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tEde ISititwttie iUtnatim ^teitt

A MODERN INSTANCE

WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
WITH, AN IHTBODUCTION

BOSTON HEW TORX CHICAGO

HODGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

ALX. RIGHTS RESERVED

\ J

INTEODUCTIOK

Mb. Howells has written a long series of poems,
novels, sketches, stories, and essays, and has been per-
haps the most continuous worker in the literary art
among American writers. He was born at Martin's
Ferry, Belmont County, Ohio, March 1, 1837, and
the experiences of his early life have been delightfully
told by himself in A Boy^s Town, My Year in a Log
Cabin, and My Literary Passions. These books,
which seem like pastimes in the midst of Howells's
serious work, are likely to live long, not only as play-
ful autobiographic records, but as vivid pictures of
life in the middle west in the middle of the nineteenth
century. The boy lived in a home where frugality was
the law of economy, but where high ideals of noble
living were cheerfully maintained, and the very occu-
pations of the household tended to stimulate literary
activity. He read voraciously and with an instinctive
scent for what was great and permanent in literature,
and in his father's printing-office learned to set type,
and soon to make contributions to the local journals.
He went to the state Capitol to report the proceed-
ings of the legislature, and before he was twenty -two
had become news editor of the State Journal of Co^
lumbus, Ohio.

XY INTRODUCTION.

But at the same time he had given clear intimations
of his literary skill, and had contributed several poems
to the Atlantic Monthly, His introduction to litera?
ture was in the stirring days just before the war for
the Union, and he had a generous enthusiasm for the
great principles which were then at stake. Yet the
political leaven chiefly caused the bread he was baking
to rise, and his native genius was distinctly for work
in creative literature. His contribution to the political
writing of the day, besides his newspaper work, was a
small campaign life of Lincoln ; and shortly after the
incoming of the first Republican administration he
received the appointment of consul at Venice.

At Venice he remained from 1861 to 1865, and
these years may fairly be taken as standing for hiai
university training. He carried with him to Europe
some conversance with French, German, Spanish, and
Italian, and an insatiable thirst for literature in these
languages. Naturally now he concentrated his atten-
tion on the Italian language and literature, but aftei
all he was not made for a microscopic or encyclopaedic
scholar, least of all for a pedant. What he was look-
ing for in literature, though he scarcely so stated it to
himself at the time, was human life, and it was this
first-hand acquaintance he was acquiring with life in
another circumstance that constituted his real training
in literature. To pass from Ohio straight to Italy,
with the merest alighting by the way in New York
and Boston, was to be transported from one world to

INTRODUCTION. ▼

another ; but he carried with him a mind which had
already become naturalized in the large world of his-
tory and men through the literature in which he had
steeped his mind. No one can read the record of the
books he had revelled in, and observe the agility with
which he was absorbed, successively, in books of greatly
varying character, without perceiving how wide open
were the windows of his mind; and as the light
streamed in from all these heavens, so the inmate
looked out with unaffected interest on the views spread
before him.

Thus it was that Italy and Venice in particular af-
forded him at once the greatest delight and also the
surest test of his growing power. The swift observa-
tion he had shown in literature became an equally
rapid survey of all these novel forms before him. The
old life embedded in this historic country became
the book whose leaves he turned, but he looked with
the greatest interest and most sympathetic scrutiny on
that which passed before his eyes. It was novel, it was
quaint, it was filled with curious, unexpected betrayals
of human nature, but it was above all real, actual, a
thing to be touched and as it were fondled by hands
that were deft by nature and were quickly becoming
more skilful by use. Mr. Howells began to write let*
ters home which were printed in the Boston Daily
Advertiser, and grew easily into a book which still
remains in the minds of many of his readers the
freshest of all his writings, Venetian Life, This wa9

Vi INTRODUCTION.

followed shortly by Italian Journeys, in which Mr.
Howells gathered his observations made in going from
place to place in Italy. A good many years later, after
returning to the country of his affection, he wrote a
third book of a similar character under the title of
Tuscan Cities. But his use of Italy in literature
was not confined to books of travels ; he made and pub-
lished studies of Italian literature, and he wove the
life of the country into fiction in a charming manner.
Illustrations may be found in A Foregone Conclusiony
one of the happiest of his novels, whose scene is laid
in Venice, in The Lady of the Aroostook, and in
many slight sketches.

When Mr. Howells returned to America at the
close of his term as consul, he found warm friends
whom he had made through his writings. He served
for a short time on the staff of The Nation, of New
York, and then was invited to Boston to take the posi-
tion of assistant editor of the Atlantic Monthly under
Mr. Fields. This was in 1866, and five years later, on
the retirement of Mr. Fields, he became editor, and re-
mained in the position until 1881, living during this
period in Cambridge. He was not only editor of the
magazine; he was really its chief contributor. Any
one who takes the trouble to examine the pages of the
Atlantic Index will see how far his work outnumbers
in titles that of all other contributors, and the range
of his work was great.

He wrote a large proportion of the reviews of books,

INTBODUCTION. VU

which in those days constituted a marked feature of
the magazine. These reviews were conscientiously
written, and showed penetration and justice, but they
had besides a felicitous and playful touch which ren-
dered them delightful reading, even though one knew
little or cared little for the book reviewed. Sometimes,
though not often, he wrote poems, but readers soon
learned to look with eagerness for a kind of writing
which seemed almost more individual with him than
any other form of writing. We mean the humorous
sketches of every-day life, in which he took scenes of
the commonest sort and drew from them an inherent
life which most never suspected, yet confessed the mo-
ment he disclosed it. He would do such a common-
place thing as take an excursion down the harbor, or
even a ride to town in a horse-car, and come back to
turn his experience into a piece of genuine literature.
A number of these pieces were collected into a vol-
ume entitled Suburban Sketches.

It is interesting to observe how slowly yet surely
Mr. Howells drew near the great field of novel-writing,
and how deliberately he laid the foundations of his
art. First, the graceful sketch which was hardly more
than a leaf out of his note- book ; then the blending
of travel with character-drawing, as in A Chance Ac-
quaintance and Their Wedding Journey, and later
stories of people who moved about and thus found
the incidents which the author had not to invent, as
in The Lady of the Aroostook. Meanwhile^ the eye

VUl INTRODUCTION.

which had taken note of surface effects was beginning
to look deeper into the springs of being, and the hand
which had described was beginning to model figures
also which stood alone.

So there followed a number of little dramatic
sketches, where the persons of the drama carried on
their little play ; and since they were not on a stage
before the spectator, the author constructed a sort
of literary stage for the reader; that is to say, he sup-
plied by paragraphs what in a regular play would be
stage directions. This is seen in such little comedies
as A Counterfeit Presentment, which, indeed, was
put on the stage. But instead of pushing forward on
this line into the field of great drama, Mr. Howells
contented himself with dexterous strokes with a fine
pen, so to speak, and created a number of sparkling
farces like The Parlor Car,

The real issue of all this practice in the dramatic
art was to disengage the characters he created from
too close dependence on the kind of circumstance, as
of travel, which the author did not invent, and to give
them substantial life in the working out of the drama
of .their spiritual evolution. Thus by the time he was
released from editorial work, Mr. Howells was ready
for the thorough-going novel, and he gave to readers
such examples of art as A Modem Instance, The Rise
of Sila^ Lapham, and that most important of all his
novels, A Hazard of New Fortunes. By the time
this last novel was written^ he had become thoroughly

INTRODUCTION. ix

interested, not merely in the men, women, and children
about him, but in that^mysterious, complex order
named by us society, with its roots matted together as
in a swamp, and seeming to many to be sucking up
maleficent, miasmatic vapors from the soil in which it
was rooted. Like many another lover of his kind, he
has sought to trace the evils of individual life to their
source in this composite order, and to guess at the
mode by which society shall right itself and drink up
healthy and life-giving virtues from the soil.

But it must not be inferred that his novels and
other literary work have been by any means exclu-
sively concerned with the reconstruction of the social
order. He has indeed experimented with this theme,
but he has always had a sane interest in life as he
sees it, and with the increasing scope of his observa-
tion he has drawn his figures from a larger world,
which includes indeed the world in which he first be-
gan to find his characters and their action.

Not long after retiring from the Atlantic he went
to live in New York, and varied his American expe-
rience with frequent travels and continued residence
in Europe. For a while he maintained a department
in Harper^ 8 Magazine j where he gave expression to
his views on literature and the dramatic art, and for
a short period returned to the editorial life in conduct-
ing The Cosmopolitan ; later he entered also the field
of lecturing, and thus further extended the range of
lii£ observation. At the present time, Mr. Howells is

X INTRODUCTION.

the writer of " Editor's Easy Chair " in Harper^ s
Magazine, He was recently made president of the
American Academy of Arts and Letters.

This in fine is the most summary statement of his
career in literature, — that he has been a keen and
sympathetic observer of life, and has caught its char-
acter, not like a reporter going about with a kodak
and snapping it aimlessly at any conspicuous object,
but like an alert artist who goes back to his studio
after a walk and sets down his comments on what he
has seen in quick, accurate sketches, now and then re-
solving numberless undrawn sketches into some one
eomprehensive and beautiful picture.

THE SEQUENCE OF MR. HO^WELLS'S

BOOKS.

Mb. Howells is the author of nearly -g^yfp^y
hooks, from which the following are selec:;ed as hest
representing his work in various fields and at various
periods.

Venetian Life. Travel and description. 1867.

Their Wedding Journey. Novel. 1871.

Italian Journeys. Travel and description. 1872.

Suburban Sketches. 1872.

Poems. 1873 and 1895.

A Chance Acquaintance. Novel. 1873.

A Foregone Conclusion. Novel. 1874.

A Counterfeit Presentment. Comedy. 1877.

The Lady of the Aroostook. Novel. 1879.

The Undiscovered Country. Novel. 1880.

A Fearful Eesponsibility, and Other Stories. 1881

A Modern Listance. Novel. 1881.

The Rise of Silas Lapham. Novel. 1884.

Tuscan Cities. Travel and description. 1886.

April Hopes. Novel. 1887.

A Hazard of New Fortunes. Novel. 1889.

The Sleeping Car, and Other Farces. 1889.

A Boy's Town. Reminiscences. 1890.

XU MR. HOWELLS'S BOOKS.

Criticism and Fiction. Essays. 1891.

My Literary Passions. Essays. 1895.

Stops of Various Quills. Poems. 1895.

Literary Friends and Acquaintances, Reminiscences.

1900.
Heroines of Fiction. Criticism. 1901.
The Kentons. Novel. 1902.
Literature and Life. Criticism. 1902.
London Films. Travel and Description. 190|ib

A MODERN INSTANCE,

The village stood on a wide plain, and around it
rose the mountains. They were green to their tops
in summer, and in winter white through their serried
pines and drifting mists, but at every season serious
and beautiful, furrowed with hollow shadows, and
taking the light on masses and stretches of iron-gray
crag. The river swam through the plain in long
curves, and slipped away at last through an unseen
pass to the southward, tracing a score of miles in its
course over a space that measured but three or four.
The plain was very fertile, and its features, if few
and of purely utilitarian beauty, had a rich luxu-
riance, and there was a tropical riot of vegetation
when the sun of July beat on those northern fields.
They waved with com and oats to the feet of the
mountains, and the potatoes covered a vast acreage
with the lines of their intense, coarse green; the
meadows were deep with English grass to the banks
of the river, that, doubling and returning upon itself,
still marked its way with a dense fringe of alders
and white birches.

But winter was full half the year. The snow began
at Thanksgiving, and fell snow upon snow till Fast
Day, thawing between the storms, and packing harder

4 A MODERN INSTANCE.

and harder against the break-up in the spring, when
it covered the ground in solid levels three feet high,
and lay heaped in drifts, that defied the sun far into
Ms.y. When it did not snow, the weather was keenly-
clear, and commonly very still. Then the landscape
at noon had a stereoscopic glister under the high sun
that burned in a heaven without a cloud, and at set-
ting stained the sky and the white waste with freez-
ing pink and violet. On such days the farmers and
lumbermen came in to the village stores, and made a
stiff' and feeble stir about their doorways, and tlie
school children gave the street a little life and color,
as they went to and from the Academy in their red
and blue woollens. Four times a day the mill, the
shrill wheeze of v/hose saws had become part of the
habitual silence, blew its whistle for the hands to
begin and leave off work, in blasts that seemed to
shatter themselves against the thin air. But other-
wise an arctic quiet prevailed.

Behind the black boles of the elms that swept the
vista of the street with the fine gray tracery of their
boughs, stood the houses, deep-sunken in the accumu-
lating drifts, through which each householder kept a
path cut from his doorway to the road, white and
clean as if hewn out of marble. Some cross streets
straggled away east and west with the poorer dwell-
ings ; but this, that followed the northward and south-
ward reach of the plain, was the main thorouglifaro,
and had its owm impressiveness, with those square
white houses which they build so large in Northern
New England. They were all kept in scrupulous
repair, though here and there the frost and thaw of
many winters had heaved a fence out of plumb, and
threatened the poise of the monumental urns of
painted pine on the gate-posts. They had dark-
green blinds, of a color harmonious with that of the
funereal evergreens in their dooryards; and they

A MODERN INSTANCE. 5

themselves had taken the tone of the snowy land-
scape, as if by the operation of some such law as
blanches the fur-bearing animals of the North. They
seemed proper to its desolation, while some houses of
more modem taste, painted to a warmer tone, looked,
with their mansard roofs and jig-sawed piazzas and
balconies, intrusive and alien.

At one end of the street stood the Academy, with
its classic fagade and its belfry ; midway was the hotel,
with the stores, the printing-ofiSce, and the churches ;
and at the other extreme, one of the square white
mansions stood advanced from the rank of the rest,
at the top of a deep-plunging valley, defining itself
against the mountain beyond so sharply that it seemed
as if cut out of its dark, wooded side. It was from
the gate before this house, distinct in the pink light
which the sunset had left, that, on a Saturday even-
ing in February, a cutter, gay with red-lined robes,
dashed away, and came musically clashing down the
street under the naked elms. For the women who
sat with their work at the windows on either side of
the way, hesitating whether to light their lamps, and
drawing nearer and nearer to the dead-line of the
outer cold for the latest glimmer of the day, the pas-
sage of this ill-timed vehicle was a vexation little
short of grievous. Every movement on the street
was precious to them, and, with all the keenness of
their starved curiosity, these captives of the winter
could not make out the people in the cutter. After-
ward it was a mortification to them that they should
not have thought at once of Bartley Hubbard and
Marcia Gaylord. They had seen him go up toward
Squire Gaylord*s house half an hour before, and they
now blamed themselves for not reflecting that of
course he was going to take Marcia over to the
church sociable at Lower Equity. Their identity
being established, other little proofs of it reproached

6 A MODERN INSTANCE.

the inquirers; but these perturbed spirits were at
peace, and the lamps were out in the houses (where
the smell of rats in the wainscot and of potatoes in
the cellar strengthened with the growing night), when
Bartley and Marcia drove back through the moonlit
'Silence to her father's door. Here, too, the windows
were all dark, except for the light that sparely glim-
mered through the parlor blinds ; and the young man
slackened the pace of his horse, as if to stiU the
bells, some distance away from the gate.

The girl took the hand he offered her when he
dismounted at the gate, and, as she jumped from the
cutter, " Won't you come in ? " she asked.

*' I guess I can blanket my horse and stand him
under the wood-shed," answered the young man, going
around to the animal's head and leading him away.

When he returned to the door the girl opened it,
as if she had been listening for his step ; and she now
stood holding it ajar for him to enter, and throwing
the light upon the threshold from the lamp, which
she lifted high in the other hand. The action brought
her figure in relief, and revealed the outline of het
bust and shoulders, while the lamp flooded with light
the face she turned to him, and again averted for a
moment, as if startled at some noise behind her. She
thus showed a smooth, low forehead, lips and cheeks
deeply red, a softly rounded chin touched with a faint
dimple, and in turn a nose short and aquiline; her
eyes were dark, and her dusky hair flowed crinkling
above her fine black brows, and vanished down the
curve of a lovely neck. There was a peculiar charm in
the form of her upper lip : it was exquisitely arched,
and at the corners it projected a little over the lower
lip, so that when she smiled it gave a piquant sweet-
ness to her mouth, with a certain demure innocence
that qualified the Eoman pride of her profile. For
the rest, her beauty was of the kind that coming years

IL MODERN INSTANCE. 7

would only ripen and enrich ; at thirty she would be
even handsomer than at twenty, and be all the more
southern in her type for the paling of that northern
color in her cheeks. The young man who looked up
at her from the doorstep had a yellow mustache,
shadowing either side of his lip with a broad sweep,
like a bird's wing ; his chin, deep-cut below his mouth,
failed to come strenuously forward ; his cheeks were
filled to an oval contour, and his face had otherwise
the regularity common to Americans; his eyes, a
clouded gray, heavy-lidded and long-lashed, were his
most striking feature, and he gave her beauty a delib-
erate look from them as he lightly stamped the snow
from his feet, and pulled the seal-skin gloves from
his long hands.

*' Come in," she whispered, coloring with pleasure
under his gaze ; and she made haste to shut the door
after him, with a luxurious impatience of the cold.
She led the way into the room from which she had
come, and set down the lamp on the corner of the
piano, while he slipped off his overcoat and swung
it over the end of the sofa. They drew up chairs to
the stove, in which the smouldering fire, revived by
the opened draft, roared and snapped. It was mid-
night, as the sharp strokes of a wooden clock declared
from the kitchen, and they were alone together, and
all the other inmates of the house were asleep. The
situation, scarcely conceivable to another civilization,
is so common in ours, where youth commands its fate
and trusts solely to itself, that it may be said to be
characteristic of the New England civilization wher-
ever it keeps its simplicity. It was not stolen or
clandestine ; it would have interested every one, but
would have shocked no one in the village if the
whole village had known it ; all that a girl's parents
ordinarily exacted was that they should not be
waked up.

8 A MODERN INSTANCE.

"Ugh!" said the girl. "It seems as if I never
should get warm." She leaned forward, and stretched
her hands toward the stove, and he presently rose
from the rocking-chair in which he sat, somewhat
lower than she, and lifted her sack to throw it over
her shoulders. But he put it down and took up his
overcoat.

"Allow my coat the pleasure," he said, with the
ease of a man who is not too- far lost to be really
flattering.

" Much obliged to the coat," she replied, shrugging
herself into it and pulling the collar close about her
throat. " I wonder you did n't put it on the sorrel.
You could have tied the sleeves around her neck."

" Shall I tie them around yours ? " He leaned
forward from the low rocking-chair into which he had
sunk again, and made a feint at what he had proposed.

But she drew back with a gay " No ! " and added :
" Some day, father says, that sorrel will be the death
of us. He says it 's a bad color for a horse. They 're
always ugly, and when they get heated they 're
crazy."

" You never seem to be very much frightened
when you're riding after the sorrel," said Bartley.

" Oh, I 've great faith in your driving."

" Thanks. But I don't believe in this notion about
a horse being vicious because he 's of a certain color.
If your father did n't believe in it, I should call it a
superstition ; but the Squire has no superstitions."

" I don't know about that," said the girl. " I don't
think he likes to see the new moon over his left
shoulder."

" I beg his pardon, then," returned Bartley. " I
ought to have said religions : the Squire has no re-
ligions." The young fellow had a rich, caressing voicej
and a securely winning manner whicli comes from thi
habit of easily pleasing ; in this charming tone, and^

A MODERN INSTANCE. 9

with this delightful ini=iinnflti^n^ h^ nf^on <^^\t] fhingfl
tlint \]\}rt ' but with such a humorous glance from his
softly shaded eyes that people felt in some sort flat-
tered at being taken into the joke, even while they
winced under it. The girl seemed to wince, as if, in
spite of her familiarity with the fact, it wounded her
to have her father's scepticism recognized just then.
She said nothing, and he added, "I remember we
used to think that a red-headed boy was worse-tem-
pered on account of his hair. But I don't believe the
sorrel-tops, as we called them, were any more fiery
than the rest of us."

Marcia did not answer at once, and then she said,
with the vagueness of one not greatly interested by
the subject, " You Ve got a soiTel-top in your office
that 's fiery enough, if she 's anything like what she
used to be when she went to school."

" Hannah Morrison ? ''

" Yes."

" Oh, she is n't so bad. She 's pretty lively, but
she 's very eager to learn the business, and I guess we
shall get along. I think she wants to please me."

" Does she ! But she must be going on seventeen
now."

" I dare say," answered the young man, carelessly,
but with perfect intelligence. " She 's good-looking
in her way, too."

" Oh ! Then you admire red hair ? "

He perceived the anxiety that the girl's pride
could not keep out of her tone, but he answered in-
differently, " I 'm a little too near that color myself.
I hear that red hair 's coming into fashion, but I guess
it 's natural I should prefer black."

She leaned back in her chair, and crushed the vel-
vet collar of his coat under her neck in lifting her
head to stare at the high-hung mezzotints and family
photographs on the walls, while a flattered smile

10 A MODERN INSTANCE.

parted her lips, and there was a little thrill of joy in
her voice. " I presume we must be a good deal be-
hind the age in everything at Equity."

" Well, you know my opinion of Equity," returned
the young man. " If I did n't have you here to free
my mind to once in a while, I don't know what I
should do."

She was so proud to be in the secret of his discon-
tent with the narrow world of Equity that she
tempted him to disparage it further by pretending to
identify herself with it. " I don't see why you abuse
Equity to me. I *ve never been anywhere else, except
those two winters at school You 'd better look out :
I might expose you," she threatened, fondly.

" I 'm not afraid. Those two winters make a great
difference. You saw girls from other places, — from
Aug\ista, and Bangor, and Bath."

•* Well, I could n't see how they were so very dif-
ferent from Equity girls."

" I dare say they could n't, either, if they judged
from you."

She leaned forward again, and begged for more
flattery from him with her happy eyes. " ^Tiy, what
dors make me so different from all the rest ? I should
reallv like to know."

*' Oh, you don't expect me to tell vou to your
face!"

" Yes. to my face ! I don't believe it *s anything
complimentaTT,"

** No, it 's nothini» that vou deserve anv credit for."

•* Pshaw ! *' cried the irirL " I know vou 're onlv
talkius; to make fun of me. How do 1 know but vou
make fun of me to other girls, just as you vio of them
to me ? Ever\'Kxlv saA^s vou 're saieastic/'

*^ Ha\*e I ever been sanrastio with vou ? "

•^ You know I would n't stand it.**

He made no leply, but she admiied the ease with

A MODERN INSTANCE. 11

which he now turned from her, and took one book
after another from the table at his elbow, sapng some
words of ridicule about each. It gave her a still
deeper sense of his intellectual command when he
finally discriminated, and began to read out a poem
with studied elocutionary effects. He read in a low
tone, but at last some responsive noises came from
the room overhead ; he closed the book, and threw
himself into an attitude of deprecation, with his eyes
cast up to the ceiling.

" Chicago," he said, laying the book on the table
and taking his knee between his hands, while he
dazzled her by speaking from the abstraction ot one
who has carried on a train of thought quite different
from that on which ho seemed to be intent, — " Chi-
cago is the place for me. I don't think I can stand
Equity much longer. You know that chum of mine
I told you about ; he 's written to me to come out
there and go into the law with him at once."

" Why don't you go ? " the girl forced herself to
ask.

'* Oh, I 'm not ready yet. Should you write to me
if I went to Chicago ? "

" I don't think you 'd find my letters very interest-
ing. You would n't want any news from Equity."

" Your letters would n't be interesting if you gave
me the Equity news ; but they would if you left it
out. Then you 'd have to write about yourself."

" Oh, I don't think that would interest anybody."

^ Well, I feel almost like going out to Chicago to
see."

" But I have n't promised to write yet," said the
girl, laughing for joy in his humor.

" I shall have to stay in Equity till you do, then.
Better promise at once."

** Would n't that be too much like marrying a man
to get rid of him ? "

12 A MODERN INSTANCE.

"I don't think that's always such a bad plan —
for the man." He waited for her to speak ; but she
had gone the length of her tether in this direction.
"Byron says, —

* Man's love is of man's life a thing apart, — •
*T is woman's whole existence.'

Do you believe that ? " He dwelt upon her with his
free look, in the happy embarrassment with which she
let her head droop.

"I don't know," she murmured. "I don't know
anything about a man's life."

" It was the woman's I was asking about"

" I don't think I 'm competent to answer."

" Well, I '11 tell you, then. I think Byron was
mistaken. My experience is, that, when a man is in
love, there 's nothing else of him. That 's the reason
I Ve kept out of it altogether of late years. My ad-
vice is, don't fall in love : it takes too much time."
They both laughed at this. " But about correspond-
ing, now ; you have n't said whether you would write
to me, or not. Will you ? "

" Can't you wait and see ? " she asked, slanting a
look at him, which she could not keep from being fond.

** No, no. Unless you wrote to me I could n't go
to Chicago."

" Perhaps I ought to promise, then, at once."

" You mean that you wish me to go."

" You said that you were going. You ought n't to
let anything stand in the way of your doing the best
you can for yourself"

" But you would miss me a little, would n't you ?
You would try to miss me, now and then ? "

" Oh, you are here pretty often. 1 don't think I
should have much difficulty in missing you."

"Thanks, thanks! I can go with a light hearty
now. Grood by." He made a pretence of rising.

A MODERN INSTANCE. 13

" What ! Are you going at once ? "

" Yes, this very night, — or to-morrow. Or no, 1
can't go to-morrow. There 's something I was going
to do to-morrow."

" Perhaps go to church."

" Oh, that of course. But it was in the afternoon.
Stop ! I have it ! I want you to go sleigh-riding
with me in the afternoon."

" I don't know about that," Marcia began.

" But I do," said the young man. " Hold on : 1 11
put my request in writing." He opened her port-
folio, which lay on the table. "What elegant sta-
tionery ! May I use some of this elegant stationery ?
The letter is to a lady, — to open a correspondence.
May I ? " She laughed .her assent. " How ought I to
begin ? Dearest Miss Marcia, or just Dear Marcia :
which is better ? "

" You had better not put either — "

" But I must. You 're one or the other, you know.
You 're dear — to your family, — and you 're Marcia :
you can't deny it. The only question is wliether
you 're the dearest of all the Miss Marcias. I may
be mistaken, you know. We '11 err on the safe side :
Dear Marcia : " He wrote it down. " That looks
well, and it reads well. It looks very natural, and it
reads like poetry, — blank verse ; there 's no rhyme
for it that I can remember. Dear Marcia : Will you
go sleigh-riding with me to-morrow afternoon, at two
o'clock sharp ? Yours — yours ? sincerely, or cor-
dially, or affectionately, or what? The *dear Marcia'
seems to call for something out of the common. I
think it had better be affectionately." He suggested
it with ironical gravity.

" And / think it had better be ' truly,' " protested
the girL

" ' Truly ' it shall be, then. Your word is law, -—
statute in such case made and provided." He wrote.

14 A MODERN INSTANCE.

" "With unutterable devotion, yours truly, Bartley J.
Hubbard," and read it aloud.

She leaned forward, and lightly caught it away
from him, and made a feint of tearing it. He seized
her hands. " Mr. Hubbard ! " she cried, in undertone.
" Let me go, please."

" On two conditions, — promise not to tear up my
letter, and promise to answer it in writing."

She hesitated long, letting him hold her wrists.
At last she said, " Well," and he released her wrists,
on whose whiteness his clasp left red circles. She
wrote a single word on the paper, and pushed it across
the table to him. He rose with it, and went around
to her side.

"This is very nice. But you haven't spelled it
correctly. Anybody would say this was Noy to look
at it ; and you meant to write Yes, Take the pencil
in your hand, Miss Gaylord, and I wiU steady your
trembling nerves, so that you can form the characters.
Stop ! At the slightest resistance on your part, I will
call out and alarm the house; or I will — ." He
put the pencil into her fingers, and took her soft fist
into his, and changed the word, while she submitted,
helpless with her smothered laughter. "Now the
address. Dear — "

" No, no ! " she protested.

" Yes, yes ! Dear Mr. Hubbard. There, that will
do. Now the signature. Yours — "

" I won't write that. I won't, indeed ! "

"Oh, yes, you will. You only think you won't.
Yours gratefully, Marcia Gaylord. That 's right. The
Gaylord is not very legible, on account of a slight
tremor in the writer's arm, resulting from a con-
strained posture, perhaps. Thanks, Miss Gaylord. I
will be here promptly at the hour indicated — "

The noises renewed themselves overhead, — some
one seemed to be moving about. Hubbard laid his

A MODERN INSTANCE. 15

hand on that of the girl, still resting on the table,
and grasped it in burlesque alarm ; she could scarcely
stifle her mirth. He released her hand, and. reaching
his chair with a theatrical stride, sat there cowering
till the noises ceased. Then he began to speak so-
berly, in a low voice.' He spoke of himself; but in
application of a lecture which they had lately heard,
so that he seemed to be speaking of the lecture. It
was on the formation of character, and he told of the
processes by w^^^h^he had formed his own character.
They appeared very wonderful lo her, and she mar-
velled at the ease with which he dismissed the frivol-
ity of his recent mood, and was now all seriousness.
When he came to speak of the influence of others
upon him, she almost trembled with the intensity of
her interest. " But of all the women I have known,
Marcia," he said, "I believe you have had the strong^
est influence upon me. I believe you could make /
me do anything ; but you have always influenced me
for good ; your influence upon me has been ennobling
and elevating." '^

.She wished to refuse his praise; but her heart
irobbed for bliss and pride in it; her voice dis-
)lved on her lips. They sat in silence ; and he took
in his the hand that she let hang over the side of her
chair. The lamp began to burn low, and she found
, words to say, "I had better get another," but she did
ijiiiot move.

^ "No, don't," he said; "I must be going, too.
Look at the wick, there, Marcia ; it scarcely reaches
the oil. In a little while it will not reach it, and the
flame will die out. That is the way the ambition
to be good and great will die out of me, when my
life no longer draws its inspiration from your in-
fljenoe."

This figure took her imagination ; it seemed to her
very beautiful; and his praise tumbled her more and
more.

16 A MODERN INSTANCE.

"Good night," he said, in a low, sad voica 'H0
gave her hand a last pressure, and rose to put on hia^
coat. Her admiration of his words, her happiness in
his flattery, filled her brain like wine. She moved
dizzily as she took up the lamp to light him to th^
door. " I have tired you," he said, tenderly, and he
passed his hand around her to sustain the elbow of .
the arm with which she held the lamp ; she wished
to resist, but she could not try.

At the door he bent down his head and kissed her.
" Good night, dear — friend." y

" Good night," she panted ; and after the door had/
closed upon him, she stooped and kissed the knob ow
which his hand had rested.

As she turned, she started to see her father coming
down the stairs with a candle in his hand. He had
his black cravat tied around his throat, but no collar ;
otherwise, he had on the rusty black clothes in which
he ordinarily went about his affairs, — the cassimere
pantaloons, the satin vest, and the dress-coat which
old-fashioned country lawyers still wore ten years
ago, in preference to a frock or sack. He stopped on
one of the lower steps, and looked sharply down into
her uplifted face, and, as they stood confronted, their
consanguinity came out in vivid resemblances and
contrasts ; his high, hawk-like profile was translated
into the fine aquiline outline of hers ; the harsh rings
of black hair, now grizzled with age, which clustered
tightly over his head, except where they had re-
treated from his deeply seamed and wrinkled fore-
•head, were the crinkled flow above her smooth white
brow ; and the line of the bristly tufts that overhung
his eyes was the same as that of the low arches above
hers. Her complexion was from her mother; his
skin was dusky yellow; but they had the same
mouth, and hers showed how sweet his mouth must
have been in his youth. His eyes, deep sunk in their

A MODERN INSTANCE. 17

cavernous sockets, had rekindled their dark fires in
hers ; his whole visage, softened to her sex and girl-
ish years, looked up at him in his daughter's face.

*' Why, father ! Did we wake you ? "

" No. I had n*t been asleep at all. I was coming
down to read. But it's time you were in bed,
Marcia."

" Yes, I *m going, now. There 's a good fire in the
parlor stove."

The old man descended the remaining steps, but
turned at the parlor door, and looked again at his
daughter with a glance that arrested her, with her
foot on the lowest stair.

" Marcia," he asked, grimly, " are you engaged to
Bartley Hubbard ? "

The blood flashed up from her heart into her face
like fire, and then^ as suddenly, fell back again, and
left her white. She let her head droop and turn, till
her eyes were wholly averted from him, and she did
not speak. He closed the door behind him, and she
went upstairs to her own room ; in her shame, she
seemed to herself to crawl thither, with her father's
glauc?^ burning upon her.

18 A MODERN INSTANCE.

Bartley Hubbard drove his sorrel colt back to
the hotel stable through the moonlight, and woke up
the hostler, asleep behind the counter, on a bunk
covered with buffalo-robes. The half-grown boy did
not wake easily ; he conceived of the affair as a joke,
and bade Bartley quit his fooling, till the young man
took him by his collar, and stood him on his feet.
Then he fumbled about the button of the lamp, turned
low and smelling rankly, and lit his lantern, which
contributed a rival stench to the choking air. He
kicked together the embers that smouldered on the
hearth of the Franklin stove, sitting down before it
for his greater convenience, and, having put a fresh
pine-root on the fire, fell into a doze, with his lantern
in his hand. " Look here, young man ! " said Bartley,
shaking him by the shoulder, " you had better go out
and put that colt up, and leave this sleeping before
the fire to me."

"Guess the colt can wait awhile," giiii^bled the
boy ; but he went out, all V/he same, and Bartley, look-
ing through the window, saw his lantern wavering, a
yellow blot in the white moonshine, toward the stable.
He sat down in the hostler's chair, and, in his turn,
kicked the pine-root with the heel of his shoe, and
looked about the room. He had had, as he would
have said, a grand good time; but it had left him
hungry, and the table in the middle of the room, with
the chairs huddled around it, was suggestive, though
he knew that it had been barrenly put there for the

A MODERN INSTANCE. 19

convenience of the landlord's friends, who came every
night to play whist with him, and that nothing to eat
or drink had ever been set out on it to interrupt the
austere interest of the game. It was long since there
had been anything on the shelves behind the coun-
ter more cheerful than corn-balls and fancy crackers
for the children of the* summer boarders ; these dain-
ties being out of season, the jars now stood there
empty. The young man waited in a hungry reverie,
in which it appeared to him that he was undergoing
unmerited sufl'ering, till the stable-boy came back, now
wide awake, and disposed to let the house share his vi-
gils, as he stamped over the floor in his heavy boots.

"Andy," said Bartley, in a pathetic tone of injury,
" can't you scare me up something to eat ? "

" There aint anything in the buttery but meat-pie,"
said the boy.

He meant mince-pie, as Hubbard knew, and not a
pasty of meat ; and the hungry man hesitated. " Well,
fetch it," he said, finallyi " I guess we can warm it
up a little by the coals here."

He had not been so long out of college but the idea ,
of this irregular supper, when he had once formed it,
began to have its fascination. He took up the broad
fire-shovel, and, by the time the boy had shuffled to
and from the pantiy beyond the dining-room, Bartley
had cleaned the shovel with a piece of newspaper,
and was already heating it by the embers which he
had raked out from under the pine-root. The boy
silently transferred the half-pie he had brought from
its plate to the shovel. He pulled up a chair and sat
down to watch it. The pie began to steam and send
out a savory odor ; he himself, in thawing, emitted a
stronger and stronger smell of stable. He was not
without his disdain for the palate which must have
it^ mince-pie warm at midnight, — nor without his
tespect for it, either. Tb/s fastidious taste must be

20 A MODERN INSTANCE.

part of the splendor which showed itself in Mr.
Hubbard's city-cut clothes, and in his neck-scarfs and
the perfection of his finger-nails and mustache. The
boy had felt the original impression of these facts
deepened rather than effaced by custom; they were
for every day, and not, as he had at first conjectured,
for some great occasion only.

" You don't suppose, Andy, there is such a thing
as cold tea or coffee anywhere, that we could warm
up ? " asked Bartley, gazing thoughtfully at the pie.

The boy shook his head. " Get you some milk," he
said ; and, after he had let the dispiriting suggestion
sink into the other's mind, he added, " or some water."

" Oh, bring on the milk," groaned Bartley, but with
the relief that a choice of evils affords. The boy
stumped away for it, and when he came back the
young man had got his pie on the plate again, and
had drawn his chair up to the table. " Thanks," he
said, with his mouth full, as the boy set down the
goblet of milk. Andy puHed his chair round so as
to get an unrestricted view of a man who ate his pie
with his fork as easily as another would with a knife.
" That sister of yours is a smart girl," the young man
added, making deliberate progress with the pie.

The boy made an inarticulate sound of satisfaction,
and resolved in his heart to tell her what Mr. Hub-
bard had said.

" She 's as smart as time," continued Bartley.

This was something concrete. The boy knew he
should remember that comparison. " Bring you any-
thing else ? " he asked, admiring the young man's skill
in getting the last flakes of the crust on his fork. The
pie had now vanished.

" Why, there is n't anything else, is there ? " Bart-
ley demanded, with the plaintive dismay of a man
who fears he has flung away his hunger upon one
dish when he might have had something better.

A. MODERN INSTANCK 21

" Cheese," replied the boy.

«0h!" said Bartley. He reflected awhile. "I
suppose I could toast a piece on this fork. But there
is n't any more milk."

The boy took away the plate and goblet, and
brought them again replenished.

Bartley contrived to get the cheese on his fork and
rest it against one of the andirons so that it would
not fall into the ashes. When it was done, he ate it
as he had eaten the pie, without offering to share his
feast with the boy. " There ' " he said. " Yes, Andy,
if she keeps on as she 's been doing, she won't have
any trouble. She 's a bright girl." He stretched his
legs before the fire again, and presently yawned.

" Want your lamp, Mr. Hubbard ? " asked the boy.

" WeU, yes, Andy," the young man consented. " I
suppose I may as well go to bed."

But when the boy brought his lamp, he still re-
mained with outstretched legs in front of the fire.
Speaking of Hannah Morrison made him think of
Marcia again, and of the way in which she had spoken
of the girl. He lolled his head on one side in suchl
comfort as a young man finds in the conviction that
a pretty girl is not only fond of him, but is instantly
jealous of any other girl whose name is mentioned.
He smiled at the flame in his reverie, and the boy
examined, with clandestine minuteness, the set and
pattern of his trousers, with glances of reference and
comparison to his own.

There were many things about his relations with
Marcia Gaylord which were calculated to give Bart-
ley satisfaction. She was, without question, the ]
prettiest girl in the place, and she had more style
than any other girl began to have. He liked to go
into a room with Marci^, Gaylord; it was some
pleasure. Marcia was a lady ; she had a good edu-
cation ; she had been away two years at school ; and.

22 A MODERN INSTANCE.

when she came back at the end of the second winter,
he knew that she had fallen in love with him at
sight. He believed that he could time it to a second.
He remembered how he had looked up at her as he
passed, and she had reddened, and tried to turn away
from the window as if she had not seen him. Bart-
ley was still free as air ; but if he could once make

\ up his mind to settle down in a hole like Equity, he
could have her by turning his hand. Of course she
had her drawbacks, like everybody. She was proud,
and she would be jealous ; but, with all her pride
and her distance, she had let him see that she liked
him ; and with not a word on his part that any one
could hold him to.

" Hollo ! " he cried, with a suddenness that startled
the boy, who had finished his meditation upon Bart-
ley's trousers, and was now deeply dwelling on his
boots. " Do you like 'em ? See what sort of a shine
you can give 'em for Sunday-go-to-meeting to-morrow
morning." He put out his hand and laid hold of the
boy's head, passing his fingers through the thick red
hair. " Sorrel-top ! " he said, with a grin of agreea-
ble reminiscence. " They emptied all the freckles
thpy had left into your face, — did n't they, Andy tl
//This free, joking way of Bartley's was one of t
/things that made him popular ; he-passed tbe4iBifi
^aiy, and was giye and take right along, as his-adniii^
/ ers expressed it, from the first, in a community where
/ his smartness had that honor which gives us more

^ ABftact-ijagiijtQ..the .square mile than any other -ee«» ^
in. tije world. The fact of his smartness had bee

rliSirmed and established in the strongest manner bj
the authorities of the college at which he was gradu*
ated, in answer to the reference he made to thexL
, I when negotiating with the committee in charge i
'/ the place he now held as editor of the Equity F
: Press. The faculty spoke of the solidity and vj

A MODERN INSTANCE. 23

ety of his acquirements, and the distinction with
which he had acquitted himself in every branch of
study he had undertaken. They added that he de-
served the greater credit because his early disadvan-
tages as an orphan, dependent on his own exertions
for a livelihood, had been so great that he had entered
college with difficulty, and with heavy conditions.
This turned the scale with a committee who had
all been poor boys themselves, and justly feared the
encroachments of hereditary aristocracy. They per-
haps had their misgivings when the young man, in
his well-blacked boots, his gray trousers neatly
fitting over them, and his diagonal coat buttoned
high with one button, stood before them with his
thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, and looked down
over his mustache at the floor with sentiments con-
jming their wisdom which they could not explore ;
£hey must have resented the fashionable keeping or.
everything about him, for Bartley wore his one suit ;
as if it were but one of many ; but when they under- :
stood that he had come by everything through his own '
|nnaided smartness, they could no longer hesitate.
One, indeed, still felt it a duty to call attention to
the fact that the college authorities said nothing of [
the young man's moral characteristics in a letter
dwelling so lai'gely upon his intellectual qualifica-
ions. The others referred this point by a silent
look to Squire Gaylord.

" I don't know," said the Squire, " as I ever heard
that a great deal of morality was required by a news-
paper editor." The rest laughed at the joke, and the
Squire continued : " Bat I guess if he worked his
own way through college, as they say, that he haint
had time to be up to a great deal of mischief You
kiiow it's for idle hands that the Devil provides,
doctor."

** That's true, as far as it goes," said the doctor.

24 A MODERN INSTANCE.

** But it is n't the whole truth. The Devil provides
for some busy hands, too."

" There 's a good deal of sense in that," the Squire
admitted. "The worst scamps I ever knew were
active fellows. Still, industry is in a man's favor. If
the faculty knew anything against this young man
they would have given us a hint of it. I guess we
had better take him ; we sha'n't do better. Is it a
vote?"

The good opinion of Bartley's smartness which
Squire Gaylord had formed was confirmed some
months later by the development of the fact that the
young man did not regard his management of the
Equity Free Press as a final vocation. The story
went that he lounged into the lawyer's office one
Saturday afternoon in October, and asked him to let
him take his Blackstone into the woods with him.
He came back with it a few hours later.

" Well, sir," said the attorney, sardonically, " how
much Blackstone have you read ? "

"About forty pages," answered the young man,
dropping into one of the empty chairs, and hanging
his leg over the arm.

The lawyer smiled, and, opening the book, asked
half a dozen questions at random. Bartley answered
without changing his indifferent countenance, or the
careless posture he had fallen into. A sharper and
longer examination followed; the very language
seemed to have been unbrokenly transferred to his
mind, and he often gave the author's words as well
as his ideas.

" Ever looked at this before ? " asked the lawyer,
with a keen glance at him over his spectacles.

" No," said Bartley, gaping as if bored, and further
relieving his weariness by stretching. He was with-
out deference for any presence ; and the old lawyer did
not disUke him for this : he had no deference himself

A MODERN INSTANCE. 25

" You think of studying law ? " he asked, after a
pause.

" That 's what I came to ask you about," said Bart-
ley, swinging his leg.

The elder recurred to his book, and put some more
questions. Then he said, "Do you want to study
with me ? "

" That 's about the size of it.**

He shut the book, and pushed it on the table to-
ward the young man. " Go ahead. You 11 get along
— if you don't get along too easily."

It was in the spring after this that Marcia returned
home from her last term at boarding-school, and first
saw hiuL

26 A MODEKN INSTANCSr

III.

Bartley woke on Sunday morning with the regrets
that a supper of mince-pie and toasted cheese is apt
to bring. He woke from a bad dream, and found that
he had a dull headache. A cup of coffee relieved his
pain, but it left him listless, and with a longing for.
sympathy which he experienced in any mental or
physical discomfort. The frankness with which he
then appealed for compassion was one of the things
that made people like him ; he flung himself upon the
pity of the first he met. It might be some one to
wliom he had said a cutting or mortifying thing at
their last encounter, but Bartley did not mind that ;
what he desired was commiseration, and he confid-
ingly ignored the past in a trust that had rarely been
abused. If his sarcasm proved that he was quick
and smart, his recourse to those who had suffered
from it proved that he did not mean anything by
what he said ; it showed that he was a man of warm
feelings, and that his heart was in the right place.

Bai-tley deplored his disagreeable sensations to the
other boarders at breakfast, and affectionately excused
himself to them for not going to church, when they
turned into the office, and gathered there before the
Franklin stove, sensible of the day in freshly shaven
chins and newly blacked boots. The habit of church-
going was so strong and universal in Equity that even
strangers stopping at the hotel found themselves the
object of a sort of hospitable competition with the

A MODERN INSTANCE. 27

members of the different denominations, who took it
for granted that they would wish to go somewhere,
and only suffered them a choice between sects. There
was no intolerance in their offer of pews, but merely
a profound expectation, and one might continue to
choose his place of worship Sabbath after Sabbath
without offence. This was Hartley's custom, and it
had worked to his favor rather than his disadvantage ;
for in the rather chaotic liberality into which religious
sentiment had fallen in Equity, it was tacitly con^
ceded that the editor of a paper devoted to the in-
terests of the whole town ought not to be of fixed
theological opinions.

Religion there had largely ceased to be a fact of
spiritual experience, and the visible church flourished
on condition of providing for the social needs of the
community. It was practically held that the salva-
tion oi one's soul must not be made too depressing, or.
the young people would have nothing to do with it.
Professors of the sternest creeds temporized with sin-
ners, and did what might be done to win them to
heaven by helping them to have a good time here.
The church embraced and included the world. It no
longer frowned even upon social dancing, — a trans-
gression once so heinous in its eyes; it opened its
doors to popular lectures, and encouraged secular
music in its basements, where, during the winter,
oyster suppers were given in aid of good objects. The
Sunday school was made particularly attractive, both
to the children and the young men and girls who
taught them. Not only at Thanksgiving, but at
Christmas, and latterly even at Easter, there were
special observances, which the enterprising spirits
having the welfare of the church at heart tried to
make significant and agreeable to all, and promotive
of good feeling. Christenings and marriages in the
diurch were encouraged, and elaborately celebrated;

28 A MODERN INSTANCE.

death alone, though treated with cut-flowers in em-
blematic devices, refused to lend itself to the cheerful
intentions of those who were struggling to render the
idea of another and a better world less repulsive. In
contrast with the relaxation and uncertainty of their
doctrinal aim, the rude and bold infidelity of old
Squire Gaylord had the greater affinity with the mood
of the Puritanism they had outgrown. But Bartley
Hubbard liked the religious situation well enough.
He took a leading part in the entertainments, and did
something to impart to them a literary cast, as in the
series of readings from the poets which he gave, the
first winter, for the benefit of each church in turn.
At these lectures he commended himself to the sober
elders, who were troubled by the levity of his behav-
ior with young people on other occasions, by asking
one of the ministers to open the exercises with prayer,
and another, at the close, to invoke the Divine bless-
ing ; there was no especial relevancy in this, but it
pleased. He kept himself, from the beginning, pretty
constantly in the popular eye. He was a speaker at
all public meetings, where his declamation was ad-
mired ; and at private parties, where the congealed
particles of village society were united in a frozen
mass, he was the first to break the ice, and set the
angular fragments grating and grinding upon one
another.

He now went to his room, and opened his desk with
some vague purpose of bringing up the arrears of his
correspondence. Formerly, before his interest in the
newspaper had lapsed at all, he used to give his Sun-
day leisure to making selections and writing para-
graphs for it; but he now let the pile of exchanges lie
unopened on his desk, and began to rummage through
the letters scattered about in it. They were mostly
from young ladies with whom he had corresponded,
and some of them enclosed the photographs of the

A MODERN INSTANCE. 29

writers, doing their best to look as they hoped he
might think they looked. They were not love-letters,
but were of that sort which the laxness of our social
life invites young people, who have met pleasantly, to
exchange as long as they like, without explicit inten-
tions on either side ; they commit the writers to noth-
ing; they are commonly without result, except in
wasting time which is hardly worth saving. Every
one who has lived the American life must have pro-
duced them in great numbers. While youth lasts,
they afford an excitement whose charm is hard to
realize afterward.

Hartley's correspondents were young ladies of his
college town, where he had first begun to see some-
thing of social life in days which he now recognized
as those of his green youth. They were not so very
far removed in point of time ; but the experience of
a larger world in the vacation he had spent with a
Boston student had relegated them to a moral remote-
ness that could not readily be measured. His friend
was the son of a family who had diverted him from
the natural destiny of a Boston man at Harvard, and
sent him elsewhere for sectarian reasons. They were
rich people, devout in their way, and benevolent, after
a fashion of their own ; and their son always brought
home with him, for the holidays and other short vaca-
tions, some fellow-student accounted worthy of their
hospitality through his religious intentions or his in-
tellectual promise. These guests were indicated to
the young man by one of the faculty, and he accepted
their companionship for the time with what perfunc-
tory civility he could muster. He and Bartley had
amused themselves verv well during that vacation.
The Hallecks were not fashionable people, but they
lived wealthily : they had a coachman and an inside
man (whom Bartley at first treated with a considera-
tion which it afterward mortified him to think of) «

'30 A MODEEN INSTANCE,

their house was richly furnished with cushioned seats,
dense carpets, and heavy curtains; and they were
visited by other people of their denomination, and of
a like abundance. Some of these were infected with
the prevailing culture of the city, and the young
ladies especially dressed in a style and let fall ideas
that filled the soul of the country student with won-
der and worship. He heard a great deal of talk that
he did not understand ; but he eagerly treasured every
impression, and pieced it out, by question or furtive
observation, into an image often shrewdly true, and
often grotesquely untrue, to the conditions into which
he had been dropped. He civilized himself as rapidly
as his light permitted. There was a great deal of
church-going ; but he and young Halleck went also
to lectures and concerts ; they even went to the ojiera,
and Hartley, with the privity of his friend, went to
the theatre. Halleck said that he did not think there
was much harm in a play ; but that hia people stayed
away for the sake of the example, — a reason that
certainly need not hold with Bartley.

At the end of the vacation he returned to college,
leaving his measure with Halleok's tailor, and his
heart with all the splendors and elegances of the
town. He found the ceilings very low and the fash-
ions much belated in the village ; but he reconciled
himself as well as he could. The real stress came
when he left college and the question of doing some-
thing for himself pressed upon him. He intended to
study law, but he must meantime earn his living.
It had been his fortune to be left, when very young,
not only an orphan, but an extremely pretty child,
with an exceptional aptness for study; and he had
been better cared for than if his father and mother
had lived. He had been not only well housed and
fed, and very well dressed, but pitied as an orphan,
and petted for his beauty and talent, while he was

A MODEIIN INSTANCE. 31

always taught to think of himself as a poor boy, who
was winning his own way through the world. But
when his benefactor proposed to educate him for the
ministry, with a view to his final use in missionary
work, he revolted. He apprenticed himself to the
printer of his village, and rapidly picked up a knowl-
edge of the business, so that at nineteen he had laid
by some money, and was able to think of going to
college. There was a fund in aid of indigent students
in the institution to which he turned, and the faculty
favored him. He finished his course with great credit
to himself and the college, aiid he was naturally in-
clined to look upon what had been done for him j
earlier as an advantage taken of his youthful inex-
perienca^ He rebelled against the memory of that
tutelage, in spite of which he had accomplished such
great things. If he had not squandered his time or
fallen into vicious courses in circumstances of so
much discouragement,* if he had come out of it all
self-reliant and independent, he knew, whom he had
to thank for it. The worst of the matter was that
there was some truth, in all this.

The ardor of his satisfaction cooled in the two
years following his graduation, when in intervals of
teaching country schools he was actually reduced to
work at his trade on a village newspaper. But it
was as a practical printer, through the freemasonry of
the craft, that Bartley heard of the wish of the Equity
committee to place the Free Press in new hands,
and he had to he grateful to his trade for a primary
consideration from them which bis collegiate honors
would not have won him. There had not yet begun
to be that talk of journalism as a profession which
has since prevailed with our collegians, and if Bart-
ley had thought^ as other collegians think, of devoting
himself to newspaper life, he would have turned his
&ce toward the city where its prizes are won, — the

S2 A MODEKN INSTANCE.

ten and fifteen dollar reporterships for which a foui
years* course of the classics is not too costly a prepa-
ration. But, to tell the truth, he had never regarded
his newspaper as anything but a make-shift, by which
he was to be carried over a difficult and anxious
period of his life, and enabled to attempt something
worthier his powers. He had no illusions coyqerni]

it; i^'^had evey thou'pTt-iit JouHialisTn as a graj\d
t\ xvj^imuh} n^^ p^ 11 fn n 1 1 i r 1 1 , 1 1 1 r n ^ if! fifta i h m\ pnri "il i (J, 1 n
his experience in ^ village printing-o|fice. He came
to nis w"ork in Equity with practical and immediate
purposes which pleased the committee better. The
paper had been established some time before, in one
of those flurries of ambition which from time to
time seized Equity, when its citizens reflected that
it was the central town in the county, and yet not
the shire-town. The question of the removal of the
county- seat had periodically arisen before ; but it
had never been so hotly agitated as now. The paper
had been a happy thought of a local- politician, whose
conception of its management was that it might be
easily edited by a committee, if a printer could be
found to publish it; but a few months' experience
had made the Free Press a terrible burden to its
founders ; it could not be sustained, and it could not
be let die without final disaster to the interests of the
town ; and the committee began to cast about for a
publisher who could also be editor. Bartley, to whom
it fell, could not be said to have thrown his heart
and soul into the work, but he threw all his energy,
and he made it more than its friends could have
hoped. He espoused the cause of Equity in the
pending question with the zeal of a condottiere, and
did service no less faithful, because of the cynical
quality latent in it. When the legislative decision
against Equity put an end to its ambitious hopes for
the time being, he continued in control of the paper*

jl modern instance. 33

with a fair prospect of getting the property into hia
own hands at last, and with some growing question
in his mind whether, after all, it might not be as easy
for him to go into pohtics from the newspaper as
from the law. He managed the office very economi-
cally, and by having the work done by girl appren-
tices, with the help of one boy, he made it self-
supporting. He modelled the newspaper upon the
modem conception, through which the country press
must cease to have any influence in public affairs, and
each paper become little more than an open letter of
neighborhood gossip. But while he filled his sheet
with minute chronicles of the goings and comings of
unimportant persons, and with all attainable particu-
lars of the ordinary life of the different localities, he
continued to make spicy hits at the enemies of Equity
in the late struggle, and kept the public spirit of the
town alive. He had lately undertaken to make
known its advantages as a summer resort, and had
published a series of encomiums upon the beauty of
its scenery and the healthfulness of its air and water,
which it was believed would put it in a position of
rivalry with some of the famous White Mountain
places. He invited the enterprise of outside capital,
and advocated a narrow-gauge road up the valley of
the river through the Notch, so as to develop the
picturesque advantages of that region. In all this,
the color of mockery let the wise perceive that Bart-
ley saw the joke and enjoyed it, and it deepened the
popular impression of his smartness.

This vein of cynicism was not characteristic, as il
^ould have been in an older man; it might have
been part of that spiritual and intellectual unruliness
of youth, which people .laugh at and forgive, and
which one generally regards in after life as some-
thing almost alien to one's self. He wrote long,
fataj^^ing articles about Equity, in a tone bordering

34 A MODERN INSTANCK

on burlesque, and he had a department in his paper
where he printed humorous squibs of his own and of
other people; these were sometimes copied, and in
the daily papers of the State he had been mentioned
as " the funny man of the Equity Free Press." He
also sent letters to one of the Boston journals, which
he reproduced in his own sheet, and which gave him
an importance that the best endeavor as a country
editor would never have won him with the villagers.
He would naturally, as the local printer, have ranked
a little above the foreman of the saw-mill in the
social scale, and decidedly below the master of the
Academy; but his personal qualities elevated him
over the head even of the latter. But above all, the
fact that he was studying law was a guaranty of his
superiority that nothing else could have given ; that
science is the fountain of the highest distinction in a
iiountry town. Bartley*s whole course implied that
je was above editing the Free Press, but that he
did it because it served his turn. That was admi-
rable.

He sat a long time with these girls* letters before
him, and lost himself in a pensive reverie over their
photographs, and over the good times he used to have
with them. He mused in that formless way in which
a young man thinks about young girls ; his soul is
suffused with a sense of their sweetness and bright*
ness, and unless he is distinctly in love there is no in-
tention in his thoughts of them ; even then there is
often no intention. Bartley might very well have a
good conscience about them ; he had broken no hearts
among them, and had only met them half-way in flir-
tation. What he really regretted, as he held tlieir let-
ters in his hand, was that he had never got up a corre-
spondence with two or three of tlie girls whom he had
met in Boston. Though he had been cowed by their
jaagnificence in the beginning, he had never had ai^y

A MODERN INSTANCE. 35

reverence for them ; he believed that they would
have liked very well to continue his acquaintance ;
but he had not known how to open a correspondence,
and the point was one on which he was ashamed to
consult Halleck These college belles, compared with
them, were amusingly inferior ; by a natural turn of
thought, he realized that they were inferior to Marcia
Gaylord, too, in looks and style, no less than in an
impassioned preference for himself A distaste for
their somewhat veteran ways in flirtation grew upon
him as he thought of her ; he philosophized against
them to her advantage ; he could not blame her if
she did not know how to hide her feelings for him.
Yet he knew that Marcia would rather have died than
let him suppose that she cared for him, if she had
known that she was doing it. The fun of it was,
that she should not know; this charmed him, it
touched him, even ; he did not think of it exultingly^
as the night before, but sweetly, fondly, and with a
final curiosity to see her again, and enjoy the fact iu
her presence. The acrid little jets of smoke which
escaped from the joints of his stove from time to time
annoyed him ; he shut his portfolio at last, and went
out to walk.

36 A MODERN INSTANCK

IV.

The forenoon sunshine, beating strong upon the
thin snow along the edges of the porch floor, tattered
them with a little thaw here and there ; but it had no
efifect upon the hard-packed levels of the street, up the
middle of which Hartley walked in a silence intensi-
fied by the muffled voices of exhortation that came
to him out of the churches. It was in the very heart
of sermon-time, and he had the whole street to him-
self on his way up to Squire Gaylord's house. As he
drew near, he saw smoke ascending from the chimney
of the lawyer's office, — a little white building that
stood apart from the dwelling on the left of the gate,
and he knew that the old man was within, reading
there, with his hat on and his long legs flung out.
toward the stove, unshaven and unkempt, in a giim
protest against the prevalent Christian superstition.
He might be reading Hume or Gibbon, or he might
be reading the Bible, — a book in which he was
deeply versed, and from which he was furnished
with texts for the demolition of its friends, his adver-
saries. He professed himself a great admirer of its lit-
erature, and, in the heat of controversy, he often found
himself a defender of its doctrines when he had occa-
sion to expose the fallacy of latitudinarian interpre-
tations. For liberal Christianity he had nothing but
contempt, and refuted it with a scorn which spared
"none of the worldly tendencies of the church in Equity.*
The idea that souls were to be saved by church so-
ciables filled him with inappeasable rancor ; and he

A. MODERN INSTANOE. 37

maintained the superiority of the old Puritanic dis-
cipline against them with a fervor which nothing but
its re-establishment could have abated. It was said
that Squire Gaylord's influence had largely helped to
keep in place the last of the rigidly orthodox minis-
ters, under whom his liberalizing congregation chafed
for years of discontent ; but this was probably an ex-
agf^eration of the native humor. Mrs. Gaylord had
belonged to this church, and had never formally with-
drawn from it, and the lawyer always contributed to
pay the minister's salary. He also managed a little
property for him so well as to make him independent
when he was at last asked to resign by his deacons.

In another mood, Bartley might have stepped aside
to look in on the Squire, before asking at the house
door for Marcia. They relished each other's company,
as people of contrary opinions and of no opinions are
apt to do. Bartley loved to hear the Squire get go-
ing, as he said, and the old man felt a fascination in
the youngster. Bartley was smart ; he took a point as
quick as. lightning ; and the Squire did not mind his
making friends with the Mammon of Righteousness,
as he called the visible church in Equity. It amused
him to see Bartley lending the church the zealous sup-
port of the press, with an impartial patronage of the
different creeds. There had been times in his own
career when the silence of his opinions would have
greatly advanced him, but he had not chosen to pay
this price for success ; he liked his freedom, or he
liked the bitter tang of his own tongue too well, and
he had remained a leading lawyer in Equity, when he
might have ended a judge, or even a Congressman.
Of late years, however, since people whom he could
have joined in their agnostieiam so heartily, up to a
certain point, had begun to make such fools of them-
selves about Darwinism and the^brotherhood of all
men in the monkey, he had grown much more tol*

38 A MODERN INSTANCE.

erant. He still clung to his old-fashioned deistical
opinions ; but he thought no worse of a man for not
holding them ; he did not deny that a man might be
a Christian, and still be a very good itwUl

The audacious humor of his posritton sufficed with
a people who liked a joke rather better than anything
else ; in his old age, his infidelity was something that
would hardly have been changed, if possible, by a pop-
ular vote. Even his wife, to whom it had once been
a heavy cross, borne with secret prayer and tears, had
long ceased to gainsay it in any wise. Her family
had opposed her yoking with an unbeliever when she
married him, but she had some such hopes of «onvert-
ing him as women cherish who give themselves to
men confirmed in drunkenness. She learned, as other
women do, that she could hardly change her husband
in the least of his habits, and that, in this great mat-
ter of his unbelief, her love was powerless. It became
easier at last for her to add self-sacrifice to self-sacrifice
than to vex him with her anxieties about his soul, and
to act upon the feeling that, if he must be lost, then she
did not care to be saved. (He had never interfered
^with her_Qhurch-going ; he had rather promoted it, for
he liked to have women go ; but the time came when
she no longer cared to go without him ; she lapsed
from her membership, and it was now many years
since she had worshipped with the people of her faith,
if, indeed, she were still of any faith. Her life was
silenced in every way, and, as often happens with
aging wives in country towns, she seldom went out
of her own door, and never appeared at the social or
public solemnities of the village. Her husband and
her daughter composed and bounded her world, —
she always talked of them, or of other things as re-
lated to them. She had grown an elderly woman,
without losing the color of her yellow hair ; and the
bloom of girlhood had been stayed in her cheeks as if

A MODERN INSTANCE. 39

by the young habit of blushing, which she had kept
She was Still what her neighbors called very pretty-
appearing, and she must have been a beautiful girL
The sUence of her inward life subdued her manner,
till now she seemed always to have come from some
place on which a deep hush had newly fallen.

She answered the door when Bartley turned the
crank that snapped the gong-bell in its centre ; and
the young man, who was looking at the street while
waiting for some one to come, confronted her with a
start "Oh!" be said, "I thought it was Marcia.
Good morning, Mrs. Gaylord. Is n't Marcia at
home ? "

"She went to church, this morning," replied her
mother. *' Won't you walk in ? "

"Why, yes, I guess I will, thank you," faltered
Bartley, in the irresolution of his disappointment
" I hope I sha'n't disturb you."

" Come right into the sitting-room. She won't be
gone a great while, now," said Mrs. Gaylord, leading
the way to the large square room into which a door
at the end of the narrow hall opened. A slumber-
ous heat from a sheet-iron wood-stove pervaded the
place, and a clock ticked monotonously on a shelf in
the corner. Mrs. Gaylord said, " Won't you take
a chair ? " and herself sank into the rocker, witli a
deep feather cushion in the seat, and a thinner
feather cushion tied half-way up the back. ^AfterN
the more active duties of her housekeeping were / y
done, she sat every day in this chair with her knit- \\^
ting or sewing, and let the clock tick the long hours!
of her life away, with no more apparent impatience V^
of them, or sense of their dulness, than the cat on ^
the braided rug at her feet, or the geraniums in the
pots at the sunny window/jf " Are you pretty well to^
day ? " she asked.

" Well, no, Mrs. Gaylord, I 'm not," answered Bart-

40 A MODERN INSTANCE.

ley. )y' I'm all out of sorts. I have n't felt so dys-
peptic for iTdon't know how long."

Mrs. Gaylord smoothed the silk dress across her
lap, — the thin old black silk which she still instinct-
ively put on for Sabbath observance, though it was
so long since she had worn it to church. " Mr. Gay-
lord used to have it when we were first married,
though he aint been troubled with it of late years.
He seemed to think then it was worse Sundays:"

" I don't believe Sunday has much to do with it, in
my case. I ate some mince-pie and some toasted
cheese last night, and I guess they did n't agree with
me very well," said Bartley, who did not spare him-
self the confession of his sins when seeking sympa-
thy : it was this candor that went so far to convince
people of his good-heartedness.

" I don't know as I ever heard that meat-pie was
bad," said Mrs. Gaylord, thoughtfully. "Mr. Gay-
lord used to eat it right along all through his dys-
pepsia, and he never complained of it. And the
cheese ought to have made it digest."

" Well, I don't know what it was," replied Bartley,
plaintively submitting to be exonerated, "but X-feel
perfectly used up. Oh, I suppose I shall get over it,
or forget all about it, by to-morrow," he added, with
strenuous cheerfulness. "It isn't anything worth
minding."

Mrs. Gaylord seemed to differ with him on this
point. " Head ache any ? " she asked.

" It did this morning, when I first woke up," Hart-
ley assented.

" I don't believe but what a cup of tea would be
the best thing for you," she said, critically.

Bartley had instinctively practised a social art
which ingratiated him with people at Equity as
much as his demands for sympathy endeared him;
he gave trouble in little unusual ways. He now

A MODERN INSTANCE. 41

said, " Oh, I wish you would give me a cup, Mrs.
Gaylord."

" Why, yes, indeed ! That *s just what I was going
to," she replied. She went to the kitchen, which lay
beyond another room, and reappeared with the tea
directly, proud of her promptness, but having it on
her conscience to explain it. " I *most always keep
the pot on the stove hearth, Sunday morning, so 's to
have it ready if Mr. Gaylord ever wants a cup. He *s a
master hand for tea, and always was. There : / guess
you better take it without milk. I put some sugar in
the saucer, if you want any." She dropped noise-
lessly upon her feather cushion again, and Bartley,
who had risen to receive the tea from her, remained
standing while he drank it.

" That does seem to go to the spot," he said, as he
sipped it, thoughtfully observant of its effect upon his
disagreeable feelings. " I wish I had you to take care
of me, Mrs. Gaylord, and keep me from making a
fool of myself," he added, when he had drained the
cup. " No, no ! " he cried, at her offering to take it
from him. "1*11 set it down. I know it will fret
you to have it in here, and 1 11 carry it out into the
kitchen." He did so before she could prevent him,
and came back, touching his mustache with his hand-
kerchief " I declare, Mrs. Gaylord, I should love to
live in a kitchen like that."

" I guess you would n't if you had to," said Mrs.
Gaylord, flattered into a smile. " Marcia, she likes to
sit out there, she says, better than anywheres in the
house. But I always tell her it's because she was
there so much when she was little. I don't see as
she seems over-anxious to do anything there hut sit,
I tell her. Not but what she knows how well enough.
Mr. Gaylord, too, he' s great for being round in the
kitchen. If he gets up in the night, when he has his
waking spells, he had rather take his lamp out there,

42 A MODERN INSTANCE.

if there 's a fire left, and read, any thne, than what he
would in the parlor. Well, we used to sit there to-
gether a good deal when we were young, and he got
the habit of it. There's everything in habit," she
added, thoughtfully. " Marcia, she 's got quite in the
way, lately, of going to the Methodist church."

"Yes, I've seen her there. You know I board
round at the different churches, as the schoolmaster
used to at the houses in the old times."

Mra. Gaylord looked up at the clock, and gave a

little nervous laugh. " I don't know what Marcia will

"^z say to my letting her company stay in the sitting-

^' room. She 's pretty late to-day. But I guess you

won't have much longer to wait, now."

She spoke with that awe of her daughter and her
judgments which is one of the pathetic idiosyncrasies
of a certain class of American mothers. They feel
themselves to be not so well educated as their daugh-
ters, whose fancied knowledge of the world they let
outweigh their own experience of life ; they are used
to deferring to them, and they shrink willingly into
household drudges before them, and leave them to
order the social affairs of the family. Mrs. Gaylord
was not much afraid of Bartley for himself, but as
Marcia's company he made her more and more uneasy
toward the end of the quarter of an hour in which
she tried to entertain him with her simple talk, vary-
ing from Mr. Gaylord to Marcia, and from Marcia to
; Mr. Gaylord again. When she recognized the girl's
>" quick touch in the closing of the front door, and her
>^ elastic step approached through the hall, the mother
; made a little deprecating noise in her .throat, and
fidgeted in her chair. As soon as Marcia opened the
sitting-room door, Mrs. Gaylord modestly rose and
^ \ went out into the kitchen : the mother who remained
. gin the room when her daughter had company was an
^ oddity almost unknown in Equity.

A MODERN INSTANCE. 43

Marcia's face flashed all into a light of joy at sight
of Bartley, who scarcely waited for her mother to be
gone before he drew her toward him by the hand she
had given. She mechanically yielded ; and then,
as if the recollection of some new resolution forcedTl
itself through her pleasure at sight of him, she freed '
her hand, and, retreating a step or two, confronted
him.

"Why, Marcia," he said, "what's the matter?"

" Nothing," she answered.

It might have amused Bartley, if he had felt quite
well, to see the girl so defiant of him, when she was
really so much in love with him, but it certainly did
not amuse him now: it disappointed him in his ex-
pectation of findings her femininely _soft and comfort-
ing, aud he did not know just what to do. He stood
staring at her in discomfiture, while she gained in
outward composure, though her cheeks were of the
Jacqueminot red of the ribbon at her throat. " What
have I done, Marcia ? " he faltered.

" Oh, you have n*t done anything."

" Some one has been talking to you against me."

" No oile has said a word to me about you."

"Then why are you so cold — so strange — so —
80 — different ? "

« Different ? "

" Yes, from what you were last night," he answered,
with an aggrieved air.

" Oh, we see some things differently by daylight,"
she lightly explained. " Won't you sit down ? "

" No, thank you," Bartley replied, sadly but unre-
sentfully. " I think I had better be going. ' I see
there is something wrong — '^

" I don't see why you say there is anything wrong,"
she retorted. " What have / done ? "

" Oh, you have not done anything ; I take it back.
It is all right. But when I came here this morning

44 A MODEBN INSTANCE.

— encouraged — hoping — that you had the same
feeling as myself, and you seem to forget everything
but a ceremonious acquaintanceship — why, it is all
right, of course. I have no reason to complain ; but
I must say that I can't help being surprised." He
saw her lips quiver and her bosom heave. " Marcia,
do you blame me for feeling hurt at your coldness
when I came here to tell you — to tell you I — 1 love
you?" With his nerves all unstrung, and his hunger
for sympathy, he really believed that he had come
to tell her this. " Yes," he added, bitterly, " I will
tell you, though it seems to be the last word I shall
speak to you. 1 11 go, now."

" Bartley ! You shall never go ! " she cried, throwing
herself in his way. " Do you think I don't care for
you, too? You may kiss me, — you may kill me,
now ! "

The passionate tears sprang to her eyes, with-
out the sound of sobs or the contortion of weeping,
and she did not wait for his embrace. She flung her
arms around his neck and held him fast, crying, " I
would n't let you, for your own sake, darling ; and if
I had died for it — I thought I should die laSt night —
I was never going to let you kiss me again till you
said — till — till — now! Don't you see?" She
caught him tighter, and hid her face in his neck, and
cried and laughed for joy and shame, while he suf-
fered her caresses with a certain bewilderment "I
want to tell you now — I want to explain," she said,
lifting her face and letting him from her as far as her
arms, caught around his neck, would reach, and fer-
vidly Searching his eyes, lest some ray of what he
would think should escape her. " Don't speak a word
first ! Father saw us at the door last night, — he hap-
pened to be coming downstairs, because he could n't^
sleep, — just when you — Oh, Bartley, don't ! " she
implored, at the little smile that made his mustache

A MODERN INSTANCR 45

quiver. " And he asked me whether we were engaged ;
and when I could n't tell him we were, I know what
he thought. I knew how he despised me, and I de-
termined that, if you did n't tell me that you cared
for me — And that 's the reason, Bartley, and not —
not because I did n't care more for you than I do ibr
the whole world. And — and — you don't mind it^
now, do you ? It was for your sake, dearest." \

Whether Bartley perfectly divined or not all the
feeling at which her words hinted, it was delicious to
be clung about by such a pretty girl as Marcia Gay-
lord, to have her now darting her face into his neck-
scarf with intolerable consciousness, and now boldly
confronting him with all-defying fondness while she
lightly pushed him and pulled him here and there in
the vehemence of her appeal. Perhaps such a man,
in those fastnesses of his nature which psychology
has not yet explored, never loses, even in the tenderest
transports, the sense of prey jts to the girl whose love
he has won ; but if this is certain, it is also certain
that he has transports which are tender, and Bartley
now felt his soul melted with affection that was very
\novel and sweet.
^'^ Why, Marcia ! " he said, " what a strange girl you
are ! " He sunk into his chair again, and, putting his
arms around her waist, drew her upon his knee, like
a child.

She held herself apart from him at her arm's
length, and said, "Wait! Let me say it before it
seems as if we had always been engaged, and every-^
thing was as right then as it is now. Did you despise
me for letting you kiss me before we were engaged ? "'

" No," he laughed again. " I liked you for it."

" But if you thought I would let any one else, you
would n't have liked it ? "

This diverted him still more. " I should n't have
liked that more than half as well."

46 A MODERN INSTANCE.

"No," she said thoughtfully. She dropped hei
face awhile on his shoulder, and seemed to be strug-
gling with herself. Then she lifted it, and " Did you
ever — did you — " she gasped.

" If you want me to say that all the other girls in
the world are not worth a hair of your head, I '11 say
that, Marcia. 'N'nw, Ipf-. 's talk- hnaing^r*

This made her laugh, an^ "I shall want a little
lock of yours," she said, as if they had hitherto been
talking of nothing but each other's hair.

" And I shall want all of yours," he answered.

" No. Don't be silly." She critically explored his
face. " How funny to have a mole in your eyebrow 1*'
She put her finger on it. " I never saw it before."

" You never looked so closely. There 's a scar at
the corner of your upper lip that I had n't noticed."

*• Can you see that ? " she demanded, radiantly.
•* Well, you liave got good eyes ! The cat did it when
I was a little girl."

The door opened, and Mrs. Gaylord surprised them
in the celebration oC these discoveries, — or, rather,
she surprised herself, for she stood holding the door
end helpless to move, though in her heart she had an
apologetic impulse to retire, and she even believed that
she made some murmurs of excuse for her intrusion.
Bartley was equally abashed, but Marcia rose with
the coolness of her sex in the intimate emei-gencies
which confound a man. "Oh, motlier, it's you! I
forgot about you. Come in ! Or I '11 set the table,
if that 's what you want." As Mrs. Gaylord continued
to look from her to Bartley in her daze, Marcia added,
simply, " We 're engaged, mother. You may as well
know it first as last, and I guess you better know it
first."

Her mother appeared not to think it safe to relax
her hold upon the door, and Bartley went filially to
her rescue — if it was rescue to salute her blush-

A MODERN mSTANCB. 47

ng defencelessness as he did. A confused sense of
ihe extraordinary nature and possible impropriety of
ihe proceeding may have suggested her husband to
ler mind ; or it may have been a feeling that some
remark was expected of her, even in the mental desti-
tution to which she was reduced.

" Have you told Mr. Gaylord about it ? " she asked,
rf either, or neither, or both, as they chose to take it.

Bartley left the word to Marcia, who answered,
' Well, no, mother. We have n't yet. We Ve only
just found it out ourselves. I guess father can wait
:ill he comes in to dinner. I intend to keep Bartley
aere to prove it.''

" He said," remarked Mrs. Gaylord, whom Bartley
iad led to her chair and placed on her cushion, " 't he
aad a headache when he first came in," and she
ippealed to him for corroboration, while she vainly
endeavored to gather force to grapple again with the
arger fact that he and Marcia were just engaged to
DC married.

Marcia stooped down, and pulled her mother up
)ut of her chair with a hug. " Oh, come now, mother i
Sfou must n't let it take your breath away," she said,
mth patronizing fondness. " I 'm not afraid of what
father will say. You know what he thinks of Bartley,
— or Mr. Hubbard, as I presume you 11 want me to
3all him ! Now, mother, you just run up stairs, and
put on your best cap, and leave me to set the table
md get up the dinner. I guess I can get Bartley to
belp me. Mother, mother, mother!" she cried, in
liappiness that was otherwise unutterable, and clasp-
ing her mother closer in her strong young arms, she
kissed her with a fervor that made her blush again
before the young man.

" Marcia, Marcia ! You had n*t ought to ! It '3
ridiculous ! " she protested. But she suffered herself
to be thrust out of the room, grateful for exile, in

48 A MODERN INSTANCE.

which she could collect her scattered wits and set
lierself to realize the fact that had dispersed them. It
was decorous, also, for her to leave Marcia alone with
Mr. Hubbard, far more so now than when he was
merely company ; she felt that, and she fumbled over
the dressing she was sent about, and once she looked
out of her chamber window at the office where Mr.
Gaylord sat, and wondered what Mr. Gaylord (she
thought of him, and even dreamt of him, as Mr. Gay-
lord, and had never, in the most familiar moments,
addressed him otherwise) would say ! But she left
the solution of the problem to him and Marcia ; she
was used to leaving them to the settlement of their
own difficulties.

"Now, Bartley," said Marcia, in the business-like
way that women assume in such matters, as soon as
the great fact is no longer in doubt, " you must help
me to set the table. Put up that leaf and 1 11 put up
this. I 'm going to do more for mother than I used
to," she said, repentant in her bliss. "It's a sliame
how much I Ve left to her." The domestic instinct
was already astir in her heart.

Bartley pulled the table-cloth straight from her,
and vied with her in the rapidity and exactness with
which he arranged the knives and forks at right
angles beside the plates. When it came to some
heavier dishes, they agreed to carry them turn about ;
but when it was her turn, he put out his liand to
support her elbow : " As I did last night, and saved
you from dropping a lamp."

This made her laugh, and she dropped the first dish
with a crash. " Poor mother ! " she exclaimed. " I
know she heard that, and she 'U be in agony to know
which one it is."

Mrs. Gaylord did indeed hear it, far off in her
chamber, and quaked with an anxiety which became
intolerable at last.

A MODERN INSTANCE. 49

" Marcia ! Marcia ! " she quavered, down the stairs,
" what have you broken ? "

Marcia opened the door long enough to call back,
"Oh, only the old blue-edged platter, mother ! " and
then she flew at Bartley, crying, " For shame ! For
shame ! " and pressing her hand over his mouth to
stifle his laughter. "She'll hear you, Bartley, and
think you 're laughing at her." But she laughed her-
self at his struggles, and ended by taking him by the
hand and pulling him out into the kitchen, where
neither of them could be heard. She abandoned her-
self to the ecstasy of her soul, and he thought she
had never been so charming as in this wild gayety. ■>

" Why, Marsh ! I never saw you carry on so be-
fore ! "

" You never saw me engaged before ! That 's the
way all girls act — if they get the chance. Don't you
hke me to be so? " she asked, with quick anxiety.

" Eather ! " he replied.

" Oh, Bartley ! " she exclaimed, " I feel like a child.
I surprise myself as much as I do you ; for I thought
I had got very old, and I did n't suppose I should ever
let myself go in this way. But there is something
about this that lets me be as silly as I like. It's
somehow as if I were a great deal more alone Yhen
I 'm with you than when I 'm by myself ! How does
it make you feel ? "

" Good ! " he answered, and that satisfied her better
than if he had entered into those subtleties which she
bad tried to express : it was more like a man. He
had his arm about her again, and she put down her
hand on his to press it closer against her heart.

"Of course," she explained, recurring to his sur-
prise at her frolic mood, " I don't expect you to be
Ailly because I am."

" No," he assented ; " but how can I help it ? "

**0h, I don't mean for the time being ; I mean gen-

60 A MODERN IKSTANCE.

erally speaking. I mean that I care for you because
I know you know a great deal more than I do, and
because I respect you. I know that everybody ex-
pects you to be something gi*eat, and I do, too."

Bartley did not deny the justness of her opinions
concerning himself, or the reasonableness of the gen-
eral expectation, though he probably could not see the
relation of these cold abstractions to the pleasure of
sitting there with a pretty girl in that way. But he
said nothing.

"Do you know," she went on, turning her face
prettily around toward him, but holding it a little
way off, to secure attention as impersonal as might be
under the circumstances, "what pleased me more
than anything else you ever said to me ? "

" No," answered Bartley. " Something you got out
of me when you were trying to make me tell you the
difference between you and the other Equity girls ? "

She laughed, in glad defiance of her own conscious-
ness. " Well, I was trying to make you compliment
me ; I 'm not going to deny it.. But I must say I got
my come-uppance : you did n*t say a thing T cared for.
But you did afterward. Don't you remember ? "

" No. When ? "

She hesitated a moment. "When you told me
that my influence had — had — made you better, you
know — "

" Oh ! " said Bartley. " That 1 Well," he added,
carelessly, " it 's every word true. Did n*t you be-
lieve it ? "

" I was just as glad as if I did ; and it made me re-
solve never to do or say a thing that could lower your
opinion of me ; and then, you know, there at the door
— it all seemed part of our trying to make each other
better. But when father looked at me in that way,
and asked me if we were engaged, I went down into
the dust with shame. And it seemed to me that

A MODERN INSTANCE. 51

you had just been laughing at me, and amusing your-
self with me, and I was so furious I did n*t know
what to do. Do you know what I wanted to do ?
I wanted to run downstairs to father, and tell him
what you had said, and ask him if he believed you
had ever liked any other girl." She paused a little,
but he did not answer, and she continued. " But now
I 'm glad I did n't. And I shall never ask you that,
and I shall not care for anything that you — that 's
happened before to-day. It *s all right. And you do
think I shall always try to make you good and ha,ppy,
don't you ? "

"I don't think you can make me much happier
than I am at present, and I don't believe anybody
could make me feel better," answered Bartley.

She gave a little laugh at his refusal to be serious,
and let her head, for fondness, fall upon his shoulder,
while he turned roimd and round a ring he found on
her finger.

*' Ah, ha ! " he said, after a while. " Who gave you
this ring. Miss Gaylord ? "

" Father, Christmas before last," she promptly an-
swered, without moving. " I 'm glad you asked," she
murmured, in a lower voice, full of pride in the
maiden love she could give him. "There's never
been any one but you, or the thought of any one."
She suddenly started away.

"Now, let's play we're getting dinner." It was
quite time ; in the next moment the coffee boiled up,
and if she had not caught the lid off and stirred it'
down with her spoon, it would have been spoiled.
The steam ascended to the ceiling, and filled the
kitchen with the fragrant smell of the berry.

" I *m glad we 're going to have coffee," she said.
" You 'U have to put up with a cold dinner, except
potatoes. But the coffee will make up, and I shall
need a cup to keep me awake. I don't believe X

52 A MODERN INSTANCE.

slept last night till nearly morning. Do you like
coffee ? "

" I 'd have given all I ever expect to be worth for
a cup of it, last night," he said. "I was awfully
hungry when I got back to the hotel, and I could n't
find anything but a piece of mince-pie and some old
cheese, and I had to be content with cold milk. I
felt as if I had lost all my friends this morning
when I woke up."

A sense of remembered grievance trembled in his
voice, and made her drop her head on his arm, in pity
and derision of him. " Poor Bartley ! " she cried.
** And you came up here for a little petting from me,
did n't you ? I Ve noticed that in you ! Well, you
did n*t get it, did you ? "

^* Well, not at first," he said. X,

" Yes, you can't complain of any want of petting
at last," she returned, delighted at his indirect recog-
nition of the difference. Then the daring, the arch-
ness, and caprice that make coquetry in some women,
and lurk a divine possibility in all, came out in her ;
the sweetness, kept back by the whole strength of
her pride, overflowed that broken barrier now, and
she seemed to lavish this revelation of herself upon
him with a sort of tender joy in his bewilderment.
She was not hurt when he crudely expressed the elu-
sive sense which has been in other men's minds at
such times : they cannot believe that this fascination
is inspired, and not pracitised.

" Well," he said, " I 'm glad you told me that I was
the first. I should have thought you 'd had a good
deal of experience in flirtation."

" You would n't have thought so if you had n't
been a great flirt yourself," she answered, auda-
ciously. "Perhaps I have been engaged before!"

Their talk was for the most part frivolous, and their
thoughts ephemeral j but again they were, with her

A MODERN INSTANCE. 53

at least, suddenly and deeply serious. Till then all
things seemed to. have been held in arrest, and im-
pressions, ideas, feelings, fears, desires, released them-
selves simultaneously, and sought expression with a
rush that defied coherence. " Oh, why do we try to
talk ? " she asked, at last. " The more we say, the
more we leave unsaid. Let us keep still awhile!"
But she could not. " Bartley ! When did you first
think you cared about me ? "

" I don't know," said Bartley, " I guess it must have
been the fii'st time I saw you."

" Yes, that is when I first knew that I cared for
you. But it seems to me that I must have always
cared for you, and that I only found it out when I saw
you going by the house that day." She mused a little
time before she asked again, " Bartley ! "

"WeU?"

" Did you ever use to be afraid — Or, no ! Wait !
I '11 tell you first, and then I '11 ask you. I 'm not
ashamed of it now, though once I thought I could n't
bear to have any one find it out. I used to be aw-
fully afraid you did n't care for me ! I would try to
make out, from things you did and said, whether you
did or not; but I never could be certain. 1 believe I
used to find the most comfort in discouraging myself.
I used to say to myself, ' Why, of course he does n't !
How can he ? He 's been everywhere, and he 's seen
so many girls. He corresponds with lots of them.
Altogether likely he 's engaged to some of the young
ladies he 's met in Boston ; and he just goes with mei
here for a blind.' And then when you would praise
me, sometimes, I would just say, ' Oh, he 's compli-
mented plenty of girls. I know he 's thinking this
instant of the young lady he 's engaged to in Boston/
And it would almost kill me ; and when you did
some little thing to show that you liked me, I would
think, * He does n't like me ! He hates, he despises

54 A MODERN INSTANCE.

me. He does, he does, he does ! ' And I would go
on that way, with my teeth shut, and my breath held,
I don't know Jiow long." Bartley broke out into a
broad laugh at this image of desperation, but she
added, tenderly, " I hope I never made you suffer in
that way ? "

" What way ? " he asked.

"That's what I wanted you to tell me. Did you
ever — did you use to be afraid sometimes that I —
that you — did you put off telling me that you cared
for me so long because you thought, you dreaded —
Oh, I don't see what I can ever do to make it up to
you if you did ! Were you afraid I did n't care for
you ? " '

" No ! " shouted Bartley. She had risen and stood
before him in the fervor of her entreaty, and he seized
her arms, pinioning them to her side, and holding her
helpless, while he laughed, and laughed again. " I
knew you were dead in love with me from the first
' moment."

" Bartley ! Bartley Hubbard ! " she exclaimed ;
*' let me go, — let me go, this instant ! I never heaid
of such a shameless thing ! "

But she really made no effort to escape.

A MODEBN INSTANOB. 5S

The house seemed too little for Marcia's happiness,
and after dinner she did not let Bartley forget his last
night's engagement. She sent him off to get his horse
at the hotel, and ran up to her room to put on her
wraps for the drive. Her mother cleared away the
dinner things ; she pushed the tahle to the side of the
room, and then sat down in her feather-cushioned
chair and waited her husband's pleasure to speak.
He ordinarily rose from the Sunday dinner and went
back to his office ; to-day he had taken a chair before
the stove. But he had mechanically put his hat on,
and he wore it pushed off his forehead as he tilted
his chair back on its hind legs, and braced himself
against the hearth of the stove with his feet.

A man is master in his own house generally
through the exercise of a certain degree of brutality,
but Squire Gaylord maintained his predominance by
an enlightened absenteeism. No man living always
at home was ever so little under his own roof. While
he was in more active business life, he had kept an .
office in the heatrt of the village, where he spent all
his days, and a great part of every night ; but after
he had become rich enough to risk whatever loss of
business the change might involve, he bought this
large old square house on the border of the village,
and thenceforth made his home in the little detached
office.

If Mrs. Gaylord had dimly imagined that she
should see something more of him, having him so near

56 A MODERN INSTANCK

at hand, she really saw less : there was no weather,
by day or night, in which he could not go to his office,
now. He went no more than his wife into the village
society ; she might have been glad now and then of a
little glimpse of the world, but she never said so, and
her social life had ceased, like her religious life. Their
house was richly furnished according to the local
taste of the time ; the parlor had a Brussels carpet,
^.and heavy chairs of mahogany and hair-cloth; Marcia
had a piano there, and since she had come home from
school they had made company, as Mrs. Gaylord
called it, two or three times for her ; but they had
held aloof from the festivity, the Squire in his office,
and Mrs. Gaylord in the family room where they now
sat in unwonted companionship.

*' Well, Mr. Gaylord," said his wife, " I don*t know
as you can say but what Marcia 's suited well
enough."

This was the first allusion they had made to the.
subject, but she let it take the argumentative form of
her cogitations.

" M-yes," sighed the Squire, in long, nasal assent,
"most too well, if anything." He rasped first one
unshaven cheek and then the other, with his thin,
quivering hand.

" He *s smart enough," said Mrs. Gaylord, as be-
fore.

" M-yes, most too smart," replied her husband, a
little more quickly than before. " He 's smart enough,
even if she was n't, to see from the start that she was
crazy to have him, and that is n't the best way to
begin life for a married couple, if I 'm a judge."

" It would killed her if she had n't got him. I could
see 't was wearin' on her every day, more and more.
She used to fairly jump, every knock she 'd hear at
the door ; and I know sometimes, when she was afraid
he wa' n't coming, she used to go out, in hopes 't she

A MODERN INSTANCE. 57

sh'd meet him : I don't suppose she allowed to herself
that she did it for that — Marcia 's proud."

" M-yes," said the Squire, " she *s proud. And
when a proud girl makes a fool of herself about a
fellow, it *s a matter of life and death with her. She
can't help herself. She lets go eveiything."

" I declare," Mrs. Gaylord went on, " it worked me
up considerable to have her come in some those times,
and see by her face 't she *d seen him with some the
other girls. She used to look so ! And then I 'd hear
her up in her room, cryin' and cryin*. I should n't
cared so much, if Marcia 'd been like any other girl,
kind of flirty, like, about it. But she wa'n't. She
was just bowed down before her idol."

A final assent came from the Squire, as if wrung
out of his heart, and he rose from his chair, and then
sat down again. Marcia was his child, and he loved
her with his whole soul. " M-well 1 " he deeply
sighed, " all that part 's oVer, anyway," but lie tingled
in an anguish of sympathy with what she had suffered. '
" You see, Miranda, how she looked at me when she
first came in with him, — so proud and independ-
ent, poor girl ! and yet as if she was afraid I might rCt
Uke it ? "

" Yes, I see it"

He pulled his hat far down over his cavernous eyes,
aud worked his thin, rusty old jaws.

" I hope 't she *11 be able to school herself, so 's t' not
show out her feelings so much," said Mrs. Gaylord.

" I wish she could school herself so as to not have
'em so much ; but I guess she 11 have 'em, and I
guess she 11 show 'em out." They were both silent ;
after a while he added, throwing at the stove a minute
fragment of the cane he had pulled off the seat of his
chair : *' Miranda, I Ve expected something of this
sort a good while, and I 've thought over what Bart-

T had better do/'

58 A MODERN INSTANCE.

Mrs. Gaylord stooped forward and picked up the
bit of wood which her husband had thrown down;
her vigilance was rewarded by finding a thread on the
oil-cloth near where it lay ; she whipped this round
her finger, and her husband continued : " He 'd better
give up his paper and go into the law. He 's done
well in the paper, and he 's a smart writer ; but edit-
ing a newspaper aint any work for a man. It 's all
well enough as long as he 's single, but when he 's got
a wife to look after, he *d better get down to work.
My business is in just such a shape now that I could
hand it over to him in a lump ; but come to wait a
year or two longer, and this young man and that one 11
eat into it, and it won't be the same thing at all.
I shall want Baitley to push right along, and get ad-
mitted at once. He can do it, fast enough. He 's
bright enough," added the old man, with a certain
grimness. " M-well ! " he broke out, with a quick
sigh, after a moment of musing ; " it has n*t happened
at any very bad time. I was just thinking, this
morning, that I should like to have my whole time,
pretty soon, to look after my property. I sha'n't want
Bartley to do that for me. I *11 give him a good start in
money and in business ; but I '11 look after my prop-
erty myself. I *11 speak to him, the first chance I get."

A light step sounded on the stairs, and Marcia
burst into the room, ready for her drive. " I wanted
to get a good warm before I started," she explained,
stooping before the stove, and supporting herself with
one hand on her father's knee. There had been no
formal congratulations upon her engagement from
either of her parents ; but this was not requisite, and
would have been a little affected ; they were perhaps
now ashamed to mention it outright before her alone.
The Squire, however, went so far as to put his hand
over the hand she had laid upon his knee, and to
smooth it twice or thrice.

A MODERN INSTANCE. 59

" You going to ride after that sorrel colt of Bart-
ley's ? " he asked.

" Of course I " she answered, with playful pertness.
" I guess Baitley can manage the sorrel colt ! He *s
never had any trouble yet."

" He 's always been able to give his whole mind to
him before," said the Squire. He gave Marcia's hand
a significant squeeze, and let it go.

She would not confess her consciousness of his
meaning at once. She looked up at the clock, and
then turned and pulled her father's watch out of his
waistcoat pocket, and compared the time. "Why,
you 're both fast ! "

" Perhaps Bartley 's slow," said the Squire ; and
having gone as far as he intended in this direction,
he permitted himself a low chuckle.

The sleigh-bells jing'ed without, and she sprang
lightly to her feet. " I guess you don't think Bart-
ley 's slow," she exclaimed, and hung over her father
long enough to rub her lips against his bristly cheek.
** By, mother," she said, over her shoulder, and went
out of the room. She let her muff hang as far down
in front of her as her arms would reach, in a stylish
way, and moved with a little rhythmical tilt, as if to
some inner music. Even in her furs she was elegantly
slender in shape.

The old people remained silent and motionless till
the clash of the bells died away. Then the Squire
rose, and went to the wood-shed beyond the kitchen,
whence he reappeared with an armful of wood. His
wife started at the sight. " Mr. Gay lord, what be you
doin' ? "

" Oh, I 'm going to make *em up a little fire in the

(^parlor stove. I guess they won't want us round a

I great; deal, when they come back."

^ Mrs. Gaylord said, " Well, I never did ! " When

her husband returned from the parlor, she added, " I

60 A MODERN INSTANCE.

suppose some folks 'd s«y it was rather of a strange
way ot spendin' the Sabbath."

" It 's a very good way of spending the Sabbath.
You don't suppose that any of the people in church
are half as happy, do you ? Why, old Jonathan Ed-
wards himself used to allow * all proper opportunity '
for the young fellows that come to see his girls, ' and
a room and lire, if needed.* His ' Life * says so."

" I guess lie did n't allow it on the Sabbath," re-
torted Mrs. Gaylord.

" Well, the ' Life ' don't say," chuckled the Squire.
" Why, Miranda, I do it for Marcia ! There *8 never
but one first day to an engagement. You know that
as well as I do." In saying this, Squire Gaylord gave
way to his repressed emotion in an extravagance.
* He suddenly stooped over and kissed his wife ; but
he spared her confusion by going out to his office at
once, where he stayed the whole afternoon.

Bartley and Marcia took the " Long Drive," as it
was called, at Equity. The road plunged into the
darkly wooded gulch beyond the house, and then
struck away eastward, crossing loop after loop of the
river on the covered bridges, where the neighbors,
who had broken it out with their ox-teams in the
open, .had thickly bedded it in snow. In the valleys
and sheltered spots it remained free, and so wide that
encountering teams could easily pass each other ; but
where it climbed a hill, or crossed a treeless level, it
was narrowed to a single track, with turn-outs at es-
tablished points, where the drivers of the sleighs
waited to be sure that the stretch beyond was clear
before going forward. In the country, the winter
which held the village in such close siege was an
occupation under which Nature seemed to cower help-
less, and men made a desperate and ineffectual
struggle. The houses, banked up with snow almost
to the sills of the windows that looked out, blind with

A MODERN INSTANCE. 61

frost, upon tlie lifeless world, were dwarfed in the
drifts, and seemed to founder in a white sea blotched
with strange bluish shadows under the slanting sun»
Where they fronted close upon the road, it was evi-
dent that the fight with the snow was kept up un-
relentingly ; spaces were shovelled out, and paths were
kept open to the middle of the highway, and to the
barn ; but where they were somewhat removed, there
was no visible trace of the contiict, and no sign of life
except the faint, wreathed lines of smoke wavering
upward from the chimneys.

In the hollows through which the road passed, the
lower boughs of the pines and hemlocks were weighed
down with the snow-fall till they lay half submerged
in the drifts ; but wherever the wind could strike
them, they swung free of this load and met in low,
flat arches above the track. The river betrayed itself
only when the swift current of a ripple broke through
the white surface in long, irregular, grayish blurs. It
was all wild and lonesome, but to the girl alone in it
with her lover, the solitude was sweet, and she did
not wish to speak even to him. His hands were both
busy with the reins, but it was agreed between them
that she might lock hers through his arm. Cowering
close to him under the robes, she laid her head on his
shoulder and looked out over the flying landscape in
measureless content, and smiled, with filling eyes,
when he bent over, and warmed his cold red cheek
on the top of her fur cap. /

(The moments of bliss that silence a woman rouse ^
a man to make sure of his rapture>) " How do you
like it. Marsh ? " he asked, trying at one of these times
to peer round into her face. " Are you afraid ? "
** No, — only of getting back too soon. " -
He made the shivering echoes answer with his
delight in jhis, and cHifruped to the colt, who pushed
fbiwaSriita wilder speed, flinging his hoofs out

62 A MODERN INSTANCE.

before him with the straight thrust of the born trotter,
and seeming to overtake them as they flew. *' I
should like this ride to last forever ! "

" Forever ! " she repeated. " That would do for a
beginning. "

" Marsh ! What a girl you are ! I never supposed
you would beso^ee to let a fellow know^ow_much
you^imred^feafES:^ "^ •

"Neither did I," she answered dreamily. "But
now — now the only trouble is that I don't know
how to let him know." . She gave his arm to which
she clung a little convulsive clutch, and pressed her
head harder upon his shoulder.

"Well, that's pretty much my complaint, too," said
Bartley^ " though I could n't have expressed it so well."

" Oh, you express ! " she murmured, with the pride
in him which implied that there were no thoughts
worth expressing to which he could not give a monu-
mental utterance. Her adoration flattered his self-
love to the same passionate intensity, and to some-
thing like the generous complexion of her worship.

" Marcia," he answered, " I am going to try to be
all you expect of me. And I hope I shall never do
anything unworthy of your ideal."

She could only press his arm again in speechless
joy, but she said to herself that she should always
remember these words.

The wind had been rising ever since they started,
but they had not noticed it till now, when the woods
began to thin away on either side, and he stopped
before striking out over one of the naked stretches
of the plain, — a white waste swept by the blasts
that sucked down through a gorge of the mountain,
and flattened the snow-drifts as the tornado flattens
the waves. Across this expanse ran the road, its stiff
lines obliterated here and there, in the slight depres-
sions, and showing dark along die rest of the track

A MODERN INSTANCE. 63

It was a good half-mile to the next body of woods,
and midway there was one of those sidings where a
sleigh approaching from the other quarter must turn
out and yield the right of way. Bartley stopped his
colt, and scanned the road.

" Anybody coming ? " as^ked Marcia.

" No, I don't see any one. But if there 's any one
in the woods yonder, they 'd better wait till I get
across. No horse in Equity can beat this colt to the
turn-out."

"Oh, well, look carefully, Bartley. If we met
any one beyond the turn-out, I don 't know what I
should do," pleaded the girl.

" I don't know what they would do," said Bartley.
" But it 's their lookout now, if they come. Wrap
your face up well, or put your head under the robe.
I Ve got to hold my breath the next half-mile." He
loosed the reins, and sped the colt out of the shel-
ter where he had halted. The wind struck them like
an edge of steel, and, catching the powdery snow that
their horse's hoofs beat up, sent it spinning and swirl-
ing far along the glistening levels on their lea They
felt the thrill of the go as if they were in some light
boat leaping over a swift current. Marcia disdained
to cover her face, if he must confront the wind, but
after a few gasps she was glad to bend forward, and
bury it in the long hair of the bearskin robe. When
she lifted it, they were already past the siding, and
she saw a cutter dashing toward them from the
cover of the woods. " Bartley ! ' she screamed, " the
sleigh 1 "

" Yes," he shouted. " Some fool ! There 's going to
be trouble here," he added, checking his horse as he
could. " They don't seem to know how to manage —
It 's a couple of women 1 Hold on ! hold on ! " ho
called. " Don't try to turn out ! I '11 turn out ! "

The women pulled their horse's head this way and

64 A MODERN INSTANCE.

that, in apparent confusion, and then beg?in to turn
out into the trackless snow at the roadside, in spite
of Bartley*s frantic efforts to arrest them. They sank
deeper and deeper into the drift ; their horse plunged
and struggled, and then their cutter went over, amidst
their shrieks and cries for help.

Bartley drove up abreast of the wreck, and, saying,
" Still, Jerry ! Don't be afraid, Marcia," — he put the
reins into her hands, and sprang out to the rescue.

One of the women had been flung out free of the
sleigh, and had already gathered herself up, and stood
crying and wringing her hands : " Oh, Mr. Hubbard,
Mr. Hubbard ! Help Hannah ! she *s under there !"

" All right ! Keep quiet, Mrs. Morrison ! Take hold
of your horse's head ! " Bartley had first of all seized
him by the bit, and pulled him to his feet ; he was
old and experienced in obedience, and he now stood
waiting orders, patiently enough. Bartley seized the
cutter and by an effort of all his strength righted it.
The colt started and trembled, but Marcia called
to him in Bartley's tone, "Still, Jerry!" and he
obeyed her.

The girl, who had been caught under the over-
turned cutter, escaped like a wild thing out of a trap,
when it was lifted, and, plunging some paces away,
faced round upon her rescuer with the hood pulled
straight and set comely to her face again, almost
before he could ask, " Any bones broken, Hannah ? "

" iVo .'" she shouted. " Mother ! mother ! stop cry-
ing ! Don't you see I 'm not dead ? " She leaped
about, catching up this wrap and that, shaking the
dry snow out of them, and flinging them back into
the cutter, while she laughed in the wild tumult of
her spirits. Bartley helped her pick up the frag-
ments of the wreck, and joined her in making fun of
the adventure. The wind hustled them, but they
were warm in defiance of it with their jollity and
their bustle.

A MODERN INSTANCE. 65

"Why did n't you let me turn out?" demanded
Bartley, as he and the girl stood on opposite sides of
the cutter, rearranging the robes in it.

" Oh, I thought I could turn out well enough. You
had a right to the road." ^

" Well, the next time you see any one past the
turn-out, you better not start from the woods."

" Why, there 's no more room in the woods to get
past than there is here," cried the girl.

" There 's more shelter."

" Oh, I 'm not cold 1 " She flashed a look at him
from her brilliant face, warm with all the glow of her
young health, and laughed, and before she dropped
her eyes, she included Marcia in her glance. They
had already looked at each other without any sign of
recognition. " Come, mother ! All right, now ! "

Her mother left the horse's head, and, heavily
ploughing back to the cutter, tumbled herself in. The
girl, from her side, began to climb in, but her weight
made the sleigh careen, and she dropped down with
a gay shriek.

Bg-rtley came round and lifted her in ; the girl
called to her horse, and drove up into the road and
away.

Bartley looked after her a moment, and continued

to glance in that direction when he stood stamping

the snow off his feet, and brushing it from his legs

and arms, before he remounted to Marcia's side. He

was excited, and talked rapidly and loudly, as he took

the reins from Marcia's passive hold, and let the colt

out. " That girl is the pluckiest fool, yet ! Would n*t /

let me turn out because I had the right of way.'^

And she wasn't going to let anybody else have a

hand in getting that old ark of theirs afloat acjain.

Good their horse wasn't anything like Jerry ! How

well Jerry behaved ! Were you frightened. Marsh ? "

He bent over to see her face, but she had not her

66 A M6DERN INSTANCE.

head on his shoulder, and she did not sit close to
him, now. " Did you freeze ? '*

" Oh, no ! I got along very well," she answered,
'\ryly, and edged away as far as the width of the seat
,^ould permit. " It would have been better for you
to lead their horse up into the road, and then she
could have got in without your help. Her' mother
got in alone."

He took the reins into his left hand, and, passing
his strong right around her, pulled her up to his
side. She resisted, with diminishing force; at last
she ceased to resist, and her head fell passively to
its former place on his shoulder. He did not try to
speak any word of comfort ; he only held her close
to him ; when she looked up, as they entered the vil-
lage, she confronted him with a brilliant smile that
ignored her tears.

But that night, when she followed him to the door,
she looked him searchingly in the eyes. " I wonder
if you really do despise me, Bartley ? " she asked.

"Certainly," he answered, with a jesting smile.
"Wbatfor?"

j^"For showing out my feelings ^o. For not even
bying to pretend not to care everything for you."

" It would n't be any use your trying : I should
know that you did, anyway."

" Oh, don't laugh, Bartley, don't laugh ! I don't
believe that I ought to. I've heard that it makes
people sick of you. But I can't help it, — I can't help
it! And if — if you think I'm always going to be
so, — and that I 'm going to keep on getting worse
and worse, and making you so unhappy, why, you 'd
better break your engagement now — while you have
a chance."

" What have you been making me unhappy about, I
should like to know ? I thought I 'd been having a
very good time."

A MODERN INSTANCE. 67

She hid her face against his breast. ''It almost
hUled me to see you there with her. I was so cold,
— my hands were half frozen, holding the reins, —
and I was so afraid of the colt I did n*t know what to
do ; and* I had been keeping up my courage on your
account ; and you seemed so long about it all ; and
she could have got in perfectly well — as well as her
mother did — without your help — " Her voice
broke in a miserable sob, and she clutched herself
tighter to him.

He smoothed down her hair with his hand. " Why,
Marsh ! Did you think that made me unhappy ?
/ did n't mind it a bit. I knew what the trouble
was, at the time ; but I was n't going to say anything.
I knew you would be all right as soon as you could
think it over. You don't suppose I care anything
for that girl ? "

"No," answered a rueful sob. "But I wish you
didn't have anything to do with her. I know she'll
make trouble for you, somehow."

" Well,'* said Bartley, " I can't very well turn her
off as long as she does her work. But you need n't
be worried about making me unhappy. If anything,
I rather liked it. It showed how much you did care
for me." He bent toward her, with a look of bright
raillery, for the parting kiss. "Now then: once,
twice, three times, — and good msht it is ! "

68 A MODERN INSTANCE.

VI.

/ The spectacle of a love affair in which the woman
gives more of her heart than the man gives of his is
so pitiable that we are apt to attribute a kind of
merit to her, as if it were a voluntary self-sacrifice
for her to love more than her share. Not only other
men, but other women, look on with this canonizing
compassion ; for women have a lively power of im-
agining themselves in the place of any sister who
suffers in matters of sentiment, and are eager to
espouse the common cause in commiserating her.
Each of them pictures herself similarly wronged or
slighted by the man she likes best, and feels how
cruel it would be if he were to care less for her than
she for hira ; and for the time being, in order to real-
ize the situation, she loads him with all the sins of
omission proper to the culprit in the alien casa

iBut possibly there is a compensation in merely lov-
ing, even where the love given is out of all propor-
tion to the love receivedj

If Bartley Hubbard's sensations and impressions of
the day had been at all reasoned, that night as he lay
thinking it over, he could unquestionably have seen
many advantages for Marcia in the affair, — perhaps
more than for himself But to do him justice he did
not formulate these now, or in any wise explicitly
recognize the favors he was bestowing. At twenty-
six one does not naturally compute them in nmsinji;
upon the girl to whom one is just betrothed ; and
Bartley's mind was a confusion of pleasure. He liked

A MODERN INSTANCE. 6^

SO well to think how fond of him Marcia was, that it
did not occur to him then to question whether he
were as fond of her. It is possible tliat as he drowsed,
at last, there floated airily through the consciousness
which was melting and dispersing itself before the
approach of sleep, an intimation from somewhere to
some one that perhaps the affair need not be consid-
ered too seriously. But in that mysterious limbo
one cannot be sure of what is thought and what is
dreamed ; and Bartley always acquitted himself, and
probably with justice, of any want of seriousness.

What he did make sure of when he woke was that
he was still out of sorts, and that he had again that
dull headache ; and his instant longing for sympatliy
did more than anything else to convince him that he
really loveci Marcia, and had never, in his obscurest
or remotest feeling, swerved in his fealty to her. In
the atmosphere of her devotion yesterday, he had so
wholly foi-gotten his sufferings that he had imagined
himself well ; but now he found that he was not well,
and he began to believe that he was going to have
what the country people call a fit of sickness. He
felt that he ought to be taken care of, that he was unfit
to work ; and in his vexation at not being able to go
to Marcia for comfort — it really amounted to nothing
less — he entered upon the day's affairs with fretful
impatience.

The Free Press was published on Tuesdays, and
Monday was always a busy time of preparation. The
hands were apt also to feel the demoralization that
follows a holiday, even when it has been a holy day.
The girls who set the type of the Free Press had
by no means foregone the rights and privileges of
their sex in espousing their art, and they had their
beaux on Sunday night like other young ladies. It
resulted that on Monday morning they were nervous
and impatient, alternating between fits of giggling

f 0 A MODERN INSTANCE.

delight in the interchange of fond reminiscences, and
the crossness which is pretty sure to disfigure human
behavior from want of sleep. But ordinarily Bartley
got on very well with them. In spite of the assump-
tion of equality between all classes in Equity, they
stood in secret awe of his personal splendor, and the
tradition of his achievements at college and in the
great world ; and a flattering joke or a sharp sarcasm
from him went a great way with them. Besides, he
had an efficient lieutenant in Henry Bird, the young
printor who had picked up his trade in the office, and
who acted as Bartley's foreman, so far as the estab-
lishment had an organization. Bird had industry
and discipline which were contagious, and that love
\ of his work which is said to be growing mre among
artisans in the modem subdivision of trades. This
boy — for he was only nineteen — worked at his craft
early and late out of pleasure in it. He seemed one
of those simple, subordinate natures which are happy
in looking up to whatever assumes to be above them.
He exulted to serve in a world where most people
prefer to be served, and it is uncertain whether he
liked his work better for its own sake, or Bartley 's,
for whom he did it. He was slight and rather delicate
in health, and it came natural for Bartley to patronize
him. He took him on the long walks of which he
was fond, and made him in some sort his humble con-
fidant, talking to him of himself and his plans with
large and braggart vagueness. He depended upon
Bird in a great many things, and Bird never failed
him : for he had a basis of constancv that was im-
movable. "No," said a philosopher from a neigh-
boring logging-camp, who used to hang about the
printing-office a long time after he had got his paper,
** there aint a great deal of natural git up and howl
about Henry ; but he stays put" In the confidences
which Bartley used to make Bird, he promised that^

A MODEBN INSTANCE. 71

when he left the newspaper for the law, he would seo
that no one else succeeded him. The young fellow
did not need this promise to make him Bartley's fast
friend, but it colored his affection with ambitious en-
thusiasm ; to edit and publish a newspaper, — hi?
dreams did not go beyond that : to devote it to Bart-
ley's interest in the political life on which Bartley
often hinted he might enter, — that would be the
sweetest privilege of realized success. Bird already
wrote paragraphs for the Free Press, and Bartley let
him make up a column of news from the city ex-
changes, which was partly written and partly se-
lected.

Bartley came to the office rather late on Monday
morning, bringing with him the papers from Satur-
day night's mail, which had lain unopened over Sun-
day, and went directly into his own room, without
looking into the printing-office. He felt feverish and
irritable, and he resolved to fill up with selections and
let his editorial paragraphing go, or get Bird to do
it He was tired of the work, and sick of Equity;
Marcia's face seemed to look sadly in upon his
angry discontent, and he no longer wished to go to
her for sympathy. His door opened, and, without
glancing from the newspaper which he held up be-
fore him, he asked, " What is it, Bh'd ? Do you want
copy ? "

"Well, no, Mr. Hubbard," answered Bird, "we have
copy enough for the force we Ve got this morning."

" Why, what 's up ? " demanded Bartley, dropping
his paper.

"Lizzie Sawyer has sent word that she is sick,
and we have n't heard or seen anything of Hannah
Morrison."

" Confound the girls ! " said Bartley, " there *s al-
ways something the matter with them." He rubbed
his hand over bis forehead, as if to rub out the dull

72 A MODERN INSTANCE.

pain there. " Well," he said, " I must go to Work
myself, then. He rose, and took hold of the lapels of
his coat, to pull it off; but something in Bird's look
arrested him. " What is it ? " he asked.

" Old Morrison was here, just before you came in,
and said he wanted to see you. I think he was
drunk," said Bird, anxiously. " He said he was com-
ing back again."

" All right ; let him come," replied Bartley. " This
is a free country, — especially in Equity. I suppose
he wants Hannah's wages raised, as usual. How
much are we behind on the paper, Henry ? "

" We 're not a great deal behind, Mr. Hubbard, if
we were not so weak-handed."

"Perhaps we can get Hannah back, during the
forenoon. At any rate, we can ask her honored
parent when he comes."

Where Morrison got his liquor was a question that
agitated Equity from time to time, and baffled the
officer of the law empowered to see that no strong
drink came into the town. Under conditions which
made it impossible even in the logging-camps, and
rendered the sale of spirits too precarious for the
apothecary, who might be supposed to deal in them
medicinally, Morrison never failed of his spree when
the mysterious mechanism of his appetite enforced it.
Probably it was some form of bedevilled cider that
supplied the material of his debauch ; but even cider
was not easily to be had.

Morrison's spree was a movable feast, and recurred
at irregular intervals of two, or three, or even six
weeks ; but it recurred often enou<;h to keep him poor,
and his family in a social outlawry against which
the kindly instincts of their neiglibors struggled in
vain. Mrs. Morrison was that pariah who, in a vil-
lage like Equity, cuts herself off from hope by tak-
ing in washing ; and it was a decided rise in the

A MODERN mSTANCE. 73

world for Hannah, a wild girl at school, to get a place
in the printing-office. Her father had applied for it
humbly enough at the tremulous and penitent close
of one of his long sprees, and was grateful to Bartley
for taking the special interest in her which she re-
ported at home.

But the independence of a drunken shoemaker is
proverbial, and Morrison's meek spirit soared into
lordly arrogance with his earliest cups. The first
warning which the community had of his change of
attitude was the conspicuous and even defiant closure
of his shop, and the scornful rejection of custom, how-
ever urgent or necessitous. All Equity might go in
broken shoes, for any patching or half-soling the
people got from him. He went about collecting his
small dues, and paying up his debts as long as the
money lasted, in token of his resolution not to take
any favors from any man thereafter. Then he retired
to his house on one of the by streets, and by degrees
drank himself past active offence. It was of course
in his defiant humor that he came to visit Hartley,
who had learned to expect him whenever Hannah
failed to appear promptly at her work. The affair
was always easily arranged. Bartley instantly as-
sented, with whatever irony he liked, to Morrison's
demands; he refused with overwhelming politeness
even to permit him to give himself the trouble to
support them by argument; he complimented Hannah
inordinately as one of the most gifted and accom-
plished ladies of his acquaintance, and inquired affec-
tionately after the health of each member of the Mor-
rison family. When Morrison rose to go he always
said, in shaking hands, ** Well, sir, if there was more
Uke you in Equity a poor man could get along. You 're
a gentleman, sir." After getting some paces away
from the street door, he stumbled back up the stairs
to repeat, " You *re a gentleman ! " Hannah came

74 A MODERN INSTANCE.

during the day, and the wages remained the same :
neither of the contracting parties regarded the in-
crease so elaborately agreed upon, and Morrison, on
becoming sober, gratefully ignored the whole trans-
action, though, by a curious juggle of his brain, he
recurred to it in his next spree, and advanced in his
new demand from the last rise : his daughter was now
nominally in receipt of an income of forty dollars a
week, but actually accepted four.

Bartley, on his part, enjoyed the business as an
agreeable excitement and a welcome relief from the
monotony of his official life. He never hurried Mor-
rison's visits, but amused himself by treating him
with the most flattering distinction, and baffling his
arrogance by immediate concession. But this morn-
ing, when Morrison came back with a front of un-
common fierceness, he merely looked up from his
newspapers, to which he had recurred, and said coolly,
" Oh, Mr. Morrison ! Good morning. I suppose it *s
that little advance that you wish to see me about.
Take a chair. What is the increase you ask .this
time ? Of course I agree to anything."

He leaned forward, pencil in hand, to make a note
of the figure Morrison should name, when the drunk-
ard approached and struck the table in front of him
with his fist, and blazed upon Hartley's face, suddenly
uplifted, with his blue crazy eyes.

" No, sir ! I won't take a seat, and I don't come
on no such business ! No, sir ! " He struck the
table again, and the violence of his blow upset the
inkstand.

Bartley saved himself by suddenly springing away.
" Hollo here ! " he shouted. " What do you mean by
this infernal nonsense ? "

" What do you mean," retorted the drunkard, " by
makin' up to my girl ? "

" You're a fool," cried Bartley, " and drunk I"

A MODERN INSTANCE. 7&

" 1 11 show you whether I 'm a fool, and I '11 show
you whether I *m drunk," said Morrison. He opened
the door and beckoned to Bird, with an air of myste-
rious authority. " Young man ! Come here ! "

Bird was used to the indulgence with which Bart-
ley treated Morrison's tipsy freaks, and supposed that
he had been called by his consent to witness another
agreement to a rise in Hannah's wages. He came
quickly, to help get Morrison out of the way the
sooner, and he was astonished to be met by Bartley
with " I don't want you, Bird."

" All right," answered the boy, and he turned to go
out of the door.

But Morrison had planted himself against it, and
waved Bird austerely back. "/ want you," he said,
with drunken impressiveness, " for a witness — wick
— witness — while I ask Mr. Hubbard what he means
by—"

" Hold your tongue ! " cried Bartley. " Get out of
this !" He advanced a pace or two toward Morrison
who stood his ground without swerving.

" Now you — you keep quiet, Mr. Hubbard," said
Morrison, with a swift drunken change of mood, by
which he passed from arrogant denunciation to a
smooth, patronizing mastery of the situation. "/
wish this thing all settled amic — ic — amelcabilly."

Bartley broke into a helpless laugh at Morrison's
final failure on a word difficult to sober tongues, and
the latter went on : " No 'casion for bad feeling on
either side. All I want know is what you mean."
. " Well, go on ! " cried Bartley, good-naturedly, and
he sat down in his chair, which he tilted back, and,
clasping his hands behind his head, looked up into
Morrison's face. " What do I mean by what ? "

Probably Morrison had not expected to be categori-
cal, or to bring anything like a bill of particulars
against Bartley^ and this demand gave him pausa

76' A MODERN INSTANCE.

"What you mean," he said, at last> "by always
praising her up so ? '*

" What I said. She 's a very good girl, and a very
bright one. You don *t deny that ? "

" No — no matter what I deny. What — what
you lend her all them books for ? "

" To improve her mind. You don*t object to that ?
I thought you once thanked me for taking an interest
in her."

"Don't you mind what I object to, and what I
thank you for," said Morrison, with dignity. "I
know what I *m about."

" I begin to doubt. But get on. I 'm in a great
hurry this morning," said Hartley.

Morrison seemed to be making a mental examina-
tion of his stock of charges, while the strain of keep-
ing his upright position began to tell upon him, and
he swayed to and fro against the door. "What's
that word you sent her by my boy, Sat'day night ? "

"That she was a smart girl, and would be sure
to get on if she was good - — or words to that effect.
I trust there was no offence in that, Mr. Morrison ? "

Morrison surrendered himself to another season of
cogitation, in which he probably found his vagueness
growing upon him. He ended by fumbling in all his
pockets, and bringing up from the last a crumpled
scrap of paper. " What you — what you say that ? "

Bartley took the extended scrap with an easy air.
" Miss Morrison's handwriting, I think." He held it
up before him and read aloud, " * 1 love my love with
an H because he is Handsome.' This appears to be
a confidence of Miss Morrison to her Muse. Whom
do you think she refers to, Mr. Morrison ? "

" What 's — what 's the first letter your name ? "
demanded Morrison, with an effort to collect his dis-
persing severity.

" B," promptly replied Bartley. " Perhaps this con^

A MODERN INSTANCE. 77

cems you, Henry. Your name begins with an H."
He passed the paper up over his head to Bird, who
took it silently. " You see," he continued, addressing
Bird, but looking at Morrison as he spoke, " Mr.
Morrison wishes to convict me of an attempt upon
Miss Hannah's affections. Have you anything else
to urge, Mr. Morrison ? "

Morrison slid at last from his difficult position into
a convenient chair, and struggled to keep himself
from doubling forward. " I want know what you
mean," he said, with dogged iteration.

" I '11 show you what I mean," said Bartley with an
ugly quiet, while his mustache began to twitch. He
sprang to his feet and seized Morrison by the collar,
pulling him up out of the chair till he held him clear
of the floor, and opened the door with his other hand.
" Don't show your face here again, — you or your girl
either!" Still holding the man by the collar, he
pushed him before him through the office, and gave
him a final thust out of the outer door.

Bartley returned to his room in a ^nite neat:
"Miserable tipsy rascal!" he pantea; "I wonder
who has set him on to this thing."

Bird stood pale and silent, still nolding the crum-
pled scrap of paper in his nand.

" I should n't be surprised if that impudent little
witch herself had put him up to it. She 's capable of
it," said Bartley, fumbling aimlessly about on his
table, ir his wrath, without looking at Bird.

"It's -.He!" said Bird.

Bartlej started as if the other had struck him, and
as he glarai at Bird the anger went out of his faco
for pure amazement. "Are you out of your mind,
Henry ? " he asked calmly. " Perhaps you 're drunk
too, this morning. The Devil seems to have got into
pretty much everybody."

** It 's a lie ! " repeated the boy, while the tears

78 A MODERN INSTANCE.

sprang to his eyes. " She 's as good a girl as Marcia
Gaylord is, any day ! "

*' Better go away, Henry," said Bartley, with a
deadly sort of gentleness.

"I*m going away," answered the boy, his face
twisted with weeping. "IVe done my last day's
work for you^ He pulled down his shirt-sleeves,
and buttoned them at the wrists, while the tears ran
out over his face, — helpless tears, the sign of his
womanish tenderness, his womanish weakness.

Bartley continued to glare at him. " Why, I do
believe you're in love with her yourself, you little
fool ! "

" Oh, I Ve leen a fool ! " cried Bird. " A fool to
think as much of you as I always have, — a fool to
believe that you were a gentleman, and would n't
take a mean advantage. I was a fool to suppose you
wanted to do her any good, when you came praising
and flattering her, and turning her head !"

"Well, then," said Bartley with harsli insolence,
" don't be a fool any longer. If you 're in love with
her, you have n't any quarrel with me, my boy. She
flies at higher game than humble newspaper editors.
The head of WiUett's lumbering gang is your man ;
and so you may go and tell that old sot, her father.
W^hy, Henry ! You don't mean to say you care any-
thing for that girl ? "

" And do you mean to say you have n''t done every-
thing you could to turn her head since she 's been
in this office ? She used to like me well enough at
school." All men are blind and jealous children
alike, when it comes to question of a woman between
them, and this poor boy's passion was turning him
into a tiger. "Don't come to me with your lies,
any more ! " Here his rage culminated, aivi with a
blind cry of "Ay!" he struck the paper which he
had kept in his hand into BartJey's face.

A MODERN INSTANCE. 79

The demons, whatever they were, of anger, re-
morse, pride, shame, were at work in Bartley's heart
too, and he returned the blow as instantly as if Bird's
touch had set the mechanism of his arm in motion.
In contempt of the other*s weakness he struck with
the flat of his hand ; but the blow was enough. Bird
fell headlong, and the concussion of his head upon
the floor did the rest He lay senseless.

80 A MODERN INSTANCE.

YII.

Bahtley hung over the boy with such a terror in
his soul as he had never had before. He believed
that he had killed him, and in this conviction came
with the simultaneity of events in dreams the sense
of all his blame, of which the blow given for a blow
seemed the least part. He was not so wrong in that
as he was wrong in what led to it. He did not
abhor in himself so much the wretch who had struck
his brother down as the light and empty fool who
had trifled with that silly hoyden. The follies that
seemed so amusing and resultless in their time had
ripened to this bitter effect, and he knew that he, and
not she, was mainly culpable. Her self-betrayal, how-
ever it came about, was proof that they were more
serious with her than with him, and he could not
plead to himself even the poor excuse that his fancy
had been caught. Amidst the anguish of his self-
condemnation the need to conceal what he had done
occurred to him. He had been holding Bird's head
in his arms, and imploring him, "Henry! Henry!
wake up ! " in a low, husky voice ; but now he turned
to the door and locked it, and the lie by which he
should escape sprang to his tongue. " He died in a
fit." He almost believed it as it murmured itself
from his lips. There was no mark, no bruise, noth-
ing to show that he had touched the boy. Suddenly
he felt the lie choke him. He pulled down the
window to let in the fresh air, and this pure breath
of heaven blew into his darkened spirit and lif^^d

A MODERN INSTANCE. 81

there a little the vapors which were thickening in it.
The horror of having to tell that lie, even if he
should escape by it, all his life long, till he was a
gray old man, and to keep the truth forever from his
lips, presented itself to him as intolerable slavery.
"Oh, my God!" he spoke aloud, "how can I bear
that?" And it was in self-pity that he revolted
from it. Few men love the truth for its own sake,
and Bartley was not one of these ; but . he practised
it because his experience had been that lies were^y
difficult to manage, and that they were a burden
on the mind. He was not candid ; he did not shun
concealments and evasions ; but positive lies he
had kept from, and now he could not trust one to
save his life. He unlocked the door and ran out to
find help; he must do that at last; he must do it
at any risk; no matter what he said afterward.
When our deeds and motives come to be balanced at
the last day, let us hope that mercy, and not justice,
may prevail.

It must have been mercy that sent the doctor at
that moment to the apothecary's, on the other side of
the street, and enabled Bartley to get him up into his
office, without publicity or explanation other than
that Henry Bird seemed to be in a fit. The doctor
lifted the boy's head, and explored his bosom with his
hand.

" Is he — is he dead ? " gasped Bartley, and the
words came so mechanically from his tongue that he
began to believe he had not spoken them, when the
doctor answered.

" No ! How did this happen ? Tell me exactly."

" We had a quarrel. He sti-uck me. I knocked

him down." Bartley delivered up the truth, as a

prisoner of war — or a captive brigand, perhaps —

parts with his weapons one by one.

" Very well," said the doctor. " Get some water."

82 A MODERN INSTANCE.

Bartley poured some out of the pitcher on his table^
and the doctor, wetting his handkerchief, drew it
again and again over Bird's forehead.

" I never meant to hurt him," said Bartley. " I
did n't even intend to strike him when he hit me."

"Intentions have very little to do with physical
effects,*' replied the doctor sharply. " Henry ! "

The boy opened his eyes, and, muttering feebly,
*' My head ! " closed them again.

" There 's a concussion here," said the doctor.
"We had better get him home. Drive my sleigh
over, will you, from Smith's."

Bartley went out into the glare of the sun, which
beat upon him like the eye of the world. But the
street was really empty, as it often was in the middle
of the forenoon at Equity. The apothecary, who saw
him untying the doctor's horse, came to his door, and
said jocosely, " Hello, Doc ! who 's sick ? "

"I am," said Bartley, solemnly, and the apothe-
cary laughed at his readiness. Bartley drove round
to the back of the printing-office, where the farmers
delivered his wood. **I thought we could get him
out better that way," he explained, and the doctor,
who had to befriend a great many concealments
in his practice, silently spared Bartley's disingenu-
ousness.

The tush of the cold air, as they drove rapidly down
the street, with that limp shape between them, re-
vived the boy, and he opened his eyes, and made an
effort to hold himself erect, but he could not ; and
when they got him into the warm room at home, he
fainted again. His mother had met them at the door
of her poor little house, without any demonstration
of grief or terror ; she was far too well acquainted in
her widowhood — bereft of all her children but this
son — with sickness and death, to show even sur-
prise, if she felt it. When Bartley broke out into his

A MODERN INSTANCE. 83

lamentable confession, " Oh, Mrs. Bird ! this is my
work!" she only wfung her hands and answered,
" Yowr work ! Oh, Mr. Hubbard, he thought the
world of you ! " and did not ask him how or why he
had done it. After they had got Henry on the bed,
Bartley was no longer of use there ; but they let him
remain in the comer into which he had shrunk, and
from which he watched all that went on, with a dry
mouth and faltering breath. It began to appear to
him that he was very young to be involved in a
misfortune like this ; .he did not understand why it
should have happened to him ; but he promised him-
self that, if Henry lived, he would try to be a better
man in every way.

After he had lost all hope, the time seemed so long,
the boy on the bed opened his eyes once more, and
looked round, while Bartley still sat with his face in
his hands. " Where — where is Mr. Hubbard ? " he
faintly asked, with a bewildered look at his mother
and the doctor.

Bartley heard the weak voice, and staggered for-
ward, and fell on his knees beside the bed. " Here,
here! Here I am, Henry! Oh, Henry, I didn't
intend — " He stopped at the word, and hid his
face in the coverlet.

The boy lay as if trying to make out what had
happened, and the doctor told him that he had
fainted. After a time, he put out his hand and laid
it on Bartley's head. " Yes ; but I don't understand
what makes him cry."

They looked at Bartley, who had lifted his head,
and he went over the whole affair, except so far as it
related to Hannah Morrison ; he did not spare him-
self; he had often found that strenuous self-condem-
nation moved others to compassion ; and besides, it
was his nature to seek the relief of full confession. '■
But Henry heard him thromgh with a blank counte

84 A MODERN INSTANCE.

nance. "Don't you remember?" Bartley implored
at last. •

"No, I don't remember. I only remember that
there seemed to be something the matter with my
head this morning."

" That was the trouble with me, too," said Bartley.
"I must have been crazy — I must have been insane

— when I struck you. I can't account for it."
" I don't remember it," answered the boy.

" That 's all right," said the doctor. " Don't try. I
guess you better let him alone, now," he added to
Bartley, with such a significant look that the young
man retired from the bedside, and stood awkwardly
apart. "He'll get along. You needn't be anxious
about leaving him. He '11 be better alone."

There was no mistaking this hint. " Well, well ! "
said Bartley, humbly, " I '11 go. But I 'd rather stay
and watch with him, — I sha'n't eat or sleep till he 's
on foot again. And I can't leave till you tell me
that you forgive me, Mrs. Bird. I never dreamed —

— I did n't intend — " He could not go on.

" I don't suppose you meant to hurt Henry," said
the mother. " You always pretended to be so fond
of him, and he thought the world of you. But I
don't see how you could do it. I presume it was all
right."

" No, it was all wrong, — or so nearly all wrong that
I must ask your forgiveness on that ground. I loved
him, — I thought the world of him, too. I 'd ten
thousand times rather have hurt myself," pleaded
Bartley. " Don't let me go till you say that you for-
give me."

" I 'U see how Henry gets along," said Mrs. Bird.
" I don't know as I could rightly say I forgive you
just yet." Doubtless she was dealing conscientiously
with herself and with him. " I like to be sure of a
thing when I say it," she added.

A MODERN INSTANCE. 85

The doctor followed him into the hall, and Bartley
could not help turning to him for consolation. " I
think Mrs. Bird is very unjust, Doctor. I Ve done
everything I could, and said everything to explain
the matter ; and I Ve blamed myself where I can't
feel that I was to blame ; and yet you see how she
holds out against me.'*

"I dare say," answered the doctor dryly, "she'll
feel differently, as she says, if the boy gets along."

Bartley dropped his hat to the floor. " Get along !
Why — why you think he 'U get well tww, don't you,
Doctor ? "

" Oh, yes ; I was merely using her words. He '11
get well."

" And — and it wont affect his mind, will it ? I
thought it was very strange, his not remembering
anything about it — "

" That 's a very common phenomenon," said the
doctor. " The patient usually forgets everything that
occurred for some little time before the accident, iu
cases of concussion of the brain." Bartley shuddered
at the phrase, but he could not ask anything further.
" What I wanted to say to you," continued the doctor,
"was that this may be a long thing, and there may
have to be an inquiry into it. You 're lawyer enough
to understand what that means. I should have to
testify to what I know, and I only know what you
told me."
' '' Why, you don't doubt — "

" No, sir ; I *ve no reason to suppose you have n't
told me the truth, as far as it goes. If you have
thought it advisable to keep anything back from me,
you may wish to tell the whole story to an attor-
nev."

" I have n't kept anything back. Doctor Wills,"
said Bartley. "I've told you everything — every-
thing that concerned the quarrel. That drunken old

86 A MODERN INSTANCE.

scoundrel of a Morrison got us into it He accused
me of making love to his daughter ; and Henry was
jealous. I never knew he cared anything for her.
I hated to tell you this before his mother. But this
is the whole truth, so help me God."

" I supposed it was something of the kind," replied
the doctor. " I 'm sorry for you. You can't keep it
from having an ugly look if it gets out ; and it may
have to be made public. I advise you to go and see-
Squire Gaylord ; he *s always stood your friend."

"I — I was just going there," said Bartley ; and
this was true.

Through all, he had felt the need of some sort of re-
trieval, — of re-establishing himself in his own esteem
by some signal stroke ; and he could think of but one
thing. It was not his fault if he believed that this
must combine self-sacrifice with safety, and the great-
est degree of humiliation with the largest sum of con-
solation. He was none the less resolved not to spare
himself at all in offering to release Marcia from her
engagement The fact that he must now also see
her father upon the legal aspect of his case certainly
complicated the affair, and detracted from its heroic
quality. He could not tell which to see first, for he
naturally wished his action to look as well as possi-
ble; and if he went first to Marcia, and she con-
demned him, he did not know in what figure he
should approach her father. If, on the other hand,,
he went first to Squire Gaylord, the old lawyer might
insist that the engagement was already at an end by
Baitley's violent act, and might well refuse to let a
man in his position even see his daughter. He lagged
heavy-heartedly up the middle of the street, and left
the question to solve itself at the last moment But
when he reached Squire Gaylord's gate, it seemed to
him that it would be easier to face the father first j
and this would be the right way too.

A MODERN INSTANCE. 87

He turned aside to the little office, and opened the
door without knocking, and as he stood with the
knob in his hand, trying to habituate his eyes, full of
the snow-glare, to the dimmer light within, he heard
a rapturous cry of " Why Bartley I " and he felt Mar-
cia's arms flimg around his neck. His burdened heart
yearned upon her with a tenderness he had not
known before; he realized the preciousness of an
embrace that might be the Igist ; but he dared not
put down his lips to hers. She pushed back her
head in a little wonder, and saw the haggardness
of his face, while he discovered her father looking
at thenL How strong and pure the fire in her must
be when her father's presence could not abash her
from this betrayal of her love! Bartley sickened,
and he felt her arms slip from his neck. " Why —
why — what is the matter ? "

In spite of some vaguely magnanimous intention
to begin at the beginning, and tell the whole affair
just as it happened, Bartley found himself wishing
to put the best face on it at first, and trust to chances
to make it all appear well. He did not speak at once,
and Marcia pressed him into a chair, and then, like
an eager child, who will not let its friend escape till
it has been told what it wishes to know, she set her-
self on his knee, and put her hand on his shoulder.
He looked at her father, not at her, while he spoke
hoarsely: "I have had trouble with Henry Bird,
Squire Gaylord, and I Ve come to tell you about it."

The old squire did not speak, but Marcia repeated
in amazement, '* With Henry Biixi ? "

" He struck me — "

** Henry Bird sti'uck you ! " cried the girl. ** I
should like to know why Henry Bird struck ycm,
Vhen you Ve made so much of him, and he 's always
pretended to be so grateful — "

Bartley still looked at her father. " And I struck ^
turnback."

88 A MODERN INSTANCE.

" You did perfectly right, Bartley,** exclaimed Mar-
cia, " and I should have despised you if you had let
any one run over you. Struck you ! I declare — "

He did not heed her, but continued to look at her
father. "I didn't intend to hurt him, — I hit him
with' my open hand, — but he fell and struck his head
on the floor. I 'm afraid it hurt him pretty badly."
He felt the pang that thrilled through the girl at his
words, and her hand trembled on his shoulder ; but
she did not take it away.

The old man came forward from the pile of books
which he and Marcia had been dusting, and sat down
in a chair on the other side of the stove. He pushed
back his hat from his forehead, and asked driljr.
" What commenced it ? "

Bartley hesitated. It was this part of the affair
which he would rather have imparted to Marcia after
seeing it with her father's eyes, or possibly, if her
father viewed it favorably, have had him tell her.
The old man noticed his reluctance. " Had n't you
better go into the house, Marsh ? "

She merely gave him a look of utter astonishment
for answer, and did not move. He laughed noise-
lessly, and said to Bartley, " Go on."

" It was that drunken old scoundrel of a Morrison
who began it ! " cried Bartley, in angry desperation.
Marcia dropped her hand from his shoulder, while her
father worked his jaws upon the bit of stick he had
picked up from the pile of wood, and put between his
teeth. " You know that whenever he gets on a spree
he comes to the oftice and wants Hannah's wages
raised."

Marcia sprang to her feet. "Oh, I knew it! I
knew it ! I told you she would get you into trouble !
I told you so ! " She stood clinching her hands, and
her father bent his keen scrutiny first upon her, and
len upon the frowning face with which Bartley re-
garded her. -

A MODERN INSTANCE. 89

" Did he come to have her wages raised to-day ? "

« No."

"What did he come for?" He involuntarily as-
sumed the attitude of a lawyer crossquestioning a
slippery witness.

"He came for — He came — He accused me of —
He said I had — made love to his confounded girl."

Marcia gasped.

" What made him think you had ? "

" It was n't necessary for him to have any reason.
He was drunk. I had been kind to the girl, and
favored her all I could, because she seemed to be
anxious to do her work well ; and I praised her for
trying."

" Um-umph," commented the Squire. " And that
made Henry Bird jealous ? "

" It seems that he was fond of her. I never
dreamed of such a thing, and when I put old Morrison
out of the office, and came back, he called me a liar,
and struck me in the face." He did not lift his eyes
to the level of Marcia*s, who in her gray dress stood
there like a gray shadow, and did not stir or speak.

" And you never had made up to the girl at all ? "

"No."

" Kissed her, I suppose, now and then ? " suggested
the Squire.

Bartley did not reply.

" Flattered her up, and told how much you thought
of her, occasionally ? "

" I don't see what that has to do with it," said
Bartley with a sulky defiance.

" No, I suppose it 's what you 'd do with most any
pretty girl," returned the Squire. He was silent
awhUe. " And so you knocked Henry down. What
happened then ? "

"I tried to bring him to, and then I went for th§
doctor.' -He revived, and we got him home to hi

■■»»K

90 A MODERN INSTANCE.

mother's. The doctor says he will get well ; hut he
advised me to come and see you.*'

" Any witnesses of the assault ? "

"No ; we were alone in my own room.'*

" Told any one else about it ? "

" I told the doctor and Mrs. Bird. Henry could n*t
remember it at all."

" Could n*t remember about Morrison^ or what made
him mad at you ? "

'* Nothing."

« And that 's all about it ? "

"Yes."

The two men had talked across the stove at each
other, practically ignoring the girl, who stood apart
from them, gray in the face as her dress, and sup-
pressing a passion which had turned her as rigid as
. stone.

" Now, Marcia," said her father, kindly, " better go
into the house. That *s all there is of it."

" No, that is n't all," she answered. " Give me my
ring, Bartley. Here 's yours." She slipped it off her
finger, and put it into his mechanically extended
hand.

" Marcia I " he implored, confronting her.

" Give me my ring, please."

He obeyed, and put it into her hand. She slipped
it back on the finger from which she had so fondly
suffered him to take it yesterday, and replace it with
his own.

" I '11 go into the house now, father. Good by,
Bartley." Her eyes were perfectly clear and dry, and
her voice controlled ; and as he stood passive before
her, she took him round the neck, and pressed against
his face, once, and twice, and thrice, her own gray
face, in which all love, and unrelenting, and despaii^
were painted. Once and again she held him, and
looked him in the eyes, as if to be sure it was ha

A MODERN INSTANCE. 91

Then, with a last pressure of her face to his, she re-
leased him, and passed out of the door.

" She 's been talking about you, here, all the morn-
ing," said the Squire, with a sort of quiet absence, as
if nothing in particular had happened, and he were
commenting on a little fact that might possibly inter-
est Bartley. He ruminated upon the fragment of
wood in his mouth awhile before he added : " I guess
she won't want to talk about you any more. I drew
you out a little on that Hannah Morrison business,
because I wanted her to understand just what kind of
fellow you were. You see it is n't the trouble you *ve
got into with Henry Bird that 's killed her ; it *s the .
cause of the trouble. I guess if it had been any-
thing else, she 'd have stood by you. But you see
that 's the one thing she could n't bear, and I 'm glad
it 's happened now instead of afterwards : I guess
you 're one of that hind, Mr. Hubbard."

" Squire Gaylord ! " cried Bartley, " upon my sacred
word of honor, there is n't any more of this thing than
I 've told you. And I think it *s pretty hard to be
thrown over for — for — "

" Fooling with a pretty girl, when you get a chance,
and the girl seems to like it ? Yes, it is rather hard.
And I suppose you have n't even seen her since you
were engaged to Marcia ? "

" Of course not ! That is — "

" It 's a kind of retroactive legislation on Marcia's
part," said the Squire, rubbing his chin, " and that *s /
against one of the first principles of law. But women j /
don't seem to be able to grasp that idea. They 're w
queer about some things. They appear to think they \
marry a man's whole life, — his past as well as his
future, — and that makes 'em particular. And they I
distinguish between difiFerent kinds of men. You 11 \
find 'em pinning their faith to a fellow who 's been \
through pretty much everything, and swearing by hiir^

«
<(

92 A MODERN INSTANCE.

from the word go ; and another chap, who 's never
done anything very bad, they won't trust half a
minute out of their sight. Well, I guess Marcia is of
rather a jealous disposition," he concluded, as if Bart-
ley had urged this point.

She 's very unjust to me," Bartley began.
Oh, yes, — she*s unjiist" said her father. " I don't
deny that. But it would n't be any use talking to her.
She 'd probably turn round with some excuse about
what she had suffered, and that would be the end of
it. She would say that she could n't go through it
again. Well, it ought to be a comfort to you to think
yoip don't care a great deal about it."

" But I do care ! " exclaimed Bartley. " I care all
the world for it. I — "

" Since when ? " interrupted the Squire. " Do you
mean to say that you did n't know till you asked her
yesterday that Marcia was in love with you ? "

Bartley was silent.

" I guess you knew it as much as a year ago, did n't
you ? Everybody else did. But you 'd just as soon
it had been Hannah Morrison, or any other pretty girL
You did n't care! But Marcia did, you see. She
was n't one of the kind that let any good-looking fel-
low make love to them. It was because it was you ;
and you knew it. We 're plain men, Mr. Hubbard ;
and I guess you '11 get over this, in time. I should n't
wonder if you began to mend, right away."

Bartley found himself helpless in the face of this
passionless sarcasm. He could have met stormy in-
dignation or any sort of invective in kind ; but the
contemptuous irony with which his pretensions were
treated, the cold scrutiny with which his motives were
searched, was something he could not meet. He tried
to pull himself together for some sort of protest, but
he ended by hanging his head in silence. He always
believed that Squii*e Gaylord had liked him, and here

A MODERN INSTANCE. 93

he was treating him like his bitterest enemy, and
seeming to enjoy his misery. He could not under-
stand it ; he thought it extnmely unjust, and past all
the measure of his offence. This was true, perhaps ;
but it is doubtful if Bartley would have accepted any
sufifering, no matter how nicely proportioned, in pun-
ishment of his wrong-doing. He sat hanging his head,
and taking his pain in rebellious silence, with a gath-
ering hate in his heart for the old man.

" M-well ! " said the Squire, at last, rising from his
chair, " I guess I must be going."

Bartley sprang to his feet aghast. " You 're not
going to leave me in the lurch, are you? You*re
not—"

" Oh, I shall take care of you, young man, — don't
be afraid. I Ve stood your friend too long, and your
name 's been mixed up too much with my girl's, for
me to let you come to shame openly, if I can help
it. I 'm going to see Dr. Wills about you, and I 'm
going to see Mrs. Bird, and try to patch it up some-
how."

" And — and — where shall I go ? " gasped Bartley.

" You might go to the Devil, for all I cared for you,"
said the old man, with the contempt which he no
longer cared to make ironical. " But I guess you
better go back to your office, and go to work as if
nothing had happened — till something does happen.
I shall close the paper out as soon as I can. I was
thinking of doing that just before you came in. I
was thinking of taking you into the law business
with me. Marcia and I were talking about it here.
But I guess you would n't like the idea now."

He seemed to get a bitter satisfaction out of these
mockeries, from which, indeed, he must have suffered
quite as much as Bartley. But he ended, sadly and
almost compassionately, with, "Come, come! You
must start some time." And Bartley dragged his

94 A MODERN INSTANCE.

leaden weight out of the door. The Squire closed it
after him ; but he did not accompany him down the
street. It was plain that he, aid not wish to be any
longer alone with Bartley, and the young man sus-
pected, with a sting of shame, that he scorned to be
seen with him.

▲ MODERN INSTANCK. 96

vni.

The more Bartley dwelt upon his hard case, during
the week that followed, the more it appeared to him
that he was punished out of all proportion to his of-
fence. He was in no mood to consider such mercies
as that he had been spared from seriously hurting
Bird ; and that Squire Gaylord and Doctor Wills had
united with Henry's mother in saving him from open
disgrace. The physician, indeed, had perhaps in-
dulged a professional passion for hushing the matter
up, rather than any pity for Bartley. He probably
had the scientific way of looking at such questions ;
and saw much physical cause for moral efl'ects. He
refrained, with the physician's reticence, from inquir-
ing into the affair ; but he would not have thought
Bartley without excuse under the circumstances. In
regard to the relative culpability in matters of the
kind, his knowledge of women enabled him to take
much the view of the woman's share that other wo-
men take.

But Bartley was ignorant of the doctor's leniency,
and associated him with Squire Gaylord in the feel-
ing that made his last week in Equity a period of
social outlawry. There were moments in which he
could not himself escape the same point of view. He
could rebel against the severity of the condemnation
he had fallen under in the eyes of Marcia and her
father ; he could, in the light of example and usage,
laugh at the notion of harm in his behavior to Han-
nah Morrison ; yet he found himself looking at it as

96 A MODERN INSTANCE.

a treachery to- Marcia. Certainly, she had no right
to question his conduct before his engagement. Yet,
if he knew that Marcia loved him, and was waiting
with life-and-death anxiety for some word of love from

' him, it was cruelly false to play with another at the
passion which was such a tragedy to her. Tiiis was
,the point that, put aside however often, still present-
ed itself, and its recurrence, if he could have known
it, was mercy and reprieve from the only source out
of which these could come.

Hannah Morrison did not return to the printing-
office, and Bird was still sick, though it was now only
a question of time when he should be out again.
Bartley visited him some hours every day, and sat
and suffered under the quiet condemnation of his
mother's eyes. She had kept Bartley*s secret with
the same hardness with which she had refused him
her forgiveness, and the village had settled down into
an ostensible acceptance of the theory of a faint as
the beginning of Bird's sickness, with such other con-
jectures as the doctor freely permitted each to form.
Bartley found his chief consolation in the work which
kept him out of the way of a great deal of question.
He worked far into the night, as he must, to make up
for the force that was withdrawn from the office. At
the same time he wrote more than ever in the paper,
\ and he discovered in himself that dual life of which
J every one who sins or sorrows is sooner or later

\ aware: that strange separation of the intellectual
activity from the suffering of the soul, by which the
mind toils on in a sort of ironical indifference to the
pangs that wring the heart; the realization that, in
some ways, his brain can get on perfectly well with-
out his conscience.

There was a great deal of sympathy felt for Bart-
ley at this time, and his popularity in Equity was
never greater than now when his life there was draw-

A MODERN INSTANCE. 97

ing to a close. The spectacle of his diligence was so
impressive that when, on the following Sunday, the
young minister who had succeeded to the pulpit of
the orthodox church preached a sermon on the beauty
of industry from the text " Consider the lilies," there
were many who said that they thought of Bartley the
whole while, and one — a lady — asked Mr. Savin if
he did not have Mr. Hubbard in mind in the picture
he drew of the Heroic Worker. They wished that
Bartley could have heard that sermon.

Marcia had gone away early in the week to visit in
the town where she used to go to school, and Bartley
took her going away as a sign that she wished to put
herself wholly beyond his reach, or any danger of re-w
lenting at sight of him. He talked with no one about
her ; and going and coming irregularly to his meals,
and keeping himself shut up in his room when he was
not at work, he left people very little chance to talk
with him. But they conjectured that he and Marcia
had an understanding ; and some of the ladies used
such scant opportunity as he gave them to make sly
allusions to her absence and his desolate condition.
They were confirmed in their surmise by the fact,
known from actual observation, that Bartley had not
spoken a word to any other young lady since Marcia
went away.

" Look here, my friend," said the ^philosopher from
the logging-camp, when he came in for his paper on
the Tuesday afternoon following, " seems to me from
what I hear tell around here, you're tryin' to kill
yourself on this newspaper. Now, it won't do ; I tell
you it won't do."

Bartley was addressing for the mail the papers
which one of the girls was folding. " What are you
going to do about it ? " he demanded of his sympa-
thizer with whimsical sullenness, not troubling him-
self to look up at him.

98 A MODERN INSTANCE.

" Well, I haint exactly settled yet," replied the phi-
losopher, who was of a tall, lank figure, and of a
mighty brown beard. "But I've been around pretty
much everywhere, and I find that about the poorest
use you can put a man to is to kill him."

" It depends a good deal on the man," said Bart-
ley. " But that 's stale, Kinney. It 's the old formula
of the anti-capital-punishment fellows. Try some-
thing else. They *re not talking of hanging me yet."
He kept on writing, and the philosopher stood over
him with a humorous twinkle of enjoyment at
Bartley's readiness.

"Well, I'U allow it's old," he admitted, "So's
Homer."

" Yes ; but you don't pretend that you wrote Ho-
mer."

Kinney laughed mightily ; then he leaned forward,
and slapped Bartley on the shoulder with his news-
paper. " Look here ! " he exclaimed, " I like you ! "

"Oh, try some other tack! Lots of fellows like
me." Bartley kept on writing. "I gave you your
paper, didn't I, Kinney ?"

" You mean that you want me to get out ? "

" Far be it from me to say so."

This delighted Kinney as much as the last refine-
ment of hospitality would have pleased another man.
" Look here ! " he said, " I want you should come out
and see our camp. I can't fodl away any more time
on you here ; but I want you should come out and see
us. Give you something to write about. Hey ?"

" The invitation comes at a time when circumstan-
ces over which I have no control oblige me to decline
it. I admire your prudence, Kinney."

"No, honest Injian, now," protested Kinney.
"Take a day off*, and fill up with dead advertise-
ments. That 's the way they used to do out in Alkali
City when they got short of help on the Eagle, cuid
we liked it just £is well."

A MODERN INSTANCE. 99

" Now you are talking sense," said Bartley, looking
np at him.. " How far is it to your settlement ? "

" Two miles, if you 're goin' ; three and a half, if
you aint."

" When are you coming in ? "

" I 'm in, now."

" I can't go with you to-day."

" Well, how '11 to-morrow morning suit ? "

" To-morrow morning will suit," said Bartley.

" All right. If anybody comes to see the editor
to-morrow morning, Marilla," said Kinney to the
girl, " you tell 'em he 's sick, and gone a-loggin', and
won't be back till Saturday. Say," he added, laying
his hand on Bartley's shoulder, " you aint foolin' ? "

" If I am," replied Bartley, "just mention it."

** Good ! " said Kinney. " To-morrow it is, then."

Bartley finished addressing the newspapers, and
then he put them up in wrappers and packages for
the mail " You can go, now, Marilla," he said to the
girL " I 'U leave some copy for you and Kitty ; you '11
find it on my table in the morning."

" All right," answered the girl.

Bartley went to his supper, which he ate with
more relish than he had felt for his meals since his
troubles began, and he took part in the supper-table
talk with something of his old audacity. The change
interested the lady boarders, and they agreed that he
must have had a letter. He returned to his office,
and worked till nine o'clock, writing and selecting
matter out of his exchanges. He spent most of the
time iu preparing the funny column, which was a
favorite feature in the Free Press. Then he put the
copy where the girls would find it in the morning,
and, leaving the door unlocked, took his way up the
street toward Squire Gay lord's.

He knew that he should find the lawyer in his
office, and he opened the office door without knock*

100 A MODERN INSTANCE.

ing, and went in. He had not met Squire Gaylord
since the morning of his dismissal, and the old man
had left him for the past eight days without any. sign
as to what he expected of Bartley, or of what he
intended to do in his affair.

They looked at each other, but exchanged no sort
of greeting, as Bartley, unbidden, took a chair on the
opposite side of the stove ; the Squire did not put
down the book he had been reading.

" I 've come to see what you 're going to do about
the Free Press," said Bartley.

The old man rubbed his bristling jaw, that seemed
even lanker than when Bartley saw it last. He
waited almost a minute before he replied, " I don*t
know as I Ve got any call to tell you."

" Then 1 11 tell you what 1 'm going to do about
it," retorted Bartley. " I 'm going to leave it. I *ve
done my last day's work on that paper. Do you
think,** he cried, angrily, " that I 'm going to keep on
in the dark, and let you consult your pleasure as to
my future ? No, sir ! You don't know your man
quite, Mr. Gaylord ! "

" You Ve got over your scare," said the lawyer.

" I Ve got over my scare," Bartley retorted.

"And you think, because you're not afraid any
\ longer, that you 're out of danger. I know my man
' as well as yovi do, I guess."

" If you think I care for the danger, I don't. You
ma}' do what you please. Whatever you do, I shall
know it is n't out of kindness for me. I did n't
believe from the first that the law could touch me,
and I was n't uneasy on that account. But I did n't
want to involve myself in a public scandal, for Miss
Gaylord's sake. Miss Gaylord has released me from
any obligations to her ; and now you may go ahead
and do what you like." Each of the men knew how
much truth there was in this ; but for the moment

A MODERN INSTANCE. 101

in his anger, Bartley believed himself sincere, and
there is no question but his defiance was so. Squire
Gaylord made him no answer, and after a minute of
expectation Bartley added, " At any rate, I Ve done
with the Free Press. I advise you to stop the paper,
and hand the office over to Henry Bird, when he gets
about. I *m going out to Willett's logging-camp to-
morrow, and I *m coming back to Equity on Saturday.
You '11 know where to find me till then, and after that
you may look me up if you want me."

He rose to go, but stopped with his hand on the
door-knob, at a sound, preliminary to speaking, which
the old man made in his throat. Bartley stopped,
hoping for a further pretext of quarrel, but the law-
yer merely asked, " Where *s the key ? "

" It 's in the office door."

The old man now looked at him as if he no longer
saw him, and Bartley went out, balked of his pur-
pose in part, and in that degree so much the more
embittered.

Squire Gaylord remained an hour longer ; then he
blew out his lamp, and left the little office for the
night. A light was burning in the kitchen, and he
made his way round to the back door of the house,
and let himself in. His wife was there, sitting before
the stove, in those last delicious moments before
going to bed, when all the house is mellowed to such
a warmth that it seems hard to leave it to the cold
and dark. In this poor lady, who had so long
denied herself spiritual comfort, there was a certain
obscure luxury : she liked little dainties of the table ;
she liked soft warmth, an easy cushion. It was
doubtless in the disintegration of the finer qualities
of her nature, that, as they grew older together, she
threw more and more the burden of acute feeling
upon her husband, to whose doctrine of life she had
submitted, but had never been reconciled. Marriage

102 A MODERN mSTANCH

is, with aU its disparities, a much more equal Ihing
than appears, and the meek little wife, who has all
the advantage of public sympathy, knows her power
over her oppressor, and at some tender spot in his
affections or his nerves can inflict an anguish that
will avenge her for years of coarser aggression.
Thrown in upon herself in so vital a matter as her
religion, Mrs. Gaylord had involuntarily come to
live largely for herself, though her talk was always
of her husband. She gave up for him, as she be-
lieved, her soul's salvation, but she held him to
account for the uttermost farthing of the price. She
padded herself round at every point where she could
have suffered through her sensibilities, and lived
soft and snug in the shelter of his iron will and
indomitable courage. It was not apathy that she
had felt when their children died one after another,
but an obscure and formless exultation that Mr.
Gaylord would suffer enough for both.

Marcia was the youngest, and her mother left her
training almost wholly to her father ; she sometimes
said that she never supposed the child would live.
She did not actually urge this in excuse, but she had
the appearance of doing so ; and she held aloof from
them both in their mutual relations, with mildly crit-
ical reserves. They spoiled each other, as father and
daughter are apt to do when left to themselves.
What was good in the child certainly received no
harm from his indulgence; and what was naughty
was after all not so very naughty. She was pas-
sionate, but she was generous ; and if she showed a
Qealous temperament that must hereafter make her
junhappy, for the time being it charaiedlind Battered
/her father to have her so fond of him that she could
'not endure any rivalry in his affection.

Her education proceeded fitfully. He would not
let her be forced to household tasks that she disliked;

A MODERN INSTANCE. 103

and as eLlitile_girl she went to school chiefly because
she liked to go, and not because she would have been
obligedTo it if she Had not chosen. When she grew
older, she wished to go away to school, and her father
allowed her; he had no great respect for boarding-
schools, but if Marcia wanted to try it, he was willing
to humor the joke.

What resulted was a great proficiency in the things
that pleased her, and ignorance of the other things.
Her father bought her a piano, on which she did not
play much, and he bought her whatever dresses she
fancied. He never came home from a journey with-
out bringing her something; and he liked to take her
with him when he went away to other places. She
had been several times at Portland, and once at Mont-
real ; he was very proud of her ; he could not see that
any one was better-looking, or dressed any better than
his girl.

He came into the kitchen, and sat down with his
hat on, and, taking his chin between his fingers, moved
uneasily about on his chair.

" What 's brought you in so early ? " asked his
wife.

" Well, I got through," he briefly explained. Af-
ter a while he said, " Bartley Hubbard 's been out
there."

" You don't mean 't he knew she — "

"No, he didn't know anything about that. He
came to tell me he was going away."

" Well, I don't know what you 're going to do, Mr.
Gaylord," said his wife, shifting the responsibility
wholly upon him. " 'D he seem to want to make
it up?"

"M-no!" said the Squire, "he was on his high
horsa He knows he aint in any danger now."

" Aint you afraid she 11 carry on dreadfully, when
she finds out 't he 's gone for good ? " asked Mrs. Gay-

104 A MODERN INSTANCE.

lord, with a sort of implied satisfaction that the cany-
ing on was not to affect her.

" M-yes," said the Squire, " I suppose she 'U carry
on. But I don't know what to do about it. Some-
times I almost wish I 'd tried to make it up between
'em that day ; but I thought she 'd better see, once
for all, what sort of man she was going in for, if she
married him. It 's too late now to do anything. The
fellow came in to-night for a quarrel, and nothing
else; I could see that; and I didn't give him any
chance."

" You feel sure," asked Mrs. Gaylord, impartially,
** that Marcia wa'n't too particular ? "

" No, Miranda, I don't feel sure of anything, except
that it 's past your bed-time. You better go. I *11
sit up awhile yet. I came in because I couldn't
settle my mind to anything out there."

He took off his hat in token of his intending to
spend the rest of the evening at home, and put it on
the table at his elbow.

His wife sewed at the mending in her lap, without
offering to act upon hijs suggestion. " It 's plain to be
seen that she can't get along without him."

" She '11 have to, now," replied the Squire.

*' I 'm afraid," said Mrs. Gaylord, softly, " that she '11
t)e down sick. She don't look as if she 'd slept any
great deal since she 's been gone. I d' know as I like
very much to see her looking the way she does. I
guess you 've got to take her off somewheres."

" Why, she 's just been off, and could n't stay ! "

" That 's because she thought he was here yet. But
if he 's gone, it won't be the same thing."

" Well, we 've got to fight it out, some way," said
the Squira " It would n't do to give in to it now.
It always was too much of a one-sided thing, at the
best ; and if we tried now to mend it up, it would be
ridiculous. I don't believe he would come back at

A MODERN nfSTANCE. 105

all, now, and if he did, he would n't come back on any
equal terms. He 'd want to have everything his own
way. M-no ! '* said the Squire, as if confirming him-
self in a conclusion often reached already in his own
mind, " I saw by the way he began to-night that there
was n't anything to be done with him. It was fight
from the word go."

" Well," said Mrs. Gaylord, with gentle, sceptical
interest in the outcome, " if you *ve made up your
mind to that, I hope you '11 be able to carry it
through."

" That 's what I 've made up my mind to," said her
husband.

Mrs. Gaylord rolled up the sewing in her work-
basket, and packed it away against the side, bracing
it with several pairs of newly darned socks and stock-
ings neatly folded one into the other. She took her
time for this, and when she rose at last to go out, with
her basket in her hand, the door opened in her face,
and Marcia entered. Mrs. Gaylord shrank back, and
then slipped round behind her daughter and vanished.
The girl took no notice of her mother, but went and
sat down on her father's knee, throwing her arms
round his neck, and dropping her haggard face on his
shoulder. She had arrived at home a few hours
earlier, having driven over from a station ten miles
distant, on a road that did not pass near Equity. Af-
ter giving as much of a shock to her mother's mild
nature as it was capable of receiving by her unex-
pected return, she had gone to her own room, aiid re-
mained ever since without seeing her fkther. He put
up his thin old hand and passed it over her hair, but
it was long before either of them spoke.

At last Marcia lifted her head, and looked her
father in the face with a smile so pitiful that he could
not bear to meet it. " Well, father ? " she said.

**Well, Marsh," he answered huskily.

106 A MODEJIN INSTANCR

" What do you think of me now ? **

" I 'm glad to have you back again," he replied.

" You know why I came ? "

" Yes, I guess I know."

She put down her head again, and moaned and
cried, " Father ! Father ! " with dry sobs. When she
looked up, confronting him with her tearless eyes,
" What shall I do ? What shall I do ? " she demanded
desolately.

He tried to clear his throat to speak, but it re-
quired more than one effort to bring the words. " I
guess you better go along with me up to Boston. I *m
going up the first of the week."

" No," she said quietly.

"The change would do you good. It*s a long
while since you've been away from home," her
father urged.

She looked at him in sad reproach of his uncandor.
"You know there's nothing the matter with me,
father. You know what the trouble is." He was
silent. He could not face the trouble. " I 've heard
people talk of a heartache," she went on. " I never
believed there was really such a thing. But I know
there is, now. There 's a pain here." She pressed
her hand against her breast. " It *s sore with aching.
What shall I do ? I shall have to live through it
somehow."

" If you don't feel exactly well," said her father,

^less you better see the doctor."

" \^hat shall I tell him is the matter with me ?
That I want Bartley Hubbard ?" He winced at the
words, but she did riot. "He knows that already.
Everybody in town does. It's never been aiiy secret.
I could n't hide it, from the first day I saw him. I 'd
just as lief as not they should say I was dying foi
him. I shall not care what they say when I 'iu
dead."

A MODERN INSTANCE. 107

"You 'd ought n't, — you'd ought n't to talk that
way, Marcia," said her father, gently.

" What difference ? " she demanded, scornfully.
There was tmly no difference, so far as concerned any
creed of his, and he was too honest to make further
pretence. "What shall I do?" she went on again.
" I 've thought of praying ; but what would be the
use?"

" I Ve never denied that there was a God, Marcia,"

QQ1Q npi* iVi,t"nPi*

" Oh, I know. That kind of God ! Well, well ! I
know that I talk like a crazy person ! Do you suppose
it was providential, my being with you in the office
that morning when Bartley came in ? "

" No," said her father, " I don't. I think it was an
accident."

" Mother said it was providential, my finding him
out before it was too late."

" I think it was a good thing. The fellow has the
making of a first-class scoundrel in him."

" Do you think he 's a scoundrel now ? " she asked
quietly.

" He has n't had any great opportunity yet," said
the old man, conscientiously sparing him.

" Well, then, I *m sorry I found him out. Yes ! If
I had n't, I might have manied him, and perhaps if I
had died soon I might never have found him out.
He could have been good to me a year or two, and
then, if I died, I should have been safe. Yes, I wish
he could have deceived me till after we were married.
Then I could n't have borne to give him up, may
be."

" You would have given hirn up, even then. And
that 's the only thing that reconciles me to it now.
I 'm sorry for you, my girl ; but you 'd have made me
Borrier then. Sooner or later he 'd have broken your
heart"

•J

€

V-

_ J

K-

'■

■• ■-

■^.M

108 A MODERN INSTANCE,

" He *s broken it now," said the girl, calmly.

" Oh, no, he has n't," replied her father, with a false
cheerfulness that did not deceive her. " You 're young,
and you '11 get over it. I mean to take you away
from here' for a while. I mean to take you up to
Boston, and on to New York. I should n't care if we
went as far as Washington. I guess, when you 've
seen a little more of the world, you w^on't think Bart-
ley Hubbard 's the only one in it."

She looked at him so intently that he thought she
must be pleased at his proposal. " Do you think I
could get him back ? " she asked.

Her father lost his patience ; it was a relief to be
angry. " No, I don't think so. I know you could n't.
And you ought to be ashamed of mentioning such a
thing ! "

" Oh, ashamed ! No, I 've got past that. I have
no shame any more where he 's concerned. Oh, I 'd
give the world if I could call him back, — if I could
only undo what I did ! I was wild ; I was n't reason-
able ; I would n't listen to him. I drove him away
without giving him a chance to say a word ! Of
course, he must hate me now. What makes you think
he would n't come back ? " she asked.

" I know he would n't," answered her father, with a
sort of groan. " He *s going to leave Equity for one
thing, and — "

"Going to leave Equity," she repeated, absently.
Then he felt her tremble. " How do you know he *a
going ? " She turned upon her father, and fixed him
sternly with her eyes.

" Do you suppose he would stay, after what 's hap-
pened, any longer than he could help ? "

" How do you know he 's going ? " she repeated,

" He told me."

She stood up. " He told you ? When ? "

« To-night."

A MODERN INSTANCE. lOS

*Why, where — where did you see him?" she
whispered.

*' In the office."

" Since — since — I came ? Bartley been here !
And you did n't tell me, — you did n't let me know ? "
They looked at each other in silence. At last,
" When is he going ? '* she asked.

" To-morrow morning."

She sat down in the chair which her mother had
left, and clutched the back of another, on which her
fingers opened and closed convulsively, while she
caught her breath in irregular gasps. She broke into
a low moaning, at last, the expression of abject defeat
in the struggle she had waged with herself. Her
father watched her with dumb compassion. " Better
go to bed, Marcia," he said, with the same dry calm
as if he had been sending her away after some pleas-
ant evening which she had suffered to run too far into
the night.

" Don't you think — don't you think — he '11 have
to see you again before he goes ? " she made out to
ask.

" No ; he 's finished up with me," said the old
man.

" Well, then," she cried, desperately, " you'll have
to go to him, father, and get him to come ! I can't
help it ! I can't give him up ! You 've got to go to
him, now, father, - — yes, yes, you have ! You 've got
to go and tell him. Go and get him to come, for
mercy 8 sake ! Tell him that I 'm sorry, — that I beg
his pardon, — - that I did n't think — I did n't under-
stand, — that I knew he did n't do an3rthing wrong — "
She rose, and, placing her hand on her father's
shoulder, accented each entreaty with a little push.

He looked up into her face with a haggard smile of
sympathy. " You 're crazy, Marcia," he said, gently.

" Don't laugh J" she cried. "I'm not crazy now.

110 A MODERN INSTANCE.

But I was, then, — yes, stark, staring crazy. Look
here, father ! I want to tell you, — I want to explain
to you!" She dropped upon his knee again, and
tremblingly passed her arm round his neck. "You
see, I had just told him the day before that I should
n't care for anything that happened before we were
engaged, and then at the very first thing I went and
threw him off! And I had no right to do it. He
knows that, and that's what makes him so hard
towards me. But if you go and tell him that I see
now I was all wrong, and that I beg his pardon, and
then ask him to give me one more trial, just one more —
You can do as much as that for me, can't you ? "

"Oh, you poor, crazy girl!" groaned her father.
"Don't you see that the trouble is in what the fellow
-^Sr~amL not in any particular thing that he 's done ?
He 's a scamp, through and through ; and he *8 all the
more a scamp M^hen he does n't know it. He has n't
got the first idea of anything but selfishness."

" No, no ! Now, I '11 tell you, — now, I '11 prove it
to you. That very Sunday when we were out riding
together ; and we met her and her mother, and their
sleigh upset, and he had to lift her back ; and it made
me wild to see him, and I would n't hardly touch him
or speak to him afterwards, he did n't say one angry
word to me. He just pulled me up to him, and
would n't let me be mad ; and he said that night he
did n't mind it a bit because it showed how much I
liked him. Now, does n't that prove he 's good, — a
good deal better than I am, and that he '11 forgive me,
if you '11 go and ask him ? I know he is n't in bed
yet ; he always sits up late, — he told me so ; and
you '11 find him there in his room. Go straight to his
room, father ; don't let anybody see you down in the
office ; I could n't bear it ; and slip out with him as
quietly as you can. But, oh, do hurry now ! Don t
lose another minute 1 "

A MODEKN INSTANCE. Ill

The wild joy sprang into her face, as her father
rose ; a joy that it was terrible to him to see die out
of it as he spoke : " I teU you it *s no use, Marcia !
He would n*t come if I went to him — "

"Oh, yes, — yes, he would! I know he would I
If—''

" He would n't ! You 're mistaken ! I should have
to get down in the dust for nothing. He 's a bad fel-
low, I tell you ; and you 've got to give him up."

" You hate me ! " cried the girl. The old man
walked to and fro, clutching his hands. Their lives
had always been in such intimate sympathy, his life
had so long had her happiness for its sole pleasure,
that the pang in her heart racked his with as sharp
an agony. " Well, I shall die ; and then I hope you
will be satisfied."

" Marcia, Marcia ! " pleaded her father. " You don't
know what you 're saying."

" You 're letting him go away from me, — you 're
letting me lose him, — you 're killing me ! "

" He would n't come, my girl. It would be perfectly
useless to go to him. You must — you miist try to
control yourself, Marcia. There's no other way, —
there 's no other hope. You *re disgraceful. You ought
to be ashamed. You ought to have some pride about
you. I don't know what 's come over you since you 've
been with that fellow. You seem to be out of your
senses. But try, — try, my girl, to get over it. If
you '11 fight it, you '11 conquer yet. You 've got a spirit
for anything. And I '11 help you, Marcia. I '11 take
you anywhere. I '11 do anything for you — "

"You wouldn't go to him, and ask him to come
here, if it would save his life ! "

" No," said the old man, with a desperate quiet, " I
would n't."

She stood looking at him, and then she sank sud-
denly and straight down, as if she were sinking

112 A MODERN INSTANCE.

through the floor. When he lifted her, he saw t
she was in a dead faint, and while the swoon las
would be out of her misery. The sight of this 1
wrung him so that he had a kind of relief in look;
at her lifeless face ; and he was slow in laying ]
down again, like one that fears to wake a sleep:
child. Then he went to. the foot of the stairs, a
softly called to his wife : " Miranda ! Miranda I "

A MODERN INSTANCE. 113

IX.

Kinney came into town the next morning bright
and early, as he phrased it ; but he did not stop at
the hotel for Bartley till nine o'clock. " Thought I 'd
give you time for breakfast," he exclaimed, " and so I
did n't hurry up any about gettin' in my supplies."

It was a beautiful morning, so blindingly sunny
that Bartley winked as they drove up through the
glistening street, and was glad to dip into the gloom
of the first woods ; it was not cold ; the snow felt the
warmth, and packed moistly under their runners.
The air was perfectly still ; at a distance on the
mountain-sides it sparkled as if full of diamond dust.
Far overhead some crows called.

" The sun 's getting high," said Bartley, with the
light sigh of one to whom the thought of spring
brings no hope.

** Well, I should n't begin to plough for corn just

yet," replied Kinney. "It's curious," he went on,

" to see how anxious we are to have a thing over, it

don't much matter what it is, whether it 's summer or

winter. I suppose we'd feel different if we wa'n't /

sure there was going to be .another of 'em. I guess

that 's one reason why the Lord concluded not to keep

us clearly posted on the question of another life. If

it wa'n't for the uncertainty of the thing, there are a

lot of fellows like you that would n't stand it here a

minuta Why, if we had a dead sure thing of over-

the-river, — good climate, plenty to eat and weai*, and

not much to do, — I don't believe any of us would

114 A MODEBN INSTAKCK.

keep Darling Minnie waiting, well, a great whila
But you see, the thing 's all on paper, and that
makes us cautious, and willing to hang on here awhile
longer. Looks splendid on the map : streets regularly
laid out; public squares; band-stands; churches;
eolid blocks of houses, with all the modem improve-
ments ; but you can't tell whether there 's any town
there till you 're on the ground ; and then, if you
don't like it, there's no way of gettin' back to
the States." He turned round upon Bartley and
opened his mouth wide, to imply that this was
plea^ntry.

" Do you throw your philosophy in, all under the
same price, Kinney ? " asked the young fellow.

"Well, yes; I never charge anything over,** said
Kinney. *' You see, I have a good deal of time to
think when I 'm around by myself all day, and the
philosophy don't cost me anything, and the fellows
like it. Eoughing it the way they do, they can stand
'most anything. Hey ? " He now not only opened
his mouth upon Bartley, but thrust him in the side
with his elbow, and then laughed noisily.

Kinney was the cook. He had been over pretty
nearly the whole uninhabitable globe, starting as a
gaunt and awkward boy from the Maine woods, and
\ keeping until he came back to them in late middle-
life the same gross and ridiculous optimism. He had
been at sea, and shipwrecked on several islands in the
Pacific ; he had passed a rainy season at Panama, and
a yellow-fever season at Vera Cruz, and had been
carried far into the interior of Peru by a tidal wave
during an earthquake season ; he was in the Border
Euffian War of Kansas, and he clung to California till
prosperity deserted her after the completion of the
Pacific rood. Wherever he went, he carried or found
adversity ; but, with a heart fed on the metaphysics
hi Horace Greeley, and buoyed up by a few wildly in^

A MODERN INSTANCE. 115

terpretjed maxims of Emerson, he had always believed '"^
in othe,r men, and their fitness for the terrestrial mil-
lenniui|a, which was never more than ten days or ten
miles 0;ff^ It is not necessary to say that he had con-
tinued \a!s poor as he began, and that he was never
able to I con tribute to those railroads, mills, elevators,
towns, alnd cities which were sure to be built, sir, sure
to be built, wherever he went. When he came home
at last to the woods, some hundreds of miles north of
Equity, he found that some one had realized his early
dream of a summer hotel on the shore of the beautiful
lake there ; and he unenviously settled down to ad-
mire the landlord's thrift, and to act as guide and cook
for parties of young ladies and gentlemen who started
from the hotel to camp in the woods. This brought
him into the society of cultivated people, for which
he had a real passion. / He had always had a few
thoughts rattling round in his skull, and he liked to
make sure of them in talk with those who had en-
joyed greater advantages than himself He never^^
begrudged them their luck ; he simply and sweetly
admired them j^e. made studies of their several char-
acters, and was never tired of analyzing them to their
advantage to the next summer's parties. Late in the
fall, he went in, as it is called, with a camp of loggers,
among whom he rarely failed to find some remarkable
men. But he confessed that he did not enjoy the
steady three or four months in the winter woods with
no coming out at all till spring; and he had been
glad of this chance in a logging camp near Equity, in
which he had been offered the cook*s place by the
owner who had tested his fare in the N'orthern woods
the summer before. Its proximity to the village al-
lowed him to loaf in upon civilization at least once a
week, and he spent the greater part of his time at
the Free Press office on publication day. He had
always Aought the society of newspaper men, and.

116 A MODERN INSTANCE.

wherever he could, he had given them his. (He was
not long in discovering that Bartley was smart as a
steel trap; and by an early and natural tifansition
from calling the young lady compositors by their pet
names, and patting them on their shoulders, he had
arrived at a like aflFectionate intimacy with Bartley.

As they worked deep into the woods on their way
to the camp, the road dwindled to a well-worn track
between the stumps and bushes. The ground was
rough, and they constantly plimged down the slopes
of little hills, and climbed the sides of the little val-
leys, and from time to time they had to turn out for
teams drawing logs to the mills in Equity, each with
its equipage of four or five wild young fellows, who
saluted Kinney with an ironical cheer or jovial taunt
in passing.

" They 're all just so," he explained, with pride,
when the last party had passed. " They 're gentle-
men, every one of 'em, — perfect gentlemen."

They came at last to a wider clearing than any they
had yet passed through, and here on a level of the
hillside stretched the camp, a long, low structure of
logs, with the roof broken at one point by a stove-
pipe, and the walls irregularly pierced by small win-
dows ; around it crouched and burrowed in the drift
the sheds that served as stables and storehouses.

The sun shone, and shone with dazzling brightness,
upon the opening ; the sound of distant shouts and
the rhythmical stroke of axes came to it out of
the forest; but the camp was deserted, and in the
stillness Kinney's voice seemed strange and alien.
" Walk in, walk in !" he said, hospitably. " I Ve got
to look after my horse."

But Bartley remained at the door, blinking in the
sunshine, and harking to the near silence that sang in
his ears. A curious feeling possessed him ; sickness
of himself as of some one else ; a longing, consciously

.A MODEKN INSTANCE. 117

helpless, to be something different ; a sfinaajiEjcaptiv:-
ity to habits and thoughts and hopes that centred in
himselCand served him ajone.

" Terribly peaceful around here," said Kinney, com-
ing back to him, and joining him in a survey of the
landscape, with his hands on his hips, and a stem of
timothy projecting from his lips.

" Yes, terribly," assented Bartley.

" But it aint a bad way for a man to live, as long
as he 's young ; or haint got anybody that wants his
company more than his room. — Be the place for
you."

" On which ground ? " Bartley asked, drily, without
taking his eyes from a distant peak that showed
through the notch in the forest.

Kinney laughed in as unselfish enjoyment as if he
had made the turn himself. " Well, that aint exactly
what I meant to say : what I meant was that any
man engaged in intellectual pursuits wants to come J
out and commune with nature, every little while."

" You call the Equity Free Press intellectual pur-
suits ? " demanded Bartley, with scorn. " I suppose
it i3," he added. " Well, here I am, — right on the
commune. But nature 's such a big thing, I tliink it
takes two to commune with her."

Well, a girl 's a help," assented Kinney,
I was n*t thinking of a girl, exactly,'* said Bartley,
with a little sadness. " I mean that, if you 're not in
first-rate spiritual condition, you *re apt to get floored, *
if you undertake to commune with nature."

" I guess that 's about so. If a man *s got anything (
on his mind, a big railroad depot 's the place for Mm.
But you 're nm down. You ought to come out here,
and take a hand, and be a man amongst men." Kin-
ney talked partly fSTquantity, and partly for pure,
indefinite good feeling.

Bartley turned toward the door. " What have you
got inside, here ? "

It
ft

118 A MODERN INSTANCR

Kinney flung the door open, and followed his
guest within. The first two-thirds of the cabin was
used as a dormitory, and the sides were furnished
with rough bunks, from the ground to the roof. The
round, unhewn logs showed their form everywhere;
the crevices were calked with moss; and the walls
were warm and tight. It was dark between the
bunks, but beyond it was lighter, and Hartley could
see at the farther end a vast cooking-stove, and three
long tables with benches at their sides. A huge
coffee-pot stood on the top of the stove, and various
pots and kettles surrounded it.

" Come into the dining-room and sit down in the
parlor," said Kinney, drawing off his coat as he
walked forward. " Take the sofa," he added, indicat-
ing a movable bench. He hung his coat on a peg
and rolled up his shirt-sleeves, and began to whistle
cheerily, like a man who enjoys his work, as he threw
open the stove door and poked in some sticks of
fuel. A brooding warmth filled the place, and the
wood made a pleasant cmckling as it took fire.

" Here 's my desk," said Kinney, pointing to • a
barrel that supported a broad, smooth board-top.
" This is where I compose my favorite works." He
turned round, and cut out of a mighty mass of dough
in a tin trough a portion, which he threw down on
his table and attacked with a rolling-pin. "That
means pie, Mr. Hubbard," he explained, " and pie
means meat-pie, — or squash-pie, at a pinch. To-
day 's pie-baking day. But you need n't be troubled
on that account. So *s to-moiTow, and so was yester-
day. Pie twenty-one times a week is the word, and
don't you forget it They say old Agassiz," Kinney
went on, in that easy, familiar fondness with which
our people like to speak of greatness that impresses
their imagination, — "they say old Agassiz recom-
mended fish as the best food for the brain. Well, I

A MODERN INSTANCE. 119

don't suppose but what it is. But I don't know but
what pie is more stimulating to the fancy. I never
saw anything like meat-pie to make ye dream."

" Yes/* said Bartley, nodding gloomily, " I Ve
tried it."

Kinney laughed. "Well, I guess folks of seden-
tary pursuits, like you and me, don't need it ; but
these fellows that stamp round in the snow all day,
they want something to keep their imagination goin*.
And I guess pie does it. Anyway, they can't seem
to get enough of it. Ever try apples when you was
at work ? They say old Greeley kep' his desk full
of 'enij kep' munchin' away all the while when he
was writin' his editorials. And one of them German /
poets — I doii'^t know .but what it was old Gutty /
himself — kept ro^^^Ti ones in his drawer; liked the ^
«mell of 'em. Well, there 's a good deal of apple it).
meat-pie. May be it's the apple that does it. /
don't know. But I guess if your pursuits are seden-
tary, you better take the apple separate."

Bartley did not say anything ; but he kept a lazily
interested eye on Kinney as he rolled out his pie-
crust, fitted it into his tins, filled these from a jar of
mince-meat, covered them with a sheet of dough
jierced in herring-bone pattern, and marshalled them
at one side ready for the oven.

" If fish is any better for the brain," Kinney pro-
ceeded, " they can't complain of any want of it, at
least in the salted form. They get fish-balls three
times a week for breakfast, as reg'lar as Sunday;
Tuesday, and Thursday comes round. And Fridays
I make up a sort of chowder for the Kanucks ; they 're
Catholics, you know, and I don't believe in inter-^
ferin' with any man's religion, it don't matter what

it 13.

; "You ought to be a deacon in the First Church
*; .Equity," said Bartley

120 A MODERN INSTANCE.

' " Is that so ? Why ? " asked Kinney.

"Oh, they don't believe in interfering with any
man's religion, either."

"Well," said Kinney, thoughtfully, pausing with
the rolling-pin in his hand, " there 's such a thing as
being too liberal, I suppose."

" The world 's tried the other thing a good while,"
said Hartley, with cynical amusement at Kinney's
arrest.

It seemed to chill the flow of the good fellow's
optimism, so that he assented with but lukewarm
satisfaction.

"Well, that's so, too," and he made up the rest
of his pies in silence.

"Well," he exclaimed at .last, as if shaking him-
self out of an unpleasant reverie, " I guess we shall
get along, somehow. Do you like pork and beans ? "

" Yes, I do," said Hartley.

"We're goin' to have 'em for dinner. You can
hit beans any meal you drop in on us ; beans twenty-
one times a week, just like pie. Set 'em in to
warm," he said, taking up a capacious earthen pot,
near the stove, and putting it into the oven. " I
been pretty much everywheres, and I don't know
as I found anything for a stand-by that come up
to beans. I 'm goin' to give 'em potatoes and
cabbage to-day, — kind of a boiled-dinner day, —
but you '11 see there aint one in ten '11 touch 'em to
what there will these old residenters. Potatoes and
cabbage '11 do for a kind of a delicacy, — sort of a
side-dish, — on-tree, you know ; but give 'em beans
for a steady diet. Why, off there in Chili, even,
the people regularly live on beans, — not exactly
like ours, — broad and flat, — but they 're beans.
Wa'n't there some those ancients — old Horace, or
Virgil, may be — rung in something about bean?
in some their poems ? "

A MODERN INSTANCE. :121

"I don't remember anything of the kind," said
Hartley, languidly.

" Well, I don't know as / can. I just have a dim
recollection of language thrown out at the object, —
as old Matthew Arnold says. But it might have
been something in Emerson."

Bartley laughed " I did n't suppose you were such
a reader, Kinney.*'

" Oh, I nibble round wherever I can get a
chanca Mostly in the newspapers, you know. I
don't get any time for books, as a general rule. , /
But there 's pretty much everything in the papers.
I should call beans a brain food."

" I guess you call anything a brain food that you
happen to like, don't you, Kinney?"

" No, sir," said Kinney, soberly ; " but I like to
see the philosophy of a thing when I get a chanca
Now, there 's tea, for example," h^ said, pointing to
the great tin pot on the stove.

" Coffee, you mean," said Bartley.

" No, sir, I mean tea. That 's tea ; and I give it
to 'em three times a day, good and strong, — molas*
ses in it, and no milk. That 's a brain food, if ever
there was one. Sets 'em up, right on end, every
time. Clears their Jieads and keeps the cold out."

" I should think you were running a seminary for
young ladies, instead of a logging-camp," said Bart^
ley.

"No, but. look dt it: I'm in earnest about tea
You look at the tea drinkers and the coffee-drinker^
all the world over ! Look at 'em in our own country !
All the Northern people and all the go-ahead peopk
drink tea. The Penn^ylvanians and the Southerners
drink coffee. Why our New England folks don't
even know how to make coffee so it 's fit to drink !
And it 's just so all over Europe. The Russians drink
tea, and they 'd «'t up those coffee-drinkin' Turk9

122 A MODERN INSTANCE.

long ago, if the tea-drinkin* English hadn't kept 'em
from it. Go anywheres you like in the North, and you
find 'em drinkin' tea The Swedes and Norwegians
in Aroostook County drink it ; and they drink it at
home."

" Well, what do you think of the French and Ger-
mans ? They drink coffee, and they 're pretty smart,
active people, too."

" French and Germans drink coffee ? "

" Yes."

Kinney stopped short in his heated career of gen-
eralization, and scratched his shaggy head. " Well,"
he said, finally, " I guess they 're a kind of a missing
link, as old Darwin says." He joined Bartley in his
laugh cordially, and looked up at the round clock
nailed to a log. " It 's about time I set my tables,
anyway. Well," he asked, apparently to keep the
conversation from flagging, while he went about this
work, "how is the good old Free Press getting
along ? "

"It's going to get along without me from this
out," said Bartley. "This is my last week ill
Equity."

"No!" retorted Kinney, in tremendous astonish-
ment.

" Yes ; I 'm off at the end of the week. Squire
Oaylord takes the paper back for the committee, and
I suppose Henry Bird will run it for a while ; or per.-
haps they'll stop it altogether. It's been a losing
business for the committee."

Why, I thought you 'd bought it of 'em."
Well, that 's what I expected to do ; but the office
hasn't made any money. All that I've saved is in
my colt and cutter."
: " That sorrel ? "

Bartley nodded. *' I 'm going away about as poor
ias I came. I could n't go much poorer."

A MODERN INSTANCE. 123 f

^ "Well !" said Kinney, in the exhaustion of adequate
language. He went on laying the plates and knives
and forks in silence. These were of undisguised steel ;
the dishes and the drinking mugs were of that dense
and heavy make which the keepers of cheap restaurants
use to protect themselves against breakage, and which
their servants chip to the quick at every edge. Kinney
laid bread and crackers by each plate, and on each he
placed a vast slab of cold corned beef Then he lifted
the lid of the pot in which the cabbage and potatoes
were boiling together, and pricked them with a fork.
He dished up the beans in a succession of deep tins,
and set them at intervals along the tables, and began
to talk again. " Well, now, I *m sorry. I 'd just
begun to feel real well acquainted with you. Tell
you the truth, I did n*t take much of a fancy to you,
first off."

" Is that so ? *' asked Bartley, not much disturbed
by the confession.

" Yes, sir. Well, come to boil it down," said Kinney,
with the frankness of the analytical mind that dis-
dains to spare itself in the pursuit of truth, " I did n*t
like your good clothes. I don't suppose I ever had a
suit of clothes to fit me. Feel kind of ashamed, you
know, when I go into the store, and take the first /
thing ^e Jew wants to put off on to me. Now, I J
suppose you go to MacuUar and Parker's in Boston,
and you get what you want."

" No ; I have my measure at a tailor's," said Bart-
ley, with ill-concealed pride in the fact.

" You don't say so ! " exclaimed Kinney. " Well !*'
he said, as if he might as well swallow this pill, too^
while he was about it. " Well, what 's the use ? I
never was the figure for clothes, anyway. Long;
gangling boy to start with, and a lean, stoop-shoul-
dered man. I found out some time ago that a fellow
wa'n't necessariJiy a bad fellow because he had money ;

124 A MODERN INSTANCE..

•

or a good fellow because he hadn't. But I hadn't
quite got over hating a man because he had style.
Well, I suppose it was a kind of a sv^rvival, as old
Tylor calls it. But I tell you, I sniffed round you a
good while before I made up my mind to swallow
you. And that turnout of yours, it kind of staggered
/me, after I got over the clothes. Why, it wasn't so
/ much the colt, — any man likes to ride after a sorrel
' colt ; and it wa'n't so much the cutter : it was the red
linin' with pinked edges that you had to your robe ;
and it was the red ribbon that you had tied round the
waist of your whip. When I see that ribbon on that
whip, dumn you, I wanted to kill you." Bartley
broke out into a laugh, but Kinney went on soberly.
" But, thinks I to myself : * Here ! Now you stop
right here ! You wait ! You give the fellow a chance
for his life. Let him have a chance to show whether
that whip-ribbon goes all through him, first. If it
does, kill him cheerfully ; but give him a chance ^rs^.'
Well, sir, I gave you the chance, and you showed that
you deserved it. I guess you taught me a lesson.
When I see you at work, pegging away hard at some-
thing or other, every time I went into your ofl&ce, up
and coming with everybody, and just as ready to pass
the time of day with me as the biggest bug in town,
thinks I : ' You 'd have made a great mistake to kill
tha,t fellow, Kinney !' And I just made up my mind
to like you."

" Thanks," said Bartley, with ironical gratitude.
Kinney did not speak at once. He whistled thought-
fully through his teeth, and then he said : " I '11 tell
you what : if you 're going away very poor, I know a
wealthy chap you can raise a loan out of."

Bartley thought seriously for a silent moment. " If
your friend offers me twenty dollars, I 'm not too well
dressed to take it."

A MODERN INSTANCE. 125

" All right," said Kinney. He now dished up the
cabbage and potatoes, and throwing a fresh handful
of tea into the pot, and filling it up with water, he
took down a tin horn, with which he went to the door
and sounded a long, stertorous nota

126 A MODEIiN I27STANCE

" Guess it was the clothes again," said Kinney, as
he began to wash his tins and dishes after the dinner
was over, and the men had gone back to their work.
" I could see 'em eyin' you over when they first came
in, and I could see that they did n't exactly like the
looks of 'em. It would wear off in time, but it takes
time for it to wear off; and it had to go pretty rusty
for a start-off. Well, I don't know as it makes much
difference to you, does it ? "

" Oh, I thought we got along very well," said Bart-
ley, with a careless yawn. "There wasn't much
chance to get acquainted." Some of the loggers were
as handsome and well-made as he, and were of as good
origin and traditions, though he had some advantages
of training. But his two-button cutaway, his well-
fitting trousers, his scarf with a pin in it, had been too
much for these- young fellows in their long 'stoga
boots and flannel shirts. They looked at him askance,
and despatched their meal with more than their
wonted swiftness, and were off again into the woods
without any demonstrations of satisfaction in Bartley's
presence.

He had perceived their grudge, for he had felt it in
his time. But it did not displease him ; he had none
of the pain with which Kinney, who had so long
bragged of him to the loggers, saw that his guest was
a failure.

" I guess they '11 come out all right in the end," he
said. In this warm atmosphere, after the gross and

A MODEKN INSTANCE. 127

heavy dinner he had eaten, he yawned again and
again. He folded his overcoat into a pillow for his
bench and lay down, and lazily watched Kinney
about his work. Presently he saw Kinney seated on
a block of wood beside the stove, with his elbow
propped in one hand, and holding a magazine, out of
which he was reading; he wore spectacles, which
gave him a fresh and interesting touch of grotesque-
ness. Bartley found that an empty barrel had been
placed on each side of him, evidently to keep him
from rolling off his bench.

" Hello ! " he said. " Much obliged to you, Kinney.
I have n*t been taken such good care of since I can
remember. Been asleep, have n't I ? "

"About an hour," said Kinney, with a glance at
the clock, and ignoring his agency in Hartley's com-
fort.

" Food for the brain ! ** said Bartley, sitting up. " I
should think so. I Ve dreamt a perfect New Ameri-
can Cyclopaedia, and a pronouncing gazetteer thrown
u.

" Is that so ? " said Kinney, as if pleased with the
suggestive character of his cookery, now established
by eminent experiment.

Bartley yawned a yawn of satisfied-%leepiness, and
rubbed his hand over his face. " I suppose," he said,
" if I 'm going to write anything about Camp Kinney,
I had better see all there is to see."

*'Well, yes, I presume you had," said Klinney.
" We '11 go over to where they 're cuttin', pretty soon,
and you can see all there is in an hour. But I pre-
sume you '11 want to see it so as to ring in some de-
scription, hey? Well, that's all right. But what
you going to do with it, when you 've done it, now
you 're out of the Free Press ? "

*' Oh, I should n't have printed it in the Free Press,
anyway. Coals to Newcastle, you know. I '11 tell

128 A MODERN INSTANCE.

you what I think I'll do, Kinney : I'll get my out-
lines, and then you post me with a lot of facts,—
queer characters, accidents, romantic incidents, snow*
ings-up, threatened starvation, adventures with wild
animals, — and I can make something worth while ;
get out two or three columns, so they can print
it in their Sunday edition. And then I'll take it
up to Boston with me, and seek my fortune with

it"

" Well, sir, I '11 do it," said Kinney, fired with the
poetry of the idea. " I '11 post you ! Dumn 'f I don't
wish / could write ! Well, I did use to scribble once
for an agricultural paper ; but I don't call that writin'.
I 've set down, well, I guess as much as sixty times,
to try to write out what I know about loggin' — "

" Hold on ! " cried Bartley, whipping out his note-
book. "That's first-rate. That'll do for the first
line in the head, — What I Know About Loggingy —
large caps. Well ! "

Kinney shut his magazine, and took his knee be*
tween his hands, closing one of his eyes in order to
sharpen his recollection. He poured forth a stream
of reminiscence, mingled observation, and personal
experience. Bartley followed him with his pencil,
jotting down points, striking in sub-head lines, and
now and then interrupting him with cries of " Good !"
" Capital ! " " It 's a perfect mine, — it 's a mint ! By
Jove ! " he exclaimed, " I 'U make six columns of this !
I '11 offer it to one of the magazines, and it '11 come
out illustrated ! Go on, Kinney."

" Hark ! " said Kinney, craning his neck forward to
listen. " I thought I heard sleigh-bells. But I guess
it wa'n't Well, sir, as I was sayin', they fetched that
fellow into camp with both feet frozen to the knees —
Dumn 'f it wa'n't bells ! "

He unlimbered himself, and hurried to the door at
the other end of the cabin, which he opened, letting

A MODERN INSTANGB. 129

f n a clear block of the afternoon sunshine, and a gush
of sleigh-bell music, shot with men*s voices, and the
cries and laughter of women.

** Well, sir," said Kinney, coming back and making
haste to roll down his sleeves and put on his coat.
" Here *s a nuisance ! A whole party of folks -— two
sleigh-loads — right on us. I don't know who they
be, or where they *re from. But I know where I wish
they was. Well, of course, it *s natural they should
want to see a loggin'-camp," added Kinney, taking
himself to task for his inhospitable mind, " and there
ain't any harm in it. But I wish they 'd give a fellow
a little notice ! "

The voices and bells drew nearer, but Kinney
seemed resolved to observe the decorum of not going
to the door till some one knocked.

"Kinney! Kinney! Hello, Kinney!" shouted a
man's voice, as the bells hushed before the door, and
broke into a musical clash when one of the horses
tossed his head.

" Well, sir,' said Kinney, rising, " I guess it 's old
Willett himself He 's the owner ; lives up to Port-
land, and been threatening to come down here all
winter, with a party of friends. You just stay still,"
he added ; and he paid himself the deference which
every true American owes himself in his dealings
with his employer : he went to the door very deliber-
ately, and made no haste on account of the repeated
cries of " Kinney ! Kinney ! " in which others of the
party outside now joined.

When he opened the door again, the first voice sa-
luted him with a roar of laughter. " Why, Kinney,
I began to think you were dead ! "

"No, sir," Bartley heard Kinney reply, "it takes
more to kill me than you suppose." But now he
stepped outside, and the talk became unintelligible.

Finally Hartley heard what was imaginably Mr.

130 A MODEAN instance:

Willett's voice saying, "Well, let's go in and have a
look at it now " ; and with much outcry and laughter
the ladies were invisibly helped to dismount, and
presently the whole party came stamping and rus-
tling in.

Hartley's blood tingled. He liked this, and he
stood quite self-possessed, with his thumbs in his
waistcoat pockets and his elbows dropped, while Mr.
Willett advanced in a friendly way.

" Ah, Mr. Hubbard ! Kinney told us you were in
here, and asked me to introduce myself while he
looked after the horses. My name 's Willett. These
are my dauditers ; this is Mrs. Macallister, of Mont-
real ; Mrs. Witherby, of Boston ; Miss Witherby, and
Mr. Witherby. You ought to know each other ; Mr.
Hubbard is the editor of the Equity Free Press:
Mr. Witherby, of The Boston Events, Mr. Hubbard.
Oh, and Mr, Macallister."

Bartley bowed to the Willett and Witherby ladies,
and shook hands with Mr. Witherby, a large, solemn
man, with a purse-mouth and tight rings of white
hair, who treated him with the pomp inevitable to
the owner of a city newspaper in meeting a country
editor.

At the mention of his name, Mr. Macallister, a
slight little straight man, in a long ulster and a seal-
skin cap, tiddled farcically forward on his toes, and,
giving Bartley his hand, said, " Ah, haow d'e-do, haow
d'e-do!"

Mrs. Macallister fixed upon him the eye of the flirt
I who knows her man. She was of the dark-eyed Eng-^
^ lish type ; her eyes were very large and full, and hei
smooth black hair was drawn flatly backward, am
fastened in a knot just under her dashing fur cap.|
She wore a fur sack, and she was equipped against the]
^cold as exquisitely as her Southern sisters deferii
, themselves from the summer. Bits of warm color, *

A MODERN INSTANCE. 131

ribbon and scarf, flashed out here and there; when
she flung open her sack, she sliowed herself much
more lavishly buttoned and bugled and bangled tbun
the Americans. She sat down on the movable bench
which Bartley had vacated, and crossed her feet, very
small and saucy, even in their arctics, on a stick of
fire-wood, and cast up her neat profile, and rapidly
made eyes at every part of the interior. " Why, it 's
delicious, you know. I never saw anything so com-
fortable. I want to spend the rest of me life here, you
know." She spoke very far down in her throat, and
with a rising inflection in each sentence. " I *m go-
ing to have a quarrel with you, Mr. Willett, for not
telling me what a delightful surprise you had for us
here. Oh, but I 'd no idea of it, I assure you ! "

"Well, I'm glad you like it, Mrs. Macallister,*'
said Mr. Willett, with the clumsiness of American
middle-age when summoned to say something gallant. «
" If I 'd told you what a surprise I had for you, it
would n't have been one."

" Oh, it 's no good your trying to get out of it that
way," retorted the beauty. *' There he comes now!
I 'm really in love with him, you know," she said, as
Kinney opened the door and came hulking forward.

Nobody said anything at once, but Bartley laughed
finally, and ventured, " Well, I '11 propose for you to
Kinney."

" Oh, I dare say ! " cried the beauty, with a lively
effort of wit. " Mr. Kinney, I have fallen in love
with your camp, d* ye know ? " she added, as Kinney
drew near, " and I 'm beggin' Mr. Willett to let me
come and live here among you."

"Well, ma'am," said Kinney, a little abashed at
this proposition, " you could n't do a better thing for
your health, I guess^

The proprietor of The Boston Events turned
about^ and began to look over the arrangements of the

132 A MODERN INSTANCE.

interior ; the other ladies went with him, conversing
in low tones. " These must be the places where the
men sleep," they said, gazing at the bunks.

"We must get Kinney to explain things to us,"
said Mr. Willett a little restlessly.

Mrs. Macallister jumped briskly to her feet. " Oh,
yes, do, Mr. Willett, make him explain everything !
I *ve been tryin* to coax it out of him, but he 's s^tch
a tease ! "

Kinney looked very sheepish in this character, and
Mrs. Macallister hooked Bartley to her side for the
tour of the interior. " I can't let you away from me,
Mr. Hubbard; your friend's so satirical, I'm afraid
of him. Only fancy, Mr. Willett ! He 's been talkin'
to me about brain foods ! I know he 's makin* fun of
me ; and it is n't kind, is it, Mr. Hubbard ? "

She did not give the least notice to the things that
the others looked at, or to Kinney's modest lecture
upon the manners and customs of the loggers. She
kept a little apart with Bartley, and plied him with
bravadoes, with pouts, with little cries of suspense.
In the midst of this he heard Mr. WiUett saying,
" You ought to get some one to come and write about
this for your paper, Witherby:" But Mrs. Macallister
was also saying something, with a significant turn
of her floating eyes, and the thing that concerned
Bartley, il* he were to make his way among the news-
papers in Boston, slipped from his grasp like tlie
idea which we try to seize in a dream. She made
sure of him for the drive to the place which they vis-
ited to see the men felling the trees, by inviting him
to a seat at her side in the sleigh ; this crowded the
others, but she insisted, and they all gave way, as
people must, to the caprices of a pretty woman. Her
coquetries united British wilfulness to American non-
chalance, and seemed to have been graduated to the
appreciation of garrison and St. Lawrence Kiver steam^

A MODERN INSTANCE. 133

boat and watering-place society. The Willett ladies
had already found it necessary to explain to the With-
erby ladies that they had met her the summer before
at the sea-side, and that she had stopped at Portland
on her way to England ; they did not know her very
well, but some friends of theirs did ; and their father
had asked her to come with them to the camp. They
added that the Canadian ladies seemed to expect the
gentlemen to be a great deal more attentive than ours
were. They had known as little what to do with Mr,
Macallister's small-talk and compliments as his wife's
audacities, but they did not view Hartley's responsive-
ness with pleasure If Mrs. Macallister's arts were
not subtle, as Bartley even in the intoxication of her
preference could not keep from seeing, still, in his
mood, it was consoling to be singled out by her ; it
meant that even in a logging-camp he was recogniza-
ble by any person of fashion as a good-looking, well-
dressed man of the world. It embittered him the
more against Marcia, while, in some sort, it vindicated
him to himself

The early winter sunset was beginning to tinge the
snow with crimson, when the party started back to
camp, where Kinney was to give them supper; he
had it greatly on his conscience that they should
have a good time, and he promoted it as far as hot
mince-pie and newly fried doughnuts would go. He
also opened a few canned goods, as he called some
very exclusive sardines and peaches, and he made an
entirely fresh pot of tea, and a pan of soda-biscuit.
Mrs. Macallister made remarks across her plate which
were for Bartley alone ; and Kinney, who was seri-
ously waiting upon his guests, refused to respond to
Hartley's joking reference to himself of some ques-
tions and comments of hers.

After supper, when the loggers had withdrawn t^
the other end of the long hut, she called out to Kii^"

134 A MODERN INSTANCE

Hey, " Oh, do tell them to smoke : we shall not mind
it at all, I assure you. Can't some of them do some-
thing ? Sing or dance ? "

Kinney unbent a little at this. " There *s a first-
class clog-dancer among them; but he's a little
stuck up, and I don't know as you could get him to
dance," he said in a low tone.

"What a bloated aristocrat!" cried the lady.
*' Then the only thing is for us to dance first. Can
they play ? "

"One of 'em can whistle like a bird, — he can
whistle like a whole band " answered Kinney, warm-
ing. " And of course the Kanucks can fiddle."

" And what are Kanucks ? Is that what you call
us Canadians?"

" Well, ma'am, it aint quite the thing to do," said
Kinney, penitently.

"It isn't at all the thing to do! Which are the
Kanucks?"

She rose, and went forward with Kinney, in her
spoiled way, and addressed a swarthy, gleaming-eyed
young logger in French. He answered with a smile
that showed all his white teeth, and turned to one of
his comrades ; then the two rose, and got violins out
of the bunks, and came forward. Others of their race
joined them, but the Yankees hung gloomily back ;
they clearly did not like these liberties, this patron-
age.

" I shall have your clog-dancer on his feet yet, Mr.
Kinney," said Mrs. Macallister, as she came back to
her place.

The Canadians began to play and sing those gay,
gay airs of old France which they have kept uhsad-
dened through all the dark events that have changed
the popular mood of the mother country ; they have
matched words to them in celebration of their life on
the great rivers and in the vast forests of the North,

A MODERN INSTANCE. 135

and in these blithe barcaroles and hunting-songs
breathes the joyous spirit of a France that knows
neither doubt nor care, — France untouched by Revo-
lution or Napoleonic wars ; some of the airs still keep
the very words that came over seas with them two
hundred years ago. The transition to the dance was
quick and inevitable; a dozen slim young fellows
were gliding about behind the players, pounding the
hard earthen floor, and singing in time.

"Oh, come, come!" cried the beauty, rising and.
stamping impatiently with her little foot, " suppose
we dance, too."

She pulled Bartley forward by the hand ; her hus-
band followed with the taller Miss Willett; two of
the Canadians, at the instance of Mrs. Macallister,
came forward and politely, asked the honor of the
other young ladies* hands in the dance ; their temper
was infectious, and the cotillon was in full life before
their partners had time to wonder at their consent.
Mrs. Macallister could sing some of the Canadian
songs ; her voice, clear and fresh, rang through those
of the men, while in at the window, Qirown open for
air, came the wild cries of the forest, — the wail of a
catamount, and the solemn hooting of a distant owl.

" Is n't it jolly good fun ? " she demanded, when the
'figure was finished ; and now Kinney went up to the
first-class clog-dancer, and prevailed with him to show
his skill. He seemed to comply on condition that the
whistler should furnish the music ; he came forward
with a bashful hauteur, bridling stiffly like a girl, and
struck into the laborious and monotonous jig which
is, perhaps, our national dance. He was exquisitely
shaped, and as he danced he suppled more and more,
while the whistler warbled a wilder and swifter strain,,
and kept time with his hands. There was something
that stirred the blood in the fury of the strain and
^danca When it was done, Mrs. Macallister caught

}

136 A MODERN INSTANCE.

off her cap and ran round among the spectators to
make them pay ; she excused no one, and she gave
the money to Kinney, telling him to get his loggers
something to keep the cold out.

" I should say whiskey, if I were in the Canadian
bush," she suggested.

" Well, / guess we sha*n't say anything of that sort
in this camp," said Kinney.

She turned upon Bartley,."! know Mr. Hubbard
is dying to do something. Dq something, Mr. Hub-
bard!" Bartley looked up in surprise at this in-
terpretation of his tacit wish to distinguish himself
before her. "Come, sing us some of your student
songs."

Hartley's vanity had confided the fact of his col-
lege training to her, and he was really thinking just
then that he would like to give them a serio-comic
song, for which he had been famous with his class. *
He borrowed the violin of a Kanuck, and, sitting
down, strummed upon it banjo-wise. The song was
one of those which is partly spoken and acted ; he
really did it very well ; but the Willett and Witherby
ladies did not seem to understand it quite ; and the
gentlemen looked as if they thought this very undig-
nified business for an educated American.

Mrs. Macallister feigned a yawn, and put up her
hand to hide it. " Oh, what a styupid song ! " she
said. She sprang to her. feet, and began to put on
her wraps. The others were glad of this signal to go,
and followed her example. " Good by ! " she cried,
giving her hand to Kinney. " / don*t think your
ideas are ridiculous. I think there 's no end of good
sense in them, I assure you. I hope you won't leave
off that regard for the brain in your cooking. Good
by!" She waved her hand to the Americans, and
then to the Kanucks, as she passed out between their
respectfully parted ranks. " Adieu, messieurs I " She

A MODERN INSTANCE, 137

merely nodded to Bartley; the others parted from
him coldly, as he fancied, and it seemed to him that
he had been made responsible for that woman's co-
quetries, when he was conscious, all the time, of hav-
ing forborne even to meet them half-way. But this
was not so much to his credit as he imagined. The
flirt can only practise her audacities safely by grace
of those upon whom she uses them, and if men really
met them half-way there could be no such thing as
flirting.

138 A MODERN INSTAKCS.

The loggers pulled off their boots and got into their
bunks, where some of them lay and smoked, while
others fell asleep directly.

Bartley made some indirect approaches to Kinney
for sympathy in the snub which he had received,
and which rankled in his mind with unabated keen-
ness.

But Kinney did not respond. " Your bed 's ready,"
he said. " You can turn in whenever you like."

" What 's the matter ? " asked Bartley.

"Nothing's the matter, if you say so," answered
Kinney, going about some preparations for the morn-
ing's breakfast.

Bartley looked at his resentful back. He saw that
he was hurt, and he surmised that Kinney suspected
him of making fun of his eccentricities to Mrs. Mac-
allister. He had laughed at Kinney, and tried to
amuse her with him ; but he could not have made
this appear as harmless as it was. He rose from the
bench on which he had been sitting, and shut with a
click the penknife with which he had been cutting a
pattern on its edge.

" I shall have to say good night to you, I believe,"
he said, going to the peg on which Kinney had hung
his hat and overcoat. He had them on, and was but-
toning the coat in an angry tremor before Kinney
looked up and realized what his guest was about.

"Why, what — why, where — you goin' ?" he fal*
tered in dismay.

A MODERN INSTANCE. 139

"To Equity," said Bartley, feeling m his coat
pockets for his gloves, and drawing them on, without
looking at Kinney, whose great hands were in a pan
of dough.

" Why — why — no, you aint !" he protested, with
a revulsion of feeling that swept away all his resent-
ment, and left him nothing but remorse for his inhos-
pitality.

" No ? " said Bartley, putting up the collar of the
first ulster worn by a native in that region.

" Why, look here 1 " cried Kinney, pulling his
hands out of the dough, and making a fruitless effort
to cleanse them upon each other. " I don't want you
to go, this way."

" Don't you ? I 'm sorry to disoblige you ; but I 'm
going," said Bartley.

Kinney tried to laugh. " Why, Hubbard, — why,
Bartley, — why, Bart ! " he exclaimed. " What 's the
matter with you ? I aint mad ! "

"You have an unfortunate manner, then. Good
night." He strode out between the bunks, full of
snoring loggers.

Kinney hurried after him, imploring and protesting
in a low voice, trying to get before him, and longing
to lay his floury paws upon him and detain him by
main force, but even in his distress respecting Bart-
ley's overcoat too much to touch it. He followed him
out into the freezing air in his shirt-sleeves, and
besought him not to be such a fool. " It makes me
feel like the devil!" he exclaimed, pitifully. "You
come back, now, half a minute, and I '11 make it all
right with you. I know I can ; you 're a gentleman,
and you '11 understand. Do come back ! I shall
never get over it if you don't!"

" I 'm sorry," said Bartley, " but I 'm not going
back. Good night"
' " Oh, good Lordy I " lamented Kinney. " What am

140 A MODERN INSTANCE.

I goin' to do ? Why, man ! It 's a good three mile
and more to Equity, and the woods is full of cata-
mounts. I tell ye 't aint safe for ye." He kept fol-
lowing Hartley down the path to the road.

" 1 11 risk it,'* said Hartley.

Kinney had left the door of the camp open, and the
yells and curses of the awakened sleepers recalled
him to himself. "Well, well! If you will go^' he
groaned in despair, " here 's that money." He plunged
his doughy hand into his pocket, and pulled out a
roll of bills. " Here it is. I haint time to count it ;
but it 11 be all right, anyhow."

Hartley did not even turn his head to look round
at him. " Keep your money I " he said, as he plunged
forward through the snow. " I would n't touch a cent
of it to save your life."

" All right," said Kinney, in hapless contrition, and
he returned to shut himself in with the reproaches of
the loggers and the upbraiding of his own heart.

Hartley dashed along the road in a fury that kept
him unconscious of the intense cold ; and he passed
half the night, when he was once more in his own
room, packing his effects against his departure next
day. When all was done, he went to bed, half wish-
ing that he might never rise from it again. It was
not that he cared for Kinney ; that fool's sulking was
only the climax of a long series of injuries of which
he was the victim at the hands of a hypercritical
omnipotence.

Despite his conviction that it was useless to strug-
gle longer against such injustice, he lived through the
night, and came down late to breakfast, which he
found stale, and without the compensating advantage
of finding himself alone at the table. Some ladies
had lingered there to clear up on the best authority
the distracting rumors concerning him which thejr
had heard the day before. Was it true that he had

A MODERN INSTANCK 141

intended to spend the rest of the winter in logging ?
and was it true that he was going to give up the
Free Press ? and was it true that Henry Bird was
going to be the editor ? Bartley gave a sarcastic con-
firmation to all these reports, and went out to the
printing-office to gather up some things of his. He
found Henry Bird there, looking pale and sick, but at
work, and seemingly in authority. This was what
Bartley had always intended when he should go out,
but he did not like it, and he resented some small
changes that had already been made in the editor's
room, in tacit recognition of his purpose not to occupy
it again.

Bird greeted him stiffly; the printer girls briefly
nodded to him, suppressing some little hysterical tit-
ters, and tacitly let him feel that he was no longer
master there. While he was in the composing-room
Hannah Morrison came in, apparently from some
errand outside, and, catching sight of him, stared, and
pertly passed him in silence. On his inkstand he
found a letter from Squire Gaylord, briefly auditing
his last account, and enclosing the balance due him.
from this the old lawyer, with the careful smallness
of a village business man, had deducted various little
sums for tjiings which Bartley had never expected to
pay for. With a like thriftiness the landlord^3^hen
Bartley asked for his bill^jiad charged certain items
that had~notappeared m thebills before. Bartley felt
that the ctiargeswere trumpedlip7 l3ut he was pow-
erless to dispute them ; besides, he hoped to sell the v
landlord his colt and cutter, and he did not care to ■
prejudice that matter. Some bills from storekeepers,
which he thought he had paid, were handed to him
by the landlord,. and each of the churches had sent in
a little account -for pew-rent fpr the past eighteen
months : he had always believed himseK dead-headed
at church. He outlawed the latter by tearing them to

142 A MODERN INSTANCE.

pieces in the landlord's presence, and dropping the
fragments into a spittoon. It seemed to him that
every soul in Equity was making a clutch at the
rapidly diminishing sum of money which Squire Gay-
lord had enclosed to him, and which was all he had
in the world. On the other hand, his popularity in
the village seemed to have vanished over night. He
had sometimes fancied a genevol and rebellious grief
when it should become known that he was going
away ; but instead there was an acquiescence amount-
ing to airiness.

He wondered if anything about his affairs with

Henry Bird and Hannah Moirison had leaked out

But he did not care. He only wished to shake the

f snow of Equity off his feet as soon as possible.

/ . After dinner, when the boarders had gone out, and

i the loafers had not yet gathered in, he offered the

landlord his oolt and cutter. Bartley knew that the

/ landlord wanted the colt; but now the latter said,

j " I don't know as I care to buy any horses, right in

i the winter, this way."

I "All right," answered Bartley. "Just have the

} colt put into the cutter."

I Andy Morrison brought it round. The boy looked

at Bartley 's set face with a sort of awe-stricken affec-
tion ; his adoration for the young man survived all
that he had heard said against him at home during
the series of family quarrels that had ensued upon
his father's interview with him ; he longed to testify,
somehow, his unabated loyalty, but he could not think
of anything to do, much less to say.

Bartley pitched his valise into the cutter, and then,
as Andy left the horse's head to give him a hand \^ith
his trunk, offered him a dollar. " I don't want any-
thing," said the boy, shyly refusing the money out
of pure affection.

But Bartley mistook his motive, and thought it

A MODERN INSTANCE. 143

Bulky resentment " Oh, very well," he said " Take
hold."

The landlord came out. " Hold on a minute," he
said. " Where you goin' to take the cars ? "

" At the Junction/' answered Bartley. " I know a
man there that will buy the colt. What is it you
want ? "

The landlord stepped back a few paces, and sur-
veyed the establishment. " I should like to ride after
that boss," he said, "if you aint in any great of a
hurry."

" Get in," said Bartle(y, and the landlord took the
reins.

From time to time, as he drove, he rose up and
looked over the dashboard to study the gait of the
horse. " I Ve noticed he strikes some, when he fii'st
comes out in the spring."

"Yes," Bartley assented.

" Pulls consid^able."

" He pulls."

The landlord rose again and scrutinized the horse's
legs. " I don't know as I ever noticed 't he 'd capped
his hock before."

" Did n't you ? "

" Done it kickin' nights, I guess."

" I g^ess so."

The landlord drew the whip lightly across the colt's
vjar; he shrank together, and made a little spring
forward, but behaved perfectly well.

"I don't know as I should always be sure he
urould n't kick in the daytime."

" No," said Bartley, " you never can be sure of any*-
thing."

They drove along in silence.* At last the landlord
hAd, " Well, he aint so fast as I svpposed"

"He's not sc fast a horse as some," answered
.Burtley.

144 A MODERN INSTANCEL

The landlord leaned over sidewise for an inspection
of the colt's action forward. " Haint never thought
he had a splint on that forward off leg ? "

" A splint ? Perhaps he has a splint/*

They returned to the hotel and both alighted.

" Skittish devil," remarked the landlord, as the colt
[quivered under the hand he laid upon him.
' "He 's skittish," said Bartley.

The landlord retired as far back as the door, and
regarded the colt critically. " Well, I s*pose you 've
always used him too well ever to winded him, but
dumn *f he don't blow like it." "

" Look here, Simpson," said Bartley, very quietly.
"You know this horse as well as I do, and you
know there isn't an out about him. You want to
buy him because you always have. Now make me
an oflFer."

"Well," groaned the landlord, "what '11 you take
for the whole rig, just as it stands, — colt, cutter,
leathers, and robe ? "

" Two hundred dollars," promptly replied Bartley.

^' I *11 give ye seventy-five," returned the landlord
with equal promptness.

" Andy, take hold of the end of that trunk, will
you?"

The landlord allowed them to put the trunk into
the cutter. Bartley got in too, and, shifting the
baggage to one side, folded the robe around him from
his middle down and took his seat. " This colt can
road you right along all day inside of five minutes,
and he can trot inside of two-thii-ty every time ; and
you know it as well as I do."

" Well," said the landlord, " make it an even hun-
dred."

Bartley leaned forward and gathei'ed up the reinsL
* Let go his head, Andy," he quietly commanded.

" Make it one and a quarter," cried the landlon^

▲ MODEHN INSTANCK 145

not seeing that his chance was past. " What do you
say ? "

What Bartley said, as he touched the colt with the
whip, the landlord never knew. He stood watching
the cutter's swiit disappearance up the road, in a sort
of stupid expectation of its return. When he realized
that Hartley's departure was final, he said under his
breath, " Sold, ye dumned old fool, and serve ye right,"
and went in-doors with a feeling of admiration for
colt and man that bordered on reverence.

146 A MODERN INSTANCE.

xn.

This last drop of the local meanness filled Bartley's
bitter cup. As he passed the house at the end of the
street he seemed to drain it all. He knew that the
old lawyer was there sitting by the ofl&ce stove, draw-
ing his hand across his chin, and Bartley hoped that
he was still as miserable as he had looked when he
last saw him ; but he did not know that by the win-
dow in the house, which he would not even look at,
Marcia sat self-prisoned in her room, with her eyes
upon the road, famishing for the thousandth part of a
chance to see him pass. She saw him now for the
instant of his coming and going. With eyes trained
to take in eVery point, she saw the preparation which
seemed like final departure, and with a gasp of " Bart-
ley ! " as if she were trying to call after him, she sank
back into her chair and shut her eyes.

He drove on, plunging into the deep hollow beyond
the house, and keeping for several miles the road they
had taken on that Sunday together ; but he did not
make the turn that brought them back to the village
again. The pale sunset was slanting over the snow
when he reached the Junction, for he had slackened
his colt's pace after he had put ten miles behind him,
not choosing to reach a prospective purchaser with
his horse all blown and bathed with sweat. He
wished to be able to say, " Look at him ! He 's come
fifteen miles since three o'clock, and he *s as keen as
when he started."

This was true, when, having left his baggage at the
Junction, he drove another mile into the country to

A MODERN INSTANCE. 147

see the farmer of the gentleman who had his summer-
house here, and who had once bantered Bartley to
sell him his colt. The farmer was away, and would
not be at home till the up-train from Boston was in.
Bartley looked at his watch, and saw that to wait
would lose him the six o'clock down-train. There
would be no other till eleven o'clock. But it was
worth while: the gentleman had said, "When you
want the money for that colt, bring him over any
time; my farmer will have it ready for you." He
waited for the up-train ; but when the farmer arrived,
he was full of all sorts of scruples and reluctances.
He said he should not like to buy it till he had heard
from Mr. Farnham; he ended by offering Bartley
eighty dollars for the colt on his own account; be
did not want the cutter.

" You write to Mr. Farnham," said Bartley, " that
you tried that plan with me, and it would n't work ;
he 's lost the colt."

He made this brave show of indifference, but he
was disheartened, and, having carried the farmer home
from the Junction for the convenience of talking over
the trade with him, he drove back again through the
early night-fall in sullen desperation.

The weather had softened and was threatening rain
or snow; the dark was closing in spiritlessly; the
colt, shortening from a trot into a short, springy jolt,
dropped into a walk at last as if he were tired, arid
gave Bartley time enough on his way back to the
Junction for reflection upon the disaster into which
his life had fallen. These passages of utter despair
are commoner to the young than they are to those
whom years have experienced in the impermanence
of any fate, good, bad, or indififerent, unless, perhaps,
the last may seem rather constant. Taken in refer-
ence to all that had been ten days ago, the present
ruin was incredible^ and had nothing reasonable m

148 A MODERN INSTANCE

proof of its existence. Then he was prosperously
placed, and in the way to better himself indefinitely.
Now, he was here in the dark, with fifteen dollars in
his pocket, and an unsalable horse on his hands ; out-
cast, deserted, homeless, hopeless : and by whose faulty?
He owned even then that he had committed some
follies ; but in his sense of Marcia's all-giving love he
had risen for once in his life to a conception of self-
devotion, and in taking herself from him as she did,
she had taken from him the highest incentive he had
ever known, and had checked him in his first feeble
impulse to do and be all in all for another. It was
she who had ruined him.

As he jumped out of the cutter at the Junction the
' station-master stopped with a cluster of party-colored
signal-lanterns in his hand and cast their light over
the sorrel.

** Nice colt you got there."

" Yes," said Hartley, blanketing the horse, " do you
know anybody who wants to buy ? "

" Whose is he ? " asked the man.

" He *s mine ! " shouted Hartley. " Do you think I
-stole him?"

" / don't know where you got him," said the man,
'>¥alking off, and making a soft play of red and green
lights on the snow beyond the narrow platform.

Bartley went into the great ugly barn of a station,
trembling, and sat down in one of the gouged and
whittled arm-chairs near the stove. A pomp of time-
tables and luminous advertisements of Western rail-
roads and their land-grants decorated the wooden
walls of the gentlemen's waiting-room, which had
been sanded to keep the gentlemen from writing and
sketching upon them. This was the more judicious
because the ladies' room, in the absence of tourist
travel, was locked in winter, and they were obliged
to share the gentlemen's. In summer, the JunctimT

A MODERN INSTANCE. 149

was a busy place, but after the snow fell, and until
the snow thawed, it was a desolation relieved only
by the arrival of the sparsely peopled through-trains
from the north and east, and by such local travellers
as wished to lake trains not stopping at their own
stations. These broke in upon the solitude of the
joint station-master and baggage-man and switch-
tender with just sufficient frequency to keep him in a
state of uncharitable irritation and unrest. To-night
Bartley was the sole intruder, and he sat by the stove
wrapped in a cloud of rebellious memories, when
one side of a colloquy without made itself heard.

"Whatl"

Some question was repeated.

" No ; it went down half an hour ago.**

An inaudible question followed.

" Next down-train at eleven."
h There was now a faintly audible lament or appeal.
/ "Guess you'll have to come earlier next tima
^ Most folks doos that wants to take it."

Bartley now heard the despairing mofln of a. wmnan :
he had already divined the sex of the futile questioner
whom the station-master was bullying ; but he had
divined it without compassion, and if he had not him-
self been a sufferer from the man's insolence he might
even have felt a ferocious satisfaction in it In a
word, he was at his lowest and worst when the door
opened and the woman came in, with a movement at
once bewildered and daring, which gave him the im-
pression of a despair as complete and final as his own.
He doggedly kept his place ; she did not seem to care
for hTm, but in the uncertain lighljaLJJie-iajnpabov^
them she"drevrnear"the stove, and, puttijig_Qne hand
to her pocket as if to_findTer handkerchief, she flun^
aside her veil with her other, and showed her tear-
•Btained face. ~

He was^n hia feet samehow. " Marcia 1 "

150 A MODERN INSTANCE

" Oh ! Bartley — "

He had seized her by the arm to make sure that
she was there in verity of jQteoh and blood, and not by
some trick of his own senses, as a cold chill running
over him had made him afraid. At the touch JJieir
passioii^gnored_all that they had made each other
suHeF; her head_wa8 on his breast, his^emb^^cejvas
round her; it was a moment of dglirious ^bHi
intervened between the sorrows ffiaTjadbeen and
the reasdns^hat^muat, gome]

' *'^hat— what are you doing here, Marcia ? " he
asked at last.

They sank on the benching that ran round the
wall ; he held her hands fast in one of his, and kept
his other arm about her as they sat side by side.

" I don't know — I — " She seemed to rouse her-
self by an effort from her rapture. " I was going to
see Nettie Spaulding. And I saw you driving past
our house ; and. I thought you were coming here ; and
I could n't bear — I could n't bear to let you go away
without telling you that I was wrong ; and asking —
asking you to forgive me. I thought you would do it,

— I thought you would know that I had behaved that
way because I — I — cared so much for you. I thought

— I was afraid you had gone on the other train — "
She trembled and sank back in his embrace, from
which she had lifted herself a little.

"How did you get here?'* asked Bartley, as if
willing to give himself all the proofs he could of the
every-day reality of her presence.

"Andy Morrison brought me. Father sent him
from the hotel. I didn't care what you would say
to me. I wanted to tell you that I was wrong, and
not let you go away feeling that — that — you were
all to blame. I thought when I had done that you
might drive me away, — or laugh at me, or anything
you pleased, if only you would let me take back — "

A MODERN INSTANCE. 151

"Yes," he answered dreamily. All that wicked
haxdngss was breeding up within him ; Tie felt it melfe-
mgjiropby drop in his heart. This poor love-tossed
soul, this frantic, unguided^eckless ^giH, was an an-
geI_()fjQiercxjt^ and in her^fojly^nd error a

messenger of heayenly:pe>ftfift and hopp.. " I am a bad '
feUow, Marcia," he faltered. "You ought to know j^^
that. You did right to give me up. I mad^JovfijtjL
Hannah Morrison ; I never promised to marry her,
but T made her think that I was fond of her."

"I don't care for that," replied the girl. "I told
you when we were first engaged that I would never
think of anything that had gone before that; and
then when I would not listen to a word from you,
that day, I broke my promise."

"When I struck Henry Bird because he was jeal-
ous of me, I was as guilty as if I had killed him."

" If you had killed him, I was bound to you by my
word. Your striking him was part of the same thing,
— part of what I had promised I never would care
for." A gush of tears came into his eyes, and she saw
them. " Oh, poor Hartley ! Poor Hartley I " . ^ .

She took his head between her hands and pressed
it hard against her heart, and then wrapped her arms
tight about him, and softly bemoaned him. \

"" They drew a little apart when the man came in \ '»
with his lantern, and set it down to mend the fire.
Hut as a railroad employee he was far too familiar
with the love that vaunts itself .on AUL-jailroad trains
to feel that he was an intruder. He scarcely looked
Rt them, and went out when he had mended the fire,
and left it purring.

" Where is Andy Morrison ? " asked Hartley. "Has
he gone back ? "

" No ; he is at the hotel over there. I told him to
irait till I found out when the train went north."

" So you inquired when it went to Hoston," said

152 A MODEBN INSTANCE.

Hartley, with a touch of his old raillery. " Come,*
he added, taking her hand under his arm. He led
her out of the room, to where his cutter stood outsida
She was astonished to find the colt there.

" I wonder I did n't see it. But if I had, I should
have thought that you had sold it and gone away ;
Andy told me you were coming here to sell the colt.
When the man told me the express was gone, I knew
you were on it."

They found the boy stolidly. waiting for Mareia on
the veranda of the hotel, stamping first upon one
foot and then the other, and hugging himself in his
great-coat as the coming snow-fall blew its first flakes
in his face.

" Is that you, Andy ? " asked Bartley.

" Yes, sir," answered the boy, without surprise at
finding him with Mareia.

" Well, here ! Just take hold of the colt's head a
minute."

As the boy obeyed, Bartley threw the reins on the
dashboard, and leaped out of the cutter, and went
within. He returned after a brief absence, followed
by the landlord.

" Well, it ain 't more 'n a mile 'n a half, if it 's that.
You just keep straight along this street, and take
your first turn to the left, and you Ve right at the
house ; it 's the first house on the left-hand side."

" Thanks," returned Bartley. " Andy, you tell the
Squire that you left Mareia with me, and I said I
would see about her getting back. You needn't
hurry."

" All right," said the boy, and he disappeared round
the comer of the house to get his horse from the
barn.

" Well, I *11 be aU ready by the time you 're here,*
said the landlord, still holding the hall-door ajan
** Luck to you ! " he shouted, shutting it

A MODERN INSTANCK 153

Marcia locked both her hands through Bartley's
arm, and leaned her head on his shoulder. Neither
spoke for some minutes ; then he asked, " Marcia, do
you know where you are ? "

" With you," she answered, in a voice of utter peace,

" Do you know where we are going ? " he asked,
leaning over to kiss her cold, pure cheek.

" No," she answered in as perfect content as before.

" We are going to get married."

H^ felt her grow tense in her clasp upon his arm,
and hold there rigidly for a moment, while the swift
thoughts whirled through her mind. Then, as if the
struggle had ended, she silently relaxed, and leaned
more heavily against him.

" There 's still time to go back, Marcia," he said,
" if you wish. That turn to the right, yonder, will
take us to Equity, and you can be at home in two
hours." She quivered. " I 'm a poor man, — I sup-
pose you know that ; I 've only got fifteen dollars in
the world, and the colt here. I know I can get on ;
I 'm not afraid for myself ; but if you would rather
wait, — if you 're not perfectly certain of yourself, —
remember, it 's going to be a struggle ; we *re going to
have some hard times — "

" You forgive me ? " she huskily asked, for all
answer, without moving her head from where it lay.

" Yes, Marcia."

" Then — hurry."

The minister was an old man, and he seemed quite
dazed at the suddenness of their demand for his ser-
vices. But he gathered himself together, and con-
trived to make them man and wife, and to give them
his marriage certificate.

" It seems as if there were something else," he said,
absently, as he handed the paper to Bartley.

" Perhaps it 's this," said Bartley, giving him a five-
dollar note in return.

154 A MODERN INSTANCE.

"Ah, perhaps." he replied, in unabated perplexity.
He bade them serve God, and let them out into the
snowy night, through which they drove back to the
hotel.

The landlord had kindled a fire .on the hearth of
the Franklin stove in his parlor, and the blazing hick-
ory snapped in electrical sympathy with the storm
when they shut themselves into the bright room, and
Bartley took Marcia fondly into his arms.
Y" Wife ! ''
j "Husband!"

They sat down before the fire, hand in hand, and
talked of the light things that swim to the top, and
eddy round and round on the surface of o^r deepest
moods. They made merry over the old minister's
perturbation, which Bartley found endlessly amusing.
Then he noticed that theldress Marcia had on was
the one she had worn to the sociable in Lower J^uity,
and she said, yes, she had put it on because he once
said he liked it. He asked her when, and she said,
oh, she knew ; but if he could not remember, she was
not going to tell him. Then she wanted to know if
he recognized her by the dress before she lifted her
veil in the station.

" No," he said, with a teasing laugL " I was n't
thinking of you."

" Oh, Bartley !" she joyfully reproached him. " You
must have been ! "

"Yes, I was! I was so mad at you, that I was
glad to have that brute of a station-master bullying
some woman ! "

" Bartley ! "

He sat holding her hand. "Marcia," he said,
gravely, " we must write to your father at once, and
tell him. I want to begin life in the right way, and
I think it 's only fair to him."

She was enraptured at his magnanimity. ''Barb

A MODERN INSTANCE. 155

ley ! That 's like you ! Poor father ! I declare —
Hartley, I'm afraid I had forgotten him ! It 's dread-
ful ; but — you put everything else out of my head.
I do believe I've died and come to life somewhere
else ! "

"Well, I haven't," said Bartley, "and I guess
you 'd better write to your father. You 'd better
write ; at present, he and I are not on speaking terms.
Here ! " He took out his note-book, and gave her his
stylographic pen after striking the fist that held it
upon his other fist, in the fashion of the amateurs of
that reluctant instrument, in order to bring down the
ink.

" Oh, what 's that ? " she asked.

" It 's a new kind of pen. I got it for a notice in
the Free Press. "

" Is Henry Bird going to edit the paper ? "

" I don't know, and I don't care," answered Bartley.
" I '11 go out and get an envelope, and ask the land-
lord what's the quickest way to get the letter to
your father."

He took up his hat, but she laid her hand on his
arm. " Oh, send for him ! " she said.

"Are you afraid I sha'n't come back?" he de-
manded, with a laughing kiss. " I want to see him
about something else, too."

" Well, don't be gone long."

Xhey parted with an embrace that would_have /
fertified. olderjaarried people for a y ear's^^eparation.V
•When Bartley came back, she handed him the leaf
she had torn out of his book, and sat down beside
him while he read it, with her arm over his shoulder.

" Dear father," the letter ran, " Bartley and I are
married. We were married an hour ago, just across
the New Hampshire line, by the Eev. Mr. Jessup.
Bartley wants I should let you know the very first
thing. I am going to Boston with Bartley to-night>

156 A MODERN INSTANCE.

and, as soon as we get settled there, I will write
again. I want you should forgive us both ; but if
yoa wont forgive Bartley, you must n*t forgive me.
You were mistaken about Bartley, and I was right.
Bartley has told me everything, and I am perfectly
satisfied. Love to mother.

" Marcta.'*

"P. S. — I did intend to visit Netty Spaulding.
But I saw Bartley driving past on his way to the
Junction, and I determined to see him if I could be-
fore he started for Boston, and tell him I was all
wrong, no matter what he said or did afterwards. I
ought to have told you I meant to see Bartley ; but
then you would not have let me come, and if I had
not come, I should have died."

" There 's a good deal of Bartley in it/' said the
young man with a laugh.

" You don't like it ! "

"Yes, I do; it's all right. Did you use to take
the prize for composition at boarding-school ? "

" Why, I think it 's a very good letter for when I 'm
in such an excited state."

" It 's beautiful ! " cried Bartley, laughing more and
more. The tears started to her eyes.

•' Marcia," said her husband fondly, " what a child
you are ! If ever I do anything to betray your trust

m me — "

There came a shuffling of feet outside the door, a
clinking of glass and crockery, and a jarring sort of
blow, as if some one were trying to rap on the panel
with the edge of a heavy-laden waiter. Bartley threw
the door open and found the landlord there, red and
smiling, with the waiter in his hand.

" I thought I 'd bring your supper in here, you
know," he explained confidentially, " so 's 't you could
have it a little more snug. And my wife she kind o'
got wind o' what was going on, — women will, you

A MODERN INSTANCE. 157

know," he said with a wink, — " and she 's sent ye in
some hot biscuit and a little jell, and some of her
cake." He set the waiter down on the table, and
stood admiring its mystery of napkined dishes. " She
guessed you would n't object to some cold chicken,
and she 's put a little of that on. Sha*n't cost ye any
more," he hastened to assure them. " Now this is
your room till the train comes, and there aint agoin'
to anybody come in here. So you can make your-
selves at home. And / hope you 11 enjoy your sup-
per as much as we did ourn the night we was
married. There! I guess I'll let the lady fix the
table ; she looks as if she knowed how."

He got himself out of the room again, and then
Marcia, who had made him some embarrassed thanks,
burst out in praise of his pleasantness.

"Well, he ought to be pleasant," said Bartley,
" he 's just beaten me on a horse-trade. I 've sold
him the colt."

" Sold him the colt ! " cried Marcia, tragically drop-
ping the napkin she had lifted from the plate of cold
chicken.

" Well, we could n't very well have taken him to
Boston with us. And we could n't have got there
without selling him. You know you have n't married
a millionnaire, Marcia."

" How much did you get for the colt ? "

" Oh, I did n't do so badly. I got a hundred and
fifty for him."

" And you had fifteen besides."

"That was before we were married. I gave the
minister five for you, — I think you are worth it. I
wanted to give fifteen."

" Well, then, you have a hundred and sixty now.
Is n't that a great deal ? "

*' An everlasting lot," said Bartley, with an impa-
tient laugh. " Don't let the supper cool, Marcia ! "

158 A MODERN INSTANCE.

She silently set out the feast, but regarded it rue-
fully. " You ought n*t to have ordered so much,
Bartley," she said. " You could n't afford it."

** I can afford anything when I 'm hungry. Besides,
I only ordered the oysters and coffee ; all the rest is
conscience money — or sentiment — from the land-
lord. Come, come 1 cheer up, now ! We sha'n't starve
to-night, anyhow."

" Well, I know father will help us."

"We shaVt count on him," said Bartley. "Now
drop it ! " He put his arm round her shoulders and
pressed her against him, till she raised her face for his
kiss.

"Well, I will!'' she said, and the shadow lifted
itself from their wedding feast, and they sat down
and made merry as if they had all the money in the
world to spend. They laughed and joked; they
praised the things they liked, and made fun of the
others.

" How strange ! How perfectly impossible it all
seems ! Why, last night I was taking supper at Kin-
ney's logging-camp, and hating you at every mouthful
with aU my might. Everything seemed against me,
and I was feeling ugly, and flirting like mad with a
fool from Montreal: she had come out there from
Portland for a frolic with the owners' party. You
made me do it, Marcia!" he cried jestingly. "And
remember that, if you want me to be good, you must
be kind. The other thing seems to make me worse
and worse."

" I will, — I will, Bartley," she said humbly. " I
will try to be kind and patient with you. I will
indeed."

He threw back his head, and laughed and laughed.
" Poor — poor old Kinney ! He *s the cook, you
know, and he thought I 'd been making fun of him
to that woman, and he behaved so, after they were

A. MODERN INSTANCE. 159

gone, that I started home in a rage ; and he followed
me out with his hands all covered with dough, and
wanted to stop me, but he could n't for fear of spoil-
ing my clothes — " He lost himself in another
paroxysm.

Marcia smiled a little. Then, "What sort of a
looking person was she ? " she tremulously asked.

Bartley stopped abruptly. "Not one ten-thou*
sandth part as good-looking, nor one millionth part
as blight, as Marcia Hubbard ! " He caught her and
smothered her against his breast.

" I don't care ! I don't care ! " she cried. " I was
to blame more than you, if you flirted with her, and
it serves me right. Yes, I will never say anything
to you for anything that happened after I behaved so
to you."

" There was n't anything else happened," cried
Bartley. "And the Montreal woman snubbed me
soundly before she was done with me."

" Snubbed you ! " exclaimed Marcia, with illogical
indignation. This delighted Bartley so much that it
was long before he left off laughing over her.

Then they sat down, and were silent till she said»
" And did you leave him in a temper ? "

" Who ? Kinney ? In a periect devil of a temper.
I would n't even borrow some money he wanted to
lend me."

" Write to him, Bartley," said his wife, seriously.
"I love you so I can't bear to have anybody bad
friends with you,"

160 A MODERN INSTAMCS.

XIII.

The whole thing was so crazy, as Bartley said, that
it raade no difference if they kept up the expense a
few days longer. He took a hack from the depot
when they, arrived in Boston, and drove to the Eevere
House, instead of going up in the horse-car. He
entered his name on the register with a flourish,
" Bartley J. Hubbard and Wife, Boston^' and asked
for a room and fire, with laconic gruffness ; but the
clerk knew him at once for a country person, and
when the call-boy followed him into the parlor where
Marcia sat, in the tremor into which she fell whenever
Bartley was out of her sight, the call-boy discerned
her provinciality at a glance, and made free to say
that he guessed they had better let him take their
things up to their room, and come up themselves after
the porter had got their fire going.

" All right," said Bartley, with hauteur ; and he
added, for no reason, " Be quick about it."

" Yes, sir," said the boy.

" What time is supper — dinner, I mean ? "

" It 's ready now, sir."

" Good. Take up the things. Come just as you
are, Marcia. Let him take your cap, — no, keep it on ;
a good many of them come down in their bonnets."

Marcia put off her sack and gloves, and hastily
repaired the ravages of travel as best she could. She
Would have liked to go to her room just long enough
io brush her hair a little, and the fur cap made her
head hot; but she was suddenly afraid of doing

A MODERN INSTANCE. 161

something that would seem countrified in Bartley's

eyes, and she promptly obeyed : they had come from

Portland in a parlor car, and she had been able to

make a traveller's toilet before they reached Boston.

She had been at Portland several times with her

father ; but he stopped at a second-class hotel where

he had always " put up " when alone, and she was

new to the vastness of hotel mirrors and chandeliers,

the glossy paint, the frescoing, the fluted pillars, the

tessellated marble pavements upon which she stepped

when she left the Brussels carpeting of the parlors.

She clung to Bartley's arm, silently praying that she

might not do anything to mortify him, and admiring

everything he did with all her soul. He made a halt

as they entered the glittering dining-room, and stood

frowning till the head-waiter ran respectfully up to

them, and ushered them with sweeping bows to a

jtable, which they had to themselves. Bartley ordered

their dinner with nonchalant ease, beginning with

soup and going to black coffee with dazzling intelli-

\gence. While their waiter was gone with their order,

He beckoned with one finger to another, and sent him

out for a paper, which he unfolded and spread on the

table, taking a toothpick into his mouth, and running

the sheet over with his eyes. " I just want to see

what 's going on to-night," he said, without looking

at Marcia.

She made a little murmur of acquiescence in het

throat, but she could not speak for strangeness. She

b^an to steal little timid glances about, and to notice

the people at the other tables. In her heart she did

not find the ladies so very well dressed as she had

expected the Boston ladies to be ; and there was no

gentleman there to compare with Bartley, either in

style or looks. She let her eyes finally dwell on him,

wishing that he would put his paper away and say

Bomething, but afraid to ask, lest it should not be

162 A MODERN INSTANCE.

quite right: all the other gentlemen were reading
papers. She was feeling lonesome and homesick, when
he suddenly glanced at her and said, " How pretty you
look, Marsh ! "

"Do I ? " she asked, with a little grateful throb,
while her eyes joyfully suiEfused themselves.

" Pretty as a pink," he returned. " Gay, — is n't
it ? " he continued, with a wink that took her into his
confidence again, from which his study of the news-
paper had seemed to exclude her. " I '11 tell you
what I 'm going to do : I 'm going to take you to the
Museum after dinner, and let you see Boucicault in
the * Colleen Bawn.' " He swept his paper off the
table and unfolded his napkin in his lap, and, leaning
back in his chair, began to tell her about the play.
*' We can walk : it 's only just round the corner," he
said at the end.

Marcia crept into the shelter of his talk, — he some-
times spoke rather loud, — and was submissively
silent. When they got into their own room, — which
had gilt lambrequin frames, and a chandelier of three
burners, and a marble mantel, and marble-topped
table and washstand, — and Bartley turned up the
flaring gas, she quite broke down, and cried on his
breast, to make sure that she had got him all back
again.

" Why, Marcia ! " he said. " I know just how you
feel. Don*t you suppose I understand as well as you
do that we -re a country couple ? But I 'm not going
to give myself away ; and you must n't, either. There
was n't a woman in that room that could compare with
you, — dress or looks ! "

" You were splendid, " she whispered, " and just
like the rest 1 and that made me feel somehow as if
I had lost you."

" I know, — I saw just how you felt ; but I was n't
going to say anything for fear you'd give way right

^X MODERN INSTANCE. 163

there. Come, there 's plenty of time before the play
begins. I call this nice ! Old-fashioned, rather, in
the decorations," he said, " but pretty good for its
time." He had pulled up two arm-chaii-s in front of
the glowing grate of anthracite ; as he spoke, he cast
his eyes about the room, and she followed his glance
obediently. He had kept her hand in his, and now
he held her slim finger-tips in the fist which he rested
on his knee, " No ; 1 11 tell you what, Marcia, if you
want to get on in a city, there 's no use being afraid
of^people. No use being afraid of anything, so long\
^ we 're good to each other. And you *ve got to ]
believe in me right along. Don't you let anything /
get you on the wrong track. I believe that as long I
as you have faith in me, I shall deserve it ; and wheny
XjDu don't — " -"^"^

"Oh, Bartley, you know I did n't doubt you ! I

5'ust got to thinking, and I was a little worked up I
'. suppose I 'm excited."

" I knew it ! I knew it ! " cried her husband. " Don't
you suppose I understand you f "

They talked a long time together, and made_each
other loving promises of patience. They confessed
theiFfaults, and pledged eachT other that they would
try hard to overcome them. "They wished to be good ;
they both felt they had much to retrieve ; but they had
jio concealments, and they knew that was the best way
to begin the future, of which they did their best to
conceive seriously. Bartley told her his plans about
getting some newspaper work till he could complete
his law studies. He meant to settle down to practice
in Boston. " You have to wait longer for it than you
would in a country place; but when you get it, it's
worth while." He asked Marcia whether she would
look up his friend Halleck if she were in his place ;
but he did not give her time to decide. " I guess I
won't do it Not just yet^ at any rata He might

164 A MODERN INSTANCE.

suppose that I wanted something of him. 1 11 call
on him when I don't need his lielp.'*

Perhaps, if they had not planned to go to the
theatre, they would have staid where they were, for
they were tired, and it was very cosey. But when they
were once in the street, they were glad they had come
out. Bowdoin Square and Court Street and Tremont
Eow wera-a-glitter of gas-ligite^ and-thpse shops^ith
their-placarded__baTgains, dazzled Marcia.

" Is it one of the principal streets ? " she asked
Bartley.

He gave the laugh of a veteran hahitu^ of Boston.
" Tremont Eow ? No. Wait till I show you Wash-
ington Street to-morrow. There 's the Museum/* he
said, pointing to the long row of globed lights on
the facjade of the building. ** Here we are in ScoUay
Square. There 's Hanover Street ; there 's Cornhill ;
Court crooks down that way ; there 's Pemberton
Square."

His familiarity with these names estranged him to
her again ; she clung the closer to his arm, and caught
her breath nervously as they turned in with the crowd
that was climbing the stairs to the box-office of the
theatre. Bartley left her a moment, while he pushed
his way up to the little window and bought the
tickets. " First-rate seats," he said, coming back to
her, and taking her hand under his arm again, " and
a great piece of luck. They were just returned for
sale by the man in front of me, or I should have had
to take something 'way up in the gallery. There 's
a regular jam. These are right in the centre of the
parquet."

Marcia did not know what the parquet was ; she
heard its name with the certainty that but for Bartley
she should not be equal to it. All her village pride
was quelled ; she had only enough self-control to act
upon Bartley's instructions not to give herself away

A MODERN INSTANCE. l65

by any conviction of rusticity. They passed in through
the long, colonnaded vestibule, with its paintings, and
plaster casts, and rows of birds and animals in glass
cases on either side, and she gave scarcely a glance at
any of those objects, endeared by association, if not
by intrinsic beauty, to the Boston play-goer. Gulli-
ver, with the Liliputians swarming upon him ; the
painty-necked ostriches and pelicans ; the mummied
mermaid under a glass bell ; the governors' portraits ;
the stuffed elephant ; Washington crossing the Dela-
ware ; Cleopatra applying the asp ; Sir William
Pepperell, at fuU length, on canvas ; and the pa^an
months and seasons in plaster, — if all these are,
indeed, the subjects, — were dim phantasmagoria
amid which she and Bartley moved scarcely more real.
The usher, in his dress-coat, ran up the aisle to take
their checks, and led them down to their seats ; half
a dozen elegant people stood to let them into their
places ; the theatre was filled with faces. At Port-
land, where she saw the " Lady of Lyons," with her
father, three-quarters of the house was empty.

Baitley only had time to lean over and whisper,
" The place is packed with Beacon Street swells, — it 's
a regular field night,'* — when the bell tinkled and the
curtain rose.

As the play went on, the rich jacqueminot-red
flamed into her cheeks, and burnt there a steady blaze
to the end. The people about her laughed and
clapped, and at times they seemed to be crying. But
Marcia sat through every part as stoical as a savage,
making no sign, except for the flaming color in her
cheeks, of interest or intelligence. Bartley talked of
the play all the way home, but she said nothing, and
in their own room he asked : " Did n*t you really like
it ? Were you disappointed ? I have n't been able
to get a word out of you about it. Did n't you like
Boucicault ? "

166 A MODEBN INSTANCE.

"I didn't know which he was," she answered, with
impassioned exaltation. " I did n't care for him. I
only thought of that poor girl, and her husband who
despised her — "

She stopped. Bartley looked at her a moment, and
then caught her to him and fell a-laughing over her,
till it seemed as if he never would end. " And you
thought — you thought," he cried, trying to get his
breath, — "you thought you were Eily, and I was
Hardress Cregan ! Oh, I see, I see ! " He went on
making a mock and a burlesque of her tragical hallu-
cination till she laughed with him at last. When he
put his hand up to turn out the gas, he began his
joking afresh. " The real thing for Hardress to do,"
he said, fumbling for the key, "is to blow it out.
That's what Hardress usually does when he comes
up from the rural districts with Eily on their bridal
tour. That finishes oflf Eily, without troubling Dan-
ny Mann. The only drawback is that it finishes oflf
Hardress, too : they 're both found suffocated in the
morning."

A MODERN INSTANCE. 167

XIV.

The next day, after breakfast, while they stood
together before the parlor fire, Bartley proposed one
plan after another for spending the day. Marcia
rejected them all, with perfectly recovered self-com-
posure.

" Then what shall we do 1 " he asked, at last.

" Oh, I don't know," she answered, rather absently.
She added, after an interval, smoothing the warm
front of her dress, and putting her foot on the fender,
** What did those theatre-tickets cost ? "

" Two dollars," he replied carelessly. '* Why ? " .

Marcia gasped. " Two^ dollars ! Oh, Bartley, we/
could n't afford it ! " I

" It seems we did." •
And here, — how much are we paying here ? "
That room, with fire," said Bartley, stretching
himself, ** is seven dollars a day — "

" We mustn't stay another instant ! " said Marcia,
all a woman's terror of spending money on anything
biif dress, all a wife's conservative instinct, rising
within her. " How much have you got left ? "

Bartley took out his pocket-book and counted over
the bills in it. *' A hundred and twenty dollars."

"Why, what has become of it all? We had a
hundred and sixty ! '^

^'Well, our railroad tickets were nineteen, the
sleeping-car was three, the parlor-car was three, the
theatre was two, the hack was fifty cents, and we '11
have to put down the other two and a half to refresh*
ments."

168 A MODERN INSTANCE.

' Marcia listened in dismay. At the end she drew
a long breath. " Well, we must go away from here
as soon as possible, — that I know. We 'U go out and
find some boarding-place. That 's the first thing."

" Oh, now, Marcia, you 're not going to be so severe
as that, are you ? '* pleaded Bartley. " A few dollars,
more or less, are not going to keep us out of the poor-
house. I just want to stay here three days : that will
leave us a clean hundred, and we can start fair." He
was half joking, but she was wholly serious.
( " No, Bartley ! Not another hour, — not another
/ minute ! Come ! ** She took his arm and bent it up
/ into a crook, where she put her hand, and pulled him
Ltoward the door.

"Well, after all,** he said, "it will be some fun
looking up a room.**

There was no one else in the parlor ; in going to
the door they took some waltzing steps together.

While she dressed to go out, he looked up places
where rooms were let with or without board, in the
newspaper. " There don*t seem to be a great many,**
he said meditatively, bending over the open sheet.
But he cut out half a dozen advertisements with his
editorial scissors, and they started upon their search.

They climbed those pleasant old up-hill streets
that converge to the State House, and looked into
the houses on the quiet Places that stretch from one
thoroughfare to another. They had decided that they
would be content with two small rooms, one for a
chamber, and the other for a parlor, where they could
have a fire. They found exactly what they wanted
in the first house where they applied, one flight up,
with sunny windows, looking down the street ; but it
made Marcia*s blood run cold when the landlady said
that the price was thirty dollars a week. At another
place the rooms were only twenty ; the position was
^uite as good, and the carpet and furniture prettier.

A MODERN INSTANCK 169

This was still too dear, but it seemed comparatively
reasonable till it appeared that this was the price
without board.

" I think we should prefer rooms with board,
should n t we ? " asked Bartley, with a sly look at
Marcia.

The prices were of all degrees of exorbitance, and
they varied for no reason from house to house ; one
landlady had been accustomed to take more and
another less, but never little enough for Marcia, who
overruled Bartley again and again when he wished to
close with some small abatement of terms. She de-
clared now that they must put up with one room,
and they must not care what floor it was on. But
the cheapest room with board was fourteen dollars a
week, and Marcia had fixed her ideal at ten : even
that was too high for them.

" The best way will be to go back to the Eevere
House, at seven dollars a day," said Bartley. He had
lately been leaving the transaction of the business
entirely to Marcia, who had rapidly acquired alert-
ness and decision in it.

She could not respond to his joke. " What is there
left ? " she asked.

" There is n't anything left," he said. " We Ve got
to the end."

They stood on the edge of the pavement and looked
up and down the street, and then, by a common im*
pulse, they looked at the house opposite, where a
placard in the window advertised, "Apartments to
Let — to Gentlemen only."

" It would be of no use asking there," murmured
Marcia, in sad abstraction.

"Well, let's go over and try," said her husband.
** They can't do more than turn us out of doors."

" I know it won't be of any use," Marcia sighed, as
people do when they hope to gain 3omething by for-

170 A MODERN INSTANCE.

bidding themselves hope. But she helplessly fol*
lowed, and stood at the foot of the door-steps while
he ran up and rang.

It was evidently the woman of the house who cama
to the door and shrewdly scanned them.

'* I see you have apartments to let," said Hartley.

" Well, yes," admitted the woman, as if she con-^
sidered it useless to deny it, " I have."

" I should like to look at them," returned Bartley,
with promptness. " Qome, Marcia." And, reinforced
by her, he invaded the premises before the landlady
had time to repel him. " 1 11 tell you what we want,"
he continued, turning into the little reception-room
at the side of the door, " and if you have n*t got it,
there 's no need to trouble you. We want a fair-sized
room, anywhere between the cellar-floor and the roof,
with a bed and a stove and a table in it, that sha'n't
cost us more than ten dollars a week, with board."

" Set down," said the landlady, herself setting the
example by sinking into the rocking-chair behind her
and beginning to rock while she made a brief study
of the intruders. " Want it for yourselves ? "

** Yes," said Bartley.

"Well," returned the landlady, "I always have
preferred single gentlemen."

"I inferred as much from a remark which you
made in your front window," said Bartley, indicating
the placard.

The landlady smiled. They were certainly a very
pretty-appearing young couple, and the gentleman
was evidently up-and-coming. Mrs. Nash liked
Bartley, as most people of her grade did, at once.
" It 's always be'n my exper'ence," she explained, with
the lazily rhythmical drawl in which most half-bred
New-Englanders speak, " that I seemed to get along
rather better with gentlemen. They give less trou-
ble — as a general rule," she added, with a glance at

A MODERN INSTANCE. 171

Marcia, as if she did not deny that there were ex«
ceptions, and Marcia might be a striking ona

Bartley seized his advantage. "Well, my wife
has n't been married long enough to be unreasonable.
I guess you 'd get along."

They both laughed, and Marcia, blushing, joined
them.

** Well, I thought when you first come up the steps
you hadn't been married — well, not a great while,'*
said the landlady.

"No," said Bartley. "It seems a good while to
my wife; but we were only married day before
yesterday."

" The land ! " cried Mrs. Nash.

" Bartley ! " whispered Marcia, in soft upbraiding.

"What? Well, say last week, then. We were
married last week, and we Ve come to Boston to seek
our fortune."

His wit overjoyed Mrs. Nash. " You *11 find Boston
an awful hard place to get along," she said, shaking
her head with a warning smile.

" I should n't think so, by the price Boston people
ask for their rooms," returned Bartley. "If I had
rooms to let, I should get along pretty easily."

This again delighted the landlady. " I guess you
aint goin' to get out of spirits, anyway," she said.
"Well," she continued, " I have got a room't I guess
would suit you. Unexpectedly vacated." She seemed
to recur to the language of an advertisement in these
words, which she pronounced as if reading them.
" It 's pretty high up," she said, with another warning
shake of the head.

" Stairs to get to it ? " asked Bartley.

" Plenty of stairs'*

" Well, when a place is pretty high up, I like to
have plenty of stairs to get to it. I guess we '11 see it^
Marcia." He rose.

172 A MODERN mSTANCK

" Well, 1*11 just go up and see if it *s ^^ to be seen,
first," said the landlady.

"Oh, Bartley!" said Marcia, when she had left
them alone, " how could you joke so about our just
being married ! "

"Well, I saw she wanted awfully to ask. And
anybody can tell by looking at us, anyway. We
can 't keep that to ourselves, any more than we can
our greenness. Besides, it *s money in our pockets ;
she '11 take something off our board for it, you '11 see.
Now, will you manage the bargaining from this on ?
I stepped forward because the rooms were for gentle-
men only."

" I guess I *d better,*' said Marcia.

" All right ; then I '11 take a back seat from this out."

" Oh, I do hope it won't be too much ! " sighed the
young wife. " I 'm so tired, looking."

" You can come right along up," the landlady called
down through the oval spire formed by the ascend-
ing hand-rail of the stairs.

They found her in a broad, low room, whose
ceiling sloped with the roof, and had the pleasant
irregularity of the angles and recessions of two dormer
windows. The room was clean and cosey ; there was
a table, and a stove that could be used open or shut ;
Marcia squeezed Bartle/s arm to signify that it would
do perfectly — if only the price would suit.

The landlady stood in the middle of the floor and
lectured : " Now, there ! I get five dollars a week
for this room ; and I gen'ly let it to two gentlemen.
It 's just been vacated by two gentlemen unexpectedly ;
and it 's hard to get gentlemen at this time the year ;
and that 's the reason I thought of takin' you. As I
say, I don't much like ladies for inmates, and so I put
in the window ' for gentlemen only.' But it 's no use
bein' too particular; I can't have the room layin*
empty on my hands. If it suits you, you can have it

A MODERN INSTANCE. 173

for four dollars. It 's high up, and there 's no use
tryin' to deny it. But there aint such another view
as them winders commands anywheres. You can see
the harbor, and pretty much the whole coast/*

"Anything extra for the view?" said Bartley,
glancing out.

" No, I throw that in."

" Does the price include gas and fire ? " asked Mar-
cia, sharpened as to all details by previous interviews.

" It includes the gas, but it don't include the fire,"
said the landlady, firmly. ** And it 's pretty low at
that, as you 've found out, I guess."

" Yes, it is low," said Marcia. " Bartley, I think
we 'd better take it."

She looked at him timidly, as if she were afraid he
might not think it good enough ; she did not think it
good enough for him, but she felt that they must
make their money go as far as possible.

" AU right ! " he said. " Then it 's a bargain."

" And how much more will the board be ? "

" Well, there," the landlady said, with candor, " I
don't know as I can meet your views. I don't ever
give board. But there 's plenty of houses right on the
street here where you can get day-board from four
dollars a week up."

" Oh, dear ! " sighed Marcia ; "and that would make
it twelve dollars ! "

" Why, the dear suz, child ! " exclaimed the land-
lady, " you did n't expect to get it for less ? "
We must," said Marcia.

Then you 'U have to go to a mechanics' boardin'-
house."

" I suppose we shall," she returned, dejectedly.
Bartley whistled.

" Look here," said the landlady, " aint you from
Down East, some'eres ? "

Marcia started, as if the woman had recognized
them. '* Yes " she said.

174 A MODERN INSTANCE.

** Well, now," said Mrs. Nash, " I *m from down
Maine way myself, and I 'U tell you what I should
do, if I was in your place. You don't want much of
anything for breakfast or tea ; you can boil you an
egg on the stove here, and you can make your own
tea or coffee ; and if I was you, I *d go out for my
dinners to an eatin'-house. I heard some my lodgers
tellin' how they done. Well, I heard the very gentle-
men that occupied this room sayin' how they used to
go to an eatin'-house, and one 'd order one thing, and
another another, and then they'd halve it between
*em, and make out a first-rate meal for about a quarter
apiece. Plenty of places now where they give you
a cut o' lamb or rib-beef for a shillin', and they bring
you bread and butter and potato with it; an' it's
always enough for two. That 's what they said, I
haint never tried it myself; but as long as you haint
got anybody but yourselves to care for, there aint any
reason why you should n't."

They looked at each other.

" Well," added the landlady for a final touch, ** say
fire. That stove won't burn a great deal, anyway."

" All right," said Bartley, " we '11 take the room —
for a month, at least."

Mrs. Nash looked a little embarrassed. If she had
made some concession to the liking she had conceived
for this pretty young couple, she could not risk every-
thing. " I always have to get the first week in ad-
vance— where there ain't no reference," she sug-
gested.

"Of course," said Bartley, and he took out his
pocket-book, which he had a boyish satisfaction in
letting her see was well filled. " Now, Marcia," he
continued, looking at his watch, " I '11 just run over
to the hotel, and give up our room before they get us
in for dinner."

Marcia accepted Mrs. Nash's invitation to come

A MODERN INSTANCE. 176

and sit with her till the chill was off the room ; and
she borrowed a pen and paper of her to write home.
The note she sent was brief: she was not going to
seem to ask anything of her father. But she was
going to do what was right ; she told him where she
was, and she sent her love to her mother. She would
not speak of her things ; he might send them or not,
as he chose ; but she knew he would. This was the
spirit of her letter, and her training had not taught
her to soften and sweeten her phrase ; but no doubt
the old man, who was like her, would understand
that she felt no compunction for what she had done,
and that she loved him though she still defied him.

Bartley did not ask her what her letter was when
she demanded a stamp of him on his return ; but he
knew. He inquired of Mrs. Nash where these cheap
eating-houses were to be found, and he posted the let-'
ter in the first box they came to, merely saying, ** 1
hope you have n't been asking any favors. Marsh ? "

" No, indeed."

'* Because I could n't stand that."

Marcia had never dined in a restaurant, and she
was somewhat bewildered by the one into which they
turned. There was a great show of roast, and steak,
and fish, and game, and squash and cranberry-pie in
the window, and at the door a tack was driven through
a mass of bills of fare, two of which Bartley plucked
oflF as they entered, with a knowing air, and then
threw on the floor when he found the same thing on
the table. The table had a marble top, and a silver-
plated castor in the centre. The plates were laid with
a coarse red doUy in a cocked hat on each, and a thinly
plated knife and fork crossed beneath it ; the plates
were thick and heavy ; the handle as well as the blade
of the knife was metal, and silvered. Besides the
castor, there was a bottle of Leicestershire sauce on
the table^ and salt in what Marcia thought a pepper-

176 A MODERN INSTANCE.

box ; the marble was of an unctuous translucence in
places, and showed the course of the cleansing napkin
on its smeared surface. The place was hot, and full
of confused smells of cooking; all the tables were
crowded, so that they found places with difficulty,
and pale, plain girls, of the Provincial and Irish-
American type, in fashionable bangs and pull-backs,
went about taking the orders, which they wailed out
toward a semicircular hole opening upon a counter
at the farther end of the room ; there they received
the dishes ordered, and hurried with them to the cus-
tomers, before whom they laid them with a noisy
clacking of the heavy crockery. A great many of the
people seemed to be taking hulled corn and milk;
baked beans formed another favorite dish, and squash-
pie was in large request. Marcia was not critical ;
roast turkey for Bartley and stewed chicken for her-
self, with cranberry-pie for both, seemed to her a very
good and sufficient dinner, and better than they ought
to have had. She asked Bartley if this were anything
like Parker's; he had always talked to her about
Parker's.

" Well, Marcia," he said, folding up his doily, which
does not betray use like the indiscreet white napkin,
" 1 11 just take you round and show you the outside of
Parker's, and some day we 11 go there and get dinner."

He not only showed her Parker's, but the City
Hall ; they walked down School Street, and through
Washington as far as Boylston : and Bartley pointed
out the Old South, and brought Marcia home by the
Common, where they stopped to see the boys coasting
under the care of the police, between two long lines
of spectators.

" The State House," said Bartley, with easy com-
mand of the facts, and, pointing in the several direc-
tions ; " Beacon Street ; Public Garden ; Back Bay."

She came home to Mrs. Nash joyfully admiring

A MODERN INSTANCE. 177

the city, but admiring still more her husband's mas-
terly knowledge of it.

Mrs. Nash was one of those people who partake
intimately of the importance of the place in which
they live ; to whom it is sufficient splendor and pros-
perity to be a Bostonian, or New-Yorker, or Chicagoan,
and who experience a delicious self-flattery in the
celebration of the municipal grandeur. In his degree,
Bartley was of this sort, and he exchanged compli-
ments of Boston with Mrs. Nash, till they grew into
warm favor with each other.

After a while, he said he must go up-stairs and do
some writing ; and then he casually dropped the fact
that he was an editor, and that he had come to Boston
to get an engagement on a newspaper; he implied
that he had come to take one.

" Well," said Mrs. Nash, smoothing the back of the
cat, which she had in her lap, " I guess there ain't
anything like our Boston papei-s. And they say this
new one — the ' Daily Events ' — is goin' to take the
lead. You acquainted any with our Boston editors ? "

Bartley hemmed. " Well — I know the proprietor
of the Events."

"Ah, yes : Mr. Witherby. Well, they say he 's got
the money. I hear my lodgers talkin' about that
paper consid'able. I have n't ever seen it."

Bartley now went up-stairs; he had an idea in
his head. Marcia remained with Mrs. Nash a few
moments. " He 's been in Boston before," she said,
with proud satisfaction ; " he visited here when he
was in college."

"Law, is he college-bred ?" cried Mrs. Nash. "Well,
I thought he looked 'most too wide-awake for that.
He aint a bit oflSsh. He seems re'l practical. What
you hurryin' oflf so for ? " she asked, as Marcia rose,
and stood poised on the threshold, in act to follow
her husband. "Why don't you set here with me,

178 A MODERN INSTANCE.

while he 's at his writin' ? You '11 just keep talkiri
to him and takin' his mind off, the whole while.
You stay here ! " she commanded hospitably. "You *11
just be in the way, up there."

This was a novel conception to Marcia, but its good
sense struck her. " Well, I will," she said. ** I '11
run up a minute to leave my things, and then I *11
come back."

She found Bartley dragging the table, on which he
had already laid out his writing-materials, into a good
light, and she threw her arms round his neck, as if
they had been a great while parted.

" Come up to kiss me good luck ? " he asked, find-
ing her lips.

" Yes, and to tell you how splendid you are, going
right to work this way," she answered fondly.

" Oh, I don't believe in losing time ; and I 've got
to strike while the iron *s hot, if I 'm going to write
out that logging-camp business. I '11 take it over to
that Events man, and hit him with it, while it's
fresh in his mind."

" Yes," said Marcia. " Are you going to write that
out ? "

" Why, I told you I was. Any objections ? " He
did not pay much attention to her, and he asked his
question jokingly, as he went on making his prepara-
tions.

" It 's hard for me to realize that people can care for
such things. I thought perhaps you'd begin with
something else," she suggested, hanging up her sack
and hat in the closet.

" No, that 's the very thing to begin with," he
answered, carelessly. " What are you going to do ?
Want that book to read that I bought on the cars ? "

" No, I *m going down to sit with Mrs. Nash while
you 're writing."

" Well, that 's a good idea."

A MODERN INSTANCE. 179

" You can call me when you 've done."

" Done ! '' cried Bartley. " I sha'n't be done till
this time to-morrow. I 'm going to make a lot about
it."

" Oh ! " said his wife. " Well, I suppose the more
there is, the more you will get for it. Shall you put
in about those people coming to see the camp?"

"Yes, I think I can work that in so that old
Witherby wDl like it. Something about a distin-
guished Boston newspaper proprietor and his refined
and elegant ladies, as a sort of contrast to the rude
life of the loggers."

** I thought you did n't admire them a great deaL"

" Well, I did n*t much. But I can work them up."

Marcia was quite ready to go ; Bartley had seated
himself at his table, but she still hovered about
" And are you — shall you put that Montreal woman
in ? "

" Yes, get it all in. She '11 work up first-rate."

Marcia was silent. Then, " I should n't think
you'd put her in," she said, "if she was so silly and
disagreeable."

Bartley turned around, and saw the look on her
face that he could not mistake., He rose and took
her by the chin. " Look here. Marsh I " he said, " did
n't you promise me you 'd stop tljat ? "

" Yes," she murmured, while the color flamed into
her cheeks.

" And will you ? "

"I did try — ''

He looked sharply into her eyes. " Confound the
Montreal woman ! I won't put in a word about
her. There!" He kissed Marcia, and held her in
his arms and soothed her as if she had been a jeal-
ous child.

" Oh, Bartley I Oh, Bartley 1 " she cried. " I love
you so 1 "

180 A MODERN INSTANCE.

" I think it 's a remark you made before," he said,
and, with a final kiss and laugh, he pushed her out
of the door; and she ran down stairs to Mrs. Nash
again.

" Your husband ever write poetry, any ? " inquired
the landlady.

" No," returned Marcia ; '' he used to in college,
but he says it don't pay.'*

" One my lodgers — well, she was a lady ; you
can't seem to get gentlemen oftentimes in the sum-
mer season, for love or money, and I was puttin' up
with her, — breakin' joints, as you may say, for the
time bein' — she wrote poetry ; 'n' I guess she found
it pretty poor pickin'. Used to write for the weekly
papers, she said, 'n' the child'n's magazines. Well,
she could n't get more 'n a doll* or two, 'n' I do* know
but what less, for a piece as long as that." Mrs. Nash
held her hands about a foot apart. " Used to show
*em to me, and tell me about 'em. I declare I used
to pity her. I used to tell her I ruther break stone
for my livin'.'*

Marcia sat talking more than an hour to Mrs. Nash,
informing herself upon the history of Mrs. Nash's past
and present lodgers, and about the ways of the city,
and the prices of provisions and dress-goods. The
dearness of everything alarmed and even shocked
her; but she came back to her faith in Bartley's
ability to meet and overcome all difficulties. She
grew drowsy in the close air which Mrs. Nash loved,
after all her fatigues and excitements, and she said
she guessed she would go up and see how Bartley
was getting on. But when she stole into the room
and saw him busily writing, she said, " Now I won't
speak a word, Bartley," and coiled herself down und^I
a shawl on the bed, near enough to put her hand oa
his shoulder if she wished, and fell asleep.

A MODERN INSTANCE. 181

XV.

It took Bartley two days to write out hia account
of the logging-camp. He worked it up to the best of
his ability, giving all the facts that he had got out
of Kinney, and relieving these with what he con-
sidered picturesque touches. He had the newspaper /
instinct, and he divined that his readers would not ^
care for his picturesqueness without his facts. # He
therefore subordinated this, and he tried to give his
description of the loggers a politico-economical in-
terest, dwelling upon the variety of nationalities
engaged in the industry, and the changes it had
undergone in what he called its personnel ; he en-
larged upon its present character and its future de-
velopment in relation to what he styled, in a line of
small capitals, with an early use of the favorite news-
paper possessive,

COLUMBIA'S MORIBUND SHIP-BUILDING.

And he interspersed his text plentifully with exclam-
atory headings intended to catch the eye with star-
tling fragments of narration and statement, such as

THE PINE-TREE STATE'S STORIED STAPLE

MORE THAN A MILLION OF MONEY

UNBROKEN WILDERNESS

WILD-CATS, LYNXES, AND BEARS

BITTEN OFF

BOTH LEGS FROZEN TO THE KNEES

CANADIAN SONGS

JOY UNCONFINED

THE LAMPLIGHT ON THEIR SWARTHY FACES*

182 A MODERN INSTANCE.

He spent a final forenoon in poHshing his articl
up, and stuffing it full of telling points. But afte
dinner on this last day he took leave of Marcia wit!
more trepidation than he was willing to show, or kne\
how to conceal Her devout faith in his succes
seemed to unnerve him, and he begged her not t
believe in it so much.

He seized what courage he had left in both hands
and found himself, after the usual reluctance of th
people in the business office, face to face with M]
Witherby in his private room. Mr. Witherby hen
lately dismissed his managing editor for his neglect o
the true interests of the paper as represented by th
counting-room ; and was managing the Events him
self He sat before a table strewn with newspaper
and manuscripts ; and as he looked up, Bartley sa\
that he did not recognize him.

"How do you do, Mr. Witherby? I had thi
pleasure of meeting you the other day in Maine —
Mr. Willett's logging-camp. Hubbard is my le
remember me as editor of the Equity Free Pre

" Oh, yes," said Mr. Witherby, rising and mdini
at his desk, as a sort of compromise between asking
his visitor to sit down and telling him to go away
He shook hands in a loose way, and added : " I pre
sume you would like to exchange. But the fact is
our list is so large already, that we can't extend it
just now; we can't — "

Bartley smiled. " I don't want any exchange. Mi
Witherby. I *m out of the Free Press."

" Ah ! " said the city journalist, with relief. H(
added, in a leading tone : " Then — "

" I Ve come to offer you an article, — an account o
lumbering in our State. It 's a little sketch that I Vi
prepared from what I saw in Mr. Willett's camp, anc
some facts and statistics I 've picked up. I thought i
might make an attractive feature of your Suudaj
edition."

A MODERN INSTANCE. 183

" The Events," said Mr. Witherby, solemnly,
"does not publish a Sunday edition ! "

" Of course not," answered Bartley, inwardly cursing
his blunder, — "I mean your Saturday evening sup-
plement" He handed him his manuscript.

Mr. Witherby looked at it, with the worry of a dull
man who has assumed unintelligible duties. He had
let the other papers " get ahead of him " on several
important enterprises lately, and he would have been
glad to retrieve himself; but he could not be sure>^
Jiat this was an enterprise. He began by sajdng that >,
their last Saturday supplement was just out, and the /
next was full ; and he ended by declaring, with stu-
pid pomp, that the Events preferred to send its own V
I reporters to write up those matters. Then he hemmed,
and looked at Bartley, and he would really have been
\ glad to have him argue him out of this position ; but
Bartley could not divine what was in his mind. The
cold tit, which sooner or later comes to every form of
authorship, seized him. He said awkwardly he was ^"
I very sorry, and putting his manuscript back in his
i pocket he went out, feeling curiously light-headed, 2^
[jfhis rebuff had been a stunning blow. The affair
was so quickly over, that he might well have believed
it had not happened. But he was sickeningly dis-
appointed ; he had counted upon the sale of his article
to the Events ; his hope had been founded upon actual
knowledge of the proprietor's intention; and although
he had rebuked Marcia's overweening confidence, he
had expected that Witherby would jump at it. But
Witherby had not even looked at it.

Bartley walked a long time in the cold winter sun-
shine. He would have liked to go back to his lodg-
ing, and hide his face in Marcia's hands, and let her
jityhim, but he could jQot bear the thought of her
disappointment,~~ahd he kept walking. At last he
tegained courage enough to go to the editor of the

N^,

184 A MODERN INSTANCE.

paper for which he used to correspond in the summer,
and which had always printed his letters. This editoi
was busy, too, but he apparently felt some obligations
to civility with Bartley; and though he kept glancing
over his exchanges as they talked, he now and then
glanced at Bartley also. He said that he should be
glad to print the sketch, but that they never paid for
outside material, and he advised Bartley to go with
ii*»it to the Events or to the Daily Chronicle- Abstract ;
the Abstract and the Brief Chronicle had lately con-
solidated, and they were showing a good deal of en-
terprise. Bartley said nothing to betray that he
had already been at the Events office, and upon this
friendly editor's invitation to drop in again some time
he went away consA^erably re-inspirited.

" If you should happen to go to the Chronicle-
Abstract folks," the editor called after him, "you can
tell them I suggested your coming."

The managing editor of the Chronicle-Abstract
was reading a manuscript^ and he did not desist from
his work on Bartley's appearance, which he gave no
sign of welcoming. But he had a whimsical, shrewd*
kind face, and Bartley felt that h^ should get on with
him, though he did not rise, and though he let Bart-
ley stand.

** Yes," he said. " Lumbering, hey ? Well, there 'a
some interest in that, just now, on account of thi»
talk about the decay of our shipbuilding interests-
Anything on that point ? "

"That's the very point I touch on first/* said
Bartley.

The editor stopped turning over his manuscript.
" Let *s see," he said, holding out his hand for Bart-
ley's article. He looked at the first head-line, "What
I Know about Logging," and smiled. "Old, but
good." Then he glanced at the other headings, and
ran his eye down the long strips on which Baxtle/

A MODERN INSTANCE. 185

had written; nibbled at the text here and there a
little ; returned to the first paragraph, and read that
through; looked back at something else, and then
read the close.

'' I guess you can leave it," he said, laying the
manuscript on the table.

" No, I guess not," said Bartley, with equal cool-
ness, gathering it up.

The editor looked fairly at him for the first time,
and smiled. Evidently he liked this. " What 's the
reason ? Any particular hurry ? '*

" I happen to know that the Events is going to
send a man down East to write up this very subject »
And I don't propose to leave this article here till they
steal my thunder, and then have it thrown back on
my hands not worth the paper it *s written on."

The editor tilted himself back in his chair and
braced his knees against his table. "Well, I guess
jrou *re right," he said. " What do you want for
it?"

This was a terrible question. Bartley knew noth-
ing about the prices that city papers paid ; he feared
to ask too much, but he also feared to cheapen his
wares by asking too little. " Twenty-five dollars," he
said, huskily.

" Let 's look at it," said the editor, reaching out his
hand for the manuscript again. "Sit down." He
pushed a chair toward Bartley with, his foot, having
first swept a pile of newspapers from it to the floor.
He now read the article more fully, and then looked
up at Bartley, who sat still, trying to hidt his anxiety.
"You're not quite a new hand at the bellows^ are
you ? "

" I Ve edited a country paper."

"Yes? Where?"

" Down in Maine.'

The editoi bent forward and took out a long, nar*

186 A MODERN INSTANCE.

row blank-book. " I guess we shall want your articles
What name ? "

" Bartley J. Hubbard." It sounded in his ears like
some other name.

" Going to be in Boston some time ? "
; " All the time," said Bartley, struggling to appear
nonchalant. The revulsion from the despair into
which he had fallen after his interview with Witherby
was still very great. The order on the counting-room
which the editor had given him shook in his hand.
He saw his way before him clearly now ; he wished
to propose some other things that he would like to
write ; but he was saved from this folly for the time
by the editor's saying, in a tone of dismissal : " Better
come in to-morrow and see a proof. We shall put you
into the Wednesday supplement."

" Thanks," said Bartley. " Good day."

The editor did not hear him, or did not think it
necessary to respond from behind the newspaper
which he had lifted up between them, and Bartley
went out. He did not stop to cash his order; he
made boyish haste to show it to Marcia, as something
more authentic than the money itself, and more
sacred. As he hurried homeward he figured Marcia's
ecstasy in his thought. He saw himself flying up
the stairs to their attic three steps at a bound, and
bursting into the room, where she sat eager and anx-
ious, and tdnfong the order into her lap ; and then,
when she had read it with rapture at the sum, and
pride in the smartness with which he had managed
the whole a&tf, he saw himself catching her up and
dancing about the floor with her. He thought how
fond of her be was, and he wondered that he could
ever have been cold or lukewarm.

She was standing at the window of Mrs. Nash's
little reception-TOom when he reached the house. It
was not to be as he had planned^ but he threw her a

A MODERN INSTANCE. 187

kiss, glad of the impatience which would not let her
wait till he could find her in their own room, and he .
had the precious order in his hand to dazzle her eyes
as soon as he should enter. But, as he sprang into
the hall, his foot struck against a trunk and some
boxes. (

" Hello ! " he cried. " Your tilings have come ! "

Marcia lingered within the door of the reception-
room ; she seemed afraid to come out. " Yes," she
said, faintly ; " father brought them. He has just
been here."

He seemed there still, and the vision unnerved her
as if Bartley and he had been confronted there in
reality. Her husband had left her hardly a quarter
of an hour, when a hack drove up to the door, and
her father alighted. She let him in herself, before
he could ring, and waited tremulously for what he
should do or say. But he merely took her hand, and,
stooping over, gave her the chary kiss with w^hich he
used to greet her at home when he returned from an
absence.

She flung her arms around his neck. " Oh, father!"

" Well, well ! There, there ! " he said, and then he
went into the reception-room with her; and there
was nothing in his manner to betray that anything
unusual had happened since they last met. He kept
his hat on, as his fashion was, and he kept on his
overcoat, below which the skirts of his dress-coat
hung an inch or two ; he looked old, and weary, and
shabby.

" I can't leave Bartley, father," she began, hysteri-
cally.

" I have n't come to separate you from your hus-
band, Marcia. What made you think so ? It *s your
place to stay with him."

" He 's out, now," she answered, in an incoherent
hopefulness. " He 's just gone. Will you wait and
see him, father ? " .

188 A MODERN INSTANCE.

" No, I guess I can't wait," said the old man. " It
would n't do any good for us to meet now."

" Do you think he coaxed me away ? He did n't.
He took pity on me, — he forgave me. And I didn't
mean to deceive you when I left home, father. But I
could n't help trying to see Bartley again."

" I believe you, Marcia. I understand. The thing
had to be. Let^ me see your marriage certificate."

She ran up to her room and fetched it.

Her father read it carefully. " Yes, that is all right,**
he said, and returned it to her. He added, after an
absent pause : " I have brought your things, Marcia.
Your mother packed all she could think ofl"

"How 18 mother?" asked Marcia, as if this had
first reminded her of her mother.

" She is usually well," replied her father.

" Won't you — won t you come up and see our
room, father ? " Marcia asked, after the interval fol-
lowing this feint of interest in her mother.

" No," said the old man, rising restlessly from his
chair, and buttoning at his coat, which was already
buttoned. " I guess I sha'n't have time. I guess I
must be going."

Marcia put herself between him and the door.
" Won't you let me tell you about it, father ? "

" About what ? "

" How — I came to go off with Bartley. I want
you should know."

" I guess I know all I want to know about it,
Marcia. I accept the facts. I told you how I felt.
What you 've done has n't changed me toward you. I
understand you better than you understand yourself;
and I can't say that I *m surprised. Now I want you
should make the best of it."

'* You don't forgive Bartley ! " she cried, passion-
ately. " Then I don't want you should forgive me I "

"Where did you pick up this nonsense about

A MODEUN INSTANCE. 189

forgiving?" said her father, knitting his shaggy
brows. " A man does this thing nr ^fhat, anH the con-
sequence follows. I could n't forgive Bartley so that
He could escape any consequence of what he *s done ;
and you 're not afmid I shall hurt him ? "

" Stay and see him ! " she pleaded. " He is so
kind to me ! He works night and day, and he has
just gone out to sell something he has written for the
papei-s."

" I never said he was lazy,'* returned her father*
" Do you want any money, Marcia ? "

" No, we have plenty. And Bartley is earning it
all the time. I vmh you would stay and see him ! "

" No, I 'm glad he did n't happen to be in," said the
Squire. " I sha'n't wait for him to come back. It
would n't do any good, just yet, Marcia ; it would only
do harm. Bartley and I have n't had time to change
our minds about each other yet. But I '11 say a good
word for him to you. You 're his wife, and it 's your
part to help him, not to hinder him. You can make
him worse by being_au-&ol ; but you needn't be a
fool. "^ Don't worry him about other women; don't
be jealous. He ^s your husband, now : and the worst
thing you can do is to doubt him."

" I won't, father, I won't, indeed ! I will be good,
and I will try to be sensible. Oh, I wish Bartley
could know how you feel !"

'* Don't tell him from me" said her father. " And
don't keep making promises and breaking them. I 'U
help the man in with your things."

He went out, and came in again with one end of a
trunk, as if he had been giving the man a hand with
it into the house at home, and she suffered him as
passively as she had suffered him to do her such ser-
vices all her life. Then he took her hand laxly in
his, and stooped down for another chary kiss. " Good
by, Marcia"

190 A MODERN INSTANCE.

" Why, father ! Are you going to leave me ? " she
faltered

He smiled in melancholy irony at the bewilder-
ment, the childish forgetfulness of all the circum-
stances, which her words expressed. " Oh, no ! I 'm
going to take you with me."

His sarcasm restored her to a sense of what she had
said, and she ruefully laughed at herself through her
tears. " What am I talking about ? Give my love
to mother. When will yOu come again ? " she asked,
clinging about him almost in the old playful way.

" When you want me," said the Squire, freeing
himself.

" I 'U write ! *' she cried after him, as he went down
the steps ; and if there had been, at any moment, a con-
sciousness of her crueltv to him in her heart, she lost
it, when he drove away, in her anxious waiting for
Bartley's return. It seemed to her that, though her
father had refused to see him, his visit was of happy
augury for future kindness between them, and she
was proudly eager to tell Bartley what good advice
her father had given her. But the sight of her hus-
band suddenly turned these thoughts to fear. She
trembled, and all that she could say was, " I know
father will be all right, Bartley."

" How ? " he retorted, savagely. " By the way. he
abused me to you ? Where is he ? "

" He 's gone, — gone back."

" I don't care where he 's gone, so he 's gone. Did
he come to take you home with him ? Why did n't
you go ? — Oh, Marcia ! " The brutal words had hardly
escapejd him when^he ran to her as if he wouldLarrest
them before their sense should pierce her heart,
"'^he thrust him back with a stiffly extended arm.
" Keep away ! Don't touch me ! " She walked by
him up the stairs without looking round at him^ and
he heard her close their door and lock it

A MODERN INSTANCE. 191

XVI.

Bartley stood for a moment, and then went out
and wandered aimlessly about till nightfall. He
went out shocked and frightened at what he had
done, and ready for any reparation. But this mood
wore away, and he came back sullenly determined
to let her jnake the advances toward reconciliation, if
there was to be one. Her love had already made
his peace, and she met him in the dimly lighted little
hall with a kiss of silent penitence and forgiveness.
She had on her hat and shawl, as if she had been
waiting for him to come and take her out to tea ; and
on their way to the restaurant she asked him of his
adventure among the newspapers. He told her
briefly, and when they sat down at their table he
liook out the precious order and showed it to her.
But its magic was gone ; it was only an order for
twenty-five dollars, now ; and two hours ago it had
been success,. raptjirfi,„a_commpn hqpejjnd a_.aomiium
joy. They scarcely spoke of it, but talked soberly of
indifferent things.

She could not recur to her father's visit at once,
and he would not be the first to mention it. He did
nothing to betray his knowledge of her intention, as
she approached the subject through those feints that
women use, and when they stood again in their little
attic room she was obliged to be explicit.

" What hurt me, Bartley," she said, " was that you
should think for an instant that I would let father
ask me to leave you, or that he would ask such a

192 A MODERN INSTANCE.

thing. He only came to tell me to be good to you,
and help you, and trust you ; and not wony you
with my silliness and — and — jealousy. And I
don't ever mean to. And I know he will be good
friends with you yet. He praised you for working
so hard ; " — she pushed it a little beyond the bare
fact ; — "he always did that ; and I know he 's only
waiting for a good chance to make it up with you."

She lifted her eyes, glistening with tears, and it
touched his peculiar sense of humor to find her
offering him reparation, when he had felt himself so
outrageously to blame ; but he would not be outdone
in magnanimity, if it came to that.

" It 's all right, Marsh. I was a furious idiot, or I
should have let you explain at once. But you see
I had only one thought in my mind, and that was
my luck, which I wanted to share with you ; and
when your father seemed to have come in between
us again — "

"Oh, yes, yes!" she answered. "I understand."
And she clung to him in the joy of this perfect inteU
ligence, which she was sure could never be obscured
again.

When Bartley's article came out, she read it with
a fond admiration which all her praises seemed to
leave unsaid. She bought a scrap-book, and pasted
the article into it, and said that she was going to
keep everything he wrote. " What are you going to
write the next thing ? " she asked.
/ "Well, that's what I don't know," he answered.
* I can't find another subject like that, so easily."

" Why, if people care to read about a logging-camp,
I should think they would read about almost any-
thing. Nothing could be too common for them.
You might even write about the trouble of getting
cheap enough rooms in Boston."

" Marcia," cried Bartley, " you 're a treasure S 1 11

A. MODERN INSTANCE. 193 -^

write about that very thing ! I know the Chronicle-
Abstract will be glad to get it/'

She thought he was joking, till he came to her
after a while for some figures which he did not re-
member. He had the true newspaper instinct, and
went to work with a motive that was as different /^
as possible from the literary motive. He wrote/"
for the effect which he was to make, and not from
any artistic pleasure in the treatment. He did not
attempt to give it form, — to imagine a young couple
like himself and Marcia coming down from the
country to place themselves in the city ; he made no
effort to throw about it the poetry of their ignorance
and their poverty, or the pathetic humor of their dis-
may at the disproportion of the prices to their means.
He set about getting all the facts he could, and he
priced a great many lodgings in different parts of
the city; then he went to a number of real-estate
agents, and, giving himself out as a reporter of the
Chronicle- Abstract, he interviewed them as to house-
rents, past and present. Upon these bottom facts, as
he called them, he based a "spicy" sketch, which
had also largely the character of an expos^. There is
nothing the public enjoys so much as an eoopose: it
seems to be made in the reader's own interest; it
somehow constitutes him a party to the attack upon
the abuse, and its effectivQness redounds to the credit
of all the newspaper's subscribers. After a week's
stay in Boston, Bartley was able to assume the feel-
ings of a native who sees his city falling into decay
through the rapacity of its landladies. In the head-
ing of ten or fifteen lines which he gave his sketch,
the greater number were devoted to this feature of it ;
though the space actually allotted to it in the text
was comparatively small. He called his report
"Boston's Boarding-Houses," and he spent a para*
graph upon the relation of boarding-houses to ciy«

154 A MODERN INSTANCE.

iKzation, before detailing his own experience and
observation. This part had many of those strokes of
crude picturesqueness and humor which he knew
how to give, and was really entertaining : but it was
when he came to contrast the rates of house-rent and
the cost of provisions with the landladies*

" PERPENDICULAR PRICES,"

that Bartley showed all the virtue of a bom re-
porter. The sentences were vivid and telling; the
ensemble was very alarming ; and the conclusion was
inevitable, that, unless this abuse could somehow be
reached, we should lose a large and valuable portion
of our population, — especially those young married
people of small means with whom the city's future
prosperity so largely rested, and who must drift away
to find homes in rival communities if the present
exorbitant demands were maintained.

As Bartley had foretold, he had not the least trou-
ble in selling this sketch to the Chronicle- Abstract.
The editor probably understood its essential cheap-
ness perfectly well ; but he also saw how thoroughly-
readable it was. He did not grumble at the increased
price which Bartley put upon his work ; it was still
very far from dear; and he liked the young Down-
easter's enterprise. He gave him as cordial a wel-
come as an overworked man may venture to offer
when Bartley came in with his copy, and he felt like
doing him a pleasure. Some things out of the log-
ging-camp sketch had been copied, and people had
spoken to the editor about it, which was a still better
dign that it was a hit.

"Don't you want to come round to our club to-
night ? " asked the editor, as he handed Bartley the
order for his money across the table. "We have a
bad dinner, and we try to have a good time. We *re
all newspaper men together.*'

A MODERN INSTANCE. 195

"Why, thank you," said Bartley, " I guess I should
like to go."

" Well, come round at half-past five, and go with
me.

Bartley walked homeward rather soberly. He had
meant, if he sold this article, to make amends for the
disappointment they had both suffered before, and to
have a commemorative supper with Marcia at Par-
ker's r he had ignored a little hint of hers about his
never having taken her there yet, because he was
waiting for this chance to do it in style. He resolved
that, if she did not seem to like his going to the club,
he would go back and withdraw his acceptance. But
when he told her he had been invited, — he thought
he would put the fact in this tentative way, — she
said, " I hope you accepted ! "

" Would you have liked me to ? " he asked with
relief.

" Why, of course ! It *s a great honor. You '11 get
acquainted with all those editors, and perhaps some
of them will want to give you a regular place." A
salaried employment was their common ideal of a
provision for their future.

" Well, that 's what I was thinking myself," said
Bartley.

" Go and accept at once," she pursued.

" Oh, that is n't necessary. If I get round there by
half-past five, I can go," he answered.

His lurking regret ceased when he came into
the reception-room, where the members of the club
were constantly arriving, and putting off their hats
and overcoats, and then falling into groups for talk.
His friend of the Chronicle-Abstract introduced^
him lavishly, as our American custom is. Bartley
had a little strangeness, but no bashfulness, and, with
his essentially slight opinion of people, he was
promptly at his ease. These men liked his hand-

i %.■

196 A MODERN INSTANCE.

some face, his winning voice, the good-fellowship of
•^ , his instant readiness to joke ; he could see that they
liked him, and that his friend Ricker was proud of
the impression he made ; before the evening was over
he kept himself with difficulty from patroniz^g
Ricker a little.
^ The club has grown into something much more

splendid and expensive; but it was then content
with a dinner certainly as bad as Ricker promised,
but fabulously modest in price, at an old-fashioned
hotel, whose site was long ago devoured by a dry-
goods palace. The drink was commpnly water or
beer; occasionally, if a great actor or other dis-
tinguished guest honored the board, some spendthrift
ordered champagne. But no one thought fit to go to
this ruinous extreme for Bartley. Ricker offered him
his choice of beer or claret, and Bartley temperately
^ preferred water to either ; he could see that this
raised him in Ricker^s esteem.

No company of men can fail to have a good time
at a public dinner, and the good time began at once
with these journalists, whose overworked week ended
in this Saturday evening jollity. They were mostly
young men, who found sufficient compensation in the
excitement and adventure of their undei-paid labors,
and in the vague hope of advancement ; there were
grizzled beards among them, for whom neither the
novelty nor the expectation continued, but who loved
the life for its own sake, and would hardly have ex-
changed it for prosperity. Here and there was an
old fellow, for whom probably all the illusion was
gone ; but he was proud of his vocation, proud even
of the changes that left him somewhat superannuated
in his tastes and methods. None, indeed, who have
^ 1 ever known it, can wholly forget the generous rage
with which journalism inspires its followers. To
each of those young men, beginning the strangely fas*

A MODERN INSTANCE. 197

cinating life as reporters and correspondents, his paper
was as dear as his king once was to a French noble ;
to serve it night and day, to wear himself out for its
sake, to merge himself in its glory, and to live in its
triumphs without personal recognition from the pub-
lic, was the loyal devotion which each expected his
sovereign newspaper to accept as its simple right.
They went and came, with the prompt and passive
obedience of soldiers, wherever they were sent, and
they struggled each to "get in ahead" of all the
others with the individual zeal of heroes. They ex-
panded to the utmost limits of occasion, and they
submitted with an anguish that was silent to the
editorial excision, compression, and mutilation of
reports that were vitally dear to them. What be-
comes of these ardent young spirits, the inner history
of journalism In any great city might pathetically
show ; but the outside world knows them only in the
fine frenzy of interviewing, or of recording the mid-
night ravages of what they call the devouring ele-
ment, or of working up horrible murders or tragical
accidents, or of tracking criminals who have baffled
all the detectives. Hearing their talk Bartley began
to realize that journalism might be a very different
thing from what he had imagined it in a country
printing-office, and that it might not be altogether
wise to consider it merely as a stepping-stone to the
law.

With the American eagerness to recognize talent,
numbers of good fellows spoke to him about his log-
ging sketch ; even those who had not read it seemed
to know about it as a hit. They were all delighted to
be able to say, " Eicker tells me that you offered it to
old Witherby, and he would n*t look at it ! *' He
found that this fact, which he had doubtfully confided
to Eicker, was not offensive to some of the Events
people who wexe there ; one of them got him aside.

198 A MODERN INSTANCE.

and darkly owned to him that Witherby was doing
everything that any one man conld to kill the Events,
and that in fact the counting-room was running the
paper.

All the club united in abusing the dinner, which in
his rustic ignorance Bartley had not found so infa-
mous ; but they ate it with perfect appetite and
with mounting good spirits. The president brewed
punch in a great bowl before him, and, rising with
a glass of it in his hand, opened a free parliament of
speaking, story-telling, and singing. Whoever rec-
ollected a song or a story that he liked, called upon
the owner of it to sing it or tell it ; and it appeared
not to matter how old the fun or the music was :
the company was resolved to be happy; it roared
and clapped till the glasses rang. " You will like
this song," Hartley's neighbors to right and left of
him prophesied; or, "Just listen to this story of
Mason's, — it 's capital," — as one or another rose in
response to a general clamor. When they went back
to the reception-room they carried the punch-bowl
with them, and there, amid a thick cloud of smoke,
two clever amateurs took their places at the piano^
and sang and played to their heart's content, while
the rest, glass in hand, talked and laughed, or listened
as they chose. Bartley had not been called upon,
but he was burning to try that song in which he had
failed so dismally in the logging-camp. Wlien the
pianist rose at last, he slipped down into the chair,
and, striking the chords of the accompaniment, he
gave his piece with brilliant audacity. The room
silenced itself and then burst into a roar of applause,
and cries of " Encore ! " There could be no doubt of
the success. " Look here, Eicker," said a leading man
at. the end of the repetition, "your friend must be
one of us ! " — and, rapping on the table, he proposed
Bardey's name. In that simple time the club voted

A MODERN INSTANCK 199

viva voje on proposed members, and Bartley found him-
self elected by acclamation, and in the act of paying over
his initiation fee to the treasurer, before he had well
realized the honor done him. Everybody near him
shook his hand, and offered to be of service to him.
Much of this cordiality was merely collective good
feeling; something of it might be justly attributed ^
to the punch ; but the greater part was honest. In /
this civilization of ours, grotesque and unequal and
imperfect as it is in many things, we are bound to-
gether in a brotherly sympathy unknown to any .
other. We new men have all had our hard rubs,
but we do not so much remember them in soreness
or resentment as in the wish to help forward any
other who is presently feeling them. If he will but
help himself too, a hundred hands are stretched out
to him.

Bartley had kept his head clear of the punch, but
he left the ^ club drunk with joy and pride, and so
impatient to be with Marcia and tell her of his tri-
umphs that he could hardly wait to read the proof
of his boarding-house article which Ricker had put
in hand at once for the Sunday edition. He found
Marcia sitting up for him, and she listened with a
shining face while he hastily ran over the most flat-
tering facts t)f the evening. She was not so much
surprised at the honors done him as he had expected ;
but she was happier, and she made him repeat it all
and give her the last details. He was alraid she
would ask him what his initiation had cost; but she
seemed to have no idea that it had cost anything,
and though it had swept away a third of the money
he had received for his sketch, he still resolved that
she should have that supper at Parker's.

" I consider my future made," he said aloud, at the
end of his swift cogitation on this point

200, A MODERN INSTANCE.

r"^"Oh, yesl" she responded rapturously. "We
I aeed n't have a moment's anxiety. But we must be
1 very saving still till you get a place."
L^ ** Oh, certainly," said Bartley.

A MODERN INSTANCB. 201

xvn.

During several months that followed, Bartley's
work consisted of interviewing, of special reporting in
all its branches, of correspondence by mail and tele-
graph from points to which he was sent ; his leisure
he spent in studying subjects which could be treated
like that of the boarding-houses. Marcia entered ^
into his affairs with the keen half-intelligence which \/
characterizes a woman's participation in business ; p
whatever could be divined, she was quickly mistress
of; she vividly sympathized with his difficulties and
his triumphs ; she failed to follow him in matters of
political detail, or of general effect ; she could not be
dispassionate or impartial ; his relation to any enter-
prise was always more important than anything else
about it. On some of his missions he took her with
him, and then they made it a pleasure excursion ; and
if they came home late with the material still un-
written, she helped him with his notes, wrote from
his dictation, and enabled him to give a fuller report
than his rivals. She caught up with amusing aptness
the technical terms of the profession, and was voluble
about getting in ahead of the Events and the other
papers; and she was indignant if any part of his
report was cut out or garbled, or any feature was
spoiled.

He made a " card " of grouping and treating with
picturesque freshness the spring openings of the milli-
ners and dry-goods people ; and when he brought his
article to Eicker, the editor ran it over, and said,
" Guess you took your wife with you, Hubbard."

202 ▲ MODERN INSTANCE.

"Yes, I did," Bartley owned. He was always

proud of her looks, and it flattered him that Ricker
should see the evidences of her feminine taste and
knowledge in his account of the bonnets and dress
goods. " You don't suppose I could get at all these
things by inspiration, do you ? "

Marcia was already known to some of his friends
whom he had introduced to her in casual encounters.
They were mostly unmanied, or if married they
lived at a distance, and they did not visit the Hub-
bards at their lodgings. Marcia was a little shy,
and did not quite know whether they ought to call
without being asked, or whether she ought to ask
them; besides, Mrs. Nash's reception-room was not
always at her disposal, and she would not have
liked to take them all the way up to her own room.
Her social life was therefore confined to the pubUo
places where she met these friends of her husband's.
They sometimes happened together at a restaurant,
or saw one another between the acts at the theatre,
or on coming out of a concert. Marcia was not so
much admired for her conversation by her acquaint-
ance, as for herjbeauty and hjr^style ; a rustic reluc-
tance still lingered in her ; she was thinjtndjiiy^in
her talk with any one but BartleyTand she could not
help letting even men perceive that she was uneasy
when they interested him in matters foreign to her.

Bartley did not see why they could not have some
of these fellows up in their room for tea ; but Marcia
told him it was impossible. In fact, although she
willingly lived this irregular life with him, she was
at heart not at all a Bohemian. She did not like
being in lodgings or dining at restaurants ; on their
liorse-car excursions into the suburbs, when the spring
opened, she was always choosing this or that little
house as the place where she would like to live, and
wondering if it were within their means. She said

A MODERN INSTANCE. 203

she would gladly do all the work herself; she hated
to be idle so much as she now must. The city's
novelty wore off for her sooner than for him : the
concerts, the lectures, the theatres, had already lost
their zest for her, and she went because he wished
her to go, or in order to be able to help him with
what he was always writing about such things.

As the spring advanced, Bartley conceived the
plan of a local study, something in the manner of the
boarding-house article, but on a much vaster scale :
he proposed to Eicker a timely series on the easily
accessible hot-weather resorts, to be called " Boston's
Breathing-Places," and to relate mainly to the seaside
hotels and their surroundings. His idea was encour-
aged, and he took Marcia with him on most of his
expeditions for its realization. These were largely
made before the regular season had well begun ; but
the boats were already running, and the hotels were
open, and they were treated with the hospitality
which a knowledge of Bartley's mission must invoke.
As he said, it was a matter of business, give and take
on both sides, and the landlords took more than they
gave in any such trade.

On her part Marcia regarded dead-heading as a just /
and legitimate privilege of the press, if not one of \\a^^'^
chief attributes ; and these passes on boats and trains,
this system of paying hotel-bills by the presentation
of a card, constituted distinguished and honorable
recognition from the public. To her simple experi-
ence, when Bartley told how magnificently the re-
porters had been accommodated, at some civic or
commercial or professional banquet, with a table of
their own, where they were served with all the wines
and courses, he seemed to have been one of the prin-
cipal guests, and her fear was that his head should
be turned by his honors. But at the bottom of her
heart, though she enjoyed the brilliancy of Bartley's

204 A MODERN INSTANCE.

\ present life, ahe did not think his occupation com-
parable to the law in dignity. Bartley called himself
a journalist now, but his newspaper connection still
identified him in her mind with those country editol^
of whom she had always heard her father speak with
such contempt : men dedicated to poverty and the
despite of all the local notables who used them. She
could not shake off the old feeling of degradation,
even when she heard Bartley and some of his fellow-
journalists talking in their boastfulest vein of the
sovereign character of journalism ; and she secretly
resolved i;iever to relinquish her purpose of having
him a lawyer. Till he was fairly this, in regular and
prosperous practice, she knew that she " should not
have shown her father that she was right in marrying
Bartley.

In the mean time their life went ignorantly on in
the obscure channels where their isolation from soci-
ety kept it longer than was natural. Three or four
months after they came to Boston, they were still
country people, with scarcely any knowledge of the
distinctions and differences so important to the various
worlds of any city. So far from knowing that they
must not walk in the Common, they used to sit down
on a bench there, in the pleasant weather, and watch
the opening of the spring, among the lovers whose
passion had a publicity that neither surprised nor
shocked them. After they were a little more en-
lightened, they resorted to the Public Garden, where
they admired the bridge, and the rock-work, and the
statues. Bartley, who was already beginning to get
up a taste for art, boldly stopped and praised the
Venus, in the presence of the gardeners planting
tulip-bulbs.

They went sometimes to the Museum of Fine Arta^
where they found a pleasure in the worst things
which the best never afterwards gave them; and.

A MODERN INSTANCE. 205

where she became as hungry and tired as if it were
the Vatican. They had a pride in taking books out
of the Public Library, where they walked about on
tiptoe with bated breath ; and they thought it a
divine treat to hear the Great Organ play at noon.
As they sat there in the Music Hall, and let the
mighty instrument bellow over their strong young
nerves, Bartley whispered Marcia the jokes he had
heard about the organ ; and then, upon the wave of
aristocratic sensation from this experience, they went
out and dined at Copeland*s, or Weber's, or Fera*s, or
even at Parker^s: they had long since forsaken the
humble restaurant with its doilies and its ponderous
crockery, and they had so mastered the art of ordering
that they could manage a dinner as cheaply at these
finer places as anywhere, especially if Marcia pre-
tended not to care much for her half of the portion,
and connived at its transfer to Hartley's plate.

In his hours of leisure, they were so perpetually
together that it became a joke with the men who
knew them to say, when asked if Bartley were married,
" Very much niamed." It was not wholly their in-
separableness that gave the impression of this extreme
conjugality ; as I said, Marcia*s uneasiness when others
interested Bartley in things alien to her made itself
felt even by these men. She struggled against it be-
cause she did not wish to put him to shame before
them, and often with an aching sense of desolation she
sent him off with them to talk apart, or left him with
them if they met on the street, and walked home alone,
rather than let any one say that she kept her husband
tied to her apron-strings. His club, after the first
sense of its splendor and usefulness wore away, was
an ordeal ; she had failed to conceal that she thought
the initiation and annual fees extravagant. She
knew no other bliss like having Bartley sit down in
their own room with her ; it did not matter whether

206 A MODERN INSTANCE.

they talked ; if he were busy, she would as lief sit and
sew, or sit and silently look at him as he wrote. In
these moments she liked to feign that she had lost
him, that they had never been married, and then
come back with a rush of joy to the reality. But on
his club nights she heroically sent him off, and spent
the evening with Mrs. Nash. Sometimes she went
out by day with the landlady, who had a passion
for auctions and cemeteries, and who led Marcia to
an intimate acquaintance with such pleasures. At
Mount Auburn, Marcia liked the marble lambs, and
the emblematic hands pointing upward with the dexter
finger, and the infants carved in stone, and the angels
with folded wings and lifted eyes, better, than the casts
which Bartley said were from the antique, in the
Museum ; on this side her mind was as wholly dor-
mant as that of Mrs. Nash herself. She always camid
home feeling as if she had not seen Bartley for a year,
and fearful that something had happened to him.

The hardest thing about their irregular life was
that he must sometimes be gone two or three days at
a time, when he could not take her with him. Then
it seemed to her that she could not draw a full breath
in his absence ; and once he found her almost wild
on his return : she had begun to fancy that he was
never coming back again. He laughed at her when
she betrayed her secret, but she was not ashamed; and
when he asked her, " Well, what if I had n't come
back ? " she answered passionately, " It would n't have
made much difference to me: I should not have
lived."

The uncertainty of his income was another cause
of anguish to her. At times he earned forty or fifty
dollars a week ; oftener he earned ten ; there was now
and then a week when everything that he put his hand
to failed, and he earned nothing at alL Then Marcia
despaired ; her frugcdity became a mania, and they

A MODERN INSTANCE. 207

had quarrels about what she called his extravagance.
She embittered his daily bread by blaming him foi
what he spent on it ; she wore her oldest dresses/and
would have had him go shabby in token of their ad-
versity. Her economies were frantic child^s play, —
methodless, inexperienced, fitful ; and they were apt
to be followed by remorse in which she abetted him
in some wanton excess.

The future of any Jieroic action is difficult to man-
age ; and the sublime sacrifice of her pride and all the
conventional proprieties which Mai'cia had made in
giving herself to Bartley was inevitably tried by the
same sordid tests that every married life is put to.

That salaried place which he was always seeking
on the staff of some newspaper, proved not so easy to
get as he had imagined in the flush of his first suc-
cesses. Eicker willingly included him among the
Chronicle-Abstract's own correspondents and special
reporters ; and he held the same off-and-on relation
to several other papers ; but he remained without a
more definite position. He earned perhaps more
money than a salary would have given him, and in
their way of living he and Marcia laid up something
out of what he earned. But it did not seem to her
that he exerted himself to get a salaried place ; she
was sure that, if so many others who could not write
half so well had places, he might get one if he only
kept trying. Bartley laughed at these business-turns
of Marcia*s as he called them; but sometimes they
enraged him, and he had days of sullen resentment
when he resisted all her advances towards reconcilia"
tion. But he kept hard at work, and he always owned
at last how disinterested her most ridiculous alarm
had been.

Once, when they had been talking as usual about
that permanent place on some newspaper, she said,
^ But I should only want that to be temporary, if you

208 A MODERN INSTANCE.

got it. I want you should go on with the law,
Bartley. I Ve been thinking about that. I don't
want you should always be a journalist."

Bartley smiled. " What could I do for a living, I
Bhould like to know, while I was studying law ? *'

" You could do some newspaper work, — enough to
support us, — while you were studying. You said
when we first came to Boston that you should settle
down to the law."

" I had n't got my eyes open, then. I Ve got a
good deal longer row to hoe than I supposed, before
I can settle down to the law."

" Father said you did n't need to study but a little
• more."

" Not if I were going into the practice at Equity.
But it's a very different thing, I can tell you, in
Boston : I should have to go in for a course in the
Harvard Law School, just for a little start-ofll"

Marcia was silenced, but she asked, after a moment,
" Then you 're going to give up the law, altogether ? "

** I don't know what I 'm going to do ; I *m going to
do the best I can for the present, and trust to luck.
1 don't like special reporting, for a finality; but I
should n't like shystering, either."

" What 's shystering ? " asked Marcia.

" It 's pettifogging in the city courts. Wait till I
can get my basis, — till I have a fixed amount of
money for a fixed amount of work, — and then I '11 talk
to you about taking up the law again. I 'm willing
to do it whenever it seems the right thing. I guess
I should like it, though I don't see why it's any
better than journalism, and I don't believe it has any
more prizes."

" But you *ve been a long time trying to get yoni
basis on a newspaper," she reasoned. " Why don't yon
try to get it in some other way ? Why don't you toy
to get a clerk's place with some lawyer ? "

A MODERN INSTANCE. 209

" Well, suppose I was willing to starve along in
that way, how should I go about to get such a place ? **
demanded Bartley, with impatience.

" Why don't you go to that Mr. Halleck you vis-
ited here ? You used to tell me he was going to be
a lawyer."

" Well, if you remember so distinctly what I said
about going into the law when I first came to Boston,"
said her husband angrily, " perhaps you 11 remember
that I said I should n't go to Halleck until I did n't
need his help. I shall not go to him /or his help."

Marcia gave way to spiteful tears. " It seems as if
you were ashamed to let them know that you were
in town. Are you afraid I shall want to get ac-
quainted with them ? Do you suppose I shall want
to go to their parties, and disgrace you ? "

Bartley took his cigar out of his mouth, and looked
blackly at her. " So, that/s what you've been think-
ing, is it ? "

She threw herself upon his neck. " No ! no, it
isnt!" she cried, hysterically. "You know that I
never thought it till this instant; you know I did n't
think it at all ; I just said it. My nerves are all
gone ; I don't know what I 'm saying half the time,
and you 're as strict with me as if I were as well as
ever ! I may as well take off my things, — I 'm not
well enough to go with you, to-day, Bartley."

She had been dressing while they talked for an
entertainment which Bartley was going to report for
the Chronicle- Abstract ; and now she made a feint
of wishing to remove her hat. He would noji let her.
He said that if she did not go, he should not ; he
reproached her with not wishing to go with him any
more ; he coaxed her laughingly and fondly.

" It 's only because I 'm not so strong, now," she

said in a whisper that ended in a kiss on his cheek

" You must walk very slowly, and not hurry me."

210 A MODERN INSTANCK.

The entertainment was to be given in aid of the
Indigent Children's Surf-Bathing Society, and it was
at the end of June, rather late in the season. But
the society itself was an afterthought, not conceived
till .a great many people had left town on whose
assistance such a charity must largely depend.
Strenuous appeals had been made, however : it was
represented that ten thousand poor children could be
transported to Nantasket Beach, and there, as one of
the ladies on the committee said, bathed, clam-baked,
and lemonaded three times during the summer at a
cost so small that it was a saving to spend the money.
Class Day falling about the same time, many exiles
at Newport and on the North Shore came up and
down ; and the affair promised to be one of social
distinction, if not pecuniary success. The entertain-
ment was to be varied • a distinguished poet was to
read an old poem of his, and a distinguished poetess
was to read a new poem of hers ; some professional
people were to follow with comic singing; an elo-
cutionist was to give impressions of noted public
speakers; and a number of vocal and instrumental
amateurs were to contribute their talent.

Bartley had instructions from Ricker to see that
his report was very full socially. " We want some-
thing lively, and at the same time nice and tasteful,
about the whole thing, and I guess you *re the man
to do it. Get Mrs. Hubbard to go with you, and
keep you from making a fool of yourself about the
costumes." He gave Bartley two tickets. " Mighty
hard to get, I can tell you, for love or money, —
especially love," he said ; and Bartley made much of
this difficulty in impressing Marcia*s imagination
with the uncommon character of the occasion. S^
had put OIL a new^dress wbich-sbe-had-4ustJinishe3
for herself, and which wasj^ marvel -not o^ly ofc|jgap-
Hess, but of elegance ; she had plagiarized theiHea

A MODERN INSTANCE. 211

from the costume of a lady with whom she stopped
to look in at a milliner's window where she formed
the notion of her bonnet. But Marcia had imagined
the things anew in relation to herself, and made them
her own ; when Bartley first saw her in them, though
he had witnessed their growth from the germ, he said
that he was afmid of her, she was so splendid, and he
did not quite know whether he felt acquainted.
When they were seated at the concert, and had time
to look about them, he whispered, " Well, Marsh, I
don't see anything here that comes near you in style,"
and she flung a little corner of her drapery out over
his hand so that she could squeeze it : she was quite
happy again.

After the concert, Bartley left her for a moment,
and went up to a group of the committee near the
platform, to get some points for his report. He spoke
to one of the gentlemen, note-book and pencil in hand,
and the gentleman referred him to one of the ladies
of the committee, who, after a moment of hesitation,
demanded in a rich tone of injury and surprise," Why!
Is n't this Mr. Hubbard ? " and, indignantly answer-
ing herself, " Of course it is ! " gave her hand with a
sort of dramatic cordiality, and flooded him with
questions: ''When did you come to Boston? Are
you at the Hallecks* ? Did you come — Or no, you 're
not Harvard. You 're not living in Boston ? And
what in the world are you getting items for? Mr.
Hubbard, Mr. Atherton."

She introduced him in a breathless climax to the
gentleman to whom he had first spoken, and who had
listened to her attack on Bartley with a smile which
he was at no trouble to hide from her. "Which
question are you going to answer first, Mr. Hub-
bard ? " he asked quietly, while his eyes searched
Bartley's for an instant with inquiry which was at
ence kind and keen. His face had the distinction

212 " A MODERN INSTANCE.

which comes of being clean-shaven in our bearded
times.

" Oh, the last," said Bartley. " I 'm reporting the
concert for the Chronicle-Abstract, and I want to
interview some one in authority about it."

"Then interview me, Mr. Hubbard," cried the
young lady. "7'm in authority about this affair, —
it *s my own invention, as the White Knight says, —
vx;. / and then I *11 interview you afterwards. And you 've
N J gone into journalism, like all the Harvard men I So
J glad it *s you, for you can be a perfect godsend to the

cause if you will The entertainment has n't given
us all the money we shall want, by any means, and
we shall need all the help the press can give us. Ask
me any questions you please, Mr. Hubbard: there
is n't a soul here that I would n't sacrifice to the last
personal particular, if the press will only do its duty
in I'eturn. You Ve no idea how we 've been working
during the last fortnight since this Old Man of the
Sea- Bathing sprang upon us. I was sitting quietly
at home, thinking of anything else in the world, I
can assure you, when the atrocious idea occurred to
ma" She ran on to give a full sketch of the incep-
tion and history of the scheme up to the present
time. Suddenly she arrested herself and Bartley's
flying pencil : " Why, you *re not putting all that
nonsense down ? "

" Certainly I am," said Bartley, while Mr. Atherton,
with a laugh, turned and walked away to talk with
some other ladies. " It 's the very thing I want. I
shall get in ahead of all the other papers on this;
they have n't had anything like it, yet."

She looked at him for a moment in horror. Then,
•* W^ell, go on ; I would do anything for the cause ! "
she cried.

" Tell me who 's been here, then," said Bartley.

She recoiled a littla '' I don't like giving names.*

A MODERN INSTANCE. 213

*• But I can't say who the people were, unless you
do."

** That's true," said the young lady thoughtfully.
She prided herself on her though tfulness, which some-
times came before and sometimes after the fact
" You 're not obliged to say who told you ? "

" Of course not."

She ran over a list of historical and distinguished
names, and he slyly asked if this and that lady were
not dressed so, and so, and worked in the costumes
from her unconsciously elaborate answers; she was
afterwards astonished that he should have known
what people had on. Lastly, be asked what the com-
mittee expected to do next, and was enabled to enrich
his report with many authoritative expressions and
intimations. The lady became all zeal in these con-
fidences to the public, at last ; she told everything she
knew, and a great deal that she merely hoped.

"And now come into the committee-room and
have a cup of coffee ; I know you must be faint with
all this talking," she concluded. " I want to ask you
something about yourself" She was not older than
Bartley, but she addressed him with the freedom we
use in encouraging younger people.

" Thank you," he said coolly ; " I can't, very well.
I must go back to my wife, and hurry up this report."

" Oh ! is Mrs. Hubbard here ? " asked the young
lady with well-controlled surprise. "Present me to
her ! " she cried, with that fearlessness of social con-
sequences for which she was noted: she believed
there were ways of getting rid of undesirable people
without treating them rudely.

The audience had got out of the hall, and Marcia
stood alone near one of the doors waiting for Bartley.
He glanced proudly toward her, and said, " I shall be
very glad."

Miss Kingsbury drifted by his side across the

214 A MODERN INSTANCK

intervening space, and was ready to take Marda
impressivfely by the hand when she reached her ; she
had promptly decided her to be veiy beautiful and
elegantly simple in dress, but she found her smaller
than she had looked at a distance. Miss Kingsbury
was herself rather large, — sometimes, she thought,
rather too large: certainly too large if she had not
had such perfect command of every inch of herself.^
In complexion she was richly blonde, with beautiful
fair hair roughed over her forehead, as if by a breeze,
and apt to escape in sunny tendrils over the peachy
tints of her temples. Her features were massive
rather than fine ; and though she thoroughly admired
her chin and respected her mouth, she had doubts
about her nose, which she frankly referred to friends
for solution : had it not too much of a knob at the
end ? She seemed to tower over Marcia as she took
her hand at Bartley's introduction, and expressed her
pleasure at meeting her.

" I don't know why it need be such a surprise to
find one's gentlemen friends married, but it always is,
somehow. I don't think Mr. Hubbard would have
known me if I had n't insisted upon his recognizing
me ; I can't blame him : it 's three years since we
met. Do you help him with his reports ? I know
you do ! You must make him lenient to our enter-
tainment, — the cause is so good ! How long have
you been in Boston ? Though I don't know why I
should ask that, — you may have always been in
Boston ! One used to know everybody ; but the place
is so large, now. I should like to come and see you ;
but I 'm going out of town to-morrow, for the sum-
mer. I'm not really here, now, except ex officio ; I
ouj^ht to have been away weeks ago, but this Indigent
Surf-Bathing has kept me. You've no idea what
such an undertaking is. But you must let me have
your address, and as soon as I get back to town in

A MODEKN INSTaI^C£ 215

the fall, I shall insist upon looking you up. Oood
by ! I must run away, now, and leave you ; there are
a thousand things for me to look after yet to-day/*
She took Marcia again by the hand, and superadded
some bows and nods and smiles of parting, after she
released her, but she did not ask her to come into the
committee-room and have some coffee; and Bartley
took his wife's hand under his arm and went out
of the hall.

" Well," he said, with a man's simple pleasure in
Miss Kingsbury's friendliness to his wife, " that 's the
girl I used to tell you about, — the rich one with the
money in her own right, whom I met at the Hallecks*.
She seemed to think you were about the thing. Marsh !
I saw her eyes open as she came up, and I felt
awfully proud of you ; you never looked half so welL
But why did n't you say something ? "

"She didn't give me any chance," said Marcia,
" and I had nothing to say, anyway. I thought she
was very disagreeable."

" Disagreeable ! " repeated Bartley in amaze.

Miss Kingsbury went back to the committee-room,
where one of the amateurs had been lecturing upon
her : " Clara Kingsbury can say and do, from the best
heart in the world, more offensive things in ten min- * \
utes than malice could invent in a week. Somebody ^
ought to go out and drag her away from that reporter
by main force. But I presume it 's too late already ;
she's had time to destroy us all. You'll see that r
there won't be a shred left of us in his paper at any • s'
rate. Eeally, I wonder that, in a city full of nervous
and exasperated people like Boston, Clara Kingsbury t
has been suffered to live. She throws her whole soul t
into everything she undertakes, and she has gone so s
en masse into this Indigent Bathing, and splashed
about in it so, that / can't understand how we got \\
anybody to come to-day. Why, I have n't the least

■si

216 A MODERN INSTANCE.

doubt that she's offered that poor man a ticket t^
go down to Nantasket and bathe with the other In-
digents ; she 's treated me as if I ought to be person-
ally^surf-bathed for the last fortnight ; and if there 's
any chance for us left by her tactlessness, you may
be sure she 's gone at it with her conscience and
simply swept it off the face of the earth.''

▲ MODERN INSTANCE. 217

XVIII.

One hot day in August, when Bartley had been
doing nothing for a week, and Marcia was gloomily
forecasting the future when they would have to begin
living upon the money they had put into the savings
bank, she reverted to the question of his taking up
the law again. She was apt to recur to this in any
moment of discouragement, and she urged him now
to give up his newspaper work with that wearisome
persistence with which women torment the men they
love.

" My newspaper work seems to have given me up,
my dear," said Bartley. " It *s like asking a fellow
not to marry a girl that won't have him." He laughed
and then whistled; and Marcia burst into fretful,
futile tears, which he did not attempt to assuage.

They had been all summer in town ; the country
would have been no change to them ; and they knew
nothing of the seaside except the crowded, noisy,
expensive resorts near the city. Bartley wished her
to go to one of these for a week or two, at any rate,
but she would not ; and in fact neither of them had
the bom citizen's conception of the value of a sum-
mer vacation. But they had found their attic in
tolerable ; and, the single gentlemen having all given
up their rooms by this time, Mrs. Nash let Marcia
have one lower down, where they sat looking out on
the hot street.

"Well," cried Marcia at last, "you don't care for
my feelings, or you would take up the law again-"

218 A MODERN INSTANCE.

Her husband rose with a sigh that was half a
curse, and went out. After what she had said, he
would not give her the satisfaction of knowing what
he meant to do ; but he had it in his head to go to
that Mr. Atherton to whom Miss Kingsbury had
introduced him, and ask his advice; he had found
out that Mr. Atherton was a lawyer, and he believed
that he would tell hira what to do. He could at least
give him some authoritative discouragement which
he might use in these discussions with Marcia.

Mr. Atherton had his office in the Events building,
and Bartley was on his way thither when he met
Ricker.

"Seen Witherby?" asked his friend. "He was
round looking for you."

" What does Witherby want with me ? " asked
Baitley, with a certain resentment.

"Wants to give you the managing-editorship of
the Events," said Eicker, jocosely.

" Pshaw ! Well, he knows where to find me, if lie
wants me very badly.'*

" Perhaps he does n't," suggested Eicker. " In that
case, you 'd better look him up."

" Why, you don't advise — "

" Oh, / don't advise anything ! But if he can let
bygones be bygones, I guess you can* afford to ! I
don't know just what he wants with you, but if he
offers you anything like a basis, you 'd better take it."

Bartley's basis had come to be a sort of by-word
between them ; Eicker usually met him with some
such demand as, " Well, what about the basis ? "
or, " How 's your poor basis ? " Bartley's ardor for a
salaried position amused him, and he often tried to
/ argue him out of it. " You 're much better off as a
' free lance. You make as much money as most of
the fellows in places, and you lead a pleasanter life.
If you w^re on any one paper, you 'd have to be on

A MODERN INSTANCE. 219

duty about fifteen hours out of the twenty-four;
you *d be out every night till three or four o'clock ;
you *d have to do fires, and murders, and all sorts of
police business ; and now you work mostly on fancy
jobs, — something you suggest yourself, or something
you're specially asked to do. That's a kind of a
compliment, and it gives you scope."

Nevertheless, if Bartley had his heart set upon a
basis, Ricker wanted him to have it. " Of course,"
he said, " I was only joking about the basis. But if
Witherby should have something permanent to offer,
don't quarrel with your bread and butter, and don't
hold yourself too cheap. Witherby 's going to get all
he can, for as little as he can, every time.''

Ricker was a newspaper man in every breath. His
gi'eat interest in life was the Chronicle-Abstract,
which paid him poorly and worked him hard. To get
in ahead of the other papers was the object for which
he toiled with unremitting zeal ; but after that he
liked to see a good fellow prosper, and he had for
Bartley that feeling of comradery which comes out
among journalists when their rivalries are off; He
would hate to lose Bartley from the Chronicle-
Abstract; if Witherby meant business, Bartley and
he might be excoriating each other before a week
passed in sarcastic references to " our esteemed con-
temporary of tlie Events," and " our esteemed contem-
porary of the Chronicle- Abstract " ; but he heartily
wished him luck, and hoped it might be some sort
of inside work.

When Ricker left him Bartley hesitated. He was
half minded to go home and wait for Witherby to
look him up, as the most dignified and perhaps the
most prudent course. But he was curious and im-
patient, and he was afraid of letting the chance,
whatever it might be, slip through his fingers. He
suddenly resolved upon a little ruse, which would

220 A MODERN INSTANCE.

still oblige Witherby to make the advance, and yet
would risk nothing by delay. He mounted to Wither-
by*s room in the Events building, and pushed open
the door. Then he drew back, embarrassed, as if he
had made a mistake. " Excuse me,'* he said, " is n't
Mr. Atherton's office on this floor ? "

Witherby looked up from the papers on his desk,
and cleared his throat. When he overreached him-
self he was apt to hold any party to the transaction
accountable for his error. Ever since he refused
Hartley's paper on the logging-camp, he had accused
him in his heart of fraud because he had sold the
rejected sketch to another paper, and anticipated
Witherby 's ,tardy enterprise in the same direction.
Each little success that Bartley made added to
Witherby's dislike ; and whilst Bartley had written
for all the other papers, he had never got any work
from the Events. Witherby had the guilty sense
of having hated him as he looked up, and Bartley
on his part was uneasily sensible of some mocking
paragraphs of a more or less personal cast, which
he had written in the Chronicle-Abstract, about the
enterprise of the Events.

" Mr. Atherton is on the floor above," said Wither-
by. ^' But I *m very glad you happened to look in,
Mr. Hubbard. I — I was just thinking about you.
Ah — wont you take a chair ? "

" Thanks," said Bartley, non-committally i but he
sat down in the chair which the other rose to offer him.

Witherby fumbled about among the things on his
desk before he resumed his own seat. " I hope you
have been well since I saw you ? "

" Oh, yes, I 'm always well. How have you been ?*'
Bartley wondered whither this exchange of civilities
tended ; but he believed he could keep it up as long
as old Witherby could.

" Why, I have not been very well," said Witherby,

A MODERN INSTANCE. 221

getting into his chair, and taking up a paper-weight
to help him in talk. "The fact is, I find that I
have been working too hard. I have undertaken to
manage the editorial department of the Events in
addition to looking after its business, and the care
has been too great It has told upon me. I flatter
myself that I have not allowed either department to
suffer — "

He referred this point so directly to him> that
Bartley made a murmur of assent, and Witherby
resumed.

" But the care has told upon me. I am not so well
as I could wish. I need rest, and I need help," he
added.

Bartley had by this time made up his mind that, it
Witherby had anything to say to him, he should say
it unaided.

Witherby put down the paper-weight, and gave
his attention for a moment to a paper-cutter. " I
don't know whether you have heard that Mr. Clayton
is going to leave us ? "

" No," Bartley said, " I had n't heard that."

" Yes, he is going to leave us. Mr. Clayton and
I have not agreed upon some points, and we have
both judged it best that we should part." Witherby
paused again, and changed the positions of his ink-
stand and mucilage-bottle. " Mr. Clayton has failed
me, as I may say, at the last moment, and we have
been compelled to part. I fbund Mr. Clayton —
unpractical."

He looked again at Bartley, who said, " Yes ? "

" Yes. I found Mr. Clayton so much at variance
in his views with — with my own views — that I
could do nothing with him. He has used language
to me which I am sure he will regret. But that is
neither here nor there ; he is going. I have had my
eye on you, Mr. Hubbard, ever since you came t^

222 A MODERN INSTANCE.

Boston, and have watched your career with interest
But I thought of Mr. Clayton, in the first instance,
because he was already attached to the Events, and I
wished to promote him. Office during good behavior,
and promotion in the direct line : I *m that much of a
civil-service reformer,*' said Witherby.
" Certainly," said Bartley.

"But of course my idea in starting the Events
was to make money."
" Of course."

" I hold tliat the first duty of a public journal is
to make money for the owner ; all the rest follows
naturally."

" You 're quite right, Mr. Witherby," said Bartley.

*' Unless it makes money, there can be no enterprise

: about it, no independence, — nothing. That was the

way I did with my little paper down in Maine. The

. first thing — I told the committee when I took hold

oT the paper — is to keep it from losing money; the

next is to make money with it. First peaceable, then

, pure : that 's what 1 told them."

" Precisely so ! " Witherby was now so much at
his ease with Bartley that he left off tormenting the
, '"things on his desk, and used his hands in gesticu-
' lating. " Look at the churches themselves ! No
: church can do any good till it *s on a paying basis.
As long as a church is in debt, it can't secure the
. best talent for the pulpit or the choir, and the
; members go about feeling discouraged and out of
heart. It's just so with a newspaper. I say that
a paper does no good till it pays ; it has no influ-
ence, its motives are always suspected, and you 've
got to make it pay by hook or by crook, before you
can hope to — to — forward any good cause by it.
That 's what / say. Of course," he added, in a large,
smooth way, " I *m not going to contend that a
newspaper should be run soldy in the interest of

A MODERN INSTANCE. 223

the counting-room. Not at all ! But I do contend
that, when the counting-room protests against a cer-
tain course the editorial room is taking, it ought to be
respectfully listened to. There are always two sides
to every question. Suppose all the newspapers pitch
in — as they sometimes do — and denounce a certain
public enterprise : a projected scheme of railroad
legislation, or a peculiar system of banking, or a
co-operative mining interest, and the counting-room
sends up word that the company advertises heavily
with us ; shall we go and join indiscriminately in that
hue and cry, or shall we give our friends the benefit
of the doubt ? "

"Give them the benefit of the doubt," answered
Bartley. " That 's what I say."

"And so would any other practical man!" said
Witherby. "And that's just where Mr. Clayton
and I differed. Well, I need n't allude to him any
more," he added leniently. "What I wish to say
is this, Mr. Hubbard. I am overworked, and I feel
the need of some sort of relief. I know that I have
started the Events in the right line at last, — the
only line in which it can be made a great, useful, and
respectable journal, efficient in every good cause, —
and what I want now is some sort of assistant
in the management who shall be in full sympathy
with my own ideas. I don't want a mere slave, — a
tool ; but I do want an independent, right-minded
man, who shall be with me for the success of the
paper the whole time and every time, and shall not
be continually setting up his will against mine on
all sorts of doctrinaire points. That was the trouble
with Mr. Cla}'ton. I have nothing against Mr. Clay-
ton personally ; he is an excellent young man in \
very many respects; but he was all wrong about !

I'ournalism, all wrong, Mr. Hubbard. I talked with
lim a great deal, and tried to make him see where

t o v\ \ v> . V i J- uL^

224 A. MODERN INSTANCE. ^ v. ccit 3 s

his interest lay. He had been on the paper as n
repoiter from the start, and I wished very much to
promote bim to this position ; which he could have
made the best position in the country. The Events
is an evening paper ; there is no night-work ; and the
whole thing is already thorouglily systematized. Mr.
Clayton had plenty of talent, and all lie had to do
was to step in under my direction and put his hand
on the helm. But, no I I should have been glad to
keep him in a subordinate capacity ; but I had to let
him go. He said that he would not report the con-
flagration of a peanut-stand for a paper conducted on
the principles I had developed to liim. Now, that
is no way to talk. It 's absui-d."

" Perfectly.*' Bartley laughed his rich, caressing
laugh, in which there was the insinuation of all
worldly-wise contempt for Clayton and all worldly-
wise sympathy with Witherby. It made Witherby
feel good, — better perhaps than he had felt at any
time since his talk with Clayton.

"Well, now, what do you say, Mr. Hubbard?
Can't we make some arrangement with you i ' ' he
asked, with a burst of frankness.

"I guess you can," said Bartley. The fact that
Witherby needed him was so plain that he did not
care to practise any finesse about the matter.

" What are your present engagements ? "

" I have n't any."

** Then you can take hold at once ? "

" Yes."

"That's good!" Witherby now entered at large
into the nature, of the position which he offered
Bartley. Tliey talked a long time, and in becoming
better acquainted with each other's views, as they
called them, they became better friends. Bartley
began to respect Witherby's business ideas, and
.Witherby in recognizing all the admirable qualities

A MODERN INSTANCfE. 225

.r>

of this clear-sighted and level-headed young man be-
gan to feel that he had secretly liked him from the
first, and had only waited a suitable occasion to un-
mask his affection. It was arranged that Bartley ^
should come on as Witherby's assistant, and should
do whatever he was asked to do in the management
of the paper ; he was to write on topics as they
occurred to him, or as they were suggested to him.
"I don*t say whether this will lead to anything
more, Mr. Hubbard, or not ; but I do say that you
will be in the direct line of promotion."

" Yes, I understand that,*' said Bartley.

"And now as to terms," continued Witherby, a
little tremulously.

" And now as to terms," repeated Bartley to him-
self; but he said nothing aloud. He felt that Witherby
bad cut out a great deal of work for him, and work
of a kind that he could not easily find another man
both willing and able to do. He resolved that he
would have all that his service was worth.

" What should you think of ' twenty dollars a
week ? " asked Witherby.

" I should n't think it was enough," said Bartley,
amazed at his own audacity, but enjoying it, and
thinking how he had left Marcia with the intention
of offering himself to Mr. Atherton as a clerk for ten
dollars a week. " There is a great deal of labor in
what you propose, and you command my whole time.
You would not like to have me do any work outside '
of the Events."

"No," Witherby assented. "Would twenty-five
be nearer the mark ? " he inquired soberly.

" It would be nearer, certainly," said Bartley. " But
I guess you had better make it thirty." He kept a
quiet face, but his heart throbbed.

''Well, say thirty, then," replied Witherby so
promptly that Bartley perceived with a pang that he

A MODERN INSTANCE.

might as easily have got forty from him. But it waa
now too late, and a salary of fifteen hundred a year
passed the wildest hopes he had cherished hall* an
hour before.

" All right," he said quietly. " I suppose you want
me to take hold at once ? "

" Yes, on Monday. Oh, by the way," said Witherby,
*' there is one little piece of outside work which I
should like you to finish up for us ; and we '11 agree
upon something extra for it, if you wish. I mean
our Solid Men series. I don't know whether you 've
noticed the series in the Events ? "

" Yes," said Bartley, " I have."

" Well, then, you know what they are. They con-
sist of interviews — guarded and inoffensive as respects
the sanctity of private life — with our leading manu-
facturers and merchant princes at their places oi
business and their residences, and include a descrip-
tion of these, and some account of the lives of the
different subjects."

" Yes, I have seen them," said Bartley. " I 've
noticed the general plan."

" You know that Mr. Clayton has been doing them.
He made them a popular feature. The parties them-
selves were very much pleased with them."

" Oh, people are always tickled to be interviewed,"
said Bartley. " I know they put on airs about it, and
go round complaining to each other about the viola-
tion of confidence, and so on ; but they all like it.
You know I reported that Indigent Surf-Bathing
enteitainment in Jane for the Chronicle- Abstract.
I knew the lady who got it up, and I interviewed
her after the entertainment."

*' Miss Kingsbury ? "

" Yes." Witherby made an inarticulate murmur
of respect for Bartley in his throat, and involun-
tarily changed toward him, but not so subtly that

A MODERN INSTANCE. 227

Bartley's finer instinct did not take note of the change.
" She was a fresh subject, and she told me everything.
Of course T printed it all. She was awfully shocked,—
or pretended to be, — and wrote me a very 0-dear-how-
could-you note about it. But I went round to the
office the next day, and I found that nearly every ^
lady mentioned in the interview had ordered half a < ^;
dozen copies of that issue sent to her seaside address,
and the office had been full of Beacon Street swells
all the morning buying Chronicle- Abstracts, — 'the ■
one with the report of the Concert in it.' " These
low views of high society, coupled with an apparent
familiarity with it, modified Witherby more and more.
He began to see that he had got a prize. " The way
to do with such fellows as your Solid Men," continued
Bartley, " is to submit a proof to 'em. They nevev
know exactly what to do about it, and so you print
the interview with their approval, and make 'em
particeps criminis. 1 11 finish up the series for you,
and I won't make any very heavy extra charge."

*' I should wish to pay you whatever the work was
worth," said Witherby, not to be outdone in nobleness.

"All right; we sha'n't quarrel about that, at any
rate."

Bartley was getting toward the door, for he was
eager to be gone now to Marcia, but Witherby fol-
lowed him up as if willing to detain him. "My
wife," he said, " knows Miss Kingsbury. They have
been on the same charities together."

" I met her a good while ago, when I was visiting
a chum of mine at his father's house here. I did n't
suppose she 'd know me ; but she did at once, and
began to ask me if I was at the Hallecks' — as if I had
never gone away."

" Mr. Ezra B. Halleck ? " inquired Witherby reveiv
ently. " Leather trade ? "

" Yes," said Bartley. " 1 believe his first name was

228 A MODERN INSTANCE.

Ezra. Ben Halleck was my frieriA Do yon knoi;9
the family ? " asked Bartley.

"Yes, we have met them — in society. I hope
you're pleasantly situated where you are, Mr. Hub-
bard ? Should be glad to have you call at the
house."

" Thank you," said Bartley, *' my wife will be glad
to have Mrs. Witherby call."

" Oh !" cried Witherby. " I did n't know you were
married ! That *s good ! There 's nothing like mar-
riage, Mr. Hubbard, to keep a man going in the right
direction. But you *ve begun pretty young."

" Nothing like taking a thing in time," answered
Bartley. " But I have n't been married a great while ;
and I 'm not so young as I look. Well, good after-
noon, Mr. Witherby."

" What did you say was your address ? ** asked
Witherby, taking out his note-book. " My wife will
certainly call. She's down at Nantasket now, but
she '11 be up the first part of September, and then
she '11 call. Good afternoon."

They shook hands at last, and Bartley ran home to
Marcia. He burst into the room with a glowing face.
" Well, Marcia," he shouted, " I 've got my basis ! "

" Hush ! No ! Don't be so loud ! You have n't ! "
she answered, springing to her feet. " I don't believe
it ! How hot you are ! "

" I 've been running — almost all the way from the
Events office. I've got a place on the Events, — as-
sistant managing-editor, — thirty dollars a week," he
panted.

" I knew you would succeed yet, — I knew you
would, if I could only have a little patience. 1 've
been scolding myself ever since you went. I thought
you were going to do something desperate, and I had
driven you to it. But Bartley, Bartley ! It can 't bje
true, is it ? Here, here 1 Do take this fan. Or no, I '11

A MODERN INSTANCE. 229 "

-.1

fan you, if you 11 let me sit on your knee ! 0 poor ^

thing, how hot you are ! But I thought you would n't ^

write for the Events ; I thought you hated that old i^

Witherby, who acted so ugly to you when you first ^

came." \

Oh, Witherby is a pretty good old fellow," said 3
Bartley, who had begun to get his breath again. He
gave her a full history of tlie affair, and they rejoiced
together over it, and were as happy as if Bartley had ^
been celebrating a high and honorable good fortune.
She was too ignorant to feel the disgrace, if there were
any, in the compact which Bartley had closed, and he
had no principlesy^iotraditions, by which to perceive
it. TotKemit meant unlimiteiBTprosperity ; it meant '^;
provision for the future, which was to bring a new J
responsibility and a new care. !

" We will take the parlor with the alcove, now,"
said Bartley. " Don't excite yourself," he added, with «:

tender warning. .^

" No, no," she said, pillowing her head on his \

shoulder, and shedding peaceful tears. ^

" It does n't seem as if Ave should ever quarrel • ":
again, does it ? *' ' -^

" No, no ! We never shall," she murmured. "It
has always come from my worrying you about the -^
law, and I shall never do that any more. If you ">-

like journalism better, I shall not urge you any more _^
to leave it, now you Ve got your basis." ^ ^

" But I 'm going on with the law,' now, for that
very reason. I shall read law all my leisure time.
I feel independent, and I shall not be anxious about
the time I give, because I shall know that I can
afford it."

" Well, only you must n't overdo.*' She put her.
lips against his cheek. "You're more to me than
anything you can do for me."

" Oh, liarcia I '*

280 A MODERN INSTANCK.

XIX.

Now that Bartley had got his basis, and had no
favors to ask of any one, he was curious to see his
friend Halleck again ; but when, in the course of the
Solid Men Series, he went to interview A Nestor of
the Leather Interest, as he meant to call the elder
Halleck, he resolved to let him make all the advances.
On a legitimate business errand it should not matter
to him whether Mr. Halleck welcomed him or not.
The old man did not wait for Bartley to explain
why he came ; he was so simply glad* to see him
that Bartley felt a little ashamed to confess that he
had been eight months in Boston without making
himself known. He answered all the personal ques-
tions with which Mr. Halleck plied him ; and in his
turn he inquired after his college friend.

" Ben is in Europe," said his father. ' " He has
been there all summer ; but we expect him home
about the middle of September. He 's been a good
while settling down," continued the old man, with an
unconscious sigh. " He talked of the law at first, and
then he went into business with me; but he did n't
seem to find his calling in it ; and now lie 's taken up
the law again. He's been in the Law School at Cam-
bridge, and he 's going back there for a year or two
longer. I thought you used to talk of the law your-
self when you were with us, Mr. Hubbard."

" Yes, I did," Bartley assented. " And I have n't
given up the notion yet. I Ve read a good deal of la\^
already ; but when I came up to Boston, I had to ga

A MODERN INSTANCE. 231

into newspaper work till I could see my way oat of
the woods." '

'' Well/' said Mr. Halleck, *', that 's right. And you
say you like the arrangement you Ve made with Mr.
Witherby ? "

" It *s ideal — for me," answered Bartley.

" Well, that 's good," said tlie old man. " And
you Ve come to interview nie. Well, that 's all right.
I 'm not much used to being in print, but I shall be
glad to tell you all I know about leather."

" You may depend upon my not saying anything
that wiU be disagreeable to you, Mr. Halleck," said
Bartley, touched by the old man's trusting friendli-
ness. When his inquisition ended, he slipped his
notebook back into his pocket, and said with a smile,
" We usually say something about the victim's pri-
vate residence, but I guess I '11 spare you that, Mr.
Halleck."

** Why, we live in the old place, and T don't sup-
pose there is much to say. We are plain people, and
we don't like to change. When I built there thirty
years ago, Rumford Street was one of the most desira-
ble streets in Boston. There was no Back Bay, then,
you know, and we thought we were doing something
very fashionable. But fashion has drifted away, and
left us high and dry enough on Rumford Street;
though we don't mind it. We keep the old house
and the old garden pretty much as you saw them.
You can say whatever you think best. There 's a
good deal of talk about the intrusiveness of the news-
papers ; all I know is that they 've never intruded
upon me. We shall not be afraid that you will abuse
our house, Mr. Hubbard, because we expect you to
come there again. When shall it be ? Mrs. Halleck
and I have been at home all summer; we find it
the most comfortable place; and we shall be veiy
glad if you 'U drop in any evening and take tea with

232 A MODERN INSTANCE.

US. We keep the old hours; weVe nevef taken
kindly to the late dinners. The girls are ofif at
the mountains, and you 'd see npbody but Mrs. Hal-
leek. Come this evening ! " cried the old man, with
mounting cordiality.

His warmth as he put his hand on Hartley's shoul*
der made the young man blush again for the reserve
with which he had been treating his own affairs. He
stammered out, hoping that the other would see the
relevancy of the statement, " Why, the fact is, Mr.
Halleck, I — I 'm married."

" Married ? " said Mr. Halleck. " Why did n't you
tell me before ? Of course we want Mrs. Hubbard,
too. Where are you living ? We won't stand upou
ceremony among old friends. Mrs. Halleck will
come with the carriage and fetch Mrs. Hubbard, and
your wife must take that for a call. Why, you don't-
know how glad we shall be to have you both ! I wish
Ben was married. You '11 come ? " '

"Of course we will," said Hartley. "But you
must n't let Mrs. Halleck send for us ; we can walk
perfectly well."

'• You can walk if you want, but Mrs. Hubbard
shall ride," said the old man.

When Bartley reported this to Marcia, " Bartley ! **
she cried. " In her carriage ? I 'm afraid ! '*

"Nonsense! She '11 be a great deal more afraid
than you are. She's the bashfulest old lady you
ever saw. All that I hope is that you won't over-
power her."

" Bartley, hush ! Shall I wear my silk, or — "

" Oh, wear the silk, by all means. Crush them at
a blow ! "

Eumford Street is one of those old-fashioned
thoroughfares at the, West End of Boston, which
are now almost wholly abandoned to boarding-houses
of the poorer class. Yet they are charming streets^

A MODERN INSTANCE. 235

quiet, clean, and respectable, and worthy still to be ^>^
the homes, as they once were, of solid citizens. The
red brick houses, with their "5^^ fronts^ looking in
perspective like a succession of round towers, are
reached by broad granite steps, and their doors are
deeply sunken within the wagon-roofs of white-
painted Eoman arches. Over the door there is
sometimes the bow of a fine transom, and the parlor
windows on the first floor of the swell front have the
same azure gleam as those of the beautiful old houses
which front the Common on Beacon Street.

When her husband bought his lot there, Mrs. Hal-
leck could hardly believe that a house on Eumford
Street was not too fine for her. They had come to
the city simple and good young village people, and
simple and good they had remained, through the ad-
vancing years which had so wonderfully — Mrs. Hal-
leek hoped, with a trembling heart, not wickedly —
prospered them. They were of faithful stock, and
they had been true to their traditions in every way.
One of these was constancy to the orthodox reli-
gious belief in which their young hearts had united,
and which had blessed all their life ; though their
charity now abounded perhaps more than their faith.
They still believed that for themselves there was no
spiritual safety except in their church ; but since
their younger children had left it they were forced
tacitly to own that this might not be so in all cases.
Their last endeavor for the church in Ben's case was
to send him to the college where he and Bartley met ;
and this was such a failure on the main point, that it
left them remorsefully indulgent. He had submit-
ted, and had foregone his boyish dreams of Harvard,
where all his mates were going ; but the sacrifice
seemed to have put him at odds with life. The years
which had proved the old people mistaken would not
come back upon their recognition of their error. He

234 A MODERN INSTANCE.

\ returned to the associations from which they had
exiled him too much estranged to resume them, and
they saw, with the unavailing regrets which visit

/fathers and mothers in such cases, that the young
know their own world better than their elders can
I' now it, and have a right to be in it and of it, supe-
rior to any theory of their advantage which their
elders can form. Ben was not the fellow to com-
plain ; in fact, after he came home from college, he
was allowed to shape his life according to his own
rather fitful liking. His father was glad now to con-
tent him in anything he could, it was so very little
that Ben asked. If he had suffered it, perhaps his
family would have spoiled hina.

The Halleck girls went early in July to the Profile
House, where they had spent their summers for many
years ; but the old people preferred to stay at home,
and only left their large, comfortable house for short
absences. Their ways of life had been fixed in other
times, and Mrs. Halleck liked better than mountain
or sea the high-walled garden that stretched back
of their house to the next street. They had bought
through to this street when they built, but they had
never sold the lot that fronted on it. They laid it
out in box-bordered beds, and there were clumps of
hollyhocks, sunflowers, lilies, and phlox, in dififerenii
corners; grapes covered the trellised walls; there
were some pear-trees that bore blossoms, and some-
times ripened their fruit beside the walk. Mrs. Hal-
leck used to work in the garden ; her husband seldom
descended into it, but he liked to sit on the iron-railed
balcony overlooking it from the back parlor.

As for the interior of the house, it had been fur-
nished, once for all, in the worst style of that most
tasteless period of household art, which prevailed
from 1840 to 1870; and it would be impossible to
^ay which were most hideous, the carpets or thi

A MODERN INSTANCE. 235

thandeliers, the curtains or the chairs and sofas ; crude
colors, lumpish and meaningless forms, abounded in
a rich and horrible discord. The old people thought
it all beautiful, and those daughters who had come
into the new house as little girls revered it ; but Ben
and his youngest sister, who had been born in the
house, used the right of children of their parents'
declining years to laugh at it. Yet they laughed with
a sort of filial tenderness.

"I suppose you know how frightful you have
everything about you, Olive,'* said Clara Kingsbury,
one day after the Eastlake movement began, as she
tiook a comprehensive survey of the Halleok drawing-
room through her pince'7iez.

" Certainly," answered the youngest Miss Halleck.
"It b a perfect chamber of horrors. But I like it, be-
cause everything 's so exquisitely in keeping."

*' Eeally, I feel as if I had seen it all for the first
time," said Miss Kingsbuiy. ** I don't believe I ever
realized it before."

She and Olive Halleck were great friends, though
Clara was fashionable and Olive was not.

*' It would all have been different," Ben used to say,
in whimsical sarcasm of what he had once believed,
" if I had gone to Harvard. Then the fellows in my
class would have come to the house with me, and we
should have got into the right set naturally. Now,
we 're outside of everything, and it makeg me mad,
because we 've got money enough to be inside, and
there 's nothing to prevent it. Of course, I 'm not
going to say that leather is quite as blameless as
cotton socially, but taken in the wholesale form it
is n't so very malodorous , and it 's quite as good as
other things that are accepted."

" It 's not the leather, Ben," answered Olive, " and
it 's not your not going to Harvard altogether, though
that has something to do with it. The trouble 's in

236 A MODERN instance:

me. I was at school with all those girls Clara goes
with, and I could have been in that set if I *d wanted ;
but I did n't really want to. I saw, at a very tender
age, that it was going to be more trouble than it was
worth, and I just quietly kept out of it. Of course,
I could n't have gone to Papanti's without a fuss, but
mother would have let me go if I had made the fuss ;
and I could be hand and glove with those girls now,
if I tried. They come here whenever I ask them ;
and when I meet them on charities, I 'm awfully
popular. No, if I 'm not fashionable, it 's my own
fault. But what difference does it make to you, Ben ?
You don't want to marry any of those girls as long as
your heart 's set on that unknown charmer of yours."
Ben had once seen his charmer in the street of a little
Down East town, where he met her walking with
some other boarding-school girls ; in a freak with his
fellow-students, he had bribed the village photogra-
pher to let him have the picture of the young lady,
which he had sent home to Olive, marked, " My Lost
Love."

" No, I don't want to marry anybody," said Ben.
** But I hate to live in a town where I 'm not first
chop in everything."

" Pshaw ! " cried his sister, " I guess it does n't
trouble you much."

" Well, I don't know that it does," he admitted.

Mrs. Halleck's black coachman drove her to Mrs.
Nash's door on Canary Place, where she alighted and
rang with as great perturbation as if it had been a
palace, and these poor young people to whom she was
going to be kind were princes. It was sufficient that
they were strangers ; but Marcia's anxiety, evident
even to meekness like Mrs. Halleck's, restored her
somewhat to her self-possession ; and the thought
that Bartley, in spite of his personal splendor, was a
friend of Ben's, was a help, and she got home witl^

A MODERN INSTANCE. 237

her guests without any great chasms in the conversa-
tion, though she never ceased to twist the window-
tassel in her embarrassment.

Mr. Halleck came to her rescue at her own door,
and let them in. He shook liands with Bartley again,
and viewed Marcia with a fatherly friendliness that
took away half her awe of the ugly magnificence of
the interior. But still she admired that Bartley could
be so much at his ease. He pointed to a stick at the
foot of the hat-rack, and said, " How much that looks
like Halleck ! " which made the old man laugh, and
clap him on the shoulder, and cry : *' So it does ! so it
does ! Eecognized it, did you ? Well, we shall soon
have him with us again, now. Seems a long time to
us since he went."

" Still limps a little ? " asked Bartley.

" Yes, I guess he 11 never quite get over that."

" I don't believe I should like him to," said Bart-
ley. " He would n*t seem natural without a cane in
his hand, or hanging by the crook over his left elbow,
while he stood and talked."

The old man clapped Bartley on the shoulder again,
and laughed again at the image suggested. " That 's
so ! that 's so ! You 're right, I guess ! "

As soon as Marcia could lay off her things in the
gorgeous chamber to which Mrs. Halleck had shown
her, they went out to tea in the dining-room over-
looking the garden.

" Seems natural, don't it ? " asked the old man, as
Bartley turned to one of the windows.

" Not changed a bit, except that I was here in win-
ter, and I had n't a chance to see how pretty your
garden was."

"It is pretty, is n't it ? " said the old man. " Mother
'—Mrs. Halleck, I mean — looks after it. She keeps
it about right. Here 's Cyrus ! " he said, as the serving-
man came into thie room with something from the

238 A MODERN INSTANCE.^

kitchen in his hands. "You remember Cyrus, 1
guess, Mr. Hubbard ? "

" Oh, yes ! " said Bartley, and when Cyrus had set
down his dish, Bartley shook hands with the New
Hampshire exemplar of freedom and equality ; he
was no longer so young as to wish to mark a social
difference between himself and the inside-man who
had served Mr. Halleck with unimpaired self-respect
for twenty-five years.

There was a vacant place at table, and Mr. Halleck
said he hoped it would be taken by a friend of theirs.
He explained that the possible guest was his lawyer,
whose office Ben was going into after he left the L».w
School; and presently Mr. Atheiton came. Bartley
was prepared to be introduced anew, but he was
flattered and the Hallecks were pleased to find that
he and Mr. Atherton were already acquainted; the
latter was* so friendly, that Bartley was confirmed
in his belief that you could not make an interview
too strong, for he had celebrated Mr. Atherton among
the other people present at the Indigent Surf-Bathing
entertainment.

He was put next to Marcia, and after a while he
began to talk with her, feeling with a tacit skill for
her highest note, and striking that with kindly per-
severance. It was not a very high note, and it was
not always a certain sound. She could not be sure
that he was really interested in the simple matters
he had set her to talking about, and from time to time
she was afraid that Bartley did not like it : she would
not have liked him to talk so long or so freely with a
lady. But she found herseK talking on, about board-
ing, and her own preference for keeping house ; about
Equity, and what sort of place it was, and how far
from Crawford's ; about Boston, and what she had seen
and done there since she had come in the winter.
Most of her remarks began or ended with Mr. Hub-

A MODERN INSTANCE. 239

bard ; many of her opinions, especially in matters of
taste, were frank repetitions of what Mr. Hubbard
thought ; her conversation had the charm and pa-
thos of that of the young wife who devotedly loves
her husband, who lives in and for him, tests every-
thing by him, refers everything to him. She had a
good mind, though it was as bare as it could well be
of most of the things that the ladies of Mr. Atherton's
world put into their-minds.

Mrs. Halleck made from time to time a little mur-
mur of satisfaction in Marcia's loyalty, and then sank
back into the meek silence that she only emerged from
to propose more tea to some one, or to direct Cyrus
about offering this dish or that.

After they rose she took Marcia about, to show her
the house, ending with the room which Hartley had
when he visited there. They sat down in this room
and had a long chat, and when they came back to the
parlor they found Mr. Atherton already gone. Marcia
inferred the early habits of the household from the
departure of this older friend, but Bartley was in no
hurry ; he was enjoying himself, and he could not see
that Mr. Halleck seemed at all sleepy.

Mrs. Halleck wished to send them home in her car-
riage, but they would not hear of this ; they would far
rather walk, and when they had been followed to the
door, and bidden mind the steps as they went down,
ohe wide open night did not seem too large for their
ojntent in themselves and each other.

" Did you have a nice time ? " asked Bartley, though
he knew he need not.

" The best time I ever had in the world ! " cried
Karcia.

They discussed the whole affair ; the two old peo-
ple ; Mr. Atherton, and how pleasant he was ; the
house and its splendors, which they did not know

240 A MODERN INSTANCE.

were hideous. "Bartley/* said Marcia at last, "I
told Mrs. Halleck."

" Did you ? " he returned, in trepidation ; but after
a while he laughed. " Well, all right, if you wanted
to."

" Yes, I did ; and you can't think how kind she
was. She says we must have a house of our own
somewhere, and she's going round with me in hw
carriage to help me to find one."

" Well," said Bartley, and he fetched a sigh, half
of pride, half of dismay.

" Yes, I long to go to housekeeping. We can aflford
it now. She says we can get a cheap little house, or
half a house, up at the South End, and it won't cost
us any more than to board, hardly ; and that's what I
think, too."

" Go ahead, if you can find the house. I don't object
to my own fireside. And I suppose we must."

" Yes, we must. Ain't you glad of it *"

They were in the shadow of a tall house, and he
dropped his face toward the face she lifted to his, and
gave her a silent kiss that made her heart leap toward
him.

A MODERN INSTANCE ^ ?41

XX.

With the other news that Halleck's mother gave
him on his return, she told him of the chance that
had brought his old college comrade to them again,
and of how Bartley was now married, and was just
settled in the little house she had helped his wife to
find. " He has married a very pretty girl," she said.

"Oh, I dare say!" answered her son. "He isn't
the fellow to have married a plain girl."

" Your father and I have been to call upon them in
their new house, and they seem very happy together.
Mr. Hubbard wants you should come to see them.
He talks a great deal about you."

" I '11 look them up in good time," said the young
man. " Hubbard's ardor to see me will keep."

That evening Mr. Atherton came to tea, and Hal-
leck walked home with him to his lodgings, which
were over the hill, and bevond the Public Garden,
" Yes, it's very pleasant, getting back," he said, as they
sauntered down the Common side of Beacon Street,
" and the old town is picturesque after the best they
can do across the water." He halted his friend, and
brought himself to a rest on his Qane, for a look over
the hollow of the Common and the level of the Garden
where the late September dark was keenly spangled
with lamps. " *My heart leaps up,' and'so forth, when
I see that. Now that Athens and Florence and Edin-
burgh are past, I don't think there is any place quite
so well worth being born in as Boston." He moved
forward again, gently surging with his limp, in a way

242 A MODERN INSTAKCH

that had its chann for those that loved him. " It 'a
more authentic and individual, more municipal, after
the old pattern, than any other modern city. It gives
its stamp, it characterizes. The Boston Irishman, the
Boston Jew, is a quite different Irishman or Jew from
those of other places. Even Boston provinciality is
a precious testimony to the authoritative personality
of the city. Cosmopolitanism is a modern vice, and
we 're antique, we 're classic, in the other thing. Yes,
I 'd rather be a Bostonian, at odds with Bostqn, than
one of the curled darlings of any other community."

A friend knows how to allow for mere quantity in
your talk, and only replies to the quality, separates
your earnest from your whimsicality, and accounts for
some whimsicality in your earnest. " I didn't know
but you might have got that bee out of your bonnet,
on the other side," said Atherton.

" No, sir ; we change our skies, but not our bees.
Wliat should I amount to without my grievance ?
You wouldn't have known me. This talk to-night
about Hubbard has set my bee to buzzing with un-
common liveliness ; and the thought of the Law School
next week does nothing to allay him. The Law
School is n't Harvard ; I realize that more and more,
though I have tried to fancy that it was. No, sir, my
wrongs are irreparable. I had the making of a real
Harvard man in me, and of a Unitarian, nicely
balanced between radicalism and amateur episcopacy.
Now, I am an orthodox ruin, and the undutiful step-
son of a Down East alma mater, I belong nowhere;
I'm at odds. — Is Hubbard's wife really handsome, or
is she only country-pretty ? "

" She 's beautiful, — I assure you she 's beautiful,"
said Atherton with such earnestness that Halleck
laughed.

"Well, that's right! as my father says. How's
Bhe beautiful?"

A MODERN INSTANCE. 243'

lat 's difficult to tell. It 's rather a superb sort
le ; and — What did you really use to think
r friend ? " Atherton broke off to ask.
ho ? Hubbard ? "

3S."

e was a poor, cheap sort of a creature. Deplor^
oaart, and regrettably handsome. A fellow that
lated everything to a certain extent, and nothing
ighly. A fellow with no more moral nature
. base-ball. The sort of chap you'd expect to
he next time you met him, in Congress or the
of correction."
3S, that accounts for it," said Atherton,-thought-

3Counts for what ? "

le sort of look she had. A look as if she were
.Uy above him, and had somehow fascinated
r with him, and were worshipping him in some
' illusion."

3es n't that sound a little like refining upon the
Eecollect : I 've never seen her, and I don't
)u're wrong."

m not sure I 'm not, though. I talked with
ud found her nothing more than honest and
le and good ; simple in her traditions, of course,
3untrified yet, in her ideas, with a tendency to
tensely practical. I don t see why she might n't
^ell be his wife. I suppose every woman hood-
herself about her husband in some degree."
3S ; and we always like to fancy something
ic in the fate of pretty girls that other fellows
. I notice that we don't sorrow much over the
Dues. How 's the divine Clara ? "
believe she 's well," said Atherton. " I have n't
er, all summer. She 's been at Beverley."
"hy, I should have supposed she would have
ap and surf-bathed those indigent children witlj

^i4t A MODERN INSTANCE.

her own hand. She 's equal to it. What made hei
falter in well-doing ? "

'* I don't know that we can properly call it falter-
ing. There was a deficit in the appropriation neces-
sary, and she made it up herself. After that, she
consulted me seriously as to whether she ought not
to stay in town and superintend the 'execution of the
plan. But I told her she might fitly delegate that.
She was all the more anxious to perform her whole
duty, because she confessed that indigent children
were personally unpleasant to her."

Halleck burst out laughing. " That 's like Clara !
How charming women are ! They 're charming even
in their goodness ! I wonder the novelists don't take
a hint from that fact, and stop giving us those scaly
heroines they 've been running lately. Why, a real
woman can make righteousness delicious and virtue
piquant. I like them for that ! "

" Do you ? " asked Atherton, laughing in his turn
at the single-minded confession. He was some years
older than his friend.

They had got down to Charles Street, and Halleck
took out his watch at the corner lamp. *' It is n't
at all late yet, — only half-past eight. The days are
getting shorter."

" Well ? "

" Suppose we go and call on Hubbard now ? He 's
right up here on Clover Street ! "

" I don't know," said Atherton. " It would do for
you ; you 're an old friend. But for me, — would n't
it be rather unceremonious ? "

" Oh, come along ! They '11 not be punctilious.
They '11 like our dropping in, and I shall have Hub-
bard off my conscience. I must go to see him sooneT
or later, for decency's sake."

Atherton suffered himself to be led away. **I
suppose you won't stay long ? "

A MODERN INSTANCE. 245

" Oh, no ; I shall cut it very short," said Halleck ;
and they climbed the narrow little street where
Marcia had at last found a house, after searching the
South End quite to the Highlands, and ransacking
Charlestown and Cambridgeport. These points all
seeraed to her terribly remote from where Bartley
must be at work during the day, and she must be
alone without the sight of him from morning till
night. The accessibility of Canary Place had spoiled
her for distances ; she wanted Bartley at home for
their one-o'clock dinner; she wanted to have him
within easy call at all times ; and she was glad when
none of those far-off places yielded quite what they
desired in a house. They took the house on Clover
Street, though it was a little dearer than they ex-
pected, for two years, and they furnished it, as far sls-
theycouldL out of the three or lour hundred dollars
theyTadT^aved^jn^^ hundred

from the coTt and cutter, kept sacredly intact by
Marcia. When you entered, the narrow staircase
cramped you into the little parlor opening out of the
hall; and back of the parlor was the dining-room.
Overhead were two chambers, and overhead again
were two chambers more ; in the basement was the
kitchen. The house seemed absurdly large to people
who had been living for the last seven months in one
room, and the view of the Back Bay from the little
bow-window of the front chamber added all out-
doors to their superfluous space. /

Bartley came himself to answer Halleck's ring,'
and they met at once with such a " Why, Halleck ! "
and " How do you do, Hubbard ? " as restored some-
thing of their old college comradery. Bartley wel-
comed Mr. Atherton under the gas-light he had
turned up, and then they huddled into the little par-
lor, where Bartley introduced his old friend to his
wife. Marcia wore a sort of dark robe, trinuned

246 A MODERN INSTANCE.

mth. bows of crimson ribbon, which she had m9.d9
h^elf, and in which she looked a Roman patrician
in an avatar of Boston domesticity ; and Bartley was
rather proud to see his friend so visibly dazzled by
her beauty. It quite abashed Halleck, who liLaped
helplessly about, after his cane had been taken from
him, before he sat down, while Marcia, from the van-
tage of the sofa and the covert of her talk with Ath-
erton, was content that Halleck should be plain and
awkward, with close-cut drab hair and a dull com-
plexion ; she would not have liked even a man who
knew Bartley before she did to be very handsome.

Halleck and Bartley had some talk about college
days, from which their eyes wandered at times ; and
then Marcia excused herself to AtheilK)n, and went
out, reappearing after an interval at the sliding doors,
which she rolled open between the parlor and din-
ing-room. A table set for supper stood beliind her,
and as she leaned a little forward with her hands each
on a leaf of the door, she said, with shy pride, " Bart-
ley, I thought the gentlemen would like to join you,**
and he answered, " Of course they would," and led the
way out, refusing to hear any demur. His heart swelled
with satisfaction in Marcia ; it was something like :
having fellows drop in upon you, and be asked out to
supper in this easy way ; it made Bartley feel good,
and he would have liked to give Marcia a hug on
the spot. He could not help pressing her foot, ii5v
der the table, and exchanging a quiver of the eye-'
lashes with her, as he lifted the lid of the white,
tureen, and looked at her across the glitter of theip'
new crockery and cutlery. They made the jokes of
the season about the oyster being promptly on hand
for the first of the R months, and Bartley explained
that he was sometimes kept at the Events office rathei
late, and that then Marcia waited supper for him, and
always gave him an oyster stew, which she made hsp*

A MODERN INSTANCE. 247

self. She could not stop him, and the guests praised
the oysters, and then they praised the dining-room and
the parlor ; and when they rose from the table Bart-
ley said, " Now, we must show you the house," and
persisted against her deprecations in making her lead
the way. She was in fact willing enough to show it ;
lier^aste he^d^made theirjnmiey go to the utmost in
furnishing it ; and though most people were then still
in the period of green reps and tan terry, and of dull
black-walnut movables, she had everywhere bestowed
little touches that told. She had covered the mar-
ble parlor-mantel with cloth, and fringed it ; and she
had set on it two vases in the Pompeiian colors then
liked ; her carpet was of wood color and a moss pat-
tern ; she had done what could be done with folding
carpet chairs to give the little room a specious air of
luxury ; the centre-table was heaped with her sewing
and Bartley's newspapers.

" We 've just moved in, and we have n't furnished
all the rooms yet," she said of two empty ones which
Hartley perversely flung open.'

" And I don *t know that we shall. The house is
much too big for us; but we thought we'd better
take it," he added, as if it were a castle for vastness.

Halleck and Atherton were silent for some mo-
ments after they came away, and then, "/ don't
believe he whips her," suggested the latter.

" No, I guess he 's fond of her," said Halleck,
gravely.

" Did you see how careful he was of her, coming
up and down stairs ? That was very pretty ; and it
was pretty to see them both so ready to show off
their young housekeeping to ns."

" Yes, it improves a man to get married," said Hal-^
leek, with a long, stifled sigh. "It'« iinproved the
"^ most selfish hound I ever knew."

.^iS A MODEKK INSTANCE.

XXL

The two elder Miss Hallecks were so much oldei
than Olive, the youngest, that they seemed to be of
a sort of intermediaiy generation between her and
her parents, though Olive herself was well out of
her teens, and was the senior of her brother Ben by
two or three years. The elder sisters were always
together, and they adhered in common to the reli-
gion of their father and mother. The defection of
their brother was passive, but Olive, having conscien-
tiously adopted an alien faith, was not a person to let
others imagine her ashamed of it, and her Unitarian-
ism was outspoken. In her turn she formed a kind
of party with Ben inside the family, and would have
led him on in her own excesses of independence if his
somewhat melancholy indifferentism had consented.
It was only in his absence that she had been with
her sisters during their summer sojourn in the White
Mountains ; when they returned home, she vigorously
went her way, and left them to go theirs. She was
fond of them in her defiant fashion ; but in such a
matter as calling on Mrs. Hubbard she chose not to
be mixed up with her family, or in any way to counte-
nance her family's prepossessions. Her sistera paid
their visit together, and she waited for Clara Kings-
bury to come up from the seaside. Then she went
with her to call upon Marcia, sitting observant and
non-committal while Clara swooped through the
little house, up stairs and down, clamoring over its
prettiness, and admiring the art with which so^ fevr

A MODERN INSTANCE. 249

dollars could be made to go so far. " Think of find^
ing such a bower on Clover Street ! " She made Mar-
cia give her the cost of everything; and her heart
swelled with pride in her sex when she heard that
Marcia had put down all the carpets herself. "I
wanted to make them up," Marcia explained, "but
Mr. Hubbard would n't let me, — it cost so little at
the store."

" Would n't let you ! " cried Miss Kingsbury. " I
should hope as much, indeed ! Why, my child, you 're
a Roman matron ! "

She came away in agony lest Marcia might think she
meant her nose. She drove early the next morning to
tell Olive Halleck that she had spent a sleepless night
from this cause, and to ask her what she slwuld do.
" Do you think she will be hurt, Olive ? Tell mil
what led up to it. How did I behave before that ?
The context is everything in such cases."

" Oh, you went about praising everything, and
screaming and shouting, and my-dearing and my-
childing her, and patronizing — " " >

" There, there ! say no more ! That 's sufficient !
I see, — I see it aU ! I 've done the very most offen-
sive thing I could, when I meant to be the most
appreciative."

" These country people don't like to be appreciated
down to the quick, in that way," said Olive. "I
should think Mrs. Hubbard was rather a proud person."

" I know ! I know ! " moaned Miss Kingsbury.
nt was ghastly.'*

"/don't suppose she's ashamed of her nose — "

" Olive ! " cried her friend, " be still ! Why, I can't
hear it ! Why, you wretched thing ! "
• " I dare say all the ladies in Equity make up their
own carpets, and put them down, and she thought
you were laughing at her."
, " WUl you be stiU, OUve Halleck ? " Miss Kings-

iS50 A MODERN INSTANCE.

bury was now a large, blonde mass of suffering.
" Oh, dear, dear ! What shall I do ? It was sacrilege
— yes, it was nothing less than sacrilege — to go on
as I did. And I meant so well ! I did so admire,
and respect, and revere her ! " Olive burst out laugh-
ing. " You wicked girl ! " whimpered Clara. " Should
you — should you write to her ? "

"And tell her you did n't mean her nose? Oh,
by all means, Clara, — by all means ! Quite an in-
spiration. Why not make her an evening party ?"

" Olive," said Clara, with guilty meekness, " I have
been thinking of that."

" iVb, Clara ! Not seriously ! " cried Olive, sobered
at the idea.

" Yes, seriously. Would it be so very bad ? Only
just a little party," she pleaded. " Half a dozen people
or so ; just to show them that I really feel — friendly.
I know that he 's told her all about meeting me here,
and I 'm not going to have her think I want to drop
him because he 's married, and lives in a little house
on Clover Street."

" Noble Clara ! So you wish to bring them out in
Boston society ? What will you do with them after
you Ve got them there ? " Miss Kingsbury fidgeted
in her chair a little. "Now, look me in the eye,
Clara ! Whom were you going to ask to meet them ?
Your unfashionable friends, the Hallecks ? "
" My friends, the Hallecks, of course."
" And Mr. Atherton, your legal adviser ? "
"I had thought of asking Mr. Athei'ton. You
needn't say what he is, if you please, Olive; you
know that there 's no one I prize so much."
" Very good. And Mr. Cameron ? "
" He has got back, — yes. He 's very nice.**
" A Cambridge tutor ; very young and of recent
attachment to the College, with no local affiliationsi
yet. What ladies ? "

A MODERN INSTANCE. 251

" Miss Strong is a nice girl ; she is studying at the
Conservatory."

" Yes. Poverty-stricken votary of Miss Kingsbury.
Well r

« Miss Clancy."

" Unfashionable sister of fashionable artist. Yes ? "

« The Brayhenis."

"Young radical clergyman, and his wife, without a
congregation, and hoping for a pulpit in Billerica.
Parlor lectures on German literature in the mean tima
Well ? "

And Mrs. Savage, I thought."
Well-preserved young widow of uncertain ante
cedents tending to grassiness ; out-door prot4g4e of
the hostess. Yes, Clara, go on and give your party.
It will be perfectly safe ! But do you think it will
deceive anybody ? "

"Now, Olive Halleck!" cried Clara, "I am not
going to have you talking to me in that way ! You
have no right to do it, and you have no business to do
it," she added, trying to pluck up a spirit. " Is there
anybody that I value more than I do you and your
sisters, and Ben ? "

" No. But you don't value wBJust in that way, and
you know it. Don *t you be a humbug, Clara. Now
go on with your excuses."

" I 'm not making excuses ! Is n't Mr. Atherton in
the most fashionable society ? "

" Yes. Why don't you ask some other fashionable
people ? "

" Olive, this is all nonsense, — perfect nonsense ! I
can invite any one I like to meet any one I like, and
if I choose to show Mr. Hubbard's wife a little atten*
tion, I can do it, can't I ? "

" Oh, of course ! "

" And what would be the use of inviting fashion-
able people — as you call them — to meet them ? 1%
Would just embarrass them, all roimd.!''

2852^ A MODERN INSTANCE..

« ''Perfectly correct, Miss Kingsbuiy. All that I
want you to do is to face the facts of the case. I
want you to realize that, in showing Mr. Hubbard's
wife this little attention, you 're not doing it because
you scorn to drop an old friend, and want to do him
the highest honor; but because you think you can
palm off your second-class acquaintance on them for
first-class, and try to make up in that way for telling
her she had a hooked nose !"

" You knowt]is.t I didn't tell her she had a hooked
nose."

" You told her that she was a Eoman matron, —
it 's the same thing," said Olive.

Miss Kingsbury bit her lip and tried to look a dig-
nified resentment. She ended by saying, with feeble
spite, " I shall have the little evening for all you say.
I suppose you won't refuse to come because I don't
ask the whole Blue Book to meet them."

" Of course we shall come ! I would n't miss it for
anything. I always like to see how you manage your
pieces of social duplicity, Clara. But you need n't
expect that I will be a party to the swindle. No,
Clara ! I shall go to these poor young people and tell
them plainly, * This is not the best society ; Miss
Kingsbury keeps that for — * "

" Olive ! I think I never saw even you in such a
teasing humor." The tears came into Clara's large,
tender blue eyes, and she continued with an appeal
that had no effect, " I 'm sure I don't see why you
should make it a question of anything of the sort.
It's simply a wish to — to have a little company
of no particular kind, for no partic — Because I
want to."

"Oh, that's it, is it? Then I highly approve of
it," said Olive. " When is it to be ? "

" I sha'n't tell you, now ! You may wait till I 'm
ipeady," pouted Clara, as she rose to go.

A MODERN INSTANCE. 553

? " Don't go away thinking I 'm enough to provoke ^
Baint ))ecause you 've got mad at me, Clara ! "

'* Mad ? You know I 'm not mad ! But I think
you might be a lUtle sympathetic sometimeSy Olive ' "
said her friend, kissing her.

" Not in cases of social duplicity, Clara. My wrath
is all that saves you. If you were not afraid of me,
you would have been a lost worldling long ago."

"I know you always really l6ve me," said Miss
Kingsbury, tenderly.

" No, I don't," retorted her friend, promptly. " Not
when you 're humbugging. Don't expect it, for you
won't get it." She followed Clara with a triumphant
iaugh ds she went out of the door ; and except for
this parting taunt Clara might have given up her
scheme. She first ordered her coup^ driven home, in
fact, and then lowered the window to countermand
the direction, and drove to Bartley's door on Clover
Street.

It was a very handsome equipage, and was in keep-
inoj with all the outward belon":in«:s of Miss Kings-
bury, who mingled a sense of duty and a love of lux-
ury in her life in very exact proportions. When her
coup^ was not standing before some of the wretch ed-
est doors in the city, it was waiting at the finest ; and
Clara's days were divided between the extremes of
squalor and of fashion.

She was the only child of parents who had early
left her an orphan. Her father, who was much her
mother's senior, was an old friend of Olive's father,
and had made him his executor and the guardian of
his daughter. Mr. Halleck had taken her into his
own family, and, in the conscientious pursuance of
what he believed would have been her father's prefer-
ence, he gave her worldly advantages which he would
not have desired for one of his own children. But
the friendship that grew up between Clara and OlivQ

254 A MODERN INSTANCB.

•Was too strong for him in some things, alnd the girls
went to the same fashionable school together.

When his ward came of age he made over to hex
the fortune, increased by his careful management,
which her father had left her, and advised her to put
her affairs in the hands of Mr. Atherton. She had
shown a quite ungirlish eagerness to manage them
for herself; in the midst of her profusion she had
odd accesses of stinginess, in which she fancied her-
self coming to poverty ; and her guardian judged it
best that she should have a lawyer who could tell her
at any moment just where she stood. She hesitated,
but she did as he advised ; and having once intrusted
her property to Atherton's care, she added her con-
science and her reason in large degree, and obeyed
him with embarrassing promptness in matters that
did not interfere with her pleasures. Her pleasures
were of various kinds. She chose to buy herself a
fine house, and, having furnished it luxuriously and
unearthed a cousin of her father's in Vermont and
brought her to Boston to matronize her, she kept
house on a magnificent scale, pinching, however, at
certain points with unexpected meanness. When
she was alone, her table was of a Spartan austerity ;
she exacted a great deal from her servants, and paid
them as small wages as she could. After that she did
not mind lavishing money upon them in kindness.
A seamstress whom she had once employed fell sick,
and Miss Kingsbury sent her to the Bahamas and
kept her there till she was well, and then made her
a guest in her house till the girl could get back her
work. She watched her cook through the measles,
caring for her like, a mother; and, as Olive Hallect
said, she was always portioning or burying the sisters
of her second-girls. She was in all sorts of charities,
but she was apt to cut her charities off with her
pictures at any moment, if she felt poor. She was

A MODERN INSTANCE. 255

fond of dress, and went a great deal into society : she
suspected men generally of wishing to marry her for
her money, but with those whom she did not think
capable of aspiring to her hand, she was generously
helpful with her riches. She liked to patronize ; she
had long supported an unpromising painter at Eome,
and she gave orders to desperate artists at home.

The world had pretty well hardened one half of her
heart, but the other half was still soft and loving, and
into this side of her mixed nature she cowered when
she believed she had committed some blunder or
crime, and came whimpering to Olive Halleck for
punishment. She made Olive her discipline partly
in her lack of some fixed religion. She had not yet
found a religion that exactly suited her, though she
had many times believed herself about to be anchored
in some faith forever.

She was almost sorry that she had put her resolu-
tion in effect when she rang at the door, and Marcia
herself answered the bell, in place of the one servant
who was at that moment hanging out the wash. It
seemed wicked to pretend to be showing this pretty
creature a social attention, when she meant to palm
off a hollow imitation of society upon her. Why
should she not ask the very superfinest of her friends
to meet such a brilliant beauty? It would serve
Olive Halleck right if she should do this, and leave
the Hallecks out ; and Marcia would certainly be a
sensation. She half believed that she meant to do it
when she quitted the house with Marcia's promise
that she would bring her husband to tea on Wednes-
day evening, at eight; and she drove away so far
penitent that she resolved at least to make her com-
pany distinguished, if not fashionable. She said to
herself that she would make it fashionable yet, if she
chose, and as a first move in this direction she easily
secured Mr. Atherton : he had no engagements, so few

r256 A MODERN INSTANCB.

♦

.people had got back to town. She called upon Mr&
Witherby, needlessly reminding her of the charity
committees they had served on together ; and then
she went home and actually sent out notes to the
plainest daughter and the maiden aunt of two of the
most high-born families of her acquaintance. She
added to her list an artist and his wife, ( " Now I
shall have to let him paint me ! " she reflected,) a
young author whose book had made talk; a teachei:
of Italian with whom she was pretending to read
Dante, and a musical composer.

Olive came late, as if to get a whole effect of the
affair at once ; and her smile revealed Clara's failure
to her, if she liad not realii:ed it before. She read
there that the wristocratic and aesthetic additions
which she had made to the guests Olive originally
divined had not sufficed ; the party remained a hum*
bug. It had seemed absurd to invite anybody to
meet two such little, unknown people as the Hub^
"bards ; and then, to avoid marking them as the suhi
jects of the festivity by the precedence to be observed
in going out to supper, she resolved to have tea served
in the drawing-room, and to make it litei-ally tea,
with bread and butter, and some thin, ascetic cakes.

However sharp he was in business, Mr. Witherby
was socially a dull man ; and his wife and daughter
seemed to partake of his qualities by affinition and
heredity. They tried to make something of Marcia,
but they failed through their want of art. Mrs.
Witherby, finding the wife of her husband's assistant
in Miss Kingsbury's house, conceived an awe of her,
which Marcia would not have known how to abate if
she had imagined it ; and in a little while the With
erby family segregated themselves among the photo-
graph albums and the bricabrac, from which Clara
seemed to herself to be fruitlessly detaching them the
whoie evening. The plainest daughter and the maiden

A MODERN INSTANCE. 257

aunt of the patrician families talked to each oihei
with unavailing intervals of the painter and the au-
thor, and the radical clergyman and his wife were in
danger of a conjugal devotion which society does not
favor; the uniashionable sister of the fashionable
artist conversed with the young tutor and the Japa-
nese law-student whom he had asked leave to bring
with him, and whose small, mouse-like eyes contin-
ually twinkled away in pursuit of the blonde beauty
of his hostess. The widow was winningly attentive,
with a tendency to be confidential, to everybody.
The Italian could not disabuse himself of the notion
that he was expected to be light and cheerful, and
when the pupil of the Conservatory sang, he aban-
doned himself to his error, and clapped and cried
jji^vo with unseemly vivacity. But he was restored
to reason when the composer sat down at the piano
and played, amid the hush that falls on society at
such times, something from Beethoven, and again
something of his own, which was so like Beethoven
that Beethoven himself would not have known the
difference.

- Mr. Atherton and Halleck moved about among
the guests, and did their best to second Clara's efforts
for their encouragement ; but it was useless. In the
desperation which owns defeat, she resolved to devote
herself for the rest of the evening to trying to make
at least the Hubbards have a good time ; and then,
upon the dangerous theory, of which young and
pretty hostesses cannot be too wary, that a wife is
necessarily flattered by attentions to her husband, she
devoted herself exclusively to Bartley, to whom she
talked long and with a^reckless liveliness of the events
of his former stay in Boston. Their laughter and
scraps of their reminiscence reached Marcia where
she sat in a feint of listening to Ben Halleck's per*

functory account of his college days with her hua^

258 A MODERN INSTANCET..

band, till she could bear it no longer. She rose
abruptly, and, going to him, she said that it was time
to say good-night. " Oh, so soon ! " cried Clara, mys-
tified and a little scared at the look she saw on Mar-
cia's face. " Good night," she added coldly.

The assembly hailed this first token of its disinte-
gration with relief ; it became a little livelier ; there
was a fleeting moment in which it seemed as if it
might yet enjoy itself; but its chance passed; it
crumbled rapidly away, and Clara was left looking
humbly into Olive Halleck's pitiless eyes. " Thank
you for a delightful evening. Miss Kingsbury ! Con-
gratulate you!" she mocked, with an unsparing
laugh. , " Such a success ! But why did n't you give
them something to eat, Clara ? Those poor Hubbards
have a one-o'clock dinner, and I famished for them.
I was n't hungry myself, — we have a two-o'clock
dinner 1 **

A MOD£BN INSTANCK 259

XXII.

Bartley came home elate from Miss Kingsbury's
entertainment. It was something like the social
success which he used to picture to himself. He had
been flattered by the attention specially paid him,
and he did not detect the imposition. He was half
starved, but he meant to have up some cold meat and
bottled beer, and talk it all over with Marcia.'

She did not seem inclined to talk it over on their
way home, and when they entered their own door, she
pushed in and ran up-stairs. " Why, where are you
going, Marcia ? " he called after her.

" To bed ! " she replied, closing the door after her
with a crash of unmistakable significance.

Bartley stood a moment in the fury that tempted
him to pursue her with a taunt, and then leave her to
work herself out of the transport of senseless jeal-
ousy she had wrought herself into. But he set his
teeth, and, full of inward cursing, he followed her
up-stairs with a slow, dogged step. He took her in
his arms without a word, and held her fast, while his
anger changed to pity, and then to laughing. When
it came to that^ she put up her arms, which she had
kept rigidly at her side, and laid them round his
neck, and began softly to cry on his breast.

"Oh, I'm not myseK at all, any more!*' she
moaned penitently.

"Then this is very improper — for me," said
Bartley.
. The helpless laughter broke through her lamenta-

260 A MODERN INSTANCE.

tion, but she cried a little more to keep herself in
countenance.

" But I guess, from a previous acquaintance with
the party*s character, that it 's really all you, Marcia.
I don't blame you. Miss Kingsbury's hospitality has
left me as hollow as if I *d had nothing to eat for a
week ; and I know you 're perishing from inanition.
Hence these tears."

It delighted her to have him make fun of Miss
Kingsbury's tea, and she lifted her head to let him
see that she was laughing for pleasure now, before
she turned away to dry her eyes.

" Oh, poor fellow I " she cried. " I did pity you so
when I saw those mean little slices of bread and but-
ter coming round ! "

" Yes," said Bartley, " I felt sorry myself. But
don't speak of them any more, dearest.*'

"And I suppose," pursued Marcia, "that all the
time she was talking to you there, you were simply
ravening."

" I was casting lots in my own mind to see which
of the company I should devour first."

His drollery appeared to Marcia the finest that
ever was ; she laughed and laughed again ; when he
made fun of the conjecturable toughness of the elderly
aristocmt, she implored him to stop if he did not
want to kill her. Marcia was not in the state in
which woman best convinces her enemies of her fit-
ness for empire, though she was charming in her silly
happiness, and Bartley felt very glad that he had not
yielded to his first impulse to deal savagely with her.
" Come," he said, " let us go out somewhere, and get
some oysters."

She began at once to take out her ear-rings and
loosen her hair. " No, I 'U get something here in the
house ; I 'm not very hungry. But you go, Bartley,
and have a good supper, or you'll be sick to-moiroW|

A MODERN INSTANCE. 261

ftnd not fit to work. Go," she added to his hesitat-
ing image in the glass, " I insist upon it. I won't ham
vou stay." His reflected face approached from be-
hind ; she turned hers a little,^nd their mirrored lips
met over her shoulder. " Oh, how sweet you are,
Bartley ! " she murmured.

" Yes, you will always find me obedient when com-
manded to go out and repair my wasted tissue."

" I don't mean that, dear," she said softly. " I mean
— your not quaiTelling with me when I'm unreason-
able. Why can't we always do so ! "

" Well, you see," said Bartley, " it throws the whole
burden on the fellow in his senses. It does n't require
any great degree of self-sacrifice to fly oflf at a tan-
gent, but it 's rather a maddening spectacle to this
party that holds on."

" Now I will show, you," said Marcia, " that I can
1)0 reasonable too : I shall let you go alone to make
our party call on Miss Kingsbury." She looked at
him heroically.

" Marcia," said Bartley, " you 're such a reasonable
person when you're the most unreasonable, that I
wonder I ever quarrel with you. I rather think I '11
let yow call on Miss Kingsbury alone. I shall suffer
agonies of suspicion, but it will prove that I have
perfect confidence in you." He threw her a kiss from
the door, and ran down the stairs. When he returned,
an hour later, he found her waiting up for him. " Why,
Marcia ! " he exclaimed.

" Oh ! I just wanted to say that we will both go to
call on her very soon. If I sent you, she might think
I was mad, and I won't give her that satisfaction." .

" Noble girl ! " cried Bartley, with irony that pleased .
her better than praise. Women like to be understood,y
even when they try not to be understood.
» When Marcia went with Bartley to call, Miss
Kingsbury received her with careful, perhaps anxious

262 A MODERN INSTANCE.

politeness, but made no further effort to take her ujk
Some of the people whom Marcia met at Miss Kings,
bury's called; and the Witherbys came, father, mother,
and daughter togetherr, but between the evident fact
that the Hubbards were poor, and the other evident
fact that they moved in the best society, the Wither-
bys did not quite know what to do about them.
They asked them to dinner, and Bartley went alone ;
CSlargiajsEaaJiotLwell enough to go.

He was very kind and tractable, now, and went
whenever she bade him go without her, though tea at
the Hallecks was getting to be an old story with him,
and it was generally tea at the Hallecks to which she
sent him. The Halleck ladies came faithfully to see
her, and she got on very well with the two older
sisters, who gave her all the kindness they could spare
from their charities, and seemed pleased to have her
so pretty and conjugal, though these things were far
from them. But she was afraid of Olive at first, and
disliked her as a friend of Miss Kingsbury. This
rather attracted the odd girl. What she called Mar-
cia's snubs enabled her to declare in her favor with
a sense of disinterestedness, and to indulge her re-
pugnance for Bartley with a good heart. She resented
his odious good looks, and held it a shame that her
mother should promote his visible tendency to stout-
ness by giving him such nice things for tea.

" Now, I like Mr. Hubbard," said her mother placid-
ly. " It 's very kind of him to come to such plain
folks as we are, whenever we ask him ; now that his
wife can't come, I know he does it because he likes
us."

** Oh, he comes for the eating," said Olive, scorn-
fully. Then another phase of her mother's remark
Btinxck her : " Why, mother ! " she cried, " I do believ*
you think Bartley Hubbard 's a distinguished mai^
somehow!"

A MODERN INSTANCE. 263

"Your father says it*s very unusual for such a
young man to be in a place like his. Mr. Witherby
really leaves everything to him, he says."

" Well, I think he 'd better not, then ! The Events
has got to be perfectly horrid, of late. It 's full of
murders and all uncleanness."

" That seems to be the way with the papers, now*
adays. Your father hears that the Events is making
money."

" Why, mother ! What a corrupt old thing you
are ! I believe you Ve been bought up by that dis-
gusting interview with father. Nestor of the Leather
Interest ! Father ought to have turned him out of
doors. Well, this family is getting a little too good,
for me ! And Ben 's almost as bad as any of you,
of late, — I have n't a bit of influence with him any
more. He seems determined to be friendlier with
that person than ever ; he *s always trying to do him
good, — I can see it, and it makes me sick. One
thing I know: I'm going to stop Mr. Hubbard's
calling me Olive. Impudent 1 "

Mrs. Halleck shifted her ground with the pretence
which women use, even amongst themselves, of
having remained steadfast. " He is a very good hus-
band."

" Oh, because he likes to be ! " retorted her daugh-
ter. " Nothing is easier than to be a good husband."

'* Ah, my dear," said Mrs. Halleck, " wait till you
have tried."

This made Olive laugh ; but she answered with an
urgument that always had weight with her mother,
•* Ben does n't think he 's a good husband."

" What makes you think so, Olive ? " asked hei
mother.

*' I know he dislikes him intensely.'*

" Why, you just said yourself, dear, that he was
friendlier with him than ever."

'264 A MODERN INSTANCEL

" Oh, that 's nothing. The more he disliked hin\
the kinder he would be to him/'

" That 's true," sighed her mother. " Did he ever
say anything to you about him ? "

"No," cried Olive, shortly; "he never speaks of
people he does n't like."

The mother returned, with logical severity, " All
that does n't prove that Ben thinks he is n't a good
Imsband."

" He dislikes him. Do you believe a bad man can
be a good husband, then ? "

" No," Mrs. Halleck admitted, as if confronted with
indisputable proof of Hartley's wickedness.

In the mean time the peace between Bartley and
Marcia continued unbroken, and these days of wait-
ing, of suffering, of hoping and dreAding, were the
happiest of their lives. He did his best to be patient
with her caprices and fretfulness, and he was at
least manfully comforting and helpful, and instant
in atonement for every failure. She said a thousand
times that she should die without him ; and when
her time came, he thought that she was going to die
before he could tell her of his sorrow for all that he
had ever done to grieve her. He did not tell her^
though she lived to give him the chance; but he
took her and her baby both into his arms, with tears
of as much fondness as ever a man shed. He even
jbegan his confession ; but she said, " Hush ! you
never did a wrong thing yet that I did n't drive you
jto." Pale and faint, she smiled joyfully upon him,
land put her hand on his head when he hid his face
;against hers on the pillow, and put her lips against
his cheek. His heart was full ; he was grateful foi
the mercy that had spared him ; he was so strong in
his silent repentance that he felt like a good man.
^ "Bartley," «she said, "I'm going to ask a great
favor of you." '

A MQDEllN INSTANCE. 265

"Tliere 's nothing that I can do that / shall think
a favor, darling!'* he cried, lifting his face to look
into hers.

" Write for mother to come. I want her ! "

"Why, of course." Marcia continued to look at
him, and kept the quivering hold she had laid of his
hand when he raised his head. " Was that all ? "

She was silent, and he added, " I will ask your
father to come with her."

She hid her face for the space of one sob. "I
wanted you to offer."

" Why, of course ! of course ! " he replied.

She cQd not acknowledge his magnanimity directly,
but she lifted the coverlet and showed him the little
head on her arm, and the little creased and crumpled
face.

" Pretty ? " she asked. " Bring me the letter be-
fore you send it. — Yes, that is just right, — perfect ! "
she sighed, when he came back and read the letter to
her ; and she fell away to happy sleep.

Her father answered that he would come with het
mother as soon as he got the better of a cold he had
taken. It was now well into the winter, and the
journey must have seemed more formidable in Equity
than in Boston. But Bartley was not impatient of
his father-in-law's delay, and he set himself cheerfully
about consoling Marcia for it. She stole her white,
thin hand into his, and now and then gave it a little
pressure to accent the points she made in talking.

" Father was the first one I thought of — after
you, Bartley. It seems to me as if baby came half
to show me how unfeeling I had been to him. Of
course, I 'm not sorry I ran away and asked you to
take me back, for I could n't have had you if I had n't
done it ; but I never realized before how cruel it was
to father. He always made such a pet of me ; and I
know that he thought he was acting for the best."

266 A MODEhr< INSTANCE.

" I knew that ymv were," said Hartley, fervently.

" What sweet things you always say to me ! " she
murmured. " But don't you see, Bartley, that I did n't
think enough of him ? That 's what baby seems to
have come to teach me." She pulled a little away
on the pillow, so as to fix him more earnestly with
her eyes. " If baby should behave so to you when
she grew up, I should hate her ! "

He laughed, and said, " Well, perhaps your mother
hates you."

" No, they don't — either of them," answered Mar-
cia, with a sigh. " And I behaved very stiffly and
coldly with him when he came up to see me, — more
than I had any need to. I did it for your sake ; but
he did n't mean any harm to you, he just wanted to
make sure that I was safe and well"

*' Oh, that 's all right, Marsh."

" Yes, J know. But what if he had died ! "

" Well, he did n't die," said Bartley, with a smi!e.
" And you 've corresponded with them regularly, ever
.^ince, and you know they 've been getting along all
right. And it 's going to be altogether different from
this out," he added, leaning back a little weary with
a matter in which he could not be expected to take a
very cordial interest.

" Truly ? " she asked, with one of the eagerest of
those hand-pressures.

" It won't be my fault if it is n't," he replied, with
a yawn.

"How good you are, Bartley!" she said, with an
admiring look, as if it were the goodness of God she
was praising.

Bartley released himself, and went to the new crib,
in which the baby lay, and with his hands in his
pockets stood looking down at it with a curious
smile.

" Is it pretty ? " she asked, envious of his bird'g-^;^
view of the baby.

A MODERN INSTANCE. 267

" S'ot definitively so/' he answered. " I dare say
she will smooth out in time; but she seems to be
considerably puckered yet."

" Well," returned Marcia, with forced resignation,
^ I should n't let any one else say so."

Her husband set up a soft, low, thoughtful whis-
tle. " I *11 tell you what, Marcia," he said presently.
" Suppose we name this baby after your father ? "

She lifted herself on her elbow, and stared at him
as if he must be making fun of her. " Why, how
could we ? " she demanded. Squire Gaylord's parents
had called his name Flavins Josephus, in a supersti-
tion once cherished by old-fashioned people, that the
Jewish historian was somehow a sacred writer.

'* We can't name her Josephus, but we can call her
Flavia," said Bartley. "And if she makes j up her
mind to turn out a blonde, the name will just fit.
riavia, — it 's a very pretty name." He looked at his
wife, who suddenly turned her face down on the
pillow.

"Bartley Hubbard," she cried, "you're the best
man in the world ! "

" Oh, no ! Only the second-best," suggested Bartley.

In these days they took their fill of the delight of
young fatherhood and motherhood. After its morn-
ing bath Bartley was called in, and allowed to revere
the baby's mottled and dimpled back as it lay face
downward on the nurse's lap, feebly wiggling its arms
and legs, and responding with ineffectual little sighs
and gurgles to her acceptable rubbings with warm
flannel When it was fully dressed, and its long
clothes pulled snugly down, and its limp person stif-
fened into something tenable, he was suffered to take
it into his arms, and to walk the room with it After
all, there is not much that a man can actually do
with a small baby, either for its pleasure or his own,
and BaiCley's usefulness had its strict limitationai

268 ' 'A MODERN mSTANCIL

He was perhaps most beneficial when he put the child
in its mother's arms, and sat down beside the bed,
and quietly talked, while Marcia occasionally put up
a slender hand, and smoothed its golden brown hair,
bending her neck over to look at it where it lay, with
the action of a mother bird. They examined with
minute interest the details of the curious little crea-
ture : its tiny finger-nails, fine and sharp, and its
small queer fist doubled so tight, and closing on one's
finger like a canary's claw on a perch ; the absurdity
of its foot, the absurdity of its toes, the ridiculous in-
adequacy of its legs and arms to the work ordinarily
expected of legs and arms, made them laugh. They
could not tell yet whether its eyes would be black
like Marcia's, or blue like Bartley's ; those long lashes
had the sweep of here, but its mop of hair, which
made it look so odd and old, was more like his in
color.

" She will be a dark-eyed blonde," Bartley decided.

" Is that nice ? " asked Marcia.

" With the telescope sight, they 're waiTanted to
kill at five hundred yards."

" Oh, for shame, Bartley ! To talk of baby's ever
kilUng!"

" Why, that 's what they all come to. It 's what
you came to yourself."

" Yes, I know. But it 's quite another thing with
baby." She began to mumble it with her lips, and
to talk baby-talk to it. In their common interest in
this puppet they already called each other papa and
mamma.

Squire Gaylord came alone, and when Marcia
greeted him with " Why, father ! Where 's mother ? **
he asked, " Did you expect her ? Well, I guess youi
mother's feeling rather too old for such long wintei
journeys. You know she don't go out a great d^at
/guess she expects your family down there in the
summer."

A MODERN INSTANCE, 269

. The old man was considerably abashed by the baby
when it was put into his arms, and being required tc
guess its name he naturally failed.

" Flavia ! " cried Marcia, joyfully. " Bartley named
it after you."

This embarrassed the Squire still more. " Is that
so ? " he asked, rather sheepishly. " Well, it 's quite
a compliment."

Marcia repeated this to her husband as evidence
that her father was all right now. Bartley and the
Squire were in fact very civil to each other ; and
Bartley paid the old man many marked attentions.
He took him to the top of the State House, and
walked him all about the city, to show him. its
points of interest, and introduced him to such of
his friends as they met, though the Squire^s dress-
coat, whether fully revealed by the removal of his
surtout, or betraying itself below the skirt of the lat-
ter, was a trial to a fellow of Bartley's style. He went
with his father-in-law to see Mr. Warren in Jefferson
Scattering Batkins, and the Squire grimly appreciated
the burlesque of the member from Cranberry Centre ;
but he was otherwise not a very amusable person, and
off his own ground he was not conversable, while he
refused to betray his impressions of many things that
Bartley expected to astonish him. The Events edito-
rial rooms had no apparent effect upon him, though
they were as different from most editorial dens as tap-
estry carpets, black-walnut desks, and swivel chairs
could make them. Mr. Witherby covered him with
urbanities and praises of Bartley that ought to have
delighted him as a father-in-law ; but apparently the
great man of the Events was but a strange variety of
the type with which he was familiar in the despised
country editors. He got on better with Mr. Atherton,
who was of a man's profession. The Squire wore hia
hat throughout their interview, and everywhere ex*.

270 A MODERN INSTANCE.

cept at table and in bed ; and as soon as he rose from
either, he put it on.

Bartley tried to impress him witli such novel traits
of cosmopolitan life as a table d'hdte dinner at- a
French restaurant; but the Squire sat through the
courses, as if his barbarous old appetite had satisfied
itself in that manner all his life. After that, Bartley
practically gave him up ; he pleaded his newspaper
work, and left the Squire to pass the time as he could
in the little house on Clover Street, where he sat half a
day at a stretch in the parlor, with his hat on, re&-ding
the newspapers, his legs sprawled out towards the
grate. In this way he probably reconstructed for
himself some image of his wonted life in his office
at home, and was for the time at peace ; but other-
wise he was very restless, except when he was with
Marcia. He was as fond of her in his way as he
had ever been, and though he apparently cared noth-
ing for the baby, he enjoyed Marcia's pride in it ;
and he bore to have it thrust upon him with the
surly mildness of an old dog receiving children's
caresses. He listened with the same patience to all
her celebrations of Bartley, which were often tedious
enough, for she bragged of him constantly, of his
smartness and goodness, and of the great success
that had crowned the merit of both in him.

Mr. Halleck had called upon the Squire the morn-
ing after his arrival, and brought Marcia a note from
his wife, offering to have her father stay with them
if she found herself too much crowded at this event-
ful time. " There ! That is just the sort of people
the Hallecks are ! " she cried, showing the letter to
her father. "And to think of our not going near them
for months and months after we came to Boston, for
fear they were stuck up I But Bartley is always just
80 proud. Now you must go right in, father, and not
keep Mr. Halleck waiting. Give me your hat^ or

' A MODERN INSTANCE. 271

you '11 be sure to wear it in the parlor." She made
him stoop down to let her brush his coat-collar a
little. " There ! Now you look something like."

Squire Gaylord had never received a visit except
on business in his life, and such a thing as one man
calling socially upon another, as women did, was un-
known to the civilization of Equity. But, as he re-
ported to Marcia, he got along with Mr. Halleck ;
and he got along with the whole family when he
went with Bartley to tea, upon the invitation Mr.
Halleck made him that morning. Probably it ap-
peared to him an objectless hospitality ; but he spent
as pleasant an evening as he could hope to spend
with his hat off and in a frock-coat, which he wore
as a more ceremonious garment than the dress-coat
of his every-day life. He seemed to take a special
liking to Olive Halleck, whose habit of speaking her
mind with vigor and directness struck him as com-
mendable. It was Olive who made the time pass for
him ; and as the occasion was not one for personal
sarcasm or question of the Christian religion, her
task in keeping the old pagan out of rather abysmal
silences must have had its difficulties.

" What did you talk about ? " asked Marcia, requir-
ing an account of his enjoyment from him the next
morning, after Bartley had gone down to his work.

" Mostly about you, I guess," said the Squire, with
a laugh. "There was a large sandy-haired young
woman there — "

*' Miss Kingsbury," said Marcia, with vindictive
promptness. Her eyes kindled, and she began to
grow rigid under the coverlet. " Whom did s?ie talk
with ? "

" Well, she talked a little with me ; but she talked
most of the time to the young man. She engaged to
him ? "

" No," said Marcia, relaxing. " She 's a great friend

272 A MODERN INSTANCE.

Df the whole family. I don't know what they nieant
by telling you it was to be just a family party, when
Ihey were going to have strangers in," she pouted,

" Perhaps they did n't count her. "

"No." But Marcia's pleasure in the affair was
tainted, and she began to talk of other things.

Her father stayed nearly a week, and they all found
(t rather a long week. After showing him her baby,
and satisfying herself that he and Bartley were on
good terms again, there was not much left for Marcia.
Bartley had been banished to the spare room by the
presence of the nurse ; and he gave up his bed there
to the Squire, and slept on a cot in the unfurnished
attic room ; the cook and a small girl got in to help,
had the other. The house that had once seemed so
vast was full to bursting.

" I never knew how little it was till I saw your
father coming down stairs," said Bartley. " He 's too
tall for it. When he sits on the sofa, and stretches
out his legs, his boots touch the mop-board on the
other side of the room. Fact ! "

" He won't stay over Sunday," began Marcia, with
a rueful smile.

Why, Marcia, you don't think I want him to go ! "
No, you 're as good as can be about it. But I
hope he won't stay over Sunday."

"Haven't you enjoyed his visit ?" asked Bartley.

" Oh, yes, I *ve enjoyed it." The tears came into
her eyes. " I 've made it all up with father ; and he
does n't feel hard to me. But, Bartley — Sit down,
dear, here on the bed ! " She took his hand and
gently pulled him down. " I see more and more that
father and mother can never be what they used to be
to me, — that you 're all the world to me. Yes, my
life is broken ofiF from theirs forever. Could any-
thing break it ofiF from yours ? You '11 always be
patient with me, won't you ? and remember that I 'd

A MODERN INSTANCE. 273

always rather be good when I'm behaving the
worst ? " .

He rose, and went over to the crib, and kissed the
head of their little girl. " Ask Flavia," he said from
the 'door.

" Bartley ! " she cried, in utter fondness, as he van-
ished from her happy eyes.

The next morning they heard the Squire moving
about in his room, and he was late in coming down
to breakfast, at which he was ordinarily so prompt.
" He 's packing," said Marcia, sadly. " It 's dreadful
to be willing to have him go ! "

Bartley went out and met him at his door, bag in
hand. " Hollo ! " he cried, and made a decent show
of surprise and regret.

"M-yes!" said the old man, as they went down
stairs. " I *ve made out a visit But I 'm an old
fellow, and I ain't easy away from home. I shall tell
Mis' Gaylord how you *re gettin' along, and she '11 be

f leased to hear it. Yes, she '11 be pleased to hear it.
guess I shall get off on the ten-o'clock traia"

The conversation between Bartley and his father-
in-law was perfunctory. Men who have dealt so
plainly with each other do not assume the conven-
tional urbanities in their intercourse without efibrt.
They had both been growing more impatient of the
restraint; they could not have kept it up much
longer.

" Well, I suppose it 's natural you should want to
be home again, but I can't understand how any one
can want to go back to Equity when he has the priv-
ilege of staying in Boston."

" Boston will do for a young man/' said the Squire,

** but I 'm too old for it. The city cramps me ; it 's

too tight a fit ; and yet I can't seem to find myself

in it." ;

He suffered fronl the loss of identity which is a 4/

274 A MODERN INSTANCE.

common affliction with country people coming to
town. The feeling that they are of no special inter-
est to any of the thousands they meet bewilders and
harasses them ; after the searching neighborhood of
village life, the fact that nobody would meddle in
their most intimate affairs if they could, is a vague
distress. The Squire not only experienced this, but,
after reigning so long as the censor of morals and
religion in Equity, it was a deprivation for him to
pass a whole week without saying a bitter thing
to any one. He was tired of the civilities that
smoothed him down on every side.

" Well, if you must go," said Bartley, " I *11 order a
hack.**

" I guess I can walk to the depot," returned the old
man.

" Oh, no, you can't." Bartley drove to the station
with him, and they bade each other adieu with a
hand-shake. They were no longer enemies, but they
liked each other less than ever.

" See you in Equity next summer, I suppose ? "
suggested the Squire.

"So Marcia says," replied Bartley. "Well, take
care of yourself. — You confounded, tight-fisted old
woodchuck!" he added under his breath, for the
Squire had allowed him to pay the hack fare.

He walked home, composing variations on his part-
ing malison, to find that the Squire had profited by his
brief absence while ordering the hack, to leave with
Marcia a silver cup, knife, fork, and spoon, which
Olive Halleck had helped him choose, for the baby.
In the cup was a check for five hundred dollars. The
Squire was embarrassed in presenting the gifts, and
when Marcia turned upon him with, "Now, look
here, father, what do you mean ? " he was at a Ipsa*
how to explain.

" Well, it 's what I always meant to do for you,"

A MODERN INSTANCE. 275

•• Baby's things are all right," said Marcia. " Bui
I *m not going to let Bartley take any money from
you, unless you think as well of him as I do, and
say so, right out."

The Squire laughed. " You could n't quite expect
me to do that, coidd you ? "

" No, of course not. But what I mean is, do you
think Tww that I did right to marry him ? "

"Oh, youWe all right, Marcia. I'm glad you're
getting along so well."

" No, no ! Is Bartley all right ? "

The Squire laughed again, and rubbed his chin in
enjoyment of her persistence. " You can't expect me
to own up to everything all at once."

"So you see, Bartley," said Marcia, in repeating
these words to him, " it was quite a concession."

" Well, I don't know about the concession, but I
guess there's no doubt about the check," replied
Bartley.

" Oh, don't say that, dear ! " protested his wife.
" I think father was pleased with his visit every way.
I know he 's been anxious about me, all the time ;
and yet it was a good deal for him to do, after what
he had said, to come down here and as much as take
it all back. Can't you look at it from his side ? "

" Oh, I dare say it was a dose," Bartley admitted.
The money had set several things in a better light.
" If all the people that have abused me would take it
back as handsomely as your father has," — he held
the check up, — " why, I wish there were twice as
many of them."

She laughed for pleasure in his joke. " I think
father was impressed by everything about us, — be-
ginning with baby," she said, proudly.
" Well, he kept his impressions to himself."
" Oh, that *s nothing but his way. He never was
demonstrative, — like me."

276 ▲ MODERN INSTANCE

" No, he has his emotions Tinder control, — not to
say under lock and key, — not to add, in irons."

Bartley went on to give some instances of the
Squire's fortitude when apparently tempted to ex-
press pleasure or interest in his Boston experiences.

They both undeniably felt freer now that he was
gone. Bartley stayed longer than he ought from his
work, in tacit celebration of the Squire's departure,
and they were very merry together ; but whem he
left her, Marcia called for her baby, and, gathering it
close to' her heart, sighed over it^ '' Poor &ther I poor
fotherr

A MODERN INSTANCE. 277

XXIII.

When the spring opened, Bartley pushed Flavia
about the sunny pavements in a baby carriage, while
Marcia paced alongside, looking in under the calash
top from time to time, arranging the bright afghan,
and twitching the little one's lace hood into place.
They never noticed that other perambulators were
pushed by Irish nurse-girls or French bonnes; they
had paid somewhat more than they ought for theirs,
and they were proud of it merely as a piece of prop-
erty. It was rather Bartley's ideal, as it is that of /
most young American fathers, to go out with his wife v^
and baby in that way ; he liked to have his friends
see him ; and he went out every afternoon he could
spare. When he could not go, Marcia went alone.
Mrs. Halleck had given her a key to the garden, and
on pleasant mornings she always found some of the
family there, when she pushed the perambulator up
the path, to let the baby sleep in the warmth and
silence of the sheltered place. She chatted with
Olive or the elder sisters, while Mrs. Halleck drove
Cyrus on to the work of tying up the vines and
trimming the shrubs, with the pitiless rigor of women
when they get a man about some outdoor labor.
Sometimes, Ben Halleck was briefly of the party;
and one morning when Marcia opened the gate, she
found him there alone with Cyrus, who was busy
at some belated tasks of horticulture. The young
man turned at the unlocking of the gate, and saw
Marcia lifting the front wheels of the perambulatoli

278 A MODERN INSTANCE.

to get it over the steps of the pavement outside. He
limped hastily down the walk to help her, but she
had the carriage in the path before he could reach
her, and he had nothing to do but to walk back at its
side, as she propelled it towards the house. "You
see what a useless creature a cripple is," he said.

Marcia did not seem to have heard him. " Is your
mother at home ? " she asked.

" I think she is," said Halleck. " Cyrus, go in and
tell mother that Mrs. Hubbard is here, won*t you ? "

Cyrus went, after a moment of self-respectful de-
lay, and Marcia sat down on a bench under a peai>
tree beside the walk. Its narrow young leaves and
blossoms sprinkled her with shade shot with vivid
sunshine, and in her light dress she looked like a
bright, fresh figure from some painter's study of spring.
She breathed quickly from her exertion, and her
cheeks had a rich, dewy bloom. She had pulled the
perambulator round so that she might see her baby
while she ^yaited, and she looked at the baby now,
and not at Halleck, as she said, " It is quite hot in
the sun to-day." She had a way of closing her lips,
after speaking, in that sweet smile of hers, and then
of glancing sidelong at the person to whom she spoke*

" I suppose it is," said Halleck, who remain^ on
foot. " But I have n*t been out yet. I gave myself
a day off from the Law School, and I hadn't quite
decided what to do with it."

Marcia leaned forward, and brushed a tendril of the
baby's hair out of its eye. " She 's the greatest little
sleeper that ever was when she gets Into her caiv
riage," she half mused, leaning back with her hands
folded in her lap, and setting her head on one side
for the effect of the baby without the stray ringlet
*' She 's getting so fat ! " she said, proudly.

Halleck smiled. " Do you find it makes a diffe^
ence in pushing her carriage, from day to day ? "

A MODERN INSTANCE. 279

Marcia took his question in earnest, as she must
take anything but the most obvious pleasantry con-»
cerning her baby. " The carriage runs very easily ;
we picked out the lightest one we could, and I never
have any trouble with it, except getting up curb*
stones and crossing Cambridge Street. I don't like
to cross Cambridge Street, there are always so many
horse-cars. But it*s all down-hill coming here;
that's one good thing."

" That makes it a very bad thing going home/
though," said Halleck.

" Oh, I go round by Charles Street, and come up the
hill from the other side ; it is n*t so steep there."

There was no more to be said upon this point, and
in the lapse of their talk Halleck broke off some
boughs of the blooming pear, and dropped them on=
the baby's afghan.

" Your mother won't like your spoiling her pear-
tree," said Marcia, seriously.

" She will when she knows that I did it for Miss
Hubbard."

"Miss Hubbard !" repeated the young mother, and
she laughed in fond derision. "How funny to hear
you saying that ! I thought you hated babies ! "

Halleck looked at her with strong self-disgust, and
he dropped the bough which he had in his hand upon
the ground. There is something in a young man's y
ideal of women, at once passionate and ascetic, so "^
fine that any words are too gross for it. The event
which intensified the interest of his mother and sis* ,
ters in Marcia had abashed Halleck ; when she came
so proudly to show her baby to them all, it seemed to
him like a mockery of his pity for her captivity to -
the love that profaned her. He went out of the room
in angry impatience, which he could hardly hide,
when one of his sisters tried to make him take the
baby. Little by little his compassion adjusted itseU

280 A MODEKN INSTANCE.

to the new conditions ; it accepted the child as an
element of her misery in the future, when she must
realize the hideous deformity of her marriage. His
prophetic feeling of this, and of her inaccessibility to
human help here and hereafter, made him sometimes
afraid of her ; but all the more severely he exacted of
his ideal of her that she should not fall beneath the
tragic dignity of her fate through any levity of her
own. Now, at her innocent laugh, a subtile irrever-
ence, which he was not able to exorcise, infused itself
into his sense of her.

He stood looking at her, after he dropped the pear-
bough, and seeing her mere beauty as he had never
seen it before. The bees hummed in the blossoms,
which gave out a dull, sweet smell ; the sunshine had
the luxurious, enervating warmth of spring. He
started suddenly from his reverie : Marcia had said
something. " I beg your pardon ? " he queried.

"Oh, nothing. I asked if you knew where I went
to church yesterday ? *'

Halleck flushed, ashamed of the wrong his thoughts,
or rather his emotions, had done. " No, I don't," he
answered.

" I was at your church."

'* I ought to have been there myself," he returned,
gravely, " and then I should have known."

She took his self-reproach literally. " You could n't
have seen me. I was sitting pretty far back, and I
went out before any of your family saw me. Don't
you go there ? "

" Not always, I 'm sorry to say. Or, rather, I 'm
sorry not to be sorry. What church do you generally
go to ? "

" Oh, I don't know. Sometimes to one, and some-
times to another. Bartley used to report the ser-
mons, and we went round to all the churches then.
That is the way I did at home, and it came natural t9

A MODERN INSTANCE. 281

me. But I don't like it very well. I want Flavia
should belong to some particular church."

*' There are enough to choose from," said Halleck,
with pensive sarcasm.

" Yes, that *s the difficulty. But I shall make up
my mind to one of them, and then I shall always
keep to it. What I mean is that I should like to find
out where most of the good people belong, and then
have her be with them," pursued Marcia. " I think
it 's best to belong to some church, don't you ?"

There was something so bare, so spiritually poverty-
stricken, in these confessions and questions, that Hal-
leck found nothing to say to them. He was troubled,
moreover, as to what the truth was in his own mind.
He answered, with a sort of mechanical adhesion to
the teachings of his youth, " I should be a recreant
not to think so. But I 'm not sure that I know what
you mean by belonging to some church," he added.
** I suppose you would want to believe in the creed of
the church, whichever it was."

" I don't know that I should be particular," said
Marcia, with perfect honesty.

Halleck laughed sadly. "I'm afraid they would,
then, unless you joined the Broad Church."

"What is that?" He explained as well as he
could. At the end she repeated, as if she had not
followed him very closely: "I should like her to
belong to the church where most of the good people
went. I think that would be the right one, if you
could only find which it is." Halleck laughed again.
* I suppose what I say must sound very queer to you ;
but I Ve been thinking a good deal about this lately."

"I beg your pardon," said Halleck. "I had no
reason to laugh, either on your account or my own.
It 's a serious subject." She did not reply, and he
asked, as if she had left the subject, " Do you intend
Vo pass the summer in Boston ? "

282 A MODERN INSTANtJK

" No ; I *in going down home pretty early, and 1
wanted to ask your mother what is the best way to
put away my winter things."

" You '11 find my mother very good authority on
such matters," said Halleck Through an obscure
association with moths that corrupt, he added, "She's
a good authority on church matters, too."

" I guess I shall talk with her about Flavia," said
Marcia.

Cyrus came out of the house. " Mis* Halleck will
be here in a minute. She 's got to get red of a lady
that 's calling, first," he explained.

" I will leave you, then," said Halleck, abruptly.

"Good by," answered Marcia, tranquilly. The
baby stirred; she pushed the carriage to and fro,
without glancing after him as he walked away.

His mother came down the steps from the house^
and kissed Marcia for welcome, and looked under the
carriage-top at the sleeping baby. "How she does
sleep ! " she whispered.

" Yes," said Marcia, with the proud humility of a
mother, who cannot deny the merit of her child, "and
she sleeps the whole night through. I 'm never up
with her. Bartley says she 's a perfect Seven-Sleeper.
It 's a regular joke with him, — her sleeping."

" Ben was a good baby for sleeping, too," said Mrs.
Halleck, retrospectively emulous. " It 's one of the
best signs. It shows that the child is strong and
healthy." They went on to talk of their children,
and in their community of motherhood they spoke of
the young man as if he were still an infant. " He
has never been a moment's care to me," said Mrs. Hal-
leck. "A well baby will be well even in teething."

" And I had somehow thought of him as sickly ! *
said Marcia, in self-derision.

Tears of instant intelligence sprang into his moth-
er's eyes. "And did you suppose he was altmy$

A MODERN INSTANCE. 283

lame ? " she demanded, with gentle indignation. " He

was the brightest and strongest boy that ever was, till

he was twelve years old. That *8 what makes it so

hard to bear ; that *s what makes me wonder at the

way the child bears it 1 Did you never hear how it

happened ? One of the big boys, as he called him,

tripped him up at school, and he fell on his hip. It

kept him in bed for a year, and he 's never been the

same since ; he will always be a cripple," grieved the

mother. She wiped her eyes ; she never could think

of her boy's infirmity without weeping. " And what

seemed the worst of all," she continued, " was that

the boy who did it never expressed any regret for it,

or acknowledged it by word or deed, though he must

have known that Ben knew who hurt him. He 's a

man here, now; and sometimes Ben meets him. But

Ben always says that he can stand it, if the other one

can. He was always just so from the first! He

wouldn't let us blame the boy; he said that he

did n't mean any harm, and that all was fair in play.

And now he says he knows the man is sorry, and

would own to what he did, if he did n't have to own to

w^at came of it. Ben says that very few of us have

.'the courage to face the consequences of the injuries

I we do, and that 's what makes people seem hard ani

indifferent when they are really not so. There-{^'

cried Mrs. Halleck. " I don't know as I ought to

have told you about it ; I know Ben would n't like it.

But I can't bear to have any one think he was

always lame, though I don't know why I should n't :

I 'm prouder of him since it happened than ever I

was before. I thought he was here with you," she

added, abruptly.

" He went out just before you came," said Marcia,
nodding toward the gate. She sat listening to Mra
Halleck's talk about Ben ; Mrs. Halleck took herself
to task from time to time, but only to go on talking

284 A MODERN INSTANCE.

about him again. Sometimes Marcia commented on

his characteristics, and compared them with Bartley's,

or with Flavians, according to the period of Ben's life

under cohsideration.

At the end Mrs. Halleck said : " I have n't let you

get in a word ! Now you must talk about your baby.

Dear little thing ! I feel that she *s been neglected.

But I *m always just so selfish when I get to running

on about Ben. Thev all laugh at me."

/'"'nSh, I like to hear about other children," said

/ Marcia, turning the perambulator round. " I don't

/ think any one can know too much that has the care

[ of children of their own." She added, as if it followed

1 from- something they had been saying of vaccination, /

\ " Mrs. Halleck, 1 want to talk with you about getting/

V Flavia christened. You know I never was christenecj^

\^ « Were n't you ? " said Mrs. Halleck, with a dismay

which she struggled to conceal.

" No," said Marcia, '' father does n't believe in any

of those things, and mother had got to letting them

^o, because he didn't take any interest in them.

They did have the first children christened, but I was

the last."

" I did n't speak with your father on the subject,"

faltered Mrs. Halleck. " I did n't know what his per-

suasicm was."

" Why, father does n't belong to any church ! He
believes in a God, but he does n't believe in the
Bible." Mrs. Halleck sank down on the garden seat
too much shocked to speak, and Marcia continued, "I
don't know whether the Bible is true or not; but
I've often wished that I belonged to church."

" You could n't, unless you believed in the Bible,''
said Mrs. Halleck.

"Yes, I know that. Perhaps I should, if anybody
proved it to me. I presume it could be explained. I
never talked much with any one about it. There

A MODERN INSTANCE. 285

must be a good many people who don't belong to
church, although they believe in the Bible. I should be
perfectly willing to try, if I only knew how to begin/'

In view of this ruinous open-mindedness, Mrs. Hal-
leck could only say, " The way to begin is to read it."

" Well, I will try. How do you know, after you ' ve
become so that you believe the Bible, whether you 're
fit to join the church ? '*

" It 's hard to tell you, my dear. You have to feel
first that you have a Saviour, — that youVe given
your whole heart to him, — that he can save you, and
that no one else can, — that all you can do yourself
won't help 'you. It's an experience."

Marcia looked at her attentively, as if this were all
a very hard saying. " Yes, I 've heard of that. Some
of the girls had it at school. But I never did.
Well," she said at last, "I don't feel so anxious
about myself, just at present, as I do about Flavia. I
want to do everything I can lor Flavia, Mrs. Halleck.
I want her to be christened, — I want her to be bap-
tized into some church. I think a good deal about it.
I think sometimes, what if she should die, and I
had n't done that for her, when may be it was one of
the most important things — " Her voice shook, and
she pressed her lips together.

" Of course," said Mrs. Halleck, tenderly, " I think
it ig^the most important thing."

V But there are so many churches," Marcia re-
sumed. "And I don't know about any of them. I
told Mr. Halleck just now, that I should like her to
belong to the church where the best people wentj'if I
could find it out. Of course, it was a ridiculous way
to talk ; I knew he thought so. But '(vhat I meant
was that I wanted she should be with good people all /
her life ; and I did n't care what she believed/^J: ^

** It 's very important to believe the truth, my
dear," said Mrs. Halleck.

286 A MODERN INSTANCE.

" But the truth is so hard to be certain of, and you
know goodness as soon as you see it. Mrs. Halleck,
I '11 tell you what I want : I want Flavia should
be baptized into your church. Will you let her ? '*

" Let her ? 0 my dear child, we shall be humbly
thankful that it has been put into your heart to
choose for her what we think is the true church,'* said
Mrs. Halleck, fervently.

" I don't know about that," returned Marcia. " I
can't tell whether it 's the true church or not, and I
don't know that I ever could ; but I shall be satisfied
— if it *s made you what you are," she added, simply.

Mrs. Halleck did not try to turn away her praise
with vain affectations of humility. " We try to do
right, Marcia," she said. "Whenever we do it, we
must be helped to it by some power outside of our-
selves. I can 't tell you whether it 's our church ;
I'm not so sure of that as I used to be. I once
thought that there could be no real good out of
it ; but I cavJt think that, any more. Olive and Ben
are as good children as ever lived ; I know they won't
be lost ; but neither of them belongs to our church."

" Why, what church does he belong to ? "

"He doesn't belong to any, my dear," said Mrs,
Halleck, sorrowfully.

Marcia looked at her absently. " I knew Olive
was a Unitarian ; but I thought — I thought he — "

" No, he does n't," returned Mrs. Halleck. " It has
been a great cross to his father and me. He is a good
boy ; but we think the truth is in our church 1 "

Marcia was silent a moment. Then she said, de-
cisively, "Well, I should like Flavia to belong to
your church."

" She could n't belong to it now," Mrs. Halleck ex-
plained. " That would have to come later, when she
f^ould understand. But she could be christened in it%
•^ dear little thing ! "

A MODERN INSTANCE. 287

" Well, christened; then. It must be the training
he got in it I*ve thought a great deal about it,
and I think my worst trouble is that I Ve been left
too free in everything. One must n't be left too free.
I Ve never had any one to control me, and now I
can't control myself at the very times when I need to
do it the most, with — with — When I 'm in danger
of vexing — When Bartley and I — "

*' Yes," said Mrs. Halleck, sympathetically.

"And Bartley is just so, too. He's always been
left to himself. And Flavia will need all the con-
trol we can give her, — I know she will. And I
shall have her christened in your church, and I shall
teach her all about it. She shall go to the Sunday
school, and I will go to church, so that she can havia
an example. I told father I should do it when he
was up here, and he said there could n't be any harm
in it. And 1 've told Bartley, and he does n't care."

They were both far too single-minded and too
serious to find anything droll in the terms of the ad-
hesion of Marcia's family to her plan, and Mrs. Hal-
leck entered into its execution with affectionate zeal

" Ben, dear," she said, tenderly, that evening, when
they were all talking it over in the family council, " I
hope you did n't drop anything, when that poor crea-
ture spoke to you about it this morning, that could
unsettle her mind in any way ? "
No, mother," said Halleck, gently.
I was sure you didn't," returned his mother,
repentantly.

They had been talking a long time of the matter,
and Halleck now left the room.

" Mother ! How could you say such a thing to
Ben ? " cried Olive, in a quiver of indignant sympa-
thy. " Ben say anything to unsettle anybody's re-
ligious purposes ! He 's got more religion now than
aU the rest of the family put together ! "

288 A MODERN INSTANCE.

" Speak for yourself, Olive," said one of the inter-
mediary sisters.

" Why, Olive, I spoke because I thought she seemed
to place more importance on Ben's belonging to the
church. than anything else, and she seemed so sur-
prised when I told her he did n't belong to any."

" I dare say she thinks Ben is good when she com-
pares him with that mass of selfishness of a husband
of hers," said Olive. "But I will thank her," she
added, hotly, "not to compare Ben with Bartley
Hubbard, even to Bartley Hubbard's disadvantage.
I don't feel flattered by it."

"Of course she thinks all the world of her hus-
band," said Mrs. Halleck. "And I know Ben is
good ; and, as you say, he is religious ; I feel that,
though I don't understand how, exactly. I would n't
hurt his feelings for the world, Olive, you know well
enough. But it was a stumbling-block when I had
to tell that poor, pretty young thing that Ben did n't
belong to church; and I could see that it puzzled
her. I could n't have believed," continued Mrs. Hal-
leck, "that there was any person in a Christian land,
except among the very lowest, that seemed to under-
stand so little about the Christian religion, or any
scheme of salvation. Eeally, she talked to me like a
pagan. She sat there much better dressed and better
educated than I was; but I felt like a missionary
talking to a South Sea Islander.

" I wonder the old Bartlett pear did n't burst into a
palm-tree over your heads," said Olive. Mrs. Halleck
looked grieved at her levity, and Olive hastened to
add : " Don't take it to heart, mother ! I understood
just what you meant, and I can imagine just how
shocking Mrs. Hubbard's heathen remarks must have
been. We should all be shocked if we knew how
many people there were like her, and we should all
try to deny it, and so would they. I guess Chris*

A MODERN INSTANCE. 289

tianity is about as uncommon as civilization, — anc* ^
that *s very uncommon. If her poor, feeble mind wai
such a chaos, what do you suppose her husband's is ? '

This would certainly not have been easy for Mrs.
Halleck to say then, or to say afterward, when Hartley
walked up to the font in her church, with Marcia at
his side, and Flavia in his arms, and a faintly ironical
smile on his face, as if he had never expected to be ^
got in for this, but was going to see it through now.
He had, in fact, said, " Well, let 's go the whole figure,"
when Marcia had expressed a preference for having the
rite performed in church, instead of in their own house.

He was unquestionably growing stout, and even
Mrs. Halleck noticed that his blonde face was un-
pleasantly red that day. He was, of course, not
intemperate. He always had beer with his lunch,
which he had begun to take down town since the
warm weather had come on and made the walk up
the hill to Clover Street irksome : and he drank beer
at his dinner, — he liked a late dinner, and they dined
at six, now, — because it washed away the fatigues of
the day, and freshened you up. He was rather par-
ticular about his beer, which he had sent in by the
gross, — it came cheaper that way ; after trying both
the Cincinnati and the Milwaukee lagers, and making
a cursory test of the Boston brand, he had settled
down upon the American tivoli; it was cheap, and
you could drink a couple of bottles without feeling
it. Freshened up by his two bottles, he was apt to
spend the evening in an amiable drowse and get early
to bed, when he did not go out on newspaper duty.
He joked about the three fingers of fat on his ribs,
and frankly guessed it was the beer that did it ; at
such times he said that perhaps he should have to cut
down on his tivoli.

Marcia and he had not so much time together as
they used to have; she was a great deal taken up

'290 A MODERN INSTANCE.

with the baby, and he' found it dull at home, not
doing anything or saying anything; and when he did
not feel sleepy, he sometimes invented work that
took him out at night. But he always came upstairs
after putting liis hat on, and asked Marcia if he
could help lier about anything.

He usually met other newspaper men on these
excursions, and talked newspaper with them, airing
his favorite theories. He liked to wander about with
reporters who were working up cases ; to look in at
the police stations,* and go to the fires; and he was
often able to give the Events men points that had
escaped the other reporters. If asked to drink, he
always said, "Thanks, no; I don't do anything in
that way. But if you '11 make it beer, I don't mind."
He took nothing but beer when he hurried out of the
theatre into one of the neighboring resorts, just as the
great platters of stewed kidneys and lyonnaise pota-
toes came steaming up out of the kitchen, prompt to
the drop of the curtain on the last act. Here, some-
times, he met a friend, and shared with him his dish
of kidneys and his schooner of beer; and he once
suffered himself to be lured by the click of the balls
into the back room. He believed that he played a
very good game of billiards ; but he was badly beaten
that night. He came home at daylight, fifty dollars
out. But he had lost like a gentleman in a game
with gentlemen ; and he never played again.

By day he worked hard, and since his expenses had
been increased by Flavia's coming, he had undertaken
more work for more pay. He still performed all the
routine labor of a managing editor, and he now wrote
the literary notices of the Events, and sometimes,
especially if there was anything new, the dramatic
criticisms; he brought to the latter task all the
freshness of a man who, till the year before, had not
been half a dozen times inside a theatre.

A MODERN INSTANCE. 291

He attributed the fat on his ribs to the tivoli;
perhaps it was also owing in some degree to a good
conscience, which is a much easier thing to keep than
people imagine. At any rate, he now led a tranquil,
industrious, and regular life, and a life which suited
him so well that he was reluctant to interrupt it by
the visit to Equity, which he and Marcia had talked
of in the early spring. He put it off from time to
time, and one day when she was pressing him to
fix some date for it he said, "Why can't you go,
Marcia ? "

" Alone ? " she faltered.

" Well, no ; take the baby, of course. And I '11 run
down for a day or two when I get a chance."

Marcia seemed in these days to be schooling her-
self against the impulses that once brought on her
quarrels with Hartley. " A day or two — " she be-
gan, and then stopped and added gravely, " I thought
you said you were going to have several weeks'
vacation."

" Oh, don 't tell me what I said ! " cried Bartley.
" That was before I undertook this extra work, or be-
fore I knew what a grind it was going to be. Equity
is a good deal of a dose for me, any way. It 's all
well enough for you, and I guess the change from
Boston will do you good, and do the baby good, but
/shouldn't look forward to three weeks in Equity
with unmitigated hilarity.'*

" I know it will be stupid for you. But you need
the rest. And the Hallecks are going to be at North
Conway, and they said they would come over," urged
Marcia. " I know we should have a good time."

Bartley grinned. "Is that your idea of a good
time, Marsh ? Three weeks of Equity, relieved by a
visit from such heavy weights as Ben Halleck and his
Bisters ? Not any in mine, thank you."

" How can you — how dare you speak of them so 1"

292 A MODERN INSTANCE.

cried Marcia lightening upon him. "Such good
friends of yours -^ such good people — " Her voice
shook with indignation and wounded feeling.

Bartley rose and took a turn about the room, pull-
ing down his waistcoat and contemplating its outward
slope with a smile. " Oh, I 've got more friends than
I can shake a stick at. And with pleasure at the
helm, goodness is a drug in the market, — if you '11
excuse the mixed metaphor. Look here, Marcia," he
added, severely. " If you like the Hallecks, all well and
good ; I sha'n't interfere with you ; but they bore me.
I outgrew Ben Halleck years ago. He 's duller than
death. As for the old people, there's no harm in
them, — though they We bores, too, — nor in the old
girls ; but Olive Halleck does n't treat me decently.
I suppose that just suits you : I 've noticed that you
never like the women that do treat me decently."

" They don't treat me decently ! " retorted Marcia.

" Oh, Miss Kingsbury treated you very well that
night. She could n't imagine your being jealous of
her politeness to me."

Marcia's temper fired at his treacherous recurrence
to a grievance which he had once so sacredly and
sweetly ignored. " If you wish to take up bygones,
why don't you go back to Hannah Morrison at once ?
She treated you even better than Miss Kingsbury."

" I should have been very willing to do that," said

Bartley, "but I thought it might remind you of a

disagreeable little episode in your own life, when you

\ flung me away, and had to go down on your knees to

pick me up again."

These thrusts which they dealt each other in their
quarrels, however blind and misdirected, always
reached their hearts: it was the wicked will that
hurt, rather than the words. Marcia rose, bleeding
inwardly, and her husband felt the remorse of a man
who gets the best of it in such an encounter.

A MODERN INSTANCE. 293

" Oh, I 'm sorry I said that, Marcia ! I did 'nt mean
it ; indeed I — " She disdained to heed him, as she
swept out of the room, and up the stairs ; and his
ano;er flamed out aojain.

"I give you fair warning,'* he called after her, "not
to try that trick of locking the door, or I will smash
It in.

Her answer was to turn the key in the door with a
click which he could not fail to hear.

The peace in which they had been living of late ^7
was very comfortable to Hartley ; he liked it ; he hated
to have it broken; he was willing to do what he could
to restore it at once. If he had no better motive than '
this, he still had this motive ; and he choked down
his wrath, and followed Marcia softly upstairs. He
intended to reason with her, and he began, " I say.
Marsh," as he turned the door-knob. But you cannot,
reason through a keyhole, and before he knew he
found himself saying, " Will you open this ?" in a tone
whose quiet was deadly. She did not answer; he
heard her stop in her movements about the room,
and wait, as if she expected him to ask again. He
hesitated a moment whether to keep his threat of
breaking the door in ; but he turned away and went
down stairs, and so into the street. Once outside,
he experienced the sense of release that comes to
a man from the violation of his better impulses ; but
he did not know what to do or where to go. He |
walked rapidly away; but Marcia*s eyes and voice j
seemed to follow him, and plead with him for his for- I
bearance. But he answered his conscience, as if it \
had been some such presence, that he had forborne too \
much already, and that now he should not humble
himself; that he was right and should stand upon his
right. There was not much comfort in it, and he had
to brace himself again and again with vindictive
resolution.

294 A MODEBN INSTANCB.

XXIV.

Bartley walked about the streets for a long time,
without purpose or direction, brooding fiercely on his
wrongs, and reminding himself how Marcia had deter-
mined to have him, and had indeed flung herself upon
his mercy, with all sorts of good promises ; and had
then at once taken the whip-hand, and goaded and tor-
mented him ever since. All the kindness of their corn-
man life counted for nothing in this furious reverie, or
rather it was never once thought of; he cursed himself
Jot a fool that he had ever asked her to marry him,
r and for doubly a fool that he had married her when
I she had as good as asked him. He was glad, now,
■ that he had taunted her with that ; he only regretted
that he had told her he was sorry. He was presently
aware of being so tired that he could scarcely puU
one leg after another ; and yet he felt hopelessly wide
awake. It was in simple despair of anything else to
do that he climbed the stairs to Eicker's lofty perch
in the Chronicle-Abstract office. Eicker turned about
as he entered, and stared up at him from beneath the
green pasteboard visor with which he was shielding his
eyes from the gas ; his hair, which was of the harsh-
ness and color of hay, was stiffly poked up and strewn
about on his skull, as if it were some foreign product

"Hello!" he said. "Going to issue a morning
edition of the Events ? "

*' What makes you think so ?"

" Oh, I supposed you evening-paper gents went to
bed with the hens. What has kept you up, esteemed

A MODERN INSTANCE. 295

contemporary ? " He went on working over some de-
spatches which lay upon his table.

" Don't you want to come out and have some oys-
ters ? " asked Bartley.

" Why this princely hospitality ? I '11 come with
you in half a minute," Ricker said, going to the slide
that carried up the copy to the composing-room and
thrusting his manuscript into the box.

" Where are you going ? " he asked, when they
found themselves out in the soft starlit autumnal air ;
and Bartley answered with the name of an oyster-
house, obscure, but of singular excellence.

"Yes, that's the best place," Ricker commented.
" What I always wonder at in you is the rapidity with
which you Ve taken on the city. You were quite in
the green wood when you came here, and now you
know your Boston like a little man. I suppose it 's
your newspaper work that 's famUiarized you with the
place.- Well, how do you like your friend Witherby,
as far as you Ve gone ? "

" Oh, we shall get along, I guess,*' said Bartley.
*' He still keeps me in the background, and plays at
being editor, but he pays me pretty well.*'

" Not too well, I hope."

" I should like to see him try it."

" I should n't," said Ricker. " He 'd expect certain
things of you, if he did. You '11 have to look out for
Witherby."

" You mean that he 's a scamp ? "

"No ; there is n't a better conscience than Witherby
carries in the whole city. He 's perfectly honest. He
not only believes that he has a right to run the
Events in his way ; but he sincerely believes that
\e is right in doing it. There 's where he has the ad-
vantage of you, if you doubt him. I don't suppose he
ever did a wrong thing in his life ; he *d persuade
himself that the thing was right before he did it."

296 A MODERN INSTANCK

" That 's a common phenomenon, is n't it ? " sneered
- Bartley. " Nobody sins."

"You're right, partly. But some of us sinners
have our misgivings, and Witherby never has. You
' Enow he offered me your place ? "

"No, I didn't," said Bartley, astonished and not
pleased.

" I thought he might have told you. He made me
inducements ; but I was afraid of him : Witherby is
the counting-room incarnate. I talked you into him
for some place or other ; but he did n't seena to wake
up to the value of my advice at once. Then I
could n't tell what he was going to offer you."

" Thank you for letting me in for a thing you were
afraid of ! "

"I didn't believe he would get you under his
thumb, as he would me. You Ve got more back-bone
than I have. I have to keep out of temptation ; you
have noticed that I never drink, and I would rather
not look upon Witherby when he is red and giveth
his color in the cup. I 'm sorry if I 've let you in for
anything that you regret. But Witherby's sincerity
makes him dangerous, — I own that."

" I think he has some very good ideas about news-
papers," said Bartley, rather sulkily.

" Oh, very," assented Kicker. " Some of the very
best going. He believes that the press is a great moral
engine, and that it ought to be run in the interest of
the engineer."

" And I suppose you believe that it ought to be run
in the interest of the public ? "

"Exactly — after the public has paid."

" Well, I don't ; and I never did. A newspaper is
a private enterprise."

" It 's private property, but it is n't a private enter-
prise, and in its very nature it can't be. You know
I never talk 'journalism ' and stuff; it amuses me to

A MODERN INSTANCE. 297

hear the young fellows at it, though I think they
might be doing something worse than magnifying
their ofl&ce ; they might be decrying it. But I Ve got
a few ideas and principles of my own in my back ^']^
pantaloons pocket." ^'

" Haul them out," said Bartley.

" I don't know that they 're very well formulated/
returned Kicker, " and I don*t contend that they Ve ^
very new. But I consider a newspaper a public en-
terprise, with certain distinct duties to the public. ^^
It 's sacredly bound not to do anything to deprave or
debauch its readers; and it's sacredly bound not to
mislead or betray them, not merely as to questions of
morals and politics, but as to questions of what we
may lump as * advertising.' Has friend Witherby de-
veloped his great ideas of advertisers' rights to you ? "
Bartley did not answer, and Kicker went on : " Well,
then, you can understand my position, when I say it 's
exactly the contrary."

'*You ought to be on a religious newspaper.
Kicker," said Bartley with a scornful laugh.

"Thank you, a secular paper is bad enough for
me.

" Well, I don't pretend that I make the Events just
what I want," said Bartley. " At present, the most I
can do is to indulge in a few cheap dreams of what I
should do, if I had a paper of my own."

" What are your dreams ? Haul out, as you say."

" I should make it pay, to begin with ; and I should
make it pay by making it such a thorough newspaper
that every class of people must have it. I should
cater to the lowest class first, and as long as I was
poor I would have the fullest and l)est reports of ev-
ery local accident and crime ; that would take all the
rabble. Then, as I could afford it, I 'd rise a little, ^
and give first-class non-partisan reports of local polit-
ical afiairs ; that would fetch the next largest classy

f-<

298 A MODERN INSTANCE.

the ward politicians of all parties. I 'd lay for tbd
local religious world, after that ; — religion comes right
after politics in the popular mind, and it interests the
women like murder : I 'd give the minutest religious
intelligence, and not only that, but the religious
gossip, and the religious scandal. Then I *d go in for
fashion and society, — that comes next. I'd have
the most reliable and thorough-going financial reports
that money could buy. When I 'd got my local
ground perfectly covered, I 'd begin to ramify. Every
fellow that could spell, in any part of the country,
should understand that, if he sent me an account of
a suicide, or an elopement, or a murder, or an acci-
dent, he should be well paid for it ; and I 'd rise on
the same scale through all the departments. I 'd add
art criticisms, dramatic and sporting news, and book
reviews, more for the looks of the thing than for any-
thing else ; they don't any of 'em appeal to a large
class. I'd get my paper into such a shape that
people of every kind and degree would have to say,
no matter what particular objection was made to it,
' Yes, that 's so ; but it 's the best news^^enpev in the
world, and we can't get along without it! "

*' And then," said Kicker, " you 'd begin to clean up,
little by little, — let up on your murders and scandals,
and purge and live cleanly like a gentleman ? The
trick 's been tried before."

They had arrived at the oytser-house, and were
flitting at their table, waiting for the oysters to be
brought to them. Bartley tilted his chair back. " I
don't know about the cleaning up. I should want to
keep all my audience. If I cleaned up, the dirty
fellows would go off to some one else ; and the fel-
lows that pretended to be clean would be disap-
pointed."

" Why don't you get Witherby to put your ideas ia
force ? " asked Eicker, dryly.

A MODERN INSTANCE. 299

Bartley dropped his chair to all fours, and said with
a smile, ''He belongs to church."

" Ah ! he has his limitations. What a pity ! He
has the money to establish this great moral engine of
yours, and you have n't. It's a loss to civilization."

" One thing, I know," said Bartley, with a certain
effect of virtue, " nobody should buy or sell me ; and
the advertising element should n't spread beyond the
advertising page."

" Is n't that rather high ground ? " inquired Eicker.

Bartley did not think it worth while to answer. " 1 1
don't believe that a newspaper is obliged to be superior J
in tone to the community," he said.

" I quite agree with you."

" And if the community is full of vice and crime, the \
newspaper can't do better than reflect its condition."

" Ah ! there I should distinguish, esteemed coa-
temporary. There are several tones in every com-
munity, and it will keep any newspaper scratching to ^
rise above the highest. But if it keeps out of the mud J
at all, it can't help rising above the lowest. And no
community is full of vice and crime any more than it
is full of virtue and good works. Why not let your
model newspaper mirror these ? "

" They 're not snappy."

" No, that 's true."

" You must give the people what they want."

" Are you sure of that ? "

*' Yes, I am."

" Well, it 's a beautiful dream," said Eicker, " nour-
ished on a youth sublime. Why do not these lofty
imaginings visit us later in life ? You make me quite
ashamed of my own ideal newspaper. Before you
began to talk, I had been fancying that the vice of our
journalism was its intense localism. I have doubted
a good while whether a drunken Irishman who breaks
his wife's head» or a child who falls into a tub of hot

300 A MODERN INSTANCE.

water, has really established a claim on the public
interest. Why should I be told by telegraph how
three negroes died on the gallows in North Carolina ?
Why should an accurate correspondent inform me of
the elopement of a married man with his maid-servant
in East Machias ? Why should I sup on all the hor-
rors of a railroad accident, and have the bleeding frag-
ments hashed up for me at breakfast ? Why should
my newspaper give a succession of shocks to my
nervous system, as I pass from column to column, and
poultice me between shocks with the nastiness of
a distant or local scandal ? You reply, because I like
spice. But I don*t. I am sick of spice ; and I believe
that most of our readers are."

" Cater to them with milk-toast, then," said Bartley.

Eicker laughed with him, and they fell to upon
their oysters.

When they parted, Bartley still found himself wake-
ful. He knew that he should not sleep if he went
home, and he said to himself that he could not walk
about all night. He turned into a gayly-lighted base-
ment, and asked for something in the way of a night-
cap.

The bar-keeper said there was nothing like a hot-
scotch to make you sleep ; and a small man with his
hat on, who had been talking with the bar-keeper, and
coming up to the counter occasionally to eat a bit of
cracker or a bit of cheese out of the two bowls full of
such fragments that stood at the end of the counter, said
that this was so.

It was very cheerful in the bar-room, with the
light glittering on the rows of decanters behind the
bar-keeper, a large, stout, clean, pale man in his
shirt-sleeves, after the manner of his kind ; and
Bartley made up his mind to stay there till he was
drowsy, and to drink as many hot-scotches as were
necessary to the result. He had his drink put on a

A MODERN INSTANCE, 301

little table and sat down to it easily, stirring it to cool
it a little, and feeling its flattery in his brain from the
first sip.

The man who was munching cheese and crackers
wore a hat rather large for him, pulled down over his
eyes. He now said that he did not care if he took a
gin-sling, and the bar-keeper promptly set it before
him on the counter, and saluted with " Good evening,
Colonel," a large man who came in, carrying a small
dog in his arms. Bartley recognized him as the man-
ager of a variety combination playing at one of the
theatres, and the manager recognized the little man
with the gin-sling as Tommy. He did not return the
bar-keeper*s salutation, but he asked, as he sat down
at a table, " What do I want for supper, Charley ? "

The bar-keeper said, oracularly, as he leaned for-
ward to wipe his counter with a napkin, "Fricassee
chicken."

*' Fricassee devil," returned the manager. " Get me
a Welsh rabbit."

The bar-keeper, unperturbed by this rejection, called
into the tube behind him, " One Welsh rabbit."

" I want some cold chicken for my dog," said the

manager.

One cold chicken," repeated the bar-keeper, in his
tube.

" White meat," said the manager.

" White meat," repeated the bar-keeper.

" I went into the Parker House one night about
midnight, and I saw four doctors there eating lobster
salad, and devilled crab, and washing it down with
champagne ; and I made up my mind that the doctors
need n't talk to me any more about what was whole-
some. I was going in for what was good. And there
aint anything better for supper than Welsh rabbit in
this world."
. As the manager addressed this philosophy to the

802 A MODERN INSTANCE.

company at large, no one commented upon it, which
seemed quite the same to the manager, who hitched
one elbow over the back of his chair, and caressed
with the other hand the dog lying in his lap.

The little man in the large hat continued to walk
up and down, leaving his gin-sling on the counter, and
drinking it between his visits to the cracker and
cheese.

"What's that new piece of yours, Colonel?" he
asked, after a while. " I aint seen it yet."

" Legs, principally," sighed the manager. " That 's
what the public wants. I give the public what it
wants. I don't pretend to be any better than the pub-
lic. Nor any worse," he added, stroking his dog.

These ideas struck Bartley in their accordance with
his own ideas of journalism, as he had propounded
them to Eicker. He had drunk half of his hot-scotch.

" That 's what I say," assented the little man. " All
that a theatre has got to do is to keep even with the
public."

" That 's so. Tommy," said the manager of a school
of morals, with wisdom that impressed more and
more the manager of a great moral engina

" The same principle runs through everything,^
observed Bartley, speaking for the first time.

The drink had stififened his tongue somewhat, but
it did not incommode his utterance ; it rather gave
dignity to it, and his head was singularly clear. He
lifted his empty glass from the table, and, catching
the bar-keeper's eye, said, ^ Do it again." The man
brought it back full. y

"It runs through the churches as well^s the the-
atres. As long as the public wanted hell-fire, the
ministers gave them hell-fire. But you could n't get
hell-fire — not the pure, old-fashioned brimstone arti-
cle— out of a popular preacher now, for love oi
money."

A MODERN INSTANCE. 303

The little man said, " I guess you 've got about the
size of it there"; and the manager laughed.

" It *s just so with the newspapers, too," said Bart-
ley. "Some newspapers used to stand out against
publishing murders, and personal gossip, and divorce
trials. There ain't a newspaper that pretends to keep
anyways up with the times, now, that don't do it !
The public want spice, and they will have it ! "

" Well, sir," said the manager, " that 's my way of
looking at it. I say, if the public don't want Shake-
speare, give 'em burlesque till they 're sick of it. I
believe in what Grant said : * The quickest way to get
rid of a bad law is to enforce it.' "

*' That *s so," said the little man, " every time." He
added, to the bar-keeper, that he guessed he would
have some brandy and soda, and Bartley found him-
self at the bottom of his second tumbler. He or-
dered it replenished.

The little man seemed to be getting further away.
He said, from the distance to which he had with-
drawn, " You want to go to bed with three nightcaps
on, like an old-clothes man."

Bartley felt like resenting the freedom, but he was
anxious to pour his ideas of journalism into the man-
ager's sympathetic ear, and he began to talk, with an
impression that it behooved him to talk fast. His
brain was still very clear, but his tongue was getting
stiffer. The manager now had his Welsh rabbit before
him ; but Bartley could not make out how it had got
there, nor when. He was . talking fast, and he knew,
by the way eveiybody was listening, that he was talk-
ing well. Sometimes he left his table, glass in hand,
and went and laid down the law to the manager, who
smilingly assented to all he said. Once he heard a
low growling at his feet, and, looking down, he saw
the dog with his plate of cold chicken, that had also
been conjured into the room somehow.

304 A MODERN INSTANCE.

" Look out," said the manager, " he '11 nip you in
the leg."

" Curse the dog ! he seems to be on all sides ol
you," said Bartley. " I can't stand anywhere."

" Better sit down, then," suggested the manager.

"Good idea," said the little man, who was still
walking up and down. It appeared as if he had not
spoken for several hours ; his hat was further over his
eyes. Bartley had thought he was gone.

"What business is it of yours?" he demanded,
fiercely, moving towards the little man.

" Come, none of that," said the bar-keeper, steadily.

Bartley looked at him in amazement. " Where 's
your hat ? " he asked.

The others laughed ; the bar-keeper smiled.

" Are you a married man ? "

" Never mind ! " said the bar-keeper, severely.

Bartley turned to the little man : " You married ? "

" ITot mvAihj' replied the other. He was now top-
ping off with a whiskey-straight.

Bartley referred himself to the manager: "You?"

*'Pas si bete," said the manager, who did his own
adapting from the French.

" Well, you 're scholar, and you *re gentleman," said
Bartley. The indefinite articles would drop out, in
spite of all his efforts to keep them in. " 'N' I want
ask you what you do — to — ask — you — what —
would — you — do," he repeated, with painful exact-
ness, but he failed to make the rest of the sentence
perfect, and he pronounced it all in a word, " Yyour-
wifelockyouout ? "

" I 'd take a walk," said the manager.

" I 'd bu'st the door in," said the little man.

Bartley turned and gazed at him as if the little
man were a much more estimable person than he had
supposed. He passed liis arm through the little
man's, which the other had just crooked to lift hifl

A MODERN INSTANCE. 305

whiskey to his mouth. "Look here," said Hartley,
" tha's jus' what / told her. I want you to go home
'th me ; I want t* introduce you to my wife."

" All right," answered the little man. " Don't care
if I do." He dropped his tumbler to the floor. "Hang
it up, Charley, glass and alL Hang up this gentle-
man's nightcaps — my account. Gentleman asks me
home to his house, I'll hang him — I'll get him
hung, — well, fix it to suit yourself, — every time ! "

They got themselves out of the door, and the man-
ager said to the bar-keeper, who came round to gather
up the fragments of the broken tumbler, " Think his
wife will be glad to see 'em, Charley ? "

" Oh, they '11 be taken care of before they react his
house."

306 A MODEBN INSTANCE.

XXV.

When they were once out under the stars, Bartley,
who still felt his brain clear, said that he would not
take his friend home at once, but would show him
where he visited when he first came to Boston. The
other agreed to the indulgence of this sentiment, and
they set out to find Eumford Street together.

"You've heard of old man Halleck, — Lestor
Neather Interest ? Tha 's place, — there 's where I
stayed. His son 's my frien', — damn stuck-up, super-
cilious beast he is, too ! / do* care f 'r him ! 1 11
show you place, so's't you '11 know it when you come
to it, — *f 1 can ever find it."

They walked up and down the street, looking, while
Bartley poured his sorrows into the ear of his friend,
who grew less and less responsive, and at last ceased
from his side altogether. Bartley then dimly per-
ceived that he was himself sitting on a door-step, and
that his head was hanging far down between his
knees, as if he had been sleeping in that posture.
C " Locked out, — locked out of my own door, and
^y my own wife ! " He shed tfears, and fell asleep
again. From time to time he woke, and bewailed
himself to Eicker as a poor boy who had fought his
own way ; he owned that he had made mistakes, as
who had not ? Again he was trying to convince
Squire Gaylord that they ought to issue a daily edi-
tion of the Equity Free Press, and at the same time
persuading Mr. Halleck to buy the Events for him,
and let him put it on a paying basis. He shiveiedt

A MODERN INSTANCE. 307

Sighed, hiccupped, and was dozing off again, when
Henry Bird knocked him down, and he fell with a cry,
which at last brought to the door the uneasy sleeper,
who had been listening to him within, and trying to
realize his presence, catching his voice in waking in-
tervals, doubting it, drowsing when it ceased, and then
catching it and losing it again.

" Hello, here ! What do you want ? Hubbard I Is
it you ? What in the world are you doing here ? "

" Halleck," said Bartley, who was unsteadily straight-
ening himself upon his feet, " glad to find j'^ou at home.
Been looking for your house all night. Want to intro-
duce you to partic-ic-ular friend of mine. Mr. Halleck,
Mr. . Curse me if I know your name — "

" Hold on a minute," said Halleck.

He ran into the house for his hat and coat, and
came out again, closing the door softly after him. Hb
found Bartley in the grip of a policeman, whom he was
asking his name, that he might introduce him to his
friend Halleck.

" Do you know this man, Mr. Halleck t " asked the
policeman.

" Yes, — yes, I know him," said Ben, in a low voice. '
" Let 's get him away quietly, please. He 's all right
It 's the first time I ever saw him so. Will you help
me with him up to Johnson's stable? I'll get a
carriage there and take him home."

They had begun walking Bartley along between
them ; he dozed, and paid no attention to their talk. '

The policeman laughed. " I was just going to run
him in, when you came out.' You didn't come a
minute too soon."

They got Bartley to the stable, and he slept heavily
in one of the chairs in the office, while the ostlers were
putting the horses to the carriage. The policeman
remained at the office-door, looking in at Bartley, ^nd
philosophizing the situation to Halleck. ^ Your speak-

308 A MODERN INSTANCE.

in' about its bein' the first time you ever saw liim so
made me think 't I rather help take* home a regular
habitual drunk to his family, any day,, than a case like
this. They always seem to take it so much harder the
first time. Boards with his mother, I presume ? "

"He's married," said Halleck, sadly. "He has a
house of his own."

" Well ! " said the policeman.

Bartley slept all the way to Clover Street, and when
the carriage stopped at his door, they had difficulty in
waking him sufficiently to get him out.

" Don't come in, please," said Halleck to the police-
man, when this was done. " The man will carry you
back to your beat. Thank you, ever so much I "

"All right, Mr. Halleck. Don't mention it," said
the policeman, and leaned back in the hack with an
air of luxury, as it rumbled softly away.

Halleck remained on the pavement with Bartley
falling limply against him in the dim light of the
dawn. " What you want ? What you doing with
me ? " he demanded with sullen stupidity.

"IVe got you home, Hubbard. Here we are at
your house." He pulled him across the pavement to
the thrieshold, and put his hand on the bell, but the
door was thrown open before he could ringj and Marcia
stood there, with her face white, and her eyes red with
watching and crying.

" Oh, Bartley! oh, Baitley !" she sobbed. " Oh, Mr.
Halleck ! what is it ? Is he hurt ? I did it, — yes, I
did it! It's my fault! Oh ! will he die ? Is he sick?;'

" He is n't very well He 'd better go to bed," sai(
Halleck.

" Yes, yes ! I will help you upstairs with him."

"Do' need any help," said Bartley, sulkily. "Go
upstairs myself."

He actually did so, with the help of the hand-rail,
Marcia running before, to open the door, and smooth

A MODERN INSTANCE. 309

the pillows which her head had not touched, and
Halleck following him to catch him if he should fall.
She unlaced his shoes and got them off, while Halleck
removed his coat.

** Oh, Bartley ! where do you feel badly, dear ? Oh I
what shall I do ? " she moaned, as he tumbled himself
on the bed, and lapsed into a drunken stupor.

"Better — better come out, Mrs. Hubbard," said
Halleck. "Better let him alone, now. You only
make him worse, talking to him."

Quelled by the mystery of his manner, she followed
him out and down the stairs. " Oh, do tell me what it
is," she implored, in a low voice, " or I shall go wild !
But tell me, and I can bear it ! I can bear anything
if I know whatat is ! " She came close to him in her
entreaty, and fixed her eyes beseechingly on his, while
she caught his hand in both of hers. " Is he — is he
insane ? "

" He is n't quite in his right mind, Mrs. Hubbard,"
Halleck began, softly releasing himself, and retreating
a little from her ; but she pursued him, and put her
hand on his arm.

" Oh, then go for the doctor, — go instantly ! Don't
lose a minute ! I shall not be afraid to stay alone.
Or if you think I 'd better not, I will go for the doctor
myself"

" No, no," said Halleck, smiling sadly : the case cer-
tainly had its ludicrous side. " He does n't need a
doctor. You must n't think of calling a doctor. In-
deed you must n't. He '11 come out all right of him-
self If you sent for a doctor, it would make him very
angry."

She burst into tears. " Well, I will do what you
say," she cried. " It would never have happened, if it
had n't been for me. I want to tell you what I did."
'she went on wildly. " I want to tell — "

" Please don't tell me anything, Mrs. Hubbard 1 It

310 . A MODERN INSTANCE.

will all come right — and very soon. It is n't anything
to be alarmed about. He 11 be well in a few houra
I — ah — Good by." He had found his cane, and
he made a limp toward the door, but she swiftly in-
terposed herself.
V c> " Why," she panted, in mixed reproach and terror,

^you 're not going away ? You 're not going to leave
me before Bartley is well ? He may get worse, — he
may die ! You must n't go, Mr. Halleck ! "

"Yes, I must, — I jcan't stay, — I ought n't to
stay, — it won't do! (He won^ get worae^Jifijgon't
die." The perspiration brpke^out on Hafieckii feuse,
which he lifted to hers with a distress^s^greatjaJifir
own.

She only answered, " I can 't let you go ; it would
kill me. I wonder at your wanting to go."

There was something gh_BrStLy oomical in it all, and
Halleck stood in fear of its atbsurditjp-hardly less
than of its__tmgedy. He rapidly reyolvfid jn his
mindJJifi_,possibilities^f the case. He thought at
first that it might be well to call a doctor, and, having
explained the situation to him, pay him to remain in
charge ; but he reflected that it would be insulting to
ask a doctor to see a man in Hubbard's condition
He took out his watch, and saw that it was six o'clock ;
and he said, desperately, " You can send for me, if
you get anxious — "

" I can't let you go ! "

" I must really get my breakfast — "

" The girl will get something for you here ! Oh,
don't go away ! " Her lip began to quiver again, and
her bosom to rise.

He could not bear it. " Mrs. Hubbard, will you
believe what I say ? "

" Yes," she faltered, reluctantly.

" Well, I tell you that Mr. Hubbard is in no sort
of danger ; and I know that it would be extremely
offensive to him if I stayed."

A MODERN INSTANCE. 311

''Then you must go," she answered promptly, and
opened the door, which she had closed for fear he
might escape. *' I will send for a doctor."

" No ; don't send for a doctor, don't send for any-
body: don't speak of the matter to any one : it would
be very mortifying to him. It's merely a — a —
kind of — seizure, that a great many people — men —
are subject to ; but he would n't like to have it
known." He saw that his words were making an
impression upon her ; perhaps her innocence was be-
ginning to divine the trutL " Will you do what I
say ? ".

" Yes," she murmured.

Her head began to droop, and her face to turn
away in a dawning shame too cruel for him to see.

"I — I will come back as soon as I get my break-
fast, to make sure that everything is right."

She let him find his own way out, and Halleck
issued upon the street, as miserable as if the disgrace
were his own. It was easy enough for him to get
back into his own room without alarming the family.
He ate his breakfast absently, and then went out
while the others were still at table.

"I don't think Ben seems very well," said his
mother, anxiously, and she looked to her husband for
the denial he always gave.

" Oh, I guess he 's all right. What 's the matter
with him ? "

" It 's nothing but his ridiculous, romantic way of
taking the world to heart," Olive interposed. *' You
may be sure he 's troubled about something that
does n't concern him in the least. It 's what comes
of the life-long conscientiousness of his parents. If
Ben does n't turn out a philanthropist of the deepest
dye yet, you '11 have me to thank for it. I see more
and more every day that I was providentially born
wicked, so as to keep this besottedly righteous fam*
ily's head above water."

.'312 A MODERN INSTANCE.

She feigned an angry impatiencje with the condition
of things ; but when her father went out, she joined
her mother in earnest conjectures as to what Ben had
on his mind.

Halleck wandered about till nearly ten o'clock, and
then he went to the little house on Clover Street.
The servant-girl answered his ring, and when he
asked for Mrs. Hubbard, she said that Mr. Hubbard
wished to see him, and please would he step upstairs.

He found Bartley seated at the window, with a wet
towel round his head, and his face pale with head-
ache.

" Well, old man,*' he said, with an assumption of
comradery that was nauseous to Halleck, *' you've
done the handsome thing by me. I know all about
it. I knew something about it all the time." He
held out his hand, without rising, and Halleck forced
himself to touch it. " I appreciate your delicacy in
not telling my wife. Of course you couldn't tell,"
he said, with depraved enjoyment of what he con-
ceived of Halleck's embarrassment. "But I guess
she must have smelt a rat. As the fellow says," he
added, seeing the disgust that Halleck could not keep
out of his face, " I shall make a clean breast of it, as
soon as she can bear it. She 's pretty high-strung.
Lying down, now," he explained. " You see, I went
out to get something to make me sleep, and the first
thing I knew I had got too much. Good thing I
turned up on your doorstep ; might have been waltz-
ing into the police court about now. How did you
happen to hear me ? "

Halleck briefly explained, with an air of abhorrence
for the facts.

" Yes, I remember most of it," said Bartley. "Well,
I want to thank you, Halleck. You Ve saved me
fiom disgrace, — from ruin, for all I know. Whew !
how my head aches ! " he said, making an appeal to

A MODERN INSTANCE. 313

Halleck's pity, with closed eyes. " Halleck," he mur-
mured, feebly, " I wish^you would do me a favor."

" Yea ? What is it ? '* asked Halleck, dryly.

" Go round to the Events ofl&ce and tell old With-
erby that I sha'n't be able to put in an appearance
to-day. I 'm not up to writing a note, even ; and
he 'd feel flattered at your coming personally. It
would make it all right for me."

" Of course I will go," said Halleck.

"Thanks," returned Bartley, plaintively, with hia
eyes closed.

' 314 A MODERN INSTANCE.

XXVI.

Bartley would willingly have passed this affaii
over with Marcia, like some of their quarrels, and
allowed a reconciliation to effect itself through mere
lapse of time and daily custom. But there were
difficulties in the way to such an end ; his shameful
escapade had given the quarrel a character of its
own, which could not be ignored. He must keep his
word about making a clean breast of it to Marcia,
whether he liked or not ; but she facilitated his con-
fession by the meek and dependent fashion in which
she hovered about, anxious to do something or any-
thing for him. If, as he suggested to Halleck, she
had divined the truth, she evidently did not hold him
wholly to blame for what had happened, and he was
not without a self-righteous sense of having given her
a useful and necessary lesson. He was inclined to a
severity to which his rasped and shaken nerves con-
tributed, when he spoke to her that night, as they
sat together after tea ; she had^ some sewing in her
lap, little mysteries of soft muslin for the baby, which
she was edging with lace, and her head drooped over
her work, as if she could not confront him with her
swollen eyes.

" Look here, Marcia," he said, " do you know what
was the matter with me this morning ? "

She did not answer in words ; her hands quivered a
moment ; then she caught up the things out of her
lap, and sobbed into them. The sight unmanned
Bartley ; he hated to see any one cry, — even his wife^

A MODERN INSTANCE. 315

to whose tears he was accustomed. He dropped down
beside her ou the sofa, and pulled her head over on
his shoulder.

" It was my fault ! it was my fault, Bartley ! " she /
sobbed. " Oh, how can I ever get over it ? "

" Well, don't cry, don't cry ! It was n't altogether
your fault," returned Bartley. "We were both to
blame."

" No ! I began it. If I had n*t broken my promise
about speaking of Hannah Morrison, it never would
have happened." This was so true that Bartley could
not gainsay it. " But I could n't seem to help it ; and
you were — you were — so quick with me ; you did n't
give me time to think ; you — But I was the one
to blame, I was to blame ! "

" Oh, well, never mind about it ; don't take on so,'*
coaxed Bartley. " It 's all over now, and it can't be
helped. And I can promise you," he added, " that it
shall never happen again, no matter what you do,"
and in making this promise he felt the glow of virtu-
ous performance. " I think we 've both had a lesson.
I suppose," he continued sadly, as one might from
impersonal reflection upon the temptations and de-
pravity of large cities, " that it 's common enough. I
dare say it is n't the first time Ben Halleck has taken
a fellow home in a hack." Bartley got so much com-
fort from the conjecture he had thrown out for
Marcia's advantage, that he felt a sort of self-approval
in the fact with which he followed it up. "And
there 's this consolation about it, if there is n't any
other : that it would n't have happened now, if it had
ever happened before."

Marcia lifted her head and looked into his face :
" What — what do you mean, Bartley ? "

" I mean that I never was overcome before in my
life by — wine." He delicately avoided saying
whiskey.

316 A MODERN INSTANCR

" Well ? " she demanded.

« Why, don't you see ? If I 'd had the habit of
drinking, I should n't have been affected by it."

" I don't understand," she said, anxiously.

" Why, I knew I should n't be able to sleep, I was
BO mad at you — " ' .

'* Oh ! " \

"And I dropped into the hotel bar-room for a
nightcap, — for something to make me sleep."

" Yes, yes ! " she urged eagerly.

" I took what would n't have touched a man that
was in the habit of it."

" Poor Bartley ! "

" And the first thing I knew I had got too much.
I was drunk, — wild drunk," he said with magnani-
mous frankness.

She had been listening intensely, exculpating him
at every point, and now his innocence all flashed
. upon her. " I see ! I see ! *' she cried. " And it was
' because you had never tasted it before — "

" Well, I had tasted it once or twice," interrupted
Bartley, with heroic veracity.

" No matter ! It was because you had never more
than hardly tasted it that a very little overcame you
. in an instant. I see ! " she repeated, contemplating
him in her ecstasy, as the one habitually sober man
in a Boston full of inebriates. And now I shall never
regret it ; I shall never care for it ; I never shall think .
about it again ! Or, yes ! I shall always remember it,
because it shows — because it proves that you are al-
ways strictly temperance. It was worth happening
for that. I am glad it happened ! "

She rose from his side, and took her sewing nearer
the lamp, and resumed her work. upon it with shining
eyes.

, Bartley remained in his place on the sofa, feeling,
and perhaps looking, rather sheepish. He had made a

A MODERN INSTANCE. 317 !

clean breast of it, and the confession had redounded
only too much to his credit. To do him justice, he
had not intended to bring the affair to quite such a
triumphant conclusion ; and perhaps something bet-
ter than his sense of humor was also touched when he
found himself not only exonerated, but transformed
into an exemplar of abstinence.

" Well," he said, " it is n't exactly a thing to be glad
of, but it certainly isn't a thing to worry yourself
about. You know the worst of it, and you know the
best of it. It never happened before, and it never
shall happen again ; that 's all. Don't lament over it,
don't accuse yourself; just let it go, and we'll both
see what we can do after this in the way of behaving
better."

He rose from the sofa, and began to walk about the
room.

" Does your head still ache ? " she asked, fondly.
*' I wish I could do something for it ! "

" Oh, I shall sleep it off," returned Bartley.

She followed him with her eyes. " Bartley ! "

« Well ? "

" Do you suppose — do you believe — that Mr.
Halleck — that he was ever — "

" No, Marcia, I don't," said Bartley, stopping. " I
hnow he never was. Ben Halleck is slow ; but he 's
good. I could n't imagine his being drunk any more
than I could imagine your being so. I'd willingly
sacrifice his reputation to console you," added Bart-
ley, with a comical sense of his own regret that Hal-
leck was not, for the occasion, an habitual drunkard
*• but I cannot tell a lie." He looked at her with a
smile, and broke into a sudden laugh. " No, my dear,
the only person I think of just now as having suf-
fered similarly with myself is the great and good An*
drew Johnson. Did you ever hear of him ? "

" Was he the one they impeached ? " she faltered.

318 A MODERN INSTANCE.

not knowing what Bartley would be at, but smiling
faintly in sympathy with his mirth.

" He was the one they impeached. He was the one
who was overcome by wine on his inauguration day,
because he had never been overcome before. It 's a
parallel case 1 " Bartley got a great deal more enjoy-
ment out of the parallel case than Marcia. The smile
faded from her face.

" Come, cpme," he coaxed, " be satisfied with Andrew
A Johnson, and let Halleck go. Ah, Marcia ! ' he added,
\ seriously, " Ben Halleck is the kind of man you ought
I to have married ! Don't you suppose that I know
/ I 'm not good enough for you ? I 'm pretty good by
\ fits and starts; but he would have been good right
straight along. I should never have had to bring him
home in a hack to you ! "

His generous admission had the just effect. " Hush,
Bartley ! Don't talk so ! You know that you 're bet-
ter for me than the best man in the world, dear,
and even if you were not, I should love you the best
Don't talk, please, that way, of any one else, or it will
make me hate you ! "

He liked that ; and after all he was not without an
obscure pride in his last night's adventure as a some-
what hazardous but decided assertion of manly su-
premacy. It was not a thing to be repeated; but
for once in a way it was not wholly to be regretted,
especially as he was so well out of it.

He pulled up a chair in front of her, and began to
joke about the things she had in her lap; and the
shameful and sorrowful day ended in the bliss of a
more perfect peace between them than they had known
since the troubles of their married life began. " I tell
you," said Bartley to Marcia, " I shall stick to tivoli
after this, religiously."

It was several weeks later that Halleck limped
into Atherton's lodgings, and dropped into one of Ids

A MODERN INSTANCE. 319

friend's easy-chairs. The room had a bachelor com-
fort of aspect, and the shaded lamp on the table shed
a mellow light on the green leather-covered furniture,
WL'inkled and creased, and worn full of such hospita-
ble hollows as that which welcomed Halleck. Some
packages of law papers were scattered about on the
table ; but the hour of the night had come when
a lawyer permits himself a novel. Atherton looked
up from his as Halleck entered, and stretched out a
hand, which the latter took on his way to the easy-
chair across the table.

" How do you do ? " said Atherton, after allowing
him to sit for a certain time in the silence, which ex-
pressed better than words the familiarity that existed
between them in spite of the lawyer's six or seven
years of seniority.

Halleck leaned forward and tapped the floor with
his stick ; then he fell back again, and laid his cane
across the arms of his chair, and drew a long breath.
" Atherton,** he said, " if you had found a blackguard
of your acquaintance drunk on your doorstep early one
morning, and had taken him home to his wife, how
would you have expected her to treat you the next
time you saw her ? "

The lawyer was too much used to the statement,
direct and hypothetical, of all sorts of cases, to be
startled at this. He smiled slightly, and said, " That
would depend a good deal upon the lady."

**0h, but generalize! From what you know of
women as Woman, what should you expect ?. Should n*t
you expect her to make you pay somehow for your
privity to her disgrace, to revenge her misery upon
you ? Is n't there a theory that women forgive inju-'
ties, but never ignominies ? "

" That 's what the novelists teach, and we bachelors
get most of our doctrine about women from them.'*
He closed his novel on the paper-cutter, and^ laying

320 A MODEBN • INSTANCE.

the book upon the table, clasped his hands together at
the back of his head. ** We don't go to nature for out
impressions ; but neither do the novelists, for that
matter. Now and then, however, in the way of busi-
ness, I get a glimpse of realities that make me doubt
my prophets. Who had this experience ? "

" I did."

" 1 'm sorry for that," said Atherton.

"Yes," returned Halleck, with whimsical melan-
choly ; " I 'm not particularly adapted for it But I
don't know that it would be a very pleasant experi-
ence for anybody."

He paused drearily, and Atherton said, " And how
did she actually treat you ? "

" I hardly know. ' I had n't been at the pains to
look them up since the thing happened, and I had been
carrying their squalid secret round for a fortnight,
and suffering from it as if it were all my own."

Atherton smiled at the touch of self-characterization.

" When I met her and her husband and her baby to-
day,— a family party, —- well, she made me ashamed
of the melodramatic compassion 1 had been feeling'
for her. It seemed that I had been going about un-
necessarily, not to say impertinently, haggard with the
recollection of her face as I saw it when she opened
the door for her blackguard and me that morning.
She looked as if nothing unusual had happened at our
last meeting. I could n't brace up all at once : I be-
haved like a sneak, in view of her serenity."

" Perhaps nothing unusual Jiad happened," suggested
Atherton.

" No, that theory is n't tenable," said Halleck. " It
was the one fact in the blackguard^s favor that she had
evidently never seen him in that state before, and
did n't know what was the matter. She was wild at
first ; she wanted to send for a doctor. I think towards
t^e last she began to susi^ct. But I don't know how

A MODERN INSTANCK 321

Bhe looked then : I could n't look at her." He stopped
as if still in the presence of the pathetic figure, with its
sidelong, drooping head.

Atherton respected his silence a moment, before he
again suggested, as lightly as before, " Perhaps she is
magnanimous."

" No," said Halleck, with the effect of having also
given that theory consideration. " She *s not magnan-
imous, poor soul. I fancy she is rather a narrow-
minded person, with strict limitations in regard to
people who think ill — or too well — of her husband."

" Then perhaps," said Atherton, with the air of ^^
having exhausted conjecture, " she 's obtuse." >»

" I have tried to think that too," replied Halleck, ^
*' but I can't manage it. No, there are only two ways
out of it ; the fellow has abused her innocence and / ^

made her believe it 's a common and venial affair to be / ^
brought home in that state, or else she 's playing a
part. He 's capable of telling her that neither you
nor I, for example, ever go to bed sober. But she is n't
obtuse : I fancy she *s only too keen in all the sensibili-
ties that women suffer through ; and I 'd rather think
that he had deluded her in that way, than that she
was masquerading about it, ^or she strikes me as an
uncommonly truthful person. I suppose you know
whom I 'm talking about, Atherton ? " he said, with a
sudden look at his friend's face across the table.

" Yes, I know,'* said the lawyer. " I 'm sorry it 's
come to this already. Though I suppose you 're not
altogether surprised."

" No ; something of the kind was to be expected,"
Halleck sighed, and rolled his cane up and down on
the arms of his chair. " I hope we know the worst."

" Perhaps we do. But I recollect a wise remark
you made the first time we talked of these people,"
said Atherton, replying to the mood rather than the
speech of his friend. " You suggested that we rather

822 A MODERN INSTANCK

liked to grieve over the pretty girls that other fellowa
marry, and that we never thought of the plain ones
as sufifering."

"Oh, I hadn't any data for my pity in this case,

then," replied Halleck. " I 'm willing to allow that a

plain woman would suffer under the same circum-

*-) stances ; and I think I should be capable of pitying

^ku. I her. ^But I'll confess that the notion of. a pretty

p\ woman's sorrow is more intolerableT^there 's no use

^ denying a fact so universally recognized by the male

consciousness. I take my share of shame for it. I

wonder why it is? Pretty women always seem to

appeal to us as more dependent and childlike. I

dare say they 're not."

" Some of them are quite able to take care of them-
selves," said Atherton. "I've known striking in-
stances of the kind. How do you know but the
object of your superfluous pity was cheerful because
fate had delivered her husband, bound forever, into
her hand, through this little escapade of his ? '*

" Is n't that rather a coarse suggestion ? " asked
Halleck.

" Very likely. I suggest it ; I don't a^ert it ^ut
I fancy that wives sometimes like a permanent griev-
ance that is always at hand, no matter what the mere
passing occasion of the particular disagreement is.
It seems to me that I have detected obscure appeals
to such a weapon in domestic interviews at which
I 've assisted in the way of business."

" Don't, Atherton ! " cried Halleck.

" Don't how ? In this particular case, or in regard
to wives generally. We can't do women a greater
injustice than not to account for a vast deal of human
nature in them. You may be sure that things have n't
come to the present pass with those people without
blame on both sides."

" Oh, do you defend a man for such beastliness, hy

A MODERN INSTANCE. 323

that stale old plea of blame on bota sides ? " demanded
Halleck, indignantly.

"No; but I should like to know wnai sKe had
said or done to provoke it, before I excused her alto-
gether."

" You would ! Imagine the case reversed."

" It is n't imaginable."

" You think there is a special code of morals for
women, — sins and shames for them that are no sins
and shames for us ! "

"No, I don't think that! I merely suggest that
you don't idealize the victim in this instance. I dare
say she has n't suffered half as much as you have.
Remember that she 's a person of commonplace tra-
ditions, and probably took a simple view of the
matter, and let it go as something that could not be
helped." v

" No, that would not do, either," said Halleck. \ g

" You 're hard to please. Suppose we imagine her \
proud enough to face you down on the fact, for his
sake ; too proud to revenge her disgrace on you — " '^

" Oh, you come back to your old plea of magna- ^
niiMty ! Atherton, it makes me sick at heart t0 ^^ n
think of that poor creature. That look of hers haunts • "Vi
me ! I can't get rid of it ! "

Atherton sat considering his friend with a curious s*
smile. *' Well, I 'm sorry this has happened to you^
Halleck."

" Oh, why do you say that to me ? " demanded
Halleck, impatiently. "Am I a nervous woman, that
I must be kept from unpleasant sights and disagree- \ •
able experiences ? If there 's anything of the man •
about me, you insult it ! Why not be a little sorry '- .
for h^r i " i.

" I 'm sorry enough for her ; but I suspect that, so »
far, you have been the principal sufferer. She 'a
simply accepted the fact, and sun^^ved it" i

324 A MODERN INSTANCE.

"So much the worse, so much the worse I" groai
Halleck. " She 'd better have died ! "

"Well, perhaps. I dare say she thinks it a
never happen again, and has dismissed the subjc
while you 've had it happening ever since, whene
you *ve thought of her."

Halleck struck the arms of his chair with
clinched hands. "Confound the fellow ! What bi
ness has he to come back into my way, and make
think about his wife ? Oh, very likely it 's quite
you say ! I dare say she *s stupidly content w
him; that she's forgiven it and forgotten all ab
it. Probably she's told him how I behaved, s
they *ve laughed me over together. But does tl
make it any easier to bear?**

"It ought," said Athertoti. "What did the h
band do when you met them ? "

"Everything but tip me the wink, — everythi
but say, in so many words, ' You see I *ve made it
right with her: don't you wish you knew howl
Halleck dropped his head, with a wrathful groan.

" I fancy," said Atherton, thoughtfully, " that, if
really knew how, it would surprise us. Married ]
is as much a mystery to us outsiders as the life
come, almost. The ordinary motives don't seem
count; it's the realm of unreason. If a man oi
makes hiv«i wife suffer enough, she finds out that i
loves hini so much she must forgive him. And tl
there 's a great deal in their being bound. Tl
/ can't live together in enmity, ^jiid they must 1
>/ togethe^ I dare say the ofi'enceTiad merely w(
itself out between them."

" Oh, I dare say," Halleck assented, wearily. "Tl
is n't my idea of marriage, though."

" It 's not mine, either," returned Atherton. "T
question is whether it is n't often the fact in regs
to such people's marriages."

A MODERN INSTANCE. 325

"Then they are so many hells," cried Halleck,
"where self-respect perishes with resentment, and
the husband and wife are enslaved to each other.
They ought to be broken up ! "

** I don't think so," said Atherton, soberly. " The
sort of men and women that marriage enslaves would
be vastly more wretched and mischievous if they
were set free. I believe that the hell people make
for themselves is n't at all a bad place for them.
It 's the best place for them."

" Oh, I know your doctrine," said Halleck. rising.
" It 's horrible ! How a man with any kindness in
his heart can harbor such a cold-blooded philosophy
/ don't understand. I wish you joy of it. Good
night," he added, gloomily, taking his hat from the
table. " It serves me right for coming to you with a
matter that I ought to have been man enough to keep
to myself."

Atherton followed him toward the door. " It won't
do you any harm to consider your perplexity in the
light of my philosophy. An unhappy marriage is n't
the only hell, nor the worst."

Halleck turned. " What could be a worse hell than '
marriage without love ? " he demanded, fiercely.

" Love without marriage," said Atherton.

Halleck looked sharply at his friend. Then he
shrugged his shoulders as he turned again and swung
out of the door. " You 're too esoteric for me. It 's
quite time I was gone."

The way through Clover Street was not the shortest
way home ; but he climbed the hill and passed the
little house. He wished to rehabilitate in its pathetic
beauty the image which his friend's conjectures had
jarred, distorted, insulted ; and he lingered for a mo-
ment before the door where this vision had claimed
his pity for anguish that no after serenity could
^pudi^^. The silence in which the house was

326 A MODEBN INSTANCE.

wrapped was Kke another fold of the mystery which
involved him. The night wind rose in a sudden
gust, and made the neighboring lamp flare, and his
shadow wavered across the pavement like the figure
of a drunken man. This, and not that other^ was the
image which he saw.

A MOD£SN INSTANCE. 327

XXVII.

" Of course," said Marcia, when she and Bartley
•ecurred to the subject of her visit to Equity, " I have
ilways felt as if I should like to have you with me,
JO as to keep people from talking, and show that it 's
ill right between you and father.. But if you don't
^ish to go, I can't ask it."

" I understand what you mean, and I should like
jO gratify you," said Bartley. " Not that I care a rap
^hat all the people in Equity think. I *11 tell you
NhoX, I *11 do, 1 11 go down there with, you and hang
•ound a day or two ; and then I '11 come after you,
«rhen your time 's up, and stay a day or two there.
[ could n't stand three weeks in Equity."

In the end, he behaved very handsomely. He
Iressed Flavia out to kill, as he said, in lace hoods
md embroidered long-clothes, for which he tossed
)ver half the ready-made stock of the great dry-goods
itores ; and he made Marcia get herself a new suit
hroughout, with a bonnet to match, which she thought
ihe could not afford, but he said he should manage it
lomehow. In Equity he spared no pains to deepen
he impression of his success in Boston, and he was
ififable with everybody. He hailed his friends across
he street, waving his hand to them, and shouting
)ut a jolly greeting. He visited the hotel office and
he stores to meet the loungers there ; he stepped into
he printing-oflBice, and congratulated Henry Bird on
laving stopped the Free Press and devoted him-
self to job-work. He said, " Hello, Maxilla ! Helios

328 A MODERN INSTANCE.

Hannah ! ** and he stood a good while beside the lattei
at her case, joking and laughing. He had no resent-
ments. He stepped old Morrison on the street and
shook hands with him. " Well, Mr. Morrison, do you
find it as easy to get Hannah's wages advanced nowa-
days as you used to ? "

As for his relations with Squire Gaylord, he flat-
tened public conjecture out like a pancake, as he told
Marcia, by making the old gentleman walk arm-and-
arm with him the whole length of the village street
the morning after his arrival. "And I never saw
your honored father look as if he enjoyed a thing
less," added Bartley. " Well, what *s the use ? He
could n't help himself" They had arrived on Friday
evening, and, after spending Saturday in this social
way, Bartley magnanimously went with Marcia to
church. He was in good spirits, and he shook hands,
right and left, as he came out of church. In the
afternoon he had up the best team from the hotel
stable, and took Marcia the Long Drive, which they
had taken the day of their engagement. He could
not be contented without pushing the perambulator
out after tea, and making Marcia walk beside it, to
let people see them with the baby.

He went away the next morning on an early train,
after a parting which he made very cheery, and a
promise to come down again as soon as he could
manage it. Marcia watched him drive off toward the
station in the hotel barge, and then she went ujjstairs
to their room, where she had been so long sl young
girl, and where now their child lay sleeping. The
little one seemed the least part of all the change that
had taken place. In this room she used to sit and
think of him ; she used to fly up thither when he
came unexpectedly, and order her hair or change a
ribbon of her dress, that she might please him better;
nt these windows she used to sit and watch, and long

A MODERN INSTANCE. 329

for his coming ; from these she saw him go by that
day when she thought she should see him no more,
and took heart of her despair to risk the wild chance
that made him hers. There was a deadly, unsympa-
thetic stillness in the room which seemed £o leave to
her all the responsibility for what she had done.

The days began to go by in a sunny, still, mid-
summer monotony. She pushed the baby out in its
carriage, and saw the summer boarders walking op
driving through the streets ; she returned the visits
that the neighbors paid her ; indoors she helped her
mother about the housework. An image of her
maiden life reinstated itself. At times it seemed
almost as if she had dreamed her marriage. When she
looked at her baby in these moods, she thought she
was dreaming yet. A young wife suddenly parted
for the first time from her husband, in whose intense
possession she has lost her individual existence, and
devolving upon her old separate personality, must
have strong fancies, strange sensations. Marcia*s
marriage had been full of such shocks and storms
as might well have left her dazed in their entire
cessation.

" She seems to be pretty well satisfied here," said
her father, one evening when she had gone upstairs
with her sleeping baby in her arms.

" She seems to be pretty quiet," her mother non-
\xommittally assented.

" M-yes," snarled the Squire, and he fell into a long
re very, while Mrs. Gay lord went on crocheting the
baby a bib, and the smell of the petunia-bed under
the window came in through the mosquito netting.
" M-yes," he resumed, " I guess you 're right. I guess
\t 's only quiet. I guess she ain't any more likely to
be satisfied than the rest of us."

"I don't ser. why she should n't be," said Mrs. Gay-
lord, resenting the compassion in the Squire's tone^

330 A MODERN INSTANCE.

with that curious jealousy a wife feels for her hus-
band's indulgence of their daughter. "^ She 's had hei
\ way."

^^- - " She 's had her way, poor girl, — yes. But I
^ don't know as it satisfies people to have their way,
*^-^ always."

Doubtless Mrs. Gaylord saw that her husband
wished to talk about Marcia, and must be helped to
do so by a little perverseness. "I don't know but
what most of folks would say 't she 'd made out
pretty well. I guess she 's got a good provider."

" She did n't need any provider," said the Squire
haughtily.

" No ; but so long as she would have something,
it's well enough that she should have a provider."
Mrs. Gaylord felt that this was reasoning, and she
smoothed out so much of the bib as she had crocheted
across her knees with an air of self- content. "You
can't have everything in a husband," she added, " and
Marcia ought to know that, by this time."

" I 've no doubt she knows it," said the Squire.

" Why, what makes you think she 's disappointed
any ? " Mrs. Gaylord came plump to the question at
last.

"Nothing she ever said," returned her husband
promptly. " She 'd die, first. When I was up there
I thought she talked about him too much to be feel-
ing just right about him. It was Bartley this and
Bartley that, the whole while. She was always
wanting me to say that I thought she had done right
to marry him. I did sort of say it, at last, — to please
her. But I kept thinking that, if she felt sure of it,
she would n't want to talk it into me so. Now, she
never mentions him at all, if she can help it. She
writes to him every day, and she hears from him often
enough, — postals, mostly ; but she don't talk about
Bartley, Bartley!" The Squire stretched his lips

A MODERN INSTANCE. 331

back from his teeth, and inhaled a long breathy aa ho
rubbed his chin.

'* You don't suppose anything 's happened since you
was up there," said Mrs. Gaylord.

" Nothing but what 's happened from the stai-t.
He *s happened. He keeps happening right along, I
guess."

Mrs. Gaylord found herself upon the point of ex*
periencing a painful emotion of sympathy, but she
saved herself by saying: "Well, Mr. Gaylord, I
don't know as you Ve got anybody but yourself to
thank for it alL You got him here, in the first
place.'* She took one of the kerosene lamps from
the table, and went upstairs, leaving him to follow
at his will.

Marcia sometimes went out to the Squire's office
in the morning, carrying her baby with her, and prop-
ping her with law-books on a newspaper in the mid-
dle of the floor, while she dusted the shelves, or sat
down for one of the desultory talks in the satisfac-
tory silences which she had with her father.

He usually found her there when he came up from
the post-office, with the morning mail in the top of
his hat: the last evening's Events, — which Bart-
ley had said must pass for a letter from him when he
did not write, — and a letter or a postal card from
him. She read these, and gave her father any news
or message that Bartley sent; and then she sat down
at his table to answer them. But one morning, after
she had been at home nearly a month, she received a
letter for which she postponed Bartley's postal. " It 's
from Olive Halleck ! " she said, with a glance at the
handwriting on the envelope ; and she tore it open^
and ran it through. " Yes, and they '11 come here,
any time I let them know. They've been at Ni-
agara, and they 've come down the St. Lawrence to
Quebec, and they will be at North Conway the last

832 A MODERN INSTANCE,

qf next week. Now, father, I want to do something
for them ! " she cried, feeling an American daugh-
ter's right to dispose of her father, and all his pos-
sessions, for the behoof of her friends at any time.
** I want they should come to the house."

" Well, I guess there won't be any trouble about
that, if you think they can put up with our way of
living." He smiled at her over his spectacles.

"Our way of living! Put up with it! I should
hope as much ! They 're just the kind of people that
will put up with anything, because they've had
everything. And because they're all as sweet and
good as they can be. You don't know them, father,
you don't half know them ! Now, just get right
away," — she pushed him out of the chair he had
taken at the table, — " and let me write to Bartley
this instant. He 's got to come when they 're here,
and I '11 invite them to come over at once, before they
get settled at North Conway."

He gave his dry chuckle to see her so fired with
pleasure, and he enjoyed the ardor with which bhe
drove him up out of his chair, and dashed ofif her let-
ters. This was her old way; he would have liked
the prospect of the Hallecks coming, because it made
his girl so happy, if for nothing else.

" Father, I will tell you about Ben Halleck," she
said, pounding her letter to Olive with the thick of
her hand to make the envelope stick. " You know
that lameness of his ? "

" Yes."

" Well, it came from his being thrown down by
another boy when he was at school. He knew the
boy that did it ; and the boy must have known that
Mr. Halleck knew it, but he never said a word to
show that he was sorry, or did anything to make up
xbr it. He 's a man now, and lives there in Boston,
und Ben Halleck often meets him. He says that if

A MODERN INSTANCE. 333

the man can stand it he can. Don't you think that's
grand ? When I heard that, I made up my mind
that I wanted Flavia to belong to Ben Halleck*s
church, — or the church he did belong to ; he doesn't
belong to any now ! "

"He couldn't have got any damages for such a
thing anyway," the Squire said.

Marcia paid no heed to this legal opinion of the
case. She took off her father's hat to put the letters
into it, and, replacing it on his head, '* Now don't you
forget them, father," she cried.

She gathered up her baby and hurried into tlie
house, where she began her preparations for her
guests.

The elder Miss Hallecks had announced with much
love, through Olive, that they should not be able to
come to Equity, and Ben was to bring Olive alone.
Marcia decided that Ben should have the guest-cham-
ber, and Olive should have her room ; she and Bart-
ley could take the little room in the L while their
guests remained.

But when the Hallecks came, it appeared that Ben
had engaged quarters for himself at the hotel, and no
expostulation would prevail with him to come to
Squire Gaylord's house.

" We have to humor him in such things, Mrs. Hub-
bard," OUve explained, to Marcia's distress. "And
most people get on very well without him."

This explanation was of course given in Halleck's
presence. His sister added, behind his back : " Ben
has a perfectly morbid dread of giving trouble in a
house. He won't let us do anything to make him
comfortable at home, and the idea that you should
attempt it drove him distracted. You mustn't mind
it I don't believe he'd have come if his bachelor
freedom could n't have been respected ; and we both
wanted to come very much."

334 A MODERN INSTAKGB. '

The Hallet^ks arrived in the forenoon, and Bartle^
■was due in the evening. But during the afternoon
Marcia had a telegram saying that he could not come
till two days later, and asking her to postpone the
picnic she had planned. The Hallecks were only
going to stay three days, and the suspicion that
Bartley had delayed in order to leave himself as little
time as possible with them rankled in her heart so
that she could not keep it to herself when they met

" Was that what made you give me such a cool
reception ?" he asked, with cynical good-nature.
" Well, you 're mistaken ; I don't suppose I mind the
Hallecks any more than they do me. I '11 tell you
wliy I stayed. Some people dropped down on With-
erby, who were a little out of his line, — fashionable
people that he had asked to let him know if they
ever came to Boston ; and when they did come and
let him know, he did n't know what to do about it,
and he called on me to help him out I Ve been
almost boarding with Witherby for the last three
days ; and I 've been barouching round all over the
moral vineyard with his friends : out to Mount Au-
burn and the Washington Elm, and Bunker Hill, and
Brookline, and the Art Museum, and Lexington;
we 've been down the harbor, and we have n't left a
monumental stone unturned. They were going north,
and they came down here with me ; and I got them
to stop over a day for the picnic."

" You got them to stop over for the picnic ? Why,
/ don't want anybody but ourselves, Bartley ! This
«poils everything."

"The Hallecks are not ourselves," said Bartley.
"And these are jolly people ; they 11 help to make it
go off."

" Who are they ? " asked Marcia, with picvisioDal
fielf-controL

'' Oh, some people thi^ Witherby met in PortiaiMl

A MODERN INSTANCE. 335

at Willett's, who used to have the logging-camp out
here."

" That Montreal woman ! " cried Marcia, with fatal
divination.

Bartley laughed. " Yes, Mrs. Macallister and her
husband. She 's a regular case. She '11 amuse you.",

Marcia's passionate eyes blazed. " She shall never
come to my picnic in the world ! "

" No ? " Bartley looked at her in a certain way.
" She shall come to mine, then. There will be two
picnics. The more the merrier."

Marcia gasped, as if she felt the clutch in which
her husband had her tightening on her heait. She
said that she could only carry her point against him
at the cost of disgraceful division before the Hallecks,
for which he would not care in the least She moved
her head a little from side to side, like one that
breathes a stifling air. " Oh, let her come," she said
quietly, at last.

" Now you 're talking business," said Bartley. " I
have n't forgotten the little snub Mrs. Macallister
gave me, and you '11 see me pay her off."

Marcia made no answer, but went downstairs to
put what face she could upon the matter to Olive,
whom she had left alone in the parlor, while she ran
up with Bartley immediately upon his arrival to de-
mand an explanation of him. In her wrathful haste
she had forgotten to kiss him, and she now remem-
bered that he had not looked at the baby, which she
had all the time had in her arms.

The picnic was to be in a pretty glen three or
four miles north of the village, where there was shade
on a bit of level green, and a spring bubbling out of
a fern-hung blufif : from which you looked down the
glen over a stretch of the river. Marcia had planned
that they were to drive thither in a four-seated carry-
all, but the addition of Bartley's guests disarranged
this.

336 A MODERN INSTANCE.

" There 's only one way," said Mrs. Macallister, who
had driven up with her husband from the hotel to
the Squire's house in a buggy. " Mr. Halleck tells
me he does n't know how to drive, and my husband
does n't know the way. Mr. Hubbard must get in
here with me, and you must take Mr. Macallister
in your party." She looked authoritatively at the
others.

" First rate ! " cried Bartley, climbing to the seat
which Mr. Macallister left vacant. " We '11 lead the
way."

Those who followed had difficulty in keeping their
^^^ggy ^^ sight. Sometimes Bartley stopped long
enough for them to come up, and then, after a word
or two of gay banter, was off' again.

They had taken possession of the picnic grounds,
and Mrs. Macallister was disposing shawls for rugs
and drapery, while Bartley, who had got the horse out,
and tethered where he could graze, was pushing the
buggy out of the way by the shafts, when the carryall
came up.

" Don't we look quite domestic ? " she asked of the
arriving company, in her neat English tone, and her
rising English inflection. "You know I like this,"
she added, singling Halleck out for her remark, and
making it as if it were brilliant. " I like being out
of doors, don't you know. But there 's one thing I
ion't like : we were n't able to get a drop of cham-
pagne at that ridiculous hotel They told us they
were not allowed to keep * intoxicating liquors.'
Now I call that jolly stupid, you know. I don't
know whatever we shall do if you have n't brought
something."

" I believe this is a famous spring," said Halleck.

" How droll you are ! Spring, indeed ! " cried Mrs.
Macallister. " Is tJmt the way you let your brother
make game of people. Miss Halleck ?," She directed

A MODERN INSTANCE. 337

a good deal of her rattle at Olive ; she scarcely spoke
to Marcia, but she was nevertheless furtively observ-
ant of her. Mr. Macallister had his rattle too, which,
after trying it unsatisfactorily upon Marcia, he plied
almost exclusively for Olive. He made puns; he
asked conundrums ; he had all the accomplishments
which keep people going in a lively, mirthful, colo-
nial society ; and he had the idea that he must pay
attentions and promote repartee. His wife and he
played into each other's hands in their jetcx cV esprit ;
and kept Olivers inquiring Boston mind at work in
the vain endeavor to account for and to place them
socially. Bartley hung about Mrs. Macallister, and
was nearly as obedient as her husband. He felt that
the Hallecks disapproved his behavior, and that made
him enjoy it; he was almost rudely negligent of
Olive.

The composition of the party left Marcia and Hal-
leek necessarily to each other, and she accepted this
armngement in a sort of passive seriousness; but
Halleck saw that her thoughts wandered from her
talk with him, and that her eyes were always turning
with painful anxiety to Bartley. After their lunch,
which left them with the whole afternoon before them,
Marcia said, in a timid effort to resume her best
leadership of the affair, " Bartley, don't you think
they would like to see the view from the Devil's
Backbone ? "

" Would you like to see the view from the Devil's
Backbone ? " he asked in turn of Mrs. Macallister.

"And what is the Devil's Backbone ?" she inquired.

** It 's a ridge of rocks on the bluff above here,"
said Bartley, nodding his head vaguely towards the
bank.

'•' And hmu do you get to it ? " asked Mrs. Macallis-
ter, pointing her pretty chin at him in lifting hei
head to look.

338 A MODERN INSTANC18.

« Walk."

" Thanks, then ; I shall try to be satisfied with me
own backbone," said Mrs. Macallister, who had that
freedom in alluding to her anatomy which marks the
superior civilization of Great Britain and its colonial
dependencies.

" Carry you," suggested Bartiey.

" I dare say you *d be very sure-footed ; but I 'd
quite enough of donkeys in the hills at home."

Bartiey roared with the resolution of a man who
will enjoy a joke at his own expense.

Marcia turned away, and referred her invitation,
with a glance, to Olive.

" I don't believe Miss Halleck wants to go," said
Mr. Macallister.

" I could n*t," said Olive, regretfully. " I 've neither
the feet nor the head for climbing over high rocky
places.'*

Marcia was about to sink down on the grass again,
from which she had risen, in the hopes that her
proposition would succeed, when Bartiey called out :
" Why don't you show Ben the DeviVs Backbone ?
The view is worth seeing, Halleck."

" Would you like to go? " asked Marcia, listlessly.

" Yes, I should, very much," said Halleck, scram*
bling to his feet, " if it won't tire you too much ?"

" Oh, no," said Marcia, gently, and led the way.
She kept ahead of him in the climb, as she easily
could, and she answered briefly to all he said. When
they arrived at the top, " There is the view," she said
coldly. She waved her hand toward the valley ; she
made a sound in her throat as if she would speak
again, but her voice died in one broken sob.

Halleck stood with downcast eyes, and trembled.
He durst not look at her, not for what he should see
in her face, but for what she should see in his : the
anguish of intelligence %e helpless pity. He beat

A MODERN INSTANCE. 339

the rock at his feet with the ferule of his stick, and
could not lift his head again. When he did, she
stood turned from him and drying her eyes on her
handkerchief. Their looks met, and she trusted her
self-betrayal to him without any attempt at excuse
or explanation.

" I will send Hubbard up to help you down/' said
Halleck.

" Well," she answered, sadly.

He clambered down the side of the blufiF, and
Hartley started to his feet in guilty alarm when he
saw him approach. " What 's the matter ? "

" Nothing. But I think you had better help Mrs.
Hubbard down the bluff."

"Oh!" cried Mrs. Macallister. "A panic! how
interesting ! "

Halleck did not respond. He threw himself on
the grass, and left her to change or pursue the sub-
ject as she liked. Bartley showed more savoir-faire
when he came back with Marcia, after an absence
long enough to let her remove the traces of her
tears.

" Pretty rough on your game foot, Halleck. But
Marcia had got it into her head that it was n*t safe to
trust you to help her down, even after you had helped
her up."

*' Ben," said Olive, when they were seated in the
train the next day, " why did you send Marcia's hus-
band up there to her ? " She had the effect of not
having rested till she could ask him.

" She was crying," he answered.

"What do you suppose could have been the
matter ? "

" What you do : she was miserable about his co-
quetting with that woman."

** Yes. I could see th» ib^ hated terribly to have

340 A MODERN INSTANCK

her come ; and that she felt put down by her all the
time. What kind of person is Mrs. Macallister ? "

"Oh, a fool," replied Halleck. "All flirts are
fools."

" I think she 's more wicked than foolish."

" Oh, no, flirts are better than they seem, — perhaps
because men are better than flirts think. But they
make misery just the same."

" Yes," sighed Olive. " Poor Marcia, poor Marcia 1
But I suppose that, if it were not Mrs. Macallister, it
would be some one else."

" Given Bartley Hubbard, — yes."

" And given Marcia. Well, — I don't like being
mixed up with other people^s unhappiness, Ben.
It 's dangerous."

" I don't like it either. But you can't very well
keep out of people's unhappiness in this world,"

" No," assented Olive, ruefully.

The talk fell, and Halleck attempted to read a
newspaper, while Olive looked out of the window.
She presently turned to him. "Did you' ever fancy
any resemblance between Mrs. Hubbard and the
photograph of that girl we used to joke about, — your
lost love ? "

" Yes," said Halleck.

" What 's become of it, — the photograph ? I can't
find it any more; I wanted to show it to her- one
day."

" I destroyed it. I burnt it the first evening after
I had met Mrs. Hubbard. It seemed to me that it
was n't right to keep it."

• " Why, you don't think it was her photograph ! **
V " I think it was," said Halleck. He took up his
paper again, and read on till they left the cars.

That evening, when Halleck came to his sister's
room to bid her good night, she threw her arms
' round his neck, and kissed his plain^ common fiace, in
which she saw a heavenly beauty.

A MODERN INSTANCE. 341

" Ben, dear," she said, " if you don't turn out the
happiest man in the world, I shall say there 's no use
in being good ! "

" Perhaps you *d better say that after all I was n't
good," he suggested, with a melancholy smile.

" I shall know better," she retorted.

" Why, what 's the matter, now ? "

" Notifiing. I was only thinking. Good night ! "

" Good night," said Halleck. " You seem to think
my room is betuor than my company, good as I am."

" Yes," she said, laughing in that breathless way
which means weeping next, with women. Her eyes
glistened.

" Well," said Halleck, limping out of the room,
" you 're quite good-looking with your hair down,
Olive."

" All girls are," she answered. She leaned out of
her doorway to watch him as he limped down the
corridor to his own room. There was something
pathetic, something disappointed and weary in the
movement of his figure, and when she shut her door,
and ran back to her mirror, she could not see th6
good-looking girl there for her tears.

342 A MODERN INSTANC&

xxvin.

" Hello ! " said Bartley, one day after the autumn'
had brought back all the summer wanderers to the
city, *' I have n't seen you for a month of Sundays.**
He had Eicker by the hand, and he pulled him into
a doorway to be a little out of the rush on the crowded
pavement, while they chatted.

" That 's because I can't afford to go to the White
Mountains, and swell round at the aristocratic sum-
mer resorts like some people," returned Eicker. "I 'm
a horny-handed son of toil, myself."

" Pshaw ! " said Bartley. " Who is n't ? I \e been
here hard at it, except for three days at one time and
five at another."

" Well, all I can say is that I saw in the Eecord
personals, that Mr. Hubbard, of the Events, was
spending the summer months with his father-in-law.
Judge Gaylord, among the spurs of the White Moun-
tains. I supposed you wrote it yourself. You're
full of ideas about journalism."

" Oh, come ! I would n't work that joke any more.
Look here, Eicker, I '11 tell you what I want. I want
you to dine with me."

" Dines people ! " said Eicker, in an awestricken
aside.

*' No, — I mean business ! You Ve never seen my
kid yet : and you 've never seen my house. I want
you to come. We 've all got back, and we 're in nice
running order. What day are you disengaged ? '*

"Let me see," said Eicker, thoughtf^y, "So

A MODERN INSTANCE. 343

many engagements! Wait! I could squeeze your
dinner in some time J\ext month, Hubbard."

"All right. But suppose we say next Sunday.
Six is the hour."

" Six ? Oh, I can't dine in the middle of the fore-
noon that way ! Make it later ! "

" Well, we '11 say one P. m., then. I know your
dinner hour. We shall expect you."

" Better not, till I come." Bartley knew that this
was Kicker's way of accepting, and he said nothing,
but he answered his next question with easy joviality.
" How are you making it with old Witherby ? "

" Oh, hand over hand ! Witherby and I were
formed for each other. By, by ! "

" No, hold on ! Why don't you come to the club
any more ? "

" We-e-U ! The club is n't what it used to be,*'
said Bartley, confidentially.

" Why, of course ! It is n't just the thing for a
gentleman moving in the select circles of Clover
Street, as you do ; but why not come, sometimes, in
the character of distinguished guest, and encourage
your humble friends ? I was talking with a lot of the
fellows about you the other night."

" Were they abusing me ? "

"They were speaking the truth about you, and
I stopped them. I told them that sort of thing
would n't do. Why, you 're getting fat ! "

" You 're behind the times, Eicker," said Bartley.
" I began to get fat six months ago. I don't wonder
the Chronicle Abstract is running down on your
hands. Come round and try my tivoli on Sunday.
That 's what gives a man girth, my boy." He tapped
Eicker lightly on his hollow waistcoat, and left him
with a wave of his hand.

Eicker leaned out of the doorway and followed
;bim down the street with a troubled eye. He had

«■

344 A MODERN INSTANCE.

taken stock in Bartley, as the saying is, and his heart
misgave him that he should lose on the investment ;
he could not have sold out to any of their friends for
twenty cents on the dollar. Nothing that any one
could lay his finger on had happened, and yet there
had been a general loss of confidence in that particu-
lar stock. Kicker himself had lost confidence in it,
and when he lightly mentioned that talk at the club,
with a lot of the fellows, he had a serious wish to get
at . Bartley some time, and see what it was that was
beginning to make people mistrust him. The fellows
who liked him at first and wished him well, and be-
lieved in his talent, had mostly dropped him. Bart-
ley's associates were now the most raffish set on the
press, or the green hands ; and something had brought
this to pass in less than two years. Eicker had be-
lieved that it was Witherby ; at the club he had con-
tended that it was Bartley's association with With-
erby that made people doubtful of him. As for those
ideas that Bartley had advanced in their discussion
of journalism, he had considered it all mere young
man's nonsense that Bartley would outgrow. But
now, as he looked at Bartley's back, he had his mis
givings; it struck him as the back of a degenerate
man, and that increasing bulk seemed not to repre-
sent an increase of wholesome substance, but a corky,
buoyant tissue, materially responsive to some sort of
moral drv-rot.

Bartley pushed on to the Events office in a blithe
humor. Witherby had recently advanced his salary ;
he was giving him fifty dollars a week now ; and
Bartley had made himself necessary in more ways
than one. He was not only readily serviceable,
but since he had volunteered to write those adver-
tising articles for an advance of pay, he was in pos-
session of business facts that could be made very
uncomfortable to Witherby in the event of a dis-

A MODERN INSTANCE. 345

agreement. Witherby not only paid him well, but
treated him well ; he even suffered Hartley to bully
him a little, and let him foresee the day when
he must be recognized as the real editor of the
Events.

At home everything went on smoothly. The baby
was well and growing fast ; she was beginning to ex-
plode airy bubbles on her pretty lips that a fond
superstition might interpret as papa and mamma.
She had passed that stage in which a man regards
his child with despair; she had passed out of slip-
pery and evasive doughiness into a firm tangibility
that made it some pleasure to hold her.

Hartley liked to take her on his lap, to feel the
spring of her little legs, as she tried to rise on her
feet; he liked to have her stretch out her arms to
him from her mother's embrace. The innocent ten-
derness which he experienced at these moments was
satisfactory proof to him that he was a very good
fellow, if not a good man. When he spent an even-
ing at home, with Flavia in his lap for half an hour
after dinner, he felt so domestic that he seemed to
himself to be spending all his evenings at home now.
Once or twice it had happened, when the housemaid
was out, that he went to the door with the baby on
his arm, and answered the ring of Olive and Ben
Halleck, or of Olive and one or both of the interme-
diary sisters.

The Hallecks were the only people at all apt to
call in the evening, and Bartley ran so little chance
of meeting any one else, when he opened the door
with Flavia on his arm, that probably he would not
have thought it worth while to put her down, even
if he had not rather enjoyed meeting them in that
domestic phase. He had not only long felt how in-
tenaaly Olive disliked him, but he had observed that
Bomehow it embarrassed Ben Halleck to see him io

346 A MODERN INSTANCE.

his character of devoted young father. At those
times he used to rally his old friend upon getting
maiTied, and laughed at the confusion to which the
joke put him. He said more than once afterwards,
that he did not see what fun Ben Halleck got out of
coming there ; it must bore even such a dull fellow
as he was to sit a whole evening like that and not
say twenty words. " Perhaps he 's livelier when I 'm
not here, though," he suggested. " I always did seem
to throw a wet blanket on Ben Halleck." He did
not at all begrudge Halleck's having a better time in
his absence if he could.

One night when the bell rung Bartley rose, and
saying, " I wonder which of the tribe it is this time,"
went to the door. But when he opened it, instead
of hearing the well-known voices, Marcia listened
through a hesitating silence, which ended in a loud
laugh from without, and a cry from her husband of
" Well, I swear ! Why, you infamous old scoundrel,
come in out of the wet ! " There ensued, amidst
Bartley's voluble greetings, a noise of shy shuffling
about in the hall, as of a man not perfectly master
of his footing under social pressure, a sound of husky,
embarrassed whispering, a dispute about doffing an
overcoat, and question as to the disposition of a hat,
and then Bartley reappeared, driving iDefore him the
lank, long figure of a man who blinked in the flash of
gaslight, as Bartley turned it all up in the chandelier
overhead, and rubbed his immense hands in cruel
embarrassment at the beauty of Marcia, set like a
jewel in the pretty comfort of the little parlor.

" Mr. Kinney, Mrs. Hubbard," said Bartley ; and
having accomplished the introduction, lie hit Eanney
a thwack between the shoulders with the flat of his
hand that drove him stumbling across Marcia's foot-
stool into the seat on the sofa to which she had point*
ed him. " You old fool, where did you Gomt^ fioin t**

A MODERN mSTANCB. 347

The refined warmth of Bartley's welcome seemed
to make Kinney feel at home, in spite of his trepida-
tions at Marcia's presence. He bobbed his head for-
ward, and stretched his mouth wide, in one of his
vast, silent laughs. " Better ask where I *m goin' to.**

" Well, I 'U ask that, if it '11 be any accommoda-
tion. Where you going ? "

'iJlUnois."

f For a divorce ? "

1* Try again."

^o get married ? "

" Maybe, after I *ve made my pile." Kinney's eyes
wandered about the room, and took in its evidences
of prosperity, with simple, unenvious admiration ; he
ended with a furtive gUmpse of Marcia, who seemed
to be a climax of good luck, too dazzling for contem-
plation ; he withdrew his glance from her as if hurt
by her splendor, and became serious.

" Well, you 're the last man I ever expected to see
again," said Bartley, sitting down with the baby in
his lap, and contemplating Kinney with deliberation.
Kinney was dressed in a long frock-coat of cheap
diagonals, black cassimere pantaloons, a blue neck-
tie, and a celluloid collar. He had evidently had one
of his encounters with a cheap clothier, in which the
Jew had triumphed ; but he had not yet visited a
barber, and his hair and beard were as shaggy as they
were in the logging-camp ; his hands and face were
as brown as leather. "But I'm as gl,ad," Bartley
added, " as if you had telegraphed you were coming.
Of course, you 're going to put up with us." He had
observed Kinney's awe of Marcia, and he added this
touch to let Kinney see that he was master in his
house, and lord even of that radiant presence.

Kinney started in real distress. * Oh, no ! I
could n't do it ! I 've got all my things round at tha
Quincy House."

348 A MODERN INSTANCE.

" Trunk or bag ? " asked Bartley.

" WeU, it *s a bag ; but — "

" All right. We *11 step round and get it together.
I generally take a little stroll out, after dinner," said
Bartley, tranquilly.

Kinney was beginning again, when Marcia, who had
been stealing some covert looks at him under her eye-
lashes, while she put together the sewing she was at
work on, preparatory to going upstairs with the baby,
joined Bartley in his invitation.

" You wont make us the least trouble, Mr. Kin-
ney," she said. " The guest-chamber is all ready, and
we shall be glad to have you stay."

Kinney must have felt the note of sincerity in her
words. He hesitated, and Bartley clinched his tacit
assent with a quotation : " ' The chief ornament of a
house is the guests who frequent it.' Who says
that ? "
1/ Kinney's little blue eyes twinkled. "Old Emer-

son.'*

" Well, I agree with him. We do n't care anything
about your company, Kinney ; but we want you for
decorative purposes."

Kinney opened his mouth for another noiseless
laugh, and said, " Well, fix it to suit yourselves."

*' I '11 carry her up for you," said Bartley to Marcia,
who was stooping forward to take the baby from him,
" if Mr. Kinney will excuse us a moment."

" All right," said Kinney.

'Bartley ventured upon this bold move, because he
had found that it was always best to have things out
with Marcia at once, and, if she was going to take his
hospitality to Kinney in bad part, he wanted to get
through the trouble. " That was very nice of you,
Marcia," he said, when they were in their own room.
** My invitation rather slipped out, and I did n't know
bow you would like it"

A MODERN INSTANCE. 349

" Oh, I 'm very glad to have him stay. I never for-
get about his wanting to lend you money that time,"
said Marcia, opening the baby's crib.

"You're a mighty good fellow, Marcia!'' cried
Bartley, kissing her over the top of the baby's head
as she took it from him. " And I 'm not half good
enough for you. You never forget a benefit. Nor an
injury either," he added, with a laugh. "And I'm
afraid that I forget one about as easily as the other."

Marcia's eyes suffused themselves at this touch of
sdlf-analysis which, coming from Bartley, had its
sadness ; but she said nothing, and he was eager to
escape and get back to their guest. He told her he
should go out with Kinney, and that she was not to
sit up, for they might be out late.

In his pride, he took Kinney down to the Events
office, and unlocked it, and lit the gas, so as to show
hiui the editorial rooms ; and then he passed him into
one of the theatres, where they saw part of an Offen-
bach opera ; after that they went to the Parker House,
and had a New York stew. Kinney said he must be
off by the Sunday-night, train, and Bartley thought
it well to concentrate as many dazzling effects upon
him as he could in the single evening at his disposal.
He only regretted that it was not the club night, for
he woiJd have liked to take Kinney round, and show
him some of the fellows.

" But never mind," he said. " I 'm going to have
one of them dine with us to-morrow, and you '11 see
aV)Out the best of the lot."

" Well, sir," observed Kinney, when they bad got
back into Bartley's parlor, and he was again drinking
in its prettiness in the subdued light of the shaded
argand burner, " I hain't seen anything yet that suits
me much better than this."

" It is n't bad," said Bartley. He had got up a
plate of crackers and two bottles of tivoli, and was

350 A MODERN INSTANCE.

opening the first. He ofiTered the beaded goblet to
Kinney.

" Thank you," said Kinney. " Not any. I never
do."

Bartley quaffed half of it in tolerant content. " I
always do. Find it takes my nerves down at the end
of a hard week's work. Well, now, tell me some-
thing about yourself. What are you going to do in
Illinois?"

" Well, sir, I Ve got a friend out there that *8 got a
coal mine, and he thinks he can work me in some-
how. I guess he can ; I 've tried pretty much every-
thing. Why don't you come out there and start a
newspaper ? We Ve got a town that 's bound to
grow."

It amused Bartley to hear Kinney bragging already
of a town that he had never seen. Hie winked a
good-natured disdain over the rim of the goblet which
he tilted on his lips. "And give up my chances
here ? " Jie said, as he set the goblet down.

" Well, that 's so ! " said Kinney, responding to the
sense of the wink. '* I '11 tell you what, Bartley, I
did n't know as you 'd speak to me when I rung your
bell to-night. But thinks I to myself, *Dumn it!
look here ! He can't more 'n slam the door in your
face, anyway. And you 've hankered after him so
long, — go and take your chances, you old buzzard!'
And so I got your address at the Events office
pretty early this morning ; and I went round all day
screwing my courage up, as old Macbeth says, — or
Eitchloo, /don't know which it was, — and at last I
did get myself so that I toed the mark like a little

man."

Bartley laughed so that he could hardly get the
«ork out of the second bottle.

*' You see," said Kinney, leaning forward, and
taking Bartley's plump, soft knee between bis thumb

A MODERN INSTANCE. 351

and forefinger, "I felt awfully about tKe way we
parted that night. I felt had. I had n't acted well,
just to my own mind, and it cut me to have you
refuse my money ; it cut me all the worse because I
saw that you was partly right ; I had rCt been quite
fair with you. But I always did admire you, and
you know it. Some them little things you used to
get off in the old Free Press — well, I could see 't
you was smart And I liked you; and it kind o'
hurt me when I thought you 'd been makin' fun
o' me to that woman. Well, I could see 't I was a
dumned old fool, afterwards. And I always wanted
to tell you so. And I always did hope that I should
be able to offer you that money again, twice over,
and get you to take it just to show that you did n't
bear malice." Bartley looked up, with quickened
interest. " But I can't do it now, sir," added Kinney.

" Why, what 's happened ? " asked Bartley, in a
disappointed tone, pouring out his second glass from
his second bottle.

" Well, sir," said Kinney, with a certain reluctance,
"I undertook to provision th<i camp on spec, last
winter, and — well, you know, I always run a litde
on food for the brain," — Bartley broke into a remi-
niscent cackle, and Kiimey smiled forlornly, — " and
thinks I, 'Dumn it, I '11 give 'e/tn the real thing, every
time.' And I got hold of a health-food circular ; and
I sent on for a half a dozen barrels of their crackers
and half a dozen of their flour, and a lot of cracked
cocoa, and I put the camp on a health-food basis. I
calculated to bring those fellows out in the spring
physically vigorous and mentally enlightened. But
my goodness ! After the first bakin' o' that flour and
the first round o' them crackers, it was all up ! Fel-
lows got so mad that I suppose if I had n't gone
back to doughnuts, and sody biscuits, and Japan tea.
they 'd V burnt the camp dowa Of course I yielded.
But it ruined me^ Bartley ; it bu'st me."

352 A MODERN INSTANCE.

Bartley dropped his arms upon the table, and, hid-
ing his face upon them, laughed and laughed again.

" Well, sir," said Kinney, with sad satisfaction,
" I 'm glad to see that you don't need any money
from me." He had been taking another survey of
the parlor and the dining-room beyond. "I don*t
know as I ever saw anybody much better fixed. I
siiould say that you was a success ; and you deserve
it. You 're a smart fellow, Bart, and you *re a good
fellow. You *re a generous fellow." Kinney's voice
shook with emotion.

Bartley, having lifted his wet and flushed face,
managed to say : " Oh, there 's nothing mean about
me, Kinney," as he felt blindly for the beer bottles,
which he shook in succession with an evident sur-
prise at finding them empty.

" You Ve acted like a brother to me, Bartley Hub-
bard," continued Kinney, " and I sha'n't forget it in
a hurry. I guess it would about broke my heart, if
you had n't taken it just the way you did to-night
I should like to see the man that did n't use you well,
or the woman, either ! " said Kinney, with vague de-
fiance. " Though they don't seem to have done so bad
by you," he added, in recognition of Marcia's merit
'* I should say thai was the biggest part of your luck
She 's a lady, sir, every inch of her. Mighty different
stripe from that Montreal woman that cut up so that
night"

'* Oh, Mrs. Macallister was n't such a scamp, after
all," said Bartley, with magnanimity.

" Well, sir, you can say so. I ain't going ta be too
strict with a girl ; but I like U- see a married woman
act like a married woman. Now, I don't think you'd
catch Mrs. Hubbard flirting with a young fellow the
way that woman went on with you that night?"
Bartley grinned. "Well, sir, you're getting aloiViF
and you 're happy."

A MODERN INSTANCE. 353

" Perfect clam," said Bartley.

" Such a position as you Ve' got, — such a house,
Buch a wife, and such a baby ! Well," said Kinuey,
rising, " it 's a little too much for me,"

" Want to go to bed ? " asked Bartley.

" Yes, I guess I better turn in," returned Kinney,
despairingly.

" Show you the way."

Bartley tripped up stairs with Kinney's bag, which
they had left standing in the hall, while Kinney
creaked carefully after him ; and so led the way to
the guest-chamber, and turned up the gaslight, which
had been left burning low.

Kinney stood erect, dwarfing the room, and looked
round on the pink chintzing, and soft carpet, and
white coverleted bed, and lace-hooded dressing-mir-
ror, with meek veneration. "Well, I swear!" He
said no more, but sat hopelessly down, and began to
pull off his boots.

He was in the same humble mood the next morn-
ing, when, having got up inordinately early, he was
found tiying to fix his mind on a newspaper by Bart-
ley, who came down late to the Sunday breakfast,
and led his guest into the dining-room. Marcia, in
a bewitching morning-gown, was already there, hav-
ing put the daintier touches to the meal herself; and
the baby, in a fresh white dress, was there tied into
its arm-chair with a napkin, and beating on the table
with a spoon. Bartley's nonchalance amidst all this
impressed Kinney with a yet more poignant sense of
his superiority, and almost deprived him of the
powers of speech. When after breakfast Bartley
took him out to Cambridge on the horse-cars, and
showed him the College buildings, and Memorial
Hall, and the Washington Elm, and Mount Auburn,
Kinney fell into such a cowed and broken condition,

Uiat something had to be specially done to put him

354 A MODERN INSTANCE.

in repair against Ricker's coming to dinner. Marcia
luckily thought of asking him if he would like to see
her kitchen. In this region Kinney found himself
at home, and praised its neat perfection with profes-
sional intelligence. Bartley followed them round
with Flavia on his arm, and put in a jocose word here
and there, when he saw Kinney about to fall a prey
to his respect for Marcia, and so kept him going till
Eicker rang. He contrived to give Bicker a hint of
the sort of man he had on his hands, and by their
joint efibrt they had Kinney talking about himself at
dinner before he knew what he was about He
could not help talking well upon this theme, and he
had them so vividly interested, as he poured out ad-
venture after adventure in his strange career, that
Bartley began to be proud of him.

" Well, sir," said Eicker, when he came to a pause,
*' you 've lived a romance."

" Yes," replied Kinney, looking at Bartley /or his
approval, " and I 've always thought that, if I ever
got run clean ashore, high and dry, I 'd make a stag-
ger to write it out and do something with it. Do
you suppose I could ? "

" I promise to take it for the Sunday edition of
the Chronicle Abstract, whenever you get it ready,*'
said Eicker.

Bartley laid his hand on his friend*s arm. "It ^8
bought up, old fellow. That narrative — ' Confessions
of an Average American ' — belongs to the Events."

They had their laugh at this, and then Eicker said
to Kinney : " But look here, my friend ! What 's to
prevent our interviewing you on this little personal
history of yours, and using your material any way
we like ? It seems to me that you Ve put your head
in the lion's mouth."

" Oh, I 'm amongst gentlemen," said Kinney, with
an innocent swagger. " I understand that"

A MODERN INSTANCE. 855

•• Well, I don't know about it," said Eicker. " Hub-
bard, here, is used to all sorts of hard names ; but
I Ve never had that epithet applied to me before."

Kinney doubled himself up over the side of his
chair in recognition of Eicker's joke ; and when Bart-
ley rose and asked him if he would come into the parlor
and have a cigar, he said, with a wink, no, he guessed
he would stay with the ladies. He waited with
great mystery till the folding-doors were closed, and
Bartley had stopped peeping through the crevice be-
tween them, and then he began to disengage from
his watch-chain the golden nugget, shaped to a rude
sphere, which hung there. This done, he asked if he
might put it on the little necklace — a christening gift
from Mrs: Halleck — which the baby had on, to see
how it looked. It looked very well, like an old Eo-
man holla, though neither Kinney nor Marcia knew
it. "Guess we'll let it stay there," he suggested,
timidly.

" Mr. Kinney ! " cried Marcia, in amaze, " I can't
let you!"

" Oh, do now, ma'am I " pleaded the big fellow, sim-
ply. " If you knew how much good it does me, you
would. Why, it's been like heaven to me to get
into such a home as this for a day, — it has indeed."

" Like heaven ? " said Marcia, turning pale. " Oh,
my ! "

" Well, I don't mean any harm. What I mean is,
I 've knocked about the world so much, and never
had any home of my own, that to see folks as happy
as you be makes me happier than I 've been since I
don't know when. Now, you let it stay. It was the
first piece of gold I picked up in Caiiforny when
I went out there iij '50, and it's about the last;
I did n't have v ^ood luck. Well, of course ! I
know I ain't fit to give it ; but I want to do it. I
think Bartley 's about the greatest fellow and he 'a

356 A MODERN INSTANCE.

the best fellow this world can show. That 's the way
I feel about him. And I want to do it. Sho ! the
thing wa*n't no use to me ! "

Marcia always gave her maid of all work Sunday
afternoon, and she would not trespass upon her rule
because she had guests that day. Except for the
confusion to which Kinney's unexpected gift had
put her, she would have waited for him to join the
others before she began to clear away the dinner;
but now she mechanically began, and Kinney, to
whom these domestic occupations were a second na-
ture, joined her in the work, equally absent-minded
iu the fervor of his petition:

Bartley suddenly flung open the doors. " My dear,
Mr. Eicker says he must be go — " He discovered
Marcia with the dish of potatoes in her hand, and
Kinney in the act of carrying off the platter of tur-
key. " Look here, Eicker ! "

Kinney came to himself, and, opening his mouth
above the platter wide enough to swallow the re-
mains of the turkey, slapped his leg with the hand
that he released for the purpose, and ?^houted, " The
niling passion, Bartley, the ruling passion ! "

The men roared ; but Marcia, even while she took
in the situation, did not see anything so ridiculous Id
it as they. She smiled a little in sympathy with
their mirth, and then said, with a look and tone
which he had not seen or heard in her since the day
of their picnic at Equity, " Come, see what Mr. Kin-
ney has given baby, Bartley."

They sat up talking Kinney over after he was gone;
but even at ten o'clock Bartley said he should nol
go to bed ; he felt like writing.

4 MODEBN INSTiLNCB. 357

XXIX.

Bartley lived well now. He felt that he could
afford it, on fifty dollai*s a week ; and yet somehow he
had always a sheaf of unpaid bills on hand. Eent
was so much, the butcher so much, the grocer so
much ; these were the great outlays, and he knew
just what they were ; but the sum total was always
much larger than he expected. At a pinch, he bor-
rowed; but he 'did not let Marcia know of this, for
she would have starved herself to pay the debt;
what was worse, she would have wished him to
starve with her. He kept the purse, and he kept the
accounts ; he was master in his house, and he meant
to be so.

The pinch always seemed to come in the matter
of clothes, and then Marcia gave up whatever she
wanted, and said she must make the old things do.
Bartley hated this ; in his position he must dress
well, and, as there was nothing mean about him, he
wished Marcia to dress well to. Just at this time he
had set his heart on her having a certain sacque
which they had noticed in a certain window one day
when they were on Washington Street together. \M.
surprised her a week later by bringing the sacque
home to her, and he surprised himself with a sealskin
cap whicli he had long coveted : it was coming win-
ter, now, and for half a dozen days of the season he
would really need the cap. There would be many
days when it would be comfortable, and many others
when it would be tolerable ; and he looked so hand *

808 A MODERN INSTANCE

Bome in it that Marcia herself could not quite feel
that it was an extravagance. She askecl him how
they could afford both of the things at once, but he
answered with easy mystery that he had provided
the funds ; and she went gayly round with him to
call on the Hallecks that evening and show off her
sacque. It wus so stylish and pretty that it won hei
a compliment from Ben Halleck, wliich she noticed
because it was the first compliment, or anything like
it, that he had ever paid her. She repeated it to
Bartley. " He said that I looked like a Hungarian
princess that he saw in Vienna."

" Well, I suppose it has a hussar kind of look with
that fur trimming and that broad braid. Did any-
body say anything about my cap?*' asked Bartley
with burlesque eagerness.

" Oh, poor Bartley ! " she cried in laughing triumpL
"I don't believe any of them noticed it; and you
kept twirling it round in your hands all the time to'
make them look."

" Yes, I did my level best," said Bartley.

They had a jolly time about that. Marcia was
proud of her sacque ; when she took it off and held
it up by the loop in the neck, so as to realize its pret-
tiness, she said she should make it last three winters
at least ; and she leaned over and gave Bartley a
sweet kiss of gratitude and affection, and told him
not to try to make up for it by extm work, but to
help her serin, p for it.

" I *d rathei do the extra work," he protested. In
fact he already had the extra work done. It was
something that he felt he had the right to sell out-
side of the Events, and he carried his manuscript to
Kicker and offered it to him for his Sunday edition.

Eicker read the title and ran his eye down the first
slip, and then glanced quickly at Hubbard. ** Ton
don't mean it ? "

JL MODEB-V TiNSTANCE. 359

•^ Yes I do," ^id Bartley. " Why not ? "

" I thought he was going to use the material him**
fielf some time.'*

Bartley laughed. " He use the material I Why, he
can't write, any more than a hen ; he can make tracks
on paper, but nobody would print 'em, much less buy
'em. I know him , he 's all right. It would n't
hurt the material for his purpose, any way ; and he 'U
be tickled to death when lie sees it. If he ever does.
Look here, Eicker ! " added Bartley, with a touch of
anger at the hesitation in his friend's face, " if you 're
going to spring any conscientious scruples on me, I
prefer to offer my manuscript elsewhere. I give you
the first chance at it ; but it need n't go begging. T)o
you suppose I 'd do this if I did n't understand the
man, and know just how he 'd take it ? '*

" Why, of course, Hubbard ! I beg your pardon.
If you say it 's* all right, I am bound to be satisfied.
What do you want for it ? "

" Fifty dollars."

" That 's a good deal, is n't it ? "

" Yes, it is. But I can't afford to do a dishonoratle
thiug for less money," said Bartley, with a wink.

The next Sunday, when Marcia came home from
church, she went into the parlor a moment to speak
to Bartley before she ran upstairs to the baby. He
was writing, and she put her left hand on his back
while with her right she held her sacque slung over
her shoulder by the loop, and leaned forward with a
wandering eye on the papers that strewed the tabla
In that attitude he felt her pause and grow absorbed,
and then rigid ; her light caress tightened into a grip.
*" Why, how base ! How shameful ! That man shall
never enter my doors again ! Why, it 's stealing ! "

"What'i the matter? What are you talking
koout , Bartley J^oked up with a frown of prepa-
ration.

360 A MODERN INSTANCE.

" This ! " cried Marcia, snatching up the Chronicle.
Abstract, at wliich she had been looking. ** Have n*t
you seen it ? Here *s Mr. Kinney's life all written
out ! And when he said that he was going to keep
it and write it out himself. That thief has stolen
it!"

" Look out how you talk " said Bartley. " Kinney 's
an old fool, and he never could have written it out in
the worid — "

" That makes no difference. He said that he told
the things because he knew he was among gentlemen.
A great gentleman Mr. Eicker is ! And I thought
he was so nice ! " The tears sprang to her eyes,
which flashed again. " I want you to break off with
him, Bartley ; I. don't want you to have anything to
do with such a thief ! And I shall be proud to tell
everybody that yoir*ve broken off with him because he
was a thief. Oh, Bartley — "

*• Hold your tongue ! " shouted her husband.

'^ I worCt hold my tongue ! And if you defend-—"

"Don't you say a word against Eicker. It's all
right, I tell you. You don't understand such things.
You don't know what you 're talking about. I — I —
I wrote the thing myself."

He could face her, but she could not face him.
There was a subsidence in her proud attitude, as if
her physical strength had snapped with her breaking
spirit.

"There 's no theft about it," Bartley went on.
" Kinney would never write it out, and if he did,
I 've put the material in better shape for him here
than he could ever have given it. Six weeks from
now nobody will remember a word of it; and he
could tell the same things right over again, and they
would be just as good as new." He went on to aigae
the point.

She seemed not to have listened to him. Wam

A MODERN INSTANCE. 361

he stopped, she said, in a quiet, passionless voice, " I
suppose you wrote it to get money for this sacque/*

" Yes ; I did," replied Bartley. ^

She dropped it on the floor at his feet. " I shall
never wear it again," she said in the same tone, and
a little sigh escaped her.

" Use your pleasure about tliat," said Bartley, sit-
ting down to his writing again, as she turned and left
the room.

She went upstairs and came down immediately,
with the gold nugget, which she had wrenched from
the baby's necklace, and laid it on the paper befoje
him. " Perhaps you would like to spend it for tivoli
beer/' she suggested. " Flavia shall not wear it.*"

" I '11 get it fitted on to my watch-chain." Bartley
slipped it into his waistcoat pocket.

The sacque still lay on the floor at his feet ; he
pulled his chair a little forward and put his feet on
it. He feigned to write awhile longer, and then he
folded up his papers, and wept out, leaving Marcia
to make her Sunday dinner alone. When he came
home late at night, he found the sacque where she
had dropped it, and with a curse he picked it up and
hung it on the hat- rack in the hall.

He slept in the guest-chamber, and at times during
the night the child cried in Marcia's room and waked
him ; and tlien he thought he heard a sound of sob-
bing which was not the child's. In the morning,
when he came down to breakfast, Marcia met him
with swollen eyes.

" Bartley," she said tremulously, " I wish you would \
tell me how you felt justified in writing out Mr.
Kinney's life in that way."

" My dear," said Bartley, with perfect amiability,
for he had slept off his anger, and he really felt sorry
to see her so unhappy, " I would tell you almost any-
thing you want on any other subject ; but I think we

362 A. MODERN INSTilNCE.

had better remand that one to the safety of silence^
and go upon the general supposition that I know
what I *m about."

" I can't, Bartley ! "

" Can't you ? Well, that 's a pity." He pulled his
chair to the breakfast-table. " It seems to me that
girl's imagination always fails her on Mondays. Can
she never give us anything but hash and corn-bread
when she 's going to wash ? However, the cofitee 's
good. I suppose you made it ? "

" Bartley ! " persisted Marcia, " I want to believe in
everything you do, — I want to be proud of it — "
, ** That will be diflBcult," suggested Bartley, with an
\ air of thoughtful impartiality, " for the wife of a news-
paper man."

" No, no ! It need n't be ! It must n't be! If you
will only tell me — " She stopped, as if she fefu^ed
to repeat her offence.

Bartley leaned back in his chair and looked at her
intense face with a smile. " Tell you that in some
way I had Kinney's authority to use his facts? Well,
I should have done that yesterday if you had let me.
In the first place, Kinney 's the most helpless ass in
the world. He could never have used his own facts.
In the second place, there was hardly anything in his
rigmarole the other day that he had n't told me down
there in the lumber camp, with full authority to use
it in any way I liked ; and I don't see how he could
revoke that authority. That 's the way I reasoned
about it."

"I see, — I see !" said Marcia, with humble eagerness.

*' Well, that 's all there is about it. What I 've
done can't hurt Kinney. If he ever does want to
vvrite his old facts out, he '11 be glad to take my re-
port of them, and — spoil it," said Bartley, ending
with a laugh.

" And if — if there had been anything wrong about

A MODERN INSTANCE. 363

it," said Marcia, anxious to justify him to herself,
^ Mr. Kicker would have told you so when you ofiFered
him the article."

" I don't think Mr. Eickei would have ventured on
any impertinence with me," said Bartley, with grau
deur. But he lapsed into his wonted, easy way of
taking everything. "What are you driving at, Marsh?
I don't care particularly for what happened yesterday.
We Ve had rows enough before, and I dare say we
shall have them again. You gave me a bad quarter
of an hour, and you gave yourself" — he looked at
her tear-stained eyes — "a bad night, apparently.
That 's all there is about it."

" Oh, no, that is n't all ! It is n't like the other
quarrels we Ve had. When I think how I Ve felt
toward you ever since, it scares me. There can't be
anything sacred in our marriage unless we trust each
other in everything."

" Well, / have n't done any of the mistrusting," said
Bartley, with humorous lightness. " But is n't sacred^
rather a strong word to use in regard to our marriage,
anyway ? "

" Why — why — what do you mean, Bartley ? We
were married by a minister."

" Well, yes, by what was left of one," said Bartley.
" He could n't seem to shake himself together suffi-
ciently to ask for the proof that we had declared our
intention to get married."

Marcia looked mystified. "Don't you remember
his saying there was something else, and my suggest-
ing to him that it was the fee ? "

Marcia turned white. " Father said the certificate
was all right — "

" Oil, he asked to see it, did he ? He is a prudent
old gentleman. Well, it is all right."

" And what difference did it make about our not
proving that we had declared our intention ? " asked
Marcia, as if only partly reassured.

B64 A MODEBN INSTANCE.

"No difference to us; and only a difference of
sixty dollars fine to him, if it was ever found out."

*' And you let the poor old man run that risk ? "

" Well, you see, it could n't be helped. We had n't
declared our intention, and the lady seemed very
anxious to be married. You need n't be troubled.
We are married, right and tight enough ; but I don't
know that there 's anything sacred about it."

" No," Marcia wailed out, " its tainted with fraud
from the beginning."

" If you like to say so," Bartley assented, putting
his napkin into its ring.

Marcia hid her face in her arms on the table ; the
baby left off drumming with its spoon, and began
to cry.

Witherby was reading the Sunday edition of the
Chronicle-Abstract, when Bartley got down to the
Events office ; and he cleared his throat with a pre-
monitory cough as his assistant swung easily into
the room. "Good morning, Mr. Hubbard," he said.
" There is quite an interesting article in yesterday's
Chronicl^j-Abstract. Have you seen it ? "

" Yes," said Bartley. " What article ? "

" This Confessions of an Average American." With-
erby held out the paper, where Bartley's article, viv-
idly head-lined and sub-headed, filled lialf a page.
" What is the reason we cannot have something of
this kind ? "

" Well, I don't know," Bartley began.

" Have you any idea who wrote this ? "

" Oh, yes, I wrote it."

Witherby had the task before him of transmut-
ing an expression of rather low cunning into one of
wounded confidence, mingled with high-minded sat*
prise. " I thought it had your ear-marks, Mr. Hub-
baid : but I preferred not to believe it till I heard

A MODERN INSTANCE." 365

the fact from your own lips. I supposed that our /
contract covered such contributions as this." (

" I wrote it out of time, and on Sunday night
You pay me by the week, and all that I do tlirough-
out the week belongs to you. The next day after
that Sunday I did a full day's work on the Events.
I don't see what you have to complain of You told
me when I began that you would not expect more
iihan a certain amount of work from me. Have I
ever done less ? "

"No, but — "

" Have n't I always done more ? "

" Yes, I have never complained of the amount of
work. But upon this theory of yours, what you did -•
in your summer vacation would not belong to the
Events, or what you did on legal holidays."

" I never have any summer vacation or holidays,
legal or illegal. Even when I was down at Equity
last summer I sent you something for the paper
every day."

This was true, and Witherby could not gainsay it.
" Very well, sir. If this is to be your interpretation
of our understanding for the future, I shall wish to
revise our contract," he said pompously.

" You can tear it up if you like," returned Bartley.
"I dare say Kicker would jump at a little study of
the true inwardness of counting-room journalism.
Unless you insist upon having it for the Events."
Bartley gave a chuckle of enjoyment as he sat down
at his desk ; Witherby rose and stalked away.

He returned in half an hour and said, with an air
of frank concession, touched with personal grief:
"Mr. Hubbard, I can see how, from your point of
view, you were perfectly justifiable in selling your
article to the Chronicle- Abstract.' My point of view
is different, but I shall not insist upon it ; and I wish
to withdraw — and — and apologize for — any hsistdf
expressions I may have used."

366 A MODERN INSTANCE.

^ All right," said Bartley, with a wicked grin. He
had triumphed; but his triumph was one to leave
some men with an uneasy feeling, and there was not
altogether a pleasant taste in Bartley*s mouth. After
that his position in the Events office was whatever
he chose to make it, but he did not abuse his ascen-
de?^cy, and he even made a point of increased def-
erence, towards Witherby. Many courtesies passed
between them ; each took some trouble to show the
otlier that he had no ill feeling.

Three or fovx weeks later Bartley received a letter
with an Illinois postmark which gave him a disagree-
able sensation, at f'l'st, for he knew it must be from
Kinney. But the letter was so amusingly character-
istic, so helplessly ill-spcUed and ill-constmcted, that
he could not help laughing. Kinney gave an account
of his travels to the mining town, and of his present
situation and future prospects ; he was full of affec-
tionate messages and inquiries for Bartley's family,
and he said he should never forget that Sunday he
had passed with them. In a postscript be added:
" They copied that String of lies into our paper, here,
out of the Chron.-Ab. It was pretty well done, but
if your friend Mr. Ricker done it, I 'me not goen to
Insult him soon again by calling him a gentleman."

This laconic reference to the matter in a postscript
was delicious to Bartley ; he seemed to hear Kinney
saying the words, and imagined his air of ineffective
sarcasm. He carried the letter about with him, and
the first time he saw Bicker he showed it to him.
Eicker read it without appearing greatly diverted;
when he came to the postscript he flushed, and de-
manded, " What have you done about it ? "

" Oh, I have n't done anything. It was n't neces-
sary. You see, now, what Kinney could have done
with his facts if we had left them to him. It would
have been a wicked waste of material I thought

A MODERN INSTANCl^ 367

the sight of some of his literature would heip you
wash up your uncleanly scruples on that point."

"How long have you had this letter.?" pursued
Ricker.

" / don't know. A week or ten days."

Eicker folded it up and returned it to bim. " Mr.
Hubbard," he said, " the next time we meet, will you
do me the favor to cut my acquaintance ? "

Bartley stared at him ; he thought he must be
joking. " Why, Eicker, what 's the matter ? I did n't
suppose you 'd care anything about old Kinney. I
thought it would amuse you. Why, confound it!
I 'd just as soon write out and tell him that I did the
thing." He began to be angry. " But I can cut your
acquaintance fast enough, or any man's, if you 're
really on your ear ! "

" I 'm on my ear," said Eicker. He left Bartley
standing where they had met.

It was peculiarly unfortunate, for Bartley had occa-
sion within that week to ask Eicker's advice, and he
was debarred from doing so by this absurd displeas-
ure. Since their recent perfect understanding, With-
erby had slighted no opportunity to cement their
friendship, and to attach Bartley more and more
firmly to the Events. He now offered him some of
the Events stock on extremely advantageous terms,
with the avowed purpose of attaching him to the
paper. There seemed nothing covert in this, and
Bartley had never heard any doubts of the pros-
perity of the Events, but he would have especially
liked to have Eicker's mind upon this offer of stock.
Witherby had urged him not to pay for the whole
outright, but to accept a somewhat lower salary, and
trust to his dividends to make up the difference.
The shares had paid fifteen per cent the year before,
and Bartley could judge for himself of the present
chances from that shewing. Witherby advised him

368 A MODERN INSTANCE.

to borrow only fifteen hundred dollars on the three
thousand of stock which he offered him, and to pay
up the balance in three years by dropping five hun-
dred a year from his salary. It was certainly a flat-
tering proposal ; and under his breath, where Bartley.
still did most of his blaspheming, he cursed Kicker
for an old fool ; and resolved to close with Witherby
on his own responsibility. After he had done so he
tcJd Marcia of the step he had taken.
/ Since their last quarrel there had been an aliena-
jtion in her behavior toward him, different from any
[former resentment. She was submissive and quies-
cent ; she looked carefully after his comfort, and was
perfect in her housekeeping ; but she held aloof from
him somehow, and left him to a solitude in her pres-
ence in which he fancied, if he did not divine, her
contempt. But in this matter of common interest^
something of their community of feeling revived;
they met on a lower level, but they met, for the mo-
ment, and Marcia joined eagerly in the discussion of
ways and means.

The n'otion of dropping five hundred from his sal-
ary delighted her, because they must now cut down
their expenses as much; and she had long grieved
over their expenses without being able to make Bart-
ley agree to their reduction. She went upstairs at
once and gave the little nurse-maid a week's warn-
ing; she told the maid of all work that she must
take three dollars a week hereafter instead of four,
or else find another place; she mentally forewent
new spring dresses for herself and the baby, and
arranged to do herself all of the wash she had been
putting out ; she put a note in the mouth of the can
at the back door, telling the milkman to leave only
two quarts in future ; and she came radiantly back
to tell Bartley that she had saved half of the lost
five hundred a year already. But her countenance

A MODERN INSTANCE. 369

fell. " Why, where are you to get the other fifteen
hundred dollars, Bartley ? "

*' Oh, I We thought of that," said Bartley, laughing
at her swift alternations of triumph and despair.
" You trust to me for that."

" You 're not — not going to ask father for it ? " she
faltered.

" Not very much," said Bartley, as he took his hat
to go out.

He meant to make a raise out of Ben Halleck, as
he phrased it to himself. He knew that Halleck had
plenty of money ; he could make the stock itself
over to him as security ; he did not see why Halleck
should hesitate. But when he entered Halleck's
room, having asked Cyrus to show him directly there,
Halleck gave a start which seemed ominous to Bart-
ley. He had scarcely the heart to open Ms business,
and Halleck listened witli changing color, and some-
thing only too like the embarrassment of a man who
intends a refusal. He would not look Bartley in the
face, and when Bartley had made 'an end he sat for
a time without speaking. At last he said with a
quick sigh, as if at the close of an internal conflict,
" I will lend you the money 1 "

Bartley's heart gave a bound, and he broke out
into an immense laugh of relief, and clapped Halleck
on the shoulder. " You looked deucedly as if you
would n't, old man ! By George, you had ' on such a
dismal, hang-dog expression that I did n't know but
yau 'd come to borrow money of ?/ie, and I 'd made
up my mind not to let you have it ! But I 'm ever-
lastingly obliged to you, Halleck, and I promise you
that you won't regret it."

" I shall have to speak to my father about this,"
said Halleck, responding coldly to Bartley's robust
pressure of his hand.

" Of course, — of course."

370 A MODERN mSTANCB.

" How soon shall yon want the money ? '*

"Well, the sooner the better, now. Bring the
check round — can't you? — to-morrow night, — and
take dinner with us, you and Olive ; and we '11 cele-
brate a little. I know it will please Marcia when
she finds out who my hard-hearted creditor is ! "

" Well," assented Halleck with a smile so ghastly
that Bartley noticed it even in his joy.

"Curse me," he said to himself, "if ever I saw a
man so ashamed of doing a good action 1 ''

4 MODEBN INSIANO& 371

XXX.

The Presidential canvas of the summer which fol-
lowed upon these events in Bartley's career was not
very active. Sometimes, in fact, it languished so
much that people alnnost forgot it, and a good iBeld
was afforded the Events for the practice of inde-
pendent journalism. To hold a course of strict im-
partiality, and yet come out on the winning side^
was a theory of independent journalism which Bart-
ley illustrated with cynical enjoyment. He devel-
oped into something rather artistic the gift which he
had always shown in his newspaper work for ironical
persiflage. Witherby was not a man to feel this bur-
lesque himself; but when it was pointed out to him
by others, he came to Bartley in some alarm from its
effect upon the fortunes of the paper. "We can't
afford, Mr. Hubbard," he said, with virtuous trepida-
tion, " we can't afford to make fun of our friends 1 "

Bartley laughed at Witherby's anxiety. " They 're
no more our friends than the other fellows are. We
are independent journalists ; and this way of treat-
ing the thing leaves us perfectly free hereafter to
claim, just as we choose, that we were in fun or in
earnest on any particular question if we 're ever at-
tacked. See ? "

" 1 see," said Witherby, with not wholly subdued
misgiving. But after due time for conviction no
man enjoyed Bartley 's irony more than Witherby
when once he had mastered an instance of it. Some-
times it happened that Bartley found him chuckling

372 A MODERN- iNtfTANCB.

over a perfectly serious paragraph, but he did nol
mind that; he enjoyed Witherby's mistake evea
more than his appreciation.

In these days Bartley was in almost uninterrupted
good humor, as he had always expected to be when he
became fairly prosperous. He was at no time an
unamiable fellow, as he saw it; he had his sulks,
he had his moments of anger ; but generally he felt
good, and he had always believed, and he had prom-
ised Marcia, that when he got squarely on his legs
he should feel good perpetually. This sensation he
now agreeably realized ; and he was also now in that
position in which he had proposed to himself some
little moral reforms. He was not much in the habit of
taking stock ; but no man wholly escapes the contin-
gencies in which he is confronted with himself, and
sees certain habits, traits, tendencies, which he would
like to change for the sake of his peace of mind
hereafter. To some souls these contingencies are full
of anguish, of remorse for the past, of despair; but
Bartley had never yet seen the time when he did not
feel himself perfectly able to turn over a new leaf
and blot the old one. There were not many things in
his life which he really cared to have very different;
but there were two or three shady little comers which
he always intended to clean up. He had meant some
time or other to have a religious belief of some sort,
he did not much care what ; since Marcia had taken
to the Hallecks' church, he did not see why he should
not go with her, though he had never yet done so.
He was not quite sure whether he was always as
candid with her as he might be, or as kind ; though
lie maintained against this question that in all their
quarrels it was six of one and half a dozen of the
other. He had never been tipsy but once in his life,
and he considered that he had repented'and atoned
for thai enough, especially as nothing had ever oome

A MODERN INSTANCE. 373

of it ; but sometimes he thought he might be ovei
doing the beer; yes, he thought he must cut dowu
on the tivoli; he was getting ridiculously fat. If
ever he met Kinney again he should tell him that it
was he and not Kicker who had appropriated his facts
and he intended to make it up with Eicker someho\^

He had not found just the opportunity yet; but ii -~
the mean time he did not mind telling the real cause
of their alienation to good fellows who could enjoy a
joke. He had his following, though so many of his
brother journalists had cooled toward him, and those
of his following considered him as smart as chain-
lightning and bound to rise. These young men and
not very wise elders roared over Hartley's frank decla-
ration of the situation oetween himself and Eicker,
and they contended that, if Eicker had taken the ar-
ticle for the Chronicle-Abstract, he ought to take
the consequences. Bartley told them that, of course,
he should explain the facts to Kinney ; but that he
meant to let Eicker enjoy his virtuous indignation
awhile. Once, after a confidence of this kind at the
club, where Eicker had refused to speak to him, he
came away with a curious sense of moral decay. It
did not pain him a great deal, but it certainly sur-
prised him that now, with all these prosperous condi-
tions, so favorable for cleaning up, he bad so little
disposition to clean up. He found himself quite
willing to let the affair with Eicker go, and he sus-
pected that he had been needlessly virtuous in hi»
intentions concerning church-going and beer. As to
Marcia, it appeared to him that he could not treat a
woman of her disposition otherwise than as he did.
At any rate, if he had not done everything he could
to make her happy, she seemed to be getting along
well enough, and was prDbably quite as happy as she
deserved to be. They were getting on very quietly
now; there had been no violent outbreak between

VI -^ ^'

374 A MODERN INSTANCE. •

them since the trouble about Kinney, and then she
had practically confessed herself in the wrong, as
Baitley looked at it. She had appeared contented
with his explanation ; there was what might be called
a perfect business amity between them. If her life
with him was no longer an expression of that intense
devotion which she used to show him, it was more
like what married life generally comes to, and he ac-
cepted her tractability and what seemed her common-
sense view of their relations as greatly preferable.
With his growth in flesh, Bartley liked peace more
and more.

,^Marcia had consented to go down to Equity alone,
that summer, for he had convinced her that during a
heated political contest it would not do for him to be
away from the paper. He promised to go down for
her when she wished to come home ; and it was easily
arranged for her to travel as far as the Junction un-
der Halleck's escort, when he went to join his sisters
in the White Mountains. Bartley missed her and the
baby at first. But he soon began to adjust himself
with resignation to his solitude. They had deter-
mined to keep their maid over this summer, for they
had so much trouble in replacing her the last time
after their return ; and Bartley said he should live
very economically. It was quiet, and the woman
kept the house cool and clean '; she was a good cook,
and when Bartley brought a man home to dinner she
took an interest in serving it well. Bartley let her
order the things from the grocer and butcher, for she
knew what they were used to getting, and he had
heard so much talk from Marcia about bills since he
bought that Events stock that he was sick of the
prices of things. There was no extravagance, and
yet he seemed to live very much better after Marcia
went. There is no doubt but he lived very much
more at his ease. One little restriction after another

A MODERN INSTANCE. 375

fell away from him ; he went and came with absolute
freedom, not only without having to account for his
movements, but without having a pang for not doing
so. He had the sensation of stretching himself after
a cramping posture ; and he wrote Marcia the cheer-
fulest letters, charging her not to cut short her visit
from anxiety on his account. He said that he was
working hard, but hard work evidently agreed with
him, for he was never better in his life. In this high
content he maintained a feeling of loyalty by going
to the Hallecks, where Mrs. Halleck often had him
to tea in pity of his loneliness. They were dull
company, certainly ; but Marcia liked them, and the
cooking was always good. Other evenings he went
to the theatres, where there were amusing variety
bills ; and sometimes he passed the night at Nantas-
ket, or took a run for a day to Newport ; he always
reported these excursions to Marcia, with expressions
of regret that Equity was too far away to run down
to for a day.

Marcia's letters were longer and more regular, than
his; but he could have forgiven some want of con-
stancy for the «ake of a less searching anxiety on her
part. She ^aa anxious not only for his welfare, I
which was natural and proper, but she was anxious I
about the housekeeping and the^expenses, things ]
Bartley could not afford to let. trouble him, though
he did what her~could in a general way to quiet her
mind. She wrote fully of the visit which Olive
Halleck had paid her, but said that they had not
gone about much, for Ben Halleck had only been able
to come for a day. She was very well, and so was
Flavia.

Bartley realized Flavians existence with an effort,
and for the rest this letter bored him. What could
he care about Olive Halleck's coming, or Ben Hal-
leck's staying away? All that he asked of Ben

376 A MODEKN INSTANCE.

Halleck was a little extension of time when his in«
terest fell due. The whole thing was disagreeable;
and he resented what he considered Marcia's en-
deavor to clap the domestic harness on him again.
His thoughts wandered to conditions, to contingen-
cies, of which a man does not permit himself even to
think without a degree of moraV disintegration. In
these ill-advised reveries he mused upon his life as- it
might Have heen if he had never met her, or if they
had never met after her dismissal of him. As he re-
called the facts, he was at that time in an angry and
embittered mood, but he was in a mood of entire ac-
quiescence; and the reconciliation had been of her
own seeking. He could not blame her for it; she
was v^ry. much in love^with him, and he had been
fond of her. In fact, he was still very fond of her ;
when he thought of little ways of hers, it filled him
with tenderness. He did justice to her fine qualities,
too : her generosity, her truthfulness, her entire loy-
alty to his best interests ; he smiled to realize that he
himself prefeiTed his second-best interests, and in her
absence he remembered that her virtues were tedious,
and even painful at times. He had his doubts whether
there was sufficient compensation in them. He some-
times questioned whether he had not made a great
mistake to get married ; he expected now to stick it
through ; but this doubt occurred to him. A moment
came in which he asked himself. What if he had
never come back to Marcia that night when she
locked him out of her room? Might it not have
been better For both:i3f them ? She would, soon have
recQnciled herself to the irreparable ; he j^yp.n thoiight
of her happy in a second mamagey and the thought
did not enrage him ; he generously wished Marcia
welL He wished — he hardly knew what he wished.
He wished nothing at all but to have his wife and
child back again as s'jon aa possible ; and he put aside

▲ MODERN INSTANCE. 371

with a laugh the fancies which really found no such
distinct formulation as I have given them; wliich
were mere vague impulses, arrested mental tenden-
cies, scraps of undirected revery. Their recurrence
had nothing to do with what he felt to he his sane
and waking state. But they recurred, and he even,
amused himself in turning them over.

378 A MODEBN INSTANCE.

XXXL

One morning in September, not long before Marcia
returned, Bartley found Witherby at the office wait-
ing for him. Witherby wore a pensive face, which
had the effect of being studied. " Good morning,
Mr. Hubbard," he said, and when Bartley answered,
"Good morning," cheerfully ignoring his mood, he
added, "What is this I hear, Mr. Hubbard, about
a personal misunderstanding between you and Mr.
Ricker ? "

*'I'm sure I don't know," said Bartley; "but I
suppose that if you have heard anything you know."

" I have heard," proceeded Witherby, a little dashed
by Bartley's coolness, " that Mr. Ricker accuses you
of having used material ir that article you sold him
which had been intruste.* to you under the seal of
confidence, and that you had left it to be inferred by
the party concerned that Mr. Ricker had written the
article himself."

" All right," said hartley.

" But, Mr. Hubbard," said Witherby, struggling to
rise into virtuous supremacy, "what am I to tMnk
of such a report ? "

" I can't say ; unless you should think that it was n't
your affair. That would be the easiest thing."

"But I carCt think that, Mr. Hubbard! Sttch a
report reflects through you upon the Events ; it re-
flects upon me ! " Bartley laughed. " I can't approve
of such a thing. If you admit the report, it appears
to me that you hi ^Q — a — done a — a — wrong actioa
Mr. Hubbard."

A MODERN INSTANCE. 379

Bartley turned upon him with a curious look ; at
the same time he felt a pang, and there was a touch
of real anguish in the sarcasm of his demand, " Have
I fallen so low as to be rebuked by you i "

"I — I don*t know what you mean by such an ex-
pression as that, Mr. Hubbard," said Witherby. ** T
don't know what I've done to forfeit your esteem,- -
to justify you in using such language to me."

" I don't suppose you really do," said Bartley.
*' Go on.'*

" I have nothing more to say, Mr. Hubbard, except
^- except to add that this has given me a great blow, —
a great blow. I had begun to have my doubts before
as to whether we were quite adapted to each other,
and this has — increased them. I pass no judgment
npon what you have done, but I will say that it
has made me anxious and — a — unrestful. It has
made me ask myself whether upon the whole we
should not be happier apart. I don't say that we
should ; but I only feel that nine out of ten business
men would consider you, in the position you occupy
on the Events, — a — a — dangerous person."

Bartley got up from his desk, and walked toward
Witherby,. with his hands in his pockets ; he halted a
few paces from him, and looked down on him with a
sinister smile. " I don't think they 'd consider y(m
a dangerous person in any position."

" May be not, may be not," said Witherby, striving
to be easy and dignified. In the effort he took up an
open paper from the desk before him, and, lifting it
between Bartley and himself, feigned to be reading it.

Bartley struck it out of his trembling hands. " You
impudent old scoundrel ! Do you pretend to be read-
ing when I speak to you? For half a cent — "

Witherby, slipping and sliding in his swivel chair,
contrived to get to his feet. " No violence, Mr. Hu1>
bard, no violence Aere / '*

380 A MODERN INSTANCE.

" Violence ! " laughed Bartley. " I should have to
i(yuch you ! Come ! Don't be afraid ! But don't you
put on airs of any sort! I understand your gama
You want, for some reason, to get rid of me, and you
have seized the opportunity with a sharpness that
does credit to your cunning. I don't condescend to
deny this report," — speaking in this lofty strain,
Bartley had a momentary sensation of its being a
despicable slander, — "but I see that as far as you
are concerned it answers all the purposes of truth.
You think that with the chance of having this thing
exploited against me T won't expose your nefarious
practices, and you can get rid of me more safely novi
than ever you could again. Well, you 're right 1
dare say you heard of this report a good while ago, and
you've waited till you could fill my place without in-
convenience to yourself. So I can go at once. Draw
your check for all you owe me, and pay me back the
money I put into your stock, and I '11 clear out at
once." He went about putting together a fow per-
sonal effects on his desk.

"I must protest against any allusion to nafarious
practices, Mr. Hubbard," said Witherby, " and I '«Hsh
you to understand that I part from you without tha
filightest ill-feeling. I shall always have a high re-
gard for your ability, and — and — your social quali-
ties." While he made these expressions he hastened
to write two checks.

Bartley, who had paid no attention to what Witherby
was saying, came up and took the checks. " This is
all right," he said of one. But looking at the other,
he added, " Fifteen hundred dollars ? Where is the
dividend ? "

" That is not due till the end of the month," sal'?
Witherby. " If you withdraw your money now, you
lose it."

Bartley looked at the face to which Witherby diif

A MODERN INSTANCE. 381

his best to give a high judicial expression. " You
old thief ! " he said good-humoredly, almost affection-
ately. " I have a mind to tweak your nose ! " But ,
he went out of the room w^ithout saying or doing ^M^i
anything more. He wondered a little at his own -V ^
amiability ; but with the decay of whatever was right- L/^
principled in him, he was aware of growing more and 7
more incapable of indignation. Now, his flash of rage
over, he was not at all discontented. With these
checks in his pocket, with his youth, his health, and
his practised hand, he could have faced the world, with
a light heart, if he had not also had to face his wife.
But when he thought of the inconvenience of explain-^
ing to her, of pacifying her anxiety, of clearing up
her doubts on a thousand points, and of getting her
simply to eat or sleep till he found something else to '
do, it dismayed him. " Good Lord ! " he said to him-
self, " I wish I was dead — or some one." That con-
clusion made him smile again.

He decided not to write to Marcia of the change in
his affairs, but to take the chance of finding something
better before she returned. There was very little
time for him to turn round, and he was still without
a place or any prospect when she came home. It
had sufficed with his acquaintance when he said that
he had left the Events because he could not get on
with Witherby ; but he was very much astonished
when it seemed to suffice with her.

" Oh, well," she said, " I am glad of it. You will
do better by yourself ; and I know you can earn just
as much by writing on the different papers."

B.artley knew better than this, but he said, " Yes, I
shall not be in a hurry to take another engagement
just yet. But, Marsh," he added, "I was afraid you
would blame me, — think I had been reckless, or at
fault — ^'

" No," she answered after a little pause, " I shall

882 A MODERN INSTANCE.

not do that any more. I have been thinking all
these things over, while I was away from you, and
I 'm going to do differently, after this. I shall believe
that you've acted for the best, — that you've not
meant to do wrong in anything, — and I shall never
question you or doubt you any more."

"Isn't that giving me rather too much rope?'*
asked Bartley, with lightness that masked a vague
alarm lest the old times of exaction should be com-
ing back with the old times of devotion.

" No ; I see where my mistake has always been.
I 've always asked too much, and expected too much,
even when I did n't ask it. Now, I shall be satisfied
with what you don't do, as well as what you do."

" I shall try to live up to my privileges," said Bart-
ley, with a sigh of relief. He gave her a kiss, and
then he unclasped Kinney's nugget from his watch-
chain, and fastened it on the baby's necklace, which
lay in a box Marcia had just taken from her trunk.
She did not speak ; but Bartley felt better to have the
thing off him ; Marcia's gentleness, the tinge of sad-
ness in her tone, made him long to confess himself
wrong in the whole matter, and justly punished by
Kicker's contempt and Witherby's dismissal. But he
did not believe tibat he could trust her to foi^ive him,
land he felt himself unable to go through all that with-
\out the certainty of her forgiveness.

As she took the things out of her trunk, and laid
them away in tWsBrawer and that, she spoke of events
in the village, i and told who was dead, who was mar-
ried, and whof had gone away. "I stayed longer than
T expectedja little, because father seemed to want me
to. I dor^ think mother 's so well as she used to ba
I — I ';3a afraid she seems to be failing, somehow."

Hftr voice dropped to a lower key, and Bartley said,
•*I/in sorry to hear that. I guess she isn't failing;
But of course she 's getting on, and every year maket
a di£Fere*"3e."

A MODERN INSTANCE. 383

* Yes, that must be it," she answered, looking at a
bundle of collars she had in her hand, as if absorbed
in the question as to where she should put them.

Before they slept that night she asked, " Bartley,
did you hear about Hannah Monjson ? "

" No. What about her ? "

** She 's gone — gone away. The last time she was
seen was^ in JPortland. They don't know what's
become of her. They say that Henry Bird is about
heart-broken ; but everybody knows she never cared
for him. I hated to write to you about it."

Bartley experienced so disagreeable a sensation that
he was silent for a time. Then he gave a short, bitter
laugh. " Well, that 's what it was bound to come to,
sooner or later, I suppose. It 's a piece of good luck
for Bird."

Bartley went abput picking up work from one
paper and another, but not securing a basis on any.
In that curious and unwholesome leniency which cor-
rupt natures manifest, he and Witherby met at their
next encounter on quite amicable terms. Bartley re-
ported some meetings for the Events, and experienced
no resentment when Witherby at the oflSce introduced
him to the gentleman with whom he had replaced him.
Of course Bartley expected that Witherby would in-
sinuate things to his disadvantage, but he did not
mind that. He heard of something of the sort being
done in Kicker's presence, and of Sicker's saying that
in any question of honor and veracity between With-
erby and Hubbard he should decide for Hubbard.
Bartley was not very grateful for this generous de-
fence ; he thought that if Ricker had not been such an
ass in the first place there would have been no trouble
between them, and Witherby would not have had
that handle against him.

He was enjoying himself very well, and he felt en-
titled to the comparative rest which had not bean ci

384 A MODERN INSTANCE.

his seeking. He wished that Halleck would com4
back, for he would like to ask his leave to put that
money into some other enterprise. His credit was
good, and he had not touched the money to pay any
of his accumulated bills ; he would have consideit^d
it dishonorable to do so. But it annoyed him to have
the money lying idle. In his leisure he studied the
stock market, and he believed that he had several
points which were infallible. He put a few hundx-eds

^ — two or three — of Halleck's money into a mining
stock which was so low that it miist rise. In the

' mean time he tried a new kind of beer, — Norwegian
beer, which he found a little lighter even than fcivolL
It was more expensive, but it was very light, and it
was essential to Bartley to drink the lightest beer he
could find.

He stayed a good deal at home, now, for he had
leisure, and it was a much more corafortabie place
since Marcia had ceased to question or reproach him.
She did not interfere with some bachelor habits he
had formed, in her absence, of sleeping far into the
forenoon ; he now occasionally did night- work on some
of the morning papers, and the rest was necessary ; he
had his breakfast whenever he got up, as if he had
been at a hotel. He wondered upon what new theory
she was really treating him ; but he had always been
apt to accept what was comfortable in life without
much question, and he did not wonder long. He was
immensely good-natured now. In his frequent leisure
he went out to walk with Marcia and Flavia, and
sometimes he took the little girl alone. He even went
to church with them one Sunday, and called at the
Hallecks as often as Marcia liked. The young ladies
had returned, but Ben Halleck was still away. It
made Bartley smile to hear his wife talking of Hal-
leck with his mother and sisters, and falling quite into
the family way of regarding him as if he were some-
tow a saint and martyr.

A MODERN INSTANCE. 385

Bartley was stiU dabbUng in stocks with Hal-
leck's money ; some of it had lately gone to pay
an assessment which had unexpectedly occurred in

Elace of a dividend. He told Marcia that he was
olding the money ready to return to Halleck when
he came back, or to put it into some other enter-
prise where it would help to secure Bartley a new
basis. They were now together more than they had
been since the first days of their married life in Bos-
ton ; but the perfect intimacy of those days was gone;
he had his reserves, and she her preoccupations, —
with the house, with the little girl, with her anxiety
about her mother. Sometimes they sat a whole even-
ing together, with almost nothing to say to each other,
he reading and she sewing. After an evening of this
sort, Bartley felt himself worse bored than if Marcia
had spent it in taking him to task as she used to do.
Once he looked at her over the top of his paper, and
distinctly experienced that he was tired of the whole
thing.

But the political canvass was growing more interest-
ing now. It was almost the end of October, and the
speech-making had become very lively. The Demo-
crats were hopeful and the Eepublicans resolute, and
both parties were active in getting out their whole
strength, as the saying is, at such times. This was
done not only by speech-making, but by long noctur-
nal processions of torch-lights ; by day, as well as
by night, drums throbbed and horns brayed, and the
feverish excitement spread its contagion through the
whole population. But it did not affect Bartley. He
had cared nothing about the canvass from the begin- y
ning, having an equal contempt for the bloody shirt of 'j/^
the Republicans and the reform pretensions of the
Democrats. The only thing that he took an interest
in was the betting ; he laid his wagers with so much
apparent science and sagacity that he had a certaia

386 A MODERN INSTANCE.

following of young men who bet as Hubbard did
Hubbard, they believed, had a long head ; he disdained
bets of hats, and of barrels of apples, and ordeals by
wheelbarrow; he would bet only with people who
could put up their money, and his followers honored
him for it ; when asked where he got his money, be-
ing out of place, and no longer instant to do work
that fell in his way, they answered from a ready faith
that he had made a good thing in mining stocks.

In her heart, Marcia probably did not share this
faith. But she faithfully forbore to harass Bartley
with her doubts, and on those evenings when he
found her such dull company she was silent because if
she spoke she must express the trouble in her mind

/Women are more apt to theorize their husbands
than men in their stupid self-absorption ever realize.
When a man is married, his wife almost ceases to be
exterior to his consciousness ; she afflicts or consoles
him like a condition of health or sickness ; she is
literally part of him in a spiritual sense, even when
he is rather indifferent to her ; but the most devoted
wife has always a corner of her soul in which she
thinks of her husband as Mm ; in which she philos-
ophizes him wholly aloof from herself In such
an obscure fastness of her being, Marcia had medi-
tated a great deal upon Bartley during her absence at
Equity, — meditated painfully, and in her sort prayer-
fully, upon him. She perceived that he was not her
young dream of him ; and since it appeared to her that
she could not forego that dream and live, she could
but accuse herself of having somehow had a perverse
influence upon him. She knew that she had never
reproached him except for his good, but she saw too
that she had always made him worse, and not better.
She recurred to what he said the first night they
anived in Boston : " I believe that, if you have faitii
in me, I shall get along ; and when you don't^ I shall

A MODERN INSTANCE. 387

go to the bad." She could reason to no other effect,
than that hereafter, no matter what happened, she
must show perfect faith in him by perfect patience.
It was hard, far harder than she had thought. But
she did forbear ; she did use patience.

The election day came and went. Bartley re-
mained out till the news of Tilden's success could
no longer be doubted, and then came home jubilant.
Marcia seemed not to understand. " I did n't know
you cared so much for Tilden," she said, quietly.
**Mr. Halleck is for Hayes; and Ben Halleck was
coming home to vote."

" That *s all right : a vote in Massachusetts makes
no difference. I 'm for Tilden, because I have the
most money up on him. The success of that noble
old reformer is worth seven himdred dollars to me in
bets." Bartley laughed, rubbed her cheeks with his
chilly hands, and went down into the cellar for some
beer. He could not have slept without that, in his
excitement; but he was out very early the mext
morning, and in the raw damp of the rainy November
day he received a more penetrating chill when he
saw the bulletins at the newspaper offices intimating
that a fair count might give the Eepublicans enough
Southern States to elect Hayes. This appeared to
Bartley the most impudent piece of political effront-
ery in the whole history of the country, and among
those who went about denouncing Republican chi-
canery at the Democratic club-rooms, no one took a
loftier tone of moral indignation than he. The
thought that he might lose so much of Halleck's
money through the machinations of a parcel of car-
pet-bagging tricksters filled him with a virtue at
which he afterwards smiled when he found that peo-
ple were declaring their bets off. " I laid a wager on
the popular result, not on the decision of the Ketum-
ing Boards," he said in reclaiming his money from

388 A MODERN INSTANCE.

the referees. He had some difficulty in getting it
back, but he had got it when he walked homeward at
night, after having been out all day ; and there now en-
sued in his soul a struggle as to what he should do with
this money. He had it all except the three hundred
he had ventured on the mining stock, which would
eventually be worth everything he had paid for it
After his frightful escape from losing half of it on
those bets, he had an intense longing to be rid of it,
to give it back to Halleck, who never would ask him
for it, and then to go home and tell Marcia every-
thing, andjhrow hiioself on her mercy. Better pov-
erty, better disgrace before~'HalIeck and her, better
her condemnation, than this life of temptation that
he had been leading. He saw how hideous ib was
in the retrospect, and he shuddered; his good in-
stincts awoke, and put forth their strength, such as it
was; tears came into his eyes; he resolved to write
to Kinney and exonerate Eicker, he resolved humbly
to l^eg Kicker's pardon. He must leave Boston ; but
if Marcia would forgive him, he would go back with
her to Equity, and take up the study of the law in
her father's office again, and fulfil all her wishes. He
would have a hard time to overcome the old man's
prejudices, but he deserved a hard time, and he knew
he should finally succeed. It would be bitter, re-
turning to that stupid little town, and he imagined
the intrusive conjecture and sarcastic comment that
would attend his return ; but he believed that he
could live this down, and he trusted himself to laugh
it down. He already saw himself there, settled in
the Squire's office, reinstated in public opinion, a
leading lawyer of the place, with Congress open be-
fore him whenever he chose to turn his face that way.
He had thought of going first to Halleck, and
returning the money, but he was willing to give
himself the encouragement of Marcia's pleasure, d

A MODERN INSTANCE. 889

her forgiveness and her praise in an affair that had
its difficulties and would require all his manfulness.
The maid met him at the door with little Flavia, and
told him that Marcia had gone out to the Hallecks',
but had left word that she would soon return, and
that then they would have supper together. Her
absence dashed his warm impulse, but he recovered
himself, and took the little one from the maid. He
liglited the gas in the parlor, and had a frolic with
Flavia in kindling a fire in the grate, and making the
room bright and cheerful. He played with the child
and made her laugh ; he already felt the pleasure of
a good conscience, though with a faint nether ache
in his heart which was perhaps only his wish to have
the disagreeable preliminaries to his better life over
as soon as possible. He drew two easy-chairs up at
opposite corners of the hearth, and sat down in one,
leaving the other for Marcia ; he had Flavia standing
on his knees, and clinging fast to his fingers, laughing
and crowing while he danced her up and down, when
he heard the front door open, and Marcia burst into
the room.

She ran to him and plucked the child from him,
and then went back as far as she could from him in
the room, crying, " Give me the child I " and facing
him with the look he knew. Her eyes were dilated,
and her visage white with the transport that had
whirled her far beyond the reach of reason. The
frail structure of his good resolutions dropped to
ruin at the sight, but he mechanically rose and ad-
vanced upon her till she forbade him with a muffled
shriek of " Don't touch me ! So ! " she went on, gasping
and catching her breath, " it was you ! I might have
known it ! I might have guessed it from the first !
You ! Was that the reason why you did n't care to
have me hurry home this summer ? Was that —
was that — " She choked, and convulsively pressed

890 A MODERN INSTANCE.

her &ce into the neck of the child, which began
to cry.

Bartley closed the doors, and then, with his hands
in his pockets, confronted her with a smile of wicked
coolness. " Will you be good enough to tell me what
you 're talking about V

" Do you pretend that you don't know ? I met a
woman at the bottom of the street just now. Do
you know who ? "

" No ; but it 's very dramatic. Go on ! "

" It was Hannah Morrison ! She reeled against
me ; and when I — such a fool as I was ! — pitied
her, because I was on my way home to you, and was
thinking about you and loving you, and was so happy
in it, and asked her how she came to that, she struck
me, and told me to — to — ask my — husband 1 "
(^^The transport broke in tears; the denunciation
had turned to entreaty in everything but words ; but
Bartley had hardened his heart now past all entreaty.
The idiotic penitent that he had been a few moments
ago, the soft, well-meaning dolt, was.so far fromjiim
now as toTfe scarce within the^ach of his^contem]
He was going to have~-this thing ^ovefonceTor'Sl ;
he would have no mercy upon himself or upon her;
the Devil was in him, and uppermost in him, and the
Devil is fierce and proud, and knows how to make
JOaanybase emotions feel like a just self-respect. " And
did you believe a woman like that ? " he sneered.

" Do I believe a man like this ? " she demanded,
with a dying flash of her fury. "You — you don't
dare to deny it."

" Oh, no, I don't deny it. For one reason, it would
be of no use. For all practical purposes, I admit it
What then ? "

" What then ? " she asked, bewildered. " Barfleyl
Vou don't mean it ! "

" Yes, I do. I mean it. I don't deny it Whal

A MODERN INSTANCE. 391

Ihen ? What are you going to do about it ? " She
gazed at him in incredulous horror. "Come! I
mean what I say. What will you do?"

" Oh, merciful God ! what shall I do ? " she prayed
aloud.

"That's just what I'm curious to know. When
you leaped in here, just now, you must have meant
to do something, if I could n't convince you that the
woman was lying. Well, you see that I don't try.
I give you leave to believe whatever she said. What
then ? "

" Bartley ! " she besought him in her despair. " Do
ynn driv^, me from you ? "

" Oh, no, certainly not. That is n't my way. You
have driven me from you, and I might claim tbe right
to retaliate, but I don't. I 've no expectation that
you '11 go away, and I want to see what else you '11
do. You would have me, before we were marriedT]
you were tolerably shameless in getting me ; when \
your jealous temper made you throw me away, you ]
could n't live till you got me back again ; you ran (
after me. Well, I suppose you've learnt wisdom,
now. At least you won't try that game again. But
what will you do ? " He looked at her smiling, while
he dealt her these stabs one by one.

She set down the child, and went out to the entry
where its hat and cloak hung. She had not taken off
her own things, and now she began to put on the little
one's garments with shaking hands, kneeling before
it. " I will never live with you again, Barbley," she
s-aid.

"Very well. I doubt it, as far as you're con-
cerned ; but if you go away now, you certainly worCt
live with me again, for I shall not let you come back.
Understand that."

Each had most need of the other^s mercyi but
ueither would have mercy.

392 A MODERN INSTANCE

" It^ ifl p't for what you won't dftny. T jon't be^
iieyaJiliat. It's for whatjyou Ve said now/' She
could not make thebuttons and the button-holes of
the child's sack meet with her quivering fingers ; he
actually stooped down and buttoned the little gar-
ment for her, as if they had been going to take the
child out for a walk between them. She caught it up
in her arms, and, sobbing " Good by, Bartley ! " ran out
of the room.

" EecoUect that if you go, you don't come back,"
he said. The outer door crashing to behind her was
his answer.

He sat down to think, before the fire he had built
for her. It Was blazing brightly now, and the whole
room had a hideous cosiness. He could not think, he
must act. He went up to their room, where the ^aa
was burning low, as if she had lighted it and then
frugally turned it down as her wqnt^ was. He did
not know what his piirpose was, but it developed it-
self. He began to pack his things in a travelling-bag
which he took out of the closet, and which he had
bought for her when she set out for Equity in the
summer ; it had the perfume of her dresses yet.

When this was finished, he went down stairs again
and being now straugely hungry he made a meal of
such things as he found set out on the tea-table.
Then he went over the papers in his secretary ; he
burnt some of them, and put others into his bag.

After all this was done he sat down by the fire
again, and gave Marcia a quarter of an hour longer
in which to return. He did not know whether he
was afraid that she would or would not come. But
when the time ended, he took up his bag and went
out of the house. It began to rain, and he went
back for an umbrella : he gave her that one chance
more, and he ran up into their room. But she had
not come back. He went out again, and hi&rried

A MODERN INSTANCE. 393

Rway through the rain to the Albany Depot, where he
bought a ticket for Chicago. There was as yet noth-
ing definite in his purpose, beyond the fact that he
was to be rid of her: whether for a long or short
time, or forever, he did not yet know; whether he
meant ever to communicate with her, or seek or suffer
a reconciliation, the locomotive that leaped westward
into the dark with him knew as well as he.

Yet all the mute, obscure forces of habit, which are
doubtless the strongest forces in human riatiue, were
dragging him back to her. Because theirj.ives_had
been united so long, it seemed impossible to sever
them, though^their union had been so full of misftiy
and discord ; the custom of marriage was so subtilo
and so pervasive, that his heart demanded her sym-
pathy for what he was suffering in abandoning her.
The solitude into which he had plunged stretched be-
fore him so vast, so sterile and hopeless, that he had
not the courage to realize it ; he insensibly began to
give it limits : he would return after so many months,
weeks, days.

He passed twenty-four hours on the train, and left
it at Cleveland for the half-hour it stopped for sup-
per. But he could not eat ; he had to own to him-
self that he was beaten, and that he must return,
or throw himself into the lake. He ran hastily to
the baggage-car, and effected the removal of his bag ;
then he went to the ticket-office, and waited at the
end of a long queue for his turn at the window. His
turn came at last, and he confronted the nervous and
impatient ticket-agent, without speaking.

" Well, sir, what do you want ? " demanded the
agent. Then, with rising temper, '* What is it ?
Are you deaf ? Are you dumb ? You can't expect
to stand there all night ! "

The policeman outside the rail laid his hand on
Bartley's shoulder : " Move on, my friend.'*

894 A MODERN INSTAKCK

He obeyed^ and reeled away in a fashion that con«
firmed the policeman's suspicions. He searched his
pockets again and again ; but his porte-monnaie was
in none of them. It had been stolen, and Halleck's
money with the rest. Now he could not return;
nothing remained for him but the ruin he had
chosen.

A MODERN INSTANCE. 395

XXXII.

Halleck prolonged his summer vacation beyond the
end of October. He had been in town from time to
time and then had set off again on some new absence ;
he was so restless and so far from well during the
last of these flying visits, that the old people were
glad when he wrote them that he should stay as long
as the fine weather continued. He spoke of an inter-
esting man whom he had met at the mountain resort
where he was staying ; a Spanish- American, attached
to one of the Legations at Washington, who had a
scheme for Americanizing popular education in his
own country. " He has made a regular set at me,"
Halleck wrote, " and if I had not fooled away so much
time already on law and on leather, I should like to
fool away a little more on such a cause as this." He
did not mention the matter again in his letters ; but
the first night after his return^ when they all sat to-
gether in the comfort of having him at home again,
he asked his father, " What should you think of my
going to South America ? "

The old man started up from the pleasant after-
supper drowse into which he was suffering himseU
to fall, content with Halleck's presence, and willing
to leave the talk to the women folk. " I don't know
what you mean, Ben ? "

" I suppose it's my having the matter so much in
mind that makes me feel as if we had talked it over.
I mentioned it in one of my letters."

** Yes," returned his fiather; "but I presumed yoil
were joking."

396 A MODERN INSTANCE.

Halleck frowned impatiently; he would not meet the
gaze of his mother and sisters, but he addressed him-
self again to his father. " I don't know that I was in
earnest." His mother dropped her eyes to her mend-
ing, with a faint sigh of relief *' But I can't say," he
added, " that I was joking, exactly. The man himself
was very serious about it." He stopped, apparently
to govern an irritable impulse, and then he went on
to set the project of his Spanish- American acquaint-
ance before them, explaining it in detaiL

At the end, "That's good," said his father, "but
why need you have gone, Ben ? "

The question seemed to vex Halleck ; he did not
answer at once. His mother could not bear to see
him crossed, and she came to his help against herself
And his father, since it was only supposing the case.
*' I presume," she said, " that we could have looked
at it as a missionary work."

"It isn't a missionary work, mother," answered
Halleck, severely, " in any sense that you mean. I
should go down there to teach, and I should be paid
for it. And I want to say at once that they have no
yellow-fever nor earthquakes, and that they have not
had a revolution for six years. The country's per-
fectly safe every way, and so wholesome that it will
be a good tiling for me. But I should n't expect to
convert anybody."

" Of course not, Ben," said his mother, soothingly.

" I hope you would n't object to it if it were a mis-
sionary work," said one of the elder sisters.

" No, Anna," returned Ben.

" I merely wanted to know," said Anna.

" Then I hope you 're satisfied, Anna," Olive cut in.
*' Ben won't refuse to convert the Uruguayans if they
apply in a proper spirit."

" I think Anna had a right to ask," said Miss Louisai
tiie eldest

A MODERN INSTANCE. 397

'' Oh, undoubtedly, Miss Halleck," said Olive. " 1
(ike to see Ben reproved for misbehavior to his mother,
myself."

Her father laughed at Olive's prompt defence.
"Well, it's a cause that we've all got to respect ; but
I don't see why you should go, Ben, as I said before.
It would do very well for some young fellow who had
no settled prospects, but you 've got your duties here.
I presume you looked at it in that light. As you
said in your letter, you 've fooled away so much time
on leather and law — "

" I shall never amount to anything in the law ! " Ben
broke out. His mother looked at him in anxiety ; his
father kept a steady smile on his face ; Olive sat alert
for any chance that offered to put down her elder sis-
ters, who drew in their breath, and grew silently a
little primmer. " I 'm not well — "

" Oh, I know you 're not, dear," interrupted his
mother, glad of another chance to abet him.

•* I 'm not strong enough to go on with the line of
work I 've marked out, and I feel that I 'm throwing
away the feeble powers I have."

His father answered with less surprise than Hal-
leek had evidently expected, for he had thrown out his
words with a sort of defiance ; probably the old man
had watched him closely enough to surmise that it
miglit come to this with him at last. At any rate, he
was able to say, without seeming to assent too readily,
**Well, well, give up the law, then, and come back
into leather, as you call it. Or take up something
else. We don't wish to make anything a burden to
you ; but take up some useful work at home. There
are plenty of things to be done."

'* Not for me," said Halleck, gloomily.

" Oh, yes, there are," said the old man.

" I see you are not willing to have me go," said
HfiUeck, rising in uncontrollable irritation. "But I
wish you wouldn't all take this tone with me I"

398 A MODERN INSTANGK

''We haven't taken any tone with you, Ben," said
his mother, with pleading tenderness.

" I think Anua has decidedly taken a tone,*' said
OUve.

Anna did not retort, but " What tone ? " demanded
Louisa, in her behalf.

" Hush, children," said their mother.

" Well, well," suggested his father to Ben. " Think
it over, think it over. There 's no hurry."

"IVe thought it over; there is hurry," retorted
Halleck. "If I go, I must go at once.'*

His mother arrested her thread, half drawn through
the seam, letting her hand drop, while she glanced at
him.

" It is n't so much a question of your giving up the
law, Ben, as of your giving up your family and going
so far away from us all,'* said his father. "That's
what I should n't like.*'

" I don*t like that, either. But I can't help it"
He added, " Of course, mother, I shall not go with-
out your full and free consent. You and father most
settle it between you." He fetched a quick, worried
sigh as he put his hand on the door.

" Ben is n*t himself at all," said Mrs. Halleck, with
tears in her eyes, after he had left the room.

" No," said her husband. *' He *s restless. He 'U
get over this idea in a few days." He urged this
hope against his wife's despair, and argued himself
into low spirits.

" I don't believe but what it would be the best
thing for his health, may be,*' said Mrs. Halleck, at
the end.

"I've always had my doubts whether he would
ever come to anything in the law,** said the father.

The elder sisters discussed Halleck's project apart
between themselves, as their wont was with any
family interest, and they bent over a map of Sbuto

A MODERN INSTANCE. 399

America, so as to hide what they were doing from
iheir mother.

Olive had left the room by another door, and she
jitercepted Halleck before he reached his own.

" What is the matter, Ben ? " she whispered.

" Nothing," he answered, coldly. But he added,
' Come in, Olive."

She followed him, and hovered near after he turned
ip the gas.

" I can't stand it here, I must go," he said, turning
t dull, weary look upon her.

" Who was at the Elm House that you knew this
ast time ? " she asked, quickly.

" Laura Dixmore is n't driving me away, if you
nean that," replied Halleck.

" I could n't believe it was she ! I should have
iespised you if it was. But I shall hate her, whoever
t was."

Halleck sat down before his table, and his sister
jank upon the comer of a chair near it, and looked
ivistfuUy at him. " I know there is some one!"

" If you think I Ve been fool enough to offer my-
jelf to any one, Olive, you 're very much mistaken."

"Oh, it needn't have come to that," said Olive,
vith indignant pity.

" My life 's a failure here," cried Halleck, moving his
lead uneasily from side to side. " I feel somehow as
f I could go out there and pick up the time I Ve lost,
jrreat Heaven ! " he cried, " if I were only running
Lway from some innocent young girl's rejection, what
L happy man I should be ! "

" It 's some horrid married thing, then, that 's been
lirting with you ! "

He gave a forlorn laugh. " I 'd almost confess it to
)lease you, Olive. But I 'd prefer to get out of the
natter without lying, if I could. Why need you sup-
pose any reason but the sufficient one I 've given ? —

400 A MODERN INSTANCE. »

Don't afflict me ! don't imagine things about toe, don't
make a mystery of me ! I Ve been blunt aYid awk-
ward, and I Ve bungled the business with fajkher and
mother ; but I want to get away because I 'm a mis-
erable fraud here, and I think I might rub on a good
while there before I found myself out again."

" Ben," demanded Olive, regardless of his words,
" w^at have you been doing ? "

" The old story, — nothing."

" Is that true, Ben ? "

" You used to be satisfied with asking once, Olive."

" You have n't been so wicked, so careless, as to get
some poor creature in love with you, and then want to
run away from the misery you Ve made ? "

" I suppose if I look it there 's no use denying it,"
said Halleck, letting his sad eyes meet hers, and smil-
ing drearily. " You insist upon having a lady in the
case ? "

" Yes. But I see you won't tell me anything ; and
I won't afflict you. Only I 'm afraid it 's just some
silly thing, that you 've got to brooding over, and that
you '11 let drive you away."

" Well, you have the comfort of reflecting that I
can't get away, whatever the pressure is."

" You know better than that, Ben ; and so do I.
You know that, if you have n't got father and mother's
consent already, it 's only because you have n't had the
heart to ask for it. As far as that 's concerned, you 'i-e
gone already. But I hope you won't go without
thinking it over, as father says, — and talking it over.
I hate to have you seem unsteady and fickle-minded,
when I know you 're not ; and I 'm going to set myself
against this project till I know what 's driving you
from us, — or till I 'm sure that it's something worth
while. You need n't expect that I shall help to make
it easy for you ; I shall help to make it hard."

Her loving looks belied her threats ; if the othen

A MODERN INSTANCE. 401

could not resist Ben when any sort of desi!re showed
itself through his habitual listlessness, how could she,
who understood him best and sympathized with him
most ? " There was something I was going to talk to
you about, to-night, if you had n't scared us all with
this ridiculous scheme, and ask you whether you
could n't do something." She seemed to suggest the
change of interest with the hope of winning his
thoughts away from the direction they had taken;
but he listened apathetically, and left her to go fur-
ther or not as she chose. " I think," she added ab-
ruptly, "that some trouble is hanging over those
wretched Hubbards."

" Some new one ? " asked Halleck, with sad sar-
casm, turning his eyes towards her, as if with the res-
olution of facing her.

" You know he 's left his place on that newspaper.'*

" Yes, I heard that when I was at home before."

" There are some very disagreeable stories about it.
They say he was turned away by Mr. Witherby for
behaving badly, — for printing something he ought n't
to have done."

" That was to have been expected," said Halleck.

" He has n't found any other place, and Marcia says
he gets very little work to do. He must be running
into debt, terribly. I feel very anxious about them.
I don't know what they 're living on."

" Probably on some money I lent him," said Hal-
leck, quietly. "I lent him fifteen hundred in the
spring. It ought to make him quite comfortable for
the present."

" Oh, Ben ! Why did you lend him money ? You
might have known he would n't do any good with it."

Halleck explained how and why the loan had been

made, and added : " If he 's supporting his family with

it, he's doing some good. I lent it to him for hei

Bake."

M2 A MODERN INSTANCE.

Halleck looked hardily into his sister's face, but ho
dropped his eyes when she answered, simply: "Yes,
of course. But I don't believe she knows anything
about it ; and I 'm glad of it : it would only add
to her trouble. She worships you, Ben!"

" Does she ? "

*' She seems to think you are perfect, and she never
comes here but she asks when you're to be home.
I suppose she thinks you have a good influence on
that miserable husband of hers. He *s going from
bad to worse, I guess. Father heard that he is bet-
ting on the election. That 's what he 's doing with
your money."

" It would be somebody else's money if it was n't
mine," said Halleck. " Bartley Hubbard most live,
and he must have the little excitements that make
life agreeable."

" Poor thing ! " sighed Olive, " I don't know what
she would do if she heard that you were going away.
To hear her talk, you would think she haid been
counting the days and hours till you got back. It's
ridiculous, the way she goes on with mother ; asking
eveiything about you, as if she expected to make
Bartley Hubbard over again on your pattern. I
should hate to have anybody think me such a saint as
she does you. But there is n't much danger, thank
goodness ! I could laugh, sometimes, at the way
she questions us all about you, and is so delighted
when she finds that you and that wretch have any-
thing in common. But it's all too miserably sad.
She certainly is the most single-hearted creature
alive," continued Olive, reflectively. " Sometimes she
scares me with her innocence. I don't believe that
even her jealousy ever suggested a wicked idea to
her: she's furious because she feels the injustice
of giving so much more than he does. She has n^
really a thought for anybody else : I do believe that

A MODERN INSTANCE. 403

if she were free to choose from now till doomsday
she would always choose Bartley Hubbard, bad as
she knows him to be. And if she were a widow,
and anybody else proposed to her, she would be
utterly shocked and astonished."

" Very likely," said Halleck, absently.

*' I feel very unhappy about her," Olive resumed.
•* I know that she 's anxious and troubled all the time.
Can't you do something, Ben ? Have a talk with
that disgusting thing, and see if you can't put him
straight again, somehow ? "

" No ! " exclaimed Halleck, bursting violently from
his abstraction. "I shall have nothing to do with
them ! Let him go his own way and the sooner he
goes to the — I won't interfere, — I can't, I must n't !
I wonder at you, Olive ! " He pushed away from
the table, and went limping about the room, searching
here and there for his hat and stick, which were on
the desk where he had put them, in plain view. As
he laid hand on them at last, he met his sister's as-
tonished eyes. " If I interfered, I should not inter-
fere because I cared for him at all ! " he cried.

" Of course not," said Olive. " But I don't see any-
thing to make you wonder at me about that."

" It would be because I cared for her — "

" Certainly ! You did n't suppose I expected you
to interfere from any other motive ? "

He stood looking at her in stupefaction, with his
hand on his hat and stick, like a man who doubts
whether he has heard aright. Presently a shiver
passed over him, another light came into his eyes,
and he said quietly, *' I 'm going out to see Atherton."

" To-night ? " said his sister, accepting provisionally,
as women do, the apparent change of subject " Don't
go to-night, Ben ! You 're too tired."

" I 'm not tired. I intended to see him to-night>
»t any rate. I want to talk over this South Ameri-

404 A MODERN INSTANCE

can scheme with him." He put on his hat, and moved
quickly toward the door.

" Ask him about the Hubbards," said Olive. " Per-
haps he can tell you something."

** I don't want to know anything. I shall ask him
nothing."

She slipped between him and the door. " Ben, you
haven't heard anything against poor Marcia» have
you?"

"No!"

" You don't think she 's to blame in any way for
his going wrong, do you ?

" How could I ? "

** Then I don't understand why you won't do any-
thing to help her."

He looked at her again, and opened his lips to
speak once, but closed them before he said, " I 've
got my own affairs to worry me. Is n't that reason
enough for not interfering in theirs V

*' Not for you, Ben."

" Then I don't choose to mix myself up in other
people's misery. I don't like it, as you once said."

" But you can't help it sometimes, as yau said.*'

"I can this time, Olive. Don't you see, — "he
began.

** I see there 's something you won't tell ma But
I shall find it out." She threatened him naif playw

fully.

" I wish you could," he answered. " Then perhaps
you 'd let me know." She opened the door for him
now, and as he passed out he said gently, "I am
tired, but I sha'n't begin to rest till I have had this
talk with Atherton. I had better go."

" Yes," Olive assented, " you 'd better." She added
in banter, " You 're altogether too mysterious to be of
much comfort at home."

The family heard him close the outside door be*

▲ MODEBN INSTANCE. 405

hind him after Olive came back to them, and she
explained, " He 's gone out to talk it over with Mr.
Atherton."

His father gave a laugh of relief. "Well, if he
leaves it to Atherton. I guess we needn't worry
about it."

** The child is n't at all well," said his mothei^

4M A MODEBN mSTANCJB.

XXXIII.

Halleck met Atherton at the door of Ms room wit!
his hat and coat on. " Why, Halleck ! I was jusl
going to see if you had come home ! "

" You need n't now," said Halleck, pushing by him
into the room. " I want to see you, Atherton, on
business."

Atherton took off his hat, and closed the door with
one hand, while he slipped the other arm out of his
overcoat sleeve. "Well, to tell the truth, I was
going to mingle a little business myself with the
pleasure of seeing you." He turned up the gas in his
drop-light, and took the chair from which he had
looked across the table at Halleck, when they talked
there before. " It 's the old subject," he said, with a
sense of repetition in the situation. " I learn from
Witherby that Hubbard has taken that money of
yours out of the Events, and from what I hear else-
where he is making ducks and drakes of it on elec-
tion bets. What shall you do about it ? "

" Nothing," said Halleck.

" Oh 1 Very well," returned Atherton, with the ef-
fect of being a little snubbed, but resolved to take
his snub professionally. He broke out, however, in
friendly exasperation : " Why in the world did you
lend the fellow that money ? "

Halleck lifted his brooding eyes, and fixed them
balf pleadingly, half defiantly upon his friend's face.
•* I did it for his wife's sake."

" Yes, I know," returned Atherton. " I remembei
bow you felt I could n't share your feeUng^ but I

A MODERN INSTANCE. 407

respected it. However, I doubt if your loan was a
benefit to either of them. It probably tempted him
to count upon money that he hadn't earned, and
that *s always corrupting."

" Yes," Halleck replied. " But I can't say that, so
far as he 's concerned, I 'm very sorry. I don't sup-
pose it would do her any good if I forced him to dis-
gorge any balance he may have left from his wagers ? "

" No, hardly."

" Then I shall let him alone."

The subject was dismissed, and Atherton waited
for Halleck to speak of the business on which he had
come. But Halleck only played with the paper
cutter which his left hand had found on the table near
him, and, with his chin sunk on his breast, seemed
lost in an unhappy reverie.

" I hope you won't accuse yourself of doing him
an injury," said Atherton, at last, with a smila

"Injury?" demanded Halleck, quickly. "What
injury ? How ? "

" By lending him that money."

" Oh ! I had forgotten that ; I was n't thinking of
it," returned Halleck impatiently. " I was thinking
of something different. I 'm aware of disliking the
man so much, that I should be willing to have greater
harm than that happen to him, — the greatest, for
what I know. Though I don't know, after all, that it
would be harm. In another life, if there is one, he
might start in a new direction ; but that is n't im-
aginable of him here ; he can only go from bad to
worse ; he can only make more and more sorrow and
shame. Why shouldn't one wish him dead, when
his death could do nothing but good ? "

" I suppose you don't expect me to answer such a
question seriously."

" But suppose I did ? "

"Then I should say that no man ever wished anjf

' 408 A MODEBN INSTANCE.

such good as that, except from the worst motive j
and the less one has to d/j with such questions, even
as abstractions, the better."

" You 're right," said Halleck. " But why do you
call it an abstraction ? "

•* Because, in your case, nothing else is conceivable."

** I told you I was willing the worst should happen
to him."
> " And I did n't believe you."

Halleck lay back in his chair, and laughed wearily.
** I wish I could convince somebody of my wicked-
ness. But it seems to be useless to try. I say
things that ought to raise the roof, both to you here
and to Olive at home, and you tell me you don't be-
lieve me» and she tells me that Mrs. Hubbard thinks
me a saint. I suppose now, that if I took you by
the button-hole and informed you confidentially that
I had stopped long enough at 129 Clover Street to put
Bartley Hubbard quietly out of the way, you would n't
send for a policeman."

" I should send for a doctor," said Atherton.

" Sucli is the effect of character ! And yet out of
the fulness of the heart, the mouth speaketh. Out
of the heart proceed all those unpleasant things
enumerated in Scripture ; but if you bottle them up
there, and keep your label fresh, it 's all that 's re-
quired >f you, by your fellow-beings, at least. What
an aumsing thing morality would be if it were not —
otherwise. Atherton, do yov believe that such a man
as Christ ever lived ? "

" I know you do, Halleck," said Atherton.

" Well, that depends upon what you call me. If
what I was — if my well Sunday-schooled youth — is
I, I do. But if I, poising dubiously on the momentary
present, between the past and future, am I, I 'm afraid
I don't. And yet it seems to me that I have a fair-
ish sort of faith. I know that, if Christ never liviad

A MODERN INSTANCE. 409

on earth, some One lived who imagined him, and y/
that One must have been a God. The historical fact
oughtn't to matter. Christ being imagined, can't you
see v^^hat a comfort, what a rapture, it must have been
to all these poor souls to come into such a presence
and be looked through and through ? The relief, the
rest, the complete exposure of Judgment Day — "

" Every day is Judgment Day," said Atherton.

" Yes, I know your doctrine. But I mean the Last
Day. We ought to have something in anticipation
of it, here, in our social system. Character is a su-
perstition, a wretched fetish. Once a year would n't
be too often to seize upon sinners whose blameless life
has placed them above suspicion, and turn them in-
side out before the community, so as to show people
how the smoke of the Pit had been quietly blacken-
ing their interior. That would destroy character as
a cult." He laughed again. " Well, this is n't busi-
ness, — though it is n't pleasure, either, exactly.
What I came for was to ask you something. I 've
finished at the Law School, and I 'm just ready to
begin here in the office with you. Don't you think
it would be a good time for me to give up the law '{
Wait a moment ! " he said, arresting in Atherton an
impulse to speak. " We will take the decent sur-
prise, the friendly demur, the conscientious scruple,
for granted. Now, honestly, do you believe I 've got
the making of a lawyer in me ? "

" I don't think you 're very well, Halleck," Ather-
ton began.

"Ah, youWe a lawyer! You won't give me a
direct answer!"

" I will if you wish/' retorted Atherton.

" Well."

" Do you want to give it up ? "

" Yes."

** Then do it. No man ever prospered in it yet

410 A MODERN INSTANCK.

who wanted to leave it. And now, since it 's come
to this, I 'n tell you what I really have thought, all
along. I Ve thought that, if your heart was really
set on the law, you would overcome your natural dis-
advantages for it ; but if the time ever came when
you were tired of it, your chance was lost : you never
would make a lawyer. The question is, whether that
time has come.'*

" It has," said Halleck.

" Then stop, here and now. You Ve wasted two
years* time, but you can't get it back by throwing
more after it. I should n't be your friend, T should n*t
be an honest man, if I let you go on with me, after
this. A bad lawyer is such a very bad thing. This
is n't altogether a surprise to me, but it will be a blow
to your father," he added, with a questioning look at
Halleck, after a moment.

" It might have been, if I had n*t taken the precau-
tion to deaden the place by a heavier blow first.*'

" Ah ! you Ve spoken to him already ? "

" Yes, I Ve had it out in a sneaking, hypothetical
way. But I could see that, so far as the law was con-
cerned it was enough ; it served. Not that he 's con-
sented to the other thing ; there *s where I shall need
your help, Atherton. I *11 tell you what my plan ia"
He stated it bluntly at first ; and then went over the
ground and explained it fully, as he had done at home.
Atherton listened without permitting any sign of sur-
prise to escape him ; but he listened with increasing
gravity, as if he heard something not expressed in
Halleck's slow, somewhat nasal monotone, and at the
end he said, " I approve of any plan that will take
you away for a while. Yes, I '11 speak to your father
about it."

"If you think you need any conviction, I could
use arguments to bring it about in you," said Halleck;
in recognition of his friend's ready concurrenca

A MODERN INSTANCE. 411

"No, I don't need any arguments to convince me,
I believe,'^ returned Atherton.

"Then I wish you'd say something to bring me
round ! Unless argument is used by somebody, the
plan always produces a cold chill in me." Halleck
smiled, but Atherton kept a sober face. "I wish my
S])auish American was here ! What makes you think
it 's a good plan ? Why should I disappoint my father's
hopes again, and wring my mother's heart by propos-
ing to leave them for any such uncertain good as this
scheme promises?" He still challenged his friend
with a jesting air, but a deeper and stronger feeling of
some sort trembled in his voice.

Atherton would not reply to his emotion ; he an-
swered, with obvious evasion • " It 's a good cause ; in
some sort — the best sort — it 's a missionary work."

" That 's what my mother said to me."

" And the change will be good for your health."

" That 's what I said to my mother ! "

Atherton remained silent, waiting apparently for
Halleck to continue, or to end the matter there, as he
chose.

It was some moments before Halleck went on:
" You would say, would n't you, that my first duty
was to my own undertakings, and to those who had a
right to expect their fulfilment from me ? You would
say that it was an enormity to tear myself away from
the affection that clings to me in that home of mine,
yonder, and that nothing but some supreme motive
could justify me ? And yet you pretend to be satis-
fied with the reasons I 've given you. You 're not
dealing honestly with me, Atherton ! "

" 'No" said Atherton, keeping the same scrutiny of
Halleck's face which he had bent upon him throughout,
but seeming now to hear his thoughts rather than his
words. *' I knew that you would have some supreme
motive; and if I have pretended to approve youi

412 A MODERN INSTANCE.

scheme on the reasons you have given me, I have n't
dealt honestly with you. But perhaps a little dishon-
esty is the best thing under the circumstances. You
have n't told me your real motive, and I can't ask it/*

" But you imagine it ? "

« Yes."

*' And what do you imagine ? That I have been
disappointed in love ? That I have been rejected ?
That the girl who had accej)ted me has broken her
engagement ? Something of that sort ? " demanded
Halleck, scornfullv.

Atherton did not answer.

" Oh, liow far you are from the truth ! How blest
and proud and happy I should be if it were the
truth ! " He looked into his friend's eyes, and added
bitterly : " You 're not curious, Atherton ; you don't
ask me what my trouble really is ! Do you wish me
to tell you what it is without asking ? "

Atherton kept turning a pencil end for end between
his fingers, while a compassionate smile slightly
curved his lips. "No," he said, finally, "I think you
had better not tell me your trouble. I can believe
very well without knowing it that it's serious — "

"Ob, tragic ! " said Halleck, self-contemptuously.

" But I doubt if it would help you to tell it. I 've
too much respect for your good sense to suppose that
it 's an unreality ; and I suspect that confession would
only weaken you. If you told me, you would feel
that you had made me a partner in your responsibility,
and you would be tempted to leave the struggle to
me. If you 're battling with some temptation, some
self-betrayal, you must make the fight alone: you
would only turn to an ally to be flattered into dis-
belief of your danger or your culpability."

Halleck assented with a slight nod to each point
that the lawyer made. " You 're right," he said, " but
a man of your subtlety can't pretend that he does n't

A MODERN INSTANCE, 413

know what the trouble is in such a simple case as

mine."

" I don't know anything certainly," returned Ath-
erton, " and as far as I can I refuse to imagine any-
thing. If your trouble concerns some one besides
yourself, — and no great trouble can concern one man
alone, — you 've no right to tell it."

" Another Daniel come to judgment ! ^'

" You must trust to your principles, your self-re-
spect, to keep you right — "

Halleck burst into a harsh laugh, and rose from his
chair : " Ah, there you abdicate the judicial function !
Principles, self-respect ! Against tlmt ? Don't you
suppose I was approached through my principles and
self-respect ? Why, the Devil always takes a man on
the very highest plane. He knows all about our
principles and self-respect, and what they 're made of.
How the noblest and purest attributes of our na-
ture, with which we trap each other so easily, must
amuse him ! Pity, rectitude, moral indignation, a
blameless life, — he knows that they 're all instru-
ments for him. No, sir! No more principles and
self-respect for me, — I 've had enough of them ;
there 's nothing for me but to rtm, and that 's what
I 'm going to do. But you 're quite right about the
other thing, Atherton, and I give you a beggar's
thanks for telling me that my trouble is n't mine alone,
and I 've no right to confide it to you. It is mine
in the sense that no other soul is defiled with the
knowledge of it, and I 'm glad you saved me from the
gl lastly profanation, the sacrilege, of telling it. I wo.s
sneaking round for your sympathy ; I did want some-
how to shift the responsibility on to you ; to get you —
God help me ! — to flatter me out of my wholesome
fear and contempt of myself Well ! That 's past,
now, and — Good night ! '* He abruptly turned
away from Atherton and swung himself on his cane
toward the door.

414 A MODERN INSTANCR

Atherton took up his hat and coat "111 walb
home with you,** he said.

" All right," returned Halleck, listlessly.

" How soon shall you go ? " asked the lawyer, when
they were in the street.

" Oh, there 's a ship sailing from New York next
week," said Halleck, in the same tone of weary in^
difference. " I shall go in. that."

They talked desultorily of other things.

When they came to the foot of Clover Street, Hal-
leck plucked his hand out of Atherton's arm. " I 'm
going up through here ! " he said, with sullen obsti-
nacy.

" Better not," returned his friend, quietly.

" Will it hurt her if I stop to look at the outside of
the house where she lives ? "

" It will hurt you," said Atherton.

" I don't wish to spare myself ! " retorted Halleck.
He shook off the touch that Atherton had laid upon
his shoulder, and started up the hill ; the other over-
took him, and, like a man who has attempted to rule
a drunkard by thwarting his freak, and then hopes to
accomplish his end by humoring it, he passed his arm
through Halleck's again, and went with him. But
when they came to the house, Halleck did not stop ;
he did not even look at it ; but Atherton felt the deep
shudder that passed through him.

In the week that followed, they met daily, and Hal-
leck's broken pride no longer stayed him from the
shame of open self-pity and wavering purpose. Ather-
ton found it easier to persuade the clinging reluctance
of the father and mother, than to keep Halleck's reso-
lution for him : Halleck could no longer keep it for
himself " Not much like the behavior of people we
read of in similar circumstances," he said bnca
^' They never falter when they see the path of duty :
they push forward without looking to either hand ; oi

A MODERN INSTANCaa. 415

else," he added, with a hollow laugh at his own sat-
ire, " they turn their backs on it, — like men ! Well I "

He grew gaunt and visibly feeble. In this struggle
the two men changed places. The plan for Halleck's
flight was no longer his own, but Atherton's; and^
when he did not rebel against it, he only passively
acquiesced. The decent pretence of ignorance on Ath-
erton's part necessarily disappeared : in all but words
the trouble stood openly confessed between them, and
it came to Atherton's saying, in one of Halleck's lapses '
of purpose, from which it had required all the other's
strength to lift him : " Don't come to me any more,
Halleck, with the hope that I shall somehow justify
your evil against your good. I pitied you at first;
but I blame you now."

" You 're atrocious," said Halleck, with a puzzled,
baffled look. " What do you mean ? "

" I mean that you secretly think you have some-
how come by your evil virtuously ; and you want me
to persuade you that it is dififerent from other evils of
exactly the same kind, — that it is beautiful and sweetj
and pitiable, and not ugly as hell and bitter as death]
to be torn out of you mercilessly and flung from you
with abhorrence. Well, I tell you that you are suf- •
fering guiltily, for no man suffers innocently from ^
such a cause. You must gOy and you can't go too soon.
Don't suppose that I find anything noble in your po-
sition. I should do you a great wrong if I didn't do
all I could to help you realize that you *re in disgrace,
and that you 're only making a choice of shames in
running away. Suppose the truth was known, — sup-
pose that those who hold you dear could be persuaded
of it, — could you hold up your head ? "

Do I hold up my head as it is ? " asked Halleck.
Did you ever see a more abject dog than I am at
this moment ? Your wounds are faithful, Atherton ;
but perhaps you might have spared me this last stab

% ^

416 A MODERN INSTANCE.

If you want to know, I can assure you that I don't
feel any melodramatic vainglory. I know that I 'm
mnning away because I 'm beaten, but no other man
^an know the battle I 've fought. Don't you suppose
I know how hideous , this thing is ? No one else
can know it in all its ugliness ! " He covered his face
with his hands. " You are right," he said, when he
could find his voice. " Lsuflbr guiltily. I must have
known it when I seemed to be su8e_nng__£ciiL_pity*s
&ake ; I knew it J)efore, and when you said _thaL.lQye
wi^nout niarriage_was_a_worse iiell than any rnarriage
without_Kve, you left .me without refuge : T hfid been
crying not to face the truth, but I had to face it then.
1 came away in hell, and I have lived in hell ever
since. I had tried to think it was a crazy fancy, and
put it on my failing health ; I used to make believe
that some morning I should wake and find the illu-
sion gone. I abhorred it from the beginning as I do
now ; it has been torment to me ; and yet somewhere
in my lost soul — the blackest depth, I dare say ! —
this shame has been so sweet, — it is so sweet, — the
one sweetness of life — Ah !" He dashed the weak
tears from his eyes, and rose and buttoned his coat
about him. " Well, I shall go. And I hope I shall
never come back. Though you need n't mention this
to my father as an argument for my going when you
talk me over with him," he added, with a glimmer
ur nis wonted irony. He waited a moment, and then
turned upon his friend, in sad upbraiding : " When I
^jame to you a year and a half ago, after I had taken
that ruffian home drunk to her — Why did n*t you
warn me then, Atherton ? Did you see any danger ?"
Atherton hesitated : " I knew that, with your habit
of suffering for other people, it would make you mis-
erable ; but I could n't have dreamed this would conie
of it. But you 've never been out of your own keep-
ing for a moment. You are responsible, and you ai9

A MODERN INSTANCE. 417

to blame if you are sufTering now, and can find no
safety for yourself but in running away."

"That's true," said Halleck, very humbly, "and I
won't trouble you any more. I can't go on sinning
against her belief in me here, and live. I shall go
on sinning against it there, as long as I live; but it
seems to me the harm will be a little less. Yes, I
will go."

But the night before he went, he came to Ather-
ton's lodging to tell him that he should not go;
Atherton was not at home, and Halleck was spared
this last dishonor. He returned to his father's house
through the rain that was beginning to fall lightly,
and as he let himself in with his key Olive's voice
said, " It's Ben !" and at the same time she laid her
hand upon his arm with a nervous, warning clutch.
" Hush ! Come in here ! " She drew him from
the dimly lighted hall into the little reception-room
near the door. The gas was burning brighter there,
and in the light he saw Marcia white and still, where
she sat holding her baby' In her arms. They ex-
changed no greeting r it was apparent that her being
th ere" transcended all usage, and that they need ob-
serve none.

*' BenjwiU ^0 home with, ymi;" said Olive, sooth-
ingly. " Is it raining ? " she asked, looking at her
brother's coat^! " I will get my water-proof."

She left them a moment. "I have been — beeti
walking — walking about," Marcia panted. "It has
got so dark — I 'm — afraid to go home. I hate to —
take you from them — the last — night."

Halleck answered nothing; he sat staring at her
till Olive came back with the water-proof and an um-
brella. Then, while his sister was putting the water-
proof over Marcia's shoulders, he said, " Let me take
the little one," and gathered it, with or without her
consent, from her arms into his. The baby was sleep*

418 A MODERN INSTANCB.

ing; it nestled warmly against him with a luxurious
quiver under the shawl that Olive threw round it
" You can carry the umbrella," he said to Marcia.

They walked fast, when they got out into the rainy

dark, and it was hard to shelter Halleck as he limped

f rapidly on. Marcia ran forward once, to see if her

baby were safely kept from the wet, and found that

^ Halleck had its little face pressed close between his

V neck and cheek. " Don't be afraid," he said. " I 'm

looking out for it." '

His voice sounded broken and strange, and neither
of them spoke again till they came in sight of
Marcia's door. Then she tried to stop him. She
put her hand on his shoulder. "Oh, I'm afraid—
afraid to go in," she pleaded.

He halted, and they stood confronted in the light
of a street lamp ; her face was twisted with weeping.
" Why are you afraid ? " he demanded, harshly.

" We had a quarrel, and I — I ran away — I said
that I would never come back. I left him — "

" You must go back to him," said Halleck. " He 's
your husband ! " He pushed on again, saying over
and over, as if the words were some spell in which
he found safety, " You must go back, you must go
back, you must go back ! "

He dragged her with him now, for she hung help-
less on his arm, which she had seized, and moaned to
herself. At the threshold, " I can't go in ! " she broke
out. " I 'm afraid to go in ! What will he say ?
What will he do ? Oh, come in with me I You are
good, — and then I shall not be afraid ! "

" You must go in alone ! Njo man can be your
refuge from your husband ! Here ! " He released
himself, and, kissing the warm little face of the sleep-
ing child, he pressed it into her arms. His fingers
touched hers under the shawl ; he tore his hand awaj
with a shiver.

A MODERN INSTANCE. 419

She stood a moment looking at the closed door;
then she flung it open, and, pausing as if to gather
lier strength, vanished into the brightness within.

He turned, and ran crookedly down the street,
wavering from side to side in his lameness, and fling-
ing up his arms to save himself from falling as he
ran, with a gesture that was like a wild^nd hopeless
appeal

'■ . ^'j'.C>^^t'^'[

420 A MODERN INSTANCB.

XXXIV.

Marcia pushed into the room where she had left
Bartley. She had no escape from her. fate; she must
meet it, whatever it was. The room was empty,, and
she began doggedly to search the house for him, up
stairs and down, carrying the child with her. She
would not have been afraid now to call him ; but she
had no voice, and she could not ask the servant any-
thing when she looked into the kitchen. She saw the
traces of the meal he had made in the dining-room,
and when she went a second time to their chamber to
lay the little girl down in her crib, she saw the draw-
ers pulled open, and the things as he had tossed them
about in packing his bag. She looked at the clock
on the mantel — an extravagance of Hartley's, for
which she had scolded him — and it was only half
past eight ; she had thought it must be midnight.

She sat all night in a chair beside the bed ; in the
morning she drowsed and dreamed that she was weep-
ing on Bartley's shoulder, and he was joking her and
trying to comfort her, as he used to do when they
were first married ; but it was the little girl, sitting up
in her crib, and crying loudly for her breakfast. She
put on the child a pretty frock that Bartley liked, and
when she had dressed her own tumbled hair she went
down stairs, feigning to herself that they should find
him in the parlor. Tlie servant was setting the table
for breakfast, and the little one ran forward: "Baby's
chair ; mamma's chair ; papa's chair ! ''

" Yes," answered Marcia, so that the servant might
hear too. " Papa will soon be home."

A MODERN INSTANCE. 421

She persuaded herself that he had gone as before
for the night, and in this pretence she talked with
the child at the table, and she put aside some of the
breakfast to be kept warm for Bartley. "I don't
know just when he may be in," she explained to the
girl. The uttei-ance of- her pretence that she expected
him encouraged her, and she went about her work
almost cheerfully.

At dinner she said, " Mr. Hubbard must have been
called away, somewhere. We must get his dinner for
him when he comes : the things dry up so in the oven."

She put Flavia to bed early, and then trimmed the
fire, and made the parlor cosey against Bartley's com-
ing. She did not blame him for staying away the
night before ; it was a just punishment for her wick-
edness, and she should tell him so, and tell him that
slie knew he never was to blame for anything about
Hannah Morrison. She enacted over and over in her
mind the scene of their reconciliation. In every step
on the pavement he approached the door ; at last all
the steps died away, and the second night passed.

Her head was light, and her brain confused with
loss of sleep. When the child called her from above,
and woke her out of her morning drowse, she went to
the kitchen and begged the servant to give the little
one its breakfast, saying that she was sick and wanted
nothing herself She did not say anything about
Bartley 's breakfast, and she would not think anything;
the girl took the child into the kitchen with her, and
kept it there all day.

Olive Halleck came during the forenoon, and Marcia
told her that Bartley had been Unexpectedly called
away. " To New York," she added, without knowing
why.

" Ben sailed from there to-day," said Olive sadly.

" Yes," assented Marcia.

" We want you to come and take tea with us thia
evening," Olive began.

422 A MODERN INSTANCE.

"Oh, I can't," Marcia broke in. "I mustn't be
away when Bartley gets back." The thought was
something definite in the sea of uncertainty on which
she was cast away ; she never afterwards lost her hold
of it ; she confirmed herself in it by other inventions;
she pretended that he had told -her where he was go-
ing, and tlien that he had written to her. She almost
believed these childish fictions as she uttered them.
At the same time, in all her longing for his return,
she had a sickening fear that when he came back
he would keep his parting threat and drive her away:
she did not know how he could do it, but this was
what she feared.

She seldom left the house, which at first she kept
neat and pretty, and then let fall into slatternly ne-
glect. She ceased to care for her dress or the child's;
the time came when it seemed as if she could scarcely
move in the mystery that beset her life, and she
yielded to a deadly lethargy which paralyzed all her
faculties but the instinct of concealment.

She repelled the kindly approaches of the Hallecks,
sometimes sending word to the door when they came,
that she was sick and could not see them ; or when
she saw any of them, repeating those hopeless lies
concerning Bartley's whereabouts, and her expecta-
tions of his return.

For the time she was safe against all kindly mis-
givings ; but there were some of Bartley's creditors
who grew impatient of his long absence, and refused
to be satisfied with her fables. She had a few dollars
left from some money that her father had given her
at home, and she paid these all out upon the demand
of the first-comer. Afterwards, as other bills were
pressed, she could only answer with incoherent prom*
ises and evasions that scarcely served for the mo-
ment. The pursuit of these people dismayed hen
It was nothing that certain of them refused forthei

A MODERN INSTANCE. 423

credit ; she would have known, both for herself and
her child, how to go hungry and cold ; but there was
one of them who threatened her with the law if she
did not pay. She did not know what he could do ;
she had read somewhere that people who did not pay
their debts were imprisoned, and if that disgrace
were all she would not care. But if the law were
enforced against her, the truth would come out ; she
would be put to shame before the world as a deserted
wife ; and this when Bartley had Twt deserted her.
The pride that had bidden her heart break in secret
rather than suffer this shame even before itself, was
baffled : her one blind device had been concealment,
and this poor refuge was possible no longer. If all
were not to know, some one must know.

The law with which she had been threatened
might be instant in its operation ; she could not tell.
Her mind wavered from fear to fear. Even while
the man stood before her, she perceived the necessity
that was upon her, and when he left her she would
not allow herself a moment's delay.

She reached the Events building, in which Mr.
Atherton had his ofi&ce, just as a lady drove away in
her coup6. It was Miss Kingsbury, who made a
point of transacting all business matters with her
lawyer at his office, and of keeping her social rela-
tions with him entirely distinct, as she fancied, by
this means. She was only partially successful, but
at least she never talked business with him at her
house, and doubtless she would not have talked any-
thing else with him at his office, but for that increas-
ing dependence upon him in everything which she
certainly would not have permitted herself if she
had realized it. As it was, she had now come to
him in a state of nervous exaltation, which was not
business-like. She had been greatly shocked by
Ben Halleck's sudden freak ; she had sympathized

424 A MODERN INSTANC5E.

with his family till she herself felt the need of some
sort of condolence, and she had promised herself this
consolation from Atherton's habitual serenity. She
did not know what to do when he received her with
what she considered an impatient manner, and did
not seem at all glad to see her. There was no reason
why he should be glad to see a lady calling on business,
and no doubt he often found her troublesome, but he
had never shown it before. She felt like crying at
first; then she passed through an epoch of resent-
ment, and then through a period of compassion for
him. She ended by telling him with dignitied sever-
ity that she wanted some money : they usually made
some jokes about her destitution when she came upon
that errand. He looked surprised and vexed, and " I
have spent what you gave me last month/' she
explained.

" Tlien you wish to anticipate the interest on your
bonds ? "

" Certainly not," said Clara, rather sharply. " 1
wish to have the interest up to the present time."

" But I told you," said Atlierton, and he could not,
in spite of himself, help treating her somewhat as a
child, " I told you then tliat I was paying you the
interest up to the first of November. There is none
due now. Did n't you. understand that ? '*

" No, I did n't understand," answered Clara. She
allowed herself to add, " It is very strange ! " Ather-
ton struggled with his irritation, and made no reply.
" I can't be left without money," she continued.
" What am I to do without it ? " she demanded with
an air of unanswerable argument. "Why, I must
have it!"

" I felt that I ought to understand you fully," said
Atherton, with cold politeness. " It 's only necedsaiy
to know what sum you require."

Clara flung up her veil and confronted him with aS

A MODERN INSTANCE. 425

excited face. " Mr. Atherton, I don*t wish a loan ;
I can't permit it ; and you know that my principles
are entirely against anticipating interest."

Atherton, from stooping over his table, pencil in
hand, leaned back in his chair, and looked at her with
a smile that • provoked her : " Then may I ask what
you wish me to do ? "

" No ! I can't instruct you. My affairs are in
your hands. But I must ^say — " She bit her lip,
however, and did not say it. On the contrary she
asked, rather feebly, " Is there nothing due on
anything ? "

" I went over it with you, last month," said Ather-
ton patiently, " and explained all the investments. I
could sell some stocks, but this election trouble has
disordered everything, and I should have to sell at a
heavy loss. There are your mortgages, and there are
your bonds. You can have any amount of money
you want, but you will have to borrow it."

" And that you know I won't do. There should
always be a sum of money in the bank," said Clara
decidedly.

" I do my very best to keep a sum there, knowing
your theory ; but your practice is against me. You
draw too many checks," said Atherton, laughing.

" Very well ! " cried the lady, pulling down hei
veil. " Then I 'm to have nothing ? "

"You won't allow yourself to have anything,"
Atherton began. But she interrupted him haughtily.

" It is certainly very odd that my affairs should be
in such a state tliat I can't have all the money of my
own that I want, whenever I want it."

Atheiton's thin face paled a little more than usuaL
* I shall be glad to resign the charge of your affairs,
Miss Kingsbury."

" And I shall accept your resignation," cried Clara,
magnificently, " whenever you offer it." She swept

426 A MODERN INSTANCE.

out of the oJB&ce, and descended to her coup6 like aH
incensed goddess. She drew the curtains and began
to cry. At her door, she bade the servant deny her
to everybody, and went to bed, where she was visited
a little later by Olive Halleck, whom no ban ex-
cluded. Clara lavishly confessed her sin and sorrow.
" Why, I vjent there, more than half, to sympathize
with him about Ben ; I don't need any money, just
yet ; and the first thing I knew, I was accusing him
of neglecting my interests, and I don't know what
all ! Of course he had to say he would n't have any-
thing more to do with them, and I should have de-
spised him if he had n't. And now I don't care what
becomes of the property: it's never been anything
but misery to me ever since I had it, and I always
knew it would get me into trouble sooner or later."
She whirled her face over into her pillow, and sobbed,
•' But I did nH suppose it would ever make me insult
and outrage the best friend I ever had, — and the
truest man, — and the noblest gentleman ! Oh, what
will he think of me ? "

Olive remained sadly quiet, as if but superficially
interested in these transports, and Clara lifted her face
again to say in her handkerchief, "It's a shame,
Olive, to burden you with all this at a time when
you 've care enough of your own."

" Oh, I *m rather glad of somebody else's care ; it
helps to take my mind off," said Olive.

" Then what would you do ? " asked Clara, tempted
by the apparent sympathy with her in the effect of
her naughtiness.

" You might make a party for him, Clara," sug-
gested Olive, with lack-lustre irony.

Clara gave way to a loud burst of grief. "Oh,
Olive HaUeck! I didn't suppose you oould be 80
cruel ! "

A MODERN INSTANCK 427

to him and tell him that you *re ashamed of yourself
and ask him to take your property back again."

" Never ! " cried Clara, who had listened with fas-
cination. " What would he think of me ? "

" Why need you care ? It 's purely a matter of
business 1 "

" Yes."

" And you need n't mind what he thinks. "

" Of course," admitted Clara, thoughtfully.

"He will naturally despise you," added Olive,
*' but I suppose he does that, now."

Clara gave her friend as piercing a glance as her
soft blue eyes could emit, and, detecting no sign of
jesting in Olive's sober face, she answered haughtily,
" I don't see what right Mr. Atherton has to despise
me!"

" Oh, no ! He must admire a girl who has behaved
to him as you've done."

Clara's hauteur collapsed, and she began to truckle
to Olive. " If he were merely a business man, I
should n't mind it ; but knowing him socially, as I
do, and as a — friend, and — an acquaintance, that
way, I don't see how I can do it."

"I wonder you didn't think of that before you
accused him of fraud and peculation, and all those
thinojs."

" I did n't accuse him of fraud and peculation 1 **
cried Clara, indignantly.

" You said you did n't know what all you *d called
him," said Olive, with her hand on the door.

Clara followed her down stairs. "Well, I shall
never do it in the world," she said, with reviving
hope in her voice.

•' Oh, I don't expect you to go to him this morn-
ing," said Olive dryly. " That would be a little too
barefaced."

Her friend kissed her. " Olive Halleck, you 're the

428 A MODERN INSTANCE.

strangest girl that ever was. I do believe yoti 'd joke
at the point of death ! But I 'm so glad you have
been perfectly frank with me, and of course it's
worth worlds to know that you think I Ve behaved
horridly, and ought to make some reparation."

"I'm glad you value my opinion, Clara. And if
you come to me for frankness, you can always have all
you want ; it 's a drug in the market with me." She
meagrely returned Clara's embrace, and left her in a
reverie of tactless scheming for the restoration of
peace with Mr. Atlierton.

Marcia came in upon the lawyer before he had
thought, after parting with Miss Kingsbury, to tell
the clerk in the outer office to deny him ; but she
was too full of her own trouble to see the reluctance
which it tasked all his strength to quell, and she sank
into the nearest chair unbidden. At sight of her,
Atherton became the prey of one of those fantastic
repulsions in which men visit upon women the blame
of others' thoughts about them : he censured her for
Hal leek's wrong; but in another instant he recog-
nized his cruelty, and atoned by relenting a little in
his intolerance of her presence. She sat gazing at
him with a face of blank misery, to which he could
not refuse the charity of a proj:npting question : " Is
there something I can do for you, Mrs. Hubbard ? '*

"Oh, I don't know, — I don't know !" She had a
folded paper in her hands, which lay helpless in her
lap. After a moment she resumed, in a hoarse, low
voice : " They have all begun to come for their
money, and this one — this one says he will have the
law of me — I don't know what he means — if I don t
pay him."

Marcia could not know how hard Atherton found
it to govern the professional suspicion which sprung
up at the question of money. But he overruled his
suspicion by an effort that was another relief to the

A MODERN INSTANCE. 429

3truggle in which he was wrenching his mind from
Miss Kingsbury's outrageous behavior. " What have
you got there?" he asked gravely, and not unkindly,
and being used to prompt the reluctance of lady
clients, he put out his hand for the paper she held.
It was the bill of the threatening creditor, for indefi-
nitely repeated dozens of tivoli beer.

" Why do they come to you with this ? '*

" Mr. Hubbard is away."

"Oh, yes. I heard. When do you expect him
home ? "

" I don't know."

" Where is he ? "

She looked at him piteously without speaking.

Atherton stepped to his door, and gave the order
forgotten before. Then he closed the door, and came
back to Marcia. " Don't you know where your hus-
band is, Mrs. Hubbard ? "

" Oh, he will come back ! He could nH leave me !
He's dead, — I know he's dead; but he will come
back ! He only went away for the night, and some-
thing must have happened to him."

The whole tragedy of her life for the past fortnight
was expressed in these wild and inconsistent words ;
she had not been able to reason beyond the pathetic
absurdities which they involved ; they had the effect
of assertions confirmed in the belief by incessant
repetition, and doubtless she had said them to her-
self a thousand times. Atherton read in them, not
only the confession of her despair, but a prayer for
mercy, which it would have been inhuman to deny,
and for the present he left her to such refuge from
herself as she liad found in them. He said, quietly,
" You had better give me that paper, Mrs. Hubbard,"
and took the bill from her. " If the others come with
their accounts again, you must send them to ma
When did you say Mr. Hubbard left home ? **

430 A MODERN INSTANCE.

** The night after the election," said Marcia.

" And he did n't say how long he should be gone ? "
pursued the lawyer, in the feint that she had known
he was going.

" No," she answered.

" He took some things with him ? "

" Yes.*'

" Perhaps you could judge how long he meant to
be absent from the preparation he made ? "

" 1 've never looked to see. I could n't ! "

Atherton changed the line of his inquiry. "Does
any one else know of this ? "

" No,'* said Marcia, quickly, " I told Mrs. Halleck
and all of them that he was in New York, and I said
that I had heard from him. I came to you because you
were a lawyer, and you would not tell what I told you/'

" Yes," said Atherton.

" I want it kept a secret. Oh, do you think he 's
dead ? " she implored

" No," returned Atherton, gravely, *' I don't think
he's dead."

" Sometimes it seems to me I could bear it better
if I knew he was dead. If he is n't dead, he 's out of
his mind ! He 's out of his mind, don't you thinks
and he 's wandered off somewhere ? "

She besought him so pitifully to agree with her,
bending forward and trying to read the thoughts in
his face, that he could not help saying, " Perhaps."

A gush of grateful tears blinded her, but she choked
down her sobs.

" I said things to him that night that were enough
to drive him crazy. I was always the one in faiuti
but he was always the one to make up first, and he
never would have gone away from me if he had
known what he was doing 1 But he will come back,
I know he will," she said, rising. " And oh, you won't
»ay anything to anybody, will you ? And he 'U get

A MODERN INSTANCE. 431

back before they find out. I will send those men to
you, and Bartley will see about it as soon as he comes ,
home — " -^

" Don't go, Mrs. Hubbard," said the lawyer. " I
want to speak with you a little longer." She dropped
again in her chair, and looked at him inquiringly,
" Have you written to your father about this ? "

" Oh, no," she answered quickly, with an effect of
shrinking back into herself.

'*I think you had better do so. You can't tell
when your husband will return, and you can't go on
in this way."

" I will never tell father** she replied, closing her
lips inexorably.

The lawyer forbore to penetrate the family trouble
he divined. " Are you all alone in the house ? " he
asked.

" The girl is there. And the baby."

" That won't do, Mrs. Hubbard," said Atherton, with
a compassionate shake of the head. " You can't go
on living there alone."

" Oh, yes, I can. I 'm not afraid to be alone," she
returned with the air of having thought of this.

" But he may be absent some time yet," urged the
lawyer ; " he may be absent indefinitely. You must
go home to your father and wait for him there."

" I can't do that. He must find me here when he
comes," she answered firmly.

" But how will you stay ? " pleaded Atherton ; he
had to deal with an unreasonable creature who could
not be driven, and he must plead. " You have no
money, and how can you live ? "

" Oh," replied Marcia, with the air of having
thought of this too, " I will take boarders."

Atherton smiled at the hopeless practicality, and
shook his head; but he did not oppose her directly.
•* Mrs. Hubbard," he said earnestly, " you have done

432 A MODERN INSTANCE.

well in comiDg to me, but let me convince you that
this is a matter which can't be kept. It must be
known. Before you can begin to help youi-self, you
must let others help you. Either you must go home
to your father and let your husband find you there — "

" He must find me here, in our own house."

"Then you must tell your friends here that you
don't know where he is, nor when he will return, and
let them advise together as to what can be done. You
must tell the Hallecks — "

" I will never tell them ! " cried Marcia. " Let me
go ! I can starve there and freeze, and if he finds me
dead in the house, none of them shall have the right
to blame him, — to say that he left me, — that he de-
serted his little child ! Oh ! oh ! oh ! oh ! What shall
I do?"

The hapless creature shook with the thick-coming
sobs that overpowered her now, and Atherton re-
frained once more. She did not seem ashamed before
him of the sorrows which he felt it a sacrilege to know,
and in a bliiijLingtinctive way he perceived that in
proportion's he was a strangefTt was possible for her
to bear her disgrace in his presence. He spoke at
last from the hint he found in this fact : " Will you
let me mention the matter to Miss Kingsbury ? "

She looked at him with sad intensity in the eyes, as
if trying to fathom any nether thought that he might
have. It must have seemed to her at first that he
was mocking her, but his words brought her the
only relief from her self-upbraiding she had known.
To sufl'er kindness from Miss Kingsbury would be in
some sort an atonement to Bartley for the wrong her
jealousy had done him ; it would be self-sacrifice for
liis sake ; it would be expiation. " Yes, tell her," she
answered with a promptness whose obsciu'e motive
was not illumined by the flash of passionate pride
with which she added, " I shall not care for her.**

A MODERN INSTANCE. 433

She rose again, and Atherton did not detain her ;
but when she had left him he lost no time in Merit-
ing to her father the facts of the case as her visit
had revealed them. He spoke of her reluctance to
have her situation known to her family, but assured
the Squire that he need have no anxiety about her for
the present. He promised to keep him fully informed
in regard to her, and to telegraph the first news of
Mr. Hubbard. He left the Squii^e to form his own
conjectures, and to take whatever action he thought
best. Tor his own part, he had no question that
Hubbard had abandoned his wife, and had stolen Hal-
leck's money; and the detectives to whom he went
were clear that it was a case of European traveL

«S4 A MODEBK INSTANCB.

XXXV.

Atherton went from the detectives to Miss Kings-
bury, and boldly resisted the interdict at her door,
sending up his name with the message that he wished
to see her immediately on business. She kept him
waiting while she made a frightened toilet, and leaving
the letter to him which she had begun half finished
on her desk, she came down to meet him in a flutter
of despondent conjecture. He took her mechanically
yielded hand, and seated himself on the sofa beside
her. " I sent word that I had come on business," he
said, *' but it is no affair of yours," — she hardly knew
whether to feel relieved or disappointed, — "except
as you make all unhappy people's affairs your own."

" Oh ! " she murmured in meek protest, and at the
same time she remotely wondered if these affairs were
his.

"I came to you for help," he began again, and
again she interrupted him in deprecation.

" You are very good, after — after — what I — what
happened, — I 'm sure." She put up her fan to her
lips, and turned her head a little aside. " Of course
I shall be glad to help you in anything, Mr. Atherton ^
you know I always am."

" Yes, and that gave me courage to come to you,
even after the way in which we parted this morning.
I knew you would not misunderstand me " —

" No," said Clara softly, doing her best to xuld6^
stand him.

" Or think me wanting in delicacy — **

A MODERN INSTANCE. 435

« Oh, no, no ! "

*' If I believed that we need not have any embaiv
rassment in meeting in behalf of the poor creaturf*
who came to see me just after you left me. The fact
is," he went on, " I felt a little freer to promise your
interest since I had no longer any business relation
to you, and could rely on your kindness like — like
— any other."

" Yes," assented Clara, faintly ; and she forbore to
point out to him, as she might fitly have done, that
he had never had the right to advise or direct her at
which he hinted, except as she expressly conferred it
from time to time. " I shall be only too glad — "

" And I will have a statement of your affairs drawn
up to-morrow, and sent to you." Her heart sank;
she ceased to move the fan which she had been slowly
waving back and forth before her face. " I was going
to set about it this morning, but Mrs. Hubbard's
visit — "

"Mrs. Hubbard!" cried Clara, and a little air of
pique qualified her despair.

" Yes ; she is in trouble, — the greatest : her hus-
band has deserted her."

" Oh, Mr. Atherton ! " Clara's mind was now far
away from any concern for herself. The woman
whose husband has deserted her supremely appeals
to all other women. *'I can't believe it! What
makes you think so ? "

" What she concealed, rather than what she told
me, I believe," answered Atherton. He ran over the
main points of their interview, and summed up his
own conjectures. " I know from things Halleck has
let drop that they have n't always lived happily to-
gether; Hubbard has been speculating with borrowed
money, and he 's in debt to everybody. She 's been
alone in her house for a fortnight, and she only came
to me because people had begun to press her for

436 A MODERN INSTANCE.

money. She 's been pretending to the Hallecks that
she hears from her husband, and knows where he is."

" Oh, poor, poor thing ! *' said Clara, too shocked ta
say more. " Then they don't know ? "

"No one knows but ourselves. She came to me
because I was a comparative stranger, and it would
cost her less to confess her trouble to me than to
them, and she allowed me to speak to you for very
much the same reason."

" But I know she dislikes me ! "

" So much the better ! She can't doubt your good-
ness — "

"Oh!"

" And if she dislikes you, she can keep her pride
better with you."

Clara let her eyes fall, and fingered the edges of
her fan. There was reason in this, and she did not
care that the opportunity of usefulness was personally
unflattering, since he thought her capable of rising
above the fact. " What do you want me to do ? " she
asked, lifting her eyes docilely to his.

" You must find some one to stay with her, in her
house, till she can be persuaded to leave it, and you
must lend her some money till her father can come
to her or write to her. I *ve just written to him, and
I We told her to send all her bills to me ; but I 'm
afraid she may be in immediate need."

" Terrible ! " sighed Clara to whom the destitution
of an acquaintance was appalling after all her chaiita'
ble knowledge of want and suffering. " Of course, we
must n't lose a moment," she added ; but she lingered
in her corner of the sofa to discuss ways and means
with him, and to fathom that sad enjoyment which
comfortabhi i)Cople find in the contemplation of alien
sorrows. It was not her fault if she felt too kindly
toward the disaster that had brought Atherton back
to her on the old terms ; or if she arranged her plans

A MODERN INSTANCE. 437

for befriending Marcia in her desolation with too
buoyant a cheerfulness. But she took herself to task
for the radiant smile she found on her face, when she
ran up stairs and looked into her glass to see how she
looked in parting with Atherton : she said to herseK
that he would think her perfectly heartless.

She decided that it would be indecent to drive to
Marcia's under the circumstances, and she walked ;
though with all the time this gave her for reflection she
had not wholly banished this smile when she looked
into Marcia's woe-begone eyes. But she found herself
incapable of the awkwardnesses she had deliberated,
and fell back upon the native motherliness of her
heart, into which she took Marcia with sympathy
that ignored everything but her need of help and
pity. Marcia s bruised pride was broken before the
goodness of the girl she had hated, and she performed
her sacrifice to Bartley's injured memory, not with the
haughty self-devotion which she intended should hu-
miliate Miss Kingsbury, but with the prostration of a
woman spent with watching and fasting and despair.
She held Clara away for a moment of scrutiny, and
then submitted to the embrace in which they recog-
liized and confessed all.

It was scarcely necessary for Clara to say that Mr.
Atherton had told her ; Marcia already knew that ;
ind Clara became a partisan of her theory of Bart-
iey's absence almost without an 'effort, in spite of the
facts that Atherton had suggested to the contrary.
'* Of course ! He has wandered off somewhere, and as
soon as he comes to his senses he will hurry home.
Why I was reading of such a case only the other day,
— the case of a minister who wandered off in just
the same way, and found himself out in Western
New l^brk somewhere, after he had been gone three
monthfe."

" Bartley won't be gone three months," protested
Marcia.

438 A MODERN mSTAKCfi.

" Certainly not ! " cried Clara, in severe self-rebukei
Then she talked of his return for a while as if it might
be expected any moment. " In the mean time/' she
added, " you nmst stay here ; you 're quite right about
that, too, but you must n't stay here alone : he 'd be
quite as much shocked at that as if he found you
gone when he came back. I 'm going to ask you to
let my friend Miss Strong stay with you ; and she
must pay her board ; and you must let me lend youaU
the money you need. And, dear," — -Clara dropped
her voice to a lower and gentler note, — "you must n't
try to keep this from your friends. You must let
Mr. Atherton write to your father; you must let
me tell the Hallecks : they '11 be hurt if you don't
You need n't be troubled ; of course he wandered off
in a temporary hallucination, and nobody will think
differently."

She adopted the fiction of Bartley's aberration with
so much fervor that she even silenced Atberton's in-
jurious theories with it when he came in the evening
to learn the result of her intervention. She had for-
gotten, or she ignored, the facts as he had stated them
in the morning ; she was now Bartley's valiant cham-
pion, as well as the tender protector of Marcia : she
was the equal friend of the whole exemplary Hubbard
family.

Atherton laughed, and she asked what he was
lautyhincr at.

"Oh," he answered, "at something Ben Bjlleck
once said : a real woman can make righteousness deli-
cious and virtue piquant."

Clara reflected. " I don't know whether I like
that," she said finally.

" N"o ? " said Atherton. " Why not ? "

She was serving him with an after-dinner cup of teai
which she had brought into the drawing-room, and in
putting the second lump of sugar into his saaoer she

A MODERN INSTANCE. 439

paused again, thoughtfully, holding the little cube in
the ton<'s. She was rather elaborately dressed for so
simple an occasion, and her silken train coiled itself
far out over the mossy depth of the moquette carpet;
the pale blue satin of the furniture, and the delicate
white and gold of the decorations, became her won-
derfully.

" I can't say, exactly. It seems depreciatory, some-
how, as a generalization. But a man might say it of
the woman he was in love with," she concluded.

" And you would n*t approve of a man's saying it
of the woman his friend was in love with ? " pursued
Atherton, taking his cup from her.

" If they were very close friends." She did not
know why, but she blushed, and then grew a little
pale.

"I understand what you mean," he said, "and I
should n't have liked the speech from another kind
of man. But Hnlleck's innocence characterized it."
He stirred his tea, and then let it stand untasted in
his abstraction.

" Yes, he is good," siglied Clara. " If he were not
so good, it would be liard to forgive him for disap-
pointing all their liopes in the way he's done."

" It 's the best thing he could have done," said
A-therton gravely, even severely.

" I know you advised it," asserted Clara. " But
it's a great blow to them. How strange that Mr.
Hubbard should have disappeared the last night Ben
was at home ! I 'in glad that he got away without
knowing anything about it."

Atherton dranlc off his tea, and refused a second
cup with a gesture of his hand. " Yes, so am I," he
said. " I 'm glad of every league of sea he puts be-
hind him." He rose, as if eager to leave the subject.'

Clara rose too, with the patient acquiescence of a
•voman, and took his hand proffered in parting.^

440 A MODERN INSTANCE.

They had certainly talked out, but there seemed no
reason why he should go. He held her hand, while
he asked, " How shall I make my peace with you ? "

" My peace ? What for ? " She flushed joyfully.
** I was the oue in fault."

He looked at her mystified. " Why, surely, y<m
did n*t repeat Halleck's remark ? "

" Oh ! " she cried indignantly, withdrawing her
hani " I meant this ifiorning. It does n't matter,"
she added. " If you still wish to resign the charge
of my affairs, of course I must submit. But I thought

— I thought — " She did not go on, she was too deeply
hurt. Up to this moment she had imagined that she
had befriended Marcia, and taken all that trouble upon
herself for goodness' sake ; but now she was ready to
upbraid him for ingratitude in not seeing that she
had done it for his sake. " You can send me the
statement, and then — and then — I don't know what
I shall do ! Why do you mind what I said ? I Ve
often said quite as much before, and you know
that I did n't mean it. I want you to take my prop-
erty back again, and never to mind anything I say :
I *m not worth minding." Her intended upbraiding
had come to this pitiful effect of self-contempt, and
her hand somehow was in his again. " Do take it
back ! "

"If I do that," said Atherton, gravely, "I must
make my conditions," and now they sat down to-
gether on the sofa from wliich he had risen. "I
can't be subjected again to your — disappointments,"

— he arrested with a motion of his hand the profuse
expression of her penitence and good intentions, —
" and I 've felt for a long time that this was no attitude
for your attorney. You ought to have the right to
question and censure ; but I confess I can't grant you
this. I ' ve allowed myself to make your interests too
much my own in everything to be able to bear it I 'va

JL MODERN INSTANCE. 441

thought beveral times that I ought to give up the
trust ; but it seemed like giving up so much more, that
I never had the courage to do it in cold blood. This
morning you gave me my chance to do it in hot
blood, and if I resume it, I must make my terms."

It seemed a long speech to Clara, who sometimes
thought she knew whither it tended, and sometimes
not. She said in a low voice, " Yes."

" I must be relieved," continued Atherton, " of the
sense I 've had that it was indelicate in me to keep
it, while I felt as I Ve grown to feel — towards you."
He stopped : " If I take it back, you must come with
it ! " he suddenly concluded.

The inconsistency of accepting these conditions
ought to have struck a woman who had so long im-
agined herself the chase of fortune-hunters. But
Clara apparently found nothing alarming in the de-
mand of a man who openly acted upon his knowledge
of what could only have been matter of conjecture
to many suitors she had snubbed. She found noth-
ing incongruous in the transaction, and she said,
with as tremulous breath and as swift a pulse as if the
question had been solely of herself, " I accept — the
conditions."

In the long, happy talk that lasted till midnight,
they did not fail to recognize that, but" for their
common pity of Marcia, they might have remained
estranged, and they were decently ashamed of their
bliss when they thought of misery like hers. When
Atherton rose to bid Clara good night, Marcia was
still watching for Bartley, indulging for the last time
the folly of waiting for him as if she definitely ex-
pected hmi that night.

Every night since he disappeared, she had kept the
.ights burning in the parlor and hall, and drowsed
before the fire till the dawn drove her to a few hours
of sleep in bed. But with the coming of the stranger

442 A MODERN INSTANCE.

who was to be lier companion, she must deny herself
even this consolation, and openly accept the fact that
she no longer expected Bartley at any given time.
She bitterly rebelled at the loss of her solitude, in
which she could be miserable in whatever way her
sorrow prompted, and the pangs with which she had
submitted to Miss Kingsbury's kindness grew sharper
hour by hour till she maddened in a frenzy of resent-
ment against the cruelty of her expiation. She longed
for the day to come that she might go to her, and
take back her promises and her submission, and iBing
her insulting good-will in her face. SJie-Baid^-to-her-
sclf that no one should enter herjoor a^in.till Bart-
ley opened it ; she would die there in the house, she
and her baby, and as she stood wringing her hands
and moaning over the sleeping little one, a hideous
impulse made her brain reel; she wished to look if
Bartley had left his pistol in its place ; a cry for help
against herself broke from her ; she dropped upon her
knees.

The day came, and the hope and strength which
the mere light so strangely brings to the sick in spirit
as well as the sick in body visited Marcia. She
abhorred the temptation of the night like the remem- '
brance of 'a wicked dream, and she went about with a
humble and grateful prayer — to something, to some
one — in her heart. Her housewifely pride stirred ■
again : that girl should not think she was a slattern ;
and Miss Strong, when she preceded her small trunk.
in the course of the forenoon, found the parlor and
the guest-chamber, which she was to have, swept, and
dusted, and set in perAict order by Marcia's hands.
She had worked with fury, and kept her heart-ac^
Btill, but it began again at sight of the girl. Forra*
nately, the conservatory pupil had embraced with
even more than Miss Kingsbury's ardor the theory of

A MODERN INSTANCE. 443

Hartley's aberration, and she met Marcia with a sym-
pathy in her voice and eyes that could only have
come from sincere conviction. She was a simple
country thing, who would never be a prima donna ;
but the overflowing sentimentality which enabled her
to accept herself at the estimate of her enthusiastic
fellow-villagers made her of far greater comfort to
Marcia than the sublimest musical genius would have
done. She worshipped the heroine of so tragic a
fact, and her heart began to go out to her in honest
helpfulness from the lirst. She broke in upon the
monotony of Marcia's days with the offices and in-
terests of wholesome commonplace, and exorcised the
ghostly silence with her first stroke on the piano, —
which Bartley had bought on the instalment plan
and had not yet paid for.

In fine, life adjusted itself with Marcia to the
new conditions, as it does with women less wofuUy
widowed by death, who promise themselves reunion
with their lost in another world, and suffer through
the first weeks and days in the hope that their part-
ing will be for but days or weeks, and then gradually
submit to indefinite delay. She prophesied BartleysX
yfeturn, and fixed it in her own mind for this hour and
that. " Now, in the morning, I shall wake and find
him standing by the bed. No, at night he will come
in and surprise us at dinner." She cheated herself
with increasing faith at each renewal of her hopes.
When she ceased to formulate them at last, it was
because they had served their end, and left her es-
tablished, if not comforted, in the superstition by
which she lived. His return at any hour or any
moment was the fetish which she let no misgiving
blaspheme ; everything in her of^ woman and of wife
consecrated. it. She kept the child in continual re-
membrance of him by talking of him, and by making
her recognize the photographs in which Bartley had

44-i A MODERN INSTANCE.

abundai ly perpetuated himself ; at night, when she
folded t e little one's hands for prayer, she made her
pray Gc . to take care of poor papa and send him
home soon to mamma. She was beginning to can-
onize him.

Her fatlier came to see her as soon as he thought
it best after Atherton*s letter ; and the old man had
to endure talk of Bartley to which all her former
praises were as refreshing shadows of defamation.
She required him to agree with everything she said,
and he could not refuse; she reproached him for
being with herself the cause of all Bartley's errors,
and he had to bear it without protest. At the end
he cou] I say nothing but " Better come home with
me, Ma:,Sia,*' and he suffered in meekness the indig-
nation w^ith which she rebuked him : " I will stay in
Bartley's^ house till he comes back to me. If he is
dead, I will die here."

The old man had satisfied himself that Bartley had
absconded in his own rascally right mind, and he ac-
cepted with tacit grimness the theory of the detect-
ives that he had not gone to Europe alone. He paid
back the money which Bartley had borrowed from
Halleck, and he set himself as patiently as he could
to boar with Marcia's obstinacy. It was a mania
which must be indulged for the time, and he could
only trust to Atherton to keep him advised concern-
ing lier. When he offered her money at parting, she
hesitated. But she finally took it, saying, " Bartley
will pay it back, every cent, as soon as he gets home.
And if," she added, " he does n't get back soon, I
will take some other boarders and pay it myself."

He could see that she was offended with him for
asking her to go home. But she was his girl ; he
v/nly pitied her. He shook hands with her as usual,
and kissed her with the old stoicism ; but his lips, set
to fierceness by the life-long habit of sarcasm, tanembled

A MODEEN INSTANCE. 445

as he turned away. She was eager to have l .m go ;
for she had given him Miss Strong's room, ajid had
taken the girl into her own, and Bartley wcdld not
like it if he came back and found her there.

Bartley 's disappearance was scarcely a day's won-
der with people outside his own circle in that time
of anxiety for a fair count in Louisiana and Florida,
and long before the Ee turning Boards had partially
relieved the tension of the public mind by their de-
cision he had quite dropped out of it. The reporters
who called at his house to get the bottom lacts in
the case, adopted Marcia's theory, given them by Miss
Strong, and whatever were their own suspicions or
convictions, paragraphed him with merciful br* vity as
having probably wandered away during a tei .porary
hallucination. They spoke of the depression c spirits
which many of his friends had observed in 1 im, and
of pecuniary losses, as the cause. They mentioned his
possible suicide only to give the report the authori-
tative denial of his family ; and they added, that the
case was in the hands of the detectives, who believed
themselves in possession of important clews. The
detectives in fact remained constant to their original
theory, that Bartley had gone to Europe, and they
were able to name with reasonable confidence the
person with whom he had eloped. But these were
matters hushed up among the force and the press.
In the mean time, Bartley had been simultaneously
seen at Montreal and Cincinnati, at about the same
time that an old friend had caught a glimpse of him
on a train bound westward from Chicago.

So far as the world was concerned, the surmise
with which Marcia saved herself from final despair
was the only impression that even vaguely remained
of the affair. Her friends, who had compassionately
acquiesced in it at first, waited for the moment when
they could urge her to relinquish it and go home to

446 A MODERN INSTANCE.

her father; but while they waited, she gathered
strength to establish herself immovably in it, and to
shape her life more and more closely about it. She
had no idea, no instinct, but to stay where he had
left her till he came back. She opposed this singly
and solely against all remonstrance, and treated every
suggestion to the contrary as an instigation to crime
Her father came from time to time during the winter
to see her, but she would never go home with him
even for a day. She put her plan in force ; she took
other boarders : other girl students like Miss Strong,
whom her friends brought her when they found that it
was useless to oppose her and so began to abet her ;
she worked hard, and she actually supported herself at
last in a frugal independence. Her father consulted
with Atherton and the Hallecks ; he saw that she
was with good and faithful friends, and he submitted
to what he could not help. When the summer came,
he made a last attempt to induce her to go home with
him. He told her that her mother wished to see her.
She would not understand. " 1 11 come," she said, ** if
mother gets seriously sick. But I can't go home for
the summer. If I had n*t been at home last summer,
he would never have got into that way, and it would
never have happened."

She went home at last, in obedience to a peremp-
tory summons ; but her mother was too far gone to
know her when she came. Her quiet, narrow life
had grown colder and more inward to the end, and it
passed without any apparent revival of tenderness for
those once dear to her ; the funeral publicity that fol-
lowed seemed a final touch of the fate by which all
her preferences had been thwarted in the world.

Marcia stayed only till she could put the house in
order after they had laid her mother to rest among
the early reddening sumacs under the hot glare of the
August sun ; and when she came away, she brought

A MODERN INSTANCE. 447

her father with her to Boston, where he spent his
days as he might, taking long and aimless walks,
devouring heaps of newspapers, rusting in idleness,
and aging fast, as men do in the irksomeness of
disuse.

Halleck's father was beginning to show his age,
too ; and Halleck's mother lived only in her thoughts
of him, and her hopes of his return ; but he did not
even speak of this in his letters to them. He said
very little of himself, and they could merely infer
tliat the experiment to which he had devoted himself
was becoming less and less satisfactory. Their sense
of this added its pang to their unhappiness in his
absence.

One day Marcia said, to Olive Halleck, " Has any
one noticed that you are beginning to look like your
sisters ? "

" / 've noticed it," answered the girL " I always
was an old maid, and now I 'm beginning to show it."

Marcia wondered if she had not hurt Olive's feel-
ings ; but she would never have known how to ex-
cuse herself; and latterly she had been growing more
and more like her father in certain traits. Perhaps
her passion for Bartley had been the one spring of
tenderness in her nature, and, if ever it were spent^
she would stiffen into the old man's stern aridity.

448 A MODERN INSTANCE.

XXXVI

It was nearly two years after Atherton^s marriage
that Halleck one day opened the door of the lawyer's
private office, and, turning the key in the lock, limped
forward to where the latter was sitting at his desk.
Halleck was greatly changed : the full beard that he
had grown scarcely hid the savage gauntness of his
face ; but the change was not so much in lines and
contours as in that expression of qualities which we
call looks.

" Well, Atherton ! "

'* Halleck! You!''

The friends looked at each other; and Atherton
finally broke from his amaze and offered his hand,
with an effect, even then, of making conditions. But
it was Halleck who was the first to speak again.

" How is she ? Is she well ? Is she still here ?
Have they heard anything from him yet ? "

"No," said Atherton, answering the last question
witli the same provisional effect as before.

"Tlien he is dead. That's what I knew; that's
what I said! And here I am. The fight is over,
and that 's the end of it. I 'm beaten."

" You look it," said Atherton, sadly.

" Oh, yes ; I look it. That 's the reason I can afford
to be frank, in coming back to my friends. I knew
that with this look in my face I should make my own
welcome ; and it 's cordial even beyond my expecta-
tions."

*' I 'm not glad to see you, Halleck/' said Athertoa

A MODERN INSTANCE. 449

" For your own sake I wish you were at the other end
of the world."

" Oh, I know that. How are my people ? Have
you seen my father lately ? Or my mother ? Or —
Olive ? " A pathetic tremor shook his voice.

"Why, haven't you seen them yet?" demanded
Atherton.

Halleck laughed cynically. " My dear friend, my
steamer arrived this morning, and I 'm just off the New
York train. I Ve hurried to your office in all the im-
patience of friendship. I'm very lucky to find you
here so late in the day ! You can take me home to
dinner, and let your domestic happiness preach to me.
Come, I rather like the notion of that ! "

" Halleck," said Atherton, without heeding his ban-
ter, *' I wish you would go away again ! No one
knows you are here, you say, and no one need ever
know it."

Halleck set his lips and shook his head, with a
mocking smile. "I'm surprised at you, Atherton,
with your knowledge of human nature. I 've come
to stay ; you must know that. You must know that I
had gone through everything before I gave up, and
that I have n't the strength to begin the struggle over
again. I tell you I 'm beaten, and I 'm glad of it ; for
there is rest in it. You would waste your breath, if
you talked to me in the old way ; there 's nothing in
me to appeal to, any more. If I was wrong — But
I don't admit, any more, that I was wrong: by
heaven, I was right ! "

" You are beaten, Halleck," said Atherton sorrow-
fully. He pushed himself back in his chair, and
clasped his hands together behind his head, as his
habit was in reasoning with obstinate clients. " What
do you propose to do ? "

** I propose to stay."

•'Whatfor?"

450 A MODERN INSTANCE.

« What for ? Till I can prove that he is dead.''

" And then ? "

" Then I shall be free to ask her." He added angrily:
" You know what I *ve come backfor : why do you tor-
Tnftnt^ Tn n^H^hJji ftseljliftationaT I did what I could;

ran away. And the last night I saw her, I thrust
her back into that hell she called her home, and I
told her that no man could be her refuge from that
devil, her husband, — when she had begged me in her
mortal terror to go in with her, and save her from
him. That was the recollection I had to comfort me
when I tried to put her out of my mind, — out of
my soul ! When I heard that he was gone, I re-
spected her days of mourning. God_knowa^_how I
endured it, now it *s over ; but I did endure it. I
waitedj and here I am. And you ask me to go away
again! Ah!" He fetched his breath through his
set teeth, and struck his fist on his knee. " He is
dead! And_now,.if she will, she can marg_ffie.
Don't look at me as if I had killed him I There
has n't been a time in these two infernal years when I
wouldn't have given my life to save his -^— for her
sake. I know that, and that gives me couiage, it
gives me hope."
. " But if he is n't dead ? "

"Then he has abandoned her, and she has the
rh^ to be free : she can get a divorce ! "

" Oh," said Atherton, compassionately, " has that •
poison got into you, Halleck ? You might ask her, if
she were a widow, to marry you; but .ho^.^^J 7^^
ask her, if she 's still a wife, to get a divorce and.^en
marry you ? How will you siiggest that to a woman
whose constancy to her mistake has made her sacred
to youT^ "Halleck seemed about to answer; but he
only panted, dry-lipped and open-moutbed, and Ath-
ertoh continued : " You would have to qpmipt her
soul first. I don't know what change you 'veuuulSm

A MODERN INSTANCE. » 451

yourself during these two years ; you look like a des-
perate and defeated man, but you don't look like that
You don't look like one of those snnimdrftis who lure
woHien from their duty, ruin homes, and destroy-soci-
ety, not in the. old _libertine_ fashion in which jihe
seducer had a^j^Mt-tha ..grace. jQ.^isk_JMsJ^^^
safely, smoothly^ „^Z^^^_^_lb^— ghfilt*^^ ^^ <'>ut' iT^^ajno _

/1a\vs. Have you really come back here to give your
father's honest name, and .the example of a man of
your own blameless life, in support ofljconditions that
tempt people to marry with a mental reservation, and'
th'atweaken every marriage bond with t.bft guilty hnfft \
of escape whenever a fickle mind, or secret lust, oj^
^ wicked, will may dictate ?// Have you come to jom^
yourself to tho5fe miserable spectres who go shrinking
through the world, afraid of their own past, and
anxious to hide it from those they hold dear ; or do
vou propose to defy the woild. to help form withinjt
tfce community of outcasts with whom shame is not
shame, nor dishonor, dishonor ? How will you like
ttie" socte{y~ of those uncertain men, those certain
women ? "

" You are very eloquent," said Halleck, '* but I ask
you to observe that these little abstractions don't in-
terest me. I 've a concrete purpose, and I can't con-
template the effect of other peoplp'r^ flfifinng npnn
Ajrifiri Ptan ci vil i zn ti on . When you ask me to believe \
that I 'ought n't to try to rescue a woman from the
misery to which a villain has left her, simply because
some justice of the peace consecrated his power
over her, I decline to be such a fool. I use my rea-
son, and I see who it was that defiled and destroyed
that marriage, and I know that she is as free in the
sight of God as if he had never lived. If the world
does n't like my open shame, let it look to its own
secret shame, — the marriages made and maintained
from interest, and ambition, and vanity, and folly. I

452 A MODERN INSTANCE.

will take my chance with the men and women who
have been honest enough to own their miatakft, and to
tryijwepair it, and I will preach by my li^thf^t Tnar-
riage has no sanctity but what_love gives it, and
thalTwIien love ceases marriage ceases, before heaven.
IFlhe laws have come to recognize that, by whatever
Action, so much the better for the laws ! " Halleck
rose.

" Well, then," cried Atherton, rising, too, " yon shall
meet me on your own ground ! This poor creature ia
constant in every breath jhejraws to tTie ruffiaiLjgdio
has abandoned her! I must believe, since you say it^
that you are "ready to abet her in getting a divorce,
even one of those divorces that are ' obtained without
publicity, and for any cause,' " — Halleck winced, —
" that you are willing to put your sisters to shame
before the world, to break your mother's heart, and
your father's pride, — to insult the ideal of goodness
that she herself has formed of you; but how will you
begin ? The love on her part, at least, has n't ceai^ :
has the marriage ? "

" She shall tell me," answered Halleck. He left
Atherton without another word, and in resentment
that effaced all friendship between them, though after
this parting they still kept up its outward forms, and
the Athertons took part in the rejoicings with which
the Hallecks celebrated Ben's return. His meet-
ing with the lawyer was the renewal of the old con-
flict on terms of novel and hopeless degradation. He
had mistaken for peace that exhaustion of spirit which
conies to a man in battling with his conscience ; he
had fancied his struggle over, and he was to learn now
that its anguish had just begun. In that delusion
his love was to have been a law to itself, able to lopse
and to bind, and potent to beat down all regrets, all
doubts, all fears, that questioned it ; but the words
with which Marcia met him struck his passion dumb

A MODERN INSTANCE. 453

" Oh, I am so glad you have come lack !" she said
* Now I know that we can find him. You were such
friends with him, and you understood him so well, that
you will know just what to do. Yes, we shall find
him now, and we should have found him long ago if
you had been here. Oh, if you had never gone away !
But I can never be grateful enough for what you said
to me that night when you would not come in with
me. The words have rung in my ears ever since ; they
showed that you had faith in him, more faith than I
had, and I Ve made them my rule and my guide. No
one has been my refuge from him, and no one ever
shall be. And I thank you — yes, I thank you on my
bended knees — for making me go into the house
alone ; it 's my one comfort that I had the strength to
come back to him, and let him do anything he would
to me, after I had treated him so; but I've never
pretended it was my own strength. I have always
told everybody that the strength came from you ! "

Halleck had brought Olive with him; she and
Marcia's father listened to these words with the
patience of people who had heard them many times
before ; but • at the end Olive glanced at Halleck*s
downcast face with fond pride in the satisfaction she
imagined they must give him. The old man ruminated
upon a bit of broom straw, and absently let the little
girl catch by his hands, as she ran to and fro between
him and her mother while her mother talked. Hal-
leck ma.de a formless sound in his throat, for answer,
ancL Marcia went on.

" I Ve got a new plan now, but it seems as if father
took a pleasure in discouraging all my plans. I know
that Bartley 's shut up, somewhere, in some asylum,
and I want them to send detectives to all the asylums
in the United States and in Canada, — you can't tell
how far off he would wander in that state, — and in-
quire if any stray insane person has been brought to

454 A MODERN INSTANCE.

them. Does n't it seem to you as if that would be the
right way to find him ? I want to talk it all over with'
you, Mr. Halleck, for I know you can sympathize with
me ; and if need be I will go to the asylums myself;
'I will walk to them, I will crawl to them on my
knees! When I think of him shut up there among
those raving maniacs, and used as they uib people in
some of the asylums — Oh, oh, oh, oh ! "

She broke out into sobs, and caught her little girl
to her breast. The child must have been accustomed
to her mother's tears; she twisted her head round,
and looked at Halleck with a laughing face.

Marcia dried her eyes, and asked, with quivering
lips, " Is n't she like him ? "

" Yes," replied Halleck huskily.

" She has his long eyelashes exactly, and his hair
and complexion, has n't she ? "

The old man sat chewing his broom straw in
silence ; but when Marcia left the room to get Hartley's
photograph, so that Halleck might see the cliild's
resemblance to him, her father looked at Halleck from
tinder his beetling brows : " I don't think we need
trouble the asyUims much for Bartley Hubbard. But
if it was to search the States prisons and the jails,
the rum-holes and the gambling-hells, or if it was to
dig up the scoundrels who have been hung under
assumed names during the last two years, I should
have some hopes of identifying him."

Marcia came back, and the old man sat in cast-iron
quiet, as if he had never spoken ; it was clear that
whatever hate he felt for Bartley he spared her ; and
that if he discouraged her plans, as she said, it was
because they were infected by the craze in which she
canonized Bartley.

" You see how she is," said Olive, when they came
away.

" Yes, yes, yes," Halleck desolately assented.

A MODERN INSTANCE. 455

*' Sometimes she seems to me just like a querulous,
vulgar, middle-aged woman in her talk ; she repeats
herself in the same scolding sort of way ; and she 's so
eager to blame somebody besides Bartley for Bartley's
wickedness that, when she can't punish herself, she
punishes her father. She 's merciless to that wretched
old man, and he 's wearing his homesick life out here ^
in the city for her sake. You heard her just now,
about his discouraging her plans ? "

" Yes," said Halleck, as before.

" She *s grown commoner and narrower, but it 's "^
hardly her fault, poor thing, and it seems terribly
unjust that she should be made so by what she has
suffered. But that 's just the way it has happened.
She 's so undisciplined, that she could n't get any good
out of her misfortunes ; she *s only got harm : they Ve
made her selfish, and there seems to be nothing left
of what she was two years ago but her devotion to
that miserable wretch. You mustn't let it turn
you against her, Ben ; you must n't forget what she
might have been. She had a rich nature ; but how ^^
it 's been wasted, and turned back upon itself ! Poor,
untrained, impulsive, innocent creature, — my heart \
aches for her ! It 's been hard to bear with her at '
times, terribly hard, and you '11 find it so, Ben. But
you micst bear with her. The awfulest thing about
people in trouble is that they are such bores; they
tire you to death. But you '11 only have to stand her
praises of what Bartley was, and we had to stand
them, and her hopes of what you would be if you were
only at home, besides. I don't know what all she
expects of you; but you must try not to disap-
];oint her; shewwstopsThe grjc^
I really thinirsTi^~beireves'~ybu can do anything you 7
will, just because you 're good."

Halleck listened in silence. He was indeed helpless
tG be otherwise than constant. With shame and grief

456 A MODERN INSTANCE.

in his heart, he could only vow her there the greater
fealty because of the change he found in her.

He was doomed at every meeting to hear her glorify
a man whom he believed a heartless traitor, to plot
with her for the rescue from imaginary captivity of
the wretch who had cruelly forsaken her. He actually
took some of the steps she urged ; he addressed in-
quiries to the insane asylums, far and near ; and in
these futile endeavors, made only with the desire of
failure, his own reason seemed sometimes to waver.
She insisted that Atherton should know all the steps
they were taking; and his sense of his old friend's
exact and perfect knowledge of -his motives was a
keener torture than even her father's silent scorn of
his efforts, or the worship in which his own fiEunily
held him for them.

A MODERN INSTAl^OE. 457

XXXVIL

Halleck had come home in broken health, and
had promised his family, with the self-contempt that
depraves, not to go away again, since the change had
done him no good. There was no talk for the present
of his trying to do anything but to get well ; and for
a while, under the strong excitement, he seemed to be
better. But suddenly he failed; he kept his room,
and then he kept his bed ; and the weeks stretched
into months before he left it.

When the spring weather came, he was able to go
out again, and he spent most of his time in the open
air, feeling every day a fresh accession of strength.
At the end of one long April afternoon, he walked
home with a light heart, whose right to rejoice he
would not let his conscience question. He had met
Marcia in the Public Garden, where they sat down
on a bench and talked, while her father and the little
girl wandered away in the restlessness of age and th^
restlessness of childhood.

" We are going home to Equity this summer," she
said, " and perhaps we shall not come back. No, we
shall not come back. / have given up. I have
waited, hoping — hoping. But now I know that it is
no use waiting any longer : he is dead," She spoke
in tearless resignation, and the peace of accepted
widowhood seemed* to diffuse itself around her.

Her words repeated themselves to Halleck, as he
walked homeward. He found the postman at the
door with a newspaper, which he took from him with

458 A MODERN INSTANCE.

a smile at its veteran appearance, and its probable
adventures in reaching him. The wrapper seemed to
have been several times flipped off, and then slit up ;
it was tied with a string, now, and was scribbled with
rejections in the hands of various Hallocks and Hal-
letts, one of whom had finally indorsed upon it, " Try
97 llumford Street." It was originally addressed, as
he made out, to " Mr. B. Halleck, Boston, Mass.," and
he carried it to his room before he opened it, with a
careless surmise as to its interest for him. It proved
to be a flimsy, shabbily printed countiy newspaper,
with an advertisement marked in one corner.

State of Indiana, 7

Tecumseh County >

In Tecumseh Circuit Court, April Tenn, 1879.

Bartley J. Hubbard ^

vs. > Divorce. No. 5793.

Marcia G." Hubbard. 3

It appearing by affidavit this day filed in the office of the
Clerk of the Tecumseh Circuit Court, that Marcia G. Hubbaody
del'eiKhmt iu the above entitled action for divorce on accoant
of abandonment and gross neglect of duty, is a non-resi-
dent of the State of Indiana, notice of the pendency of such
action is therefore hereby given said defendant above named.
and that the same will be called for answer on the 1 1th day of
April, 1879, the same being the 3d judicial day of the April
term of said court, for said year, which said term of Raid court
will begin on the first Monday in April, 1879, and will be held
at the Court House, in the town of Tecumseh, in said County
and State, said 11th day of April, 1879, being the time fixed
by said plaintiff by indorsement on his complaint, at which
said time said defendant is required to answer herein.

Witness my hand and the seal of the said Court, this 4th day
if March, 1879.

Augustus H. Hawkins,

OlerL

< seal [•

Milikin & Ayres, Att'ys for Plff.

A MODERN INSTANCE. 459

Halleck read this advertisement again and again,
with a dull, mechanical action of the brain. He
saw the familiar names, but they were hopelessly
estranged by their present relation to each other ; the
legal jargon reached no intelligence in him that could
grasp its purport.

When his daze began to yield, he took evidence of
his own reality by some such tests as one might in
waking from a long faint. He looked at his hands,
his feet ; he rose and looked at his face in the glass.
Turning about, he saw the paper where he had left
it on the table ; it was no illusion. He picked up
the cover from the floor, and scanned it anew,
trying to remember the handwriting on it, to make
out who had sent this paper to him, and why. Then
the address seemed to grow into something different
under his eye : it ceased to be his name ; he saw no>v
that the paper was directed to Mrs. B. Hubbard, ana]
that by a series of accidents and errors it had failed to I
reach her in its wanderings, and by a fin^ blunder/
had fallen into his hands.

Once solved, it was a very simple afiFair, and he
had now but to carry it to her ; that was very simple,
too. Or he might destroy it ; this was equally simple.
Her words repeated themselves once more : " I have
given up. He is dead." Why should he break the
peace she had found, and destroy her last sad illusion ?
Why should he not spare her the knowledge of this
final wrong, and let the merciful injustice accomplish
itself ? The questions seemed scarcely to have any
personal concern for Halleck ; his temptation wore a
heavenly aspect. It softly pleaded with him to for-
bear, like something outside of himself. It was when
he began to resist it that he found it the breath in
his nostrils, the blood in his veins. Then the mask
dropped, and the enemy of souls put forth his power
against tliis weak spirit, enfeebled by long strife and
defeat already acknowledged.

460 A MODERN L'^STANCK

At the end Halleck opened his door, and called
* Olive, Olive ! " in a voice that thrilled the girl with
strange alarm where she sat in her oWn room. She
came running, and found him clinging to his door-
post, pale and tremulous. "I want you — want you
to help me," he gasped. " I want to show you some-
thing — Look here 1 "

He gave her the paper, which he had kept behind
him, clutched fast in his hand as if he feared it might
somehow escape him at last, and staggered away to a
chair.

His sister read the notice. "Oh, Ben I" She
dropped her hands with the paper in them before her,
a gesture of helpless horror and pity, and looked at
him. " Does she know it ? Has she seen it ? "

" No one knows it but you and I. The paper was
left here for me by mistake. I opened it before I saw
that it was addressed to her."

He panted forth these sentences in an exhaustion
that would have terrified her, if she had not been too
full of indignant compassion for Marcia to know any-
thing else. She tried to speak.

"Don't you understand, Olive? This is the
notice that the law requires she shall have to come
and defend her cause, and it has been sent by the
clerk of the court, there, to the address that villain
must have given in the knowledge that it could reach
her only by one chance in ten thousand.*'

"And it has come to you ! Oh, Ben ! Who sent
it to you ? " The brother and sister looked at each
other, but neither spoke the awestricken thought that
was in both their hearts. " Ben," she cried in a solemn
ecstasy of love and pride, " I would rather be you this
minute than any other man in the world ! "

" Don't ! " pleaded Halleck. His head dropped, and
then he lifted it by a sudden impulse. "Olive I"—'
>£ut the impulse failed, and he only said, " I want you

A MODERN INSTANCE. 461

to go to Atherton with me. We must n't lose time.
Have C3npus get a carriage. Go down and tell them
we 're going out. I '11 be ready as soon as you are."

But when she called to him from below that the
carriage had come and she was waiting, he would
have refused to go with her if he durst. He no
longer wished to keep back the fact, but he felt an
invalid's W3ariness of it, a sick man's inadequacy to
the farther demands it should make upon him. He
crept slowly down the stairs, keeping a tremulous
hold upon the rail ; and he sank with a sigh against the
carriage cushions, answering Olive's eager questions
and fervid comments with languid monosyllables.

They found the Athertous at coffee, and Clara
would have them come to the dining-room and join
them. Halleck refused the coffee, and while Olive
told what had happened he looked listlessly about the
room, aware of a perverse sympathy with Bartley,
from Bartley's point of view : Bartley might never
have gone wrong if he had had all that luxury ; and
why should he not have had it, as well as Atherton ?
What right had the untempted prosperity of such a
man tcr judge the guilt of such men as himself and
Bartley Hubbard ?

Olive produced the newspaper from her lap, where
she kept both liands upon it, and opened it to the ad-
vertisement in dramatic corroboration of what she had
been telling Atherton. He read it and passed it to
Clara.

" When did this come to you ? "

Olive answered for him. " This evening, — just
now. Did n't I say that ? "

" No," said Atherton ; and he added to Halleck,
gently : " I beg your pardon. Did you notice the
dates ? "

"Yes," answered Halleck, with cold refusal oi
Atherton's tone of reparation.

462 A MODERN INSTANCE.

"The cause is set for hearing on the 11th," said
Atherton. "This is the 8th. The time is very
short"

" It 's long enough," said Halleck, wearily.

"Oh, telegraph!" cried Clara. "Telegraph them
instantly that she never dreamt of leaving him I
Abandonment ! Oh, if they only knew how she had
been slaving her lingers off for the last two years to
keep a home for . him to come back to, they 'd give
her the divorce ! "

Atherton smiled and turned to Halleck: ^'Do
you know what their law is, now ? It was changed
two years ago."

" Yes," said Halleck, replying to the question Ath-
erton had asked and the subtler question he had
looked, " I have read up the whole subject since I
came home. The divorce is granted only upon proof,
even when the defendant fails to appear, and if this
were to go against us," — he instinctively identified
himself with Marcia's cause, — " we can have the
default set aside, and a new trial granted, for cause
shown."

The women listened in awe of the legal phrases ;
but when Atherton rose, and asked, " Is your carriage
here ? " his wife sprang to her feet.

" Why, where are you going ? " she demanded,
anxiously.

" N'ot to Indiana, immediately," answered her hus-
band. " We 're first going to Clover Street, to see
Squire Gaylord and Mrs. Hubbard. Better let me
take the paper, dear," he said, softly withdrawing ill
from her hands.

" Oh, it *s a cruel, cruel law ! " she moaned, de-
j)rived of this moral support. " To suppose that such
( a notice as this is sufiB.cient I Women could n't have
\ made such a law."

" No, women only profit by such laws after they *»

A MODERN INSTANCE. 463

made: they work both ways. But it's not such a
bad law, as divorce laws go. We do worse, now, in
some New England States."

They found the Squire alone in the parlor, and,
with a few words of explanation, Atherton put the
paper in his hands, and he read the notice in emo-
tionless quiet. Then he took off his spectacles, and
shut them in their case, which he put back into his
waistcoat pocket. " This is all right," he said. He
cleared his throat, and, lifting the fierce glimmer of
his eyes to Atherton's, he asked, drily, " What is the
law, at present ? "

Atherton briefly recapitulated the points as he had
them from Halleck.

" That 'a good," said the old man. " We will fight
this, gentlemen." He rose, and from his gaunt height
looked down on both of them, with his sinuous lips
set in a bitter smile. " Bartley must have been dfe-
appointed when he found a divorce so hard to get in
Indiana. He must have thought that the old law
was still in force there. He 's not the fellow to swear
to a lie if he could help it ; but I guess he expects to
get this divorce by perjury."

Marcia was putting little Flavia to bed. She heard
the talking below ; she thought she heard Bartley's
name. She ran to the stairs, and came hesitantly
down, the old wild hope and wild terror fluttering her
pulse and taking her breath. At sight of the three
men, apparently in council, she crept toward them,
holding out her hands before her like one groping his
way. *What — what is it?" She looked from
Atherton's face to her father's ; the old man stopped,
and tried to smile reassuringly ; he tried to speak ;
Atherton turned away.

It was Halleck who came forward, and took her
wandering hands. He held them quivering in his
own, and said gravely and steadily, using her name

464 A MODERN INSTANCE.

for the first time in the deep pity which cast out all
fear and shame, " Marcia, we have found your hus-
band."

" Dead ? " she made with her Kps.

" He is alive," said Halleck. " There is something
in tliis paper for you to see, — something you must

see —

" I can bear anything if he is not dead. Where —
what is it ? Show it to me — " The paper shook in
the hands which Halleck released ; her eyes strayed
blindly over its columns ; he had to put his finger on
the place before she could find it. Then her tremor
ceased, and she seemed without breath or pulse
while she read it through. She fetched a long, deep
sigh, and passed her hand over her eyes, as if to clear
them ; staying herself unconsciously against Halleck's
breast, and laying her trembling arm along his arm
till her fingers knit themselves among his fingers, she
read it a second time and a third. Then she dropped
the paper, and turned to look up at him. "Why!"
she cried, as if she had made it out at last, while an
awful, joyful light of hope flashed into her faca " It is
a 77iistake ! Don't you see ? He thinks that I never
came back ! He thinks that I meant to abandon hvoL
That I — that I — But you know that I came back,
— you came back with me ! Why, I was n't gone an
hour, — a hcdf-hoxxv, hardly. Oh, Bartley, poor Bart-
ley! He thought I could leave him, and take his
child from him ; that I could be so wicked, so heart-
less — Oh, no, no, no ! Why, I only stayed away that
little time because I was afraid to go back ! Don't
you remember how I told you I was afraid, and
wanted you to come in with me ? " Her exaltation
broke in a laugh. " But we can explain it now, and it
will be all right. He will see — he will understand —
I will tell him just how it was — Oh, Flavia, Flavi%
we 've found papa, we 've found papa ! Quick I **

A MODERN INSTANCE. 465

She whirled away toward the stairs, but her father
caught her by the arm. " Marcia ! " he shouted, in
his old raucous voice, " You Ve got to understand 1
This " — he hesitated, as if running over all terms of
opprobrium in his mind, and he resumed as if he had
found them each too feeble — " Bartley has n't acted
under any mistake."

He set the facts before her with merciless clearness,
and she listened with an audible catching of the
breath at times, while she softly smoothed her fore-
head with her left hand. " I don't believe it," she
said when he had ended. " Write to him, tell him
what I say, and you will see."

The old man uttered something between a groan and
a curse. " Oh, you poor, crazy child ! Can nothing
make you understand that Bartley wants to get rid of
you, and that he 's just as ready for one lie as another?
He thinks he can make out a case of abandonment
with the least trouble, and so he accuses you of that,
but he 'd just as soon accuse you of anything else.
Write to him ? You Ve got to go to him ! You Ve
got to go out there and fight him in open court, with
facts and witnesses. Do you suppose Bartley Hubbard
wants any explanation from you ? Do you think
he 's been waiting these two years to hear that you
did n't really abandon him, but came back to this
house an hour after you left it, and that you Ve waited
for him here ever since ? When he knows that, will
he withdraw this suit of his and come home? He'll
want the proof, and the way to do is to go out
there and let him have it. If I had him on the stand
for five minutes," said the old man between his set
teeth, — "just five minutes, — I'd undertake to convince
him from his own lips that he was wrong about you 1
But I am afraid he would n't mind a letter ! You
think I say so because I hate him ; and you don't be'

466 A MODERN INSTANCE.

lieve me. Well, ask either of these gentlemen hew
whether I 'm telling you the truth."

She did not speak, but, with a glance at their avert-
ed faces, she sank into a chair, and passed one hand
jver the other, while she drew her breath in long,
shuddering respirations, and stared at the floor with
knit brows and starting eyes, like one stifling a deadly
pang. She made several attempts to speak before she
could utter any sound ; then she lifted her eyes to her
father's : " Let us — let us — go — home ! Oh, let us
go home ! I will give him up. I had given him up
already ; I told you,'' she said, turning to Halleck,
and speaking in a slow, gentle tone, " only an hour
ago, that he was dead. And this — this that 's hap-
pened, it makes no difference. Why did you bring
the paper to me when you knew that I thought he
was dead ? "

" God knows I wished to keep it from you."

"Well, no matter now. Let him go free if he
wants to. I can't help it."

" You can help it," interrupted her father. "Tou Ve
got the facts on your side, and you Ve got the wit-
nesses ! "

" Would you go out with me, and tell him that I
never meant to leave him ? " she asked simply, turn-
ing to Halleck. " You — and Olive ? "

" We would do anything for you, Marcia ! "

She sat musing, and drawing her hands one over
the other again, while her quivering breath came and
went on the silence. She let her hands fall nerve-
lessly on her lap. " I can't go ; I 'm too weak ; I
couldn't bear the journey. No!" She shook her
head. " I can't go 1 "

"Marcia,'' began her father, "it's your dv;ty to

go t "

" Does it say in the law that I have to go, if I don't
choose ? " she asked of Halleck.

A MODERN INSTANCE. 467

"No, you certainly need not go, if you don't
choose ! "

*' Then I will stay. Do you think it 's my duty ta
go?'* she asked, referring her question first to Hal-
leck and then to Atherton. She turned from the
silence by which they tried to leave her free. " I
don't care for my duty, any more. I don't want to
keep him, if it's so that he — left me — and — and
meant it — and he doesn't — care for me any-—
more."

"Care for you? He never cared for you, Marcial
And you may be sure he does n't care for you now."

" Then let him go, and let us go home."

" Very well ! " said the old man. " We will go
home, then, and before the week 's out Bartley Hub-
bard will be a perjured bigamist."

" Bigamist ? " Marcia leaped to her feet.

"Yes, bigamist! Don't you suppose he had his
eye on some other woman out there before he began
this suit } "

The languor was gone from Marcia's limbs. As she
confronted her father, the wonderful likeness in the
outline of their faces appeared. His was dark and
wrinkled with age, and hers was gray with the anger
that drove the blood back to her heart, but one im-
pulse animated those fierce profiles, and the hoarded
hate in the old man's soul seemed to speak in Marcia's
thick whisper, " I will go."

468 A MODERN INSTANCS;

XXXVIII.

The Athertons sat late over their breakfast in the
luxurious dining-room where the April sun came in
at the windows overlooking the Back Bay, and com-
manding at that stage of the tide a long stretch of
shallow with a flight of white gulls settled upon it.

They had let Clara's house on the hill, and she had
bought another on the new land ; she insisted upon
the change, not only because everybody was leaving
the hill, but also because, as she said, it would seem
too much like taking Mr. Atherton to board, if they
went to housekeeping where she had always lived;
she wished to give him the eflect before the world of
having brought her to a house of his own. She had
even furnished it anew for the most part, and had
banished as far as possible the things that remind-
ed her of the time when she was not his wife. He
humored her in this fantastic self-indulgence, and phi-
losophized her wish to give him the appearance ol
having the money, as something orderly in its origin,
and not to be deprecated on other grounds, since
probably it deceived nobody. They lived a very
tranquil life, and Clara had no gi'ief of her own un-
less it was that there seemed to be no great things
she could do for him. One day when she whimsi-
cally complained of this, he said : " I 'm very glad of
that. Let 's try to be equal to the little sacrifices we
. / must make for each other ; they will be quite enough.
Many a woman who would be ready to die for her

A MODERN INSTANCE. 469

husband makes him wretched because she won't live
for him. Don't despise the day of small things."

" Yes, but when every day seems the day of small
things ! " she pouted.

" Every day is the day of small things," said Ather-
ton, " with people who are happy. We *re never so
prosperous as when we can't remember what happened
last Monday."

" Oh, but I can't bear to be always living in the
present."

" It 's not so spacious, I know, as either the past or
the future, but it 's all we have."

" There ! " cried Clara. " That 's fatalism ! It 'a
worse than fatalism ! "

" And is fatalism so very bad ? " asked her hus-
band.

" It 's Mahometanism ! "

" Well, it is n't necessarily a plurality of wives," re-
turned Atherton, in subtle anticipation of her next
point. " And it 's really only another name for resig-
nation, which is certainly a good thing."

" Kesignation ? Oh, I don't know about that ! "

Atherton laughed, and put his arm round her
waist : an argument that no woman can answer in a
man she loves ; it seems to deprive her of her reason-
ing faculties. In the atmosphere of affection which she
breathed, she sometimes feared that her mental powers
were really weakening. As a girl she had lived a life
full of purposes, which, if somewhat vague, were un-
questionably large. She had tlien had great interests,
— art, music, literature, — the symphony concerts, Mr.
Hunt's classes, the novels of George Eliot, and Mr.
Fiske's lectures on the cosmic philosophy; and she
had always felt that they expanded and elevated ex-
istence. In her moments of question as to the shape
which her life had taken since, she tried to think
whether the liappiness which seemed so little depend'

470 A MODERN INSTANCE.

ent on these things was not beneath the demands of
a spirit which was probably immortal and was cer-
tainly cultivated. They all continued to be part of
her life, but only a very small part ; and she would
have liked to ask her husband whether his influence
upon her had been wholly beneficiaL She was not
sure that it had; but neither was she sure that it had
not. She had never fully consented to the distinct-
ness with which he classified all her emotions and
ideas as those of a woman : in her heart she doubted
whether a great many of them might not be those of
a man, though she had never found any of them ex-
actly like his. She could not complain that he did
not treat her as an equal ; he deferred to her, and de-
pended upon her good sense to an extent that some-
times alarmed her, for she secretly knew that she
had a very large streak of silliness in her natora
He seemed to tell her everything, and to be greatly
ruled by her advice, especially in matters of business ;
but she could not help observing that he often kept
matters involving certain moral questions from her
till the moment for deciding them was past When
she accused him of this, he confessed that it was so ;
but defended himself by saying that he was afraid her
conscience might sway him against his judgment.

Clara now recurred to these words of his as she sat
looking at him through her tears across the breakfiEUtt
table. " Was that the reason you never told me about
poor Bon before ? "

" Yes, and I expect you to justify me. What good
would it have done to tell you ? '*

" I could have told you, at least, that, if Ben had
any such feeling as that, it was n't his fault alto-
gether."

" But you would n't have believed that, Clara," said
Atherton. " You know that, whatever that poor crei^ .
ture's faults are, coquetry is n't one of them.''

A MODERN INSTANCE. 471

Clara only admitted the fact passively. " How did
he excuse liimself for coming back ? " she asked.

** He did n't excuse himself ; he defied himself. We
had a stormy talk, and he ended by denying that he
had any social duty in the matter."

" And I think he was quite right ! " Clara flashed
out. " It was his own affair."

" He said he had a concrete purpose, and would n't
listen to abstractions. Yes, he talked like a woman.
But you know he was n't right, Clara, though you talk
like a woman, too. There are a great many things
that are not wrong except as they wrong others. I 've
no doubt that, as compared with the highest love her
husband ever felt for her, Ben's passion was as light
to darkness. But if he could only hope for its return
through the perversion of her soul, — through teaching
her to think of escape from her marriage by a divorce,

— then it was a crime against her and against so-
ciety."

" Ben could n't do such a thing ! "

" No, he could only dream of doing it When it
came to the attempt, everytliing that was good in him
revolted against it and conspired to make him help
her in the efforts that would defeat,his hopes if they
succeeded. It was a ghastly ordeal, but it was sub-
lime ; and when the climax came, — that paper,
which he had only to conceal for a few days or weeks,

— he was equal to the demand upon him. But sup-
pose a man of his pure training and traditions had
yielded to temptation, — suppose he had so far de-
praved himself that he could have set ahiiut_pei'suad-'
ing_her that she^owed no. allegiance to her_hu6band,
andjmight_ riorhtfully get a divorce and ma^ETtn"^
what a riiinous blow it would have been to" alT^who
kne>v! of 4 1 ! It would have disheartenedtFo^e who
aShorred it, and encouraged those who wanted to
profit by such an example. It does n't matter much*

472 A MODERN INSTANCE

£U,

Bocially, what undisciplined people like Bartley and
Marcia Hubbard do ; but if a man like Ben Halleck
goes astray, it 's calamitous ; it ' confounds the human
conscience/ as Victor Hugo says. All that careful
nurture in the right since he could speak, all that life-
long decency of thought and act, that noble ideal of
unselfishness and responsibility to others, trampled
under foot and spit upon, — it 's horrible ! "

" Yes,'' answered Clara, deeply moved, even as a
woman may be in a pretty breakfast-room, " and such
a good soul as Ben always was naturally. Will you
have some more tea ? "

" Yes, I will take another cup. But as for natural
goodness — "

" Wait ! I will ring for some hot water."

When the maid had apj)eared, disappeared, reap*

ibility
stomacli is full. Tlie Hubbards were full of natural
goodness, I dare say, when they did n't happen to
cross each other's wishes. No, it 's the implanted good-
ness that saves, -r- the seed of righteousness treasured
from generation to generation, and carefully watched
and tended by disciplined fatliers and mothers in the
hearts where they have dropped it. The flower of
this implanted goodness is what we call civilization,
the ct^ndition of general uprightness that Halleck
declared he owed no allegiance to. But he was better
than his word."

Atherton lifted, with his slim, delicate hand, the
cup of translucent china, and drained off the fragrant
Souchong, sweetened, and tempered with Jersey cream
to perfection. Something in the sight went like a
pang to his wife's heart. " Ah ! " she said, "it is easy
enougli for us to condemn. We have eveiything w«
want 1 "

A MODERN INSTANCE. 473

'* I don't forget that, Clara," said Atherton, gravely.
* Sometimes when I think of it, I am ready to renounce
all judgment of others. The consciousness of our
comfort, our luxury, almost paralyzes me at those
times, and I am ashamed and afraid even of our hap-
piness."

**Yes, what right," pursued Clara, rebelliously,
*' have we to be happy and united, and these wretched
creatures so — "

" No right, — none in the world ! But somehow the
effects follow their causes. In some sort they chose
misery for themselves, — we make our own hell in
this life and the next, — or it was chosen for them by
undisciplined wills that they inherited. In the long
run their fate must be a just one."

" Ah, but I have to look at things in the short run,
and I can't see any justice in Marcia's husband using
her so ! " cried Clara. " Why should n*t you use me
badly ? I don't believe that any woman ever meant
better by her husband than she did."

" Oh, the meaning does n't count ! It's our deeds
that judge us. He is a thoroughly bad fellow, but
you may be sure she has been to blame. Though I
don't blame the Hubbards, either of them, so much as
I blame Halleck. He not only had everything he
wished, but the training to know what he ought to
wish."

" I don't know about his having everything. I
think Ben must have been disappointed, some time,**
said Clara, evasively.

"Oh, that's nothing," replied Atherton, with the
contented husband's indifference to sentimental griev-
ances.

Clara did not speak for some moments, and then
she summed up a turmoil of thoughts in a profound
righ. " Well, I don't like it ! I thought it was bad
enough having a man, even on the outskirts of my

•/

474 A MODERN INSTANCE.

acquaintance, abandon his wife ; but now Ben Hal«
leek, who has been like a brother to me, to have him
mixed up in such an afifair in the way he is, it's in-
tolerable ! *'

"I agree with you," said Atherton,. playing with

?\j^ his spoon. " You know how I hate anything that sins

^> V against order, and this whole thing is disorderly. It 's

SP 'y>»intx)lerable, as you say. But we must bear our

J* share of it. We're all bound together. No one

"^ sins or suffers to himself in a civilized state, — or

^ v^ religious state ; it 's the same thing. Every link in

^- V / the chain feels the effect of the violence, more or less

f^ S^ intimately. We rise or fall together in Christian

^ society. It 's strange that it should be so hard to

realize a thing that every experience of life teaches.

We keep on thinking of offences against the common

good as if they were abstractions ! "

" Well, one tiling," said Clara, " I shall always think
unnecessarily shocking and disgraceful about it And
that is Beu's going out with her on this journey. I
don't see how you could allow that, Eustace.*'

" Yes," said Atherton, after a thoughtful silence, " it
is shocking. The only consolation is that it is not un-
necessarily shocking. I *m afraid that it 's necessarily
BO. When any disease of soul or body has gone far
enough, it makes its own conditions, and other things
must adjust themselves to it. Besides, no one knows
the ugliness of the situation but Halleck himsell I
don't see how I could have interfered; and upon the
whole I don't know that I ought to have interfered, if
I could. She would be helpless without him ; and he
can get no harm from it. In fact, it 's part of his
expiation, which must have begim as soon as he met
ber a<j:ain after he came home."

Clara was convinced, but not reconciled. She only
eaid, " I don't like it."

Her husband did not reply; he continued mu0«

A MODERN INSTANCE. 475

Ingly : '' When the old man made that final appeal to
her jealousy, — all that there is really left, probably,
of her love for her husband, — and she responded
with a face as wicked as his, I could n't help looking
at Halleck — "

*' Oh, poor Ben ! How did he take it ? It must
have scared, it must have disgusted him ! "

" That 's what I had expected. But there was
nothing in his face but pity. He understood, and he
pitied her. That was all/*

Clara rose, and turned to the window, where she
remained looking through her tears at the gulls on
the shallow. It seemed much more than twenty-four
hours since she had taken leave of Marcia and the rest at
the station, and saw them set out on their long journey
with its uncertain and unimaginable end. She had
deeply sympathized with them all, but at the same
time she had felt very keenly the potential scandalous-
ness of the situation ; she shuddered inwardly when
she thought what if people knew ; she had always re-
volted from contact with such social facts as their
errand involved. She got Olive aside for a moment,
and asked her, " Don't you hate it, Olive ? Did you
ever dream of being mixed up in such a thing ? I
should die, — simply c^^e ! "

" I shall not think of dying, unless we fail," an-
swered Olive. " And, as for hating it, I have n't con-
sulted my feelings a great deal ; but I rather think I
like it."

" Like going out to be a witness in an Indiana di-
vorce case ! "

" I don't look at it in that way, Clara. It *s a cru-
sade to me ; it 's a holy war; it's the cause of an in-
nocent woman against a wicked oppression. I know
how you would feel about it, Clara ; but I never was
as respectable as you are, and I 'm quite satisfied to
do what Ben, and father, and Mr Atherton approve.^

476 A MODERN INSTANCE.

They think it's my duty, and I am glad to go, and to be
of all the use I can. But you shall have my heartfelt
sympathy through all, Clara, for your involuntary ac-
quaintance with our proceedings.'*

" Olive ! You know that I 'm proud of your courage
and Ben's goodness, and tliat I fully appreciate the
sacrifice you 're making. And I 'm noj ashamed of
your business : I think it 's grand and sublime, and I
would just as soon scream it out at the top of my
voice, right here in the Albany depot."

" Don 't," said Olive. •' It would frighten the child."
She had Flavia by the hand, and she made the
little girl her special charge throughout the journey.
The old Squire seemed anxious to be alone, and he
restlessly escaped from Marcia's care. He sat all the
first day apart, chewing upon some fragment of wood
that he had picked up, and now and then putting up
a lank hand to rasp his bristling jaw ; glancing fur-
tively at people who passed him, and lapsing into his
ruminant abstraction. He had been vexed that they
did not start the night before ; and every halt the
train made visibly afflicted him. He would not leave
his place to get anything to eat when they stopped
for refreshment, though he hungrily devoured the
lunch that Marcia brought into the car for him.
At New York he was in a tumult of fear lest they
should lose the connecting train on the Pennsylvtmia
Eoad; and the sigh of relief with which he sank
into his seat in the sleeping-car expressed the suffer-
ing he had undergone. He said he was not tired, but
he went to bed early, as if to sleep away as much of
the time as he could.

When Halleck came into their car, the next morn-
ing, he found Marcia and her father sitting together,
and looking out of the window at the wooded slopei
of the AUeghanies through which the train was run*
ning. The old man s impatience had relaxed; he W

A MODERN INSTANCK 477

Marcia lay her hand on his, and he answered her with
quiet submission, when she spoke now and then of
the difference between these valleys, where the wild
rhododendrons were growing, and the frozen, hollows
of the hills at home, which must be still choked with
snow.

"But, oh! how ranch I would rather see them!"
she said at last with a homesick throb.

"Well," he assented, "we can go right back —
afterwards."

" Yes," she whispered.

" Well, sir, good morning," said the old man to
Halleck, " we are getting along, sir. At this rate, un-
less our calculations were mistaken, we shall be there
by midnight. We are on time, the porter tells me."

" Yes, we shall soon be at Pittsburg," said Halleck,
and he looked at Marcia, who turned away her face.
She had not spoken of the object of the journey to
him since they had left Boston, and it had not been so
nearly touched by either of them before.

He could see that she recoiled from it, but the old
man, once having approached it, could not leave it.
" If everything goes well, we shall have our grip on
that fellow's throat in less than forty-eight hours."
He looked down mechanically at his withered hands,
lean and yellow like the talons of a biixl, and lifted
his accipitral profile with a predatory alertness. " I
did n't sleep very well the last part of the night, but I
tliought it all out. I sba'n't care whether I get there
before or after judgment is rendered; all I want is to
get there before he lias a chance to clear out. I think
I shall be able to convince Bartley Hubbard that
there is a God in Israel yet ! Don't you be anxious,
Marcia ; I Ve got this thing at my fingers' ends, as clear
as a bell. I intend to give Bartley a little surprise 1 "

Marcia kept her face averted, and Halleck relin-
quished his purpose of sitting down with them, and

478 A MODERN INSTANCE.

went forward to the state-room that Marcia and Olive
had occupied with the little girL He tapped on the
door, and found his sister dressed, but the child still
asleep.

*' What is the matter, Ben ? " she asked. " You
don't look well You ought n't to have undertaken
this journey."

" Oh, I 'ra all right. But I Ve been up a good while,
with nothing to eat. That old man is terribly
Olive ! '"

" Her father 1 Yes, he 's a terrible old man ! **

"It sickened me to hear him talk, just now,—
throwing out his threats of vengeance against Hubbard.
It made me feel a sort of sympathy for that poor dog.
Do you suppose she has the same motive ? I could n't
forgive her ! " he said, with a kind of passionate weak-
ness. " I could n't forgive myself ! "

" We 've got nothing to do with their motive, Ben.
We are to he her witnesses for justice against a wicked
wrong. I don't believe in special providences, of
course ; but it does seem as if we had been called to
this work, as mother would say. Your happening to
go home with her, that night, and then that paper
happening to come to you, — does n't it look like it ? **

" It looks like it, yes."

" We could n't have refused to come. That 's what
consoles me for being here this minute. I put on a
bold face with Clara Atherton, yesterday morning at
the depot ; but I was in a cold chill, all the time. Our
coming off, in this way, on such an errand, is some-
thing so different from the rest of our whole life '
And I do like quiet, and orderly ways, and all that we
call respectability ! I 've been thinking that the trial
will be reported by some such interviewing wretch
as Bartley himself, and that we shall figure in the news-
papers. But I 've concluded that we must n't csra
It 's right, and we must do it. I don't shut my eyet

M MODERN INSTANCE. 479

fco the kind of people we 're mixed up with. I pity
Marcia, and I love her — poor, helpless, unguided
thing ! — but that old man is terrible ! He 's as cruel
as the grave where he thinks he 's been wronged, and
crueller where he thinks she 's been wronged. You 've
forgiven so much, Ben, that you can't understand a
man who forgives nothing ; but /can, for I 'm a pretty
good hater, myself And Marcia 's just like hisr father,
at times. I *ve seen her look at Clara Atherton as if
she could kill her ! "

The little girl stirred in her berth, and then lifted
herself on her hands, and stared round at them
through her tangled golden hair. "Is it morning,
yet ? " she asked sleepily. " Is it to-morrow ? "

"Yes; it's to-morrow, Flavia," said Olive. "Do
you want to get up ? "

" And is next day the day after to-morrow ? "

" Yes."

" Then it *s only one day till I shall see papa. That's
what mamma said. Where is mamma ? " asked the
child, rising to her knees, and sweeping back her hair
from her face with either hand.

" I will go and send her to you," said Halleck.

At Pittsburg the Squire was eager for his break-
fast, and made amends for his fast of the day before.
He ate grossly of the heterogeneous abundance of the
railroad restaurant, and drank two cups of coffee that
in his thin, native air would have disordered his pulse
for a week. But he resumed his journey with a tran-
quil strength that seemed the physical expression of
a mind clear and content. He was willing and even
anxious to tell Halleck what his theories and plans
were ; but the young man shrank from knowing them.
He wished only to know whether Marcia were privj
to them^ and this, too, he shrank from knowing.

480 A MODERN INSTANGB^

iC
'7/

XXXIX.

They left Pittsburg under the dun pall of smoke
that liaiigs perpetually over the city, and ran out of a
world where the earth seemed turned to slag and cin-
ders, rS'd the coal grime blackened even the sheath-
/ ing from which the young leaves were unfolding their
\ ' vivid green. Tlieir train twisted along the banks of
the OJ**'' ; and gave them now and then a reach of
the stff .iin, forgetful of all the noisy traflSc that once
fretted '^its waters, and losing itself in almost primitive
vvihlin ss among its softly rounded hills. It is a
beautilHl land, and it had, even to their loath eyes, a
chanr that touched their hearts. They were on the
borders:- of the illimitable West, whose . lands stretch
like a fea beyond the hilly Ohio shore ; but as yet this
vastness, which appalls and wearies aU but the boni
Westerner, had not burst upon them ; they were still
among Jieights and hollows, and in a milder and sotlber
Ne^V England.

" I have a strange feeling about this journey,"
said Marcia, turning from the window at last, and
facing Halleck on the opposite scat. " I want it to
bo over, and yet 1 am glad of every little stop. I feel
like some one that has been called to a death-bed,
and is hurrying on and holding back with all her
might, at the same time. I shall have no peace till I
am there, and then shall I have peace ? " She fixed
her eyes imploringly on his. " Say something to me
if you can ! What do you think ? "

* Whether you will — succeed ? " He was con*

A MODERN INSTANCE. 481

founding what he knew of her father's feeling with
what he had feared of hers.

** Do you mean about the lawsuit ? I don't care
for that ! Do you think he will hate me .. hen he
sees me ? Do you think he will believe m* when I
tell him that I never meant to leave him, ? nd that
I 'm sorry for what I did to drive him away ? "

She seemed to expect him to answer, and he
answered as well as he could : " He ought to believe
that, — yes, he must believe it."

" Then all the rest may go," she said. " I don't
care who gains the case. But if he should n't believe
me, — if he should drive me away from han, as I
drove him from me — " She held her breath in the
terror of such a possibility, and an awe pf her igno-
rance crept over Halleck. Apparently su. .-ad not
understood the step that Bartjey had taken, except
as a stage in their quarrel from which they CQgld both
retreat, if they would, as easily as from f ly other
dispute; she had not realized it as a final, aij almost
irrevocable act on his part, which could only be met
by reprisal on hers. All those points of law which
had been so sharply enforced upon her must have
fallen blunted from her longing to be at one with
him ; she had, perhaps, not imagined her defence in
open court, except as a sort of public reconciliat- )n.

But at another time she recurred to her wrongs in
all the bitterness of her father's vindictive purpose.
A young couple entered the car at one of the country
stations, and the bride made haste to take off her
white bonnet, and lay her cheek on her Jiusband's
shoulder, while he passed his arm round her silken
waist, and drew her close to him on the seat, in the
loving rapture which is no wise inconvenience by
publicity on our railroad trains. Indeed, after the first
general recognition of their condition, no one noticed
them except Marcia, who seemed fascinated by tbo

482 A MODERN INSTANCE.

spectacle of their unsophisticated happiness ; it must
have recalled the blissful abandon of her own wed-
ding journey to her. " Oh, poor fool ! " she said to
Olive. " Let her wait, and it will not be long before
she will know that she had better lean on the empty
air than on him. Some day, he will let her fall to
the ground, and wlien she gathers herself up all
bruised and bleeding — But he has n't got the all-
belie viug simpleton to deal with that he used to have ;
and he shall pay me back for all — drop by drop, and
ache for ache ! "

She was in that strange mental condition into
which women fall who brood long upon opposing
purposes and desires. She wished to be reconciled, and
she wished to be revenged, and she recurred to either
wish for the time as vehemently as if the other did
not exist She took Flavia on her knee, and began
to prattle to her of seeing papa to-morrow, and pres-
ently she turned to Olive, and said: "I know he
will find us both a great deal changed. Flavia looks
so much older, — and so do I. But I shall soon show
him that I can look young again. I presume he's
changed too."

Marcia held the little girl up at the window. They
had now left the river hills and the rolling csountry
beyond, and had entered the great plain which
stretclu^s from the Oliio to the Mississippi ; and mile
by mile, as they ran southward and westward, the
spring unfolded in the mellow air under the dull,
warm sun. The willows were in perfect leaf, and
wore their delicate green like veils caught upon their
boughs; the may-apples had already pitched their
tents in the woods, beginning to thicken and darken
with tlie young foliage of the oaks and hickories;
suddenly, as the train dashed from a stretch of forest^
the peach orchards flushed pink beside the brick
farmsteads. The child gave a cry of delight, and

A MODERN INSTANCE. 483

pointed ; and her mother seemed to forget all that had
gone before, and abandoned herself to Flavia's joy in
the blossoms, as if there were no trouble for her in the
world.

Halleck rose and went into the other car ; he felt
giddy, as if her fluctuations of mood and motive had
somehow turned his own brain. He did not come
back till the train stopped at Columbus for dinner.
The old Squire showed the same appetite as at break-
fast : he had the effect of falling upon his food like a
bird of prey ; and as soon as the meal was despatched
he went back to his seat in the car, where he lapsed
into his former silence and immobility, his lank jaws
working with fresh activity upon the wooden tooth-
pick he had brought away from the table: While
they waited for a train from the north which was to
connect with theirs, Halleck walked up and down
the vast, noisy station with Olive and Marcia, and
humored the little girl in her explorations of the place.
She made friends with a red-bird that sang in its
cage in the dining-hall, and with an old woman,
yellow, and wrinkled, and sunken-eyed, sitting on a
bundle tied up in a quilt beside the door, and smok-
ing her clay pipe, as placidly as if on her own cabin
threshold. " 'Pears like you ain't much afeard of
strangers, honey," said the old woman, taking her
pipe out •of her mouth, to fill it. "Where do you
live at when you 're home ? "

"Boston," said the child, promptly. "Where do
you live ?"

"I used to live in Old Virginny. But my son.
he 's takin' me out to lUinoy, now. He 's settled out
there." She treated the child with the serious equal-
ity which simple old people use with children ; and
spat neatly aside in resuming her pipe. "Which
o' them ladies yender is your maw, honey ? "

" My mamma ? "

4^4 A MODERN INSTANCE.

The old woman nodded.

Flavia ran away and laid her hand on Marcia'a
dress, and then ran back to the old woman.

" That your paw, with her ? " Flavia looked blank;
and the old woman interpreted, " Your father."

" No ! We 're going out to see papa, — out West
We 're going to see him to-morrow, and then he 's
coming back with us. My grandpa is in that car."

The old woman now laid her folded arms on her
knees, and smoked obliviously. The little girl lin-
gered a moment, and then ran off laughing to her
mother, and pulled lier skirt. " Was n*t it funny,
namma ? She thought Mr. Halleck was my papa ! "
bhe hung forward by the hold she had taken, as chil-
dren do,' and tilted her head back to look into her
mother's face. " What is Mr. Halleck, mamma ? "

" Wliat is he ? " The group halted involuntarily.

*' Yes, what is he ? Is he my uncle, or my cousin,
or what ? Is he going out to see papa, too ? What is
he going for ? Oh, look, look ! " The child plucked
away her hand, and ran off to join the circle of idle
men and half-grown boys who were foiming about
two shining negroes with banjos. The negroes flung
their hands upon the strings with an ecstatic joy in
the music, and lifted their black voices in a wild
plantation strain. The child began to leap smd dance,
and her motlier ran after her.

" Naughty little girl ! " she cried. " Come into the
car with me, this minute."

Ilallock did not see Marcia again till the train
had run far out of the city, and was again sweeping
through the thick woods, and Hashing out upon the
levels of the fields where the farmers were riding their
Bulky-plows up and down the long furrows in the
pleasant afternoon sun. There was something in
this transformation of man's old-time laborious de-
pendence into a lordly domination over the earth

A MODERN INSTANCE. 485

which strikes the westward joumeyer as finally ex- y
pressive of human destiny in the whole mighty region, k
and which penetrated even to Halleck's sore and
jaded thoughts. A different type of men hegan to
show itself in the car, as the Western people gradually
took the places of his fellow-travellers from the East^
The men were often slovenly and sometimes uncouth
in their dress ; but they made themselves at home in
the exaggerated splendor and opulence of the car, as
if born to the best in every way ; their faces suggested
the security of people who trusted the future from
the past, and had no fears of the life that had always
used them well ; they had not that eager and intense
look which the Eastern faces wore ; there was energy
enough and to spare in them, but it was not an
anxious energy. The sharp accent of the seaboard
yielded to the rounded, soft, and slurring tones, and
the prompt address was replaced by a careless and
confident neighborliness of manner.

riavia fretted at her return to captivity in the
car, and demanded to be released with a teasing per-
sistence from which nothing slie was shown out of
the window could divert her. A large man leaned
forward at last I'rom a seat near by, and held out an
orange. " Come here to me, little Trouble," he said ;
and Flavia made an eager start toward this unlooked-
for friend.

Marcia wished to check her ; but Halleck pleaded
to have her go. " It will be a relief to you," he
said.

" Well, let her go," Marcia consented. " But she
was no trouble, and she is no relief." She sat looking
dully at the little girl after the Westerner had gath-
ered her up into his lap. "Should I have liked to
tell her," she said, as if thinking aloud, "how we
were really going to meet her father, and that you
were coming with me to be my witness against him

tSG A MODERN INSTANCE.

in a court, — to put him down and disgrace him,-*
to fight him, as father says ? "

" You must n't think of it in that way," said Hal-
leek, gently, but, as lie felt, feebly and inadequately.

"Oh, I shall not think of it in that way long," she
answered. " My head is in a whirl, and I can't hold
wliat we 're doing before my mind in any one shape
for a minute at a time. I don't know what will
become of me, — I don't know what will become of
me!"

But in another breath she rose from this desolation,
and was talking with impersonal cheerfulness of the
sights that the car-window showed. As long as the
light held, they passed through the same opulent and
monotonous landscape ; through little towns full of
signs of material prosperity, and then farms, and farms
again ; the brick houses set in the midst of evergreens,
and compassed by vast acreages of corn land, where
herds of black pigs wandered, and tlie farmers were
riding their ploughs, or heaping into vast windrows for
burning the winter- worn stalks of the last year's crop.
Where they came to a stream the landscape was
rougliened into low hills, from which it sank again
luxuriously to a plain. If there was any difiTei'enoe
between Ohio and Indiana, it was that in Indiana
the spring night, whose breath softly buffeted their
cheeks through the open window, had gathered aver
those eternal cornfields, where the long crooked wind-
rows, burning on either hand, seemed a trail of fiery
serpents writliing away from the train as it roared
and clamored over the track.

They were to leave their car at Indianapolis, aud
take another road which would bring them to Tecum-
seh by daylight the next morning. Olive went awaj
with the little girl, and put her to bed on the sofa ia
their state-room, and Marcia suffered them to go
alone ; it was only by fits that she had cared for tEo

A MODERN INSTANCE. 48?

child, or even noticed it. " Now tell me again/' she
said to Halleek, " why we are going."

" Surely you know."

"Yes, yes, I know; but I can't think,— I don't
seem to remember. Did n't I give it up once ? Did n't
I say that I would rather go home, and let Bartley
get the divorce, if he wanted ? "

" Yes, you said that, Marcia."

" I used to make him very unhappy ; I was very
strict with him, when I knew he could n't bear any
kind of strictness. Aud he was always so patient
with me ; though he never really cared for me. Oh,
yes, I knew that from the first ! He used to try ; but
he must have been glad to get away. Poor Bartley !
It was cruel, cruel, to put that in about my abandon-
ing him when he knew I would come back ; but per-
haps the lawyers told him he must ; he had to put in
something! Why should n't I let him go? Father
said he only wanted to get rid of me, so that he could
marry some one else — Yes, yes ; it was that that
made me start 1 Father knew it would ! Oh,'* she
grieved, with a wild self-pity that tore Halleck's
heart, " he knew it would ! " She feU wearily back
against the seat, and did not speak for some minutes.
Then she said, in a slow, broken utterance : " But
now I don't seem to mind even that, any more. Why
should n't he marry some one else that he really hkes,
if he does n't care for me ? "

Halleek laughed in bitterness of soul as his thought
recurred to Atherton's reasons. " Because." he said,
" you have a public duty in the matter. You must
keep him bound to you, for fear some other woman,
whose husband does n't care for her, should let M)n
go, too, and society be broken up, and civilization
destroyed. In a matter like this, which seems to
concern yourself alone, you are only to regard others."

His reckless irony did not reach her through hei

4:88 A MODERN INSTANCE.

manifold sorrow. " Well," she said, simply, " it must
be that. But, oh ! how can I bear it 1 how can I beai
it!"

The time passed; Olive did not return for an hour;
then she merely said that tlie little girl had just fallen
asleep, and that she should go back and lie down
with her ; that she was sleepy too.

Marcia did not answer, but Halleck said he would
call her in good time before they readied Indian-
apolis.

The porter made up the berths of such as were
going through to St. Louis, and Marcia was left sit-
ting alone with Halleck. " I will go and get your
father to come here," he said.

" I don't want him to come ! I want to talk to
you — to say something — What was it ? I can't
think ! " She stopped, like one trying to recover a
faded thought ; he waited, but she did not speak
again. She had laid a nei-vous clutch upon his arm,
to detain him from going for her father, and she kept
her hand there mechanically ; but after a while he
felt it relax ; she drooped against him, and fell away
into a sleep in which she started now and then like a
friglitened child. He could not release himself with-
out waking her ; but it did not matter ; her sorrow
had unsexed her; only the tenderness of his love for
this hapless soul remained in his heart, which ached
and evermore heavily sank within him.

He woke her at last when he must go to tell Olive
that they were running into Indianapolis. Marcia
Btru^^gled to her feet : " Oh, oh ! Are we there ? Are
we there ? "

" We are at Indianapolis," said Halleck.

** I thought it was Tecumseh ! " She shuddered.
* We can go back ; oh, yes, we can still go back ! "

They alighted from the train in the chilly mid-
Higlit air, and found their way through the crowd to

A MODERN INSTANCE. 489

fche eating-room of the station. The little girl cried
with broken sleep and the strangeness, and Olive
tried to quiet her. Marcia clung to Halleck's arm,
and shivered convulsively. Squire Gaylord stalked
beside them with a demoniac vigor. " A few more
hours, a few more hours, sir! " he said. He made a
hearty supper, while the rest scalded their mouths
with hot tea, which they forced with loathing to their
lips.

Some women who were washing the floor of the
ladies' waiting-room told them they must go into the
men's room, and wait there for their train, which was
due at one o'clock. They obeyed, and found the room
full of emigrants, and the air thick with their tobacco
smoke. There was no choice ; Olive went in first
and took the child on her lap, where it straightway
fell asleep ; the Squire found a seat beside them, and
sat erect, looking round on the emigrants with the
air of being amused at their outlandish speech, into
which they burst clamorously from their silence at
intervals. Marcia stopped Halleck at the threshold.
"Stay out here with me," she whispered. "Ijvant
to tell you something," she added, as he turned me-
chanically and walked away with her up the vast
lamp-shot darkness of the depot. " / am not goinol
onJ_ I am going back. We will take the train that /
goes to tlie East ; father will never know till it is too \
late. We need n't speak to him about it — '*

Halleck set himself against this delirious folly : he
consented to her return ; she could do what she
would ; but he would not consent to cheat her father.
" We nmst go and tell him," he said, for all answei
to all hei- entreaties. He dragged her back to the
waiting-room ; but at the door she started at the fig-
ure of a man who was bending over a group of emi-
grant children asleep in the nearest corner, — poor,
uncouth, stubbed little creatures, in old-mannish

490 A MODERN INSTANCE.

clothes, looking like cliildren roughly blocked out of
wood, and stitily stretched on the floor, or resting
woodenly against their mother.

" There ! " said the man, pressing a mug of cofiFee
on the woman. " You drink that ! It '11 do you
good, — every drop of it! I've seen the time/' he
eaid, turning round with tlie mug, when she had
drained it, in his hand, and addressing Marcia and
Halleck as the most accessible portion of the English-
speaking public, " when I used to be down on coffee ;
I thought it was bad for the nerves ; but I tell you.
when you 're travellin', it *s a brain-food, if ever thei*e
was a brain — " He dropped the mug, and stumbled
back into the heap of sleeping children^ fiidng t
ghastly stare on Marcia.

She ran toward him. " Mr. Kinney ! '*

" No, you don't ! — no, you don't ! "

" Wliy, don't you know me ? Mrs. Hubbard ? '*

"He — he — told me you — was dead I" loareii
Kinney.

" He told you I was dead ? "

" More 'n a year ago ! The last time I seen him I
Before I went out to Leadville ! "

" He told you I was dead," repeated Marcia huskily.
"He must have wished it!" she whispered. "On,
morcy, mercy, mercy ! " She stopped, and then she
broke into a wild laugh: "Well, you see he waa
wrong, I 'm on my way to him now to show him
that I 'm alive 1 "

A MODERN INSTANCE. 491

XL.

Halleck woke at daybreak from the drowse into
which he had fallen. The train was creeping slowly
over the track, feeling its way, and he heard frag-
ments of talk among the passengers about a broken
rail that the conductor had been warned of. He
turned to ask some question, when the pull of rising
speed came from the locomotive, and at the same mo-
ment the car stopped with a jolting pitch. It settled
upon the track again ; but the two cars in front were
overturned, and the passengers were still climbing
from their windows, when Halleck got his bewildered
party to the ground. Children were crying, and a
woman was led by with her face cut and bleedin;^
from the broken glass ; but it was reported that no one
else was hurt, and the trainmen gave their helpless-
ness to the inspection of the rotten cross-tie that had
caused the accident. One of the passengers kicked
the decayed wood with his boot. " Well," he said, " I
always like a little accident like this, early ; it makes
us safe the rest of the day." The sentiment appar-
ently commended itself to popular acceptance ; Halleck
went forward with part of the crowd to see what was
the matter with the locomotive: it had kept the track,
but seemed to be injured somehow; the engineer was
working at it, hammer in hand ; he exchanged some
dry pleasantries with a passenger who asked him
if there was any chance of hiring a real fast ox-team
in that neighborhood, in case a man was in a hurry
to get on to Tecumseh.

492 A MODERN INSTANCE,

They were in the midst of a level prairie that
stretched all round to the horizon, where it was broken
by patches of timber ; the rising sun slanted across
tlie green expanse, and turned its distance to gold ;
the grass at their feet was full of wild-flowers, upon
which Flavia flung herself as soon as they got out of the
car. By the time Halleck returned to them, she was
running with cries of joy and wonder toward a wind-
mill that rose beautiful above the roofs of a group
of commonplace houses, at a little distance from the
track ; it stirred its miglity vans in the thin, sweet
inland breeze, and took the sun gayly on the light
gallery that encircled it.

A vision of Belgian plains swept before Halleck's
eyes. "There ought to be storks on its roof,'* he
said, absently.

" How strange that it should be here, away out in
the West ! '' said Olive.

" If it were less strange than we are, here, I could n't
stand it," he answered.

A brakeman came up with a flag in his hand, and
nodded toward Flavia. " She 's on the right track for
breakfast," he said. " There 's an old Dutchman at that
mill, and his wife knows how to make coCTee like a
fellow's mother. You 11 have plenty of tima This
tniin has come here to day — till somebody cad walk
back five miles and telegraph for help."

** How far are we from Tecumseh ? " asked Hal-
leck.

" Fifty miles," the brakeman called back over his
shoulder.

"Don*t you worry any, Marcia," said her father,
moving off in pursuit of Flavia. " This accident
makes it all right for us, if we don't get there for s
week."

Marcia answered nothing. Halleck began to talk
to her of that Belgian landscape in which he had fiist

A MODERN INSTANCK 493

Been a windmill, and he laughed at the blank nnin-
telligence with which she received his reminiscences
of travel. For the moment, the torturing stress was
lifted from his soul ; he wished that the breakfast in
the miller's house might never come to an end ; he
explored the mill with Flavia ; he bantered the Squire
on his saturnine preference for steam power in the
milling business ; he made the others share his mood ;
he pushed far from him the series of tragic or squalid
facts which had continually brought the end to him
in reveries in which he found himself holding his
breath, as if he might hold it till the end really came.

But this respite could not last. A puff of white
steam showed on the horizon, and after an interval
the sound of the locomotive whistle reached them, as
it came backing down a train of empty cars towards
them. They were quickly on their journey again, and
a scanty hour before noon they arrived at Tecumseh.

The pretty town, which in prospect had worn to ^
Olive Halleck's imagination the blended hideousness
of Sodom and Gomorrah, was certainly very much more
like a New England village in fact. After the brick
farmsteads and coal-smoked towns of Central Ohio, its
wooden houses, set back from the street with an ample
depth of door-yard, were appealingly familiar, and she
exchanged some homesick whispers with Marcia about
them, as they drove along under the full-leaved maples
which shadowed the way. The grass was denser and
darker than in New England, and, pretty as the town
was, it wore a more careless and unscrupulous air than
the true New England village ; the South had touched
it, and here and there it showed a wavering line of
fence and a faltering conscientiousness in its paint
Presently all aspects of village quiet and seclusion
ceased, and a section of conventional American city,
with Hat-roofed brick blocks, showy hotel, stores,
paved street, and stone sidewalks expressed the readi<

494 A MODERN INSTANCE.

ness of Tecumseh to fulfil the destiny of every West
ern town, and become a metropolis at a day's notice^
if need be. Tlie second-hand omnibus, which re-
flected the actuality of Tecumseh, set them down at
the broad steps of the court-house, fronting on an
avenue wliich for a city street was not very crowded
or busy. Such passers as there were had leisure and
inclination, as they loitered by, to turn and stare at the
strangers ; and the voice of the sheriff, as he called
from an upper window of the court-house the names
of absentee litigants or witnesses required to come
into court, easily made itself heard above all the other
noises.

It seemed to Halleck as if the sheriff were call-
ing them ; he lifted his head and looked at Olive,
but she would not meet his eye ; she led by the hand
the little girl, who kept asking, " Is this the house
where papa lives ? " with the merciless iteration of a
child. Halleck dragged lamely after the Squire, who
had mounted the steps with unnatural vigor; he
promptly found his way to the clerk's office, wiere ho
examined the docket, and then returned to his party
triumpliant. " We are m time," he said, and he led
them on up into the court-room.

A few spectators, scattered about on the rows of
benching, turned to look at them as they walked up
tliu aisle, where the cocoa matting, soaked and dried,
and soaked again, with perpetual libations of tobacco-
juice, mercifully silenced their footsteps ; most of the
faces turned upon them showed a slow and thought-
ful movemeut of the jaws, and, as they were dropped
or averted, a general discharge of tobacco-juice seemed
to express the general adoption of the new-comers,
whoever they were, as a necessary element of the
scene, which it was useless to oppose, and about which
it was idle to speculate. Before the Squire had found
his party seats on one of the benches next the bar, th«

A MODERN INSTANCE. 495 •

Bpectators had again given their languid attention to
the administration of justice, which is everywhere in-
formal with us, and is only a little more informal in
the West than in the East. An effect of serene
disoccupation pervaded the place, such as comes at
the termination of an interesting affair; and no one
seemed to care for what the clerk was reading aloud
in a set, mechanical tone. The judge was husy with
his docket ; the lawyers, at their several little tahlea
within the bar, lounged in their chairs, or stalked
about laughing and whispering to each other; the
prosecuting attorney leaned upon the shoulder of a
jolly-looking man, who lifted his face to joke up at
him, as he tilted his chair back ; a very stout, young-
ish person, who sat next him, kept his face dropped
while the clerk proceeded : —

" And now, on motion of plaintiff, it is ordered by
the Court that said defendant be now here three times
called, which is done in open court, and she comes
not; but wholly makes default .herein. And this
cause is now submitted to the Court for trial, and the
Court having heard the evidence, and being fully
advised, find for the plaintiff, — that the allegations of
his complaint are true, and that he is entitled to a
divorce. It is therefore considered by the Court, that
said plaintiff be and he is hereby divorced, and the
bonds of matrimony heretofore existing between said
parties are dissolved and held for naught."

As the clerk closed the large volume before him,
the jolly lawyer, as if the record had been read at his
request, nodded to the Court, and said, " The record of
the decree seems correct, your honor." He leaned for-
ward, and struck the fat man's expanse of back with
the flat of his hand. "Congratulate you, my dear
boy ! " he said in a stage whisper that was heard
through the room. " Many happy returns of the
dayl"

496 A MODERN INSTANCE.

A laugh went round, and the judge said severely;
•'Mr. Sheriir, see that order is kept in the court*
room."

The i'at man rose to shake hands with another
friend, and at the same moment Squire Gaylord
ntrutched liimself to liis full height before stooping
over to tou(jli the shoulder of one of the lawyers
within the bar, and liis eyes encountered those of
Baitley Hubbard in mutual recognition.

It was not the fat on Bartley's ribs only that had
increased : his broad cheeks stood out and hung down
witli it, and his chin descended by the three succes-
sive steps to his breast. His complexion was of a
tender pink, on which his blonde moustache showed
white ; it almost vanished in the tallowy pallor to
which tlie pink turned as he saw his father-in-law,
and then the whole group which the intervening
spectators had hitherto hidden from him. He dropped
back into his chair, and intimated to his lawyer, with
a wave of his hand and a twist of his head, that some
hopeless turn in his fortunes had taken place. That
jolly soul turned to him for explanation, and at the
same time the lawyer whom Squire Gaylord had
touched on the shoulder responded to a few whispered
words from him by beckoning to the prosecuting at-
torney, who stepped briskly across to where they stood.
A brief dumb-show ensued, and the prosecutor ended
by taking the Squire's hand, and inviting him within
the bar ; the other attorney politely made room for
him at liis table, and the prosecutor returned to his
place near the jury-box, where he remained standing
for a moment.

" If it please the Court," he begarx, in a voi^e break-
ing heavily upon the silence tliat had somehoM fallen
upon the whole room, " I wish to state that the de*
fendant in the case of Hubbard vs, Hubbard is now
and here present, having been prevented by an acd*

A MODERN INSTANCE. 497

dent on the road between this place and Indianapolis
from arriving in time to make defence. She desires
to move the Court to set aside the default."

The prosecutor retired a few paces, and nodded
triumphantly at Bartley's lawyer, who could not
wholly suppress his pnjoyment of the joke, though it
told so heavily against him and his client. But he
was instantly on his feet with a technical objection.

The judge heard him through, and then opened his
docket, at the case of Hubbard vs. Hubbard. " What
name shall I enter for the defence ? " he inquired
formally.

Squire Gaylord turned with an old-fashioned state
and deliberation which had their effect, and cast a
glance of professional satisfaction in the situation at
the attorneys and the spectators. " I ask to be allowed
to appear for the defence in this case, if the Court
please. My friend, Mr. Hathaway, will move my
admission to this bar."

The attorney to whom the Squire had first intro-
duced himself promptly complied: "Your honor, I
move the admission of Mr. F. J. Gaylord, of Equity,
Equity County, Maine, to practise at this bar."

The judge bowed to the Squire, and directed the
clerk to administer the usual oath. " I have entered
your name for the defence, Mr. Gaylord. Do you
desire to make any motion in the case ? " he pursued,
the natural courtesy of his manner further qualified
by a feeling which something pathetic in the old
Squire's bearing inspired.

" Yes, your honor, I move to set aside the default,
and I shall offer in support of this motion my affida-
vit, setting forth the reasons for the non-appearance
of the defendant at the calling of the cause."

" Shall I note your motion as filed ? " asked the
Judge.

" Yes, your honor,** replied t'le old man. He made

498 A MODERN INSTANCE.

a futile attempt to prepare the paper ; the pen flew
out of his trembling hand. *'/ can't wTite," he said
in despair that made other hands quick to aid him.
A young lawyer at the next desk rapidly drew up
the paper, and the Squire duly offered it to the clerk
of the Court. The clerk stamped it with the file-
mark of the Court, and returned it to the Squire, who
read aloud the motion and affidavit, setting forth the
facts of the defendant's failure to receive the notice
in time to prepare for her defence, and of the accident
wliich had contributed to delay her appeamnce, de-
claring that she had a just defence to the plaintiffs
bill, and asking to be heard upon the facts.

Bartley's attorney was prompt to interpose again.
He protested that the printed advertisement was
sufficient notice to the defendant, whenever it came
to her knowledge, or even if it never came to her
knowledge, and that her plea of failure to receive it
in time was not a competent excuse. This might be
alleged in any case, and any delay of travel might
be brought forward to account for non-appearance as
plausibly as this trumped-up accident in which no-
body was hurt. He did his best, which was also his
worst, and the judge once more addressed the Squire^
who stood waiting for Bartley's counsel to close. " I
was about to adjourn the Court," said the judge, in
that accent which is the gift of the South to some
parts of tlic West ; it is curiously soft and gentle, and
expressive, when the speaker will, of a caressing def-
erence. "But we have still some minutes before
noon in which we can hear you in support of your
motion, if you are ready."

"I am m-ready, your honor!" The old mane's
nasals cut across the judge's rounded tones, almost
before they had ceased. His lips compressed them-
selves to a waving line, and his high hawk-beak came
down over them ; the fierce light burned in his cav-

A MODEllN INSTANCE. 499

emous eyes, and his grizzled Lair erected itself like a
crest. He swayed slightly back and forth at the
table, behind which he stood, and paused as if wait-
ing for his hate to gather head.

In this interval it struck several of the spectators,
who had appreciative friends outside, that it was a
pity they should miss the coming music, and they
risked the loss of some strains themselves that they
might step out and inform these dilettanti. One of
them was stopped by a man at the door. " What 's
up, now ? " The other impatiently explained ; but
the inquirer, instead of hurrying in to enjoy the fun,
turned quickly about, and ran down the stairs. He
crossed the street, and, by a system of alleys and by-
ways, modestly made his way to the outlying fields
of Tecumseh, which he traversed at heightened speed,
plunging at last into the belt of timber beyond. This
excursion, which had so much the appearance of a
chase, was an exigency of the witness who had cor-
roborated on oath the testimony of Hartley in regard
to his wife's desertion. Such an establishment of
facts, purely imaginary with the witness, was simple
enough in the absence of rebutting testimony ; but
confronted with this, it became another affair ; it had
its embarrassments, its risks.

"M-ready," repeated Squire Gaylord> "m-ready with
facts and witnesses ! " The word, in which he exulted
till it rang and echoed through the room, drew the
eyes of all to the little group on the bench next the
bar, where Marcia, heavily veiled in the black which
she had worn ever since Hartley's disappearance, sat
with Halleck and Olive. The little girl, speut with
her long journey, rested her head on her mother's
lap, and the mother's hand tremulously smoothed her
hair, and tried to hush the grieving whisper in which
she incessantly repeated, * Where is papa ? I want
to see papa ! "

(^■'

\ \

500 ■ A MODERN INSTANCE.

• Olive looked straight before her, and Halleck's eyea
^ Vere fixed upon the floor. After the .first glance at
them Bartley did not lift his head, but held it bent
forward where he sat, and showed only a fold of fat
red neck above his coat-collar. Marcia might have
seen his face in that moment before it blanched and
he sank into his chair ; she did not look toward him

a^jam.

V O

Mr. Sheriff, keep silence in the Court!" ordered
the judge, in reprimand of the stir that ensued upon
the general effort to catch sight of the witnesses.

" Silence in the Court ! Keep your seats, gentle-
men ! " cried the sheriff.

"And I thank the Court," resumed the Squire, "for
this immediate opportunity to redress an atrocious
wrong, and to vindicate an innocent and injured
woman. Sir, I think it wiU prejudice our cause with
no one, when I say that we are here not only in the
relation of attorney and client, but in that of father
and daughter, and that I stand in this place singularly
and sacredly privileged to demand justice for my own
child ! "

" Order, order ! " shouted the sheriff. But he could
not quell the sensation that followed; the point had
been effectively made, and it was some moments
before the noise of the people beginning to arrive
from the outside permitted the Squire to continue.
He waited, with one lean hand hanging at his side,
and tlie other resting in a loosely folded fist on the
table before him. He took this fist up as if it were
some implement he had laid hold of, and swung it in
the air.

" By a chance which / shall not be the last to
describe as providential," — he paused, and looked
round the room as if defying any one there to chal-
lenge the sincerity of his assertion, — "the notice^
which your law requires to be given by newspaper

A MODERN INSTANCE. 501

advertisement to the non-resident defendant in such
a case as this, came, by one chance in millions, to her
hand. By one chance more or less, it would not have
reached her, and a monstrous crime against justice
would have been irrevocably accomplished. For she
had mourned this man as dead, — dead to the uni-
versal frame of things, when he was only dead to
honor, dead to duty, and dead to her ; and it was that
newspaper, sent almost at random through the mail,
and wandering from hand to hand, and everywhere
rejected, for weeks, before it reached her at last,
w^hich convinced her that he was still in such life as
a man may live who has survived his own soul. We
are therefore here, standing upon our right, and pre-
pared to prove it God's right, and the everlasting
truth. Two davs ao^o, a thousand miles and a thou-
sand uncertainties intervened between us and this
riglit, but now we are here to show that the defendant,
basely defamed by the plea of abandonment, returned
to her home within an hour after she had parted there
witli the plaintiff, and has remained there day and
night ever since." He stopped. " Did I say she had
never absented hei'self during all this time ? I was
wrong. I spoke hastily. I forgot." He dropped his
voice. "She did absent herself at one time, — for
three days, — while she could come home to close her
mother's dying eyes, and help me to lay her in the
grave ! " He tried to close his lips firmly again, but
the sinuous line was broken by a convulsive twitch-
ing. " Perhaps," he resumed with the utmost gentle-
ness, "the plaintiff returned in this interval, and,
Huding her gone, was confirmed in his belief that she
had abandoned liim."

He felt blindly about on the table with his
trembling hands, and his whole figure had a pathos
that gave the old dress-coat statuesque dignity.
The spectators quietly changed their places, and

^02 A MODERN INSTANCE.

occupied the benches near him, till Bartley was left
sitting alone with his counsel. We are beginning to
talk here at the East of the decline of oratory ; but it
is still a passion in the West, and his listeners now
clustered about the Squire in keen appreciation of his
power ; it seemed to summon even the loiterers in the
street, whose ascending tramp on the stairs continu-
ally made itself heard; the lawyers, the oflBcers of
the court, the judge, forgot their dinner, and posed
themselves anew in their chairs to listen.

No doubt the electrical sphere of sympathy and
admiration penetrated to the old man's consciousness.
When he pulled off his black satin stock — the relic
of ancient fashion which the piety of his daughter
kept in repair — and laid it on the table, there was a
deep inarticulate murmur of satisfaction which he
could not have mistaken. His voice rose again : —

"If the plaintiff indeed came at that time, the
walls of those empty rooms, into which he peered like
a thief in the niglit, might have told him — if walls
had tongues to speak as they have ears to hear — a
tale tliat would have melted even his heart with
remorse and shame. They might have told him of a
woman waiting in hunger and cold for his return, and
willing to starve and freeze, rather than own herself
forsaken, — waiting till she was hunted from her
door by the creditors whom he had defrauded, and
forced to confess her disgrace and her despair, in order
to save herself from the unknown teiTors of the law,
invoked upon her innocent head by his viUany.
This is the history of the first two weeks of those two
years, during which, as his perjured lips have sworn,
h(j was using every effort to secure her return to hiuL
I will not enlarge now upon this history, nor upon
that of the days and weeks and months that followed,
wrin^infjj the heart and all but craziiior the brain of
the wife who would not, in the darkest hours of hof

A MODERN INSTANCE. 503

desolation, believe herself wilfully abandoned. But
we have the record, unbroken and irrefragable, which
shall not only right his victim, but shall bring yonder
perjurer to justice."

The words had an iron weight ; they fell like blows.
Bartley did not stir ; but Marcia moved uneasily in
her chair, and a low pitiful murmur broke from behind
her veil. Her father stopped again, panting, and his
dry lips closed and parted several times before he
could find his voice again. But at that sound of
grief he partially recovered himself, and went on
brokenly.

" I now ask this Court, for due cause, to set aside
the default upon which judgment has been rendered
against the defendant, and I shall then ask leave to
file her cross-petition for divorce.'*

Marcia started hall-way from her chair, and then
fell back again ; she looked round at Halleck as if for
help, and hid her face in her hands. Her father cast
a glance at her as if for her approval of this develop-
ment of his plan.

" Then, may it please the Court, upon the rendition
of judgment in our favor upon that petition — a result
of which I have no more doubt than of my own exist-
ence — I shall demand under your law the indictment
of yonder perjurer for his crime, and I shall await in
security tlie sentence which shall consign him to a
felon's cell in a felon's garb — "

Marcia flung herself upon her father's arm, out-
stretched toward Bartley. " No ! No ! No ! " she
cried, with deep, shuddering breatlis, in a voice thick
with horror. " Never ! Let him fjo ! I wUl not have
it ! I (lid n't understand ! I never meant to harm
him ! Let him go ! It is my cause, and I say — "

The old man's arm dropped ; he fixed a ghastly, be-
wildered look upon his daughter, and fell forward
across the table at which he stood. The judge started

604 A MODEBN INSTANCEL

fiom his cliair ; the people leaped over the benches^
and crushed about the Squire, who fetched his breath
in convulsive gasps. " Keep back ! " " Give him
air ! " " Open the window ! " " Get a doctor I " cried
those next him.

Even Hartley's counsel had joined the crowd about
the Squire, from the midst of which broke the long,
frightened wail of a child. This was Hartley's oppor-
tunity. When his counsel turned to look for him,
and advise his withdrawal from a place where he
could do no good, and where possibly he might come
to harm, he found that his advice had been anticipated :
Hartley's chair was vacant.

▲ MOD£BN INSTAJKGS. 606

XLL

That night when Halleck had left the old man to
the care of Marcia and Olive, for the time, a note was
brought to him from Hartley's lawyer, iDegging the
favor of a few moments' interview on very important
business. It might be some offer of reparation or
advance in Marcia's interest, and Halleck went with
the bearer of the note. The lawyer met him hos-
pitably at the door of his office. " How do you do,
sir ? " he said, shaking hands. Then he indicated a
bulk withdrawn into a corner of the dimly-lighted
room ; the blinds were drawn, and he locked the door
after Halleck's entrance. "Mr. Hubbard, whom I
think you know," he added. " I '11 just step into the
next room, gentlemen, and will be subject to your
call at any moment."

The bulk lifted itself and moved some paces toward
Halleck ; Bartley even raised his hand, with the vague
expectation of taking Halleck's, but seeing no respon-
sive gesture on his part, he waved a salutation and
dropped it again to his side.

" How d' ye do, Halleck ? Eather a secret, black,
and midnight interview," he said jocosely. "But I
could n't very well manage it otherwise. I 'm not
just in the position to offer you the freedom of tho
city."

" What do you want, Hubbard ? " asked Halleckg
bluntly.

" How is the old Squire ? "

" The doctor thinks he may rally from the shock"

506 A MODERN INSTANCX,

« Paralysis ? "
"Yes."

" I have spent the day in the ' tall timber/ as oui
friends out here say, communing with nature; and
I 've only just come into town since dark, so I hadn't
any particulars." He paused, as if expecting that
Halleck might give them, but upon ins remaining
silent, he resumed. " Of course, as the case now stands,
I know very weU that the law can't touch me. But
I didn't know what the popular feeling might be.
The Squire laid it on pretty hot, and he might have
made it livelier for me than he intended: he isn't
aware of the inflammable nature of the material out
here." He gave a nervous chuckle. **I wanted to
see you, Halleck, to tell you that I have n't forgotten
that money I owe you, and that I mean to pay it all
up, some time, yet. If it hadn't been for some ex-
penses I 've had lately, — doctor's bills, and so forth, —
I have n't been very well, myself," — he made a sort
of involuntary appeal for Halleck's sympathy, — " and
I 've had to pay out a good deal of money, — I should
be able to pay most of it now. As it is, I can only
give you five hundred of it." He tugged his porte-
monnaie with difficulty up the slope of his panta-
loons. ** That will leave me just three hundred to
begin the world with ; for of course I 've got to clear
out of here. And I 'd got very comfortably settled
after two years of pretty hard work at the printing
business, and hard reading at the law. Well, it 's all
right. And I want to pay you this money, now, and
I '11 pay you the rest whenever I can. And I want
you to tell Marcia that I did it. I always meant to
do it."

"Hubbard," interra])ted Halleck, " you don't owe me
any money. Your father-in-law paid that debt two
years ago. But you owe some one else a debt that no
i»ne can pay for you. We needn't waste words:

A MODERN INSTANCE. 507

what are you going to do to, repair the, wrong ymi
have done the woTjri^g.n n.nrl thp. p.hild — " He stopped ;
the effort had perhaps been too much.

Bartley saw his emotion, and in his benighted way
he honored it. "Halleck, you are__a_-gQ0d -iellow.
You are ^wch a good fellow that you can't understand
this thing. Vmt it's played out. I felt badly about
it myself, at one time ; and if I had n't been robbed of
that money you lent me on my way here, I 'd have
gone back inside of forty-eight hours. I was sorry
for Marcia ; it almost broke my heart to think of the
little one; but I knew they were in the hands of
friends ; and the more time I had to think it over, the
more I w^as reconciled to what I had done. That was
the only way out, for either of us. We had tried it
for three years, and we could n't make it go ; we never
could have made it go ; we were incompatible. Don't
you suppose I knew_^arcia's.^opd qualities ? No
one knows them better, or appreciates them more.
You might think that I applied for this divorce because
I had some one else in view. Not any more in mine
at present ! But I thought we ought to be free, both
of us; and if our marriage had become. a.. chain,_that
^ve ought to break it." Bartley paused, apparently to
give these facts and reasons time to sink into Halleck's
mind. " But there 's one thing I should like to have
you tell her, Halleck : she was wrong about that girl ;
I never had anything to do with her. Marcia will
understand." Halleck made no reply, and Bartley
resumed, in a burst of generosity, which marked his
fall into the abyss as nothing else could have done.
" Look here, Halleck ! / can't marry again for two
years. But as I understand the law, Marcia isn't
bound in any way. I know that she always had
a very high opinion of you, and that she thinks you
are the best man in the world : why dou't^ you fix it
up with Marcia ? " *

608 A MODERN INSTANCE.

Bartley was in efifect driven into exile by the ac-
cidents of his suit for divorce which have been de-
scribed. He was not in bodily danger after the first
excitement passed off, if he was ever in bodily danger
at all; but he could not reasonably hope to estab-
lish himself in a community which had witnessed
such disagreeable fjxcts concerning him ; before which
indeed he stood attainted of perjury, and only saved
from the penalty of his crime by the refusal of his
wife to press her case.

As soon as her father was strong enough to be re-
moved, Marcia returned to the East with him, in the
care of the friends who continued with them. They
did not go back to Boston, but went directly to Equity,
where in the first flush of the young and jubilant sum-
mer they opened the dim old house at the end of the
village street, and resumed their broken lives. Her
father, with one side palsy-stricken, wavered out every
morning to his office, and sat there all day, the tremu-
lous shadow of his former will. Sometimes his old
friends came in to see him ; but no one expected now
to hear tlie Squire " get going." He no longer got going
on any topic ; he had become as a little child, — as
the little child that played about him there in the
still, warm summer days and built houses with bis law-
books on the floor. He laughed feebly at her pranks,
and submitted to her rule with pathetic meekness in
everything where Marcia had not charged them both
to the contrary. He was very obedient to Marcia,
who looked vigilantly after his welfare, and knew all
his goings and coinings, as she knew those of his little
comrade. Two or three times a day she ran out to see
that they were safe ; but for the rest she kept herself
closely housed, and saw no one whom she was not
forced to see ; only the meat-man and the fish-nian
could speak authoritatively concerning her appear^
ance and behavior before folks. They reported th«

A MODERN INSTANCE; 509

iatter as dry, cold, and uncomraunicative. Doubtless
the bitter experiences of her life had wrought their
due effect in that passionate heart; but probably it
was as much a morbid sensitiveness as ^ hardened in-
difference that turned her from her kind. The village '
inquisitiveness that invades, also suffers much eccen-
tricity ; and after it had been well ascertained that
Marcia was as queer as her mother, she was allowed
to lead her mother's unmolested life in the old house,
which had always turned so cold a shoulder to the
world. Toward the end of the summer the lame'
young man and his sister, who had been several times
in Equity before, paid her a visit ; but stayed only
a day or two, as was accurately known by persons
who had noted tlie opening and closing of the spare-'
chamber blinds. In the winter he came again, but
this time he came alone, and stayed at the hotel.
He remained over a Sunday, and sat in the pulpit of
the Orthodox church, where the minister extended to
him the right hand of fellowship, and invited him-
to make tlie opening prayer. It was considered a
good prayer, generally speaking, but it was criticised-
as not containing anything attractive to young peo-
ple. He was undei-stood to be on his way to take
charire of a backwoods church down in Aroostook
County, where probably his prayers would be more
acceptable to the popular tastf^

That winter Squire Gaylord had another stroke of
paralysis, and late in the following spring he suc-
cumbed to a thiifl. The old minister who had once
been Mrs. Tiaylord's pastor was now dead ; and the
Squire was buried by the lame man, who came up t-o
Equity for that ]jury>08e, at the wish, often exj^ressc'd,
of the deceased. This at least was tlie common re-
port, and it is certfiin that Ualleck officiated

In eritfaing tlie ministry he bar] retunied to the-,
faith whicli had \jiHin tau^^ht him almost before he*

610 A MODERN nfSTANCBl

could Speak. He did not defend or justify this course
on the part of a man who had once thrown ofiF all
allegiance to creeds ; he said simply that for him there
was no other course. He freely granted that he
had not reasoned back to his old faith ; ia had fled
to it as. to ^. city of refuge. His unbelief had been
helped, and he no longer suffered himself to doubt ;
he did not ask if the truth was here or there, any
more; he only- knew. that he eould not find it iior him-
self, and he reated-in-hiaonhfirited belief. He accepted
everything ; if he took one jot or tittle away from the
Book, the curse of doubt was on him. He had known
the terrors of the law, and he preached them to
his people ; he had known the Divine mercy, and be
also preached that.

The Squire's death occurred a few months before
the uew.a-cam^-<)£ another -event-te-whieh~the press of
the State referred with due recognition, but without
great fulneaa.of detair This was the. fatal case of
shooting — penalty-or.ijonseqiience, as we- choose to
consider it, of all that had gone before — which oc-
curi^ed at Whited Sepulchre, Arizona, whfge Bartley
Hubbard pitciiecLJlia tent, and set. ug_.a._printing-
press, after leaving TecuAiseh. He began with the
issue of a Sunday paper, and made it so spicy and so
indispensable to all the residents of Whited Sepul-
chre who enjoyed tlie study of their fellow-citizens*
affairs, that he was looking hopefully for^v'ard to the
establishnient of a daily edition, when he unfortu-
nately chanced to comment upon the domestic rela-
tions of " one of Whited Sepulchre's leading citizens.'*
The leading citizen promptly took the war-path, as
m esteemed contemporary expressed it in reporting
•he diflSculty with the cynical lightness and the
i)rofusion of felicitous head-lines with which our
journalism often alleviates the history of tragic occur-
eences : the parenthetical touch in the dosing state*

A MODERN INSTANCE. 511

ment, that "Mr. Hubbard leaves a (divorced) wife
and child somewhere at the East," was quite in Bart-
ley's own manner.

Marcia had been widowed so long before that this
event could make no outward change in her. What
inner change, if any, it wrought, is one of those facts
which fiction must seek in vain to disclose. But_if
loA^^such as hers had been did not deny his end the
gang of a fresh grief, we may be sure that her sorrow
wa^ nyqt^urimixed with self-accusaTas unavailing as it
was passionate, ancTperhaps as unjust.

One evening, a year later, the Athertons sat talk*
ing over a letter from Halleck, which Atherton had
brought from Boston with him : it was summer, and
they were at their place on the Beverley shore. It
was a long letter, and Atherton had read parts of it
several times already, on his way down in the cars,
and had since read it all to his wife. " It 's a very
morbid letter," he said, with a perplexed air, when h^
had finished.

" Yes," she assented. " But it 's a very good letter.
Poor Ben ! " ^

Her husband took it up again, and read here anu
there a passage from it.

" But I am turning to you now for help in a
matter on which my own conscience throws such a
fitful and uncertain light that I cannot trust it. I
know that you are a good man, Atherton, and I
humbly beseech you to let me have your judgment
without mercy : though it slay me, I will abide by

it Since her father's death, she lives there

quite alone with her child. I have seen her only
once, but we write to each other^and there are times
when it seems to me atlast that I have the righ.t_tQ
ask her to be my wjle] The words give me a shock
as I write them ; and the things which I used to

512 A MODERN INSTANCE.

think reasons for my right rise up in witness against
me. Above all, I remember with horror that he ap-
proved it, that he advised it ! . . . . It jsjiufijbhat I
have never, by \vord_pr_deed, suffered her 1^ know
wEat wasinmyjicart ; but has there ever been a
momerit when tcould^ilQ,jo ? It is true that I have
waited for his death ; but if I have been willing he
should die, am I not a potential murderer ? "

" Oh, what ridiculous nonsense I " Clara indignantly
protested.

Atherton read on : " These are the questions which
I ask myself in my despair. She is free, now ; but
am I free ? Am I not rather bound by the past to
perpetual silence ? There are times when I rebel
against th6se tortures ; when I feel a sanction for my
love of her, an assurance from somewhere that it is
right and good to love her ; but then I sink again, for if
I ask whence this assurance comes — I beseech you
to tell me what you think. Has my offence been sa
great that nothing can atone for it ? Must I sacrifice
to this fear all my hopes of what I could be to her,
and for her ? "

Atherton folded up the letter, and put it back into
its envelope, with a frown of exasperation. " I can't
see what should have infatuated Halleck with that
woman. I don't believe now that he loves her* I
believe he only pities her. She is altogether inferior
to him : passionate, narrow-minded, jealous, — she
would make him miserable. He 'd much better stay
as he is. If it were not pathetic to have him deify-
ing h6r in this way, it would be Iau<]rhable."

" She had a jealous temperament," said Clara, look-
ing down. " But all the Hallecks are fond of her.
They think there is a great deal of good in her. I
don't suppose Ben himself thinks she is perfect
But — "

" I dare say," interrupted her husband, " that he

A MODERN mSTANCB. . 613

thinks he's entirely sincere in asking my advica
But you can see how he wishes to be advised."

" Of course. He wishes to marry her. It is n't so
much a question of what a man ought to have, as
what he wants to have, in marrying, is it ? Even
the best of men. If she is exacting and quick-tem-
pered, he is good enough to get on with her. If she
had a husband that she could thj^^TOUghly trust, she
would be easy enough to get on with. There is nc
woman good enough to get on with a bad man. It 's
terrible to think of that poor creature living there by
herself, with no one to look after her and her little
girl ; and if Ben — "

** What do you mean, Clara ? Don't you see that
his being in love with her when she _>va8 another
man^wife is what he feels Jt_.to_ be, — an indelible
stain?''

" She never knew it ; and no one ever knew it but
you. You said it was our deeds that judged us.
Did n't Ben go away when he realized his feeling for
her?" •^ " "

" He came back."

" But he did everything he could to find that poor
wretch, and he tried to prevent the divorce. Ben
is morbid about it; but there is no use in our be-
ing so."

" There was a time when he would have been glad
to profit by a divorce."

" But he never did. You said the will did n't
count. And now she is a widow, and any man may
ask her to marry him."

" Any man but the one whojoyed. her during her

husbancrs life. That is, if he is such a man as Hal-

leck. Of course it is n't a question of gross black

and white, mere right and wrong ; there are degrees,

there are shades. There might be redemption for

another sort of man in such a marriage ; but for Hal*

514 A MODERN INSTANCE.

leek there could only be los^ — deterioration, — lapse
from the ideal. I should think that he might suffer
something of this even in her eyes — "

** Oh, how hard you are I I wish Ben had n't
asked your advice. Why, you are worse than he is 1
You 're not going to write that to him ? "

Atherton flung the letter upon the table, and
drew a troubled sigh. ''Ah, I don't knowl I don't
knowT*

For G>l]ege Gxsrses in G>mposition

EXPOSITORY WRITINO

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The point of view throughout is that of the student rathei
than that of the teacher.

THE RHETORICAL PRINCIPLES OF NARRATION

By Carroll Lewis Maxcv, Williams College.

A clear and thorough analysis of the three elements of nar-
rative writing, viz.: setting, character, and plot.

REPRESENTATIVE NARRATIVES

Edited by Carroll Lewis Maxcy.

This compilation contains twenty-two complete selections of
various types of narrative composition.

THE STUDY AND PRACTICE OF WRITING ENGUSH

By Gerhard R. Lomer, Ph.D., and Margaret Ashmun.

A textbook for use in college Freshman courses.

HOW TO WRITE SPECIAL FEATURE ARTICLES

By Willard G. Bleyer, University of Wisconsin.
A textbook for classes in Journalism and in advanced Eng-
lish Composition.

NEWSPAPER WRITING AND EDITING

By Willard G. Bleyer.

This fully meets the requirements of courses in Journalism
as given in our colleges and universities, and at the same time
appeals to practical newspaper men.

TYPES OF NEWS WRITING

By Willard G. Bleyer.

Over two hundred typical stories taken from representative
American newspapers are here presented in a form convenient
for college classes in Journalism.

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

BOSTON NEW YORK . CHICAGO

1421

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