps, do you mean? What did he say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He said&mdash;he said you&mdash;you cared for me&mdash;in that way. Of
+      course you don't&mdash;you can't. I know better. But for the moment I
+      dared to hope. I was crazy, of course. Forgive me, Frances.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked up and then down again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is nothing to forgive,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, there is. There is a great deal. An old&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! hush, please. Don't speak like that. I&mdash;I thank you. I&mdash;you
+      mustn't suppose I am not grateful. I know you pity me. I know how generous
+      you are. But your pity&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It isn't pity. I should pity myself, if that were all. I love you
+      Frances, and I shall always love you. I am not ashamed of it. I shall have
+      that love to comfort me till I die. I am ashamed of having told you, of
+      troubling you again, that is all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was turning away, but I heard her step beside me and felt her hand upon
+      my sleeve. I turned back again. She was looking me full in the face now
+      and her eyes were shining.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What Mr. Cripps said was true,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I could not believe it. I did not believe it even then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;True!&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;No, no! You don't mean&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do mean it. I told him that I loved you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I don't know what more she would have said. I did not wait to hear. She
+      was in my arms at last and all England was whirling about me like a top.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you can't!&rdquo; I found myself saying over and over. I must have said
+      other things before, but I don't remember them. &ldquo;You can't! it is
+      impossible. You! marry an old fossil like me! Oh, Frances, are you sure?
+      Are you sure?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Kent,&rdquo; softly, &ldquo;I am sure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you can't love me. You are sure that your&mdash;You have no reason to
+      be grateful to me, but you have said you were, you know. You are sure you
+      are not doing this because&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sure. It is not because I am grateful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, my dear&mdash;think! Think what it means, I am&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know what you are,&rdquo; tenderly. &ldquo;No one knows as well. But, Kent&mdash;Kent,
+      are YOU sure? It isn't pity for me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I think I convinced her that it was not pity. I know I tried. And I was
+      still trying when the sound of steps and voices on the other side of the
+      shrubbery caused us&mdash;or caused her; I doubt if I should have heard
+      anything except her voice just then&mdash;to start and exclaim:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Someone is coming! Don't, dear, don't! Someone is coming.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the Crippses who were coming, of course. Mr. and Mrs. Cripps and
+      Hephzy. They would have come sooner, I learned afterwards, but Hephzy had
+      prevented it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Solomon's red face was redder still when he saw us together. And Mrs.
+      Cripps' mouth looked more like &ldquo;a crack in a plate&rdquo; than ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;Here's where you are! I thought as much. And you&mdash;you
+      brazen creature!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I objected strongly to &ldquo;brazen creature&rdquo; as a term applied to my future
+      wife. I intended saying so, but Mr. Cripps got ahead of me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You get off my grounds,&rdquo; he blurted, waving his fist. &ldquo;You get out of
+      'ere now or I'll 'ave you put off. Do you 'ear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I should have answered him as he deserved to be answered, but Frances
+      would not let me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't, Kent,&rdquo; she whispered. &ldquo;Don't quarrel with him, please. He is
+      going, Mr. Cripps. We are going&mdash;now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Cripps fairly shrieked. &ldquo;WE are going?&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;Do you mean
+      you are going with him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy joined in, but in a quite different tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are goin'?&rdquo; she said, joyfully. &ldquo;Oh, Frances, are you comin' with
+      us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was my turn now and I rejoiced in the prospect. An entire brigade of
+      Crippses would not have daunted me then. I should have enjoyed defying
+      them all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;she is coming with us, Hephzy. Mr. Cripps, will you be
+      good enough to stand out of the way? Come, Frances.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It is not worth while repeating what Mr. and Mrs. Cripps said. They said a
+      good deal, threatened all sorts of things, lawsuits among the rest. Hephzy
+      fired the last guns for our side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes,&rdquo; she retorted, impatiently. &ldquo;I know you're goin' to sue. Go
+      ahead and sue and prosecute yourselves to death, if you want to. The
+      lawyers'll get their fees out of you, and that's some comfort&mdash;though
+      I shouldn't wonder if THEY had to sue to get even that. And I tell you
+      this: If you don't send Little Frank's&mdash;Miss Morley's trunks to
+      Mayberry inside of two days we'll come and get 'em and we'll come with the
+      sheriff and the police.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Cripps, standing by the gate, fell back upon her last line of
+      intrenchments, the line of piety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And to think,&rdquo; she declared, with upturned eyes, &ldquo;that this is the 'oly
+      Sabbath! Never mind, Solomon. The Lord will punish 'em. I shall pray to
+      Him not to curse them too hard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy's retort was to the point.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wouldn't,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;If I had been doin' what you two have been up to,
+      pretendin' to care for a young girl and offerin' to give her a home, and
+      all the time doin' it just because I thought I could squeeze money out of
+      her, I shouldn't trouble the Lord much. I wouldn't take the risk of
+      callin' His attention to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVIII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      In Which the Pilgrimage Ends Where It Began
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      We did not go to Mayberry that day. We went to London and to the hotel;
+      not Bancroft's, but the hotel where Hephzy and I had stayed the previous
+      night. It was Frances' wish that we should not go to Bancroft's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't think that I could go there, Kent,&rdquo; she whispered to me, on the
+      train. &ldquo;Mr. and Mrs Jameson were very kind, and I liked them so much, but&mdash;but
+      they would ask questions; they wouldn't understand. It would be hard to
+      make them understand. Don't you see, Kent?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I saw perfectly. Considering that the Jamesons believed Miss Morley to be
+      my niece, it would indeed be hard to make them understand. I was not
+      inclined to try. I had had quite enough of the uncle and niece business.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So we went to the other hotel and if the clerk was surprised to see us
+      again so soon he said nothing about it. Perhaps he was not surprised. It
+      must take a good deal to surprise a hotel clerk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the train, in our compartment&mdash;a first-class compartment, you may
+      be sure; I would have hired the whole train if it had been necessary;
+      there was nothing too good or too expensive for us that afternoon&mdash;on
+      the train, discussing the ride to London, Hephzy did most of the talking.
+      I was too happy to talk much and Frances, sitting in her corner and
+      pretending to look out of the window, was silent also. I should have been
+      fearful that she was not happy, that she was already repenting her
+      rashness in promising to marry the Bayport &ldquo;quahaug,&rdquo; but occasionally she
+      looked at me, and, whenever she did, the wireless message our eyes
+      exchanged, sent that quahaug aloft on a flight through paradise. A flying
+      clam is an unusual specimen, I admit, but no other quahaug in this wide,
+      wide world had an excuse like mine for developing wings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy did not appear to notice our silence. She chatted and laughed
+      continuously. We had not told her our secret&mdash;the great secret&mdash;and
+      if she suspected it she kept her suspicions to herself. Her chatter was a
+      curious mixture: triumph over the detached Crippses; joy because, after
+      all, &ldquo;Little Frank&rdquo; had consented to come with us, to live with us again;
+      and triumph over me because her dreams and presentiments had come true.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told you, Hosy,&rdquo; she kept saying. &ldquo;I told you! I said it would all come
+      out in the end. He wouldn't believe it, Frances. He said I was an old
+      lunatic and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn't say anything of the kind,&rdquo; I broke in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You said what amounted to that and I don't know as I blame you. But I
+      knew&mdash;I just KNEW he and I had been 'sent' on this course and that we&mdash;all
+      three of us&mdash;would make the right port in the end. And we have&mdash;we
+      have, haven't we, Frances?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Frances, simply. &ldquo;We have, Auntie&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There! do you hear that, Hosy? Isn't it good to hear her call me 'Auntie'
+      again! Now I'm satisfied; or&rdquo;&mdash;with a momentary hesitation&mdash;&ldquo;pretty
+      nearly satisfied, anyway.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, then you're not quite satisfied, after all,&rdquo; I observed. &ldquo;What more
+      do you want?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want just one thing more; just one, that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I believed I know what that one thing was, but I asked her. She shot a
+      look at me, a look of indignant meaning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind,&rdquo; she said, decidedly. &ldquo;That's my affair. Oh, Ho!&rdquo; with a
+      reminiscent chuckle, &ldquo;how that Cripps woman did glare at me when I said
+      'twas pretty risky her callin' the Almighty's attention to their doin's. I
+      hope it did her good. Maybe she'll think of it next time she goes to
+      chapel. But I suppose she won't. All such folks care for is money. They
+      wouldn't be so anxious to get to Heaven if they hadn't read about the
+      golden streets.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That evening, at the hotel, Frances told us her story, the story of which
+      we had guessed a good deal, but of which she had told so little&mdash;how,
+      after her father's death, she had gone to live with the Crippses because,
+      as she thought, they wished her to do so from motives of generosity and
+      kindness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are not really relatives of mine,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I am glad of that.
+      Mrs. Cripps married a cousin of my father's; he died and then she married
+      Mr. Cripps. After Father's death they wrote me a very kind letter, or I
+      thought it kind at the time. They said all sorts of kindly things, they
+      offered me a home, they said I should be like their own daughter. So,
+      having nowhere else to go, I went to them. I lived there nearly two years.
+      Oh, what a life it was! They are very churchly people, they call
+      themselves religious, but I don't. They pretend to be&mdash;perhaps they
+      think they are&mdash;good, very good. But they aren't&mdash;they aren't.
+      They are hard and cruel. Mr. Cripps owns several tenements where poor
+      people live. I have heard things from those people that&mdash;Oh, I can't
+      tell you! I ran away because I had learned what they really were.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy nodded. &ldquo;What I can't understand,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;is why they offered
+      you a home in the first place. It was because they thought you had money
+      comin' to you, that's plain enough now; but how did they know?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances colored. &ldquo;I'm afraid&mdash;I'm afraid Father must have written
+      them,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;He needed money very much in his later years and he may
+      have written them asking&mdash;asking for loans and offering my
+      'inheritance' as security. I think now that that was it. But I did not
+      think so then. And&mdash;and, Oh, Auntie, you mustn't think too harshly of
+      Father. He was very good to me, he really was. And DON'T you think he
+      believed&mdash;he had made himself believe&mdash;that there was money of
+      his there in America? I can't believe he&mdash;he would lie to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course he didn't lie,&rdquo; said Hephzy, promptly. I could have hugged her
+      for saying it. &ldquo;He was sick and&mdash;and sort of out of his head, poor
+      man, and I don't doubt he made himself believe all sorts of things. Of
+      course he didn't lie&mdash;to his own daughter. But why,&rdquo; she added,
+      quickly, before Frances could ask another question, &ldquo;did you go back to
+      those precious Cripps critters after you left Paris?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances looked at me. &ldquo;I thought it would please you,&rdquo; she said, simply.
+      &ldquo;I knew you didn't want me to sing in public. Kent had said he would be
+      happier if he knew I had given up that life and was among friends. And
+      they&mdash;they had called themselves my friends. When I went back to them
+      they welcomed me. Mr. Cripps called me his 'prodigal daughter,' and Mrs.
+      Cripps prayed over me. It wasn't until I told them I had no 'inheritance,'
+      except one of debt, that they began to show me what they really were. They
+      wouldn't believe it. They said you were trying to defraud me. It was
+      dreadful. I&mdash;I think I should have run away again if&mdash;if you had
+      not come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, we did come,&rdquo; said Hephzy, cheerfully, &ldquo;and I thank the good Lord
+      for it. Now we won't talk any more about THAT.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She left us alone soon afterward, going to my room&mdash;we were in hers,
+      hers and Frances'&mdash;to unpack my trunk once more. She wouldn't hear of
+      my unpacking it. When she was gone Frances turned to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&mdash;you haven't told her,&rdquo; she faltered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;not yet. I wanted to speak with you first. I can't believe
+      it is true. Or, if it is, that it is right. Oh, my dear, do you realize
+      what you are doing? I am&mdash;I am ever so much older than you. I am not
+      worthy of you. You could have made a so much better marriage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at me. She was smiling, but there was a tiny wrinkle between
+      her brows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Meaning,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I suppose, that I might have married Doctor Bayliss.
+      I might perhaps marry him even yet, if I wished. I&mdash;I think he would
+      have me, if I threw myself at his head.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I admitted, grudgingly. &ldquo;Yes, he loves you, Frances.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kent, when we were there in Mayberry it seemed to me that my aunt and you
+      were almost anxious that I should marry him. It seemed to me that you took
+      every opportunity to throw me in his way; you refused my invitations for
+      golf and tennis and suggested that I play with him instead. It used to
+      annoy me. I resented it. I thought you were eager to get rid of me. I did
+      not know then the truth about Father and&mdash;and the money. And I
+      thought you hoped I might marry him and&mdash;and not trouble you any
+      more. But I think I understand now. You&mdash;you did not care for me so
+      much then. Was that it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I shook my head. &ldquo;Care for you!&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;I cared for you so much that
+      I did not dare trust myself with you. I did not dare to think of you, and
+      yet I could think of no one else. I know now that I fell in love with you
+      when I first met you at that horrible Briggs woman's lodging-house. Don't
+      you see? That was the very reason why. Don't you see?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I'm afraid I don't quite see. If you cared for me like that how could
+      you be willing for me to marry him? That is what puzzles me. I don't
+      understand it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was because I did care for you. It was because I cared so much, I
+      wanted you to be happy. I never dreamed that you could care for an old,
+      staid, broken-down bookworm like me. It wasn't thinkable. I can scarcely
+      think it now. Oh, Frances, are you SURE you are not making a mistake? Are
+      you sure it isn't gratitude which makes you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She rose from her chair and came to me. Her eyes were wet, but there was a
+      light in them like the sunlight behind a summer shower.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't, please don't!&rdquo; she begged. &ldquo;And caring for me like that you could
+      still come to me as you did this morning and suggest my marrying him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes, I came because&mdash;because I knew he loved you and I thought
+      that you might not know it. And if you did know it I thought&mdash;perhaps&mdash;you
+      might be happier and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I faltered and stopped. She was standing beside me, looking up into my
+      face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did know it,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;He told me, there in Paris. And I told him&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You told him&mdash;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I told him that I liked him; I do, I do; he is a good man. But I told him&mdash;&rdquo;
+       she rose on tiptoe and kissed me&mdash;&ldquo;I told him that I loved you, dear.
+      See! here is the pin you gave me. It is the one thing I could not leave
+      behind when I ran away from Mayberry. I meant to keep that always&mdash;and
+      I always shall.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After a time we remembered Hephzy. It would be more truthful to say that
+      Frances remembered her. I had forgotten Hephzy altogether, I am ashamed to
+      say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kent,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;don't you think we should tell Auntie now? She will be
+      pleased, I hope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pleased! She will be&mdash;I can't think of a word to describe it. She
+      loves you, too, dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know. I hope she will love me more now. She worships you, Kent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am afraid she does. She doesn't realize what a tinsel god I am. And I
+      fear you don't either. I am not a great man. I am not even a famous
+      author. I&mdash;Are you SURE, Frances?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She laughed lightly. &ldquo;Kent,&rdquo; she whispered, &ldquo;what was it Doctor Bayliss
+      called you when you offered to promise not to follow me to Leatherhead?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had told her the whole story of my last interview with Bayliss at the
+      Continental.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He called me a silly ass,&rdquo; I answered promptly. &ldquo;I don't care.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Neither do I; but don't you think you are one, just a little bit of one,
+      in some things? You mustn't ask me if I am sure again. Come! we will go to
+      Auntie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy had finished unpacking my trunk and was standing by the closet
+      door, shaking the wrinkles out of my dinner coat. She heard us enter and
+      turned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never saw clothes in such a mess in my life,&rdquo; she announced. &ldquo;And I
+      packed this trunk, too. I guess the trembles in my head must have got into
+      my fingers when I did it. I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stopped at the beginning of the sentence. I had taken Frances by the
+      hand and led her up to where she was standing. Hephzy said nothing, she
+      stood there and stared at us, but the coat fell to the floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hephzy,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;I've come to make an apology. I believe in dreams and
+      presentiments and Spiritualism and all the rest of it now. You were right.
+      Our pilgrimage has ended just as you declared it would. I know now that we
+      were 'sent' upon it. Frances has said&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy didn't wait to hear any more. She threw her arms about Frances'
+      neck, then about mine, hugged us both, and then, to my utter astonishment,
+      sat down upon the closed trunk and burst into tears. When we tried to
+      comfort her she waved us away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't touch me,&rdquo; she commanded. &ldquo;Don't say anything to me. Just let me
+      be. I've done all kinds of loony things in my life and this attack is just
+      natural, that's all. I&mdash;I'll get over it in a minute. There!&rdquo; rising
+      and dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief, &ldquo;I'm over it now. Hosy
+      Knowles, I've cried about a million times since&mdash;since that awful
+      mornin' in Mayberry. You didn't know it, but I have. I'm through now. I'm
+      never goin' to cry any more. I'm goin' to laugh! I'm going to sing! I
+      declare if you don't grab me and hold me down I shall dance! Oh, Oh, OH!
+      I'm so glad! I'm so glad!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We sat up until the early morning hours, talking and planning. We were to
+      go back to America as soon as we could secure passage; upon that we all
+      agreed in the end. I was the only one who hesitated. I had a vague feeling
+      of uneasiness, a dread, that Frances might not wish it, that her saying
+      she would love to go was merely to please me. I remembered how she had
+      hated America and Americans, or professed to hate them, in the days of our
+      first acquaintanceship. I thought of quiet, sleepy, humdrum old Bayport
+      and the fear that she might be disappointed when she saw it, that she
+      might be lonely and unhappy there, was strong. So when Hephzy talked of
+      our going straight to the steamship offices next day I demurred. I
+      suggested a Continental trip, to Switzerland, to the Mediterranean&mdash;anywhere.
+      I forgot that my means were limited, that I had been idle for longer than
+      I should have been, and that I absolutely must work soon. I forgot
+      everything, and talked, as Hephzy said afterward, &ldquo;regardless, like a
+      whole kerosene oil company.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But, to my surprise, it was Frances herself who was most insistent upon
+      our going to America. She wanted to go, she said. Of course she did not
+      mean to be selfish, and if Auntie and I really wished to go to the
+      Continent or remain in England she would be quite content.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Oh Kent,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;if you are suggesting all this merely because
+      you think I will like it, please don't. I have lived in France and I have
+      been very unhappy there. I have been happier here in England, but I have
+      been unhappy here, too. I have no friends here now. I have no friends
+      anywhere except you. I know you both want to see your home again&mdash;you
+      must. And&mdash;and your home will be mine now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So we decided to sail for America, and that without delay. And the next
+      morning, before breakfast, Hephzy came to my room with another suggestion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hosy,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I've been thinkin'. All our things, or most of 'em, are
+      at Mayberry. Somebody's got to go there, of course, to pack up and make
+      arrangements for our leavin'. She&mdash;Frances, I mean&mdash;would go,
+      too, if we asked her, I suppose likely; she'd do anything you asked, now.
+      But it would be awful hard for her. She'd meet all the people she used to
+      know there and they wouldn't understand and 'twould be hard to explain.
+      The Baylisses know the real truth, but the rest of 'em don't. You'd have
+      all that niece and uncle mess again, and I don't suppose you want any more
+      of THAT.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should say I didn't!&rdquo; I exclaimed, fervently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, that's the way it seemed to me. So she hadn't ought to go to
+      Mayberry. And we can't leave her here alone in London. She'd be lonesome,
+      for one thing, and those everlastin' Crippses might find out where she
+      was, for another. It may be that that Solomon and his wife will let her go
+      and say nothin', but I doubt it. So long as they think she's got a cent
+      comin' to her they'll pester her in every way they can, I believe. That
+      woman's nose can smell money as far as a cat can smell fish. No, we can't
+      leave Little Frank here alone. Of course, I might stay with her and you
+      might go by yourself, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This way out of the difficulty had occurred to me; so when she seemed to
+      hesitate, I asked: &ldquo;But what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it won't be very pleasant for you in Mayberry. You'd have
+      considerable explainin' to do. And, more'n that, Hosy, there's all that
+      packin' up to do and I've seen you try to pack a trunk too often before.
+      You're just as likely to pack a flat-iron on top of a lookin' glass as to
+      do the other thing. No, I'm the one to go to Mayberry. I must go by myself
+      and you must stay here in London with her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't do that, Hephzy,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;How could I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You couldn't, as things are, of course. But if they were different. If
+      she was your wife you could. And then if that Solomon thing came you could&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I interrupted. &ldquo;My wife!&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;Hephzy, what are you talking about?
+      Do you mean&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean that you and she might be married right off, to-day perhaps. Then
+      everything would be all right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I stared at her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But&mdash;but she wouldn't consent,&rdquo; I stammered. &ldquo;It is impossible. She
+      wouldn't think of such a thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy nodded. &ldquo;Oh, yes, she would,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;She is thinkin' of it now.
+      She and I have just had a long talk. She's a sensible girl, Hosy, and she
+      listened to reason. If she was sure that you wanted to marry her so soon
+      she&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wanted to!&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;Hephzy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy nodded again. &ldquo;Then that's settled,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It's a big
+      disappointment to me, I give in. I'd set my heart on your bein' married at
+      our meetin'-house in Bayport, with Mr. Partridge to do the marryin', and a
+      weddin' reception at our house and&mdash;and everything. But I guess this
+      is the best, and I know it's the most sensible. But, Oh Hosy, there's one
+      thing I can't give up. I want you to be married at the American
+      Ambassador's or somewhere like it and by an American minister. I sha'n't
+      feel safe if it's done anywhere else and by a foreigner, even if he's
+      English, which don't seem foreign to me at all any more. No, he's got to
+      be an American and&mdash;and, Oh, Hosy! DO try to get a Methodist.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I couldn't get a Methodist, but by consulting the hotel register I found
+      an American clergyman, a Congregationalist, who was a fine fellow and
+      consented to perform the ceremony. And, if we were not married at the
+      American Embassy, we were at the rooms of the London consul, whom
+      Matthews, at the Camford Street office, knew and who was another splendid
+      chap and glad to oblige a fellow-countryman, particularly after seeing the
+      lady he was to marry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The consul and his wife and Hephzy were our only witnesses. Frances'
+      wedding gown was not new, but it was very becoming&mdash;the consul's wife
+      said so, and she should know. Also she said she had never seen a sweeter
+      or more beautiful bride. No one said anything concerning the bridegroom's
+      appearance, but he did not care. It was a drizzly, foggy day, but that
+      made no difference. A Kansas cyclone and a Bayport no'theaster combined
+      could not have cast a damper on that day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When it was over, Hephzy, who had been heroically struggling to keep her
+      vow not to shed another tear during our pilgrimage, hugged us both.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo; she faltered, &ldquo;I&mdash;I can't say it, but you know how
+      I feel. There's nothin' I sha'n't believe after this. I used to believe
+      I'd never travel, but I have. And there in Mayberry I believed I'd never
+      be happy again, but I am. HAPPY! hap&mdash;hap&mdash;Oh dear! WHAT a fool
+      I am! I ca&mdash;I can't help it! I expect I look like the most miserable
+      thing on earth, but that's because I AM so happy. God bless you both! Now&mdash;now
+      don't so much as look at me for a few minutes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That afternoon she left for Mayberry to do the &ldquo;packing up&rdquo; and my wife
+      and I were alone&mdash;and together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I saw London again during the next few days. We rode on the tops of
+      busses, we visited Kew Gardens and Hampton Court and Windsor. We took long
+      trips up and down the Thames on the little steamers. Frances called them
+      our honeymoon trips. The time flew by. Then I received a note from Hephzy
+      that the &ldquo;packing up&rdquo; was finished at last and that she was returning to
+      London.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was raining hard, the morning of her arrival, and I went alone to meet
+      her at the railway station. I was early there and, as I was walking up,
+      awaiting the train, I heard someone speak my name. I turned and there,
+      immaculate, serene and debonair as ever, was A. Carleton Heathcroft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, Knowles,&rdquo; he said, cheerfully. &ldquo;Thought it was you. Haven't seen you
+      of late. Missed you at Burgleston, on the course. How are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I told him I was quite well, and inquired concerning his own health.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Topping,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;Rotten weather, eh&mdash;what? And how's Miss&mdash;Oh,
+      dear me, always forget the name! The eccentric aunt who is so intensely
+      patriotic and American&mdash;How is she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is well, too,&rdquo; I answered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Couldn't think of her being ill, somehow,&rdquo; he observed. &ldquo;And where have
+      you been, may I ask?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I said I had been on the Continent for a short stay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes! I remember now. Someone said you had gone. That reminds me: Did
+      you go to Paris? Did you see the girl who sang at the Abbey&mdash;the one
+      I told you of, who looked so like that pretty niece of yours? Hope you
+      did. The resemblance was quite extraordinary. Did you see her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I dodged the question. I asked him what he had been doing since the day of
+      the golf tournament.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&mdash;Oh, by Jove!&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;now I am going to surprise you. I
+      have been getting ready to take the fatal step. I'm going to be married.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Married!&rdquo; I repeated. &ldquo;Really? The&mdash;the Warwickshire young lady, I
+      presume.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. How did you know of her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your aunt&mdash;Lady Carey&mdash;mentioned that your&mdash;your
+      affections were somewhat engaged in that quarter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did she? Really! Yes, she would mention it, I suppose. She mentions it to
+      everybody; it's a sort of hobby of hers, like my humble self, and the
+      roses. She has been more insistent of late and at last I consented to
+      oblige her. Do you know, Knowles, I think she was rather fearful that I
+      might be smitten by your Miss Morley. Shared your fears, eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled, but I said nothing. A train which I believed to be the one upon
+      which Hephzy was expected, was drawing into the station.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A remarkably attractive girl, your niece,&rdquo; he went on. &ldquo;Have you heard
+      from her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I said, absently. &ldquo;I must say good-by, Heathcroft. That is the
+      train I have been waiting for.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, is it. Then, au revoir, Knowles. By the way, kindly remember me to
+      your niece when you see her, will you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will. But&mdash;&rdquo; I could not resist the temptation; &ldquo;but she isn't my
+      niece,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I say! What? Not your niece? What is she then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is my wife&mdash;now,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Good-by, Mr. Heathcroft.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hurried away before he could do more than gasp. I think I shook even his
+      serene composure at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I told Hephzy about it as we rode to the hotel in the cab.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was silly, I suppose,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I told him on the spur of the moment.
+      I imagine all Mayberry, not to mention Burgleston Bogs, will have
+      something to talk about now. They expect almost anything of Americans, or
+      some of them do, but the marriage of an uncle and niece ought to be a
+      surprise, I should think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy laughed. &ldquo;The Baylisses will explain,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I told the old
+      doctor and his wife all about it. They were very much pleased, that was
+      plain enough. They knew she wasn't your niece and they'll tell the other
+      folks. That'll be all right, Hosy. Yes, Doctor and Mrs. Bayliss were
+      tickled almost to death. It stops all their worry about their son and
+      Frances, of course. He is in Switzerland now, poor chap. They'll write him
+      and he'll come home again by and by where he ought to be. And he'll forget
+      by and by, too. He's only a boy and he'll forget. So THAT'S all right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Everybody sent their love to you,&rdquo; she went on. &ldquo;The curates and the
+      Samsons and everybody. Mr. Cole and his wife are comin' back next week and
+      the servants'll take care of the rectory till they come. Everybody was so
+      glad to see me, and they're goin' to write and everything. I declare! I
+      felt real bad to leave 'em. They're SUCH nice people, these English folks.
+      Aren't they, Hosy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They were and are. I hope that some day I may have, in my own country, the
+      opportunity to repay a little of the hospitality and kindness that my
+      Mayberry friends bestowed on me in theirs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We sailed for home two days later. A pleasant voyage it was, on a good
+      ship and with agreeable fellow-passengers. And, at last, one bright,
+      cloudless morning, a stiff breeze blowing and the green and white waves
+      leaping and tossing in the sunlight, we saw ahead of us a little speck&mdash;the
+      South Shoal lightship. Everyone crowded to the rail, of course. Hephzy
+      sighed, a sigh of pure happiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nantucket!&rdquo; she said, reading the big letters on the side of the little
+      vessel. &ldquo;Nantucket! Don't that sound like home, Hosy! Nantucket and Cape
+      Cod are next-door neighbors, as you might say! My! the air seems different
+      already. I believe I can almost smell the Bayport flats. Do you know what
+      I am goin' to do as soon as I get into my kitchen? After I've seen some of
+      my neighbors and the cat and the hens, of course. I'm going to make a clam
+      chowder. I've been just dyin' for a clam chowder ever since we left
+      England.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And the next morning we landed at New York. Jim Campbell was at the wharf
+      to meet us. His handshake was a welcome home which was good to feel. He
+      welcomed Hephzy just as heartily. But I saw him looking at Frances with
+      curiosity and I flattered myself, admiration, and I chuckled as I thought
+      of the surprise which I was about to give him. It would be a surprise,
+      sure enough. I had written him nothing of the recent wonderful happenings
+      in Paris and in London, and I had sworn Matthews to secrecy likewise. No,
+      he did not know, he did not suspect, and I gloried in the opportunity
+      which was mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jim,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;there is one member of our party whom you have not met.
+      Frances, you have heard me speak of Mr. Campbell very often. Here he is.
+      Jim, I have the pleasure of presenting you to Mrs. Knowles, my wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jim stood the shock remarkably well, considering. He gave me one glance, a
+      glance which expressed a portion of his feelings, and then he and Frances
+      shook hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mrs. Knowles,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I&mdash;you'll excuse my apparent lack of
+      intellect, but&mdash;but this husband of yours has&mdash;I've known him a
+      good while and I thought I had lost all capacity for surprise at anything
+      he might do, but&mdash;but I hadn't. I&mdash;I&mdash;Please don't mind me;
+      I'm really quite sane at times. I am very, very glad. May we shake hands
+      again?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He insisted upon our breakfasting with him at a near-by hotel. When he and
+      I were alone together he seized my arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Confound you!&rdquo; he exclaimed. &ldquo;You old chump! What do you mean by
+      springing this thing on me without a word of warning? I never was as
+      nearly knocked out in my life. What do you mean by it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed. &ldquo;It is all part of your prescription,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;You told me I
+      should marry, you know. Do you approve of my selection?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Approve of it! Why, man, she's&mdash;she's wonderful. Approve of YOUR
+      selection! How about hers? You durned quahaug! How did you do it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I gave him a condensed and hurried resume of the whole story. He did not
+      interrupt once&mdash;a perfectly amazing feat for him&mdash;and when I had
+      finished he shook his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's no use,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I'm too good for the business I am in. I am
+      wasting my talents. <i>I</i> sent you over there. <i>I</i> told you to go.
+      <i>I</i> prescribed travel and a wife and all the rest. <i>I</i> did it.
+      I'm going to quit the publishing game. I'm going to set up as a
+      specialist, a brain specialist, for clams. And I'll use your face as a
+      testimonial: 'Kent Knowles, Quahaug. Before and After Taking.' Man, you
+      look ten years younger than you did when you went away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must not take all the credit,&rdquo; I told him. &ldquo;You forget Hephzy and her
+      dreams, the dream she told us about that day at Bayport. That dream has
+      come true; do you realize it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He nodded. &ldquo;I admit it,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;She is a better specialist than I. I
+      shall have to take her into partnership. 'Campbell and Cahoon. Prescribers
+      and Predictors. Authors Made Human.' I'll speak to her about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he said good-by to us at the Grand Central Station he asked me another
+      question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kent,&rdquo; he whispered, &ldquo;what are you going to do now? What are you going to
+      do with her? Are you and she going back to Bayport to be Mr. and Mrs.
+      Quahaug? Is that your idea?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I shook my head. &ldquo;We're going back to Bayport,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;but how long we
+      shall stay there I don't know. One thing you may be sure of, Jim; I shall
+      be a quahaug no more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He nodded. &ldquo;I think you're right,&rdquo; he declared. &ldquo;She'll see to that, or I
+      miss my guess. No, my boy, your quahaug days are over. There's nothing of
+      the shellfish about her; she's a live woman, as well as a mighty pretty
+      one, and she cares enough about you to keep you awake and in the game. I
+      congratulate you, Kent, and I'm almost as happy as you are. Also I shall
+      play the optimist at our next directors' meeting; I see signs of a boom in
+      the literature factory. Go to it, my son. You have my blessing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We took the one o'clock train for Boston, remained there over night, and
+      left on the early morning &ldquo;accommodation&rdquo;&mdash;so called, I think,
+      because it accommodates the train hands&mdash;for Cape Cod. As we neared
+      Buzzard's Bay my spirits, which had been at topnotch, began to sink. When
+      the sand dunes of Barnstable harbor hove in sight they sank lower and
+      lower. It was October, the summer people, most of them, had gone, the
+      station platforms were almost deserted, the more pretentious cottages were
+      closed. The Cape looked bare and brown and wind-swept. I thought of the
+      English fields and hedges, of the verdant beauty of the Mayberry pastures.
+      What SORT of a place would she think this, the home to which I was
+      bringing her?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She had been very much excited and very much interested. New York, with
+      its sky-scrapers and trolleys, its electric signs and clean white
+      buildings, the latter so different from the grimy, gray dwellings and
+      shops of London, had been a wonderland to her. She had liked the Pullman
+      and the dining-car and the Boston hotel. But this, this was different. How
+      would she like sleepy, old Bayport and the people of Bayport.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, I should soon know. Even the morning &ldquo;accommodation&rdquo; reaches Bayport
+      some time or other. We were the only passengers to alight at the station,
+      and Elmer Snow, the station agent, and Gabe Lumley, who drives the depot
+      wagon, were the only ones to welcome us. Their welcome was hearty enough,
+      I admit. Gabe would have asked a hundred questions if I had answered the
+      first of the hundred, but he seemed strangely reluctant to answer those I
+      asked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bayport was gettin' along first-rate, he told me. Tad Simpson's youngest
+      child had diphtheria, but was sittin' up now and the fish weirs had caught
+      consider'ble mackerel that summer. So much he was willing to say, but he
+      said little more. I asked how the house and garden were looking and he
+      cal'lated they were all right. Pumping Gabe Lumley was a new experience
+      for me. Ordinarily he doesn't need pumping. I could not understand it. I
+      saw Hephzy and he in consultation on the station platform and I wondered
+      if she had been able to get more news than I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We rattled along the main road, up the hill by the Whittaker place&mdash;I
+      looked eagerly for a glimpse of Captain Cy himself, but I didn't see him&mdash;and
+      on until we reached our gate. Frances said very little during our progress
+      through the village. I did not dare speak to her; I was afraid of asking
+      her how she liked what she had seen of Bayport. And Hephzy, too, was
+      silent, although she kept her head out of the window most of the time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But when the depot wagon entered the big gate and stopped before the side
+      door I felt that I must say something. I must not appear fearful or
+      uneasy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here we are!&rdquo; I cried, springing out and helping her and Hephzy to
+      alight. &ldquo;Here we are at last. This is home, dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then the door opened and I saw that the dining-room was filled with
+      people, people whom I had known all my life. Mr. Partridge, the minister,
+      was there, and his wife, and Captain Whittaker and his wife, and the
+      Dimicks and the Salterses and more. Before I could recover from my
+      surprise Mr. Partridge stepped forward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Knowles,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;on this happy occasion it is our privilege to&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Captain Cy interrupted him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good Lord!&rdquo; he exclaimed, &ldquo;don't make a speech to him now, Mr. Partridge.
+      Welcome home, Kent! We're all mighty glad to see you back again safe and
+      sound. And Hephzy, too. By the big dipper, Hephzy, the sight of you is
+      good for sore eyes! And I suppose this is your wife, Kent. Well, we&mdash;Hey!
+      I might have known Phoebe would get ahead of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For Mrs. Whittaker and Frances were shaking hands. Others were crowding
+      forward to do so. And the table was set and there were flowers everywhere
+      and, in the background, was Susanna Wixon, grinning from ear to ear, with
+      the cat&mdash;our cat&mdash;who seemed the least happy of the party, in
+      her arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy had written Mrs. Whittaker from London, telling her of my marriage;
+      she had telegraphed from New York the day before, announcing the hour of
+      our return. And this was the result.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When it was all over and they had gone&mdash;they would not remain for
+      dinner, although we begged them to do so&mdash;when they had gone and
+      Hephzy had fled to the yard to inspect the hens, I turned to my wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Frances,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;this is home. Here is where Hephzy and I have lived
+      for so long. I&mdash;I hope you may be happy here. It is a rather crude
+      place, but&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She came to me and put her arms about my neck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't, my dear, don't!&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;It is beautiful. It is home. And&mdash;and
+      you know I have never had a home, a real home before.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you like it?&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;You really like it? It is so different from
+      England. The people&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are dear, kind people. And they like you and respect you, Kent. How
+      could you say they didn't! I know I shall love them all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I made a dash for the kitchen. &ldquo;Hephzy!&rdquo; I shouted. &ldquo;Hephzy! She does like
+      it. She likes Bayport and the people and everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy was just entering at the back door. She did not seem in the least
+      surprised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course she likes it,&rdquo; she said, with decision. &ldquo;How could anybody help
+      likin' Bayport?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIX
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Which Treats of Quahaugs in General
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Asaph Tidditt helped me to begin this long chronicle of a quahaug's
+      pilgrimage. Perhaps it is fitting that Asaph should end it. He dropped in
+      for a call the other afternoon and, as I had finished my day's &ldquo;stunt&rdquo; at
+      the desk, I assisted in entertaining him. Frances was in the sitting-room
+      also and Hephzy joined us soon afterward. Mr. Tidditt had stopped at the
+      post-office on his way down and he had the Boston morning paper in his
+      hand. Of course he was filled to the brim with war news. We discuss little
+      else in Bayport now; even the new baby at the parsonage has to play second
+      fiddle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My godfreys!&rdquo; exclaimed Asaph, as soon as he sat down in the rocking
+      chair and put his cap on the floor beneath it. &ldquo;My godfreys, but they're
+      havin' awful times over across, now ain't they. Killin' and fightin' and
+      battlin' and slaughterin'! It don't seem human to me somehow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is human, I'm afraid,&rdquo; I said, with a sigh. &ldquo;Altogether too human.
+      We're a poor lot, we, humans, after all. We pride ourselves on our
+      civilization, but after all, it takes very little to send us back to
+      savagery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's so,&rdquo; said Asaph, with conviction. &ldquo;That's true about everybody but
+      us folks in the United States. We are awful fortunate, we are. We ain't
+      savages. We was born in a free country, and we've been brought up right, I
+      declare! I beg your pardon, Mrs. Knowles; I forgot you wasn't born in
+      Bayport.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances smiled. &ldquo;No apology is needed, Mr. Tidditt,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I confess
+      to having been born a&mdash;savage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you're all right now,&rdquo; said Asaph, hastily, trying to cover his slip.
+      &ldquo;You're all right now. You're just as American as the rest of us. Kent,
+      suppose this war in Europe is goin' to hurt your trade any? It's goin' to
+      hurt a good many folks's. They tell me groceries and such like is goin'
+      way up. Lucky we've got fish and clams to depend on. Clams and quahaugs'll
+      keep us from starvin' for a spell. Oh,&rdquo; with a chuckle, &ldquo;speakin' of
+      quahaugs reminds me. Did you know they used to call your husband a
+      quahaug, Mrs. Knowles? That's what they used to call him round here&mdash;'The
+      Quahaug.' They called him that 'count of his keepin' inside his shell all
+      the time and not mixin' with folks, not toadyin' up to the summer crowd
+      and all. I always respected him for it. <i>I</i> don't toady to nobody
+      neither.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy had come in by this time and now she took a part in the
+      conversation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They don't call him 'The Quahaug' any more,&rdquo; she declared, indignantly.
+      &ldquo;He's been out of his shell more and seen more than most of the folks in
+      this town.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know it; I know it. And he's kept goin' ever since. Runnin' to New
+      York, he and you,&rdquo; with a nod toward Frances, &ldquo;and travelin' to Washin'ton
+      and Niagary Falls and all. Wonder to me how he does as much writin' as he
+      does. That last book of yours is sellin' first-rate, they tell me, Kent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He referred to the novel I began in Mayberry. I have rewritten and
+      finished it since, and it has had a surprising sale. The critics seem to
+      think I have achieved my first genuine success.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you writin' now?&rdquo; asked Asaph. &ldquo;More of them yarns about pirates
+      and such? Land sakes! when I go by this house nights and see a light in
+      your library window there, Kent, and know you're pluggin' along amongst
+      all them adventures, I wonder how you can stand it. 'Twould give me the
+      shivers. Godfreys! the last time I read one of them yarns&mdash;that about
+      the 'Black Brig' 'twas&mdash;I hardly dast to go to bed. And I DIDN'T dast
+      to put out the light. I see a pirate in every corner, grittin' his teeth.
+      Writin' another of that kind, are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;this one is quite different. You will have no trouble in
+      sleeping over this one, Ase.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's a comfort. Got a little Bayport in it? Seems to me you ought to
+      put a little Bayport in, for a change.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I smiled. &ldquo;There is a little in this,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;A little at the
+      beginning, and, perhaps, at the end.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't say! You ain't got me in it, have you? I'd&mdash;I'd look kind
+      of funny in a book, wouldn't I?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed, but I did not answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not that I ain't seen things in my life,&rdquo; went on Asaph, hopefully. &ldquo;A
+      man can't be town clerk in a live town like this and not see things. But I
+      hope you won't put any more foreigners in. This we're readin' now,&rdquo;
+       rapping the newspaper with his knuckles, &ldquo;gives us all we want to know
+      about foreigners. Just savages, they be, as you say, and nothin' more. I
+      pity 'em.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I laughed again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Asaph,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;what would you say if I told you that the English and
+      French&mdash;yes, and the Germans, too, though I haven't seen them at home
+      as I have the others&mdash;were no more savages than we are?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'd say you was crazy,&rdquo; was the prompt answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I'm not. And you're not very complimentary. You're forgetting
+      again. You forget that I married one of those savages.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Asaph was taken aback, but he recovered promptly, as he had before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She ain't any savage,&rdquo; he announced. &ldquo;Her mother was born right here in
+      Bayport. And she knows, just as I do, that Bayport's the best place in the
+      world; don't you, Mrs. Knowles?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Frances, &ldquo;I am sure of it, Mr. Tidditt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So Asaph went away triumphantly happy. After he had gone I apologized for
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's a fair sample,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;He is a quahaug, although he doesn't know
+      it. He is a certain type, an exaggerated type, of American.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Frances smiled. &ldquo;He's not much worse than I used to be,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I used
+      to call America an uncivilized country, you remember. I suppose I&mdash;and
+      Mr. Heathcroft&mdash;were exaggerated types of a certain kind of English.
+      We were English quahaugs, weren't we?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hephzy nodded. &ldquo;We're all quahaugs,&rdquo; she declared. &ldquo;Most of us, anyhow.
+      That's the trouble with all the folks of all the nations; they stay in
+      their shells and they don't try to know and understand their neighbors.
+      Kent, you used to be a quahaug&mdash;a different kind of one&mdash;but
+      that kind, too. I was a quahaug afore I lived in Mayberry. That's who
+      makes wars like this dreadful one&mdash;quahaugs. We know better now&mdash;you
+      and Frances and I. We've found out that, down underneath, there's precious
+      little difference. Humans are humans.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She paused and then, as a final summing up, added:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess that's it: American or German or French or anything&mdash;nice
+      folks are nice folks anywhere.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      THE END <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Kent Knowles: Quahaug, by Joseph C. Lincoln
+(#12 in our series by Joseph C. Lincoln)
+
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: Kent Knowles: Quahaug
+
+Author: Joseph C. Lincoln
+
+Release Date: June, 2004  [EBook #5980]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on October 5, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, KENT KNOWLES: QUAHAUG ***
+
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by Don Lainson.
+
+
+
+
+KENT KNOWLES: QUAHAUG
+
+
+by
+
+
+JOSEPH C. LINCOLN
+
+
+
+1914
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+I.  Which is not a chapter at all
+
+II.  Which repeats, for the most part, what Jim Campbell said to me
+and what I said to him
+
+III.  Which, although it is largely family history, should not be
+skipped by the reader
+
+IV.  In which Hephzy and I and the Plutonia sail together
+
+V.  In which we view, and even mingle slightly with, the upper
+classes
+
+VI.  In which we are received at Bancroft's Hotel and I receive a
+letter
+
+VII.  In which a dream becomes a reality
+
+VIII.  In which the pilgrims become tenants
+
+IX.  In which we make the acquaintance of Mayberry and a portion of
+Burgleston Bogs
+
+X.  In which I break all previous resolutions and make a new one
+
+XI.  In which complications become more complicated
+
+XII.  In which the truth is told at last
+
+XIII.  In which Hephzy and I agree to live for each other
+
+XIV.  In which I play golf and cross the channel
+
+XV.  In which I learn that all abbeys are not churches
+
+XVI.  In which I take my turn at playing the invalid
+
+XVII.  In which I, as well as Mr. Solomon Cripps, am surprised
+
+XVIII.  In which the pilgrimage ends where it began
+
+XIX.  Which treats of quahaugs in general
+
+
+
+
+
+KENT KNOWLES: QUAHAUG
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Which is Not a Chapter at All
+
+
+It was Asaph Tidditt who told me how to begin this history.
+Perhaps I should be very much obliged to Asaph; perhaps I
+shouldn't.  He has gotten me out of a difficulty--or into one;
+I am far from certain which.
+
+Ordinarily--I am speaking now of the writing of swashbuckling
+romances, which is, or was, my trade--I swear I never have called
+it a profession--the beginning of a story is the least of the
+troubles connected with its manufacture.  Given a character or two
+and a situation, the beginning of one of those romances is, or was,
+pretty likely to be something like this:
+
+"It was a black night.  Heavy clouds had obscured the setting sun
+and now, as the clock in the great stone tower boomed twelve, the
+darkness was pitchy."
+
+That is a good safe beginning.  Midnight, a stone tower, a booming
+clock, and darkness make an appeal to the imagination.  On a night
+like that almost anything may happen.  A reader of one of my
+romances--and readers there must be, for the things did, and still
+do, sell to some extent--might be fairly certain that something
+WOULD happen before the end of the second page.  After that the
+somethings continued to happen as fast as I could invent them.
+
+But this story was different.  The weather or the time had nothing
+to do with its beginning.  There were no solitary horsemen or
+strange wayfarers on lonely roads, no unexpected knocks at the
+doors of taverns, no cloaked personages landing from boats rowed by
+black-browed seamen with red handkerchiefs knotted about their
+heads and knives in their belts.  The hero was not addressed as "My
+Lord"; he was not "Sir Somebody-or-other" in disguise.  He was not
+young and handsome; there was not even "a certain something in his
+manner and bearing which hinted of an eventful past."  Indeed there
+was not.  For, if this particular yarn or history or chronicle
+which I had made up my mind to write, and which I am writing now,
+had or has a hero, I am he.  And I am Hosea Kent Knowles, of
+Bayport, Massachusetts, the latter the village in which I was born
+and in which I have lived most of the time since I was twenty-seven
+years old.  Nobody calls me "My Lord."  Hephzy has always called me
+"Hosy"--a name which I despise--and the others, most of them,
+"Kent" to my face and "The Quahaug" behind my back, a quahaug being
+a very common form of clam which is supposed to lead a solitary
+existence and to keep its shell tightly shut.  If anything in my
+manner had hinted at a mysterious past no one in Bayport would have
+taken the hint.  Bayporters know my past and that of my ancestors
+only too well.
+
+As for being young and handsome--well, I was thirty-eight years old
+last March.  Which is quite enough on THAT subject.
+
+But I had determined to write the story, so I sat down to begin it.
+And immediately I got into difficulties.  How should I begin?  I
+might begin at any one of a dozen places--with Hephzy's receiving
+the Raymond and Whitcomb circular; with our arrival in London; with
+Jim Campbell's visit to me here in Bayport; with the curious way in
+which the letter reached us, after crossing the ocean twice.  Any
+one of these might serve as a beginning--but which?  I made I don't
+know how many attempts, but not one was satisfactory.  I, who had
+begun I am ashamed to tell you how many stories--yes, and had
+finished them and seen them in print as well--was stumped at the
+very beginning of this one.  Like Sim Phinney I had worked at my
+job "a long spell" and "cal'lated" I knew it, but here was
+something I didn't know.  As Sim said, when he faced his problem,
+"I couldn't seem to get steerage way on her."
+
+Simeon, you see--He is Angeline Phinney's second cousin and lives
+in the third house beyond the Holiness Bethel on the right-hand
+side of the road--Simeon has "done carpentering" here in Bayport
+all his life.  He built practically every henhouse now gracing or
+disgracing the backyards of our village.  He is our "henhouse
+specialist," so to speak.  He has even been known to boast of his
+skill.  "Henhouses!" snorted Sim; "land of love!  I can build a
+henhouse with my eyes shut.  Nowadays when another one of them
+foolheads that's been readin' 'How to Make a Million Poultry
+Raisin'' in the Farm Gazette comes to me and says 'Henhouse,' I
+say, 'Yes sir.  Fifteen dollars if you pay me cash now and a
+hundred and fifteen if you want to wait and pay me out of your egg
+profits.  That's all there is to it.'"
+
+And yet, when Captain Darius Nickerson, who made the most of his
+money selling fifty-foot lots of sand, beachgrass and ticks to
+summer people for bungalow sites--when Captain Darius, grown purse-
+proud and vainglorious, expressed a desire for a henhouse with a
+mansard roof and a cupola, the latter embellishments to match those
+surmounting his own dwelling, Simeon was set aback with his canvas
+flapping.  At the end of a week he had not driven a nail.
+"Godfrey's mighty!" he is reported to have exclaimed.  "I don't
+know whether to build the average cupola and trust to a hen's
+fittin' it, or take an average hen and build a cupola round her.
+Maybe I'll be all right after I get started, but it's where to
+start that beats me."
+
+Where to start beat me, also, and it might be beating me yet,
+if I hadn't dropped in at the post-office and heard Asaph Tidditt
+telling a story to the group around the stove.  After he had
+finished, and, the mail being sorted, we were walking homeward
+together, I asked a question.
+
+"Asaph," said I, "when you start to spin a yarn how do you begin?"
+
+"Hey?" he exclaimed.  "How do I begin?  Why, I just heave to and go
+to work and begin, that's all."
+
+"Yes, I know, but where do you begin?"
+
+"At the beginnin', naturally.  If you was cal'latin' to sail a boat
+race you wouldn't commence at t'other end of the course, would
+you?"
+
+"_I_ might; practical people wouldn't, I suppose.  But--what IS the
+beginning?  Suppose there were a lot of beginnings and you didn't
+know which to choose."
+
+"Oh, we-ll, in that case I'd just sort of--of edge around till I
+found one that--that was a beginnin' of SOMETHIN' and I'd start
+there.  You understand, don't you?  Take that yarn I was spinnin'
+just now--that one about Josiah Dimick's great uncle's pig on his
+mother's side.  I mean his uncle on his mother's side, not the pig,
+of course.  Now I hadn't no intention of tellin' about that hog;
+hadn't thought of it for a thousand year, as you might say.  I just
+commenced to tell about Angie Phinney, about how fast she could
+talk, and that reminded me of a parrot that belonged to Sylvanus
+Cahoon's sister--Violet, the sister's name was--loony name, too, if
+you ask ME, 'cause she was a plaguey sight nigher bein' a sunflower
+than she was a violet--weighed two hundred and ten and had a face
+on her as red as--"
+
+"Just a minute, Ase.  About that pig?"
+
+"Oh, yes!  Well, the pig reminded me of Violet's parrot and the
+parrot reminded me of a Plymouth Rock rooster I had that used to
+roost in the pigpen nights--wouldn't use the henhouse no more'n you
+nor I would--and that, naturally, made me think of pigs, and pigs
+fetched Josiah's uncle's pig to mind and there I was all ready to
+start on the yarn.  It pretty often works out that way.  When you
+want to start a yarn and you can't start--you've forgot it, or
+somethin'--just begin somewhere, get goin' somehow.  Edge around
+and keep edgin' around and pretty soon you'll fetch up at the right
+place TO start.  See, don't you, Kent?"
+
+I saw--that is, I saw enough.  I came home and this morning I began
+the "edging around" process.  I don't seem to have "fetched up"
+anywhere in particular, but I shall keep on with the edging until I
+do.  As Asaph says, I must begin somewhere, so I shall begin with
+the Saturday morning of last April when Jim Campbell, my publisher
+and my friend--which is by no means such an unusual combination as
+many people think--sat on the veranda of my boathouse overlooking
+Cape Cod Bay and discussed my past, present and, more particularly,
+my future.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Which Repeats, for the Most Part, What Jim Campbell Said to Me and
+What I Said to Him
+
+
+"Jim," said I, "what is the matter with me?"
+
+Jim, who was seated in the ancient and dilapidated arm-chair which
+was the finest piece of furniture in the boathouse and which I
+always offered to visitors, looked at me over the collar of my
+sweater.  I used the sweater as I did the arm-chair when I did not
+have visitors.  He was using it then because, like an idiot, he had
+come to Cape Cod in April with nothing warmer than a very natty
+suit and a light overcoat.  Of course one may go clamming and
+fishing in a light overcoat, but--one doesn't.
+
+Jim looked at me over the collar of my sweater.  Then he crossed
+his oilskinned and rubber-booted legs--they were my oilskins and my
+boots--and answered promptly.
+
+"Indigestion," he said.  "You ate nine of those biscuits this
+morning; I saw you."
+
+"I did not," I retorted, "because you saw them first.  MY interior
+is in its normal condition.  As for yours--"
+
+"Mine," he interrupted, filling his pipe from my tobacco pouch,
+"being accustomed to a breakfast, not a gorge, is abnormal but
+satisfactory, thank you--quite satisfactory."
+
+"That," said I, "we will discuss later, when I have you out back of
+the bar in my catboat.  Judging from present indications there will
+be some sea-running.  The "Hephzy" is a good, capable craft, but a
+bit cranky, like the lady she is named for.  I imagine she will
+roll."
+
+He didn't like that.  You see, I had sailed with him before and I
+remembered.
+
+"Ho-se-a," he drawled, "you have a vivid imagination.  It is a pity
+you don't use more of it in those stories of yours."
+
+"Humph!  I am obliged to use the most of it on the royalty
+statements you send me.  If you call me 'Hosea' again I will take
+the 'Hephzy' across the Point Rip.  The waves there are fifteen
+feet high at low tide.  See here, I asked you a serious question
+and I should like a serious answer.  Jim, what IS the matter with
+me?  Have I written out or what is the trouble?"
+
+He looked at me again.
+
+"Are you in earnest?" he asked.
+
+"I am, very much in earnest."
+
+"And you really want to talk shop after a breakfast like that and
+on a morning like this?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Was that why you asked me to come to Bayport and spend the week-
+end?"
+
+"No-o.  No, of course not."
+
+"You're another; it was.  When you met me at the railroad station
+yesterday I could see there was something wrong with you.  All this
+morning you've had something on your chest.  I thought it was the
+biscuits, of course; but it wasn't, eh?"
+
+"It was not."
+
+"Then what was it?  Aren't we paying you a large enough royalty?"
+
+"You are paying me a good deal larger one than I deserve.  I don't
+see why you do it."
+
+"Oh," with a wave of the hand, "that's all right.  The publishing
+of books is a pure philanthropy.  We are in business for our
+health, and--"
+
+"Shut up.  You know as well as I do that the last two yarns of mine
+which your house published have not done as well as the others."
+
+I had caught him now.  Anything remotely approaching a reflection
+upon the business house of which he was the head was sufficient to
+stir up Jim Campbell.  That business, its methods and its success,
+were his idols.
+
+"I don't know any such thing," he protested, hotly.  "We sold--"
+
+"Hang the sale!  You sold quite enough.  It is an everlasting
+miracle to me that you are able to sell a single copy.  Why a self-
+respecting person, possessed of any intelligence whatever, should
+wish to read the stuff I write, to say nothing of paying money for
+the privilege, I can't understand."
+
+"You don't have to understand.  No one expects an author to
+understand anything.  All you are expected to do is to write; we'll
+attend to the rest of it.  And as for sales--why, 'The Black Brig'--
+that was the last one, wasn't it?--beat the 'Omelet' by eight
+thousand or more."
+
+"The Omelet" was our pet name for "The Queen's Amulet," my first
+offence in the literary line.  It was a highly seasoned concoction
+of revolution and adventure in a mythical kingdom where life was
+not dull, to say the least.  The humblest character in it was a
+viscount.  Living in Bayport had, naturally, made me familiar with
+the doings of viscounts.
+
+"Eight thousand more than the last isn't so bad, is it?" demanded
+Jim Campbell combatively.
+
+"It isn't.  It is astonishingly good.  It is the books themselves
+that are bad.  The 'Omelet' was bad enough, but I wrote it more as
+a joke than anything else.  I didn't take it seriously at all.
+Every time I called a duke by his Christian name I grinned.  But
+nowadays I don't grin--I swear.  I hate the things, Jim.  They're
+no good.  And the reviewers are beginning to tumble to the fact
+that they're no good, too.  You saw the press notices yourself.
+'Another Thriller by the Indefatigable Knowles'  'Barnacles,
+Buccaneers and Blood, not to Mention Beauty and the Bourbons.'
+That's the way two writers headed their articles about 'The Black
+Brig.'  And a third said that I must be getting tired; I wrote as
+if I was.  THAT fellow was right.  I am tired, Jim.  I'm tired and
+sick of writing slush.  I can't write any more of it.  And yet I
+can't write anything else."
+
+Jim's pipe had gone out.  Now he relit it and tossed the match over
+the veranda rail.
+
+"How do you know you can't?" he demanded.
+
+"Can't what?"
+
+"Can't write anything but slush?"
+
+"Ah ha!  Then it is slush.  You admit it."
+
+"I don't admit anything of the kind.  You may not be a William
+Shakespeare or even a George Meredith, but you have written some
+mighty interesting stories.  Why, I know a chap who sits up till
+morning to finish a book of yours.  Can't sleep until he has
+finished it."
+
+"What's the matter with him; insomnia?"
+
+"No; he's a night watchman.  Does that satisfy you, you crossgrained
+old shellfish?  Come on, let's dig clams--some of your own blood
+relations--and forget it."
+
+"I don't want to forget it and there is plenty of time for
+clamming.  The tide won't cover the flats for two hours yet.  I
+tell you I'm serious, Jim.  I can't write any more.  I know it.
+The stuff I've been writing makes me sick.  I hate it, I tell you.
+What the devil I'm going to do for a living I can't see--but I
+can't write another story."
+
+Jim put his pipe in his pocket.  I think at last he was convinced
+that I meant what I said, which I certainly did.  The last year had
+been a year of torment to me.  I had finished the 'Brig,' as a
+matter of duty, but if that piratical craft had sunk with all
+hands, including its creator, I should not have cared.  I drove
+myself to my desk each day, as a horse might be driven to a
+treadmill, but the animal could have taken no less interest in his
+work than I had taken in mine.  It was bad--bad--bad; worthless and
+hateful.  There wasn't a new idea in it and I hadn't one in my
+head.  I, who had taken up writing as a last resort, a gamble which
+might, on a hundred-to-one chance, win where everything else had
+failed, had now reached the point where that had failed, too.
+Campbell's surmise was correct; with the pretence of asking him to
+the Cape for a week-end of fishing and sailing I had lured him
+there to tell him of my discouragement and my determination to
+quit.
+
+He took his feet from the rail and hitched his chair about until he
+faced me.
+
+"So you're not going to write any more," he said.
+
+"I'm not.  I can't."
+
+"What are you going to do; live on back royalties and clams?"
+
+"I may have to live on the clams; my back royalties won't keep me
+very long."
+
+"Humph!  I should think they might keep you a good while down here.
+You must have something in the stocking.  You can't have wasted
+very much in riotous living on this sand-heap.  What have you done
+with your money, for the last ten years; been leading a double
+life?"
+
+"I've found leading a single one hard enough.  I have saved
+something, of course.  It isn't the money that worries me, Jim; I
+told you that.  It's myself; I'm no good.  Every author, sometime
+or other, reaches the point where he knows perfectly well he has
+done all the real work he can ever do, that he has written himself
+out.  That's what's the matter with me--I'm written out."
+
+Jim snorted.  "For Heaven's sake, Kent Knowles," he demanded, "how
+old are you?"
+
+"I'm thirty-eight, according to the almanac, but--"
+
+"Thirty-eight!  Why, Thackeray wrote--"
+
+"Drop it!  I know when Thackeray wrote 'Vanity Fair' as well as you
+do.  I'm no Thackeray to begin with, and, besides, I am older at
+thirty-eight than he was when he died--yes, older than he would
+have been if he had lived twice as long.  So far as feeling and all
+the rest of it go, I'm a second Methusaleh."
+
+"My soul! hear the man!  And I'm forty-two myself.  Well, Grandpa,
+what do you expect me to do; get you admitted to the Old Man's
+Home?"
+
+"I expect--" I began, "I expect--" and I concluded with the lame
+admission that I didn't expect him to do anything.  It was up to me
+to do whatever must be done, I imagined.
+
+He smiled grimly.
+
+"Glad your senility has not affected that remnant of your common-
+sense," he declared.  "You're dead right, my boy; it IS up to you.
+You ought to be ashamed of yourself."
+
+"I am, but that doesn't help me a whole lot."
+
+"Nothing will help you as long as you think and speak as you have
+this morning.  See here, Kent! answer me a question or two, will
+you?  They may be personal questions, but will you answer them?"
+
+"I guess so.  There has been what a disinterested listener might
+call a slightly personal flavor to your remarks so far.  Do your
+worst.  Fire away."
+
+"All right.  You've lived in Bayport ten years or so, I know that.
+What have you done in all that time--besides write?"
+
+"Well, I've continued to live."
+
+"Doubted.  You've continued to exist; but how?  I've been here
+before.  This isn't my first visit, by a good deal.  Each time I
+have been here your daily routine--leaving out the exciting clam
+hunts and the excursions in quest of the ferocious flounder, like
+the one we're supposed--mind, I say supposed--to be on at the
+present moment--you have put in the day about like this:  Get up,
+bathe, eat, walk to the post-office, walk home, sit about, talk a
+little, read some, walk some more, eat again, smoke, talk, read,
+eat for the third time, smoke, talk, read and go to bed.  That's
+the program, isn't it?"
+
+"Not exactly.  I play tennis in summer--when there is anyone to
+play with me--and golf, after a fashion.  I used to play both a
+good deal, when I was younger.  I swim, and I shoot a little, and--
+and--"
+
+"How about society?  Have any, do you?"
+
+"In the summer, when the city people are here, there is a good deal
+going on, if you care for it--picnics and clam bakes and teas and
+lawn parties and such."
+
+"Heavens! what reckless dissipation!  Do you indulge?"
+
+"Why, no--not very much.  Hang it all, Jim! you know I'm no society
+man.  I used to do the usual round of fool stunts when I was
+younger, but--"
+
+"But now you're too antique, I suppose.  Wonder that someone hasn't
+collected you as a genuine Chippendale or something.  So you don't
+'tea' much?"
+
+"Not much.  I'm not often invited, to tell you the truth.  The
+summer crowd doesn't take kindly to me, I'm afraid."
+
+"Astonishing!  You're such a chatty, entertaining, communicative
+cuss on first acquaintance, too.  So captivatingly loquacious to
+strangers.  I can imagine how you'd shine at a 'tea.'  Every summer
+girl that tried to talk to you would be frost-bitten.  Do you
+accept invitations when they do come?"
+
+"Not often nowadays.  You see, I know they don't really want me."
+
+"How do you know it?"
+
+"Why--well, why should they?  Everybody else calls me--"
+
+"They call you a clam and so you try to live up to your reputation.
+I know you, Kent.  You think yourself a tough old bivalve, but the
+most serious complaint you suffer from is ingrowing sensitiveness.
+They do want you.  They'd invite you if you gave them half a
+chance.  Oh, I know you won't, of course; but if I had my way I'd
+have you dragged by main strength to every picnic and tea and
+feminine talk-fest within twenty miles.  You might meet some
+persevering female who would propose marriage.  YOU never would,
+but SHE might."
+
+I rose to my feet in disgust.
+
+"We'll go clamming," said I.
+
+He did not move.
+
+"We will--later on," he answered.  "We haven't got to the last page
+of the catechism yet.  I mentioned matrimony because a good,
+capable, managing wife would be my first prescription in your case.
+I have one or two more up my sleeve.  Tell me this:  How often do
+you get away from Bayport?  How often do you get to--well, to
+Boston, we'll say?  How many times have you been there in the last
+year?"
+
+"I don't know.  A dozen, perhaps."
+
+"What did you do when you went?"
+
+"Various things.  Shopped some, went to the theater occasionally,
+if there happened to be anything on that I cared to see.  Bought a
+good many books.  Saw the new Sargent pictures at the library.
+And--and--"
+
+"And shook hands with your brother fossils at the museum, I
+suppose.  Wild life you lead, Kent.  Did you visit anybody?  Meet
+any friends or acquaintances--any live ones?"
+
+"Not many.  I haven't many friends, Jim; you know that.  As for the
+wild life--well, I made two visits to New York this year."
+
+"Yes," drily; "and we saw Sothern and Marlowe and had dinner at the
+Holland.  The rest of the time we talked shop.  That was the first
+visit.  The second was more exciting still; we talked shop ALL the
+time and you took the six o'clock train home again."
+
+"You're wrong there.  I saw the new loan collections at the
+Metropolitan and heard Ysaye play at Carnegie Hall.  I didn't start
+for home until the next day."
+
+"Is that so.  That's news to me.  You said you were going that
+afternoon.  That was to put the kibosh on my intention of taking
+you home to my wife and her bridge party, I suppose.  Was it?"
+
+"Well--well, you see, Jim, I--I don't play bridge and I AM such a
+stick in a crowd like that.  I wanted to stay and you were mighty
+kind, but--but--"
+
+"All right.  All right, my boy.  Next time it will be Bustanoby's,
+the Winter Garden and a three A. M. cabaret for yours.  My time is
+coming.  Now--Well, now we'll go clamming."
+
+He swung out of the arm-chair and walked to the top of the steps
+leading down to the beach.  I was surprised, of course; I have
+known Jim Campbell a long time, but he can surprise me even yet.
+
+"Here! hold on!" I protested.  "How about the rest of that
+catechism?"
+
+"You've had it."
+
+"Were those all the questions you wanted to ask?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Humph!  And that is all the advice and encouragement I'm to get
+from you!  How about those prescriptions you had up your sleeve?"
+
+"You'll get those by and by.  Before I leave this gay and festive
+scene to-morrow I'm going to talk to you, Ho-se-a.  And you're
+going to listen.  You'll listen to old Doctor Campbell; HE'LL
+prescribe for you, don't you worry.  And now," beginning to descend
+the steps, "now for clams and flounders."
+
+"And the Point Rip," I added, maliciously, for his frivolous
+treatment of what was to me a very serious matter, was disappointing
+and provoking.  "Don't forget the Point Rip."
+
+We dug the clams--they were for bait--we boarded the "Hephzy,"
+sailed out to the fishing grounds, and caught flounders.  I caught
+the most of them; Jim was not interested in fishing during the
+greater part of the time.  Then we sailed home again and walked up
+to the house.  Hephzibah, for whom my boat is named, met us at the
+back door.  As usual her greeting was not to the point and
+practical.
+
+"Leave your rubber boots right outside on the porch," she said.
+"Here, give me those flatfish; I'll take care of 'em.  Hosy, you'll
+find dry things ready in your room.  Here's your shoes; I've been
+warmin' 'em.  Mr. Campbell I've put a suit of Hosy's and some
+flannels on your bed.  They may not fit you, but they'll be lots
+better than the damp ones you've got on.  You needn't hurry; dinner
+won't be ready till you are."
+
+I did not say anything; I knew Hephzy--had known her all my life.
+Jim, who, naturally enough, didn't know her as well, protested.
+
+"We're not wet, Miss Cahoon," he declared.  "At least, I'm not, and
+I don't see how Kent can be.  We both wore oilskins."
+
+"That doesn't make any difference.  You ought to change your
+clothes anyhow.  Been out in that boat, haven't you?"
+
+"Yes, but--"
+
+"Well, then!  Don't say another word.  I'll have a fire in the
+sittin'-room and somethin' hot ready when you come down.  Hosy, be
+sure and put on BOTH the socks I darned for you.  Don't get
+thinkin' of somethin' else and come down with one whole and one
+holey, same as you did last time.  You must excuse me, Mr.
+Campbell.  I've got saleratus biscuits in the oven."
+
+She hastened into the kitchen.  When Jim and I, having obeyed
+orders to the extent of leaving our boots on the porch, passed
+through that kitchen she was busy with the tea-kettle.  I led the
+way through the dining-room and up the front stairs.  My visitor
+did not speak until we reached the second story.  Then he expressed
+his feelings.
+
+"Say, Kent" he demanded, "are you going to change your clothes?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why?  You're no wetter than I am, are you?"
+
+"Not a bit, but I'm going to change, just the same.  It's the
+easier way."
+
+"It is, is it!  What's the other way?"
+
+"The other way is to keep on those you're wearing and take the
+consequences."
+
+"What consequences?"
+
+"Jamaica ginger, hot water bottles and an afternoon's roast in
+front of the sitting-room fire.  Hephzibah went out sailing with me
+last October and caught cold.  That was enough; no one else shall
+have the experience if she can help it."
+
+"But--but good heavens!  Kent, do you mean to say you always have
+to change when you come in from sailing?"
+
+"Except in summer, yes."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"Because Hephzy tells me to."
+
+"Do you always do what she tells you?"
+
+"Generally.  It's the easiest way, as I said before."
+
+"Good--heavens!  And she darns your socks and tells you what--er
+lingerie to wear and--does she wash your face and wipe your nose
+and scrub behind your ears?"
+
+"Not exactly, but she probably would if I didn't do it."
+
+"Well, I'll be hanged!  And she extends the same treatment to all
+your guests?"
+
+"I don't have any guests but you.  No doubt she would if I did.
+She mothers every stray cat and sick chicken in the neighborhood.
+There, Jim, you trot along and do as you're told like a nice little
+boy.  I'll join you in the sitting-room."
+
+"Humph! perhaps I'd better.  I may be spanked and put to bed if I
+don't.  Well, well! and you are the author of 'The Black Brig!'
+'Buccaneers and Blood!'  'Bibs and Butterscotch' it should be!
+Don't stand out here in the cold hall, Hosy darling; you may get
+the croup if you do."
+
+I was waiting in the sitting-room when he came down.  There was a
+roaring fire in the big, old-fashioned fireplace.  That fireplace
+had been bricked up in the days when people used those abominations,
+stoves.  As a boy I was well acquainted with the old "gas burner"
+with the iron urn on top and the nickeled ornaments and handles
+which Mother polished so assiduously.  But the gas burner had long
+since gone to the junk dealer.  Among the improvements which my
+first royalty checks made possible were steam heat and the
+restoration of the fireplace.
+
+Jim found me sitting before the fire in one of the two big "wing"
+chairs which I had purchased when Darius Barlay's household effects
+were sold at auction.  I should not have acquired them as cheaply
+if Captain Cyrus Whittaker had been at home when the auction took
+place.  Captain Cy loves old-fashioned things as much as I do and,
+as he has often told me since, he meant to land those chairs some
+day if he had to run his bank account high and dry in consequence.
+But the Captain and his wife--who used to be Phoebe Dawes, our
+school-teacher here in Bayport--were away visiting their adopted
+daughter, Emily, who is married and living in Boston, and I got the
+chairs.
+
+At the Barclay auction I bought also the oil painting of the bark
+"Freedom"--a command of Captain Elkanah Barclay, uncle of the late
+Darius--and the set--two volumes missing--of The Spectator, bound
+in sheepskin.  The "Freedom" is depicted "Entering the Port of
+Genoa, July 10th, 1848," and if the port is somewhat wavy and
+uncertain, the bark's canvas and rigging are definite and rigid
+enough to make up.  The Spectator set is chiefly remarkable for its
+marginal notes; Captain Elkanah bought the books in London and read
+and annotated at spare intervals during subsequent voyages.  His
+opinions were decided and his notes nautical and emphatic.
+Hephzibah read a few pages of the notes when the books first came
+into the house and then went to prayer-meeting.  As she had
+announced her intention of remaining at home that evening I was
+surprised--until I read them myself.
+
+Jim came downstairs, arrayed in the suit which Hephzy had laid out
+for him.  I made no comment upon his appearance.  To do so would
+have been superfluous; he looked all the comments necessary.
+
+I waved my hand towards the unoccupied wing chair and he sat down.
+Two glasses, one empty and the other half full of a steaming
+mixture, were on the little table beside us.
+
+"Help yourself, Jim," I said, indicating the glasses.  He took up
+the one containing the mixture and regarded it hopefully.
+
+"What?" he asked.
+
+"A Cahoon toddy," said I.  "Warranted to keep off chills,
+rheumatism, lumbago and kindred miseries.  Good for what ails you.
+Don't wait; I've had mine."
+
+He took a sniff and then a very small sip.  His face expressed
+genuine emotion.
+
+"Whew!" he gasped, choking.  "What in blazes--?"
+
+"Jamaica ginger, sugar and hot water," I explained blandly.  "It
+won't hurt you--longer than five minutes.  It is Hephzy's
+invariable prescription."
+
+"Good Lord!  Did you drink yours?"
+
+"No--I never do, unless she watches me."
+
+"But your glass is empty.  What did you do with it?"
+
+"Emptied it behind the back log.  Of course, if you prefer to drink
+it--"
+
+"Drink it!"  His "toddy" splashed the back log, causing a
+tremendous sizzle.
+
+Before he could relieve his mind further, Hephzy appeared to
+announce that dinner was ready if we were.  We were, most
+emphatically, so we went into the dining-room.
+
+Hephzy and Jim did most of the talking during the meal.  I had
+talked more that forenoon than I had for a week--I am not a chatty
+person, ordinarily, which, in part, explains my nickname--and I was
+very willing to eat and listen.  Hephzy, who was garbed in her best
+gown--best weekday gown, that is; she kept her black silk for
+Sundays--talked a good deal, mostly about dreams and presentiments.
+Susanna Wixon, Tobias Wixon's oldest daughter, waited on table,
+when she happened to think of it, and listened when she did not.
+Susanna had been hired to do the waiting and the dish-washing
+during Campbell's brief visit.  It was I who hired her.  If I had
+had my way she would have been a permanent fixture in the
+household, but Hephzy scoffed at the idea.  "Pity if I can't do
+housework for two folks," she declared.  "I don't care if you can
+afford it.  Keepin' hired help in a family no bigger than this, is
+a sinful extravagance."  As Susanna's services had been already
+engaged for the weekend she could not discharge her, but she
+insisted on doing all the cooking herself.
+
+Her conversation, as I said, dealt mainly with dreams and
+presentiments.  Hephzibah is not what I should call a superstitious
+person.  She doesn't believe in "signs," although she might feel
+uncomfortable if she broke a looking-glass or saw the new moon over
+her left shoulder.  She has a most amazing fund of common-sense and
+is "down" on Spiritualism to a degree.  It is one of Bayport's pet
+yarns, that at the Harniss Spiritualist camp-meeting when the "test
+medium" announced from the platform that he had a message for a
+lady named Hephzibah C--he "seemed to get the name Hephzibah C"--
+Hephzy got up and walked out.  "Any dead relations I've got," she
+declared, "who send messages through a longhaired idiot like that
+one up there"--meaning the medium,--"can't have much to say that's
+worth listenin' to.  They can talk to themselves if they want to,
+but they shan't waste MY time."
+
+In but one particular was Hephzy superstitious.  Whenever she
+dreamed of "Little Frank" she was certain something was going to
+happen.  She had dreamed of "Little Frank" the night before and, if
+she had not been headed off, she would have talked of nothing else.
+
+"I saw him just as plain as I see you this minute, Hosy," she said
+to me.  "I was somewhere, in a strange place--a foreign place, I
+should say 'twas--and there I saw him.  He didn't know me; at least
+I don't think he did."
+
+"Considering that he never saw you that isn't so surprising," I
+interrupted.  "I think Mr. Campbell would have another cup of
+coffee if you urged him.  Susanna, take Mr. Campbell's cup."
+
+Jim declined the coffee; said he hadn't finished his first cup yet.
+I knew that, of course, but I was trying to head off Hephzy.  She
+refused to be headed, just then.
+
+"But I knew HIM," she went on.  "He looked just the same as he has
+when I've seen him before--in the other dreams, you know.  The very
+image of his mother.  Isn't it wonderful, Hosy!"
+
+"Yes; but don't resurrect the family skeletons, Hephzy.  Mr.
+Campbell isn't interested in anatomy."
+
+"Skeletons!  I don't know what you're talkin' about.  He wasn't a
+skeleton.  I saw him just as plain!  And I said to myself, 'It's
+little Frank!'  Now what do you suppose he came to me for?  What do
+you suppose it means?  It means somethin', I know that."
+
+"Means that you weren't sleeping well, probably," I answered.
+"Jim, here, will dream of cross-seas and the Point Rip to-night, I
+have no doubt."
+
+Jim promptly declared that if he thought that likely he shouldn't
+mind so much.  What he feared most was a nightmare session with an
+author.
+
+Hephzibah was interested at once.  "Oh, do you dream about authors,
+Mr. Campbell?" she demanded.  "I presume likely you do, they're so
+mixed up with your business.  Do your dreams ever come true?"
+
+"Not often," was the solemn reply.  "Most of my dream-authors are
+rational and almost human."
+
+Hephzy, of course, did not understand this, but it did have the
+effect for which I had been striving, that of driving "Little
+Frank" from her mind for the time.
+
+"I don't care," she declared, "I s'pose it's awful foolish and
+silly of me, but it does seem sometimes as if there was somethin'
+in dreams, some kind of dreams.  Hosy laughs at me and maybe I
+ought to laugh at myself, but some dreams come true, or awfully
+near to true; now don't they.  Angeline Phinney was in here the
+other day and she was tellin' about her second cousin that was--
+he's dead now--Abednego Small.  He was constable here in Bayport
+for years; everybody called him 'Uncle Bedny.'  Uncle Bedny had
+been keepin' company with a woman named Dimick--Josiah Dimick's
+niece--lots younger than he, she was.  He'd been thinkin' of
+marryin' her, so Angie said, but his folks had been talkin' to him,
+tellin' him he was too old to take such a young woman for his third
+wife, so he had made up his mind to throw her over, to write a
+letter sayin' it was all off between 'em.  Well, he'd begun the
+letter but he never finished it, for three nights runnin' he
+dreamed that awful trouble was hangin' over him.  That dream made
+such an impression on him that he tore the letter up and married
+the Dimick woman after all.  And then--I didn't know this until
+Angie told me--it turned out that she had heard he was goin' to
+give her the go-by and had made all her arrangements to sue him for
+breach of promise if he did.  That was the awful trouble, you see,
+and the dream saved him from it."
+
+I smiled.  "The fault there was in the interpretation of the
+dream," I said.  "The 'awful trouble' of the breach of promise suit
+wouldn't have been a circumstance to the trouble poor Uncle Bedny
+got into by marrying Ann Dimick.  THAT trouble lasted till he
+died."
+
+Hephzibah laughed and said she guessed that was so, she hadn't
+thought of it in that way.
+
+"Probably dreams are all nonsense," she admitted.  "Usually, I
+don't pay much attention to 'em.  But when I dream of poor 'Little
+Frank,' away off there, I--"
+
+"Come into the sitting-room, Jim," I put in hastily.  "I have a
+cigar or two there.  I don't buy them in Bayport, either."
+
+"And who," asked Jim, as we sat smoking by the fire, "is Little
+Frank?"
+
+"He is a mythical relative of ours," I explained, shortly.  "He was
+born twenty years ago or so--at least we heard that he was; and we
+haven't heard anything of him since, except by the dream route,
+which is not entirely convincing.  He is Hephzy's pet obsession.
+Kindly forget him, to oblige me."
+
+He looked puzzled, but he did not mention "Little Frank" again, for
+which I was thankful.
+
+That afternoon we walked up to the village, stopping in at
+Simmons's store, which is also the post-office, for the mail.
+Captain Cyrus Whittaker happened to be there, also Asaph Tidditt
+and Bailey Bangs and Sylvanus Cahoon and several others.  I
+introduced Campbell to the crowd and he seemed to be enjoying
+himself.  When we came out and were walking home again, he
+observed:
+
+"That Whittaker is an interesting chap, isn't he?"
+
+"Yes," I said.  "He is all right.  Been everywhere and seen
+everything."
+
+"And that," with an odd significance in his tone, "may possibly
+help to make him interesting, don't you think?"
+
+"I suppose so.  He lives here in Bayport now, though."
+
+"So I gathered.  Popular, is he?"
+
+"Very."
+
+"Satisfied with life?"
+
+"Seems to be."
+
+"Hum!  No one calls HIM a--what is it--quahaug?"
+
+"No, I'm the only human clam in this neighborhood."
+
+He did not say any more, nor did I.  My fit of the blues was on
+again and his silence on the subject in which I was interested, my
+work and my future, troubled me and made me more despondent.  I
+began to lose faith in the "prescription" which he had promised so
+emphatically.  How could he, or anyone else, help me?  No one could
+write my stories but myself, and I knew, only too well, that I
+could not write them.
+
+The only mail matter in our box was a letter addressed to
+Hephzibah.  I forgot it until after supper and then I gave it to
+her.  Jim retired early; the salt air made him sleepy, so he said,
+and he went upstairs shortly after nine.  He had not mentioned our
+talk of the morning, nor did he until I left him at the door of his
+room.  Then he said:
+
+"Kent, I've got one of the answers to your conundrum.  I've
+diagnosed one of your troubles.  You're blind."
+
+"Blind?"
+
+"Yes, blind.  Or, if not blind altogether you're suffering from the
+worse case of far-sightedness I ever saw.  All your literary--we'll
+call it that for compliment's sake--all your literary life you've
+spent writing about people and things so far off you don't know
+anything about them.  You and your dukes and your earls and your
+titled ladies!  What do you know of that crowd?  You never saw a
+lord in your life.  Why don't you write of something near by,
+something or somebody you are acquainted with?"
+
+"Acquainted with!  You're crazy, man.  What am I acquainted with,
+except this house, and myself and my books and--and Bayport?"
+
+"That's enough.  Why, there is material in that gang at the post-
+office to make a dozen books.  Write about them."
+
+"Tut! tut! tut!  You ARE crazy.  What shall I write; the life of
+Ase Tidditt in four volumes, beginning with 'I swan to man' and
+ending with 'By godfrey'?"
+
+"You might do worse.  If the book were as funny as its hero I'd
+undertake to sell a few copies."
+
+"Funny!  _I_ couldn't write a funny book."
+
+"Not an intentionally funny one, you mean.  But there!  There's no
+use to talk to you."
+
+"There is not, if you talk like an imbecile.  Is this your
+brilliant 'prescription'?"
+
+"No.  It might be; it would be, if you would take it, but you
+won't--not now.  You need something else first and I'll give it to
+you.  But I'll tell you this, and I mean it:  Downstairs, in that
+dining-room of yours, there's one mighty good story, at least."
+
+"The dining-room?  A story in the dining-room?"
+
+"Yes.  Or it was there when we passed the door just now."
+
+I looked at him.  He seemed to be serious, but I knew he was not.
+I hate riddles.
+
+"Oh, go to blazes!" I retorted, and turned away.
+
+I looked into the dining-room as I went by.  There was no story in
+sight there, so far as I could see.  Hephzy was seated by the
+table, mending something, something of mine, of course.  She looked
+up.
+
+"Oh, Hosy," she said, "that letter you brought was a travel book
+from the Raymond and Whitcomb folks.  I sent a stamp for it.  It's
+awfully interesting!  All about tours through England and France
+and Switzerland and everywhere.  So cheap they are!  I'm pickin'
+out the ones I'm goin' on some day.  The pictures are lovely.
+Don't you want to see 'em?"
+
+"Not now," I replied.  Another obsession of Hephzy's was travel.
+She, who had never been further from Bayport than Hartford,
+Connecticut, was forever dreaming of globe-trotting.  It was not a
+new disease with her, by any means; she had been dreaming the same
+things ever since I had known her, and that is since I knew
+anything.  Some day, SOME day she was going to this, that and the
+other place.  She knew all about these places, because she had read
+about them over and over again.  Her knowledge, derived as it was
+from so many sources, was curiously mixed, but it was comprehensive,
+of its kind.  She was continually sending for Cook's circulars and
+booklets advertising personally conducted excursions.  And, with
+the arrival of each new circular or booklet, she picked out, as she
+had just done, the particular tours she would go on when her "some
+day" came.  It was funny, this queer habit of hers, but not half as
+funny as the thought of her really going would have been.  I would
+have as soon thought of our front door leaving home and starting on
+its travels as of Hephzy's doing it.  The door was no more a part
+and fixture of that home than she was.
+
+I went into my study, which adjoins the sitting-room, and sat down
+at my desk.  Not with the intention of writing anything, or even of
+considering something to write about.  That I made up my mind to
+forget for this night, at least.  My desk chair was my usual seat
+in that room and I took that seat as a matter of habit.
+
+As a matter of habit also I looked about for a book.  I did not
+have to look far.  Books were my extravagance--almost my only one.
+They filled the shelves to the ceiling on three sides of the study
+and overflowed in untidy heaps on the floor.  They were Hephzy's
+bugbear, for I refused to permit their being "straightened out" or
+arranged.
+
+I looked about for a book and selected several, but, although they
+were old favorites, I could not interest myself in any of them.  I
+tried and tried, but even Mr. Pepys, that dependable solace of a
+lonely hour, failed to interest me with his chatter.  Perhaps
+Campbell's pointed remarks concerning lords and ladies had its
+effect here.  Old Samuel loved to write of such people, having a
+wide acquaintance with them, and perhaps that very acquaintance
+made me jealous.  At any rate I threw the volume back upon its pile
+and began to think of myself, and of my work, the very thing I had
+expressly determined not to do when I came into the room.
+
+Jim's foolish and impossible advice to write of places and people I
+knew haunted and irritated me.  I did know Bayport--yes, and it
+might be true that the group at the post-office contained possible
+material for many books; but, if so, it was material for the other
+man, not for me.  "Write of what you know," said Jim.  And I knew
+so little.  There was at least one good yarn in the dining-room at
+that moment, he had declared.  He must have meant Hephzibah, but,
+if he did, what was there in Hephzibah's dull, gray life-story to
+interest an outside reader?  Her story and mine were interwoven and
+neither contained anything worth writing about.  His fancy had been
+caught, probably, by her odd combination of the romantic and the
+practical, and in her dream of "Little Frank" he had scented a
+mystery.  There was no mystery there, nothing but the most
+commonplace record of misplaced trust and ingratitude.  Similar
+things happen in so many families.
+
+However, I began to think of Hephzy and, as I said, of myself, and
+to review my life since Ardelia Cahoon and Strickland Morley
+changed its course so completely.  And now it seems to me that, in
+the course of my "edging around" for the beginning of this present
+chronicle--so different from anything I have ever written before or
+ever expected to write--the time has come when the reader--
+provided, of course, the said chronicle is ever finished or ever
+reaches a reader--should know something of that life; should know a
+little of the family history of the Knowles and the Cahoons and the
+Morleys.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+Which, Although It Is Largely Family History, Should Not Be Skipped
+by the Reader
+
+
+Let us take the Knowleses first.  My name is Hosea Kent Knowles--I
+said that before--and my father was Captain Philander Kent Knowles.
+He was lost in the wreck of the steamer "Monarch of the Sea," off
+Hatteras.  The steamer caught fire in the middle of the night, a
+howling gale blowing and the thermometer a few degrees above zero.
+The passengers and crew took to the boats and were saved.  My
+father stuck by his ship and went down with her, as did also her
+first mate, another Cape-Codder.  I was a baby at the time, and was
+at Bayport with my mother, Emily Knowles, formerly Emily Cahoon,
+Captain Barnabas Cahoon's niece.  Mother had a little money of her
+own and Father's life was insured for a moderate sum.  Her small
+fortune was invested for her by her uncle, Captain Barnabas, who
+was the Bayport magnate and man of affairs in those days.  Mother
+and I continued to live in the old house in Bayport and I went to
+school in the village until I was fourteen, when I went away to a
+preparatory school near Boston.  Mother died a year later.  I was
+an only child, but Hephzibah, who had always seemed like an older
+sister to me, now began to "mother" me, the process which she has
+kept up ever since.
+
+Hephzibah was the daughter of Captain Barnabas by his first wife.
+Hephzy was born in 1859, so she is well over fifty now, although no
+one would guess it.  Her mother died when she was a little girl and
+ten years later Captain Barnabas married again.  His second wife
+was Susan Hammond, of Ostable, and by her he had one daughter,
+Ardelia.  Hephzy has always declared "Ardelia" to be a pretty name.
+I have my own opinion on that subject, but I keep it to myself.
+
+At any rate, Ardelia herself was pretty enough.  She was pretty
+when a baby and prettier still as a schoolgirl.  Her mother--while
+she lived, which was not long--spoiled her, and her half-sister,
+Hephzy, assisted in the petting and spoiling.  Ardelia grew up with
+the idea that most things in this world were hers for the asking.
+Whatever took her fancy she asked for and, if Captain Barnabas did
+not give it to her, she considered herself ill-used.  She was the
+young lady of the family and Hephzibah was the housekeeper and
+drudge, an uncomplaining one, be it understood.  For her, as for
+the Captain, the business of life was keeping Ardelia contented and
+happy, and they gloried in the task.  Hephzy might have married
+well at least twice, but she wouldn't think of such a thing.  "Pa
+and Ardelia need me," she said; that was reason sufficient.
+
+In 1888 Captain Barnabas went to Philadelphia on business.  He had
+retired from active sea-going years before, but he retained an
+interest in a certain line of coasting schooners.  The Captain, as
+I said, went to Philadelphia on business connected with these
+schooners and Ardelia went with him.  Hephzibah stayed at home, of
+course; she always stayed at home, never expected to do anything
+else, although even then her favorite reading were books of travel,
+and pictures of the Alps, and of St. Peter's at Rome, and the Tower
+of London were tacked up about her room.  She, too, might have gone
+to Philadelphia, doubtless, if she had asked, but she did not ask.
+Her father did not think of inviting her.  He loved his oldest
+daughter, although he did not worship her as he did Ardelia, but it
+never occurred to him that she, too, might enjoy the trip.  Hephzy
+was always at home, she WAS home; so at home she remained.
+
+In Philadelphia Ardelia met Strickland Morley.
+
+I give that statement a line all by itself, for it is by far the
+most important I have set down so far.  The whole story of the
+Cahoons and the Knowleses--that is, all of their story which is the
+foundation of this history of mine--hinges on just that.  If those
+two had not met I should not be writing this to-day, I might not be
+writing at all; instead of having become a Bayport "quahaug" I
+might have been the Lord knows what.
+
+However, they did meet, at the home of a wealthy shipping merchant
+named Osgood who was a lifelong friend of Captain Barnabas.  This
+shipping merchant had a daughter and that daughter was giving a
+party at her father's home.  Barnabas and Ardelia were invited.
+Strickland Morley was invited also.
+
+Morley, at that time--I saw a good deal of him afterward, when he
+was at Bayport and when I was at the Cahoon house on holidays and
+vacations--was a handsome, aristocratic young Englishman.  He was
+twenty-eight, but he looked younger.  He was the second son in a
+Leicestershire family which had once been wealthy and influential
+but which had, in its later generations, gone to seed.  He was
+educated, in a general sort of way, was a good dancer, played the
+violin fairly well, sang fairly well, had an attractive presence,
+and was one of the most plausible and fascinating talkers I ever
+listened to.  He had studied medicine--studied it after a fashion,
+that is; he never applied himself to anything--and was then, in
+'88, "ship's doctor" aboard a British steamer, which ran between
+Philadelphia and Glasgow.  Miss Osgood had met him at the home of a
+friend of hers who had traveled on that steamer.
+
+Hephzy and I do not agree as to whether or not he actually fell in
+love with Ardelia Cahoon.  Hephzy, of course, to whom Ardelia was
+the most wonderfully beautiful creature on earth, is certain that
+he did--he could not help it, she says.  I am not so sure.  It is
+very hard for me to believe that Strickland Morley was ever in love
+with anyone but himself.  Captain Barnabas was well-to-do and had
+the reputation of being much richer than he really was.  And
+Ardelia WAS beautiful, there is no doubt of that.  At all events,
+Ardelia fell in love, with him, violently, desperately, head over
+heels in love, the very moment the two were introduced.  They
+danced practically every dance together that evening, met
+surreptitiously the next day and for five days thereafter, and on
+the sixth day Captain Barnabas received a letter from his daughter
+announcing that she and Morley were married and had gone to New
+York together.  "We will meet you there, Pa," wrote Ardelia.  "I
+know you will forgive me for marrying Strickland.  He is the most
+wonderful man in the wide world.  You will love him, Pa, as I do."
+
+There was very little love expressed by the Captain when he read
+the note.  According to Mr. Osgood's account, Barnabas's language
+was a throwback from the days when he was first mate on a Liverpool
+packet.  That his idolized daughter had married without asking his
+consent was bad enough; that she had married an Englishman was
+worse.  Captain Barnabas hated all Englishmen.  A ship of his had
+been captured and burned, in the war time, by the "Alabama," a
+British built privateer, and the very mildest of the terms he
+applied to a "John Bull" will not bear repetition in respectable
+society.  He would not forgive Ardelia.  She and her "Cockney
+husband" might sail together to the most tropical of tropics, or
+words to that effect.
+
+But he did forgive her, of course.  Likewise he forgave his son-in-
+law.  When the Captain returned to Bayport he brought the newly
+wedded pair with him.  I was not present at that homecoming.  I was
+away at prep school, digging at my examinations, trying hard to
+forget that I was an orphan, but with the dull ache caused by my
+mother's death always grinding at my heart.  Many years ago she
+died, but the ache comes back now, as I think of her.  There is
+more self-reproach in it than there used to be, more vain regrets
+for impatient words and wasted opportunities.  Ah, if some of us--
+boys grown older--might have our mothers back again, would we be as
+impatient and selfish now?  Would we neglect the opportunities?  I
+think not; I hope not.
+
+Hephzibah, after she got over the shock of the surprise and the
+pain of sharing her beloved sister with another, welcomed that
+other for Ardelia's sake.  She determined to like him very much
+indeed.  This wasn't so hard, at first.  Everyone liked and trusted
+Strickland Morley at first sight.  Afterward, when they came to
+know him better, they were not--if they were as wise and discerning
+as Hephzy--so sure of the trust.  The wise and discerning were not,
+I say; Captain Barnabas, though wise and shrewd enough in other
+things, trusted him to the end.
+
+Morley made it a point to win the affection and goodwill of his
+father-in-law.  For the first month or two after the return to
+Bayport the new member of the family was always speaking of his
+plans for the future, of his profession and how he intended soon,
+very soon, to look up a good location and settle down to practice.
+Whenever he spoke thus, Captain Barnabas and Ardelia begged him not
+to do it yet, to wait awhile.  "I am so happy with you and Pa and
+Hephzy," declared Ardelia.  "I can't bear to go away yet,
+Strickland.  And Pa doesn't want us to; do you, Pa?"
+
+Of course Captain Barnabas agreed with her, he always did, and so
+the Morleys remained at Bayport in the old house.  Then came the
+first of the paralytic shocks--a very slight one--which rendered
+Captain Barnabas, the hitherto hale, active old seaman, unfit for
+exertion or the cares of business.  He was not bedridden by any
+means; he could still take short walks, attend town meetings and
+those of the parish committee, but he must not, so Dr. Parker said,
+be allowed to worry about anything.
+
+And Morley took it upon himself to prevent that worry.  He spoke no
+more of leaving Bayport and settling down to practice his
+profession.  Instead he settled down in Bayport and took the
+Captain's business cares upon his own shoulders.  Little by little
+he increased his influence over the old man.  He attended to the
+latter's investments, took charge of his bank account, collected
+his dividends, became, so to speak, his financial guardian.
+Captain Barnabas, at first rebellious--"I've always bossed my own
+ship," he declared, "and I ain't so darned feeble-headed that I
+can't do it yet"--gradually grew reconciled and then contented.
+He, too, began to worship his daughter's husband as the daughter
+herself did.
+
+"He's a wonder," said the Captain.  "I never saw such a fellow for
+money matters.  He's handled my stocks and things a whole lot
+better'n I ever did.  I used to cal'late if I got six per cent.
+interest I was doin' well.  He ain't satisfied with anything short
+of eight, and he gets it, too.  Whatever that boy wants and I own
+he can have.  Sometimes I think this consarned palsy of mine is a
+judgment on me for bein' so sot against him in the beginnin'.  Why,
+just look at how he runs this house, to say nothing of the rest of
+it!  He's a skipper here; the rest of us ain't anything but fo'most
+hands."
+
+Which was not the exact truth.  Morley was skipper of the Cahoon
+house, Ardelia first mate, her father a passenger, and the foremast
+hand was Hephzy.  And yet, so far as "running" that house was
+concerned the foremast hand ran it, as she always had done.  The
+Captain and Ardelia were Morley's willing slaves; Hephzy was, and
+continued to be, a free woman.  She worked from morning until
+night, but she obeyed only such orders as she saw fit.
+
+She alone did not take the new skipper at his face value.
+
+"I don't know what there was about him that made me uneasy," she
+has told me since.  "Maybe there wasn't anything; perhaps that was
+just the reason.  When a person is SO good and SO smart and SO
+polite--maybe the average sinful common mortal like me gets
+jealous; I don't know.  But I do know that, to save my life, I
+couldn't swallow him whole the way Ardelia and Father did.  I
+wanted to look him over first; and the more I looked him over, and
+the smoother and smoother he looked, the more sure I felt he'd give
+us all dyspepsy before he got through.  Unreasonable, wasn't it?"
+
+For Ardelia's sake she concealed her distrust and did her best to
+get on with the new head of the family.  Only one thing she did,
+and that against Motley's and her father's protest.  She withdrew
+her own little fortune, left her by her mother, from Captain
+Barnabas's care and deposited it in the Ostable savings bank and in
+equally secure places.  Of course she told the Captain of her
+determination to do this before she did it and the telling was the
+cause of the only disagreement, almost a quarrel, which she and her
+father ever had.  The Captain was very angry and demanded reasons.
+Hephzibah declared she didn't know that she had any reasons, but
+she was going to do it, nevertheless.  And she did do it.  For
+months thereafter relations between the two were strained; Barnabas
+scarcely spoke to his older daughter and Hephzy shed tears in the
+solitude of her bedroom.  They were hard months for her.
+
+At the end of them came the crash.  Morley had developed a habit of
+running up to Boston on business trips connected with his father-
+in-law's investments.  Of late these little trips had become more
+frequent.  Also, so it seemed to Hephzy, he was losing something of
+his genial sweetness and suavity, and becoming more moody and less
+entertaining.  Telegrams and letters came frequently and these he
+read and destroyed at once.  He seldom played the violin now unless
+Captain Barnabas--who was fond of music of the simpler sort--
+requested him to do so and he seemed uneasy and, for him,
+surprisingly disinclined to talk.
+
+Hephzy was not the only one who noticed the change in him.  Ardelia
+noticed it also and, as she always did when troubled or perplexed,
+sought her sister's advice.
+
+"I sha'n't ever forget that night when she came to me for the last
+time," Hephzy has told me over and over again.  "She came up to my
+room, poor thing, and set down on the side of my bed and told me
+how worried she was about her husband.  Father had turned in and HE
+was out, gone to the post-office or somewheres.  I had Ardelia all
+to myself, for a wonder, and we sat and talked just the same as we
+used to before she was married.  I'm glad it happened so.  I shall
+always have that to remember, anyhow.
+
+"Of course, all her worry was about Strickland.  She was afraid he
+was makin' himself sick.  He worked so hard; didn't I think so?
+Well, so far as that was concerned, I had come to believe that
+almost any kind of work was liable to make HIM sick, but of course
+I didn't say that to her.  That somethin' was troublin' him was
+plain, though I was far enough from guessin' what that somethin'
+was.
+
+"We set and talked, about Strickland and about Father and about
+ourselves.  Mainly Ardelia's talk was a praise service with her
+husband for the subject of worship; she was so happy with him and
+idolized him so that she couldn't spare time for much else.  But
+she did speak a little about herself and, before she went away, she
+whispered somethin' in my ear which was a dead secret.  Even Father
+didn't know it yet, she said.  Of course I was as pleased as she
+was, almost--and a little frightened too, although I didn't say so
+to her.  She was always a frail little thing, delicate as she was
+pretty; not a strapping, rugged, homely body like me.  We wasn't a
+bit alike.
+
+"So we talked and when she went away to bed she gave me an extra
+hug and kiss; came back to give 'em to me, just as she used to when
+she was a little girl.  I wondered since if she had any inklin' of
+what was goin' to happen.  I'm sure she didn't; I'm sure of it as I
+am that it did happen.  She couldn't have kept it from me if she
+had known--not that night.  She went away to bed and I went to bed,
+too.  I was a long while gettin' to sleep and after I did I dreamed
+my first dream about 'Little Frank.'  I didn't call him 'Little
+Frank' then, though.  I don't seem to remember what I did call him
+or just how he looked except that he looked like Ardelia.  And the
+next afternoon she and Strickland went away--to Boston, he told
+us."
+
+From that trip they never returned.  Morley's influence over his
+wife must have been greater even than any of us thought to induce
+her to desert her father and Hephzy without even a written word of
+explanation or farewell.  It is possible that she did write and
+that her husband destroyed the letter.  I am as sure as Hephzy is
+that Ardelia did not know what Morley had done.  But, at all
+events, they never came back to Bayport and within the week the
+truth became known.  Morley had speculated, had lost and lost again
+and again.  All of Captain Barnabas's own money and all intrusted
+to his care, including my little nest-egg, had gone as margins to
+the brokers who had bought for Morley his worthless eight per cent.
+wildcats.  Hephzy's few thousands in the savings bank and elsewhere
+were all that was left.
+
+I shall condense the rest of the miserable business as much as I
+can.  Captain Barnabas traced his daughter and her husband as far
+as the steamer which sailed for England.  Farther he would not
+trace them, although he might easily have cabled and caused his
+son-in-law's arrest.  For a month he went about in a sort of daze,
+speaking to almost no one and sitting for hours alone in his room.
+The doctor feared for his sanity, but when the breakdown came it
+was in the form of a second paralytic stroke which left him a
+helpless, crippled dependent, weak and shattered in body and mind.
+
+He lived nine years longer.  Meanwhile various things happened.  I
+managed to finish my preparatory school term and, then, instead of
+entering college as Mother and I had planned, I went into business--
+save the mark--taking the exalted position of entry clerk in a
+wholesale drygoods house in Boston.  As entry clerk I did not
+shine, but I continued to keep the place until the firm failed--
+whether or not because of my connection with it I am not sure,
+though I doubt if my services were sufficiently important to
+contribute toward even this result.  A month later I obtained
+another position and, after that, another.  I was never discharged;
+I declare that with a sort of negative pride; but when I announced
+to my second employer my intention of resigning he bore the shock
+with--to say the least--philosophic fortitude.
+
+"We shall miss you, Knowles," he observed.
+
+"Thank you, sir," said I.
+
+"I doubt if we ever have another bookkeeper just like you."
+
+I thanked him again, fighting down my blushes with heroic modesty.
+
+"Oh, I guess you can find one if you try," I said, lightly, wishing
+to comfort him.
+
+He shook his head.  "I sha'n't try," he declared.  "I am not as
+young and as strong as I was and--well, there is always the chance
+that we might succeed."
+
+It was a mean thing to say--to a boy, for I was scarcely more than
+that.  And yet, looking back at it now, I am much more disposed to
+smile and forgive than I was then.  My bookkeeping must have been a
+trial to his orderly, pigeon-holed soul.  Why in the world he and
+his partner put up with it so long is a miracle.  When, after my
+first novel appeared, he wrote me to say that the consciousness of
+having had a part, small though it might be, in training my young
+mind upward toward the success it had achieved would always be a
+great gratification to him, I did not send the letter I wrote in
+answer.  Instead I tore up my letter and his and grinned.  I WAS a
+bad bookkeeper; I was, and still am, a bad business man.  Now I
+don't care so much; that is the difference.
+
+Then I cared a great deal, but I kept on at my hated task.  What
+else was there for me to do?  My salary was so small that, as
+Charlie Burns, one of my fellow-clerks, said of his, I was afraid
+to count it over a bare floor for fear that it might drop in a
+crack and be lost.  It was my only revenue, however, and I
+continued to live upon it somehow.  I had a small room in a
+boarding-house on Shawmut Avenue and I spent most of my evenings
+there or in the reading-room at the public library.  I was not
+popular at the boarding-house.  Most of the young fellows there
+went out a good deal, to call upon young ladies or to dance or to
+go to the theater.  I had learned to dance when I was at school and
+I was fond of the theater, but I did not dance well and on the rare
+occasions when I did accompany the other fellows to the play and
+they laughed and applauded and tried to flirt with the chorus
+girls, I fidgeted in my seat and was uncomfortable.  Not that I
+disapproved of their conduct; I rather envied them, in fact.  But
+if I laughed too heartily I was sure that everyone was looking at
+me, and though I should have liked to flirt, I didn't know how.
+
+The few attempts I made were not encouraging.  One evening--I was
+nineteen then, or thereabouts--Charlie Burns, the clerk whom I have
+mentioned, suggested that we get dinner downtown at a restaurant
+and "go somewhere" afterward.  I agreed--it happened to be Saturday
+night and I had my pay in my pocket--so we feasted on oyster stew
+and ice cream and then started for what my companion called a
+"variety show."  Burns, who cherished the fond hope that he was a
+true sport, ordered beer with his oyster stew and insisted that I
+should do the same.  My acquaintance with beer was limited and I
+never did like the stuff, but I drank it with reckless abandon,
+following each sip with a mouthful of something else to get rid of
+the taste.  On the way to the "show" we met two young women of
+Burns' acquaintance and stopped to converse with them.  Charlie
+offered his arm to one, the best looking; I offered mine to the
+discard, and we proceeded to stroll two by two along the Tremont
+Street mall of the Common.  We had strolled for perhaps ten
+minutes, most of which time I had spent trying to think of
+something to say, when Burns' charmer--she was a waitress in one of
+Mr. Wyman's celebrated "sandwich depots," I believe--turned and,
+looking back at my fair one and myself, observed with some sarcasm:
+"What's the matter with your silent partner, Mame?  Got the lock-
+jaw, has he?"
+
+I left them soon after that.  There was no "variety show" for me
+that night.  Humiliated and disgusted with myself I returned to my
+room at the boarding-house, realizing in bitterness of spirit that
+the gentlemanly dissipations of a true sport were never to be mine.
+
+As I grew older I kept more and more to myself.  My work at the
+office must have been a little better done, I fancy, for my salary
+was raised twice in four years, but I detested the work and the
+office and all connected with it.  I read more and more at the
+public library and began to spend the few dollars I could spare for
+luxuries on books.  Among my acquaintances at the boarding-house
+and elsewhere I had the reputation of being "queer."
+
+My only periods of real pleasure were my annual vacations in
+summer.  These glorious fortnights were spent at Bayport.  There,
+at our old home, for Hephzibah had sold the big Cahoon house and
+she and her father were living in mine, for which they paid a very
+small rent, I was happy.  I spent the two weeks in sailing and
+fishing, and tramping along the waved-washed beaches and over the
+pine-sprinkled hills.  Even in Bayport I had few associates of my
+own age.  Even then they began to call me "The Quahaug."  Hephzy
+hugged me when I came and wept over me when I went away and mended
+my clothes and cooked my favorite dishes in the interval.  Captain
+Barnabas sat in the big arm-chair by the sitting-room window,
+looking out or sleeping.  He took little interest in me or anyone
+else and spoke but seldom.  Occasionally I spent the Fourth of July
+or Christmas at Bayport; not often, but as often as I could.
+
+One morning--I was twenty-five at the time, and the day was Sunday--
+I read a story in one of the low-priced magazines.  It was not
+much of a story, and, as I read it, I kept thinking that I could
+write as good a one.  I had had such ideas before, but nothing had
+come of them.  This time, however, I determined to try.  In half an
+hour I had evolved a plot, such as it was, and at a quarter to
+twelve that night the story was finished.  A highwayman was its
+hero and its scene the great North Road in England.  My conceptions
+of highwaymen and the North Road--of England, too, for that matter--
+were derived from something I had read at some time or other, I
+suppose; they must have been.  At any rate, I finished that story,
+addressed the envelope to the editor of the magazine and dropped
+the envelope and its inclosure in the corner mail-box before I went
+to bed.  Next morning I went to the office as usual.  I had not the
+faintest hope that the story would be accepted.  The writing of it
+had been fun and the sending it to the magazine a joke.
+
+But the story was accepted and the check which I received--forty
+dollars--was far from a joke to a man whose weekly wage was half
+that amount.  The encouraging letter which accompanied the check
+was best of all.  Before the week ended I had written another
+thriller and this, too, was accepted.
+
+Thereafter, for a year or more, my Sundays and the most of my
+evenings were riots of ink and blood.  The ink was real enough and
+the blood purely imaginary.  My heroes spilled the latter and I the
+former.  Sometimes my yarns were refused, but the most of them were
+accepted and paid for.  Editors of other periodicals began to write
+to me requesting contributions.  My price rose.  For one
+particularly harrowing and romantic tale I was paid seventy-five
+dollars.  I dressed in my best that evening, dined at the Adams
+House, gave the waiter a quarter, and saw Joseph Jefferson from an
+orchestra seat.
+
+Then came the letter from Jim Campbell requesting me to come to New
+York and see him concerning a possible book, a romance, to be
+written by me and published by the firm of which he was the head.
+I saw my employer, obtained a Saturday off, and spent that Saturday
+and Sunday in New York, my first visit.
+
+As a result of that visit began my friendship with Campbell and my
+first long story, "The Queen's Amulet."  The "Amulet," or the
+"Omelet," just as you like, was a financial success.  It sold a
+good many thousand copies.  Six months later I broke to my
+employers the distressing news that their business must henceforth
+worry on as best it could without my aid; I was going to devote my
+valuable time and effort to literature.
+
+My fellow-clerks were surprised.  Charlie Burns, head bookkeeper
+now, and a married man and a father, was much concerned.
+
+"But, great Scott, Kent!" he protested, "you're going to do
+something besides write books, ain't you?  You ain't going to make
+your whole living that way?"
+
+"I am going to try," I said.
+
+"Great Scott!  Why, you'll starve!  All those fellows live in
+garrets and starve to death, don't they?"
+
+"Not all," I told him.  "Only real geniuses do that."
+
+He shook his head and his good-by was anything but cheerful.
+
+My plans were made and I put them into execution at once.  I
+shipped my goods and chattels, the latter for the most part books,
+to Bayport and went there to live and write in the old house where
+I was born.  Hephzy was engaged as my housekeeper.  She was alone
+now; Captain Barnabas had died nearly two years before.
+
+Among the Captain's papers and discovered by his daughter after his
+death was a letter from Strickland Morley.  It was written from a
+town in France and was dated six years after Morley's flight and
+the disclosure of his crookedness.  Captain Barnabas had never,
+apparently, answered the letter; certainly he had never told anyone
+of its receipt by him.  The old man never mentioned Morley's name
+and only spoke of Ardelia during his last hours, when his mind was
+wandering.  Then he spoke of and asked for her continually, driving
+poor Hephzibah to distraction, for her love for her lost sister was
+as great as his.
+
+The letter was the complaining whine of a thoroughly selfish man.
+I can scarcely refer to it without losing patience, even now when I
+understand more completely the circumstances under which it was
+written.  It was not too plainly written or coherent and seemed to
+imply that other letters had preceded it.  Morley begged for money.
+He was in "pitiful straits," he declared, compelled to live as no
+gentleman of birth and breeding should live.  As a matter of fact,
+the remnant of his resources, the little cash left from the
+Captain's fortune which he had taken with him had gone and he was
+earning a precarious living by playing the violin in a second-rate
+orchestra.  "For poor dead Ardelia's sake," he wrote, "and for the
+sake of little Francis, your grandchild, I ask you to extend the
+financial help which I, as your heir-in-law, might demand.  You may
+consider that I have wronged you, but, as you should know and must
+know, the wrong was unintentional and due solely to the sudden
+collapse of the worthless American investments which the
+scoundrelly Yankee brokers inveigled me into making."
+
+If the money was sent at once, he added, it might reach him in time
+to prevent his yielding to despondency and committing suicide.
+
+"Suicide!  HE commit suicide!" sniffed Hephzy when she read me the
+letter.  "He thinks too much of his miserable self ever to hurt it.
+But, oh dear! I wish Pa had told me of this letter instead of
+hidin' it away.  I might have sent somethin', not to him, but to
+poor, motherless Little Frank."
+
+She had tried; that is, she had written to the French address, but
+her letter had been returned.  Morley and the child of whom this
+letter furnished the only information were no longer in that
+locality.  Hephzy had talked of "Little Frank" and dreamed about
+him at intervals ever since.  He had come to be a reality to her,
+and she even cut a child's picture from a magazine and fastened it
+to the wall of her room beneath the engraving of Westminster Abbey,
+because there was something about the child in the picture which
+reminded her of "Little Frank" as he looked in her dreams.
+
+She and I had lived together ever since, I continuing to turn out,
+each with less enthusiasm and more labor, my stories of persons and
+places of which, as Campbell said but too truly, I knew nothing
+whatever.  Finally I had reached my determination to write no more
+"slush," profitable though it might be.  I invited Jim to visit me;
+he had come and the conversation at the boathouse and his remarks
+at the bedroom door were all the satisfaction that visit had
+brought me so far.
+
+I sat there in my study, going over all this, not so fully as I
+have set it down here, but fully nevertheless, and the possibility
+of finding even a glimmer of interest or a hint of fictional
+foundation in Hephzibah or her life or mine was as remote at the
+end of my thinking as it had been at the beginning.  There might be
+a story there, or a part of a story, but I could not write it.  The
+real trouble was that I could not write anything.  With which,
+conclusion, exactly what I started with, I blew out the lamp and
+went upstairs to bed.
+
+Next morning Jim and I went for another sail from which we did not
+return until nearly dinner-time.  During that whole forenoon he did
+not mention the promised "prescription," although I offered him
+plenty of opportunities and threw out various hints by way of bait.
+
+He ignored the bait altogether and, though he talked a great deal
+and asked a good many questions, both talk and questions had no
+bearing on the all-important problem which had been my real reason
+for inviting him to Bayport.  He questioned me again concerning my
+way of spending my time, about my savings, how much money I had put
+by, and the like, but I was not particularly interested in these
+matters and they were not his business, to put it plainly.  At
+least, I could not see that they were.
+
+I answered him as briefly as possible and, I am afraid, behaved
+rather boorishly to one, who next to Hephzy, was perhaps the best
+friend I had in the world.  His apparent lack of interest hurt and
+disappointed me and I did not care if he knew it.  My impatience
+must have been apparent enough, but if so it did not trouble him;
+he chatted and laughed and told stories all the way from the
+landing to the house and announced to Hephzy, who had stayed at
+home from church in order to prepare and cook clam chowder and
+chicken pie and a "Queen pudding," that he had an appetite like a
+starved shark.
+
+When, at last, that appetite was satisfied, he and I adjourned to
+the sitting-room for a farewell smoke.  His train left at three-
+thirty and it lacked but an hour of that time.  He had worn my
+suit, the one which Hephzibah had laid out for him the day before,
+but had changed to his own again and packed his bag before dinner.
+
+We camped in the wing chairs and he lighted his cigar.  Then, to my
+astonishment, he rose and shut the door.
+
+"What did you do that for?" I asked.
+
+He came back to his chair.
+
+"Because I'm going to talk to you like a Dutch uncle," he replied,
+"and I don't want anyone, not even a Cape Cod cousin, butting in.
+Kent, I told you that before I went I was going to prescribe for
+you, didn't I?  Well, I'm going to do it now.  Are you ready for
+the prescription?"
+
+"I have been ready for it for some time," I retorted.  "I began to
+think you had forgotten it altogether."
+
+"I hadn't.  But I wanted it to be the last word you should hear
+from me and I didn't want to give you time to think up a lot of
+fool objections to spring on me before I left.  Look here, I'm your
+doctor now; do you understand?  You called me in as a specialist
+and what I say goes.  Is that understood?"
+
+"I hear you."
+
+"You've got to do more than hear me.  You've got to do what I tell
+you.  I know what ails you.  You've buried yourself in the mud down
+here.  Wake up, you clam!  Come out of your shell.  Stir around.
+Stop thinking about yourself and think of something worth while."
+
+"Dear! dear! hark to the voice of the oracle.  And what is the
+something worth while I am to think about; you?"
+
+"Yes, by George! me!  Me and the dear public!  Here are thirty-five
+thousand seekers after the--the higher literature, panting open-
+mouthed for another Knowles classic.  And you sit back here and
+cover yourself with sand and seaweed and say you won't give it to
+them."
+
+"You're wrong.  I say I can't."
+
+"You will, though."
+
+"I won't.  You can bet high on that."
+
+"You will, and I'll bet higher.  YOU write no more stories!  You!
+Why, confound you, you couldn't help it if you tried.  You needn't
+write another 'Black Brig' unless you want to.  You needn't--you
+mustn't write anything UNTIL you want to.  But, by George! you'll
+get up and open your eyes and stir around, and keep stirring until
+the time comes when you've found something or someone you DO want
+to write about.  THEN you'll write; you will, for I know you.  It
+may turn out to be what you call 'slush,' or it may not, but you'll
+write it, mark my words."
+
+He was serious now, serious enough even to suit me.  But what he
+had said did not suit me.
+
+"Don't talk nonsense, Jim," I said.  "Don't you suppose I have
+thought--"
+
+"Thought! that's just it; you do nothing but think.  Stop thinking.
+Stop being a quahaug--a dead one, anyway.  Drop the whole business,
+drop Bayport, drop America, if you like.  Get up, clear out, go to
+China, go to Europe, go to--Well, never mind, but go somewhere.  Go
+somewhere and forget it.  Travel, take a long trip, start for one
+place and, if you change your mind before you get there, go
+somewhere else.  It doesn't make much difference where, so that you
+go, and see different things.  I'm talking now, Kent Knowles, and
+it isn't altogether because it pays us to publish your books,
+either.  You drop Bayport and drop writing.  Go out and pick up and
+go.  Stay six months, stay a year, stay two years, but keep alive
+and meet people and give what you flatter yourself is a brain
+house-cleaning.  Confound you, you've kept it shut like one of
+these best front parlors down here.  Open the windows and air out.
+Let the outside light in.  An idea may come with it; it is barely
+possible, even to you!"
+
+He was out of breath by this time.  I was in a somewhat similar
+condition for his tirade had taken mine away.  However, I managed
+to express my feelings.
+
+"Humph!" I grunted.  "And so this is your wonderful prescription.
+I am to travel, am I?"
+
+"You are.  You can afford it, and I'll see that you do."
+
+"And just what port would you recommend?"
+
+"I don't care, I tell you, except that it ought to be a long way
+off.  I'm not joking, Kent; this is straight.  A good long jaunt
+around the world would do you a barrel of good.  Don't stop to
+think about it, just start, that's all.  Will you?"
+
+I laughed.  The idea of my starting on a pleasure trip was
+ridiculous.  If ever there was a home-loving and home-staying
+person it was I.  The bare thought of leaving my comfort and my
+books and Hephzy made me shudder.  I hadn't the least desire to see
+other countries and meet other people.  I hated sleeping cars and
+railway trains and traveling acquaintances.  So I laughed.
+
+"Sorry, Jim," I said, "but I'm afraid I can't take your
+prescription."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"For one reason because I don't want to."
+
+"That's no reason at all.  It doesn't make any difference what you
+want.  Anything else?"
+
+"Yes.  I would no more wander about creation all alone than--"
+
+"Take someone with you."
+
+"Who?  Will you go, yourself?"
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"I wish I could," he said, and I think he meant it.  "I'd like
+nothing better.  I'D keep you alive, you can bet on that.  But I
+can't leave the literature works just now.  I'll do my best to find
+someone who will, though.  I know a lot of good fellows who travel--"
+
+I held up my hand.  "That's enough," I interrupted.  "They can't
+travel with me.  They wouldn't be good fellows long if they did."
+
+He struck the chair arm with his fist.
+
+"You're as near impossible as you can be, aren't you," he
+exclaimed.  "Never mind; you're going to do as I tell you.  I never
+gave you bad advice yet, now did I?"
+
+"No--o.  No, but--"
+
+"I'm not giving it to you now.  You'll go and you'll go in a hurry.
+I'll give you a week to think the idea over.  At the end of that
+time if I don't hear from you I'll be down here again, and I'll
+worry you every minute until you'll go anywhere to get rid of me.
+Kent, you must do it.  You aren't written out, as you call it, but
+you are rusting out, fast.  If you don't get away and polish up
+you'll never do a thing worth while.  You'll be another what's-his-
+name--Ase Tidditt; that's what you'll be.  I can see it coming on.
+You're ossifying; you're narrowing; you're--"
+
+I broke in here.  I didn't like to be called narrow and I did not
+like to be paired with Asaph Tidditt, although our venerable town
+clerk is a good citizen and all right, in his way.  But I had
+flattered myself that way was not mine.
+
+"Stop it, Jim!" I ordered.  "Don't blow off any more steam in this
+ridiculous fashion.  If this is all you have to say to me, you may
+as well stop."
+
+"Stop!  I've only begun.  I'll stop when you start, and not before.
+Will you go?"
+
+"I can't, Jim.  You know I can't."
+
+"I know you can and I know you're going to.  There!" rising and
+laying a hand on my shoulder, "it is time for ME to be starting.
+Kent, old man, I want you to promise me that you will do as I tell
+you.  Will you?"
+
+"I can't, Jim.  I would if I could, but--"
+
+"Will you promise me to think the idea over?  Think it over
+carefully; don't think of anything else for the rest of the week?
+Will you promise me to do that?"
+
+I hesitated.  I was perfectly sure that all my thinking would but
+strengthen my determination to remain at home, but I did not like
+to appear too stubborn.
+
+"Why, yes, Jim," I said, doubtfully, "I promise so much, if that is
+any satisfaction to you."
+
+"All right.  I'll give you until Friday to make up your mind.  If I
+don't hear from you by that time I shall take it for granted that
+you have made it up in the wrong way and I'll be here on Saturday.
+I'll keep the process up week in and week out until you give in.
+That's MY promise.  Come on.  We must be moving."
+
+He said good-by to Hephzy and we walked together to the station.
+His last words as we shook hands by the car steps were:  "Remember--
+think.  But don't you dare think of anything else."  My answer was
+a dubious shake of the head.  Then the train pulled out.
+
+I believe that afternoon and evening to have been the "bluest" of
+all my blue periods, and I had had some blue ones prior to Jim's
+visit.  I was dreadfully disappointed.  Of course I should have
+realized that no advice or "prescription" could help me.  As
+Campbell had said, "It was up to me;" I must help myself; but I had
+been trying to help myself for months and I had not succeeded.  I
+had--foolishly, I admit--relied upon him to give me a new idea, a
+fresh inspiration, and he had not done it.  I was disappointed and
+more discouraged than ever.
+
+My state of mind may seem ridiculous.  Perhaps it was.  I was in
+good health, not very old--except in my feelings--and my stories,
+even the "Black Brig," had not been failures, by any means.  But I
+am sure that every man or woman who writes, or paints, or does
+creative work of any kind, will understand and sympathize with me.
+I had "gone stale," that is the technical name for my disease, and
+to "go stale" is no joke.  If you doubt it ask the writer or
+painter of your acquaintance.  Ask him if he ever has felt that he
+could write or paint no more, and then ask him how he liked the
+feeling.  The fact that he has written or painted a great deal
+since has no bearing on the matter.  "Staleness" is purely a mental
+ailment, and the confident assurance of would-be doctors that its
+attacks are seldom fatal doesn't help the sufferer at the time.  He
+knows he is dead, and that is no better, then, than being dead in
+earnest.
+
+I knew I was dead, so far as my writing was concerned, and the
+advice to go away and bury myself in a strange country did not
+appeal to me.  It might be true that I was already buried in
+Bayport, but that was my home cemetery, at all events.  The more I
+thought of Jim Campbell's prescription the less I felt like taking
+it.
+
+However, I kept on with the thinking; I had promised to do that.
+On Wednesday came a postcard from Jim, himself, demanding
+information.  "When and where are you going?" he wrote.  "Wire
+answer."  I did not wire answer.  I was not going anywhere.
+
+I thrust the card into my pocket and, turning away from the frame
+of letter boxes, faced Captain Cyrus Whittaker, who, like myself,
+had come to Simmons's for his mail.  He greeted me cordially.
+
+"Hello, Kent," he hailed.  "How are you?"
+
+"About the same as usual, Captain," I answered, shortly.
+
+"That's pretty fair, by the looks.  You don't look too happy,
+though, come to notice it.  What's the matter; got bad news?"
+
+"No.  I haven't any news, good or bad."
+
+"That so?  Then I'll give you some.  Phoebe and I are going to
+start for California to-morrow."
+
+"You are?  To California?  Why?"
+
+"Oh, just for instance, that's all.  Time's come when I have to go
+somewhere, and the Yosemite and the big trees look good to me.
+It's this way, Kent; I like Bayport, you know that.  Nobody's more
+in love with this old town than I am; it's my home and I mean to
+live and die here, if I have luck.  But it don't do for me to stay
+here all the time.  If I do I begin to be no good, like a
+strawberry plant that's been kept in one place too long and has
+quit bearin.'  The only thing to do with that plant is to
+transplant it and let it get nourishment in a new spot.  Then you
+can move it back by and by and it's all right.  Same way with me.
+Every once in a while I have to be transplanted so's to freshen up.
+My brains need somethin' besides post-office talk and sewin'-circle
+gossip to keep them from shrivelin'.  I was commencin' to feel the
+shrivel, so it's California for Phoebe and me.  Better come along,
+Kent.  You're beginnin' to shrivel a little, ain't you?"
+
+Was it as apparent as all that?  I was indignant.
+
+"Do I look it?" I demanded.
+
+"No--o, but I ain't sure that you don't act it.  No offence, you
+understand.  Just a little ground bait to coax you to come on the
+California cruise along with Phoebe and me, that's all."
+
+It was not likely that I should accept.  Two are company and three
+a crowd, and if ever two were company Captain Cy and his wife were
+those two.  I thanked him and declined, but I asked a question.
+
+"You believe in travel as a restorative, you do?" I asked.
+
+"Hey?  I sartin do.  Change your course once in awhile, same as you
+change your clothes.  Wearin' the same suit and cruisin' in the
+same puddle all the time ain't healthy.  You're too apt to get sick
+of the clothes and puddle both."
+
+"But you don't believe in traveling alone, do you?"
+
+"No," emphatically, "I don't, generally speakin.'  If you go off by
+yourself you're too likely to keep thinkin' ABOUT yourself.  Take
+somebody with you; somebody you're used to and know well and like,
+though.  Travelin' with strangers is a little mite worse than
+travelin' alone.  You want to be mighty sure of your shipmate."
+
+I walked home.  Hephzibah was in the sitting-room, reading and
+knitting a stocking, a stocking for me.  She did not need to use
+her eyes for the knitting; I am quite sure she could have knit in
+her sleep.
+
+"Hello, Hosy," she said, "been up to the office, have you?  Any
+mail?"
+
+"Nothing much.  Humph!  Still reading that Raymond and Whitcomb
+circular?"
+
+"No, not that one.  This is one I got last year.  I've been sittin'
+here plannin' out just where I'd go and what I'd see if I could.
+It's the next best thing to really goin'."
+
+I looked at her.  All at once a new idea began to crystallize in my
+mind.  It was a curious idea, a ridiculous idea, and yet--and yet
+it seemed--
+
+"Hephzy," said I, suddenly, "would you really like to go abroad?"
+
+"WOULD I?  Hosy, how you talk!  You know I've been crazy to go ever
+since I was a little girl.  I don't know what makes me so.  Perhaps
+it's the salt water in my blood.  All our folks were sailors and
+ship captains.  They went everywhere.  I presume likely it takes
+more than one generation to kill off that sort of thing."
+
+"And you really want to go?"
+
+"Of course I do."
+
+"Then why haven't you gone?  You could afford to take a moderate-
+priced tour."
+
+Hephzy laughed over her knitting.
+
+"I guess," she said, "I haven't gone for the reason you haven't,
+Hosy.  You could afford, it, too--you know you could.  But how
+could I go and leave you?  Why, I shouldn't sleep a minute
+wonderin' if you were wearin' clothes without holes in 'em and if
+you changed your flannels when the weather changed and ate what you
+ought to, and all that.  You've been so--so sort of dependent on me
+and I've been so used to takin' care of you that I don't believe
+either of us would be happy anywhere without the other.  I know
+certain sure _I_ shouldn't."
+
+I did not answer immediately.  The idea, the amazing, ridiculous
+idea which had burst upon me suddenly began to lose something of
+its absurdity.  Somehow it began to look like the answer to my
+riddle.  I realized that my main objection to the Campbell
+prescription had been that I must take it alone or with strangers.
+And now--
+
+"Hephzy," I demanded, "would you go away--on a trip abroad--with
+me?"
+
+She put down the knitting.
+
+"Hosy Knowles!" she exclaimed.  "WHAT are you talkin' about?"
+
+"But would you?"
+
+"I presume likely I would, if I had the chance; but it isn't likely
+that--where are you goin'?"
+
+I did not answer.  I hurried out of the sitting-room and out of the
+house.
+
+When I returned I found her still knitting.  The circular lay on
+the floor at her feet.  She regarded me anxiously.
+
+"Hosy," she demanded, "where--"
+
+I interrupted.  "Hephzy," said I, "I have been to the station to
+send a telegram."
+
+"A telegram?  A TELEGRAM!  For mercy sakes, who's dead?"
+
+Telegrams in Bayport usually mean death or desperate illness.
+I laughed.
+
+"No one is dead, Hephzy," I replied.  "In fact it is barely
+possible that someone is coming to life.  I telegraphed Mr.
+Campbell to engage passage for you and me on some steamer leaving
+for Europe next week."
+
+Hephzibah turned pale.  The partially knitted sock dropped beside
+the circular.
+
+"Why--why--what--?" she gasped.
+
+"On a steamer leaving next week," I repeated.  "You want to travel,
+Hephzy.  Jim says I must.  So we'll travel together."
+
+She did not believe I meant it, of course, and it took a long time
+to convince her.  But when at last she began to believe--at least
+to the extent of believing that I had sent the telegram--her next
+remark was characteristic.
+
+"But I--I can't go, Hosy," declared Hephzibah.  "I CAN'T.  Who--who
+would take care of the cat and the hens?"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+In Which Hephzy and I and the Plutonia Sail Together
+
+
+The week which began that Wednesday afternoon seems, as I look back
+to it now, a bit of the remote past, instead of seven days of a
+year ago.  Its happenings, important and wonderful as they were,
+seem trivial and tame compared with those which came afterward.
+And yet, at the time, that week was a season of wild excitement and
+delightful anticipation for Hephzibah, and of excitement not
+unmingled with doubts and misgivings for me.  For us both it was a
+busy week, to put it mildly.
+
+Once convinced that I meant what I said and that I was not "raving
+distracted," which I think was her first diagnosis of my case,
+Hephzy's practical mind began to unearth objections, first to her
+going at all and, second, to going on such short notice.
+
+"I don't think I'd better, Hosy," she said.  "You're awful good to
+ask me and I know you think you mean it, but I don't believe I
+ought to do it, even if I felt as if I could leave the house and
+everything alone.  You see, I've lived here in Bayport so long that
+I'm old-fashioned and funny and countrified, I guess.  You'd be
+ashamed of me."
+
+I smiled.  "When I am ashamed of you, Hephzy," I replied, "I shall
+be on my way to the insane asylum, not to Europe.  You are much
+more likely to be ashamed of me."
+
+"The idea!  And you the pride of this town!  The only author that
+ever lived in it--unless you call Joshua Snow an author, and he
+lived in the poorhouse and nobody but himself was proud of HIM."
+
+Josh Snow was Bayport's Homer, its only native poet.  He wrote the
+immortal ballad of the scallop industry, which begins:
+
+
+     "On a fine morning at break of day,
+      When the ice has all gone out of the bay,
+      And the sun is shining nice and it is like spring,
+      Then all hands start to go scallop-ING."
+
+
+In order to get the fullest measure of music from this lyric gem
+you should put a strong emphasis on the final "ing."  Joshua always
+did and the summer people never seemed to tire of hearing him
+recite it.  There are eighteen more verses.
+
+"I shall not be ashamed of you, Hephzy," I repeated.  "You know it
+perfectly well.  And I shall not go unless you go."
+
+"But I can't go, Hosy.  I couldn't leave the hens and the cat.
+They'd starve; you know they would."
+
+"Susanna will look after them.  I'll leave money for their
+provender.  And I will pay Susanna for taking care of them.  She
+has fallen in love with the cat; she'll be only too glad to adopt
+it."
+
+"And I haven't got a single thing fit to wear."
+
+"Neither have I.  We will buy complete fit-outs in Boston or New
+York."
+
+"But--"
+
+There were innumerable "buts."  I answered them as best I could.
+Also I reiterated my determination not to go unless she did.  I
+told of Campbell's advice and laid strong emphasis on the fact that
+he had said travel was my only hope.  Unless she wished me to die
+of despair she must agree to travel with me.
+
+"And you have said over and over again that your one desire was to
+go abroad," I added, as a final clincher.
+
+"I know it.  I know I have.  But--but now when it comes to really
+goin' I'm not so sure.  Uncle Bedny Small was always declarin' in
+prayer-meetin' that he wanted to die so as to get to Heaven, but
+when he was taken down with influenza he made his folks call both
+doctors here in town and one from Harniss.  I don't know whether I
+want to go or not, Hosy.  I--I'm frightened, I guess."
+
+Jim's answer to my telegram arrived the very next day.
+
+"Have engaged two staterooms for ship sailing Wednesday the tenth,"
+it read.  "Hearty congratulations on your good sense.  Who is your
+companion?  Write particulars."
+
+The telegram quashed the last of Hephzy's objections.  The fares
+had been paid and she was certain they must be "dreadful
+expensive."  All that money could not be wasted, so she accepted
+the inevitable and began preparations.
+
+I did not write the "particulars" requested.  I had a feeling that
+Campbell might consider my choice of a traveling companion a queer
+one and, although my mind was made up and his opinion could not
+change it, I thought it just as well to wait until our arrival in
+New York before telling him.  So I wrote a brief note stating that
+my friend and I would reach New York on the morning of the tenth
+and that I would see him there.  Also I asked, for my part, the
+name of the steamer he had selected.
+
+His answer was as vague as mine.  He congratulated me once more
+upon my decision, prophesied great things as the result of what he
+called my "foreign junket," and gave some valuable advice
+concerning the necessary outfit, clothes, trunks and the like.
+"Travel light," he wrote.  "You can buy whatever else you may need
+on the other side.  'Phone as soon as you reach New York."  But he
+did not tell me the name of the ship, nor for what port she was to
+sail.
+
+So Hephzy and I were obliged to turn to the newspapers for
+information upon those more or less important subjects, and we
+speculated and guessed not a little.  The New York dailies were not
+obtainable in Bayport except during the summer months and the
+Boston publications did not give the New York sailings.  I wrote to
+a friend in Boston and he sent me the leading journals of the
+former city and, as soon as they arrived, Hephzy sat down upon the
+sitting-room carpet--which she had insisted upon having taken up to
+be packed away in moth balls--to look at the maritime advertisements.
+I am quite certain it was the only time she sat down, except at
+meals, that day.
+
+I selected one of the papers and she another.  We reached the same
+conclusion simultaneously.
+
+"Why, it must be--" she began.
+
+"The Princess Eulalie," I finished.
+
+"It is the only one that sails on the tenth.  There is one on the
+eleventh, though."
+
+"Yes, but that one is the 'Plutonia,' one of the fastest and most
+expensive liners afloat.  It isn't likely that Jim had booked us
+for the 'Plutonia.'  She would scarcely be in our--in my class."
+
+"Humph!  I guess she isn't any too good for a famous man like you,
+Hosy.  But I would look funny on her, I give in.  I've read about
+her.  She's always full of lords and ladies and millionaires and
+things.  Just the sort of folks you write about.  She'd be just the
+one for you."
+
+I shook my head.  "My lords and ladies are only paper dolls,
+Hephzy," I said, ruefully.  "I should be as lost as you among the
+flesh and blood variety.  No, the 'Princess Eulalie' must be ours.
+She runs to Amsterdam, though.  Odd that Jim should send me to
+Holland."
+
+Hephzy nodded and then offered a solution.
+
+"I don't doubt he did it on purpose," she declared.  "He knew
+neither you nor I was anxious to go to England.  He knows we don't
+think much of the English, after our experience with that Morley
+brute."
+
+"No, he doesn't know any such thing.  I've never told him a word
+about Morley.  And he doesn't know you're going, Hephzy.  I've kept
+that as a--as a surprise for him."
+
+"Well, never mind.  I'd rather go to Amsterdam than England.  It's
+nearer to France."
+
+I was surprised.  "Nearer to France?" I repeated.  "What difference
+does that make?  We don't know anyone in France."
+
+Hephzibah was plainly shocked.  "Why, Hosy!" she protested.  "Have
+you forgotten Little Frank?  He is in France somewhere, or he was
+at last accounts."
+
+"Good Lord!" I groaned.  Then I got up and went out.  I had
+forgotten "Little Frank" and hoped that she had.  If she was to
+flit about Europe seeing "Little Frank" on every corner I foresaw
+trouble.  "Little Frank" was likely to be the bane of my existence.
+
+We left Bayport on Monday morning.  The house was cleaned and swept
+and scoured and moth-proofed from top to bottom.  Every door was
+double-locked and every window nailed.  Burglars are unknown in
+Bayport, but that didn't make any difference.  "You can't be too
+careful," said Hephzy.  I was of the opinion that you could.
+
+The cat had been "farmed out" with Susanna's people and Susanna
+herself was to feed the hens twice a day, lock them in each night
+and let them out each morning.  Their keeper had a carefully
+prepared schedule as to quantity and quality of food; Hephzy had
+prepared and furnished it.
+
+"And don't you give 'em any fish," ordered Hephzy.  "I ate a
+chicken once that had been fed on fish, and--my soul!"
+
+There was quite an assemblage at the station to see us off.
+Captain Whittaker and his wife were not there, of course; they were
+near California by this time.  But Mr. Partridge, the minister, was
+there and so was his wife; and Asaph Tidditt and Mr. and Mrs.
+Bailey Bangs and Captain Josiah Dimick and HIS wife, and several
+others.  Oh, yes! and Angeline Phinney.  Angeline was there, of
+course.  If anything happened in Bayport and Angeline was not there
+to help it happen, then--I don't know what then; the experiment had
+never been tried in my lifetime.
+
+Everyone said pleasant things to us.  They really seemed sorry to
+have us leave Bayport, but for our sakes they expressed themselves
+as glad.  It would be such a glorious trip; we would have so much
+to tell when we got back.  Mr. Partridge said he should plan for me
+to give a little talk to the Sunday school upon my return.  It
+would be a wonderful thing for the children.  To my mind the most
+wonderful part of the idea was that he should take my consent for
+granted.  _I_ talk to the Sunday school!  I, the Quahaug!  My knees
+shook even at the thought.
+
+Keturah Bangs hoped we would have a "lovely time."  She declared
+that it had been the one ambition of her life to go sight-seeing.
+But she should never do it--no, no!  Such things wasn't for her.
+If she had a husband like some women it might be, but not as 'twas.
+She had long ago given up hopin' to do anything but keep boarders,
+and she had to do that all by herself.
+
+Bailey, her husband, grinned sheepishly but, for a wonder, he did
+not attempt defence.  I gathered that Bailey was learning wisdom.
+It was time; he had attended his wife's academy a long while.
+
+Captain Dimick brought a bag of apples, greenings, some he had kept
+in the cellar over winter.  "Nice to eat on the cars," he told us.
+Everyone asked us to send postcards.  Miss Phinney was especially
+solicitous.
+
+"It'll be just lovely to know where you be and what you're doin,"
+she declared.
+
+When the train had started and we had waved the last good-bys from
+the window Hephzibah expressed her opinion concerning Angeline's
+request.
+
+"I send HER postcards!" she snapped.  "I think I see myself doin'
+it!  All she cares about 'em is so she can run from Dan to
+Beersheba showin' 'em to everybody and talkin' about how
+extravagant we are and wonderin' if we borrowed the money.  But
+there! it won't make any difference.  If I don't send 'em to her
+she'll read all I send to other folks.  She and Rebecca Simmons are
+close as two peas in a pod and Becky reads everything that comes
+through her husband's post-office.  All that aren't sealed, that
+is--yes, and some that are, I shouldn't wonder, if they're not
+sealed tight."
+
+Her next remark was a surprising one.
+
+"Hosy," she said, "how much they all think of you, don't they.
+Isn't it nice to know you're so popular."
+
+I turned in the seat to stare at her.
+
+"Popular!" I repeated.  "Hephzy, I have a good deal of respect for
+your brain, generally speaking, but there are times when I think it
+shows signs of softening."
+
+She did not resent my candor; she paid absolutely no attention to
+it.
+
+"I don't mean popular with everybody, rag, tag and bobtail and all,
+like--well, Eben Salters," she went on.  "But the folks that count
+all respect and like you, Hosy.  I know they do."
+
+Mr. Salters is our leading local statesman--since the departure of
+the Honorable Heman Atkins.  He has filled every office in his
+native village and he has served one term as representative in the
+State House at Boston.  He IS popular.
+
+"It is marvelous how affection can be concealed," I observed, with
+sarcasm.  Hephzy was back at me like a flash.
+
+"Of course they don't tell you of it," she said.  "If they did
+you'd probably tell 'em to their faces that they were fibbin' and
+not speak to 'em again.  But they do like you, and I know it."
+
+It was useless to carry the argument further.  When Hephzy begins
+chanting my praises I find it easier to surrender--and change the
+subject.
+
+In Boston we shopped.  It seems to me that we did nothing else.  I
+bought what I needed the very first day, clothes, hat, steamer coat
+and traveling cap included.  It did not take me long; fortunately I
+am of the average height and shape and the salesmen found me easy
+to please.  My shopping tour was ended by three o'clock and I spent
+the remainder of the afternoon at a bookseller's.  There was a set
+of "Early English Poets" there, nineteen little, fat, chunky
+volumes, not new and shiny and grand, but middle-aged and shabby
+and comfortable, which appealed to me.  The price, however, was
+high; I had the uneasy feeling that I ought not to afford it.  Then
+the bookseller himself, who also was fat and comfortably shabby,
+and who had beguiled from me the information that I was about to
+travel, suggested that the "Poets" would make very pleasant reading
+en route.
+
+"I have found," he said, beaming over his spectacles, "that a
+little book of this kind," patting one of the volumes, "which may
+be carried in the pocket, is a rare traveling companion.  When you
+wish his society he is there, and when you tire of him you can shut
+him up.  You can't do that with all traveling companions, you know.
+Ha! ha!"
+
+He chuckled over his joke and I chuckled with him.  Humor of that
+kind is expensive, for I bought the "English Poets" and ordered
+them sent to my hotel.  It was not until they were delivered, an
+hour later, that I began to wonder what I should do with them.  Our
+trunks were likely to be crowded and I could not carry all of the
+nineteen volumes in my pockets.
+
+Hephzibah, who had been shopping on her own hook, did not return
+until nearly seven.  She returned weary and almost empty-handed.
+
+"But didn't you buy ANYTHING?" I asked.  "Where in the world have
+you been?"
+
+She had been everywhere, so she said.  This wasn't entirely true,
+but I gathered that she had visited about every department store in
+the city.  She had found ever so many things she liked, but oh
+dear! they did cost so much.
+
+"There was one traveling coat that I did want dreadfully," she
+said.  "It was a dark brown, not too dark, but just light enough so
+it wouldn't show water spots.  I've been out sailing enough times
+to know how your things get water-spotted.  It fitted me real nice;
+there wouldn't have to be a thing done to it.  But it cost thirty-
+one dollars!  'My soul!' says I, 'I can't afford THAT!'  But they
+didn't have anything cheaper that wouldn't have made me look like
+one of those awful play-actin' girls that came to Bayport with the
+Uncle Tom's Cabin show.  And I tried everywhere and nothin' pleased
+me so well."
+
+"So you didn't buy the coat?"
+
+"BUY it?  My soul Hosy, didn't I tell you it cost--"
+
+"I know.  What else did you see that you didn't buy?"
+
+"Hey?  Oh, I saw a suit, a nice lady-like suit, and I tried it on.
+That fitted me, too, only the sleeves would have to be shortened.
+And it would have gone SO well with that coat.  But the suit cost
+FORTY dollars.  'Good land!' I said, 'haven't you got ANYTHING for
+poor folks?'  And you ought to have seen the look that girl gave
+me!  And a hat--oh, yes, I saw a hat!  It was--"
+
+There was a great deal more.  Summed up it amounted to something
+like this:  All that suited her had been too high-priced and all
+that she considered within her means hadn't suited her at all.  So
+she had bought practically nothing but a few non-essentials.  And
+we were to leave for New York the following night and sail for
+Europe the day after.
+
+"Hephzy," said I, "you will go shopping again to-morrow morning and
+I'll go with you."
+
+Go we did, and we bought the coat and the hat and the suit and
+various other things.  With each purchase Hephzy's groans and
+protests at my reckless extravagance grew louder.  At last I had an
+inspiration.
+
+"Hephzy," said I, "when we meet Little Frank over there in France,
+or wherever he may be, you will want him to be favorably impressed
+with your appearance, won't you?  These things cost money of
+course, but we must think of Little Frank.  He has never seen his
+American relatives and so much depends on a first impression."
+
+Hephzy regarded me with suspicion.  "Humph!" she sniffed, "that's
+the first time I ever knew you to give in that there WAS a Little
+Frank.  All right, I sha'n't say any more, but I hope the foreign
+poorhouses are more comfortable than ours, that's all.  If you make
+me keep on this way, I'll fetch up in one before the first month's
+over."
+
+We left for New York on the five o'clock train.  Packing those
+"Early English Poets" was a confounded nuisance.  They had to be
+stuffed here, there and everywhere amid my wearing apparel and
+Hephzibah prophesied evil to come.
+
+"Books are the worse things goin' to make creases," she declared.
+"They're all sharp edges."
+
+I had to carry two of the volumes in my pockets, even then, at the
+very start.  They might prove delightful traveling companions, as
+the bookman had said, but they were most uncomfortable things to
+sit on.
+
+We reached the Grand Central station on time and went to a nearby
+hotel.  I should have sent the heavier baggage directly to the
+steamer, but I was not sure--absolutely sure--which steamer it was
+to be.  The "Princess Eulalie" almost certainly, but I did not dare
+take the risk.
+
+Hephzy called to me from the room adjoining mine at twelve that
+night.
+
+"Just think, Hosy!" she cried, "this is the last night either of us
+will spend on dry land."
+
+"Heavens!  I hope it won't be as bad as that," I retorted.
+"Holland is pretty wet, so they say, but we should be able to find
+some dry spots."
+
+She did not laugh.  "You know what I mean," she observed.  "To-
+morrow night at twelve o'clock we shall be far out on the vasty
+deep."
+
+"We shall be on the 'Princess Eulalie,'" I answered.  "Go to
+sleep."
+
+Neither of us spoke the truth.  At twelve the following night we
+were neither "far out on the vasty deep" nor on the "Princess
+Eulalie."
+
+My first move after breakfast was to telephone Campbell at his city
+home.  He hailed me joyfully and ordered me to stay where I was,
+that is, at the hotel.  He would be there in an hour, he said.
+
+He was five minutes ahead of his promise.  We shook hands heartily.
+
+"You are going to take my prescription, after all," he crowed.
+"Didn't I tell you I was the only real doctor for sick authors?
+Bully for you!  Wish I was going with you.  Who is?"
+
+"Come to my room and I'll show you," said I.  "You may be
+surprised."
+
+"See here! you haven't gone and dug up another fossilized bookworm
+like yourself, have you?  If you have, I refuse--"
+
+"Come and see."
+
+We took the elevator to the fourth floor and walked to my room.  I
+opened the door.
+
+"Hephzy," said I, "here is someone you know."
+
+Hephzy, who had been looking out of the window of her room, hurried
+in.
+
+"Well, Mr. Campbell!" she exclaimed, holding out her hand, "how do
+you do?  We got here all right, you see.  But the way Hosy has been
+wastin' money, his and mine, buyin' things we didn't need, I began
+to think one spell we'd never get any further.  Is it time to start
+for the steamer yet?"
+
+Jim's face was worth looking at.  He shook Hephzibah's hand
+mechanically, but he did not speak.  Instead he looked at her and
+at me.  I didn't speak either; I was having a thoroughly good time.
+
+"Had we ought to start now?" repeated Hephzibah.  "I'm all ready
+but puttin' on my things."
+
+Jim came out of his trance.  He dropped the hand and came to me.
+
+"Are you--is she--" he stammered.
+
+"Yes," said I.  "Miss Cahoon is going with me.  I wrote you I had
+selected a good traveling companion.  I have, haven't I?"
+
+"He would have it so, Mr. Campbell," put in Hephzy.  "I said no and
+kept on sayin' it, but he vowed and declared he wouldn't go unless
+I did.  I know you must think it's queer my taggin' along, but it
+isn't any queerer to you than it is to me."
+
+Jim behaved very well, considering.  He did not laugh.  For a
+moment I thought he was going to; if he had I don't know what I
+should have done, said things for which I might have been sorry
+later on, probably.  But he did not laugh.  He didn't even express
+the tremendous surprise which he must have felt.  Instead he shook
+hands again with both of us and said it was fine, bully, just the
+thing.
+
+"To tell the truth, Miss Cahoon," he declared, "I have been rather
+fearful of this pet infant of ours.  I didn't know what sort of
+helpless creature he might have coaxed into roaming loose with him
+in the wilds of Europe.  I expected another babe in the woods and I
+was contemplating cabling the police to look out for them and shoo
+away the wolves.  But he'll be all right now.  Yes, indeed! he'll
+be looked out for now."
+
+"Then you approve?" I asked.
+
+He shot a side-long glance at me.  "Approve!" he repeated.  "I'm
+crazy about the whole business."
+
+I judged he considered me crazy, hopelessly so.  I did not care.
+I agreed with him in this--the whole business was insane and
+Hephzibah's going was the only sensible thing about it, so far.
+
+His next question was concerning our baggage.  I told him I had
+left it at the railway station because I was not sure where it
+should be sent.
+
+"What time does the 'Princess Eulalie' sail?" I asked.
+
+He looked at me oddly.  "What?" he queried.  "The 'Princess
+Eulalie'?  Twelve o'clock, I believe, I'm not sure."
+
+"You're not sure!  And it is after nine now.  It strikes me that--"
+
+"Never mind what strikes you.  So long as it isn't lightning you
+shouldn't complain.  Have you the baggage checks?  Give them to
+me."
+
+I handed him the checks, obediently, and he stepped to the
+telephone and gave a number.  A short conversation followed.  Then
+he hung up the receiver.
+
+"One of the men from the office will be here soon," he said.  "He
+will attend to all your baggage, get it aboard the ship and see
+that it is put in your staterooms.  Now, then, tell me all about
+it.  What have you been doing since I saw you?  When did you
+arrive?  How did you happen to think of taking--er--Miss Cahoon
+with you?  Tell me the whole."
+
+I told him.  Hephzy assisted, sitting on the edge of a rocking
+chair and asking me what time it was at intervals of ten minutes.
+She was decidedly fidgety.  When she went to Boston she usually
+reached the station half an hour before train time, and to sit
+calmly in a hotel room, when the ship that was to take us to the
+ends of the earth was to sail in two hours, was a reckless gamble
+with Fate, to her mind.
+
+The man from the office came and the baggage checks were turned
+over to him.  So also were our bags and our umbrellas.  Campbell
+stepped into the hall and the pair held a whispered conversation.
+Hephzy seized the opportunity to express to me her perturbation.
+
+"My soul, Hosy!" she whispered.  "Mr. Campbell's out of his head,
+ain't he?  Here we are a sittin' and sittin' and time's goin' by.
+We'll be too late.  Can't you make him hurry?"
+
+I was almost as nervous as she was, but I would not have let our
+guardian know it for the world.  If we lost a dozen steamers I
+shouldn't call his attention to the fact.  I might be a "Babe in
+the Wood," but he should not have the satisfaction of hearing me
+whimper.
+
+He came back to the room a moment later and began asking more
+questions.  Our answers, particularly Hephzy's, seemed to please
+him a great deal.  At some of them he laughed uproariously.  At
+last he looked at his watch.
+
+"Almost eleven," he observed.  "I must be getting around to the
+office.  Miss Cahoon will you excuse Kent and me for an hour or so?
+I have his letters of credit and the tickets in our safe and he had
+better come around with me and get them.  If you have any last bits
+of shopping to do, now is your opportunity.  Or you might wait here
+if you prefer.  We will be back at half-past twelve and lunch
+together."
+
+I started.  Hephzy sprang from the chair.
+
+"Half-past twelve!" I cried.
+
+"Lunch together!" gasped Hephzy.  "Why, Mr. Campbell! the 'Princess
+Eulalie' sails at noon.  You said so yourself!"
+
+Jim smiled.  "I know I did," he replied, "but that is immaterial.
+You are not concerned with the 'Princess Eulalie.'  Your passages
+are booked on the 'Plutonia' and she doesn't leave her dock until
+one o'clock to-morrow morning.  We will meet here for lunch at
+twelve-thirty.  Come, Kent."
+
+I didn't attempt an answer.  I am not exactly sure what I did.  A
+few minutes later I walked out of that room with Campbell and I
+have a hazy recollection of leaving Hephzy seated in the rocker and
+of hearing her voice, as the door closed, repeating over and over:
+
+"The 'Plutonia'!  My soul and body!  The 'Plutonia'!  Me--ME on the
+'Plutonia'!"
+
+What I said and did afterwards doesn't make much difference.  I
+know I called my publisher a number of disrespectful names not one
+of which he deserved.
+
+"Confound you!" I cried.  "You know I wouldn't have dreamed of
+taking a passage on a ship like that.  She's a floating Waldorf,
+everyone says so.  Dress and swagger society and--Oh, you idiot!
+I wanted quiet!  I wanted to be alone!  I wanted--"
+
+Jim interrupted me.
+
+"I know you did," he said.  "But you're not going to have them.
+You've been alone too much.  You need a change.  If I know the
+'Plutonia'--and I've crossed on her four times--you're going to
+have it."
+
+He burst into a roar of laughter.  We were in a cab, fortunately,
+or his behavior would have attracted attention.  I could have
+choked him.
+
+"You imbecile!" I cried.  "I have a good mind to throw the whole
+thing up and go home to Bayport.  By George, I will!"
+
+He continued to chuckle.
+
+"I see you doing it!" he observed.  "How about your--what's her
+name?--Hephzibah?  Going to tell her that it's all off, are you?
+Going to tell her that you will forfeit your passage money and
+hers?  Why, man, haven't you a heart?  If she was booked for
+Paradise instead of Paris she couldn't be any happier.  Don't be
+foolish!  Your trunks are on the 'Plutonia' and on the 'Plutonia'
+you'll be to-night.  It's the best thing that can happen to you.
+I did it on purpose.  You'll thank me come day."
+
+I didn't thank him then.
+
+We returned to the hotel at twelve-thirty, my pocket-book loaded
+with tickets and letters of credit and unfamiliar white paper notes
+bearing the name of the Bank of England.  Hephzibah was still in
+the rocking chair.  I am sure she had not left it.
+
+We lunched in the hotel dining-room.  Campbell ordered the luncheon
+and paid for it while Hephzibah exclaimed at his extravagance.  She
+was too excited to eat much and too worried concerning the extent
+of her wardrobe to talk of less important matters.
+
+"Oh dear, Hosy!" she wailed, "WHY didn't I buy another best dress.
+DO you suppose my black one will be good enough?  All those lords
+and ladies and millionaires on the 'Plutonia'!  Won't they think
+I'm dreadful poverty-stricken.  I saw a dress I wanted awfully--in
+one of those Boston stores it was; but I didn't buy it because it
+was so dear.  And I didn't tell you I wanted it because I knew if I
+did you'd buy it.  You're so reckless with money.  But now I wish
+I'd bought it myself.  What WILL all those rich people think of
+me?"
+
+"About what they think of me, Hephzy, I imagine," I answered,
+ruefully.  "Jim here has put up a joke on us.  He is the only one
+who is getting any fun out of it."
+
+Jim, for a wonder, was serious.  "Miss Cahoon," he declared,
+earnestly, "don't worry.  I'm sure the black silk is all right; but
+if it wasn't it wouldn't make any difference.  On the 'Plutonia'
+nobody notices other people's clothes.  Most of them are too busy
+noticing their own.  If Kent has his evening togs and you have the
+black silk you'll pass muster.  You'll have a gorgeous time.
+I only wish I was going with you."
+
+He repeated the wish several times during the afternoon.  He
+insisted on taking us to a matinee and Hephzy's comments on the
+performance seemed to amuse him hugely.  It had been eleven years,
+so she said, since she went to the theater.
+
+"Unless you count 'Uncle Tom' or 'Ten Nights in a Barroom,' or some
+of those other plays that come to Bayport," she added.  "I suppose
+I'm making a perfect fool of myself laughin' and cryin' over what's
+nothin' but make-believe, but I can't help it.  Isn't it splendid,
+Hosy!  I wonder what Father would say if he could know that his
+daughter was really travelin'--just goin' to Europe!  He used to
+worry a good deal, in his last years, about me.  Seemed to feel
+that he hadn't taken me around and done as much for me as he ought
+to in the days when he could.  'Twas just nonsense, his feelin'
+that way, and I told him so.  But I wonder if he knows now how
+happy I am.  I hope he does.  My goodness!  I can't realize it
+myself.  Oh, there goes the curtain up again!  Oh, ain't that
+pretty!  I AM actin' ridiculous, I know, Mr. Campbell,' but you
+mustn't mind.  Laugh at me all you want to; I sha'n't care a bit."
+
+Jim didn't laugh--then.  Neither did I.  He and I looked at each
+other and I think the same thought was in both our minds.  Good,
+kind, whole-souled, self-sacrificing Hephzibah!  The last
+misgiving, the last doubt as to the wisdom of my choice of a
+traveling companion vanished from my thoughts.  For the first time
+I was actually glad I was going, glad because of the happiness it
+would mean to her.
+
+When we came out of the theater Campbell reached down in the crowd
+to shake my hand.
+
+"Congratulations, old man," he whispered; "you did exactly the
+right thing.  You surprised me, I admit, but you were dead right.
+She's a brick.  But don't I wish I was going along!  Oh my! oh my!
+to think of you two wandering about Europe together!  If only I
+might be there to see and hear!  Kent, keep a diary; for my sake,
+promise me you'll keep a diary.  Put down everything she says and
+read it to me when you get home."
+
+He left us soon afterward.  He had given up the entire day to me
+and would, I know, have cheerfully given the evening as well, but I
+would not hear of it.  A messenger from the office had brought him
+word of the presence in New York of a distinguished scientist who
+was preparing a manuscript for publication and the scientist had
+requested an interview that night.  Campbell was very anxious to
+obtain that manuscript and I knew it.  Therefore I insisted that he
+leave us.  He was loathe to do so.
+
+"I hate to, Kent," he declared.  "I had set my heart on seeing you
+on board and seeing you safely started.  But I do want to nail
+Scheinfeldt, I must admit.  The book is one that he has been at
+work on for years and two other publishing houses are as anxious as
+ours to get it.  To-night is my chance, and to-morrow may be too
+late."
+
+"Then you must not miss the chance.  You must go, and go now."
+
+"I don't like to.  Sure you've got everything you need?  Your
+tickets and your letters of credit and all?  Sure you have money
+enough to carry you across comfortably?"
+
+"Yes, and more than enough, even on the 'Plutonia.'"
+
+"Well, all right, then.  When you reach London go to our English
+branch--you have the address, Camford Street, just off the Strand--
+and whatever help you may need they'll give you.  I've cabled them
+instructions.  Think you can get down to the ship all right?"
+
+I laughed.  "I think it fairly possible," I said.  "If I lose my
+way, or Hephzy is kidnapped, I'll speak to the police or telephone
+you."
+
+"The latter would be safer and much less expensive.  Well, good-by,
+Kent.  Remember now, you're going for a good time and you're to
+forget literature.  Write often and keep in touch with me.  Good-
+by, Miss Cahoon.  Take care of this--er--clam of ours, won't you.
+Don't let anyone eat him on the half-shell, or anything like that."
+
+Hephzy smiled.  "They'd have to eat me first," she said, "and I'm
+pretty old and tough.  I'll look after him, Mr. Campbell, don't you
+worry."
+
+"I don't.  Good luck to you both--and good-by."
+
+A final handshake and he was gone.  Hephzy looked after him.
+
+"There!" she exclaimed; "I really begin to believe I'm goin'.
+Somehow I feel as if the last rope had been cast off.  We've got to
+depend on ourselves now, Hosy, dear.  Mercy! how silly I am
+talkin'.  A body would think I was homesick before I started."
+
+I did not answer, for I WAS homesick.  We dined together at the
+hotel.  There remained three long hours before it would be time for
+us to take the cab for the 'Plutonia's' wharf.  I suggested another
+theater, but Hephzy, to my surprise, declined the invitation.
+
+"If you don't mind, Hosy," she said, "I guess I'd rather stay right
+here in the room.  I--I feel sort of solemn and as if I wanted to
+sit still and think.  Perhaps it's just as well.  After waitin'
+eleven years to go to one theater, maybe two in the same day would
+be more than I could stand."
+
+So we sat together in the room at the hotel--sat and thought.  The
+minutes dragged by.  Outside beneath the windows, New York blazed
+and roared.  I looked down at the hurrying little black manikins on
+the sidewalks, each, apparently, bound somewhere on business or
+pleasure of its own, and I wondered vaguely what that business or
+pleasure might be and why they hurried so.  There were many single
+ones, of course, and occasionally groups of three or four, but
+couples were the most numerous.  Husbands and wives, lovers and
+sweethearts, each with his or her life and interests bound up in
+the life and interests of the other.  I envied them.  Mine had been
+a solitary life, an unusual, abnormal kind of life.  No one had
+shared its interests and ambitions with me, no one had spurred me
+on to higher endeavor, had loved with me and suffered with me,
+helping me through the shadows and laughing with me in the
+sunshine.  No one, since Mother's death, except Hephzy and Hephzy's
+love and care and sacrifice, fine as they were, were different.  I
+had missed something, I had missed a great deal, and now it was too
+late.  Youth and high endeavor and ambition had gone by; I had left
+them behind.  I was a solitary, queer, self-centered old bachelor,
+a "quahaug," as my fellow-Bayporters called me.  And to ship a
+quahaug around the world is not likely to do the creature a great
+deal of good.  If he lives through it he is likely to be shipped
+home again tougher and drier and more useless to the rest of
+creation than ever.
+
+Hephzibah, too, had evidently been thinking, for she interrupted my
+dismal meditations with a long sigh.  I started and turned toward
+her.
+
+"What's the matter?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, nothin'," was the solemn answer.  "I was wonderin', that's
+all.  Just wonderin' if he would talk English.  It would be a
+terrible thing if he could speak nothin' but French or a foreign
+language and I couldn't understand him.  But Ardelia was American
+and that brute of a Morley spoke plain enough, so I suppose--"
+
+I judged it high time to interrupt.
+
+"Come, Hephzy," said I.  "It is half-past ten.  We may as well
+start at once."
+
+Broadway, seen through the cab windows, was bright enough, a blaze
+of flashing signs and illuminated shop windows.  But --th street,
+at the foot of which the wharves of the Trans-Atlantic Steamship
+Company were located, was black and dismal.  It was by no means
+deserted, however.  Before and behind and beside us were other cabs
+and automobiles bound in the same direction.  Hephzy peered out at
+them in amazement.
+
+"Mercy on us, Hosy!" she exclaimed.  "I never saw such a procession
+of carriages.  They're as far ahead and as far back of us as you
+can see.  It is like the biggest funeral that ever was, except that
+they don't crawl along the way a funeral does.  I'm glad of that,
+anyhow.  I wish I didn't FEEL so much as if I was goin' to be
+buried.  I don't know why I do.  I hope it isn't a presentiment."
+
+If it was she forgot it a few minutes later.  The cab stopped
+before a mammoth doorway in a long, low building and a person in
+uniform opened the door.  The wide street was crowded with vehicles
+and from them were descending people attired as if for a party
+rather than an ocean voyage.  I helped Hephzy to alight and, while
+I was paying the cab driver, she looked about her.
+
+"Hosy!  Hosy!" she whispered, seizing my arm tight, "we've made a
+mistake.  This isn't the steamboat; this is--is a weddin' or
+somethin'.  Look! look!"
+
+I looked, looked at the silk hats, the opera cloaks, the jewels and
+those who wore them.  For a moment I, too, was certain there must
+be a mistake.  Then I looked upward and saw above the big doorway
+the flashing electric sign of the "Trans-Atlantic Navigation
+Company."
+
+"No, Hephzy," said I; "I guess it is the right place.  Come."
+
+I gave her my arm--that is, she continued to clutch it with both
+hands--and we moved forward with the crowd, through the doorway,
+past a long, moving inclined plane up which bags, valises, bundles
+of golf sticks and all sorts of lighter baggage were gliding, and
+faced another and smaller door.
+
+"Lift this way!  This way to the lift!" bawled a voice.
+
+"What's a lift?" whispered Hephzy, tremulously, "Hosy, what's a
+lift?"
+
+"An elevator," I whispered in reply.
+
+"But we can't go on board a steamboat in an elevator, can we?
+I never heard--"
+
+I don't know what she never heard.  The sentence was not finished.
+Into the lift we went.  On either side of us were men in evening
+dress and directly in front was a large woman, hatless and opera-
+cloaked, with diamonds in her ears and a rustle of silk at every
+point of her persons.  The car reeked with perfume.
+
+The large woman wriggled uneasily.
+
+"George," she said, in a loud whisper, "why do they crowd these
+lifts in this disgusting way?  And WHY," with another wriggle, "do
+they permit PERSONS with packages to use them?"
+
+As we emerged from the elevator Hephzy whispered again.
+
+"She meant us, Hosy," she said.  "I've got three of those books of
+yours in this bundle under my arm.  I COULDN'T squeeze 'em into
+either of the valises.  But she needn't have been so disagreeable
+about it, need she."
+
+Still following the crowd, we passed through more wide doorways and
+into a huge loft where, through mammoth openings at our left, the
+cool air from the river blew upon our faces.  Beyond these openings
+loomed an enormous something with rows of railed walks leading up
+its sides.  Hephzibah and I, moving in a sort of bewildered dream,
+found ourselves ascending one of these walks.  At its end was
+another doorway and, beyond, a great room, with more elevators and
+a mosaic floor, and mahogany and gilt and gorgeousness, and silk
+and broadcloth and satin.
+
+Hephzy gasped and stopped short.
+
+"It IS a mistake, Hosy!" she cried.  "Where is the steamer?"
+
+I smiled.  I felt almost as "green" and bewildered as she, but I
+tried not to show my feelings.
+
+"It is all right, Hephzy," I answered.  "This is the steamer.  I
+know it doesn't look like one, but it is.  This is the 'Plutonia'
+and we are on board at last."
+
+Two hours later we leaned together over the rail and watched the
+lights of New York grow fainter behind us.
+
+Hephzibah drew a deep breath.
+
+"It is so," she said.  "It is really so.  We ARE, aren't we, Hosy."
+
+"We are," said I.  "There is no doubt of it."
+
+"I wonder what will happen to us before we see those lights again."
+
+"I wonder."
+
+"Do you think HE--Do you think Little Frank--"
+
+"Hephzy," I interrupted, "if we are going to bed at all before
+morning, we had better start now."
+
+"All right, Hosy.  But you mustn't say 'go to bed.'  Say 'turn in.'
+Everyone calls going to bed 'turning in' aboard a vessel."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+In Which We View, and Even Mingle Slightly with, the Upper Classes
+
+
+It is astonishing--the ease with which the human mind can accustom
+itself to the unfamiliar and hitherto strange.  Nothing could have
+been more unfamiliar or strange to Hephzibah and me than an ocean
+voyage and the "Plutonia."  And yet before three days of that
+voyage were at an end we were accustomed to both--to a degree.  We
+had learned to do certain things and not to do others.  Some pet
+illusions had been shattered, and new and, at first, surprising
+items of information had lost their newness and come to be accepted
+as everyday facts.
+
+For example, we learned that people in real life actually wore
+monocles, something, which I, of course, had known to be true but
+which had seemed nevertheless an unreality, part of a stage play, a
+"dress-up" game for children and amateur actors.  The "English
+swell" in the performances of the Bayport Dramatic Society always
+wore a single eyeglass, but he also wore Dundreary whiskers and
+clothes which would have won him admittance to the Home for Feeble-
+Minded Youth without the formality of an examination.  His "English
+accent" was a combination of the East Bayport twang and an Irish
+brogue and he was a blithering idiot in appearance and behavior.
+No one in his senses could have accepted him as anything human and
+the eyeglass had been but a part of his unreal absurdity.
+
+And yet, here on the "Plutonia," were at least a dozen men, men of
+dignity and manner, who sported monocles and acted as if they were
+used to them.  The first evening before we left port, one or two
+were in evidence; the next afternoon, in the Lounge, there were
+more.  The fact that they were on an English ship, bound for
+England, brought the monocles out of their concealment, as Hephzy
+said, "like hoptoads after the first spring thaw."  Her amazed
+comments were unique.
+
+"But what good are they, Hosy?" she demanded.  "Can they see with
+'em?"
+
+"I suppose they can," I answered.  "You can see better with your
+spectacles than you can without them."
+
+"Humph!  I can see better with two eyes than I can with one, as far
+as that goes.  I don't believe they wear 'em for seein' at all.
+Take that man there," pointing to a long, lank Canadian in a yellow
+ulster, whom the irreverent smoking-room had already christened
+"The Duke of Labrador."  "Look at him!  He didn't wear a sign of
+one until this mornin'.  If he needed it to see with he'd have worn
+it before, wouldn't he?  Don't tell me!  He wears it because he
+wants people to think he's a regular boarder at Windsor Castle.
+And he isn't; he comes from Toronto, and that's only a few miles
+from the United States.  Ugh!  You foolish thing!" as the "Duke of
+Labrador" strutted by our deck-chairs; "I suppose you think you're
+pretty, don't you?  Well, you're not.  You look for all the world
+like a lighthouse with one window in it and the lamp out."
+
+I laughed.  "Hephzy," said I, "every nation has its peculiarities
+and the monocle is an English national institution, like--well,
+like tea, for instance."
+
+"Institution!  Don't talk to me about institutions!  I know the
+institution I'd put HIM in."
+
+She didn't fancy the "Duke of Labrador."  Neither did she fancy tea
+at breakfast and coffee at dinner.  But she learned to accept the
+first.  Two sessions with the "Plutonia's" breakfast coffee
+completed her education.
+
+"Bring me tea," she said to our table steward on the third morning.
+"I've tried most every kind of coffee and lived through it, but I'm
+gettin' too old to keep on experimentin' with my health.  Bring me
+tea and I'll try to forget what time it is."
+
+We had tea at breakfast, therefore, and tea at four in the
+afternoon.  Hephzibah and I learned to take it with the rest.  She
+watched her fellow-passengers, however, and as usual had something
+to say concerning their behavior.
+
+"Did you hear that, Hosy?" she whispered, as we sat together in the
+"Lounge," sipping tea and nibbling thin bread and butter and the
+inevitable plum cake.  "Did you hear what that woman said about her
+husband?"
+
+I had not heard, and said so.
+
+"Well, judgin' by her actions, I thought her husband was lost and
+she was sure he had been washed overboard.  'Where is Edward?' she
+kept askin'.  'Poor Edward!  What WILL he do?  Where is he?'  I was
+gettin' real anxious, and then it turned out that she was afraid
+that, if he didn't come soon, he'd miss his tea.  My soul!  Hosy,
+I've been thinkin' and do you know the conclusion I've come to?"
+
+"No," I replied.  "What is it?"
+
+"Well, it sounds awfully irreverent, but I've come to the
+conclusion that the first part of the Genesis in the English
+scriptures must be different than ours.  I'm sure they think that
+the earth was created in six days and, on the seventh, Adam and Eve
+had tea.  I believe it for an absolute fact."
+
+The pet illusion, the loss of which caused her the most severe
+shock, was that concerning the nobility.  On the morning of our
+first day afloat the passenger lists were distributed.  Hephzibah
+was early on deck.  Fortunately neither she nor I were in the least
+discomfited by the motion of the ship, then or at any time.  We
+proved to be good sailors; Hephzibah declared it was in the blood.
+
+"For a Knowles or a Cahoon to be seasick," she announced, "would be
+a disgrace.  Our men folks for four generations would turn over in
+their graves."
+
+She was early on deck that first morning and, at breakfast she and
+I had the table to ourselves.  She had the passenger list propped
+against the sugar bowl and was reading the names.
+
+"My gracious, Hosy!" she exclaimed.  "What, do you think!  There
+are five 'Sirs' on board and one 'Lord'!  Just think of it!  Where
+do you suppose they are?"
+
+"In their berths, probably, at this hour," I answered.
+
+"Then I'm goin' to stay right here till they come out.  I'm goin'
+to see 'em and know what they look like if I sit at this table all
+day."
+
+I smiled.  "I wouldn't do that, Hephzy," said I.  "We can see them
+at lunch."
+
+"Oh!  O--Oh!  And there's a Princess here!  Princess B-e-r-g-e-n-s-
+t-e-i-n--Bergenstein.  Princess Bergenstein.  What do you suppose
+she's Princess of?"
+
+"Princess of Jerusalem, I should imagine," I answered.  "Oh, I see!
+You've skipped a line, Hephzy.  Bergenstein belongs to another
+person.  The Princess's name is Berkovitchky.  Russian or Polish,
+perhaps."
+
+"I don't care if she's Chinese; I mean to see her.  I never
+expected to look at a live Princess in MY life."
+
+We stopped in the hall at the entrance to the dining-saloon to
+examine the table chart.  Hephzibah made careful notes of the
+tables at which the knights and the lord and the Princess were
+seated and their locations.  At lunch she consulted the notes.
+
+"The lord sits right behind us at that little table there," she
+said, excitedly.  "That table for two is marked 'Lord and Lady
+Erkskine.'  Now we must watch when they come in."
+
+A few minutes later a gray-haired little man, accompanied by a
+middle-aged woman entered the saloon and were seated at the small
+table by an obsequious steward.  Hephzy gasped.
+
+"Why--why, Hosy!" she exclaimed.  "That isn't the lord, is it?
+THAT?"
+
+"I suppose it must be," I answered.  When our own Steward came I
+asked him.
+
+"Yes, sir," he answered, with unction.  "Yes, sir, that is Lord and
+Lady Erkskine, sir, thank you, sir."
+
+Hephzy stared at Lord and Lady Erkskine.  I gave our luncheon
+order, and the steward departed.  Then her indignant disgust and
+disappointment burst forth.
+
+"Well! well!" she exclaimed.  "And that is a real live lord!  That
+is!  Why, Hosy, he's the livin' image of Asaph Tidditt back in
+Bayport.  If Ase could afford clothes like that he might be his
+twin brother.  Well! I guess that's enough.  I don't want to see
+that Princess any more.  Just as like as not she'd look like
+Susanna Wixon."
+
+Her criticisms were not confined to passengers of other
+nationalities.  Some of our own came in for comment quite as
+severe.
+
+"Look at those girls at that table over there," she whispered.
+"The two in red, I mean.  One of 'em has got a little flag pinned
+on her dress.  What do you suppose that is for?"
+
+I looked at the young ladies in red.  They were vivacious damsels
+and their conversation and laughter were by no means subdued.  A
+middle-aged man and woman and two young fellows were their table-
+mates and the group attracted a great deal of attention.
+
+"What has she got that flag pinned on her for?" repeated Hephzy.
+
+"She wishes everyone to know she's an American exportation, I
+suppose," I answered.  "She is evidently proud of her country."
+
+"Humph!  Her country wouldn't be proud of her, if it had to listen
+to her the way we do.  There's some exports it doesn't pay to
+advertise, I guess, and she and her sister are that kind.  Every
+time they laugh I can see that Lady Erkskine shrivel up like a
+sensitive plant.  I hope she don't think all American girls are
+like those two."
+
+"She probably does."
+
+"Well, IF she does she's makin' a big mistake.  I might as well
+believe all Englishmen were like this specimen comin' now, and I
+don't believe that, even if I do hail from Bayport."
+
+The specimen was the "Duke of Labrador," who sauntered by, monocle
+in eye, hands in pockets and an elaborate affection of the "Oxford
+stoop" which he must have spent time and effort in acquiring.
+Hephzibah shook her head.
+
+"I wish Toronto was further from home than it is," she declared.
+"But there!  I shan't worry about him.  I'll leave him for Lord
+Erkskine and his wife to be ashamed of.  He's their countryman, or
+he hopes he is.  I've got enough to do bein' ashamed of those two
+American girls."
+
+It may be gathered from these conversations that Hephzy and I had
+been so fortunate as to obtain a table by ourselves.  This was not
+the case.  There were four seats at our table and, according to the
+chart of the dining-saloon, one of them should be occupied by a
+"Miss Rutledge of New York" and the other by "A. Carleton
+Heathcroft of London."  Miss Rutledge we had not seen at all.  Our
+table steward informed us that the lady was "hindisposed" and
+confined to her room.  She was an actress, he added.  Hephzy, whose
+New England training had imbued her with the conviction that all
+people connected with the stage must be highly undesirable as
+acquaintances, was quite satisfied.  "Of course I'm sorry she isn't
+well," she confided to me "but I'm awfully glad she won't be at our
+table.  I shouldn't want to hurt her feelin's, but I couldn't talk
+to her as I would to an ordinary person.  I COULDN'T!  All I should
+be able to think of was what she wore, or didn't wear, when she was
+actin' her parts.  I expect I'm old-fashioned, but when I think of
+those girls in the pictures outside that theater--the one we didn't
+go to--I--well--mercy!"
+
+The "pictures" were the posters advertising a popular musical
+comedy which Campbell had at first suggested our witnessing the
+afternoon of our stay in New York.  Hephzibah's shocked expression
+and my whispered advice had brought about a change of plans.  We
+saw a perfectly respectable, though thrilling, melodrama instead.
+I might have relieved my relative's mind by assuring her that all
+actresses were not necessarily attired as "merry villagers," but
+the probable result of my assurance seemed scarcely worth the
+effort.
+
+A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire, was not acquainted with the stage,
+in a professional way, at any rate.  He was a slim and elegant
+gentleman, dressed with elaborate care, who appeared profoundly
+bored with life in general and our society in particular.  He
+sported one of Hephzibah's detestations, a monocle, and spoke, when
+he spoke at all, with a languid drawl and what I learned later was
+a Piccadilly accent.  He favored us with his company during our
+first day afloat; after that we saw him amid the select group at
+that much sought--by some--center of shipboard prominence, "the
+Captain's table."
+
+Oddly enough Hephzibah did not resent the Heathcroft condescension
+and single eyeglass as much as I had expected.  She explained her
+feeling in this way.
+
+"I know he's dreadfully high and mighty and all that," she said.
+"And the way he said 'Really?' when you and I spoke to him was
+enough to squelch even an Angelina Phinney.  But I didn't care so
+much.  Anybody, even a body as green as I am, can see that he
+actually IS somebody when he's at home, not a make-believe, like
+that Toronto man.  And I'm glad for our waiter's sake that he's
+gone somewhere else.  The poor thing bowed so low when he came in
+and was so terribly humble every time Mr. Heathcroft spoke to him.
+I should hate to feel I must say 'Thank you' when I was told that
+the food was 'rotten bad.'  I never thought 'rotten' was a nice
+word, but all these English folks say it.  I heard that pretty
+English girl over there tell her father that it was a 'jolly rotten
+mornin',' and she's as nice and sweet as she can be.  Well, I'm
+learnin' fast, Hosy.  I can see a woman smoke a cigarette now and
+not shiver--much.  Old Bridget Doyle up in West Bayport, used to
+smoke a pipe and the whole town talked about it.  She'd be right at
+home in that sittin'-room they call a 'Lounge' after dinner,
+wouldn't she?"
+
+My acquaintance with A. Carleton Heathcroft, which appeared to have
+ended almost as soon as it began, was renewed in an odd way.  I was
+in the "Smoke-Room" after dinner the third evening out, enjoying a
+cigar and idly listening to the bidding for pools on the ship's
+run, that time-honored custom which helps the traveling gentleman
+of sporting proclivities to kill time and lose money.  On board the
+"Plutonia," with its unusually large quota of millionaires and
+personages, the bidding was lively and the prices paid for favored
+numbers high.  Needless to say I was not one of the bidders.  My
+interest was merely casual.
+
+The auctioneer that evening was a famous comedian with an
+international reputation and his chatter, as he urged his hearers
+to higher bids, was clever and amusing.  I was listening to it and
+smiling at the jokes when a voice at my elbow said:
+
+"Five pounds."
+
+I turned and saw that the speaker was Heathcroft.  His monocle was
+in his eye, a cigarette was between his fingers and he looked as if
+he had been newly washed and ironed and pressed from head to foot.
+He nodded carelessly and I bowed in return.
+
+"Five pounds," repeated Mr. Heathcroft.
+
+The auctioneer acknowledged the bid and proceeded to urge his
+audience on to higher flights.  The flights were made and my
+companion capped each with one more lofty.  Eight, nine, ten pounds
+were bid.  Heathcroft bid eleven.  Someone at the opposite side of
+the room bid twelve.  It seemed ridiculous to me.  Possibly my face
+expressed my feeling; at any rate something caused the immaculate
+gentleman in the next chair to address me instead of the
+auctioneer.
+
+"I say," he said, "that's running a bit high, isn't it?"
+
+"It seems so to me," I replied.  "The number is five hundred and
+eighty-six and I think we shall do better than that."
+
+"Oh, do you!  Really!  And why do you think so, may I ask?"
+
+"Because we are having a remarkably smooth sea and a favorable
+wind."
+
+"Oh, but you forget the fog.  There's quite a bit of fog about us
+now, isn't there."
+
+I wish I could describe the Heathcroft manner of saying "Isn't
+there."  I can't, however; there is no use trying.
+
+"It will amount to nothing," I answered.  "The glass is high and
+there is no indication of bad weather.  Our run this noon was five
+hundred and ninety-one, you remember."
+
+"Yes.  But we did have extraordinarily good weather for that."
+
+"Why, not particularly good.  We slowed down about midnight.  There
+was a real fog then and the glass was low.  The second officer told
+me it dropped very suddenly and there was a heavy sea running.  For
+an hour between twelve and one we were making not much more than
+half our usual speed."
+
+"Really!  That's interesting.  May I ask if you and the second
+officer are friends?"
+
+"Scarcely that.  He and I exchanged a few words on deck this
+morning, that's all."
+
+"But he told you about the fog and the--what is it--the glass, and
+all that.  Fancy! that's extremely odd.  I'm acquainted with the
+captain in a trifling sort of way; I sit at his table, I mean to
+say.  And I assure you he doesn't tell us a word.  And, by Jove, we
+cross-question him, too!  Rather!"
+
+I smiled.  I could imagine the cross-questioning.
+
+"I suppose the captain is obliged to be non-committal," I observed.
+"That's part of his job.  The second officer meant to be, I have no
+doubt, but perhaps my remarks showed that I was really interested
+in ships and the sea.  My father and grandfather, too, for that
+matter were seafaring men, both captains.  That may have made the
+second officer more communicative.  Not that he said anything of
+importance, of course."
+
+Mr. Heathcroft seemed very interested.  He actually removed his
+eyeglass.
+
+"Oh!" he exclaimed.  "You know something about it, then.  I thought
+it was extraordinary, but now I see.  And you think our run will be
+better than five hundred and eighty?"
+
+"It should be, unless there is a remarkable change.  This ship
+makes over six hundred, day after day, in good weather.  She should
+do at least six hundred by to-morrow noon, unless there is a sudden
+change, as I said."
+
+"But six hundred would be--it would be the high field, by Jove!"
+
+"Anything over five hundred and ninety-four would be that.  The
+numbers are very low to-night.  Far too low, I should say."
+
+Heathcroft was silent.  The auctioneer, having forced the bid on
+number five hundred and eighty-six up to thirteen pounds ten, was
+imploring his hearers not to permit a certain winner to be
+sacrificed at this absurd figure.
+
+"Fourteen pounds, gentlemen," he begged.  "For the sake of the wife
+and children, for the honor of the star spangled banner and the
+union jack,--DON'T hesitate--don't even stammer--below fourteen
+pounds."
+
+He looked in our direction as he said it.  Mr. Heathcroft made no
+sign.  He produced a gold cigarette box and extended it in my
+direction.
+
+"Will you?" he inquired.
+
+"No, thank you," I replied.  "I will smoke a cigar, if you don't
+mind."
+
+He did not appear to mind.  He lighted his cigarette, readjusted
+his monocle, and stared stonily at the gesticulating auctioneer.
+
+The bidding went on.  One by one the numbers were sold until all
+were gone.  Then the auctioneer announced that bids for the "high
+field," that is, any number above five hundred and ninety-four,
+were in order.  My companion suddenly came to life.
+
+"Ten pounds," he called.
+
+I started.  "For mercy sake, Mr. Heathcroft," I protested, "don't
+let anything I have said influence your bidding.  I may be entirely
+wrong."
+
+He turned and surveyed me through the eyeglass.
+
+"You may wish to bid yourself," he drawled.  "Careless of me.  So
+sorry.  Shall I withdraw the bid?"
+
+"No, no.  I'm not going to bid.  I only--"
+
+"Eleven pounds I am offered, gentlemen," shouted the auctioneer.
+"Eleven pounds!  It would be like robbing an orphan asylum.  Do I
+hear twelve?"
+
+He heard twelve immediately--from Mr. Heathcroft.
+
+Thirteen pounds were bid.  Evidently others shared my opinion
+concerning the value of the "high field."  Heathcroft promptly
+raised it to fourteen.  I ventured another protest.  So far as
+effect was concerned I might as well have been talking to one of
+the smoke-stacks.  The bidding was lively and lengthy.  At last the
+"high field" went to Mr. A. Carleton Heathcroft for twenty-one
+pounds, approximately one hundred and five dollars.  I thought it
+time for me to make my escape.  I was wondering where I should hide
+next day, when the run was announced.
+
+"Greatly obliged to you, I'm sure," drawled the fortunate bidder.
+"Won't you join me in a whisky and soda or something?"
+
+I declined the whisky and soda.
+
+"Sorry," said Mr. Heathcroft.  "Jolly grateful for putting me
+right, Mr.--er--"
+
+"Knowles is my name," I said.  He might have remembered it; I
+remembered his perfectly.
+
+"Of course--Knowles.  Thank you so much, Knowles.  Thank you and
+the second officer.  Nothing like having professional information--
+eh, what?  Rather!"
+
+There seemed to be no doubt in his mind that he was going to win.
+There was more than a doubt in mine.  I told Hephzy of my
+experience when I joined her in the Lounge.  My attempts to say
+"Really" and "Isn't it" and "Rather" in the Heathcroft manner and
+with the Heathcroft accent pleased her very much.  As to the result
+of my unpremeditated "tip" she was quite indifferent.
+
+"If he loses it will serve him good and right," she declared.
+"Gamblin's poor business and I sha'n't care if he does lose."
+
+"I shall," I observed.  "I feel responsible in a way and I shall be
+sorry."
+
+"'SO sorry,' you mean, Hosy.  That's what that blunderin' steward
+said when he stepped on my skirt and tore the gatherin' all loose.
+I told him he wasn't half as sorry as I was."
+
+But at noon next day, when the observation was taken and the run
+posted on the bulletin board the figure was six hundred and two.
+My "tip" had been a good one after all and A. Carleton Heathcroft,
+Esquire, was richer by some seven hundred dollars, even after the
+expenses of treating the "smoke-room" and feeing the smoke-room
+steward had been deducted.  I did not visit the smoke-room to share
+in the treat.  I feared I might be expected to furnish more
+professional information.  But that evening a bottle of vintage
+champagne was produced by our obsequious table steward.  "With Mr.
+'Eathcroft's compliments, sir, thank you, sir," announced the
+latter.
+
+Hephzibah looked at the gilt-topped bottle.
+
+"WHAT in the world will we do with it, Hosy?" she demanded.
+
+"Why, drink it, I suppose," I answered.  "It is the only thing we
+can do.  We can't send it back."
+
+"But you can't drink the whole of it, and I'm sure I sha'n't start
+in to be a drunkard at my age.  I'll take the least little bit of a
+drop, just to see what it tastes like.  I've read about champagne,
+just as I've read about lords and ladies, all my life, but I never
+expected to see either of 'em.  Well there!" after a very small sip
+from the glass, "there's another pet idea gone to smash.  A lord
+looks like Ase Tidditt, and champagne tastes like vinegar and soda.
+Tut! tut! tut! if I had to drink that sour stuff all my life I'd
+probably look like Asaph, too.  No wonder that Erkskine man is such
+a shriveled-up thing."
+
+I glanced toward the captain's table.  Mr. Heathcroft raised his
+glass.  I bowed and raised mine.  The group at that table, the
+captain included, were looking in my direction.  I judged that my
+smoke-room acquaintance had told them of my wonderful "tip."  I
+imagined I could see the sarcastic smile upon the captain's face.
+I did not care for that kind of celebrity.
+
+But the affair had one quite unexpected result.  The next forenoon
+as Hephzibah and I were reclining in our deck-chairs the captain
+himself, florid-faced, gray-bearded, gold-laced and grand, halted
+before us.
+
+"I believe your name is Knowles, sir," he said, raising his cap.
+
+"It is," I replied.  I wondered what in the world was coming next.
+Was he going to take me to task for talking with his second
+officer?
+
+"Your home is in Bayport, Massachusetts, I see by the passenger
+list," he went on.  "Is that Bayport on Cape Cod, may I ask?"
+
+"Yes," I replied, more puzzled than ever.
+
+"I once knew a Knowles from your town, sir.  He was a seafaring man
+like myself.  His name was Philander Knowles, and when I knew him
+he was commander of the bark 'Ranger.'"
+
+"He was my father," I said.
+
+Captain Stone extended his hand.
+
+"Mr. Knowles," he declared, "this is a great pleasure, sir.  I knew
+your father years ago when I was a young man, mate of one of our
+ships engaged in the Italian fruit trade.  He was very kind to me
+at that time.  I have never forgotten it.  May I sit down?"
+
+The chair next to ours happened to be unoccupied at the moment and
+he took it.  I introduced Hephzibah and we chatted for some time.
+The captain appeared delighted to meet the son of his old
+acquaintance.  Father and he had met in Messina--Father's ship was
+in the fruit trade also at that time--and something or other he had
+done to help young Stone had made a great impression on the latter.
+I don't know what the something was, whether it was monetary help
+or assistance in getting out of a serious scrape; Stone did not
+tell me and I didn't ask.  But, at any rate, the pair had become
+very friendly there and at subsequent meetings in the Mediterranean
+ports.  The captain asked all sorts of questions about Father, his
+life, his family and his death aboard the sinking "Monarch of the
+Seas."  Hephzibah furnished most of the particulars.  She
+remembered them well.
+
+Captain Stone nodded solemnly.
+
+"That is the way the master of a ship should die," he declared.
+"Your father, Mr. Knowles, was a man and he died like one.  He was
+my first American acquaintance and he gave me a new idea of
+Yankees--if you'll excuse my calling them that, sir."
+
+Hephzy had a comment to make.
+
+"There are SOME pretty fair Yankees," she observed, drily.  "ALL
+the good folks haven't moved back to England yet."
+
+The captain solemnly assured her that he was certain of it.
+
+"Though two of the best are on their way," I added, with a wink at
+Hephzy.  This attempt at humor was entirely lost.  Our companion
+said he presumed I referred to Mr. and Mrs. Van Hook, who sat next
+him at table.
+
+"And that leads me to ask if Miss Cahoon and yourself will not join
+us," he went on.  "I could easily arrange for two places."
+
+I looked at Hephzy.  Her face expressed decided disapproval and she
+shook her head.
+
+"Thank you, Captain Stone," I said; "but we have a table to
+ourselves and are very comfortable.  We should not think of
+troubling you to that extent."
+
+He assured us it would not be a trouble, but a pleasure.  We were
+firm in our refusal, however, and he ceased to urge.  He declared
+his intention of seeing that our quarters were adequate, offered to
+accompany us through the engine-rooms and the working portions of
+the ship whenever we wished, ordered the deck steward, who was all
+but standing on his head in obsequious desire to oblige, to take
+good care of us, shook hands once more, and went away.  Hephzibah
+drew a long breath.
+
+"My goodness!" she exclaimed; "sit at HIS table!  I guess not!
+There's another lord and his wife there, to say nothin' of the Van
+Hooks.  I'd look pretty, in my Cape Cod clothes, perched up there,
+wouldn't I!  A hen is all right in her place, but she don't belong
+in a peacock cage.  And they drink champagne ALL the time there;
+I've watched 'em.  No thank you, I'll stay in the henyard along
+with the everyday fowls."
+
+"Odd that he should have known Father," I observed.  "Well, I
+suppose the proper remark to make, under the circumstances, is that
+this is a small world.  That is what nine-tenths of Bayport would
+say."
+
+"It's what I say, too," declared Hephzy, with emphasis.  "Well,
+it's awful encouraging for us, isn't it."
+
+"Encouraging?  What do you mean?"
+
+"Why, I mean about Little Frank.  It makes me feel surer than ever
+that we shall run across him."
+
+I suppressed a groan.  "Hephzy," said I, "why on earth should the
+fact that Captain Stone knew my father encourage you to believe
+that we shall meet a person we never knew at all?"
+
+"Hosy, how you do talk!  If you and I, just cruisin' this way
+across the broadside of creation, run across a man that knew Cousin
+Philander thirty-nine years ago, isn't it just as reasonable to
+suppose we'll meet a child who was born twenty-one years ago?  I
+should say 'twas!  Hosy, I've had a presentiment about this cruise
+of ours:  We're SENT on it; that's what I think--we're sent.  Oh,
+you can laugh!  You'll see by and by.  THEN you won't laugh."
+
+"No, Hephzy," I admitted, resignedly, "I won't laugh then, I
+promise you.  If _I_ ever reach the stage where I see a Little
+Frank I promise you I sha'n't laugh.  I'll believe diseases of the
+brain are contagious, like the measles, and I'll send for a
+doctor."
+
+The captain met us again in the dining-room that evening.  He came
+over to our table and chatted for some time.  His visit caused
+quite a sensation.  Shipboard society is a little world by itself
+and the ship's captain is the head of it.  Persons who would, very
+likely, have passed Captain Stone on Fifth Avenue or Piccadilly
+without recognizing him now toadied to him as if he were a Czar,
+which, in a way, I suppose he is when afloat.  His familiarity with
+us shed a sort of reflected glory upon Hephzy and me.  Several of
+our fellow-passengers spoke to us that evening for the first time.
+
+A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire, was not among the Lounge habitues;
+the smoke-room was his accustomed haunt.  But the next forenoon as
+I leaned over the rail of the after promenade deck watching the
+antics of the "Stokers' Band" which was performing for the benefit
+of the second-class with an eye toward pennies and small silver
+from all classes, Heathcroft sauntered up and leaned beside me.  We
+exchanged good-mornings.  I thanked him for the wine.
+
+"Quite unnecessary, Knowles," he said.  "Least I could do, it seems
+to me.  I pulled quite a tidy bit from that inside information of
+yours; I did really.  Awfully obliged, and all that.  You seem to
+have a wide acquaintance among the officers.  That captain chap
+tells us he knew your father--the sailor one you told me of, you
+understand."
+
+Having had but one father I understood perfectly.  We chatted in a
+inconsequential way for a short time.  In the course of our
+conversation I happened to mention that I wrote, professionally.
+To my surprise Heathcroft was impressed.
+
+"Do you, really!" he exclaimed.  "That's interesting, isn't it now!
+I have a cousin who writes.  Don't know why she does it; she
+doesn't get her writings printed, but she keeps on.  It is a habit
+of hers.  Curious dissipation--eh, what?  Does that--er--Miss--that
+companion of yours, write also?"
+
+I laughed and informed him that writing was not one of Hephzibah's
+bad habits.
+
+"Extraordinary woman, isn't she," he said.  "I met her just now,
+walking about, and I happened to mention that I was taking the air.
+She said she wouldn't quarrel with me because of that.  The more I
+took the better she would like it; she could spare about a gale and
+a quarter and not feel--What did she call it?  Oh yes, 'scrimped.'
+What is 'scrimped,' may I ask?"
+
+I explained the meaning of "scrimped."  Heathcroft was much amused.
+
+"It WAS blowing a bit strong up forward there," he declared.  "That
+was a clever way of putting it, wasn't it?"
+
+"She is a clever woman," I said, shortly.
+
+Heathcroft did not enthuse.
+
+"Oh," he said dubiously.  "A relative of yours, I suppose."
+
+"A cousin, that's all."
+
+"One's relatives, particularly the feminine relatives, incline
+toward eccentricity as they grow older, don't you think.  I have an
+aunt down in Sussex, who is queer.  A good sort, too, no end of
+money, a big place and all that, but odd.  She and I get on well
+together--I am her pet, I suppose I may say--but, by Jove, she has
+quarreled with everyone else in the family.  I let her have her own
+way and it has convinced her that I am the only rational Heathcroft
+in existence.  Do you golf, Knowles?"
+
+"I attempt something in that line.  I doubt if my efforts should be
+called golf."
+
+"It is a rotten game when one is off form, isn't it.  If you are
+down in Sussex and I chance to be there I should be glad to have
+you play an eighteen with me.  Burglestone Bogs is the village.
+Anyone will direct you to the Manor.  If I'm not there, introduce
+yourself to my aunt.  Lady Kent Carey is the name.  She'll be jolly
+glad to welcome you if you tell her you know me.  I'm her sole
+interest in life, the greenhouses excepted, of course.  Cultivating
+roses and rearing me are her hobbies."
+
+I thought it improbable that the golfers of Burglestone Bogs would
+ever be put to shame by the brilliancy of my game.  I thanked him,
+however.  I was surprised at the invitation.  I had been under the
+impression, derived from my reading, that the average Englishman
+required an acquaintance of several months before proffering
+hospitality.  No doubt Mr. Heathcroft was not an average
+Englishman.
+
+"Will you be in London long?" he asked.  "I suppose not.  You're
+probably off on a hurricane jaunt from one end of the Continent to
+the other.  Two hours at Stratford, bowing before Shakespeare's
+tomb, a Derby through the cathedral towns, and then the Channel
+boat, eh?  That's the American way, isn't it?"
+
+"It is not our way," I replied.  "We have no itinerary.  I don't
+know where we may go or how long we shall stay."
+
+Evidently I rose again in his estimation.
+
+"Have you picked your hotel in London?" he inquired.
+
+"No.  I shall be glad of any help you may be kind enough to give
+along that line."
+
+He reflected.  "There's a decent little hotel in Mayfair," he said,
+after a moment.  "A private sort of shop.  I don't use it myself;
+generally put up at the club, I mean to say.  But my aunt and my
+sisters do.  They're quite mad about it.  It is--Ah--Bancroft's--
+that's it, Bancroft's Hotel.  I'll give you the address before I
+leave."
+
+I thanked him again.  He was certainly trying to be kind.  No doubt
+the kindness was due to his sense of obligation engendered by what
+he called my "professional information," but it was kindness all
+the same.
+
+The first bugle for luncheon sounded.  Mr. Heathcroft turned to go.
+
+"I'll see you again, Knowles," he said, "and give you the hotel
+street and number and all that.  Hope you'll like it.  If you
+shouldn't the Langham is not bad--quiet and old-fashioned, but
+really very fair.  And if you care for something more public and--
+Ah--American, there are always the Savoy and the Cecil.  Here is my
+card.  If I can be of any service to you while you are in town drop
+me a line at my clubs, either of them.  I must be toddling.  By,
+by."
+
+He "toddled" and I sought my room to prepare for luncheon.
+
+Two days more and our voyage was at an end.  We saw more of our
+friend the captain during those days and of Heathcroft as well.
+The former fulfilled his promise of showing us through the ship,
+and Hephzy and I, descending greasy iron stairways and twisting
+through narrow passages, saw great rooms full of mighty machinery,
+and a cavern where perspiring, grimy men, looking but half-human in
+the red light from the furnace mouths, toiled ceaselessly with
+pokers and shovels.
+
+We stood at the forward end of the promenade deck at night, looking
+out into the blackness, and heard the clang of four bells from the
+shadows at the bow, the answering clang from the crow's-nest on the
+foremast, and the weird cry of "All's well" from the lookouts.
+This experience made a great impression on us both.  Hephzy
+expressed my feeling exactly when she said in a hushed whisper:
+
+"There, Hosy! for the first time I feel as if I really was on board
+a ship at sea.  My father and your father and all our men-folks for
+ever so far back have heard that 'All's well'--yes, and called it,
+too, when they first went as sailors.  Just think of it!  Why
+Father was only sixteen when he shipped; just a boy, that's all.
+I've heard him say 'All's well' over and over again; 'twas a kind
+of byword with him.  This whole thing seems like somethin' callin'
+to me out of the past and gone.  Don't you feel it?"
+
+I felt it, as she did.  The black night, the quiet, the loneliness,
+the salt spray on our faces and the wash of the waves alongside,
+the high singsong wail from lookout to lookout--it WAS a voice from
+the past, the call of generations of sea-beaten, weather-worn,
+brave old Cape Codders to their descendants, reminding the latter
+of a dead and gone profession and of thousands of fine, old ships
+which had plowed the ocean in the days when "Plutonias" were
+unknown.
+
+We attended the concert in the Lounge, and the ball on the
+promenade deck which followed.  Mr. Heathcroft, who seemed to have
+made the acquaintance of most of the pretty girls on board,
+informed us in the intervals between a two-step and a tango, that
+he had been "dancing madly."
+
+"You Americans are extraordinary people," he added.  "Your dances
+are as extraordinary as your food.  That Mrs. Van Hook, who sits
+near me at table, was indulging in--what do you call them?--oh,
+yes, griddle cakes--this morning.  Begged me to try them.  I
+declined.  Horrid things they were.  Round, like a--like a washing-
+flannel, and swimming in treacle.  Frightful!"
+
+"And that man," commented Hephzy, "eats cold toast and strawberry
+preserves for breakfast and washes 'em down with three cups of tea.
+And he calls nice hot pancakes frightful!"
+
+At ten o'clock in the morning of the sixth day we sighted the Irish
+coast through the dripping haze which shrouded it and at four we
+dropped anchor abreast the breakwater of the little Welsh village
+which was to be our landing place.  The sun was shining dimly by
+this time and the rounded hills and the mountains beyond them, the
+green slopes dotted with farms and checkered with hedges and stone
+walls, the gray stone fort with its white-washed barrack buildings,
+the spires and chimneys of the village in the hollow--all these
+combined to make a picture which was homelike and yet not like
+home, foreign and yet strangely familiar.
+
+We leaned over the rail and watched the trunks and boxes and bags
+and bundles shoot down the slide into the baggage and mail-boat
+which lay alongside.  Hephzy was nervous.
+
+"They'll smash everything to pieces--they surely will!" she
+declared.  "Either that or smash themselves, I don't know which is
+liable to happen first.  Mercy on us!  Did you see that?  That box
+hit the man right in the back!"
+
+"It didn't hurt him," I said, reassuringly.  "It was nothing but a
+hat-box."
+
+"Hurt HIM--no!  But I guess likely it didn't do the hat much good.
+I thought baggage smashin' was an American institution, but they've
+got some experts over here.  Oh, my soul and body! there goes MY
+trunk--end over end, of course.  Well, I'm glad there's no eggs in
+it, anyway.  Josiah Dimick always used to carry two dozen eggs to
+his daughter-in-law every time he went to Boston.  He had 'em in a
+box once and put the box on the seat alongside of him and a big fat
+woman came and sat--Oh! that was your trunk, Hosy!  Did you hear it
+hit?  I expect every one of those 'English Poets' went from top to
+bottom then, right through all your clothes.  Never mind, I suppose
+it's all part of travelin'."
+
+Mr. Heathcroft, looking more English than ever in his natty top
+coat, and hat at the back of his head, sauntered up.  He was, for
+him, almost enthusiastic.
+
+"Looking at the water, were you?" he queried.  "Glorious color,
+isn't it.  One never sees a sea like that or a sky like that
+anywhere but here at home."
+
+Hephzy looked at the sea and sky.  It was plain that she wished to
+admire, for his sake, but her admiration was qualified.
+
+"Don't you think if they were a little brighter and bluer they'd be
+prettier?" she asked.
+
+Heathcroft stared at her through his monocle.
+
+"Bluer?" he repeated.  "My dear woman, there are no skies as blue
+as the English skies.  They are quite celebrated--really."
+
+He sauntered on again, evidently disgusted at our lack of
+appreciation.
+
+"He must be color-blind," I observed.  Hephzy was more charitable.
+
+"I guess likely everybody's home things are best," she said.  "I
+suppose this green-streaked water and those gray clouds do look
+bright and blue to him.  We must make allowances, Hosy.  He never
+saw an August mornin' at Bayport, with a northwest wind blowin' and
+the bay white and blue to the edge of all creation.  That's been
+denied him.  He means well, poor thing; he don't know any better."
+
+An hour later we landed from the passenger tender at a stone pier
+covered with substantial stone buildings.  Uniformed custom
+officers and uniformed policemen stood in line as we came up the
+gang-plank.  Behind them, funny little locomotives attached to
+queer cars which appeared to be all doors, puffed and panted.
+
+Hephzibah looked about her.
+
+"Yes," she said, with conviction.  "I'm believin' it more and more
+all the time.  It is England, just like the pictures.  How many
+times I've seen engines like that in pictures, and cars like that,
+too.  I never thought I'd ride in 'em.  My goodness me?  Hephzibah
+Jane Cahoon, you're in England--YOU are!  You needn't be afraid to
+turn over for fear of wakin' up, either.  You're awake and alive
+and in England!  Hosy," with a sudden burst of exuberance, "hold on
+to me tight.  I'm just as likely to wave my hat and hurrah as I am
+to do anything.  Hold on to me--tight."
+
+We got through the perfunctory customs examination without trouble.
+Our tickets provided by Campbell, included those for the railway
+journey to London.  I secured a first-class compartment at the
+booking-office and a guard conducted us to it and closed the door.
+Another short delay and then, with a whistle as queer and
+unfamiliar as its own appearance, the little locomotive began to
+pull our train out of the station.
+
+Hephzy leaned back against the cushions with a sigh of supreme
+content.
+
+"And now," said I, "for London.  London! think of it, Hephzy!"
+
+Hephzy shook her head.
+
+"I'm thinkin' of it," she said.  "London--the biggest city in the
+world!  Who knows, Hosy?  France is such a little ways off;
+probably Little Frank has been to London a hundred times.  He may
+even be there now.  Who knows?  I shouldn't be surprised if we met
+him right in London.  I sha'n't be surprised at anything anymore.
+I'm in England and on my way to London; that's surprise enough.
+NOTHIN' could be more wonderful than that."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+In Which We Are Received at Bancroft's Hotel and I Receive a Letter
+
+
+It was late when we reached London, nearly eleven o'clock.  The
+long train journey was a delight.  During the few hours of daylight
+and dusk we peered through the car windows at the scenery flying
+past; at the villages, the green fields, the hedges, the neat, trim
+farms.
+
+"Everything looks as if it has been swept and dusted," declared
+Hephzy.  "There aren't any waste places at all.  What do they do
+with their spare land?"
+
+"They haven't any," I answered.  "Land is too valuable to waste.
+There's another thatched roof.  It looks like those in the
+pictures, doesn't it."
+
+Hephzy nodded.  "Just exactly," she said.  "Everything looks like
+the pictures.  I feel as if I'd seen it all before.  If that engine
+didn't toot so much like a tin whistle I should almost think it was
+a picture.  But it isn't--it isn't; it's real, and you and I are
+part of it."
+
+We dined on the train.  Night came and our window-pictures changed
+to glimpses of flashing lights interspersed with shadowy blotches
+of darkness.  At length the lights became more and more frequent
+and began to string out in long lines marking suburban streets.
+Then the little locomotive tooted its tin whistle frantically and
+we rolled slowly under a great train shed--Paddington Station and
+London itself.
+
+Amid the crowd on the platform Hephzy and I stood, two lone
+wanderers not exactly sure what we should do next.  About us the
+busy crowd jostled and pushed.  Relatives met relatives and fathers
+and mothers met sons and daughters returning home after long
+separations.  No one met us, no one was interested in us at all,
+except the porters and the cabmen.  I selected a red-faced chunky
+porter who was a decidedly able person, apparently capable of
+managing anything except the letter h.  The acrobatics which he
+performed with that defenceless consonant were marvelous.  I have
+said that I selected him; that he selected me would be nearer the
+truth.
+
+"Cab, sir.  Yes, sir, thank you, sir," he said.  "Leave that to me,
+sir.  Will you 'ave a fourwheeler or a hordinary cab, sir?"
+
+I wasn't exactly certain what a fourwheeler might be.  I had read
+about them often enough, but I had never seen one pictured and
+properly labeled.  For the matter of that, all the vehicles in
+sight appeared to have four wheels.  So I said, at a venture, that
+I thought an ordinary cab would do.
+
+"Yes, sir; 'ere you are, sir.  Your boxes are in the luggage van,
+I suppose, sir."
+
+I took it for granted he meant my trunks and those were in what I,
+in my ignorance, would have called a baggage car:
+
+"Yes, sir," said the porter.  "If the lidy will be good enough to
+wait 'ere, sir, you and I will go hafter the boxes, sir."
+
+Cautioning Hephzy not to stir from her moorings on any account I
+followed my guide to the "luggage van."  This crowded car disgorged
+our two steamer trunks and, my particular porter having corraled a
+fellow-craftsman to help him, the trunks were dragged to the
+waiting cab.
+
+I found Hephzy waiting, outwardly calm, but inwardly excited.
+
+"I saw one at last," she declared.  "I'd about come to believe
+there wasn't such a thing, but there is; I just saw one."
+
+"One--what?" I asked, puzzled.
+
+"An Englishman with side-whiskers.  They wasn't as big and long as
+those in the pictures, but they were side-whiskers.  I feel better.
+When you've been brought up to believe every Englishman wore 'em,
+it was kind of humiliatin' not to see one single set."
+
+I paid my porters--I learned afterward that, like most Americans, I
+had given them altogether too much--and we climbed into the cab
+with our bags.  The "boxes," or trunks, were on the driver's seat
+and on the roof.
+
+"Where to, sir?" asked the driver.
+
+I hesitated.  Even at this late date I had not made up my mind
+exactly "where to."  My decision was a hasty one.
+
+"Why--er--to--to Bancroft's Hotel," I said.  "Blithe Street, just
+off Piccadilly."
+
+I think the driver was somewhat astonished.  Very few of his
+American passengers selected Bancroft's as a stopping place, I
+imagine.  However, his answer was prompt.
+
+"Yes, sir, thank you, sir," he said.  The cab rolled out of the
+station.
+
+"I suppose," said Hephzy, reflectively, "if you had told him or
+that porter man that they were everlastin' idiots they'd have
+thanked you just the same and called you 'sir' four times besides."
+
+"No doubt they would."
+
+"Yes, sir, I'm perfectly sure they would--thank you, sir.  So this
+is London.  It doesn't look such an awful lot different from Boston
+or New York so far."
+
+But Bancroft's, when we reached it, was as unlike a Boston or New
+York hotel as anything could be.  A short, quiet, eminently
+respectable street, leading from Piccadilly; a street fenced in, on
+both sides, by three-story, solid, eminently respectable houses of
+brick and stone.  No signs, no street cars, no crowds, no glaring
+lights.  Merely a gas lamp burning over the fanlight of a spotless
+white door, and the words "Bancroft's Hotel" in mosaic lettering
+set in a white stone slab in the pavement.
+
+The cab pulled up before the white door and Hephzy and I looked out
+of the window.  The same thought was in both our minds.
+
+"This can't be the place," said I.
+
+"This isn't a hotel, is it, Hosy?" asked Hephzy.
+
+The white door opened and a brisk, red-cheeked English boy in
+uniform hastened to the cab.  Before he reached it I had seen the
+lettering in the pavement and knew that, in spite of appearances,
+we had reached our destination.
+
+"This is it, Hephzy," I said.  "Come."
+
+The boy opened the cab door and we alighted.  Then in the doorway
+of "Bancroft's" appeared a stout, red-faced and very dignified
+person, also in uniform.  This person wore short "mutton-chop"
+whiskers and had the air of a member of the Royal Family; that is
+to say, the air which a member of the Royal Family might be
+expected to have.
+
+"Good evening, sir," said the personage, bowing respectfully.  The
+bow was a triumph in itself; not too low, not abject in the least,
+not familiar; a bow which implied much, but promised nothing; a bow
+which seemed to demand references, but was far from repellant or
+bullying.  Altogether a wonderful bow.
+
+"Good evening," said I.  "This is Bancroft's Hotel, is it not?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"I wish to secure rooms for this lady and myself, if possible."
+
+"Yes, sir.  This way, sir, if you please.  Richard," this to the
+boy and in a tone entirely different--the tone of a commanding
+officer to a private--"see to the gentleman's luggage.  This way,
+sir; thank you, sir."
+
+I hesitated.  "The cabman has not been paid," I stammered.  I was a
+trifle overawed by the grandeur of the mutton-chops and the "sir."
+
+"I will attend to that, sir.  If you will be good enough to come
+in, sir."
+
+We entered and found ourselves in a narrow hall, old-fashioned,
+homelike and as spotless as the white door.  Two more uniforms
+bowed before us.
+
+"Thank you, sir," said the member of the Royal Family.  It was with
+difficulty that I repressed the desire to tell him he was quite
+welcome.  His manner of thanking me seemed to imply that we had
+conferred a favor.
+
+"I will speak to Mr. Jameson," he went on, with another bow.  Then
+he left us.
+
+"Is--is that Mr. Bancroft?" whispered Hephzy.
+
+I shook my head.  "It must be the Prince of Wales, at least," I
+whispered in return.  "I infer that there is no Mr. Bancroft."
+
+It developed that I was right.  Mr. Jameson was the proprietor of
+the hotel, and Mr. Jameson was a pleasant, refined, quiet man of
+middle age.  He appeared from somewhere or other, ascertained our
+wants, stated that he had a few vacant rooms and could accommodate
+us.
+
+"Do you wish a sitting-room?" he asked.
+
+I was not sure.  I wanted comfort, that I knew, and I said so.  I
+mentioned, as an afterthought, that Mr. Heathcroft had recommended
+Bancroft's to me.
+
+The Heathcroft name seemed to settle everything.  Mr. Jameson
+summoned the representative of royalty and spoke to him in a low
+tone.  The representative--his name, I learned later, was Henry and
+he was butler and major-domo at Bancroft's--bowed once more.  A few
+minutes later we were shown to an apartment on the second floor
+front, a room large, old-fashioned, furnished with easy-chairs,
+tables and a big, comfortable sofa.  Sofa and easy-chairs were
+covered with figured, glazed chintz.
+
+"Your sitting-room, sir," said Henry.  "Your bedrooms open hoff it,
+sir.  The chambermaid will 'ave them ready in a moment, sir.
+Richard and the porter will bring up your luggage and the boxes.
+Will you and the lady wish supper, sir?  Thank you, sir.  Very
+good, sir.  Will you require a fire, sir?"
+
+The room was a trifle chilly.  There was a small iron grate at its
+end, and a coal fire ready to kindle.  I answered that a fire might
+be enjoyable.
+
+"Yes, sir," said Henry.  "Himmediately, sir."
+
+Soon Hephzy and I were drinking hot tea and eating bread and butter
+and plum cake before a snapping fire.  George, the waiter, had
+brought us the tea and accessories and set the table; the
+chambermaid had prepared the bedrooms; Henry had supervised
+everything.
+
+"Well," observed Hephzy, with a sigh of content, "I feel better
+satisfied every minute.  When we were in the hack--cab, I mean--I
+couldn't realize we weren't ridin' through an American city.  The
+houses and sidewalks and everything--what I could see of 'em--
+looked so much like Boston that I was sort of disappointed.  I
+wanted it to be more different, some way.  But this IS different.
+This may be a hotel--I suppose likely 'tis--but it don't seem like
+one, does it?  If it wasn't for the Henry and that Richard and
+that--what's his name?  George--and all the rest, I should think I
+was in Cap'n Cyrus Whittaker's settin-room back home.  The
+furniture looks like Cap'n Cy's and the pictures look like those he
+has, and--and everything looks as stiff and starched and old-
+fashioned as can be.  But the Cap'n never had a Henry.  No, sirree,
+Henry don't belong on Cape Cod!  Hosy," with a sudden burst of
+confidence, "it's a good thing I saw that Lord Erskine first.  If I
+hadn't found out what a live lord looked like I'd have thought
+Henry was one sure.  Do you really think it's right for me to call
+him by his Christian name?  It seems sort of--sort of irreverent,
+somehow."
+
+I wish it were possible for me to describe in detail our first days
+at Bancroft's.  If it were not for the fact that so many really
+important events and happenings remain to be described--if it were
+not that the most momentous event of my life, the event that was
+the beginning of the great change in that life--if that event were
+not so close at hand, I should be tempted to linger upon those
+first few days.  They were strange and wonderful and funny to
+Hephzibah and me.  The strangeness and the wonder wore off
+gradually; the fun still sticks in my memory.
+
+To have one's bedroom invaded at an early hour by a chambermaid
+who, apparently quite oblivious of the fact that the bed was still
+occupied by a male, proceeded to draw the curtains, bring the hot
+water and fill the tin tub for my bath, was astonishing and funny
+enough, Hephzibah's comments on the proceeding were funnier still.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me," she demanded, "that that hussy was brazen
+enough to march right in here before you got up?"
+
+"Yes," I said.  "I am only thankful that I HADN'T got up."
+
+"Well!  I must say!  Did she fetch the water in a garden waterin'-
+pot, same as she did to me?"
+
+"Just the same."
+
+"And did she pour it into that--that flat dishpan on the floor and
+tell you your 'bawth' was ready?"
+
+"She did."
+
+"Humph!  Of all the--I hope she cleared out THEN?"
+
+"She did."
+
+"That's a mercy, anyhow.  Did you take a bath in that dishpan?"
+
+"I tried."
+
+"Well, I didn't.  I'd as soon try to bathe in a saucer.  I'd have
+felt as if I'd needed a teaspoon to dip up the half pint of water
+and pour it over me.  Don't these English folks have real bathtubs
+for grown-up people?"
+
+I did not know, then.  Later I learned that Bancroft's Hotel
+possessed several bathrooms, and that I might use one if I
+preferred.  Being an American I did so prefer.  Most of the guests,
+being English, preferred the "dishpans."
+
+We learned to accept the early morning visits of the chambermaid as
+matters of course.  We learned to order breakfast the night before
+and to eat it in our sitting-room.  We tasted a "grilled sole" for
+the first time, and although Hephzy persisted in referring to it as
+"fried flatfish" we liked the taste.  We became accustomed to being
+waited upon, to do next to nothing for ourselves, and I found that
+a valet who laid out my evening clothes, put the studs in my
+shirts, selected my neckties, and saw that my shoes were polished,
+was a rather convenient person to have about.  Hephzy fumed a good
+deal at first; she declared that she felt ashamed, an able-bodied
+woman like her, to sit around with her hands folded and do nothing.
+She asked her maid a great many questions, and the answers she
+received explained some of her puzzles.
+
+"Do you know what that poor thing gets a week?" she observed,
+referring to the maid.  "Eight shillin's--two dollars a week,
+that's what she gets.  And your valet man doesn't get any more.  I
+can see now how Mr. Jameson can afford to keep so much help at the
+board he charges.  I pay that Susanna Wixon thing at Bayport three
+dollars and she doesn't know enough to boil water without burnin'
+it on, scarcely.  And Peters--why in the world do they call women
+by their last names?--Peters, she's the maid, says it's a real nice
+place and she's quite satisfied.  Well, where ignorance is bliss
+it's foolish to be sensible, I suppose; but _I_ wouldn't fetch and
+carry for the President's wife, to say nothin' of an everyday body
+like me, for two dollars a week."
+
+We learned that the hotel dining-room was a "Coffee Room."
+
+"Nobody with sense would take coffee there--not more'n once, they
+wouldn't," declared Hephzy.  "I asked Peters why they didn't call
+it the 'Tea Room' and be done with it.  She said because it was the
+Coffee Room.  I suppose likely that was an answer, but I felt a
+good deal as if I'd come out of the same hole I went in at.  She
+thanked me for askin' her, though; she never forgets that."
+
+We became accustomed to addressing the lordly Henry by his
+Christian name and found him a most obliging person.  He, like
+everyone else, had instantly recognized us as Americans, and,
+consequently, was condescendingly kind to strangers from a distant
+and barbarous country.
+
+"What SORT of place do they think the States are?" asked Hephzy.
+"That's what they always call home--'the States'--and they seem to
+think it's about as big as a pocket handkerchief.  That Henry asked
+me if the red Indians were numerous where we lived.  I said no--as
+soon as I could say anything; I told him there was only one tribe
+of Red Men in town and they were white.  I guess he thought I was
+crazy, but it don't make any difference.  And Peters said she had a
+cousin in a place called Chicago and did I know him.  What do you
+think of that?"
+
+"What did you tell her?" I inquired.
+
+"Hey?  Oh, I told her that, bein' as Chicago was a thousand miles
+from Bayport, I hadn't had time to do much visitin' there.  I told
+her the truth, but she didn't believe it.  I could see she didn't.
+She thinks Chicago and San Francisco and New York and Boston are
+nests of wigwams in the same patch of woods and all hands that live
+there have been scalped at least once.  SUCH ignorance!"
+
+Henry, at my request, procured seats for us at one of the London
+theaters.  There we saw a good play, splendidly acted, and Hephzy
+laughed and wept at the performance.  As usual, however, she had a
+characteristic comment to make.
+
+"Why do they call the front seats the 'stalls'?" she whispered to
+me between the acts.  "Stalls!  The idea!  I'm no horse.  Perhaps
+they call 'em that because folks are donkeys enough to pay two
+dollars and a half for the privilege of sittin' in 'em.  Don't YOU
+be so extravagant again, Hosy."
+
+One of the characters in the play was supposed to be an American
+gentleman, and his behavior and dress and speech stirred me to
+indignation.  I asked the question which every American asks under
+similar circumstances.
+
+"Why on earth," I demanded, "do they permit that fellow to make
+such a fool of himself?  He yells and drawls and whines through his
+nose and wears clothes which would make an American cry.  That last
+scene was supposed to be a reception and he wore an outing suit and
+no waistcoat.  Do they suppose such a fellow would be tolerated in
+respectable society in the United States?"
+
+And now it was Hephzy's turn to be philosophical.
+
+"I guess likely the answer to that is simple enough," she said.
+"He's what they think an American ought to be, even if he isn't.
+If he behaved like a human bein' he wouldn't be the kind of
+American they expect on the stage.  After all, he isn't any worse
+than the Englishmen we have in the Dramatic Society's plays at
+home.  I haven't seen one of that kind since I got here; and I've
+given up expectin' to--unless you and I go to some crazy asylum--
+which isn't likely."
+
+We rode on the tops of busses, we visited the Tower, and
+Westminster Abbey, and Saint Paul's.  We saw the Horse Guard
+sentinels on duty in Whitehall, and watched the ceremony of guard
+changing at St. James's.  Hephzy was impressed, in her own way, by
+the uniforms of the "Cold Streams."
+
+"There!" she exclaimed, "I've seen 'em walk.  Now I feel better.
+When they stood there, with those red jackets and with the fur hats
+on their heads, I couldn't make myself believe they hadn't been
+taken out of a box for children to play with.  I wanted to get up
+close so as to see if their feet were glued to round pieces of wood
+like Noah's and Ham's and Japhet's in the Ark.  But they aren't
+wood, they're alive.  They're men, not toys.  I'm glad I've seen
+'em.  THEY are satisfyin'.  They make me more reconciled to a King
+with a Derby hat on."
+
+She and I had stood in the crowd fringing the park mall and seen
+King George trot by on horseback.  His Majesty's lack of crown and
+robes and scepter had been a great disappointment to Hephzy; I
+think she expected the crown at least.
+
+I had, of course, visited the London office of my publishers, in
+Camford Street and had found Mr. Matthews, the manager, expecting
+me.  Jim Campbell had cabled and written of my coming and Matthews'
+welcome was a warm one.  He was kindness itself.  All my financial
+responsibilities were to be shifted to his shoulders.  I was to use
+the office as a bank, as a tourist agency, even as a guide's
+headquarters.  He put his clerks at my disposal; they would conduct
+us on sight-seeing expeditions whenever and wherever we wished.  He
+even made out a list of places in and about London which we, as
+strangers, should see.
+
+His cordiality and thoughtfulness were appreciated.  They made me
+feel less alone and less dependent upon my own resources.  Campbell
+had arranged that all letters addressed to me in America should be
+forwarded to the Camford Street office, and Matthews insisted that
+I should write my own letters there.  I began to make it a practice
+to drop in at the office almost every morning before starting on
+the day's round of sight-seeing.
+
+Bancroft's Hotel also began to seem less strange and more homelike.
+Mr. Jameson, the proprietor, was a fine fellow--quiet, refined, and
+pleasant.  He, too, tried to help us in every possible way.  His
+wife, a sweet-faced Englishwoman, made Hephzy's acquaintance and
+Hephzy liked her extremely.
+
+"She's as nice as she can be," declared Hephzy.  "If it wasn't that
+she says 'Fancy!' and 'Really!' instead of 'My gracious!' and 'I
+want to know!' I should think I was talking to a Cape Codder, the
+best kind of one.  She's got sense, too.  SHE don't ask about 'red
+Indians' in Bayport."
+
+Among the multitude of our new experiences we learned the value of
+a judicious "tip."  We had learned something concerning tips on the
+"Plutonia"; Campbell had coached us concerning those, and we were
+provided with a schedule of rates--so much to the bedroom steward,
+so much to the stewardess, to the deck steward, to the "boots," and
+all the rest.  But tipping in London we were obliged to adjust for
+ourselves, and the result of our education was surprising.
+
+At Saint Paul's an elderly and impressively haughty person in a
+black robe showed us through the Crypt and delivered learned
+lectures before the tombs of Nelson and Wellington.  His appearance
+and manner were somewhat awe-inspiring, especially to Hephzy, who
+asked me, in a whisper, if I thought likely he was a bishop or a
+canon or something.  When the round was ended and we were leaving
+the Crypt she saw me put a hand in my pocket.
+
+"Mercy sakes, Hosy," she whispered.  "You aren't goin' to offer him
+money, are you?  He'll be insulted.  I'd as soon think of givin'
+Mr. Partridge, our minister, money for takin' us to the cemetery to
+see the first settlers' gravestones.  Don't you do it.  He'll throw
+it back at you.  I'll be so ashamed."
+
+But I had been watching our fellow-sight-seers as they filed out,
+and when our time came I dropped two shillings in the hand of the
+black-robed dignitary.  The hand did not spurn the coins, which I--
+rather timidly, I confess--dropped into it.  Instead it closed upon
+them tightly and the haughty lips thanked me, not profusely, not
+even smilingly, but thanked me, nevertheless.
+
+At our visit to the Law Courts a similar experience awaited us.
+Another dignified and elderly person, who, judging by his
+appearance, should have been a judge at least, not only accepted
+the shilling I gave him, but bowed, smiled and offered to conduct
+us to the divorce court.
+
+"A very interesting case there, sir, just now," he murmured,
+confidingly.  "Very interesting and sensational indeed, sir.  You
+and the lady will enjoy it, I'm sure, sir.  All Americans do."
+
+Hephzy was indignant.
+
+"Well!" she exclaimed, as we emerged upon the Strand.  "Well!  I
+must say!  What sort of folks does he think we are, I'd like to
+know.  Divorce case!  I'd be ashamed to hear one.  And that old man
+bein' so wicked and ridiculous for twenty-five cents!  Hosy, I do
+believe if you'd given him another shillin' he'd have introduced us
+to that man in the red robe and cotton wool wig--What did he call
+him?--Oh, yes, the Lord Chief Justice.  And I suppose you'd have
+had to tip HIM, too."
+
+The first two weeks of our stay in London came to an end.  Our
+plans were still as indefinite as ever.  How long we should stay,
+where we should go next, what we should do when we decided where
+that "next" was to be--all these questions we had not considered at
+all.  I, for my part, was curiously uninterested in the future.  I
+was enjoying myself in an idle, irresponsible way, and I could not
+seem to concentrate my thoughts upon a definite course of action.
+If I did permit myself to think I found my thoughts straying to my
+work and there they faced the same impassable wall.  I felt no
+inclination to write; I was just as certain as ever that I should
+never write again.  Thinking along this line only brought back the
+old feeling of despondency.  So I refused to think and, taking
+Jim's advice, put work and responsibility from my mind.  We would
+remain in London as long as we were contented there.  When the
+spirit moved we would move with it--somewhere--either about England
+or to the Continent.  I did not know which and I did not care; I
+did not seem to care much about anything.
+
+Hephzy was perfectly happy.  London to her was as wonderful as
+ever.  She never tired of sight-seeing, and on occasions when I
+felt disinclined to leave the hotel she went out alone, shopping or
+wandering about the streets.
+
+She scarcely mentioned "Little Frank" and I took care not to remind
+her of that mythical youth.  I had expected her to see him on every
+street corner, to be brought face to face with unsuspecting young
+Englishmen and made to ask ridiculous questions which might lead to
+our being taken in charge as a pair of demented foreigners.  But my
+forebodings were not realized.  London was so huge and the crowds
+so great that even Hephzy's courage faltered.  To select Little
+Frank from the multitude was a task too great, even for her, I
+imagine.  At any rate, she did not make the attempt, and the belief
+that we were "sent" upon our pilgrimage for that express purpose
+she had not expressed since our evening on the train.
+
+The third week passed.  I was growing tired of trotting about.  Not
+tired of London in particular.  The gray, dingy, historic,
+wonderful old city was still fascinating.  It is hard to conceive
+of an intelligent person's ever growing weary of the narrow streets
+with the familiar names--Fleet Street, Fetter Lane, Pudding Lane
+and all the rest--names as familiar to a reader of history or
+English fiction as that of his own town.  To wander into an unknown
+street and to learn that it is Shoreditch, or to look up at an
+ancient building and discover it to be the Charterhouse, were ever
+fresh miracles to me, as I am sure they must be to every book-
+loving American.  No, I was not tired of London.  Had I come there
+under other circumstances I should have been as happy and content
+as Hephzy herself.  But, now that the novelty was wearing off, I
+was beginning to think again, to think of myself--the very thing I
+had determined, and still meant, not to do.
+
+One afternoon I drifted into the Camford Street office.  Hephzy had
+left me at Piccadilly Circus and was now, it was safe to presume,
+enjoying a delightful sojourn amid the shops of Regent and Oxford
+Streets.  When she returned she would have a half-dozen purchases
+to display, a two-and-six glove bargain from Robinson's, a bit of
+lace from Selfridge's, a knick-knack from Liberty's--"All so MUCH
+cheaper than you can get 'em in Boston, Hosy."  She would have had
+a glorious time.
+
+Matthews, the manager at Camford Street, was out, but Holton, the
+head clerk--I was learning to speak of him as a "clark"--was in.
+
+"There are some American letters for you, sir," he said.  "I was
+about to send them to your hotel."
+
+He gave me the letters--four of them altogether--and I went into
+the private office to look them over.  My first batch of mail from
+home; it gave me a small thrill to see two-cent stamps in the
+corners of the envelopes.
+
+One of the letters was from Campbell.  I opened it first of all.
+Jim wrote a rambling, good-humored letter, a mixture of business,
+news, advice and nonsense.  "The Black Brig" had gone into another
+edition.  Considering my opinion of such "slush" I should be
+ashamed to accept the royalties, but he would continue to give my
+account credit for them until I cabled to the contrary.  He trusted
+we were behaving ourselves in a manner which would reflect credit
+upon our country.  I was to be sure not to let Hephzy marry a
+title.  And so on, for six pages.  The letter was almost like a
+chat with Jim himself, and I read it with chuckles and a pang of
+homesickness.
+
+One of the envelopes bore Hephzy's name and I, of course, did not
+open it.  It was postmarked "Bayport" and I thought I recognized
+the handwriting as Susanna Wixon's.  The third letter turned out to
+be not a letter at all, but a bill from Sylvanus Cahoon, who took
+care of our "lots" in the Bayport cemetery.  It had been my
+intention to pay all bills before leaving home, but, somehow or
+other, Sylvanus's had been overlooked.  I must send him a check at
+once.
+
+The fourth and last envelope was stained and crumpled.  It had
+traveled a long way.  To my surprise I noticed that the stamp in
+the corner was English and the postmark "London."  The address,
+moreover, was "Captain Barnabas Cahoon, Bayport, Massachusetts,
+U. S. A."  The letter had obviously been mailed in London, had
+journeyed to Bayport, from there to New York, and had then been
+forwarded to London again.  Someone, presumably Simmons, the
+postmaster, had written "Care Hosea Knowles" and my publisher's New
+York address in the lower corner.  This had been scratched out and
+"28 Camford Street, London, England," added.
+
+I looked at the envelope.  Who in the world, or in England, could
+have written Captain Barnabas--Captain Barnabas Cahoon, my great-
+uncle, dead so many years?  At first I was inclined to hand the
+letter, unopened, to Hephzy.  She was Captain Barnabas's daughter
+and it belonged to her by right.  But I knew Hephzy had no secrets
+from me and, besides, my curiosity was great.  At length I yielded
+to it and tore open the envelope.
+
+Inside was a sheet of thin foreign paper, both sides covered with
+writing.  I read the first line.
+
+
+"Captain Barnabas Cahoon.
+
+"Sir:
+
+"You are my nearest relative, my mother's father, and I--"
+
+
+"I uttered an exclamation.  Then I stepped to the door of the
+private office, made sure that it was shut, came back, sat down in
+the chair before the desk which Mr. Matthews had put at my
+disposal, and read the letter from beginning to end.  This is what
+I read:
+
+
+"Captain Barnabas Cahoon.
+
+"Sir:
+
+"You are my nearest relative, my mother's father, and I, therefore,
+address this letter to you.  I know little concerning you.  I do
+not know even that you are still living in Bayport, or that you are
+living at all.  (N.B.  In case Captain Cahoon is not living this
+letter is to be read and acted upon by his heirs, upon whose estate
+I have an equal claim.)  My mother, Ardelia Cahoon Morley, died in
+Liverpool in 1896.  My father, Strickland Morley, died in Paris in
+December, 1908.  I, as their only child, am their heir, and I am
+writing to you asking what I might demand--that is, a portion of
+the money which was my mother's and which you kept from her and
+from my father all these years.  My father told me the whole story
+before he died, and he also told me that he had written you several
+times, but that his letters had been ignored.  My father was an
+English gentleman and he was proud; that is why he did not take
+legal steps against you for the recovery of what was his by law in
+England OR ANY CIVILISED COUNTRY, one may presume.  He would not
+STOOP to such measures even against those who, as you know well, so
+meanly and fraudulently deprived him and his of their inheritance.
+He is dead now.  He died lacking the comforts and luxuries with
+which you might and SHOULD have provided him.  His forbearance was
+wonderful and characteristic, but had I known of it sooner I should
+have insisted upon demanding from you the money which was his.  I
+am now demanding it myself.  Not BEGGING; that I wish THOROUGHLY
+understood.  I am giving you the opportunity to make a partial
+restitution, that is all.  It is what he would have wished, and his
+wish ALONE prevents my putting the whole matter in my solicitor's
+hands.  If I do not hear from you within a reasonable time I shall
+know what to do.  You may address me care Mrs. Briggs, 218 ----
+Street, London, England.
+
+"Awaiting your reply, I am, sir,
+
+"Yours,
+
+"FRANCIS STRICKLAND MORLEY.
+
+"P. S.
+
+"I am not to be considered under ANY circumstances a subject for
+charity.  I am NOT begging.  You, I am given to understand, are a
+wealthy man.  I demand my share of that wealth--that is all."
+
+
+I read this amazing epistle through once.  Then, after rising and
+walking about the office to make sure that I was thoroughly awake,
+I sat down and read it again.  There was no mistake.  I had read it
+correctly.  The writing was somewhat illegible in spots and the
+signature was blotted, but it was from Francis Strickland Morley.
+From "Little Frank!"  I think my first and greatest sensation was
+of tremendous surprise that there really was a "Little Frank."
+Hephzy had been right.  Once more I should have to take off my hat
+to Hephzy.
+
+The surprise remained, but other sensations came to keep it
+company.  The extraordinary fact of the letter's reaching me when
+and where it did, in London, the city from which it was written and
+where, doubtless, the writer still was.  If I chose I might,
+perhaps, that very afternoon, meet and talk with Ardelia Cahoon's
+son, with "Little Frank" himself.  I could scarcely realize it.
+Hephzy had declared that our coming to London was the result of a
+special dispensation--we had been "sent" there.  In the face of
+this miracle I was not disposed to contradict her.
+
+The letter itself was more extraordinary than all else.  It was
+that of a young person, of a hot-headed boy.  But WHAT a boy he
+must be!  What an unlicked, impudent, arrogant young cub!  The
+boyishness was evident in every line, in the underscored words, the
+pitiful attempt at dignity and the silly veiled threats.  He was so
+insistent upon the statement that he was not a beggar.  And yet he
+could write a begging letter like this.  He did not ask for
+charity, not he, he demanded it.  Demanded it--he, the son of a
+thief, demanded, from those whom his father had robbed, his
+"rights."  He should have his rights; I would see to that.
+
+I was angry enough but, as I read the letter for the third time,
+the pitifulness of it became more apparent.  I imagined Francis
+Strickland Morley to be the replica of the Strickland Morley whom I
+remembered, the useless, incompetent, inadequate son of a good-for-
+nothing father.  No doubt the father was responsible for such a
+letter as this having been written.  Doubtless he HAD told the boy
+all sorts of tales; perhaps he HAD declared himself to be the
+defrauded instead of the defrauder; he was quite capable of it.
+Possibly the youngster did believe he had a claim upon the wealthy
+relatives in that "uncivilized" country, America.  The wealthy
+relatives!  I thought of Captain Barnabas's last years, of
+Hephzibah's plucky fight against poverty, of my own lost
+opportunities, of the college course which I had been obliged to
+forego.  My indignation returned.  I would not go back at once to
+Hephzy with the letter.  I would, myself, seek out the writer of
+that letter, and, if I found him, he and I would have a heart to
+heart talk which should disabuse his mind of a few illusions.  We
+would have a full and complete understanding.
+
+I hastily made a memorandum of the address, "Care Mrs. Briggs,"
+thrust the letter back into the envelope, put it and my other mail
+into my pocket, and walked out into the main office.  Holton, the
+clerk, looked up from his desk.  Probably my feelings showed in my
+face, for he said:
+
+"What is it, Mr. Knowles?  No bad news, I trust, sir."
+
+"No," I answered, shortly.  "Where is ---- Street?  Is it far from
+here?"
+
+It was rather far from there, in Camberwell, on the Surrey side of
+the river.  I might take a bus at such a corner and change again at
+so and so.  It sounded like a journey and I was impatient.  I
+suggested that I might take a cab.  Certainly I could do that.
+William, the boy, would call a cab at once.
+
+William did so and I gave the driver the address from my memoranda.
+Through the Strand I was whirled, across Blackfriars Bridge and on
+through the intricate web of avenues and streets on the Surrey
+side.  The locality did not impress me favorably.  There was an
+abundance of "pubs" and of fried-fish shops where "jellied eels"
+seemed to be a viand much in demand.
+
+---- Street, when I reached it, was dingy and third rate.  Three-
+storied old brick houses, with shops on their first floors,
+predominated.  Number 218 was one of these.  The signs "Lodgings"
+over the tarnished bell-pull and the name "Briggs" on the plate
+beside it proved that I had located the house from which the letter
+had been sent.
+
+I paid my cabman, dismissed him, and rang the bell.  A slouchy
+maid-servant answered the ring.
+
+"Is Mr. Francis Morley in?" I asked.
+
+The maid looked at me.
+
+"Wat, sir?" she said.
+
+"Does Mr. Francis Morley live here?" I asked, raising my voice.
+"Is he in?"
+
+The maid's face was as wooden as the door-post.  Her mouth, already
+open, opened still wider and she continued to stare.  A step
+sounded in the dark hall behind her and another voice said,
+sharply:
+
+"'Oo is it, 'Arriet?  And w'at does 'e want?"
+
+The maid grinned.  "'E wants to see MISTER Morley, ma'am," she
+said, with a giggle.
+
+She was pushed aside and a red-faced woman, with thin lips and
+scowl, took her place.
+
+"'OO do you want to see?" she demanded.
+
+"Francis Morley.  Does he live here?"
+
+"'OO?"
+
+"Francis Morley."  My answer was sharp enough this time.  I began
+to think I had invaded a colony of imbeciles--or owls; their
+conversation seemed limited to "oos."
+
+"W'at do you want to see--to see Morley for?" demanded the red-
+faced female.
+
+"On business.  Is Mrs. Briggs in?"
+
+"I'm Mrs. Briggs."
+
+"Good!  I'm glad of that.  Now will you tell me if Mr. Morley is
+in?"
+
+"There ain't no Mr. Morley.  There's a--"
+
+She was interrupted.  From the hall, apparently from the top of the
+flight of stairs, another was heard, a feminine voice like the
+others, but unlike them--decidedly unlike.
+
+"Who is it, Mrs. Briggs?" said this voice.  "Does the gentleman
+wish to see me?"
+
+"No, 'e don't," declared Mrs. Briggs, with emphasis.  "'E wants to
+see Mister Morley and I'm telling 'im there ain't none such."
+
+"But are you sure he doesn't mean Miss Morley?  Ask him, please."
+
+Before the Briggs woman could reply I spoke again.
+
+"I want to see a Francis Morley," I repeated, loudly.  "I have come
+here in answer to a letter.  The letter gave this as his address.
+If he isn't here, will you be good enough to tell me where he is?
+I--"
+
+There was another interruption, an exclamation from the darkness
+behind Mrs. Briggs and the maid.
+
+"Oh!" said the third voice, with a little catch in it.  "Who is it,
+please?  Who is it?  What is the person's name?"
+
+Mrs. Briggs scowled at me.
+
+"Wat's your name?" she snapped.
+
+"My name is Knowles.  I am an American relative of Mr. Morley's and
+I'm here in answer to a letter written by Mr. Morley himself."
+
+There was a moment's silence.  Then the third voice said:
+
+"Ask--ask him to come up.  Show him up, Mrs. Briggs, if you
+please."
+
+Mrs. Briggs grunted and stepped aside.  I entered the hall.
+
+"First floor back," mumbled the landlady.  "Straight as you go.
+You won't need any showin'."
+
+I mounted the stairs.  The landing at the top was dark, but the
+door at the rear was ajar.  I knocked.  A voice, the same voice I
+had heard before, bade me come in.  I entered the room.
+
+It was a dingy little room, sparely furnished, with a bed and two
+chairs, a dilapidated washstand and a battered bureau.  I noticed
+these afterwards.  Just then my attention was centered upon the
+occupant of the room, a young woman, scarcely more than a girl,
+dark-haired, dark-eyed, slender and graceful.  She was standing by
+the bureau, resting one hand upon it, and gazing at me, with a
+strange expression, a curious compound of fright, surprise and
+defiance.  She did not speak.  I was embarrassed.
+
+"I beg your pardon," I stammered.  "I am afraid there is some
+mistake.  I came here in answer to a letter written by a Francis
+Morley, who is--well, I suppose he is a distant relative of mine."
+
+She stepped forward and closed the door by which I had entered.
+Then she turned and faced me.
+
+"You are an American," she said.
+
+"Yes, I am an American.  I--"
+
+She interrupted me.
+
+"Do you--do you come from--from Bayport, Massachusetts?" she
+faltered.
+
+I stared at her.  "Why, yes," I admitted.  "I do come from Bayport.
+How in the world did you--"
+
+"Was the letter you speak of addressed to Captain Barnabas Cahoon?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then--then there isn't any mistake.  I wrote it."
+
+I imagine that my mouth opened as wide as the maid's had done.
+
+"You!" I exclaimed.  "Why--why--it was written by Francis Morley--
+Francis Strickland Morley."
+
+"I am Frances Strickland Morley."
+
+I heard this, of course, but I did not comprehend it.  I had been
+working along the lines of a fixed idea.  Now that idea had been
+knocked into a cocked hat, and my intellect had been knocked with
+it.
+
+"Why--why, no," I repeated, stupidly.  "Francis Morley is the son
+of Strickland Morley."
+
+"There was no son," impatiently.  "I am Frances Morley, I tell you.
+I am Strickland Morley's daughter.  I wrote that letter."
+
+I sat down upon the nearest of the two chairs.  I was obliged to
+sit.  I could not stand and face the fact which, at least, even my
+benumbed brain was beginning to comprehend.  The mistake was a
+simple one, merely the difference between an "i" and an "e" in a
+name, that was all.  And yet that mistake--that slight difference
+between "Francis" and "Frances"--explained the amazing difference
+between the Little Frank of Hephzibah's fancy and the reality
+before me.
+
+The real Little Frank was a girl.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+In Which a Dream Becomes a Reality
+
+
+I said nothing immediately.  I could not.  It was "Little Frank"
+who resumed the conversation.  "Who are you?" she asked.
+
+"Who--I beg your pardon?  I am rather upset, I'm afraid.  I didn't
+expect--that is, I expected. . . .  Well, I didn't expect THIS!
+What was it you asked me?"
+
+"I asked you who you were."
+
+"My name is Knowles--Kent Knowles.  I am Captain Cahoon's grand-
+nephew."
+
+"His grand-nephew.  Then--Did Captain Cahoon send you to me?"
+
+"Send me!  I beg your pardon once more.  No. . . .  No.  Captain
+Cahoon is dead.  He has been dead nearly ten years.  No one sent
+me."
+
+"Then why did you come?  You have my letter; you said so."
+
+"Yes; I--I have your letter.  I received it about an hour ago.  It
+was forwarded to me--to my cousin and me--here in London."
+
+"Here in London!  Then you did not come to London in answer to that
+letter?"
+
+"No.  My cousin and I--"
+
+"What cousin?  What is his name?"
+
+"His name?  It isn't a--That is, the cousin is a woman.  She is
+Miss Hephzibah Cahoon, your--your mother's half-sister.  She is--
+Why, she is your aunt!"
+
+It was a fact; Hephzibah was this young lady's aunt.  I don't know
+why that seemed so impossible and ridiculous, but it did.  The
+young lady herself seemed to find it so.
+
+"My aunt?" she repeated.  "I didn't know--But--but, why is my--my
+aunt here with you?"
+
+"We are on a pleasure trip.  We--I beg your pardon.  What have I
+been thinking of?  Don't stand.  Please sit down."
+
+She accepted the invitation.  As she walked toward the chair it
+seemed to me that she staggered a little.  I noticed then for the
+first time, how very slender she was, almost emaciated.  There were
+dark hollows beneath her eyes and her face was as white as the bed-
+linen--No, I am wrong; it was whiter than Mrs. Briggs' bed-linen.
+
+"Are you ill?" I asked involuntarily.
+
+She did not answer.  She seated herself in the chair and fixed her
+dark eyes upon me.  They were large eyes and very dark.  Hephzy
+said, when she first saw them, that they looked like "burnt holes
+in a blanket."  Perhaps they did; that simile did not occur to me.
+
+"You have read my letter?" she asked.
+
+It was evident that I must have read the letter or I should not
+have learned where to find her, but I did not call attention to
+this.  I said simply that I had read the letter.
+
+"Then what do you propose?" she asked.
+
+"Propose?"
+
+"Yes," impatiently.  "What proposition do you make me?  If you have
+read the letter you must know what I mean.  You must have come here
+for the purpose of saying something, of making some offer.  What is
+it?"
+
+I was speechless.  I had come there to find an impudent young
+blackguard and tell him what I thought of him.  That was as near a
+definite reason for my coming as any.  If I had not acted upon
+impulse, if I had stopped to consider, it is quite likely that I
+should not have come at all.  But the blackguard was--was--well, he
+was not and never had been.  In his place was this white-faced,
+frail girl.  I couldn't tell her what I thought of her.  I didn't
+know what to think.
+
+She waited for me to answer and, as I continued to play the dumb
+idiot, her impatience grew.  Her brows--very dark brown they were,
+almost black against the pallor of her face--drew together and her
+foot began to pat the faded carpet.  "I am waiting," she said.
+
+I realized that I must say something, so I said the only thing
+which occurred to me.  It was a question.
+
+"Your father is dead?" I asked.
+
+She nodded.  "My letter told you that," she answered.  "He died in
+Paris three years ago."
+
+"And--and had he no relatives here in England?"
+
+She hesitated before replying.  "No near relatives whom he cared to
+recognize," she answered haughtily.  "My father, Mr. Knowles was a
+gentleman and, having been most unjustly treated by his own family,
+as well as by OTHERS"--with a marked emphasis on the word--"he did
+not stoop, even in his illness and distress, to beg where he should
+have commanded."
+
+"Oh!  Oh, I see," I said, feebly.
+
+"There is no reason why you should see.  My father was the second
+son and--But this is quite irrelevant.  You, an American, can
+scarcely be expected to understand English family customs.  It is
+sufficient that, for reasons of his own, my father had for years
+been estranged from his own people."
+
+The air with which this was delivered was quite overwhelming.  If I
+had not known Strickland Morley, and a little of his history, I
+should have been crushed.
+
+"Then you have been quite alone since his death?" I asked.
+
+Again she hesitated.  "For a time," she said, after a moment.  "I
+lived with a married cousin of his in one of the London suburbs.
+Then I--But really, Mr. Knowles, I cannot see that my private
+affairs need interest you.  As I understand it, this interview of
+ours is quite impersonal, in a sense.  You understand, of course--
+you must understand--that in writing as I did I was not seeking the
+acquaintance of my mother's relatives.  I do not desire their
+friendship.  I am not asking them for anything.  I am giving them
+the opportunity to do justice, to give me what is my own--my OWN.
+If you don't understand this I--I--Oh, you MUST understand it!"
+
+She rose from the chair.  Her eyes were flashing and she was
+trembling from head to foot.  Again I realized how weak and frail
+she was.
+
+"You must understand," she repeated.  "You MUST!"
+
+"Yes, yes," I said hastily.  "I think I--I suppose I understand
+your feelings.  But--"
+
+"There are no buts.  Don't pretend there are.  Do you think for one
+instant that I am begging, asking you for HELP?  YOU--of all the
+world!"
+
+This seemed personal enough, in spite of her protestations.
+
+"But you never met me before," I said, involuntarily.
+
+"You never knew of my existence."
+
+She stamped her foot.  "I knew of my American relatives," she
+cried, scornfully.  "I knew of them and their--Oh, I cannot say the
+word!"
+
+"Your father told you--" I began.  She burst out at me like a
+flame.
+
+"My father," she declared, "was a brave, kind, noble man.  Don't
+mention his name to me.  I won't have you speak of him.  If it were
+not for his forbearance and self-sacrifice you--all of you--would
+be--would be--Oh, don't speak of my father!  Don't!"
+
+To my amazement and utter discomfort she sank into the chair and
+burst into tears.  I was completely demoralized.
+
+"Don't, Miss Morley," I begged.  "Please don't."
+
+She continued to sob hysterically.  To make matters worse sounds
+from behind the closed door led me to think that someone--
+presumably that confounded Mrs. Briggs--was listening at the
+keyhole.
+
+"Don't, Miss Morley," I pleaded.  "Don't!"
+
+My pleas were unavailing.  The young lady sobbed and sobbed.  I
+fidgeted on the edge of my chair in an agony of mortified
+embarrassment.  "Don'ts" were quite useless and I could think of
+nothing else to say except "Compose yourself" and that, somehow or
+other, was too ridiculously reminiscent of Mr. Pickwick and Mrs.
+Bardell.  It was an idiotic situation for me to be in.  Some men--
+men of experience with woman-kind--might have known how to handle
+it, but I had had no such experience.  It was all my fault, of
+course; I should not have mentioned her father.  But how was I to
+know that Strickland Morley was a persecuted saint?  I should have
+called him everything but that.
+
+At last I had an inspiration.
+
+"You are ill," I said, rising.  "I will call someone."
+
+That had the desired effect.  My newly found third--or was it
+fourth or fifth--cousin made a move in protest.  She fought down
+her emotion, her sobs ceased, and she leaned back in her chair
+looking paler and weaker than ever.  I should have pitied her if
+she had not been so superior and insultingly scornful in her manner
+toward me.  I--Well, yes, I did pity her, even as it was.
+
+"Don't," she said, in her turn.  "Don't call anyone.  I am not ill--
+not now."
+
+"But you have been," I put in, I don't know why.
+
+"I have not been well for some time.  But I am not ill.  I am quite
+strong enough to hear what you have to say."
+
+This might have been satisfactory if I had had anything to say.  I
+had not.  She evidently expected me to express repentance for
+something or other and make some sort of proposition.  I was not
+repentant and I had no proposition to make.  But how was I to tell
+her that without bringing on another storm?  Oh, if I had had time
+to consider.  If I had not come alone.  If Hephzy,--cool-headed,
+sensible Hephzy--were only with me.
+
+"I--I--" I began.  Then desperately:  "I scarcely know what to say,
+Miss Morley," I faltered.  "I came here, as I told you, expecting
+to find a--a--"
+
+"What, pray?" with a haughty lift of the dark eyebrows.  "What did
+you expect to find, may I ask?"
+
+"Nothing--that is, I--Well, never mind that.  I came on the spur of
+the moment, immediately after receiving your letter.  I have had no
+time to think, to consult my--your aunt--"
+
+"What has my--AUNT" with withering emphasis, "to do with it?  Why
+should you consult her?"
+
+"Well, she is your mother's nearest relative, I suppose.  She is
+Captain Cahoon's daughter and at least as much interested as I.  I
+must consult her, of course.  But, frankly, Miss Morley, I think I
+ought to tell you that you are under a misapprehension.  There are
+matters which you don't understand."
+
+"I understand everything.  I understand only too well.  What do you
+mean by a misapprehension?  Do you mean--do you dare to insinuate
+that my father did not tell me the truth?"
+
+"Oh, no, no," I interrupted.  That was exactly what I did mean, but
+I was not going to let the shade of the departed Strickland appear
+again until I was out of that room and house.  "I am not
+insinuating anything."
+
+"I am very glad to hear it.  I wish you to know that I perfectly
+understand EVERYTHING."
+
+That seemed to settle it; at any rate it settled me for the time.
+I took up my hat.
+
+"Miss Morley," I said, "I can't discuss this matter further just
+now.  I must consult my cousin first.  She and I will call upon you
+to-morrow at any hour you may name."
+
+She was disappointed; that was plain.  I thought for the moment
+that she was going to break down again.  But she did not; she
+controlled her feelings and faced me firmly and pluckily.
+
+"At nine--no, at ten to-morrow, then," she said.  "I shall expect
+your final answer then."
+
+"Very well."
+
+"You will come?  Of course; I am forgetting.  You said you would."
+
+"We will be here at ten.  Here is my address."
+
+I gave her my card, scribbling the street and number of Bancroft's
+in pencil in the corner.  She took the card.
+
+"Thank you.  Good afternoon," she said.
+
+I said "Good afternoon" and opened the door.  The hall outside was
+empty, but someone was descending the stairs in a great hurry.  I
+descended also.  At the top step I glanced once more into the room
+I had just left.  Frances Strickland Morley--Little Frank--was
+seated in the chair, one hand before her eyes.  Her attitude
+expressed complete weariness and utter collapse.  She had said she
+was not sick, but she looked sick--she did indeed.
+
+Harriet, the slouchy maid, was not in evidence, so I opened the
+street door for myself.  As I reached the sidewalk--I suppose, as
+this was England, I should call it the "pavement"--I was accosted
+by Mrs. Briggs.  She was out of breath; I am quite sure she had
+reached that pavement but the moment before.
+
+"'Ow is she?" demanded Mrs. Briggs.
+
+"Who?" I asked, not too politely.
+
+"That Morley one.  Is she goin' to be hill again?"
+
+"How do I know?  Has she been sick--ill, I mean?"
+
+"Huh!  Hill!  'Er?  Now, now, sir!  I give you my word she's been
+hill hever since she came 'ere.  I thought one time she was goin'
+to die on my 'ands.  And 'oo was to pay for 'er buryin', I'd like
+to know?  That's w'at it is!  'Oo's goin' to pay for 'er buryin'
+and the food she eats; to say nothin' of 'er room money, and that's
+been owin' me for a matter of three weeks?"
+
+"How should I know who is going to pay for it?  She will, I
+suppose."
+
+"She!  W'at with?  She ain't got a bob to bless 'erself with, she
+ain't.  She's broke, stony broke.  Honly for my kind 'eart she'd a
+been out on the street afore this.  That and 'er tellin' me she was
+expectin' money from 'er rich friends in the States.  You're from
+the States, ain't you, sir?"
+
+"Yes.  But do you mean to tell me that Miss Morley has no money of
+her own?"
+
+"Of course I mean it.  W'en she come 'ere she told me she was on
+the stage.  A hopera singer, she said she was.  She 'ad money then,
+enough to pay 'er way, she 'ad.  She was expectin' to go with some
+troupe or other, but she never 'as.  Oh, them stage people!  Don't
+I know 'em?  Ain't I 'ad experience of 'em?  A woman as 'as let
+lodgin's as long as me?  If it wasn't for them rich friends in the
+States I 'ave never put up with 'er the way I 'ave.  You're from
+the States, ain't you, sir?"
+
+"Yes, yes, I'm from the States.  Now, see here, Mrs. Briggs; I'm
+coming back here to-morrow.  If--Well, if Miss Morley needs
+anything, food or medicines or anything, in the meantime, you see
+that she has them.  I'll pay you when I come."
+
+Mrs. Briggs actually smiled.  She would have patted my arm if I had
+not jerked it out of the way.
+
+"You trust me, sir," she whispered, confidingly.  "You trust my
+kind 'eart.  I'll look after 'er like she was my own daughter."
+
+I should have hated to trust even my worst enemy--if I had one--to
+Mrs. Briggs' "kind heart."  I walked off in disgust.  I found a cab
+at the next corner and, bidding the driver take me to Bancroft's,
+threw myself back on the cushions.  This was a lovely mess!  This
+was a beautiful climax to the first act--no, merely the prologue--
+of the drama of Hephzy's and my pilgrimage.  What would Jim
+Campbell say to this?  I was to be absolutely care-free; I was not
+to worry about myself or anyone else.  That was the essential part
+of his famous "prescription."  And now, here I was, with this
+impossible situation and more impossible young woman on my hands.
+If Little Frank had been a boy, a healthy boy, it would be bad
+enough.  But Little Frank was a girl--a sick girl, without a penny.
+And a girl thoroughly convinced that she was the rightful heir to
+goodness knows how much wealth--wealth of which we, the uncivilized,
+unprincipled natives of an unprincipled, uncivilized country, had
+robbed her parents and herself.  Little Frank had been a dream
+before; now he--she, I mean--was a nightmare; worse than that, for
+one wakes from a nightmare.  And I was on my way to tell Hephzy!
+
+Well, I told her.  She was in our sitting-room when I reached the
+hotel and I told her the whole story.  I began by reading the
+letter.  Before she had recovered from the shock of the reading, I
+told her that I had actually met and talked with Little Frank; and
+while this astounding bit of news was, so to speak, soaking into
+her bewildered brain, I went on to impart the crowning item of
+information--namely, that Little Frank was Miss Frances.  Then I
+sat back and awaited what might follow.
+
+Her first coherent remark was one which I had not expected--and I
+had expected almost anything.
+
+"Oh, Hosy," gasped Hephzy, "tell me--tell me before you say
+anything else.  Does he--she, I mean--look like Ardelia?"
+
+"Eh?  What?" I stammered.  "Look like--look like what?"
+
+"Not what--who.  Does she look like Ardelia?  Like her mother?  Oh,
+I HOPE she doesn't favor her father's side!  I did so want our
+Little Frank to look like his--her--I CAN'T get used to it--like
+my poor Ardelia.  Does she?"
+
+"Goodness knows!  I don't know who she looks like.  I didn't
+notice."
+
+"You didn't!  I should have noticed that before anything else.
+What kind of a girl is she?  Is she pretty?"
+
+"I don't know.  She isn't ugly, I should say.  I wasn't particularly
+interested in her looks.  The fact that she was at all was enough; I
+haven't gotten over that yet.  What are we going to do with her?  Or
+are we going to do anything?  Those are the questions I should like
+to have answered.  For heaven's sake, Hephzy, don't talk about her
+personal appearance.  There she is and here are we.  What are we
+going to do?"
+
+Hephzy shook her head.  "I don't know, Hosy," she admitted.  "I
+don't know, I'm sure.  This is--this is--Oh, didn't I tell you we
+were SENT--sent by Providence!"
+
+I was silent.  If we had been "sent," as she called it, I was far
+from certain that Providence was responsible.  I was more inclined
+to place the responsibility in a totally different quarter.
+
+"I think," she continued, "I think you'd better tell me the whole
+thing all over again, Hosy.  Tell it slow and don't leave out a
+word.  Tell me what sort of place she was in and what she said and
+how she looked, as near as you can remember.  I'll try and pay
+attention; I'll try as hard as I can.  It'll be a job.  All I can
+think of now is that to-morrow mornin'--only to-morrow mornin'--I'm
+going to see Little Frank--Ardelia's Little Frank."
+
+I complied with her request, giving every detail of my afternoon's
+experience.  I reread the letter, and handed it to her, that she
+might read it herself.  I described Mrs. Briggs and what I had seen
+of Mrs. Briggs' lodging-house.  I described Miss Morley as best I
+could, dark eyes, dark hair and the look of weakness and frailty.
+I repeated our conversation word for word; I had forgotten nothing
+of that.  Hephzy listened in silence.  When I had finished she
+sighed.
+
+"The poor thing," she said.  "I do pity her so."
+
+"Pity her!" I exclaimed.  "Well, perhaps I pity her, too, in a way.
+But my pity and yours don't alter the situation.  She doesn't want
+pity.  She doesn't want help.  She flew at me like a wildcat when I
+asked if she was ill.  Her personal affairs, she says, are not
+ours; she doesn't want our acquaintance or our friendship.  She has
+gotten some crazy notion in her head that you and I and Uncle
+Barnabas have cheated her out of an inheritance, and she wants
+that!  Inheritance!  Good Lord!  A fine inheritance hers is!
+Daughter of the man who robbed us of everything we had."
+
+"I know--I know.  But SHE doesn't know, does she, Hosy.  Her father
+must have told her--"
+
+"He told her a barrel of lies, of course.  What they were I can't
+imagine, but that fellow was capable of anything.  Know!  No, she
+doesn't know now, but she will have to know."
+
+"Are you goin' to tell her, Hosy?"
+
+I stared in amazement.
+
+"Tell her!" I repeated.  "What do you mean?  You don't intend
+letting her think that WE are the thieves, do you?  That's what she
+thinks now.  Of course I shall tell her."
+
+"It will be awful hard to tell.  She worshipped her father, I
+guess.  He was a dreadful fascinatin' man, when he wanted to be.
+He could make a body believe black was white.  Poor Ardelia thought
+he was--"
+
+"I can't help that.  I'm not Ardelia."
+
+"I know, but she is Ardelia's child.  Hosy, if you are so set on
+tellin' her why didn't you tell her this afternoon?  It would have
+been just as easy then as to-morrow."
+
+This was a staggerer.  A truthful answer would be so humiliating.
+I had not told Frances Morley that her father was a thief and a
+liar because I couldn't muster courage to do it.  She had seemed so
+alone and friendless and ill.  I lacked the pluck to face the
+situation.  But I could not tell Hephzy this.
+
+"Why didn't you tell her?" she repeated.
+
+"Oh, bosh!" I exclaimed, impatiently.  "This is nonsense and you
+know it, Hephzy.  She'll have to be told and you and I must tell
+her.  DON'T look at me like that.  What else are we to do?"
+
+Another shake of the head.
+
+"I don't know.  I can't decide any more than you can, Hosy.  What
+do YOU think we should do?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+With which unsatisfactory remark this particular conversation
+ended.  I went to my room to dress for dinner.  I had no appetite
+and dinner was not appealing; but I did not want to discuss Little
+Frank any longer.  I mentally cursed Jim Campbell a good many times
+that evening and during the better part of a sleepless night.  If
+it were not for him I should be in Bayport instead of London.  From
+a distance of three thousand miles I could, without the least
+hesitancy, have told Strickland Morley's "heir" what to do.
+
+Hephzy did not come down to dinner at all.  From behind the door of
+her room she told me, in a peculiar tone, that she could not eat.
+I could not eat, either, but I made the pretence of doing so.  The
+next morning, at breakfast in the sitting-room, we were a silent
+pair.  I don't know what George, the waiter, thought of us.
+
+At a quarter after nine I turned away from the window through which
+I had been moodily regarding the donkey cart of a flower huckster
+in the street below.
+
+"You'd better get on your things," I said.  "It is time for us to
+go."
+
+Hephzy donned her hat and wrap.  Then she came over to me.
+
+"Don't be cross, Hosy," she pleaded.  "I've been thinkin' it over
+all night long and I've come to the conclusion that you are
+probably right.  She hasn't any real claim on us, of course; it's
+the other way around, if anything.  You do just as you think best
+and I'll back you up."
+
+"Then you agree that we should tell her the truth."
+
+"Yes, if you think so.  I'm goin' to leave it all in your hands.
+Whatever you do will be right.  I'll trust you as I always have."
+
+It was a big responsibility, it seemed to me.  I did wish she had
+been more emphatic.  However, I set my teeth and resolved upon a
+course of action.  Pity and charity and all the rest of it I would
+not consider.  Right was right, and justice was justice.  I would
+end a disagreeable business as quickly as I could.
+
+Mrs. Briggs' lodging-house, viewed from the outside, was no more
+inviting at ten in the morning than it had been at four in the
+afternoon.  I expected Hephzy to make some comment upon the dirty
+steps and the still dirtier front door.  She did neither.  We stood
+together upon the steps and I rang the bell.
+
+Mrs. Briggs herself opened the door.  I think she had been watching
+from behind the curtains and had seen our cab draw up at the curb.
+She was in a state of great agitation, a combination of relieved
+anxiety, excitement and overdone politeness.
+
+"Good mornin', sir," she said; "and good mornin', lady.  I've been
+expectin' you, and so 'as she, poor dear.  I thought one w'ile she
+was that hill she couldn't see you, but Lor' bless you, I've nursed
+'er same as if she was my own daughter.  I told you I would sir,
+now didn't I."
+
+One word in this harangue caught my attention.
+
+"Ill?" I repeated.  "What do you mean?  Is she worse than she was
+yesterday?"
+
+Mrs. Briggs held up her hands.  "Worse!" she cried.  "Why, bless
+your 'art, sir, she was quite well yesterday.  Quite 'erself, she
+was, when you come.  But after you went away she seemed to go all
+to pieces like.  W'en I went hup to 'er, to carry 'er 'er tea--She
+always 'as 'er tea; I've been a mother to 'er, I 'ave--she'll tell
+you so.  W'en I went hup with the tea there she was in a faint.
+W'ite as if she was dead.  My word, sir, I was frightened.  And all
+night she's been tossin' about, a-cryin' out and--"
+
+"Where is she now?" put in Hephzy, sharply.
+
+"She's in 'er room ma'am.  Dressed she is; she would dress, knowin'
+of your comin', though I told 'er she shouldn't.  She's dressed,
+but she's lyin' down.  She would 'ave tried to sit hup, but THAT I
+wouldn't 'ave, ma'am.  'Now, dearie,' I told 'er--"
+
+But I would not hear any more.  As for Hephzy she was in the dingy
+front hall already.
+
+"Shall we go up?" I asked, impatiently.
+
+"Of COURSE you're to go hup.  She's a-waitin' for you.  But sir--
+sir," she caught my sleeve; "if you think she's goin' to be ill and
+needin' the doctor, just pass the word to me.  A doctor she shall
+'ave, the best there is in London.  All I ask you is to pay--"
+
+I heard no more.  Hephzy was on her way up the stairs and I
+followed.  The door of the first floor back was closed.  I rapped
+upon it.
+
+"Come in," said the voice I remembered, but now it sounded weaker
+than before.
+
+Hephzy looked at me.  I nodded.
+
+"You go first," I whispered.  "You can call me when you are ready."
+
+Hephzy opened the door and entered the room.  I closed the door
+behind her.
+
+Silence for what seemed a long, long time.  Then the door opened
+again and Hephzy appeared.  Her cheeks were wet with tears.  She
+put her arms about my neck.
+
+"Oh, Hosy," she whispered, "she's real sick.  And--and--Oh, Hosy,
+how COULD you see her and not see!  She's the very image of
+Ardelia.  The very image!  Come."
+
+I followed her into the room.  It was no brighter now, in the
+middle of a--for London--bright forenoon, than it had been on my
+previous visit.  Just as dingy and forbidding and forlorn as ever.
+But now there was no defiant figure erect to meet me.  The figure
+was lying upon the bed, and the pale cheeks of yesterday were
+flushed with fever.  Miss Morley had looked far from well when I
+first saw her; now she looked very ill indeed.
+
+She acknowledged my good-morning with a distant bow.  Her illness
+had not quenched her spirit, that was plain.  She attempted to
+rise, but Hephzy gently pushed her back upon the pillow.
+
+"You stay right there," she urged.  "Stay right there.  We can talk
+just as well, and Mr. Knowles won't mind; will you, Hosy."
+
+I stammered something or other.  My errand, difficult as it had
+been from the first, now seemed impossible.  I had come there to
+say certain things--I had made up my mind to say them; but how was
+I to say such things to a girl as ill as this one was.  I would not
+have said them to Strickland Morley himself, under such
+circumstances.
+
+"I--I am very sorry you are not well, Miss Morley," I faltered.
+
+She thanked me, but there was no warmth in the thanks.
+
+"I am not well," she said; "but that need make no difference.  I
+presume you and this--this lady are prepared to make a definite
+proposition to me.  I am well enough to hear it."
+
+Hephzy and I looked at each other.  I looked for help, but Hephzy's
+expression was not helpful at all.  It might have meant anything--
+or nothing.
+
+"Miss Morley," I began.  "Miss Morley, I--I--"
+
+"Well, sir?"
+
+"Miss Morley, I--I don't know what to say to you."
+
+She rose to a sitting posture.  Hephzy again tried to restrain her,
+but this time she would not be restrained.
+
+"Don't know what to say?" she repeated.  "Don't know what to say?
+Then why did you come here?"
+
+"I came--we came because--because I promised we would come."
+
+"But WHY did you come?"
+
+Hephzy leaned toward her.
+
+"Please, please," she begged.  "Don't get all excited like this.
+You mustn't.  You'll make yourself sicker, you know.  You must lie
+down and be quiet.  Hosy--oh, please, Hosy, be careful."
+
+Miss Morley paid no attention.  She was regarding me with eyes
+which looked me through and through.  Her thin hands clutched the
+bedclothes.
+
+"WHY did you come?" she demanded.  "My letter was plain enough,
+certainly.  What I said yesterday was perfectly plain.  I told you
+I did not wish your acquaintance or your friendship.  Friendship--"
+with a blaze of scorn, "from YOU!  I--I told you--I--"
+
+"Hush! hush! please don't," begged Hephzy.  "You mustn't.  You're
+too weak and sick.  Oh, Hosy, do be careful."
+
+I was quite willing to be careful--if I had known how.
+
+"I think," I said, "that this interview had better be postponed.
+Really, Miss Morley, you are not in a condition to--"
+
+She sprang to her feet and stood there trembling.
+
+"My condition has nothing to do with it," she cried.  "Oh, CAN'T I
+make you understand!  I am trying to be lenient, to be--to be--And
+you come here, you and this woman, and try to--to--You MUST
+understand!  I don't want to know you.  I don't want your pity!
+After your treatment of my mother and my father, I--I--I . . .
+Oh!"
+
+She staggered, put her hands to her head, sank upon the bed, and
+then collapsed in a dead faint.
+
+Hephzy was at her side in a moment.  She knew what to do if I did
+not.
+
+"Quick!" she cried, turning to me.  "Send for the doctor; she has
+fainted.  Hurry!  And send that--that Briggs woman to me.  Don't
+stand there like that.  HURRY!"
+
+I found the Briggs woman in the lower hall.  From her I learned the
+name and address of the nearest physician, also the nearest public
+telephone.  Mrs. Briggs went up to Hephzy and I hastened out to
+telephone.
+
+Oh, those London telephones!  After innumerable rings and "Hellos"
+from me, and "Are you theres" from Central, I, at last, was
+connected with the doctor's office and, by great good luck, with
+the doctor himself.  He promised to come at once.  In ten minutes I
+met him at the door and conducted him to the room above.
+
+He was in that room a long time.  Meanwhile, I waited in the hall,
+pacing up and down, trying to think my way through this maze.  I
+had succeeded in thinking myself still deeper into it when the
+physician reappeared.
+
+"How is she?" I asked.
+
+"She is conscious again, but weak, of course.  If she can be kept
+quiet and have proper care and nourishment and freedom from worry
+she will, probably, gain strength and health.  There is nothing
+seriously wrong physically, so far as I can see."
+
+I was glad to hear that and said so.
+
+"Of course," he went on, "her nerves are completely unstrung.  She
+seems to have been under a great mental strain and her surroundings
+are not--"  He paused, and then added, "Is the young lady a
+relative of yours?"
+
+"Ye--es, I suppose--She is a distant relative, yes."
+
+"Humph!  Has she no near relatives?  Here in England, I mean.  You
+and the lady with you are Americans, I judge."
+
+I ignored the last sentence.  I could not see that our being
+Americans concerned him.
+
+"She has no near relatives in England, so far as I know," I
+answered.  "Why do you ask?"
+
+"Merely because--Well, to be frank, because if she had such
+relatives I should strongly recommend their taking charge of her.
+She is very weak and in a condition where she knight become
+seriously ill."
+
+"I see.  You mean that she should not remain here."
+
+"I do mean that, decidedly.  This," with a wave of the hand and a
+glance about the bare, dirty, dark hall, "is not--Well, she seems
+to be a young person of some refinement and--"
+
+He did not finish the sentence, but I understood.
+
+"I see," I interrupted.  "And yet she is not seriously ill."
+
+"Not now--no.  Her weakness is due to mental strain and--well, to a
+lack of nutrition as much as anything."
+
+"Lack of nutrition?  You mean she hasn't had enough to eat!"
+
+"Yes.  Of course I can't be certain, but that would be my opinion
+if I were forced to give one.  At all events, she should be taken
+from here as soon as possible."
+
+I reflected.  "A hospital?" I suggested.
+
+"She might be taken to a hospital, of course.  But she is scarcely
+ill enough for that.  A good, comfortable home would be better.
+Somewhere where she might have quiet and rest.  If she had
+relatives I should strongly urge her going to them.  She should not
+be left to herself; I would not be responsible for the consequences
+if she were.  A person in her condition might--might be capable of
+any rash act."
+
+This was plain enough, but it did not make my course of action
+plainer to me.
+
+"Is she well enough to be moved--now?" I asked.
+
+"Yes.  If she is not moved she is likely to be less well."
+
+I paid him for the visit; he gave me a prescription--"To quiet the
+nerves," he explained--and went away.  I was to send for him
+whenever his services were needed.  Then I entered the room.
+
+Hephzy and Mrs. Briggs were sitting beside the bed.  The face upon
+the pillow looked whiter and more pitiful than ever.  The dark eyes
+were closed.
+
+Hephzy signaled me to silence.  She rose and tiptoed over to me.  I
+led her out into the hall.
+
+"She's sort of dozin' now," she whispered.  "The poor thing is worn
+out.  What did the doctor say?"
+
+I told her what the doctor had said.
+
+"He's just right," she declared.  "She's half starved, that's
+what's the matter with her.  That and frettin' and worryin' have
+just about killed her.  What are you goin' to do, Hosy?"
+
+"How do I know!" I answered, impatiently.  "I don't see exactly why
+we are called upon to do anything.  Do you?"
+
+"No--o, I--I don't know as we are called on.  No--o.  I--"
+
+"Well, do you?"
+
+"No.  I know how you feel, Hosy.  Considerin' how her father
+treated us, I won't blame you no matter what you do."
+
+"Confound her father!  I only wish it were he we had to deal with."
+
+Hephzy was silent.  I took a turn up and down the hall.
+
+"The doctor says she should be taken away from here at once," I
+observed.
+
+Hephzy nodded.  "There's no doubt about that," she declared with
+emphasis.  "I wouldn't trust a sick cat to that Briggs woman.
+She's a--well, she's what she is."
+
+"I suggested a hospital, but he didn't approve," I went on.  "He
+recommended some comfortable home with care and quiet and all the
+rest of it.  Her relatives should look after her, he said.  She
+hasn't any relatives that we know of, or any home to go to."
+
+Again Hephzy was silent.  I waited, growing momentarily more
+nervous and fretful.  Of all impossible situations this was the
+most impossible.  And to make it worse, Hephzy, the usually prompt,
+reliable Hephzy, was of no use at all.
+
+"Do say something," I snapped.  "What shall we do?"
+
+"I don't know, Hosy, dear.  Why! . . .  Where are you going?"
+
+"I'm going to the drug-store to get this prescription filled.  I'll
+be back soon."
+
+The drug-store--it was a "chemist's shop" of course--was at the
+corner.  It was the chemist's telephone that I had used when I
+called the doctor.  I gave the clerk the prescription and, while he
+was busy with it, I paced up and down the floor of the shop.  At
+length I sat down before the telephone and demanded a number.
+
+When I returned to the lodging-house I gave Hephzy the powders
+which the chemist's clerk had prepared.
+
+"Is she any better?" I asked.
+
+"She's just about the same."
+
+"What does she say?"
+
+"She's too weak and sick to say anything.  I don't imagine she
+knows or cares what is happening to her."
+
+"Is she strong enough to get downstairs to a cab, or to ride in one
+afterward?"
+
+"I guess so.  We could help her, you know.  But, Hosy, what cab?
+What do you mean?  What are you going to do?"
+
+"I don't know what I'm going to do.  I'm going to take her away
+from this hole.  I must.  I don't want to; there's no reason why I
+should and every reason why I shouldn't; but--Oh, well, confound
+it!  I've got to.  We CAN'T let her starve and die here."
+
+"But where are you going to take her?"
+
+"There's only one place to take her; that's to Bancroft's.  I've
+'phoned and engaged a room next to ours.  She'll have to stay with
+us for the present.  Oh, I don't like it any better than you do."
+
+To my intense surprise, Hephzy threw her arms about my neck and
+hugged me.
+
+"I knew you would, Hosy!" she sobbed.  "I knew you would.  I was
+dyin' to have you, but I wouldn't have asked for the world.  You're
+the best man that ever lived.  I knew you wouldn't leave poor
+Ardelia's little girl to--to--Oh, I'm so grateful.  You're the best
+man in the world."
+
+I freed myself from the embrace as soon as I could.  I didn't feel
+like the best man in the world.  I felt like a Quixotic fool.
+
+Fortunately I was too busy for the next hour to think of my
+feelings.  Hephzy went in to arrange for the transfer of the
+invalid to the cab and to collect and pack her most necessary
+belongings.  I spent my time in a financial wrangle with Mrs.
+Briggs.  The number of items which that woman wished included in
+her bill was surprising.  Candles and soap--the bill itself was the
+sole evidence of soap's ever having made its appearance in that
+house--and washing and tea and food and goodness knows what.  The
+total was amazing.  I verified the addition, or, rather, corrected
+it, and then offered half of the sum demanded.  This offer was
+received with protestations, tears and voluble demands to know if I
+'ad the 'art to rob a lone widow who couldn't protect herself.
+Finally we compromised on a three-quarter basis and Mrs. Briggs
+receipted the bill.  She said her kind disposition would be the
+undoing of her and she knew it.  She was too silly and soft-'arted
+to let lodgings.
+
+We had very little trouble in carrying or leading Little Frank to
+the cab.  The effect of the doctor's powders--they must have
+contained some sort of opiate--was to render the girl only
+partially conscious of what was going on and we got her to and into
+the vehicle without difficulty.  During the drive to Bancroft's she
+dozed on Hephzy's shoulder.
+
+Her room--it was next to Hephzy's, with a connecting door--was
+ready and we led her up the stairs.  Mr. and Mrs. Jameson were very
+kind and sympathetic.  They asked surprisingly few questions.
+
+"Poor young lady," said Mr. Jameson, when he and I were together in
+our sitting-room.  "She is quite ill, isn't she."
+
+"Yes," I admitted.  "It is not a serious illness, however.  She
+needs quiet and care more than anything else."
+
+"Yes, sir.  We will do our best to see that she has both.  A
+relative of yours, sir, I think you said."
+
+"A--a--my niece," I answered, on the spur of the moment.  She was
+Hephzy's niece, of course.  As a matter of fact, she was scarcely
+related to me.  However, it seemed useless to explain.
+
+"I didn't know you had English relatives, Mr. Knowles.  I had been
+under the impression that you and Miss Cahoon were strangers here."
+
+So had I, but I did not explain that, either.  Mrs. Jameson joined
+us.
+
+"She will sleep now, I think," she said.  "She is quite quiet and
+peaceful.  A near relative of yours, Mr. Knowles?"
+
+"She is Mr. Knowles's niece," explained her husband.
+
+"Oh, yes.  A sweet girl she seems.  And very pretty, isn't she."
+
+I did not answer.  Mr. Jameson and his wife turned to go.
+
+"I presume you will wish to communicate with her people," said the
+former.  "Shall I send you telegram forms?"
+
+"Not now," I stammered.  Telegrams!  Her people!  She had no
+people.  We were her people.  We had taken her in charge and were
+responsible.  And how and when would that responsibility be
+shifted!
+
+What on earth should we do with her?
+
+Hephzy tiptoed in.  Her expression was a curious one.  She was very
+solemn, but not sad; the solemnity was not that of sorrow, but
+appeared to be a sort of spiritual uplift, a kind of reverent joy.
+
+"She's asleep," she said, gravely; "she's asleep, Hosy."
+
+There was precious little comfort in that.
+
+"She'll wake up by and by," I said.  "And then--what?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Neither do I--now.  But we shall have to know pretty soon."
+
+"I suppose we shall, but I can't--I can't seem to think of anything
+that's ahead of us.  All I can think is that my Little Frank--my
+Ardelia's Little Frank--is here, here with us, at last."
+
+"And TO last, so far as I can see.  Hephzy, for heaven's sake, do
+try to be sensible.  Do you realize what this means?  As soon as
+she is well enough to understand what has happened she will want to
+know what 'proposition' we have to make.  And when we tell her we
+have none to make, she'll probably collapse again.  And then--and
+then--what shall we do?"
+
+"I don't know, Hosy.  I declare I don't know."
+
+I strode into my own room and slammed the door.
+
+"Damn!" said I, with enthusiasm.
+
+"What?" queried Hephzy, from the sitting-room.  "What did you say,
+Hosy?"
+
+I did not tell her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+In Which the Pilgrims Become Tenants
+
+
+Two weeks later we left Bancroft's and went to Mayberry.  Two weeks
+only, and yet in that two weeks all our plans--if our indefinite
+visions of irresponsible flitting about Great Britain and the
+continent might be called plans--had changed utterly.  Our
+pilgrimage was, apparently, ended--it had become an indefinite
+stay.  We were no longer pilgrims, but tenants, tenants in an
+English rectory, of all places in the world.  I, the Cape Cod
+quahaug, had become an English country gentleman--or a country
+gentleman in England--for the summer, at least.
+
+Little Frank--Miss Frances Morley--was responsible for the change,
+of course.  Her sudden materialization and the freak of fortune
+which had thrown her, weak and ill, upon our hands, were
+responsible for everything.  For how much more, how many other
+changes, she would be responsible the future only could answer.
+And the future would answer in its own good, or bad, time.  My
+conundrum "What are we going to do with her?" was as much of a
+puzzle as ever.  For my part I gave it up.  Sufficient unto the day
+was the evil thereof--much more than sufficient.
+
+For the first twenty-four hours following the arrival of "my niece"
+at Bancroft's Hotel the situation regarding that niece remained as
+it was.  Miss Morley--or Frances--or Frank as Hephzy persisted in
+calling her--was too ill to care what had happened, or, at least,
+to speak of it.  She spoke very little, was confined to her room
+and bed and slept the greater part of the time.  The doctor whom I
+called, on Mr. Jameson's recommendation, confirmed his fellow
+practitioner's diagnosis; the young lady, he said, was suffering
+from general weakness and the effect of nervous strain.  She needed
+absolute rest, care and quiet.  There was no organic disease.
+
+But on the morning of the second day she was much better and
+willing, even anxious to talk.  She assailed Hephzy with questions
+and Hephzy, although she tried to avoid answering most, was obliged
+to answer some of them.  She reported the interview to me during
+luncheon.
+
+"She didn't seem to remember much about comin' here, or what
+happened before or afterward," said Hephzy.  "But she wanted to
+know it all.  I told her the best I could.  'You couldn't stay
+there,' I said.  'That Briggs hyena wasn't fit to take care of any
+human bein' and neither Hosy nor I could leave you in her hands.
+So we brought you here to the hotel where we're stoppin'.'  She
+thought this over a spell and then she wanted to know whose idea
+bringin' her here was, yours or mine.  I said 'twas yours, and just
+like you, too; you were the kindest-hearted man in the world, I
+said.  Oh, you needn't look at me like that, Hosy.  It's the plain
+truth, and you know it."
+
+"Humph!" I grunted.  "If the young lady were a mind-reader she
+might--well, never mind.  What else did she say?"
+
+"Oh, a good many things.  Wanted to know if her bill at Mrs.
+Briggs' was paid.  I said it was.  She thought about that and then
+she gave me orders that you and I were to keep account of every
+cent--no, penny--we spent for her.  She should insist upon that.
+If we had the idea that she was a subject of charity we were
+mistaken.  She fairly withered me with a look from those big eyes
+of hers.  Ardelia's eyes all over again!  Or they would be if they
+were blue instead of brown.  I remember--"
+
+I cut short the reminiscence.  I was in no mood to listen to the
+praises of any Morley.
+
+"What answer did you make to that?" I asked.
+
+"What could I say?  I didn't want any more faintin' spells or
+hysterics, either.  I said we weren't thinkin' of offerin' charity
+and if it would please her to have us run an expense book we'd do
+it, of course.  She asked what the doctor said about her condition.
+I told her he said she must keep absolutely quiet and not fret
+about anything or she'd have an awful relapse.  That was pretty
+strong but I meant it that way.  Answerin' questions that haven't
+got any answer to 'em is too much of a strain for ME.  You try it
+some time yourself and see."
+
+"I have tried it, thank you.  Well, is that all?  Did she tell you
+anything about herself; where she has been or what she has been or
+what she has been doing since her precious father died?"
+
+"No, not a word.  I was dyin' to ask her, but I didn't.  She says
+she wants to talk with the doctor next time he comes, that's all."
+
+She did talk with the doctor, although not during his next call.
+Several days passed before he would permit her to talk with him.
+Meanwhile he and I had several talks.  What he told me brought my
+conundrum no nearer its answer.
+
+She was recovering rapidly, he said, but for weeks at least her
+delicate nervous organism must be handled with care.  The slightest
+set-back would be disastrous.  He asked if we intended remaining at
+Bancroft's indefinitely.  I had no intentions--those I had had were
+wiped off my mental slate--so I said I did not know, our future
+plans were vague.  He suggested a sojourn in the country, in some
+pleasant retired spot in the rural districts.
+
+"An out-of-door life, walks, rides and sports of all sorts would do
+your niece a world of good, Mr. Knowles," he declared.  "She needs
+just that.  A very attractive young lady, sir, if you'll pardon my
+saying so," he went on.  "Were her people Londoners, may I ask?"
+
+He might ask but I had no intention of telling him.  What I knew
+concerning my "niece's" people were things not usually told to
+strangers.  I evaded the question.
+
+"Has she had a recent bereavement?" he queried.  "I hope you'll not
+think me merely idly inquisitive.  I cannot understand how a young
+woman, normally healthy and well, should have been brought to such
+a strait.  Our English girls, Mr. Knowles, do not suffer from
+nerves, as I am told your American young women so frequently do.
+Has your niece been in the States with you?"
+
+I said she had not.  Incidentally I informed him that American
+young women did NOT frequently suffer from nerves.  He said
+"Really," but he did not believe me, I'm certain.  He was a good
+fellow, and intelligent, but his ideas of "the States" had been
+gathered, largely, I think, from newspapers and novels.  He was
+convinced that most Americans were confirmed neurotics and
+dyspeptics, just as Hephzy had believed all Englishmen wore side-
+whiskers.
+
+I changed the conversation as soon as I could.  I could tell him so
+little concerning my newly found "niece."  I knew about as much
+concerning her life as he did.  It is distinctly unpleasant to be
+uncle to someone you know nothing at all about.  I devoutly wished
+I had not said she was my niece.  I repeated that wish many times
+afterward.
+
+Miss Morley's talk with the physician had definite results,
+surprising results.  Following that talk she sent word by the
+doctor that she wished to see Hephzy and me.  We went into her
+room.  She was sitting in a chair by the window, and was wearing a
+rather pretty wrapper, or kimono, or whatever that sort of garment
+is called.  At any rate, it was becoming.  I was obliged to admit
+that the general opinion expressed by the Jamesons and Hephzy and
+the doctor--that she was pretty, was correct enough.  She was
+pretty, but that did not help matters any.
+
+She asked us--no, she commanded us to sit down.  Her manner was
+decidedly business-like.  She wasted no time in preliminaries, but
+came straight to the point, and that point was the one which I had
+dreaded.  She asked us what decision we had reached concerning her.
+
+"Have you decided what your offer is to be?" she asked.
+
+I looked at Hephzy and she at me.  Neither of us derived comfort
+from the exchange of looks.  However, something must be done, or
+said, and I braced myself to say it.
+
+"Miss Morley," I began, "before I answer that question I should
+like to ask you one.  What do you expect us to do?"
+
+She regarded me coldly.  "I expect," she said, "that you and this--
+that you and Miss Cahoon will arrange to pay me the money which was
+my mother's and which my grandfather should have turned over to her
+while he lived."
+
+Again I looked at Hephzy and again I braced myself for the scene
+which I was certain would follow.
+
+"It is your impression then," I said, "that your mother had money
+of her own and that Captain Barnabas, your grandfather, kept that
+money for his own use."
+
+"It is not an impression," haughtily; "I know it to be a fact."
+
+"How do you know it?"
+
+"My father told me so, during his last illness."
+
+"Was--pardon me--was your father himself at the time?  Was he--er--
+rational?"
+
+"Rational!  My father?"
+
+"I mean--I mean was he himself--mentally?  He was not delirious
+when he told you?"
+
+"Delirious!  Mr. Knowles, I am trying to be patient, but for the
+last time I warn you that I will not listen to insinuations against
+my father."
+
+"I am not insinuating anything.  I am seeking information.  Were
+you and your father together a great deal?  Did you know him well?
+Just what did he tell you?"
+
+She hesitated before replying.  When she spoke it was with an
+exaggerated air of patient toleration, as if she were addressing an
+unreasonable child.
+
+"I will answer you," she said.  "I will answer you because, so far,
+I have no fault to find with your behavior toward me.  You and my--
+and my aunt have been as reasonable as I, perhaps, should expect,
+everything considered.  Your bringing me here and providing for me
+was even kind, I suppose.  So I will answer your questions.  My
+father and I were not together a great deal.  I attended a convent
+school in France and saw Father only at intervals.  I supposed him
+to possess an independent income.  It was only when he was--was
+unable to work," with a quiver in her voice, "that I learned how he
+lived.  He had been obliged to depend upon his music, upon his
+violin playing, to earn money enough to keep us both alive.  Then
+he told me of--of his life in America and how my mother and he had
+been--been cheated and defrauded by those who--who--Oh, DON'T ask
+me any more!  Don't!"
+
+"I must ask you.  I must ask you to tell me this:  How was he
+defrauded, as you call it?"
+
+"I have told you, already.  My mother's fortune--"
+
+"But your mother had no fortune."
+
+The anticipated scene was imminent.  She sprang to her feet, but
+being too weak to stand, sank back again.  Hephzy looked
+appealingly at me.
+
+"Hosy," she cautioned; "Oh, Hosy, be careful!  Think how sick she
+has been."
+
+"I am thinking, Hephzy.  I mean to be careful.  But what I said is
+the truth, and you know it."
+
+Hephzy would have replied, but Little Frank motioned her to be
+silent.
+
+"Hush!" she commanded.  "Mr. Knowles, what do you mean?  My mother
+had money, a great deal of money.  I don't know the exact sum, but
+my father said--You know it!  You MUST know it.  It was in my
+grandfather's care and--"
+
+"Your grandfather had no money.  He--well, he lost every dollar he
+had.  He died as poor as a church rat."
+
+Another interval of silence, during which I endured a piercing
+scrutiny from the dark eyes.  Then Miss Morley's tone changed.
+
+"Indeed!" she said, sarcastically.  "You surprise me, Mr. Knowles.
+What became of the money, may I ask?  I understand that my
+grandfather was a wealthy man."
+
+"He was fairly well-to-do at one time, but he lost his money and
+died poor."
+
+"How did he lose it?"
+
+The question was a plain one and demanded a plain and satisfying
+answer.  But how could I give that answer--then?  Hephzy was
+shaking her head violently.  I stammered and faltered and looked
+guilty, I have no doubt.
+
+"Well?" said Miss Morley.
+
+"He--he lost it, that is sufficient.  You must take my word for it.
+Captain Cahoon died without a dollar of his own."
+
+"When did he LOSE his wealth?" with sarcastic emphasis.
+
+"Years ago.  About the time your parents left the United States.
+There, there, Hephzy!  I know.  I'm doing my best."
+
+"Indeed!  When did he die?"
+
+"Long ago--more than ten years ago."
+
+"But my parents left America long before that.  If my grandfather
+was penniless how did he manage to live all those years?  What
+supported him?"
+
+"Your aunt--Miss Cahoon here--had money in her own right."
+
+"SHE had money and my mother had not.  Yet both were Captain
+Cahoon's daughters.  How did that happen?"
+
+It seemed to me that it was Hephzy's time to play the target.
+I turned to her.
+
+"Miss Cahoon will probably answer that herself," I observed,
+maliciously.
+
+Hephzibah appeared more embarrassed than I.
+
+"I--I--Oh, what difference does all this make?" she faltered.
+"Hosy has told you the truth, Frances.  Really and truly he has.
+Father was poor as poverty when he died and all his last years,
+too.  All his money had gone."
+
+"Yes, so I have heard Mr. Knowles say.  But how did it go?"
+
+"In--in--well, it was invested in stocks and things and--and--"
+
+"Do you mean that he speculated in shares?"
+
+"Well, not--not--"
+
+"I see.  Oh, I see.  Father told me a little concerning those
+speculations.  He warned Captain Cahoon before he left the States,
+but his warnings were not heeded, I presume.  And you wish me to
+believe that ALL the money was lost--my mother's and all.  Is that
+what you mean?"
+
+"Your mother HAD no money," I put in, desperately, "I have told
+you--"
+
+"You have told me many things, Mr. Knowles.  Even admitting that my
+grandfather lost his money, as you say, why should I suffer because
+of his folly?  I am not asking for HIS money.  I am demanding money
+that was my mother's and is now mine.  That I expected from him and
+now I expect it from you, his heirs."
+
+"But your mother had no--"
+
+"I do not care to hear that again.  I know she had money."
+
+"But how do you know?"
+
+"Because my father told me she had, and my father did not lie."
+
+There we were again--just where we started.  The doctor re-entered
+the room and insisted upon his patient's being left to herself.
+She must lie down and rest, he said.  His manner was one of
+distinct disapproval.  It was evident that he considered Hephzy and
+me disturbers of the peace; in fact he intimated as much when he
+joined us in the sitting-room in a few minutes.
+
+"I am afraid I made a mistake in permitting the conference," he
+said.  "The young lady seems much agitated, Mr. Knowles.  If she
+is, complete nervous prostration may follow.  She may be an invalid
+for months or even years.  I strongly recommend her being taken
+into the country as soon as possible."
+
+This speech and the manner in which it was made were impressive and
+alarming.  The possibilities at which it hinted were more alarming
+still.  We made no attempt to discuss family matters with Little
+Frank that day nor the next.
+
+But on the day following, when I returned from my morning visit to
+Camford Street, I found Hephzy awaiting me in the sitting-room.
+She was very solemn.
+
+"Hosy," she said, "sit down.  I've got somethin' to tell you."
+
+"About her?" I asked, apprehensively.
+
+"Yes.  She's just been talkin' to me."
+
+"She has!  I thought we agreed not to talk with her at all."
+
+"We did, and I tried not to.  But when I went in to see her just
+now she was waitin' for me.  She had somethin' to say, she said,
+and she said it--Oh, my goodness, yes! she said it."
+
+"What did she say?  Has she sent for her lawyer--her solicitor, or
+whatever he is?"
+
+"No, she hasn't done that.  I don't know but I 'most wish she had.
+He wouldn't be any harder to talk to than she is.  Hosy, she's made
+up her mind."
+
+"Made up her mind!  I thought HER mind was already made up."
+
+"It was, but she's made it up again.  That doctor has been talkin'
+to her and she's really frightened about her health, I think.
+Anyhow, she has decided that her principal business just now is to
+get well.  She told me she had decided not to press her claim upon
+us for the present.  If we wished to make an offer of what she
+calls restitution, she'll listen to it; but she judges we are not
+ready to make one."
+
+"Humph! her judgment is correct so far."
+
+"Yes, but that isn't all.  While she is waitin' for that offer she
+expects us to take care of her.  She has been thinkin', she says,
+and she has come to the conclusion that our providin' for her as we
+have done isn't charity--or needn't be considered as charity--at
+all.  She is willin' to consider it a part of that precious
+restitution she's forever talkin' about.  We are to take care of
+her, and pay her doctor's bills, and take her into the country as
+he recommends, and--"
+
+I interrupted.  "Great Scott!" I cried, "does she expect us to
+ADOPT her?"
+
+"I don't know what she expects; I'm tryin' to tell you what she
+said.  We're to do all this and keep a strict account of all it
+costs, and then when we are ready to make a--a proposition, as she
+calls it, this account can be subtracted from the money she thinks
+we've got that belongs to her."
+
+"But there isn't any money belonging to her.  I told her so, and so
+did you."
+
+"I know, but we might tell her a thousand times and it wouldn't
+affect her father's tellin' her once.  Oh, that Strickland Morley!
+If only--"
+
+"Hush! hush, Hephzy . . . Well, by George! of all the--this thing
+has gone far enough.  It has gone too far.  We made a great mistake
+in bringing her here, in having anything to do with her at all--but
+we shan't go on making mistakes.  We must stop where we are.  She
+must be told the truth now--to-day."
+
+"I know--I know, Hosy; but who'll tell her?"
+
+"I will."
+
+"She won't believe you."
+
+"Then she must disbelieve.  She can call in her solicitor and I'll
+make him believe."
+
+Hephzy was silent.  Her silence annoyed me.
+
+"Why don't you say something?" I demanded.  "You know what I say is
+plain common-sense."
+
+"I suppose it is--I suppose 'tis.  But, Hosy, if you start in
+tellin' her again you know what'll happen.  The doctor said the
+least little thing would bring on nervous prostration.  And if she
+has that, WHAT will become of her?"
+
+It was my turn to hesitate.
+
+"You couldn't--we couldn't turn her out into the street if she was
+nervous prostrated, could we," pleaded Hephzy.  "After all, she's
+Ardelia's daughter and--"
+
+"She's Strickland Morley's daughter.  There is no doubt of that.
+Hereditary influence is plain enough in her case."
+
+"I know, but she is Ardelia's daughter, too.  I don't see how we
+can tell her, Hosy; not until she's well and strong again."
+
+I was never more thoroughly angry in my life.  My patience was
+exhausted.
+
+"Look here, Hephzy," I cried: "what is it you are leading up to?
+You're not proposing--actually proposing that we adopt this girl,
+are you?"
+
+"No--no--o.  Not exactly that, of course.  But we might take her
+into the country somewhere and--"
+
+"Oh, DO be sensible!  Do you realize what that would mean?  We
+should have to give up our trip, stop sightseeing, stop everything
+we had planned to do, and turn ourselves into nurses running a
+sanitarium for the benefit of a girl whose father's rascality made
+your father a pauper.  And, not only do this, but be treated by her
+as if--as if--"
+
+"There, there, Hosy!  I know what it will mean.  I know what it
+would mean to you and I don't mean for you to do it.  You've done
+enough and more than enough.  But with me it's different.  _I_
+could do it."
+
+"You?"
+
+"Yes.  I've got some money of my own.  I could find a nice, cheap,
+quiet boardin'-house in the country round here somewhere and she
+and I could go there and stay until she got well.  You needn't go
+at all; you could go off travelin' by yourself and--"
+
+"Hephzy, what are you talking about?"
+
+"I mean it.  I've thought it all out, Hosy.  Ever since Ardelia and
+I had that last talk together and she whispered to me that--that--
+well, especially ever since I knew there was a Little Frank I've
+been thinkin' and plannin' about that Little Frank; you know I
+have.  He--she isn't the kind of Little Frank I expected, but
+she's, my sister's baby and I can't--I CAN'T, turn her away to be
+sick and die.  I can't do it.  I shouldn't dare face Ardelia in--on
+the other side if I did.  No, I guess it's my duty and I'm goin' to
+go on with it.  But with you it's different.  She isn't any real
+relation to you.  You've done enough--and more than enough--as it
+is."
+
+This was the climax.  Of course I might have expected it, but of
+course I didn't.  As soon as I recovered, or partially recovered,
+from my stupefaction I expostulated and scolded and argued.  Hephzy
+was quiet but firm.  She hated to part from me--she couldn't bear
+to think of it; but on the other hand she couldn't abandon her
+Ardelia's little girl.  The interview ended by my walking out of
+the room and out of Bancroft's in disgust.
+
+I did not return until late in the afternoon.  I was in better
+humor then.  Hephzy was still in the sitting-room; she looked as if
+she had been crying.
+
+"Hosy," she said, as I entered, "I--I hope you don't think I'm too
+ungrateful.  I'm not.  Really I'm not.  And I care as much for you
+as if you was my own boy.  I can't leave you; I sha'n't.  If you
+say for us to--"
+
+I interrupted.
+
+"Hephzy," I said, "I shan't say anything.  I know perfectly well
+that you couldn't leave me any more than I could leave you.  I have
+arranged with Matthews to set about house-hunting at once.  As soon
+as rural England is ready for us, we shall be ready for it.  After
+all, what difference does it make?  I was ordered to get fresh
+experience.  I might as well get it by becoming keeper of a
+sanitarium as any other way."
+
+Hephzy looked at me.  She rose from her chair.
+
+"Hosy," she cried, "what--a sanitarium?"
+
+"We'll keep it together," I said, smiling.  "You and I and Little
+Frank.  And it is likely to be a wonderful establishment."
+
+Hephzy said--she said a great deal, principally concerning my
+generosity and goodness and kindness and self-sacrifice.  I tried
+to shut off the flow, but it was not until I began to laugh that it
+ceased.
+
+"Why!" cried Hephzy.  "You're laughin'!  What in the world?  I
+don't see anything to laugh at."
+
+"Don't you?  I do.  Oh, dear me!  I--I, the Bayport quahaug to--Ho!
+ho!  Hephzy, let me laugh.  If there is any fun in this perfectly
+devilish situation let me enjoy it while I can."
+
+And that is how and why I decided to become a country gentleman
+instead of a traveler.  When I told Matthews of my intention he had
+been petrified with astonishment.  I had written Campbell of that
+intention.  I devoutly wished I might see his face when he read my
+letter.
+
+For days and days Hephzy and I "house-hunted."  We engaged a nurse
+to look after the future patient of the "sanitarium" while we did
+our best to look for the sanitarium itself.  Mr. Matthews gave us
+the addresses of real estate agents and we journeyed from suburb to
+suburb and from seashore to hills.  We saw several "semi-detached
+villas."  The name "semi-detached villa" had an appealing sound,
+especially to Hephzy, but the villas themselves did not appeal.
+They turned out to be what we, in America, would have called "two-
+family houses."
+
+"And I never did like the idea of livin' in a two-family house,"
+declared Hephzy.  "I've known plenty of real nice folks who did
+live in 'em, or one-half of one of 'em, but it usually happened
+that the folks in the other half was a dreadful mean set.  They let
+their dog chase your cat and if your hens scratched up their flower
+garden they were real unlikely about it.  I've heard Father tell
+about Cap'n Noah Doane and Cap'n Elkanah Howes who used to live in
+Bayport.  They'd been chums all their lives and when they retired
+from the sea they thought 'twould be lovely to build a double house
+so's they would be right close together all the time.  Well, they
+did it and they hadn't been settled more'n a month when they began
+quarrelin'.  Cap'n Noah's wife wanted the house painted yellow and
+Mrs. Cap'n Elkanah, she wanted it green.  They started the fuss and
+it ended by one-half bein' yellow and t'other half green--such an
+outrage you never saw--and a big fence down the middle of the front
+yard, and the two families not speakin', and law-suits and land
+knows what all.  They wouldn't even go to the same church nor be
+buried in the same graveyard.  No sir-ee! no two-family house for
+us if I can help it.  We've got troubles enough inside the family
+without fightin' the neighbors."
+
+"But think of the beautiful names," I observed.  "Those names ought
+to appeal to your poetic soul, Hephzy.  We haven't seen a villa
+yet, no matter how dingy, or small, that wasn't christened
+'Rosemary Terrace' or 'Sunnylawn' or something.  That last one--the
+shack with the broken windows--was labeled 'Broadview' and it faced
+an alley ending at a brick stable."
+
+"I know it," she said.  "If they'd called it 'Narrowview' or 'Cow
+Prospect' 'twould have been more fittin', I should say.  But I
+think givin' names to homes is sort of pretty, just the same.  We
+might call our house at home 'Writer's Rest.'  A writer lives in
+it, you know."
+
+"And he has rested more than he has written of late," I observed.
+"'Quahaug Stew' or 'The Tureen' would be better, I should say."
+
+When we expressed disapproval of the semi-detached villas our real
+estate brokers flew to the other extremity and proceeded to show us
+"estates."  These estates comprised acres of ground, mansions,
+game-keepers' and lodge-keepers' houses, and goodness knows what.
+Some, so the brokers were particular to inform us, were celebrated
+for their "shooting."
+
+The villas were not good enough; the estates were altogether too
+good.  We inspected but one and then declined to see more.
+
+"Shootin'!" sniffed Hephzy.  "I should feel like shootin' myself
+every time I paid the rent.  I'd HAVE to do it the second time.
+'Twould be a quicker end than starvin', 'and the first month would
+bring us to that."
+
+We found one pleasant cottage in a suburb bearing the euphonious
+name of "Leatherhead"--that is, the village was named "Leatherhead";
+the cottage was "Ash Clump."  I teased Hephzy by referring to it as
+"Ash Dump," but it really was a pretty, roomy house, with gardens and
+flowers.  For the matter of that, every cottage we visited, even the
+smallest, was bowered in flowers.
+
+Hephzy's romantic spirit objected strongly to "Leatherhead," but I
+told her nothing could be more appropriate.
+
+"This whole proposition--Beg pardon; I didn't mean to use that
+word; we've heard enough concerning 'propositions'--but really,
+Hephzy, 'Leatherhead' is very appropriate for us.  If we weren't
+leather-headed and deserving of leather medals we should not be
+hunting houses at all.  We should have left Little Frank and her
+affairs in a lawyer's hands and be enjoying ourselves as we
+intended.  Leatherhead for the leather-heads; it's another
+dispensation of Providence."
+
+"Ash Dump"--"Clump," I mean--was owned by a person named Cripps,
+Solomon Cripps.  Mr. Cripps was a stout, mutton-chopped individual,
+strongly suggestive of Bancroft's "Henry."  He was rather pompous
+and surly when I first knocked at the door of his residence, but
+when he learned we were house-hunting and had our eyes upon the
+"Clump," he became very polite indeed.  "A 'eavenly spot," he
+declared it to be.  "A beautiful neighborhood.  Near the shops and
+not far from the Primitive Wesleyan chapel."  He and Mrs. Cripps
+attended the chapel, he informed us.
+
+I did not fancy Mr. Cripps; he was too--too something, I was not
+sure what.  And Mrs. Cripps, whom we met later, was of a similar
+type.  They, like everyone else, recognized us as Americans at once
+and they spoke highly of the "States."
+
+"A very fine country, I am informed," said Mr. Cripps.  "New, of
+course, but very fine indeed.  Young men make money there.  Much
+money--yes."
+
+Mrs. Cripps wished to know if Americans were a religious people, as
+a rule.  Religion, true spiritual religion was on the wane in
+England.
+
+I gathered that she and her husband were doing their best to keep
+it up to the standard.  I had read, in books by English writers, of
+the British middle-class Pharisee.  I judged the Crippses to be
+Pharisees.
+
+Hephzy's opinion was like mine.
+
+"If ever there was a sanctimonious hypocrite it's that Mrs.
+Cripps," she declared.  "And her husband ain't any better.  They
+remind me of Deacon Hardy and his wife back home.  He always passed
+the plate in church and she was head of the sewin' circle, but when
+it came to lettin' go of an extry cent for the minister's salary
+they had glue on their fingers.  Father used to say that the Deacon
+passed the plate himself so nobody could see how little he put in
+it.  They were the ones that always brought a stick of salt herrin'
+to the donation parties."
+
+We didn't like the Crippses, but we did like "Ash Clump."  We had
+almost decided to take it when our plans were quashed by the member
+of our party on whose account we had planned solely.  Miss Morley
+flatly refused to go to Leatherhead.
+
+"Don't ask ME why," said Hephzy, to whom the refusal had been made.
+"I don't know.  All I know is that the very name 'Leatherhead'
+turned her whiter than she has been for a week.  She just put that
+little foot of hers down and said no.  I said 'Why not?' and she
+said 'Never mind.'  So I guess we sha'n't be Leatherheaded--in that
+way--this summer."
+
+I was angry and impatient, but when I tried to reason with the
+young lady I met a crushing refusal and a decided snub.
+
+"I do not care," said Little Frank, calmly and coldly, "to explain
+my reasons.  I have them, and that is sufficient.  I shall not go
+to--that town or that place."
+
+"But why?" I begged, restraining my desire to shake her.
+
+"I have my reasons.  You may go there, if you wish.  That is your
+right.  But I shall not.  And before you go I shall insist upon a
+settlement of my claim."
+
+The "claim" could neither be settled nor discussed; the doctor's
+warning was no less insistent although his patient was steadily
+improving.  I faced the alternative of my compliance or her nervous
+prostration and I chose the former.  My desire to shake her
+remained.
+
+So "Ash Clump" was given up.  Hephzy and I speculated much
+concerning Little Frank's aversion to Leatherhead.
+
+"It must be," said Hephzy, "that she knows somebody there, or
+somethin' like that.  That's likely, I suppose.  You know we don't
+know much about her or what she's done since her father died, Hosy.
+I've tried to ask her but she won't tell.  I wish we did know."
+
+"I don't," I snarled.  "I wish to heaven we had never known her at
+all."
+
+Hephzy sighed.  "It IS awful hard for you," she said.  "And yet, if
+we had come to know her in another way you--we might have been
+glad.  I--I think she could be as sweet as she is pretty to folks
+she didn't consider thieves--and Americans.  She does hate
+Americans.  That's her precious pa's doin's, I suppose likely."
+
+The next afternoon we saw the advertisement in the Standard.
+George, the waiter, brought two of the London dailies to our room
+each day.  The advertisement read as follows:
+
+
+"To Let for the Summer Months--Furnished.  A Rectory in Mayberry,
+Sussex.  Ten rooms, servants' quarters, vegetable gardens, small
+fruit, tennis court, etc., etc.  Water and gas laid on.  Golf near
+by.  Terms low.  Rector--Mayberry, Sussex."
+
+
+"I answered it, Hosy," said Hephzy.
+
+"You did!"
+
+"Yes.  It sounded so nice I couldn't help it.  It would be lovely
+to live in a rectory, wouldn't it."
+
+"Lovely--and expensive," I answered.  "I'm afraid a rectory with
+tennis courts and servants' quarters and all the rest of it will
+prove too grand for a pair of Bayporters like you and me.  However,
+your answering the ad does no harm; it doesn't commit us to
+anything."
+
+But when the answer to the answer came it was even more appealing
+than the advertisement itself.  And the terms, although a trifle
+higher than we had planned to pay, were not entirely beyond our
+means.  The rector--his name was Cole--urged us to visit Mayberry
+and see the place for ourselves.  We were to take the train for
+Haddington on Hill where the trap would meet us.  Mayberry was two
+miles from Haddington on Hill, it appeared.
+
+We decided to go, but before writing of our intention, Hephzy
+consulted the most particular member of our party.
+
+"It's no use doing anything until we ask her," she said.  "She may
+be as down on Mayberry as she was on Leatherhead."
+
+But she was not.  She had no objections to Mayberry.  So, after
+writing and making the necessary arrangements, we took the train
+one bright, sunny morning, and after a ride of an hour or more,
+alighted at Haddington on Hill.
+
+Haddington on Hill was not on a hill at all, unless a knoll in the
+middle of a wide flat meadow be called that.  There were no houses
+near the railway station, either rectories or any other sort.  We
+were the only passengers to leave the train there.
+
+The trap, however, was waiting.  The horse which drew it was a
+black, plump little animal, and the driver was a neat English lad
+who touched his hat and assisted Hephzy to the back seat of the
+vehicle.  I climbed up beside her.
+
+The road wound over the knoll and away across the meadow.  On
+either side were farm lands, fields of young grain, or pastures
+with flocks of sheep grazing contentedly.  In the distance, in
+every direction, one caught glimpses of little villages with gray
+church towers rising amid the foliage.  Each field and pasture was
+bordered with a hedge instead of a fence, and over all hung the
+soft, light blue haze which is so characteristic of good weather in
+England.
+
+Birds which we took to be crows, but which we learned afterward
+were rooks, whirled and circled.  As we turned a corner a smaller
+bird rose from the grass beside the road and soared upward, singing
+with all its little might until it was a fluttering speck against
+the sky.  Hephzy watched it, her eyes shining.
+
+"I believe," she cried, excitedly, "I do believe that is a skylark.
+Do you suppose it is?"
+
+"A lark, yes, lady," said our driver.
+
+"A lark, a real skylark!  Just think of it, Hosy.  I've heard a
+real lark.  Well, Hephzibah Cahoon, you may never get into a book,
+but you're livin' among book things every day of your life.  'And
+singin' ever soars and soarin' ever singest.'  I'd sing, too, if I
+knew how.  You needn't be frightened--I sha'n't try."
+
+The meadows ended at the foot of another hill, a real one this
+time.  At our left, crowning the hill, a big house, a mansion with
+towers and turrets, rose above the trees.  Hephzy whispered to me.
+
+"You don't suppose THAT is the rectory, do you, Hosy?" she asked,
+in an awestricken tone.
+
+"If it is we may as well go back to London," I answered.  "But it
+isn't.  Nothing lower in churchly rank than a bishop could keep up
+that establishment."
+
+The driver settled our doubts for us.
+
+"The Manor House, sir," he said, pointing with his whip.  "The
+estate begins here, sir."
+
+The "estate" was bordered by a high iron fence, stretching as far
+as we could see.  Beside that fence we rode for some distance.
+Then another turn in the road and we entered the street of a little
+village, a village of picturesque little houses, brick or stone
+always--not a frame house among them.  Many of the roofs were
+thatched.  Flowers and climbing vines and little gardens
+everywhere.  The village looked as if it had been there, just as it
+was, for centuries.
+
+"This is Mayberry, sir," said our driver.  "That is the rectory,
+next the church."
+
+We could see the church tower and the roof, but the rectory was not
+yet visible to our eyes.  We turned in between two of the houses,
+larger and more pretentious than the rest.  The driver alighted and
+opened a big wooden gate.  Before us was a driveway, shaded by
+great elms and bordered by rose hedges.  At the end of the driveway
+was an old-fashioned, comfortable looking, brick house.  Vines hid
+the most of the bricks.  Flower beds covered its foundations.  A
+gray-haired old gentleman stood in the doorway.
+
+This was the rectory we had come to see and the gray-haired
+gentleman was the Reverend Mr. Cole, the rector.
+
+"My soul!" whispered Hephzy, looking aghast at the spacious
+grounds, "we can never hire THIS.  This is too expensive and grand
+for us, Hosy.  Look at the grass to cut and the flowers to attend
+to, and the house to run.  No wonder the servants have 'quarters.'
+My soul and body!  I thought a rector was a kind of minister, and a
+rectory was a sort of parsonage, but I guess I'm off my course, as
+Father used to say.  Either that or ministers' wages are higher
+than they are in Bayport.  No, this place isn't for you and me,
+Hosy."
+
+But it was.  Before we left that rectory in the afternoon I had
+agreed to lease it until the middle of September, servants--there
+were five of them, groom and gardener included--horse and trap,
+tennis court, vegetable garden, fruit, flowers and all.  It
+developed that the terms, which I had considered rather too high
+for my purse, included the servants' wages, vegetables from the
+garden, strawberries and other "small fruit"--everything.  Even
+food for the horse was included in that all-embracing rent.
+
+As Hephzy said, everything considered, the rent of Mayberry Rectory
+was lower than that of a fair-sized summer cottage at Bayport.
+
+The Reverend Mr. Cole was a delightful gentleman.  His wife was
+equally kind and agreeable.  I think they were, at first, rather
+unpleasantly surprised to find that their prospective tenants were
+from the "States"; but Hephzy and I managed to behave as unlike
+savages as we could, and the Cole manner grew less and less
+reserved.  Mr. Cole and his wife were planning to spend a long
+vacation in Switzerland and his "living," or parish, was to be left
+in charge of his two curates.  There was a son at Oxford who was to
+join them on their vacation.
+
+Mr. Cole and I walked about the grounds and visited the church, the
+yard of which, with its weather-beaten gravestones and fine old
+trees, adjoined the rectory on the western side, behind the tall
+hedge.
+
+The church was built of stone, of course, and a portion of it was
+older than the Norman conquest.  Before the altar steps were two
+ancient effigies of knights in armor, with crossed gauntlets and
+their feet supported by crouching lions.  These old fellows were
+scratched and scarred and initialed.  Upon one noble nose were the
+letters "A. H. N. 1694."  I decided that vandalism was not a modern
+innovation.
+
+While the rector and I were inspecting the church, Mrs. Cole and
+Hephzy were making a tour of the house.  They met us at the door.
+Mrs. Cole's eyes were twinkling; I judged that she had found Hephzy
+amusing.  If this was true it had not warped her judgment, however,
+for, a moment later when she and I were alone, she said:
+
+"Your cousin, Miss Cahoon, is a good housekeeper, I imagine."
+
+"She is all of that," I said, decidedly.
+
+"Yes, she was very particular concerning the kitchen and scullery
+and the maids' rooms.  Are all American housekeepers as
+particular?"
+
+"Not all.  Miss Cahoon is unique in many ways; but she is a
+remarkable woman in all."
+
+"Yes.  I am sure of it.  And she has such a typical American
+accent, hasn't she."
+
+We were to take possession on the following Monday.  We lunched at
+the "Red Cow," the village inn, where the meal was served in the
+parlor and the landlord's daughter waited upon us.  The plump black
+horse drew us to the railway station, and we took the train for
+London.
+
+We have learned, by this time, that second, or even third-class
+travel was quite good enough for short journeys and that very few
+English people paid for first-class compartments.  We were
+fortunate enough to have a second-class compartment to ourselves
+this time, and, when we were seated, Hephzy asked a question.
+
+"Did you think to speak about the golf, Hosy?" she said.  "You will
+want to play some, won't you?"
+
+"Yes," said I.  "I did ask about it.  It seems that the golf course
+is a private one, on the big estate we passed on the way from the
+station.  Permission is always given the rectory tenants."
+
+"Oh! my gracious, isn't that grand!  That estate isn't in Mayberry.
+The Mayberry bounds--that's what Mrs. Cole called them--and just
+this side.  The estate is in the village of--of Burgleston Bogs.
+Burgleston Bogs--it's a funny name.  Seem's if I'd heard it
+before."
+
+"You have," said I, in surprise.  "Burgleston Bogs is where that
+Heathcroft chap whom we met on the steamer visits occasionally.
+His aunt has a big place there.  By George! you don't suppose that
+estate belongs to his aunt, do you?"
+
+Hephzy gasped.  "I wouldn't wonder," she cried.  "I wouldn't wonder
+if it did.  And his aunt was Lady Somebody, wasn't she.  Maybe
+you'll meet him there.  Goodness sakes! just think of your playin'
+golf with a Lady's nephew."
+
+"I doubt if we need to think of it," I observed.  "Mr. Carleton
+Heathcroft on board ship may be friendly with American plebeians,
+but on shore, and when visiting his aunt, he may be quite
+different.  I fancy he and I will not play many holes together."
+
+Hephzy laughed.  "You 'fancy,'" she repeated.  "You'll be sayin'
+'My word' next.  My! Hosy, you ARE gettin' English."
+
+"Indeed I'm not!" I declared, with emphasis.  "My experience with
+an English relative is sufficient of itself to prevent that.  Miss
+Frances Morley and I are compatriots for the summer only."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+In Which We Make the Acquaintance of Mayberry and a Portion of
+Burgleston Bogs
+
+
+We migrated to Mayberry the following Monday, as we had agreed to
+do.  Miss Morley went with us, of course.  I secured a first-class
+apartment for our party and the journey was a comfortable and quiet
+one.  Our invalid was too weak to talk a great deal even if she had
+wished, which she apparently did not.  Johnson, the groom, met us
+at Haddington on Hill and we drove to the rectory.  There Miss
+Morley, very tired and worn out, was escorted to her room by Hephzy
+and Charlotte, the housemaid.  She was perfectly willing to remain
+in that room, in fact she did not leave it for several days.
+
+Meanwhile Hephzy and I were doing our best to become acquainted
+with our new and novel mode of life.  Hephzy took charge of the
+household and was, in a way, quite in her element; in another way
+she was distinctly out of it.
+
+"I did think I was gettin' used to bein' waited on, Hosy," she
+confided, "but it looks as if I'll have to begin all over again.
+Managin' one hired girl like Susanna was a job and I tell you I
+thought managin' three, same as we've got here, would be a
+staggerer.  But it isn't.  Somehow the kind of help over here don't
+seem to need managin'.  They manage me more than I do them.
+There's Mrs. Wigham, the cook.  Mrs. Cole told me she was a
+'superior' person and I guess she is--at any rate, she's superior
+to me in some things.  She knows what a 'gooseberry fool' is and
+I'm sure I don't.  I felt like another kind of fool when she told
+me she was goin' to make one, as a 'sweet,' for dinner to-night.
+As nigh as I can make out it's a sort of gooseberry pie, but _I_
+should never have called a gooseberry pie a 'sweet'; a 'sour' would
+have been better, accordin' to my reckonin'.  However, all desserts
+over here are 'sweets' and fruit is dessert.  Then there's
+Charlotte, the housemaid, and Baker, the 'between-maid'--between
+upstairs and down, I suppose that means--and Grimmer, the gardener,
+and Johnson, the boy that takes care of the horse.  Each one of 'em
+seems to know exactly what their own job is and just as exactly
+where it leaves off and t'other's job begins.  I never saw such
+obligin' but independent folks in my life.  As for my own job, that
+seems to be settin' still with my hands folded.  Well, it's a brand
+new one and it's goin' to take me one spell to get used to it."
+
+It seemed likely to be a "spell" before I became accustomed to my
+own "job," that of being a country gentleman with nothing to do but
+play the part.  When I went out to walk about the rectory garden,
+Grimmer touched his hat.  When, however, I ventured to pick a few
+flowers in that garden, his expression of shocked disapproval was
+so marked that I felt I must have made a dreadful mistake.  I had,
+of course.  Grimmer was in charge of those flowers and if I wished
+any picked I was expected to tell him to pick them.  Picking them
+myself was equivalent to admitting that I was not accustomed to
+having a gardener in my employ, in other words that I was not a
+real gentleman at all.  I might wait an hour for Johnson to return
+from some errand or other and harness the horse; but I must on no
+account save time by harnessing the animal myself.  That sort of
+labor was not done by the "gentry."  I should have lost caste with
+the servants a dozen times during my first few days in the rectory
+were it not for one saving grace; I was an American, and almost any
+peculiar thing was expected of an American.
+
+When I strolled along the village street the male villagers,
+especially the older ones, touched their hats to me.  The old women
+bowed or courtesied.  Also they invariably paused, when I had
+passed, to stare after me.  The group at the blacksmith shop--where
+the stone coping of the low wall was worn in hollows by the
+generations of idlers who had sat upon it, just as their descendants
+were sitting upon it now--turned, after I had passed, to stare.
+There would be a pause in the conversation, then an outburst of talk
+and laughter.  They were talking about the "foreigner" of course,
+and laughing at him.  At the tailor's, where I sent my clothes to be
+pressed, the tailor himself, a gray-haired, round-shouldered
+antique, ventured an opinion concerning those clothes.  "That coat
+was not made in England, sir," he said.  "We don't make 'em that way
+'ere, sir.  That's a bit foreign, that coat, sir."
+
+Yes, I was a foreigner.  It was hard to realize.  In a way
+everything was so homelike; the people looked like people I had
+known at home, their faces were New England faces quite as much as
+they were old England.  But their clothes were just a little
+different, and their ways were different, and a dry-goods store was
+a "draper's shop," and a drug-store was a "chemist's," and candies
+were "sweeties" and a public school was a "board school" and a
+boarding-school was a "public school."  And I might be polite and
+pleasant to these people--persons out of my "class"--but I must not
+be too cordial, for if I did, in the eyes of these very people, I
+lost caste and they would despise me.
+
+Yes, I was a foreigner; it was a queer feeling.
+
+Coming from America and particularly from democratic Bayport, where
+everyone is as good as anyone else provided he behaves himself, the
+class distinction in Mayberry was strange at first.  I do not mean
+that there was not independence there; there was, among the poorest
+as well as the richer element.  Every male Mayberryite voted as he
+thought, I am sure; and was self-respecting and independent.  He
+would have resented any infringement of his rights just as
+Englishmen have resented such infringements and fought against them
+since history began.  But what I am trying to make plain is that
+political equality and social equality were by no means synonymous.
+A man was a man for 'a' that, but when he was a gentleman he was
+'a' that' and more.  And when he was possessed of a title he was
+revered because of that title, or the title itself was revered.
+The hatter in London where I purchased a new "bowler," had a row of
+shelves upon which were boxes containing, so I was told, the spare
+titles of eminent customers.  And those hat-boxes were lettered
+like this:  "The Right Hon. Col. Wainwright, V.C.," "His Grace the
+Duke of Leicester," "Sir George Tupman, K.C.B.," etc., etc.  It was
+my first impression that the hatter was responsible for thus
+proclaiming his customers' titles, but one day I saw Richard,
+convoyed by Henry, reverently bearing a suitcase into Bancroft's
+Hotel.  And that suitcase bore upon its side the inscription, in
+very large letters, "Lord Eustace Stairs."  Then I realized that
+Lord Eustace, like the owners of the hat-boxes, recognizing the
+value of a title, advertised it accordingly.
+
+I laughed when I saw the suitcase and the hat-boxes.  When I told
+Hephzy about the latter she laughed, too.
+
+"That's funny, isn't it," she said.  "Suppose the folks that have
+their names on the mugs in the barber shop back home had 'em
+lettered 'Cap'n Elkanah Crowell,' 'Judge the Hon. Ezra Salters,'
+'The Grand Exalted Sachem Order of Red Men George Kendrick.'  How
+everybody would laugh, wouldn't they.  Why they'd laugh Cap'n
+Elkanah and Ezra and Kendrick out of town."
+
+So they would have done--in Bayport--but not in Mayberry or London.
+Titles and rank and class in England are established and accepted
+institutions, and are not laughed at, for where institutions of
+that kind are laughed at they soon cease to be.  Hephzy summed it
+up pretty well when she said:
+
+"After all, it all depends on what you've been brought up to,
+doesn't it, Hosy.  Your coat don't look funny to you because you've
+always worn that kind of coat, but that tailor man thought 'twas
+funny because he never saw one made like it.  And a lord takin' his
+lordship seriously seems funny to us, but it doesn't seem so to him
+or to the tailor.  They've been brought up to it, same as you have
+to the coat."
+
+On one point she and I had agreed before coming to Mayberry, that
+was that we must not expect calls from the neighbors or social
+intercourse with the people of Mayberry.
+
+"They don't know anything about us," said I, "except that we are
+Americans, and that may or may not be a recommendation, according
+to the kind of Americans they have previously met.  The Englishman,
+so all the books tell us, is reserved and distant at first.  He
+requires a long acquaintance before admitting strangers to his home
+life and we shall probably have no opportunity to make that
+acquaintance.  If we were to stay in Mayberry a year, and behaved
+ourselves, we might in time be accepted as desirable, but not
+during the first summer.  So if they leave us to ourselves we must
+make the best of it."
+
+Hephzy agreed thoroughly.  "You're right," she said.  "And, after
+all, it's just what would happen anywhere.  You remember when that
+Portygee family came to Bayport and lived in the Solon Blodgett
+house.  Nobody would have anything to do with 'em for a long time
+because they were foreigners, but they turned out to be real nice
+folks after all.  We're foreigners here and you can't blame the
+Mayberry people for not takin' chances; it looks as if nobody in it
+ever had taken a chance, as if it had been just the way it is since
+Noah came out of the Ark.  I never felt so new and shiny in my life
+as I do around this old rectory and this old town."
+
+Which was all perfectly true and yet the fact remains that, "new
+and shiny" as we were, the Mayberry people--those of our "class"--
+began to call upon us almost immediately, to invite us to their
+homes, to show us little kindnesses, and to be whole-souled and
+hospitable and friendly as if we had known them and they us for
+years.  It was one of the greatest surprises, and remains one of
+the most pleasant recollections, of my brief career as a resident
+in England, the kindly cordiality of these neighbors in Mayberry.
+
+The first caller was Dr. Bayliss, who occupied "Jasmine Gables,"
+the pretty house next door.  He dropped in one morning, introduced
+himself, shook hands and chatted for an hour.  That afternoon his
+wife called upon Hephzy.  The next day I played a round of golf
+upon the private course on the Manor House grounds, the Burgleston
+Bogs grounds--with the doctor and his son, young Herbert Bayliss,
+just through Cambridge and the medical college at London.  Young
+Bayliss was a pleasant, good-looking young chap and I liked him as
+I did his father.  He was at present acting as his father's
+assistant in caring for the former's practice, a practice which
+embraced three or four villages and a ten-mile stretch of country.
+
+Naturally I was interested in the Manor estate and its owner.  The
+grounds were beautiful, three square miles in extent and cared for,
+so Bayliss, Senior, told me, by some hundred and fifty men, seventy
+of whom were gardeners.  Of the Manor House itself I caught a
+glimpse, gray-turreted and huge, set at the end of lawns and flower
+beds, with fountains playing and statues gleaming white amid the
+foliage.  I asked some questions concerning its owner.  Yes, she
+was Lady Kent Carey and she had a nephew named Heathcroft.  So
+there was a chance, after all, that I might again meet my ship
+acquaintance who abhorred "griddle cakes."  I imagined he would be
+somewhat surprised at that meeting.  It was an odd coincidence.
+
+As for the game of golf, my part of it, the least said the better.
+Doctor Bayliss, who, it developed, was an enthusiast at the game,
+was kind enough to tell me I had a "topping" drive.  I thanked him,
+but there was altogether too much "topping" connected with my play
+that forenoon to make my thanks enthusiastic.  I determined to
+practice assiduously before attempting another match.  Somehow I
+felt responsible for the golfing honor of my country.
+
+Other callers came to the rectory.  The two curates, their names
+were Judson and Worcester, visited us; young men, both of them, and
+good fellows, Worcester particularly.  Although they wore clerical
+garb they were not in the least "preachy."  Hephzy, although she
+liked them, expressed surprise.
+
+"They didn't act a bit like ministers," she said.  "They didn't ask
+us to come to meetin' nor hint at prayin' with the family or
+anything, yet they looked for all the while like two Methodist
+parsons, young ones.  A curate is a kind of new-hatched rector,
+isn't he?"
+
+"Not exactly," I answered.  "He is only partially hatched.  But,
+whatever you do, don't tell them they look like Methodists; they
+wouldn't consider it a compliment."
+
+Hephzy was a Methodist herself and she resented the slur.  "Well,
+I guess a Methodist is as good as an Episcopalian," she declared.
+"And they don't ACT like Methodists.  Why, one of 'em smoked a
+pipe.  Just imagine Mr. Partridge smokin' a pipe!"
+
+Mr. Judson and I played eighteen holes of golf together.  He played
+a little worse than I did and I felt better.  The honor of
+Bayport's golf had been partially vindicated.
+
+While all this was going on our patient remained, for the greater
+part of the time, in her room.  She was improving steadily.  Doctor
+Bayliss, whom I had asked to attend her, declared, as his London
+associates had done, that all she needed was rest, quiet and the
+good air and food which she was certain to get in Mayberry.  He,
+too, like the physician at Bancroft's, seemed impressed by her
+appearance and manner.  And he also asked similar embarrassing
+questions.
+
+"Delightful young lady, Miss Morley," he observed.  "One of our
+English girls, Knowles.  She informs me that she IS English."
+
+"Partly English," I could not help saying.  "Her mother was an
+American."
+
+"Oh, indeed!  You know she didn't tell me that, now did she."
+
+"Perhaps not."
+
+"No, by Jove, she didn't.  But she has lived all her life in
+England?"
+
+"Yes--in England and France."
+
+"Your niece, I think you said."
+
+I had said it, unfortunately, and it could not be unsaid now
+without many explanations.  So I nodded.
+
+"She doesn't--er--behave like an American.  She hasn't the American
+manner, I mean to say.  Now Miss Cahoon has--er--she has--"
+
+"Miss Cahoon's manner is American.  So is mine; we ARE Americans,
+you see."
+
+"Yes, yes, of course," hastily.  "When are you and I to have the
+nine holes you promised, Knowles?"
+
+One fine afternoon the invalid came downstairs.  The "between-maid"
+had arranged chairs and the table on the lawn.  We were to have tea
+there; we had tea every day, of course--were getting quite
+accustomed to it.
+
+Frances--I may as well begin calling her that--looked in better
+health then than at any time since our meeting.  She was
+becomingly, although simply gowned, and there was a dash of color
+in her cheeks.  Hephzibah escorted her to the tea table.  I rose to
+meet them.
+
+"Frank--Frances, I mean--is goin' to join us to-day," said Hephzy.
+"She's beginnin' to look real well again, isn't she."
+
+I said she was.  Frances nodded to me and took one of the chairs,
+the most comfortable one.  She appeared perfectly self-possessed,
+which I was sure I did not.  I was embarrassed, of course.  Each
+time I met the girl the impossible situation in which she had
+placed us became more impossible, to my mind.  And the question,
+"What on earth shall we do with her?" more insistent.
+
+Hephzy poured the tea.  Frances, cup in hand, looked about her.
+
+"This is rather a nice place, after all," she observed, "isn't it."
+
+"It's a real lovely place," declared Hephzy with enthusiasm.
+
+The young lady cast another appraising glance at our surroundings.
+
+"Yes," she repeated, "it's a jolly old house and the grounds are
+not bad at all."
+
+Her tone nettled me.  Everything considered I thought she might
+have shown a little more enthusiasm.
+
+"I infer that you expected something much worse," I observed.
+
+"Oh, of course I didn't know what to expect.  How should I?  I had
+no hand in selecting it, you know."
+
+"She's hardly seen it," put in Hephzy.  "She was too sick when she
+came to notice much, I guess, and this is the first time she has
+been out doors."
+
+"I am glad you approve," I observed, drily.
+
+My sarcasm was wasted.  Miss Morley said again that she did
+approve, of what she had seen, and added that we seemed to have
+chosen very well.
+
+"I don't suppose," said Hephzy, complacently, "that there are many
+much prettier places in England than this one."
+
+"Oh, indeed there are.  But all England is beautiful, of course."
+
+I thought of Mrs. Briggs' lodging-house, but I did not refer to it.
+Our guest--or my "niece"--or our ward--it was hard to classify her--
+changed the subject.
+
+"Have you met any of the people about here?" she asked.
+
+Hephzy burst into enthusiastic praise of the Baylisses and the
+curates and the Coles.
+
+"They're all just as nice as they can be," she declared.  "I never
+met nicer folks, at home or anywhere."
+
+Frances nodded.  "All English people are nice," she said.
+
+Again I thought of Mrs. Briggs and again I kept my thoughts to
+myself.  Hephzy went on rhapsodizing.  I paid little attention
+until I heard her speak my name.
+
+"And Hosy thinks so, too.  Don't you, Hosy?" she said.
+
+I answered yes, on the chance.  Frances regarded me oddly.
+
+"I thought--I understood that your name was Kent, Mr. Knowles," she
+said.
+
+"It is."
+
+"Then why does Miss Cahoon always--"
+
+Hephzy interrupted.  "Oh, I always call him Hosy," she explained.
+"It's a kind of pet name of mine.  It's short for Hosea.  His whole
+name is Hosea Kent Knowles, but 'most everybody but me does call
+him Kent.  I don't think he likes Hosea very well."
+
+Our companion looked very much as if she did not wonder at my
+dislike.  Her eyes twinkled.
+
+"Hosea," she repeated.  "That is an odd name.  The original Hosea
+was a prophet, wasn't he?  Are you a prophet, Mr. Knowles?"
+
+"Far from it," I answered, with decision.  If I had been a prophet
+I should have been forewarned and, consequently, forearmed.
+
+She smiled and against my will I was forced to admit that her smile
+was attractive; she was prettier than ever when she smiled.
+
+"I remember now," she said; "all Americans have Scriptural names.
+I have read about them in books."
+
+"Hosy writes books," said Hephzy, proudly.  "That's his profession;
+he's an author."
+
+"Oh, really, is he!  How interesting!"
+
+"Yes, he is.  He has written ever so many books; haven't you,
+Hosy."
+
+I didn't answer.  My self and my "profession" were the last
+subjects I cared to discuss.  The young lady's smile broadened.
+
+"And where do you write your books, Mr. Knowles?" she asked.  "In--
+er--Bayport?"
+
+"Yes," I answered, shortly.  "Hephzy, Miss Morley will have another
+cup of tea, I think."
+
+"Oh, no, thank you.  But tell me about your books, Mr. Knowles.
+Are they stories of Bayport?"
+
+"No indeed!"  Hephzy would do my talking for me, and I could not
+order her to be quiet.  "No indeed!" she declared.  "He writes
+about lords and ladies and counts and such.  He hardly ever writes
+about everyday people like the ones in Bayport.  You would like his
+books, Frances.  You would enjoy readin' 'em, I know."
+
+"I am sure I should.  They must be delightful.  I do hope you
+brought some with you, Mr. Knowles."
+
+"He didn't, but I did.  I'll lend you some, Frances.  I'll lend you
+'The Queen's Amulet.'  That's a splendid story."
+
+"I am sure it must be.  So you write about queens, too, Mr.
+Knowles.  I thought Americans scorned royalty.  And what is his
+queen's name, Miss Cahoon?  Is it Scriptural?"
+
+"Oh, no indeed!  Besides, all Americans' names aren't out of the
+Bible, any more than the names in England are.  That man who wanted
+to let us his house in Copperhead--no, Leatherhead--funny I should
+forget THAT awful name--he was named Solomon--Solomon Cripps . . .
+Why, what is it?"
+
+Miss Morley's smile and the mischievous twinkle had vanished.  She
+looked startled, and even frightened, it seemed to me.
+
+"What is it, Frances?" repeated Hephzy, anxiously.
+
+"Nothing--nothing.  Solomon--what was it?  Solomon Cripps.  That is
+an odd name.  And you met this Mr.--er--Cripps?"
+
+"Yes, we met him.  He had a house he wanted to let us, and I guess
+we'd have taken it, too, only you seemed to hate the name of
+Leatherhead so.  Don't you remember you did?  I don't blame you.
+Of the things to call a pretty town that's about the worst."
+
+"Yes, it is rather frightful.  But this, Mr.--er--Cripps; was he as
+bad as his name?  Did you talk with him?"
+
+"Only about the house.  Hosy and I didn't like him well enough to
+talk about anything else, except religion.  He and his wife gave us
+to understand they were awful pious.  I'm afraid we wouldn't have
+been churchy enough to suit them, anyway.  Hosy, here, doesn't go
+to meetin' as often as he ought to."
+
+"I am glad of it."  The young lady's tone was emphatic and she
+looked as if she meant it.  We were surprised.
+
+"You're glad of it!" repeated Hephzy, in amazement.  "Why?"
+
+"Because I hate persons who go to church all the time and boast of
+it, who do all sorts of mean things, but preach, preach, preach
+continually.  They are hypocritical and false and cruel.  I HATE
+them."
+
+She looked now as she had in the room at Mrs. Briggs's when I had
+questioned her concerning her father.  I could not imagine the
+reason for this sudden squall from a clear sky.  Hephzy drew a long
+breath.
+
+"Well," she said, after a moment, "then Hosy and you ought to get
+along first-rate together.  He's down on hypocrites and make-
+believe piety as bad as you are.  The only time he and Mr.
+Partridge, our minister in Bayport, ever quarreled--'twasn't a real
+quarrel, but more of a disagreement--was over what sort of a place
+Heaven was.  Mr. Partridge was certain sure that nobody but church
+members would be there, and Hosy said if some of the church members
+in Bayport were sure of a ticket, the other place had strong
+recommendations.  'Twas an awful thing to say, and I was almost as
+shocked as the minister was; that is I should have been if I hadn't
+known he didn't mean it."
+
+Miss Morley regarded me with a new interest, or at least I thought
+she did.
+
+"Did you mean it?" she asked.
+
+I smiled.  "Yes," I answered.
+
+"Now, Hosy," cried Hephzy.  "What a way that is to talk!  What do
+you know about the hereafter?"
+
+"Not much, but," remembering the old story, "I know Bayport.
+Humph! speaking of ministers, here is one now."
+
+Judson, the curate, was approaching across the lawn.  Hephzy
+hastily removed the lid of the teapot.  "Yes," she said, with a
+sigh of relief, "there's enough tea left, though you mustn't have
+any more, Hosy.  Mr. Judson always takes three cups."
+
+Judson was introduced and, the "between-maid" having brought
+another chair, he joined our party.  He accepted the first of the
+three cups and observed.
+
+"I hope I haven't interrupted an important conversation.  You
+appeared to be talking very earnestly."
+
+I should have answered, but Hephzy's look of horrified
+expostulation warned me to be silent.  Frances, although she must
+have seen the look, answered instead.
+
+"We were discussing Heaven," she said, calmly.  "Mr. Knowles
+doesn't approve of it."
+
+Hephzy bounced on her chair.  "Why!" she cried; "why, what a--why,
+WHAT will Mr. Judson think!  Now, Frances, you know--"
+
+"That was what you said, Mr. Knowles, wasn't it.  You said if
+Paradise was exclusively for church members you preferred--well,
+another locality.  That was what I understood you to say."
+
+Mr. Judson looked at me.  He was a very good and very orthodox and
+a very young man and his feelings showed in his face.
+
+"I--I can scarcely think Mr. Knowles said that, Miss Morley," he
+protested.  "You must have misunderstood him."
+
+"Oh, but I didn't misunderstand.  That was what he said."
+
+Again Mr. Judson looked at me.  It seemed time for me to say
+something.
+
+"What I said, or meant to say, was that I doubted if the future
+life, the--er--pleasant part of it, was confined exclusively to--
+er--professed church members," I explained.
+
+The curate's ruffled feelings were evidently not soothed by this
+explanation.
+
+"But--but, Mr. Knowles," he stammered, "really, I--I am at a loss
+to understand your meaning.  Surely you do not mean that--that--"
+
+"Of course he didn't mean that," put in Hephzy.  "What he said was
+that some of the ones who talk the loudest and oftenest in prayer-
+meetin' at our Methodist church in Bayport weren't as good as they
+pretended to be.  And that's so, too."
+
+Mr. Judson seemed relieved.  "Oh," he exclaimed.  "Oh, yes, I quite
+comprehend.  Methodists--er--dissenters--that is quite different--
+quite."
+
+"Mr. Judson knows that no one except communicants in the Church of
+England are certain of happiness," observed Frances, very gravely.
+
+Our caller turned his attention to her.  He was not a joker, but I
+think he was a trifle suspicious.  The young lady met his gaze with
+one of serene simplicity and, although he reddened, he returned to
+the charge.
+
+"I should--I should scarcely go as far as that, Miss Morley," he
+said.  "But I understand Mr. Knowles to refer to--er--church
+members; and--er--dissenters--Methodists and others--are not--are
+not--"
+
+"Well," broke in Hephzibah, with decision, "I'm a Methodist,
+myself, and _I_ don't expect to go to perdition."
+
+Judson's guns were spiked.  He turned redder than ever and changed
+the subject to the weather.
+
+The remainder of the conversation was confined for the most part to
+Frances and the curate.  They discussed the village and the people
+in it and the church and its activities.  At length Judson
+mentioned golf.
+
+"Mr. Knowles and I are to have another round shortly, I trust," he
+said.  "You owe me a revenge, you know, Mr. Knowles."
+
+"Oh," exclaimed the young lady, in apparent surprise, "does Mr.
+Knowles play golf?"
+
+"Not real golf," I observed.
+
+"Oh, but he does," protested Mr. Judson, "he does.  Rather!  He
+plays a very good game indeed.  He beat me quite badly the other
+day."
+
+Which, according to my reckoning, was by no means a proof of
+extraordinary ability.  Frances seemed amused, for some unexplained
+reason.
+
+"I should never have thought it," she observed.
+
+"Why not?" asked Judson.
+
+"Oh, I don't know.  Golf is a game, and Mr. Knowles doesn't look as
+if he played games.  I should have expected nothing so frivolous
+from him."
+
+"My golf is anything but frivolous," I said.  "It's too seriously
+bad."
+
+"Do you golf, Miss Morley, may I ask?" inquired the curate.
+
+"I have occasionally, after a fashion.  I am sure I should like to
+learn."
+
+"I shall be delighted to teach you.  It would be a great pleasure,
+really."
+
+He looked as if it would be a pleasure.  Frances smiled.
+
+"Thank you so much," she said.  "You and I and Mr. Knowles will
+have a threesome."
+
+Judson's joy at her acceptance was tempered, it seemed to me.
+
+"Oh, of course," he said.  "It will be a great pleasure to have
+your uncle with us.  A great pleasure, of course."
+
+"My--uncle?"
+
+"Why, yes--Mr. Knowles, you know.  By the way, Miss Morley--excuse
+my mentioning it, but I notice you always address your uncle as Mr.
+Knowles.  That seems a bit curious, if you'll pardon my saying so.
+A bit distant and--er--formal to our English habit.  Do all nieces
+and nephews in your country do that?  Is it an American custom?"
+
+Hephzy and I looked at each other and my "niece" looked at both of
+us.  I could feel the blood tingling in my cheeks and forehead.
+
+"Is it an American custom?" repeated Mr. Judson.
+
+"I don't know," with chilling deliberation.  "I am NOT an
+American."
+
+The curate said "Indeed!" and had the astonishing good sense not to
+say any more.  Shortly afterward he said good-by.
+
+"But I shall look forward to our threesome, Miss Morley," he
+declared.  "I shall count upon it in the near future."
+
+After his departure there was a most embarrassing interval of
+silence.  Hephzy spoke first.
+
+"Don't you think you had better go in now, Frances," she said.
+"Seems to me you had.  It's the first time you've been out at all,
+you know."
+
+The young lady rose.  "I am going," she said.  "I am going, if you
+and--my uncle--will excuse me."
+
+That evening, after dinner, Hephzy joined me in the drawing-room.
+It was a beautiful summer evening, but every shade was drawn and
+every shutter tightly closed.  We had, on our second evening in the
+rectory, suggested leaving them open, but the housemaid had shown
+such shocked surprise and disapproval that we had not pressed the
+point.  By this time we had learned that "privacy" was another
+sacred and inviolable English custom.  The rectory sat in its own
+ground, surrounded by high hedges; no one, without extraordinary
+pains, could spy upon its inmates, but, nevertheless, the privacy
+of those inmates must be guaranteed.  So the shutters were closed
+and the shades drawn.
+
+"Well?" said I to Hephzy.
+
+"Well," said Hephzy, "it's better than I was afraid it was goin' to
+be.  I explained that you told the folks at Bancroft's she was your
+niece because 'twas the handiest thing to tell 'em, and you HAD to
+tell 'em somethin'.  And down here in Mayberry the same way.  She
+understood, I guess; at any rate she didn't make any great
+objection.  I thought at the last that she was laughin', but I
+guess she wasn't.  Only what she said sounded funny."
+
+"What did she say?"
+
+"Why, she wanted to know if she should call you 'Uncle Hosea.'  She
+supposed it should be that--'Uncle Hosy' sounded a little
+irreverent."
+
+I did not answer.  "Uncle Hosea!" a beautiful title, truly.
+
+She acted so different to-day, didn't she," observed Hephzy.  "It's
+because she's gettin' well, I suppose.  She was real full of fun,
+wasn't she."
+
+"Confound her--yes," I snarled.  "All the fun is on her side.
+Well, she should make the best of it while it lasts.  When she
+learns the truth she may not find it so amusing."
+
+Hephzy sighed.  "Yes," she said, slowly, "I'm afraid that's so,
+poor thing.  When--when are you goin' to tell her?"
+
+"I don't know," I answered.  "But pretty soon, that's certain."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+In Which I Break All Previous Resolutions and Make a New One
+
+
+That afternoon tea on the lawn was the beginning of the great
+change in our life at the rectory.  Prior to that Hephzy and I had,
+golfly speaking, been playing it as a twosome.  Now it became a
+threesome, with other players added at frequent intervals.  At
+luncheon next day our invalid, a real invalid no longer, joined us
+at table in the pleasant dining-room, the broad window of which
+opened upon the formal garden with the sundial in the center.
+She was in good spirits, and, as Hephzy confided to me afterward,
+was "gettin' a real nice appetite."  In gaining this appetite she
+appeared to have lost some of her dignity and chilling condescension;
+at all events, she treated her American relatives as if she
+considered them human beings.  She addressed most of her
+conversation to Hephzy, always speaking of and to her as "Miss
+Cahoon."  She still addressed me as "Mr. Knowles," and I was duly
+thankful; I had feared being hailed as "Uncle Hosy."
+
+After lunch Mr. Judson called again.  He was passing, he explained,
+on his round of parish calls, and had dropped in casually.  Mr.
+Worcester also came; his really was a casual stop, I think.  He and
+his brother curate were very brotherly indeed, but I noticed an
+apparent reluctance on the part of each to leave before the other.
+They left together, but Mr. Judson again hinted at the promised
+golf game, and Mr. Worcester, having learned from Miss Morley that
+she played and sang, expressed great interest in music and begged
+permission to bring some "favorite songs," which he felt sure Miss
+Morley might like to run over.
+
+Miss Morley herself was impartially gracious and affable to both
+the clerical gentlemen; she was looking forward to the golf, she
+said, and the songs she was certain would be jolly.  Hephzy and I
+had very little to say, and no one seemed particularly anxious to
+hear that little.
+
+The curates had scarcely disappeared down the driveway when Doctor
+Bayliss and his son strolled in from next door.  Doctor Bayliss,
+Senior, was much pleased to find his patient up and about, and
+Herbert, the son, even more pleased to find her at all, I judge.
+Young Bayliss was evidently very favorably impressed with his new
+neighbor.  He was a big, healthy, broad-shouldered fellow, a grown-
+up boy, whose laugh was a pleasure to hear, and who possessed the
+faculty, envied by me, the quahaug, of chatting entertainingly on
+all subjects from tennis and the new American dances to Lloyd-
+George and old-age pensions.  Frances declared a strong aversion to
+the dances, principally because they were American, I suspected.
+
+Doctor Bayliss, the old gentleman, then turned to me.
+
+"What is the American opinion of the Liberal measures?" he asked.
+
+"I should say," I answered, "that, so far as they are understood in
+America, opinion concerning them is divided, much as it is here."
+
+"Really!  But you haven't the Liberal and Conservative parties as
+we have, you know."
+
+"We have liberals and conservatives, however, although our
+political parties are not so named."
+
+"We call 'em Republicans and Democrats," explained Hephzy.  "Hosy
+is a Republican," she added, proudly.
+
+"I am not certain what I am," I observed.  "I have voted a split
+ticket of late."
+
+Young Bayliss asked a question.
+
+"Are you a--what is it--Republican, Miss Morley?" he inquired.
+
+Miss Morley's eyes dropped disdainfully.
+
+"I am neither," she said.  "My father was a Conservative, of
+course."
+
+"Oh, I say!  That's odd, isn't it.  Your uncle here is--"
+
+"Uncle Hosea, you mean?" sweetly.  "Oh, Uncle Hosea is an American.
+I am English."
+
+She did not add "Thank heaven," but she might as well.  "Uncle
+Hosea" shuddered at the name.  Young Bayliss grinned behind his
+blonde mustache.  When he left, in company with his father, Hephzy
+invited him to "run in any time."
+
+"We're next-door neighbors," she said, "so we mustn't be formal."
+
+I was fairly certain that the invitation was superfluous.  If I
+knew human nature at all I knew that Bayliss, Junior, did not
+intend to let formality stand in the way of frequent calls at the
+rectory.
+
+My intuition was correct.  The following afternoon he called again.
+So did Mr. Judson.  Both calls were casual, of course.  So was Mr.
+Worcester's that evening.  He came to bring the "favorite songs"
+and was much surprised to find Miss Morley in the drawing-room.  He
+said so.
+
+Hephzy and I knew little of our relative's history.  She had
+volunteered no particulars other than those given on the occasion
+of our first meeting, but we did know, because Mrs. Briggs had told
+us, that she had been a member of an opera troupe.  This evening we
+heard her sing for the first time.  She sang well; her voice was
+not a strong one, but it was clear and sweet and she knew how to
+use it.  Worcester sang well also, and the little concert was very
+enjoyable.
+
+It was the first of many.  Almost every evening after dinner
+Frances sat down at the old-fashioned piano, with the candle
+brackets at each side of the music rack, and sang.  Occasionally we
+were her only auditors, but more often one or both of the curates
+or Doctor and Mrs. Bayliss or Bayliss, Junior, dropped in.  We made
+other acquaintances--Mrs. Griggson, the widow in "reduced
+circumstances," whose husband had been killed in the Boer war, and
+who occupied the little cottage next to the draper's shop; Mr. and
+Mrs. Samson, of Burgleston Bogs, friends of the Baylisses, and
+others.  They were pleasant, kindly, unaffected people and we
+enjoyed their society.
+
+Each day Frances gained in health and strength.  The care-free,
+wholesome, out-of-door life at Mayberry seemed to suit her.  She
+seemed to consider herself a member of the family now; at all
+events she did not speak of leaving nor hint at the prompt
+settlement of her preposterous "claim."  Hephzy and I did not
+mention it, even to each other.  Hephzy, I think, was quite
+satisfied with things as they were, and I, in spite of my threats
+and repeated declarations that the present state of affairs was
+ridiculous and could not last, put off telling "my niece" the
+truth.  I, too, was growing more accustomed to the "threesome."
+
+The cloud was always there, hanging over our heads and threatening
+a storm at any moment, but I was learning to forget it.  The
+situation had its pleasant side; it was not all bad.  For instance,
+meals in the pleasant dining-room, with Hephzy at one end of the
+table, I at the other, and Frances between us, were more social and
+chatty than they had been.  To have the young lady come down to
+breakfast, her hair prettily arranged, her cheeks rosy with health,
+and her eyes shining with youth and the joy of life, was almost a
+tonic.  I found myself taking more pains with my morning toilet,
+choosing my tie with greater care and being more careful concerning
+the condition of my boots.  I even began to dress for dinner, a
+concession to English custom which was odd enough in one of my
+easy-going habits and Bayport rearing.  I imagine that the
+immaculate appearance of young Bayliss, when he dropped in for the
+"sing" in the drawing-room, was responsible for the resurrection of
+my dinner coat.  He did look so disgustingly young and handsome and
+at ease.  I was conscious of each one of my thirty-eight years
+whenever I looked at him.
+
+I was rejuvenating in other ways.  It had been my custom at Bayport
+to retire to my study and my books each evening.  Here, where
+callers were so frequent, I found it difficult to do this and,
+although the temptation was to sit quietly in a corner and let the
+others do the talking, I was not allowed to yield.  The younger
+callers, particularly the masculine portion, would not have
+objected to my silence, I am sure, but "my niece" seemed to take
+mischievous pleasure in drawing the quahaug out of his shell.  She
+had a disconcerting habit of asking me unexpected questions at
+times when my attention was wandering, and, if I happened to state
+a definite opinion, taking the opposite side with promptness.
+After a time I decided not to express opinions, but to agree with
+whatever was said as the simplest way of avoiding controversy and
+being left to myself.
+
+This procedure should, it seemed to me, have satisfied her, but
+apparently it did not.  On one occasion, Judson and Herbert Bayliss
+being present, the conversation turned to the subject of American
+athletic sports.  The curate and Bayliss took the ground, the
+prevailing thought in England apparently, that all American games
+were not games, but fights in which the true sporting spirit was
+sacrificed to the desire to win at any cost.  I had said nothing,
+keeping silent for two reasons.  First, that I had given my views
+on the subject before, and, second, because argument from me was,
+in that company, fruitless effort.  The simplest way to end
+discussion of a disagreeable topic was to pay no attention to it.
+
+But I was not allowed to escape so easily.  Bayliss asked me a
+question.
+
+"Isn't it true, Mr. Knowles," he asked, "that the American football
+player wears a sort of armor to prevent his being killed?"
+
+My thoughts had been drifting anywhere and everywhere.  Just then
+they were centered about "my niece's" hands.  She had very pretty
+hands and a most graceful way of using them.  At the moment they
+were idly turning some sheets of music, but the way the slim
+fingers moved in and out between the pages was pretty and
+fascinating.  Her foot, glimpsed beneath her skirt, was slender and
+graceful, too.  She had an attractive trick of swinging it as she
+sat upon the piano stool.
+
+Recalled from these and other pleasing observations by Bayliss's
+mention of my name, I looked up.
+
+"I beg pardon?" said I.
+
+Bayliss repeated his question.
+
+"Oh, yes," said I, and looked down again at the foot.
+
+"So I have been told," said the questioner, triumphantly.  "And
+without that--er--armor many of the players would be killed, would
+they not?"
+
+"What?  Oh, yes; yes, of course."
+
+"And many are killed or badly injured as it is?"
+
+"Oh, yes."
+
+"How many during a season, may I ask?"
+
+"Eh?  Oh--I don't know."
+
+"A hundred?"
+
+The foot was swinging more rapidly now.  It was such a small foot.
+My own looked so enormous and clumsy and uncouth by comparison.
+
+"A--oh, thousands," said I, at random.  If the number were large
+enough to satisfy him he might cease to worry me.
+
+"A beastly game," declared Judson, with conviction.  "How can a
+civilized country countenance such brutality!  Do you countenance
+it, Mr. Knowles?"
+
+"Yes--er--that is, no."
+
+"You agree, then, that it is brutal?"
+
+"Certainly, certainly."  Would the fellow never stop?
+
+"Then--"
+
+"Nonsense!"  It was Frances who spoke and her tone was emphatic and
+impatient.  We all looked at her; her cheeks were flushed and she
+appeared highly indignant.  "Nonsense!" she said again.  "He
+doesn't agree to any such thing.  I've heard him say that American
+football was not as brutal as our fox-hunting and that fewer people
+were killed or injured.  We play polo and we ride in steeplechases
+and the papers are full of accidents.  I don't believe Americans
+are more brutal or less civilized in their sports than we are, not
+in the least."
+
+Considering that she had at the beginning of the conversation
+apparently agreed with all that had been said, and, moreover, had
+often, in speaking to Hephzy and me, referred to the "States" as an
+uncivilized country, this declaration was astonishing.  I was
+astonished for one.  Hephzy clapped her hands.
+
+"Of course they aren't," she declared.  "Hosy--Mr. Knowles--didn't
+mean that they were, either."
+
+Our callers looked at each other and Herbert Bayliss hastily
+changed the subject.  After they had gone I ventured to thank my
+champion for coming to the rescue of my sporting countrymen.  She
+flashed an indignant glance at me.
+
+"Why do you say such things?" she demanded.  "You know they weren't
+true."
+
+"What was the use of saying anything else?  They have read the
+accounts of football games which American penny-a-line correspondents
+send to the London papers and nothing I could say would change their
+convictions."
+
+"It doesn't make any difference.  You should say what you think.
+To sit there and let them--Oh, it is ridiculous!"
+
+"My feelings were not hurt.  Their ideas will broaden by and by,
+when they are as old as I am.  They're young now."
+
+This charitable remark seemed to have the effect of making her more
+indignant than ever.
+
+"Nonsense!" she cried.  "You speak as if you were an Old Testament
+patriarch."
+
+Hephzy put in a word.
+
+"Why, Frances," she said, "I thought you didn't like America."
+
+"I don't.  Of course I don't.  But it makes me lose patience to
+have him sit there and agree to everything those boys say.  Why
+didn't he answer them as he should?  If I were an American no one--
+NO one should rag me about my country without getting as good as
+they gave."
+
+I was amused.  "What would you have me do?" I asked.  "Rise and
+sing the 'Star Spangled Banner'?"
+
+"I would have you speak your mind like a man.  Not sit there like
+a--like a rabbit.  And I wouldn't act and think like a Methusaleh
+until I was one."
+
+It was quite evident that "my niece" was a young person of whims.
+The next time the "States" were mentioned and I ventured to speak
+in their defence, she calmly espoused the other side and "ragged"
+as mercilessly as the rest.  I found myself continually on the
+defensive, and this state of affairs had one good effect at least--
+that of waking me up.
+
+Toward Hephzy her manner was quite different.  She now, especially
+when we three were alone, occasionally addressed her as "Auntie."
+And she would not permit "Auntie" to be made fun of.  At the least
+hint of such a thing she snubbed the would-be humorist thoroughly.
+She and Hephzy were becoming really friendly.  I felt certain she
+was beginning to like her--to discern the real woman beneath the
+odd exterior.  But when I expressed this thought to Hephzy herself
+she shook her head doubtfully.
+
+"Sometimes I've almost thought so, Hosy," she said, "but only this
+mornin' when I said somethin' about her mother and how much she
+looked like her, she almost took my head off.  And she's got her
+pa's picture right in the middle of her bureau.  No, Hosy, she's
+nicer to us than she was at first because it's her nature to be
+nice.  So long as she forgets who and what we are, or what her
+scamp of a father told her we were, she treats us like her own
+folks.  But when she remembers we're receivers of stolen goods,
+livin' on money that belongs to her, then it's different.  You
+can't blame her for that, I suppose.  But--but how is it all goin'
+to end?  _I_ don't know."
+
+I didn't know either.
+
+"I had hoped," I said, "that, living with us as she does, she might
+come to know and understand us--to learn that we couldn't be the
+sort she has believed us to be.  Then it seems to me we might tell
+her and she would listen to reason."
+
+"I--I'm afraid we can't wait long.  You see, there's another thing,
+Hosy.  She needs clothes and--and lots of things.  She realizes it.
+Yesterday she told me she must go up to London, shopping, pretty
+soon.  She asked me to go with her.  I put her off; said I was
+awful busy around the house just now, but she'll ask me again, and
+if I don't go she'll go by herself."
+
+"Humph!  I don't see how she can do much shopping.  She hasn't a
+penny, so far as I know."
+
+"You don't understand.  She thinks she has got a good many pennies,
+or we've got 'em for her.  She's just as liable to buy all creation
+and send us the bills."
+
+I whistled.  "Well," I said, decidedly, "when that happens we must
+put our foot down.  Neither you nor I are millionaires, Hephzy, and
+she must understand that regardless of consequences."
+
+"You mean you'll tell her--everything?"
+
+"I shall have to.  Why do you look at me like that?  Are we to use
+common-sense or aren't we?  Are we in a position to adopt a young
+woman of expensive tastes--actually adopt her?  And not only that,
+but give her carte blanche--let her buy whatever she pleases and
+charge it to us?"
+
+"I suppose not.  But--"
+
+"But what?"
+
+"Well, I--I don't see how we can stop her buying whatever she
+pleases with what she thinks is her own money."
+
+"I do.  We can tell her she has no money.  I shall do it.  My mind
+is made up."
+
+Hephzy said nothing, but her expression was one of doubt.  I
+stalked off in a bad temper.  Discussions of the kind always ended
+in just this way.  However, I swore a solemn oath to keep my word
+this time.  There were limits and they had been reached.  Besides,
+as I had said, the situation was changed in one way; we no longer
+had an invalid to deal with.  No, my mind was made up.  True, this
+was at least the tenth time I had made it up, but this time I meant
+it.
+
+The test came two days later and was the result of a call on the
+Samsons.  The Samsons lived at Burgleston Bogs, and we drove to
+their house in the trap behind "Pet," the plump black horse.  Mrs.
+Samson seemed very glad to see us, urged us to remain for tea, and
+invited us to attend a tennis tournament on their lawn the
+following week.  She asked if Miss Morley played tennis.  Frances
+said she had played, but not recently.  She intended to practice,
+however, and would be delighted to witness the tournament,
+although, of course, she could not take part in it.
+
+"Hosy--Mr. Knowles, I mean--plays tennis," observed Hephzy, seizing
+the opportunity, as usual, to speak a good word for me.  "He used
+to play real well."
+
+"Really!" exclaimed Mrs. Samson, "how interesting.  If we had only
+known.  No doubt Mr. Knowles would have liked to enter.  I'm so
+sorry."
+
+I hastened to protest.  "My tennis is decidedly rusty," I said.  "I
+shouldn't think of displaying it in public.  In fact, I don't play
+at all now."
+
+On the way home Frances was rather quiet.  The next morning she
+announced that she intended going to Wrayton that afternoon.
+"Johnson will drive me over," she said.  "I shall be glad if Auntie
+will go with me."
+
+Wrayton was the county-seat, a good-sized town five miles from
+Mayberry.  Hephzy declined the invitation.  She had promised to
+"tea" with Mrs. Griggson that afternoon.
+
+"Then I must go alone," said Frances.  "That is unless--er--Uncle
+Hosea cares to go."
+
+"Uncle Hosea" declined.  The name of itself was sufficient to make
+him decline; besides Worcester and I were scheduled for golf.
+
+"I shall go alone then," said "my niece," with decision.  "Johnson
+will look after me."
+
+But after luncheon, when I visited the stable to order Johnson to
+harness "Pet," I met with an unexpected difficulty.  Johnson, it
+appeared, was ill, had been indisposed the day before and was now
+at home in bed.  I hesitated.  If this were Bayport I should have
+bade the gardener harness "Pet" or have harnessed him myself.  But
+this was Mayberry, not Bayport.
+
+The gardener, deprived of his assistant's help--Johnson worked
+about the garden when not driving--was not in good humor.  I
+decided not to ask him to harness, but to risk a fall in the
+estimation of the servants by doing it myself.
+
+The gardener watched me for a moment in shocked disapproval.  Then
+he interfered.
+
+"If you please, Mr. Knowles, sir," he said, "I'll 'arness, but I
+can't drive, sir.  I am netting the gooseberries.  Perhaps you
+might get a man from the Inn stables, unless you or the young lady
+might wish to drive yourselves."
+
+I did not wish to drive, having the golf engagement; but when I
+walked to the Inn I found no driver available.  So, rather than be
+disagreeable, I sent word to the curate that our match was
+postponed, and accepted the alternative.
+
+Frances, rather to my surprise, seemed more pleased than otherwise
+to find that I was to be her coachman.  Instead of occupying the
+rear seat she climbed to that beside me.
+
+"Good-by, Auntie," she called to Hephzy, who was standing in the
+doorway.  "Sorry you're not going.  I'll take good care of Mr.
+Knowles--Uncle Hosea, I mean.  I'll see that he behaves himself
+and," with a glance at my, I fear, not too radiant visage, "doesn't
+break any of his venerable bones."
+
+The road, like all English roads which I traveled, was as firm and
+smooth as a table, the day was fine, the hedges were green and
+fragrant, the larks sang, and the flocks of sheep in the wayside
+pastures were picturesque as always.  "Pet," who had led an easy
+life since we came to the rectory, was in high spirits and stepped
+along in lively fashion.  My companion, too, was in good spirits
+and chatted and laughed as she had not done with me since I knew
+her.
+
+Altogether it was a delightful ride.  I found myself emerging from
+my shell and chatting and joking quite unlike the elderly quahaug I
+was supposed to be.  We passed a party of young fellows on a
+walking tour, knapsacked and knickerbockered, and the admiring
+glances they passed at my passenger were flattering.  They envied
+me, that was plain.  Well, under different circumstances, I could
+conceive myself an object of envy.  A dozen years younger, with the
+heart of youth and the comeliness of youth, I might have thought
+myself lucky to be driving along such a road with such a vision by
+my side.  And, the best of it was, the vision treated me as if I
+really were her own age.  I squared my shoulders and as Hephzy
+would have said, "perked up" amazingly.
+
+We entered Wrayton and moved along the main street between the rows
+of ancient buildings, past the old stone church with its inevitable
+and always welcome gray, ivy-draped tower, to the quaint old square
+with the statue of William Pitt in its center.  My companion, all
+at once, seemed to become aware of her surroundings.
+
+"Why!" she exclaimed, "we are here, aren't we?  Fancy!  I expected
+a longer drive."
+
+"So did I," I agreed.  "We haven't hurried, either.  Where has the
+time gone."
+
+"I don't know.  We have been so busy talking that I have thought of
+nothing else.  Really, I didn't know you could be so entertaining--
+Uncle Hosea."
+
+The detested title brought me to myself.
+
+"We are here," I said, shortly.  "And now where shall we go?  Have
+you any stopping place in particular?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"Yes," she said, "I want to stop now.  Please pull up over there,
+in front of that shop with the cricket bats in the window."
+
+The shop was what we, in America, would have called a "sporting-
+goods store."  I piloted "Pet" to the curb and pulled up.
+
+"I am going in," said Miss Morley.  "Oh, don't trouble to help me.
+I can get down quite well."
+
+She was down, springing from the step as lightly as a dandelion
+fluff before I could scramble down on the other side.
+
+"I won't be long," she said, and went into the shop.  I, not being
+invited, remained on the pavement.  Two or three small boys
+appeared from somewhere and, scenting possible pennies, volunteered
+to hold the horse.  I declined their services.
+
+Five minutes passed, then ten.  My passenger was still in the shop.
+I could not imagine what she was doing there.  If it had been a
+shop of a different kind, and in view of Hephzy's recent statement
+concerning the buying of clothes, I might have been suspicious.
+But no clothes were on sale at that shop and, besides, it never
+occurred to me that she would buy anything of importance without
+mentioning her intention to me beforehand.  I had taken it for
+granted that she would mention the subject and, when she did, I
+intended to be firm.  But as the minutes went by my suspicions
+grew.  She must be buying something--or contemplating buying, at
+least.  But she had said nothing to me concerning money; HAD she
+money of her own after all?  It might be possible that she had a
+very little, and was making some trifling purchase.
+
+She reappeared in the doorway of the shop, followed by a very
+polite young man with a blonde mustache.  The young man was bowing
+and smiling.
+
+"Yes, miss," he said, "I'll have them wrapped immediately.  They
+shall be ready when you return, miss.  Thank you, miss."
+
+Frances nodded acknowledgment of the thanks.  Then she favored me
+with another nod and a most bewitching smile.
+
+"That's over," she announced, "and now I'm going to the draper's
+for a moment.  It is near here, you say?"
+
+The young man bowed again.
+
+"Yes, miss, on the next corner, next the chemist's."
+
+She turned to me.  "You may wait here, Mr. Knowles," she said.  "I
+shall be back very soon."
+
+She hurried away.  I looked after her, and then, with all sorts of
+forebodings surging in my brain, strode into that "sporting-goods
+store."
+
+The blond young man was at my elbow.
+
+"Yes, sir," he said, ingratiatingly.
+
+"Did--did that young lady make some purchases here?" I asked.
+
+"Yes, sir.  Here they are, sir."
+
+There on the counter lay a tennis racket, a racket press and
+waterproof case, a pair of canvas tennis shoes and a jaunty white
+felt hat.  I stared at the collection.  The clerk took up the
+racket.
+
+"Not a Slazenger," he observed, regretfully.  "I did my best to
+persuade her to buy a Slazenger; that is the best racket we have.
+But she decided the Slazenger was a bit high in price, sir.
+However, sir, this one is not bad.  A very fine racket for lady's
+use; very light and strong, sir, considering the cost--only sixteen
+and six, sir."
+
+"Sixteen and six.  Four dollars and--Did she pay for it?"
+
+"Oh no, sir.  She said you would do that, sir.  The total is two
+pound eight and thruppence, sir.  Shall I give you a bill, sir?
+Thank you, sir."
+
+His thanks were wasted.  I pushed him to one side and walked out of
+that shop.  I could not answer; if I answered as I felt I might be
+sorry later.  After all, it wasn't his fault.  My business was not
+with him, but with her.
+
+It was not the amount of the purchase that angered and alarmed me.
+Two pounds eight--twelve dollars--was not so much.  If she had
+asked me, if she had said she desired the racket and the rest of it
+during the drive over, I think, feeling as I did during that drive,
+I should have bought them for her.  But she had not asked; she had
+calmly bought them without consulting me at all.  She had come to
+Wrayton for that very purpose.  And then had told the clerk that I
+would pay.
+
+The brazen presumption of it!  I was merely a convenience, a sort
+of walking bank account, to be drawn upon as she saw fit, at her
+imperial will, if you please.  It made no difference, to her mind,
+whether I liked it or not--whether I could afford it or not.  I
+could, of course, afford this trifling sum, but this was only the
+beginning.  If I permitted this there was no telling to what extent
+she might go on, buying and buying and buying.  This was a
+precedent--that was what it was, a precedent; and a precedent once
+established . . .  It should not be established.  I had vowed to
+Hephzy that it should not.  I would prove to this girl that I had a
+will of my own.  The time had come.
+
+One of the boys who had been so anxious to hold the horse was
+performing that entirely unnecessary duty.
+
+"Stay here until I come back," I ordered and hurried to the
+draper's.
+
+She was there standing before the counter, and an elderly man was
+displaying cloths--white flannels and serges they appeared to be.
+She was not in the least perturbed at my entrance.
+
+"So you came, after all," she said.  "I wondered if you would.  Now
+you must help me.  I don't know what your taste in tennis flannels
+may be, but I hope it is good.  I shall have these made up at
+Mayberry, of course.  My other frocks--and I need so many of them--
+I shall buy in London.  Do you fancy this, now?"
+
+I don't know whether I fancied it or not.  I am quite sure I could
+not remember what it was if I were asked.
+
+"Well?" she asked, after an instant.  "Do you?"
+
+"I--I don't know," I said.  "May I ask you to step outside one
+moment.  I--I have something I wish to say."
+
+She regarded me curiously.
+
+"Something you wish to say?" she repeated.  "What is it?"
+
+"I--I can't tell you here."
+
+"Why not, pray?"
+
+"Because I can't."
+
+She looked at me still more intently.  I was conscious of the
+salesman's regard also.  My tone, I am sure, was anything but
+gracious, and I imagine I appeared as disgusted and embarrassed as
+I felt.  She turned away.
+
+"I think I will choose this one," she said, addressing the clerk.
+"You may give me five yards.  Oh, yes; and I may as well take the
+same amount of the other.  You may wrap it for me."
+
+"Yes, miss, yes.  Thank you, miss.  Is there anything else?"
+
+She hesitated.  Then, after another sidelong glance at me, she
+said:  "Yes, I believe there is.  I wish to see some buttons, some
+braid, and--oh, ever so many things.  Please show them to me."
+
+"Yes, miss, certainly.  This way, if you please."
+
+She turned to me.
+
+"Will you assist in the selection, Uncle Hosea?" she inquired, with
+suspicious sweetness.  "I am sure your opinion will be invaluable.
+No?  Then I must ask you to wait."
+
+And wait I did, for I could do nothing else.  That draper's shop
+was not the place for a scene, with a half-dozen clerks to enjoy
+it.  I waited, fuming, while she wandered about, taking a great
+deal of time, and lingering over each purchase in a maddening
+manner.  At last she seemed able to think of no more possibilities
+and strolled to where I was standing, followed by the salesman,
+whose hands were full.
+
+"You may wrap these with the others," she said.  "I have my trap
+here and will take them with me.  The trap is here, isn't it--er--
+Uncle Hosea?"
+
+"It is just above here," I answered, sulkily.  But--"
+
+"But you will get it.  Thank you so much."
+
+The salesman noticed my hesitation, put his own interpretation upon
+it and hastened to oblige.
+
+"I shall be glad to have the purchases carried there," he said.
+"Our boy will do it, miss.  It will be no trouble."
+
+Miss Morley thanked him so much.  I was hoping she might leave the
+shop then, but she did not.  The various packages were wrapped,
+handed to the boy, and she accompanied the latter to the door and
+showed him our equipage standing before the sporting-goods
+dealer's.  Then she sauntered back.
+
+"Thank you," she said, addressing the clerk.  "That is all, I
+believe."
+
+The clerk looked at her and at me.
+
+"Yes, miss, thank you," he said, in return.  "I--I--would you be
+wishing to pay at once, miss, or shall I--"
+
+"Oh, this gentleman will pay.  Do you wish to pay now--Uncle
+Hosea?"
+
+Again I was stumped.  The salesman was regarding me expectantly;
+the other clerks were near by; if I made a scene there--No, I could
+not do it.  I would pay this time.  But this should be the end.
+
+Fortunately, I had money in my pocket--two five-pound notes and
+some silver.  I paid the bill.  Then, and at last, my niece led the
+way to the pavement.  We walked together a few steps in silence.
+The sporting-goods shop was just ahead, and if ever I was
+determined not to do a thing that thing was to pay for the tennis
+racket and the rest.
+
+"Frances," I began.
+
+"Well--Mr. Knowles?" calmly.
+
+"Frances, I have decided to speak with you frankly.  You appear to
+take certain things for granted in your--your dealings with Miss
+Cahoon and myself, things which--which I cannot countenance or
+permit."
+
+She had been walking slowly.  Now she stopped short.  I stopped,
+too, because she did.
+
+"What do you mean?" she asked.  "What things?"
+
+She was looking me through and through.  Again I hesitated, and my
+hesitation did not help matters.
+
+"What do you mean?" she repeated.  "What is it you cannot
+countenance or"--scornfully--"permit concerning me?"
+
+"I--well, I cannot permit you to do as you have done to-day.  You
+did not tell your aunt or me your purpose in coming to Wrayton.
+You did not tell us you were coming here to buy--to buy various
+things for yourself."
+
+"Why should I tell you?  They were for myself.  Is it your idea
+that I should ask YOUR permission before buying what I choose?"
+
+"Considering that you ask me to pay, I--"
+
+"I most distinctly did NOT ask you.  I TOLD you to pay.  Certainly
+you will pay.  Why not?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Yes, why not.  So this was what you wished to speak to me about.
+This was why you were so--so boorish and disagreeable in that shop.
+Tell me--was that the reason?  Was that why you followed me there?
+Did you think--did you presume to think of preventing my buying
+what I pleased with my money?"
+
+"If it had been your money I should not have presumed, certainly.
+If you had mentioned your intention to me beforehand I might even
+have paid for your purchases and said nothing.  I should--I should
+have been glad to do so.  I am not unreasonable."
+
+"Indeed!  Indeed!  Do you mean that you would have condescended to
+make me a present of them?  And was it your idea that I would
+accept presents from you?"
+
+It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that she had already
+accepted a good deal; but somehow the place, a public sidewalk,
+seemed hardly fitting for the discussion of weighty personal
+matters.  Passers-by were regarding us curiously, and in the door
+of the draper's shop which we had just left I noticed the elderly
+clerk standing and looking in our direction.  I temporized.
+
+"You don't understand, Miss Morley," I said.  "Neither your aunt
+nor I are wealthy.  Surely, it is not too much to ask that you
+consult us before--before--"
+
+She interrupted me.  "I shall not consult you at all," she
+declared, fiercely.  "Wealthy!  Am _I_ wealthy?  Was my father
+wealthy?  He should have been and so should I.  Oh, WHAT do you
+mean?  Are you trying to tell me that you cannot afford to pay for
+the few trifles I have bought this afternoon?"
+
+"I can afford those, of course.  But you don't understand."
+
+"Understand?  YOU do not understand.  The agreement under which I
+came to Mayberry was that you were to provide for me.  I consented
+to forego pressing my claim against you until--until you were ready
+to--to--Oh, but why should we go into this again?  I thought--I
+thought you understood.  I thought you understood and appreciated
+my forbearance.  You seemed to understand and to be grateful and
+kind.  I am all alone in the world.  I haven't a friend.  I have
+been almost happy for a little while.  I was beginning to--"
+
+She stopped.  The dark eyes which had been flashing lightnings in
+my direction suddenly filled with tears.  My heart smote me.  After
+all, she did not understand.  Another plea of that kind and I
+should have--Well, I'm not sure what I should have done.  But the
+plea was not spoken.
+
+"Oh, what a fool I am!" she cried, fiercely.  "Mr. Knowles,"
+pointing to the sporting-goods store, "I have made some purchases
+in that shop also.  I expect you to pay for those as well.  Will
+you or will you not?"
+
+I was hesitating, weakly.  She did not wait for me to reply.
+
+"You WILL pay for them," she declared, "and you will pay for others
+that I may make.  I shall buy what I please and do what I please
+with my money which you are keeping from me.  You will pay or take
+the consequences."
+
+That was enough.  "I will not pay," I said, firmly, "under any such
+arrangement."
+
+"You will NOT?"
+
+"No, I will not."
+
+She looked as if--Well, if she had been a man I should have
+expected a blow.  Her breast heaved and her fingers clenched.  Then
+she turned and walked toward the shop with the cricket bats in the
+window.
+
+"Where are you going?" I asked.
+
+"I am going to tell the man to send the things I have bought to
+Mayberry by carrier and I shall tell him to send the bill to you."
+
+"If you do I shall tell him to do nothing of the kind.  Miss
+Morley, I don't mean to be ungenerous or unreasonable, but--"
+
+"Stop!  Stop!  Oh!" with a sobbing breath, "how I hate you!"
+
+"I'm sorry.  When I explain, as I mean to, you will understand, I
+think.  If you will go back to the rectory with me now--"
+
+"I shall not go back with you.  I shall never speak to you again."
+
+"Miss Morley, be reasonable.  You must go back with me.  There is
+no other way."
+
+"I will not."
+
+Here was more cheer in an already cheerful situation.  She could
+not get to Mayberry that night unless she rode with me.  She had no
+money to take her there or anywhere else.  I could hardly carry her
+to the trap by main strength.  And the curiosity of the passers-by
+was more marked than ever; two or three of them had stopped to
+watch us.
+
+I don't know how it might have ended, but the end came in an
+unexpected manner.
+
+"Why, Miss Morley," cried a voice from the street behind me.  "Oh,
+I say, it IS you, isn't it.  How do you do?"
+
+I turned.  A trim little motor car was standing there and Herbert
+Bayliss was at the wheel.
+
+"Ah, Knowles, how do you do?" said Bayliss.
+
+I acknowledged the greeting in an embarrassed fashion.  I wondered
+how long he had been there and what he had heard.  He alighted from
+the car and shook hands with us.
+
+"Didn't see you, Knowles, at first," he said.  "Saw Miss Morley
+here and thought she was alone.  Was going to beg the privilege of
+taking her home in my car."
+
+Miss Morley answered promptly.  "You may have the privilege, Doctor
+Bayliss," she said.  "I accept with pleasure."
+
+Young Bayliss looked pleased, but rather puzzled.
+
+"Thanks, awfully," he said.  "But my car holds but two and your
+uncle--"
+
+"Oh, he has the dogcart.  It is quite all right, really.  I should
+love the motor ride.  May I get in?"
+
+He helped her into the car.  "Sure you don't mind, Knowles," he
+asked.  "Sorry there's not more room; but you couldn't leave the
+horse, though, could you?  Quite comfy, Miss Morley?  Then we're
+off."
+
+The car turned from the curb.  I caught Miss Morley's eye for an
+instant; there was withering contempt in its look--also triumph.
+
+Left alone, I walked to the trap, gave the horse-holding boy
+sixpence, climbed to the seat and took up the reins.  "Pet" jogged
+lazily up the street.  The ride over had been very, very pleasant;
+the homeward journey was likely to be anything but that.
+
+To begin with, I was thoroughly dissatisfied with myself.  I had
+bungled the affair dreadfully.  This was not the time for
+explanations; I should not have attempted them.  It would have been
+better, much better, to have accepted the inevitable as gracefully
+as I could, paid the bills, and then, after we reached home, have
+made the situation plain and "have put my foot down" once and for
+all.  But I had not done that.  I had lost my temper and acted like
+an eighteen-year-old boy instead of a middle-aged man.
+
+She did not understand, of course.  In her eyes I must have
+appeared stingy and mean and--and goodness knows what.  The money I
+had refused to pay she did consider hers, of course.  It was not
+hers, and some day she would know that it was not, but the town
+square at Wrayton was not the place in which to impart knowledge of
+that kind.
+
+She was so young, too, and so charming--that is, she could be when
+she chose.  And she had chosen to be so during our drive together.
+And I had enjoyed that drive; I had enjoyed nothing as thoroughly
+since our arrival in England.  She had enjoyed it, too; she had
+said so.
+
+Well, there would be no more enjoyment of that kind.  This was the
+end, of course.  And all because I had refused to pay for a tennis
+racket and a few other things.  They were things she wanted--yes,
+needed, if she were to remain at the rectory.  And, expecting to
+remain as she did, it was but natural that she should wish to play
+tennis and dress as did other young players of her sex.  Her life
+had not been a pleasant one; after all, a little happiness added,
+even though it did cost me some money, was not much.  And it must
+end soon.  It seemed a pity to end it in order to save two pounds
+eight and threepence.
+
+There is no use cataloguing all my thoughts.  Some I have
+catalogued and the others were similar.  The memory of her face and
+of the choke in her voice as she said she had been almost happy
+haunted me.  My reason told me that, so far as principle and
+precedent went, I had acted rightly; but my conscience, which was
+quite unreasonable, told me I had acted like a boor.  I stood it as
+long as I could, then I shouted at "Pet," who was jogging on,
+apparently half asleep.
+
+"Whoa!" I shouted.
+
+"Pet" stopped short in the middle of the road.  I hesitated.  The
+principle of the thing--
+
+"Hang the principle!" said I, aloud.  Then I turned the trap around
+and drove back to Wrayton.  The blond young man in the sporting-
+goods store was evidently glad to see me.  He must have seen me
+drive away and have judged that his sale was canceled.  His
+judgment had been very near to right, but now I proved it wrong.
+
+I paid for the racket and the press and the shoes and the rest.
+They were wrapped and ready.
+
+"Thank you, sir," said the clerk.  "I trust everything will be
+quite satisfactory.  I'm sorry the young lady did not take the
+Slazenger, but the one she chose is not at all bad."
+
+I was on my way to the door.  I stopped and turned.
+
+"Is the--the what is it--'Slazenger' so much better?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, very much so, sir.  Infinitely better, sir.  Here it is; judge
+for yourself.  The very best racket made.  And only thirty-two
+shillings, sir."
+
+It was a better racket, much better.  And, after all, when one is
+hanging principle the execution may as well be complete.
+
+"You may give me that one instead of the other," I said, and paid
+the difference.
+
+On my arrival at the rectory Hephzy met me at the door.  The
+between-maid took the packages from the trap.  I entered the
+drawing-room and Hephzy followed me.  She looked very grave.
+
+"Frances is here, I suppose," I said.
+
+"Yes, she came an hour ago.  Doctor Bayliss, the younger one,
+brought her in his auto.  She hardly spoke to me, Hosy, and went
+straight to her room.  Hosy, what happened?  What is the matter?"
+
+"Nothing," said I, curtly.  "Nothing unusual, that is.  I made a
+fool of myself once more, that's all."
+
+The between-maid knocked and entered.  "Where would you wish the
+parcels, sir?" she asked.
+
+"These are Miss Morley's.  Take them to her room."
+
+The maid retired to obey orders.  Hephzy again turned to me.
+
+"Now, Hosy, what is it?" she asked.
+
+I told her the whole story.  When I had finished Hephzy nodded
+understandingly.  She did not say "I told you so," but if she had
+it would have been quite excusable.
+
+"I think--I think, perhaps, I had better go up and see her," she
+said.
+
+"All right.  I have no objection."
+
+"But she'll ask questions, of course.  What shall I tell her?"
+
+"Tell her I changed my mind.  Tell her--oh, tell her anything you
+like.  Don't bother me.  I'm sick of the whole business."
+
+She left me and I went into the Reverend Cole's study and closed
+the door.  There were books enough there, but the majority of them
+were theological works or bulky volumes dealing with questions of
+religion.  Most of my own books were in my room.  These did not
+appeal to me; I was not religiously inclined just then.
+
+So I sat dumbly in the rector's desk chair and looked out of the
+window.  After a time there was a knock at the door.
+
+"Come in," said I, expecting Hephzy.  It was not Hephzy who came,
+however, but Miss Morley herself.  And she closed the door behind
+her.
+
+I did not speak.  She walked over and stood beside me.  I did not
+know what she was going to say and the expression did not help me
+to guess.
+
+For a moment she did not say anything.  Then:
+
+"So you changed your mind," she said.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"You don't know.  Yet you changed it."
+
+"Yes.  Oh yes, I changed it."
+
+"But why?  Was it--was it because you were ashamed of yourself?"
+
+"I guess so.  As much that as anything."
+
+"You realize that you treated me shamefully.  You realize that?"
+
+"Yes," wearily.  "Yes, I realize everything."
+
+"And you felt sorry, after I had gone, and so you changed your
+mind.  Was that it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+There was no use in attempting justification.  For the absolute
+surrender I had made there was no justification.  I might as well
+agree to everything.
+
+"And you will never, never treat me in that way again?"
+
+"No."
+
+"And you realize that I was right and understand that I am to do as
+I please with my money?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you beg my pardon?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Very well.  Then I beg yours.  I'm sorry, too."
+
+Now I WAS surprised.  I turned in my chair and looked at her.
+
+"You beg my pardon?" I repeated.  "For what?"
+
+"Oh, for everything.  I suppose I should have spoken to you before
+buying those things.  You might not have been prepared to pay then
+and--and that would have been unpleasant for you.  But--well, you
+see, I didn't think, and you were so queer and cross when you
+followed me to the draper's shop, that--that I--well, I was
+disagreeable, too.  I am sorry."
+
+"That's all right."
+
+"Thank you.  Is there anything else you wish to say?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You're sure?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why did you buy the Slazenger racket instead of the other one?"
+
+I had forgotten the "Slazenger" for the moment.  She had caught me
+unawares.
+
+"Oh--oh," I stammered, "well, it was a much better racket and--and,
+as you were buying one, it seemed foolish not to get the best."
+
+"I know.  I wanted the better one very much, but I thought it too
+expensive.  I did not feel that I should spend so much money."
+
+"That's all right.  The difference wasn't so much and I made the
+change on my own responsibility.  I--well, just consider that I
+bought the racket and you bought none."
+
+She regarded me intently.  "You mean that you bought it as a
+present for me?" she said slowly.
+
+"Yes; yes, if you will accept it as such."
+
+She was silent.  I remembered perfectly well what she had said
+concerning presents from me and I wondered what I should do with
+that racket when she threw it back on my hands.
+
+"Thank you," she said.  "I will accept it.  Thank you very much."
+
+I was staggered, but I recovered sufficiently to tell her she was
+quite welcome.
+
+She turned to go.  Then she turned back.
+
+"Doctor Bayliss asked me to play tennis with him tomorrow morning,"
+she said.  "May I?"
+
+"May you?  Why, of course you may, if you wish, I suppose.  Why in
+the world do you ask my permission?"
+
+"Oh, don't you wish me to ask?  I inferred from what you said at
+Wrayton that you did wish me to ask permission concerning many
+things."
+
+"I wished--I said--oh, don't be silly, please!  Haven't we had
+silliness enough for one afternoon, Miss Morley."
+
+"My Christian name is Frances.  May I play tennis with Doctor
+Bayliss to-morrow morning, Uncle Hosea?"
+
+"Of course you may.  How could I prevent it, even if I wished,
+which I don't."
+
+"Thank you, Uncle Hosea.  Mr. Worcester is going to play also.  We
+need a fourth.  I can borrow another racket.  Will you be my
+partner, Uncle Hosea?"
+
+"_I_?  Your partner?"
+
+"Yes.  You play tennis; Auntie says so.  Will you play to-morrow
+morning as my partner?"
+
+"But I play an atrocious game and--"
+
+"So do I.  We shall match beautifully.  Thank you, Uncle Hosea."
+
+Once more she turned to go, and again she turned.
+
+"Is there anything else you wish me to do, Uncle Hosea?" she asked.
+
+The repetition repeated was too much.
+
+"Yes," I declared.  "Stop calling me Uncle Hosea.  I'm not your
+uncle."
+
+"Oh, I know that; but you have told everyone that you were, haven't
+you?"
+
+I had, unfortunately, so I could make no better reply than to state
+emphatically that I didn't like the title.
+
+"Oh, very well," she said.  "But 'Mr. Knowles' sounds so formal,
+don't you think.  What shall I call you?  Never mind, perhaps I can
+think while I am dressing for dinner.  I will see you at dinner,
+won't I.  Au revoir, and thank you again for the racket--Cousin
+Hosy."
+
+"I'm not your cousin, either--at least not more than a nineteenth
+cousin.  And if you begin calling me 'Hosy' I shall--I don't know
+what I shall do."
+
+"Dear me, how particular you are!  Well then, au revoir--Kent."
+
+When Hephzy came to the study I was still seated in the rector's
+chair.  She was brimful full of curiosity, I know, and ready to ask
+a dozen questions at once.  But I headed off the first of the
+dozen.
+
+"Hephzy," I observed, "I have made no less than fifty solemn
+resolutions since we met that girl--that Little Frank of yours.
+You've heard me make them, haven't you."
+
+"Why, yes, I suppose I have.  If you mean resolutions to tell her
+the truth about her father and put an end to the scrape we're in, I
+have, certain."
+
+"Yes; well, I've made another one now.  Never, no matter what
+happens, will I attempt to tell her a word concerning Strickland
+Morley or her 'inheritance' or anything else.  Every time I've
+tried I've made a blessed idiot of myself and now I'm through.  She
+can stay with us forever and run us into debt to her heart's
+desire--I don't care.  If she ever learns the truth she sha'n't
+learn it from me.  I'm incapable of telling it.  I haven't the sand
+of a yellow dog and I'm not going to worry about it.  I'm through,
+do you hear--through."
+
+That was my newest resolution.  It was a comfort to realize that
+THIS resolution I should probably stick to.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+In Which Complications Become More Complicated
+
+
+And stick to it I did.  From that day--the day of our drive to
+Wrayton--on through those wonderful summer days in which she and
+Hephzy and I were together at the rectory, not once did I attempt
+to remonstrate with my "niece" concerning her presumption in
+inflicting her presence upon us or in spending her money, as she
+thought it--our money as I knew it to be--as she saw fit.  Having
+learned and relearned my lesson--namely, that I lacked the courage
+to tell her the truth I had so often declared must be told, having
+shifted the responsibility to Hephzy's shoulders, having admitted
+and proclaimed myself, in that respect at least, a yellow dog, I
+proceeded to take life as I found it, as yellow dogs are supposed
+to do.
+
+And, having thus weakly rid myself of care and responsibility, I
+began to enjoy that life.  To enjoy the freedom of it, and the
+novelty of the surroundings, and the friendship of the good people
+who were our neighbors.  Yes, and to enjoy the home life, the
+afternoons on the tennis court or the golf course, the evenings in
+the drawing-room, the "teas" on the lawn--either our lawn or
+someone else's--the chats together across the dinner-table; to
+enjoy it all; and, more astonishing still, to accept the
+companionship of the young person who was responsible for our
+living in that way as a regular and understood part of that life.
+
+Not that I understood the young person herself; no Bayport quahaug,
+who had shunned female companionship as I had for so long, could be
+expected to understand the whims and changing moods of a girl like
+Frances Morley.  At times she charmed and attracted me, at others
+she tormented and irritated me.  She argued with me one moment and
+disagreed the next.  She laughed at Hephzy's and my American accent
+and idioms, but when Bayliss, Junior, or one of the curates
+ventured to criticize an "Americanism" she was quite as likely to
+declare that she thought it "jolly" and "so expressive."  Against
+my will I was obliged to join in conversations, to take sides in
+arguments, to be present when callers came, to make calls.  I, who
+had avoided the society of young people because, being no longer
+young, I felt out of place among them, was now dragged into such
+society every day and almost every evening.  I did not want to be,
+but Little Frank seemed to find mischievous pleasure in keeping me
+there.
+
+"It is good for you," she said, on one occasion, when I had sneaked
+off to my room and the company of the "British Poets."  "Auntie
+says you started on your travels in order to find something new to
+write about.  You'll never find it in those musty books; every poem
+in them is at least seventy years old.  If you are going to write
+of England and my people you must know something about those that
+are alive."
+
+"But, my dear young lady," I said, "I have no intention of writing
+of your people, as you call them."
+
+"You write of knights and lords and ladies and queens.  You do--or
+you did--and you certainly know nothing about THEM."
+
+I was quite a bit ruffled.  "Indeed!" said I.  "You are quite sure
+of that, are you?"
+
+"I am," decidedly.  "I have read 'The Queen's Amulet' and no queen
+on earth--in England, surely--ever acted or spoke like that one.
+An American queen might, if there was such a thing."
+
+She laughed and, provoked as I was, I could not help laughing with
+her.  She had a most infectious laugh.
+
+"My dear young lady--" I began again, but she interrupted me.
+
+"Don't call me that," she protested.  "You're not the Archbishop of
+Canterbury visiting a girl's school and making a speech.  You asked
+me not to call you 'Uncle Hosea.'  If you say 'dear young lady' to
+me again I shall address you publicly as 'dear old Nunky.'  Don't
+be silly."
+
+I laughed again.  "But you ARE young," I said.
+
+"Well, what of it.  Perhaps neither of us likes to be reminded of
+our age.  I'm sure you don't; I never saw anyone more sensitive on
+the subject.  There! there! put away those silly old books and come
+down to the drawing-room.  I'm going to sing.  Mr. Worcester has
+brought in a lot of new music."
+
+Reluctantly I closed the volume I had in my hand.
+
+"Very well," I said; "I'll come if you wish.  But I shall only be
+in the way, as I always am.  Mr. Worcester didn't plead for my
+company, did he?  Do you know I think he will bear up manfully if I
+don't appear."
+
+She regarded me with disapproval.
+
+"Don't be childish in your old age," she snapped, "Are you coming?"
+
+I went, of course, and--it may have been by way of reward--she sang
+several old-fashioned, simple ballads which I had found in a dog's-
+eared portfolio in the music cabinet and which I liked because my
+mother used to sing them when I was a little chap.  I had asked for
+them before and she had ignored the request.
+
+This time she sang them and Hephzy, sitting beside me in the
+darkest corner reached over and laid a hand on mine.
+
+"Her mother all over again," she whispered.  "Ardelia used to sing
+those."
+
+Next day, on the tennis court, she played with Herbert Bayliss
+against Worcester and me, and seemed to enjoy beating us six to
+one.  The only regret she expressed was that she and her partner
+had not made it a "love set."
+
+Altogether she was a decidedly vitalizing influence, an influence
+that was, I began to admit to myself, a good one for me.  I needed
+to be kept alive and active, and here, in this wide-awake
+household, I couldn't be anything else.  The future did not look as
+dull and hopeless as it had when I left Bayport.  I even began to
+consider the possibilities of another novel, to hope that I might
+write one.  Jim Campbell's "prescription," although working in
+quite a different way from that which he and I had planned, was
+working nevertheless.
+
+Matthews, at the Camford Street office, was forwarding my letters
+and honoring my drafts with promptness.  I received a note each
+week from Campbell.  I had written him all particulars concerning
+Little Frank and our move to the rectory, and he professed to see
+in it only a huge joke.
+
+"Tell your Miss Cahoon," he wrote, "that I am going to turn
+Spiritualist right away.  I believe in dreams now, and presentiments
+and all sorts of things.  I am trying to dream out a plot for a
+novel by you.  Had a roof-garden supper the other night and that
+gave me a fine start, but I'll have to tackle another one before I
+get sufficient thrills to furnish forth one of your gems.  Seriously
+though, old man, this whole thing will do you a world of good.
+Nothing short of an earthquake would have shaken you out of your
+Cape Cod dumps and it looks to me as if you and--what's her name--
+Hephzibah, had had the quake.  What are you going to do with the
+Little Frank person in the end?  Can't you marry her off to a
+wealthy Englishman?  Or, if not that, why not marry her yourself?
+She'd turn a dead quahaug into a live lobster, I should imagine, if
+anyone could.  Great idea!  What?"
+
+His "great idea" was received with the contempt it deserved.
+I tore up the letter and threw it into the waste basket.
+
+But Hephzy herself spoke of matrimony and Little Frank soon after
+this.  We were alone together; Frances had gone on a horseback ride
+with Herbert Bayliss and a female cousin who was spending the day
+at "Jasmine Gables."
+
+"Hosy," said Hephzy, "do you realize the summer is half over?  It's
+the middle of July now."
+
+So it was, although it seemed scarcely possible.
+
+"Yes," she went on.  "Our lease of this place is up the first of
+October.  We shall be startin' for home then, I presume likely,
+sha'n't we."
+
+"I suppose so.  We can't stay over here indefinitely.  Life isn't
+all skittles and--and tea."
+
+"That's so.  I don't know what skittles are, but I know what tea
+is.  Land sakes!  I should say I did.  They tell me the English
+national flower is a rose.  It ought to be a tea-plant blossom, if
+there is such a thing.  Hosy," with a sudden return to seriousness,
+"what are we goin' to do with--with HER when the time comes for us
+to go?"
+
+"I don't know," I answered.
+
+"Are you going to take her to America with us?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Humph!  Well, we'll have to know then."
+
+"I suppose we shall; but," defiantly, "I'm not going to worry about
+it till the time comes."
+
+"Humph!  Well, you've changed, that's all I've got to say.  'Twan't
+so long ago that you did nothin' BUT worry.  I never saw anybody
+change the way you have anyway."
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"In every way.  You aren't like the same person you used to be.
+Why, through that last year of ours in Bayport I used to think
+sometimes you were older than I was--older in the way you thought
+and acted, I mean.  Now you act as if you were twenty-one.
+Cavortin' around, playin' tennis and golf and everything!  What has
+got into you?"
+
+"I don't know.  Jim Campbell's prescription is taking effect, I
+guess.  He said the change of air and environment would do me good.
+I tell you, Hephzy, I have made up my mind to enjoy life while I
+can.  I realize as well as you do that the trouble is bound to
+come, but I'm not going to let it trouble me beforehand.  And I
+advise you to do the same."
+
+"Well, I've been tryin' to, but sometimes I can't help wonderin'
+and dreadin'.  Perhaps I'm havin' my dread for nothin'.  It may be
+that, by the time we're ready to start for Bayport, Little Frank
+will be provided for."
+
+"Provided for?  What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean provided for by somebody else.  There's at least two
+candidates for the job:  Don't you think so?"
+
+"You mean--"
+
+"I mean Mr. Worcester and Herbert Bayliss.  That Worcester man is a
+gone case, or I'm no judge.  He's keepin' company with Frances, or
+would, if she'd let him.  'Twould be funny if she married a curate,
+wouldn't it."
+
+"Not very," I answered.  "Married life on a curate's salary is not
+my idea of humor."
+
+"I suppose likely that's so.  And I can't imagine her a minister's
+wife, can you?"
+
+I could not; nor, unless I was greatly mistaken, could the young
+lady herself.  In fact, anything as serious as marriage was far
+from her thoughts at present, I judged.  But Hephzy did not seem so
+sure.
+
+"No," she went on, "I don't think the curate's got much chance.
+But young Doctor Bayliss is different.  He's good-lookin' and smart
+and he's got prospects.  I like him first-rate and I think Frances
+likes him, too.  I shouldn't wonder if THAT affair came to
+somethin'.  Wouldn't it be splendid if it did!"
+
+I said that it would.  And yet, even as I said it, I was conscious
+of a peculiar feeling of insincerity.  I liked young Bayliss.  He
+was all that Hephzy had said, and more.  He would, doubtless, make
+a good husband for any girl.  And his engagement to Frances Morley
+might make easier the explanation which was bound to come.  I
+believed I could tell Herbert Bayliss the truth concerning the
+ridiculous "claim."  A man would be susceptible to reason and
+proof; I could convince him.  I should have welcomed the
+possibility, but, somehow or other, I did not.  Somehow or other,
+the idea of her marrying anyone was repugnant to me.  I did not
+like to think of it.
+
+"Oh dear!" sighed Hephzy; "if only things were different.  If only
+she knew all about her father and his rascality and was livin' with
+us because she wanted to--if that was the way of it, it would be so
+different.  If you and I had really adopted her!  If she only was
+your niece."
+
+"Nonsense!" I snapped.  "She isn't my niece."
+
+"I know it.  That's what makes your goodness to her seem so
+wonderful to me.  You treat her as if you cared as much as I do.
+And of course you don't.  It isn't natural you should.  She's my
+sister's child, and she's hardly any relation to you at all.
+You're awful good, Hosy.  She's noticed it, too.  I think she likes
+you now a lot better than she did; she as much as said so.  She's
+beginning to understand you."
+
+"Nonsense!" I said again.  Understand me!  I didn't understand
+myself.  Nevertheless I was foolishly pleased to hear that she
+liked me.  It was pleasant to be liked even by one who was destined
+to hate me later on.
+
+"I hope she won't feel too hard against us," continued Hephzy.  "I
+can't bear to think of her doin' that.  She--she seems so near and
+dear to me now.  We--I shall miss her dreadfully when it's all
+over."
+
+I think she hoped that I might say that I should miss her, also.
+But I did not say anything of the kind.
+
+I was resolved not to permit myself to miss her.  Hadn't I been
+scheming and planning to get rid of her ever since she thrust
+herself upon us?  To be sorry when she, at last, was gotten rid of
+would be too idiotic.
+
+"Well," observed Hephzy, in conclusion, "perhaps she and Doctor
+Bayliss will make a match after all.  We ought to help it all we
+can, I suppose."
+
+This conversation had various effects upon me.  One was to make me
+unaccountably "blue" for the rest of that day.  Another was that I
+regarded the visits of Worcester and Herbert Bayliss with a
+different eye.  I speculated foolishly concerning those visits and
+watched both young gentlemen more closely.
+
+I did not have to watch the curate long.  Suddenly he ceased
+calling at the rectory.  Not altogether, of course, but he called
+only occasionally and his manner toward my "niece" was oddly formal
+and constrained.  She was very kind to him, kinder than before, I
+thought, but there was a difference in their manner.  Hephzy, of
+course, had an explanation ready.
+
+"She's given him his clearance papers," was her way of expressing
+it.  "She's told him that it's no use so far as he's concerned.
+Well, I never did think she cared for him.  And that leaves the
+course clear for the doctor, doesn't it."
+
+The doctor took advantage of the clear course.  His calls and
+invitations for rides and tennis and golf were more frequent than
+ever.  She must have understood; but, being a normal young woman,
+as well as a very, very pretty one, she was a bit of a coquette and
+kept the boy--for, after all, he was scarcely more than that--at
+arm's length and in a state of alternate hope and despair.  I
+shared his varying moods.  If he could not be sure of her feelings
+toward him, neither could I, and I found myself wondering,
+wondering constantly.  It was foolish for me to wonder, of course.
+Why should I waste time in speculation on that subject?  Why should
+I care whether she married or not?  What difference did it make to
+me whom she married?  I resolved not to think of her at all.  And
+that resolution, like so many I had made, amounted to nothing, for
+I did think of her constantly.
+
+And then to add a new complication to the already over-complicated
+situation, came A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire.
+
+Frances and Herbert Bayliss were scheduled for nine holes of golf
+on the Manor House course that morning.  I had had no intention of
+playing.  My projected novel had reached the stage where, plot
+building completed, I had really begun the writing.  The first
+chapter was finished and I had intended beginning the second one
+that day.  But, just as I seated myself at the desk in the Reverend
+Cole's study, the young lady appeared and insisted that the twosome
+become a threesome, that I leave my "stupid old papers and pencils"
+and come for a round on the links.  I protested, of course, but she
+was in one of her wilful moods that morning and declared that she
+would not play unless I did.
+
+"It will do you good," she said.  "You'll write all the better this
+afternoon.  Now, come along."
+
+"Is Doctor Bayliss as anxious for my company as you seem to be?" I
+asked maliciously.
+
+She tossed her head.  "Of course he is," she retorted.  "Besides it
+doesn't make any difference whether he is or not.  _I_ want you to
+play, and that is enough."
+
+"Humph! he may not agree with you."
+
+"Then he can play by himself.  It will do him good, too.  He takes
+altogether too much for granted.  Come!  I am waiting."
+
+So, after a few more fruitless protests, I reluctantly laid aside
+the paper and pencils, changed to golfing regalia and, with my bag
+of clubs on my shoulder, joined the two young people on the lawn.
+
+Frances greeted me very cordially indeed.  Her clubs--I had bought
+them myself on one of my trips to London: having once yielded, in
+the matter of the tennis outfit, I now bought various little things
+which I thought would please her--were carried by Herbert Bayliss,
+who, of course, also carried his own.  His greeting was not as
+enthusiastic.  He seemed rather glum and out of sorts.  Frances
+addressed most of her conversation to me and I was inclined to
+think the pair had had some sort of disagreement, what Hephzy would
+have called a "lover's quarrel," perhaps.
+
+We walked across the main street of Mayberry, through the lane past
+the cricket field, on by the path over the pastures, and entered
+the great gate of the Manor, the gate with the Carey arms
+emblazoned above it.  Then a quarter of a mile over rolling hills,
+with rare shrubs and flowers everywhere, brought us to the top of
+the hill at the edge of the little wood which these English people
+persisted in calling a "forest."  The first tee was there.  You
+drove--if you were skillful or lucky--down the long slope to the
+green two hundred yards away.  If you were neither skillful nor
+lucky you were quite as likely to drive into the long grass on
+either side of the fair green.  Then you hunted for your ball and,
+having found it, wasted more or less labor and temper in pounding
+it out of the "rough."
+
+At the first tee a man arrayed in the perfection of natty golfing
+togs was practicing his "swing."  A caddy was carrying his bag.
+This of itself argued the swinger a person of privilege and
+consequence, for caddies on those links were strictly forbidden by
+the Lady of the Manor.  Why they were forbidden she alone knew.
+
+As we approached the tee the player turned to look at us.  He was
+not a Mayberryite and yet there was something familiar in his
+appearance.  He regarded us for a moment and then, dropping his
+driver, lounged toward me and extended his hand.
+
+"Oh, I say!" he exclaimed.  "It is you, isn't it!  How do you do?"
+
+"Why, Mr. Heathcroft!" I said.  "This is a surprise."
+
+We shook hands.  He, apparently, was not at all surprised.
+
+"Heard about your being here, Knowles," he drawled.  "My aunt told
+me; that is, she said there were Americans at the rectory and when
+she mentioned the name I knew, of course, it must be you.  Odd you
+should have located here, isn't it!  Jolly glad to see you."
+
+I said I was glad to see him.  Then I introduced my companions.
+
+"Bayliss and I have met before," observed Heathcroft.  "Played a
+round with him in the tournament last year.  How do, Bayliss?
+Don't think Miss Morley and I have met, though.  Great pleasure,
+really.  Are you a resident of Mayberry, Miss Morley?"
+
+Frances said that she was a temporary resident.
+
+"Ah! visiting here, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes.  Yes, I am visiting.  I am living at the rectory, also."
+
+"Miss Morley is Mr. Knowles's niece," explained Bayliss.
+
+Heathcroft seemed surprised.
+
+"Indeed!" he drawled.  "Didn't know you had a niece, Knowles.  She
+wasn't with you on the ship, now was she."
+
+"Miss Morley had been living in England--here and on the
+Continent," I answered.  I could have kicked Bayliss for his
+officious explanation of kinship.  Now I should have that
+ridiculous "uncle" business to contend with, in our acquaintance
+with Heathcroft as with the Baylisses and the rest.  Frances, I am
+sure, read my thoughts, for the corners of her mouth twitched and
+she looked away over the course.
+
+"Won't you ask Mr. Heathcroft to join our game--Uncle?" she said.
+She had dropped the hated "Hosea," I am happy to say, but in the
+presence of those outside the family she still addressed me as
+"Uncle."  Of course she could not do otherwise without arousing
+comment, but I did not like it.  Uncle! there was a venerable,
+antique quality in the term which I resented more and more each
+time I heard it.  It emphasized the difference in our ages--and
+that difference needed no emphasis.
+
+Heathcroft looked pleased at the invitation, but he hesitated in
+accepting it.
+
+"Oh, I shouldn't do that, really," he declared.  "I should be in
+the way, now shouldn't I."
+
+Bayliss, to whom the remark was addressed, made no answer.  I
+judged that he did not care for the honor of the Heathcroft
+company.  But Frances, after a glance in his direction, answered
+for him.
+
+"Oh, not in the least," she said.  "A foursome is ever so much more
+sporting than a threesome.  Mr. Heathcroft, you and I will play
+Doctor Bayliss and--Uncle.  Shall we?"
+
+Heathcroft declared himself delighted and honored.  He looked the
+former.  He had scarcely taken his eyes from Miss Morley since
+their introduction.
+
+That match was hard fought.  Our new acquaintance was a fair player
+and he played to win.  Frances was learning to play and had a
+natural aptitude for the game.  I played better than my usual form
+and I needed to, for Bayliss played wretchedly.  He "dubbed" his
+approaches and missed easy putts.  If he had kept his eye on the
+ball instead of on his opponents he might have done better, but
+that he would not do.  He watched Heathcroft and Miss Morley
+continually, and the more he watched the less he seemed to like
+what he saw.
+
+Perhaps he was not altogether to blame, everything considered.
+Frances was quite aware of the scrutiny and apparently enjoyed his
+discomfiture.  She--well, perhaps she did not precisely flirt with
+A. Carleton Heathcroft, but she was very, very agreeable to him and
+exulted over the winning of each hole without regard to the
+feelings of the losers.  As for Heathcroft, himself, he was quite
+as agreeable to her, complimented her on her playing, insisted on
+his caddy's carrying her clubs, assisted her over the rough places
+on the course, and generally acted the gallant in a most polished
+manner.  Bayliss and I were beaten three down.
+
+Heathcroft walked with us as far as the lodge gate.  Then he said
+good-by with evident reluctance.
+
+"Thank you so much for the game, Miss Morley," he said.  "Enjoyed
+it hugely.  You play remarkably well, if you don't mind my saying
+so."
+
+Frances was pleased.  "Thank you," she answered.  "I know it isn't
+true--that about my playing--but it is awfully nice of you to say
+it.  I hope we may play together again.  Are you staying here
+long?"
+
+"Don't know, I'm sure.  I am visiting my aunt and she will keep me
+as long as she can.  Seems to think I have neglected her of late.
+Of course we must play again.  By the way, Knowles, why don't you
+run over and meet Lady Carey?  She'll be awfully pleased to meet
+any friends of mine.  Bring Miss Morley with you.  Perhaps she
+would care to see the greenhouses.  They're quite worth looking
+over, really.  Like to have you, too, Bayliss, of course."
+
+Bayliss's thanks were not effusive.  Frances, however, declared
+that she should love to see the greenhouses.  For my part, common
+politeness demanded my asking Mr. Heathcroft to call at the
+rectory.  He accepted the invitation at once and heartily.
+
+He called the very next day and joined us at tea.  The following
+afternoon we, Hephzy, Frances and I, visited the greenhouses.  On
+this occasion we met, for the first time, the lady of the Manor
+herself.  Lady Kent Carey was a stout, gray-haired person, of very
+decided manner and a mannish taste in dress.  She was gracious and
+affable, although I suspected that much of her affability toward
+the American visitors was assumed because she wished to please her
+nephew.  A. Carleton Heathcroft, Esquire, was plainly her
+ladyship's pride and pet.  She called him "Carleton, dear," and
+"Carleton, dear" was, in his aunt's estimation, the model of
+everything desirable in man.
+
+The greenhouses were spacious and the display of rare plants and
+flowers more varied and beautiful than any I had ever seen.  We
+walked through the grounds surrounding the mansion, and viewed with
+becoming reverence the trees planted by various distinguished
+personages, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, Her late
+Majesty Queen Victoria, Ex-President Carnot of France, and others.
+Hephzy whispered to me as we were standing before the Queen
+Victoria specimen:
+
+"I don't believe Queen Victoria ever planted that in the world, do
+you, Hosy.  She'd look pretty, a fleshy old lady like her, puffin'
+away diggin' holes with a spade, now would she!"
+
+I hastily explained the probability that the hole was dug by
+someone else.
+
+Hephzy nodded.
+
+"I guess so," she added.  "And the tree was put in by someone else
+and the dirt put back by the same one.  Queen Victoria planted that
+tree the way Susanna Wixon said she broke my best platter, by not
+doin' a single thing to it.  I could plant a whole grove that way
+and not get a bit tired."
+
+Lady Carey bade us farewell at the fish-ponds and asked us to come
+again.  Her nephew, however, accompanied us all the way home--that
+is, he accompanied Frances, while Hephzy and I made up the rear
+guard.  The next day he dropped in for some tennis.  Herbert
+Bayliss was there before him, so the tennis was abandoned, and a
+three-cornered chat on the lawn substituted.  Heathcroft treated
+the young doctor with a polite condescension which would have
+irritated me exceedingly.
+
+From then on, during the fortnight which followed, there was a
+great deal of Heathcroft in the rectory social circle.  And when
+he was not there, it was fairly certain that he and Frances were
+together somewhere, golfing, walking or riding.  Sometimes I
+accompanied them, sometimes Herbert Bayliss made one of the
+party.  Frances' behavior to the young doctor was tantalizingly
+contradictory.  At times she was very cordial and kind, at others
+almost cold and repellent.  She kept the young fellow in a state of
+uncertainty most of the time.  She treated Heathcroft much the same,
+but there was this difference between them--Heathcroft didn't seem
+to mind; her whims appeared to amuse rather than to annoy him.
+Bayliss, on the contrary, was either in the seventh heaven of bliss
+or the subcellar of despair.  I sympathized with him, to an extent;
+the young lady's attitude toward me had an effect which, in my case,
+was ridiculous.  My reason told me that I should not care at all
+whether she liked me or whether she didn't, whether I pleased or
+displeased her.  But I did care, I couldn't help it, I cared
+altogether too much.  A middle-aged quahaug should be phlegmatic and
+philosophical; I once had a reputation for both qualities, but I
+seemed to possess neither now.
+
+I found myself speculating and wondering more than ever concerning
+the outcome of all this.  Was there anything serious in the wind at
+all?  Herbert Bayliss was in love with Frances Morley, that was
+obvious now.  But was she in love with him?  I doubted it.  Did she
+care in the least for him?  I did not know.  She seemed to enjoy
+his society.  I did not want her to fall in love with A. Carleton
+Heathcroft, certainly.  Nor, to be perfectly honest, did I wish her
+to marry Bayliss, although I like him much better than I did Lady
+Carey's blas� nephew.  Somehow, I didn't like the idea of her
+falling in love with anyone.  The present state of affairs in our
+household was pleasant enough.  We three were happy together.  Why
+could not that happiness continue just as it was?
+
+The answer was obvious:  It could not continue.  Each day that
+passed brought the inevitable end nearer.  My determination to put
+the thought of that end from my mind and enjoy the present was
+shaken.  In the solitude of the study, in the midst of my writing,
+after I had gone to my room for the night, I found my thoughts
+drifting toward the day in October when, our lease of the rectory
+ended, we must pack up and go somewhere.  And when we went,
+would she go with us?  Hardly.  She would demand the promised
+"settlement," and then--What then?  Explanations--quarrels--
+parting.  A parting for all time.  I had reached a point where,
+like Hephzy, I would have gladly suggested a real "adoption," the
+permanent addition to our family of Strickland Morley's daughter,
+but she would not consent to that.  She was proud--very proud.  And
+she idolized her father's memory.  No, she would not remain under
+any such conditions--I knew it.  And the certainty of that
+knowledge brought with it a pang which I could not analyze.  A man
+of my age and temperament should not have such feelings.
+
+Hephzy did not fancy Heathcroft.  She had liked him well enough
+during our first acquaintance aboard the steamer, but now, when she
+knew him better, she did not fancy him.  His lofty, condescending
+manner irritated her and, as he seemed to enjoy joking at her
+expense, the pair had some amusing set-tos.  I will say this for
+Hephzy:  In the most of these she gave at least as good as she
+received.
+
+For example: we were sitting about the tea-table on the lawn,
+Hephzy, Frances, Doctor and Mrs. Bayliss, their son, and
+Heathcroft.  The conversation had drifted to the subject of
+eatables, a topic suggested, doubtless, by the plum cake and
+cookies on the table.  Mr. Heathcroft was amusing himself by poking
+fun at the American custom of serving cereals at breakfast.
+
+"And the variety is amazing," he declared.  "Oats and wheat and
+corn!  My word!  I felt like some sort of animal--a horse, by Jove!
+We feed our horses that sort of thing over here, Miss Cahoon."
+
+Hephzy sniffed.  "So do we," she admitted, "but we eat 'em
+ourselves, sometimes, when they're cooked as they ought to be.
+I think some breakfast foods are fine."
+
+"Do you indeed?  What an extraordinary taste!  Do you eat hay as
+well, may I ask?"
+
+"No, of course we don't."
+
+"Why not?  Why draw the line?  I should think a bit of hay might be
+the--ah--the crowning tit-bit to a breakfasting American.  Your
+horses and donkeys enjoy it quite as much as they do oats, don't
+they?"
+
+"Don't know, I'm sure.  I'm neither a horse nor a donkey, I hope."
+
+"Yes.  Oh, yes.  But I assure you, Miss Morley, I had extraordinary
+experiences on the other side.  I visited in a place called
+Milwaukee and my host there insisted on my trying a new cereal each
+morning.  We did the oats and the corn and all the rest and, upon
+my word, I expected the hay.  It was the only donkey food he didn't
+have in the house, and I don't see why he hadn't provided a supply
+of that."
+
+"Perhaps he didn't know you were comin'," observed Hephzy,
+cheerfully.  "Won't you have another cup, Mrs. Bayliss?  Or a cooky
+or somethin'?"
+
+The doctor's wife consented to the refilling of her cup.
+
+"I suppose--what do you call them?--cereals, are an American
+custom," she said, evidently aware that her hostess's feelings were
+ruffled.  "Every country has its customs, so travelers say.  Even
+our own has some, doubtless, though I can't recall any at the
+moment."
+
+Heathcroft stroked his mustache.
+
+"Oh," he drawled, "we have some, possibly; but our breakfasts are
+not as queer as the American breakfasts.  You mustn't mind my fun,
+Miss Cahoon, I hope you're not offended."
+
+"Not a bit," was the calm reply.  "We humans ARE animals, after
+all, I suppose, and some like one kind of food and some another.
+Donkeys like hay and pigs like sweets, and I don't know as I hadn't
+just as soon live in a stable as a sty.  Do help yourself to the
+cake, Mr. Heathcroft."
+
+No, our aristocratic acquaintance did not, as a general rule, come
+out ahead in these little encounters and I more than once was
+obliged to suppress a chuckle at my plucky relative's spirited
+retorts.  Frances, too, seemed to appreciate and enjoy the Yankee
+victories.  Her prejudice against America had, so far as outward
+expression went, almost disappeared.  She was more likely to
+champion than criticize our ways and habits now.
+
+But, in spite of all this, she seemed to enjoy the Heathcroft
+society.  The two were together a great deal.  The village people
+noticed the intimacy and comments reached my ears which were not
+intended for them.  Hephzy and I had some discussions on the
+subject.
+
+"You don't suppose he means anything serious, do you, Hosy?" she
+asked.  "Or that she thinks he does?"
+
+"I don't know," I answered.  I didn't like the idea any better than
+she did.
+
+"I hope not.  Of course he's a big man around here.  When his aunt
+dies he'll come in for the estate and the money, so everybody says.
+And if Frances should marry him she'd be--I don't know whether
+she'd be a 'Lady' or not, but she'd have an awful high place in
+society."
+
+"I suppose she would.  But I hope she won't do it."
+
+"So do I, for poor young Doctor Bayliss's sake, if nothin' else.
+He's so good and so patient with it all.  And he's just eaten up
+with jealousy; anybody can see that.  I'm scared to death that he
+and this Heathcroft man will have some sort of--of a fight or
+somethin'.  That would be awful, wouldn't it!"
+
+I did not answer.  My apprehensions were not on Herbert Bayliss's
+account.  He could look out for himself.  It was Frances' happiness
+I was thinking of.
+
+"Hosy," said Hephzy, very seriously indeed, "there's somethin'
+else.  I'm not sure that Mr. Heathcroft is serious at all.
+Somethin' Mrs. Bayliss said to me makes me feel a little mite
+anxious.  She said Carleton Heathcroft was a great lady's man.  She
+told me some things about him that--that--Well, I wish Frances
+wasn't so friendly with him, that's all."
+
+I shrugged my shoulders, pretending more indifference than I felt.
+
+"She's a sensible girl," said I.  "She doesn't need a guardian."
+
+"I know, but--but he's way up in society, Lady Carey's heir and all
+that.  She can't help bein' flattered by his attentions to her.
+Any girl would be, especially an English girl that thinks as much
+of class and all that as they do over here and as she does.  I wish
+I knew how she did feel toward him."
+
+"Why don't you ask her?"
+
+Hephzy shook her head.  "I wouldn't dare," she said.  "She'd take
+my head off.  We're on awful thin ice, you and I, with her, as it
+is.  She treats us real nicely now, but that's because we don't
+interfere.  If I should try just once to tell her what she ought to
+do she'd flare up like a bonfire.  And then do the other thing to
+show her independence."
+
+"I suppose she would," I admitted, gloomily.
+
+"I know she would.  No, we mustn't say anything to her.  But--but
+you might say somethin' to him, mightn't you.  Just hint around and
+find out what he does mean by bein' with her so much.  Couldn't you
+do that, Hosy?"
+
+I smiled.  "Possibly I could, but I sha'n't," I answered.  "He
+would tell me to go to perdition, probably, and I shouldn't blame
+him."
+
+"Why no, he wouldn't.  He thinks you're her uncle, her guardian,
+you know.  You'd have a right to do it."
+
+I did not propose to exercise that right, and I said so,
+emphatically.  And yet, before that week was ended, I did do what
+amounted to that very thing.  The reason which led to this rash act
+on my part was a talk I had with Lady Kent Carey.
+
+I met her ladyship on the putting green of the ninth hole of the
+golf course.  I was playing a round alone.  She came strolling over
+the green, dressed as mannishly as usual, but carrying a very
+feminine parasol, which by comparison with the rest of her get-up,
+looked as out of place as a silk hat on the head of a girl in a
+ball dress.  She greeted me very affably, waited until I putted
+out, and then sat beside me on the bench under the big oak and
+chatted for some time.
+
+The subject of her conversation was her nephew.  She was,
+apparently, only too glad to talk about him at any time.  He was
+her dead sister's child and practically the only relative she had.
+He seemed like a son to her.  Such a charming fellow, wasn't he,
+now?  And so considerate and kind to her.  Everyone liked him; he
+was a great favorite.
+
+"And he is very fond of you, Mr. Knowles," she said.  "He enjoys
+your acquaintance so much.  He says that there is a freshness and
+novelty about you Americans which is quite delightfully amusing.
+This Miss--ah--Cahoon--your cousin, I think she is--is a constant
+joy to him.  He never tires of repeating her speeches.  He does it
+very well, don't you think.  He mimics the American accent
+wonderfully."
+
+I agreed that the Heathcroft American accent was wonderful indeed.
+It was all that and more.  Lady Carey went on.
+
+"And this Miss Morley, your niece," she said, poking holes in the
+turf with the tip of her parasol, "she is a charming girl, isn't
+she.  She and Carleton are quite friendly, really."
+
+"Yes," I admitted, "they seem to be."
+
+"Yes.  Tell me about your niece, Mr. Knowles.  Has she lived in
+England long?  Who were her parents?"
+
+I dodged the ticklish subject as best I could, told her that
+Frances' father was an Englishman, her mother an American, and that
+most of the young lady's life had been spent in France.  I feared
+more searching questions, but she did not ask them.
+
+"I see," she said, nodding, and was silent for a moment.  Then she
+changed the subject, returning once more to her beloved Carleton.
+
+"He's a dear boy," she declared.  "I am planning great things for
+him.  Some day he will have the estate here, of course.  And I am
+hoping to get him the seat in Parliament when our party returns to
+power, as it is sure to do before long.  He will marry then; in
+fact everything is arranged, so far as that goes.  Of course there
+is no actual engagement as yet, but we all understand."
+
+I had been rather bored, now I was interested.
+
+"Indeed!" said I.  "And may I ask who is the fortunate young lady?"
+
+"A daughter of an old friend of ours in Warwickshire--a fine
+family, one of the oldest in England.  She and Carleton have always
+been so fond of each other.  Her parents and I have considered the
+affair settled for years.  The young people will be so happy
+together."
+
+Here was news.  I offered congratulations.
+
+"Thank you so much," she said.  "It is pleasant to know that his
+future is provided for.  Margaret will make him a good wife.  She
+worships him.  If anything should happen to--ah--disturb the
+arrangement her heart would break, I am sure.  Of course nothing
+will happen.  I should not permit it."
+
+I made some comment, I don't remember what.  She rose from the
+bench.
+
+"I have been chatting about family affairs and matchmaking like a
+garrulous old woman, haven't I," she observed, smiling.  "So silly
+of me.  You have been charmingly kind to listen, Mr. Knowles.
+Forgive me, won't you.  Carleton dear is my one interest in life
+and I talk of him on the least excuse, or without any.  So sorry to
+have inflicted my garrulity upon you.  I may count upon you
+entering our invitation golf tournament next month, may I not?  Oh,
+do say yes.  Thank you so much.  Au revoir."
+
+She moved off, as imposing and majestic as a frigate under full
+sail.  I walked slowly toward home, thinking hard.
+
+I should have been flattered, perhaps, at her taking me into
+confidence concerning her nephew's matrimonial projects.  If I
+had believed the "garrulity," as she called it, to have been
+unintentional, I might have been flattered.  But I did not so
+believe.  I was pretty certain there was intention in it and that
+she expected Frances and Hephzy and me to take it as a warning.
+Carleton dear was, in her eyes, altogether too friendly with the
+youngest tenant in Mayberry rectory.  The "garrulity" was a notice
+to keep hands off.
+
+I was not incensed at her; she amused me, rather.  But with
+Heathcroft I was growing more incensed every moment.  Engaged to be
+married, was he!  He and this Warwickshire girl of "fine family"
+had been "so fond" of each other for years.  Everything was
+understood, was it?  Then what did he mean by his attentions to
+Frances, attentions which half of Mayberry was probably discussing
+at the moment?  The more I considered his conduct the angrier I
+became.  It was the worst time possible for a meeting with A.
+Carleton Heathcroft, and yet meet him I did at the loneliest and
+most secluded spot in the hedged lane leading to the lodge gate.
+
+He greeted me cordially enough, if his languid drawl could be
+called cordial.
+
+"Ah, Knowles," he said.  "Been doing the round I see.  A bit stupid
+by oneself, I should think.  What?  Miss Morley and I have been
+riding.  Had a ripping canter together."
+
+It was an unfortunate remark, just at that time.  It had the effect
+of spurring my determination to the striking point.  I would have
+it out with him then and there.
+
+"Heathcroft," I said, bluntly, "I am not sure that I approve of
+Miss Morley's riding with you so often."
+
+He regarded me with astonishment.
+
+"You don't approve!" he repeated.  "And why not?  There's no
+danger.  She rides extremely well."
+
+"It's not a question of danger.  It is one of proprieties, if I
+must put it that way.  She is a young woman, hardly more than a
+girl, and she probably does not realize that being seen in your
+company so frequently is likely to cause comment and gossip.  Her
+aunt and I realize it, however."
+
+His expression of surprise was changing to one of languid
+amusement.
+
+"Really!" he drawled.  "By Jove!  I say, Knowles, am I such a
+dangerously fascinating character?  You flatter me."
+
+"I don't know anything concerning your character.  I do know that
+there is gossip.  I am not accusing you of anything.  I have no
+doubt you have been merely careless.  Your intentions may have
+been--"
+
+He interrupted me.  "My intentions?" he repeated.  "My dear fellow,
+I have no intentions.  None whatever concerning your niece, if that
+is what you mean.  She is a jolly pretty girl and jolly good
+company.  I like her and she seems to like me.  That is all, upon
+my word it is."
+
+He was quite sincere, I was convinced of it.  But I had gone too
+far to back out.
+
+"Then you have been thoughtless--or careless," I said.  "It seems
+to me that you should have considered her."
+
+"Considered her!  Oh, I say now!  Why should I consider her pray?"
+
+"Why shouldn't you?  You are much older than she is and a man of
+the world besides.  And you are engaged to be married, or so I am
+told."
+
+His smile disappeared.
+
+"Now who the devil told you that?" he demanded.
+
+"I was told, by one who should know, that you were engaged, or what
+amounts to the same thing.  It is true, isn't it?"
+
+"Of course it's true!  But--but--why, good God, man! you weren't
+under the impression that I was planning to marry your niece, were
+you?  Oh, I say! that would be TOO good!"
+
+He laughed heartily.  He did not appear in the least annoyed or
+angry, but seemed to consider the whole affair a huge joke.  I
+failed to see the joke, myself.
+
+"Oh, no," he went on, before I could reply, "not that, I assure
+you.  One can't afford luxuries of that kind, unless one is a
+luckier beggar than I am.  Auntie is attending to all that sort of
+thing.  She has me booked, you know, and I can't afford to play the
+high-spirited independent with her.  I should say not!  Rather!"
+
+He laughed again.
+
+"So you think I've been a bit too prevalent in your niece's
+neighborhood, do you?" he observed.  "Sorry.  I'd best keep off the
+lawn a bit, you mean to say, I suppose.  Very well!  I'll mind the
+notice boards, of course.  Very glad you spoke.  Possibly I have
+been a bit careless.  No offence meant, Knowles, and none taken, I
+trust."
+
+"No," I said, with some reluctance.  "I'm glad you understand my--
+our position, and take my--my hint so well.  I disliked to give it,
+but I thought it best that we have a clear understanding."
+
+"Of course!  Stern uncle and pretty niece, and all that sort of
+thing.  You Americans are queer beggars.  You don't strike me as
+the usual type of stern uncle at all, Knowles.  Oh, by the way,
+does the niece know that uncle is putting up the notice boards?"
+
+"Of course she doesn't," I replied, hastily.
+
+His smile broadened.  "I wonder what she'll say when she finds it
+out," he observed.  "She has never struck me as being greatly in
+awe of her relatives.  I should call HER independent, if I was
+asked.  Well, farewell.  You and I may have some golf together
+still, I presume?  Good!  By-by."
+
+He sauntered on, his serene coolness and calm condescension
+apparently unruffled.  I continued on my way also.  But my serenity
+had vanished.  I had the feeling that I had come off second-best in
+the encounter.  I had made a fool of myself, I feared.  And more
+than all, I wondered, as he did, what Frances Morley would say when
+she learned of my interference in her personal affairs.
+
+I foresaw trouble--more trouble.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+In Which the Truth Is Told at Last
+
+
+I said nothing to Hephzibah or Frances of my talk with Lady Carey
+or with Heathcroft.  I was not proud of my share in the putting up
+of "the notice boards."  I did not mention meeting either the
+titled aunt or the favored nephew.  I kept quiet concerning them
+both and nervously awaited developments.
+
+There were none immediately.  That day and the next passed and
+nothing of importance happened.  It did seem to me, however, that
+Frances was rather quiet during luncheon on the third day.  She
+said very little and several times I found her regarding me with an
+odd expression.  My guilty conscience smote me and I expected to be
+asked questions answering which would be difficult.  But the
+questions were not asked--then.  I went to my study and attempted
+to write; the attempt was a failure.
+
+For an hour or so I stared hopelessly at the blank paper.  I hadn't
+an idea in my head, apparently.  At last I threw down the pencil
+and gave up the battle for the day.  I was not in a writing mood.
+I lit my pipe, and, moving to the arm-chair by the window, sat
+there, looking out at the lawn and flower beds.  No one was in
+sight except Grimmer, the gardener, who was trimming a hedge.
+
+I sat there for some time, smoking and thinking.  Hephzy dressed in
+her best, passed the window on her way to the gate.  She was going
+for a call in the village and had asked me to accompany her, but I
+declined.  I did not feel like calling.
+
+My pipe, smoked out, I put in my pocket.  If I could have gotten
+rid of my thoughts as easily I should have been happier, but that I
+could not do.  They were strange thoughts, hopeless thoughts,
+ridiculous, unavailing thoughts.  For me, Kent Knowles, quahaug, to
+permit myself to think in that way was worse than ridiculous; it
+was pitiful.  This was a stern reality, this summer of mine in
+England, not a chapter in one of my romances.  They ended happily;
+it was easy to make them end in that way.  But this--this was no
+romance, or, if it was, I was but the comic relief in the story,
+the queer old bachelor who had made a fool of himself.  That was
+what I was, an old fool.  Well, I must stop being a fool before it
+was too late.  No one knew I was such a fool.  No one should know--
+now or ever.
+
+And having reached this philosophical conclusion I proceeded to
+dream of dark eyes looking into mine across a breakfast table--our
+table; of a home in Bayport--our home; of someone always with me,
+to share my life, my hopes, to spur me on to a work worth while, to
+glory in my triumphs and comfort me in my reverses; to dream of
+what might have been if--if it were not absolutely impossible.  Oh,
+fool, fool, fool!
+
+A quick step sounded on the gravel walk outside the window.  I knew
+the step, should have recognized it anywhere.  She was walking
+rapidly toward the house, her head bent and her eyes fixed upon the
+path before her.  Grimmer touched his hat and said "Good afternoon,
+miss," but she apparently did not hear him.  She passed on and I
+heard her enter the hall.  A moment later she knocked at the study
+door.
+
+She entered the room in answer to my invitation and closed the door
+behind her.  She was dressed in her golfing costume, a plain white
+shirtwaist--blouse, she would have called it--a short, dark skirt
+and stout boots.  The light garden hat was set upon her dark hair
+and her cheeks were flushed from rapid walking.  The hat and waist
+and skirt were extremely becoming.  She was pretty--yes, beautiful--
+and young.  I was far from beautiful and far from young.  I make
+this obvious statement because it was my thought at the moment.
+
+She did not apologize for interrupting me, as she usually did when
+she entered the study during my supposed working periods.  This was
+strange, of itself, and my sense of guilt caused me to fear all
+sorts of things.  But she smiled and answered my greeting
+pleasantly enough and, for the moment, I experienced relief.
+Perhaps, after all, she had not learned of my interview with
+Heathcroft.
+
+"I have come to talk with you," she began.  "May I sit down?"
+
+"Certainly.  Of course you may," I answered, smiling as cheerfully
+as I could.  "Was it necessary to ask permission?"
+
+She took a chair and I seated myself in the one from which I had
+just risen.  For a moment she was silent.  I ventured a remark.
+
+"This begins very solemnly," I said.  "Is the talk to be so very
+serious?"
+
+She was serious enough and my apprehensions returned.
+
+"I don't know," she answered.  "I hope it may not be serious at
+all, Mr. Knowles."
+
+I interrupted.  "Mr. Knowles!" I repeated.  "Whew! this IS a formal
+interview.  I thought the 'Mr. Knowles' had been banished along
+with 'Uncle Hosea'."
+
+She smiled slightly then.  "Perhaps it has," she said.  "I am just
+a little troubled--or puzzled--and I have come to you for advice."
+
+"Advice?" I repeated.  "I'm afraid my advice isn't worth much.
+What sort of advice do you want?"
+
+"I wanted to know what I should do in regard to an invitation I
+have received to motor with Doctor Bayliss--Doctor Herbert Bayliss.
+He has asked me to go with him to Edgeboro to-morrow.  Should I
+accept?"
+
+I hesitated.  Then:  "Alone?" I asked.
+
+"No.  His cousin, Miss Tomlinson, will go also."
+
+"I see no reason why you should not, if you wish to go."
+
+"Thank you.  But suppose it was alone?"
+
+"Then--Well, I presume that would be all right, too.  You have
+motored with him before, you know."
+
+As a matter of fact, I couldn't see why she asked my opinion in
+such a matter.  She had never asked it before.  Her next remark was
+more puzzling still.
+
+"You approve of Doctor Bayliss, don't you," she said.  It did seem
+to me there was a hint of sarcasm in her tone.
+
+"Yes--certainly," I answered.  I did approve of young Bayliss,
+generally speaking; there was no sane reason why I should not have
+approved of him absolutely.
+
+"And you trust me?  You believe me capable of judging what is right
+or wrong?"
+
+"Of course I do."
+
+"If you didn't you would not presume to interfere in my personal
+affairs?  You would not think of doing that, of course?"
+
+"No--o," more slowly.
+
+"Why do you hesitate?  Of course you realize that you have no
+shadow of right to interfere.  You know perfectly well why I
+consented to remain here for the present and why I have remained?"
+
+"Yes, yes, I know that."
+
+"And you wouldn't presume to interfere?"
+
+"Doctor Herbert Bayliss is--"
+
+She sprang to her feet.  She was not smiling now.
+
+"Stop!" she interrupted, sharply.  "Stop!  I did not come to
+discuss Doctor Bayliss.  I have asked you a question.  I ask you if
+you would presume to interfere in my personal affairs.  Would you?"
+
+"Why, no.  That is, I--"
+
+"You say that to me!  YOU!"
+
+"Frances, if you mean that I have interfered between you and the
+Doctor, I--"
+
+She stamped her foot.
+
+"Stop!  Oh, stop!" she cried.  "You know what I mean.  What did you
+say to Mr. Heathcroft?  Do you dare tell me you have not interfered
+there?"
+
+It had come, the expected.  Her smile and the asking for "advice"
+had been apparently but traps to catch me off my guard.  I had been
+prepared for some such scene as this, but, in spite of my
+preparations, I hesitated and faltered.  I must have looked like
+the meanest of pickpockets caught in the act.
+
+"Frances," I stammered, "Frances--"
+
+Her fury took my breath away.
+
+"Don't call me Frances," she cried.  "How dare you call me that?"
+
+Perturbed as I was I couldn't resist making the obvious retort.
+
+"You asked me to," I said.
+
+"I asked you!  Yes, I did.  You had been kind to me, or I thought
+you had, and I--I was foolish.  Oh, how I hate myself for doing it!
+But I was beginning to think you a gentleman.  In spite of
+everything, I was beginning to--And now!  Oh, at least I thought
+you wouldn't LIE to me."
+
+I rose now.
+
+"Frances--Miss Morley," I said, "do you realize what you are
+saying?"
+
+"Realize it!  Oh," with a scornful laugh, "I realize it quite well;
+you may be sure of that.  Don't you like the word?  What else do
+you call a denial of what we both know to be the truth.  You did
+see Mr. Heathcroft.  You did speak with him."
+
+"Yes, I did."
+
+"You did!  You admit it!"
+
+"I admit it.  But did he tell you what I said?"
+
+"He did not.  Mr. Heathcroft IS a gentleman.  He told me very
+little and that only in answer to my questions.  I knew you and he
+met the other day.  You did not mention it, but you were seen
+together, and when he did not come for the ride to which he had
+invited me I thought it strange.  And his note to me was stranger
+still.  I began to suspect then, and when we next met I asked him
+some questions.  He told me next to nothing, but he is honorable
+and he does not LIE.  I learned enough, quite enough."
+
+I wondered if she had learned of the essential thing, of
+Heathcroft's engagement.
+
+"Did he tell you why I objected to his intimacy with you?" I asked.
+
+"He told me nothing!  Nothing!  The very fact that you had
+objected, as you call it, was sufficient.  Object!  YOU object to
+my doing as I please!  YOU meddle with my affairs!  And humiliate
+me in the eyes of my friends!  I could--I could die of shame!
+I . . .  And as if I did not know your reasons.  As if they were
+not perfectly plain."
+
+The real reason could not be plain to her.  Heathcroft evidently
+had not told her of the Warwickshire heiress.
+
+"I don't understand," I said, trying my hardest to speak calmly.
+"What reasons?"
+
+"Must I tell you?  Did you OBJECT to my friendship with Doctor
+Bayliss, pray?"
+
+"Doctor Bayliss!  Why, Doctor Bayliss is quite different.  He is a
+fine young fellow, and--"
+
+"Yes," with scornful sarcasm, "so it would appear.  You and my aunt
+and he have the most evident of understandings.  You need not
+praise him for my benefit.  It is quite apparent how you both feel
+toward Doctor Bayliss.  I am not blind.  I have seen how you have
+thrown him in my company, and made opportunities for me to meet
+him.  Oh, of course, I can see!  I did not believe it at first.  It
+was too absurd, too outrageously impertinent.  I COULDN'T believe
+it.  But now I know."
+
+This was a little too much.  The idea that I--_I_ had been playing
+the matchmaker for Bayliss's benefit made me almost as angry as she
+was.
+
+"Nonsense!" I declared.  "Miss Morley, this is too ridiculous to go
+on.  I did speak to Mr. Heathcroft.  There was a reason, a good
+reason, for my doing so."
+
+"I do not wish to hear your reason, as you call it.  The fact that
+you did speak to him concerning me is enough.  Mr. Knowles, this
+arrangement of ours, my living here with you, has gone on too long.
+I should have known it was impossible in the beginning.  But I did
+not know.  I was alone--and ill--and I did need friends--I was SO
+alone.  I had been through so much.  I had struggled and suffered
+and--"
+
+Again, as in our quarrel at Wrayton, she was on the verge of tears.
+And again that unreasonable conscience of mine smote me.  I longed
+to--Well, to prove myself the fool I was.
+
+But she did not give me the opportunity.  Before I could speak or
+move she was on her way to the door.
+
+"This ends it," she said.  "I shall go away from here at once.  I
+shall put the whole matter in my solicitor's hands.  This is an end
+of forbearance and all the rest.  I am going.  You have made me
+hate you and despise you.  I only hope that--that some day you will
+despise yourself as much.  But you won't," scornfully.  "You are
+not that sort."
+
+The door closed.  She was gone.  Gone!  And soon--the next day at
+the latest--she would have been gone for good.  This WAS the end.
+
+I walked many miles that day, how many I do not know.  Dinner was
+waiting for me when I returned, but I could not eat.  I rose from
+the table, went to the study and sat there, alone with my misery.
+I was torn with the wildest longings and desires.  One, I think,
+was to kill Heathcroft forthwith.  Another was to kill myself.
+
+There came another knock at the door.  This time I made no answer.
+I did not want to see anyone.
+
+But the door opened, nevertheless, and Hephzy came in.  She crossed
+the room and stood by my chair.
+
+"What is it, Hosy?" she said, gently.  "You must tell me all about
+it."
+
+I made some answer, told her to go away and leave me, I think.  If
+that was it she did not heed.  She put her hand upon my shoulder.
+
+"You must tell me, Hosy," she said.  "What has happened?  You and
+Frances have had some fallin' out, I know.  She wouldn't come to
+dinner, either, and she won't see me.  She's up in her room with
+the door shut.  Tell me, Hosy; you and I have fought each other's
+battles for a good many years.  You can't fight this one alone;
+I've got to do my share.  Tell me, dearie, please."
+
+And tell her I did.  I did not mean to, and yet somehow the thought
+that she was there, so strong and quiet and big-hearted and
+sensible, was, if not a comfort to me, at least a marvelous help.
+I began by telling her a little and then went on to tell her all,
+of my talk with Lady Carey, my meeting with Heathcroft, the scene
+with Frances--everything, word for word.
+
+When it was over she patted my shoulder.
+
+"You did just right, Hosy," she said.  "There was nothin' else you
+could do.  I never liked that Heathcroft man.  And to think of him,
+engaged to another girl, trottin' around with Frances the way he
+has.  I'D like to talk with him.  He'd get a piece of MY mind."
+
+"He's all right enough," I admitted grudgingly.  "He took my
+warning in a very good sort, I must say.  He has never meant
+anything serious.  It was just his way, that's all.  He was amusing
+himself in her company, and doubtless thought she would be
+flattered with his aristocratic attentions."
+
+"Humph!  Well, I guess she wouldn't be if she'd known of that other
+girl.  You didn't tell her that, you say."
+
+"I couldn't.  I think I should, perhaps, if she would have
+listened.  I'm glad I didn't.  It isn't a thing for me to tell
+her."
+
+"I understand.  But she ought to know it, just the same.  And she
+ought to know how good you've been to her.  Nobody could be better.
+She must know it.  Whether she goes or whether she doesn't she must
+know that."
+
+I seized her arm.  "You mustn't tell her a word," I cried.  "She
+mustn't know.  It is better she should go.  Better for her and for
+me--My God, yes! so much better for me."
+
+I could feel the arm on my shoulder start.  Hephzy bent down and
+looked into my face.  I tried to avoid the scrutiny, but she looked
+and looked.  Then she drew a long breath.
+
+"Hosy!" she exclaimed.  "Hosy!"
+
+"Don't speak to me.  Oh, Hephzy," with a bitter laugh, "did you
+ever dream there could be such a hopeless lunatic as I am!  You
+needn't say it.  I know the answer."
+
+"Hosy!  Hosy! you poor boy!"
+
+She kissed me, soothing me as she had when I came home to our empty
+house at the time of my mother's death.  That memory came back to
+me even then.
+
+"Forgive me, Hephzy," I said.  "I am ashamed of myself, of course.
+And don't worry.  Nobody knows this but you and I, and nobody else
+shall.  I'm going to behave and I'm going to be sensible.  Just
+forget all this for my sake.  I mean to forget it, too."
+
+But Hephzy shook her head.
+
+"It's all my fault," she said.  "I'm to blame more than anybody
+else.  It was me that brought her here in the first place and me
+that kept you from tellin' her the truth in the beginnin'.  So it's
+me who must tell her now."
+
+"Hephzy!"
+
+"Oh, I don't mean the truth about--about what you and I have just
+said, Hosy.  She'll never know that, perhaps.  Certainly she'll
+never know it from me.  But the rest of it she must know.  This has
+gone far enough.  She sha'n't go away from this house misjudgin'
+you, thinkin' you're a thief, as well as all the rest of it.  That
+she sha'n't do.  I shall see to that--now."
+
+"Hephzy, I forbid you to--"
+
+"You can't forbid me, Hosy.  It's my duty, and I've been a silly,
+wicked old woman and shirked that duty long enough.  Now don't
+worry any more.  Go to your room, dearie, and lay down.  If you get
+to sleep so much the better.  Though I guess," with a sigh, "we
+sha'n't either of us sleep much this night."
+
+Before I could prevent her she had left the room.  I sprang after
+her, to call her back, to order her not to do the thing she had
+threatened.  But, in the drawing-room, Charlotte, the housemaid,
+met me with an announcement.
+
+"Doctor Bayliss--Doctor Herbert Bayliss--is here, sir," she said.
+"He has called to see you."
+
+"To see me?" I repeated, trying hard to recover some measure of
+composure.  "To see Miss Frances, you mean."
+
+"No, sir.  He says he wants to see you alone.  He's in the hall
+now, sir."
+
+He was; I could hear him.  Certainly I never wished to see anyone
+less, but I could not refuse.
+
+"Ask him to come into the study, Charlotte," said I.
+
+The young doctor found me sitting in the chair by the desk.  The
+long English twilight was almost over and the room was in deep
+shadow.  Charlotte entered and lighted the lamp.  I was strongly
+tempted to order her to desist, but I could scarcely ask my visitor
+to sit in the dark, however much I might prefer to do so.  I
+compromised by moving to a seat farther from the lamp where my face
+would be less plainly visible.  Then, Bayliss having, on my
+invitation, also taken a chair, I waited for him to state his
+business.
+
+It was not easy to state, that was plain.  Ordinarily Herbert
+Bayliss was cool and self-possessed.  I had never before seen him
+as embarrassed as he seemed to be now.  He fidgeted on the edge of
+the chair, crossed and recrossed his legs, and, finally, offered
+the original remark that it had been an extremely pleasant day.  I
+admitted the fact and again there was an interval of silence.  I
+should have helped him, I suppose.  It was quite apparent that his
+was no casual call and, under ordinary circumstances, I should have
+been interested and curious.  Now I did not care.  If he would say
+his say and go away and leave me I should be grateful.
+
+And, at last, he said it.  His next speech was very much nearer the
+point.
+
+"Mr. Knowles," he said, "I have called to--to see you concerning
+your niece, Miss Morley.  I--I have come to ask your consent to my
+asking her to marry me."
+
+I was not greatly surprised.  I had vaguely suspected his purpose
+when he entered the room.  I had long foreseen the likelihood of
+some such interview as this, had considered what I should say when
+the time came.  But now it had come, I could say nothing.  I sat in
+silence, looking at him.
+
+Perhaps he thought I did not understand.  At any rate he hastened
+to explain.
+
+"I wish your permission to marry your niece," he repeated.  "I have
+no doubt you are surprised.  Perhaps you fancy I am a bit hasty.  I
+suppose you do.  But I--I care a great deal for her, Mr. Knowles.
+I will try to make her a good husband.  Not that I am good enough
+for her, of course--no one could be that, you know; but I'll try
+and--and--"
+
+He was very red in the face and floundered, amid his jerky
+sentences, like a newly-landed fish, but he stuck to it manfully.
+I could not help admiring the young fellow.  He was so young and
+handsome and so honest and boyishly eager in his embarrassment.  I
+admired him--yes, but I hated him, too, hated him for his youth and
+all that it meant, I was jealous--bitterly, wickedly jealous, and
+of all jealousy, hopeless, unreasonable jealousy is the worst, I
+imagine.
+
+He went on to speak of his ambitions and prospects.  He did not
+intend to remain always in Mayberry as his father's assistant, not
+he.  He should remain for a time, of course, but then he intended
+to go back to London.  There were opportunities there.  A fellow
+with the right stuff in him could get on there.  He had friends in
+the London hospitals and they had promised to put chances his way.
+He should not presume to marry Frances at once, of course.  He
+would not be such a selfish goat as that.  All he asked was that,
+my permission granted, she would be patient and wait a bit until he
+got on his feet, professionally he meant to say, and then--
+
+I interrupted.
+
+"One moment," said I, trying to appear calm and succeeding
+remarkably well, considering the turmoil in my brain; "just a
+moment, Bayliss, if you please.  Have you spoken to Miss Morley
+yet?  Do you know her feelings toward you?"
+
+No, he had not.  Of course he wouldn't do that until he and I had
+had our understanding.  He had tried to be honorable and all that.
+But--but he thought she did not object to him.  She--well, she had
+seemed to like him well enough.  There had been times when he
+thought she--she--
+
+"Well, you see, sir," he said, "she's a girl, of course, and a
+fellow never knows just what a girl is going to say or do.  There
+are times when one is sure everything is quite right and then that
+it is all wrong.  But I have hoped--I believe--She's such a ripping
+girl, you know.  She would not flirt with a chap and--I don't mean
+flirt exactly, she isn't a flirt, of course--but--don't you think
+she likes me, now?"
+
+"I have no reason to suppose she doesn't," I answered grudgingly.
+After all, he was acting very honorably; I could scarcely do less.
+
+He seemed to find much comfort in my equivocal reply.
+
+"Thanks, thanks awfully," he exclaimed.  "I--I--by Jove, you know,
+I can't tell you how I like to hear you say that!  I'm awfully
+grateful to you, Knowles, I am really.  And you'll give me
+permission to speak to her?"
+
+I smiled; it was not a happy smile, but there was a certain ironic
+humor in the situation.  The idea of anyone's seeking my
+"permission" in any matter concerning Frances Morley.  He noticed
+the smile and was, I think, inclined to be offended.
+
+"Is it a joke?" he asked.  "I say, now! it isn't a joke to me."
+
+"Nor to me, I assure you," I answered, seriously.  "If I gave that
+impression it was a mistaken one.  I never felt less like joking."
+
+He put his own interpretation on the last sentence.  "I'm sorry,"
+he said, quickly.  "I beg your pardon.  I understand, of course.
+You're very fond of her; no one could help being that, could they.
+And she is your niece."
+
+I hesitated.  I was minded to blurt out the fact that she was not
+my niece at all; that I had no authority over her in any way.  But
+what would be the use?  It would lead only to explanations and I
+did not wish to make explanations.  I wanted to get through with
+the whole inane business and be left alone.
+
+"But you haven't said yes, have you," he urged.  "You will say it,
+won't you?"
+
+I nodded.  "You have my permission, so far as that goes," I
+answered.
+
+He sprang to his feet and seized my hand.
+
+"That's topping!" he cried, his face radiant.  "I can't thank you
+enough."
+
+"That's all right.  But there is one thing more.  Perhaps it isn't
+my affair, and you needn't answer unless you wish.  Have you
+consulted your parents?  How do they feel about your--your
+intentions?"
+
+His expression changed.  My question was answered before he spoke.
+
+"No," he admitted, "I haven't told them yet.  I--Well, you see, the
+Mater and Father have been making plans about my future, naturally.
+They have some silly ideas about a friend of the family that--Oh,
+she's a nice enough girl; I like her jolly well, but she isn't Miss
+Morley.  Well, hardly!  They'll take it quite well.  By Jove!"
+excitedly, "they must.  They've GOT to.  Oh, they will.  And
+they're very fond of--of Frances."
+
+There seemed nothing more for me to say, nothing at that time, at
+any rate.  I, too, rose.  He shook my hand again.
+
+"You've been a trump to me, Knowles," he declared.  "I appreciate
+it, you know; I do indeed.  I'm jolly grateful."
+
+"You needn't be.  It is all right.  I--I suppose I should wish you
+luck and happiness.  I do.  Yes, why shouldn't you be happy, even
+if--"
+
+"Even if--what?  Oh, but you don't think she will turn me off, do
+you?  You don't think that?"
+
+"I've told you that I see no reason why she should."
+
+"Thank you.  Thank you so much.  Is there anything else that you
+might wish to say to me?"
+
+"Not now.  Perhaps some day I--But not now.  No, there's nothing
+else.  Good night, Bayliss; good night and--and good luck."
+
+"Good night.  I--She's not in now, I suppose, is she?"
+
+"She is in, but--Well, I scarcely think you had better see her to-
+night.  She has gone to her room."
+
+"Oh, I say! it's very early.  She's not ill, is she?"
+
+"No, but I think you had best not see her to-night."
+
+He was disappointed, that was plain, but he yielded.  He would have
+agreed, doubtless, with any opinion of mine just then.
+
+"No doubt you're right," he said.  "Good night.  And thank you
+again."
+
+He left the room.  I did not accompany him to the door.  Instead I
+returned to my chair.  I did not occupy it long, I could not.  I
+could not sit still.  I rose and went out on the lawn.  There, in
+the night mist, I paced up and down, up and down.  I had longed to
+be alone; now that I was alone I was more miserable than ever.
+
+Charlotte, the maid, called to me from the doorway.
+
+"Would you wish the light in the study any longer, sir?" she asked.
+
+"No," said I, curtly.  "You may put it out."
+
+"And shall I lock up, sir; all but this door, I mean?"
+
+"Yes.  Where is Miss Cahoon?"
+
+"She's above, sir.  With Miss Morley, I think, sir."
+
+"Very well, Charlotte.  That is all.  Good night."
+
+"Good night, sir."
+
+She went into the house.  The lamp in the study was extinguished.
+I continued my pacing up and down.  Occasionally I glanced at the
+upper story of the rectory.  There was a lighted window there, the
+window of Frances' room.  She and Hephzy were together in that
+room.  What was going on there?  What had Hephzy said to her?
+What--Oh, WHAT would happen next?
+
+Some time later--I don't know how much later it may have been--I
+heard someone calling me again.
+
+"Hosy!" called Hephzy in a loud whisper; "Hosy, where are you?"
+
+"Here I am," I answered.
+
+She came to me across the lawn.  I could not, of course, see her
+face, but her tone was very anxious.
+
+"Hosy," she whispered, putting her hand on my arm, "what are you
+doin' out here all alone?"
+
+I laughed.  "I'm taking the air," I answered.  "It is good for me.
+I am enjoying the glorious English air old Doctor Bayliss is always
+talking about.  Fresh air and exercise--those will cure anything,
+so he says.  Perhaps they will cure me.  God knows I need curing."
+
+"Sshh! shh, Hosy!  Don't talk that way.  I don't like to hear you.
+Out here bareheaded and in all this damp!  You'll get your death."
+
+"Will I?  Well, that will be a complete cure, then."
+
+"Hush!  I tell you.  Come in the house with me.  I want to talk to
+you.  Come!"
+
+Still holding my arm she led me toward the house.  I hung back.
+
+"You have been up there with her?" I said, with a nod toward the
+lighted window of the room above.  "What has happened?  What have
+you said and done?"
+
+"Hush!  I'll tell you; I'll tell you all about it.  Only come in
+now.  I sha'n't feel safe until I get you inside.  Oh, Hosy, DON'T
+act this way!  Do you want to frighten me to death?"
+
+That appeal had an effect.  I was ashamed of myself.
+
+"Forgive me, Hephzy," I said.  "I'll try to be decent.  You needn't
+worry about me.  I'm a fool, of course, but now that I realize it I
+shall try to stop behaving like one.  Come along; I'm ready."
+
+In the drawing-room she closed the door.
+
+"Shall I light the lamp?" she asked.
+
+"No.  Oh, for heaven's sake, can't you see that I'm crazy to know
+what you said to that girl and what she said to you?  Tell me, and
+hurry up, will you!"
+
+She did not resent my sudden burst of temper and impatience.
+Instead she put her arm about me.
+
+"Sit down, Hosy," she pleaded.  "Sit down and I'll tell you all
+about it.  Do sit down."
+
+I refused to sit.
+
+"Tell me now," I commanded.  "What did you say to her?  You didn't--
+you didn't--"
+
+"I did.  I told her everything."
+
+"EVERYTHING!  You don't mean--"
+
+"I mean everything.  'Twas time she knew it.  I went to that room
+meanin' to tell her and I did.  At first she didn't want to listen,
+didn't want to see me at all or even let me in.  But I made her let
+me in and then she and I had it out."
+
+"Hephzy!"
+
+"Don't say it that way, Hosy.  The good Lord knows I hate myself
+for doin' it, hated myself while I was doin' it, but it had to be
+done.  Every word I spoke cut me as bad as it must have cut her.  I
+kept thinkin', 'This is Little Frank I'm talkin' to.  This is
+Ardelia's daughter I'm makin' miserable.'  A dozen times I stopped
+and thought I couldn't go on, but every time I thought of you and
+what you'd put up with and been through, and I went on."
+
+"Hephzy! you told her--"
+
+"I said it was time she understood just the plain truth about her
+father and mother and grandfather and the money, and everything.
+She must know it, I said; things couldn't go on as they have been.
+I told it all.  At first she wouldn't listen, said I was--well,
+everything that was mean and lyin' and bad.  If she could she'd
+have put me out of her room, I presume likely, but I wouldn't go.
+And, of course, at first she wouldn't believe, but I made her
+believe."
+
+"Made her believe!  Made her believe her father was a thief!  How
+could you do that!  No one could."
+
+"I did it.  I don't know how exactly.  I just went on tellin' it
+all straight from the beginnin', and pretty soon I could see she
+was commencin' to believe.  And she believes now, Hosy; she does,
+I know it."
+
+"Did she say so?"
+
+"No, she didn't say anything, scarcely--not at the last.  She
+didn't cry, either; I almost wish she had.  Oh, Hosy, don't ask me
+any more questions than you have to.  I can't bear to answer 'em."
+
+She paused and turned away.
+
+"How she must hate us!" I said, after a moment.
+
+"Why, no--why, no, Hosy, I don't think she does; at least I'm
+tryin' to hope she doesn't.  I softened it all I could.  I told her
+why we took her with us in the first place; how we couldn't tell
+her the truth at first, or leave her, either, when she was so sick
+and alone.  I told her why we brought her here, hopin' it would
+make her well and strong, and how, after she got that way, we put
+off tellin' her because it was such a dreadful hard thing to do.
+Hard!  When I think of her sittin' there, white as a sheet, and
+lookin' at me with those big eyes of hers, her fingers twistin' and
+untwistin' in her lap--a way her mother used to have when she was
+troubled--and every word I spoke soundin' so cruel and--and--"
+
+She paused once more.  I did not speak.  Soon she recovered and
+went on.
+
+"I told her that I was tellin' her these things now because the
+misunderstandin's and all the rest had to stop and there was no use
+puttin' off any longer.  I told her I loved her as if she was my
+very own and that this needn't make the least bit of difference
+unless she wanted it to.  I said you felt just the same.  I told
+her your speakin' to that Heathcroft man was only for her good and
+for no other reason.  You'd learned that he was engaged to be
+married--"
+
+"You told her that?" I interrupted, involuntarily.  "What did she
+say?"
+
+"Nothin', nothin' at all.  I think she heard me and understood, but
+she didn't say anything.  Just sat there, white and trembling and
+crushed, sort of, and looked and looked at me.  I wanted to put my
+arms around her and ask her pardon and beg her to love me as I did
+her, but I didn't dare--I didn't dare.  I did say that you and I
+would be only too glad to have her stay with us always, as one of
+the family, you know.  If she'd only forget all the bad part that
+had gone and do that, I said--but she interrupted me.  She said
+"Forget!" and the way she said it made me sure she never would
+forget.  And then--and then she asked me if I would please go away
+and leave her.  Would I PLEASE not say any more now, but just leave
+her, only leave her alone.  So I came away and--and that's all."
+
+"That's all," I repeated.  "It is enough, I should say.  Oh,
+Hephzy, why did you do it?  Why couldn't it have gone on as it has
+been going?  Why did you do it?"
+
+It was an unthinking, wicked speech.  But Hephzy did not resent it.
+Her reply was as patient and kind as if she had been answering a
+child.
+
+"I had to do it, Hosy," she said.  "After our talk this evenin'
+there was only one thing to do.  It had to be done--for your sake,
+if nothin' else--and so I did it.  But--but--" with a choking sob,
+"it was SO hard to do!  My Ardelia's baby!"
+
+And at last, I am glad to say, I began to realize how very hard it
+had been for her.  To understand what she had gone through for my
+sake and what a selfish brute I had been.  I put my hands on her
+shoulders and kissed her almost reverently.
+
+"Hephzy," said I, "you're a saint and a martyr and I am--what I am.
+Please forgive me."
+
+"There isn't anything to forgive, Hosy.  And," with a shake of the
+head, "I'm an awful poor kind of saint, I guess.  They'd never put
+my image up in the churches over here--not if they knew how I felt
+this minute.  And a saint from Cape Cod wouldn't be very welcome
+anyway, I'm afraid.  I meant well, but that's a poor sort of
+recommendation.  Oh, Hosy, you DO think I did for the best, don't
+you?"
+
+"You did the only thing to be done," I answered, with decision.
+"You did what I lacked the courage to do.  Of course it was best."
+
+"You're awful good to say so, but I don't know.  What'll come of it
+goodness knows.  When I think of you and--and--"
+
+"Don't think of me.  I'm going to be a man if I can--a quahaug, if
+I can't.  At least I'm not going to be what I have been for the
+last month."
+
+"I know.  But when I think of to-morrow and what she'll say to me,
+then, I--"
+
+"You mustn't think.  You must go to bed and so must I.  To-morrow
+will take care of itself.  Come.  Let's both sleep and forget it."
+
+Which was the very best of advice, but, like much good advice,
+impossible to follow.  I did not sleep at all that night, nor did I
+forget.  God help me!  I was realizing that I never could forget.
+
+At six o'clock I came downstairs, made a pretence at eating some
+biscuits and cheese which I found on the sideboard, scribbled a
+brief note to Hephzy stating that I had gone for a walk and should
+not be back to breakfast, and started out.  The walk developed into
+a long one and I did not return to the rectory until nearly eleven
+in the forenoon.  By that time I was in a better mood, more
+reconciled to the inevitable--or I thought I was.  I believed I
+could play the man, could even see her married to Herbert Bayliss
+and still behave like a man.  I vowed and revowed it.  No one--no
+one but Hephzy and I should ever know what we knew.
+
+Charlotte, the maid, seemed greatly relieved to see me.  She
+hastened to the drawing-room.
+
+"Here he is, Miss Cahoon," she said.  "He's come back, ma'am.  He's
+here."
+
+"Of course I'm here, Charlotte," I said.  "You didn't suppose I had
+run away, did you? . . .  Why--why, Hephzy, what is the matter?"
+
+For Hephzy was coming to meet me, her hands outstretched and on her
+face an expression which I did not understand--sorrow, agitation--
+yes, and pity--were in that expression, or so it seemed to me.
+
+"Oh, Hosy!" she cried, "I'm so glad you've come.  I wanted you so."
+
+"Wanted me?" I repeated.  "Why, what do you mean?  Has anything
+happened?"
+
+She nodded, solemnly.
+
+"Yes," she said, "somethin' has happened.  Somethin' we might have
+expected, perhaps, but--but--Hosy, read that."
+
+I took what she handed me.  It was a sheet of note paper, folded
+across, and with Hephzibah's name written upon one side.  I
+recognized the writing and, with a sinking heart, unfolded it.
+Upon the other side was written in pencil this:
+
+
+"I am going away.  I could not stay, of course.  When I think how I
+have stayed and how I have treated you both, who have been so very,
+very kind to me, I feel--I can't tell you how I feel.  You must not
+think me ungrateful.  You must not think of me at all.  And you
+must not try to find me, even if you should wish to do such a
+thing.  I have the money which I intended using for my new frocks
+and I shall use it to pay my expenses and my fare to the place I am
+going.  It is your money, of course, and some day I shall send it
+to you.  And someday, if I can, I shall repay all that you have
+spent on my account.  But you must not follow me and you must not
+think of asking me to come back.  That I shall never do.  I do
+thank you for all that you have done for me, both of you.  I cannot
+understand why you did it, but I shall always remember.  Don't
+worry about me.  I know what I am going to do and I shall not
+starve or be in want.  Good-by.  Please try to forget me.
+
+"FRANCES MORLEY.
+
+"Please tell Mr. Knowles that I am sorry for what I said to him
+this afternoon and so many times before.  How he could have been so
+kind and patient I can't understand.  I shall always remember it--
+always.  Perhaps he may forgive me some day.  I shall try and hope
+that he may."
+
+
+I read to the end.  Then, without speaking, I looked at Hephzy.
+Her eyes were brimming with tears.
+
+"She has gone," she said, in answer to my unspoken question.  "She
+must have gone some time in the night.  The man at the inn stable
+drove her to the depot at Haddington on Hill.  She took the early
+train for London.  That is all we know."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+In Which Hephzy and I Agree to Live for Each Other
+
+
+I shall condense the record of that day as much as possible.  I
+should omit it altogether, if I could.  We tried to trace her, of
+course.  That is, I tried and Hephzy did not dissuade me, although
+she realized, I am sure, the hopelessness of the quest.  Frances
+had left the rectory very early in the morning.  The hostler at the
+inn had been much surprised to find her awaiting him when he came
+down to the yard at five o'clock.  She was obliged to go to London,
+she said, and must take the very first train:  Would he drive her
+to Haddington on Hill at once?  He did so--probably she had offered
+him a great deal more than the regular fare--and she had taken the
+train.
+
+Questioning the hostler, who was a surly, uncommunicative lout,
+resulted in my learning very little in addition to this.  The young
+lady seemed about as usual, so far as he could see.  She might 'ave
+been a bit nervous, impatient like, but he attributed that to her
+anxiety to make the train.  Yes, she had a bag with her, but no
+other luggage.  No, she didn't talk on the way to the station:  Why
+should she?  He wasn't the man to ask a lady questions about what
+wasn't his affair.  She minded her own business and he minded his.
+No, he didn't know nothin' more about it.  What was I a-pumpin' him
+for, anyway?
+
+I gave up the "pumping" and hurried back to the rectory.  There
+Hephzy told me a few additional facts.  Frances had taken with her
+only the barest necessities, for the most part those which she had
+when she came to us.  Her new frocks, those which she had bought
+with what she considered her money, she had left behind.  All the
+presents which we had given her were in her room, or so we thought
+at the time.  As she came, so she had gone, and the thought that
+she had gone, that I should never see her again, was driving me
+insane.
+
+And like an insane man I must have behaved, at first.  The things I
+did and said, and the way in which I treated Hephzy shame me now,
+as I remember them.  I was going to London at once.  I would find
+her and bring her back.  I would seek help from the police, I would
+employ detectives, I would do anything--everything.  She was almost
+without money; so far as I knew without friends.  What would she
+do?  What would become of her?  I must find her.  I must bring her
+back.
+
+I stormed up and down the room, incoherently declaring my intentions
+and upbraiding Hephzy for not having sent the groom or the gardener
+to find me, for allowing all the precious time to elapse.  Hephzy
+offered no excuse.  She did not attempt justification.  Instead she
+brought the railway time-table, gave orders that the horse be
+harnessed, helped me in every way.  She would have prepared a meal
+for me with her own hands, would have fed me like a baby, if I had
+permitted it.  One thing she did insist upon.
+
+"You must rest a few minutes, Hosy," she said.  "You must, or
+you'll be down sick.  You haven't slept a wink all night.  You
+haven't eaten anything to speak of since yesterday noon.  You can't
+go this way.  You must go to your room and rest a few minutes.  Lie
+down and rest, if you can."
+
+"Rest!"
+
+"You must.  The train doesn't leave Haddington for pretty nigh two
+hours, and we've got lots of time.  I'll fetch you up some tea and
+toast or somethin' by and by and I'll be all ready to start when
+you are.  Now go and lie down, Hosy dear, to please me."
+
+I ignored the last sentence.  "You will be ready?" I repeated.  "Do
+you mean you're going with me?"
+
+"Of course I am.  It isn't likely I'll let you start off all alone,
+when you're in a state like this.  Of course I'm goin' with you.
+Now go and lie down.  You're so worn out, poor boy."
+
+I must have had a glimmer of reason then, a trace of decency and
+unselfishness.  For the first time I thought of her.  I remembered
+that she, too, had loved Little Frank; that she, too, must be
+suffering.
+
+"I am no more tired than you are," I said.  "You have slept and
+eaten no more than I.  You are the one who must rest.  I sha'n't
+let you go with me."
+
+"It isn't a question of lettin'.  I shall go if you do, Hosy.  And
+a woman don't need rest like a man.  Please go upstairs and lie
+down, Hosy.  Oh," with a sudden burst of feeling, "don't you see
+I've got about all I can bear as it is?  I can't--I can't have YOU
+to worry about too."
+
+My conscience smote me.  "I'll go, Hephzy," said I.  "I'll do
+whatever you wish; it is the least I can do."
+
+She thanked me.  Then she said, hesitatingly:
+
+"Here is--here is her letter, Hosy.  You may like to read it again.
+Perhaps it may help you to decide what is best to do."
+
+She handed me the letter.  I took it and went to my room.  There I
+read it again and again.  And, as I read, the meaning of Hephzy's
+last sentence, that the letter might help me to decide what was
+best to do, began to force itself upon my overwrought brain.  I
+began to understand what she had understood from the first, that my
+trip to London was hopeless, absolutely useless--yes, worse than
+useless.
+
+"You must not try to find me . . .  You must not follow me or think
+of asking me to come back.  That I shall never do."
+
+I was understanding, at last.  I might go to London; I might even,
+through the help of the police, or by other means, find Frances
+Morley.  But, having found her, what then?  What claim had I upon
+her?  What right had I to pursue her and force my presence upon
+her?  I knew the shock she had undergone, the shattering of her
+belief in her father, the knowledge that she had--as she must feel--
+forced herself upon our kindness and charity.  I knew how proud
+she was and how fiercely she had relented the slightest hint that
+she was in any way dependent upon us or under the least obligation
+to us.  I knew all this and I was beginning to comprehend what her
+feelings toward us and toward herself must be--now.
+
+I might find her--yes; but as for convincing her that she should
+return to Mayberry, to live with us as she had been doing, that was
+so clearly impossible as to seem ridiculous even to me.  My
+following her, my hunting her down against her expressed wish,
+would almost surely make matters worse.  She would probably refuse
+to see me.  She would consider my following her a persecution and
+the result might be to drive her still further away.  I must not do
+it, for her sake I must not.  She had gone and, because I loved
+her, I must not follow her; I must not add to her misery.  No,
+against my will I was forcing myself to realize that my duty was to
+make no attempt to see her again, but to face the situation as it
+was, to cover the running away with a lie, to pretend she had gone--
+gone somewhere or other with our permission and understanding; to
+protect her name from scandal and to conceal my own feelings from
+all the world.  That was my duty; that was the situation I must
+face.  But how could I face it!
+
+That hour was the worst I have ever spent and I trust I may never
+be called upon to face such another.  But, at last, I am glad to
+say, I had made up my mind, and when Hephzy came with the tea and
+toast I was measurably composed and ready to express my
+determination.
+
+"Hephzy," said I, "I am not going to London.  I have been thinking,
+and I'm not going."
+
+Hephzy put down the tray she was carrying.  She did seem surprised,
+but I am sure she was relieved.
+
+"You're not goin'!" she exclaimed.  "Why, Hosy!"
+
+"No, I am not going.  I've been crazy, Hephzy, I think, but I am
+fairly sane now.  I have reached the conclusion that you reached
+sometime ago, I am certain.  We have no right to follow her.  Our
+finding her would only make it harder for her and no good could
+come of it.  She went, of her own accord, and we must let her go."
+
+"Let her go?  And not try--"
+
+"No.  We have no right to try.  You know it as well as I do.  Now,
+be honest, won't you?"
+
+Hephzy hesitated.
+
+"Why," she faltered; "well, I--Oh, Hosy, I guess likely you're
+right.  At first I was all for goin' after her right away and
+bringin' her back by main strength, if I had to.  But the more I
+thought of it the more I--I--"
+
+"Of course," I interrupted.  "It is the only thing we can do.  You
+must have been ashamed of me this morning.  Well, I'll try and give
+you no cause to be ashamed again.  That part of our lives is over.
+Now we'll start afresh."
+
+Hephzy, after a long look at my face, covered her own with her
+hands and began to cry.  I stepped to her side, but she recovered
+almost immediately.
+
+"There! there!" she said, "don't mind me, Hosy.  I've been holdin'
+that cry back for a long spell.  Now I've had it and it's over and
+done with.  After all, you and I have got each other left and we'll
+start fresh, just as you say.  And the first thing is for you to
+eat that toast and drink that tea."
+
+I smiled, or tried to smile.
+
+"The first thing," I declared, "is for us to decide what story we
+shall tell young Bayliss and the rest of the people to account for
+her leaving so suddenly.  I expect Herbert Bayliss here any moment.
+He came to see me about--about her last evening."
+
+Hephzy nodded.
+
+"I guessed as much," she said.  "I knew he came and I guessed what
+'twas about.  Poor fellow, 'twill be dreadful hard for him, too.
+He was here this mornin' and I said Frances had been called away
+sudden and wouldn't be back to-day.  And I said you would be away
+all day, too, Hosy.  It was a fib, I guess, but I can't help it if
+it was.  You mustn't see him now and you mustn't talk with me
+either.  You must clear off that tray the first thing.  We'll have
+our talk to-morrow, maybe.  We'll--we'll see the course plainer
+then, perhaps.  Now be a good boy and mind me.  You ARE my boy, you
+know, and always will be, no matter how old and famous you get."
+
+Herbert Bayliss called again that afternoon.  I did not see him,
+but Hephzy did.  The young fellow was frightfully disappointed at
+Frances' sudden departure and asked all sorts of questions as to
+when she would return, her London address and the like.  Hephzy
+dodged the questions as best she could, but we both foresaw that
+soon he would have to be told some portion of the truth--not the
+whole truth; he need never know that, but something--and that
+something would be very hard to tell.
+
+The servants, too, must not know or surmise what had happened or
+the reason for it.  Hephzy had already given them some excuse,
+fabricated on the spur of the moment.  They knew Miss Morley had
+gone away and might not return for some time.  But we realized that
+upon our behavior depended a great deal and so we agreed to appear
+as much like our ordinary selves as possible.
+
+It was a hard task.  I shall never forget those first meals when we
+two were alone.  We did not mention her name, but the shadow was
+always there--the vacant place at the table where she used to sit,
+the roses she had picked the morning before; and, afterward, in the
+drawing-room, the piano with her music upon the rack--the hundred
+and one little reminders that were like so many poisoned needles to
+aggravate my suffering and to remind me of the torture of the days
+to come.  She had bade me forget her.  Forget!  I might forget when
+I was dead, but not before.  If I could only die then and there it
+would seem so easy by comparison.
+
+The next forenoon Hephzy and I had our talk.  We discussed our
+future.  Should we leave the rectory and England and go back to
+Bayport where we belonged?  I was in favor of this, but Hephzy
+seemed reluctant.  She, apparently, had some reason which made her
+wish to remain for a time, at least.  At last the reason was
+disclosed.
+
+"I supposed you'll laugh at me when I say it, Hosy," she said; "or
+at any rate you'll think I'm awful silly.  But I know--I just KNOW
+that this isn't the end.  We shall see her again, you and I.
+She'll come to us again or we'll go to her.  I know it; somethin'
+inside me tells me so."
+
+ I shook my head.
+
+"It's true," she went on.  "You don't believe it, but it's true.
+It's a presentiment and you haven't believed in my presentiments
+before, but they've come true.  Why, you didn't believe we'd ever
+find Little Frank at all, but we did.  And do you suppose all that
+has happened so far has been just for nothin'?  Indeed and indeed
+it hasn't.  No, this isn't the end; it's only the beginnin'."
+
+Her conviction was so strong that I hadn't the heart to contradict
+her.  I said nothing.
+
+"And that's why," she went on, "I don't like to have us leave here
+right away.  She knows we're here, here in England, and if--if she
+ever should be in trouble and need our help she could find us here
+waitin' to give it.  If we was away off on the Cape, way on the
+other side of the ocean, she couldn't reach us, or not until 'twas
+too late anyhow.  That's why I'd like to stay here a while longer,
+Hosy.  But," she hastened to add, "I wouldn't stay a minute if you
+really wanted to go."
+
+I was silent for a moment.  The temptation was to go, to get as far
+from the scene of my trouble as I could; but, after all, what did
+it matter?  I could never flee from that trouble.
+
+"All right, Hephzy," I said.  "I'll stay, if it pleases you."
+
+"Thank you, Hosy.  It may be foolish, our stayin', but I don't
+believe it is.  And--and there's somethin' else.  I don't know
+whether I ought to tell you or not.  I don't know whether it will
+make you feel better or worse.  But I've heard you say that she
+must hate you.  She doesn't--I know she doesn't.  I've been lookin'
+over her things, those she left in her room.  Everythin' we've
+given her or bought for her since she's been here, she left behind--
+every single thing except one.  That little pin you bought for her
+in London the last time you was there and gave her to wear at the
+Samsons' lawn party, I can't find it anywhere.  She must have taken
+it with her.  Now why should she take that and leave all the rest?"
+
+"Probably she forgot it," I said.
+
+"Humph!  Queer she should forget that and nothin' else.  I don't
+believe she forgot it.  _I_ think she took it because you gave it
+to her and she wanted to keep it to remind her of you."
+
+I dismissed the idea as absurd, but I found a ray of comfort in it
+which I should have been ashamed to confess.  The idea that she
+wished to be reminded of me was foolish, but--but I was glad she
+had forgotten to leave the pin.  It MIGHT remind her of me, even
+against her will.
+
+A day or two later Herbert Bayliss and I had our delayed interview.
+He had called several times, but Hephzy had kept him out of my way.
+This time our meeting was in the main street of Mayberry, when
+dodging him was an impossibility.  He hurried up to me and seized
+my hand.
+
+"So you're back, Knowles," he said.  "When did you return?"
+
+For the moment I was at a loss to understand his meaning.  I had
+forgotten Hephzy's "fib" concerning my going away.  Fortunately he
+did not wait for an answer.
+
+"Did Frances--did Miss Morley return with you?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"No," said I.
+
+His smile vanished.
+
+"Oh!" he said, soberly.  "She is still in London, then?"
+
+"I--I presume she is."
+
+"You presume--?  Why, I say! don't you know?"
+
+"I am not sure."
+
+He seemed puzzled and troubled, but he was too well bred to ask
+why I was not sure.  Instead he asked when she would return.  I
+announced that I did not know that either.
+
+"You don't know when she is coming back?" he repeated.
+
+"No."
+
+He regarded me keenly.  There was a change in the tone of his next
+remark.
+
+"You are not sure that she is in London and you don't know when she
+is coming back," he said, slowly.  "Would you mind telling me why
+she left Mayberry so suddenly?  She had not intended going; at
+least she did not mention her intention to me."
+
+"She did not mention it to anyone," I answered.  "It was a very
+sudden determination on her part."
+
+He considered this.
+
+"It would seem so," he said.  "Knowles, you'll excuse my saying it,
+but this whole matter seems deucedly odd to me.  There is something
+which I don't understand.  You haven't answered my question.  Under
+the circumstances, considering our talk the other evening, I think
+I have a right to ask it.  Why did she leave so suddenly?"
+
+I hesitated.  Mayberry's principal thoroughfare was far from
+crowded, but it was scarcely the place for an interview like this.
+
+"She had a reason for leaving," I answered, slowly.  "I will tell
+you later, perhaps, what it was.  Just now I cannot."
+
+"You cannot!" he repeated.  He was evidently struggling with his
+impatience and growing suspicious.  "You cannot!  But I think I
+have a right to know."
+
+"I appreciate your feelings, but I cannot tell you now."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because--Well, because I don't think it would be fair to her.  She
+would not wish me to tell you."
+
+"She would not wish it?  Was it because of me she left?"
+
+"No; not in the least."
+
+"Was it--was it because of someone else?  By Jove! it wasn't
+because of that Heathcroft cad?  Don't tell me that!  My God! she--
+she didn't--"
+
+I interrupted.  His suspicion angered me.  I should have understood
+his feelings, should have realized that he had been and was
+disappointed and agitated and that my answers to his questions must
+have aroused all sorts of fears and forebodings in his mind.  I
+should have pitied him, but just then I had little pity for others.
+
+"She did nothing but what she considered right," I said sharply.
+"Her leaving had nothing to do with Heathcroft or with you.  I
+doubt if she thought of either of you at all."
+
+It was a brutal speech, and he took it like a man.  I saw him turn
+pale and bite his lips, but when he next spoke it was in a calmer
+tone.
+
+"I'm sorry," he said.  "I was a silly ass even to think such a
+thing.  But--but you see, Knowles, I--I--this means so much to me.
+I'm sorry, though.  I ask her pardon and yours."
+
+I was sorry, too.  "Of course I didn't mean that, exactly," I said.
+"Her feelings toward you are of the kindest, I have no doubt, but
+her reason for leaving was a purely personal one.  You were not
+concerned in it."
+
+He reflected.  He was far from satisfied, naturally, and his next
+speech showed it.
+
+"It is extraordinary, all this," he said.  "You are quite sure you
+don't know when she is coming back?"
+
+"Quite."
+
+"Would you mind giving me her London address?"
+
+"I don't know it."
+
+"You don't KNOW it!  Oh, I say! that's damned nonsense!  You don't
+know when she is coming back and you don't know her address!  Do
+you mean you don't know where she has gone?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What--?  Are you trying to tell me she is not coming back at all?"
+
+"I am afraid not."
+
+He was very pale.  He seized my arm.
+
+"What is all this?" he demanded, fiercely.  "What has happened?
+Tell me; I want to know.  Where is she?  Why did she go?  Tell me!"
+
+"I can tell you nothing," I said, as calmly as I could.  "She left
+us very suddenly and she is not coming back.  Her reason for
+leaving I can't tell you, now.  I don't know where she is and I
+have no right to try and find out.  She has asked that no one
+follow her or interfere with her in any way.  I respect her wish
+and I advise you, if you wish to remain her friend, to do the same,
+for the present, at least.  That is all I can tell you."
+
+He shook my arm savagely.
+
+"By George!" he cried, "you must tell me.  I'll make you!  I--I--Do
+you think me a fool?  Do you suppose I believe such rot as that?
+You tell me she has gone--has left Mayberry--and you don't know
+where she has gone and don't intend trying to find out.  Why--"
+
+"There, Bayliss! that is enough.  This is not the place for us to
+quarrel.  And there is no reason why we should quarrel at all.  I
+have told you all that I can tell you now.  Some day I may tell you
+more, but until then you must be patient, for her sake.  Her
+leaving Mayberry had no connection with you whatever.  You must be
+contented with that."
+
+"Contented!  Why, man, you're mad.  She is your niece.  You are her
+guardian and--"
+
+"I am not her guardian.  Neither is she my niece."
+
+I had spoken involuntarily.  Certainly I had not intended telling
+him that.  The speech had the effect of causing him to drop my arm
+and step back.  He stared at me blankly.  No doubt he did think me
+crazy, then.
+
+"I have no authority over her in any way," I went on.  "She is Miss
+Cahoon's niece, but we are not her guardians.  She has left our
+home of her own free will and neither I nor you nor anyone else
+shall follow her if I can help it.  I am sorry to have deceived
+you.  The deceit was unavoidable, or seemed to be.  I am very, very
+sorry for you.  That is all I can say now.  Good morning."
+
+I left him standing there in the street and walked away.  He called
+after me, but I did not turn back.  He would have followed me, of
+course, but when I did look back I saw that the landlord of the inn
+was trying to talk with him and was detaining him.  I was glad that
+the landlord had appeared so opportunely.  I had said too much
+already.  I had bungled this interview as I had that with
+Heathcroft.
+
+I told Hephzy all about it.  She appeared to think that, after all,
+perhaps it was best.
+
+"When you've got a toothache," she said, "you might as well go to
+the dentist's right off.  The old thing will go on growlin' and
+grumblin' and it's always there to keep you in misery.  You'd have
+had to tell him some time.  Well, you've told him now, the worst of
+it, anyhow.  The tooth's out; though," with a one-sided smile, "I
+must say you didn't give the poor chap any ether to help along."
+
+"I'm afraid it isn't out," I said, truthfully.  "He won't be
+satisfied with one operation."
+
+"Then I'll be on hand to help with the next one.  And, between us,
+I cal'late we can make that final.  Poor boy!  Well, he's young,
+that's one comfort.  You get over things quicker when you're
+young."
+
+I nodded.  "That is true," I said, "but there is something else,
+Hephzy.  You say I have acted for the best.  Have I?  I don't know.
+We know he cares for her, but--but does she--"
+
+"Does she care for him, you mean?  I don't think so, Hosy.  For a
+spell I thought she did, but now I doubt it.  I think--Well, never
+mind what I think.  I think a lot of foolish things.  My brain's
+softenin' up, I shouldn't wonder.  It's a longshore brain, anyhow,
+and it needs the salt to keep it from spoilin'.  I wish you and I
+could go clammin'.  When you're diggin' clams you're too full of
+backache to worry about toothaches--or heartaches, either."
+
+I expected a visit from young Bayliss that very evening, but he did
+not come to the rectory.  Instead Doctor Bayliss, Senior, came and
+requested an interview with me.  Hephzy announced the visitor.
+
+"He acts pretty solemn, Hosy," she said.  "I wouldn't wonder if his
+son had told him.  I guess it's another toothache.  Would you like
+to have me stay and help?"
+
+I said I should be glad of her help.  So, when the old gentleman
+was shown into the study, he found her there with me.  The doctor
+was very grave and his usually ruddy, pleasant face was haggard and
+careworn.  He took the chair which I offered him and, without
+preliminaries, began to speak of the subject which had brought him
+there.
+
+It was as Hephzy had surmised.  His son had told him everything, of
+his love for Frances, of his asking my permission to marry her, and
+of our talk before the inn.
+
+"I am sure I don't need to tell you, Knowles," he said, "that all
+this has shaken the boy's mother and me dreadfully.  We knew, of
+course, that the young people liked each other, were together a
+great deal, and all that.  But we had not dreamed of any serious
+attachment between them."
+
+Hephzy put in a word.
+
+"We don't know as there has been any attachment between them," she
+said.  "Your boy cared for her--we know that--but whether she cared
+for him or not we don't know."
+
+Our visitor straightened in his chair.  The idea that his son could
+love anyone and not be loved in return was plainly quite
+inconceivable.
+
+"I think we may take that for granted, madame," he said.  "The news
+was, as I say, a great shock to my wife and myself.  Herbert is our
+only child and we had, naturally, planned somewhat concerning his
+future.  The--the overthrow of our plans was and is a great grief
+and disappointment to us.  Not, please understand, that we question
+your niece's worth or anything of that sort.  She is a very
+attractive young woman and would doubtless make my son a good wife.
+But, if you will pardon my saying so, we know very little about her
+or her family.  You are comparative strangers to us and although we
+have enjoyed your--ah--society and--ah--"
+
+Hephzy interrupted.
+
+"I beg your pardon for saying it, Doctor Bayliss," she said, "but
+you know as much about us as we do about you."
+
+The doctor's composure was ruffled still more.  He regarded Hephzy
+through his spectacles and then said, with dignity.
+
+"Madame, I have resided in this vicinity for nearly forty years.  I
+think my record and that of my family will bear inspection."
+
+"I don't doubt it a bit.  But, as far as that goes, I have lived in
+Bayport for fifty-odd years myself and our folks have lived there
+for a hundred and fifty.  I'm not questionin' you or your family,
+Doctor Bayliss.  If I had questioned 'em I could easily have looked
+up the record.  All I'm sayin' is that I haven't thought of
+questionin', and I don't just see why you shouldn't take as much
+for granted as I have."
+
+The old gentleman was a bit disconcerted.  He cleared his throat
+and fidgeted in his seat.
+
+"I do--I do, Miss Cahoon, of course," he said.  "But--ah--Well, to
+return to the subject of my son and Miss Morley.  The boy is
+dreadfully agitated, Mr. Knowles.  He is quite mad about the girl
+and his mother and I are much concerned about him.  We would--I
+assure you we would do anything and sacrifice anything for his
+sake.  We like your niece, and, although, as I say, we had planned
+otherwise, nevertheless we will--provided all is as it should be--
+give our consent to--to the arrangement, for his sake."
+
+I did not answer.  The idea that marrying Frances Morley would
+entail a sacrifice upon anyone's part except hers angered me and I
+did not trust myself to speak.  But Hephzy spoke for me.
+
+"What do you mean by providin' everything is as it should be?" she
+asked.
+
+"Why, I mean--I mean provided we learn that she is--is--That is,--
+Well, one naturally likes to know something concerning his
+prospective daughter-in-law's history, you know.  That is to be
+expected, now isn't it."
+
+Hephzy looked at me and I looked at her.
+
+"Doctor," she said.  "I wonder if your son told you about some
+things Hosy--Mr. Knowles, I mean--told him this mornin'.  Did he
+tell you that?"
+
+The doctor colored slightly.  "Yes--yes, he did," he admitted.  "He
+said he had a most extraordinary sort of interview with Mr. Knowles
+and was told by him some quite extraordinary things.  Of course, we
+could scarcely believe that he had heard aright.  There was some
+mistake, of course."
+
+"There was no mistake, Doctor Bayliss," said I.  "I told your son
+the truth, a very little of the truth."
+
+"The truth!  But it couldn't be true, you know, as Herbert reported
+it to me.  He said Miss Morley had left Mayberry, had gone away for
+some unexplained reason, and was not coming back--that you did not
+know where she had gone, that she had asked not to be hindered or
+followed or something.  And he said--My word! he even said you,
+Knowles, had declared yourself to be neither her uncle nor her
+guardian.  THAT couldn't be true, now could it!"
+
+Again Hephzy and I looked at each other.  Without speaking we
+reached the same conclusion.  Hephzy voiced that conclusion.
+
+"I guess, Doctor Bayliss," she said, "that the time has come when
+you had better be told the whole truth, or as much of the whole
+truth about Frances as Hosy and I know.  I'm goin' to tell it to
+you.  It's a kind of long story, but I guess likely you ought to
+know it."
+
+She began to tell that story, beginning at the very beginning, with
+Ardelia and Strickland Morley and continuing on, through the
+history of the latter's rascality and the fleeing of the pair from
+America, to our own pilgrimage, the finding of Little Frank and the
+astonishing happenings since.
+
+"She's gone," she said.  "She found out what sort of man her father
+really was and, bein' a high-spirited, proud girl--as proud and
+high-spirited as she is clever and pretty and good--she ran away
+and left us.  We don't blame her, Hosy and I.  We understand just
+how she feels and we've made up our minds to do as she asks and not
+try to follow her or try to bring her back to us against her will.
+We think the world of her.  We haven't known her but a little
+while, but we've come--that is," with a sudden glance in my
+direction, "I've come to love her as if she was my own.  It pretty
+nigh kills me to have her go.  When I think of her strugglin' along
+tryin' to earn her own way by singin' and--and all, I have to hold
+myself by main strength to keep from goin' after her and beggin'
+her on my knees to come back.  But I sha'n't do it, because she
+doesn't want me to.  Of course I hope and believe that some day she
+will come back, but until she does and of her own accord, I'm goin'
+to wait.  And, if your son really cares for her as much as we--as I
+do, he'll wait, too."
+
+She paused and hastily dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief.  I
+turned in order that the Doctor might not see my face.  It was an
+unnecessary precaution.  Doctor Bayliss' mind was busy, apparently,
+with but one thought.
+
+"An opera singer!" he exclaimed, under his breath.  "An opera
+singer!  Herbert to marry an opera singer!  The granddaughter of a
+Yankee sailor and--and--"
+
+"And the daughter of an English thief," put in Hephzy, sharply.
+"Maybe we'd better leave nationalities out, Doctor Bayliss.  The
+Yankees have the best end of it, 'cordin' to my notion."
+
+He paid no attention to this.
+
+He was greatly upset.  "It is impossible!" he declared.  "Absolutely
+impossible!  Why haven't we known of this before?  Why did not
+Herbert know of it?  Mr. Knowles, I must say that--that you have
+been most unthinking in this matter."
+
+"I have been thinking of her," I answered, curtly.  "It was and is
+her secret and we rely upon you to keep it as such.  We trust to
+your honor to tell no one, not even your son."
+
+"My son!  Herbert?  Why I must tell him!  I must tell my wife."
+
+"You may tell your wife.  And your son as much as you think
+necessary.  Further than that it must not go."
+
+"Of course, of course.  I understand.  But an opera singer!"
+
+"She isn't a real opera singer," said Hephzy.  "That is, not one of
+those great ones.  And she told me once that she realized now that
+she never could be.  She has a real sweet voice, a beautiful voice,
+but it isn't powerful enough to make her a place in the big
+companies.  She tried and tried, she said, but all the managers
+said the same thing."
+
+"Hephzy," I said, "when did she tell you this?  I didn't know of
+it."
+
+"I know you didn't, Hosy.  She told me one day when we were alone.
+It was the only time she ever spoke of herself and she didn't say
+much then.  She spoke about her livin' with her relatives here in
+England and what awful, mean, hard people they were.  She didn't
+say who they were nor where they lived, but she did say she ran
+away from them to go on the stage as a singer and what trials and
+troubles she went through afterward.  She told me that much and
+then she seemed sorry that she had.  She made me promise not to
+tell anyone, not even you.  I haven't, until now."
+
+Doctor Bayliss was sitting with a hand to his forehead.
+
+"A provincial opera singer," he repeated.  "Oh, impossible!  Quite
+impossible!"
+
+"It may seem impossible to you," I couldn't help observing, "but I
+question if it will seem so to your son.  I doubt if her being an
+opera singer will make much difference to him."
+
+The doctor groaned.  "The boy is mad about her, quite mad," he
+admitted.
+
+I was sorry for him.  Perhaps if I were in his position I might
+feel as he did.
+
+"I will say this," I said:  "In no way, so far as I know, has Miss
+Morley given your son encouragement.  He told me himself that he
+had never spoken to her of his feelings and we have no reason to
+think that she regards him as anything more than a friend.  She
+left no message for him when she went away."
+
+He seemed to find some ground for hope in this.  He rose from the
+chair and extended his hand.
+
+"Knowles," he said, "if I have said anything to hurt your feelings
+or those of Miss Cahoon I am very sorry.  I trust it will make no
+difference in our friendship.  My wife and I respect and like you
+both and I think I understand how deeply you must feel the loss of
+your--of Miss Morley.  I hope she--I hope you may be reunited some
+day.  No doubt you will be.  As for Herbert--he is our son and if
+you ever have a son of your own, Mr. Knowles, you may appreciate
+his mother's feelings and mine.  We have planned and--and--Even now
+I should not stand in the way of his happiness if--if I believed
+happiness could come of it.  But such marriages are never happy.
+And," with a sudden burst of hope, "as you say, she may not be
+aware of his attachment.  The boy is young.  He may forget."
+
+"Yes," said I, with a sigh.  "He IS young, and he may forget."
+
+After he had gone Hephzy turned to me.
+
+"If I hadn't understood that old man's feelin's," she declared,
+"I'd have given him one talkin' to.  The idea of his speakin' as if
+Frances wouldn't be a wife anybody, a lord or anybody else, might
+be proud of!  But he didn't know.  He's been brought up that way,
+and he doesn't know.  And, of course, his son IS the only person on
+earth to him.  Well, that's over!  We haven't got to worry about
+them any more.  We'll begin to live for each other now, Hosy, same
+as we used to do.  And we'll wait for the rest.  It'll come and
+come right for all of us.  Just you see."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+In Which I Play Golf and Cross the Channel
+
+
+And so we began "to live for each other again," Hephzy and I.  This
+meant, of course, that Hephzy forgot herself entirely and spent the
+greater part of her time trying to find ways to make my living more
+comfortable, just as she had always done.  And I--well, I did my
+best to appear, if not happy, at least reasonably calm and
+companionable.  It was a hard job for both of us; certainly my part
+of it was hard enough.
+
+Appearances had to be considered and so we invented a tale of a
+visit to relatives in another part of England to account for the
+unannounced departure of Miss Morley.  This excuse served with the
+neighbors and friends not in the secret and, for the benefit of the
+servants, Hephzy elaborated the deceit by pretending eagerness at
+the arrival of the mails and by certain vague remarks at table
+concerning letters she was writing.
+
+"I AM writing 'em, too, Hosy," she said.  "I write to her every few
+days.  Of course I don't mail the letters, but it sort of squares
+things with my conscience to really write after talking so much
+about it.  As for her visitin' relatives--well, she's got relatives
+somewhere in England, we know that much, and she MAY be visitin'
+'em.  At any rate I try to think she is.  Oh, dear, I 'most wish
+I'd had more experience in tellin' lies; then I wouldn't have to
+invent so many extra ones to make me believe those I told at the
+beginnin'.  I wish I'd been brought up a book agent or a weather
+prophet or somethin' like that; then I'd have been in trainin'."
+
+Without any definite agreement we had fallen into the habit of not
+mentioning the name of Little Frank, even when we were alone
+together.  In consequence, on these occasions, there would be long
+intervals of silence suddenly broken by Hephzy's bursting out with
+a surmise concerning what was happening in Bayport, whether they
+had painted the public library building yet, or how Susanna was
+getting on with the cat and hens.  She had received three letters
+from Miss Wixon and, as news bearers, they were far from
+satisfactory.
+
+"That girl makes me so provoked," sniffed Hephzy, dropping the most
+recent letter in her lap with a gesture of disgust.  "She says
+she's got a cold in the head and she's scared to death for fear
+it'll get 'set onto her,' whatever that is.  Two pages of this
+letter is nothin' but cold in the head and t'other two is about a
+new hat she's goin' to have and she don't know whether to trim it
+with roses or forget-me-nots.  If she trimmed it with cabbage
+'twould match her head better'n anything else.  I declare! she
+ought to be thankful she's got a cold in a head like hers; it must
+be comfortin' to know there's SOMETHIN' there.  You've got a
+letter, too, Hosy.  Who is it from?"
+
+"From Campbell," I answered, wearily.  "He wants to know how the
+novel is getting on, of course."
+
+"Humph!  Well, you write him that it's gettin' on the way a squid
+gets ahead--by goin' backwards.  Don't let him pester you one bit,
+Hosy.  You write that novel just as fast or slow as you feel like.
+He told you to take a vacation, anyway."
+
+I smiled.  Mine was a delightful vacation.
+
+The summer dragged on.  The days passed.  Pleasant days they were,
+so far as the weather was concerned.  I spent them somehow,
+walking, riding, golfing, reading.  I gave up trying to work; the
+half-written novel remained half written.  I could not concentrate
+my thoughts upon it and I lacked the courage to force myself to
+try.  I wrote Campbell that he must be patient, I was doing the
+best I could.  He answered by telling me not to worry, to enjoy
+myself.  "Why do you stay there in England?" he wrote.  "I ordered
+you to travel, not to plant yourself in one place and die of dry
+rot.  A British oyster is mighty little improvement on a Cape Cod
+quahaug.  You have been in that rectory about long enough.  Go to
+Monte Carlo for change.  You'll find it there--or lose it."
+
+It may have been good advice--or bad--according to the way in which
+it was understood, but, good or bad, it didn't appeal to me.  I had
+no desire to travel, unless it were to travel back to Bayport,
+where I belonged.  I felt no interest in Monte Carlo--for the
+matter of that, I felt no interest in Mayberry or anywhere else.  I
+was not interested in anything or anybody--except one, and that one
+had gone out of my life.  Night after night I went to sleep
+determining to forget and morning after morning I awoke only to
+remember, and with the same dull, hopeless heartache and longing.
+
+July passed, August was half gone.  Still we remained at the
+rectory.  Our lease was up on the first of October.  The Coles
+would return then and we should be obliged to go elsewhere, whether
+we wished to or not.  Hephzy, although she did not say much about
+it, was willing to go, I think.  Her "presentiment" had remained
+only a presentiment so far; no word came from Little Frank.  We had
+heard or learned nothing concerning her or her whereabouts.
+
+Our neighbors and friends in Mayberry were as kind and neighborly
+as ever.  For the first few days after our interview with Doctor
+Bayliss, Senior, Hephzy and I saw nothing of him or his family.
+Then the doctor called again.  He seemed in better spirits.  His
+son had yielded to his parents' entreaties and had departed for a
+walking tour through the Black Forest with some friends.
+
+"The invitation came at exactly the right time," said the old
+gentleman.  "Herbert was ready to go anywhere or do anything.  The
+poor boy was in the depths and when his mother and I urged him to
+accept he did so.  We are hoping that when he returns he will have
+forgotten, or, if not that, at least be more reconciled."
+
+Heathcroft came and went at various times during the summer.  I met
+him on the golf course and he was condescendingly friendly as ever.
+Our talk concerning Frances, which had brought such momentous
+consequences to her and to Hephzy and to me, had, apparently, not
+disturbed him in the least.  He greeted me blandly and cheerfully,
+asked how we all were, said he had been given to understand that
+"my charming little niece" was no longer with us, and proceeded to
+beat me two down in eighteen holes.  I played several times with
+him afterward and, under different circumstances, should have
+enjoyed doing so, for we were pretty evenly matched.
+
+His aunt, the Lady of the Manor, I also met.  She went out of her
+way to be as sweetly gracious as possible.  I presume she inferred
+from Frances' departure that I had taken her hint and had removed
+the disturbing influence from her nephew's primrose-bordered path.
+At each of our meetings she spoke of the "invitation golf
+tournament," several times postponed and now to be played within a
+fortnight.  She insisted that I must take part in it.  At last,
+having done everything except decline absolutely, I finally
+consented to enter the tournament.  It is not easy to refuse to
+obey an imperial decree and Lady Carey was Empress of Mayberry.
+
+After accepting I returned to the rectory to find that Hephzy also
+had received an invitation.  Not to play golf, of course; her
+invitation was of a totally different kind.
+
+"What do you think, Hosy!" she cried.  "I've got a letter and you
+can't guess who it's from."
+
+"From Susanna?" I ventured.
+
+"Susanna!  You don't suppose I'd be as excited as all this over a
+letter from Susanna Wixon, do you?  No indeed!  I've got a letter
+from Mrs. Hepton, who had the Nickerson cottage last summer.  She
+and her husband are in Paris and they want us to meet 'em there in
+a couple of weeks and go for a short trip through Switzerland.
+They got our address from Mr. Campbell before they left home.  Mrs.
+Hepton writes that they're countin' on our company.  They're goin'
+to Lake Lucerne and to Mont Blanc and everywhere.  Wouldn't it be
+splendid!"
+
+The Heptons had been summer neighbors of ours on the Cape for
+several seasons.  They were friends of Jim Campbell's and had first
+come to Bayport on his recommendation.  I liked them very well,
+and, oddly enough, for I was not popular with the summer colony,
+they had seemed to like me.
+
+"It was very kind of them to think of us," I said.  "Campbell
+shouldn't have given them our address, of course, but their
+invitation was well meant.  You must write them at once.  Make our
+refusal as polite as possible."
+
+Hephzy seemed disappointed, I thought.
+
+"Then you think I'd better say no?" she observed.
+
+"Why, of course.  You weren't thinking of accepting, were you?"
+
+"Well, I didn't know.  I'm not sure that our goin' wouldn't be the
+right thing.  I've been considerin' for some time, Hosy, and I've
+about come to the conclusion that stayin' here is bad for you.
+Maybe it's bad for both of us.  Perhaps a change would do us both
+good."
+
+I was astonished.  "Humph!" I exclaimed; "this is a change of
+heart, Hephzy.  A while ago, when I suggested going back to
+Bayport, you wouldn't hear of it.  You wanted to stay here and--and
+wait."
+
+"I know I did.  And I've been waitin', but nothin' has come of it.
+I've still got my presentiment, Hosy.  I believe just as strong as
+I ever did that some time or other she and you and I will be
+together again.  But stayin' here and seein' nobody but each other
+and broodin' don't do us any good.  It's doin' you harm; that's
+plain enough.  You don't write and you don't eat--that is, not
+much--and you're gettin' bluer and more thin and peaked every day.
+You have just got to go away from here, no matter whether I do or
+not.  And I've reached the point where I'm willin' to go, too.  Not
+for good, maybe.  We'll come back here again.  Our lease isn't up
+until October and we can leave the servants here and give them our
+address to have mail forwarded.  If--if she--that is, if a letter
+or--or anything--SHOULD come we could hurry right back.  The
+Heptons are real nice folks; you always liked 'em, Hosy.  And you
+always wanted to see Switzerland; you used to say so.  Why don't we
+say yes and go along?"
+
+I did not answer.  I believed I understood the reason for
+Campbell's giving our address to the Heptons; also the reason for
+the invitation.  Jim was very anxious to have me leave Mayberry; he
+believed travel and change of scene were what I needed.  Doubtless
+he had put the Heptons up to asking us to join them on their trip.
+It was merely an addition to his precious prescription.
+
+"Why don't we go?" urged Hephzy.
+
+"Not much!" I answered, decidedly.  "I should be poor company on a
+pleasure trip like that.  But you might go, Hephzy.  There is no
+reason in the world why you shouldn't go.  I'll stay here until you
+return.  Go, by all means, and enjoy yourself."
+
+Hephzy shook her head.
+
+"I'd do a lot of enjoyin' without you, wouldn't I," she observed.
+"While I was lookin' at the scenery I'd be wonderin' what you had
+for breakfast.  Every mite of rain would set me to thinkin' of your
+gettin' your feet wet and when I laid eyes on a snow peak I'd
+wonder if you had blankets enough on your bed.  I'd be like that
+yellow cat we used to have back in the time when Father was alive.
+That cat had kittens and Father had 'em all drowned but one.  After
+that you never saw the cat anywhere unless the kitten was there,
+too.  She wouldn't eat unless it were with her and between bites
+she'd sit down on it so it couldn't run off.  She lugged it around
+in her mouth until Father used to vow he'd have eyelet holes
+punched in the scruff of its neck for her teeth to fit into and
+make it easier for both of 'em.  It died, finally; she wore it out,
+I guess likely.  Then she adopted a chicken and started luggin'
+that around.  She had the habit, you see.  I'm a good deal like
+her, Hosy.  I've took care of you so long that I've got the habit.
+No, I shouldn't go unless you did."
+
+No amount of urging moved her, so we dropped the subject.
+
+The morning of the golf tournament was clear and fine.  I
+shouldered my bag of clubs and walked through the lane toward the
+first tee.  I never felt less like playing or more inclined to
+feign illness and remain at home.  But I had promised Lady Carey
+and the promise must be kept.
+
+There was a group of people, players and guests, awaiting me at the
+tee.  Her ladyship was there, of course; so also was her nephew,
+Mr. Carleton Heathcroft, whom I had not seen for some time.
+Heathcroft was in conversation with a young fellow who, when he
+turned in my direction, I recognized as Herbert Bayliss.  I was
+surprised to see him; I had not heard of his return from the Black
+Forest trip.
+
+Lady Carey was affable and gracious, also very important and busy.
+She welcomed me absent-mindedly, introduced me to several of her
+guests, ladies and gentlemen from London down for the week-end, and
+then bustled away to confer with Mr. Handliss, steward of the
+estate, concerning the arrangements for the tournament.  I felt a
+touch on my arm and, turning, found Doctor Bayliss standing beside
+me.  He was smiling and in apparent good humor.
+
+"The boy is back, Knowles," he said.  "Have you seen him?"
+
+"Yes," said I, "I have seen him, although we haven't met yet.  I
+was surprised to find him here.  When did he return?"
+
+"Only yesterday.  His mother and I were surprised also.  We hadn't
+expected him so soon.  He's looking very fit, don't you think?"
+
+"Very."  I had not noticed that young Bayliss was looking either
+more or less fit than usual, but I answered as I did because the
+old gentleman seemed so very anxious that I should.  He was
+evidently gratified.  "Yes," he said, "he's looking very fit
+indeed.  I think his trip has benefited him hugely.  And I think--
+Yes, I think he is beginning to forget his--that is to say, I
+believe he does not dwell upon the--the recent happenings as he
+did.  I think he is forgetting; I really think he is."
+
+"Indeed," said I.  It struck me that, if Herbert Bayliss was
+forgetting, his memory must be remarkably short.  I imagined that
+his father's wish was parent to the thought.
+
+"He has--ah--scarcely mentioned our--our young friend's name since
+his return," went on the doctor.  "He did ask if you had heard--ah--
+by the way, Knowles, you haven't heard, have you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Dear me! dear me!  That's very odd, now isn't it."
+
+He did not say he was sorry.  If he had said it I should not have
+believed him.  If ever anything was plain it was that the longer we
+remained without news of Frances Morley the better pleased Herbert
+Bayliss's parents would be.
+
+"But I say, Knowles," he added, "you and he must meet, you know.
+He doesn't hold any ill-feeling or--or resentment toward you.
+Really he doesn't.  Herbert!  Oh, I say, Herbert!  Come here, will
+you."
+
+Young Bayliss turned.  The doctor whispered in my ear.
+
+"Perhaps it would be just as well not to refer to--to--You
+understand me, Knowles.  Better let sleeping dogs lie, eh?  Oh,
+Herbert, here is Knowles waiting to shake hands with you."
+
+We shook hands.  The shake, on his part, was cordial enough,
+perhaps, but not too cordial.  It struck me that young Bayliss was
+neither as "fit" nor as forgetful as his fond parents wished to
+believe.  He looked rather worn and nervous, it seemed to me.  I
+asked him about his tramping trip and we chatted for a few moments.
+Then Bayliss, Senior, was called by Lady Carey and Handliss to join
+the discussion concerning the tournament rules and the young man
+and I were left alone together.
+
+"Knowles," he asked, the moment after his father's departure, "have
+you heard anything?  Anything concerning--her?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You're sure?  You're not--"
+
+"I am quite sure.  We haven't heard nor do we expect to."
+
+He looked away across the course and I heard him draw a long
+breath.
+
+"It's deucedly odd, this," he said.  "How she could disappear so
+entirely I don't understand.  And you have no idea where she may
+be?"
+
+"No."
+
+"But--but, confound it, man, aren't you trying to find her?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You're not!  Why not?"
+
+"You know why not as well as I.  She left us of her own free will
+and her parting request was that we should not follow her.  That is
+sufficient for us.  Pardon me, but I think it should be for all her
+friends."
+
+He was silent for a moment.  Then his teeth snapped together.
+
+"I'll find her," he declared, fiercely.  "I'll find her some day."
+
+"In spite of her request?"
+
+"Yes.  In spite of the devil."
+
+He turned on his heel and walked off.  Mr. Handliss stepped to the
+first tee, clapped his hands to attract attention and began a
+little speech.
+
+The tournament, he said, was about to begin.  Play would be, owing
+to the length and difficulty of the course, but eighteen holes
+instead of the usual thirty-six.  This meant that each pair of
+contestants would play the nine holes twice.  Handicaps had been
+fixed as equitably as possible according to each player's previous
+record, and players having similar handicaps were to play against
+each other.  A light lunch and refreshments would be served after
+the first round had been completed by all.  Prizes would be
+distributed by her ladyship when the final round was finished.  Her
+ladyship bade us all welcome and was gratified by our acceptance of
+her invitation.  He would now proceed to read the names of those
+who were to play against each other, stating handicaps and the
+like.  He read accordingly, and I learned that my opponent was to
+be Mr. Heathcroft, each of us having a handicap of two.
+
+Considering everything I thought my particular handicap a stiff
+one.  Heathcroft had been in the habit of beating me in two out of
+three of our matches.  However, I determined to play my best.
+Being the only outlander on the course I couldn't help feeling that
+the sporting reputation of Yankeeland rested, for this day at
+least, upon my shoulders.
+
+The players were sent off in pairs, the less skilled first.
+Heathcroft and I were next to the last.  A London attorney by the
+name of Jaynes and a Wrayton divine named Wilson followed us.
+Their rating was one plus and, judging by the conversation of the
+"gallery," they were looked upon as winners of the first and second
+prizes respectively.  The Reverend Mr. Wilson was called, behind
+his back, "the sporting curate."  In gorgeous tweeds and a
+shepherd's plaid cap he looked the part.
+
+The first nine went to me.  An usually long drive and a lucky putt
+on the eighth gave me the round by one.  I played with care and
+tried my hardest to keep my mind on the game.  Heathcroft was, as
+always, calm and careful, but between tees he was pleased to be
+chatty and affable.
+
+"And how is the aunt with the odd name, Knowles?" he inquired.
+"Does she still devour her--er--washing flannels and treacle for
+breakfast?"
+
+"She does when she cares to," I replied.  "She is an independent
+lady, as I think you know."
+
+"My word!  I believe you.  And how are the literary labors
+progressing?  I had my bookselling fellow look up a novel of yours
+the other day.  Began it that same night, by Jove!  It was quite
+interesting, really.  I should have finished it, I think, but some
+of the chaps at the club telephoned me to join them for a bit of
+bridge and of course that ended literature for the time.  My
+respected aunt tells me I'm quite dotty on bridge.  She foresees a
+gambler's end for me, stony broke, languishing in dungeons and all
+that sort of thing.  I am to die of starvation, I think.  Is it
+starvation gamblers die of?  'Pon my soul, I should say most of
+those I know would be more likely to die of thirst.  Rather!"
+
+Later on he asked another question.
+
+"And how is the pretty niece, Knowles?" he inquired.  "When is she
+coming back to the monastery or the nunnery or rectory, or whatever
+it is?"
+
+"I don't know," I replied, curtly.
+
+"Oh, I say!  Isn't she coming at all?  That would be a calamity,
+now wouldn't it?  Not to me in particular.  I should mind your
+notice boards, of course.  But if I were condemned, as you are, to
+spend a summer among the feminine beauties of Mayberry, a face like
+hers would be like a whisky and soda in a thirsty land, as a chap I
+know is fond of saying.  Oh, and by the way, speaking of your
+niece, I had a curious experience in Paris a week ago.  Most
+extraordinary thing.  For the moment I began to believe I really
+was going dotty, as Auntie fears.  I . . .  Your drive, Knowles.
+I'll tell you the story later."
+
+He did not tell it during that round, forgot it probably.  I did
+not remind him.  The longer he kept clear of the subject of my
+"niece" the more satisfied I was.  We lunched in the pavilion by
+the first tee.  There were sandwiches and biscuits--crackers, of
+course--and cakes and sweets galore.  Also thirst-quenching
+materials sufficient to satisfy even the gamblers of Mr.
+Heathcroft's acquaintance.  The "sporting curate," behind a huge
+Scotch and soda, was relating his mishaps in approaching the
+seventh hole for the benefit of his brother churchmen, Messrs.
+Judson and Worcester.  Lady Carey was dilating upon her pet
+subject, the talents and virtues of "Carleton, dear," for the
+benefit of the London attorney, who was pretending to listen with
+the respectful interest due blood and title, but who was thinking
+of something else, I am sure.  "Carleton, dear," himself, was
+chatting languidly with young Bayliss.  The latter seemed greatly
+interested.  There was a curious expression on his face.  I was
+surprised to see him so cordial to Heathcroft; I knew he did not
+like Lady Carey's nephew.
+
+The second and final round of the tournament began.  For six holes
+Heathcroft and I broke even.  The seventh he won, making us square
+for the match so far and, with an equal number of strokes.  The
+eighth we halved.  All depended on the ninth.  Halving there would
+mean a drawn match between us and a drawing for choice of prizes,
+provided we were in the prize-winning class.  A win for either of
+us meant the match itself.
+
+Heathcroft, in spite of the close play, was as bland and
+unconcerned as ever.  I tried to appear likewise.  As a matter of
+fact, I wanted to win.  Not because of the possible prize, I cared
+little for that, but for the pleasure of winning against him.  We
+drove from the ninth tee, each got a long brassy shot which put us
+on the edge of the green, and then strolled up the hill together.
+
+"I say, Knowles," he observed; "I haven't finished telling you of
+my Paris experience, have I.  Odd coincidence, by Jove!  I was
+telling young Bayliss about it just now and he thought it odd, too.
+I was--some other chaps and I drifted into the Abbey over in Paris
+a week or so ago and while we were there a girl came out and sang.
+She was an extremely pretty girl, you understand, but that wasn't
+the extraordinary part of it.  She was the image--my word! the very
+picture of your niece, Miss Morley.  It quite staggered me for the
+moment.  Upon my soul I thought it was she!  She sang extremely
+well, but not for long.  I tried to get near her--meant to speak to
+her, you know, but she had gone before I reached her.  Eh!  What
+did you say?"
+
+I had not said anything--at least I think I had not.  He
+misinterpreted my silence.
+
+"Oh, you mustn't be offended," he said, laughing.  "Of course I
+knew it wasn't she--that is, I should have known it if I hadn't
+been so staggered by the resemblance.  It was amazing, that
+resemblance.  The face, the voice--everything was like hers.  I was
+so dotty about it that I even hunted up one of the chaps in charge
+and asked him who the girl was.  He said she was an Austrian--
+Mademoiselle Juno or Junotte or something.  That ended it, of
+course.  I was a fool to imagine anything else, of course.  But you
+would have been a bit staggered if you had seen her.  And she
+didn't look Austrian, either.  She looked English or American--
+rather!  I say, I hope I haven't hurt your feelings, old chap.  I
+apologize to you and Miss Morley, you understand.  I couldn't help
+telling you; it was extraordinary now, wasn't it."
+
+I made some answer.  He rattled on about that sort of thing making
+one believe in the Prisoner of Zenda stuff, doubles and all that.
+We reached the green.  My ball lay nearest the pin and it was his
+putt.  He made it, a beauty, the ball halting just at the edge of
+the cup.  My putt was wild.  He holed out on the next shot.  It
+took me two and I had to concentrate my thought by main strength
+even then.  The hole and match were his.
+
+He was very decent about it, proclaimed himself lucky, declared I
+had, generally speaking, played much the better game and should
+have won easily.  I paid little attention to what he said although
+I did, of course, congratulate him and laughed at the idea that
+luck had anything to do with the result.  I no longer cared about
+the match or the tournament in general or anything connected with
+them.  His story of the girl who was singing in Paris was what I
+was interested in now.  I wanted him to tell me more, to give me
+particulars.  I wanted to ask him a dozen questions; and, yet,
+excited as I was, I realized that those questions must be asked
+carefully.  His suspicions must not be aroused.
+
+Before I could ask the first of the dozen Mr. Handliss bustled over
+to us to learn the result of our play and to announce that the
+distribution of prizes would take place in a few moments; also that
+Lady Carey wished to speak with her nephew.  The latter sauntered
+off to join the group by the pavilion and my opportunity for
+questioning had gone, for the time.
+
+Of the distribution of prizes, with its accompanying ceremony, I
+seem to recall very little.  Lady Carey made a little speech, I
+remember that, but just what she said I have forgotten.  "Much
+pleasure in rewarding skill," "Dear old Scottish game," "English
+sportsmanship," "Race not to the swift"--I must have been splashed
+with these drops from the fountain of oratory, for they stick in my
+memory.  Then, in turn, the winners were called up to select their
+prizes.  Wilson, the London attorney, headed the list; the sporting
+curate came next; Heathcroft next; and then I.  It had not occurred
+to me that I should win a prize.  In fact I had not thought
+anything about it.  My thoughts were far from the golf course just
+then.  They were in Paris, in a cathedral--Heathcroft had called it
+an abbey, but cathedral he must have meant--where a girl who looked
+like Frances Morley was singing.
+
+However, when Mr. Handliss called my name I answered and stepped
+forward.  Her Ladyship said something or other about "our cousin
+from across the sea" and "Anglo-Saxon blood" and her especial
+pleasure in awarding the prize.  I stammered thanks, rather
+incoherently expressed they were, I fear, selected the first
+article that came to hand--it happened to be a cigarette case; I
+never smoke cigarettes--and retired to the outer circle.  The other
+winners--Herbert Bayliss and Worcester among them--selected their
+prizes and then Mr. Wilson, winner of the tournament, speaking in
+behalf of us all, thanked the hostess for her kindness and
+hospitality.
+
+Her gracious invitation to play upon the Manor-House course Mr.
+Wilson mentioned feelingly.  Also the gracious condescension in
+presenting the prizes with her own hand.  They would be cherished,
+not only for their own sake, but for that of the donor.  He begged
+the liberty of proposing her ladyship's health.
+
+The "liberty" was, apparently, expected, for Mr. Handliss had full
+glasses ready and waiting.  The health was drunk.  Lady Carey drank
+ours in return, and the ceremony was over.
+
+I tried in vain to get another word with Heathcroft.  He was in
+conversation with his aunt and several of the feminine friends and,
+although I waited for some time, I, at last, gave up the attempt
+and walked home.  The Reverend Judson would have accompanied me,
+but I avoided him.  I did not wish to listen to Mayberry gossip;
+I wanted to be alone.
+
+Heathcroft's tale had made a great impression upon me--a most
+unreasonable impression, unwarranted by the scant facts as he
+related them.  The girl whom he had seen resembled Frances--yes;
+but she was an Austrian, her name was not Morley.  And resemblances
+were common enough.  That Frances should be singing in a Paris
+church was most improbable; but, so far as that went, the fact of
+A. Carleton Heathcroft's attending a church service I should,
+ordinarily, have considered improbable.  Improbable things did
+happen.  Suppose the girl he had seen was Frances.  My heart leaped
+at the thought.
+
+But even supposing it was she, what difference did it make--to me?
+None, of course.  She had asked us not to follow her, to make no
+attempt to find her.  I had preached compliance with her wish to
+Hephzy, to Doctor Bayliss--yes, to Herbert Bayliss that very
+afternoon.  But Herbert Bayliss was sworn to find her, in spite of
+me, in spite of the Evil One.  And Heathcroft had told young
+Bayliss the same story he had told me.  HE would not be deterred by
+scruples; her wish would not prevent his going to Paris in search
+of her.
+
+I reached the rectory, to be welcomed by Hephzy with questions
+concerning the outcome of the tournament and triumphant gloatings
+over my perfectly useless prize.  I did not tell her of
+Heathcroft's story.  I merely said I had met that gentleman and
+that Herbert Bayliss had returned to Mayberry.  And I asked a
+question.
+
+"Hephzy," I asked, "when do the Heptons leave Paris for their trip
+through Switzerland?"
+
+Hephzy considered.  "Let me see," she said.  "Today is the
+eighteenth, isn't it.  They start on the twenty-second; that's four
+days from now."
+
+"Of course you have written them that we cannot accept their
+invitation to go along?"
+
+She hesitated.  "Why, no," she admitted, "I haven't.  That is, I
+have written 'em, but I haven't posted the letter.  Humph! did you
+notice that 'posted'?  Shows what livin' in a different place'll do
+even to as settled a body as I am.  In Bayport I should have said
+'mailed' the letter, same as anybody else.  I must be careful or
+I'll go back home and call the expressman a 'carrier' and a pie a
+'tart' and a cracker a 'biscuit.'  Land sakes!  I remember readin'
+how David Copperfield's aunt always used to eat biscuits soaked in
+port wine before she went to bed.  I used to think 'twas dreadful
+dissipated business and that the old lady must have been ready for
+bed by the time she got through.  You see I always had riz biscuits
+in mind.  A cracker's different; crackers don't soak up much.  We'd
+ought to be careful how we judge folks, hadn't we, Hosy."
+
+"Yes," said I, absently.  "So you haven't posted the letter to the
+Heptons.  Why not?"
+
+"Well--well, to tell you the truth, Hosy, I was kind of hopin' you
+might change your mind and decide to go, after all.  I wish you
+would; 'twould do you good.  And," wistfully, "Switzerland must be
+lovely.  But there!  I know just how you feel, you poor boy.  I'll
+mail the letter to-night."
+
+"Give it to me," said I.  "I'll--I'll see to it."
+
+Hephzy handed me the letter.  I put it in my pocket, but I did not
+post it that evening.  A plan--or the possible beginning of a plan--
+was forming in my mind.
+
+That night was another of my bad ones.  The little sleep I had was
+filled with dreams, dreams from which I awoke to toss restlessly.
+I rose and walked the floor, calling myself a fool, a silly old
+fool, over and over again.  But when morning came my plan, a
+ridiculous, wild plan from which, even if it succeeded--which was
+most unlikely--nothing but added trouble and despair could possibly
+come, my plan was nearer its ultimate formation.
+
+At eleven o'clock that forenoon I walked up the marble steps of the
+Manor House and rang the bell.  The butler, an exalted personage in
+livery, answered my ring.  Mr. Heathcroft?  No, sir.  Mr.
+Heathcroft had left for London by the morning train.  Her ladyship
+was in her boudoir.  She did not see anyone in the morning, sir.  I
+had no wish to see her ladyship, but Heathcroft's departure was a
+distinct disappointment.  I thanked the butler and, remembering
+that even cathedral ushers accepted tips, slipped a shilling into
+his hand.  His dignity thawed at the silver touch, and he expressed
+regret at Mr. Heathcroft's absence.
+
+"You're not the only gentleman who has been here to see him this
+morning, sir," he said.  "Doctor Bayliss, the younger one, called
+about an hour ago.  He seemed quite as sorry to find him gone as
+you are, sir."
+
+I think that settled it.  When I again entered the rectory my mind
+was made up.  The decision was foolish, insane, even dishonorable
+perhaps, but the decision was made.
+
+"Hephzy," said I, "I have changed my mind.  Travel may do me good.
+I have telegraphed the Heptons that we will join them in Paris on
+the evening of the twenty-first.  After that--Well, we'll see."
+
+Hephzy's delight was as great as her surprise.  She said I was a
+dear, unselfish boy.  Considering what I intended doing I felt
+decidedly mean; but I did not tell her what that intention was.
+
+We took the two-twenty train from Charing Cross on the afternoon of
+the twenty-first.  The servants had been left in charge of the
+rectory.  We would return in a fortnight, so we told them.
+
+It was a beautiful day, bright and sunshiny, but, after smoky,
+grimy London had been left behind and we were whizzing through the
+Kentish countryside, between the hop fields and the pastures where
+the sheep were feeding, we noticed that a stiff breeze was blowing.
+Further on, as we wound amid the downs near Folkestone, the bending
+trees and shrubs proved that the breeze was a miniature gale.  And
+when we came in sight of the Channel, it was thickly sprinkled with
+whitecaps from beach to horizon.
+
+"I imagine we shall have a rather rough passage, Hephzy," said I.
+
+Hephzy's attention was otherwise engaged.
+
+"Why do they call a hill a 'down' over here?" she asked.  "I should
+think an 'up' would be better.  What did you say, Hosy?  A rough
+passage?  I guess that won't bother you and me much.  This little
+mite of water can't seem very much stirred up to folks who have
+sailed clear across the Atlantic Ocean.  But there!  I mustn't put
+on airs.  I used to think Cape Cod Bay was about all the water
+there was.  Travelin' does make such a difference in a person's
+ideas.  Do you remember the Englishwoman at Bancroft's who told me
+that she supposed the Thames must remind us of our own Mississippi?"
+
+"So that's the famous English Channel, is it," she observed, a
+moment later.  "How wide is it, Hosy?"
+
+"About twenty miles at the narrowest point, I believe," I said.
+
+"Twenty miles!  About as far as Bayport to Provincetown.  Well, I
+don't know whether any of your ancestors or mine came over with
+William the Conquerer or not, but if they did, they didn't have far
+to come.  I cal'late I'll be contented with having my folks cross
+in the Mayflower.  They came three thousand miles anyway."
+
+She was inclined to regard the Channel rather contemptuously just
+then.  A half hour later she was more respectful.
+
+The steamer was awaiting us at the pier.  As the throng of
+passengers filed up the gang-plank she suddenly squeezed my arm.
+
+"Look!  Hosy!" she cried.  "Look!  Isn't that him?"
+
+I looked where she was pointing.
+
+"Him?  Who?" I asked.
+
+"Look!  There he goes now.  No, he's gone.  I can't see him any
+more.  And yet I was almost certain 'twas him."
+
+"Who?" I asked again.  "Did you see someone you knew?"
+
+"I thought I did, but I guess I was mistaken.  He's just got home;
+he wouldn't be startin' off again so soon.  No, it couldn't have
+been him, but I did think--"
+
+I stopped short.  "Who did you think you saw?" I demanded.
+
+"I thought I saw Doctor Herbert Bayliss goin' up those stairs to
+the steamboat.  It looked like him enough to be his twin brother,
+if he had one."
+
+I did not answer.  I looked about as we stepped aboard the boat,
+but if young Bayliss was there he was not in sight.  Hephzy rattled
+on excitedly.
+
+"You can't tell much by seein' folks's backs," she declared.  "I
+remember one time your cousin Hezekiah Knowles--You don't remember
+him, Hosy; he died when you was little--One time Cousin Hezzy was
+up to Boston with his wife and they was shoppin' in one of the big
+stores.  That is, Martha Ann--the wife--was shoppin' and he was
+taggin' along and complainin', same as men generally do.  He was
+kind of nearsighted, Hezzy was, and when Martha was fightin' to get
+a place in front of a bargain counter he stayed astern and kept his
+eyes fixed on a hat she was wearin'.  'Twas a new hat with blue and
+yellow flowers on it.  Hezzy always said, when he told the yarn
+afterward, that he never once figured that there could be another
+hat like that one.  I saw it myself and, if I'd been in his place,
+I'd have HOPED there wasn't anyway.  Well, he followed that hat
+from one counter to another and, at last, he stepped up and said,
+'Look here, dearie,' he says--They hadn't been married very long,
+not long enough to get out of the mushy stage--'Look here, dearie,'
+he says, 'hadn't we better be gettin' on home?  You'll tire those
+little feet of yours all out trottin' around this way.'  And when
+the hat turned around there was a face under it as black as a crow.
+He'd been followin' a darkey woman for ten minutes.  She thought he
+was makin' fun of her feet and was awful mad, and when Martha came
+along and found who he'd taken for her she was madder still.  Hezzy
+said, 'I couldn't help it, Martha.  Nobody could.  I never saw two
+craft look more alike from twenty foot astern.  And she wears that
+hat just the way you do.'  That didn't help matters any, of course,
+and--Why, Hosy, where are you goin'?  Why don't you say somethin'?
+Hadn't we better sit down?  All the good seats will be gone if we
+don't."
+
+I had been struggling through the crowd, trying my best to get a
+glimpse of the man she had thought to be Herbert Bayliss.  If it
+was he then my suspicions were confirmed.  Heathcroft's story of
+the girl who sang in Paris had impressed him as it had me and he
+was on his way to see for himself.  But the man, whoever he might
+be, had disappeared.
+
+"How the wind does blow," said Hephzy.  "What are the people doin'
+with those black tarpaulins?"
+
+Sailors in uniform were passing among the seated passengers
+distributing large squares of black waterproof canvas.  I watched
+the use to which the tarpaulins were put and I understood.  I
+beckoned to the nearest sailor and rented two of the canvases for
+use during the voyage.
+
+"How much?" I asked.
+
+"One franc each," said the man, curtly.
+
+I had visited the money-changers near the Charing Cross station and
+was prepared.  Hephzy's eyes opened.
+
+"A franc," she repeated.  "That's French money, isn't it.  Is he a
+Frenchman?"
+
+"Yes," said I.  "This is a French boat, I think."
+
+She watched the sailor for a moment.  Then she sighed.
+
+"And he's a Frenchman," she said.  "I thought Frenchmen wore
+mustaches and goatees and were awful polite.  He was about as
+polite as a pig.  And all he needs is a hand-organ and a monkey to
+be an Italian.  A body couldn't tell the difference without specs.
+What did you get those tarpaulins for, Hosy?"
+
+I covered our traveling bags with one of the tarpaulins, as I saw
+our fellow-passengers doing, and the other I tucked about Hephzy,
+enveloping her from her waist down.
+
+"I don't need that," she protested.  "It isn't cold and it isn't
+rainin', either.  I tell you I don't need it, Hosy.  Don't tuck me
+in any more.  I feel as if I was goin' to France in a baby
+carriage, not a steamboat.  And what are they passin' round those--
+those tin dippers for?"
+
+"They may be useful later on," I said, watching the seas leap and
+foam against the stone breakwater.  "You'll probably understand
+later, Hephzy."
+
+She understood.  The breakwater was scarcely passed when our boat,
+which had seemed so large and steady and substantial, began to
+manifest a desire to stand on both ends at once and to roll like a
+log in a rapid.  The sun was shining brightly overhead, the
+verandas of the hotels along the beach were crowded with gaily
+dressed people, the surf fringing that beach was dotted with
+bathers, everything on shore wore a look of holiday and joy--and
+yet out here, on the edge of the Channel, there was anything but
+calm and anything but joy.
+
+How that blessed boat did toss and rock and dip and leap and pitch!
+And how the spray began to fly as we pushed farther and farther
+from land!  It came over the bows in sheets; it swept before the
+wind in showers, in torrents.  Hephzy hastily removed her hat and
+thrust it beneath the tarpaulin.  I turned up the collar of my
+steamer coat and slid as far down into that collar as I could.
+
+"My soul!" exclaimed Hephzy, the salt water running down her face.
+"My soul and body!"
+
+"I agree with you," said I.
+
+On we went, over the waves or through them.  Our fellow-passengers
+curled up beneath their tarpaulins, smiled stoically or groaned
+dismally, according to their dispositions--or digestions.  A huge
+wave--the upper third of it, at least--swept across the deck and
+spilled a gallon or two of cold water upon us.  A sturdy, red-faced
+Englishman, sitting next me, grinned cheerfully and observed:
+
+"Trickles down one's neck a bit, doesn't it, sir."
+
+I agreed that it did.  Hephzy, huddled under the lee of my
+shoulder, sputtered.
+
+"Trickles!" she whispered.  "My heavens and earth!  If this is a
+trickle then Noah's flood couldn't have been more than a splash.
+Trickles!  There's a Niagara Falls back of both of my ears this
+minute."
+
+Another passenger, also English, but gray-haired and elderly, came
+tacking down the deck, bound somewhere or other.  His was a zig-zag
+transit.  He dove for the rail, caught it, steadied himself, took a
+fresh start, swooped to the row of chairs by the deck house,
+carromed from them, and, in company with a barrel or two of flying
+brine, came head first into my lap.  I expected profanity and
+temper.  I did get a little of the former.
+
+"This damned French boat!" he observed, rising with difficulty.
+"She absolutely WON'T be still."
+
+"The sea is pretty rough."
+
+"Oh, the sea is all right.  A bit damp, that's all.  It's the
+blessed boat.  Foreigners are such wretched sailors."
+
+He was off on another tack.  Hephzy watched him wonderingly.
+
+"A bit damp," she repeated.  "Yes, I shouldn't wonder if 'twas.
+I suppose likely he wouldn't call it wet if he fell overboard."
+
+"Not on this side of the Channel," I answered.  "This side is
+English water, therefore it is all right."
+
+A few minutes later Hephzy spoke again.
+
+"Look at those poor women," she said.
+
+Opposite us were two English ladies, middle-aged, wretchedly ill
+and so wet that the feathers on their hats hung down in strings.
+
+"Just like drowned cats' tails," observed Hephzy.  "Ain't it awful!
+And they're too miserable to care.  You poor thing," she said,
+leaning forward and addressing the nearest, "can't I fix you so
+you're more comfortable?"
+
+The woman addressed looked up and tried her best to smile.
+
+"Oh, no, thank you," she said, weakly but cheerfully.  "We're doing
+quite well.  It will soon be over."
+
+Hephzy shook her head.
+
+"Did you hear that, Hosy?" she whispered.  "I declare! if it wasn't
+off already, and that's a mercy, I'd take off my hat to England and
+the English people.  Not a whimper, not a complaint, just sit still
+and soak and tumble around and grin and say it's 'a bit damp.'
+Whenever I read about the grumblin', fault-findin' Englishman I'll
+think of the folks on this boat.  It may be patriotism or it may be
+the race pride and reserve we hear so much about--but, whatever it
+is, it's fine.  They've all got it, men and women and children.  I
+presume likely the boy that stood on the burnin' deck would have
+said 'twas a bit sultry, and that's all. . . .  What is it, Hosy?"
+
+I had uttered an exclamation.  A young man had just reeled by us on
+his way forward.  His cap was pulled down over his eyes and his
+coat collar was turned up, but I recognized him.  He was Herbert
+Bayliss.
+
+We were three hours crossing from Folkestone to Boulogne, instead
+of the usual scant two.  We entered the harbor, where the great
+crucifix on the hill above the town attracted Hephzy's attention
+and the French signs over the doors of hotels and shops by the quay
+made her realize, so she said, that we really were in a foreign
+country.
+
+"Somehow England never did seem so very foreign," she said.  "And
+the Mayberry folks were so nice and homey and kind I've come to
+think of 'em as, not just neighbors, but friends.  But this--THIS
+is foreign enough, goodness knows!  Let go of my arm!" to the
+smiling, gesticulating porter who was proffering his services.
+"DON'T wave your hands like that; you make me dizzy.  Keep 'em
+still, man!  I could understand you just as well if they was tied.
+Hosy, you'll have to be skipper from now on.  Now I KNOW Cape Cod
+is three thousand miles off."
+
+We got through the customs without trouble, found our places in the
+train, and the train, after backing and fussing and fidgeting and
+tooting in a manner thoroughly French, rolled out of the station.
+
+We ate our dinner, and a very good dinner it was, in the dining-
+car.  Hephzy, having asked me to translate the heading "Compagnie
+Internationale des Wagon Lits" on the bill of fare, declared she
+couldn't see why a dining-car should be called a "wagon bed."
+"There's enough to eat to put you to sleep," she declared, "but you
+couldn't stay asleep any more than you could in the nail factory up
+to Tremont.  I never heard such a rattlin' and slambangin' in my
+life."
+
+We whizzed through the French country, catching glimpses of little
+towns, with red-roofed cottages clustered about the inevitable
+church and chateau, until night came and looking out of the window
+was no longer profitable.  At nine, or thereabouts, we alighted
+from the train at Paris.
+
+In the cab, on the way to the hotel where we were to meet the
+Heptons, Hephzy talked incessantly.
+
+"Paris!" she said, over and over again.  "Paris! where they had the
+Three Musketeers and Notre Dame and Henry of Navarre and Saint
+Bartholomew and Napoleon and the guillotine and Innocents Abroad
+and--and everything.  Paris!  And I'm in it!"
+
+At the door of the hotel Mr. Hepton met us.
+
+Before we retired that night I told Hephzy what I had deferred
+telling until then, namely, that I did not intend leaving for
+Switzerland with her and with the Heptons the following day.  I did
+not tell her my real reason for staying; I had invented a reason
+and told her that instead.
+
+"I want to be alone here in Paris for a few days," I said.  "I
+think I may find some material here which will help me with my
+novel.  You and the Heptons must go, just as you have planned, and
+I will join you at Lucerne or Interlaken."
+
+Hephzy stared at me.
+
+"I sha'n't stir one step without you," she declared. "If I'd known
+you had such an idea as that in your head I--"
+
+"You wouldn't have come," I interrupted.  "I know that; that's why
+I didn't tell you.  Of course you will go and of course you will
+leave me here.  We will be separated only two or three days.  I'll
+ask Hepton to give me an itinerary of the trip and I will wire when
+and where I will join you.  You must go, Hephzy; I insist upon it."
+
+In spite of my insisting Hephzy still declared she should not go.
+It was nearly midnight before she gave in.
+
+"And if you DON'T come in three days at the longest," she said,
+"you'll find me back here huntin' you up.  I mean that, Hosy, so
+you'd better understand it.  And now," rising from her chair, "I'm
+goin' to see about the things you're to wear while we're separated.
+If I don't you're liable to keep on wet stockin's and shoes and
+things all the time and forget to change 'em.  You needn't say you
+won't, for I know you too well.  Mercy sakes! do you suppose I've
+taken care of you all these years and DON'T know?"
+
+The next forenoon I said good-by to her and the Heptons at the
+railway station.  Hephzy's last words to me were these:
+
+"Remember," she said, "if you do get caught in the rain, there's
+dry things in the lower tray of your trunk.  Collars and neckties
+and shirts are in the upper tray.  I've hung your dress suit in the
+closet in case you want it, though that isn't likely.  And be
+careful what you eat, and don't smoke too much, and--Yes, Mr.
+Hepton, I'm comin'--and don't spend ALL your money in book-stores;
+you'll need some of it in Switzerland.  And--Oh, dear, Hosy! do be
+a good boy.  I know you're always good, but, from all I've heard,
+this Paris is an awful place and--good-by.  Good-by.  In Lucerne in
+two days or Interlaken in three.  It's got to be that, or back I
+come, remember.  I HATE to leave you all alone amongst these
+jabberin' foreigners.  I'm glad you can jabber, too, that's one
+comfort.  If it was me, all I could do would be to holler United
+States language at 'em, and if they didn't understand that, just
+holler louder.  I--Yes, Mr. Hepton, I AM comin' now.  Good-by,
+Hosy, dear."
+
+The train rolled out of the station.  I watched it go.  Then I
+turned and walked to the street.  So far my scheme had worked well.
+I was alone in Paris as I had planned to be.  And now--and now to
+find where a girl sang, a girl who looked like Frances Morley.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+In Which I Learn that All Abbeys Are Not Churches
+
+
+And that, now that I really stopped to consider it, began to appear
+more and more of a task.  Paris must be full of churches; to visit
+each of them in turn would take weeks at least.  Hephzy had given
+me three days.  I must join her at Interlaken in three days or
+there would be trouble.  And how was I to make even the most
+superficial search in three days?
+
+Of course I had realized something of this before.  Even in the
+state of mind which Heathcroft's story had left me, I had realized
+that my errand in Paris was a difficult one.  I realized that I had
+set out on the wildest of wild goose chases and that, even in the
+improbable event of the singer's being Frances, my finding her was
+most unlikely.  The chances of success were a hundred to one
+against me.  But I was in the mood to take the hundredth chance.  I
+should have taken it if the odds were higher still.  My plan--if it
+could be called a plan--was first of all to buy a Paris Baedeker
+and look over the list of churches.  This I did, and, back in the
+hotel room, I consulted that list.  It staggered me.  There were
+churches enough--there were far too many.  Cathedrals and chapels
+and churches galore--Catholic and Protestant.  But there was no
+church calling itself an abbey.  I closed the Baedeker, lit a
+cigar, and settled myself for further reflection.
+
+The girl was singing somewhere and she called herself Mademoiselle
+Juno or Junotte, so Heathcroft had said.  So much I knew and that
+was all.  It was very, very little.  But Herbert Bayliss had come
+to Paris, I believed, because of what Heathcroft had told him.  Did
+he know more than I?  It was possible.  At any rate he had come.  I
+had seen him on the steamer, and I believed he had seen and
+recognized me.  Of course he might not be in Paris now; he might
+have gone elsewhere.  I did not believe it, however.  I believed he
+had crossed the Channel on the same errand as I.  There was a
+possible chance.  I might, if the other means proved profitless,
+discover at which hotel Bayliss was staying and question him.  He
+might tell me nothing, even if he knew, but I could keep him in
+sight, I could follow him and discover where he went.  It would be
+dishonorable, perhaps, but I was desperate and doggedly regardless
+of scruples.  I was set upon one thing--to find her, to see her and
+speak with her again.
+
+Shadowing Bayliss, however, I set aside as a last resort.  Before
+that I would search on my own hook.  And, tossing aside the useless
+Baedeker, I tried to think of someone whose advice might be of
+value.  At last, I resolved to question the concierge of the hotel.
+Concierges, I knew, were the ever present helps of travelers in
+trouble.  They knew everything, spoke all languages, and expected
+to be asked all sorts of unreasonable questions.
+
+The concierge at my hotel was a transcendant specimen of his
+talented class.  His name and title was Monsieur Louis--at least
+that is what I had heard the other guests call him.  And the
+questions which he had been called upon to answer, in my hearing,
+ranged in subject from the hour of closing the Luxemburg galleries
+to that of opening the Bal Tabarin, with various interruptions
+during which he settled squabbles over cab fares, took orders for
+theater and opera tickets, and explained why fruit at the tables of
+the Cafe des Ambassadeurs was so very expensive.
+
+Monsieur Louis received me politely, listened, with every
+appearance of interest, to my tale of a young lady, a relative, who
+was singing at one of the Paris churches and whose name was Juno or
+Junotte, but, when I had finished, reluctantly shook his head.
+There were many, many churches in Paris--yes, and, at some of them,
+young ladies sang; but these were, for the most part, the
+Protestant churches.  At the larger churches, the Catholic
+churches, most of the singers were men or boys.  He could recall
+none where a lady of that name sang.  Monsieur had not been told
+the name of the church?
+
+"The person who told me referred to it as an abbey," I said.
+
+Louis raised his shoulders.  "I am sorry, Monsieur," he said, "but
+there is no abbey, where ladies sing, in Paris.  It is, alas,
+regrettable, but it is so."
+
+He announced it as he might have broken to me the news of the death
+of a friend.  Incidentally, having heard a few sentences of my
+French, he spoke in English, very good English.
+
+"I will, however, make inquiries, Monsieur," he went on.  "Possibly
+I may discover something which will be of help to Monsieur in his
+difficulty."  In the meantime there was to be a parade of troops at
+the Champ de Mars at four, and the evening performance at the
+Folies Bergeres was unusually good and English and American
+gentlemen always enjoyed it.  It would give him pleasure to book a
+place for me.
+
+I thanked him but I declined the offer, so far as the Folies were
+concerned.  I did ask him, however, to give me the name of a few
+churches at which ladies sang.  This he did and I set out to find
+them, in a cab which whizzed through the Paris streets as if the
+driver was bent upon suicide and manslaughter.
+
+I visited four places of worship that afternoon and two more that
+evening.  Those in charge--for I attended no services--knew nothing
+of Mademoiselle Junotte or Juno.  I retired at ten, somewhat
+discouraged, but stubbornly determined to keep on, for my three
+days at least.
+
+The next morning I consulted Baedeker again, this time for the list
+of hotels, a list which I found quite as lengthy as that of the
+churches.  Then I once more sought the help of Monsieur Louis.
+Could he tell me a few of the hotels where English visitors were
+most likely to stay.
+
+He could do more than that, apparently.  Would I be so good as to
+inform him if the lady or gentleman--being Parisian he put the lady
+first--whom I wished to find had recently arrived in Paris.  I told
+him that the gentleman had arrived the same evening as I.
+Whereupon he produced a list of guests at all the prominent hotels.
+Herbert Bayliss was registered at the Continental.
+
+To the Continental I went and made inquiries of the concierge
+there.  Mr. Bayliss was there, he was in his room, so the concierge
+believed.  He would be pleased to ascertain.  Would I give my name?
+I declined to give the name, saying that I did not wish to disturb
+Mr. Bayliss.  If he was in his room I would wait until he came
+down.  He was in his room, had not yet breakfasted, although it was
+nearly ten in the forenoon.  I sat down in a chair from which I
+could command a good view of the elevators, and waited.
+
+The concierge strolled over and chatted.  Was I a friend of Mr.
+Bayliss?  Ah, a charming young gentleman, was he not.  This was not
+his first visit to Paris, no indeed; he came frequently--though not
+as frequently of late--and he invariably stayed at the Continental.
+He had been out late the evening before, which doubtless explained
+his non-appearance.  Ah, he was breakfasting now; had ordered his
+"cafe complete."  Doubtless he would be down very soon?  Would I
+wish to send up my name now?
+
+Again I declined, to the polite astonishment of the concierge, who
+evidently considered me a queer sort of a friend.  He was called to
+his desk by a guest, who wished to ask questions, of course, and I
+waited where I was.  At a quarter to eleven Herbert Bayliss emerged
+from the elevator.
+
+His appearance almost shocked me.  Out late the night before!  He
+looked as if he had been out all night for many nights.  He was
+pale and solemn.  I stepped forward to greet him and the start he
+gave when he saw me was evidence of the state of his nerves.  I had
+never thought of him as possessing any nerves.
+
+"Eh?  Why, Knowles!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Good morning, Bayliss," said I.
+
+We both were embarrassed, he more than I, for I had expected to see
+him and he had not expected to see me.  I made a move to shake
+hands but he did not respond.  His manner toward me was formal and,
+I thought, colder than it had been at our meeting the day of the
+golf tournament.
+
+"I called," I said, "to see you, Bayliss.  If you are not engaged I
+should like to talk with you for a few moments."
+
+His answer was a question.
+
+"How did you know I was here?" he asked.
+
+"I saw your name in the list of recent arrivals at the
+Continental," I answered.
+
+"I mean how did you know I was in Paris?"
+
+"I didn't know.  I thought I caught a glimpse of you on the boat.
+I was almost sure it was you, but you did not appear to recognize
+me and I had no opportunity to speak then."
+
+He did not speak at once, he did not even attempt denial of having
+seen and recognized me during the Channel crossing.  He regarded me
+intently and, I thought, suspiciously.
+
+"Who sent you here?" he asked, suddenly.
+
+"Sent me!  No one sent me.  I don't understand you."
+
+"Why did you follow me?"
+
+"Follow you?"
+
+"Yes.  Why did you follow me to Paris?  No one knew I was coming
+here, not even my own people.  They think I am--Well, they don't
+know that I am here."
+
+His speech and his manner were decidedly irritating.  I had made a
+firm resolve to keep my temper, no matter what the result of this
+interview might be, but I could not help answering rather sharply.
+
+"I had no intention of following you--here or anywhere else," I
+said.  "Your action and whereabouts, generally speaking, are of no
+particular interest to me.  I did not follow you to Paris, Doctor
+Bayliss."
+
+He reddened and hesitated.  Then he led the way to a divan in a
+retired corner of the lobby and motioned to me to be seated.  There
+he sat down beside me and waited for me to speak.  I, in turn,
+waited for him to speak.
+
+At last he spoke.
+
+"I'm sorry, Knowles," he said.  "I am not myself today.  I've had a
+devil of a night and I feel like a beast this morning.  I should
+probably have insulted my own father, had he appeared suddenly, as
+you did.  Of course I should have known you did not follow me to
+Paris.  But--but why did you come?"
+
+I hesitated now.  "I came," I said, "to--to--Well, to be perfectly
+honest with you, I came because of something I heard concerning--
+concerning--"
+
+He interrupted me.  "Then Heathcroft did tell you!" he exclaimed.
+"I thought as much."
+
+"He told you, I know.  He said he did."
+
+"Yes.  He did.  My God, man, isn't it awful!  Have you seen her?"
+
+His manner convinced me that he had seen her.  In my eagerness I
+forgot to be careful.
+
+"No," I answered, breathlessly; "I have not seen her.  Where is
+she?"
+
+He turned and stared at me.
+
+"Don't you know where she is?" he asked, slowly.
+
+"I know nothing.  I have been told that she--or someone very like
+her--is singing in a Paris church.  Heathcroft told me that and
+then we were interrupted.  I--What is the matter?"
+
+He was staring at me more oddly than ever.  There was the strangest
+expression on his face.
+
+"In a church!" he repeated.  "Heathcroft told you--"
+
+"He told me that he had seen a girl, whose resemblance to Miss
+Morley was so striking as to be marvelous, singing in a Paris
+church.  He called it an abbey, but of course it couldn't be that.
+Do you know anything more definite?  What did he tell you?"
+
+He did not answer.
+
+"In a church!" he said again.  "You thought--Oh, good heavens!"
+
+He began to laugh.  It was not a pleasant laugh to hear.  Moreover,
+it angered me.
+
+"This may be very humorous," I said, brusquely.  "Perhaps it is--to
+you.  But--Bayliss, you know more of this than I.  I am certain now
+that you do.  I want you to tell me what you know.  Is that girl
+Frances Morley?  Have you seen her?  Where is she?"
+
+He had stopped laughing.  Now he seemed to be considering.
+
+"Then you did come over here to find her," he said, more slowly
+still.  "You were following her, why?"
+
+"WHY?"
+
+"Yes, why.  She is nothing to you.  You told my father that.  You
+told me that she was not your niece.  You told Father that you had
+no claim upon her whatever and that she had asked you not to try to
+trace her or to learn where she was.  You said all that and
+preached about respecting her wish and all that sort of thing.  And
+yet you are here now trying to find her."
+
+The only answer I could make to this was a rather childish retort.
+
+"And so are you," I said.
+
+His fists clinched.
+
+"I!" he cried, fiercely.  "I!  Did _I_ ever say she was nothing to
+me?  Did _I_ ever tell anyone I should not try to find her?  I told
+you, only the other day, that I would find her in spite of the
+devil.  I meant it.  Knowles, I don't understand you.  When I came
+to you thinking you her uncle and guardian, and asked your
+permission to ask her to marry me, you gave that permission.  You
+did.  You didn't tell me that she was nothing to you.  I don't
+understand you at all.  You told my father a lot of rot--"
+
+"I told your father the truth.  And, when I told you that she had
+left no message for you, that was the truth also.  I have no reason
+to believe she cares for you--"
+
+"And none to think that she doesn't.  At all events she did not
+tell ME not to follow her.  She did tell you.  Why are you
+following her?"
+
+It was a question I could not answer--to him.  That reason no one
+should know.  And yet what excuse could I give, after all my
+protestations?
+
+"I--I feel that I have the right, everything considered," I
+stammered.  "She is not my niece, but she is Miss Cahoon's."
+
+"And she ran away from both of you, asking, as a last request, that
+you both make no attempt to learn where she was.  The whole affair
+is beyond understanding.  What the truth may be--"
+
+"Are you hinting that I have lied to you?"
+
+"I am not hinting at anything.  All I can say is that it is deuced
+queer, all of it.  And I sha'n't say more."
+
+"Will you tell me--"
+
+"I shall tell you nothing.  That would be her wish, according to
+your own statement and I will respect that wish, if you don't."
+
+I rose to my feet.  There was little use in an open quarrel between
+us and I was by far the older man.  Yes, and his position was
+infinitely stronger than mine, as he understood it.  But I never
+was more strongly tempted.  He knew where she was.  He had seen
+her.  The thought was maddening.
+
+He had risen also and was facing me defiantly.
+
+"Good morning, Doctor Bayliss," said I, and walked away.  I turned
+as I reached the entrance of the hotel and looked back.  He was
+still standing there, staring at me.
+
+That afternoon I spent in my room.  There is little use describing
+my feelings.  That she was in Paris I was sure now.  That Bayliss
+had seen her I was equally sure.  But why had he spoken and looked
+as he did when I first spoke of Heathcroft's story?  What had he
+meant by saying something or other was "awful?"  And why had he
+seemed so astonished, why had he laughed in that strange way when I
+had said she was singing in a church?
+
+That evening I sought Monsieur Louis, the concierge, once more.
+
+"Is there any building here in Paris," I asked, "a building in
+which people sing, which is called an abbey?  One that is not a
+church or an abbey, but is called that?"
+
+Louis looked at me in an odd way.  He seemed a bit embarrassed, an
+embarrassment I should not have expected from him.
+
+"Monsieur asks the question," he said, smiling.  "It was in my mind
+last night, the thought, but Monsieur asked for a church.  There is
+a place called L'Abbaye and there young women sing, but--" he
+hesitated, shrugged and then added, "but L'Abbaye is not a church.
+No, it is not that."
+
+"What is it?" I asked.
+
+"A restaurant, Monsieur.  A cafe chantant at Montmartre."
+
+Montmartre at ten that evening was just beginning to awaken.  At
+the hour when respectable Paris, home-loving, domestic Paris, the
+Paris of which the tourist sees so little, is thinking of retiring,
+Montmartre--or that section of it in which L'Abbaye is situated--
+begins to open its eyes.  At ten-thirty, as my cab buzzed into the
+square and pulled up at the curb, the electric signs were blazing,
+the sidewalks were, if not yet crowded, at least well filled, and
+the sounds of music from the open windows of The Dead Rat and the
+other cafes with the cheerful names were mingling with noises of
+the street.
+
+Monsieur Louis had given me my sailing orders, so to speak.  He had
+told me that arriving at L'Abbaye before ten-thirty was quite
+useless.  Midnight was the accepted hour, he said; prior to that I
+would find it rather dull, triste.  But after that--Ah, Monsieur
+would, at least, be entertained.
+
+"But of course Monsieur does not expect to find the young lady of
+whom he is in search there," he said.  "A relative is she not?"
+
+Remembering that I had, when I first mentioned the object of my
+quest to him, referred to her as a relative, I nodded.
+
+He smiled and shrugged.
+
+"A relative of Monsieur's would scarcely be found singing at
+L'Abbaye," he said.  "But it is a most interesting place,
+entertaining and chic.  Many English and American gentlemen sup
+there after the theater."
+
+I smiled and intimated that the desire to pass a pleasant evening
+was my sole reason for visiting the place.  He was certain I would
+be pleased.
+
+The doorway of L'Abbaye was not deserted, even at the "triste" hour
+of ten-thirty.  Other cabs were drawn up at the curb and, upon the
+stairs leading to the upper floors, were several gaily dressed
+couples bound, as I had proclaimed myself to be, in search of
+supper and entertainment.  I had, acting upon the concierge's hint,
+arrayed myself in my evening clothes and I handed my silk hat,
+purchased in London--where, as Hephzy said, "a man without a tall
+hat is like a rooster without tail feathers"--to a polite and busy
+attendant.  Then a personage with a very straight beard and a very
+curly mustache, ushered me into the main dining-room.
+
+"Monsieur would wish seats for how many?" he asked, in French.
+
+"For myself only," I answered, also in French.  His next remark was
+in English.  I was beginning to notice that when I addressed a
+Parisian in his native language, he usually answered in mine.  This
+may have been because of a desire to please me, or in self-defence;
+I am inclined to think the latter.
+
+"Ah, for one only.  This way, Monsieur."
+
+I was given a seat at one end of a long table, and in a corner.
+There were plenty of small tables yet unoccupied, but my guide was
+apparently reserving these for couples or quartettes; at any rate
+he did not offer one to me.  I took the seat indicated.
+
+"I shall wish to remain here for some time?" I said.  "Probably the
+entire--" I hesitated; considering the hour I scarcely knew whether
+to say "evening" or "morning."  At last I said "night" as a
+compromise.
+
+The bearded person seemed doubtful.
+
+"There will be a great demand later," he said.  "To oblige Monsieur
+is of course our desire, but. . . .  Ah, merci, Monsieur, I will
+see that Monsieur is not disturbed."
+
+The reason for his change of heart was the universal one in
+restaurants.  He put the reason in his pocket and summoned a waiter
+to take my order.
+
+I gave the order, a modest one, which dropped me a mile or two in
+the waiter's estimation.  However, after a glance at my fellow-
+diners at nearby tables, I achieved a partial uplift by ordering a
+bottle of extremely expensive wine.  I had had the idea that, being
+in France, the home of champagne, that beverage would be cheap or,
+at least, moderately priced.  But in L'Abbaye the idea seemed to be
+erroneous.
+
+The wine was brought immediately; the supper was somewhat delayed.
+I did not care.  I had not come there to eat--or to drink, either,
+for that matter.  I had come--I scarcely knew why I had come.  That
+Frances Morley would be singing in a place like this I did not
+believe.  This was the sort of "abbey" that A. Carleton Heathcroft
+would be most likely to visit, that was true, but that he had seen
+her here was most improbable.  The coincidence of the "abbey" name
+would not have brought me there, of itself.  Herbert Bayliss had
+given me to understand, although he had not said it, that she was
+not singing in a church and he had found the idea of her being
+where she was "awful."  It was because of what he had said that I
+had come, as a sort of last chance, a forlorn hope.  Of course she
+would not be here, a hired singer in a Paris night restaurant; that
+was impossible.
+
+How impossible it was likely to be I realized more fully during the
+next hour.  There was nothing particularly "awful" about L'Abbaye
+of itself--at first, nor, perhaps, even later; at least the
+awfulness was well covered.  The program of entertainment was awful
+enough, if deadly mediocrity is awful.  A big darkey, dressed in a
+suit which reminded me of the "end man" at an old-time minstrel
+show, sang "My Alabama Coon," accompanying himself, more or less
+intimately, on the banjo.  I could have heard the same thing,
+better done, at a ten cent theater in the States, where this chap
+had doubtless served an apprenticeship.  However, the audience,
+which was growing larger every minute, seemed to find the bellowing
+enjoyable and applauded loudly.  Then a feminine person did a
+Castilian dance between the tables.  I was ready to declare a
+second war with Spain when she had finished.  Then there was an
+orchestral interval, during which the tables filled.
+
+The impossibility of Frances singing in a place like this became
+more certain each minute, to my mind.  I called the waiter.
+
+"Does Mademoiselle Juno sing here this evening?" I asked, in my
+lame French.
+
+He shook his head.  "Non, Monsieur," he answered, absently, and
+hastened on with the bottle he was carrying.
+
+Apparently that settled it.  I might as well go.  Then I decided to
+remain a little longer.  After all, I was there, and I, or
+Heathcroft, might have misunderstood the name.  I would stay for a
+while.
+
+The long table at which I sat was now occupied from end to end.
+There were several couples, male and female, and a number of
+unattached young ladies, well-dressed, pretty for the most part,
+and vivacious and inclined to be companionable.  They chatted with
+their neighbors and would have chatted with me if I had been in the
+mood.  For the matter of that everyone talked with everyone else,
+in French or English, good, bad and indifferent, and there was much
+laughter and gaiety.  L'Abbaye was wide awake by this time.
+
+The bearded personage who had shown me to my seat, appeared,
+followed by a dozen attendants bearing paper parasols and bags
+containing little celluloid balls, red, white, and blue.  They were
+distributed among the feminine guests.  The parasols, it developed,
+were to be waved and the balls to be thrown.  You were supposed to
+catch as many as were thrown at you and throw them back.  It was
+wonderful fun--or would have been for children--and very, very
+amusing--after the second bottle.
+
+For my part I found it very stupid.  As I have said at least once
+in this history I am not what is called a "good mixer" and in an
+assemblage like this I was as out of place as a piece of ice on a
+hot stove.  Worse than that, for the ice would have melted and I
+congealed the more.  My bottle of champagne remained almost
+untouched and when a celluloid ball bounced on the top of my head I
+did not scream "Whoopee!  Bullseye!" as my American neighbors did
+or "Voila!  Touche!" like the French.  There were plenty of
+Americans and English there, and they seemed to be having a good
+time, but their good time was incomprehensible to me.  This was
+"gay Paris," of course, but somehow the gaiety seemed forced and
+artificial and silly, except to the proprietors of L'Abbaye.  If I
+had been getting the price for food and liquids which they received
+I might, perhaps, have been gay.
+
+The young Frenchman at my right was gay enough.  He had early
+discovered my nationality and did his best to be entertaining.
+When a performer from the Olympia, the music hall on the Boulevard
+des Italiens, sang a distressing love ballad in a series of shrieks
+like those of a circular saw in a lumber mill, this person shouted
+his "Bravos" with the rest and then, waving his hands before my
+face, called for, "De cheer Americain!  One, two, tree--Heep!
+Heep!  Heep!  Oo--ray-y-y!"  I did not join in "the cheer
+Americain," but I did burst out laughing, a proceeding which caused
+the young lady at my left to pat my arm and nod delighted approval.
+She evidently thought I was becoming gay and lighthearted at last.
+She was never more mistaken.
+
+It was nearly two o'clock and I had had quite enough of L'Abbaye.
+I had not enjoyed myself--had not expected to, so far as that went.
+I hope I am not a prig, and, whatever I am or am not, priggishness
+had no part in my feelings then.  Under ordinary circumstances I
+should not have enjoyed myself in a place like that.  Mine is not
+the temperament--I shouldn't know how.  I must have appeared the
+most solemn ass in creation, and if I had come there with the idea
+of amusement, I should have felt like one.  As it was, my feeling
+was not disgust, but unreasonable disappointment.  Certainly I did
+not wish--now that I had seen L'Abbaye--to find Frances Morley
+there; but just as certainly I was disappointed.
+
+I called for my bill, paid it, and stood up.  I gave one look about
+the crowded, noisy place, and then I started violently and sat down
+again.  I had seen Herbert Bayliss.  He had, apparently, just
+entered and a waiter was finding a seat for him at a table some
+distance away and on the opposite side of the great room.
+
+There was no doubt about it; it was he.  My heart gave a bound that
+almost choked me and all sorts of possibilities surged through my
+brain.  He had come to Paris to find her, he had found her--in our
+conversation he had intimated as much.  And now, he was here at the
+"Abbey."  Why?  Was it here that he had found her?  Was she singing
+here after all?
+
+Bayliss glanced in my direction and I sank lower in my chair.  I
+did not wish him to see me.  Fortunately the lady opposite waved
+her paper parasol just then and I went into eclipse, so far as he
+was concerned.  When the eclipse was over he was looking elsewhere.
+
+The black-bearded Frenchman, who seemed to be, if not one of the
+proprietors, at least one of the managers of L'Abbaye, appeared in
+the clear space at the center of the room between the tables and
+waved his hands.  He was either much excited or wished to seem so.
+He shouted something in French which I could not understand.  There
+was a buzz of interest all about me; then the place grew still--or
+stiller.  Something was going to happen, that was evident.  I
+leaned toward my voluble neighbor, the French gentleman who had
+called for "de cheer Americain."
+
+"What is it?" I asked.  "What is the matter?"
+
+He ignored, or did not hear, my question.  The bearded person was
+still waving his hands.  The orchestra burst into a sort of
+triumphal march and then into the open space between the tables
+came--Frances Morley.
+
+She was dressed in a simple evening gown, she was not painted or
+powdered to the extent that women who had sung before her had been,
+her hair was simply dressed.  She looked thinner than she had when
+I last saw her, but otherwise she was unchanged.  In that place,
+amid the lights and the riot of color, the silks and satins and
+jewels, the flushed faces of the crowd, she stood and bowed, a
+white rose in a bed of tiger lilies, and the crowd rose and shouted
+at her.
+
+The orchestra broke off its triumphal march and the leader stood
+up, his violin at his shoulder.  He played a bar or two and she
+began to sing.
+
+She sang a simple, almost childish, love song in French.  There was
+nothing sensational about it, nothing risque, certainly nothing
+which should have appealed to the frequenters of L'Abbaye.  And her
+voice, although sweet and clear and pure, was not extraordinary.
+And yet, when she had finished, there was a perfect storm of
+"Bravos."  Parasols waved, flowers were thrown, and a roar of
+applause lasted for minutes.  Why this should have been is a puzzle
+to me even now.  Perhaps it was because of her clean, girlish
+beauty; perhaps because it was so unexpected and so different;
+perhaps because of the mystery concerning her.  I don't know.  Then
+I did not ask.  I sat in my chair at the table, trembling from head
+to foot, and looking at her.  I had never expected to see her again
+and now she was before my eyes--here in this place.
+
+She sang again; this time a jolly little ballad of soldiers and
+glory and the victory of the Tri-Color.  And again she swept them
+off their feet.  She bowed and smiled in answer to their applause
+and, motioning to the orchestra leader, began without accompaniment,
+"Loch Lomond," in English.  It was one of the songs I had asked her
+to sing at the rectory, one I had found in the music cabinet, one
+that her mother and mine had sung years before.
+
+
+     "Ye'll take the high road
+      And I'll take the low road,
+      And I'll be in Scotland afore ye--"
+
+
+I was on my feet.  I have no remembrance of having risen, but I was
+standing, leaning across the table, looking at her.  There were
+cries of "Sit down" in English and other cries in French.  There
+were tugs at my coat tails.
+
+
+     "But me and my true love
+      Shall never meet again,
+      By the bonny, bonny banks
+      Of Loch--"
+
+
+She saw me.  The song stopped.  I saw her turn white, so white that
+the rouge on her cheeks looked like fever spots.  She looked at me
+and I at her.  Then she raised her hand to her throat, turned and
+almost ran from the room.
+
+I should have followed her, then and there, I think.  I was on my
+way around the end of the table, regardless of masculine boots and
+feminine skirts.  But a stout Englishman got in my way and detained
+me and the crowd was so dense that I could not push through it.  It
+was an excited crowd, too.  For a moment there had been a surprised
+silence, but now everyone was exclaiming and talking in his or her
+native language.
+
+"Oh, I say!  What happened?  What made her do that?" demanded the
+stout Englishman.  Then he politely requested me to get off his
+foot.
+
+The bearded manager--or proprietor--was waving his hands once more
+and begging attention and silence.  He got both, in a measure.
+Then he made his announcement.
+
+He begged ten thousand pardons, but Mademoiselle Guinot--That was
+it, Guinot, not Juno or Junotte--had been seized with a most
+regrettable illness.  She had been unable to continue her
+performance.  It was not serious, but she could sing no more that
+evening.  To-morrow evening--ah, yes.  Most certainly.  But to-
+night--no.  Monsieur Hairee Opkins, the most famous Engleesh comedy
+artiste would now entertain the patrons of L'Abbaye.  He begged, he
+entreated attention for Monsieur Opkins.
+
+I did not wait for "Monsieur Hairee."  I forced my way to the door.
+As I passed out I cast a glance in the direction of young Bayliss.
+He was on his feet, loudly shouting for a waiter and his bill.  I
+had so much start, at all events.
+
+Through the waiters and uniformed attendants I elbowed.  Another
+man with a beard--he looked enough like the other to be his
+brother, and perhaps he was--got in my way at last.  A million or
+more pardons, but Monsieur could not go in that direction.  The
+exit was there, pointing.
+
+As patiently and carefully as I could, considering my agitation, I
+explained that I did not wish to find the exit.  I was a friend, a--
+yes, a--er--relative of the young lady who had just sung and who
+had been taken ill.  I wanted to go to her.
+
+Another million pardons, but that was impossible.  I did not
+understand, Mademoiselle was--well, she did not see gentlemen.  She
+was--with the most expressive of shrugs--peculiar.  She desired no
+friends.  It was--ah--quite impossible.
+
+I found my pocketbook and pressed my card into his hand.  Would he
+give Mademoiselle my card?  Would he tell her that I must see her,
+if only for a minute?  Just give her the card and tell her that.
+
+He shook his head, smiling but firm.  I could have punched him for
+the smile, but instead I took other measures.  I reached into my
+pocket, found some gold pieces--I have no idea how many or of what
+denomination--and squeezed them in the hand with the card."  He
+still smiled and shook his head, but his firmness was shaken.
+
+"I will give the card," he said, "but I warn Monsieur it is quite
+useless.  She will not see him."
+
+The waiter with whom I had seen Herbert Bayliss in altercation was
+hurrying by me.  I caught his arm.
+
+"Pardon, Monsieur," he protested, "but I must go.  The gentleman
+yonder desires his bill."
+
+"Don't give it to him," I whispered, trying hard to think of the
+French words.  "Don't give it to him yet.  Keep him where he is for
+a time."
+
+I backed the demand with another gold piece, the last in my pocket.
+The waiter seemed surprised.
+
+"Not give the bill?" he repeated.
+
+"No, not yet."  I did my best to look wicked and knowing--"He and I
+wish to meet the same young lady and I prefer to be first."
+
+That was sufficient--in Paris.  The waiter bowed low.
+
+"Rest in peace, Monsieur," he said.  "The gentleman shall wait."
+
+I waited also, for what seemed a long time.  Then the bearded one
+reappeared.  He looked surprised but pleased.
+
+"Bon, Monsieur," he whispered, patting my arm.  "She will see you.
+You are to wait at the private door.  I will conduct you there.  It
+is most unusual.  Monsieur is a most fortunate gentleman."
+
+At the door, at the foot of a narrow staircase--decidedly lacking
+in the white and gold of the other, the public one--I waited, for
+another age.  The staircase was lighted by one sickly gas jet and
+the street outside was dark and dirty.  I waited on the narrow
+sidewalk, listening to the roar of nocturnal Montmartre around the
+corner, to the beating of my own heart, and for her footstep on the
+stairs.
+
+At last I heard it.  The door opened and she came out.  She wore a
+cloak over her street costume and her hat was one that she had
+bought in London with my money.  She wore a veil and I could not
+see her face.
+
+I seized her hands with both of mine.
+
+"Frances!" I cried, chokingly.  "Oh, Frances!"
+
+She withdrew her hands.  When she spoke her tone was quiet but very
+firm.
+
+"Why did you come here?" she asked.
+
+"Why did I come?  Why--"
+
+"Yes.  Why did you come?  Was it to find me?  Did you know I was
+here?"
+
+"I did not know.  I had heard--"
+
+"Did Doctor Bayliss tell you?"
+
+I hesitated.  So she HAD seen Bayliss and spoken with him.
+
+"No," I answered, after a moment, "he did not tell me, exactly.
+But I had heard that someone who resembled you was singing here in
+Paris."
+
+"And you followed me.  In spite of my letter begging you, for my
+sake, not to try to find me.  Did you get that letter?"
+
+"Yes, I got it."
+
+"Then why did you do it?  Oh, WHY did you?"
+
+For the first time there was a break in her voice.  We were
+standing before the door.  The street, it was little more than an
+alley, was almost deserted, but I felt it was not the place for
+explanations.  I wanted to get her away from there, as far from
+that dreadful "Abbey" as possible.  I took her arm.
+
+"Come," I said, "I will tell you as we go.  Come with me now."
+
+She freed her arm.
+
+"I am not coming with you," she said.  "Why did you come here?"
+
+"I came--I came--Why did YOU come?  Why did you leave us as you
+did?  Without a word!"
+
+She turned and faced me.
+
+"You know why I left you," she said.  "You know.  You knew all the
+time.  And yet you let me believe--You let me think--I lived upon
+your money--I--I--Oh, don't speak of it!  Go away! please go away
+and leave me."
+
+"I am not going away--without you.  I came to get you to go back
+with me.  You don't understand.  Your aunt and I want you to come
+with us.  We want you to come and live with us again.  We--"
+
+She interrupted.  I doubt if she had comprehended more than the
+first few words of what I was saying.
+
+"Please go away," she begged.  "I know I owe you money, so much
+money.  I shall pay it.  I mean to pay it all.  At first I could
+not.  I could not earn it.  I tried.  Oh, I tried SO hard!  In
+London I tried and tried, but all the companies were filled, it was
+late in the season and I--no one would have me.  Then I got this
+chance through an agency.  I am succeeding here.  I am earning the
+money at last.  I am saving--I have saved--And now you come to--Oh,
+PLEASE go and leave me!"
+
+Her firmness had gone.  She was on the verge of tears.  I tried to
+take her hands again, but she would not permit it.
+
+"I shall not go," I persisted, as gently as I could.  "Or when I go
+you must go with me.  You don't understand."
+
+"But I do understand.  My aunt--Miss Cahoon told me.  I understand
+it all.  Oh, if I had only understood at first."
+
+"But you don't understand--now.  Your aunt and I knew the truth
+from the beginning.  That made no difference.  We were glad to have
+you with us.  We want you to come back.  You are our relative--"
+
+"I am not.  I am not really related to you in any way.  You know I
+am not."
+
+"You are related to Miss Cahoon.  You are her sister's daughter.
+She wants you to come.  She wants you to live with us again, just
+as you did before."
+
+"She wants that!  She--But it was your money that paid for the very
+clothes I wore.  Your money--not hers; she said so."
+
+"That doesn't make any difference.  She wants you and--"
+
+I was about to add "and so do I," but she did not permit me to
+finish the sentence.  She interrupted again, and there was a change
+in her tone.
+
+"Stop!  Oh, stop!" she cried.  "She wanted me and--and so you--Did
+you think I would consent?  To live upon your charity?"
+
+"There is no charity about it."
+
+"There is.  You know there is.  And you believed that I--knowing
+what I know--that my father--my own father--"
+
+"Hush! hush!  That is all past and done with."
+
+"It may be for you, but not for me.  Mr. Knowles, your opinion of
+me must be a very poor one.  Or your desire to please your aunt as
+great as your--your charity to me.  I thank you both, but I shall
+stay here.  You must go and you must not try to see me again."
+
+There was firmness enough in this speech; altogether too much.  But
+I was as firm as she was.
+
+"I shall not go," I reiterated.  "I shall not leave you--in a place
+like this.  It isn't a fit place for you to be in.  You know it is
+not.  Good heavens! you MUST know it?"
+
+"I know what the place is," she said quietly.
+
+"You know!  And yet you stay here!  Why?  You can't like it!"
+
+It was a foolish speech, and I blurted it without thought.  She did
+not answer.  Instead she began to walk toward the corner.  I
+followed her.
+
+"I beg your pardon," I stammered, contritely.  "I did not mean
+that, of course.  But I cannot think of your singing night after
+night in such a place--before those men and women.  It isn't right;
+it isn't--you shall not do it."
+
+She answered without halting in her walk.
+
+"I shall do it," she said.  "They pay me well, very well, and I--I
+need the money.  When I have earned and saved what I need I shall
+give it up, of course.  As for liking the work--Like it!  Oh, how
+can you!"
+
+"I beg your pardon.  Forgive me.  I ought to be shot for saying
+that.  I know you can't like it.  But you must not stay here.  You
+must come with me."
+
+"No, Mr. Knowles, I am not coming with you.  And you must leave me
+and never come back.  My sole reason for seeing you to-night was to
+tell you that.  But--" she hesitated and then said, with quiet
+emphasis, "you may tell my aunt not to worry about me.  In spite of
+my singing in a cafe chantant I shall keep my self-respect.  I
+shall not be--like those others.  And when I have paid my debt--I
+can't pay my father's; I wish I could--I shall send you the money.
+When I do that you will know that I have resigned my present
+position and am trying to find a more respectable one.  Good-by."
+
+We had reached the corner.  Beyond was the square, with its lights
+and its crowds of people and vehicles.  I seized her arm.
+
+"It shall not be good-by," I cried, desperately.  "I shall not let
+you go."
+
+"You must."
+
+"I sha'n't.  I shall come here night after night until you consent
+to come back to Mayberry."
+
+She stopped then.  But when she spoke her tone was firmer than
+ever.
+
+"Then you will force me to give it up," she said.  "Before I came
+here I was very close to--There were days when I had little or
+nothing to eat, and, with no prospects, no hope, I--if you don't
+leave me, Mr. Knowles, if you do come here night after night, as
+you say, you may force me to that again.  You can, of course, if
+you choose; I can't prevent you.  But I shall NOT go back to
+Mayberry.  Now, will you say good-by?"
+
+She meant it.  If I persisted in my determination she would do as
+she said; I was sure of it.
+
+"I am.  sure my aunt would not wish you to continue to see me,
+against my will," she went on.  "If she cares for me at all she
+would not wish that.  You have done your best to please her.  I--I
+thank you both.  Good-by."
+
+What could I do, or say?
+
+"Good-by," I faltered.
+
+She turned and started across the square.  A flying cab shut her
+from my view.  And then I realized what was happening, realized it
+and realized, too, what it meant.  She should not go; I would not
+let her leave me nor would I leave her.  I sprang after her.
+
+The square was thronged with cabs and motor cars.  The Abbey and
+The Dead Rat and all the rest were emptying their patrons into the
+street.  Paris traffic regulations are lax and uncertain.  I dodged
+between a limousine and a hansom and caught a glimpse of her just
+as she reached the opposite sidewalk.
+
+"Frances!" I called.  "Frances!"
+
+She turned and saw me.  Then I heard my own name shouted from the
+sidewalk I had just left.
+
+"Knowles!  Knowles!"
+
+I looked over my shoulder.  Herbert Bayliss was at the curb.  He
+was shaking a hand, it may have been a fist, in my direction.
+
+"Knowles!" he shouted.  "Stop!  I want to see you."
+
+I did not reply.  Instead I ran on.  I saw her face among the crowd
+and upon it was a curious expression, of fear, of frantic entreaty.
+
+"Kent!  Kent!" she cried.  "Oh, be careful!  KENT!"
+
+There was a roar, a shout; I have a jumbled recollection of being
+thrown into the air, and rolling over and over upon the stones of
+the street.  And there my recollections end, for the time.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+In Which I Take My Turn at Playing the Invalid
+
+
+Not for a very long time.  They begin again--those recollections--a
+few minutes later, break off once more, and then return and break
+off alternately, over and over again.
+
+The first thing I remember, after my whirligig flight over the
+Paris pavement, is a crowd of faces above me and someone pawing at
+my collar and holding my wrist.  This someone, a man, a stranger,
+said in French:
+
+"He is not dead, Mademoiselle."
+
+And then a voice, a voice that I seemed to recognize, said:
+
+"You are sure, Doctor?  You are sure?  Oh, thank God!"
+
+I tried to turn my head toward the last speaker--whom I decided,
+for some unexplainable reason, must be Hephzy--and to tell her that
+of course I wasn't dead, and then all faded away and there was
+another blank.
+
+The next interval of remembrance begins with a sense of pain, a
+throbbing, savage pain, in my head and chest principally, and a
+wish that the buzzing in my ears would stop.  It did not stop, on
+the contrary it grew louder and there was a squeak and rumble and
+rattle along with it.  A head--particularly a head bumped as hard
+as mine had been--might be expected to buzz, but it should not
+rattle, or squeak either.  Gradually I began to understand that the
+rattle and squeak were external and I was in some sort of vehicle,
+a sleeping car apparently, for I seemed to be lying down.  I tried
+to rise and ask a question and a hand was laid on my forehead and a
+voice--the voice which I had decided was Hephzy's--said, gently:
+
+"Lie still.  You mustn't move.  Lie still, please.  We shall be
+there soon."
+
+Where "there" might be I had no idea and it was too much trouble to
+ask, so I drifted off again.
+
+Next I was being lifted out of the car; men were lifting me--or
+trying to.  And, being wider awake by this time, I protested.
+
+"Here!  What are you doing?" I asked.  "I am all right.  Let go of
+me.  Let go, I tell you."
+
+Again the voice--it sounded less and less like Hephzy's--saying:
+
+"Don't!  Please don't!  You mustn't move."
+
+But I kept on moving, although moving was a decidedly uncomfortable
+process.
+
+"What are they doing to me?" I asked.  "Where am I?  Hephzy, where
+am I?"
+
+"You are at the hospital.  You have been hurt and we are taking you
+to the hospital.  Lie still and they will carry you in."
+
+That woke me more thoroughly.
+
+"Nonsense!" I said, as forcefully as I could.  "Nonsense!  I'm not
+badly hurt.  I am all right now.  I don't want to go to a hospital.
+I won't go there.  Take me to the hotel.  I am all right, I tell
+you."
+
+The man's voice--the doctor's, I learned afterward--broke in,
+ordering me to be quiet.  But I refused to be quiet.  I was not
+going to be taken to any hospital.
+
+"I am all right," I declared.  "Or I shall be in a little while.
+Take me to my hotel.  I will be looked after, there.  Hephzy will
+look after me."
+
+The doctor continued to protest--in French--and I to affirm--in
+English.  Also I tried to stand.  At length my declarations of
+independence seemed to have some effect, for they ceased trying to
+lift me.  A dialogue in French followed.  I heard it with growing
+impatience.
+
+"Hephzy," I said, fretfully.  "Hephzy, make them take me to my
+hotel.  I insist upon it."
+
+"Which hotel is it?  Kent--Kent, answer me.  What is the name of
+the hotel?"
+
+I gave the name; goodness knows how I remembered it.  There was
+more argument, and, after a time, the rattle and buzz and squeak
+began again.  The next thing I remember distinctly is being carried
+to my room and hearing the voice of Monsieur Louis in excited
+questioning and command.
+
+After that my recollections are clearer.  But it was broad daylight
+when I became my normal self and realized thoroughly where I was.
+I was in my room at the hotel, the sunlight was streaming in at the
+window and Hephzy--I still supposed it was Hephzy--was sitting by
+that window.  And for the first time it occurred to me that she
+should not have been there; by all that was right and proper she
+should be waiting for me in Interlaken.
+
+"Hephzy," I said, weakly, "when did you get here?"
+
+The figure at the window rose and came to the bedside.  It was not
+Hephzy.  With a thrill I realized who it was.
+
+"Frances!" I cried.  "Frances!  Why--what--"
+
+"Hush!  You mustn't talk.  You mustn't.  You must be quiet and keep
+perfectly still.  The doctor said so."
+
+"But what happened?  How did I get here?  What--?"
+
+"Hush!  There was an accident; you were hurt.  We brought you here
+in a carriage.  Don't you remember?"
+
+What I remembered was provokingly little.
+
+"I seem to remember something," I said.  "Something about a
+hospital.  Someone was going to take me to a hospital and I
+wouldn't go.  Hephzy--No, it couldn't have been Hephzy.  Was it--
+was it you?"
+
+"Yes.  We were taking you to the hospital.  We did take you there,
+but as they were taking you from the ambulance you--"
+
+"Ambulance!  Was I in an ambulance?  What happened to me?  What
+sort of an accident was it?"
+
+"Please don't try to talk.  You must not talk."
+
+"I won't if you tell me that.  What happened?"
+
+"Don't you remember?  I left you and crossed the street.  You
+followed me and then--and then you stopped.  And then--Oh, don't
+ask me!  Don't!"
+
+"I know.  Now I do remember.  It was that big motor car.  I saw it
+coming.  But who brought me here?  You--I remember you; I thought
+you were Hephzy.  And there was someone else."
+
+"Yes, the doctor--the doctor they called--and Doctor Bayliss."
+
+"Doctor Bayliss!  Herbert Bayliss, do you mean?  Yes, I saw him at
+the 'Abbey'--and afterward.  Did he come here with me?"
+
+"Yes.  He was very kind.  I don't know what I should have done if
+it had not been for him.  Now you MUST not speak another word."
+
+I did not, for a few moments.  I lay there, feebly trying to think,
+and looking at her.  I was grateful to young Bayliss, of course,
+but I wished--even then I wished someone else and not he had helped
+me.  I did not like to be under obligations to him.  I liked him,
+too; he was a good fellow and I had always liked him, but I did not
+like THAT.
+
+She rose from the chair by the bed and walked across the room.
+
+"Don't go," I said.
+
+She came back almost immediately.
+
+"It is time for your medicine," she said.
+
+I took the medicine.  She turned away once more.
+
+"Don't go," I repeated.
+
+"I am not going.  Not for the present."
+
+I was quite contented with the present.  The future had no charms
+just then.  I lay there, looking at her.  She was paler and thinner
+than she had been when she left Mayberry, almost as pale and thin
+as when I first met her in the back room of Mrs. Briggs' lodging
+house.  And there was another change, a subtle, undefinable change
+in her manner and appearance that puzzled me.  Then I realized what
+it was; she had grown older, more mature.  In Mayberry she had been
+an extraordinarily pretty girl.  Now she was a beautiful woman.
+These last weeks had worked the change.  And I began to understand
+what she had undergone during those weeks.
+
+"Have you been with me ever since it happened--since I was hurt?" I
+asked, suddenly.
+
+"Yes, of course."
+
+"All night?"
+
+She smiled.  "There was very little of the night left," she
+answered.
+
+"But you have had no rest at all.  You must be worn out."
+
+"Oh, no; I am used to it.  My--" with a slight pause before the
+word--"work of late has accustomed me to resting in the daytime.
+And I shall rest by and by, when my aunt--when Miss Cahoon comes."
+
+"Miss Cahoon?  Hephzy?  Have you sent for her?"
+
+My tone of surprise startled her, I think.  She looked at me.
+
+"Sent for her?" she repeated.  "Isn't she here--in Paris?"
+
+"She is in Interlaken, at the Victoria.  Didn't the concierge tell
+you?"
+
+"He told us she was not here, at this hotel, at present.  He said
+she had gone away with some friends.  But we took it for granted
+she was in Paris.  I told them I would stay until she came.  I--"
+
+I interrupted.
+
+"Stay until she comes!" I repeated.  "Stay--!  Why you can't do
+that!  You can't!  You must not!"
+
+"Hush! hush!  Remember you are ill.  Think of yourself!"
+
+"Of myself!  I am thinking of you.  You mustn't stay here--with me.
+What will they think?  What--"
+
+"Hush! hush, please.  Think!  It makes no difference what they
+think.  If I had cared what people thought I should not be singing
+at--Hush! you must not excite yourself in this way."
+
+But I refused to hush.
+
+"You must not!" I cried.  "You shall not!  Why did you do it?  They
+could have found a nurse, if one was needed.  Bayliss--"
+
+"Doctor Bayliss does not know.  If he did I should not care.  As
+for the others--" she colored, slightly,
+
+"Well, I told the concierge that you were my uncle.  It was only a
+white lie; you used to say you were, you know."
+
+"Say!  Oh, Frances, for your own sake, please--"
+
+"Hush!  Do you suppose," her cheeks reddened and her eyes flashed
+as I had seen them flash before, "do you suppose I would go away
+and leave you now?  Now, when you are hurt and ill and--and--after
+all that you have done!  After I treated you as I did!  Oh, let me
+do something!  Let me do a little, the veriest little in return.
+I--Oh, stop! stop!  What are you doing?"
+
+I suppose I was trying to sit up; I remember raising myself on my
+elbow.  Then came the pain again, the throbbing in my head and the
+agonizing pain in my side.  And after that there is another long
+interval in my recollections.
+
+For a week--of course I did not know it was a week then--my
+memories consist only of a series of flashes like the memory of the
+hours immediately following the accident.  I remember people
+talking, but not what they said; I remember her voice, or I think I
+do, and the touch of her hand on my forehead.  And afterward, other
+voices, Hephzy's in particular.  But when I came to myself, weak
+and shaky, but to remain myself for good and all, Hephzy--the real
+Hephzy--was in the room with me.
+
+Even then they would not let me ask questions.  Another day dragged
+by before I was permitted to do that.  Then Hephzy told me I had a
+cracked rib and a variety of assorted bruises, that I had suffered
+slight concussion of the brain, and that my immediate job was to
+behave myself and get well.
+
+"Land sakes!" she exclaimed, "there was a time when I thought you
+never was goin' to get well.  Hour after hour I've set here and
+listened to your gabblin' away about everything under the sun and
+nothin' in particular, as crazy as a kitten in a patch of catnip,
+and thought and thought, what should I do, what SHOULD I do.  And
+now I KNOW what I'm goin' to do.  I'm goin' to keep you in that bed
+till you're strong and well enough to get out of it, if I have to
+sit on you to hold you down.  And I'm no hummin'-bird when it comes
+to perchin', either."
+
+She had received the telegram which Frances sent and had come from
+Interlaken post haste.
+
+"And I don't know," she declared, "which part of that telegram
+upset me most--what there was in it or the name signed at the
+bottom of it.  HER name!  I couldn't believe my eyes.  I didn't
+stop to believe 'em long.  I just came.  And then I found you like
+this."
+
+"Was she here?" I asked.
+
+"Who--Frances!  My, yes, she was here.  So pale and tired lookin'
+that I thought she was goin' to collapse.  But she wouldn't give in
+to it.  She told me all about how it happened and what the doctor
+said and everything.  I didn't pay much attention to it then.  All
+I could think of was you.  Oh, Hosy! my poor boy!  I--I--"
+
+"There! there!" I broke in, gently.  "I'm all right now, or I'm
+going to be.  You will have the quahaug on your hands for a while
+longer.  But," returning to the subject which interested me most,
+"what else did she tell you?  Did she tell you how I met her--and
+where?"
+
+"Why, yes.  She's singin' somewhere--she didn't say where exactly,
+but it is in some kind of opera-house, I judged.  There's a
+perfectly beautiful opera-house a little ways from here on the
+Avenue de L'Opera, right by the Boulevard des Italiens, though
+there's precious few Italians there, far's I can see.  And why an
+opera is a l'opera I--"
+
+"Wait a moment, Hephzy.  Did she tell you of our meeting?  And how
+I found her?"
+
+"Why, not so dreadful much, Hosy.  She's acted kind of queer about
+that, seemed to me.  She said you went to this opera-house,
+wherever it was, and saw her there.  Then you and she were crossin'
+the road and one of these dreadful French automobiles--the way they
+let the things tear round is a disgrace--ran into you.  I declare!
+It almost made ME sick to hear about it.  And to think of me away
+off amongst those mountains, enjoyin' myself and not knowin' a
+thing!  Oh, it makes me ashamed to look in the glass.  I NEVER
+ought to have left you alone, and I knew it.  It's a judgment on
+me, what's happened is."
+
+"Or on me, I should rather say," I added.  Frances had not told
+Hephzy of L'Abbaye, that was evident.  Well, I would keep silence
+also.
+
+"Where is she now?" I asked.  I asked it with as much indifference
+as I could assume, but Hephzy smiled and patted my hand.
+
+"Oh, she comes every day to ask about you," she said.  "And Doctor
+Bayliss comes too.  He's been real kind."
+
+"Bayliss!" I exclaimed.  "Is he with--Does he come here?"
+
+"Yes, he comes real often, mostly about the time she does.  He
+hasn't been here for two days now, though.  Hosy, do you suppose he
+has spoken to her about--about what he spoke to you?"
+
+"I don't know," I answered, curtly.  Then I changed the subject.
+
+"Has she said anything to you about coming back to Mayberry?" I
+asked.  "Have you told her how we feel toward her?"
+
+Hephzy's manner changed.  "Yes," she said, reluctantly, "I've told
+her.  I've told her everything."
+
+"Not everything?  Hephzy, you haven't told her--"
+
+"No, no.  Of course I didn't tell her THAT.  You know I wouldn't,
+Hosy.  But I told her that her money havin' turned out to be our
+money didn't make a mite of difference.  I told her how much we
+come to think of her and how we wanted her to come with us and be
+the same as she had always been.  I begged her to come.  I said
+everything I could say."
+
+"And she said?"
+
+"She said no, Hosy.  She wouldn't consider it at all.  She asked me
+not to talk about it.  It was settled, she said.  She must go her
+way and we ours and we must forget her.  She was more grateful than
+she could tell--she most cried when she said that--but she won't
+come back and if I asked her again she declared she should have to
+go away for good."
+
+"I know.  That is what she said to me."
+
+"Yes.  I can't make it out exactly.  It's her pride, I suppose.
+Her mother was just as proud.  Oh, dear!  When I saw her here for
+the first time, after I raced back from Interlaken, I thought--I
+almost hoped--but I guess it can't be."
+
+I did not answer.  I knew only too well that it could not be.
+
+"Does she seem happy?" I asked.
+
+"Why, no; I don't think she is happy.  There are times, especially
+when you began to get better, when she seemed happier, but the last
+few times she was here she was--well, different."
+
+"How different?"
+
+"It's hard to tell you.  She looked sort of worn and sad and
+discouraged.  Hosy, what sort of a place is it she is singin' in?"
+
+"Why do you ask that?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know.  Some things you said when you were out of your
+head made me wonder.  That, and some talk I overheard her and
+Doctor Bayliss havin' one time when they were in the other room--my
+room--together.  I had stepped out for a minute and when I came
+back, I came in this door instead of the other.  They were in the
+other room talkin' and he was beggin' her not to stay somewhere any
+more.  It wasn't a fit place for her to be, he said; her reputation
+would be ruined.  She cut him short by sayin' that her reputation
+was her own and that she should do as she thought best, or
+somethin' like that.  Then I coughed, so they would know I was
+around, and they commenced talkin' of somethin' else.  But it set
+me thinkin' and when you said--"
+
+She paused.  "What did I say?" I asked.
+
+"Why, 'twas when she and I were here.  You had been quiet for a
+while and all at once you broke out--delirious you was--beggin'
+somebody or other not to do somethin'.  For your sake, for their
+own sake, they mustn't do it.  'Twas awful to hear you.  A mixed-up
+jumble about Abbie, whoever she is--not much, by the way you went
+on about her--and please, please, please, for the Lord's sake, give
+it up.  I tried to quiet you, but you wouldn't be quieted.  And
+finally you said:  'Frances!  Oh, Frances! don't!  Say that you
+won't any more.'  I gave you your sleepin' drops then; I thought
+'twas time.  I was afraid you'd say somethin' that you wouldn't
+want her to hear.  You understand, don't you, Hosy?"
+
+"I understand.  Thank you, Hephzy."
+
+"Yes.  Well, _I_ didn't understand and I asked her if she did.
+She said no, but she was dreadfully upset and I think she did
+understand, in spite of her sayin' it.  What sort of a place is it,
+this opera-house where she sings?"
+
+I dodged the question as best I could.  I doubt if Hephzy's
+suspicions were allayed, but she did not press the subject.
+Instead she told me I had talked enough for that afternoon and must
+rest.
+
+That evening I saw Bayliss for the first time since the accident.
+He congratulated me on my recovery and I thanked him for his help
+in bringing me to the hotel.  He waved my thanks aside.
+
+"Quite unnecessary, thanking me," he said, shortly.  "I couldn't do
+anything else, of course.  Well, I must be going.  Glad you're
+feeling more fit, Knowles, I'm sure."
+
+"And you?" I asked.  "How are you?"
+
+"I?  Oh, I'm fit enough, I suppose.  Good-by."
+
+He didn't look fit.  He looked more haggard and worn and moody than
+ever.  And his manner was absent and distrait.  Hephzy noticed it;
+there were few things she did not notice.
+
+"Either that boy's meals don't agree with him," she announced, "or
+somethin's weighin' on his mind.  He looks as if he'd lost his last
+friend.  Hosy, do you suppose he's spoken to--to her about what he
+spoke of to you?"
+
+"I don't know.  I suppose he has.  He was only too anxious to
+speak, there in Mayberry."
+
+"Humph!  Well, IF he has, then--Hosy, sometimes I think this, all
+this pilgrimage of ours--that's what you used to call it, a
+pilgrimage--is goin' to turn out right, after all.  Don't it remind
+you of a book, this last part of it?"
+
+"A dismal sort of book," I said, gloomily.
+
+"Well, I don't know.  Here are you, the hero, and here's she, the
+heroine.  And the hero is sick and the heroine comes to take care
+of him--she WAS takin' care of you afore I came, you know; and she
+falls in love with him and--"
+
+"Yes," I observed, sarcastically.  "She always does--in books.  But
+in those books the hero is not a middle-aged quahaug.  Suppose we
+stick to real life and possibilities, Hephzy."
+
+Hephzy was unconvinced.  "I don't care," she said.  "She ought to
+even if she doesn't.  _I_ fell in love with you long ago, Hosy.
+And she DID bring you here after you were hurt and took care of
+you."
+
+"Hush! hush!" I broke in.  "She took care of me, as you call it,
+because she thought it was her duty.  She thinks she is under great
+obligation to us because we did not pitch her into the street when
+we first met her.  She insists that she owes us money and
+gratitude.  Her kindness to me and her care are part payment of the
+debt.  She told me so, herself."
+
+"But--"
+
+"There aren't any 'buts.'  You mustn't be an idiot because I have
+been one, Hephzy.  We agreed not to speak of that again.  Don't
+remind me of it."
+
+Hephzy sighed.  "All right," she said.  "I suppose you are right,
+Hosy.  But--but how is all this goin' to end?  She won't go with
+us.  Are we goin' to leave her here alone?"
+
+I was silent.  The same question was in my mind, but I had answered
+it.  I was NOT going to leave her there alone.  And yet--
+
+"If I was sure," mused Hephzy, "that she was in love with Herbert
+Bayliss, then 'twould be all right, I suppose.  They would get
+married and it would be all right--or near right--wouldn't it,
+Hosy."
+
+I said nothing.
+
+The next morning I saw her.  She came to inquire for me and Hephzy
+brought her into my room for a stay of a minute or two.  She seemed
+glad to find me so much improved in health and well on the road to
+recovery.  I tried to thank her for her care of me, for her sending
+for Hephzy and all the rest of it, but she would not listen.  She
+chatted about Paris and the French people, about Monsieur Louis,
+the concierge, and joked with Hephzy about that gentleman's
+admiration for "the wonderful American lady," meaning Hephzy
+herself.
+
+"He calls you 'Madame Cay-hoo-on,'" she said, "and he thinks you a
+miracle of decision and management.  I think he is almost afraid of
+you, I really do."
+
+Hephzy smiled, grimly.  "He'd better be," she declared.  "The way
+everybody was flyin' around when I first got here after comin' from
+Interlaken, and the way the help jabbered and hunched up their
+shoulders when I asked questions made me so fidgety I couldn't keep
+still.  I wanted an egg for breakfast, that first mornin' and when
+the waiter brought it, it was in the shell, the way they eat eggs
+over here.  I can't eat 'em that way--I'm no weasel--and I told the
+waiter I wanted an egg cup.  Nigh as I could make out from his
+pigeon English he was tellin' me there was a cup there.  Well,
+there was, one of those little, two-for-a-cent contraptions, just
+big enough to stick one end of the egg into.  'I want a big one,'
+says I.  'We, Madame,' says he, and off he trotted.  When he came
+back he brought me a big EGG, a duck's egg, I guess 'twas.  Then I
+scolded and he jabbered some more and by and by he went and fetched
+this Monsieur Louis man.  He could speak English, thank goodness,
+and he was real nice, in his French way.  He begged my pardon for
+the waiter's stupidness, said he was a new hand, and the like of
+that, and went on apologizin' and bowin' and smilin' till I almost
+had a fit.
+
+"'For mercy sakes!' I says, 'don't say any more about it.  If that
+last egg hadn't been boiled 'twould have hatched out an--an
+ostrich, or somethin' or other, by this time.  And it's stone cold,
+of course.  Have this--this jumpin'-jack of yours bring me a hot
+egg--a hen's egg--opened, in a cup big enough to see without
+spectacles, and tell him to bring some cream with the coffee.  At
+any rate, if there isn't any cream, have him bring some real milk
+instead of this watery stuff.  I might wash clothes with that, for
+I declare I think there's bluin' in it, but I sha'n't drink it; I'd
+be afraid of swallowin' a fish by accident.  And do hurry!'
+
+"He went away then, hurryin' accordin' to orders, and ever since
+then he's been bobbin' up to ask if 'Madame finds everything
+satisfactory.'  I suppose likely I shouldn't have spoken as I did,
+he means well--it isn't his fault, or the waiter's either, that
+they can't talk without wavin' their hands as if they were givin'
+three cheers--but I was terribly nervous that mornin' and I barked
+like a tied-up dog.  Oh dear, Hosy! if ever I missed you and your
+help it's in this blessed country."
+
+Frances laughed at all this; she seemed just then to be in high
+spirits; but I thought, or imagined, that her high spirits were
+assumed for our benefit.  At the first hint of questioning
+concerning her own life, where she lodged or what her plans might
+be, she rose and announced that she must go.
+
+Each morning of that week she came, remaining but a short time, and
+always refusing to speak of herself or her plans.  Hephzy and I,
+finding that a reference to those plans meant the abrupt termination
+of the call, ceased trying to question.  And we did not mention our
+life at the rectory, either; that, too, she seemed unwilling to
+discuss.  Once, when I spoke of our drive to Wrayton, she began a
+reply, stopped in the middle of a sentence, and then left the room.
+
+Hephzy hastened after her.  She returned alone.
+
+"She was cryin', Hosy," she said.  "She said she wasn't, but she
+was.  The poor thing! she's unhappy and I know it; she's miserable.
+But she's so proud she won't own it and, although I'm dyin' to put
+my arms around her and comfort her, I know if I did she'd go away
+and never come back.  Do you notice she hasn't called me 'Auntie'
+once.  And she always used to--at the rectory.  I'm afraid--I'm
+afraid she's just as determined as she was when she ran away, never
+to live with us again.  What SHALL we do?"
+
+I did not know and I did not dare to think.  I was as certain that
+these visits would cease very soon as I was that they were the only
+things which made my life bearable.  How I did look forward to
+them!  And while she was there, with us, how short the time seemed
+and how it dragged when she had gone.  The worst thing possible for
+me, this seeing her and being with her; I knew it.  I knew it
+perfectly well.  But, knowing it, and realizing that it could not
+last and that it was but the prelude to a worse loneliness which
+was sure to come, made no difference.  I dreaded to be well again,
+fearing that would mean the end of those visits.
+
+But I was getting well and rapidly.  I sat up for longer and longer
+periods each day.  I began to read my letters now, instead of
+having Hephzy read them to me, letters from Matthews at the London
+office and from Jim Campbell at home.  Matthews had cabled Jim of
+the accident and later that I was recovering.  So Jim wrote,
+professing to find material gain in the affair.
+
+"Great stuff," he wrote.  "Two chapters at least.  The hero,
+pursuing the villain through the streets of Paris at midnight, is
+run down by an auto driven by said villain.  'Ah ha!' says the
+villain:  'Now will you be good?' or words to that effect.
+'Desmond,' says the hero, unflinchingly, as they extract the
+cobble-stones from his cuticle, 'you triumph for the moment, but
+beware! there will be something doing later on.'  See?  If it
+wasn't for the cracked rib and the rest I should be almost glad it
+happened.  All you need is the beautiful heroine nursing you to
+recovery.  Can't you find her?"
+
+He did not know that I had found her, or that the hoped-for novel
+was less likely to be finished than ever.
+
+Hephzy was now able to leave me occasionally, to take the walks
+which I insisted upon.  She had some queer experiences in these
+walks.
+
+"Lost again to-day, Hosy," she said, cheerfully, removing her
+bonnet.  "I went cruisin' through the streets over to the south'ard
+and they were so narrow and so crooked--to say nothin' of bein'
+dirty and smelly--that I thought I never should get out.  Of course
+I could have hired a hack and let it bring me to the hotel but I
+wouldn't do that.  I was set on findin' my own way.  I'd walked in
+and I was goin' to walk out, that was all there was to it.
+'Twasn't the first time I'd been lost in this Paris place and I've
+got a system of my own.  When I get to the square 'Place delay
+Concorde,' they call it, I know where I am.  And 'Concorde' is
+enough like Concord, Mass., to make me remember the name.  So I
+walk up to a nice appearin' Frenchman with a tall hat and whiskers--
+I didn't know there was so many chin whiskers outside of East
+Harniss, or some other back number place--and I say, 'Pardon,
+Monseer.  Place delay Concorde?'  Just like that with a question
+mark after it.  After I say it two or three times he begins to get
+a floatin' sniff of what I'm drivin' at and says he:  'Place delay
+Concorde?  Oh, we, we, we, Madame!'  Then a whole string of jabber
+and arm wavin', with some countin' in the middle of it.  Now I've
+learned 'one, two, three' in French and I know he means for me to
+keep on for two or three more streets in the way he's pointin'.  So
+I keep on, and, when I get there, I go through the whole rigamarole
+with another Frenchman.  About the third session and I'm back on
+the Concord Place.  THERE I am all right.  No, I don't propose to
+stay lost long.  My father and grandfather and all my men folks
+spent their lives cruisin' through crooked passages and crowded
+shoals and I guess I've inherited some of the knack."
+
+At last I was strong enough to take a short outing in Hephzy's
+company.  I returned to the hotel, where Hephzy left me.  She was
+going to do a little shopping by herself.  I went to my room and
+sat down to rest.  A bell boy--at least that is what we should have
+called him in the States--knocked at the door.
+
+"A lady to see Monsieur," he said.
+
+The lady was Frances.
+
+She entered the room and I rose to greet her.
+
+"Why, you are alone!" she exclaimed.  "Where is Miss Cahoon?"
+
+"She is out, on a shopping expedition," I explained.  "She will be
+back soon.  I have been out too.  We have been driving together.
+What do you think of that!"
+
+She seemed pleased at the news but when I urged her to sit and wait
+for Hephzy's return she hesitated.  Her hesitation, however, was
+only momentary.  She took the chair by the window and we chatted
+together, of my newly-gained strength, of Hephzy's adventures as a
+pathfinder in Paris, of the weather, of a dozen inconsequential
+things.  I found it difficult to sustain my part in the conversation.
+There was so much of real importance which I wanted to say.  I
+wanted to ask her about herself, where she lodged, if she was still
+singing at L'Abbaye, what her plans for the future might be.  And I
+did not dare.
+
+My remarks became more and more disjointed and she, too, seemed
+uneasy and absent-minded.  At length there was an interval of
+silence.  She broke that silence.
+
+"I suppose," she said, "you will be going back to Mayberry soon."
+
+"Back to Mayberry?" I repeated.
+
+"Yes.  You and Miss Cahoon will go back there, of course, now that
+you are strong enough to travel.  She told me that the American
+friends with whom you and she were to visit Switzerland had changed
+their plans and were going on to Italy.  She said that she had
+written them that your proposed Continental trip was abandoned."
+
+"Yes.  Yes, that was given up, of course."
+
+"Then you will go back to England, will you not?"
+
+"I don't know.  We have made no plans as yet."
+
+"But you will go back.  Miss Cahoon said you would.  And, when your
+lease of the rectory expires, you will sail for America."
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"But you must know," with a momentary impatience.  "Surely you
+don't intend to remain here in Paris."
+
+"I don't know that, either.  I haven't considered what I shall do.
+It depends--that is--"
+
+I did not finish the sentence.  I had said more than I intended and
+it was high time I stopped.  But I had said too much, as it was.
+She asked more questions.
+
+"Upon what does it depend?" she asked.
+
+"Oh, nothing.  I did not mean that it depended upon anything in
+particular.  I--"
+
+"You must have meant something.  Tell me--answer me truthfully,
+please:  Does it depend upon me?"
+
+Of course that was just what it did depend upon.  And suddenly I
+determined to tell her so.
+
+"Frances," I demanded, "are you still there--at that place?"
+
+"At L'Abbaye.  Yes."
+
+"You sing there every night?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why do you do it?  You know--"
+
+"I know everything.  But you know, too.  I told you I sang there
+because I must earn my living in some way and that seems to be the
+only place where I can earn it.  They pay me well there, and the
+people--the proprietors--are considerate and kind, in their way."
+
+"But it isn't a fit place for you.  And you don't like it; I know
+you don't."
+
+"No," quietly.  "I don't like it."
+
+"Then don't do it.  Give it up."
+
+"If I give it up what shall I do?"
+
+"You know.  Come back with us and live with us as you did before.
+I want you; Hephzy is crazy to have you.  We--she has missed you
+dreadfully.  She grieves for you and worries about you.  We offer
+you a home and--"
+
+She interrupted.  "Please don't," she said.  "I have told you that
+that is impossible.  It is.  I shall never go back to Mayberry."
+
+"But why?  Your aunt--"
+
+"Don't!  My aunt is very kind--she has been so kind that I cannot
+bear to speak of her.  Her kindness and--and yours are the few
+pleasant memories that I have--of this last dreadful year.  To
+please you both I would do anything--anything--except--"
+
+"Don't make any exceptions.  Come with us.  If not to Mayberry,
+then somewhere else.  Come to America with us."
+
+"No."
+
+"Frances--"
+
+"Don't!  My mind is made up.  Please don't speak of that again."
+
+Again I realized the finality in her tone.  The same finality was
+in mine as I answered.
+
+"Then I shall stay here," I declared.  "I shall not leave you
+alone, without friends or a protector of any kind, to sing night
+after night in that place.  I shall not do it.  I shall stay here
+as long as you do."
+
+She was silent.  I wondered what was coming next.  I expected her
+to say, as she had said before, that I was forcing her to give up
+her one opportunity.  I expected reproaches and was doggedly
+prepared to meet them.  But she did not reproach me.  She said
+nothing; instead she seemed to be thinking, to be making up her
+mind.
+
+"Don't do it, Frances," I pleaded.  "Don't sing there any longer.
+Give it up.  You don't like the work; it isn't fit work for you.
+Give it up."
+
+She rose from her chair and standing by the window looked out into
+the street.  Suddenly she turned and looked at me.
+
+"Would it please you if I gave up singing at L'Abbaye?" she asked
+quietly.  "You know it would."
+
+"And if I did would you and Miss Cahoon go back to England--at
+once?"
+
+Here was another question, one that I found very hard to answer.
+I tried to temporize.
+
+"We want you to come with us," I said, earnestly.  "We want you.
+Hephzy--"
+
+"Oh, don't, don't, don't!  Why will you persist?  Can't you
+understand that you hurt me?  I am trying to believe I have some
+self-respect left, even after all that has happened.  And you--What
+CAN you think of me!  No, I tell you!  NO!"
+
+"But for Hephzy's sake.  She is your only relative."
+
+She looked at me oddly.  And when she spoke her answer surprised
+me.
+
+"You are mistaken," she said.  "I have other--relatives.  Good-by,
+Mr. Knowles."
+
+She was on her way to the door.
+
+"But, Frances," I cried, "you are not going.  Wait.  Hephzy will be
+here any moment.  Don't go."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"I must go," she said.  At the door she turned and looked back.
+
+"Good-by," she said, again.  "Good-by, Kent."
+
+She had gone and when I reached the door she had turned the corner
+of the corridor.
+
+When Hephzy came I told her of the visit and what had taken place.
+
+"That's queer," said Hephzy.  "I can't think what she meant.
+I don't know of any other relatives she's got except Strickland
+Morley's tribe.  And they threw him overboard long, long ago.
+I can't understand who she meant; can you, Hosy?"
+
+I had been thinking.
+
+"Wasn't there someone else--some English cousins of hers with whom
+she lived for a time after her father's death?  Didn't she tell you
+about them?"
+
+Hephzy nodded vigorously.  "That's so," she declared.  "There was.
+And she did live with 'em, too.  She never told me their names or
+where they lived, but I know she despised and hated 'em.  She gave
+me to understand that.  And she ran away from 'em, too, just as she
+did from us.  I don't see why she should have meant them.  I don't
+believe she did.  Perhaps she'll tell us more next time she comes.
+That'll be tomorrow, most likely."
+
+I hoped that it might be to-morrow, but I was fearful.  The way in
+which she had said good-by made me so.  Her look, her manner,
+seemed to imply more than a good-by for a day.  And, though this I
+did not tell Hephzy, she had called me "Kent" for the first time
+since the happy days at the rectory.  I feared--all sorts of
+things.
+
+She did not come on the morrow, or the following day, or the day
+after that.  Another week passed and she did not come, nor had we
+received any word from her.  By that time Hephzy was as anxious and
+fretful as I.  And, when I proposed going in search of her, Hephzy,
+for a wonder, considering how very, very careful she was of my
+precious health, did not say no.
+
+"You're pretty close to bein' as well as ever you was, Hosy," she
+said.  "And I know how terribly worried you are.  If you do go out
+at night you may be sick again, but if you don't go and lay awake
+frettin' and frettin' about her I KNOW you'll be sick.  So perhaps
+you'd better do it.  Shall I--Sha'n't I go with you?"
+
+"I think you had better not," I said.
+
+"Well, perhaps you're right.  You never would tell me much about
+this opera-house, or whatever 'tis, but I shouldn't wonder if,
+bein' a Yankee, I'd guessed considerable.  Go, Hosy, and bring her
+back if you can.  Find her anyhow.  There! there run along.  The
+hack's down at the door waitin'.  Is your head feelin' all right?
+You're sure?  And you haven't any pain?  And you'll keep wrapped
+up?  All right?  Good-by, dearie.  Hurry back!  Do hurry back, for
+my sake.  And I hope--Oh, I do hope you'll bring no bad news."
+
+L'Abbaye, at eight-thirty in the evening was a deserted place
+compared to what it had been when I visited it at midnight.  The
+waiters and attendants were there, of course, and a few early bird
+patrons, but not many.  The bearded proprietors, or managers, were
+flying about, and I caught one of them in the middle of a flight.
+
+He did not recognize me at first, but when I stated my errand, he
+did.  Out went his hands and up went his shoulders.
+
+"The Mademoiselle," he said.  "Ah, yes!  You are her friend,
+Monsieur; I remember perfectly.  Oh, no, no, no! she is not here
+any more.  She has left us.  She sings no longer at L'Abbaye.  We
+are desolate; we are inconsolable.  We pleaded, but she was firm.
+She has gone.  Where?  Ah, Monsieur, so many ask that; but alas! we
+do not know."
+
+"But you do know where she lives," I urged.  "You must know her
+home address.  Give me that.  It is of the greatest importance that
+I see her at once."
+
+At first he declared that he did not know her address, the address
+where she lodged.  I persisted and, at last, he admitted that he
+did know it, but that he was bound by the most solemn promise to
+reveal it to no one.
+
+"It was her wish, Monsieur.  It was a part of the agreement under
+which she sang for us.  No one should know who she was or where she
+lived.  And I--I am an honorable man, Monsieur.  I have promised
+and--" the business of shoulders and hands again--"my pledged word
+to a lady, how shall it be broken?"
+
+I found a way to break it, nevertheless.  A trio of gold pieces and
+the statement that I was her uncle did the trick.  An uncle!  Ah,
+that was different.  And, Mademoiselle had consented to see me when
+I came before, that was true.  She had seen the young English
+gentleman also--but we two only.  Was the young English Monsieur--
+"the Doctor Baylees"--was he a relative also?
+
+I did not answer that question.  It was not his business and,
+beside, I did not wish to speak of Herbert Bayliss.
+
+The address which the manager of L'Abbaye gave me, penciled on a
+card, was a number in a street in Montmartre, and not far away.  I
+might easily have walked there, I was quite strong enough for
+walking now, but I preferred a cab.  Paris motor cabs, as I knew
+from experience, moved rapidly.  This one bore me to my destination
+in a few minutes.
+
+A stout middle-aged French woman answered my ring.  But her answer
+to my inquiries was most unsatisfactory.  And, worse than all, I
+was certain she was telling me the truth.
+
+The Mademoiselle was no longer there, she said.  She had given up
+her room three days ago and had gone away.  Where?  That, alas, was
+a question.  She had told no one.  She had gone and she was not
+coming back.  Was it not a pity, a great pity!  Such a beautiful
+Mademoiselle! such an artiste! who sang so sweetly!  Ah, the
+success she had made.  And such a good young lady, too!  Not like
+the others--oh, no, no, no!  No one was to know she lodged there;
+she would see no one.  Ah, a good girl, Monsieur, if ever one
+lived.
+
+"Did she--did she go alone?" I asked.
+
+The stout lady hesitated.  Was Monsieur a very close friend?
+Perhaps a relative?
+
+"An uncle," I said, telling the old lie once more.
+
+Ah, an uncle!  It was all right then.  No, Mademoiselle had not
+gone alone.  A young gentleman, a young English gentleman had gone
+with her, or, at least, had brought the cab in which she went and
+had driven off in it with her.  A young English gentleman with a
+yellow mustache.  Perhaps I knew him.
+
+I recognized the description.  She had left the house with Herbert
+Bayliss.  What did that mean?  Had she said yes to him?  Were they
+married?  I dreaded to know, but know I must.
+
+And, as the one possible chance of settling the question, I bade my
+cab driver take me to the Hotel Continental.  There, at the desk, I
+asked if Doctor Bayliss was still in the hotel.  They said he was.
+I think I must have appeared strange or the gasp of relief with
+which I received the news was audible, for the concierge asked me
+if I was ill.  I said no, and then he told me that Bayliss was
+planning to leave the next day, but was just then in his room.  Did
+I wish to see him?  I said I did and gave them my card.
+
+He came down soon afterward.  I had not seen him for a fortnight,
+for his calls had ceased even before Frances' last visit.  Hephzy
+had said that, in her opinion, his meals must be disagreeing with
+him.  Judging by his appearance his digestion was still very much
+impaired.  He was in evening dress, of course; being an English
+gentleman he would have dressed for his own execution, if it was
+scheduled to take place after six o'clock.  But his tie was
+carelessly arranged, his shirt bosom was slightly crumpled and
+there was a general "don't care" look about his raiment which was,
+for him, most unusual.  And he was very solemn.  I decided at once,
+whatever might have happened, it was not what I surmised.  He was
+neither a happy bridegroom nor a prospective one.
+
+"Good evening, Bayliss," said I, and extended my hand.
+
+"Good evening, Knowles," he said, but he kept his own hands in his
+pockets.  And he did not ask me to be seated.
+
+"Well?" he said, after a moment.
+
+"I came to you," I began--mine was a delicate errand and hard to
+state--"I came to you to ask if you could tell me where Miss Morley
+has gone.  She has left L'Abbaye and has given up her room at her
+lodgings.  She has gone--somewhere.  Do you know where she is?"
+
+It was quite evident that he did know.  I could see it in his face.
+He did not answer, however.  Instead he glanced about uneasily and
+then, turning, led the way toward a small reception room adjoining
+the lobby.  This room was, save for ourselves, unoccupied.
+
+"We can be more private here," he explained, briefly.  "What did
+you ask?"
+
+"I asked if you knew where Miss Morley had gone and where she was
+at the present time?"
+
+He hesitated, pulling at his mustache, and frowning.  "I don't see
+why you should ask me that?" he said, after a moment.
+
+"But I do ask it.  Do you know where she is?"
+
+Another pause.  "Well, if I did," he said, stiffly, "I see no
+reason why I should tell you.  To be perfectly frank, and as I have
+said to you before, I don't consider myself bound to tell you
+anything concerning her."
+
+His manner was most offensive.  Again, as at the time I came to him
+at that very hotel on a similar errand, after my arrival in Paris,
+I found it hard to keep my temper.
+
+"Don't misunderstand me," I said, as calmly as I could.  "I am not
+pretending now to have a claim upon Miss Morley.  I am not asking
+you to tell me just where she is, if you don't wish to tell.  And
+it is not for my sake--that is, not primarily for that--that I am
+anxious about her.  It is for hers.  I wish you might tell me this:
+Is she safe?  Is she among friends?  Is she--is she quite safe and
+in a respectable place and likely to be happy?  Will you tell me
+that?"
+
+He hesitated again.  "She is quite safe," he said, after a moment.
+"And she is among friends, or I suppose they are friends.  As to
+her being happy--well, you ought to know that better than I, it
+seems to me."
+
+I was puzzled.  "_I_ ought to know?" I repeated.  "I ought to know
+whether she is happy or not?  I don't understand."
+
+He looked at me intently.  "Don't you?" he asked.  "You are certain
+you don't?  Humph!  Well, if I were in your place I would jolly
+well find out; you may be sure of that."
+
+"What are you driving at, Bayliss?  I tell you I don't know what
+you mean."
+
+He did not answer.  He was frowning and kicking the corner of a rug
+with his foot.
+
+"I don't understand what you mean," I repeated.  "You are saying
+too much or too little for my comprehension."
+
+"I've said too much," he muttered.  "At all events, I have said all
+I shall say.  Was there any other subject you wished to see me
+about, Knowles?  If not I must be going.  I'm rather busy this
+evening."
+
+"There was no subject but that one.  And you will tell me nothing
+more concerning Miss Morley?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Good night," I said, and turned away.  Then I turned back.
+
+"Bayliss," said I, "I think perhaps I had better say this:  I have
+only the kindest feelings toward you.  You may have misunderstood
+my attitude in all this.  I have said nothing to prejudice her--
+Miss Morley against you.  I never shall.  You care for her, I know.
+If she cares for you that is enough, so far as I am concerned.  Her
+happiness is my sole wish.  I want you to consider me your friend--
+and hers."
+
+Once more I extended my hand.  For an instant I thought he was
+going to take it, but he did not.
+
+"No," he said, sullenly.  "I won't shake hands with you.  Why
+should I?  You don't mean what you say.  At least I don't think you
+do.  I--I--By Jove! you can't!"
+
+"But I do," I said, patiently.
+
+"You can't!  Look here! you say I care for her.  God knows I do!
+But you--suppose you knew where she was, what would you do?  Would
+you go to her?"
+
+I had been considering this very thing, during my ride to the
+lodgings and on the way to the hotel; and I had reached a
+conclusion.
+
+"No," I answered, slowly.  "I think I should not.  I know she does
+not wish me to follow her.  I suppose she went away to avoid me.
+If I were convinced that she was among friends, in a respectable
+place, and quite safe, I should try to respect her wish.  I think I
+should not follow her there."
+
+He stared at me, wide-eyed.
+
+"You wouldn't!" he repeated.  "You wouldn't!  And you--Oh, I say!
+And you talked of her happiness!"
+
+"It is her happiness I am thinking of.  If it were my own I should--"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Nothing, nothing.  She will be happier if I do not follow her, I
+suppose.  That is enough for me."
+
+He regarded me with the same intent stare.
+
+"Knowles," he said, suddenly, "she is at the home of a relative of
+hers--Cripps is the name--in Leatherhead, England.  There!  I have
+told you.  Why I should be such a fool I don't know.  And now you
+will go there, I suppose.  What?"
+
+"No," I answered.  "No.  I thank you for telling me, Bayliss, but
+it shall make no difference.  I will respect her wish.  I will not
+go there."
+
+"You won't!"
+
+"No, I will not trouble her again."
+
+To my surprise he laughed.  It was not a pleasant laugh, there was
+more sarcasm than mirth in it, or so it seemed, but why he should
+laugh at all I could not understand.
+
+"Knowles," he said, "you're a good fellow, but--"
+
+"But what?" I asked, stiffly.
+
+"You're no end of a silly ass in some ways.  Good night."
+
+He turned on his heel and walked off.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+In Which I, as Well as Mr. Solomon Cripps, Am Surprised
+
+
+"And to think," cried Hephzy, for at least the fifth time since I
+told her, "that those Crippses are her people, the cousins she
+lived with after her pa's death!  No wonder she was surprised when
+I told her how you and I went to Leatherhead and looked at their
+'Ash Dump'--'Ash Chump,' I mean.  And we came just as near hirin'
+it, too; we would have hired it if she hadn't put her foot down and
+said she wouldn't go there.  A good many queer things have happened
+on this pilgrimage of ours, Hosy, but I do believe our goin'
+straight to those Crippses, of all the folks in England, is about
+the strangest.  Seems as if we was sent there with a purpose, don't
+it?"
+
+"It is a strange coincidence," I admitted.
+
+"It's more'n that.  And her goin' back to them is queerer still.
+She hates 'em, I know she does.  She as much as said so, not
+mention' their names, of course.  Why did she do it?"
+
+I knew why she had done it, or I believed I did.
+
+"She did it to please you and me, Hephzy," I said.  "And to get rid
+of us.  She said she would do anything to please us, and she knew I
+did not want her to remain here in Paris.  I told her I should stay
+here as long as she did, or at least as long as she sang at--at the
+place where she was singing.  And she asked if, provided she gave
+up singing there, you and I would go back to England--or America?"
+
+"Yes, I know; you told me that, Hosy.  But you said you didn't
+promise to do it."
+
+"I didn't promise anything.  I couldn't promise not to follow her.
+I didn't believe I could keep the promise.  But I sha'n't follow
+her, Hephzy.  I shall not go to Leatherhead."
+
+Hephzy was silent for a moment.  Then she said:  "Why not?"
+
+"You know why.  That night when I first met her, the night after
+you had gone to Lucerne, she told me that if I persisted in
+following her and trying to see her I would force her to give up
+the only means of earning a living she had been able to find.
+Well, I have forced her to do that.  She has been obliged to run
+away once more in order to get rid of us.  I am not going to
+persecute her further.  I am going to try and be unselfish and
+decent, if I can.  Now that we know she is safe and among friends--
+"
+
+"Friends!  A healthy lot of friends they are--that Solomon Cripps
+and his wife!  If ever I ran afoul of a sanctimonious pair of
+hypocrites they're the pair.  Oh, they were sweet and buttery
+enough to us, I give in, but that was because they thought we was
+goin' to hire their Dump or Chump, or whatever 'twas.  I'll bet
+they could be hard as nails to anybody they had under their thumbs.
+Whenever I see a woman or a man with a mouth that shuts up like a
+crack in a plate, the way theirs do, it takes more than Scriptur'
+texts from that mouth to make me believe it won't bite when it has
+the chance.  Safe! poor Little Frank may be safe enough at
+Leatherhead, but I'll bet she's miserable.  WHAT made her go
+there?"
+
+"Because she had no other place to go, I suppose," I said.  "And
+there, among her relatives, she thought she would be free from our
+persecution."
+
+"There's some things worse than persecution," Hephzy declared;
+"and, so far as that goes, there are different kinds of
+persecution.  But what makes those Crippses willin' to take her in
+and look after her is what _I_ can't understand.  They MAY be
+generous and forgivin' and kind, but, if they are, then I miss my
+guess.  The whole business is awful queer.  Tell me all about your
+talk with Doctor Bayliss, Hosy.  What did he say?  And how did he
+look when he said it?"
+
+I told her, repeating our conversation word for word, as near as I
+could remember it.  She listened intently and when I had finished
+there was an odd expression on her face.
+
+"Humph!" she exclaimed.  "He seemed surprised to think you weren't
+goin' to Leatherhead, you say?"
+
+"Yes.  At least I thought he was surprised.  He knew I had chased
+her from Mayberry to Paris and was there at the hotel trying to
+learn from him where she was.  And he knows you are her aunt.  I
+suppose he thought it strange that we were not going to follow her
+any further."
+
+"Maybe so . . . maybe so.  But why did he call you a--what was it?--
+a silly donkey?"
+
+"Because I am one, I imagine," I answered, bitterly.  "It's my
+natural state.  I was born one."
+
+"Humph!  Well, 'twould take more than that boy's word to make me
+believe it.  No there's something!--I wish I could see that young
+fellow myself.  He's at the Continental Hotel, you say?"
+
+"Yes; but he leaves to-morrow.  There, Hephzy, that's enough.
+Don't talk about it.  Change the subject.  I am ready to go back to
+England--yes, or America either, whenever you say the word.  The
+sooner the better for me."
+
+Hephzy obediently changed the subject and we decided to leave Paris
+the following afternoon.  We would go back to the rectory, of
+course, and leave there for home as soon as the necessary
+arrangements could be made.  Hephzy agreed to everything, she
+offered no objections, in fact it seemed to me that she was paying
+very little attention.  Her lack of interest--yes, and apparent
+lack of sympathy, for I knew she must know what my decision meant
+to me--hurt and irritated me.
+
+I rose.
+
+"Good night," I said, curtly.  "I'm going to bed."
+
+"That's right, Hosy.  You ought to go.  You'll be sick again if you
+sit up any longer.  Good night, dearie."
+
+"And you?" I asked.  "What are you going to do?"
+
+"I'm going to set up a spell longer.  I want to think."
+
+"I don't.  I wish I might never think again.  Or dream, either.  I
+am awake at last.  God knows I wish I wasn't!"
+
+She moved toward me.  There was the same odd expression on her face
+and a queer, excited look in her eyes.
+
+"Perhaps you aren't really awake, Hosy," she said, gently.
+"Perhaps this is the final dream and when you do wake you'll find--
+"
+
+"Oh, bosh!" I interrupted.  "Don't tell me you have another
+presentiment.  If you have keep it to yourself.  Good night."
+
+I was weak from my recent illness and I had been under a great
+nervous strain all that evening.  These are my only excuses and
+they are poor ones.  I spoke and acted abominably and I was sorry
+for it afterward.  I have told Hephzy so a good many times since,
+but I think she understood without my telling her.
+
+"Well," she said, quietly, "dreams are somethin', after all.  It's
+somethin' to have had dreams.  I sha'n't forget mine.  Good night,
+Hosy."
+
+The next morning after breakfast she announced that she had an
+errand or two to do.  She would run out and do them, she said, but
+she would be gone only a little while.  She was gone nearly two
+hours during which I paced the floor or sat by the window looking
+out.  The crowded boulevard was below me, but I did not see it.
+All I saw was a future as desolate and blank as the Bayport flats
+at low tide, and I, a quahaug on those flats, doomed to live, or
+exist, forever and ever and ever, with nothing to live for.
+
+Hephzy, when she did return to the hotel, was surprisingly chatty
+and good-humored.  She talked, talked, talked all the time, about
+nothing in particular, laughed a good deal, and flew about, packing
+our belongings and humming to herself.  She acted more like the
+Hephzy of old than she had for weeks.  There was an air of
+suppressed excitement about her which I could not understand.  I
+attributed it to the fact of our leaving for America in the near
+future and her good humor irritated me.  My spirits were lower than
+ever.
+
+"You seem to be remarkably happy," I observed, fretfully.
+
+"What makes you think so, Hosy?  Because I was singin'?  Father
+used to say my singin' was the most doleful noise he ever heard,
+except a fog-horn on a lee shore.  I'm glad if you think it's a
+proof of happiness: I'm much obliged for the compliment."
+
+"Well, you are happy, or you are trying to appear so.  If you are
+pretending for my benefit, don't.  I'M not happy."
+
+"I know, Hosy; I know.  Well, perhaps you--"
+
+She didn't finish the sentence.
+
+"Perhaps what?"
+
+"Oh, nothin', nothin'.  How many shirts did you bring with you? is
+this all?"
+
+She sang no more, probably because she saw that the "fog-horn"
+annoyed me, but her manner was just as strange and her nervous
+energy as pronounced.  I began to doubt if my surmise, that her
+excitement and exaltation were due to the anticipation of an early
+return to Bayport, was a correct one.  I began to thing there must
+be some other course and to speculate concerning it.  And I, too,
+grew a bit excited.
+
+"Hephzy," I said, suddenly, "where did you go when you went out
+this morning?  What sort of 'errands' were those of yours?"
+
+She was folding my ties, her back toward me, and she answered
+without turning.
+
+"Oh, I had some odds and ends of things to do," she said.  "This
+plaid necktie of yours is gettin' pretty shabby, Hosy.  I guess you
+can't wear it again.  There!  I mustn't stop to talk.  I've got my
+own things to pack."
+
+She hurried to her own room and I asked no more questions just
+then.  But I was more suspicious than ever.  I remembered a
+question of hers the previous evening and I believed. . . .  But,
+if she had gone to the Continental and seen Herbert Bayliss, what
+could he have told her to make her happy?
+
+We took the train for Calais and crossed the Channel to Dover.
+This time the eccentric strip of water was as calm as a pond at
+sunset.  No jumpy, white-capped billows, no flying spray, no
+seasick passengers.  Tarpaulins were a drag on the market.
+
+"I wouldn't believe," declared Hephzy, "that this lookin'-glass was
+the same as that churned-up tub of suds we slopped through before.
+It doesn't trickle down one's neck now, does it, Hosy.  A 'nahsty'
+cross-in' comin' and a smooth one comin' back.  I wonder if that's
+a sign."
+
+"Oh, don't talk about signs, Hephzy," I pleaded, wearily.  "You'll
+begin to dream again, I suppose, pretty soon."
+
+"No, I won't.  I think you and I have stopped dreamin', Hosy.
+Maybe we're just wakin' up, same as I told you."
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+"Mean?  Oh, I guess I didn't mean anything.  Good-by, old France!
+You're a lovely country and a lively one, but I sha'n't cry at
+sayin' good-by to you this time.  And there's England dead ahead.
+Won't it seem good to be where they talk instead of jabber!  I
+sha'n't have to navigate by the 'one-two-three' chart over there."
+
+Dover, a flying trip through the customs, the train again, an
+English dinner in an English restaurant car--not a "wagon bed," as
+Hephzy said, exultantly--and then London.
+
+We took a cab to the hotel, not Bancroft's this time, but a modern
+downtown hostelry where there were at least as many Americans as
+English.  In our rooms I would have cross-questioned Hephzy, but
+she would not be questioned, declaring that she was tired and
+sleepy.  I was tired, also, but not sleepy.  I was almost as
+excited as she seemed to be by this time.  I was sure she had
+learned something that morning in Paris, something which pleased
+her greatly.  What that something might be I could not imagine; but
+I believed she had learned it from Herbert Bayliss.
+
+And the next morning, after breakfast, she announced that she had
+arranged for a cab and we must start for the station at once.  I
+said nothing then, but when the cab pulled up before a railway
+station, a station which was not our accustomed one but another, I
+said a great deal.
+
+"What in the world, Hephzy!" I exclaimed.  "We can't go to Mayberry
+from here."
+
+"Hush, hush, Hosy.  Wait a minute--wait till I've paid the driver.
+Yes, I'm doin' it myself.  I'm skipper on this cruise.  You're an
+invalid, didn't you know it.  Invalids have to obey orders."
+
+The cabman paid, she took my arm and led me into the station.
+
+"And now, Hosy," she said, "let me tell you.  We aren't goin' to
+Mayberry--not yet.  We're going to Leatherhead."
+
+"To Leatherhead!" I repeated.  "To Leatherhead!  To--her?  We
+certainly will do no such thing."
+
+"Yes, we will, Hosy," quietly.  "I haven't said anything about it
+before, but I've made up my mind.  It's our duty to see her just
+once more, once more before--before we say good-by for good.  It's
+our duty."
+
+"Duty!  Our duty is to let her alone, to leave her in peace, as she
+asked us."
+
+"How do you know she is in peace?  Suppose she isn't.  Suppose
+she's miserable and unhappy.  Isn't it our duty to find out?  I
+think it is?"
+
+I looked her full in the face.  "Hephzy," I said, sharply, "you
+know something about her, something that I don't know.  What is
+it?"
+
+"I don't know as I know anything, Hosy.  I can't say that I do.
+But--"
+
+"You saw Herbert Bayliss yesterday.  That was the 'errand' you went
+upon yesterday morning in Paris.  Wasn't it?"
+
+She was very much taken aback.  She has told me since that she had
+no idea I suspected the truth.
+
+"Wasn't it?" I repeated.
+
+"Why--why, yes, it was, Hosy.  I did go to see him, there at his
+hotel.  When you told me how he acted and what he said to you I
+thought 'twas awfully funny, and the more I thought it over the
+funnier it seemed.  So I made up my mind to see him and talk with
+him myself.  And I did."
+
+"What did he tell you?" I asked.
+
+"He told me--he told me--Well, he didn't tell me so much, maybe,
+but he gave me to understand a whole lot.  She's gone to those
+Crippses, Hosy, just as I suspicioned, not because she likes 'em--
+she hates 'em--or because she wanted to go, but because she thought
+'twould please us if she did.  It doesn't please us; it doesn't
+please me, anyway.  She sha'n't be miserable for our sake, not
+without a word from us.  No, we must go there and see her and--and
+tell her once more just how we feel about it.  It's our duty to go
+and we must.  And," with decision, "we're goin' now."
+
+She had poured out this explanation breathlessly, hurrying as if
+fearful that I might interrupt and ask more questions.  I asked one
+of them the moment she paused.
+
+"We knew all that before," I said.  "That is, we were practically
+sure she had left Paris to get rid of us and had gone to her
+cousins, the Crippses, because of her half-promise to me not to
+sing at places like the Abbey again.  We knew all that.  And she
+asked me to promise that we would not follow her.  I didn't
+promise, but that makes no difference.  Was that all Bayliss told
+you?"
+
+Hephzy was still embarrassed and confused, though she answered
+promptly enough.
+
+"He told me he knew she didn't want to go to--to those Leatherheaded
+folks," she declared.  "We guessed she didn't, but we didn't know it
+for sure.  And he said we ought to go to her.  He said that."
+
+"But why did he say it?  Our going will not alter her determination
+to stay and our seeing her again will only make it harder for her."
+
+"No, it won't--no it won't," hastily.  "Besides I want to see that
+Cripps man and have a talk with him, myself.  I want to know why a
+man like him--I'm pretty well along in years; I've met folks and
+bargained and dealt with 'em all my grown-up life and I KNOW he
+isn't the kind to do things for nothin' for ANYBODY--I want to know
+why he and his wife are so generous to her.  There's somethin'
+behind it."
+
+"There's something behind you, Hephzy.  Some other reason that you
+haven't told me.  Was that all Bayliss said?"
+
+She hesitated.  "Yes," she said, after a moment, "that's all, all I
+can tell you now, anyway.  But I want you to go with me to that Ash
+Dump and see her once more."
+
+"I shall not, Hephzy."
+
+"Well, then I'll have to go by myself.  And if you don't go, too, I
+think you'll be awfully sorry.  I think you will.  Oh, Hosy,"
+pleadingly, "please go with me.  I don't ask you to do many things,
+now do I?  I do ask you to do this."
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"I would do almost anything for your sake, Hephzy," I began.
+
+"But this isn't for my sake.  It's for hers.  For hers.  I'm sure--
+I'm ALMOST sure you and she will both be glad you did it."
+
+I could not understand it at all.  I had never seen her more
+earnest.  She was not the one to ask unreasonable things and yet
+where her sister's child was concerned she could be obstinate
+enough--I knew that.
+
+"I shall go whether you do or not," she said, as I stood looking at
+her.
+
+"You mean that, Hephzy?"
+
+"I surely do.  I'm goin' to see her this very forenoon.  And I do
+hope you'll go with me."
+
+I reflected.  If she went alone it would be almost as hard for
+Frances as if I went with her.  And the temptation was very strong.
+The desire to see her once more, only once. . . .
+
+"I'll go, Hephzy," I said.  I didn't mean to say it; the words
+seemed to come of themselves.
+
+"You will!  Oh, I'm so glad!  I'm so glad!  And I think--I think
+you'll be glad, too, Hosy.  I'm hopin' you will."
+
+"I'll go," I said.  "But this is the last time you and I must
+trouble her.  I'll go--not because of any reason you have given me,
+Hephzy, but because I believe there must be some other and stronger
+reason, which you haven't told me."
+
+Hephzy drew a long breath.  She seemed to be struggling between a
+desire to tell me more--whatever that more might be--and a
+determination not to tell.
+
+"Maybe there is, Hosy," she said, slowly.  "Maybe there is.  I--I--
+Well, there!  I must go and buy the tickets.  You sit down and
+wait.  I'm skipper of this craft to-day, you know.  I'm in command
+on this voyage."
+
+Leatherhead looked exactly as it had on our previous visit.  "Ash
+Clump," the villa which the Crippses had been so anxious for us to
+hire, was still untenanted, or looked to be.  We walked on until we
+reached the Cripps home and entered the Cripps gate.  I rang the
+bell and the maid answered the ring.
+
+In answer to our inquiries she told us that Mr. Cripps was not in.
+He and Mrs. Cripps had gone to chapel.  I remembered then that the
+day was Sunday.  I had actually forgotten it.
+
+"Is Miss Morley in?" asked Hephzy.
+
+The maid shook her head.
+
+"No, ma'am," she said.  "Miss Morley ain't in, either.  I think
+she's gone to chapel, too.  I ain't sure, ma'am, but I think she
+'as.  She's not in."
+
+She asked if we would leave cards.  Hephzy said no.
+
+"It's 'most noon," she said.  "They'll be back pretty soon.  We'll
+wait.  No, we won't come in.  We'll wait out here, I guess."
+
+There was a rustic seat on the lawn near the house and Hephzy
+seated herself upon it.  I walked up and down.  I was in a state of
+what Hephzy would have called "nerves."  I had determined to be
+very calm when I met her, to show no emotion, to be very calm and
+cool, no matter what happened.  But this waiting was hard.  I grew
+more nervous every minute.
+
+"I'm going to stroll about, Hephzy," I said.  "About the garden and
+grounds.  I sha'n't go far and I'll return soon.  I shall be within
+call.  Send one of the servants for me if she--if the Crippses come
+before I get back."
+
+Hephzy did not urge me to remain.  Nor did she offer to accompany
+me.  As usual she seemed to read my thoughts and understand them.
+
+"All right, Hosy," she said.  "You go and have your walk.  I'll
+wait here.  But don't be long, will you."
+
+I promised not to be long.  The Cripps gardens and grounds were
+not extensive, but they were well kept even if the beds were
+geometrically ugly and the color masses jarring and in bad taste.
+The birds sang, the breeze stirred the leaves and petals, and there
+was a Sunday quiet, the restful hush of an English Sunday,
+everywhere.
+
+I strolled on along the paths, through the gap in the hedge
+dividing the kitchen garden from the purely ornamental section,
+past the stables, until I emerged from the shrubbery at the top of
+a little hill.  There was a pleasant view from this hill, the
+customary view of hedged fields and meadows, flocks of sheep and
+groups of grazing cattle, and over all the soft blue haze and misty
+sky.
+
+I paused.  And then close beside me, I heard a startled exclamation.
+
+I turned.  In a nook of the shrubbery was another rustic seat.
+Rising from that seat and gazing at me with a look of amazed
+incredulity, was--Frances Morley.
+
+I did not speak.  I could not, for the moment.  She spoke first.
+
+"You!" she exclaimed.  "You--here!"
+
+And still I did not speak.  Where was the calm with which I was to
+meet her?  Where were the carefully planned sentences which were to
+explain how I had come and why?  I don't know where they were; I
+seemed to know only that she was there, that I was alone with her
+as I had never thought or meant to be again, and that if I spoke I
+should say things far different from those I had intended.
+
+She was recovering from her surprise.  She came toward me.
+
+"What are you doing here?" she asked.  "Why did you come?"
+
+I stammered a word or two, some incoherences to the effect that I
+had not expected to find her there, that I had been told she was at
+church.  She shook her head, impatiently.
+
+"I mean why did you come here--to Leatherhead?" she asked.  "Why
+did you come?  Did you know--"
+
+I interrupted her.  If ever I was to explain, or attempt to
+explain, I realized that it must be at that moment.  She might
+listen to me then, before she had had time to think.  Later I knew
+she would not.
+
+"I knew you were here," I broke in, quickly.  "I--we--your aunt
+knew and we came."
+
+"But HOW did you know?  Who told you?"
+
+"The--we learned," I answered.  "And we came."
+
+It was a poor explanation--or none at all.  She seemed to think it
+so.  And yet she seemed more hurt than offended.
+
+"You came--yes," she said.  "And you knew that I left Paris
+because--Oh, you knew that!  I asked you not to follow me.  You
+promised you would not."
+
+I was ashamed, thoroughly ashamed and disgusted with myself for
+yielding to Hephzy's entreaties.
+
+"No, no," I protested, "I did not promise.  I did not promise,
+Frances."
+
+"But you know I did not wish you to do it.  I did not wish you to
+follow me to Paris, but you did it.  I told you you would force me
+to give up my only means of earning money.  You did force me to
+give it up.  I gave it up to please you, for your sake, and now--"
+
+"Did you?" I cried, eagerly.  "Did you give it up for my sake,
+Frances?  Did you?"
+
+"You know I did.  You must know it.  And now that I have done it,
+now that I have given up my opportunity and my--my self-respect and
+my one chance and come here to this--to this place, you--you--Oh,
+how could you!  Wasn't I unhappy enough before?  And unhappy enough
+now?  Oh, how could you!"
+
+I was more ashamed than ever.  I tried desperately to justify my
+action.
+
+"But that was it," I persisted.  "Don't you see?  It was your
+happiness, the thought that you were unhappy which brought me here.
+I know--you told your aunt how unhappy you had been when you were
+with these people before.  I know how much you disliked them.  That
+was why I came.  To ask you to give this up as you did the other.
+To come with us and BE happy.  I want you to come, Frances.  Think!
+Think how much I must want you."
+
+And, for the moment I thought this appeal had some effect.  It
+seemed to me that her resolution was shaken, that she was wavering.
+
+"You--you really want me?" she repeated.
+
+"Yes.  Yes, I can't tell you--I must not tell you how much I want
+you.  And your aunt--she wants you to come.  She is here, too.  She
+will tell you."
+
+Her manner changed once more.  The tone in which she spoke was
+different.  There were no signs of the wavering which I had
+noticed--or hoped I noticed.
+
+"No," she said.  "No.  I shall not see my aunt.  And I must not
+talk with you any longer.  I asked you not to follow me here.  You
+did it, in spite of my asking.  Now, unless you wish to drive me
+away from here, as you did from Paris, you will leave me and not
+try to see me again.  Oh, don't you see--CAN'T you see how
+miserable you are making rne?  And yet you talk of my happiness!"
+
+"But you aren't happy here.  ARE you happy?"
+
+"I am happy enough.  Yes, I am happy."
+
+"I don't believe it.  Are these Crippses kind to you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+I didn't believe that, either, but I did not say so.  Instead I
+said what I had determined to say, the same thing that I should
+have said before, in Mayberry and in Paris--if I could have
+mustered the courage and decency to say it.
+
+"Frances," I said, "there is something else, something which may
+have a bearing on your happiness, or may not, I don't know.  The
+night before you left us, at Mayberry, Herbert Bayliss came to me
+and asked my permission to marry you, if you were willing.  He
+thought you were my niece--then.  I said that--I said that,
+although of course I had no shadow of authority over you, I did
+care for your happiness.  I cared for that a great deal.  If you
+loved him I should certainly--"
+
+"I see," she broke in, scornfully.  "I see.  He told you I was
+here.  That is why you came.  Did he send you to me to say--what
+you are trying to say?"
+
+"Oh, no, no!  You are mistaken.  You wrong him, Frances.  He did
+not do that.  He's not that sort.  He's a good fellow, an honorable
+man.  And he does care for you.  I know it.  He cares greatly.  He
+would, I am sure, make you a good husband, and if you care for him,
+he would do his best to make you happy, I--"
+
+Again she interrupted.  "One moment," she said, "Let me understand.
+Are you urging me to marry Herbert Bayliss?"
+
+"No.  I am not urging you, of course.  But if you do care for him--"
+
+"I do not."
+
+"Oh, you don't love him?"
+
+I wonder if there was relief in my tone.  There should not have
+been, of course, but I fear there was."
+
+"No, I do not--love him.  He is a gentleman and I like him well
+enough, but not in that way.  Please don't say any more."
+
+"Very well.  I only meant--Tell me this, if you will:  Is there
+someone you do care for?"
+
+She did not answer.  I had offended her again.  She had cause to be
+offended.  What business was it of mine?
+
+"I beg your pardon," I said, humbly.  "I should not have asked
+that.  I have no right to ask it.  But if there is someone for whom
+you care in that way and he cares for you, it--"
+
+"Oh, don't, don't!  He doesn't."
+
+"Then there is someone?"
+
+She was silent.  I tried to speak like a man, like the man I was
+pretending to be.
+
+"I am glad to know it," I said.  "If you care for him he must care
+for you.  He cannot help it.  I am sure you will be happy by and
+by.  I can leave you here now with more--with less reluctance.
+I--"
+
+I could not trust myself to go on, although I tried to do so.  She
+answered, without looking at me.
+
+"Yes," she said, "you can leave me now.  I am safe and--and happy.
+Good-by."
+
+I took her hand.
+
+"Good-by," I said.  "Forgive me for coming.  I shall not trouble
+you again.  This time I promise.  You may not wish to write us, but
+we shall write you.  And I--I hope you won't forget us."
+
+It was a lame conclusion and trite enough.  She must have thought
+so.
+
+"I shall not forget you," she said, simply.  "And I will try to
+write occasionally.  Yes, I will try.  Now please go.  Good-by."
+
+I went, without looking back.  I strode along the paths, scarcely
+noticing where I was going.  As I neared the corner of the house I
+heard voices, loud voices.  One of them, though it was not as loud
+as the others, was Hephzy's.
+
+"I knew it," she was saying, as I turned the corner.  "I knew it.
+I knew there was some reason, some mean selfish reason why you were
+willin' to take that girl under your wing.  I knew it wasn't kind-
+heartedness and relationship.  I knew it."
+
+It was Solomon Cripps who answered.  Mr. and Mrs. Cripps, arrayed
+in their Sabbath black and white, were standing by the door of
+their villa.  Hephzy was standing before them.  Her face was set
+and determined and she looked highly indignant.  Mr. Cripps' face
+was red and frowning and he gesticulated with a red hand, which
+clasped a Testament.  His English was by no means as pure and
+undefiled as when he had endeavored to persuade us into hiring "Ash
+Clump."
+
+"Look 'ere," he snarled.  "Don't you talk to me like that.  Don't
+you suppose I know what I'm doing.  You Yankees may be clever at
+your tricks, but you can't trick me.  Don't I know about the money
+you stole from 'er father?  Don't I, eh?  You can tell 'er your
+lies about it being stolen by someone else, but I can see a 'ole
+through a millstone.  You can't trick me, I tell you.  They're
+giving that girl a good 'ome and care and all that, but we're goin'
+to see she 'as 'er rights.  You've filled 'er silly 'ead with your
+stories.  You've made 'er think you're all that's good and--"
+
+I was at hand by this time.
+
+"What's all this, Hephzy?" I asked.
+
+Before Hephzy could reply Mrs. Cripps spoke.
+
+"It's him!" she cried, seizing her husband's arm with one hand and
+pointing at me with the other.  "It's him," she cried, venomously.
+"He's here, too."
+
+The sight of me appeared to upset what little self-control Mr.
+Cripps had left.
+
+"You!" he shouted, "I might 'ave known you were 'ere.  You're the
+one that's done it.  You're responsible.  Filling her silly 'ead
+with lies about your goodness and all that.  Making her fall in
+love with you and--"
+
+I sprang forward.
+
+"WHAT?" I cried.  "What are you saying?"
+
+Hephzy was frightened.
+
+"Hosy," she cried, "don't look so.  Don't!  You frighten me."
+
+I scarcely heard her.
+
+"WHAT did you say?" I demanded, addressing Cripps, who shrank back,
+rather alarmed apparently.  "Why, you scoundrel!  What do you mean
+by saying that?  Speak up!  What do you mean by it?"
+
+If Mr. Cripps was alarmed his wife was not.  She stepped forward
+and faced me defiantly.
+
+"He means just what he says," she declared, her shrill voice
+quivering with vindictive spite.  "And you know what he means
+perfectly well.  You ought to be ashamed of yourself, a man as old
+as you and she an innocent young girl!  You've hypnotized her--that
+is what you've done, hypnotized her.  All those ridiculous stories
+about her having no money she believes because you told them to
+her.  She would believe the moon was made of green cheese if you
+said so.  She's mad about you--the poor little fool!  She won't
+hear a word against you--says you're the best, noblest man in the
+world!  You!  Why she won't even deny that she's in love with you;
+she was brazen enough to tell me she was proud of it.  Oh. . . .
+Stop!  Where are you going?  Solomon, stop him!"
+
+Solomon did not stop me.  I am very glad he didn't try.  No one
+could have stopped me then.  I was on my way back along the garden
+path, and if I did not keep to that path, but plunged ruthlessly
+through flower beds and shrubbery I did not care, nor do I care
+now.
+
+She was sitting on the rustic seat where I had left her.  There
+were tears on her cheeks.  She had heard me coming--a deaf person
+would have heard that--and she rose as I burst into view.
+
+"What is it?" she cried, in alarm.  "Oh, what is it?"
+
+At the sight of her I paused.  I had not meant to pause; I had
+intended to take her in my arms, to ask her if what I had just
+heard was true, to make her answer me.  But now, as she stood there
+before me, so young, so girlish, so beautiful, the hopeless idiocy
+of the thing struck me with overwhelming force.  It WAS idiocy.  It
+couldn't be true.
+
+"What is it?" she repeated.  "Oh, Kent! what is the matter?  Why
+did you come back?  What has happened?"
+
+I stepped forward.  True or false I must know.  I must know then
+and there.  It was now or never for me.
+
+"Frances," I stammered, "I came back because--I--I have just heard--
+Frances, you told me you loved someone--not Bayliss, but someone
+else.  Who is that someone?"
+
+She had been pale.  My sudden and unexpected appearance had
+frightened her.  Now as we faced each other, as I stood looking
+down into her face, I saw the color rise and spread over that face
+from throat to brow.
+
+"Who is it?" I repeated.
+
+She drew back.
+
+"I--I can't tell you," she faltered.  "You mustn't ask me."
+
+"But I do ask.  You must tell me, Frances--Frances, it isn't--it
+can't be that you love ME.  Do you?"
+
+She drew back still further.  If there had been a way of escape I
+think she would have taken it.  But there was none.  The thick
+shrubbery was behind her and I was between her and the path.  And I
+would not let her pass.
+
+"Oh, Frances, do you?" I repeated.  "I never meant to ask you.  I
+never meant that you should know.  I am so much older, and so--so
+unworthy--it has seemed so hopeless and ridiculous.  But I love
+you, Frances, I have loved you from the very beginning, although at
+first I didn't realize it.  I--If you do--if you can--I--I--"
+
+I faltered, hesitated, and stopped.  She did not answer for a
+moment, a long, long moment.  Then:
+
+"Mr. Knowles," she said, "you surprise me.  I didn't suspect--I
+didn't think--"
+
+I sighed.  I had had my answer.  Of course it was idiotic.  I
+should have known; I did know.
+
+"I see," I said.  "I understand.  Forgive me, please.  I was a fool
+to even think of such a thing.  I didn't think it.  I didn't dare
+until--until just now.  Then I was told--your cousin said--I might
+have known he didn't mean what he said.  But he said it and--and--"
+
+"What did he say?  Mr. Cripps, do you mean?  What did he say?"
+
+"He said--he said you--you cared for me--in that way.  Of course
+you don't--you can't.  I know better.  But for the moment I dared
+to hope.  I was crazy, of course.  Forgive me, Frances."
+
+She looked up and then down again.
+
+"There is nothing to forgive," she said.
+
+"Yes, there is.  There is a great deal.  An old--"
+
+"Hush! hush, please.  Don't speak like that.  I--I thank you.  I--
+you mustn't suppose I am not grateful.  I know you pity me.  I know
+how generous you are.  But your pity--"
+
+"It isn't pity.  I should pity myself, if that were all.  I love
+you Frances, and I shall always love you.  I am not ashamed of it.
+I shall have that love to comfort me till I die.  I am ashamed of
+having told you, of troubling you again, that is all."
+
+I was turning away, but I heard her step beside me and felt her
+hand upon my sleeve.  I turned back again.  She was looking me full
+in the face now and her eyes were shining.
+
+"What Mr. Cripps said was true," she said.
+
+I could not believe it.  I did not believe it even then.
+
+"True!" I repeated.  "No, no!  You don't mean--"
+
+"I do mean it.  I told him that I loved you."
+
+I don't know what more she would have said.  I did not wait to
+hear.  She was in my arms at last and all England was whirling
+about me like a top.
+
+"But you can't!" I found myself saying over and over.  I must have
+said other things before, but I don't remember them.  "You can't!
+it is impossible.  You! marry an old fossil like me!  Oh, Frances,
+are you sure?  Are you sure?"
+
+"Yes, Kent," softly, "I am sure."
+
+"But you can't love me.  You are sure that your--You have no reason
+to be grateful to me, but you have said you were, you know.  You
+are sure you are not doing this because--"
+
+"I am sure.  It is not because I am grateful."
+
+"But, my dear--think!  Think what it means, I am--"
+
+"I know what you are," tenderly.  "No one knows as well.  But,
+Kent--Kent, are YOU sure?  It isn't pity for me?"
+
+I think I convinced her that it was not pity.  I know I tried.  And
+I was still trying when the sound of steps and voices on the other
+side of the shrubbery caused us--or caused her; I doubt if I should
+have heard anything except her voice just then--to start and
+exclaim:
+
+"Someone is coming!  Don't, dear, don't!  Someone is coming."
+
+It was the Crippses who were coming, of course.  Mr. and Mrs.
+Cripps and Hephzy.  They would have come sooner, I learned
+afterwards, but Hephzy had prevented it.
+
+Solomon's red face was redder still when he saw us together.  And
+Mrs. Cripps' mouth looked more like "a crack in a plate" than ever.
+
+"So!" she exclaimed.  "Here's where you are!  I thought as much.
+And you--you brazen creature!"
+
+I objected strongly to "brazen creature" as a term applied to my
+future wife.  I intended saying so, but Mr. Cripps got ahead of me.
+
+"You get off my grounds," he blurted, waving his fist.  "You get
+out of 'ere now or I'll 'ave you put off.  Do you 'ear?"
+
+I should have answered him as he deserved to be answered, but
+Frances would not let me.
+
+"Don't, Kent," she whispered.  "Don't quarrel with him, please.  He
+is going, Mr. Cripps.  We are going--now."
+
+Mrs. Cripps fairly shrieked.  "WE are going?" she repeated.  "Do
+you mean you are going with him?"
+
+Hephzy joined in, but in a quite different tone.
+
+"You are goin'?" she said, joyfully.  "Oh, Frances, are you comin'
+with us?"
+
+It was my turn now and I rejoiced in the prospect.  An entire
+brigade of Crippses would not have daunted me then.  I should have
+enjoyed defying them all.
+
+"Yes," said I, "she is coming with us, Hephzy.  Mr. Cripps, will
+you be good enough to stand out of the way?  Come, Frances."
+
+It is not worth while repeating what Mr. and Mrs, Cripps said.
+They said a good deal, threatened all sorts of things, lawsuits
+among the rest.  Hephzy fired the last guns for our side.
+
+"Yes, yes," she retorted, impatiently.  "I know you're goin' to
+sue.  Go ahead and sue and prosecute yourselves to death, if you
+want to.  The lawyers'll get their fees out of you, and that's some
+comfort--though I shouldn't wonder if THEY had to sue to get even
+that.  And I tell you this:  If you don't send Little Frank's--Miss
+Morley's trunks to Mayberry inside of two days we'll come and get
+'em and we'll come with the sheriff and the police."
+
+Mrs. Cripps, standing by the gate, fell back upon her last line of
+intrenchments, the line of piety.
+
+"And to think," she declared, with upturned eyes, "that this is the
+'oly Sabbath!  Never mind, Solomon.  The Lord will punish 'em.  I
+shall pray to Him not to curse them too hard."
+
+Hephzy's retort was to the point.
+
+"I wouldn't," she said.  "If I had been doin' what you two have
+been up to, pretendin' to care for a young girl and offerin' to
+give her a home, and all the time doin' it just because I thought I
+could squeeze money out of her, I shouldn't trouble the Lord much.
+I wouldn't take the risk of callin' His attention to me."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+In Which the Pilgrimage Ends Where It Began
+
+
+We did not go to Mayberry that day.  We went to London and to the
+hotel; not Bancroft's, but the hotel where Hephzy and I had stayed
+the previous night.  It was Frances' wish that we should not go to
+Bancroft's.
+
+"I don't think that I could go there, Kent," she whispered to me,
+on the train.  "Mr. and Mrs Jameson were very kind, and I liked
+them so much, but--but they would ask questions; they wouldn't
+understand.  It would be hard to make them understand.  Don't you
+see, Kent?"
+
+I saw perfectly.  Considering that the Jamesons believed Miss
+Morley to be my niece, it would indeed be hard to make them
+understand.  I was not inclined to try.  I had had quite enough of
+the uncle and niece business.
+
+So we went to the other hotel and if the clerk was surprised to see
+us again so soon he said nothing about it.  Perhaps he was not
+surprised.  It must take a good deal to surprise a hotel clerk.
+
+On the train, in our compartment--a first-class compartment, you
+may be sure; I would have hired the whole train if it had been
+necessary; there was nothing too good or too expensive for us that
+afternoon--on the train, discussing the ride to London, Hephzy did
+most of the talking.  I was too happy to talk much and Frances,
+sitting in her corner and pretending to look out of the window, was
+silent also.  I should have been fearful that she was not happy,
+that she was already repenting her rashness in promising to marry
+the Bayport "quahaug," but occasionally she looked at me, and,
+whenever she did, the wireless message our eyes exchanged, sent
+that quahaug aloft on a flight through paradise.  A flying clam is
+an unusual specimen, I admit, but no other quahaug in this wide,
+wide world had an excuse like mine for developing wings.
+
+Hephzy did not appear to notice our silence.  She chatted and
+laughed continuously.  We had not told her our secret--the great
+secret--and if she suspected it she kept her suspicions to herself.
+Her chatter was a curious mixture: triumph over the detached
+Crippses; joy because, after all, "Little Frank" had consented to
+come with us, to live with us again; and triumph over me because
+her dreams and presentiments had come true.
+
+"I told you, Hosy," she kept saying.  "I told you!  I said it would
+all come out in the end.  He wouldn't believe it, Frances.  He said
+I was an old lunatic and--"
+
+"I didn't say anything of the kind," I broke in.
+
+"You said what amounted to that and I don't know as I blame you.
+But I knew--I just KNEW he and I had been 'sent' on this course and
+that we--all three of us--would make the right port in the end.
+And we have--we have, haven't we, Frances?"
+
+"Yes," said Frances, simply.  "We have, Auntie--"
+
+"There! do you hear that, Hosy?  Isn't it good to hear her call me
+'Auntie' again!  Now I'm satisfied; or"--with a momentary
+hesitation--"pretty nearly satisfied, anyway."
+
+"Oh, then you're not quite satisfied, after all," I observed.
+"What more do you want?"
+
+"I want just one thing more; just one, that's all."
+
+I believed I know what that one thing was, but I asked her.  She
+shot a look at me, a look of indignant meaning.
+
+"Never mind," she said, decidedly.  "That's my affair.  Oh, Ho!"
+with a reminiscent chuckle, "how that Cripps woman did glare at me
+when I said 'twas pretty risky her callin' the Almighty's attention
+to their doin's.  I hope it did her good.  Maybe she'll think of it
+next time she goes to chapel.  But I suppose she won't.  All such
+folks care for is money.  They wouldn't be so anxious to get to
+Heaven if they hadn't read about the golden streets."
+
+That evening, at the hotel, Frances told us her story, the story of
+which we had guessed a good deal, but of which she had told so
+little--how, after her father's death, she had gone to live with
+the Crippses because, as she thought, they wished her to do so from
+motives of generosity and kindness.
+
+"They are not really relatives of mine," she said.  "I am glad of
+that.  Mrs. Cripps married a cousin of my father's; he died and
+then she married Mr. Cripps.  After Father's death they wrote me a
+very kind letter, or I thought it kind at the time.  They said all
+sorts of kindly things, they offered me a home, they said I should
+be like their own daughter.  So, having nowhere else to go, I went
+to them.  I lived there nearly two years.  Oh, what a life it was!
+They are very churchly people, they call themselves religious, but
+I don't.  They pretend to be--perhaps they think they are--good,
+very good.  But they aren't--they aren't.  They are hard and cruel.
+Mr. Cripps owns several tenements where poor people live.  I have
+heard things from those people that--Oh, I can't tell you!  I ran
+away because I had learned what they really were."
+
+Hephzy nodded.  "What I can't understand," she said, "is why they
+offered you a home in the first place.  It was because they thought
+you had money comin' to you, that's plain enough now; but how did
+they know?"
+
+Frances colored.  "I'm afraid--I'm afraid Father must have written
+them," she said.  "He needed money very much in his later years and
+he may have written them asking--asking for loans and offering my
+'inheritance' as security.  I think now that that was it.  But I
+did not think so then.  And--and, Oh, Auntie, you mustn't think too
+harshly of Father.  He was very good to me, he really was.  And
+DON'T you think he believed--he had made himself believe--that
+there was money of his there in America?  I can't believe he--he
+would lie to me."
+
+"Of course he didn't lie," said Hephzy, promptly.  I could have
+hugged her for saying it.  "He was sick and--and sort of out of his
+head, poor man, and I don't doubt he made himself believe all sorts
+of things.  Of course he didn't lie--to his own daughter.  But
+why," she added, quickly, before Frances could ask another
+question, "did you go back to those precious Cripps critters after
+you left Paris?"
+
+Frances looked at me.  "I thought it would please you," she said,
+simply.  "I knew you didn't want me to sing in public.  Kent had
+said he would be happier if he knew I had given up that life and
+was among friends.  And they--they had called themselves my
+friends.  When I went back to them they welcomed me.  Mr. Cripps
+called me his 'prodigal daughter,' and Mrs. Cripps prayed over me.
+It wasn't until I told them I had no 'inheritance,' except one of
+debt, that they began to show me what they really were.  They
+wouldn't believe it.  They said you were trying to defraud me.  It
+was dreadful.  I--I think I should have run away again if--if you
+had not come."
+
+"Well, we did come," said Hephzy, cheerfully, "and I thank the good
+Lord for it.  Now we won't talk any more about THAT."
+
+She left us alone soon afterward, going to my room--we were in
+hers, hers and Frances'--to unpack my trunk once more.  She
+wouldn't hear of my unpacking it.  When she was gone Frances turned
+to me.
+
+"You--you haven't told her," she faltered.
+
+"No," said I, "not yet.  I wanted to speak with you first.  I can't
+believe it is true.  Or, if it is, that it is right.  Oh, my dear,
+do you realize what you are doing?  I am--I am ever so much older
+than you.  I am not worthy of you.  You could have made a so much
+better marriage."
+
+She looked at me.  She was smiling, but there was a tiny wrinkle
+between her brows.
+
+"Meaning," she said, "I suppose, that I might have married Doctor
+Bayliss.  I might perhaps marry him even yet, if I wished.  I--I
+think he would have me, if I threw myself at his head."
+
+"Yes," I admitted, grudgingly.  "Yes, he loves you, Frances."
+
+"Kent, when we were there in Mayberry it seemed to me that my aunt
+and you were almost anxious that I should marry him.  It seemed to
+me that you took every opportunity to throw me in his way; you
+refused my invitations for golf and tennis and suggested that I
+play with him instead.  It used to annoy me.  I resented it.  I
+thought you were eager to get rid of me.  I did not know then the
+truth about Father and--and the money.  And I thought you hoped I
+might marry him and--and not trouble you any more.  But I think I
+understand now.  You--you did not care for me so much then.  Was
+that it?"
+
+I shook my head.  "Care for you!" I repeated.  "I cared for you so
+much that I did not dare trust myself with you.  I did not dare to
+think of you, and yet I could think of no one else.  I know now
+that I fell in love with you when I first met you at that horrible
+Briggs woman's lodging-house.  Don't you see?  That was the very
+reason why.  Don't you see?"
+
+"No, I'm afraid I don't quite see.  If you cared for me like that
+how could you be willing for me to marry him?  That is what puzzles
+me.  I don't understand it."
+
+"It was because I did care for you.  It was because I cared so
+much, I wanted you to be happy.  I never dreamed that you could
+care for an old, staid, broken-down bookworm like me.  It wasn't
+thinkable.  I can scarcely think it now.  Oh, Frances, are you SURE
+you are not making a mistake?  Are you sure it isn't gratitude
+which makes you--"
+
+She rose from her chair and came to me.  Her eyes were wet, but
+there was a light in them like the sunlight behind a summer shower.
+
+"Don't, please don't!" she begged.  "And caring for me like that
+you could still come to me as you did this morning and suggest my
+marrying him."
+
+"Yes, yes, I came because--because I knew he loved you and I
+thought that you might not know it.  And if you did know it I
+thought--perhaps--you might be happier and--"
+
+I faltered and stopped.  She was standing beside me, looking up
+into my face.
+
+"I did know it," she said.  "He told me, there in Paris.  And I
+told him--"
+
+"You told him--?"
+
+"I told him that I liked him; I do, I do; he is a good man.  But I
+told him--" she rose on tiptoe and kissed me--"I told him that I
+loved you, dear.  See! here is the pin you gave me.  It is the one
+thing I could not leave behind when I ran away from Mayberry.  I
+meant to keep that always--and I always shall."
+
+After a time we remembered Hephzy.  It would be more truthful to
+say that Frances remembered her.  I had forgotten Hephzy
+altogether, I am ashamed to say.
+
+"Kent," she said; "don't you think we should tell Auntie now?  She
+will be pleased, I hope."
+
+"Pleased!  She will be--I can't think of a word to describe it.
+She loves you, too, dear."
+
+"I know.  I hope she will love me more now.  She worships you,
+Kent."
+
+"I am afraid she does.  She doesn't realize what a tinsel god I am.
+And I fear you don't either.  I am not a great man.  I am not even
+a famous author.  I--Are you SURE, Frances?"
+
+She laughed lightly.  "Kent," she whispered, "what was it Doctor
+Bayliss called you when you offered to promise not to follow me to
+Leatherhead?"
+
+I had told her the whole story of my last interview with Bayliss at
+the Continental.
+
+"He called me a silly ass," I answered promptly.  "I don't care."
+
+"Neither do I; but don't you think you are one, just a little bit
+of one, in some things?  You mustn't ask me if I am sure again.
+Come! we will go to Auntie."
+
+Hephzy had finished unpacking my trunk and was standing by the
+closet door, shaking the wrinkles out of my dinner coat.  She heard
+us enter and turned.
+
+"I never saw clothes in such a mess in my life," she announced.
+"And I packed this trunk, too.  I guess the trembles in my head
+must have got into my fingers when I did it.  I--"
+
+She stopped at the beginning of the sentence.  I had taken Frances
+by the hand and led her up to where she was standing.  Hephzy said
+nothing, she stood there and stared at us, but the coat fell to the
+floor.
+
+"Hephzy," said I, "I've come to make an apology.  I believe in
+dreams and presentiments and Spiritualism and all the rest of it
+now.  You were right.  Our pilgrimage has ended just as you
+declared it would.  I know now that we were 'sent' upon it.
+Frances has said--"
+
+Hephzy didn't wait to hear any more.  She threw her arms about
+Frances' neck, then about mine, hugged us both, and then, to my
+utter astonishment, sat down upon the closed trunk and burst into
+tears.  When we tried to comfort her she waved us away.
+
+"Don't touch me," she commanded.  "Don't say anything to me.  Just
+let me be.  I've done all kinds of loony things in my life and this
+attack is just natural, that's all.  I--I'll get over it in a
+minute.  There!" rising and dabbing at her eyes with her
+handkerchief, "I'm over it now.  Hosy Knowles, I've cried about a
+million times since--since that awful mornin' in Mayberry.  You
+didn't know it, but I have.  I'm through now.  I'm never goin' to
+cry any more.  I'm goin' to laugh!  I'm going to sing!  I declare
+if you don't grab me and hold me down I shall dance!  Oh, Oh, OH!
+I'm so glad!  I'm so glad!"
+
+We sat up until the early morning hours, talking and planning.  We
+were to go back to America as soon as we could secure passage; upon
+that we all agreed in the end.  I was the only one who hesitated.
+I had a vague feeling of uneasiness, a dread, that Frances might
+not wish it, that her saying she would love to go was merely to
+please me.  I remembered how she had hated America and Americans,
+or professed to hate them, in the days of our first acquaintanceship.
+I thought of quiet, sleepy, humdrum old Bayport and the fear that
+she might be disappointed when she saw it, that she might be lonely
+and unhappy there, was strong.  So when Hephzy talked of our going
+straight to the steamship offices next day I demurred.  I suggested
+a Continental trip, to Switzerland, to the Mediterranean--anywhere.
+I forgot that my means were limited, that I had been idle for longer
+than I should have been, and that I absolutely must work soon.  I
+forgot everything, and talked, as Hephzy said afterward,
+"regardless, like a whole kerosene oil company."
+
+But, to my surprise, it was Frances herself who was most insistent
+upon our going to America.  She wanted to go, she said.  Of course
+she did not mean to be selfish, and if Auntie and I really wished
+to go to the Continent or remain in England she would be quite
+content.
+
+"But, Oh Kent," she said, "if you are suggesting all this merely
+because you think I will like it, please don't.  I have lived in
+France and I have been very unhappy there.  I have been happier
+here in England, but I have been unhappy here, too.  I have no
+friends here now.  I have no friends anywhere except you.  I know
+you both want to see your home again--you must.  And--and your home
+will be mine now."
+
+So we decided to sail for America, and that without delay.  And the
+next morning, before breakfast, Hephzy came to my room with another
+suggestion.
+
+"Hosy," she said, "I've been thinkin'.  All our things, or most of
+'em, are at Mayberry.  Somebody's got to go there, of course, to
+pack up and make arrangements for our leavin'.  She--Frances, I
+mean--would go, too, if we asked her, I suppose likely; she'd do
+anything you asked, now.  But it would be awful hard for her.
+She'd meet all the people she used to know there and they wouldn't
+understand and 'twould be hard to explain.  The Baylisses know the
+real truth, but the rest of 'em don't.  You'd have all that niece
+and uncle mess again, and I don't suppose you want any more of
+THAT."
+
+"I should say I didn't!" I exclaimed, fervently.
+
+"Yes, that's the way it seemed to me.  So she hadn't ought to go to
+Mayberry.  And we can't leave her here alone in London.  She'd be
+lonesome, for one thing, and those everlastin' Crippses might find
+out where she was, for another.  It may be that that Solomon and
+his wife will let her go and say nothin', but I doubt it.  So long
+as they think she's got a cent comin' to her they'll pester her in
+every way they can, I believe.  That woman's nose can smell money
+as far as a cat can smell fish.  No, we can't leave Little Frank
+here alone.  Of course, I might stay with her and you might go by
+yourself, but--"
+
+This way out of the difficulty had occurred to me; so when she
+seemed to hesitate, I asked:  "But what?"
+
+"But it won't be very pleasant for you in Mayberry.  You'd have
+considerable explainin' to do.  And, more'n that, Hosy, there's all
+that packin' up to do and I've seen you try to pack a trunk too
+often before.  You're just as likely to pack a flat-iron on top of
+a lookin' glass as to do the other thing.  No, I'm the one to go to
+Mayberry.  I must go by myself and you must stay here in London
+with her."
+
+"I can't do that, Hephzy," I said.  "How could I?"
+
+"You couldn't, as things are, of course.  But if they were
+different.  If she was your wife you could.  And then if that
+Solomon thing came you could--"
+
+I interrupted.  "My wife!" I repeated.  "Hephzy, what are you
+talking about?  Do you mean--"
+
+"I mean that you and she might be married right off, to-day
+perhaps.  Then everything would be all right."
+
+I stared at her.
+
+"But--but she wouldn't consent," I stammered.  "It is impossible.
+She wouldn't think of such a thing."
+
+Hephzy nodded.  "Oh, yes, she would," she said.  "She is thinkin'
+of it now.  She and I have just had a long talk.  She's a sensible
+girl, Hosy, and she listened to reason.  If she was sure that you
+wanted to marry her so soon she--"
+
+"Wanted to!" I cried.  "Hephzy!"
+
+Hephzy nodded again.  "Then that's settled," she said.  "It's a big
+disappointment to me, I give in.  I'd set my heart on your bein'
+married at our meetin'-house in Bayport, with Mr. Partridge to do
+the marryin', and a weddin' reception at our house and--and
+everything.  But I guess this is the best, and I know it's the most
+sensible.  But, Oh Hosy, there's one thing I can't give up.  I want
+you to be married at the American Ambassador's or somewhere like it
+and by an American minister.  I sha'n't feel safe if it's done
+anywhere else and by a foreigner, even if he's English, which don't
+seem foreign to me at all any more.  No, he's got to be an American
+and--and, Oh, Hosy! DO try to get a Methodist."
+
+I couldn't get a Methodist, but by consulting the hotel register I
+found an American clergyman, a Congregationalist, who was a fine
+fellow and consented to perform the ceremony.  And, if we were not
+married at the American Embassy, we were at the rooms of the London
+consul, whom Matthews, at the Camford Street office, knew and who
+was another splendid chap and glad to oblige a fellow-countryman,
+particularly after seeing the lady he was to marry.
+
+The consul and his wife and Hephzy were our only witnesses.
+Frances' wedding gown was not new, but it was very becoming--the
+consul's wife said so, and she should know.  Also she said she had
+never seen a sweeter or more beautiful bride.  No one said anything
+concerning the bridegroom's appearance, but he did not care.  It
+was a drizzly, foggy day, but that made no difference.  A Kansas
+cyclone and a Bayport no'theaster combined could not have cast a
+damper on that day.
+
+When it was over, Hephzy, who had been heroically struggling to
+keep her vow not to shed another tear during our pilgrimage, hugged
+us both.
+
+"I--I--" she faltered, "I--I can't say it, but you know how I feel.
+There's nothin' I sha'n't believe after this.  I used to believe
+I'd never travel, but I have.  And there in Mayberry I believed I'd
+never be happy again, but I am.  HAPPY! hap--hap--Oh dear!  WHAT a
+fool I am!  I ca--I can't help it!  I expect I look like the most
+miserable thing on earth, but that's because I AM so happy.  God
+bless you both!  Now--now don't so much as look at me for a few
+minutes."
+
+That afternoon she left for Mayberry to do the "packing up" and my
+wife and I were alone--and together.
+
+I saw London again during the next few days.  We rode on the tops
+of busses, we visited Kew Gardens and Hampton Court and Windsor.
+We took long trips up and down the Thames on the little steamers.
+Frances called them our honeymoon trips.  The time flew by.  Then I
+received a note from Hephzy that the "packing up" was finished at
+last and that she was returning to London.
+
+It was raining hard, the morning of her arrival, and I went alone
+to meet her at the railway station.  I was early there and, as I
+was walking up, awaiting the train, I heard someone speak my name.
+I turned and there, immaculate, serene and debonair as ever, was A.
+Carleton Heathcroft.
+
+"Ah, Knowles," he said, cheerfully.  "Thought it was you.  Haven't
+seen you of late.  Missed you at Burgleston, on the course.  How
+are you?"
+
+I told him I was quite well, and inquired concerning his own
+health.
+
+"Topping," he replied.  "Rotten weather, eh--what?  And how's Miss--
+Oh, dear me, always forget the name!  The eccentric aunt who is so
+intensely patriotic and American--How is she?"
+
+"She is well, too," I answered.
+
+"Couldn't think of her being ill, somehow," he observed.  "And
+where have you been, may I ask?"
+
+I said I had been on the Continent for a short stay.
+
+"Oh, yes!  I remember now.  Someone said you had gone.  That
+reminds me:  Did you go to Paris?  Did you see the girl who sang at
+the Abbey--the one I told you of, who looked so like that pretty
+niece of yours?  Hope you did.  The resemblance was quite
+extraordinary.  Did you see her?"
+
+I dodged the question.  I asked him what he had been doing since
+the day of the golf tournament.
+
+"I--Oh, by Jove!" he exclaimed, "now I am going to surprise you.
+I have been getting ready to take the fatal step.  I'm going to be
+married."
+
+"Married!" I repeated.  "Really?  The--the Warwickshire young lady,
+I presume."
+
+"Yes.  How did you know of her?"
+
+"Your aunt--Lady Carey--mentioned that your--your affections were
+somewhat engaged in that quarter."
+
+"Did she?  Really!  Yes, she would mention it, I suppose.  She
+mentions it to everybody; it's a sort of hobby of hers, like my
+humble self, and the roses.  She has been more insistent of late
+and at last I consented to oblige her.  Do you know, Knowles, I
+think she was rather fearful that I might be smitten by your Miss
+Morley.  Shared your fears, eh?"
+
+I smiled, but I said nothing.  A train which I believed to be the
+one upon which Hephzy was expected, was drawing into the station,
+
+"A remarkably attractive girl, your niece," he went on.  "Have you
+heard from her?"
+
+"Yes," I said, absently.  "I must say good-by, Heathcroft.  That is
+the train I have been waiting for."
+
+"Oh, is it.  Then, au revoir, Knowles.  By the way, kindly remember
+me to your niece when you see her, will you."
+
+"I will.  But--" I could not resist the temptation; "but she isn't
+my niece," I said.
+
+"Oh, I say!  What?  Not your niece?  What is she then?"
+
+"She is my wife--now," I said.  "Good-by, Mr. Heathcroft."
+
+I hurried away before he could do more than gasp.  I think I shook
+even his serene composure at last.
+
+I told Hephzy about it as we rode to the hotel in the cab.
+
+"It was silly, I suppose," I said.  "I told him on the spur of the
+moment.  I imagine all Mayberry, not to mention Burgleston Bogs,
+will have something to talk about now.  They expect almost anything
+of Americans, or some of them do, but the marriage of an uncle and
+niece ought to be a surprise, I should think."
+
+Hephzy laughed.  "The Baylisses will explain," she said.  "I told
+the old doctor and his wife all about it.  They were very much
+pleased, that was plain enough.  They knew she wasn't your niece
+and they'll tell the other folks.  That'll be all right, Hosy.
+Yes, Doctor and Mrs. Bayliss were tickled almost to death.  It
+stops all their worry about their son and Frances, of course.  He
+is in Switzerland now, poor chap.  They'll write him and he'll come
+home again by and by where he ought to be.  And he'll forget by and
+by, too.  He's only a boy and he'll forget.  So THAT'S all right.
+
+"Everybody sent their love to you," she went on.  "The curates and
+the Samsons and everybody.  Mr. Cole and his wife are comin' back
+next week and the servants'll take care of the rectory till they
+come.  Everybody was so glad to see me, and they're goin' to write
+and everything.  I declare!  I felt real bad to leave 'em.  They're
+SUCH nice people, these English folks.  Aren't they, Hosy."
+
+They were and are.  I hope that some day I may have, in my own
+country, the opportunity to repay a little of the hospitality and
+kindness that my Mayberry friends bestowed on me in theirs.
+
+We sailed for home two days later.  A pleasant voyage it was, on a
+good ship and with agreeable fellow-passengers.  And, at last, one
+bright, cloudless morning, a stiff breeze blowing and the green and
+white waves leaping and tossing in the sunlight, we saw ahead of us
+a little speck--the South Shoal lightship.  Everyone crowded to the
+rail, of course.  Hephzy sighed, a sigh of pure happiness.
+
+"Nantucket!" she said, reading the big letters on the side of the
+little vessel.  "Nantucket!  Don't that sound like home, Hosy!
+Nantucket and Cape Cod are next-door neighbors, as you might say!
+My! the air seems different already.  I believe I can almost smell
+the Bayport flats.  Do you know what I am goin' to do as soon as I
+get into my kitchen?  After I've seen some of my neighbors and the
+cat and the hens, of course.  I'm going to make a clam chowder.
+I've been just dyin' for a clam chowder ever since we left
+England."
+
+And the next morning we landed at New York.  Jim Campbell was at
+the wharf to meet us.  His handshake was a welcome home which was
+good to feel.  He welcomed Hephzy just as heartily.  But I saw him
+looking at Frances with curiosity and I flattered myself,
+admiration, and I chuckled as I thought of the surprise which I was
+about to give him.  It would be a surprise, sure enough.  I had
+written him nothing of the recent wonderful happenings in Paris and
+in London, and I had sworn Matthews to secrecy likewise.  No, he
+did not know, he did not suspect, and I gloried in the opportunity
+which was mine.
+
+"Jim," I said, "there is one member of our party whom you have not
+met.  Frances, you have heard me speak of Mr. Campbell very often.
+Here he is.  Jim, I have the pleasure of presenting you to Mrs.
+Knowles, my wife."
+
+Jim stood the shock remarkably well, considering.  He gave me one
+glance, a glance which expressed a portion of his feelings, and
+then he and Frances shook hands.
+
+"Mrs. Knowles," he said, "I--you'll excuse my apparent lack of
+intellect, but--but this husband of yours has--I've known him a
+good while and I thought I had lost all capacity for surprise at
+anything he might do, but--but I hadn't.  I--I--Please don't mind
+me; I'm really quite sane at times.  I am very, very glad.  May we
+shake hands again?"
+
+He insisted upon our breakfasting with him at a near-by hotel.
+When he and I were alone together he seized my arm.
+
+"Confound you!" he exclaimed.  "You old chump!  What do you mean by
+springing this thing on me without a word of warning?  I never was
+as nearly knocked out in my life.  What do you mean by it?"
+
+I laughed.  "It is all part of your prescription," I said.  "You
+told me I should marry, you know.  Do you approve of my selection?"
+
+"Approve of it!  Why, man, she's--she's wonderful.  Approve of YOUR
+selection!  How about hers?  You durned quahaug!  How did you do
+it?"
+
+I gave him a condensed and hurried resume of the whole story.  He
+did not interrupt once--a perfectly amazing feat for him--and when
+I had finished he shook his head.
+
+"It's no use," he said.  "I'm too good for the business I am in.  I
+am wasting my talents.  _I_ sent you over there.  _I_ told you to
+go.  _I_ prescribed travel and a wife and all the rest.  _I_ did
+it.  I'm going to quit the publishing game.  I'm going to set up as
+a specialist, a brain specialist, for clams.  And I'll use your
+face as a testimonial:  'Kent Knowles, Quahaug.  Before and After
+Taking.'  Man, you look ten years younger than you did when you
+went away."
+
+"You must not take all the credit," I told him.  "You forget Hephzy
+and her dreams, the dream she told us about that day at Bayport.
+That dream has come true; do you realize it?"
+
+He nodded.  "I admit it," he said.  "She is a better specialist
+than I.  I shall have to take her into partnership.  'Campbell and
+Cahoon.  Prescribers and Predictors.  Authors Made Human.'  I'll
+speak to her about it."
+
+As he said good-by to us at the Grand Central Station he asked me
+another question.
+
+"Kent," he whispered, "what are you going to do now?  What are you
+going to do with her?  Are you and she going back to Bayport to be
+Mr. and Mrs. Quahaug?  Is that your idea?"
+
+I shook my head.  "We're going back to Bayport," I said, "but how
+long we shall stay there I don't know.  One thing you may be sure
+of, Jim; I shall be a quahaug no more."
+
+He nodded.  "I think you're right," he declared.  "She'll see to
+that, or I miss my guess.  No, my boy, your quahaug days are over.
+There's nothing of the shellfish about her; she's a live woman, as
+well as a mighty pretty one, and she cares enough about you to keep
+you awake and in the game.  I congratulate you, Kent, and I'm
+almost as happy as you are.  Also I shall play the optimist at our
+next directors' meeting; I see signs of a boom in the literature
+factory.  Go to it, my son.  You have my blessing."
+
+We took the one o'clock train for Boston, remained there over
+night, and left on the early morning "accommodation"--so called, I
+think, because it accommodates the train hands--for Cape Cod.  As
+we neared Buzzard's Bay my spirits, which had been at topnotch,
+began to sink.  When the sand dunes of Barnstable harbor hove in
+sight they sank lower and lower.  It was October, the summer
+people, most of them, had gone, the station platforms were almost
+deserted, the more pretentious cottages were closed.  The Cape
+looked bare and brown and wind-swept.  I thought of the English
+fields and hedges, of the verdant beauty of the Mayberry pastures.
+What SORT of a place would she think this, the home to which I was
+bringing her?
+
+She had been very much excited and very much interested.  New York,
+with its sky-scrapers and trolleys, its electric signs and clean
+white buildings, the latter so different from the grimy, gray
+dwellings and shops of London, had been a wonderland to her.  She
+had liked the Pullman and the dining-car and the Boston hotel.  But
+this, this was different.  How would she like sleepy, old Bayport
+and the people of Bayport.
+
+Well, I should soon know.  Even the morning "accommodation" reaches
+Bayport some time or other.  We were the only passengers to alight
+at the station, and Elmer Snow, the station agent, and Gabe Lumley,
+who drives the depot wagon, were the only ones to welcome us.
+Their welcome was hearty enough, I admit.  Gabe would have asked a
+hundred questions if I had answered the first of the hundred, but
+he seemed strangely reluctant to answer those I asked him.
+
+Bayport was gettin' along first-rate, he told me.  Tad Simpson's
+youngest child had diphtheria, but was sittin' up now and the fish
+weirs had caught consider'ble mackerel that summer.  So much he was
+willing to say, but he said little more.  I asked how the house and
+garden were looking and he cal'lated they were all right.  Pumping
+Gabe Lumley was a new experience for me.  Ordinarily he doesn't
+need pumping.  I could not understand it.  I saw Hephzy and he in
+consultation on the station platform and I wondered if she had been
+able to get more news than I.
+
+We rattled along the main road, up the hill by the Whittaker place--
+I looked eagerly for a glimpse of Captain Cy himself, but I didn't
+see him--and on until we reached our gate.  Frances said very
+little during our progress through the village.  I did not dare
+speak to her; I was afraid of asking her how she liked what she had
+seen of Bayport.  And Hephzy, too, was silent, although she kept
+her head out of the window most of the time.
+
+But when the depot wagon entered the big gate and stopped before
+the side door I felt that I must say something.  I must not appear
+fearful or uneasy.
+
+"Here we are!" I cried, springing out and helping her and Hephzy to
+alight.  "Here we are at last.  This is home, dear."
+
+And then the door opened and I saw that the dining-room was filled
+with people, people whom I had known all my life.  Mr. Partridge,
+the minister, was there, and his wife, and Captain Whittaker and
+his wife, and the Dimicks and the Salterses and more.  Before I
+could recover from my surprise Mr. Partridge stepped forward.
+
+"Mr. Knowles," he said, "on this happy occasion it is our privilege
+to--"
+
+But Captain Cy interrupted him.
+
+"Good Lord!" he exclaimed, "don't make a speech to him now, Mr.
+Partridge.  Welcome home, Kent!  We're all mighty glad to see you
+back again safe and sound.  And Hephzy, too.  By the big dipper,
+Hephzy, the sight of you is good for sore eyes!  And I suppose this
+is your wife, Kent.  Well, we--Hey!  I might have known Phoebe
+would get ahead of me."
+
+For Mrs. Whittaker and Frances were shaking hands.  Others were
+crowding forward to do so.  And the table was set and there were
+flowers everywhere and, in the background, was Susanna Wixon,
+grinning from ear to ear, with the cat--our cat--who seemed the
+least happy of the party, in her arms.
+
+Hephzy had written Mrs. Whittaker from London, telling her of my
+marriage; she had telegraphed from New York the day before,
+announcing the hour of our return.  And this was the result.
+
+When it was all over and they had gone--they would not remain for
+dinner, although we begged them to do so--when they had gone and
+Hephzy had fled to the yard to inspect the hens, I turned to my
+wife.
+
+"Frances," I said, "this is home.  Here is where Hephzy and I have
+lived for so long.  I--I hope you may be happy here.  It is a
+rather crude place, but--"
+
+She came to me and put her arms about my neck.
+
+"Don't, my dear, don't!" she said.  "It is beautiful.  It is home.
+And--and you know I have never had a home, a real home before."
+
+"Then you like it?" I cried.  "You really like it?  It is so
+different from England.  The people--"
+
+"They are dear, kind people.  And they like you and respect you,
+Kent.  How could you say they didn't!  I know I shall love them
+all."
+
+I made a dash for the kitchen.  "Hephzy!" I shouted.  "Hephzy!  She
+does like it.  She likes Bayport and the people and everything."
+
+Hephzy was just entering at the back door.  She did not seem in the
+least surprised.
+
+"Of course she likes it," she said, with decision.  "How could
+anybody help likin' Bayport?"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+Which Treats of Quahaugs in General
+
+
+Asaph Tidditt helped me to begin this long chronicle of a quahaug's
+pilgrimage.  Perhaps it is fitting that Asaph should end it.  He
+dropped in for a call the other afternoon and, as I had finished my
+day's "stunt" at the desk, I assisted in entertaining him.  Frances
+was in the sitting-room also and Hephzy joined us soon afterward.
+Mr. Tidditt had stopped at the post-office on his way down and he
+had the Boston morning paper in his hand.  Of course he was filled
+to the brim with war news.  We discuss little else in Bayport now;
+even the new baby at the parsonage has to play second fiddle.
+
+"My godfreys!" exclaimed Asaph, as soon as he sat down in the
+rocking chair and put his cap on the floor beneath it.  "My
+godfreys, but they're havin' awful times over across, now ain't
+they.  Killin' and fightin' and battlin' and slaughterin'!  It
+don't seem human to me somehow."
+
+"It is human, I'm afraid," I said, with a sigh.  "Altogether too
+human.  We're a poor lot, we, humans, after all.  We pride
+ourselves on our civilization, but after all, it takes very little
+to send us back to savagery."
+
+"That's so," said Asaph, with conviction.  "That's true about
+everybody but us folks in the United States.  We are awful
+fortunate, we are.  We ain't savages.  We was born in a free
+country, and we've been brought up right, I declare!  I beg your
+pardon, Mrs. Knowles; I forgot you wasn't born in Bayport."
+
+Frances smiled.  "No apology is needed, Mr. Tidditt," she said.
+"I confess to having been born a--savage."
+
+"But you're all right now," said Asaph, hastily, trying to cover
+his slip.  "You're all right now.  You're just as American as the
+rest of us.  Kent, suppose this war in Europe is goin' to hurt your
+trade any?  It's goin' to hurt a good many folks's.  They tell me
+groceries and such like is goin' way up.  Lucky we've got fish and
+clams to depend on.  Clams and quahaugs'll keep us from starvin'
+for a spell.  Oh," with a chuckle, "speakin' of quahaugs reminds
+me.  Did you know they used to call your husband a quahaug, Mrs.
+Knowles?  That's what they used to call him round here--'The
+Quahaug.'  They called him that 'count of his keepin' inside his
+shell all the time and not mixin' with folks, not toadyin' up to
+the summer crowd and all.  I always respected him for it.  _I_
+don't toady to nobody neither."
+
+Hephzy had come in by this time and now she took a part in the
+conversation.
+
+"They don't call him 'The Quahaug' any more," she declared,
+indignantly.  "He's been out of his shell more and seen more than
+most of the folks in this town."
+
+"I know it; I know it.  And he's kept goin' ever since.  Runnin' to
+New York, he and you," with a nod toward Frances, "and travelin' to
+Washin'ton and Niagary Falls and all.  Wonder to me how he does as
+much writin' as he does.  That last book of yours is sellin' first-
+rate, they tell me, Kent."
+
+He referred to the novel I began in Mayberry.  I have rewritten and
+finished it since, and it has had a surprising sale.  The critics
+seem to think I have achieved my first genuine success.
+
+"What are you writin' now?" asked Asaph.  "More of them yarns about
+pirates and such?  Land sakes! when I go by this house nights and
+see a light in your library window there, Kent, and know you're
+pluggin' along amongst all them adventures, I wonder how you can
+stand it.  'Twould give me the shivers.  Godfreys! the last time I
+read one of them yarns--that about the 'Black Brig' 'twas--I hardly
+dast to go to bed.  And I DIDN'T dast to put out the light.  I see
+a pirate in every corner, grittin' his teeth.  Writin' another of
+that kind, are you?"
+
+"No," I said; "this one is quite different.  You will have no
+trouble in sleeping over this one, Ase."
+
+"That's a comfort.  Got a little Bayport in it?  Seems to me you
+ought to put a little Bayport in, for a change."
+
+I smiled.  "There is a little in this," I answered.  "A little at
+the beginning, and, perhaps, at the end."
+
+"You don't say!  You ain't got me in it, have you?  I'd--I'd look
+kind of funny in a book, wouldn't I?"
+
+I laughed, but I did not answer.
+
+"Not that I ain't seen things in my life," went on Asaph,
+hopefully.  "A man can't be town clerk in a live town like this and
+not see things.  But I hope you won't put any more foreigners in.
+This we're readin' now," rapping the newspaper with his knuckles,
+"gives us all we want to know about foreigners.  Just savages, they
+be, as you say, and nothin' more.  I pity 'em."
+
+I laughed again.
+
+"Asaph," said I, "what would you say if I told you that the English
+and French--yes, and the Germans, too, though I haven't seen them
+at home as I have the others--were no more savages than we are?"
+
+"I'd say you was crazy," was the prompt answer.
+
+"Well, I'm not.  And you're not very complimentary.  You're
+forgetting again.  You forget that I married one of those savages."
+
+Asaph was taken aback, but he recovered promptly, as he had before.
+
+"She ain't any savage," he announced.  "Her mother was born right
+here in Bayport.  And she knows, just as I do, that Bayport's the
+best place in the world; don't you, Mrs. Knowles?"
+
+"Yes," said Frances, "I am sure of it, Mr. Tidditt."
+
+So Asaph went away triumphantly happy.  After he had gone I
+apologized for him.
+
+"He's a fair sample," I said.  "He is a quahaug, although he
+doesn't know it.  He is a certain type, an exaggerated type, of
+American."
+
+Frances smiled.  "He's not much worse than I used to be," she said.
+"I used to call America an uncivilized country, you remember.  I
+suppose I--and Mr. Heathcroft--were exaggerated types of a certain
+kind of English.  We were English quahaugs, weren't we?"
+
+Hephzy nodded.  "We're all quahaugs," she declared.  "Most of us,
+anyhow.  That's the trouble with all the folks of all the nations;
+they stay in their shells and they don't try to know and understand
+their neighbors.  Kent, you used to be a quahaug--a different kind
+of one--but that kind, too.  I was a quahaug afore I lived in
+Mayberry.  That's who makes wars like this dreadful one--quahaugs.
+We know better now--you and Frances and I.  We've found out that,
+down underneath, there's precious little difference.  Humans are
+humans."
+
+She paused and then, as a final summing up, added:
+
+"I guess that's it: American or German or French or anything--nice
+folks are nice folks anywhere."
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
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